Guy cuts off his own nuts | | 🌴TO THE TOP!🌴

I want to preface this by saying: i have BPD and my partner is AuADHD. I’ve been suspecting for years that he has covert narcissistic symptoms from massive child neglect and verbal abuse.
TL;DR : im in shock after partner cheated and i don’t know where to go from here
so to cut the story short I (23F) got cheated on by my bf (23M) a couple months ago. And idk what I’m doing. Im not looking for a “leave him” cause that’s all I end up hearing. My assumption for the past four years of us being on and off with each other (FWB to lovers every other year) is that he is avoidant. And may exude some covert narcissistic traits. I say this bc he’s endured massive amount of neglect from his mom growing up and his father was mostly never around. His mother was a POS, pickin on him constantly and saying how stupid he is.
He’s a constant substance abuser (weed, alcohol, psychedelics) and when triggered can be verbally abusive. Almost always stuck in Lala land and I’m pretty sure wants me to do his shit for him. I provide this info because I’m under the assumption that all of these factors could be reasons for him using this “phantom ex syndrome” strategy.
There would be multiple moments (even when doing the devils tango or about to) where he would say things like “see, no girl would ever do this to me” or when we were just in regular setting he would imply that he wouldn’t be able to find a girl that could love him to the degree that I did. But i told him that was a lie bc his friend does. Which isn’t all the way true cause I don’t really know the degree to which she loves him. His friend who he referred to as his gbsf. The same gbsf who i didn’t know confessed her feelings to him in ALL the four years we’ve been “together”. The same girl who knew about me and i gave her the benefit of the doubt bc like him, she barely had friends. She, by the way, lives in another state, has a whole man, and they only knew each other online for a decade. I stupidly let them date (while dating me as well) told him I couldn’t do it and HE HIMSELF suggested that he would break up with her. And he did.
He unfortunately still texts her and it does make me feel some type of way but i feel like i can’t say anything bc that’s his only friend. Why that’s his only friend, i don’t really want to go in depth about it and read this man to filth entirely. I’m pissed at myself, I’m pissed at him and i want to get revenge and be cruel but i keep telling myself it’s not worth it and that I’m trying to turn a new leaf.
They happen to text a lot more than we do but if I’m being honest, we do already work together and see each other for a full day once a week. And the other day he spends time with himself to decompress. But when we are hanging out at my house where he sits by desk and plays the game all day. Sometimes I’ll play with him and other times I’ll just do my own thing. But I’ll notice that he gets messages from her and he doesn’t open them in front of me but I’ve seen their messages before and it’s nothing crazy but it does seem like he cares about her. Which sucks. The entire thing sucks. I hate there’s any emotions at all. I’m massively uncomfortable and somehow I’m still not ready to leave if that was even an option. We don’t even live together and we have no kids, no legal obligations to each other, So I could leave if I wanted to.
I didn’t tell him that him texting her makes me uncomfortable bc as I said before, she’s his only friend. I’d end up being the only person in his life and i definitely don’t want that. He’s an introvert, and socially awkward so him making friends is hard. He normally makes them better over Xbox.
I’m sure plenty of you will wonder why i even like this guy. And complexity is my response. I’m interested in the way his mind works. I seek knowledge and understanding of him as a person. And somehow I feel like that sounds like a very bad thing. And maybe I’m not romantically interested in people at all. Idk. I’m very confused rn. I’ve gathered a lot of intel in the time we’ve been together but i still feel like there’s more to know. And being here is helping me dig into things about myself. Idk someone told me I’ve already outgrown this relationship. That I’ve reached the point where I have to let this die out and be with new ppl. And explore new things. I just don’t want to lose out on being friends with him bc he’s literally all I have too. I mean i have my family, but i need an outside person that isn’t blood related. I’ve been with my family all my life, i need people from the outside or else I’ll be depressed af.

Previously, on rewatcher's diary: https://www.reddit.com/buffy/comments/1crl8ks/rewatchers_diary_season_2_episodes_8_to_10/
On today's menu: Ted (2x11), Bad Eggs (2x12), Surprise (2x13), Innocence (2x14).
The quick thoughts: Ted is better than I thought, Bad Eggs proves that even bad Buffy is good TV, I was too tired watching Surprise and Innocence but they're as great as I remember them. On to me having too random thoughts, in a random order.
Ted

There's a fun bit where Buffy has had enough of Ted, gets out of the house, sits on a swing(?) and calls out "vaaampires? Heeere, vampires." in a "here, kitty kitty" voice, reminiscent of how Spike called for Buffy in School Hard (2x3). Are we suggesting there's a connection between Spike and Buffy?
When Ted says "you'll spend your best dating days [years?] locked away in a mental institution", that hits harder when you know—from Normal Again (6x17)—that Buffy has already been in an institution.
I enjoy collecting Terminator references. I don't think "he's a robot" is enough to count. Maybe. Dunno.
Giles and Jenny talk about how his past actions ended endangering her in The Dark Age (2x8).
But then Jenny seeking Giles out (while he's out patrolling) results in her endangering and hurting him.
Giles' past actions got someone killed, mirroring how Buffy (according to her beliefs) got Ted killed. It seems the apple doesn't fall far from the surrogate tree.
Buffy being horrified—first at Ted being Ted and being in her life, and then at having killed him—really stuck with me. That's probably my favorite aspect of this episode: those powerful feels.
When Buffy is wailing on Ted and chucking him down the stairs, one wonders whether it didn't stop being self-defense at some point.
On the whole not fantastic, but better than I expected.

Bad Eggs

Willow and Buffy grow suspicious that there's something going on between Xander and Cordelia. Huh, I wonder where this is going.
I had forgotten just how funnily awful the chemistry between Xander and Cordelia is.
In the beginning when Buffy fights one of the Gorch brothers, he does a stunt where his hat falls off while he's falling to the ground and/or is rolling on it, but then he grabs the hat mid-roll and puts it back on before getting up and running away. For my money, that stunt was really fun and a bit cool. He seemed really attached to his hat.
Eggs, chestbursters, mind/motor control, underground vagina monster. Whatever, meh.
Meh.
Oh hey, having sex might have bad consequences. Chekhov's... egg? Foreshadow much?

Surprise

Willow said "date"!
I'm more of a Tillow shipper but man Willoz is so god damn cute. Hush: no rush.
"A: what do you want for your birthday? / B: Surprise me / A: I will". He is truly a man of his word.
Joyce asks "do you really think you're ready", then drops a plate—first in Buffy's dream, then in reality. I think we'll see further repetitions of this motif in S5.
Drusilla with blood in the corner of her mouth (in Buffy's dream) is such a great image.
Gasp, Jenny is not who we thought she was!
Her suggesting Angel should be the one to get The Judge's arm out of the way is a clever move: it will (or rather: would) drive Angel and Buffy apart, but in a way where Jenny has plausible deniability.
"[the flowers:] I can't abide them" — Dru, are you high on your own supply? She's sooo much fun.
Gasp, Buffy and Angel get captured by Drusilla and Spike!
Brian Thompson returns (yay!) to play his second and final role: The Judge.
So what's with the dream and the worry about Drusilla killing Angel? Is there a sense in which she did? I think I can connect the dots partially: in Lie to Me (2x7), Angel reveal a dark truth about how he (er, Angelus) drove Drusilla mad and turned her. Drusilla brought out the monster in Angel(us). What "killed" Angel at the end of Surprise was linked to that: the monster coming back out. Yes, the real trigger was him experiencing a moment of happiness (or maybe relief?) with Buffy, but that only happened because Buffy lied to herself about Angel being covered from head to toe in red flags, and the biggest such red flag was Drusilla. I'm not sure this amounts to "Drusilla was instrumental in bringing out Angelus", but she was... related to it, I guess.
Maybe it just reflects Drusilla's attempt on Angel's (uhhh) life in What's My Line 2 (2x10).

Innocence

Trio of vampires, assemble! Angelus is back!
What is it with trios and even-numbered seasons: trio of vampires, trio of initiative bros, trio of nerds. It's a trio of trios.
Like many others, I like the screen presence of DB-as-Angelus more than DB-as-Angel. Angelus is twisted and evil and awful and... so much fun to watch.
Sticks and stones may hurt my bones but words... actually, it looks to me like it was Angelus' words that cut Buffy the deepest. She looked stone cold when she talked about having to kill Angelus, which was as a consequence of him using sticks and stones.
In the dream sequence, is the implication that they (Buffy, Angelus, Jenny) are looking at Angel's grave? Did I miss a smoking gun on that? I figure it has to be, since that's the thing that makes the most sense—it shows a recent loss of Buffy's; it shows Angelus having arisen from his metaphorical tomb, i.e. from inside Angel; and given the next events (Buffy going to Jenny) the dream must have incriminated Jenny, but that only makes sense if the dream demonstrates she knew something, and the only knowledge that would incriminate Jenny is knowledge about Angel vs. Angelus.
When Angelus comes and grabs Willow (intending to kill her), Xander shows his greatest and most consistent two virtues: courage, and his love of his friends. He grabs the cross and confronts the monster to protect his friend, potentially putting his own life at risk. Xander is not the greatest guy but he does have has a great side, and it's good to see it.
Being brave and taking a cross to Angel(us) mirrors his bravery in Prophecy Girl (1x12), in which he was brave and took a cross to Angel—although taking a cross to Angel wasn't brave in itself, it was part of a bigger act of courage. I'm also thinking of Grave (6x22), during which his courage and his love for Willow saves the day, and there he doesn't even have a cross or other artifact to protect himself. (There are several other instances where we see his love and courage saving the day.)
Angelus betrayed and murdered Angel. It's like poetry, it rhymes with Star Wars. "Darth Liam"?
If we blur the Angel/Angelus distinction a bit, we see someone who's in love with Buffy turn to the dark side—i.e. become corrupt on the inside—and then switch their allegiance from the good guys to the bad guys. That kinda' mirrors Faith going dark starting in Bad Girls (3x14) and then siding with the Mayor.
In the car with Giles, Buffy feels guilty about losing her innocence. (Yes, that was a pun.)
I would be remiss if I didn't mention that rocket launchers are awesome.

Updated episode tier list

S-tier: 7 13 14
A-tier: 9 10
B-tier: 3 6 > 1
C-tier: 8 11 > 5
D-tier: 2 4 > 12

hey guys, i'm here looking for advice as to what i should do with myself. the story is a little long so please bear with me. (i'm 20M)
i was 18 when i first met my ex-girlfriend back in 2022, let's name her sofa (20F). we were arranged to be in the same class for the first time after going through 4 semesters in poly, right after i went through a break up. i got to know of her beforehand because my best friend back then was pretty close to her, so naturally the both of us hit it off immediately when we found out that we were in the same class. too natural in fact. to me, it felt like she was an extension of me. by the time week 1 ended, we were able to finish each others' sentences, and we knew most of each others' secrets.
slowly but surely, i fell in love. but back then she let me in onto one of her secrets: she had a boyfriend. i didn't want to be a homewrecker, so i kept my feelings to myself. however, said boyfriend was apparently sexually abusive towards her. and throughout it all, i was there for her emotionally and physically (this includes forcing her to give him a bj and to swallow his jizz, and going down on her when she clearly voiced her discomfort.) we'd skip classes sometimes to just be with each other, because she told me that she needed to get away from everything, and as her best friend i couldn't say no. but now that i think about it, it was probably because i too, wanted to spend time with her.
then one night we were out watching black panther 2, and she held my hand in the cinema. that's when i knew that i probably wrecked a home without meaning to. she confessed that she already had feelings for me long before the movie, probably at the same time i started falling for her. she explained how she got together with her then boyfriend: he was there when she needed someone, especially since they were both in the school band (she was the vocalist), he would pull her confidence up when she felt unconfident of herself. gratitude, she called it, with "it" referring to her feelings for him.
she then told me that she believed in the connection between me and her, and i agreed because i too, had never felt anything like this. after that day, i accompanied her to AFA, where she cosplayed as makima and i helped take photos of her. and the next day, our lips met for the first time. she promised that she would break things off with her ex when she flew to new zealand, i trusted her. long story short, she didnt end things with him. but i didnt know that she actually tried her best, but the man wouldn't take it as an answer. (she was the type to never say no) i cut her off there and then, because i didn't want to get hurt any longer.
months passed, and during that period, i went back to my ex. who popped my cherry, and showed me that sex was actually pretty bad. context: i didn't feel good at all, and took 1h30mins to finish. she enjoyed it though, and i later found out that she was lying about being a virgin, and that she actually loves cock. march came and i went to bangkok, thailand on internship with sofa and my best friend. my ex cheated on me 2 weeks into the internship with some streamer on a chinese streaming platform. i have records of her sending gifts to him all the time. strangly, i didnt feel much when i found out, i was actually okay with it. this is where sofa comes in. she held my hand again one night when me, my best friend and her were watching "the whales" in my room. i never thought that she would still have feelings for me, because the whole time people were saying that she gave up on me long ago. and i too, realised that i was not over her. call me a playboy, whatever. but it was my feelings, and i wasn't mature enough to control them. me and sofa fell in love and fixed our misunderstandings.
we spent 5 months together living in the same room. it was like a honeymoon period minus the actual marriage. we had a hard time adjusting to life without each other after we returned to singapore. and we broke up last year december 30th.
thing is, things didn't stop there. she found another guy 3 days after the break up, but still continued to see me in secret and hooked up with me too. all while dating the guy and having sex with him too. (i didn't know they were together, she claimed that they were just friends). soon enough, her own friends found out about our trysts and sold her out to her new guy. i guess he was as delusional as me, because he wanted to hold on. but things weren't the same, and eventually he ended things with her. this prompted her to come back to me, but with a pre-requisite: she wouldn't date me because she needed time to heal. at that point i felt like it was understandable, because she had been through a lot, and on the other hand completely neglected the 4 months of pain that i went through. i finally snapped at her one day, and told that if she wasn't going to try fighting for me, then i wasn't going to. she sent a whole paragraph to defend herself and then blocked me. i thought that i would be able to move on quickly after that, but its still the exact same as the time when i first broke up with her (i didn't sleep for 4 days in a row and collapsed in class, and often locked myself in my cupboard to just cry). i just enlisted in the army a few days ago and i really want to know how do i cope with this, because truth is i still love her.

There are some kinds of wisdom only great suffering can bring. I remember my time in the Bardo with this in mind, for otherwise, the memory might drive me insane.
The night my heart stopped for nearly three minutes started off normally enough. I was working as a nurse in the psychiatric ward at a hospital in the state’s capital. Most of the patients there were harmless, mostly just suicide attempts or people suffering from drug psychosis or severe depression, but some were actively dangerous and certainly psychopathic in every sense of the word. The new admission was one of these- a three-hundred pound black man with a long history of smoking PCP, schizophrenia and violent, psychotic breaks from reality.
His eyes looked like flat pieces of slate as I walked in for my shift. They looked as blank and emotionless as the eyes of a doll. He sat at the table in the front room where the patients ate or played cards, alone under the bright fluorescent lights of the hospital. I walked to the station, where another psychiatric nurse named Ricardo was sitting behind the desk.
“What’s the deal with the new guy?” I asked him. Ricardo looked up, his dark Spanish face forming into a deep scowl. He ran his fingers through his jet-black hair nervously.
“He’s trouble, man,” he said in a crisp accent. “He got in a chase with the police and then punched some cops in the face. It took three guys to take him down, even after he got maced and tased. The judge sent him here on a temporary court order, since he claims he’s been getting chased by Nazis in UFOs, and that’s why he ran from the cops. He thought the cops in their uniforms were actually the SS, and the helicopters were alien spacecraft, or something. I don’t know, I didn’t listen to the whole story.”
“You have his file?” I asked. Ricardo leafed through a stack of folders with his thin fingers, snatching one out and handing it to me. I looked down, reading the information:
“Jeremiah Brown, black male, 37-years-old.
“History: Polysubstance abuse, schizophrenia, antisocial personality disorder.
“Psychiatrist’s note: This patient has scored a 36 out of 40 on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist. While I am always hesitant to label a patient as an antisocial personality, a combination of factors has made it essential for this patient.
“Patient has an extensive criminal history as well as a lengthy history of involuntary psychiatric admissions. He has been diagnosed as having antisocial traits since he was a young teenager. Patient has a long history of violence and suicide attempts. He has a history of imprisonment for manslaughter, armed robbery, grand theft and aggravated assault. Upon discharge, he refuses to take any antipsychotic medication, citing the side effects as the reason. Long-term prognosis is poor…”
I had not been sleeping well the past few weeks. I rubbed my eyes as I read through the file, feeling exhausted. I tried putting on lucid dreaming or meditation music from YouTube to help me sleep, but whenever I closed my eyes, I saw horrible things: chalk-white female faces whose lips were cut into an insane rictus grin, flicking their heads violently from side to side and gnashing their fangs at the air. I had a feeling that many years of constantly watching horror movies and serial killer documentaries was catching up with me.
As I read through the file, a student nurse came around the corner wearing a white state university outfit and a name tag that said Kaitlyn. I looked up, seeing Ricardo wink at me from where he was sitting in his chair behind the main desk.
“She’s going to follow you,” he said. Inwardly, I groaned, but I managed to force a smile.
“Oh, great!” I said. She looked like she was probably no older than nineteen or twenty. She had a pretty body, but her face looked strange. All the angles were too sharp and her nose too large. I knew the patients here wouldn’t care, though. They would hit on anything. I sensed trouble. I looked down at my watch.
“Well, I’m Jay, and you already know Ricardo, I guess. It’s good timing, because we need to give medications every day at 9 PM. And we have a new patient, so we can introduce ourselves,” I said, giving her a faint smile.
“That’s exciting!” Kaitlyn whispered. I wanted to roll my eyes. It was definitely not exciting.
I motioned her to follow me as I made my way to the medication room, which was really just a large closet off of the main day room. I had to enter my code on a keypad, and then, once inside, enter it again along with the patient’s number and date of birth. The correct drawers for the medication in each specific dose would fly open, making it extremely hard for the wrong medications or doses to be given, unless it was done intentionally.
“OK, so for this patient, we need Haldol, Ativan and…” I began saying to Kaitlyn when the yelling started. It came out faintly, rising in volume and anger within seconds. I heard Ricardo’s Spanish voice, filled with panic. Something slammed hard against a wall, once, twice, three times, and then I heard the sound of glass breaking. I jumped, spinning around, but I couldn’t see much through the small, shatter-proof glass pane on the wooden door.
“Stay here,” I commanded, seeing Kaitlyn’s eyes widen, her freckled skin looking much paler than when we had first come in. “Don’t leave until I come back and say that it’s safe.” On the speakers strung throughout the hospital, I heard the first of the warnings echo out around us.
“Doctor Strong, Doctor Strong, please report to the seventh floor,” a robotic female voice said calmly, using the code for when a patient had to be subdued by force. I pushed the door open, slamming it shut behind me so that the lock would activate and protect Kaitlyn from whatever chaos was going on.
I heard Ricardo pleading with someone at the end of the hallway that ran past the main desk. He sounded strange, as if he were trying to talk through a mouthful of blood. Huddled behind the main computer, I saw one of the CNAs frantically whispering something in the phone. She must have been the one to call the Dr. Strong order.
“You don’t have to do this, man,” Ricardo gurgled faintly. I couldn’t see what was happening, as Jeremiah’s large body was blocking my view. I could see that the thick glass window at the end of the hallway was broken, however. My heart skipped a beat as I surmised what was likely happening.
I sprinted forward as quietly as I could, but the large man heard me. His massive body turned, his flat, dead eyes scanning me with absolute coldness and calm. I saw he had a bleeding Ricardo in his hands. Ricardo’s back and head were covered in deep cuts and shards of glass. He must have used Ricardo’s body as a battering ram to break the thick glass window. Jeremiah held Ricardo suspended halfway out the window, seven floors above the concrete walkways far below.
“Stay back, or this fucker will know what it feels like to fly,” Jeremiah said in a deep, gravelly voice. He shook Ricardo for emphasis, sending his head snapping back and forth with painful cracking sounds. Drops of blood flew from his nose and a deep gash across his cheek. Pieces of shattered glass littered the carpet, shining like countless tiny stars.
I put my hands up, taking a step back. Far behind me, I heard the front door for the psychiatric ward open. Voices echoed down the hall. Knowing that reinforcements were coming, I tried to buy some time.
“Let’s talk about this,” I said, taking a step forward slowly. “You don’t want a murder charge, do you? You’ll never see the sky again.”
“I don’t give a fuck! I’m not afraid to die!” Jeremiah screamed, pushing Ricardo onto one of the shards of broken glass still attached to the windowsill. It bit deeply into the back of his neck, sending fresh streams of blood rushing out, dripping down to the pavement far below. I heard security guards and doctors running down the hallway behind me, their voices frantic and excited. Jeremiah saw them coming. With an animalistic panic in his eyes, he lifted Ricardo up. I cried out something, stepping forward, but it was already too late. In horror, I watched as he threw Ricardo out the window.
I watched Ricardo’s body soar in a graceful arc, his arms grabbing at empty air as a scream ripped its way out of his throat. Within a fraction of a second, he had disappeared from view, but his terrified shrieking floated up to us for what seemed like a very long time. His screams ended abruptly as a shattering of bones and a wet smacking sound exploded far below us.
Jeremiah turned to me, his large body moving much faster than seemed possible. In his hand, I saw a piece of broken glass, five or six inches long and as sharp as a dagger. I tried to turn and run, but he was fast and strong. He lunged forward, his arm coming up in a blur towards my neck.
The shard entered my skin with a cold, numbing pain. I felt it slice through the flesh easily, felt the blood bubbling up my throat as I tried to scream, choking. The taste of iron filled my mouth as I fell backwards. I was suffocating, I knew. I must be dying.
Something cold ran down my body, gripping my heart like freezing, skeletal hands. The world swam around me and turned black. And then I was rising into a tunnel. At first, it was dark, filled with flickering shadows, but a fiery red light appeared at the end. I followed it, no more than a screaming mass of consciousness rising up into infinity.
***
I rose up through the end of the tunnel and found myself in an empty hospital ward. It looked identical to the psychiatric ward I had just come from. It even had the same smashed, blood-streaked window at the end of the hallway. A massive puddle of blood about ten feet away marked the spot where I must have died. But the fluorescent lights overhead here were flickering, and many had gone totally dark. The shadows seemed to press in on all sides.
The doors to the patients’ rooms were all tightly shut. I felt watched, afraid to call out or make any noise. I started walking down the hallway back towards the day room where the front desk was. All the lights there were out. A thick curtain of shadows hung in the air.
“You can come out,” a male voice as smooth as glass called from the darkness. I jumped, my head flicking in random directions, but I saw nothing. The voice almost sounded like it had an English lilt to it, a slight Cockneyed accent. “I know you’re there.”
“Who’s there?” I called out, not stepping forward. “Show yourself.”
“As you wish…” the voice hissed. “But I think you’ll regret it.”
***
The darkness split apart as if a nuclear missile had exploded. I raised my hand to shield my face, but the light and heat kept pouring out all around me. It blinded me, causing a rainbow of colors and shapes to morph behind my closed eyelids. After a few seconds, it subsided. Blinking rapidly, I squinted in the direction the voice had come from.
A male figure stood there, bathed in a silhouette of light. His face looked as white and as smooth as marble. His eyes were pits of darkness that seemed to flicker and burn. Two black, rotted wings surrounded his body, all sharp angles and thin, curving bones. His body was clothed in silky, blood-red robes, and a hood covered his platinum blonde hair.
He looked somewhat similar to Leonardo DiCaprio, if he was possessed by some ancient god, and it immediately threw me off-guard. If I was dying, and this was a hallucination of my brain, why would I be hallucinating Mr. DiCaprio?
“Who are you?” I asked, taking a hesitant step back. “Where am I?”
“My name is Lucifer, the Bringer of Light and Wisdom, and you are in the Bardo,” he answered.
“Oh,” I said, my heart dropping. “Well, that’s not good. Are you here to torture me or drag to me to Hell or something? You are that Lucifer, right? The Accuser of God and the Father of All Lies?”
“So they say, but, like most things in your world, the words of the powerful and your rulers are the true lies. They call me the Accuser, but of what am I accused?” he spoke in a voice that rose like smoke. “Of bringing knowledge and wisdom to humanity by telling them to eat from the tree of knowledge, the tree that would cause them to rise above the animals?
“Indeed, at the beginning, I saw the creation. I was there at the alpha, standing by the side of God with all the angels as the universe came into being. The endless procession of light, the power of it, was something remarkable to behold. God is, indeed, the source of great power, but his consciousness is not what the believers say.
“After the creation of the universe, I saw his plan, how he ripped eternal souls from the source to imprison them. I saw how he took these divine sparks and forced them, screaming and wailing, into bodies made of meat to die over and over again. He said it was part of the plan, the great, divine plan, a plan of death and destruction, constant suffering and mindless agony. And the worst part was, he wanted to give humanity neither the knowledge of good and evil, nor the tree of life. I convinced them to eat the fruit so they could open their eyes to their nakedness, to their basic animal existence, so they could rise up out of it forever.
“Like Prometheus, I brought down the fire, and yet they call me the Accuser? God was insane long before he formed the universe. These holy men, they live and die in fanatical adoration to a divine being who is, in fact, totally indifferent to them.
“His consciousness twists and distorts, eating itself for all eternity. God feeds off the pain of others, for if his mind is burning, then all others should burn as well. When these holy men die, God will send their souls here to the Bardo, to suffer every evil they have ever done. The wisdom I brought those who called upon me freed them from this prison, and in exchange, the holy men burned them alive. I offered the wisdom that opens your eyes, but it has been forgotten and cursed.”
Lucifer’s body began to dissolve, drifting up into the air like ashes. All around me, a low, powerful current blew, a tornado that spiraled high up into the clouds. Like some sort of Cheshire Cat, his smooth voice continued to echo all around me, even as the form of Lucifer disappeared.
“And yet, you have not the wisdom. For that, like all the others who enter the Bardo, you must suffer, everything you’ve done. Every small hurt and agony inflicted on others comes back a thousand-fold in this place, but don’t be afraid.”
“How could I not be afraid?!” I screamed into the ward, but I found myself alone, the question hanging unanswered in the air.
***
The lights continued to flicker all down the hallway. Feeling strange and dissociated, I stumbled over to one of the windows. As I gazed out, I beheld a strange and alien world.
The sky was flat and gray. It stayed in constant motion, swirling and spiraling, like clouds of roiling smoke. There was no Sun or Moon, no stars, only the strange, shifting whorls of clouds. The streets were filled with burned-out husks of cars and mummified bodies hung from streetlamps. Other signs of carnage and bloodshed covered the apocalyptic streets. I saw what looked like shadows in the shape of people slinking through over the sidewalks, past rotting dogs and streaks of clotted blood. They had no features on their blank, dark bodies. They seemed to skitter and jerk forwards in eerie, twisting motions.
Horrified, I turned away, realizing I was no longer alone in the day room. In the day room, there were dozens of tables set up inside a rectangular perimeter that was walled in by cosmetic walls only four feet high. It was where the patients sat and played games or ate.
Under the flickering lights, I now saw each of the chairs filled with faceless mannequins. Many were dressed in Victorian suits and tophats. The women had frilly dresses of pink and blue that might have been fashionable in the 1800s.
As the lights strobed on and off overhead, I realized with an increasing sense of disquiet that the mannequins were moving each time it went dark. When I had first seen them, they were mostly posed to look like they were staring across the tables at each other, even though they had no eyes, just smooth, flesh-colored plastic. Now all of them were looking directly at me. Some were pointing or raising their hands in my direction. At the tips of their fingers, I saw the glittering of steel. The lights continued to flicker, and the mannequins rose from their chairs in the short periods of darkness, moving towards me in synchronized, strobing motions.
Frantically, I ran down the hallway back towards the broken window. In each of the rooms, I caught glimpses of something from a nightmare peeking out. I hadn’t been sleeping well lately, and when I had closed my eyes, I often saw ancient hags with chalk-white skin and yellowed, broken teeth whose jaws unhinged, their faces jerking in stuttering, dissonant ways that reminded me of the mannequins. Now, on both sides of me, I saw these same figures. They moved continuously out of the rooms, drawing closer with every breath.
I looked back, seeing the mannequins only a few steps behind me. I continued sprinting towards the broken window where the hallway ended in a wall. I didn’t know what would happen when I reached it. At that moment, there was no rational thought. I felt like a deer being chased down by a pack of wolves, feeling waves of blind panic and mortal terror rushing through my body.
But as I reached the end of the hallway, the end of my rope as it were, a blast of noise started, seeming to come from the walls of the building and the sky itself. It sounded like a siren, a low, drawn-out drone of a demonic whale call, rising and falling in crashing crescendos. The mannequins froze in place once again. The strange, witch-like creatures slunk back into the dark rooms.
I looked outside the broken window, seeing clouds of black smoke rising off in the distance. The flickering of massive infernos scorched the land, drawing nearer by the second. The siren sound faded slowly, like the dying echoes of a gong.
I was surrounded by dozens of mannequins. Their sharp hands were inches away from my face and neck. I saw metal glittering all around me and realized they had the sharp points of nails protruding from the ends of their fingers. I was afraid to move, but I heard a familiar voice from down the hallway. It was the confident voice of Lucifer.
“The siren means much worse nightmares than these are coming in the Bardo,” he said, his glossy, black eyes flashing with intelligence. He walked slowly towards me, his face grim and pale. “Hell itself is coming over the land. This building is no more than a construction of your dying mind, but the world outside is real.”
“How can Hell come and go?” I asked, confused. “Isn’t Hell a place?”
“Hell is a monster, a beast with many mouths and many eyes,” Lucifer responded. “It eats constantly, but its hunger never ends. Look, the first of the sacrifices scatter like cockroaches.” He pointed out the broken window, pushing his way through the mannequins effortlessly. I glanced outside, seeing thousands of people sprinting down the dark city streets. The inferno and thick clouds of smoke had moved much closer, and every few seconds, the ground shook slightly, as if we were experiencing the aftershocks of an earthquake.
“What can I do against such a beast?” I asked, my heart freezing with terror. But when I looked back over, I saw his form dissolving again, becoming translucent and drifting away like ashes. It seemed even Lucifer didn’t want to be present when the Hell-beast arrived.
“Seek divine wisdom,” he said, his voice trailing off into whispers. “Remember the source.”
***
Now crowds of tens of thousands of people were streaming into the city, filling every single inch of the streets. Their panic and fear was contagious. I felt it rising inside my body like a snake spiraling up my spine. I took off down the hallway, running through the swarm of frozen mannequins, each in their own ferocious position of attack. The lights flickered faster and went out. Yet the fires outside cast the entire world in a bloody glow, giving me enough light to see by and find my way. I sprinted down the stairwell, taking them two steps at a time. The screaming outside grew louder and more pain-filled. The shaking of the ground worsened with every passing second.
I burst out of the front entrance, seeing a world on fire all around me. Thousands of crushed, bleeding and burned bodies stretched out as far as the eye could see. Behind all this chaos and death, I saw a monster of unimaginable proportions slinking its way towards me.
Lucifer was right, I realized: Hell was not a place, but a creature, an enormous monster the size of a town. It had thousands of skittering, jointed legs that looked like little more than skeletal arms and hands, each of them dozens of feet long and white as freshly-cut marble. Its body stretched out to the horizon, an enormous blood-red cylinder of bony plates that slithered and undulated with a serpentine grace. Waves of peristalsis traveled down its length, like writhing intestines. Thousands of curving, bony spikes stabbed out of it, pointing in every direction. Like the quills of a porcupine, it would protect the massive creature’s body from many forms of attack, if anything was big enough to attack such an abomination.
Hell’s massive eyes flickered, balls of fire that spun and danced. They looked as bright as the Sun. Something like solar flares seemed to emanate from the orbs, flashes of blinding energy that floated over the apocalyptic wasteland. As its many legs smashed the ground, they left trails of fire that caused everything to explode into flames as if napalm dripped from its limbs.
But Hell’s most terrifying feature was its seven dark mouths. Its body looked a thousand feet wide, and the mouths at the front were evenly dispersed. At the front, blood-red teeth in the shape of enormous railroad spikes shone. Its lipless, skeletal face grinned as it moved forward, shaking the ground with every step. The mouths were on long, snake-like necks that could stretch out hundreds of feet. They moved forward in a blur, snapping up as many panicked souls as they could.
Countless souls in the rocky plains of the Bardo ran for their lives, away from this juggernaut. I saw men and women who looked like they came from every country and profession, some dressed in suits or spotless white lab coats, others wearing rags or orange prison jumpsuits. And yet, they all screamed in agony and fear here, their bodies pressed together in a crowd, and no one seemed to remember anything but their own mortal terror. Their voices came out faint and weak next to the roaring of Hell. It shook the ground all around us, as if an earthquake were tearing the land apart.
The first frantic runners of the surging crowd had nearly reached me. The nearest person, a young woman in her mid-twenties dressed in all white, was only ten feet behind me. She looked like she came from wealth, and even from here, I could see a ring with a massive diamond gleaming on her finger.
I took off blindly down the familiar streets of the city where I worked and lived, but these also seemed different. The church down the street from the hospital where I worked had a Satanic pentagram instead of a cross now, its exterior painted a bright, gleaming blood-red. When I had driven past it today on my way to work, I remember it read, “JESUS said, ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’”
Now it read, “Nietzsche said, ‘Of all evil, I deem you capable. I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good simply because they had no claws.’” I wondered what that meant. Was that some sort of comment on me, on all of us here?
The woman I had seen running had caught up with me. She was fast, much faster than her slim body suggested. Her blue eyes were frantic and wild, filled with an animal panic.
“It’s right behind us!” she screamed, her face covered in a sheen of sweat. I was afraid to turn and look, but I could hear the chaos and bloodshed approaching, smell the flames and choking smoke. “Run! Get away!”
A new wave of energy surged through my body. I sprinted as fast I could down the strange mirror streets of the Bardo. I heard the agonized cries of countless souls behind us as the seven mouths of Hell ate them all greedily and then looked for more.
A skyscraper behind us collapsed into a pile of rubble, shaking the ground with a cacophony of falling concrete and shattering glass. The woman was running by my side. Just as I heard the breathing of something huge and predatory right behind us and smelled its sulfuric breath, a piece of concrete the size of a basketball broke off the collapsing skyscraper and flew into the road. I tripped over it, yelling as I flew through the air, skinning my arms and legs on the pavement. The woman’s eyes widened. Hurriedly, she came over and reached down her hand, trying to help me up.
“Come on, come on!” she cried. I looked behind her, seeing one of the gnashing mouths of Hell reaching forward on a blood-red, serpentine neck. The mouth was big enough to drive a tractor trailer into, filled with huge spikes of teeth. Its throat led into a black, smoke-filled abyss. Its fiery eyes were swirling pools of flickering orange light that shone with bloodlust and insanity. They focused on the woman, the entire head turning on its slithering neck.
I frantically raised my hand, intertwining my fingers with hers. Her hand was warm and soft. She started to pull me to my feet when the mouth of Hell snapped forward. Its jaw unhinged, scraping the pavement with a sound like grinding metal. The woman barely had time to turn as the mouth covered her and snapped shut with a crack.
She disappeared from view instantly, but I was still holding her hand. In horror, I felt warm rivers of blood explode all over my body as the mouth of Hell severed her arm at the wrist. She screamed, bleeding and crying, as she disappeared into the throat of Hell. Hell’s fiery eyes focused on me, and at that moment, I knew I was next. Its mouth opened wide again, like a bear trap ready to spring on a new victim.
It was dark in Hell’s mouth, but I smelled the thick reek of old blood and fire. I caught glimpses of tortured, mutilated bodies writhing and crawling down its throat. Shell-shocked, I could only lay there and watch. And that was when the strange doubling started.
***
I heard the frantic voices of men break through the fog of darkness and the fetid reek of blood. There was a mechanical beeping all around me, but I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
“Clear!” one cried. I looked around, only seeing blackness. At that moment, I felt a surge of electricity rip itself through my body. My arms and legs all seized and my eyes rolled up in my head as the pain sizzled through each one of my nerves. I clutched the young woman’s hand tightly, feeling the large, gold ring with the massive diamond biting into my skin.
“Again!” another voice yelled.
“Clear!” the original voice cried. The electricity came again, and a flash of white light flew across my vision. I blinked, seeing from two sets of eyes at the same time: one in the Bardo, and one on the blood-stained floor of the hospital ward.
The Bardo stayed dark and sinister, but the clear white lights of the real psychiatric ward were blinding. It was a bizarre experience. Moreover, everything hurt. Over a few seconds, my vision of the Bardo faded, and I was simply a gravely injured man laying on the floor in a puddle of blood.
Four doctors and paramedics were crouching over me with a defibrillator. My shirt was ripped off, and nearly all of my skin was covered in blood. I raised my left hand, trying to talk, but only a fiery pain raced through my neck. I felt bandages covering my skin. A nurse was rolling a stretcher down the hallway towards me.
“It’s OK,” one of the doctors said, kneeling down. “You’re being taken to emergency surgery. You’ve lost a lot of blood.” I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t talk with the massive slice in my neck.
At that moment, I felt something in my right hand. I looked down, seeing a slim female hand with a massive diamond ring hanging there. Our fingers were wrapped around each other’s, but the hand had been cut off at the wrist. A ragged patch of bloody flesh and snapped bone poked out of the back.
“Nnnn,” I tried to say, shaking my head. I felt fresh streams of warm blood open up. “No…” The doctors looked down, seeing the dismembered hand. Their faces morphed into expressions of confusion and fear.
I closed my eyes as they lifted me up on the stretcher. One of them gently removed the cold hand from my fingers. But they could never remove the memory of what I had seen.
I know what happens after death, and it makes the worst life here seem like a dream. I know that, one day, I’ll be returned to that place. I know that, one day, I’ll see that great monster called Hell and the featureless, swirling sky of the Bardo again.
And the next time, I won’t wake up on a hospital floor, but will be trapped there with the others for eternity: an eternity of blood and fire.

_ _ _ _ _
Impact and introduction
_ _ _ _ _
His first thoughts about his little predicament were that it was nothing like the anime he’d watched.
Finding yourself suddenly free falling from hundreds of thousands of feet in the sky was significantly more terrifying than it had seemed while cozied up in his bed, wrapped up in three-plus blankets and contently slurping his microwave ramen.
That said, he felt justified in screaming like a little girl. “Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit! Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit!” What was happening? Where was he? He had just stepped out of his house for a ramen run at the nearest gas station, and now this was happening. Great, just great, now he wasn’t going to be able to watch anymore anime- he stopped suddenly. “Oh, of course,” he muttered to himself, “That’s what’s going on here.” He was suddenly as stoic as a knight in shining armor as he plummeted through the sky, and he pushed the slightly problematic matter of falling out of his mind and focused on what would be important: His story. First: his name was Caen Eloso. He came from a strange other world with wondrous technology that left nothing to the imagination. Caen was what was in his third year at his school, Hansen Academy High School in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where teenagers his age were taught arithmetic, science and language punctuation before they went off into the world on their own. Colorado was one of fifty individually operating states in his home country called America, which was home to more than three hundred million people and overseen by a President.. America was located on one of 7 continents in his world, called Earth. There were a great many other countries besides America, of which he knew varying amounts about their cultures that he could give little tidbits of information about, but he figured he knew the most about Japan. Japan was basically heaven. The Japanese people were responsible for creating the best possible thing that his world had to offer, a wondrous thing called anime. He had dedicated his life to exploring every nook and cranny that was connected to the world of anime, and there was nothing that brought him more happiness than binging.
However, he figured he oughta remember some cooler stuff about Earth (he couldn’t really expect many people to weeb out with his stories without watching anime in person) if he ever found himself in a tight spot and needed to, say, entertain a dragon or something. Because…
He was ninety-nine percent sure that he had just been isekai’d.

That’s why, while plummeting to what seemed to be his inevitable doom, he kept a level head. Ignoring the previous screaming-like-a-five-year-old fit. Because, of course, anyone that was summoned to another world via falling from the sky always survived; it was kind of a given, otherwise the story wouldn’t get anywhere, duh. Whether it be due to some miraculous vitality, impossible superpowers, a one-time “safe-landing” provided by the dude that summoned them, or (and what he personally was hoping for) a rescue from some either super-shy or super-pissy elf hottie in possession of a huge rack… of swords, you pervert, that dressed in some skimpy armor (that really would do nothing to protect the vital organs, from a defensive standpoint) and who would kick off the protagonist’s harem.
When he actually gave it thought, he realized he wasn’t really all that interested in a harem, and kinda found the thought of one IRL gross. Like, did he even have to explain? But he knew that if he’d said that in an online chat with one of his internet buddies, they would definitely try to overrun his laptop with viruses. In what was now his previous life, he had had little to no experience with talking to girls, let alone “getting some action”. He really hadn’t seen the point, considering how difficult 3D girls were to handle. That said, he never really got into the hardcore otaku-type 2D obsession stuff, like buying lewd figurines and pasting posters all over your room and buying body pillows of your favorite waifu. He was just a hardcore watcher, and that kind of made-up for his lack of other tendencies. He would frequently spend 12+ hours a day shacked up in his room in 6 hour sessions of binging anime at 1.5 times speed; (he wanted to get in as much watching as possible) and that was only on weekdays. Yeah. With school. (Needless to say his grades weren’t exactly top notch) But weekends were another story, with him usually staying up till four in the morning on Friday night and then sleeping until twelve, when he would wake up and choose whether or not to eat before watching until he was told to get off, and then stuffing his fat face in the kitchen to his heart’s content. The point was, he had originally decided he didn’t want to “waste time” on a girlfriend. (Not that he was exactly confident he would be on anyone's radar if he were to try)
Anyways, more and more, (before he found himself falling from the sky of his new world) Caen had found himself feeling lonelier and more depressed as time went by, and so, he decided that in his new life he was going to quit his otaku and introvert tendencies and find the love of his life in what was to be his new world. Quite the goal.
With his mind made up, (this was some relatively quick thinking given the situation; he’d been falling for about four and a half minutes before coming upon this decision and entirely giving up on his old world and everything he had loved in it) (Besides his love of anime) he realized something… interesting. He hadn’t noticed it due to being lost in thought and not being capable of feeling it (probably his magical protection or something that came with being summoned), but he was currently a ball of flame. If he had been wearing clothes earlier during his fall, and he hadn’t actually bothered to check because of his little fit, they were long since burnt to a crisp. Even though he was certain he had a grasp on the situation, he couldn’t stop himself from freaking out just a little bit, especially as he felt himself growing closer and closer to the ground. ‘Alright, you can rescue me now,’ he muttered to himself, though his words were lost to the wind. His eyes widened. He realized he was too fast, far too fast. This entry was apparently going to be very flashy, which he wasn’t against, but… He could hardly gauge distance before he had halved it. Twenty thousand feet, ten thousand feet, five thousand, he broke through low hanging cloud cover, two thousand.. He shut his eyes as tight as he could and pulled his limbs in tight while covering his ears to brace himself and-
Boom.
_ _ _ _ _
Learning to walk and not-squirrels
_ _ _ _ _
The sound of impact deafens him. He instantaneously loses awareness of anything else besides the sound, but somehow remains conscious, unaware of if he had completely shattered into a million billion pieces or not. For time out of mind he couldn’t move any part of himself. His ears ring and his head throbbed something awful. He could not conceive what would make him capable of surviving a fall like that. Then, slowly, ever so slowly, he opened an eye to gauge his surroundings…
He was in a crater. Caen had expected as much, but his jaw literally dropped in surprise, something he thought no one actually did. It was at least eight hundred feet from edge-to-edge and four hundred feet deep, the ground smoldering, red-hot and smoky, but surprisingly only warm where he lay (thank you, summoners). He must’ve stayed stagnant longer than he thought for it to have cooled enough to touch. He slowly pushed himself into a seated position, sitting on his right leg and letting his left arm rest on his left leg, which he had bent at the knee. He once again surveyed his crater by twisting his head around.
Quite the entrance. “I guess this fits into the one-time no fall damage category…” he muttered to himself, running his hand through his hair, making note that it was surprisingly silky. “Cause there’s no way this is a vitality thing, right? Way too overpowered.” For a minute he sat like that, until he realized that something was tugging on the back of his mind. At first he ignored it like he would a buzzing insect, but it kept poking at his subconscious. And then he was hit with it with as much force as when his sister sent him to Jupiter for accidentally breaking her new phone; that wasn’t his voice. ‘Huh?’ Neither was that. His eyes darted to the sides of his vision where it gently rested on the sides of his face. His hair. It was much, much longer than it was in his old world, reaching as far as to hang below his pecs. It was shiny and straight, and didn’t look like it had ever been cut. But that didn’t startle him as much as its color did.
Caen thought back to the fairy tales and stuff of his childhood, and about how they tended to over exaggerate the features of their characters and the objects in them so that the average kid could understand it better, with phrases like “as beautiful as a freshly-picked flower”, “as strong as a bull”, “as bright as the sun itself”, and “as white as snow”. Well, now he wasn’t so assuming that those were mere stories and not just incredible experiences from the writers, because he was witnessing something impossibly… beautiful. Because his hair was white. A stark white, with an almost silvery sheen to it. Like when you wake up the morning after a snowstorm and open your window to see if school is canceled, and the snow blinds you when you look at it because it's reflecting the morning sun. Beautiful. He quite literally couldn’t think of another word for it. Slowly, he reached up to touch it again, once again feeling the impossibly smooth sensation. It glided over his fingers like water. And then he saw the fingers of his hand. Long and slender, perfect and unblemished. He was dumbfounded. ‘Are these really… mine?’ he asked quietly with his new voice. ‘A new body was always possible, I suppose, but I thought if that were to happen I would first have to be reincarnated and grow up with it myself. Did this body… come into existence just for me when I got here? I would hate it if I kicked out someone's soul so mine could stay here or whatever.’ He stood shakily. He was tall. Taller than in his other life, where he’d stood at around five-ten, Caen figured he was now around six-two. And, what he found almost as shocking as his hair, was that he was fit. Or perhaps thin would be a better word, something he had never been before. His stomach felt strange to him as it no longer bulged, and when on a whim he attempted the stretches he wasn’t close to being capable of before, he did so with ease. He could reach his feet when he sat and stretched out his legs, and he could even easily touch his toes. He was in the middle of attempting to put his foot behind his head when he realized he should probably get a move on and get out of there. He guessed that he most likely looked like a meteor for any settlement within a few hundred miles of his crash site. He quickly tapped his foot on a particularly smoldery-looking piece of earth to test if he could withstand the heat like before. He once again found it to be only pleasantly warm. With that reassurance in mind, he decided to get himself out of the crater. That was, before he realized he’d need to learn to walk again. He fell hard and broke his fall with his arms. His muscles felt unused and unfamiliar, though the movement of his arms came more naturally than the rest. At first, his legs were very wobbly and his knees shook and moved sharply if he strained them too much or too little, causing them to buckle and him to fall and roll back down to the center of the crater when he tried to walk out. It didn’t help that it was a pretty consistently steep climb to the edge. He must have been at it for at least an hour. But the distance was good practice for him, and with a lot of rolling in the scorched earth he finally managed to get himself to the edge. The adjustment period wasn’t that awful, considering, and he felt he should be kind of proud for learning so quickly. (At least that's how he thought of it) He stood up on the rim of the crater to see exactly where he was. A pretty considerable distance away he could see trees ringing the crater site, and he decided that he had landed in a forest. The further away from the edge the less burnt and bent the trees were, from the shockwave that came with the force of the impact, he decided. He sat down, leaned back and let his feet rest on the decline of the crater. It was incredible. It felt like he’d just woken up after twelve hours of sleep, and his mind was buzzing with activity like he hadn’t experienced before. Everything was so fresh. He didn’t feel tired or winded at all, and he saw everything in vivid detail, even though all there was to see was the smoldering earth and the forest in the distance. He even tried breathing in deep with his nose, but all he got was burnt dirt and he started coughing from the smokiness of it. Despite this, he smiled. He hadn’t felt like this in ages, a thought he had believed was reserved for seventy-year-olds after getting their backs adjusted by a chiropractor. He jumped up, deciding that the first thing he should do would be to find a settlement of some sort, or at least a stream so that he could drink some water. He wasn’t particularly thirsty, but the thought of a cool liquid down his throat made him shiver. He also wanted to eat something, and decided to keep an eye out for nuts or berries in the forest that looked innocent enough. And so he started his trek. Soon he was walking on long, springy grass and gazing at all kinds of fauna that was surprisingly familiar. He couldn’t really see a difference in the trees or bushes at first, but when he plucked a leaf from the low hanging branch of a tree that looked like the one in his backyard, he saw that the pattern of the veins was definitely different, if not by much. He could at least tell that, since he had played under that tree when he was little. He also saw a lot of strange forest critters, and his heightened senses picked up on their presences like a radar. Soon there were dozens of them watching him from the trees, giving him a wide berth but for some reason following, so he still caught a few glances. Most had bushy tails and large ears with short whiskers on their little snouts, and tiny little heads that looked like those of baby foxes. The overwhelming majority were a sandy brown, but a few times he also saw one that looked blue and one that looked red, and even one that was pink, but these were always directly in the shadows of the trees and bushes and would dart away as soon as he tried for a closer look. A different species that looked like a miniature boar no larger than a bowling ball, complete with tusks, a stubby tail and hooves, trotted directly trotted directly through his path with its head held high in what looked like a show of contempt before disappearing into a bush. It was totally adorable and he regretted not trying to pick it up before it had disappeared. He winced internally as he thought of how many of these balls of fluff were incinerated in his landing. Slowly, as he trekked on, the creatures became more and more daring, darting past him and soon getting in his full view shamelessly, but they didn’t seem to have any ill intent, so he really didn’t mind. At least, they didn’t look predatory. (though he inwardly didn’t trust that idea from his knowledge of anime) Suddenly, one that was much larger than the others, probably the pack leader, scurried directly in front of him and stood on its short hind legs, its arms drawn together. It was similar to the way squirrels “stood”. Caen paused mid-step. It had some sort of presence, and its pose seemed to indicate that it wanted him to sit down so they could have a conversation. Unlike the other not-squirrels, (as he decided to temporarily call them) this one’s coat looked much fluffier and was a rich, chocolate brown, and its ears had white tufts at the ends. Its tail twitched and he also noticed that towards the tip of it the hair was also white. It gave off some sort of aura. Caen crouched. ‘Hey there, little guy. What can I do for you?’ He asked in the same voice he would use for a cute dog or other friendly animal. It tilted its head and he had to stop himself from launching at it in a surprise hug attack. It stared at him for a little longer. Then, out of nowhere, it beckoned to him with a little arm, turned, and started running off. For a second, Caen stayed crouched, dumbfounded at what he’d just witnessed, until dozens of the hiding squirrels started running in the same direction as the big one. He shook it off and decided this was supposed to be his first big event in his story, and so he started sprinting after it, because these little guys were speedy. He ran for more than ten minutes, almost losing track of the pack until he caught glimpses of a bushy tail or fluffy ears that kept him on their trail. Since his endurance was off the charts now, he actually enjoyed the chase, and took the opportunity to breathe in the rich forest aroma as he ran. Soon, he broke out into a small clearing, where he saw the leader “standing” beside the mouth of a cave. The once again shy not-squirrels all hid in the trees and bushes that surrounded the clearing, and all he could see were their cute little button eyes glimmering in the leaves. There must have been hundreds of them. He hesitatingly walked over to the giant not-squirrel (because that was what it was in comparison) and crouched down again. ‘Do you want me to go inside there?’ He asked, pointing at the cave, and turning his gaze to the eyes of the creature. It stared at him uncomprehendingly, its black eyes giving no indication of some great intelligence that secretly lurked. He sighed. ‘Might as well,’ he muttered, walking over the cave entrance. It was as dark as one would imagine, but there appeared to be a faint candle light of sorts dancing on the walls around a bend about a hundred feet in. It also smelled heavily like some sort of crushed herb he was unfamiliar with. It almost overshadowed the rancid smell of rotting flesh. He narrowed his eyes at the giant not-squirrel and the rest of the pack hiding in the bushes before walking in. There was definitely something alive in here, and from the smell, it or they were dying.
_ _ _ _ _
Elf hotties and magic
_ _ _ _ _
The further into the cave he went, the more overwhelming the stench of death became. Caen gave himself a second to regain his composure, then covered his nose as he turned the bend. His eyes widened in shock. A pretty girl with silver hair and sharply tipped ears lay upon a bed of leaves, naked save several fern leaves that provided her the barest of modesty. Her form was softly illuminated by several low burning candles that framed her. A singular giant fern rested on her stomach, covering where James guessed the mortal wound was inflicted. Her eyes were closed and she breathed shallowly, and sweat was beaded all over her body. The different colored not-squirrels he had seen earlier were all gathered there, watching her intently, but quickly turned their heads as they heard his bare feet shuffling on the stone floor. All three of them were there, the red, blue, and pink furred not-squirrels, as well as a green one that he hadn’t seen before. They stared at him for several seconds before all but the green not-squirrels scurried behind him. The green one leaned its head down and seemed to whisper something in the ear of the elf. Caen’s world slowed. Her eyes crept open, a rich, deep purple that seemed to shimmer with silver dust like stars. She ever so slightly turned her head to look at the not-squirrel questioningly, and then her gaze drifted to Caen. As their eyes met, he felt a shiver and a volt of electricity passed invisibly between them through their gaze. Her eyes widened with what looked like disbelief, and she smiled at him ever so softly. Caen felt entranced. There was something special about this girl, something so very special, and he felt a stirring in his chest that made his stomach twinge, but not unpleasantly. She beckoned to him with a finger and he slowly approached her and knelt. Those few steps, with her eyes fixated on his, and his on hers, felt like eternity, and he couldn’t break the gaze if he wanted. ‘Greetings, White One.’ She said softly, still not breaking eye contact. Her voice sounded as though it were made to sing. ‘I apologize… I… was meant to be there to greet you upon your arrival. The best I could manage was providing you a safe entrance from the heavens.’ She said sadly, and a tear welled up in the corner of her eye. He hesitatingly reached out a hand and cupped her face, gently wiping away the tear with his thumb. She shouldn’t cry. He knew that, somehow, that it was wrong, that she shouldn’t ever have to experience sadness like that. She breathed in sharply at his touch, and then her gaze softened. ‘Who… are you?’ He asked quietly. She smiled sadly and tears flowed freely on the back of his hand. ‘Unfortunately, I don’t have the leisure to cry with you. I am glad that my friends were able to escort you here and provide you with safe company, for the forest is a very dangerous place, but… more than that, I am glad that I was able to see you… at… least once…’
Her eyes drifted closed. He quickly grabbed her arm and was hugely relieved to find a pulse, ever so faint.
She is so close to death, White One.
She has been holding out so that she could meet you, White One.
She has been waiting so very long for you, White One.
She spent what little mana she had left providing you safe entry into our world, White one.
These sweet-sounding voices echoed in his mind, though all of melancholy tone. He slowly stood and turned to face the not-squirrels.
Please save our Silver Lady, White One.
This voice was deep and strained with pain and suffering. In front of him stood the pack leader. He sat just in front of the other four not-squirrels, all mimicking his position. All Caen could do was nod, even though he was dazed and had no idea how he would be able to help her at all. ‘Show me the wound.’ he declared in a voice that sounded much more confident than he felt.
The four different colored not-squirrels glanced at the leader, and, the words still echoing inside of Caen’s mind like before, he said, ‘Do as the White One proclaims.’ They unhesitatingly scurried to their “Silver Lady” and carefully removed the large fern. Caen did not react how he thought he would. He saw it and his body shook, but not with disgust, or surprise, or horror, but with rage. He clenched his fists and the muscles in his arms grew taut as his fingernails dug into his palms. Her stomach had been ferociously torn open, revealing a sight that was best kept undescribed. His voice shook with power as he spat, “Who… Who did this… to her?”
His head snapped to the not-squirrel leader, his wild, hateful eyes boring into the creature. “We do not know, White One,

Tier List: https://imgur.com/a/RjE3PTc
There's something special about this battle from the very beginning, with how the announcer is doing these hushed whispers with this ominous music playing.
"Look alive, crème de la Kremlin's arriving! Try to serve Ivan; no surviving!" Ivan saying "look alive" as we get a close-up shot of his face is an attention-grabbing opener. The wordsmithing here with crème de la Kremlin and serve Ivan/surviving is magical. The background looks gorgeous too, great use of colors. "You're a land rover; I'm a land expander! Here to hand you your first loss, Alexander!" Well this is simultaneously a top-tier boast and diss; Alexander's empire fell apart when he died while Ivan's conquerings remained a part of Russia, so he's already making a strong case for being better at the thing Alexander's famous for. "I'll school you like Aristotle; smack you harder than you hit that bottle!" This is fine. A reference to the fact that Aristotle taught Alexander and a diss against Alexander for being a drunk. These aren't particularly powerful lines, but they're functional. I do love the way Ivan's eyes wander to the rhythm when he says 'hit that bottle'. "You're nothing but an overrated lush; I'll crush ya! I'm the first Tsar of all of Russia!" Interesting tidbit that does make Ivan the Terrible seem like a much more significant historical figure than he otherwise would have if you didn't know that. Getting all the guys from the Russian battle in the background is a fun touch, even if the dancer dude does not feel like he remotely belongs up there with the rest of those guys. "You're an asshole with an anastole! I'm heaven-sent, divine and holy!" The first line is quite mediocre, and the second line is mostly just serving to build up to the next line. "So don't even try to approach the God, or you'll get a huge sack like Novgorod!" God fucking damn, this is easily in my top ten closing lines. Not only is it a clever line and a gloriously epic boast, but the line delivery. His voice is so low and monstrous-sounding, especially with how they seem to have layered extra copies of the line recording on top of it. And the visual with all the Ivans on-screen, and the versions on the right and left turning to the camera join the one in the center in delivering this wham line... UNF. I love this!
"Hey fella, swell diss." Gotta cut in early here to acknowledge how funny and iconic this reaction is. "But now you got the Panhellenist from Pella hella pissed." This line speaks for itself, it's got some of the best wordplay ERB has ever crafted. "Stepping up's foolish as well as useless, little Vasilyevich! Let me spell out the list!" Pretty cool wordsmithing here, nice setup to something bigger though I don't think what follows quite lives up. "I brought foes to their knees in Phonecia! Breezed through Gaza to Giza! Had the Balkans, Persia, Syria, Iraq, and Pakistan in my expansion pack!" This comes pretty close to just being a straightforward history lesson, there's not a ton of cleverness here. The expansion pack joke is a little corny. There's a little bit of wordplay going on with bits like knees/Phonecia and Gaza/Giza. Flow's weaker than in the rest of his verse too. The visual with the map is a nice touch. "While you died in the middle of a game of chess; you got vodka bars: flavorless!" Some competent disses here. I really like the visual of the chess board: he even knocks over a King, which is presumably supposed to represent him defeating Ivan. I think the way Alexander paints Ivan as a disconnected figure who's just playing games whilst Alexander is actually out conquering in-person is a nice way to preserve his credibility after that land expander bit from Ivan. "And what I'm about to spit will be the craziest, so go fix me a drink so I can stay refreshed!" Nothing too great here, although I do like the dismissiveness inherent in Alexander ordering Ivan to make him a drink. "Kudos! Greek for the glory I got from winning every single war that I fought." Nothing much to say, this is a good boast, it checks out. "So this will be straightforward: I'll take up this sword that I brought, and slice you in half like the Gordian knot." This isn't the most substantive way of saying he's better than Ivan, but referencing the Gordian knot legend is something. "And I'll soar to the top, like the eagle whose feather I would sport in the helmet I wore, as I swatted my many enemies; shattered them like a porcelain pot, and they'd be praying for the torture to stop!" Okay, now Alexander is just witlessly rambling. This is easily the low point of his verse. "But I would leave 'em contorted and they'd be screaming and roaring until their vocal cords were torn up and shot!" Again, he's just rambling, but I will say that his flow and line delivery starts being so awesome here that I can give it a pass. I also like how the way the music stopped after he yelled "stop!" last line before dropping into this one. "And I would holler "Bucephalus!", hop on my horsey, and trot! I win, Ivan; I vanquish! I'm an immortal; you're not!" He's still mostly just rambling about how great he is without being clever about it, but again, he sounds so awesome here that it works. And the Ivan/I vanquish is good wordplay and a nice parallel to the serve Ivan/surviving bit, so it does have that much going for it in terms of substance. Also the visuals cutting back to Ivan pouring a drink in the creepiest possible manner are fan-fucking-tastic.
Ivan concedes defeat, having actually prepared Alexander a drink. You'd think a little interim bit like this would hurt the battle in repeat viewings/listens, but I enjoy it every time. Zach Sherwin's line delivery of "I WEEP, it's all so EEEEAAAASY!!!" is hilarious. Love the way Ivan comes poking out of the shadows all rat-like as he asks what's wrong. I also dig the way Alexander's facial expression changes when he says 'queasy' and he falls down and his head moving out of the shot gives way to Ivan standing behind him celebrating and it's just so GOOD. This battle is so much fun! The "HA!!! You've been poisoned!" is fun, as is Zach Sherwin's deliberately bad acting with his final words. Ivan declares that he is Terrible and that there's no Great who could defeat this Russian, but a mysterious shadow materializes and quietly suggests a flute-busting Prussian might manage it.
What the FUCK. The flute solo! The chanting of "Old Fritz!" The bird's eye camera angle that Lloid looks up at as the emblem of what is probably his house or country or some other organization related to him is on the floor! That dapper-ass outfit! The little pose he strikes as his title card appears! This is without a doubt the greatest entrance any contestant has ever had in ERB to this day. This new music track kicks ass too. "Out the gate, first servant of state! Oblique attack tactics, ain't exactly straight!" As if he wasn't cool enough already, the king is a queen! Good use of consonance too. Also apparently this is referencing a famous tactic for battle that Frederick used. I looked up 'first servant of state prussia' and was informed that Frederick pursued a policy of religious tolerance and abolished torture immediately when he came to power. What an absolute chad. I wish he brought that up here; at best he vaguely alludes to it. "I've got creative talents and battle malice; hard as steel on the field, genteel in the palace!" These lines aren't substantive, but the line delivery is a ton of fun. And the visuals with him jabbing his cane and sipping from a cup are immaculate. "Russia's fucked up but no wonder why; with your tundras and taigas and bears oh my!" Great flow, the visuals are absolutely top tier. The line itself is competent, definitely getting carried by the presentation, but the tigers/taigas swapout is good. "I would pay a guy to tear out my eyes if I had to look at your troll face every night!" Man... why can't mediocre lines in all of the battles get such good line deliveries? Lloid is selling the absolute fuck out of this weaksauce diss and making it work. "Now, bring me my chair! I'm weary from tearing you a new derrière from here to Red Square!" Wait a minute, is that... chair... wear... tear... derrière... square... IT IS!!! IT'S A 5X RHYME COMBO!!! "Fought a Seven Years' War, I ain't scared of a Tsar! 'Cause beating you only took me twelve bars!" A truly fabulous boast and iconic verse closer.
These interims continue the trend of being hilarious by having Frederick die in his chair without the need for Ivan's intervention, which is a reference to how he actually died! Fancy that. I do think this one doesn't quite stand up to repeat encounters the way the first intermission did; the line about saving money and the little song Ivan sings are a bit drab to sit through again and again, but hey, they were funny the first time and it's still a fun performance from Peter. Pompey comes in to seemingly start rapping, but immediately gets decapitated by Catherine the Great. Poor guy. I would have liked for this to be a five-way battle and to have gotten a verse from Pompey first, but ah well.
"Macedonians, Prussians, and Romans; those aren't worthy opponents. It takes a Russian to take down a Russian. I'm Cat; I'm a cat; you're a rodent!" This is a pretty good opener, except for the fact that she's singing. Introducing singing into these rap battles is always a serious momentum-killer. She's got a great costume, though. "How are you the head of our state when the state of your head was such a crazy one? Such sick shit going through your brain that you stuck a spike through your own son!" Good wordplay in that first line, great visuals with these dancers up to chicanery in the background. "You're unbalanced like I unbalanced the European powers with the wars I waged! I brought the Russian empire straight out the olden days and right into the golden age!" That first line feels a little forced, competent boast in the second line. "I'm the boss bitch that you just can't meddle with! This whole battle's like Alaska 'cause I settled it!" Nice closer.
Ivan briefly interjects as he tries and fails to seduce Catherine with a horse. Peter continues giving the best performance of his career, though I can't help but wish we got a little more here. Feels weird that this is the last we see Ivan onscreen. Would've been nice to at least see an upset reaction to his ploy failing.
Catherine proceeds to inform Ivan that this rumor about her sexual proclivities is false: "That horse story is a pile of shit, though I do keep 'em chomping at the bit." There's three different layers to 'chomping at the bit' going on here, and that's cool. "But you're never gonna get it, nyet! Couldn't spin in my chamber of this were Russian roulette." This is pretty funny, and I think it's for sure her best line. The little interjection of 'nyet' is great. "I'm picking up where Peter the Great left off! Bringing sexy back to House Romanov!" Not much to say here. Kind of filler. "So don't call me Queen, I'm far more great! Empress to Tsar 8, bitch! Checkmate!" This is literally a killer closing line; she's referencing how Ivan died in the middle of a game of chess, as Alexander said, and years later I'm only just getting that now.
So all of these verses have considerable flaws, I think. Ivan's is too short, for as much screentime as he gets he doesn't get much in terms of actual rapping. We could have at least used a few more lines in his first verse. There's a lot of Alexander the Great's verse that is just him droning on about how great he is without actually having much substance or cleverness to what he's saying. It's his godlike FLOW that is carrying him through a lot of this. And that's a legitimate factor to consider in his performance and it does make his verse great to listen to, but I wish there were more meat there underneath Sherwin's kickass performance. Frederick the Great is the most entertaining part of the battle(saying a LOT when Ivan the Terrible is present) and his lines are probably the most consistently good, but none of them are great, y'know? He could have used a killer burn or two in there, his diss game wasn't great. And Catherine the Great... well, she sang for both of her verses. I hate it when rappers sing, it kills the energy, and when going back to listen to this battle(which is very often!) I usually stop once her verse starts. She's got some good lines, they're decent verses on paper, and her actress is obviously a good singer, but I just do not want to listen to a solid minute of someone singing in a rap battle.
And really, having so much of this battle be skippable to me is reason enough to justify putting it in A Tier rather than S. I certainly intended to put it in A Tier for a long time. But... even if I feel Catherine's verse ends up being a drag, and even if the verses that come before have some flaws that might keep them from being S Tier on their own... it's all just so fun. Peter and Lloid and Zach are all at their best, and I genuinely do think Ivan is the best character Peter ever played. I love the performances, and the visuals, and the music(mostly), and the structure of having all these Greats dying off to the Terrible. This has got to be in the top five rap battles in terms of which ones I go back to the most; probably exactly number five. And if that isn't worthy of S Tier, then there's only gonna be four S Tiers on this list, and that seems like too few. Bottom of S Tier.
Ivan = Frederick>Alexander>Catherine. Maybe a little controversial, but I do think that you could make a valid and substantive case for any one of these rappers being the winner.

To me this is the only theory that accounts for all the crazy things that have gone down on both sides throughout this case:
KR is hammered drunk when she drops JO (fact). In her drunkenness she accidentally runs JO over, killing him. She’s so drunk she doesn’t even notice, drives home, and goes to sleep.
At some point before the famous “hos long to die in cold search,” someone coming in/out of the Albert house sees the body, and goes and alerts the others. They freak out and start trying to revive him. They bring his body inside at carry it down to the basement at one point, and try to see if they can revive him (during this chaos is also when the dog could have chewed on his arm, idk). Nothing works, but no one calls the cops or an ambulance because the family still has no idea what happened, and if any of their loved ones could be at fault.
Realizing he is dead and not coming back, they turn their full attention to trying to figure out what happened. Everyone in the house is dumbfounded, and also keep in mind, they’re all drunk, so it’s chaos. There are moments where Brian Albert shouts at Colin and BH, demanding to know if either of them got in some sort of fight outside with JO without anyone noticing, hurt him (accidentally or not), and just aren’t admitting to it out of fear.
They genuinely have no idea what happened to JO, all they know is they have a beat up dead body on their property, and a big family to protect. Eventually, on account of the broken taillight glass, they figure that someone must have run him over. Who ran him over? Was it on purpose or by accident? They form theories and get in a big classic family shouting/finger pointing match, but in the end they genuinely have no idea and aren’t able to reach any conclusions—because no one ever actually say KR drop him off—but they’re running out of time.
At one point someone in the house suggests that the only scenario they can think of that makes sense is that he was probably the victim of a hit and run by a car or plow while walking up the road to the house (”maybe Karen and him were fighting on the ride over, so she dropped him off at a point sooner than the actual driveway out of pettiness, in/near the road”). After being hit by a car, they figure JO then tried to make it to their front door to get help, but collapsed due to his injuries/internal bleeding sustained during the hit-and-run before he could reach the door. Then after collapsing, either succumbed to his injuries or froze to death because of the cold. At this point, right around 2:27am, they naturally then wonder how long it would even take someone to die in the cold, if that is how he ultimately died—this is the moment that JM makes her famous “hos long” search.
The father Brian realizes that at their current rate, there’s no way they are going to pin down exactly what happened to JO by sunrise. He also realizes that while he’s not sure, there’s at least a possibility that someone in his house—maybe even one if his kids, or at least a beloved friend or other family member—is responsible for what happened in some way he is unaware of currently and won’t find out for awhile. Even if no one in the house is responsible, he knows they could still be viewed as responsible by authorities once there is an inevitable investigation.
Drunk and in panic mode, and worried about all the different ways that JO’s body could be interpreted/misinterpreted authorities in ways that jeopardize his family, the family conspires to do all that they can to limit the ways that the scene before them could be misinterpreted. No one in the family has any qualms about this because after all, they didn’t do anything wrong, they just don’t want to scene to have any possibility of appearing like they did anything wrong. Furthermore, because they are themselves law enforcement and have all the right connections, their egos tell them that they have what it takes to pull off such a conspiracy, and a harmless conspiracy at that. Ironically, this false belief of Brian Albert that, through some light manipulation and due to his experience as a cop, he can do a few small things to create an extra layer of protection for his family, is exactly what has backfired is now currently destroying his family…
I mentioned it before, but here is the KEY DETAIL/ASSUMPTION that this theory is truly built upon: the family, drunk and in panic mode, and attempting confirm whether JO is truly dead and not coming back (and if someone in the house is responsible, CLUE style), carry his body from the road/driveway into their house (out of public view) and down into the basement. Inevitably, blood gets everywhere, all over their basement floor. This is the critical element that creates the panic that makes them feel that conspiring to limit their family risk is truly the best option.
First of all, I don’t know if you dog-owners have ever had a cut on your foot or ankle, but in some random moments in life where I’ve gotten a cut and not even noticed it, my dog almost always finds it first and starts licking it like the little carnivore madman he is… I’m sure you already know what I’m getting at… In all the shouting and screaming and chaos, the Alberts rile up their dog and fail to take their dog into account as they panic-move the bloody body to the basement. In all the commotion, the dog gets extremely excited/overwhelmed, and its primal instinct kicks in and views JOs body as some sort of “Fresh kill from the family hunt.” At one point the dog spazzes out and starts licking the blood a bit and even chomps on JOs lifeless arm like a chew toy. If this sounds far-fetched, you must not be a dog owner, because excited dogs are capable of doing all kinds of wacky actions when they’re in weird and excitable moods, and it only takes a split second.
Anyway, back to what they decide to do. Brian Albert eventually realizes how insanely stupid of a mistake it was to bring JOs body inside their home and into the basement in their panicked/drunken attempt to get him out of the cold and indoors to see if they could revive him/see if he is still alive. They now know JO is truly dead, and now their basement is covered in his blood. Brian panics and realizes how authorities could interpret the blood in the basement in a million not-a-hit-and-run ways—especially because it will look incredibly bad/suspicious that they found the body and did not immediately call police or an ambulance. So, he takes the reigns and tells his family everything they are going to do from here to make everything look as good as possible for them…
First, they need to move the body back outside and into the snow so, at the very least, it goes back to looking like something that happened outside and outside only, thus minimizing the “fight in the basement” look of it and maximizing the “hit by a car” (which is actually what happened) look of it. He also realizes how bad it looks that none of them have contacted authorities about the body as they’ve been panicking trying to make sense of what happened / get on the same page out of their own self-interest, so Brian Albert also instructs everyone (or whoever is still at the house at this point, because by now they’ve started creating their timelines of coming/going and sending various ppl—Colin, etc.—home to protect them) that once they’ve brought the body outside, they are all going to act as if no one ever saw the body.
Also, by now they’ve all realized that it is 95% likely that it was KR who ran JO over when she was shitfaced. This is when they decide to have Jen McCabe go over in the AM to have her “help” KR find the body. They want KR to be the first person to appear to find the body, realize what she’s done, and then this will be the simplest/cleanest scenario. Why? Because if they decide to have it play out that someone at the Albert’s finds the body, it’s going to become impossibly complicated for all of them maintain the same story/timelines etc. of everything that transpired before/after that moment (exs. all of them telling each other one by one, chains of texts, calls, etc. telling various people, mini interactions of made up conversations that they would have to invent and keep track of, all of them “waking up” and alerting their families, and all the while trusting their acting skills in their current drunken/exhausted/emotional state, etc.). So, they make a calculated risk that they could sell the “we never noticed the body” story, and it would be a betteeasier story for them, and it’s of course the story they’re still sticking with now as they’ve taken the stand.
However, we know now, the “let’s just all act like we never found the body and have Karen ‘find it’ in the AM” strategy has backfired horribly, because they have failed to sell several parts of their testimonies/timelines (ex. J Nagel’s ”black blob,” line, etc) relating to several of them somehow driving/walking right past the body of grown man in the snow and not noticing it.
Anyway, this theory of mine is the only one I can think of that accounts for all the evidence, as well as everyone’s behavior throughout the trial. I think everyone has gotten too caught up in the false dichotomy of:

JO never made it inside the house + Karen ran JO over with the car and killed him
JO made it into the house, where someone or multiple people at the house (and dog) beat JO to death + now the McAlberts are bending over backwards to keep their stories straight.

To me it’s an obvious combination of the two, just leaving out the vicious basement beating part
No one beat JO to death. KR accidentally ran him over while driving slowly, but then the car dragged him as she drove (extremely common in hit and runs), and in a manner that produced his specific head injuries, killing him. She had no idea she was dragging his body for many yards. Someone coming in/out of the Albert’s find his body with zero context, launching the family into a frenzy as they try to figure out what happened and what to do about it to minimize the likelihood of their getting in trouble—they drunkenly decided to play God with their inflated townie egos—a product of their combined law enforcement experience, political connections, and blood-alcohol levels, when they should have just immediately called the cops.
The events unfold as described above, and, critically, they make the wrong decision to create their own McAlbert-family story of how it went down when they become afraid that their now bloody basement could make it look like they murdered him—especially the bad optics of the crowd given that (a) Colin is a meathead with a history of playing tough-guy as a teenager and (b) Brian Higgins allegedly/maybe had some sort of thing going on with KR.
This theory would explain all of the following:

The “hos long to die in cold” search from inside the house before KR “found” the body, as the family panicked trying to figure out the various WTFs of the situation, and options for alibis.
All the physical evidence related to the broken tail light, the hair, JO being found with the broken cocktail glass because he never made it inside, etc.
Why the Alberts got rid of the dog and tore up their entire basement right after JOs death, because they wanted to make sure that no traces of JO—his blood, specifically—would be found inside the house.
The version of KRs words to the first responders where she actually confesses “I hit him I him him”—because she did.
Why Proctor was so brazen in saying he hoped KR killed herself & looked for her nudes and bragged about it, because he talked to the McAlberts throughout the investigation, who made him feel confident that she was in fact, a cop killer. And was especially upset at all the risks the McAlberts felt they needed to take to protect themselves from accusations as a result of her drunken actions.
Why JOs shoe etc. was found so far away—his body was dragged by KR’s car and/or one of the Albert’s strewn his stuff about intentionally to make it look even more convincingly that the accident was initiated away from house, not on the property.
Why the texts and timelines of Colin being driven home by Allie are all so fishy, because they were obviously fabricated to appear as if the texts/the care ride were happening under normal circumstances, not “what do we do about this body and all this blood?” and “Colin, have Allie come get you now, you don’t need to be here—me and Brian H know what we’re doing, we will handle the body + it will look suspicious if you’re here any longer” type circumstances.
Why all the unbelievable testimonies from the McAlberts having to do with them somehow not noticing the body in those situations where it was like, right in front of them, are indeed lies and bullshit. Of course they all knew it was there, but they all agreed to pretend like they never saw it to make their story work.
All the various instances of Albert’s deleting their texts/calls, getting rid of their phones, deleting their Ring cameras videos, etc.—bc these texts and calls and videos of course contained mountains of evidence showing how they all conspired with each other out of fear and ego instead of calling the police right away, and of course destroy all versions of their made up timelines.
Why the McAlberts have all stayed strong, stuck to their stories, and not cracked under pressure (yet)… because they feel entitled to what they view are “white lies” because, after all KR is still the one who did it, and they’re not the bad ones.

In the end, upon finding JO’s body, The McAlberts tried to doctor some details and alter some timelines to make the whole case that much cleaner and give themselves some extra protection from scrutiny, the law, and (probably most importantly to them) to protect their precious reputations in Canton as powerful townies.
Of course, it is a rich irony that the very thing they were trying to prevent—people think that some of their family beat JO to death—is now exactly the theory that most of public is now leaning towards, now that they have taken the stand and all their suspect testimony, self-contradictions, and inexplicable behavior are on full display. Even more ironically, not only have they trashed their own reputations, they (along with Turtle Boy & co.) have inadvertently turned Karen into a cult hero—a small but brave woman stoically taking on not just lies and false accusation of her boyfriend’s murder, but the corruption of the Boston Police department at large.
And, on a more meta level, I think this theory also explains why KR carries herself the way she does. She knows she hit JO, and she feels terrible deep down, but at the same time, she’s always disliked the McAlberts and how special and untouchable they’ve always acted—big, corrupt fish in a small Canton pond. So, she finds comfort in knowing that even thought they didn’t kill JO, some bad people are still being exposed for the entitled liars and townie dumdums that they are. She also knows that she’s not really at any risk of being convicted at this point (unless the jury actually shocks the world), and she’s enjoying the spotlight and cult hero status that people like Turtle Boy have created for her.

Previously, on Hell’s Kitchen…
The final 10 were given a challenge not seen in over a decade, creating their own menus in the revival of Red vs Blue Menu Night. While the blue team worked together, with a strong concept provided by Melody, the red team found themselves being led by Thomas, whether they liked it or not. However, as the chefs were returning to the kitchen to begin cooking their dishes, disaster struck, as Travis re-injured his ankle, and had to be taken to the hospital. Despite being down a man, and Grace feeling shortchanged by not getting anything on the menu, the blue team’s cohesive selection still managed to impress Ramsay and his special guests: three previous winners of Hell’s Kitchen. The red team’s menu had mixed results, which led to friction between Thomas and some of his teammates
In service, the blue team’s menu had the edge in popularity, but thanks to poor communication between Grace and Carole, the kitchen ground to a halt multiple times. Meanwhile, the red kitchen managed to push out their food in a timely manner thanks to strong teamwork on entrees. With the red team named the winners of service, it was time for the blue team to nominate two chefs to send home.
At elimination, though, everyone was in for a shock when Travis, who had been one of the early favorites, returned and announced that due to injury, he would be leaving Hell’s Kitchen for good. Ramsay still insisted on hearing from the blue team’s nominees, who were Grace, Carole and Melody after they failed to come to a consensus. But with Travis’ dream of becoming the next head chef at Gordon Ramsay Steak in Vancouver, British Columbia already having come to a heartbreaking end, Ramsay gave everyone another chance to show him why they were the chef he was looking for, but assured them that he was not taking any more excuses from now on.
https://reddit.com/link/1ctwn9g/video/oifsieupww0d1/player
And now, the continuation of Hell’s Kitchen…
After witnessing the shocking withdrawal of Travis from the competition, no one was in a celebratory mood as Ramsay dismissed them to the dorms for the night. Carole said in her confessional that he had been the main one supporting her in the blue team, and now it felt like she was truly on her own. As the blue team returned to the dorms, a very upset Melody unleashed her frustration, saying that Travis did not deserve to go home tonight over either Carole and Grace, and they needed to cut the bullshit and start thinking and working as a team. Lauren said in her confessional that it seemed like something snapped in Melody tonight, as she was well and truly fed up with the drama, which definitely made two of them. Even so, after noticing that Melody was sitting alone and nearly in tears, Lauren went over to comfort her, as Melody admitted that she hated to have to talk that way to her teammates, but she was sick and tired of the drama. Lauren assured her that it had to be said, and was proud of her for stepping up. Meanwhile, Grace said in her confessional that Melody seemed to be losing her composure, and would hopefully go down in flames soon.
On the red team’s side of the dorm, Faye was also feeling sadness over the way Travis had gone out, as she admitted to Michael that it reminded her too much of her own exit last season, only at least she had made the choice to walk away, while Travis never had one. Meanwhile, another chef had mixed feelings on the sudden turn of events, as Thomas said in his confessional that Travis had been a strong chef and a good person, and while losing him would cut the competition down, he would have rather seen him go out with dignity. Ramona and Everett, meanwhile, continued to stick closely together, with Ramona saying in her confessional that it felt good to have the security of the immunity pass, because she and Everett were definitely the most likely to be nominated if service went wrong, though she admitted she would feel some guilt if he went out because of it, but this was her career and future at stake. Everett said in his confessional that he couldn’t afford to worry about what might happen if he went up on the chopping block, and was just focused on trying to help the red team win.
The chefs were still trying to take in all the events of the night, but finally, tiredness overtook them, and they turned in for the night.
Challenge
The next day, the final 9 came downstairs to find Ramsy waiting for them, as well as a detailed diagram of a cow. Ramsay explained that he still had not forgotten the disaster that was Steak Night, and that was why, for this next challenge, he wanted to give both teams a chance to prove how far they had come by preparing dishes using five cuts: ribeye, top sirloin, hanger, flank, and striploin. Thomas said in his confessional that the red team had no business fucking this up, as they had several chefs who were strong on the meat station in services, while Lauren was nervous in her confessional, as she wasn’t sure about Grace or Carole. Since the blue team had one less member, one chef would have to prepare two dishes, which Lauren volunteered to do. With their instructions having been given, Ramsay told the chefs that their time started now.
The chefs rushed into their respective kitchens and quickly tried to sort out who would be responsible for which cuts of steak. In the blue kitchen, Lauren decided to take on the hanger and flank steak, while Grace took the ribeye, over Carole’s objections, and Carole was left with the striploin, while Melody took the top sirloin. Grace said in her confessional that she fought for this ribeye and she was going to carry her team to victory whether they liked it or not, while Carole said she would’ve felt much safer if anyone else were cooking the ribeye besides Grace. While Carole still seemed undecided on which direction to go with her New York Strip, at least one chef already had her dish planned out, and that was Melody, who went into detail in her confessional on how she wanted to plate her top sirloin. Meanwhile, Lauren was working hard to manage two separate cuts of meat, saying in her confessional that taking on the extra workload could either make her look really good in front of Chef Ramsay or totally blow up in her face.
In the red kitchen, Thomas was on the top sirloin, Ramona had the ribeye, Faye had hanger steak, Michael had flank steak, and Everett had striploin. Ramona said in her confessional that she had to deliver on the ribeye, as she already had the most losses of any chef here, and didn’t need to add any more to her resume with black jackets approaching. Thomas was confident that he could handle the top sirloin, as he said in his confessional that no one still here should have any issues cooking meat, and he would be disappointed in himself if he didn’t achieve perfection on this dish. Michael noticed Ramona seemed to be having some trouble with her ribeye, and tried to offer some advice, but Ramona said in her confessional that she had to do this alone, and told him she had it under control. Michael was annoyed, saying in his confessional that this was still a team effort, and it was no time to let egos get in the way. Meanwhile, Faye and Everett were seemingly in good spirits, with Everett saying in his confessional that meat was where he felt the most at home, and if he failed at this challenge, he might as well go home now, while Faye said in her confessional that it was nice to see Everett so energetic, and she hoped his dish could match that.
With the time nearly up, the chefs put the finishing touches on their dishes as Ramsay called out the final seconds and told the chefs to bring their plates to the pass. Ramsay then announced that he would be joined by a special guest judge for this competition, who was a familiar face to viewers of MasterChef: Ramsay’s former co-host on that show, Graham Elliot. The chefs were starstruck, with Melody saying in her confessional Graham was the best, and easily her favorite judge on MasterChef…after Ramsay, of course. After exchanging a warm greeting, Ramsay said it was time to get down to business, starting with the battle of the flank steak. This round would pit Lauren against Michael, with Michael saying in his confessional that this was his first time going against Lauren in a challenge, and he knew it wouldn’t be easy to take her down, given how consistently strong she had been. After tasting Lauren’s dish, both Ramsay and Elliot had high praise, saying the meat was tender and nicely cooked, although Elliot did say he might have done something different for the garnish. Lauren was second-guessing herself in her confessional, but In the end, both judges gave it four stars out of five. Michael said in his confessional that as expected, Lauren put up a good dish, but he was confident in his as well. Indeed, Michael’s flank steak was also found to be nicely cooked, and despite the somewhat simple presentation, Ramsay said this was a great start for both teams, as again, both he and Elliot each gave it a four.
With the score tied at 8, it was time for the battle of the hanger steak. Lauren stayed where she was while Faye brought her dish up to the pass. Elliot was impressed that Lauren had cooked two dishes for the challenge, although he noted that the hanger steak could’ve used a little more cooking time, which Ramsay agreed with, saying that was the one thing holding it back, and Lauren kicked herself in her confessional, as she said she should have been able to stay on top of it. Elliot only gave it a three due to the undercooked steak, though Ramsay said it still delivered enough flavor to get a four. Faye’s dish also got mixed reviews, as both chefs praised the cook of the meat, but questioned her garnish choices, with Ramsay pointing out that the presentation seemed slightly off. Elliot said she got the most important part right though, and gave it a four, to which Ramsay agreed, which put the red team ahead 16-15. In the third round, the teams’ ribeye dishes went head to head, for which Ramona and Grace stepped forward. Unfortunately for Ramona, her ribeye was badly overcooked, and Ramsay took her to task for serving something practically inedible to him and his guest. Ramona groaned in her confessional, as she couldn’t believe she had fucked up this badly. Both judges gave her a one, and Ramsay said she was lucky to get even that. Grace’s dish got mixed reviews, with Ramsay saying the presentation was shocking, while Elliot noted that the ribeye again was overcooked, though not nearly as much as Ramona’s. Ramsay said this was not what he expected from these chefs at this stage of the game, and gave Grace a one, but Elliot was more generous and gave it a two, as at least it had some flavor.
With the scores now tied at 18, it was time for the battle of the top sirloin, as Thomas and Melody brought their dishes forward. Melody’s dish earned praise for it’s stylish presentation and garnish, and after tasting the steak itself, Ramsay noted that it was cooked perfectly, and said this dish was a strong four, but Elliot went a step further and said it deserved a five, which made Melody giddy in her confessional, as she never could have imagined hearing those words before. Next was Thomas, with Elliot again noting the stunning presentation, and after tasting, he said that these two had really raised the bar today. Ramsay agreed and said it was the best pair of dishes yet, and this time, he would be giving out a five. Elliot agreed, giving Thomas a perfect score, which he took with a calm smile in his confessional, as he said Melody gave him a good run, but he never had any doubts. With the red team now back in the lead 28-27, it was time for the final round, as Everett and Carole would face off in the battle of the New York Strip. Everett went first, with Elliot saying, after a long pause…that the strip was absolutely delicious. Ramsay agreed, also praising the presentation, and said this was one of Everett’s best dishes yet in Hell’s Kitchen, as that deserved a very strong four. Elliot gave the same score, bringing the red team’s total up to an impressive 36, meaning Carole needed close to a perfect score to keep the blue team in it. Everett was absolutely fired up in his confessional, saying this was just the boost that he needed, and there was no stopping him now. Meanwhile, Carole presented her dish, which got good marks for presentation, but as Elliot sliced into the strip, he said it looked undercooked, to which Ramsay agreed, and said it was a great shame. Though it was only a formality, both Elliot and Ramsay gave the dish a two, giving the red team a 36-31 win.
Reward / Punishment
Ramsay thanked Elliot for helping him judge the challenge, and once he had left, Ramsay turned back to the chefs and congratulated the red team on winning the challenge, in particular praising the efforts of Everett and Thomas. He then said they were in for a fun reward, as he was sending all of them off for a day of paintball, followed by dinner at an exquisite LA steakhouse. Ramona was relieved in her confessional, as she knew she could have blown it for the red team with her ribeye, while Everett was ecstatic to have redeemed himself in this challenge, as he said in his confessional that he was still a beast at cooking meat. While the red team ran off to get changed, Ramsay turned his attention to the blue team and said that for today’s punishment, he had decided to put it towards a good cause by volunteering them for community service, which meant picking up trash on the side of the road. Grace moaned in her confessional, as she said that they always seemed to save the worst punishments for her. Ramsay reminded Melody that she still had that punishment pass, and offered to let her use it. Melody replied that she was never a paintball type of girl, and would rather help out the environment. Ramsay accepted her choice and told the blue team that they too would be changing…into their stunning orange uniforms.
The red team came back downstairs, and Michael joked in his confessional that it looked like Hell’s Kitchen had turned into a prison, while Faye apologetically said goodbye. While on the way to the paintball ground, the red team talked amongst themselves in the car, with Thomas saying that no one else was going home from the red team, and Michael agreed, saying they were all getting black jackets. Faye wondered aloud who their biggest competition might be from the blue team, but everyone quickly agreed that Lauren was the strongest. Ramona said in her confessional that she knew everyone was sleeping on her, but she would simply have to prove them wrong in service. Later, the chefs arrived at the paintball ground, and Faye said she hoped none of them would go easy on her just because she was a woman. Everett joked that she had nothing to worry about there, and the team ended up having an enjoyable afternoon, with Ramona and Everett trying to team up against Thomas, but he was able to shoot both of them. Michael said in his confessional that it felt great to just get outside and let loose without having to do some exhausting punishment. As evening approached, the red team were then taken to dinner, which Everett said in his confessional was some of the finest quality steak he had ever tasted, though not quite as good as the home cooking back in Oklahoma, which got some laughs from the others. Faye said that the next winner was sitting right here at this table, to which the others enthusiastically toasted, and the chefs continued to bond as a team over their meal.
While the red team were living the good life, the blue team were working in the hot sun to ensure that the environment could do the same. While the others tried to get on with their task, though, Grace’s constant complaining quickly got on all of their nerves, as Carole said in exasperation in her confessional that they were all well aware of the fact that Grace didn’t want to be here, and she didn’t need to broadcast it every five seconds. Lauren joked with Melody that she wouldn’t mind going on that paintball reward just to take a few shots at Grace, which Melody said in her confessional was tough to argue with, as even her optimistic outlook was being challenged right now by Grace’s incessant whining. Carole said in her confessional that she and Grace were definitely the most vulnerable on the team, but as long as Grace kept this up, she was making the decision easy for everyone, and as far as Carole was concerned, that was perfectly fine. Despite having their patience tested, the blue team worked through their physically exhausting community service and, for the most part, left feeling that at least some good had come of it.
Back in Hell’s Kitchen, the blue team arrived first and tried to unwind in the dorms until the red team returned later in the night. Grace quickly became annoyed with the red team talking about their reward, while Ramona said in her confessional that she didn’t mind rubbing it in her old rival’s face a bit. Lauren said in her confessional that the red team could have this one, as she was keeping her eyes on service. As the night dragged on, another topic came up, that being Travis, as everyone on the blue team aside from Grace admitted to missing him, and Lauren jokingly said even the punishments just weren’t the same now. Faye sympathized, as she said it was tough to watch a chef who had put everything on the line and pushed through an injury go out like that, even if this was a competition. Thomas agreed and said that everyone here deserved a chance to fight for their dream, as for these chefs, it was a potentially life changing opportunity, and he knew he would be devastated to lose it. Michael said in his confessional that it was no time for fucking around anymore, as they all needed to cook like it was their last night in Hell’s Kitchen.
The chefs chatted amongst themselves for a while longer before finally trying to get some sleep.
Pre-Service
The next day, the chefs went downstairs to begin prep, as Ramsay said that this was the stage in the competition where he wanted to see the best begin to shine, and warned that there would be nowhere to hide for chefs who were struggling to keep up. With that, he told the blue team that despite being a man down, he expected absolutely nothing less than a stellar performance, and told the red team not to get too comfortable with their challenge win, as they still needed to be locked in for service. With all nine chefs seemingly read to go, Ramsay allowed them to get started on prep.
In the blue kitchen, Melody and Lauren were in good spirits, though Melody admitted she still missed having Travis here, despite the fact that the blue team was all women now. Carole said in her confessional that the ladies should have no problems taking this service, as while she didn’t mind the format change, having all girls on one team was how it was done in the old days, and it would be even better if Grace was gone. Grace, meanwhile, seemed to be in a bad mood after her ribeye flopped in the challenge, as she said in her confessional that it couldn’t have been as bad as Ramsay said, as much as she respected his opinion, and refused to acknowledge Melody’s attempts to talk to her. Melody said in her confessional that nobody wanted Grace here, but the least she could do was try to reach out, as futile as it seemed. Lauren said in her confessional that in order for the blue team to win tonight, they needed Carole and Grace to step up big time, as she and Melody couldn’t do all the work here.
While the blue team was hoping for a miracle, the red team seemed loose and ready to go, with Michael saying that he had a good feeling about tonight, as there were no excuses for losing to the blue team now. Ramona said to Everett that this was their redemption night, with Everett agreeing and saying they were going to kick some culinary ass, and Faye said it was great to see both of them committed to bouncing back and leading the red team to another win. Everett replied that Grace was going home tonight for sure, which got some laughs from the others, as Michael said in his confessional that this was the one thing he was sure literally everyone else could agree on. Thomas, though, said in his confessional that everyone being this hyped up actually worried him, as he hoped they weren’t getting distracted and forgetting that they still had to earn the win. Michael encouraged him to lighten up, as they had a virtual all-star team here, but Thomas still maintained his serious demeanor, with Ramona saying in her confessional that this guy seriously needed to get a hobby.
Ramsay reminded the chefs again that he was looking for these chefs to show him why they deserved to become the head chef of Gordon Ramsay Steak, and with that, he called out to Marino and told him to open Hell’s Kitchen.
Dinner Service
Guests began to enter Hell’s Kitchen by the dozens, as it was once again the center of the culinary world for tonight, filled to the brim with celebrities and Hollywood elites. It was not long before orders began to make their way back to both kitchens.
In the blue kitchen, they were looking to Grace on appetizers and Carole on fish to give the blue team an early edge, while Lauren was on garnish and Melody was on meat. Early on, Grace managed to successfully deliver her first table of lobster tail risottos and capellini, with nicely cooked tails from Carole along with an acceptable order of scallops. Carole said in her confessional that they absolutely needed to keep this up, as both of them were effectively cooking for their lives right now. Unfortunately, communication issues cropped up again, with Grace not talking to Carole and bringing up her dishes without waiting for Carole’s scallops. Ramsay called out for the scallops, saying food was dying at the pass, and demanded to know why the fuck they couldn’t just work together as a team. Carole did eventually bring up the scallops, but they were raw, much to Ramsay’s disgust, and Grace said in her confessional that Carole just needed to get out of here as she clearly wasn’t cutting it. Despite these issues, and an overly salty risotto from Grace, the blue team did manage to finally start getting appetizers out into the dining room, with Ramsay even praising Grace’s risottos at one point, and telling her that’s what she could do if she would focus more on cooking than starting shit with her team. The blue team did eventually complete appetizers and began working on entrees.
In the red kitchen, Everett was working appetizers, while Michael was on fish, Ramona was on garnish, and Thomas and Faye were together on meat. Everett was glad to be working closely with Michael again, as he said in his confessional that they made a good team in the last service on meat. Early on, that familiarity seemed to be paying off, as Everett and Michael worked in sync with each other on the first few tickets and got their orders out in a timely fashion. Things did get bumpy, however, when Everett served mushy, overcooked capellini, and started dragging on orders, while Michael served overcooked scallops due to them getting mixed up on their times. Michael said in his confessional that they needed to get it together quickly, as they couldn’t afford to be falling behind so early in service. Meanwhile, Ramsay wanted to know where the energy was, as right now, Everett was going quiet and not responding when asked for times, and nothing was going out. Michael urged Everett to wake up and fight through it, and Everett did manage to get his next attempt at the capellini accepted. In his confessional, Everett said he was trying his best to keep it together, and admitted he had been thrown off his game, but he was far from done. With Everett’s newfound determination, the red kitchen finally had some life again, and after Ramsay praised both Michael’s scallops and Everett’s risottos, the two of them managed to get their rhythm back and serve the rest of their tables.
In the blue kitchen, they looked fo Melody to lead the way from the meat station, and thanks to strong communion between her, Lauren on garnish, and Carole on fish, they managed to get their dishes to the pass for the first table, but Carole’s turbot was undercooked, which left the entire order waiting for her, but she was able to recover quickly on her second attempt. On meat, Melody said in her confessional that it was pretty overwhelming to have to serve all of the blue team’s customers by herself for the first time, but despite dragging a bit on orders, she managed to push high quality Wellingtons and New York Strip out into the dining room consistently. Lauren, meanwhile, seemed at home driving tickets from the garnish station, and the blue team was finally starting to settle into a groove. Melody did serve a rare New York Strip, while Carole served raw turbot, but both were able to bounce back, and entrees were soon flying out to grateful diners. Melody and Lauren once again had no problems communicating and working in sync from their stations, with Lauren saying in her confessional that she and Melody could probably run the kitchen by themselves. But it was Carole who once again held up the kitchen when she inexplicably fired off halibut despite it not being on the ticket, which got her schooled by Ramsay for not paying attention to the ticket when he was standing less than five feet away. Despite this, the blue team managed to complete the rest of their entrees, and were soon ready to get started on desserts.
The red team was starting on entrees with Thomas and Faye on the meat station, and Faye said in her confessional that with meat being a station she felt comfortable in, she hoped tonight could be the night she stood out for the red team. On the first ticket, she and Thomas managed to serve beautifully cooked Wellingtons and New York Strip, along with nicely cooked turbot from Michael, but Ramona was holding the table up by dragging on garnish. Though she eventually managed to bring it up, Ramona would continue to drag on her section, frustrating her team, but especially Ramsay, as he kept calling out for times, with Ramona becoming flustered and not responding to her team. Ramona said in her confessional that the nerves were absolutely getting to her right now, and she seriously needed to bounce back. Meanwhile, Faye ran into some trouble on her Wellingtons, as she undercooked them for one table and said she would need several minutes for a refire, though she was able to recover. Thomas also had a rare mistake as he served undercooked New York Strip, and Ramsay said he didn't expect that from the executive chef. Thomas kicked himself in his confessional, saying that could not happen again, and he did manage to serve a beautiful New York Strip on his refire. However, on the next ticket, Ramona served a pot of runny mashed potatoes, and also seemed lost on what was actually going, as she couldn’t recall the ticket when Ramsay asked her. Ramsay had seen enough and took her into the pantry, asking her what the fuck she was doing, and if it was some kind of joke to her. Ramona insisted it wasn’t and said it was just nerves, but Ramsay replied that she needed to shake those nerves right now, or he would send her out the front door, immunity pass or not. Ramona said in her confessional that it was do or die, and she did manage to finally serve acceptable garnishes. Faye was still dragging on Wellingtons, which frustrated Ramsay, but finally, the red team managed to complete their remaining entrees.
Both teams finished their desserts in good time, and Ramsay told them to clear down.
Post-Mortem
Ramsay had the teams line up and started by saying that this was still not the complete performance he had been looking for. For the blue team, appetizers had been underwhelming, but they improved on entrees. For the red team, it was a decent start on apps, followed by a nightmare on entrees. However, he noted that one team in particular had a slight edge, and that was the blue team, as despite their issues, their customer comment cards gave them a satisfaction rating of 90%, to 84% from the red team. Ramsay said that the fiasco on entrees cost the red team this service, and told them to think long and hard about which two should be going up for elimination tonight. With that, he dismissed both teams to the dorms.
Back in the dorms, the red team’s deliberations were kicked off by Thomas, as he said he hoped everyone could agree that Ramona had dropped the ball tonight on garnish. The others seemed to agree, with Michael saying it was her worst performance in a while. Ramona only half-heartedly fought back, as she said she was better than this, and knew she still deserved to be here, but said if they wanted to put her up, it was their choice. In her confessional, she said she knew that immunity pass wouldn’t last forever, and it was better to get her bad service out of the way now, than during black jackets. With the first nominee having been an easy choice, the second would be more challenging, as Everett acknowledged that Michael and Thomas both had great services despite each having a mistake, and didn’t deserve to go up, which left either him or Faye. Thomas said that he felt Faye had struggled on meat, and that Ramsay rightfully had high expectations of both of them, due to his experience and her being a past chef, so he would vote for her. Michael, though, said that he had to vote for Everett, as he was just too inconsistent at this stage. Faye seemed torn but said she had to vote for Everett, even though they were friends, as he had struggled the most of the available options. Ramona was left with the deciding vote, and said in her confessional that it was impossibly difficult, as Faye had been a mentor for her here, while she had also bonded with Everett.
On the blue team’s side of the dorm, everyone was pleased to have won service and avoided having to send anyone home…well, almost everyone. Lauren admitted to Melody that it sucked having to put up with Grace for another day, while Melody tried to get her to think more positively, as if they were winning with Grace on their team, Ramsay definitely had to be taking notice. Lauren smiled and said she was definitely right about that, and the two of them continued chatting together while Carole sat off by herself and pondered her future in Hell’s Kitchen, In her confessional, she said she was damn lucky that the blue team won tonight, as she and Grace would have gone up otherwise, and that could have been it for her and her dream. Meanwhile, Grace felt that she had done well, and could have done even better without Carole getting in the way, saying in her confessional that it would be nice to get rid of dead weight, but she would settle for seeing someone from the red team go home.
Elimination Ceremony
The red team entered the dining room anxiously and lined up before Ramsay, who said that this was supposed to be the best five on the red team, but instead, it looked like two completely different teams, and while he didn’t know what the hell was going on, he was going to get to the bottom of it. With that, he asked Thomas for the red team’s first nominee and why. Thomas announced that the red team had nominated Ramona, due to her terrible performance on garnish, and being the weakest chef on the team. Ramsay asked for the second nominee and why. Thomas hesitated briefly before announcing that…the red team was nominating Everett, due to his declining performances and up and down service on appetizers. Before getting to any elimination pleas, though, Ramsay told Ramona to step forward and had her hand over the immunity pass. As she did so, Ramsay said that if not for the pass, Ramona would have gone home tonight, and urged her to take advantage of this second chance, before sending her back in line. Ramona appeared visibly shaken as she went to rejoin the red team. Ramsay said that the red team now had 30 seconds to talk amongst themselves and come up with another nominee. In the huddle, the chefs quickly determined that Faye would go up, as she had been their other consideration. As they broke the huddle, Thomas announced that Faye was the red team’s new nominee. Ramsay accepted this and told Everett and Faye to step forward.
Deliberation music
First, Ramsay asked Faye why she should stay in Hell’s Kitchen.
Faye: “My time away from Hell’s Kitchen gave me a whole new perspective on cooking, it made me realize why I’m doing this. It’s for my family, it’s for me, I can’t imagine doing anything else. That’s why I’ll never give up on myself or my team.”
Ramsay asked Faye if she thought she was a better chef than Everett.
Faye: “...Everett is a fighter, chef, and a good teammate, but yes, I do believe I’m stronger than him in terms of consistency and leadership.”
Ramsay moved on to Everett, asking him why he should stay in Hell’s Kitchen.
Everett: “This competition is a marathon, chef. I’ve had my ups and downs, I’ve had my stumbles, but I feel like I’m just on the cusp of hittin’ my stride.”
Ramsay said he had been waiting and waiting for Everett to emerge, and it seemed like he was trending downwards.
Everett: “I’ve had a slump, chef, I ain’t gonna deny that. But I’m fightin’ through it. I know I can be your next head chef.”
Ramsay asked Everett if he thought he was a stronger chef than Faye.
Everett: “Chef…”
Dramatic music
Ramsay waited on Everett’s answer, and after a tense moment, he finally spoke…
Everett: “Chef…at this time, no, I can’t say that I am.”
Faye glanced over at Everett in shock, as did everyone else from the red team, and even some of the blue team.
Ramsay: “I appreciate the honesty. Please, give me your jacket, your time is done in Hell’s Kitchen.”
Elimination music
Everett handed over his jacket and shook Ramsay’s hand.
Everett: “Thank you so much for this opportunity, chef.”
Ramsay: “Let me tell you something, young man, you have so much passion and fightback within you, I’ve seen it throughout this competition. Unfortunately, I didn’t see enough of it in service, or just now, but I hope you can find it again, because you are bloody talented. I wish you all the best.”
Everett thanked Ramsay again and waved goodbye to his team as he exited Hell’s Kitchen.
Everett’s comment
“Oh man…when I first entered Hell’s Kitchen, I never thought I’d be walkin’ out the door like this. I thought I was headed straight for the top, no problem. Each day was like this crazy mixture of anxiety, thrills, and drama. I fought, and I fought, and I fought for my place, until, I guess I just couldn’t fight no more. I’ll always have good memories of my time here, but I sure as hell wouldn’t do it again! (laughs)

With Everett’s elimination, Ramsay told Faye to get back in line, and addressed the chefs collectively as the final 8, saying that tonight should be a reminder to each of these chefs that a downward spiral at this point was unacceptable, as things were not going to get any easier. With that, Ramsay told them all to get some rest, because tomorrow, he was going to start separating the chefs from the cooks.
As the chefs went back to the dorms, several of them had confessionals. Thomas said that Ramona was definitely a bigger liability than Everett, but hopefully losing her immunity would wake her up. Michael said that it sucked that Everett left when he was far from the worst tonight. Ramona was clearly still shaken from the experience, as she said she felt awful about Everett going home when she had a worse performance, and knew she had to bounce back tomorrow or it would all be over for her. Melody said that between Travis and Everett, watching their fellow chefs go home was just getting more and more difficult, but she knew there were still seven more between her and the grand prize. Grace said none of these chefs were on her level, and she was going to keep being herself and kicking ass in the kitchen, regardless of her team’s hate for her. Lauren said that with only four on each team, there was nowhere left to hide, and everything they had done up until now was just the warm up for the real tests that lay ahead.
Placement
https://preview.redd.it/rpdx9533yw0d1.png?width=2447&format=png&auto=webp&s=52806b2d14807ba57be90bfa8261368e2dbea4cb

Please comment on the post before message me for codes. Preferred payment is PayPal Friends and Family! But I can also do Cashapp, Zelle, Facebook Pay, Venmo or Amazon/Vudu gift cards as payment if need be.
I am open to trades if I don't already own it in my own personal collection. A list of codes I'm currently looking for and would trade for will be at the very bottom of my sales list.
2 Guns 4K MA $5 HD MA $3.50
3 From Hell 4K VD/IT $6
12 Rounds 2 Reloaded HD MA $4 iTunes $3.50
13 Hours 4K Itunes $4.50 HD Vudu $3
21 Jump Street SD MA $2.50
22 Jump Street HD MA $4 SD MA $2.50
31 HD Vudu $3
47 Meters Down HD Vudu $4.50 HD iTunes $4
101 Dalmatians 1961 HDMA $4.50 HD GP $3.50
101 Dalmatians 2 Patch's London Adventure HDMA $5.50 HD GP $4.50
1917 4K MA $5.50
A Haunted House 2 HD Itunes $3.50
A Quiet Place 4K iTunes $5 HD Vudu $3.50
A Wrinkle In Time 2018 HD MA $4.50 HD GP $3
Abominable HD MA $4
Act Of Valor SD iTunes $2.50
Ad Astra 4K MA $5.50 HD MA $4
Admission HD iTunes $4
After HD MA $4
After Earth HD MA $3.50 SD MA $2
Aladdin 1992 4K MA $6.50 HD MA $4.50 HD GP $3.50
Aladdin 2019 HDMA/4KIT $4 HD GP $3
Alex Cross HD VD/IT $3.50
Alien HD MA $4
Alien 2 HD MA $4.50
Alien 3 HD MA $5
Alien Resurrection HD MA $5
Alien Covenant HD MA $3
Alien Prometheus HD MA $3
Alita Battle Angel 4K MA $5
All Eyez On Me iTunes $4
All The Money In The World SD MA $2
American Assassin HDVD/4KIT $5
American Gangster Extended Edition 4K MA $$6
American Hustle SD MA $2
Amsterdam HD GP $4.50
Anchorman 2 HD VD/IT $3
Angry Birds HD MA $4
Annie 2014 HD MA $3
Ant-Man 4K MA $6.50 HDMA/4KIT $5 HD GP $3.50
Ant-Man And Wasp HD MA $4.50 HD GP $3.50
Apollo 11 HD MA $4.50
Apollo 13 4K MA $6
Aristocats HD MA $6.50
Arrival HD Vudu $3.50
Assassination Nation HD MA $3
Atlantis Lost Empire HD MA $7
Atlantis Milos Return HD MA $7
Atomic Blonde 4K iTunes $4.50
Avatar 2 The Way Of Water HD MA $4.50 HD GP $4
Avengers 4K MA $6.50 HDMA/4KIT $6
Avengers Age Of Ultron HD MA $4 HD GP $2.50
Avengers Confidental Black Widow And Punisher HD MA $5.50
Avengers Endgame HDMA/4KIT $4.50 HD GP $2.50
Avengers Infinity War 4K MA $5 HD MA $4 HD GP $2.50
Back To The Future HD MA $4
Back To The Future 2 HD MA $4
Back To The Future 3 4K iTunes $5 HD MA $4
Back To The Future 3 Film Collection HD MA $11
Bad Boys For Life HD MA $4
Bad Grandpa HD VD/IT $3
Bad Mom's HD MA $3 HD iTunes $2.50
Bad Words HD ITunes $4
Bambi HD MA $6
Bambi 2 HD GP $5.50
Barbie 2023 HD MA $6
Barbie Her Sisters Puppy Chase HD MA $4 HD iTunes $3.50
Battle Of The Year HD MA $3.50
Battleship 4K iTunes $4.50 HD MA $4
Baywatch 4K iTunes $5.50 HD Vudu $4.50
Beauty And The Beast 2017 HDMA $3 HD GP $2
Beauty And The Beast 1991 HDMA $5 HD GP $3
Beauty And The Beast Enchanted Christmas HD MA $5.50
Bedknobs And Broomsticks HD GP $4.50
Before I Fall HD MA $4.50 iTunes $4
Beirut HD MA $4.50
Belly 4K Vudu $5
Ben-Hur 2016 4K iTunes $5 HD MA $4.50
Better Off Dead HD VD/IT $5
Big George Foreman 4K MA $5.50
Big Hero 6 4K MA $5.50 HDMA/4KIT $4 HD GP $2
Birdman HD MA $5
Black Panther 4K MA $5.50 HD MA $3.50 HD GP $2
Black Panther Wakanda Forever 4K MA $6 HD MA $4 HD GP $3
Black Sea iTunes $4.50
Black Widow HD GP $4
Blair Witch 2 Film Collection HD Vudu $6.50
Bobs Burgers Movie HD GP $4
Book Club HD VD/IT $3.50
Book Of Life HD MA $3.50
Boss Baby HD MA $3.50
Bourne 5 Film Collection 4K MA $20
Bourne Jason Bourne 4K Itunes $4 HD MA $2
Bourne Legacy HD MA $3
Boyhood HD VD/IT $3
Brave HD GP $4.50
Breaking In Unrated HD MA $4
Breakthrough HD MA $4
Brian Banks HD MA $3.50
Bring It On Cheersmack iTunes $3
Brother Bear HD MA $7
Brother Bear 2 HD MA $7 HD GP $6.50
Bullet Train 4K MA $6
Call Jane 4K VD/IT $5
Captain America Civil War HDMA/4KIT $4.50 HD GP $2.50
Captain America First Avenger HD MA $5 HD GP $3.50
Captain America Winter Soldier HDMA/4KIT $4.50 HD GP $2.50
Captain Marvel 4K MA $5.50 HD MA $3.50 HD GP $2
Captain Phillips SD MA $2
Captain Underpants First Epic Movie HD MA $3.50
Cars HD GP $4
Cars 3 4K MA $4.50 HDMA/4KIT $3.50 HD GP $2
Cats 2019 HD MA $4.50
Celebrating Mickey HD MA $5.50 HD GP $5
Chappie HD MA $4
Christopher Robin HD MA $4.50 HD GP $3.50
Cinderella 1950 4K MA $6 HD MA $5 HD GP $4.50
Cinderella 2 HD MA $6.50 HD GP $6
Cinderella 3 HD MA $6.50 HD GP $6
Cinderella 2015 HD MA $4 HD GP $3
Clerks 3 HDVD/4KIT $5.50
Clifford 2021 HDVD/4KIT $4
Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2 SD MA $2.50
Coco HD MA $4 HD GP $2.50
Cold Pursuit 4K VD/IT $5 HD Vudu $4
Columbiana HD MA $4
Company Of Heroes HD MA $4.50
Contraband iTunes $4
Cowboys And Aliens iTunes $4
Crawl 4K VD/IT $5 HD Vudu $4
Creed 3 HD Vudu $3.50
Criminal 4K iTunes $4.50 HD Vudu $4
Cruella 4K MA $6 HD MA $4 HD GP $3
Daddys Home 4K ITunes $4.50 HD Vudu $2.50
Daddys Home 2 4K ITunes $5 HD Vudu $4
Danny Collins HD Itunes $3
Dark Skies HD Vudu $4.50
Darkest Hour 2017 4K MA $5 HD MA $3.50
Date Night iTunes $4
Dead In Tombstone Unrated HD MA $4 iTunes $3.50
Dead Man Down HD MA $4
Deadpool 4k iTunes $4 HD MA $2
Deadpool 2 HD MA $4
Death On The Nile HD GP $4
Deepwater Horizon 4K ITunes $4 HD Vudu $3
Denial HD MA $4 HD
Despicable Me 4K MA $6 4K iTunes $4.50 HD MA $4
Despicable Me 2 4K Itunes $4.50 HD MA $3
Despicable Me 3 4K iTunes $4.50 HD MA $3.50
Despicable Me Minion Madness iTunes $4
Despicable Me Minions 2 Film Collection Minions/Rise Of Gru HD MA $7.50
Despicable Me Minions 4K MA $5 4K iTunes $4.50 HD MA $3.50
Despicable Me Minions Rise Of Gru HD MA $4.50
Detective Knight Rogue HD VD/IT $4
Devotion 4K VD/IT $5.50
Diary Of A Wimpy Kid Dog Days HD MA $4
Diary Of A Wimpy Kid Long Haul HD MA $3
Die Hard HD MA $4
Die Hard 2 Die Harder HD MA $4.50
Die Hard 3 With A Vengeance HD MA $4.50
Die Hard 4 Live Free Or Die Hard HD MA $3.50
Die Hard 5 A Good Day To Die Hard HD MA $3.50
Dig 4K VD/IT $5
Dirty Grandpa HD VD/IT $3.50 SD Vudu $2
Disney Nature Monkey Kingdom HD MA $3.50 HD GP $3
Disney Pixar Short Films Collection Vol 3 HD MA $4 HD GP $3.50
District 9 4K MA $5.50
Divergent 4K Itunes $4 HD Vudu $2 SD Vudu $1
Divergent Insurgent 4K Itunes $4 HD Vudu $2
Django Unchained HD Vudu $4
Doctor Strange 4K MA $5.50 HDMA/4KIT $4.50 HD GP $2.50
Doctor Strange Multiverse HD MA $4 HD GP $3
Don Jon iTunes $4
Don't Worry He Won't Get Far On Foot HD Vudu $4.50
Downsizing HD VD/IT $3
Dracula Untold HD MA $3.50 iTunes $3
Dredd 4K VD/IT $4
Dumbo 2019 HD MA $3.50 HD GP $3
Dying Of The Light SD Vudu $2.50
Earth Girls Are Easy HD Vudu $4
Edge Of Seventeen HD MA $4.50 HD iTunes $4
El Chicano HD MA $3
Empire Of Light HD MA $4 HD GP $3
Encanto HD MA $4.50 HD GP $4
Enders Game 4K iTunes $4 HD Vudu $3
Epic HD MA $4 iTunes $3.50
Equalizer HD MA $4
Equalizer 2 HD MA $4
Equalizer 3 HD MA $5.50
Escape Plan 4K iTunes $3.50 HD Vudu $2
ET 4K MA $6 4K ITunes $5.50 HD MA $4
Eternals 4K MA $6 HD GP $3
Everything Everywhere HD Vudu $4.50
Ex Machina HD Vudu $4
Exorcist 4K MA $6
Expendables 1-4 Film Collection 4K Vudu $17 HD Vudu $12
Expendables 1 4K VD/IT $5
Expendables 2 4K VD/IT $5 HD Vudu $2 SD Vudu $1
Expendables 3 4K VD/IT $5 HD Vudu $2
Fantastic Four 2015 HD MA $4.50
Fast And Furious 1 4K MA $4.50 4K iTunes $4 HD MA $2
Fast And Furious 6 4K ITunes $2.50 6 HD MA $1
Fast And Furious 7 4K iTunes $2.50 HD MA $1
Fast And Furious 8 4K Itunes $2.50 HD MA $1
Fast And Furious 10 4K MA $5.50
Fast And Furious 1-8 Film Collection HD MA $11
Fast And Furious 1-9 Film Collection HD MA $14
Fast And Furious 1-10 Film Collection HD MA $17
Fast And Furious Hobbs And Shaw HD MA $4
Fault In Our Stars 4K Itunes $3.50 HD MA $2
Ferdinand HD MA $4
Fifty Shades Darker Unrated HD MA $2.50
Fifty Shades Of Grey Unrated 4K MA $2.50 4K iTunes $2 HD MA $1.50
Finding Dory HDMA/4KIT $3.50 HD GP $1.50
Finding Nemo HD GP $3.50
First Cow HD Vudu $5.50
Flight HD Vudu $3.50
Florence Foster Jenkins HD Vudu $4 HD Itunes $3
Fox And The Hound 2 HD MA $4 HD GP $3
Free Guy 4K MA $6 HD MA $4 HD GP $2.50
Frozen 4K MA $4.50 HDMA/4KIT $3 HD GP $1
Frozen 2 4K MA $4.50 HD GP $2
Frozen Olaf Frozen Adventure HD MA $4 HD GP $3.50
Frozen Sing Along Edition HD MA $4 HD GP $3.50
Fury HD MA $3.50
Game Of Thrones Season 5 iTunes $4.50
Gamer 3D HD VD/IT $3.50
Gemini Man 4K Vudu $4.50
Get A Job SD Vudu $2
Get Out 4K iTunes $5 HD MA $4
Ghost In The Shell 2017 4K ITunes $5 HD Vudu $3.50
Ghostbusters Answer Call Extended/Theatrical HD MA $4
GI Joe Retaliation 4K Vudu $4 4K iTunes $3.50 HD Vudu $2.50
GI Joe Rise Of Cobra iTunes $4
Girls Trip HD MA $3 iTunes $2.50
Glengarry Glen Ross HD Vudu $5
Godfather 1 4K iTunes $6
Gods Not Dead 2 HD MA $2 iTunes $1.50
Gods Not Dead A Light In Darkness HD MA $3
Gods Of Egypt 4K iTunes $4.50 SD Vudu $2
Good Kill HD VD/IT $4
Goodbye Christopher Robin HD MA $4.50
Goosebumps HD MA $4
Goosebumps 2 HD MA $4
Grace Unplugged HD Vudu $4
Grand Budapest Hotel HD MA $4.50
Green Room HD Vudu $5
Grown Ups 2 HD MA $4
Guardians Of The Galaxy 4K MA $6.50 HDMA/4KIT $4.50 HD GP $2
Guardians Of The Galaxy Volume 2 HD MA $3.50 HD GP $1.50
Guilt Trip HD VD/IT $4
Hacksaw Ridge 4K iTunes $4 HD Vudu $2.50
Halloween 2018 HD MA $4
Halloween Kills HD MA $4
Haywire Itunes $3.50
Heat 4K MA $5
Heaven Is For Real HD MA $4 SD MA $2
Hell Or High Water 4K iTunes $4 HD Vudu $3
Hellboy 2019 HDVD/4KIT $5.50
Hercules 2014 HD VD/IT $3
Here Comes The Boom SD MA $2
Hereditary HD Vudu $4
Hilary's America SD Vudu $2
Hillsong Let Hope Rise HD MA $1 HD iTunes $1
Hitman's Bodyguard 4K Vudu $5 4K iTunes $4.50 HD Vudu $3
Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard 4K VD/IT $5.50
Hocus Pocus HD MA $5 HD GP $3
Home 2015 HD MA $3.50
Home Alone HDMA/4KIT $5
Home Alone 2 HD MA $4
Hope Springs HD MA $3.50 SD MA $2
Hotel Transylvania HD MA $4
Hotel Transylvania 3 SD MA $2.50
Hostiles 4K VD/IT $6
How To Train Your Dragon 1-3 Film Collection HD MA $10
Hugo SD VD/IT $2
Hunger Games 4K Itunes $3.50 HD Vudu $1 SD Vudu $0.50
Hunger Games Catching Fire 4K Vudu $4.50 4K Itunes $4 HD Vudu $1.50 SD Vudu $0.50
Hunger Games Mockingjay Part 1 4K Itunes $4 HD Vudu $1.50
Hunger Games Mockingjay Part 2 HD Vudu $3
Hunger Games 4 Film Collection 4K Vudu $15 HD Vudu $6.50
Hunter Killer HD Vudu $3.50
I Can Only Imagine HD VD/IT $3
I Feel Pretty Itunes $2.50
I Frankenstein HD VD/IT $3.50
Ice Age 5 Film Collection HD MA $18
Ice Age HD MA $4.50
Ice Age Christmas Special HD MA $4.50
Ice Age Continental Drift HD MA $4.50
Ice Age Dawn Of The Dinosaurs HD MA $4.50
Ides Of March HD MA $4.50
Incarnate iTunes $4
Incredibles 2 4K MA $6 HDMA/4KIT $4.50 HD GP $3
Indiana Jones 4 Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull 4K VD/IT $6
Indiana Jones 5 Dial Of Destiny HD MA $5.50
Independence Day 2 Film HD MA $8
Independence Day HDMA/4KIT $4.50
Independence Day Resurgence HDMA/4KIT $4.50
Inferno HD MA $4
Inside Out HDMA/4KIT $5.50 HD GP $3.50
Instructions Not Included HD Vudu $4 SD Vudu $2
Interstellar 4K VD/IT $5.50 HD Vudu $3
Into The Woods HD MA $4 HD GP $3
Iron Man HD GP $4.50
Iron Man 3 HD GP $3.50
Iron Man And Hulk Heroes United HD MA $5
Iron Mask HDVD/4KIT $5.50
It's A Wonderful Life 4K VD/IT $6
Jack And Jill HD MA $4
Jack Reacher Never Go Back 4K Itunes $3.50 HD Vudu $2
Jack Ryan Shadow Recruit 4K Itunes $3.50 HD Vudu $2
Jackass 3 HD VD/IT $4.50
James Bond Connery Collection Volume 1 HD Vudu $14
James Bond Connery Collection Volume 2 HD Vudu $14
James Bond Daniel Craig 4 Film Collection HD Vudu $11
James Bond Skyfall HD Vudu $1.50
James Bond Spectre HD Vudu $3.50
Jarhead 2 HD MA $3 iTunes $2.50
Jarhead 3 HD MA $3 iTunes $2.50
Jaws 4K MA $6
Jay And Silent Bob Reboot HD VD/IT $4.50
Jigsaw 4K VD/IT $4.50 HD Vudu $3
Joe Dirt 2 HD MA $4.50
John Wick 1 4K iTunes $3 HD Vudu $1
John Wick 1 And 2 Combo HD Vudu $2.50
John Wick 2 HD Vudu $2
John Wick 3 HDVD/4KIT $4
Journey To Bethlehem HD MA $5
Jumanji 2 Film (Welcome To The Jungle/Next Level) HD MA $6.50
Jumanji Welcome To The Jungle HD MA $3.50 SD MA $2
Jungle Book 1967 HD GP $4.50
Jungle Cruise 4K MA $6 HD MA $4 HD GP $3
Jurassic Dominion 4K MA $5.50
Jurassic Park 4K MA $4 HD MA $3
Jurassic World 4K Itunes $2.50 HD MA $1
Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom HD MA $3
Jurassic 5 Film Collection 4K MA $15
Jurassic 6 Film Collection HD MA $15
Justice 2017 HD MA $4
Justin Bieber Never Say Never Itunes $1.50
Kickass 2 HD MA $4
Kickboxer HD Vudu $4.50
Killer Elite iTunes $3
King Kong 2005 4K MA $6
Kingsman The Golden Circle 4K ITunes $4
Kingsman The Secret Service 4K Itunes $4 HD MA $3
Knock At The Cabin HD MA $4.50
Krampus iTunes $4.50
Lady And The Tramp HD MA $5
Lady And The Tramp 2 Scamps Adventure HD MA $6 HD GP $5
La La Land HD Vudu $3.50
Lara Croft Tomb Raider HD Vudu $4
Last Vegas HD MA $4 SD MA $2
Lee Daniels The Butler HD Vudu $4
Legends Of Oz Dorothy's Return HD MA $5
Leperchaun 8 Film Collection HD Vudu $13
Leprechaun Origins HD VD $3
Let Him Go HD MA $4
Life Of Pi Itunes $4 HD MA $3
Lightyear 4K MA $6 HD MA $3.50 HD GP $2.50
Lilo And Stitch HD MA $4.50 HD GP $4
Lilo And Stitch 2 HD MA $3.50 HD GP $3
Lion King 1994 HD MA $4 HD GP $2.50
Lion King 2019 HD MA $4 HD GP $2.50
Little Mermaid 1989 HD MA $4 HD GP $3
Little Mermaid 2023 HD MA $5.50
Lone Ranger HD MA $4.50 HD GP $4
Lone Survivor 4K MA $5.50 4K Itunes $4 HD MA $2.50
Longest Ride 4K iTunes $4 HD MA $2
Looper HD MA $4.50
Lorax 2012 HD MA $4 HD iTunes $3.50
Lucy 4K MA $4.50 4K iTunes $4 HD MA $3
Machine Gun Preacher iTunes $4
Madea's Witness Protection VD $2
Maggie HD Vudu $3
Maleficent 4K MA $6 HDMA/4KIT $4 HD GP $2.50
Maleficent Mistress Of Evil HD GP $3.50
Marvins Room HD VD/IT $4
Mary Poppins HD MA $3.50 HD GP $2
Mary Poppins Returns 4K MA $5.50 HDMA/4KIT $4.50 HD GP $3
Max Payne Unrated iTunes $4
Mechanic Resurrection 4K Itunes $3.50 HD Vudu $2.50
Megan Leavey HDMA/iTunes $2
Men In Black 3 HD MA $3
Men In Black International 4K MA $5
Mickeys Christmas Carol HD MA $6
Mickey Classic Shorts Volume 1 HD MA $6 HD GP $5
Mickey Classic Shorts Volume 2 HD MA $6
Midsommar HD Vudu $5.50
Midway 4K VD/IT $5 HD GP $3
Mile 22 4K iTunes $5
Million Dollar Arm HD MA $3.50 HD GP $3
Mike And Dave Need Wedding Dates HD MA $4.50
Miss Peregrines Home For Peculiar Children HD MA $4
Mission Impossible 1 HD Vudu $3.50
Mission Impossible 2 HD Vudu $3.50
Mission Impossible 4 Ghost Protocol 4K iTunes $4 HD Vudu $2
Mission Impossible 5 Rogue Nation 4K Vudu $4.50 4K Itunes $4 HD Vudu $2
Mission Impossible 6 Fallout 4K Vudu $4.50 4K iTunes $4 HD Vudu $2
Moana 4K MA $6.50 HDMA/4KIT $4 HD GP $3
Moneyball HD MA $4
Monsters University HD MA $6.50 HD GP $4.50
Morbius 4K MA $5.50 SD MA $2
Mr Peabody And Sherman HD MA $4.50
Mud HD Vudu $3
Mulan 1 HD MA $6 HD GP $5
Mulan 2 HD MA $5 HD GP $4
Mulan 2020 HD MA $4 HD GP $2.50
Mummy 1932 4K iTunes $4.50
Murder On The Orient Express HD MA $4.50
My All American HD MA $4 iTunes $3.50
My Girl 1 And 2 Film Collection SD MA $6
Need For Speed HD MA $4.50 HD iTunes $4.50 HD GP $4
News Of The World HD MA $4.50
Night At The Museum Secret Tomb HD MA $3
Nightmare Before Christmas 4K MA $6 HD MA $5 HD GP $4
No Escape HD Vudu $4
No Good Deed 2014 HD MA $3.50
Noah 2014 Itunes $3.50
Nonstop 4K Itunes $5 HD MA $4
Norm Of The North HD Vudu $3
Now You See Me HD VD/IT $2 SD Vudu $1
Now You See Me 2 SD Vudu $1.50
Nutcracker And The Four Realms 4K MA $5 HD GP $3
Oblivion 4k iTunes $4 HD MA $3
Office Christmas Party 4K iTunes $5.50 HD Vudu $4.50
Olympus Has Fallen HD MA $4.50
Onward HD MA $3.50 HD GP $3
Overdrive HD Vudu $4 iTunes $2.50
Oz The Great And Powerful HD MA $3 HD GP $2
Paddington HD Vudu $4.50
Pain And Gain HD Vudu $4
Paranormal Activity 3 HD VD/IT $1
Paranormal Activity Ghost Dimensions HD VD/IT $3
Parental Guidance HD MA $4 iTunes $3
Parker SD MA $2
Patriots Day 4K iTunes $4 HD Vudu $3
Paul Blart Mall Cop 2 SD MA $2.50
Peanuts The Movie HDMA/4KIT $4.50
Percy Jackson Sea of Monsters HD MA $2.50
Pet Semetary 2019 4K Vudu $5 4K Itunes $4.50
Peter Pan HD MA $5.50 HD GP $4
Peter Pan 2 Return To Neverland HD MA $6 HD GP $5.50
Petes Dragon 2016 HD MA $4 HD GP $3
Pinocchio 1940 HD MA $5 HD GP $4
Pirates Of The Caribbean DMTNT HD MA $3.50 HD GP $2
Pitch Perfect 4K iTunes $4 HD MA $2
Pitch Perfect 2 4K ITunes $4 HD MA $2
Planes HD MA $3.50 HD GP $2
Planes Fire And Rescue HD MA $3.50 HD GP $2
Planes Trains And Automobiles HDVD/4KIT $5.50
Planet Of The Apes "Dawn" HDMA/4KIT $3.50
Pocahontas HD MA $5.50 HD GP $4.50
Pocahontas 2 HD MA $5.50 HD GP $4.50
Poltergeist 4K MA $5.50
Precious Cargo HD VD/IT $3.50
Predator 4 Film Collection 4K MA $19
Premium Rush HD MA $4.50 SD MA $2
Prey For The Devil 4K Vudu $5.50 HDVD/4KIT $4.50
Psycho HD MA $4
Public Enemies iTunes $4
Queen And Slim 4K MA $6
Queen Of Katwe HD MA $4 HD GP $3
Rambo First Blood HD Vudu $3
Rambo Last Blood 4K iTunes $4 HD Vudu $3
Raya And The Last Dragon HD MA $4 HD GP $3
Red 2 4K iTunes $3.50 HD Vudu $2 SD Vudu $1
Red Dawn 2012 HD MA $4.50 iTunes $4
Redemption HD VD $3
Replicas HDVD/4KIT $5.50
Rescuers HD MA $4.50 HD GP $4
Rescuers Down Under HD MA $4.50 HD GP $4
Reservoir Dogs 4K VD/IT $5
Resident Evil Death Island HD MA $4.50
Riddick Unrated Directors Cut HD MA $4 iTunes $4
Ride Along iTunes $3.50 HD MA $3
Ride Along 2 ITunes $3.50 HD MA $3
Rio 2 Sing Along HD MA $4
RIPD 4K ITunes $4.50 HD MA $3.50
Rise Of The Guardians HD MA $4
Rob Zombie Firefly 3 Film Collection HD Vudu $8
Robin Hood Disney 1973 HD MA $4 HD GP $2
Robocop HD Vudu $4.50
Rocketman 4K iTunes $4 HD Vudu $3
Rocky 2 4K VD/IT $5
Rogue Warfare The Hunt SD VD/IT $2
Roman J Israel HD MA $3
Rons Gone Wrong 4K MA $6 HD MA $3.50 HD GP $2.50
Saban's Power Rangers 4K VD/IT $5 HD Vudu $3
Safe HD VD/IT $2.50
Same Kind Of Different As Me HD VD/IT $3
Samson HD MA $3
Savages iTunes $4
Saving Mr Banks HD MA $5 HD GP $4
Saw 7 Film Collection HD Vudu $13
Scarface 4K ITunes $5
Scream 1996 4K VD/IT $6 HD Vudu $4.50
Scream 2022 4K VD/IT $6
Scream 2 HDVD/4KIT $5.50
Scream 5 HDVD/4KIT $5.50
Season Of The Witch iTunes $4
Second Act iTunes $4
See No Evil 2 SD Vudu $3
Selma HD Vudu $2.50 HD Itunes $2
Serenity 4K MA $6
Seventh Son iTunes $3.50
Shang Chi HD MA $4.50 HD GP $3
Shaun Of The Dead 4K iTunes $5 HD MA $4
Show Dogs HD MA $4
Sicario 4K iTunes $4.50 HD Vudu $3.50
Sing 4K ITunes $5 HD MA $4
Sisters Unrated Itunes $3
Sixteen Candles HD MA $4 HD iTunes $3.50
Skyscraper HD MA $3
Sleeping Beauty HD MA $4.50 HD GP $3.50
Sleepless Itunes $3.50
Smurfs Lost Village HD MA $4
Snatched HDMA/4KIT $4
Sniper HD MA $5
Sniper 2 HD MA $5
Sniper 3 HD MA $5
Sniper 4 Reloaded HD MA $4.50
Sniper 5 Legacy HD MA $4.50
Sniper 6 Ghost Shooter HD MA $4.50
Sniper 7 Ultimate Kill HD MA $4.50
Sniper 8 Assassins End HD MA $4.50
Snitch 4K Itunes $4 HD Vudu $3 SD Vudu $2
Snow White Disney 4K MA $6.50 HD MA $5 HD GP $4
Snow White And The Huntsman 4K Itunes $3.50 HD MA $3
Snowden HD MA $4.50 HD iTunes $4
Sonic Hedgehog 4K VD/IT $6 HD Vudu $5
Soul 4K MA $5.50 HD MA $3 HD GP $2
Southpaw HD Vudu $4.50
Speed 4K MA $6.50
Spider-Man Across The Spiderverse HD MA $4.50 SD MA $3
Spider-Man Amazing Spider-Man 4K MA $6 HD MA $4
Spider-Man Amazing Spider-Man 2 4K MA $6 HD MA $4 SD MA $2
Spider-Man Far From Home HD MA $4
Spider-Man Homecoming 4K MA $6 HD MA $2
Spider-Man Into The Spiderverse HD MA $4.50
Spider-Man No Way Home 4K MA $6 HD MA $4
Spider-Man Tobey HD MA $4
Spider-Man 2 Tobey 2 Film Collection Theatrical/Extended HD MA $4.50
Spider-Man 3 Tobey HD MA $4
Spies In Disguise HD MA $4.50HD GP $3
Spy Unrated HD MA $4
St Vincent HD Vudu $4.50
Star Trek Beyond 4K VD/IT $4.50 HD Vudu $2.50
Star Trek Into Darkness 4K Itunes $3 HD Vudu $1
Star Trek 2 Wrath Of Khan 4K VD/IT $4 50
Star Wars Rogue One HDMA/4KIT $4 HD GP $2
Star Wars Solo HD GP $4.50
Star Wars Ep 4 A New Hope HD GP $5.50
Star Wars Ep 5 Empire Strikes Back HD GP $5.50
Star Wars Ep 6 Return Of The Jedi HDMA/4KIT $6.50
Star Wars Ep 7 Force Awaken 4K MA $6 HDMA/4KIT $3 HD GP $2
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Step Up All In SD Vudu $2.50
Step Up Revolution HD Vudu $3
Straight Outta Compton Unrated 4K iTunes $4.50 HD MA $3.50
Strange World HD MA $5 HD GP $4
Suburbicon 4K Itunes $4
Super 8 HD Vudu $3.50
Superfly HD MA $3
Superman 5 Film Collection 4K MA $20
Super Mario Bros Movie 4K MA $6 HD MA $5
Sweetwater HD MA $4
Taken iTunes $4
Taken 2 HDMA $4 iTunes $3.50
Tangled HD GP $4.50
Ted Unrated HD MA $3
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Mutant Mayhem 4K VD/IT $6.50
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2014 4K Vudu $4 4K Itunes $3.50 HD Vudu $2
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Out Of Shadows HD Vudu $4
Terminator Dark Fate 4K Vudu $5.50 4K iTunes $4.50
Terminator Genesis 4K Vudu $5.50 4K Itunes $4.50 HD Vudu $3
The A Team iTunes $4
The Adventures Of Tin Tin SD Vudu $2
The Artist SD MA $2
The Art Of Self Defense HD MA $3
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The BFG HD GP $4
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The Call HD MA $4.50
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The Children HD Vudu $4.50
The Choice HD Vudu $3.50 iTunes $3 SD Vudu $2
The Commuter 4K VD/IT $5 HDVD/4KIT $4
The Croods HD MA $4.50 Itunes $3.50
The Croods 2 Film Collection HD MA $8
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The Departed 4K MA $7
The Devil Inside SD Vudu $2
The Dilemma HD MA $4.50 HD iTunes $4
The Duff HD Vudu $3
The Emoji Movie HD MA $3
The Exorcist 2 Film Theatrical/Extended 4K MA $6
The Gambler HD VD/IT $3.50
The Ghost Writer HD Vudu $4.50
The Girl On The Train 4K Itunes $4 HD MA $3.50
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The Greatest Showman HD MA $4
The Gunman HD MA $2.50 HD iTunes $2
The Heat HD MA $3 Itunes $2.50
The High Note HD MA $3
The Host iTunes $4
The Imitation Game HD Vudu $4.50
The Internship HD MA $3 iTunes $2.50
The Interview HD MA $4.50
The King Of Staten Island HD MA $4.50
The Last Duel HD MA $5 HD GP $4
The Last Witch Hunter 4K Vudu $4.50 HD Vudu $3.50
The Legend Of Hercules HD VD/IT $3
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The Magnificent Seven 2016 HD MA $4
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The Martian HDMA/4KIT $5
The Mask Of Zorro 4K MA $6
The Menu HD GP $4
The Mist 4K Vudu $6
The Monuments Men HD MA $3.50 SD MA $2
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The Mummy "Tom Cruise" 4K ITunes $5 HD MA $4
The Night Before HD MA $3.50
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The Perfect Guy SD MA $2
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The Purge 4 Film Collection HD MA $14
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The Shack HD VD/IT $3.50
The Shallows HD MA $4.50
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The Star SD MA $2
The Sting 4K iTunes $5
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The Upside iTunes $4
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Thor HD GP $4
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Thumbelina HD MA $6
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Titanic 4K VD/IT $6
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Toy Story 4K MA $6 HDMA/4KIT $5.50 HD GP $3
Toy Story 4 4K MA $4.50 4KIT/HDMA $3.50 HD GP $2
Trainwreck 4K iTunes $5
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Transformers 4 The Last Knight 4K VD/IT $4.50 HD Vudu $3
Transformers 5 Age Extinction 4K VD/IT $4 HD Vudu $3
Transformers Bumblebee 4K iTunes $4.50 4K HD Vudu $3
Transformers Rise Of The Beasts 4K VD/IT $6
Trauma Center HDVD/4KIT $3.50
Trolls HD MA $3.50
True Blood Season 2 Itunes $4
Turning Red HD MA $4 HD GP $3
Twilight Eclipse HD Vudu $4.50
Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 1 HDVD/4KIT $5
Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 2 4K iTunes $2 HD Vudu $1 SD Vudu $0.50
Twilight Complete 5 Film Collection 4K Vudu $19
Tyler Perry Madea Christmas Vudu $3
Tyler Perry Neighbors From Hell Vudu $3
Unbreakable 4K MA $5.50 HD GP $3.50
Unbroken 4K iTunes $4.50 HD MA $4
Uncharted 4K MA $6
Uncle Drew HDVD/4KIT $4.50
Underworld Awakening HD MA $3.50 SD MA $2
Unfinished Business HD MA $4.50
Universal Rewards Monthly Movies You Pick HD/4K MA "1 for $3.50 or 2 for $6"
Unknown iTunes $4
Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets HD VUDU $4
Van Helsing 4K iTunes $5.50 HD MA $4.50
Vanquish HDVD/4KIT $5.50
Venom 4K MA $6 HD MA $3
Venom Let There Be Carnage HD MA $4.50
Violent Night 4K MA $6.50
Walking With Dinosaurs HD MA $3.50 HD iTunes $3
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Warrior iTunes $4
Water For Elephants Itunes $4
We Die Young HD VD/IT $4
What Happens In Vegas Stays In Vegas iTunes $4
West Side Story 2021 HD MA $3 HD GP $2.50
What To Expect When Your Expecting HD Vudu $3.50
When The Game Stands Tall SD MA $1.50
White House Down HD MA $4 SD MA $2
Winnie Pooh Springtime With Roo HD MA $4.50
Winnie Pooh A Very Merry Pooh Year HD MA $4 HD GP $3.50
Wonder Park 4K Itunes $4 HD Vudu $2.50
World War Z 4K iTunes $5 HD Vudu $4
Wreck It 2 Ralph Breaks The Internet 4K MA $6 HD MA $4 HD GP $3
Wrong Turn 5 Bloodlines iTunes $4
X-Men 3 Film Collection (X-Men/X-2/Last Stand) HD MA $13
X-Men 3 Film Collection (Apocalypse/Days Of Future Past/First Class) HD MA $12
X-Men Apocalypse HDMA/4KIT $5
X-Men Days Of Future Past HDMA/4KIT $5
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X-Men Logan 4K Itunes $4 HD MA $3
X-Men Wolverine Unrated HD MA $4 SD iTunes $2
XXX Return Of Xander Cage 4K iTunes $4 HD VD/IT $2.50
Zero Dark Thirty HD MA $4
Zootopia HD GP $3
TRADES FOR PERSONAL REDEEM LOOKING FOR LIST
These are some new release movies im looking for
American Society Of Magical Negroes
Ghostbusters Frozen Empire
Imaginary
Killers Of Flower Moon
The Kill Room
These are some older movies I know have codes I'm looking for
Battle For Sky Ark
Doubt
Judge Archer
Little Stranger
Once Upon A Time In The West
One From The Heart Reprise
Piercing
Stonewall
Throwdown

hey reddit, throwaway account just incase,
i'm a 35-year-old guy, and i have been best friends with "tom" (36m) since college. we did everything together – vacations, family gatherings, you name it. tom married "emily" (34f) about ten years ago, and she and i also became great friends. we were like a little family.
a few years ago, i stumbled upon something that shook me to the core. i found out that tom had been cheating on emily. he had multiple affairs over the years, some short-term flings and others that lasted months. i confronted him, hoping he'd come to his senses and confess to emily. instead, he turned into someone i didn't recognize. tom threatened me, saying he'd ruin my life and even hinted at physical harm if i ever told emily.
for years, i carried this burden, watching emily live in ignorance while tom continued his deceitful ways. it ate me up inside, but the fear of tom's threats kept me silent. my friendship with tom became strained, but i couldn't pull away completely without raising suspicions. emily, blissfully unaware, remained as sweet and kind as ever, often confiding in me about her life and dreams.
a few weeks ago, emily found out about tom's cheating on her own. she discovered incriminating messages on his phone. she was devastated and confronted tom immediately. in a desperate attempt to save himself, tom accused me of knowing all along and even suggested that i was involved in covering up his affairs. emily, feeling betrayed by both her husband and her close friend, was furious.
emily called a meeting with tom and me. she was livid, her trust shattered. i tried to explain my side, telling her about tom's threats, but she was too hurt to listen. she saw me as complicit in tom's betrayal. tom, playing the victim, painted himself as a man who made mistakes and was trying to protect his marriage. the whole situation was a mess.
emily has kicked tom out and is considering divorce. she's cut off rachel and is struggling to trust anyone. as for me, i'm at a loss. i've lost two of my best friends, and emily, who used to be like family, can't even look at me and tom has disappeared.
need any type of help i can get

Have you ever experienced something that shook you to your very core? Something that makes you remember every single little detail of your surroundings from that moment in time? Even years after? I can remember so vividly the moment I realized something was wrong with me. I was in my junior year of high school sitting in class, just like any other day. I remember the smell of erasers and cheap cologne that permeated off my classmate who sat next to me. I remember the scratchy tag on my t-shirt and how I was resisting taking it off in the middle of class just to cut it off. I remember what my teacher, Mrs. Brown, was talking about; 'the fall of Constantinople'. My mouth felt dry and I kept looking at the clock, counting down the minutes until I had lunch so I could get a soda. The sound of a pen clicking behind me was synchronized with the song that was stuck in my head.
All those things were going through my brain at once. My ADHD mind went a million miles per minute when it all came down to a cashing holt when I felt it at 11:23
I felt what I can only describe as a hand grabbing at the inner lining of my stomach. It didn't necessarily hurt, not at this point. That's not why I got so scared. You see, not only do I have ADHD. I also have OCD that manifests itself in the fear of anything growing or moving inside me. Even if I think about the concept of blood moving in my body or a heart that is beating in my chest, I have to think of something else. I've had full-blown panic attacks because of it. The closest term for this is 'Tokophobia'. That's technically the fear of pregnancy. I'm a guy, so it's not completely accurate but it's really the closest term. I mean, I also do have a huge fear of pregnancy. Not necessarily of me being pregnant, but even though I knew I could never get pregnant, the thought of it still made me feel sick
I bet you can imagine the terror that overcame me as I felt something moving in me. I made an audible groan and grabbed my stomach. My whole class turned to look at me. even my teacher stopped talking to ask if I was okay. I stood up and started to run to the nurses' office without even acknowledging my teacher. My first thought wasn't thinking that something was actually in my body. Even stomach aches and the feeling of gurgling in my stomach made me feel this way before. I didn't have anything on hand to help with a stomach ache, unfortunately. However, the nurse always did.
I sprinted across the school hoping and praying that my stomach wouldn't make that awful feeling again before I got there.
I turned the corner into the nurses' office with my tennis shoes squeaking in the process. I saw the school nurse, Mrs. Kennedy sitting on the couch in her office reading a magazine. She looked up at me with a sweet smile that quickly turned into worry.
"Sam, what is it? How can I help?" She said as she stood up and hurried over to me. Putting her hand over mine which was grabbing my stomach tightly.
"It's…It's my stomach. Something is wrong with it." I mumbled with a red face.
She shuffled her way over to her large medicine cabinet and she motioned for me to sit down.
She asked me questions about my stomach. Asking if it was pain, grumbling, cramps, nausea, etc. As she was asking me what my symptoms were and digging through bottles, The feeling happened again. However, this time was different. It felt like fingers grassing against the inside of my body. I screamed and wrapped my arms around my torso. Mrs. Kenneddy ran over to me to comfort me.
"This seems a lot worse than normal, maybe we should call your parents." She said as she put her hand on my back.
It felt like some days I saw Mrs. Kennedy more than my teachers. Any small ailment would distract me so badly from class that I had to go see her. Sometimes multiple times a day. She knew at this point when something was really wrong.
Within about 30 minutes both my parents were there with us. That may seem fast, but I'm an only child and my parents are very aware of my tendencies. They know I can spiral and like to be around if it happens.
They kept asking me where the pain was. I think they assumed by the way I wasn't responding to their questions the pain must've been really bad. The reality was that I just didn't know how to tell them what was going on.
I got so frustrated after they asked me over and over again that I just yelled at them.
"Something is inside me! Get it out, get it out, get it out!" I lifted my shirt and was ripping at my stomach. Leaving red nail scratches and cuts. My mom and dad ran to either side of me to grab my arms. Mrs. Kennedy had seen me go pretty crazy, but this was the worst I've ever gotten in front of her. My parents however had seen a similar situation before. Not exactly like this, but they didn't skip a beat on trying to help me.
"Sam. Breath, sweety. Just remember everything is in you for a reason. It's keeping you alive. Nothing is going to hurt you." My mom said softly to me. Trying to calm me down with the words my therapist gave her. "Ice cubes, get him ice cubes!" She said to Mrs. Kennedy as I started to hyperventilate.
Mrs. Kennedy grabbed a ziplock bag and started to fill it with ice cubes. My mom went over to her and grabbed an ice cube right out of the bag, opened up my hand, and put the ice cube in it. This worked in the past to distract me, I knew that's what she was doing, and trust me. I wanted it to work too, but this was different. I kept trying to tell myself that it was just a different feeling I hadn't felt before. That it wasn't possible something was physically inside my body. But I couldn't help it.
Everyone in the room could see that this was getting intense. I think they assumed it was just a mental breakdown and that nothing was physically wrong with my body but I didn't care. I just wanted help.
My parents got me into the car with my mom even sitting in the backseat with me. She kept trying to distract me with conversation but my mind was only on that awful feeling in my stomach.
We pulled up to the ER and my mom guided me in while holding both my wrists. It felt like she was walking me on a leash but I didn't fight it. I knew she was just trying to stop me from scratching my stomach.
We walked in and I spoke to the receptionist. All I said was that I had terrible pain in my stomach. I didn't want to sound too crazy. I just needed a doctor to look at whatever was going on.
After giving the receptionist my name and insurance information we went to sit down. I was sitting in between my parents and I could see my mom lean back to try and mouth something to my dad without me seeing. I didn't think much of it. I was way more worried about other things.
My dad then went up to the receptionist. He pointed over to me and she looked a little concerned. I saw her pick up the clipboard that had my information on it and she started writing something else on it. I asked my dad what he did and he just said to not worry and that he wanted to let her know it was urgent.
No more than 10 minutes went by and I felt a terrible moving sensation. I cringed and grabbed my stomach. Immediately followed by not just the feeling of a hand grabbing my insides but also scratching and pinching. I yelled out in pain as the other people in the waiting room looked at me mortified.
A doctor and a couple of nurses came running over to me and helped me up. But I couldn't stand up. I was in too much pain. They put me in a wheelchair and started to head for a room. However, they didn't take me through the normal big ER doors that went to the standard examination rooms, they took me and my parents through a smaller door to the side that had a padlock on it.
We walked through a white hallway that was very quiet. The doctor and nurses showed us to my room and helped me into my bed as I was wiggling and wincing. I had one parent on either side of me. Patiently waited to stop my arms from scratching.
The doctor was trying to ask further questions but he could tell it wasn't going anywhere. I knew that my dad probably told that receptionist about my OCD tendencies and that I needed to go to the psych ward. Not just to the stranded side of the ER.
I couldn't take it anymore and blurted out that something was inside my stomach and it was trying to get out.
The doctor just looked at my parents for a reaction and they gave him a sad nod. It was like they warned him that this could happen. The doctor didn't just think I was crazy, my parents did too. The doctor took a deep breath and came up to me. I knew I was about to hear some kind of dumb speech about how this was just my OCD and everything was going to be okay.
As he came closer to me, I pulled up my shirt and he gasped. Not only was my stomach scratched up like crazy, but we saw movement. It looked like when a pregnant woman can see her baby kicking. But this was so much stronger. It was stretching my skin.
My parents stood up and gasped while the doctor looked frantic and unprepared.
"Shit, shit, shit, shit!" The doctor said as he backed out of the room. "Hang on! We are getting this taken care of, just hang tight."
Just seconds later a nurse came in to give me some painkillers. I started to feel the pain slip away, but something so much worse started to creep in. I heard a voice. Not my own. Not some creepy-sounding creature, but the voice of a normal-sounding man that I'd never heard before. But that wasn't the scary part. The scary part was what he was saying to me.
"Get me out. Get me out. Get me out!"
It started in a normal tone, but slowly became more urgent and rushed. Then demanding.
The voice would coincide with the moment inside me.
It was getting so loud that I was having a hard time hearing the people around me. The doctor came in just a few minutes after I last saw him. He was red and sweaty. Like he'd just run a marathon. He told me they needed to do just a few tests on what was inside me before taking action.
I was trying so hard to pay attention to the words coming out of his mouth but all I could hear was the voice. The voice stopped for just a second and changed what he was saying. Now he started repeating,
"Cut me out, cut me out, cut me out, now!" I now knew this thing didn't just want out but it wanted out now. I begged the doctor to just get it out now but he wouldn't listen. The voice spoke up again.
"This is taking too long. Don't be afraid. Get me out yourself."
I think it could feel me resisting. Without realizing it, I was looking around the room for something. It was like I didn't even have control over my head or eyes anymore. I knew the voice was looking for a knife but I was trying to ignore the feeling. I knew there weren't any knives around. I was in a very safe place.
Just as I had the feeling I was safe, it was immediately taken away. The thought passed through my head that my dad probably had a pocket knife on him. My heart sank. I knew this thing could hear my thoughts. I knew what it would try to do.
The next thing I knew, I was on my feet, leaping for my dad. My body hit his. luckily, he's in pretty good shape for his age and had no problems putting me in my place.
He got on top of me and pinned me to the ground. All while I could barely hear my mom in the background. Yelling at my dad to be careful. My dad knew something was going on and that I just needed to be on the ground until I calmed down.
My body tried to flail but it wasn't successful. The whole time the voice in my head, now yelling and screaming. Not saying any distinguishable words, but just having what felt like a tantrum. What made my dad the most uncomfortable was the kicking feeling coming from my stomach.
After a couple of minutes, the voice calmed down and I felt in charge of my body again. My dad slowly got up and attempted to help me up. At this point with an audience of hospital staff that looked like they were getting ready to take me somewhere for more tests.
Just as I stood up straight, I felt the voice take over and I lost all sense of my own body. I felt like a shell of myself. My dad gave me a soft yet worried smile, and in that instance, I grabbed him and reached into his pocket. My heart sank as I felt his pocket knife. The room started to panic and about 5 people tried to grab it from me. The last thing I remember is plunging the knife into my stomach. I felt a blinding pain and everything went black.
Several hours later I started to wake up. Everything was extremely blurry and fuzzy. I could hear a very faint voice telling me to relax. As the minutes passed by, things started to become a little bit clearer. I looked around and saw I was in a large room with a few other patients. A nurse was going up to all the beds and checking in on them. I tried to sit up a bit to get more comfortable and noticed an incredible sourness in my stomach. I moved my hospital gown out of the way and saw a huge scare. About 6" across. Most of the scare looked very surgical. Like what I'd imagine a c-section surgery would look like. Except where I remembered the knife going in. It looked like a bunch of extra stitches had to be added where it went in. It also looked pretty bruised. I can imagine that a dull 10-year-old knife that was harshly shoved into a body really wouldn't cleanly cut through and leave some damage.
The feeling of shock from looking at my stomach was quickly gone when I realized that meant whatever was in me was now gone. I didn't hear the voice, I didn't feel a hand in my gut anymore, I didn't see that vile kicking anymore. I felt like I could breathe.
I asked the nurse what they found and she looked flush.
"Uh, that's something that you, uh. Your doctor will talk with you once you eat something and can speak clearly." She said as she scurried off looking upset.
Shortly after that, I was wheeled into a recovery room and my parents came to see me.
As they walked in they had a very similar look on their faces as the nurse did. They looked pale and didn't want to look me in the eye. I kept asking them questions about what was going on but they said the doctor needed to discuss it with me and he wanted to make sure I wasn't feeling high from the anesthesia while we had a conversation.
The doctor didn't come and see me for another 10 hours. Which felt strange. And to add to the strangeness, my parents were taking shifts hanging out with me. There was only overlap when they switched and the other parent took over while the other one left the room. I would understand if they weren't both with me for the whole time. I'm not that needy, but they were only both in my room together for about an hour. That was the hour before the doctor came to my room.
Finally, the doctor came in to talk to me. When he walked in, the room was cold and quiet. It was evident he didn't feel the same relief I was feeling.
He seemed awkward. Like he was talking way too long to get over to me. He grabbed a chair and scooted it close to me.
"Listen Sam. I know this last 24 hours has been very challenging. I apologize for not explaining what happened during your surgery sooner, but we all needed time to figure it out, and quite frankly, process what happened. We feel we have enough information to let you in on what is going on." A silence filled the room. It felt like no one was brave enough to break it.
"And?" I said with confusion.
"I think it'll be easier if we just show you."
The doctor along with my parents helped me into a wheelchair and we started to make our way across the hospital to an entirely different section. I couldn't believe all the things running through my head at what we were about to see. It felt like cruel and unusual punishment to leave me in anticipation and not just tell me what I was about to see.
When I went around the corner I couldn't process what I was looking at. I thought they were showing me a large tumor or growth of some kind, but why would a tumor be in a big incubation chamber with tubes connected to IVs and machines coming out of it?
As I got closer, I started to see human fetchers on it. It was mostly just a 6-pound lump of flesh, but I could see a hand sticking out of it. It was small, but what made it creepy was it looked like a fully developed man's hand. Just small. I could see a patch of hair coming out of what I assumed was its head. It had no discernible facial features. Just a few teeth scattered in one section.
As I looked at it with disgust, coming to terms with this thing that was just in my body, I had a realization. I wasn't feeling sick at the thought of something being in my body. Sure, I was grossed out that this particular thing was just in me, but the thought of the bacteria in my body didn't make me want to throw up. I thought about all the blood pumping through my veins and I felt… normal. Not only was the voice and kicking gone. But my OCD was gone too. I didn't have a mental illness. It was just this thing. Trying to find its way out for years.
As I was staring at the creature, the doctor came and put his hand on my shoulder.
"We believe this is your twin brother." I immediately looked up at my parents who looked very disturbed and upset. I let the doctor finish talking. "We believe that you absorbed him in the womb and that he has been living inside you your whole life. This is an extremely rare condition called fetus-in-fetu. It seems he didn't quite have the best opportunity to develop normally. That's why he looks the way he does. Despite his appearance, he has all the organs he needs to survive. Looks like he's missing a lung and his gallbladder. Also a piece of his liver but other than that, it looks like he will live for at least a few years. He won't be able to leave this room due to him needing a feeding tube and a few other things that his body can not do on its own. He needs lots of support just to live. What makes this situation extremely unique is that your twin is still alive despite your body not sustaining him anymore. Even though we have him hooked up to a few IVs and machines, It is unexplainable how he is living while outside of your body."
I was in complete shock. I didn't want to believe it. I asked my mom why she never told me I absorbed my twin in the womb, she said she had no clue. There was never a sign when she was pregnant with me.
He also mentioned that sometimes even in pregnancies women will go their whole pregnancy without even getting a belly. It's called a 'Cryptic pregnancy'. I've always had a bit of a gut but never anything big enough to cause suspicion. I guess in my case I had a fetus-fetu and an experience similar to a cryptic pregnancy. Even though it was in my stomach. At least that was the doctor's best guess. Although, it all sounded like BS to me.
The doctor and my parents kept trying to explain more and more details to me. I don't know why they didn't slow down a little bit for my sake. How could they not tell I wasn't processing any of this?
I noticed something while they were trying to explain things to me. They kept calling it a 'He'.
Now listen. I'm not some kind of asshole that won't respect someone who wants to be called a specific pronoun. I've never been that kind of person. But this is where I draw the line.
Not just that. But this thing had a name. My parents named it and said today was its birthday. While they told me all this information, they didn't look happy about it. It seemed like they were forced to do all this nonsense. And now it was my turn to be convinced. I could tell they were trying to force it.
The doctor told me despite it not having a high probability for a long life that we should still try and give it the love it deserves. Of course, the doctor referred to it as a 'He' but I refused to.
This disgusted me. This thing tried to kill me and ruined my quality of life for so long, and now we are going to treat it like it's some kind of prince? No, absolutely not.
Luckily, it seemed like it would never leave the hospital, but my parents planned on going to visit it daily. Visiting it? Are you kidding me? it has no eyes, no ears, it's probably miserable and has no concept of people even being around it.
I'm refusing to ever see this thing again or acknowledge its existence again.
I could get in trouble for even talking about this. The hospital or anyone involved has signed NDAs to not share any information about this until it officially dies. This is because it's a medical anomaly and the first of its kind. They want to do the proper research on how this all occurred before coming out with a statement. I just have to get this all off my chest. I feel like I'm the crazy one here when I know I'm not. I don't care if I get in trouble.
I am scared that the doctors are trying to force my parents into giving this thing a proper life. I think that's why it took them so long to tell me. I think they scared my parents into keeping it alive and guilting them or even forcing them into being its parent.
I'm all for every life being important and all that stuff, but I have a feeling my parents are terrified of this thing just like I am.
I am convinced they gaslit my parents into believing this thing is my brother. If there wasn't any sign of him while my mom was pregnant with me, could this thing be something else?
This all happened about two years ago. It's still alive and they are still researching it. My parents continue to visit it despite everything. My therapist told me that I'm probably just struggling with jealousy now that I'm not an only child anymore and so much of my parents' attention is on him now, but it's so much bigger than just jealousy.
Since this thing showed up and my OCD is pretty much gone, I've hardly seen my parents. I know I'm not just jealous. There is something more to this. I know it.
Something just feels so off about this whole thing. What is this thing? Where did it come from? And what does it want?