Can anyone tell me if I am the only one . Is it me am I the problem? I don’t know what to believe anymore I wanna know someone give me a reason an explanation fuck give me an excuse for all the moments in my life that pain so white hot and intense has wracked my body and brought me to my knees when my will to live has been brought face to face with my darkest fear. Where the only words i can hear as death whispers in my ear is my name sweetly spoken in promises of a quiet mind and peace. Can anyone hear me is this thing on. My fear is fading out and I know I should be scared at this but I don’t feel fear the same anymore. it is blurring around the edges and starts to look a lot like comfort something I just can’t seem to find or hold in my grasp, and I tell myself I should be scared at this but my soul is battered and bruised and I am running on fumes.I honestly don’t know how many more days I can wake up to this bleakness of my uncomfterably painful existence. Is my pain all in my head. Did I do something that has led the People i love to mishandle me. Do I deserve to be wrecked every day the minute consciousness returns to this weapon that is my brain. Ive torn myself apart so many times ive made myself BLEED. ive let my pain soak into me till I no longer existed in space, gone without a trace. I try so hard to do no harm. As I am falling apart. I pour and pour from my empty cup. Its been empty from my fucking start. My dad was the first to mishandle my fragle new heart. He is where my cracks did start. Home was a battle field amd my skin was where my father’s anger would wage war. I grew up being told I held the golden cup full of my father’s favor. It never would save my skin from his anger. And I was told, no reminded often, how wicked I had been to the first being my heart ever truly let in. I grew up feeling every blow they took wrapped in guilt savagely placed on my heart to go along with my skins own marks. I was Twice whipped but only one would ever heal the other would bleed me every day even till today. At 8 is when death would first whisper my name to me . I never knew never would he ever depart from my mind and heart. At 9 so small and yet already my soul felt so heavy. My wounded little family grew by one. And traveled miles back to where my first cry had taken place. Where I would be born again and die more than one time. 9 taking on a little one. The second soul who would come to know my heart. Cherished and so loved even before air would give raise to his own challenging start. My mother would finish the killing of me without stopping my heart. The tiny soul I had hoped for was ripped away from me unexpectedly. Given away to have a chance, a brand new start , Or so that is what was said. 17 years I would mourn this everyday feeling like a piece of me was lost. By 11 melancholy would already call me home. School the escape from the war at home had become a battlefield of its own. And wounds would be added to the collection that had started. My first brush with a razor and a mans warped desires would fall in this timeframe not too far apart. Ill never know why my mother would make guilt and not love in me grow. Love for my parents I have felt from the start and still with each mark on my heart they would leave on me, the only thing I would ever bleed is my desire that they would want me.that they would love me. Can a child grow up too young? I don’t think I grew up tho. Ive been trapped in the tiny body that never had a real chance to start. By 15 I had lost both parents and one sibling already I was torn apart and bleeding. My wounded heart festering as it began to rot. The razor blades became my closest friends. At least when they marked my skin, I had wanted it then. They always stayed and helped me cradle my already too heavy pain. They knew what I would feel and that it was real. They went in deeper,beneath my surface on purpose. Something no one else wanted to do or so it would seem to me that no one really wanted me. My first love found in a man would be one that would feel much like my dad. Hands too rough and words never in the only shape Ive ever really wanted L O V E He Left more torn up marks on my heart. Heartbreak at 16, you would think i would have welcomed it like an old friend . that I would have tucked it up besides my heart hidden beneath my ribs, where pain was already rattling around in. pain makes us seek out comfort wrapped in deceit. I looked to the arms that made me weep for comfort. I never would find comfort there. for me there all I found are things that broke me. 16 I was 16 when the first piece of me truly died. I watched it die in her eyes. as the words scorching up my throat and heart left my lips. I watched as they connected the dots of things that mothers should not behind her eyes as the piece of me died. I was a daughter never cherished by my father, pain the only thing he gave for me to gain. I was a daughter never loved by my Mother given to men and left to defend alone the monsters my mother let in. Pain separated me from bonds that should have been. I would later see that the monsters I fought inside of me had always really been me . I grew up lonely both on the battlefield I was forced to Fight to survive in real life and inside the prison bar confides of my own mind. I fought and waged war constantly never knowing the enemy I had been fighting the whole time was always me. I don’t know who I am I died before I got the chance to even begin . Love is supposed to fill up your heart and shape you into the person you are. Teach you to swim in the depths of our own emotions. I never learned how to swim in the oceans I hold within. Ive been slowly drowning since I was a kid. Told that the validation I would grow to need like a drug, heroin to a fiend just so that I could feel something good inside the depths of MY being, a liferaft to keep me afloat was wrong of me to ever have a need. But How do I save myself from drowning beneath each giant wave my emotions bring crashing down around me. I cant swim in the ocean beneath my skin. Waves constantly crashing in and dragging me under. My air is running out and the only thing I hear people shout is SWIM!. as water replaces my lungs empty spaces. Blood hurts more than water its true but let love boil the water and it will still hurt you just as much too. Never feeling loved by my makers I searched for it in other spaces. Except the only place it should have been. My children you will never know of the force of love I hold for them. But I am still only a human. Trapped and stunted in the child that has been calling out in pain. So many lessons I have gained I see them now neatly wrapped up in my pain. I have been told by the ones I love both with and without blood, that I am too much because of my pain. Yet when I agree and try to erase me I am told to stay as they then walk away. Why. Why. Why Do I have to stay and everyone else gets to walk away from the darkness that takes my light away. Happiness feels almost like a myth a conjured up dream to dangle just out of my reach. And I have been told that its happiness I thieve from those around me. What kind of monster does that make me. That I would take the thing I so desperately need from someone that I love. It has been told to me that I am the creator of my own misery. That I should be a better human being and stop claiming to be the victim to the things that have brought death to my mind so many times. When I reach for help. Water rushing in as my screams are ripped out. Never a hand has been held out. Only the boots of blame and shame to push me further down. My pleas have begun to fade out. my voice is weakened by the consistent beacon, the sos hanging above my head running down my eyes and out my wrists that everyone claims to miss. No one will hear me if they don’t believe me. How do I convince them my pain is real. it means its me I have to kill. Then everyone will say I had been real and not the ghost I thought I had been when i was drowning and didn’t know how to swim.

After the Khumans had settled down somewhat, Alex let out a rather shaky breath. "I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't that."
"What were you expecting?" Kirell didn't understand, and it bothered him, but he was suddenly also extremely curious. It should be safe to learn more about this, right?
"Well... something more along the lines of swearing."
"Um... Karyces, Alex, did you get browner?" Kirell asked tentatively, which apparently set off the Khumans again.
"Woah there, spaceman." Sleepy didn't seem thrilled to hear him say that one; Kirell felt a guilty flush of purple around the edges of his frills. He didn't know Sleepy knew what it meant. "That's a strong word around the little one, huh?"
"Oh." He looked down at Nryxə guiltily, but she didn't seem to have noticed. At least he hoped she hadn't noticed. She was staring at the glassteel wall with her seven eyes wide open. Kirell didn't need his shiny new translator to know that her expression was curiosity. She probably didn't notice.
"You'll have to tell me what it means later. I mean it, Sleepy." Alex took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and closed her eyes. "I mean, I guess I got browner, but it's not.... Well. It's a scar."
Kirell's frills flashed open with a little pop, the whole width stained a deep red. "A scar? The whole thing?"
"Yep." Come to think of it, Alex's voice was a little lower than he remembered, a little raspier. "I– Captain, could you? It's sore."
"Sure. Poke me if I say something bad." The Captain cleared his throat as Alex sat down, crossing her legs under her, on the floor. "So, you know we burned a lot of atmosphere on Kzrkn, right?"
"Yes." Of course Kirell remembered that; he'd been scared out of his wits at the time. It seemed so silly now, to be afraid of something on the ground while he was safe in orbit.
"Well, the gate they took you through... yeah, atmospheres started mixing up, and then they closed it on Hook's electric prosthetic and–" The Captain broke off as Alex grabbed his leg; the deep red from Kirell's frills grew even darker. She was shaking a little. "Sorry Hook. Anyway, Squishy, I bet you saw it from your end too, but Hook was real close. Doc fixed what was mission-critical and did a bunch of patching, but it's still rough, and she's.... I bet she'll be mad for telling you, but she's still pretty spooked. Most folks'd already be shipped home with a Heart for this kinda thing, but damn if Hook hasn't made us proud. Well, prouder."
"What's that got to do with being browner? Did you not fix the scars?"
"Not mission-critical." Sleepy broke in on the conversation. "Don't get us wrong, Spaceman, he wanted to, but Hook said to focus on gettin' ya back."
"I think her exact words were 'Being pretty can wait.' Gotta love Hook, huh Squishy?"
Kirell felt his eyes itching, as if he wanted to cry again. "I'm sorry, Alex. I'm really sorry. I shouldn't ha–"
Alex slammed her synthetic hand into the floor with a bang; Nryxə jumped in Kirell's arms. Alex was shaking again, but this time she didn't look scared at all. She looked angry, and her eyes were a bit wet. That felt wrong, somehow, and conflicting, but Kirell could remember being scared and happy at the same time while wandering with Nryxə; it was probably similar.
"Shut it kid. Don't say that; don't you dare say that. I went after you 'cause I wanted to get to you. Don't ever say differently." Alex's voice seemed to squeak and thin out at the end of the last syllable; she pressed her lips together, looking frustrated.
"Easy there Hook. You've talked a lot more'n usual today. It's OK." The Captain reached down and patted Alex's artificial hand awkwardly. "You're doing good."
Alex swatted his hand away. Kirell's hearts abruptly thumped in his chest; he'd never seen that kind of expression on a Khuman face before. It was some mixture of ones he'd seen before; some kind of anger, sadness, coupled with a strange sick look he didn't recognize.
"Cap, ya aren't helping. If ya don't shut up I'd say it's about three seconds 'till ya get socked."
"Shi... crap. Sorry Hook. Didn't mean to– Uh, think I'll stop talking." Kirell didn't know what this situation had to do with closed tubes of fabric, or why the Captain had glanced at him and fixed his language, but he was too tired and confused to question it.
"Wait. So, Alex got burned, and Doc put her back together?" Kirell felt his own voice squeaking, not because he was injured but because the magnitude of Alex's injuries seemed to be stealing some of his air, along with much of the space in his stomach and most of his knees' strength.
"Burn care and puttin' someone back together aren't the same thing. Doc does both, but not the same way. Some parts, sure; it's why her vocal cords are weak right now. It's like a surgery; gotta be gentle with it."
Kirell's translator helpfully reminded him that Khumans were in the habit of cutting themselves open to deal with internal problems. He hadn't wanted to remember that.
"Anyway, Hook had to get most of her lungs and voice box rebuilt, so she's not got much voice to use right now. Still gettin' stronger. Her lungs are doin' great, but the voice is takin' a bit longer. It usually does."
Kirell's frills stained a deep blue. "Alex.... I wish you hadn't. I wish you weren't hurt."
Alex looked sideways awkwardly; she didn't look angry any more, which Kirell hoped was an improvement.
"I think what Hook wants to say is that she couldn't not come for you. And I'd agree with that."
Kirell didn't think that was right, but he couldn't figure out how to say so. Surely Hook had a choice, right? He wasn't somehow making a Khuman– a Khuman, of all things– do anything they weren't already going to do. Surely not. The idea of a Khuman being controlled by anything but their own wild Khuman-ness was laughable. Or, he acknowledged at the sight of the glassteel walls, by another Khuman.
"So you're in here because....?"
"Well, essentially we, uh... we were doing it again, huh Hook? We were just running in again like there was nothing there to stop us. Guess that's what we do." The Captain grimaced, one hand brushing the back of his head. "Right up until Sleepy showed up and said 'Hey stop that' with a bit more'n words."
A loud amusement sound made both Kirell and Nryxə jump; Sleepy was apparently very amused by this rephrasing of his actions. The Captain bared his teeth, too, with a look on his face that the translator told Kirell was [embarrassed] and [slightly regretful].
"Well, ya saw him now, and ya see that he's picked up someone of his own."
"Does that make you a granddad, Sleepy?"
Sleepy shrugged, looking at Nryxə, who looked back with seven wide eyes. "Dunno. I guess it depends on what the spaceman wants, right? And what'd be best for the kid. Whaddya think, Spaceman?"
"I, um... I don't know if I know what's best for Nryxə, but I don't want her to be upset. Can we talk about this later?"
The Khumans froze for a moment before the Captain whistled long and low. "Right. Not exactly good practice, is it? Talking custody with a kid in the room. Sorry 'bout that, Squishy."
"Hey, speaking of which." Sleepy reached out and gave Kirell a gentle, very reassuring head pat. Oh, he'd missed those. "I'm not sure he should be 'Squishy.' He didn't like it before, and now... don't ya think?"
"Yeah, agreed, it doesn't fit any more. Blue? No, don't like that one. Zim?"
"Absolutely not, Cap. Nor Dent, nor Ford Prefect. Gonna cut you off at the pass on that one."
Alex made a strange noise in her throat; with more patience than Kirell remembered them having, the Captain and Sleepy waited for her to be able to speak. When she did, it was a single word.
"Ripley."
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No music for this chapter, surprisingly.

In kindergarten (sorry I'm from singapore so we follow British but if im not wrong its like 5-6 years old) I already accepted Christ into my life. But my mom is a "I hate Christians!!" kind of person so I didnt dare to tell her anything. I didn't really have a good relationship with my mom cos to her studies are everything and she made me (until now) think that I'm never good enough. And I was only in primary school thinking my mom doesn't like me. I'm worthless, I want to kms. I made plans to grab the knife from the kitchen, jump off and things like that. Eventually I resulted to scratching my own skin cos I feel most pain when it's right at the nerve uk.
My whole life was until the end of primary school (12) was only to do things to make my mom happy. I wouldn't mention a word about Christianity to her. And when my mom was out at night, me, my dad and my sisters would worship. The moment the door opens, I scramble into the room. This also make me walk far from God and I would curse, swear and stuff. One day in P6, the last year of primary school (12 years old) I thought "Hey, I'm Christian so why am I swearing? Isn't this a sin?" So I stopped cursing. Of course, my mom wouldn't want me going around cursing but I didn't really do it for her, but rather for God. But I still didn't want to tell her about it.
When I graduated from Primary school, in Secondary (Sec) school, I finally got to bring my phone to school (13 years old), but my mom still could track me. Anyways I got to listen to some worship songs my dad sent to me and because I didn't have a music player downloaded and wasn't allowed to download any apps, I would listen through the WhatsApp audio player thing😭😭 on the way home. Usually on Sundays whene my mom isn't home,my dad would bring me to church. Then of course my mom would find out and scold me and this continued until sec 2 (14).
In Sec 3 (15 years old), I had whole control of my phone so I would listen to worship music on the way home. One day in, my dad brought me to church. My mom saw my location and immediately got mad because she knew where my dad's church is and also because my older sister attends service too and my mom was not happy. Since then, I was afraid to go to church. My mom even cornered me one day and made me promise not to go to church or I can forget calling her my mom. I kept crying that night and never dared to go to church (mind that i dont even cry often).
But towards mid year(?) I just decided ok Imma go to church. She can get angry but it won't really stop me. Because I got to know God through worship songs and now I wanted to know him more.
I regularly started praying in the morning on the way to school. Eventually my prayers became a ritual and dry. I felt no emotion and no pull towards God. Only on days when I was really upset/angry then I would feel Him comforting me. One day I really wanted to be the captain in my CCA (it's like after school activities but still part of school programs) and I didn't get it. I was so upset I cried on the way home because I actually put in so much effort into it. Then I became vice captain so ig that counts.
Anyways I became really upset and got frustrated because I didn't prove myself enough. I had so low expectations of myself, got depressed again, but I couldn't vent it out because I couldn't hurt myself anymore after learning my body is a temple of God. So I got super frustrated. I prayed for guidance decided to free up my Saturdays I went to church. Youth services for Secondary school students were on Saturdays and not Sundays so yeah. Towards like October last year I cleared up my Saturdays so I could go more regularly to church, and my mom was defo not happy AT ALL that I went with my own initiative. She ignored me for several weeks and of course I felt lonely and all buy eventually I felt okay because she doesn't even know me sooooo.
I'm still trying to patch up my relationship with her. Honestly, it's so strained I don't know what to do. I've prayed that she would accept Christ everyday but uhh nothing. This doesn't mean I don't believe in God if not this would not exist
One day I was fellowshipping with my dad. Why we did that is because of a long story that would be saved for another day.
But this is the part where it's important
Previously I had dreams and I shared with my dad because he is more experience in deciphering gifts and stuff (I'm sorry if you don't believe in gifts but I do!) And he told me to pray about it because I somehow knew these dreams had meaning and relation to God. A number of dreams had direct inference to God. I did pray about it, and also asked God along these lines; "God, give me guidance. I have strayed and I know. Lord please let me understand, and let me also be close to You. I want to know You, and I know, I haven't read the word. Lord, motivate me to read the scripture, and while reading let me also understand the dreams I have been having my whole life."
I can't remember what I said exactly. The one 9f the church sermons on one week talked about how God is not far, but we are far. And I felt that that was for me. Then one day my dad said to me and my older sister "I don't care you have to download the Bible rn" so I downloaded it but did nothing with it. Finally, one day I was late for work (yes I worked when I was 15 because I actually want an electric guitar) and it was New Year's Eve. My colleague texted me saying she'd pick me up and I said and quote "Isokkk I walk over" (me) ... "Give me your block" (colleague) "Omd tyyy" (me)
Part of me didn't want her to fetch me because it would be troubling her. But I don't know why I waited and was thinking "bruh I could've reached by now but she's late" but I just waited. I was wearing full white that day. And this woman must've thought I was going to church because it was a Sunday morning.
And she asked "Hello, are you going to church?"
I said "oh no no, I have church at night because it's countdown service. (basically the youth services brought our church service from Saturday 4pm to Sunday 8pm because we wanted to countdown service together)"
She said," Oh! So you're Christian! Do you read the Word often?"
I blushed because so many signs and I haven't read a single word. "No," I was so embarrassed
She continued "I used to be a teacher, a lecturer in a University (if im not wrong) There is a website called 7 minutes with God. It was originally created for Harvard students because they were busy and didn't have time to spend time with God." Then I couldn't hear what she said because she was talking so fast. All I knew was she was summarizing the website and encouraged me to read it.
I read it like on January 2nd this year on the way to school ( I'm 16 this year!!! But not 16 yet because as I said, it's not my birthday yet or anytime soon)
I was so inspired that I kept on reading the Word and devoted mornings to not only prayers (that I allowed God to guide me and not just pray for the sake of praying) but also for reading the Word!
See, when I prayed to have motivation to read the Word more, God gave me the sign THREE TIMES which I did not pick up until the 3rd sign, the lady. The first time during the sermon I was like "Yes God, I will do it!" but did nothing. The second time when my dad asked me to download the app version of the Bible, I said "Yes God, this is the sign!" and did not do anything. I got discouraged because my dad thinks I'm funny and wouldn't take my words seriously omd 😭. But the third time, God literally sent a random woman I don't know and told me to read. And I read, praise God!
this is the part where it relates to the meme
Because when I went to the shower I kept laughing because I thought of this meme. I didn't read the word or get touched because it was a coincidence. So coincidence? I think not! It's a miracle ❤️❤️❤️
I finished Mark and the New Testament, I'm currently at John right now.
Just now, after a meeting with my cell group (a small group for easier prayers etc in church), I was listening to worship music, and my grumpy dad was like "GO AND SHOWER" liek chill brou. So I went to the toilet with my headphones on and sat on the floor and just continued listening to worship music. Then my dad sent in the family group chat (just me, my older sister and him, my mom got mad and left) an article about this man called Patrick Lee/Bezalel. He is a local artist faithful in Christ
But reading halfway I kept crying because I was so touched (again I do no lt cry, but I related so much I cried even though nothing had to do with me, but it was like my mother's story where she had a hard of stone towards God) and then my phone went flat 😐 So I risked it and ran out to get my charger but thank God (like actually) my dad didn't scream like he would. Then I sat at the toilet floor and continued reading. Tears kept flowing down my face because Patrick Bezalel's story was such a miracle, and God kept giving him signs that God existed! And removed the layer of stone that surrounded the man's heart and made it soft and open to God again!
After that I continued worshipping God and was listening to worship music (yes in the toilet because I literally have 0 privacy because none of my parents think I need it). I kept crying because the songs were so related. Can you imagine? It went in this order:
1.Presence,Power,Glory 2.Hosanna 3.Promises 4.Holy Forever
Again, coincidence? I THINK NOT. It was so planned, like it was in my playlist for so long and I haven't really thought much about it. Tears kept streaming down and kept going and through sobs I silently prayed to God
"Oh my dear God you have been so so good to me, and so faithful to me Lord. You have guided me, guided my heart and nothing has gone wrong in Your hands Lord. I've been through the turning point I've prayed for. You have sent people, songs and my family members to come after me to open up to You Lord. Lord, I was having a CG (cell group) meeting and something just touched my heart. I am now sitting on the toilet floor and typing this, because Lord you have made a way to touch my heart, guide me through a prayer that came deep down from inside of me Lord, thank You for providing. Thank You God for the miracles You have did in my life, and all that I prayed for has came through Lord. The turning point I prayed for was when that lady had spoken to me about how to set aside time for You and the Word. Lord let me not forget this incident, this turning point, this miracle Lord. Let me put my trust in You Lord, and let You take my hand and let my life be walking next to You faithfully Lord. Lord I pray that I would not waver, and I would not take my eyes away from You. Even when I am crossing and walking toward You on water in the sea, let my eyes be on You, and the works You have done for me, and not be distracted by the worls around me, but to keep my eyes on You diligently Lord. Lord, I am a sinner, and now, I was, for You have sent Jesus Christ, Your Son, to die on the cross for me. Lord, I believe in You and I want to accept You in my life Lord, no matter what situation I am in. Lord, let people around me see Your love, joy, and faithfulness in me, and not let them see the girl I was before. Let them see change, and the love and desire I have for You, Lord. Let them see Your greatness, Your goodness and You. I thank You for everything You have done, and in Jesus's name, I pray that I will walk faithfully alongside You, and will not fail to continuously pray and worship You God. Thank You Lord for the miracles, for this turning point. Thank You God for guiding me, and let me be the branch that bears fruit, and let me be the branch that has life only through Jesus, Who is the vine, Who the reason I live Lord, Who is the reason I have life. Praise the Lord! Amen!"
This is the first time I prayed for so long and every one word was truly from deep down fron the depths of my heart. I couldn't stop crying. I really couldn't and I can't emphasize more that I don't cry often! Either it hurt me so much or that God moved my heart. This time was tears of joy.
I hope this could inspire someone out there, because in another prayer I prayed for those who needed God, even if I didn't know them.
Pray. Pray and ask God to help you seek Him. One thing I learnt from a sermon is the fervency in your prayers. I didn't mean to add this in but I suddenly saw this note I wrote on 25th February.
Title: fervency in prayer Fervency: being excited about something keen on something
At the heart of revival is the spirit of prayer • pray fervently • pray with faith
"But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed"
To be fervent in prayer is to pray tenaciously despite our struggles
Hopefully this helped someone out there, inspired you and is one of your signs to start giving your life to Him! It is actually proven 1 in 3 people are Christians. Isn't our goal to have this faith to reach all four corners of the world? It could sound impossible in the past, but now there is social media, anyone could read and realize "Hey God is actually with me!"

More misery bird? More misery bird. Really miserymaxxing with these fics I have going, but hey, this one is not that miserable actually! Krekos is back and ready to be dense and downcast, but maybe not quite miserable? Read and see!
Big thank you to NoP community for being great and supportive of my endeavors!
Also, obviously, big thanks to SpacePaladin15 for creating this universe and allowing fanfiction well to flow free!
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Memory transcription subject: Krekos, Krakotl Refugee
Date [standardized human time]: May 6th, 2137
I stare at the foul creature before me. Normally staring at something directly head on like that would be too predatory for me to do, but after nearly dying of bread yesterday, I didn’t feel patient enough to be gentle. The creature stared right back, though in a much more natural, prey-like way, tilting its head slightly as it looked back at me with one eye and let out a long bwok.
“Are you doing this now? Really?”, I ask, knowing full well it cannot respond.
Well, it can, if another bwok it made is any indication. Of course, translators aren’t yet advanced enough to translate non-sapient speech, but the intention behind sound is intuitively clear. It’s telling me to back off. Well, I tried the diplomatic approach at least.
Raising my wing I begin sliding the bird out of its nest, careful to keep any delicate joints out of its reach. It started clucking in upset indignation, struggling back and even trying to peck at me, but after realizing that I will not relent, it hopped out of the box and rushed out of the cattle house, revealing a single dead egg in the nesting box.
With relief, I finally pick up the last egg and head back to leave them at the house. Turns out that while Reginald didn’t forget to both lock them up yesterday and let them out today, he did neglect feeding them both times, as well as collecting the harvest. So when I was driven back here in early morning, the first thing I did was making sure they were taken care of. I can’t say the horrid birds looked in any way hungry, but the moment I poured the feeding grain for them, they attacked it with more viciousness than I’d expect of an actual predator. And yet only thirteen were present at the feeding, as the one that’s usually the target of flock’s ire remained in the cattle house yet again, Reginald leaving it to it, being unaware of its undesirable habit of trying to hatch dead eggs.
With eggs delivered, I flew my way to my usual spot atop the cattle house and could finally relax. The loner beast first made its way to feast on the scraps of the grain that other birds already all have had their fill of, so I wasn’t too concerned. Instead I tried to reflect on the morning I had so far.
Waking up at the hospital did make me momentarily panic before I remembered the precluding events. Not that I could properly panic, feeling the most starved I’ve been my whole life, and too weak to try flying out of the window. Thankfully, the breakfast they provided was actually well made with krakotl needs in mind, algae soup alongside a few slices of bread, this time without any horrid human ideas like putting eggs in there. Eggs! Turns out they put eggs in some kinds of bread! That’s how I got sick! Eggs! The thought of what I consumed even now made me queasy, and it definitely made breakfast a much less appetizing affair than it would have been without that knowledge, but back then the hunger won over the disgust.
Lena did keep her promise and came to pick me up extra early. Her being a staff member at the hospital gave her some extra privilege, I assume, hence why I was released without any forms needing to be filled out personally. She did have important business today too, which probably explained the earlyness and urgency of her driving me back to her house.
That did not mean I escaped her ire, however. While I couldn’t pinpoint anything to identify the man, as Bob was apparently a common name, that offered me bread, we did come to understanding that he was likely either unaware of the nutritional contents of it, or of extent to which the Cure-induced allergy would be affecting a krakotl. Yet, Lena seemed much angrier at me for failing to take any precautions. Turns out that was the purpose of medicinal injectors, epipens as humans call them, that were provided to me. I was supposed to have them on me in case I accidentally ingested contaminated food. Nobody told me that, I was just handed them back when I first received the necessities at the refugee camp and I had no clue what they were for. Then she also berated me for eating random food from strangers and ignoring bad flavors. Turns out that brioche bread isn’t actually bitter at all, and that was my body reacting to an allergen in it. Reaction that I unwisely elected to ignore, to further ire of my host. By the end, several new rules of my stay here were made, including not eating things I don’t know and always having at least one epipen on me. Thankfully, these rules would be ones I’d start following even without them being established, so I won’t have to concern myself with being kicked out over accidentally breaking them.
As if following the rules will be enough to make them like you.
Trying to distract myself from thoughts of yesterday’s incident, I focused my attention on the flock. All birds accounted for, so at least I knew that my absence did not result in the predator coming to snatch one of them. I do not wish to insult my hosts, but Reginald is far from most attentive people in matters unrelated to his job, and I am not sure the birds were watched at all while I was out. Speaking of, my scannings of surrounding treelines revealed no sign of the predator today. Perhaps it departed to hunt elsewhere, or maybe it ventured too close to a more populated area and exterminators dealt with it.
Actually, did human exterminators work similar to Federation ones? I knew for a fact they had them, although they seemed like a market of private organizations if advertisements are anything to judge by. Still, what methods do they use? I know humans oppose fire, and do not believe in predatory taint, but surely they have measures to protect themselves? They are, by self-admission, far from the best natural predator, and I doubt Earth’s non-sapient predators would just leave humans be. Maybe I should call one of those human exterminator agencies and call them in to deal with that predator? I haven’t told Lena or Reginald about it, as I didn’t want to bother them, but it could pose a serious threat to the cattle, but maybe that’s the way I could resolve it without involving them?
I have not done nearly as much research into human culture and lifestyle as I should have, considering that I’ve lived on Earth for over half a year now, but the sheer width of the topic always overwhelmed me the moment I opened internet search app to the point where I just closed it right away.
And you expect to start studying again with that attitude? You’ll flunk out even from this primitive predator education course.
Extra loud call from the flock made me refocus my attention on them, but it was nothing. Just the loner getting pecked extra hard and lashing out against assailants, causing a small aimless stampede as all the birds ran around in circles, puffing up at one another. The assailants now looked a lot more like victims. I could understand those birds more than I could humans at least. The loner bird is clearly an odd one out. It’s the only one repeatedly trying to hatch unfertilized eggs it lays, and it seems to always avoid the rest of the flock. Humans may deny the existence of Predator Disease, but they can’t deny that prey and predator both can and will sometimes behave in unnatural ways that may threaten the herd's safety. Or pack’s, in case of humans. Birds must know on instinctual level that the loner’s behavior is unnatural and are attempting to combat the Predator Disease on instinctual level. And since that is natural, I still will not interfere in this, unless the loner bird actually becomes a threat to others or will start getting too injured. The first time I attempted to pick one of the birds up was the only time for a good reason, as I have learned their viciousness all too well.
DING-DING
The sudden loud ring startled me enough that I nearly tumbled off the roof. Who would be coming over now? Lena and Reginald have left together and shouldn’t be back until afternoon, and they’d never use the bell. That means someone must be here for them. But wouldn’t they warn anyone to not come over? Especially with their plans for today.
With nobody to answer these questions, I had no choice but to go and discover the answer myself, flying up and over the house, towards the entrance gate. The moment I passed the house roof, I already saw a familiar silhouette. It was the human child from a few days ago.
Thankfully, Lena’s insistence on me carrying an epipen at all times meant I also carried my satchel at all times too, so I didn’t have to go grabbing my holopad, and took it out. But before I could even launch the translator TTS app to type out a greeting, the child was already hopping in place with excitement.
“Mr. Krekos! Hi! I came over to visit!”, she exclaimed, showing off her teeth in an unnerving expression of human joy. I simply tried to avoid that and focused on the pad, typing out my response.
“Hello, Rosie. Why are you here?”
The question was genuine, as the child was not carrying any more of that honey substance from last time.
“I just came over to visit you! Is that okay? Are Mr. and Ms. Vince okay with it?”
Visit... me? Why? While I was confused, I did instinctively type out a reply.
“They did tell me visitors are allowed as long as there’s no trouble when I first moved in.”
And before I could type a followup message asking her why she’s here, she already let out a joyous roar and ran past me.
“Can I see the chickens?”, she asked, and not waiting for an answer, rushed past the house and towards the cattle yard.
“Wait! You’ll scare them!”, I yell after her, but of course without a translator she can’t understand me as she runs like she already knows where to go.
And indeed she has, quickly rushing up to the open field where the birds were grazing. Thankfully she didn’t start chasing them, instead just approaching the flock from a distance and swaying in place, watching them with what I assume was some sort of predatory excitement at the sight of prey. Maybe that’s where the contained hunting instinct of human children showed themselves? In chasing small birds? I was still more subdued, considering she stopped shy of causing a small stampede, but still.
“Grandpa used to take me with him! He helped watch this farm until Mr. and Ms. Vince moved in. I like chickens! I think they’re cute.”, the child told me innocently as she kept swaying and watching as the beasts grazed upon insects of the pasture.
That revelation was... interesting. I suppose it makes sense that between the original owner of this land dying in the bombings and Lena and Reginald moving in, it would be unattended. With nobody to feed and watch over those things, they would be long dead for sure. And it was Rosie’s grandfather... Speaking of. I typed out my words.
“Does your grandfather know you’re here?”
She seemed to get a weird look as she stopped her excited swaying, fiddling with her hands instead. Looks like I asked the correct question.
“...he knows I am out visiting neighbors.”
That did not answer my question. I squinted at the human child, and she dipped her head as she continued.
“...he doesn’t know I’m here specifically. Or that an alien even lives here...”, she explained, her tone suddenly more sullen.
I couldn’t help but squint at that, and it appears that my expression was readable enough that even a human could see the suspicion, as she continued.
“I’m sorry... But if I told grandpa, he’d tell me I’m forbidden from talking to you, like he forbade me from talking to hedgehog people in town... But I want to talk to you! You’re nice and you’re a space bird!”
The child was actually working around the rules established by her guardian to come see me. I don’t know if I should be glad or concerned. Clearly, the man is anti-alien in his opinions, and I’d rather that kind of man not know about how close he lives to one. At the same time, I’d rather not encourage a child for lying to their guardian in order to meet a stranger they know they aren’t allowed to interact with... So I just took the middle path with my next message.
“I see. What did you want to talk to me about then?”, TTS speaks for me.
Her stiffened body language disappears, replaced again with earlier excitement.
“I wanna know more about space! And aliens! It’s all so cool but grandpa says it’s all dangerous because mom and dad died. But it’s not! The hedgehog people were nice, and you’re nice too!”
I wasn’t sure about that logic, but my self-preservation told me I shouldn’t try convincing her to go confessing. Instead I focused more on her chosen topic.
“I am not sure I am the best person to ask about space. I am not a scientist or traveler.”
“But you’re from there! You know way more than me. I don’t even know what you are called. And there’s gotta be cool things out in space!”
I let out a sigh. I suppose it’s childlike curiosity at its finest. So unfamiliar with mundane that it is a wonder. I remember being like that about becoming a doctor.
And then you let your teacher die.
I quickly tapped on the pad.
“Okay, I can answer questions, but I may not know everything.”
The noise that came out of the girl was like a squeal of a panicked dossur as she started hopping and spinning in place.
“Yes! Yes! Thank you, Mr. Krekos!” Sudden movement did cause me to recoil a bit, which in turn caused her to cease her happy flailing and adjust her little dress. “I dunno where to start though... Hm... What are you?”
...for all my trepidation about not knowing answers, I should have anticipated that the questions she asks will be rather age-appropriate and on the same level as we learn in our first school classes. At least I won’t disappoint her then.
“I am from a species called ‘krakotl’. We’re avians, as is obvious. Our home is...” dead, gone, reduced to glass and ash by our own hubris “...was Nishtal. A beautiful planet...”
Thankfully she did not question my hesitant pause. Instead she just nodded along.
“What about the hedgehog people? I already know venlil, but they’re the only ones I know name of.”
Hedgehog people in town she mentioned earlier. The only species I could think of that could be seen there would be the gojid. I have no clue what hedgehogs are, but probably some creature with visible similarity to them.
“They are called ‘gojid’, and they’re from gojid Cradle. Both of our species are... well, used to be known for our might and protecting other species of Federation.”
I am not sure if that’s something to brag about, considering... everything. But I didn’t want this child to get brought down with depressing regrets of our species. Let her know something nicer instead. She clearly lost a lot, but there’s still joy left in her. I wouldn’t want to be the one to ruin that.
“Cool! What about other people? I wanna know more!”
And so I went on, telling her about various species, although I mostly focused on ones in this new human-led union, only mentioning kolshians and farsul beyond that. It’s weird explaining to a child what a tilfish or a harchen looks like, but thankfully my holopad isn’t just a method of communicating with implant-less children. With access to interstellar web, I could easily pull up pictures of various alien species to show to her, even if she struggled to believe that some of them were even sapient purely based off of looks. With how varied species in Federation are, and how some of us admittedly aren’t too far physiologically from our more primal ancestors.
Among other topics, she asked me to tell her interesting things, which I didn’t know much of. I told her about Venlil Prime’s tidally locked status, a rarity among habitable planets, much less homeworlds for species. I told her about the unique architecture of Mileau, designed to accommodate both species of regular size and dossur themselves. I told her about Colia medical academies, some of the most beautiful medical facilities in the galaxy.
I wish I was more well-travelled, but I just wasn’t. My whole life, I never left Nishtal until the extermination fleet took me despite my protests. That may have been what saved my life...
Not that I, of all people, deserved it...
“Hey! Stop that!”
I flinched as I heard the child yell, but quickly realized that it wasn’t directed at me. Instead, Rosie was rushing down towards the chicken flock, breaking up the fight in which the loner was being pecked by a few larger chickens. As the human child approached, the birds stopped their infighting and scattered in different directions, crowing in loud panic and discontent. On instinct, I found myself rushing towards the child, forgetting about translation entirely.
“What are you doing?! Don’t touch them!”
I didn’t want her to hurt the cattle accidentally, and I didn’t want her to get hurt by the angry birds in return. But, it seems like the moment the birds scattered, she was satisfied with her actions and turned back to me, wearing another one of her happy smiles.
“Sorry, Mr. Krekos, I just saw chickens being mean. Bad chickens.” She explained.
I was baffled. Why would she interfere like that? When I tried that back when I was just starting, that got me pecked! But with her, the birds just scattered. What if they pecked her?
I took the pad out again and started typing quickly.
“That was dangerous. Why did you do that? What if they attacked you? Why are you even interfering in their natural dynamics?”, questions flowed out of my pad with an artificial human voice.
The girl simply giggled.
“They’re chickens! They aren’t dangerous. They don’t peck that painful and I’ve been scratched worse before. And I have to stop it because bullying is wrong.”
Then she actually noticed that the one that was being attacked wandered close. She casually approached it from behind, the blind spot and just reached down and grabbed it, picking the bird up. I was ready to rush to help the bird when...
“Mwah! There, all better.”
She did a human ‘kiss’ on the back of the cattle bird’s neck before releasing it, the surprise of it causing it to rush off. I knew what kisses were, I’ve seen enough of them between Lena and Reginald, but I believed they were gestures of intimate affection, not... what was even that?
It seems Rosie noticed my confusion as she explained.
“You gotta kiss it so it heals better! That’s what mom taught me.” The child displayed that smile of hers shamelessly. With how much I was being exposed to it, it almost wasn’t unnerving anymore. Still, it was interesting to learn that kisses are seen as something that helps wounds. I guess some species do have saliva with mild antiseptic properties, wouldn’t be too out there to assume humans are the same. And if that’s the case, maybe that’s how the kissing tradition started? Exchange of protective fluid between lovers?
“I see. I did not know that.” I responded before letting my puffed feathers relax. Okay, this whole ‘watching a human child’ thing is turning out to somehow be even more stressful than I expected at first.
“Wait, Mr. Krekos, what time is it?” She suddenly asked, looking up at the sky.
“It’s nearly twelve.” I respond, holopad having a convenient clock for local time.
“Oh no! I need to be home soon! Was nice seeing you Mr. Krekos gotta go bye!”
Before I had even a chance at typing out an answer or my own goodbye, the child sprinted away and back towards the entrance. I had to take flight just to keep up, and even then she just turned around, waved her arm at me and then kept sprinting down the road after leaving the gate. I simply offered a small wave of a wing back before locking the gate again. I suppose it is hard to keep track of time without a device or clock nearby...
Well, at least I had the usual peace and quiet now. And learned a bit more about the creatures I was in charge of. I should really try to deal with my aversion to looking things up on the human internet...
Just as I was about to head back out towards the yard, I heard a loud car horn, a familiar one, getting my attention. Lena’s car. There they were, signaling me, probably having spotted me at the gate from afar. Deciding to make use of my presence here, and hoping to avoid needing to explain that I had a surprise visitor earlier, I went ahead and opened the large gate, allowing the car to enter.
Once it was parked in the usual space, the doors opened and three people came out. Lena and Reginald were both looking a bit disheveled, but their faces carried these smiles that seemed wider than ever before. And third person... Was a stranger. A human I knew of, but never actually met. As he exited the car, a large bag in one hand, he just stared at me, standing in the front yard...
“...okay, I expected many things when I was told you guys housed a refugee, but not this.”
Oh no. Oh no, he was not one of the ones that was willing to overlook an invader that partook in bombing of his planet being allowed to walk free, of course, Lena and Reginald were the weird ones like that, doesn’t mean their son won’t be... I felt the panic rising as I realized I’d need to return to the camp. Why was I upset about that? This was supposed to just have been a way to make money, but now I have a free education program. Do I need to stay? No, but... Why?! Why do I not want to leave?
“Ken, you said it’s going to be alright no matter what it is, right? Wanted us to keep it a surprise to meet a new friend?” Lena’s voice. She should have told him, that’d give me time to prepare why didn’t they give me time why.
“No, no problems, just, really surprised, that’s all... uh... hey, buddy, you okay? You’re really... trembly.”
He was approaching me, and instinct took over as I recoiled, before stuttering out my answer.
“I-I’m fine...”
...thankfully translators don’t translate voice cracks. I hope, at least...
“Hey, relax... I have no problem with you being a krakotl, I just didn’t think...” He looks over at Lena and Reginald. “Calm down... I can wear my visor if you want?”
Right. Those things humans use to hide their scary faces from us.
“I... I’m good...”
Why would it last? It almost felt good after all.
There was some emotion I struggled to read on the young human’s face, as he sighed and shook his head.
“I screwed this up, I’m sorry. Let... Let me try again.” He straightened out, and adjusted his clothing, before slowly approaching me and giving me a small smile, no teeth showing. “Hello. My name is Kenneth Vince and I'm son of Lena and Reginald Vince. I was told you’re a refugee they took in to help out. It’s nice to meet you. What’s your name?”
That... snapped me out of it. Right... He was... not upset at my existence. He was just very surprised that Lena and Reginald weren’t. That’s a reasonable thing to be surprised about, considering I was surprised about it to this day. I tried to compose myself as I responded.
“My name is Krekos. I live here as... hired help with the cattle. It’s... nice to meet you?”
The smile on Kenneth’s face widens, though he still refrains from showing his teeth. Instead, he extends a hand towards me. A handshake is a human gesture that I found far from comfortable, but I didn’t want to give him a reason to change his mind on acceptability of my existence, so I took it with a wingclaw. He gently took it and held for a few seconds before letting go and sighing again, turning to his parents.
“You know, I always thought you guys would be empty nesters, but I never thought it’d be that literal.”
That got all three of them laughing, as I just tilted my head in confusion. I was fairly sure there were no empty nests in the house until after I adjusted the attic room for my own accommodations. Still, I took the laughter as a sign that the tense moment had fully passed and let my ruffled feathers slowly rest.
“Let’s head inside. Krekos, we’re having dinner, you’re welcome to join us.” Reginald said, picking up Kenneth’s bag. I tilted my head a little and he followed up with elaboration. “We will be having meat... But there’s still going to be stuff you can eat too. It’s a celebration, so I prepared a bit of everything.”
“Dad, you shouldn’t have!” Kenneth responded with embarrassment.
“None of that! Our son returned from the war, alive and a hero, and we can have a celebration. Krekos, I know you’re still... uncertain about meat so you don’t—”
“I’ll join.”
Wait, who said that? And why did they say that in my voice?
Wait, that was me. Why did I say that?
“That’s great to hear! I’ve got some nice steamed broccoli and some vegetarian fried rice as sides that you’ll enjoy!” Reginald smiled at me and I felt myself shrinking into my feathers. That the humans didn’t notice at least, proceeding into the house instead.
Well, looks like I signed my warrant. At least my bag and my epipen were on me in case something at the table triggers the allergy again. Would be rather unfortunate to have it happen two days in a row.
And that’s how, in just ten or so minutes, I found myself sitting at the dining perch, while humans took seats in chairs, all consuming chunks of roasted flesh and somehow managing to also stuff pieces of equally roasted plants in, and converse with one another. You wouldn’t be able to tell on first look, but despite their mouths being relatively small, especially for a predator, it seems they compensate for it by having those be near bottomless in both hunger and small talk.
I am not sure how I managed to shift my focus away from them consuming animal matter in front of me, however vat grown it might have been, and onto their conversation instead, but I succeeded. I suppose that was just part of me going native around predators. Soon, I’ll be the one feasting along with them before I know it, and snacking on those epipens to not die of it.
Like you could ever be on the same level as humans.
“So, Fahl? That’s where you were sent after the Battle of Earth?” Lena asked.
“Yeah. From what I heard, we got a light posting compared to guys at Sillis or Mileau. The most I had to deal with was some exterminator insurgents.”
That’s right. Since harchen participated in the Extermination Fleet, they were one of those who were occupied by humans during the war. It makes sense that there was at least some ground resistance.
“Honestly, the worst thing out there was the heat. Not the flamethrower kind, the climate. The place was so damn dry and hot. At least exterminators you could subdue or evade. Not so much with the scorching sun!”
I couldn’t resist a small chuckle at the idea of a predator being more afraid of hot weather than flamethrowers as I slowly pecked at the vegetables on my plate. Thankfully it was set far enough aside from any meat dishes that no contamination should occur, but I was still examining pieces before putting them in my mouth just in case.
Seems like reacting was a mistake though, as that brought Kenneth’s attention onto me. He finished chewing latest piece of flesh and pointed a fork at me.
“So, Krekos... Where are you from? Cradle was my guess, but I do know there were refugees from other places like Sillis too.”
That’s a weird question. Isn’t it kind of to be expected for a krakotl to be from our actual homeworld?”
“I’m from Nishtal.”
“No, no, that’s not what I meant,” Kenneth chuckled, tossing a piece of broccoli into his mouth and swallowing before continuing, “I meant, where did you live? I kind of assumed you were born there, but it’s not like Nishtal had a chance to send refugees out, and if they did, this is the last place they’d be.”
Oh... I caught concerned looks of Lena and Reginald, looking between me and Kenneth from both sides. Not only did they not make him aware that I was a krakotl, they also neglected to mention just how I came by my refugee status... Which was just a legal workaround to grant me asylum without unnecessary complications or establishing undesirable precedent. Legally, I may be a refugee, but practically... I am a defector. Lena and Reginald know that, I told them my story before. And while they were weirdly accepting, Kenneth... Fought extermination fleet here on Earth. Personally.
Still, I wasn’t about to lie. It took a few moments and gathering mental strength to steel myself, and averting my eyes, focusing on the plate of warm vegetables in front of me rather than the human’s anticipating stare before I answered.
“I did live on Nishtal. I... I came with the extermination fleet.” I responded, doing my best to avoid looking at him. I did not want to witness his reaction, for some reason the thought of seeing it weighed heavy on my mind.
“Oh.”
The response was simple, and had no followup. There was no more clinking of cutlery against plates, or chewing. The only thing hanging in the air of the kitchen was silence, weighing down on me. It dragged on and on... until it just got so unbearable I couldn’t take it.
“I-I’m full... Thank you for the meal.” I quickly said, hopping off the perch and stepping out of the kitchen, quickly making my way to the yard and taking flight.
Fresh air of the outside and rush of it as I flew up and gained speed... I missed that. I knew it’s not safe to just fly over other people’s territory, so I corrected my course into doing large sweeping circles over the cattle yard and simply let my wings carry me.
Flying away from any danger is the only thing I’m good for anyway. The only thing I ever do.
I closed my eyes. With them closed and not focusing on my angle it feels like I’m actually flying away from all the troubles. Away from humans who barely tolerate my existence, away from gojid who see me as worse than a predator, away from Earth and all its incorrigible customs, away from horrid cattle, away from constant memories...
Flying feels nice. It may be a bit harder than it was home, but it’s still possible. I heard that on Venlil Prime or Mileau it’s much harder. But here? Just an extra flap of wings for every few paces and you’re just fine, free to soar the skies...
Alone. With no one to ever share it with me again.
Slowly I let my eyes open back to the bleak reality. Greenery of surrounding pastures and woods, bright blue skies and farmhouses dotted about here and there greeted me. I lowered my gaze down, focusing on what’s below. There they were, fourteen brown and black dots spread around the enclosed portion of the farm territory. I am not sure how much time I’ve spent flying in circles and trying to forget things but my wings were feeling a tad sore. Then as I just began slow descent, in same circular motion, I noticed that one of the birds, a familiar one, was being chased by several others. Recounting the morning, I tried putting the knowledge to action, and shifted direction of descent, swooping down. To my surprise, that actually worked, as the moment I got close to the ground, the cattle birds all got much louder and scattered in all directions, including the loner. Who, at least this time, got off unharmed. I suppose such pathetic flightless creatures would fear a flying one much more than they would when I just run up to them...
Swooping at them from the sky like a predator to intimidate them into behaving... Like an arxur warden.
With the fight preemptively broken up, I flutter up to the roof of the cattle house, to my usual position and rested my wings. I didn’t see any movement from the direction of the house, so I suppose the family is still busy unpacking. Since Kenneth joined the military just before the Battle of Earth, and Lena and Reginald only moved here after their actual house in city of New York got destroyed, it’d be the first time the human is seeing what is basically his new home. There was a room set aside for him since before I even moved in, and while there is also a guest room... That one did not have a large enough window to fit through, which did not feel comfortable. So when I asked for a space with a bigger window they only had an attic to offer. They seemed uncomfortable letting me live in a tiny room with slanted roof, but I found such space more comforting than I would have a large room with a window not large enough to fit even one fully spread wing through.
I wonder if Kenneth will need as much renovation as I did? The house is built for humans, but he never lived there before. Will he need to buy a more comfortable bed? Getting a proper nesting setup in place of a bed took a bit of effort, but I figured something out. Human sheets were comfortable enough for such, and sitting perches were thankfully not that hard to get thanks to help from the refugee administration. Maybe that’s the things that Lena went to buy yesterday? Kenneth’s preferred room decor?
I looked up to the sky to see the sun beginning to dim. I am not sure if it was me flying that long, or me losing track of time in my thoughts again, but the sun was beginning to set. I began my usual chores, putting out an evening meal and water for the beasts, and while they feasted, ate some myself. I was a bit hungry, having not properly finished lunch and about to skip dinner, but after the earlier conversation, I’d really rather avoid giving them the opportunity to talk to me.
After the birds had their fill, and by that I mean they emptied the tray as they always do, I let out the call, and they started funneling into the cattle house. The lonely straggler being first to go and hop into its nesting box. I bet tomorrow I will have trouble with getting her out of there again...
I took the moment to gather some eggs the birds left over course of the day, and once that was over and all of them were accounted for, I closed it up. When I flew down over to the house, there wasn’t anyone by the back door thankfully, so I just left eggs there, returned the basket, and returned to my room through the window.
Well, at least I didn’t get nearly killed today... That’s nice I guess?
I was about to check my holopad when there was a knock on the door. I approached and opened it to see... Kenneth. Standing in the doorway.
“Uh, hi, Krekos. I just, uh... Wanted to apologize again. I really wish mom and dad told me everything ahead of time... I just want you to know, I have no problems with you whatsoever, yeah? It’s just. Surprising, I guess, to hear all that. I didn’t think there were any defectors from the fleet at all... Just. Uh, please don’t worry about me?” He offered me a small smile, showing his canines before quickly correcting himself and doing a closed-lip one. “I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories or make you feel unwelcome.”
I had to take a moment to contemplate his words. Was Lena and Reginald’s weirdness hereditary? He almost reminded me of how Reginald talked to me early on, with constant stumbling over the words, as well as constant reassurances that he is fine with me being here. Couple that with failing to avoid predatory mannerisms like eye contact and smiles like Lena tends to and you get this human. But most importantly and least understandably, there was the general fact of him and them just... welcoming me. I couldn’t understand why. I should be one sorry to them.
“N-No, it’s fine... I’m sorry for... intruding on you and your family.”
“No, no, dude, you’re fine! I mean, hell, I was considering entering one of those exchange programs before the bombings happened, and even after, well, I did my best at Fahl to be the perfect friendly soldier just there to make sure no more bombs drop on my home and not kill or conquer anyone. And then mom told me your story, and I can’t believe it... Just... If you have any issues, feel free to tell me. I’m not one of those racist pricks that are too pussy to even call themselves HF anymore because they know they’ll get their teeth knocked. I get that there aren't good or bad species, just people. And you seem like a decent guy if mom and dad’s judgment is to be trusted.” His smile widened, though it was clear from tension on his face that he had to take conscious effort to keep teeth hidden. “So, what I said earlier stands. Friends, right?”
He extends hand forward, for a second time today. I wasn’t sure if I knew this human long enough to call him a friend... Any human really. But it also seems like human definition of ‘friends’ is anyone they’re cordial and peaceful with. Which is weird. You’d think translators would properly use ‘acquaintance’ for that.
Still... We will be living in the same house now. I can’t just say no, and... I can’t come up with a reason to say no. Even him being a predator and a human is not something I could really say I object to, considering how... mundane that became to me over my time here.
So, with naught on my mind but acceptance of the situation, I extended my wing and grasped his hand with my claw. This time he actually gripped it tightly and moved it up and down, as I saw other humans do occasionally.
“Yeah... I guess that’d be for the best.” I responded, shrugging off the hesitation. Fresh start for a third time, I guess?
The human grinned, forgetting to hide his teeth entirely, but I was ready for it somehow and avoided outwardly reacting.
“Cool! Anyway, I’ll try to get some shuteye early, I couldn’t sleep on the overnight flight home. See ya!”
And with that he left. Well... That meeting went well I suppose?
I returned to my nest and picked up my holopad, returning to what I was doing. And there it was, something I awaited every day. A notification that I was messaged on mailing app. Opening the letter revealed the schedule for the study program. Which... only had one day marked on it. And a note that the rest of it will be figured out ‘as we go from there’. So it’s not a schedule, it’s just a mark for the day of the first meeting.
While a bit underwhelming, it was still exciting. It would be an all-alien class so I wouldn’t have to deal with humans’ incomprehensibility nearly as much, and it would allow me to finally return to pursuing what I actually dreamt of. Even if I wasn’t entirely sure that was precisely what I wanted after everything that happened, it was at least something for me to move towards.
...just two days until start. I wonder if there’s some required reading to prepare?
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So I would put the nightmare flair but it was actually pretty chill tbh, I wasn’t like panicking or too scared.
I was preparing for a wedding and me and my dad and sister went to a hotel. A basic one. Then I forgot smth at home and my sister went to get it and we kinda got in a fight. Then the bathroom looks like it has a ton of sinks of diff colors and my sister tells us that there’s women trying to kill us by putting knives trough the charging stations down to floor level. I go to check it out and some woman pushes a sword trough and I try to escape but it’s hard, like there’s knives and I managed to escape, it wasn’t that hard but still difficult. And at some point I’m sitting and the whole thing just turns into a horror hotel, and a like a little human made out of fine plastic with like round head and like rounded limbs and everything, like the pic but it had fine smooth shiny plastic all over and was probably a robot and no ears and a face way bigger with 2 dots as eyes and a big smile. And no ears. This thing tells me how sad and horror and sinister the whole place looks and holds my hand to show me and I feel like I’m gonna kms. But then the thing says “but you know how I know this is not real?” And then starts singing a song like a record in the 90s, yk that sound that goes when you rewind? That, and a happy La La La 90s song. And like vibrant paint from paint buckets starts splashing around and making everything coloured again. Next thing I know the narrator says the women have been caught, the ones with the knives, and also before all this, I dreamed it was my birthday and my aunt cami baked me a cake, and I was like “u didn’t have to do that” and she’s like “Gurl just say thanks and eat “ ,we all just like eat from it with spoons, no cut slices. And I was eating most of the coconut small cut cakes. We were all having a pretty good time! And at the hotel, before arriving it was raining, and we had to hold a pillow over our heads and my sister got a little left behind l and I started changing and didn’t realise my dad was there and yelled at him to close his eyes, he didn’t listen the first few times I said it. Then I put smth on and the rest of the story I just said. Oh and just realised I can’t put a pic for the teddy description thing. It was like , it had a round head, eggplant shaped limbs,all smooth shiny plastic .

I'm just going to vomit all of my thoughts from this past week onto this thread. If this makes zero sense, I'm sorry. Also, this is long. I don't blame you if you don't read it. It's not like I deserve the time of day.
I just can't wait for the school year to be over. I don't dislike school, just everyone in it. Actually, I don't dislike them, i envy them. Thats a better word. I envy them because they dont have to be me. I dont have it hard or anything. Not to them. I try to be nice, i want to be nice. but it feels like my peers don't. they just have a good time using me as a punching bag. at least starting this Friday I'll have a solid 2 months of being able to work on impressing them before I come back. this year and last, I've been a court jester. this next year is my last year at this school before high school. I want to have a good last year. but i would also like to be more social, and that's hard enough.
I honestly don't understand how I've even got this many friends. I don't understand what they gain from being friends with me. If they don't enjoy being friends with me, they'd just tell me, right? I don't think I do them any favors being around them. but i feel annoying around anyone else. I do feel like the worst of my peers. they do all act and look better than me. and I'm not even me during school. I'd be quite the downer if I was. I try to be happy, but it feels forced. being social feels forced and stressful. if I don't know the person, I can legitimately not talk to them. not unless they're a teacher, or they talk to me first. but even if they do, I probably will only talk the bare minimum. I feel uncomfortable just being around anyone in general. I think I feel uncomfortable because I'm lowering other's perspective of them by being near them. Like a dump yard next to a mansion.
It doesn't help that I look roughly 3 years older than I actually am. I've had people tell me I look 16 before. That doesn't look good being surrounded by 12–14-year-olds. I remember specifically last year I was leaving the locker room, and someone said to me "You look like everything bad was made into one person." That stuck with me. Maybe I shouldn't have taken it to heart. But how can I not? Maybe I should focus more on what I think and less what others think. But I just can't do that. Even right now, I'm going to work on myself so that I fit in more. So that other people are nicer to me. I wish I wasn't fat. I really do. I work on it. I try and remember that if I don't need it to live, I shouldn't eat it. But I've gotten so used to eating when I was bored. When I was sad. As a reward. I would go to the fridge. I would get a haircut, but if it's bad, it's only going to provoke more. I'm getting one as soon as possible once school ends. at least if it's bad, it'll grow back a little by the time school lets back in. Nothing will fit with my face though. It's dumb, fatty, and I think it's one of the worse parts of my body. I've got glasses, though. They help round out my face a bit. I still don't look good, but at least I don't look as bad as I could. I also don't look at good as I could, but that's because I can't keep my mouth shut.
Maybe I should have a doctor sew my mouth shut. Maybe I should put my bed in front of my door so I can't take a break from scrolling to go eat. Managing my calories is hard. It shouldn't be, I'm just stupid. I'm also immature. I swear too much, I have a baby voice, and I always have spit in my mouth. I'm gross. I sweat too much and spit too much. Can I control it? No. but I'm not the victim here. I make everyone else the victim by being there. I'm only there because I'm forced to be there. I'd skip daily if I wasn't. I don't want to make anyone uncomfortable by going up and talking to them. I don't want to make anyone uncomfortable by sitting next to them on the bus when its full. I don't want to make anyone uncomfortable by sharing a class with them. I don't want to be a discomforting person. Maybe isolation would be the best course of action. They'd make a classroom just for me to do online lessons in, alone. Probably an old janitor's closet. But I don't think I would be worth the effort. They'd label me unteachable and let me rot in bed at home.
I don't want to be negative. But I did it to myself, really, why didn't I just choose the good genetics? Why didn't I choose to never hunger? To digest food as fast as I bleed? To not sweat? To mature at the same rate as a normal 13-year-old? To be able to disregard any VERY helpful criticism I get? To smell like a field of roses? To be charming? To be attractive? To be normal?
To be honest, self-care doesn't make much sense to me. I don't deserve care to myself. I am to be treated the same as every other pig in the barn yard. If nobody would see it, what's the point? Genuinely. I need validation from my peers. Not that I've ever gotten it. It's human, right? That doesn't mean I need validation though. I'm lucky, though. They could've kicked my skull in the minute I walked through the door. I wouldn't blame them. Not like I could fight back. I'm about as weak as possible.
And that's what I've always been and will always be. The big, weak, ugly, loser that is to be hated. Because ignoring the abnormal will make them think they deserve to be near the fines. The best. The normal. I pity those that look like me, but not worse than me. Nobody could look worse than me. I don't deserve pity though. I deserve the pain that's come to me. I deserve worse, honestly. I'm lucky.

Just a quick warning I’m putting it all out here about our friendship, i just want to tell the truth.
I 19f had a messy relationship with my ex best friend who I’ll call Tina because she was tiny.
We met in our 7th grade math class after she was having a panic attack because of multiple things going on in her life. I comforted her and helped her escape a toxic friendship and introduced her to my group of friends. We called every night and gave each other ther the support we both needed as I was sheltered and new to everything and she was coming out of some serious mental tolls.
I was there for her even though she wasn’t always for me. I helped her through when her dad nearly died and his entire personality changed, when her mom became a single mother and Tina felt the need to step up as the other parent, and fully supported her in everything she did.
Everything was great until we hit high school. She demanded we talked everyday at school and at least an hour on the phone. I don’t mean to say she told me outright but she definitely forced my hand to keep the friendship. She would guilt trip me with fake panic attacks and swear I was being terrible to her. She also pretty much had to approve every friend I had not to mention boyfriends. The first two, granted, were asses to say the least. However, she’d look for reasons for me not to explore friendships outside of our little group.
I talked to several friends about how much this time affected my grades, love life, and other friendships and they all said the same thing, I went from cheerful and playful, to scared and there being no light in my eyes when Tina was around.
A couple years into high school I met my now boyfriend and we hit it off big time. She did everything to chase him away and even convinced me to break things off. Luckily he and I never grew apart and decided that we’d try again, but help make each other better and to keep a more open line of communication.
She tried to use the same tactic on my other friend from theater but didn’t succeed.
To add insult to injury, I wrote a children’s book and it went to a national competition and all she cared about is that she became a published author in a poetry book before I even started binding my book. I told her about my success in the hallway of a hotel while my club members celebrated all our national placements and all she had to say, “that’s cool but I won that poetry contest and I’m published now! I’m getting copies of the book on Saturday, aren’t you proud of me!”
When I confronted her about this, she said she was also proud of me but she felt I was being selfish. I won a trip to Florida and get to present the book I worked so hard on. But apparently, that’s not as important.
Now for the big conflict, in the summer of 2023, I left my parents house the night before my college orientation. I’ll do a separate story on that. The point is, I left.
She herself yes was there for me holding me as I cried about leaving my sister and helping me but what I need to couch surf for a while.
She had a plan, move me from the campus I was registered for to the one she was going to and have me split door-dash money with her and hopefully not have to live out of her car. She also wanted me to pull a hearty loan from the bank her mom worked for to pay for all this. I personally cannot do that as I’m in the middle of getting a name change and it was hard for me to even get a driving permit.
A couple months pass and the house I had stayed at for that time kicked me out. From the stress of college and getting a job I’ll admit, I wasn’t the nicest.
The day before I was told I needed to find another place to stay I got a call from Tina. She called me crying because she was worried I was going to commit suicide and I talked to her about my feelings and future. How I have so much left to do and see. Including marrying the man I love, my boyfriend. She cried about that and said I should have listened to her. I pretty much ignored it as we talked about it serval times.
I was served my eviction notice, apologized to my friends parents, and began packing my things. I get a FaceTime from her and I’m thinking that my best friend might have some words of comfort or something.
I answer the call and with my friend in the back, she starts in on me saying that no matter what, I never listen. I only don’t when it happens that I can’t or it goes against my wishes and boundaries I’ve set. She went on yelling after what seemed like hours as I zoned out and packed with shaky hands and blurry eyes. I couldn’t take it anymore so I hung up with saying, “we can talk about this when I’m sure where my next meal is coming from and I’m not scared I’ll be on the streets.”
From what my friend told me she blocked me immediately and never wanted to speak to me again. She’s blocked me everywhere even tiktok and it makes me feel bad.
It’s been months and I’ve been told that I’m not the a-hole however, I think I need an outside opinion.
AITA??

Video Demo: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NJXZc4g8cEKy8L-3vIn9JHwFjw1SXjjY/view?usp=sharing
Hey guys, so this is an extension of Ianxofour's voidless void trading set up but made to be fully automatic for getting an infinite number of emeralds in survival. It uses two string trading villagers, a string duper some where on the rail, and a pretty simple AHK script to automate everything. Idk how y'all feel about scripts, but it makes my Minecraft experience more fun so I use them in my survival worlds...
The way it works is that you double click the top edge of the button while sitting in a minecart to open the trading menu and send you far enough from the villager that when you trade it doesn't consume the villager's trade inventory. The string duplicator makes sure you never run out of string. The script does all this but also every 40 trades, it empties your inventory into a chest so that you can fill your inventory with emeralds again.
Build Instructions:

1. Create Ianxofour's voidless void trading set up with two fisherman villagers, with the rail running in the east west direction. One side will serve as the "starting side" for the purposes of the script, in the picture it is the left one.
2. Create a string duplicator such that the string drops over the player rail (plenty of videos on this on YT)
3. When facing the villager on the starting side in the player minecart, place a chest on your right one block up with two air blocks between you and the chest. (This is for emptying your inventory so it can be run for longer)

Script "as is" requirements:
The villager on the starting side needs to have string as the second trade, and the other side must have string as the first trade. 1920x1080 monitor, GUI size auto.
Use Instructions:
Enter windowed mode. Set your render and simulation distance to the minimum. Sit in the minecart on the starting side facing the villager, and looking straight down. Use f3 to make sure you are perfectly aligned. With the script running, press ctrl-g to start the farm. To exit the script press ctrl-esc
Final notes and customization Script Google Docs Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-roqM4cY0MdShEIXzLrr0ue8zOeZLIwkEDrpjrne-nQ/edit?usp=sharing (You need to create a txt file, and save as .ahk)
The script is not perfect, but on my machine is extremely consistent and works overnight. Things like the amount your mouse moves can be changed to work with your computer if you so desire. Additionally you could mess with timings and rail design to optimize. On my survival world I have two string dupers since just one doesn't generate enough string.
I realize it would be outclassed by something using the end gateways, but I hate dealing with transporting mobs more than anything. Just thinking about it I'm getting flashbacks to making a shulker farm.
Simplest Version

I'm not sure what good writing this will do, but I feel like so few people in my life get what I'm going through, and goodness knows I'm not going to get any sleep tonight.
I'll try to make this as quickly as possible.
I'm a 42(m) and my wife is a 42 (f). We've been married for 19 years now and have a 18 year old son and an 11 year old daughter. Our typical gender roles are reversed, I'm the emotional and main caretaker, and she has a hard time sharing any kind of emotion.
I've always known this, and I know the childhood she has. Me being the opposite--I am always willing to talk about my emotions with my partner, because I feel it is the only way forward.
I did everything you are supposed to do. Complimented her, made her feel loved, did romantic things, cooked, cleaned, did the majority of all house and yard work and took care of our kids. Our sex life was really good, we worked well together, she just wasn't affectionate and can't share emotions.
Then in August 2023 I found out she had been having an affair since the end of June. The next 6 months of my life were Hell. I got mad, but then did what I do and tried to understand why. I forgave her, got counseling, and treated her better than she deserved. We were supposedly reconciling, but I didn't give her any real boundaries. I was too scared to. Then found out in September she was still seeing him. Supposedly left him Nov 17th to truly give our family a shot, January 28th found out she was still seeing him.
For the first time I was going to leave. She begged me to stay. She actually broke up with the dude, I made sure of it, and for the first time in a decade she made actual effort in our marriage.
It was like having the wife of my dreams. I fell more in love with her everyday. She was doing all the things I'd begged as far as affection and talking about stuff for years. We made future plans, went on dates--it was amazing.
We had a really small fight based on her infidelity near the end of April. Extremely minor stuff, and she went on a 48 hour shift and that Sunday sent me a text saying we are getting divorced.
Her emotions completely shut off. Dead faced as I sobbed, as the kids sob. None of her explanations make sense. Things have progressed very rapidly, a month later I'm in my own rent house, she has agreed to generous terms of alimony and 50/50 for my daughter (my son wants nothing to do with her). No matter what I say, she will not reverse course. Lawyers, therapists--they all think this is too quick. We will be divorced in around 45 days.
I'm pretty sure my wife is undiagnosed and unmedicated bipolar. She has these manic episodes where she will make huge changes in life to force herself to change or be happy and it never works.
I think that is what is happening here, but I can't seem to fix it or make her slow down at least long enough to try to get medicated.
Today she told me that she knows it is her, knows I'm a good husband and father, but can't seem to feel things anymore and doesn't think she can fix them with me.
The change was so sudden me and the kids have whiplash. One day we are loving on each other and making plans for the future, two days later we are supposed to be over? 19 years down the drain? None of this makes sense.
I'm struggling with the suddenness of it all. I don't know how to answer my kid's questions about why, and I'm shattered in a million pieces. I have every reason to let her go, but I can't seem to. I defend her when I shouldn't, do things for her when I shouldn't, and every day I just wait for the text saying she has made a mistake. But even living apart for a month, and the last week in my own place, it seems to affect her very little.
I keep waiting for her to wake up, that I can get through to her, but I also know I can't save this marriage alone.
I can't understand how she could walk away from me and the kids, I'd drag myself through Hell for us, in fact I did all those months of infidelity (I haven't even shared the worst bits).
It is really over isn't it? It is time to give up, isn't it?
How do I let go of her? How do I just give up fighting for the family I poured 19 years into, gave my absolute all?
This feels so hopeless.

Hi, I'm 35(F) married to 37(M) for the last 5 years. I am pulling my hair out to get my husband see things from my perspective for the last 4 years or so..and I think I might be losing my patience this year.
We lived with his parents and brother because he couldn't afford a place of his own. 2 months in to living with them, I soon realised this was a huge mistake 1) my life was never going to be the same again - they are close minded, judgemental, sexist expectations, hierarchical thinking (my husband never made any decisions including personal ones like going on trips without consulting his dad), they made sexist comments all the time about my time "living overseas as a single girl" and expected me to "adjust" to their toxic household. All of which I "tolerated" because I wanted to keep the peace in the house, take time to understand my husband and also give it enough time before I took a stand. 2) my husband was a really different person in front of them and I hoped he would be better if it was just the two of us. I was so wrong.
I come from humble beginnings, worked hard for the things I need and want and continue to be the same in my adult life. On the other hand, I learned after marriage that my husband has never worked a single day, receives pocket money from his dad to fund his lifestyle. He makes no effort to contribute to household expenses, he might probably part with 50% of his "pocket money" from dad if there's anything more left after he's paid off his credit card bills, etc. And this isn't without my asking him to pay his share. His pocket money is one fifth of the income I make..
When we tried to move out..my FIL threatened that there would be consequences if we moved out, hurled abuses at me (saying how ungrateful I am after all the money he spends on me - for maintenance?!), to which my husband stood still and allowed his father to say horrible things about me and my family for 45 mins straight. If I had to pinpoint, this was the exact day everything changed in my marriage. Also..up to this day, I was of the understanding that my husband got his monthly income via his family business (which he said he worked for although he mostly stayed home)..and I just took his word for it.
When the FIL said all those things, and my husband stood in silence - I learned he couldn't have my back, didn't care about my feelings, and continued to blame me and gaslight me for the rest of the 3 years we lived away from his parents. What I tried to do in order to save our marriage had only made things worse, and since then it's been a toxic marriage between us. He has never once said what his father has done was wrong, or apologised to me for that. He continues to visit his parents home along with our child (feels very comfy to leave me out/ never invite me), and behaves like nothing has ever happened.
Now I would have moved on from that incident (with or without apology), except his parents and brother continue to brain wash, say mean things about me and tell me to my face that I am 'controlling" and have changed my husband. I am not okay with how my husband is okay with all this. He comes home after a "day out" with his family with no regard for how I might be feeling. They hide a lot of info behind my back but I tried to let it go.. He comes back home triggers me, I say a few things...and he verbally and emotionally abuses me. This has become a pattern. He "punishes" me by not talking to me for weeks, no intimacy whatsoever for months (not even holding hands or a little touch), no support or even general empathy to ask me how I'm doing.
When respect, trust, intimacy, emotional needs, financial security all imp values that contribute to a healthy marriage, missing in our marriage, I don't see a point in having him in my life except that my children need a father. As the sole breadwinner for our family, I am emotionally and mentally overworked and don't believe I can go on longer with an unhelpful, emotionless partner any longer. Our child is 4 and kind of understand what's going on and often see us arguing and bickering. Icing on the cake is I am pregnant now with our second child.
I considered moving back to where I used to live (which is overseas) but I'm not sure I can cope as a single mum with 2 young kids under 5. I have no family support, no elders worth involving in this matter to intervene and counsel, no one outside my 2-3 friends really know the stuff I'm going through. My husband makes 0 income, although his family are wealthy doesn't have a single thing to his name so I'm basically worried he'll leech off me when I apply for a divorce (I have worked extremely hard off for the stuff I possess in my name and want to protect it for my children..)... What are some sensible options?
Thank you so much for reading my lengthy post.

Hi Reddit,
I can’t believe I’m writing this post, but this has been on my mind for the past few months and I really need some external input. I need help to figure out if I’m in a toxic relationship, if there’s something I can do to fix it, if I’m over sensitive, or is it time for me to end this?
Context: I ‘M26’ and my girlfriend ‘F25’ have been together for 2.5 years, and known each other for 8 years. We both live in the U.S. but I’m from Europe and she’s from Central America, met in college. Issues started 2 years ago but when things are good she’s amazing (funny/beautiful/caring/makes me feel unconditionally loved/etc) and I always thought the issues were friction we could iron out together. With time I have grown increasingly skeptical of that. This is my first relationship (longer than 3 months) so at the same time I’m worried that maybe I am overly skeptical, that I only see my perspective and fail to see hers. I want to be fair to her, because I love her and care deeply for her as a person, I am just starting to resent the relationship.
History of issues: To me the issues are all centered in my girlfriends anxiety. Frequently, rather than being vulnerable, she projects her anxiety on me and accusing me of all kinds of things. I have both tried to shake off those moments, to recognize that this isn’t her but her anxiety talking, but it still affects me deeply. Not only when it occurs, but when I am doing something and she seems fine I still worry that maybe I will do something wrong and she will snap and this moment will turn to a life or death situation. I have also obviously communicated my concern over this behavior repeatedly, and every time after she takes things too far she apologizes and takes ownership and we come up with a strategy to avoid the issue from repeating. This all sounds very healthy, I think, but the problem is that we’ve had these issues and conversations 25+ times and here we still are. Some things have gotten better for sure but it still feels unbearable to me. Let me provide three examples to illustrate our issues (from my perspective).
Example 1 - 1.5 years ago My best friend and I were victims of attempted robbery from people affiliated with organized crime, the event went to court, and after the trial we wanted to get away from everything. My girlfriend and I had planned to go to a Caribbean island shortly after, so I invited my friend to come a week before my girlfriend and leave the day she arrived. We were both pretty shaken up and just wanted to talk things out and enjoy a tropical paradise. The first night my friend and I arrive (girlfriend still in the US) she starts texting fervently that my friend and I shouldn’t see any of the sights so she and I can see them together for the first time. I get where she’s coming from but this is also a challenging time for me and my best friend so I am not willing to completely sacrifice his week with me to appease my girlfriend. Things escalate and she demands my attention all the time. When my friend and I is out she is calling me 50+ times in a row, texting me that if I love her I would respond and that I am ruing hers and mine vacation and though I’m trying to deescalate I don’t see how to. I end up turning off my phone, although she begs me not to, but I’m still in my head unable to enjoy the night. When I turn my phone back on next day there’s a picture of herself with a cut (very shallow but still) saying I made her do this. This event is the low point of our relationship, and I told her if she ever hurts herself or threatens to hurt herself I’m out, and to be fair to her she has not once since hurt herself. Nonetheless, the calls continue after this (50+ a day) and I spent 3-4h a day on the phone with her and neglecting the trip with my best friend. Damn writing this out really makes me ashamed for not standing my ground back then. Anyways, this really colored the trip with my childhood friend and I think I still resent myself and her for making that happen.
Example 2 - 0.5 years ago I visited a close childhood friend in South America for 2.5 weeks. Because of the events that transpired in example 1, my girlfriend was nervous for my trip. She expressed worry that she would act out in the same way as my last trip. I really appreciated this self-awareness. We therefore talked extensively about how to avoid issues. The first few days were alright, with her being anxious but being vulnerable about it and we managed well, calling once a day and texting 15-20 messages a day (more than I’d want, but that’s a compromise I’m okay with). At this point I make a mistake, but her reactions to it is (in my head at least) not proportional. I told her I was going out with my friend and his friend that weekend, and she expressed that this would make her anxious that I would cheat on her. So I asked what can I do, and we decided I’d send her a text once I left the pre-game, once I left the club, and call her once I got back to my friends place. A little bit much I thought, but I love her so a fair compromise for now. Unfortunately, I got caught up in the moment at the pre-game, and forgot to text my girlfriend. I realized as I was walking home from the club with 25+ missed calls and a bunch of emotional messages about how I forgot because I was around beautiful women and how I don’t love her. Here I understand her pain. She was vulnerable, I agreed to a compromise and I didn’t fulfill my end. 25+ calls is never productive but hey I had some blame here. The following day I call her for 1.5 hours apologizing and we talk things out, and it feels like though she is feeling anxious that she accepts my apology and we have now managed to resolve my mistake. The same night my friend and his friends are going to someone else’s house for a BBQ (which I told my girlfriend about days before). An hour before we are about to leave my girlfriend starts telling me to talk to her on the phone, because I hurt her so bad and when I say I can’t because we are 10 people having a beer before we head out she says she doesn’t care and that I hurt her and now she “wants to make my life miserable”. I tell her “hey I understand you’re upset but I never want to hear those words from the person I love. I know I hurt you but never intentionally”. She says she doesn’t care and keeps calling me non-stop for 40 minutes and I’m worried that if I don’t pick up she will start to call my friend. I try to deescalate and beg her to take a step back and that she is pushing me away by doing this. The whole thing culminates by me getting out of the Uber towards the barbecue and telling my friends that I think my girlfriend and I are breaking up and I need to deal with it. I am crying as I say this and feel so damn embarrassed. Even writing it now I can’t believe this actually happened. Damn. Anyways, as soon as I tell her that I am no longer going to the bbq and I left my friends car she becomes a different person (the person I love) and tells me she is so sorry and realize she took it too far and begs me to order an Uber to the BBQ. She says she’ll pay for it and begs me to go. At that point I’m just so embarrassed at the whole thing and tell her something along the lines of “why the fuck did you push me this far then. I told you you are pushing me away”. I head home, and wonder how someone who loves me so much can intentionally cause me so much harm and I seriously begin to doubt if her and I will ever work. I tell her I don’t think I want to be in the relationship, but that I recognize I’m emotional so I need 7 days without contact to process my thoughts. I won’t block her, but if she reaches out I will. She does reach out (albeit with a nice message) but I still block her.
I probably should have left the relationship here, but damn I love her, we live together, and at this point she was depending on me for her visa to stay in the country. I don’t want to rip all that apart from her. So I say I don’t know if we’ll ever feel okay, but I’m willing to give this one last chance.
To her defense, she take a lot of new steps at this point. She tells her mom and sister everything that happened (including her trust issues and jealousy), she starts with anxiety medication and starts being more vulnerable with her therapist. I am still skeptical that things will actually be okay, but I recognize the effort she puts in and I really appreciate it. The frequency of our arguments decrease, and more disputes now end before they become arguments.
Example 3 - Yesterday My GF flew to Vegas with three of her girlfriends (I know two of them very well) and I know it’s a high risk trip for someone in a relationship but I honestly have complete trust in my GF. I decided to do a dinner with 3 of my friends (who my GF knows equally well, we’re all in a group chat together and do things regularly together) and they invited a 4th person who was part of our sports team (my girlfriend met her 2-3 times, just like me).
She texts me from Vegas asking who’s coming to the dinner and once she finds out this 4th person is coming she asks nicely if we cannot be in someone else’s apartment. When I say hey I’m sorry but I already said we could be at my place she asks at least don’t smoke weed together (my friends are stoners so 100% chance they’ll bring weed), and I say “I’m sorry but I won’t tell them not to and I’ll join In too if they bring it but you have nothing to worry about. I love you and I’ll call you as soon as they leave?” My girlfriend then goes into panic mode and calls me nonstop throughout dinner. I go to the bathroom and begs her to stop, tells her she is ruining this for me, and ask her to trust me. She still calls nonstop until they leave. I try to keep a brave face but again it really ruins the dinner for me.
At this point I have told her how actions like these makes me feel uneasy and prevents me from enjoying life. I told her I need her to trust me. I told her that I won’t have it anymore. And if anything the idea that she doesn’t trust me around 3 people she knows well with a 4th stranger while she’s at a pool party in bikini in Vegas just seems so hypocritical it makes me ever more frustrated.
In her defense: - Her dad cheated multiple times while she was growing up. I understand this makes it excruciatingly difficult to trust a partner. - She started seeing a therapist ~8 months ago. - She now takes medication for her anxiety. - She now has told her mom and sister about her trust issues for the first time in her life. - She began attending codependency meetings regularly. - She says she doesn’t want me to limit my life just for me to communicate better what I’m doing (I think it’s really possible that I’m bad at communicating, because to me this request feels like it comes from a lack of trust).
She is putting in immense effort, but I just feel like I can’t do this anymore. Even when things are good I’m worried that she’s going to explode and that prevents me from enjoying the good times too. I love her and she’s amazing in many ways, but I don’t like feeling responsible for her suffering. I know that by trying to end things she’s going to suffer so much and she’ll beg me to give her another chance. I don’t want to but in those moments I feel like she’s the rational version of herself and that maybe she’ll never explode again. Can I solve my relationship with her? Is it time to leave? Is it fair to leave when she is putting in so much effort? How do I find the courage to go through with it?
Thanks so much in advance, and I’m sorry for such a lengthy post.
TL;DR I think my relationship is toxic and I don’t know if it is fixable, or if it’s time for me to end it? Is it fair to end it when my partner is putting so much effort into the relationship?

Let’s make it aware that there is a job offer scam that lies and take you to Scam Factories and you become a slave, and you may even die. Post here all cases of Disappearance of people who may be associated with this type of scam.

Know The Signs! Have you been trafficked? * Did you apply for the job via Social Media (e.g. Facebook, Instagram), WhatsApp, Telegram or an online platform? * Did you have an online interview? * Have you been promised a job with a company in Thailand? * Were you promised a lucrative salary? * Did you receive a letter of confirmation for your new role? * Did you investigate the company you applied to and are they registered? * Do you have an agent or consultant handling details for you?
How to prevent yourself or someone you know from being trafficked * Never give anyone your passport! * Research the company you are applying to join. For example, check their website, search for them on social media and LinkedIn, check the legal registration of the company. * Ask for references (face to face or virtual) from current employees. * Ensure you received an official letter of offer and check the email addresses match the companies contact information. * Research the visa requirements for working in a foreign country. * Notify your countries Immigration Office of your intention to travel or contact your countries Embassy once you arrive at your destination. * If you are about to cross a river in north-west Thailand don’t, it is likely you are being trafficked into Myanmar.
Could this be your situation? If you or someone you know has been trapped in forced criminality, contact your nearest embassy or email the Global Alms Counter Trafficking Unit at admin@globalalms.com with the details.

This is a post for awareness. Let’s help each other. Only serious comments.
Below are more links to other related posts.
https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2023/12/asia/chinese-scam-operations-american-victims-intl-hnk-dst/
http://chinascope.org/archives/32233
https://youtu.be/m6qFCdHvYuI?si=rs2J71V1XIeFF7we
https://www.reddit.com/Thailand/s/L8OTm9Lvye
https://www.globalalms.com/protection
(My account created recently for privacy/scam concerns)

So i got groomed by my dads secret girlfriends, husband when 14. he left me with friend group alot and didn't notice(bc he was dipping out) or didn't care? The husband knew and took it as his right to make me love him and take my vCard as punishment to my father. I was a kid, i had zero clue any of this was happening. My dad did eventually have clear writing on the wall (i left my email open on his pc) ended everything and made me sleep in a closet bc my face he couldn't look at. He also sent an email saying I was whore and apologizing to his friends. . . I was cced. At 16.
Fast forward to me being in my 20s he had apologized one day while drunk but other than that nothing. I ended up having a server drinking problem. I was in rehab multiple times but I've had about 7 years sober total over 10 years. So all in all good.
This past three years have been hard. I moved across the country 6 years ago bc ... I cant be successful with a family who like... thinks the worst of me. Covid hit, making friends is hard blah blah. My family still kinda hates me ... bc i tried to kill myself and im loud about family wrongness (more than this issue has happened - cps) and thats not their fault they are forget and forgive no matter what ppl, & I honestly wasn't cool while in addiction, i didnt let thins go, and change takes time but I needed a change faster so I moved.
I've been away for about 6 Years. Dad use to call me on birthdays but that's it. Ever since I stopped drinking he ... distanced himself but remained proud. He drinks daily, but not to the black out point … well not every day. I relapsed during covid and since then Have had a hard time staying sober in a state far away from everyone I know plus.... trauma.
Two years ago ... WHILE DRUNK... I messaged him and the guy who groomed me aka the husband of girl he was banging saying THEY ruined me as a person and it was really hard to be alive when all of this went down. No response. I was drunk not cool to do I know.
Fast fwd st. Paddy's day about 7 months later - since dad ignored the message 7 month beforei thought it was ignore territory - I told him how proud I was I ran a pool table... he's big into the pool world. He flipped out after being nice for weeks. I'm sure he was drunk too. He said no one talks to him the way I did.
I responded by saying "it's fucked up you let A and B take advantage of me as a child". Then said "you can go to jail too for sexual assualt"... I was drunk and I meant the neglect and letting him pimp me out to friends to get to a dudes wife... is fucked.
My sister's are so mad. They say the message says he abused me sexually, and that I am a horrible person for accusing him of sexual assault. I was drunk and the message honestly reads “you can go to jail too for sa”... but I meant for allowing it.
It's gotten to the point my step mom is going around saying I accused him of sa.
I went to rehab a week after this message. I've reached out explaining I meant neglect of not intervening is illegal.
Everyone hates me ... my dad's charismatic like.me but def has a differnt mindset of the world….hard core. He thinks people who get pulled over by the cops deserve to.die if they don't follow.rules.
Anyways, I have a child now 2 months old. Im extremely sober, have a home i own on my own and a great job. It's been like a year and a half. He's objectively a bad dad. But everyone hates me. They all think I said this thing I didn't mean. I don't know how.to fix it.
Also I want my baby girl to know her grandfather even if he doesn't know me.
He once left me at a baseball game 2 hours from house without a phone. Lol bc it was too hard to find me. He's not bad he's not good. But am I the asshole? Sister's think I should take the burden of guilt. Bc my message was misconstrued. I'd always love my daughter so I'm like....but also I miss having a dad.
NY dads the type to say who's my favorite daughter will get me a beer. I'm not mad at my siblings. They know he withholds love. But they are blindly on his side i feel... but maybe I'm wrong.

"You gotta know that there's an art to it, Ezra," Hitch said, cutting another piece of duct tape.
The sleeves of his weather-beaten coat were shoved all the way up his arms, to stop the fabric from falling over his knuckles while he was working, and goosebumps lined his skin. He was strapping a rubber chicken to the back of his truck, over the lens of the shattered backup camera, with the legs pointing down so that they hung a couple inches above the ground. There were dents in the hood from the crash last week, and scratches along the door from scraping into a curb. The chicken, hopefully, would keep him from breaking anything else.
"You can't go cheap," Hitch said. "The cheap rubber chickens only make noise when pressure lets go. That's no good. As soon as I back up into something, I want this chicken to be screaming like it’s in the depths of hell."
“Sure thing,” I said in a monotone, leaning against the side of the truck.
There were scrambled electronic parts piled in the back of the truck, the innards of a radio, a broken computer, tangled wires, a couple loose pairs of earbuds. He found the parts in alleyways or bummed them off his friends for a couple bucks or stole them from the vacation homes that were left empty for most of the year. Then he sold them for a profit at the scrapyard. Hitch had bounced between minimum-wage jobs for a while after high school, spending a couple months as a bagger at the grocery store or as a seasonal worker at the farm two hours down the highway. He'd never stuck with it. At the very least, the scrapyard got him enough money to eat and occasionally spend a night in a motel when he got tired of sleeping in his car.
Hitch pressed the last piece of tape in place and grinned up at me. "I've got something for you, duck."
The nickname came from when I’d broken my leg as a child and waddled around in a cast until it was healed. I hated it with a burning passion, and I glared at Hitch with the ease of twenty-one years of practice. He had a duck tattoo at the base of his thumb that he’d gotten in a back-alley shop as a teenager. He said that he’d gotten it to remind him of me, and the fact that I hated the nickname was just a bonus. It was shaky-lined, with an uneven face, but he loved it anyway.
The handle stuck when Hitch tried to open the door, a consequence of the rust collecting in the crevices of the car and running down the sides like blood from a cut. The car groaned when the door finally popped open, a metal against metal screech that had me flinching away. Hitch dug through the cluttered fast food containers in the passenger-side footwell, eventually coming up with a crinkly paper bag. He waved away the flies buzzing around the opening of the bag and held it out to me.
The last time Hitch had brought me food, I’d gotten food poisoning because he’d left it out in the midday sun for two days. The donut was squished slightly, and the icing was stuck to the bag. I still ate it, grimacing at the harsh citrus flavor. Taking Hitch’s food was an instinct engraved from the days when Dad had given us a can of kidney beans for dinner and Hitch had drank the juice, leaving the beans for me.
I rarely went hungry anymore, three mostly square meals a day and granola in my pockets just in case, but habits didn’t die easy.
These days, Hitch only brought me food when he wanted my help, like when he saw a place he wanted to hit but was worried about doing it alone.
I got in the car, like I always did.
We drove past the cluster of seafood-themed restaurants with chipped paint decks, the beachfront park where there were always shifty-eyed men sitting under the slide, the single room library where all the books had been water damaged in the flood last year. The change was quick as we drove across Main Street, heading closer to the beach. The roads were freshly paved, the concrete a smooth black except where the sun had already started to pick away at it. The three-story homes lining the sides of the street were crouched on elegant stilts, with space underneath for a car or three. Most of the garages were empty, with the lights off and curtains drawn in the house. Come summer, the streets would be swarming with tourists and vacationers, but until then, most of the buildings nearest to the beach were unoccupied.
Hitch stopped as the sun started to go down at a house that was leaning precariously out towards the beach, tilted ever so slightly, the edge of its foundation buried in the shifting sand of the beach. It certainly looked deserted, with an overgrown yard and blue paint peeling off the door in sheets.
Hitch took his hammer out of the backseat, hoisting it over his shoulder. It was two feet of solid metal with rags wrapped around the head to muffle the sound of the hits. Hitch squared up, bending his knees and holding the hammer like a baseball bat. Before he could swing, though, the door creaked open on its own, the hinges squeaking. The house beyond was dark enough that I could only make out general shapes, glimpsing the curve of a sofa to the left, what was maybe the shimmer of a chandelier on the other side.
Hitch lowered his hammer, looking vaguely disappointed that he didn’t get to use it. “That’s…weird as hell.”
“Maybe the deadbolt broke, maybe they forgot to lock it, it doesn’t matter,” I hissed, checking our surroundings for other people again. “Just hurry up and get inside before someone calls the cops.”
Hitch flicked the lightswitch on the wall, and the lights flickered on. They were dim, buzzing audibly and blinking off occasionally. The walls were plastered with contrasting swatches of wallpaper and splattered with random colors. There was neon orange behind the dining table, a galaxy swirl in the kitchen, and on the ceiling there was a repeating floral pattern covered in nametag stickers. Each of the stickers was filled out with The Erlking. Chandeliers hung in every room, three or four for each, and rubber ducks sat on every table. A miniature carousel sat in the corner along with a towering model rocket.
Sand was heaped on every surface, at least a couple inches everywhere. It was piled in the corners and stuck to the walls, and it covered the floor in a thick blanket. Our hesitant steps into the house left footprints clearly outlined in the sand.
Hitch took a cursory look around and headed immediately for the TV mounted on the wall. “Look out the windows and tell me if anyone is coming.”
I shook the sand out of the blinds and pulled them open, then had to brush sand off of the window before I could see anything.
Hitch was quick, practiced at finding and appropriating the things that were worth taking. He came back to me with an armful of electronics and chandeliers, dumping it at my feet before turning to head deeper into the house again.
There was a thump, somewhere upstairs, and then footsteps, slow and deliberate. Hitch froze at the threshold of the room, then ran for the door with me just ahead of him, sand flying out from under our feet.
My hand was almost brushing the doorknob, close enough that I could see the light from the streetlamp outside streaming in through the cracks in the door. My fingers touched the wood and it gave under my touch, becoming malleable and warm. I yelped, stumbling backwards, and the door started to melt. The paint ran down in thick drops, pooling at the bottom of the door, and the wood warped like metal being welded. The soft edges of the door ran into the walls until there was no sign of an exit ever being there.
“Well, well, well,” said a cultured voice with just an edge of snooty elitism. “What do we have here?”
The man was well over eight feet tall, with long black hair covering his eyes. He was wearing a yellow raincoat with holes cut out of the hood to accommodate the deer antlers jutting upwards from his head. There was sand settled on his shoulders and hovering around his head like a halo.
“Who the fuck are you?” Hitch said, inching towards a window.
He smiled, just a little bit, and his teeth shone in the dim light. “I am the Erlking.”
Hitch nodded, and seemed about to respond. I grabbed him by the hand and pulled him towards the window. I could feel sand in the wind roaring against my back as the Erlking growled in anger, the grains scraping harshly against my cheeks.
We were almost to the window when Hitch was ripped away from me, and I came to a startled halt. The sand had formed long grasping arms that pressed Hitch against the floral wallpaper. His wrists were held tight, and as I watched, a sandy hand wrapped around his mouth and forced its way between his teeth. He gagged, and sand trickled out of the corners of his mouth.
The Erlking strolled towards him, not seeming to be in any sort of rush. “You know, I’m not very fond of your yapping.”
He made an idle gesture and the sand wrapped around my ankles, tethering me in place.
“I yap all the time,” Hitch said. “Three-time olympic yapper, that’s me. Best to just let me go now and save yourself some trouble.”
The Erlking tapped a manicured nail against Hitch’s mouth, hard enough to hurt, judging by the way he flinched away. “But why would I ever let you go when I’ve gone to this much trouble to catch you and your sister? It’s so hard, these days, to find people that no one will miss.”
Hitch struggled against the sand, trying to escape and failing. “What do you want with us, then? You just said it, we’re nobody.”
“I’m fae, dear one,” the Erlking said. “I get my power from my followers. And I think that you two will make lovely additions to my flock.”

He flicked Hitch's nose and Hitch gasped. Feathers started to form on his arms, popping out from under his skin in a spray of blood.
Hitch pushed off the wall, using his bound hands as a fulcrum, and his knees crashed into the Erlking’s stomach. The Erlking fell backwards, wheezing, and the sand around my ankles loosened.
Hitch made desperate eye contact with me as feathers shot up his neck and jerked his head towards the window. The message was obvious. Run.
The last thing I saw before crashing out the window and into freedom was Hitch’s body twisting, his arms wrenching into wings and feathers covering every inch of his skin. By the time I landed on the concrete outside, he was a small black bird, held tightly in the Erlking’s hands. The whole building was sinking into the ground, burnished-gold sand piling up over top and streaming from the windows.
Thirty years later, I saw Sam’s Supernatural Consultation and Neutralization written in neat, looping handwriting on a piece of paper taped to the door. The tape was peeling at the corners and the paper was yellowed with age, but there was obviously care put into the sign, in its perfectly centered text and looping floral designs drawn over the edges in gold marker.
I knocked, hesitantly, drawing my woolen coat closer around my shoulders. I’d bought it as a fiftieth birthday gift for myself, and I took comfort in the heavy weight of it over my shoulders.
“Coming!” someone called from within the depths of the office.
There were a couple crashes, and the sound of paper shuffling. Eventually, the door was opened by a young woman with ketchup stains on her shirt and pencils stuck through her hair.
“Hi, I’m Sam, I specialize in supernatural consultation and hunting, how may I help you today?” Sam said, customer-service pep in her voice. She stood in the doorway, solidly blocking entry into the office.
“My name is Ezra, I’m for a consultation. I emailed you but you didn’t respond?” I shifted in place, suddenly feeling awkward.
“Oh! Yeah, I lost the password for the email ages ago. Sorry for the bad welcome, I get lots of people thinking I’m crazy or pulling a prank and harassing me.”
She ushered me into the office, clearing papers off one of the chairs to make room for me to sit down. There was a collection of swords along one wall, all of them polished to perfection, several with deep knicks in the metal which indicated that they’d been used heavily.
“So what can I help you with?” Sam asked again, more sincere this time.
“Thirty years ago, my brother was turned into a bird,” I started. I’d told this story so many times that it barely felt ridiculous to say anymore. I was used to the disbelieving looks, the careful pity. But Sam just nodded along, face open and welcoming.
“I’ve almost given up on finding him, at this point,” I said. “But I saw your ad in the newspaper, and…here I am, I suppose.”
“Here you are,” Sam echoed, smiling. She pulled one of the pencils out of her hair and took a bit of paperwork off of one of her stacks, turning it over so that the blank side sat neatly in front of her. “Tell me everything.”
I told Sam everything, and she wrote it all down, pencil scratching along the paper.
The last part of the story was always the hardest to tell. “I left him there. I ran and I didn’t look back.”
I had been to dozens of detectives and investigators over the years, once the police had dropped Hitch’s case. I’d been to professional offices with smartly-dressed secretaries and met scraggly men in coffee shops. All of them had given me the same look, pity and annoyance all mixed up into a humor-the-crazy-lady soup. Sam, though, just seemed thoughtful.
Sam leaned forward and put a hand over mine, carefully, like she thought that I would pull away. “Sometimes you have to leave people behind.”
I tightened her hold on Sam’s hand and drew it towards me, like I could make Sam listen if only I squeezed tight enough. “But that’s why I’m here. I don’t want to leave him behind.”
“Okay then. I’ll do my best to help you.” Sam agreed, finally. Then she paused, and said softly, “You know…I think I met your brother once. He might have saved my life. He’s certainly why I started in this business.”
“Really? What happened?” I asked.
This is the story that Sam told me, related to the best of my abilities:
It was a new moon, so the only illumination came from the stars gazing idly down and distant porch lights shining across the scraggly brush of the dunes. Sam’s neighbors were decent people who cared about baby turtles, so the lights were a low, unobtrusive red, and the ocean sloshed like blood. Sam walked on the beach almost every night, drawing back the gauzy pink curtains and clambering out her bedroom window. She didn’t often bother to be quiet; her mama worked the late shift and came home exhausted. As long as Sam got home before the sun, her mama would never find out that she paced the shoreline and dreamed of inhaling sand until her lungs became their own beach.
The sky was lightening. The sun would come up soon, and that meant Sam’s time on the beach was over. She needed to get back to her real life, go to her fifth grade class and stop that nonsense, as her mother would say. Her mother loved to say things like that, pushing Sam into her proper place by implication alone.
“She’s a good kid, of course, but she’s a bit…” Her mother would trail off there, usually getting a commiserating expression from whoever she was talking to. Sam always wondered how that sentence would have finished. She’s a bit strange, maybe. She’s a bit intense. She’s a bit abrasive. She’s quiet enough but when Jason tried to steal her pencil in math class, she stabbed him in the hand so hard that the lead tattooed him.
Her mother was better, for the most part. The days of her stocking up the fridge, and leaving a post-it note on the counter, and leaving for days at a time were gone. But Sam still stepped around the place on the kitchen tile where her mother had collapsed and caved her head in, even though the bloodstains had been replaced with new tile.
“Your auntie got an abortion, you know,” her mother had said from her place on the couch, slurring her words. “Pill in the mail and then bam, no more baby.”
She had clapped her hands together to illustrate her point. Her mother jerked forward and grabbed Sam by the wrist, then, staring up at her until Sam met her eyes.
“I love you, you know? But sometimes I wonder…” She settled back onto the couch. “Yeah. I wonder.”
She’d gotten up, then, back to the kitchen. She’d been stumbling, a shambling zombie of a woman. The ground in the entryway of the kitchen was raised, ever so slightly, and her mother went down hard. Her head cracked against the tile, chin first, and she didn’t move.
Sam had been the one to call the ambulance. She had stared at the scattering of loose teeth on the ground while she waited, and considered what her life would be like with a dead mom. Not so bad, she thought, and immediately felt guilty for it.
Her mom was better, now, for the most part. But Sam still stepped around the place on the kitchen floor where she had collapsed. There was still a matchbox hidden under her bed with the gleaming shine of her mother’s lost teeth, two canines and a molar. It was nice, having a piece of her mom to keep. Even if she left again, Sam would still have part of her.
Sam sighed, and turned away from the ocean. As she faced towards the low dunes further up the beach, she saw a sandcastle sitting nestled among them. It was such a strange sight that her eyes skipped over it at first, almost automatically, disregarding it because it was so out of place.
Sam found sandcastles out on the beach sometimes, usually half-collapsed and on the verge of being washed away by the waves, but she had never seen anything like the sandcastle in front of her. It was life-sized, something that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the Scottish highlands, with spires shooting up above her head and carefully etched out bricks lining each side. The front wall was dominated by an arched set of double doors, twice her height, with a portcullis nestled at the top, ready to be dropped. All of it was lovingly detailed, down to the rust on the tips of the towers and the wood grain of the door. It was made out of wet, densely-packed sand, held together impossibly. It had not been there two hours ago, when she had come to the beach.
There was a bird sitting on the overhang of the door, small and black.
As soon as she took a step towards the sandcastle, the bird shook out its feathers and swooped down towards Sam, landing at her feet with a little stumble.
“Hey, kid, get out of here,” said the bird.
Sam closed her eyes, very deliberately. When she opened them, the bird was still there. Sam considered herself a very reasonable person, so she immediately drew the most logical conclusion. The bird was, she was almost certain, a demon.
“Trust me, you don’t want to run into Mr. Salty, the queen bitch himself,” the bird said.
“Mr. Salty?” Sam inquired, polite as she knew how to be. She edged to the side, trying to get a good angle to kick the bird like a soccer ball.
The bird did something similar to a wince, all its feathers fluffing up then settling back down. “Ah, don’t call him that. He’d turn you into a toad.”
The bird gestured with its head, towards the looming sand structure. “That’s his castle. He’s in there, probably scuttling along the ceiling or some shit because that’s the sort of weirdo he is.”
Sam nodded, encouraging. She pulled back her foot and lined up her shot, the way she’d seen athletes do on TV. She aimed right for its sharp beak and let loose. The bird saw it coming, its beady eyes widening, and it cawed in distress. It flapped away, avoiding her kick only to fall backward into the sand in a scramble of wings.
“What’s your fucking problem?” it squawked. “I was trying to help you!”
“I don’t need the help of a demon,” Sam yelled, trying to remember the exorcism that her mama had taught her once, because her mama believed in being prepared for anything.
“I’m not a demon,” the bird said indignantly.
It was at about that moment that Sam gave up and just decided to roll with it.
“What are you, then?” Sam asked.
The bird shuffled its clawed feet, looking about as awkward as it could, given that it didn’t really have recognizable facial expressions. “Technically I’m a familiar of the Erlking, prince of the fae, but I prefer to be called Hitch.”
“You can’t blame me for assuming, though,” Sam said. “Ravens do tend to be associated with murder.”
“Hey, excuse you,” Hitch said. “I’m a rook, not a raven. Ravens are way bigger.”
“Sure,” Sam said, not really paying attention. Her eyes had caught on the details of the sandcastle, and she was transfixed by the slow spirals of the sand, the strange beauty of it. She found herself stepping towards the great doors, lifting a hand to knock, and as she did, the sand warped in front of her eyes, heaving itself towards her with bulging slowness. The door creaked open before her, revealing a vast, empty room. Just before she stepped inside, she felt a piercing pain in her foot, and she yelped, leaping backwards.
Hitch pecked her again, really digging his beak in. “Don’t be an idiot.”
Sam glared at him, rubbing her foot. About to retort, she finally really took in the room inside the sandcastle, and her words died in her throat.
There was a body just past the threshold of the door, face down and limbs hanging limp at its sides. Long hair splayed out in a halo around its head.
“Don’t,” Hitch warned, suddenly serious. “Just leave, kid, I mean it. I’ve seen too many people go down this road and you don’t want to be one of them.”
Sam ignored him. She made her way across the beach, slipping with every step. The sand felt deeper, piling up around her feet in silent drifts. She picked up the nearest stick and poked the body with it through the door, ready to leap back if anything went wrong, staying firmly outside of the sandcastle.
This close, Sam could tell that it used to be a woman. Her head wasn’t attached to her body. It hadn’t been a clean amputation, either. Her upper body was bruised, with chunks taken out of it, and the bones in her neck hung mangled, not connected to anything.
“Well, I warned you,” Hitch said, defeated. “I did warn you.”
Sam nudged the head with the end of the stick, nudging it over so that she could see the face. Her mother stared back at her, torn to pieces, breath still wheezing from her lungs. She wasn’t blinking, just gazing forward with glazed eyes. Sweat dripped down from her hairline.
Sam screamed and dropped the stick, tripping over herself in her haste to get away.
Her mother’s eyes were wide and pleading, and she was mouthing desperate words at Sam. Her vocal cords were broken to bits, and the only sound that came out was a strained groan.
The head rolled, inching closer to Sam like a grotesque caterpillar.
Her mother gasped for air, torn lips fluttering. Finally, comprehensible words came out. “Help. Help me, daughter.”
“That’s not your mother,” Hitch said, quiet.
Sam knew that. Her mother was sleeping back at home, and anyways her mom had never asked for her help. She had an aversion to accepting charity, as she put it.
“Okay,” Sam said, shaking all over. “Okay.”
She backed away from the sandcastle, not looking away.
“Failure,” her mother hissed as she stepped away. “I never wanted a daughter like you.”
The sun came up over the horizon. The sandcastle, Hitch, and her mom all disintegrated into sand as the light hit them.
The beach, the next night, was almost exactly how I remembered it. The beams of our flashlights sent light bouncing across the dunes, illuminating the waves, and I imagined faces in the foam of the waves.
“I’ve been back here a hundred times. There’s nothing left,” I said.
Sam took the car key out of her purse and pointed it at the sand, adjusting the sword slung over her shoulder in order to do it. The key had belonged to Hitch; Sam had requested an item of his, and it was the only thing I had left. She rested the key on the sand and drew a circle around it, inscribing symbols around the borders.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
Sam shrugged. “Not much, really. I’m…I guess you could say that I’m knocking.”
The key laid inert on the sand for long enough that I was just about to give up and go home, admit to myself that Hitch was dead and that I was a fool to believe that Sam could actually help me. Then a building started to take shape, flickering in and out like it was struggling to get away. With a pop of displaced air, the sandcastle settled into existence.
Sam banged on the entryway. Nothing happened. She did it again, harder, and scowled when the door still didn’t open.
“We demand entrance, under your honor,” Sam yelled. There was a hard rush of wind, and I gripped Sam’s arm to keep my balance, but the doors cracked open reluctantly.
The inside of the sandcastle consisted of one enormous hall, the roof arching up out of sight. Rafters crisscrossed from wall to wall, and a cobbled path led further into the building, but other than that, it was completely empty, except for the birds. There were thousands of them, perched on the rafters or hopping along the ground. They parted in front of Sam and I, and reformed behind us, leaving us in a small pocket of open space. They were all black-feathered, with sharp beaks and beady eyes.
The Erlking sat on a throne at the end of the hall, lounging across it with his feet up on the armrest. He watched them as they came forward, the soft caw of the birds the only sound.
“I am here to bargain for the life of my brother,” I said, with as much dignity as I could muster, before the Erlking could say anything.
The Erlking ignored her, tilting his head to look at Sam. “I remember you. I almost got you, once.”

Sam glared at him but didn’t respond.
“You want your brother,” The Erlking said to me, and he almost sounded amused. “Then go get him.”
As if by some sort of silent signal, every bird in the room took flight at once, and their cawing made me think of screams. I covered my head against the flapping of their wings, and my vision was quickly obscured by the chaotic movement of them. I found myself on my knees, just trying to escape them.
A hand met my shoulder. Sam urged me to my feet, and together we ran for the edge of the room, where the swarm was the thinnest. We pressed ourselves into the corner and the swarm spiraled tighter and tighter at the center of the room. It went on until there seemed to be no differentiation between the birds, all of them fused together into one creature.
When the chaos died down, the birds had become one mass, with wings and eyes and talons sticking out of its flesh, thrashing and chirping. Human body parts stuck out of it, bulging out from the feathers. It was hands, mostly, with a couple knees or staring eyes. The bird amalgamation had no recognizable facial features, but there was one long beak extending from the front of its head. Most of the body parts were concentrated around the beak, and they peeked out from where the beak connected with muscle, or grew from the tongue, nestled between the two crushing halves of the beak.
It turned its beak down and crawled forward, using the hands to balance. The fingers scrambled over the ground. I was afraid of centipedes as a child, and I felt that same crawling dread when it started moving.
“Holy shit,” Sam whispered, which was rather disappointing, because I had been hoping that at least one of us knew what to do.
The creature turned, a lurching movement that crushed some of the hands underneath it, and started heaving itself slowly towards our corner.
“Better hurry up!” the Erlking called from his throne.
It was blocking the exit, by then. The shifting body of it had moved to block us off. It ambled towards us and I tried to sink further into the corner.
As it approached, getting close enough that I could smell the stink of it, I saw a flash of a tattoo on one of the hands. I leaned in, trying to find it again, like looking for dolphins surfacing in the ocean. And again, I caught a glimpse of a duck tattoo, the tattoo that Hitch had gotten on his hand as a teenager.
I ripped away from Sam’s death grip and ran for the monster.
I fell to my knees in front of it, wincing as I impacted the ground, and reached into the nest of hands. I could feel them tearing at my forearms and ripping into me with their sharp nails, but I kept going. I pressed further in, up to my shoulder in a writhing mass of limbs, aiming for the spot where I had last seen that tattoo.
The hands were tugging at me, wrapping around my back and hair. They were pulling together, trying to draw me completely into the mass of them. I was aware of Sam at my side, anchoring me in place and bashing any hand that got too close with her sword or the sparks that leapt from her hands with muttered words. But I didn’t think it would be enough. They were too strong, and there were too many of them.
I was up to my waist in the hands when something grabbed my palm. I felt the way it clung to me, and the calluses on its palm, and I knew that I had found my brother.
I flung herself back. The hands didn’t want to let me go, and they fought the whole way, but slowly, I made progress. I kept hold of Hitch’s hand in mine the whole time, gripping it as hard as I could. I finally broke free, Hitch with me, and Sam was immediately charging the creature, able to use her sword with much greater strength without being worried about injuring Hitch. She swung it forward, and it sliced through the wrist of one of the hands. It fell without a sound, red sand flowing out of it. It deflated until it looked like dirty laundry, just a piece of limp flesh. The creature shrieked, scuttling away enough that the door was finally accessible. The three of us ran for it, Sam and I supporting Hitch between us.
I looked back as I left and found the Erlking staring right at me.
“Interesting,” he murmured, his voice carrying impossibly across the vast space between us.
The sandcastle collapsed behind us, the great walls falling in on themselves. We were out in the morning sun, the sandcastle disappearing as we watched. Hitch was on the ground in front of me, as young as he’d been thirty years ago, when he was captured. He started laughing, feathers puffing out of his mouth. He laughed until he cried and I hugged him in the way that he’d held me when I was young, in the times when my life had been defined by hunger and fear.
Hitch left, afterwards. He scratched at the pinhole scars covering his body, where feathers burst through his skin, and pulled his long sleeves down around his wrists. He didn’t know where he was going but he told me that he needed time
I had spent thirty years worth of time without him. I wanted to grab my brother by the shoulders and beg him to stay. But he flinched when I hugged him goodbye and he refused to go near sand and he stared distrustfully at the birds chirping in the trees. Hitch needed to go away and I loved him too much to stop him.
I sat out on the beach every morning. I felt the sun on my face and I waited for Hitch to come home.