Head, neck,back ache

So one random day about 2 years ago a random Turkish Facebook account messaged me and started calling me, at first i thought it was some scammer but turned out to be just 2 chicks messing around and i just played along with it. With one of them i just started talking and we kind of clicked, but I've never taken it too seriously, this is the main girl, we'll call her H. To be completely honest i was just a trash guy that felt nothing towards H, however she fell for me and really started caring about me. H sent me nudes, as she said for the first time in her life and she was the initiator of all conversations. Looking back it feels like H always was head over heels in love with me without ever seeing me.
Fast forward about a year and a half, i started gaining a liking towards H as well, we started video calling like every evening. She would get mad when i chose gaming with the boys or going out and not gave time to her, it was really wholesome and one evening she surprised me, she told me that she got accepted into an Erasmus program in Italy, she was finally coming to Europe and we can meet each other. Honestly - I didn't believe that we would ever meet at first, but i started asking her around about her past relationships just feeling out her.
So allegedly H had one past relationship with a Spanish guy it was long distance as well, we'll call him M. She was madly in love with him, they've met in Istanbul once, only had two "very romantical kisses" and nothing else, yes she's still a virgin. That relationship ended abruptly when M's brother found out about that and apparently M was engaged and had a fiancé. H was absolutely heart broken, M's brother called her, started calling her names and told her the full story. She felt betrayed, lost and fell into a deep depression. This is a year before me and her started talking at all.
She came to Italy, everything was fine, she'd tell me about all the people she would meet, tell me about guys that were into her, honestly nothing out of the ordinary, because she is really beautiful and has this calm and collected aura around her. But what bothered me - she would tell me when she found guys handsome. The weird things started happening from then on, since she was Muslim in Italy was the first time she tried alcohol and there were a couple of club nights where she got so wasted she couldn't remember the night before, but she was always with a friend of hers that i trusted and that knew about our relationship, lets call her B.
There was one time that she went out to the club with her student friends and an incident happened - a guy left a hickey on her neck. She told me that while crying the next morning and she told me that it was abrupt and she didn't realize that that was happening, allegedly she was just dancing in the club with him, not romantically she said and he just went in for it from behind her. Allegedly she pulled him off with B and B told him "she's not a girl like that". H came out to me, told me everything about it, i trusted in her that that was a dumb mistake.(Remembering this now kind of makes me feel mad for not giving this that much thought)
Everything turned out ok, we continued talking, no more incidents happened, i didn't shit on her for that incident and i was happy that she was honest and actually as a person that has been more years in relationships in my life than not - i communicated from the beginning that honesty and truthfulness is my top priority in a partner. Honestly i was even a little snake in terms of that i never told her anything i didn't like that she said from the fear that she would close up. So i don't think i created an atmosphere where there would be a motive to keep any secrets, no matter what happened.
We continued talking and H kept pushing me to come to Italy and i will admit - that was way beyond my comfort zone, i told her that i would and that i need time to organize things. Things took a while and eventually she said "i'm sick of waiting, i'm coming to Lithuania myself". And guess what, she bought the tickets with a weeks notice for me. She was coming with her friend B that i had to drive to Latvia for her to meet up with her other friends. Basically after day 2 there would only be the 2 of us left, just me and H.
The day comes and i drive to pick them up from the airport i was anxious and nervous as shit. She comes out of the airport running to me, hugged me for a long time and it felt good. That's when i realized that i really like this girl. But i still have my doubts, i still think of the different cultures, how would she talk to my mother if we ever get married, what culture would our children be, how would i talk to her parents? Basically i didn't see long term viable at that point, in this i'm a piece of shit, because she was in this state of delusion that i'm her everything and i'm her last man ever.
So we live together for that week, we have good adventures, i show her and her friend around the city, outside of the city, they love everything, they're super happy. At night me and H are in the same bed, we kiss and it gets naughty, but at the back of my head i have this guilt of not seeing a future with H, so i don't commit to taking her virginity and we play around with everything around it and she was passionate as shit.
The time i spent with her was very lovely, it was honestly so refreshing and it kind of brought a new light for me, i started imagining the future together but still with many doubts. It is time for her to leave, she's clinged on to me, doesn't want to let me go, is really sad that she has to leave, but eventually she does and she has to leave to Berlin to live there.
Everything was fine, one night i went to play pool with a buddy that lives in the UK, for context he used to date a Chinese girl, we got a little drunk and high and i started talking about H, told him all my doubts and he kind of debunked them with his prior relationship. He basically left me feeling like maybe i should commit to H. He outlined that i do have a lot of prior trauma due to having so many relationships, having been cheated on, having been left for other men and basically i have a very thick shield and never let anyone close. That is very true and i knew the answer was to try to commit and so quietly i did.
H went to Germany, first she went to a city where her friend lives, they both had a good time, she sent me snaps and kept me updated, it was really nice, we continued calling each other. Now this is where the situation started, when she took the train to Berlin, she came in on Monday. She lived in some sort of camp seemed like, she disappeared for that day, in the evening she tried calling me and i called back in an hour. She looked normal to me and i tried asking her what did you do that day. At first she changed the topic, then i asked again - she said they went on a group trip, it was super fun. Then i asked again what happened, she told me this strange story about a guy that she called handsome to her friend in Turkish and was talking about him a lot. After a while the guy turned around and answered to them in Turkish, which made her feel really bad. Then i asked another time, what happened next - she said she got blackout drunk and doesn't remember anything....
Hmmmm. You got blackout drunk like a couple hours ago and now you seem normal talking to me... Alright, i got my suspicions up and reminded her that honesty is number one for me, she said she understands and is 100% honest with me.
Alright, the next day rolls around, LITERALLY THE NEXT DAY AFTER HONESTY CONVERSATION, she sends me a snap of her having lunch with her friend and some guy. I don't think much of it and in the evening we video call, i ask her about the day and she doesn't say anything about no guy, that is pretty weird knowing her past honesty. I directly confront her about it and tell her "What are you talking about, you sent me a snap with you and him at the table", she starts pulling all sorts of bullshit and says she only took pictures of food and sent me those pictures. Lo and behold the tables are black glass and there's a reflection of a dude sitting on his phone at the table. At first she start pulling more shit "I don't see anyone, maybe it's a waiter, i don't know what you're talking about" and i tell her stop acting stupid.
She then starts crying and says that she promised a friend to keep that guy's presence there a secret. Allegedly he's getting an unlawful marriage with his fiancé that neither his nor his fiancé's parents can know about. Wow, what the actual fuck? Who would've i told, going to lunch with guys in secret is normal? Anyway, i told her that she broke my trust and i'm not sure if there's possibility of recovering this. She started begging while crying and said she'd do anything to fix it and that it was a stupid mistake. Alright, i tell her that it will need time, but that she will have to be 100% honest with me. Another talk about honesty.
Next day rolls around and i'm suspicious, i started checking her instagram activity and snap location(very not healthy, i know). i see instragram last active 7h ago and same in snap, all gucci - she asleep. Next time i check - instagram activity has been turned off and snap last active 9 hours ago? I confront her as soon as she gets on snap, which is about 6 hours from the first check. We call and she says she wasn't on insta and she didn't turn off shit. I asked her to share screen and show me - she was messaging B 5 hours ago :)
So i told her that the first mistake i was willing to work through, even though we had a convo literally a day before it. But now this.... I told her that i can't see me trusting her ever again and now she's crying and begging me for days, she gave me all her social media passwords unasked, she said she can delete everything and disappear from everyone's lives except mine. She's basically non stop begging me for forgiveness and saying she'll do anything to fix it and that she will never forget me if she looses me.
She then proceeded to trauma dump me how her father was never present in her life, she never even touched his hand, how she would get beaten by her father side aunts and grandmother, they allegedly kept her starving while her father was not present. They had to hide food because that would get taken away from them and shit. And call me whatever, but at that point, i heard that voice lying though it's teeth, i just did not know what to trust and if this is a manipulation tactic to become a victim.
So this is the part where i need advice, i left it off by saying we'll be friends from now on, we can keep contact and if you ever earn back my trust maybe something will come of it. But I'm very conflicted, i don't know if i can ever trust her again, her behavior after we met turned really shady. What would you do in this situation? AITAH if i leave her?
I left some context out because it turned out way longer as is, ask in the comments if any questions arise.

So one random day about 2 years ago a random Turkish Facebook account messaged me and started calling me, at first i thought it was some scammer but turned out to be just 2 chicks messing around and i just played along with it. With one of them i just started talking and we kind of clicked, but I've never taken it too seriously, this is the main girl, we'll call her H. To be completely honest i was just a trash guy that felt nothing towards H, however she fell for me and really started caring about me. H sent me nudes, as she said for the first time in her life and she was the initiator of all conversations. Looking back it feels like H always was head over heels in love with me without ever seeing me.
Fast forward about a year and a half, i started gaining a liking towards H as well, we started video calling like every evening. She would get mad when i chose gaming with the boys or going out and not gave time to her, it was really wholesome and one evening she surprised me, she told me that she got accepted into an Erasmus program in Italy, she was finally coming to Europe and we can meet each other. Honestly - I didn't believe that we would ever meet at first, but i started asking her around about her past relationships just feeling out her.
So allegedly H had one past relationship with a Spanish guy it was long distance as well, we'll call him M. She was madly in love with him, they've met in Istanbul once, only had two "very romantical kisses" and nothing else, yes she's still a virgin. That relationship ended abruptly when M's brother found out about that and apparently M was engaged and had a fiancé. H was absolutely heart broken, M's brother called her, started calling her names and told her the full story. She felt betrayed, lost and fell into a deep depression. This is a year before me and her started talking at all.
She came to Italy, everything was fine, she'd tell me about all the people she would meet, tell me about guys that were into her, honestly nothing out of the ordinary, because she is really beautiful and has this calm and collected aura around her. But what bothered me - she would tell me when she found guys handsome. The weird things started happening from then on, since she was Muslim in Italy was the first time she tried alcohol and there were a couple of club nights where she got so wasted she couldn't remember the night before, but she was always with a friend of hers that i trusted and that knew about our relationship, lets call her B.
There was one time that she went out to the club with her student friends and an incident happened - a guy left a hickey on her neck. She told me that while crying the next morning and she told me that it was abrupt and she didn't realize that that was happening, allegedly she was just dancing in the club with him, not romantically she said and he just went in for it from behind her. Allegedly she pulled him off with B and B told him "she's not a girl like that". H came out to me, told me everything about it, i trusted in her that that was a dumb mistake.(Remembering this now kind of makes me feel mad for not giving this that much thought)
Everything turned out ok, we continued talking, no more incidents happened, i didn't shit on her for that incident and i was happy that she was honest and actually as a person that has been more years in relationships in my life than not - i communicated from the beginning that honesty and truthfulness is my top priority in a partner. Honestly i was even a little snake in terms of that i never told her anything i didn't like that she said from the fear that she would close up. So i don't think i created an atmosphere where there would be a motive to keep any secrets, no matter what happened.
We continued talking and H kept pushing me to come to Italy and i will admit - that was way beyond my comfort zone, i told her that i would and that i need time to organize things. Things took a while and eventually she said "i'm sick of waiting, i'm coming to Lithuania myself". And guess what, she bought the tickets with a weeks notice for me. She was coming with her friend B that i had to drive to Latvia for her to meet up with her other friends. Basically after day 2 there would only be the 2 of us left, just me and H.
The day comes and i drive to pick them up from the airport i was anxious and nervous as shit. She comes out of the airport running to me, hugged me for a long time and it felt good. That's when i realized that i really like this girl. But i still have my doubts, i still think of the different cultures, how would she talk to my mother if we ever get married, what culture would our children be, how would i talk to her parents? Basically i didn't see long term viable at that point, in this i'm a piece of shit, because she was in this state of delusion that i'm her everything and i'm her last man ever.
So we live together for that week, we have good adventures, i show her and her friend around the city, outside of the city, they love everything, they're super happy. At night me and H are in the same bed, we kiss and it gets naughty, but at the back of my head i have this guilt of not seeing a future with H, so i don't commit to taking her virginity and we play around with everything around it and she was passionate as shit.
The time i spent with her was very lovely, it was honestly so refreshing and it kind of brought a new light for me, i started imagining the future together but still with many doubts. It is time for her to leave, she's clinged on to me, doesn't want to let me go, is really sad that she has to leave, but eventually she does and she has to leave to Berlin to live there.
Everything was fine, one night i went to play pool with a buddy that lives in the UK, for context he used to date a Chinese girl, we got a little drunk and high and i started talking about H, told him all my doubts and he kind of debunked them with his prior relationship. He basically left me feeling like maybe i should commit to H. He outlined that i do have a lot of prior trauma due to having so many relationships, having been cheated on, having been left for other men and basically i have a very thick shield and never let anyone close. That is very true and i knew the answer was to try to commit and so quietly i did.
H went to Germany, first she went to a city where her friend lives, they both had a good time, she sent me snaps and kept me updated, it was really nice, we continued calling each other. Now this is where the situation started, when she took the train to Berlin, she came in on Monday. She lived in some sort of camp seemed like, she disappeared for that day, in the evening she tried calling me and i called back in an hour. She looked normal to me and i tried asking her what did you do that day. At first she changed the topic, then i asked again - she said they went on a group trip, it was super fun. Then i asked again what happened, she told me this strange story about a guy that she called handsome to her friend in Turkish and was talking about him a lot. After a while the guy turned around and answered to them in Turkish, which made her feel really bad. Then i asked another time, what happened next - she said she got blackout drunk and doesn't remember anything....
Hmmmm. You got blackout drunk like a couple hours ago and now you seem normal talking to me... Alright, i got my suspicions up and reminded her that honesty is number one for me, she said she understands and is 100% honest with me.
Alright, the next day rolls around, LITERALLY THE NEXT DAY AFTER HONESTY CONVERSATION, she sends me a snap of her having lunch with her friend and some guy. I don't think much of it and in the evening we video call, i ask her about the day and she doesn't say anything about no guy, that is pretty weird knowing her past honesty. I directly confront her about it and tell her "What are you talking about, you sent me a snap with you and him at the table", she starts pulling all sorts of bullshit and says she only took pictures of food and sent me those pictures. Lo and behold the tables are black glass and there's a reflection of a dude sitting on his phone at the table. At first she start pulling more shit "I don't see anyone, maybe it's a waiter, i don't know what you're talking about" and i tell her stop acting stupid.
She then starts crying and says that she promised a friend to keep that guy's presence there a secret. Allegedly he's getting an unlawful marriage with his fiancé that neither his nor his fiancé's parents can know about. Wow, what the actual fuck? Who would've i told, going to lunch with guys in secret is normal? Anyway, i told her that she broke my trust and i'm not sure if there's possibility of recovering this. She started begging while crying and said she'd do anything to fix it and that it was a stupid mistake. Alright, i tell her that it will need time, but that she will have to be 100% honest with me. Another talk about honesty.
Next day rolls around and i'm suspicious, i started checking her instagram activity and snap location(very not healthy, i know). i see instragram last active 7h ago and same in snap, all gucci - she asleep. Next time i check - instagram activity has been turned off and snap last active 9 hours ago? I confront her as soon as she gets on snap, which is about 6 hours from the first check. We call and she says she wasn't on insta and she didn't turn off shit. I asked her to share screen and show me - she was messaging B 5 hours ago :)
So i told her that the first mistake i was willing to work through, even though we had a convo literally a day before it. But now this.... I told her that i can't see me trusting her ever again and now she's crying and begging me for days, she gave me all her social media passwords unasked, she said she can delete everything and disappear from everyone's lives except mine. She's basically non stop begging me for forgiveness and saying she'll do anything to fix it and that she will never forget me if she looses me.
She then proceeded to trauma dump me how her father was never present in her life, she never even touched his hand, how she would get beaten by her father side aunts and grandmother, they allegedly kept her starving while her father was not present. They had to hide food because that would get taken away from them and shit. And call me whatever, but at that point, i heard that voice lying though it's teeth, i just did not know what to trust and if this is a manipulation tactic to become a victim.
So this is the part where i need advice, i left it off by saying we'll be friends from now on, we can keep contact and if you ever earn back my trust maybe something will come of it. But I'm very conflicted, i don't know if i can ever trust her again, her behavior after we met turned really shady. What would you do in this situation?
I left some context out because it turned out way longer as is, ask in the comments if any questions arise.

I just wanted to say right off the bat that this post is NOT intended to dissuade anyone from getting a reduction. Having this surgery done can be life changing and I’ve seen firsthand how happy it’s made the people who’ve had one.
But I still feel the need to share my experience, especially those who are pre-op. This has ended up being a novel, but I wish I’d known about a story like this before my surgery. Please, don’t make the same mistakes that I did.
At 16 I started to spill out of my DD bras. Each year after that, it kept getting harder and harder to find bras, harder to feel confident wearing anything but baggy t shirts, harder to exercise even with a full support sports bra, harder to just live a goddamn normal life. At 20 I’d had enough and booked a consultation with a surgeon, not really caring who it was that would do it as long as I could get this extra weight off as soon as possible. And it was just after my 21st birthday that I went under the knife.
I was so happy to finally be able to shop at regular stores for bralettes and not have to worry about them not making my size, I couldn’t wait to finally feel confident wearing something that doesn’t hide my chest, and to finally have my back and neck pain subside. So happy that I wasn’t too worried about the results I’d get. I had expressed clearly and adamantly that I wanted as much off as possible, and why shouldn’t I trust a literal doctor to do his job? I was so blinded that no alarm bells went off in my head when he said: “Don’t worry, you’ll be proportionate.”
After the initial fog of anesthesia and pain wore off, it was at around 2 weeks post op that I started to worry. I was assured it was swelling, that it was so early and I couldn’t possibly tell what my results would look like. That made me feel better, until my follow up appointment where the surgeon told me only 400g was removed from each breast. I tried to keep up hope that I’d eventually shrink down, but after weeks and then months with no sign of them getting smaller I started to realize that I’d been fucked over.
I’m now 9 months post op. My starting size was around a 32J, and now, I’m at a 32G, at the very smallest. I have a follow up appointment scheduled with my surgeon to ask for a revision.
I’m beyond livid. At the surgeon, but also at myself for being so naive. This is what can happen when women don’t know they need to advocate for themselves and make sure their voice is heard.
To everyone pre op, fight tooth and nail.
Raise hell. Get EVERYTHING in writing. Do your research. Get a second opinion. Explain what you want, and then explain it again. Make sure there are measures in place so that they can’t sneak around and do whatever they think will look best, because they will. Even if you think you’ve done enough to make sure you’ll be listened to, do more. I thought I did enough, but I didn’t.
Don’t let what happened to me happen to you.

As always, thank you to u/SpacePaladin15 for the wonderful universe that is NoP! Thank you to u/cruisingNW for proof reading and helping me make this chapter as good as it can be, you're the man! Honestly LoM wouldn't have gone very far without him! If you haven't you should absolutely go read Foundations of Humanity! It's very good AND it just updated!
A big thanks to u/Saint-Andros for helping with proofreading! He writes Out of Our Elements which is a very good one! If you like a good fic in the wilderness and a pair of cute 'friends' ;) you'll love OOE!
Also thank you to u/brotanics! For this wonderful fanart of Taisa. And this one! She's so cute I'm gonna die
And thank you to u/Jimdandy117! For this adorable fanart of Chris and Renkel! Dear god help he's adorable I love him so much
Thank you u/SlimyRage, or AsciiSquid on Discord, for makin' Vengineer Taisa Gamin'. She's absolutely adorable, I love her lil' workers apron. She looks so excited to get to work!
Thank you u/Braquen! For this astounding Pixel Art of Taisa after a few range day dates with Chris! Her little hat and gunbelt are absolutely astounding!
Thank you u/VeryUnluckyDice! For this Artwork of Taisa and Chris as characters from One Piece! I've never seen or read it before but it's incredibly cute!
Thank you to u/creditmission for their wonderful work of several LoM fanfics!
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Memory Transcription Subject: Taisa, Venlil Starship Engineer, Crystal Star Shipping Co-Owner
Date [Standardized Human Time]: October 16th, 2136
Stars… doom or not, that moon is beautiful.
Earth’s own spotlight still hung in the sky, creeping ever higher backlight more and more of the fleet waiting in anticipation. The moon’s pure white light scattered aimlessly across the mountains, shimmering like liquid silver on the surface of the river flowing through the valley far below us. Slinking dark forms of ships that slipped beyond her light made their presence known through the trailing wisps their ion thrusters jetted out behind them; painting the soil-black sky with twisting, swirling hues of blue amongst the shimmering stars.
A warm and weighty hand pulled me close as the cool night air of the mountains flowed through my wool, coaxing a contended purr to build and blossom in my chest as I pressed into Chris’ side, stretching up to nuzzle into his neck before leaning forward and snatching another ‘hummus’ covered carrot from the tray to pop it into my mouth. The delicious, savory smoothness of the hummus accompanied the sweet harshness of the carrot perfectly, sending a trill of pleasure through my chest before I continued my story.
“Anyhow, Quilleth and I, despite her continuous protests, get assigned to the same design herd for one of our final projects. We had an old Triconn Drive Systems TC-547 Jump drive and one of their ‘standard’ fusion cores to go with it, one of the worst pairs of speh-stacks ever built if you ask me, that we needed to rebuild and get working again, and she wanted no part of having to ‘deal’ with me for any extended period of time. Tavareth, my jump-drive maintenance and design professor, was adamant that,” I stopped, pulling in a breath and puffing out my chest, doing my best to mimic the old, gray trunked Mazic. “Ahem, ‘In a work environment you’ll have to work past your differences to make the herd stronger.’ and all kinds of other speh that amounted to ‘I need to fill out this herd the rest of the way and you two are who’s left.’”
“They both sound so pleasant.” Chris rumbled, a chuckle in his voice as he grinned, handing me another of his ‘cracker sandwiches’ before turning his eyes back to the stars high above.
“That’s a word for it.” I agreed, giving a jovial whistle past the crumbling cracker and deliciously smooth nut-spread. “But she dropped that tune real fast the second we came up to a real problem in the project trying to source a new, or at least rebuildable, primary magnetic accelerator. I called Parnel and had a brand new one, that was well past any spec we were expected to meet, in our workshop and installed within the paw. After that I checked the drive’s Tritium levels, rerouted every coolant line, field flow point and magnetic induction coil so they actually worked right, stars forbid those wool brains at Triconn ever design something right the first time, to get everything I could out of the new accelerator assembly.”
“Now why does that sound familiar?” Chris mused, a sly smile on his face as scooped a fistful of crunchy chips into his mouth.
“You can shush Captain ‘try his damnedest to burn out every subsystem he can find’, half the re-routing I have to do now is your fault!” I replied with an amused whistle, paffing the back of his head with my tail-tuft before continuing. “Now, after I’d… dove into the ove-”
“As you often do.” Chris cut in, a smile on his face as he prodded my side with a burbling laugh in his voice.
“Shush!” I bleated in return, the warmth of a spreading bloom driving the sneaking cold of the mountain air from my wool. “As I was saying, after I dove into the drive, Quilleth and our other partners, mostly Quilleth, had taken it on themselves to handle the core’s overhaul and refueling. Leave it to most herds to take the easy route and not learn something if they can get away with it, you can damn well bet they made sure to document that I was the one who worked on the drive and that the, far easier, core was all them. The work on the drive took a while by myself but I still managed to get everything done and put together before we had to spin it up for the test-paw.”
“How do you test a drive and a core if it's not on a ship? Feels like a fast way to make a problem for yourself.” Chris asked, his eyes focused on me, interest plain on his face as his hand wrapped around my side to pull me close.
“Well the drives physically can’t engage if they’re in a sufficient gravity well, and VP is well beyond that threshold, so we just spin them up, take readings to ‘prove’ that they’d work in a real application. I argued we should have had a few shuttles with remote diagnostics and control systems, like we used during your flight training, to do the tests to show they actually did work since correct readings in a gravity well and correct readings in applied use can be different and you wouldn’t know until you were in orbit and getting ready to jump. Tavareth said he’d have ‘loved to give us the chance but the university didn’t have the funds to allocate’ or some other excuse the faculty always used to avoid doing things the right way.” I replied, waving my paws in frustration at the amount of projects that were only given a curled tail of thought before being dumped on us to complete, real world applications or not.
“Sounds a lot like Trepassy’s parent company, unless it was a ‘mission critical component’ as they put it, then they didn’t much care to fix it if it didn’t keep her stuck in port. Always made the excuse that the repairs weren’t in the budget while posting ten plus percent margins. Didn’t matter how much me and the cap’ called and bitched them out for busted Air-con or the rec-room being entirely bare they always said the same damned thing. Bunch of assholes.”
My tail set to wagging at the idea of Chris and his captain shouting into a phone at some other Human half the world away about something that felt all too familiar. “Anyways, we get everything set up on the testing field outside of Dayside, get the systems mounted into their cooling and fuel channels before we start spooling the core up and putting power to the drive. Before too long Tavareth announces that everything looks stable and we can begin putting load onto the system, everything climbs their scales well. The warp field levels off with the expected fluctuations of a drive being operated way too far into a gravity well to maintain any real stability and the core temperature looks good. Everything’s holding steady, Tavareth looks pleased, the rest of my project-herd is congratulating each other on a project completed.”
“Then the core temp starts climbing, blooming well beyond any ‘acceptable’ overheating limiter Quilleth, Uderek or Ofent could have seen fit to set. I looked over and found all three of them watching the core start to melt down in disbelief as Tavereth slams down every single E-stop he can find on the command console. Suddenly everything stops, the room goes quiet as the distant, now glowing white core is dumped straight into an abort tank to expend its… energy somewhere a bit safer. ”
“Tavereth whipped around faster than I’d ever seen that big old Mazic move and oh stars was he furious!” I bleated, tossing my paws in the air at the memory of him studying each of us in turn before launching into an angry tirade. “That core was as bright as the stars themselves but it had nothing on the bloom positively glowing beneath Quilleth’s coat! He laid into all of us for a solid five minutes, calling out everything that could have gone wrong under Sollaglick’s light and I didn’t say a thing until she tried to blame me for forgetting to install the limiters!”
I saw the corner of Chris’ mouth curl in a tight smile, he knew what was coming but it still felt so good to be able to revel in it with my own herd, pack or whatever we should have been called. “Then I threw her own write up right back at her! Pointed out every note that explicitly called out that I only worked on the drive and that the core was all them, more specifically that SHE was supposed to have installed the limiters almost a herd before according to their schedule!”
“Uderek, Ofent and I all got a stern warning about why you should always check your herd-mates’ work and I got a gruff ‘good work’ for the drive before Tavereth positively berated Quilleth for the next quarter claw! Those two were good to me for the tail end of the semester, I’d hoped they’d try to keep in touch after we went our separate ways but… well they really didn’t.” I sighed with a shrug, the sun falling from my field at the memory of the last time I’d seen the chipper Gojid and our Tilfish friend.
“Well, hopefully things are going good for them, sometimes folks get busy… maybe they figure they don’t wanna bother you! ‘Specially now that you got your own ship and whatnot!” Chris comforted, his hands tracing wonderfully comforting circles through my wool.
Could always try to get in contact again if we make it through this.
>Agreed.< “Maybe I should, would be nice to have even more paws onto look at any of the problems Darno and I can’t… Stars above what is that?!”
My breath hitched in my throat as I looked to the stars, watching as the fleets high above began to exchange zipping tails of blue and green. A horrid, deadly light show filled the void high above earth, ships on both sides taking and serving hits with the fervor only people fighting for their lives, and the lives of everyone they’d ever known, could truly muster. The blazing trails of plasma slammed into the distant motes, scattering their vibrant colors in globs across the tapestry of the stars before some of them were joined by the flash of critical reactors and munition blowouts.
But amongst it all that wasn’t even the most of it.
For a brief moment I had thought the U.N. had decided to throw their entire moon at the fleet, another break-tail juke to smash as much of the fleet as they could; but the vectors were all wrong. They weren’t propelling here, they were taking off from her. The light of the moon was ablaze, obscured with towering pillars of smoke and fire, cacophonous trails of burnt oxygen and hydrogen traced a stampede directly to the extermination fleet. No, what they had actually chosen to do was far worse.
They’d stowed what looked like a never ending salvo of gargantuan missiles waiting for the exact moment to drop everything they had on the extermination fleet. A thought crossed my mind, a display from some stars-forsaken exhibit in the capital’s museum called ‘true evil’, its content was positively laughable now, about how many atomics humanity had made before they’d ’annihilated’ themselves. I think the curator had harvested the numbers a shear or two short. The sky lit up like a battery of strobes, the constant cracking light of splitting atoms nearly turning night to day as they spread like a blight through the assaulting fleet.
I couldn’t help but pull my lips back in a smile as my tail thumped rapidly against the stone beneath me. That mote of hope in my chest grew, watching the burning hulks full of people who wanted nothing more than to destroy everything about this world I’d come to love break apart, venting atmosphere as they sat, hanging in the void. Some tried to turn tail and limp away, some slipped into Earth’s gravity, their battered hull sections turning to voracious fireballs as they plummeted toward the hard, unforgiving dirt below.
Should’ve stayed home.
The thunk and twang of Chris’ instrument slipping from its case harvested my attention, my eyes sliding from the battle high above to the glowing white instrument resting in his hands. His own eyes turned to the sky, hovering for a moment as he plucked a few discordant notes from the instrument before looking back down and over to me, meeting my gaze.
“‘Suppose now’s as good a time as any.” He shrugged, giving me a small smile as I nodded, wrapping my tail around his wrist before gently nuzzling into his neck and turning my eyes back to the battle.
The sharp, plucky, barking twang of the banjo called out across the mountain tops, echoing back to us like a distant friend as Chris’ voice filled the air, joining the banjo in its reprise. The slow, wavering song danced between us just as the violence for the stars above, weaving amongs the whispering chorus of the trees and the chattering, throaty backing of evening insects.
“But I want to be where all the stupid shit I say Sounds so romantic and true.
Cause I'd rot in hell with you,
If you'd just ask me to.
I love the shitty things we do together,
Live with me in this sin forever.”
Memories flooded my mind with the words and hanging notes that echoed across the valley before us. The panic of our first solo flight as Chris pushed Shamrock for everything she’d had to give us, trying desperately to keep her in one piece as he blew past every limiter to get Maeve to the hospital as fast as we could. Concern roiling in my chest as I helped him to the truck after he’d dove into the river after, soaked to the bone, shivering and frozen but still so proud. The frustration of the two of us hard at work on Polani the paw after we’d gotten her, tail, and elbow, deep in carbon, grease and oil as we cursed everything under the stars. The fear of the cradle as the thunder of shells slamming into Polani’s hull filled her halls, the horror as one stalked me within my home…
“Cause home is the last place that I'd stand to be with anyone but you.
I'd rot in hell with you, If you'd just ask me to.
I love the shitty things we do together, Live with me in this sin forever.
Hell and you, I know you want it too.
I hope you take the shot, see this chance.
Feel the fire, and let me have this dance with you.”
I pressed into his side with a contented sigh, listening to the last echoing twangs of the Banjo and his voice as they called back across the great expanse before us. A long, cool breath filled my lungs before I leaned up to give his cheek a small, loving lick as a purr rolled through my chest. “I love everything we do together too, Love. Almost as much as I love just having you in my life at all.”
His mouth split into that broad, goofy grin as his hand pulled me just a little closer, his heavy voice rolling through me, just as comforting as always. “I love you too, Darlin’.”
“So…” I whistled, my tail twitching back and forth with amusement as I spoke into his neck. “About that dan-”
The words faltered in my mouth as a building light caught my eye, harvesting my attention skyward.
There, seemingly hanging in the sky, a pair of ships were tangled, no speared together. Both of them were burning fuel as munitions explosions wracked their hulls and trailing plumes of wispy atmosphere vented from their hulls as they plummeted to earth together, locked in their own deadly dance. The fires of re-entry blazed across both of their hulls as parts, pods and melted trails of slag broke away from both of them. The rammer’s guns opened up, sending round after round out after the escape pods that had bailed from the other ship, turning scores of them into little more than puffs of smoke that never had a chance.
As the pair grew closer I could finally make out what they were, or at least who the aggressor was. A Federation light cruiser was speared dead in her midship by the unmistakable, sleek curves of a Venlil Destroyer ending in a hextet of thrusters that still belched plumes of burning hydrogen fuel into the sky as she drove her opponent towards the certain death of the mountains below them with everything they had. The screaming roar of the ship reached my ears, their cacophonous echos casting across the mountain range like the angered, belligerent wails of someone defending everything they held dear.
That ship doesn’t have U.N. markings… Stars above that ship… those are Venlil.
“Damn…”
“Stars above…”
Chris and I watched what amounted to a grand, defiant headbutt as it traced its path down from the stars above. The pair of dancing ships continued their descent, pirouetting to the mountains below them like experienced partners just as their arms and thrusters screamed at each other like enemies with a centuries old grudge to settle.
“Shit… they’re comin’ down on Salt Pond.” Chris whispered, his eyes tracking the pair as they plummeted.
Mountains rose into sight beneath them, the distant mountain’s peak rose into the sky like it was anticipation, just hoping for the chance to dash the interloper across its face.
“H-How far is that?”
“‘Bout twenty miles as the crow flies. ‘Least no one lives on that one I think, ‘sides maybe the rangers.”
The fleets far above them were still locked in a furious fight, the monstrous flanks of the federation ships pushed on, crashing through the defenders like a harvester through wool-grass. Ships of both sides fell from their formations, ablaze like the stars around them, only growing brighter before flaring into catastrophic explosions that cast them into incalculable pieces that fell to the ground below like a meteor shower.
“Think they’ll manage?” I whispered, a sprout of fear and doubt managing to push past the stone of hope I’d done my best to embed in my heart.
“I hope so, Darlin’. I ho-“
The cacophonous screech and cavernous boom of metal crashing into stone, trees and dirt filled the air, drowning his voice out and sending birds scattering from the trees around us as the ground beneath us shuddered from the impact.
Then everything went whi-
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SOLUTION: LOAD NEXT TRANSCRIPT IN QUEUE FOR ‘THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE BLACKSBURG BURNER AND THE SKALGAN SHOWSTOPPER’? Y/N
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About a month ago I went on holiday. We had a week in Egypt - averaged around 33°C, and we spent the majority of the time relaxing in the sun, reading, or chilling in the pool. The week after that we were still off work, and all was good.
Pretty much all of my symptoms cleared up after a few solid days of not doing much. It felt amazing - I'd forgotten how good it could feel! No shooting pains, no deep aches, no tenderness... honestly it was such a bloody relief.
Now, two weeks back into the daily grind and I'm I'm agony. Using a keyboard has left my hands and wrists painful again. My legs have shooting pains from my hip joints down to my knees. My jaw is throbbing, my feet hurt, my neck hurts, and I've had a migraine now for 4 days. And I wake up feeling more tired than when I went to bed.
It feels worse than its ever been before. Do I have to wait until my body gets used to the constant pain again? I wondering if having no pain for a little bit has taken away my resistance to it. All I know is I feel like crying with it all, but that only makes my head hurt more

I just read an article about chronic disease or illness fakers. I am thoroughly disgusted that even more people are more ignorant than I thought possible beyond my immediate family.
Right before the age of 40 I passed out waiting for a table at a nice restaurant, slowly drinking a beer. Luckily I had not been a heavy, medium, or even light drinker for almost 10 years. All I really had physically wrong with me at that time was testosterone therapy, come shoulder surgeries, and chronic,sometimes horrible pain. Oh, I was also told I had a great, really great bronze California tan.
After that incident right before age 40 I had every test I could have done to explain what happened. Witnesses said, im 6'3 195+ lbs, I just turned white, became instantly soaking wet, and fell straight backwards like a 2x4.
After all the tests were completed I discovered my Iron(its really called ferratin) was at a level of 3,900 (normal safe levels are 50 to 200 roughly. I was given a genetic test for hemachromatosis, which is pretty common, and not a super big deal when treated early. In fact, anyone with hemachromatosis cam firmly state that we people,all people, black, while, whatever are related. Black people have a genetic disease called sickle cell disease. If not treated and allowed to run rampart sickle cell turns into hemachromatosis. Nuff said.
The main treatment for hemachromatosis is bloodletting, the amount of blood you need to get out of your body and how much at a time and how often is usually dictated by the level of your ferritin in your blood at time of diagnosis. Most people, fortunately, get detected and treated by 700 to 1500 level of Ferratin. The body is basically killing itself, "rusting away" to say at levels if 1,000 plus of ferritin.
Now five leads later, testosterone implants every 3 months or so, bloodletting (phlebotomy) treatment 4 times a year now ( I started giving over 550 grams of blood 2 times a week for 4 months, and then once a week 4 or 5 months, and so on and on. I have had a pretty extensive cervical neck surgery, cages, holes drilled in arthritic areas and nerve openings opened up, both hips totally replaced, a knee replacement on left knee coming up soon, always a pain in my ass,, literally,, lol. There's other things, I have to get liver biopsies every year, heart tests performed every year, no alcohol, low Vtamin C diet, no more liver and onions, and reduced use of cast iron and other high iron cooking and eating utensils.
Thing is,, if you see me just see me, you'll see a big, strong, agile, balanced man. But what you dont see is how hard it is for me to just get up and drink a cup of coffee some mornings, or how bad both legs ache, hurt, throb, and sometimes especially feel totally exhausted 2 hours after I wake up. Or a serious neck, nerve issue that I just keep massaging and turning my head.
I don't take opiates, except after surgeries, I can't take much Tylenol or ibuprofen and related. Mostly ice pack/machine, heat pads, hot hot bath soaks, stretching (carefully), keeping moving, and pushing myself everyday or at least 6 days a week harder than the day before.
I have half siblings, 17+ years older than me, with bone spurs, maybe knee replacement, obesity related issues, lack of movement/ exercise issues, and on and on.
I'd happily trade places with them, but keep my age, and very few people I imagine get what I'm about to say next . I decided after the first 6 months of diagnosis I was going to "break and fall apart before I rusted and rotted away".
Do you get that? Understand ? I am happy, no I get exited and thrilled inside when I see people with obvious issues, obesity, laziness, bad diet, drinking, etc struggle, not do, or unwilling to do things they should do, much less want to do to make this life more,, make this life better for themselves. I say F' u all those ignorant dumb lazy scared people that say things, think things, act differently when they interact with you, not knowing you closely and really knowing you, when they see this person that looks, moves, and does lots of physical things better than they can,, and they think your faking or putting on or playing poor pity party me,,, no screw you guys,, try, literally walking 10,000 or more steps in my shoes each day and more, yet sometimes not able to even crawl or move for 2 or 3 hours after 4 or 5 or less some days just living life.
Anyone else have similar stories ? Or experiences? I still can't get over the fact that had a been a normal,, or whatever you call a person who drinks a six pack a week, alcoholic drinker I would definitely for sure have had cirrhosis or liver cancer by now for sure and probably be dead. Anyway,, let me know thanks.
P

My husband and I have been married for 8 years. We have a baby about to turn 1 towards the end of the year. We don’t have families that can help and we both work full time. I have a corporate 9-5 job. His job is very flexible to where be can choose his hours and schedule, but chooses to work 8+hours every day. When he comes home he just eats dinner and heads to bed and I’m left to wash the dishes for the whole day, feed the baby, pump, etc. He rarely helps with anything. I’m the one having to take care of the baby while working. He sometimes helps with feeding the baby and changing baby’s diaper but that’s on few occasions. Whenever I ask him to do something after work he pretty much calls me evil for asking that of him after having long hours of work and tells me his body is aching. His job is physically demanding and his back and feet always hurt him and tells me at least you don’t have a physically demanding job since I work remote. But I also need a break and I tell him at least you’re able to change your hours and schedule. He can work as few as 2 hours a day his job is VERY flexible and we’re not suffering financially yet he’s not willing to work less than 8+ hours. I have to cook food for baby and us, take care of and feed the baby, wash dishes, pump, wash bottle and pump parts, etc and because of the work load I end up sleeping at 2 or 3am daily and have to wake up in the morning to start work. We also argue a lot. He yells at me when he’s mad while calling me names. When I ask him why he yells at me he tells me I caused him to yell and doesn’t take accountability or will just tell me that wasn’t yelling. He also sucks at communicating and isn’t willing to communicate about our issues so we learn from. He’s opposed to therapy too. He think all they do is just listen and won’t actually help and will be a waste of money and time. Any advice from married couples would be great. Thank you!

Continued from part one.
In the mirror I saw a figure of the darkness next to the foot of my bed. I screamed, only for the figure to dash back inside my closet and close the doors behind it. To the naked eye, the doors seemed to roll back on their own, but because of the many mirrors inside my room, I could see the shadowy figure.
“What’s wrong?” my mom burst into my room not even four seconds later.
“J-j-just a nightmare?” I was uncertain if my imagination was too strong for my own good so I held back on the truth.
I wish I told her the truth. That wasn’t the last time I would see the figure in the mirror.
It happened again, about five years later. Yeah it didn’t happen right away. I wondered if the figure I saw was friendly and I simply scared it away for a while. That was my first mindset, but then I second guessed myself and simply thought maybe it was just my imagination playing with me.
At age 12, things started to become rocky with my parents. They fought over the same things, but they also fought over me. I had gone into the world of music to the point where I wanted to take up guitar, piano, and violin. My mom took one side of the stance where she didn’t believe that I could commit to any of them. My dad believed the opposite, fighting that I could do anything if I set my mind to it.
Again, conflict resided. My angry mother could still barge into my room if I didn’t lock the doors. She once found me writing, insisted on me showing her what I wrote, when I resisted she pulled it away from me and read my vampire fanfiction.
I was an angsty girl. Hence my writings were a bit suggestive at the time. My mom and my dad both read my work. My dad actually liked what I wrote aside from the fact it was about the supernatural. Of course, my mother again got mad since she’s the most religious in our family. She was, in a sense, a heretic.
Needless to say, since my family’s religion absolutely detests “spiritualistic and demonic” media, I got grounded. Also to clarify, yes this also meant I never read or watched the Harry Potter series, including the Twilight series. Although I don’t think I missed out on much with the Twilight series lol. Eventually I managed to rent a book that I got from my school’s library, called Hush, Hush, which laid in my backpack, tempting me to read it.
So there I was, no laptop and in my room. I didn’t really care since I had a guitar and a notebook. I still could find pleasure outside of my laptop, which of course my mother absolutely detested as well. Whenever she grounded me, she used to take away any kind of toy. Then, once she realized I could read on my own and was making up stories when I couldn’t read, she began to take books away. Punishments with my family wasn’t really a punishment, I could always find a way to entertain myself. Even if she took my notebooks away, I’d still end up daydreaming about something, even act out scenes I’d come up with in my head.
Now you can understand why I pushed off the incident with the figure in the mirror as a figment of my imagination. I had figured it was a draft, that the wheels and tracking were well lubricated with some kind of oil that makes it hard for them to stay in place.
Sitting on my bed at age 12, I leant back and closed my eyes. I had notebooks, several books, a keyboard for me to practice piano on, and a guitar. It wasn’t a big deal. (Yes I was a spoiled child. I’m owning up to this since I was the only girl among four boys- plus I was also 13 years younger than my youngest brother.) However I was so tired, that I decided on lazily daydreaming. Besides, I could always sneak my laptop back late at night.
As a devoted writer, I continued on imagining the story I began. I imagined what it would feel like to have fangs teasing the throat of the neck, how it would be to be kissed and then bitten by a vampire... my mind was rolling and it didn’t stop. I was a twelve year old girl going through puberty.
I told myself to stop and I decided to pull out the book, smiling at my little success. I went back to the page I left off on at the library earlier that day. I buried myself into the book and became sleepy. I nearly finished the book by the time I set the book aside and stupidly put it on my bedside table.
I passed out soon after. I don’t recall what kind of dream I had at first, all I know is that sometime later in the night, I woke up again, but I could not move my body at all. I looked around my room, which was now fully dark. I barely could recognize anything around me. The familiar outline of my vanity was gone, any silver reflection was gone, I did not see a single mirror, so I knew I was no longer in my room anymore.
A slight humming noise was around me, the room I was in lit up with a red flashing light. It felt like I was being pinned down by some kind of restraint system, so I looked down and noticed these short pale creatures crawling on top of me, towards my face. I felt a sharp sting in my leg, and I knew one of the creatures had bit me already.
It became to feel like sharp knives stabbing me all over my body, until five creatures met my face, their eyes sullen- beady- staring down at me with bloodied mouths and lunged at my neck, causing me to scream..The sound finally piercing through and I could hear myself breathing again, I could hear my screams and my frantic prayers escaping my lips.
Had my mom not come into my room and slapped me on my face, jolting me out of it- whatever it was- I would have seen more than I could bare. She saw the book and her anger brewed even more at me.
“Are you tempting the demons to attack you or something?” she fumed and took the book off of the table. She led me down to the entryway and opened the garage door. “Put it in there.”
I followed her command and put the book into the garage. I knew it wasn’t the book’s fault, but it was associated with “demunz” in her eyes, so I didn’t dare argue against her.
“Do you want to die? If you keep associating with demons, you know god will never forgive you. You won’t inherit everlasting life, only everlasting death. You know that right?!?” she yelled at me, had my dad been there that night- he would have stopped her from going that far. I suddenly missed him.
Her anger then died down after she ranted at me, once she recognized that I was still petrified. She at least brought me to, which made me thankful, but I also felt betrayed. She was supposed to protect me, but all she cared about was the idea of force feeding me her belief system. All she cared about was telling me I was wrong.
“I’m-” she had begun, and I just looked away from her and saw a shadow in my mirror again, standing behind my mom. It didn’t feel as eerie anymore. It felt almost comforting to see it, it moved from my mom to me. A figure of it’s arm wrapped around my shoulder, and I felt the cool breeze raise goosebumps at it’s touch.
“Do you want me to sleep with you tonight?” her voice lowered.
“I’ll sleep alone,” I remarked, still stung with the hurt from her hurtful remark.
She looked hurt for a second, but then returned to her normal frown. “I’ll sleep in the little entertainment room next to you, if you need me just yell out again.”
“Fine,” I simply just pulled my blankets over me again, waited for her to leave, then cried into my pillow.
My mom left, not seeing the dark figure in the mirror and went into the adjacent room. At her departure, the darkness came into my bed, the eerie feeling no longer there and it snuggled against me.
Shh. It hushed me and brushed my hair.
I didn’t question it. I had been afraid of it for so long, but with the sweet affection it gave me- the affection I desired and longed for from both of my parents.
The falling tears turned into a silent sob, my body shook against the bed, little breathy whimpers muffled by my pillow.
Shh, it repeated until I fell asleep again.
When morning came, I woke up with a sore neck and I was irritated with my mom. I remembered what happened and then I snuck out to my laptop and searched up what had happened to me. I learned it was sleep paralysis and figured maybe my imagination went too far with the vampire thing. I was stiff, my body was so sore and I saw my closet doors closed.
Again, I had felt as if my imagination had made it up. I knew the kind of comfort it gave me is what I desperately longed for. It gave me what my family didn’t, and I hated myself. I thought it was a figment of my imagination since it knew all the things I wanted. That is, until something else showed up. The shadow figure in the mirrors was just the start of it all.

it's hard for me to fall in love, but when I do I love the person intensely. I can't look at others, it's only the person that I love is in my head. I'm 21 f, and I've fallen in love with him since my high school days. to be precisely when I was in second grade, at first I didn't know why and how. I think it was love at first sight, but when I started watching him and searching for information about him I fell too deep. I always think that we're a match in heaven, some kind of soulmate or something. We have the same taste of music, books even humor. how did I know? my best friend is in a relationship with his best friend. she always matches me with him, at first she doesn't know that I like him but when she knows, she thinks that me and him are fit for each other.
But I always have low esteem towards myself, I don't have the looks or the personality so I never made the first move to him. I thought it would be just like before, me falling in love with someone that would never love me back and it's already buried deep inside my head, always. When I heard that he had a girlfriend, one of my classmates, I felt so heartbroken. you would think why? you're a coward, that's your fault and I do know that. I force myself to stop thinking about him, to like him, to love him. For almost half a year I can survive without thinking about him. never once had I had the slightest thought about him, then one day he suddenly followed me on Instagram. I was shocked, like really-really shocked. we never once had a single conversation, never interacted but why did he follow me? at that time, my hope suddenly appeared again but not for a long time because I remembered that he now had a girlfriend.
I couldn't help but follow him back, I told to my best friend and she said that he and his girlfriend had already broken up. I shouldn't but I was so happy that I cried at that time, maybe? maybe it's a chance for me to be with him, to have him. I was so desperate to have his attention, that I did everything so that he could at least like my story or reply. I posted the books that we both like, I share the same music, comics, and even memes. but never once did I get what I wanted, you guys must've been wondering why couldn't just confess to him or make the first move? as I said, I was a coward, a big coward. I feel deep in that agony once again, praying and hoping for him to notice me. It's hurting me again, and I thought to myself do I have to live like this? why is the reason he followed me? why? and after locking myself up for almost a month, at my birthday. two days after his, I convinced myself that I should move on if I didn't want to start something if I didn't want to be brave and confess to him.
My best friend asked me to at least confess my feelings to him before I decided to move on, maybe it will ease my anxiety and mind. but I once again refused because of my cowardness, I chose to keep my feelings to myself and remove him from my Instagram. it was a tough decision but I managed to get through it, I was doing better and better. I focus on my studies, hanging out with my friends, and everything else. I thought I already moved on, I never looked at his profile on Instagram anymore and never looked at the conversation that I had with my best friend about him.
So I talked about it to my best friend, she's happy for me but she also feels sad because she supports me to be with him. Then she asked me again, "Are you sure that you already moved on? I'm so happy about that but I don't like seeing you forcing yourself like this." then I asked, what does that mean? yes, I was forcing myself but why did she ask me that? She then told me that her boyfriend, the best friend of 'him' knows that I like his best friend. she told me that 'him' sometimes talks about me to her boyfriend. "She also likes reading books." "She listens to the same artist as I am."
then she told me that 'him' asked her boyfriend why I removed him from my Instagram, her boyfriend told him that either I was weird or maybe you didn't see the signs that I gave him. He just grinning and rubbing his neck at what my best friend bf said, and i ask her does 'he' know that i liked him and she said yes. idk what to do after that, i already move on but it still hurts me a lot.

recently, i had a conversation with my mom detailing what i wanted to be when i was older. ever since i was a child, i loved singing and dancing. not like i was humming in the womb, but singing was a great past time for me.
when i moved to london in 2022, i, according to my mom, fell in love with the idea of becoming a musician. for some reason, my childhood is overly blurry, but she told me back then i wasn't interested, and i was sorta confused because i'm sure i was. she said the idea of becoming a musician and singing and everything was not on my to-do list. it was weird because i don't recall ever telling her a career i wanted to look into back then. i think i assumed she knew i wanted to become a singer, but she didn't know? idk its confusing lol.
so anyways, after that i tried to occasionally sing and practice my voice. note: occasionally. i would, according to my entire family, sing for a few moments and stop singing (MOMENTS??) clear my throat, do that again, get mad and say "I'm never singing again." (which is obviously a lie.) for some reason, i was dead-set that i wanted to become a musician, but i also didn't put in the effort to becoming a singer.
now, even i know this, but i tend to pick-up and drop things easily, so i never really stuck to one thing. the reason is most likely because my parents were movers. even when we lived in dubai, we never stayed in one place. changing schools and houses more times than i can count. i think having this sort of lifestyle of not having to stick to one thing is affecting me as a person also. but thats a story for another day;
my point is that singing is one of the things that i picked up but i can't seem to drop. i think as i kept going and watching these people perform at concerts, work in studios, all of that it makes me want to become a musician even more! i tried my hand in acting at one point but that totally backfired. so its just on singing again. in fact, i tried so many things and i decided i was good at nothing so singing was my only option.
now, don't get me wrong my family is well off, so i can afford school, college, university and the works, but i still feel like i'm not good at anything besides singing. im going to grade 12 next (school) year, so i don't have lots of time to think about this, yet i feel like everything will just work itself out.
now, to my actual question; do i like singing, or do i hate it? and if i hate singing, why do i hate it?
so, my first reason that comes to mind on why i hate singing is my voice. now, i've had no shortage of compliments from my family telling me i'm a great singer. (well, maybe a little shortage. and my dad has never told me i'm a great singer. apparently i've never sung in front of him before.) but, also from strangers. before the winter holidays in 2022, my school held a winter concert and i had a solo in there. my music teacher who's also the choir teacher, gave me the solo, telling me i had a great voice and potential. the day came and i felt i completely blew it, but people were pulling me left, right and center to tell me i had a lovely voice. might've been just curtesy, but it was very sweet of them.
so i have no genuine idea why i hate my voice, but it just feels so flat and bad. i can't hold a note more than 4 seconds, my breath control sucks, i can't mold my voice into something, and my voice is raspy. i could keep going. it doesn't sound like sabrina carpenter, ariana grande, whitney. someone told me it sounded like maria once, but i'm calling bullshit. and most importantly when i sing, my neck hurts or i get a splitting headache.
now, second reason i came up with is that, like my mother said, its a chore. she told me i only sing to practice, i don't sing because i like the melody songs create. i don't sing because i love it. i sing because it feels like it's already a job for me, and as if i'm about to make money from it. i tried to deny this, but i think it's true. when i sing, i don't sing like i'm trying to enjoy the song, i feel like i'm trying to monitor my voice and what it sounds like.
when i practice and i cut myself short, it's not because my voice hurts or i'm tired of singing, it's because i don't like how i sound, which makes me think: am i enjoying the song at all? obviously to get better at singing, i have to practice, its a must. but i don't often sing because i like a song, i sing them as a form of work. now, i thought this would all be easily avoidable if i just went to singing classes, because now i can focus on practicing there and enjoying singing out here. but i've always been of the "if i had this, it would be better" mentality. and in this case, i might even be right! but my mom asked "why would i pay money for something you don't even like", and maybe she's right and it is a waste.
maybe i hate singing because i'm bad at it but i'm starting to feel like this is my only option.
but that was until last year when i fell in love with gaming. game development particularly.
now i've always been a fan of gaming; not like the fortnite, COD, GTA and other games of the sort, but more like resident evil, roblox, the last of us type games, but then i fell even more in love with learning how to make them. now this is a whole big story and another story for another day, but basically, i now feel like game development is something i would be really interested in taking in university. but that didn't make me want to stop singing and trying to make music so... maybe the second point is invalid. but i don't know.
recently, i've been taking more effort to practice my singing and improve my voice. i sing daily now, for a significant amount of time. i've been seeing some progress actually. my sister told me that i've always been improving, but it's not the little improvements i see. its the big one. she's in 6th grade... 😭
anyways, thats all i know about this entire thing. its making me really sad and unhappy writing this entire thing. i thought i had everything figured out about this, but this whole "you hate singing" thing is doing my head in. i just wanna dance and make music :(
what do you guys think?

What I mean by this is do y’all feel symptoms specifically different from normal anxiety. I mean like heart palpitations, pounding head and blurry vision, muscles atrophying and aching, and all around your mind racing and flashing images of mobs attacking you be it physically or verbally? Wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy man. It’s moments like these that make me think that being exposed for my events wouldn’t actually be as bad as the OCD.
I think I’ve finally realized something about real event ocd. I think what we’re all experiencing to an extent is some sort of inverse PTSD. Like we all have a hard time processing trauma that hasn’t even occurred yet (or ever). Instead of flashbacks they’re flash forwards. I don’t even know how this is a possible thing for humans to be experiencing because it seems so silly and antithetical to our survival. It genuinely does not benefit us in any way to be this hyper vigilant at all times to prevent us from living our lives so why is this something even psychologically possible?

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Anglestan
Augustus 5, 1923
Facility 9, Mancheston
Colonel Jacobs
His hands flew through the folders General Jorgenson and Colonel Thatcher had. There were dozens of them, stacked upon each other all filed in alphabetical order. It had only been a few days since he had woken up from his coma and visited his home— now his mother’s grave. He clenched his fists at the thought. The grief and rage threatened to bubble and spill over once again. He took a deep breath and dragged out the exhale, almost to the point where he had emptied out his lungs.
He was the only one with clearance, and so he couldn’t disclose any of what he learned with his team. They would simply have to trust him and his judgment. Which he was sure they would do. His hands went over one of the folders skimming through it. There were multiple secret projects, but the ones with the most notes were Project S.T.A.R, Project L.U.N.A.R.I, Project R.E.V.I.V.E, Project D.A.W.N, and Project T.E.M.P.L.A.R.
The colonel decided to start with the most notes and papers. Project D.A.W.N.
He skimmed through the notes, reading through some of the details and highlighted words. Project D.A.W.N, the espionage project Thatcher had started placed two spies in Verlin who were to report directly to a Crescent general named Sienna Moretti who was apparently on humanity’s side.
So I was right. There was an espionage element. With the recent attacks and Thatcher’s death, however, it’s safe to assume that it had somehow failed. Either they got found out or they betrayed us. Both seem very likely, but if they were found out, it would be possible that they had died.
He read through all of it before setting the folder down. There were no new notes recently. He sighed and assumed that Project DAWN was a failure. Whether or not the agents were still alive and well, it was too risky to check if they had been compromised. It was better to assume that they had been and cut all contact. The only way to find out now was to go there himself and check. I can’t contact them again. There’s no telling if it would still be Moretti or the agents who would see my messages. It’s a big risk, and judging by the state of things, best to assume it failed.
He picked up another folder. This one had the label ‘under development’ on the folder. Project Templar. He opened the folder and was instantly met with a blueprint and drawings of a massive bipedal machine. It looked humanoid with strange proportions and was supposed to be standing at an impressive 30 meters, or 100 feet. The Titanic Engine Mech for Personal Land Assault and Reconnaissance.
It was apparently a joint project with the Church of Sol, utilizing new and advanced technologies he hadn’t heard of. A 203mm Gatling cannon on one arm, while the other had three different weapons. A massive firestarter that utilized a new type of fuel mixture that could theoretically spew flames a kilometer away using a high-pressure nozzle. The fuel was ignited using an electrical spark. The second weapon was a high-powered light weapon that fired a single powerful beam of focused light that was even further amplified by layers of focusing lenses that could increase its output several times. Its third weapon was… a dust domina?
Mark read through the specifications of the so-called ‘sand cannon’ weapon. It was a massive cannon that accelerated tiny particles several times. Each particle was to be electrically charged, and it would travel at immense speeds. Near impossible speeds. The resulting impact of a microscopic particle at such speeds would be enough to form a small crater and punch through armor like it was nothing. This weapon would fire multiple at the same time, which could literally eat away at anything on the opposing end.
In terms of secondary weapons, the titan had two missile launch chambers in front of its shoulder each containing about 40 missiles, and two massive howitzer cannons on top of it. Both are 800mm in caliber. It had massive stumpy legs that served as bunkers for a small platoon on each leg. Each leg had machine dominas and 155mm cannons. Its chassis held two nuclear reactors inside providing for its power and weaponry. Its armor was the thickest and most ridiculous he’d ever read. Two meters of heavy steel armor.
How far are we in terms of technology? This thing looks like it came out of an H.G. Wells sci-fi novel. He thought, shaking his head. It was over the top, but there was no denying its combat capabilities. If it was already under-developed then it must be the first prototype. This has already been approved. Guess I better see it for myself later and check how it's coming along. Construction apparently started just a few months before the invasion.
Next was project L.U.N.A.R.I. It was a project involving Six. “Huh,” he said, continuing to read on.
The Light Undone: Nocturnal’s Adaptive Resistance Initiative. As he read further, his eyes widened. The reason why Six was so special wasn’t just because of her immunity to all strigoi weaknesses, but because of her impressive ability to turn any true born strigoi like her. She could transfer her strain like any other strigoi and transform them into a version of hers. It however only seemed to work for naturally born strigoi. The new species of ‘half-breeds’ were called ‘Blessed Children’ as Thatcher had coined in the folder.
The plan was to turn all willing true-born hemolite strigoi into these blessed children. Able to withstand the sun. Immune to silver. Free from the dependency on blood. They could remove all the weaknesses of the strigoi and after the war— make it possible to integrate them into society as normal citizens living on the surface. The project folder also made mentions of a city-wide draft in Dante and highlighted the possibility of turning all Dantenite true born strigoi into these blessed children and renaming them as ‘Lunari’. A mix of the dark and the light. The light of Sol reflected in the children of the night.
“Thatcher, what the fuck have you been up to…” Mark whispered to himself.
While it was true that it could help in the war effort by utilizing Six and the dantenite population, it would also invite some unforeseen problems and consequences. Would humanity be okay with the Lunari? Would the world even be ready for them? Strigoi who were immune to the sun. They wouldn’t be impossible to kill, but they would be immensely more powerful if we were to take away their inherent weaknesses. This is a gamble. Its gain would only be seen during the war period, but its unintended effects on society could be catastrophic.
He frowned, setting the folder down. It was obviously Thatcher’s main plan; seeing as all her moves could be traced to the path of the eventual completion of this project. It seemed dangerous in the long run, but the duskwalkers and dantenites had been monumental in the war effort. Maybe it was the time the world started to accept them more. Isolation and segregation was definitely not the way to disperse fears and foster understanding.
If Thatcher thinks this is the next step forward… then I’ll put my faith in her plans.
Next up was Project S.T.A.R, or the Superior Tech and Adaptive Resistance. An upgrade to the current hemolite weapons and gear by using new researched studies. The Starfire Pattern Domina. The SFD-23 This thing features a new loading system and magazine, ditching the rotating cylinder most domina used, or the rotating helix magazine design of the current hemolite standard BM-16 domina.
The new domina had its magazine like a box… a strange design but it was certainly easier to handle than the bulky cylinders the helical mags used. In terms of ergonomics, it was smoother and fit more. Its placement however was on top of the domina, just above the barrel. Most of the weapon were to be made of lightweight polymers and the barrel itself were to be crafted out of reinforced aluminium. In addition to that, it had a 10-inch bayonet attached to it.
There were other new things as well, such as the composition of the bullet. Looking at the conceptual cross-section designs, Mark read through its description and how it would function. A .308 cased telescoped bullet covered in a silver jacket with break-away petals surrounding the main body. Inside the jacket was a penetrator core that was to be made of depleted uranium. It had a small amount of incendiary compound and… powdered white phosphorus behind an explosive compound. The thin silver jacket would deform and trigger the explosive compound inside the body. It would blow up causing massive internal damage and release the incendiary materials into the body with the flecks of powdered white phosphorus. The penetrator core could still potentially keep going and hit a second target, or punch through heavily armored targets.
Part of the new Project S.T.A.R was overhauling the armor and gear of not just the Hemolites but the Hunters as well. Starfire Mk 1. Carapace Armor. Carapace? It looked like plates of steel covered in a rubberized coat. It was supposed to be slipped on over the original hemolite body armor. It added a spring-loaded wrist blade to the gauntlet, a thicker coat made of resistant materials, and added extra padding for the knees, shoulders, and elbows.
However, the hemolites weren’t the only ones mentioned in the folder. It was to serve the Hunters as well. “Hunters…” Mark said. “August’s group is part of this initiative too.” He flipped through some of the pages. There were blueprints and drawings of an armored suit. A mechanized suit even smaller and more compact than the jotunn units. The Mark 1 STR battlesuit. It was supposed to hug the wearer’s frame and increase their overall power. It was supposed to be built of titanium alloy and a heavy steel frame with composite armor. It had a cooling system, life support systems that could recycle bodily fluids, and an exoskeleton frame that could increase the wearer’s strength and speed.
However, the real eye-opener was Thatcher’s notes. She had been ranting about the new human evolution, and how the Hunters were the first of the ‘Solari’. She wanted to enhance human genetics and push past the peak of human ability to reach greater heights. Implants and restructuring of the anatomy to make it more efficient. Using the blood of the goddess herself. She must have lost it. These are the ramblings of a lunatic. At least… if she didn’t mention the goddess. Why was the goddess important here?
The writings ended with the words: “See Project R.E.V.I.V.E, for more details.”
Mark eyed the final folder. His hands shook as he reached out to take it. Flipping it open, his hands nearly dropped it in shock. The goddess Helena was alive. There were pictures of her naked form floating in a giant tube of fluid. There were more of Thatcher’s ramblings and excited rants about the possibilities of such a discovery. Resurrection, Enhancement, and Veneration: Implementation of Visionary Evolution.
The goddess is alive?! According to the file, she’s currently under the Cathedral of New Lundun. Not only that, but the file also detailed the extraterrestrial tech that lay beneath the cathedral. So the goddess is real and she’s— not really a goddess, but rather, a vampyr who created herself a human body to stand in the sun, and decided that it wants to be on humanity’s side… what the fuck.
Mark’s frown and confusion only increased as he read on. Thatcher’s notes seemed to nearly descend into madness as she had written about creating ‘the first hundred’, alluding to the 100 members of the Hunters division. Her plan was to revive the goddess, and with her help and expertise in genetics— use her DNA to transform the Hunters into demi-humans. Super soldiers. Literal children of the goddess Helena. They would then don the STR battlesuits, the first of the superhuman warriors to defend humanity. Solari.
Their lightning-speed advancement into technology was heralded by studying the alien tech, which deepened the understanding of physics and engineering. Nuclear technologies, chemical warfare, new material sciences, the mechs, and walkers, it was spearheaded by trying to reverse-engineer technology centuries ahead of our own… for the past hundred years. It wasn’t completely stolen, however. More or less borrowed ideas that had been made into our own with our own designs and implements. Still, the speed at which the Church and the military had deciphered such advancements all by themselves was… impressive to say the least.
Still, the fact that the goddess was alive, and could be brought back was big news. Checking the file for details, he found that the previous general, Jorgenson, had already approved this project. It was their next step as soon as they returned from New Amsterdam; which never happened.
If Helena was alive, then she could end this war swiftly, or at the very least help greatly like she once did during the War of Darkness. Having the goddess back would throw a massive wrench in the Crescent’s plans. It would certainly be something they wouldn’t expect. Not even I expected this, since many sources say that the goddess had already ascended to watch over humanity, while conspiracy theorists claim she had died in battle and that the Church was worshiping a corpse. This could be the trick up our sleeves that no one would even consider.
The colonel quickly got up from his seat and gathered the main files he had read. He placed them in a bag and rushed outside of his office in Facility 9. He went over to a nearby room and flicked the lights on. “We need to go,” he said. In an instant seven hemolite soldiers got up from whatever they were doing and instantly stood in line.
“Sir! Whatever you need of us, sir,” the group said in unison.
They were Hemo-1. His former squad members. He had taken up Louis' suggestion that they be his personal security detail. It was a shame that he had basically placed the best hemolite team out of commission, but after all he had been through he convinced himself that he could be just a little selfish. He didn’t want to lose any more friends. Not on his watch. Not while he was in an office, and they were out fighting.
“We’re going to New Lundun. Better pack up, it’s going to be a long night.”
“Mark,” Olivia said.
Jacobs turned to her direction and gave her a nod.
“Colonel, sir, may I ask where in New Lundun?”
“Liv, you don’t need to do that with me. Please. I give all of you special permission,” the colonel groaned. “It’s so weird. I mean, ‘captain’ was bad enough, but now you’re acting like I’m an authority figure.”
“You… are, though,” Emma shrugged.
“I’m your friend, and Liv I’m literally your partner. Unless you have some kind of weird fetish, save it for later.”
Olivia grinned, shaking her head. “Duly noted!” she chirped.
“That’s better,” Mark chuckled. “Now come on, we have a cathedral to visit.”
“Uhh, I’m not sure if you noticed, but we’re kinda… strigoi?!” Louis groaned. “I’d burn the moment I step in that place! Plus, it’s coated in silver! Anything I even touch will give me burns!”
“Oh come on, Lou. You have fucking gloves on. As long as you’re not a clumsy dumbass you’ll be fine… oh wait.’
“Uh huh, just sayin’ what I think, boss.”
The group headed out and Mark said something on his radio. He then sat on the ground, making his joints pop. The rest of the squad shrugged and followed his example, sitting down on the grass and waiting for… nothing. Charles and Zach looked at each other in confusion. “Uh, sir?” they asked. “Aren’t we supposed to be heading out and traveling right now?”
“Oh yeah, we’re just waiting.”
“Foooor…?”
The colonel gave them a smirk as a loud noise began to make itself known. A hummingbird transport appeared out of the distance and stopped right above them, slowly descending into the grass. “Being colonel has its perks,” Mark said with a smile. He stood up and hopped inside the hummingbird as soon as it landed. “Come on now! We’ve got work to do! Last one aboard buys everyone food later!”
Emma zipped in before Mark could even finish his sentence, followed by Olivia, Phineas, Charles, Zach, and then Louis, who sadly took too long to process what the colonel said, and lagged behind.
“Aw, man! Fuck this shit.”
“Rules are rules, Lou. Prepare your wallet later.” Mark grinned.
With a smile, the colonel pulled Olivia to his side, who blushed for a moment before shaking her head. “Take us up! New Lundun Cathedral! How long would it take?” he asked the pilot.
“About an hour and a half!” The pilot replied. “Less if you want to get there as soon as possible!”
“Take your time! The night’s still young.”
The hummingbird started to lift up, taking them into the air. The group settled down in their seats and watched outside the open. Mark opened up a bag inside the hummingbird and took out some ear muffs built for a strigoi. Extremely loud noises were damaging for a strigoi’s enhanced hearing, so the military started implementing ear muffs for them after complaints from early deployments of the hemolite squads.
The trip didn’t take too long. In only an hour and twenty minutes they had arrived at the safe zone of New Lundun, heading straight for the cathedral. The night mass had just ended and people were leaving the cathedral. “Looks like we made it in perfect time!” Mark smiled. They hovered for a few minutes in the air before eventually landing down right in front of the statue of Helena.
As soon as they landed, the colonel and his group left the hummingbird. Mark instructed the pilot to wait for them. He went straight for the cathedral with his group following behind. He entered inside, clearing his throat. “Hello?”
“Well this is surely unexpected,” an old man said, walking up to greet them.
“Great Grandfather Aurelius. It’s uh, an honor.”
“Please. The honor is mine… I see you’re the new colonel. Yes, I’ve heard the news,” he said. “Would you mind telling me your name, young man? As well as your companions, if they feel so. I usually don’t allow duskwalkers here but, I have nothing against them. I’ll make an exception for your group.”
“Thank you, Great Grandfather,” Mark replied. “I am Colonel Mark Jacobs. These are my friends and security detail. Olivia, Zach, Phineas, Charles, Emma, and Louis.”
“I see, and what brings you here?”
“Since Thatcher’s demise, I was given access to her research and project folders upon taking up the title. I’ve learned about what’s under your cathedral,” Mark cleared his throat. “Would it be alright if we could see it? I’d like to check it for myself. Of course, under your permission and guidance, Great Grandfather.”
The church head looked from Mark to his companions. He pulled a slight frown and hummed. “Do these companions of yours have the clearance? Surely, we wish to keep our secrets hidden,” he said. Mark nodded.
“They do not have clearance to know what is in Thatcher’s folders and her findings,” the colonel nodded. “However, I give them permission to accompany me, and should they discover things for themselves, then you have my word and my trust that I can keep them from spilling state secrets.”
The Great Grandfather gave a short pause before ultimately relenting. “Very well,” he let out a sigh. “Follow me.”
Aurelius walked behind the altar and pulled the same lever, which opened the same staircase leading underground, where Jorgenson and Thatcher had once gone. “Over here, colonel,” he said. “I do not know you completely yet, but this is a big deal of trust I am giving you. Perhaps you would be the one to do things that Thatcher could not have.”
Mark nodded, he and his group followed the Great Grandfather down the staircase. It led down to a massive underground facility, with numerous priests, researchers, and scientists. Libraries, records, instruments, and artifacts of old. It was a treasure trove of learning.
“So,” Aurelius cleared his throat. “What would you like to know about?”
“This isn’t all of it,” Mark said. “Thatcher mentioned a living, breathing, Helena.”
His group behind him let out a soft gasp, but they tried their best to hide their surprise.
“Hm,” the Great Grandfather nodded. “Perceptive young man aren’t you? Very well.”
They were then led into another room, behind a set of heavy blast doors. If the whole group were trying to hide their surprise then, now they could barely contain it. Even the colonel stared awestruck at the things he had seen. Despite the near-magical objects around them, the true shock was the massive starship at the end of the hallway. “It’s impressive isn’t it?” Aurelius said. “All of the goddess’ artifacts and items at our disposal, to use and learn from, to integrate into our own. This is why Anglestan is the most powerful nation in the UHT in terms of development. When it comes to industry, however, that would go to the UNA. But we share our secrets with them. All our advancements are handed to them first before any other nation.”
“This is all amazing, Great Grandfather,” Mark replied. “But this is not what I’m here for.”
“No, it’s not.” Aurelius nodded.
He led them to another room, one that was sterilized and sported advanced machinery. Things that Mark had never even seen. There were screens with luminous green texts that appeared in front of it. Large panels with numerous keys, levers, and dials. Graphs of all sorts and beeping monitors. In the center, was the very thing he had come all this way to confirm. A large cylinder filled with liquid, sporting tubes and pipes connecting to its base. Inside was a woman of large proportion. Four arms, two legs, and six wings. In her bare chest was a symbol of the sun that seemed to glow dimly.
“There she is, there’s you goddess.”
Neither Mark nor his group spoke a word. He walked up to it, eyeing the woman inside. It really is her. Down to the last details. Golden hair, six limbs, six folded wings, and she looks massive. Probably as big as her statue just outside the cathedral. This is it. The very goddess in the history books, the one spoken about in legends and the one worshiped in the Churches of Sol.
“Can we free her?” he said.
The Great Grandfather nearly choked on his spit upon hearing those words. “Free her?! That could kill her! We don’t even understand this technology, let alone control it!” he said pointing at the panels. “The machines you see here are the best and most advanced we have based on what we can reverse engineer, but even then, the consequences of tampering with its functions may be disastrous!”
“I understand, Great Grandfather,” Mark said. “But we are in a dire situation, and the goddess may be our hope of turning this around. Whatever secrets of her tech that you don’t understand, wouldn’t she be able to teach us directly? What good is she floating around in Sol knows what?”
“That is her miraculous healing fluid. She had already built this contraption centuries ago in case anything were to happen to her, that her body’s natural healing could not sustain,” Aurelius said. “During the War of Darkness, Helena was struck with a weapon so deadly, her very cells began to tear away. The Reaper. Dealt to her by Absolem the progenitor. Her flesh was peeling from her body, and she began to decay whilst she still breathed. She entered this contraption and gave strict instructions to the Great Grandfather at the time, not to interrupt the healing process. The machine that monitored her, however, began to fail over time.”
“So this… these screens and panels…”
“Is only what functions we can understand. We took it upon ourselves to rebuild and study it the best we could. What we have right now is only a cheap imitation of a technology we do not fully comprehend,” he said. “It took us decades to even figure out the fundamentals and create a working prototype of this machine. By some miracle, the goddess’ healing process had remained even while we replaced components of technology ahead of ours.”
“But you know how to free her, don’t you?”
“I… yes.”
“Great Grandfather Aurelius,” Mark began. “We can end this war. Imagine what we could do with the goddess fighting on our side. We could advance even further, we could finally end the bloodshed, and we can show humanity that there is still hope. Imagine how people all over the world would feel seeing as their goddess has returned.”
“I wish I had your enthusiasm,” Aurelius said. “But it is simply too risky. The Church’s duty is to protect Helena and her legacy. We keep her alive, literally and figuratively. She nearly died the last time she was involved in a war. Would you risk losing the goddess?”
“Would you risk humanity losing?”
The Great Grandfather fell silent, looking back at Helena floating inside the tube, then to the panels that controlled it. He frowned and let out a long sigh. “The goddess said that we should not interrupt it. That it would end as soon as it was finished. Maybe we should trust her words.”
Mark shook his head. “I don’t spot a single blemish on the goddess. Not a single scratch,” he argued. “You said it yourself that the machine had begun to fail and you replaced components. How would you know that the thing that’s supposed to wake her up was not tampered with? Think about it. What you may think is a useless piece may be integral to the whole machine. Or maybe your replacements were not up to the task. Just because nothing’s happened doesn’t mean its functions have remained whole.”
“Young man, we simply cannot gamble with the goddess’ life here.”
“Have you no faith? Great Grandfather?”
Aurelius stepped back in shock. Mark’s companions looked at each other, clearly surprised as well. “Mark… I don’t think we should keep arguing with—” Olivia tried to say.
“No,” the colonel said firmly, cutting her off. “Great Grandfather Aurelius, do you think that Helena will not be able to pull through if we wake her? How long has it been? A century? How much longer will we wait? She may be immortal but humans aren’t.”
“I'm sorry, but the chances of failure are too high. The probability of her—”
“I don’t care about the probability! Would you rather put your faith in a statistic?!” Mark raised his voice. “I lost my mother to this war! My friends! My job! My eye, and almost my life! I’ve put mine on the line out there! You don’t know what it’s like out there! Was my mother’s death just a probability too? Was she just a statistic to you?! That as long as the numbers are good, no matter how many are lost, we are ‘winning’?!”
“Mark—!”
“No, Liv! He needs to know what’s really going on out there!” he spat. “Great Grandfather, with all due respect, but you don’t have a damn clue what it’s like to be in the field. You’re a man of faith, aren’t you? Take a risk. Everyone else has.”
Aurelius stood there, dumbfounded. He bit the inside of his cheeks and clenched his fists. “For your insolence, I would have had you flogged and stripped of your rank,” he glared at the young colonel. However, his features slowly softened, letting out a soft sigh. “But I have never seen such conviction. Mighty is your faith.”
The Great Grandfather moved over to the panels and reached into his robe, pulling out from around his neck a key with the symbol of the sun. He inserted it into the machine and turned. A beep sounded, right before Aurelius pulled a lever. In an instant, the fluid inside the glass chamber began to drain out into the tubes under it. Slowly, the chamber emptied and all that was left was the nude form of the goddess sitting in the glass.
“Did it work?” Louis asked, stepping forward and looking at the woman.
Aurelius stayed silent, his hands shaking in anticipation. Mark moved toward the glass chamber, when suddenly, the glass opened up like a door, releasing a fragrant mist. They stood there, watching for a whole minute. Nothing. At first nothing. The Great Grandfather looked like he was about to break down. His knees shook as he covered his mouth, thinking that he was responsible for the death of Helena.
That was when… a soft sound was heard. Movement. Olivia immediately went over to Mark and stood in front of him. Ready to protect him should anything happen. Slowly, the goddess moved more, her arms inched to the side.
Then, her eyes opened.

It happened like a year ago, while I was in the Kitchen, I was preparing my coffee because it was early morning and I was ready to go to work. I grabbed the milk from the fridge and after I turned around, i saw after the corner, a black, round head and a long neck. After I looked at it, it dissapearred. I grabbed my phone and wanted to call the Emergency Services 😂, but i said ,,and what the fuck are they going to do, call the ghostbusters?" I put the phone down and went in all the rooms to search the ghost. I didn't found it.. so I thought that it dissapeared forever. I went to work and I said what happened to me. Some of them didn't even belive. After I finished the work, i went home. Outside it was already dark (It was winter). I live in an apartament at the last floor and when I entered in the apartament I realized that I left my backpack in the car, so I went back. After I closed the door, I saw the ghost, I saw it very clearly, it was going on the stairs, torward me at very high speed. I entered back in my apartament and closed the door, but later, with a knife in my pocket I went to my car to get my backpack. Since then, i didn't see him anymore..

First/Previous
The travel took on a less gloomy quality in the day that passed since Gemma’s self-reflection and although there remained a queer distance in her eyes, she seemed in better spirits in losing the weight of the words.
It was a night just beyond Wabash Crevasse that we pushed on till sunset was almost upon us and we were each tired and the food stocks ran low and so we found harbor in a half collapsed cellar where a home once stood; it was only after examining the slatted, rotted boards of the old place, fallen over, tired with decay, that we spied the cellar doors intact; sheets of door metal plied us with safety from the outside world and the interior of the place stank of mold and the deeper recesses were collapsed, but there was a cradle to crossbar the stair hatch and I put my prybar there for the night. We finished the water and canned tomatoes, and I smoked a cigarette, staving off the inevitable doom which would come with the dwindling of our supplies.
I’d peeked through the space where the doors met at the cellar’s entry and watched the full darkness there while the youngins spoke of life and the trivial pursuits of it and I hardly said a word besides.
Sitting on the lowest step with Trouble dumbly maintaining her station by me, by the low glow of the space in the threshold, I saw they’d pushed their bedrolls together and Andrew had fallen asleep with his arm over Gemma’s shoulder and her eyes glowed with shine from the crack, blinked a few times while seeing me; she too eventually drifted to sleep, and I spent time by the secured door.
Gunshots rang across the stillness, and they stirred from their quiet slumber and Gemma asked, “Harlan, is it alright?”
I moved to the space there at the doorway again and listened and watched what I could through that crack and nothing beyond came. “It’s safe. I’ll be up a bit longer. I’ll watch.”
Andrew asked, “Can’t sleep?”
“I’ll sleep in a bit. Don’t worry about me. Rest. Sleep good and we can put more behind us.
They sat up, legs crossed triangle-wise, and Gemma spoke again, “Why do you have such a hard time sleeping? It seems I’m asleep after you and only awake after you too.”
“Yeah,” said Andrew.
“It’s cool at night. I can listen to the wind.” I shrugged.
“You should be the one that tries to get some sleep,” said Andrew.
I said nothing.
They reached out their arms and I shook my head.
“Here,” Gemma said, “Move your bedroll closer.” She reached across the dirt floor of the cellar and dragged my splayed roll so that it sat beside hers.
“I’ll sleep later.” I turned my attention back to the door and ignored them till their sounds of sleep could be heard. The Alukah was nowhere and did not tap on the door that night and when I moved to sleep, I shimmied onto the roll beside them, facing away on my shoulder; the dog followed, laid on the bare dirt beside me and I held the mutt.
Though I refused a noise as they stirred in the absolute darkness, I felt Gemma’s arm fall over my own shoulder and felt Andrew’s hand touch my back, and water traced the bridge of my nose and I slept deeply thereafter.
There was no breakfast without food, and the water was gone; I felt the eyes of the dog on us as we packed up our belongings that next morning and I tried not to imagine the poor animal skinned over fire. I smiled at Trouble, patted its head, scratched its chin; she sniffed my hand like she was looking for something that wouldn’t be found.
We went west again, ignoring roads and pushed through straight wasteland where nothing was and no one was, and with every dry footfall on the dry hard ground, I wished for rain, and I wished that when it had rained, as infrequent as it was, that I had been wise enough to save what we could from the sky; that sky was red and swollen and refused to burst. We pushed on through strange dead thickets where grayed and twisty yellow branches lurched from the ground into the sky like even they too wished for an end to all the suffering. It was days more till we would see Alexandria and though I could stave off hunger (thirst too, if necessary), I was not so certain that the children would be able to push on without it; they did not complain and watched the ground in our march and maintained higher spirits than I could’ve imagined from them.
Early in the day, they spoke often, and I listened and as they wore on, their words came less and even the dog seemed in a lower mood for the unsaid predicament; me too.
Gemma broke the silence on the matter by saying, “What are we going to do about food? Water?”
“We’ll push on.”
“We could turn back?” asked Andrew.
“The more time we spend out in the open, outside of a city, the more likely it is that the Alukah will catch us unawares. Tighten your belts.” Our feet took us around a dilapidated truck, an old thing with a rusty hook which dangled off a rear arm. “Save your urine.”
They made faces but did not protest.
“Does that work? You ever drink pee?” asked Andrew.
I laughed, “I thought we’d be there by now. I took us too long by trying to drop the scent of the Alukah. That thing’s hunted us for days—last night was the first time it ain’t bothered us. It’s got me wondering why.”
Gemma piped up, licking her dry lips before speaking, “Do you think that monster ran into those scavengers we saw?” Then I caught her shooting a look at Andrew, “At least we warned them.” Her smile was faint and almost indiscernible as one.
I shrugged. “Can’t say. Don’t think it’s smart to turn back. Won’t be long and we’ll touch the 40 and then it’ll be a straight on to Babylon—couple of days—can’t turn back though. Maybe without food; that’s doable. Water’s the worst, but if it comes to it,” I paused and looked on the weathered faces of the children, on the lowered head of Trouble which followed her nose across the ground (it searched just short of frantic), “Like I said, ‘save your urine’.”
The first pains of hunger held within me brought up some reminiscence and I wished for nothing more than to hold Suzanne; I could nearly smell them and in the swaying walk which took us on past toppled townships, I held long blinks where I could nearly make out their face and if I really pushed the limits of my imagination, I could feel them. In those moments, as we passed dead places, rotted pits of despair, I could think of little more than their presence. Though I knew it was a dangerous game, hoping for more than I was worth, I hoped for Suzanne then and I wished that I’d taken them up on their offer to travel to Alexandria with them; it could’ve been home—it never was in all the times I’d gone there, but who knows? The thoughts of Babylon brought forth their gardens; the wild gardens and the water which flowed freely through their pipes. I wished I was a different person entirely and that too would’ve been better for Suzanne; how it was that they’d seen anything in me, I don’t know. How it was that they could stoop to the level of being with someone like me—I warded off that thought, because to place the blame there would certainly be unfair. I thought of my love plainly and wanted a different life more suited to them.
Imaginations played more furiously, and I remembered the evening when Dave stopped me from leaping from that roof—it’s doubtful that he even realized that he’d slowed my demise; perhaps he did know—I wished then that I could ask him. Too kind for the world. People too kind for the world were scarce and hardly worth the trouble. Yet, there I was, chaperoning those two across the wastes.
Gemma was a broken person when I’d found her, tortured in Baphomet’s well; Andrew was a dullard boy who’d lost his hand. What a silly predicament.
I stopped in my movements and swiveled on my heel to catch Andrew by the shoulder. “You still got your hand, don’t you?”
In good humor, the boy grinned, lifted the nub on the end of his left forearm to show me, “Nope.”
“Dammit, no! The hand in the jar!”
Andrew raised his eyebrows. “In my pack.”
“Stop,” I commanded Trouble; the dog hardly recognized my words and continued a way then circled back, sad eyes looking up from where she took to sit by my side. Gemma, both arms dangling loosely from her own pack’s shoulder straps, took into the circle we’d formed.
The girl asked, “What about the jar? It’s nasty, but I guess it’s his.”
“I think that’s it,” I said. I took Andrew by his shoulders, looked him in his eyes, “We could use it!”
“What?” The boy almost laughed in the display of our concern. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“I think I’ve got it! It’s good for a trap.” I shook him; maybe too hard. I almost smiled. “It’s worth a shot!”
“It’s mine.” He bit his top lip, withdrew from me.
“You’ll feel differently about that,” I said.
Gemma placed a hand on Andrew’s pack and tried ripping it open. “Give it to him!” shouted the girl.
The boy whipped from her grasp, and he spun on his feet, and panic stood on his face. “It’s mine, isn’t it?”
I took a step forward, “No, not anymore.” I put out my palm, “Give it.”
Andrew nearly flinched at the thought of it and shook his head a little. “Why?”
“I told you why,” I said.
“You don’t even know if it’ll work, do you?” his words were long in protest.
The girl started again, “Andrew, please.”
He locked eyes with Gemma and once again, his bottom teeth came up to meet over his top lip and he moved his jaw methodically with contemplation.
“What does it even matter?” she asked.
“It’s mine. You don’t know what it’s like.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!”
“C’mon,” he said, but his pack straps fell from his shoulders, and he hunkered down on the ground and opened his bag; his right hand plunged into the recesses therein and withdrew the jar with his severed left hand. He held the object up, refusing to come up from his open pack, keeping his eyes on the ground. “Take it then.” He shook the jar; its contents sloshed with liquid decay.
I grabbed the thing, held it to skylight; the remains within had congealed and rotted and lumps nearly floated in the brownish liquid which had formed in the base of the container. I shook it and stared for a moment at the miniscule debris which floated alongside the hand; each of its digits had swollen and erupted to expose bone; some had come away in pieces. “Tomorrow,” I said and nodded.
We gathered ourselves and Andrew pulled his pack on again and we moved, Trouble still looked sorry and the boy remained quiet while the girl chattered on with questions while we took through the dying ground in a formation with the dog on point then me then the children.
“What will you do with it?” she asked me.
“Not sure yet.”
Andrew made a noise like he wanted to say something but didn’t.
“You think it will work?” asked Gemma.
“Nothing’s a guarantee. They’re smart—Alukah.”
“Smart enough to figure out a trap?”
I shrugged. “We’ll find out.”
“We could put stakes in a pit.”
“Keep on the lookout for a building. Something with multiple floors.”
With that, we moved on, found a worn, mostly destroyed road and we fell into a travelling quiet and the thought of hunger or thirst arose again, and I pushed it down—though I knew the uneasiness could only last so long before savagery would overtake the human condition; the kids seemed strong enough, but I kept an eye on the dog too. Savagery belonged not only to humans, after all.
The ground of the wastes was harder when it was quiet, and it was flatter further west. The sky—red and full of thin and transparent drifting clouds—seemed an awful sight when stared at for too long; it was the thing which stretched as if to signal there wasn’t an end in any direction, as if to declare we had much more to go till safety. Wanderlust is a thing that I believe I’ve felt before, but under that sky, with those two and the dog, I didn’t feel it at all. It was doom that I felt. Ignorance and doom. And it was all because I was certain I’d made all the wrong mistakes, and it was coming back to me. I was experienced. We should’ve had food and water. Perhaps there was some deep and nasty part inside of me that had intended to sacrifice them along the way. The words of the Alukah might have rung true: You say you make no deals, but I smell it. I think you’d deal.
Surely, I felt differently. Surely.
“Getting darker,” called Andrew as we came to where signposts—worn and bent and barely legible—told us of a place once called Annapolis and the buildings were nearly gone entirely; places, maybe places that were once homes, were leveled—I was briefly caught in imagining what it might’ve been like all those ages ago. As are most places, it was haunted like that and when we came to a long rectangular structure of metal walls—thin walls—we took it as a place for rest for the night.
It once served as an agricultural station, for when we breached its entry, there were a line of dead machines—three in all—cultivators or tillers which stood higher than any of our heads and Gemma asked what they were, and I told her I thought they were for farming. The great rusted bodies stood in quiet shadow as we came through a side passage of the building and the great doors which had once been used to release those machines from the building stood frozen in their frame. I approached the doors, lighting my lantern and motioning for the children to shut the door we’d entered through.
Upon closer inspection, it seemed the doors would roll into the ceiling and the chains which held the doors in place were each secured with rusted padlocks—I removed my prybar from my pack and moved along the wall of doors, giving each old lock a smack with the weapon; each one held in place, seemingly fused there through years of corrosion, and I rounded the cultivators once more, back to the children, near the side door where they’d discovered a rickety stair frame which crawled up the side of the wall to a catwalk; along the catwalk, a levitated box stood at the height of the structure, stilted by metal legs, and we took the stairs slowly with the dog following close behind; the poor mutt was mute save the sound of its own shuffling paws.
The metal stairs creaked under our weight and Gemma held her own lantern high over her head so that the strange shadows of the place grew longer, stranger, and suddenly I felt very sure that something was in the dark with us, but there was no noise except what we made. My eyes scanned the darkness, and I followed the children up the stairs till we met the overhang of the catwalk and I peered into the shadows, the blades of the cultivators—far extended on foldable arms—struck up through the pool of blackness beneath us and I felt so cold there and if it were not for the breath of my fellow travelers, I might have been lost in the dark for longer than intended—lost and frozen and contemplative.
“There’s a room,” said the boy, and he pushed ahead on the hanging passage, and he was the first to the door. “Boxes,” he said plainly.
Upon coming to the place where he stood, Gemma pushed her lantern over the threshold, and I saw what he’d meant as I traced my own lantern to help; the room was crammed with plastic totes and old metal containers of varied sizes. There seemed to be enough empty space to maneuver through the room, but only if one watched their feet while they walked. Carefully.
We moved to the room, and I found a stack of crates to place my lantern then motioned for Gemma to douse hers. In minutes, the place was rearranged so that we could sit comfortably on the floor; crates lined the walls precariously and we breathed heavy from the work done, but we began to unpack and upon watching the children while I rolled a cigarette, I felt a pang of guilt, a terrible summation—all choices in my life had led me here and with them and perhaps it would have been a better world for them without me.
Mentally shrugging this thought away, I lit my cigarette, inhaled deeply, and then withdrew the jar which Andrew had handed over. I held it to the lantern to examine it. The grotesqueness of it hardly phased me and I watched it more curious and hopeful than disgusted.
“I hope it’ll work,” said the boy, “Whatever it is that you plan on doing with it.” He grimaced and maintained a further silence in patting his bedding for fluff. The dog moved to him, and she pushed her forehead against him where he squatted on floor. The boy scratched Trouble’s chin and whispered, “Good girl,” into the top of her head where he’d pushed his own face.
“I’m hungry,” said Gemma; she placed her chin in her arm while watching Andrew with the dog. She sat on her own flat bed there on the floor and stated plainly the thing that I’d hoped to ignore for longer.
“I know.” I took another drag from the cigarette and let the smoke hang over my head. “The dog?”
Andrew recoiled, pulling Trouble closer into his arms.
I smiled. “It was a joke.”
Andrew relaxed, but only a moment before Gemma added, “Maybe.”
The boy narrowed his eyes in the girl’s direction, and she shrugged. “If it’s life or death.”
He didn’t say anything and merely continued stroking Trouble’s coat.
That night, we slept awfully and even in the complete darkness, I felt the cramp of the storage room and the angled shapes of the tools that protruded from the containers on all sides remained permanent well after we’d turned the light off and it felt like those shapes were the teeth of a great creature like we were sitting inside of its mouth, looking out.
Trouble positioned herself partially on my chest, her slow rhythmic breathing brought my thoughts calm and I whispered to her in the dark after I was sure the others were asleep, “I promise it was a joke.” And I brushed the back of her neck with my hand and the animal let go of a long sigh then continued that deep rhythmic breathing.
Still without food or water, the following day was the true indication of the misery to come. Gemma’s stomach growled audibly in waking and Andrew—though he kept his complaints to himself—smacked his lips more often or protruded the tongue in his mouth in a starvation for water. The room, in the daylight which peered through pinpricks of its half-decayed roof, seemed another beast altogether from its nighttime counterpart; it was not so frightening. Again, I admonished myself for the lack of preparation, but there was another thought that brought together a more cohesive feeling; we had a possible plan, a trap for the demon that’d been following us.
We went into the field to the west of the building where there was only dirt beneath our feet in the early sunlight and in the coolness of morning air, I nearly felt like a person. The sun crested the horizon and brought with it a warmth that would quickly become overwhelming—in those few minutes though—it felt good enough. I wished for the shy dew and saw none. The weirdness of holding Andrew’s rotting hand in a jar momentarily caught me and I almost laughed, but refrained and the dog and the children looked on while I held the container up and suddenly, seeing the congealed mass of tissue floating in its own excretions, I was overcome with the urge to run, the urge that nothing would ever be right again in my life, and that I was marked to be that way.
I blinked and tossed the jar to Andrew. “Say goodbye,” I said. He fumbled after it with his right hand and caught it to his chest.
“It’s strange you care so much anyway,” said Gemma, shrugging—her eyes forgave a millisecond of pity and when Andrew looked at her, still holding the jar in his right hand, she smiled and stuffed her hands into the pockets of her pants.
“We’ve enough oil, I think,” my voice was raspy from it being early, “Enough for good fire, but if we use it, it’ll mean a few more dark nights on our way.”
“We’re going to set it on fire?” Andrew pondered, keeping his eyes to the contents of the jar. “It worked good enough last time. It’ll work,” I nodded, “I has to, doesn’t it?”
His dry lips creased into a brief smile, and he tossed the jar back to me and I caught it.
“Let’s dig,” I said.
Without much in the way of proper tools, we began at the ground under us with our hands, then taking turns with my prybar till there was a hole in the ground comfortably large enough to conceal a human head and I uncapped the jar and spilled it contents there and we covered it back and I lightly tamped it with my boot. My eyes scanned the outbuilding we’d taken refuge in the night prior and then to the street to the north then to the houses which stood as merely rotted plots of foundation with frames that struck from the ground more as markers than support. “I’ll take up over there across the street when it gets dark. I want you two in that storage room before anything goes off.”
“We can’t help?” asked Gemma.
“You can help by staying out of the way—the mutt too,” I said; the words were harsh, but my feelings were from worry.
“Wouldn’t it be better if we stuck together?” asked the girl.
I shook my head. “You stay in the room and keep quiet. No matter what you hear, you stay quiet and safe.”
“That’ll put you at a bigger risk,” Gemma furrowed her brow at me and shifted around to look out on the houses across the street, “There’s hardly any cover over there.”
The boy nodded, smacked his lips, and rubbed his forearm across his mouth then audibly agreed with her.
“Doesn’t matter,” I said, “No matter what you hear happening outside, no matter, you don’t open the door and you don’t scream—don’t make a noise at all. Alright? Even if you hear me calling you, you don’t do it.”
“Pfft,” Gemma crossed her arms and kicked her foot against the ground. The way her eyes seemed hollowed with bruising showed that the irritation would only grow without food. “Alright,” she finally sighed.
Andrew looked much the same as she did in that; he swallowed a dry swallow then stuffed his hand into his pocket and looked away when our eyes matched.
We gathered our light oil. Altogether, it seemed enough; rummaging through the room of the outbuilding we’d earlier taken refuge within, we managed three intact glass containers—the only ones found that wouldn’t leak with liquid; two were bottles and the third was the jar that’d once kept Andrew’s hand. With that work done, we sat with three Molotov cocktails within our huddled circle of the storage room.
“Is it enough?” asked Gemma.
“We’ll see,” I began rolling a cigarette to ignore the hunger and the thirst.
Andrew took to the corner and glanced over his shoulder only a moment before a steady liquid stream could be heard and when he rotated from the wall once the noise was finished and he held a canteen up to his nose, sniffed it and quivered and shook his head.
As the sun pushed on, I scanned the perimeter outside, and they followed. Far south I spied a mass of shadow inching across the horizon and Gemma commented, “What’s that?”
I pushed the binoculars to her and let her gaze through them.
“A fiend—that’s what we called it back in the day anyway. A mutant.”
She held the binoculars up and frowned. “A mutant? So, it was once human?”
“A fiend was once many humans.” I pointed out to the horizon though she couldn’t see me doing so and continued, “If you look at the edges of its shape, you’ll see it’s got limbs galore on it. Sticking up like hairs is what it’ll look like at this distance. Those are arms and legs. It’s got faces too. Many faces.” I shuddered.
“I can barely see any details,” she passed the binoculars to Andrew, and he looked through them, “What’s it do?”
“What?” I asked.
“What’s it do if it catches a person?”
“It pulls people into it. Makes you apart of its mass. Nasty fuckers.”
Andrew removed the lenses from his eyes and held them to his chest and asked, “It won’t mess up your trap, will it?”
“We’ll keep an eye on it,” I said, “You don’t want to mess with a fiend unless you have to.”
First/Previous
Archive

The thunder shook the house as the rain pelted the windows. Mike awoke to the wind howling wondering how much longer the storm would last. He had come out to the cabin, only a couple hours from the city expecting to spend a quiet weekend away from the city life. Unknowing to him that a storm was on the way. He rolled over and looked at the clock, the green display reads midnight. He closed his eyes and tried to fall back asleep when suddenly he heard a pounding on the door. He sat up and heard it again. “Who could be at my door and in this storm”, he thought. He got up and slowly approach the door hearing the pounding again. Opening the door a crack he sees a small figure standing a few feet away. Nothing but darkness in the background as the lightning flashes illuminated the figure. “Hello? Can I help you?” He asks. “Hi, I’m sorry to bother you but my car broke down. I tried to call a tow truck but I have no service.” the woman says. He stepped back and opened the door. “Please, come in.” As she walks through the door, he notices her clothes are soaked from the rain. “How far did you walk?” He asks. “I’m not sure, a couple miles it felt like”, she replies sounding exhausted. He leaves for a few moments and returns handing you a towel. “Can I get you a drink?”, “Please” she says, as he walks into the kitchen to fetch a glass of water. He returns, handing her the glass. “Thank you, my name is Liz by the way.” “Nice to meet you Liz, my name is Mike. You are welcome to use my phone if you would like.” She smiles, as she walks over to the table and picks up the phone. Mike sits down on the couch turning on the tv. A few moments later Liz returns, “Ugh”. “Bad news?” He asks. “They said no one will come out in this storm till it passes. What am I going to do?”. Just then a deafening rumble of thunder shook the house as the rain started coming down harder. “I don’t think this storm is letting up any time soon, you are more than welcome to wait it out till morning and try calling them back.” Mike offered. “Really? I don’t want to be a bother.” “No, I insist, it’s no bother at all”. Liz smiled, “Thank you, really.”
Shivering, Liz sets her glass down on the table. “I hate to ask, but would you mind if I use the bathroom. Maybe get a hot shower, I am freezing and my clothes are soaked.” “Not at all.” Mike says, standing up. He points down the hallway, “The bathrooms on the left, if you would like I can toss your clothes in the dryer for you too.” Liz smiles. “Thank you so much! I’ll leave them outside the door.” Liz turns and walks down the hallway, finding the bathroom and walking inside. Standing at the sink she takes a deep breath. Seeing herself in the mirror thinking “I look a wreck”. At 5’ 3”, she was considered average. Shoulder length brown hair and eyes that changed colors based on her mood, or so it seemed. With her athletic build and toned legs, she still felt her body ache from the miles she just walked. Slowly she stripped off her wet clothes, leaving them in a pile just outside the bathroom door. Sliding open the glass door to the shower she stepped inside, turning the shower on as she felt the hot water rain down over her body. Sitting on the couch Mike hears the shower turn on. Getting up he walks down the hallway finding the wet pile of clothes at the bathroom door. As he approaches, he notices the door open a couple inches. The light from inside escaping through the crack. He leans down to pick up the clothes and pauses. The bathroom is filled with steam from the hot water. The faint outline of a woman’s body behind the fogged-up glass door. He freezes. Quietly Liz begins to hum, eyes closed as she washes her hair under the hot water. Her hands begin moving across her body as she washes the sweat and dirt off her. Mike kneels frozen just on the other side of the door, knowing he shouldn’t be looking but his legs unwilling to move. In the shower, Liz’s hands drift along her skin. Caressing her breasts for a moment as she smiles to herself, she’s always been happy with how full they were. Perky and just large enough to fill a grown man’s hand. Her hands explore lower, as she washes her stomach and then her legs. She sighs, starting to feel better now that she is warm and clean. As she turns the water off, Mike snaps out of his frozen state. Gathering up the clothes and rushing down the hall to put them in the dryer. Quickly returning to the kitchen as he retrieves a beer from the fridge and sits back down on the couch flipping through the stations. Stepping out of the shower Liz dries off finding a robe hanging on the back of the bathroom door, she drapes it around her body.
“Thank you so much, I feel much better”, she says, as she walks into the living room. Mike jumps slightly, startled by her voice then smiles. “You’re welcome, your clothes are in the dryer,” as he notices the robe she had on. Liz walks over and sits down on the couch, slowly crossing one leg over the other. “This robe will do for now,” she says with a smile. Mike gets up and walks into the kitchen, “Would you like a drink?”. “Sure” Liz says, “Whatever you are drinking.” As Mike returns, he can’t help but notice Liz’s toned legs, the robe resting mid-thigh. He hands Liz a beer as she smiles and lets out a small laugh. “What is so funny?”, he asks. She looks down at him while raising an eyebrow. “Is something the matter?” He scrunches his eyebrows wondering what she meant, as he looked down. He gasps, realizing a small bulge had formed in his pants, a likely result of the unexpected show he witnessed not long ago. He turned away quickly, “I’m sorry” he says. She laughed, “its ok, I expected it.” Mike turns his head back towards her, “You expected it?” “Yes, I mean, after watching me shower I would be upset if you didn’t have one. Mikes eyes grow big, shocked and embarrassed that she knew he was watching her. “I, didn’t mean to, the door was just cracked open and I was getting your clothes…” he stumbles trying to explain himself. She smiles as she stands up, “Did you like what you saw?” He takes a big gulp as he nods. She slowly undoes the tie holding the robe together, letting the robe fall off her body and onto the floor. “Is this what you wanted to see?” His heart begins beating faster, her naked body on full display in front of him. She slowly reaches out as she takes his hand in hers, bringing it up to her chest as it cups her breast. His breathing increases as he feels her nipple harden against the palm of his hand as he instinctively begins to squeeze her breast. She lets out a quiet moan as she smiled at him. Reaching forward she rests her hand on the now large bulge in his pants. He jumps slightly as he feels the pressure of her hand against it. “Oh my, we seem to have a problem here.” She says, as she slowly begins to unbutton his pants, pulling the zipper down ever so slowly. He sighs as he feels the cool air rush into his pants as she unzips them. Her hand reaching inside as she releases his manhood. A smile forms on her face as it enters her view. Fully erect as his blood pumps through it. She slowly wraps her fingers around it stroking its full length as she devilishly licks her lips. Mike slowly closes his eyes as he feels her fingers around him, letting out a slight moan. “Are you enjoying that?” she asks, as she continues to stroke his shaft. “Yes” he says, his breathing increasing. Biting her lip, she steps back, leading him to the couch and directing him to sit down. As he sits down, she kneels in front of him. His cock aiming towards the ceiling in front of her as she wraps her fingers around it again. She strokes it a few times before bringing her lips close. Slowly she runs the tip of her tongue from the base of the shaft up to the head feeling it pulse against her tongue. He moans at the feeling of her tongue, as she slowly wraps her lips around the head, sucking gently. “Ugh, yes” he moans, looking down at her. Removing her hand from his shaft she engulfs his entire cock as he feels it enter her throat for the first time. She bobs her head up and down faster as she hears the moans escape his lips. Pausing for a moment, his cock between her lips, she twirls her tongue around the head feeling his hips lifting up slightly under neither her. She moans to herself sending vibrations down his shaft. Slowly he moves a hand to the back of her head, resting it with his fingers intertwined in her hair. She raises her head sucking on the tip for a moment, before removing it from her mouth. Replacing her mouth with her hand again as she strokes his now wet cock. Smiling up at him as she watches some precum run down his shaft she sticks her tongue out to catch it. Moaning again, he ushers her head back down, as she opens her mouth taking his cock between her lips. Bobbing her head faster now, her tongue swirling around his swollen head each time her head comes up. He grips her hair in his fist, the pressure inside him building. She feels his cock pulsing against her tongue and lips as she takes his shaft deeper, wanting to taste his juice. He lets out a groan at the same time she feels him erupt. She lowers her head his cock deep in her throat as she feels the first stream of thick cum fill her stomach. She continues bobbing her head tightening her lips around his cock as she milks him dry, hungerly swallowing each stream he pumps into her awaiting throat. His head falls back against the couch with a loud sigh, his hand collapsing along the side of him. She releases his semi hard cock. Slowly licking around the head making sure not to miss a drop before looking up and smiling at him while licking her lips. Exhausted he drifts off to sleep.

First/Previous
Gemma was right about the sky’s open night, and I could sympathize with her recollection of the beauty, but for me it must’ve been a greater tragedy—the young woman had only ever enjoyed the stars in the pits of Golgotha; I could, long before, drink in the sky at leisure. Cruel memories.
The night the Rednecks died was one of viscera, but before that it was coolness on the breeze, a warmth by the fires while John played his guitar and we had only just taken two dozen kegs of lager (personal reserves) from the Atlanta despot—the man that kept his subjects as slaves and not a person among the camp was left without budding intoxication. No matter the age, everyone was invited to be merry; if it was that children too faced the plight of a bad world, then so too should they reap the moments of plenty—or so the camp figured.
John had taken a group by the fires where wagons were drawn in interlocking semicircles for cover and Jackson sat beside the picker. Jackson was a man which normally preferred quiet reflection over boisterous singing and nearly never wore the band on his throat, and yet there he was belting out the chorus at the top of his lungs, tankard in hand, red cloth blazed around his neck—it was a contagion and those drunk enough for easier embarrassment sang proudly along:
“There is power, there is power in a band of working folk!
When we stand hand in hand,
That’s a power, that’s the power,
That must rule in every land!”
I’d taken to the outlying shadows with my back pressed against the gas-powered caleche, my own tankard in hand. I loved the warmth of that great big family, truly, but even in those days—and maybe it was that queer youthfulness which longed for individualism that made me that way then—I remained as distanced as possible when I could. I sipped the lager, it was a fine drink and my brother Billy, nearly as old as I was when I’d first taken up in the infantry, swaggered to stand beside me just as quiet for minutes and we looked at the stars and he asked me what it was like to kill a man.
“Is it hard?” he asked.
I nodded, “Sometimes.”
“Killing monsters ain’t so bad. Don’t know if I could do it to a person.”
“You could if they meant to kill you; or if they meant to do it to someone you cared about,” I promised him. In those days, spry, energized, I held no time for staring into abysses; though I still wasn’t a man fully, I pretended as one. It was about family, and it was about doing what was right—what’s right seemed to change, or I changed. The world felt stark with good and evil and even later I’d feel that sentiment well up in me, but if that’s true, I know I stand more on the latter and so I intentionally obfuscated it—this I know. If not, it might be too much to bear. I was required to lie to myself and even in knowing I lied, it was better.
Billy tugged on the red kerchief around his throat and asked me how it looked on him.
“Looks good,” I said.
“Don’t think I look stupid at all?”
I smiled over my drink, “You always look stupid.” I sipped. “The neckwear’s fine.”
“Give me a break,” said Billy; he investigated his own cup, gave it a swish with his wrist, watching its contents swirl. “Aren’t you ever afraid you’ll die?”
“Sometimes—nights like this—I wouldn’t mind it.”
“Really?” my brother asked.
“There’s always a chance of it. Every moment, I guess.”
He smiled. “I wish I had that confidence.”
“You’ll get it,” I returned his smile; it was true that he would gain the fighting spirit. It came to us all with time and reminiscing on the early days, I recall the grit and the hatred—there was learning there too though. Besides, I’d seen the squalors of a stationary man. The stagnation of a place, an unmoving home.
John put his guitar away and laughter erupted from the crowd from something said and Sibylle, cowboy hat cocked funny, traipsed across the camp to the open keg for a refill; the man there, tending the cylinders, was a man named Tandy (a foreigner and one unknown besides the way he smoked a skunk pipe and told wild stories). My mother leaned over while Tandy opened the spigot mouth on the keg, and she froze there, and I could see her there cut out forever against the light of the fires; I watched, and it came so suddenly that I couldn’t be sure what’d happened at all. It was so sudden that I couldn’t find my weapon and I couldn’t find even the courage to fight because in those moments it wasn’t courage I needed, it was grounds to understand.
Sibylle came apart in two pieces immediately, torn completely through and dust erupted as her legs struck the ground while her torso spun through the air like a top, a trail of liquid trailed after, caught in the blue of night so it shone as black; she couldn’t scream. Tandy was a statue. Before anyone could react, more flesh, other bodies, went up and there was all manner of limbs which filled the ground, and it is astounding how quickly a red mist forms across the ground during a massacre. Perhaps the wails of my comrades started before, perhaps others fell before Sibylle, but I could not comprehend the goings-on till I saw her drop the way she did.
Frail human screams rose on the night; I slammed to the ground, tankard gone away and hands scrambling in the dirt; I reached up blindly and yanked Billy to my level and his expression was one of innocence, panic, tears even. Glancing around, I saw the demons bolt from the pitch-black darkness on the edges of camp, mutants taking the fore while greater creatures lurked further back, some hurled whips of gliding metal which writhed over their heads when they stretched them out for a strike—alien—and they sliced directly through soft human bodies. Not even a cry escaped me, but Billy let go with it and I slapped my cupped hand over his mouth hard to hold the screams. His voice would not have been alone anyway, not alongside that startling cacophony. Amidst the cries of people, there were the cries of horses, of our hounds.
We rolled across the ground, slipped beneath the raised body of the gas-powered caleche, remained quiet in the dark, peeked out between the wheels.
“What’s happening?” Billy whispered through my fingers; I removed my hand from him and caught a glimpse of him framed in a square of firelight through the wheels—we lay there on our bellies and the left side of his face was glazed with dirt where I’d pulled him down.
“Shh,” I told him, “Shh, please. Please.” Not another word came while I pleaded with him, pleaded with the world to make this all a nightmare.
Through the haze and the running silhouettes painted black, I saw what might have been Jackson; he stumbled and in the moment that it took me to gasp, his head was gone from his body, his torso slid on as he collapsed, came to rest mere feet from the motor wagon. I told myself that it wasn’t him, but it probably was.
Some mutants lumbered through the camp like animated corpses, some leapt with wild energy or sprayed noxious fumes which lingered in the air; others still were amalgams of humanlike limbs themselves—fiends—exhausting terrible sounds, producing smells of sulfur, glistening with whatever liquids excreted from their oblong alien orifices. Demons ran amok, chanted in devil tongued languages, laughed madly at the destruction—others still, those which displayed some greater intelligence, broke into a song I could never hope or want to replicate; it seemed a unified damnation.
“Please,” I repeated in a whimper and Billy hushed me this time and I realized we were holding hands, squeezing for dear life as figures walked the camp, speared those half-alive, elected others for twisted carnality.
In darkness, in fright plainly, we scuttled from the recess of our hiding place, kept quiet, held to each other, and went into the wasteland where nothing was—every shadow was a potential threat, every second could’ve been the last. We were holding hands; then we weren’t.
Only a glance—that’s all I afforded my brother and nothing more—what a joke of a person I am! What a coward I was. Always.
Something got him in the dark and instead of dying alongside those I cared about, I went on, heartbeat driving me till it was all that I heard in my ears and my muscles ached and my chest heaved and sweat covered me, chilled me in the breeze of the night—it was only once I’d accepted the dark completely, crawled into a hollowed space of rocks along a squat ridge that I watched the demolished camp; it seemed no larger than a spark, but the creatures, fiends and others continued their war cries; never before had I witnessed demons participate in such an attack.
I watched till the sun came, till the fires became smoke, then I watched the band of hell creatures disband. The smell of sulfur remained in the air—copper too—and I stumbled back to the camp in a dreamlike daze, totally unbelieving of the things I saw. Among those dead on the ground, I could recognize none; among those piked from rear to shoulder, standing like morbid scarecrows where they’d been steadied against the ground, I could not want to recognize.
Many of the wagons were overturned, including the gas-powered caleche and I went to it; the metal of its body was warped but I fell to the ground by it and pushed my back against the exposed undercarriage, remained frozen there while examining the bodies, the terrible strips of skin which rested places like wet sheets of paper, the piles of bones removed and smashed and piled.
I cried so deeply that oxygen became a memory, and the shakes couldn’t be contained.
It was like that for so long, knees pulled up, face pushed between, and the wails came unafraid of whatever attention they might garner; there was no rationale, but I imagine if there had been, I would’ve welcomed death in that misery. It was a deep wound that not even my own cowardice would overcome for the sake of survival.
Unaware of my surroundings, not wanting to look up from the ground between my legs, the noise which had started out as imaginary became real and I raised my head then to listen better and wipe my sore eyes; it was the sound of clip-clop horse hooves and I mildly wondered if any of the animals had been spared. I stood and pivoted around the dead camp and there it was, a man on a painted horse with golden hair; he leisurely drove the mount through the place, maneuvering around pools of blood, clumps of body parts and upon seeing me, he smiled and offered a languid wave, keeping one of his gloved hands on the reins.
The man wore white and swished his hair back upon arriving directly in front of me. Ahoy, he offered kindly, Did you happen to see the other riders?
I shook my head, feeling numb.
Ah, he said, I could have sworn four other riders, at least, passed me on my way. His gray eyes examined the carnage. Shame. He shook his head. You are?
“H-harlan.”
He nodded and nearly offered an expression of genuine condolence before descending from the horse; the animal gave a gentle grunt and wandered away from its master to inspect a nearby group of the dead. The man offered his hand, and I took it in a shake. Mephisto, said the man. He flashed a smile again before his face grew serious. I’ve come to you to deal.
I shot him a questioning look, one of bafflement.
I heard your calls from far off. He nodded, removed a white handkerchief from his breast pocket and swiped it down his face. Hot out. He shrugged then replaced the cloth in his pocket. This, he motioned to the disarray of vehicles, of bodies, I can’t fix all this—it’s too much—but there’s a person you love, I know. I could bring them back.
“Doctor?” In retrospect it was such a naïve question.
He shook his head.
“Angel?”
He grinned and nodded, Sure.
“Demon?”
Undoubtedly. His eyes—pits of gray in that radiant face—nearly expressed solemness; he daintily shook the hair from his face and looked at his steed which sniffed a corpse. What’s the word, Harlan? There are others calling and I must be on my way soon—I can’t dally. There was a sharpness to the words. Can’t dally. We must convene soon, or I’ll mosey on.
I snorted back the clog in my nose from the tears and wiped my eyes with my sleeves. “Okay.”
Deal?
I nodded, “Deal.”
Sleep tonight, said Mephisto, Sleep and you’ll be rewarded in the morning.
“You said it’s a deal.”
He nodded and scanned the carnage before we matched gazes and then he said, Yes?
“What is it you want from me?”
Nothing you need now. He called the horse, and it came, and he swept his feet quickly from the ground and settled into position atop the animal. Sleep, Harlan. You won’t be bothered. There are worse things still over the horizon.
I watched him go till he disappeared and once he was gone, I couldn’t cry anymore and instead rummaged through the wagons for what I might carry; along the way I found John, face twisted but corpse intact. The body from the previous night that I’d guessed was Jackson couldn’t be determined but I found him nowhere else. I slid Sibylle’s holster from her hips, fell hard onto the ground and found that I could sob more. I took her cowboy hat, placed it on my head and held her pistol in one hand and the belt holster dangled from the other while I searched the other bodies; there were so many, but I could not find Billy.
Waiting for darkness, I took the spot where I rested, back against the caleche’s undercarriage, watched the sky and felt the gun in my hand; it was heavy. I put it to my head, closed my eyes, and whispered affirmations to myself then I put the pistol between my splayed legs, watched it still in the dirt, and pulled the hat down over my eyes but it did little for the smell. Though the brim of the hat cut the sky out, I watched the ground and saw circling shadows form overhead and heard calls of turkey vultures; they came to pick over the bodies. I withdrew my knees to my chest there again and laid my forearm across them and bit into my arm while closing my eyes. I had thought I was a man and for a time, maybe I was, but there in that miserable pit of despair I became a child again and if I’d become more delirious, I’m sure I might’ve called out for Jackson like it was a bad dream.
Into a fading stupor of sleep in the sun I went and when I awoke again it was dark and chilly and I was tired and hungry but too sick to eat and hardly strong enough to move; I looked at the gun and put it into its holster and left it there by the caleche. In the light of the moon and stars, I moved to gather a bolt of canvas; I unfurled the fabric and created a leaning shelter against the overturned vehicle and crawled into it. There was a hole in the canvas, and I peeked out at the stars.
Weeping came again, but not so uproarious; I was stuck there letting go of whimpers, lying on my back, feeling the tears trace in lines from the outer corners of my eyes to collect along my earlobes. In time, I fell to sleep again on the hard ground because the mourning had taken all else from me.
A pinpoint of sunlight broke my eyelids and I jerked awake and reached for the holster, but it was gone. So was the hat. I crawled from the leaning shelter and there he was.
Billy stood plainly among the dried, congealed blood-soaked field and he looked on to the horizon and all shadows were long in the midday sun which hung up there in a soft blue sky. Whether it be a dream or a spell, I couldn’t care—I charged to him and spun him so he faced me and though his face was plain and expressionless, I wrapped him into a forceful hug. He placed his hands on my back and gave a gentle squeeze; when I pulled from him, my hands on his shoulders, I saw he held Sibylle’s hat in his left hand, pinched by the brim; he’d already tugged her holster belt around his hips—he could have it all. I shook while holding him then let go to wipe my face.
“You’re alive,” I nodded.
He nodded without speaking then looked at the hat in his hand and placed it on his head and firmly pressed it down.
“Billy! Hell, you’re alive!”
The corners of his mouth twitched upward for a moment then he nodded again. “Yeah.” His eyes curiously searched our surroundings like he meant to take each detail in forever.
I slapped him on the shoulder and almost squealed. “Goddammit.” I wiped my eyes again and could do little to keep the excitement from exploding from me. “Oh, we should go. We should go on and get somewhere safe.”
He nodded toward the horizon, “’Lanta?”
“Sure.”
We packed and it was a like an ethereal phantom remained among us beside the quiet dead; turkey vultures cawed to break the silence, pecked where they pleased on the bodies, and I couldn’t want to fight them. I kept sidelong eyes on Billy with the ever-present worry that he’d vanish. Perhaps he was the phantom.
From the rear of the caleche, I removed a few sentimental books Jackson liked, essential cookware, and sparse rations for the trek. The last thing I grabbed was my shotgun and a bit of ammo.
As we set from the dead place, the terrible silhouettes that were cut from there on the horizon behind us grew in my mind with every backward glance—I wanted to fall to pieces, but I saw Billy walk alongside me and although contented is not the right word, it is the nearest. The steps of our boots were all that was heard because I could not fathom to pierce the space between us with words for fear that it would all end. It was a dream, surely. I’d lost my mind. With my hands thumbed into the straps of my pack, I saw I my hands still shook, and they would shake a lot longer—years and with memories too. The crunch of earth underfoot became a rhythm and instead of looking at my brother, I watched his shadow on the ground.
“Everyone’s dead?” He asked.
“Yeah.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah,” I repeated.
“How ain’t I? How ain’t you?”
To say that it was luck would’ve been too morbid. Instead of saying anything, I shrugged, kicked a loose stone, watched my feet some more, and felt a queasiness come over me. For the moment, the immeasurable deaths of those I’d left behind were forgotten in the company of my brother and a sickness welled up inside of me so suddenly that I felt that I’d fall to pieces at the slightest provocation. Finally, I did speak again, but only after steeling myself to the troubles, “Yeah, how are you alive?”
Billy shrugged at me then stumbled up a hill which overlooked trash wood wilderness where sticks lay twisted and bare and further on the sight of Atlanta was visible and I cupped a hand across my brow and Billy did the same and we looked on at the shadows of the place out there where strings of smoke rose from the skyline as a signature for the desolation of the city; it was dead. I felt it in my bones.
My hands were light while my head was heavy, my throat was dry, and the entire world seized in moments of stillness or perhaps it was my own vision which construed the world in that way; I took to the small hill which Billy had climbed and sat there and stared at the place between my feet to steady myself.
“Fire,” said Billy.
I nodded and nearly choked.
Leviathan—till then I had no belief in dragons—glided over the broken city, its winged shadow little seen but its voice was deep across the scene, letting go of roars which shook the ground. We hid among the trash wood and moved down the hill and watched the creature thrash in the air as if it was angry for its abominable life. Whatever millennia it spent in the pits of hell seemingly thrust upon it a love of destruction and pain.
My brother moved with a more assured stride and kept a cool distance and upon fleeing from the wreckage, from the outlying area of Atlanta and the place we’d left our family, he spoke little and watched me strangely whenever I took to melancholic fatiguing. We lit no fires for fear of what it could draw from the night so in the dark I’d see him watching some far-off place, maybe seeing through the reality which surrounded us, and he’d snap from it, catch my eye, and disappear for minutes to scan the perimeter of whatever place we stayed. Being alongside my resurrected brother was lonelier than I could bear, and I hoped he’d disappear for good or that I could work up the courage to end my own life. It was like purgatory explained in books and for a time, it felt endless; upon witnessing the destruction of Atlanta, we pushed to Marrietta, and it was much the same. As was Chatanooga, Nashville, Knoxville, Louisville, Charlotte. The ocean had risen so that Fayetville was gone underwater, and the Florida leg disappeared completely as far as I’m aware. I understood later that Memphis was overlooked and more places further west were alive too, but when we’d exhausted the south, we moved north and found strongholds of families or traders or even small groupings of civilization, but by and large we found nothing much in the two years that we hoofed it from place to place; it was my doing mostly—I wanted to find a place untouched by the mayhem in the area my family had once patrolled.
In retrospect, I am certain that Billy only stayed by my side for convenience; there wasn’t any of my brother left in the man that was my travelling companion for that time. He was a ghost of a person and Mephisto had preyed upon my desire in the worst moment of weakness in my life. There were nights—maybe we’d taken up in a natural alcove for shelter or we’d locked ourselves in some ancient structure for sleep—I’d watch Billy lay where he was, Sibylle’s hat and holster lying beside him, and I’d think of putting him down but he’d stir and in a brief shadow I’d see my brother as he’d been and withdraw to bury my face in fake sleep to be met with images of the night the demons attacked where I’d shake, sweat, and bite my lips so hard I’d drink blood.
Two years we marched around the Appalachians and in that time, I felt myself wither and disconnect.
Upon moving further north we met Indianapolis—that’s what it was called back then—and it was run by an older woman called Lady Lazarus; I reckon her father, affluent and dead, was a fan of Plath. Indianapolis was fortified more than most with its high walls, and its wall men, and its underground facilities which produced substantial ammunition. We—me and Billy’s revenant—were travelling with a group of traders we’d taken up with from out west; they called themselves wizards and although they seemed of the occult, their spirits discounted whatever suspicions I might’ve had of them.
I remember first pushing through that big gate; the town kept with it an indisputable malaise and though we were greeted at the gate by the leader Lady Lazarus—her brothers came along with her—and her jovial demeanor carried a certain infectious quality, I could not help but notice that the regular denizens maintained a healthy distance from their leader (the guards which followed the Lady everywhere probably had something to do with this).
Lady Lazarus touched each of our hands in greeting with enthusiasm and I could not help but notice how soft they were, how vibrant her eyes were, how much she smiled, and how beautiful she was given her age; already her head was fully gray.
Upon meeting each of us, going through the wizard traders first, she came to me, and Billy and she shook my hand then pivoted to Billy.
“Welcome. You can call me Lady.”
Billy caught her hand in his, held it longer than she’d intended so that they held eye contact, and he smiled broadly, tipped the cowboy hat on his head back to expose his smooth forehead and said, “And you can call me Maron, mam. You are quite a sight for a tired man.”
Though Maron—as he’d named himself—was more boy than man, Lady took a disturbed liking to him immediately and we prolonged our stay in Indianapolis after the wizards departed to head west.
Under the rule of Lady, Indianapolis was a theocracy, with her addressing the huddled masses at the steps of her grand abode, she’d preach for hours on sin and strife and quote her favorite passages; though reminiscent of my time with the Rednecks, I never found any truth or sincerity or freedom in her teaching—hers was more trouble, brimstone, fire and I’d had enough of that for a lifetime. Public execution was common. As was torture.
Maron distanced himself further from me, but I remained to keep an eye on him—it was not sentimentality but rather I existed without purpose and conjured some from watching my brother.
Often, Lady invited Maron to her private rooms and though the rumors and speculation ran the full spectrum of perverse speculation, every denizen feigned ignorance at her pregnancy.
Upon giving birth, the infant was malformed with two heads—her brothers took this as an omen and killed the child, put their leader in the stocks for months, and stripped her of dignity while the denizens did to her what they pleased.
Maron rose through the wall men while Lady’s brothers assumed control of Indianapolis and called themselves Bosses; in the time since Lady’s reign, the place was renamed to Golgotha for its closeness to a messiah.
I went west but always found myself drawn back to Golgotha because of some emptiness in me. It was only with Suzanne that I wanted something more and knowing them, I almost believed in a world like the one that children dream about. The world that Gemma and Andrew chased after when they left home, like the one Aggie talked about in her mother’s books. There’s a hopelessness in me that I’ll never be rid of. In the interim between our initial arrival to Golgotha and that flight from that terrible city, I cannot know how many people I sacrificed in convening with demons because I refuse to know because the number would destroy me. That is the worst of it; I do not even have courage enough to face myself or the actions of my past in any substantive way.
Mephisto tainted me so that I could speak with his kind as a dealmaker and the disease grew.
Billy or Maron or whatever he is should have been reaped long ago or better, I should never have brought that abomination alive. Such a cruel world where a deep longing like that can be inverted, weaponized. Me and him should both die; me and him should have died a long time ago.
First/Previous
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Hi all ,
I will spare the uber long story but, essentially I am looking for some advice or any links or research around the issue I have.
I had a terrible car accident and then, leg injuries. As such, I do have loss of lordosis in upper and lower spine, heaps of bulging discs and ( I don't know if this is clinically significant at all ) haematoma thingys all over my spine.
Anyway, I also have TMDj.
About 5 years ago , I was diagnosed with vestibular migraines due to vertigo of all types, swaying or rocking, full rotation, tilts and internal vibration to name a few. I also had about 3 auras in that time and so it makes sense.
But there were some additional issues that didn't. Like, I would get out of my bucket seats in my car and when I would stand, a balloon like feeling would expand in my head, my heart would seem blunted and then it would disappear . I waw then diagnosed with postural orthostatic tachycardia
Then, last November I was coming from the toilet when I felt like I was hit by a 300 pound man, I could see the colours and shapes of the room and never lost consciousness. I landed about 2 feet away, slamming into a walk. I recovered real quick and gravity was restored.
Luckily I had a neuro appointment the next day. He says ' wow- classic drop attack which is a meneires symptom'
I then go to not one but two specialist testing facilities. I had the works.water and air pushed into my ears, a dark room and spun, nerve ear testing. Basically the works and...nothing. I don't meet the criteria here in Melbourne- not even close - for meniere's. I am from Ireland and there is no history of any of this in my family.
Neuro then says a tiny sub set of people who have vestibular migraines, also have one or many two drop attacks in their lifetime.
In all of this, I get neck pain. I noticed that when I am a passenger in a car and place my hand behind my neck, it seems in motion. Like the vertebra are gently swaying with the car movement. I tried this with my husbands and his are still. Okay so , that sounds weird but I am really desperate to find out what the heck is going on as none of it makes sense.
Occasionally I will look down and then the ground will bounce. This is nearly always when my neck is tighter. My neck and shoulders ache always.
Does anyone have any understanding of this conundrum- who might be way more knowledgeable than me ?
Thank you

In the vast countryside, away from the busy city of Savannah, exist hills as tall as buildings and green as emeralds. There was also an aura of calmness, with a few birds twittering away in dispersed trees, followed by the gentle swaying of the wind.
Then, out of nowhere, came a small, lonely girl wearing a once-lily-white summer dress with a striped long-sleeved t-shirt underneath it. She was also wearing a dark blue and cream-white baseball hat with the letter D on the front of it. She was moving wearily, with a pistol in one hand, and wiping her damp eyes with the other.
She knew what happened to make her weep. According to her, it was her fault that she got him killed; she was convinced by a towering man who said he knew her parents. But that was a brainless, childish lie that got Lee killed. She shouldn’t have run off. At least, Lee taught her how to use a gun and what to expect in the future before his tragic passing. But now she was all on her own.
Eventually, she came to a log, which was next to the rusted shell of a car. Anyway, she proceeded to sit down on it. Throughout all of this, she was as quiet as a mouse, only looking at her feet and wiping her blood-red eyes. She noticed that on the floor next to the log was a mixture of bullets—some shell casings and some unfired ones. Out of curiosity, she picked it up and examined it before exhaling deeply, which is when she noticed something else. Something she could just about make out if she scrutinised her eyes—something on the nearest hill—looked like two figures. One followed the other, and they looked like they stopped to look at her, making her start to hyperventilate as her eyes extended to the size of oranges. Was it someone she knew? Was it a threat to her? She didn’t know.
"Lee said I needed to find Omid and Christa before he got killed because of me." She said to herself, still looking sad, as she noticed that the two figures were now coming down the prominent hill—they didn't look like walkers. So she clasped her gun tightly until the figures came into view. She ended up not firing the gun and running towards the figures, as it was Omid and Christa, and they were alive!
Omid was a tall, slim Persian-American man with short dark-brown hair and a beard to match.
Christa, on the other hand, was a slightly taller African-American lady. She also had jet-black hair tied up in a ponytail, and she was Omid’s girlfriend.
"Clementine, honey, where's Lee?" Christa asked, kneeling to the nine-year-old.
"H-h-he's...dead." She answered with her face buried in Christa’s shoulder.
"Oh, Clementine, we’re sorry," Omid said, who started to kneel to her height as well.
"W-where's Ben and Kenny?" Clementine asked, still with her face buried in Christa’s shoulder.
Omid and Christa then looked at each other without Clementine noticing, and it was Omid who told her what happened to Ben and Kenny.
"So, it’s just us three," Clementine responded, now looking at Omid and Christa with her eyes dry again, a short while later.
"I guess, Clem, I guess so." Christa replied, "Come on, let’s go somewhere safe."
With this, the trio (Clementine, Omid, and Christa) began to walk, with Clementine tagging behind while Omid and Christa were in front. They were busily talking away, apart from Clementine, who was still looking at her feet, along holding the gun in her hand. As a result of this, she wasn't engaged in the conversation that they were having. She was too melancholy about what happened today. With her being kidnapped, seeing her walker parents, Lee dying, and now Kenny and Ben dying as well.
It was a lot for her to take in.
* * * * *
Sometime later, the trio found an abandoned house that had been abandoned for decades, as thick ivy hugged the walls. Furthermore, it reminded Clementine of that house they stayed at in Savannah; it was hard to believe that was a month ago.
Anyway, they succeeded in getting into the house rather than struggling, so now they could search within it.
Clementine, honey," Christa said, kneeling to her. "Omid, and I believe you can search parts of this house on your own. Just remember, if someone, walker or not, tries to hurt you, you got your gun. If you run out of bullets or are in a tight place, call us, and we will help you if you get into trouble. Do you understand?"
“Yeah, I do, Christa; I will be careful."
“Good," replied Christa, "let me know if you find anything."
With this, Clementine strayed a little by searching for anything useful on her own, though she stayed close to Omid and Christa.
As usual in the kitchen, she found faded, rusted cans with nothing but spoiled food inside. So she decided to head upstairs, and it seemed like they creaked with every step; as Omid and Christa were searching the enormous living room. Once she was upstairs, she clasped her pistol tightly and opened the door with one of her hands and the other on the pistol. Nothing. The room was that of a bathroom, with its normal interior—a bath, sink, toothbrushes, and some cupboards—which was stripped of life.
So she closed the door, walked to the next door, and proceeded to open it in the same manner she did for the bathroom. This room was that of a child’s room, which made Clementine remember her room back in Georgia, with its toys and books. It felt like she was just coming home from school and wanted to play with her dolls until supper time; it was hard to believe that was a year ago. Yet, here she was searching for anything useful in terms of survival—and not searching for a certain toy she wanted to play with at present.
“Just as well Lee found me when he did.” She said to herself as she glanced over at the room, trying to remember simpler times. When she went to school, she watched cartoons all day and rode her bike in the park with her parents. When she was thinking about this, she noticed that there was a medium-sized lump near the wall, cloaked in dust. It was a doll, and there was a string attached to its back, and when Clementine pulled it, it produced the word "Mama”.
Clementine remembered the doll that her mother gave her for her sixth birthday; it was probably still in the back of the wardrobe.
Eventually, she found an old pocket-sized backpack with a few flowery stickers, along with a dark-blue hoodie in her size.
“Have you found anything, Clementine?” called out Christa.
“Yeah, a backpack and a hoodie," answered Clementine, walking towards the edge of the stairs where Omid and Christa were.
“Just remember to check the bag, Clem; they might have something useful." Replied Christa.
“Ok," Clementine replied, unzipping the bag and then putting her hand into it, but not looking into it. Lo and behold, she found a working lighter, and it looked like it had a decent amount of fuel for a while.
Clementine then walked to the conclusive door upstairs, and like what she did before, however, the door required a little exertion to open. As a result of this, Clementine noticed that the noise she made alerted her to the presence of a walker heading towards her. This, of course, made Clementine a little timid, but she knew what to do. As her heart started to ram against her ribcage, likewise, a thick seal of sweat began to form on her hands, transferring onto her gun.
Always aim for the head," Clementine said to herself as she exhaled deeply and fired the gun. BANG!! The walker fell with a deafening thud, and Clementine was astounded at herself for shooting the walker that was coming towards her.
I did it, I did it," she exclaimed in a loud whisper. Which is when the door bursts open to reveal Omid and Christa with perturbed faces.
"Is everything OK, Clem? Are you hurt?" Asked Omid.
Yeah, I’m fine; I’m not hurt. Replied Clementine, as the trio all stood in stupefied silence at the walker that Clementine gunned down. "Did you find anything? Clementine asked after a minute of silence.
"Yes. We have found two cans of beans and some water." Christa replied.
"Oh."
“Well, let’s keep moving on, Clem. People might have heard the shot and might come here.” Omid said.
“Ok," responded Clementine. "I said already, but I found a backpack and a hoodie."
“Put it on, Clem; it’s starting to get colder, and we get going."
“Ok, I’ll put it on now."
Clementine then took off her hat, gave the gun to Omid, put on the dark blue hoodie, put her hat back on, and took the gun back from Omid. After that, Clementine followed Christa and Omid downstairs and out of the house and walked on.
* * * * *
Some short weeks later, the trio now situated in a substantial-sized forest under a thick canopy of leaves with Omid tending to a fire. Clementine and Christa, however, were sitting down on some nearby log around the fire.
Christa was busy talking to Omid about her pregnancy, whereas Clementine was busy herself by looking at the stars. The stars flickered and danced in the sky like a million tiny flames, casting a shimmering glow over the forest below. Furthermore, the sky itself was filled with low oranges, along with a mixture of light blues. Which were progressively getting into the realms of dark blues, purples and then full-on jet-black. Moreover, there seemed to be a chorus of crickets hiding somewhere in lush grasses, chirping away harshly.
“I would say that rabbit is cooked now, Omid.”
“Oh, right, yeah,” replied Omid, as he began to take the cooked rabbit off the spit – and handed it out to Christa and Clementine, then to himself.
"Thank you very much," Clementine said as she reached for the rabbit meat before going back to look at the stars. She thought to herself as she ate: "How many are there? Hundreds? Thousands? Millions?"
“Hm, what – sorry Christa; what did you say?”
“Omid and I said that we are going to rest here tonight and get going in the morning."
"Ok, as my legs still ache from all that walking we did today."
"Well, get some rest, you're going to need it," Omid said, rising from poking the fire.
"Ok," responded Clementine, getting up from the weather-worn log, wishing Omid and Christa a good night before she got onto the floor near the fire and began to close her eyes. She then began to dream about what she would be doing tomorrow, what would happen, and what she would see.
The next morning was filled with colours ranging from warm yellows trickling through the gaps in the trees. Clementine rubbed her eyes before getting up from the harsh, tough ground and walked to the log where she sat last night, where she saw Omid was cooking again.
"Morning, Clem," Omid said. "How did you sleep?"
"Ok, I'd rather sleep in a bed than on the floor."
"Yeah, I don't like it either, but it's necessary until we get to Wellington."
"Where's Christa?" asked Clementine, now looking around the campsite as she noticed Christa wasn't there.
But then, five minutes later, after Clementine had eaten, Christa came back - and with this, the trio began to walk on; with her now near Omid and Christa. Yet, like last time, Clementine's fingers were still wrapped around her pistol as if it were a part of her. But instead of looking at her feet, she was looking around the pensive clearing.
The clearing was serene, where only a few walkers were roaming around, but they could be seen more evidently through a few hacked trees. The trio strolled down the lane through dappled light filtering itself through the trees; moreover, the sound of the leaves rustled in the weak wind. There was also an occasional bird twittering away on a pile of stacked logs near the broad track Clementine, Omid, and Christa were walking. There was also an infrequent number of signs that littered the road.
"TWO MILES UNTIL TRUCK STOP", Clementine read as she walked on with Omid and Christa.
"How about...Isabella?" Christa said aloud.
"Nah," scoffed Omid, "James is far better."
"That's if it's a boy, Omid. Clementine, do you have any name ideas?"
"What about...Carley?"
"Yeah, that's a good name." Responded Omid, with an expression of puzzled thought in his voice.
For the next couple of miles, they (primarily, Christa and Omid) talked about what seemed to be endless baby names for Christa's child; to pass the time. Clementine wondered if her parents had this amount of difficulty when they chose her name.
Eventually, Clementine stopped a little as Omid and Christa walked on regardless; as she noticed there was a blackbird perched on a nearby tree which cawed before flying into the lush forest.
"What do you think?" asked Omid, as he poised at the truck stop over the abandoned road before crossing it with Christa and Clementine.
"Omid, you can't be serious," answered Christa.
"I am."
"We are NOT doing that."
"Why not?"
"Because one of you is enough!"