Salaam all!
I've attempted to compile the "do's and don'ts" of the Qur'an, the following list is all OC. I very likely have made some mistakes/errors in judgment whilst compiling - or missed things out, so please do comment and point things out, i'll edit the post.
Enjoy :)

﷽

Do this:

Serve God (1:5)
Ask God for help (1:5)
Believe in Unseen (2:3)
Uphold the salāt (2:3)
Believe in the Qur’an and what preceded it (2:4)
Be certain of the Hereafter (2:4)
If in doubt, bring a Surah like it (2:23)
If there comes to you guidance from Him, follow it (2:38)
Render the zakāt (2:43)
Be in ruku’ (2:43)
Use reason (2:44)
Seek help in patience and salāt (2:45)
Consider your meeting with the Lord (2:46)
Be in prudent fear of the judgment day (2:48)
Trust in God, the last day, and do good (2:62)
Be good to parents (2:83)
Be good to kin, fatherless or the poor (2:83)
Be in prudent fear (2:103)
Say “look at us” (2:104)
Pardon and forbear (2:109)
Send good ahead (2:110)
Bring proof of claims (2:111)
Submit to God (2:112)
Do Good (2:82)
Trust in God and the last day (2:126)
Hold to the creed of Abraham (2:135)
Say that you trust in Him, what He has sent down (2:136)
Make no distinction between the prophets (2:136)
Immerse in Him (2:138)
Respond to those who say that Abraham (and descendants) were Christians/Jews with “know you better, or does God?” (2:140)
Direct your face to the inviolable place of worship wherever you are (2:144)
Remember Him (2:152)
Be grateful to Him (2:152)
Be patient (2:153)
Bear glad tidings to the patient (2:155)
Repent / Ask forgiveness (2:160)
Love Him (2:165)
Eat what is halāl or tayyeb (2:168)
Trust in Him, the last day, the angels, the Writ, the prophets (2:177)
Give wealth to relatives, the fatherless, the needy, and the wayfarer (2:177)
Manumit slaves (2:177)
Keep a covenant when you make it (2:177)
Qisās ‘prescribed’ (2:178)
Pay blood-money if no Qisās (2:178)
Will ‘prescribed’ (2:180)
Make right when you notice testator partiality (2:182)
Fasting in general ‘prescribed’ (2:183)
If sick or on journey, carry fasting forward (2:184)
Pay fidya if fast missed (2:184)
Fast in Ramadān (2:185)
Respond to Him (2:186)
Trust Him (2:186)
Lie with women after fasting (2:187)
Seek what he prescribed (2:187)
Eat and drink until the white thead is clear from the dark, then fast till sunset (2:187)
Approach houses by doors (2:189)
Fight those who fight you (2:190)
Kill those who fight you (2:191)
Turn out those who turned you out (2:191)
Don’t fight in the inviolable masjid until fought (2:191)
Fight until they desist, or until the end of fitnah (2:193)
Qisās in the sacred months (2:194)
Spend in His cause (2:195)
Do the hajj (2:196)
Do the offering of animals if not possible (2:196)
If sick, or hindrance of the head: redemption by fasting, charity, or penance (2:196)
If cannot attend, fast three days during it, the seven days upon return, save if family is permanently resident on site (2:196)
Take provision (2:197)
Remember Him at al-mash’ar al-harām (2:198)
Pour forth from where men have poured forth (2:199)
Remember Him like the remembrance of your father or stronger, after rites finished (2:200)
Ask Him to give you good in the World and Hereafter, and to protect you from the punishment (2:201)
Sell yourself for Him (2:207)
Enter into submission completely (2:208)
Fighting ‘prescribed’ (2:216)
Trust (2:218)
Emigrate (2:218)
Strive in His cause (2:218)
Hope for his mercy (2:218)
Spend the surplus (2:219)
Approach purified women in the correct manner (2:222)
Purify yourself (2:222)
Bear glad tidings to the mu’minūn (2:223)
Wait four months after foreswearing women (2:226)
Divorced women wait themselves for three menstrural courses (2:228)
When divorcing, retain them or release them (2:231)
Remember His favour (2:231)
Children are suckled for two ‘haūl’ (2:233)
Father provides provision and clothing (2:233)
Widows must wait for 4 months and ten days (2:234)
When divorcing her and you haven’t touched her nor appointed an obligation for her, make her a gift (2:236)
If they have an obligation appointed, then give half, unless forgoed (2:237)
Don’t forget the bounty between you two (2:237)
Preserve the salawāt (2:238)
Stand up for God humbly obedient (2:238)
If in fear, waking or riding (2:239)
Widows are to recieve one years maintenance with no expulsion (2:240)
Divorced women recieve provision (2:241)
Fight in His cause (2:244)
Spend of what He provided (2:254)
Deny tāghūt (2:257)
Spend in His cause (2:261)
Give up usury (2:278)
Defer money return until ease upon borrower (2:280)
[Follow debt contract instructions] (2:282)
If on journey and no writer, then a pledge in hand (2:283)
Make no distinction between messengers (2:285)
Obey Him (2:285)
Be truthful (3:17)
Seek forgiveness at dawn (3:17)
Be obedient (3:17)
Bear witness that there is no God save He (3:18)
Ask those given the writ and the unschooled if they’ve submitted (3:20)
Obey Him and the Messenger (3:32)
If they turn away, bear witness that you are submitting (3:64)
Fulfil your covenant (3:76)
Make no distinction between the prophets (3:84)
Spend of what you love (3:92)
Make pilgrimage to the house (3:97)
Hold fast to Him (3:101)
Hold fast to the rope of God together (3:103)
Have a community that invites to God, enjoins what is fitting, and forbids perversity (3:104)
Compete in good deeds (3:114)
Place trust in Him (3:122)
Be in prudent fear of the fire (3:131)
Vie with each other for forgiveness (3:133)
Control wrath (3:134)
Travel in the Earth to see the final outcome of the deniers (3:137)
Seek His approval (3:162)
Respond to God after injury befalls (3:172)
Fear Him (3:175)
Remember Allah standing, sitting, on the sides; reflect on the creation (3:191)
Be steady (3:200)
Give the fatherless their property (4:2)
If there is an injustice of the fatherless, then perform polygamy (4:3)
Give women their dowries (4:4)
If they remit anything voluntarily, then consume it with satisfaction and pleasure (4:4)
Feed and clothe the incompetent (4:5)
Test the fatherless when they reach marriage, if they are sound then give their property with witnesses (4:6)
Men/Women have a designated share of what parents/relatives leave (4:7)
If the fatherless and needy are at the site of division, then give part of what is left (4:8)
[Inheritance laws] (4:12-13)
[*] (4:15-16)
If you can’t marry free women, then from MMA of believing maids, marry them with the leave of their people (4:25)
MMA are due half the punishment of free women if they commit fāhisha (4:25)
Avoid enormities of whats forbidden (4:31)
For men and women is a share of what they earned (4:32)
Give shares to those whom your oaths have bound (4:33)
Men have responsibility over women (4:34)
Women are to be humbly obedient and keeping unseen what God keeps (4:34)
If you fear contempt from your women, then admonish them, and leave in beds apart, and [*] them – save that they obey you (4:34)
If a breach is feared, then an arbitrator from both sides are to be raised (4:35)
Good conduct towards relatives, the fatherless, the needy, the neighbour, the companion, the wayfarers, and MMA (4:36)
Spend of what Allah provides (4:39)
If you are ill, on a journey, have defecated, or had intercourse, and find not water, then perform tayammum (4:43)
Deliver trusts to owners and judge with justice (4:58)
Obey those in authority amongst you (4:59)
If you differ in a matter, refer to God and the Messenger (4:59)
Turn away from munāfiqūn, and admonish them (4:63)
Ask the messenger to ask forgiveness for you (4:64)
Take precaution and advance in groups/together (4:71)
Fight satan’s allies (4:76)
Consider the Qur’an with care (4:82)
Interceding in a good cause (4:85)
When you are greeted, return it, or greet with something greater (4:86)
Take not that munāfiqūn as allies until they emigrate in His cause, if they turn back then kill them (4:89)
If they withdraw and offer peace, you have no path against them (4:90)
Accidental murder of a mu’min: Manumit a mu’min slave and give blood-momey to family – save forgiveness (4:92)
Fast two months consecutively if not possible (4:92)
Verify/investigate when you go forth in His cause (4:94)
When you are amongst them then perform the salāt for them[follow procedure mentioned] (4:102)
When that salāt is concluded, remember Him standing, sitting, on the sides, and when at ease (4:103)
The salāt is required to be performed at set times for the mu’minūn (4:103)
Submit your face to Him, do good, follow the creed of Abraham (4:125)
Stand up for equity for the fatherless (4:127)
Be witnesses to God (4:135)
Bear tidings to the munāfiqūn (4:138)
Desist from tritheism (4:171)
[Kalalah inheritance] (4:176)
Fulfil contracts (5:1)
Assist one another to virtue (5:2)
Eat from what is caught by what you have trained of animals of prey as trainers (5:4)
When you rise for the prayer, wash the face, the hands, the arm, and the feet to the ankles (5:6)
If you are unclean, then purify yourself (5:6)
Lend to God a goodly loan (5:12)
Bury after death? (5:31)
If one wages war against God and His messenger, and work corruption in the land: Then kill them, or crucify [or put to death by stake] them, ot their hands and feet be cut off, or they be banished (5:33)
Seek to Him the means of approach (5:35)
[Punishment for stealing] (5:38)
Let ahl al-injīl judge by what God sent (5:47)
Take Him, His messenger, and those who trusted as allies (5:56)
Be moderate (5:66)
Prevent one another from performing perversity (5:79)
Eat of what God has provided from what is lawful and good (5:88)
[Oath expiation] (5:89)
Avoid khamr, games of change, altars, and divining arrows (5:90)
Bear responsibility for yourself (5:105)
[Testimony after death] (5:106)
Listen (5:108)
Travel in the Earth to see the final outcomes of the deniers (6:11)
Use reason (6:32)
Call to Him (6:41)
Humble yourself (6:43)
Turn in repentance after committing evil by ignorance (6:54)
Measure God with the measure due (6:91)
Preserve your salāt (6:92)
Leave those who fabricate, and what they fabricate (6:112)
Eat over which His name has been remembered (6:118)
Leave the outwardness and the inwardness of sin (6:120)
Work according to your power (6:135)
Render due on day of harvest (6:141)
Inform with knowledge when making claim (6:143)
Follow the straight path (6:153)
Dedicate your salāt, penance, your living, and your dying to Him (6:162)
Uphold countenances at every place of submission (7:29)
Call to Him sincere in doctrine (7:29)
Take your adornment at every place of submission (7:31)
Acknowledge Messengers when they come (7:35)
Call to Him humbly and in secret (7:55)
Be patient for the judgment (7:87)
Repent and believe after evil deeds (7:153)
Follow the unschooled prophet (7:157)
Forbid evil (7:165)
Use your [metaphoric] senses (7:179)
Call to Him by his names (7:180)
Call your partners and see if they respond (7:194)
Seek refuge in Him from the satan, if provoked (7:200)
Heed to the Qur’an and listen attentively (7:204)
Reserve spoils for God and His messenger (8:1)
Make right in what is between you (8:1)
Respond to Him and His messenger when He calls you to what gives you life (8:24)
Fight until no fitnah (8:39)
If they turn away know that He’s your protector (8:40)
What you obtain of spoils, a fifth belongs to God, His messenger, relatives, fatherless, the poor, and wayfarer (8:41)
If you fear treachery, cast them back (8:58)
Prepare forces and calvary to terrify them (8:60)
If they incline to peace, then incline to it (8:61)
Consume what you took of spoils (8:69)
Strive with four property and lives (8:72)
Help those who seek help within the deen (8:72)
Bear tidings to those in kufr of a painful punishment (9:3)
Kill, seize, ambush, and restrain the mushrikīn once the inviolable months have passed (9:5)
Release them if they repent, and perform the prayer, and render the zakāt (9:5)
If a mushrik seeks protection, grant it,.until he hears His words; then escort to his secure place (9:6)
Fight those who make not unlawful what is unlawful (9:29)
Fight until the jizya is payed (9:29)
Give the Rabbis and Monks tidings of a painful punishment (9:34)
Please Him (9:62)
Let them be (9:95)
Act (9:105)
Rejoice in the contracted bargain with Him (9:111)
Keep His limits (9:112)
Be with the truthful (9:119)
Fight the kufār close to you (9:123)
Be harsh with them (9:123)
Serve Him (10:3)
If they challenge the Qur’an, ask them to bring a Surah like it (10:38)
Declare yourself quit of them (10:41)
Consider that the punishment can come at any time (10:50)
Take a straight path (10:89)
Look at what is in the heavens and the Earth (10:101)
Humble yourself unto Him (11:23)
Be clement, compassionate, penitent (11:75)
Be right-minded (11:78)
Right ordering (11:88)
Watch (11:93)
Fear the punishment of the hereafter (11:103)
Uphold the prayer at both ends of the day, and at the night’s approach (11:114)
Forbid corruption (11:116)
Use reason (12:2)
Pick imprisonment over sexual immorality (12:33)
Invite to Him with insight (12:108)
Respond to Him (13:18)
Join what’s commanded to be joined (13:21)
Avert evil with good (13:22)
Find rest in remembrance (13:28)
Be patient wherein you are hindered (14:12)
Fear His station (14:14)
Speak a good word (14:24)
Leave them to enjoy themselves (15:3)
Give glory (15:98)
Warn that there is no God save Him (16:2)
Be virtuous (16:32)
Ask the people of the remembrance if you know not (16:43)
When you recite the Qur’an, seek refuge from the accursed satan (16:98)
Falsely declare things to be lawful/unlawful (16:116)
Repent, despite committing evil out of ignorance (16:119)
Invite with wisdom, comely admonition, and dispute with what is best (16:125)
Retaliate with the like of what wherewith you are harmed, save that you forgive (16:126)
Strive for the hereafter (17:19)
Good conduct to parents (17:23)
Speak to them a noble word (17:23)
Be gentle with them and make supplication for them (17:24)
Speak a gentle word to those who need charity, but you can’t provide (17:28)
Weigh with the straight balance (17:35)
Recite the Qur’an (17:45)
Say that which is best (17:53)
Uphold the prayer at the merging of the sun until the dark of the night (17:78)
Recite at dawn (17:78)
Keep a vigil with some of the night (17:79)
Ask God to cause you to enter a true entrance and to leave at a true exit (17;80)
Declare that truth has come, and vanity is to pass (17:81)
Declare Him a sufficient witness (17:96)
Perform salāt at a medium volume (17:110)
Whoso wills, let them believe – and vice versa (18:29)
Be steadfast in His ‘ibādah (19:65)
Eat and attend to your cattle (20:54)
Give glory before rising of the sun, before it’s setting, some of the night, and at two ends of the day (20:130)
Extend your eyes towards what has been granted to others (20:131)
Call in hope and fear (21:90)
Be a righteous servant (21:105)
Feed the unfortunate poor (22:28)
Make an end of unkemptness (22:29)
Fulfil vows (22:29)
Walk around that ancient house (22:29)
Honour the sacred things (22:30)
Avoid false speech and abomination of idols (22:30)
Incline to Him (22:31)
Honour the tokens of God (22:32)
Sacrifice at ancient house (22:33)
Remember His name over camels when they are in lines (22:36)
When their flanks collapse, eat thereof and feed the reticent poor and the beggar (22:36)
Be in ruku’, and sujood (22:77)
Be a mu’min (23:1)
Be humble in salāt (23:2)
Preserve chastity (23:5)
Preserve your salawāt (23:9)
Leave them in their flood of ignorance, for a time (23:54)
Have a heavy balance (23:102)
Lash the unchaste woman and the unchaste man each with 100 lashes, have no pity on them, and let it be witnessed by mu’minūn (24:2)
Lash those who accuse chaste women with insufficient witnesses with 80 lashes, and never accept them as a witness (24:4)
If you, as a visitor, are asked to leave, then leave (24:28)
If you are a man, lower your gaze (24:30)
As a woman, you should also lower the gaze, you must additionally not reveal adornment except what I’d apparent, and you should cover the bosom [except to listed people] (24:31)
Give in marriage the unmarried (24:32)
Abstain if you find not marriage (24:33)
Emancipate those who seek it, if there is good in them, and give them of your wealth (24:33)
Declare allegiance (24:51)
If you are part of one’s right hand possessions, or one who has not reached puberty yet, then – ask permission before entering at the three times of their nakedness (24:58)
Greet with a greeting from God (24:61)
Rest at night (25:47)
Walk modestly (25:63)
Speak peace when addressed by ignorants (25:63)
Spend the night standing and in sujūd (25:64)
Seek a middle ground when spending, if you must (25:63)
Pass by vain speech with dignity (25:72)
Request to Him that your wives and progeny be made a comfort, and make you a good model (25:74)
Obey the command of the committers of excess (26:151)
Warn relatives (26:214)
Help people out (28:25)
Seek provision with Him (29:17)
Discover how He originated creation (29:20)
Reflect within yourself (30:8)
Provide to MMA (30:28)
Set yourself towards the right natural deen (30:30)
Desire His face (30:38)
Prepare for yourself (30:44)
Grateful to parents (31:14)
Be modest in walk (31:19)
Lower the voice (31:19)
Fall in sujūd when reminded of proofs (32:15)
Forsake your bed (32:16)
Call the adopted children by their fathers (33:5)
Take the messenger as a model
Stay within houses [prophet wives] (33:33)
Give glory morning and evening (33:42)
Give those whom you divorce before consummation provision (33:49)
[Historic conduct regarding prophet’s house] (33:53)
Greet the prophet with a valuation (33:56)
Women draw down over themselves some garments, for recognition (33:59)
Stand up for God in twos and alone, then reflect (34:46)
Let the workers work (37:61)
Remember David, the repentant (38:17)
Be humbly obedient in the watches of the night (39:9)
Hope for His mercy (39:9)
Expand your breast to submission (39:22)
Experience a positive reaction to the Qur’an (39:23)
Come with the truth and live in accordance to it (39:33)
Follow the best of what is sent down (39:55)
Invite to your Lord (41:33)
Grow not weary in giving glory (41:38)
Take the Qur’an as a healing (41:44)
Defer disputes to His judgement (42:10)
Uphold the Deen (42:13)
Be in dread of the hour (42:18)
Love your kin (42:23)
Avoid enormities of sin and immorality (42:37)
Conduct affairs by mutual consultation (42:38)
Help yourself when insolence visits (42:39)
Remember His favour once settled on cattle (43:13)
Watch for the day of the obvious smoke (44:10)
Watch (44:59)
Forgive those who look not for His days (45:14)
Follow the sharī’a (45:18)
Keep to the path (46:13)
[Say what is mentioned upon reaching fourty] (46:15)
Believe in what was sent down upon Muhammad (47:2)
Smite the necks of those in kufr when in battle (47:4)
Grace or ransom war captives (47:4)
Help Him (47:7)
Be obedient (47:21)
Consider the Qur’an with care (47:24)
Sue for peace when you have the upper hand (47:35)
Honour the messenger (48:9)
Be hard against those in kufr (48:29)
Lower voice in presence of messenger (49:3)
Verify the report of a perfidious one (49:6)
Make right between groups of mu’minūn (49:9)
Fight the oppressive group (49:9)
Make right between brothers (49:10)
Preserve modesty and duties (50:32)
Give ear with a conscious mind (50:37)
Glorify at the ends of the sujūd (50:40)
Listen for the day that the Caller will call from near (50:41)
Sleep little of the night (51:17)
Ask forgiveness before break of day (51:18)
Give glory when arising (52:48)
Give glory at the retreat of the stars (52:49)
Remember the ayah of the ark (54:15)
Remember the Qur’an, which is easy for remembrance (54:17)
Remember destruction of sects (54:51)
Fear His standing (55:46)
Aim to be of the sābiqūn (56:10)
Touch the Qur’an only when purified (56:79)
Aim to be of the muqarrabūn (56:88)
Fight before victories (57:10)
Lend to Him a goodly loan (57:11)
Compete for forgiveness (57:21)
Observe good/neutral innovations with due observation (57:27)
If you go back on what you have said, then free a slave before touching [other circumstances in next verse] (58:3)
When engaging in private conversation, don’t allow it to be of a sinful kind (58:9)
Make room in the assemblies when instructed; arise when instructed (58:11)
[Charity before conversation with messenger historically] (58:12)
What the messenger gives you, take it [and opposite] (59:7)
Protect from avarice of the nafs (59:9)
Look to what you have sent ahead for the morrow (59:18)
Take Abraham and his companions as good models [see full verse] (60:4)
Examine the emigrated women, to determine their faith; if they are mu’mināt, send them not back (60:10)
Return the mahr to those whom have had wives flee to kuffār (60:11)
Fight in compacted ranks (61:4)
When the call for the Friday salāt is heard, hasten to it (62:9)
Disperse upon completion, seek His bounty (62:10)
Spend before death arrives (63:10)
Beware of enemies amongst wives and children (64:14)
Listen to the Qur’an (64:16)
Count waiting period after divorce (65:1)
Turn not divorcees out of house, unless they commit immorality (65:1)
Seperation to be witnessed by two just men (65:2)
If no menstruation, count three months (65:4)
If pregnant, wait until end (65:4)
Lodge then where you are, according to means, don’t press them (65:6)
Spend if they have a child, until delivered (65:6)
If they suckle, give them their reward; consult honourably (65:6)
If difficulties between you, let another suckle (65:6)
Let him with abundance spend out of it (65:7)
Fear your Lord while unseen (67:12)
Walk in the tracts (67:15)
Be patient with comely patience (70:5)
Be constant in your salāt (70:23)
Confirm.the day of judgment (70:26)
Be in dread of the punishment (70:27)
Be upright in your witness (70:33)
Preserve you salāt (70:34)
Follow the broad ways of the Earth (71:20)
Recite the Qur’an distinctly (73:4)
Devote yourself completely to Him (73:8)
Recite what is made easy of the Qur’an (73:20)
Magnify Him (74:3)
Purify your garments (74:4)
Foresake defilement (74:5)
Give food out of love of Him to the prisoner (76:8)
Seek a way to paradise (76:18)
Remember His name morning and evening (76:25)
If you have a plan then plan against Him [challenge] (77:39)
Be lowly (77:48)
Take the day as a living (78:11)
Take your Lord as a journey’s end (78:39)
Fear His station (79:40)
Let aspire those who aspire (83:26)
Let look at what you are created from (86:5)
Take heed (87:10)
Purify yourself (87:14)
Remember His name (87:15)
Look at the creation of the camel, sky, mountain, Earth (88:20)
Free a slave (90:13)
Feed in a day of starvation a fatherless relation, or a needy one in misery (90:16)
Counsel one another to compassion (90:17)
Increase the nafs in purity (91:9)
Confirm the best (92:6)
Recount His favour (93:11)
When unoccupied, make ready (94:7)
Turn your desire to Him (94:8)
Enjoin prudent fear (96:12)
Draw near (96:19)
Be pleased with Him (98:8)
Have a heavy balance (101:6)
Counsel each other to truth (103:3)
Sacrifice (108:2)
Declare that you serve not what those in kufr serve (109:2)
Declare the oneness.of Him (112:1)
Seek refuge in Him from the evil of what He created, the darkness, the blowers on knots, and the envier (113:5)
Seek refuge from the evil of the retreating whisperer (114:4)

Don’t do this:

Buy error at the price of guidance (2:16)
Make equals with God (2:22)
Deny before bringing a surah like it (2:24)
Break the agreement (2:27)
Work corruption in the land (2:27)
Deny the āyāt (2:39)
Conceal truth knowingly (2:42)
Enjoin virtue and forget yourselves (2:44)
Ask to see/interact with Him openly (2:55)
Change the saying (2:59)
Complain (2:61)
Kill prophets (2:61)
Exceed bounds / Transgress (2:61)
Transgress the Sabbath (2:65)
Ask unnecessary/excessive questions (2:71)
Assume (2:78)
Fabricate a kitāb, claiming it’s from God (2:79)
Ascribe what you know not (2:80)
Allow offenses to encompass you (2:81)
Kill amongst you and turn out of homes (2:84)
Assist in sin (2:85)
Believe in part of the kitāb and reject the rest (2:85)
Buy this life over the hereafter (2:86)
Wax proud (2:87)
Claim that your heart is covered (2:88)
Deny what God has sent (2:90)
Ignore/Deny clear signs (2:92)
Commit shirk (2:96)
Be an enemy to Him, angels, messenger, or Gabriel and Michael (2:98)
Practice sihr (2:102)
Say “attend to us” (2:104)
Ask Muhammad the same way that Moses was asked (2:108)
Exchange security for kufr (2:108)
Attempt to bring people into kufr (2:109)
Claim who enters paradise (2:111)
Hinder places places of worship (2:114)
Say that He has a son (2:116)
Follow vain desires (2:120)
Be in kufr (2:126)
Be averse to the creed of Abraham (2:130)
Die save you are submitting (2:132)
Conceal witness from Him (2:140)
Say that those matyred are dead (2:154)
Follow the footsteps of shaytān (2:168)
Commit evil (2:169)
Commit the immorality (2:169)
Follow/Trust forefathers blindly (2:170)
Eat carrion, blood, or flesh of al-khinzīr (2:173)
Eat what is dedicated to other than Him (2:173)
Buy punishment at the price of forgiveness (2:175)
Differ concerning the kitāb (2:176)
Transgress after qisās settlement (2:178)
Change the will (2:181)
Lie with women when remaining in masājid (2:187)
Consume wealth in vanity (2:188)
Bribery (2:188)
Shave head until animal is at slaughter place (2:196)
Destroy yourself (2:195)
Have sex, do perfidity, or quarrel during hajj (2:197)
Ask God to give to you in the World (2:200)
Complete the hajj in less than two days (2:203)
Destroy tilth and progeny (2:205)
Have pride in sin (2:206)
Exchange favour of God for denial (2:211)
Fight in the sacred months (2:217)
Expel those of the inviolable masjid (2:217)
Consume khamr or engage in games of chance (2:219)
Marry mushrikīn until they are safe from calling to hell (2:221)
Approach women during menstruation (2:222)
Make God a cover for oaths (2:224)
Conceal pregnancy (2:228)
Take what you have given women unless they cannot uphold the limits (2:229)
Transgress the limits of God (2:229)
Remarriage not lawful till she marries someone else (2:230)
Retain women through harm (2:231)
Take ayāt in mockery (2:231)
Constrain not those whom you divorce from marrying spouses (2:232)
Allow a mothefather to be harmed by child (2:233)
Take an oath with those whom you intimated of women regarding proposal, save you speak a fitting word (2:235)
Decide upon knot of marriage until writ reaches it’s term (2:235)
Force others into the doctrine (2:256)
Hinder (2:262)
Commit immortality (2:268)
Consume usury (2:275)
Commit sin (2:276)
Conceal the witness (2:283)
Seek the interpretation of what is ambiguous, seeking fitnah (3:7)
Kill those who enjoin equity (3:21)
Say that the fire will touch for days numbered (3:24)
Take kāfirūn as allies (3:28)
Engage in scheming (3:54)
Dispute regarding what you have no knowledge in (3:66)
Clothe truth in vanity (3:71)
Seek outside the doctrine of God (3:83)
Deny after faith (3:86)
Obey a faction of those given the writ (3:100)
Be divided (3:103)
Take intimatez other than your own (3:118)
Consume usury (3:130)
Faint/Grieve (3:139)
Assume entry to jannah (3:142)
Weaken/Yield (3:146)
Be like those in kufr, who believe that different circumstances would have saved their brothers (3:156)
Coercion (3:161)
Incur His wrath (3:162)
Say with your mouths what isn’t in your heart (3:167)
Think that those killed in his cause are dead (3:169)
Fear not Satan’s allies (3:175)
Buy denial at the price of faith (3:177)
Be miserly with what God gives of His bounty (3:180)
Say that God is poor (3:181)
Having pride and pretending (3:188)
Exchange your bad things for their [fatherless] good things (4:2)
Polygamy if you fear that the fatherless will not be justly treated (4:3)
Give the incompetent your wealth (4:5)
Consume the property of the fatherless wastefully/hastily (4:6)
Try repent last minute (4:18)
Inheriting from/Constraining wiomen against their will – save that they commit fāhisha (4:19)
Take from the fortune that you gave your first wife for your new wife (4:20)
Marrying what your fathers married (4:22)
Marrying your mothers, daughters, sisters, p/m aunts, nieces, milk-mothers, milk-sisters, mothers-in-law, step-daughters under protection, daughters-in-law, being in wedlock with two biological sisters simultaneously (4:23)
Marrying married women – save MMA (4:24)
Take secret friends (4:25)
Kill those amongst you (4:29)
Consume wealth in vanity (4:29)
Wish for that by which Allah has made some of you exceed others (4:32)
Being a conceited boaster (4:36)
Being miserly and enjoining miserliness (4:37)
Spend wealth for recognition (4:38)
Oppose the messenger (4:42)
Approaching the salāt when intoxicated or unclean – save passing by upon the path – until you wash (4:43)
Twist tongue and slander the Deen (4:46)
Beliefs in fictions and tāghūt (4:51)
Envy the bounty of others (4:54)
Referring legislation to tāghūt (4:60)
Staying behind from fighting (4:72)
Try hiding away (4:78)
Conspiring (4:81)
Leaking information regarding public safety (4:83)
Interceding in an evil cause (4:85)
Killing a mu’min on purpose (4:92)
If one greets with peace, don’t declare them a non-mu’min (4:94)
Being sedentary (4:95)
Making excuses about being oppressed, to justify wronging their souls (4:97)
Faint in seeking the people (4:104)
Advocating for the treacherous (4:105)
Argue on behalf of those who decieve themselves (4:107)
Commit an offense upon an innocent (4:122)
Make a breach with the messenger after the guidance is clear (4:115)
Following desires, changing the creation (4:119)
Incline towards only one wife, leaving the other hanging (4:129)
Distort/Evade (4:135)
Wavering (4:137)
Sit with those who discourse vainly concerning the proofs of God until they move to another subject (4:140)
Seel to decieve God (4:142)
Performing the salāt to be seen (4:142)
Public mention of evil, save when wronged (4:148)
‘Choosing’ messengers (4:150)
Ask to see God (4:153)
Be tritheistic (4:171)
Hunt when forbidden (5:1)
Violate the tokens of God, or the inviolable month, or the offering, or the necklaces, or the visitors (5:2)
Commit injustice to those who turned you out of the inviolable place of worship (5:2)
Consume the strangled, the beaten, the fallen, the gored, that eaten by the beast of prey – save what is slaughtered, that sacrificed upon the alter (5:3)
Seek apportionment by divining arrows (5:3)
Deny the faith (5:5)
Claim that God is the Messiah, son of Mary (5:17)
Claim that you are His sons and beloved (5:18)
Kill another soul (5:30)
Fear mankind (5:44)
Take the Jews and Christians as allies (5:51)
Take those who take the dīn in mockery as allies (5:57)
Take the call to the salāt in mockery (5:58)
Claim that His hand is fettered (5:64)
Forbid the good things made lawful (5:87)
Kill game when forbidden (5:95)
[Expiation for killing] (5:95)
Ask about things that would distress you if made clear (5:101)
Follow forefathers (5:104)
Declare clear signs to be sorcery (5:110)
Take Jesus and Mary as gods (5:116)
Ask for angels (6:8)
Mock messengers (6:10)
Be among the mushrikīn (6:14)
Oppose Him (6:15)
Be a wrongdoer (6:21)
Declare the Qur’an to be be legend (6:25)
Claim that there is only one life (6:29)
Denial of the meeting (6:31)
Of the ignorant (6:35)
Call to other than Him (6:40)
Take an intercessor besides Him (6:51)
Drive away those seeking His face (6:52)
Sit with those who discourse vainly concerning His proofs (6:68)
Take your deen as play and diversion 6:70)
Clothe the faith with injustice (6:82)
Deny the Writ, judgment, and prophethood (6:89)
Claim revelation (6:93)
Be deluded (6:95)
Make the jinn partners of God (6:100)
Revile those whom are called besides Him (6:108)
Seek other than Him.as a judge (6:114)
Be of the doubtful (6:114)
Obey most on Earth (6:116)
Lead astray by vain desires without knowledge (6:119)
Eat not that over which His name has not been remembered (6:121)
Assigning a share of His creation to partners (6:136)
Declaring things to be taboo (6:138)
Kill your children (6:140)
Make unlawful what He has provided you (6:140)
Commit excess (6:141)
Approach open or concealed immorality (6:151)
Follow other ways (6:153)
Wait for angels (6:158)
Divide the deen into sects (6:159)
Allow the satan to subject you to fitnah (7:27)
Commit excess when eating and drinking (7:31)
Make unlawful the adornment of God (7:32)
Sectarian zealotry (7:33)
Wax proud at proofs (7:36)
Be a mujrim (7:40)
Seek to make His path crooked (7:45)
Name names with no authority (7:71)
Scorn His command (7:77)
Approach men with lust, rather than women (7:80)
Lie in wait on the road, threatening and turning away from The Path (7:86)
Being blind to lessons (7:95)
Bribe using promise of power (7:114)
Bewitch people (7:116)
Be stubborn (7:132)
Be heedless of proofs (7:136)
Follow that path of the workers of corruption (7:142)
Take the wrong path, ignore the path of sound judgment (7:146)
Be impatient over His command (7:150)
Be a forger (7:152)
Scorn what you’ve been forbidden.(7:166)
Deviate concerning His names (7:180)
Public speech (7:205)
Dispute the truth after it’s clear (8:6)
Retreat (8:15)
Turn away when you are near (8:20)
Pretend to hear (8:21)
Betray (8:27)
Turn away from the inviolable place of submission (8:34)
Make a mockery of the salāt (8:35)
Spend wealth on turning away from path of God (8:36)
Dispute together (8:46)
Be boastful (8:47)
Let those in kufr believe that they got away (8:59)
Bear tidings of a painful punishment to the mushrikīn with whom a covenant has been made, who haven’t been deficient towards you in anything, nor assisted anyone against you (9:4)
Allow your beloved things to be dearer to you than Him and His messenger (9:24)
Allow the mushrikīn to approach the inviolable place of submission (9:28)
Take Rabbis and Monks as lords (9:31)
Wrong yourselves concerning the count of months (9:36)
Engage in their postponement (9:37)
Spend unwillingly (9:54)
Come to the prayer as an idler (9:54)
Allow their wealth and children to impress you (9:55)
Complain regarding charity distribution (9:58)
Hinder the prophet (9:61)
Enjoin perversity and forbid what is fitting (9:67)
Withhold His bounty and turn away (9:76)
Deride the believers who willingly give charity (9:79)
Remain behind due to weather (9:81)
Perform the funeral prayer for any one of them (9:84)
Staying behind due to affluence (9:86)
Make excuses (9:94)
Take what you spend as a loss, await reversals (9:98)
Take a place of submission in harm and denial (9:107)
Ask forgiveness for the mushrikīn (9:113)
Go forth all at once (9:122)
Look not for the meeting (10:7)
Neglect after being helped (10:12)
Desire for the Qur’an to be changed (10:15)
Rebel in the Earth after being delivered (10:23)
Deny before interpretation arrives to you (10:39)
Allow their speech to grieve you (10:65)
Repent too late (10:91)
Hide away (11:5)
Wish that a treasure or an angel had been sent upon him.(11:12)
Make the path crooked (11:19)
Dismiss on basis of mortality and lack of bounty (11:27)
Claim that your deity caused messenger to be touched with evil (11:54)
Follow that command of tyrants (11:59)
Heed due to their disappointment (11:62)
Decrease the measure and the balance (11:84)
Respevt others for power more than you do Him (11:92)
Rely upon those who do wrong (11:113)
Reveal dreams that could cause enmity (12:5)
Falsify evidence (12:18)
Sexual assault (12:23)
Despair of the comfort of God (12:87)
Deny physical resurrection (13:5)
Seek to hasten the evil instead of the good (13:6)
Sever what’s commanded to be joined (13:25)
Become bored when being presented with ayāt (14:9)
Threaten to expell warners (14:13)
Respond to Satan (14:22)
Speak a bad word (14:26)
Ignore similitudes (14:45)
Be of those who despair (15:55)
Refuse to provide rights and hospitality (15:70)
Build bunkers to feel secure from Him (15:82)
Make the Qur’an into parts (15:91)
Seek to hasten the command (16:1)
Be an open disputant (16:4)
Offer submission too late (16:28)
Appoint daughters for Him (16:57)
Refuse to give provision to those that their right hands posses (16:71)
Make conceptual comparisons for God (16:74)
Be a burden (16:76)
Take oaths as deception (16:92)
Take another disposer of affairs (17:2)
Being hasty (17:11)
Be perfidious (17:16)
Say “fie” to / Repell old parents (17:23)
Squander wastefully (17:26)
Be extreme on both ends of charity (17:29)
Kill your children for fear of poverty (17:31)
Approach zina (17:32)
Commit excess in lawful killing (17:33)
Walk exultantly (17:37)
Be neither loud nor quiet in salāt (17:110)
Say that you will do something later without declaring that it’s dependant upon God’s will (18:23)
Show-off (18:34)
Declare something to be eternal (18:35)
Be contentious (18:54)
Try refuting the truth (18:56)
Do shirk in the ‘ibadah of Him (18:110)
Follow lusts instead of the salāt (19:59)
Deny, then claim that you will recieve wealth and children (19:77)
Neglect the rememberance (20:42)
Carry injustice (20:111)
Oppose His command (20:121)
Have a distracted heart (21:3)
Declare the Qur’an to make no sense (21:5)
Declare yourself to be a God (21:29)
Be devoted to statues (21:52)
Divide your affair amongst yourselves (21:93)
Serve upon an edge (22:11)
Be a treacherous ingrate (22:38)
Take what Satan casts as a fitnah for you (22:53)
Seek behind relations with wives or MMA (23:7)
Declare His promise to be far-fetched (23:36)
Be self-exalting (23:46)
Divide your command into writings (23:53)
Talk to no purpose into the night (23:67)
Have a light balance (23:103)
Marry other than one unchaste or a mushrik, if you are unchaste (24:3)
Accuse chaste women without sufficient witnesses (24:4)
Love that there be spread of immorality (24:19)
Swear not to give (24:22)
Enter other’s houses without having asked leave nor greeted those therein (24:27)
Strike feet to reveal adornment [for women] (24:31)
Compel your girls to whoredom, if they desire chastity (24:33)
Submit only when the truth is to your liking (24:49)
Swear that you’d do what the messenger commands (24:53)
Slip away surreptitiously (24:63)
Be greatly scornful (25:21)
Make friends with wrong people (25:28)
Abandon the Qur’an (25:30)
Take desires as a god (25:43)
Spend extravagantly and miserly (25:67)
Bear witness to falsehood (25:72)
Disbelieve on basis of abject followers (26:111)
Build bunkers to live forever (26:129)
Lay hold as tyrants (26:130)
Cheat with men (26:166)
Follow poets (26:224)
Hasten on the evil before the good (27:46)
Commit immorality with open eyes (27:54)
Approach men with lust instead of women (27:55)
Divide and oppress people (28:4)
Seek the ignorant (28:55)
Exult in riches (28:76)
Assume that you won’t be tried (29:2)
Obey parents who compel you to shirk (29:8)
Take idols as love between you and the life of this world (29:25)
Cut off the way (29:29)
Commit perversity in your assemblies (29:29)
Continued in the comments.

Salaam all!
I've attempted to compile the "do's and don'ts" of the Qur'an, the following list is all OC. I very likely have made some mistakes/errors in judgment whilst compiling, so please do comment and point things out, i'll edit the post.
Enjoy :)

﷽

Do this:

Serve God (1:5)
Ask God for help (1:5)
Believe in Unseen (2:3)
Uphold the salāt (2:3)
Believe in the Qur’an and what preceded it (2:4)
Be certain of the Hereafter (2:4)
If in doubt, bring a Surah like it (2:23)
If there comes to you guidance from Him, follow it (2:38)
Render the zakāt (2:43)
Be in ruku’ (2:43)
Use reason (2:44)
Seek help in patience and salāt (2:45)
Consider your meeting with the Lord (2:46)
Be in prudent fear of the judgment day (2:48)
Trust in God, the last day, and do good (2:62)
Be good to parents (2:83)
Be good to kin, fatherless or the poor (2:83)
Be in prudent fear (2:103)
Say “look at us” (2:104)
Pardon and forbear (2:109)
Send good ahead (2:110)
Bring proof of claims (2:111)
Submit to God (2:112)
Do Good (2:82)
Trust in God and the last day (2:126)
Hold to the creed of Abraham (2:135)
Say that you trust in Him, what He has sent down (2:136)
Make no distinction between the prophets (2:136)
Immerse in Him (2:138)
Respond to those who say that Abraham (and descendants) were Christians/Jews with “know you better, or does God?” (2:140)
Direct your face to the inviolable place of worship wherever you are (2:144)
Remember Him (2:152)
Be grateful to Him (2:152)
Be patient (2:153)
Bear glad tidings to the patient (2:155)
Repent / Ask forgiveness (2:160)
Love Him (2:165)
Eat what is halāl or tayyeb (2:168)
Trust in Him, the last day, the angels, the Writ, the prophets (2:177)
Give wealth to relatives, the fatherless, the needy, and the wayfarer (2:177)
Manumit slaves (2:177)
Keep a covenant when you make it (2:177)
Qisās ‘prescribed’ (2:178)
Pay blood-money if no Qisās (2:178)
Will ‘prescribed’ (2:180)
Make right when you notice testator partiality (2:182)
Fasting in general ‘prescribed’ (2:183)
If sick or on journey, carry fasting forward (2:184)
Pay fidya if fast missed (2:184)
Fast in Ramadān (2:185)
Respond to Him (2:186)
Trust Him (2:186)
Lie with women after fasting (2:187)
Seek what he prescribed (2:187)
Eat and drink until the white thead is clear from the dark, then fast till sunset (2:187)
Approach houses by doors (2:189)
Fight those who fight you (2:190)
Kill those who fight you (2:191)
Turn out those who turned you out (2:191)
Don’t fight in the inviolable masjid until fought (2:191)
Fight until they desist, or until the end of fitnah (2:193)
Qisās in the sacred months (2:194)
Spend in His cause (2:195)
Do the hajj (2:196)
Do the offering of animals if not possible (2:196)
If sick, or hindrance of the head: redemption by fasting, charity, or penance (2:196)
If cannot attend, fast three days during it, the seven days upon return, save if family is permanently resident on site (2:196)
Take provision (2:197)
Remember Him at al-mash’ar al-harām (2:198)
Pour forth from where men have poured forth (2:199)
Remember Him like the remembrance of your father or stronger, after rites finished (2:200)
Ask Him to give you good in the World and Hereafter, and to protect you from the punishment (2:201)
Sell yourself for Him (2:207)
Enter into submission completely (2:208)
Fighting ‘prescribed’ (2:216)
Trust (2:218)
Emigrate (2:218)
Strive in His cause (2:218)
Hope for his mercy (2:218)
Spend the surplus (2:219)
Approach purified women in the correct manner (2:222)
Purify yourself (2:222)
Bear glad tidings to the mu’minūn (2:223)
Wait four months after foreswearing women (2:226)
Divorced women wait themselves for three menstrural courses (2:228)
When divorcing, retain them or release them (2:231)
Remember His favour (2:231)
Children are suckled for two ‘haūl’ (2:233)
Father provides provision and clothing (2:233)
Widows must wait for 4 months and ten days (2:234)
When divorcing her and you haven’t touched her nor appointed an obligation for her, make her a gift (2:236)
If they have an obligation appointed, then give half, unless forgoed (2:237)
Don’t forget the bounty between you two (2:237)
Preserve the salawāt (2:238)
Stand up for God humbly obedient (2:238)
If in fear, waking or riding (2:239)
Widows are to recieve one years maintenance with no expulsion (2:240)
Divorced women recieve provision (2:241)
Fight in His cause (2:244)
Spend of what He provided (2:254)
Deny tāghūt (2:257)
Spend in His cause (2:261)
Give up usury (2:278)
Defer money return until ease upon borrower (2:280)
[Follow debt contract instructions] (2:282)
If on journey and no writer, then a pledge in hand (2:283)
Make no distinction between messengers (2:285)
Obey Him (2:285)
Be truthful (3:17)
Seek forgiveness at dawn (3:17)
Be obedient (3:17)
Bear witness that there is no God save He (3:18)
Ask those given the writ and the unschooled if they’ve submitted (3:20)
Obey Him and the Messenger (3:32)
If they turn away, bear witness that you are submitting (3:64)
Fulfil your covenant (3:76)
Make no distinction between the prophets (3:84)
Spend of what you love (3:92)
Make pilgrimage to the house (3:97)
Hold fast to Him (3:101)
Hold fast to the rope of God together (3:103)
Have a community that invites to God, enjoins what is fitting, and forbids perversity (3:104)
Compete in good deeds (3:114)
Place trust in Him (3:122)
Be in prudent fear of the fire (3:131)
Vie with each other for forgiveness (3:133)
Control wrath (3:134)
Travel in the Earth to see the final outcome of the deniers (3:137)
Seek His approval (3:162)
Respond to God after injury befalls (3:172)
Fear Him (3:175)
Remember Allah standing, sitting, on the sides; reflect on the creation (3:191)
Be steady (3:200)
Give the fatherless their property (4:2)
If there is an injustice of the fatherless, then perform polygamy (4:3)
Give women their dowries (4:4)
If they remit anything voluntarily, then consume it with satisfaction and pleasure (4:4)
Feed and clothe the incompetent (4:5)
Test the fatherless when they reach marriage, if they are sound then give their property with witnesses (4:6)
Men/Women have a designated share of what parents/relatives leave (4:7)
If the fatherless and needy are at the site of division, then give part of what is left (4:8)
[Inheritance laws] (4:12-13)
[*] (4:15-16)
If you can’t marry free women, then from MMA of believing maids, marry them with the lesve of their people (4:25)
MMA are due half the punishment of free wine if they commit fāhisha (4:25)
Avoid enormities of whats forbidden (4:31)
For men and women is a share of what they earned (4:32)
Give shares to those whom your oaths have bound (4:33)
Men have responsibility over women (4:34)
Women are to be humbly obedient and keeping unseen what God keeps (4:34)
If you fear contempt from your women, then admonish them, and leave in beds apart, and [*] them – save that they obey you (4:34)
If a breach is feared, then an arbitrator from both sides are to be raised (4:35)
Good conduct towards relatives, the fatherless, the needy, the neighbour, the companion, the wayfarers, and MMA (4:36)
Spend of what Allah provides (4:39)
If you are ill, on a journey, have defecated, or had intercourse, and find not water, then perform tayammum (4:43)
Deliver trusts to owners and judge with justice (4:58)
Obey those in authority amongst you (4:59)
If you differ in a matter, refer to God and the Messenger (4:59)
Turn away from munāfiqūn, and admonish them (4:63)
Ask the messenger to ask forgiveness for you (4:64)
Take precaution and advance in groups/together (4:71)
Fight satan’s allies (4:76)
Consider the Qur’an with care (4:82)
Interceding in a good cause (4:85)
When you are greeted, return it, or greet with something greater (4:86)
Take not that munāfiqūn as allies until they emigrate in His cause, if they turn back then kill them (4:89)
If they withdraw and offer peace, you have no path against them (4:90)
Accidental murder of a mu’min: Manumit a mu’min slave and give blood-momey to family – save forgiveness (4:92)
Fast two months consecutively if not possible (4:92)
Verify/investigate when you go forth in His cause (4:94)
When you are amongst them then perform the salāt for them[follow procedure mentioned] (4:102)
When that salāt is concluded, remember Him standing, sitting, on the sides, and when at ease (4:103)
The salāt is required to be performed at set times for the mu’minūn (4:103)
Submit your face to Him, do good, follow the creed of Abraham (4:125)
Stand up for equity for the fatherless (4:127)
Be witnesses to God (4:135)
Bear tidings to the munāfiqūn (4:138)
Desist from tritheism (4:171)
[Kalalah inheritance] (4:176)
Fulfil contracts (5:1)
Assist one another to virtue (5:2)
Eat from what is caught by what you have trained of animals of prey as trainers (5:4)
When you rise for the prayer, wash the face, the hands, the arm, and the feet to the ankles (5:6)
If you are unclean, then purify yourself (5:6)
Lend to God a goodly loan (5:12)
Bury after death? (5:31)
If one wages war against God and His messenger, and work corruption in the land: Then kill them, or crucify [or put to death by stake] them, ot their hands and feet be cut off, or they be banished (5:33)
Seek to Him the means of approach (5:35)
[Punishment for stealing] (5:38)
Let ahl al-injīl judge by what God sent (5:47)
Take Him, His messenger, and those who trusted as allies (5:56)
Be moderate (5:66)
Prevent one another from performing perversity (5:79)
Eat of what God has provided from what is lawful and good (5:88)
[Oath expiation] (5:89)
Avoid khamr, games of change, altars, and divining arrows (5:90)
Bear responsibility for yourself (5:105)
[Testimony after death] (5:106)
Listen (5:108)
Travel in the Earth to see the final outcomes of the deniers (6:11)
Use reason (6:32)
Call to Him (6:41)
Humble yourself (6:43)
Turn in repentance after committing evil by ignorance (6:54)
Measure God with the measure due (6:91)
Preserve your salāt (6:92)
Leave those who fabricate, and what they fabricate (6:112)
Eat over which His name has been remembered (6:118)
Leave the outwardness and the inwardness of sin (6:120)
Work according to your power (6:135)
Render due on day of harvest (6:141)
Inform with knowledge when making claim (6:143)
Follow the straight path (6:153)
Dedicate your salāt, penance, your living, and your dying to Him (6:162)
Uphold countenances at every place of submission (7:29)
Call to Him sincere in doctrine (7:29)
Take your adornment at every place of submission (7:31)
Acknowledge Messengers when they come (7:35)
Call to Him humbly and in secret (7:55)
Be patient for the judgment (7:87)
Repent and believe after evil deeds (7:153)
Follow the unschooled prophet (7:157)
Forbid evil (7:165)
Use your [metaphoric] senses (7:179)
Call to Him by his names (7:180)
Call your partners and see if they respond (7:194)
Seek refuge in Him from the satan, if provoked (7:200)
Heed to the Qur’an and listen attentively (7:204)
Reserve spoils for God and His messenger (8:1)
Make right in what is between you (8:1)
Respond to Him and His messenger when He calls you to what gives you life (8:24)
Fight until no fitnah (8:39)
If they turn away know that He’s your protector (8:40)
What you obtain of spoils, a fifth belongs to God, His messenger, relatives, fatherless, the poor, and wayfarer (8:41)
If you fear treachery, cast them back (8:58)
Prepare forces and calvary to terrify them (8:60)
If they incline to peace, then incline to it (8:61)
Consume what you took of spoils (8:69)
Strive with four property and lives (8:72)
Help those who seek help within the deen (8:72)
Bear tidings to those in kufr of a painful punishment (9:3)
Kill, seize, ambush, and restrain the mushrikīn once the inviolable months have passed (9:5)
Release them if they repent, and perform the prayer, and render the zakāt (9:5)
If a mushrik seeks protection, grant it,.until he hears His words; then escort to his secure place (9:6)
Fight those who make not unlawful what is unlawful (9:29)
Fight until the jizya is payed (9:29)
Give the Rabbis and Monks tidings of a painful punishment (9:34)
Please Him (9:62)
Let them be (9:95)
Act (9:105)
Rejoice in the contracted bargain with Him (9:111)
Keep His limits (9:112)
Be with the truthful (9:119)
Fight the kufār close to you (9:123)
Be harsh with them (9:123)
Serve Him (10:3)
If they challenge the Qur’an, ask them to bring a Surah like it (10:38)
Declare yourself quit of them (10:41)
Consider that the punishment can come at any time (10:50)
Take a straight path (10:89)
Look at what is in the heavens and the Earth (10:101)
Humble yourself unto Him (11:23)
Be clement, compassionate, penitent (11:75)
Be right-minded (11:78)
Right ordering (11:88)
Watch (11:93)
Fear the punishment of the hereafter (11:103)
Uphold the prayer at both ends of the day, and at the night’s approach (11:114)
Forbid corruption (11:116)
Use reason (12:2)
Pick imprisonment over sexual immorality (12:33)
Invite to Him with insight (12:108)
Respond to Him (13:18)
Join what’s commanded to be joined (13:21)
Avert evil with good (13:22)
Find rest in remembrance (13:28)
Be patient wherein you are hindered (14:12)
Fear His station (14:14)
Speak a good word (14:24)
Leave them to enjoy themselves (15:3)
Give glory (15:98)
Warn that there is no God save Him (16:2)
Be virtuous (16:32)
Ask the people of the remembrance if you know not (16:43)
When you recite the Qur’an, seek refuge from the accursed satan (16:98)
Falsely declare things to be lawful/unlawful (16:116)
Repent, despite committing evil out of ignorance (16:119)
Invite with wisdom, comely admonition, and dispute with what is best (16:125)
Retaliate with the like of what wherewith you are harmed, save that you forgive (16:126)
Strive for the hereafter (17:19)
Good conduct to parents (17:23)
Speak to them a noble word (17:23)
Be gentle with them and make supplication for them (17:24)
Speak a gentle word to those who need charity, but you can’t provide (17:28)
Weigh with the straight balance (17:35)
Recite the Qur’an (17:45)
Say that which is best (17:53)
Uphold the prayer at the merging of the sun until the dark of the night (17:78)
Recite at dawn (17:78)
Keep a vigil with some of the night (17:79)
Ask God to cause you to enter a true entrance and to leave at a true exit (17;80)
Declare that truth has come, and vanity is to pass (17:81)
Declare Him a sufficient witness (17:96)
Perform salāt at a medium volume (17:110)
Whoso wills, let them believe – and vice versa (18:29)
Be steadfast in His ‘ibādah (19:65)
Eat and attend to your cattle (20:54)
Give glory before rising of the sun, before it’s setting, some of the night, and at two ends of the day (20:130)
Extend your eyes towards what has been granted to others (20:131)
Call in hope and fear (21:90)
Be a righteous servant (21:105)
Feed the unfortunate poor (22:28)
Make an end of unkemptness (22:29)
Fulfil vows (22:29)
Walk around that ancient house (22:29)
Honour the sacred things (22:30)
Avoid false speech and abomination of idols (22:30)
Incline to Him (22:31)
Honour the tokens of God (22:32)
Sacrifice at ancient house (22:33)
Remember His name over camels when they are in lines (22:36)
When their flanks collapse, eat thereof and feed the reticent poor and the beggar (22:36)
Be in ruku’, and sujood (22:77)
Be a mu’min (23:1)
Be humble in salāt (23:2)
Preserve chastity (23:5)
Preserve your salawāt (23:9)
Leave them in their flood of ignorance, for a time (23:54)
Have a heavy balance (23:102)
Lash the unchaste woman and the unchaste man each with 100 lashes, have no pity on them, and let it be witnessed by mu’minūn (24:2)
Lash those who accuse chaste women with insufficient witnesses with 80 lashes, and never accept them as a witness (24:4)
If you, as a visitor, are asked to leave, then leave (24:28)
If you are a man, lower your gaze (24:30)
As a woman, you should also lower the gaze, you must additionally not reveal adornment except what I’d apparent, and you should cover the bosom [except to listed people] (24:31)
Give in marriage the unmarried (24:32)
Abstain if you find not marriage (24:33)
Emancipate those who seek it, if there is good in them, and give them of your wealth (24:33)
Declare allegiance (24:51)
If you are part of one’s right hand possessions, or one who has not reached puberty yet, then – ask permission before entering at the three times of their nakedness (24:58)
Greet with a greeting from God (24:61)
Rest at night (25:47)
Walk modestly (25:63)
Speak peace when addressed by ignorants (25:63)
Spend the night standing and in sujūd (25:64)
Seek a middle ground when spending, if you must (25:63)
Pass by vain speech with dignity (25:72)
Request to Him that your wives and progeny be made a comfort, and make you a good model (25:74)
Obey the command of the committers of excess (26:151)
Warn relatives (26:214)
Help people out (28:25)
Seek provision with Him (29:17)
Discover how He originated creation (29:20)
Reflect within yourself (30:8)
Provide to MMA (30:28)
Set yourself towards the right natural deen (30:30)
Desire His face (30:38)
Prepare for yourself (30:44)
Grateful to parents (31:14)
Be modest in walk (31:19)
Lower the voice (31:19)
Fall in sujūd when reminded of proofs (32:15)
Forsake your bed (32:16)
Call the adopted children by their fathers (33:5)
Take the messenger as a model
Stay within houses [prophet wives] (33:33)
Give glory morning and evening (33:42)
Give those whom you divorce before consummation provision (33:49)
[Historic conduct regarding prophet’s house] (33:53)
Greet the prophet with a valuation (33:56)
Women draw down over themselves some garments, for recognition (33:59)
Stand up for God in twos and alone, then reflect (34:46)
Let the workers work (37:61)
Remember David, the repentant (38:17)
Be humbly obedient in the watches of the night (39:9)
Hope for His mercy (39:9)
Expand your breast to submission (39:22)
Experience a positive reaction to the Qur’an (39:23)
Come with the truth and live in accordance to it (39:33)
Follow the best of what is sent down (39:55)
Invite to your Lord (41:33)
Grow not weary in giving glory (41:38)
Take the Qur’an as a healing (41:44)
Defer disputes to His judgement (42:10)
Uphold the Deen (42:13)
Be in dread of the hour (42:18)
Love your kin (42:23)
Avoid enormities of sin and immorality (42:37)
Conduct affairs by mutual consultation (42:38)
Help yourself when insolence visits (42:39)
Remember His favour once settled on cattle (43:13)
Watch for the day of the obvious smoke (44:10)
Watch (44:59)
Forgive those who look not for His days (45:14)
Follow the sharī’a (45:18)
Keep to the path (46:13)
[Say what is mentioned upon reaching fourty] (46:15)
Believe in what was sent down upon Muhammad (47:2)
Smite the necks of those in kufr when in battle (47:4)
Grace or ransom war captives (47:4)
Help Him (47:7)
Be obedient (47:21)
Consider the Qur’an with care (47:24)
Sue for peace when you have the upper hand (47:35)
Honour the messenger (48:9)
Be hard against those in kufr (48:29)
Lower voice in presence of messenger (49:3)
Verify the report of a perfidious one (49:6)
Make right between groups of mu’minūn (49:9)
Fight the oppressive group (49:9)
Make right between brothers (49:10)
Preserve modesty and duties (50:32)
Give ear with a conscious mind (50:37)
Glorify at the ends of the sujūd (50:40)
Listen for the day that the Caller will call from near (50:41)
Sleep little of the night (51:17)
Ask forgiveness before break of day (51:18)
Give glory when arising (52:48)
Give glory at the retreat of the stars (52:49)
Remember the ayah of the ark (54:15)
Remember the Qur’an, which is easy for remembrance (54:17)
Remember destruction of sects (54:51)
Fear His standing (55:46)
Aim to be of the sābiqūn (56:10)
Touch the Qur’an only when purified (56:79)
Aim to be of the muqarrabūn (56:88)
Fight before victories (57:10)
Lend to Him a goodly loan (57:11)
Compete for forgiveness (57:21)
Observe good/neutral innovations with due observation (57:27)
If you go back on what you have said, then free a slave before touching [other circumstances in next verse] (58:3)
When engaging in private conversation, don’t allow it to be of a sinful kind (58:9)
Make room in the assemblies when instructed; arise when instructed (58:11)
[Charity before conversation with messenger historically] (58:12)
What the messenger gives you, take it [and opposite] (59:7)
Protect from avarice of the nafs (59:9)
Look to what you have sent ahead for the morrow (59:18)
Take Abraham and his companions as good models [see full verse] (60:4)
Examine the emigrated women, to determine their faith; if they are mu’mināt, send them not back (60:10)
Return the mahr to those whom have had wives flee to kuffār (60:11)
Fight in compacted ranks (61:4)
When the call for the Friday salāt is heard, hasten to it (62:9)
Disperse upon completion, seek His bounty (62:10)
Spend before death arrives (63:10)
Beware of enemies amongst wives and children (64:14)
Listen to the Qur’an (64:16)
Count waiting period after divorce (65:1)
Turn divorcees out of house, unless they commit immorality (65:1)
Seperation to be witnessed by two just men (65:2)
If no menstruation, count three months (65:4)
If pregnant, wait until end (65:4)
Lodge then where you are, according to means, don’t press them (65:6)
Spend if they have a child, until delivered (65:6)
If they suckle, give them their reward; consult honourably (65:6)
If difficulties between you, let another suckle (65:6)
Let him with abundance spend out of it (65:7)
Fear your Lord while unseen (67:12)
Walk in the tracts (67:15)
Be patient with comely patience (70:5)
Be constant in your salāt (70:23)
Confirm.the day of judgment (70:26)
Be in dread of the punishment (70:27)
Be upright in your witness (70:33)
Preserve you salāt (70:34)
Follow the broad ways of the Earth (71:20)
Recite the Qur’an distinctly (73:4)
Devote yourself completely to Him (73:8)
Recite what is made easy of the Qur’an (73:20)
Magnify Him (74:3)
Purify your garments (74:4)
Foresake defilement (74:5)
Give food out of love of Him to the prisoner (76:8)
Seek a way to paradise (76:18)
Remember His name morning and evening (76:25)
If you have a plan then plan against Him [challenge] (77:39)
Be lowly (77:48)
Take the day as a living (78:11)
Take your Lord as a journey’s end (78:39)
Fear His station (79:40)
Let aspire those who aspire (83:26)
Let look at what you are created from (86:5)
Take heed (87:10)
Purify yourself (87:14)
Remember His name (87:15)
Look at the creation of the camel, sky, mountain, Earth (88:20)
Free a slave (90:13)
Feed in a day of starvation a fatherless relation, or a needy one in misery (90:16)
Counsel one another to compassion (90:17)
Increase the nafs in purity (91:9)
Confirm the best (92:6)
Recount His favour (93:11)
When unoccupied, make ready (94:7)
Turn your desire to Him (94:8)
Enjoin prudent fear (96:12)
Draw near (96:19)
Be pleased with Him (98:8)
Have a heavy balance (101:6)
Counsel each other to truth (103:3)
Sacrifice (108:2)
Declare that you serve not what those in kufr serve (109:2)
Declare the oneness.of Him (112:1)
Seek refuge in Him from the evil of what He created, the darkness, the blowers on knots, and the envier (113:5)
Seek refuge from the evil of the retreating whisperer (114:4)

Don’t do this:

Buy error at the price of guidance (2:16)
Make equals with God (2:22)
Deny before bringing a surah like it (2:24)
Break the agreement (2:27)
Work corruption in the land (2:27)
Deny the āyāt (2:39)
Conceal truth knowingly (2:42)
Enjoin virtue and forget yourselves (2:44)
Ask to see/interact with Him openly (2:55)
Change the saying (2:59)
Complain (2:61)
Kill prophets (2:61)
Exceed bounds / Transgress (2:61)
Transgress the Sabbath (2:65)
Ask unnecessary/excessive questions (2:71)
Assume (2:78)
Fabricate a kitāb, claiming it’s from God (2:79)
Ascribe what you know not (2:80)
Allow offenses to encompass you (2:81)
Kill amongst you and turn out of homes (2:84)
Assist in sin (2:85)
Believe in part of the kitāb and reject the rest (2:85)
Buy this life over the hereafter (2:86)
Wax proud (2:87)
Claim that your heart is covered (2:88)
Deny what God has sent (2:90)
Ignore/Deny clear signs (2:92)
Commit shirk (2:96)
Be an enemy to Him, angels, messenger, or Gabriel and Michael (2:98)
Practice sihr (2:102)
Say “attend to us” (2:104)
Ask Muhammad the same way that Moses was asked (2:108)
Exchange security for kufr (2:108)
Attempt to bring people into kufr (2:109)
Claim who enters paradise (2:111)
Hinder places places of worship (2:114)
Say that He has a son (2:116)
Follow vain desires (2:120)
Be in kufr (2:126)
Be averse to the creed of Abraham (2:130)
Die save you are submitting (2:132)
Conceal witness from Him (2:140)
Say that those matyred are dead (2:154)
Follow the footsteps of shaytān (2:168)
Commit evil (2:169)
Commit the immorality (2:169)
Follow/Trust forefathers blindly (2:170)
Eat carrion, blood, or flesh of al-khinzīr (2:173)
Eat what is dedicated to other than Him (2:173)
Buy punishment at the price of forgiveness (2:175)
Differ concerning the kitāb (2:176)
Transgress after qisās settlement (2:178)
Change the will (2:181)
Lie with women when remaining in masājid (2:187)
Consume wealth in vanity (2:188)
Bribery (2:188)
Shave head until animal is at slaughter place (2:196)
Destroy yourself (2:195)
Have sex, do perfidity, or quarrel during hajj (2:197)
Ask God to give to you in the World (2:200)
Complete the hajj in less than two days (2:203)
Destroy tilth and progeny (2:205)
Have pride in sin (2:206)
Exchange favour of God for denial (2:211)
Fight in the sacred months (2:217)
Expel those of the inviolable masjid (2:217)
Consume khamr or engage in games of change (2:219)
Marry mushrikīn until they are safe from calling to hell (2:221)
Approach women during menstruation (2:222)
Make God a cover for oaths (2:224)
Conceal pregnancy (2:228)
Take what you have given women unless they cannot uphold the limits (2:229)
Transgress the limits of God (2:229)
Remarriage not lawful till she marries someone else (2:230)
Retain women through harm (2:231)
Take ayāt in mockery (2:231)
Constrain not those whom you divorce from marrying spouses (2:232)
Allow a mothefather to be harmed by child (2:233)
Take an oath with those whom you intimated of women regarding proposal, save you speak a fitting word (2:235)
Decide upon knot of marriage until writ reaches it’s term (2:235)
Force others into the doctrine (2:256)
Hinder (2:262)
Commit immortality (2:268)
Consume usury (2:275)
Commit sin (2:276)
Conceal the witness (2:283)
Seek the interpretation of what is ambiguous, seeking fitnah (3:7)
Kill those who enjoin equity (3:21)
Say that the fire will touch for days numbered (3:24)
Take kāfirūn as allies (3:28)
Engage in scheming (3:54)
Dispute regarding what you have no knowledge in (3:66)
Clothe truth in vanity (3:71)
Seek outside the doctrine of God (3:83)
Deny after faith (3:86)
Obey a faction of those given the writ (3:100)
Be divided (3:103)
Take intimatez other than your own (3:118)
Consume usury (3:130)
Faint/Grieve (3:139)
Assume entry to jannah (3:142)
Weaken/Yield (3:146)
Be like those in kufr, who believe that different circumstances would have saved their brothers (3:156)
Coercion (3:161)
Incur His wrath (3:162)
Say with your mouths what isn’t in your heart (3:167)
Think that those killed in his cause are dead (3:169)
Fear not Satan’s allies (3:175)
Buy denial at the price of faith (3:177)
Be miserly with what God gives of His bounty (3:180)
Say that God is poor (3:181)
Having pride and pretending (3:188)
Exchange your bad things for their [fatherless] good things (4:2)
Polygamy if you fear that the fatherless will not be justly treated (4:3)
Give the incompetent your wealth (4:5)
Consume the property of the fatherless wastefully/hastily (4:6)
Try repent last minute (4:18)
Inheriting from/Constraining wiomen against their will – save that they commit fāhisha (4:19)
Take from the fortune that you gave your first wife for your new wife (4:20)
Marrying what your fathers married (4:22)
Marrying your mothers, daughters, sisters, p/m aunts, nieces, milk-mothers, milk-sisters, mothers-in-law, step-daughters under protection, daughters-in-law, being in wedlock with two biological sisters simultaneously (4:23)
Marrying married women – save MMA (4:24)
Take secret friends (4:25)
Kill those amongst you (4:29)
Consume wealth in vanity (4:29)
Wish for that by which Allah has made some of you exceed others (4:32)
Being a conceited boaster (4:36)
Being miserly and enjoining miserliness (4:37)
Spend wealth for recognition (4:38)
Oppose the messenger (4:42)
Approaching the salāt when intoxicated or unclean – save passing by upon the path – until you wash (4:43)
Twist tongue and slander the Deen (4:46)
Beliefs in fictions and tāghūt (4:51)
Envy the bounty of others (4:54)
Referring legislation to tāghūt (4:60)
Staying behind from fighting (4:72)
Try hiding away (4:78)
Conspiring (4:81)
Leaking information regarding public safety (4:83)
Interceding in an evil cause (4:85)
Killing a mu’min on purpose (4:92)
If one greets with peace, don’t declare them a non-mu’min (4:94)
Being sedentary (4:95)
Making excuses about being oppressed, to justify wronging their souls (4:97)
Faint in seeking the people (4:104)
Advocating for the treacherous (4:105)
Argue on behalf of those who decieve themselves (4:107)
Commit an offense upon an innocent (4:122)
Make a breach with the messenger after the guidance is clear (4:115)
Following desires, changing the creation (4:119)
Incline towards only one wife, leaving the other hanging (4:129)
Distort/Evade (4:135)
Wavering (4:137)
Sit with those who discourse vainly concerning the proofs of God until they move to another subject (4:140)
Seel to decieve God (4:142)
Performing the salāt to be seen (4:142)
Public mention of evil, save when wronged (4:148)
‘Choosing’ messengers (4:150)
Ask to see God (4:153)
Be tritheistic (4:171)
Hunt when forbidden (5:1)
Violate the tokens of God, or the inviolable month, or the offering, or the necklaces, or the visitors (5:2)
Commit injustice to those who turned you out of the inviolable place of worship (5:2)
Consume the strangled, the beaten, the fallen, the gored, that eaten by the beast of prey – save what is slaughtered, that sacrificed upon the alter (5:3)
Seek apportionment by divining arrows (5:3)
Deny the faith (5:5)
Claim that God is the Messiah, son of Mary (5:17)
Claim that you are His sons and beloved (5:18)
Kill another soul (5:30)
Fear mankind (5:44)
Take the Jews and Christians as allies (5:51)
Take those who take the dīn in mockery as allies (5:57)
Take the call to the salāt in mockery (5:58)
Claim that His hand is fettered (5:64)
Forbid the good things made lawful (5:87)
Kill game when forbidden (5:95)
[Expiation for killing] (5:95)
Ask about things that would distress you if made clear (5:101)
Follow forefathers (5:104)
Declare clear signs to be sorcery (5:110)
Take Jesus and Mary as gods (5:116)
Ask for angels (6:8)
Mock messengers (6:10)
Be among the mushrikīn (6:14)
Oppose Him (6:15)
Be a wrongdoer (6:21)
Declare the Qur’an to be be legend (6:25)
Claim that there is only one life (6:29)
Denial of the meeting (6:31)
Of the ignorant (6:35)
Call to other than Him (6:40)
Take an intercessor besides Him (6:51)
Drive away those seeking His face (6:52)
Sit with those who discourse vainly concerning His proofs (6:68)
Take your deen as play and diversion 6:70)
Clothe the faith with injustice (6:82)
Deny the Writ, judgment, and prophethood (6:89)
Claim revelation (6:93)
Be deluded (6:95)
Make the jinn partners of God (6:100)
Revile those whom are called besides Him (6:108)
Seek other than Him.as a judge (6:114)
Be of the doubtful (6:114)
Obey most on Earth (6:116)
Lead astray by vain desires without knowledge (6:119)
Eat not that over which His name has not been remembered (6:121)
Assigning a share of His creation to partners (6:136)
Declaring things to be taboo (6:138)
Kill your children (6:140)
Make unlawful what He has provided you (6:140)
Commit excess (6:141)
Approach open or concealed immorality (6:151)
Follow other ways (6:153)
Wait for angels (6:158)
Divide the deen into sects (6:159)
Allow the satan to subject you to fitnah (7:27)
Commit excess when eating and drinking (7:31)
Make unlawful the adornment of God (7:32)
Sectarian zealotry (7:33)
Wax proud at proofs (7:36)
Be a mujrim (7:40)
Seek to make His path crooked (7:45)
Name names with no authority (7:71)
Scorn His command (7:77)
Approach men with lust, rather than women (7:80)
Lie in wait on the road, threatening and turning away from The Path (7:86)
Being blind to lessons (7:95)
Bribe using promise of power (7:114)
Bewitch people (7:116)
Be stubborn (7:132)
Be heedless of proofs (7:136)
Follow that path of the workers of corruption (7:142)
Take the wrong path, ignore the path of sound judgment (7:146)
Be impatient over His command (7:150)
Be a forger (7:152)
Scorn what you’ve been forbidden.(7:166)
Deviate concerning His names (7:180)
Public speech (7:205)
Dispute the truth after it’s clear (8:6)
Retreat (8:15)
Turn away when you are near (8:20)
Pretend to hear (8:21)
Betray (8:27)
Turn away from the inviolable place of submission (8:34)
Make a mockery of the salāt (8:35)
Spend wealth on turning away from path of God (8:36)
Dispute together (8:46)
Be boastful (8:47)
Let those in kufr believe that they got away (8:59)
Bear tidings of a painful punishment to the mushrikīn with whom a covenant has been made, who haven’t been deficient towards you in anything, nor assisted anyone against you (9:4)
Allow your beloved things to be dearer to you than Him and His messenger (9:24)
Allow the mushrikīn to approach the inviolable place of submission (9:28)
Take Rabbis and Monks as lords (9:31)
Wrong yourselves concerning the count of months (9:36)
Engage in their postponement (9:37)
Spend unwillingly (9:54)
Come to the prayer as an idler (9:54)
Allow their wealth and children to impress you (9:55)
Complain regarding charity distribution (9:58)
Hinder the prophet (9:61)
Enjoin perversity and forbid what is fitting (9:67)
Withhold His bounty and turn away (9:76)
Deride the believers who willingly give charity (9:79)
Remain behind due to weather (9:81)
Perform the funeral prayer for any one of them (9:84)
Staying behind due to affluence (9:86)
Make excuses (9:94)
Take what you spend as a loss, await reversals (9:98)
Take a place of submission in harm and denial (9:107)
Ask forgiveness for the mushrikīn (9:113)
Go forth all at once (9:122)
Look not for the meeting (10:7)
Neglect after being helped (10:12)
Desire for the Qur’an to be changed (10:15)
Rebel in the Earth after being delivered (10:23)
Deny before interpretation arrives to you (10:39)
Allow their speech to grieve you (10:65)
Repent too late (10:91)
Hide away (11:5)
Wish that a treasure or an angel had been sent upon him.(11:12)
Make the path crooked (11:19)
Dismiss on basis of mortality and lack of bounty (11:27)
Claim that your deity caused messenger to be touched with evil (11:54)
Follow that command of tyrants (11:59)
Heed due to their disappointment (11:62)
Decrease the measure and the balance (11:84)
Respevt others for power more than you do Him (11:92)
Rely upon those who do wrong (11:113)
Reveal dreams that could cause enmity (12:5)
Falsify evidence (12:18)
Sexual assault (12:23)
Despair of the comfort of God (12:87)
Deny physical resurrection (13:5)
Seek to hasten the evil instead of the good (13:6)
Sever what’s commanded to be joined (13:25)
Become bored when being presented with ayāt (14:9)
Threaten to expell warners (14:13)
Respond to Satan (14:22)
Speak a bad word (14:26)
Ignore similitudes (14:45)
Be of those who despair (15:55)
Refuse to provide rights and hospitality (15:70)
Build bunkers to feel secure from Him (15:82)
Make the Qur’an into parts (15:91)
Seek to hasten the command (16:1)
Be an open disputant (16:4)
Offer submission too late (16:28)
Appoint daughters for Him (16:57)
Refuse to give provision to those that their right hands posses (16:71)
Make conceptual comparisons for God (16:74)
Be a burden (16:76)
Take oaths as deception (16:92)
Take another disposer of affairs (17:2)
Being hasty (17:11)
Be perfidious (17:16)
Say “fie” to / Repell old parents (17:23)
Squander wastefully (17:26)
Be extreme on both ends of charity (17:29)
Kill your children for fear of poverty (17:31)
Approach zina (17:32)
Commit excess in lawful killing (17:33)
Walk exultantly (17:37)
Be neither loud nor quiet in salāt (17:110)
Say that you will do something later without declaring that it’s dependant upon God’s will (18:23)
Show-off (18:34)
Declare something to be eternal (18:35)
Be contentious (18:54)
Try refuting the truth (18:56)
Do shirk in the ‘ibadah of Him (18:110)
Follow lusts instead of the salāt (19:59)
Deny, then claim that you will recieve wealth and children (19:77)
Neglect the rememberance (20:42)
Carry injustice (20:111)
Oppose His command (20:121)
Have a distracted heart (21:3)
Declare the Qur’an to make no sense (21:5)
Declare yourself to be a God (21:29)
Be devoted to statues (21:52)
Divide your affair amongst yourselves (21:93)
Serve upon an edge (22:11)
Be a treacherous ingrate (22:38)
Take what Satan casts as a fitnah for you (22:53)
Seek behind relations with wives or MMA (23:7)
Declare His promise to be far-fetched (23:36)
Be self-exalting (23:46)
Divide your command into writings (23:53)
Talk to no purpose into the night (23:67)
Have a light balance (23:103)
Marry other than one unchaste or a mushrik, if you are unchaste (24:3)
Accuse chaste women without sufficient witnesses (24:4)
Love that there be spread of immorality (24:19)
Swear not to give (24:22)
Enter other’s houses without having asked leave nor greeted those therein (24:27)
Strike feet to reveal adornment [for women] (24:31)
Compel your girls to whoredom, if they desire chastity (24:33)
Submit only when the truth is to your liking (24:49)
Swear that you’d do what the messenger commands (24:53)
Slip away surreptitiously (24:63)
Be greatly scornful (25:21)
Make friends with wrong people (25:28)
Abandon the Qur’an (25:30)
Take desires as a god (25:43)
Spend extravagantly and miserly (25:67)
Bear witness to falsehood (25:72)
Disbelieve on basis of abject followers (26:111)
Build bunkers to live forever (26:129)
Lay hold as tyrants (26:130)
Cheat with men (26:166)
Follow poets (26:224)
Hasten on the evil before the good (27:46)
Commit immorality with open eyes (27:54)
Approach men with lust instead of women (27:55)
Divide and oppress people (28:4)
Seek the ignorant (28:55)
Exult in riches (28:76)
Assume that you won’t be tried (29:2)
Obey parents who compel you to shirk (29:8)
Take idols as love between you and the life of this world (29:25)
Cut off the way (29:29)
Commit perversity in your assemblies (29:29)
Continued in the comments.

Skinwalkers in Rural Michigan
I recently purchased a 10,000 lumen flashlight to illuminate the surrounding woods as I walk my dog in the evenings. I have been hearing some strange noises at night, and I figured it would be nice to see everything that boxes me in as I walk Max, my dog. But boy was I wrong. I should have been afraid of what can't be seen outside the veils of my iphone flashlight. What was to be exhumed by my flashlight terrified me to my core. This happened a week or so ago, November, 2nd 2022, Harrison Michigan. The evenings were approaching abruptly now. It was only 8:30pm when I decided to take my golden retriever on one last shit walk before I got settled in for the night. At this time, in rural Michigan at least, it’s pitch black. I cursed underneath my breath as I opened the door and peered out. Fuck, chilly and dark. God, why haven’t I moved south yet? Max was timid this evening, which was so really unlike him. Very strange. The darkness emanating from outside my house poured in like a disease. It was void of any color. Upset about not replacing my porch light, I pulled out my new amazon special, this week it was a 10,000 lumen flashlight. Feeling its expensive metallic body in my hands felt exonerating, and the excitement to use it overthrew any bad vibes Max was giving. He whimpered as soon as the door opened, he then put his tail between his legs and shivered. I scoffed at his weak tendencies here, this was so unlike him. I turned this ungodly bright flashlight on and showed it forward. “For fuck sake look Max, nothing to be afraid of y-” I was cut off. My mouth gaped at what was in front of me. Shown in the powerful beam of the flashlight was a contorted lanky humanoid figure. It slumped down from a standing position and got on all fours like a person miming a frog. Then it jerked its head up and sniffed the air. Animistically. It turned its head and bored its stare right into my eyes. Then it darted into a bush on the edge of the woods. The edge of the woods that surround my entire house. I heard leaves crackle and watched the skin colored creature dissipate into them. I focused the beam of my light directly onto that bush. It was incredibly bright and the bush appeared like high definition from the immense light, especially in contrast to the oily blackness that surrounded me. The bush shaked ominously, like a predator was inside, shifting around. A familiar feminine voice came from that bush. “Please help me… oh god please help… help… help mee…” And the leaves rustled again. Max whimpered in terror and got between my legs. I grabbed the baseball bat that I kept beside the front door for just such occasions and held it beside my head in a “ready to whoop” gesture, the other hand on my flashlight. I shakily started towards the bush from my door. Max bolted inside, leaving me completely alone. “Helllppppp meee” the voice cooed. The soft feminine coo of the voice crackled a little this time. Yeah, almost as if something was masquerading as a female, and luring me in. I was about 6 feet away by now, I could feel the blood pulsating in my temples. Goosh flesh ran down my body. “Helllpp,” deeper voice “Meeee!” An elongated ashy white arm flung towards me at ankle height. I instinctively stomped down on it. I heard cracking and sloshing from underneath my shoe. I stepped directly onto its wrist. I heard a shriek from inside the depths of that bush and the hand sprung up like a trap being set off. The strength possessed by this creature was unreal, it slung me to the ground and began to reel me into its bush where it resided. I screamed, smacked the arm with the bat as hard as I could and then lost control of the bat. It fell next to me as I was dragged closer to the bush, now my feet were inside the leafy abyss. The voice turned into my mothers voice. The clawed hands grasp on me tightened with tremendous strength and the nails dug into my skin through my pants. “Help me Nathaniel. Your mother needs help. I can't walk.” Yeah alright. I shined my light into the bush. What I saw still makes me tremble. It was my dead mothers face there alright, but atop an ashy white skinned humanoid skeleton with backward joints. The arms bent unnaturally opposite of how they should, the legs were bent like a frogs ready to pounce. The eyes were milky white, but were extremely intelligent and they gazed into my consciousness. With all of my force, I horse kicked my deceased mothers face and heard a massive crunch as my heel connected with her masqueraded nose. A profane yelp of pain blasted into the darkness of this B.F.E. where I lived. The grip on my leg loosened just enough from the blow for me to break free. I shot upright and turned to the door. I dropped my flashlight in this madness and couldn’t give a shit less. It could keep it for all I fucking cared. I bolted towards the door, and as I reached the halfway point I was Illuminated by a blinding bright light from behind. Almost like a spotlight beamed right onto me. My. Fucking. God. That thing had my flashlight and was pointing it directly at me. “Helpp… Nathaniel. Help me son.” The light started to bob up and down. Whatever was holding it was lurking closer and closer to me, and was gaining on me much faster than I was to the door. So much for not being able to walk. I ended up winning the foot race miraculously. I jumped inside my door and slammed it behind me. I heard a loud thump into the door immediately following its closure. My mothers late voice came again, beckoning me. “Son. You know your mother has taught you better than this. Let me in. Please, my son.” The light shone through the window at me, blinding me. Seeing spots and now disoriented, I fumbled myself up and managed to lock the door. Max was at the furthest point possible from the door, glaring at the door trembling in fear. Three solid knocks from the top of the door frame. Then the light was gone and I heard a metallic clunk, the thing must have dropped the flashlight on its retreat. The light now was gleaming off a huge tree. I watched a tall skinny humanoid creature with long contorted ligaments jerkily run towards that tree. His legs bent opposite of how our legs do, and same with the arms. Then it bent down in the same erratic way that it moved, and got onto all fours as it approached the tree. It paused a second and peered up the trunk. His head swiftly snapped to my face. Its now black and sunken eyes stared into my soul. I froze in terror as it climbed that trunk, with its face directly bored into me mind you, like squirrel. Scurrying right up it, never leaving contact with my eyes. The light undoubtedly should be blinding his vision, but the sense of intelligence of it knowing my existence was uncanny. Light didnt hurt it. As it ascended it smiled at me, a predatory grin. It disappeared into a purple dot that was still in my vision from when I was blinded by the flashlight. As I moved my head to try to see the creature, I watched tree leaves russell and saw no more of it. Yet. I locked the doors that night and cleaned up Max’s accidents from not going out. At night as I was asleep, I was awoken by my mothers soft voice from right outside the bedroom window. “Let me in Nathaniel..” Then directly following this motherly imitation came a 10,000 lumen flashlight beamed into my face. I heard the window slowly open, but I was blinded by the light.

Skinwalkers in Rural Michigan
I recently purchased a 10,000 lumen flashlight to illuminate the surrounding woods as I walk my dog in the evenings. I have been hearing some strange noises at night, and I figured it would be nice to see everything that boxes me in as I walk Max, my dog. But boy was I wrong. I should have been afraid of what can't be seen outside the veils of my iphone flashlight. What was to be exhumed by my flashlight terrified me to my core. This happened a week or so ago, November, 2nd 2022, Harrison Michigan. The evenings were approaching abruptly now. It was only 8:30pm when I decided to take my golden retriever on one last shit walk before I got settled in for the night. At this time, in rural Michigan at least, it’s pitch black. I cursed underneath my breath as I opened the door and peered out. Fuck, chilly and dark. God, why haven’t I moved south yet? Max was timid this evening, which was so really unlike him. Very strange. The darkness emanating from outside my house poured in like a disease. It was void of any color. Upset about not replacing my porch light, I pulled out my new amazon special, this week it was a 10,000 lumen flashlight. Feeling its expensive metallic body in my hands felt exonerating, and the excitement to use it overthrew any bad vibes Max was giving. He whimpered as soon as the door opened, he then put his tail between his legs and shivered. I scoffed at his weak tendencies here, this was so unlike him. I turned this ungodly bright flashlight on and showed it forward. “For fuck sake look Max, nothing to be afraid of y-” I was cut off. My mouth gaped at what was in front of me. Shown in the powerful beam of the flashlight was a contorted lanky humanoid figure. It slumped down from a standing position and got on all fours like a person miming a frog. Then it jerked its head up and sniffed the air. Animistically. It turned its head and bored its stare right into my eyes. Then it darted into a bush on the edge of the woods. The edge of the woods that surround my entire house. I heard leaves crackle and watched the skin colored creature dissipate into them. I focused the beam of my light directly onto that bush. It was incredibly bright and the bush appeared like high definition from the immense light, especially in contrast to the oily blackness that surrounded me. The bush shaked ominously, like a predator was inside, shifting around. A familiar feminine voice came from that bush. “Please help me… oh god please help… help… help mee…” And the leaves rustled again. Max whimpered in terror and got between my legs. I grabbed the baseball bat that I kept beside the front door for just such occasions and held it beside my head in a “ready to whoop” gesture, the other hand on my flashlight. I shakily started towards the bush from my door. Max bolted inside, leaving me completely alone. “Helllppppp meee” the voice cooed. The soft feminine coo of the voice crackled a little this time. Yeah, almost as if something was masquerading as a female, and luring me in. I was about 6 feet away by now, I could feel the blood pulsating in my temples. Goosh flesh ran down my body. “Helllpp,” deeper voice “Meeee!” An elongated ashy white arm flung towards me at ankle height. I instinctively stomped down on it. I heard cracking and sloshing from underneath my shoe. I stepped directly onto its wrist. I heard a shriek from inside the depths of that bush and the hand sprung up like a trap being set off. The strength possessed by this creature was unreal, it slung me to the ground and began to reel me into its bush where it resided. I screamed, smacked the arm with the bat as hard as I could and then lost control of the bat. It fell next to me as I was dragged closer to the bush, now my feet were inside the leafy abyss. The voice turned into my mothers voice. The clawed hands grasp on me tightened with tremendous strength and the nails dug into my skin through my pants. “Help me Nathaniel. Your mother needs help. I can't walk.” Yeah alright. I shined my light into the bush. What I saw still makes me tremble. It was my dead mothers face there alright, but atop an ashy white skinned humanoid skeleton with backward joints. The arms bent unnaturally opposite of how they should, the legs were bent like a frogs ready to pounce. The eyes were milky white, but were extremely intelligent and they gazed into my consciousness. With all of my force, I horse kicked my deceased mothers face and heard a massive crunch as my heel connected with her masqueraded nose. A profane yelp of pain blasted into the darkness of this B.F.E. where I lived. The grip on my leg loosened just enough from the blow for me to break free. I shot upright and turned to the door. I dropped my flashlight in this madness and couldn’t give a shit less. It could keep it for all I fucking cared. I bolted towards the door, and as I reached the halfway point I was Illuminated by a blinding bright light from behind. Almost like a spotlight beamed right onto me. My. Fucking. God. That thing had my flashlight and was pointing it directly at me. “Helpp… Nathaniel. Help me son.” The light started to bob up and down. Whatever was holding it was lurking closer and closer to me, and was gaining on me much faster than I was to the door. So much for not being able to walk. I ended up winning the foot race miraculously. I jumped inside my door and slammed it behind me. I heard a loud thump into the door immediately following its closure. My mothers late voice came again, beckoning me. “Son. You know your mother has taught you better than this. Let me in. Please, my son.” The light shone through the window at me, blinding me. Seeing spots and now disoriented, I fumbled myself up and managed to lock the door. Max was at the furthest point possible from the door, glaring at the door trembling in fear. Three solid knocks from the top of the door frame. Then the light was gone and I heard a metallic clunk, the thing must have dropped the flashlight on its retreat. The light now was gleaming off a huge tree. I watched a tall skinny humanoid creature with long contorted ligaments jerkily run towards that tree. His legs bent opposite of how our legs do, and same with the arms. Then it bent down in the same erratic way that it moved, and got onto all fours as it approached the tree. It paused a second and peered up the trunk. His head swiftly snapped to my face. Its now black and sunken eyes stared into my soul. I froze in terror as it climbed that trunk, with its face directly bored into me mind you, like squirrel. Scurrying right up it, never leaving contact with my eyes. The light undoubtedly should be blinding his vision, but the sense of intelligence of it knowing my existence was uncanny. Light didnt hurt it. As it ascended it smiled at me, a predatory grin. It disappeared into a purple dot that was still in my vision from when I was blinded by the flashlight. As I moved my head to try to see the creature, I watched tree leaves russell and saw no more of it. Yet. I locked the doors that night and cleaned up Max’s accidents from not going out. At night as I was asleep, I was awoken by my mothers soft voice from right outside the bedroom window. “Let me in Nathaniel..” Then directly following this motherly imitation came a 10,000 lumen flashlight beamed into my face. I heard the window slowly open, but I was blinded by the light.

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

First I use to be an active person. Hiking, running, cycling, endurance events. Then 8 months ago I felt what I thought was a pulled hamstring in right leg. Then the next month decided to still run Rim2Rim in Grand Canyon and ended up rolling my left ankle 3x and had to hike out on own. Ended up severely spraining ankle probably due to over compensation for not being able to fully stretch out my right leg.
Finally went to Doc who said it’s probably piriformis syndrome. He ordered up PT and I continued for a few months with no real progress. Finally got referred to spine specialist who ordered MRI and I have a 6.5 mm disc bulge in L5-S1. My symptoms have varied greatly. Started with hamstring, glute pain then sciatica pain down entire leg, quads and IT tightness. Now symptoms are mostly centered in hamstring, hip/greater trochanter area and SI joint area of lower back. Symptoms increase when driving. Bending over to pick something off ground is not fun too but manageable by looking like I’m much older (47/male).
Mornings are horrible and always a struggle to put weight on leg but with stretches and continued walking it eventually loosens up. I do have an approximately 20 minute drive to work and when I get out of vehicle in morning it’s immense pain and I slowly make it into office. With time and sometimes some ibuprofen the symptoms decrease and I’m able to make it thru day. Drive home isn’t pleasant but not as bad as morning.
Moving around later in day isn’t an issue and I pretty much do anything except for the activities I love - running/cycling. I have been on a few hikes with no issues, I just leave the running part out. I have a cortisone shot scheduled for next month. Spine doc didn’t recommend it but said it’s my choice if I want to get it done. That recommendation was 2 months ago and the pain is weighing on me.
Anyone have similar symptoms? How is your progress? How long have you been dealing with it? I’m curious to judge if my symptoms are moving in a healing direction or not. Appreciate any discussion!

Skinwalkers in Rural Michigan
I recently purchased a 10,000 lumen flashlight to illuminate the surrounding woods as I walk my dog in the evenings. I have been hearing some strange noises at night, and I figured it would be nice to see everything that boxes me in as I walk Max, my dog. But boy was I wrong. I should have been afraid of what can't be seen outside the veils of my iphone flashlight. What was to be exhumed by my flashlight terrified me to my core. This happened a week or so ago, November, 2nd 2022, Harrison Michigan. The evenings were approaching abruptly now. It was only 8:30pm when I decided to take my golden retriever on one last shit walk before I got settled in for the night. At this time, in rural Michigan at least, it’s pitch black. I cursed underneath my breath as I opened the door and peered out. Fuck, chilly and dark. God, why haven’t I moved south yet? Max was timid this evening, which was so really unlike him. Very strange. The darkness emanating from outside my house poured in like a disease. It was void of any color. Upset about not replacing my porch light, I pulled out my new amazon special, this week it was a 10,000 lumen flashlight. Feeling its expensive metallic body in my hands felt exonerating, and the excitement to use it overthrew any bad vibes Max was giving. He whimpered as soon as the door opened, he then put his tail between his legs and shivered. I scoffed at his weak tendencies here, this was so unlike him. I turned this ungodly bright flashlight on and showed it forward. “For fuck sake look Max, nothing to be afraid of y-” I was cut off. My mouth gaped at what was in front of me. Shown in the powerful beam of the flashlight was a contorted lanky humanoid figure. It slumped down from a standing position and got on all fours like a person miming a frog. Then it jerked its head up and sniffed the air. Animistically. It turned its head and bored its stare right into my eyes. Then it darted into a bush on the edge of the woods. The edge of the woods that surround my entire house. I heard leaves crackle and watched the skin colored creature dissipate into them. I focused the beam of my light directly onto that bush. It was incredibly bright and the bush appeared like high definition from the immense light, especially in contrast to the oily blackness that surrounded me. The bush shaked ominously, like a predator was inside, shifting around. A familiar feminine voice came from that bush. “Please help me… oh god please help… help… help mee…” And the leaves rustled again. Max whimpered in terror and got between my legs. I grabbed the baseball bat that I kept beside the front door for just such occasions and held it beside my head in a “ready to whoop” gesture, the other hand on my flashlight. I shakily started towards the bush from my door. Max bolted inside, leaving me completely alone. “Helllppppp meee” the voice cooed. The soft feminine coo of the voice crackled a little this time. Yeah, almost as if something was masquerading as a female, and luring me in. I was about 6 feet away by now, I could feel the blood pulsating in my temples. Goosh flesh ran down my body. “Helllpp,” deeper voice “Meeee!” An elongated ashy white arm flung towards me at ankle height. I instinctively stomped down on it. I heard cracking and sloshing from underneath my shoe. I stepped directly onto its wrist. I heard a shriek from inside the depths of that bush and the hand sprung up like a trap being set off. The strength possessed by this creature was unreal, it slung me to the ground and began to reel me into its bush where it resided. I screamed, smacked the arm with the bat as hard as I could and then lost control of the bat. It fell next to me as I was dragged closer to the bush, now my feet were inside the leafy abyss. The voice turned into my mothers voice. The clawed hands grasp on me tightened with tremendous strength and the nails dug into my skin through my pants. “Help me Nathaniel. Your mother needs help. I can't walk.” Yeah alright. I shined my light into the bush. What I saw still makes me tremble. It was my dead mothers face there alright, but atop an ashy white skinned humanoid skeleton with backward joints. The arms bent unnaturally opposite of how they should, the legs were bent like a frogs ready to pounce. The eyes were milky white, but were extremely intelligent and they gazed into my consciousness. With all of my force, I horse kicked my deceased mothers face and heard a massive crunch as my heel connected with her masqueraded nose. A profane yelp of pain blasted into the darkness of this B.F.E. where I lived. The grip on my leg loosened just enough from the blow for me to break free. I shot upright and turned to the door. I dropped my flashlight in this madness and couldn’t give a shit less. It could keep it for all I fucking cared. I bolted towards the door, and as I reached the halfway point I was Illuminated by a blinding bright light from behind. Almost like a spotlight beamed right onto me. My. Fucking. God. That thing had my flashlight and was pointing it directly at me. “Helpp… Nathaniel. Help me son.” The light started to bob up and down. Whatever was holding it was lurking closer and closer to me, and was gaining on me much faster than I was to the door. So much for not being able to walk. I ended up winning the foot race miraculously. I jumped inside my door and slammed it behind me. I heard a loud thump into the door immediately following its closure. My mothers late voice came again, beckoning me. “Son. You know your mother has taught you better than this. Let me in. Please, my son.” The light shone through the window at me, blinding me. Seeing spots and now disoriented, I fumbled myself up and managed to lock the door. Max was at the furthest point possible from the door, glaring at the door trembling in fear. Three solid knocks from the top of the door frame. Then the light was gone and I heard a metallic clunk, the thing must have dropped the flashlight on its retreat. The light now was gleaming off a huge tree. I watched a tall skinny humanoid creature with long contorted ligaments jerkily run towards that tree. His legs bent opposite of how our legs do, and same with the arms. Then it bent down in the same erratic way that it moved, and got onto all fours as it approached the tree. It paused a second and peered up the trunk. His head swiftly snapped to my face. Its now black and sunken eyes stared into my soul. I froze in terror as it climbed that trunk, with its face directly bored into me mind you, like squirrel. Scurrying right up it, never leaving contact with my eyes. The light undoubtedly should be blinding his vision, but the sense of intelligence of it knowing my existence was uncanny. Light didnt hurt it. As it ascended it smiled at me, a predatory grin. It disappeared into a purple dot that was still in my vision from when I was blinded by the flashlight. As I moved my head to try to see the creature, I watched tree leaves russell and saw no more of it. Yet. I locked the doors that night and cleaned up Max’s accidents from not going out. At night as I was asleep, I was awoken by my mothers soft voice from right outside the bedroom window. “Let me in Nathaniel..” Then directly following this motherly imitation came a 10,000 lumen flashlight beamed into my face. I heard the window slowly open, but I was blinded by the light.

I had always remembered my deeply rooted envy at a girl at my old high school. Alyssa Howard, Home Room 207. It hadn't been long since I graduated there. I was in Class of '22, in a homeroom that I simply didn't fit in. It was isolating since everyone in my homeroom was in groups of friends, everyone was their own designated groups.
Alyssa was in the Choir group, consisting of 8 girls. They were girls that were a part of Choir Class, an elective that made no sense why I took it. Along with Alyssa Howard, there was Brianne Becker, Fiona Figueroa, Leslie Smith, Hannah Klidford, Emma Kelly, Mandy Lake, and... Karla Reyes. Karla Reyes was one of them I knew very well. In fact she is the reason why I'm typing this out.
Karla was my childhood friend, we met in 5th grade. Her family was from around Texas, and she recently moved to this small town of Meadows Dale. I didn't have friends at that age since most kids thought I was...well weird. I didn't comprehend why I was weird to them at the time, I just simply thought I wasn't cool enough. I remember vividly that I was walking far from the rusty playground, to a hill that pretty much if going more up north, you'll be at the Centennial Park of the town.
That sunny day in 5th grade felt like it was just yesterday. I was walking up a hill, my Elsa shoes making every step feel like a chore. I sighed, looking down at my shoes, feeling embarrassed that my mom had gotten them for me. All the other kids in my grade were wearing Converse or cool sneakers, and here I was, stuck with sparkly, princess-themed shoes. I flopped down on the grassy ground, feeling like the biggest outcast in the world.
I sat there, lost in my own thoughts, I noticed a girl with dark hair and tan skin walking towards me. She looked a bit nervous, fidgeting with her hands as she approached. I recognized her from my homeroom class.
"Hey," she said, trying to sound casual. "These hills look like a pair of butt cheeks, don't they?" She giggled, and I couldn't help but laugh too.
I signed back to her, using my hands to mimic the shape of hills and then making a silly face to show that, yes, they did look like butt cheeks. Karla laughed, and I was surprised. Not many people in my class knew sign language, and it was nice to have someone to communicate with in my own way.
"Do you know sign language?" I signed, curiosity getting the better of me.
Karla nodded, her dark hair bobbing up and down. "Yeah, my aunt was born deaf, so I learned to communicate with her."
I signed back, asking her if she thought it was cool that I knew sign language too.
Karla grinned. "Yeah, that's really cool! I'm Karla, by the way."
“Lily,” I signed my name, and Karla sat down next to me on the grass. We chatted for the rest of recess, discovering that we had a lot in common. We both loved DreamWorks movies better than Disney, and our favorite music group was Fifth Harmony. I was obsessed with them back then, and Karla was too. We both wanted to be like Camila Cabello when we grew up.
From that day on, Karla and I were inseparable. We'd sit together at lunch, partner up for group projects, and even started a Fifth Harmony fan club in our class. Karla would always lend me an earbud so we could jam out to our favorite songs together. Our friendship was effortless, and I felt like I'd finally found someone who understood me.
It was perfect until the start of Freshman year of Meadows Dale High School. I held my scheduler tightly in my hands as I climbed the stairs to the kitchen, my stomach twisted in knots. My heart sank as I scanned the pages, taking in the fact that most of my classes were designated for students with special educational needs. Homeroom and choir were the only exceptions.
I made my way to the living room where my mom was seated, tears brimming in my eyes. "Mom, why do I have to take these classes?" I signed, frustration etched on my features. "I don't need this kind of help. I can handle regular classes just fine."
My mom looked at the schedule, her expression sympathetic. "I know you don't seem to need help, sweetie, but the school requires you to take these classes. It's just protocol."
I sighed, feeling a wave of frustration wash over me. "I'm going to feel like even more of a freak than I already do," I gestured angrily, trying to hold back tears.
From the living room doorway, my father's deep voice cut through the silence. His ears perked up from the conversation. "Hey, kiddo, what's going on?" he asked, his voice gentle.
I signed again, rapidly gesturing my fingers "I don't want to take Special ED classes, Dad. I can do normal classes. I can hear the teachers very well!"
My dad walked over to us, his eyes scanning the schedule. "I know it's tough, Lily, but the school is just trying to help. Plus, You're not a freak. Not in our eyes, anyway. If anybody gives you trouble, I'll personally see to it that they regret it." His tone was lighthearted, but his meaning was clear. He was the sheriff, after all, and his reputation preceded him.
I rolled my eyes, signing, "Dad, please. You're only making things worse."
Ignoring my pleas, he ruffled my hair affectionately before leaving the room. I retreated to my bedroom, collapsing onto my bed in a heap of tears. The night passed in a blur, and soon enough, it was time for me to wake up and face another day.
I woke up to the sound of my dad calling me from downstairs. "Lily, time to get up! First day of school!" I groggily got out of bed, still feeling the emotional hangover from the night before.
My dad drove me to school in his police cruiser, which only added to my embarrassment. I remembered feeling weird being in the cruiser, with its flashing lights and sirens. As we pulled up to the school, my dad turned to me and said, "No matter what, you'll always have me and Mom, okay? We love you, and we're proud of you."
He hugged me tight, and I felt a lump in my throat again. I nodded, trying to hold back tears, and got out of the car. Finally me into the world of Meadows Dale High School.
The enormity of the building hit me hard as I stepped inside. The halls were bustling with activity, and the noise level was overwhelming. The classes flew by, and I couldn't help but feel like my Special ED classes were too easy for me. The teacher aides were sweet, but they were busy helping other students, leaving me to feel like I was just going through the motions.
As I walked out of my Literature class, I noticed a boy sitting alone next to a locker. He had ginger hair and was a bit overweight, and he was using a big headset to listen to music. There was something about him that drew me in, so I walked over to say hi.
He removed his headphones, looking up at me with a nervous smile. "Hi," he said, his voice a little shaky.
I signed back, "Hi."
He laughed, a little awkwardly. "Sorry if I'm a bit awkward. I'm not really used to talking to people."
I signed, "You're not awkward at all."
He smiled, looking relieved. "Thanks. I'm Matt Weston."
I nodded, signing, "I'm Lily."
Matt's eyes lit up. "Sweet. What's your homeroom?"
"207."
Matt's face brightened up. "No way, that's my homeroom too!"
I smiled, feeling a sense of excitement. "That's amazing!"
Matt stood up, walking towards a bookshelf. "Homeroom's next class. Want to walk with me?"
I nodded, following him as the bell rang. We exited the class, and suddenly we were swept up in a sea of students pushing and shoving to get to their next class.
We finally arrived at class 207, which was already filled with students. I saw Alyssa sitting in the back with her group of friends, looking like a star athlete. Matt went to sit in the front seat, and I sat next to him.
Just as we were settling in, one of the guys from Jr high football, Ryan Peterson, hit a football at Matt, saying, "Can't believe we got 'Butterball' in our class."
Matt rolled his eyes, saying, "At least I don't have a father who cheats and spreads gonorrhea."
Ryan's friend, Warren, said, "Ohhh sick burn,"
Ryan huffed, whispering to Matt, "Just because you're special doesn't mean everybody likes you."
I got mad, flipping Ryan the finger, which made him laugh. "You're lucky I ain't telling the teacher, because I don't want any issues with your old man!" Ryan walked away with Warren, leaving me feeling annoyed.
The homeroom teacher arrived, a young guy in his 20s with cedar brown hair and a pair of glasses. "Hello Students! Like that you are all sitting in neatly placed groups. My name's Mr. James and I'll be your homeroom teacher for Freshmen till Senior Year. Hope you excited as I am!"
Just as he was about to start writing on the white board, a beautifully dressed Karla emerged late, looking older and more mature with a lot of makeup on. I looked up, happy to see her, only for her to not notice me and sit down next to Alyssa's group.
Matt whispered to me, "Do you know that girl?"
I signed, "No."
Matt nodded, looking curious. "She looks familiar, but I don't know her name. Was it Kayla or Karly?"
"It's Karla," I shrugged, feeling a pang of disappointment. It seemed like Karla had moved on to a new group of friends, leaving me behind. I don't know how this change happened, since Karla and I went on a trip to Orlando, Florida, three weeks ago. I thought we had the best of our life's during that trip.
I was stumped, watching from afar as Karla chatted with Alyssa and her friends. I felt a twinge of jealousy and sadness as I realized how easily Karla had seemingly moved on and found a new group to hang out with. I mean, I thought we were best friends. It felt like Alyssa had stolen her from me.
I turned my attention elsewhere, not wanting to dwell on it. That's when I noticed a teenage boy sitting alone a few rows in front of me. He had jet black hair and there was something familiar about him, although I couldn't quite place it. I wondered who he was and why he was sitting alone.
"Hey, Lily," Matt said, following my gaze. "Do you know that guy? He looks kind of like a mini Detective Loomis."
I shook my head, signing that I had no idea who he was, but now I was curious too. Detective Loomis had been a family friend for years, and I knew he had a son, but I hadn't seen him in a while.
Matt chuckled nervously and waved his hand as if to dismiss his own question. "Just wondering. He kind of looks like him, that's all."
Just then, the boy turned around in his seat and our eyes met. He raised an eyebrow, clearly having overheard our conversation. "Yeah, that's my dad," he said, a hint of challenge in his voice. "Why?"
Matt shifted uncomfortably in his seat, clearly not expecting such a direct response. "Oh, um, no reason. Just curious, that's all."
The boy, Brandon Loomis, as I now knew him to be, nodded slowly, as if accepting Matt's explanation. Then, to my surprise, he introduced himself with a small smile. "Brandon Loomis. And you are...?"
"Lily Anderson. Nice to meet you, Brandon."
“I'm Matt by the way,” Matt chimed in.
A flash of something—was it pain?—crossed Brandon's face, but it was quickly replaced with a smile. "Nice to meet you both. Your dad's a good man, Lily. He helped me out a lot."
I could only imagine what Brandon had been through. I remembered hearing snippets about his kidnapping a while back, but I had no idea what he must have endured. No wonder he hadn't been in school until now.
"Well, I hope the rest of the year goes well for you," I signed sincerely.
Brandon smiled at me again, and I felt a warm glow spread through my chest. "Thanks, Lily. I hope so too."
As the homeroom continued, Mr. James had us all introduce ourselves and played some icebreaker games to help us get to know each other better. It was actually kind of fun, and it took my mind off Karla and her new friends for a while.
One of the things we had to do was share a fun fact about ourselves. When it was Matt's turn, he revealed that he was the son of Mayor Weston and a great friend of my dad's. No wonder he seemed so familiar! I knew my dad would be thrilled to hear that Matt and I had become friends.
Before I knew it, the homeroom was over, and Matt, Brandon, and I headed out into the hallway together. I was relieved to find out that we all had B lunch, so I wouldn't have to eat alone.
"So, where do you guys usually eat?" Brandon asked as we made our way down the crowded hallway.
"I don't know about Lily, but I usually just grab something from the cafeteria and eat outside," Matt replied.
I signed, "That sounds good to me. I like being outdoors."
Brandon nodded. "Yeah, me too. Although, I usually eat my lunch at Dillard's Diner since I work there after school. You guys should come by sometime. The food's pretty great."
"Definitely!" Matt said enthusiastically. "I love diner food. And hey, maybe we can even help you out sometime if you're short-staffed."
Brandon laughed. "Sure, why not? It can get pretty crazy on the weekends, so any extra hands would be appreciated."
As we made our way to the cafeteria, Matt started talking about his favorite band, Deftones. I had to admit, their music was a little too heavy for my tastes, but Matt was so passionate about it that I found myself getting drawn in.
"You know, you should check out their album 'White Pony,'" Matt said. "It's a classic. My dad actually introduced me to them, and I've been hooked ever since."
I signed with a smile, "My dad's always trying to get me into his favorite bands too. He's a big fan of The Beatles and Queen."
"Oh, those are classics," Brandon chimed in. "My dad's more of a country music guy, but I've definitely grown to appreciate some of the older stuff."
While we ate lunch, I pulled out my sketchbook and started drawing, something I often did when I was feeling nervous or needed a distraction. Matt and Brandon were curious and asked to see my drawings. I showed them some of my anime-style sketches, and they both complimented my work.
"Wow, Lily, these are amazing!" Matt exclaimed. "You're gonna be like Picasso one day."
I signed, feeling my face heat up with embarrassment. "Thanks, Matt. That's really nice of you to say."
Brandon nodded in agreement. "Seriously, you're really talented. I wish I could draw like that."
As lunch came to an end, Matt and Brandon suggested that they walk me to my next class. I was surprised but pleased that they wanted to stick together. My next class was Choir, and thankfully, it was just down the hall.
"So, Lily, do you sing?" Brandon asked as we walked.
I signed, feeling a little self-conscious. "A little. I mean, I really want to sing, but I'm not sure I'm any good."
"Don't be shy, Lily," Matt said with a grin. "I bet you have a great voice."
I felt my face flush again, but I was glad that Matt and Brandon seemed so supportive. As we reached the choir room, I took a deep breath and prepared myself for whatever the class might bring. I slowly pushed open the door to the choir room, unsure of what to expect. The room was dark, but as my eyes adjusted, I could make out the outlines of rows of chairs facing a small stage. The room had a strange beauty to it, with its blue and white color scheme and intricate design carvings. I made my way to an empty chair near the exit, wanting to keep a low profile.
Before long, a flood of girls began to pour into the room, chattering and laughing. I recognized many of them from the Meadows Dale Advanced Academic Program. My heart sank a little as I spotted Brianne Becker, one of the most popular girls in school, deep in conversation with Meg Peterson. They were giggling about some guy they both apparently liked. Brianne's eyes suddenly landed on me, and her smile faded. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, feeling self-conscious under her gaze.
Alyssa entered the room, and the atmosphere seemed to brighten. Brianne's face lit up, and she rushed over to give Alyssa a hug. "I'm so happy you're in this class!" she exclaimed. Alyssa smiled back, her warm hazel eyes shining. I felt a small sense of relief seeing her friendly face.
Following Alyssa were Mandy, Fiona, Leslie, Hannah, Emma, and Karla. They all seemed to be deep in their own conversations, and I felt even more alone. Karla was telling Fiona about getting her nails done, and Fiona was expressing her dislike for acrylics. I stood up and waved at Karla, trying to get her attention. She had been one of my few friends in middle school, but something had changed between us lately.
Alyssa, however, made her way over to me and offered a genuine greeting. "Hi, Lily! It's so great to see you in this class," she said, her eyes sparkling with sincerity. I felt a small smile tug at my lips. At least there was one person here who didn't seem to mind my presence.
Entering through the red velvety curtains of the stage, a woman with brunette hair, who looked to be in her early 40s, emerged from behind the stage. She had an air of enthusiasm about her as she introduced herself as Mrs. Becker, Brianne's mother. I remembered hearing that they were related, and at the time, I had thought it was sweet that a mother and daughter shared the same class.
Mrs. Becker instructed us all to take our seats and explained that this class was for girls only. She then asked each of us to come up on stage and recite the Do-Mi-Re-Fa-So syllables so that she could group us into sections of eight. My heart sank as I realized I would have to sing in front of everyone.
One by one, Mrs. Becker called each girl up to the stage. Some of the girls had okay voices, while others were truly talented. Then it was Brianne's turn. Her voice was like an angel's, a beautiful soprano that filled the room. Fiona and Emma also impressed me with their deep, rich alto voices. Mandy, Leslie, and Hannah had high-pitched, yet well-controlled voices that blended beautifully.
Alyssa and Karla were the last to go, and they both had perfect voices. Alyssa's voice was like honey, smooth and warm. But it was Karla who really stood out. She sounded like a pop idol, her voice clear and powerful. I found myself getting lost in the music, forgetting my worries for a moment.
Then Mrs. Becker called my name, and my heart sank. I nervously made my way up the stairs to the stage, my hands trembling at my sides. I took a deep breath, trying to steady myself. As I opened my mouth to sing, an awful, screeching noise escaped. My throat instantly sting, as the aftertaste of metallic overwhelmed my mouth. It was so bad that Mrs. Becker immediately cut me off.
"Why are you in this class, Lily?" she asked, a hint of annoyance in her voice.
I looked at her sadly and signed, "I don't know. I didn't choose this class."
Mrs. Becker softened a little, seeing my dejected expression. "Well, you better discuss these matters with a counselor about switching, because there are better candidates out there who want a spot in this class," she said bluntly.
I felt my cheeks burn with embarrassment as I made my way back to my seat at the very back of the room. I could feel the eyes of the other girls on me, and I heard their stifled laughter. Karla's laughter rang out the loudest, stabbing me like a knife. Alyssa was the only one who didn't join in, her face a mask of disappointment. I wasn't sure if she was disappointed in me or in the other girls' behavior.
It was next week, I got out of my algebra class heading towards the office. I had to wait till Monday, since during the first few days, my assigned counselor was not available. I was already antsy of finally getting out of that Choir class, I couldn’t deal another day with a class I clearly didn’t fit in. My schedule in my hand, I pulled the door open, being greeted by the smell of freshly baked chocolate chip muffins. Nervousness ran through me, wondering what type of counselor Dr. Wells would be.
The door was wide agape, leading me into the source of that muffin smell. Sitting there on a working desk, was a man typing on his laptop. He looked a bit exhausted, almost to the point that he slumped on his chair. Tilting my head, I nudged on his shoulders, trying to shake him awake. I couldn’t help but feel warmth radiating in my cheeks.
“Huh? Oh, hello there Lily. What brings you here?” Dr. Wells jolted up, probably noticing how close I was to his face. I backed away, sitting down on a red couch next to him.
“I want to change classes please.”
Mr. Wells nodded off, scooting his chair back towards his mahogany desk. He searched up my schedule, turning his laptop to my view. “Oh, I see. In what class do you want to change?”
I nervously let out a breath, as I finally let out what emotions I was holding. “I don’t know why you assigned me Choir, but everyone in that class hates me. I really need that class changed, Dr. Wells.”
I saw my counselor's lip repeatedly twitched a bit, before he gathered his composure. Dr. Wells looked up from his desk, his kind face softening as he saw me. "Lily, I want to apologize profusely for putting you in that situation."
I signed, feeling a little comforted by his words. "It's okay. I did want to be in that class, but I just... I felt so out of place with all the other girls laughing at me."
Dr. Wells sighed and rubbed his temple. "I'm truly sorry, Lily. I was told you loved music and thought you would enjoy the class. But it's clear that it wasn't a good fit. Do you have another class in mind that you'd like to take instead?"
I nodded and signed, "Art class. I heard my friend Brandon is taking that, and I've always loved drawing."
Dr. Wells typed something into his laptop. “Consider it done. I'll have the change processed by tomorrow, if not sooner. In the meantime, help yourself to a muffin. The library teacher made them for me, and they're delicious."
I smiled and took one of the muffins, taking a bite. "Are you and the library teacher... a thing?" I asked, feeling a little bold.
Dr. Wells laughed, a deep, hearty sound that filled the room. "No, no, nothing like that. Just colleagues. She knows I have a sweet tooth, so she often shares her baking creations with me."
I felt a wave of relief wash over me. It was probably one of the few times I'd developed a crush on someone, and as usual, it was harmless and something I'd get over quickly. Dr. Wells was one of those crushes indeed. I stood up from my chair, feeling much better than when I arrived. "Well, thank you, Dr. Wells. I better head to class soon."
Dr. Wells smiled and placed a hand on my shoulder. "Of course, Lily. And remember, if you ever need someone to chat with, my door is always open."
Later that day, during lunch, I made my way to our usual table with Brandon and Matt. They were already deep in conversation about their morning classes.
"PE is a nightmare," Matt was saying. "All the athletes make fun of me because I'm not as fast or strong as they are. It's frustrating."
Brandon nodded sympathetically. "I heard you beat Ryan on the pacer test, though. That's impressive."
Matt shrugged, taking a bite of his apple. "It was just luck, honestly. Ryan got too cocky and sprained his knee on the seventy-ninth lap. I just kept a steady pace.”
I signed to Matt, "You should still be proud. I bet your dad was happy."
Matt smiled. "He was. It's not every day I get to impress him, especially when it comes to sports. You know how Mayor Weston was a star athlete back in his day."
I laughed, and then took a bite of my sandwich. "Speaking of impressing people, I have some news. I'm switching out of choir class and into art elective. Hopefully, I'll be in the same class as you, Brandon."
Brandon's face lit up. "That's great! I'm so glad you'll be joining us. Art class is a lot of fun.”
Matt nodded in agreement. "I'm happy for you, Lily. But why are you leaving Choir? I thought you loved singing."
My smile faltered, and I looked down at my lap. "It's just... it's not the right fit for me," I signed.
Matt frowned, chewing on his apple. "Is Mrs. Becker too mean? I've heard she can be hard on students who aren't part of the popular crowd."
"No fair," I signed, my eyes pleading with him to understand.
Brandon nodded. "It really isn't fair, Matt. That's why I prefer to keep a low profile. Popularity contests aren't worth the hassle.”
Just then, I felt a tap on my shoulder, and I turned to see Karla standing there, a sad look on her face. "Lily, can I talk to you?" she asked, her voice soft and hesitant.
I hesitated, signing, "Why?”
With a strand of hair tucked behind her ear, she leaned in and whispered, "I want to talk to you in private."
I glanced at Matt and Brandon, signing, "I'll be back, okay?"
Matt nodded, his eyes curious. "We'll be here. Take your time."
I followed Karla to the girl's bathroom, my heart pounding in my chest. I wasn't sure what this was about, but I sensed it was important to her. Once we were inside, Karla pulled out a juul vape from her pocket and took a hit. The sweet smell of watermelon filled the air.
"Want a hit?" she offered, holding it out to me.
I was curious, so I signed, "Sure."
I took a cautious drag, expecting to choke, but surprisingly, I didn't. Karla laughed, "I guess you already know how to smoke. Not so innocent after all, huh?"
I rolled my eyes. "I learned from watching Effy in Skins. It's not like I've never seen it before."
Karla laughed again, a genuine sound that seemed to break through the tension between us. "Look, Lily, I wanted to apologize for what happened in the choir. I shouldn't have laughed. It was mean, and I'm sorry."
I stayed silent, unsure of how to respond. A part of me wanted to accept her apology, but another part was still hurt by her earlier behavior. Before I could say anything, Karla cut in, "I know it doesn't make up for it, but I want to make it up to you. How about I take you to the skating rink this evening? It's one of our favorite places, remember?"
I hesitated, considering her offer. Finally, I signed, "Okay, I guess."
Karla's face lit up, and she gave me a quick hug. "Great! I'll text you the details. See you later, okay?" And with that, she left the bathroom, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
I walked back to the cafeteria, my mind racing. Matt rushed over to me, his eyes full of questions. "How did it go? What did she want?" he asked.
"It went okay," I replied, signing as I continued. "Karla invited me to the skating rink this evening."
Brandon's eyebrows furrowed. "I don't know, Lily. Karla hangs out with those choir girls. I don't think we can trust her, especially after what happened."
I bit my lip, understanding his concern. "What if I sneak you and Matt in too? That way, if anything goes south, we'll be together."
Matt's eyes lit up. "That's a brilliant idea! I'm in."
A small smile tugged at my lips. "It's settled, then. We're going skating."
That afternoon, I waited on the porch for Karla to pick me up. The sun was starting to set, casting a warm glow over everything. My dad emerged from the house, dressed in his sheriff's uniform. "Why are you wearing your uniform on your day off?" I asked, curious.
He chuckled, patting my back. "Got called into work. Something strange is going on. Don't worry, I'll be fine."
I signed, "Be safe, Dad."
“I will, honey. Have fun with Karla, okay.” He smiled and gave me a thumbs-up before heading off. A minute later, a black Chevy pulled up, and I recognized it as Mrs. Becker's car. Karla leaned out the window and waved me over.
I took a deep breath and climbed into the back seat. Besides Karla, there were a few other girls from the choir class—Mandy, Hannah, Emma, Leslie, Fiona, and Brianne. Alyssa was noticeably absent.
Noticing my curious glance, Karla explained, "Alyssa had track practice. She couldn't make it."
I signed, "That's nice."
Brianne turned to Mrs. Becker and asked, "Can we get some McDonald's shakes? Please?"
Mrs. Becker smiled. "Of course, sweetie. Does anyone else want one?"
Everyone nodded eagerly, and Mrs. Becker placed an order for nine shakes. Emma and Leslie wanted vanilla, Brianne wanted the seasonal spice pumpkin flavor, Hannah and Fiona requested strawberry, Karla and Mandy chose chocolate, and Mrs. Becker asked about my preference.
"Mint, please," I said, making a gesture of a mint leaf.
Mrs. Becker smiled. "Mint it is. Anything for my girls."
I felt a warm glow spread through me. Maybe, just maybe, they were starting to like me. I took a long sip of my mint shake, savoring the cool, refreshing taste.
"Chocolate is definitely the best flavor," Mandy declared, taking a sip from her own shake. "Nothing beats the classic."
"Pumpkin spice is where it's at," Brianne interjected, taking a sip of her pumpkin spice shake. "It's got that perfect blend of sweet and spicy. It's like autumn in a bite."
"Are you kidding?" Mandy scoffed. "Chocolate is timeless. It's the ultimate comfort food. Pumpkin spice is just a fad.”
"Oh c'mon! Pumpkin spice is leagues better," Brianne retorted. "It's a limited edition for a reason."
The other girls joined in, each defending their favorite flavor. I snickered at their playful bickering, feeling a sense of warmth despite the earlier tension.
About ten minutes later, Mrs. Becker pulled into the parking lot of a magenta-colored building. The girls piled out of the car, and I followed them inside, curious about our destination. Mrs. Becker turned to Brianne and said, "I'll pick you girls up at 8 pm sharp. I need to head home and take care of your little sister."
Brianne gave her mom a quick hug and yelled out, "Okay! Love you, mom!" Then she joined the choir group, whispering something in Karla's ear that made her smile in an unsettling way.
Karla walked over to me and whispered, "Hey, Lily, I want to take you to our hiding spot. It's been a while since we hung out there."
I brightened at the idea, signing, "I've missed that place. We used to act like it was our studio booth."
“Uh-huh,” Karla led me to an abandoned janitor's closet that was blocked off with a "Do Not Enter" sign. She opened the door, and I slid inside, feeling a rush of nostalgia. I slid inside the small, dimly lit closet and sat criss-cross on the floor, my heart racing with anticipation. Karla joined me, and for a moment, we just sat there, our knees touching, the silence comfortable between us.
"I've missed you, Lily," Karla signed, her expression softening.
"I've missed you too," I signed back, my heart warming at the sentiment. "It feels like it's been ages since we really talked." I looked down, my smile fading slightly. "I've missed the old Karla. The one who was always on my side, no matter what."
Karla furrowed her eyebrows, her face a mask of confusion. "What do you mean? I haven't changed, Lily. I've just matured."
I scoffed, shaking my head. "Matured? Making fun of someone less popular than you isn't mature, Karla. It's just mean spirited."
Her eyes widened at my words, and I could see the hurt flash across her face. "I haven't been making fun of you, Lily. I—"
"Yes, you have," I interrupted, my anger bubbling to the surface. "I know exactly what you and your new friends have been trying to do. You've been pretending I don't exist, like I'm not even worth acknowledging.”
Karla's face contorted with frustration. "That's not true, Lily! You always have to make everything about your disability. If anyone's changed, it's you. You used to be so happy, always laughing and joking around. Now, you just cry and complain when things don't go your way."
I signed angrily, my hands moving frantically. "How can you say that, Karla? I don't mind if you want to be more popular, but you're acting like you don't even know me. You're trying to pretend we're not friends."
Her eyes filled with tears, and her voice shook. "Maybe I don't want to be friends with you anymore, Lily. Maybe you're too held up in the past, too stuck in your own little world. You're a sad, pathetic sap, and I—"
Before she could finish her sentence, I punched her squarely in the face. The force of the blow knocked her back, and she stumbled, her hand flying to her nose.
"I wish I'd never met you, Karla!" I angrily figured my fingers around, my breathing being audible in the small space. "I wish you'd never been my friend! I wouldn't care if you dropped dead right now!"
Karla's eyes widened in shock, and tears began to stream down her face. Without another word, she turned and ran out of the janitor's closet, leaving me alone in the dimly lit space. I trembled as I crouched down in the corner, my heart pounding in my chest. I had never hit anyone before, and now I wished I could take it back. It was rather immature of me to end that way with Karla. Especially when this was the last memory I had of her alive.
Suddenly, a blood-curdling scream pierced the silence, freezing me in place. It was Karla. My eyes widened in horror as I realized what I had done. I rose to my feet and ran out of the closet, my heart pounding in my chest. As I turned the corner, I came face to face with a masked man. He was tall and imposing, his mask was painted like a 1940s woman with green eyeshadow, vibrant red blush, and blood-red lips. His copper-blonde wig fell in sleek waves, contrasting with his all-black suit.
The man walked slowly towards me, his gloved hand reaching out. I kicked him in the abdomen, my fear fueling my strength. But he was too strong. He grabbed me by the waist, his gloved finger pressing against my lips.
"My little flower, I am so happy to see you." he whispered, his voice deep and gravelly.
Before I could scream or struggle, he covered my mouth with a rag. It took a while for the chloroform to finally take effect, as I remembered my last thoughts were about Karla. Sometimes I wished this encounter was just an elaborate prank played by Brianne. However it is never the case.
When I woke up, I woke up to the sound of a girl's voice, soft and melodic. My eyes felt heavy, my body sluggish as I tried to lift my head. The singing was familiar, reminding me of Karla. My heart stirred at the memory of my friend, and I tried to shake off the grogginess that clouded my mind.
As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I realized I was restrained to a bed, my wrists and ankles bound. Panic surged through me, and I struggled against my bonds, my heart racing.
The singing continued, and I finally located the source—a television mounted on the wall across the room. My eyes widened as I recognized the singer. It was Karla, her face bruised and beaten, her eyes closed as she sang "Once Upon a December" from the animated movie "Anastasia." Her voice was shaky but serene, and tears pricked my eyes as I watched her performance.
I opened my mouth to scream, but only a weakened screech escaped my throat. I tugged at my restraints, desperation fueling my strength. I had to get out of here. I had to help Karla.
Catching me off guard, the door swung open, and the masked man from my encounter at the janitor's closet stepped into the room. My heart sank at the sight of him, and I shrunk back against the bed, my breath coming in short gasps.
He carried a plate of applesauce, his gloved hands setting it down on a table by the bed. "Good morning, my little flower," he said, his voice deep and distorted by the mask. "Your friend has a lovely voice," he remarked. "Have you ever wanted to sing like that?”
I shook my head, my eyes never leaving his face. I mouthed the words, "Let her go.”
The Masked Man smiled sadly. "Your friend has been let go. Don't worry, she's no longer suffering.”
I wanted to scream, to demand that he release me, but my voice failed me. The masked man approached the bed, his eyes cold and unfeeling. He picked up the spoon and dipped it into the applesauce, then brought it to my mouth.
"Open up, sweetie," he cooed. "You need to keep up your strength."
I turned my head away, my body rigid with fear. I didn't want his help, I didn't want anything to do with him.
"Now, now, none of that," he chided, his gloved hand gently tilting my chin back towards him. "You need to eat. And one day, my little flower, you will sing too. And it will be the most beautiful voice anyone has ever heard."
Tears slipped down my cheeks as he forced the spoon into my mouth, the applesauce tasting bitter on my tongue. I choked down the food, my throat constricting with fear and anger.
The masked man set the plate down and pulled me into a tight embrace, his gloved hands stroking my hair. "Shh, my little flower. Everything will be alright. I'm here to take care of you."
I sobbed into his chest, my body shaking with grief and terror. I had no idea where I was, no concept of how much time had passed since I had been taken. All I knew was that Karla was in danger, and I was powerless to help her. The masked man held me until my sobs subsided, then gently laid me back down on the bed. "Rest now. We have a big day ahead of us tomorrow."
With that, he turned and walked out of the room, leaving me alone with my thoughts. I closed my eyes, my mind reeling. The next time I woke, it was to the sound of my mother's sobs. I blinked groggily, my vision blurry as I tried to focus. I was in a hospital room, my mother sitting by my bedside, her face wet with tears. Matt and Brandon, my closest friends, were also there, their faces etched with concern.
"Mom?" I raised one of my hands, my fingers weak and stiff.
My mother's head snapped up, and she rushed to my side, her hands grasping mine. "Lily, oh, Lily, you're awake!" She smiled through her tears, her voice shaking. "I thought I'd lost you.”
I placed my palm to touch her cheek, my throat too dry to speak. Matt and Brandon stood by silently, their eyes filled with relief.
I then asked the big question, signing, "What... happened?"
Matt nervously stuttered, "We... We found you inside an old shed near the skating rink. You were... you were unconscious, and we called for help right away."
Brandon added, "Before that, you were missing for roughly 33 hours. We searched everywhere for you.” His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat, unable to meet my gaze.
"You're safe now, Lily," my mother said, stroking my hair. "That's all that matters. There's nothing to worry about anymore."
I shook my head, my eyes flying open. Where was Karla? I signed, "Where's Karla?”
My mother's face crumpled, and fresh tears slid down her cheeks. "She's... she's still missing, Lily. We don't know where she is."
I closed my eyes, the weight of my guilt crushing me. If I hadn't fought with Karla, none of this would have happened. It was my fault she was still out there, alone and in danger.
The days turned into weeks, and Karla remained missing. The police conducted an extensive search, but there were no leads, no clues as to her whereabouts. I blamed myself, replaying the events of that fateful day over and over in my mind.
Three weeks after my rescue, the news channel delivered a devastating blow. Karla Reyes, aged 15, had been found dead, her body buried near the Yellow Rock River. She had suffered multiple bone fractures, and the unsettling detail—she had been missing her vocal cords and larynx.
I recalled the day vividly, the sun shining brightly through my hospital window as the news anchor delivered the grim update. I had broken down, sobbing uncontrollably, the reality of what had happened hitting me like a ton of bricks. I remember wanting to just die, to pay for what I have done. If I hadn't had my friends Matt and Brandon, I wouldn't have been alive writing this. And yet, I never told anyone about The Masked Man or what had transpired that day—until now. Sometimes I wonder if Karla could hear my prayers, wishing that she deserved better than this, and I'm sorry for causing her death. I took a deep breath, steeling myself for what I needed to say next.
Karla Reyes may have been the first victim, but she certainly wasn't the last. There were 7 more Choirs Girls left.

~First~
The Bounty Hunters
“So we’re number four thousand eight hundred and twenty two on the waiting list?” Slithern asks Mother Lytha. He’s wrapped up in her coils with Mother Cindy on Pukey’s lap and between them. She’s holding George and Harrika is holding little Darruda Dawn Schmidt Powercoil. Or DD, it turns out that the name was too good for the nickname of Booger to stick. To Slithern’s disappointment. Surrounding them are his honourguard in full formal plate. Even though they were told this was going to be casual.
“It’s going through quickly.” Bike remarks from his position. He had decided to be a gentleman and let Susie-Lu have his seat. Which is why her sister was leaning against an unused part of he console next to where Bike was working.
“So does that mean we still need ta stand at attention all formal like? Or can I relax a lil?” Sallie asks. They had managed to easily fit everyone in the ship onto the bridge so there had been a minimum of fighting for seating space. Mostly the spaces around respective husbands. The Crimsonhewers didn’t care. The Sidewinders had moved fast. Nuit and Soir were all over Tang as Mustard relaxed with Andrea and Roth. Jade was crouching next to a sitting Onyx with Air Farce draped over their shoulders like the most impertinent boa to ever exist.
The Hat was reclining with his newly made piece of clothing as J3 was jotting down a list of all the funniest loopholes he could find in Mordonan bylaws and Orhanas traditions. It was in bullet point format and he was halfway through his fifth page already.
Mustard, Andrea and Roth were all but tangled up together and while The Hat wasn’t technically surrounded by his Crimsonhewer brides, there was also a higher concentration of them around the big man.
“We have contact!” Bike suddenly says as the queue in front of them jumps in time to see a man take a pull of a clear liquid that is unlikely to be water. “Are you Observer Wu?”
“I am, and you would be Officer Drake Engel. Your Aunt sends her regards.” Observer Wu says putting the bottle to this side.
“The queue behind us just expanded to several thousand. Still working on your cyber-security?”
“Yes. Unfortunately my duties require that I take an initial observation of all human outposts and interests before physically going there to evaluate in person. Meaning I can’t simply shut it off as Admiral Cistern has recommended.” Observer Wu says and there are numerous sympathetic looks.
“Well, if nothing else it should confirm just how female dominant the galactic population is.” Pukey says. “I will not hold it against you if you wish to drain the flask.”
“I’ll need more of it for later. My supplies are currently limited.” Observer Wu states. “Now then, from my understanding you are one of the earliest groups that went out and sought further interactions with the galaxy at large. You have also a recent report of one of your members attaining noble rank in a friendly empire known as Lablan, is this correct?”
“That would be me.” Slither says. “Behold my honourguard! I’m afraid I’ve left the Crystal Star back in my quarters however.”
“I see. Is there anything in particular that I should be made aware of?”
“There have been a few encounters with some very dangerous things. Some are still legally classified, others are classified under an Undaunted Remit to control dangerous information.”
“Dangerous information?
“A disgustingly powerful weapon that is easily mass made but terrible in all it’s means. The ones we’re referring to are named Pale Generators. They’re in the Albrith files.” Pukey says and Observer Wu nods.
“More to read for me then. Now I understand we have you thank for some unholy hybrid of an elephant gun, anti-material rifle and artillery cannon.”
“Yes, the Pop Gun. Often impractical, but most people scanning for weapons look for things like railguns or coilguns which have certain energy profiles, but a Pop-Gun is inert until used. Meaning it can slip through a lot of scans. Couple that with it being made of common materials and you can hide these monsters just about anywhere and there’s no way of knowing where they are without actually seeing them.”
“An excellent contribution.” Observer Wu remarks. “You were also involved in the conquest of Vucsa were you not?”
“They picked me up there!” Jade says holding up a hand and dislodging Air Farce by accident. There’s about a half second of excitement as the man lands mostly bad, jumps off it hard and turns it into a flip.
“Hah!” He proclaims and Jade laughs. “What’s the matter? Can’t get one on your old man?”
Any further taunting is cut off by her grabbing him into a tight hug as Onyx laughs before pausing as she feels her stomach.
“Little sis kicking?”
“If I hadn’t had a scan I would swear you had two sisters on the way little lady. She’s going to be a big one.” Onyx notes wryly.
“Sorry big girl, I don’t do things by halves.” Air Farce says now standing up next to her and is just barely poking over her shoulder as he does so. She leans back to kiss him.
“Make it up to me then.”
“So business as usual?”
“Business as usual.” She confirms.
“Well, I can see that there’s certainly a great effort to see how humans interbreed with other races.” Observer Wu states. “What has been learned about that?”
“Well for starters, even if there’s an enormous difference between the parents the child is still healthy. Little George here hatched from an egg that his three foot tall mother laid.” Pukey says and Observer Wu openly taps a few keys on his chair to zoom in.
“Congratulations, the child looks healthy, if a little small.”
“He should grow a fair amount more in short order. But he seems to be almost completely human.”
“Almost?”
“There is a slightly stronger type of ligament and reinforcement around his hands. His nails are also coming in stronger. I have more than a few ancestors from the mountains, with the stronger grips and everything. Looks like my little Georgie is going to be hard to stop from climbing over everything.”
“Really? So your specific breed of Kohb have stronger grips?”
“Very much so. There are those with larger hands designed to aid in digging, then there are some with finer smoother scales for better swimming.” Cindy says nuzzling down first George, then DD when she makes some noise.
Then the older sister giggles and decides to try and talk with her brother again. “Uh oh, looks like we’ve got some chatting ahead.”
“I think we should duck out then. Need to keep the littles well attended to.” Pukey says rising up as he carries them all. “If you’ll excuse me sir, I have an adoptive daughter and a newly born son to attend to.”
As the door closes behind them there’s a pause.
“So now that they’re out of the room, does anyone want to talk about them?” J3 asks in an amused tone.
“I think we can skip that, now, your particular role is to effectively take up a second occupation and pursue it while reporting back to The Undaunted as a whole, that must have been quite the step up. How were you chosen for this? Recruitment? Volunteered?”
“We were firstly singled out as more energetic and unusual crew members, the fact that all of us...”
“Ahem.” Tang interrupts.
“Almost all of us.” Bike amends his statement. “Almost all of us had some kind of strange nickname but ALL of us were rated highly for independence and initiative. We’re all always doing something, and this gives us something to do as well as being outright encouraged to get our hands on and play with every possible new toy we can.”
“And how many planets have you visited at this point?”
“Several dozen. Although if we were to simply go from world to world to drop off every criminal we had found that was a border jumper of some kind then we would rapidly visit another hundred, easily.”
“Not to mention revisit a great many that we’ve already gone to.”
“Yeah, that’s the problem with vacation worlds. People like running to them and often need to run from them after doing something stupid.”
“However the fact that a lot of bounties let you get first grab of a criminal’s illegal items, we’ve gotten quite the stash of weapons and equipment. TO say nothing of the weird techniques we discover that makes us see things even more tactically.”
“Such as?”
“One of our earliest bits of bounty hunting was The Multi-Armed Maimers, they were categorized by having many limbs as you can guess.”
Observer Wu nods.
“Well they had a trick where they’d lead any chase they ended up in directly into a treacherous canyon that would overhang to form an open air cave with numerous quartz veins, magnetic interference and a path so dangerous that chasing them was suicide, and if it was blocked off they would up their viciousness until it was uncovered, and if someone waited on the other side? Guaranteed death for whoever they took hostage, and not a clean one either.”
“How did you handle it?”
“Bought the wreck of a local van, repaired and upgraded until it was borderline illegal to own, and then went through the canyon, a little faster each time, until Air Farce there could fly it at his top speed with his eyes closed.”
“Okay, so you could stop them from harming a hostage. What else?”
“Well, we also knew that they would likely try it twice, so we set a trap at the entrance after they went over it. Using positioning and sensors to set it off at the exact right time in order to shred the underside of their vehicle. The resulting crashed stunned and injured the Maimers, allowing for easy capture.” Air Farce finishes before grinning. “Big girl here was also on the hunt and I showed her our ways. Taking her for a leisurely drive with the songs of earth to serenade her when she asked how we did it.”
There is a moment of silence before he chuckles.
“Poor girl doesn’t have a single romantic bone in her body! She...” Air Farce begins to ease before a large dark hand tipped with claws wraps around his head to silence him before he’s dragged into Onyx’s lap.
“Anyways, after he nearly scared my fur off, I realized I was dealing with the kind of man so energetic that even getting a few sparks of that would power me for millennia.” Onyx says fondly before she lets go of Air Farce to let him breathe.
“Speaking of energetic, that reminds me of something. Lieutenant General Escareno would like Pilot Rico Bravo to know that so long as he lives the threat of military prison continues under Mexican skies.”
“So long as the General lives or so long as I live?” Air Farce asks.
“He didn’t specify. I saw the forms he has ready. He just needs to file it for a dishonourable discharge, and has refused to speak of what exactly you did to anger him so much.” Observer Wu says and all heads turn to Air Farce.
“Hmm... I was explicitly told that the Gag Order was ‘until everyone forgets this embarrassment’ and failing to uphold it would see the biggest boot he has on the strongest foot he can find to kick my ass into the smallest cell he can manage if I ever tell anyone what happened.”
“Still no clues man?” Bike asks with a large smile.
“Once again, the only clue I’ll give you is that General Escareno has no sense of humour.” Air Farce says flatly.
“We’ll get it out of you one day.”
“Not legally you won’t.” Air Farce says. “Besides, what I did was technically legal.”
“Not anymore it’s not.” Observer Wu replies.
“Well it was legal at the time.” Air Farce amends.
“Every time you open your mouth I have more questions.” Sergeant Migara notes.
“That’s normal.” Air Farce says with a massive grin as he suddenly has Aviators on and there’s some groaning around the bridge.
“Where did those come from and why?” Observer Wu asks.
“He’s got a little Axiom pocket tattoo behind his ear. He has them in there.” Jade explains.
“Jade! No! Sweetie please, not my secrets!” Air Farce calls out and Observer Wu just shakes his head.
“Yes, this is clearly a surprisingly normal ship. Incidentally is Captain Schmidt still listening? There is someone here to meet him.”
“Oh, yeah we’re just outside, just making sure the little ones having a conversation isn’t interrupting.” Pukey says as he and Cindy slip back in with the two babies happily babbling at each other.
“Here, let me help.” Harrika says as she turns around and walks over. Little DD and George are happy to be near each other with George grabbing at DD constantly and her giggling every time his fingers slide over her reinforced skin.
“So you have someone here to speak with me?” Pukey says before Observer Wu nods and gestures for someone to walk over. “Baked?”
“Hey.” The man says. His expression is immensely slack but not outside of regulation. “You’ve done well.”
“I have. I’m surprised you recovered quick enough for the second round.”
“Eh, it still hurts. But it doesn’t really matter.” Baked replies. “So... three kids?”
“Four, the next egg is soon to hatch.” Pukey says and Baked pauses.
“Still kinda weird that humans can come from eggs now.”
“Well, the next one up is a daughter. Little snake girl coming up.”
“Really? That’s nice.” Baked says and there’s nothign else he says. After a few moments everyone turns to Pukey wondering what the hell is going on.
“It’s just Baked, he’s about as calm and mellow as a human can get. Even with chemical assistance, he’s not worried.”
“Why worry? Things turn out how they turn out.”
“Yes, yes the do.” Pukey says and then there’s another silence as Bike slowly looks back and forth and Air Farce starts outright snickering. “Look he’s just like this. I can’t stop that! Breaking his own ankle barely got a peep out of the man!”
People start laughing as Pukey rolls his eyes in frustration.
~First~ Last

Part 6
Kathy Evenson, Profe-Oh Shit!
Somewhere in the ruins of an ancient city in the Seventh World
"Run!" Kells shouted as the massive creature rose to its full height. Kathy turned and followed, operating mostly by dint of her instinctive reaction to the authority in his barked command. Kells didn't hesitate, taking off in the opposite direction from the thing, only glancing over his shoulder to ensure that Kathy was on his heels as he sheathed his weapons.
That didn't last long. With the magically-wrought enhancements to her body, she quickly overtook him and then slowed to keep pace. As they ran, she kept thinking 'you don't have to outrun the bear, you only have to outrun the other guy.'
The thoughts made her mad. Mostly at herself, for having them. She had been trained to be mercenary by The Company, but she had never abandoned her morals entirely. She had seen with her own eyes, countless times, that Jerry was able to stick to his morals, and still be one of the most powerful forces in the world. She was bound and determined to follow that example. It was the very reason she admired him in the first place.
The creature behind them made strange, high-pitched groans as it shook off rubble and gave chase to the prey that had disturbed its slumber. Something about the sounds triggered some recognition, but she was too busy escaping to spend much effort recalling where she'd heard them before.
They ran down a small street, then at her urging, turned between two dilapidated, multistory, wood-framed house whose wooden fence had long since collapsed and rotted away, following it into an alley that ran perpendicular to the road.
"Why?" Kells panted as they turned onto the alley.
"I doubt we can outrun it!" Kathy shouted back. "Better to try and lose it!" She kept an eye open for another chance to change their vector, and found it in the form of a three-story brick building that was still mostly intact. She turned right again, and then left at the next street.
Thunderous footsteps sounded behind them, causing Kells to put on a burst of speed. Kathy easily kept up, her mind racing, searching for options. She had just about decided to try and get some distance, and then try Jerry's Magic Bullet spell on the thing. It would mean a world of pain for her, but she figured that if it could kills a primordial, it could kill a giant, zombie spider.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a massive foot slamming into the ground just a few dozen feet behind them. The thunk of impact shook the ground, almost enough to make them both stumble. Acting, again on instinct, she eyed a point several hundred yards up the road and reached out, snatching Kells' arm and then teleporting them there.
"What in creation were that?!" Kells exclaimed as the whole world shifted abruptly around him. She hadn't gotten the elevation quite right, and they appeared a few inches off the ground, breaking their momentum. Both of them stumbled and scrambled to regain their balance.
"I teleported us further away!" Kathy shouted back.
"Teleported?!" Kells balked as they finally got their feet moving again.
"Yeah, you know!" Kathy explained. "One second we're here, the next, there!"
"Well teleport us back t'town, then!"
Kathy laughed. "Where's the fun in that!"
"Kath, I swear by all th'gods, I'll strip nekked and let ye ride me aroun' th'town like a pony, iffen ye jest bring us back there!"
Kathy laughed again. "You're a dirty old man, Kells!"
"Dirty, aye, but I'm still young!" he protested. "But I'd like to be old one day! So bring us back!"
Kathy slowed and turned, instead.
She could see the walker clearly now. And she understood why she'd recognized those noises. She'd only ever heard them in movies, but it seems the movies had been right.
Instead of the giant, zombified spider that Kells had described, she was looking at an enormous, steampunk, robot spider, draped in junk that resembled torn skin and severed sinews and veins. Tarps and tents were draped over its rusting, metal frame. Tubes that had once carried hydraulic fluids now flopped around, severed, dripping red liquids. Oils and dirt had stained it, resembling sores.
As she watched, the thing spotted them, a pair of obvious camera lenses turning towards them on its massive head and spinning to bring them into focus. Where its mouth should have been was a dense forest of protuberences, tubes, antennae and other equipment. Some of that equipment began to move, and Kathy recognized the pre-spin of miniguns.
"Cover!" she shouted, shoving Kells towards the closest tumble of fallen structure, a large and uneven mass of bricks. They had barely gotten behind it when the guns opened up, a ripping roar that thundered through the air and tore up the street where they'd been standing.
"Stars an' stones!" Kells swore.
"I wonder how much ammo it has left," Kathy mumbled to herself. But it was kind of a moot question. It clearly had some ammo left, and her only real plan to deal with it didn't involve fighting a war of attrition.
"I need you to distract it," she told Kells.
"Ye need t'get yer head checked!" he shot back. "We're both dead, Kath! I've ne'er even heard o' one who faced a walker an' lived t'tell the tale!"
"Then what difference does it make whether you distract it or not?!" Kathy demanded. Kells opened his mouth to argue, then paused, tilted his head thoughtfully to one side and closed his mouth. After a second, he shrugged at the same moment that the guns stopped firing.
"What d'ye need me to do?"
"Just run for it. I'll find you after I kill this thing."
Kells nodded, then stopped, his eyes widening yet again. "Kill it? Are ye daft?"
Kathy winked at him. "Yes, but that's beside the point. I hope you have a kink for strong women, otherwise you're about to feel real self conscious."
Kells stared, shaking his head sadly. "Well," he said philosophically after a moment. "Iffen I'm t'die today, at least y'seem like to entertain me." He started to straighten up, then paused.
"Yer sure ye dinnae want t'jest teleport us home?" he asked.
"If this doesn't work, that's plan B," Kathy assured him. Kells shook his head again, then stood.
"Hoy, ye attercop!" Kells shouted, jumping up and down, waving his arms. "Ye lazy lob! Blasted crazy cob! Come an' get me, ye old tomnoddy!"
Kathy peeked over the pile of bricks to see the beast turn its cameras towards Kells. "Oh shite," he muttered, turning and running as fast as he could down the road, away from the walker. Massive, spider-like legs began to stomp, the thing rushing forward with incredible speed.
Kathy drew in the magics she would need, her mind recalling the instructions Jerry had given her. Magical capacitors came first, and then she set up streamers of energy to charge them. More magic flowed into her, forming crawling, multicolored arcs of energy across her skin. Her skin began to glow with an intense, golden light.
She pushed and pushed, hoping Kells would survive long enough. It took her longer than it would have taken Jerry, because she had fewer wells. But she had great control over those wells, having studied at the elbow of the greatest wizard in the world, so she knew it could be done.
She formed the magic into a dense, impenetrable shell around her. Denser than lead, it pulled her body out with its mass, and caused the rubble to shift and roll towards her, purely from the gravity of it.
When she felt she was close, she rose into the air, letting the relatively minuscule expenditure of energy it took to do it come from the magic she was drawing in. She rose like a shining star, casting a golden and multicolored glow across the ruined landscape around her. She could see Kells, a hundred yards away, as he stopped, turned and stared in awe.
"All right," she said. "Time for the cosmic money shot."
She angled herself at the beast and released the capacitors, which had been charging the whole time. She braced herself against the inner walls of her magic as she shot off at incredible speed. The impact was almost unnoticeable at first, but she felt the pain as her own body tore through the giant robotics, breaking steel and wood and leather, ripping rubber hoses and sending debris rocketing away from her with the force.
She cried out as the beast exploded, the agony reaching throughout her own body. She lost control, tumbling and falling, striking the ground in a powerful impact as broken pieces rained down around her. She tumbled, skin tearing against the rough ground, bones snapping as she struck rock after rock.
Finally, she came to a halt. She lay there, on her back, staring up at the sky. She simply breathed, great gasping breaths as her body began the laborious process of stitching itself back together.
----
Kells, A Man of Good Mores and a Solid Caravaner
Somewhere in the ruins of an ancient city in the Seventh World
Kells ran for his life as the walker began to stomp after him. Behind him, where he had left Kath, he heard a strange crackling sound, but he did not dare to take his eyes off the ground in front of him. It was only as the crackling sound got louder and louder that he realized it didn't matter. He was dead, no matter what. He might as well satisfy his curiosity about how Kath thought she could hurt the beast.
He turned, and the first thing he noticed was the light. It trended towards a golden light, but it changed colors a lot. It was coming from the little alley where he and Kath had hidden from the fire the walker had spat at them, and it played out over the nearby ruins.
Kells slowed and stopped, his attention grabbed by this curious phenomenon. As he watched, the light rose, and then Kath appeared, floating up above the ruins. She was the source of the light. Her skin and clothes glowed with a brilliant golden light as rainbow-colored lightning crackled all around her. Kells felt his jaw drop.
He'd never seen anything like this before. He'd seen a few wizards conjure fire, or vanish into mid-air before. But he'd seen fire and empty space. This glow and the lightning... He began to wonder how much power it took to be so showy with magic.
She spoke after a few seconds. "All right. Time for the cosmic money shot," she said, words that echoed through the ruins in a reverberation of power. Kells barely had time to wonder what they meant when she rocketed off towards the walker at a speed that boggled his mind.
The creature simply exploded. Kells watched in slack-jawed amazement as the golden glow lanced through the beast, causing its torso to balloon and the disintegrate. Chunks of the beast, bleeding black and red blood, flew everywhere.
As they began to rain down, Kells realized that it wasn't bloody flesh, but metal and wood and that strange, dark material that had survived so well from the time of the ancestors. He picked up a piece, still hot from the explosion as the walker's body fell in three pieces, crashing to the ground.
It was some sort of device. He couldn't make heads or tails of it, but it was not flesh and blood, that much was certain. He wondered if that was what gave the walkers their strength. They were made out of sterner stuff.
After a few moments of examining the piece, he dropped it. He had seen the glow rocket through the walker, and then arc down to the ground, so he began moving to that point. He'd made quite a good clip, running in terror. Now, guided by awe and disbelief, he took his time, walking. It took a few minutes, but he found the point.
It was a crater, smashed into the ground. In the distance, he saw another crater, then a third, all in a straight line. Wondering if Kath had survived left a sinking feeling in his stomach, but if she had, he would not be the one to abandon her here. He followed the line of craters.
They grew closer and closer together, until finally, they turned into a groove, blasted into the ground. It ran for almost four hundred feet before it finally stopped at a building with thick walls.
She was there. Laying flat on her back, her chest heaving. Her clothes were torn and shredded, her flesh covered in thin trails of blood, as if she'd been injured, though he saw no signs of any wounds.
"K-Kath?" he asked tentatively. A pained groan greeted him. After a second, she raised her head and met his eyes.
"That sucked so much," she said. Kells couldn't help himself. He began to laugh. She joined him, wincing as she chuckled.
----
Sookie, Still Sad-ish
TacFab Showroom, Denver, CO "Take PRIDE in Your Tactical Gear!"
"It's a little tight," Sookie said, eyeing the plastic buckles on her shoulders and at either side of the front.
"That's a good thing," Linda replied, though she adjusted the velcro at Sookie's back to loosen it some. "You don't want it to be shifting around when you're moving. Turn around, let me see."
Sookie raised her arms and did a slow pirouette. Linda nodded thoughtfully, the elbow of one arm propped in her other hand, one finger tapping at her chin.
"That's good. Now, we gotta find plates."
"Aren't they all the same?" Sookie asked.
"No way, girl. There's a whole rainbow of choices." Linda took her hand and led her to a glass counter with a series of various home-plate-shaped things in it.
"Okay, so we've got soft armor, which is a mix of ballistic cloth, silk, PVC and other stuff. Then you've got steel, ceramic, arkanite alloy and spiritbone. They're graded on a scale that's kinda confusing. Three-A is the soft armor. It can usually stop any handgun round, except for the armor-penetrating ones. Then there's level three, which is better, and can stop some rifle rounds, up to about a full-size rifle round, like a three-oh-eight. There's level three-plus, which isn't an official term, but it means it can stop most full-size rifle rounds, except for AP stuff. Then there's the level four stuff, which will stop almost anything except for the biggest AP rounds. Finally, there's the M stamp, which means it's resistant to magic. The M comes with a number from one to ten, with a one meaning that anyone trying to cast a spell on the armor itself will fail. A ten means that it'll defeat most any magic cast on you, while you're wearing it."
"Uhh," Sookie said. That was a lot to take in. Linda smiled.
"I got you, girl. What you're gonna want is what I call a triple-stack. Get an arkanite-alloy level four-M-nine plate, then layer level three-A-M-two soft armor over top. Together, it's about a half-inch thick. Then you add a trauma pad behind it and you're about as protected as you can get."
"Okay," Sookie said. She still didn't know what it all meant, but the process of shopping for armor was getting to her. She was thinking about armor ratings and fits and kevlar and arkanite alloys, instead of thinking about him.
"Right here," Linda said, pointing to one that looked like an elongated baseball home plate. "That's a swimmer's cut, which you'll want to maintain as much movement as possible. I know you have that mace and stuff you sometimes use. This'll keep the armor from getting in your way."
A clerk approached. "Good morning, ladies. Something I can help you with?"
Linda pointed to the plate again. "That's a four-M-nine, right?" The clerk glanced down.
"Yes, it is. That's the Steel Series five-oh-two, it's actually on sale right now... One second." He walked over to one of the registers behind the counter and tapped the screen a few times before beaming a broad salesman's smile at them. "It's thirty-five percent off."
"We'll take two," Linda said. "One multicurved swimmer's cut, one single-curved flat cut. Plus matching three-A-M-two soft plates and trauma plates."
"Of course!" the clerk said, scurrying to gather it all up. "Will you be needing side plates? That Spartan series carrier you're wearing accepts them."
"Yup," Linda confirmed. "Same mix for those, too."
The clerk happily complied, no doubt imagining the commission he would make off the purchase of a full set of body armor. Once he had everything, Linda had Sookie take off the vest, and then began stuffing the plates inside the pockets. When she was done, she handed the whole affair back.
Sookie took it, immediately feeling the weight as it dragged her arms down. "Wow, that's heavy," she said. "Isn't this going to tire me out really quickly?"
"It's extra weight, so it will tire you out some more, but it's a lot easier to carry once you get it on. Let me help you..."
Linda showed her how to use the quick-release buckles on the sides and shoulders to quickly get in. Once the weight settled in on her shoulders, Sookie found it to be a lot more manageable than when she was holding it up with her arms.
"What do you think now?" Linda asked. Sookie windmilled her arms, twisted her hips, and stretched out in a few different ways.
"It's actually pretty comfortable," she said. "You loosened it earlier to make room for the plates, right?"
"That's right," Linda said, eyeing her. "It's sitting very nicely."
"So is that it?" Sookie asked, actually feeling a little disappointed that the shopping trip would be over so soon.
Linda laughed. "Not even close. We need to get you an IFAK, an assault pack, an admin pouch and the most important thing of all: morale patches."
"Morale patches?" Sookie asked. Linda grinned. "Yeah, you're gonna love that part."
----
Emily Windham, Wizard, Artificer... And War-Wizard
The Divine Crisis Management Group Regional Headquarters, Denver, CO
Emily looked at the forms on her tablet for a long moment. Specifically, the bottom line.
"...the opinion of the test-giver that Miss Windham has all of the necessary qualities to be an excellent war-wizard. My recommendation is to quickly deploy her, so as to allow her to get some experience in the role."
Her first ready shift had started twenty minutes ago. She glanced around the room. All of the security troops in the QRF were kitted out the same as she was. Armor, camo uniforms, rank insignia on her sleeve and chest, a rifle danging from a sling between her seated legs. Kneepads, thick boots.
It was deliberate, she had learned. The troopers and the war wizards dressed alike, to keep the wizards from being easily identified by the enemy. Just as in Dungeons & Dragons, killing the wizard was often a priority in a fight.
She recalled the training Greg had subjected her to. Learning to cast with a minimum of movement and words. Learning to cast under pressure, when scared or stressed or both. Learning to cast in adverse conditions, such as while being bombarded by a massive sandstorm, or while being dragged underwater by weights attached to her ankles.
She had felt like she barely scraped by, but Greg and the other instructors had praised her. Called her a natural. Assured her that she would go far. Emily wasn't so sure, but she had long ago learned to simply accept the compliments and keep doing her best. That was the way to not disappoint people.
She was still getting used to the idea. The unfamiliar room, the unfamiliar men and women around her, the unfamiliar uniform and gear... She didn't know that she was, actually, ready. But everyone else seemed to think so.
When the alarm sounded, it startled her. She dropped the tablet, then bent down to pick it up with fumbling hands. She stood, stuffing it into one of the pockets on the side of her pants as the troopers rushed around her, doing their final preparations to deploy. Emily looked around, unsure of what to do, until one of the troopers stopped and put a hand on her shoulder.
"First deployment, right?" he asked, his voice gentle. Emily nodded.
"Are you all set? You have all the components you'll need? Your armor's squared away, your mag pouches all loaded, your gun has a round in the chamber?"
Emily checked her gun. The 'press check', they'd called it, where she pulled the charging handle back just a little, until she saw brass inside the chamber. She released it, then patted her pouches with her hands, assuring herself that they are all loaded.
"Yes," she said. She already knew she had all the magical components she'd need. She didn't need a lot, and most were 'just in case' grabs.
"Then go read the deployment orders," the trooper said, pointing to the large TV on the wall, currently showing a black page with white text on it. A few photos were at the bottom.
Emily nodded and turned to go, but then he tightened his hand on her shoulder, so she turned back. He smiled, and she glanced down to see 'Carmichael' on his nametape. She recognized the name, if not the face, from her tasking against the trolls, a few weeks ago. It had been hard to keep track of their faces, with the helmets they all wore.
"You got this," he said, his voice calm and assured. Emily flashed him an uncertain smile, and he gave her a big, confident smile right back. "You got this," he said again and let her go.
Emily walked over to the screen and began to read.

C N'Faly Dante from Oregon declared for the draft but is waiting on a waiver to see if he can be approved for a 6th season in college: https://twitter.com/MattPrehm/status/1790792301511589996 Originally from Mali, Dante was a five star recruit out of Kansas in 2019, having moved to the States to further his basketball development. He has suffered through a litany of injuries throughout his career, starting in HS as a sophomore where he tore an ACL. He suffered through tendonitis of his knees as a freshman and was cleared late with eligibility issues, tore his left ACL in 2020, suffered an ankle injury that ended his season in 2023, and had knee surgery after one game this past season, which kept him out 14 games.
Through all of his injuries, he has been able to return to the floor each time and has turned himself into an NBA prospect. The athleticism he continues to possess even after the injuries he's suffered is impressive. He measured in at 6'10 w/out shoes at the combine with a 7'6 wingspan and 9'3 standing reach. 260 points. He's a 6'11 in shoes absolute unit of a physical specimen. Strong, wide, has huge hands, and is very quick in the open floor for a big man. He's gets off the ground quickly and powerfully and is a decent leaper that can elevate from a standstill and gather and power up quickly. He's not the smoothest guy laterally, but is certainly not slow footed by any means and is really mobile for his size.
Dante does all the things you want from a traditional big well. He is one of the very best finishers this class has. Over 80% at the rim. Generates a ton of contact. Elite offensive rebounder. His ability to power up from a standstill, his frame/strength, and his wingspan and large hands gives him a very large catch and finish radius and make it extremely hard to effectively contest his shots, he's an above the rim finisher in the halfcourt. He does a fantastic job making himself available for dump off passes and working his way into position for the catch down low. He catches most balls clean but not every one, but when he doesn't he has the ability to regather himself and finish with ease. He has effective ball fakes that get defenders off their feet.
He is an elite transition threat. He's one of the most dynamic guys at his size you'll see running down the floor. He's an elite transition finisher. He beats guys down the floor and catches lobs or seals defenders and finishes at the rim. He does a great job with seals in the paint. He was one of the most efficient post scorers in college basketball this year. His post game is fairly simple but it's economical, he has nice touch in the post, and the position he gains and the space he clears with his drop step usually gives him a shot right in front of the rim. He has decent footwork in the post...he has a step through move he likes to use in the post. He has a fake spin/hook in his arsenal. He prefers the right hand but will go left. He has the ability to catch balls under the rim and work his way above it. His large catch radius, how light he is on his feet, and his strength, make it easy for him to carve out space down low. That's what really gives him an advantage from the jump as a post scorer. He's pretty decisive in the post...he gets into his moves quickly, which both forces contact and makes him hard to contest.
He is a top class screen setter. He's a wall as a screen setter. He really walls off defenders and clears them out of the way, without being called for fouls, whether that be out of the DHO, off ball, or PnR. He creates a lot of open shots with his screens. He's also great at sealing defenders for drivers for easy baskets. His screen setting contributes to how good of a PnR roller he is. He's also a fantastic slip guy. He's so mobile for his size. His ability to get off the ground quickly and his leaping ability along with his hands and catch radius makes him a major lob threat. He really peels off screens in a dynamic way and with fantastic timing. It's very hard to stop him once he gets going downhill. In a traditional PnR set, it only takes him 1-2 dribbles for him to get to the basket.
He gobbles up rebounds on both ends. He's super strong with the ball as a rebounder. He's a force as a rebounder. He attacks balls in the air, and he is fantastic with positioning. He has natural rebounding instincts, knowing where the ball is going to be off the rim and placing himself in position to grab it. He does a good job keeping the ball high when he grabs an offensive board which makes him an elite put back guy. He can grab rebounds outside of his immediate area with his length and athleticism. He can reach back and grab balls in the air. He will rip balls out of opponents' hands. He often beats opponents for position for offensive rebounds. Once he has you on his back, you're in trouble.
Dante can make a midrange jumper on occasion. He shot 61% from the line. Similar ~60% the last three seasons. He'll never be a shooter, and his shot is a bit flat, but the mechanics are not bad from the midrange. Being able to make a midrange jumper will give him a little more dimension offensively and it wouldn't hurt to provide a little spacing.
His touch and skill on shots outside of the rim is not as good as it is around it. His post range isn't that large. He gets more inaccurate the further out from the post he gets, but he generally gets to his spot close to the rim regardless. He does have some intriguing face up game from both the free throw line and in the post. He likes facing up and attacking his man with a strong dribble or two and usually finishing with a hook or a layup, and he is very effective with these shots. He'll use his strength to drive opponents back on these shots as well.
He is mobile, gets great extension, and has a quick first step and accelerates to the rim, which gives him an ability to drive and finish from the FT line/elbows. He's a straight line driver and things can get a bit adventerous when he has to put the ball on the floor. He's fine with space, but if you close his space, he's not the most secure as a ballhandler. Not much in the way of advanced moves either. Not a part of his game that we'll see much of at all as a pro, but there is some raw ability there as a face up guy.
Dante is a bit of a mixed bag as a playmaker. He has the ability to make some really sharp reads and has pretty good vision. He will make kick outs from the post and can find cutters. He'll make skip passes from the block and hit shooters on the outside. He can find cutters from the top of the key. He does a good job finding the kick out on the double team. He will bait a double team and hit the kick out. That's an important skill for him to possess...he's not a black hole and you can end up getting burned doubling him. He's not an advanced passer overall, but he will make the right reads more often then not, and some impressive ones too.
He gets ahead of himself at times and that's where turnovers can come. Both when putting the ball on the floor, but he makes careless passes a little too often. He will travel on occasion when putting the ball on the floor. His touch and timing aren't always where they need to be. But for a guy who is really gonna be a pure play finisher at the next level, the fact he does have some playmaking ability in him gives him a wrinkle many in that category do not possess.
Dante is an expressive communicator and the heart of the Ducks defense this season. Can he seen pointing to and directing his teammates into position on the defensive end. He can switch a bit on the defensive end. He can hedge high. He's a drop big, but he has switchability and his mobility gives him versatility as a drop defender, he doesn't have to deep drop and can contain ballhandlers fairly high in drop. He uses his length really well as a drop defender...he uses his hands well too. He plays man and ball effectively, with the short space mobility to recover back to his man...he uses his length to disrupt ballhandlers. He gets his hands on quite a few balls as a drop defender, breaking up dribbles or breaking up passes. He makes himself big as a drop defender, which makes him a great rim deterrent.
He's got very good instincts as a rotater. Very good awareness overall defensively. Remains engaged and keeps his head on a swivel. He does a good job rotating over and covering cutters and opponents ducking in around the rim, and does a good job helping the helper. His awareness and his mobility along with the timing he has and his leaping ability makes him a very good shotblocker, both on the weakside and strongside. I think he can be even better, he does miss out on a few potential blocks just by being a bit late on the rotation, but his block percentage sells him short on how many shots he deters and alters around the rim. He's great with verticality, and he does a good overall job not biting on fakes. He's not massively foul prone. He'll pick up some cheap fouls, but he doesn't bite on fakes consistently. He contests with his hands up and tall, and the threat of his shot blocking sees a lot of offensive players looking to avoid his contests and being cute around the rim, or even avoiding taking shots in his vicinity.
He's a very good post defender. He anticipates post passes really really well. He nabs a ton of steals beating opponents to the ball off post passes. He has quick hands. He can be very aggressive with ball denial. He has really good instincts in reading the pass and taking it away and doing so without fouling. He does a good job sticking with an opponent's moves in the post. That along with his strength and length makes it hard to get clean looks off Dante in the post. The players that had the best success against him where the players who had the aggression and strength to seal and quickly take it to him, but very few had such capability. It's easier said than done.
Dante isn't the absolute smoothest mover from side to side but he is a very mobile one. His length also aids him on the perimeter, and he slides his feet well; he has the quickness to not just hang with but cut off drives on the perimeter. He's not someone you can target. I don't think he'll ever be a pure switch guy, but he can more than hang on the perimeter. You can't really just beat him for speed on switches. It may not always look pretty but he can hang with double moves on the perimeter. He does a good job forcing opponents to take the shots he wants them to take from all three levels. He will block jumpers, both on the ball, and when rotating out on contests.
The factors that make him an elite offensive rebounder make him great on the defensive boards as well...he has great technique as a rebounder. Boxes out, asserts dominant position, and he really goes after balls in the air. He really is a vacuum as a rebounder. He tracks balls really well. As a rebounder and as a shotblocker. The elevation ability is the cherry on top, along with his strong and large hands.
N'Faly Dante's length, strength, and athleticism is at the heart of his abilities on both ends of the floor but he's got real skill as a player on both ends as well. He's a mature player who has battled through a lot to get to this point. He's a plug-and-play guy with fantastic physical tools and someone you can envision can fulfill a 10-15 minute role immediately in the NBA. We will see what comes of his waiver process with Oregon, but his current focus is with the NBA as that process continues.
Are you all Thumbs Up, Down, or Across on N'Faly Dante?
Note: Accidentally deleted first post

Please do not share.
Long time lurker first time poster. I (25F) have been with my SO (M26) for about 3 years. We’ve had a lot of issues which I will save for a different time. Here’s the reason I’m posting and could use advice and kindness please.
My mom went out of state and prior to leaving had asked my SO if he could pick her up from the airport. He said yes. While she was away, she fell and hurt herself. She was set to come home yesterday and go to the doctor today.
My SO doesn’t have a job and I rarely ever ask him for help and this experience reinforced why.
I asked him if he could take my mom to the doctor as I was unable too (I’m an attorney had a very important meeting I couldn’t reschedule), I was really concerned she broke a bone. Had my SO said no I would’ve asked around and found another option, but he said yes.
So yesterday we’re hanging out and my mom texts that her flight is getting delayed and all hell breaks loose. My SO begins lecturing me about setting boundaries with her and that it’s not his problem and asked me if an Uber could pick her up. I said to him if it’s past a certain time all for an Uber. Keep in mind my mom is in a wheelchair. He kept attacking me and saying the same nonsense over and over. Here I am nervous about my mom and her injuries and now her getting home and you do this. He added significantly more stress to me. He then said that if he’s picking her up tonight and staying up he’s not taking her to the doctors tomorrow.
After some back and forth we came up with the plan to schedule an Uber to pick her up, but he decided instead to set an alarm and pick her up. She gets home safely around 3am.
The next morning my mom asked me if he was still taking her and I said I wasn’t sure. I leave for work and he texts me about me not rushing and stressing and I replied with you changing the plans and now saying you’re not taking her is stressing me out. I’m rushing to the office so I can make calls and texts to find a backup. Then he calls me to lecture me again about how this is why we don’t take night flights but he’ll take her to the doctor. He was complaining about how he doesn’t want to be taken advantage of, he’s not gonna sit around with his thumb up his ass, and how he’s wasting the day when he should be helping his grandma (she had minor surgery and has a great SO to care for her meanwhile it’s just me and my mom).
He takes her to the doctor, turns out my mom broke her right ankle and broke her left foot. He calls me to tell me and then again proceeds to lecture me about setting boundaries and how he’s not going to be taken advantage of and blah blah blah. I was stunned.
I gave it some thought and it started to kind of bug me that he is willing to drive his mom to a non-emergency appointment that she really doesn’t need assistance with and can’t help mine once. My mom regularly cooks for him, stocks food in the house he’ll like and eat, she goes out of her way for him and really has come to love him like her own, he showers at our house etc.
My SO and I end up on the phone again and I expressed how I was disappointed in how he acted and treated me and my mom, she does a lot for him and I felt like he’s not taking into consideration how serious this is. He tells me he’s way too stressed and agitated to be talking about this and that he did what he said he was gonna do he showed up and that was it end of discussion, his actions are proof. I tried to explain to him that he made it a miserable experience for me and stressed me out beyond belief and again he cut me off and reiterated he’s too stressed and agitated and that he’s about to go off. I was so confused and did not understand and I asked him what he’s so upset about he said the same thing to me. Like okay.
Even in an isolated incident, I feel like this is just not normal. I feel like I can’t rely on him and if I do, it becomes more work for me and honestly like makes me feel alone and upset. Am I overreacting? Like I said we’ve had and still do have issues and part of me wonders because we’ve been having issues and I’ve just been feeling somewhat resentful towards him, if I’m reacting rationally. Truth is if he had just said no, I would’ve found another option. He didn’t need to say yes.
He just texted me that “sorry to be curt before I don’t want to add to your plate I’m just stressed and not happy. I can’t really express it or pin point it.”
He always does this. It can never be about me and supporting me.
Any way, thanks for reading I appreciate it.

Link for all the chapters available here: Engines of Arachnea on Royal Road
Having said his piece, Rene had expected the woman to accept her role as a prisoner of the Fleet. But no sooner had he taken his knee of her back than she was at him again, rolling over and cursing as she tried to spit him on her claws. Training kicked in and Rene applied the wrestling component of his hand-to-hand combat course. He secured underhooks with his arms, locking them together with his hands and hugging her tight from behind. Zildiz bucked and twisted around in a futile attempt to make room for her blades, even managing to get one of her knees beneath her and push off the ground. Rene allowed her to gain her feet, cunningly using the opening to slip the loop of his encircling arms around her waist. Now in complete control of her center of gravity, Rene swung his leg out and arched his back, heaving her up and over like a sack of turnips in a textbook suplex. A fraction of a second before he smashed the top of her skull into the hard ground, he remembered that he was supposed to keep prisoners alive and preferably not in a vegetative state, and so he cushioned the fall with his own body, falling on his side to increase surface area and dissipate the force.
Zildiz was caught totally by surprise. Unlike Rene she had neglected to tuck in her chin before the moment of impact, a vital detail which was one of the first things a recruit was taught to do on the mats.
“Oof!” she said as all the breath slammed out of her by the throw. Rene felt her body go limp as her dazed senses tried to adjust to the violent change of orientation. He took advantage of this moment of weakness and looped his legs around her body, locking his ankles together to form a full body triangle. His left forearm punched up and took her neck in a rear naked choke, a suffocating vise formed by the insides of his elbow crushing her windpipe and carotid arteries.
“I warned you,” he told her. His choking hand grabbed the inside of his other elbow, right forearm sneaking behind her neck and under his armpit, tightening the garrote even further.
“Had enough?”
“Hrrnnkk…” Zildiz choked. She lifted an arm and slid back the blade until it was the length of a finger, deliberately giving Rene the universal gesture to go and fornicate with himself, before sheathing the claw entirely and aiming her fist at him over her shoulder.
Rene ducked as the blade shot out again, only just avoiding it going through his eye socket and into his brain. As it was, it only nicked his temple, sending warm lines of blood trickling down his visor. Rene hugged her even tighter, constricting the chokehold until he heard her breathing reduced to an agonized wheeze. He throttled her until she stopped moving, her struggles weakening until she went completely lax. Then he held the choke for exactly three seconds longer, counting carefully to avoid giving her lasting brain damage. He let go and was relieved to hear her snoring faintly. Gently rolling her onto her back so she didn’t suffocate in the dirt, Rene cast about for a means to secure his prisoner. He had only a few seconds before she regained consciousness. Quickly he cut some vines from the surrounding trees and knotted them into a crude rope. He flipped her back over again and tied her hands at the wrists and elbows. He had no illusions that it would hold her for long. He tied her wings together at their bases for good measure. She had two sets of them, but the larger pair was missing one of its partners that had been torn off at the socket to reveal a gaping wound. They were wondrously tough membranes considering how thin and flexible they were, as sturdy as ultrapod leather. Rene looked over his work and loosened it a bit so as not to cut off the circulation in her arms. It wasn’t bad for something done on the fly. Then again, he’d been playing this whole thing by ear ever since the ambush that had cut his unit to pieces. Ye gods, but that whole experience felt like a lifetime ago. He had not expected to ever use that component of his hand-to-hand training designed for fighting human opponents. Of course, he’d helped put down a fair share of civil unrest in his time, but even during the worst of the food riots in Mound Ulysses he’d never so much as given a person a light shove. The civilians knew better than to antagonize a battalion of the Fleet’s finest over something as routine and reoccurring as a government rationing in the face of crop failure.
He felt quite bad about having to roughhouse the woman, that is, until she sat up awake and glowered hatefully at him, coughing and retching.
“Don’t,” he pleaded with her in exasperation as she gave him the old stink eye, “I don’t want to fight you again.”
“Why?” she spat defiantly, “Afraid you’d lose?”
“Uh huh,” Rene grunted, amused and even a little impressed by her spunk. She couldn’t have weighed more than sixty kilos soaking wet and was at least half a foot shorter than him even with that exomorph of hers, but this woman was all fight and no quit. She would have to be, living on the surface world and facing these abominations day after day. Rene looked at the dismembered corpses of the black-furred devils and had a sudden jolt of inspiration. As Zildiz tested the strength of her restraints Rene went over to the monster he had chopped to bits and poked the misshapen hump on its back, which had excreted thick ribbons of silk at the moment of death. Feeling more than a little squeamish, Rene pulled on the threads of silk. He had only meant to collect two or three meters of the material, but more and more of the stuff kept unwinding out its glands like a handkerchief from a magician’s pocket. Eventually his hands became enmeshed in the horrid stuff and he had to struggle like the dickens to unstick himself and scrape it off onto a bush where it stuck like a lumpy hammock. Remembering how his enemy had plugged the stab wound in its gut, Rene snapped off a twig and curled it into the white mess like those vendors at the fairs did with candy cloud treats, ending up with a spool of silk. He applied it to the cut on his temple by winding it around his head like a bandage, and was gratified when it stopped the bleeding almost immediately. He heard the rustle of dead leaves and turned around to find Zildiz furtively attempting to sidle away from him.
“Don’t even try it,” he told her, “Or I’ll run you down and knock you senseless. I’m taking you back to civilization. The Fleet needs to know what it’s up against out here, and you’re a veritable trove of information.”
Zildiz squatted back down and stared at him, simmering with resentment. Rene shook his head and continued his work, moving on to the monster that had been the first to die at the woman’s hands. Cutting open its hump, Rene was rewarded with a dense lump of thread still packed inside its spinneret. He took another twig and spooled it in, then wrapped the bundle of silk in a large leaf.
A leg twitched of its own accord. Rene nearly dropped the bundle as he sprang back, sword upraised. The devil’s limbs began doing a tap dance and Rene relaxed a bit, recognizing it as the onset of rigor mortis. The side of its face was split open and hanging loosely by a strap of flesh. Struck by a nagging suspicion, Rene stooped down and peeled off the segments of its head, holding the edge of his sword against its neck to decapitate it in the event that it proved too lively for his liking.
The musculature and armor tore away just like it had with Zildiz’s helm, and for the second time that night he found himself staring into the face of another living human being. Only this time it was a man whose face was utterly disfigured, a perversion of the basic form. In the place of his lower jaw were fingerlike protrusions of gummy tissue and exposed nerve endings. His nose cartilage was likewise missing, leaving only a pair of holes dribbling with snot. The man blinked, and glassy eyes with almost no whites at their edges fixed Rene in their gaze.
“Kill…me…” the man whispered.
Rene began to shake uncontrollably, wiping a trembling hand across his mouth as he was forced to consider the carnage he’d just wrought in a new and horrifying light. These weren’t three dead monsters littering the jungle floor; these were three dead men, and some of them he had killed himself.
“Kill me!” the man begged him. He was young, barely Rene’s age, his smooth skin untroubled by the wrinkles of age and worry. He had clear brown pupils and dark, expressive brows. If it weren’t for all the rest of him, Rene might’ve mistaken him for a fresh-faced recruit at the academy, or a paperboy climbing up the terraced apartments of inner hive to deliver news of the Fleet’s latest victory.
On unsteady legs Rene staggered back to Zildiz’s side and away from the awful truth he had uncovered.
“Something the matter?” Zildiz asked in a gleeful tone, “Feeling a little worse for wear, are we?”
“Shut it,” Rene said distantly. He dragged Zildiz to her feet and began winding the silk around her wrists, layering them over thick and tying them off with a simple knot. He kept the vines on her for added insurance and told her to start walking.
“Where to?” she demanded.
“I’m not feeding you to my children, if that’s what you’re asking,” he muttered, “I don’t have any to begin with, and even if I did, I sure as hell wouldn’t raise them to be cannibals.”
Zildiz didn’t move, so Rene grabbed her and frog marched her away. He had no real destination in mind—he just had to get away from this place and the bodies he’d made. Zildiz rounded on Rene, saying:
“Aren’t you going to deal with him? I only severed his neural connection to paralyze his exomorph. He’s still very much alive.”
“No!” Rene yelled, “That’s not how I—how people do things. Almighty ancestors, is that so hard for you to grasp?”
“Yes,” Zildiz replied quite candidly.
“He’s a living, breathing human being. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but those are pretty rare on Arachnea and worth keeping around.”
“No. He is a Leaper. After extracting your gilt helix, he and his packmates would devoured you right then and there.”
“That’s why you saved me, isn’t it? So they couldn’t obtain this shiny helix thing?”
Zildiz ignored his question, continuing:
“If you leave him here, at best he will die of exposure. At worst, his tribe will come looking for him, and if they find him, they will run us down and kill us anyway.”
Rene bit his lip. She spoke the truth and they both knew it. But after all this world had already taken from him, there remained one thing which he refused to part with. And Rene knew that if he gave in now and took the expedient option—the sensible option—he would be surrendering it forever.
“Sorry,” he said finally, “That’s against the rules.”
He dragged Zildiz over to the Leaper and spoke to him, saying:
“I won’t kill you. I’m not about to eat you either, so you can stop begging for a quick death. As long as you tell me what I want to know, we’ll leave you here and go our separate ways. I might even patch your wounds if you’re cooperative. Does that strike you as a fair bargain?”
The Leaper met this pronouncement with a look of utter perplexity that mirrored the one on Zildiz’s face.
“I’ll take that silence as a yes,” Rene said impatiently, “You’ll begin by telling me your name.”
“Kryptusshh,” the Leaper said slowly, as if not daring to hope.
“Very good. Are there any more of your people out there, Kryptus?”
“Why sshhould I trusht you? I would only be dooming more of my kindred, and there issh no certainty you would not kill me afterwardssh.”
“It’s a chance you have to take,” Rene shrugged, “Either that, or I’ll let this woman do as she pleases with you. And just between you and me,” he said in a loud stage whisper, “She doesn’t seem all that fond of your sort.”
Zildiz and Kryptus locked eyes with each other. Rene could almost feel the waves of hatred coming off her as she bristled, every tendon in her body tensing expectantly. Kryptus must have seen something he didn’t like, for he looked away and said:
“I am a warrior of the Weeping Vipersh. We are roughly eleven hundred sshtrong. One tenth of that number are bravesshh like me.”
“He lies,” Zildiz said, baring her teeth in a snarl, “That is less than half their true strength. He does not count the adolescents and the old loom-mothers, who are the deadliest of their kind.”
“Three hundred, then, if they are consshidered,” Kryptman quickly admitted, “Your pardon, merciful one.”
“I’ll excuse your forgetfulness just this once,” Rene warned, “But your memory better not fail you again.”
He questioned the Leaper closely. Kryptus claimed that only he and his pack had seen the safety pod’s crash landing, and that they had told no one else as they wished to claim the great prize all for themselves. The Weeping Vipers were the largest tribe in the rainforest and were always looking for an advantage over their numerous and belligerent neighbors. Apparently Kryptus had hoped to gain a modicum of the Divine Engine’s power by extracting something called a ‘gilt helix’ from Rene’s blood.
“Jussht one sample would have shatishfied uss,” Kryptus swore, “Then we would have taken you back to the Loom alive.”
“I’m sure nothing would’ve pleased you better,” Rene said wryly, all too cognizant of Zildiz’s earlier assumption that he planned to feed her to the Fleet’s youth.
Rene learned from Kryptus that the Divine Engine had ignited a blazing wildfire that was swiftly spreading north and west. The tribes would likely have noticed it by now, and would all be sending braves in a joint effort to douse the flames. For some reason all the Leapers felt collectively responsible for the wellbeing of the region, and could not allow it to come to harm for fear of dire repercussions.
“Last question. Is anyone going to come looking for you?”
“Not till the morning.”
“Good!” said Zildiz, breaking out of Rene’s grip and aiming a vicious kick at the side of the Leaper’s head. Rene barely caught her and yanked her back, shouting:
“Blood and thunder, woman! Is there nothing you won’t do to piss me off?”
“Are you insane? You cannot possibly mean to leave him alive!” the Gallivant hissed.
“That’s exactly what I’m going to do. Now come here!”
Rene took her by the elbow and pulled her forward, leaving Kryptus where he lay.
“You promished you would tend to my woundssh!” the Leaper cried after them.
“Don’t push your luck!” Rene said over his shoulder, “Anyone who follows us will meet the same end as your friends.”
He and his prisoner went tramping off into the night, Zildiz raging at him all the while.
“Fool! We will both come to regret that decision!”
“You’re probably right,” Rene had to agree.
“Then why did you do it?”
“For the same reason I’m letting you strut around and screech into my ear. What can I say? I’m a conversationalist.”
Link for all the chapters available here: Engines of Arachnea on Royal Road

I met an old ex-collegue of mine for coffee last week to catch up, and mentioned the Roblaws boycott. This friend was a senior VP at Sobeys in the 2010's - so this information is not coming from someone at the operational or managerial level and it's not based on speculation or rumour This is executive level, long range strategic planning type stuff he was privy to during his tenure and he was most certainly aware of his competitors strategies and business policies. "So Loblaws claims they only make 3% profit net on their grocery stores. How is that even possible?" I said.
The howls of derisive laughter could be heard all around the coffee shop. His answer didn't shock or surprise me - but the depth of it did.
"Yes, they report 3% net profit on groceries.But what they don't tell anyone is how they are off loading onto their vendors all the costs of running their business. It's a huge profit centre for them. Like, huge."
We both worked together in the apparel industry for a while, and were very used to companies like The Bay putting punitive charges on vendors for not adhering to their frequently outrageous demands for order fulfillment. Loblaws has taken this to extremes. For example, large companies often demand vendors ship "100% complete,100% on time". As in if I ordered 100 cases from you to ship May 1st, don't be sending me 98 cases on April 31st or May 2nd. Because if you do, there will be a double digit penalty they will charge the vendor. Sometimes this gets so onerous and ridiculous, that vendors will frequently OWE THE RETAILER ! i.e. they are making zero profit because of the reverse charge penalties.
So y'know.... nothing new there. What *was* new to me was that he divulged Loblaws now off loads capital expenditures on their vendors. As in.... "We're building a new Lobular fulfillment centre, or mega store, and btw, we're not paying for it. YOU are, Proctor & Gamble / Kraft / Unilever etc."
This blows my mind. I don't know what percentage capital expenditure is for Loblaws as a line item in their annual budget but it's got to be huge. And to off-load that on their suppliers is brass balls of the highest order.
As for the vendors ? I'm sure they are resentful and ticked off. How could you not be? And yet I'm sure the senior execs at P&G etc have their eyes glaze over when they see the open-to-buy dollars LOblaws devotes to their brands. So ! Much ! MONEY !!!! So they grit their teeth and suck it up, and watch the bulldozers break ground for Galen & Crew to open another 1 M sq ft facility and be smug af about the fact they aren't even paying mice nuts for it.
So consumers AND vendors - Bend over and grab your ankles while Loblaws drills you a new asshole - and they won't even put a rose on the pillow first.

I have fully got over my reddit drama so i'm gonna try to avoid commenting on reddit hashtag try to but if I have someone try to get my attention don't bother I won't respond even if I do decide to respond it would probably be a one time thing and now to say I can confirm I am a former victim of mental abuse I won't explain it in full details but I will explain what I had to go through when I was living with my grandmother I had to go through mental abuse I never felt safe in my grandmother's home my grandmother always yelled at me even when I did nothing wrong my grandmother was mentally abusive to me she constantly yelled at me even when I did nothing wrong she always believed any lies that was told about me like one example I can remember was on March break 2018 my uncle told my grandmother that I stole the school snacks when I was at my mom's house laying in her bed sick all throughout March break then when I turned 20 years old on July 15th 2019 my grandmother decided since i'm almost an adult she could use my credit card I didn't know I had to buy smokes and made me go in debt then in 2020 which I admit became a very bad year for me first on twitter and deviantart I got accused of defending a youtuber called Cryaotic second I decided to push myself at school due to how I took my teacher's words which I now realized that she didn't mean her words how she worded them my teacher told me if I don't try my hardest then I won't succecced in life which I took her words that if I don't try then I will never become anything in life so I spent all my high school year doing school work I took no breaks aside from washroom breaks but drinking water didn't seem important to me it got to the point where my teachers kept telling me that it was great that I'm refusing to give up on school work but you need to take a water break or else you're gonna dehydrate yourself they told me that everyday but it eventually got to a point where my teachers knew that I wasn't gonna get out of my seat and resolve to give me a water bottle everyday then one day I decided I didn't want to live with my grandmother anymore so I went to my mom crying to her saying things like mom I don't wanna live with my grandmother anymore she's mentally abusive I want to live with you which my mom responded to me saying sure you can live with me you're 20 now you're old enough to make your own decisions then when I went to my grandmother's house we got into a fight and argument and I made the mistake of telling my grandmother how I felt about her and my grandmother kicked me out of her house she stopped doing things for me the last thing I remember my grandmother doing for me was her taking me to the doctors when I twisted my ankle my grandmother didn't even celebrated my 21st birthday with me during July when my mother asked my grandmother if she had anything planned for my birthday cause my mother wanted to know which my grandmother responded nope I don't need to celebrate your daughter's birthday you can celebrate your daughter's birthday by yourself I guess my grandmother thought me and my mom were gonna celebrate my birthday by ourselves but on the day of my 21st birthday my mother invited my siblings my boyfriend and friends of my mom to come to my birthday but my grandmother decided to be a bitch and complained to my mom about her friends cars blocking her driveway so they had to move their cars my grandmother even had a habit of throwing my friends and my boyfriend into blame when they had nothing to do with whatever my grandmother was blaming them for I haven't talked to my grandmother for years now and I tend to keep it that way I don't see my grandmother as family anymore all I see her as is someone who was a mental abuser and someone that abused my trust one thing I will admit is I believe in ghost and guardian angels cause I have seen them same with spirit animals which my spirit animal by clan is a wolf and that wolf spirit is everywhere with me I even own wolf items such as a wolf necklace a wolf blanket a wolf hat a wolf poster and wolf plushies I won't say all of the names of my wolf plushies but I will admit I name most of my wolf plushies after youtubers again I won't say all of their names but some of the names of my wolf plushies are Dawko(named after the youtuber Dawko) Jackmanifold(named after the Dream smp member Jackmanifold) Skydoesminecraft(named after the youtuber Skydoesminecraft) Punz(named after the Dream smp member Punz) and Foolish(named after the Dream smp member Foolishgamers) the last time I saw my grandmother was at my great uncle's funeral which I first heard about my great uncle's death was from my mother on that day I loss my story on wattpad to a false report my gaming chair broke and I broke my thumb nail off my gaming chair so I called my mom crying my eyes out telling her that my gaming chair broke and I broke my thumb nail and it was hurting which my mother told me that she's at the hospital with my great uncle and will talk to me when she gets home so I ended up calling my mom's friend to help me cut my thumb nail then when my mom came home she told me that my great uncle died and I took his death the hardest which I also realized on that day me losing my story to a false report on wattpad my gaming chair breaking and me breaking my thumb nail was spirital signs that I was gonna lose someone on that day and I loss my great uncle then when my mom asked me if I was going to my great uncle's funeral and that my grandmother was gonna be there which I responded to my mom saying that I will go to my great uncle's funeral but I'm not talking to my grandmother which my mom responded to me saying that's fine Destiny that's your choice if you want to talk to your grandmother or not so I went to my great uncle's funeral I talked to my family members that went to my great uncle's funeral but my grandmother cause I wanted to stick to my word which I barely shed a tear at my great uncle's funeral which I believe is probably cause I spent all of my time greiving for my great uncle at home but that's all I have to say about myself plus to add if I see a comment saying something about my grammer or puncation I will delete the comment and block you but to those who choose to stay and listen thank you

Cigarettes and rebellion have always gone hand-in-hand, and in an age of cigarette packet-sized health warnings, now more than ever, smoking a fag says: 'I do not give a fuck.' But if Brandon Flowers is hoping to strike a seditious pose by sparking up at the start of the interview, it's not going according to plan. The Killers' frontman is on all fours rooting through the junk that carpets the anteroom at the band's rehearsal space. "Has anyone seen my lighter?" he asks, rocking back on his heels. The question hangs in the air while Brandon cocks his head, waiting for an answer like a meerkat listening for a predator. Twenty-five years old and with a delicate bone structure, there's something almost dainty about him. Receiving no response, he returns to his search. "Oh, Jeez," he sighs. "I had it just a minute ago."
It's a scene that emphatically does not suggest a rebel without a cause. The mess isn't helping. The Killers' HQ - an industrial unit sandwiched between a construction supplier and the offices of a housing development just off Dean Martin Drive in West Las Vegas - is ankle-deep in designer clothing. A Dior Homme suit lies crumpled by the door; there's a pile of shoes topped like a sundae by a pair of Marc Jacobs trainers; and anyone wishing to enter the shoebox room the band use as an office must negotiate a mountain of discarded jeans. Many items are identifiable as coming from the wardrobe of Hot Fuss, The Killers' hugely successful 2004 debut album - triple platinum in the UK with two weeks at Number One and five million sold worldwide. Look! There are the shirts, ties and suit jackets they wore when they thrilled Glastonbury 2005 with indie rock anthems Mr Brightside and Somebody Told Me. That was the crowning moment of a two-and-a-half year tour that finally concluded in October of last year. It seems that after playing that final date in Miami, they returned to Vegas and shrugged off their image onto the floor of this bland white box.
Now a fine layer of dust covers the dead clothes. The Killers have no further use for white tuxedos on their second album, Sam's Town. Today, Brandon wears a black polo shirt, black pin-stripe waistcoat, black jeans and black boots. Where there used to be a layer of foundation, there is now a beard - an untrimmed beard at that. Dave Keuning (30, guitar), Mark Stoermer (29, bass) and Ronnie Vannucci (29, drums) all echo Brandon's black ensemble. Ronnie has added Aviator shades and a handlebar moustache for a dash of motorcycle cop, Dave's frizzy bubble of hair gives him a Marc Bolan-ish air, and there's something very teenage about Mark's scuffed Vans.
Short of walking around wearing sandwich boards saying, "Our new record is a bit heavier than the last one," The Killers couldn't hope to communicate that message more effectively. And they have gained some musical girth on Sam's Town. The pop hooks that made Hot Fuss so irresistible survive intact - see the ringing guitar riffs on first single When You Were Young - but there's a newfound punchiness, coupled with an epic sweep. The minor-to-major uplifts on Bones are fabulously dramatic, the coda to Why Do I Keep Counting? thrillingly intense. Comparisons to Bruce Springsteen have been made. If they overstate the case a little, they are at leaset qualitatively accurate. The Killers are back and this time it's serious - they've got the bootlace ties to prove it.
"Hey, it says here that Springsteen's headlining Glastonbury next year," shouts Ronnie, who's flicking through the NME. He nods sagely at the page without looking up.
"Really?" asks Dave, nicknamed Crazy Dave on account of his alledgedly volatile nature.
"The Boss is headlining one night, we're playing second on the bill the next night and Kylie's headlining the Sunday," says Brandon, charging like a bull through Michael Eavis' as-yet-unannounced line-up with what subsequently proves to be a characteristic gaucheness.
But that lighter is proving elusive. This being America, none of the people hurrying to-and-fro prepping the world for the release of Sam's Town smokes. Manager Robert Reynolds - Bobby Rey to the band - barks into his mobile, booking his band onto eye-wateringly demanding tours. "We're going to make a lot of money," he cackles to himself before switching calls to make a series of stern pronouncements on legal matters. Dave, Mark and Ronnie disappear for a jam session. Artwork is approved, B-sides are decided on and schedules are hammered out.
"I can't find it," Brandon says, finally. But he's not going to be denied the opportunity to underline The Killers reinvention with a puff of smoke. "Let's go to the gas station. I'll have to buy one. It's too busy to talk here anyway."
+
Brandon's black (of course) Volkswagen Touraeg four-wheel drive is barrelling down West Flamingo Road into town. "I was a bell boy there," he says, pointing out of the driver's window at the stucco facade of the Gold Coast casino. "I was working there when we were signed."
Coming from Las Vegas, it is perhaps inevitable that casinos play a big part in The Killers' story; not only is Sam's Town named after one, it was recorded in one, too.
The band began writing songs while on the road with Hot Fuss, turning up early for soundchecks to run through new ideas. On a trip home to Vegas, George Maloof, a hotelier known for cultivating famous friends, invited them to record the album in the new studio he'd built at The Palms, his flagship hotel-cum-gambling den. When the tour finished in October 2005, they returned to Vegas and spent five month finessing the songs they'd sketched out on the road. Then, in February, they decampled to the third floor studio at The Palms and recorded Sam's Town over 11 weeks.
Producer Flood (U2, Depeche Mode) encouraged them to experiment. They overdubbed, fiddled with synthesizers and played with new equipment. It took them five weeks to get the backing vocals right. The band sang the harmonies, then double-tracked them four times. The end result recalls Queen wondering, "Is this is the real life? Is this just fantasy?" When Ronnie, a trained classical percussionist, brought some kettledrums down, eyebrows were raised; but the fabulously bombastic coda on Why Do I Keep Counting? vindicates his indulgence.
"That's kind of the Ben Hur of the album," he says. He's not wrong. Sam's Town is a record on an epic scale. "Yeah, it has drama," he continues. "But, at the same time, I think it's a little more exposed than Hot Fuss. It's a little more naked. Last time it was about a lot of fictional things." By "fictional", Ronnie means that Hot Fuss wore its predominantly British influences for all to see. Brandon's taste in music is rabidly Anglophile - he constantly references The Smiths, The Cure and Joy Division - and it showed. By contrast, Sam's Town is an unequivocally American record. The lyrical imagery is pure American dream - cars, girls, wide-open spaces and escaping to a better life. "We're burning down the highway skyline/On the back of a hurricane that started turning/When you were young," sings Brandon on When You Were Young. That's the basis of the Springsteen comparisons then, though the lack of pathos more closely recalls another blue-collar rocker from New Jersey - Jon Bon Jovi.
The phrase "this town" recurs throughout the album, and it's always receding into the distance as The Killers escape to a new life. "This town was made for passing through/I never did get along with everybody else," sings Brandon on This River Is Wild. On Read My Mind he "never really gave up on breaking out of this two-star town", while on the title track he offers something of an explanation: "Nobody ever had a dream round here."
"With the first record, there was this feeling that there was this world out there that we didn't know," says Mark later in the day. Before The Killers, he studied philosophy: now he's their quiet one. "We wanted to get out and away from this and be somewhere else. We hadn't had a lot of experience - hadn't travelled much - then we were gone for three years. We didn't sit down and say that we wanted to make a record about how we're glad to be home, but that's what happened naturally."
It's not an angsty record. The Killers have already escaped with Hot Fuss, and, having done so, they view the experience fondly now they're back. There's a mistiness to Brandon's eyes as he explains how the album got it's name.
"Sam's Town is a casino on the edge of Vegas," he says. "I grew up in Henderson, which is out on the way to the Hoover Dam. My mom and dad lived in a trailer park, and my dad used to hitchhike up and down Boulder Highway, which is the only way you could get to Vegas. Sam's Town was the first thing you saw on your way in to town. So, when you're driving down Boulder Highway from Henderson, I always thought you finally knew you were getting somewhere when you saw Sam's Town. It was kind of like a beacon."
"It's not a completely American album," contines Brandon. "We still have our English influence, but we're also from the Wild West. Somehow we've managed to unify all that on this album. it's just such a perfect resemblence of what we are."
At the petrol station, Brandon rummages through the glove box looking for change to buy a lighter. "This is a great album," he says, pointing at Highway Companion, the latest from iconic American rocker Tom Petty. "I've always been a big fan of his. He's such a great American artist."
Yes, Brandon: we get the point.
+
When Brandon finally lights his cigarette, he smokes it awkwardly, like a child mimicking something he's seen the grown-ups doing. However, when he cheerfully admits that, "I feel the same mentally as I did when I was 12," it's not a knowing nod to the fact that he sometimes behaves like a loveably precocious child, but a reference to an unusually comprehensive grounding in pop music at an early age.
When Brandon sings about "this town", he doesn't mean Las Vegas. He means Nephi, Utah or Henderson, Nevada, where he spent his childhood. His parents are Mormon and he is the youngest of six children. "I was a surprise," he says. "I've got a 42-year-old sister." If he was issues about his "surprise" status, he chooses to gloss over them. "It turned out perfect because my brother was a teenager when I was a kid," he says. "He would bring home things like Rattle And Hum by U2 and I would watch it. I remember he bought Live In Dallas by Morrissey. It was always him watching these things, or his door was shut and you'd hear The Head On The Door by The Cure blasting through the house and rattling the walls."
The Killers were formed when Brandon answered an advert Dave had placed in a local paper in late 2002. Dave cited Oasis as a big influence; Brandon had seen them play recently and responded; and, as Dave has said in previous interviews: "He was the only person to reply to my ad who wasn't a complete freak." However, the band was born in Brandon's brothers bedroom.
"His room was like a shrine," enthuses Brandon. "It was a holy place. I wish I could show you a picture of it. It was covered in posters. There'd be a big picture of Elvis wearing a bow tie that just said 'The Smiths' [the artwork for The Smiths 1987 single Shoplifters Of The World Unite]. You had The Cure wearing face paint [the artwork to The Cure's 1985 single In Between Days] - all that kind of stuff. I remember Morrissey being on the cover of the NME, with the halo [from 1985] - stuff like that. You just wanted to know about these people 'cause they were so cool. My brother seemed like such a cool person. But he was a teenager, so he wasn't going to be that nice to me, a kid."
Brandon was fascinated by his brother's collection of music, magazines and posters, but he was denied access to them - officially, at least. "I would sneak in," he says. "I knew he'd be angry if he found out, but I would go in as soon as he left the house." For a long time Brandon was too scared to actually play anything. "That didn't come 'til later. I just used to go in there because I liked it. Then I got to the point where I'd actually take a tape out and put it in. It took more guts to do that."
It was a life-changing moment. "I was ten and the first song I played was Sing Your Life by Morrissey. I remember dancing about to it."
The lyrics to Sing Your Life include the lines, "Sing your life/Just walk right up to the microphone/And name all the things that you love/All the things that you loathe." It's intriguing to wonder what Morrissey makes of the neophyte he inspired with these lines.
Eventually, Brandon inherited his brother's tape collection. "It was around the same time CDs started coming out in a big way. He started buying CDs and gave me his tapes. And that was it: it took off from there. I got a hundred of the best albums - all the New Order, all the Morrissey, all The Smiths, The Beatles. I started buying posters. I went to see The Cure in concert. It was just kind of a continuation of my brother. And it was nice because, though my parents were strict, they were already used to it from him. There was no, 'My dad doesn't understand me,' or any of that kind of stuff. My mum likes The Smiths."
Brandon was 13 and his favourite band was late-'70s/early-'80s American new wavers The Cars, and particularly their jaw-droppingly catchy 1979 single Just What I Needed.
"I wouldn't exist without that song," he says. "That was the one. I remember driving around with my mum when I was 13, and we're living in Nephi - a really small town - and I felt so cool when I put that song on. Like: 'I have something that none of these kids I'm going to middle school with tomorrow have.' That excitement is what music's about, isn't it? That's why I understand the mentality of people that don't like us because we've sold so many records. I used to like it when no one else knew about a band. So I get that - I do."
+
Brandon's first band was called Blush Response. It was never going to work out. Not because he refused to move to Los Angeles with them, but because he is utterly - comically - shameless. He's given to making outrageously boastful statements like: "It's not like the '60s, '70s and '80s now. There are only a few bands around that are really good, that just do it. I mean, there's what, five or six of us?"
For the record, in Brandon's estimation, those bands are Franz Ferdinand, Razorlight, The Strokes, The White Stripes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and, of course, The Killers.
"I don't want people to think I'm lumping myself with other people just to make us sound cool," he says. Really? It sort of sounds like you are. But he just steamrolls through it. "Yeah, but you know what I mean," he says, grinning at his own cheekiness. He's so disgracefully forward you can't help but laugh along with him - Oh you are awful, Brandon! But joking aside, The Killers are the most commercially successful of all the bands he mentions.
Later, back at the rehearsal space, the band run through Sam's Town at deafening volume in preparation for the forthcoming tour - first the US, then the world. The infectious, almost contagious, chorus of When You Were Young sounds fabulous, as do the U2-like guitars and Twin Peaks synths of Read My Mind. Meanwhile, Smile Like You Mean It and Somebody Told Me benefit from the newfound harder edge.
They somewhat heavy-handedly underline the new direction by playing Paranoid by Black Sabbath and Get It On by T Rex. That's the thing: The Killers are not a subtle band. Their songs are like a wet kiss from a girl who's a bit too drunk. They are big and brash, and not everyone loves them for it. Mr Brightside and Somebody Told Me might go down as well at hip nightclubs as they do on the festival circuit, but the DJs play them with the same guilty look they wear when playing a pop record.
"I hate that," says Brandon. "Like writing a song you can hum somehow cheapens it? It makes me think of this quote by Morrissey. Everybody knows how he read Oscar Wilde, Keats and Yates when he was growing up and that he wanted to be a writer. He was talking to this journalist who asked why he hadn't become a writer, and Morrissey said: 'What I do is more powerful than what you do because I can write down these words and you get it to a melody. How can you beat that?' I'm of the same opinion. I don't understand why a good melody that's memorable is a bad thing."
Being dismissed as pop particular aggrieves Ronnie. "When we first came out we got compared to Duran Duran all the time. Jesus Christ! We got a keyboard player now all of a sudden he's Nick Rhodes! Come on!"
"The people who criticise us for being too poppy don't get it," agrees Mark. "I think that's the problem with a lot of rock music. People are afraid to write a song any more. Either that or they can't. And that attitude hurts music in general. The best bands ever have all written great songs. You can still do it and do it intelligently and it can be original. This isn't a studio creation with a producer writing these songs for us. We're not Avril Lavigne, or something like that. We're a real band writing real songs, just like a punk band would do, except that we write pop songs."
You get the impression that The Killers knack for showboating pop hooks that border on vulgar is inextricably tied up with the brazen side of Brandon's personality. But while his ebullient charisma, not to mention the songs themselves, mitigates his outrageousness, there is a less attractive side to his ego. He has a combative streak. He can't resist taking pot shots at emo bands, notably Fall Out Boy, whith whom The Killers share an A&R man.
Has he heard how many emo kids it takes to change a light bulb? "No." None. They just sit in the dark and cry. It's a full 30 seconds before he stops laughing. When he does he admits: "Yeah, we've had problems with other bands. You know, when you walk in the room it's like..." He whistles the theme to The Good, The Bad And The Ugly. "We're like gangs."
And while the other members of the band are diplomatic on the subject of Brandon, you don't have to read too deeply between the lines to conclude that there have been internal issues, too.
"Some people will think Brandon's the big genius," says Dave, visibly bridling. "There are songs, such as Why Do I Keep Counting?, where he's written every note. But there are others, like When You Were Young, that were more of a collaboration - like Mr Brightside, where I had some of the music and Brandon came up with the lyrics. We always have arguments about who wrote what. The truth is that we all help in that process."
When asked how success affected them, Ronnie says: "There were certain things that needed adjusting. When you're on tour for two years, people can get a little needy. It doesn't help that you're surrounded by yes men and everybody's working for you. At times we've had to say, 'Who do you think you are?' to people. No one wears the trousers, but some people would like to. I think if it wasn't for the people in the band kicking each other in the ass... Let's just say there was some ass-kickin'."
It doesn't take a genius to work out whose ass needed kicking most often.
+
It's the following day and The Killers are back at their rehearsal space. The topic of discussion is what to wear in the video for Bones, the second single. It's a big deal: the director is Tim Burton. "I feel like Frank Sinatra when I sing it," announces Brandon. "With maybe a little bit of Morrissey and a little bit of Elvis, too."
Of course he does. But if securing the services of Tim Burton tells you one thing, it's that The Killers are about to get even bigger, perhaps even make the leap to the same level as Coldplay et al. Already stars, they are about to become superstars. Brandon can hardly wait.
"Do you know that Rolling Stone didn't want to put us on the cover last time," he says indignantly. "They didn't think we were stars. We sold five million albums! What more do they want from a band?"
Whatever was required, Brandon would be happy to do most things. "I'll do stuff that some people don't want to do, 'cause I want people to hear the music," he says. However, even he has limits. "The Rolling Stone thing made the record label think: 'What can we do to make them stars?' If I go on vacation with my wife, do they have to send somebody to be there to take pictures of me? Is that how you become a star? I don't want that. I walked down the red carpet one time and I realised I don't like it. But you don't have to walk down the red carpet for people to hear your music. We do still have some of that indie blood running through our veins."
He heads off at a tangent: "When you walk around Liverpool, you think of The Beatles, or you go to Manchester and you think of The Smiths or Oasis. I want you to come to Las Vegas and think of Sam's Town. And I think we've started to capture that, which is a truer version of The Killers, 'cause that's where we're from."
He pauses.
"I used to live across the street from Sam's Town. Maybe it'll be like our Abbey Road where people go to take pictures."
Is that what he'd like?
"I wouldn't mind it," he says, desperately hoping it will come true.
He puts a cigarette between his lips, looks down at his trouser pockets and pats them in search of the lighter he bought yesterday.
"Hey, I don't suppose you've got one?"

I've worn minimalist shoes for a couple years....I've walked miles and miles and miles in Xero Hanas, Vivo GeoCourts, Merrell Vaporgloves. I have loved it....and then a couple months ago I started noticing some soreness in my heels. No big deal I thought, I've been standing a lot at work....but then I noticed it occasionally felt like subtle numbness....and then eventually turned to actual heel pain. Because of this I've had to start wearing higher stack shoes more often because it seems to give my heels break. I still wear Vivo GeoCourts often, but put the cork insoles back in them.
Everyone hears "heel pain" and thinks Plantar Fasciitis, but I'm fairly confident I've ruled that out. The occasional numbness, even when I'm not bearing weight, doesn't make sense. I can also flex/bend my feet without pain at all. I have pretty flexible calves and stretch my lower body daily. Maybe it's something with my Achilles, but that doesn't quite add up with my generally flexible my ankles are.
I'm considering the possibility that this is a nerve issue. If that's true, I'm not sure what to do about my shoes. I know folks want barefoot shoes to solve all problems...but if the problem is basically trauma to a nerve in my heel....idk how to fix that without changing my entire walking gait (I don't even heel strike hard...and don't heel strike at all when running).
Has anyone dealt with nerve issues or numbness in your feet (specifically heels)? How did you manage the barefoot life with these symptoms?

** BOTH FRI 5/17 AND SAT 5/18 *\*
Motorcycle Safety Foundation Ride Day New Mexico Motorcycle Safety Program, 3401 Pan American Fwy Take Your First Ride: Ride a motorcycle in 30 min or less for free. MOTO Intro provides the motorcycle, helmet, gloves, and coaching. Free Riding Skills Test: Take the challenge of an advanced MSF course! SKILL Check participants, bring your motorcycle and gear! Please wear over-the-ankle footwear, long pants and long sleeves

• Fri: 2 - 4 PM Skills Check, 4 - 6 PM Moto Intro
• Sat: 2 - 4:30 PM Moto Intro, 4:30 - 6:30 PM Skills Check

Niños and Teeños: Flamenco para todos Carlisle Gymnasium (Elizabeth Waters Center for Dance), UNM, 301 Yale Blvd. NE National Institute of Flamenco presents Niños y Teeños Flamencos in FUTUROS FLAMENCOS. Come see the high-energy flamenco of the National Institute of Flamenco's Student Companies. Don't miss this special showcase by talented youth in our community! (tickets)

• Fri: 7 PM
• Sat: 4 PM

** Fri 5/17 *\*
Fri 4:30 PM Bike to Wherever Day Canteen Brewhouse, 2381 Aztec Rd. NE Learn about exciting bike routes in Albuquerque and grab some cool giveaways to kickstart your cycling adventures. Whether you’re a seasoned cyclist or just starting out, there’s something for EVERYONE at our pop-up table! We'll have Canteen will be volunteering at a table from 6:30-9am and then again at 4:30-6:30am. Receive $1 off your beer if you arrive on your bike
Fri 5 PM Pistachio Cream Ale Release Tractor Brewing, ALL locations We're bringing back this seasonal favorite for American Craft Beer Week! Inspired by pistachios produced right here in New Mexico this brew is as smooth as silk and as tasty and a fresh roasted pistachio. This is a very limited one off for us, so come and get you a pint or growler while supplies last
Fri 5 – 7 PM May Babies Birthday Celebration Rio Bravo Brewing, 1912 2nd St. NW Starting at 5pm, the first 25 people with May birthdays to show Ryan proof of their birthday month will score a $5 Rio Bravo Brewing Gift Card...oh, and Beers are on special for birthday kids for just $5! But you spend your gift card however you want! Thanks to Cake Fetish...we'll have cupcakes for the May Birthday Kids (while supplies last) We'll have prizes JUST for the May Babies! We'll also have drawings for all you non-birthday folks too If you want to get their before us...All drinks are $1 Off for May Birthdays the whole day!
Fri 5:45 – 7:15 PM 22 Veterans Suicide Awareness WOD BFit505, 11500 Menaul Blvd. NE Each month, Team Bravo & Bfit505 team up to bring awareness to veteran suicide. Before our events, we will take a moment and talk about the issue. Then we will begin with our 22 reps WOD followed by a 2.2 mile ruck/walk/run. Afterwards, we will be going out to eat for social time with friends and family. This event is for all levels
Fri 6 PM Sandia Social - May Hangout Dawn Patrol Coffee Shop, 3619 Copper Ave NE We will be hanging out around the patio and inside starting at 6pm! Bring your friends and come hang out!
Fri 6 PM Pink Therapy, A Latin Dance Fundraiser for Breast Cancer Sobremesa, 3421 Coors Blvd. NW On The One and Pachanga Productions' "Salsa Therapy" night has made its mark in the Latin Dance community, now we are using the symbolism of "Therapy" under "Pink Therapy" but this time it is to fundraise in partnership with the Pink Warrior House Foundation in order to provide outreach and increase resources for those warriors battling against breast cancer. On The One and Pachanga productions will be involved in community outreach and utilizing our resources to help those in need. Cover charge is a SUGGESTED $20 donation (ALL PROCEEDS GO TO Pink Warrior House Foundation). Cocktail hour from 6-7 PM (purchases go to PWH on selected drinks). Dance lesson from 7-8 PM. Open dance floor 8-12 AM. Be aware of Media/News coverage. We need everyone's assistance with this, PLEASE SHARE FAR AND WIDE, those warriors battling breast cancer need our help. Let's do our part. We are asking for the entire Latin dance community to come out and support. This will be one of many fundraisers that we do for organizations like PWH. Lets use our dance skills to help those in need!
Fri 6 – 8 PM May Flowers Stampin' Bingo (in person) Hip Stitch, 2320 Wisconsin St. NE Cost is $35 for 6 rounds of bingo, prizes, and make n' takes! Message for more info or to register
Fri 6 – 8:30 PM Los Domingueros Live El Vado, 2500 Central Ave SW Prepare for an unforgettable fusion of Latin dance beats and rock energy as Friday Night Live at El Vado proudly presents New Mexico's premier menudo-based band, Los Domingueros! Few bands can match the infectious joy and vibrant rhythms that they bring to the stage. A multi-talented group of musicians, they take listeners on a musical journey like no other. From the pulsating rhythms of salsa, bachata, and cumbia to the high-energy vibes of ska and reggae, sprinkled with a dash of punk and thrash, their eclectic repertoire promises an exhilarating experience for all. As always, treat your taste buds to a delightful selection of culinary delights from our diverse food pods. From savory stir-fries to tantalizing Latin flavors and heavenly desserts, there's something to satisfy every craving. And don't overlook the opportunity to quench your thirst with a crisp craft beer from Ponderosa Brewing Company, conveniently available at the El Vado Tap Room
Fri 6 – 10 PM Fork Cancer Gala FUSION ABQ, 700-708 1st St. NW The American Cancer Society is hosting Albuquerque's second #ForkCancerAbq fundraising event. VIP 6pm - 7pm. Gala 7pm - 10pm. Dress Code: Gala Attire. #ForkCancerNM is a foodie's dream, with local restaurants and bars bringing out their best to truly showcase the Taste of Albuquerque while raising money for the American Cancer Society's life-saving mission in New Mexico supporting Access to Care like patient transportation, patient lodging and 24/7 support. Along with life saving research and grants. With great opportunities to raise money, we will also have live entertainment! (tickets)
Fri 6:30 – 10 PM Community Movie Night South Valley Multipurpose Center, 2008 Larrazolo Rd. SW Feature of the night: In The Heights. Bring your dinner, blankets and chairs. Please no glass containers
Fri 7 PM Movie In The Park ABQ Food Park, 6901-B San Antonio Dr. NE ABQ Food Park is bringing back Movies In The Park, starting off the summer with a screening of The Sandlot. Arrive early to get your face painted by Local Locas Facepainting before settling in with your blankets, chairs, and appetite for a delightful evening at the park with loved ones. Indulge in delicious fare from our food trucks while enjoying this timeless film under the stars. Please do not bring outside food as we have a variety of food options at the park. Please support our local food vendors. Entry is free! Reserve your tickets
Fri 7 – 10 PM Emerald Ball Holiday Dance Studio, 5200 Eubank Blvd. NE, Ste D Celebrate the enchanting month of May by donning your finest emerald attire. Bring in the vibrant spring season by joining us in elegant semi-formal wear of rich verdant colors and dance the night away! A Foxtrot lesson will begin the evening at 7pm followed by open dancing. Call 505-508-4020 for more information. $30 non-members
Fri 8 PM – 2 AM Sucia EDC Gogo Takeover Sidewinders Bar and Grill, 4200 Central Ave SE Sucia Productions is bringing the Electric Sky to Sidewinders! No need to have EDC FOMO because Papa Sucia is ready to bring the party to you! Come join your Sucia Family for a Night of PLUR! Featuring the Sucia Gogos on multiple boxes and individual dances available in the Cabaret Room! Hosted by Papa Sucia and Sucia Gogo Madam Sativa Rico-Stratton. DJ Unzipped will be bringing the you the best EDM set for you to dance the night away!
Fri 9 PM – 1:30 AM Callaita Fridays Salt Yard West, 3700 Ellison Rd. NW DJ Soiree will be spinning under the stars in the Salt Yard, promising a night of electrifying Latin music. This 21+ event guarantees an atmosphere where you can fully embrace the rhythm without inhibition. Whether you're a die-hard fan of Reggaeton or simply seeking a night of unparalleled fun, "Callaita Fridays" is the place to be
Fri 10:30 PM – 12:15 AM FACELESS AFTER DARK - new meta horror starring Jenna Kanell of "Terrifier"! The Guild Cinema, 3405 Central Ave NE All Seats $8. Check out the trailer. Dir. Raymond Wood - 2023 - 82m. Following her breakout success as the star of a killer clown horror flick, Bowie (Jenna Kanell, TERRIFIER) now finds herself struggling to capitalize on its success. But when she is suddenly held hostage by an unhinged fan posing as that same killer clown, horror becomes her reality as she fights to survive the night and escape before he completes his sinister plan to recreate the film's fatal plot (tickets)
** Sat 5/18 *\*
Sat 8 – 10 AM Planting Corn Seeds Lynn Garden, 176 Manierre Rd., Corrales We will be planting corn seeds; a new crop for Seed2Need this year!
Sat 8 – 10 AM Run for Mercy 5K Sagebrush Community Church, 6440 Coors Blvd. NW Join our team to run with us to support Mercy Multiplied, which exists to provide opportunities for all to experience God's unconditional love, forgiveness, and life-transforming power. Mercy offers free-of-charge Residential and Outpatient Counseling Programs, as well as Outreach Services that include workshops and trainings, our Keys to Freedom discipleship study, and Keys to Freedom Retreat (register)
Sat 8 AM – 12 PM Downtown Growers' Market Robinson Park, 810 Copper Ave NW Every Saturday from 8 am - NOON! This vibrant community event connects local farmers, growers, artisans, wellness makers, and hot food vendors with the local community from mid-April to early-November. Bring friends / family or come solo to enjoy fresh food made on sight, a variety of seasonal produce, unique arts and crafts, live music, and special programming all in the heart of downtown
Sat 8 AM – 2 PM Rio Rancho's Biggest Yard Sale Cabezon Park and Community Center, 2307 Cabezon Blvd. SE, Rio Rancho FREE Admission! Clean out your garage, spare bedroom, attic and shed. Come join us to sell all of those items that were collecting dust, find a treasure that you didn’t know you needed, and enjoy a day in the park! Vendor space $35 for a 15’ x 15’ space (Tables and chairs are not provided) Must register online, NO Drop-Ins Accepted. Please call the Cabezon Community Center at 505-892-4499 for more info
Sat 9 AM Send Haley to Spain Sand Volleyball Tournament Charlie’s Sandbox, 4335 Paseo del Norte NE All proceeds go to Haley and her trip to Spain in July! $20/per player. All Skill levels! Prizes for 1st & 2nd place. 4-6 players Coed with 1 female on team. Check in @ 8:30am. More info: Jillian (505) 322-7228, Haley (505) 331-4788, Charlie (505) 239-2461
Sat 9 AM Invisible Heroes Run Believers Center of Albuquerque, 320 Waterfall Dr. SE Join Runfit and the American Society of Radiologic Technologists for the inaugural Invisible Heroes 5K Run/Walk. It is a community event being held to recognize the vital role that medical imaging professionals and radiation therapists play on the health care team and to introduce the public to these vital health care professionals. You are invited to run and walk to celebrate the important work done by invisible heroes. At packet pick-up, you will have an opportunity to tour the ASRT Museum and Archives. Age group, overall, and team awards, including a great t-shirt and finisher medals for all participants (register)
Sat 9 AM - 4 PM 16th Annual CTC Vintage Tractor & Car Show Corrales Recreation Center, 500 Jones Rd., Corrales Join us for a fun day in the Corrales Park. There will be music, food, hot rods, tractor, stationary engines and more. Proceeds Raised will benefit Corrales 4H and Historical Society. Free admission. $10 for show participants
Sat 10 AM – 12 PM Foraging for Fun(ds) Los Poblanos Open Space, 1800 Tierra Viva Pl. NW Join Rev. Ryan Tate on a foraging excursion! Rev. Tate, of the African American spiritual tradition and an IPL board member, wants to bring their loving knowledge of NM edibles and herbs to you. Discover the food right under your nose and how easy it is to enjoy! We’ll meet to explore and harvest native and edible plants. Enter the Open Space area from west bound Montano Boulevard. After foraging, we’ll gather to taste our harvest and other locally sourced treats. Sign up today to participate - space is limited. This is a fundraiser for our work for climate justice: Please give generously (Suggested minimum donation $10)
Sat 10 AM – 3 PM Homebrewer's Happy Hour Southwest Grape & Grain, 3401 Candelaria Blvd. NE Homebrewer's Happy Hour is the perfect chance for all homebrewers, wine makers, distillers, or anyone interested in learning, to connect with others, share a drink, and learn about a new subject each month! $1 off beers from 10am to 3pm. Presentation on monthly subject at 1pm with open forum to discuss after. Food truck on site for lunch! May 18th - Barley
Sat 10:30 – 11:30 AM Animal Tales with the ABQ BioPark Ernie Pyle Library, 900 Girard Blvd. SE Dive into the captivating world of animals with "Animal Tales" presented by the ABQ BioPark! Join us for a delightful reading session featuring an animal-themed book. Experience the magic as the BioPark brings along real animals and biofacts that connect to the story, giving kids an exciting opportunity to meet these creatures up close! Don't miss this engaging and educational adventure for young animal enthusiasts!
Sat 10:30 AM – 12:30 PM FolkMADS Third Saturday Family Dance Albuquerque Square Dance Center, 4915 Hawkins St. NE Dancing, song, and live music for kids of all ages. No experience needed to have fun! Children must be accompanied by an adult. Children dance free, Adults $10
Sat 11 AM – 1 PM Annual Summer Kick-Off Event! Matheson Park Elementary, 10809 Lexington Ave NE Join us as we kick off the summer with fun, a food truck, face painting, dunk tank, and more! Bring your family and your pets for a Blessing of the Pets. There is no cost to attend and all are welcome!
Sat 11 AM – 3 PM Wine + Art Afternoons Gruet Winery, 8400 Pan American East Fwy NE Prism Arts presents a new public art and social series with a special one-day multi-artist event. Join us inside the Gruet Winery with a selection of fine art, prints, paintings, jewelry, and ceramics from local artists Vanessa Alvarado, Eric Romero, Margarita Paz-Pedro, & Aaron Richardson. Enjoy unique art, amazing fine, food, and a social environment with the artists and the public. *All art purchases receive a complimentary bottle of Gruet Wine*
Sat 11 AM – 3 PM Bernalillo Family Fun Festival! Calvary Church, 4001 Osuna Rd. NE Get connected to community and enjoy a Fun Family Day!
Sat 11:30 AM – 4 PM Imaginary Friends Fest Flix Brewhouse, 3200 La Orilla Rd. NW Let your imagination run wild! Join us in the lobby to celebrate the opening of IF! Enjoy photo ops, freebies, an in-theater giveaway, and activities for the whole family. All ages are welcome!
Sat 12 PM BBQ n' Crawl Supper Rock Park, 598 Monte Alto Pl. NE Mini Crawlers 505 and Duke City RC are throwing a BBQ and crawl sesh! All rigs welcome! Please mark going if you are, so we can get enough food!
Sat 12 PM May Brew Tour - Farewell Tour Rio Bravo Brewing, 1912 2nd St. NW This is the last NM Brew Ha-Ha Beer tour for the season. The 24-25 season will start in June 2025 so stay tuned for the season lineup release. Rio Bravo Brewing, Ponderosa Brewing, Bow & Arrow Brewing, Juno Brewery. At Rio Bravo, a DD will be selected, then we’ll head to the other breweries in the order listed. T-shirts, if ordered will be delivered. For safety, a breathalyzer is available, a DD will be established and a liability waiver will be signed by all participants. Safety is of utmost importance. We want everyone to enjoy their tour and arrive home safely
Sat 12 PM Drag Bingo & Brunch! All Ages Welcome! Sidewinders Bar and Grill, 4200 Central Ave SE Join us for a Drag Queen Bingo and Brunch benefitting The Albuquerque Roadrunner Tournament 2024 (coming up in September). Hosted by Priscilla Bouvier. Doors 12pm. Show 1pm. Bingo, Prizes, Giveaways, Raffles, Cocktails, Mocktails and Fun!
Sat 12 PM Empire's 9th Anniversary - FREE PLAY ALL DAY Empire Board Game Library, 3503 Central Ave NE It's Empire's 9th Anniversary celebration and you're invited! We've been here 9 years and it's all thanks to the support we get from you, so to show our appreciation, this Saturday's celebration is our gift to you: Come in and play for free all day! Every game is on sale all weekend! We're holding raffles over the course of the day to give away some great games! So come on down and let us thank you!
Sat 12 – 3 PM STOODIS!: An AIDS/LifeCycle Fundraising Event Soo Bak Seoul Bowl, 111 Hermosa Dr. SE Help Vanessa Bowen cross the finish line – the fundraising finish line, that is! Vanessa is on a mission to raise $3,500 to participate in the 2024 AIDS/LifeCycle, a 545-mile charity bike ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles from June 2nd to 8th, 2024. Join this special fundraising event and send-off party for an afternoon of entertainment, vendors, bike tune-ups, raffle, and food and drink specials. Come prepared to support our local vendors and find out how you can win our selected giveaways. AIDS/LifeCycle benefits, and is jointly produced by, San Francisco AIDS Foundation (Tax ID # 94-2927405) and Los Angeles LGBT Center (Tax ID # 95-3567895), each of which is a nonprofit, public benefit corporation recognized as tax exempt under IRS Code Section 501(c)(3). Donations to AIDS/LifeCycle are deductible for income tax purposes, to the extent permitted by law. Vanessa Bowen (They/Them) is a Diné (Navajo) product designer and cyclist. Their work gravitates toward the intersection of design and social equity. Bowen is a former Outride Ambassador, current Chamois Butt’r and Kuat Racks Ambassador, founder of Get Native Kids on Bikes, and a supporter of AIDS/LifeCycle. If not creating in their studio in Albuquerque, they are training for a cycling event or community building for a just, equitable future (more info)
Sat 12 – 5 PM Day Camp - A Festival for Families Tin Can Alley, 6013 Signal Ave NE Day Camp is where adventure meets education, creativity, and community in a fair-like environment where a variety of youth development organizations are excited to share their programs. In partnership with Warehouse 505, and featuring organizations such as Explora, there will be workshops ands expos for kids to discover new passions across music, art, science, and more. Supporting Youth Security & Education, all dedicated funds raised will be going to New Mexico non-profit organizations
Sat 12 – 5 PM Monthly Pinball Tournament Sister, 407 Central Ave NW All skill levels and players welcome! 21+ Sign up starts at 12 pm; tournament play starts at 1 p.m. Entry fee is $5 + coin drop
Sat 1 – 5 PM United in Beer Collaboration Festival Ex Novo Brewing, 4895 Corrales Rd., Corrales United in Beer is a New Mexico statewide collaborative beer festival that benefits the Somos Unidos Foundation with 26 participating breweries, which were randomly partnered through a live draft and then together selected the beer style they would collaborate on. All beers will be showcased at the festival. Tickets are limited. Portions of ticket sales will donated to Somos Unidos Foundation, a 501(c)(3) dedicated to creating positive outcomes for New Mexicans through art, sport, community, and unity. This will be a 21+ Event. Food trucks will be on site. Included with ticket purchase is: Festival access, 8 drink tokens, and a United In Beer glass! We recommend bringing: Sunscreen, your friends, and good vibes
Sat 1 – 10 PM Boots In The Park Presents Thomas Rhett, Chris Young & Friends! Balloon Fiesta Park, 5000 Balloon Fiesta Pkwy Dust off your boots and get ready to holler, because Boots In The Park is making it's way to Albuquerque, y'all! Join us for a rootin', tootin', two-steppin' good time with none other than Thomas Rhett, Chris Young, Chris Janson, Kameron Marlowe, Dylan Schneider, Leaving Austin and beats by Luwiss Lux. We're talking about an evening filled to the brim with live tunes, finger-lickin' craft food, and the smoothest cocktails. We'll be kicking up dust with some good ol' line dancing and a whole heap more, as Balloon Fiesta Park is transformed into Albuquerque's best country music party! Past folks to grace the Boots In The Park stage are Carrie Underwood, Blake Shelton, Tim McGraw, Cody Johnson, Jon Pardi and a bunch of other country legends. But this day is gonna be one for the record books, a show that will leave y'all talking for years to come (tickets)
Sat 2 PM Annual Castro Concerto Competition Albuquerque Youth Symphony, 4407 Menaul Blvd. NE Join us to hear talented high school juniors compete for the privilege of performing with the Youth Symphony during the Albuquerque Youth Symphony Program's 2024-2025 concert season! This event is free and open to the public. We also plan to stream this event live on Facebook for anyone not able to attend in person
Sat 2 PM "Greatest Moments" - a fundraising concert for Opera On Tap New Mexico Central United Methodist Church, 201 University Blvd. NE Join us for an afternoon of music to help raise money for Opera on Tap - New Mexico! Featuring some faculty and students of University of New Mexico, along with other local professionals, we have put a program together highlighting some of the show-stopping, beautiful moments of opera and musical theater! Suggested donation $10
Sat 2 – 7 PM Rawking: An Afternoon Metal + Art + Comedy Extravaganza Juno, 1501 1st St. NW Featured performers include Light Thief, Destroy to Recreate, Guvtika, Abandoned Saviors. outdoors on the patio with Four Bands, Comedians, Artists, Vendors. Produced by Metal World Radio. 21+. $10 at the door or presales online
Sat 3 – 8 PM Albuquerque Roller Derby presents: Sandia Slammers vs. Bosque Bruisers! Expo New Mexico - Manuel Lujan Jr Exhibit Complex, 300 San Pedro Dr. NE Albuquerque Roller Derby has gotten SO big we’ve split into two teams! Sandia Slammers & Bosque Bruisers! Get your tickets for our first Home Game of the 2024 season
Sat 3:45 – 5:45 PM AND 7 - 9 PM The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 Flix Brewhouse, 3236 La Orilla Rd. NW Experience the Twilight saga's epic romance and thrilling fantasy BREAKING DAWN - PART 1 on the big screen! Bella and Edward, plus those they love, must deal with the chain of consequences brought on by a marriage, honeymoon, and the tumultuous birth of a child, which brings about unforeseen and shocking developments for Jacob Black (tickets)
Sat 4 – 8 PM Drink Local Downtown ABQ - May Step into the heart of Albuquerque with our thrilling, free monthly bar crawl event! Immerse yourself in the local charm as we celebrate community, culture, and creativity right in the heart of ABQ. In partnership with ABQCore Neighborhood Association, a locally organized and hosted event, we're bringing you a bar crawl experience like no other. This isn't just a crawl; it's a vibrant celebration of local businesses, a showcase of community talent, and a monthly escape into the unique flavors that make ABQ special
Sat 4 – 9 PM Summer Market ABQ Food Park, 6951 San Antonio Dr. NE Dive into the magic of summer evenings at ABQ Food Park with our captivating Summer Market! Join us for a delightful evening, where you can browse an enchanting array of offerings from local artisans and support our vibrant community businesses. Discover unique treasures crafted with love and passion by talented artisans, from handcrafted jewelry to exquisite home decor. Every purchase you make supports local creators and contributes to the thriving arts scene in our city
Sat 5 – 8 PM National Astronomy Day! Rainbow Park Observatory, 301 Southern Blvd SE, Rio Rancho The Rio Rancho Astronomical Society will host National Astronomy Day at Rainbow Park Observatory. There will be food for a donation, family activities and safe solar viewing. Dr. Tony Hull will appeal at 7 pm about his work on the James Webb Space Telescope. He will also have some info on light pollution
Sat 5 – 11 PM Beer & Jazz on the Hill Tractor Brewing, 122 Tulane Dr. SE We're bringing you a full night of brews and Jazz with the very talented Rona & Meli opening things up at 5pm and our house Jazz band Basilaris Trio closing things down at 8!
Sat 6 PM Bear Affair 4: Spanish Tapas Beer Pairing Dinner Boxing Bear Brewing, 8420 Firestone Ln. NE Join us on our patio for an ALMOST summer night paired with a variety of our seasonal beers, chef-crafted Spanish tapas, and flamenco. Featuring chef Christopher Midyette And the artist dance group Spanish Broom. Tickets are $65 per person and include a welcome beer, three course tapas style meal with beer pairings and entertainment for the evening
Sat 6 PM One Year Anniversary Celebration Urbanmama505 Kombucha, 1014 Central Ave SW, Ste A Celebrating one year of love, abundance, and sharing wellness. Right after Open Mic 4-6pm, we will be graced with a jazz concert by Davis Nelson-Hooker, an amazing local musician. Elixirs and small plates for purchase
Sat 6 – 9 PM Gone Country Saturdays with DJ Soiree Ponderosa Brewing, 1761 Bellamah Ave NW It's Gone Country Saturdays featuring the amazing DJ Soiree! Start your evening with free dance lessons at 5 pm, followed by family-friendly entertainment
Sat 7:30 – 9 PM Saturday Night Stand-Up Bosque Brewing Co - Nob Hill, 106 Girard Blvd. SE Live from ABQ, it’s… Saturday Night Stand-Up Hosted by Nax Davis! Every third Saturday of the month! Seating at 7:30 - Comedy at 8. Featured line-up of local comics includes: MEG FINN, BRYAN LAMBE, SARINA OCHOA, MARY BYRD, ROBERT EYSTER
Sat 8 PM – 1:15 AM Apparition Goth Night Historic El Rey Theater, 622 Central Ave SW A hauntingly dark, classic goth night featuring the Apparition team: DJ Ren, DJ Batboy, DJ Moonside. Doors at 8. $10 all night. 21+ Tickets at the door. Expect goth, darkwave, death rock, synthpop, dark post punk, ebm, dark dance, industrial, witch house, horror punk and more
Sat 8:30 PM – 1 AM SABOR Latin Night - SATURDAYS Bama's 1865, 6007 Osuna Rd. NE May 11th - SPECIAL GUEST DJ ITALIA! DJ Gabriel Goza & DJ Pedro will be serving you the saucy Salsa, Bachata, Cumbia, Merengue y Mas! Ample Parking, Safe Environment, Beautiful Venue, Good Food, Good Music, Good Vibes. 21+ / $10 cover
Sat 9 PM – 1 AM Cumbia + Rock en Espanol Juno, 1501 1st St. NW Grupo Super Verza with Ave. 69 and Lot Beat and DJ Tony. Baila! 21+, $15 at the door or online
** Sun 5/19 *\*
Sun 9 – 11 AM Elevated Roller Derby May Training Scrimmage Heights Community Center, 823 Buena Vista Dr. SE Officials' huddle 9:00AM. Captains' meeting at 9:20AM. First whistle 9:30AM. This is simply a black/white scrimmage. It will be used as an educational opportunity. NSO paperwork will be used as appropriate. You are encouraged to stretch your skills. Hospitality: This is a low/no production scrimmage, bring beverages and snacks for your own use. Bathrooms: The community center may not be open during the scrimmage. (That's the trade-off for a free space). You can stop at the nearby Starbucks before the event. Expectations: Skaters and Skating and Non-skating Officials are expected to follow all WFTDA Risk Management Guidelines. The venue is a designated alcohol, drug, and smoke-free space by the city of Albuquerque (sign up)
Sun 10 AM – 2 PM The Great Burque Bake On Rail Yards Market, 777 1st St. SW Get ready to whisk it all at the "Great Burque Bake-on," a special fundraiser for the non-profit Rail Yards Market: One dozen of Albuquerque's most talented bakers will dough head-to-head in a crusty competition for the ultimate bakery glory! Bakers brawl... You vote for the winners! This sugar-dusted showdown promises a blend of flour-fueled drama and buttery bravado, making it the yeast you can do to support your local confectionery champions. As these culinary wizards knead their way to the top, we guarantee you'll find their efforts both batter and sweeter than anything you've tasted before. Join us for a day of laughter, pastry, and a chance to see who rises as the crème de la crème of Burque's baking scene! 1) ORDER > Claim your Bake-on Box & exclusive market swag by ordering online May 10-16th, 2024. 2) LEARN > Follow our social media to learn about each contestant & their offering. 3) PICKUP > Grab your box of baked goodies & swag at the info booth Sunday May 19th. 4) ENJOY > Eat all the delectable goodies, savor the flavor, and read about all the contestants 5) VOTE >> Submit your votes online to choose the winners! (tickets) The Farmers' Market event is going down simultaneously with 175+ local vendors to explore, and is still FREE to enter and welcome to all. This funky fundraiser is going down during the FREE Rail Yards Farmers' Market. So you can peruse 150+ small businesses and enjoy the historic architecture while you enjoy your Great Burque Bake-on Box of goodies! All proceeds will benefit the Rail Yards Market. The Rail Yards market of Albuquerque is a certified 501(c)3 non-profit focused on building a resilient, sustainable, local economy where the surrounding historic communities thrive, all can participate, and everyone is enriched and inspired. Through food, art, education, and music, we invite the community together in an inclusive and festive atmosphere
Sun 11:30 AM The Addams Family Historic Lobo Theater, 3013 Central Ave NE THE HISTORIC LOBO THEATER is excited to bring The Addams Family to the big screen! Showing Starts at 11:30 am Tickets are ONLY $10 for General Admission $25 Brunch and a Movie Ticket $21 Brunch Only ticket
Sun 12:30 PM Annual Spring Tea Asbury UMC, 10000 Candelaria Rd. NE All are welcome to attend our Annual Spring Tea! This year's theme is "The Tapestries of Our Lives." Life can be like a tapestry; our quilt, with events, feelings, accomplishments, and even disappointments "stitched" in. Join us, for tea, while Cindy Kurey, AQS-certified quilted textiles appraiser, shares how quilting and her faith have helped her navigate life. She will also show her collection of antique, vintage, and modern quilts! There is no cost to attend, though RSVPs are required. Please call the church office 505-299-0643 or message us on Facebook to RSVP
Sun 1 PM Ruck Club May Callout - Rain Ruck North Domingo Baca Park, 8301 Wyoming Blvd. NE Since we are in Albuquerque, we will get creative to find water. No weight requirement; use your regular training weight. We will be rucking at least 5 miles. Hosted by F3 Albuquerque, which plants free, peer-led workout groups for men, but this event isn't just for men! Everybody is welcomed and encouraged to participate in this GORUCK monthly callout. Bring water, electrolytes, sunscreen. Expect to get wet, and dress accordingly
Sun 2 - 4 PM Film Screening: "Between the Stone and the Flower" JCC of Greater Albuquerque, 5520 Wyoming Blvd. NE The film follows the journey of Genie of Milgrom and her decades long quest for her Jewish lineage inspired the film. She was born in Havana, Cuba and raised in Miami as a full Catholic. She was always burdened with a deep-rooted feeling of not belonging in her Spanish Catholic environment. Genie becomes more and more convinced that her family was Jewish in the Iberian Peninsula centuries before. Intro and Q&A with Filmmaker, Genie Milgrom (register for free)
Sun 2 – 3:30 PM Cuidando los Niños Fundraiser Cookie Class Sweet Pea Bakery, 2500 Central Ave SW Join us for a fun night out while making an impact in our community! Light House Studio and Sweet Pea Bakery are teaming up to host a cookie decorating class to benefit Cuidando los Ninos. This will be a full 1.5 hour class where local cookie artist Katie Sacoman walks you through decorating three floral themed sugar cookies. Each participant also receives a personalized cookie with their name on it. 50% of each ticket sold goes to benefit Cuidando los Ninos, a local organization working to break the cycle of homelessness for children and families by providing high-quality early childhood education, case management, supportive housing, and parent education. *This class will be good for participants age 10 and up. Please keep in mind it is an hour and a half long guided class. You know your child best!*

NoSleep link
“Ugh, Emma, can you get the trunk for me?”
The dim winter sun was setting over the parking lot, nearly devoid of shoppers at this late hour, aside from a van in one distant corner that had just started backing out of its spot.
I set my bag down in the passenger seat and rounded the side of my mum’s penicillium-green Camry, met with her impatient and lightly sweating face. I popped the trunk, allowing her to practically collapse into it with the weight of the groceries. Something burst in one of the bags, prompting her to curse under her breath.
“I just don’t get why you won’t stick a quarter in those trolleys over there. You get it back afterwards.”
Mum, still arranging the bags into a position that would stop them toppling over on the drive home, looked at me scornfully.
“The Walmart downtown doesn’t make you pay. None of the stores around here do, so why should I? You know we only come here to Aldi ‘cause it’s cheaper.”
“I just said you get the quarter back afterwards. It’s to make sure people put the trolleys back,” I sighed, knowing there was no swaying her. Instead of shooting back with some flimsy reasoning, mum patted her pockets and swore.
“Oh for goodness sake, I’ve gone and left my wallet at the till again, haven’t I?”
Before I could get a word out, she was gone like a rocket, racing against the store’s closing time. Night’s chill descended, raising gooseflesh, so I slammed the trunk and hopped back into the passenger seat, out of the cold.
I sat there, praying my mum had the haste to get back soon with the keys and start up the heating. There was something else, though. My heart made itself known with a rising, incessant pulse. Was something wrong?
“Not this again,” I groaned, shutting my eyes and following a basic breathing routine to calm my nerves. The anxiety was bad enough, but the anger I felt at the nonsense panic had always been worse for me.
“Just stop it. Lasagna’s waiting for us at home. It’s gonna be so g–”
I opened my eyes.
Had I heard something? No, not heard, felt? I leaned forward to scan the parking lot. Nothing. Then I jumped back in my seat. There it was again. It was subtle, so much so I was surprised I’d even noticed it. A light, but bone-deep vibration was emanating from somewhere. Almost like someone nearby was subtly trying to pull down on a gigantic zipper, one tooth at a time. The comparison should’ve sounded silly, but my heart continued to pound faster and faster until I was sure beyond a doubt that something bad would happen. Something was wrong.
It took me longer than I’d have liked to get out, with the seat belt clamping as I struggled to unbuckle. There was no smell in the air. Did it smell before? I couldn’t remember. No more cars in the lot, only the Camry. No more noise.
Again, that slight vibration in the air. Too low a frequency to determine its source, but enough to sense it was there. I tilted my head, staring up at lumpy clouds that cast shadows on each other. Ah, those clouds. I’ve always loved how they look around sundown. It helped to ease my heart a little.
Until one of the shadows moved.
I’m not stupid, I thought it was just a cloud’s shadow matching its slow drift across the sky - I squinted. The shadow wasn’t being cast on a cloud. It was above, or behind them, which made me realise whatever I was seeing, it wasn’t a shadow.
What happened next is hard to articulate. I’ve never seen anything else like it, before or since. The dark mass above the clouds began to sort of extend, beaming down at an angle, like sun rays but moving at a steady pace, or how water or ink moves up paper by way of capillary action. A black beam. But, it was more than that.
I was so absorbed in the spectacle, it hadn’t fully dawned on me that this thing was getting closer. Closer to me. And as it closed in, there was no mistaking it. While it continued to stretch all the way back above the clouds, the outline of it, the cross-section, was almost human-shaped. Arms, head, body, and legs, but the limbs ended in stunted nubs, like a stick figure.
By the time it stopped a good three or four storeys above, I still hadn’t moved. I couldn’t. I could do nothing but watch in disbelief as lights and layers of colour began to flash inside the human-ish figure, seeming to have parallax, as if whatever lay beyond was a space of its own.
Amazingly, something managed to distract me for a moment. A flash of light in my peripheral. A phone torch.
“Emma? Emma! Are you having a stroke or something?”
I blinked.
“What– no? I mean, I…”
Mum was back, apparently still without her wallet, now scanning the asphalt for any sign of it. Why didn’t I hear her coming back?
She clicked her tongue.
“Then stop standing there like an idiot and help me find it. Come on, it’s getting late.”
I did, in fact, keep standing there, glancing between her and the flashing shadow prism above us. I did a double take. Those glaringly bright, almost offensively coloured layers were speeding up towards the end of the beam, towards me, piling up on themselves to assemble a figure, stepping soundlessly out into thin air.
Mum kept calling for me. I heard her, but couldn’t process her words. Everything else was secondary to the figure above us. It had fully formed, cloaked in a coarse-looking gown, with skin so pale and shadeless it was as if it radiated a faint glow. The sound of rapid footsteps brought me back to myself, and I looked down just in time to see my mum, face painted in a teetering mixture of worry and annoyance. She went to speak but I held up a hand, and pointed to the figure.
Squinting at me, she looked to where I was pointing, and froze. The whole time, I’d secretly been hoping I was just hallucinating, but she saw it too. She saw something, at least, and that was enough to confirm what I’d been dreading.
“...who is that?” she asked. Her voice sounded so small and dry. If I could’ve spoken I’d have asked, “what is that?”
Instead, I watched on in terror as the figure began a slow descent, straight down. The closer it drew, the more of it I could make out. There were these iridescent lines floating across the surface of its skin, moving like sun patterns on the bottom of a swimming pool. Like the silhouette it had emerged from, it had no hands or feet. Just rounded nubs, although those on its arms had the same slight depression in the centre.
“Car… the car. Mum, the car, get in the car, now,” I whispered. No response. I reached out, grabbing her by the arm and shaking her. She was absolutely rigid. One of us had to move, and I imagined we were both hoping the other would do so.
A second figure emerged from the prism, identical to the first, except it was wearing a plain T-shirt and shorts. At the same time, the first one finally touched down on the asphalt and stood, tilting its head up, apparently waiting for the other to arrive.
If I had any lingering doubt that these things weren’t human, it was squashed when I saw their faces - or, lack thereof. I couldn’t see any ears, and where a face should’ve been was only a circular metal grate. Maybe gold, or brass.
The four of us stood there, still and silent. They stared at us, and we stared right back, completely lost in the foreign sight of the beings. A breath, then they turned to each other. I don’t know if I expected them to talk, but they didn’t. Not in any language I know. Faint at first, getting brighter with every pulse, constellations began to flash behind the metal face-grates of each of them. I heard nothing aside from a few damped vibrations, yet somehow, I knew there was a conversation going on.
Very slowly, I took a step back, and reached an arm behind me to feel for the car. All the while, my eyes stayed locked on the beings. I kept reaching, further and further. My fingers brushed nothing but air.
One of them abruptly turned and looked at me, or at mum, I couldn’t tell. My chest tightened. This wasn’t happening. It raised one stunted arm to point at my mum, releasing another cascade of flashing lights behind its grill face. The other crossed its arms and looked over too, like it was waiting for something.
I had to risk it. I pivoted, throwing a glance over my shoulder. The car was twenty, maybe twenty-five feet away. I didn’t remember wandering that far from it. I noticed something else then: the trees, the grass, all of the greenery surrounding the parking lot was… gone. It gave me the impression of a planet that had never evolved life, or where all life was extinct. There was only bare, dark soil enclosing the lot.
Seconds before I went for the car, mum let out a scream. One that I still hear from time to time, in dreams and background noise. I spun around to see the first being, the one wearing a gown, gliding across the ground with an arm outstretched. Mum didn’t have time to move. It came to a dead stop before her, arm still raised, and I saw something emerging from the small depression at the end of its stump - what I now understood was a hole. Whatever came out was darker than the night sky, and I couldn’t place its shape, but it looked like it was made out of a mass of ever-shifting black crystals.
Mum screamed again. It was more of a gasp actually, a gasp that lasted barely a second before a bubble broke free of the shifting appendage and fixed itself over her mouth, silencing her. Another four floated down to her wrists and ankles, binding her in place and stopping her from moving as one more broke off from the being. It looked a little like an arrowhead, or some other sharp, triangular tool, a razor edge cutting through the air and hovering just over her stomach.
I understood the danger then - not for me, but her. Abandoning caution, I leapt forward, yelling,
“Get away from her!”
But I rolled my ankle and went crashing down onto cold, hard asphalt. Dazed, I tried to lift myself, and managed to look up at the beings with blood pouring from my nose and a cut on my cheek. The one in front of my mum barely seemed to notice me, giving me a quick look then getting back to the matter at hand, whatever that was.
Mum squirmed against her restraints, issuing muffled groans through her nose. I forced my limbs to work, but I was held fast. Mounds of that shifting black crystal had smothered my hands, binding them to the ground.
I looked at my mum, helpless, terrified. She met my eyes, blinked away a tear, and squeezed her eyelids shut. At the back, the being wearing a T-shirt made some kind of gesture, like it was impatient, and the robed being nodded, turning back to mum and directing the arrow-shaped object. At the same time, her blouse began to lift up and off her, pulled by an invisible force and exposing her belly. The being hesitated for a second, and I felt a spark of hope, that it might show mercy.
But of course it didn’t.
The dark arrowhead pressed into her skin, slicing through layers like butter and dragging a line downwards, leaving a clean incision. Wasting no time, the being reached inside, fiddled around for a moment, then pulled out the severed end of my mum’s intestine. Blood and shit splattered the ground, trailing away from her as the being floated backwards, keeping hold of the organ until it was stretched to its full length.
I tasted bile.
“STOP! You fucks, you fucking–”
A gush of vomit interrupted me, flooding out onto the ground and mixing in with the intestinal fluids to create a disgusting, speckled pattern which prompted another wave of vomit from me and tears to cloud my vision.
“Please…”
I wiped my sleeve over my eyes so I could see. The being in a T-shirt had a long, pole-shaped protrusion stretching out from the end of its arm, extending to match the length of my mother’s intestines. It studied something for a second, before shrugging, and nodding at the robed being.
In the blink of an eye, the intestines retracted back like a frightened snake and piled back inside mum’s body. I just stared, not able to understand. The sides of the incision pulled into each other and appeared to heal completely in a matter of seconds. As soon as I’d processed this, I felt my restraints slacken then disappear entirely, and I shot to my feet, nearly tripping over again, and grasped onto mum’s arm.
I pulled, under the assumption that she’d been released. She wasn’t. Why weren’t they letting her go?
Freezing up, I cranked my head to look at the beings. More flashing lights. The one in a T-shirt was handing something over to the other, but I couldn’t see anything passing between them. Maybe it was something invisible, or something my mind just wasn’t built to perceive.
I continued to tug mechanically, trying to free her. Her skin was cold and slick and she was shivering. It did no good. The black crystal held fast. I nearly collapsed in relief and shock when the robed figure began to ascend back up to the prism it had come from, but the other grabbed onto its gown, communicating something. The robed being dropped back down, but threw its arms out in what I’d guessed was frustration. T-shirt gestured towards us again, still conversing with the other, waving its arms around. Still, the robed figure seemed to acquiesce and slid across the ground towards us again. Lights continued to flash behind its grill-face, all varying shades of orange and red. Like it was angry.
I couldn’t let it happen again, and lunged at it, planning to do - I don’t really know. I just wanted to protect my mum. Right as I made contact with the being, I felt a shift in the air. The fluid in my ears swirled. It made me dizzy. When my eyes stopped rolling to the side, I realised I was being held still by two pale, stunted arms, with odd patches of hot and cold travelling around on its skin. Somehow, I’d wound up in the arms of the being wearing a T-shirt, and those arms held me tight, tighter than any living thing should be able to.
“GET THE FUCK OFF ME!!” I screamed, flailing and lashing out. In a desperate bet for escape I tried to bite down on one of its arms. It felt like I’d been curb stomped, like I’d bitten down full-force on granite.
I kind of gave up after that. It just hurt too much to think. Instead, I took in my surroundings. Where was I again? Mum… mum.
The robed being was standing in the way of her, but it was doing something. I couldn’t see what, but by the way mum was squealing behind her gag, it made the first procedure sound like a pillow fight. I just cried. There was no other avenue for relief except the tears.
Then, everything went quiet. Mum trailed off into a whine, and then nothing. No wind, and no trees or leaves rustling, because they’d all vanished. Just me, mum, and these things. The one holding me loosened its grip and I gasped, gulping down stagnant air. It floated over to where mum was and the robed being stepped aside, finally letting me see what was happening.
I didn’t really want to know. I really, really didn’t. But my muscles were locked in place.
In one… hand? The robed being held one end of an artery it had pulled out of mum’s chest. Without warning, the two entities shot up into the air, coming to a halt somewhere above. As they moved, more blood vessels phased through the skin of mum’s body, contorting and straightening to fuse at their ends, forming an unholy, pulsing rope.
With speed faster than I could process, the beings flew away, vanishing into the night while clutching the single fused vessel of veins, arteries, and capillaries. There was blood, yes, but only a little. It all seemed to be contained in that one long tube they continued to pull along through the atmosphere.
From the opposite direction, they passed once. I saw them pass over one more time and disappear into the distance before the meaty vessel pulled taut. At the time, I hadn’t really pieced it together - I think they’d looped around the entire planet. Not once, but twice, and then some, in what couldn’t have been more than ten seconds.
I blinked, and they were back, standing in the parking lot and flashing their lights at each other. I didn’t even have the energy to whisper in protest. T-shirt looked reluctant in some way, and handed over more of something I couldn’t see to the robed entity.
As they did this, the red string they’d made from mum’s blood vessels pulled back by itself at impossible speeds, retracting out of over two loops of planet Earth and back into my mum, breaking apart, phasing back inside and reassembling into their proper structure. That’s what I’d guessed, anyway.
Glassy eyed and so, so pale, the crystalline restraints dissolved and my mum slumped limp to the ground. I stood motionless for a second before realising my own restraints were gone as well, and I bolted over to her.
I was whispering something. Assurances, maybe apologies, I can’t remember. The two beings watched us, then they ascended, back up to the dark prism and out of sight. It began to pull back, up into the sky, and when I blinked, all the trees and the grass were back.
It all felt normal. Almost normal. The only change was that the sky was a little darker, and my mum felt a little colder. Then a lot colder. I placed two fingers on her neck. There was no pulse.
When the paramedics arrived, they rushed over to us. Their movements were frantic but controlled. Just thirty seconds later, that urgent energy was gone, replaced by a dull rhythm that told me all I needed to know.
She was pronounced dead on scene.
The coroner later concluded that mum had simply ‘died’. No cause could be found, but brain damage signified a level of hypoxia. I guess that’s what happens when your blood is outside of you, even if just for a minute.
Strangely, I found my anxiety to diminish after that night. It still flares up now and then, but most of the time, there’s just this hollow feeling in its place. I don’t go to Aldi anymore. Seems silly to mull over something like that, but I can’t even be near those big parking lots now. I get my groceries delivered.
Maybe it sounds like I’m managing - I am. Inside, though, there’s a crack that can’t be fixed, can’t be filled. It’s worn down over time, gotten less jagged and easier to deal with. Things don’t really shock me anymore, or at least, the shock is dulled.
There will be no justice for her. Even if I sought it, I doubt we could ever even access whatever plane those beings hail from. Whatever power we think we have, all those things see when they look at us is a world of monkeys, banging stones together. I’m sure of it.
In fact, I’m willing to bet on it.
As much as they bet on my mum.

“Ugh, Emma, can you get the trunk for me?”
The dim winter sun was setting over the parking lot, nearly devoid of shoppers at this late hour, aside from a van in one distant corner that had just started backing out of its spot.
I set my bag down in the passenger seat and rounded the side of my mum’s penicillium-green Camry, met with her impatient and lightly sweating face. I popped the trunk, allowing her to practically collapse into it with the weight of the groceries. Something burst in one of the bags, prompting her to curse under her breath.
“I just don’t get why you won’t stick a quarter in those trolleys over there. You get it back afterwards.”
Mum, still arranging the bags into a position that would stop them toppling over on the drive home, looked at me scornfully.
“The Walmart downtown doesn’t make you pay. None of the stores around here do, so why should I? You know we only come here to Aldi ‘cause it’s cheaper.”
“I just said you get the quarter back afterwards. It’s to make sure people put the trolleys back,” I sighed, knowing there was no swaying her. Instead of shooting back with some flimsy reasoning, mum patted her pockets and swore.
“Oh for goodness sake, I’ve gone and left my wallet at the till again, haven’t I?”
Before I could get a word out, she was gone like a rocket, racing against the store’s closing time. Night’s chill descended, raising gooseflesh, so I slammed the trunk and hopped back into the passenger seat, out of the cold.
I sat there, praying my mum had the haste to get back soon with the keys and start up the heating. There was something else, though. My heart made itself known with a rising, incessant pulse. Was something wrong?
“Not this again,” I groaned, shutting my eyes and following a basic breathing routine to calm my nerves. The anxiety was bad enough, but the anger I felt at the nonsense panic had always been worse for me.
“Just stop it. Lasagna’s waiting for us at home. It’s gonna be so g–”
I opened my eyes.
Had I heard something? No, not heard, felt? I leaned forward to scan the parking lot. Nothing. Then I jumped back in my seat. There it was again. It was subtle, so much so I was surprised I’d even noticed it. A light, but bone-deep vibration was emanating from somewhere. Almost like someone nearby was subtly trying to pull down on a gigantic zipper, one tooth at a time. The comparison should’ve sounded silly, but my heart continued to pound faster and faster until I was sure beyond a doubt that something bad would happen. Something was wrong.
It took me longer than I’d have liked to get out, with the seat belt clamping as I struggled to unbuckle. There was no smell in the air. Did it smell before? I couldn’t remember. No more cars in the lot, only the Camry. No more noise.
Again, that slight vibration in the air. Too low a frequency to determine its source, but enough to sense it was there. I tilted my head, staring up at lumpy clouds that cast shadows on each other. Ah, those clouds. I’ve always loved how they look around sundown. It helped to ease my heart a little.
Until one of the shadows moved.
I’m not stupid, I thought it was just a cloud’s shadow matching its slow drift across the sky - I squinted. The shadow wasn’t being cast on a cloud. It was above, or behind them, which made me realise whatever I was seeing, it wasn’t a shadow.
What happened next is hard to articulate. I’ve never seen anything else like it, before or since. The dark mass above the clouds began to sort of extend, beaming down at an angle, like sun rays but moving at a steady pace, or how water or ink moves up paper by way of capillary action. A black beam. But, it was more than that.
I was so absorbed in the spectacle, it hadn’t fully dawned on me that this thing was getting closer. Closer to me. And as it closed in, there was no mistaking it. While it continued to stretch all the way back above the clouds, the outline of it, the cross-section, was almost human-shaped. Arms, head, body, and legs, but the limbs ended in stunted nubs, like a stick figure.
By the time it stopped a good three or four storeys above, I still hadn’t moved. I couldn’t. I could do nothing but watch in disbelief as lights and layers of colour began to flash inside the human-ish figure, seeming to have parallax, as if whatever lay beyond was a space of its own.
Amazingly, something managed to distract me for a moment. A flash of light in my peripheral. A phone torch.
“Emma? Emma! Are you having a stroke or something?”
I blinked.
“What– no? I mean, I…”
Mum was back, apparently still without her wallet, now scanning the asphalt for any sign of it. Why didn’t I hear her coming back?
She clicked her tongue.
“Then stop standing there like an idiot and help me find it. Come on, it’s getting late.”
I did, in fact, keep standing there, glancing between her and the flashing shadow prism above us. I did a double take. Those glaringly bright, almost offensively coloured layers were speeding up towards the end of the beam, towards me, piling up on themselves to assemble a figure, stepping soundlessly out into thin air.
Mum kept calling for me. I heard her, but couldn’t process her words. Everything else was secondary to the figure above us. It had fully formed, cloaked in a coarse-looking gown, with skin so pale and shadeless it was as if it radiated a faint glow. The sound of rapid footsteps brought me back to myself, and I looked down just in time to see my mum, face painted in a teetering mixture of worry and annoyance. She went to speak but I held up a hand, and pointed to the figure.
Squinting at me, she looked to where I was pointing, and froze. The whole time, I’d secretly been hoping I was just hallucinating, but she saw it too. She saw something, at least, and that was enough to confirm what I’d been dreading.
“...who is that?” she asked. Her voice sounded so small and dry. If I could’ve spoken I’d have asked, “what is that?”
Instead, I watched on in terror as the figure began a slow descent, straight down. The closer it drew, the more of it I could make out. There were these iridescent lines floating across the surface of its skin, moving like sun patterns on the bottom of a swimming pool. Like the silhouette it had emerged from, it had no hands or feet. Just rounded nubs, although those on its arms had the same slight depression in the centre.
“Car… the car. Mum, the car, get in the car, now,” I whispered. No response. I reached out, grabbing her by the arm and shaking her. She was absolutely rigid. One of us had to move, and I imagined we were both hoping the other would do so.
A second figure emerged from the prism, identical to the first, except it was wearing a plain T-shirt and shorts. At the same time, the first one finally touched down on the asphalt and stood, tilting its head up, apparently waiting for the other to arrive.
If I had any lingering doubt that these things weren’t human, it was squashed when I saw their faces - or, lack thereof. I couldn’t see any ears, and where a face should’ve been was only a circular metal grate. Maybe gold, or brass.
The four of us stood there, still and silent. They stared at us, and we stared right back, completely lost in the foreign sight of the beings. A breath, then they turned to each other. I don’t know if I expected them to talk, but they didn’t. Not in any language I know. Faint at first, getting brighter with every pulse, constellations began to flash behind the metal face-grates of each of them. I heard nothing aside from a few damped vibrations, yet somehow, I knew there was a conversation going on.
Very slowly, I took a step back, and reached an arm behind me to feel for the car. All the while, my eyes stayed locked on the beings. I kept reaching, further and further. My fingers brushed nothing but air.
One of them abruptly turned and looked at me, or at mum, I couldn’t tell. My chest tightened. This wasn’t happening. It raised one stunted arm to point at my mum, releasing another cascade of flashing lights behind its grill face. The other crossed its arms and looked over too, like it was waiting for something.
I had to risk it. I pivoted, throwing a glance over my shoulder. The car was twenty, maybe twenty-five feet away. I didn’t remember wandering that far from it. I noticed something else then: the trees, the grass, all of the greenery surrounding the parking lot was… gone. It gave me the impression of a planet that had never evolved life, or where all life was extinct. There was only bare, dark soil enclosing the lot.
Seconds before I went for the car, mum let out a scream. One that I still hear from time to time, in dreams and background noise. I spun around to see the first being, the one wearing a gown, gliding across the ground with an arm outstretched. Mum didn’t have time to move. It came to a dead stop before her, arm still raised, and I saw something emerging from the small depression at the end of its stump - what I now understood was a hole. Whatever came out was darker than the night sky, and I couldn’t place its shape, but it looked like it was made out of a mass of ever-shifting black crystals.
Mum screamed again. It was more of a gasp actually, a gasp that lasted barely a second before a bubble broke free of the shifting appendage and fixed itself over her mouth, silencing her. Another four floated down to her wrists and ankles, binding her in place and stopping her from moving as one more broke off from the being. It looked a little like an arrowhead, or some other sharp, triangular tool, a razor edge cutting through the air and hovering just over her stomach.
I understood the danger then - not for me, but her. Abandoning caution, I leapt forward, yelling,
“Get away from her!”
But I rolled my ankle and went crashing down onto cold, hard asphalt. Dazed, I tried to lift myself, and managed to look up at the beings with blood pouring from my nose and a cut on my cheek. The one in front of my mum barely seemed to notice me, giving me a quick look then getting back to the matter at hand, whatever that was.
Mum squirmed against her restraints, issuing muffled groans through her nose. I forced my limbs to work, but I was held fast. Mounds of that shifting black crystal had smothered my hands, binding them to the ground.
I looked at my mum, helpless, terrified. She met my eyes, blinked away a tear, and squeezed her eyelids shut. At the back, the being wearing a T-shirt made some kind of gesture, like it was impatient, and the robed being nodded, turning back to mum and directing the arrow-shaped object. At the same time, her blouse began to lift up and off her, pulled by an invisible force and exposing her belly. The being hesitated for a second, and I felt a spark of hope, that it might show mercy.
But of course it didn’t.
The dark arrowhead pressed into her skin, slicing through layers like butter and dragging a line downwards, leaving a clean incision. Wasting no time, the being reached inside, fiddled around for a moment, then pulled out the severed end of my mum’s intestine. Blood and shit splattered the ground, trailing away from her as the being floated backwards, keeping hold of the organ until it was stretched to its full length.
I tasted bile.
“STOP! You fucks, you fucking–”
A gush of vomit interrupted me, flooding out onto the ground and mixing in with the intestinal fluids to create a disgusting, speckled pattern which prompted another wave of vomit from me and tears to cloud my vision.
“Please…”
I wiped my sleeve over my eyes so I could see. The being in a T-shirt had a long, pole-shaped protrusion stretching out from the end of its arm, extending to match the length of my mother’s intestines. It studied something for a second, before shrugging, and nodding at the robed being.
In the blink of an eye, the intestines retracted back like a frightened snake and piled back inside mum’s body. I just stared, not able to understand. The sides of the incision pulled into each other and appeared to heal completely in a matter of seconds. As soon as I’d processed this, I felt my restraints slacken then disappear entirely, and I shot to my feet, nearly tripping over again, and grasped onto mum’s arm.
I pulled, under the assumption that she’d been released. She wasn’t. Why weren’t they letting her go?
Freezing up, I cranked my head to look at the beings. More flashing lights. The one in a T-shirt was handing something over to the other, but I couldn’t see anything passing between them. Maybe it was something invisible, or something my mind just wasn’t built to perceive.
I continued to tug mechanically, trying to free her. Her skin was cold and slick and she was shivering. It did no good. The black crystal held fast. I nearly collapsed in relief and shock when the robed figure began to ascend back up to the prism it had come from, but the other grabbed onto its gown, communicating something. The robed being dropped back down, but threw its arms out in what I’d guessed was frustration. T-shirt gestured towards us again, still conversing with the other, waving its arms around. Still, the robed figure seemed to acquiesce and slid across the ground towards us again. Lights continued to flash behind its grill-face, all varying shades of orange and red. Like it was angry.
I couldn’t let it happen again, and lunged at it, planning to do - I don’t really know. I just wanted to protect my mum. Right as I made contact with the being, I felt a shift in the air. The fluid in my ears swirled. It made me dizzy. When my eyes stopped rolling to the side, I realised I was being held still by two pale, stunted arms, with odd patches of hot and cold travelling around on its skin. Somehow, I’d wound up in the arms of the being wearing a T-shirt, and those arms held me tight, tighter than any living thing should be able to.
“GET THE FUCK OFF ME!!” I screamed, flailing and lashing out. In a desperate bet for escape I tried to bite down on one of its arms. It felt like I’d been curb stomped, like I’d bitten down full-force on granite.
I kind of gave up after that. It just hurt too much to think. Instead, I took in my surroundings. Where was I again? Mum… mum.
The robed being was standing in the way of her, but it was doing something. I couldn’t see what, but by the way mum was squealing behind her gag, it made the first procedure sound like a pillow fight. I just cried. There was no other avenue for relief except the tears.
Then, everything went quiet. Mum trailed off into a whine, and then nothing. No wind, and no trees or leaves rustling, because they’d all vanished. Just me, mum, and these things. The one holding me loosened its grip and I gasped, gulping down stagnant air. It floated over to where mum was and the robed being stepped aside, finally letting me see what was happening.
I didn’t really want to know. I really, really didn’t. But my muscles were locked in place.
In one… hand? The robed being held one end of an artery it had pulled out of mum’s chest. Without warning, the two entities shot up into the air, coming to a halt somewhere above. As they moved, more blood vessels phased through the skin of mum’s body, contorting and straightening to fuse at their ends, forming an unholy, pulsing rope.
With speed faster than I could process, the beings flew away, vanishing into the night while clutching the single fused vessel of veins, arteries, and capillaries. There was blood, yes, but only a little. It all seemed to be contained in that one long tube they continued to pull along through the atmosphere.
From the opposite direction, they passed once. I saw them pass over one more time and disappear into the distance before the meaty vessel pulled taut. At the time, I hadn’t really pieced it together - I think they’d looped around the entire planet. Not once, but twice, and then some, in what couldn’t have been more than ten seconds.
I blinked, and they were back, standing in the parking lot and flashing their lights at each other. I didn’t even have the energy to whisper in protest. T-shirt looked reluctant in some way, and handed over more of something I couldn’t see to the robed entity.
As they did this, the red string they’d made from mum’s blood vessels pulled back by itself at impossible speeds, retracting out of over two loops of planet Earth and back into my mum, breaking apart, phasing back inside and reassembling into their proper structure. That’s what I’d guessed, anyway.
Glassy eyed and so, so pale, the crystalline restraints dissolved and my mum slumped limp to the ground. I stood motionless for a second before realising my own restraints were gone as well, and I bolted over to her.
I was whispering something. Assurances, maybe apologies, I can’t remember. The two beings watched us, then they ascended, back up to the dark prism and out of sight. It began to pull back, up into the sky, and when I blinked, all the trees and the grass were back.
It all felt normal. Almost normal. The only change was that the sky was a little darker, and my mum felt a little colder. Then a lot colder. I placed two fingers on her neck. There was no pulse.
When the paramedics arrived, they rushed over to us. Their movements were frantic but controlled. Just thirty seconds later, that urgent energy was gone, replaced by a dull rhythm that told me all I needed to know.
She was pronounced dead on scene.
The coroner later concluded that mum had simply ‘died’. No cause could be found, but brain damage signified a level of hypoxia. I guess that’s what happens when your blood is outside of you, even if just for a minute.
Strangely, I found my anxiety to diminish after that night. It still flares up now and then, but most of the time, there’s just this hollow feeling in its place. I don’t go to Aldi anymore. Seems silly to mull over something like that, but I can’t even be near those big parking lots now. I get my groceries delivered.
Maybe it sounds like I’m managing - I am. Inside, though, there’s a crack that can’t be fixed, can’t be filled. It’s worn down over time, gotten less jagged and easier to deal with. Things don’t really shock me anymore, or at least, the shock is dulled.
There will be no justice for her. Even if I sought it, I doubt we could ever even access whatever plane those beings hail from. Whatever power we think we have, all those things see when they look at us is a world of monkeys, banging stones together. I’m sure of it.
In fact, I’m willing to bet on it.
As much as they bet on my mum.