How to start a herringbone tile pattern on floor
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2008.01.25 15:59 r/HowTo
Welcome to HowTo! Where you can learn how to do anything and everything yourself! Need advice on how to start a podcast or how to fix your rocket ship? Ask away!
2015.05.02 02:14 Agent_Honeydew A Place For Crochet Patterns
This is a place to share, look for and discuss crochet patterns. Looking for a specifik pattern? Liked a pattern so much you wanna share it? Or do you have questions about a pattern your following? Then this sub is for you! Happy hooking!
2010.04.28 02:48 transcendhate Cross Stitch
Cross Stitch - a home for stitchers, finished objects (FOs), works-in-progress (WIPs), patterns, and more!
2024.06.09 22:38 TempusCarpe The Confirmed Hoax Fallacy
 | The Confirmed Hoax Fallacy An Old Argument Raises Its Ignorant Head Yet Again TEMPORAL RECON JUN 8 submitted by TempusCarpe to JohnTitor [link] [comments] I was recently invited to write an essay by someone who I respect greatly in their own personal search for truth. He asked that, while an update to Conviction of a Time Traveler is not necessarily in the offing, he did wonder if I might be amenable to a friendly reminder of the evidence provided in COATT nearly a decade ago now. What spurred his request was that he had noticed recently that several people online had been echoing the ‘confirmed hoax’ trope when discussions would might around to the John Titor series of posts which occurred online back in 2000/2001. His noticing of this false argument was nothing new; I had also noticed it crop up from time to time over the last 20 years. I hold the ‘confirmed hoax’ argument in special and particular disdain. Why? Primarily because evidence exists and was provided in Conviction of a Time Traveler in 2009 that Titor was legitimate and, ironically enough, was read by many of the so-called experts espousing the ‘confirmed hoax’ lie. So when these fake experts tell you that the Titor story was a ‘confirmed hoax,’ they are lying to you. Conviction of a Time Traveler provided new and original evidence that has never, to date, been debunked since its publication; a full 14 years. The evidence provided (which many of these lazy forum participants are aware of) pointed to one, inexorable and inescapable conclusion: Titor was legit. But this evidence, while never disproven, is always ignored. Why is that? We’ll put a pin in that… Pledge your support Ironically, not only has the evidence documented in Conviction of a Time Traveler never been debunked, but it has also even been plagiarized by lazy authors who can’t be bothered to do original research or, lacking the intellectual horsepower necessary to do even that, fail to provide appropriate attribution to their source material. So what of this, ‘Confirmed Hoax’ claim? Is it true? HAS the John Titor episode actually been ‘confirmed’ as a hoax? When someone in a position of pretend authority declares from their cardboard pedestal that the John Titor story is a ‘Confirmed Hoax,’ have you ever noticed they never provide the person who did the confirming? “Confirmed hoax?” ‘Confirmed’ by whom, pray tell? When the term ‘Confirmed Hoax’ is used, what imagery comes to mind? I dare say it implies that some sort of shadowy group of learned scholars sat around a big wooden table, carefully assessed and addressed the claims. All the evidence and counter-arguments were carefully measured while hidden away in some stone castle somewhere until a white puff of smoke curls over its stone-tiled rooftops, declaring to the world once and for all, “Our confirmation is complete. John Titor was a hoax!” Bullshit. Here’s the dirty little secret of the ‘Confirmed Hoax’ statements: they are actually shorthand for, “I don’t have the intellectual capacity to argue in favor or against, so in order to come off like some sort of authority and maintain my fake position of authority, I’ll just take the safest position and simply declare that the Titor story is a hoax, that it was ‘confirmed’ and let’s please just move on to some other topic.” ‘Confirmed Hoax,’ is a coward’s gambit, a bet, that there won’t be anyone to come along to rock the boat and topple these posers off their flimsy stage of pretend authority. This was the environment I walked into when I first published Conviction of a Time Traveler in 2010, and apparently, it hasn’t changed in 15 years. When I first posted on Paranormalis (IIRC) announcing that I had written a book that documented the evidence in favor of Titor’s veracity, the then-reigning Titor authority (‘Darby’) haughtily pronounced, “Present your evidence and we’ll discuss it.” Share It was in that moment that I chose a path that nobody before me had ever embarked upon. I said, “No.” Nobody had ever said ‘no’ before. There are pages and pages of forum posts by people before me who discovered some of the same bits and pieces that I discovered that pointed to Titor’s truth. And they were excited to show what they had discovered! And, owing to their excitement, and unfortunately, their naivete, they excitedly shared their evidence, wrongfully believing that the forums’ leadership was interested in getting to the bottom of the Titor episode. Little did they suspect that ‘Darby’ and others were acting as gatekeepers of truth, whose sole purpose was to establish and maintain a lid on the narrative that was the John Titor episode. He, and his ilk gaslighted and bullied these poor naifs into silence by using their fake authority to debunk and explain away the very real evidence they had discovered. That is, until COATT was published. Unfortunately for these enemies of Truth, the internet is forever. In my research leading up to the publication of Conviction of a Time Traveler, I had the benefit of not only studying Titor’s posts, but also all the follow-on discussions after their departure. I reviewed literally years of online forum content and, as I did so, I made a very curious observation: in all the years of discussion after Titor departed, not one piece of evidence ever (ever) caused ‘Darby’ or any of the other fake authorities to question their ‘it’s a hoax!’ position. They NEVER saw a piece of evidence that they didn’t dismiss, mock, ignore or explain away with contortions of logic that would make Wetzel’s Pretzels blush. This is in stark contrast to how someone who was truly in search of truth would act. If ‘Darby’ and the others truly were curious, isn’t this a little odd? Really? Not ONE piece of evidence ever caused ‘Darby’ to pause and say, “hmm, that’s interesting…” Not once, ever. And there are years of forum posts to confirm this. So, when Darby commanded from his perch of fake authority that I ‘present my evidence so that we might discuss it’ I laughed in his face [paraphrasing], “No. A real discussion of the evidence hasn’t occurred here for years, and I do not recognize your so-called position as some sort of ‘expert’ on the Titor story. LITERALLY EVERYTHING there is to learn, or study, is published in the Titor posts for all to read. You hold no special knowledge, no special position, no special nothing. I do not submit to your fake authority. You want to learn about Titor, read the book.” Or words to that effect, anyway… In the end, the evidence provided in COATT was so unassailable and the argument so solid that ‘Darby’ and his ilk suddenly became more and more quiet as they slowly realized I wasn’t going to wilt under their “authoritay.” Eventually, they slinked away with their rhetorical tails tucked. But this was not the end of the story! Because ‘time travel’ had become quite the pet interest of mine (owing to the further evidence I discovered after publication), that I continued to post online in various discussion forums. I even wrote numerous essays on a variety of topics, all spurred on by the ‘time travel’ question and all its implications. Fast Forward Fast forwarding to today, we’re back at the ‘confirmed hoax’ argument again. What was once offered up (“HOAX!”) by Darby and others, is now cold soup served by the latest crop of fake authorities. And what happens when fake authority utters the ‘Confirmed Hoax’ discussion-brake? The same thing that happened a decade ago: the earnest neophyte shrugs their shoulders secure in the false belief that others smarter than they have studied the topic and arrived at some irrefutable conclusion; no further discussion necessary (or allowed). They have no idea just how close they came to uncovering something truly fantastic, had they only relied on their own judgment instead of the know-nothing proclamations of others. Pledge your support Which brings me to why I wrote COATT in the first place. Instead of simply doing my research and arriving at my own (private) conclusion, I realized that too many people were believing fake authority and ignoring Titor’s warnings about our future. Once I realized that Titor was legitimate (caveated, of course), how could I NOT share my findings? The stakes were simply too high. IF what Titor said were true 24 years ago, that the world was heading for an upending change in the status quo, and that many people would die as a result of it, how could I remain silent and not inform others that his warnings were something to be listened to? Perhaps people with ears to hear might take heed and make the appropriate preparations. I know I did. But, as my friend has informed me, it appears that the fake experts have reared their ugly and useless heads once again telling us that there is ‘nothing to the Titor story’ and that it is a “confirmed hoax.” THIS was the reason that I was recently asked to provide my evidence once again. And THIS is the reason this essay is dragging on. These pretenders to authority are like roaches; as soon as the exterminator leaves, they come out of the woodwork intent on dismantling the Truth once again. God’s work never ends, it seems, even with a 99% success rate… So, now that we’ve got all THAT out of the way, and as a sort of transition, I’d like to bring you up to speed on what I’ve been up to since I published Conviction of a Time Traveler in 2010. To be perfectly frank, after COATT’s publication, I thought I was done with the Titor story; I had said my piece and was perfectly willing to move on with my life and prepare for the event that causes the change in the status quo. But the annoying fact was that the Titor story itself didn’t end with the cessation of Titor’s posts in 2001. As new evidence appeared in the months and years following publication, like dog shit on my shoe that I can’t scrape off, I could never cleanly cleave myself from the Titor story. Not that I wanted to, mind you, it is a fascinating topic, regardless of your opinion. But what surprised me the most was that new evidence continued to appear, year after year. And, as more evidence appeared, my curiosity was consistently kept piqued and on alert. Trust me, it is exhausting. To give you a sense of what I discovered, I can tell you that your experts are wrong and that ‘time travel’ is neither novel nor unusual; we are very literally awash in ‘time travelers.’ My research suggests that ‘time machines’ have been present in our past going as far back as 850AD. But I digress. Share Suffice it to say that the Titor rabbit hole is but one example of a massively large group of programs from an unknown number of organizations from across time. The ‘time travel’ question runs much deeper (and much farther back in time) and crosses over into more (so-called) esoteric topics than anyone gives it credit for. As I said, it’s exhausting. My whole point here is that, even after I published in 2009, my curiosity in the topic (and its implications of yet larger vistas) did not wane. And, because of this continued and unabating curiosity, I discovered yet more evidence, crafted more theories and came to more conclusions. A philosopher once described the acquisition of new information as an ever-expanding circle surrounding the man; a horizon where known and unknown meet where new answers only beget new questions which push the circle farther and farther out. This has been my experience over the last 15 years re the Titor narrative and the larger ‘time travel’ question. How could it be otherwise? Unfortunately for you, you are being convinced by fools that the Titor episode is a ‘Confirmed Hoax.’ You haven’t even made the leap to the possibility that ‘time travel’ is even possible. How can you explore the implications of ‘time travel’ when you can’t even consider its reality, a fundamental starting point? I have a very strong (ehem) conviction that our collective naïveté on the subject will be violently revoked in the very near ‘future.’ The Two Camps, The Two Mistakes During my research, I observed that within the Titor commentariat there are two basic camps: the Debunkers and the True Believers. The Debunking camp will provide any contortion of logic to maintain the ‘Titor was a hoax’ narrative. The True Believers, on the other hand, will believe any contortion of logic that maintains their belief in The Gospel of John. What if I told you both camps were wrong? Now, the debunking camp will tell you that Titor must be a hoax because his predictions didn’t come true. Oh, well…his predictions didn’t come true? I guess we’re done then? Obviously, his whole purpose for posting was to make predictions like some Magic Eight Ball, right? And if those don’t pan out, well, ‘CONFIRMED HOAX!’ Get the Book On the other side of that coin, the True Believers out there, who never saw a confirmation bias they didn’t love, will tell you that Titor’s predictions didn’t come true because he changed the future. This of course is a recipe for explaining away literally any detracting evidence thus making Titor true no matter any evidence to the contrary. Let’s take the True Believers first: The concept of Divergence, while a handy explanation, does not/cannot explain all differences in histories away. In fact, were what Titor said was true (remember, we are True Believers for the moment and are taking Titor’s words as gospel) he absolutely must take measures to minimize divergence as much as possible and NOT allow it to span wildly. Otherwise, the entire power of the ‘time machine’ is rendered moot. I accept that Divergence is likely a real measurement necessary for the efficient execution of ‘time travel’ missions, but it should, by no means, be the magic skeleton key to explain away every question. In fact, while divergence is very likely a real ‘thing’ or artifact or measurement of difference between world lines, the Truth is that divergence must absolutely be kept to a minimum to make any practical use of the gravity engine sitting in the back seat of your old blue Geo Metro. So, no. Divergence cannot be the handy tool we need to contort ourselves into believing, as much as we might like to. Now for the debunkers: The debunkers have a variety of options available to them to argue that Titor was a ‘confirmed hoax.’ Regardless, these arguments typically boil down to two primary classes: He has special training or knowledge, and/or He’s just a lucky guesser. Unfortunately for the debunkers (and those who listen to them), these explanations make a very serious error: that predictions are a relevant metric to judge Titor’s truth at all. They are not. Serious question: Why should a ‘time traveler’ be subject to the same metrics that a psychic is to determine if his claims of ‘time travel’ are true? The point here is that you can’t compare a horse to a whale and complain that the horse can’t swim. They are two completely different animals, and the same goes for ‘time travelers’ and psychics or tarot readers or any other domain whose reputation is dependent on the true-ness of the information they provide. Comparing Titor’s predictions to actual, experienced history is also an imperfect and inappropriate metric if one is to objectively assess Titor from a blank slate starting point. This points to a much deeper insight into the true purpose of the Titor posts, but that’s for a different day. So, because of both these problems, any real researcher worth their salt would have to find some other way to determine the truth/falsity of the Titor narrative. Remember, when first approaching the Titor question as an objective investigator, Titor is both equally a hoax and legitimate. Imagine Schrodinger’s cat meets Columbo… I’ll give you this observation for free, just to get your juices flowing: Did you notice that absolutely none of John’s predictions (event + date) came true, but all his statements concerning conditions about our future did? Don’t you find this interesting? Or hadn’t you noticed, too blinded by the bright and shiny, attention-grabbing predictions of nuclear war? But I am getting ahead of myself; we still haven’t provided the evidence that it’s simply more likely that Titor was an actual time traveler than some ‘hoaxer genius.’ And so we finally get to the whole point of this essay in the first place, a reminder and summary of the evidence first provided in Conviction of a Time Traveler all the way back in those halcyon days of 2010:
– J. Titor, Nov 7, 2000
-J. Titor
– J. Titor, Nov 15, 2000
– J. Titor, Feb 15, 2001
-J. Titor, Feb 21, 2001
-J. Titor, Feb 25, 2001
-J. Titor, Feb 25, 2001
He predicts an optical measurement system for atomic clocks. He predicts the new system measures oscillation and not some other aspect. He predicts this new system increases measurement precision and not some other aspect. “The C206 uses 6 cesium clocks but they use an optical system to check the oscillation frequency. This makes the worldline divergence confidence much higher.” – J. Titor, Nov 7, 2000
But, the middle question, ‘…what is Ginger…’ did not violate either of those two questions so he acquiesced and answered it. He answered by saying, “It looks like a sort of motorized scooter. What do you think IT is?” – J. Titor, Jan 29, 2001 This answer immediately got my attention because, in 2000 when the question was asked, the answer was truly unknown, thus Mr. Kolesnik’s question. However, in 2009 when I was first looking into the Titor narrative, I knew what Ginger was because I remembered it. Hindsight truly was 20/20. As a bit of background, during 1999 (the exact timing escapes me), a ‘viral’ marketing campaign was underway by an inventor named Dean Kamen. While never revealing what this new product was, the billboards merely asked, “What is IT?” or “What is Ginger?” That was all they said. It is obvious now, and was obvious even then, that Kamen was attempting to create a buzz for his new invention. Fair enough. It also explains why it was asked of Titor in 2000. Kamen’s ad campaign was working! People were truly wondering. Now understand, the hype (and I use that term specifically) surrounding the Ginger ad campaign was fairly strong. Kamen predicted that his invention would reinvent how people moved about cities; it would cause their utter redesign and how they were laid out and organized. Big claims, to be sure. So strong in fact that Kamen was able to land a spot on Good Morning America where he finally revealed what his invention was. In December of 2001, and live on the air, Kamen, with Katie Couric, revealed Ginger to the world. Ginger was none other than the Segway. And what did Titor say it was? “A type of motorized scooter” And Stella says there’s nothing more to learn… Get the Book Titor’s absolute spot-on declaration of what Kamen’s invention was nearly a year before it was unveiled hit me right between the eyes. Eight years later, I already knew that Ginger was the Segway because I remembered the event. Here was a maniac on the internet claiming to be a ‘time traveler’ and he correctly ‘guessed’ what Ginger was a mere 2 ½ hours after it was asked and 11 months before it was officially unveiled? It was Titor’s statement here that caused me to look deeper (much deeper, in fact) into the Titor narrative and, after exhaustive research and extensive supporting evidence, I concluded that Titor was in fact, legitimate. Now here’s the truly interesting part of this piece of the Titor saga: you can’t find this statement about Ginger online anywhere anymore. It has been scrubbed from online sources everywhere. Now, when I first discovered the Titor story, I saw that there appeared to be a couple different versions of the posts and I just, by chance, found a version of the posts with the Ginger reference in it. I saw that some versions had the Ginger reference, and some did not. At the time, I did not know how to understand this. But I do now. Revisiting Old Theories As I mentioned before, hindsight is 20/20, and that is especially true when discussing ‘time travel’ and ‘time travelers.’ So, it seems oddly appropriate to provide a few examples of updated information that only revealed themselves with the fullness of time after publication. ‘leader’ In Conviction of a Time Traveler, I found the following quote especially interesting: “The President or “leader” in 2005 I believe tried desperately to be the next Lincoln and hold the country together but many of their policies drove a larger wedge into the Bill of Rights. The President in 2009 was interested only in keeping his/her power base.”
Of course, here we are 24 years after Titor’s statement and 12 years after I wrote COATT, and I have now come to a different conclusion about the quotation marks around the word ‘leader’. I now surmise that Titor was referring to Biden and not Obama when he wrote that. Because I personally didn’t have a ‘time machine’ at the time, I never could have expected the dementia patient currently ‘in’ the White House and supposedly ‘leading’ the country. For anyone watching, it is patently obvious that Mr. Biden isn’t ‘leading’ anything. So, in the context of this and our current national situation, those quotation marks sure make a hell of a lot more sense now, don’t you think? This reassessment obviously puts a giant bullseye on the 2024-2025 time period for what Titor commented upon in 2000. So, yes. I have reassessed this particular conclusion since publishing Conviction of a Time Traveler due to the slow passage of time and its equally slow revelation of Truth. Gates Another interesting comment by Titor had to do with Bill Gates. Recall that in 2000/2001, Bill Gates was ‘merely’ the CEO of Microsoft. He was among the richest men in the world and many news stories of the time commented upon this fact. Almost kind of like Elon Musk’s notoriety in both scope and scale. So, as such, a forum participant named ‘Joe’ asked Titor for any information regarding Bill Gates’ future. Titor’s response? “This I do know but I won’t discuss.” -J. Titor, Feb 23, 2001 An interesting, if not completely unhelpful, answer. Wouldn’t you say? Considering we now know how Gates has morphed from Tech Titan selling mediocre products to Farmland baron, GMO mosquito breeder and mRNA advocate and (alleged) mass murderer in India and elsewhere in the third world, Titor’s statement that he does know about Gates’ future rings true. In fact, what was also a bit interesting was when someone later pressed him on any information regarding Gates’ future. To which he responded, Just curious, why is he of such interest? -J Titor, Mar 5, 2001 Considering what we know now about Gates and his predilections (his ‘wife’ deserted him upon revelation of his visits to Epstein Island), I’m willing to bet that John was naturally curious as to why Gates, of all people, was of such interest to the forum participants that they would ask twice about him. Coincidence? Or did Titor suspect a mole from a different program in the forum? Who knows. His curiosity about their curiosity in Gates is interesting, nothing more. Conclusion And there you have (some of) it. A summary of some of the evidence documented in Conviction of a Time Traveler written nearly 15 years ago. The evidence contained in that small book has never been debunked or disproven. It has been plagiarized by some and ignored by others. If you were unaware of COATT and are a regular participant in the online discussions about ‘time travel,’ you should ask yourself why the ‘leadership’ on those forums never mention COATT. Curious, don’t you think? The reason I wrote COATT in the first place was because, after I had done my own research to satiate my own personal curiosity, I realized that some people online were downplaying his posts’ importance in the hopes that they could dissuade people from believing in Titor and the possibility of ‘time travel.’ I saw this dishonesty and decided to fight back against it by merely providing the information I discovered. From my point of view, Titor was warning us about a very severe time in our future that would upend the status quo and was to be a highly dangerous one. Taken at face value (always a good starting point), Titor’s warnings merited being taken seriously. Had the naysayer’s deceit been left unanswered, how many of you would have failed to prepare for what is just around the corner? You have prepared, haven’t you? And yes, as is readily obvious to many, those hard times are right around the corner. Looking at Titor’s statements 24 years later and simply looking around at the state of America and the world, do his statements seem so outlandish now? John’s ‘final’ words to the forum in March of 2001 ring eerily prescient now: Bring a gas can with you when the car dies on the side of the road. -J. Titor, Mar 23, 2001 It is my sincerest hope that my small book project (and the essays that followed) spurred you to think twice about the world we live in and take the necessary actions you feel you should to keep you and your family safe for the world’s awakening and rebirth. As Ever, Temporal Recon Share As Ever |
2024.06.09 22:34 storiesarefunright Phaal's Poker.
Aidin didn't need another cautionary tale about the Phaal, but he could tell from the slight crinkle of Isa's forehead that he was about to hear one.
"There's something else you should know," she said.
So predictable. "If you're going to tell me how deadly-"
"It's not that," she interrupted, and it suddenly occurred to Aidin that he was probably just as predictable to her as she was to him. "It's something else. Something worse."
"What's worse than-"
"They can read minds. They can read your mind. Human minds. They might be reading your mind right now."
"I see," nodded Aidin, digesting the information. "Actually, I don't think I do see. Why is that worse?"
"Because the only way we're getting out of here is if you can beat them at Phaal's Poker."
Aidin and Isa were sat on the floor of a holding cell, but it was unlike any of the cells they'd found themselves in before. And they'd found themselves in plenty. For most artefact dealers, there was a fine line between running a successful operation and staying on the right side of The Expanse's arbiters. Usually you had to pick one.
Their cell was shaped like the number 8, with two, circular chambers separated by a gap just wide enough to squeeze a human arm through. They could've passed items to each other had they been allowed to keep anything worth passing. Instead, all they'd exchanged so far were words and glances. And thoughts.
Each half of the cell was empty save from a polymer bucket, and a singular light hung in the gap, half-heartedly illuminating both halves at the same time.
It was hard for either of them to know how long they'd been there. There were no windows, and besides, time moved strangely in these far-flung corners of The Expanse. Still, Aidin's stomach had given way to a deep, aching growl. They'd clearly been here for too long.
___
Phaal's Poker. Aidin had only heard the rumours. Invented by the Phaal, mastered by the Phaal. It was said that nobody could beat them at their own game, least of all humans, and now he understood why. How do you deceive something that knows what you're thinking?
"Can't you play?" asked Aidin.
Isa shook her head. "They can't read me. They'll insist on playing you."
Aidin's eyes dropped and settled on his moaning gut. He was used to hunger, but this felt different. Like his body had resorted to feeding on itself.
"Right. Excellent. And if I lose?"
Isa raised an eyebrow. "Don't lose."
Aidin sighed. This was not what he had envisioned when he took the job, but jobs like this rarely went as planned. That much he knew. "So what're the rules?"
"Ah, yes." Isa straightened, her eyes widening with an enthusiasm that felt at odds with their current predicament. "It's actually a rather elegant game."
"Well then, lucky me," said Aidin, his patience eroding with every gurgling hunger pang. Isa persevered.
"Two players face each other. Each player takes a coin - but it can be anything small and flat - and places it - secretly, mind - into one of their hands - or whatever they use to hold stuff." Isa's excitement continued to build. "You win by finding your opponent's coin and tricking them into missing yours."
"What if you both find each other's coins?"
"Then the game starts again. Same if both players get it wrong, but-" she caught herself. "But-"
"-Phaal don't get it wrong." offered Aidin.
Isa slumped back against the wall. "No, they don't. At least, not when they're playing humans."
"So if the Phaal never miss, it means I can't win," reasoned Aidin. "I can only delay the inevitable by forcing a rematch."
"Yes. That's the long and short of it," said Isa. "But perhaps..." she trailed off, and Aidin interrogated the slight narrowing of her eyes. He'd seen that squint before.
"You've got an idea, haven't you?" he said.
"What if," ventured Isa, "there is a way?" At this she stood up, her dormant bones clicking back into action. She paced back and forth across the diameter of her half of the cell, moving in and out of Aidin's view through the small gap that separated them. Her lips moved silently, her fingers traced patterns in the air.
"I'm listening," said Aidin, veiling his intense relief as best he could. She always had an idea. "Whenever you're ready."
After what felt to Aidin like an age, Isa stopped in the middle of her cell and moved close to the gap, locking eyes with him again. The light hovered above her head, and it reminded Aidin of the cartoons he used to watch back on Earth. This was an idea alright.
Isa pointed at him: "You have one advantage over the other humans who have played Phaal's Poker, don't you?" Aidin nodded, but he didn't know what she was talking about. Isa sensed it. "Aidin, you know they can read your mind. The others won't have known. We can use that."
"Okay. Yeah. I can see it. Fine." He stared at her blankly. "But how exactly? If I'm thinking about lying about which hand my coin is in, they're still going to know I'm lying."
"Sure", said Isa. She was confident now, like a detective about to reveal the culprit. "But what if you don't think about the game at all?"
___
Aidin's eyes burned into the silhouetted backs of the two human guards that escorted him down a dark, seemingly endless corridor. "You can talk to me y'know," he spat. No response. Fucking traitors.
The width of the corridor fluctuated. In parts it was wide - almost palatial - but then the wood-panelled walls would tighten inwards and suddenly it was so narrow that the guards had to walk in single-file. Then they'd open up again. Intermittent lights along the ceiling made their shadows shorten and stretch.
He hadn't seen wood for some time, let alone wood-panels. These Phaal were wealthy - trees didn't grow on planets in these parts. If not for his bounds he would've reached out and ran his fingers along them.
Without warning the guards stopped outside a door. One turned to face him, and Aidin opened his mouth, ready to tell him what he thought about humans that had crossed over. But all he could muster was a stifled gasp.
The guard's eyes had been gouged out, leaving two, pitted caverns in their place. Two smaller holes punctured a flat, scarred surface where his nose should've been, and his mouth was sewn shut with rusted, blood-stained wire. His ears were still in tact.
The guard reached for the door handle with a gloved hand, and Aidin scrambled to gather himself. This is what could happen to me, he thought. This is what could happen if I lose.
The door swung open. Aidin's hunger continued to eat away at his insides.
___
A small, wooden coin was placed in front of each player by one of the mutilated guards that had escorted Aidin to the room. Like his cell, the room was empty save for the metal table and chairs on which they sat and a light that glowed above them. But unlike his cell, this one was square. Disgusting place, he thought.
He glanced up at the Phaal sat across from him, remembering with a spike of panic that his thoughts weren't private anymore. But it was unclear to him whether it was listening: just like the two human guards stood either side of them, the Phaal were faceless.
He had never seen one in real life before, but Isa's description was pretty accurate. Humans are mostly carbon and oxygen, Phaal are mostly calcium and keratin. Imagine if you tried to piece together a human using only bones, teeth, nails and hair.
Its whole chest was covered by a wooden-beaded necklace, which, based on the differing shades of brown, looked like an assortment of various woods. More posturing.
With a sudden lurch, the Phaal raised a hand and placed it on top of its coin. The hand was human-like in shape, but paper-white and hard. Thick cables of hair coiled around each finger, digging grooves into their surface like a vine eroding the brick of a decaying building. It dragged the coin off the table with a screech that felt like it was peeling away at Aidin's eardrums.
Aidin - his bounds cut once the door to the room had been shut - took his own coin in response, passed it between his sweat-lined hands and recited Isa's words in his mind over and over, like a mantra. Grip one half of the coin with your left hand, and the other half of the coin with your right. Then focus on what you'll eat when we get out of here.
The Phaal angled its head slightly, and Aidin wondered whether it was listening now. After a moment, the blank oval of bone, hair and teeth rocked back and fourth very slowly. It was nodding. Then it placed two clenched fists on the table.
Grip one half of the coin with your left hand, and the other half of the coin with your right. Then focus on what you'll eat when we get out of here.
Aidin closed his eyes and thought about food. He knew that the food he'd be eating if he ever escaped this place would likely be the same food he and Isa had eaten since they'd met all those years ago. A grool of proteins, most of which could be harvested from even the most barren atmospheres of The Outer Expanse.
But his mind was a pantry, and he had stocked it with a myriad of memories. He remembered melted cheese on home-baked bread. He could almost taste his mother's cinnamon apples and golden custard. He could recall the smell of fried potatoes with such precision that it almost felt to Aidin as though they, and not his own coiled hands, had just been placed onto the table in front of him.
Focus on what you'll eat when you get out of here. Fruit. Grapes. The juice of those grapes. God damn I miss grapes. Fucking grapes. I never even wanted 'em when I was a kid. Now I'd kill for a grape. Fuck it I'd die for a grape. I'd-
A cold, callous touch to his right hand dragged his mind away from the grapes and back into the room.
The Phaal had made its choice. And as soon as Aidin realised what was happening, the Phaal knew that it had chosen wrongly.
The coin had found its way into Aidin's left hand.
My turn, thought Aidin, and the Phaal nodded once again.
submitted by storiesarefunright to HFY [link] [comments]
"There's something else you should know," she said.
So predictable. "If you're going to tell me how deadly-"
"It's not that," she interrupted, and it suddenly occurred to Aidin that he was probably just as predictable to her as she was to him. "It's something else. Something worse."
"What's worse than-"
"They can read minds. They can read your mind. Human minds. They might be reading your mind right now."
"I see," nodded Aidin, digesting the information. "Actually, I don't think I do see. Why is that worse?"
"Because the only way we're getting out of here is if you can beat them at Phaal's Poker."
Aidin and Isa were sat on the floor of a holding cell, but it was unlike any of the cells they'd found themselves in before. And they'd found themselves in plenty. For most artefact dealers, there was a fine line between running a successful operation and staying on the right side of The Expanse's arbiters. Usually you had to pick one.
Their cell was shaped like the number 8, with two, circular chambers separated by a gap just wide enough to squeeze a human arm through. They could've passed items to each other had they been allowed to keep anything worth passing. Instead, all they'd exchanged so far were words and glances. And thoughts.
Each half of the cell was empty save from a polymer bucket, and a singular light hung in the gap, half-heartedly illuminating both halves at the same time.
It was hard for either of them to know how long they'd been there. There were no windows, and besides, time moved strangely in these far-flung corners of The Expanse. Still, Aidin's stomach had given way to a deep, aching growl. They'd clearly been here for too long.
___
Phaal's Poker. Aidin had only heard the rumours. Invented by the Phaal, mastered by the Phaal. It was said that nobody could beat them at their own game, least of all humans, and now he understood why. How do you deceive something that knows what you're thinking?
"Can't you play?" asked Aidin.
Isa shook her head. "They can't read me. They'll insist on playing you."
Aidin's eyes dropped and settled on his moaning gut. He was used to hunger, but this felt different. Like his body had resorted to feeding on itself.
"Right. Excellent. And if I lose?"
Isa raised an eyebrow. "Don't lose."
Aidin sighed. This was not what he had envisioned when he took the job, but jobs like this rarely went as planned. That much he knew. "So what're the rules?"
"Ah, yes." Isa straightened, her eyes widening with an enthusiasm that felt at odds with their current predicament. "It's actually a rather elegant game."
"Well then, lucky me," said Aidin, his patience eroding with every gurgling hunger pang. Isa persevered.
"Two players face each other. Each player takes a coin - but it can be anything small and flat - and places it - secretly, mind - into one of their hands - or whatever they use to hold stuff." Isa's excitement continued to build. "You win by finding your opponent's coin and tricking them into missing yours."
"What if you both find each other's coins?"
"Then the game starts again. Same if both players get it wrong, but-" she caught herself. "But-"
"-Phaal don't get it wrong." offered Aidin.
Isa slumped back against the wall. "No, they don't. At least, not when they're playing humans."
"So if the Phaal never miss, it means I can't win," reasoned Aidin. "I can only delay the inevitable by forcing a rematch."
"Yes. That's the long and short of it," said Isa. "But perhaps..." she trailed off, and Aidin interrogated the slight narrowing of her eyes. He'd seen that squint before.
"You've got an idea, haven't you?" he said.
"What if," ventured Isa, "there is a way?" At this she stood up, her dormant bones clicking back into action. She paced back and forth across the diameter of her half of the cell, moving in and out of Aidin's view through the small gap that separated them. Her lips moved silently, her fingers traced patterns in the air.
"I'm listening," said Aidin, veiling his intense relief as best he could. She always had an idea. "Whenever you're ready."
After what felt to Aidin like an age, Isa stopped in the middle of her cell and moved close to the gap, locking eyes with him again. The light hovered above her head, and it reminded Aidin of the cartoons he used to watch back on Earth. This was an idea alright.
Isa pointed at him: "You have one advantage over the other humans who have played Phaal's Poker, don't you?" Aidin nodded, but he didn't know what she was talking about. Isa sensed it. "Aidin, you know they can read your mind. The others won't have known. We can use that."
"Okay. Yeah. I can see it. Fine." He stared at her blankly. "But how exactly? If I'm thinking about lying about which hand my coin is in, they're still going to know I'm lying."
"Sure", said Isa. She was confident now, like a detective about to reveal the culprit. "But what if you don't think about the game at all?"
___
Aidin's eyes burned into the silhouetted backs of the two human guards that escorted him down a dark, seemingly endless corridor. "You can talk to me y'know," he spat. No response. Fucking traitors.
The width of the corridor fluctuated. In parts it was wide - almost palatial - but then the wood-panelled walls would tighten inwards and suddenly it was so narrow that the guards had to walk in single-file. Then they'd open up again. Intermittent lights along the ceiling made their shadows shorten and stretch.
He hadn't seen wood for some time, let alone wood-panels. These Phaal were wealthy - trees didn't grow on planets in these parts. If not for his bounds he would've reached out and ran his fingers along them.
Without warning the guards stopped outside a door. One turned to face him, and Aidin opened his mouth, ready to tell him what he thought about humans that had crossed over. But all he could muster was a stifled gasp.
The guard's eyes had been gouged out, leaving two, pitted caverns in their place. Two smaller holes punctured a flat, scarred surface where his nose should've been, and his mouth was sewn shut with rusted, blood-stained wire. His ears were still in tact.
The guard reached for the door handle with a gloved hand, and Aidin scrambled to gather himself. This is what could happen to me, he thought. This is what could happen if I lose.
The door swung open. Aidin's hunger continued to eat away at his insides.
___
A small, wooden coin was placed in front of each player by one of the mutilated guards that had escorted Aidin to the room. Like his cell, the room was empty save for the metal table and chairs on which they sat and a light that glowed above them. But unlike his cell, this one was square. Disgusting place, he thought.
He glanced up at the Phaal sat across from him, remembering with a spike of panic that his thoughts weren't private anymore. But it was unclear to him whether it was listening: just like the two human guards stood either side of them, the Phaal were faceless.
He had never seen one in real life before, but Isa's description was pretty accurate. Humans are mostly carbon and oxygen, Phaal are mostly calcium and keratin. Imagine if you tried to piece together a human using only bones, teeth, nails and hair.
Its whole chest was covered by a wooden-beaded necklace, which, based on the differing shades of brown, looked like an assortment of various woods. More posturing.
With a sudden lurch, the Phaal raised a hand and placed it on top of its coin. The hand was human-like in shape, but paper-white and hard. Thick cables of hair coiled around each finger, digging grooves into their surface like a vine eroding the brick of a decaying building. It dragged the coin off the table with a screech that felt like it was peeling away at Aidin's eardrums.
Aidin - his bounds cut once the door to the room had been shut - took his own coin in response, passed it between his sweat-lined hands and recited Isa's words in his mind over and over, like a mantra. Grip one half of the coin with your left hand, and the other half of the coin with your right. Then focus on what you'll eat when we get out of here.
The Phaal angled its head slightly, and Aidin wondered whether it was listening now. After a moment, the blank oval of bone, hair and teeth rocked back and fourth very slowly. It was nodding. Then it placed two clenched fists on the table.
Grip one half of the coin with your left hand, and the other half of the coin with your right. Then focus on what you'll eat when we get out of here.
Aidin closed his eyes and thought about food. He knew that the food he'd be eating if he ever escaped this place would likely be the same food he and Isa had eaten since they'd met all those years ago. A grool of proteins, most of which could be harvested from even the most barren atmospheres of The Outer Expanse.
But his mind was a pantry, and he had stocked it with a myriad of memories. He remembered melted cheese on home-baked bread. He could almost taste his mother's cinnamon apples and golden custard. He could recall the smell of fried potatoes with such precision that it almost felt to Aidin as though they, and not his own coiled hands, had just been placed onto the table in front of him.
Focus on what you'll eat when you get out of here. Fruit. Grapes. The juice of those grapes. God damn I miss grapes. Fucking grapes. I never even wanted 'em when I was a kid. Now I'd kill for a grape. Fuck it I'd die for a grape. I'd-
A cold, callous touch to his right hand dragged his mind away from the grapes and back into the room.
The Phaal had made its choice. And as soon as Aidin realised what was happening, the Phaal knew that it had chosen wrongly.
The coin had found its way into Aidin's left hand.
My turn, thought Aidin, and the Phaal nodded once again.
2024.06.09 22:23 tonberries_ Help putting together a small beginner program.
A friend of mine wants to learn how to play. I used to play a lot almost 6 years ago and found myself somewhere just below an intermediate level before dropping it and now I’m probably in dire need of re learning things myself. They just got a guitar and we thought of doing a bit of an introduction with what I can explain and what I know, to help them get momentum and start digging into things on their own. Eventually they may pay an actual teacher if they have been enjoying it, which is something I hope I can do, keeping it fun and not scare them off or bore them out.
I picked up my notebook and started setting up a couple short and longer term little goals to achieve together. I would like to know if I’m on the right track or if there’s something else I should do, do instead or empathize more.
I think more than this might be too much, if this isn’t already. I’m ok at explaining things but I’m no teacher, so I’m sure I’m missing some key elements on how to introduce someone to the instrument and that’s why I hope you can give me better ideas.
submitted by tonberries_ to Guitar [link] [comments]
I picked up my notebook and started setting up a couple short and longer term little goals to achieve together. I would like to know if I’m on the right track or if there’s something else I should do, do instead or empathize more.
- Brief introduction to scales and chord structures, how chords are formed and locating them on the fretboard.
- Practice chords switching while learning a couple strumming patterns, preferably basic ones but that help develop healthy habits to later on dig into more complex or efficient ones.
- Learning about intervals, how they effect the nature of a chord and further discuss the more common scales, Major, Minor, Minor Pentatonic and Major Pentatonic.
- Learn a simple song that they like and has a couple chord changes and perhaps a melody that is easy to grasp, to start getting a better sense of rhythm. Focus on, together, getting the song down right, which may motivate them to move forward.
I think more than this might be too much, if this isn’t already. I’m ok at explaining things but I’m no teacher, so I’m sure I’m missing some key elements on how to introduce someone to the instrument and that’s why I hope you can give me better ideas.
2024.06.09 22:22 throwaway999978654 How fast can I lose 30 pounds?
I am a 32 year old male who is 6’ tall and 192 pounds. I was running around 35 miles a week at my peak about 3 years ago. Since then I have gone from 165 pounds to around 192 pounds. I am looking to get back into running very seriously again. My goal is to lose 30 pounds safely, but also fairly quickly. I gained the weight from living a mostly sedentary lifestyle over the last year or so. I slacked and drank a lot of high calorie beers and ate garbage while having a lot of stress and anxiety with poor sleeping patterns. I plan on cutting out the beer and eating healthier while drinking a lot of water. How quickly can I realistically lose 30 pounds if I start running 20 miles a week and slowly increasing the mileage? Do you have any other tips on how to quickly cut this weight? Thank you!
submitted by throwaway999978654 to WeightLossAdvice [link] [comments]
2024.06.09 22:22 ThrowRAaloenee He 32M slapped me 26F and I think I am too attached to him?
I told myself I will stop talking about this, but I am so miserable. I started therapy, it doesn't help yet. He kept texting me, sometimes nice, sometimes mean, sometimes telling me I will end up with a fat truck driver. After a few good days without contact, he texted me a very painful message, that made me cry for hours. He said my life is boring, that I never travel anywhere because I got no money, that all women want to date someone in his profession and of course I chickened out because his career made my life even sadder and empty. I ignored. Then, after 10 minutes, wrote me that he has a layover for one night in the city and he can fck my brains out and that will make up for everything.
I didn't answer, I spent my night crying because I do feel my life is more boring than his and just sad in general because I have so many emotional and a bit of financial issues. And finally yesterday he texted me a very long message in which he said he apologise for everything he said and done. He said we don't have to meet, or talk, or anything, just he wants me to know he is sorry.
Of course I will not forgive him but I think I have some feelings for him, otherwise he would have been blocked. I do feel lesser than him due to his social status (although a friend told me a lot of his great status is in my head, that if I wanted to learn how to fly a plane, with hard work and determination, I would). It just that I am a total mess
My original post:
I am 26 and work in a airport coffee shop. I started sleeping with a guy who is an airline pilot. He is 32. I also found the job so cool since I was a kid. He is good looking too, so many reasons to give it a try, although I am not into hook up culture. We did it once, then it happened again after like 3 weeks later. At that point he asked me for my number, so we could be in touch. I was happy. It's been already 4 months that we see each other when he can. Usually when he is off it is for a few days.
I am sure I am not a side chick, because last time we met, he also put a photo of us on social media. He made me feel good. He is funny and intelligent too. Lately though he has been different. At first he made me feel bad for working in an airport coffee shop, like it's a not a good enough job. Then, he also raised his voice at me for waking him up by accident. I went to bathroom and the door woke him up.
And 2 days ago he slapped me. Very bad. I fell to the floor. We had a fight about the way he treats me and how he looks down on me for not having a better job, not being ambitious enough. I am not the kind of person to tolerate such things and I called him an arrogant a$$hole. He hit me, walked out of my apartment and after 3 hours he texted me to apologise. He said he was tired, he had a long flight, stressed. I told him I cannot forgive him and I will stop seeing him. He said fine, that he understands this but he wants to talk to me tomorrow, after I am done with my shift.
NO, I did not go with him, we didn't meet at all since that slap (that was just the post)
submitted by ThrowRAaloenee to relationship_advice [link] [comments]
I didn't answer, I spent my night crying because I do feel my life is more boring than his and just sad in general because I have so many emotional and a bit of financial issues. And finally yesterday he texted me a very long message in which he said he apologise for everything he said and done. He said we don't have to meet, or talk, or anything, just he wants me to know he is sorry.
Of course I will not forgive him but I think I have some feelings for him, otherwise he would have been blocked. I do feel lesser than him due to his social status (although a friend told me a lot of his great status is in my head, that if I wanted to learn how to fly a plane, with hard work and determination, I would). It just that I am a total mess
My original post:
I am 26 and work in a airport coffee shop. I started sleeping with a guy who is an airline pilot. He is 32. I also found the job so cool since I was a kid. He is good looking too, so many reasons to give it a try, although I am not into hook up culture. We did it once, then it happened again after like 3 weeks later. At that point he asked me for my number, so we could be in touch. I was happy. It's been already 4 months that we see each other when he can. Usually when he is off it is for a few days.
I am sure I am not a side chick, because last time we met, he also put a photo of us on social media. He made me feel good. He is funny and intelligent too. Lately though he has been different. At first he made me feel bad for working in an airport coffee shop, like it's a not a good enough job. Then, he also raised his voice at me for waking him up by accident. I went to bathroom and the door woke him up.
And 2 days ago he slapped me. Very bad. I fell to the floor. We had a fight about the way he treats me and how he looks down on me for not having a better job, not being ambitious enough. I am not the kind of person to tolerate such things and I called him an arrogant a$$hole. He hit me, walked out of my apartment and after 3 hours he texted me to apologise. He said he was tired, he had a long flight, stressed. I told him I cannot forgive him and I will stop seeing him. He said fine, that he understands this but he wants to talk to me tomorrow, after I am done with my shift.
NO, I did not go with him, we didn't meet at all since that slap (that was just the post)
2024.06.09 22:21 tayyipinBaykemali UPDATE AITA For Throwing Up After I Ate
Hi no good news. First of all i sent my mother a screenshot of one of the comments y’all sent me and she started defending herself. Okay queen everyone loves you, yes you never did a fault by raising me🫵🙇♀️
Today i didn’t want to throw up but it happened so sudden and i had to throw up in the shower and on the floor. I cleaned what’s on the floor but i forgot to clean the shower so my sister Celine saw it and called my mother and she started screaming at me and my father heard it so he joined her and they both started scolding me. I locked myself in the bathroom and cleaned my mess, after i left the bathroom i take my little brother (7) in my arms and go to the kitchen to face them. As soon as my father saw me started scolding me “You’re trying to lose weight by throwing up, idiot if you lay there like a cow of course you can’t lose weight, no walking, no exercise of course you can’t lose weight!” so my mom joined make herself the victim in the story tried to use her biological things as the best biology teacher👹🫶 then my father said “We don’t have to smell your vomit.” dude what? If you could’ve smell it then you would’ve noticed that a year ago. I’m crying rn because it hurts so much to not to scream at their face saying how much exercises i done in that fucking bathroom, sweat dripping my face, my legs shaking, my face red. It’s really hurts to not to have good parents. I admit they did everything they could but FINANCIALLY not with emotions the last time my father hugged was maybe a year ago, the last time my father said a good thing to me was a year ago maybe i don’t remember. I swear they’re favoring kids 2-3 months ago my father bought Celine a new shoe which costed 4500 ₺ and then a week ago he bought her another new shoe as a birthday gift and i’m almost begging him for a new shoe. One time he caught me looking at shoes on my phone then he told me to send him the link of the shoe and my size then he fucking managed to ghost my text🤭 At my birthday he didn’t buy me or give me something. I asked for his card and went to an Mall with my friend and just eat something and etc. For the last three years my mom is buying my stuff. Like everything. My shoes, my school bag, my school stuff, my fucking phone. They know what kind of stuff Celine told me, the insults. They’re not doing anything to her. Hit her like how you did to me dad, shame her like how you did to me mom. Why it’s so hard? Ooh because she has good grades. I don’t want to be the “Don’t be like your sister.”, “Oh we got the good three out of four.” The three is my siblings btw. I maybe stupid because i don’t understand math or science but I’m so good in english and history than my classmates. Why the fucking math, science and physics is so important? When i fly to another country for trip or business or education they won’t ask me math questions, they will want to know if i can communicate with them. And i know the risks or throwing up every single day. physically and emotionally i know that and i accepted that all. I just want my parents to understand that they’re hurting me most. If they would stop my sister years ago maybe i could breath normally without feeling like choking or my heart wouldn’t hurt. It’s not so hard to admit your faults, your kids should be the first thing comes to you. I’m not someone else’s kid, i’m your fucking kid.
submitted by tayyipinBaykemali to AITA_WIBTA_PUBLIC [link] [comments]
Today i didn’t want to throw up but it happened so sudden and i had to throw up in the shower and on the floor. I cleaned what’s on the floor but i forgot to clean the shower so my sister Celine saw it and called my mother and she started screaming at me and my father heard it so he joined her and they both started scolding me. I locked myself in the bathroom and cleaned my mess, after i left the bathroom i take my little brother (7) in my arms and go to the kitchen to face them. As soon as my father saw me started scolding me “You’re trying to lose weight by throwing up, idiot if you lay there like a cow of course you can’t lose weight, no walking, no exercise of course you can’t lose weight!” so my mom joined make herself the victim in the story tried to use her biological things as the best biology teacher👹🫶 then my father said “We don’t have to smell your vomit.” dude what? If you could’ve smell it then you would’ve noticed that a year ago. I’m crying rn because it hurts so much to not to scream at their face saying how much exercises i done in that fucking bathroom, sweat dripping my face, my legs shaking, my face red. It’s really hurts to not to have good parents. I admit they did everything they could but FINANCIALLY not with emotions the last time my father hugged was maybe a year ago, the last time my father said a good thing to me was a year ago maybe i don’t remember. I swear they’re favoring kids 2-3 months ago my father bought Celine a new shoe which costed 4500 ₺ and then a week ago he bought her another new shoe as a birthday gift and i’m almost begging him for a new shoe. One time he caught me looking at shoes on my phone then he told me to send him the link of the shoe and my size then he fucking managed to ghost my text🤭 At my birthday he didn’t buy me or give me something. I asked for his card and went to an Mall with my friend and just eat something and etc. For the last three years my mom is buying my stuff. Like everything. My shoes, my school bag, my school stuff, my fucking phone. They know what kind of stuff Celine told me, the insults. They’re not doing anything to her. Hit her like how you did to me dad, shame her like how you did to me mom. Why it’s so hard? Ooh because she has good grades. I don’t want to be the “Don’t be like your sister.”, “Oh we got the good three out of four.” The three is my siblings btw. I maybe stupid because i don’t understand math or science but I’m so good in english and history than my classmates. Why the fucking math, science and physics is so important? When i fly to another country for trip or business or education they won’t ask me math questions, they will want to know if i can communicate with them. And i know the risks or throwing up every single day. physically and emotionally i know that and i accepted that all. I just want my parents to understand that they’re hurting me most. If they would stop my sister years ago maybe i could breath normally without feeling like choking or my heart wouldn’t hurt. It’s not so hard to admit your faults, your kids should be the first thing comes to you. I’m not someone else’s kid, i’m your fucking kid.
2024.06.09 22:20 tayyipinBaykemali UPDATE AITA For Throwing Up After I Ate
Hi no good news. First of all i sent my mother a screenshot of one of the comments y’all sent me and she started defending herself. Okay queen everyone loves you, yes you never did a fault by raising me🫵🙇♀️
Today i didn’t want to throw up but it happened so sudden and i had to throw up in the shower and on the floor. I cleaned what’s on the floor but i forgot to clean the shower so my sister Celine saw it and called my mother and she started screaming at me and my father heard it so he joined her and they both started scolding me. I locked myself in the bathroom and cleaned my mess, after i left the bathroom i take my little brother (7) in my arms and go to the kitchen to face them. As soon as my father saw me started scolding me “You’re trying to lose weight by throwing up, idiot if you lay there like a cow of course you can’t lose weight, no walking, no exercise of course you can’t lose weight!” so my mom joined make herself the victim in the story tried to use her biological things as the best biology teacher👹🫶 then my father said “We don’t have to smell your vomit.” dude what? If you could’ve smell it then you would’ve noticed that a year ago. I’m crying rn because it hurts so much to not to scream at their face saying how much exercises i done in that fucking bathroom, sweat dripping my face, my legs shaking, my face red. It’s really hurts to not to have good parents. I admit they did everything they could but FINANCIALLY not with emotions the last time my father hugged was maybe a year ago, the last time my father said a good thing to me was a year ago maybe i don’t remember. I swear they’re favoring kids 2-3 months ago my father bought Celine a new shoe which costed 4500 ₺ and then a week ago he bought her another new shoe as a birthday gift and i’m almost begging him for a new shoe. One time he caught me looking at shoes on my phone then he told me to send him the link of the shoe and my size then he fucking managed to ghost my text🤭 At my birthday he didn’t buy me or give me something. I asked for his card and went to an Mall with my friend and just eat something and etc. For the last three years my mom is buying my stuff. Like everything. My shoes, my school bag, my school stuff, my fucking phone. They know what kind of stuff Celine told me, the insults. They’re not doing anything to her. Hit her like how you did to me dad, shame her like how you did to me mom. Why it’s so hard? Ooh because she has good grades. I don’t want to be the “Don’t be like your sister.”, “Oh we got the good three out of four.” The three is my siblings btw. I maybe stupid because i don’t understand math or science but I’m so good in english and history than my classmates. Why the fucking math, science and physics is so important? When i fly to another country for trip or business or education they won’t ask me math questions, they will want to know if i can communicate with them. And i know the risks or throwing up every single day. physically and emotionally i know that and i accepted that all. I just want my parents to understand that they’re hurting me most. If they would stop my sister years ago maybe i could breath normally without feeling like choking or my heart wouldn’t hurt. It’s not so hard to admit your faults, your kids should be the first thing comes to you. I’m not someone else’s kid, i’m your fucking kid.
submitted by tayyipinBaykemali to AITAH [link] [comments]
Today i didn’t want to throw up but it happened so sudden and i had to throw up in the shower and on the floor. I cleaned what’s on the floor but i forgot to clean the shower so my sister Celine saw it and called my mother and she started screaming at me and my father heard it so he joined her and they both started scolding me. I locked myself in the bathroom and cleaned my mess, after i left the bathroom i take my little brother (7) in my arms and go to the kitchen to face them. As soon as my father saw me started scolding me “You’re trying to lose weight by throwing up, idiot if you lay there like a cow of course you can’t lose weight, no walking, no exercise of course you can’t lose weight!” so my mom joined make herself the victim in the story tried to use her biological things as the best biology teacher👹🫶 then my father said “We don’t have to smell your vomit.” dude what? If you could’ve smell it then you would’ve noticed that a year ago. I’m crying rn because it hurts so much to not to scream at their face saying how much exercises i done in that fucking bathroom, sweat dripping my face, my legs shaking, my face red. It’s really hurts to not to have good parents. I admit they did everything they could but FINANCIALLY not with emotions the last time my father hugged was maybe a year ago, the last time my father said a good thing to me was a year ago maybe i don’t remember. I swear they’re favoring kids 2-3 months ago my father bought Celine a new shoe which costed 4500 ₺ and then a week ago he bought her another new shoe as a birthday gift and i’m almost begging him for a new shoe. One time he caught me looking at shoes on my phone then he told me to send him the link of the shoe and my size then he fucking managed to ghost my text🤭 At my birthday he didn’t buy me or give me something. I asked for his card and went to an Mall with my friend and just eat something and etc. For the last three years my mom is buying my stuff. Like everything. My shoes, my school bag, my school stuff, my fucking phone. They know what kind of stuff Celine told me, the insults. They’re not doing anything to her. Hit her like how you did to me dad, shame her like how you did to me mom. Why it’s so hard? Ooh because she has good grades. I don’t want to be the “Don’t be like your sister.”, “Oh we got the good three out of four.” The three is my siblings btw. I maybe stupid because i don’t understand math or science but I’m so good in english and history than my classmates. Why the fucking math, science and physics is so important? When i fly to another country for trip or business or education they won’t ask me math questions, they will want to know if i can communicate with them. And i know the risks or throwing up every single day. physically and emotionally i know that and i accepted that all. I just want my parents to understand that they’re hurting me most. If they would stop my sister years ago maybe i could breath normally without feeling like choking or my heart wouldn’t hurt. It’s not so hard to admit your faults, your kids should be the first thing comes to you. I’m not someone else’s kid, i’m your fucking kid.
2024.06.09 22:19 tayyipinBaykemali UPDATE AITA For Throwing Up After I Ate
Hi no good news. First of all i sent my mother a screenshot of one of the comments y’all sent me and she started defending herself. Okay queen everyone loves you, yes you never did a fault by raising me🫵🙇♀️
Today i didn’t want to throw up but it happened so sudden and i had to throw up in the shower and on the floor. I cleaned what’s on the floor but i forgot to clean the shower so my sister Celine saw it and called my mother and she started screaming at me and my father heard it so he joined her and they both started scolding me. I locked myself in the bathroom and cleaned my mess, after i left the bathroom i take my little brother (7) in my arms and go to the kitchen to face them. As soon as my father saw me started scolding me “You’re trying to lose weight by throwing up, idiot if you lay there like a cow of course you can’t lose weight, no walking, no exercise of course you can’t lose weight!” so my mom joined make herself the victim in the story tried to use her biological things as the best biology teacher👹🫶 then my father said “We don’t have to smell your vomit.” dude what? If you could’ve smell it then you would’ve noticed that a year ago. I’m crying rn because it hurts so much to not to scream at their face saying how much exercises i done in that fucking bathroom, sweat dripping my face, my legs shaking, my face red. It’s really hurts to not to have good parents. I admit they did everything they could but FINANCIALLY not with emotions the last time my father hugged was maybe a year ago, the last time my father said a good thing to me was a year ago maybe i don’t remember. I swear they’re favoring kids 2-3 months ago my father bought Celine a new shoe which costed 4500 ₺ and then a week ago he bought her another new shoe as a birthday gift and i’m almost begging him for a new shoe. One time he caught me looking at shoes on my phone then he told me to send him the link of the shoe and my size then he fucking managed to ghost my text🤭 At my birthday he didn’t buy me or give me something. I asked for his card and went to an Mall with my friend and just eat something and etc. For the last three years my mom is buying my stuff. Like everything. My shoes, my school bag, my school stuff, my fucking phone. They know what kind of stuff Celine told me, the insults. They’re not doing anything to her. Hit her like how you did to me dad, shame her like how you did to me mom. Why it’s so hard? Ooh because she has good grades. I don’t want to be the “Don’t be like your sister.”, “Oh we got the good three out of four.” The three is my siblings btw. I maybe stupid because i don’t understand math or science but I’m so good in english and history than my classmates. Why the fucking math, science and physics is so important? When i fly to another country for trip or business or education they won’t ask me math questions, they will want to know if i can communicate with them. And i know the risks or throwing up every single day. physically and emotionally i know that and i accepted that all. I just want my parents to understand that they’re hurting me most. If they would stop my sister years ago maybe i could breath normally without feeling like choking or my heart wouldn’t hurt. It’s not so hard to admit your faults, your kids should be the first thing comes to you. I’m not someone else’s kid, i’m your fucking kid.
submitted by tayyipinBaykemali to u/tayyipinBaykemali [link] [comments]
Today i didn’t want to throw up but it happened so sudden and i had to throw up in the shower and on the floor. I cleaned what’s on the floor but i forgot to clean the shower so my sister Celine saw it and called my mother and she started screaming at me and my father heard it so he joined her and they both started scolding me. I locked myself in the bathroom and cleaned my mess, after i left the bathroom i take my little brother (7) in my arms and go to the kitchen to face them. As soon as my father saw me started scolding me “You’re trying to lose weight by throwing up, idiot if you lay there like a cow of course you can’t lose weight, no walking, no exercise of course you can’t lose weight!” so my mom joined make herself the victim in the story tried to use her biological things as the best biology teacher👹🫶 then my father said “We don’t have to smell your vomit.” dude what? If you could’ve smell it then you would’ve noticed that a year ago. I’m crying rn because it hurts so much to not to scream at their face saying how much exercises i done in that fucking bathroom, sweat dripping my face, my legs shaking, my face red. It’s really hurts to not to have good parents. I admit they did everything they could but FINANCIALLY not with emotions the last time my father hugged was maybe a year ago, the last time my father said a good thing to me was a year ago maybe i don’t remember. I swear they’re favoring kids 2-3 months ago my father bought Celine a new shoe which costed 4500 ₺ and then a week ago he bought her another new shoe as a birthday gift and i’m almost begging him for a new shoe. One time he caught me looking at shoes on my phone then he told me to send him the link of the shoe and my size then he fucking managed to ghost my text🤭 At my birthday he didn’t buy me or give me something. I asked for his card and went to an Mall with my friend and just eat something and etc. For the last three years my mom is buying my stuff. Like everything. My shoes, my school bag, my school stuff, my fucking phone. They know what kind of stuff Celine told me, the insults. They’re not doing anything to her. Hit her like how you did to me dad, shame her like how you did to me mom. Why it’s so hard? Ooh because she has good grades. I don’t want to be the “Don’t be like your sister.”, “Oh we got the good three out of four.” The three is my siblings btw. I maybe stupid because i don’t understand math or science but I’m so good in english and history than my classmates. Why the fucking math, science and physics is so important? When i fly to another country for trip or business or education they won’t ask me math questions, they will want to know if i can communicate with them. And i know the risks or throwing up every single day. physically and emotionally i know that and i accepted that all. I just want my parents to understand that they’re hurting me most. If they would stop my sister years ago maybe i could breath normally without feeling like choking or my heart wouldn’t hurt. It’s not so hard to admit your faults, your kids should be the first thing comes to you. I’m not someone else’s kid, i’m your fucking kid.
2024.06.09 22:18 lilythewalrus Actual risks of home renovations….?
Many of you (like me) are here because you are worried, at best, or having a nonstop panic attack, at worst.
Let’s say, like millions of other people over the years, you (like me) have done or are doing some renovations on your older home that has involved tearing up some tiles or walls or disturbing insulation on ducting etc., without thinking beforehand about asbestos use in homes. And, you just had the same “holy shit” moment I did when you saw something that reminded you of the possibility of asbestos. And a sinking feeling when you figured out yeah, this is probably the demon substance itself. And maybe you (like me) even started spiraling into the obsession that literally everything you have disturbed during the renovation was probably made of 100% pure friable asbestos and the entire house is now filled with deadly invisible fibers floating around like little daggers ready to embed themselves and kill.
Assuming you, like me, weren’t wearing OSHA-sanctioned respirators and Tyvec suits and utilizing industrial level HEPA filtered air scrubbers and employing wet debris removal techniques (etc etc etc) - it seems virtually impossible that millions of people (like me and I guess many of you) were NOT exposed to asbestos (and god knows what else) in the course of doing home renovations.
I’ve pored over this forum for hours, losing sleep and going down a rabbit hole of stress, wondering what horrible disaster I have wrought on myself and everyone who will ever enter my home, and kicking myself over and over for not thinking about it beforehand. Debating whether to halt the work that is now well under way and bring in the experts to test (when I’m basically sure It will be positive) and remediate everything, likely at the cost of thousands of dollars. I saved up for this renovation and it’s going to improve the lives of me and my family. And I do not have additional thousands of dollars laying around.
So the thing is….how many cases of asbestosis, mesothelioma, and other rare cancers associated with asbestos exposure have been linked to doing one routine older home renovation? I’m not seeing much literature out there saying this is actually a thing. Not to downplay the many people who were knowingly and repeatedly exposed after major companies fully knew better and got sick/died from asbestos related disease…that is an international tragedy. but this is not that.
So I’d like to offer MANY MANY THANKS to the voices of reason in this forum that have helped me get a realistic perspective on the whole thing.
To anyone else in this situation, you’ll have to decide for yourselves whether to go down the test and remediate path…but my thought is that there is so much more immediate risk in many things we do and encounter every day (driving for example) that I’m going to stop obsessing, open the windows, and move on.
P.S. Many of us home renovators can’t afford all-in professional remediation, so information on any steps we can take other than “call in the experts” is very welcome. I understand why professionals in the industry have to say that, but practical, “better than nothing” guidance is really helpful for many who are here. Thank you to everyone who has been willing to offer up that information as well.
submitted by lilythewalrus to asbestoshelp [link] [comments]
Let’s say, like millions of other people over the years, you (like me) have done or are doing some renovations on your older home that has involved tearing up some tiles or walls or disturbing insulation on ducting etc., without thinking beforehand about asbestos use in homes. And, you just had the same “holy shit” moment I did when you saw something that reminded you of the possibility of asbestos. And a sinking feeling when you figured out yeah, this is probably the demon substance itself. And maybe you (like me) even started spiraling into the obsession that literally everything you have disturbed during the renovation was probably made of 100% pure friable asbestos and the entire house is now filled with deadly invisible fibers floating around like little daggers ready to embed themselves and kill.
Assuming you, like me, weren’t wearing OSHA-sanctioned respirators and Tyvec suits and utilizing industrial level HEPA filtered air scrubbers and employing wet debris removal techniques (etc etc etc) - it seems virtually impossible that millions of people (like me and I guess many of you) were NOT exposed to asbestos (and god knows what else) in the course of doing home renovations.
I’ve pored over this forum for hours, losing sleep and going down a rabbit hole of stress, wondering what horrible disaster I have wrought on myself and everyone who will ever enter my home, and kicking myself over and over for not thinking about it beforehand. Debating whether to halt the work that is now well under way and bring in the experts to test (when I’m basically sure It will be positive) and remediate everything, likely at the cost of thousands of dollars. I saved up for this renovation and it’s going to improve the lives of me and my family. And I do not have additional thousands of dollars laying around.
So the thing is….how many cases of asbestosis, mesothelioma, and other rare cancers associated with asbestos exposure have been linked to doing one routine older home renovation? I’m not seeing much literature out there saying this is actually a thing. Not to downplay the many people who were knowingly and repeatedly exposed after major companies fully knew better and got sick/died from asbestos related disease…that is an international tragedy. but this is not that.
So I’d like to offer MANY MANY THANKS to the voices of reason in this forum that have helped me get a realistic perspective on the whole thing.
To anyone else in this situation, you’ll have to decide for yourselves whether to go down the test and remediate path…but my thought is that there is so much more immediate risk in many things we do and encounter every day (driving for example) that I’m going to stop obsessing, open the windows, and move on.
P.S. Many of us home renovators can’t afford all-in professional remediation, so information on any steps we can take other than “call in the experts” is very welcome. I understand why professionals in the industry have to say that, but practical, “better than nothing” guidance is really helpful for many who are here. Thank you to everyone who has been willing to offer up that information as well.
2024.06.09 22:16 Mbazazelouis girlfriend 27F with whom I 30 F have just moved in with in a new city is a serial cheater. How should I handle this? She wants to fix things and I can't just move out or kick her out
I've posted the same story in offmychest. I'm new to reddit and this might be not the way of handdeling things. But I'm desperate for input as I feel I'm going crazy. English is not my first not my second language so please excuse me if i make mistakes.
I've enjoyed listenning to reddit stories on those YouTube video's for a while now and was always amazed by the amount of input the community always gives. Now with my situation and not really knowing what else to do to cope I thought I'll give it a try.
So here is my story. I 30F met my girlfriend 27F in augustus of last year on a dating app. I remember finding her absolutly beautiful. We started taking and very soon we were calling each other everyday for hours . I communicated that I wasn't looking for a relationship as i was starting a bachelor degree combined with full time work. I was happy just being friends as I enjoyed her vibe. We were both talking to other people and she would confide in me how the others people were. We met up at my place the first time as I felt like I already knew her from so much talking. She got drunk. Looking back she definetly tried to initiate something but I was carefull and she was minutes later throwing up in my toilet so i put her to sleep.
The following days she opened up about her past trauma's. She was adopted in a white family, she was born in Asia, as a baby. But she never really gotten the proper guidance to deal with it. Besides her brothers were way older so she didn't have a real connection with them. She was also SA'd by one of the brothers and the family wasn't dealing with it. Like not adressing it, giving her proper therapy and so on. Beside that there were some other problems in the familly that eventually when we got together and she introduced me to the familly, one of the brothers asked me what i was studying. I study something that translates like familly sciences. When i told that brother he joked that his familly would be a good case for my studies.
Basically to state that she has a difficult past and she was upfront with it. I have also my trauma's like SA from family members, not feeling connected to the country we live in or my birth country. I wasn't adopted but I immigrated to here when I was 10. I've been abused in every way by my family. That plus the distance makes that I'm astranged from them. In the courant country where I also experienced a lot of harsh rasism, always the outsider. So basically when i heard all that I felt like we could relate on that and was hoping we could be there for each other. Either way I never hinted towards a relationship. I just wanted to be there for her. I have had been in therapy since i was 21 years and was finishing it. I was finally in a good place.
We met up a few more times. One of the times was to help her clean her appartement. She was moving back to her father as she had had a deppressive episode and neglected the place and payments and was in debt. She didn't know who to ask from her friends. I offered. I came took over, cleaned the place. In the evening she even left me alone to finish up as she had a family date she couldn't miss. I honestly didn't mind i finished up. she went to her familly and later she came back. We went out and when we came back in the early morning I just fell a sleep. Later once we were together she told me she wanted to thank me with sex. She did introduce me to a friend that did tell me that everyone dumps her in every relationship. He thought that i was her date and i didn't want to emberass her so I didn't ask much more questions and decided to ask her instead at an other time. But this is one of the redflags i missed looking back.
After that we met up one more time to go out. She knew that in the morning I would go see that other girl i was talking to. I hadn't met that one in real life but had also a good connection with her. But that evening she confessed having feelings for me. I couldn't denie that i was attracted by her and wanted to give her all the love we both never experienced. We kissed and ended up at my place in the morning. I just cancelled on the other girl.
The first months were good. I noticed that she was imature on some levels but could explain it due to her past, the lack of therapy, and her overbearing father that doesn't let her grow up.
She introduced me to all her friends and they all liked me. They explain that she has a past of dating people who aren't good for her. They all approved of me and I liked them too. I didn't have a lot of friends. I had learned to prefer my own company over friends after being burned a few times and deciding not to befriend just anyone for my own mental health. I was rather be alone after all the betrayal i've been throught. People are just unpredictable and when i care I go fully. So to protect myself and because all the friendships before therapy were somewhat toxic I just prefered to stay alone. I did miss belonging to a group tho so I was extatic to gain a girlfriend I felt could understand me to a deeper level and a friendgroup welcoming me and simular to me. She seemed to intagrate me in the group well and they were really nice. I felt i was finally having that chosen familly a lot of people who go no contact with their familly talk about. I was taking drugs so i can study, work and manage this new relationship and friendship circle. I was determinated to make it work.
The first issue i noticed was that we would be videocalling and she wouldn't pay attention. She would be texting her friends and checking Insta or Facebook while she expected me to stay connected till she fell a sleep. She would even call me when she would wake up in the middle of the night. I did night shifts so i didn't mind about her wanting me around to sleep. I did complain about the lack of attention when she was still awake. She didn't adjust her behaviour just yet. I had to complain and make a big deal out of it before she did some efforts. Just the bare minimum.
But i knew she needed therapy and thought to understand where this behaviour was coming from. I just encouraged her that she can talk to me to about eveyrthing. But mostly I stayed patient, thinking she hadn't been in a healthy relationship. I believed with time, working on communication and showing her she could trust me, that all would be fine
There were some other issues i ignored as redflags about this relationship and still wanted to live together with her. I first proposed in moving in my appartement with no strings attached. If it didn't work out she just could go back to her dad and I am okay too. None of us looses anything. But she was not sure how her father who hadn't met me yet would react. He is a more sober person and has disapproved all her partners before.
So eventually she found the balls to tell me that she wasn't in that idea. She wanted her father to approve and so on. She had lived before with a partner her father didn't approve of cuz they both felt she was taking advantage of my girlfriend to get her papers. By the way they are still friends and i like the ex too. She doesn't seem capable of manipulate someone to get get papers. But that is an other story.
After I met her father she was okay moving in together in the Capital, a fresh start for me and her too. I was excited to start forever happly after. I had never loved someone like I've loved her. She was so vulnerable from the start that i just wanted to care for her. Like stated before i wanted to give her the love we both missed.
We moved end mai in our appartemment. I was stressing as i had to find something on time so that i don't end up homeless. I needed to find a new job and so on. I was also the one who made all the appointments and took on the stress to find us something. All she had to do is like the place. I did everthing
We moved in in the last weekend of april. On the 18th of mai was pride in our city. I had to work even tho i wanted to go. She was stating to stay home as we had spend a lot of money to move. We were almost broke both of us. i could see she wanted to go as all her friends were going and texting her. She does have been irresponsible when going out, too much drinking, losing her stuff and over spending. So i proposed guidelines to follow so she could go have a good time and not stay alone at home and still not regret the day after. We agreed that she would take her old phone just in case, eat enough as she would be drinking and retrieve the money she was going to spend so she doesn't go over her budget. That way she can't spend more than her budget.
She who is always texting me didn't say a word alle night. When i did call to check up on her she just passed me a friend to talk to them. I was pissed but happy she was unharmed in our appartement. In the morning i came home. Most of the people were still sleeping and she was acting annoyingly wierd. I couldn't make a scene as her friends were there. I just entertained them and went to sleep. I was mad. Next day she tried to make up and after some talk Mostly explaining why I was mad. She had done nothing of the steps we had taken for her to go out safly. But when i calmed down anyway she dropped the bom that she also kissed someone there. One of the people she was talking to around the time we met. Someone she eventually deemed not a match.
I was broken by that. I just couldn't believe it. Okay our sex and love life had been less since the stress of the move, finding a new job in a new city, exams and a tighy wallet. but i thought she understood as i voiced my stress.
I was miserabel when she told me, just broken, not eating physically ill and all my issues re-triggered. I felt so stupid and trapped as we had just signed for 3 years in a 1 bed appartement. I just slipped back in depression while she seemed remorsefull as if she made a mistake. She was trying to care for me and fix things. One week later i was still not okay completely broken by the betrayal still and the huge mistake i made to cosign for 3 years with no other options to move out or kick her out. She touched me at some point and I felt better with her in my arms. I decided to give her an other chance. It was discussed that cheating the only non negotiable cause for a break up was for me and that everything else is can be talked over. i should have respected my own rule...
Well same week, few days later she told me a friend of her, beacause she is friends with a lot of people she flirted or hooked up with, well that they confessed their feelings towards her. I had met this person and she had explained to me not wanting to persu my girlfriend in the past. Now they were just friends. I was okay with that. I was glad she told me and we composed a message together for that girl stating that she had told me, that I' not mad but she will stay true to me.
Now thursday she kept talking about said friend and the things my girlfriend was saying weren't adding up. It didn't seem like something said friend would say or do without context so when she got home I asked her to read the messages with said friend to try to understand. When j read the messages i was floored. Most of them were deleted and it was my girlfriend always asking about the feelings that friend would have for my girlfriend. The reason said friend was freaking out is that my girlfriend told her I took her phone and texted the girl. She was shocked understandbly. My gf was creating drama and i still haven't understood why. Like if she wanted to actually cheat why make me aware?
Its been 4 dats now and I just don't know how to advance from this. I'm still very aware of her past and the lack of therapy. I still care for her in a sence but I also hurt and I feel so stupid. She now is again remorsefull and relize now I'm the first one to show her true love. I've broken up with her as I just need to respect myself but i still have a soft spot for her besides everything. She now wants to fix everything, she'll go in therapy and so on. I sometimes find myself being the one to comfort her even after it all. I'm so lost and don't know what to do. I want to keep it a healing exprericence for her, but want to protect myself and love her again at the same time.
This is just a little of the quesionable behaviour she had done, basically the most recent one. I'm just too hurt and blindsided to deal this on my own but i finished therapy like 6 months ago. I can't go back to my therapist. I plan on looking for a new one in the new city but i need advice and guidance since we live together in this 1 bed appartment. She is not really giving me space to think this trough. How should i handle this?
submitted by Mbazazelouis to relationship_advice [link] [comments]
I've enjoyed listenning to reddit stories on those YouTube video's for a while now and was always amazed by the amount of input the community always gives. Now with my situation and not really knowing what else to do to cope I thought I'll give it a try.
So here is my story. I 30F met my girlfriend 27F in augustus of last year on a dating app. I remember finding her absolutly beautiful. We started taking and very soon we were calling each other everyday for hours . I communicated that I wasn't looking for a relationship as i was starting a bachelor degree combined with full time work. I was happy just being friends as I enjoyed her vibe. We were both talking to other people and she would confide in me how the others people were. We met up at my place the first time as I felt like I already knew her from so much talking. She got drunk. Looking back she definetly tried to initiate something but I was carefull and she was minutes later throwing up in my toilet so i put her to sleep.
The following days she opened up about her past trauma's. She was adopted in a white family, she was born in Asia, as a baby. But she never really gotten the proper guidance to deal with it. Besides her brothers were way older so she didn't have a real connection with them. She was also SA'd by one of the brothers and the family wasn't dealing with it. Like not adressing it, giving her proper therapy and so on. Beside that there were some other problems in the familly that eventually when we got together and she introduced me to the familly, one of the brothers asked me what i was studying. I study something that translates like familly sciences. When i told that brother he joked that his familly would be a good case for my studies.
Basically to state that she has a difficult past and she was upfront with it. I have also my trauma's like SA from family members, not feeling connected to the country we live in or my birth country. I wasn't adopted but I immigrated to here when I was 10. I've been abused in every way by my family. That plus the distance makes that I'm astranged from them. In the courant country where I also experienced a lot of harsh rasism, always the outsider. So basically when i heard all that I felt like we could relate on that and was hoping we could be there for each other. Either way I never hinted towards a relationship. I just wanted to be there for her. I have had been in therapy since i was 21 years and was finishing it. I was finally in a good place.
We met up a few more times. One of the times was to help her clean her appartement. She was moving back to her father as she had had a deppressive episode and neglected the place and payments and was in debt. She didn't know who to ask from her friends. I offered. I came took over, cleaned the place. In the evening she even left me alone to finish up as she had a family date she couldn't miss. I honestly didn't mind i finished up. she went to her familly and later she came back. We went out and when we came back in the early morning I just fell a sleep. Later once we were together she told me she wanted to thank me with sex. She did introduce me to a friend that did tell me that everyone dumps her in every relationship. He thought that i was her date and i didn't want to emberass her so I didn't ask much more questions and decided to ask her instead at an other time. But this is one of the redflags i missed looking back.
After that we met up one more time to go out. She knew that in the morning I would go see that other girl i was talking to. I hadn't met that one in real life but had also a good connection with her. But that evening she confessed having feelings for me. I couldn't denie that i was attracted by her and wanted to give her all the love we both never experienced. We kissed and ended up at my place in the morning. I just cancelled on the other girl.
The first months were good. I noticed that she was imature on some levels but could explain it due to her past, the lack of therapy, and her overbearing father that doesn't let her grow up.
She introduced me to all her friends and they all liked me. They explain that she has a past of dating people who aren't good for her. They all approved of me and I liked them too. I didn't have a lot of friends. I had learned to prefer my own company over friends after being burned a few times and deciding not to befriend just anyone for my own mental health. I was rather be alone after all the betrayal i've been throught. People are just unpredictable and when i care I go fully. So to protect myself and because all the friendships before therapy were somewhat toxic I just prefered to stay alone. I did miss belonging to a group tho so I was extatic to gain a girlfriend I felt could understand me to a deeper level and a friendgroup welcoming me and simular to me. She seemed to intagrate me in the group well and they were really nice. I felt i was finally having that chosen familly a lot of people who go no contact with their familly talk about. I was taking drugs so i can study, work and manage this new relationship and friendship circle. I was determinated to make it work.
The first issue i noticed was that we would be videocalling and she wouldn't pay attention. She would be texting her friends and checking Insta or Facebook while she expected me to stay connected till she fell a sleep. She would even call me when she would wake up in the middle of the night. I did night shifts so i didn't mind about her wanting me around to sleep. I did complain about the lack of attention when she was still awake. She didn't adjust her behaviour just yet. I had to complain and make a big deal out of it before she did some efforts. Just the bare minimum.
But i knew she needed therapy and thought to understand where this behaviour was coming from. I just encouraged her that she can talk to me to about eveyrthing. But mostly I stayed patient, thinking she hadn't been in a healthy relationship. I believed with time, working on communication and showing her she could trust me, that all would be fine
There were some other issues i ignored as redflags about this relationship and still wanted to live together with her. I first proposed in moving in my appartement with no strings attached. If it didn't work out she just could go back to her dad and I am okay too. None of us looses anything. But she was not sure how her father who hadn't met me yet would react. He is a more sober person and has disapproved all her partners before.
So eventually she found the balls to tell me that she wasn't in that idea. She wanted her father to approve and so on. She had lived before with a partner her father didn't approve of cuz they both felt she was taking advantage of my girlfriend to get her papers. By the way they are still friends and i like the ex too. She doesn't seem capable of manipulate someone to get get papers. But that is an other story.
After I met her father she was okay moving in together in the Capital, a fresh start for me and her too. I was excited to start forever happly after. I had never loved someone like I've loved her. She was so vulnerable from the start that i just wanted to care for her. Like stated before i wanted to give her the love we both missed.
We moved end mai in our appartemment. I was stressing as i had to find something on time so that i don't end up homeless. I needed to find a new job and so on. I was also the one who made all the appointments and took on the stress to find us something. All she had to do is like the place. I did everthing
We moved in in the last weekend of april. On the 18th of mai was pride in our city. I had to work even tho i wanted to go. She was stating to stay home as we had spend a lot of money to move. We were almost broke both of us. i could see she wanted to go as all her friends were going and texting her. She does have been irresponsible when going out, too much drinking, losing her stuff and over spending. So i proposed guidelines to follow so she could go have a good time and not stay alone at home and still not regret the day after. We agreed that she would take her old phone just in case, eat enough as she would be drinking and retrieve the money she was going to spend so she doesn't go over her budget. That way she can't spend more than her budget.
She who is always texting me didn't say a word alle night. When i did call to check up on her she just passed me a friend to talk to them. I was pissed but happy she was unharmed in our appartement. In the morning i came home. Most of the people were still sleeping and she was acting annoyingly wierd. I couldn't make a scene as her friends were there. I just entertained them and went to sleep. I was mad. Next day she tried to make up and after some talk Mostly explaining why I was mad. She had done nothing of the steps we had taken for her to go out safly. But when i calmed down anyway she dropped the bom that she also kissed someone there. One of the people she was talking to around the time we met. Someone she eventually deemed not a match.
I was broken by that. I just couldn't believe it. Okay our sex and love life had been less since the stress of the move, finding a new job in a new city, exams and a tighy wallet. but i thought she understood as i voiced my stress.
I was miserabel when she told me, just broken, not eating physically ill and all my issues re-triggered. I felt so stupid and trapped as we had just signed for 3 years in a 1 bed appartement. I just slipped back in depression while she seemed remorsefull as if she made a mistake. She was trying to care for me and fix things. One week later i was still not okay completely broken by the betrayal still and the huge mistake i made to cosign for 3 years with no other options to move out or kick her out. She touched me at some point and I felt better with her in my arms. I decided to give her an other chance. It was discussed that cheating the only non negotiable cause for a break up was for me and that everything else is can be talked over. i should have respected my own rule...
Well same week, few days later she told me a friend of her, beacause she is friends with a lot of people she flirted or hooked up with, well that they confessed their feelings towards her. I had met this person and she had explained to me not wanting to persu my girlfriend in the past. Now they were just friends. I was okay with that. I was glad she told me and we composed a message together for that girl stating that she had told me, that I' not mad but she will stay true to me.
Now thursday she kept talking about said friend and the things my girlfriend was saying weren't adding up. It didn't seem like something said friend would say or do without context so when she got home I asked her to read the messages with said friend to try to understand. When j read the messages i was floored. Most of them were deleted and it was my girlfriend always asking about the feelings that friend would have for my girlfriend. The reason said friend was freaking out is that my girlfriend told her I took her phone and texted the girl. She was shocked understandbly. My gf was creating drama and i still haven't understood why. Like if she wanted to actually cheat why make me aware?
Its been 4 dats now and I just don't know how to advance from this. I'm still very aware of her past and the lack of therapy. I still care for her in a sence but I also hurt and I feel so stupid. She now is again remorsefull and relize now I'm the first one to show her true love. I've broken up with her as I just need to respect myself but i still have a soft spot for her besides everything. She now wants to fix everything, she'll go in therapy and so on. I sometimes find myself being the one to comfort her even after it all. I'm so lost and don't know what to do. I want to keep it a healing exprericence for her, but want to protect myself and love her again at the same time.
This is just a little of the quesionable behaviour she had done, basically the most recent one. I'm just too hurt and blindsided to deal this on my own but i finished therapy like 6 months ago. I can't go back to my therapist. I plan on looking for a new one in the new city but i need advice and guidance since we live together in this 1 bed appartment. She is not really giving me space to think this trough. How should i handle this?
2024.06.09 22:14 oscarrzod I completed a Pre-Hooktail Pit run (eh, not technically, but...) on the remake! Here's what I learned
I never attempted a pre-Hooktail run on the original game, but I figured I'd go for it in the remake since I'm fresh off the 100p, and I beat Bonetail (with an asterisk)!
I, unfortunately, had to use the "Try Again" feature twice, so no, it is not an official run (but I will absolutely be trying again for a legitimate run soon now that I know more about what I need), but it was still super fun, and I wanted to share how it went and where I went wrong.
Okay, my loadout:
Floors 1-49: Really nothing particularly noteworthy here. I got my feet wet with the low damage output, but there were no serious scares. Lakitus and Shady Koopas were a little annoying, but a little patience and it was no problem. I heavily prioritized BP upgrades here--probably the first five level-ups, and then an FP, and then two or three more BP. I think this strategy was helpful. All Clefts tended to be annoying as well, but the Superguards on them are very simple. Notably, Piercing Blow, Sleep Stomp, Fire Drive and Zap Tap were all used heavily in this run, which was refreshing as I’ve never really used any of these in normal play! But in a run like this, you have to get creative. I skipped multiple Movers here. I just wanted to take on the full challenge.
Floors 51-59: Here was my first death, this one coming from simply poor play. Played it a bit too risky and missed a Superguard on a Dark Boo. So, that’s where the run technically ended, but I wanted to keep going to learn more about what the lower floors have to offer, so I hit “Try Again” and kept plugging along. I used a Fright Mask at least once on this section (I believe it was four Ice Puffs?). Also, this is where I started to learn how annoying it can be to get/keep your partners in Peril. Badge Bandits were a real pain without having one or both partners in Peril, but as I’m sure you all know, they changed how healing works on a level up. In the original game, only the partner that was out in battle during a level up was healed fully. Now, the whole party heals. For casual players, this is great! For runs like this, it is a bit annoying. Ultimately, it just means you have to do a lot more tattling (or Googling, I suppose) for damage outputs and math to get back to Peril. The saving grace is that if you allow a partner to fall in battle, they are revived to 1 HP after the battle. Only issue is if a heart drops in the field and you happen to be standing over top of it, you’re very unhelpfully back to 2 or 3 HP (another very avoidable issue in the original game, as I would imagine you would typically NEVER have your Peril partner in the end of the battle anyway). But outside of that, Fire Drive was the Mario move of choice here.
Floors 61-69: Peril Koops was big time here, but Peril Goombella was also massive for the Dark Lakitus. And shoutout to Piercing Blow for help with the Spiky bois. The Craws have a lot of HP, but it was more patience than anything else, as the Superguard timing is pretty straightforward and they have no defense.
Floors 71-79: Swoopulas, Chain-Chomps, Wizzerds, and Dark Koopatrols. This is where a couple extra POW blocks would have been useful (and later for Dark Bristles). Phantom Embers were largely easy (although, no Fire Drive on them of course, so Koops and Power Smash to the rescue). Sleep Stomp was a key tactic for larger groups on the Swoopulas and Wizzerds, although the success rate on the Wizzerds was low. Used up a Thunder Rage and a couple Fire Flowers here to get out of jail.
Floors 81-89: Spunias and Piranha Plants were nothing exciting, but here was death number two of the run. This one was a math mistake. In an attempt to get Koops into Peril from an Arantula shot, I THOUGHT that any regular guard would get him there, and if I misread the throw and it was actually headed toward Mario, he would survive with a regular guard as well. Well, my math was wrong, I hit the regular guard, the attack hit Mario and good night haha. At this point, of course I continued as the run was already illegitimate anyway. Outside of that, the most strategy I employed was waiting for the Arantulas to go into low position and then (try to) put them to sleep before employing Koops in Peril. No major issues, no major item use.
Floors 91-99: Well, this section was wild in a couple of ways. Floor 91 gave me 5 Elite Wizzerds. These dudes are brutal. I am AWFUL at Superguarding their attacks. I had gotten an extra Shooting Star from an Item Hog drop earlier, and I used two on the first turn to get rid of them. This is what I saved them for anyway! At this point, the Star Points were accumulating so fast that Peril strats were incredibly challenging to get into. I’d let the partners die if the math didn’t work out, but that would only work for one battle at a time, as the next level up came so quickly. I wonder if starting at a higher level would have helped prevent this, but at the expense of some healing. Anyway, I dealt with Poison Puffs almost identically to the Arantulas: wait until they get low and then try to put them to sleep/get them with Peril Goombella. Floor 93 I got bailed out with 4 Bob-ulks. Easy peasy. But, I think we all know the most dangerous enemies to face: Amayzee Dayzees. And oh buddy, on Floor 94, I got the 2 Amayzee Dayzee combo. Yikes. No way to take them out in the first turn (yeah, I wish I had Multibonk right about now). So, I had to take my chances. I tried putting one to sleep, and it did not take. Fate was with the Gods, and lo and behold, they both ran. Phew. Unfortunately, this had a bit of an adverse effect. I got far fewer star points from that battle with fewer enemies, and I did not level up. Then, on Floor 95, I got a Mover. Okay, I had options. I had Goombella in Peril, but not Koops. I also had only 15 FP after all healing items, and about 20 HP. I decided to go straight to Bonetail. I’m not sure if the official rules outlaw Movers, but ya know, I had already died twice, and I wanted to see how hard Bonetail was, so I went in. Looking back, maybe just taking two floors down and doing the last couple battles to increase HP and FP some more with a couple levels + a potential heal would’ve been smarter. Happy Heart and Happy Flower were going to be necessary, but I neglected to take off Item Hog/Flower Finder for Pity Flower which would have been much more useful. Very silly oversight. But, here we go.
Bonetail: I opened with Goombella in front, tattled, then switched into Koops, hoping I could get him into Peril as well and ultimately lay down a Shell Shield. Here’s a problem I easily could have seen ahead of time but didn’t: Bonetail does 8 damage (and piercing) on the breath attack. Koops has 15 HP, so the attack bypasses Last Stand P for him. What I SHOULD have done is use regular guards on two straight attacks with a Shell Shield up for Mario and I would have been in Peril. I instead tried to Superguard and missed, and then I was in trouble. I still could have gotten out of this, and I tried to. I put Koops in front, defended, and hoped I got the stomp attack. But alas, another breath, and then Koops went down. Peril Goombella was a menu click away, but I decided to rock with Mario alone for a bit, and I realized something. When you Sweet Treat with a partner, you can get about 8 or 9 HP per person + FP. But, with Mario alone, I noticed I was getting about 11 HP per Sweet Treat. So, I stayed Mario only instead of bringing Goombella in. The strategy was pretty simple: Fire Drive as much as possible, Sweet Treat, get two moves out (and hit the Stylish to fill back up the Star Power), Superguard a million times, and hope I don’t get bit. I didn’t hit them all, and I got bailed out by a Shine Sprite bingo after missing a breath Superguard that left me asleep. I would’ve surely been in major trouble, but between some Lucky misses, some steadfast Superguarding, and multiple heals from Bonetail, I drove him all the way to 0 without bringing Goombella back out. The math on getting enough FP back/having enough Star Powetaking too much damage was delicate. Basically, I could afford about 8 damage every three turns. I got very fortunate with the small amount of bite attacks (assuming those are still not Superguardable? If they are, I never hit one haha), and was able to stave off the rest of the attacks. However, my crowd continued to dwindle for whatever reason, so that 8 damage every three turns turned into every four turns before I could get enough Star Power to Sweet Treat again. It was an absolute GRIND, and I was insanely nervous by the end, but I managed to do just enough and lay the last Fire Drive in the end.
So, even though I didn’t technically complete an official run, I had a blast with the challenge that I will gladly be attempting again soon. I didn’t save and kept the file before I upgraded my partnetraded the star pieces/whatnot so I can try some other strategies quickly. In any case, it was super fun and refreshing, and I highly recommend that anybody who has played this game to completion to give it a go! It’s hard, but I’m sure it will be truly rewarding when I eventually complete it.
submitted by oscarrzod to papermario [link] [comments]
I, unfortunately, had to use the "Try Again" feature twice, so no, it is not an official run (but I will absolutely be trying again for a legitimate run soon now that I know more about what I need), but it was still super fun, and I wanted to share how it went and where I went wrong.
Okay, my loadout:
- I was Level 3 when I started. I believe it's possible to go in at Level 2, but I did a couple optional battles. I'm sure there were some ramifications on healing that I could've calculated, but I was flying by the seat of my pants a bit. Didn't seem to have a big effect (by the later floors, I was leveling up every 2-3 fights most of the time)
- Decided to upgrade Koops over Goombella. I knew going in it was the worse choice (Goombella does 4 damage output vs. Koops 3 + Multibonk with Mega Rush P is nasty), but my rationalization was that I valued Powershell to take out multiple enemies while in Peril more, and I genuinely did not think I would have a chance against Bonetail without Shell Shield (this will become ironic later)
- From Dazzle, I chose to get Item Hog, Flower Finder and Pretty Lucky. I liked this a lot--Power Plus or Power Plus P would have been nice, yeah, but Item Hog was so critical. I would've had multiple more deaths without some really nice healing drops (including a Shooting Star that saved my butt in the 90s Floors). I think Quick Change is viable and would be interested to try it, but the BP allotment is heavy, and I would've dearly missed Flower Finder or Item Hog.
- Got all badges possible including the shop as expected (the Petalburg shop has about a million Sleepy Sheep in its inventory now, if you need any :) )
- I brought a handful of healing items, the Hooktail’s Castle Life Shroom, maybe 3 or 4 Fire Flowers, two POW blocks (next time, I'm bringing more of these haha), and the Thunder Rage + Shooting Star + Life Shroom from the shop points. Didn't buy any Fright Masks (couldn't maybe? I think after activating the Zess T. quest I lost the shop slot for them), but I would have if I knew how handy they would be after getting a couple from item drops.
Floors 1-49: Really nothing particularly noteworthy here. I got my feet wet with the low damage output, but there were no serious scares. Lakitus and Shady Koopas were a little annoying, but a little patience and it was no problem. I heavily prioritized BP upgrades here--probably the first five level-ups, and then an FP, and then two or three more BP. I think this strategy was helpful. All Clefts tended to be annoying as well, but the Superguards on them are very simple. Notably, Piercing Blow, Sleep Stomp, Fire Drive and Zap Tap were all used heavily in this run, which was refreshing as I’ve never really used any of these in normal play! But in a run like this, you have to get creative. I skipped multiple Movers here. I just wanted to take on the full challenge.
Floors 51-59: Here was my first death, this one coming from simply poor play. Played it a bit too risky and missed a Superguard on a Dark Boo. So, that’s where the run technically ended, but I wanted to keep going to learn more about what the lower floors have to offer, so I hit “Try Again” and kept plugging along. I used a Fright Mask at least once on this section (I believe it was four Ice Puffs?). Also, this is where I started to learn how annoying it can be to get/keep your partners in Peril. Badge Bandits were a real pain without having one or both partners in Peril, but as I’m sure you all know, they changed how healing works on a level up. In the original game, only the partner that was out in battle during a level up was healed fully. Now, the whole party heals. For casual players, this is great! For runs like this, it is a bit annoying. Ultimately, it just means you have to do a lot more tattling (or Googling, I suppose) for damage outputs and math to get back to Peril. The saving grace is that if you allow a partner to fall in battle, they are revived to 1 HP after the battle. Only issue is if a heart drops in the field and you happen to be standing over top of it, you’re very unhelpfully back to 2 or 3 HP (another very avoidable issue in the original game, as I would imagine you would typically NEVER have your Peril partner in the end of the battle anyway). But outside of that, Fire Drive was the Mario move of choice here.
Floors 61-69: Peril Koops was big time here, but Peril Goombella was also massive for the Dark Lakitus. And shoutout to Piercing Blow for help with the Spiky bois. The Craws have a lot of HP, but it was more patience than anything else, as the Superguard timing is pretty straightforward and they have no defense.
Floors 71-79: Swoopulas, Chain-Chomps, Wizzerds, and Dark Koopatrols. This is where a couple extra POW blocks would have been useful (and later for Dark Bristles). Phantom Embers were largely easy (although, no Fire Drive on them of course, so Koops and Power Smash to the rescue). Sleep Stomp was a key tactic for larger groups on the Swoopulas and Wizzerds, although the success rate on the Wizzerds was low. Used up a Thunder Rage and a couple Fire Flowers here to get out of jail.
Floors 81-89: Spunias and Piranha Plants were nothing exciting, but here was death number two of the run. This one was a math mistake. In an attempt to get Koops into Peril from an Arantula shot, I THOUGHT that any regular guard would get him there, and if I misread the throw and it was actually headed toward Mario, he would survive with a regular guard as well. Well, my math was wrong, I hit the regular guard, the attack hit Mario and good night haha. At this point, of course I continued as the run was already illegitimate anyway. Outside of that, the most strategy I employed was waiting for the Arantulas to go into low position and then (try to) put them to sleep before employing Koops in Peril. No major issues, no major item use.
Floors 91-99: Well, this section was wild in a couple of ways. Floor 91 gave me 5 Elite Wizzerds. These dudes are brutal. I am AWFUL at Superguarding their attacks. I had gotten an extra Shooting Star from an Item Hog drop earlier, and I used two on the first turn to get rid of them. This is what I saved them for anyway! At this point, the Star Points were accumulating so fast that Peril strats were incredibly challenging to get into. I’d let the partners die if the math didn’t work out, but that would only work for one battle at a time, as the next level up came so quickly. I wonder if starting at a higher level would have helped prevent this, but at the expense of some healing. Anyway, I dealt with Poison Puffs almost identically to the Arantulas: wait until they get low and then try to put them to sleep/get them with Peril Goombella. Floor 93 I got bailed out with 4 Bob-ulks. Easy peasy. But, I think we all know the most dangerous enemies to face: Amayzee Dayzees. And oh buddy, on Floor 94, I got the 2 Amayzee Dayzee combo. Yikes. No way to take them out in the first turn (yeah, I wish I had Multibonk right about now). So, I had to take my chances. I tried putting one to sleep, and it did not take. Fate was with the Gods, and lo and behold, they both ran. Phew. Unfortunately, this had a bit of an adverse effect. I got far fewer star points from that battle with fewer enemies, and I did not level up. Then, on Floor 95, I got a Mover. Okay, I had options. I had Goombella in Peril, but not Koops. I also had only 15 FP after all healing items, and about 20 HP. I decided to go straight to Bonetail. I’m not sure if the official rules outlaw Movers, but ya know, I had already died twice, and I wanted to see how hard Bonetail was, so I went in. Looking back, maybe just taking two floors down and doing the last couple battles to increase HP and FP some more with a couple levels + a potential heal would’ve been smarter. Happy Heart and Happy Flower were going to be necessary, but I neglected to take off Item Hog/Flower Finder for Pity Flower which would have been much more useful. Very silly oversight. But, here we go.
Bonetail: I opened with Goombella in front, tattled, then switched into Koops, hoping I could get him into Peril as well and ultimately lay down a Shell Shield. Here’s a problem I easily could have seen ahead of time but didn’t: Bonetail does 8 damage (and piercing) on the breath attack. Koops has 15 HP, so the attack bypasses Last Stand P for him. What I SHOULD have done is use regular guards on two straight attacks with a Shell Shield up for Mario and I would have been in Peril. I instead tried to Superguard and missed, and then I was in trouble. I still could have gotten out of this, and I tried to. I put Koops in front, defended, and hoped I got the stomp attack. But alas, another breath, and then Koops went down. Peril Goombella was a menu click away, but I decided to rock with Mario alone for a bit, and I realized something. When you Sweet Treat with a partner, you can get about 8 or 9 HP per person + FP. But, with Mario alone, I noticed I was getting about 11 HP per Sweet Treat. So, I stayed Mario only instead of bringing Goombella in. The strategy was pretty simple: Fire Drive as much as possible, Sweet Treat, get two moves out (and hit the Stylish to fill back up the Star Power), Superguard a million times, and hope I don’t get bit. I didn’t hit them all, and I got bailed out by a Shine Sprite bingo after missing a breath Superguard that left me asleep. I would’ve surely been in major trouble, but between some Lucky misses, some steadfast Superguarding, and multiple heals from Bonetail, I drove him all the way to 0 without bringing Goombella back out. The math on getting enough FP back/having enough Star Powetaking too much damage was delicate. Basically, I could afford about 8 damage every three turns. I got very fortunate with the small amount of bite attacks (assuming those are still not Superguardable? If they are, I never hit one haha), and was able to stave off the rest of the attacks. However, my crowd continued to dwindle for whatever reason, so that 8 damage every three turns turned into every four turns before I could get enough Star Power to Sweet Treat again. It was an absolute GRIND, and I was insanely nervous by the end, but I managed to do just enough and lay the last Fire Drive in the end.
So, even though I didn’t technically complete an official run, I had a blast with the challenge that I will gladly be attempting again soon. I didn’t save and kept the file before I upgraded my partnetraded the star pieces/whatnot so I can try some other strategies quickly. In any case, it was super fun and refreshing, and I highly recommend that anybody who has played this game to completion to give it a go! It’s hard, but I’m sure it will be truly rewarding when I eventually complete it.
2024.06.09 22:14 yeah_I_guess_so_lol Mold found behind baseboards during remodel - what are my options?
 | I am currently replacing the tile and a couple other things in my lakehouse and the company doing the rehab informed me I have mold behind the baseboards in one of the rooms. Obviously, I'm not thrilled of this discovery. They said they recommend pulling off the drywall to open it up to track down the leak which they believe is being caused by the 2nd-story deck directly above this room which makes sense to me. They've estimated $4k to open up the wall, treat the mold and fix the wall back as is. Fixing the leak on the roof/deck is a whole other expense, which is very large. I'm stretched thin on funds at the moment and didn't budget for something like this, so what are my logical/realistic options? I am leaning towards just treating the visible mold, then having new trim installed after the tiles are replaced, and tackling the leak down the road when I am able. Thoughts on that? Also, could this amount of mold be the result of water on the floor instead of a leak behind the wall? Lastly, how soon should I get the potential leak/wall treated? The rehab company seems very confident in their speculation of the source of the leak, but we have no way of knowing until the wall is opened up. All help and discussion is appreciated. submitted by yeah_I_guess_so_lol to Construction [link] [comments] |
2024.06.09 22:11 thiccsaucy My Co-worker is an adult toddler. Can’t/Won’t complete tasks and won’t stop texting me!!
This woman is making me lose my gourd so I must share. So I’m a front desk worker. One of my co-workers is a middle aged woman who I can only describe as a volatile toddler.
Here’s just a small sampling of the crap I have to deal with
It takes forever to teach her new tasks. I had to go as far as to make a full 30 slide PowerPoint to show her how to fill out one sheet of paper we’re suppose to fill out at the end of shifts. She still manages to get confused and mess something up, or decides to not even do them. This paper is saved under a folder on our desk computer. She’ll end up opening and saving a bunch of files to that folder instead of opening and filling out the sheet she’s suppose to. Does she delete the junk she made? Nope! She texts me the next day at noon to tell me what happened. If she screws up, I’m expected to fix it.
Speaking of texting, she loves to text me. Especially if she didn’t do something the night before. She texted me today that she didn’t take the trash out last night. If she didn’t fill out paper work, she’ll text me about that too. If I don’t respond, she’ll call me while I’m at the desk, just to make sure I saw she texted about not doing what she’s suppose to do.
She even texts me when I’m not working! She texted me last week about there being bits of paper on the floor at the desk. She didn’t do it and she just doesn’t know where they came from and couldn’t pick them up. She hopes I’m not mad!…. We have a cleaning crew that handles that stuff. I don’t care about paper on the floor, I’m more mad at you not doing your job!
If she doesn’t text me, she’ll make sure to leave me nice little notes for me to see when I get in at 8 in the morning. Someone left something and it was brought to the desk. Did she call the person to let them know their lost items was found? Nope! She writes down the persons phone number and address on a sticky note with a little message saying they left it here after an event…. Ok?? You took the time to find and write all this stuff down but not to call the person yourself? Cool!
I try to be so patient with her and try to be kind despite my infuriation. Does she extend the same kindness? Nope!
If I ask her to switch or cover shifts for me one time, Nope! Normally that’s fine. Not forcing anyone to switch or cover shifts. If you don’t want to you don’t want to. That’s not what makes me mad. What makes me mad is how she responds every. Single. Time. When I ask her, it’s like a major inconvenience for her if I simply ask. Like it’s ridiculous I’m even asking her or I’m forcing her to cover my shift. She insists she’s absolutely not coming in! She’s scheduled to come in in the morning. She will not come in in the afternoon!!
She’ll get mad at me for asking to switch shifts, only for her to call out a few days later cause it’s drizzling out or she woke up and it was cold. Then I have to pick up her slack and cover she shifts.
Finally, my favorite stint she pulled. So I started making the weekly staff schedule a few months ago. After the first month of making the schedule, I get an angry text from her. Her name was the last one on the schedule. How dare I do that to her! She’ll be reporting me to our supervisor…. The schedule had been formatted like that for a month at that point. The same schedule my supervisor had been approving every week before being sent out to the staff…. Can’t make this up. I talked to my supervisor about it later that day. I’ve never seen a more confused look on a persons face.
I confronted my coworker about it a few days later. Suddenly she wasn’t so bold. She was all “I’m sorry about that I hope your not mad”…..gurl.
My work place is very sane and not at all infuriating :)
submitted by thiccsaucy to mildlyinfuriating [link] [comments]
Here’s just a small sampling of the crap I have to deal with
It takes forever to teach her new tasks. I had to go as far as to make a full 30 slide PowerPoint to show her how to fill out one sheet of paper we’re suppose to fill out at the end of shifts. She still manages to get confused and mess something up, or decides to not even do them. This paper is saved under a folder on our desk computer. She’ll end up opening and saving a bunch of files to that folder instead of opening and filling out the sheet she’s suppose to. Does she delete the junk she made? Nope! She texts me the next day at noon to tell me what happened. If she screws up, I’m expected to fix it.
Speaking of texting, she loves to text me. Especially if she didn’t do something the night before. She texted me today that she didn’t take the trash out last night. If she didn’t fill out paper work, she’ll text me about that too. If I don’t respond, she’ll call me while I’m at the desk, just to make sure I saw she texted about not doing what she’s suppose to do.
She even texts me when I’m not working! She texted me last week about there being bits of paper on the floor at the desk. She didn’t do it and she just doesn’t know where they came from and couldn’t pick them up. She hopes I’m not mad!…. We have a cleaning crew that handles that stuff. I don’t care about paper on the floor, I’m more mad at you not doing your job!
If she doesn’t text me, she’ll make sure to leave me nice little notes for me to see when I get in at 8 in the morning. Someone left something and it was brought to the desk. Did she call the person to let them know their lost items was found? Nope! She writes down the persons phone number and address on a sticky note with a little message saying they left it here after an event…. Ok?? You took the time to find and write all this stuff down but not to call the person yourself? Cool!
I try to be so patient with her and try to be kind despite my infuriation. Does she extend the same kindness? Nope!
If I ask her to switch or cover shifts for me one time, Nope! Normally that’s fine. Not forcing anyone to switch or cover shifts. If you don’t want to you don’t want to. That’s not what makes me mad. What makes me mad is how she responds every. Single. Time. When I ask her, it’s like a major inconvenience for her if I simply ask. Like it’s ridiculous I’m even asking her or I’m forcing her to cover my shift. She insists she’s absolutely not coming in! She’s scheduled to come in in the morning. She will not come in in the afternoon!!
She’ll get mad at me for asking to switch shifts, only for her to call out a few days later cause it’s drizzling out or she woke up and it was cold. Then I have to pick up her slack and cover she shifts.
Finally, my favorite stint she pulled. So I started making the weekly staff schedule a few months ago. After the first month of making the schedule, I get an angry text from her. Her name was the last one on the schedule. How dare I do that to her! She’ll be reporting me to our supervisor…. The schedule had been formatted like that for a month at that point. The same schedule my supervisor had been approving every week before being sent out to the staff…. Can’t make this up. I talked to my supervisor about it later that day. I’ve never seen a more confused look on a persons face.
I confronted my coworker about it a few days later. Suddenly she wasn’t so bold. She was all “I’m sorry about that I hope your not mad”…..gurl.
My work place is very sane and not at all infuriating :)
2024.06.09 22:10 Leading_Musician7890 Whats going on with $Ceezur?
 | If you have been following $Ceezur you would've seen how one of our whales got hacked and lost everything getting rid of a lot of the liquidity, you would think that this would be the end of $Ceezur but you'd be completely mistaken. The team immediately got together and started working on getting the coin back to where it should be, went from 20k all the way back to about 110k and the new floor is now set, the community is one of the best I've ever seen and thats with just the 240 members we currently have, super active and I see it growing to the 1000’s very soon. Also the roadmap is crazy, Airdrops at almost every milestone to our holders, giveaways for free trips to rome, ufc fights, coin listings on all crypto platforms, and much much more as we keep getting bigger. We are growing organically but I cant promise we will ever be this low again especially with the marketing we have coming in the following weeks (cartoons and art being made for the coin and much more). I dont see $Ceezur stopping anytime soon, so join our telegram and help $Ceezur take over Solana. submitted by Leading_Musician7890 to memecoins [link] [comments] |
2024.06.09 22:09 crazygay4hire Peircings not allowed
I (35m) used to work at a hardware store that rhymes with blows. About ten years ago I was a sales associate out on the floor. One day I decided to get my industrials pierced because as I knew the policy I noticed the front end and a few managers had piercings that did not fit in the policy so thought it was a bit lax. After I got the piercings I got wrote up for not following policy. So I researched the policy and purchased a blows beanie so I could meet all dress codes while covering them up. I still got wrote up and I started disputing with HR about it because they were covered and I was following policy even though they were ignoring policy on the front end and allowing them to have face peircings. After a few weeks of fighting it ended up going to HR outside of the store. District HR calls me in for a meeting with a few store managers and the local HR. HR and managers inform me that even though they are covered blows still has a no piercings above a certain amount, location, and size policy even though they can't see them and I need to get rid of them because they say it's a safety hazard. In comes my compliance questions. I ask how they know I'm wearing and breaking policy if they can not see them. They say they have the right to ask me to take off beanie if they think I have them in and that they notice them in my ears when I'm walking into my shift. I repeat with a slightly different question. "So does that mean your going to make me whip my d*ck out every shift to make sure I don't have my c0ck peircing in? Are you going to make everyone take off shirts to verify no one is wearing nipple piercings?" HR started backtracking real fast. (I actually don't have a c0ck peircings or nipple piercings, but they didn't know that). After questioning the policy and arguing they couldn't enforce what they couldn't see without sexually harassing people to fit their policy. HR ended up dropping all wright ups and two weeks later blows changed the piercing policy to allow more piercing options and dyed hair. I like to think I helped with that policy change.
TLDR; HR wrote me up for peircings I had covered. I fought them with inappropriate piercing placement questions. They ended up changing policy.
submitted by crazygay4hire to MaliciousCompliance [link] [comments]
TLDR; HR wrote me up for peircings I had covered. I fought them with inappropriate piercing placement questions. They ended up changing policy.
2024.06.09 22:06 allthedarkspaces it crawls
Like all haunted house stories, this took place right after I moved in. Cliché, right? My wife and I saved up enough money from our rental to finally put down on a house of our own. So we moved in and everything seemed right...at first.
It wasn’t until later that I realized there were warning signs. The seller seemed really anxious to close, and we were offered a much cheaper price than we expected for the space we got. While there was a moment of doubt, we brushed it off as some weird circumstance that ended in a great deal for us.
How could we possibly pass that up?
The strange occurrences were small at first. I would be up late watching TV and swore I heard something. I’d pause the show and make out what sounded like dragging noises. After investigating, I wouldn’t find anything. Even stranger was that no matter where I walked in the house, the noise always sounded the same distance away. When I focused on it, I noticed the particular noise was rhythmic.
Tap, tap...sliiiiiiide.
It was like that every single time. My wife never heard it, it was only me. None of us believe in ghosts, mind you. But as I said before it was a small thing, so I brushed it off.
One night, I woke up in a startle. I listened intently but could hear nothing. I decided to grab a late night snack from the kitchen since I was awake anyway.
Halfway down the hall, I heard something. This time, it sounded like dirt being sifted und. I knelt down and swore that the sound was louder. Before I knew it, I had my ear pressed to the hardwood floor, listening intently.
Schht, schht.....sccchhhhhhh...
I jumped up from the floor. It was that same pattern of noises, but this time it sounded like someone in the dirt. Trying to ignore the chills washing over me, I took a step towards the kitchen when…
…something grabbed my ankle.
I fell forward, almost busting my chin on the floor.
“What the...”
Flipping over, I turned to face my assailant, but there was no one behind me. I brushed it off and chalked it up to poor balance from a sleep-hangover. My wife got a good chuckle out of that one.
After that, the house began to feel.....heavier. It was this weight over me that would come and go. This was accompanied by feeling cold no matter how much we turned up the heat, and this was the middle of the summer. Even stranger, the cold seemed to only be in certain spots, particularly on the floor itself. I liked to walk around barefoot no matter what time of year it was, but it was even too cold for me.
Another night, I woke up again. My ears stood at attention, but couldn’t hear any evidence of what woke me up. I got up just like before, except I never made it to the kitchen.
I only made if halfway down our hall before I suddenly felt a horrible pain in my right leg. I had to limp to keep moving, then my other leg was wracked with a wave of pain. It was so bad I found myself face down on the ground, writhing in agony.
Then I heard it again…that awful succession of noises.
Tap, tap....sliiiiiide.
The sliding sound was coming from the hardwood floor this time, not from underneath. And the sound was getting closer and closer until...
I watched in horror as a hand came around the corner in front of me. It was soon joined by another, and they tugged at the floor. My heart hammered in my chest as a person slowly came into view.
It was a woman with long black hair, her disheveled clothing smeared with dirt and hanging off in shreds. Her mouth was crudely stitched shut. She looked up at me with empty, lost eyes and I instantly felt a lifetime of pain and misery. It took my breath away, and I had to focus on my breathing to keep myself from fainting.
Tap, tap....sliiiiiide.
That awful sound repeated as she grabbed the floor and pulled herself towards me. I was in a terrified trance, eyes locked with her as she slowly closed the distance. I could now see that she dragged herself because her legs were horribly mangled. A low moan emanated from her throat, sending ice through my veins.
Her very presence seemed to drain me, and I couldn’t move no matter how hard I tried. She made this awful gurgling sound as she got within arm’s reach. In seconds, her face was right up to mine. I tried to scream, but couldn’t make any sound.
Then...I woke up.
“AAAAHHhhh!” I shouted as I sprang up in bed.
My wife tried to console me, but it did very little. I’d never had a dream that felt so real before. Shaking, I walked out into the hallway where I had collapsed in my dream. I put a hand on the floor, expecting it to be freezing cold as usual.
But it was warm...
“Honey?” I felt the soft hand of my wife touch my shoulder.
“What’s going on? You look white as a sheet.”
“I’m okay...I just...”
On the floor in front me, I noticed the faint trace of fingernail marks.
“Was that there before?” My wife inquired.
“I’m...I’m not sure.”
“Let’s go back to bed. We’ll talk more about it tomorrow.”
I tried to hold back my stubborn expression, but she still saw it.
“C’mon, you need to rest.”
With an exasperated exhale, I went back to bed with the strange occurrence replaying incessantly in my brain.
In the morning, I told my wife about all the strange experiences. To my shock she actually believed me.
“What do you want to do, then?” She asked.
“Well...I have a theory I want to check out.”
“Theory of what?”
“Well, let’s just say that ghosts exist, and there are certain reasons why they haunt certain places. If that is true then...I think there could be a body in our crawlspace.”
“What, are you crazy?”
“I know how it sounds, but what would it hurt to look?”
“You really think there’s something down there?”
“More someone, but I’m not sure to be honest. Hopefully I can get a confirmation either way it goes.”
That afternoon, I found myself standing at the door to our crawlspace. It felt ridiculous, but so many details pointed to it. The sounds and cold spots were all related to the floor. The ghastly woman’s clothes were smeared with dirt. It was obscure, but it was all I had to go on.
I had to pry the door open with a crowbar, but I managed after a minute or two. A wave of unnatural cold air blasted me, so strong that I had to throw on a coat just to stop from shivering so badly.
I clicked on my flashlight, illuminating the eerie underbelly of our home. The dirt sifted under my feet as I crouch-walked around. After hearing it, it only confirmed what I thought I heard from under the floor.
Expecting to see more, I was almost disappointed that the crawlspace was completely bare. Not believing it entirely, I shined my light around more. The back part of the crawlspace led to concrete and it was there that I noticed one section of the wall looked different than the rest.
Hands quivering, I pushed against the section of concrete and felt it shift under the pressure. It continued to wobble around in place the more I pushed. Holding my flashlight between my teeth, I had to use both hands to pry the piece away from the wall. To my astonishment, it pulled away very easily. It was no coincidence that the section of wall fit the hole exactly, like a puzzle piece.
After leaning the piece of concrete against the wall, I found that the concrete was covering a door with a padlock.
There’s no way anything good is behind this...
Minutes later, I returned to the mysterious door with a pair of bolt cutters. I debated whether or not I’d go in. There was no reason I shouldn’t satisfy my curiosity, because if there wasn’t anything then great, but if there was something terrible, I’d simply have to deal with it. Either way, I had to know.
I clipped the metal bar off the lock and it thudded softly to the dirt floor. Taking in a deep breath, I dared to aim my beam down the opening. The crawlspace extended much further into the house, and I had a good guess where it led. I now had to crawl on my hands and knees as a knot of dread formed in my stomach.
“You always tell people not to do this in movies, why are you doing this now??!” I chastised myself.
I knew all too well how stupid this was but the part of my brain that can’t look away from a car wreck pushed me to carry along regardless.
It was difficult to navigate with the flashlight and crawl. A mild claustrophobia settled in that pushed me along with a sense of urgency. The temperature couldn’t have been any more than a meatlocker. My hands shook despite my thick jacket. Eventually, I came to a dead end.
Is this all?
I stopped for a moment and checked around with my light some more, hoping a more thorough search would bear some fruit. Yet, there was nothing.
Sighing in frustration, I decided that perhaps I was losing my mind and was just having really vivid dreams after all. How could I have been so stupid?
I made it halfway across the hidden area when I felt my legs suddenly give out. They weren’t tired or sore before this. It was as if they stopped working of their own volition. I attempted to cry out, but my mouth felt as if some force held it closed.
Just like a stitched mouth...
One of the few things I could move was my neck and I turned to the side to see...
…a tuft of a blanket?
Due to the narrow space, I must have missed it. I slowly reached for it with all the internal alarms in my body going off at once. Ignoring the warning, I pulled the cloth back to reveal a skeletal hand.
In this moment of revulsion, something turned on my motor skills again as I regained control of my legs, crawling out of there as quickly as I could muster. Heaving, I stumbled out of the crawlspace and instantly felt the rise in temperature. I sat on the porch and stayed there as I called the police and explained the situation.
It turns out that one of the previous owners of the home was a major suspect in the disappearance of a young lady fifteen years ago. There wasn’t enough evidence to conduct a home search so they were never able to find the body. And what they found was something I wish I had never known.
From examining the body, they found that her captor had broken both of her legs so she couldn’t escape and sewn her mouth shut to keep her from screaming. It was hard to tell how long she’d been locked down there before she died, but they hypothesized it was a month or two. The cause of death was unclear. This was clearly enough to pursue the former owner.
When they picked him up, the guy tried to play the ignorance card, pretending as if he didn’t know what house they were referring to. This of course made it even more suspicious.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything concrete enough to tie him to her death...until they searched his current home. Blueprints of the home showed that the crawlspace was supposed to end ten feet where the concrete wall was. No contractors were hired to do any work on the home, so someone had personally busted it up and created the door going further in. The last part of it was the padlock on the door.
When the police searched the man’s home, they found a shoebox full of seemingly innocent keepsakes. Among the keepsakes were some heirlooms, pictures of close family members, and a key. As suspected, the key matched the padlock to the crawlspace door. It was apparently enough to make him crack. It wasn’t long before he confessed to the kidnapping and murder, albeit without a hint of remorse. Turns out the bastard kept the key as a sick trophy.
They even questioned him about other possible victims since this was a trait commonly shared by serial killers. He denied it, but the police couldn’t feel any truth from it. If anything they knew that they solved one case, put a guilty man behind bars, and put a family at peace. Justice was served and he was locked away for the rest of his miserable life. Poetic justice, if you ask me. The poor girl’s parents buried her remains on a family plot.
After all this, we had serious doubts about staying in the home. Knowing something this egregious happened in our home was almost unbearable. I can’t tell you how much we cried when we heard the story of what happened to that poor girl. We were on the brink of selling the house for about a week, but one night changed all that.
I woke up from a dream, one so vivid yet it somehow escaped my thoughts like a fistful of sand. There was a strange feeling in my gut as if something was going to happen.
It was neither good nor bad, just....strange.
After drinking a small glass of milk, I meandered down the hall and stopped in my tracks. A woman stood in front of me, half-transparent with a bluish luminescence. I felt as if I knew her, although I didn’t recognize her appearance at all. She smiled, and I instantly knew who she was. Compared to her previous horrific manifestation, the woman was almost unrecognizable.
Never speaking, she motioned to her legs and I saw that they were in perfect condition. In a mild state of shock, I managed to form a smile. She beamed even wider and ran her fingers across her lips, pointing out her lack of stitches. A blanket of warmth wrapped around me, and I couldn’t resist the salty tears that streamed down my face.
Right before she waved goodbye, a voice spoke within my mind.
"It’s over now. Thank you..."
She faded away, and for the first time since we moved into that house, all hints of the oppressive energy dissipated. That was the last time I ever saw her.
It’s been 30 years now, and we’re still in that house to this day...
May she continue to rest in peace...
submitted by allthedarkspaces to scaryshortstories [link] [comments]
It wasn’t until later that I realized there were warning signs. The seller seemed really anxious to close, and we were offered a much cheaper price than we expected for the space we got. While there was a moment of doubt, we brushed it off as some weird circumstance that ended in a great deal for us.
How could we possibly pass that up?
The strange occurrences were small at first. I would be up late watching TV and swore I heard something. I’d pause the show and make out what sounded like dragging noises. After investigating, I wouldn’t find anything. Even stranger was that no matter where I walked in the house, the noise always sounded the same distance away. When I focused on it, I noticed the particular noise was rhythmic.
Tap, tap...sliiiiiiide.
It was like that every single time. My wife never heard it, it was only me. None of us believe in ghosts, mind you. But as I said before it was a small thing, so I brushed it off.
One night, I woke up in a startle. I listened intently but could hear nothing. I decided to grab a late night snack from the kitchen since I was awake anyway.
Halfway down the hall, I heard something. This time, it sounded like dirt being sifted und. I knelt down and swore that the sound was louder. Before I knew it, I had my ear pressed to the hardwood floor, listening intently.
Schht, schht.....sccchhhhhhh...
I jumped up from the floor. It was that same pattern of noises, but this time it sounded like someone in the dirt. Trying to ignore the chills washing over me, I took a step towards the kitchen when…
…something grabbed my ankle.
I fell forward, almost busting my chin on the floor.
“What the...”
Flipping over, I turned to face my assailant, but there was no one behind me. I brushed it off and chalked it up to poor balance from a sleep-hangover. My wife got a good chuckle out of that one.
After that, the house began to feel.....heavier. It was this weight over me that would come and go. This was accompanied by feeling cold no matter how much we turned up the heat, and this was the middle of the summer. Even stranger, the cold seemed to only be in certain spots, particularly on the floor itself. I liked to walk around barefoot no matter what time of year it was, but it was even too cold for me.
Another night, I woke up again. My ears stood at attention, but couldn’t hear any evidence of what woke me up. I got up just like before, except I never made it to the kitchen.
I only made if halfway down our hall before I suddenly felt a horrible pain in my right leg. I had to limp to keep moving, then my other leg was wracked with a wave of pain. It was so bad I found myself face down on the ground, writhing in agony.
Then I heard it again…that awful succession of noises.
Tap, tap....sliiiiiide.
The sliding sound was coming from the hardwood floor this time, not from underneath. And the sound was getting closer and closer until...
I watched in horror as a hand came around the corner in front of me. It was soon joined by another, and they tugged at the floor. My heart hammered in my chest as a person slowly came into view.
It was a woman with long black hair, her disheveled clothing smeared with dirt and hanging off in shreds. Her mouth was crudely stitched shut. She looked up at me with empty, lost eyes and I instantly felt a lifetime of pain and misery. It took my breath away, and I had to focus on my breathing to keep myself from fainting.
Tap, tap....sliiiiiide.
That awful sound repeated as she grabbed the floor and pulled herself towards me. I was in a terrified trance, eyes locked with her as she slowly closed the distance. I could now see that she dragged herself because her legs were horribly mangled. A low moan emanated from her throat, sending ice through my veins.
Her very presence seemed to drain me, and I couldn’t move no matter how hard I tried. She made this awful gurgling sound as she got within arm’s reach. In seconds, her face was right up to mine. I tried to scream, but couldn’t make any sound.
Then...I woke up.
“AAAAHHhhh!” I shouted as I sprang up in bed.
My wife tried to console me, but it did very little. I’d never had a dream that felt so real before. Shaking, I walked out into the hallway where I had collapsed in my dream. I put a hand on the floor, expecting it to be freezing cold as usual.
But it was warm...
“Honey?” I felt the soft hand of my wife touch my shoulder.
“What’s going on? You look white as a sheet.”
“I’m okay...I just...”
On the floor in front me, I noticed the faint trace of fingernail marks.
“Was that there before?” My wife inquired.
“I’m...I’m not sure.”
“Let’s go back to bed. We’ll talk more about it tomorrow.”
I tried to hold back my stubborn expression, but she still saw it.
“C’mon, you need to rest.”
With an exasperated exhale, I went back to bed with the strange occurrence replaying incessantly in my brain.
In the morning, I told my wife about all the strange experiences. To my shock she actually believed me.
“What do you want to do, then?” She asked.
“Well...I have a theory I want to check out.”
“Theory of what?”
“Well, let’s just say that ghosts exist, and there are certain reasons why they haunt certain places. If that is true then...I think there could be a body in our crawlspace.”
“What, are you crazy?”
“I know how it sounds, but what would it hurt to look?”
“You really think there’s something down there?”
“More someone, but I’m not sure to be honest. Hopefully I can get a confirmation either way it goes.”
That afternoon, I found myself standing at the door to our crawlspace. It felt ridiculous, but so many details pointed to it. The sounds and cold spots were all related to the floor. The ghastly woman’s clothes were smeared with dirt. It was obscure, but it was all I had to go on.
I had to pry the door open with a crowbar, but I managed after a minute or two. A wave of unnatural cold air blasted me, so strong that I had to throw on a coat just to stop from shivering so badly.
I clicked on my flashlight, illuminating the eerie underbelly of our home. The dirt sifted under my feet as I crouch-walked around. After hearing it, it only confirmed what I thought I heard from under the floor.
Expecting to see more, I was almost disappointed that the crawlspace was completely bare. Not believing it entirely, I shined my light around more. The back part of the crawlspace led to concrete and it was there that I noticed one section of the wall looked different than the rest.
Hands quivering, I pushed against the section of concrete and felt it shift under the pressure. It continued to wobble around in place the more I pushed. Holding my flashlight between my teeth, I had to use both hands to pry the piece away from the wall. To my astonishment, it pulled away very easily. It was no coincidence that the section of wall fit the hole exactly, like a puzzle piece.
After leaning the piece of concrete against the wall, I found that the concrete was covering a door with a padlock.
There’s no way anything good is behind this...
Minutes later, I returned to the mysterious door with a pair of bolt cutters. I debated whether or not I’d go in. There was no reason I shouldn’t satisfy my curiosity, because if there wasn’t anything then great, but if there was something terrible, I’d simply have to deal with it. Either way, I had to know.
I clipped the metal bar off the lock and it thudded softly to the dirt floor. Taking in a deep breath, I dared to aim my beam down the opening. The crawlspace extended much further into the house, and I had a good guess where it led. I now had to crawl on my hands and knees as a knot of dread formed in my stomach.
“You always tell people not to do this in movies, why are you doing this now??!” I chastised myself.
I knew all too well how stupid this was but the part of my brain that can’t look away from a car wreck pushed me to carry along regardless.
It was difficult to navigate with the flashlight and crawl. A mild claustrophobia settled in that pushed me along with a sense of urgency. The temperature couldn’t have been any more than a meatlocker. My hands shook despite my thick jacket. Eventually, I came to a dead end.
Is this all?
I stopped for a moment and checked around with my light some more, hoping a more thorough search would bear some fruit. Yet, there was nothing.
Sighing in frustration, I decided that perhaps I was losing my mind and was just having really vivid dreams after all. How could I have been so stupid?
I made it halfway across the hidden area when I felt my legs suddenly give out. They weren’t tired or sore before this. It was as if they stopped working of their own volition. I attempted to cry out, but my mouth felt as if some force held it closed.
Just like a stitched mouth...
One of the few things I could move was my neck and I turned to the side to see...
…a tuft of a blanket?
Due to the narrow space, I must have missed it. I slowly reached for it with all the internal alarms in my body going off at once. Ignoring the warning, I pulled the cloth back to reveal a skeletal hand.
In this moment of revulsion, something turned on my motor skills again as I regained control of my legs, crawling out of there as quickly as I could muster. Heaving, I stumbled out of the crawlspace and instantly felt the rise in temperature. I sat on the porch and stayed there as I called the police and explained the situation.
It turns out that one of the previous owners of the home was a major suspect in the disappearance of a young lady fifteen years ago. There wasn’t enough evidence to conduct a home search so they were never able to find the body. And what they found was something I wish I had never known.
From examining the body, they found that her captor had broken both of her legs so she couldn’t escape and sewn her mouth shut to keep her from screaming. It was hard to tell how long she’d been locked down there before she died, but they hypothesized it was a month or two. The cause of death was unclear. This was clearly enough to pursue the former owner.
When they picked him up, the guy tried to play the ignorance card, pretending as if he didn’t know what house they were referring to. This of course made it even more suspicious.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything concrete enough to tie him to her death...until they searched his current home. Blueprints of the home showed that the crawlspace was supposed to end ten feet where the concrete wall was. No contractors were hired to do any work on the home, so someone had personally busted it up and created the door going further in. The last part of it was the padlock on the door.
When the police searched the man’s home, they found a shoebox full of seemingly innocent keepsakes. Among the keepsakes were some heirlooms, pictures of close family members, and a key. As suspected, the key matched the padlock to the crawlspace door. It was apparently enough to make him crack. It wasn’t long before he confessed to the kidnapping and murder, albeit without a hint of remorse. Turns out the bastard kept the key as a sick trophy.
They even questioned him about other possible victims since this was a trait commonly shared by serial killers. He denied it, but the police couldn’t feel any truth from it. If anything they knew that they solved one case, put a guilty man behind bars, and put a family at peace. Justice was served and he was locked away for the rest of his miserable life. Poetic justice, if you ask me. The poor girl’s parents buried her remains on a family plot.
After all this, we had serious doubts about staying in the home. Knowing something this egregious happened in our home was almost unbearable. I can’t tell you how much we cried when we heard the story of what happened to that poor girl. We were on the brink of selling the house for about a week, but one night changed all that.
I woke up from a dream, one so vivid yet it somehow escaped my thoughts like a fistful of sand. There was a strange feeling in my gut as if something was going to happen.
It was neither good nor bad, just....strange.
After drinking a small glass of milk, I meandered down the hall and stopped in my tracks. A woman stood in front of me, half-transparent with a bluish luminescence. I felt as if I knew her, although I didn’t recognize her appearance at all. She smiled, and I instantly knew who she was. Compared to her previous horrific manifestation, the woman was almost unrecognizable.
Never speaking, she motioned to her legs and I saw that they were in perfect condition. In a mild state of shock, I managed to form a smile. She beamed even wider and ran her fingers across her lips, pointing out her lack of stitches. A blanket of warmth wrapped around me, and I couldn’t resist the salty tears that streamed down my face.
Right before she waved goodbye, a voice spoke within my mind.
"It’s over now. Thank you..."
She faded away, and for the first time since we moved into that house, all hints of the oppressive energy dissipated. That was the last time I ever saw her.
It’s been 30 years now, and we’re still in that house to this day...
May she continue to rest in peace...
2024.06.09 22:06 Weathers_Writing I think God might be real, just not in the way you think (Part 4)
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
We pulled off I-51 a little after midnight, stopping at a truck stop which was couched between the highway and a large forest.
We waited in the van for ten minutes or so. Trent had increased the sonar radius to its maximum of 30 miles a little over an hour ago. Somehow the red pings had kept up with us, holding a steady distance of around 20 miles. Considering we were averaging around 80 mph, and a coyote's top speed is only around 40 mph, we figured they had been enhanced in some way. Either that, or they shape-shifted into something faster. Regardless, now that we had stopped, we waited to see if the demon spawn would try and close the distance. Luckily, or unluckily, they didn't. They kept their 20 mile buffer, but we noticed they were beginning to spread out along the circumference of that boundary.
"We're close. They know that, so they're trying to trap us in." Trent said.
"Trying to?—more like they have."
We considered whether we should stay in the van and keep watch, but we figured that would do us little good. At their speed, they could be on us in ten minutes, which means we would need to stay up all night and keep tabs on their positions. Trent offered to stay up, of course, but I shut him down.
"The demon doesn't want to kill us now. You said it yourself. Plus, we need our rest. If they come, they come."
Trent didn't like it, but he acquiesced.
The truck stop had all the essentials: a gas station and mini mart with showers and an attached McDonald's, a large parking lot for truckers to idle and sleep, and even a section with lodging for those who wanted a more comfortable night's rest. I told Trent that he should take advantage of the showers, and after a little convincing, he agreed. While he was cleaning himself up, I patrolled the dingy, half-stocked aisles of "Daisy's Quick Mart". I probably would have been appalled at the quality of the store had I actually been paying any attention to it whatsoever. But I wasn't. I was thinking hard about what awaited me tomorrow.
During the drive, I had asked Trent why the demon would want us to return to the crash site. What did he mean that I would be 'confronting a dark entity in a place he couldn't help me'? He seemed hesitant to answer, but my little stunt outside the storage facility seemed to have sufficiently motivated him.
"When I said I've never done this before, I meant it." Trent started. "I've never done this exact thing before—meaning I've never projected someone into the past."
"So, I'm time traveling?" I asked.
"No—don't think of it like that." Trent paused, trying to come up with a good explanation. "It's more like I'm opening a window for you to look through: not a door. You're going to see the past, but you can't interact with the physicalities there. But that doesn't mean you can't interact with anything."
There was a space of silence as Trent tried to let me work out his meaning for myself. "I don't get it. Are you saying there's something I can interact with? Like what?" And then it hit me. "The demon. The demon can interact with me? Meaning what? It can kill me?"
"Meaning… I'm not exactly sure. You're going to be in a kind of psychic space. If it does damage, it won't be to your body. It'll be to your mind—or spirit. But I don't know what the limits of that damage could be. I just don't have those answers."
"If you've never done this, how do you know any of it will work?"
"That's an easy one." Trent answered. "Because it's been done to me."
There was silence.
"Look, if I know anything, I know my tech. Don't doubt that this will work. It's my job to make sure it does. I just need you to be in the right mental for this. Just because it knows your coming doesn't mean it automatically has the upper hand. It won't be able to see you unless you make contact with it first. In other words, you have to initiate contact. As long as you remain a spectator, you should be okay. Trust me. Just don't make contact."
I started pacing faster—fast enough to catch the attention of the overnight shift worker, a young man whose name I can't quite remember. I know it started with a "J". Jake, maybe? Anyway, he asked if I was alright, to which I responded in the affirmative. He left me alone for another couple passes, but when I almost ran into one of the shelves, he stood up and said, "Uh—I'm going to have to ask you to stop running around. I don't want you to hurt yourself."
I must have stared daggers at him, because he recoiled from my gaze. What's gotten into me? I thought. Then, steadying myself, I apologized. I looked around and grabbed the nearest edible looking piece of merchandise: a bag of Swedish Fish, and placed it down on the counter. "Just this, please."
The cashier rang me up. It was surprisingly cheap.
"Are you sure you're alright?" the young man asked. He was tall with brown hair. He seemed tired—maybe even more tired than me. But he also seemed kind.
I smiled as best I could and said, "No, I'm not. But there's not really anything you can do. Hell, there might not be anything I can do." I furrowed my eyebrows at my own response, realizing that imminent death may have broken my verbal filter.
On the other hand, the cashier did not seem surprised at all. "Ah, I see. It's one of those problems." He responded. "Well, hey, for what it's worth, you seem like one of the resilient ones. I think you'll be alright."
I only smiled and nodded at his mildly cryptic comment. Looking back, the whole interaction was a bit strange, but I had way too much mental clutter to recognize that in the moment. I took my Swedish Fish and walked through the anteroom which led to McDonald's. I found an open yellow booth that wasn't littered with crumpled straw sleeves and sat down, chomping mindlessly on my little red fish until Trent returned. When he arrived, he took my place, and I went to shower. After we were both clean and fed, we returned to the van. The pings were still pushed safely out of harm's way. But that didn't mean we were out of harm's way. Trent asked me if I wanted to sleep in the van, saying that "it'd be the safest place."
I thought it over. He was right, obviously. The van was not only outfitted with weapons I couldn't even begin to understand, but it was also our escape, and it would be just as difficult, if not more difficult to break into than the studio-style motel rooms with their wood doors and big windows. Still, if this was going to be my last night on earth, I wanted to sleep in a bed. A real bed. Trent understood and said he'd stay parked right outside my room for the night.
After purchasing a key from the night attendant, I moseyed over to the cement walkways which connected the twenty or so rooms. Mine was room #56, which I thought was odd since, like I said, there were only 20 rooms. I lugged in my tomato plushie and dad's old book and placed them on the queen mattress.
"I'll be right outside." Trent said after I collapsed onto the bed.
"Trent," I called out, stopping him half-way through the door.
"Yeah?"
All the blood in my body rushed up to my face as I realized my unfiltered mouth almost reflexively said the word "stay". I stared at Trent, my heart beating, my face hot. I considered asking him to sleep on the floor like my dad, but that would be childish and impolite. The alternative was to share my bed… Or I could take the floor.
"I'll just be right outside." Trent said before my mind processed a solution. "Come by if you need anything. I'll be up most of the night anyway."
"Okay," I replied in a faint voice.
Trent shut the door.
I sat atop the bedsheets and acquainted myself with my new living space. A feeling of regret closed over me as I considered that even sleeping on a carseat would have been better if it meant I didn't have to be alone. With a sigh, I turned on the bedside lamp and grabbed the book and stuffed tomato, using the tomato as a backrest as I slipped my legs under the covers and situated the book upright on my thighs. I cracked it open and was immediately blasted with a puff of dusty, old book scent. It was ripe at first, and I turned my head away to sneeze, but as I perused through the pages, the scent grew on me. It reminded me of the days growing up when I'd step into dad's study and read through one of the many volumes on cryptic topics which were at least two college degrees above my Lexile range.
I was only a couple minutes into browsing the collection of different scientific and philosophical works when I came across a page which contained highlighted text. This was unusual, as my dad would never mark up his books. He was a purist on that point. I rubbed my thumb over the yellow lines, and sure enough, it was highlighter.
The highlighted text was part of a small book by Carl Jung called "Synchronicity". There were a total of three pages that were marked, and they advanced like this:
Page 5:
The philosophical principle that underlies our conception of natural law is causality*. But if the connection between cause and effect turns out to be only statistically valid and relatively true, then the causal principle is only of relative use for explaining natural processes… That is as much to say that the connection of events may in certain circumstances be other than causal, and require another principle of explanation.*
Page 19:
…there are events which are related to one another experimentally, and in this case meaningfully*, without there being any possibility of proving that this relation is a causal one, since the "transmission" exhibits none of the known properties of energy…a situation which does not yet exist and will only occur in the future could transmit itself as a phenomenon of energy to a receiver in the present…Therefore, it cannot be a question of cause and effect, but of a falling together in time, a kind of simultaneity... "synchronicity"*
Page 22:
A young woman I was treating had, at a critical moment, a dream in which she was given a golden scarab. While she was telling me this dream I sat with my back to the closed window. Suddenly I heard a noise behind me, like a gentle tapping. I turned round and saw a flying insect knocking against the window pane from outside. I opened the window and caught the creature in the air as it flew in. It was the nearest analogy to a golden scarab that one finds in our latitudes, a scarabaeid beetle, the common rose-chafer… which contrary to its usual habits had evidently felt an urge to get into a dark room at this particular moment.
I flipped through the rest of the pages of the book. There was no more highlighted text, but there was a message on the last page which read:
Matthew 7:7-8
I'll meet you in the darkest place.
He also included his typical smiley face which had an ovular shape and three sprouts of hair which I now realized kind of resembled my tomato plushie. It was my dad's writing, of course. But why? And how? What did this mean?
The motel had a Bible stashed away in the nighstand drawer. I got it out and looked up the verses which read the following:
Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: for every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
I spent maybe an hour ruminating on all of this. The whole discourse on energy and causality and a "falling together in time" just seemed so right. It was clear that my dad definitely did know what I was going through, but for whatever reason, he made it seem like he was oblivious. Why had he hidden that from me? I felt like I was being pulled in two directions. On the one hand, my dad loved me enough to leave this note, maybe even knowing the exact moment I'd need it. But on the other hand, he had neglected my struggles throughout my entire childhood. He even lied at times. Was this really enough to make up for all of that?
And then there was the section about the future transmitting energy to the past. I read back through the whole paragraph and the original writer had meant it to say this as something that wasn't possible, but my dad's highlighting made it seem like he wanted to flip the meaning. The future does affect the past. I thought about where I was headed and wondered if I would soon discover that for myself.
Lastly, dad's message. The Bible verse reminded me of the first time I prayed; how I reached out to God and received peace as an answer to my prayer. Now I feel like I'm actively seeking… something, but I don't know yet what I'll find. And then there's knocking. At first that reminded me of the story with the beetle tapping on the window, but then I went back even deeper in my memory and dug out the monster tapping at my window, and the words my dad spoke to me in order to set my mind at ease: "you're a superhero. And you know what your greatest superpower is? Your greatest power is you get to tell the monsters what to do. Because the monsters are only as strong as the stories you tell about them…so if you're ever scared, honey, just dream up a better story."
I was crying into my stuffed tomato now. I felt like all the blinking pieces of my life had finally been pulled together into a completed puzzle. This was all by design. My entire life, filled with so much chaos and confusion, was actually preparing me for this moment. And my dad thought I had the tools and strength enough to get through it. I flipped through the book one more time, thinking maybe he had left some other hidden comment—some formula to defeat this demon and return home. But there was nothing. Only that one comment: "I'll meet you in the darkest place."
What's the darkest place, dad? Is that where I'm going? Are you saying you'll be there, too?
With those thoughts in mind, my eyes became heavy shutters which, with a slight pressure on the pulley, winded shut. My swimming thoughts and firework-like fears dissipated, and I returned to a precious childhood memory. It was after an evening soccer practice. Summer. Dad was driving me to Dairy Queen. I got a cherry-dipped twist cone. I was happy.
So, so happy.
***
I woke up to sunlight blaring through my windows. Shit, I overslept, was my immediate thought. I threw off my covers and opened the front door. A glance at the clock showed 1:13 PM. I shouldn't have even been allowed to stay checked in this long. Damn, am I gonna get double-billed for this?
I heard a rummaging sound around the corner of my motel room. It sounded like a squirrel was trying to find an afternoon snack in one of the garbage bins. I stepped outside. The sun was extremely bright, to the point where I had to squint and put my hand over my eyes to even see the ground in front of me. I was trying to walk toward the van, but somehow I ended up in front of the trash bins where the animal's tail was sticking out from a turned-over, silver garbage can. Its tail was wagging excitedly, and I remember thinking that it was much too large to be a squirrel.
The animal bent down as if biting onto something, and I heard the sound of its growl as it struggled to tug whatever it was free from the barrel. Inch by inch, the creature backed out of the canister, and more of its sharp, sticky hair was revealed. I heard something snap, then the creature leapt back and I saw what it was chomping on. My eyes widened in horror as the pink tube of a human intestine was pulled taut like the end of a tangled hose. Blood and entrails were spilling out of the human's opened gut. And then, behind the canine, I saw the person's face. His face was pale white, his eyes closed, and his hair was slicked back… It was Trent.
Before I could react, I heard footsteps approaching from behind. I whirled around and saw my dad. But—no, it wasn't him. It was someone wearing a paper-mache face mask that was painted to look like my dad. The forehead of the mask was already beginning to crack, white specks breaking off like sawdust. Through the cracks, I could see the figure's true form. I didn't know darkness had its own type of light, but that's the only way to describe it. It was as if malevolence itself was reified into a skin which was actually an amalgamation of millions of little, oozing parasites that leached into the nearby light. When it finally spoke, the demon's voice was a full octave lower than the old man's at the deli. And it had an earth-stilling gravitas.
"Today's the day!" He sang and reached into his pocket. His lips curled upward into a foxy smirk. "You have no idea how long I've waited for this day." He said and held up a razor blade. Half his facade had already fallen apart, and now I could see the bugs up close, writhing in what was either horror or ecstasy. And his scent… it was somehow more rank than the rabid coyote rummaging through the trash can with Trent's cut open body inside. The demon closed in on my position, and in one, decisive motion, he brought the blade close to his chin, then sliced it across my throat. "Wake up!" He screamed.
I jumped out of my bed and grabbed my throat, feeling the cold sting of its quick slice. Hyperventilating, I patted the area down, trying to hold the blood in, but when I removed my hands, I saw they were dry. It was only a dream, I thought. Gray light was only beginning to filter in through the drapes. I'm in my hotel room. I'm safe. I tried consoling, but the pragmatic mental massages weren't enough to hold the force of my knees buckling. I dropped onto the carpet and cried for a long while.
Outside, rain was beginning to fall.
***
By the time I met up with Trent, I had already composed myself and decided to keep my dad's message and the nightmare to myself. None of it seemed particularly productive from a logistical standpoint, anyway. And I wanted to focus on the mission.
We stopped by McDonald's and bought a couple cups of coffee. Trent asked if I wanted any food, and I declined. Black coffee seemed like the only thing my stomach could take at the present moment. I could tell Trent was hungry, but he tried playing it off (I guess to be respectful of me?) I told him to knock it off and get something to eat. I didn't need my Charon getting lightheaded and dropping the paddle before he finished rowing me to Hell. He didn't care much for my joke, but he ordered a couple Chicken McGriddles at the kiosk anyway.
There were maybe ten patrons spread throughout the restaurant. We sat down at the same booth from the prior night, this time across from one another. Trent spent the first ten minutes or so babbling about our fuel supply and the logistics of the trip from here on in. Practical stuff. I've come to realize that's how he deals with his stress. He talks it out in short, durable sentences. I mostly nodded and watched as what looked like a storm front closed in on the truck stop. The sky was overcast, and there were darker clouds in the distance. The rain was still only a patter, but a middle-aged man wearing a yellow bow tie on the wall-mounted TV confirmed that there would be heavier rain and thunderstorms very soon.
After the worker delivered Trent's food and he ate it in record time, I posed the one question that was still on my mind.
"How do I fight him?" I asked.
Trent finished a large gulp of his coffee, then looked at me. It was the first substantial thing I'd said all morning; Trent could tell something was off with me, but he figured there was no point in asking what it was. "By 'him', I assume you mean the demon?"
I nodded.
Trent licked his teeth clean. "You could try praying again."
"I'm serious," I responded.
"I'm serious, too. It worked before, didn't it?"
"You mean at my house?"
Trent nodded.
"I thought you weren't a religious man?"
"I'm not. Just a practical one. If praying worked before, maybe it'll work again."
"That's the best you've got? A maybe?"
"No, I've got a lot of shit better than a maybe." He answered. "It's just not accessible where you're going. Which is why I recommend not making contact on the first run."
"First run? So we're going to do this more than once?"
"At least," Trent answered. Then, seeing my expression, he continued. "What? You thought this was going to be a one-and-done? We have to conduct some research first. I did tell you this was new for me, right?"
Somehow Trent's response had set my mind at ease a little. I was going to have more than one chance. Of course, why wouldn't I be able to go back more than once?
"Why didn't you tell me this earlier? It would have gone a long way in easing my mind."
Trent lifted his hands in defense. "Sorry, I just thought that was a given. I mean, what we're doing is dangerous, just like I said, but it doesn't mean we aren't going to approach this as safely and scientifically as possible. However, there is a different problem with running multiple trials."
"The Organization?"
"That's right," Trent said like a proud parent. "Our little experiment will be like a giant spotlight, and the longer we wait around after it's on us, the greater the chance we'll have unwelcome company."
"So, safe but speedy."
"Safe but speedy. Exactly."
***
We fueled up and were back on the road a little after 8:00. From that point on, Trent and I were absolutely silent. I had the distinct feeling of being in the eye of a storm. The pings moved closer commensurate with our progress toward the crash site. The cloudfront continued its advance. And I noticed a haze beginning to descend onto the road ahead of us. It was fog.
We meandered further inland, the forest thickening around us until the rain almost stopped entirely—the leaves drinking it up before it fell onto our windshield. I kept my eyes on the radar. We were approaching the large yellow circle which indicated we had arrived. As we pulled closer, I began to feel things. Fear. Eeriness. Doubt. Then happiness. Hope. Love. Normally feelings like these had a clear source to picture, but these sensations came on in waves without any discernible reason. It was almost as if they were blinking into existence inside me.
"Here we go," Trent said like an airline pilot readying his crew for turbulence.
I still recall the exact moment we crossed the boundary into the area of higher energy. It was like something just "clicked" in my brain, and all of a sudden everything felt so much closer. The sound of the rain against the trees was almost right next to my ear. The trees in the distance would oscillate between their position a half-mile out, then suddenly seem five meters away. If I focused on something long enough, it began to radiate those same ethereal particles as when Trent released Ava's "phase lock". I checked to make sure the shifter wasn't set to "TD". Sure enough, it was still in drive.
"Can you see them?" Trent asked. "The shifts?"
"Yeah," I said in a dreamy voice. I felt like I was driving through a wonderland.
"It's the energy. I barely notice a difference. A bit of movement in the trees, but not much else. But I'm sure for you, it's a whole experience."
"What is this?" I raised my hand and caught some of the pixel dust dripping off the sun visor. It disappeared when it made contact with my hand.
"It's a kind of radiation. Everything emits it, just in different quantities. I'm still not exactly sure how it relates to the other realms, but I'm guessing it's a kind of primordial matter that helps connect our worlds."
"It's beautiful," I exclaimed. "I wish I could see the world like this all the time."
"Maybe you will," Trent whispered.
As we arrived at the crash site, I began to get glimpses of the past. My childhood dreams and memories were pushing their way out from my subconscious. I noticed an increased number of blinks, which were validated by Ava who reported the following: "Currently detecting 14,350 novel emergences and 2,777 controlled agents. Net anomalies: 2,777."
"That's a lot of blinks." I remarked. "Why doesn't Ava include them in the net anomalies?"
Trent turned his head so I could see his smirk. "Because blinks aren't anomalies."
I thought about it for a second. Blinks aren't anomalies. "I never thought about it that way."
"It's hard to think about it that way when 'normal' for most people means not picking up on a fundamental aspect of reality. But that doesn't make it any less real."
We continued past the epicenter of the yellow circle. "Are we not stopping?" I asked. "I think we already passed the crash site."
"It doesn't have to be exactly at the site," Trent said. "Plus, we don't want to stop on the side of the road and risk getting some civilian involved. There's a field about half a mile up ahead. I'm going to pull off the road and set up camp there.
The "field" that Trent was referring to was actually a large clearing that dipped down into several trench-like troughs which were filled to the brim with fog like witches cauldrons. Further on in the distance, I saw open fields, probably used for farming, and then a large hill where the trees once again reasserted themselves. We had pulled off the road and up a small incline where the trees had already been broken down, leaving a trail for us to drive through. When we surfaced at the edge of the clearing, Trent pulled us onto a flat bed of dried mud which was maybe thirty yards long.
"Here," he said with a sigh.
We both sat for a minute, looking around at the field. We had finally arrived. The rain was beginning to pick up, and the dark sky made it almost impossible to discern the time of day.
"You ready?" Trent asked.
I looked at him. Really looked at him. In his blue eyes. Was I ready? Did it even matter?
"Let's do this," I said.
***
This was the first time I was really able to inspect the back of Trent's van. He had talked up his gear a lot, and honestly, I was impressed. Not in the way that a scientist is impressed by another scientist's lab—I wasn't any kind of expert—but it still seemed remarkably well managed. Now that I was in a state where my vision had been enhanced, I could actually see the enigmatic particles circulating through the pneumatic tubes which were coiled like the pipes and valves of an elaborate wind instrument. The walls of the van, itself, were glistening white, making it easier to make out everything else inside. Along the floor were five overturned columns. Each column was dark and had a vibrating quality, as if they were charged with energy. Then atop the center three columns was a small altar which supported an apparatus with two skinny, metal arms holding a silver halo. At present, the arms were folded and the halo was suspended a few inches above the altar, faced-down. I thought maybe I'd see particles exuding from it, but instead it was emitting visible waves which bent and warped everything they touched.
"That thing is emitting a lot of energy." I remarked, gesturing toward the halo.
Trent stepped in between the columns and started pulling out the packages he had stuffed in there yesterday. "Just wait till' it's on."
Most of the packages contained only a single piece of equipment, and were otherwise packed with foam peanuts. We carefully removed each box and set them on the ground outside. I asked if the rain would damage any of the stuff inside, to which Trent only laughed and continued lugging out the boxes. When they were all out, Trent removed a box cutter from his pocket and went one-by-one opening them. There were eight pieces in total.
"What is it?" I asked as we fished the first item out.
"It's another apparatus, like the one inside. Except it'll mount on the ground out here."
I pulled out what looked like a metal tripod.
"Good, that'll go on the bottom."
"Where are we setting it up?"
"Over here," Trent said and stepped five paces away from the van. He coordinated himself up so he was centrally aligned with the inner ring, then stomped a few times. "This is the spot."
As we continued to work, I asked Trent about how the whole contraption works.
"Do you remember the first time we were in the van? When we had to escape from the semi-truck?" Trent asked and connected a secondary mounting apparatus on top of the tripod. It had four spider-like legs that made right angles and stuck into the ground.
"Of course," I said. "The 'phase lock'."
"Yeah," Trent said and gestured toward the metal stick that was in my hand. I handed it to him. "The phase lock is a seal on the level of energy that the van is allowed to release. It also controls its dispersion pattern so that it releases its energy in a steady wave. This allows Ava to scan for anomalies without causing us to become an anomaly." Trent stuck the plank into the neck of the tripod.
"So when you released the phase lock, we started emitting more energy."
"That's right." Trent confirmed. "Enough to create an alternate route through a different realm."
"So we blinked into a different realm, then back, just to avoid that truck?"
"That's right."
"But why couldn't we just move out of the way?"
"Because it had locked onto us. It was tracking our motion and adjusting its course based on the amount of energy we were emitting. So in order to escape, we had to radically skew our potential energy and then use it to shift."
"Couldn't he have just followed us?"
Trent connected four more pieces to the device which now looked like an elaborate teepee. He was fishing in the last box when he spoke again. "Yeah, he could have. But it was highly improbable that he would have found us." Trent returned from the bottom of the box with another silver ring in hand. "Think of it like this. Let's say you're trying to escape from some bad guy who's coming after you, and you enter a new room you've never seen before. Would you prefer this room to have three doors to go through, or ten?"
I thought about his riddle for a second, then responded, "It depends where they go."
Trent fastened the ring atop the teepee. "Let's say they all lead to random places, or let's say they're all closets that lead nowhere. The key is that more is better, because the more doors he has to check, the less likely he is to pick the correct one. Make sense?"
"So we opened up a bunch of doors and escaped through one at random?"
"Hence the gear 'TD', for 'Trap Door'."
I marveled at the insights, but not for long. Trent hopped back in the van and pulled a lever that I hadn't seen until now. The two metal arms raised the inner ring until it was perpendicular with the altar. Then Trent clicked one of three red buttons along the back wall, and I saw what looked like a large, glass eye suspended in a magnifying glass protruding from the wall, aligned with the center of both rings. A couple seconds later, the glass eye began to focus the energy which was being fed to it from the pneumatic tubes, and a blue pyramid of light projected from it into the first ring, then from the first ring into the second ring. All three pieces were aligned at slightly diminishing heights, so the cylinder of light beamed through the second ring, into the ground.
"Alright, time for the first trial."
I felt the nerves starting up in my stomach. Trent sensed this and hopped out of the truck. It was raining quite hard now, though it was still warm. Both Trent and I were soaked, but that hardly concerned us. He reached out and put his hand on my shoulder. "I know you're feeling scared." He said. "But trust me on this. You're going to do fine. Just keep in mind what we talked about. Stay a spectator. Okay?"
I looked into his blue eyes, which seemed especially gray in the dark. Still, Trent's voice was reassuring. All I had to do was trust him. Trust myself. Trust my dad. And it was all going to turn out right.
"I'm ready," I said.
Trent was still for a second, holding my eyes in his. Then he guided me behind the outer ring and into the cylinder of light.
"I should step into it now?" I asked, afraid I'd be called away immediately.
"It's not on yet, so don't worry. I still have to press another button."
I followed Trent's instructions and stood in the blue light which was centered on my chest. Then I watched as Trent ran into the back of the van and posted up next to the glass eye. "Ready?" He yelled out. It was hard to hear him over the rain, but I yelled back. "Ready!"
The next thing I saw was a blinding blue light beam from the van. I heard what sounded like a laser, then saw the cylinder oscillate, expanding and compressing. When the energy reached the second ring, I saw everything around me light up—it looked brighter than noon on a cloudless day. Then the oscillations made their way to me, and I was swallowed up whole.
***
When I came to, I was in the backseat of a car. I felt my butt rumbling. Everything was dim and quiet. And then I heard a woman's voice from in front of me.
"Mark, please, not with Lauren in the back."
The man, who I now identified as my father, pulled the cigarette away from his lips and blew the smoke at my mom. He eyed the back seat where I was sitting, using one of five markers that hadn't rolled off my lap to color a rabbit in my animal color book.
"The kid's fine." he said and took another drag.
"Mark," my mom repeated.
I saw my dad raise his hand in a rapid motion. "I said she's fine, Cheryl. Now check the map and make sure we're going the right away. I can't see shit with all this fog."
I took a moment to make sure I was really in the back seat. I patted myself. I clearly had weight. Then I tried touching the car. At first, my fingertips met a solid surface, but when I tried to press through, my hand slipped into the car. I quickly pulled my hand away as if I had reached into a fire.
That's when I heard the little three year old next to me start crying. I turned and saw that little-me had dropped another couple markers onto the ground and was struggling to reach them.
"Hey!" my dad shouted. "What did I say about crying?"
"Quit it, Mark. She just dropped her markers." said my mom; she turned to help me pick them up.
"What did you say to me?" Mark spat with a voice full of guile. He reached out and pushed her back into her seat. "Don't," he commanded. "She has to learn how to deal with life."
"Deal…" My mom started in disbelief. "Deal with life? Do you hear yourself? What's gotten into you?"
"Sometimes shit happens. It doesn't give her the right to cry. You helping her is just going to reinforce her behavior."
"Her behavior? What about your behavior? You're acting like a total dick."
I didn't even have a moment to react before my dad's hand was across my mom's face. I felt the slap more than I heard it, my own face seeming to swell with the force of the blow. I saw my mom cover her mouth and lean away. Then little-me began to cry even louder, which only challenged my dad to step up his own volume.
"Everyone needs to get a fucking grip before I crash this car." My dad shouted and took another drag. The scariest part was I couldn't tell if he was warning us or threatening us. I felt the sudden urge to do something. There was no way this was real. I was definitely in some fantasy concocted by the demon. He wanted to turn me against my dad. That was the only explanation for something like this. My dad was a good man, not… this.
As I contemplated what to do, I saw a small, golden light appear behind little-me's window. Apparently she saw it, too, because her cries hushed as she traced the wisp with her eyes. After a second, the wisp transformed into a bunny rabbit, reminiscent of the one she was coloring. The rabbit hopped alongside the window, then did a couple circles in place. I watched little me let out a playful laugh and reach toward the window.
"What's going on back there?" my dad asked with a scowl. Apparently the only sound more disturbing than cries were laughs.
I looked back to the front and saw my mom wiping blood from her lip. Her expression was miserable. "Leave her alone, Mark."
"I'll do whatever I damn well want to do, Cheryl. It's my kid back there."
My mom was quiet.
When I looked back toward the rabbit, it was no longer a rabbit but a person. Or at least it looked like a person. The figure radiated pure gold, and atop his head was what appeared to be a King's crown. I recalled Allison's experience of seeing the sun-like figure in her moment of distress. Was that what was happening here? Was this really all true?
"Hey!" My dad shouted, eyeing little-me from the rear-view mirror. "What are you reaching at?"
I looked and saw the golden figure extending his hand toward the window, and little me's hand was reaching back. "Mom, dad, it bright." little-me said.
"What's bright, honey?" my mom asked.
"Don't encourage her, Cheryl."
"Someone there!" little me shouted happily and dropped the rest of the markers and the coloring book onto the ground.
"Who's there?" asked my mom.
"Cheryl, I swear to God. Sit the fuck down."
Everything from that moment on happened so quickly I barely had any time to process it. My mom lifted out of her seat to either get little me's attention or help me pick up my coloring book. My dad responded by grabbing onto her throat, letting go of the steering wheel entirely. He threw her back against the car door, and her head hit the window so hard, the glass cracked. My dad had dropped his cigarette, and I could smell smoke coming from under his seat, but that didn't seem to bother him at all. He turned toward little-me at the same moment my three-year-old hand reached out and grabbed onto the golden figure, whose hand diffused through the window. When my dad turned, I got a whiff of the most awful smell that I wouldn't have been able to place had I not had that nightmare last night. He grabbed onto little-me's shoulder and tugged her away from the golden figure that was trying to pull her the other way. My dad's facade began to crack, and I could see those dark bugs crawling out from the pores in his arms, marching down toward little-me.
I reacted.
I grabbed onto my dad's arm and pulled him off little-me. I heard the sound of my shirt ripping as she was torn from his grip and pulled out of the car, diffusing through it like a ghost. My brief victory was immediately overturned as I saw what was now clearly the demon smiling at me, his wretched fingers curled around my forearm.
"Caught you," He sneered.
Then the whole world once again diffused into countless numbers of particles, only this time, instead of riding through it, I felt like I was falling through an elevator shaft with each floor darker than the last. The further I fell, the less I became aware of my surroundings, and the more I felt a deep sense of loneliness. It was as if I was the only person in the whole world: and the whole world was a prison designed entirely for me. This went on for so long, I began to forget who I was. Where I was. What was.
And then I landed.
***
Source Used:
Jung, Carl. Synchronicity. Translated by Sonu Shamdasani, Princeton University Press, 2010.
submitted by Weathers_Writing to weatherswriting [link] [comments]
Part 2
Part 3
We pulled off I-51 a little after midnight, stopping at a truck stop which was couched between the highway and a large forest.
We waited in the van for ten minutes or so. Trent had increased the sonar radius to its maximum of 30 miles a little over an hour ago. Somehow the red pings had kept up with us, holding a steady distance of around 20 miles. Considering we were averaging around 80 mph, and a coyote's top speed is only around 40 mph, we figured they had been enhanced in some way. Either that, or they shape-shifted into something faster. Regardless, now that we had stopped, we waited to see if the demon spawn would try and close the distance. Luckily, or unluckily, they didn't. They kept their 20 mile buffer, but we noticed they were beginning to spread out along the circumference of that boundary.
"We're close. They know that, so they're trying to trap us in." Trent said.
"Trying to?—more like they have."
We considered whether we should stay in the van and keep watch, but we figured that would do us little good. At their speed, they could be on us in ten minutes, which means we would need to stay up all night and keep tabs on their positions. Trent offered to stay up, of course, but I shut him down.
"The demon doesn't want to kill us now. You said it yourself. Plus, we need our rest. If they come, they come."
Trent didn't like it, but he acquiesced.
The truck stop had all the essentials: a gas station and mini mart with showers and an attached McDonald's, a large parking lot for truckers to idle and sleep, and even a section with lodging for those who wanted a more comfortable night's rest. I told Trent that he should take advantage of the showers, and after a little convincing, he agreed. While he was cleaning himself up, I patrolled the dingy, half-stocked aisles of "Daisy's Quick Mart". I probably would have been appalled at the quality of the store had I actually been paying any attention to it whatsoever. But I wasn't. I was thinking hard about what awaited me tomorrow.
During the drive, I had asked Trent why the demon would want us to return to the crash site. What did he mean that I would be 'confronting a dark entity in a place he couldn't help me'? He seemed hesitant to answer, but my little stunt outside the storage facility seemed to have sufficiently motivated him.
"When I said I've never done this before, I meant it." Trent started. "I've never done this exact thing before—meaning I've never projected someone into the past."
"So, I'm time traveling?" I asked.
"No—don't think of it like that." Trent paused, trying to come up with a good explanation. "It's more like I'm opening a window for you to look through: not a door. You're going to see the past, but you can't interact with the physicalities there. But that doesn't mean you can't interact with anything."
There was a space of silence as Trent tried to let me work out his meaning for myself. "I don't get it. Are you saying there's something I can interact with? Like what?" And then it hit me. "The demon. The demon can interact with me? Meaning what? It can kill me?"
"Meaning… I'm not exactly sure. You're going to be in a kind of psychic space. If it does damage, it won't be to your body. It'll be to your mind—or spirit. But I don't know what the limits of that damage could be. I just don't have those answers."
"If you've never done this, how do you know any of it will work?"
"That's an easy one." Trent answered. "Because it's been done to me."
There was silence.
"Look, if I know anything, I know my tech. Don't doubt that this will work. It's my job to make sure it does. I just need you to be in the right mental for this. Just because it knows your coming doesn't mean it automatically has the upper hand. It won't be able to see you unless you make contact with it first. In other words, you have to initiate contact. As long as you remain a spectator, you should be okay. Trust me. Just don't make contact."
I started pacing faster—fast enough to catch the attention of the overnight shift worker, a young man whose name I can't quite remember. I know it started with a "J". Jake, maybe? Anyway, he asked if I was alright, to which I responded in the affirmative. He left me alone for another couple passes, but when I almost ran into one of the shelves, he stood up and said, "Uh—I'm going to have to ask you to stop running around. I don't want you to hurt yourself."
I must have stared daggers at him, because he recoiled from my gaze. What's gotten into me? I thought. Then, steadying myself, I apologized. I looked around and grabbed the nearest edible looking piece of merchandise: a bag of Swedish Fish, and placed it down on the counter. "Just this, please."
The cashier rang me up. It was surprisingly cheap.
"Are you sure you're alright?" the young man asked. He was tall with brown hair. He seemed tired—maybe even more tired than me. But he also seemed kind.
I smiled as best I could and said, "No, I'm not. But there's not really anything you can do. Hell, there might not be anything I can do." I furrowed my eyebrows at my own response, realizing that imminent death may have broken my verbal filter.
On the other hand, the cashier did not seem surprised at all. "Ah, I see. It's one of those problems." He responded. "Well, hey, for what it's worth, you seem like one of the resilient ones. I think you'll be alright."
I only smiled and nodded at his mildly cryptic comment. Looking back, the whole interaction was a bit strange, but I had way too much mental clutter to recognize that in the moment. I took my Swedish Fish and walked through the anteroom which led to McDonald's. I found an open yellow booth that wasn't littered with crumpled straw sleeves and sat down, chomping mindlessly on my little red fish until Trent returned. When he arrived, he took my place, and I went to shower. After we were both clean and fed, we returned to the van. The pings were still pushed safely out of harm's way. But that didn't mean we were out of harm's way. Trent asked me if I wanted to sleep in the van, saying that "it'd be the safest place."
I thought it over. He was right, obviously. The van was not only outfitted with weapons I couldn't even begin to understand, but it was also our escape, and it would be just as difficult, if not more difficult to break into than the studio-style motel rooms with their wood doors and big windows. Still, if this was going to be my last night on earth, I wanted to sleep in a bed. A real bed. Trent understood and said he'd stay parked right outside my room for the night.
After purchasing a key from the night attendant, I moseyed over to the cement walkways which connected the twenty or so rooms. Mine was room #56, which I thought was odd since, like I said, there were only 20 rooms. I lugged in my tomato plushie and dad's old book and placed them on the queen mattress.
"I'll be right outside." Trent said after I collapsed onto the bed.
"Trent," I called out, stopping him half-way through the door.
"Yeah?"
All the blood in my body rushed up to my face as I realized my unfiltered mouth almost reflexively said the word "stay". I stared at Trent, my heart beating, my face hot. I considered asking him to sleep on the floor like my dad, but that would be childish and impolite. The alternative was to share my bed… Or I could take the floor.
"I'll just be right outside." Trent said before my mind processed a solution. "Come by if you need anything. I'll be up most of the night anyway."
"Okay," I replied in a faint voice.
Trent shut the door.
I sat atop the bedsheets and acquainted myself with my new living space. A feeling of regret closed over me as I considered that even sleeping on a carseat would have been better if it meant I didn't have to be alone. With a sigh, I turned on the bedside lamp and grabbed the book and stuffed tomato, using the tomato as a backrest as I slipped my legs under the covers and situated the book upright on my thighs. I cracked it open and was immediately blasted with a puff of dusty, old book scent. It was ripe at first, and I turned my head away to sneeze, but as I perused through the pages, the scent grew on me. It reminded me of the days growing up when I'd step into dad's study and read through one of the many volumes on cryptic topics which were at least two college degrees above my Lexile range.
I was only a couple minutes into browsing the collection of different scientific and philosophical works when I came across a page which contained highlighted text. This was unusual, as my dad would never mark up his books. He was a purist on that point. I rubbed my thumb over the yellow lines, and sure enough, it was highlighter.
The highlighted text was part of a small book by Carl Jung called "Synchronicity". There were a total of three pages that were marked, and they advanced like this:
Page 5:
The philosophical principle that underlies our conception of natural law is causality*. But if the connection between cause and effect turns out to be only statistically valid and relatively true, then the causal principle is only of relative use for explaining natural processes… That is as much to say that the connection of events may in certain circumstances be other than causal, and require another principle of explanation.*
Page 19:
…there are events which are related to one another experimentally, and in this case meaningfully*, without there being any possibility of proving that this relation is a causal one, since the "transmission" exhibits none of the known properties of energy…a situation which does not yet exist and will only occur in the future could transmit itself as a phenomenon of energy to a receiver in the present…Therefore, it cannot be a question of cause and effect, but of a falling together in time, a kind of simultaneity... "synchronicity"*
Page 22:
A young woman I was treating had, at a critical moment, a dream in which she was given a golden scarab. While she was telling me this dream I sat with my back to the closed window. Suddenly I heard a noise behind me, like a gentle tapping. I turned round and saw a flying insect knocking against the window pane from outside. I opened the window and caught the creature in the air as it flew in. It was the nearest analogy to a golden scarab that one finds in our latitudes, a scarabaeid beetle, the common rose-chafer… which contrary to its usual habits had evidently felt an urge to get into a dark room at this particular moment.
I flipped through the rest of the pages of the book. There was no more highlighted text, but there was a message on the last page which read:
Matthew 7:7-8
I'll meet you in the darkest place.
He also included his typical smiley face which had an ovular shape and three sprouts of hair which I now realized kind of resembled my tomato plushie. It was my dad's writing, of course. But why? And how? What did this mean?
The motel had a Bible stashed away in the nighstand drawer. I got it out and looked up the verses which read the following:
Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: for every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
I spent maybe an hour ruminating on all of this. The whole discourse on energy and causality and a "falling together in time" just seemed so right. It was clear that my dad definitely did know what I was going through, but for whatever reason, he made it seem like he was oblivious. Why had he hidden that from me? I felt like I was being pulled in two directions. On the one hand, my dad loved me enough to leave this note, maybe even knowing the exact moment I'd need it. But on the other hand, he had neglected my struggles throughout my entire childhood. He even lied at times. Was this really enough to make up for all of that?
And then there was the section about the future transmitting energy to the past. I read back through the whole paragraph and the original writer had meant it to say this as something that wasn't possible, but my dad's highlighting made it seem like he wanted to flip the meaning. The future does affect the past. I thought about where I was headed and wondered if I would soon discover that for myself.
Lastly, dad's message. The Bible verse reminded me of the first time I prayed; how I reached out to God and received peace as an answer to my prayer. Now I feel like I'm actively seeking… something, but I don't know yet what I'll find. And then there's knocking. At first that reminded me of the story with the beetle tapping on the window, but then I went back even deeper in my memory and dug out the monster tapping at my window, and the words my dad spoke to me in order to set my mind at ease: "you're a superhero. And you know what your greatest superpower is? Your greatest power is you get to tell the monsters what to do. Because the monsters are only as strong as the stories you tell about them…so if you're ever scared, honey, just dream up a better story."
I was crying into my stuffed tomato now. I felt like all the blinking pieces of my life had finally been pulled together into a completed puzzle. This was all by design. My entire life, filled with so much chaos and confusion, was actually preparing me for this moment. And my dad thought I had the tools and strength enough to get through it. I flipped through the book one more time, thinking maybe he had left some other hidden comment—some formula to defeat this demon and return home. But there was nothing. Only that one comment: "I'll meet you in the darkest place."
What's the darkest place, dad? Is that where I'm going? Are you saying you'll be there, too?
With those thoughts in mind, my eyes became heavy shutters which, with a slight pressure on the pulley, winded shut. My swimming thoughts and firework-like fears dissipated, and I returned to a precious childhood memory. It was after an evening soccer practice. Summer. Dad was driving me to Dairy Queen. I got a cherry-dipped twist cone. I was happy.
So, so happy.
***
I woke up to sunlight blaring through my windows. Shit, I overslept, was my immediate thought. I threw off my covers and opened the front door. A glance at the clock showed 1:13 PM. I shouldn't have even been allowed to stay checked in this long. Damn, am I gonna get double-billed for this?
I heard a rummaging sound around the corner of my motel room. It sounded like a squirrel was trying to find an afternoon snack in one of the garbage bins. I stepped outside. The sun was extremely bright, to the point where I had to squint and put my hand over my eyes to even see the ground in front of me. I was trying to walk toward the van, but somehow I ended up in front of the trash bins where the animal's tail was sticking out from a turned-over, silver garbage can. Its tail was wagging excitedly, and I remember thinking that it was much too large to be a squirrel.
The animal bent down as if biting onto something, and I heard the sound of its growl as it struggled to tug whatever it was free from the barrel. Inch by inch, the creature backed out of the canister, and more of its sharp, sticky hair was revealed. I heard something snap, then the creature leapt back and I saw what it was chomping on. My eyes widened in horror as the pink tube of a human intestine was pulled taut like the end of a tangled hose. Blood and entrails were spilling out of the human's opened gut. And then, behind the canine, I saw the person's face. His face was pale white, his eyes closed, and his hair was slicked back… It was Trent.
Before I could react, I heard footsteps approaching from behind. I whirled around and saw my dad. But—no, it wasn't him. It was someone wearing a paper-mache face mask that was painted to look like my dad. The forehead of the mask was already beginning to crack, white specks breaking off like sawdust. Through the cracks, I could see the figure's true form. I didn't know darkness had its own type of light, but that's the only way to describe it. It was as if malevolence itself was reified into a skin which was actually an amalgamation of millions of little, oozing parasites that leached into the nearby light. When it finally spoke, the demon's voice was a full octave lower than the old man's at the deli. And it had an earth-stilling gravitas.
"Today's the day!" He sang and reached into his pocket. His lips curled upward into a foxy smirk. "You have no idea how long I've waited for this day." He said and held up a razor blade. Half his facade had already fallen apart, and now I could see the bugs up close, writhing in what was either horror or ecstasy. And his scent… it was somehow more rank than the rabid coyote rummaging through the trash can with Trent's cut open body inside. The demon closed in on my position, and in one, decisive motion, he brought the blade close to his chin, then sliced it across my throat. "Wake up!" He screamed.
I jumped out of my bed and grabbed my throat, feeling the cold sting of its quick slice. Hyperventilating, I patted the area down, trying to hold the blood in, but when I removed my hands, I saw they were dry. It was only a dream, I thought. Gray light was only beginning to filter in through the drapes. I'm in my hotel room. I'm safe. I tried consoling, but the pragmatic mental massages weren't enough to hold the force of my knees buckling. I dropped onto the carpet and cried for a long while.
Outside, rain was beginning to fall.
***
By the time I met up with Trent, I had already composed myself and decided to keep my dad's message and the nightmare to myself. None of it seemed particularly productive from a logistical standpoint, anyway. And I wanted to focus on the mission.
We stopped by McDonald's and bought a couple cups of coffee. Trent asked if I wanted any food, and I declined. Black coffee seemed like the only thing my stomach could take at the present moment. I could tell Trent was hungry, but he tried playing it off (I guess to be respectful of me?) I told him to knock it off and get something to eat. I didn't need my Charon getting lightheaded and dropping the paddle before he finished rowing me to Hell. He didn't care much for my joke, but he ordered a couple Chicken McGriddles at the kiosk anyway.
There were maybe ten patrons spread throughout the restaurant. We sat down at the same booth from the prior night, this time across from one another. Trent spent the first ten minutes or so babbling about our fuel supply and the logistics of the trip from here on in. Practical stuff. I've come to realize that's how he deals with his stress. He talks it out in short, durable sentences. I mostly nodded and watched as what looked like a storm front closed in on the truck stop. The sky was overcast, and there were darker clouds in the distance. The rain was still only a patter, but a middle-aged man wearing a yellow bow tie on the wall-mounted TV confirmed that there would be heavier rain and thunderstorms very soon.
After the worker delivered Trent's food and he ate it in record time, I posed the one question that was still on my mind.
"How do I fight him?" I asked.
Trent finished a large gulp of his coffee, then looked at me. It was the first substantial thing I'd said all morning; Trent could tell something was off with me, but he figured there was no point in asking what it was. "By 'him', I assume you mean the demon?"
I nodded.
Trent licked his teeth clean. "You could try praying again."
"I'm serious," I responded.
"I'm serious, too. It worked before, didn't it?"
"You mean at my house?"
Trent nodded.
"I thought you weren't a religious man?"
"I'm not. Just a practical one. If praying worked before, maybe it'll work again."
"That's the best you've got? A maybe?"
"No, I've got a lot of shit better than a maybe." He answered. "It's just not accessible where you're going. Which is why I recommend not making contact on the first run."
"First run? So we're going to do this more than once?"
"At least," Trent answered. Then, seeing my expression, he continued. "What? You thought this was going to be a one-and-done? We have to conduct some research first. I did tell you this was new for me, right?"
Somehow Trent's response had set my mind at ease a little. I was going to have more than one chance. Of course, why wouldn't I be able to go back more than once?
"Why didn't you tell me this earlier? It would have gone a long way in easing my mind."
Trent lifted his hands in defense. "Sorry, I just thought that was a given. I mean, what we're doing is dangerous, just like I said, but it doesn't mean we aren't going to approach this as safely and scientifically as possible. However, there is a different problem with running multiple trials."
"The Organization?"
"That's right," Trent said like a proud parent. "Our little experiment will be like a giant spotlight, and the longer we wait around after it's on us, the greater the chance we'll have unwelcome company."
"So, safe but speedy."
"Safe but speedy. Exactly."
***
We fueled up and were back on the road a little after 8:00. From that point on, Trent and I were absolutely silent. I had the distinct feeling of being in the eye of a storm. The pings moved closer commensurate with our progress toward the crash site. The cloudfront continued its advance. And I noticed a haze beginning to descend onto the road ahead of us. It was fog.
We meandered further inland, the forest thickening around us until the rain almost stopped entirely—the leaves drinking it up before it fell onto our windshield. I kept my eyes on the radar. We were approaching the large yellow circle which indicated we had arrived. As we pulled closer, I began to feel things. Fear. Eeriness. Doubt. Then happiness. Hope. Love. Normally feelings like these had a clear source to picture, but these sensations came on in waves without any discernible reason. It was almost as if they were blinking into existence inside me.
"Here we go," Trent said like an airline pilot readying his crew for turbulence.
I still recall the exact moment we crossed the boundary into the area of higher energy. It was like something just "clicked" in my brain, and all of a sudden everything felt so much closer. The sound of the rain against the trees was almost right next to my ear. The trees in the distance would oscillate between their position a half-mile out, then suddenly seem five meters away. If I focused on something long enough, it began to radiate those same ethereal particles as when Trent released Ava's "phase lock". I checked to make sure the shifter wasn't set to "TD". Sure enough, it was still in drive.
"Can you see them?" Trent asked. "The shifts?"
"Yeah," I said in a dreamy voice. I felt like I was driving through a wonderland.
"It's the energy. I barely notice a difference. A bit of movement in the trees, but not much else. But I'm sure for you, it's a whole experience."
"What is this?" I raised my hand and caught some of the pixel dust dripping off the sun visor. It disappeared when it made contact with my hand.
"It's a kind of radiation. Everything emits it, just in different quantities. I'm still not exactly sure how it relates to the other realms, but I'm guessing it's a kind of primordial matter that helps connect our worlds."
"It's beautiful," I exclaimed. "I wish I could see the world like this all the time."
"Maybe you will," Trent whispered.
As we arrived at the crash site, I began to get glimpses of the past. My childhood dreams and memories were pushing their way out from my subconscious. I noticed an increased number of blinks, which were validated by Ava who reported the following: "Currently detecting 14,350 novel emergences and 2,777 controlled agents. Net anomalies: 2,777."
"That's a lot of blinks." I remarked. "Why doesn't Ava include them in the net anomalies?"
Trent turned his head so I could see his smirk. "Because blinks aren't anomalies."
I thought about it for a second. Blinks aren't anomalies. "I never thought about it that way."
"It's hard to think about it that way when 'normal' for most people means not picking up on a fundamental aspect of reality. But that doesn't make it any less real."
We continued past the epicenter of the yellow circle. "Are we not stopping?" I asked. "I think we already passed the crash site."
"It doesn't have to be exactly at the site," Trent said. "Plus, we don't want to stop on the side of the road and risk getting some civilian involved. There's a field about half a mile up ahead. I'm going to pull off the road and set up camp there.
The "field" that Trent was referring to was actually a large clearing that dipped down into several trench-like troughs which were filled to the brim with fog like witches cauldrons. Further on in the distance, I saw open fields, probably used for farming, and then a large hill where the trees once again reasserted themselves. We had pulled off the road and up a small incline where the trees had already been broken down, leaving a trail for us to drive through. When we surfaced at the edge of the clearing, Trent pulled us onto a flat bed of dried mud which was maybe thirty yards long.
"Here," he said with a sigh.
We both sat for a minute, looking around at the field. We had finally arrived. The rain was beginning to pick up, and the dark sky made it almost impossible to discern the time of day.
"You ready?" Trent asked.
I looked at him. Really looked at him. In his blue eyes. Was I ready? Did it even matter?
"Let's do this," I said.
***
This was the first time I was really able to inspect the back of Trent's van. He had talked up his gear a lot, and honestly, I was impressed. Not in the way that a scientist is impressed by another scientist's lab—I wasn't any kind of expert—but it still seemed remarkably well managed. Now that I was in a state where my vision had been enhanced, I could actually see the enigmatic particles circulating through the pneumatic tubes which were coiled like the pipes and valves of an elaborate wind instrument. The walls of the van, itself, were glistening white, making it easier to make out everything else inside. Along the floor were five overturned columns. Each column was dark and had a vibrating quality, as if they were charged with energy. Then atop the center three columns was a small altar which supported an apparatus with two skinny, metal arms holding a silver halo. At present, the arms were folded and the halo was suspended a few inches above the altar, faced-down. I thought maybe I'd see particles exuding from it, but instead it was emitting visible waves which bent and warped everything they touched.
"That thing is emitting a lot of energy." I remarked, gesturing toward the halo.
Trent stepped in between the columns and started pulling out the packages he had stuffed in there yesterday. "Just wait till' it's on."
Most of the packages contained only a single piece of equipment, and were otherwise packed with foam peanuts. We carefully removed each box and set them on the ground outside. I asked if the rain would damage any of the stuff inside, to which Trent only laughed and continued lugging out the boxes. When they were all out, Trent removed a box cutter from his pocket and went one-by-one opening them. There were eight pieces in total.
"What is it?" I asked as we fished the first item out.
"It's another apparatus, like the one inside. Except it'll mount on the ground out here."
I pulled out what looked like a metal tripod.
"Good, that'll go on the bottom."
"Where are we setting it up?"
"Over here," Trent said and stepped five paces away from the van. He coordinated himself up so he was centrally aligned with the inner ring, then stomped a few times. "This is the spot."
As we continued to work, I asked Trent about how the whole contraption works.
"Do you remember the first time we were in the van? When we had to escape from the semi-truck?" Trent asked and connected a secondary mounting apparatus on top of the tripod. It had four spider-like legs that made right angles and stuck into the ground.
"Of course," I said. "The 'phase lock'."
"Yeah," Trent said and gestured toward the metal stick that was in my hand. I handed it to him. "The phase lock is a seal on the level of energy that the van is allowed to release. It also controls its dispersion pattern so that it releases its energy in a steady wave. This allows Ava to scan for anomalies without causing us to become an anomaly." Trent stuck the plank into the neck of the tripod.
"So when you released the phase lock, we started emitting more energy."
"That's right." Trent confirmed. "Enough to create an alternate route through a different realm."
"So we blinked into a different realm, then back, just to avoid that truck?"
"That's right."
"But why couldn't we just move out of the way?"
"Because it had locked onto us. It was tracking our motion and adjusting its course based on the amount of energy we were emitting. So in order to escape, we had to radically skew our potential energy and then use it to shift."
"Couldn't he have just followed us?"
Trent connected four more pieces to the device which now looked like an elaborate teepee. He was fishing in the last box when he spoke again. "Yeah, he could have. But it was highly improbable that he would have found us." Trent returned from the bottom of the box with another silver ring in hand. "Think of it like this. Let's say you're trying to escape from some bad guy who's coming after you, and you enter a new room you've never seen before. Would you prefer this room to have three doors to go through, or ten?"
I thought about his riddle for a second, then responded, "It depends where they go."
Trent fastened the ring atop the teepee. "Let's say they all lead to random places, or let's say they're all closets that lead nowhere. The key is that more is better, because the more doors he has to check, the less likely he is to pick the correct one. Make sense?"
"So we opened up a bunch of doors and escaped through one at random?"
"Hence the gear 'TD', for 'Trap Door'."
I marveled at the insights, but not for long. Trent hopped back in the van and pulled a lever that I hadn't seen until now. The two metal arms raised the inner ring until it was perpendicular with the altar. Then Trent clicked one of three red buttons along the back wall, and I saw what looked like a large, glass eye suspended in a magnifying glass protruding from the wall, aligned with the center of both rings. A couple seconds later, the glass eye began to focus the energy which was being fed to it from the pneumatic tubes, and a blue pyramid of light projected from it into the first ring, then from the first ring into the second ring. All three pieces were aligned at slightly diminishing heights, so the cylinder of light beamed through the second ring, into the ground.
"Alright, time for the first trial."
I felt the nerves starting up in my stomach. Trent sensed this and hopped out of the truck. It was raining quite hard now, though it was still warm. Both Trent and I were soaked, but that hardly concerned us. He reached out and put his hand on my shoulder. "I know you're feeling scared." He said. "But trust me on this. You're going to do fine. Just keep in mind what we talked about. Stay a spectator. Okay?"
I looked into his blue eyes, which seemed especially gray in the dark. Still, Trent's voice was reassuring. All I had to do was trust him. Trust myself. Trust my dad. And it was all going to turn out right.
"I'm ready," I said.
Trent was still for a second, holding my eyes in his. Then he guided me behind the outer ring and into the cylinder of light.
"I should step into it now?" I asked, afraid I'd be called away immediately.
"It's not on yet, so don't worry. I still have to press another button."
I followed Trent's instructions and stood in the blue light which was centered on my chest. Then I watched as Trent ran into the back of the van and posted up next to the glass eye. "Ready?" He yelled out. It was hard to hear him over the rain, but I yelled back. "Ready!"
The next thing I saw was a blinding blue light beam from the van. I heard what sounded like a laser, then saw the cylinder oscillate, expanding and compressing. When the energy reached the second ring, I saw everything around me light up—it looked brighter than noon on a cloudless day. Then the oscillations made their way to me, and I was swallowed up whole.
***
When I came to, I was in the backseat of a car. I felt my butt rumbling. Everything was dim and quiet. And then I heard a woman's voice from in front of me.
"Mark, please, not with Lauren in the back."
The man, who I now identified as my father, pulled the cigarette away from his lips and blew the smoke at my mom. He eyed the back seat where I was sitting, using one of five markers that hadn't rolled off my lap to color a rabbit in my animal color book.
"The kid's fine." he said and took another drag.
"Mark," my mom repeated.
I saw my dad raise his hand in a rapid motion. "I said she's fine, Cheryl. Now check the map and make sure we're going the right away. I can't see shit with all this fog."
I took a moment to make sure I was really in the back seat. I patted myself. I clearly had weight. Then I tried touching the car. At first, my fingertips met a solid surface, but when I tried to press through, my hand slipped into the car. I quickly pulled my hand away as if I had reached into a fire.
That's when I heard the little three year old next to me start crying. I turned and saw that little-me had dropped another couple markers onto the ground and was struggling to reach them.
"Hey!" my dad shouted. "What did I say about crying?"
"Quit it, Mark. She just dropped her markers." said my mom; she turned to help me pick them up.
"What did you say to me?" Mark spat with a voice full of guile. He reached out and pushed her back into her seat. "Don't," he commanded. "She has to learn how to deal with life."
"Deal…" My mom started in disbelief. "Deal with life? Do you hear yourself? What's gotten into you?"
"Sometimes shit happens. It doesn't give her the right to cry. You helping her is just going to reinforce her behavior."
"Her behavior? What about your behavior? You're acting like a total dick."
I didn't even have a moment to react before my dad's hand was across my mom's face. I felt the slap more than I heard it, my own face seeming to swell with the force of the blow. I saw my mom cover her mouth and lean away. Then little-me began to cry even louder, which only challenged my dad to step up his own volume.
"Everyone needs to get a fucking grip before I crash this car." My dad shouted and took another drag. The scariest part was I couldn't tell if he was warning us or threatening us. I felt the sudden urge to do something. There was no way this was real. I was definitely in some fantasy concocted by the demon. He wanted to turn me against my dad. That was the only explanation for something like this. My dad was a good man, not… this.
As I contemplated what to do, I saw a small, golden light appear behind little-me's window. Apparently she saw it, too, because her cries hushed as she traced the wisp with her eyes. After a second, the wisp transformed into a bunny rabbit, reminiscent of the one she was coloring. The rabbit hopped alongside the window, then did a couple circles in place. I watched little me let out a playful laugh and reach toward the window.
"What's going on back there?" my dad asked with a scowl. Apparently the only sound more disturbing than cries were laughs.
I looked back to the front and saw my mom wiping blood from her lip. Her expression was miserable. "Leave her alone, Mark."
"I'll do whatever I damn well want to do, Cheryl. It's my kid back there."
My mom was quiet.
When I looked back toward the rabbit, it was no longer a rabbit but a person. Or at least it looked like a person. The figure radiated pure gold, and atop his head was what appeared to be a King's crown. I recalled Allison's experience of seeing the sun-like figure in her moment of distress. Was that what was happening here? Was this really all true?
"Hey!" My dad shouted, eyeing little-me from the rear-view mirror. "What are you reaching at?"
I looked and saw the golden figure extending his hand toward the window, and little me's hand was reaching back. "Mom, dad, it bright." little-me said.
"What's bright, honey?" my mom asked.
"Don't encourage her, Cheryl."
"Someone there!" little me shouted happily and dropped the rest of the markers and the coloring book onto the ground.
"Who's there?" asked my mom.
"Cheryl, I swear to God. Sit the fuck down."
Everything from that moment on happened so quickly I barely had any time to process it. My mom lifted out of her seat to either get little me's attention or help me pick up my coloring book. My dad responded by grabbing onto her throat, letting go of the steering wheel entirely. He threw her back against the car door, and her head hit the window so hard, the glass cracked. My dad had dropped his cigarette, and I could smell smoke coming from under his seat, but that didn't seem to bother him at all. He turned toward little-me at the same moment my three-year-old hand reached out and grabbed onto the golden figure, whose hand diffused through the window. When my dad turned, I got a whiff of the most awful smell that I wouldn't have been able to place had I not had that nightmare last night. He grabbed onto little-me's shoulder and tugged her away from the golden figure that was trying to pull her the other way. My dad's facade began to crack, and I could see those dark bugs crawling out from the pores in his arms, marching down toward little-me.
I reacted.
I grabbed onto my dad's arm and pulled him off little-me. I heard the sound of my shirt ripping as she was torn from his grip and pulled out of the car, diffusing through it like a ghost. My brief victory was immediately overturned as I saw what was now clearly the demon smiling at me, his wretched fingers curled around my forearm.
"Caught you," He sneered.
Then the whole world once again diffused into countless numbers of particles, only this time, instead of riding through it, I felt like I was falling through an elevator shaft with each floor darker than the last. The further I fell, the less I became aware of my surroundings, and the more I felt a deep sense of loneliness. It was as if I was the only person in the whole world: and the whole world was a prison designed entirely for me. This went on for so long, I began to forget who I was. Where I was. What was.
And then I landed.
***
Source Used:
Jung, Carl. Synchronicity. Translated by Sonu Shamdasani, Princeton University Press, 2010.
2024.06.09 22:05 ThrowRA_peaches345 5 year relationship, 32F and 32M, found empty condom wrapper in our hotel room. Can I have advice on his reaction please?
Hi, so long story coming up but really need some impartial insight into this.
Info: we don’t and never have used condoms, I’ve had questions over his loyalty in the past and have first hand witnessed his crude and disrespectful behaviour whilst he’s been drunk or high.
We have recently got back from a holiday with his family. We went on a night out and came home at 4.30am in the morning. For other reasons I wanted to stay in my sister in laws room and we left eachother after getting out of the taxi. I went straight to her room and came back to our hotel room at maybe 8am. When I got there he was fast asleep, he had ‘wet the bed’ but there was a soaking wet towel on the floor next to the bed and he was naked, which I find odd because when he is so drunk, he never takes his clothes off. Anyways, I go into the bathroom and find an empty condom wrapper on the floor. I wake him up shaking and upset, he says (still very drunk), it’s probably you and that’s it. No shock it’s there, no denying anything. I leave it for the rest of the holiday because I want to have a nice time. I try to bring it up maybe once and he just says believe me or don’t. You need to trust me.
Since we have been home, he’s gone working away and I couldn’t stop thinking about it so I rang him and just said I’ve been thinking about the condom wrapper and he immediately loses it and says it could have been you, you know just as much about it as I do, gets really mad and hangs up. I just messaged him saying I’m not accusing you I would just like to talk about it so I can clear my head. He refuses, ignores me all day and has basically told me to f*** off. I start to spiral and it’s making me think he is guilty now. He said he has every right to behave like that (our relationship is toxic, I know this, but that’s a different story). I just don’t know how to react now, I have no explanation or anything just wondering where the damn thing came from!? Advice welcome
submitted by ThrowRA_peaches345 to relationship_advice [link] [comments]
Info: we don’t and never have used condoms, I’ve had questions over his loyalty in the past and have first hand witnessed his crude and disrespectful behaviour whilst he’s been drunk or high.
We have recently got back from a holiday with his family. We went on a night out and came home at 4.30am in the morning. For other reasons I wanted to stay in my sister in laws room and we left eachother after getting out of the taxi. I went straight to her room and came back to our hotel room at maybe 8am. When I got there he was fast asleep, he had ‘wet the bed’ but there was a soaking wet towel on the floor next to the bed and he was naked, which I find odd because when he is so drunk, he never takes his clothes off. Anyways, I go into the bathroom and find an empty condom wrapper on the floor. I wake him up shaking and upset, he says (still very drunk), it’s probably you and that’s it. No shock it’s there, no denying anything. I leave it for the rest of the holiday because I want to have a nice time. I try to bring it up maybe once and he just says believe me or don’t. You need to trust me.
Since we have been home, he’s gone working away and I couldn’t stop thinking about it so I rang him and just said I’ve been thinking about the condom wrapper and he immediately loses it and says it could have been you, you know just as much about it as I do, gets really mad and hangs up. I just messaged him saying I’m not accusing you I would just like to talk about it so I can clear my head. He refuses, ignores me all day and has basically told me to f*** off. I start to spiral and it’s making me think he is guilty now. He said he has every right to behave like that (our relationship is toxic, I know this, but that’s a different story). I just don’t know how to react now, I have no explanation or anything just wondering where the damn thing came from!? Advice welcome
2024.06.09 22:05 RemindMeToTouchGrass I finished the Bunker Shooting Range Challenges on console. Help me put together some advice for others trying!
If you bought the gun range for your bunker, you know that there are 18 challenges-- 6 weapons in 3 difficulty tiers. Completing all of these is part of your career achievement (only for next gen consoles maybe? +/- PC?).
When I was looking for information on completing it, I repeatedly saw comments that it was impossible or nearly impossible, and many suggestions for a commonly known exploit. The other main advice is to get good.
I'm here to tell you that even for someone with average to below average aim, you can get it done (without exploits). I did pick up a few bits of helpful information along the way, but I am by no means an expert, so I'm hoping others can either offer additional feedback, or even criticize the advice I give if it doesn't work for you.
ALL WEAPONS
Take note of what weapon you're using. If you have a custom loadout enabled, say to hide your pistol MK2, you won't be able to use hidden weapons for the challenge, so be sure to unhide the ones you want to use. Alternately, if you want to use a different weapon, hide the one it selects... but I don't think you ever want to use a weapon other than the best one, which is what will be selected if all weapons are unhidden.
Remember that if you have an MOC with a Mk 2 workshop inside, it's only a short jog to make changes to your weapon and try different things.
HEAVY SNIPER RIFLE
This one is the most straightforward. Hit all headshots, make sure you have the extended magazine. Don't zoom in too much or it will slow down your aim.
PISTOL
Use the MkII with extended clip. I actually did it with the suppressor but I suspect it would be easier with the compensator.
If you start out aiming for low body shots on the low targets and headshots on the high targets, you can hit the targets twice each before they go away-- but only if you squeeze the trigger twice. If you hold it down, it won't shoot fast enough. I shot each target twice until I got the 3x bonus then swapped to single headshots. (Don't look at the bonus, you'll slow your aim, just note the point values of your shots or count.)
AUTOMATIC WEAPONS
The rest are automatic weapons. Personally I found the SMG, Assault Rifle, and Combat MG to be the easiest challenges (including pistol/sniper), and the Carbine rifle to be the hardest of all.
Be sure you have a muzzle brake for greater stability, an extended clip, and of course all the other things you probably already have on your Mk 2 weapons- grip, barrel, etc.
Don't try to "time" it. Use your ears instead. You'll get into a rhythm based on the sound-- PApaPApaPApaPA(1-2-3-4-5-6-7) instead of "shoot for 1/2 of a second" or "shoot until you see the target move."
You can get in at least 2 more headshots on the upper targets before they go away than you can on the lower targets, depending on which class in this category you're talking about. For example, with the carbine rifle, you can get 5 headshots on the bottom targets, but 7 on the upper targets, before they go away (because of the angle of the target as it moves away from you; if you were going for body shots, you could get an extra couple in on the bottom, but you shouldn't be going for body shots.)
Play with your scope, distance in 3rd person, and zoom (don't forget you can tap the R stick to scope in). You may find your optimal combination is different from mine. I did not think any of these were easier in first person scoped in-- too far zoomed, the flicks are too long. However, on some weapons I opted for a higher zoom level, while in others I put on a lower zoom scope but changed my 3rd person view to be closer to the character model.
For the carbine rifle, I completed the challenge while not scoped in. However, I got multiple 2975 and 2950 scores (out of 3000) while scoped, so you can do it either way, I'm sure.
Prioritize 100% headshots over speed once you have the maximum bonus! The thing that takes away most of your time is switching between targets and reloading, and the targets go away after X number of shots, so there's no reason to be an extra fraction of a second quicker shooting your target in the black. If you're not seeing a string of 45s, you're not going to complete the challenge.
Don't stop shooting because you missed a shot. I would suggest not getting in the habit of backint out and restarting just because of some early misses. Remember, not every miss resets your bonus-- you get a "grace" shot on some of the faster shooting weapons, so just keep aiming for the head.
MATH FOR AUTOMATIC WEAPONS
This is for the Carbine; I can do them for others if it would be helpful, but I figure one example gives you a pretty good idea of your goals.
-If you hit 72 headshots in a row without missing, you'll end up with 3015 points, enough to clear the mission.
-Suppose you lose your multiplier after your 30th shot after getting all headshots until then: You will then need to hit a total of 77 headshots (plus the two missed shots for 79 total) to clear 3000 points.
-If you miss after your 30th and 60th shot, you'll need 82 headshots (plus 4 missed shots for a total of 86)
-Suppose you never reset your multiplier, but 10 of your shots hit the outermost rim of the target (for 3 points instead of 15): now you'll need 75 total shots instead of 72 to clear the level.
You can use this to get an idea of how close you are to being on track, but I think it also drives home the point: accuracy is more important than speed. I can easily get 91-95 shots off with the carbine at 80% accuracy, but I might not even break 1200 points doing that. Most of my attempts fell around 79-82 shots and 95-97% accuracy when I was doing well and closing in on 3000.
TARGET SELECTION AND ACQUISITION
When you get to tier 3, targets will come and go fairly quickly. It's important that once you lock onto your current target, begin deciding on your next target and move your eyes there before you're done shooting your last target. It's also important to track the order of targets that popped up, at least in a general sense. If you're shooting at top targets and bottom targets start popping up, for example, it's essential to know which bottom target popped up first, and will therefore be the first to go away.
You don't have to shoot every target! And you don't have to unload the full amount of shots into every target! To be clear, you normally should be trying to unload a full clip into each target, but let's say you just finished shooting a bottom target, a top one popped up, and by the time you finished shooting the top one, you have 3 more bottom targets. By the time you acquire a bottom target again, there's a good chance you won't have much time to shoot whichever one came up first. It's okay to just ignore that one, and shoot the other two. By then, another target will probably be up anyway.
Any time you're reloading, be sure your crosshair is on the target you want to shoot next before the reload is finished. If you have plenty of targets to shoot at when you reload, you may want to move on to the next target in line if you can. If you take time to reload, then shoot your prior target for the last one or two shots, then immediately have to acquire a new target, that's a lot of wasted time for those one or two shots. And that wasted time can result in a juicy target going away before you can get to it. This is a judgement call of course-- if the next target is crappy anyway (eg front bottom to back top) or there are only one or two targets up, and/or you only shot the target once or twice before reloading, it might be better to finish the one you're on and hope a new, better target pops up by the time you're done.
THE MENTAL ASPECT
One thing to be aware of: RNG is going to come into play here. If you're an aim god, you don't need this guide anyway. If you're like me, even your best won't be good enough unless you get the perfect set of targets.
For example, given that you can hit 7 headshots with the carbine rifle on the upper targets, it's nice to get a lot of uppers in a row... except unlike the bottoms, the front upper targets block headshots to the back upper targets, requiring you to either fire a string of body shots to get the closer target out of the way, or re-aquire a headshot (sometimes only to be blocked once again by a 3rd target.) So getting a front-to-back line of upper targets is a huge boost. Getting two blocked headshots in a row by closer upper targets just means "gg go next." Likewise, the lower targets are closer together and faster to acquire, so getting a bunch of lower targets in a row is also great. Upper and lower alternating? You're kinda screwed.
Even with no change in your accuracy or target acquisition, the random aspects can make an easy 500 point difference and probably more, eg if a target gets blocked, then blocked again, then you finally go to shoot at your first target and it goes away so you shoot the wall instead.
When chasing the 3000 on carbine, I would guesstimate that I scored <1000 points on about 10% of my attempts, <2000 points on about 30-50%, and between 2000-2500 on like 30-40% (at least towards the end when I was really locked in). Getting between 2500 and 3000 was uncommon for me, probably <10% of the time; I did hit some 2975 and 2950s, and a handful of 26xxs, but most were lower.
Or to put it another way: if you're not an aim god, your results are going to fall on a bell curve, and the peak is going to be way below 3000. Don't look at it like "I have to keep closing in on 3000, and if most of my results are 2200-2400 and I'm not consistently climbing, I'll never win." Look at it this way: most of your results won't be good enough to win, and by the nature of reality, you won't be getting your top 5% results every time. What you're looking for is for your best performance (rare) to overlap with the best target RNG (rare). Keep at it, and one of those times, which will probably feel no different than any other time, you'll look at your score and gasp, and see that it hits the goal. I kept trying the carbine tier 3 challenge repeatedly from 11:30pm to 3am before I got it, with small breaks for otter pops and buying more supplies for my bunker.
PROBABLY BULLSHIT ADVICE BUT I'D LOVE FEEDBACK
I felt like the visibility of certain targets was different from different spots on the range. Sometimes the light casts a hard shadow on some targets in some areas but not others, making it harder to see the headshot. I didn't objectively test this, going back and forth and noting specific targets, so it may be in my head.
I played around with night vision (do NOT use thermal lol) and was undecided on whether it helped. It makes the circles no longer red, and they're a little subtleharder to see on the targets that are clear anyway, but it also makes it easier to see the targets in the back. The main reason I went with no vision aids is because the goggles kept glitching out anyway, where they'd suddenly deactivate, and I got tired of resetting them. The specific advantage of NVG was when I was on a certain position on the range, the metal apparatus and the head of the target itself kind of blended together in shadow, and the NVG made that difference crystal clear-- but again, at the cost of making it harder to see the specific red zones. On the other hand, the head is a cricle, and you're shooting the middle of the circle, so how important is the red color really? This is probably down to preference, but this is also where I thought moving to the far left position eliminated the problem of the shadows (if I'm not just accidentally full of shit.)
STUFF I NEED MORE INFO ON
Here are some things I'd love to know if anyone has the info or wants to figure it out:
-What are the rules on when missing shots resets your bonus? You can miss one for example with the carbine rifle... and if you miss the second, it resets. What if you miss one, and hit 3 shots, then miss another? 1/5?
-Why does the multiplier counter keep ticking up even after you hit 3x? Is this related to the missed shots? Once you hit 3x you're maxed out, but the next 4 shots still fill up bits of your multiplier bar. Don't know if this is just a graphic design decision or if it's functional in some way.
-Are the targets that flash truly random? Or are there a few set patterns? Even if no one is going to memorize the pattern, just knowing eg that there's going to be a string of low targets towards the end is helpful, or being able to say "THIS IS THE GOOD ONE!"
-I saw some advice on altering your field of view and your dead zone. I didn't play with this, but it does seem useful. Normally I like to see as much as possible so I can view threats, but for this specific challenge, it's unnecessary, so maybe tweaking it gives an advantage.
CONCLUSION
Thanks for helping! Feel free to also send your favorite links. I didn't watch a lot of video guides (maybe 4 or 5) because I prefer text guides, but it's possible I missed out on some good info as a result.
Good luck out there!
submitted by RemindMeToTouchGrass to gtaonline [link] [comments]
When I was looking for information on completing it, I repeatedly saw comments that it was impossible or nearly impossible, and many suggestions for a commonly known exploit. The other main advice is to get good.
I'm here to tell you that even for someone with average to below average aim, you can get it done (without exploits). I did pick up a few bits of helpful information along the way, but I am by no means an expert, so I'm hoping others can either offer additional feedback, or even criticize the advice I give if it doesn't work for you.
ALL WEAPONS
Take note of what weapon you're using. If you have a custom loadout enabled, say to hide your pistol MK2, you won't be able to use hidden weapons for the challenge, so be sure to unhide the ones you want to use. Alternately, if you want to use a different weapon, hide the one it selects... but I don't think you ever want to use a weapon other than the best one, which is what will be selected if all weapons are unhidden.
Remember that if you have an MOC with a Mk 2 workshop inside, it's only a short jog to make changes to your weapon and try different things.
HEAVY SNIPER RIFLE
This one is the most straightforward. Hit all headshots, make sure you have the extended magazine. Don't zoom in too much or it will slow down your aim.
PISTOL
Use the MkII with extended clip. I actually did it with the suppressor but I suspect it would be easier with the compensator.
If you start out aiming for low body shots on the low targets and headshots on the high targets, you can hit the targets twice each before they go away-- but only if you squeeze the trigger twice. If you hold it down, it won't shoot fast enough. I shot each target twice until I got the 3x bonus then swapped to single headshots. (Don't look at the bonus, you'll slow your aim, just note the point values of your shots or count.)
AUTOMATIC WEAPONS
The rest are automatic weapons. Personally I found the SMG, Assault Rifle, and Combat MG to be the easiest challenges (including pistol/sniper), and the Carbine rifle to be the hardest of all.
Be sure you have a muzzle brake for greater stability, an extended clip, and of course all the other things you probably already have on your Mk 2 weapons- grip, barrel, etc.
Don't try to "time" it. Use your ears instead. You'll get into a rhythm based on the sound-- PApaPApaPApaPA(1-2-3-4-5-6-7) instead of "shoot for 1/2 of a second" or "shoot until you see the target move."
You can get in at least 2 more headshots on the upper targets before they go away than you can on the lower targets, depending on which class in this category you're talking about. For example, with the carbine rifle, you can get 5 headshots on the bottom targets, but 7 on the upper targets, before they go away (because of the angle of the target as it moves away from you; if you were going for body shots, you could get an extra couple in on the bottom, but you shouldn't be going for body shots.)
Play with your scope, distance in 3rd person, and zoom (don't forget you can tap the R stick to scope in). You may find your optimal combination is different from mine. I did not think any of these were easier in first person scoped in-- too far zoomed, the flicks are too long. However, on some weapons I opted for a higher zoom level, while in others I put on a lower zoom scope but changed my 3rd person view to be closer to the character model.
For the carbine rifle, I completed the challenge while not scoped in. However, I got multiple 2975 and 2950 scores (out of 3000) while scoped, so you can do it either way, I'm sure.
Prioritize 100% headshots over speed once you have the maximum bonus! The thing that takes away most of your time is switching between targets and reloading, and the targets go away after X number of shots, so there's no reason to be an extra fraction of a second quicker shooting your target in the black. If you're not seeing a string of 45s, you're not going to complete the challenge.
Don't stop shooting because you missed a shot. I would suggest not getting in the habit of backint out and restarting just because of some early misses. Remember, not every miss resets your bonus-- you get a "grace" shot on some of the faster shooting weapons, so just keep aiming for the head.
MATH FOR AUTOMATIC WEAPONS
This is for the Carbine; I can do them for others if it would be helpful, but I figure one example gives you a pretty good idea of your goals.
-If you hit 72 headshots in a row without missing, you'll end up with 3015 points, enough to clear the mission.
-Suppose you lose your multiplier after your 30th shot after getting all headshots until then: You will then need to hit a total of 77 headshots (plus the two missed shots for 79 total) to clear 3000 points.
-If you miss after your 30th and 60th shot, you'll need 82 headshots (plus 4 missed shots for a total of 86)
-Suppose you never reset your multiplier, but 10 of your shots hit the outermost rim of the target (for 3 points instead of 15): now you'll need 75 total shots instead of 72 to clear the level.
You can use this to get an idea of how close you are to being on track, but I think it also drives home the point: accuracy is more important than speed. I can easily get 91-95 shots off with the carbine at 80% accuracy, but I might not even break 1200 points doing that. Most of my attempts fell around 79-82 shots and 95-97% accuracy when I was doing well and closing in on 3000.
TARGET SELECTION AND ACQUISITION
When you get to tier 3, targets will come and go fairly quickly. It's important that once you lock onto your current target, begin deciding on your next target and move your eyes there before you're done shooting your last target. It's also important to track the order of targets that popped up, at least in a general sense. If you're shooting at top targets and bottom targets start popping up, for example, it's essential to know which bottom target popped up first, and will therefore be the first to go away.
You don't have to shoot every target! And you don't have to unload the full amount of shots into every target! To be clear, you normally should be trying to unload a full clip into each target, but let's say you just finished shooting a bottom target, a top one popped up, and by the time you finished shooting the top one, you have 3 more bottom targets. By the time you acquire a bottom target again, there's a good chance you won't have much time to shoot whichever one came up first. It's okay to just ignore that one, and shoot the other two. By then, another target will probably be up anyway.
Any time you're reloading, be sure your crosshair is on the target you want to shoot next before the reload is finished. If you have plenty of targets to shoot at when you reload, you may want to move on to the next target in line if you can. If you take time to reload, then shoot your prior target for the last one or two shots, then immediately have to acquire a new target, that's a lot of wasted time for those one or two shots. And that wasted time can result in a juicy target going away before you can get to it. This is a judgement call of course-- if the next target is crappy anyway (eg front bottom to back top) or there are only one or two targets up, and/or you only shot the target once or twice before reloading, it might be better to finish the one you're on and hope a new, better target pops up by the time you're done.
THE MENTAL ASPECT
One thing to be aware of: RNG is going to come into play here. If you're an aim god, you don't need this guide anyway. If you're like me, even your best won't be good enough unless you get the perfect set of targets.
For example, given that you can hit 7 headshots with the carbine rifle on the upper targets, it's nice to get a lot of uppers in a row... except unlike the bottoms, the front upper targets block headshots to the back upper targets, requiring you to either fire a string of body shots to get the closer target out of the way, or re-aquire a headshot (sometimes only to be blocked once again by a 3rd target.) So getting a front-to-back line of upper targets is a huge boost. Getting two blocked headshots in a row by closer upper targets just means "gg go next." Likewise, the lower targets are closer together and faster to acquire, so getting a bunch of lower targets in a row is also great. Upper and lower alternating? You're kinda screwed.
Even with no change in your accuracy or target acquisition, the random aspects can make an easy 500 point difference and probably more, eg if a target gets blocked, then blocked again, then you finally go to shoot at your first target and it goes away so you shoot the wall instead.
When chasing the 3000 on carbine, I would guesstimate that I scored <1000 points on about 10% of my attempts, <2000 points on about 30-50%, and between 2000-2500 on like 30-40% (at least towards the end when I was really locked in). Getting between 2500 and 3000 was uncommon for me, probably <10% of the time; I did hit some 2975 and 2950s, and a handful of 26xxs, but most were lower.
Or to put it another way: if you're not an aim god, your results are going to fall on a bell curve, and the peak is going to be way below 3000. Don't look at it like "I have to keep closing in on 3000, and if most of my results are 2200-2400 and I'm not consistently climbing, I'll never win." Look at it this way: most of your results won't be good enough to win, and by the nature of reality, you won't be getting your top 5% results every time. What you're looking for is for your best performance (rare) to overlap with the best target RNG (rare). Keep at it, and one of those times, which will probably feel no different than any other time, you'll look at your score and gasp, and see that it hits the goal. I kept trying the carbine tier 3 challenge repeatedly from 11:30pm to 3am before I got it, with small breaks for otter pops and buying more supplies for my bunker.
PROBABLY BULLSHIT ADVICE BUT I'D LOVE FEEDBACK
I felt like the visibility of certain targets was different from different spots on the range. Sometimes the light casts a hard shadow on some targets in some areas but not others, making it harder to see the headshot. I didn't objectively test this, going back and forth and noting specific targets, so it may be in my head.
I played around with night vision (do NOT use thermal lol) and was undecided on whether it helped. It makes the circles no longer red, and they're a little subtleharder to see on the targets that are clear anyway, but it also makes it easier to see the targets in the back. The main reason I went with no vision aids is because the goggles kept glitching out anyway, where they'd suddenly deactivate, and I got tired of resetting them. The specific advantage of NVG was when I was on a certain position on the range, the metal apparatus and the head of the target itself kind of blended together in shadow, and the NVG made that difference crystal clear-- but again, at the cost of making it harder to see the specific red zones. On the other hand, the head is a cricle, and you're shooting the middle of the circle, so how important is the red color really? This is probably down to preference, but this is also where I thought moving to the far left position eliminated the problem of the shadows (if I'm not just accidentally full of shit.)
STUFF I NEED MORE INFO ON
Here are some things I'd love to know if anyone has the info or wants to figure it out:
-What are the rules on when missing shots resets your bonus? You can miss one for example with the carbine rifle... and if you miss the second, it resets. What if you miss one, and hit 3 shots, then miss another? 1/5?
-Why does the multiplier counter keep ticking up even after you hit 3x? Is this related to the missed shots? Once you hit 3x you're maxed out, but the next 4 shots still fill up bits of your multiplier bar. Don't know if this is just a graphic design decision or if it's functional in some way.
-Are the targets that flash truly random? Or are there a few set patterns? Even if no one is going to memorize the pattern, just knowing eg that there's going to be a string of low targets towards the end is helpful, or being able to say "THIS IS THE GOOD ONE!"
-I saw some advice on altering your field of view and your dead zone. I didn't play with this, but it does seem useful. Normally I like to see as much as possible so I can view threats, but for this specific challenge, it's unnecessary, so maybe tweaking it gives an advantage.
CONCLUSION
Thanks for helping! Feel free to also send your favorite links. I didn't watch a lot of video guides (maybe 4 or 5) because I prefer text guides, but it's possible I missed out on some good info as a result.
Good luck out there!
2024.06.09 22:03 Weathers_Writing I think God might be real, just not in the way you think (Part 4)
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Content Warning: Domestic Abuse
***
We pulled off I-51 a little after midnight, stopping at a truck stop which was couched between the highway and a large forest.
We waited in the van for ten minutes or so. Trent had increased the sonar radius to its maximum of 30 miles a little over an hour ago. Somehow the red pings had kept up with us, holding a steady distance of around 20 miles. Considering we were averaging around 80 mph, and a coyote's top speed is only around 40 mph, we figured they had been enhanced in some way. Either that, or they shape-shifted into something faster. Regardless, now that we had stopped, we waited to see if the demon spawn would try and close the distance. Luckily, or unluckily, they didn't. They kept their 20 mile buffer, but we noticed they were beginning to spread out along the circumference of that boundary.
"We're close. They know that, so they're trying to trap us in." Trent said.
"Trying to?—more like they have."
We considered whether we should stay in the van and keep watch, but we figured that would do us little good. At their speed, they could be on us in ten minutes, which means we would need to stay up all night and keep tabs on their positions. Trent offered to stay up, of course, but I shut him down.
"The demon doesn't want to kill us now. You said it yourself. Plus, we need our rest. If they come, they come."
Trent didn't like it, but he acquiesced.
The truck stop had all the essentials: a gas station and mini mart with showers and an attached McDonald's, a large parking lot for truckers to idle and sleep, and even a section with lodging for those who wanted a more comfortable night's rest. I told Trent that he should take advantage of the showers, and after a little convincing, he agreed. While he was cleaning himself up, I patrolled the dingy, half-stocked aisles of "Daisy's Quick Mart". I probably would have been appalled at the quality of the store had I actually been paying any attention to it whatsoever. But I wasn't. I was thinking hard about what awaited me tomorrow.
During the drive, I had asked Trent why the demon would want us to return to the crash site. What did he mean that I would be 'confronting a dark entity in a place he couldn't help me'? He seemed hesitant to answer, but my little stunt outside the storage facility seemed to have sufficiently motivated him.
"When I said I've never done this before, I meant it." Trent started. "I've never done this exact thing before—meaning I've never projected someone into the past."
"So, I'm time traveling?" I asked.
"No—don't think of it like that." Trent paused, trying to come up with a good explanation. "It's more like I'm opening a window for you to look through: not a door. You're going to see the past, but you can't interact with the physicalities there. But that doesn't mean you can't interact with anything."
There was a space of silence as Trent tried to let me work out his meaning for myself. "I don't get it. Are you saying there's something I can interact with? Like what?" And then it hit me. "The demon. The demon can interact with me? Meaning what? It can kill me?"
"Meaning… I'm not exactly sure. You're going to be in a kind of psychic space. If it does damage, it won't be to your body. It'll be to your mind—or spirit. But I don't know what the limits of that damage could be. I just don't have those answers."
"If you've never done this, how do you know any of it will work?"
"That's an easy one." Trent answered. "Because it's been done to me."
There was silence.
"Look, if I know anything, I know my tech. Don't doubt that this will work. It's my job to make sure it does. I just need you to be in the right mental for this. Just because it knows your coming doesn't mean it automatically has the upper hand. It won't be able to see you unless you make contact with it first. In other words, you have to initiate contact. As long as you remain a spectator, you should be okay. Trust me. Just don't make contact."
I started pacing faster—fast enough to catch the attention of the overnight shift worker, a young man whose name I can't quite remember. I know it started with a "J". Jake, maybe? Anyway, he asked if I was alright, to which I responded in the affirmative. He left me alone for another couple passes, but when I almost ran into one of the shelves, he stood up and said, "Uh—I'm going to have to ask you to stop running around. I don't want you to hurt yourself."
I must have stared daggers at him, because he recoiled from my gaze. What's gotten into me? I thought. Then, steadying myself, I apologized. I looked around and grabbed the nearest edible looking piece of merchandise: a bag of Swedish Fish, and placed it down on the counter. "Just this, please."
The cashier rang me up. It was surprisingly cheap.
"Are you sure you're alright?" the young man asked. He was tall with brown hair. He seemed tired—maybe even more tired than me. But he also seemed kind.
I smiled as best I could and said, "No, I'm not. But there's not really anything you can do. Hell, there might not be anything I can do." I furrowed my eyebrows at my own response, realizing that imminent death may have broken my verbal filter.
On the other hand, the cashier did not seem surprised at all. "Ah, I see. It's one of those problems." He responded. "Well, hey, for what it's worth, you seem like one of the resilient ones. I think you'll be alright."
I only smiled and nodded at his mildly cryptic comment. Looking back, the whole interaction was a bit strange, but I had way too much mental clutter to recognize that in the moment. I took my Swedish Fish and walked through the anteroom which led to McDonald's. I found an open yellow booth that wasn't littered with crumpled straw sleeves and sat down, chomping mindlessly on my little red fish until Trent returned. When he arrived, he took my place, and I went to shower. After we were both clean and fed, we returned to the van. The pings were still pushed safely out of harm's way. But that didn't mean we were out of harm's way. Trent asked me if I wanted to sleep in the van, saying that "it'd be the safest place."
I thought it over. He was right, obviously. The van was not only outfitted with weapons I couldn't even begin to understand, but it was also our escape, and it would be just as difficult, if not more difficult to break into than the studio-style motel rooms with their wood doors and big windows. Still, if this was going to be my last night on earth, I wanted to sleep in a bed. A real bed. Trent understood and said he'd stay parked right outside my room for the night.
After purchasing a key from the night attendant, I moseyed over to the cement walkways which connected the twenty or so rooms. Mine was room #56, which I thought was odd since, like I said, there were only 20 rooms. I lugged in my tomato plushie and dad's old book and placed them on the queen mattress.
"I'll be right outside." Trent said after I collapsed onto the bed.
"Trent," I called out, stopping him half-way through the door.
"Yeah?"
All the blood in my body rushed up to my face as I realized my unfiltered mouth almost reflexively said the word "stay". I stared at Trent, my heart beating, my face hot. I considered asking him to sleep on the floor like my dad, but that would be childish and impolite. The alternative was to share my bed… Or I could take the floor.
"I'll just be right outside." Trent said before my mind processed a solution. "Come by if you need anything. I'll be up most of the night anyway."
"Okay," I replied in a faint voice.
Trent shut the door.
I sat atop the bedsheets and acquainted myself with my new living space. A feeling of regret closed over me as I considered that even sleeping on a carseat would have been better if it meant I didn't have to be alone. With a sigh, I turned on the bedside lamp and grabbed the book and stuffed tomato, using the tomato as a backrest as I slipped my legs under the covers and situated the book upright on my thighs. I cracked it open and was immediately blasted with a puff of dusty, old book scent. It was ripe at first, and I turned my head away to sneeze, but as I perused through the pages, the scent grew on me. It reminded me of the days growing up when I'd step into dad's study and read through one of the many volumes on cryptic topics which were at least two college degrees above my Lexile range.
I was only a couple minutes into browsing the collection of different scientific and philosophical works when I came across a page which contained highlighted text. This was unusual, as my dad would never mark up his books. He was a purist on that point. I rubbed my thumb over the yellow lines, and sure enough, it was highlighter.
The highlighted text was part of a small book by Carl Jung called "Synchronicity". There were a total of three pages that were marked, and they advanced like this:
Page 5:
The philosophical principle that underlies our conception of natural law is causality*. But if the connection between cause and effect turns out to be only statistically valid and relatively true, then the causal principle is only of relative use for explaining natural processes… That is as much to say that the connection of events may in certain circumstances be other than causal, and require another principle of explanation.*
Page 19:
…there are events which are related to one another experimentally, and in this case meaningfully*, without there being any possibility of proving that this relation is a causal one, since the "transmission" exhibits none of the known properties of energy…a situation which does not yet exist and will only occur in the future could transmit itself as a phenomenon of energy to a receiver in the present…Therefore, it cannot be a question of cause and effect, but of a falling together in time, a kind of simultaneity... "synchronicity"*
Page 22:
A young woman I was treating had, at a critical moment, a dream in which she was given a golden scarab. While she was telling me this dream I sat with my back to the closed window. Suddenly I heard a noise behind me, like a gentle tapping. I turned round and saw a flying insect knocking against the window pane from outside. I opened the window and caught the creature in the air as it flew in. It was the nearest analogy to a golden scarab that one finds in our latitudes, a scarabaeid beetle, the common rose-chafer… which contrary to its usual habits had evidently felt an urge to get into a dark room at this particular moment.
I flipped through the rest of the pages of the book. There was no more highlighted text, but there was a message on the last page which read:
Matthew 7:7-8
I'll meet you in the darkest place.
He also included his typical smiley face which had an ovular shape and three sprouts of hair which I now realized kind of resembled my tomato plushie. It was my dad's writing, of course. But why? And how? What did this mean?
The motel had a Bible stashed away in the nighstand drawer. I got it out and looked up the verses which read the following:
Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: for every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
I spent maybe an hour ruminating on all of this. The whole discourse on energy and causality and a "falling together in time" just seemed so right. It was clear that my dad definitely did know what I was going through, but for whatever reason, he made it seem like he was oblivious. Why had he hidden that from me? I felt like I was being pulled in two directions. On the one hand, my dad loved me enough to leave this note, maybe even knowing the exact moment I'd need it. But on the other hand, he had neglected my struggles throughout my entire childhood. He even lied at times. Was this really enough to make up for all of that?
And then there was the section about the future transmitting energy to the past. I read back through the whole paragraph and the original writer had meant it to say this as something that wasn't possible, but my dad's highlighting made it seem like he wanted to flip the meaning. The future does affect the past. I thought about where I was headed and wondered if I would soon discover that for myself.
Lastly, dad's message. The Bible verse reminded me of the first time I prayed; how I reached out to God and received peace as an answer to my prayer. Now I feel like I'm actively seeking… something, but I don't know yet what I'll find. And then there's knocking. At first that reminded me of the story with the beetle tapping on the window, but then I went back even deeper in my memory and dug out the monster tapping at my window, and the words my dad spoke to me in order to set my mind at ease: "you're a superhero. And you know what your greatest superpower is? Your greatest power is you get to tell the monsters what to do. Because the monsters are only as strong as the stories you tell about them…so if you're ever scared, honey, just dream up a better story."
I was crying into my stuffed tomato now. I felt like all the blinking pieces of my life had finally been pulled together into a completed puzzle. This was all by design. My entire life, filled with so much chaos and confusion, was actually preparing me for this moment. And my dad thought I had the tools and strength enough to get through it. I flipped through the book one more time, thinking maybe he had left some other hidden comment—some formula to defeat this demon and return home. But there was nothing. Only that one comment: "I'll meet you in the darkest place."
What's the darkest place, dad? Is that where I'm going? Are you saying you'll be there, too?
With those thoughts in mind, my eyes became heavy shutters which, with a slight pressure on the pulley, winded shut. My swimming thoughts and firework-like fears dissipated, and I returned to a precious childhood memory. It was after an evening soccer practice. Summer. Dad was driving me to Dairy Queen. I got a cherry-dipped twist cone. I was happy.
So, so happy.
***
I woke up to sunlight blaring through my windows. Shit, I overslept, was my immediate thought. I threw off my covers and opened the front door. A glance at the clock showed 1:13 PM. I shouldn't have even been allowed to stay checked in this long. Damn, am I gonna get double-billed for this?
I heard a rummaging sound around the corner of my motel room. It sounded like a squirrel was trying to find an afternoon snack in one of the garbage bins. I stepped outside. The sun was extremely bright, to the point where I had to squint and put my hand over my eyes to even see the ground in front of me. I was trying to walk toward the van, but somehow I ended up in front of the trash bins where the animal's tail was sticking out from a turned-over, silver garbage can. Its tail was wagging excitedly, and I remember thinking that it was much too large to be a squirrel.
The animal bent down as if biting onto something, and I heard the sound of its growl as it struggled to tug whatever it was free from the barrel. Inch by inch, the creature backed out of the canister, and more of its sharp, sticky hair was revealed. I heard something snap, then the creature leapt back and I saw what it was chomping on. My eyes widened in horror as the pink tube of a human intestine was pulled taut like the end of a tangled hose. Blood and entrails were spilling out of the human's opened gut. And then, behind the canine, I saw the person's face. His face was pale white, his eyes closed, and his hair was slicked back… It was Trent.
Before I could react, I heard footsteps approaching from behind. I whirled around and saw my dad. But—no, it wasn't him. It was someone wearing a paper-mache face mask that was painted to look like my dad. The forehead of the mask was already beginning to crack, white specks breaking off like sawdust. Through the cracks, I could see the figure's true form. I didn't know darkness had its own type of light, but that's the only way to describe it. It was as if malevolence itself was reified into a skin which was actually an amalgamation of millions of little, oozing parasites that leached into the nearby light. When it finally spoke, the demon's voice was a full octave lower than the old man's at the deli. And it had an earth-stilling gravitas.
"Today's the day!" He sang and reached into his pocket. His lips curled upward into a foxy smirk. "You have no idea how long I've waited for this day." He said and held up a razor blade. Half his facade had already fallen apart, and now I could see the bugs up close, writhing in what was either horror or ecstasy. And his scent… it was somehow more rank than the rabid coyote rummaging through the trash can with Trent's cut open body inside. The demon closed in on my position, and in one, decisive motion, he brought the blade close to his chin, then sliced it across my throat. "Wake up!" He screamed.
I jumped out of my bed and grabbed my throat, feeling the cold sting of its quick slice. Hyperventilating, I patted the area down, trying to hold the blood in, but when I removed my hands, I saw they were dry. It was only a dream, I thought. Gray light was only beginning to filter in through the drapes. I'm in my hotel room. I'm safe. I tried consoling, but the pragmatic mental massages weren't enough to hold the force of my knees buckling. I dropped onto the carpet and cried for a long while.
Outside, rain was beginning to fall.
***
By the time I met up with Trent, I had already composed myself and decided to keep my dad's message and the nightmare to myself. None of it seemed particularly productive from a logistical standpoint, anyway. And I wanted to focus on the mission.
We stopped by McDonald's and bought a couple cups of coffee. Trent asked if I wanted any food, and I declined. Black coffee seemed like the only thing my stomach could take at the present moment. I could tell Trent was hungry, but he tried playing it off (I guess to be respectful of me?) I told him to knock it off and get something to eat. I didn't need my Charon getting lightheaded and dropping the paddle before he finished rowing me to Hell. He didn't care much for my joke, but he ordered a couple Chicken McGriddles at the kiosk anyway.
There were maybe ten patrons spread throughout the restaurant. We sat down at the same booth from the prior night, this time across from one another. Trent spent the first ten minutes or so babbling about our fuel supply and the logistics of the trip from here on in. Practical stuff. I've come to realize that's how he deals with his stress. He talks it out in short, durable sentences. I mostly nodded and watched as what looked like a storm front closed in on the truck stop. The sky was overcast, and there were darker clouds in the distance. The rain was still only a patter, but a middle-aged man wearing a yellow bow tie on the wall-mounted TV confirmed that there would be heavier rain and thunderstorms very soon.
After the worker delivered Trent's food and he ate it in record time, I posed the one question that was still on my mind.
"How do I fight him?" I asked.
Trent finished a large gulp of his coffee, then looked at me. It was the first substantial thing I'd said all morning; Trent could tell something was off with me, but he figured there was no point in asking what it was. "By 'him', I assume you mean the demon?"
I nodded.
Trent licked his teeth clean. "You could try praying again."
"I'm serious," I responded.
"I'm serious, too. It worked before, didn't it?"
"You mean at my house?"
Trent nodded.
"I thought you weren't a religious man?"
"I'm not. Just a practical one. If praying worked before, maybe it'll work again."
"That's the best you've got? A maybe?"
"No, I've got a lot of shit better than a maybe." He answered. "It's just not accessible where you're going. Which is why I recommend not making contact on the first run."
"First run? So we're going to do this more than once?"
"At least," Trent answered. Then, seeing my expression, he continued. "What? You thought this was going to be a one-and-done? We have to conduct some research first. I did tell you this was new for me, right?"
Somehow Trent's response had set my mind at ease a little. I was going to have more than one chance. Of course, why wouldn't I be able to go back more than once?
"Why didn't you tell me this earlier? It would have gone a long way in easing my mind."
Trent lifted his hands in defense. "Sorry, I just thought that was a given. I mean, what we're doing is dangerous, just like I said, but it doesn't mean we aren't going to approach this as safely and scientifically as possible. However, there is a different problem with running multiple trials."
"The Organization?"
"That's right," Trent said like a proud parent. "Our little experiment will be like a giant spotlight, and the longer we wait around after it's on us, the greater the chance we'll have unwelcome company."
"So, safe but speedy."
"Safe but speedy. Exactly."
***
We fueled up and were back on the road a little after 8:00. From that point on, Trent and I were absolutely silent. I had the distinct feeling of being in the eye of a storm. The pings moved closer commensurate with our progress toward the crash site. The cloudfront continued its advance. And I noticed a haze beginning to descend onto the road ahead of us. It was fog.
We meandered further inland, the forest thickening around us until the rain almost stopped entirely—the leaves drinking it up before it fell onto our windshield. I kept my eyes on the radar. We were approaching the large yellow circle which indicated we had arrived. As we pulled closer, I began to feel things. Fear. Eeriness. Doubt. Then happiness. Hope. Love. Normally feelings like these had a clear source to picture, but these sensations came on in waves without any discernible reason. It was almost as if they were blinking into existence inside me.
"Here we go," Trent said like an airline pilot readying his crew for turbulence.
I still recall the exact moment we crossed the boundary into the area of higher energy. It was like something just "clicked" in my brain, and all of a sudden everything felt so much closer. The sound of the rain against the trees was almost right next to my ear. The trees in the distance would oscillate between their position a half-mile out, then suddenly seem five meters away. If I focused on something long enough, it began to radiate those same ethereal particles as when Trent released Ava's "phase lock". I checked to make sure the shifter wasn't set to "TD". Sure enough, it was still in drive.
"Can you see them?" Trent asked. "The shifts?"
"Yeah," I said in a dreamy voice. I felt like I was driving through a wonderland.
"It's the energy. I barely notice a difference. A bit of movement in the trees, but not much else. But I'm sure for you, it's a whole experience."
"What is this?" I raised my hand and caught some of the pixel dust dripping off the sun visor. It disappeared when it made contact with my hand.
"It's a kind of radiation. Everything emits it, just in different quantities. I'm still not exactly sure how it relates to the other realms, but I'm guessing it's a kind of primordial matter that helps connect our worlds."
"It's beautiful," I exclaimed. "I wish I could see the world like this all the time."
"Maybe you will," Trent whispered.
As we arrived at the crash site, I began to get glimpses of the past. My childhood dreams and memories were pushing their way out from my subconscious. I noticed an increased number of blinks, which were validated by Ava who reported the following: "Currently detecting 14,350 novel emergences and 2,777 controlled agents. Net anomalies: 2,777."
"That's a lot of blinks." I remarked. "Why doesn't Ava include them in the net anomalies?"
Trent turned his head so I could see his smirk. "Because blinks aren't anomalies."
I thought about it for a second. Blinks aren't anomalies. "I never thought about it that way."
"It's hard to think about it that way when 'normal' for most people means not picking up on a fundamental aspect of reality. But that doesn't make it any less real."
We continued past the epicenter of the yellow circle. "Are we not stopping?" I asked. "I think we already passed the crash site."
"It doesn't have to be exactly at the site," Trent said. "Plus, we don't want to stop on the side of the road and risk getting some civilian involved. There's a field about half a mile up ahead. I'm going to pull off the road and set up camp there.
The "field" that Trent was referring to was actually a large clearing that dipped down into several trench-like troughs which were filled to the brim with fog like witches cauldrons. Further on in the distance, I saw open fields, probably used for farming, and then a large hill where the trees once again reasserted themselves. We had pulled off the road and up a small incline where the trees had already been broken down, leaving a trail for us to drive through. When we surfaced at the edge of the clearing, Trent pulled us onto a flat bed of dried mud which was maybe thirty yards long.
"Here," he said with a sigh.
We both sat for a minute, looking around at the field. We had finally arrived. The rain was beginning to pick up, and the dark sky made it almost impossible to discern the time of day.
"You ready?" Trent asked.
I looked at him. Really looked at him. In his blue eyes. Was I ready? Did it even matter?
"Let's do this," I said.
***
This was the first time I was really able to inspect the back of Trent's van. He had talked up his gear a lot, and honestly, I was impressed. Not in the way that a scientist is impressed by another scientist's lab—I wasn't any kind of expert—but it still seemed remarkably well managed. Now that I was in a state where my vision had been enhanced, I could actually see the enigmatic particles circulating through the pneumatic tubes which were coiled like the pipes and valves of an elaborate wind instrument. The walls of the van, itself, were glistening white, making it easier to make out everything else inside. Along the floor were five overturned columns. Each column was dark and had a vibrating quality, as if they were charged with energy. Then atop the center three columns was a small altar which supported an apparatus with two skinny, metal arms holding a silver halo. At present, the arms were folded and the halo was suspended a few inches above the altar, faced-down. I thought maybe I'd see particles exuding from it, but instead it was emitting visible waves which bent and warped everything they touched.
"That thing is emitting a lot of energy." I remarked, gesturing toward the halo.
Trent stepped in between the columns and started pulling out the packages he had stuffed in there yesterday. "Just wait till' it's on."
Most of the packages contained only a single piece of equipment, and were otherwise packed with foam peanuts. We carefully removed each box and set them on the ground outside. I asked if the rain would damage any of the stuff inside, to which Trent only laughed and continued lugging out the boxes. When they were all out, Trent removed a box cutter from his pocket and went one-by-one opening them. There were eight pieces in total.
"What is it?" I asked as we fished the first item out.
"It's another apparatus, like the one inside. Except it'll mount on the ground out here."
I pulled out what looked like a metal tripod.
"Good, that'll go on the bottom."
"Where are we setting it up?"
"Over here," Trent said and stepped five paces away from the van. He coordinated himself up so he was centrally aligned with the inner ring, then stomped a few times. "This is the spot."
As we continued to work, I asked Trent about how the whole contraption works.
"Do you remember the first time we were in the van? When we had to escape from the semi-truck?" Trent asked and connected a secondary mounting apparatus on top of the tripod. It had four spider-like legs that made right angles and stuck into the ground.
"Of course," I said. "The 'phase lock'."
"Yeah," Trent said and gestured toward the metal stick that was in my hand. I handed it to him. "The phase lock is a seal on the level of energy that the van is allowed to release. It also controls its dispersion pattern so that it releases its energy in a steady wave. This allows Ava to scan for anomalies without causing us to become an anomaly." Trent stuck the plank into the neck of the tripod.
"So when you released the phase lock, we started emitting more energy."
"That's right." Trent confirmed. "Enough to create an alternate route through a different realm."
"So we blinked into a different realm, then back, just to avoid that truck?"
"That's right."
"But why couldn't we just move out of the way?"
"Because it had locked onto us. It was tracking our motion and adjusting its course based on the amount of energy we were emitting. So in order to escape, we had to radically skew our potential energy and then use it to shift."
"Couldn't he have just followed us?"
Trent connected four more pieces to the device which now looked like an elaborate teepee. He was fishing in the last box when he spoke again. "Yeah, he could have. But it was highly improbable that he would have found us." Trent returned from the bottom of the box with another silver ring in hand. "Think of it like this. Let's say you're trying to escape from some bad guy who's coming after you, and you enter a new room you've never seen before. Would you prefer this room to have three doors to go through, or ten?"
I thought about his riddle for a second, then responded, "It depends where they go."
Trent fastened the ring atop the teepee. "Let's say they all lead to random places, or let's say they're all closets that lead nowhere. The key is that more is better, because the more doors he has to check, the less likely he is to pick the correct one. Make sense?"
"So we opened up a bunch of doors and escaped through one at random?"
"Hence the gear 'TD', for 'Trap Door'."
I marveled at the insights, but not for long. Trent hopped back in the van and pulled a lever that I hadn't seen until now. The two metal arms raised the inner ring until it was perpendicular with the altar. Then Trent clicked one of three red buttons along the back wall, and I saw what looked like a large, glass eye suspended in a magnifying glass protruding from the wall, aligned with the center of both rings. A couple seconds later, the glass eye began to focus the energy which was being fed to it from the pneumatic tubes, and a blue pyramid of light projected from it into the first ring, then from the first ring into the second ring. All three pieces were aligned at slightly diminishing heights, so the cylinder of light beamed through the second ring, into the ground.
"Alright, time for the first trial."
I felt the nerves starting up in my stomach. Trent sensed this and hopped out of the truck. It was raining quite hard now, though it was still warm. Both Trent and I were soaked, but that hardly concerned us. He reached out and put his hand on my shoulder. "I know you're feeling scared." He said. "But trust me on this. You're going to do fine. Just keep in mind what we talked about. Stay a spectator. Okay?"
I looked into his blue eyes, which seemed especially gray in the dark. Still, Trent's voice was reassuring. All I had to do was trust him. Trust myself. Trust my dad. And it was all going to turn out right.
"I'm ready," I said.
Trent was still for a second, holding my eyes in his. Then he guided me behind the outer ring and into the cylinder of light.
"I should step into it now?" I asked, afraid I'd be called away immediately.
"It's not on yet, so don't worry. I still have to press another button."
I followed Trent's instructions and stood in the blue light which was centered on my chest. Then I watched as Trent ran into the back of the van and posted up next to the glass eye. "Ready?" He yelled out. It was hard to hear him over the rain, but I yelled back. "Ready!"
The next thing I saw was a blinding blue light beam from the van. I heard what sounded like a laser, then saw the cylinder oscillate, expanding and compressing. When the energy reached the second ring, I saw everything around me light up—it looked brighter than noon on a cloudless day. Then the oscillations made their way to me, and I was swallowed up whole.
***
When I came to, I was in the backseat of a car. I felt my butt rumbling. Everything was dim and quiet. And then I heard a woman's voice from in front of me.
"Mark, please, not with Lauren in the back."
The man, who I now identified as my father, pulled the cigarette away from his lips and blew the smoke at my mom. He eyed the back seat where I was sitting, using one of five markers that hadn't rolled off my lap to color a rabbit in my animal color book.
"The kid's fine." he said and took another drag.
"Mark," my mom repeated.
I saw my dad raise his hand in a rapid motion. "I said she's fine, Cheryl. Now check the map and make sure we're going the right away. I can't see shit with all this fog."
I took a moment to make sure I was really in the back seat. I patted myself. I clearly had weight. Then I tried touching the car. At first, my fingertips met a solid surface, but when I tried to press through, my hand slipped into the car. I quickly pulled my hand away as if I had reached into a fire.
That's when I heard the little three year old next to me start crying. I turned and saw that little-me had dropped another couple markers onto the ground and was struggling to reach them.
"Hey!" my dad shouted. "What did I say about crying?"
"Quit it, Mark. She just dropped her markers." said my mom; she turned to help me pick them up.
"What did you say to me?" Mark spat with a voice full of guile. He reached out and pushed her back into her seat. "Don't," he commanded. "She has to learn how to deal with life."
"Deal…" My mom started in disbelief. "Deal with life? Do you hear yourself? What's gotten into you?"
"Sometimes shit happens. It doesn't give her the right to cry. You helping her is just going to reinforce her behavior."
"Her behavior? What about your behavior? You're acting like a total dick."
I didn't even have a moment to react before my dad's hand was across my mom's face. I felt the slap more than I heard it, my own face seeming to swell with the force of the blow. I saw my mom cover her mouth and lean away. Then little-me began to cry even louder, which only challenged my dad to step up his own volume.
"Everyone needs to get a fucking grip before I crash this car." My dad shouted and took another drag. The scariest part was I couldn't tell if he was warning us or threatening us. I felt the sudden urge to do something. There was no way this was real. I was definitely in some fantasy concocted by the demon. He wanted to turn me against my dad. That was the only explanation for something like this. My dad was a good man, not… this.
As I contemplated what to do, I saw a small, golden light appear behind little-me's window. Apparently she saw it, too, because her cries hushed as she traced the wisp with her eyes. After a second, the wisp transformed into a bunny rabbit, reminiscent of the one she was coloring. The rabbit hopped alongside the window, then did a couple circles in place. I watched little me let out a playful laugh and reach toward the window.
"What's going on back there?" my dad asked with a scowl. Apparently the only sound more disturbing than cries were laughs.
I looked back to the front and saw my mom wiping blood from her lip. Her expression was miserable. "Leave her alone, Mark."
"I'll do whatever I damn well want to do, Cheryl. It's my kid back there."
My mom was quiet.
When I looked back toward the rabbit, it was no longer a rabbit but a person. Or at least it looked like a person. The figure radiated pure gold, and atop his head was what appeared to be a King's crown. I recalled Allison's experience of seeing the sun-like figure in her moment of distress. Was that what was happening here? Was this really all true?
"Hey!" My dad shouted, eyeing little-me from the rear-view mirror. "What are you reaching at?"
I looked and saw the golden figure extending his hand toward the window, and little me's hand was reaching back. "Mom, dad, it bright." little-me said.
"What's bright, honey?" my mom asked.
"Don't encourage her, Cheryl."
"Someone there!" little me shouted happily and dropped the rest of the markers and the coloring book onto the ground.
"Who's there?" asked my mom.
"Cheryl, I swear to God. Sit the fuck down."
Everything from that moment on happened so quickly I barely had any time to process it. My mom lifted out of her seat to either get little me's attention or help me pick up my coloring book. My dad responded by grabbing onto her throat, letting go of the steering wheel entirely. He threw her back against the car door, and her head hit the window so hard, the glass cracked. My dad had dropped his cigarette, and I could smell smoke coming from under his seat, but that didn't seem to bother him at all. He turned toward little-me at the same moment my three-year-old hand reached out and grabbed onto the golden figure, whose hand diffused through the window. When my dad turned, I got a whiff of the most awful smell that I wouldn't have been able to place had I not had that nightmare last night. He grabbed onto little-me's shoulder and tugged her away from the golden figure that was trying to pull her the other way. My dad's facade began to crack, and I could see those dark bugs crawling out from the pores in his arms, marching down toward little-me.
I reacted.
I grabbed onto my dad's arm and pulled him off little-me. I heard the sound of my shirt ripping as she was torn from his grip and pulled out of the car, diffusing through it like a ghost. My brief victory was immediately overturned as I saw what was now clearly the demon smiling at me, his wretched fingers curled around my forearm.
"Caught you," He sneered.
Then the whole world once again diffused into countless numbers of particles, only this time, instead of riding through it, I felt like I was falling through an elevator shaft with each floor darker than the last. The further I fell, the less I became aware of my surroundings, and the more I felt a deep sense of loneliness. It was as if I was the only person in the whole world: and the whole world was a prison designed entirely for me. This went on for so long, I began to forget who I was. Where I was. What was.
And then I landed.
***
Source Used:
Jung, Carl. Synchronicity. Translated by Sonu Shamdasani, Princeton University Press, 2010.
submitted by Weathers_Writing to nosleep [link] [comments]
Part 2
Part 3
Content Warning: Domestic Abuse
***
We pulled off I-51 a little after midnight, stopping at a truck stop which was couched between the highway and a large forest.
We waited in the van for ten minutes or so. Trent had increased the sonar radius to its maximum of 30 miles a little over an hour ago. Somehow the red pings had kept up with us, holding a steady distance of around 20 miles. Considering we were averaging around 80 mph, and a coyote's top speed is only around 40 mph, we figured they had been enhanced in some way. Either that, or they shape-shifted into something faster. Regardless, now that we had stopped, we waited to see if the demon spawn would try and close the distance. Luckily, or unluckily, they didn't. They kept their 20 mile buffer, but we noticed they were beginning to spread out along the circumference of that boundary.
"We're close. They know that, so they're trying to trap us in." Trent said.
"Trying to?—more like they have."
We considered whether we should stay in the van and keep watch, but we figured that would do us little good. At their speed, they could be on us in ten minutes, which means we would need to stay up all night and keep tabs on their positions. Trent offered to stay up, of course, but I shut him down.
"The demon doesn't want to kill us now. You said it yourself. Plus, we need our rest. If they come, they come."
Trent didn't like it, but he acquiesced.
The truck stop had all the essentials: a gas station and mini mart with showers and an attached McDonald's, a large parking lot for truckers to idle and sleep, and even a section with lodging for those who wanted a more comfortable night's rest. I told Trent that he should take advantage of the showers, and after a little convincing, he agreed. While he was cleaning himself up, I patrolled the dingy, half-stocked aisles of "Daisy's Quick Mart". I probably would have been appalled at the quality of the store had I actually been paying any attention to it whatsoever. But I wasn't. I was thinking hard about what awaited me tomorrow.
During the drive, I had asked Trent why the demon would want us to return to the crash site. What did he mean that I would be 'confronting a dark entity in a place he couldn't help me'? He seemed hesitant to answer, but my little stunt outside the storage facility seemed to have sufficiently motivated him.
"When I said I've never done this before, I meant it." Trent started. "I've never done this exact thing before—meaning I've never projected someone into the past."
"So, I'm time traveling?" I asked.
"No—don't think of it like that." Trent paused, trying to come up with a good explanation. "It's more like I'm opening a window for you to look through: not a door. You're going to see the past, but you can't interact with the physicalities there. But that doesn't mean you can't interact with anything."
There was a space of silence as Trent tried to let me work out his meaning for myself. "I don't get it. Are you saying there's something I can interact with? Like what?" And then it hit me. "The demon. The demon can interact with me? Meaning what? It can kill me?"
"Meaning… I'm not exactly sure. You're going to be in a kind of psychic space. If it does damage, it won't be to your body. It'll be to your mind—or spirit. But I don't know what the limits of that damage could be. I just don't have those answers."
"If you've never done this, how do you know any of it will work?"
"That's an easy one." Trent answered. "Because it's been done to me."
There was silence.
"Look, if I know anything, I know my tech. Don't doubt that this will work. It's my job to make sure it does. I just need you to be in the right mental for this. Just because it knows your coming doesn't mean it automatically has the upper hand. It won't be able to see you unless you make contact with it first. In other words, you have to initiate contact. As long as you remain a spectator, you should be okay. Trust me. Just don't make contact."
I started pacing faster—fast enough to catch the attention of the overnight shift worker, a young man whose name I can't quite remember. I know it started with a "J". Jake, maybe? Anyway, he asked if I was alright, to which I responded in the affirmative. He left me alone for another couple passes, but when I almost ran into one of the shelves, he stood up and said, "Uh—I'm going to have to ask you to stop running around. I don't want you to hurt yourself."
I must have stared daggers at him, because he recoiled from my gaze. What's gotten into me? I thought. Then, steadying myself, I apologized. I looked around and grabbed the nearest edible looking piece of merchandise: a bag of Swedish Fish, and placed it down on the counter. "Just this, please."
The cashier rang me up. It was surprisingly cheap.
"Are you sure you're alright?" the young man asked. He was tall with brown hair. He seemed tired—maybe even more tired than me. But he also seemed kind.
I smiled as best I could and said, "No, I'm not. But there's not really anything you can do. Hell, there might not be anything I can do." I furrowed my eyebrows at my own response, realizing that imminent death may have broken my verbal filter.
On the other hand, the cashier did not seem surprised at all. "Ah, I see. It's one of those problems." He responded. "Well, hey, for what it's worth, you seem like one of the resilient ones. I think you'll be alright."
I only smiled and nodded at his mildly cryptic comment. Looking back, the whole interaction was a bit strange, but I had way too much mental clutter to recognize that in the moment. I took my Swedish Fish and walked through the anteroom which led to McDonald's. I found an open yellow booth that wasn't littered with crumpled straw sleeves and sat down, chomping mindlessly on my little red fish until Trent returned. When he arrived, he took my place, and I went to shower. After we were both clean and fed, we returned to the van. The pings were still pushed safely out of harm's way. But that didn't mean we were out of harm's way. Trent asked me if I wanted to sleep in the van, saying that "it'd be the safest place."
I thought it over. He was right, obviously. The van was not only outfitted with weapons I couldn't even begin to understand, but it was also our escape, and it would be just as difficult, if not more difficult to break into than the studio-style motel rooms with their wood doors and big windows. Still, if this was going to be my last night on earth, I wanted to sleep in a bed. A real bed. Trent understood and said he'd stay parked right outside my room for the night.
After purchasing a key from the night attendant, I moseyed over to the cement walkways which connected the twenty or so rooms. Mine was room #56, which I thought was odd since, like I said, there were only 20 rooms. I lugged in my tomato plushie and dad's old book and placed them on the queen mattress.
"I'll be right outside." Trent said after I collapsed onto the bed.
"Trent," I called out, stopping him half-way through the door.
"Yeah?"
All the blood in my body rushed up to my face as I realized my unfiltered mouth almost reflexively said the word "stay". I stared at Trent, my heart beating, my face hot. I considered asking him to sleep on the floor like my dad, but that would be childish and impolite. The alternative was to share my bed… Or I could take the floor.
"I'll just be right outside." Trent said before my mind processed a solution. "Come by if you need anything. I'll be up most of the night anyway."
"Okay," I replied in a faint voice.
Trent shut the door.
I sat atop the bedsheets and acquainted myself with my new living space. A feeling of regret closed over me as I considered that even sleeping on a carseat would have been better if it meant I didn't have to be alone. With a sigh, I turned on the bedside lamp and grabbed the book and stuffed tomato, using the tomato as a backrest as I slipped my legs under the covers and situated the book upright on my thighs. I cracked it open and was immediately blasted with a puff of dusty, old book scent. It was ripe at first, and I turned my head away to sneeze, but as I perused through the pages, the scent grew on me. It reminded me of the days growing up when I'd step into dad's study and read through one of the many volumes on cryptic topics which were at least two college degrees above my Lexile range.
I was only a couple minutes into browsing the collection of different scientific and philosophical works when I came across a page which contained highlighted text. This was unusual, as my dad would never mark up his books. He was a purist on that point. I rubbed my thumb over the yellow lines, and sure enough, it was highlighter.
The highlighted text was part of a small book by Carl Jung called "Synchronicity". There were a total of three pages that were marked, and they advanced like this:
Page 5:
The philosophical principle that underlies our conception of natural law is causality*. But if the connection between cause and effect turns out to be only statistically valid and relatively true, then the causal principle is only of relative use for explaining natural processes… That is as much to say that the connection of events may in certain circumstances be other than causal, and require another principle of explanation.*
Page 19:
…there are events which are related to one another experimentally, and in this case meaningfully*, without there being any possibility of proving that this relation is a causal one, since the "transmission" exhibits none of the known properties of energy…a situation which does not yet exist and will only occur in the future could transmit itself as a phenomenon of energy to a receiver in the present…Therefore, it cannot be a question of cause and effect, but of a falling together in time, a kind of simultaneity... "synchronicity"*
Page 22:
A young woman I was treating had, at a critical moment, a dream in which she was given a golden scarab. While she was telling me this dream I sat with my back to the closed window. Suddenly I heard a noise behind me, like a gentle tapping. I turned round and saw a flying insect knocking against the window pane from outside. I opened the window and caught the creature in the air as it flew in. It was the nearest analogy to a golden scarab that one finds in our latitudes, a scarabaeid beetle, the common rose-chafer… which contrary to its usual habits had evidently felt an urge to get into a dark room at this particular moment.
I flipped through the rest of the pages of the book. There was no more highlighted text, but there was a message on the last page which read:
Matthew 7:7-8
I'll meet you in the darkest place.
He also included his typical smiley face which had an ovular shape and three sprouts of hair which I now realized kind of resembled my tomato plushie. It was my dad's writing, of course. But why? And how? What did this mean?
The motel had a Bible stashed away in the nighstand drawer. I got it out and looked up the verses which read the following:
Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: for every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
I spent maybe an hour ruminating on all of this. The whole discourse on energy and causality and a "falling together in time" just seemed so right. It was clear that my dad definitely did know what I was going through, but for whatever reason, he made it seem like he was oblivious. Why had he hidden that from me? I felt like I was being pulled in two directions. On the one hand, my dad loved me enough to leave this note, maybe even knowing the exact moment I'd need it. But on the other hand, he had neglected my struggles throughout my entire childhood. He even lied at times. Was this really enough to make up for all of that?
And then there was the section about the future transmitting energy to the past. I read back through the whole paragraph and the original writer had meant it to say this as something that wasn't possible, but my dad's highlighting made it seem like he wanted to flip the meaning. The future does affect the past. I thought about where I was headed and wondered if I would soon discover that for myself.
Lastly, dad's message. The Bible verse reminded me of the first time I prayed; how I reached out to God and received peace as an answer to my prayer. Now I feel like I'm actively seeking… something, but I don't know yet what I'll find. And then there's knocking. At first that reminded me of the story with the beetle tapping on the window, but then I went back even deeper in my memory and dug out the monster tapping at my window, and the words my dad spoke to me in order to set my mind at ease: "you're a superhero. And you know what your greatest superpower is? Your greatest power is you get to tell the monsters what to do. Because the monsters are only as strong as the stories you tell about them…so if you're ever scared, honey, just dream up a better story."
I was crying into my stuffed tomato now. I felt like all the blinking pieces of my life had finally been pulled together into a completed puzzle. This was all by design. My entire life, filled with so much chaos and confusion, was actually preparing me for this moment. And my dad thought I had the tools and strength enough to get through it. I flipped through the book one more time, thinking maybe he had left some other hidden comment—some formula to defeat this demon and return home. But there was nothing. Only that one comment: "I'll meet you in the darkest place."
What's the darkest place, dad? Is that where I'm going? Are you saying you'll be there, too?
With those thoughts in mind, my eyes became heavy shutters which, with a slight pressure on the pulley, winded shut. My swimming thoughts and firework-like fears dissipated, and I returned to a precious childhood memory. It was after an evening soccer practice. Summer. Dad was driving me to Dairy Queen. I got a cherry-dipped twist cone. I was happy.
So, so happy.
***
I woke up to sunlight blaring through my windows. Shit, I overslept, was my immediate thought. I threw off my covers and opened the front door. A glance at the clock showed 1:13 PM. I shouldn't have even been allowed to stay checked in this long. Damn, am I gonna get double-billed for this?
I heard a rummaging sound around the corner of my motel room. It sounded like a squirrel was trying to find an afternoon snack in one of the garbage bins. I stepped outside. The sun was extremely bright, to the point where I had to squint and put my hand over my eyes to even see the ground in front of me. I was trying to walk toward the van, but somehow I ended up in front of the trash bins where the animal's tail was sticking out from a turned-over, silver garbage can. Its tail was wagging excitedly, and I remember thinking that it was much too large to be a squirrel.
The animal bent down as if biting onto something, and I heard the sound of its growl as it struggled to tug whatever it was free from the barrel. Inch by inch, the creature backed out of the canister, and more of its sharp, sticky hair was revealed. I heard something snap, then the creature leapt back and I saw what it was chomping on. My eyes widened in horror as the pink tube of a human intestine was pulled taut like the end of a tangled hose. Blood and entrails were spilling out of the human's opened gut. And then, behind the canine, I saw the person's face. His face was pale white, his eyes closed, and his hair was slicked back… It was Trent.
Before I could react, I heard footsteps approaching from behind. I whirled around and saw my dad. But—no, it wasn't him. It was someone wearing a paper-mache face mask that was painted to look like my dad. The forehead of the mask was already beginning to crack, white specks breaking off like sawdust. Through the cracks, I could see the figure's true form. I didn't know darkness had its own type of light, but that's the only way to describe it. It was as if malevolence itself was reified into a skin which was actually an amalgamation of millions of little, oozing parasites that leached into the nearby light. When it finally spoke, the demon's voice was a full octave lower than the old man's at the deli. And it had an earth-stilling gravitas.
"Today's the day!" He sang and reached into his pocket. His lips curled upward into a foxy smirk. "You have no idea how long I've waited for this day." He said and held up a razor blade. Half his facade had already fallen apart, and now I could see the bugs up close, writhing in what was either horror or ecstasy. And his scent… it was somehow more rank than the rabid coyote rummaging through the trash can with Trent's cut open body inside. The demon closed in on my position, and in one, decisive motion, he brought the blade close to his chin, then sliced it across my throat. "Wake up!" He screamed.
I jumped out of my bed and grabbed my throat, feeling the cold sting of its quick slice. Hyperventilating, I patted the area down, trying to hold the blood in, but when I removed my hands, I saw they were dry. It was only a dream, I thought. Gray light was only beginning to filter in through the drapes. I'm in my hotel room. I'm safe. I tried consoling, but the pragmatic mental massages weren't enough to hold the force of my knees buckling. I dropped onto the carpet and cried for a long while.
Outside, rain was beginning to fall.
***
By the time I met up with Trent, I had already composed myself and decided to keep my dad's message and the nightmare to myself. None of it seemed particularly productive from a logistical standpoint, anyway. And I wanted to focus on the mission.
We stopped by McDonald's and bought a couple cups of coffee. Trent asked if I wanted any food, and I declined. Black coffee seemed like the only thing my stomach could take at the present moment. I could tell Trent was hungry, but he tried playing it off (I guess to be respectful of me?) I told him to knock it off and get something to eat. I didn't need my Charon getting lightheaded and dropping the paddle before he finished rowing me to Hell. He didn't care much for my joke, but he ordered a couple Chicken McGriddles at the kiosk anyway.
There were maybe ten patrons spread throughout the restaurant. We sat down at the same booth from the prior night, this time across from one another. Trent spent the first ten minutes or so babbling about our fuel supply and the logistics of the trip from here on in. Practical stuff. I've come to realize that's how he deals with his stress. He talks it out in short, durable sentences. I mostly nodded and watched as what looked like a storm front closed in on the truck stop. The sky was overcast, and there were darker clouds in the distance. The rain was still only a patter, but a middle-aged man wearing a yellow bow tie on the wall-mounted TV confirmed that there would be heavier rain and thunderstorms very soon.
After the worker delivered Trent's food and he ate it in record time, I posed the one question that was still on my mind.
"How do I fight him?" I asked.
Trent finished a large gulp of his coffee, then looked at me. It was the first substantial thing I'd said all morning; Trent could tell something was off with me, but he figured there was no point in asking what it was. "By 'him', I assume you mean the demon?"
I nodded.
Trent licked his teeth clean. "You could try praying again."
"I'm serious," I responded.
"I'm serious, too. It worked before, didn't it?"
"You mean at my house?"
Trent nodded.
"I thought you weren't a religious man?"
"I'm not. Just a practical one. If praying worked before, maybe it'll work again."
"That's the best you've got? A maybe?"
"No, I've got a lot of shit better than a maybe." He answered. "It's just not accessible where you're going. Which is why I recommend not making contact on the first run."
"First run? So we're going to do this more than once?"
"At least," Trent answered. Then, seeing my expression, he continued. "What? You thought this was going to be a one-and-done? We have to conduct some research first. I did tell you this was new for me, right?"
Somehow Trent's response had set my mind at ease a little. I was going to have more than one chance. Of course, why wouldn't I be able to go back more than once?
"Why didn't you tell me this earlier? It would have gone a long way in easing my mind."
Trent lifted his hands in defense. "Sorry, I just thought that was a given. I mean, what we're doing is dangerous, just like I said, but it doesn't mean we aren't going to approach this as safely and scientifically as possible. However, there is a different problem with running multiple trials."
"The Organization?"
"That's right," Trent said like a proud parent. "Our little experiment will be like a giant spotlight, and the longer we wait around after it's on us, the greater the chance we'll have unwelcome company."
"So, safe but speedy."
"Safe but speedy. Exactly."
***
We fueled up and were back on the road a little after 8:00. From that point on, Trent and I were absolutely silent. I had the distinct feeling of being in the eye of a storm. The pings moved closer commensurate with our progress toward the crash site. The cloudfront continued its advance. And I noticed a haze beginning to descend onto the road ahead of us. It was fog.
We meandered further inland, the forest thickening around us until the rain almost stopped entirely—the leaves drinking it up before it fell onto our windshield. I kept my eyes on the radar. We were approaching the large yellow circle which indicated we had arrived. As we pulled closer, I began to feel things. Fear. Eeriness. Doubt. Then happiness. Hope. Love. Normally feelings like these had a clear source to picture, but these sensations came on in waves without any discernible reason. It was almost as if they were blinking into existence inside me.
"Here we go," Trent said like an airline pilot readying his crew for turbulence.
I still recall the exact moment we crossed the boundary into the area of higher energy. It was like something just "clicked" in my brain, and all of a sudden everything felt so much closer. The sound of the rain against the trees was almost right next to my ear. The trees in the distance would oscillate between their position a half-mile out, then suddenly seem five meters away. If I focused on something long enough, it began to radiate those same ethereal particles as when Trent released Ava's "phase lock". I checked to make sure the shifter wasn't set to "TD". Sure enough, it was still in drive.
"Can you see them?" Trent asked. "The shifts?"
"Yeah," I said in a dreamy voice. I felt like I was driving through a wonderland.
"It's the energy. I barely notice a difference. A bit of movement in the trees, but not much else. But I'm sure for you, it's a whole experience."
"What is this?" I raised my hand and caught some of the pixel dust dripping off the sun visor. It disappeared when it made contact with my hand.
"It's a kind of radiation. Everything emits it, just in different quantities. I'm still not exactly sure how it relates to the other realms, but I'm guessing it's a kind of primordial matter that helps connect our worlds."
"It's beautiful," I exclaimed. "I wish I could see the world like this all the time."
"Maybe you will," Trent whispered.
As we arrived at the crash site, I began to get glimpses of the past. My childhood dreams and memories were pushing their way out from my subconscious. I noticed an increased number of blinks, which were validated by Ava who reported the following: "Currently detecting 14,350 novel emergences and 2,777 controlled agents. Net anomalies: 2,777."
"That's a lot of blinks." I remarked. "Why doesn't Ava include them in the net anomalies?"
Trent turned his head so I could see his smirk. "Because blinks aren't anomalies."
I thought about it for a second. Blinks aren't anomalies. "I never thought about it that way."
"It's hard to think about it that way when 'normal' for most people means not picking up on a fundamental aspect of reality. But that doesn't make it any less real."
We continued past the epicenter of the yellow circle. "Are we not stopping?" I asked. "I think we already passed the crash site."
"It doesn't have to be exactly at the site," Trent said. "Plus, we don't want to stop on the side of the road and risk getting some civilian involved. There's a field about half a mile up ahead. I'm going to pull off the road and set up camp there.
The "field" that Trent was referring to was actually a large clearing that dipped down into several trench-like troughs which were filled to the brim with fog like witches cauldrons. Further on in the distance, I saw open fields, probably used for farming, and then a large hill where the trees once again reasserted themselves. We had pulled off the road and up a small incline where the trees had already been broken down, leaving a trail for us to drive through. When we surfaced at the edge of the clearing, Trent pulled us onto a flat bed of dried mud which was maybe thirty yards long.
"Here," he said with a sigh.
We both sat for a minute, looking around at the field. We had finally arrived. The rain was beginning to pick up, and the dark sky made it almost impossible to discern the time of day.
"You ready?" Trent asked.
I looked at him. Really looked at him. In his blue eyes. Was I ready? Did it even matter?
"Let's do this," I said.
***
This was the first time I was really able to inspect the back of Trent's van. He had talked up his gear a lot, and honestly, I was impressed. Not in the way that a scientist is impressed by another scientist's lab—I wasn't any kind of expert—but it still seemed remarkably well managed. Now that I was in a state where my vision had been enhanced, I could actually see the enigmatic particles circulating through the pneumatic tubes which were coiled like the pipes and valves of an elaborate wind instrument. The walls of the van, itself, were glistening white, making it easier to make out everything else inside. Along the floor were five overturned columns. Each column was dark and had a vibrating quality, as if they were charged with energy. Then atop the center three columns was a small altar which supported an apparatus with two skinny, metal arms holding a silver halo. At present, the arms were folded and the halo was suspended a few inches above the altar, faced-down. I thought maybe I'd see particles exuding from it, but instead it was emitting visible waves which bent and warped everything they touched.
"That thing is emitting a lot of energy." I remarked, gesturing toward the halo.
Trent stepped in between the columns and started pulling out the packages he had stuffed in there yesterday. "Just wait till' it's on."
Most of the packages contained only a single piece of equipment, and were otherwise packed with foam peanuts. We carefully removed each box and set them on the ground outside. I asked if the rain would damage any of the stuff inside, to which Trent only laughed and continued lugging out the boxes. When they were all out, Trent removed a box cutter from his pocket and went one-by-one opening them. There were eight pieces in total.
"What is it?" I asked as we fished the first item out.
"It's another apparatus, like the one inside. Except it'll mount on the ground out here."
I pulled out what looked like a metal tripod.
"Good, that'll go on the bottom."
"Where are we setting it up?"
"Over here," Trent said and stepped five paces away from the van. He coordinated himself up so he was centrally aligned with the inner ring, then stomped a few times. "This is the spot."
As we continued to work, I asked Trent about how the whole contraption works.
"Do you remember the first time we were in the van? When we had to escape from the semi-truck?" Trent asked and connected a secondary mounting apparatus on top of the tripod. It had four spider-like legs that made right angles and stuck into the ground.
"Of course," I said. "The 'phase lock'."
"Yeah," Trent said and gestured toward the metal stick that was in my hand. I handed it to him. "The phase lock is a seal on the level of energy that the van is allowed to release. It also controls its dispersion pattern so that it releases its energy in a steady wave. This allows Ava to scan for anomalies without causing us to become an anomaly." Trent stuck the plank into the neck of the tripod.
"So when you released the phase lock, we started emitting more energy."
"That's right." Trent confirmed. "Enough to create an alternate route through a different realm."
"So we blinked into a different realm, then back, just to avoid that truck?"
"That's right."
"But why couldn't we just move out of the way?"
"Because it had locked onto us. It was tracking our motion and adjusting its course based on the amount of energy we were emitting. So in order to escape, we had to radically skew our potential energy and then use it to shift."
"Couldn't he have just followed us?"
Trent connected four more pieces to the device which now looked like an elaborate teepee. He was fishing in the last box when he spoke again. "Yeah, he could have. But it was highly improbable that he would have found us." Trent returned from the bottom of the box with another silver ring in hand. "Think of it like this. Let's say you're trying to escape from some bad guy who's coming after you, and you enter a new room you've never seen before. Would you prefer this room to have three doors to go through, or ten?"
I thought about his riddle for a second, then responded, "It depends where they go."
Trent fastened the ring atop the teepee. "Let's say they all lead to random places, or let's say they're all closets that lead nowhere. The key is that more is better, because the more doors he has to check, the less likely he is to pick the correct one. Make sense?"
"So we opened up a bunch of doors and escaped through one at random?"
"Hence the gear 'TD', for 'Trap Door'."
I marveled at the insights, but not for long. Trent hopped back in the van and pulled a lever that I hadn't seen until now. The two metal arms raised the inner ring until it was perpendicular with the altar. Then Trent clicked one of three red buttons along the back wall, and I saw what looked like a large, glass eye suspended in a magnifying glass protruding from the wall, aligned with the center of both rings. A couple seconds later, the glass eye began to focus the energy which was being fed to it from the pneumatic tubes, and a blue pyramid of light projected from it into the first ring, then from the first ring into the second ring. All three pieces were aligned at slightly diminishing heights, so the cylinder of light beamed through the second ring, into the ground.
"Alright, time for the first trial."
I felt the nerves starting up in my stomach. Trent sensed this and hopped out of the truck. It was raining quite hard now, though it was still warm. Both Trent and I were soaked, but that hardly concerned us. He reached out and put his hand on my shoulder. "I know you're feeling scared." He said. "But trust me on this. You're going to do fine. Just keep in mind what we talked about. Stay a spectator. Okay?"
I looked into his blue eyes, which seemed especially gray in the dark. Still, Trent's voice was reassuring. All I had to do was trust him. Trust myself. Trust my dad. And it was all going to turn out right.
"I'm ready," I said.
Trent was still for a second, holding my eyes in his. Then he guided me behind the outer ring and into the cylinder of light.
"I should step into it now?" I asked, afraid I'd be called away immediately.
"It's not on yet, so don't worry. I still have to press another button."
I followed Trent's instructions and stood in the blue light which was centered on my chest. Then I watched as Trent ran into the back of the van and posted up next to the glass eye. "Ready?" He yelled out. It was hard to hear him over the rain, but I yelled back. "Ready!"
The next thing I saw was a blinding blue light beam from the van. I heard what sounded like a laser, then saw the cylinder oscillate, expanding and compressing. When the energy reached the second ring, I saw everything around me light up—it looked brighter than noon on a cloudless day. Then the oscillations made their way to me, and I was swallowed up whole.
***
When I came to, I was in the backseat of a car. I felt my butt rumbling. Everything was dim and quiet. And then I heard a woman's voice from in front of me.
"Mark, please, not with Lauren in the back."
The man, who I now identified as my father, pulled the cigarette away from his lips and blew the smoke at my mom. He eyed the back seat where I was sitting, using one of five markers that hadn't rolled off my lap to color a rabbit in my animal color book.
"The kid's fine." he said and took another drag.
"Mark," my mom repeated.
I saw my dad raise his hand in a rapid motion. "I said she's fine, Cheryl. Now check the map and make sure we're going the right away. I can't see shit with all this fog."
I took a moment to make sure I was really in the back seat. I patted myself. I clearly had weight. Then I tried touching the car. At first, my fingertips met a solid surface, but when I tried to press through, my hand slipped into the car. I quickly pulled my hand away as if I had reached into a fire.
That's when I heard the little three year old next to me start crying. I turned and saw that little-me had dropped another couple markers onto the ground and was struggling to reach them.
"Hey!" my dad shouted. "What did I say about crying?"
"Quit it, Mark. She just dropped her markers." said my mom; she turned to help me pick them up.
"What did you say to me?" Mark spat with a voice full of guile. He reached out and pushed her back into her seat. "Don't," he commanded. "She has to learn how to deal with life."
"Deal…" My mom started in disbelief. "Deal with life? Do you hear yourself? What's gotten into you?"
"Sometimes shit happens. It doesn't give her the right to cry. You helping her is just going to reinforce her behavior."
"Her behavior? What about your behavior? You're acting like a total dick."
I didn't even have a moment to react before my dad's hand was across my mom's face. I felt the slap more than I heard it, my own face seeming to swell with the force of the blow. I saw my mom cover her mouth and lean away. Then little-me began to cry even louder, which only challenged my dad to step up his own volume.
"Everyone needs to get a fucking grip before I crash this car." My dad shouted and took another drag. The scariest part was I couldn't tell if he was warning us or threatening us. I felt the sudden urge to do something. There was no way this was real. I was definitely in some fantasy concocted by the demon. He wanted to turn me against my dad. That was the only explanation for something like this. My dad was a good man, not… this.
As I contemplated what to do, I saw a small, golden light appear behind little-me's window. Apparently she saw it, too, because her cries hushed as she traced the wisp with her eyes. After a second, the wisp transformed into a bunny rabbit, reminiscent of the one she was coloring. The rabbit hopped alongside the window, then did a couple circles in place. I watched little me let out a playful laugh and reach toward the window.
"What's going on back there?" my dad asked with a scowl. Apparently the only sound more disturbing than cries were laughs.
I looked back to the front and saw my mom wiping blood from her lip. Her expression was miserable. "Leave her alone, Mark."
"I'll do whatever I damn well want to do, Cheryl. It's my kid back there."
My mom was quiet.
When I looked back toward the rabbit, it was no longer a rabbit but a person. Or at least it looked like a person. The figure radiated pure gold, and atop his head was what appeared to be a King's crown. I recalled Allison's experience of seeing the sun-like figure in her moment of distress. Was that what was happening here? Was this really all true?
"Hey!" My dad shouted, eyeing little-me from the rear-view mirror. "What are you reaching at?"
I looked and saw the golden figure extending his hand toward the window, and little me's hand was reaching back. "Mom, dad, it bright." little-me said.
"What's bright, honey?" my mom asked.
"Don't encourage her, Cheryl."
"Someone there!" little me shouted happily and dropped the rest of the markers and the coloring book onto the ground.
"Who's there?" asked my mom.
"Cheryl, I swear to God. Sit the fuck down."
Everything from that moment on happened so quickly I barely had any time to process it. My mom lifted out of her seat to either get little me's attention or help me pick up my coloring book. My dad responded by grabbing onto her throat, letting go of the steering wheel entirely. He threw her back against the car door, and her head hit the window so hard, the glass cracked. My dad had dropped his cigarette, and I could smell smoke coming from under his seat, but that didn't seem to bother him at all. He turned toward little-me at the same moment my three-year-old hand reached out and grabbed onto the golden figure, whose hand diffused through the window. When my dad turned, I got a whiff of the most awful smell that I wouldn't have been able to place had I not had that nightmare last night. He grabbed onto little-me's shoulder and tugged her away from the golden figure that was trying to pull her the other way. My dad's facade began to crack, and I could see those dark bugs crawling out from the pores in his arms, marching down toward little-me.
I reacted.
I grabbed onto my dad's arm and pulled him off little-me. I heard the sound of my shirt ripping as she was torn from his grip and pulled out of the car, diffusing through it like a ghost. My brief victory was immediately overturned as I saw what was now clearly the demon smiling at me, his wretched fingers curled around my forearm.
"Caught you," He sneered.
Then the whole world once again diffused into countless numbers of particles, only this time, instead of riding through it, I felt like I was falling through an elevator shaft with each floor darker than the last. The further I fell, the less I became aware of my surroundings, and the more I felt a deep sense of loneliness. It was as if I was the only person in the whole world: and the whole world was a prison designed entirely for me. This went on for so long, I began to forget who I was. Where I was. What was.
And then I landed.
***
Source Used:
Jung, Carl. Synchronicity. Translated by Sonu Shamdasani, Princeton University Press, 2010.
2024.06.09 22:02 Kiita-Ninetails A look at Artifacts and their implementation
Having seen some talk about Wargames lately, and thinking about the implementation of Artifacts I wanted to put a post together trying to put together my critique with them and why I think they have issues.
In general, I think almost all of them suffer from being largely uninteresting and while this is partly a problem that stems from more broad gameplay issues I think a lot also stem from the implementation.
And I want to kind of break the upgrades down here unit by unit, and explore where I think they succeed and fail and why. As well as a few ways to increase variety. To preface I am operating off the assumption that fleets should be moving away from generally hyper focusing on one unit types and should be combined arms. And that upgrades should offer compelling choice on how each fleet handles its problems and should lay itself out. I will also include easy ideas that are still stat changes, and more out there ones.
For general and universal issues I feel that there's no real reason to specialize, since no ships get significant damage bonuses against any other just driving twenty assault frigates down the throat of a destroyer works about as well as twenty ions. I'd like to see more degrees of specialization where anti strike craft fire struggles against capitals, and anti capital fire is more effective to make specialization more meaningful, which by itself encourages more varied Artifact choices.
I'll just be looking at Hiigaran fleets for now, Incarnate shares many of the same general issues and maybe can be looked at later.
General Artifacts
I'd like to see more fleets and artifacts that focus more on more different playstyle. One where its all about building limited amounts of destroyers and supporting them and starting with guaranteed dessy patterns. One about having very limited fleet size but supporting a battlecruiser [once they don't suck]
Also, for most maps an enormous amount of the play area is functionally unused. Slow down the spawn timer a bit and spread things out to use more of the map and more dimensions within the maps. The biggest culprit is the first mission set with the trench between the big plates, that map uses less then a third of its play area. Also you know, just more maps.
In general there's a lot here, but I really think that if they are going to limit our roster they need to really make sure that any ship with artifacts supports at least two different gameplay feels, in a roguelite mode like this you want the choices to feel like choices and influence how your fleet is built. Right now its just hoping you get the ones that support your fleets 'point' and having a shit run if it doesn't. You want multiple paths to a successful fleet. But anyway this was too long, and I hope the sleep deprived rambling helps people put some feedback into solid form to help push BBI into the right direction here. Because despite Wargames being rough there still is a lot of promise here.
submitted by Kiita-Ninetails to homeworld [link] [comments]
In general, I think almost all of them suffer from being largely uninteresting and while this is partly a problem that stems from more broad gameplay issues I think a lot also stem from the implementation.
And I want to kind of break the upgrades down here unit by unit, and explore where I think they succeed and fail and why. As well as a few ways to increase variety. To preface I am operating off the assumption that fleets should be moving away from generally hyper focusing on one unit types and should be combined arms. And that upgrades should offer compelling choice on how each fleet handles its problems and should lay itself out. I will also include easy ideas that are still stat changes, and more out there ones.
For general and universal issues I feel that there's no real reason to specialize, since no ships get significant damage bonuses against any other just driving twenty assault frigates down the throat of a destroyer works about as well as twenty ions. I'd like to see more degrees of specialization where anti strike craft fire struggles against capitals, and anti capital fire is more effective to make specialization more meaningful, which by itself encourages more varied Artifact choices.
I'll just be looking at Hiigaran fleets for now, Incarnate shares many of the same general issues and maybe can be looked at later.
General Artifacts
- Support Systems: There needs to be a corvette support, obvioustly. I also feel that frigate support should not reduce pop cap for other vessels and instead just grant less on its own. These should encourage more varied fleets, not hyperfocusing.
- Carrier Upgrades: Assault is just bad, I like what it is doing but frankly it doesn't really need the pop cap decreases, it already costs you a limited slot just to take. Remove the downsides and its at least worth doing sometimes. Guardian is a lot more worthwhile just because of the extra choices, but even then is mid at best but I don't hate it. Frankly I think they are fine as is and need tweaks more then total reworks.
- Ship Patterns: They are fine by and large, but regardless of how good or bad what they unlock is the idea they present is amongst the best of the artefacts. They offer a meaningfully different experience to the player and there should be more of them. Balance what they got, but add more.
- Totally not Shaped Glass: AKA, danger zone. Again, interesting because the magnitude of its effects are so significant that it can result in some very interesting changes and help define runs. Its just a pretty interesting design. Not always good, but interesting.
- Recon: The upgrades here just turn recons into interceptors. If I wanted interceptors I should just build interceptors. One pattern should focus on disposable swarm tactics with high increase to cap, mild stat buffs, and RU cost reduction. The other should be fleet support based, move fast, be durable, and have good sensors. Ancillary upgrades to increase alpha damage to encourage hit and run?
- Interceptor: Interceptors are just what if inty, but more. Neither pattern meaningfully changes how one wants to use them. I'd change one to an escort pattern with bonuses to range and survivability, focused on creating zones of fire around other ships to clear strike craft. The other could be similar to the harrier where its more dogfight focused. Honestly just not too much design space here?
- Bombers: The first pattern I'm actually okay with is here. Fleet bomber is... fine. I'd remove the rate of fire bonus in favor of it being a slow, vulnurable, first strike style of play relying on cloak. But its not bad. I'd like to see a Flak pattern too though that inverts the bomber trope and makes them more focused on dogfighting with large splash radius and area damage, make them garbage against big things but able to shred dense knots of smaller ships. [Hullbreaker has some bonuses there, but not enough focus.]
- Railgun Corv: Arguably the least interesting pattern in the game lies here, Vulcan is just boring AND still kind of bad. Siege is less bad, but still kind of weird because the name is a lie. Vulkan is fine but make it a close in pattern where you get closer and brawl, add durability and reduce range. Siege needs a range boost as well to once again create two more defined roles for the most underloved ship in the game. Frankly though I just forget about these constantly so am less sure how to even address their patterns.
- Supression Frigate: Sure does exist! Would like to again effectively see a change to make it a long ranged high velocity ammo light craft killer. Snipe supression points as they come in, but honestly this ship just sort of has an identity issue and I'm not sure what patterns could save it.
- Support Frigate: Why are you even here? I'm not even sure what patterns you could have, the only one I could think of would be larger repair range or can repair two targets at once.
- Assault Frigate: Once again one with a concept I like, Berserker pattern is interesting in concept as you are trading away the signature durability of the assault frigates in return for making them pretty deadly. I'd like to see the damage bonus moved to Warden, and Wardens ROF bonus here. Zerker puts out the dakka, warden focuses more on area control. Warden as mentioned I feel is mostly fine but should be slower and more focused on up front damage and controlling a large area against light craft.
- Ion Cannons: These are some of the most questionable patterns in general. Sniper pattern should not just have its range bonus but also a huge damage bonus and rate of fire malus. It should be for spotting and performing powerful alpha strike attacks when massed. Volley pattern should be about high refire rate and agility, should make them turn like they just snorted a line of coke for just constant close in ion fire. [Also durability, and modest speed to actually survive that.] Frankly though ions are just underwhelming in general.
- Torpedoes: This is where I'd propose the most radical changes with patterns entirely altering the focus. I'd take a cue from the X games and have them function like M7M from that game. Unpatterned uses normal medium missiles. Bombardment focuses on long range, slow, and damaging torpedoes that focus on capital killing. Pacification entirely changes the missiles to fast tracking swarm munitions that don't do shit to anything bigger then a corvette, but are deadly there.
I'd like to see more fleets and artifacts that focus more on more different playstyle. One where its all about building limited amounts of destroyers and supporting them and starting with guaranteed dessy patterns. One about having very limited fleet size but supporting a battlecruiser [once they don't suck]
Also, for most maps an enormous amount of the play area is functionally unused. Slow down the spawn timer a bit and spread things out to use more of the map and more dimensions within the maps. The biggest culprit is the first mission set with the trench between the big plates, that map uses less then a third of its play area. Also you know, just more maps.
In general there's a lot here, but I really think that if they are going to limit our roster they need to really make sure that any ship with artifacts supports at least two different gameplay feels, in a roguelite mode like this you want the choices to feel like choices and influence how your fleet is built. Right now its just hoping you get the ones that support your fleets 'point' and having a shit run if it doesn't. You want multiple paths to a successful fleet. But anyway this was too long, and I hope the sleep deprived rambling helps people put some feedback into solid form to help push BBI into the right direction here. Because despite Wargames being rough there still is a lot of promise here.
2024.06.09 22:01 Affectionate_Test_99 2 years old started to fight not to change diaper
I have a 2 years old boy who started to fight with me during diaper change especially the mid day ones. No matter what I do it seems he is acting like if I change his diaper it is the end of the world. First I thought he was against the change table because I change his diaper before bed so we have changed it, didn’t help. Tried to change his diaper on the floor instead of table, didn’t help. Tried to put diaper on his teddy bear so he can calm down didn’t help either. Did anyone had this issue and if you were able to solve it how did you do it?
submitted by Affectionate_Test_99 to NewDads [link] [comments]