A long read, may have posted bits of this already months back but still struggling. I really appreciate anyone who has the time to read and comment.
Last year I was seeing a “trauma informed integrative creative arts therapist” at $225 a week out of pocket. I was only able to swing it because my insurance offers 80% reimbursement for out of network benefits, and I was in dire straights and needed specialized help. I chose her because her Psychology Today profile, website and public social media made her seem more sophisticated and knowledgeable than the vast majority of therapists in my area by a long shot. I was already using art as a means of therapeutic self expression so I was excited to try her integrative art therapy approach. Through her professional (?) social media I was able to see that we both liked the same kinds of plants, music, similar political leanings, interest in ecology and environmentalism, and fashion. She’s very beautiful, well read, well spoken and charismatic. Prior to seeing her I had a string of therapists that were utterly useless and couldn’t help me, and I felt like I’d finally found the one. She said some things during our first session that stood out to me. “I’m not here to pass judgement.” Good! But then, “Well, I mean, everyone passes judgment, we’re all human.” I wasn’t sure what to make of that but I just overlooked it. Then she said, unprompted “people just come up to me and tell me about their lives” with a very self congratulatory tone. My immediate thought was that this woman must have some kind of magic touch. Surely she’d help me.
And she did! Somehow during that time I felt significantly better, which baffles me because she also hurt me badly. I spent the next 18 months on a rollercoaster ride with her. She contradicted herself often. She self disclosed needlessly, and seemed to be imposing her worldview. We misunderstood each other to a degree I’ve never experienced with anyone else in my entire life, but I figured I must just be stupid or crazy. She made unprompted statements like “I’m reeeeally good at what I do”, “I’ve had many clients who are extremely wealthy”, and when she heard what my salary is she audibly gasped and said “I pay my babysitters more than that! Oh my god!”. She was exceptionally ignorant on matters of economic class, though she would say otherwise. It was very clear to me through her unprompted self disclosures that she is wealthy, traveled the world several times over since childhood, and only had a very superficial awareness of how the other half lives. All of her statements regarding money made me feel smaller than an ant. I told her that I hope to own a home one day because my partner has the privilege of getting an inheritance someday. When I said a number she flat out said “that’s not feasible.” It actually is, she just couldn’t imagine it. When I spoke of my desire to be a mom all she did was talk about how expensive kids are because they need camp and a good pre school etc. I described to her that I grew up lower class and lack of camp is not what fucked me up (lol) and that lots of kids are still happy and healthy even without rich parents. She got really weird after that, like she didn’t know how to respond. She also said “we started ours at 2 because we value early education” as though people who can’t afford to send their kids to fancy private preschools don’t value early education just as much. It’s just inaccessible to them. I forget the context but she once said about me and my husband “I know you guys are like socialists or whatever, but…” while rolling her eyes, but I’d never once mentioned my political affiliation. During one session, she went on this weird monologue about how “scientists are proving that reality isn’t real” and “reality is different for everyone” when I tried talking about the gaslighting I experienced as a child. It was so bizarre. I asked her if she thought I had BPD and she said no because if I did I’d be using a lot more black and red colors in my art….!!??!??! She had me read The Untethered Soul, which was okay but to truly implement its teachings one would have to have basic financial stability. She acknowledged this but used the example of “a mom with five kids in the Bronx” as the kind of person who wouldn’t get much out of the books contents. I felt like saying “or young people who live right here in our town like me and most of my friends, actually.” I am sure I was her poorest client, just lucky enough to have a government job that provided insurance with OON benefits. Still, the reimbursements came in very slow, and I regularly gave her my very last dime until the next pay day. I relied on her to email me receipts to submit to my insurance company which I needed to remind her to do literally every time.
Now here’s where it gets real bad. I was having issues with my husband so she had us sign waivers so she could talk to his therapist. She told me she wouldn’t be able to tell me the contents of their discussions, which makes perfect sense. Except she did. A lot. And it turned out she exaggerated and possibly outright lied. The advice she gave me always lead to further conflict with my husband. I was confused because what she said his therapist said didn’t match up with what HE said his therapist was saying to him. It got to a point where I was put in a position to have to lie to my husband: either I tell him what his therapist allegedly said about him to my therapist, destroying his trust in him, or I lie. I wasn’t willing to do either of those things.
I decided I’d had enough, so I wrote her an email that was very direct but not unkind in any way. I needed to make her aware that the dynamic she created with my husband and his therapist was harmful, that her remarks about money alienated me, and that I had reminded her a total of three times to send me a receipt for reimbursement and that I should not be responsible for having to remind her again. We had our session the following day, and it left me in tears and feeling crazy. She denied that she broke confidentiality (I have it in a text message so nice try), said “who are you to school me on economics” with a really mean tone, and basically berated me for an hour while I sat there crying. It was INSANE. I never went back. I never reported her.
Since then I haven’t been able to shake it despite working with a wonderful new therapist. I am stuck on how strangely charismatic she was, that I never regretted giving her my last dime even though she made me feel bad, and somehow she also made me feel sort of high? I thought she was so cool, and she seemed to think I was cool. I am sure there was countetransference to a degree. In hindsight there were a lot more red flags. She would talk about “clean eating” and remark that American food is poisoned and gluten is bad etc. all unprompted and out of her scope of practice. She used a lot of new age lingo despite me telling her that didn’t resonate. Made a lot of comments about her own opinions and worldview on various topics. Her social media is very much all her, photos and videos of her, it just seems like she wants to be somebody’s guru. Her history doesn’t line up either - she claims she has 21 years experience as a therapist but told me she’d left the field for a while and worked in fashion for a time, but she’s not old enough for that to add up unless she literally only took a few months hiatus which I guess is possible.
The weird thing is, I spent months thinking she was the best person. I did feel better in terms of my self confidence when it came to expressing myself… but in hindsight it wasn’t her, it was me. I did all that work. Maybe it was the art. But why did I give her so much of what little money I had for so long? Why did I stay on that roller coaster? Put up with her contradictions and unethical behavior? I literally feel like I left a tiny cult.
The contrast between her and my current therapist is wildly stark. My current therapist is refreshingly boring and I know next to nothing about her. She has no public social media presence. She never makes me feel judged or bad about myself, ever. Shes also out of network but SHE submits the receipts to my insurance company FOR ME and waits for them to pay her the full amount…. And I just give her my copay. I didn’t even know an out of network provider could do that. Now therapy is truly accessible to me.
I still don’t know what to make of what happened. Unfortunately I have to see my ex-therapist as she is a frequent patron where I work, and I found out she has a new office literally a block from my home. It’s in a little cottage on the grounds of the Unitarian church I used to belong to and was thinking of going back… welp, not anymore. Ugh.
She fucked with my mind and I am still messed up from it. Her public persona is somehow troubling to me, like it’s fake and she’s trying to reel people in. Something about her “coolness” and palpable overconfidence is very off-putting. Cult leader-like. I’m embarrassed to keep bringing it up to my current therapist because I have so many other BIG issues to work on, and I feel like I should have let this go.

It is one full chapter, but because it is so long, I broke into four parts.
This is a theory for the actual Prologue of The Winds of Winter. Please enjoy. This is Part 4 of 4.
The Winds of Winter
Prologue
[Part 3]
Suddenly a voice roared from above. “This is Ser Forley Prester! Drop your weapons! Drop them!”
Ser Barnabus started to curse as he stood on the ladder halfway. He took a deep breath in disappointment. “Come on Leo, we have work to do.” He ascended.
Leo gave the golden egg to a shocked Lady Mormont and took a step towards the ladder, but he then turned around to Eleyna. He kissed her on the lips. The princess fought back and held Leo’s blond head with both her hands, forcing more of herself onto him. Their tongues danced a secret hidden inside their mouths, taking each other’s breath away over and over again. Olyvar did not think they would ever let go, until Eleyna did, shedding a tear. Leo turned back to the ladder. Ice in his veins and without another word, he began to climb.
Ser Brynden shared a look with Ser Olyvar. “I’m not kissing you!” He began walking towards the ladder as well, with Lord Edmure Tully trailing. He shoved his nephew aside. “Your lady wife is waiting for you on that ship with your child! Protect them! Keep the Tully name alive! Fly away now! That is an order! Take Queen Jeyne Stark to the ship and protect her family too!” The Blackfish conjured a duty that Edmure could not decline. He gave his uncle a sad agreeing nod. While climbing up, the Blackfish then looked at Olyvar. “Ser Frey, guard this ladder!”
Though not giving any direct orders to the Seashell Knight, Ser Raynald Westerling kissed his sisters and mother. They begged him not to go, but Ray flew to the top as well.
Ser Olyvar got up and began to follow, but the crying Queen tugged his cloak. “Olyvar, you promised me.”
“Goodbye Jeyne. I have to do my duty.”
“Just hang on a minute. Listen and promise me Ser Frey. Don’t be a fool. If you are in trouble, don’t try to be brave, just fly, fly away. Find me.”
Olyvar Frey got to his knees again and kissed her forehead. “Okay. Jeyne, my Queen … I’ll be back. I promise.”
“We need to move her to the rowboats,” Alesander Frey suggested. Olyvar hugged his brother, and ordered him to carry Jeyne’s weight to the exit with Lord Edmure’s help. Sybell and Eleyna Westerling held up Jeyne’s thighs as Lady Mormont spearheaded the path with her torchlight in one hand and the golden egg curled on the other.
“You better be right behind us,” Maege commanded.
“I will,” Olyvar hoped.
The new knight approached the base of the wet ladder and began to climb. He reached halfway and stopped to listen above. The thunderstorm roared its fury, and the Blackfish was already speaking.
“What kind of knight threatens a pregnant woman?” Ser Tully voiced his rhetorical question.
“We did not know she was pregnant. She fooled us with her sister. But I am one that follows the orders of his liege lord.”
“You mean the Lannister one that killed his king once? Or the other Frey one that killed his other king too? Or the dead lord who killed Dornish babes? How do the princes of Dorne feel about you cheap-honor Lannisters?”
“You were the ones that rebel against the crown.”
“And it was the Kingslayer that threw Bran Stark out the window in a time of peace! At his own home! Do the Lannisters enjoy killing children and murdering unarmed people at dinner?”
“He is my liege lord.”
“Aye, and you seem like someone who knows his role and shuts his mouth. Do you want to be remembered for the rest of time as the knight that cleans up after his shit? ‘Here lies Ser Forley Prester, the legend that wipes the Goldenhand’s ass,’ will be written on your tomb in gold. Too bad your grave-mark will forget the part where everyday you take his golden-hand, shine it up real nice, turn that piece of metal sideways and shove it up your own candy arse for pleasure!”
The men above laughed as a shriek of thunder rumbled not too far from the Rock.
“You seem like a charming man Ser Brynden, but we are not here to discuss the rights or wrongs of men, knights, lords, kings and princes who are far far away from here.”
“Well here in my garrison I have Ser Olyvar Frey, son to Walder Frey, and a loyalist to his King, Robb Stark. Please ask Ser Olyvar Frey which is right and which is shit?”
Olyvar realized the Blackfish is chatting to buy time for Jeyne to escape.
“Is he a knight now?” A familiar voice that sounded like Edwyn Frey asked. “How did that come to pass?”
“Kill the right people I suppose. And whom do I have the pleasure of speaking to now? What is your name my lord?”
“My name is Ed–“
“IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT YOUR NAME IS!”
Giggles tickled the rainy circular drain above Olyvar.
“And aye, I knighted him myself. And his Queen in the North even made him a new coat of arms to differentiate himself from his disgraceful family,” the Blackfish announced to Edwyn Frey.
“And how would I know what cloak he wears now?” Ser Forley’s voice continued.
“Fastened by Queen Stark herself, it’s the bridge of the twin towers with a river flowing underneath, colored Stark grey and Tully red & blue. But every one of my friends here are all championed by our Queen. Are any of you beloved by a queen?”
Ser Forley tried to counter, “A new sigil of water flowing underneath a bridge? Did he make the water flow himself? Is he a plumber?”
“Aye, he may be a plumber knight, but you got shit for honors.”
“My honor is in tact.”
“Was it in tact when you abandoned your army at the Battle of the Camps? Claiming that you have honor is like claiming turtles can grow wings and fly. My plumber knight has more honor than your shit!”
Ser Forley paused … and then exulted, “Will this plumber be cleaning up my shit later?” Quiet chuckles whispered from the higher balconies.
The Blackfish retaliates, “As long as you acknowledge your honor as shit, he will.”
Loud laughter filled the air, but with Olyvar hiding in the hole of the floor, he could not tell if it was from his brothers, from his foes or both. Alive or facing death, one should know better not to trade japes with the Blackfish.
“Enough!” yelled Ser Forley. “You are clearly out manned down there at this courtyard! At least three of my men to one of yours! AND I have the high ground! So I won’t say it again, drop your weapons and I will let your men live!”
“Do you take me for a motley fool? You just don’t want us to loose back when you shoot your crossbows at us. You Lannisters cannot win in a fair fight against us if we are armed, but you men sure do a good job of killing defenseless people and children. And I will not give you that pleasure!”
“I do not know what you heard, but that is not entirely true.”
“Not entirely true? Do you Lannisters fondle the children first before you kill them? Do you give the children a good sniff before you cook them like Mad Danelle Lothson? Mother have mercy!” Ser Brynden teased.
“Enough! I will let your men live if you drop your weapons! I swear it on my hon-“
“We shit on your honor! Are there no true knights among you lot? You men following this shit knight’s shitty order, do you not have any honor yourselves? To chase after and kill a woman who is in labor? To kill a babe? Our king—”
“OUR CHOSEN KING!” Lord Galbart Glover’s voice thundered in before the Blackfish continued.
“—chose to execute his own kin and bannerman for butchering children … Lannister children! Frey children! But your knight here serves men without honor. Ser Jaime Lannister the Kingslayer! Lord Walder Frey the Guestslayer! Lord Roose Bolton the Turncloak! COWARDS! Men who serves hospitality with bloodshed beneath their roofs and massacre innocents! Will you continue to serve these false knights and false men? Are you not fathers, nor aspire to be fathers some day? Well serve your CHOSEN lord’s bidding and be cursed! A predator of children is no lord of mine!” Ser Brynden Blackfish Tully spat and thunder boomed. “The gods will never forgive that, the slaughter at the Twins, the murder, the treason, the mutiny!”
Ser Forley began to scream louder, “You call it what you want! You’re down there, we’re up here! You came into the wrong damn castle Ser!”
“Stand fast brothers!” Ser Tully alerted.
“Gods damn this, I am telling you this one last time. Order your men to drop their weapons to the deck.”
“So you could parade us as prisoners before executing us? I cannot give that order,” defied the Blackfish.
“I am not going to repeat that order!”
“I WILL NOT GIVE THAT ORDER!” Thunder boomed again.
“WHAT IN SEVEN HELLS IS WRONG WITH YOU? THIS IS USELESS!”
“STAND FAST!”
“ONE LAST TIME! ORDER YOUR MEN TO –“
“Ser Forley!” an unfamiliar voice called. “Queen Stark and her group are spotted. They are escaping on a rowboat at sea below. They appear to be heading west,” the watchman said.
Edwyn Frey’s voice commanded, “Archers, to the western edge! Kill them! Kill them all!!”
“BROTHERS! Kill the watcher first and anyone on that western edge!” the Blackfish thundered in the order.
A quick shoosh was heard above and a cry of pain immediately sounded from the west, as a body thumped and squished onto the lower muddy ground.
And suddenly the air was filled with it, as the thunderstorm raged on.
Shoosh shoosh shooosh shooosh shoosh ahhhhhh ahhhhh shoooosh ahhhh shooooshhh shoosh boom doom boom doom boom doom shooosh shooosh ahhhhhhh boom doom boom!
The heavens exploded from above, illuminating Olyvar’s drain instant after instant. Men were heard screaming and dying in agony. Whether or not it was his brothers or his foes, Olyvar couldn’t tell. He caught a glimpse of three bolts speeding above his small hole in different directions, and knew there were a hundred more he could not see. The enemy has the high-ground, Olyvar remembered, all my brothers are probably dying. He was unsure whether to descend down or ascend up the ladder into the chaos. He started to tear up, the cold rain still soaking his face as lightning continued to flashed and thundered through the pit above him.
“GOOSE!!!” Leo’s voice screamed. No!
“LEO TAKE COVER!”
“KEEP LOOSING BRO—AHHHHH!”
“FATHER!!”
“BROTHER, NO!!”
“TO THE WEST! LOOSE! LOOSE! LOOSE! PROTECT YOUR QUEEN!!!”
“I’M GOING TO KILL YOU ALL YOU MOTHERF*CKERS!!!”
Men were still crying up there, along with the bass of the approaching storm, blending with the streak of arrows and bolts hitting stone, mud and flesh. Still clung to his ladder, Olyvar looked down cowardly as a teardrop fell off his face. It landed on Alesander.
“You fool, what are you doing here? You left the rowboat?”
“I came back to fight.”
“You are no fighter, you are a singer. Leave here. Escape into the tunnels and save yourself my brother.”
He hesitated to answer, his own tears trickling down. “Aye, I will. And when I leave here, I’ll sing about what has happened today, what is still happening above us.” The screams were not stopping. Bolts, arrows and curses could still be heard flying above. Alesander moved towards a fissure in the cavern wall, spying to the west. “The Queen should be far out of harm’s way. The winds are kind, and the bolts are missing its mark away from the LionsJape.” He walked back to him. “Come with me Olyvar if you want to live.”
“Soon. But not yet. I need to hold this ladder. Leave my brother. Sing about this and immortalize our sacrifice.”
“Don’t go.” He grabbed Olyvar’s leg.
“Just let go of me!” Olyvar winched free.
“If you can escape, escape. I’ll fly away now. Farewell my honorable brother.”
“Wait!” Olyvar almost forgot. “Do you know what it is?”
His brother smiled a smile that Olyvar will never forget. “We have a Stark princess.” His footsteps faded into echoes as Alesander descended into the darkness of the tunnels.
But Olyvar began the climb in his. The hole above was gaping wider with each slow step up, ready to swallow him whole. Olyvar trembled. Besides the flashes of lightning, he could not see what was going on, but he could feel it in the air. He can taste the rain from above. He can hear the music of defiance to House Lannister, the sounds of arrows and loud screams drowning into silence. He can even smell it too. The smell of the Rock cooked with the salt of the sea, the iron of his brothers’ blood, the piss & stool of honorable dead men, staining & stinking the courtyard of Tywin Lannister’s home, leaving Casterly Rock an empire of shit.
He stood on the one rung that exposed his head just above the ground. Bodies. Brothers’ bodies and bolts everywhere. Rain and blood soak the mud, and fading cries of pain filled his ears. He saw the Queen’s uncle and master schemer of this plan, Ser Rolph Spicer, had a bolt in his eye as he died by the kitchen doors. The Seashell Knight was lifeless with his face first in the middle of the mud near Olyvar’s pit. Donal with bolts to his shoulder, stomach, and legs was on one knee shouting & cursing as he continued to loose arrows from three quivers as his brothers Raff & Mikkal laid dead beside him. Lord Glover had two bolts in him and took another in the chest. He paced backwards and fell over the parapet into the sea. A bolt was stuck on Goose’s neck, as he and Leo rested motionless together at the foot of a column, sharing a single bolt that shot through their hearts. The shield that Leo had held up was decorated with a dozen bolts, but it was too late for the other ones that got through.
Olyvar’s soul ached in agony, the clutch of his hand shaking as he clung onto the ladder. A small pile of feathered Lannister men had fallen from the western balcony and onto the courtyard. But he could not feel the victory in it … not now, nor not yet, perhaps never. The rest of his brothers Olyvar could not see from his ladder, but he spotted a few arrows still loosing up to the second floor behind cover, still fighting back. It is so few. Many more bolts were still shooting down from the top. Crossbowmen hid as they reloaded, popping up to release before ducking again.
He spotted Ser Brynden Tully the Blackfish crawling towards him, needled like a red porcupine blowfish. “Olyvar!” He hooted bluntly. “Why are you still here?” Olyvar’s heart quenched at the sight of the blood of Riverrun; his pink life flowing in a thin river and draining out towards his ladder. The water-downed blood reached Olyvar’s fingers. He wanted to help but did not know how, nor know the words. He offered his hand and Ser Tully held it. “Did she make it out to sea?”
“Yes Ser, she should be safe,” Olyvar prayed.
“So, do we have a prince or a princess? Or one of each? Heh!”
“Do not get greedy Ser,” Olyvar jested. “We have a she-wolf.”
The Blackfish smiled a hard smile with blood filling his mouth. “Good, they should be safer this way. And I hope she takes after her fierce grandmother.”
“Which one? Lady Catelyn Tully?”
“Of course heh. That would be a great granddaughter name for our storm-born she-pup … Catelyn,” the Blackfish joked.
Olyvar smiled while Ser Tully reciprocated a red one. “I like the name Adara.”
“Adara? That sounds like a wonderful name. Where did that come from?” Ser Tully asked, tearing and bleeding.
“It was Captain Samullu’s mother’s name.”
“Aye, that is a terrific name. Princess Adara Stark. Tell that to our Queen Jeyne that I concur to the name choice, pass that final message of mine. Now fly along Ser Olyvar, escape here, reunite with your Queen and protect your family. There is nothing left to do here but die, so fly! Let the divine swift winds of winter push Adara to safety. You have King Robb’s spirit within you. The babe does not have a father nor Grey Wind, so you must keep her safe.”
“We are all her fathers,” Olyvar declared.
The Blackfish grinned, knowing Olyvar probably out teased him in his final moments. “No … a band of fathers brothers? That would make us a band of uncles.” He chuckled bloodily.
Olyvar laughed and teared a drop. “That was a very clever. Just don’t tell Lady Mormont.”
“Don’t worry fellow Uncle, I won’t.”
“It has been an honor fighting by your side, Ser Uncle Brynden Tully, the great Blackfish.”
“It has been an honor living by yours, Ser Uncle Plumber Knight,” the legend replied.
He watched the knight’s life wash away, his last breath tasting the rains of Casterly Rock. The legendary Ser Brynden’s last words were for me. Wells flooded in Olyvar’s eyes, beginning to blind. He lets go of his hands.
He takes a few steps down the ladder, and then suddenly stops. What honor is this? Leaving my brothers and my commander like this? Am I a little cowardly rat of a ratty family, hiding in a tunnel? Or am I a brave knight?
The thunder and rain continued, but the arrows have stopped. Nothing but silence, only stares if Olyvar had to guess. His brothers were all dead. I need to get up. One step up and he suddenly stopped again. No, I need to escape and protect my Queen, does that make me a coward?
He checked his pocket and made sure his letter to his father sat below his heart. It was still there. Olyvar’s grip on the rung was firm and quivering.
To flee or not to flee? That is the riddle.
“Soldiers! To the lower floor! Grab their bows and quivers. Get down that ladder, find a boat, chase Queen Stark and kill them! Kill them all!” Edwyn Frey’s voice ordered.
Well, that made answering the riddle a lot easier.
Ser Olyvar Frey ascended from the pit of his ladder, his arms pulling, legs pushing, up and up into the chaos. The thunderstorm loomed above as his soul was escaping into the hole that was gaping wider with every step. He was ready.
At the ground level, he stood up. Cold rain and warm tears danced down his face, his cloak whipping in the air to the winds, his heart and fists began to fill with fiery rage. From up here, he can see the full horror of the slaughter. Brothers with bolts. Was this the same scene of my King’s death? Before he could ponder any further, he unsheathed Honor from his back, the sword was singing off its scabbard just as a bolt of lightning ripped across the sky … its twin mirrored off the steel’s reflection, the blade alive with blinding light for an instant.
Ser Olyvar counted the ill-fitted armored and shield-less men as they came pouring out from the kitchen doors at his level. Two, three, four, five, six … seven. Thin white stripes splits the sky. His heart was thumping and rumbling to the same beat of the thunderstorm that was mumbling in every distance.
I’m going to fight them all, no soldier in any Seven Kingdom army can hold me back!
The distance between the first unarmed man closed. His shocked face eyed Ser Olyvar’s new twin tower sigil on his cloak. Confused, he began to slow down, but Olyvar sped up. He greeted him with a deep slash, ripping him off as the skies flashed again. He darted forward to the next man, allowing the first one to take his time dying behind his back.
The second reached for his sword but was too slow to the draw. Honor found the front of the pink man’s chest and the rear of his back. For a heartbeat, the bloody front half of the exposed steel glowed damped red, while the clean side sparkled in purple. Olyvar pulled back his sword after a twist, and the soldier dropped to his knees to the boom of thunder.
The third drew his sword halfway before Olyvar swung at his head as his steel electrified, emitting blinding light to his eyes. He smelled Honor up close with his nose, as a gash ran from ear to ear while teeth and tongue exploded in the air. Olyvar paid him no more mind.
The fourth with panicked eyes was just a boy. He successfully drew his weapon from his belt and lifted above his head a short wooden stick. A flute? He stared up at his own wind pipe as his sword rested in his scabbard untouched. Between his legs, his breeches began to darken more with moisture, as the rest of his body was frozen like ice. A fLuke? It doesn’t matter. The Plumber Knight began to raise Honor high. The boy cried out, “Mother have mer—“.
“No,” Olyvar cuts him off, his voice was cold as stones. “I am not your mother.” Honor fell in a bright silvery-blue arc as the force of the blade severs the soldier’s right stick-bearing wrist, and splits the skull & brains underneath. Ser Olyvar Frey kicked off the mayhaps-fourth-corpse as its limp body slid from his red wet steel.
The fifth one was ready with his sword, as the sixth and seventh began pincering around Ser Olyvar with theirs. The rain began pouring heavily, cleansing the blood and brains off Honor, ready to shine again.
Olyvar’s wits returned from his blind rage, and began backing up calmly before they could surround him. The rear of his heel tapped a fallen shield that once belong to one of his brothers. Olyvar grabbed it instinctively and raised it up. “Come on you apes! Do you want to live forever? Come at me then!” No one came forward to answer the riddle, so Ser Olyvar went to them.
He charged at the one on his right as Honor slashed and flashed, but the soldier jolted backwards avoiding the swing. The shifty swordsman slipped on the surface with his hop and fell face-first into the mud. The other two took their chances when Olyvar swung and missed. He caught the cut of the left soldier on his shield, as the middle fighter aimed high. To the ground, the knight ducked under, saving his head. The middle slugger lost his balance at his empty decapitating slice, and a crouching Olyvar stroke savagely at his knees in a splash of red and bright purple. He fell face-first too, as the other soldier on his left began hacking at the wooden shield that Olly held up. Doonk! Doonk! Doonk! Before his challenger could swing a fifth time, Olyvar Frey on one knee whirled the apex of his shield viciously at the man’s wrist and sent the sword flying from his hand. Without hesitation, the Plumber Knight stabbed upwards from crotch to brains as the steel surprised the man with shock. Olyvar stares into the white of his eyes as they reflected a flash of lightning. The eyeballs then slowly rolled up into the back of his head. He unsheathed Honor downward from the dead man, as blood and shit fell like loose stool to the ground.
The other fighter with no knees rolled around to face up before he could drown in the mud. He was crying and screaming on the ground. “Nooooo!” But the Plumber Knight jumped on him without mercy. He tried to dart and evade, but forgot he had no knees to push from. Olyvar’s feet stomped the man’s stomach as he thunder-slammed the edge of his shield to kiss his opponent’s mouth, silencing him forever.
The first armed man that dodged his death finally got up from his struggles with the slippery ground, only to meet at it again. Soaking in mud, he began to bull-rush Olyvar, trying to stab or slash an opening with his sword. Olyvar dashed towards him in squishing strides, and took his charging strike at his Brother’s shield as he stepped aside. The former squire of Robb Stark, Olly, instantly planted his foot and twirled. His Queen’s wet cloak spun and smacked his opponent’s head. Suddenly the Plumber Knight had the enemy’s rear and naked. He lifted his King’s sword up, pointing down with both his hands on the grip. Ser Olyvar and thunder roared together as Honor brightly stabbed from above into the mudman’s back with the flash and fury of the gods. “AHHHHHHHHH!!!”
He lifted his sword back up as the seventh corpse fell to the ground, face-first again. Suddenly a mosquito buzzed from behind his ear and a short wooden stick skidded off the flat stone-path in front of him. He then felt a bite in his back, lost a breath and saw another wooden rod. But this one was lodged in his right breast. Red blood slowly began to seep from his black scaled boiled-leather armor as he grunted in pain. He reached for the stick trying to push it backwards from where it came from. Quickly he felt the pain again as he saw another bolt stab the front of his stomach while his Brother’s shield slid off from this left forearm. The third one struck the side of his left thigh, sending Ser Olyvar to the ground on one knee. He braced on his King’s sword to keep him from falling flat.
“Cease fire! Cease fire!” Ser Forley Prester ordered.
Cold rain danced on his face with the warm tears he tried to hide, his cape was flapping in the wind, and his heart was thumping quicker in unison to the beat & the flash of the storm. Ser Olyvar Frey, you honorable fool, why did you rush in? You can’t help yourself falling in love with bloody vengeance for your fallen brothers and King? For an instant, lightning popped again above the Rock and thunder rolled. You should have taken your time killing them as they descended down your pit, instead of you going up the ladder to their chaos. Frey blood, -no … blood of Roses By another name welled from the bolts that had punched him. He had known nothing half gallant and half stupid at the same time for what he just did. Or at least you could have flown away, such a fool! You should of just beat it. No one wanted to be defeated like this. Why did you have to show off how funky strong your fighting skills were? At this point, it doesn’t matter who’s wrong or who’s right … you should of just beat it!
Ser Forley Prester spoke from his balcony above. “You must be the Plumber Knight that the Blackfish talked about, judging by the sigil on your cape. A traitor to your own family. But for the honor of your lord grandfather, let us pass and I will let the maester do his job to save you. Or would it please you Ser, if you wanted some more bolts?”
More? Olyvar twisted his mouth in defying silence, his gruesome wounds spitting out blood. He had a job that he promised to do. He must rescue his pregnant Queen. Little did he know, he had to rescue a princess from this castle too. We all died for Robb’s little girl, there was no more to ask of them. Did these uncles succeed for her safety? He turned around to the west to see as far as his eyes could see into the sun setting sea. Her boat was far enough from any archers, and soon it would be too dark for a chase. The thought brought him joy. Thank the gods for this swift divine wind. We did our duty.
Impatient for a reply, the shit knight said, “I will not ask again. Knight to knight. Let us pass. We need to take back the Queen and her unborn son. I will bring them no harm, you have my word. Drop your sword, bend the knee like you mean it, let us pass … and I will tell Lord Walder Frey what an honorable warrior and a great grandson you are.”
That offer was a lie, a conjurer’s cheap trick. They would just humiliate and shame him before executing him for treason. That was not the song he wanted, not for his despicable old father. Olyvar would rather die sword in hand to the tune of another. He wanted Alesander’s song about the Motherfunker, Ser Brynden “Blackfish” Tully, his real brothers and the band of uncles. And he had one last shot, one last opportunity, to seize everything he ever wanted here. In this one moment, can I still capture it? Or will I let it slip? His palms were bloody, knees weak, arms were heavy … but the Queen and Princess are safe. Mother’s mercy. He was nervous, but on the surface, he looks calm and ready to drop bombs. But he had forgotten what he wrote down in his father’s letter, as the crowds above goes so loud. He opens his mouth but the words won’t come out. He is choking. How? Everyone was joking now.
“Your luck has run out. The time’s up, it is over SER Olyvar. Bow.”
No. I refuse to BOW Ser. And I cannot die yet. There is something I still need to do. Both hands on hilt and pommel, he pushes himself up with Honor, surrounded by the doom above. He can feel his life leaving him. The skies blurred between light and dark, white and grey, with the black slowly creeping in.
“It’s a girl,” Uncle Olyvar said gently as he thought about his princess niece. The Plumber Knight then roared a roar that would put any craven into tears. “AND NO! YOU SHALL NOT PASS!” Honor rose and fell, the pointy end of his King’s sword squishing the blood soaked mud and crunching the rocks underneath.
KABOOOOOOOMMMM!!!
Instantly, lightning and thunder erupted above them at the loudest exploding caliber of the evenfall, blinding the sights of men and gods alike.
Uhoooooooooo! boom doom boom doom boom doom
Suddenly drums were beating, and trumpets were blasting from the east. Lord Gawen Westerling’s diversion! But they’ve come too late to rescue Olyvar and his brothers. The enemy did not divert to their last jape yet … their silent scared eyes still on the dying Plumber Knight. They began to reload their crossbows. This is my moment. The things I do for love, but I’m sorry Jeyne, I can’t do that. I can no longer keep my promise. Robb was waiting and I can finally rest again. We three will meet again together some day, but not today, he thought*.*
The band of drums, trumpets and thunderstorm blended into a sweet sad song that Olyvar wanted. This music is for me, and I will lose myself in it.
Charging up his final energy into his wounded lungs, he began to scream again.
“OUR QUEEN— ” A howl of blood cuts him off from finishing what he meant to say … our Family is safe.
“OUR KING—” A pool of iron filled and choked him before he could declare … we have done our Duty.
Still standing, he dips his chin low to empty his mouth, coughing out his mother’s Rosby blood. He needs to say his final words loud and clear. After the last spoon of blood poured down, he snapped his chin up towards the heavens and reality … ready for the gravity. With all the weight of his life, he pressed his King’s sword deeper into the Rock as the Plumber Knight thundered a roar, “OUR HONORRRRR!!!”
From below, Ser Olyvar of the disgraced House Frey faced off to the sad conflicted look of Ser Forley Prester with his garrison of archers beside him. The darkest gloom of the grey stormclouds had arrived and hovered above them, wet and heavy. The gods want their vengeance for the Red Wedding, he thought. The skies of Casterly Rock began to blacken with the rain of bolts and arrows. The only thing that could be seen is the single golden teardrop of the shit knight, reflected by the last light of the setting western sun.
BOOM!
THANK YOU FOR READING.

The Situation outside the Gates about Family

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

Entering the Gates

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

Yangshan

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

Zhaozhou

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

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

Huineng

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

Mingben

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

Ascending the Seat

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hi guys, this one might be long so I am going to summarize this the best I can. For privacy reasons, I am not stating the age, gender, or names to anyone involved. The main person I will talk about will be called X. I have known X since high school and we became close after graduating. We both have a mutual friend named Y, I hang out with Y more only because we had more classes together in HS and kept in contact more after graduating.
X has been a good friend, but there have been times where X will get mad over stuff and won’t confront the party involved, leaving me stuck in the middle to deal with it. I finished up my last semester of my masters program this May and had a party. X was there (Y had work that day), and ended up talking to a relative of mine. Context: this is not a blood realtive but close family friend over 15 years. X asked where they were from, i messed up the countries and X said “they lied to me, not surprised they are all liars”. I was really shocked by this and called them out saying 1. They met my relative for 2 minutes and I was the one who messed up 2. They made assumptions for no reason.
I was fuming the rest of the weekend, and it ended up seeping into my graduation. I ended up coming home the day before Y’s graduation (X was going to be there). I wasnt sure if I was going to go because of how far it was, Y offered to drive us there. I decided not to tell X that I would be there because I knew that I was still angry at them and my mood would ruin their graduation, I didnt want that. After graduation, Y and I went to get food and called it a night, I ended up posting a congrats post for Y on social media, which prompted X to get mad and text our gc saying that they were leaving social media.
When i asked what was wrong, X got really bad at me and said that they felt left out and that they wanted to hang out with me. I literally explained that I was still hurt with what they said about my relative and I didnt want my mood to ruine graduation. Long story short, they tried to apologize (in person), and I tried to invite them to a trivia night at a bar with my friend. They said no, and I asked if they were sure, they said yes. I also explained in person (the third time I explained), that I didn't want to go to their graduation for obvi reasons.
I thought everything was cleared up, but X sent a message around 10 a.m. yesterday asking if there was anything they could do to fix our relationship and that they wanted us to be friends again. They also talkd to Y and said how they flt left out of trivia night the other night because it was just us (this made me fume because i literally invited them). They were also really upset about us not seeing them at graduation (literally explained this to them).
I feel like im at a standstill with all of this. I don’t know what to do. We were close at one point, but what they said about my relative really hurt me. Im not sure if this is anxious attachment or not. Thank you for hearing me out.,

I (27F) have dated that guy who’s almost 32 now if I’m not mistaken (omg time flies) back when I was 17-18 (yes I wasn’t legal hen we first met but whatever), we met online and from there we started to hook up regularly. I inevitably ended up catching feelings for him. I asked him to be my bf which he declined quite harshly. I was hurt, so I just came back to the app I was using at the time and eventually found another guy (19M at the time being) I dated for one year and half. Ironically (or not), he deeply regretted saying no and kept pursuing me the whole time I was with the other one. Once he even came to sit down at the table where that guy and I were having a meal, alpha style lol. Truth is, I wasn’t over him either so I ended up cheating on the guy with him (bad, I know). We broke up a few weeks after and my now official bf and I started to date. There’s been an incident at the very beginning of that new relationship, where I found out he was texting random male strangers, way older than him, to jerk off with via Skype… I confronted him it, I remember trying to be as comprehensive and not shameful as possible even though I was very confused. He brushed it off, probably ashamed about the nature of those interactions. But I did the most damage in the relationship, I must admit. My very first boyfriend wasn’t loyal nor considerate towards me so I eventually coped by doing the same afterwards, and trust me I truly regret all the pain it has caused to my then bfs. I guess I just wanted to quit but couldn’t find the words nor the courage to so I sabotaged it in whole. I remember the last time we saw each other before officially breaking up he was begging for me to stay even though I did him so wrong. I was embarrassed, almost pissed off and in the moment I acted very cold. So it ended. We stayed officially together two years and half, he’s been my longest relationship. He kept wishing me my birthday as well as a Happy New Year for a long time after we got apart, but it never went further than these small interactions. He only stopped about two years ago (I had to check, I’m actually shocked it lasted for even longer than I thought) and I assumed he met someone, I felt kinda relieved somehow. In the meanwhile I’ve grown, I’ve learned and I met my wonderful bf (23M). I love him so much; that’s the first time I experiment a relationship where’s there’s absolutely no redflags and where I actually see my future with my loved one. We communicate very well and we have each other’s back 100%. Back to that guy, while I was just waking up this morning I’ve received a FB notification saying he’s been identified in a picture (I hardly use FB anymore and I never bothered cleaning my FB list which is freaking huge, I’m too lazy for that). That ex in particular has never been into socials nor pictures, so out of curiosity I clicked on it. And that’s how I had the visual confirmation he had someone. I wasn’t expecting that reaction from me, never thought it would move me the way it did but it did. I mean it’s been a long while since we both moved on, yet it made me think about all of what I’ve talked previously, going through some type of deep introspection. It’s hard to describe how I feel… I’m genuinely happy for him, I am too although I can’t help but feeling a bit sad. I regret that his family, especially his sisters, got in the way (he has an engineering background and after art studies I decided to do modelling full time so it has been fairly common in my relationships that the entourage made assumptions based on stupid stereotypes). It affected my self esteem so much and I resented him for never standing up for me while we were together, before all went down from my part. He told me he did tell them to shut up after we broke up though, and it’s even more triggering to me. Right now I see my mistakes, I know what went wrong and I regret that I hurt him, even though I have no desire to get back to him, neither do I have feelings for him. I think it’s just nostalgia speaking… I feel kinda guilty though, my bf will see I’m feeling blue so I’ll have to tell him, I tell him everything. But I’m scared it’s gonna sting. I love him I don’t want to hurt his feelings :(
Sum up : I saw a picture of my ex high school bf and his gf and it’s making me nostalgic

I love reading these so wanted to contribute my own! I did not do super accurate tracking and I'm definitely missing all the misc costs (plus all the things I purchased and missed the return period on), but this should be the main costs. I wanted to stay between $25k - $30k and was pretty successful! First, a few detail shots and a summary of some of the things that went wrong with the day lol: Pictures!
The reason there are so few detail shots is because of RAIN and also a bit of poor planning/lateness. :( I had been looking at the forecast starting 10 days out, and there was no rain in the forecast - even when I looked at the forecast the morning of!! But of course, isn't it ~ironic~ (I know, it is not irony, but the song fits very well here) that it would start raining just 1 hour before the ceremony. Luckily we were able to get all our bridal/party/family pics done before it started raining, but we had to quickly pivot from our planned outdoor ceremony to a ceremony in the reception space. This, combined with the transportation of all our decorations being a bit late, meant that we were scrambling a bit right before the ceremony to move/set up everything and having all the guests then occupy the reception space so our photographer couldn't get too many detail shots. Also, we didn't have our photographer for getting ready pics so we couldn't really get pictures of my shoes and jewelry, his watch and accessories, etc since we were already wearing them. Overall not a big deal because honestly I'm not too concerned with photos and am more than satisfied with having photos of the people/event.
We had a total of 90 confirmed guests + 3 vendors, but 5 guests no showed on the day.
Now to costs - Mostly approximate, but comes out to somewhere around $26,000ish?
Venue fee: $4000. This included access to the venue from 1pm - 11pm (with 4 hours being for setup/photos, 5 hours of event time, and 1 hour for cleanup), all staff, tables, chairs, linens, and tableware. The venue is a restaurant that also hosts a lot of weddings which I loved because that meant everything was in-house and the staff are very experienced.
Food: $6,182.70. This included 3 appetizers for cocktail hour and an appetizer, salad, 3 sides, two mains (chicken + salmon), and 2 vegan entrees for the 2 vegans in attendance for dinner. This price includes 20% gratuity. I spent probably around $150 for dessert? I purchased a half sheet cake, 4 vegan cupcakes, and 1 gluten-free pound cake from a local bakery, and I baked a 9-inch round cake for cutting and two 9x13 cakes.
Beverages: $558 for non-alcoholic drinks (coffee, iced tea, lemonade, pink lemonade, and sodas). $2200 for open bar. Both prices include 20% gratuity, although I tipped an extra $100 on the bar tab because I was surprised it was so low lol. This was another benefit of having it in a restaurant because they had a full bar and a menu of signature drinks as well.
Florals: ~$800. I bought the pastels DIY package from Flower Moxie with a few additional a la carte flowers and also bought 100 stems from a local flower farm. This was enough for a bridal bouquet, 5 bridesmaid bouquets, 9 boutonnieres, ad 85 bud vases. Honestly I could have done even more with the flowers since I had soooo many extra flowers at the end, but story time: The flowers from Flower Moxie were supposed to arrive the Wednesday before our Saturday wedding. The plan was flower prep on Wednesday then arranging on Thursday. Well, about half of the flowers arrived on Wednesday as planned, but the other half didn't arrive until Friday at 11am due to shipping issues. Therefore we weren't able to make the bouquets until Friday, where we didn't have much time because our rehearsal was 12-1 (11:30 - 1:30 due to travel time) and our rehearsal dinner was at 7 (had to leave at 6:30 at the latest, plus needing time to get ready). This + flower arranging with sad stems since they only had ~1.5 hours to hydrate meant that we didn't have time to do anything but the absolutely necessary items. We could have made bigger bouquets, corsages, added more to the bud vases, etc. Our florals still turned out beautiful but I'm just bummed we wasted so many beautiful flowers :( (especially because we left on our honeymoon on the Wednesday following the wedding, so we composted all the extras). Even though this added extra work before the wedding, I'm glad we cut costs here.
Other decor: ~$250 for 85 bud vases, ~$200 for faux floral ground arch, $80 for votives, $200 for big mirror welcome sign.
Photographer: $2,350 for 7 hours and engagement session
DJ: $1,300 for 5 hours
Day of Coordinator: $800
Stationary: Approx. $150 for a printer, $50 paper + extra ink, $10 for invite template from Etsy, $30 for an address stamp, and $80 for postage. With this I was able to print 50 save the dates, 50 invitations, 100 programs, guest book sign, favors sign, and seating chart. I'm super glad I went the DIY route - I love how everything turned out and I needed a printer any way so it works out. The prints came out very high quality. I designed everything except the invites in Canva.
Favors: $312.50 for 125 customized chopsticks. These were a hit - even though we only had 90 guests, we only ended up with 15 extras that were the ones that I left at home because they didn't fit in the box lol. If I brought all of them, they might all have been taken.
Attire: $1,500 for ceremony dress + alterations, $40 for veil, $620 for reception dress + alterations, $250 for ceremony + reception shoes. $180 for groom's suit + alterations, ~$100 for shirt + tie + belt + socks + shoes.
Photobooth: Also DIYed this using the booth.events app. I already had an iPad, so I bought a ring light, backdrop, and Canon Selphy printer for prints. Booth.events lets you design your template. The printer prints 4x6 photos so I had a paper cutter out that let guests cut it into two photo strips. All in all probably ~$280 for everything, not including the things I already had. The photobooth was a big hit with the guests - it was used over 50 times, and all the pictures were saved on my iPad + on an online gallery for the guests. And now I have a photobooth set up I can whip out at other events!!
Guest book: Bought a cute vintage guest book off Etsy for $20 and I already had 2 instax cameras. Spent $40 for extra film which wasn't all used. I highly recommend doing a photo guest book, I got teary looking through all the pictures of the guests along with their sweet messages. I wish all the guests signed, some missed it.
Other costs: ~$900 for two nights in a bridal suite, $600 for wedding party attire, $500 for wedding party gifts, $140 for transportation.
I know I'm missing a lot but I think this is most of it. Overall everything turned out wonderfully even with the rain! I personally found the DIY stuff worth it and I enjoyed doing those things. I have more to say but at this point I've become a bit ramble-y so I'll just stop here! :p

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

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

I’m 17 years old and most of you are probably gonna all tell me the same thing or say it’s all apart of the teenage experience, which is probably true but fuck it sucks. I dated my ex on and off for 2 years, he never really knew what he wanted but closer to the end of March this year I decided to completely stop talking to him because I was just over the entire thing. A couple days later I met this other guy on an app where you can get in touch with other people your age and in your area, we’ll call this boy EP. He messaged me on the app first and we just had small talk before we followed each other on social media but after that he didn’t really message me or replied to my messages, he would reply to certain things I posted sometimes and I didn’t hide that I was interested in him because I would heart things that he posted often. But I didn’t try too hard because he wasn’t really giving the same energy back. About two weeks after all of this he messaged me randomly one night while it was late and he asked me what I was up to, I was cleaning and watching a movie at the time, he asked if he can come watch the movie with me, I took it as a joke at first and made a jokingly response but he told me he was serious and he was ready to be on his way as long as I said it was ok. I was a bit skeptical but I ended up letting him come over. We talked for a bit but we ended up having sex.
This is definitely something I ended up regretting and I’m not very proud of it and to make matters worse no protection was involved. Before he left he kissed me goodbye and told me he would text me later but he never really did. A few days later he replied to a story I posted and ignored me when I mentioned him ghosting me. It made me upset and I felt disgusting for a while but I didn’t make attempts to reach out or talk to him. I left it alone. That was until I started feeling sick almost everyday, I was way more tired than usual during the days and I realized that I hadn’t gotten my period like I was supposed to. I brought a pregnancy test and I took it with my friend and my school social worker and it came back positive. I tried to tell him the next day but he ignored me so I had my friend message him whom he replied to fast and she told him. He was denying it at first and was confused and asked what girl was she talking about, when she said it was me he kind of denied the possibility of it being him because he claimed he didn’t finish inside of me. I knew for certain it was by him because he was the first and only person I’ve slept with in 7 months. He ended up blocking my friend as she was texting him and he blocked my phone number but not on social media, he never blocked or removed me he just muted me. After that and I seen the way he reacted and knowing that I would more than likely be on my own with the kid if I were to have it I decided to tell my mom everything so she can schedule me an appointment for an abortion. She was upset but eventually she just became supportive through the entire process. My friend has another friend who used to go to school with ep and she had her talk to me and she basically told me that he’s a complete player and he does what he did to me all the time to other girls and she encouraged me to go through with the abortion. Shortly before I messaged him from a text now number and just went off on him and expressed my anger, he never replied back he probably didn’t even care but hey.
After all of that was taken care of I just fell into a depression and I’m still currently in. I know it’s my fault and I got myself into this mess on my own, and the crazy part about it all is that I haven’t cried not once, but I still feel hurt and dead on this inside, i decided to delete social media today because I find myself stalking his accounts too often. I even found his ex girlfriends pages, apparently they still talk and mess around with each other but on her social media she is very open about the relationship they had/have and she talked about how he cheated on he more than once, one time it was with one of her friends. There was just a lot she posted and it just appears that he’s just not a good guy but she has a harsh attachment to him which I understand, anyone’s who’s been in a toxic relationship before understands. I just found myself feeling bad for her but I don’t know her and she doesn’t know me so I didn’t make it my business too much.
But other than that I’ve just not been doing the best mentally and emotionally, I think about him too much, I’m tired of feeling this way, I feel like I don’t even have a valid right to feel the way I do about him because me and him never bonded emotionally or got to know each other. We have no type of emotional attachment but I do feel like my heart is broken and it has everything to do with him and what happened, I feel super delusional and crazy and I probably am. I made myself too vulnerable and easy and he took advantage of me during a weak moment in my life. I’m just taking it one day at a time now and being patient with myself and trying to focus on the next steps of my life since I just graduated high school. I have no interest or desire to talk to any boys anymore. Part of me still hopes that one day EP would reach out to me and give it a shot but I that’s probably unrealistic. I know I’ll get over it eventually.

I’m 17 years old and most of you are probably gonna all tell me the same thing or say it’s all apart of the teenage experience, which is probably true but fuck it sucks. I dated my ex on and off for 2 years, he never really knew what he wanted but closer to the end of March this year I decided to completely stop talking to him because I was just over the entire thing. A couple days later I met this other guy on an app where you can get in touch with other people your age and in your area, we’ll call this boy EP. He messaged me on the app first and we just had small talk before we followed each other on social media but after that he didn’t really message me or replied to my messages, he would reply to certain things I posted sometimes and I didn’t hide that I was interested in him because I would heart things that he posted often. But I didn’t try too hard because he wasn’t really giving the same energy back. About two weeks after all of this he messaged me randomly one night while it was late and he asked me what I was up to, I was cleaning and watching a movie at the time, he asked if he can come watch the movie with me, I took it as a joke at first and made a jokingly response but he told me he was serious and he was ready to be on his way as long as I said it was ok. I was a bit skeptical but I ended up letting him come over. We talked for a bit but we ended up having sex.
This is definitely something I ended up regretting and I’m not very proud of it and to make matters worse no protection was involved. Before he left he kissed me goodbye and told me he would text me later but he never really did. A few days later he replied to a story I posted and ignored me when I mentioned him ghosting me. It made me upset and I felt disgusting for a while but I didn’t make attempts to reach out or talk to him. I left it alone. That was until I started feeling sick almost everyday, I was way more tired than usual during the days and I realized that I hadn’t gotten my period like I was supposed to. I brought a pregnancy test and I took it with my friend and my school social worker and it came back positive. I tried to tell him the next day but he ignored me so I had my friend message him whom he replied to fast and she told him. He was denying it at first and was confused and asked what girl was she talking about, when she said it was me he kind of denied the possibility of it being him because he claimed he didn’t finish inside of me. I knew for certain it was by him because he was the first and only person I’ve slept with in 7 months. He ended up blocking my friend as she was texting him and he blocked my phone number but not on social media, he never blocked or removed me he just muted me. After that and I seen the way he reacted and knowing that I would more than likely be on my own with the kid if I were to have it I decided to tell my mom everything so she can schedule me an appointment for an abortion. She was upset but eventually she just became supportive through the entire process. My friend has another friend who used to go to school with ep and she had her talk to me and she basically told me that he’s a complete player and he does what he did to me all the time to other girls and she encouraged me to go through with the abortion. Shortly before I messaged him from a text now number and just went off on him and expressed my anger, he never replied back he probably didn’t even care but hey.
After all of that was taken care of I just fell into a depression and I’m still currently in. I know it’s my fault and I got myself into this mess on my own, and the crazy part about it all is that I haven’t cried not once, but I still feel hurt and dead on this inside, i decided to delete social media today because I find myself stalking his accounts too often. I even found his ex girlfriends pages, apparently they still talk and mess around with each other but on her social media she is very open about the relationship they had/have and she talked about how he cheated on he more than once, one time it was with one of her friends. There was just a lot she posted and it just appears that he’s just not a good guy but she has a harsh attachment to him which I understand, anyone’s who’s been in a toxic relationship before understands. I just found myself feeling bad for her but I don’t know her and she doesn’t know me so I didn’t make it my business too much.
But other than that I’ve just not been doing the best mentally and emotionally, I think about him too much, I’m tired of feeling this way, I feel like I don’t even have a valid right to feel the way I do about him because me and him never bonded emotionally or got to know each other. We have no type of emotional attachment but I do feel like my heart is broken and it has everything to do with him and what happened, I feel super delusional and crazy and I probably am. I made myself too vulnerable and easy and he took advantage of me during a weak moment in my life. I’m just taking it one day at a time now and being patient with myself and trying to focus on the next steps of my life since I just graduated high school. I have no interest or desire to talk to any boys anymore. Part of me still hopes that one day EP would reach out to me and give it a shot but I that’s probably unrealistic. I know I’ll get over it eventually.

I’m 17 years old and most of you are probably gonna all tell me the same thing or say it’s all apart of the teenage experience, which is probably true but fuck it sucks. I dated my ex on and off for 2 years, he never really knew what he wanted but closer to the end of March this year I decided to completely stop talking to him because I was just over the entire thing. A couple days later I met this other guy on an app where you can get in touch with other people your age and in your area, we’ll call this boy EP. He messaged me on the app first and we just had small talk before we followed each other on social media but after that he didn’t really message me or replied to my messages, he would reply to certain things I posted sometimes and I didn’t hide that I was interested in him because I would heart things that he posted often. But I didn’t try too hard because he wasn’t really giving the same energy back. About two weeks after all of this he messaged me randomly one night while it was late and he asked me what I was up to, I was cleaning and watching a movie at the time, he asked if he can come watch the movie with me, I took it as a joke at first and made a jokingly response but he told me he was serious and he was ready to be on his way as long as I said it was ok. I was a bit skeptical but I ended up letting him come over. We talked for a bit but we ended up having sex.
This is definitely something I ended up regretting and I’m not very proud of it and to make matters worse no protection was involved. Before he left he kissed me goodbye and told me he would text me later but he never really did. A few days later he replied to a story I posted and ignored me when I mentioned him ghosting me. It made me upset and I felt disgusting for a while but I didn’t make attempts to reach out or talk to him. I left it alone. That was until I started feeling sick almost everyday, I was way more tired than usual during the days and I realized that I hadn’t gotten my period like I was supposed to. I brought a pregnancy test and I took it with my friend and my school social worker and it came back positive. I tried to tell him the next day but he ignored me so I had my friend message him whom he replied to fast and she told him. He was denying it at first and was confused and asked what girl was she talking about, when she said it was me he kind of denied the possibility of it being him because he claimed he didn’t finish inside of me. I knew for certain it was by him because he was the first and only person I’ve slept with in 7 months. He ended up blocking my friend as she was texting him and he blocked my phone number but not on social media, he never blocked or removed me he just muted me. After that and I seen the way he reacted and knowing that I would more than likely be on my own with the kid if I were to have it I decided to tell my mom everything so she can schedule me an appointment for an abortion. She was upset but eventually she just became supportive through the entire process. My friend has another friend who used to go to school with ep and she had her talk to me and she basically told me that he’s a complete player and he does what he did to me all the time to other girls and she encouraged me to go through with the abortion. Shortly before I messaged him from a text now number and just went off on him and expressed my anger, he never replied back he probably didn’t even care but hey.
After all of that was taken care of I just fell into a depression and I’m still currently in. I know it’s my fault and I got myself into this mess on my own, and the crazy part about it all is that I haven’t cried not once, but I still feel hurt and dead on this inside, i decided to delete social media today because I find myself stalking his accounts too often. I even found his ex girlfriends pages, apparently they still talk and mess around with each other but on her social media she is very open about the relationship they had/have and she talked about how he cheated on he more than once, one time it was with one of her friends. There was just a lot she posted and it just appears that he’s just not a good guy but she has a harsh attachment to him which I understand, anyone’s who’s been in a toxic relationship before understands. I just found myself feeling bad for her but I don’t know her and she doesn’t know me so I didn’t make it my business too much.
But other than that I’ve just not been doing the best mentally and emotionally, I think about him too much, I’m tired of feeling this way, I feel like I don’t even have a valid right to feel the way I do about him because me and him never bonded emotionally or got to know each other. We have no type of emotional attachment but I do feel like my heart is broken and it has everything to do with him and what happened, I feel super delusional and crazy and I probably am. I made myself too vulnerable and easy and he took advantage of me during a weak moment in my life. I’m just taking it one day at a time now and being patient with myself and trying to focus on the next steps of my life since I just graduated high school. I have no interest or desire to talk to any boys anymore. Part of me still hopes that one day EP would reach out to me and give it a shot but I that’s probably unrealistic. I know I’ll get over it eventually.

Hello ,
I am a (21M) native English speaker from the UK and in Time Zone is UTC+1. I would like to find people to practice my target languages with who are committed to developing their English to a high level.
I have been studying Spanish and speaking to friends and colleagues regularly for 1-2 years after a long time off post high school (where I had some lessons) . I would say I am between A2-B1 level in Spanish but hope to reach B2/C1 level where I can comment on academic texts. I regularly practice Spanish by watching films , interviews , the news , listening to music in Spanish and occasionally speaking with friends.
My Italian is A1 level and I am interested in becoming conversationally fluent . My Spanish has helped me a lot , along with a 3 month stint living in Italy. I regularly listen to music in Italian but not much else and don't practice regularly.
I would like to start with messaging and perhaps work up to phone calls to practice either language covering a wide range of subjects and current affairs in our respective countries if possible. Spanish is my priority language but I want to strengthen my Italian too.
Message if interested :)

this one is long and complicated so buckle up. all names are fake for privacy. sorry for the formatting, i’m on mobile.
relevant info: I am 22, my husband is 22 and a navy veteran.
i gave my brother my old iphone 11 when i upgraded in 2022. i cant remember if i factory reset it or not.
Selena lives in Grant County, OR. My father lives in Walla Walla, WA. My parents got divorced in Oct 2023, and my mother and sister (9)came to live with my myself, my husband and our daughter in Hampton Roads, VA.
the 5 of us are currently driving back from va to wa.
My brother is trans. (FTM)
in summer 2023, my brother, Jaxon (16m) asked if he could go spend a school year with my moms (Liz, 40F) best friend at the time (Selena, 41m). He wanted to do this so he could work on Selena’s dad’s farm and save money for a car. My mom thought it would be good for him, so she signed a power of attorney agreement that expired when the school year was over (june 7, 2024), meaning at that time she relinquished guardianship back to my mother and father, and Jaxon would be driven back home to my parents.
During the school year, i received many middle of the night calls of him sobbing and saying he “couldn’t do this anymore.” he vented to me, sent me videos, and told me these things:

• she misgendered and deadnamed him constantly, forced him to dress femininely
  
• she didn’t pay him for the work he was doing on the farm (from 4 am until school (8AM), then after school (4pm) until 11pm, forcing him to stay up extra late (1-3AM) to complete homework.) i should also note that i have access to his bank account and i have not seen a single deposit for over a year.
  
• she screamed at him constantly, telling him he was a failure (his grades had started slipping from a Bs to a Cs), that he needed to suck it up and quit being a crybaby (he was exhausted and depressed because of poor sleep, being overworked, not being allowed to have friends)
  
• she constantly took away the only phone he had (his only line of communication to myself and my mother) whenever she felt like it. (usually just when she was pissed off)
  
• shoving him, destroying his art projects (he’s a clay sculptor), throwing away his homework if he left it on the table overnight, and much more.
  
• my mother and i both have recorded phone calls of Jaxon secretly calling us while she was screaming at him about something or other
  
• she forced him to detail her truck and he found coke and meth in the truck. he called me, telling me he thought he found drugs. i asked him to describe it to me, and it turned out to be a bag of meth and a bag of coke. i had him send me pictures, which i still have.
  

being across the country, my mother and i couldn’t do anything to help him get out of that situation. every time we offered to buy a plane ticket for him so come to VA, Selena would say “(he) needs to finish school” and my father was out of the country for work until May this year, so he couldn’t do anything either.
we did call the sheriff of grant county for a welfare check (multiple times) and they told us they couldn’t do anything unless there were visible marks or Jaxon’s life was in imminent danger. we called DHS/CPS (in december, when the problems started) and they told us they’d look into it. nothing ever came of that.
The day before school was officially over, Selena searched Jaxon’s backpack and found weed in it. (she had previously told him she didn’t care about weed because it’s legal in oregon) but she flew off the handle, screaming at him for HOURS. (he called me during her rant and some of the things i heard made my blood boil.
She then decided to STRIP SEARCH MY 16 YEAR OLD FTM BROTHER. this was his breaking point. he waited until about 2 AM, when he knew she was in bed, on June 7, then called one of his friends. they drove him back to my fathers house. (from john day OR to Walla Walla, WA.) when Jaxon told me he was with my dad, i relayed the info to Selena. She said “ok good”
about 2 hours after Jaxon had returned to my dad’s care, Selena texted me this:
“(Jaxon) has 24 hours to get (his) ass back here before i go to the police to charge (him) with minor in possession.”
i ignored her, not wanting to engage with her rage baiting. she sent more texts, all threatening to charge my brother (in Oregon) with a MIP (he doesn’t have drugs on his person currently, there is no video/photo evidence that the weed was even Jaxons, and he is back with his legal guardian in WA.)
when she got no response from myself or my mother other than “he’s with his dad”, she switched tactics. and texted me this:
“Please have (Jaxon) call me so i know he is safe”
i replied “ok” and relayed the info to my brother. he refuses to call her because she was horrible to him and he doesn’t want to be screamed at.
when he didn’t call her yesterday, she texted me, telling me she would call CPS on my father, the police, anything she could think of to try and scare me.
i texted her this yesterday at 8 AM after she tried calling me 10 times and texted me over 50 times with no reply.
“(Jaxon) is safe, he's with his parent (which trumps your power of attorney, which is over anyway. boo hoo.) thank god i don't have to pretend to like your snake ass anymore. go ahead and call cps, (Jaxon) has said (father) makes him feel safe, especially from you. so yeah!! go ahead, call CPS, and when they do nothing, go cry. sorry that you can't use my BROTHER for slave labor anymore, guess you'll have to actually HIRE someone at the farm now (boo hoo again). this is your official notice that any further contact with (father), my mother, or (Jaxon) will be documented for a harassment case and restraining order. have a fun life doing meth and being crazy, but don't involve us in it anymore. toodalooo!!!”
she then began texting my mom, threatening me with CPS for videos of me smoking weed (that i sent him on snapchat) and me talking about my struggle with cocaine addiction. (i’ve been clean since Halloween 2020). i haven’t replied to anything, simply screenshotting the messages and call logs, adding them to a folder to turn into police once we get to washington. harassment charges and restraining order.
after no replies, she once again started BOMBARDING my mother with texts. i’m copy/pasting some texts but changing names. my mother also didn’t respond, simply screenshotted and sent the pics to me for the folder.
“If she (referring to me) wants to continue to run her fat mouth....I have no issues releasing the videos I have to the police. Videos that she has no idea I have....from (Jaxon's) phone! I have 2 notebooks full of writing from (Jaxon) and countless screenshots as well as....this is the best part....the entire storage of (his) iPhone. Backups from every social media platform (he) has!!!”
(i know for a fact the backups off the iphone are bullshit bc he’s part of my iphone family and i would be notified if she tried to download anything from the cloud onto an unrecognized device. not to mention that she doesn’t have the icloud password. but that is neither here nor there.)
“"I want you to get the message across to (father) that I'm not playing. (Jaxon) needs to contact me....NOT (father) ....so that I know (Jaxon) is.... SAFE Mentally Stable /not suicidal Not on drugs I'm actually amazed that you and (father) think having her contact me after I have been the one caring for her is to much to ask. It screams dishonesty and feels like you guys are hiding something. There is no reason whatsoever (he) can't speak to me on the phone! If (he) is mad...to bad. If (he) is crying and claiming (he) don't want to talk to me for whatever reason.. oh fucking well. (Jaxon) has always been safe in my presence and in my care so I know for a fact (he) can not claim otherwise.”
“So again armed with enough shit to not only have everyone facing a bunch of charges, but to be garunteed that cps will be knocking at your door in Virginia as well...you might want to have (him) give me a call so this will end before it really truly begins.”
“I'm headed to the police station now. Done playing games. Couch Lusco is also willing to testify in my favor. As is two other teachers that (he) has made claims of abuse to.”
at this point i called my brother, and asked him to just text Selena to get her off my moms back.
this is their entire conversation:
J: I'm safe, mentally stable, not on drugs, and looking to further educate myself over the summer as well as apply for a job or two to pay my way.
S: Call me. Or I'm going to the cops with all the videos. Simple. You don't think I don't know your sister cant access your fb page
J: My sister has access to literally everything on that phone because of the cloud backup. She could wipe it all clean with the press of a button, not to mention a cop isn't gonna take me in for an mip of a cigarette or a blunt. It's not that deep.
(he is referring to the iphone Selena supposedly “backed up”)
Jaxon sent mom the screenshot of their convo, and she sent it to Selena. the following convo ensued:
S: Lmao that was (kyber) on (Jaxon’s) account! IM NOT GOING TO STOP UNTIL I KNOW THAT CHILD IS SAFE (Liz)!!
L: No it was not. I got those DIRECTLY from Jaxon. (mom didn’t reply to any texts after this)
S: I'm going to make everyone lives a giant fucking mess until (he) contacts me....PERIOD Pretty fucking simple. I'm going to take all the information (he) has given me that supports my reasons to be concerned and let the authorities do the rest.
S: Whats funny in all of this is that there is no reason (Jaxon) can't contact me. What am I going to do? Hurt (him) through a phone? Don't be dumb (Liz). Ypu are the only level headed person enough to see the bullshit games this kid will play as well as a good enough mom to understand why I am worried.
S: And (Jaxon) is right...they arnt going to take (him) for an MIP....but they ARE going to investigate the videos further I garuntee that! (He) is a minor and I promise you that they won't take any of it lightly!!!
S: You need to understand that (Jaxon) has already told me what (kyber) does. I know that wasn't (Jaxon) on Facebook because (he) wasn't caught with a fuckkng blunt.
S: What I don't understand is why you guys are acting like it's to much to ask to hear from (him)
S: If (father) does not have the ability or control to make his child behave then why is (he) in his care? Actually It don't matter I have been more then patient It's now a matter of (his) safety! Im going to the police!!!
S: I have never hurt that child or put (him) in a situation to be hurt. I'm perfectly content with (him) staying in walla...but I want to hear (him) say that so I know (he) is safe! If that makes me a bad person....I'm fine with that!!
S: (Liz)...l'm begging you! Please don't make me turn all of this in just because (Jaxon) has made up a bunch of bullshit to play the victim and make everyone look bad!
S: Understand something....I GAIN NOTHING FROM DOING THIS!! (He) either calls me or I spill all (his) secrets and not because I gain a damn thing.....but because I need to know (he) is safe and if (he) refuses to contact me then the only other person I will allow to validate (his) safety is going go be a police officer.
after this text she tried to call my mom more than 20 times in 10 minutes. all of which were declined, screencapped, and sent to me for the folder.
i’m just wondering what to do in this situation? she is threatening to call CPS, the cops, whatever she can do to try and intimidate me, mother, and father.
please help.

This is just a vent dump. Our relationship went kind of fast, but my boyfriend was so full throttle about me when we met. There was a blurred line of exclusivity, but he was referring to me as his girlfriend already in just that first week. I later found out he was talking to other women during that time, he first lied about it, then came clean and admitted he was talking to other women.
Fast forward to now- we worked through it, and because it was hard to pin point the exact date of exclusivity, I decided that even though I wasn’t happy about all of that, we weren’t exactly public or exclusive during that time he was talking to those other girls. I was able to vet that he was already talking to those other girls before me, like he said, and that he stopped talking to them when we became exclusive. Seems simple, right?
He’s doing everything he can to show me he can be trusted. Although I didn’t ask, he gave me all of his passwords, gave me full permission to check his phone anytime, shares his location with me regularly, and is exhibiting no suspicious behaviors. He’s showing up fully in this relationship, has me plastered all over social media. I sound crazy but I have secretly looked through his phone before and found nothing. I even looked for secret text apps, looked for any secret profiles, deleted messages, hidden folders, the works- that’s a compulsion of mine I’m working on. But, so far I’ve found nothing, which helps. He even willingly started therapy, embraced it, and we even started couples therapy to be preventative and to address the trust issues that were compromised so early before we had a chance to really build it. However- he takes full accountability of it, he understands how it hurt me, and understands the damages it did. He acknowledges how he would feel if the tables were turned and says it still bothers him how he did things.
My problem- I’m already fragile. I got out of an extremely abusive relationship a year ago that gave me legit PTSD and has made my OCD and PMDD go off the charts. I’ve been in therapy, I get help, I started medication, I’m trying to manage it. But my ROCD is on fire right now. He just moved in, so I know anxiety is going to be high with a life change, and it’s been off the charts- but I just want to get past it. Because I just battle intrusive thoughts daily that he’s going to cheat on me or hurt me in some way and it’s exhausting. He’s also been mashed up and hurt in his past relationships thus we are two people that come from dysfunction and try to make something functional. It really is a loving and supportive relationship, though. And I don’t want to be a controlling partner. I know love is a risk, a leap of faith, and no matter how great things are, there’s a risk of getting hurt regardless of circumstance.
I’ve been listening to the Robert James Coaching podcast on Spotify (about OCD) and also You Love and You learn podcast on YouTube addressing ROCD. Trying to take it a day at a time.
Again, just a vent dump.

I’m 17 years old and most of you are probably gonna all tell me the same thing or say it’s all apart of the teenage experience, which is probably true but fuck it sucks. I dated my ex on and off for 2 years, he never really knew what he wanted but closer to the end of March this year I decided to completely stop talking to him because I was just over the entire thing. A couple days later I met this other guy on an app where you can get in touch with other people your age and in your area, we’ll call this boy EP. He messaged me on the app first and we just had small talk before we followed each other on social media but after that he didn’t really message me or replied to my messages, he would reply to certain things I posted sometimes and I didn’t hide that I was interested in him because I would heart things that he posted often. But I didn’t try too hard because he wasn’t really giving the same energy back. About two weeks after all of this he messaged me randomly one night while it was late and he asked me what I was up to, I was cleaning and watching a movie at the time, he asked if he can come watch the movie with me, I took it as a joke at first and made a jokingly response but he told me he was serious and he was ready to be on his way as long as I said it was ok. I was a bit skeptical but I ended up letting him come over. We talked for a bit but we ended up having sex.
This is definitely something I ended up regretting and I’m not very proud of it and to make matters worse no protection was involved. Before he left he kissed me goodbye and told me he would text me later but he never really did. A few days later he replied to a story I posted and ignored me when I mentioned him ghosting me. It made me upset and I felt disgusting for a while but I didn’t make attempts to reach out or talk to him. I left it alone. That was until I started feeling sick almost everyday, I was way more tired than usual during the days and I realized that I hadn’t gotten my period like I was supposed to. I brought a pregnancy test and I took it with my friend and my school social worker and it came back positive. I tried to tell him the next day but he ignored me so I had my friend message him whom he replied to fast and she told him. He was denying it at first and was confused and asked what girl was she talking about, when she said it was me he kind of denied the possibility of it being him because he claimed he didn’t finish inside of me. I knew for certain it was by him because he was the first and only person I’ve slept with in 7 months. He ended up blocking my friend as she was texting him and he blocked my phone number but not on social media, he never blocked or removed me he just muted me. After that and I seen the way he reacted and knowing that I would more than likely be on my own with the kid if I were to have it I decided to tell my mom everything so she can schedule me an appointment for an abortion. She was upset but eventually she just became supportive through the entire process. My friend has another friend who used to go to school with ep and she had her talk to me and she basically told me that he’s a complete player and he does what he did to me all the time to other girls and she encouraged me to go through with the abortion. Shortly before I messaged him from a text now number and just went off on him and expressed my anger, he never replied back he probably didn’t even care but hey.
After all of that was taken care of I just fell into a depression and I’m still currently in. I know it’s my fault and I got myself into this mess on my own, and the crazy part about it all is that I haven’t cried not once, but I still feel hurt and dead on this inside, i decided to delete social media today because I find myself stalking his accounts too often. I even found his ex girlfriends pages, apparently they still talk and mess around with each other but on her social media she is very open about the relationship they had/have and she talked about how he cheated on he more than once, one time it was with one of her friends. There was just a lot she posted and it just appears that he’s just not a good guy but she has a harsh attachment to him which I understand, anyone’s who’s been in a toxic relationship before understands. I just found myself feeling bad for her but I don’t know her and she doesn’t know me so I didn’t make it my business too much.
But other than that I’ve just not been doing the best mentally and emotionally, I think about him too much, I’m tired of feeling this way, I feel like I don’t even have a valid right to feel the way I do about him because me and him never bonded emotionally or got to know each other. We have no type of emotional attachment but I do feel like my heart is broken and it has everything to do with him and what happened, I feel super delusional and crazy and I probably am. I made myself too vulnerable and easy and he took advantage of me during a weak moment in my life. I’m just taking it one day at a time now and being patient with myself and trying to focus on the next steps of my life since I just graduated high school. I have no interest or desire to talk to any boys anymore. Part of me still hopes that one day EP would reach out to me and give it a shot but I that’s probably unrealistic. I know I’ll get over it eventually.

Previous part: 8.99.
The Jonsie Burrows: Help Wanted 2: Tables of contents
​
One thing that I'm not getting here is why Vanessa is even a part of Vanny or Glitchtrap's situation since Double-V is true. When I originally thought up Double-V, I was originally thinking that Vanessa and Vanny were two different people and/or were sharing the role of "Vanny".
It's just one of them was more willing than the other to be a part of Glitcthtrap's machinations than the other. I didn't put too much thought into it, but it was something I wanted to look for until that Security Team revelation came about.
But now, I'm left with this puzzle piece called Vanessa that I'm not quite sure what to do with now that I know that Vanny is an entirely separate person from her.
She has to be involved with Vanny and Gltichtrap somehow. Maybe the therapy tapes will help.

• CD 1-Therapist: — but a routine check of your online history has revealed that you spend quite a bit of time with someone in an encrypted conversation. We have transcripts, and I’ve read them, but it’s not clear what you’re talking about in these conversations. I can’t make sense of it. You must be getting something from these that I’m not getting. Right? Who are you talking to in these?

These are all things that would've pointed toward Glitchtrap if I didn't know better. So it's someone else doing this? Why and why her?

• CD 5-Therapist: — Apparently, the IT department has put together a pretty lengthy report chronicling non-job-related communications that have been coming to your computer. — what bothers me about what I read is that the messages you're getting seem very manipulative in nature. —You know who I'm talking about. What you might not know is that this person who's been sending you messages has been hacking into your personal files too.
• CD 5-Vanessa: Lots of people know more than I do. Sometimes I need to listen.

So Vanessa knows who's doing this to her or think she knows. But she's been refusing to listen to them before and is now being worn down by the spamming messages sent to her. But the fact that she doesn't react to the news that they are digging into her personal life is very concerning!
Also, after going through Vanny's secret dialogue in Help Wanted, Vanessa's overall demeanor in both Security Breach and the Retro Cds clashes hard with Vanny's in both games. Where Vanny sounds and reads eager and nervous, Vanessa is defiant and reluctant with depressed undertones.
Is Vanessa really infected with Glitchtrap?
Yet now that I'm thinking about it, Glitchtrap has no need to do this as him sitting through Vanessa's therapy session with her would give him this info if she was infected. Who's ever doing this doesn't much about her, but would very much like to. Is it Vanny or Gregory...
Wait, hold on. Vanessa's first therapist mentioned that messages were encrypted and couldn't make out what the conversation was about. But the second therapist can understand these messages to know that they're manipulative in nature. Are these two different messengers?!
" I’ve read them, but it’s not clear what you’re talking about in these conversations. I can’t make sense of it. You must be getting something from these that I’m not getting." - The first Therapist
"but what bothers me about what I read is that the messages you're getting seem very manipulative in nature." - The second Therapist
What changed? Hmm... What exactly is an encrypted conversation? Maybe explaining that will help.
Encrypted text messaging is a method of secure communication that converts your messages into code. This means that only the recipient with the correct decryption key can read it. - Google
That sounds like what the first Therapist is referring to, but she mentions that they got the transcripts for it. Does that mean that got the code or the decryption key to read it? No, she says transcripts, which means the code itself.
But whatever the first Therapist saw in that transcript was legible enough to read and comprehend. This means the conversation wasn't in computer coding that would require someone in the tech field to decipher it, but just ordinary talk that's hard to understand what it's about.
Okay, that clears things up, they're still the same messenger.

• CD 11-Therapist: So, on your breaks, it looks like you were shopping for a costume. You purchased some fake fur material.
• CD 11- Vanessa: I can't talk about this. He said he would always be watching. He could be here or there or anywhere in between.
• CD 11-Therapist: No, that's not what I mean. You can't just ignore an issue. You have to face your memory of the experiences and process them so you can let it go. So you don't get triggered anymore. you can use this sort of self-dialogue to release these things
• CD 11-Vanessa: I don't like doing that.

This one conversation right here throws everything about Double-V out of whack. Why is Vanessa buying fake fur material? And for the very first time, we know the gender of who's messaging her along that he said that he would always be watching her.
Again the "he" here, and the "he will always be watching" part allude to Glitchtrap at first glance. And again, it can't be him because he should be within Vanessa since they merged in Help Wanted! Even if you dismissed the ending I proposed for Vanny and went with the ending where she gets locked up by Glitchtrap, it still wouldn't be him messaging her about watching here because he would be in her body!
And like I already said before, Vanessa has shown no memory problems or bodily control problems, which would've suggested Glitchtrap's control. No, this means that Gregory is doing all of this.
But why is he going after Vanessa? Geez, It's been a while since I even thought about his past before Security Breach. I forgot how much of a black hole of questions he is, regarding the lore. I'll give my updated thoughts about him after the Double-V revelation later.
For now, after going through all of Gregory's dialogue in Security Breach. It looks like he's not quite aware of the ongoings within the Pizzaplex and is shocked by the level of security can employ later in the night. There may actually be a hint of his hacker background in his dialogue if you squint. And Gregory has absolutely no idea what the rabbit laddy's name is until he gets to Fazerblast.
As for Gregory's involvement with Vanessa... Huh, that's weird. Gregory doesn't say Vanessa's name even once in Security Breach. Matter of fact, after the beginning sequence where Vanessa confronts Freddy about him, Gregory just stops talking about or even mentioning her for the rest of the game. This includes the confrontation that leads to her locking him up in Lost and Found and after it...
No matter how you slice it, Gregory's silence about her is super loud with alarm bells. Sure, he dismisses her as working with Vanny in the beginning, but it shouldn't mean that she should be an afterthought to him! Like, Gregory only talks about or mentions "the rabbit lady" after the beginning of the game.
In fact, if we were to rank every important character that Gregory talks about or mentions in his dialogue for Security Breach from most to least, it would look like this.

1. Freddy - 33 times
2. Vanny - 6 times
3. Chica - 6 times
4. Roxy - 4 times
5. Monty - 3 times
6. Moon - 3 times
7. Vanessa - 3 times
8. Burntrap - 1 time

That's absurd! Especially since she's the only other human worker in the Pizzaplex, besides Vanny, who encounters and confronts him. Like, he doesn't even try to communicate with her at all during the entire game!
Even when discovering Vanny's hideout in Fazerblast and Freddy suggests that Vanny is Vanessa due to deduceing Vanny's name being a combination of Vanessa + Bunny, Gregory remains silent about it! No, "Oh maybe you're right." or "That sounds too simple to be right", but instead there's no response to what might be the identity of your pursuer!
It's like he doesn't want to talk about her...
He knows her, he has to know Vanessa! Yet, he said, "I don't know who she is, but she's trying to get me!" to Freddy. Is he lying? No, he just knows about her.
​

• CD 14-Therapist: —They report that they've caught you on camera, or at least it appears to be you. — Well the techs are convinced that you've hacked into their system many times. — the electronics you like? I saw in your file that you have developed software programs that talk to you and repeat phrases, right? The program asks you questions and prompts you for responses. It's kind of like your own self therapy, isn't it? Another way of talking to yourself to work things out, right? When I saw some of your recent encrypted conversation logs, that's what I thought I was looking at. It felt like I was watching someone go back and forth in their own head, but the text found something that's different than that. When I read what they found, at first I thought I was looking at more examples of you just talking with yourself. Then I realized it was different. When I study this, it sounds like there is someone else responding to you. Who is it?

This is either hinting towards Gregory talking directly to Vanessa or Glitchtrap. But something that confuses me is why the therapist has or even be able to see Gregory's encrypted conversation logs?
I'll admit that I'm ignorant about therapy, but should your therapist have access to stuff you created outside of therapy? Unless Gregory created the program on a computer in therapy. It could explain how he's gotten access to Vanessa's files. But I'll drop that talk for now.
Something that's being made clear to me now is that Vanessa is not as connected to the villains as Gregory is, as she's more surprised by the changing of therapist than he is. In fact, Gregory knows why the therapists are disappearing, knows exactly when the therapists do something that would cause them to disappear, and doesn't seem upset when they show up mangled and dead.
But more than anything, Gregory knew Vanny long before Security Breach started. There's no reason why Gregory would know Vanny has enough control over the Pizzaplex to cut off Freddy from the network, in just one encounter. If anything, he should have assumed she was some weirdo stranger in the Pizzaplex that the security and the police needed to take care of.
But he already knew that Vanny had power in the Pizzaplex, maybe not the full scope, but enough to know that if she and he ever came into conflict with one another that ended with her wanting to hurt him then he needed to get out of the Pizzaplex.
Funnily enough, this actually lines up with the first-ever trailer for Security Breach, where Vanny says: "Gregory, I may have lost my temper earlier. But it was just a glitch!" Which implies they were talking neutrally before whatever made Vanny lose her temper. Again, I'm not using this as evidence as it's been cut, instead, I'm suggesting that the idea might have merit.
​

• CD-Therapist: — I have this still shot the techs pulled from the security footage that recorded you in the pizzaplex. That's you, isn't it? I know this image is distorted but I think it looks like you. And you're not alone here. You're talking to someone, or something. it's hard to tell. What are those things? They almost look like rabbit ears. What? You find that amusing? Well I guess it is.

I had always flipped-flopped between the mysterious person being either Glamrock Bonnie or Vanny. Both are connected to Glitchtrap, so either would fit here as Glitchtrap wouldn't be captured by a camera. But with the new evidence I've discovered, Vanny fits as Gregory's mysterious rabbit correspondent in the Pizzaplex.
But what about Vanessa? Is Gregory hacking into her files or is it Vanny and Glitchtrap? Or perhaps Gregory is hacking into her files on behalf of Glitchtrap and Vanny. Either way, Vanessa is getting dragged into Gregory and the Villian's group chat.
Speaking of the therapy, if we take into account the Retro-CD's numbering system the first two numbers are the patient ID number, and the last two numbers are the number of times both Gregory and Vanessa have been to therapy, then we can uncover some invaluable information.
Gregory has been in therapy longer than Vanessa and he was also in therapy before her too. But combining this CD's numbering system with a theory from the Talesbook story, GGY, that Gregory only goes to therapy on Sunday. Then Gregory has been going to therapy for a year and a half.
And if Vanessa is following the weekly therapy session pattern, then she's only been going to it for a little more than half a year. This means she started her therapy just about after Gregory hit his half-year mark for therapy. In addition to all that, Vanessa stopped going to therapy once she was transferred to a new location and never met the fourth and final therapist of the CDs.
Just something you all should keep in mind.
But Gregory definitely knows about her at the very least. That knowledge, I guess, is the reason why he's so shocked to see her face under Vanny's mask in the "To The Rooftop" ending. He knows that Vanessa and Vanny are two different people, but doesn't know that they look alike because he never encountered Vanny before Security Breach without her mask or costume.
On the subject of costumes, I still got no answer for Vanessa's purchase of fake animal fur or what's even happening with her now.
To be honest, this would be so simple and easy if Vanessa was just Vanny. But like as I have shown many times before in both this series and the previous one, simple and easy answers are not always the correct ones.
So, instead of looking for signs of the villain's goal with Vanessa in the lore. Let's look at the similarities and differences between the double Vs.
Vanessa's characteristics are.

• Depressed
• Has anxiety issues
• Tired (It's something that has been mentioned by the first and third therapists in CD-1 and CD-10. But seems to have more to do with the messages she's getting than how she usually is.)
• Likes the blue sky
• Likes to sit outside and read
• Watchful about her calorie intake
• Likes flowers or at least the sweet smell of them
• Doesn't like dark basements
• Oh, and hates kids

Vanny's characteristics are.

• Loves Pizza, especially pepperoni (Huh, no wonder she likes Chica)
• Absolutely, does not care about her calorie intake or a healthy diet (Seriously, Girl has gone full gamer mode with the amount of Fizzy Faz, straw drinks, and pizza boxes in areas with her presence in them)
• Hobbies in painting or graffiti
• Likes or used to like Glitchtrap or maybe William Afton (I talk about this in the secret ending)
• Loves Fazbear Entertainment (Vanny uses red spray paint in Ruin and has drawn two hearts on the FAZ ENT. Logo in the main Lobby)
• Likes Toy Chica
• Likes the Daycare Attendant (She seems to be fond of Moon more)
• Likes to read, or at least, read about the World History of Fazbear Entertainment
• Likes Flowers, a specific species of them(that I can't determine right now)
• Likes summer
• Is a mechanic or roboticist or both (She making something in Ruin Fazerblast and has turned Ruin Monty into her lapdog among other things)
• Super lazy (This one may or may not be true, but unless there's a good reason why she refuses to clean up her room in Fazer Blast, this is staying right here as far as I'm concerned)

Wow, I did not realize we already knew this much about Vanny just from the environment storytelling of the games until I listed them!
Anyway, as you can see, there are some very similar likes between the two and very stark differences in traits as well. I'm not about to list them to save word space, but instead, I want to answer a question. Could Vanessa still be Vanny despite their differences? This isn't so much for me, but for the people who believe Vanny = Vanessa despite my Double-V evidence.
At first, I thought there might've been a chance for that as they both like flowers, to read, and enjoy the outside, or at least the summer in Vanny's case. But now, after listing everything out they're just too different to say they're the same.
Even if we say that Vanny's love of pizza, general bad diet, and trashy room is the result of Vanessa coping with her depression and her situation with Glitchtrap and that her graffiti is the by-product of therapy, along with her interest in growing flowers. That doesn't negate the fact that in Ruin when given the chance to express her anxiety, Vanny doesn't take it.
If you don't know, on the wall where Vanny drew her face next to a slice of pizza in the main lobby near the Superstar Daycare entrance, there is a painted graph. The artist who made the graph also wrote on the right side of it; "TAG YOURSELF".
On all four sides of the graph, the artist made the furthest sides of them represent something. The top Y-axis is Wizard, the bottom Y-axis is Cedar, the left X-axis is Filled with a word that ends in a y, and the right X-axis is Filled with anxiety.
What this graph is showing, or what the artist trying to convey with it, is that each of the four points represents not quite the opposite thing but the furthest thing from each other. Of which, Vanny decided to tag herself on the [furthest left X-axis](https://imgur.com/j9ND1V3), not the right.
This tells us that Vanny feels the furthest thing from anxiety. Something Vanessa, no matter if she's under Glitchtrap's control or not, would be constantly feeling as she suffers from it.
As for what she's feeling, I don't know, the word on the left graph is unreadable and covered by Vanny's face to make it almost impossible to decipher. But what I do know without a doubt, is that Vanny and Vanessa are indeed, two different people with some common likes and polar opposite traits.
So after everything I've talked about in the last three? four? However many parts I've been going over Double-V, what is the best possible answer for the "To The Rooftop" ending stinger. Why do Vanny and Vanessa look alike?
I tried, I really did. I looked for as much possible evidence for anything that doesn't just make me give up and say "She's a Fazgoo clone!" or "She's a robot!"
If Vanny was a stranger who mimicked Vanessa's face, then that's cool and horrifying, but only where it concerns Vanessa herself. (The horrifying part, not the cool part.) It doesn't give us reasons why she would do it in the first place or a way to connect it to the greater lore and Glitchtrap, besides she's a human Mimic. Basically, it lacks motivation from everyone in the Villian party.
So it leaves me with no other conclusion except for one.
Back when the marketing for Security Breach was building up to its release. Steel Wool released four old Freddy cartoon episodes on their YouTube channel. Each episode hides a teaser image for the lore, including a character from the games with words, along with a character stinger at the end.
The last carton, which is the most distorted one, just so happened to include Vanessa as the hidden teaser, and Vanny as the character stinger at the end. And before you all jump the gun, previous episodes have already established that the hidden character teasers have no correlation to the ending Character stinger.
Now, the words in the Vanessa teaser image are quite interesting. It includes "Test and Rat" in the upper right corner, "Pool" in the bottom left corner, and "Bleak Reactant".
Test and Rat could be Test rat or Laboratory rat (Lab rat) as in the species of rat that are bred and kept for scientific research. Lab rat here can also be referring to Vanessa being a lab rat for the villain's experiment for something.
Using that explanation, "Pool" would then mean group or pool of people, which means number of people available for an organization or group to use. So Pool would mean that Vanessa was chosen out of all the Fazbear employees or people in general to be used for the experiment.
This leaves us with Bleak Reactant, which the definition of reactant is a substance that takes part in and experiences change during a reaction, while the definition of bleak could mean lacking vegetation (an area of land), dreary (a room), miserable(the weather), or unfavorable (outcome.)
All of this together means that Vanessa was chosen by the villains out of a group of people to be used for an experiment. An experiment of a change in Vanessa that predicted an unfavorable outcome for the villains.
Vanessa was going to be the next Vanny or maybe something else.
That gives a reason why the villains were so interested in her, why she would be shopping for a costume, why she would be at the Pizzaplex, and why she would be still connected to the villains when someone else is Vanny.
But the reason she was chosen in the first place, why her out of a group of people that might've included Gregory in it too, is because the one who chose her was her own twin sister.
If anyone remembers my only Ruin theory then you would remember my mentioning of Glitchtrap's and Vanny's conversation from Scott's website from a Security Breach poster.
Glitchtrap: "Stay the course."
Vanny: "I will."
Glitchtrap: "Focus on my voice."
Vanny: "I will."
Glitchtrap: "Don't let anyone lead you astray."
Vanny: “I won't.”
Glitchtrap: "Have you selected one?"
Vanny: "I have."
In my theory, I proposed that Gregory was the one that Vanny mentioned selecting here. But now, with all the revelations and new information gained, I believe Vanessa works better here. Vanny would've chosen someone for an experiment that she personally knew of or gotten to know, and who better than her own sibling that she grew up with.
Remember, Vanny is just starting out in her following of Glitchtrap. So would be new to the whole evil thing. And most of the time, the people close to you are the ones that would most likely commit a crime against you.
As for the twin sister thing, it actually didn't come from the "To The Rooftop" ending, but a discussion from the GTlive stream where Mat hosted a little get-together with some of the FNAF YouTuber theorists after Security Breach. There, John Fuhnaff suggested the idea for it from the VR Sisters boss from the Security Breach game Scott made when Security Breach got delayed again.
It's something that I saw some merit in after I discovered the Vanny ≠ Vanessa and after disproving in my head that Vanny wasn't Tape Girl either. The best part of the twin sister thing is that there's no need to throw out all that we know from Vanessa's therapy sessions as they both share the divorced parent's backstory.
As for which is the order twin between the two, I believe Vanessa is the oldest since it makes sense that her father would use the oldest to testify against their mother as she would better understand his instructions. Plus it provides a potential grudge from Vanny to Vanessa for what happened to their mother and a misguided parental affection for Glitchtrap. Unless Vanny's just a fangirl of William Afton, which could be the case.
Also, this means that the reason Vanessa looks the way she does in "To The Rooftop" end credits is because she looking at her dead sister. Oof, I realized that this also means she would've been the one who finds what's left of her in the "Disassemble Vanny" ending too. No wonder Faz Ent. is temporarily closed if they find that one employee is disassembled and the other one is having a mental breakdown from it in the morning.
But what about the "Redemption" ending? We know that by beating PQ3 both Glitchtrap and Vanny are defeated in it. What happens to her then? Where did she go? Hmm... I'm not sure.
What happens when someone is unmerged after being merged for a long time? Unlike Vanessa, we know that Vanny lives in the Pizzaplex. Even by Ruin and Help Wanted 2, she's still living in the building despite its condition so she probably needs time to think and process what happened to her and what's she done. Oh, and therapy. And a house.
But I think that just about wraps everything up for— Wait, HW2's Candy Cadet story! I forgot all about it! I know some people mentioned that the second story had to do with Vanessa, Gregory, and Gltichtrap. Let me skim through that real quick for clues.
Oh. Oh, that's really interesting... But it along with the Jeremy and the Memory dolls can wait until after next time. Sorry for the little to no pictures, I needed space to fit everything in one post and wanted to get everything about Double-V out of the way before I go on hiatus.
Don't worry it has nothing to do with burnout. It won't be too long either, though knowing my track record when saying that, you probably don't believe me.
Truth is, I've been severely neglecting my YouTube channel, and should really start catching up the YouTube version of my series with the online version. Plus, I've got more "Prove it!" to work on.
But most important of all, my birthday is coming up, and I don't want to work, think, or have anything to do with my FNAF stuff on that day. So! Feel free to read and become full with these last few Parts until I come back with more.

So it’s been one year since I dumped my toxic gf that used to always complain that I wasn’t able to afford her expensive gifts and couldn’t pay for her clothes and other things. Btw I’m a student(M20) and when we used to be in the relationship, I was 19 and was finishing high school. Basically what happened was that she used to live 4h away from my city and I would always go visit her once in 3 weeks. At first, she was living alone and I would always buy her gifts like flowers, chocolates or some cute little things, besides of course the train ticket in order to go to her city. I was able to afford all of this because I had savings and always was trying to work during vacations. Then she moved to another city, at 4h away from me too, but started to live with her sister. They used to have a 2 room apartment. Her sister told her that I can’t sleep in their apartment, even though I would’ve just slept with my ex in her room and wouldn’t even speak to her older sister. I felt pretty disrespected at that time and told my ex to try and speak to her sister but she told me that she doesn’t want to argue with her and that a REAL MAN WILL ALWAYS FIND A SOLUTION(even though I told her that I was struggling with money)For 9 months I would pay for hotel room, train ticket, little presents, and food. I would try my best in order to keep up with school and the relationship because I loved her a LOT. SHE WAS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL GIRL EVER AND I THOUGHT SHE WAS PERFECT. One day I found out that she lied to me for about one year about being virgin. When she was drunk, I asked her about her ex that she dated before me(at the beginning she told me she didn’t have anything with him) and now she tells that that tried something so he fucked her but didn’t push his full dick inside her but only 6-7cm. I told her that isn’t considered being virgin, she started arguing . For about one month I would feel like shit because of this. Then, during that summer I went in a trip with my family and with my friend’s family in Spain, she wanted to break up with me because I wouldn’t take her with me. I told her that we were only dating for 6 months and I wouldn’t think that it was normal to take her with my family and my friend. She said that she wants to breakup. I cried a lot in Spain and begged her not to leave me . When I came home, I went to her city and we got. I remembered about her lying about her being virgin and got angry because she wouldn’t accept that she was lying. So I took her by her hand and told her that after this relationship with me, she’ll tell to the next one that she s virgin. She got very angry and wanted to break up with me. For one month I begged her everyday not to leave me and she used to always say that ll think about us. One time she told me that she goes to a bar with her uni class(btw I knew that there was a guy there that likes her). At 1am she texts me that actually she is in a club and not a bar. I got crazy that night but didn’t tell her anything. 3 weeks later she gets mono (aka the kissing disease) and tells me that she didn’t kiss anyone. 6 months later she tells me that a guy tried to kiss her in the club . Also one time I couldn’t afford her flowers and came to her city without anything for the first time ever. She told me to send the money for the flowers on her bank account and that she doesn’t want to be in a relationship where she isn’t appreciated with gifts.(I explained her one more time that I didn’t have money)she seemed to understand and then start again arguing . Then during summer, we wanted to go to Italy and asked if she can pay for 40 %of the total price. She got upset, told me that she doesn’t feel like a girl in that relationship. Told that she regrets being with me and blocked me. I thought that she left me, started crying and was devastated . The next day she texts me hi, I tell her hi and tell her that I didn’t understand what happened yesterday and asked if we can still be friends. She tells that she understood perfectly everything and yes. She calls me and starts talking like nothing happened. I ask her who will start the breakup. She tells me that I’m crazy; says that I’m a psycho and I want to breakup with her and that I used her body and that she should’ve broken up with me when I got upset because of her virginity and that she hates me. Also she said that I didn’t want to call her the day before when she blocked me because I should ve tried calling her on WhatsApp (she didn’t block me there) and that I didn’t want to fight for her. And that’s all. We went a year no contact, she tried to reach out once during a terrorist attack in my city and asked if I was alright. Then, she didn’t text me even a happy birthday message.
A year later I reached out in order to obtain closure because I couldn’t get over her and wanted to ask her if she cheated on my in the club and also asked why she was on tinder during our relationship because I didn’t ask her this when we broke up . She got upset and told me that now , thanks to this message she will never regret what happened between us. Also she denied cheating and said that she was on tinder only for communication . Now I feel dumb af and blocked her. Also I ve seen recently form a fake account that she posted a story from the club . She feels so good and I can’t get over her.
Will she ever try to reach out to me? She never apologized for anything Also, who is the dumper, me or her? PLEASE HELP ME, I’m losing my mind!

So it’s been one year since I dumped my toxic gf that used to always complain that I wasn’t able to afford her expensive gifts and couldn’t pay for her clothes and other things. Btw I’m a student(M20) and when we used to be in the relationship, I was 19 and was finishing high school. Basically what happened was that she used to live 4h away from my city and I would always go visit her once in 3 weeks. At first, she was living alone and I would always buy her gifts like flowers, chocolates or some cute little things, besides of course the train ticket in order to go to her city. I was able to afford all of this because I had savings and always was trying to work during vacations. Then she moved to another city, at 4h away from me too, but started to live with her sister. They used to have a 2 room apartment. Her sister told her that I can’t sleep in their apartment, even though I would’ve just slept with my ex in her room and wouldn’t even speak to her older sister. I felt pretty disrespected at that time and told my ex to try and speak to her sister but she told me that she doesn’t want to argue with her and that a REAL MAN WILL ALWAYS FIND A SOLUTION(even though I told her that I was struggling with money)For 9 months I would pay for hotel room, train ticket, little presents, and food. I would try my best in order to keep up with school and the relationship because I loved her a LOT. SHE WAS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL GIRL EVER AND I THOUGHT SHE WAS PERFECT. One day I found out that she lied to me for about one year about being virgin. When she was drunk, I asked her about her ex that she dated before me(at the beginning she told me she didn’t have anything with him) and now she tells that that tried something so he fucked her but didn’t push his full dick inside her but only 6-7cm. I told her that isn’t considered being virgin, she started arguing . For about one month I would feel like shit because of this. Then, during that summer I went in a trip with my family and with my friend’s family in Spain, she wanted to break up with me because I wouldn’t take her with me. I told her that we were only dating for 6 months and I wouldn’t think that it was normal to take her with my family and my friend. She said that she wants to breakup. I cried a lot in Spain and begged her not to leave me . When I came home, I went to her city and we got. I remembered about her lying about her being virgin and got angry because she wouldn’t accept that she was lying. So I took her by her hand and told her that after this relationship with me, she’ll tell to the next one that she s virgin. She got very angry and wanted to break up with me. For one month I begged her everyday not to leave me and she used to always say that ll think about us. One time she told me that she goes to a bar with her uni class(btw I knew that there was a guy there that likes her). At 1am she texts me that actually she is in a club and not a bar. I got crazy that night but didn’t tell her anything. 3 weeks later she gets mono (aka the kissing disease) and tells me that she didn’t kiss anyone. 6 months later she tells me that a guy tried to kiss her in the club . Also one time I couldn’t afford her flowers and came to her city without anything for the first time ever. She told me to send the money for the flowers on her bank account and that she doesn’t want to be in a relationship where she isn’t appreciated with gifts.(I explained her one more time that I didn’t have money)she seemed to understand and then start again arguing . Then during summer, we wanted to go to Italy and asked if she can pay for 40 %of the total price. She got upset, told me that she doesn’t feel like a girl in that relationship. Told that she regrets being with me and blocked me. I thought that she left me, started crying and was devastated . The next day she texts me hi, I tell her hi and tell her that I didn’t understand what happened yesterday and asked if we can still be friends. She tells that she understood perfectly everything and yes. She calls me and starts talking like nothing happened. I ask her who will start the breakup. She tells me that I’m crazy; says that I’m a psycho and I want to breakup with her and that I used her body and that she should’ve broken up with me when I got upset because of her virginity and that she hates me. Also she said that I didn’t want to call her the day before when she blocked me because I should ve tried calling her on WhatsApp (she didn’t block me there) and that I didn’t want to fight for her. And that’s all. We went a year no contact, she tried to reach out once during a terrorist attack in my city and asked if I was alright. Then, she didn’t text me even a happy birthday message.
A year later I reached out in order to obtain closure because I couldn’t get over her and wanted to ask her if she cheated on my in the club and also asked why she was on tinder during our relationship because I didn’t ask her this when we broke up . She got upset and told me that now , thanks to this message she will never regret what happened between us. Also she denied cheating and said that she was on tinder only for communication . Now I feel dumb af and blocked her. Also I ve seen recently form a fake account that she posted a story from the club . She feels so good and I can’t get over her.
Will she ever try to reach out to me? She never apologized for anything Also, who is the dumper, me or her? PLEASE HELP ME, I’m losing my mind!

This is going to be a long post and will involve a lot of shit. I've been thinking over my whole life and how fucked it's been and I genuinely don't know what to do anymore. My earliest memory is a dream I had when I was 5 of my brother getting shot in the head, I had never seen a real gun or experienced much of anything bad. When I was 6 I met my then best friend and her family.
I only realized it much later in life but her brother (3 years older than me) sexually abused me for 3 years until we moved away from there. He would expose himself and make me touch him, he would rape me multiple times. I feel sad for him and his family since my best friend also did a lot of the same stuff with me, I never realized it them but I'm certain one or both of their parents abused the badly if that's how he acted at 9yo. He showed me porn for the first time when I was 7 and I got addicted to the high of watching something I'm not supposed to.
I was formally diagnosed with depression when I was 8 or 9. To preface this, my mom is an amazing human and I love her very much but she is also probably the worst mom I have ever personally known. She had always had depression but when I was born it got worse. She was basically a single mom to 2 teenagers, a toddler and a newborn and I feel like I can't blame her for anything she did, or didn't do. She was very emotionally absent from our lives and there was no one to really take care of me like a parent should. I don't think I've ever experienced love that way. I started cutting myself when I was 9 and it eventually landed me in the children's mental hospital for two weeks. I didn't want to work with them or get help from them, the first night I stayed there I laid on the floor in an empty room with a mattress that they used to calm patients for 6 hours.
When I was 12 I landed myself in what is practically a children's home for the mentally ill kids, in my country you're legally required to go to school until you're 18, I refused to go for months on end and they take it pretty seriously. It was around an hour by car from my home and I knew no one there. I had to start in a new school again. It's a small town so when people heard a new kid was coming in they were pretty excited and took me in well. There was this one kid (N) who was in my new friend group and she had a crush on me. She couldn't take no for an answer, her friends texted me almost daily asking if it was because she's fat or ugly, but it wasn't. I just didn't like girls. She didn't get that and would eventually threaten to come to my house (her sister lived very close to my mom's place). She would constantly ask me for nudes and if we could make out and "make babies". She would constantly harass me and one of the last messages she ever sent me was a picture of her arm where she had cut my name into. I was still 12 at this point.
When I was 14 I started medication for my anxiety, and it got better for a while. I still lived and live in that children's home today and from the very beginning I think it just made everything worse. I definitely benefited from the structure and regular schedule they gave me but otherwise I think I would not be doing so bad if it wasn't for this place. The closest towns are both 10km away and there is just farmland and forest here. I live upstairs now in an apartment they have for older kids here (I'm 17) and it's gotten better, but still not good. When I was 15 I tried to kill myself for the first time in years. Me and my best friend had been drifting apart and she spent a lot more time with the kids that pretty much despised me for just being alive I guess. That day was especially bad and since then I started to distance myself from her. Last year we started in a new school where the other kids didn't come to so we got close again. School was the only reason for me to wake up in the morning since I could see her and get away from this house I live in. Now that summer started I genuinely don't know how I'll make it through. I had hopes of moving out this year but my social worker ran that to the ground. It's going to be a full year until I'm 18 and everyone is telling me that it's such a short time but I genuinely do not feel like I'll make it to there. I'm so hopeless for change, it really just doesn't get better huh. My best friend is also very sick currently and I genuinely wake up fearing that she is going to die every day. I don't want to tell her because I want her to have some place or person who doesn't just talk about her illness and someone who she can hang out with without the pressure of recovery or anything. I think the only reason I haven't gone through with my plans to kill myself is that I don't want to inconvenience anyone, also I think I've taken so many L:s it has to be a record or something. The autobiography would sell like crazy ig