Hey ArtShift.ai community! 👋
We’ve got something exciting in the works! 🎉 Soon, you’ll be able to add n**arration **to your stories on ArtShift.ai - Art Evolution. This new feature will let you turn your text into captivating spoken words, bringing your stories to life like never before.

📣 What’s Coming?

With our upcoming Narration feature, you can:

• Add Voices: Choose from a range of natural-sounding voices or upload your own recordings.
• Sync & Customize: Align narration with your story, add background music, and control pacing for an immersive experience.
• Enhance Engagement: Create dynamic stories with audio, making them more engaging and accessible.

🎨 Sneak Peek:

Check out our teaser video to see a glimpse of how the narration feature will work:
👉 Watch the Teaser Video 👈

✨ Why You'll Love It:

• Immersive Storytelling: Add depth and emotion to your stories.
• Accessibility: Make your stories available to a wider audience.
• Versatility: Perfect for audiobooks, storytelling, and educational content.

🚀 Stay Tuned:

We’re putting the finishing touches on this feature and can’t wait for you to try it. Keep an eye out for our official release!
🔗 Links:

• Follow Us for Updates: Website Facebook Instagram
• Get app: Play Store

Last week, my partner had a stranger arrived at his front door inquiring about a Facebook listing advertising his house for rent. The Facebook listing took old photographs from the inside and outside from Zillow, when the house used to be on the market. The man who posted it also has many other houses up for rent across the US, which I assume are also fake. My partner filed a police report- we know the local police will not go hunt this guy down but we thought it would be smart to have something on record just in case. Afterwards, I messaged the guy from my Facebook profile pretending to be interested to see what his guy wants, assuming information to obtain a fake deposit or banking info, personal info, etc. he asked for my phone and email so the realtor can reach out to me and follow up. We did not share my contact info but sent a link to find out where they are operating out of and turns out it’s FortWorth TX. We are on the northeast coast.
Then, just today, he had two more people arrive again for the open house. There was a text conversation inviting them to the house my partner owns and currently lives in for an Open House. We tried looking up the number but it seems to be a fake (of course.)
Has anyone had an issue like this or knows if anything more can be done than just filing a police report. It’s concerning having more people show up and a person actively inviting strangers to an Open House.
TLDR; someone posted my partners house on Facebook marketplace for renting and actively setting up open houses via text.

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

Verse 29 - The purpose of sending this chosen messenger:

God says:

"That he may make evident that they indeed have conveyed the Messages of their Lord. He has encompassed what is with them and He enumerated all things in number.” (The Quran 72:29)

The verse uses the past tense verb "أَحَاطَ" (aḥāṭa) which means "encompassed" or "surrounded." The verb "لَدَيْهِمْ" (ladayhim) involves possession and is not bound by tense in the same way verbs are. So an accurate interpretation would be that God has encompassed what is with them, meaning what is with this chosen messenger and his time (i.e. the Quran), or that God has encompassed (past tense) what was with them (past tense), meaning the prophet and his companions. It can refer to a present or ongoing state resulting from a past action but the "he may make clear" refers to a future event, which indeed makes this a prophecy. Either way, Rashad fully fulfilled it all. This is exactly what transpired. The verse continues:

"And He enumerated all things in number."

The preservation and guarding of the Quran was done by way of numerical patterns/codes embedded within the Quran, God enumerated everything in numbers.

Answering the weak claims of liars, doubters and rejecters:

I will quickly go over a couple claims that I found online and refute them. I will only answer claims I personally think are response worthy. The rest are not even worth the time.

Claim: "Rashad's overall message was unlike that of other prophets/messengers":

This is totally false, because he eradicated prevalent Shirk, the same Shirk that still to this day continues to "flourish" amongst traditionalists.
God says in the Quran, interestingly in the same chapter that we discussed above (i.e. Chapter 72, The Jinn):

"And the mosques are for God, so do not call upon anyone with God." (The Quran 72:18)

The traditionalists are all invoking the prophet, in the same manner they are invoking God. They are all (and I mean literally all of them) saying during their 5 daily prayers:

'as-salaamu 'alaika ayyuha n-nabiyyu' (Peace be on you, O Prophet!)

This is literally an invocation directed to an entity other than God, namely prophet Muhammad. Rashad came and eradicated this Shirk from the Muslim community, but traditionalists remain in their worship of the prophet and refuse to be reminded and reformed.
The real question should be; why would an imposter (who hypothetically was inspired by Satan) want to eradicate prevalent Shirk from the Muslim Ummah?

Claim: "All messengers were prophets, therefor there's a seal on messengership as well!"

And when we ask them: why? They indirectly answer: "Because we say so!" and expect us to just take their words for it.
There's literally nothing behind this erroneous analogy of theirs that supports it. They are literally just claiming that God is bound by a rule. They are literally just inventing and fabricating rules they expect God to submit to.
God says:

“but he is the Messenger of God and the seal (i.e. end) of the Prophets” (The Quran 33:40)

They quote this verse and use it as some sort of evidence while this very verse is the exact opposite, it is against them, but they are rendered incapable of perceiving it.
Messengers are not prophets by default, they are just messengers, whereas prophets are individuals who receive prophecies from God that they convey to people, which makes them messengers as well. This is the linguistic definition of these words. It's baffling how this understanding has been reversed by traditionalists, with the claim that messengers are both prophets and messengers, while prophets are merely prophets. This claim is totally baseless and makes no sense at all.
God has not defined these words in the Quran in any specific way because the Quran is not a dictionary or lexicon; the definitions of the words are something we should naturally understand. Just as we naturally should know where Mecca is located or where the former Qibla was located. Both messengers and prophets are sent by God with a revelation (Scriptures or not) and with Clear Signs, whilst calling for submission and the worship of God alone. Prophets, in addition to all of that, also receive prophecies, foretelling the future, which is why they are called 'prophets.'
Rashad was a messenger of God, not a prophet. He didn't receive a new prophecy because the knowledge of the timing of the Hour was already present with us embedded within the Quran. He was only guided by Gabriel and shown how to uncover it. Prophet Muhammad is the one who received this prophecy originally, but it was obscured from everyone (including prophet Muhammad), hence why he was directed to say:

"Say, 'I do not know whether that which you are promised is near, or if my Lord has appointed for it a distant term. [God is] the Knower of the Unseen, and He reveals unto none His unseen, except who He has chosen of a messenger..." (The Quran 72:25-27)

God states:

"And We did not send before you except men to whom We revealed. So ask the people of the scripture if you do not know, with the clear proofs and the Scriptures. And We sent down to you the Reminder so that it may make clear to the people what has been sent down to them, and perhaps they may reflect." (The Quran 16:42-43)

Everyone that was sent by God had some sort of revelation, whether it was by way of Scriptures and Clear Signs. There's no specific thing distinguishing the two (except for the linguistic distinction I mentioned here above).
It is only their fallacious analogy, that's all. It is based on a passage from the Quran saying; prophets ruled according to Moses Law, the Torah, therefor, a messenger is someone who brings a new Law. Did they forget that Jesus was a messenger and a prophet and he didn't abrogate the Torah?:

"[The Day] when God will say, 'O Jesus, Son of Mary, remember My favor upon you and upon your mother when I supported you with the Pure Spirit and you spoke to the people in the cradle and in maturity; and when I taught you writing and wisdom and the Torah and the Gospel." (The Quran 5:110)

Do you see how fallacious their reasoning actually is? Disregard their weak arguments; it is all weak in my eyes and should be equally so in yours too. God says:

"And We do not send the messengers except as bringers of good tidings and warners. So whoever believes and REFORMS - there will be no fear concerning them, nor will they grieve." (6:48)

Messengers are bringers of good tidings and they serve as warners, and their purpose is to make us believe and to reform us (by the Will and Grace of God). Messengers are also described with revelations of the Book and the Balance (which literally has to do with "Laws"):

"We sent aforetime our messengers with clear signs and sent down with them the Book and the Balance, that people may stand forth in justice; and We sent down Iron, in which is strong material, as well as many benefits for mankind, that God may test who it is that will help, unseen, Him and His messengers: For God is full of strength, exalted in might." (The Quran 57:25)

Prophets are also specifically described as being sent with Scriptures so they can "judge between people":

"Mankind was [of] one religion [i.e. before their deviation]; then God sent the prophets as bringers of good tidings and warners and sent down with them the Scripture in truth to judge between the people concerning that in which they differed." (The Quran 2:213)

Both are described as being sent with revelations containing Laws.

The Sunni definition of "prophet" is derived from the founders of Sunnism, the ancient rabbis:

From a Sunni/Salafi Fatwa:

"The well-known difference between a Prophet and a Messenger is that a Messenger is one to whom a law is revealed and he is commanded to convey it, whilst a Prophet is one to whom a law is revealed but he is not commanded to convey it. But this distinction is not free of problems, because a Prophet is also commanded to call people, convey the Message and judge among the people."

Source
That it is possible for a prophet to receive revelations from God and suppress them and not convey them to the people, is nothing but a copy/paste from ancient rabbinic literature. The Sunnis got this from the rabbis of old (Maimonides, to be exact):

"But with regard to one who suppresses his prophecy because he does not want to share it with the public, and one who contemptuously forgoes the statement of a prophet and refuses to heed it, and a prophet who violated his own statement and failed to perform that which he was commanded to do, his death is at the hand of Heaven, as it is stated: “And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall not hearken unto My words that he shall speak in My name, I will exact it of him” (Deuteronomy 18:19)."

Source: Sanhedrin 89a - 8.
Two points to consider:

1. Why would God reveal something to someone and not command him to convey it to the people? Why are they attributing this sheer stupidity to God?
2. To claim that God would reveal something to someone with the purpose of conveying it to others while simultaneously allowing him the free will to choose whether he wants to convey it or not, and if we hypothetically say that this is the case, then if a prophet were to actually not convey the revelation, then this would imply that God doesn't know the future or that He randomly sends Revelations to people and hopes they will convey it to others. Either way, this is a stupidity God is far above.

To refute both of these points, we have to look no further than the Quran itself:
God says:

"O Messenger, convey that which has been revealed to you from your Lord, for if you do not, then you have not conveyed His message. And God will protect you from the people. Indeed, God does not guide the disbelieving people." (The Quran 5:67)

And,

"Indeed, those who conceal what We sent down of clear proofs and guidance after We made it clear for the people in the Scripture - those are cursed by God and cursed by those who curse." (The Quran 2:159)

Hiding what God sends down is only done by cursed individuals, to claim that God would send revelations to cursed people stems from nothing other than ancient Rabbinism*.
^\Rabbinism: Rabbinic Judaism has been the mainstream form of Judaism since the 6th century CE, after the codification of the Babylonian Talmud, and also "coincidentally" after the advent of the Quran.)
The phrase: "for if you do not, then you have not conveyed His message" - implies that the purpose of the revelation is to convey it to others. It implies that it is expected of him.

The two deleted verses:

It is interesting to note that there's only 2 extra verses, because matching the mastery of the Quran with more than 2 verses is impossible. It's impossible to mimic the Quran with more than 2 verses without making mumbo jumbo phrases and sentences that make no sense. The shortest chapter in the Quran is made up of 3 verses, nobody has ever brought 3 verses that match the Quran.
If you think it is to deny the Quran if one were to believe that 9:128-129 are added verses, not belonging to it, then you would also believe that 'Ali disbelieved, according to historical accounts. This is recorded in the history books of Sunni scholars themselves.
We find in Kitab al-Masahif by Ibn Abu Dawud, where he suggests that Umar ibn Al-Khattab considered adding verses 128 and 129 to a separate Surah if they had been three verses instead of two, indicating some recognition of their contentious nature during the compilation of the Quran. It is also mentioned that Zaid bin Thabit found these two verses with only one scribe, namely with Khuzaima ibn Thabit. A whooping 65 scribes to the disposal of prophet Muhammad, and only one had these two verses written down. They still included them, which was unusual given the strict criteria for including verses based on multiple witnesses (Source: Ibn Abu Dawud, Kitab al-Masahif; Al-Suyuti, Al-Itqan fi Ulum al-Quran).
In As-Suyuti's Al-Itqan fi Ulum al-Quran, we read that Ali ibn Abi Talib expressed concerns about additions to the Quran. According to a narration by Muhammad ibn Sirin from Ikrima, Ali refrained from pledging allegiance to Abu Bakr because he believed that something had been added to the Book of God, indicating his suspicion regarding the integrity of certain verses (Source: Al-Suyuti, Al-Itqan fi Ulum al-Quran).
Do you also consider 'Ali to have apostatized? If not, then why would we be? Especially considering the fact that we now even have substantial evidence that two additional verses were added and that precisely these two verses, the verses that always have been shrouded in doubt, that they ruin the 19 code. But when omitted, the code remains in tact.

The verse saying "No falsehood approaches it":

The traditional translation of this verse is:

"Falsehood does not approach it from before or behind; it is a Revelation from the Wise, the Praiseworthy." (The Quran 41:42)

This above is a deviation from the Arabic grammar of the words and the Arabic idiom being used. Let's go through each word, but before doing that, we need to read a few verses before this verse so we get some context:

40: "Indeed, those who are deviating concerning our Âyât (Signs/Verses) are not concealed from Us. Is he who is cast into the Fire better off, or is it the one who safely comes forth on the Day of Resurrection? Go ahead and do whatever you wish. Indeed, He is Seeing of whatever you do."
41: "[these are] indeed those who disbelieved in the Reminder after it came to them. And indeed, it is surely a Mighty Book."
42: "Falsehood does not come to it, neither from its past nor from its future. It is a Revelation from One who is Wise, Praiseworthy."

The phrase: "بَيْنِ يَدَيْهِ" (From its past): Literally: "Between his hands" - As I have already explained earlier in this post, this is an idiom which all traditional translators seem to be totally ignorant about. It simply means "his past" or "before him (i.e. his time)."
The phrase: "وَلَا مِنْ خَلْفِهِۦ" (nor from its future): Literally: "And not from after him/it" - The word "Khalfihi" can mean "Behind it" and it can mean "After it." Because the idiom "Bayni yadayhi" precedes it and means "Its past," and has to do with time, therefor "Khalfihi" likewise is about time and should be translated as "its future." The word "Khalaf" is the opposite of the word "Salaf," which is generally taken to mean "predecessors" while "Khalaf" is the opposite, "successors." It is about the past and the successive future.
God is ensuring us that the Quran is immune to falsehood and cannot be corrupted,even if attempts are made to alter it with lies and fabrications. How can this be best demonstrated and proven true? Through a numerical code that preserves every aspect of the text. If a single letter is added or removed, the code fails. This is exactly what Rashad Khalifa discovered during his lifetime. In other words, even if intentional attempts are made to distort the Quran, they will fail because there is a safeguard in place. This verse does not state that people cannot attempt to distort the Quran; anyone can distort its contents (even you or I can do it right now at this current moment). Rather, it means that falsehood cannot successfully infiltrate it at any time and be forever being considered to be the original Quran, thereby ensuring its preservation.
To claim that this verse is implying that nobody ever will be able to distort the Quran and remove or add from it, then you would also essentially be saying that Rashad Khalifa disproved the truthfulness of the Quran because he did just that, he removed two verses from it and millions of Muslims are reading his Quran and fully believe the Quran was distorted while it wasn't (hypothetically).
Another interpretation of this verse (that is fully valid and plausible) is that God is talking about the time during which it is being revealed and written down by scribes. Because the verse ends saying "...It is a Revelation from One who is Wise, Praiseworthy." In other words;

"Falsehood does not come to it neither in its past nor its future, (because) it is a Revelation from a Wise One..."

I.e. It is not falsehood that is being revealed, neither in its past nor will there be any revealed in its future, because it is all from God. The last phrase is what makes this the most likely accurate interpretation.

Weird Sunni translation of this verse exposes their ignorance and thus also their mistranslation of 72:28:

This very verse uses the exact same idiom that 72:28 contains. The "Between his hands" one. This is how traditionalists translate it in this verse (i.e. 41:42):

It cannot be proven false from any angle...
— Dr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran
Falsehood cannot approach it from before it or from behind it...
— Saheeh International
that cannot be approached by falsehood, neither from its front, nor from its behind...
— T. Usmani
which falsehood cannot touch from any angle...
— M.A.S. Abdel Haleem
Falsehood may not enter it from the front or from the rear...
— A. Maududi (Tafhim commentary)
Falsehood cannot come at it from before it or from behind it...
— M. Pickthall
No falsehood can approach it from before or behind it...
— A. Yusuf Ali
Falsehood cannot come to it from before it or behind it...
— Al-Hilali & Khan

The rendering: "From any angle" is a complete mistranslation because that is not what the Arabic verse says.
The rendering: "its front nor from behind it" - What does this even mean? Does the Quran have front doors and back doors? It is not even an idiom in Arabic, let alone English. These translators just assumed that this is an idiom in both Arabic and English, while the literal translation makes very little sense in both Arabic and English. How would someone come to the Quran with falsehood behind it?
Does it mean "from the frontside" of its cover? And the "backside" of its cover as well? The Quran was not even in book form at that particular time when this verse was revealed, so how is that explained? The fact of the matter is that they have failed to understand this idiom, which is why they also mistranslated the verse where Rashad Khalifa is prophesied:

"Except who He has chosen of a messenger, for indeed he will follow a path from before him (i.e. before his time), and after him will be a (guarding) monitoring."

The same idiom is used in this verse. I see this as a significant sign from our Lord. It seems He used this idiom in these two verses specifically for this very reason, to show that they are ignorant of the Quran's language, its idioms, and that they completely disregard its grammar and structure of the verses and etc. This is why they end up with these awkward phrases like, "Falsehood may not enter it from the front or from the rear," and "Falsehood cannot come at it from before it or from behind it," among others, which we won't delve into any further. Not only is the English grammar appalling, but these statements are also meaningless in English. They pay no attention to this and have likely confused people by the masses.

The only person to claim messengership that has been assassinated is Rashad Khalifa:

It is very notable that, out of all people who ever have claimed messengership (or prophethood), Rashad is the only one who was assassinated. This also speaks volumes. Sure, Sunni Hadiths speak about a few who claimed prophethood and were consequently executed, but we all know how truthful and accurate Sunni Hadiths are.
This is just an interesting tidbit, it speaks volumes to me personally.

Conclusion:

Wasn't everything in Chapter 72 exactly what Rashad Khalifa experienced and accomplished? It undoubtedly was, and it is impossible to deny. Knowing this, a rejector will certainly be called to account and questioned on Judgement Day as to why he rejected and denied something God made confirmable and undeniable.
God has made it evident that the Hadiths are nothing but fabrications and He has made it evident that they even tempered with the Quran. If you keep on believing that the Quran Sunnis uphold is fully from God, you are literally dooming yourself and transgressing against God because He has revealed means for us that enables us to confirm Rashad's claims. You are part of the problem. What is the difference between you and a Kâfir (disbeliever) of the past such as those who opposed prophet Muhammad? Nothing at all. So fear God and submit to Him fully.
I urge you, O Muslims, to fear God! O people, fear God, because denying a messenger of God renders you an apostate or a Kâfir (a rejector who covers the truth after knowing it). You have no right to deny Rashad Khalifa. God did not send a messenger and allowed you to keep living your life doubting him or totally disregarding him. Imagine if the early Muslims behaved like that? Do you think God would have been pleased with them? All the excuses I have found online are very weak and based on flawed analogies and fallacious reasonings, such as "God said that every messenger was sent to people who spoke his mother tongue, therefore, Rashad must be a fake messenger." And these people actually believe this will be a plausible excuse on the Day of Judgement🤦‍♂️.
Fear God, O believers, and submit to Him fully! You have been shown the truth, and it is now upon you to testify it. How you do that is your decision to make.
Another major excuse people use is that Rashad supposedly claimed that his Quran translation was divinely inspired/guided, and this is nothing but a lie. Nowhere has he claimed this (as far as I know). There are interviews on YouTube where you can clearly hear him saying that he made a personal promise to God in a supplication that he would not move past a word (while translating) until he fully understood its definition. This does not mean "My translation was guided/inspired by God Himself."
Remember this Statement God made concerning those who are rendered incapable of seeing His Signs:

"I will turn away from My Âyât [i.e. Signs/Verses] those who are arrogant in the earth without right. And if they see every Sign, they will not believe in it, and if they see the path of right guidance, they will not adopt it as a path, and if they see the path of misguidance, they will adopt it as a path. That is because they denied Our Âyât (Signs/Verses) and were heedless of them." (The Quran 7:146)

With this, I end this article, and may God open your hearts to Truth and guide us all and keep us steadfast upon His Straight Path until we die, âmîn.
/ By your brother, Exion.

You haven't spoken to me since the night of my birthday, where you had said you'd give me a call and I waited for hours. I had to go to bed, and you texted me saying you had just gotten home from partying. I told I couldn't call now because I needed to sleep before work the next day. I was really looking forward to your call. You apologized and told me you wanted me to stay, and I just went to bed. I texted you the next evening saying I had quit my job. You ignored me. You gave them flowers and balloons with a card on their birthday. I think about waiting in the dark of my apartment, waiting for your call. I hate that it kind of ruined my day. I had a breakdown. I quit my job and have to look for another again. I don't want to be homeless again. This is my first apartment and I don't want to lose what I have. I was crying and hyperventilating on my couch, reaching out to my friends, but no one called. I drank the rest of my tequila and blacked out. I woke up a few hours later and had horrible visions and nightmares until dawn. The next morning, I cleaned myself up and went down to pay my rent. My landlord asked me if I was okay, and in a quiet and broken voice, I said I was. My eye were red. I was exhausted. She asked about work, and I told her I had quit my job. She said I've had a rough year. Still no one has called. I blocked my best friend and wondered how people could make me feel like I was understood and cared for forever, only to stop caring one day. I compiled my favorite messages from you and read them for hours and hours. I had never known anyone like D or R. I stopped talking to R over a year ago, once I had considered they might be my soulmate. I've been alone for so long. How did this happen to us? A still hasn't spoken to me yet. Spending time with his friends. Celebrating the album he had finished recording. It feels like shit to be treated like this by someone I looked up to for a long time and who had become my friend. You were drunk on the night of my birthday and asked me to remain your friend. You said you were excited to meet me. It's like you fell of the face of the earth these past days. How long will you wait? How can I trust you now? The days since have left me feeling empty, waiting for you to call. Searching for a job. Talking to people on OkCupid. Checking my Instagram again and again, if you read my message, if you watched my story, if you watched my reel, if you've unfollowed me. Nothing. Where did you go? I can feel you're not thinking of me.

Last week, my partner had a stranger arrived at his front door inquiring about a Facebook listing advertising his house for rent. The Facebook listing took old photographs from the inside and outside from Zillow, when the house used to be on the market. The man who posted it also has many other houses up for rent across the US, which I assume are also fake. My partner filed a police report- we know the local police will not go hunt this guy down but we thought it would be smart to have something on record just in case. Afterwards, I messaged the guy from my Facebook profile pretending to be interested to see what his guy wants, assuming information to obtain a fake deposit or banking info, personal info, etc. he asked for my phone and email so the realtor can reach out to me and follow up. We did not share my contact info but sent a link to find out where they are operating out of and turns out it’s FortWorth TX. We are on the northeast coast.
Then, just today, he had two more people arrive again for the open house. There was a text conversation inviting them to the house my partner owns and currently lives in for an Open House. We tried looking up the number but it seems to be a fake (of course.)
Has anyone had an issue like this or knows if anything more can be done than just filing a police report. It’s concerning having more people show up and a person actively inviting strangers to an Open House. Any sort of advice or stories are welcome. Thanks in advance!

Im not sure what to do here, but just wanted to see if I’m trippin or not. I (24 F) have been with my boyfriend (25 M) for 6 years. We met freshmen year of college and have pretty much been inseparable since. For back story, my boyfriend has always been a super outgoing person, and loves to party and drink alcohol. In school, we were still really young and everyone partied a little too hard, but that comes with being in college as well. Over the past couple years, I’ve been seeing a repeat pattern of his drinking and coming home super late/ extremely drunk. We both work in food service/ hospitality so I guess it comes with the territory, but even when I’ve worked in a restaurant I’ve never acted this way or adopted those toxic habits.
But, there have been a few times too many when he has taken it way too far. For background, his hometown is a beach town, and drinking is something everyone does just because there’s not much to do. All his friends drank at a young age and were reckless kids. A couple years ago, we were visiting for a summer helping his parents with their restaurant during Covid, and one night we went to an employee party. He gets so wasted that he barges into a bathroom with 3 girls already in there, and proceeds to pull down his pants and pee in front of them. I’m looking for him, and finally find him and pull him out the bathroom. At this point I’m so fed up i just wanna go back home, but of course his drunk ass refuses. I have to drag him out of the party and we start screaming at each other; this scared the shit out of me cause we’ve never done that, and now it’s taking me out of my character to match his energy. I finally get him in the car and we drive back home (yes I was sober btw). I pull up in the driveway, and he proceeds to take off his clothing items one by one and litters the front lawn with it. He kinds of throws them at me too, and i just follow him into the house collecting his clothes on the way in. (Mind you this is his parents house, and they are literally inside sleeping.) The next morning he doesn’t remember a goddamn thing…
Another time, he goes out with his friends and it starts getting really late so i text and call… no answer. I’m a little worried cause these aren’t friends he’s known for a long time, just work friends; so I just wanna make sure he’s safe or if he needs a ride i can pick him up. I called probably 15 times and he finally answers. He’s so drunk I can’t even understand what he’s saying. Luckily we have each others locations, so i tell him I’m on my way, and to answer the phone when I call so he can come outside. I get there, call him, and of course no answer… i sat outside for probably 30 minutes, calling and texting him, before he comes stumbling to the car.
After we moved, he started a new job at a restaurant he really seems to enjoy working at. This is where I noticed him drinking more frequently and coming home super drunk. He’s a cook so they often get out really late. (On the weekends it’s probably around 12:30/1am). Of course he wants to get to know his coworkers and make friends, so he occasionally stays out late and comes home maybe around 3am. He’s not always drunk, but it always wakes me up and i need to be up super early. I work in a bakery right now and usually get there at 4/5am.
One night he comes home as I’m leaving for work (4am), and he’s so drunk he just stumbles in and starts getting undressed to lay in bed. He goes to the bathroom and i hear him throwing up. Already annoyed, I just roll my eyes as I’m getting my bag and shoes on. But then I hear him spitting, and I know he’s not in the bathroom anymore cause i heard the toilet flush. I walk into his room and see him slumped over on the side of the bed, sitting there repeatedly spitting on the floor. I started getting angry and start yelling at him. He yells back, and starts cursing at me, “gtfo, i don’t care, I’ll clean it up later…”. Then I take out my phone and record him. I record him yelling at me, the spit all over the floor, and the vomit all over the toilet and bathroom floor. I get home later that day and he’s still sleeping. When he wakes up, of course he remembers nothing. I show him the video, and he’s super apologetic and disgusted with himself (as he should be). After this he didn’t go out or drink for a while.
Now about last night… Again, he comes home after I leave for work. On the weekend, I usually get home early around 11am/noon; and when i come back home he’s still sleeping. The dog hasn’t been taken out nor has she been fed. This pisses me off cause she shouldn’t have to suffer or have an accident in the house. He wakes up as he hears me walking around and rummaging through the fridge for her food. He comes to me and immediately apologizes for sleeping in so late. As I’m changing, he asks me if i was still home when he came home. I look at him confused and say, “no, you don’t remember?” He doesn’t remember a thing. One of his coworkers always goes to raves and they went to one last night. He then shows me these huge scratches on his arms, and there’s even a scratch on his face. I asked how he got home, and he says 2 of his coworkers drove him; and they even drove his car back too. He told me they had to carry him inside. As I’m writing this, it’s 4:30pm and he’s still sleeping…
I’m just so tired of this at this point. We’ve had multiple conversations about his habits, and I’ve expressed my concerns. I just don’t know if this can be worked through, or if i should start distancing myself from the relationship. I feel like I have trauma from all this cause every time he goes out, I immediately get anxiety and can’t sleep well. I never know if he’s going to come home, what time, or in what condition…
Side note: he has ADHD, and tends to fixate on things and develops addictions (ex: vaping, several hobbies, binging YouTube videos about said hobbies, etc.) He’s not on medication, and says he doesn’t like it cause it messes with his appetite and sleep. I told him he needs to learn new skills to manage it, but he has put no effort into doing so…

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.

I (26F) was in an abusive relationship from the age of 19-21, and it carried on a bit until I was 24.
Here are some key things that happened in the relationship:
I blacked out one day, he made up a story that I actively tried to fuck his best friend in front of him. It was confirmed that I never did that an entire year later when I was able to speak with his friend about it. I fell asleep on the way home in the back seat and he left me there to go home and meet his ex girlfriend to hookup before I woke up. This was also confirmed by text messages I was shown from his friend between the two.
For our entire relationship he cheated on me, CONSTANTLY. His excuse was always “You cheated on me, so why can’t I cheat on you? I forgave you for it, you should forgive me.” I felt guilty and that the troubles to the relationship were my fault, so I always apologized and told him I was sorry for doing what I did but it was hurting me for him to do what he was doing. He didn’t care, in fact he began recording himself having sex with other girls and would leave the videos for me to find- he’d encourage me to look through his photos and when I’d find the videos, he’d laugh and just tell me he thought he deleted them, and that I should mind my business??
This was by far the worst psychological abuse he did, but wasn’t the only thing.
He constantly told me that I do everything wrong and no matter how much I cooked, cleaned, or tried to be a good girlfriend, I wasn’t. I would spend hours cleaning his house to surprise him when he’d get home from work- one time he screamed at me for not immediately moving the clothes in the washer to the dryer, and told me to never do his laundry or touch his shit because I didn’t know what I was doing.
It even got so bad one night he disconnected the washer and dryer so I couldn’t use it, and told me he would shut off the electricity while he was gone so I couldn’t use it, because “he paid for it and I waste it not doing my job right.”
The physical abuse started shortly after three months and it was all bad. I was constantly being told he would kill me and bury me in the backyard, one night he held me hostage with a gun and told me my body would twitch as I bled out, and he’d bury me face down. This wasn’t the first time I thought he would kill me. The next day he reached out to tell me I was overreacting because the gun wasn’t even loaded and laughed, mind you my face was bruised, lip busted, and several other marks and bruises on my body.
Still, I blamed myself. I thought I wasn’t trying hard enough, so I tried harder and harder to do everything right.
For a few days he was nice to me, would bring me flowers, buy me things, cook for me, and I thought he realized how much I loved him.
Then he was mean again, threatening to go sleep with another girl and replace me with a better housewife .
I’d beg, plead, cry, and sob for him to stay, but he’d go. And I’d be there waiting for him to get back just for him to tell me he didn’t do anything only to find evidence a few days later.
There was always another girl. ALWAYS. And it was constantly forced on me that if I left, he’d replace her and give her everything I wanted.
There were times he did, but he’d always come back to tell me he couldn’t replace me and he loved me, and I believed him.
There is a lot more than this.
He broke me. Internally, I still haven’t healed. I cry often when I’m alone because these things that happened to me replay in my head.
I’ve ruined two relationships since because all I can think about is never letting it happen again. I can’t communicate without feeling this intense urge to defend myself. I’ve become physically abusive because there is this rage in me that once again feels like I have to defend myself. I’ve become overprotective of myself, and I simply can’t let anyone in.
I’m drowning in this. I’m having constant nightmares again of him killing me. And I’m scared.
I’m paranoid everyone in my life is out to get me now. I don’t believe anything anyone tells me.
It’s been like this for awhile, and I’ll admit the last two years I sought out men who reminded me of my son’s dad and treated them how he treated me…just trying to understand why, in the end it’s left me feeling like a bad person, and I still don’t understand why.
Did someone hurt him enough to make him that way? Like he made me?
All I can say is it’s been years and everyday I wake up and feel like it’s still happening.

I have two sets of potential ancestors whose marriage records I can't read. One of pretty exciting because it seems to have a whole wall of descriptive text, which is very rare in these old record books. These are in German I think, with some Hungarian and Latin probably. In Kurrentschrift. Could anyone fully transcribe (in the original language), and also fully translate to English, both marriage records for me? So 4 things (marriage 1 original language text, marriage 1 in English, marriage 2 original language text, marriage 2 in English). Thank you very much if so!
Marriage 1: https://ibb.co/ryhrZT5 Marriage 2: https://ibb.co/tQ31jJy

I'm not sure where to begin. I'm 35. Female. All my life I felt abnormal and was labeled weird. At 25 (after graduating college, go figure) I was finally diagnosed with ADHD and screened for autism. Never got a complete test for that but the doc said she was 90-something percent sure I had it, but was worried if getting the information on my records was worth it at this point. Might do more harm than good.
I should also state that when I was born I had a subarachnoid hemorrhage. A bad one that required me to be in the hospital for a few weeks. Even then the doctor was worried it would effect me later. But it seems that slipped through the cracks? When I was younger (somewhere between 3-5 grade) a teacher noticed my oddities and suggested I get tested. Apparently I had been. But my mother refused to believe the results. Loathed the very idea of putting me on something like Adderall and such meds and buried it.
There's also a bunch of trauma from when my dad had a head injury and completely changed.
So long story short, I've always been weird, felt out of place, and very insecure eitha lot of trauma dumped on top of that. But I was still able to function somewhat. But after having my second child.... even almost 5 years after, I feel like I can't function at all. Taking care of my self is a struggle. Thankfully I'm able to somehow manage taking care of my children, but I also recognize it's not at the level I wish it were.
It's better at the moment, but for almost 2 years there I hardly moved from the couch. Only to help the kids with something did I move. I was always tired, no matter how much or how little I slept. I felt worthless. And honestly, if not for my children I might have killed myself. I'm not like that now. It's a bit better. But I know for a fact that stuff I used to be able to do without much thought, I simply can't do now or it frustrates me so much I snap. A few times I got super stressed/triggered by them and snapped horrible. So now whenever something upsets me I try and push it down and detach. Breathing exercises in the moment don't work because I simply can't remember them when I'm in the throws of fight/flight.
Worse in all of this is that I'm very self aware of all of this. I know the problem. I see them. I breakdown exactly how I got there and through research know the psychological factors. But then that triggers the imposter syndrome. Is it all just some lame justification for being difficult and lazy?
But this too I recognize as not truth. Who the hell would willingly put themselves in this position? I'm not happy. I'm not comfortable. My life isn't easier if I was an imposter pretending to have all this. Is that not the point of pretending?
So I'm aware of all of this... and yet nothing ever changes. I'm still stuck here.
And getting help? If you know anything at all then you should know the task of finding someone is daunting alone without the issue of insurance (i'm talking about adhd issues here). I loath meeting people. Zooms not better because then I can't read the person's body language, and i'm still overwhelmed with sensory overload issues.
Texting is a little better since I can stop amd think what I want to say... but are there even doctors that work like that? Not to mention so much information then gets lost...
I dont know. And now, after all this I'm second guessing whether I should even do this. What's the point? I know from dealing with my dad's issues that there isn't a cure or any real solution. Most times the go to answer is medication. And while I have that and it sometimes helps, it's hit or miss. And usually I'm suffering from insomnia so I can't even take it.
I'm either ranting or making excuses now. I can't tell...

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.

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.

Hey everyone, I am a musician. I started playing the piano in 7th grade and now i’m a multi-instrumentalist who loves doing marching percussion. But one of the first things that really sparked my interest for music were the ragtime compositions of Ragtime Musician Scott Joplin.
Joplin grew up in a musical family of railway laborers in Texarkana, Arkansas. He traveled alot as a musician, and that was how he tried to make a living. He even appeared a couple times in Chicago for the Worlds Fair of 1893.
He began publishing music in 1895, and publication of his "Maple Leaf Rag" in 1899 brought him fame. This piece had a profound influence on writers of ragtime. He is now considered “The King of Ragtime”.
However, when looking at his history of education, it seems as if the only confirmed piece of information is the college he attended, which was the George R. Smith College, which was a historically Black college located in Sedalia, Missouri. He actually arrived to Sedalia a little earlier, sometime in the late 1880’s (he enrolled at the college in 1896).
However when searching for the highschool that he attended, there is pretty much 0 information on it. It is very possible that the recollection of the files or the records may have been lost or destroyed, I mean, that’s pretty much what happened to some of his compositions. We know they exist, but are just lost in time. Or it could have been destroyed as the highschool was demolished as well, as did the college.
There is only one source that actually mentions Joplins highschool that I could find online [here] (https://historicmissourians.shsmo.org/scott-joplin/#:~:text=Sometime%20in%20the%201880s%2C%20Joplin,Tom%20Turpin%2C%20another%20ragtime%20musician.), which states that the highschool he attended was called Lincoln Highschool, that may have been located in Sedalia, Missouri. Does anybody know if this is valid information? I did one search and the only “Lincoln Highschool” there is is in Lincoln, Missouri. If the highschool had existed in Sedalia but was destroyed, could there not have been at least some info on it? It is also very likely that the current lincoln high from lincoln, missouri is not the same one mentioned in the article.
What could this highschool be? And located exactly where?

Once again if there is anything I missed or any suggestions people want to make feel free to let me know.
NCR: following their loss to the ruler of the strip, and subsequent evacuation, ncr troops returned home to find California in an even worse state, the capital was destroyed nearly exactly as the second battle for the dam took place, and it's destruction plus the armies defeat sent the already struggling ncr economy into a steep decline, seeking a solution, the reformed government attempted another, larger invasion of the mojave a few years later, which led to significant losses on both sides and ultimately another defeat.
This time, troops returned to a nation in near complete chaos. Shortages of food, water, and a now nearly worthless currency led to poverty and famine not seen since the founding of ncr, and riots over said famine, draft protests, and the resurgence of powerful raider gangs meant police and army forces were unable to keep order in many parts of the country, during this time, Brotherhood forces also began to re-emerge, defeating the scattered army in multiple battles. At this point desertion within the ncr military reached its all time high, with thousands of troops either going missing or being confirmed deserters, many of these soldiers would eventually end up forming their own gangs and petty warlord kingdoms within abandoned territories, with most becoming only slightly better than the raiders they were originally supposed to be fighting.
Eventually, the strain on the nation became too much, and the ncr began to officially withdraw from the southern states, with boneyard being one of the first, followed by almost every settlement, one by one, until the line finally held, the new border stretching from Navarro and the coast in the west to the Big Circle and Reno in the east. The ncr was gravely weakened due to its withdrawal, and lost both much of it's citizens as well as much of its industrial and commercial centers, despite this it has consolidated what it does have, and it's remaining cities are enough to keep it standing as one of the major powers of the west, albeit much less capable of its previous feats and ambitions
As of right now, the ncr is pursuing a policy largely of isolationism, and the ideas and ideals of figures like former senator Hanlon and Tandi hold great sway over the republic. Since the collapse the ncr had mainly been forced to focus its energy into rebuilding the north and solving the lingering issues of the food and water supply, and while it still boasts a comparatively formidable army, that army is strictly defensive, with no plans to fight back or reclaim territory being put in motion.
SHI EMPIRE: following the collapse of the ncr, the shi returned largely to a more isolationist stance on the outside world, shutting their gates and sealing San Francisco off from much of the outside world. Despite this, rumors persist about secret weapons deals with various wasteland groups, ranging from particularly influential warlords to the ncr itself, though this is not confirmed
THE HUB: following ncrs withdrawal from the south, the hub fell under the control of a coalition of caravan companies, local officials and army officers, and eventually managed to mitigate the damage of the collapse, soon returning to its role as a hub of trade for southern California, albeit with markedly less profit and stability, they are also one of the only places left in the south that are still in constant communication with ncr proper, with the hub maintaining telegraph lines between the powers in exchange for ncr goods and ammunition.
RENO: during the collapse, New Renos crime families declared independence from ncr, retaking official control over the city and forming a loose alliance to govern it, however this coalition quickly broke down, and the city is currently embroiled in a civil war between the Wrights, who also lead the remnants of the alliance, and the Van Graffs, who are attempting to seize complete control. So far the conflict has remained within the borders of the city and its surroundings, however ncr and Follower presence on the border has increased, both in response to a refugee crisis as well as the possibility of further escalation
WEST COAST BOS: following the decline of ncr, the brotherhood got the breathing space in the war it sorely needed, the west coasts elders and clerics needed only to wait for the ncr to continue to weaken, and following their second loss in Vegas, as well as news from the east of their victories and incoming reinforcements, the western brotherhood pushed back, retaking many of its lost bunkers and pushing ncr forces back. Currently it has merged with a large contingent of the east coast brotherhood, and brotherhood forces have been seen attacking a remnant warlord force in the boneyard area, though the exact reason for this is unknown. (Also important to note, the brotherhood still holds very limited control of the regions identified as theirs, with most of the area being under warlord amd Hub influence, brotherhood only hold a presence in locations such as lost hills and the the observatory)
NCR REMNANT: largely regarded as a myth or hearsay, rumors persist about a large force of veteran rangers and soldiers who, upon receiving word or the retreat from Baja and later the south, remained in and defended the city of Dayglow, turning the city into a fortress, however due to the presence of multiple hostile groups and the lack of contact from the area, Dayglows remnants are regarded more as a theory than an actual unit. No attempts at contact have been made by either the Hub or ncr proper.
WARLORD TERRITORY: warlord territory refers to the largely lawless stretches of former ncr land that have fallen into the control of small territorial groups, whether they be raider gangs, former army units, former brahmin barons, citizens militias or whoever else may have the incentive and manpower to claim territory, quality of life in these areas is still barely better than it was in the collapse, and wars, raids, and starvation are still commonplace, as well as the re-emergence of practices like slavery
NEW VEGAS: following the victory of the ruler of the strip over ncr, little is known in the wider west about the state of Vegas, though it would seem that progress was being made towards greater stability following ncrs retreat, this wouldn't last though, as the second ncr invasion began, and was met with extremely stiff resistance from the securitron army, as well as numerous local groups. Ultimately ncr troops managed to inflicted major casualties on the strip forces, even attacking and breaching the strip itself, and the damage done seems to have shattered Vegas as much as it did the ncr, leaving whatever plans its ruler had unfinished
THE LEGION: following their defeat at hoover dam, as well as the death of Caesar shortly after, the legion began to deteriorate and eventually dissolve, with many of its tribes returning to their former ways or what was left of them, the legion remains however, mainly in and around the capital of Flagstaff, though severely diminished, they have largely taken to ruling over or pillaging the reformed tribal groups and former ncr border settlements. Though many within the legion still hold Caesars ideals, none have been able to recapture what was broken when he died, and so the legion continues to decline.
Post-legion Tribes: named Legionem Proditores (Traitor Legions) by The Legion proper, the term refers to those who have returned to their former ways following the death of Caesar and the destabilization that followed. Vast swaths of the legions subjects attempted to return to their tribes roots, often to little success. Instead forming new tribes that are often completely antithetical to the legions ideals, this has led to the early beginnings of a confederation of tribes and villages that have proven to be a powerful force against the ambitions of the legion and groups like it, using legion tactics and weapons against them in response to slave raids and attempts at reintegration
GREAT KHANATE: following their move to Wyoming, the Khans formed a powerful nomadic empire based off the Mongols of old, so far little is known about their new society, though there have been reports of khan riders as far off as the california coast
EAST COAST BOS: the east coast brotherhood continues to reign as one of the major powers on the eastern seaboard, being the most powerful military force in the area, the commonwealth is the current headquarters of the high elder maxon, as well as his most trusted clerics, choosing it for its abundance of technical artifact over the comparatively safer capital wasteland, however pressure has been mounting for the elder to move once more, as the CPG at large has been becoming much less favorable towards the brotherhood, which it sees as overly protective of its tech and as overstepping its bounds far too frequently
COMMONWEALTH PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT: following the destruction of the institute the minutemen, alongside the brotherhood and multiple prominent settlements reformed the CPG, a council of representatives from each group who would govern the commonwealth and surrounding areas, since its inception the cpg has grown by many settlements, and the minutemen have grown alongside it, developing a standing professional garrison in many major towns, though still relying on its militia as its major military force. Recently the cpg has begun to debate the brotherhoods place on the council, and many councilors are demanding an end to the confiscation of technology from their citizens, with many demanding a right to use force against such attempts or demanding an eviction of the brotherhood from their bases across the commonwealth.
THE FREE PITT: Following the Pitts liberation, progress on the cure was slow, and conditions in the Pitt remained dismal, albeit better than it was under the raider lords. As time went on however, improving conditions in neighboring areas such as the Commonwealth and Capital Wasteland led to marked improvements in the Pitt itself, as trade and interaction with the newly established CPG, capital wasteland towns, and the Brotherhood led to stability and an improvement in the quality of life for many of its residents. As of 2296, the Pitt, with the help of allied scientists, managed to create a cure to the plague, and due to its industry and trade, its residents currently enjoy a level of stability and prosperity not seen in the city for over a century. Currently the Pitts biggest concern is a mounting need to create a proper government, a proposal that continues to be widely unpopular and staunchly opposed, with many in the Pitt still preferring the anarchic freedoms that the Pitt has stood by since the revolution.
MONTANA BOS: Founded during the very start of the Brotherhood, the Montana chapter was founded by a military officer in the days following Maxons call to revolt. When the war started however, the Montana bunkers found themselves in a much better condition than the rest of the nation, with Montana, and specifically their area of it sustaining far less damage. As a result of this, as well as the relatively low local population, the Montana chapter is in a remarkably safe location, and has a very small number of active combat troops as a result. To compensate for this, the Montana Brotherhood have become some of the best scribes in the entire organization, and the chapters bunkers have become vaults of precious artifacts and texts ranging from FEV samples to the personal effects of Roger Maxon himself. The chapter is also responsible for much of the brotherhoods historical recording, though due to their isolation and the precarious situation the brotherhood had faced in previous years, they have only recently started analyzing and recording the events following the start of the D.C. expedition, and are not expected to finish it for some time.
THE ENCLAVE: Following their loss at the hands of the Brotherhood in Capital Wasteland, enclave forces in the area pulled back to their bases at Mount Weather, West Virginia and Chicago, since then they have largely kept out of major conflicts, attempting to regain strength and manpower before moving on the brotherhood again, however two of their recent attempts at restoration have failed, with an expedition into the commonwealth failing with high casualties, and a researcher in a west coast facility defecting with promising tech.

cross posted w legal advice as well.
I kicked my roommate out because she hadn’t paid rent in months, & then i found out she lied to me about her entire identity. it’s important to note i’m 24f & autistic. a lot of this story is built upon the back of her lying to me? so for brevity sake im stating what I think is the most pertinent information for this. i wont get too deep into all the intricacies of the lies because they are big ones that im still unpacking in therapy, just looking for legal advice because im tapped on funds & would’ve sought an attorneys advice otherwise.
long story short, she avoided signing a lease or anything until after we moved in back in november because “life” kept getting in the way of her coming to the appointment for it. I learned my lesson here. I know I shouldn’t have let her move in without signing a sublease or getting a background check. she kept canceling our appt to get it signed, & eventually I became too overwhelmed with school that I forgot about it until I needed it. but I have all our financial agreement stuff in written form (text) im just not sure if that’s enough.
anyway, the apartment was in my name only. she paid sorta consistently. a day late here, a week late there. I was okay with it for the beginning because I am a student & had enough in savings from my loans to cover it in the beginning SO LONG as she paid me back. & she did. I also was working 35 hours a week on top of an 18 credit hour load, so i’m barely home save to sleep or eat. february is when she lost her job due to allegedly calling off & lying about it to her boss. (I only found that out after a coworker of hers reached out to me. my roommate was allegedly lying about me to people.) it’s important to note I didn’t know she lost her job. she didn’t tell me she got fired, instead said she was wanting to leave & was lowering her hours there while finding other work. I told her I just would like to be paid back on time & she said she would. spoiler, she didn’t.
in march we had a huge argument because she hadn’t paid me back for february rent or utilities & I had learned at that point a lot of her personal history that she had shared with me had been a lie. I looked into publicly available records about her & found out the following:

• she claimed she was an orphan, she was not, both parents are alive. she told me a graphic story of finding her parents dead & later changed the story. this is want prompted me to look up obituaries for them. found none. instead just found active social media profiles.
• she said her sister slept with her ex fiancé, that never happened & the girl wasn’t even her sister & the fiancé was only a boyfriend. also turned out the girl was the “fiancés” cousin.
• she had a criminal background, including a couple felonies for stealing a lot of money from both her previous places of employment & former roommate of hers.
• she claimed she worked for a preschool & they hadn’t paid ANYONE in a whole month. but bc of her felony, she actually didn’t work there at all.
• she claimed she was pregnant when she wasn’t, this story also included a story of an abortion that went wrong?? she told me graphic & gruesome details but i’ll spare you.
• she claimed to take financial care of her 17 year old brother. she didn’t? her mom is still alive.
• she claimed to have brain cancer to several of our mutual friends (not me though bc my moms in the medical field & I would’ve asked her questions regarding it) she never had brain cancer lol.

she comes clean about all of that during the confrontation in march. she cries, I cry, I thought all was getting resolved financially because she promised. (I roll my eyes now thinking about it) & she was enrolling herself in therapy. she pays me for the rent & utilities of february but not rent for march. she said she would get it to me with her next paycheck. I had some faith in her still because she was my friend or so I thought.
I also ended up enrolling in therapy shortly after this conversation bc it was traumatizing how much she lied to me.
regardless, i covered her half of rent during march & April, albeit very begrudgingly. i gave her extension after extension but started to look for another roommate during the end of april just in case she didn’t pay in may. the reason I did this is because I only had enough in savings to cover my portion of rent for june. obviously may came around & she didn’t pay, but she was able to go spend about $400 at the grocery store ?? & she also bought a new stanley cup (she had a collection & each one rubes around 48 usd) & a whole bunch of new make up, press on nails, toiletries such as shampoo & conditioner & three new candles!!
seeing her come home with all that that was my breaking point. I had been rationing off my food, my own toiletries, & my own “luxury” items just so I could afford to keep a roof over our heads.
so I found a new roommate very quickly, & got them ACTUALLY VETTED WITH BACKGROUND CHECK & CREDIT CHECK BY THE APARTMENT COMPLEX ITSELF. yes I learned from my mistake. no I will never repeat it again.
I told my ex roommate on May 6th, one week after she came home with all those new expensive items, that she needed to pay me all 3.453.35 that she owed me for rent/utilities or she would be kicked out. she asked me for an extension, she claimed she needed to May 10th to get her funds. I said no, she had already had two months & four full paycheck cycles to figure it out. she said she took out a personal loan & was waiting on it to be approved & deposited. I again reaffirmed that no, she could not stay here. I told her she had twenty minutes to pack up a bag but she needed to leave her furniture as collateral that she would pay me back. she agreed to this. all of this is in text form & I have her agreeing to it there. after she left, i told her she had thirty full days to pay me back or her items would be considered abandoned. thus, giving her an additional & final deadline. that deadline is Monday, June 10th, at 5 pm.
on June 3rd, after hearing nothing from her for weeks, she said she would pay me by the evening of the 7th. I told her that was fine, but if she didn’t pay then the original deadline of june 10th at 5 pm would still stand.
june 7th came & went. no payment. & june 10th is tomorrow. & idk what to do with her stuff or if I should give her more time?? i’m not sure how to proceed forward & wanna make sure i’m protected.
anyway, that’s the shortened version of it. any advice is welcome. I don’t need people telling me i’m stupid for the sublease thing bc I know & am well aware. I learned my lesson on that & my new roommate is on the lease & our financials are split evenly now so i’m good on that.
I just don’t know what to do with her items or even really,,,her.

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.

Hello, I'm writing in hopes of helping my friend whom I'll call "K." She is a disabled 36F and lifelong medical abuse and neglect victim of her caregiver mother with (medically documented) Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy. K is very frail and has been assessed in and out of adult failure to thrive (AFTT) four times in the last few years and has a slew of chronic illnesses including genetic (made worse by the mother for decades).

K's mother died withholding her medical, legal, & financial records in mid-2023. This has continued to make getting most resources all but impossible (as necessary records are 7+ years old and no longer available from any medical institutions).

The two remaining family members continue to withhold Ki's records (even utility bills and notices pertinent to her residence and records from she and her mother's business). The family does not want K to get SSDI/SSI and asserts (utilizing family friends to harass Ki online as their method of conveying information) that Ki needs to get a job and give up on wanting SSDI especially as a DAC (disabled adult child) (in which she'd receive is a higher monthly amount based on her parents' income and work history rather than hers).
Both remaining family members are vehemently against K getting any type of resources. They say Ki doesn't deserve to collect a monthly check based on her parents' hard work simply because "someone ran a red light at the wrong time" when K was 19 (inflicting a traumatic brain injury, spinal damage, migraines, sensory processing disorders, tinnitus, and more).
This toxic family dynamic has existed since K's disabling injury where she been prevented from getting resources due to the family withholding information and making false reports by calling DHHS and the SSA to ruin her attempts. K's mother kept her as a cash cow per her two personal injury settlements while frequently starving her and then she simply abandoned K when her settlement money ran out. There was no continuation of care put in place.
K's therapist suggested asking Adult Protective Services for help and Ki agreed despite her last APS agent behaving in a (documented) inappropriate way and then leaving APS altogether.
"JR" became K's APS Specialist on May 6, 2024. On May 7, 2024; an account with the relatively unique last name of JR showed up on her OnlyFans account. She initially thought it was a weird coincidence.
On May 21st, K asked JR via texts (that I've seen) if the account was his and he acknowledged it was. JR "explained" to Ki that part of his job is looking at a client's social media.
K countered that to look through her OnlyFans, which is not a public website, JR had to enter a credit card as part of the signup process due to the adult content. JR also had to subscribe to her specifically to even show up as a "subscriber" on her end.
(Please bear with me as I am not an OnlyFans user and am writing this based on screenshots and what Ki told me about how the platform operates.) K has also taken live video recordings to demonstrate his subscription and that the screenshots are not altered.
In the text exchange, JR asserts he "definitely didn't subscribe (to her OnlyFans), that's for sure." Then JR ended his client relationship with her two hours later.
In addition to lying about subscribing to her OnlyFans, JR has continued to stay subscribed. K has been documenting that JR logs in about every other day; sometimes during weekday work hours. At the time of this post, JR is still currently subscribed to K's OnlyFans.
JR recently messaged K through the platform in a mocking way. Ki has resisted blocking JR thus far to continue to document all that he is doing so that she might be taken seriously in the future.
K's therapist has been unable to find to whom to report JR. They called the APS hotline and were given the phone number to the APS Ombudsman's. JR apparently has a "big" supervisory role.
K is terrified that JR ruined her reputation via however he wrote his reports about her. She feels he probably sabotaged her ability to secure future APS help.
Of note: K's first/last APS agent was documented as behaving "inappropriately." K is terrified to report JR because it will give her a history of looking like she's faking being a victim when 2/2 past APS agents behaved inappropriately to her.
K's mental health has been profoundly affected by this and she is still surviving with major unmet basic needs.
Has JR behaved illegally or just immorally? Either way, what is the proper course of action in this scenario? Is this now harassment, too, since he's taunting her at her place of employment?
I realize that due to the nature of this post, it may sound fabricated. Please note that everything I've included is based on objective observation. This is not a shitpost. Thank you for any suggestions or advice.

I am really struggling with some decisions regarding our child. Trying to identify what is best for her and the best path to attain it. I do not want to limit contact between my daughter and my STBXW, at the same time the decisions she making concern me, and I know this is my only opportunity to put them on the record so if she repeats the pattern later it isn’t like it’s the first time.
Apparently, she only exits relationships by starting and establishing a new one and then revealing the affair as a way to end things. She’s done it multiple times in multiple relationships. She didn’t have a child then though. Shes apparently had three affairs in our relationship, all with married men. The last one was the one that seems to have stuck, but since she has a kid now of course establishing the new relationship means her AP and the kid have to get along. So ensues several months of picking our daughter up from school together then trips to the park. Dinner dates with our daughter brought along. Then, when I had to be out of town for work for two nights, the AP coming over to stay at the house. Taking my daughter to school by himself and picking her up from school. Sleeping in my daughter’s bed with my daughter one night.
I have pictures and videos of all of this. I feel like it is beyond horrible. When I tried being straight with her and expressing my concerns about the decisions ahead was making regarding our daughter, she stopped speaking to me for three days. Because she was mad at me.
My lawyer says I should come out of the gate filing for sole custody with the evidence that I have, supervised visitation. I don’t want my daughter to not have contact with her mom. It was already hard enough on her when she disappeared for two months at the beginning of the year. I also know that my STBXW is just all anger and fear. Decisions made out of fear, anger that once grabbed hold of will never be let go for the rest of her life. She’s still mad at dead people for things they had no control over.
I don’t know how much of what I am thinking is my pain at what was done, how much is my concern for my daughter. How much is the overlap between the two. She hasn’t even been served with the separation papers yet, and she and her AP picked my daughter up from school last week together. One of the other parents texted me to ask who the guy was with my wife at pickup.
I am just torn in half right now and do not know what to do.

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

It probably takes me a total of 4-6 hours to make my 1-2 minute videos. That includes time from the initial idea, research, writing a script, recording the video, editing the video, writing the video description for TikTok, and adding any text inside of the TikTok app.
I'm curious how long others are spending on their average video.
Thank you in advance!