We moved into this house 5.5 years ago. I'd never experienced anything 'paranormal' before. I was a hardcore sceptic. It was around 18 months later that I began to experience disturbing paranormal events I cannot explain no matter how much science I read. Note: I do not have a history of hallucinations or schizophrenia or anything, I was not smoking weed at the time nor on any other drugs. I was in my mid-twenties at the time. Help?
The first incident was on a November night at about 10:51 pm (almost all events happened between 10:51pm-2:00am but primarily between 11-1). For context, I'd spent the last hour playing Among Us and studying from a Spanish textbook. I would listen to relaxing jazz sometimes and drink some Jack Daniels (but was not drunk). I went to pee, my mind was focused on how clevefunny the games were and how I couldn't wait to get back to what I was doing. When I pulled my trousers up, a noise caught my attention. There was an Alberto Balsam shampoo bottle (about 1/3 or just under full) between the taps on the sink. It is a standard, British porcelain sink close to the toilet but to touch the bottle I would need to extend my arm, bending my elbow as I did that night was nowhere near close enough for contact. The bottle rocked far to the left, to the right, unnaturally, and repeated this motion about 5 times before it came to a standstill in its original position. It wasn't a small wobble, it was a slow, intentional rock side-to-side (the bottle should not have been able to rock so far to either side without falling over). My bathroom is tiny but I couldn't touch the bottle let alone cause it to rock the way it did. The window was closed, there was no breeze and nobody else in the room. I tried to replicate it another time by blowing hard on the bottle, flapping my arms and holding myself in the same position as when it happened but I could not touch/move the bottle. Even with generous leeway, I could not touch that bottle. In short: it wasn't me and it ruined my night. This incident terrified me.
A couple of days later, I was in the same bathroom washing my hands at about the same time at night when I experienced a sudden and intense sensation that something sinister was behind me staring at me. I looked up at the mirror and couldn't see anything behind me, but I felt something there. I was too afraid to move, I finished washing my hands after a minute or so, and when the feeling began to fade I left the bathroom. This became a regular occurrence. Particularly in the kitchen and bathroom, I felt something 'there' or that something was watching me and attempting to interact with me. The presence was somewhat imposing and dark. I couldn't see it. My partner didn't believe me when I told him about these incidents and would go to bed before me so he didn't witness them at first. I believed this presence was a 'man' and for a while thought it might've been the deceased elderly man who used to live here. He was placed in a care home aged 95 and was known as a nasty, horrible old man. The man passed away at some point, I'm not sure when but it was either during the incidents or towards the end of them.
Additionally, we had a living room carpet and as these incidents increased in frequency I began to hear something plucking at the carpet in the corner by the door. When I moved the curtain there was nothing there and the noise stopped. This is where my partner comes in because he stayed up later occasionally and he HEARD the noise. I didn't prompt him, I heard it and remained quiet until he picked up on it. I told him that was the noise I was hearing, he went to investigate and couldn't see anything. This is what made him suspicious too. We have a rabbit but checked on him, he was in his cage eating in the next room while the noises happened. Unless he could teleport, pluck the carpet before our eyes while invisible and teleport back into his cage- it wasn't him. Since then, I lifted the floor to see if anything could have plucked the carpet from beneath the floorboards. The floorboards are locked tight and it would've been impossible to touch the underside of the carpet or underlay.
This may be my mind manifesting fear, but I began to have horrible dreams about an old man with beady, shiny black eyes, a partially bald head and white hair in a forest (I recognised the layout from a forest far away in my hometown I used to ride a horse in). These dreams were disturbing and the men were not like ordinary people, I felt they were trying to toy with me before they k*lled me. One night I woke up to feel someone standing over me, another I woke up and briefly glimpsed black writing all over the wall on the landing. When I blinked it vanished. I was terrified and often felt something on the landing or in the room. I had no history of sleep paralysis before moving to this house. My partner told me he believed that whatever it was enjoyed scaring me and was feeding on my fear. I tried after this to not be afraid and to confront it, which worked to some degree.
One of the worst incidents was when I knew the 'man' was there, I felt him standing about 2 feet away from my computer chair. He liked to stand over me and sometimes breathe on me while I was gaming. I was playing World of Warcraft, I remember exactly what I was doing. I knew he was trying to get my attention and I ignored him. I forced myself to calm down. Then he moved closer and I heard a 'HUFF' as though someone breathed heavily through their mouth only inches from my ear. I took my headset off and looked round but the presence disappeared into the kitchen. I felt he wanted me to follow him, so I did. My attention was guided out of the window as though he was leading me there. I went to the window and looked out. I saw a shape out there that looked like an adult male of about 6ft wearing a grey hoodie and gloves standing near my back fence as though he'd just climbed over. Could I have been mistaken? yeah, but I tried to run from the window and ended up in freeze mode by the kitchen door. I couldn't move, I tried so hard to get away because I thought this man was going to break into my house and attack me. I don't know where the 'man' was but after about 2 minutes I made it into the living room, 2 more and I went back to check. The 'man' and the 'real man' were both gone. A strange part of me believed the 'man' chased the real figure off. I felt as though he'd tried to save me that night and I became more sympathetic to him.
There was another incident, which could be explained otherwise but my partner wasn't convinced. We had a small children's desk with two wooden chairs behind us, we stacked the chairs on the table while our daughter was upstairs. While we were on the computers, the chairs came crashing to the floor. They were not precariously stacked. The doors were open and there was a breeze but the wind should not have been capable of knocking even small wooden chairs to the floor. This happened in daylight in the late afternoon.
Over time this began to fade. I feared the man less. I often felt his presence in the kitchen standing far too close to me. One time I felt a sudden icy blow down the left side of my neck. Our house is cold and drafty so although I'm convinced it was him, it could have been something else. My nightmares began to disappear. I would hear him sometimes 'walking' upstairs, and I sensed him go into my daughter's bedroom just to look at her. He never did anything to her. My partner also experienced 'something' going on in the house on several occasions but he is still somewhat a sceptic. Eventually, everything stopped.
After the 'man' disappeared, we had issues with animal footsteps on the stairs. It sounded like a cat running up and down. The first time it happened, we couldn't see anything. The plucking noise continued. Around this time, our house rabbit for some reason jumped out of his cage and we had at least 2-3 incidents where he bolted up the stairs and went into our bedroom. He was running about and this was abnormal for him. Of course, we blamed him and locked his cage tightly so he couldn't escape, but the noises continued. My ex was woken by the noises one night and investigated them only to find the rabbit in his cage and the noises continuing.
The noises and incidents have stopped for quite some time now. The house feels at peace but that was a deeply terrifying event that actually ruined my life and made me feel unsafe in my own home at night. What could it have been?

Any tips on how to improve the looks of my new kitchen?
What I hate about my kitchen is the color contrast and especially the marble countertop... I wish it didnt have so many black stripes...
There will be a white sink with a golden sink tap.
https://preview.redd.it/r409y5vux51d1.jpg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=97798732fcf52a61aab66ac52b6be73d4a252ef1

When I tell you this woman is toxic, this is the most toxic person Ive ever seen in my life. When I first came in there were several staff members warning me about her informing me that she enjoys drama and she enjoys causing chaos for no reason.
I didn’t understand but I didn’t tolerate that kind of talking about my boss. I shut it down completely and informed them to not speak of her like this.
(Year or two later)
Long story short, a staff member was caught on camera stealing, there was almost the entire kitchen department confessing to him stealing and the security guard caught him a few times.
I shit you not the boss holds resentment against everyone with a position of power because of that. She has refused to entertain this “negative” energy and has constantly been at the staff. When I came in this place they were making meatballs in the microwave and frozen food. I got rid of all these things, I’ve upscale her business along with the quality of her food. Also a side note that staff member never got any consequences and he comes to work late everyday. Sometimes opens up the bar at 1pm when we are suppose to open for 11:30am. ( the bar can’t open without the kitchen, they all take the orders from the bar)
This staff member has gotten out of hand, he’s been verbally abusing the female staff who he is unable to sleep with so two of them resigned and the boss continues to blame the kitchen staff for “manipulating” him. We had the busiest night we have ever had and she comes in the kitchen and decides that no one is able to get requested days off or time off again. She then gets upset with me for having enough inventory on stock telling me that I am over ordering and she’s not making any money.
For context we had a ground breaking night where we made the most money we have ever made, none of the staff even got a chance to eat. Next day she came in upset and got into a heated argument with me because she wants to remove 50% staff discount.
I am literally keeping this short but for minor important details, she has tried to cause tension by whispering lies to different managers when we are not around, trying to cause unnecessary tension. Bad mouthing the staff and everyone when they are not around, literally improving someone’s off then acting surprised THE SAME DAY when she sees it on the schedule.
Had the audacity to to get upset with me because we had enough supplies for the busiest night we ever had and said we are over ordering and she’s not making any money from it yet she just booked another flight.
I honestly apologize deeply for my rant I am just confused on where to go without her finding out since she has deep connections all over the country. But I see this business sinking because of her greed and toxicity. I also believe she wants to get rid of a lot of staff members and after all we’ve done I just find it unbelievable. The staff we have are literally amazing and they have the highest amount of respect for me. I don’t think she understands the value in the staff she has. They do so many things they are not paid to do and she has the audacity to get upset that they are eating lunch at 50% off. Sometimes I will be honest I let them eat without paying because they work their ass off for us( I know I am wrong for this but I hope you understand, they literally maintain the garden, they bring things from their own home, I could go on and on about the sacrifices they make for the business) Sometimes I even tell them take a break and fill in for them. I always give them the days they have requested because I want to show them I appreciate their efforts even if it’s from my own pocket I try my best to reward my staff.
She sees them as animals and no matter how hard they work she feels offended when anyone gets a well deserved Saturday off to spend time with their family.
This is a throwaway account but I would appreciate any guidance or advice on dealing with this situation because I am at my edge honestly. I hope you also understand I I’ve literally given the tip of the iceberg. There is so much more but I’m sure you get the point

Hi! Looking for some education and advice here. Our home is about two years old and we have a porcelain under mount apron sink in our kitchen. A few months ago the caulk was starting to crack and stain and a family member scraped out the caulk and redid it. About fourth months later, the caulk started separating again and I thought I could repeat that job.
I did not realize until I started removing the caulk that the caulk joint along our sink is pretty uneven. We have a tight fit between the sink and counter on one side, and a much bigger gap on the other.
How big of an issue is this and what steps would we need to take to fix this? I have been trying to research and have also seen conflicting information about caulking. Thanks!

Monetization is okay, but do not lock behind a paywall, if you make an audio using this script please post the link or comment as I would love to hear it! The monsterboys are a bluejay demon and a garden snake demon.
Snake has already been a familiar before and speaks with confidence, comes off as overprotective and controlled, until he gets upset.
Bird has not been a familiar before and comes off as overexcited and needy. Tries his best but is new to feeling romantic emotions and does not really know how to handle it.
Both care deeply for their mage and (secretly) for each other, but their ideals and emotions often clash.
I learned that the lines do not show up for some reason so longer pauses in audio will be shown with ~~~~~~~~ from now on and hopefully it shows up.
Part One
[SFX]
("Spoken" noises)
*Tone Changes / Suggestions*
~~~~~~~~ Listener "speaks", longer pause in spoken audio
[Knocking]
SD: *Muffled, through the door* Sweet mage? Are you up yet? We brought breakfast and it is actually pretty good today.
BD: Hey! My cooking is good every day, you always lick your plate clean and ask for more.
SD: (laughing) Hmhmhm... As long as our mage doesn't get sick, I will consider it acceptable...
[Irritated chittering]
~~~~~~~~~
[Door Opens, plate set down]
Both: Good morning, my mage!
~~~~~~~~
SD: Be careful, slowly, here let me help.
BD: Don't just grab them like that, they are still in pain from summoning us a few days ago. Let my mage rest if they need it.
SD: (Sigh, slight hissing) If I have to remind you that they are our mage one more time Birdie...
BD: Same thing, Coils.
~~~~~~~~~~
SD: (Sigh) Yes, our mage is right, it is too early to be fighting like this. And while they do need to rest, they also need food for energy and small movement to keep their body in shape.
BD: A few days of deep rest isn't going to cause their body to shut down completely.
SD: *Slight mocking* So you do not want your mage to eat the food you made? Are you not confident in it?
BD: *Flustered* Of course I am! Cooking is my favorite hobby and I put love and care into every dish!
SD: Especially those you cook for us?
BD: Of course, wait I mean- the meals I cook for our mage, I mean, I guess you eat them too and give me praise for it but-
SD: (laughing) Sorry, teasing you is just way too fun.
~~~~~~~~~~
BD: Hmm? Oh, yes, Ill help you eat, here.
~~~~~~~~~~
SD: I'm glad you're feeling a lot better today. Maybe after eating we can walk around for a bit? Get some fresh air, feel the ground underneath your feet?
BD: Are you kidding me? They can barely stand! Why would they want to-
~~~~~~~~~
BD: Oh, you want to? [Cooing] Well... I guess if that's what you want.
SD: Ha! See? I knew our pretty vine needed some sun. Besides, if they get tired I could always change forms and carry them around.
BD: Why would they choose to be carried by a cold, scaly, snake instead of a warm, soft, bird?
SD: *Offended* Maybe because you take them completely off the ground? They are the Mage of Vines, they need to be connected to the earth, not up in the sky. Go be the familiar to a Mage of Air.
BD: [Angry chittering] What did you just say?
~~~~~~~~~~
SD: (Sigh) You are right love. Sorry, I did not mean to be rude Birdie.
BD: It's fine...
SD: No, it is not. I just... get upset when others imply that I can't feel emotions just because I am a snake... I am cold-blooded but my heart does beat in every way yours does.
BD: *Remorseful* I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to, I'll be careful about not saying that again. I promise.
SD: Thank- (voice crack, throat clearing) Thank you.
~~~~~~~~~
BD: Oh you're done eating? Can you take these to the kitchen? We can clean up after our walk.
SD: Sure, and if it is all the same to you, I will clean up. The last time you tried to help half the spoons went missing and I had to dig them out from under the couch.
BD: *Embarrassed* I don't have a space for my nest yet and they were shiny...
[Snake leaves] [Dishes being put in sink]
BD: *whispering* I'm really going to have to make it up to him, I just- I never thought I would be tied to another demon along with a mage, it's all new to me.
~~~~~~~~
BD: I know he will forgive me but I don't want to make either of you feel bad, especially if it's a huge insecurity. I just didn't know, but I do now and I'll be better about it, I swear.
[Snake comes back]
SD: Are you both ready?
BD: Yes. Love, are you okay to stand on your own or do you want to be carried?
~~~~~~~~
BD: You want to be carried? Okay. Hey Coils, you said you wanted to carry our mage? Go ahead.
SD: *Excited* Really? Thank you! Hold on, let me just...[Magic sounds] That feels so much better. I know my first human form is better for moving around the house but I admit I like my second form the best. I can stretch my snake half but still speak.
BD: Nagas really are the best of both worlds. I feel the same about my second form, still able to walk and talk but I have my wings so I can fly.
SD: It is kind of annoying that we get more animalistic as we go down our forms though.
BD: Definitely, I get our full animal forms are better for unleashing our power and for resting if we are hurt but still...
~~~~~~~~~~
SD: Oh right, sorry pretty vine, Birdie, place them on my back.
BD: Okay, try to be still.
~~~~~~~~~~
SD: Hmm? No, you are not too heavy. This actually feels really nice, you've been in bed under the covers for days, so nice and warm...
BD: [Cooing] Okay, lets go, if you get tired, we will come straight back inside.
[Door opens, forest sounds]
SD: (Happy sigh, slight hissing) The sun feels amazing. I am so glad it's been a warm spring so far.
BD: [Magic sounds] I agree. Either of you mind if I stretch my wings a bit?
SD: Not at all.
~~~~~~~~~~
SD: You want to stand up and walk around Mage? Are you sure? Okay, but be careful.
[Sounds of vines growing]
BD: *Panic* What are you doing love? Your magic hasn't fully recovered!
~~~~~~~~~~
SD: *Hesitant* You want to...see what your new powers are? That's...fair. But please do not push yourself. What exactly could you do before?
~~~~~~~~
BD: Oh, all you could do was grow small vines around your feet? Hmmm, go ahead. I'm excited to see what you can do now.
[Ground cracking, lots of vines growing]
BD: *In awe* Great foliage! Those vines are almost as tall as the house, with thorns too!
SD: *Encouraging* What else? Push more magic into it, sweet mage.
[Popping noises, vines swishing]
BD: *Excited* Grapes! And blackberries!
[Noises stop]
SD: Oh no, Birdie catch our mage!
BD: Ah! I got them! Carefully, lay down.
SD: (laughs) So, your vines are a lot bigger and stronger now.
BD: [Eating] And you can grow fruit from them too! I wonder if it's just grapes and blackberries...
SD: Hmmm... probably not but growing fruit most likely uses more magic than growing vines since it is a new facet of their power. I would not be surprised if they can grow most things that grow on vines. But we can find that out later. My main concern right now is the huge tangle of vines that seem to be attached to our house after that show.
BD: *Dazed* Yeah.. it's a real jumble...dark...and quiet...
SD: Uh, Birdie? Are you okay?
BD: [Walking into the vines, still dazed] A nest... a safe place for my mates. Warm and protective... I'll make it soft and pretty...impressive...they'll love it and praise me...
SD: [Grabbing Bird from the vines] Sssssnap out of it!
BD: *Still out of it* We can cuddle once I make one...all of us...I promise not to take anything from the house...
SD: Oookkkaayy we are going back inside now. [Fast slithering] [Door closes]
BD: *Waking up* Ugh, what? Why are we inside?
SD: I think seeing the vines next to our house triggered your nesting instinct. I brought us inside so you could not see it.
BD: *Embarssed* Oh! Thanks... it's been a bit difficult not having my own space, I mean I like being with you two but-
SD: I get it, I've been feeling the same way without a den. But with that addition to the house I think that problem has just been solved. Well, maybe if our mage can make another one on the opposite side.
BD: That's a great idea! You can make a den in one and I can make a nest in the other!
SD: *Teasing* For your mates? Both of us?
BD: (Humming, flustered) Yes....
SD: (Sighs) Let's get our mage back in bed, you were right, they were not ready to use magic just yet.
BD: The walk did feel nice though, I hope...we aren't the cause of our mage being so weak.
SD: Their body is not used to the amount of magic in their soul. It was unlocked because of us but the potential was always there. We just need to provide care while they get used to it.
BD: We can do that. Lay them back on the bed, and then we can start cleaning the house. The faster we get done with the chores, the faster we can come cuddle.
SD: And when our mage wakes up we can discuss our plans for our own spaces... now come on, I will finish the dishes if you sweep up.
[Leaving the room, voices fading slowly]
BD: Why do I always have to sweep?
SD: *Teasing* Because the broom is made from your own feathers and not shiny.
BD: *Playfully offended* I already apologized for the spoons!

I (27F) have an older brother, 33M. We didn't get along very much as kids due to the age gap, not for my lack of trying. I never really understood why my brother didn't really like spending time with me, because he was one of my favorite people in the world, despite all his bullying.
For context, I'll give some examples of what my brother has done to me over the years with some vague age ranges of when they occurred.
When I was about 3, my brother convinced me that red was orange and orange was red because I was learning my colors in preschool. He also used to steal food like tater tots off my little high chair tray and would pretend he didn't do anything when my mom checked on why I was crying (I was NOT a fussy baby/toddler, so it set off alarm bells when I did.)
I think when I was 4 or 5, my brother came into my room after I had already been put to bed, and he woke me up. Thing is, he was hovering over me with a scary mask on, only the hallway light, and a butterknife. Not sure I really have to explain why that was traumatic. I'm still afraid of masks to this day.
When I was around 10-12, my brother kept drinking all the milk or kool aid that I would make and never replenish/remake it. I told him to stop, he wouldn't, of course. My mom was fostering other children and didn't have time for squabbles like this. So I very visibly spit on top of the kool aid pitcher and left the lid off so it was seen. What does my (reminder, 17-19) brother do? He wrenches the bowl of cereal I'm currently eating out of my hands, spits in it, and shoves it back at me hard enough that it spilled all over me. Now, I'm not an angry person. I'm not a violent person. But I was still a child and fed up with being bullied by someone who was/almost an adult. I never tried getting physical before because I was so much smaller, but I hit puberty kind of early. So I splashed the bowl back at him to see how he liked it. He threw me to the ground and hit me. My mom had to break us up and told us we were both to blame, so he didn't even get punished.
Several times, he would turn the lights off on me when I was on the other side of the room in the basement away from the switch, because I was afraid of the dark for a very long time.
We had Sonic Adventure 2 we shared. If we ever fought about something, or I reminded him it was my turn, he threatened to say goodbye forever to my chao. I am extremely soft hearted so that accomplished what he wanted.
Sometimes I would notice my things go missing. I had assumed maybe my mom put them away somewhere and forgot, but I'm pretty sure I know what happened to them. Especially gamecube games-- Those discs were tiny! He was pawning them for drug and booze money. One time he was drunk and admitted he had been selling his adderall for other drugs. That came to a head one terrible Christmas Eve. Brother was home for the holiday and I'm not very clear on what events led up to it, but my parents caught my brother in the bathroom with a baggie of various drugs that he was already doing. He insisted it was just weed, but my parents didn't believe that. I wouldn't know, I only briefly saw the bag, but it was full of both a large green ball of like leaves and lots of white powder. It was a vicious screaming match for a few hours. I hid out in my room on a different floor and played a video game as loud as I could so I didn't have to hear my family. The screams died down after a while, and I cautiously went out of my room. My brother had left the house for a while. I had a few holiday assignments and decided to just crank them out while my family cooled off, and I did it at the dining room table because that's where our Christmas tree was too and I desperately needed that good cheer magic. I was quietly writing, not saying anything, not making much noise, when my brother came back in the house. He stopped off at the kitchen for something and muttered something rude and belittling to me. At this point I'm a preeten-early teen and he had already ruined the day that had always been magical to me before, as my grandma used to stay over with us on Christmas Eve. She had died rather recently at the time. And I can't tell you exactly what I said. I think I've blocked out as much as I can. I made some snide remark, something like 'at least I don't do drugs' and in the next second I was yanked out of my chair. My brother picked me up by the neck and slammed me against the wall. I know I clawed and kicked against the wall as hard as I could. I blacked out, and I woke up on the floor with my parents absolutely screaming at him that he could have killed me. As a side note to the whole ordeal, he never apologized, and it's made my adult life a lot harder as weed becomes more and more commonplace. Just the thought of it used to send me in a panic attack, I could feel the hands choking me again. I've gotten better about dealing with it, but I still refuse to have it in any part of my life whatsoever. It's cost me a few relationships.
When I was in college, my brother had moved back in with me and my parents because his girlfriend dumped him for being a piece of shit that worked at walmart and did nothing but drink all day despite having a state paid scholarship, that he wasted, because he couldn't keep his GPA above 2.8. He was a music major. The classes he took were things like 'History of Jimi Hendrix' and 'The Beatles'. He just partied too much to even attend class. He took the dog they got with him, not at all prepared for her. The dog is a high energy breed that is difficult to train, and we had two small 5-10 pound dogs at home. At 1 year old, bro's dog was about 30 pounds. He often left for several hours during summers/breaks when I was home, without telling anyone, knowing that I would either hear the dog cry if he crated them and feel bad and let them out or that I wouldn't banish them to a crate if they were already in a room with me. The dog bullied our other dogs and bit at everyone. Dog was incredibly overly protective of my brother-- Trait of the breed. I was back at college for a few months and had spent a good month mourning the loss of a 5 year relationship. I never really heard anything from him. Then out of the blue, my brother asks me if I can let him and dog stay for the night (we live 2 hours from the college) because my mom had kicked him out. The dog had bit her and she snapped at my brother to control his f'ing dog and he responded by calling her, the woman who birthed him, payed for his other college costs, paid back loans he promised to pay to other family members, never charged him rent, and he called her a f'ing female dog. She snapped. While I agree that my mom was completely in the right to do that, I have too soft of a heart to just leave him with nowhere to go. He promised it was just a night so he could get in touch with some friends closer to home and figure shit out. I let him come to me.
I really regret that decision.
At the time I had a new roommate (she was very nice though, I liked her) and a sort of FWB who doted on me for a little while. I texted FWB and asked if he could bring some alcohol by-- I was still 19 at the time, underage to buy it, but FWB was old enough and agreed the man could probably do with a drink. We stayed out on our little porch area to make sure that we wouldn't be disturbing my roomie in any way while we socialized. My brother got really wasted. He told me terrible things about our deceased grandmother (who he knew I had really loved growing up, and had no idea about who she really was because she had always loved me). And he laughed. He laughed when he saw the discomfort on my face. My FWB was feeling pretty bad for me and suggested we go to bed because it was also like 3 in the morning and both of us had class in the morning, so we go inside. The apartment has a shared common room/living room, little kitchen area, and laundry closet. My bedroom is on one side and roomie's was on the other-- Both bathrooms are also ensuite to the bedroom. So I went in and changed out of my clothes into something comfier to sleep in and crawled into my bed, letting my brother do his own thing in the bathroom. I'm just trying to rest and suddenly my brother is pulling me out of my bed and dragging me out of my own room. He's yelling that he's taking my bed, did I really expect him to take the couch? And I'm not very confrontational. I'm flustered, tired, and honestly a little afraid after the neck choke incident. FWB steps in like a hero and tries to calmly explain that its my bed, and I will sleep in it, I have been kind enough to let him stay and he should not be so ungrateful. Brother fucking loses his mind. Starts screaming his head off about how selfish I am and how reliant I am on our parents and won't be able to do anything on my own as an adult (I was financially dependent on my parents at 19 while in college, shocker). He starts drunkenly trying to pick up his dog's toys and searching for his keys, and both FWB and I step in and tell him he can't go driving like this, after like half a bottle of fireball. He at least needs to sober up before he can drive. I stand in front of the front door, as my brother is still searching for his keys, and there is no way I'm letting him out of here right now. Brother has found his keys, and starts pulling at me and hurting me. Lucky for me, FWB had been a pretty good wrestler in highschool. He got my brother pinned down and I snatched the keys, hiding over by the sink in case I had to throw them in there. He's screaming his head off and my poor roommate comes out and asks what the hell is going on because she knows I'm very quiet and tend to keep visitors in my room. I'm like half sobbing trying to explain and the FWB, still pinning my brother, tells her that we're trying to keep him from drunk driving. My roommate does not play around with that. She was in nursing school, and had recently lost a friend to a drunk driver. I don't know how it worked, but she put on her stern nurse tone and told my brother that he was free to leave when he sobered up, or she herself would be calling the cops on him, and both me and FWB could press additional charges for assault. He reluctantly agreed to this condition and FWB let him off the floor, but sat in front of the front door just in case. When he was sobered up, he left, saying 'I hope you like mom and dad, because I'm not your family anymore'.
And that was devastating. I couldn't stop crying. My FWB went back to bed with me and laid me down in bed and let me cry until I passed out. He skipped his class that day to be there for me. I know I don't paint a good picture of my brother, but I did/do love him. I thought now that we were older that he'd mellowed out and we could be good friends like I always wanted. I mean, I made like 300 fake facebook accounts back in the day to vote for his band to be a headliner at a large concert. Just a few years prior when he was home on a break he introduced me to a TV show we binged and he let my lay on his shoulder. (I was/am very touch starved but paralyzed by fear that I'm annoying the other person, and all my friends were made later in life and are states away). When Pokemon Go came out we would take late night drives around quiet places of town while hunting pokemon together. We traded off the controller on online battlefield games and compared scores and the most ridiculous deaths. I really thought that he loved me too, finally, after years of resentment.
He didn't speak to me for 2 years. I didn't find out until later, but my parents lied for him on my behalf that he still loved me and was just annoyed, and gave me birthday/christmas presents that they told me had been from him, just that he was working. I really treasured those objects when I didn't know the truth about them. I got a really stupid mug with the first letter of my name on it in pink and zebra print (two things I don't really enjoy) but I used that thing every single day.
So, these are glimpses into my previous relationship with my brother. I don't really remember when he started speaking to me again, but I sure know he never apologized. He had finally hit rock bottom and asked my father to put in a good word for him at (insert facility with decent pay and good benefits but hard work), which he had previously rejected by telling my parents that it was a shit job. My brother's name got put closer to the top of the resumes. He got in. It wasn't easy work, or comfy sometimes, but it paid well enough to endure that, I guess. My brother used to be rather athletic.
Between the cut off point and then, my brother had worked at a (also generic job) a town or two over and hated the commute. He also happened to find a girlfriend with an apartment sort of close by. She didn't like having him over because of his dog, and almost never let him do any overnight. But now that my brother had a better paying job, she was willing to move in with him, of course. My brother bought a house in our home town and she came with it. She pays a ridiculously low amount of rent to my brother.
If she was home and brother wasn't, the dog stayed crated up because she didn't want to deal with it. Both of them worked, but her job isn't at all difficult. And yet somehow, sometimes pulling doubles, my brother ended up doing most of everything. My brother, who didn't learn to do his laundry until his 20s, ate pizza every single day, and had left used condoms on the floor of his bedroom in our parents house when he left. He did most of the cooking because she says she's bad at it. But will make pies for her mom. When the holidays came around, instead of discussing or rotating, they will always go to her family first. If my brother can come to ours at all. He often misses entire occassions (we don't go out big, but like, cmon. Hand your dad the gift card on his birthday at least, not 2 weeks later).
I also used to get to hangout or see my brother sometimes. Maybe once every few weeks, and it was fun! It was the friendship I had always dreamt of. Now I can't even get him to do anything online with me from the comfort of his own home. I don't have a single text from him this year past 1/27.
At first, we all understood. She was quirky. I was quirky. We share several similar traits and interests. I used to like that and be excited to have a family member like me, but now I dread the day she becomes family.
Let's start with the smoking car. Me and my parents were driving near his street so we could cut through to the highway, and out of nowhere, black smoke starts coming from the hood. My father tells me and my mom to get out and he'll get it to my brother's and out of the road to look at it and see what was going on. This was like.... early August. It was very hot outside. Since I've 'been in the house before' and 'know what it's like' I am 'allowed' to come into my brother's house to cool off. But GF refuses letting in either of them, referring to the messy state of the house. Which, okay, fair-- But its HER messes. My brother cleans up after her. I learned later that GF snapped at him about his family always coming over unannounced and how she has to hurry to put on a bra and everything is messy and we can't just drop in its rude! She says, as her mother and brother do the exact same thing, in a house she doesn't own. But my family let it be water under the bridge for now. My brother called me a f'in a'hole for telling my mom about the conversation. Because my mom was livid.
The next thing is my father. My dad's family has a pretty big history of strokes and heart attacks, and he's had one heart attack. My dad had been in pain all day and he finally gave up at about 3AM and woke my mom up to drive him to the hospital. I don't have a license at this point, so there's little that I can do. My mom says the surgery he probably needs isn't even done here and they're transferring him, my mom asked me to keep my brother in the loop. So I told him about this and about the time they would reach the hospital, because my mom dad gran and I share locations. I asked if he would take me up, I had a bag full of things that might make him more comfortable or less stressed. The hospital they're taking our dad to is a little over an hour away. Everyone is more or less frantic. My brother is talking to work for him, I'm making sure that for however many hours that our pets will be okay and talking to my mom's work. We drive there and nothing major happens, but it was so... Uncomfortable? Tense. The thing that's hurting my dad is a blocked or enlarged blood vessel that cuts off oxygen to the tissue around it, which, cells die, and you really need your colon, the area my dad has an issue with. The thing is, until they can do the surgery, it was like he was a ticking time bomb. My brother takes me home when visitor hours are over and I hold my dogs tight. The next day is filled with lots of pricks pokes and prods at my dad so we don't go that day. We do go the day after, Friday. My brother's GF is in the truck with him. I'm not really paying attention to much of anything because for all we know my dad could die before we got there. Brothers' GF goes to get some snacks from the long drive and the fact that she's not exactly family yet. My brother, mom and I rotate who is away in the cafe and eating with GF. I see GF and my brother whispering angrily at each other. She's tugging at his arm. I manage to pick up 'We're going to miss my mom's dinner!" And I am just stunned. Her mother has a small family dinner every single friday and makes meatloaf. His GF wanted us to head back from our critical father, because she didn't want to miss a weekly event. And I really have to hand it to my brother for not snapping right then and there. He waited until we were in his truck and out of the hospital parking lot and says "How in the f'ck do you say something to me like that? Like, for real, wtf!" GF starts crying and says its a family tradition and her mom is all she has left-- False. She has her mom, sister, and brother, at least. Her father died in a car incident that hospitalized her as a kid. So my brother snaps again like 'are you seriously telling me you value a f'ing loaf of meat over a life? we have no idea what will happen, my dad could die within the hour and i'm not there, he could die tomorrow, how long d-" And GF cuts him off wailing that her dad is dead. Which, yes, is a horrifyingly traumatic experience. But she does not get to play the 'my dad is dead' card ten years after the fact, to justify leaving our possibly dying father before visiting hours ended. She tried to emotionally blackmail my brother by apologizing to me through tears that this must be so hard for me but honestly I was doing my best to block it out, staring at pictures of dogs in hammocks. I shared my brother's sentiment.
But wait, there's more! Remember that car accident GF had years ago? You would think that, if nothing else, she would be empathetic for someone/their family in a car crash? You'd be wrong! I was rear ended at 60 mph right in front of my house after coming home from work (the ambulance took me straight back to work lmao). The physical damage to me was pretty minimal, bruises and a sprained ankle because my foot was pressed on the brake, waiting for an opportunity to cross into the driveway. This was late October 2020. Covid regulations were pretty strict. So I was alone in a room for a while and in pain. My parents had followed the ambulance. My dad had actually heard the crash and went 'huh she usually comes home now' and runs over after seeing the wreckage. My parents had the crash footage, grainy, but there thanks to the cameras set up outside our house. I hadn't realized it by that point but I had a pretty good concussion, and I was hurt, and scared. I was texting my mom constantly but my dad had left his phone at home in the rush to get my mom and she hadn't charged her phone, they'd been in the parking lot for like an hour and a half already. They promised me they'd be back soon, they'll just pop in and let my brother know since he lives nearby. My parents didn't even ask to like, stay and sit with them instead of a cold car. My mom asked to pee and to borrow a charging cable (they had one, GF has the same model phone) given the, you know, situation. My brother barely cracked the door to speak with them. He said no, because GF was uncomfortable, because they were waiting for their second negative test to come in. Read that again. They had tested negative. It's not like my mom would go near anyone to the bathroom either-- The back door that's used more often is literally inches away from the bathroom door. My brother didn't even try to argue with his GF about his own home and some empathy for someone else dealing with a car crash. It absolutely disgusted my parents. And later on brother told me he got another earful about our parents just dropping in without notice and its like? Excuse me? Its his house!
Unfortunately, a tire popped on my parents' car when we were nearby. It was like, 3 years since the first issue with the car. I went inside and asked my brother to let my mom in because its raining. GF did not like that, and didn't realize I could overhear her down the hall, arguing with my brother and his family again. I went over the next day to my brother and he was actively cleaning up GF's mess so it wouldn't be as 'embarassing' for her. I sat him down and talked to him as realistically as I could. I have depression, anxiety, emotional abuse trauma, agorophobia, and very few friends. But I'm okay. He started very quietly expressing his frustration towards GF. She doesn't do much around the house or contribute financially, lets her family over but not his, him doing most of the cooking despite regularly pulling 12s. I sat there calmly, because of course I knew this. This is what makes the situation somewhat even more sticky. I asked my brother, "Do you actually love someone like that? Or are you afraid to be alone?" He's been in one relationship or another for most of my life. Lately he had been confiding in me about how bad his mental health was falling and I was like 'that's not a slump, that's. that's depression.' So when I asked my brother the question, he hesitated. That spoke loudly enough in my opinion. But then I also saw my brother's face crumpling as he admitted he just didn't want to be alone. GF wants babies but my brother knows with her medical history and condition on top of being so lazy and bluntly told me she would not be a good mother and hopes to God that day doesn't come. He is so unhappy being with her. We both heard the rustling of a comforter and my brother lowered his panicky voice and asked me to leave so she doesn't see me here. That is incredibly messed up, especially since its his name on the house. I haven't seen my brother at his house since then, and that was over 2 years ago.
During COVID, GF started working from home, and it stayed that way. My brother still takes care of most things.
In the mean time, he's proposed to her. Yeah. I managed to save things when all our faces dropped at the Christmas dinner he announced their engagement at. My brother calls her by a nickname that was also the name of a beloved family dog that had passed away only one month ago. My dad and my reactions at that time were genuine confusion and sadness about him bringing up our passed pet. Everything was pretty quiet after that. When we got home, I texted my brother and told him that hearing our dog's name in conversation after losing her so recently shattered us, be we were, in fact, happy for his engagement.
I lied.
None of us want him to marry her. I dread the day that I get a wedding invitation or GF shows up pregnant. She would be a terrible mother. My brother is aware of the fact that my parents think she's a rude, inconsiderate brat that only thinks of herself, from that earlier conversation that I talked to my parents about. My mom snapped that they don't have to like her, all they were required to do was be civil, and we are, so shut up.
At larger family functions GF tends to gravitate around me. Like I said, we have similar interests and personalities. And I have never told her to get lost or had it in me to upfront tell her we don't like her. I am absolutely horrible at confrontation, but my patience is wearing thin.
Last year my parents set up brunch for Mother's Day. We were at the table when my brother called and said they were going to urgent care because GF had another one of her migraines that make her vomit. Which, she takes medicine and has injectable solutions. Some situation always comes up with her right before my brother would come to us.
My parents tried again with the Mother's Day brunch last week. On the day of, he said that he was too tired to come, can we try next week? Please insert the eyeroll of the century.
Because of our clear dislike, my brother doesn't often bring his GF around anymore on the offchance she lets him. It occurred to me that my parents planned the same brunch as last year, and I was dreading my question. "Is GF coming with us for brunch?" They don't know. All my brother did was confirm the time and place. The thought of having to deal with her in the morning and pretend that I don't see her for what she is, is already exhausting me. I can barely get my brother to even play online with me. I feel like this has been festering long enough that at some point, its all going to overflow at once. But I am absolutely disgusted by how she takes advantage of my brother's fear of being alone and how the world revolves around her.
I had a dream the other day, actually, it was a good dream. I was at their wedding, and the priest guy said the standard 'speak now or hold your peace' and I stood up and loudly shouted OBJECTION! Every single person in the room turned to look at me, one because I don't raise my voice like that, two my patience is vast, and three, to upset me to this level of shouldering my anxiety by making a spectacle of myself. I then explained every detail, especially how much she was charged for rent, that my brother admitted he wasn't happy, and I wanted better for him than to just be an ATM maid.
If I bring this up to my brother again, I may lose him forever. But if I don't, he may be miserable together. And on the third side-- Do I actually really want my brothers' friendship at this point? Like, I'm definitely fed up dealing with his GF like she is. Plus, I pointed out and reiterated to him before that he admitted he wasn't happy.
I am very, very quiet by default. Never got into much trouble. I was and still am a gentle soul at my core being. If things get to a point where I cross lines of polite manners and call someone out on their bs, people around know that someone did something almost unforgivable. I'm wondering if my brother would know that.
TLDR; Brother's fiancee is disliked for good reason. My brother has isolated. I miss him, but also never want to see him again. I want to remind him that this marriage isn't a good idea, but I don't want to antagonize him.

I am still NOT the Original Poster. That is u/ThrowRA-scarecrow. She posted in relationship_advice. Thank you to u/Direct-Caterpillar77 for the original recommendation and to u/ivy5kin for letting me know about the update
Previous BORU here. New Updates (starting with one from a few months ago and ending with one 7 days old) marked with ****\*

Read trigger warnings

Trigger Warnings: infant abuse; spousal abuse; drug use; stalking; kidnapping attempt
Mood Spoiler: utterly terrifying and disturbing
Original Post: March 16, 2024
My husband (42m) and I (35f) tried for so long to have our boys and girl. Due to a health issue my husband suffered he developed fertility issues and we had to get medical assistance to be able to have our children because if we didn’t he’d probably never have kids. So we went through fertility treatment. He desperately wanted his own biological children and we spent a fortune just to bring them into the world and now he’s jealous and distant with them?
He’s constantly in competition with his own infant children. If I hold the children he gets frustrated. Any time they take my attention away he gets completely pissy. He’s always in a foul mood, irritable and just down right nasty. I don’t understand it. Why is he like this? Our children are barely 6 months and they won’t stop crying every time he’s near. I feel like they can sense his negativity. I tried talking to him. Ive suggested he take interest in the kids and spend more time with us as a family. I know it can sometimes take a little longer for parents to bond with their children but this is down right scary to experience. He’s full of jealousy and envy. He sees our children as competition to my time and affections.
A few times now he has made comments about feeling frustrated that I still breast feed our children. The thing is we mix feed so he has had ample opportunity to feed them and he just doesn’t. He also said that this (meaning our life&our marriage after children) wasn’t what he thought it would be like. I mean what did he expect? A singular baby cries and three of them cry a lot.
We’ve been together for 8 years and married for 7 years. He wanted these children. He pushed for them and now this. I never thought this would ever be me. I am scared. I am scared for my children. I have tried talking to him but he just brushes me off. I’ve suggested counseling. He refuses. He tells me it’s all in my head. I want to save this marriage but I am scared I won’t be able to and maybe it’s not worth saving.
He comes home later everyday. He avoids us on the weekends and any time he has off. I’m not ashamed to say that I went through his phone and there are a lot flirtatious text between him and a “Jessica”. I don’t think anything has happened between them but it sure looks like they are building up to it. I haven’t said anything because I’m afraid. Where do I go with three children, with no money and no family that can help me? I haven’t worked in two years and I’ve spent all my savings on having these children. My mind is in a complete meltdown. I can’t sleep I can’t think and I’m always exhausted.
What the hell happened? Is this him now forever?
Edit: Some of you are some real evil bastards ! Stop blaming me for him mistreating me! I do not deserve to be treated this way and neither do my kids! Stop messaging me evil things!
Relevant Comments:
Examples of 'competition':
If I’m with the kids and say I’m feeding them he gets upset I’m focusing on them and not him, or as he likes to say I’m fussing over them. He expects they sleep through the night and gets upset when I’m with them instead of in bed with him. He has even made weird comments about me loving them more than him.
Did he really want kids or did YOU want kids?
Due to my husband’s fertility issues he was the one pushing for us to have kids. He knew early on that he had a health condition and wanted us to have children way earlier but I asked if we could wait but then his condition worsened so we agreed to get treatment before he couldn’t have any kids. He desperately wanted to be a father and they are biologically ours. His desire to be a father was one of the qualities I liked about him when we started dating.
I’ve always worked and the plan was for me to stay home for the first 2/3 years and perhaps work part time until the kids were school aged. But that’s out the window now because I don’t want to ever be this vulnerable! I’ve been brushing off my cv and scouring the internet for a job. I will never allow myself to be this vulnerable again.
Does he help at ALL? Do you have a support system you could go to?
He doesn’t help me at all. I take care of our kids on my own. My parents are long gone and my sister is abroad. She stayed with us for the birth and a month after the children were born. She lives in France but she’s due to return home this summer. So I know I’ll have her help when she’s back. But I’m trying not to bother her as she’s going through a divorce.
I’ve suggested couples counseling and he refuses. He says everything is in my head.
I’m actually even crying writing this but I do have a small to go bag in the trunk of my car. Just incase. I feel like I’m not being rational because he doesn’t hurt me or the kids but I feel like I’m constantly walking on eggshells. Like what happened to my happy go lucky husband? Who’s this person I’m afraid of?
Are they his biologically? Did you guys go to a support group for infertility treatment?
We didn’t use any sperm or egg donations. The kids are his and mine biologically.
We also went to a support group, two support groups actually. One of them was for couples and the other for men experiencing infertility. He also went to individual therapy to deal with his emotional issues around infertility.
Update Post: March 19, 2024 (3 days later)
Title: He’s (42m) been pinching my (35f) babies?
Thank you to the person who said I should watch his interactions with my babies more closely and frequently. Not even hours after I posted here asking for advice I caught him pinching my son!
While I was scrolling on here and replying to people I decided to check my baby monitor and I watched my husband enter our children’s room and insult them in a hushed and whispery tone. I couldn’t make out much of what he was saying but he was without a doubt telling them that he hated them and wished them dead. Then he pinched my son and my baby boy didn’t even cry which made me think he’s done this many times before.
It all happened so fast and by the time I could make sense of what was happening on the monitor he was already walking down the hallway and down the stairs. At the same time I had lept off the sofa and pretty much tackled him as he came off the stairs. We got into a physical and verbal altercation, we fought, argued and shouted for hours. I guess the police were called by the neighbors because the next thing I know the police are banging on my door. I explained the situation to the police and the officers said that they could not prove that my baby was harmed since he didn’t have a bruise and my baby monitor was only on live feed and not simultaneously recording. Eventually they got my husband to agree to pack a bag and leave. He left reluctantly.
He has since been blowing up my phone begging for forgiveness, talking about how he’s been depressed and stressed by the babies, and that his anxiety and jealousy got the best of him. I just responded once telling him to go fuck himself. I’ve also been in contact with a lawyer and she’s advised me to leave him unblocked incase he further incriminates himself. I don’t even recognize who this man is! Where did this all come from?
How did this happen? Has any other parent experienced this? How did you handle this?
Before y’all start jumping down my throat I am absolutely getting a divorce and I will do everything in my power to get full custody. I did take my children to our family doctor and they are in good health and there are no other signs of abuse. I’ve filled a report with the police and my lawyer is dealing with it. I’m also about to start the process of divorce.
Relevant Comments:
Commenter: He just wants more and better access to his victims. This is someone who gets off on hurting children. Actual human beings who are stressed and depressed do not sneak around abusing children for their dopamine hits.

OOP: Exactly! I’m tired, stressed, depressed and I’m physically still not fully healed from the pregnancy and the cesarean birth but not once have I thought of hurting anyone let alone a baby! I don’t buy his bullshit excuses. He clearly knew what he was doing was wrong otherwise he wouldn’t have been sneaking around and being all hush hush. I do not believe him for one second. He’s a goddamn beastly man.

Update the monitor to one that records:
I’ve set the monitor up to record now! I’ve also ordered a home security system and will be installing it real soon!
On what OOP is doing to protect them:
I’m doing everything I can to protect them! This all happened a few days ago but I am in the process of getting a temporary restraining order. My lawyer is handling it and I understand it takes some time to actually get one and in the meantime I’ve been advised that I can just deny him visitation until he gets a judgement from the courts that forces me to grant him access to my babies but that takes time. So in the meantime he can’t force me or my babies to see him.
I’ve recorded every call and saved ever text. Literally documenting everything. Thankfully he’s saying and texting a goldmine of incriminating things that I hope would be sufficient information for a judge to give me and my babies a restraining/protective order and for family court to grant me primary and sole custody.
Did you tell him you saw the pinch?
Yes. He at first told me I was imagining things. Then switched to saying he was just frustrated our son wouldn’t go to sleep. Then he started saying that he was angry that our son was interrupting our “personal time” and that he was doing it on purpose because the other babies were asleep so why wasn’t he?
Honestly nothing he says makes sense to me. Like my baby boy was just laying there sleepy and he would’ve fallen back to sleep by himself that bastard actually woke him up with his pinching and insults.
He says he went in their room to check up on them and I call bullshit on that he went in there to torment my children. Who in their right mind whispers death to two sleeping babies and a another half asleep baby?!
Did he tell you that over phone or text?
This was on a call which I’ve recorded!
*****Update Post 2: April 10, 2024 (3 weeks after OG post)****\*
Title: How did it go so wrong? For my (36f) birthday he (42m) broke into the house?
Every conversation with him (42m) feels like I’m (36f) losing my mind. The only thing that has kept me semi-sane and able to track what he has been doing is my audio journal and my posts on here.
Last week it was my thirty sixth birthday. Actually I had forgotten it was my birthday and was reminded by my sister that it was in fact my birthday. I decided I couldn’t mope around the house and I got my kids dressed to go shopping and get groceries. We got back and I put away half of the groceries but my babies were fussy and so to tire them out and ready them for bed we went for a walk. When I got back home he was in the kitchen cooking and putting away some of the groceries I had left out. He greeted me and acted normal. I didn’t react because his entire demeanour was freaking me out so I played along. I went upstairs and got the kids down. I did think of walking out the front door but he was kind of anticipating it and so he was following me around and I thought in the moment that the best thing I could do was to get my kids upstairs and away from him. He said he wanted to talk and clear the air because this has “gone on too long”.
We had a long conversation and it started out reasonable but eventually spiralled out of control. We got into physical confrontation because I refused to let him stay. He tried to physically intimidate me and he, well hurt me. While he was hurting me I was still able to contact the police. It took them a excruciatingly long 20/25 minutes to get there.
So here I am sitting with two completely black and blue eyes, a busted lip, swollen face,massive knots on my head and bruises all over. I don’t know what happened to my life or how I got here but here I am. I can’t even look my neighbors in the eyes. I can’t go outside without seeing the shocked faces of people.
I have never felt so ashamed, so humiliated, so hurt and so utterly stupid. I thought I made all the right choices in life. What did I do wrong? When did it all get so fucked? I mean I think I did everything right? Like I created a stable life for myself then picked a man that at time was a very loving partner, I married that man and waited five years before even going through the process of having children with him and now once I’ve had his children he’s just beating on me and our babies?
Edit: My sister is now aware of what’s been happening and she is supporting me as best as she can. I have plans to move out but since I’m not working right now I need some time to save up.
His family is also aware. His family refused to believe that I saw him hurt our child but they can’t deny this attack now that they’ve seen my bruises. Also yes he was arrested and he was bailed out by his brother. He’s currently staying with his brother.
Relevant Comments:
I’m in contact with a dv organization that my lawyer has put me in contact with. I did have a locksmith come out and I have new locks. I also have a couple of safety locks for my windows, and security cameras around the house and I changed our security code but honestly he doesn’t give a shit.
He despite it all broke in and beat the living shit out of me.
Making the audio journal:
I really didn’t make my audio journal to use as evidence. I literally made it because he makes me feel like I’m insane! I never know which version of him I’ll get at any given time. I also keep my journal to keep track of what he says. Every conversation with him makes me lose grip of my fleeting sanity.
Leaving the house:
The biggest reason I haven’t left my home is because he would without a doubt say I abducted the children! I’m already withholding my children from him since I caught him hurting my six month old son.
On advice of my lawyer I have stayed put. It’s my best option for now and it shows that I’ve been reasonably measured in my actions.
Restraining order?
I am in the process of getting one.
Update Post 3: April 25, 2024 (15 days later, almost 6 weeks from OG post)
Title: It was all for the love of another woman? Who barely knew of his existence? He (42m) hurt my (36f) children to further his own selfish desires
I say all of this without exaggeration. I am certain he was getting ready to kill us. After nearly 8 months of turmoil I’m finally close to understanding.
My soon to be ex husband is in love with a woman he came across on social media and he has been obsessing over her for at least a year. She also happens to be a sex worker and he was paying her for her time and attention. In his mind he believed they could have a future together if only he could get rid of my children and me. Even though this woman gave him no inkling that she even wanted to be with him. He has spent so much of our money on this woman. I am at a loss for words that could accurately describe the situation. I can barely believe half of the things he’s been up to.
I’ve spent the past few weeks playing detective and I finally decided to contact “Jessica”. This is obviously not her name but I need to call her something. I contacted Jessica and at first she was very reluctant to speak to me but I literally begged her to and she was kind enough to get on the phone with me.
She told me that she had been seeing him for awhile but she stopped seeing him because he started to scare her. He was sending her unhinged messages and voicemails. He had been stalking her and trying to convince her to be with him. Jessica eventually stopped seeing him and had him blocked and I guess this is when he started to escalate from emotional abuse to physically abusing my children and myself. He was looking for a way out and in his crazy mind, killing us would free him because the only reason Jessica wouldn’t be with him was because me and my children were in the way.
During our long call I also explained to Jessica what had been happening to me and she was genuinely kind and helpful. She also agreed to speak to my lawyer and to send them the thousands of unhinged texts, voicemails and voice notes he sent her. For a little while after our conversation a part of me genuinely hated Jessica and wanted to blame her for everything but the rational part of me pushed out those unreasonable and dangerous thoughts especially after I read his disturbing texts and heard his voicemail/notes to Jessica. She has also been victimized by him.
Honestly there is nothing like listening to your husband and father of your children talk about how you and your children mean nothing to him and how he wishes you were dead. He could’ve just asked for a divorce or just got up and left. I sent him a few texts asking him why? (this was a one time thing and since then I’ve stopped all contact) Why do all of this? Why torment my babies? Why not just walk away? He responded with a message saying any conversation between us should be through our lawyers. His parents have him lawyered up. They know what he’s been up to and they’ve chosen to protect him. His father came to see me and in a not so direct way suggested he could pay me if I stopped talking about what his son has done and was planning on doing. Ever since he broke into the house and pretty much tried to kill me I’ve told anyone who’d listen what he has done. At this point even his colleagues know.
Relevant Comments:
I have emergency custody of my kids and a protective order. I’m in the process of getting two trained guard dogs haven’t gotten very far though and I have a security system.
I’m also seriously considering a gun. More than seriously actually I’ve applied for a permit. Of course I do plan on taking lessons in gun safety and training.
Be careful with the dogs, he may just kill them:
He probably would but the few seconds to minutes he needs in order to do that is perhaps the chance I need to save my children and myself.
This may seem horrible to you but I rather have them as a buffer then my children getting harmed. I of course don’t want this to happen but I’m in a situation now where I need to do everything I can to protect my children.
His parents:
Oh they really are bastards and refuse to believe their precious son could ever do the things he’s done despite the fact that I installed security cameras after I caught him abusing my babies and despite the fact that my neighbors have signed witness statements attesting to the fact that they saw him break into my house and attack me. They’ve seen the police report. They’ve seen the pictures of my battered face and bruised body. They are feigning ignorance but they know, and I know they know.
You don't want to give him ammunition in the divorce- maybe stop telling people?
Actually me telling people has been the best thing I’ve done so far. It’s what has kept me safe. My neighbors now look out for his car and call the police if they see he’s anywhere near the house.
What was he like before all of this? Were there any signs?
We’ve been married for nearly 8 years. Will actually be 8 years in 2 months. We never had any issues. Sure we had minor squabbles but that was few and far in between. Never did I have any issues that would lead me to think that he’d try to hurt us let alone kill us.
It was during my pregnancy and birth that he became verbally and emotionally abusive, this is also the time period he met Jessica and started fantasizing about running away with her. He was angry and jealous that my attention was more on the pregnancy and the babies and this built resentment towards me and my children. It also pushed him more into his obsession with Jessica and when he was also rejected by her, he spiraled into this insane mindset. At the same time he escalated into verbally and physically abusing our infant children and when I found out he hurt my children, I attacked him. I caught him hurting my son and we physically fought and my neighbors called the police and he was escorted out of the house. Then he came back and broke into the house, he attacked me and beat me into a bloody mess. He was arrested for this. I’ve since attained a lawyer and I’ve been granted emergency custody and a protective order.
Again- why isn't he in jail?
He’s out on bail.
Update Post 3: May 11, 2024 (2+ weeks later)
Editor's note: This post was deleted by reddit. I have transcribed it from this youtube video and this tiktok video
Title: My (36f) husband (42m) has been arrested for stalking and attempting to abduct his former “mistress”.
Last week Thursday at approximately 2:00 AM in the morning, my (36F) husband (42m) of nearly 8 years was arrested outside of Jessica's house, (the sex worker he met online and used to pay to spend time with him until he started to creep her out by his stalking and obsession.)
When he was arrested, they found in his truck small baggies with drug residue and they also found tools of abduction. I honestly do not know what these are exactly.
My soon to be ex FIL called me at around 4:45/4:50 AM to tell me that his son was arrested. My FIL was the one who used the term tools of abduction. When I asked him what the hell that means, he said he didn't have time for my interrogation tactics. He then asked if I could help them find a lawyer for him and to stand by his son throughout all of this. When I said to him "how the hell am I supposed to find a lawyer this early in the morning," he lost his shit and then was just screaming.
My soon to be ex MIL took over the phone, telling me that I'm a goddamn b****, and that all this is my fault. I hung up before she could say anymore.
I never knew this man to take drugs. Sure, he drank occasionally, but hard drugs? I honestly don't know what's happening anymore or how I got here. I mean it does make sense he was on cocaine the past 7/8 months now that I look back at things.
I mean, I don't even know anything about drugs to be able to recognize the behavior pattern, but once I researched it, it seemed clear. The moodiness, the disappearances, the lies, the anger, the sudden outburst and the violence- it all points to drug usage, as well as him being an abusive piece of shit.
His parents and the rest of his family had called and texted me so much abusive shit and they occasionally switched to begging me to go see him or pick up his calls, but I've mainly ignored them. I don't have the time, the energy or the love that is needed to be there for this man and his parents. I've given him eight years of my love and affection, and he spat it back into my face during the hardest and most vulnerable time of my life
Also, why would they think I'd help him after everything he's done? Especially since I think he deserves to be in jail for not only hurting my children, but also for hurting myself and Jessica.
I hope and pray he's jailed for the rest of his natural life. I mean I've tried being a good wife, but he has attacked my children. He has attacked me. He has lied and tormented us, and I'm supposed to help him?
I don't even know how I got here. How did we get here?
I've packed everything up and I'm leaving. I'm disappearing with my kids, and anything else between me and these people can be handled through my lawyer. The only person who knows where I'm moving to is my lawyer and my sister. I mean what else can I do to protect my children? His entire family blames me. And how do I keep my head high when I'm now being treated like I'm an evil and disgusting person by pretty much everyone I once called a family? These people are trying to destroy me inside and out, and I don't know how to survive them. How am I supposed to rebuild my life when they won't stop tormenting me?
In less than a year of their birth, I've managed to fail my children...
TLDR: My soon to be ex-husband was arrested while stalking his former mistress/sex worker and during his arrest they found drug residue and tools for abduction
Relevant Comments:
Change your surname/the kids' surnames:
My kids and I have double-barreled surnames (my surname and their dads) but when I can we will drop his and we’ll all go by just mine.
People blaming OOP:
The sad fucking thing it’s not only his parents. It seems like everyone is blaming me.
OOP's response to a crappy (now deleted) comment:
“ You need to discover the reasons why you failed to notice or do anything about everything that was going on with him. You have to build skills so you can take full ownership over your own life.”
This genuinely has me fucking raging right now! I feel like everyone keeps blaming me!
And I don’t know why everyone keeps blaming me for his shit! We didn’t have any problems in the previous 7 years of our marriage. He started doing drugs during my pregnancy and this is when he started to behave abnormally. I tried to get him help because I thought it was depression or the stress of being a new parent.
When I noticed his irritablity, combativeness and generally shitty behavior was more than just depression or jealousy of me spending more time with my new born children, I kicked him out, I got a lawyer and involved the police because there no way in hell I’d stay with someone who hurt my children or let him get away with it and I also made sure to get emergency custody of my children. This is also around the same time when he spiralled into using more drugs. I don’t know what else I could’ve done but I know I took all the right steps when I noticed his escalation!
I’m so sick of everyone acting like I was making him do drugs and like I’m suppose to know that he’d ruin my life after having had a good marriage before he started taking drugs and going out of his mind.
What has your lawyer said about disappearing?
I currently have emergency custody. My lawyer is the one who suggested to disappear (meaning moving to new house and not letting anyone know) because she says this is a time of great danger and I heartily agree. Since my ex-husband first went to look for me at the house but me and my children went to stay somewhere else for a few days because I was scared he’d come back after he broke into the house previously and attacked me.

My brother was living with me and I feel like it brought out the worst in me. To the point that somebody down the line I lost my personality and chill.
We both are international students. Being 2 years older than me he (30) and was finishing his masters degree and extended his semester due to no job. He extended for the entire next year. And he would never communicate with me before he made the decision. Only with my mom.
Initially I was happy that I would have some support even if financially not but things took a toll on me. He convinced me to get an expensive apartment 2B2B and I was paying for all living expenses. He would contribute rarely. He wouldn’t even bother asking how much the rent was, the groceries, where they were coming from. He didn’t even know how I payed rent although he himself was on the lease and never opened the portal.
While he was job hunting he would get depressed on days on end and play video games. Using interview prep as an excuse there were times I was handling the kitchen, running outside errands and earring for 2 people. When I was sick he didn’t even bother going to the doctor with me however when he was I took him to urgent care.
He had money saved but for his online semester and loans pay off. He got a job in tech, is earning double than me and didn’t even bother asking me if I need any help. I burnt my entire years saving on him and was living paycheck to paycheck while supporting him. He made a financial plan of paying back his loans and getting a car asap without even considering that he should contribute before he moved out.
While he was with me I gave him everything. My bed, my room when we shifted to a 1B1B (now) out of courtesy and care but I feel like he didn’t bother thinking about me. He tries not to take responsibility for anything. I get so angry sometimes I have to absorb it inside me but sometimes I get rude because I am burdened. My mom considers me a horrible person. And that it’s my duty to be helping my brother out because they contributed more for my education than his. and this hard time should be considered as training. My mom even asked me to contribute to buying him iPhone for his graduation gift.
Am I actually a horrible person because my mothers thinks I am when I get rude.

It’s been a quite long time since I left my homestay family, but I do get traumatised occasionally (even no trigger) due to what I deal with while living with them in the past.
I came to NZ in July 2016 and was arranged to stay at a seemingly nice host family. The host lady is named M and will be the main character of my story. She was nice at the beginning being a caring person to my situation. Because I came to a different place at the age of 16; I got cold, freezing, homesick, and was struggling to be fit in their food culture; M was treating me nicely, but it didn’t last long…

 1. I was treated like a dishwasher 

M set a house rule for the homestay students that we should wash dishes after meal times. I didn’t mind doing it since she cooked for the family. Also they had a dishwasher, and I thought I just basically rinsed dishes and put them to the machine. It seemed ideal that way but wasn’t the case. I realised the dishwasher was useless since it was always overflowing. There were way too many dishes used at home because their girls ate a lot (they were just 2-3 years old), so there were way more dishes than usual. M was also a stay-at-home mum, so she cooked quite often throughout the day. The dishwasher wasn’t much help, and I usually ended up washing dishes by hands myself. And since I seemed to obligate to her rule (it was quite hard back then to speak up as an international student, esp I was just 16 years old, my English wasn’t that good either), M actually took advantage of it and things went quite wrong. Dishes were often accumulating for the whole day until dinner time when I finished school and went home (those dishes were all used by M and her daughters…), so I started to feel like I was being used, I got sick of washing a big pile of dishes manually. Ofc it didn’t happen very day, but few times a week in those 4 months of my stay. Not just that, M loved baking on the weekend and she baked every every single week or two. While I was staying at home, she then asked me to clean her mess, even though I didn’t eat them at all… The same thing happened when they had big events like having guests came over, birthdays, things like that; M always made a big feast and used almost everything in the kitchen. On that day, I happened to wash dishes every 10 or 15 minutes so that she had something to use for her next batch of cooking, while she just kept cooking, throwing stuff in the sink for me, and the host gentleman was busy chatting with guests or playing with his girls. The remark was when their guests stayed late to catch up while eating a big dessert/snack until 11-12pm, I had to stay up late until they left so that I could wash the dishes (I washed dishes don’t know how many times that day, I couldn’t even enjoy my meal). I was crying so hard that night, because I was hoping they tell me to go to bed but they didn’t, and actually they were happy to see me being “hardworking” like that. I truly got scared of being home and eat with the host family because I was obsessed of those dishes that were often accumulating on the bench…
A side note from me is that back in 2016, I paid 240nzd per week for the host family, and it was a decent pay I found in NZ back then. Their responsibilities were to provide me 3 full meals per day, bedding stuff, and look after my wellbeing; so it was like they had another daughter to take care of, but they got paid to do so.

 2. They barely provided me enough food 

My food supply was going well in the first few weeks, and I guessed it was just a disguise since I first came and stayed in their home. Not long after, M said that I was too needy to have stirfry for my lunch because they were expensive (I cooked them myself btw, she never did anything for my lunch or breakfast). And, I didn’t eat stirfry every day, it was just to get something different in between since I couldn’t eat her low-quality sandwich all times (it was just cheap bread and a piece of ham, sometimes I had a slice of cheese, and that was it). I’m Asian and M actually knows quite well about my food culture, because I did share to them how our meals were like. It wasn’t like I didn’t want to adapt, we all know it takes time. I come from a country where we all have hot foods and literally 3 full meals a day; and all of sudden I had to get myself to eat cereals with cold milk and cold sandwich for breakfast and lunch, it wasn’t easy for me to do that, every single day. So that was why I still made stirfry or instant noodles in between. She was happy to buy some of the ingredients for me in the beginning but then she was venting how expensive they were etc, and she made it clear that she wouldn’t supply those any longer (those ingredients were only a pack of beef or pork mince and frozen veggies which was just around 15nzd for the whole week, and I bought instant noodles myself so…). It got worse and worse over time since I often had nothing to prep for lunch, even just a banana or apple to bring with me. I tried to save money and was happy to go with the ham sandwich daily, but M even bought them no more. I told her that and she only said “yep”, nothing changed, the fridge was almost emptied for days. I then realised she had a 198L chest freezer at the back that was full of meat and I one time asked her if I could use one of those to cook for my lunch, and she said “NO” with uncomfort. I started to skipped breakfast and bought lunch daily at the school canteen for quite a long time, M knew and ignored it. So I feel like she’s more than happy as long as she doesn’t need to spend anything for me… I was often underfed really as I was always hungry, and I just kept drinking and drinking to overcome that. There was nothing special about dinner either, what I could remember was nothing else but just meat, beans, tomato sauce with rice all in one pot. Occasionally M did cook something different but not that noticeable to me. She cooked dinner just enough for everyone, but sadly I didn’t get full since I kinda relied on the dinner time after the whole day being “fasted”. And yeah after those dramas I didn’t really bother to ask if she could make a bigger portion so… I went out to eat with friends, bough fast foods or takeways more often.
Another side note: I was quite unfortunate to experience menorrhagia at that young age (it’s gone now). My period lasted one full month or more and was often heavy (Dr couldn’t help). M knew that 🙂 but still treated me that way, “used” me to do house work and underfed me.

 3. I didn’t stay warm enough 

Another challenge for me was to adapt to winter time here as a person coming from a tropical country with a temperature of always above 30oC. M was happy to supply me a heater and electric blanket, but just until September when it was hitting Spring time. She made it clear that I wasn’t allowed to use any of them because last winter bills were expensive (yeah she was again venting about the living expense), even though the weather was still chilling and could sometimes hit 1-2oC at night. There was just a day I woke up at the middle of 3am as I was freezing, so I turned the heater on and promised to myself that I would turn it off when I woke up again. M walked into my room and I got caught of using the heater (I was still asleep). She was angry with me first thing in the morning and I didn’t get a chance to explain that it was really over my limit to handle the cold (I really tried to stay cold and get along with it, but it was just that day I couldn’t). She then took the heater and electric blanket away from me… I still remember how pale I was back then of not just losing blood so often but also feeling cold all the times. It was hard to me to go “home” after all that happened and I started to stay at friend’s or public library more often, because they were warmer at least. I also tried to walk and walk for hours reaching nowhere on my day-off so that I could feel warmer.
Psst, I walked pass her room one time and my feet felt a real warm air coming from there 😏

 4. Drama still ongoing on my last day 

It finally came to that day. It was around 8am, I was asleep when M walked into my room and told me to quickly packed and left the house immediately (my flight was at 7 or 8 pm) since her kids were sick, she didn’t want me to get transmitted. Until now I still don’t get what kind of sickness her girls had because they still went to daycare on that day 😂. Anyway, so I tried to pack and clean my room as quick as I could first thing I got up. I was suddenly in a need to change my pad but they ran out unknowingly, so I asked M if she could give me one (I asked her because it was kinda urgent and my friend was on the way to pick me up). Guess what, M got angry at me 🙁 and told me to walk to the convenient store to buy one myself (it took me 30 mins for a return). Luckily my friend didn’t get to wait for me long, when she knew my story she said I could have taken one from her when we met, but really, I just couldn’t think anything then esp when I was on rush and really tired. When I finally got home, M texted me and said how disappointed she felt because I left the room so dirty. I still don’t get why she found it dirty because I vacuumed and did dusting quite well, I took all my stuff away, bed was tidy, room emptied. Ofc it can’t be spotless since she was the one asking me to leave immediately, she should know the cleanliness can only be relative to some extent (I got up at 8 and left around 10).
It was relieved when Ieft that homestay family. I don’t really care if M’s still running the homestay business but if she’s still able to do so, good for her and best wishes to the students. I don’t get why I was treated that way as I’m confident to say that I’m not a spoiled kid. I was raised in a very strict and conservative family (typical Asian), so I’m confident to say that I behaved well and was respectful to that host family till the end. I come to NZ with a mission and hope that I could work and live here permanently, I studied hard, worked hard to be a Med Lab Scientist (now I am 😃). So it’s unfair to me really and I still have that trauma ongoing in my head until now (I didn’t think much at that time, but those memories still remained in my mind). And a big thank you to you who read it till this end ☺️

Hi everyone! I'm very new to the psychic universe, but I'm coming to terms with something that's been happening to me for a long time and trying to better understand it. I (29F) have had many different "experiences" that I always chalked up to coincidence until recently. While I've heard of all different types of physic abilities, I've never heard of anyone experiencing what I do. I apologize for the long story, I just don't know how else to describe it.
For background, no one else in my family that I know of has ever had any type of psychic abilities. My mom has always been fascinated by psychic readings, tarot card readings, etc. but has never had any experiences herself. She has two stories from when I was a toddler that she swears are true and say spiked her interest in psychics. I have no memory of them since I was so young, and they are the normal "can see the future" type of stories that don't really seem to align with what I've experienced as a teen and adult. The first was that one time when I was two I kept insisting that we go to grandma's because there was a package there for us, and my mom ensured me we didn't as we'd just been there but when we got home had a message left on the answering machine from my grandma saying shortly after we left a package was delivered. The second was that one day we were sitting on the floor playing telephone (the game you play as a child where you hold your hand up to your ear like a telephone and pretend to have a phone conversation with the person right next to you) and she said I pretended to call her and told her that we needed to go pick up my dad from the hospital, and that he'd been in an accident. She told me it wasn't funny to joke about such things, and not to say it again, but I kept telling her he was hurt and we needed to go get him. She got angry with me and stopped playing, but about a half an hour later got a phone call from the hospital informing her that he had been in a car accident and that he was okay but had been taken to the hospital and she needed to come pick him up. Like I said, I have no memories of these, but she was convinced her little girl was psychic.
As I got older I didn't have any crazy experiences that I can remember. However, I do remember being sick a lot as a kid. Never seriously ill, just not feeling good. I'd have stomach aches or headaches or say my chest hurt. I do remember my mom always thinking I was faking it to get out of school, but to me it was real. It wasn't until years later that she told me about the coincidences. My grandfather, who I was extremely close with, had leukemia throughout my entire childhood. They didn't tell any of us grandkids until we were teenagers, so at the time I had no idea he was ever sick. Years later my mom would tell me that every time I'd have one of my "episodes" where I'd insist I didn't feel good just so happened to be when he'd have a reoccurrence, get sick, or end up in the hospital. My mom told me this when I was a teenager, and knowing how much she loved psychics I assumed she was seeing something she wanted to. I thought I was too cool to believe in psychics and thought nothing of it.
When I was 17, I had a panic attack while driving my car through town one day. I didn't struggle with anxiety, and I had never had a panic attack before. Despite the fact that nothing was actually wrong with my car, I had an overwhelming feeling that I didn't have control of it and pulled over on the side of the road and called my mom. She was able to calm me down over the phone, and after assuring me there was nothing wrong with my car, convinced me to drive home. When I got home, my mom suddenly said she needed to leave and would be back later. She later told me that right before I got home, she got a call from my grandmother. Her brakes had failed, and while she was okay, her car was being towed and asked my mom to come get her and give her a ride home.
My next experience wasn't until about 10 years later, when I was 27, but it was the experience that convinced me I had some sort of gift. My husband and I were living in Colorado, and my family was on the east coast - a two hour time difference. Around 4am, I woke up with the WORST headache I've ever had in my life. It wasn't a normal headache, I was in crippling pain. I remember waking up and holding my head between my hands wincing and crying in pain. I stumbled my way to the kitchen to try to find the excedrin we kept in the cabinet above the sink, but was in so much pain I couldnt' stand up straight or think. I crawled my way back to bed and woke up my husband to get him to find it for me. He did, I took it, and he went back to sleep. As I laid there, I knew from a logical standpoint that I should have asked him to drive me to the hospital from how much pain I was in, I knew this headache wasn't normal. But for some reason, all I could think about was how I needed to call home and make sure everyone was okay. The logical side of me talked myself out of it, as I had no logical reason to think anything was wrong and it was too early in the morning to wake everyone up. I told myself I'd call in a few hours once everyone was awake, and eventually fell back asleep. I called my mom a few hours later to check in, and as soon as I answered the phone I could hear how upset she was and knew that something was wrong. Her boyfriend who she lived with and had been with for years had had a heart attack that morning, just a few hours before. She needed to call 911 and have him rushed to the hospital by ambulance. At the time I called she was sitting in the hospital waiting room, crying and alone.
I can't explain it, but I just knew in that moment that my headache was me feeling all of my mom's pain and fear in those moments that she waited for an ambulance to show up. Up until this point, I wasn't a believer, but I could feel it in my bones at that moment. When I was little, my mom would always tell me that if I ever got kidnapped (don't ask, this was her biggest fear) and I needed help that I just needed to try really really hard to talk to her in my head, like telepathy, and that she'd be able to hear me. She believed in god and psychics and wanted to believe that if I was ever in trouble that something would allow her to be able to hear me. I think on that day, I could hear her.
That was two years ago, and I haven't had any experiences until maybe one that's happening right now. Since this past Monday, my heart will suddenly have a fluttery feeling or feel like it had an extra beat. It will happen on and off for an hour or so once or twice a day. Normally, that'd be cause of concern, but I tend to downplay things and assumed that maybe my thyroid meds were off even though I just got my normal lab results a few weeks ago. I told my husband about it, and he said I should see a doctor, but I've been waiting for an appointment I already have scheduled with my PCP in a few weeks as long as it doesn't get worse. My husband and I just moved back to the east coast a few months ago, and are staying with my dad and step-mother until we find a house to buy. This morning I was talking with my step-mother, who told me that her mom has been in the ICU all week since this past Monday with cardiac issues, her heart fluttering and beating too fast. Of course, I didn't say anything for fear of sounding like a crazy person. I've never even met her mother, but I do like my step mother quite a bit, and I'm not sure if I could have sensed something through her. Maybe it's a coincidence, it sounds crazy even as I type, but it seems to be a trend that I have physical symptoms when something is wrong with other people.
Maybe I'm insane, or maybe it's all coincidence. I'm not even sure what my question is, but I don't feel like I have anyone to talk to or act as a sounding board, so I figured I'd put it out there on reddit and see if anyone had feedback or similar experiences. If you've made it this far, I hope you at least got a kick out of a mildly interesting story.

R6 moved quickly along the side of the 8 tonne grain container, his hands running along its lid to snap open locks. Sam mirrored him on the other side and once he had caught up, they lifted the lid as one. The contents burst up out of the darkness, gulping down air and squinting against the lights above.
R6 reached down toward a manicled wrist, taking their hand and guiding it up to the edge of the container while their vision returned. “Please proceed-”
“Go go go go!” shouted Sam while pointing down the hall.
Bruised and teary eyed aliens scrambled to their feet, chains and collars jangling as they started to move en masse. R6’s eyes flicked over each, noting the pastel tan shades of skin and vibrant red hair, adding each to the crew manifest of the ‘Grain Silo’ ship that they jogged towards.
“CLEAR!” shouted Sam.
R6 felt a hand brush by his arm and whisper quiet thanks before vanishing through the airlock, out of the ‘Main Tent’ ship to join the other former slaves. R6 grabbed the side of the now empty container and slid it along the floor, weaving between the other unboxing teams and pausing as another group sprinted by.
A crewman ran sweat back from his face as he braced against the side of a stack of the grain containers, drilling holes through the steel to let the heat out and air in.
“Double time, go go go! More are coming in!”
R6 headed back to his station, mirroring Sam as a cargo flat moved in quick yet smooth calculated movements. The container eased down into the taped off square.
A buzz sounded through the radio’s clipped on each loader. R6 ran along the frequencies until he locked onto encrypted band 4. “Top priority, anyone about 6 foot 6 needs to come to challenger-prep 3 in the Main Tent immediately.”
R6 recognised the voice as Captain Reginald, leader of the Renisance Flotilla. He quickly looked over the container then to the pile yet to be opened with more on the way, but it was a top priority from the highest authority and could not be ignored.
R6 dropped into a sprint, racing across stations, over a container and hauling himself up through one of the transit openings, up through the structure of the Main Tent.
The ship was chaotic, more so than even the busier of the opening days he had experienced and he had to hug the walls. Villagers in linnen cloth ran beside crewmen and pilots. Kitchens in the attached Mess-Tent ship burned hot with shouts competing over each other. Grilled pork made its way from chef to hands to villagers who raced up stairs through the service entrances into the Main Tent’s stadium.
R6 followed the roar, it rose and fell like a rhythmic ship core. He slid down a ladder through an airlock and into an escape pod renovated into Challenger-Prep 3. Rifles and knives flinched his way but quickly relaxed.
R6 snapped to attention to await orders but his actual attention was elsewhere, glancing over the foe wood panelling that covered control panels, dust and hay that covered the floor, fake braziers that illuminated the space turning it from a space worthy lifeboat into a mediaeval locker room. It needed a good vacuum.
The Black Knight Rhoke lay back on a mound of straw, his squires pressing quick-stitch bandages to a bloodied cut running down his face. One of his eyes was swollen shut and he had to lift himself to bring his other around to glance at R6. His attention quickly fell away and rose up to Captain Reginald. “I was scared. I can finish this.”
Captain Reginald stood with a cane pressed to his chest and scars running down his face that turned his eyes into milky deformed orbs without focus. He shook his head, a pained look flicked across his features. “What is it, Loader?”
R6’s posture snapped straight again. “You requested anyone who was 6 foot 6 sir.”
“That’s not what I meant. Loader, find someone the same build as John and bring them here.”
R6 glanced over the armour, understanding the unspoken physical requirements and ran them through the crew manifest. “John, aka Rhoke and I are already present sir, the new crewmembers are also too short, averaging 5 feet.”
Captain Reginald winced and raised a hand but R6 was unsure why.
A sweaty messenger on foot slid down the ladder and dubbed over, panting between words. “They’re losing interest, we’re getting more encrypted chatter on the station bands.”
The Black Knight started forcing himself up, shrugging out of the hands that peeled away dented platemail and pink stained padding. “I can do this.”
“How many so far Loader?”
“412 slaves had been smuggled from the station when I left sir.”
Captain Reginald eased down and put a hand on the Black Knights chest. “You were a performer but this is no longer a costume. What you have done is knightly and enough. Put the armour on the loader.”
A squire’s eyes snapped up to Captain Reginald’s “The chief will see-”
“Do it anyway,” said Captain Reginald.
John let out a little relief and fell back to the hay.
R6 held mostly still, his hands pulled with the chaotic flurry about him, his body tugged this way and that as sweat stained padding and freshly welded steel platemail was layered around his body, secured tightly with leather straps. Captain Reginald raised the prop sword and with a slight smile felt the sharpness. “Take this.”
R6 accepted the blade. “Where am I to deliver it to?”
“While you hold this, you are a knight.”
R6 stared at the sword, his eyes flicking over it, up to the handle then back to the blind eyed captain. “I am a Loader.”
“I, Captain Reginald of the Renaissance Flotilla, issue command override whisky foxtrot. While Loader…” the world turned to dim thunder, the only sound were the carefully spoken words of the highest authority as he ran a thumb along the stencilled industry tag on R6’s shoulder. “... While R6 wields this sword, he is ‘The Black Knight Rhoke’ until further orders are given. Confirm.”
Black: Characterised by tragic or disastrous events; causing despair or pessimism.
Knight: A man raised by a sovereign to honourable military rank.
“Confirm…” said The Black Knight Rhoke but the word choice felt odd to him, it wasn’t at all the sort of thing he would say. “That is, I accept my duty, Lord.”
He stood firm against the thrashings of his squires while keeping his hand firmly around the hilt of his sword. He could have eased it down for a moment to adjust his right gauntlet but he felt a reluctance to do so. He felt the sword had a firmer grip on him than he it, and besides, the Good Lord, the highest authority intended him-… but that was not true.
Rhoke’s eyes rose from the blade to his sovereign. Lord Reginald was just a man, born with sin like all others, a man of god yes, but…
God: the creator and ruler of the universe and source of all moral authority; the supreme being. The highest authority.
Rhoke stepped through the strange double doored room out of Challenger-Prep 3, hearing the roar of the crowd rise to meet him. His world was narrowed down to a slit of light through the helmet and he had to duck beneath the door frame before stepping out into the summer sun of midday. Wooden stands bowed, filled well beyond capacity with strange pigmen, oddly dressed in security uniforms, spilling out into stairways and huddled against creaking railings. Villagers raced through stuffing them with a steady stream of crackled pork.
A metal monster stood opposite, shaped like the pigmen but towering twice as tall at 8 feet, mechanical muscles pumping black oil ran through his armour. A spear, long as a barge with a swordlike tip sat gripped in its three fingered fist.
It was the strangest sight Rhoke had seen but it was not enough to pull him from his goal. He knelt down, running his fingers across the arena floor, imagining he could see through it below to the metal catacombs where good souls were ferried out of the pigmen fortress.
They were his enemy, even if they did not yet know it.
Rhoke cast a silent prayer that he could hold their attention long enough and raised his hand from the dust, tapping his fingers to his temple and crossing his heart.
“Ay ay ‘old on! You’re not a Human!” shouted the boar-beast through speakers on his suit. He leaned the spear against his shoulder while his hands reached out, tapping away at nothing infront of himself. “There is a robot under that armour. The human’s are cheating!”
The invading army jeered and booed at hearing their generals words.
“This is my greatest warrior!” shouted Lord Reginald’s voice from behind Rhoke but it barely reached Rhoke against the jeering storm.
“You are no…” started Rhoke, his words vanishing into the noise of the crowd. He took in a breath and bellowed out, his voice carrying much further than it should have. His armour vibrated with the deafening sound. “You are no knight! I would sooner fight a peasant than livestock.”
The spear was up and rushing toward Rhoke, reaching far too close for his liking before he swiped it away at the cost of a gash down his arm. The dust burst into the air in plumes with their quickly moving feet. There were no boos to be heard, just the suddenly rising roar of the crowd and shriek of metal. The hog-chief was nothing like what Rhoke had fought before. The closest tactics he could use were anti-cavalry given the bulk behind the creatures movements. The spear sheared across Rhoke’s helmet sending a spark in through the visor and lighting up Rhoke’s sinuses with ozone.
Rhoke caught the haft and brought his sword down, splintering wood… black fiberous strands of the shaft and sending the decapitated point sailing back toward the beast. To the monster’s credit he didn’t go down. His beast's helmet turned one way then then another, the spear lodged in the side of his visor. His hands came up, removing the helmet to reveal a disproportionately small scarred head on the juggernauts shoulders.
Yellow poles raced in to separate them. “Round 4, a point to Rhoke.” shouted a referee with all his might.
Rhoke took a step back, giving the chief’s squires time to tend to his armour. He glanced to the side to see Lord Reginald and a few townsmen glancing around their arena, nodding to themselves and speaking into boxes on their out of place clothing. Lord Reginald’s lips moved and while Rhoke shouldn’t have been able to, he could clearly hear the voice as though he was speaking in Rhoke’s ear. “Push him, we don’t want them losing focus.”
Rhoke summoned the strange booming voice and roared out in their beastly language. “Do you need more time to tend to your linens? There is no shame in waddling back to your trough.”
The Chiefs face twisted and his armoured fists knocked his squires back. His face turned to madd glee as he stepped forward, punching at the air before raising his fists. “Who is the strongest?”
“Security Chief Grotch!” answered the crowd in a single voice.
The Boar could only see Rhoke, not the good souls pouring out of his fortress beneath his feet.
Rhoke wished he could have given the beast time to fight at his fullness. Despite himself, Rhoke had pride but what was the value of pride against a soul? Pride was a sin and a soul was…
Invalid… error #4D7C6F float infinity,
Rhoke glanced to his Lord for an answer when he saw The Black Knight Rhoke standing beside him, his reflection made flesh.
Rhoke stared down at his arm to see through a wound in his armour. There was no blood, no flesh beneath the padding. His eyes fell down to the sword that seemed to possess him so very tightly.
“What am I?” said Rhoke. His voice falling from his lips, then from his mind, the question bleeding out of him though hidden voices he didn’t know he had. He glanced up to see Lord Reginald’s brow furrow and his hand to start reaching toward the box- radio on his chest.
The world seemed far too slow, frozen in that moment as the question ran through his mind. He knew… He had orders from the highest authority and no time for clarification. He needed to distract the chief now, infinite value was on the line, there was nothing else to consider.
Rhoke dropped, his feet pressing to the dust as he pushed himself well beyond the industry recommended use, using the god given strength earned through good deeds. The world returned to its normal speed as he raced across the arena, sword coming about as he leapt.
They tore at each other, he ripped through dust and wind, cleaved his sword through black veins of oil and thudded his pommel into dented armour, in a bloody endless brawl.
“We’re done, send him on his way.” said Lord Reginald on radio band 4.
Rhoke danced back from a strike but kept his dodge too short, sapping the momentum from the blow across his bestplate to propel himself around, sweeping his sword to its fullness and down toward the beasts head. Grotch had a hand up and when steel met steel, there was a shatter of sparks and a half sword continuing down toward the hog-lords neck.
Half a sword.
R6 stood with the broken blade paused at the neck of one of their renaissance fair guests. He quickly pulled it away to avoid the hazard. He was not to harm the guests.
R6 clattered back, pinned to the dust, arms raised and punches rained down, burying him down through dirt into the bulkhead. His arm was heaved up and twisted from its socket, armour and padding exploded from the seam. He tried to rise but his ability to move with a missing limb was diminished.
“How much for the trophy?” shouted Grotch while holding R6’s armour clad limb above his head.
“Consider it a parting gift.” said Lord Reginald, then in almost a whisper to the side. “Get an engineer, now!”
“You’re leaving? Don’t tell me you’re sour about-...” started Grotch when his eyes flicked up to a pigman jumping over the arena wall at a sprint. His eyes narrowed, flicking across the pigman’s features. He only had to hear the words. “They’re missing.”
“Lock down the station! All ships, anchor locked, crews to be held for interrogation.”
R6’s radio cut out for a moment, all bands going silent as Reginalds voice spoke over the Renaissance Flotilla’s emergency channel. “Balderdash.”
The ship ‘Main-Tent’ whined as airlocks thudded down over each of the separate stalls. The room hummed with rapidly quieting thunder as each ship in the Flotilla separated from the Main Tent and burned away at the redline, but not the Main-Tent. R6 glanced around at the captain, the actors, the waitstaff who had been sealed on the wrong side, they were trapped here, anchored to the station.
Grotch heard the sound, saw the airlocks, an almost smile forming on his lips as his attention fell down onto Captain Reginald. “Arrest them, search the ship.”
The audience washed down into the arena turning the ship into a screaming mess. A thousand security personnel clamoured to be the one to find a hidden crewman, to drag them down the stairs into the arena before their security chief.
R6’s helmet was given to the Chief and his body was pulled along the dust and tossed toward the line of crewmen who knelt on the arena floor, hands behind their heads. A few nods were exchanged between the hogs and the room fell silent to hear their Chief’s words.
“Where is your meet up point? Where are they going?”
Captain Reginald was silent, his blind eyes holding firm.
“Are your knees vital?”
R6 flinched at the sound. He watched Captain Reginald drop to his side, his hand clawing at a wound. He screamed a note but pulled it back in, slowing down his breathing and clearing his voice to speak. “How many R6?”
“412 souls at last count sir,” said R6.
Soul: the spiritual or immaterial part of a life, regarded as immortal.
“Don’t say anything.” said Captain Reginald before screaming and gripping a new wound on his other knee. R6 would have told them to avoid further damage to his crew but his captain had ordered his silence.
R6 was without orders but he needed to act. He had a question for the highest authority and he needed to make it heard. He spoke, the voice buzzing out not from his speaker but in a broadwave blanketing all the radio bands. “What am I to do Lord?”
There was no answer but when he opened his eyes he knew what the highest authority wanted of him.
His question echoed out of each of the radios and stole the attention of Grotch. The chief took the pistol away from John, the Black Knight Rhoke’s knee, R6’s former reflection.
The chief eyed R6 for a moment, a smile crossing his lips.
“Don’t speak-” started Captain Reginald, his voice cutting off when his head was punched to the dirt.
“Little Knight, what do I want?” said Grotch. He stepped toward R6 and crouched down. “I had a good time at your party and I want to see it again. What station are you performing at next?”
Sacrifice: an act of giving up something valued for the sake of something else regarded as more important or worthy.
R6 glanced at his reflection, his eyes meeting John’s then glancing back at the former escape shuttle renovated into Challenger-Prep 3. He eased himself up on his remaining arm to his knees.
“Do you wish to know the location of the Flotilla?” said R6.
Grotch leaned lower. R6’s hand shot up, grabbing the collar of his chestplate and with all his might, he heaved his body up into the Chief’s stomach, wrenching 2 tonnes of metal off the floor and catapulting him over onto his back. He summoned his god given voice and roared out to the room.
“Fall upon me you heathens!”
R6 couldn’t process, there was no time for it as they descended upon him. He swung his fist and wrenched himself through the sea of security personnel. Armour was torn from his body and he was whisked along to rise and lose his footing. His body was wrapped in a thousand hands that spent as much time fighting each other for the chance.
In a brief moment he saw John lifting his captain from the dust, the sight cut away as the crowd rose up and buried him down toward the floor.
R6 sank into the heat and sweat. He couldn’t move. “Give me strength.”
R6 grabbed a three fingered hand, twisting it back on itself, he gouged an eye sending one squealing away. Bit by bit he regained control, smashing a fist, stomping on a face, fingers between his armour plates where sheared away. He became a wrathful blender at the eye of the storm, breaking apart the crowd and hurling himself toward the airlock to see it slam closed and blast away another 28 souls to safety.
Smeared in filth, leaking hydraulic fluid and coolant, he turned, his eye rising to see Grotch wade toward him, backing him up against the door.
“Best man I’ve fought, and a good trophy.” said Grotch.
R6 pressed flat to the door, his remaining arm gripping the frame
“I’m not a man, and I am not a knight. I am a robot.” said R6 and he threw the airlock control, catapulting himself out of the Main-Tent on a blast of wind and shredded pork.
R6 reached up as he passed through the black, eyes closed in those moments of silence.
Miracle: an extraordinary and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore attributed to a divine agency.
R6 felt something crash into his palm. He gripped the escape shuttle tight, locking his grip and whispered silent thanks into the void.

Tysons, Virginia is a haven for busy professionals, excited tourists, and discerning diners. But when that carnivorous craving hits, where do you head for a truly unforgettable steak experience? Fear not, fellow meat lovers! We've compiled a sizzling list of the 10 Rated Steakhouses in Tysons, Virginia for 2024, catering to every taste bud and budget.
From elegant atmospheres and award-winning cuts to lively Brazilian churrascarias and innovative takes on the classic steakhouse experience, Tysons has something for everyone. So, grab your appetite, slip on your favorite steakhouse attire (sharp suit or comfy jeans, it's all good!), and get ready to embark on a delicious journey through Tysons' finest steakhouses.

1. The Capital Grille: Classic Elegance with Modern Flair

The Capital Grille is a perennial favorite for a reason. This upscale steakhouse offers a timeless ambiance, impeccable service, and an extensive menu featuring USDA Prime dry-aged cuts. Here, you can indulge in a perfectly cooked New York Strip or a decadent bone-in filet mignon, all complemented by an impressive wine list. Don't miss their signature sides, like the truffle mac and cheese or the creamed spinach, for a truly complete steakhouse experience.
Pro tip: Feeling fancy? Splurge on the Capital Grille's dry-aged bone-in ribeye – it's a showstopper!

2. Eddie V's Prime Seafood: Where Surf Meets Turf

Craving a surf-and-turf experience? Look no further than Eddie V's Prime Seafood. This upscale establishment offers an impressive selection of steaks alongside fresh seafood flown in daily. Sink your teeth into a juicy filet mignon or a flavorful bone-in ribeye, then complement your meal with succulent lobster tail or colossal crab legs. Eddie V's boasts an intimate setting and an attentive wait staff, making it perfect for a special occasion or a romantic night out.
Insider tip: Don't forget to check out Eddie V's impressive happy hour for discounted drinks and appetizers – the perfect way to try a bit of everything!

3. Fogo de Chão Brazilian Steakhouse: A Churrasco Extravaganza!

For a truly unique and exciting steak experience, head to Fogo de Chão Brazilian Steakhouse. This lively churrascaria features an all-you-can-eat format, where servers continuously bring skewers of perfectly grilled meats to your table. Sample a variety of cuts, from picanha (sirloin) to filet mignon, all seasoned and cooked to perfection. Sides like Brazilian cheese bread and caramelized plantains round out the delicious experience.
Fun fact: Fogo de Chão's name translates to "place of fire" in Portuguese, reflecting their dedication to the art of grilling.

4. The Palm Tysons Corner: New York Flair in Virginia

The Palm Tysons Corner brings a slice of New York City's classic steakhouse scene to Virginia. Step inside and be greeted by caricature portraits of celebrities who've frequented the Palm establishments, adding to the vibrant atmosphere. Their menu features USDA Prime cuts, all dry-aged in-house for exceptional flavor. Be sure to try their signature double-cut steaks, perfect for sharing (or tackling solo, we won't judge!).
Did you know? The Palm is famous for its "bone-in" tradition, where waiters present raw cuts tableside for your approval before cooking.

5. Ruth's Chris Steak House: Sizzling Steaks, Signature Service

Ruth's Chris Steak House is a renowned national chain that consistently delivers on its promise of exceptional steak experiences. Tysons Corner's location is no exception. Here, you'll find USDA Prime steaks cooked to your exact preference in their signature 500-degree Fahrenheit broilers, locking in flavor and creating a perfectly seared crust. Every steak arrives sizzling on a pre-heated plate, ensuring your meal stays hot and delicious throughout.
Local favorite: Don't miss their award-winning creamed spinach – it's the perfect creamy counterpoint to your juicy steak.

6. Wildfire - Tysons Galleria: Modern Steakhouse with Stunning Views

Wildfire offers a contemporary take on the classic steakhouse experience. Located within the bustling Tysons Galleria, this restaurant boasts stunning views of the surrounding area, making it a great choice for a special occasion or
a power lunch. Their menu features high-quality steaks alongside innovative seafood dishes and creative appetizers. Don't miss their signature bone-in filet mignon or the Chilean sea bass wrapped in parchment paper.
Pro tip: Request a table by the window to enjoy the gorgeous views while you savor your meal.

7. 801 Chophouse: Premier Steakhouse with Style

801 Chophouse offers a refined steakhouse experience without the pretense. This locally owned establishment prides itself on using only the finest cuts of USDA Prime beef, all cooked to perfection over an open flame. The menu also features an impressive selection of chops, fresh seafood, and decadent desserts.
Local secret: Try their dry-aged steaks for an extra-flavorful and tender experience.

8. Chima Steakhouse: Modern Take on the Brazilian Churrascaria

Chima Steakhouse offers a modern twist on the classic Brazilian churrascaria experience. Here, you'll find an upscale ambiance with an open kitchen where you can watch gauchos (grill masters) prepare an endless parade of perfectly seasoned meats. They also offer a delicious salad bar and a tempting selection of Brazilian side dishes.
Did you know? Chima is known for its extensive wine list, featuring South American selections alongside international favorites.

9. The Palm Tysons Corner Bistro: More Casual Take on a Classic

The Palm Tysons Corner Bistro offers a more casual take on the classic Palm experience. This bistro boasts a vibrant atmosphere and a menu featuring many of the same high-quality steaks found at its sister restaurant. They also offer a wider selection of appetizers, sandwiches, and lighter fare, making it a great choice for a casual lunch or dinner.
Happy Hour Alert! Head to the Palm Tysons Corner Bistro for their lively happy hour with discounted drinks and appetizers.

10. Fleming's Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar: Fine Dining with a Focus on Wine

Fleming's Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar offers a fine dining experience with an emphasis on exceptional steaks and an award-winning wine list. Here, you'll find USDA Prime beef cooked to order and complemented by a variety of creative sides and sauces. Don't miss their extensive wine list, featuring over 100 wines by the glass and an impressive selection of large format bottles.
Wine lovers rejoice! Fleming's offers wine pairing recommendations with each dish on the menu, ensuring a perfect match for your steak.

Classic story I'm sure you've heard before, Lennox system, 10F81 iComfort thermostat, warranty's up, iComfort dies. I can't knock it too harshly seems like the lifetime on most of them was only 5 years and 1 month and I got 4 bonus years from mine. I'm not willing to put a new $800-1200 s30/s40 thermostat on it on account of the age of the unit so I'm just going to an Ecobee Enhanced w/ VC. I'm not much for the smart thermostat stuff, but it seemed like that's what others that had the 10F81 go out went with and it supports humidity control. I'm aware of the potential for an earlier blower failure, but they all die at some point and the warranty is about up so I'll be out in the rain regardless. With my standard luck the iComfort decided to fail while I had the unit off to enjoy the spring temps so I'm enjoying the permanently enforced power savings I guess.
2 stage heat (SLP98UHV), 1 stage cooling (SL18XC1), and a humidifier (HCWP3-18). Apologies if I ask anything stupidly obvious, I've already read both the unit manuals that the prior homeowner left me and I'm thoroughly into information overload.
Currently the unit is wired 4 wire to the thermostat and to the 4 wire iComfort header on the board. The outdoor unit is wired to the 4 pin outdoor equipment iComfort header on the board. Humidifier is wired to R and H terminals on the Board.
I plan to pull 7 or 8 wire conduit to the thermostat tomorrow to give me enough conductors to wire everything.
My question stems around the outdoor unit and how to wire the humidifier.
Do I need to move the outdoor unit wiring to the lettered terminals or is the control board smart enough to run the outdoor equipment through the iComfort header with the iComfort thermostat divorced from the system? Stupid question, I know, but never hurts to double check. Otherwise it looks like I need to rewire the outdoor unit both outside and inside: Y1 -> Y1
L -> L (To the thermostat only? Weird diagram)
R -> R
C -> C
Now for the second question: How to wire in the humidifier? There's kind of a diagram for it in the SL18 and the SLP98, but it refers to Humiditrol/Harmony III on both diagrams which is not the unit I have. Both call for cutting the W914 link which I'm not going to do till I'm positive I have to. No wiring recommendations from the HCWP3 manual so I don't know where to take it there. SL18 says:
DS -> D (on Tstat)
H -> H (on Tstat)
I don't think that the HCWP3 does dehumidification but that is my uninformed opinion. If I was to guess maybe I wire it to the HUM and NUE spades on the SLP board?
Help would be greatly appreciated, TIA.
Let me know if I'm missing any information that would be helpful or if you need photos of anything to get a view on something.
SLP Control Board Photo
If I had know that the iComforts were so twitchy when I bought the house I probably would have tried to RE the RSBus protocol and just control the thing off a arduino or something. I think the patent expired in 2020.

Sorry for the clickbait-y headline but my post didn't get any good responses when I used a more descriptive title. I am an amateur R.E. investor with basic introductory questions about buying a classic pre-war residential building in NYC.
Range: $1-2.5 million
Type: Pre-war walk-up/brownstone
Intended use: Rent out 1+ units on different floors and possibly live in one of the units at some point in time.
Example #1: https://www.redfin.com/NY/Brooklyn/751-Marcy-Ave-11216/home/39891856

1. What is the typical financing available/used for this kind of deal? Are typical 20% jumbo primary residence loans available for these?
2. Is it possible to subdivide the property differently than the current setup? In this example, the building has two separate units (although I am confused by the description calling this a "double duplex", there appears to be two total kitchens so I am assuming two total units). Is there a process by which I could convert this to, for example, three total units?
3. Many of the buildings I have found say things like "this is a beautiful single-family residence" but then show a floorplan that has clearly been divided into ~4 separate units with 4 kitchens etc. Is this the listing agent's way of indicating that the property is only registered/zoned/permitted for one family to occupy and that the current multi-tenant use is illegal? How viable is the idea of re-leasing the separate units to new tenants in this case?
4. What is an easy way to check/understand the most relevant zoning status/issue that I should be concerned with for a given property?
5. If anyone here has purchased one of these properties, what was your research process/spreadsheet and other thoughts?
6. What are some other things to know about buying an NYC building like this? I have already researched flip tax, mansion tax, co-op, mortgage recording tax, and some other terms but learning something new every day.

I appreciate any feedback, hoping this doesn't yield a lot of hate!

23F. I am not sure of my exact weight but I know that I am not overweight, and admittedly my lifestyle has been quite sedentary with scattered, short bursts of physical activity but nothing consistent.
For the past few years I have had pain in my right hip flexor but nothing unmanageable. Within the last 7-8 months I’ve developed sciatic nerve pain. And for longer than I can remember, I have had pain on the right side of my upper hip/lower back area. The last part I’ve often contributed to how I sit, usually with my back rounded and tilted towards my left side, especially if I am writing.
In the last 2 months the pain has gotten much worse and to the point it sometimes feels like my leg will buckle out from under me. My job sometimes requires me to be on my feet a lot and I have been working a lot of extra shifts, I notice the pain is worse after I’ve done a double. Being on my feet a lot definitely aggravates it. The upper hip/lower back pain stays even when I am sitting down but the buttock and thigh pain go away. During a hike recently I had to be supported by someone else to make it to the end because the pain got so bad to the point of tears.
Pelvic X-Ray came back unremarkable. Where do I turn from here? Is there other imaging I should be asking for?
Diagrams with pain location markings

On the night when it all happened a young man called Smallmouth found himself in quite a pickle. He shivered and paced clumsily all over the second story porch of a cabin that used to be very nice, which overlooked a snowy down-sloping field that used to be kept up properly and carefully. He was already six packs deep into a carton of cigarettes he had bought only two days ago from a Casey’s General Store on his way up. He could recall the look on the young woman’s face at the register when he asked for a carton of Parliament Menthols, her eyes showing one blink of humorous surprise and another couple blinks of obvious concern, which faded to professional indifference as she rang in the sweet, icy killers. Smallmouth stopped his nervous dallying when he caught himself in the kitchen window; a large, shadowy figure sulking between the inside lights and the cold, almost glowing world downhill. His eyes still on his murky reflection, he patted his coat pockets for his seventh pack, pulling it out and smacking it against his left palm before cracking open and lighting it at his mouth. In a slow, warm flash, he could briefly see his own face in the window.
“Oh man, it’s bad” , he thought to himself.
He hadn’t shaved in weeks and his beard grew coarse and thick. A face that his mother had once called handsome had become a clean plate covered in steel wool. Well, maybe not so clean. Under and around his eyes were the obvious bruising of sleeplessness and his skin had lost its lively color and clarity of yesteryear.
“Ughhh” he groaned, turning away from the window to look over the porch and into the freezing, beckoning night.
The pickle that Jeremy “Smallmouth” Bassett found himself in involved his uncle, and his uncle’s evening logistics, to be precise. Smallmouth had been kicked out of his parents home on December 27th due to a slight misunderstanding at 2am when he believed the living room Christmas tree to be the downstairs bathroom. He had passed out on the couch after drinking a fire pit full of crushed Hamm’s cans and his brain tried desperately to get him up and to the nearby toilet. His little sister Stacy was tucked in fast asleep on a loveseat by the tree when she was brutally torn from her sugarplum dreams to hear the terrible hiss of Smallmouth’s folly. She screamed, the parents woke up, and, well, there you go. After well over three strikes, Smallmouth’s temporary residence had come to an end, and he was thrown to his mother’s brother’s cabin to dry up and straighten out before he could ever even be considered to return.
“You two deserve to live together. He can’t say no either because he owes me a lot more than this!” Smallmouth’s mother had screeched over him as he sat at the kitchen table the following morning with a cold bag of peas against his throbbing right temple. “You go there and you GET RIGHT!! I don’t care how long it takes just clean up your act and MAKE something of yourself! And for goodness sake tell Chuck to do the same, while he still has time!”
Yes, Uncle Chuck had his own shelf full of good time problems, and that’s what put Smallmouth in a bind tonight as he pondered over the white yonder that led to a black nothing, a black nothing that in the daylight pretended to be a forest. At night, it showed its true nature, an endless world of dark secrets and aching regret. At least that’s how Smallmouth saw it in this moment.
Chuck had gone down to the ranch he worked on for a New Years party with his work buddies. They liked to gather at the big barn where all of the vehicles and equipment were kept, sitting around a card table passing out stories about women and other trophy game that were either outright lied about or illegally poached. Oh, and they also liked to pass the bottle around. Therein lied the conundrum for Smallmouth.
Uncle Chuck was many things, but one thing he wasn’t was a drunk driver. Chuck’s wife Rebecca had been struck and killed by a drunk driver almost ten years ago when she was out jogging the back roads early one morning. Everyone assumed that’s what led him to his openly hard drinking and sneakily pill popping ways in the first place. For Chuck, most nights were kept at home, parked in front of a TV watching old westerns and cleaning out a full bottle of Wild Turkey 101 before snoring in his recliner. On the few nights he would go out, he would always call a ride if things got out of hand. As you can imagine, he tends to need a ride home.
“I should be home bout 11:30. Service ain’t so good up there near the barn so if it gets bout 11:15-11:20 and I ain’t home, go head and do me a favor and come grab me son.” Chuck had told Smallmouth before he left, closing the warped screen door behind him.
Smallmouth had spent the evening trying his best to stay entertained without the help of any chemical enhancement. His family’s anger and resentment really struck him and this time he was determined to truly get right and get his life back on the rails. He was 29 years old. He had gone through college clean as a whistle, bright and driven, receiving his MBA with plans to work his way up in a promising career in business. That worked for a couple years. Then he found a calling in ministry, deciding to quit the corporate world to fill an opening of a tiny country church in the area. They needed a deacon who could take care of things around the building and assist in the worship service. He wasn’t much for public speaking, haven been given the nickname Smallmouth at a young age due to his soft spoken nature, but he could pass plates and give a hushed prayer every now and then. He liked to mow and paint and help old ladies up the stairs. The quiet country life was really nice for him, for a while. Strange, radical ideas eventually spread through the church though, and half of its members left overnight to form their own congregation. Its funding cut in half, the church had to close its doors and the other members absorbed into other churches. Smallmouth rarely ever saw the people that had departed from the church, but rumors creeped that they met at an old abandoned building deep in the woods, performing all sorts of different acts and rituals that would purify themselves and destroy all evils. Nevertheless, Smallmouth was out of work and picked up shifts bartending at a small town dive. His soft fortitude was no match for the booze and drugs and women that would pass through there and soon he was out the door. That landed him mooching off of his parents, draining their sanity and eventually draining himself on their Christmas tree. The last strike.
So there he was all night, waiting up for uncle Chuck. He was two days clean of everything except caffeine and nicotine, a major improvement. He felt a boost of hope and confidence the first morning after a sober nights sleep. He found the mornings to be the best parts of the day. At least he had coffee and cigarettes to get him out of bed. That would wear off quickly and the rest of the day was filled with trying to find distractions until the sun set about 5pm. Then he would watch a movie or two with Chuck. Last night he had been able to call it early and go to sleep at 7pm shortly after Chuck started sawing logs in front of True Grit (the original John Wayne version of course). Tonight he saw 7pm struggle and churn into 8…….8:13……..8:48……9:05……9:29………..9:31………9:52……..9:58……….10:11…….10:12 (oh cmon)……10:27…….10:56…….and finally 11:08. It was like the clock was a 35 year old four cylinder engine oiled with crunchy peanut butter. Now, crunch time sat in the cold air as Smallmouth finished his cigarette and stewed over his decision. He really didn’t feel like going down to the barn and getting Chuck, even though it was only a couple miles. In the infancy of his sobriety he found the smallest of choices and activities to seem dire and at the very least upsettingly out of his way. Surely Chuck can get himself home on his own, right?
“No. Who knows if someone’s Aunt Rebecca or grandmother or son is out there on the road tonight” he thought.
As much as he had tried to screw up his life, Smallmouth usually knew what the right decision would be, even if he so often refused to listen. It was there ever so clearly on this New Year’s Eve, wailing in the back row of his mind like a misbehaved child during a church sermon. Smallmouth left the porch and went inside to grab his keys.
He walked out to his truck, got in, cranked it, let it sit down to one rpm, and started down the gravel driveway, which led to the gravel county road that Chuck and his few and far between neighbors lived on. He got to the mailbox and suddenly shot his attention up the road, where headlights revealed themselves out of the deep dark. It was rare to see any cars this far down Chuck’s road. In fact, there were no other houses to the right of Chuck’s cabin, spare for a couple of empty ones that were condemned but were attached to a lot of forest property.
Smallmouth squinted his eyes as a large black Dodge Ram 3500 came barreling by with a livestock trailer. Even inside his own truck he could hear a terrible noise coming from that trailer. He recognized it instantly as a pig squeal.
“The hell?” He whispered as the truck and trailer tore down the road, going around a nearby corner and out of sight. He couldn’t guess what on earth that could be about at this hour, and especially since nobody lived down there anyway. He shrugged it off though, and turned left out of the driveway, headed for drunk Uncle Chuck down at the ranch.
Ten minutes and a couple of snowy country miles later Smallmouth found himself through the metal gate of the ranch and up to the main barn, where a couple of smiling ranch hands had Chuck held up between them just outside one of two closed garage doors. A lamppost nearby cast a glow of debauchery on all of their faces, especially Chuck’s. Smallmouth got out and walked up to them smiling and shaking his head.
“Well well well…” he said with a slight laugh.
“Your Uncle put on one hell of a clinic tonight ‘Mouth” one of the hands said.
“I…..I….I don’t know what they’re tawlkin bout son” Chuck slang out before a high pitched giggle.
“I got another couple rounds in me I thinks!”
Smallmouth laughed.
“Yeah I ain’t so sure about that uncle! Let’s get on home now and let these fellas get on too.”
“Y’alright alright” Chuck said as Smallmouth took him from his buddies arms into one of his own and led him to the passenger seat of his truck.
“Happy New Years boys!!! Let’s do it all again okay?” He hollered to his waving buddies as they drove back away from the barn and through the metal gate toward home.
“You have a good time Uncle?”
“Oh…ohhh…I reckon I showed those boys how to do it” Another childish giggle.
A light snow shower seasoned the cold air as the truck rolled down the gravel country road. In the yellow headlights it made a pleasant white noise for the eyes. Chuck put his hands up staggered and vertically, fingers together and outstretched, pointing out in front of the truck down the road like he was aiming up for a rifle shot. He closed one eye.
“Straight as an arrow ole son. You’re good at this.”
“I ain’t drunk pops” Smallmouth chuckled.
“Sure ya are. Everybody’s drunk son. Even people that ain’t drink. Ticket is to get drunk on good stuff” Chuck’s face calmed from a goofy grin as he kept his eyes out front into the slow swirling tube of visible night.
“You sound like you’re drunk on some pretty damn good stuff” Smallmouth retorted as they shared a look and a good laugh.
“Suppose’n you ain’t wrong. Gotta work on that just like you are. Proud o’ you for a couple days clean man. We’ll get right. We’ll get right. All I meant was that man is born to get drunk on somethin’ or other. What I mean is God. Man is born to get drunk on his God.” Chuck said as Smallmouth shot him a raised eyebrow look of confusion.
“Once God gets ya drunk then you’re home free ol’ son. That distillery is never ending eternal forever. That land flows with whiskey and honey.” They both shared another laugh.
“Okay okay I think I somewhat understand now Uncle.”
They rode in a few seconds of comfortable silence before Chuck put his hands up in an aim position down the road again.
“You know…man….man….man has a GOVERNOR…..you know that right?”
“A what? A governor?”
“That’s right a GOVERNOR…that’s right…a little bitty device in his brain that keeps him on the road…keeps him from turning right off into the dark. You ever hear that little voice that tells you you can turn off into the ditch…into oncomin’ traffic? Tells you you can shoot your buddy instead of the deer? That you can jump off the top of the building and onto the pavement when you’re up there enjoying the view?”
“I…uh…I don’t know…I mean maybe? Pretty sure those are intrusive thoughts and they’re normal.”
“Well whatever they are that’s what the governor is for. Keeps ya straight. Keeps ya from harmin nothin.”
“Alright man, alright.”
They pulled back into Chuck’s driveway and parked. Smallmouth helped his uncle out of the truck and up into the cabin, snow starting to color the roof and pile against the side of the house near the door. Arms locked Smallmouth propped open the screen door, opened the inner door, and led Chuck through the kitchen and to his bedroom. Chuck layed down on his camo comforter with a deep, long exhale.
“Ahhhh yes……yes” he whispered with a smile.
“I love ya son…I’m glad you’re heeeeere. Let’s get better….your mom needs it…..stay in the Lord’s light son…don’t let them devils get ya….let’s get better….lets….” He was off into the distant deep ether almost immediately, and his mouth hung open.
“Goodnight uncle…love ya too.” Smallmouth patted the bed twice before walking over and closing the bedroom door behind him.
He went and sat at the kitchen table. He regretted his behavior earlier in the night. How it pained him to have to stay up a little later to go help out his uncle.
“Cmon…” he whispered.
He agreed with Chuck. He was here to get better. To do better. Maybe Chuck was right. If he couldn’t get drunk off booze, it was time to pick something else to drink. Better things. Maybe even God? Smallmouth hadn’t paid much mind to God since his church job fell through. God surely hadn’t been there for him these last few years when he was at his lowest. Or was He there the whole time? Had Smallmouth just ignored Him? These things floated heavily in his mind and soon he realized he had been staring at the front door for several minutes. Had he even blinked? Then something else came to mind.
“Wait hold up”
That truck and trailer from earlier. What WAS that? He meant to bring it up to the ranch hands. They would’ve seen it come barreling down the road right by their front gate. Oh he wished he had brought that up to them. Oh well. It’s probably nothing. Smallmouth looked at the clock. 12:12.
“Happy New Year old boy.” He said to himself.
He sat for a moment in the warm kitchen light, his eyes not leaving the front door. Well, he’s up this late already, why not go run down and check on the abandoned properties?
No…no…it can wait. It’s probably nothing. Right?
Wrong. There’s that wailing kid in the back pew of his mind again. Come on kid can’t you just be quiet and listen to the sermon? No, no it can’t. It must be heard. Always. He knew he had to go check it out.
“Ughhhh FINE!” Smallmouth got up and grabbed his truck keys, patted to make sure his cigarettes were still there, and was out the door again.
The snow shower had ended. As he pulled up to the edge of the drive, he stalled for a moment and peaked out as far to the right as he could down the dark road. Nothing. It wasn’t very far to the end of that road, where two out of service mailboxes should’ve stood in a small cul-de-sac if it weren’t for teenagers beating them to splinters. Can’t really blame them either. Smallmouth considered his plan. Whether or not that truck belonged to the landowner down there, he shouldn’t feel like he needs to sneak around. He is merely a concerned neighbor after all. He began down the road and around that same corner the stranger disappeared earlier.
After a couple of slow, curious minutes Smallmouth could see the evidence of a great big fire in the near distance, beyond where the road ended. Through the bare trees and against the snow it cast orange and red that could surely be seen a mile in every direction, that is, if there were anyone there to see it.
Slightly intimidated, Smallmouth decided to turn off his headlights and let the fire guide him as he slowed up to 5mph and gently crackled his last few yards of gravel up to the remnants of the nearest mailbox post. It seemed the fire was on the land of the farther property, whose mailbox posthole was about 30 feet from where he came to a stop and parked his truck. Smallmouth turned it off and quietly got out into the cold. He crouched down as he walked over to the farther driveway, getting down on one knee to give it a stealthy closer look.
The abandoned property boasted a busted up trailer that sat pitifully about 500 feet from the mailbox memorial. Beyond that was a good ten acres of field that ended at the forest edge, which marked the beginning of thousands of acres of wildlife refuge. As Smallmouth peered on, it was obvious that the fire was way out in that field, blocked by the old trailer, which wore the hot light and columns of smoke on it like a devilish crown. Given the cover, Smallmouth crept over to the trailer and started easing around the right side.
Rounding the corner he noticed a propane tank that would be perfect for hiding behind and getting the best look he could at the mysterious activity. He got down on his belly and crawled his way over to the tank, before sitting up and peeking slowly over the top and out into the field.
Way down there, a couple acres away from the tree line, was a huge fire, made up of about fifty wooden pallets. It raged and lit up the whole field like it was just the beginning of sunset. Somewhat near the fire was the black Dodge Ram 3500 and trailer. Smallmouth could see a group of people dressed in all red, as if covered in bloody bedsheets from head to toe, circled around a crude cage, seemingly fastened together by pieces of metal fencing. They stood still as the pines, and twice as silent. Smallmouth, in a rare moment of curious courage, decided he had to get closer. He got back on his stomach and began to crawl through the cold, knee high grass.
Using the fire light as his North Star he crawled and crawled, feeling his hands, clothes, and beard get wet with snow. He didn’t care. Something was up that wasn’t normal, wasn’t right. He could feel it in his cold gut. When he thought he was close enough without giving himself away he planted his palms and ever so slowly raised his torso up into a weak push up to try and see out. He was glad he didn’t go any further. He may have been too close already.
He was close enough to read the name of the truck and count the holes in the livestock trailer. There were seven strangers in red sheets all around the makeshift cage, all holding long spears. One of the figures had a crown of black thorns on his head. They all had two eyeholes and one hole for the mouth. They didn’t move a muscle for the longest time, before the Crowned One forcibly touched the end of his spear to the ground.
“Now is the time, Brother and Farmer Abraham…there is no more for us in waiting.”
Smallmouth had just noticed the passenger window to the black Dodge was down, and he could hear the driver door open and soon saw a normal looking older man in a ball cap at the back of the trailer. He was holding a leash of some sort. He opened up the trailer and whistled into the dark of it. After a couple of loud, heavy thuds a gigantic, and I mean GIGANTIC Yorkshire pig came slowly shrugging out of the trailer. It was light pink in color but filthy, and gave wet sounding oinks as it came to the man’s hands expecting food. The thing must’ve weighed 1500 pounds, and at least ten feet long. It actually had to lower its head to reach the man’s hands, its ears coming up to the man’s chest. Smallmouth couldn’t believe his eyes. The man reached in his pocket and revealed a handful of some type of feed, which he tossed on the ground at the pig. It started right in as the man fixed a collar on the pigs girthy neck, then attaching a leash. The pig gave a slight squeal.
“Good girl, good girl…cmon now” the man called Farmer Abraham sweetly coaxed the animal. He gave his end of the leash a tug and the monstrous swine reluctantly left its food and followed the man over close to the Crowned One. The fire raged and raged nearby, throwing crazy shadows all over the place.
“What have you brought us, Brother and Farmer Abraham?”
“Yeah, uh, this is Old Azazel, she’s been in my family for years, man.”
The Crowned One dropped his spear and knelt down to the jowls of the hog, the dark holes of his eyes meeting those of the animal. The other red cloaked figures remained statuesque around the cage.
“Ah, yes, Old Azazel, hello. You are to be of great importance in the history of the Earth tonight, old friend.”
The Crowned One got back up to address Brother and Father Abraham, who seemed obviously put off, yet submissive.
“And is this Old Azazel a natural specimen? Is it fed only of the earth and the filths therein?”
“Yessir, I’d reckon so.”
“This is necessary for a proper sacrifice, Brother and Farmer Abraham. You may only bring your best, your cleanest, your most dear to the alter of the Almighty.”
“I understand.”
“May I take her now?”
The farmer gave his end of the leash to the black gloved left hand of the Crowned One. The Crowned one stood with it for almost a full minute in total stillness and silence. The only noise Smallmouth could hear was the sloppy smacks and oinks from Old Azazel. The farmer anxiously waited, wringing his hands expecting the next move from the Crowned One.
“Turn away, Brother and Farmer Abraham. Turn away from us and toward the fire now.” The Crowned One finally spoke.
“Phew, alright. We’re still good on our deal? Do you still promise to make my little girl better? Like you said?” The farmer asked, with some hopeful desperation.
“Turn now.”
“Well okay” the farmer turned his back to the Crowned One and toward the fire.
“I can assure you with all of the knowledge in my mind and in my heart, you will never see your daughter sick again in this lifetime, Brother and Father Abraham. You may find peace and solace in this truth.”
The farmer nodded in relief as he looked upon the fire. Smallmouth, taking it all in with great confusion, could see a smile on the farmers fire lit face, and turned back to the Crowned One just in time to see him reach under his red garment and pull out a pistol and shoot a round into the back of the farmers head, blowing his cap off, which frisbeed down near his shaking, crumpled body. Old Azazel threw a fit immediately, screaming and trying her best to flee. The Crowned One held the immense beast with one hand, and with seemingly little effort. The other red clothed figures finally made noise, laughing deep and heartily around the cage. The Crowned One, keeping Old Azazel close, walked over to the doubled over farmer, putting two more bullets into his head, essentially hollowing it out into a carnal mess. The farmers shaking mercifully stopped.
Smallmouth had to slam his forearm up to his mouth to muffle the scream that would’ve come out and blown his cover. His eyes were flown wide open and his arms were shivering.
The Crowned One put the pistol back under his red cloak and led the great pig, still squealing as high pitched and piercing as the human ear can withstand, over to the mouth of the cage, which was opened by the nearest red clothed stranger. Old Azazel flew in to the cage, having been unleashed by The Crowned One. It struggled around the cage, which was no bigger than 15x15 feet, giving it no room to get comfortable. It circled the inner perimeter, showing impressive speed for such a large animal. It squealed and squealed. The sound stung Smallmouths ears, and he covered them with his hands. He was still out of sight in the tall grass. The Red People around the cage laughed at the hogs entrapment. The Crowned One raised a hand to signal silence. The Red People were still and quiet again.
“Now, my brothers, the sacrificial gift is in our possession. Tonight…is a HOLY NIGHT.” The Crowned One raised his voice as if getting to the climax of a fire and brimstone sermon.
“TONIGHT…WE WILL DESTROY WHAT WAS ONCE CAST OUT BUT NEVER VANQUISHED!! WE WILL RID THE EARTH OF A GREAT ARMY!! AN ARMY OF HELL THAT HAS FAR TOO LONG ROAMED AND SICKENED OUR LANDS AND KILLED OUR LOVES!! TONIGHT…WE WILL DESTROY THE DESTROYERS…THE LEGION OF SATANS SOLDIERS BORN JUST AFTER THE GARDEN OF EDEN FELL…”
The Crowned One fell to his knees, his arms up and stretched toward the frozen sky. A mighty wind began blowing at Smallmouths back. He had to lower his head as it roared over him. After a moment it calmed and he was able to lift up again to see. Winds from all corners of the field met at the cage, swirling over it in a great snowy funnel that led up to the clouds. Old Azazel screamed and screamed from the cage.
“I SEE YOU VILLIANS!! I HEAR YOU HOSTS OF HELL!! I KNOW YOU LIVE IN THESE TREES!! I KNOW YOU COWER WITHIN THE SOUND OF MY VOICE!! SHOW YOURSELF!! TAKE THE BODY OF THIS ANIMAL THAT I HAVE SET BEFORE YOU!! TAKE IT NOW!! TAKE IT NOW AND FACE ME!! TAKE IT NOW!! TAKE IT NOW!! TAKE I-“
The Crowned One’s vocal cord shredding performance was cut short by a single burst of black lightning that shot down from the middle of the snowy funnel cloud that surrounded the cage. The Crowned One and all the Red People were thrown several feet back from the blast. Thunder immediately exploded across the field. Smallmouth buried his face as the force and sound raced over him. Ears ringing, he kept his face down for a few seconds. He squinted back up to the strike zone.
The strange black lightning had blown the cage completely apart. Two of The Red People had been hit with the metal fencing. One laid motionless. The other gargled in pain as he put a hand to the pole that was sticking out of his sternum, having penetrated all the way through. His legs buckled and he fell forward, the end of the pole hitting the ground first and propping him up for a moment, before his body slowly slid down to the ground around the metal. He went silent. The other four Red People, yelling in surprise, gathered themselves, looking to the charred hole in the ground where Old Azazel should be, right in the center where the cage used to stand. The Crowned One got to his feet and picked up his spear.
“My brothers, gather your arms…” the Crowned One whispered, breathing heavily under his red cloak.
“The work is not over…”
The four remaining Red People grabbed their spears and slowly walked over to the burnt, smoking hole, holding an attack pose over it until further instructions were given.
“Are you with us, you age old tormentors?” This was the first time Smallmouth could hear fear in the tired voice of the Crowned One.
“Are you with us now? Are you ready to die, you infernal bastards? Are you ready to-“
The Crowned One was interrupted by a booming noise from the hole that tore Smallmouths wits to shreds. It was similar to the cry of Old Azazel, but much deeper and ten times louder and angrier. It was as if a freight train was blaring its horn and slamming its brakes at the same time.
“NOW MY BROTHERS!! STRIKE THE BEAST OF HELL WITH YOUR SPEARS! NOW!!!”
The Red People all threw their weapons down into the smoking hole. The hellish noise from within stopped in an instant. The Red People crowded closer to the edge of the hole, waiting for the smoke to clear. The Crowned One walked over to them, putting his black gloved hand on the shoulder of the nearest man.
“Oh, Brothers. Oh my dear, dear Brothers. Your acts tonight have rid the earth of a Great and Powerful Evil…”
Before he could continue, a fully enraged and re-inspired bellow thrust itself up and out of the hole like a serrated blade. Much, much louder and angrier than before. The Red People were taken aback in terror. Suddenly, from within the hole, a large head emerged and gaped a huge, disgusting maw up at the crowd. The head was burned black and its eyes were half boiled white and without pupils. It shrieked out that most terrible noise as if it didn’t need oxygen.
“There’s no way” Smallmouth heard himself say under his breath.
All in one motion, the beast leaped out of the hole, and turned to face its attackers. It was Old Azazel, except swollen with burnt mass. It appeared to have grown a half a size at least. Three spears stuck out of its sizzling, charcoal colored back. It snapped its gigantic jaws at the Red People, who shuddered in horror. The Crowned One spoke:
“DO NOT RELENT BROTHERS!! ATTACK!! ATTACK THE BRUTE!!”
He pulled his pistol back out of his cloak and fired the remaining three rounds on the new and horrible black burnt Old Azazel. The beast’s cloudy boiled egg eyes shot open along with its unnaturally stretched jaws. It took the three bullets as if they were tennis balls. At the speed of a charging grizzly and with multiple times the power Old Azazel raged over to The Crowned One and dove onto him mouth first, putting both front hooves on his chest as he was knocked down. The Crowned One cried out in a shockingly high pitched wail, like a man being electrocuted. The Beast bit right into the soft of his belly, and began to shake him around like an Orca trying to separate a seal from its pelt.
“OH GOD!!!! AHHHHHH GOD OHHHHH!!! HELP ME!!!! NOOOO!!!! OH GOD HELP ME!!!! MAMA!!!! OHHHH!!! MAMA!!!!!”
The beast ate and ate and shook and shook and tore and broke and destroyed while the Crowned One lost more and more of his body, all while crying out to the sky at the top of his punctured lungs. The other Red People sprinted to the black Dodge Ram, opened its doors and piled inside. Smallmouth heard it crank up and it began to speedily turn around and race away from the fire and back toward the road. The beast unhooked from the Crowned One and let out another ghastly roar of victory before biting into his neck, ending his screaming forever. The beast then left his half devoured body and began a tremendous and terrible charge after the truck, which was greatly slowed down by the trailer. Smallmouth put his face down as the beast passed him by only about 10 feet on its way to the truck, which had just made it back to the road and was using every RPM possible to get away from the demon charged killing machine on its heels. Smallmouth turned around to watch both parties disappear down the road, the echoes of that great and evil blasting noise stabbing his ears again. He remained on his stomach in the tall, snowy grass for another two minutes as he normalized his breath and tried to make any sense of what he just witnessed.
Eventually he slowly rose up and looked to make sure that terrible thing was indeed out of the area. No signs of life or death from up at the road. The danger was at least a couple miles away by now. Smallmouth then turned back toward the fire and to the dominated body of the Crowned One. He carefully walked up closer and closer. To his amazement he heard wheezy noises coming from the emptied out torso of the man, a scattering of insides and flesh and blood strewn all around him. Troubled, rattling breaths escaped from under the red clothed head, whose crown of thorns had flown off in the attack. Most of the red cloak had been ripped to shreds, and all that remained covered were his shoulders and above. The cloth slowly ebbed and flowed with breath. Smallmouth could not believe this man was still alive. His entire digestive system was eviscerated and his ribs were exposed. Smallmouth knelt down beside him and lifted his cloak over his head to let him at least breathe his last in the open air.
Smallmouth let out a gasp. This man had a face that Smallmouth knew very well. He recognized him immediately from the old church he worked at. The clean shaven face. The short, silver hair. The sharp nose. This was a man that had joined his church two weeks before the schism. He never spoke in church but it was rumored he would meet at the homes of different members and try to sway them to his strange ideas. He was the one rumored to have led the radical faction somewhere in the middle of the woods. To Smallmouth, it was all starting to make more sense.
“I know you,” Smallmouth said softly, “I know who you are. You tore a church in half didn’t you? You’re the crazy guy that split up my ole church! What the hell have you done?”
The man struggled to breathe and tried his best to spit up a couple of words. His neck had deep lacerations that flowed with escaping life.
“I…I…I…uhh…I only…I only…I only did what I believed…” he whispered before a wet, stifled breath.
“What did you do?!!!” Smallmouth grew angry, and his voice followed suit. This man had ruined his job and now he had unleashed something horrifying on his neighborhood. He had tampered with things that man has no business tampering with.
“I…I…I have…have…I have failed, Smallmouth Bassett” the man croaked. Smallmouth couldn’t believe he had bothered to remember his name.
“I have failed. I have failed. God help you all…” with that the man’s face fell and he let out one last slow exhale before all was still.
Smallmouth got back on his feet and looked away from the dead man and toward the fire, which towered and raged in the reflection of his eyes.
“Oh no…oh no…oh no” he said in between terrified breaths.
Then another though hit him like a wrecking ball.
“Uncle Chuck…”

On the night when it all happened a young man called Smallmouth found himself in quite a pickle. He shivered and paced clumsily all over the second story porch of a cabin that used to be very nice, which overlooked a snowy down-sloping field that used to be kept up properly and carefully. He was already six packs deep into a carton of cigarettes he had bought only two days ago from a Casey’s General Store on his way up. He could recall the look on the young woman’s face at the register when he asked for a carton of Parliament Menthols, her eyes showing one blink of humorous surprise and another couple blinks of obvious concern, which faded to professional indifference as she rang in the sweet, icy killers. Smallmouth stopped his nervous dallying when he caught himself in the kitchen window; a large, shadowy figure sulking between the inside lights and the cold, almost glowing world downhill. His eyes still on his murky reflection, he patted his coat pockets for his seventh pack, pulling it out and smacking it against his left palm before cracking open and lighting it at his mouth. In a slow, warm flash, he could briefly see his own face in the window.
“Oh man, it’s bad” , he thought to himself.
He hadn’t shaved in weeks and his beard grew coarse and thick. A face that his mother had once called handsome had become a clean plate covered in steel wool. Well, maybe not so clean. Under and around his eyes were the obvious bruising of sleeplessness and his skin had lost its lively color and clarity of yesteryear.
“Ughhh” he groaned, turning away from the window to look over the porch and into the freezing, beckoning night.
The pickle that Jeremy “Smallmouth” Bassett found himself in involved his uncle, and his uncle’s evening logistics, to be precise. Smallmouth had been kicked out of his parents home on December 27th due to a slight misunderstanding at 2am when he believed the living room Christmas tree to be the downstairs bathroom. He had passed out on the couch after drinking a fire pit full of crushed Hamm’s cans and his brain tried desperately to get him up and to the nearby toilet. His little sister Stacy was tucked in fast asleep on a loveseat by the tree when she was brutally torn from her sugarplum dreams to hear the terrible hiss of Smallmouth’s folly. She screamed, the parents woke up, and, well, there you go. After well over three strikes, Smallmouth’s temporary residence had come to an end, and he was thrown to his mother’s brother’s cabin to dry up and straighten out before he could ever even be considered to return.
“You two deserve to live together. He can’t say no either because he owes me a lot more than this!” Smallmouth’s mother had screeched over him as he sat at the kitchen table the following morning with a cold bag of peas against his throbbing right temple. “You go there and you GET RIGHT!! I don’t care how long it takes just clean up your act and MAKE something of yourself! And for goodness sake tell Chuck to do the same, while he still has time!”
Yes, Uncle Chuck had his own shelf full of good time problems, and that’s what put Smallmouth in a bind tonight as he pondered over the white yonder that led to a black nothing, a black nothing that in the daylight pretended to be a forest. At night, it showed its true nature, an endless world of dark secrets and aching regret. At least that’s how Smallmouth saw it in this moment.
Chuck had gone down to the ranch he worked on for a New Years party with his work buddies. They liked to gather at the big barn where all of the vehicles and equipment were kept, sitting around a card table passing out stories about women and other trophy game that were either outright lied about or illegally poached. Oh, and they also liked to pass the bottle around. Therein lied the conundrum for Smallmouth.
Uncle Chuck was many things, but one thing he wasn’t was a drunk driver. Chuck’s wife Rebecca had been struck and killed by a drunk driver almost ten years ago when she was out jogging the back roads early one morning. Everyone assumed that’s what led him to his openly hard drinking and sneakily pill popping ways in the first place. For Chuck, most nights were kept at home, parked in front of a TV watching old westerns and cleaning out a full bottle of Wild Turkey 101 before snoring in his recliner. On the few nights he would go out, he would always call a ride if things got out of hand. As you can imagine, he tends to need a ride home.
“I should be home bout 11:30. Service ain’t so good up there near the barn so if it gets bout 11:15-11:20 and I ain’t home, go head and do me a favor and come grab me son.” Chuck had told Smallmouth before he left, closing the warped screen door behind him.
Smallmouth had spent the evening trying his best to stay entertained without the help of any chemical enhancement. His family’s anger and resentment really struck him and this time he was determined to truly get right and get his life back on the rails. He was 29 years old. He had gone through college clean as a whistle, bright and driven, receiving his MBA with plans to work his way up in a promising career in business. That worked for a couple years. Then he found a calling in ministry, deciding to quit the corporate world to fill an opening of a tiny country church in the area. They needed a deacon who could take care of things around the building and assist in the worship service. He wasn’t much for public speaking, haven been given the nickname Smallmouth at a young age due to his soft spoken nature, but he could pass plates and give a hushed prayer every now and then. He liked to mow and paint and help old ladies up the stairs. The quiet country life was really nice for him, for a while. Strange, radical ideas eventually spread through the church though, and half of its members left overnight to form their own congregation. Its funding cut in half, the church had to close its doors and the other members absorbed into other churches. Smallmouth rarely ever saw the people that had departed from the church, but rumors creeped that they met at an old abandoned building deep in the woods, performing all sorts of different acts and rituals that would purify themselves and destroy all evils. Nevertheless, Smallmouth was out of work and picked up shifts bartending at a small town dive. His soft fortitude was no match for the booze and drugs and women that would pass through there and soon he was out the door. That landed him mooching off of his parents, draining their sanity and eventually draining himself on their Christmas tree. The last strike.
So there he was all night, waiting up for uncle Chuck. He was two days clean of everything except caffeine and nicotine, a major improvement. He felt a boost of hope and confidence the first morning after a sober nights sleep. He found the mornings to be the best parts of the day. At least he had coffee and cigarettes to get him out of bed. That would wear off quickly and the rest of the day was filled with trying to find distractions until the sun set about 5pm. Then he would watch a movie or two with Chuck. Last night he had been able to call it early and go to sleep at 7pm shortly after Chuck started sawing logs in front of True Grit (the original John Wayne version of course). Tonight he saw 7pm struggle and churn into 8…….8:13……..8:48……9:05……9:29………..9:31………9:52……..9:58……….10:11…….10:12 (oh cmon)……10:27…….10:56…….and finally 11:08. It was like the clock was a 35 year old four cylinder engine oiled with crunchy peanut butter. Now, crunch time sat in the cold air as Smallmouth finished his cigarette and stewed over his decision. He really didn’t feel like going down to the barn and getting Chuck, even though it was only a couple miles. In the infancy of his sobriety he found the smallest of choices and activities to seem dire and at the very least upsettingly out of his way. Surely Chuck can get himself home on his own, right?
“No. Who knows if someone’s Aunt Rebecca or grandmother or son is out there on the road tonight” he thought.
As much as he had tried to screw up his life, Smallmouth usually knew what the right decision would be, even if he so often refused to listen. It was there ever so clearly on this New Year’s Eve, wailing in the back row of his mind like a misbehaved child during a church sermon. Smallmouth left the porch and went inside to grab his keys.
He walked out to his truck, got in, cranked it, let it sit down to one rpm, and started down the gravel driveway, which led to the gravel county road that Chuck and his few and far between neighbors lived on. He got to the mailbox and suddenly shot his attention up the road, where headlights revealed themselves out of the deep dark. It was rare to see any cars this far down Chuck’s road. In fact, there were no other houses to the right of Chuck’s cabin, spare for a couple of empty ones that were condemned but were attached to a lot of forest property.
Smallmouth squinted his eyes as a large black Dodge Ram 3500 came barreling by with a livestock trailer. Even inside his own truck he could hear a terrible noise coming from that trailer. He recognized it instantly as a pig squeal.
“The hell?” He whispered as the truck and trailer tore down the road, going around a nearby corner and out of sight. He couldn’t guess what on earth that could be about at this hour, and especially since nobody lived down there anyway. He shrugged it off though, and turned left out of the driveway, headed for drunk Uncle Chuck down at the ranch.
Ten minutes and a couple of snowy country miles later Smallmouth found himself through the metal gate of the ranch and up to the main barn, where a couple of smiling ranch hands had Chuck held up between them just outside one of two closed garage doors. A lamppost nearby cast a glow of debauchery on all of their faces, especially Chuck’s. Smallmouth got out and walked up to them smiling and shaking his head.
“Well well well…” he said with a slight laugh.
“Your Uncle put on one hell of a clinic tonight ‘Mouth” one of the hands said.
“I…..I….I don’t know what they’re tawlkin bout son” Chuck slang out before a high pitched giggle.
“I got another couple rounds in me I thinks!”
Smallmouth laughed.
“Yeah I ain’t so sure about that uncle! Let’s get on home now and let these fellas get on too.”
“Y’alright alright” Chuck said as Smallmouth took him from his buddies arms into one of his own and led him to the passenger seat of his truck.
“Happy New Years boys!!! Let’s do it all again okay?” He hollered to his waving buddies as they drove back away from the barn and through the metal gate toward home.
“You have a good time Uncle?”
“Oh…ohhh…I reckon I showed those boys how to do it” Another childish giggle.
A light snow shower seasoned the cold air as the truck rolled down the gravel country road. In the yellow headlights it made a pleasant white noise for the eyes. Chuck put his hands up staggered and vertically, fingers together and outstretched, pointing out in front of the truck down the road like he was aiming up for a rifle shot. He closed one eye.
“Straight as an arrow ole son. You’re good at this.”
“I ain’t drunk pops” Smallmouth chuckled.
“Sure ya are. Everybody’s drunk son. Even people that ain’t drink. Ticket is to get drunk on good stuff” Chuck’s face calmed from a goofy grin as he kept his eyes out front into the slow swirling tube of visible night.
“You sound like you’re drunk on some pretty damn good stuff” Smallmouth retorted as they shared a look and a good laugh.
“Suppose’n you ain’t wrong. Gotta work on that just like you are. Proud o’ you for a couple days clean man. We’ll get right. We’ll get right. All I meant was that man is born to get drunk on somethin’ or other. What I mean is God. Man is born to get drunk on his God.” Chuck said as Smallmouth shot him a raised eyebrow look of confusion.
“Once God gets ya drunk then you’re home free ol’ son. That distillery is never ending eternal forever. That land flows with whiskey and honey.” They both shared another laugh.
“Okay okay I think I somewhat understand now Uncle.”
They rode in a few seconds of comfortable silence before Chuck put his hands up in an aim position down the road again.
“You know…man….man….man has a GOVERNOR…..you know that right?”
“A what? A governor?”
“That’s right a GOVERNOR…that’s right…a little bitty device in his brain that keeps him on the road…keeps him from turning right off into the dark. You ever hear that little voice that tells you you can turn off into the ditch…into oncomin’ traffic? Tells you you can shoot your buddy instead of the deer? That you can jump off the top of the building and onto the pavement when you’re up there enjoying the view?”
“I…uh…I don’t know…I mean maybe? Pretty sure those are intrusive thoughts and they’re normal.”
“Well whatever they are that’s what the governor is for. Keeps ya straight. Keeps ya from harmin nothin.”
“Alright man, alright.”
They pulled back into Chuck’s driveway and parked. Smallmouth helped his uncle out of the truck and up into the cabin, snow starting to color the roof and pile against the side of the house near the door. Arms locked Smallmouth propped open the screen door, opened the inner door, and led Chuck through the kitchen and to his bedroom. Chuck layed down on his camo comforter with a deep, long exhale.
“Ahhhh yes……yes” he whispered with a smile.
“I love ya son…I’m glad you’re heeeeere. Let’s get better….your mom needs it…..stay in the Lord’s light son…don’t let them devils get ya….let’s get better….lets….” He was off into the distant deep ether almost immediately, and his mouth hung open.
“Goodnight uncle…love ya too.” Smallmouth patted the bed twice before walking over and closing the bedroom door behind him.
He went and sat at the kitchen table. He regretted his behavior earlier in the night. How it pained him to have to stay up a little later to go help out his uncle.
“Cmon…” he whispered.
He agreed with Chuck. He was here to get better. To do better. Maybe Chuck was right. If he couldn’t get drunk off booze, it was time to pick something else to drink. Better things. Maybe even God? Smallmouth hadn’t paid much mind to God since his church job fell through. God surely hadn’t been there for him these last few years when he was at his lowest. Or was He there the whole time? Had Smallmouth just ignored Him? These things floated heavily in his mind and soon he realized he had been staring at the front door for several minutes. Had he even blinked? Then something else came to mind.
“Wait hold up”
That truck and trailer from earlier. What WAS that? He meant to bring it up to the ranch hands. They would’ve seen it come barreling down the road right by their front gate. Oh he wished he had brought that up to them. Oh well. It’s probably nothing. Smallmouth looked at the clock. 12:12.
“Happy New Year old boy.” He said to himself.
He sat for a moment in the warm kitchen light, his eyes not leaving the front door. Well, he’s up this late already, why not go run down and check on the abandoned properties?
No…no…it can wait. It’s probably nothing. Right?
Wrong. There’s that wailing kid in the back pew of his mind again. Come on kid can’t you just be quiet and listen to the sermon? No, no it can’t. It must be heard. Always. He knew he had to go check it out.
“Ughhhh FINE!” Smallmouth got up and grabbed his truck keys, patted to make sure his cigarettes were still there, and was out the door again.
The snow shower had ended. As he pulled up to the edge of the drive, he stalled for a moment and peaked out as far to the right as he could down the dark road. Nothing. It wasn’t very far to the end of that road, where two out of service mailboxes should’ve stood in a small cul-de-sac if it weren’t for teenagers beating them to splinters. Can’t really blame them either. Smallmouth considered his plan. Whether or not that truck belonged to the landowner down there, he shouldn’t feel like he needs to sneak around. He is merely a concerned neighbor after all. He began down the road and around that same corner the stranger disappeared earlier.
After a couple of slow, curious minutes Smallmouth could see the evidence of a great big fire in the near distance, beyond where the road ended. Through the bare trees and against the snow it cast orange and red that could surely be seen a mile in every direction, that is, if there were anyone there to see it.
Slightly intimidated, Smallmouth decided to turn off his headlights and let the fire guide him as he slowed up to 5mph and gently crackled his last few yards of gravel up to the remnants of the nearest mailbox post. It seemed the fire was on the land of the farther property, whose mailbox posthole was about 30 feet from where he came to a stop and parked his truck. Smallmouth turned it off and quietly got out into the cold. He crouched down as he walked over to the farther driveway, getting down on one knee to give it a stealthy closer look.
The abandoned property boasted a busted up trailer that sat pitifully about 500 feet from the mailbox memorial. Beyond that was a good ten acres of field that ended at the forest edge, which marked the beginning of thousands of acres of wildlife refuge. As Smallmouth peered on, it was obvious that the fire was way out in that field, blocked by the old trailer, which wore the hot light and columns of smoke on it like a devilish crown. Given the cover, Smallmouth crept over to the trailer and started easing around the right side.
Rounding the corner he noticed a propane tank that would be perfect for hiding behind and getting the best look he could at the mysterious activity. He got down on his belly and crawled his way over to the tank, before sitting up and peeking slowly over the top and out into the field.
Way down there, a couple acres away from the tree line, was a huge fire, made up of about fifty wooden pallets. It raged and lit up the whole field like it was just the beginning of sunset. Somewhat near the fire was the black Dodge Ram 3500 and trailer. Smallmouth could see a group of people dressed in all red, as if covered in bloody bedsheets from head to toe, circled around a crude cage, seemingly fastened together by pieces of metal fencing. They stood still as the pines, and twice as silent. Smallmouth, in a rare moment of curious courage, decided he had to get closer. He got back on his stomach and began to crawl through the cold, knee high grass.
Using the fire light as his North Star he crawled and crawled, feeling his hands, clothes, and beard get wet with snow. He didn’t care. Something was up that wasn’t normal, wasn’t right. He could feel it in his cold gut. When he thought he was close enough without giving himself away he planted his palms and ever so slowly raised his torso up into a weak push up to try and see out. He was glad he didn’t go any further. He may have been too close already.
He was close enough to read the name of the truck and count the holes in the livestock trailer. There were seven strangers in red sheets all around the makeshift cage, all holding long spears. One of the figures had a crown of black thorns on his head. They all had two eyeholes and one hole for the mouth. They didn’t move a muscle for the longest time, before the Crowned One forcibly touched the end of his spear to the ground.
“Now is the time, Brother and Farmer Abraham…there is no more for us in waiting.”
Smallmouth had just noticed the passenger window to the black Dodge was down, and he could hear the driver door open and soon saw a normal looking older man in a ball cap at the back of the trailer. He was holding a leash of some sort. He opened up the trailer and whistled into the dark of it. After a couple of loud, heavy thuds a gigantic, and I mean GIGANTIC Yorkshire pig came slowly shrugging out of the trailer. It was light pink in color but filthy, and gave wet sounding oinks as it came to the man’s hands expecting food. The thing must’ve weighed 1500 pounds, and at least ten feet long. It actually had to lower its head to reach the man’s hands, its ears coming up to the man’s chest. Smallmouth couldn’t believe his eyes. The man reached in his pocket and revealed a handful of some type of feed, which he tossed on the ground at the pig. It started right in as the man fixed a collar on the pigs girthy neck, then attaching a leash. The pig gave a slight squeal.
“Good girl, good girl…cmon now” the man called Farmer Abraham sweetly coaxed the animal. He gave his end of the leash a tug and the monstrous swine reluctantly left its food and followed the man over close to the Crowned One. The fire raged and raged nearby, throwing crazy shadows all over the place.
“What have you brought us, Brother and Farmer Abraham?”
“Yeah, uh, this is Old Azazel, she’s been in my family for years, man.”
The Crowned One dropped his spear and knelt down to the jowls of the hog, the dark holes of his eyes meeting those of the animal. The other red cloaked figures remained statuesque around the cage.
“Ah, yes, Old Azazel, hello. You are to be of great importance in the history of the Earth tonight, old friend.”
The Crowned One got back up to address Brother and Father Abraham, who seemed obviously put off, yet submissive.
“And is this Old Azazel a natural specimen? Is it fed only of the earth and the filths therein?”
“Yessir, I’d reckon so.”
“This is necessary for a proper sacrifice, Brother and Farmer Abraham. You may only bring your best, your cleanest, your most dear to the alter of the Almighty.”
“I understand.”
“May I take her now?”
The farmer gave his end of the leash to the black gloved left hand of the Crowned One. The Crowned one stood with it for almost a full minute in total stillness and silence. The only noise Smallmouth could hear was the sloppy smacks and oinks from Old Azazel. The farmer anxiously waited, wringing his hands expecting the next move from the Crowned One.
“Turn away, Brother and Farmer Abraham. Turn away from us and toward the fire now.” The Crowned One finally spoke.
“Phew, alright. We’re still good on our deal? Do you still promise to make my little girl better? Like you said?” The farmer asked, with some hopeful desperation.
“Turn now.”
“Well okay” the farmer turned his back to the Crowned One and toward the fire.
“I can assure you with all of the knowledge in my mind and in my heart, you will never see your daughter sick again in this lifetime, Brother and Father Abraham. You may find peace and solace in this truth.”
The farmer nodded in relief as he looked upon the fire. Smallmouth, taking it all in with great confusion, could see a smile on the farmers fire lit face, and turned back to the Crowned One just in time to see him reach under his red garment and pull out a pistol and shoot a round into the back of the farmers head, blowing his cap off, which frisbeed down near his shaking, crumpled body. Old Azazel threw a fit immediately, screaming and trying her best to flee. The Crowned One held the immense beast with one hand, and with seemingly little effort. The other red clothed figures finally made noise, laughing deep and heartily around the cage. The Crowned One, keeping Old Azazel close, walked over to the doubled over farmer, putting two more bullets into his head, essentially hollowing it out into a carnal mess. The farmers shaking mercifully stopped.
Smallmouth had to slam his forearm up to his mouth to muffle the scream that would’ve come out and blown his cover. His eyes were flown wide open and his arms were shivering.
The Crowned One put the pistol back under his red cloak and led the great pig, still squealing as high pitched and piercing as the human ear can withstand, over to the mouth of the cage, which was opened by the nearest red clothed stranger. Old Azazel flew in to the cage, having been unleashed by The Crowned One. It struggled around the cage, which was no bigger than 15x15 feet, giving it no room to get comfortable. It circled the inner perimeter, showing impressive speed for such a large animal. It squealed and squealed. The sound stung Smallmouths ears, and he covered them with his hands. He was still out of sight in the tall grass. The Red People around the cage laughed at the hogs entrapment. The Crowned One raised a hand to signal silence. The Red People were still and quiet again.
“Now, my brothers, the sacrificial gift is in our possession. Tonight…is a HOLY NIGHT.” The Crowned One raised his voice as if getting to the climax of a fire and brimstone sermon.
“TONIGHT…WE WILL DESTROY WHAT WAS ONCE CAST OUT BUT NEVER VANQUISHED!! WE WILL RID THE EARTH OF A GREAT ARMY!! AN ARMY OF HELL THAT HAS FAR TOO LONG ROAMED AND SICKENED OUR LANDS AND KILLED OUR LOVES!! TONIGHT…WE WILL DESTROY THE DESTROYERS…THE LEGION OF SATANS SOLDIERS BORN JUST AFTER THE GARDEN OF EDEN FELL…”
The Crowned One fell to his knees, his arms up and stretched toward the frozen sky. A mighty wind began blowing at Smallmouths back. He had to lower his head as it roared over him. After a moment it calmed and he was able to lift up again to see. Winds from all corners of the field met at the cage, swirling over it in a great snowy funnel that led up to the clouds. Old Azazel screamed and screamed from the cage.
“I SEE YOU VILLIANS!! I HEAR YOU HOSTS OF HELL!! I KNOW YOU LIVE IN THESE TREES!! I KNOW YOU COWER WITHIN THE SOUND OF MY VOICE!! SHOW YOURSELF!! TAKE THE BODY OF THIS ANIMAL THAT I HAVE SET BEFORE YOU!! TAKE IT NOW!! TAKE IT NOW AND FACE ME!! TAKE IT NOW!! TAKE IT NOW!! TAKE I-“
The Crowned One’s vocal cord shredding performance was cut short by a single burst of black lightning that shot down from the middle of the snowy funnel cloud that surrounded the cage. The Crowned One and all the Red People were thrown several feet back from the blast. Thunder immediately exploded across the field. Smallmouth buried his face as the force and sound raced over him. Ears ringing, he kept his face down for a few seconds. He squinted back up to the strike zone.
The strange black lightning had blown the cage completely apart. Two of The Red People had been hit with the metal fencing. One laid motionless. The other gargled in pain as he put a hand to the pole that was sticking out of his sternum, having penetrated all the way through. His legs buckled and he fell forward, the end of the pole hitting the ground first and propping him up for a moment, before his body slowly slid down to the ground around the metal. He went silent. The other four Red People, yelling in surprise, gathered themselves, looking to the charred hole in the ground where Old Azazel should be, right in the center where the cage used to stand. The Crowned One got to his feet and picked up his spear.
“My brothers, gather your arms…” the Crowned One whispered, breathing heavily under his red cloak.
“The work is not over…”
The four remaining Red People grabbed their spears and slowly walked over to the burnt, smoking hole, holding an attack pose over it until further instructions were given.
“Are you with us, you age old tormentors?” This was the first time Smallmouth could hear fear in the tired voice of the Crowned One.
“Are you with us now? Are you ready to die, you infernal bastards? Are you ready to-“
The Crowned One was interrupted by a booming noise from the hole that tore Smallmouths wits to shreds. It was similar to the cry of Old Azazel, but much deeper and ten times louder and angrier. It was as if a freight train was blaring its horn and slamming its brakes at the same time.
“NOW MY BROTHERS!! STRIKE THE BEAST OF HELL WITH YOUR SPEARS! NOW!!!”
The Red People all threw their weapons down into the smoking hole. The hellish noise from within stopped in an instant. The Red People crowded closer to the edge of the hole, waiting for the smoke to clear. The Crowned One walked over to them, putting his black gloved hand on the shoulder of the nearest man.
“Oh, Brothers. Oh my dear, dear Brothers. Your acts tonight have rid the earth of a Great and Powerful Evil…”
Before he could continue, a fully enraged and re-inspired bellow thrust itself up and out of the hole like a serrated blade. Much, much louder and angrier than before. The Red People were taken aback in terror. Suddenly, from within the hole, a large head emerged and gaped a huge, disgusting maw up at the crowd. The head was burned black and its eyes were half boiled white and without pupils. It shrieked out that most terrible noise as if it didn’t need oxygen.
“There’s no way” Smallmouth heard himself say under his breath.
All in one motion, the beast leaped out of the hole, and turned to face its attackers. It was Old Azazel, except swollen with burnt mass. It appeared to have grown a half a size at least. Three spears stuck out of its sizzling, charcoal colored back. It snapped its gigantic jaws at the Red People, who shuddered in horror. The Crowned One spoke:
“DO NOT RELENT BROTHERS!! ATTACK!! ATTACK THE BRUTE!!”
He pulled his pistol back out of his cloak and fired the remaining three rounds on the new and horrible black burnt Old Azazel. The beast’s cloudy boiled egg eyes shot open along with its unnaturally stretched jaws. It took the three bullets as if they were tennis balls. At the speed of a charging grizzly and with multiple times the power Old Azazel raged over to The Crowned One and dove onto him mouth first, putting both front hooves on his chest as he was knocked down. The Crowned One cried out in a shockingly high pitched wail, like a man being electrocuted. The Beast bit right into the soft of his belly, and began to shake him around like an Orca trying to separate a seal from its pelt.
“OH GOD!!!! AHHHHHH GOD OHHHHH!!! HELP ME!!!! NOOOO!!!! OH GOD HELP ME!!!! MAMA!!!! OHHHH!!! MAMA!!!!!”
The beast ate and ate and shook and shook and tore and broke and destroyed while the Crowned One lost more and more of his body, all while crying out to the sky at the top of his punctured lungs. The other Red People sprinted to the black Dodge Ram, opened its doors and piled inside. Smallmouth heard it crank up and it began to speedily turn around and race away from the fire and back toward the road. The beast unhooked from the Crowned One and let out another ghastly roar of victory before biting into his neck, ending his screaming forever. The beast then left his half devoured body and began a tremendous and terrible charge after the truck, which was greatly slowed down by the trailer. Smallmouth put his face down as the beast passed him by only about 10 feet on its way to the truck, which had just made it back to the road and was using every RPM possible to get away from the demon charged killing machine on its heels. Smallmouth turned around to watch both parties disappear down the road, the echoes of that great and evil blasting noise stabbing his ears again. He remained on his stomach in the tall, snowy grass for another two minutes as he normalized his breath and tried to make any sense of what he just witnessed.
Eventually he slowly rose up and looked to make sure that terrible thing was indeed out of the area. No signs of life or death from up at the road. The danger was at least a couple miles away by now. Smallmouth then turned back toward the fire and to the dominated body of the Crowned One. He carefully walked up closer and closer. To his amazement he heard wheezy noises coming from the emptied out torso of the man, a scattering of insides and flesh and blood strewn all around him. Troubled, rattling breaths escaped from under the red clothed head, whose crown of thorns had flown off in the attack. Most of the red cloak had been ripped to shreds, and all that remained covered were his shoulders and above. The cloth slowly ebbed and flowed with breath. Smallmouth could not believe this man was still alive. His entire digestive system was eviscerated and his ribs were exposed. Smallmouth knelt down beside him and lifted his cloak over his head to let him at least breathe his last in the open air.
Smallmouth let out a gasp. This man had a face that Smallmouth knew very well. He recognized him immediately from the old church he worked at. The clean shaven face. The short, silver hair. The sharp nose. This was a man that had joined his church two weeks before the schism. He never spoke in church but it was rumored he would meet at the homes of different members and try to sway them to his strange ideas. He was the one rumored to have led the radical faction somewhere in the middle of the woods. To Smallmouth, it was all starting to make more sense.
“I know you,” Smallmouth said softly, “I know who you are. You tore a church in half didn’t you? You’re the crazy guy that split up my ole church! What the hell have you done?”
The man struggled to breathe and tried his best to spit up a couple of words. His neck had deep lacerations that flowed with escaping life.
“I…I…I…uhh…I only…I only…I only did what I believed…” he whispered before a wet, stifled breath.
“What did you do?!!!” Smallmouth grew angry, and his voice followed suit. This man had ruined his job and now he had unleashed something horrifying on his neighborhood. He had tampered with things that man has no business tampering with.
“I…I…I have…have…I have failed, Smallmouth Bassett” the man croaked. Smallmouth couldn’t believe he had bothered to remember his name.
“I have failed. I have failed. God help you all…” with that the man’s face fell and he let out one last slow exhale before all was still.
Smallmouth got back on his feet and looked away from the dead man and toward the fire, which towered and raged in the reflection of his eyes.
“Oh no…oh no…oh no” he said in between terrified breaths.
Then another though hit him like a wrecking ball.
“Uncle Chuck…”

On the night when it all happened a young man called Smallmouth found himself in quite a pickle. He shivered and paced clumsily all over the second story porch of a cabin that used to be very nice, which overlooked a snowy down-sloping field that used to be kept up properly and carefully. He was already six packs deep into a carton of cigarettes he had bought only two days ago from a Casey’s General Store on his way up. He could recall the look on the young woman’s face at the register when he asked for a carton of Parliament Menthols, her eyes showing one blink of humorous surprise and another couple blinks of obvious concern, which faded to professional indifference as she rang in the sweet, icy killers. Smallmouth stopped his nervous dallying when he caught himself in the kitchen window; a large, shadowy figure sulking between the inside lights and the cold, almost glowing world downhill. His eyes still on his murky reflection, he patted his coat pockets for his seventh pack, pulling it out and smacking it against his left palm before cracking open and lighting it at his mouth. In a slow, warm flash, he could briefly see his own face in the window.
“Oh man, it’s bad” , he thought to himself.
He hadn’t shaved in weeks and his beard grew coarse and thick. A face that his mother had once called handsome had become a clean plate covered in steel wool. Well, maybe not so clean. Under and around his eyes were the obvious bruising of sleeplessness and his skin had lost its lively color and clarity of yesteryear.
“Ughhh” he groaned, turning away from the window to look over the porch and into the freezing, beckoning night.
The pickle that Jeremy “Smallmouth” Bassett found himself in involved his uncle, and his uncle’s evening logistics, to be precise. Smallmouth had been kicked out of his parents home on December 27th due to a slight misunderstanding at 2am when he believed the living room Christmas tree to be the downstairs bathroom. He had passed out on the couch after drinking a fire pit full of crushed Hamm’s cans and his brain tried desperately to get him up and to the nearby toilet. His little sister Stacy was tucked in fast asleep on a loveseat by the tree when she was brutally torn from her sugarplum dreams to hear the terrible hiss of Smallmouth’s folly. She screamed, the parents woke up, and, well, there you go. After well over three strikes, Smallmouth’s temporary residence had come to an end, and he was thrown to his mother’s brother’s cabin to dry up and straighten out before he could ever even be considered to return.
“You two deserve to live together. He can’t say no either because he owes me a lot more than this!” Smallmouth’s mother had screeched over him as he sat at the kitchen table the following morning with a cold bag of peas against his throbbing right temple. “You go there and you GET RIGHT!! I don’t care how long it takes just clean up your act and MAKE something of yourself! And for goodness sake tell Chuck to do the same, while he still has time!”
Yes, Uncle Chuck had his own shelf full of good time problems, and that’s what put Smallmouth in a bind tonight as he pondered over the white yonder that led to a black nothing, a black nothing that in the daylight pretended to be a forest. At night, it showed its true nature, an endless world of dark secrets and aching regret. At least that’s how Smallmouth saw it in this moment.
Chuck had gone down to the ranch he worked on for a New Years party with his work buddies. They liked to gather at the big barn where all of the vehicles and equipment were kept, sitting around a card table passing out stories about women and other trophy game that were either outright lied about or illegally poached. Oh, and they also liked to pass the bottle around. Therein lied the conundrum for Smallmouth.
Uncle Chuck was many things, but one thing he wasn’t was a drunk driver. Chuck’s wife Rebecca had been struck and killed by a drunk driver almost ten years ago when she was out jogging the back roads early one morning. Everyone assumed that’s what led him to his openly hard drinking and sneakily pill popping ways in the first place. For Chuck, most nights were kept at home, parked in front of a TV watching old westerns and cleaning out a full bottle of Wild Turkey 101 before snoring in his recliner. On the few nights he would go out, he would always call a ride if things got out of hand. As you can imagine, he tends to need a ride home.
“I should be home bout 11:30. Service ain’t so good up there near the barn so if it gets bout 11:15-11:20 and I ain’t home, go head and do me a favor and come grab me son.” Chuck had told Smallmouth before he left, closing the warped screen door behind him.
Smallmouth had spent the evening trying his best to stay entertained without the help of any chemical enhancement. His family’s anger and resentment really struck him and this time he was determined to truly get right and get his life back on the rails. He was 29 years old. He had gone through college clean as a whistle, bright and driven, receiving his MBA with plans to work his way up in a promising career in business. That worked for a couple years. Then he found a calling in ministry, deciding to quit the corporate world to fill an opening of a tiny country church in the area. They needed a deacon who could take care of things around the building and assist in the worship service. He wasn’t much for public speaking, haven been given the nickname Smallmouth at a young age due to his soft spoken nature, but he could pass plates and give a hushed prayer every now and then. He liked to mow and paint and help old ladies up the stairs. The quiet country life was really nice for him, for a while. Strange, radical ideas eventually spread through the church though, and half of its members left overnight to form their own congregation. Its funding cut in half, the church had to close its doors and the other members absorbed into other churches. Smallmouth rarely ever saw the people that had departed from the church, but rumors creeped that they met at an old abandoned building deep in the woods, performing all sorts of different acts and rituals that would purify themselves and destroy all evils. Nevertheless, Smallmouth was out of work and picked up shifts bartending at a small town dive. His soft fortitude was no match for the booze and drugs and women that would pass through there and soon he was out the door. That landed him mooching off of his parents, draining their sanity and eventually draining himself on their Christmas tree. The last strike.
So there he was all night, waiting up for uncle Chuck. He was two days clean of everything except caffeine and nicotine, a major improvement. He felt a boost of hope and confidence the first morning after a sober nights sleep. He found the mornings to be the best parts of the day. At least he had coffee and cigarettes to get him out of bed. That would wear off quickly and the rest of the day was filled with trying to find distractions until the sun set about 5pm. Then he would watch a movie or two with Chuck. Last night he had been able to call it early and go to sleep at 7pm shortly after Chuck started sawing logs in front of True Grit (the original John Wayne version of course). Tonight he saw 7pm struggle and churn into 8…….8:13……..8:48……9:05……9:29………..9:31………9:52……..9:58……….10:11…….10:12 (oh cmon)……10:27…….10:56…….and finally 11:08. It was like the clock was a 35 year old four cylinder engine oiled with crunchy peanut butter. Now, crunch time sat in the cold air as Smallmouth finished his cigarette and stewed over his decision. He really didn’t feel like going down to the barn and getting Chuck, even though it was only a couple miles. In the infancy of his sobriety he found the smallest of choices and activities to seem dire and at the very least upsettingly out of his way. Surely Chuck can get himself home on his own, right?
“No. Who knows if someone’s Aunt Rebecca or grandmother or son is out there on the road tonight” he thought.
As much as he had tried to screw up his life, Smallmouth usually knew what the right decision would be, even if he so often refused to listen. It was there ever so clearly on this New Year’s Eve, wailing in the back row of his mind like a misbehaved child during a church sermon. Smallmouth left the porch and went inside to grab his keys.
He walked out to his truck, got in, cranked it, let it sit down to one rpm, and started down the gravel driveway, which led to the gravel county road that Chuck and his few and far between neighbors lived on. He got to the mailbox and suddenly shot his attention up the road, where headlights revealed themselves out of the deep dark. It was rare to see any cars this far down Chuck’s road. In fact, there were no other houses to the right of Chuck’s cabin, spare for a couple of empty ones that were condemned but were attached to a lot of forest property.
Smallmouth squinted his eyes as a large black Dodge Ram 3500 came barreling by with a livestock trailer. Even inside his own truck he could hear a terrible noise coming from that trailer. He recognized it instantly as a pig squeal.
“The hell?” He whispered as the truck and trailer tore down the road, going around a nearby corner and out of sight. He couldn’t guess what on earth that could be about at this hour, and especially since nobody lived down there anyway. He shrugged it off though, and turned left out of the driveway, headed for drunk Uncle Chuck down at the ranch.
Ten minutes and a couple of snowy country miles later Smallmouth found himself through the metal gate of the ranch and up to the main barn, where a couple of smiling ranch hands had Chuck held up between them just outside one of two closed garage doors. A lamppost nearby cast a glow of debauchery on all of their faces, especially Chuck’s. Smallmouth got out and walked up to them smiling and shaking his head.
“Well well well…” he said with a slight laugh.
“Your Uncle put on one hell of a clinic tonight ‘Mouth” one of the hands said.
“I…..I….I don’t know what they’re tawlkin bout son” Chuck slang out before a high pitched giggle.
“I got another couple rounds in me I thinks!”
Smallmouth laughed.
“Yeah I ain’t so sure about that uncle! Let’s get on home now and let these fellas get on too.”
“Y’alright alright” Chuck said as Smallmouth took him from his buddies arms into one of his own and led him to the passenger seat of his truck.
“Happy New Years boys!!! Let’s do it all again okay?” He hollered to his waving buddies as they drove back away from the barn and through the metal gate toward home.
“You have a good time Uncle?”
“Oh…ohhh…I reckon I showed those boys how to do it” Another childish giggle.
A light snow shower seasoned the cold air as the truck rolled down the gravel country road. In the yellow headlights it made a pleasant white noise for the eyes. Chuck put his hands up staggered and vertically, fingers together and outstretched, pointing out in front of the truck down the road like he was aiming up for a rifle shot. He closed one eye.
“Straight as an arrow ole son. You’re good at this.”
“I ain’t drunk pops” Smallmouth chuckled.
“Sure ya are. Everybody’s drunk son. Even people that ain’t drink. Ticket is to get drunk on good stuff” Chuck’s face calmed from a goofy grin as he kept his eyes out front into the slow swirling tube of visible night.
“You sound like you’re drunk on some pretty damn good stuff” Smallmouth retorted as they shared a look and a good laugh.
“Suppose’n you ain’t wrong. Gotta work on that just like you are. Proud o’ you for a couple days clean man. We’ll get right. We’ll get right. All I meant was that man is born to get drunk on somethin’ or other. What I mean is God. Man is born to get drunk on his God.” Chuck said as Smallmouth shot him a raised eyebrow look of confusion.
“Once God gets ya drunk then you’re home free ol’ son. That distillery is never ending eternal forever. That land flows with whiskey and honey.” They both shared another laugh.
“Okay okay I think I somewhat understand now Uncle.”
They rode in a few seconds of comfortable silence before Chuck put his hands up in an aim position down the road again.
“You know…man….man….man has a GOVERNOR…..you know that right?”
“A what? A governor?”
“That’s right a GOVERNOR…that’s right…a little bitty device in his brain that keeps him on the road…keeps him from turning right off into the dark. You ever hear that little voice that tells you you can turn off into the ditch…into oncomin’ traffic? Tells you you can shoot your buddy instead of the deer? That you can jump off the top of the building and onto the pavement when you’re up there enjoying the view?”
“I…uh…I don’t know…I mean maybe? Pretty sure those are intrusive thoughts and they’re normal.”
“Well whatever they are that’s what the governor is for. Keeps ya straight. Keeps ya from harmin nothin.”
“Alright man, alright.”
They pulled back into Chuck’s driveway and parked. Smallmouth helped his uncle out of the truck and up into the cabin, snow starting to color the roof and pile against the side of the house near the door. Arms locked Smallmouth propped open the screen door, opened the inner door, and led Chuck through the kitchen and to his bedroom. Chuck layed down on his camo comforter with a deep, long exhale.
“Ahhhh yes……yes” he whispered with a smile.
“I love ya son…I’m glad you’re heeeeere. Let’s get better….your mom needs it…..stay in the Lord’s light son…don’t let them devils get ya….let’s get better….lets….” He was off into the distant deep ether almost immediately, and his mouth hung open.
“Goodnight uncle…love ya too.” Smallmouth patted the bed twice before walking over and closing the bedroom door behind him.
He went and sat at the kitchen table. He regretted his behavior earlier in the night. How it pained him to have to stay up a little later to go help out his uncle.
“Cmon…” he whispered.
He agreed with Chuck. He was here to get better. To do better. Maybe Chuck was right. If he couldn’t get drunk off booze, it was time to pick something else to drink. Better things. Maybe even God? Smallmouth hadn’t paid much mind to God since his church job fell through. God surely hadn’t been there for him these last few years when he was at his lowest. Or was He there the whole time? Had Smallmouth just ignored Him? These things floated heavily in his mind and soon he realized he had been staring at the front door for several minutes. Had he even blinked? Then something else came to mind.
“Wait hold up”
That truck and trailer from earlier. What WAS that? He meant to bring it up to the ranch hands. They would’ve seen it come barreling down the road right by their front gate. Oh he wished he had brought that up to them. Oh well. It’s probably nothing. Smallmouth looked at the clock. 12:12.
“Happy New Year old boy.” He said to himself.
He sat for a moment in the warm kitchen light, his eyes not leaving the front door. Well, he’s up this late already, why not go run down and check on the abandoned properties?
No…no…it can wait. It’s probably nothing. Right?
Wrong. There’s that wailing kid in the back pew of his mind again. Come on kid can’t you just be quiet and listen to the sermon? No, no it can’t. It must be heard. Always. He knew he had to go check it out.
“Ughhhh FINE!” Smallmouth got up and grabbed his truck keys, patted to make sure his cigarettes were still there, and was out the door again.
The snow shower had ended. As he pulled up to the edge of the drive, he stalled for a moment and peaked out as far to the right as he could down the dark road. Nothing. It wasn’t very far to the end of that road, where two out of service mailboxes should’ve stood in a small cul-de-sac if it weren’t for teenagers beating them to splinters. Can’t really blame them either. Smallmouth considered his plan. Whether or not that truck belonged to the landowner down there, he shouldn’t feel like he needs to sneak around. He is merely a concerned neighbor after all. He began down the road and around that same corner the stranger disappeared earlier.
After a couple of slow, curious minutes Smallmouth could see the evidence of a great big fire in the near distance, beyond where the road ended. Through the bare trees and against the snow it cast orange and red that could surely be seen a mile in every direction, that is, if there were anyone there to see it.
Slightly intimidated, Smallmouth decided to turn off his headlights and let the fire guide him as he slowed up to 5mph and gently crackled his last few yards of gravel up to the remnants of the nearest mailbox post. It seemed the fire was on the land of the farther property, whose mailbox posthole was about 30 feet from where he came to a stop and parked his truck. Smallmouth turned it off and quietly got out into the cold. He crouched down as he walked over to the farther driveway, getting down on one knee to give it a stealthy closer look.
The abandoned property boasted a busted up trailer that sat pitifully about 500 feet from the mailbox memorial. Beyond that was a good ten acres of field that ended at the forest edge, which marked the beginning of thousands of acres of wildlife refuge. As Smallmouth peered on, it was obvious that the fire was way out in that field, blocked by the old trailer, which wore the hot light and columns of smoke on it like a devilish crown. Given the cover, Smallmouth crept over to the trailer and started easing around the right side.
Rounding the corner he noticed a propane tank that would be perfect for hiding behind and getting the best look he could at the mysterious activity. He got down on his belly and crawled his way over to the tank, before sitting up and peeking slowly over the top and out into the field.
Way down there, a couple acres away from the tree line, was a huge fire, made up of about fifty wooden pallets. It raged and lit up the whole field like it was just the beginning of sunset. Somewhat near the fire was the black Dodge Ram 3500 and trailer. Smallmouth could see a group of people dressed in all red, as if covered in bloody bedsheets from head to toe, circled around a crude cage, seemingly fastened together by pieces of metal fencing. They stood still as the pines, and twice as silent. Smallmouth, in a rare moment of curious courage, decided he had to get closer. He got back on his stomach and began to crawl through the cold, knee high grass.
Using the fire light as his North Star he crawled and crawled, feeling his hands, clothes, and beard get wet with snow. He didn’t care. Something was up that wasn’t normal, wasn’t right. He could feel it in his cold gut. When he thought he was close enough without giving himself away he planted his palms and ever so slowly raised his torso up into a weak push up to try and see out. He was glad he didn’t go any further. He may have been too close already.
He was close enough to read the name of the truck and count the holes in the livestock trailer. There were seven strangers in red sheets all around the makeshift cage, all holding long spears. One of the figures had a crown of black thorns on his head. They all had two eyeholes and one hole for the mouth. They didn’t move a muscle for the longest time, before the Crowned One forcibly touched the end of his spear to the ground.
“Now is the time, Brother and Farmer Abraham…there is no more for us in waiting.”
Smallmouth had just noticed the passenger window to the black Dodge was down, and he could hear the driver door open and soon saw a normal looking older man in a ball cap at the back of the trailer. He was holding a leash of some sort. He opened up the trailer and whistled into the dark of it. After a couple of loud, heavy thuds a gigantic, and I mean GIGANTIC Yorkshire pig came slowly shrugging out of the trailer. It was light pink in color but filthy, and gave wet sounding oinks as it came to the man’s hands expecting food. The thing must’ve weighed 1500 pounds, and at least ten feet long. It actually had to lower its head to reach the man’s hands, its ears coming up to the man’s chest. Smallmouth couldn’t believe his eyes. The man reached in his pocket and revealed a handful of some type of feed, which he tossed on the ground at the pig. It started right in as the man fixed a collar on the pigs girthy neck, then attaching a leash. The pig gave a slight squeal.
“Good girl, good girl…cmon now” the man called Farmer Abraham sweetly coaxed the animal. He gave his end of the leash a tug and the monstrous swine reluctantly left its food and followed the man over close to the Crowned One. The fire raged and raged nearby, throwing crazy shadows all over the place.
“What have you brought us, Brother and Farmer Abraham?”
“Yeah, uh, this is Old Azazel, she’s been in my family for years, man.”
The Crowned One dropped his spear and knelt down to the jowls of the hog, the dark holes of his eyes meeting those of the animal. The other red cloaked figures remained statuesque around the cage.
“Ah, yes, Old Azazel, hello. You are to be of great importance in the history of the Earth tonight, old friend.”
The Crowned One got back up to address Brother and Father Abraham, who seemed obviously put off, yet submissive.
“And is this Old Azazel a natural specimen? Is it fed only of the earth and the filths therein?”
“Yessir, I’d reckon so.”
“This is necessary for a proper sacrifice, Brother and Farmer Abraham. You may only bring your best, your cleanest, your most dear to the alter of the Almighty.”
“I understand.”
“May I take her now?”
The farmer gave his end of the leash to the black gloved left hand of the Crowned One. The Crowned one stood with it for almost a full minute in total stillness and silence. The only noise Smallmouth could hear was the sloppy smacks and oinks from Old Azazel. The farmer anxiously waited, wringing his hands expecting the next move from the Crowned One.
“Turn away, Brother and Farmer Abraham. Turn away from us and toward the fire now.” The Crowned One finally spoke.
“Phew, alright. We’re still good on our deal? Do you still promise to make my little girl better? Like you said?” The farmer asked, with some hopeful desperation.
“Turn now.”
“Well okay” the farmer turned his back to the Crowned One and toward the fire.
“I can assure you with all of the knowledge in my mind and in my heart, you will never see your daughter sick again in this lifetime, Brother and Father Abraham. You may find peace and solace in this truth.”
The farmer nodded in relief as he looked upon the fire. Smallmouth, taking it all in with great confusion, could see a smile on the farmers fire lit face, and turned back to the Crowned One just in time to see him reach under his red garment and pull out a pistol and shoot a round into the back of the farmers head, blowing his cap off, which frisbeed down near his shaking, crumpled body. Old Azazel threw a fit immediately, screaming and trying her best to flee. The Crowned One held the immense beast with one hand, and with seemingly little effort. The other red clothed figures finally made noise, laughing deep and heartily around the cage. The Crowned One, keeping Old Azazel close, walked over to the doubled over farmer, putting two more bullets into his head, essentially hollowing it out into a carnal mess. The farmers shaking mercifully stopped.
Smallmouth had to slam his forearm up to his mouth to muffle the scream that would’ve come out and blown his cover. His eyes were flown wide open and his arms were shivering.
The Crowned One put the pistol back under his red cloak and led the great pig, still squealing as high pitched and piercing as the human ear can withstand, over to the mouth of the cage, which was opened by the nearest red clothed stranger. Old Azazel flew in to the cage, having been unleashed by The Crowned One. It struggled around the cage, which was no bigger than 15x15 feet, giving it no room to get comfortable. It circled the inner perimeter, showing impressive speed for such a large animal. It squealed and squealed. The sound stung Smallmouths ears, and he covered them with his hands. He was still out of sight in the tall grass. The Red People around the cage laughed at the hogs entrapment. The Crowned One raised a hand to signal silence. The Red People were still and quiet again.
“Now, my brothers, the sacrificial gift is in our possession. Tonight…is a HOLY NIGHT.” The Crowned One raised his voice as if getting to the climax of a fire and brimstone sermon.
“TONIGHT…WE WILL DESTROY WHAT WAS ONCE CAST OUT BUT NEVER VANQUISHED!! WE WILL RID THE EARTH OF A GREAT ARMY!! AN ARMY OF HELL THAT HAS FAR TOO LONG ROAMED AND SICKENED OUR LANDS AND KILLED OUR LOVES!! TONIGHT…WE WILL DESTROY THE DESTROYERS…THE LEGION OF SATANS SOLDIERS BORN JUST AFTER THE GARDEN OF EDEN FELL…”
The Crowned One fell to his knees, his arms up and stretched toward the frozen sky. A mighty wind began blowing at Smallmouths back. He had to lower his head as it roared over him. After a moment it calmed and he was able to lift up again to see. Winds from all corners of the field met at the cage, swirling over it in a great snowy funnel that led up to the clouds. Old Azazel screamed and screamed from the cage.
“I SEE YOU VILLIANS!! I HEAR YOU HOSTS OF HELL!! I KNOW YOU LIVE IN THESE TREES!! I KNOW YOU COWER WITHIN THE SOUND OF MY VOICE!! SHOW YOURSELF!! TAKE THE BODY OF THIS ANIMAL THAT I HAVE SET BEFORE YOU!! TAKE IT NOW!! TAKE IT NOW AND FACE ME!! TAKE IT NOW!! TAKE IT NOW!! TAKE I-“
The Crowned One’s vocal cord shredding performance was cut short by a single burst of black lightning that shot down from the middle of the snowy funnel cloud that surrounded the cage. The Crowned One and all the Red People were thrown several feet back from the blast. Thunder immediately exploded across the field. Smallmouth buried his face as the force and sound raced over him. Ears ringing, he kept his face down for a few seconds. He squinted back up to the strike zone.
The strange black lightning had blown the cage completely apart. Two of The Red People had been hit with the metal fencing. One laid motionless. The other gargled in pain as he put a hand to the pole that was sticking out of his sternum, having penetrated all the way through. His legs buckled and he fell forward, the end of the pole hitting the ground first and propping him up for a moment, before his body slowly slid down to the ground around the metal. He went silent. The other four Red People, yelling in surprise, gathered themselves, looking to the charred hole in the ground where Old Azazel should be, right in the center where the cage used to stand. The Crowned One got to his feet and picked up his spear.
“My brothers, gather your arms…” the Crowned One whispered, breathing heavily under his red cloak.
“The work is not over…”
The four remaining Red People grabbed their spears and slowly walked over to the burnt, smoking hole, holding an attack pose over it until further instructions were given.
“Are you with us, you age old tormentors?” This was the first time Smallmouth could hear fear in the tired voice of the Crowned One.
“Are you with us now? Are you ready to die, you infernal bastards? Are you ready to-“
The Crowned One was interrupted by a booming noise from the hole that tore Smallmouths wits to shreds. It was similar to the cry of Old Azazel, but much deeper and ten times louder and angrier. It was as if a freight train was blaring its horn and slamming its brakes at the same time.
“NOW MY BROTHERS!! STRIKE THE BEAST OF HELL WITH YOUR SPEARS! NOW!!!”
The Red People all threw their weapons down into the smoking hole. The hellish noise from within stopped in an instant. The Red People crowded closer to the edge of the hole, waiting for the smoke to clear. The Crowned One walked over to them, putting his black gloved hand on the shoulder of the nearest man.
“Oh, Brothers. Oh my dear, dear Brothers. Your acts tonight have rid the earth of a Great and Powerful Evil…”
Before he could continue, a fully enraged and re-inspired bellow thrust itself up and out of the hole like a serrated blade. Much, much louder and angrier than before. The Red People were taken aback in terror. Suddenly, from within the hole, a large head emerged and gaped a huge, disgusting maw up at the crowd. The head was burned black and its eyes were half boiled white and without pupils. It shrieked out that most terrible noise as if it didn’t need oxygen.
“There’s no way” Smallmouth heard himself say under his breath.
All in one motion, the beast leaped out of the hole, and turned to face its attackers. It was Old Azazel, except swollen with burnt mass. It appeared to have grown a half a size at least. Three spears stuck out of its sizzling, charcoal colored back. It snapped its gigantic jaws at the Red People, who shuddered in horror. The Crowned One spoke:
“DO NOT RELENT BROTHERS!! ATTACK!! ATTACK THE BRUTE!!”
He pulled his pistol back out of his cloak and fired the remaining three rounds on the new and horrible black burnt Old Azazel. The beast’s cloudy boiled egg eyes shot open along with its unnaturally stretched jaws. It took the three bullets as if they were tennis balls. At the speed of a charging grizzly and with multiple times the power Old Azazel raged over to The Crowned One and dove onto him mouth first, putting both front hooves on his chest as he was knocked down. The Crowned One cried out in a shockingly high pitched wail, like a man being electrocuted. The Beast bit right into the soft of his belly, and began to shake him around like an Orca trying to separate a seal from its pelt.
“OH GOD!!!! AHHHHHH GOD OHHHHH!!! HELP ME!!!! NOOOO!!!! OH GOD HELP ME!!!! MAMA!!!! OHHHH!!! MAMA!!!!!”
The beast ate and ate and shook and shook and tore and broke and destroyed while the Crowned One lost more and more of his body, all while crying out to the sky at the top of his punctured lungs. The other Red People sprinted to the black Dodge Ram, opened its doors and piled inside. Smallmouth heard it crank up and it began to speedily turn around and race away from the fire and back toward the road. The beast unhooked from the Crowned One and let out another ghastly roar of victory before biting into his neck, ending his screaming forever. The beast then left his half devoured body and began a tremendous and terrible charge after the truck, which was greatly slowed down by the trailer. Smallmouth put his face down as the beast passed him by only about 10 feet on its way to the truck, which had just made it back to the road and was using every RPM possible to get away from the demon charged killing machine on its heels. Smallmouth turned around to watch both parties disappear down the road, the echoes of that great and evil blasting noise stabbing his ears again. He remained on his stomach in the tall, snowy grass for another two minutes as he normalized his breath and tried to make any sense of what he just witnessed.
Eventually he slowly rose up and looked to make sure that terrible thing was indeed out of the area. No signs of life or death from up at the road. The danger was at least a couple miles away by now. Smallmouth then turned back toward the fire and to the dominated body of the Crowned One. He carefully walked up closer and closer. To his amazement he heard wheezy noises coming from the emptied out torso of the man, a scattering of insides and flesh and blood strewn all around him. Troubled, rattling breaths escaped from under the red clothed head, whose crown of thorns had flown off in the attack. Most of the red cloak had been ripped to shreds, and all that remained covered were his shoulders and above. The cloth slowly ebbed and flowed with breath. Smallmouth could not believe this man was still alive. His entire digestive system was eviscerated and his ribs were exposed. Smallmouth knelt down beside him and lifted his cloak over his head to let him at least breathe his last in the open air.
Smallmouth let out a gasp. This man had a face that Smallmouth knew very well. He recognized him immediately from the old church he worked at. The clean shaven face. The short, silver hair. The sharp nose. This was a man that had joined his church two weeks before the schism. He never spoke in church but it was rumored he would meet at the homes of different members and try to sway them to his strange ideas. He was the one rumored to have led the radical faction somewhere in the middle of the woods. To Smallmouth, it was all starting to make more sense.
“I know you,” Smallmouth said softly, “I know who you are. You tore a church in half didn’t you? You’re the crazy guy that split up my ole church! What the hell have you done?”
The man struggled to breathe and tried his best to spit up a couple of words. His neck had deep lacerations that flowed with escaping life.
“I…I…I…uhh…I only…I only…I only did what I believed…” he whispered before a wet, stifled breath.
“What did you do?!!!” Smallmouth grew angry, and his voice followed suit. This man had ruined his job and now he had unleashed something horrifying on his neighborhood. He had tampered with things that man has no business tampering with.
“I…I…I have…have…I have failed, Smallmouth Bassett” the man croaked. Smallmouth couldn’t believe he had bothered to remember his name.
“I have failed. I have failed. God help you all…” with that the man’s face fell and he let out one last slow exhale before all was still.
Smallmouth got back on his feet and looked away from the dead man and toward the fire, which towered and raged in the reflection of his eyes.
“Oh no…oh no…oh no” he said in between terrified breaths.
Then another though hit him like a wrecking ball.
“Uncle Chuck…”

Ch. 16

• FINALLY we meet Cassian and Azriel; in my head they're the bash bros of the Night Court
  
• Oh they actually are brothers! Or bastard-brothers to be more precise…wonder who the lucky daddy is
  
• Azriel is leaking darkness? Someone should wipe that up for him and let him know. That's a bit creepy. Seems like he has a thing for Mor though
  
• Amren’s here! We got the whole gang!
  
• Oh so she was transformed to a high fae too? Interesting, I need the back story on that plz and ty
  
• LOL Mor is channeling my energy; less talk, more eat
  
• Ah k so Illyrians are essentially just a warrior race bred for battle…I can dig that. They even have badass names too
  
• Oh interesting, so none of them are even high fae except for Mor. Where's that faerie hierarchy chart, I need to know where Illyrians sit in the pecking order. I'm assuming they're right underneath high fae? Cause they're still good looking, so definitely not near Suriel status.
  
• LOVING the world building here with the Illyrians.
  
• Oooh nice back story with Rhys’s parents. Again, every dad here just sounds like a real winner /s
  
• WTF is the mating bond exactly? It's been mentioned before a few times but not really explained…is it like imprinting in Twilight? I hate myself for knowing what that is
  
• JFC growing up as an Illyrian sounds brutal. They make vikings look like prissy nobles. They're like the dothraki of this world
  
• Lol poor Cassian no abilities at all. “Just a bastard” (in Ser Alliser Thorne’s voice)
  
• I do like this three musketeer back story with Rhys, Cassian and Azriel, seems like they became the broest of bros
  
• Everyone in the inner circle are outcasts from their respective social spheres, that's pretty cool
  
• Oooooh Cassian is Feyre's combat teacher now? This is just what she wanted
  
• OH SHIT King Hybern wants to resurrect Jurian?! I knew this fooligan would be coming back somehow. His eye was staring at Feyre for too long in that ring last book, it seemed like he knew her somehow or was impressed with her
  
• Damn so the Attor has the ring and Jurian's finger? Hmmm
  
• The Bone Carver??? I'm not even worried since Rhys is the most powerful high lord and Feyre has her 5 million abilities. Let's make this jabroni talk
  

Ch. 17

• Wut so Feyre and Rhys’s bond is a living thing? And it's making Feyre empathize with him too…new power couple is about to form! Does Rhyre or Feysand sound better?
  
• “A shame that you let them think the worst.” Feyre loves a mysterious man with a heroic flair.
  
• Omg another mention of a porcelain toilet! Sarah J, please tell me how the plumbing in Prythian works, this is bigger than the tension that I'm reading between Feyre, Tammy, and Mr. Cavill combined. And I'm assuming Velaris is on Joe's plumbing clientele list? Plumbers can always keep secrets
  
• Ooof Rhys dreaming the bash bros being tortured by Amarantha, that's heavy.
  
  • Aww both Rhys and Feyre are broken creatures, they need each other
• “His fingers were gentle, but firm where he’d fisted them in my hair.” I'm betting she's imagining being fisted somewhere else lol
  
• Ooooh the fire bending comes from the Autumn Court??? Please tell me Luke the Duke is the strongest fire bender. I need him to fire blast his enemies pronto
  
• Oh nice they winnowed right outside the prison How interesting, Amren used to be a prisoner there; and there are prisoners from when Mor’s family ruled the nation? I bet they’ve seen some shit
  
• Ohhhhh yeah I guess Feyre would get PTSD from having to walk under the island to get to the prison.
  
• “I didn't get out of bed for the rest of the day.” - Literally how I feel most days lol
  

Ch. 18

• Huh, how did Amren get that amulet that helped her get out of prison? I need those deets!
  
• Oooh Cassian is the best fighter according to Rhys. FALSE. Lucien would wipe the flow with him, hands down
  
• BRUTAL backstory on Azriel, I'm getting Sandor Clegane vibes. I hope there's a better Clegane Bowl in this series than what we got in that dog shit final season of GoT.
  
• “I suppose in the mortal realm, Mor might be considered a queen.” YAS
  
• WTF so is Amren an ACTUAL dragon? I hope so, that'd be so cool
  
• Nice, they're finally going into Azkaban
  
• Haha the guards actually sound similar to dementors, I dig it
  
• DAMN Amren was in that prison for multiple millenia? What a savage
  
• WHAT?! So Amren came from another world/dimension??? Are we potentially dealing with a multiverse plotline here? I'm hoping it's more like the Wild Hunt from the Witcher. Regardless, she's now the most interesting character in the series IMO
  
• Oooh the Bone Carver sounds cool, like an evolved form of a boggart. These last few chapters have been great with expanding this universe
  
• Here we go, Bone Carver time! Again, the stakes are so low for me right now. Both Rhys and Feyre are too OP for this bro, would be an easy clap
  
• Hmmm so is the boy what Feyre sees or Rhys? Also, being able to store things in between dimensions? Rhys is just showing off now. Still very cool
  
• Feyre's scared? Just mind break him if he gets out of line!
  
• Is the bone carver disguised as Rhys when he was a boy? Wonder why. Also, is this how he gets his jollies off? Having people recount their death experience?
  
• Ooooh so there actually is a magic cauldron that created everything? And the temples that were ransacked had the broken legs, k this is good
  
• I can't imagine King Hybern is the one that has been orchestrating all of this? I'm assuming it's a bigger baddie. Also, all of this just to resurrect a human warrior? Does he have abilities that counter the faeries somehow? He just sounds like discount Cassian.
  
• Cool good confirmation that it is King Hybern doing all of this. And the cauldron can take down the wall if it wanted? I mean, isn't that a bit obvious, especially if it had the power to created everything?
  
• K, how does the Bone Carver know all of this? Is he the Cauldron master?
  
• Dude, this guy needs to go outside and touch some grass. Too much bone on the brain
  
• Ahhh k he appeared as Jurian to Rhys…but why? Were they friends or something? And why did Rhys shudder when Feyre said she saw a boy. I'm betting that was him. Also, how did the bone carver know to appear as these two? I'm assuming psychic abilities or he can hear what's going on in Velaris
  
• Very cool chapter! My favorite of the book so far
  

Ch. 19

• Oh shit we invading King Hybern's land LFG!!!!
  
• Yeah Feyre with the book detecting ability, just one of the 27347382 powers she now has
  
• WTF is a weaver? That doesn't sound ominous at all
  
• “Mother’s tits” LOL Cassian, I might have to steal that
  
• Oooh Feyre becomes the emissary of the night court? She's now a part of the inner circle!
  
• Oh damn we're going back to Feyre's fam bam? This should be good, can't wait to see how she interacts with them
  
• So Rhys is behind by two months because Feyre was draggin’ her ass by being illiterate and not wanting to read and not wanting to learn about her abilities? Insubordinate. And churlish.
  
• Hmm so Feyre has to steal back a trinket from the Weaver broad. Wonder what the trinket is.
  
• “You are my salvation, Feyre.” Man, Mr. Cavill knows how to lay it on THICC. I bet Feyre's eating this all up right now
  

Ch. 20

• Oh cool now we're back near under the mountain
  
• Wait, Amarantha didn't want to disturb the Weaver? That's a bit unsettling
  
• Of course Cassian wants to bang Feyre, why am I not surprised.
  
• LOL and of course Feyre doubles down on Rhys’s games and says I'm interested. Can't wait for this interaction between her and Cassian
  
• Ooo cute cottage; getting Beorn vibes
  
• “When I glanced behind, Rhys was gone.” LOL the noping in this book is STRONG.
  
• Bro…the Weaver song is creepy AF. It's like she's singing what she's planning on doing to Feyre if she catches her
  
• Oh she has to steal a ring? Does this also contain a soul? Also, wouldn't the Weaver put wards on all her junk so she knows if someone tries to steal them?
  
• “The Weaver stopped singing.” OH SHIT GTFO!!!!
  

Ahhhh what a cliffhanger! I think I'm gonna keep reading, will post the notes for the next few chapters soon. Stay tuned!