Taken from my profile post as crossposting from NSFW marked accounts is not allowed (post does not include NSFW content)

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Hi! Your friendly neighbourhood narc & BSc psychology student here. Are you ready for a change? ^{(This article was written with NPD and NPD traits in mind but many of the same things apply to different disorders}.)
If you are reading this, you have likely been sent here because you have enquired about the diagnosis of a loved one. This guide will help you with your question and to deal with the situation at hand, so strap in.
^{(Now this next line will upset you, but remember to continue reading afterwards.}) No one but a qualified mental health professional that your loved one is being treated by can diagnose them. Not random strangers on Reddit with no qualifications. Not qualified mental health professionals that are not treating them as it is against their ethical code for good reason (see The Goldwater rule in Section 7 in the American Psychiatric Association's Principles of Medical Ethics). And lastly, not you.

Why can I not receive a diagnosis for my loved one?

1. We/you are only seeing your description of your loved one which may differ from their own experience.
2. You are biased because you have a dual relationship clouding your objective view.
3. Non-verbal communication can also be used in the diagnostic process which is not available.
4. Diagnostics need, at the very least, 2h time, with a SCID-5-P(D) or similar to test the loved one.
5. Your loved one does not have the legal support etc. that comes with an official clinician-client relationship.
6. Your loved one has not consented to any medical treatment.
7. Our own experiences can differ wildly from those with the same disorder.
8. There are nuances such as differential diagnosis and physical health problems that cannot be explored.
9. Most people simply are not qualified to give a diagnosis.
10. Those who are licensed to diagnose may lose their license if they do so.

All these things (and more!) make any possible diagnosis incredibly inaccurate and most likely incorrect. It is also highly unethical. The good thing however - this does not matter for your needs! ^{(and if u disagree, just keep reading, trust me.})
Now you're possibly frustrated, possibly just confused. "But you said you would help with my question and help me deal with the situation!". I am aware that so far you have not gotten the answers you are looking for. Let me explain to you why a diagnosis is not necessary for you to get your needs in this situation met.

Why diagnosing a loved one isn't necessary for your needs!

Diagnoses serve a great purpose. I will not deny that. Diagnoses are used for research, treatment, insurance purposes and to get accommodations with. In relationships, diagnoses do not carry this same importance. Yes, understanding a diagnosis may help you better understand your loved one. But if you have been sent here, the chance is incredibly big that your lack of understanding is not the issue.
The issue is a pattern of behaviours that your loved one displays. These behaviours are causing you distress that you are seeking to eliminate. You are trying to find a label for them to help you understand and better deal with them, which is understandable as humans like working in predictable boxes. This is why we have stereotypes and work in schema's. You may think that once you understand their issues, their symptoms, their thought patterns, you can adapt to make them better. Or you would be understanding enough to suffer the situation. But this is not the case.
Even if the armchair diagnosis is correct, the individual experience will always differ. You can read and read and read, understand the disorder inside out, and still not understand your loved one. And not only that, but changing your own behaviour in accordance with their symptoms will not make the situation any better. It will simply make you compliant to their toxic behaviours and the issues will persist as there has been no treatment for the core of the problems.
Even if you simply want to know whether they have a disorder so you could support them better, it will not bring the improvement you are hoping for. You will need to act according to their needs, not their disorder. Some with NPD might want a lot of admiration so they don't end up collapsing. Others do not need this, but need understanding for their lack of empathy. Some others may have empathy but struggle with being seen as arrogant by others. Not all of our needs will be universal so communication with your loved one is necessary to make sure that you are providing them with what they need or want. This does not necessitate a diagnosis, simply good communication. A big risk that comes with this however, is that you may end up neglecting your own needs in favour of theirs. What can also happen is that this actually enables their maladaptive behaviours, as you are facilitating the behaviour to continue by giving them what they want instead of what they need.
Therefore, diagnosing a mental disorder in your loved one will not give you the resolve that you are looking for by posting about it on Reddit. Now there is just 1 lingering question.

What can I do to solve the issue?

Boundaries. At least, that is the answer most of the time. A lot of y'all are posting because you want your loved one to change. As much as I hope this for you too, we cannot make someone change. I am not a fan of religion or 12 step programs per se, however, keep the Serenity Prayer in mind:

"Grant me the strength to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

This prayer is the foundation of all boundaries. I will not go into too much detail as I will link the necessary resources below. They will explain everything in much more detail than I can in this post. However, let me give you a rundown of what healthy boundaries are! ^{(This bit is loosely taken from Boundaries by Henry Cloud.})
First of all, you need to know what is you, and what is the other. Boundaries are like fences, and everyone has their own yard. To set boundaries it is crucial that you know what you do have control over, and what you don't. This is the "wisdom to know the difference" part.
Your loved one has their own yard, with their own fence. They own their own body, mind, space, behaviours, etc. That is their yard which they are protecting. This means that you cannot control these things. You cannot control someone by making demands, trying to change their mind (other than by a healthy logical discussion) or setting rules for them. Attempting to do so anyways will lead to frustration and disappointment. This refers to the "strength to accept the things I cannot change" part of the prayer. Now you might think, "So I just have to accept their hurtful behaviours?". And my answer to that would be yes. But not without nuance. You need to accept the reality of their behaviours. Because their existence is something you cannot change. However, this does not mean that you should accept the hurt it causes you.
That brings us to your own yard. You can use your fence to keep the hurt out. This may not stop the behaviours from existing, but it will make sure that they will not exist in your yard. A boundary you might set could be "If you continue to yell at me on the phone, I will hang up and not respond to calls back today". Another example is "If you do not stop throwing items through the room, I will go to my sister's house for the weekend". Most of the situations like yours end up in this one though: "If you do not seek help for your mental health issues, I will leave this relationship". And sometimes, that is the exact one that is needed. Notice that in none of these examples you are trying to control the person. You are giving them a choice to continue or to seize the behaviour, and explaining what you will do to keep yourself safe if they continue crossing your boundaries. This is the "courage to change the things I can".
However, boundaries are not everything. There is likely another underlying issue (or multiple) which is causing this situation. That's why I want to recommend these other things as well:

1. Individual psychotherapy
2. Couples therapy/marriage counselling
3. Requesting your loved one to see a mental health professional ^{(although if you're looking to diagnose them on the internet, this is likely not going to happen})
4. Support groups (no, not the raisedbynarcissists or NarcissisticAbuse or narcissisticparents or any of those discriminative ones. you can look for C-PTSD support groups, domestic violence support groups, etc. etc.)
5. CPS or police involvement when necessary
6. The workbooks listed below

Books

Boundaries - Henry Cloud. This one is incredibly religion focused. it does advocate for child abuse at some point and it's very hetero- and cisnormative. Apart from that, it's quite a solid book.
Set Boundaries, Find Peace - Nedra Glover Tawwab. I havent read this one myself but it does demonise those with NPD a couple times. apart from that it's highly recommended.
Nonviolent Communication - Marshall Rosenberg. This one is good. It's more about healthy mutual communication, but it also explains requests and boundaries quite well. I find it might be a bit insensitive to those experiencing active abuse but all in all, this ones great and I highly recommend it.
codependent no more - Melody Beattie. This one I have not read either, I believe it's mostly about dealing with addiction in other people but it also has some boundary setting in there.
There are a lot of other workbooks that may help you that are not (yet) listed, so please take a look at my complete collection here.

More to consider

I put this at the end as usually it is the least useful part of my tirade, and can cause some very heated responses. I urge you to consider the damage you are doing to those with NPD when you armchair diagnose someone with NPD simply because of their toxic or abusive behaviours. Because this has been normalised in pop psychology, we are now disproportionally seen as abusers. People see others discuss narcissism and narcissists only in the contexts of abuse, and this causes them to think that is what NPD is. But it is not.
Not every person with NPD is abusive. Some toxicity can usually be expected in close relationships with those with NPD, but this does not have to be an overwhelming or dangerous amount. Think more, teenager who hasn't learnt emotional regulation and is very insecure yet tries to act all big and strong.
The stigma on NPD, which is perpetuated by armchair diagnosing abusers and other toxic people, directly rains down on those who actually suffer with the disorder. This is because a lot of people consume discriminative content (see "Dr." Ramani, raisedbynarcissists, etc.) and believe that the blanket statements made about narcissists are all correct. They then project these beliefs onto people who simply have NPD, a disorder, a disability. This leads to dehumanising or threatening comments, smear campaigns and cancellations simply over a disorder, unfair projection of trauma/abuser onto the person, etc. This is also considered emotional abuse as it is discrimination. More specifically saneism, which is a form of ableism. This can lead to trauma (small t trauma, usually) in the person receiving this unwarranted hate.

Questions?

Leave them in the comments of this post and I will get to them when I am able to. Feedback (constructive criticism and compliments alike) is also much appreciated!

~First~
A Scion of Many Worlds
Observer Wu was not sure about this next call. There had been rumours, rumours stories and absurdities from first to last. But this was one he would need to investigate thoroughly. He steels his face to a neutral position as the call goes through.
“You’re on a drone observing. I am working.” Is the first thing that comes through. A voice simultaneously deep but accompanied with a chorus of tingling bells. The image shows an enormous figure that appears to be primarily composed of shimmering white fur looking over the 3D model of a building as he directs things through the air with his right hand. Support structures, beams and building materials all soar at his direction and quickly slam themselves into place to quickly construct a large structure. “I am capable of speaking as I work, so if you have questions then ask them.”
“I am Observer Wu from Earth. I am looking for Mister Blue.
“I am one of the Blues.” The enormous figure states. “Jasper Blue, also Emmanuel Skitterway.”
The camera zooms in before something white catches onto it and it’s forced back. “Apologies, the drone is not of the best quality.”
“I would assume that a... God Emperor would have better?”
“I am directing these resources into infrastructure. Things like this sewage processing plant will not build themselves and the components that the camera drone requires are better spent ensuring that pathogens are kept out of the water, or that a medical scanner has appropriate redundancies.” Emmanuel replies as the panelling to the outside of the building start attaching itself at his direction and they’re quickly left with a solid looking structure with numerous tanks to the side.
“Alright the building is finished! Painters! Have your way with it!” He calls out and numerous people rush up with decorating supplies. “There is more for me to do. While many of the relief ships arrived with prefabricated buildings there was an unfortunate and nearly universal blindspot in their considerations.”
“Which is?”
“That while the world is settled by many respects, it was at a late iron age level at best, borderline tribal in other areas. Sewage treatment and sanitation concerns like that are simply not in their proper place. Every major and minor settlement requires a massive overhaul of it’s infrastructure in order to bring the living standards up to even industrial levels, let alone galactic levels.” Emmanuel states.
“This seems rather menial for someone ostensibly in charge of an entire planet.”
“Delegation. I have any communications and status updates relayed to me through that pursuing drone, it’s a hand’s free system, so while it is not always at one hundred percent satisfaction it allows me to lead while I also work. After all, many of the legislative concerns can be easily taken care of by my numerous assistants, but only a handful of people have the sanitation know how and willingness to work and put together sewage containment.”
“A little demeaning for one worshipped as a god.”
“I am a Primal. I’m going to be regarded as such whether I indent a throne with an ever widening rear or gunk out sewer lines, and of the two only one of them actually makes things better.” Emmanuel dismisses.
“Really. Yet you’re still not getting dirty.”
“I could do things less efficiently to look like I’ve been working hard, but honestly it’s all in the Axiom. The truth of the matter is that sewer work with even just a small amount of technology is more boring than dirty.” Emmanuel states before turning, the camera turns with him. It now shows where an entire army of workers are installing the pipes and systems for a proper sewage network. “Still, not bad eh? One year ago this place was an abandoned wreck of a smaller city. The population all but mind controlled by a group of religious fanatics who convinced them to abandon their homes and any dignity. They’ve come a long way since.” Emmanuel states.
“Have they?”
“This was the Greenstone Alliance Territory, a breakaway state from The Empire of Miru. To them the cannon was the military innovation rocking the nation.”
“I see...”
“Now they get air conditioning, indoor plumbing, heating in the winter, canned food for the leaner months, telephones to speak with their loved ones over a distance, radio for alerts and entertainment and far more.” Emmanuel states as he indicates an antenna being set up.
“All that?” Observer Wu remarks. “You seem a little... involved for a supposed god.”
“There are two so called gods on this world.” Emmanuel replies. “I, who have personally conquered much of it, wheeled and dealed with other nations and proved myself as warrior and leader both, and Yserizan. Yserizan is either the mother, grandmother or great grandmother of at least a quarter of the world population.”
“And your relationship to this Yserizan?”
“One of my wives. Our union was also a unification of Lablan as a single strong point on this world and...”
“What’s this?” A new voice asks and the camera reorients to a young woman with glowing golden hair.
“Just a camera drone, nothing to be concerned about.” Emmanuel states.
“Oh. So it’s watching us?”
“Yes.”
“And the image of the person on top of it?”
“The person watching.”
“Who is he?”
“Observer Wu.”
“And why is an Observer needed?”
“Do you recall whenever Earth or the Origins of Humanity are discussed?”
“A little? Every time I seem to get a little bit more education it just lets me see how much more there is.”
“Oh that’s very normal.” Emmanuel replies.
“If I may be introduced?” Observer Wu asks.
“I am Empress Zaviah Enlightened Luxen Divine Ascendant, ruler of Miru Reborn.”
“Miru Reborn is?”
“One of the largest empires upon Lakran. Consisting of Central Miru, The Greenstone Territories of Northern Miru and The Goldlands Unification of Southern Miru. Our population is primarily Erumenta of all types, but other peoples are of course welcome.”
“And what brought about this rebirth?” Observer Wu asks and his eyebrows go up as Zaviah points right at Emmanuel.
“Heh, guilty. Everywhere I turned the planet seemed to just be full of more and more problems that needed to stop sometime ten years ago and no one else was available. So I did the best I could.”
“And then broke armies, nations and all known limits upon people.”
“All presently known limits, what I did is only impressive when it’s weighed in that I started with only Horace’s memories and didn’t even understand how an Urthani body fully worked at the time.” Emmanuel states.
“Yes. I read that report. It was absurd.”
“It was accurate. We have all the parties involved to attest for it here on planet if you care to speak with them.” Emmanuel notes as he checks a device and nods. “All right, next is...”
“Break.” Zaviah tells him.
“Excuse me.”
“Grandmother has given ME the authority to force you into rest father!” Zaviah says with relish in her tone.
“She wouldn’t!”
“She has! If I see that you’re working too hard I can tell you to stop.”
“You do know she legally has no such authority over me right?” Emmanuel asks pointing a diamond plated claw at the comparatively tiny Erumenta who’s grinning widely at this.
“Yes, but she’ll be so disappointed that her little boy isn’t taking care of himself anymore even though he promised to and...”
“It was a mistake working so hard to make the two of you friends.” Emmanuel says in a note of false despair. “Just a moment I’ll instruct the work crew on the next few communities to proceed without me.”
“That sounds like work.”
“A text to go with Plan B rather than Plan A is not work, it’s good manners.” Emmanuel protests and raises an eye ridge as a much smaller girl tries to glare him down. “Are you sure you want to put so much force into your day by day interactions while...”
A tiny dark shape slams into Zaviah to the Erumenta’s audible protest as Magrica starts gushing about how cute it is for the little girl to finally have some grit in her gut and how she’s going to braid her hair and take her monster hunting and get her a battleaxe to go with that attitude...
Emmanuel turns to the politely puzzled Wu and shrugs.
“Motherhood does amazing things to some women. Magrica was much more openly fierce before, but she decided that all my children, adopted and otherwise, were hers to teach and nurture into proper warriors.”
“And how did she take the fact that you are technically the step parent of a quarter of the world’s population if what you told me about Yserizan is correct?”
“She has an entire squadron of Nagasha she’s training to be monster hunters. It’s actually going pretty well. The Jungle Nagasha are really appreciating it more than the other types, but the few Cloud Nagasha they have as scouts and aerial reconnaissance are fully embracing the role.”
“And how are you taking to... godhood?” Observer Wu asks his eyes penetrating.
“It grows more comfortable unfortunately.”
“Unfortunately.” Wu repeats. Not questioning, but certainly prompting.
“I’ve had to put aside my own prejudices in the matter. Humans have a bad track record with self proclaimed gods and messiahs. Too many fakes and too many holy wars. To say nothing of the cults, witch-hunts and the like. And Urthani would follow any number of faiths, but the divine figure was either some kind of Divine Truth, a more abstract theology, gods that embody concepts or something animist for the most part.”
“Did you look to The Nagasha for a better example?”
“I did, and that’s what caused me to grow more comfortable with the title. Primal Nagasha aren’t worshipped in the way humans would a prohet or saint. Seeing them as nigh infallible. No, a Primal Nagasha is simply the very best that a Nagasha can be and it can neither be stopped nor denied. While most of them are indeed leaders to follow, authorities to obey or the sources of philosophy to accept, they are not regarded as unquestionable or infallible.”
“And that is what helped?”
“It is. I was terrified that someone would misinterpret me, either honestly or malevolently, and cause immense damage in my name. A crusade to cull any politician that isn’t in the military through fire and steel, or an Urthani Colony deciding that they deserve the entire world and since not only have the strength now, but a god of their own, that they are righteous in slaughter... I had several kinds of nightmare when I let my mind wander.”
“And?” Wu prompts.
“I had a conversation. An important one with an important person. She helped me put everything in perspective. But she’s not the type to appreciate too much attention. So she’s requested I keep things quiet. But, I can say that she is an authority on the subject. And she had a fair amount to say.”
“So you’ve spoken to other so called gods of the serpent people.”
“Primal Nagasha, and yes. One has arrived already, she lives her life as quietly as she can. Another is soon to arrive. The first wanted my measure, the second wants to ensure that as a more militaristic Primal that I’m up to standard as she calls it.”
“Oh?”
“I’m part of the smallest stable demographic in the galaxy. Primals. Apparently we’re a very self policing people.”
“So in other words, you’re more a celebrity in multiple fields than some object of worship?”
“Closer to actual worship than celebrity worship I’m afraid. Still, it’s not mindless, and those that are looking for an excuse... well they’ll find another one if it’s not me. At least if someone’s trying to use my name to do something horrible it means I have all moral authority to let them know how stupid such a thing is.”
“I suppose that is an upside to an insane cult deciding that it wants to go on a rampage in your name.”
“But that’s just the thing I really had to internalize, if they’re going to do that, then they’re going to do it and I’m just their excuse. They’ll find another if I’m not available. I’m responsible for the example I set, the actions I do and the things I say. I am not responsible for how they are interpreted.”
“Interesting. Still, is there a reason you’re sharing this in particular?”
“I figured the most distressing thing that Earth would consider about my situation was my rise into divine stature. A powerful soldier can be understood, a powerful politician or businessman can also be understood, but someone being regarded as a god can not be understood within a positive context thanks to the rather terrible history of such on Earth.” Emmanuel says.
“That... is an interesting concern. However, you do not think your conquering an entire world to be a bad thing?”
“Considering that it was basically in unending war, competition and self sabotage? Yes. You see, this world was suffering over an unending brain drain due to the fact that all male colonists were lost in the initial crash of the colony ship. There were surviving males, but they were in stasis and could not be retrieved. The method that was used to ensure there would be a future population was flawed, intended as an emergency stopgap. But they didn’t have the means to move past it. So it was used over and over again. This world was nearing the breaking point.”
“And that justifies conquering it?”
“When the nation states are tearing themselves apart through mindless pride? Scheming for the sake of scheming? Or are outright predating the other states? Yes, yes it does. To not intervene would have killed, far, far more people.”
“So you justify things by saying that thye will thank you some day?’
“They thank me now.”
“And it’s sincere?”
“Yes, considering that I’ve had a woman weep with relief at getting something as simple as a pair of glasses, or another outright beg for her child and herself to be healed of the degeneration they’ve suffered. How can I consider it anything but sincere?” Emmanuel asks.
“Oh? Who are you speaking with?” A new voice asks before a massive serpent woman slithers into Wu’s field of view. Her hood is fully flared out to reveal her as Lady Yserizan as she regards things. “A human friend?”
“An Observer from earth, they’re struggling to believe all the things they’ve been told.”
“Considering some mornings I wake up scarcely believing how my life has changed for the better I don’t blame them.” Yserizan notes happily. “Still, is there anything this... Observer wants to know in particular?”
“In particular I want to know many things. I’m just saying my first hello and listening to whatever anyone wants to say to me. I’ll be visiting that world before I return to Earth so make of that what you will.” Observer Wu says.
“Of course, it might be interesting to show you the temple my daughters made for me.”
“I will admit, receiving a tour of a living god’s temple from the god themselves will be a new experience for me.” Observer Wu admits.
~First~ Last

Hello!
Please gimme your opinions.
This takes place in a world pretty similar to ours, same technology and a north and southpole.
The old world ended when terrorists of an unnamed country murdered the daughter of President Ezmil of Asba in a livestream.
The terrorists(who acted on their own) country lost all international support in their war with Asba in return.
Ezmil went mad with grief however, replaced the important decision makers with radicals (Asba was a dictatorship even before that) and launched a nuckear attack, not only on the enemy bloc, but other countries and the Poles.
However, there were new defense systems in place; essentially a highly complicated cluster of bombs, able to deter hypersonic missles. Many went through though, leading to some places still being irradiated. The destruction of the Poles led to the creations of huge wastelands in some parts (where people still live with great difficulty). This means there are now pockets of civilizations seperated by destroyed swathes of land.
This lead to horrible catastrophes as well as a world war, which quickly broke down due to the environmental problems not allowing for large scale warfare. Instead, rogue legions and warlords of once the same or allied states fought each other, leading to devastating massacres left and right.
The country of Prexberg, a strong democratic country, was destroyed by floods a and some nukes in it's center, essentially cutting it in half.
The Empire
In the northeast, the forces leaning torwards facism prevailed, turning into the Pseudo-monarchy "The Imperial state of Prexberg"., usually referred to as "The Empire". The Emperor is only a figurehead, though, the real power lies in the hand of the party, made up of the officers and leaders of the old legions.
The north of Prexberg was relatively rural compared to the south, parts due to mismanagement and corruption, parts due to it's proximity to the "Leguanas", a powderkeg of states constantly at each others throats. This often forced Prexberg into conflict and made it the industrial elite more likely to settle in the more peaceful south.
The Empire really tries to sell the feeling of "home" and "the good ol' times". They play folk songs on the radio, build old style houses and heavily encourage the "old ways".
This is a scam, of course. The Empire is a technocratic horror show, their luxury bought by enslaving those considered minorities in the old Prexberg, as well as heavily micromanaging society.
Their military is feared everywhere. The black masks and heavy armor is a bringer of news. Death will come to you and all who don't fit in.
Their ruthless tactics are their strength and their weakness at the same time. Fear keeps the people in line, and victory the loyalists. However, the potential influx of new citizens is often denied to them, because their massacres make people run in the arms of their rival, Luxgia. This, however, also created greater social cohesion and a more efficent use of their resources.
Luxgia
On the other side of the Wasteland lies Luxgia, which is made up mainly of old Prexberg territory, but also that of other smaller states who joined willingly. They are in a cold war with the Empire, due to their different ideologies and due to both states claims to be the rightful succesor state of Prexberg.
Here, the democratic forces won out. The army became not an instrument of the old Warlords to enforce their will, but a citizens force.
Liberal and democratic values are held high in Luxgia, and remain a staple of inner and foreign policy.
However, despite it's founding myth, cracks begin to appear. The democratic dream also slowly rotted away, turning Luxgia into an oligarchy. It's elite, enboldened by the constantly increasing populations need for secruity, shelter and food and the resulting complacency, allowed them take bigger steps in centralising power.
Luxgias elite are known for their lavish feasts , weird fashion and lifestyle. They are despised in parts of society. However, everyone realizes they are needed, and they give the masses personal freedom and a sense of secruity, creating an unstable equilibrium.
To cope with the lack of resources, corners are often cut. The cities are rather ugly, made up of concrete and square blocs, in which hundred od families find place in.
Nothing is wasted. Due to the lack of space, even corpses are used as fertilizer to feed everyone. (A tactic the Empire greatly frowns upon; but do so secretly as well)
However, despite Luxgias huge influx of people from the Wasteland and other surrounding states, their resources are spread thin. The aforementioned fear of collapse as well as personal freedoms, and their even bigger fear of the Empire, are what keeps it going.
The Wasteland
The Wasteland is a flooded, partly radioactive swamp. Arnachy is the order of the day.
The land, whose earth is only black sludge by now, is filled with the bombed out skeletons of once great cities and burnt forests, the water in the streets often hiding the huddling corpses below.
But even here, life still thrives.
Survivors of the war, independent settlements, smaller criminal operations and the powerful cartel all operate within it.
As it's mostly flooded, many are stuck within, allowing for the Cartel to make business. The Cartel acts as a unofficial trade orginazation for the Empire and Luxgia. If a powerful Luxgian Oligarch needs a slave, or an Imperial Party Official needs a new heart, the Cartel will profit. Their small fleet of ships , their unaccountabilty and acess to a larger market make them a huge player everyone depends on one way or another. This also ensures their secruity within the Wasteland. Attack a cartel merchant, and your fellow survivors will flay you before the Cartel does, for they often are the lifeline for the poor souls trapped in the Wastes.
However, there are many colorful characters and places in the Wastes. Be it the the Zuian Settlement, a religious enclave of psychedlics enjoyers, or Father Lambold, a self proclaimed priest picking off people with his sniper from the church tower.
Some even claim to have seen mutants roam the Wastes, but no one has been caught, yet. Just a rumor, I'm sure.
Yeah, so That's it for now. These places are actually way more detailed, but I wanted to give a short overview. Please tell me what you think.

Hey! I'm 22M Romania and I study Biochemistry. I'm interested in history, geography, psychology. I've been trying hypnosis so far to make people relax so we can try that too if you want. I like playing Genshin Impact (and if you don't have Arlecchino you are fatherless haha). I've been trying to learn Italian so maybe a friend from there would be nice. I also can't sleep because the anxiolitic I took has a side effect of insomnia. We can be long term buddies btw. I'm bi so everyone can DM as soon as it sees this, but I can be open to domains or to field I'm not familiar about. You can tell me about your military costumes, duties in army, how you trained in the police academy or any other adventures you have.

Hey! I'm 22M Romania and I study Biochemistry. I'm interested in history, geography, psychology. I've been trying hypnosis so far to make people relax so we can try that too if you want. I like playing Genshin Impact (and if you don't have Arlecchino you are fatherless haha). I've been trying to learn Italian so maybe a friend from there would be nice. I also can't sleep because the anxiolitic I took has a side effect of insomnia. We can be long term buddies btw. I'm bi so everyone can DM as soon as it sees this, but I can be open to domains or to field I'm not familiar about. You can tell me about your military costumes, duties in army, how you trained in the police academy or any other adventures you have.

Now, as you may know Nintendo series like Mario and Kirby got TV shows, now this has me wondering, what if Miitopia got a TV show, so for that, I have some ideas for it, so I felt like sharing it with you. So the fan of the games can easily understand the plot. Although most episodes will focus on the cast and their goal to save Miitopia, I'll hope include some episodes that'll help character grow and develop. Character cast: Now my idea for a cast is that I'll follow one of Miitopia's best features, being able to put in any character in the story, now I'll only have one original character, being the protagonist, other that that, all other characters would've already exist, now due to copyright, I'll only cast Nintendo characters to fill the roles , I'll also might include some Pokemon characters since Gamefreak is close to Nintendo and some celebrities [Like youtubers, voice actors, etc] here and there, so if you don't like it my casting or think the Pokemon characters will lead to copyright, you can type your own cast down below. So let the madness and fun begin. The cast: Carefree Guide: Mario Cheery Granny: Gardevoir Sassy Child: Goomba Worried Mother: Indeedee Lovely-Dovey Couple: Ash and Serena Sarcastic Guy: Toad Dubious Mayor: Luigi Dark Lord: Louie Roving Photographer: Koopa Quizmaster: Orbeetle Prodigious Postman: Pelipper Roaming Gourmet: Kirby Serious Soldier: Boo Lax Soldier: Monty Mole Royal Supports: Bandana Dee and Escargoon King: King Dedede Princess: Lana Prince from Neksdor: Bulborb Besmirched Noble's Son: Waddle Dee Great Sage: Aphmau Genie: Spike Dancing Guide: Oricorio Rambling Old Man: Jack Black Shady Merchant Family: Toadette and Garos Worried Explorer: Bowser Prickly Couple: Inkling Boy and Girl Desert Celebrity: Chris Pratt Fab Faries: Peach, Daisy and Rosalina Injured Elf: Yellow Pikmin Fab Fairies fans: Regice, Regirock and Registeel Scaredy-Cat: Torracat Green-Eyed Lady: Zelda Lazybones: Ice Pikmin Mischievous Witch: Meowscarada Town Guide: Blue Pikmin Scholary Pioneer: Donkey Kong Dark Curse: Vanillite The Protangonist: Name: Gideon Description: Gideon is a traveling comedian who although laid back, loves to entertain people and make them smile, he went to Miitopia has it heard it was in a bad shape and he thought it meant that Miitopia needed cheering up, although he has a good heart, being laid-back his laziness limits his capabilities where it often leads to him not doing something at his best. After meeting the guardian spirit, he was given the powers of a mage, in Neksdor when Louie sealed away his powers he became a warrior, and in Realm of the Fey when his powers were sealed away again, he became a thief and when his powers were no longer sealed away, he became a wizard once more. Greenhorne Allies: Mallow: Class: Chef Description: Mallow left Alola soon after hearing about the culinary cuisine of Miitopia so she set off to learn the recipes of Miitopia dishes with her family. Sadly soon after reaching Miitopia, she and her family were attacked by the Dark Lord resulting in her family losing their faces and the ambush caused her and her Tsareena to seperate. Now wanting to save them, she wanders around Miitopia look to save her family Steve [Red Pikmin]: Class: Warrior Description: Steve grew up on a long lost land, and is the best knight in his habitat. He left his natural habitat to find a purpose as he felt like his talents were wasting away, so after hearing Miitopia was in danger, he knew what he had to do, he rose to the challenge and set sail for Miitopia. But his main flaw is that he thinks highly of himself and tries to lift super heavy things on his own with little to no success. Nabbit: Class: Theif Description: The infamous thief of the Mushroom Kingdom was able to steal anything and not get caught, so in his hideout, he read of an amulet that grants insane power to control an army, and after turning on the TV, he soon saw the Dark Lord wearing the same amulet, so he set for Miitopia to retrieve the powerful artifact so he can make monsters to steal anything and is capable of reaching high speeds due to his insane energy. Meloetta: Class: Pop Star Description: During her time in Unova, Meloetta was caught by a kind and caring local singer, and soon after, Meloetta and her trainer were the best singers in Unova dropping amazing albums left and right, they came to Miitopia after receiving an invitation to perform a concert but after landing there and got to the meeting spot, it was a trap set by the Dark Lord to use the Mythical's face to make an extremely powerful monster. But her trainer was able to distract him long enough for him to escape, last thing Meloetta saw was the Dark Lord stealing her trainers faces. Being a kind soul, she often tries to stop quarrels and fights and most of the time she's the voice of reason. Neksdor Allies: Olimar: Class: Scientist Description: Olimar and his family set off for Miitopia after hearing it's excellent vacation spots, but soon after landing there, his family's faces were snagged by his coworker Louie, not wanting to be next, he hid until Louie left, and set off to save his family and stop Louie. Purple Pikmin: Name: Purp Class: Cleric Description: On his home town, Purp was a doctor attending to the injured, but after being accused of stealing a patients skeleton, he quickly lost his medical license, so instead of using medicine to heal his patients, he studied in cleric magic to heal his patients way faster, and he set off for Miitopia with his friend Rocky soon after hearing it had lots of injuries. Despite his divine magic his lack of intellect gets in the way leading to dumb scenarios. Ice Cream Sandwich: Class: Imp Description: While in his house, he hears of a land called Miitopia, where it has an animation contest in Neksdor where whoever wins gets a huge cash prize, so he invited his friends, and dog along and soon set off for Miitopia, where during the time he was there, he had a good time, eating snacks, hanging with the boys, messing around. Until after the competition where the winner was about the being announced, the event is quickly interrupted by the Dark Lord where he starts stealing everyone's faces, him, his dog and his friends went to hide in the bathroom since according to his brain, everyone knocks before entering the bathroom, before anyone said something, the Dark Lord busted in and stole his friends' faces and his dog, after checking if the Dark Lord was gone, he swore vengeance, so went around hoping to find people to help him Rock Pikmin: Name: Rocky Class: Cat Description: On Rocky's natural habitat he owned a cat sanctuary, where he helped felines find forever homes and learned how to fight like a cat, so he after hearing about the exclusive cat breeds on Miitopia, he soon set off with his friend Purp but soon after the Dark Lord stole his cat Terry, him and his friend wanted revenge, but just with Purp's healing magic and his feline abilities, it wouldn't be enough, so the set off for heroes to find so they could help them. Throughout the series, Rocky suffers from an extreme lack of IQ so he needs help when it comes to situations that require intellect to solve. And together with Icecreamsandwich and Purp, the three often do dumb stuff together and get into all sorts of trouble. Realm of the Fey Allies: Tsareena: Class: Princess Description: After soon being seperated from Mallow, Tsareena ended up in Realm of the Fey, lost and not knowing where to go, soon she met up with a potion, thirsty and out of options, she drank it where it granted her the magically abilities of royalty. After meeting up with the protagonist she soon set off with him to reunite with Mallow. Lilligant: Class: Flower Description: After stowing away on a cargo ship from Unova to Miitopia, Lilligant started exploring Miitopia and ended up in Realm of the Fey, so after befriending the local elves, she learnt the ways of harnessing the power of nature and really bonded with them, but after hiding when the Dark Lord attacked, she started to leave and set off to retrieve her friends and quickly met up with the protangonist. Having a gentle soul she sees the good in everyone often leading her to spare monsters. Golurk: Class: Tank Description: After hearing about Miitopia's situation, a bunch of Unova scientist got together and turned a Golurk into a weapon of mass destruction and was quickly shipped to Miitopia, after landing there, he started looking for the Dark Lord, and soon got orders from his creators to wait by a local inn to receive some allies to help him. During battle, Golurk will stop at nothing to defeat his opponents, even if it means firing his allies and shooting everywhere to ensure victory. He thinks he doesn't need help and often refuses assistance believing he can be a big shot and do it himself. Other Allies: Litwick: Class: Vampire Description: Litwick was caught by a vampire on vacation in Unova and the two quickly bonded. While in the land of Peculia, Litwick lived a simple life with his trainer in their mansion and his trainer taught Litwick vampire like abilities, until the Darker Lordsent a rat infestation in there, Litwick's trainer told him to get help to stop the rat invasion, soon he quickly met up with the protagonist and quickly asked him for help and after they agreed, they set off and during the journey Litwick quickly bonded with the team and after the rats were defeated, his trainer noticed his bond with the team and told them that if he wanted to go with them he wouldn't stop him, so Litwick quickly joined the party, and during his time in it, he often pulled pranks on his team and during battle, he likes to mix in fun by toying with his opponents and he calls them, his prey. Alchremie: Class: Elf Description: Alchremie lived in Peculia with a baker and together they made sweets for lotsa people. But after the Darker lord stole her trainer's face, she swore revenge, she went off to realm of the Fey to study the ways of elf magic and after learning the elf magic he returned to Peculia to look for her trainer's face soon after seeing the protagonist and his team struggle against a monster with her trainer's face, she went to the rescue and defeated the boss with ease. After her trainer got his face back Alchremie asked him if she could travel with the team to stop the Darker Lord, and her trainer quickly agreed. After this the team notice that Alchremie is a bit cautious, worries about a lot of things and likes to be ready for everything. Episode ideas: Now a lot of the series would be about the team saving Miitopia, but some episodes would be mainly about character growth and stuff like that. Some episode ideas I have: Lilligant the Shy Flower: After a battle with a strong demon, who made Lilligant worried about everything, it wouldn't wear off even in the safe spot, following a montage of the team trying to return her to normal like Mallow cooking her some magic food, Purp, Icecreamsandwich and Rocky pulling a prank on Olimar to cheer her up, Gideon telling a joke to cheer her up, or Steve just downright slapping her and many others, they figured that nothing could work until when the same demon invaded the inn and almost destroyed her team, Lilligant pushed herself and unleashed a hurricane blowing the demon away. Chaotic Tea Time: In the foreground we can see Lilligant and Tsareena having a tea party and chatting, while in the background Gideon and Golurk try to kill a fiend with all sorts of shenanigans, and the episode keeps switching from foreground to background and it ends with Golurk unleashing a powerful laser boosted with some energy cells Gideon has which ended up leveling half the forest.

I'm a 29 year old male and i will try to summarize the horrendous situation I find myself without leaving to many crucial details out. I was with my ex girlfriend for nearly 6 years. The red flags were present fromn the beggining but looking back I had no way to understand what they were at the time partly due to my young nievete and partly due to the fact that coming from a emotijallyabusive household I had normalized many of the more subtle behaviors and therefore they fell within a blindspot of my cognitive distortions at the time. From the very start she would begin punching herself in her own head if i ever became upset with her in any way or during any attempt to verbally work a problem out. I thought she was just a bit flippant and intense. Dare I say I almost found it attractive in a strange sense. She was and still to this day, stunningly beautiful and menacingly seductive and knows how she can have a significant effect on males especially without doing very much in the way of actions. Fast forward she unknown to me at the time discontinued her birth contorll pills while still assuring me she was taking them and ultimetly lied by telling me she had just to fund out she had become pregnant herself after missing a period. We were both in our mid to early 20s still more or less financially dependant on our parents and were living on public city streets in our tow behind rv with our 2 dogs. She was idealizing me and to be frank I remebr this period of time as the happiest iv been eever before and up untill now. This memory of "happiness" I think was the biggest reason it took me so long to finally start trying to advocate for my self respect instead of hanging my head and just ignoring the abuse so that I would get the sweet reward of psedo- intimacy with her a few times a week. Despite my fond memories looking back I see now what could only be described as patterns if coercive control that seriously escalated over the 5 years we were in a relationship with each other and included her beggining to cheat early on and the resulting systemic lies and relational damage from needing to formulate and bend the nature of reality around those lies. Her hot and cold treatment of me with any postive(hot) behavior usually at least in the last few years being exclusively sexual in nature and cold behavior usually manifesting as her stonewalling me and or simply disappearing for multiple days at a time sometimes. The day my son was born i accompanied her to the hospital and sat with her the entire time helped her push ans enouraged her with love. She treated me with indifference and disdain. Once our wonderful little boy came along this a became even worse. The sense that she was making it about him and her vs everyone else including me was strong. She became quite introverted secretive and "cliquey" with my newborn and at the same time seemed to loose all desire to be physically or emotionally intimate with me. (Of course i gave her plenty of time and space right after she gave birth amd was understanding that it might be a while before things were back to normal).it was almost like she had a new partner-our child. she refused to fully move in to the apartment my grandparents had spent a huge amint of money on to give us a chance at raising our soon in a healthy environment. She would start random and seemingly pointless arguments often escalating into her screaming mean things at me innfront of our 3 month old son like she ****ed me and then raging followed by quickly slamming the door and taking our infant son backto her mother's house where she would stonewall me for a few days then send me. A message that emotionally blackmailed me into taking full blame for the rupture and apologizing profusely. In addition she did not trust me with our son but had no reason not too and as a result gatekept him in an extremely overcintrolling and damaging(for him and for me) manner. to this day (he is 3.5] I have never spent the night alone with him and have had him 1 on 1 dad and son time signifigantly less than I should have and not for lack of trying on my part. Despite her overcontrolling coercive sabatoging and alienating actions my son and I formed a loving and beautiful bond that up untill I saw him last a few months ago has amazingly endured through the storm. The tradegy goes on and on but to wrap up ultimitely she purposefully betrayed me by starting a relationship with my good friend and had him suggest to me that he should move in so he became my roommate all the while lying to my roommate that I ht her and simultaneously having him report back to her on my whereabouts at any Givin time and the things I said about her when venting after a prticulringly humiliating attempt to see my son or similar interaction and also give her info about what I was doing during the day. He became quite controlling himself and severed to further isolate me from people that weren't trying to ruin my life. They started to play mindgames with me that ibsee now attempts to gage how much I knew or suspected about what was going on. Mind you my son who was around 2 at this point was privy to the whole thing it was only kept a secret from me and due to this my son was coached to not tell me about it although what was actually said I will never know. Eventually a mutual friend of my roommate and I reached out and told me he had seen my roommate "playing dad" with my girl and son at dollar tree that day. I remebrr that day I sat at a local park in my car sullen and confused having been led on via sms from her only to randomly stop responding and never managing to get any time with my son. This sort of thing had become a regular occurance She then began withholding my son all togethar simply not answering at all or lying about him being asleep ridiculously early in the afternoon etc etc. My own parents failed to suppprt me and are still failing to show any sort of care other than somehwat monitarily. In fact my mom and her were two peas in a pod and my mom activly participated in the emotional abuse partly becauee of being manipulated by her partly because my mother is emotionally abusive. If I had better support or access to court resources at the time I'm confident things would have gone much differently but I was so isolated and lonely and in a deep state of despair at this point and the only thing I still was enduring for was the brief and inconsistent times i got with my boy whom I love more than life itself. I managed to get a hold of her via phone at this point and said i was going to go to court and pursue custody since she seemed unwilling to value my valid role as father. Her mom and her immediately became overly nice and invited me over where they sat me down and offered to make a visitation schedule and kindly suggested I dident go to court. It wasent much but it was signifgantly more respect than I had been shown any instance prior so I gobbled up the manipulations and left feeling invigorated and hopeful. The schedule was never adhered too and within a few days it was back to me not even be able to get a hold of her let alone see my son. The final day I saw him before things blew up I went over to her house in the evening. My son wanted to play hot wheels so we began to line them up on the floor but my ex was hovering over us with a hostile air. I asked if we could have some space or if at least she could sit down and play with us and she just kept standing there glaring at me. This made me uncomfortable and my son noticed this by sayig daddy play with me! Upon hearing this she in a angry tone said "play with your effin kid isent that what you wanted to do soooooo badly" right in front of him. I asked not to be spoken to in front of him like that and she went and got her mom and started whispering abut me to her mom in the hallway while they watched my son and I. I got up and said I'm leaving this is innappropriate and she said "wow that checks out you harrass me to see your son and then you don't even wanna see him. how pathetic and typical" " you just want to stress me out dont you" you don't actually give 2 you know what's about him" right in front of my son again. I speechlessly went to leave and my son comes running after me begging me to wait. I'm on the verge of tears and i picked him up cherishing how warm he was and how lovingly he was clinging to me. I tentatively requested I be allowed to go for a walk with him around the block and her mom this time dismissively says ya go and shoos us out the door. I get down the driveway and my ex comes sprinting out of the house tears streaming down her face and a look of rage and starts hitting me while I'm holding our son. Amazingly he start4d pushing her away saying mommy stop mommy stop. She says you have 5 minutes or I'm calling the cops and goes back in. I walk him around the block and say "mommy's feeling sad right now but it doesn't mean that either one of us loves you any more or any less than we used to and it's absolutely not your fault." I go back inside and without saying anything I walk up to her and give her a hug wich my son joins in too. All the sudden she is happy again and trying to speak to me in a casual tone but I basically just leave without saying much else. After this a week of no contact with my son occurs which at the time was the longest we had gone apart I felt like I had no choice but to confront her and assert my rights AGAIN although looking back I feel terribley silly for thinking she was going to repsect me at that point. Keep in mind i ALWAYS was extrmely respectful of her space and never would just show up at her moms house even though our relationahip by many accounts was more than informal ennough to make an occasionaI drop in to say hi. In addition she on Many occasions had told me that I could just come by if she didn't Answer her phone or simular situation arose. I texted her I was coming by to say goodnight to my son and phrased it as a statement not a question or request. I was already on the way when I sent the message and so I arrived (unintentionally)before her being able to fully respond to it to see my romate come running out of the front door (this is when I first had proof ab about all the stuff I mentioned earlier about their secret relationship) and go hide in the bushes, her poke her head out the door and then shut and lock it and turn all the lights in the house out and close the blinds. I walk up to the door and knock to no avail and so I confront her about what i know and saw via sms. She directly denies all my proof and accusations and then after calling me crazy and a stalker blocks me on all channels of communication. I go back to my car and collapse in tears and ultimtly fall asleep. I wake up to see her quickly shoving a duffel bag and my son into her moms car and her and my roommate get in and she pulls quickly away. Upon passing me on her way to the main road she becomes aware that im still there in my car and she burns rubber and begins driving extremely fast and erratically. In a moment of panic I knew she was probably trying to go into hiding with my son to prevent me from evrr seeing him again and I fearing for the safety of my son and our relationship I regrettably felt compelled to follow. We got on the freeway where she initiatied speeds of 100 plus miles perhour weaving in between semi's and this sort of thing continued d for an hour in the interim I had called 911 and also she had pulled up too a gas station casually got out and pumped gas upon her getting back in the car I witnessed my roommate making derogatory and taunting sexual gestures referring to my ex and also what i can only describe as cuddling with my son in the back seat and became enraged and made some threatening motions with a large wooden shovel handle while standing next to her car that were directed at my betraying friend and I feel terrible for doing in front of my child but in the moment I was so desperate and upset by the psychological torture i had been through it clouded my normally good judgment. In the end the police couldn't locate us due to my 911 call continually being transfered fron highway patrol dispatch back to whatever city we were in at the times dispatch. Also ultimetly no physical harm or even any other attempts happend or anything to anyone of the people involved and eventually I gave up and drove back to my hometown. She immediately filed for a domestic violence restraining order and used a recording she took of me looking aggressive and threatening outside her car as proof im abusive and violent even though i have never been either of those things. Especially not violent. I may not have been the most mature or experienced or attentive partner for some of our relationship but anything I did was truly a far cry from the serious emotional anguish I have ben subjected to here and not abusive. I did not lie, cheat,manipulate, gaslight, trick, triangulate, turn family againts or ever feel superior or entitled to harm or use her in any way. I loved her and she did all those to me and now is trying to steal the most precious thing I have left in the world from me so she can emotionally scar him with her idea of what good parenting is which in truth is emotional abuse.. She moved my old roommate in to her moms house full time the very next day and from what I hear they both are abusing meth and who knows what else currently plus this guy is not somone that is safe around my son to that degree. He is not a healthy safe adult for such a young boy and in addition he is vindictive and dislikes me mostly because my ex told him I hit her and abused her which are absolutely complete lies. I'm facing a situation now where I have to sit by and watch my son turned agsints me and withheld from me and abused and eveyone treats me like im the abuser. I have tried to contact every dv organization in my local area and as soon as they hear what happend it's almost like I can Feel the switch flip and in the moment it's evident that all the abuse that I had recounted surviving through doesn't matter because I'm some "unhinged abusive guy that chases people down the freeway" eveyone I have reached out to locally has invalidated me and berrated me for "what I did" and successfully pathologized what I consider to be a huge mistake that I feel very regretful for loosing my composure but also a rather understandable emotional reaction to severe mistreatment and fear for my son. I'm beggining to feel so isolated riding the emotional Rollercoaster of self doubt and powerlessness that this abuse at the hands of my ex but dare I say worse yet the abuse by way of victim blame and invalidation from these people and organizations that exist to help dv survivors has caused me. which because I reacted I'm not worthy of being included as a survivor. Cn you offer any advice or support or suggestions? I'm terrified for my sons wellbeing currently and haven't been able to see him in going on 2.5 months now clear and to be clear the domestic violence restraining order is still temporary. I have the final hearing in August.i

Conner sat listening to music while the history class droned on endlessly. What is the point of learning history? War never changes, right? It seemed tedious. What does history have to do with how powerful and cool a mech is, or how sweet it is to be a mech knight?
"When the darkness came from outside, only the humans knew what was happening. It was war, war from outside the peaceful galaxy. War that had started when the Milky Way first showed the twinkling signs of life. One insane intelligence, old as time, would not tolerate another living galaxy. Each must be consumed by its own weight, and only death may prevail.
Humans instinctively knew this, as the chosen ones, the T-Cells of the galaxy. When their alien friends started getting ravaged and marauded by the scouts of the Dark Beings, humans responded, retaliating with unbridled ferocity and driving the otherwise unstoppable enemies back into the darkness.
It was a frightening time, and it only got worse when the massive cloud of shade was identified as the locust fleet that had sailed for billions of years, the Silent Empty Eternal Darkness Sailors, as they called themselves. They were nothing but dormant hives, sleeping forever, ready to wake and kill and self-destruct, make the galaxy dead. They could have done so, but humans stood in their way, an unpredictable enemy, capable of war.
That is why human worlds were directly targeted by their commandos. Massive singular monsters of ungodly visage were deployed to human worlds, spawning armies of miniature satraps of the horrors, to pillage and assault human worlds, turning them into hellscapes of death and destruction. The alien friends of the humans did not sit entirely idle, they helped by selling powerful new weapons and armor to the humans who kept retaliating against the Dark Beings with ever more powerful and vengeful mech."
Conner perked up at the part about the mech. Various famous chassis flashed across the screen in cool paint and poses with alien worlds in their backdrop and accounting for their neatly colored camouflage plates. He paid attention to the famous battles, where humans had defeated the Dark Beings in honorable combat.
"Conner, do you know what made your clan's father and mother such great mech knights?" his teacher asked.
"They learned from their mistakes." Conner sighed.
"They learned from other people's mistakes. They studied all of our defeats, all the times the Dark Beings annihilated entire battalions or overwhelmed our defenses. It is a much heavier volume. We learn little from victory except that now the enemy will try to better themselves again. When they win, they use the same tactics again - that's when we win. We don't use the same tactics again, for they will be ready when we try. We conceptualize and learn their thoughts, through their actions. They do not understand us. It is our only advantage, for each progression of our tech is met by another evolution of their monsters. Someday we will not be able to make a stronger bullet to match their stronger armor. We must anticipate a limit to this war, and fight accordingly."
"I can only anticipate getting into a mech and fighting bugs!" Conner had said. His teacher had given him that look. Nobody else got that look. Conner got it everywhere. He thought back to those days, he'd really thought he'd see action, in a mech, fighting bugs.
The rest of his class went on to become mech knights. All of them had seen action. Of course, none of them were left alive, and few of their mech were salvaged. Except, Pharlie.
Her mech was the third in a row of ones hit by a single plasma beam of the enemy. While the first two were instantly blown to atomic dust, her mech was only knocked over and set on fire. The ejection seat in the cockpit had the one and a half seconds needed to egress the mech knight safely.
She'd spent some time in relieved-of-duty status on Maranda Beach before she insisted they give her something to do. They quickly evaluated her and decided she wasn't fit for duty in a mech. Something about 'shutting down the Berserker Program' and 'protocols preventing reinstating anyone who qualifies to pilot a Berserker Mech'. Not happening under Admiral Khaspa.
"How's getting into a mech and fighting bugs, Conner? Still anticipating it?" Pharlie asked her old classmate.
"You are under my command. Watch your tone, I run a cruel shift." Conner grumbled.
"Aye, Skipper." Pharlie cringed, realizing the bureaucrat Conner had no sense of humor anymore. She decided to make it her personal mission to work on that. Conner with no humor didn't sound fun.
That scene in the classroom was a long time ago, but it was with Conner like it just happened. He hated Pharlie, because she stood for his humiliation, and wanted to humiliate her, but then he hated himself for feeling that way. He resolved to leave her be because he didn't want to feed his own calloused resentments.
"We've got work to do. We are reassigned to military surplus salvage. This job just keeps getting better. I used to think I would somehow be tested on a battlefield to save the galaxy, but out here I just get tested by boredom. I don't even feel the shame of these janitorial jobs anymore, I'm numb to it." Conner said to Pharlie, the next time they spoke. Pharlie realized he was trying to be nice to her and asked him:
"You'd rather be dead, or be me?" She wondered.
"Yeah. You don't know what it is like flying around delivering stuff and counting crap. I hate it. I could've made an actual difference." Conner complained personally.
Pharlie smiled and said: "You'd have made no more difference than the rest of us did. You don't know what a victory against the bugs costs, do you? You think you just have to stand there bravely shooting back and if you die, oh well, otherwise it's all glory. It's never like that. It hurts, it hurts a lot, because you don't die. Everyone else does. And for what? We just play the same game again next weekend, and it never changes."
"That's war." Conner nodded. "What am I doing? I bring supplies to remote outposts. It's pointless."
"Not anymore, they reassigned us to go pick up supplies, remember?" Pharlie pointed out.
"Oh yeah - don't remind me, just when I though my life couldn't be more tedious or pointless." Conner fell silent, realizing he sounded weak and small, complaining so much. He wished he was stoic, but he had a chance to confide in Pharlie, and he had taken it. Pharlie said:
"You're right. But let's make the most of it." And she smiled, so Conner decided that letting someone know just how miserable he was wasn't entirely a bad thing. He just wished he could somehow just be good with it, without having to use drugs or somesuch. He really felt like his combat skills were going to waste, sitting on a ship for long years, asleep and going around picking up supplies. As Pharlie had pointed out, they weren't even delivering them anymore, new mission, go get all that stuff the aliens made over the centuries for the war effort.
Rhema loomed in the distance. "We are picking up artwork on this world. Are you kidding me? The manifest shows it is categorized as artwork. So this community of variety-hour aliens have compiled some kind of treasure trove of fine art. This is asinine." Pharlie offered.
"That's enough of that." Conner chastised her formally on the deck, but he was smiling as he said it. He loved having her there stating his real feelings. "The mission is to acquire this propaganda, it is deemed useful to the war effort."
The world was like melted orange-cream covered in brown fog, a desolate radiated landscape below testified to the destructive power of the Unknown. The same Dark Beings had taken shots from the darkness with precise aim and killed some of the older aliens, such as the Frendsikeel. Long ago the peaceful otter people had lived happily on Rhema, inviting trade via broadcast.
After meeting an assortment of artist-aliens wearing shimmering dark-colored robes and cowls, the human delegate collecting military surplus accepted the crates of fine art, packed for their shipping across the stars, trusted to nobody except the human military to safely transport it.
"Conner." A call came in from Supply Command Unk Gheldin, Conner's commander. "You just earned me a promotion. The patrons of Rhema have instituted a check as a downpayment on our services. It's enough to build an entire warship. These aliens are loaded and just became our daddy. You're doing good work out there, the war effort thanks you!"
"I'll be sure and handle with care." Conner saluted diligently.
The next world was Arienta, populated by what was left of aliens who looked like huge anthropomorphic tarantulas.
"We've perfected a drug that can induce Star Sleep in humans. They said it was not possible for such belligerent minds to Star Sleep, but our colony of volunteers have allowed us to test every kind of euphoria and pleasure-inducing drug we could on them. Most species wouldn't have such a supply of volunteers, but humans come from far and wide to live as our guests, accepting our hospitality for their entire lives, saying they don't ever want to leave." The high priestess of the Blue Light Watchers, Rhoxa Billi, explained the doped humans lounging around everywhere.
"They look like slackers, sir." Pharlie said loudly.
"That's enough of that." Conner admonished her, but was smiling, glad she said what he was thinking. He faced the high priestess formally and said:
"We'll take this drug, and thank you for your hard work." Conner waved his fingers in the spiritual way to show he knew the sacred gratitude of the Blue Light Watchers. He'd studied how to do it on the way over, practicing it for days until he was confident he could do it right.
The next stop was Basilik, an industrialized wasteland where the Sunder had hundreds of thousands of giant humanoid machines, in loincloths, working tirelessly to drag massive monolithic super metal beams across rollers, up ramps to assemble indestructible mech chassis to sell to the humans.
"Sir, we take shipments from here all the time. What are we here for?" Pharlie asked.
"Not a what, a whom." Conner said.
The casket of the revered Exalted Inquisitor Eshka Layenna was loaded on board, but it was not made by Sunder. No, it was tech from some other society, preserving her eternally in a state of dormancy, a kind of molecular stasis.
"We're taking her back to the ones who put her in there. They have a gift for us. She is our gift for them. The Sunder have agreed to this, in the name of the war effort."
The Desperado star sailed to the nearby Kriesene system where an old gravity cloud that looked like a planet had hundreds of planet-sized moons dancing around it like an insane ballroom.
"The shoals around their world will make this somewhat dangerous to traverse. We have a map, given to us by the Sunder, so we should be fine." Conner told Pharlie.
"Danger, eh? Kinda like it, don't you?" Pharlie teased.
"That's enough of that." Conner said without any real command in it, smiling.
The Skiesene had a moon-sized space station named Thoughtfulness where they conducted much of their trade with each other. They looked like dark-shelled nightmare creatures, some kind of H.R. Giger prophecy had remembered these creatures long before humans had met them.
Conner witnessed their massed warriors, in stasis, embroidered stole draped over them, crouched motionless atop pedestals with twenty-yard tall tapestries depicting their many victories in bloody combat. They sat there in a great hall in their various forms and armors, but always hideous monsters, reminding him of the Dark Beings vaguely, except devoid of insectoid features.
The Skiesene were delighted by the delivery of their goddess, Eshka Layenna. A time without bloodshed was declared, and the Skiesene offered a shipment of their finest warriors, in egg form.
The Skiesene Khan grinned with uncannily human-looking teeth, but in its grin was a sharpened beak that could pierce the solid dome that was their head, with no eyes or ears, at least not in one place, for they had sensory all over their bodies.
"Uh, thanks. We could always use some special, uh, special forces." Conner accepted the eggs, as he was under orders to do. They were preserved until called, using a key to deactivate the stasis they were in. Then they would serve the orders in their minds, to obey their human commanders.
"I hope they don't have to facehug us and chest burst us." Pharlie chuckled.
"That's enough of that." Conner told her, smiling.
The last stop was the world of the Beebee, aliens who looked like cats wearing incredibly fancy clothing.
"We've tailored new uniforms for the human armies. You'll like them." The Master of Design, top official of the Beebee, told Conner, purring as he went.
Conner put one hand on his elbow and one holding his chin, trying to keep a straight face, when he saw the uniforms.
"They are a little small, don't you think?" Conner looked at the feline models in the uniforms meant for human soldiers.
"And kinda derpy with all those frills and colors?" Pharlie offered further criticism.
The Master of Design seemed to think the uniforms were being complimented, anticipating no other response. It took a moment to sink in that the humans were mocking all their hard work.
"All of the specifications for armored clothing were met. These uniforms will preserve your body temperature in very extreme conditions and will slow ballistic projectiles so that they cannot penetrate the cloth, but instead have their kinetics splattered outward and also the colors shift to the mood of the wearer. You can make it camouflage if you like. We worried that human sizes made dispensing millions of these uniforms impractical compared to making an adjustable size. Try one on." The Master of Design was not offended, but stood his ground, his hair puffing up making him look sophisticated and official. His whiskers twitched handsomely at the end and he gave a prolonged blink.
"They still look silly, why so many frills?" Pharlie chuckled.
"That's enough of that." Conner sighed.
The humans were about to leave and board their ship when Conner spotted an ancient mech standing next to the star port.
"What's that?" he asked.
"The tomb of Drastic Conner Mcfarley, the mech knight who defended our world, surprising a lone scout of the Dark Beings and engaging it in single one-on-one combat, saving our world. Drastic Conner Mcfarley died in his mech during the battle. The scout retreated and left us unharmed." The Master of Design said.
"Why'd it leave?" Conner asked, but recalled what his clan father had done. He awaited the answer he knew:
"Drastic Conner Mcfarley disarmed it, but left its capacity to retreat intact. It is believed he deliberately used this measure of engagement, in order to ensure the enemy would not retaliate by bombarding our world. When one of them dies, the world they die on gets destroyed. He might have survived the battle if he'd just killed it when he had the chance. We know this. He sacrificed himself to save us."
"That's right." Conner nodded. He and Pharlie felt solemn, realizing how far their journey had taken them, all the way to where it had began for them. "We're him, and we won't let you down."

Alright, so after playing around 50 games on CoH3 with all 4 factions and all game modes, here's my verdict based on a comparison to CoH2:
Positive aspects of CoH3:

Visually pleasing graphics
More realistic squad size mostly
Qol improvements (auto reinforce, autovaulting, tank riding)
More units variety and a pleasing light vehicle play
In game currency easier to reach
Includes never seen before units
Every faction has access to an ambulance and can tow weapons and recrew on front

Now, what's to be improved by priority:
1)High priority:

The sound effects, has been said a lot but man...where to start ? Well first of all the units being attacked cues should be given priority over everything else, the problem is that the battles, especially team battles are a sound-fest, the "our point is being captured" shout gave me a serious headache (literally lol), it should be down toned or selective to only the points you personally defend, or you could have the player have the option to select which point he wishes to know about constantly. The voice line could be replace by a sound cue maybe. The explosions are loud but they don't seem really well made too.
The vehicles movement! Man.. the "you always have to press reverse command" thing just doesn't want to stick with me. Maybe it's a me thing, but come on, at least on short distances we should be able to move backwards without extra micro. It's just a habit from Coh2 maybe.
Certain call ins are waaaaaay too oppressive, so much they make the game end (yes I'm looking at you Carpet Bombing) they definitely need to be toned down, call ins are supposed to be a bonus to swing the pendulum of a balanced fight your way, not a goddamn supernova that falls on your army.
Balance and game flow : so much to say here it could warrant it's own post.

2)Low priority (opinion) : I'm not gonna pretend that my opinion here should be THE opinion, but I've noticed a few things :

indirect fire takes a lot of place in the game, which forces everyone to play it and get mobile infantry only besides the fact that mobile infantry is already more useful and powerful than line static infantry due to the fact it can push, decrew team weapons or force retreats more easily, the new high health based system of combat makes them not drop models when approaching enemy defensive troops in their cover. It is a bit too much.
Faction balance in the current meta forces players into repetitive play styles : USF ranger blobs, ukf double Australian triple infantry, Dak just stalls until their late game vehicle play and has to play like pussy, wehr just spams team weapons until they can unleash a mass of pz4 or panthers. It reminds me of the funny days of coh1 back when the series was trying to find its way, the lessons from CoH2 final patches should be duly copied, the str genre is a delicate flower to balance and find a consistent pleasure in each game without it being a chore or boring or frustratingly unfair, I rq'd two times already due to a ranger blob and a carpet bombing, while I never rq'd in Coh2 ever.

TL;DR : just read the damn thing come on.
Thanks.

In the realm of CS2, green-skinned knives add a touch of tactical flair to your arsenal. Let's delve into our handpicked selection of these verdant blades. Just a heads-up, this list isn't about ranking from priciest to most coveted; it's more of a showcase.
#5 Talon Knife Forest DDPAT
With its release dating back to August 2, 2016, the Talon Knife Forest DDPAT makes a bold entrance. Sporting an army-inspired camo theme, this knife packs a visual punch. Its rugged design, reminiscent of pixelated warfare, adds a unique charm. Found in Horizon and Danger Zone cases, this covert-grade beauty fetches around $260. For optimal aesthetics, aim for the Factory-New variant, priced at roughly $480. In addition you may find it in: Toxic Origin, Lucky Grave, The 100
#4 Stiletto Knife Boreal
Forest Venturing into the wilderness, the Stiletto Knife Boreal Forest emerges as a stalwart companion. Released on August 3, 2013, its camouflage-clad blade exudes an aura of danger. Acquired from Horizon or Danger Zone cases, this covert-grade blade commands a starting price of $116. For a pristine look, consider the Minimal Wear variant, fetching between $200 to $300.
#3 Huntsman Knife Forest DDPAT
For those channeling their inner Rambo, the Huntsman Knife Forest DDPAT is a fitting choice. Introduced on June 11, 2014, its rugged charm and smaller pixelated pattern set it apart. Encased in the Huntsman Weapon Case, this covert-grade gem starts at $105. Opt for the Minimal Wear version, priced around $150, for a blend of affordability and style. In addition you may find it in the Knives Case
#2 Shadow Daggers Boreal
Forest Taking a more economical route, the Shadow Daggers Boreal Forest offers budget-friendly flair. Released on September 1, 2015, as part of the Shadow Case Collection, its green-armored design appeals to frugal enthusiasts. Priced at $85, it's a steal. While Well-Worn variants are an option, Minimal Wear, ranging from $80 to $100, strikes a balance between cost and quality. You may pull out the knife from theKnives Casetoo.
#1 Gut Knife Gamma Doppler
Shifting gears to a dazzling departure from tradition, the Gut Knife Gamma Doppler dazzles with its jewel-like pattern. Standing out from the green-themed pack, this gem debuted on June 16, 2016. Though divisive, its unique aesthetic elevates any inventory. Found in Gamma and Gamma 2 cases, Minimal Wear variants command around $300, offering a premium addition to any collection.
In the realm of CS2, these green knives add a touch of personality to your loadout, each with its own story to tell and battles to conquer.

One day, in the folds of time, a person was born in the city of Marrakesh. They all had many brothers, and they were poor and their condition was miserable and extremely poor. This person, whose name was Ibrahim, worked the entire summer to buy school supplies for the next year, and if his shoes were torn, Or he sewed his clothes, but he had no shoes, so his clothes were worn out and old. Ibrahim’s father was in the service, so he was absent from the house, not being with his family much. Days passed and Ibrahim grew up, so his father gave him two choices: either to go to the Education Academy to study and graduate as a professor, or to enter the service. The military, and this choice was not recommended by the father, Ibrahim, because he did not want his son to go through a difficult experience like him, but Ibrahim had an opinion and was very stubborn, so he chose military service, so he went, and after a few years he graduated with the rank of colonel, and at that time his mother proposed to him, a girl from the neighborhood in which he They lived in it, and at that time he married a son, and after that she became pregnant and they had a son, a male, and they named him Muhammad, and from here our story will begin. Muhammad was an ordinary child, and he studied well and excelled in his studies. He always went to the mosque in order to memorize the Qur’an, and he was not an honest, trustworthy child with good morals. He respected people and never insulted anyone. He was a pure and pure child. As the years passed, Muhammad grew up and took the baccalaureate degree. And all these years, Muhammad was influenced by the Islamic conquests and the personality of the Prophet Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace, and the Companions, may God be pleased with them, especially Omar ibn Al-Khattab and Ali bin Abi Talib, so he devoted himself to reading the biography of the Prophet and watching videos whose topics were Islam. The important thing is that we go back and said that Muhammad reached the age of 18 and did not find in Morocco job opportunities or even a good position, so he decided to immigrate to America like other young people, so he was registered in the American lottery and after a few months had passed. Acceptance came to him, and he was very happy because he would find a decent living and a decent life. But in reality, there is something else. The important thing is that Muhammad collected all the documents he would need and applied for the visa. Before and after that, he collected his beliefs and booked the plane ticket. On the night of the flight, he was so excited that he did not sleep a lot, and in the morning. He went to the airport, his parents said goodbye to him, and he went to the plane, and after hours he found himself in America, and the reality was something else. There were many racists, and they always insulted him with the name Muhammad because he idolized the Prophet Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace, and they even called the Messenger lustful, and he married Aisha for 6 years. And God forbid, as they curse the honorable companions, may God be pleased with them. The important thing is that Muhammad completed his studies in America and obtained several certificates, so he submitted his application to enter the police because he had just obtained American citizenship. The important thing is that he submitted his application and they approved it, so he took the written and physical test and passed it, so he passed them, and now Muhammad has become An official policeman for the state of Chicago, Muhammad was sincere in his work and dedicated to it. He always did not accept bribery and punished criminals severely. Years passed and Muhammad rose in his position and became in the anti-gang department. He became the one carrying out executions and began killing and exterminating everyone. Killer gangs because the state gives him the decision to kill them because they incite fear in people, kill them, and rape their daughters. Muhammad killed, or rather executed, thousands of people, and he exterminated hundreds of gangs from existence, and all the criminals feared him and were afraid to even mention his important name. Hours passed, and one day of the daysOne day, Muhammad found a volume containing the story of the revolution and the Soviet Union. He read it all and was influenced by revolutionary thought. He began to imagine himself as the king of the world, and he was one of the most supportive of the Palestinian cause. They always sent thousands of dollars to Palestinian associations, and Muhammad was stable even though he was stable. In America, but he hates its corrupt regime and the racism towards foreigners that is abundant in it, so Muhammad decided to go to Russia in order to settle there and submitted his application to Russian intelligence and gave up his service in America, but he still possessed American citizenship. The important thing is that Muhammad worked in Russian intelligence and began every day. It is getting more and more popular and everyone loves it until one day there was a parade for President Vladimir Putin And then Muhammad met President Putin, and Putin liked Muhammad’s personality and the way he treated and respected him, so he decided to hire him as his bodyguard, and Muhammad was very happy with this news. The next day, he started working with the president, and he accompanied him wherever he went. The president was subjected to a series of assassination attempts, and Muhammad was always He was his savior. Meanwhile, Muhammad became a loyal friend of Putin and became Vice President. One day, Putin became seriously ill, and when he was on his deathbed, he said goodbye to Muhammad. Muhammad was very affected by his death, but he moved forward and now he has become the President of the Republic of Russia, so it began. His ambitions to reshape the Soviet Union, so he began to forcefully occupy the countries that were on his side. He did not kill innocent people or women. He implemented the commandments of the Prophet Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace, to the letter. At this time, America began to threaten Muhammad that it would occupy Russia and destroy it. Muhammad was aware of this matter and was He planned in advance, as he intended to obey America and eliminate it, and the opportunity came to him. He restored the Soviet Union a hundred times stronger and stronger than it was during the era of Stalin and the other leaders. He only developed the nuclear arsenal and developed advanced weapons, and at this time Muhammad brought his father because He had experience in the army and gave him the position of first commander of the army staff, so his father trained the armyHis father was very strict, and he trained the soldiers very hard, and this would benefit them later. Muhammad also gave his grandfather the position of the chief president of all the central banks in the Soviet Union. He was the state’s accountant. All of the revenues of the Soviet Union passed through Muhammad’s grandfather. He also gave his great uncle the position of governor. He was in charge of all the car factories in the country, so he was in charge of all the car factories and all the companies. He was the president of them and the first factory because he had experience. He also entrusted him with the tasks of building power plants and manufacturing high-precision surveillance cameras. Muhammad gave his middle uncle the position of president of the iron and aluminum mining companies. All types of metal. He also gave his younger uncle the head of the taxi unions, as he is responsible for companies and all taxis and driving licenses for taxis, as well as their taxes. Muhammad also gave his younger uncle the position of head of the Ministry of Education and responsible for all schools in the country, as well as the head of the professors’ body. As he is responsible for the education and study sector, Muhammad also gave his great uncle the position of head of the body of lawyers, judges and courts in the state because his great uncle had more than 20 years of experience in the field. Muhammad also gave his other grandfather the position of head of arms manufacturing and export companies because his grandfather also had In military service, he had a lot of experience in questions, because this is all his specialty in politics Thanks to these positions that he gave to some members of his family, each of whom had great experience in the field in which he specialized, which helped the Soviet Union develop greatly and become stronger and stronger. At that time, Muhammad consulted his Soviet advisors and his father in his capacity as Supreme Commander. And the highest ranks of the army, intelligence, and security in the country. Ibrahim, Muhammad’s father, was the second most important authority in the country after his son Muhammad. The important thing is that after the long Shura period, Muhammad took the appropriate decision, so he bombed Washington, D.C., with a large nuclear bomb, which led to the erasure of Washington from the map and the destruction of the White House, so America rose. He responded with a nuclear missile, but Ibrahim, Muhammad's father, was able to dismantle it, repel it, and turn it towards America. From here, a fierce battle began between the Soviet Union and the United States of America. In the end, the Soviet Union was able to overthrow and eliminate America. It also occupied Canada and South America and brought it back. Alaska to Soviet ruleThe Soviet Union seized all the wealth of North and South America, and even Canada, and annexed them to the Soviet Union. Muhammad rebuilt America on the Soviet system, and even Canada and Brazil. The power of the Soviet Union increased 1,000 times, and the Soviet Union became the most powerful country in the world. Muhammad’s ambitions increased, so he occupied North Korea. He eliminated President Kim Jong-un and also occupied South Korea, Japan, and China. The thing that distinguished Muhammad was not killing innocent people. He only killed those participating in the war, and when he occupied the country, he rebuilt it and employed its citizens with a better salary than they had been, so everyone saluted him. There were also those who hated him, but they were very few. The important thing is that the Soviet Union became from the Republic of Russia to the most powerful country in history. Muhammad also liberated Palestine and gathered all the lions of the world and burned them, slaughtered them, and exterminated them from the globe. Only Muhammad eliminated all the Jews and it was Palestine. It was filled with ululations and joy at her liberation, and all the people were chanting the name Muhammad Muhammad and calling him Muhammad the Savior. Meanwhile, the grandfather of the first and second Muhammad died of old age, so Muhammad became very sad for them. At the funeral, someone poisoned Muhammad’s food with the most severe type of poison, and when he ate it, he choked and died. He almost died, but when he came out of the coma, the doctor told him while he was crying, “The poison has spread through your body, my lord Muhammad. You have only a few days left of your life.” Muhammad began to cry, but he was patient. Then Muhammad made his farewell conference in which he gave a speech and advised the people. When he dies, the rule will pass to his father, and when his father dies, it will pass to his great uncle, and this sequence will remainAfter a few days, Muhammad died and was buried in a grave of gold and diamonds. He became the most important figure in the world, so people began to visit him from all parts of the Soviet Union and even from the Arab countries. Millions of people visited him daily. As for him, when he died, power passed to him and he ruled with justice. Here the story of Muhammad has ended and has been folded between the pages of the past I forgot to mention that Muhammad was fighting with the soldiers, but he was covering his face with a mask so that the opponents would not recognize him and focus on him to kill him. If the president was killed, the Soviet Union would collapse. Muhammad was fighting with the soldiers and killing a lot of the enemy. He and his father were fighting, even though his father He was old, but he was stronger than Muhammad himself. Muhammad’s father was fighting 10 soldiers at the same time and killing them. Muhammad also occupied France, demolished the Eiffel Tower, and occupied almost all of Europe. Muhammad donated billions of dollars to Palestine until Palestine became very advanced and became a more ornate city. Muhammad also occupied Iran and exterminated the extremist Shiites. The one who poisoned Muhammad was a black man from Ethiopia, and the soldiers shot him dead when Muhammad died.Also, Muhammad could also have eliminated Morocco and wiped it from the map, but Muhammad did not want to do that out of respect for the Almoravids, Almohads, and Idrisids. When Muhammad died, power passed to his father and he began to rule the world. Muhammad’s tomb, built of pure gold and all precious stones, became a place of pilgrimage for millions of people every day, to the point that airports were filled with people and thousands of people were lining up in queues to obtain a visa. There were also thousands of people in the street chanting the name of Muhammad the Leader. The great and even they are queuing up to go to the Soviet capital, as there are people from far away places in the world such as Australia who go to the Soviet capital to visit the grave of Muhammad, and he was the most important and holiest person in the world after the Prophet Muhammad. And his companions, I am talking about his military clothes and weapons, all of them were sold for millions of dollars to Arab museums. As for the Soviet museums, they contain Muhammad’s necklace and his favorite weapon, and even the Soviet museum is crowded with people every day just to see its antiquities. Mohammed. Everyone loved him, so Muhammad became the second legend that history will not repeat. The first legend is the Prophet MuhammadWhen Muhammad died, they wrapped him in very advanced materials to prevent his body from decomposing. Muhammad's body did not decompose, but remained as it was. One of the materials used to preserve Muhammad's body was formalin, so Muhammad's body remained intact throughout the years.There are also some very wealthy Arabs who wanted to move Muhammad’s grave from the Soviet Union to Mecca in order to increase the state’s economy, but the entire world, billions of people, categorically refused, whether from within the Soviet Union or from outside it, and they wanted to buy his body for billions of dollars, but the entire world categorically refused. A wave of anger has erupted against Saudi Arabia because of this, because a person like Muhammad cannot be violated and his grave opened When Muhammad's father, Ibrahim, assumed power, and due to his old age, he was 61 years old. He found many difficulties because he found himself facing a great challenge in front of him, ruling millions of people. The Soviet Union, during Muhammad's era, was at the height of its power. He had sat on the throne of the most powerful country in history. Only the area of the Soviet Union was estimated at 400 million kilometers, so Ibrahim had to make a lot of effort, and in some of the Union’s colonies, some civil wars broke out between supporters of Muhammad and his supporters and among those who hated him, as most of those who hated Muhammad were from Central Europe, from the Greek islands and elsewhere. Next to it was the leader of the movement named Johann Gospiel. The latter sought revenge on Muhammad’s followers, and they all wanted to kill Ibrahim and destroy the Soviet Union. He was very hateful, and events will show you why the latter was so hateful of Muhammad and the main family. We will go back in time a little to when Muhammad committed mischief. America and occupied North and South Korea. His ambitions began in Europe, and he started with Italy, so he overthrew it, even though he respected Mussolini, the Italian fascist leader, but Muhammad’s ambitions were to occupy all of Europe, so he occupied Italy, eliminated its leader, and demolished all the ancient Roman idols and gods, and when he headed to occupy the Vatican. Muhammad remembered the words of the Prophet Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace, at the sign of the Hour, that in the Vatican there is the staff of Moses and the Thapoth of the Covenant, according to what the commentators and hadith scholars say, so Muhammad retreated.With his army, he went to occupy Greece and wanted to destroy Athens. He met the other army, headed by Johann Gaspiel's brother, called Nicholas Gaspiel. The two armies faced each other. Nicholas' army consisted of 45,000 tanks, a fleet of planes, and 980,000 soldiers, while Muhammad had 60,000 tanks. 2 million soldiers, and the two armies faced each other at the famous Evros River in Greece. The war began, and it was so bloody that the Evros River was filled to the brim with corpses and its color became red with blood. Muhammad was killing the enemies, and his father Ibrahim was also fighting, as he was 51 years old and he was very strong. Stronger than Muhammad himself. The important thing was that Muhammad was fighting. He tore off his mask. Nicholas the commander saw him and said: Here you are, Muhammad. I swear to Zeus, Poseidon, and Athena that you will not survive today. Medusa's curse will fall on you. Today I will hang your head before the gods. Muhammad did not answer him verbally, so his response was to arrest him, cut off his head, and hang his body on a treeThey continued fighting for several hours, and Muhammad was able to eliminate the entire army and occupied Greece at five in the morning. He prayed dawn in the city and began his entry with the soldiers. 200,000 soldiers had died in the war. Muhammad made a broadcast on television and consoled all the families and gave them a salary. For life and huge sums of money. The important thing is that Muhammad passed by the fields and saw some peasants. When they saw him, one of them called out and said, “Where is Muhammad?” Muhammad said to him, “Here is Muhammad.” The man came to him and hugged him and said, “O Muhammad, we have been saved from a tyrant who was torturing us and making our lives miserable.” Nicholas Gaspiel) and gave Muhammad some apples and lemons, so Muhammad bought 300 cows from him and the soldiers slaughtered them, so they ate until their stomachs were full and they slept that night while Muhammad was standing praying. This is just going back in time to explain to you why Johann Gaspial hates Muhammad.Johann Gaspel was telling his experience when he saw Muhammad and saying when Muhammad conquered all of Greece, and the people were chanting his name. I said that Muhammad was not killing ordinary citizens and women because he was carrying out the orders of the Prophet Muhammad and his law of war. Johan Gaspel was 12 years old. He said: “I saw large crowds chanting the name of Muhammad, then I was looking out the window, and suddenly I saw Muhammad passing in front of me and hundreds of thousands of people.” Behind him were hundreds of thousands of soldiers armed with the most modern weapons in the world. He said that Muhammad was strong, broad-chested, not more than 180 centimeters tall, and had a black beard, black hair, and brown eyes. Dark brown, and when Johann saw him, he felt an unusual tremor and said that Muhammad was a person that everyone feared
This is a fictional story written by me. Give me your opinion in the comments

Hi! Please a local/austrian help me with my situation because im really lost and upset but i dont know what to do since i dont really know the austrian authorities…..
For last saturday i booked an apartment in Vienna through the booking.com just for only one night, because the next day morning i had a flight to Rome. (Check in at 15:00 - check out at 11:00) After i arrived around 15:30 to the apartment i went to take a shower, after i was dressed when somebody just opened the door and wanted to come inside…. I was traveling alone, im a 28y old woman and to be honest it was upsetting me a lot…. I wrote the owner about what happened and i asked them to please noone come in my rented apartment until im checked out…. (There is no key, the door opens with a code + you cant close it from inside…) But then next morning i was out from the apartment, but when i come back just to pick up my stuff what i left in the apartment there was two stranger women! One of them hands in my backpack… they said they booked this apartment too, but after this situation i just called the police, they became very aggressive about this, but i told them if thats right what they say then there is nothing to worry about…. The police came and the two women started to attacking me to the officers and yelling at me, lying, curse me and what not…. At the end the officers sent me away (…??) saying my flights goes anyway so just go…. Unfortunately at this time it was too late to go, my phone was also dead, and to be honest i was so so upset about the whole situation, i felt so scared and upset that i had a very bad panic attack and i couldnt go anywhere, i had to sit down and calm down because i couldnt breath normally…..
I missed my flight, and i lost a lot of money since everything was already booked and everything is nonrefundable….
The owner didnt pick up the phone, so i wrote them. They said „there is nothing what i can do“…..
I wrote also the booking.com atleast for time now since sunday, i got this automatic message: „Booking Assistant I just sent that to Customer Service, someone there will get back to you within 24 hours. I'll let you know as soon as they do, just make sure you have notifications switched on“ its been more than 4 days now but zero respond…..
Maybe im not right but i think its absolutely unacceptable and i would be happy for a compensation…. Im working hard nonstoply, i just wanted a few days vacation what didnt happen at the end, they cant compensate this but i lost because of this a lot of money too… (cca 400€, i know its maybe not much to others but for me its really a lot….)
Very please someone help me with this because im really lost and helpless at this point…. I could use even just some ideas too… (what kind of authorities i can reach about this?, where can maybe i find help?, etc….)
Also for your own sake never book an apartment in the ‚Modern City Apartment‘!!
Thank you in advance!

I'm a 29 year old male and i will try to summarize the horrendous situation I find myself without leaving to many crucial details out. I was with my ex girlfriend for nearly 6 years. The red flags were present fromn the beggining but looking back I had no way to understand what they were at the time partly due to my young nievete and partly due to the fact that coming from a emotijallyabusive household I had normalized many of the more subtle behaviors and therefore they fell within a blindspot of my cognitive distortions at the time. From the very start she would begin punching herself in her own head if i ever became upset with her in any way or during any attempt to verbally work a problem out. I thought she was just a bit flippant and intense. Dare I say I almost found it attractive in a strange sense. She was and still to this day, stunningly beautiful and menacingly seductive and knows how she can have a significant effect on males especially without doing very much in the way of actions. Fast forward she unknown to me at the time discontinued her birth contorll pills while still assuring me she was taking them and ultimetly lied by telling me she had just to fund out she had become pregnant herself after missing a period. We were both in our mid to early 20s still more or less financially dependant on our parents and were living on public city streets in our tow behind rv with our 2 dogs. She was idealizing me and to be frank I remebr this period of time as the happiest iv been eever before and up untill now. This memory of "happiness" I think was the biggest reason it took me so long to finally start trying to advocate for my self respect instead of hanging my head and just ignoring the abuse so that I would get the sweet reward of psedo- intimacy with her a few times a week. Despite my fond memories looking back I see now what could only be described as patterns if coercive control that seriously escalated over the 5 years we were in a relationship with each other and included her beggining to cheat early on and the resulting systemic lies and relational damage from needing to formulate and bend the nature of reality around those lies. Her hot and cold treatment of me with any postive(hot) behavior usually at least in the last few years being exclusively sexual in nature and cold behavior usually manifesting as her stonewalling me and or simply disappearing for multiple days at a time sometimes. The day my son was born i accompanied her to the hospital and sat with her the entire time helped her push ans enouraged her with love. She treated me with indifference and disdain. Once our wonderful little boy came along this a became even worse. The sense that she was making it about him and her vs everyone else including me was strong. She became quite introverted secretive and "cliquey" with my newborn and at the same time seemed to loose all desire to be physically or emotionally intimate with me. (Of course i gave her plenty of time and space right after she gave birth amd was understanding that it might be a while before things were back to normal).it was almost like she had a new partner-our child. she refused to fully move in to the apartment my grandparents had spent a huge amint of money on to give us a chance at raising our soon in a healthy environment. She would start random and seemingly pointless arguments often escalating into her screaming mean things at me innfront of our 3 month old son like she ****ed me and then raging followed by quickly slamming the door and taking our infant son backto her mother's house where she would stonewall me for a few days then send me. A message that emotionally blackmailed me into taking full blame for the rupture and apologizing profusely. In addition she did not trust me with our son but had no reason not too and as a result gatekept him in an extremely overcintrolling and damaging(for him and for me) manner. to this day (he is 3.5] I have never spent the night alone with him and have had him 1 on 1 dad and son time signifigantly less than I should have and not for lack of trying on my part. Despite her overcontrolling coercive sabatoging and alienating actions my son and I formed a loving and beautiful bond that up untill I saw him last a few months ago has amazingly endured through the storm. The tradegy goes on and on but to wrap up ultimitely she purposefully betrayed me by starting a relationship with my good friend and had him suggest to me that he should move in so he became my roommate all the while lying to my roommate that I ht her and simultaneously having him report back to her on my whereabouts at any Givin time and the things I said about her when venting after a prticulringly humiliating attempt to see my son or similar interaction and also give her info about what I was doing during the day. He became quite controlling himself and severed to further isolate me from people that weren't trying to ruin my life. They started to play mindgames with me that ibsee now attempts to gage how much I knew or suspected about what was going on. Mind you my son who was around 2 at this point was privy to the whole thing it was only kept a secret from me and due to this my son was coached to not tell me about it although what was actually said I will never know. Eventually a mutual friend of my roommate and I reached out and told me he had seen my roommate "playing dad" with my girl and son at dollar tree that day. I remebrr that day I sat at a local park in my car sullen and confused having been led on via sms from her only to randomly stop responding and never managing to get any time with my son. This sort of thing had become a regular occurance She then began withholding my son all togethar simply not answering at all or lying about him being asleep ridiculously early in the afternoon etc etc. My own parents failed to suppprt me and are still failing to show any sort of care other than somehwat monitarily. In fact my mom and her were two peas in a pod and my mom activly participated in the emotional abuse partly becauee of being manipulated by her partly because my mother is emotionally abusive. If I had better support or access to court resources at the time I'm confident things would have gone much differently but I was so isolated and lonely and in a deep state of despair at this point and the only thing I still was enduring for was the brief and inconsistent times i got with my boy whom I love more than life itself. I managed to get a hold of her via phone at this point and said i was going to go to court and pursue custody since she seemed unwilling to value my valid role as father. Her mom and her immediately became overly nice and invited me over where they sat me down and offered to make a visitation schedule and kindly suggested I dident go to court. It wasent much but it was signifgantly more respect than I had been shown any instance prior so I gobbled up the manipulations and left feeling invigorated and hopeful. The schedule was never adhered too and within a few days it was back to me not even be able to get a hold of her let alone see my son. The final day I saw him before things blew up I went over to her house in the evening. My son wanted to play hot wheels so we began to line them up on the floor but my ex was hovering over us with a hostile air. I asked if we could have some space or if at least she could sit down and play with us and she just kept standing there glaring at me. This made me uncomfortable and my son noticed this by sayig daddy play with me! Upon hearing this she in a angry tone said "play with your effin kid isent that what you wanted to do soooooo badly" right in front of him. I asked not to be spoken to in front of him like that and she went and got her mom and started whispering abut me to her mom in the hallway while they watched my son and I. I got up and said I'm leaving this is innappropriate and she said "wow that checks out you harrass me to see your son and then you don't even wanna see him. how pathetic and typical" " you just want to stress me out dont you" you don't actually give 2 you know what's about him" right in front of my son again. I speechlessly went to leave and my son comes running after me begging me to wait. I'm on the verge of tears and i picked him up cherishing how warm he was and how lovingly he was clinging to me. I tentatively requested I be allowed to go for a walk with him around the block and her mom this time dismissively says ya go and shoos us out the door. I get down the driveway and my ex comes sprinting out of the house tears streaming down her face and a look of rage and starts hitting me while I'm holding our son. Amazingly he start4d pushing her away saying mommy stop mommy stop. She says you have 5 minutes or I'm calling the cops and goes back in. I walk him around the block and say "mommy's feeling sad right now but it doesn't mean that either one of us loves you any more or any less than we used to and it's absolutely not your fault." I go back inside and without saying anything I walk up to her and give her a hug wich my son joins in too. All the sudden she is happy again and trying to speak to me in a casual tone but I basically just leave without saying much else. After this a week of no contact with my son occurs which at the time was the longest we had gone apart I felt like I had no choice but to confront her and assert my rights AGAIN although looking back I feel terribley silly for thinking she was going to repsect me at that point. Keep in mind i ALWAYS was extrmely respectful of her space and never would just show up at her moms house even though our relationahip by many accounts was more than informal ennough to make an occasionaI drop in to say hi. In addition she on Many occasions had told me that I could just come by if she didn't Answer her phone or simular situation arose. I texted her I was coming by to say goodnight to my son and phrased it as a statement not a question or request. I was already on the way when I sent the message and so I arrived (unintentionally)before her being able to fully respond to it to see my romate come running out of the front door (this is when I first had proof ab about all the stuff I mentioned earlier about their secret relationship) and go hide in the bushes, her poke her head out the door and then shut and lock it and turn all the lights in the house out and close the blinds. I walk up to the door and knock to no avail and so I confront her about what i know and saw via sms. She directly denies all my proof and accusations and then after calling me crazy and a stalker blocks me on all channels of communication. I go back to my car and collapse in tears and ultimtly fall asleep. I wake up to see her quickly shoving a duffel bag and my son into her moms car and her and my roommate get in and she pulls quickly away. Upon passing me on her way to the main road she becomes aware that im still there in my car and she burns rubber and begins driving extremely fast and erratically. In a moment of panic I knew she was probably trying to go into hiding with my son to prevent me from evrr seeing him again and I fearing for the safety of my son and our relationship I regrettably felt compelled to follow. We got on the freeway where she initiatied speeds of 100 plus miles perhour weaving in between semi's and this sort of thing continued d for an hour in the interim I had called 911 and also she had pulled up too a gas station casually got out and pumped gas upon her getting back in the car I witnessed my roommate making derogatory and taunting sexual gestures referring to my ex and also what i can only describe as cuddling with my son in the back seat and became enraged and made some threatening motions with a large wooden shovel handle while standing next to her car that were directed at my betraying friend and I feel terrible for doing in front of my child but in the moment I was so desperate and upset by the psychological torture i had been through it clouded my normally good judgment. In the end the police couldn't locate us due to my 911 call continually being transfered fron highway patrol dispatch back to whatever city we were in at the times dispatch. Also ultimetly no physical harm or even any other attempts happend or anything to anyone of the people involved and eventually I gave up and drove back to my hometown. She immediately filed for a domestic violence restraining order and used a recording she took of me looking aggressive and threatening outside her car as proof im abusive and violent even though i have never been either of those things. Especially not violent. I may not have been the most mature or experienced or attentive partner for some of our relationship but anything I did was truly a far cry from the serious emotional anguish I have ben subjected to here and not abusive. I did not lie, cheat,manipulate, gaslight, trick, triangulate, turn family againts or ever feel superior or entitled to harm or use her in any way. I loved her and she did all those to me and now is trying to steal the most precious thing I have left in the world from me so she can emotionally scar him with her idea of what good parenting is which in truth is emotional abuse.. She moved my old roommate in to her moms house full time the very next day and from what I hear they both are abusing meth and who knows what else currently plus this guy is not somone that is safe around my son to that degree. He is not a healthy safe adult for such a young boy and in addition he is vindictive and dislikes me mostly because my ex told him I hit her and abused her which are absolutely complete lies. I'm facing a situation now where I have to sit by and watch my son turned agsints me and withheld from me and abused and eveyone treats me like im the abuser. I have tried to contact every dv organization in my local area and as soon as they hear what happend it's almost like I can Feel the switch flip and in the moment it's evident that all the abuse that I had recounted surviving through doesn't matter because I'm some "unhinged abusive guy that chases people down the freeway" eveyone I have reached out to locally has invalidated me and berrated me for "what I did" and successfully pathologized what I consider to be a huge mistake that I feel very regretful for loosing my composure but also a rather understandable emotional reaction to severe mistreatment and fear for my son. I'm beggining to feel so isolated riding the emotional Rollercoaster of self doubt and powerlessness that this abuse at the hands of my ex but dare I say worse yet the abuse by way of victim blame and invalidation from these people and organizations that exist to help dv survivors has caused me. which because I reacted I'm not worthy of being included as a survivor. Cn you offer any advice or support or suggestions? I'm terrified for my sons wellbeing currently and haven't been able to see him in going on 2.5 months now clear and to be clear the domestic violence restraining order is still temporary. I have the final hearing in August.i

The pain was the worst thing`Dominick Mason had ever known…and he knew what it felt like to die. It felt like his brain was in a blender, being chopped to liquid for a Jeffery Dahmer smoothie and though it seemed melodramatic, he imagined he could feel himself losing brain cells by the minute. The sun, Merrick told him, would not burn him, but it would decay him faster, so sleep or rest during the day. With the sick, throbbing agony in the center of his brain, however, that was impossible. He spent most of the day curled up on his side, hugging his knees, and moaning. He had flashbacks to dying in his apartment, and that made things even worse. The room became too small, too close, the air too stale. His heart, filled with the blood of last night’s meal, pounded in his chest, and he went from slightly chilly to hot and feverish as blood was forced through his circulatory system. It mixed with the embalming fluid and left him feeling full and constipated. He didn’t want to get up, but he also didn’t want to go on lying there. He was the definition of miserable.
Before long, the pain became too great and he got up to pace, pressing his hands to the sides of his head and gritting his teeth. Merrick, who slept very little if at all, sat in his chair and watched, trying his best to talk him through it. “It’ll be over soon,” Merrick said. “The pain receptors in your brain are the first to go. When they burn out, you won’t feel anything.”
“When?” Dom asked, his voice raising with the tide of pain.
“A couple days?”
“A couple days???”
“The pain will lessen gradually,” Merrick said, “this is the worst of it.”
Dom believed that this was, indeed, the worst of it, but he doubted it would lessen gradually. For the rest of the day, the pain got worse and worse until every light blinded him, every sound turned his stomach, and the smell of anything made his gorge rise. The cloying smell of the embalming fluid, the light but unmistakable odor of dead flesh, and the scent of stale blood sitting in decomposing stomachs made him want to vomit, but he was afraid to. He didn’t think he could handle the sight of blood rushing from his mouth and splattering the floor. He still possessed enough of his facilities, he believed, to go insane.
Pain has a way of darkening one’s mood, and by the time the sun began to set, Dom was in the most sour mood possible. Even Merrick’s calm, fatherly voice was beginning to get on his nerves. When he took the oath to him the day before (or was it the day before that?), he turned his faith and trust over to Merrick entirely. He was finally accepted, included, finally had the love and fellowship that, in the pit of his soul, he had always wanted. Merrick understood him, Merrick was kind to him.
But deep down, Dom realized that he didn’t fully trust him. He said that his brain didn’t rot because he was “lucky.” That sounded like some bullshit to Dom. Why wasn’t Joe a blithering idiot too? Was he lucky as well? Did lightning strike in the same place twice? In life, people had done nothing but hurt and lie to Dom. Why would death be any different? He thought back to the strange liquid that always seemed to leak from Merrick’s nose, and Joe’s. He thought it was embalming fluid, but it never leaked from his own nose, or from anyone else’s. He tried to tell himself that it was far too soon to judge, but once he began to doubt something, his mind raced away. He felt a twinge of guilt, as Merrick had done absolutely nothing to deserve his doubt, but goddamn it, his head was on fire and he wanted it to stop. Anything to make it stop.
Just after sundown, the music began as Club Vlad opened for the night. It throbbed in the center of Dom’s head and made him want to claw his eyes out. When it became too much for him, he slipped away and stumbled into the sultry summer night. He came out in the alley running behind the club, clutching his head and breathing through bared teeth. He staggered, bumped into a metal trash can, and roared at the top of his lungs, as if he could purge himself of the pain by screaming.. His voice echoed and came back to him, making the pain worse.
Merrick was lying. He knew it. People always lied to him. His brain was rotting and PEOPLE WERE LYING! Flashing with anger, he slammed his fist into the brick wall of a Chinese restaurant. He barely felt anything so he did it again and again until his hand was lumpy and shaking. He sat heavily on the ground and pressed his hands to his head. It felt like maggots were burrowing into his brain, and he was suddenly terrified that they really were. He needed to stop this awful pain, but how?
An idea came to him.
The funeral home.
Maybe there was something there.
He was on his feet and lumbering there before the thought had even finished reverberating through his mind. It was a long shot, but he was desperate. On the way there, he stuck to the shadows, staying out of the light cast by the streetlamps and avoiding people. When he passed them, he kept his head down. When he reached the funeral home, he went to the back door where he and Jessie had gone the other day. He tried it, and it opened.
Inside, he bounced off the walls like a pinball, knocking over an end table and tearing at the flesh of his head, pulling it away in long, gray strips. He panted like a wild animal, his body a raging tempest of emotions. It was reaching a crescendo, he thought, his brain was about to go supernova. The world dimmed, things got really echoy. The young man he’d picked the embalming fluid up from was there, looking scared.
Flashing, Dom grabbed him by his shirt and slammed him against the wall, knocking a painting of a flowery field to the carpet. Everything seemed to go in slow mo. “How does Merrick keep his brain from rotting?” Dom heard himself demanding from far away. “How does he keep the pain away?”
The man trembled. “I-I-”
Dom slammed him again. “Tell me or I’ll make you like me.”
“No!” the man wailed. He shook his head from side to side, his eyes wet with fear.
“How?”
“He-He uses a solution,” the man stammered. “Some kind of special thing. It preserves his brain. That’s all I know.”
An idea occurred to Dom.
Holding the man by the back of his neck, Dom dragged him into the embalming room and pushed him against the table. His head felt like it was swelling. Hot, screaming, getting ready to explode. He looked around, found the embalming machine, and grabbed the hose. There was a sharp tip on it so that you could jam it into a body. He held it in his hand, hesitating for just a moment before pressing it to his temple. The man watched in horror as Dom slowly shoved the tip into his head. It tore his flesh, broke through his skull, and sank into his brain. He felt no pain, only pressure, but cried out anyway. His eyes rolled up into his head and a shudder went through his body.
“Turn it on!” he yelled.
“That’s not what he -”
“TURN IT ON!”
Starting, the man turned the machine on. Cold embalming fluid squirted directly into Dom’s brain. Almost at once, the pain began to ebb away, replaced only by a fuzzy sense of numbness. His knees buckled and he sank to the floor, looking for all the world like an addict taking a hit of his favorite substance after a long and trying day. Fluid leaked from his nose, ears, and eyes and dripped down the back of his throat.
The man waited for a long time, then turned the machine off.
The pain was gone.
At least for now.
“Tell me again,” Dom said.
The man did. Merrick used a special preserving agent to keep his brain intact. Joe, the man suspected, got it as well. So Merrick had lied to him.
Dom felt betrayed.
And angry.
Leaving the man (Dom realized that he didn’t even know his name), he walked back to Club Vlad, his hands fisted in his pockets. All his life, he had been hurt, lied to, and ignored. All his life, people had done wrong to him. And all those years, he just took it.
He resolved not to be so accepting in death.
At last, he was going to stop being a sniveling little bitch and stand up for himself.
When he reached Club Vlad, he slammed through the back door and took the stairs two at a time. At the top, he called out Merrick’s name. The old man was sitting in his chair, being attended to by Jessie and Matt. He looked startled when Dom came in. “You lied to me,” Dom said, stalking over to his benefactor.
“What are you talking about?” Merrick asked, doing his best to sound innocent.
“You lied to me!” Dom screamed. He bent over and got so close to Merrick’s face that he could have kissed him. “You told me there was no way to save my brain, but that’s not true. You’re pumping your head full of shit and letting the rest of us rot.”
A dark shadow flickered across Merrick’s face. “Watch your tone when you talk to me,” he said. His voice was low, menacing.
“Fuck you,” Dom said. “I should k -”
Suddenly, Dom was being grabbed from behind and yanked back, an arm around his neck. He cried out in alarm as Joe swung him around and slammed him face first into the wall. He heard his nose crunch, felt his teeth shatter. Next, Joe wrestled him to the glitter-sprinkled floor and wedged his knee between his shoulder blades.
Merrick watched with a sneer of disgust, his hands gripping the arms of his chair. He wheeled himself over, Jessie holding his IV stand steady and following behind. “Listen, you son of a bitch,” Merrick said, “you’re lucky to be a part of this family.”
Cold fear filled the pit of Dom’s stomach, yet he wouldn’t back down, couldn’t back down. He had lived his entire life like a mouse in a burrow, he wasn’t about to live his entire death the same way.
“Fuck your family,” he said defiantly. “And fuck you.”
Merrick’s face darkened and he sat back in his chair. He looked at Jessie and nodded. She went away and came back a moment later holding something in her hand. Dom’s eyes widened when he saw what it was.
A wooden stake, one end honed to a razor point.
Why they had one of those lying around, Dom didn’t know; it’d be like Superman keeping a piece of kryptonite on the mantle over the fireplace. Merrick directed Max and Matt to hold Dom’s arms down/ Joe pivoted, kneeling on his head now so that Dom’s back was exposed. Dom’s heart slammed with terror and tremors raced through his body.
“Is this what you want, Dominick?” Merrick asked. “To die? To truly die?”
Dom swallowed hard. No, it wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted to live, to love, to have a family one day. He wanted a happy, normal life, the life TV and social media had been promising him since he was a little boy.
But all of that went out the window the night he died in his little apartment. There was no life anymore, just a grotesque parody of life. What was there for him other than death? Clinging desperately onto life for decades like Merrick? Stuffing himself full of embalming fluid and moth balls? Grinding for one more minute just so he could sit hooked up to a machine?
Dom spoke.
“What?” Merrick asked, not having heard.
Dom licked his lips. “Just fucking do it.”
For a moment, nothing happened. Expectation hung in the air. Finally, breaking the tension, Merrick nodded to Jessie. Kneeling down, she brought the stake up, and Dom closed his eyes.
This was it.
He braced himself for death.
Jessie brought the stake down just as a shot rang out, deafening in the small space. Her head whipped back, embalming fluid, skull fragments, and gray, sickly pieces of brain showering from the back of her head. She flopped back and landed on the floor with a sickening thud.
A woman cop, her black uniform in stark contrast to the burning white light, stood in the doorway to the hall, her gun drawn. Everyone did, indeed, freeze, more out of surprise than respect for authority. They all looked at her, their dead mouths agape, resembling children who’d been caught doing something wrong.
“Everyone on the ground!” she barked.
No one knew what to do. They hadn’t expected to be raided by the police so had not prepared. She jerked her gun and everyone instinctively flinched. “On the ground!” she repeated. To Max: “You too, bone boy.”
The first one to react was Joe. He sprang at her like a big, undead frog. She brought the gun around and fired, but he was already crashing into her. The shot went wild and struck the IV bag next to Merrick; he ducked and let out a sound of fear. The others rushed her, and Dom got quickly to his feet. Jessie lay on the floor, her mouth open in a silent scream and her bony fingers frantically examining the ragged hole in the center of her forehead. For a moment, he was frozen; everything was happening too fast. Then, when Merrick saw him and cried, “Stop him!, he came alive. Jessie tried to grab at his leg, but he kicked her hand away and stomped on it like it was a giant spider. On the other side of the room, Matt, Joe, and Max had forced the cop to the ground. Perhaps excited by all the action, perhaps just hungry, they began to tear her apart. She howled in pain, and the last thing Dom saw before he fled was her open, blood-filled mouth. Her eyes were filled with pain…with terror.
After that, Dom ran.
***
When the interloper was dead, Merrick directed Joe and Matt to dispose of the body. “Get rid of it,” he said wearily and rubbed his temples, “make sure it isn’t found.”
They rolled her into a carpet from the office, and the way her feet stuck out may have been comical under other circumstances.
Goddamn it, this was bad. Merrick’s entire philosophy rested on avoiding detection. He had done well in that regard. Whereas other vampires had attacked their villages and gotten themselves dug from the ground and staked, he had made it four decades. He never shat where he ate, and there is no bigger turd than killing a cop. They might dawdle on all the boys who’d gone missing - taken because their blood was stronger and more robust than the blood of girls - but they would not take a cop dying lightly at all.
Merrick owned various businesses around the country. He and the others would simply move on. Tomorrow night, they would disappear into the night. They had done it before and they would likely do it again. Once things were settled at their new base of operations, he would have Joe killed for all the trouble he’d caused.
And Dom?
Let him go.
The little rat wouldn’t last a month on his own.
“Jessie?”
Jessie sat against the wall, gazing into space.
“Jessi…start packing. We’re leaving tomorrow.”
She didn’t move, didn’t seem to hear. The shot had all but lobotomized her.
Damn it.
Joe backed the van up to the back door of Club Vlad, and then helped Matt carry the carpet-rolled body down the stairs. They loaded it in and closed the back doors. Together, they drove around looking for a place to dump it. Merrick wanted it to go unfound, but Joe doubted there was anywhere isolated enough in the city. On a whim, he drove to Washington Park, a vast expanse of green trees and shadows. There was a large pond there. It seemed the best option. They were leaving tomorrow anyway, so did it really matter?
Joe backed the van to a railing overlooking the dark water and put it in park. He and Matt got out, fetched the body, and carried it to the railing. They lifted and heaved it over. It splashed. Thus, they rid themselves of Vanessa Rodregiez.
***
Bruce sat anxiously up in his easy chair and waited for his cell to ring.
Parked in front of the TV by warm lamplight, a beer wedged between his legs, he’d been watching the 11’o’clock news when the phone rang. He picked it up and it was Vanessa. “Hey,” she said, “I think I found our body?”
“Which one?” Bruce asked and took a drink. “We have a lot of those these days.”
“Dominick Mason.”
Bruce sat forward in his chair. “Dead Dom? Where?”
“He just came out of a funeral home, ironically enough.”
“That sounds about right,” Bruce said. “Where are you now?”
“I’m following him east on Central.”
“Are you sure it’s him?” Bruce asked.
“I think so, but I’m not sure. I’ll call you back when I’m done.”
Bruce sat the phone aside and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
At some point, he fell asleep sitting up, his head lulled to one side and his mouth open. He snorted himself awake, rubbed his eyes, and sat up. He checked his phone and was perturbed to see that it was past 2am.
Vanessa hadn’t called.
He dialed her number and let the phone ring until it went to voicemail. Sighing, he ended the call, then waited a few minutes and called again.
Still no answer.
It was possible she had forgotten. Maybe the guy turned out to not be Dead Dom after all. She followed some random guy around, realized it, and that was that. Hell, she was probably too embarrassed to call and tell him about it.
Something told him that wasn’t right, however.
There was something else going on here.
Something…darker.
Just before 3am, his phone rang. He snatched it off the end table next to the chair and answered it. It was Burt, the night sargent. “Rodriguez is missing,” he said simply.
Bruce’s heart sank. “Missing?”
“Yeah, she hasn’t checked in for hours and she isn’t answering calls.”
“I’m on my way,”
Bruce tore through the house, pulling on his uniform, socks, and shoes in less time than it took a Daytona 500 pit crew to service a car. In ten minutes he was speeding down 787, the Albany skyline rising in the distance. As he hurried to the station, he thought back to his last conversation with Vanessa. She’d found Dom the Dead Man, the “corpse” who’d scared Ed Harris out of a 20 year career. Despite all their talk about vampires and the living dead, Bruce didn’t believe it, not really. Even so, he was sure that Dominick Mason had done something to Vanessa.
He checked in at the station before doing anything else. They had triangulated Vanessa’s last known location via cell towers. Cops were already out searching the streets for her. Bruce went out as well, intending to start from her last known position and work his way east on Central. The closest funeral home was Tebbutt and Frederick on Central. There was also Lasak & Gigliotti on North Allen Street. Bruce didn’t know which one Vanessa had seen Dom come out of, so he checked both.
Both were deserted at this hour.
Undeterred, Bruce drove up and down Central Ave. At one point, he noticed a shape in an alleyway that looked human. He hit the brakes, jumped out, and pointed his gun at it. “Freeze!”
An old wino stepped out of the darkness. “Alright, you got me,” he said, hands up. “I started COVID. It was an accident, I swear.”
Bruce sighed and put his gun away.
For two more hours, Bruce searched the streets of Albany for Vanessa. At 4am, he spotted a squad car abandoned in the rear parking lot of an abandoned gas station on lower Lark Street. He called it in and the desk sergeant confirmed that it was the one Vanessa had signed out that night.
Still there was no sign of Vanessa herself.
Just after dawn, as the city came alive and CDTA buses began lumbering up and down the streets, Bruce got a call on his cell. “A jogger found a body in Washington Park.”
Bruce was in his personal car. He had no bubble light, no siren. Even so, he sped through the streets like he did, blowing through red lights and stop signs with little care to himself or anyone else. When he got to Washington Park, he found an army cops by the pond, the scene cordoned off with yellow crime scene tape. He slammed on the brakes, threw open the door, and jumped out without even turning off the engine.
The body was rolled up in a carpet and lying on the bank. Two beat cops unrolled it at Bruce’s direction. “We should wait for -” one of them started, but Bruce cut him off.
“Do it.”
They compiled, and at the carpet’s center, like a rotten cream filling, was the body of Vanessa Rodregiuez. Her head was tilted to one side, her eyes wide and staring. Her throat had been mangled and ripped away, her head nearly severed. Even in the black and red mess, Bruce could make out the teeth marks and puncture wounds. They may have looked like something else to anyone else who saw them, but he knew, in that moment, what they were dealing with.
A sharp pang of horror sliced through him, and his knees went weak.
“Jesus Christ,” one of the beat cops drew.
Bruce fell to, rather than knelt on, one knee. He bent over the body, a mixture of horror and grief welling his throat. He wanted to reach out, to comfort her in death, but he stayed his hand. Instead, he visually examined the body. She had bruises on her face, defensive wounds on her hands, and her gun was gone. Whoever had attacked her, she put up a fight.
Something glinted on her pants.
“What’s that?” one of the cops asked.
“I dunno,” the other replied, “but it’s all over the carpet.”
Indeed, there were glinty little specks all over it, winking like mocking eyes. Nice work, eh? We really fucked her up, didn’t we? Wink wink.
“It looks like…”
The other cop cut him off. “Glitter.”
Bruce flashed back to his visit to Club Vlad the other day.
There had been glitter everywhere.
Bruce stood up.
He had work to do.
***
Instead of going back to the station to start his shift, Bruce went to Lowes. There, he bought a mallet, a gas can, and a dozen sticks of wood. An employee in a blue vest used a machine to sharpen them to a wicked point and he took his purchases to the car. Next, he drove over to the Mobil station and filled the gas can. He was so hellbent on revenge that he sprang for premium, the good stuff. No expense shall be spared.
His final stop was at a Catholic church. He filled a canteen with holy water from the marble font by the door, then swiped a crucifix from the wall. He stopped by the station, went inside, and grabbed a black duffle bag with POLICE written across the front in yellow. He opened the gun cabinet in his office, took out a shotgun, and loaded it with shells. He grabbed a handful from the box and stuffed them into his pocket.
He was just finishing up when Bertha came in. “There you are,” she spat, “I’ve waited long enough for you to do something. I demand -”
Bruce shoved the duffle bag into her arms. “Make yourself useful.”
“What?” she demanded.
“We’re going to get your granddaughter,” Bruice lied. Kind of.
Bertha’s demeanor changed. “Good. It’s about time. I was starting to think you were a complete incompetent.”
Bruce didn’t answer. Outside, he plucked the bag out of Bertha’s hands and tossed it into the backseat. He slipped behind the wheel and Bertha sat in the passenger seat. “Where are we going?” she asked.
“Club Vlad,” Bruce said and started the engine.
“I want all of them arrested.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Bruce said.
She barked orders the entire way there. Bruce was so deep in his thoughts that he barely heard her. The image of Vanessa’s ruined throat and terror-twisted face haunted him, and he felt a lump forming in his throat. Hot tears filled his eyes but he blinked them back and forced himself to calm down.
I’ll cry when I’m done killing, he thought.
A few minutes later, he pulled to the curb in front of Club Vlad. It was a hot and sunny day and the place seemed even more ominous because of it. The windows were black, the front cast in perpetual shadows by the old marquee from when it used to be a theater. The place was surely closed, but Bruce could hear music still playing from inside, some techno dance bullshit. “Alright,” he said, “let’s go.”
Getting out, he slung the dufflebag over his shoulder and carried the shotgun, the canteen full of holy water clasped to his belt. Bertha carried the gas can, looking confused. “Why do we need this?” she asked.
“We’re burning the place down.”
Bertha blinked in surprise…then an evil grin carved across her face. “That’ll show the bastards.”
Unlike last time, the door was locked. Bruce used the butt of the shotgun to break the glass, then reached inside and unlocked the door, being careful not to cut himself. This was the point of no return. What he had in mind would probably get him kicked off the force or even thrown in jail - and we all know how tough jail can be for a former barnaclehead. The memory of Vanessa’s contorted face pushed him on, however.
He’d suffer any consequences he needed to just so long as he got the sons of bitches who did this to her.
Inside, the club was cool and cave-like. Strobe lights flashed, on and off, black and white, dazzling Bruce’s eyes. The bartender was at his station, cleaning up from the night before. When he saw Bruce and Bertha come in, he started. Bruce pointed the shotgun at him. “Don’t fucking move,” he commanded.
The bartender hesitated, then reached for something under the bar.
The shotgun kicked in Bruce’s hands, and the bartender flew back, turning as he crashed into the barback. Bottles, glasses, and mugs crashed to the floor along with the bartender. Bruce racked the gun, and the shell flew out. He moved low and fast now, expecting to be swarmed by vampires, living thugs who worked for vampires, or vampire thugs who worked for themselves.
Though the shot had been like thunder, no one came.
Bruce had no idea where to go, but he imagined that vampires were naturally gravitate to the lowest part of the building. Was there a basement? Shit, he should have looked up the building plans at city hall. Damn, this is what happens when you go off half-cocked. He searched around a bit, opening doors and sweeping the rooms beyond with the shotgun. He found no basement, only stairs leading up. “Stay close,” he said to Bertha.
In the lead, Bruce crept up the stairs, the flashlight on the shotgun providing a cone of clean, white light. At the top of the stairs, he went right, and came to an office and a store room. Backtracking, and bumping into a bungling Bertha, he went into the next room. It was large and open with a vaulted ceiling, almost like a ballroom. Here the same strobe lights throbbed on and off, making him dizzy. Was this to dazzle prospective vampire hunters?
Either way, this was the place. Bodies lay strewn across the floor, some curled up on their sides and others in the classic vampire pose: Flat on their backs with their hands laced over their chests. In the center, like the sun to the planets, Merrick Garvis lay slumped back in his wheelchair, his neck exposed for any potential assassin to come and cut. Not that it would kill him. At least Bruce didn’t think it would.
“They’re all dead,” Bertha whispered. She looked around and gasped. “There’s Jessie.”
Jessie lay on her back, her hands folded on her chest. She had a ragged bullet hole in the center of her forehead. “Oh, God,” Bertha wavered, “someone shot her.”
He hoped it was Vanessa. And he hoped it fucking hurt.
Looking around, Bruce couldn’t find Dominick Mason. Was he the one who killed Vanessa? Was it a group effort? He wanted the little son of a bitch bad, but it looked like he’d have to go on without him. They didn’t have much time.
Unshouldering the duffle bag, he knelt down and rummaged around. “Start splashing that gas on the bodies,” he said.
“But -”
“Just do it,” he snapped.
There must have been a harder edge in his voice than normal, because Bertha jumped and did as she was told. She upended the can and began to splash gasoline onto the sleeping forms, the smell of it acrid and strong.
Taking out a stake and the mallet, Bruce went over to Merrick and knelt down. He gripped the stake in one hand and placed it firmly against Merrick’s chest. He brought the mallet up and hesitated, the gravity of what he was doing finally reaching him. What if he was wrong? What if -
Merrick’s head whipped up and their eyes locked.
Too late.
Bruce brought the mallet down as hard as he could. The stake drove deep into Merrick’s heart, and the vampire let out a howling screech that rang through the chamber like the cry of a banshee. His bony fingers clawed at the stake and his head whipped from side to side, his back arching and his robe coming open. In the quick strobe pattern, Bruce was shocked to see that his body was little more than a wood frame, chicken wire, and cotton balls. His blacked heart was hidden behind a screen of mesh that the stake had easily torn through. It throbbed, seemingly in time with the strobe lights, and Merrick let out another wail.
Bertha screamed, and Bruce jumped to his feet.
The vampires, drawn by their master’s cries of distress, were rising to their feet. Two, four, six of them, pale and ethereal like ghosts in a gothic mansion. They came toward Merrick, and Bruice fell back a step. The old man had gone still and lay slumped to one side, his eyes open and his mouth slack, embalming fluid leaking from the corner of his lips. Jessie bent over him and touched his face. Though she moved like a zombie, with no human emotion, Bruce was crazily sure that it was a touch of tenderness and love. Merrick didn’t stir.
He was dead.
Jessie looked at him. Yellow liquid leaked from her eyes like tears. Instead of attacking him, she turned on her grandmother and slammed her against the wall. Bertha screamed and dropped the can. It landed on its side, its contents sloshing out onto the floor. A man that resembled the pictures Bruce had seen of Joe Rossi only deader rushed him, slamming into him and knocking the shotgun aside. It hit the floor and skidded away. Joe grabbed Bruce around the throat and squeezed. Still the lights flashed, off and on, off and on. The walls thrummed with the mechanized beat of dance music, pierced only by Bertha’s screams as Jessie ripped out her throat.
Joe leaned in, his fangs wicked and glowing in the light. Bruce clawed at the monster’s face, tearing away strips of dead flesh. Joe turned his head to the side, and Bruce kneed him in the groin. Even dead, getting kicked in the balls hurt like hell, apparently. Joe’s grip loosened and Bruce was able to shove him off. Bruce unclasped the canteen and frantically screwed the cap off as Joe recovered. Joe sprang at him again, and Bruce splashed him in the face.
A sound like sizzling meat filled the air, and Joe screamed at the top of his lungs. He pressed his hands to his face and danced around the room, his skin liquifying and oozing between his fingers. The others were coming now, led by a terrible skeletal thing. Bruce scooped the shotgun off the floor, brought it around, and fired. The blast hit the thing dead center, tearing it literally in half. The top half flew back, an all too human look of surprise on its face, and the bottom half fell over with a wet thud. Another vampire came at, and Bruce slammed it across the face with the butt of the gun. He heard its jaw crack, saw teeth flying.
Bertha lay dead on the floor, Jessie bent over her. The smell of Bertha’s blood attracted the others, who seemed to forget about Bruce, Merrick, and everything else. Joe was on his knees, wailing in pain, and the skeletal thing was pulling itself toward Bertha. A feeding frenzy broke out as vampires fought to get a piece of her the way piglets might fight over their mother’s teat. Bruce watched in a mixture of horror and fascination, but recovered himself. He grabbed the gas can from the floor and dumped the rest of its contents on Merrick’s body, the feeding vampires’ backs, and the floor, using the last of it to make a little trail to the door. He tossed the can aside, bent down, and stuck a match.
A huge, fiery whump filled the room, and fire streaked along the trail. The vampires all went up in a huge ball of flames, and fire shot up Merrick’s body, catching his robe, his hair, and the wooden frame that had kept him semi upright for God knows how long. Letting out inhuman screams, the vampires broke from Bertha’s corpse. One stumbled around, bounced off the wall, and fell; another toddled toward Bruce before falling to its knees. The half skeleton kept drinking from Bertha’s neck even as it burned.
The heat was enormous, baking. Bruce backed away, and the last thing he saw before smoke obscured his vision was Merrick Garvis.
He was literally melting.
***
Dominick Mason tried to go home, but he no longer had a home. All of his worldly possessions sat on the sidewalk in front of his building, discarded coldly as easily. His key didn’t work in his door and there was a FOR RENT sign on it. Why would it be any other way? He was dead. Sooner or later, everyone forgets you when you’re dead, and all the things you held so dear wind up in the trash. It was a hard pill to swallow, but most people aren’t around to see it after they die.
He was.
From his building, he walked east toward Washington Park. In the distance, thick, black smoke billowed into the air, and sirens rose. He barely noticed and wouldn’t have cared even if he did. No more rubbernecking for him. That was for the living.
The pain that had plagued him so the previous day came back, only less this time. Maybe he was imagining it, but it was getting harder to think. Not that he cared, really. What was there to think about anyway? How he had no one to mourn or miss him? How he died and not one single person, except for maybe his mother, cared, or even noticed? How he had done nothing with his life? Even to the women he’d slept with, what was he? Just another dating app hookup. They probably didn’t even remember his name.
Merrick had been right about one thing. Death was easy. It was life that was hard…life that hurt.
With that in mind, Dominick made his way to Washington Park. It was a vast and deep place with many small caves and thickets. Kids played on the playground, their cries of laughter scenting the still air. It had grown cloudy and began to rain. Still, smoke poured into the sky in the direction of Club Vlad. Dom didn’t wish ill on Merrick and the others, didn’t hope it was them burning. He didn’t care anymore. Not about them, not about anyone. For better or worse (and he would argue it was worse), his life was over. His time came days ago, he just missed the boat.
Picking out an isolated little area, Dom sat against a tree with his legs splayed out in front of him. He titled his head back and closed his eyes. Yes, thinking was hard now. His mind felt sluggish, cold. He was thirsty…so, so thirsty, but he ignored it.
Slowly, the bugs found him. Flies buzzed around him and laid their eggs in his skin. Beetles scuttled over him, followed by worms.
Next, it was the birds. They ate out his eyes and nibbled at his blue, bloated skin.
The animals came last.
Their appetites were bigger.
And they left little remaining of poor, outcast Dominick Mason.
***
That night, Bruce sat alone in his little trailer, a bottle of whiskey wedged between his legs and unshed tears in his eyes. He stared at his reflection in the darkened TV set and took long swallows from the bottle. He planned to drink until he forgot or passed out, whichever came first. He tried to not think about Vanessa, but in his addled state, he couldn’t control himself, and began to cry. When that storm passed, like the others before it, he chugged from the bottle.
As distant church bells clanged the hour - midnight - a feeble knock came at the door. Bruce took another drink and it came again. Getting up, he stumbled, nearly fell, and gripped the bottle tightly. He didn’t want to lose one precious drop.
Again, the knock.
“I’m coming,” Bruce slurred. He staggered to the door and fought with the lock. He was dizzy and seeing double.
When he got it, he opened the door.
The bottle dropped from his hand and clanked onto the floor.
Vanessa, clad in a puke green hospital gown, stood on the step, her hands pressed to her chest and a look of anguish on her milk white face. Her head tilted to one side, the wounds on her neck cleaned but open, gaping. Her dark eyes shone with tears. “I’m dead,” she said.
Breaking down in tears, she collapsed against him and they sank to the floor. She was cold and smelled. Bruce wrapped his arms around her and held her to his chest anyway. “Shhh, it’s alright,” he said drunkenly. “Hey, it’s alright.
“I’m dead,” she repeated, and her voice broke. “I don’t want to die.”
Bruce held her close, trying to warm her icy skin. He didn’t know what to say, so he cried with her.
“You’re safe now,” he said, “it’s going to be okay.”
“I want blood,” she said and sobbed harder, “I want to hurt people.”
“Shhh,” Bruce said again. “It’s okay.”
Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a utility knife. He flicked the blade across his wrist and searing pain shot up his arm. “Here,” he said and offered her his blood, “drink this.”
He did this without care and without thought. She needed him, and one barnaclehead always backs up another.
Vanessa hesitated, looking from his face to the oozing blood, unsure.
“Go ahead,” he told her.
Vanessa brought his wrist to her mouth.
And began to drink.

As the last orange light of day drained from the sky, the living dead in Club Vlad rose. Max the skeleton and Jessie the…not skeleton…sewed up the gaping Y-shaped incision on Dom’s chest under Merrick’s direct supervision. Dom sat there, feeling nothing, thinking nothing. He’d woken with a headache and a feeling of cold, and even now, he could feel the dull throb above his left eye. It felt like someone was tearing his brain apart with a fork. He had told Merrick, and Merrick had nodded sadly. “Is my brain rotting?”
“Most likely,” Merrick had said.
There was a certain peace in the idea of losing his cursed humanity. As Merrick had said, he would feel no pain, know no quandaries. He would live only for the night and for his master. On the other hand, watching someone like Matt sit and stare into the distance, drool coursing down his chin and nothing happening behind his dead eyes, scared Dom. He didn’t want to be a braindead idiot. He didn’t care about keeping his emotions, he just wanted to function.
Like Merrick.
There wasn’t much he could do, however. He was dead and that was the end of it.
Once Dom was patched up and dressed in a pair of jeans and a hoodie, Merrick called his children before him. “I have done my best to love and protect all of you,” he began. “Jessie, you were miserable with your grandmother, were you not?”
“Yes,” Jessie said tonelessly.
“You were depressed, bipolar, and cut yourself. Now you’re happy.”
“Yes,” she replied again.
“Joe, you were a two bit nobody staring down a ten year stretch in jail.”
“Yes.” Thin yellow liquid dripped from his nose.
“But now you are free.”
“Yes.”
“You appreciate what I’ve done for you.”
“Yes.”
Merrick flashed then, slamming his fist onto the arm of his wheelchair. “Then why do you keep fucking up? The police were here earlier. They have messages between you and Jessie. I told both of you to delete those. Then I find out that you bit someone and turned them despite my orders. We have an endless supply of blood here but you still went off on your own. How many are there?”
“Just one,” Joe said.
“Are you being honest with me?”
“Yes.”
Merrick sagged back in his chair, looking somehow older. “Joe, take Matt and go to her. Bring her back here before she causes any more problems. God alone knows how many people she’s changed. Too many vampires without a father will bring heat on us, and you know what happens in that case? We get pieces of wood shoved in our chests.”
Turning to Dom, Merrick said, “I have a job for you and Jessie. We’re nearly out of embalming fluid. You haven’t had your first dose and the rest of us are starting to get ripe as well. I have a contact at a funeral home. He texted earlier that the order he placed on my behalf has come in. I want you to pick it up and to pay him.”
Dom had never been picked for anything in his whole life. No one had ever wanted him on their team and no one had ever placed their trust in him the way Merrick was now. He was honored, proud, and would do anything to not let Merrick down.
“That cop who came here might be a problem,” Merrick went on. “We may have to deal with him, but we’ll leave that for another night. In any case, I want this place cleaned from top to bottom. If the police come, I want them to see nothing out of the ordinary.”
Now that everyone had their marching orders, they dispersed. Merrick handed Dom an evelope stuffed with cash, and Dom slipped it into the pocket of his hoodie. The other team - Joe and Matt - left, while the remaining vampires began tidying up.
A fleet of vehicles waited in the parking lot behind Club Vlad. Dom and Jessie took a black pedo van with no back windows. They drove in silence, the radio off. Dom did not want to hear music, nor did he wish to speak to Jessie. Their kinship was one of blood and circumstance, not one of words and emotions. He had no questions for her and wished to answer none of his own. The only thoughts he had were of the mission ahead and of the growing pain in his skull. He thought of the staring stupid Matt, of the decayed Max, and a shiver went down his spine.
What was left of his humanity recoiled at the idea of becoming like them.
The pain grew hotter, more intense. He forced it away and focused on driving.
The funeral home was on North Allen Street, next to a restaurant called Pepperjack’s. A tall, white house with dark shutters and a sign out front, it looked like a quiet, peaceful place. “Pull around back,” Jessie said.
Dom pulled the van around back and parked under a balcony, killing the headlights. They got out and went to the back door, Jessie in the lead. He assumed that she had done this before and that the seller would recognize her. She knocked, and a few moments later, the door opened. A youngish man with a shaved head appeared, wearing an apron and gloves. He saw them and tensed a little. Dom could smell, rather than sense, his fear, and his throat panged with thirst. “Come on,” the man said quickly. He stepped aside and allowed them to enter. Dom noticed that he walked behind them, wary of putting his back to them. “Do you have the money?”
“Do you have our order?” Jessie countered.
“Yes,” the man said, “I’m really risking my neck for this. They don’t just give embalming fluid away, you know. They keep track of it and if they realize I’m over ordering, someone from the state’s going to come down here and check.”
He led them into an embalming room. Three boxes sat on a table. Dom gave the man his money, and he and Jessie carried the boxes outside, loading them into the van. The whole time they were there, the man was edgy, like he was afraid they were going to attack him. Dom would be a liar if he said that the hot smell of the man’s blood didn’t excite him. Perhaps once his brain rotted away, he wouldn’t be able to control himself, but for now, he could.
A lightning bolt of pain shot through his head and he nearly dropped the last box onto the ground.
Once the man was paid, Dom and Jessie drove back to Club Vlad. In fifteen minutes, they were drinking side by side from two passed out partygoers, their reward for a job well done.
Meanwhile, across the city, Joe and Matt weren’t doing as well. They were standing outside of Heather’s apartment. Joe, slightly annoyed (anger being another emotion vampires could feel, along with fear) pounded on the door. He knew she was in there; he could smell the putrid odor of decay. “Let us in,” he said. “We won’t hurt you.”
Joe could barely remember changing her. He didn’t mean to, it just…happened. Like an unwanted pregnancy. You can bite someone as much as you want and drink as much as you want, but if you take too much at once and they die, you get the vampire equivalent of a baby. Joe liked the hunt. It was exciting. Having his meals brought to him Club Vlad didn’t arouse the same level of excitement. It was like shooting an animal tied to a tree. Or hiring a prostitute instead of wooing someone. No real satisfaction to it.
That was probably his greatest downfall. He had lured Jessie the same way, though Merrick was indeed interested in rescuing her from her grandmother. People you have saved obey just as well as people with no brains.
He felt fluid on his upper lip and sniffed. “Come on, let us in,” he said.
No response.
He looked at Matt and nodded to the door. Together, they rammed their shoulders against it. It shook in its frame. They were both dead and weak, but modern American architecture is even weaker, and the door eventually slammed open. The apartment beyond was dark, messy, and reeked of death. They searched high and low, and eventually found Heather huddled in a corner, trying to hide. She was naked save for a pair of panties, her body bloated and beginning to turn black. Her skin hung from her frame and her eyes were filled with blood and fear. It was a wonder no one had called the police yet. The smell was overpowering. “We’re here to help,” he said. “You have to come with us.”
She shook her head and trembled. Maybe she remembered that he was the one who did this to her. Maybe her memories had rotted away. Those were usually the first to go. Then your emotions, then your personality. Finally, your capacity for higher reasoning. “I’m sorry I did this to you,” he said. That was a lie. He was not remorseful. Nor was he proud, for that matter. It just happened. Like rain. “But I want to help you. We can fix you.”
No amount of coaxing or conjoling could induce her to move. Joe weighed his options. He doubted anyone would call the cops even if they heard the door coming down - people who lived in places like this rarely called the cops, which helped Joe and his cause immensely. Even so, there was the possibility. Every minute they spent here was a minute that something could go wrong, and Joe had a lot to lose.
So, too, did Merrick.
Giving up, Joe took out his cellphone and called Merrick. “She refuses to come,” he said simply.
The line was quiet for a moment, then Merrick’s voice came back. Cold. Calculating. “Then do what you must.”
That was the go ahead.
Hanging up, Joe looked around the apartment and found a wooden chair in the kitchen. He lifted it over his head and slammed it on the counter, shattering it into a million pieces. He selected the longest, sharpest, and sturdiest looking one. He went back into the room and directed Matt to hold her down. She fought, kicked, and spat, but she was weaker than even they were. They had been embalmed. She hadn’t.
Matt pinned her hands above her head and Joe straddled her. Animal terror filled her eyes and she whipped her head from side to side. Joe lifted the makeshift stake with both hands, and brought it down as hard as he could, driving it deep into her heart. Her eyes bulged from their sockets and a high, otherworldly scream ripped from her throat. She bucked, thrashed, and kicked her feet. Her resistance began to ebb away until she was twitching…until she was still.
Heather from OKCupid was dead.
Truly dead.
Joe couldn’t help wondering what it was like.
Pulling the stake out, he tossed it aside and got to his feet, Matt doing likewise. A soul petrifying scream might be cause for even the tightest of lips to start talking. “Let’s go,” he said. And together, he and Matt fled, leaving the poor, dead body of Heather behind.
***
As it turned out, one of Heather’s neighbors did call the cops. At 10;13pm, Vanessa Rodregiez arrived with two patrolmen and found the front door of Apartment 237 knocked down. Guns drawn, they entered, Vanessa at the head. The first thing she noticed was the smell. It jammed itself into her nostrils, shoved its tongue down her throat, and violated her - all without even buying her dinner first.
Vanessa hadn’t been at this as long as her buddy Bruce had, but she knew a dead, rotting body when she smelled one. They searched the premises, and sure enough, they found a vic in the bedroom, lying in the gap between the bed and the wall; it looked like the former had been moved, perhaps in a struggle. Vanessa knelt down to check the vic’s pulse, but stopped.
There was no need.
The vic - who looked like a female but could have been an overweight male - hadn’t had a pulse in a very long time.
Examining the body, Vanessa found a wound in the chest, just above the heart. Black, stinking goo leaked from it, and Vanessa gagged. She fisted her hand to her mouth, retched, and then ran for the kitchen sink. Her partner for the night, Jim Walsh, stared down at the stiff before him, and his face turned a sickly shade of green. He avoided puking because he didn’t nose fuck the wound like Vanessa had, but he wasted no time in getting out there, dry heaving in the hallway where the air was somewhat fresh.
After leaving her lunch in the sink, Vanessa radioed back to headquarters, and before long, the place was crawling with cops. The assistant medical examiner - who had taken over after Ed Harris quit the previous night - knelt over the body and studied it. A solidly built black man with a mustache, his name was Leon and he knew death just as well as his old boss, so when he said the vic had been dead nearly two weeks, Vanessa accepted it.
That begged the question: Who broke in and screamed just now? A relative? The caller clearly heard screaming and peeked out her door to see two males fleeing on foot. Maybe they found the vic and freaked out? Or maybe they were the killers returning to the scene of the crime. After all, the vic had clearly been murdered.
In fact, they found a likely murder weapon. A long sliver of wood soaked in black goo. Blood turns black after a while, but there was something different about this stuff. “What is it?” Vanessa asked Leon.
“I’m not sure,” Leon said and pulled off a pair of Latex gloves he’d donned to examine the vic, “could be blood or…”
“Or what?” Vanessa asked.
“Or something,” Leon said. “Give me a few hours.”
And a few hours it was. Just before 1am, Leon called Vanessa at her desk. “I think you should come down here,” he said.
Fifteen minutes later, Vanessa stood over Leon as he pulled the vic’s chest open with a pair of tweezers. “That’s the heart,” he said, “whoever stabbed her scored a direct hit, but this…this is what concerns me.”
He prodded a furry lump with the tip of his scalpel.
“What is it?” Vanessa asked.
“I don’t know,” he said, “it looks like mold.”
That word - mold - triggered a memory in her brain. “Ed said something about mold last night. He found it in -”
“The Mason boy,” Leon finished.
“Yeah. The one who got up and ran off.”
Leon turned away from Vanessa and looked at the dead woman - for it was a woman. Vanessa got the impression that he didn’t want her to see his expression. “I’ve known Ed ten years. I know something happened last night, but a stiff getting up and walking off? I thought he was confused. Now…I don’t know. That makes two bodies in 24 hours. And get this. The chest wound? It was done post-mortem. I can’t find a cause of death anywhere. Except maybe blood loss but it’s hard to tell at this point. And speaking of blood…”
“What?” Vanessa asked quickly.
“When I opened her stomach up, a whole shit load of blood spilled out. And a lot of it was a lot fresher than she is.”
Vanessa furrowed her brow in confusion. “You mean…?”
“It’s not hers,” Leon said. “I can’t be 100 percent sure until I run tests, but I’d put money on it.”
Vanessa’s head spun with information both new and old. You know that full, heavy feeling you get when a poo is brewing in your guts? That’s kind of what Vanessa was feeling, only in her head instead of her stomach.
Leon was just as mystified by the whole thing as she was and stayed up late to run a few preliminary tests. By sunrise, he had confirmed that the blood inside of Heather’s stomach was not hers. In fact, it had come from at least three different sources. “Is it human?” Vanessa asked over the phone.
“Yes,” Leon said, sounding troubled, “it’s human.”
In the cobalt hour before sunrise, Vanessa sat at her desk and tried to piece this whole thing together. They had:

1. A corpse that (allegedly) woke up and dipped out
2. A dead girl who’d been stabbed in the heart with a piece of wood after somehow ingesting the blood of three different people.
3. Some missing kids
4. Oh, and both bodies - the girl’s and the runaway corpses’ - had the same weird fungus in their heart cavities.

All of this - even the missing kids, Vanessa felt - was related. She just didn’t know how. The only answer that half way fit was that both of those bodies were vampires. Like…what’s a vampire but a dead body that gets up and walks around at night? And how do you kill a vampire? Why, you drive a piece of wood through its heart.
The idea that vampires were real was dumb, but the more she turned it over in her mind, the more she became convinced that it was at least an option. A lot of things people thought were fantastic and made up turned out to be real, so why not vampires too?
Shortly after 8, Bruce came in. He was just sitting down when Vanessa came in and slapped her report on the desk. “Buckle up, bitch,” she said, “things just got weirder.”
He stared up at her with one of those grumpy - but cute -expressions he was so good at putting on. As he read, however, his brow knitted. “Jesus,” he muttered to himself. He pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a weary sigh.
“I have a theory - kind of,” Vanessa said, “but I don’t want to say it.”
“You might as well,” Bruce said. “It can’t be more kooky than reality these days.”
“Okay,” Vanessa started, “what if - and I’m just thinking out loud here - what if there are vampires in Albany?”
She expected Bruce to give her a dirty look, but he chewed it over, actually taking it seriously. “And those missing boys are victims?” he asked finally.
“Yeah,” Vanessa said. “That girl’s been dead two weeks. Maybe she bit Dominick Mason and he came back for revenge after realizing he was cursed to be a goddamn shit sucking vampire forever.”
Bruce nodded. “Yeah, but who turned her?”
“I don’t know,” Vanessa said, “I don’t know.”
***
Before dawn painted the eastern sky, Merrick Garvis sat in his chamber like a withered king, a mess of IVs hooked into his arms and neck. The vault was silent save for the soft noise of the machines as they filtered out the old embalming fluid and replaced it with new embalming fluid. Embalming fluid always made him spacy, like a drug. The others had gone first, and even now lay near comatose around him like addicts in an opium den.
As far as he knew, Merrick was the oldest vampire in the world, perhaps, even, the oldest vampire to ever live. Though he was not fully honest with Dom, he was not lying when he said that vampires rotted like any other dead thing. Conditions considered, you had a few weeks tops if left untreated. There may be living vampires in remote corners of Egypt or the northern most reaches of Russia, where the climate preserved dead things, but unless you made it to one of those places, you were pretty well fucked.
Merrick was not a proud man, nor was he concerned with saving face - the dead have no need for that. He was being truthful when he said that he feared death. What’s more, he feared being helpless. Deep down, vampires are people, and people don’t exactly have the greatest track record with caring for their infirm. He read once that the first sign of a civilization was a broken leg that had healed, as it showed that someone stayed with and cared for a fellow human long enough for them to get well again. In Merrick’s opinion, that was true…and thus there was no civilization. Merrick was fifty-one when he died in the year 1982. In his lifetime, he had seen The Great Depression, World War II, and a million small acts of cruelty and selfishness in between. He’d seen beggars starving in the streets, abused children shuffled out of sight and out of mind, and disdain for the poor and the weak.
The living were awful, and the living dead were no different. Once their humanity rotted away, they cared only about filling their stomachs. They were like ticks - they would drink until their bellies literally ruptured…and then keep on drinking.
That left him in a precarious position. He was old, his body was weak. He couldn’t stand unassisted and if left to fend for himself, he would decay into a pile of bones within days. He would be cursed to lay in one spot for all eternity, aware and hungry, little more than a ghost tethered to a black and still beating heart.
He refused to let that happen to him. Thus, he had created a family, a clan of vampires loyal to him and to him alone. He did this through acts of simple kindness and understanding…but also through deception. He knew, for instance, how to preserve the brain. He’d figured out how to do it early on - you pickle it. Like a fetus preserved in a jar. He sawed off the top of his own head and filled it with a special solution that kept his brain - and his intelligence - intact. It slowly drained out through the nose and ears in a thin, yellow liquid, but it worked well enough. He couldn’t save everything, however, and had lost vital things in the process, such as most of his human memories, his sense of humor, and some motor functions. He shared this secret with only Joe, and a few others before, because he needed a strong captain. He kept the others in the dark because vampires - like people - are easier to control when they don’t think for themselves.
Right about now, however, Merrick was beginning to regret sharing the formula with even Joe. Joe had brought him nothing but grief. Joe, you see, could think for himself. He could make decisions. He could go behind Merrick’s back. Joe had something called free will, and free will is a worse affliction than vampirism. Free will is messy, free will is dangerous.
Free will could very well turn Merrick into a pile of bones.
That was, of course, if they weren’t discovered first. Joe had made several mistakes lately, not least of which was the turning of Heather. Sitting there in the predawn hour, attended by Tony, his gay bartender and human familiar, Merrick decided to have Joe killed. There are only two ways to kill a vampire: The stake and the flame. The latter seemed somehow appropriate in this case. After Joe, there would be no more captains, only him, one father with absolute power. That was how it had to be. One man, one vision. Democracies didn’t work. That was especially clear today. Everyone was so divided and nothing ever got done. If the humans had one strong leader, they might go in the wrong direction, but at least they would go somewhere. Instead, they stagnated.
Merrick didn’t particularly look forward to killing Joe, but it had to be done. To protect the family. To protect him.
And Merrick would do anything…anything at all…to protect himself.
***
Vampires.
Bruce kept coming back to that single wor, hoping each time that he would chuckle at the absurdity of it.
But he never did.
Did that mean he believed it? Not necessarily, but damn it, he considered it a possibility, and that alone was enough to make him feel like a fucking clown. All the evidence he had pointed to vampires, but then again, it might point to other things as well. Like aliens.
But let’s say the whole vampire thing was real. Who, like Vanessa asked, was patient zero? Who started this whole mess?
A name came to mind.
Merrick Garvis.
He had not had time to check into Garvis the previous day, but by God, he was going to do it now. He ran his name and social through the system and everything seemed to check out. Merrick Garvis was born on June 31, 1963 in -
Wait a minute. Weren’t there only 30 days in June?
Bruce checked, and there were, indeed, only 30 days in the month of June. Hm. Bruce did a little digging and found something out. Before 1987, social security numbers weren’t issued at birth. You had to sign up, using other forms of ID. Merrick Garvis applied for his in April 1984 and the date of birth on his state issued driver’s license was June 31. Bruce spent an hour on the phone with the DMV and learned that they had never issued a license to a Merrick Garvis. He then spoke to the Social Security Administration, and after much wrangling and frustration, he managed to get a photocopy of the license Garvis used to get his social security number. It was dated 1983.
The face staring back at him was almost exactly the same face he’d seen at Club Vlad, except maybe a touch less stiff and waxy. Though not as rough looking, there was no way in hell Garvis was 20 in that picture. It had to be a fake,
Bruce thought back to the events of the previous two days. Missing bodies, staked corpses, hearts that still beat after death.
Vampires didn’t seem like such a crazy explanation.
And if anyone was a fucking vampire around here, it was Merrick Garvis.

My friend JP and I decided to each eat two 4 gram shroom chocolate bars.
Some context: JP and I, as well as some other classmates were all attending a trade school for 7 months. The school and a local extended stay hotel had a deal where students from the school could book rooms there for months in advance at a discount.
One weekend night a few of our classmates were having a small party in one of their hotel rooms. JP was busy doing something and we wanted to eat the shroom chocolates together so I hung out with the other guys having a couple drinks and smoking until JP arrived around midnight. JP finally arrived and we decided to eat the chocolate. We each immediately ate our first 4 gram bar. We agreed that 8 grams was a bit too strong so we broke off a few squares and shared them with our classmates. In total, we both ate about 6 grams (1 and a half chocolate bars). This was about midnight.
Around 12:30, I could feel the shrooms kicking in. JP was feeling it also. I was already having visuals and colors were very vibrant. JP was looking a little concerned and got up saying he wanted to trip in his own room. We all wished him luck and said goodnight and I told him to call me or text me if he needs anything. JP left.
Probably another 20 minutes or so and the shrooms were starting to affect my perception. I stood up off the couch and zoned out staring at the floor. Then I decided it was time to go back to my own room and lay in bed. My classmates said okay and even the guys who had only a couple squares of chocolate said they were feeling good. I said goodnight and walked the short distance down the hall to my room.
It felt good once i was alone in my room. The familiar feeling of tripping came over me. However, the trip was increasing in strength faster than usual. Soon I felt as though I wasnt in control. There were patterns on the wall and the carpet and I soon got a sinister feeling. I felt the urge to vomit and went to my bathroom. I dry heaved for a couple minutes but nothing came up. The shrooms felt like they were a separate organism living inside me, like they were growing inside me.
I decided to ride out the trip laying in the dark in bed. Being in complete darkness was comforting and made the visuals alot more vivid. Geometric patters of all different colors encompassed my entire visual field. I lay in the dark tripping.
The hotel rooms all have air conditioners and at this moment mine kicked on. The humming vibration sound comforted me. It was resonating with me, vibrating me on the inside. This helped me really relax into the trip, as the body high was accelerating rapidly. I felt myself blasting off.
Everything expanded and my mind was its own three dimensional space, separate from my body. Any substance Ive ever taken would always show itself to me. The shrooms were talking to me, something along the lines of “you wanted to trip so here you go”.
Suddenly my mind was collapsing, like how a star collapses into a black hole. It shrunk and shrunk down to microscopic size. At this point it felt like my whole being was being sliced up. I was being chopped atom by atom, getting smaller and smaller. I found myself laying on my back in bed and without trying to speak I said, “Im trapped inside here”, “Someone trapped me in here”, “Someone tricked me”. I watched as my mind was crushed and sliced smaller and smaller.
Finally, i could see myself trapped in a room inside my own mind.
I felt the fear of being trapped. The claustrophobia. I then remembered how in the Yugioh anime, Atem is trapped inside the millennium puzzle. This thought was like a wake up call and i imagined the word “willpower”. The room in my mind expanded to show that surrounding it, was a giant labyrinth. There was a maze in my mind that I was trapped in. I wasnt afraid anymore and felt confidence that I would escape.
This must have been what the shrooms were looking for. I passed their test. I was then being shown my own memories. Parts of my life passed in front of me. It looked like images of my memories on tablets which were being presented to me. I then got the feeling that I was dying. I felt my grandmother and possibly other ancestors around me. I thought, “ok this is it, Im going to die right here in this hotel room”, and I surrendered.
Thats when i saw it. The veil of our reality. It is directly in front of our eyes. Its as if our eyes are looking point blank into a screen that shows reality. But reality isnt real. I felt contained within something. We are inside a machine and our reality is being projected to us. I could tell there was more just beyond my eyesight.
I then saw, right over my eyes, a reptilian face. It flashed in front of my vision briefly, but its face is burned into my memory.
At this point i began to come back to normal. I slowly went back into my body and recovered from the trip. I lay in bed trying to remember what I had experienced, but I didnt lay for too long because from outside my room in the hallway I heard someones voice.
I sat up with a burst of adrenaline. That sounded like JP. I tapped my phone, it was 4:30am. I got up and went to the door. Poking my head out I saw JP standing in the hall talking to himself. “JP, what are you doing?” He turned to me and I knew he was tripping hard. He clearly didnt know what was happening. “Go back to your room.”, I said. JP looked very confused and walked past me, turning to look back a couple times. “JP get in here with me”, I said. “Are you Jesus?”, he asked wholeheartedly. I will admit this part made me laugh a little, but he was seriously freaking out. “Bro get in here”, I said more seriously. His expression changed and he said no and turned and briskly walked the other direction. I closed my door, put on pants and a shirt and got my room key. I opened the door again and he had wandered down the hall where the elevator was. I left my room and caught up to him. At this spot, the hallway makes a 90 degree turn and JPs room is down that way. I see near his door one of the exit signs had been ripped off the ceiling. It was apparent that JP had been wandering around the halls of the hotel tripping balls.
I got up to him, put my hand on his shoulder and coincidentally at this very moment, the elevator opened and two police officers stepped toward us. They said they got a call about someone acting strangely and knocking on peoples doors. JP uttered some nonsense to the officers. I said I was trying to get him back to his room. The officers agreed and we walked the short distance to JPs room. He didnt have his phone, wallet or room key. I agreed to babysit him in my room.
The cops left and told me to stay with him. I said sorry and thank you. For the next 2-3 hours JP frantically paced in my room, repeating the same sentences over and over. Eventually he layed on my bed and fell asleep.
Everything turned out ok and JP is fine. But he did get kicked out of the hotel for breaking their sign.
We can see two opposite trips happening, JP fighting his trip, and me giving in and being shown things.
From that day, our reality seems quite different to me and I wonder just how real that reptilian face actually was.

When I was in HS I worked for a small landscaping company. This incident happened when I was 16yo and one that I’ll never forget.
I was mowing one of the 50 something yards we serviced every week. I was using a commercial standing lawnmower.
I have ear plugs in thinking about life just chugging along on this yard. The next door neighbor ends up waving me down on the opposite side of the fence. I head on over shut down the lawn mower and walk over to see what he wanted (this wasn’t out of the normal. Most people who stop us ask for a business card or an estimate for their lawn etc). As soon as I take out my ear plugs this boomer goes in on me.
“You’re way too young to be using heavy equipment like that. You don’t know what you’re doing and blowing grass everywhere. I’ve been watching you for the past few mows and this time you blew grass onto my deck like a f****** idiot. I should call the police. You guys are too young and too inexperienced to be mowing. I’m gonna talk to my neighbor about firing you.”
He just kept going and going. I had never been spoken to like that before and was in shock. I kinda just let him finish and then was like. “Sir, I didn’t do anything wrong. I don’t even see any grass on your deck” trying not to cry honestly
He ultimately gets more upset and starts throwing more insults at me to get my a** onto his side of the fence and take a look. Threatening to call the police and even saying he will “take matters” into his own hands if it happens again.
I’m really not trying to cry at this point. Scared to walk over there, but I do. I end up seeing 3 blades of grass on his deck that the wind had carried over.
I say I’m sorry and that the deck was so far away from the property line I didn’t know it was hitting it. Next time I’ll mow a few strips directed the other way to avoid issue. Also said I would blow his deck off when I finished mowing.
Of course this did not appease this man. Just kept hurling insults and that I needed to blow it off now. Not in 10 min. Now.
I end up going to get the blower from the truck which was weird to my boss who was 1 year older than me. He comes over thinking there was a problem with the mower. I tell him what is happening, grab the blower, and go to blow the grass.
My boss is pissed and goes to talk to the man. Saying if he has a problem he can take it up with him and not threaten his employee. Boomer says he will call the police. Boss tells him to do it. What are you gonna tell them “two high schoolers trying to make money for college got 3 blades of grass on my deck and blew it off when I asked”.
At this point I’m trying not to laugh. The boomer just stood on his side of the fence and scowled at us while we finished the yard and left.
He never bothered us again after that day, but every time we would mow that lawn I had major anxiety…

Many thanks to u/LieutenantRayne for helping my learn about the DLC through their guides.
What you'll get from this guide: Great economy, great living standards, victory in Verdosam, a new alliance with Derdia and Morella, a new wife (the inferior romance choice but alas), a new heir, reunification of the peninsula without war (no torturing Axel, sad!), the grace of god and ultimate political power.
Achievements you'll get: Prologue, chapter stuff, Great Unification, Intermekopum alliance, Wruceh's Second Coming, True Master of Crisis (unsure about that one), Glovurius axa Rizia axa Pales, The Prince, Fall from GRACE, Domineering, Mine All Mine, Ready To Love Again, Case Closed, My Rule Continues, Game Of Spoons or Two Birds for Beatrice, So It Is and Make Yourself Great Again.
Notes: Be polite even to your enemies and say Halaita alot.
PROLOGUE - Visit family in Zille, close friebds with Pabel, university (+1B), crackdown on traitors (+1A), rebuild (+1B), truly love your wife, family got in the way of work, vacation with wife and daughter, solace in faith, meet duke and agree with him, lie to dad, don't tell anything to your father, gold and tax focus (+2B and +1B per turn). Absolutism, Diversify (+1B), Third Way and no military spending (+1B).
TURN 1: A(8/+3) B(11/+6) E(3/+1).
Decrees=> Sovereign Transition and Clemency (-1A), Raise base income tax (-2A, +1B per turn), Geological Survey (-2A, -2B), Zpana Dam (-2A, -5B, 4T to complete, +3E per turn on completion) and Expand Esqiris Gas Field (-1A, -3B, 3T to complete, +2E per turn on completion).
Events=> No speech at coronation, allow vina in the council, small parade at Port Drazon, host concert (-1B), no sanctuaries restoration :( and football auto-skips due to lack of budget.
TURN 2: A(3/+3) B(7/+7) E(4/+1).
Decrees=> Housing for the poor (-1A, -1B) and Build Qalus Gold Mine (-1A ,-3B).
Events=> Oil dries up, trade talks with Sordland (invite Elena): Accept alcohol deal "is there a way to rephrase this?" accept resort deal "less gaudy", investigate dad's death thanks to Pabel (leave him out of the suspects), donate to Arufelde (-1B, makes dealing with Morella easier), build statues of all the family (-1B, +1A), in the hunt go with Hugo but tell him Vina and Rico are cousins after that go back with your daughter, ignore commie propaganda (we need to get in Hegel's good side) and be polite with Smolak regime.
TURN 3: A(5/+3) B(8/+7) E(4/+0).
Decrees=> Monqiz Port and Naval Expansion (-1A, -3B, 2T to complete, -1E per turn on completion) and Sallabes Consumer Park (-2A, -2B, 2T to complete, -1E per turn on completion).
Events=> Fund Golden Guard and focus on Su Omina (-3B), denounce Su Omina, accept Rumburg MAXIMUM energy deal (-3E, +2B and -2E per turn), deny police transfer to idiot Rico, tell manus to fuck off and don't let him dance with Vina, allow safe passage for Goldoncondists, rizz Lucita up (grab ger hand, don't le go etc) and refuse deal with Rusty but have lunch with him.
TURN 4: A(6/+4) B(9/+9) E(0/+0).
Decrees=> Build Tank Factory (-3A, -4B/ ONLY AFTER WINE TRADE SOARS!!!)
Events=> Disperse protests by force (+1A), Pales Stuff: Say u wanna talk to Axel and DON'T initiate blockade - Say to him to keep the field in exchange for something, "don't let hostility colour the negotiations", "predecessors were out of line", "caught between superpowers", "how big of a parachute?" - Pay what he asks and tell him about your daughter (-5B, -3B per turn and +3E per turn later), send 500 equipment abd 50 support vehicles to Verdosam, tell Alvarez to fuck off - at the AN meeting: don't interrupt Smolak, applaud him politely, don't applaud Lespia, don't confront Hegel, Speech: "Honor to adress assembly", focus on unity, Smolak is being understandable and you'll count with his transparency, "Morella looking is east is understandable", offer help to Morella, say a compromise with religious travellers is possible, "regarding Pales", "golden age" and "end cycle of violence" - attend H.o.D and give rights to all workers (-2B, -1B per turn, industrial power weakened), NO Wehlen cooperation (We won't get Smolak in the alliance but he's an asshole anyways), wine trade soars (+2B) - Wine Event Speech: "fruits of our lands", "yes, even Sords", "doubts about stability", "with your help", "proud son of Valenqiris", "richly rewarded", "rise a glass to a reunited Rizia" and "you're here to drink wine" - Invite Lucita to open the bottle, rizz her up, say good night to staff, play drinking game (No Pablo), get something to wrong to gwt drunk, say you're lonely. If things goes right Lucita will knock on your door and have sex with you,. Sordland Investment auto-skips (no money).
TURN 5: A(8/+4) B(5/+5) E(0/+1)
Decrees=> Build Military Eq. Factory (-1A, -2B), Build Support Vehicles Factory (-2A, -3B), Sell 1st Batch of Military Eq. (+2B/ immediatly AFTER football auto-skips AKA after Hegel's Call) and enforce Wruceh education (-3A).
Events=> Agreement with Wehlen: *Import Oil and Medicine, *Export Wine and Small Arms, *Aid against BFF, *Ban Bluds and *Grant Wehzeks equal rights to work. Fund no organization in Zille, continue investigating Du Omina (-1A) and ask about Iza and give control to Lucita, tell Titus to look into Hugo, Football auto-skips :), complain to Hegel about the late hour so you can cut Lespia out for ships, be polite to Alma and DON'T eat the cookies (they're horrible), tell her about spliting Lespia's shares 50-50 between you and Morella, at plane - Speak with Derdia, Energy Agreement and Pollution reparations (-1B/ Make sure to do this in the plane to get the toy bird), Vina diplomatic envoy, send sordish tourists back home, Gas Field meeting - Tell Vina to be diplomatic envoy, "Absolutely not!", "single", "handsome" - Scrap Boat (-1A).
TURN 6: A(4/+3) B(8/+7) E(4/+4).
Decrees=> Enact investment in Public Transport (-2A, -3B, 1E/ FIRST THING TO DO AT THE START OF THE TURN! If u don't u get transport crisis), Excavation of Topes (-2A, -2B, 2T to complete) and Medium Energy Sale (-3E, +2B/ AFTER council meeting to avoid energy crisis - always one step ahead of Torpor).
Events=> Massive Global Media Campaign (-3B/ SUPER IMPORTANT!), send 1 infantry div. to confederacy, DON'T start war, Axel talk - Shake hand, don't interrupt, "peace", "peaceful resolution", let soldiers leave immediatly, "i do not underestimate the gravity", "what would we gain?", "I'm starting to suspect that", "someone else", "Lespia", "this is precisely the point", "why wouldn't he?" and "anything for peace"(-1B), sign paper and talk about cooperation and friendship (+6E, +6E per turn).
TURN 7: A(3/+3) B(8/+8) E(13/+7)
Decrees=> Abolish Blasphemy Law(-3A/ SUPER IMPORTANT).
Events=> Invite Sal to H.o.D, don't fund Zille, Grand Wiseman Talks - Let Titus fight don't talk to him or interrupt him, Trade deal (-2E, +2E per turn) and mediation with Morella - Send 1 ship and 1 sub to confederacy, Hugo will tell Toras are happy, order Manus arrest, rid Rico of his title put Iza under your control, tell Hugo you're but that's it, improve enviroment (-3B), Azaros and Lucita will be happy, go to private lounge with her.
TURN 8: A(6/+7) B(16/+9) E(13/0).
Decrees=> Increase Health and Education Funds (-2A, -3B), Tenant Protection Laws (-2A, -1B), Remove Provincial Police and Levy Obligation (-8A, -2B/ SUPER IMPORTANT/ Do it AFTER meditation investment/ U get enough authority for it through the dissolution of the H.o.D) and Small Energy Sale (-1E, +1B/ Necessary to remove Provincial Levy Obligation).
Events=> Host banquets to celebrate victory (+2A,-2B,+2B per turn), don't reveal Lespia evil doings to the world, be polite to drunk Alvarez and reveal the your findings at the end of the conversation so he can offer a deal to arrest Rusty - take it, arrest Rusty, nationalize his assets by buying shares (-2B), invest in renewable energy (-3B), welcome brave sailors back home, invest 1A in Derdia-Morella talks (SUPER IMPORTANT), close H.o.D (+A), -3B for Intermekopum, (SUPER IMPORTANT) , Smolak will ask the AN for a referendum, AN Stuff - Vote Nay to island claim, interrupt smolak bullshit speech, in your own speech talk about the importance of treaties, how bad people are treated by Wehlen, how Wehlen doesn't respect democracy and that Weheln wants to stela land, if done correctly AN will vote against referendum and you'll get Zille back (hooray!) - Talk to Vina about marriage with Axel respect her but tell this is the best for Rizia - she'll say yes :) - don't give ring her so u can give to Lucita, marry Lucita through Sal, be polite at the weeding and reveal your own with Lucita (Taddeus Azaro will have an orgasm).
TURN 9: A(9/+9) B(11/+10) E(12/-1)
Decrees=> lower conscription to 18 (-2A, -2B, +1000 men) and Launch Anti-Narcotis Campaign (-1A, -1B/ reduces tourism and doesn't last. Now is the best time).
Events=> Derdia-Morella Talks: offer -250 men, vote yes to new MITZ, offer -5E for Intermekopum (alliance formed +10A), Accept aid from Valgsland (+2B), leave Grace (middle finger if Sordland Save or correct spoon shit), Zille is returned! Give it to yourself (Great Living Standards + Cucked Sazons = No unrest), Wruceh Guardians (-1B) and Pales Unification Plans (-2B).
TURN 10: A(15/+19) B(17/+9) E(8/+1).
Decrees=> Expanded Border Guards (-2A, -1B/ Now because it reduces tourism and it's one less red modifier).
Events=> In the meeting with Titus say Luciat is innocent, declare that Hugo is guilty but just keep an eye on him (he's loyal and much better than his smooth-brained son), execute Manus and Rusty for all to see, drink with Axel and reassure that palensians will be respected, declare Theocracy, make your son the heir to get achievement and Azaros on thw jubilee, finally, enjoy becoming Rizia's Lisan Al Gaib and lead your people to paradise.
Hope you enjoyed the guide! I might make one for a reformist + Pabel romance run. No promises though.

I have nightmares, intrusive thoughts, OCD, panic attacks, I’m on four different medications, I really do need more mental professional help, but if there is a God I desperately need Him. I hear music constantly and thoughts/voices telling me to kill people sometimes, disturbing and evil terrifying stuff.
I am 28 years old, and I don’t know if I’ve been going into psychosis, but I have been feeling especially evil attacking me for the last 7 months, absolute Hell specifically the first month.
I hate my dreams, even when they’re not necessarily nightmares, they’re vivid and ridiculous.
I just had one that I don’t know why it made my scream, I literally just opened my mouth and screaming came out in the dream, and then I woke up screaming as loud as I possibly could for real. And then I felt like I had not screamed loud enough and an odd number of times, so I had to do it again as really loud as I could and longer.
I need a higher power, beyond myself, that’s for sure.
I don’t want to end up in a mental institution, and I don’t want to go to Hell.
My mental health is obviously more unpredictable unstable and serious than I take it to be. Some of these dreams that make me scream aren’t even actually scary or terrifying.
I literally just saw my work schedule being a strange odd time, and now was about to call to clarify it, but and I opened my mouth and screaming came out by itself, against my will. Then I screamed for real, waking up.
Fortunately my mouth doesn’t scream on its own just from opening it, but I still have feelings and episodes.
I feel so detached from reality sometimes.
I’m afraid of facing my family after I wake up screaming. They’re worried and concerned, not mad, but it makes me feel worse, I’m embarrassed and ashamed.
I’m so tired, stressed, hate my life, struggle with too much, and my own mind is like Hell, and a prison, inside of me so I can’t escape it.
I’m ashamed but life is demanding more than I feel capable of functioning.
I just bag groceries and push shopping carts mostly as a job. I’m ashamed that that’s the best and most I seem to be able to do at my age too.
I’m exhausted, but terrified I will have more nightmares and wake up screaming again, it’s pure psychological Hell. I rather be dead than deal with this. If God is real, I think I’m going to Hell though, I am definitely a sinner, who deserves punishment, which I guess is eternal damnation according to the Bible, even though that seems cruel, unfair, and unjust.
For the longest time I wasn’t simply an unbeliever, but pretty much ANTI-GOD. I thought He made me just to watch me suffer, so I cursed Him and defied Him. Why would He forgive me? I figured that’s why all this was/is happening.
I don’t know if the beings I see are actually demonic spirits or my subconscious or what, but I have brain tingling and needles stabbing me in the brain sometimes too, it feels like that, and confusion and loss of balance. Psychiatrist just gave me more pills (for nightmares, helped a lot but I guess nothing is 100% forever) and said an MRI would be too expensive for me.
I can’t even physically rest as I need, and mentally definitely not.
I’m aware of too many little things and details, and they’re ruining my life even more.
I gave into the OCD more too, bleep it!
I want to die, but I don’t think I’m going to Heaven. I’m afraid I’ll suffer even more, and eternally.
Honestly I’m afraid even with God this won’t completely go away for good, whether it’s because God uses these things to test people, or just can’t or won’t stop everything? I don’t know, but my mind is definitely particularly abnormal.
I’m afraid I’m going to ultimately end up being told that this is all my fault and that it’s all “in my control” and I need to just stop even though I can’t. Look at how police deal with people having mental health (or spiritual?)crisis.
People don’t believe these things, and think it’s all an act or that you can just stop, even in a mental hospital. You just get demanded to stop and tackled and charged more. And if you end up in court you’ll be accused for everything that it’s all your fault as if it was all in your control. As if anyone would CHOOSE to act this way.
I feel other personalities sometimes, I feel evil, terrified, and like I’m not me. When I was 13 I woke up and got up and felt scared and then started BARKING and screaming and swinging my arms around and everything was blurry, and it stopped after I called out to God and begged for Him to make it stop. I should take that more as evidence of God’s existence, but I still have doubts and lack of faith.
I can’t always tell what’s real or not, especially with such convincing dreams, I can’t remember if something was a dream or real, and reality just feels, different sometimes. 7 months ago when this particular severity suddenly started, the first month was excruciating derealization and depersonalization, and terror and paranoia……
I feel like this will escalate to a point where I completely go insane and cannot control my actions in real life.
Help.