Ringing in ears pressure

Job Details
Postcard Bakery is looking for an experienced Head Barista to join the opening team and help manager daily operations.
This position is a hybrid with two shifts working as a Head Barista and ideally 1-2 additional shifts as a Barista. Shifts vary from as early as 7am to as late as 9pm.
POSITION SUMMARY The Head Barista is responsible for overseeing daily bakery operations including guest interactions, order taking, product quality, cash handling, ordering product, and Department of Health Standards. This position is specifically scheduled to open or close the bakery each day.
RESPONSIBILITIES Welcome and acknowledge all guests, upon entering our space Find ways to express omotenashi to guests and fellow team members Handle any guest complaints or issues in real time Process comps or voids needed during service Take orders from guests, ensuring 100% accuracy when ringing them into the POS Process guest payments accurately and in a timely manner Make all beverages to spec Interact with guests in a friendly, positive manner; making them feel welcome and assisting them with any needs Bus and reset tables as needed Maintain cleanliness of the bakery behind the counter and in guest areas throughout the shift by sweeping, cleaning windows and doors, arranging chairs, etc. Follow all DOH protocol set by management, practicing FIFO, labeling all product, using proper sanitizer, and food safety practices Complete DOH checklist daily and correct any issues in real time Complete opening and closing side work checklist for shift daily Set up and restock all stations as needed during and after service Accurately report cash and credit card tips and contribute to tip pool as applicable Reconcile all cash transactions Run closing POS report daily Complete daily shift log Update knowledge and skills by participating in further required training Complete other duties as assigned by Management
ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS Able to speak, understand, read and write in English Able to comprehend and follow written and verbal direction Able to understand basic math Able to work independently or as part of a team Able to lift at least 30 pounds on a regular basis Able to bend, stoop, stand and perform extensive walking for 8-10 hours a day Adaptable in fast-paced and challenging work environment Organized approach to projects Able to take and give direction Able to approach their work with a sense of ownership and work with a sense of urgency Able to work nights, weekends and holidays and variable schedule, per the needs of the business Able to perform essential job functions under pressure, maintain professionalism when working under stress Maintain polished personal presentation; grooming meets Company standards as outlined by Employee Handbook Strict adherence to posted schedule and clock in/out at times Communicate information effectively and efficiently Maintain general knowledge of the restaurant, location, transportation, management team, etc. Maintain sanitation to Department of Health standards; Keeps work area clean and organized Inform Manager on Duty immediately of any DOH or OSHA/workplace safety violations
REQUIREMENTS Exceptional interpersonal skills and a passion for connecting with others Prior Barista experience or similar entry-level role in a bakery or cafe preferred Understanding of hygiene and food safety rules Multi-tasking abilities Ability to remain calm and professional in a fast-paced work environment
The company is an Equal Opportunity Employer, drug-free workplace, and complies with ADA regulations as applicable. Compensation Details
Compensation: Hourly ($20.00 - $25.00)
Benefits & Perks: Health Insurance, Dental Insurance, Vision Insurance, Paid Time Off, Commuter Benefits, Dining Discounts
Required Skills
Customer Service Skills
Cash Handling
Order Taking
Knowledge of Department of Health standards
Ability to Speak, Understand, Read and Write in English
Basic Math Skills
Ability to work independently or as part of a team
Physical Ability to Lift at Least 30 Pounds, Bend, Stoop, Stand, and Walk for 8 10 Hours a Day
Adaptability in a Fast Paced Work Environment
Organizational Skills
Ability to Take and Give Direction
Ownership Mentality and Sense of Urgency
Availability to Work Nights, Weekends, Holidays, and Variable Schedules
Ability to Work Under Pressure
Maintain Professionalism Under Stress
Maintain Polished Personal Presentation
Communication Skills
Knowledge of Hygiene and Food Safety Rules
Multi tasking abilities
Apply here
Via needabarista.com

All right here it is finally, thank you all for your patience and let's hope chapter 5 is a little more expedient. As usual I hope you enjoy and would love to get everyone's thoughts.
First Previous
4: Memory transcription subject: Zeak, Harchen orphan, citizen of the Venlil Republic. Date: standardized human time July 13th 2136.
The sky was a roaring mass of fire and pungent black smoke that choked out the light of the sun. As I ran down the street, green blood flowed like a broad shallow river. It splashed up with every step I took, sticking to my scales, the smell of it made me feel sick. As the piercing wail of the emergency sirens seemed to grow louder and louder with every step I took making my ears ring and filling my head with a thunderous pain. My heart pounded, my lungs were on fire, and my legs felt like they were made of lead.
A herd of towering blurry figures appeared out of nowhere and ran past me, some almost knocking me down. In their panic they began to look more like crazed wild animals than people. I cried for help but they couldn't hear me. I waved my paws then grabbed one of them a male Venlil, tightening my grip with all the strength I had hoping this would get his attention. He threw me off like I was trash, less than trash. I turned around and continued pleading for anyone to help me, reaching out for others. But their frantic idiot eyes looked only straight ahead and not down, never down, as the herd passed me.
I turned back around and continued to run, blood splashing up soaking me all the way to my knees. I stumbled, my legs were so tired I could barely stand, and I fell down catching myself, plunging my paws into blood as deep as my wrists. I felt myself scream but I couldn't hear it over the ringing in my ears. A scrap of paper gently floated past me, a single word written on it that echoed in my mind “Weakling.” It passed and four more took its place, “Coward”, “Liar”, “Oath breaker”, “Murderer.” I screamed in rage and slapped the pieces of paper aside, blood splashing onto my snout, but the meanings of those words remained. Getting back up I stumbled forward, and fell down again. Then with an effort born out of sheer desperation I managed to stand again lurching forward. My legs were too tired to run but I had to keep going, I had to save them. Or at least her, please Protector if you're listening please let me save at least her.
It felt like I was searching for an endless time. Lurching forward, stumbling, falling down, getting back up, lurching forward once more. Eventually I saw it and my heart fell into the pit of my stomach. My family's car was turned over on its roof, the driver's side had been caved in. It was engulfed in fire and thick black smoke that rose up into the sky. I struggled forward and when I reached it I collapsed, my knees hitting the hot pavement. The smell of burning metal and something else I didn't know assaulted my senses making my stomach turn. Every muscle in my body begged me to run away. Calling out their names l looked inside, and a wave of nausea and horror flooded through me.
I turned away and vomited, then reached up with my blood soaked paws and covered my eyes. Those words thundered in my head making me think it was going to burst open, as hot tears welled up. “WEAKLING! COWARD! LIAR! OATH BREAKER! MURDERER! MURDERER! MURDERER! MURDERER! “I'm sorry I'm sorry, I should have stayed, I should have helped. Why did I run?” I wailed, still unable to hear myself. Someone rested a delicate paw on my shoulder, and the world went quiet. As the pain in my head melted away.
My eyes snapped open and I was greeted by the gentle ringing of my alarm. In a rush of adrenaline I leaped out of bed not even bothering to wipe the sleep out of my eyes. Running out of my bedroom and down the narrow hallway towards the living room. Convincing myself It had all just been a horrible, horrible nightmare and everything was alright. Mom and Dad would be fixing breakfast, Dad softly singing a Harchen folk song while making something savory and delicious as mom sang along in harmony, preparing something special for my baby sister Naila. Oh yes and Naila, she would probably be sitting on a cushion in the sunny part of the living room. Holding her crooked tail, a birth defect which my parents said could be fixed when she was older. And making excited chirping noises at my arrival, while sunlight shone against her emerald scales. I loved my baby sister, I knew other kids resented having a younger sibling. Dismissing their responsibilities and spending less time with their family and more with their friends. I never once felt that way, the moment Naila hatched I devoted every spare minute I had to her. Finding music that would help her fall asleep, watching over her when my mom needed a break. Excitedly telling her about the day's events and what I learned at school, especially what I learned in computer science which was my favorite class.
“Mom! Dad!” I yelled bursting into the living room. “I just had the worst…” My voice trailed off as I was greeted with nothing “dream.” My heart tightened painfully in my chest, as I frantically ran through the house throwing open every door, knowing that they had to be here somewhere. They were just playing a game on me that was all, a game I would tell them I didn't appreciate. After the final door had been opened and no one was there to yell “Surprise!” My body slumped and I felt heavy as reality set back in, and the memories of what happened hit me like a hammer. I made my way back down the hall to my room, tail dragging behind me as I crawled back into bed. Wrapping myself tightly in a blanket, trying to find some comfort.
It must have been hours I lay there feeling numb all over, wishing I could get up the energy to just cry. I think I might have fallen asleep at one point. If I did it was a dreamless sleep, thank the stars for that. Eventually I did get up, sitting cross-legged on my bed, resting my chin in my paws, staring holes into the wall. I took a deep breath and side numbly looked out the window, searching for anything to distract myself with.
It was overcast, and eerily quiet. The emergency sirens had stopped blaring yesterday mere hours after everyone had gotten to the bunkers. The bodies of the dead had already been collected and their blood cleaned from the pavement. So as to not attract any predators into the neighborhood. I saw my neighbor A'shul was home, his white vehicle was sporting some new dents. I wondered, when he got into his vehicle yesterday morning and drove to the nearest bunker; did he try to help anyone? Or was he thinking only of himself? I suppose it didn't matter really. Nothing mattered.
I turned my head away and looked around my small room taking in everything, every trinket, misplaced item, my old second-hand desk, a big green crackle finished monster. Better suited for a Venlil than a young Harchen, heck I needed a stool just to use it. I had gotten it for basically nothing about a year ago, when the local extermination office was getting rid of their old furniture. All it took was a small bribe and they put it in my bedroom when no one was home. My parents, but especially my mom we're not happy when they saw it the next day. They would tell me at least once a week that It was too big for me and they were going to get rid of that eyesore. “Wouldn't you like something a little more modern dear?” My mom would ask, practically pleading for me to say yes. I used to pray that my parents would just shut up and stop bugging me about that stupid desk. I thought it was great, it made me think of private detective Bal from the exterminators show. Bal was a no nonsense Harchen who was so often pivotal in tracking down the predator or predator diseased person. My desk was very similar to his and that's why I wanted it. But at that moment, I would have given anything to hear those words again.
On the desk there was an ornate wooden box, with a fruit tree in full bloom delicately carved into its lid. There were also scuff marks where it had been dropped, and a deep crack running down the center. It was known as a blessing box, Naila's blessing box to be specific. When she hatched nearly ten months ago the whole neighborhood had been invited to come and write a blessing on a scrap of paper and put it in the box. I had written one too, not a blessing but a promise, a promise I couldn't keep. The belief was that if kept near the infant, the combined power of all those blessings would keep the hatchling safe until their first birthday. Where on that day the box would be set on fire and burned to ash. Releasing those blessings back into the world so they may protect someone else. It was an old tradition and not commonly practiced anymore, but as my dad always said “It is important to keep the old traditions alive my son. Both in song and action.” I remember asking him why? And he looked at me like he had been waiting for that question for a long time. “Because” He said, his tail moving with authority. “Someday when you lose your way, and you don't know where to turn to. You will always have something to guide you back to your center.”
Looking away from the box not wanting to look or think about the damn thing, I shifted my gaze down to my bedside table. There was a little holographic projector showing pictures of me, Mom, Dad and Naila on holiday back on Fahl, the Harchen home world to see family. I was born and raised on Venlil prime, so I didn't really know any of my extended family. There was a picture of my mom and Naila sleeping at the beach. Naila’s crooked tail coiled around mom’s arm, their scales a deep emerald in the light of the sun. The picture changed to me and Dad putting the finishing touches on a sand skyscraper taller than him. I had to sit on his shoulders to place the last bucket full of sand on top. Both of our scales were as blue as the ocean. My tail flicked sadly thinking of that day. I reached over and turned the holo protector off.
My holopad lay next to me flashing, alerting me to an urgent message. I hadn't really looked at my holopad since yesterday morning. Picking it up I tapped the flashing icon. It was an official government statement signed by Governor Tarva herself, saying that the humans Noah and Sarah were peaceful explorers, and that they only wished to be our friends. ‘No, that's impossible, they’re predators. Predators don't want peace, they want to conquer, kill and eat us,’ stunned and confused I kept reading. The rest of the message stated that the two human scientists were completely unaware there was intelligent life of any kind on Venlil prime. ‘No! Lies! Predator lies!’ I yelled inside my head. Something hot began to form in my chest as I read the last bit. Governor Tarver had shown the two predators footage of the Arxur torturing Venlil pups. It said that the humans were capable of empathy and felt deeply saddened and angered by what they saw. They vowed to do everything in their power to get their united nations into the war against the Arxur.
I scrolled all the way down and what I saw stopped me cold. Standing in her office being flanked by General Kam, stood Governor Tarva. Beside them looming over the two Venlil one bigger than the other, both of them covered in some sort of protective suit. Their faces were obscured by dark visored helmets. It said that the larger of the two Noah was male, and the smaller one was Sarah female. Sarah had her hands clasped in front of her, while Noah kept his to his side. Neither were acting threatening, and neither Tarva or Kam looked to be harmed in any way.
Something in me snapped, that hot thing inside my chest erupted and I could feel my scales turn black. I very carefully set my holopad down beside me, then I uncrossed my legs and got out of bed. I stood there in the center of my room shaking slightly, feeling terribly calm as white hot rage flooded my body, spreading to my paws and all the way out to the tip of my long tail. It never had to happen, the panic, the stampede, the death, we could have stayed home and avoided those people. ‘No… no not people,’ a bitter thought came over me. ‘They're not people at all, people stop and help, like that Venlil girl Kayleik, she was a person maybe the only one. But the rest of them were just wild animals, masquerading as sentient beings. ‘Do you really think you're any better, coward?’ Some internal voice said.
A sudden impulse took control of me and I grabbed my desks stool and hurled it against the wall. It dented the wall and bounced off still in one piece. Enraged, I leaped forward grabbing it by the legs, then turned around and slammed it into my desk. The sheet metal dented and the green crackle finish paint flew off, but the stool made of good dense wood from the string fruit tree stayed whole. “DAMN THEM! DAMN THEM! DAMN THEM! DAMN THEM!” I screamed, slamming the stool down again and again, my tail whipping wildly, striking the bed and the floor. The tip of my tail began to hurt, which only fueled my anger. Finally I heard cracking and wood began to splinter off. They didn't have to die, we could have stayed home. The muscles in my shoulders burned and my heart pounded as hot tears began to well up. I brought it down one final time narrowly avoiding the blessing box, and the stool broke in two. I hurled the pieces away from me, one slamming into the corner the other crashing through the window.
I leaned against the desk catching my breath as tears flowed freely. ‘Well that definitely showed them didn't it. Hey I got a great idea! Let's go break some more stuff, that will definitely make you feel better. Idiot!’ That internal voice said all coldness and bitterness. As I cried, the burning in my chest cooled, and I was filled with the same numbness as before. After a while my stomach growled, reminding me I hadn't eaten since yesterday. I moved sluggishly out of my bedroom and went straight to the kitchen, quickly grabbed some fruit and left to go and watch the view screen or something. The moment I entered the living room, memories came flooding back. Mom and Dad laughing, Naila sleeping peacefully, the lingering aroma of breakfast, and the warmth of our home. But now it was all gone and I was alone. For the first time in my life, I had no one to go to.
It was right then I realized I couldn't stay here anymore. This place felt like a tomb, all cold and filled with the memories of the dead. Besides, if I stayed here someone would eventually send the authorities to come and get me. Ship me off to an orphanage, foster care or maybe to my extended family back on Fahl. I balked at the idea of being forced to live with people I didn't know or trust. Memories of yesterday's stampede invaded my mind and I shuddered. I couldn't trust any of them not anymore. No, there was one person I could think of that maybe I could trust. Turning around I went back to my room, found my backpack and grabbed my holopad, the blessing box, the holo projector and my blanket stuffing it into my pack. Then I went to the kitchen and filled my pack up the rest of the way with dried fruit and vegetable snacks. With my backpack looking like it was going to burst I shouldered it and made my way to the front door. When I rested my scaly paw on the door handle I stopped and looked back at the place that was once my home. “Goodbye” I said in a shaky voice, knowing this would be the last time I would never set foot in this house. With my head low I opened the door and stepped out, into the dim light of a new unfamiliar world.

I'm struggling to make sense of the heights of the recent hardcover releases.
I see some awesome pics on this sub of all the books sitting next to each other neatly lined up and I'm super jealous. Just check out this post from u/silverhawk1991 a month ago! https://www.reddit.com/tolkienbooks/comments/1c05sk2/my_newly_updated_middle_earth_shelf_in_the_hc/
I'm trying to figure out how I can recreate my own collection.
I understand that HarperCollins and William Morrow sometimes have different book heights. I've seen the common advice to just buy HarperCollins, even if you live in the US as I do. But even within the publishers, I'm seeing different heights. I'm struggling to figure out how to make sense of this and make sure I'm buying the right version.
For example, take the first box set for the History of Middle Earth.

• This one is HarperCollins and 236mm: https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/9780008663162?a_aid=tolkienguide¤cy=USD&destination=US
• This one is HarperCollins and 228mm: https://harpercollins.co.uk/products/the-history-of-middle-earth-boxed-set-1-the-silmarillion-unfinished-tales-the-book-of-lost-tales-part-one-part-two-the-history-of-middle-earth-j-r-r-tolkienchristopher-tolkien?variant=40288619757646&utm_source=AWIN&utm_medium=986691&utm_campaign=TolkienGuide&awc=24652_1716068663_640e960ada1f0e3f98d600d8fed97669
• And this one is William Morrow and 234mm: https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/9780063379848?a_aid=tolkienguide¤cy=USD&destination=US

And for the LotR 2020 HarperCollins boxed set:

• Here it is listed at 235mm: https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/The-Hobbit--The-Lord-of-the-Rings-by-J-R-R-Tolkien-author-Alan-Lee-illustrator-J-R-R-Tolkien/9780008376109
• I measure the my LotR 2020 HarperCollins boxed set that I stupidly bought from ebay at 221mm

If I look at The Nature of Middle Earth:

• Here's a HarperCollins of 232mm: https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/The-Nature-of-Middle-Earth-by-J-R-R-Tolkien-author-Carl-F-Hostetter-edito9780008387921
• And this William Morrow on Amazon is 8.5in which is 216mm: https://www.amazon.com/Nature-Middle-earth-J-R-R-Tolkien/dp/0358454603

And then there's the new Maps of Middle Earth:

• HarperCollins at 230mm: https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/The-Maps-of-Middle-Earth-by-Brian-Sibley-author-John-Howe-artist/9780008669461
• William Morrow at 222mm: https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/The-Maps-of-Middle-Earth-by-Brian-Sibley-author-John-Howe-illustrato9780063387317
• Another William Morrow on Amazon at 228mm: https://www.amazon.com/Maps-Middle-earth-Essential-Beleriand-Wilderland/dp/006338731X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3ME1S9MX1X0IV&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.mI6FwYD3pj6EPEfOxieKDSjwuJLNyDdjuctNgmTkWA7h7ifTocLNgjJGaipne5lZE_zjxO9TZxZrQRJZU-tBBTbzgQdfvxt5AsVE-HoIaW4LqQ7DNoY1WOO95if34cnSFEG_tYLY_0PUKo7k0Hi-SvXibBFl1loAevrTBjD_XQ7an27V5ppjrUUCPL_ArRn7WFbJ9wdoc8jcK31wK--xodSnAajJK6aZQJ2bLGraP1Y.2jkXMnQ6E_3FVjgRrrPQFrsuE1OyI7OshjgxeCflU_E&dib_tag=se&keywords=maps+of+middle+earth&qid=1716071257&s=books&sprefix=map+of+middle+ear%2Cstripbooks%2C157&sr=1-1

So what gives here? Even internally to the different publishers, we see varying heights. Are the booksellers lying about the heights on the websites? Is it just chaos out there? How on earth did u/silverhawk1991 and others assemble their awesome matching collections?

I worry about my future because i can’t seem to get better. I cant remember the last time I didn’t feel horrible for more than a few days at a time. Before this school year started I thought it was just me making myself depressed on purpose so I tried changing my routine and started eating healthy. It didn’t work and I fell into a worse depression because I felt it wasn’t gonna get better. I recently found out what dysthymia is and after a few hours of research on it, I might have it. I’ll get checked by a professional as soon as I can
I don’t want to tell people how I’m always in a bad mood because I don’t want to be a drag or take people down with me. I haven’t told anyone I’ve been feeling this same way for years. Yesterday was a good day and I realized I haven’t had that much fun in months. When it feels like I’m getting better the worst double depression episodes follow it unless I make myself worse to control it. So that’s what I did
My mental health almost doesn’t feel real to me. I cant tell if I’m overreacting and everyone also feels this way or if I should start asking for help. It’s like I’m living with a constant ringing in my ears; easy to ignore but it bothers me. It’s most noticeable on quiet days. I’ve had a lot of good days in the past years but I’ve had so many more bad days or days like this where I feel more neutral and numb. After I turned 10 the world around me started looking so dull. Im still so young and after finding an actual term for this constant mood I’m scared I’ll feel this way in adulthood as well. It overwhelms me to think about it never getting better when it’s hard enough as it is now.

Hi all,
I am experiencing a very strange symptom with my tinnitus and I'm trying to figure out if it's linked to my TTTS. I've scoured the Internet far and wide and have been unable to find another case like mine.
Long story short, my right ear, which had tinnitus before and now has slight TTTS, has developed a louder ringing. The kicker is this: this louder ringing only happens AFTER I sleep on my right side. I'm NOT talking about the sound being amplified when the ear is pressed into the pillow, but an increase in volume after I've been sleeping on that ear and then wake up and change positions or lift my head. The louder ringing will last for about an hour or so after I wake up.
Has anyone encountered something like this, or have any theories about what is happening?

Hi everyone, I'm from Europe and I'm I'm trying to prepare myself for AC noise during the summer and soundproofing a wall might be cheaper but sounds harder to achieve. Therefore I'm looking for custom molded IEMs for 2 reasons:

1. I tried normal earplugs and they widen the canal of my ear and cause too much pressure and itching because they don't adapt
   
2. I could do custom molded earplugs but I wanted audio too in case I want to listen to music and still not hear anything else
   

There is a brand known for anything hearing related that also has custom molded IEMs, but I wanted something that also has a good response graph. I assume they would require something to make them moldable and then you hold them in position. Ideally they don't go in deeply.
Thanks a lot.

So last week during my 3rd math lesson of the day i suddenly felt sick, I couldn't concentrate, my mind got clouded, my ears started ringing and my eyesight got filled with something like tv static and overall I felt dizzy and got some cold sweats. I didn't think much of it so I took my seat and about halfway through the lesson my teacher called me over to solve a simple problem on the board. I stood up and all my symptoms cranked up to 100. I came over to the board and even though I knew the problem was simple and very basic I couldn't do it. I couldn't connect any dots in my head and my teacher understandably got frustrated. As a punishment we're supposed to have a test next week. But anyway after he announced that I stood in front of the board for a minute or so (with my symptoms only worsening) and I asked him if I can go to the nurse because I don't feel good. He said something about it being an excuse or something (I don't remember because I was miles away) but in the end he let me go. She said that either my sugar dropped significantly, or I have some undiagnosed neurological problem. I went home and told my friends to tell him to cancel the test because I was disoriented for medical reasons and they did but he didn't understand a single word. Now I have to get him to cancel it so that my class won't fucking hate me for something I had no control of. Any idea how to persuade him or do anything?

i think it has something to do with the tvs being close to drew’s mic. i was hearing a high pitched whine/tone on and off throughout the episode that i’ve never heard before in their podcast. curious if it was just me who could hear it (and it definitely wasn’t my ears ringing bc it stopped when the pod was over)

My former girlfriend Dakota and I started out as childhood best friends in kindergarten. I did move a few states over for a couple years before moving back, but we religiously mailed each other and called as much as we could. Our parents each joked that we were like sisters, so jokes on them when we got together as girlfriends in 10th grade.
Dakota and I had our ups and downs and we both did a lot of growing as people over the years, but in my humble opinion, we were solid even ten years later, engaged and saving up for marriage, when the car accident happened. Dakota died from sepsis from her injuries, so it was a rollercoaster to deal with the crash, to have her stabilized in hospital and visit her while being told prognosis of PT, and then for her to nose dive again, and finally to lose her. I struggled with grief but my family and friends were huge aspects of my support network. Even Dakota’s parents were a huge help, which I’ll forever be grateful for. After three years of abstaining, I dipped my toes into dating again, with a few dud relationships that eventually fell apart for various reasons, ranging from not meshing to differing points in our lives, before I met my current boyfriend Michael. We have since been together for almost a year and a half at this point.
The ring in question is a simple silver crown shaped band I wear on my right ring finger. When I was in the depth of my grief, it helped a great deal to fidget with it as it helped remind myself to treat myself as a queen, to be gentle and patient with myself, to remember I was loved and love will come again and life will improve, “there is a light at the end of the tunnel”, that sort of thing. I’ve explained to Michael that while Dakota gave it to me, it has also taken on a meaning of self love and self care. He insists that I can at least just wear it on a necklace so that it’s not on my hand where everyone can see constantly, and I’d still be able to fidget with it in a way similar to my normal method and still have it on my person. I’m not a necklace person though, and it felt awkward and uncomfortable around my neck despite giving it two months to adjust. I stopped wearing it as a necklace, going without for a few weeks before I told him I’d like to return to wearing it on my hand, which started a huge fight about how I am prioritizing Dakota over Michael. But other than the ring, he hasn’t been able to tell me any other times that I made him feel second rate, despite me asking genuinely many times during our talks, not even about the ring, before this fight. As in I’ve been checking in about my grief concerning Dakota and how it impacts him, and he doesn’t care about the grave visitations, or when I talk about her or my history with her, but it’s the ring that seems to be the issue. I won’t lie: I feel guilty because he “puts up with” me visiting Dakota’s grave each month or how she features in childhood memories that get brought up, not even by me but by my family.
I need to know if I’m blinded here and missing a reasonable upset to the point I’m being cruel, or if I can talk with him about getting a mediator like a couples therapist to help us both talk our sides better without getting lost in emotional translation. I’ve found having a third party helps when words get mired, either in speaking or hearing, in emotional background noise. I would love us to go to therapy together as it is, but if he’s 110% reasonable and my attachment to the ring is not, then I don’t want to pressure anything.

Hi everyone. I've been lurking for a long time, for as long as I've suspected I've had some condition under the umbrella of neurofibromatosis. I've read so many posts from all of you over this time and I feel like I should introduce myself, and also ask a few questions of you all.
Introduction
I've always been into genetics as a hobby. My grandmother had an incredibly rare condition that took many years for her to be diagnosed with, and every day of her life she was at risk of sudden death as a result (and has absolutely nothing and no relation to any form of NF). When I started in school and learned about genetics even being a thing, I was convinced that her condition was likely a component of it. As it turns out, it is. I couldn't become a geneticist: school was so challenging to afford to begin with, even with really fantastic grades, and I was a high school dropout, so my career became something else (software engineering), but I was always interested in the subject.
Many years ago, I got several consumer-level DNA tests. One of the tests had a mutation in NF1, and I checked to see if it was a miscall. It appeared not to be. I had gotten a new job with fantastic insurance and wanted to see if I could get it checked out.
I see the geneticist. No mutations in NF1 detected, but a mutation in LZTR1 was present, along with a Variant of Uncertain Significance that had not been recorded and studies at the time (now, it's published). So I went about my life as of a few years ago knowing that was a possibility. Saw a neurologist, got an MRI, they said I looked good, life moved on.
A few years before this happened, I had a child (who does not have any of my pathogenic mutations.. I've checked). So this whole time, I started getting some symptoms of issues with my eye over the years: a symptom where i had sudden extreme pain that felt like my eye was out of the socket almost, happened twice, eye doctors had no idea what was going on. Then, a retinal hole, so I had surgery to repair it. My vision just has never been as strong there.
As of the last few months especially, I've had other symptoms on the same side as my eye: tinnitus, a feeling that my ear felt dislocated until I put it back in place, slight aching, a little bit of dizziness, and in hindsight I think my hearing was already being impacted. Less than two weeks ago, I had a moment where everything hit hard: all of the sudden, it hurt more on the same side with my eye, the vertigo got worse, I could definitely tell I had lost hearing, double vision when seeing up close. I knew in that moment that something more than just some sort of ache was going on, that this seemed worse. Also keep in mind, I actively avoid getting COVID-19 by masking, air purification, vaccines, etc. So as of now, I have never had it, and thankfully have also barely been sick at all in the past few years beyond these other unusual symptoms.
I saw my neurologist immediately after realizing what was going on. I told him what I thought this was: an acoustic neuroma, and maybe something else additional with my eye or something similar to it. The appointment ended up being really disappointing, dismissive and not at all in the direction I had hoped, and I'm going to find care elsewhere after I get my MRI because I know I deserve better than someone who does not care to drop his ego. But I did convince him to get me an MRI (it's been two years), which happens tomorrow morning. And I did also find out that my optic nerve is tortuous, especially the left side (and I doubt he reviewed it himself back in the day, beyond the written report). And I pointed out to him again about the mutation I had in NF1, and how I also have cafe au laits and freckles in patches throughout my body, that are just harder to see because I'm multiracial and they're very close to my own skin tone. And he confirmed my conductive hearing loss. And examined my ears and ruled out an ear infection. So... what else could it be in someone who has LZTR1-related neurofibromatosis diagnosis from a geneticist?
So I have, what I believe, is mosaic neurofibromatosis type 1. I think the first DNA test I saw that in was legitimate. I also think the LZTR1-related schwannomatosis is kicking in, but that I knew about. I think I have even a spot on my spine, as I've had pain there with pressure for almost my entire life (at least as long as I can remember).
And I am hoping someone can take me seriously at another place of care once my MRI comes back. Whatever is happening is large enough to impact my hearing and vision and face. And it's the weirdest experience knowing part of this in advance of it before I had symptoms I noticed. It's like every step of the way, I've had to convince someone else of what I thought was going on. But I am super lucky to know enough in advance to find the care I need. WIsh that was the case for everyone.
TL;DR: Inadvertently found out I have LZTR1-related schwannomatosis and I suspect mosaic neurofibromatosis type one. Might have acoustic neuroma based on symptoms, some optic nerve involvement based on symptoms, MRI tomorrow.
Questions
I have some questions just to generally ask. I try to search the subreddit, but sometimes it's just easier to ask in the way I need to, and I want to add a bit more detail to some of the questions to help clarify what I'm asking about.

• Is there anyone else here who has Mosaic Neurofibromatosis Type 1 and LZTR1-schwannomatosis? Or anyone that has any form of mosaic NF1 and schwannomatosis?
• For those of you with acoustic neuromas / vestibular schwannoma, is there anything you would want to know or tell anyone who goes through any treatment for it?
  • I know a ton about the general facts and procedures for the moment. I mean anything that you would have found helpful to keep in mind, or something that helped you during the treatment and in recovery?
• For those of you with anything around the optic nerve including optic nerve glioma, is there anything you would want to know or tell anyone who goes through any treatment for it?
  • I know roughly about this, but looking more for anything that you would have found helpful to keep in mind, with treatment, recovery?
• For absolutely anyone in the umbrella, what helped you cope with finding out this news?
  • I usually deal by digging deep into a subject and educating myself, which I've done ad nauseam already. But I am really struggling with what's going on, the juxaposition between how I feel just god awful physically on the daily, and also coping with this news, and how I have been treated by my neurologist and others. I imagine some of this will probably be helped by actually seeing and knowing the details after tomorrow. I know I'm pretty resilient because I've been through so much real shit in my life, and I know I am in no degree perfect, and I'm going to try to persevere as much as I can. I just try to be a good person, and life just hits me with the hardest situations. And now I have a kid that I want to do absolutely everything in the world for and that's jeopardized. And I am the only person I know like me.

I know that was a massive post. Thank you for reading. Thank you if you give any answers. And thanks for being a part of this community, I wish none of us had to face this, but I am glad there are places where we can know we're not alone in our experiences.

Hello everyone, this is my first EDC. I loved day 1 so far, it was a lot of fun, but I did notice things. Some are good and bad. For reference I'm a male, 30 years that went completely solo.

1. Wear comfortable shoes! - I can't stress enough how important this is, by the time I had to emigrate back to south brown lot, my feet felt like they were run over by a tractor.
   
2. Which brings me to my next point. If i don't have an official EDM shuttle next year, I'm not going. It's literally that bad. It's an insanely far walk, has no seating and my shuttle was an hour late, leaving me to be chum for the nearby bugs while I debated if I should just throw my shoes away.
   
3. People are really friendly and social until it gets crowded. I was already sprouted and given 2 little ducks by random people. The crowd is awesome, but once it starts getting packed, prepare to get pushed around. A lot.
   
4. Use the insomniacs app to streamline what set you want to see. It'll sort it by time and place where the DJs will be for the day.
   
5. Bring a hydration pack and ask for 2 cups of ice when you buy waters. Fill it up and keep your water cold all night. I must've drank like 8 liters
   
6. Reception is terrible but I was able to send and receive messages here and there under the kinetic fields owls.
   
7. A lot of tents have 2 lines and people don't realize it so if you see someone behind a tent that doesn't have a line, it usually means you'll get first dibs.
   
8. Screenshot the map from insomniac app. I had to help a few people find things cause they didn't have a map.
   
9. Go to Walmart and get a little fan you can charge. I have one that hangs on my neck and I'm sure it's what kept me from heatstroke
   
10. My most important tip. Get the eargasm plugs! I was able to hear everything clearly and I have absolutely no ringing in my ears right now. And spend the extra bit for the cord. It's very worth it
    

But overall it's been a very fun experience, thank you to everyone that came up and talked to me and gave little trinkets. Say hi if you see me. I may look like I'm in my own little world (cause I am) but I'm friendly. I'm a black guy and I'll be wearing a playboy hat (only one I brought) with a blue mushroom sprout and all black and white outfit tonight. Probably at your local bench haha

i've been experiencing attacks from my upstairs neighbors for almost one year. I believe they are using the same tools that creates havana syndrome and that they several iterations and variations with more advanced features. i believe these tools are being produced in russia, and not sure if it's being directed by a government entity or a smaller criminal network.. but the device they are using is quite bizarre and causes a lot of confusion. i believe it allows them to create a shared frequency of the person's consciousness, to allow the attackers to scrape data and to drive fear.
this is just speculation, so many unknowns.. as the attackers want to remain hidden. the first couple months, i felt like i was just experiencing gas lighting. i can tell they are using some type of sonic device because... intense ringing of the ears, downward pressure on my body.. when i'm sitting or laying in bed, a weird vibration/sensation in the air,.. and it allows them to communicate with me in a silent manner.. where they harrass me and ask me many questions to allow them to gain information. it is such a bizarre experience.. i could go into more detail, but hesitant... because it just sounds so unbelieveable.
i believe this has become a common issue... as i moved away from my condo to get away from the harrassment, into another condo.. to then start experiencing daily attacks in very similiar way.
but just wanted to check to see if others have gone through this. I believe the attackers focus on newer condos.. as their motivation is to blackmail and/or gain information to allow them to overtake the person's assets.
reluctant to even make a post about this, as they constantly harrass and drive fear.. and to eventually get the person to react and do something stupid and fight back.. but after one year, i feel i just don't care and want to find the cleanest way to mitigate the issue.
thanks
edit:
they’re essentially in your head, and digging for your deepest fear.. and then driving you to do things based on that fear.
i'm not sure what they'll do next, as i feel immune to their comments now. they threaten me almost daily, saying they're going to come down and kick my ass, or come down and kill me and they have a 9mm, imporsonating law enforcement, able to create and environment of sounds around you. to disorient. able to capture thoughts, and sometimes have it reverbalized by a persona within the space doing the harrassment.
edit:
found this in a Quora response.. this seems very similiar to what i'm experiencing.
Is Havana Syndrome harmful?
Yes it is. It is used in sonic warfare by criminals especially in South Africa. The main purposes is to cause harm to individuals, they love to do this in unison with harassment techniques as experienced in gang stalking.
The other purpose is to spy. The criminals use this to spy so that they can commit crimes and get away with it. They get information about when, what, why, who is saying what and what the next moves are going to be etc. Think about this, if you can know what people are planning and saying, you have Carte Blanche on any information, then “you can mock other countries and taunt them with WW3 because you know you have probably rigged up all the warships to be able to spy on your enemies and will get info on all the next moves and plans etc. just because you have the upper hand…”
The criminals use the frequencies to do Remote Neural Monitoring.
Those most at risk are government officials, law enforcement officials, court officials and victims of gang stalking. Anyone can be targeted since criminals have become so good at rigging up the entire environment to emit these frequencies so that they can do this to anyone, add in Remote Neural Monitoring and people like the presidents of superpower countries are at risk of being influenced about decisions and they won't even know it. Places like the presidents and key decision makers places of residents and surrounding areas can be rigged up to produce these frequencies and thus these important people can be spied upon, influenced and harmed if they don't comply.
Everyone is at risk. This Havana Syndrome is real and I was a victim and experienced this Havana syndrome symptoms but no one believed me.
edit:
when talking to people about this, seems most are eager to dismiss it as a mental health issue, psychosis.. and it's easy to do so.. it checks all of the boxes of that behavior.
but hear me out - the environment the attackers try to create (being disturbed very easily by every small sound, typing on my keyboard, barely have the volume on the tv, using the microwave, having people over), along with survaillence within the room.. making comments on everything and being offended by it.. that in itself can create psychosis over time. a group of people taunting, befriending you at one moment and then viciously cutting you down.. this is how they extract personal information from their victems... along with other methods that seem to be extremely advanced using the sonic weapon (i believe).. starting to sense this has been an issue here for awhile.
all of the information they extract from their victems..
i believe the main motives are: 1). blackmail
2). to steal a person's identity
3) to get a reaction from the victem, to where they try to fight back against the people with the sonic weaponry and do something stupid. and then able to claim their assets that way.
4) if all else fails, just make the person disappear
i believe the weapon is an evolution of the god helmet. built by russia, bought on the black market.
definitely feel fear of the possibility of #4 becoming reality.
i'm a very observant person and will question how i'm perceiving things constantly. validate from many angles.. yes, there may be a psychosis component, that was created over time.. but i'm certain this is a real and common issue here.

I literally have PTSD from the sound of the havoc reving up, I hear like 50 of them ever match I play, I can hear the havoc when I have no audio and I don’t even USE THE GUN, I refuse to crutch a gun.
I think they should reduce the spawn rate by like 30% or more for the havoc and like 10% for the wingman, I think it would diversify the state of solos and it would make player pick up other things besides crutch guns.
Or at least give me the option to turn off the stupid audio from just that gun, I literally can hear the sounds when my headphones are off and I’m not playing apex, it’s like a constant ringing in my ears from playing the game and from streamers.

Location: Defense Line Husky, Datsot-3

POV: Motsotaer, Malgeir Federation Planetary Defense Force (Rank: Pack Member)
The shrieking whistle of incoming artillery shell was among the most terrifying noises known to living beings.
Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew. Boom. Boom. Boom.
But it meant you were still alive.
Pack Member Motsotaer wondered if the poor pups in the forward trenches heard them coming as the enemy high explosive pounded into their lines.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
One of their anti-aircraft concrete bunkers took a direct hit; its roof collapsed on itself with a loud crumble.
Grass Eater artillery was voluminous, destructive, but scariest of all, it was incredibly precise. Their intelligence assets in orbit knew all, saw all. Their kill chains were short. Once they saw you, they would call it in, and the remainder of your life was measured in minutes and seconds.
There was nothing vegetarian about the efficient and bloodthirsty way the long-eared Grass Eaters fought, and the numerous intelligent predator species they’d exterminated on their way to Datsot… some of those tales gave even Motsotaer nightmares.
The defenders of Datsot had no choice. No choice but to defend their homes against the psychotic enemies pounding their lines to bits. And the ones who remained had learned the hard lessons of war, either through experience earned by blood or via the process of not-so-natural selection.
Motsotaer clutched his rifle against his chest as he laid in his own shallow hole, eyes closed. If the end was going to come for him, there was nothing else he could do but huddle in his freshly-dug grave.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
The blasts continued walking across the defense lines, undoubtedly killing scores of his comrades. But he accompanied each shockwave with a sigh of relief; they let him know that he was still alive. Still breathing.
One final rumble. And then there was silence across the battlefield.
Motsotaer waited a minute before he peeked out — another lesson that smart defenders of Datsot had discovered the hard way. A couple brave medics were already on the move, their shouts left and right, pulling bodies and the groaning injured alike out of the rubble aftermath of the shelling.
With a grunt, he pulled himself out of his hole, rushing towards the neighboring anti-air bunker. The concrete roof had collapsed, but he could still hear cries from the dark. He squeezed through the cluttered entrance.
It was a mess on the inside. The lights were all gone. Scattered sandbags. It smelled like blood and death, and he pushed aside the still body of a Head Pack Leader he only knew of, only to find the corpse of yet another Pack Member, her limbs sprawled in an unnatural position.
“Anyone still alive in here?” he asked in the dark as his eyes adjusted. “Hello?”
There were a series of loud coughs. “I’m here. I’m here.”
“Pack Leader Nidvid!” he shouted as he recognized the familiar shrill voice. “Keep talking! Where are you?”
“Here. I’m here. Help me up.”
As she continued to cough, he had the sense to fish a flashlight out of his pocket, fumbling around until he found the on button. As the light activated, he could see Nidvid half-buried in the dirt, her lower limbs trapped beneath some sand from the broken sandbags.
“Pack Leader!” He got onto his front paws and started digging. “Are you injured?”
“I don’t think so,” she shook her head in the dim lighting as she experimentally wriggled her legs. “Here, I think I’m loose. Help me up.”
Motsotaer grasped her under her arms, and with a heavy grunt, pulled her out of the dirt.
“Whew,” she said, checking her body again for wounds. Nidvid looked around at the other bodies splayed in the bunker. “Oh no… Head Pack Leader…”
“That was a close one. I can’t believe you lived through that!”
“Yeah, me neither… Wait a second,” Nidvid said as she began rummaging through a pile of rubble near the Head Pack Leader’s body. “The radio…”
“What are you looking for?” he asked as he aimed his flashlight towards where she was looking.
“Oh no, no, no…” her voice trailed off as she picked up the device she’d been looking for. “Our hardline communicator…” It was clearly broken from the strike, its shell perforated with a hundred holes and its connection to the landline severed. In disgust, Nidvid threw it back to the ground.
“What uh— what did you need that for?” Motsotaer asked. “Were we supposed to tell them we were being attacked?”
“No… It was— before the strike, we got a high priority order.”
“A high priority order?”
Nidvid recalled, “There’s a special platoon in our salient… We were supposed to get an important message to them!”
“Special platoon?” Motsotaer asked. “Are you okay, Nidvid?”
“Yes, yes,” the Pack leader replied, visibly distraught. “They only had a physical line to us because they’re supposed to be keeping in the dark. Emissions control or something like that so they can activate the flying machine swarm in time. They said this was life and death and our whole defense line hinges on it!”
“Emissions control? Flying machines? Pack Leader, we should get you to a medic,” he said skeptically.
“No! Motsotaer, this is important. We need to get the message to them now. They’re only a couple kilometers south from our position. If we run over to their position now, it might not yet be—”
He looked up at her face in alarm. “Run to another position? Outside the trench line?”
“Yes! We have to go!” she said, as she peeked out of the concrete bunker towards the barren zone ahead of the trenches. “Now! Before they start their offensive.”
Motsotaer began to protest, “But that’s no creature’s land. If we get spotted by their troops, we’ll be hunted down by the Grass Eaters ships in orbit…”
She was insistent, “Pack Member Motsotaer, get it together. We still have a job to do. Are you with me or are you going to sit here and die like a coward to the long-ears?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, straightening up. Death or not, he was no coward. “I mean… I’m with you.”
“Good. Then let’s go.”
With a grunt, she leapt out of the trenches and jogged south, keeping to the defensive side of it for the modicum of cover it provided, and Motsotaer quickly followed. As they sprinted away from the tattered defenses, they ran into a thick tree line that hopefully provided them with some concealment from the Grass Eater ships above.
After a couple more minutes of running in the forest, Motsotaer started to tire and pant. He weighed his burning lung and how embarrassed he’d be if he complained. Luckily for his ego, Nidvid gestured for them to stop after another minute and tossed him her canteen. “Take a break before we get going.”
He chugged as much water as he could in a single swig, and returned the canteen to Nidvid. He gasped out, “How much further, Pack Leader?”
“About one more kilometer south,” she said, aiming her snout up at the treetops. “I recognize the smell of this area.”
“What’s this even about? The message… what was it?”
Nidvid exercised her limbs. “That Grass Eater artillery strike… it was to prepare for their offensive on our lines. They’ve gathered an armored division on the other side of that,” she pointed out into the barren fields beyond the trees. “We have an hour at most before they roll over us.”
“An armored division?!” Motsotaer squeaked. The enemy’s Longclaws — their armored vehicles — were legendary. They could kill from kilometers away. And their thick shells protected them against all but the most powerful artillery in the Federation’s arsenal. He’d never seen one of them personally. If he had, he suspected he wouldn’t be alive to tell anyone about it. “What can we do against a Grass Eater armored division?”
“That’s why we have to get to the special platoon,” Nidvid replied. She pointed in the southern direction, “You ready? Let’s go.”
They galloped for a few more minutes. Motsotaer’s limbs tired and his breaths shallowed as his lung burnt. As he was contemplating whether to ask for another break, Nidvid pointed at a shape in the distance. “There, that’s their position!”
He squinted at it. It was not easy to see, but buried in the tree line was what looked like a bunch of out-of-place branches and leaves over a small vehicle. Buoyed by the anticipation of the end of the marathon, he managed to keep up with Nidvid’s pace.
As they approached, there was a loud shout.
“Hi-yah! Stop!”
They halted their steps and looked for the source of the voice.
“Not one more paw step, deserter! This is a restricted area! Turn around or you’ll be shot!”
Motsotaer looked up at the voice hidden up in the branches. After a moment, with some help from his nose, he found the yeller. It was a short, stout middle-aged male with strange-looking green and brown paint smeared all over his fur and face. He had a rifle aimed squarely at the duo.
“Don’t shoot!” Nidvid yelled back. “We’re runners. We’ve got an important message! For your platoon commander.”
The male in the tree looked suspiciously at them as he leapt down. He lowered his rifle, but didn’t seem any less on guard. “A message?”
“Yes, we’ve got an urgent message for Special Platoon Commander Graunsa. Take us to him right now!”
He sized the two of them up. After a moment, he said slowly, “I am Graunsa. Why are you here, and what is the message?”
Nidvid recovered some of her breath and explained, “The Grass Eaters hit us hard with an artillery strike. Our Head Pack Leader is dead. Our landline is gone. We ran all the way over from our lines north of you.”
Graunsa nodded and gestured for her to continue.
“The Grass Eater armored offensive is about to start. They’re moving into position and ready to go, and there’s a special message embedded—”
“Wait a second,” Graunsa interrupted. “Give me the special message exactly, without omission or your own interpretations.”
“Yes, Platoon Commander,” Nidvid nodded. “The message is: bunny water carriers are in play, red-five-zero-eight; come out of the dark and introduce yourself. Authorization is three-three-greyhound.”
Graunsa looked thoughtful for a moment as he pondered it.
“What does the message mean?” Motsotaer whispered at Nidvid.
“I have no idea,” she shrugged, whispering back. “The Head Pack Leader just told me to memorize it.”
The platoon commander seemed to have made up his mind. “Alright, that seems legitimate. Thanks for the message.” He turned around to leave.
Motsotaer shouted behind him, “Wait, what are we supposed to do now?”
Graunsa turned around. “I don’t know. I’m not your commanding officer.” He paused for a moment. “I wouldn’t recommend going back to your lines though. Might not be there when you get back…”
“What?!”
“You can’t just leave us! Where else are we supposed to go?” Nidvid asked.
Graunsa seemed to contemplate the question for a few heartbeats and sighed, “You said you’re from the position up north?”
“Yup,” they replied in unison.
“And you’re a spotter, Pack Member?” he asked, looking at the rank and position patch on Motsotaer’s chest.
“Yes.”
Graunsa relented. “Fine. We might find a use for you. Get into the bunker… before the Grass Eaters in orbit see us dawdling out here.”
“What? Where?”
The officer pointed at a patch of dark green leaves on the forest floor. As they approached it, he grasped a latch and lifted it to reveal a ladder. The three of them descended into the darkness and Graunsa secured it behind them. With a quiet swoosh, a lamp mounted on the wall lit up to reveal a small hallway leading to a heavy-looking door.
Graunsa knocked on it twice. He turned around and looked at Motsotaer and Nidvid. “What you’re about to see in here is of the highest secrecy level of the Malgeir Federation. If you tell anyone what you see in here, you will be executed for treason. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Platoon Commander.”
“Swear it, on your honor.”
“We swear,” they replied in unison, their voices infused with growing excitement.
“Good enough for me.”
The heavy steel door swung open, showing a room that was vastly different from what its primitive exterior suggested. It resembled a command center far more than a field base, and Motsotaer felt a blast of cold air conditioning in his face as he passed the door threshold.
At the front, a main screen showed a map of the defensive lines in the sector. Facing it, two rows of sleek, new computer screens lit up the dark. Their operators worked busily at their controls, and only a couple faces looked their way in mild interest as they entered.
“What is this—” Motsotaer started to ask. Nidvid grasped his shoulder and shushed him.
Graunsa cleared his throat. Several faces looked towards him in anticipation. “Platoon, we just got the message. Activate the FTL handshake and authenticate us in the network.”
“Yes, sir.” A young-looking communication officer near the front operated a few controls on her console. “I’ve got the advisors on the line.”
Motsotaer read his nametag: Gassin. She was a Gamma Leader, much higher ranked than he, but she looked not a day over twenty. He noted that many of the people in the room sported high-ranking insignias despite their apparent youth.
“On screen,” Graunsa ordered.
A communication window appeared on the main screen, streaming video of someone in a jet-black EVA suit.
Motsotaer stiffened. It was obvious that the subject was alien; at around 1.7 or 1.8 meters, it was far too tall for being a Malgeir. Too small for a Granti. And from the side profile of the suit, it didn’t bulge nearly enough for the tails that the Malgeir’s Schpriss neighbors were known for. A strange new species of aliens.
From the blackened visor, it was obvious that whoever that was… it was the reason for all this tight secrecy.
“Special Platoon Commander Graunsa,” it transmitted in perfect Malgeirish. The alien was either a trained-from-birth Federation Channel One newscaster with a perfectly inoffensive accent, or its translator was far better than anything the Malgeir themselves had invented. “This call is encrypted, but the enemy Znosians in orbit are trying to find your location from the signals, so we’ll have to make it as quick as we can. Have your defensive lines completed your preparations?”
Graunsa stepped up to address the screen directly, “Yes, advisor. Our fire support platoon is ready for tasking.”
“Excellent. Transmitting the first batch of targets in your sector now.”
A series of symbols scrolled onto the screen, showing a number of coordinates.
“We’re getting the enemy positions now,” Gassin exclaimed.
Graunsa turned to her and nodded his appreciation, “Sixteen armored targets. Weapons free.”
“Yes, sir. Programming the sequence.”
A camera on the main screen activated, remotely showing a small hole with some machinery in it dug a few hundred meters away just at the edge of the tree line.
“Launching flying machine swarm!”
As Motsotaer watched, a thicket of metal erupted from the hole in a blur, roaring into the sky.
The main screen was replaced by a four-by-four of windows of black and white images. It took him a couple seconds to realize that he was looking at the battlefield from above. The Malgeir had rotary wing, airplanes, and jet — some were even armed, but they were usually much bigger. And their air assets had been grounded since the early days of the battle for Datsot when the enemy took the orbits.
Not these tiny devices though.
He focused on one of the sixteen windows.
The ground sped past below the camera’s vision, tree line after tree line, the flying machine seemed to know where it was going by itself: Motsotaer looked at the other occupants in the room. None of them seemed to be directly controlling it.
He stiffened.
Is this controlled by a thinking machine?
“We’re getting in range of the target coordinates, Platoon Commander,” Gassin updated the room a few minutes later.
As if on cue, the flying machines flew higher, and the trees on the ground grew smaller, as if further away. Until…
“Targets identified!” Gassin reported with excitement in her voice.
As an infantry spotter, Motsotaer had been trained — barely — to identify enemy armored vehicles. As in, he’d been given a cheatsheet containing the silhouettes of the different types of vehicles the enemy drove. But even he couldn’t tell at this distance what the white-hot smudges on the screen were.
The machine had no such issues though.
Several red boxes materialized on the screen, clearly marking several enemy vehicles in the thermal imagery and adorning them with detailed information.
The one Motsotaer was watching said:
Hostile vehicle, Longclaw MK4 (top armor: ~25mm), 4.2 km.
No hostile EW detected.
Without additional prompting, the flying machines raced in towards their targets, each recognizing a different one as its final destination. Afraid to blink, Motsotaer stared intently at one of the video streams.
A new line of text appeared at the top of the screen:
ETA 20 seconds.
It counted down the seconds, number by number.
The enemy Longclaw got larger and larger until… the screen went black, replaced by static. As he looked around, the other windows were similarly replaced with static one-by-one.
Motsotaer frowned, wondering where the videos had gone.
Then, it hit him. The flying machines were on one-way trips.
The sixteen windows disappeared, and another one appeared, showing the enemy assembly area from a much higher perspective. And instead of the vehicles he expected, he counted sixteen burning wrecks, the black smoke from their flames reaching up into the sky in columns.
“Targets destroyed, Commander,” Gassin said. Several of the officers in the room looked at each other excitedly, but their celebration was muted.
Graunsa nodded. “Call our advisors again.”
The alien appeared on the screen again. “Excellent work, Platoon Commander. We’re assessing the lines and getting the second batch of targets to you now.”
“Understood.”
As the new target coordinates scrolled onto the main screen, Gassin didn’t need additional prompting, “Launching flying machines!”
Another sixteen of them flashed out from the pre-dug position. Another sixteen windows appeared on the screen, replacing the odd-looking aliens’ video.
“Wait a minute,” the aliens’ voice cut into the quiet hum of the control room’s operation. “Switch back to the high-altitude drone. Something’s happening.”
The main screen’s image was replaced by the previous camera looking down at enemy lines. There was a flurry of activity in the enemy base area. Numerous dots representing the ground troops moved to-and-fro. And worryingly, the red squares that surrounded enemy armor began appearing en masse as enemy Longclaws drove out of their covered positions into the open.
Dozens of them.
Then, hundreds. And more appeared every second.
“What’s going on?” Graunsa asked, his voice reflecting Motsotaer’s worry.
The alien took a minute to get back to him, its black helmeted face filling up the screen again. “They’re attacking. They don’t know what hit them in the last strike. But they must have realized that they’re not safe in their assembly area, and they’re doing the only thing they can… We estimate they’ll get to your first lines in thirty minutes.”
“Can we stop them?” Graunsa asked. “We can—”
The alien looked directly into the video. “Not sixteen drones at a time. And if you launch the whole swarm at once, it’ll reflect enough signal for them to sniff out where you are with their counter-battery radars and take you out from orbit.”
Graunsa swallowed. “That’s— that’s— The machines can fly themselves without us, right?”
The alien didn’t say anything for a few heartbeats. “Theoretically, yes. But even if you evacuate your position now, your people won’t get out of range from the orbital strike they’ll call in.”
“I understand. Feed us the enemy targets.”
“Delta Leader, we can’t ask you to—”
“I said, feed us the enemy targets,” Graunsa insisted.
Quietly, hundreds of coordinate pairs filed onto the main screen. Graunsa looked at the faces of the young officers under his command. Dozens of them. He turned around to look at his two guests. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“It’s the right choice,” Nidvid replied, shrugging.
Motsotaer nodded at him.
“I know,” Graunsa said, turning back to the main screen. “Just doesn’t make it any easier.”
“Sir, we’re ready to launch,” Gassin reported.
“Weapons free. Release everything.”
“Yes, sir.”
The ground shook and rumbled, hundreds of flying machines leaving their canisters for the sky. They were close enough to hear the outgoing buzzing as the munitions launched. This time, more and more windows filled up the screen with the visuals of the outgoing flying machines — hundreds of them, and Motsotaer was surprised that the computers could even handle it all.
The visage of the alien returned to their screen. It said calmly, “Enemy orbital launch spotted. Multiple launches. High yield. Missiles incoming to your location, ETA twelve minutes.”
“Understood, advisor.”
POV: Slurskoch, Znosian Dominion Marines (Rank: Five Whiskers)
“Scramble! Scramble! Scramble!”
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing.
“What’s going on?” Longclaw Commander Slurskoch sat up in his turret cupola as the sirens rang loud through the hull.
“We’re under artillery attack!” his Controller yelled back at him through the roaring startup sequence of the turbine anti-grav engines. “The Lesser Predators… they’ve got some kind of new weapon! Took out a whole battalion’s worth of Longclaws in the 194!”
“But we’re not ready!” his Driver complained. “Our artillery is supposed to pound them for another hour before we—”
Slurskoch shook his head as he checked the friendly force tracker on his screen. “Doesn’t matter! If they’ve got some new weapon, we can’t sit still while we get pounded to bits by whatever they have. We gotta get out there. Hurry it up!”
It took them another two minutes to fully warm up the engines, and with a roar, the Longclaw burst out of its camouflaged emplacement, kicking up a curtain of dirt in front of it.
“Let’s go! Go! Go!” Slurskoch yelled as his lagging Longclaw joined the armored formation already on the move.
The Controller spoke with one of her ears in the radio, “Their artillery just launched… something at us. We’ve pinpointed their location, and orbital support is on its way.”
His Gunner whooped twice, and Slurskoch nodded silently in agreement. That’d flatten those carnivorous abominations where they stood. He drew a few symbols and circles on the digital battlemap as the Longclaws drove toward the enemy lines. “Gunner, watch those potential trench lines in front of us,” he instructed. “Their anti-armor may not look scary on paper, but their infantry can always get a lucky hit in.”
Slurskoch was taught in training that it was better to overestimate the enemy than underestimate them. Luckily, the predators usually fell below expectations, which was why the Dominion controlled the orbits of Datsot now and not them.
His Controller frowned at something in her radio, “They’re saying something about the enemy artillery… The engineers at the base assessed the strike aftermath. There’s something strange in the rubble. The attack was more precise than anything we’d ever seen.”
“What does that mean?” Slurskoch asked in confusion.
“The sensor officer in charge of the assembly area has taken full responsibility. They didn’t see the incoming at all. Higher ups are speculating that the Lesser Predators have a new weapon in their arsenal.”
“The predators made new weapons?” Slurskoch snorted. “Useful ones? That’ll be a first. Well, whatever it is, maybe our Design Bureau will get a good look at it when we finally cleanse this planet of their filth. Make our next battle a little easier when we have to take their home planet.”
His Gunner agreed, “And then, the Prophecy shall be fulfilled.”
A few kilometers into the charge across the open, the Gunner remarked with one eye on her targeting computer, “Looks like even the local winged predators know that there’s about to be a slaughter here.”
The Driver, in his open hatch, looked up at the cloud of them flying over the enemy lines. “Looks like it. A nice juicy feast for them in the coming battle. The irony of the barbaric carnivores being eaten by themselves.”
A few thousand years ago, winged predators would have curdled the blood of any natural-born Znosian. On the original plains of Znos, they were one of the most dangerous threats a lone Znosian faced. Now, that fear had been completely bred out of the gene pool, replaced with contempt for predatory primitivism, the courage to face them in battle, and the drive to exterminate them all.
Curious, Slurskoch stared up into the cloud of winged predators with his Longclaw commander optics. He frowned.
One of them shimmered.
Shimmered.
He zoomed in.
Then, he saw a metallic glint. His whiskers tightened.
“That’s— those aren’t winged predators,” he barely made out in shock. “Incoming!”
“Huh?” his Driver asked, craning his head up to look at the dark shapes in the distance.
“Get inside! Secure the hatch!” Slurskoch shouted at him.
His Driver was not very good at thinking on his own, but he had been bred to follow direct orders without question. He ducked into his seat, quickly securing the hatch above him close with trained claws.
He barely secured the Longclaw as other commanders began yelling out similar instructions on their radios.
“Incoming!” his Controller advised, about ten seconds later than necessary. “Enemy… artillery?!”
“Gunner!” Slurskoch gestured in the general direction of the sky.
“I can’t get a shot on them. They’re too high up!” she screamed back at him.
A trio of air defense vehicles next to him opened up with their six barrels towards the sky, lines of bright tracers stabbing out at the dark swarm. He saw one of the… flying machines hit and fall out of the sky. Then another.
It wasn’t enough.
As Slurskoch’s optics tracked the incoming, he saw them dive. They were fast, and they flew erratic patterns, almost organically, like actual winged beasts. If he hadn’t had that specific fear bred out of his bloodline hundreds of years ago, he would have been frozen in shock. Instead, he yelled out, “Brace! Brace!”
Boom. Boom. Boom.
The world exploded around his Longclaw.
Through his friendly force tracker, Slurskoch watched an entire battalion disappear off the map on his right flank, and two Longclaws in his line of sight brewed up in massive fireballs, throwing their turrets into the sky as their plasma ammunition detonated. One of the anti-air vehicles brewed up next to his, splattering its parts against his hull.
His Driver drove for all he was worth, ducking and weaving in the open field. So did the other Longclaws. Some deployed curtains of smoke in front of them in desperation.
None of it seemed to help.
The shockwaves hit his Longclaw in quick succession, knocking him around the armored cabin and rattling his teeth.
Boom. Boom.
More Longclaws exploded. Many more. They were disappearing off his screen faster than the software could update the signals. He closed his eyes waiting for the end.
It didn’t come.
It was hard for Slurskoch to tell when the last Longclaw near them was hit. His hearing organs must have been damaged some time during the attack. His auditory senses ringed as they returned to normal, recovering when his Controller shook him with a paw on his shoulder. “—Five Whiskers! Five Whiskers!”
“What is it?” he snapped, keeping the quivering out of his voice.
“We’re alone in our company, and I can’t contact the six whiskers! And I’ve been trying to reach battalion without success!”
“Try the regiment commander!” he yelled out against the noise of the anti-grav engine.
“Can’t reach them either!”
“What about division headquarters?!”
“I think division’s gone, sir!”
“What?!”
“Nobody there has been responding. All I’ve got is a seven whiskers in the reserve infantry division behind us! They’re saying they see black smoke in the direction of our division field command!”
“What in the Prophecy? How is that possible?!”
“What do we do, Five Whiskers?”
Slurskoch had been trained for a wide variety of combat scenarios and contingencies, including losing his immediate superiors, losing most of his unit, and losing his communication link to command. But he’d never been trained for all of those combined at once. That was just not something predators were supposed to be able to do to you.
He fell back to the next best thing.
“What’s the combat computer say?” he asked.
His Controller operated the controls on her console, and after half a minute of querying, she replied, reading off the instructions, “Absent orders, continue the attack. Maybe we can push through.”
“What? Did it take our losses into account?” he protested as he checked the battlemap. Of the nearly five hundred Longclaws that had pushed out of the assembly area, only a quarter remained. At most. Some of the signals on the map were flagging themselves as mobility or mission killed.
She shrugged, “It did. That’s what it says.”
He squinted at her screen. That was indeed what it said.
Slurskoch thought for a moment, sighed, and bowed in prayer, “Our lives were forfeited the day we left our hatchling pools.”
The other crew members all did the same, lowering their heads to mutter the familiar mantra.
That ritual out of the way, he drew up to his full height of 1 meter and mustered all the confidence he could into his voice, “Attack! Attack! Attack!”
POV: Graunsa, Malgeir Federation Planetary Defense Force (Rank: Delta Leader)
The command center watched glumly as the hundred or so surviving Grass Eater Longclaws emerged from the wrecks of their comrades and slowly resumed their charge across the open toward the defense lines.
The flying machines had gotten a lot of them. Quite a few disabled too. And they were disorganized from the loss of their command. Yet they still charged. Diminished as their numbers were, they rolled towards the battered defensive lines with psychotic determination.
We’ve failed.
Graunsa sat down heavily into his chair. He brought up his communication console, connecting it to the advisor network.
The alien appeared on the screen, and though he couldn’t see its face, he could hear the sympathy in its translated voice, “You’ve done all you can, Special Platoon Commander.”
“It wasn’t enough,” he said, shaking his ears sadly. “They’re going to break through our line. Our infantry can’t stop them.”
It tilted its head. “I wouldn’t count them out completely, Delta Leader. They might. They might not. But your next defensive line certainly will hold them. The city behind you will be held.”
“Tracking enemy orbit-to-ground. ETA three minutes,” Gassin reported quietly from next to him.
Graunsa sighed. He looked at the alien, “I think I understand your people now, advisor.”
“You… do?”
“Yeah, at first, when we were picked for this mission, I wondered why your people were doing this.”
“Doing this?” the alien asked, seeming confused.
“Helping us. The weapons. The equipment. The training. The targeting. It was all in secret, but you didn’t have to do it. The other species around us didn’t do it. The Schpriss…” Graunsa snorted, “The long-tails can’t even find it in their spines to send us field rations. I thought your species… your people were just generous. Or perhaps you simply enjoyed the craft of war, being so adept at it.”
“Are we… not?”
“Those reasons may be part of it,” he conceded. “But more importantly, I think your people understand one thing the other species don’t… that we might stop the enemy here. Or we might not.”
“We didn’t set you up to fail, if that’s what you think—”
“But the next defensive line certainly will hold them,” Graunsa said, staring the alien in the eye. “You will hold them. Isn’t that right?”
It sighed. “I would be lying if that wasn’t part of the strategic equation. Our star systems are indeed next in line — sometime in the next decade or two, probably — if these bloodthirsty Buns conquered your Federation. That harsh astropolitical realism. But there’s something else too.”
“Is there?”
“Yes,” it nodded its head firmly in a familiar manner. “Yes, there is. We aren’t a particularly long-sighted species, Graunsa. We can plan, yes, but wars are fought by true believers. People don’t sign up to put their lives on the line for a hypothetical, potential invasion of our Republic twenty years in the future. They— we signed up for this because we truly believe what’s happening to your people… it shouldn’t happen to anyone, ever.”
Graunsa looked at the helmeted head for a while, then nodded. “I believe you, advisor.”
“I’m sorry this didn’t pan out, Graunsa. If I could, I’d be down there with you. We’d have made them pay for this.”
Graunsa smiled. “I believe you about that too. Thank you, advisor, whatever your name is.”
“You may call me Kara,” it said simply. A deft snap of its paws — he hadn’t noticed how soft its claws were before — and it released a latch on its helmet with a hiss. Lifting it from its head, it revealed a soft, smooth face without much fur except a bundle of long, brown strands on its scalp tied up in a neat spherical shape. Its hazel forward-facing eyes stared at him with the empathy that only other predators were capable of, filling him with mild relief. “Don’t tell anyone though,” it joked lightly, mirroring his smile back at him.
You’re not as ugly as I thought you’d be. Not nearly.
Graunsa’s grin widened at the thought. He put it out of his mind. “Ah. One last thing, advisor— Kara.”
“Yes?”
His mind drifted to his cubs at home. Perhaps they were still alive. He chose to believe that. “Our people’s clans and packs…”
“We’ll let them know,” she interrupted him softly. “And when the information quarantine is lifted, we’ll let your clans and packs know what you did here — everything.”
“Good. Thank you.”
Gassin sat down next to him, “Delta Leader, enemy missiles incoming. ETA thirty seconds, they’re entering—” She stopped her report and stared at the unmasked alien on his screen with equal parts wonder and sadness.
“Take a closer look, Gassin,” he ordered softly. “That… that is who will avenge us.”
On screen, the alien put its gloved paw up to its temple, forming a stiff triangle with its arm in a recognizable salute. “It was an honor, Graunsa.”
Graunsa returned it crisply, letting a primitive fire shine through his face. “Happy hunting, Kara.”

Location: Atlas Naval Command, Luna

POV: “Kara”, Terran Reconnaissance Office
Kara watched solemnly as the green signal blinked off the battlemap. She closed her eyes for a moment in silent prayer for the fallen.
Beep. Beep.
Another light on her console blinked urgently for her attention. Four thousand kilometers from the previous one. The war raged on — day and night — across four continents on the besieged planet. Fifty light years from the Republic, its defenders’ sweat, tears, and blood lined the fields and valleys of the beautiful blue sphere not so different from her own. Tens of millions of them: many who she knew would not see the end of this war.
They didn’t all know it, and some might not have cared, but fifty light years away, someone recorded their names, and someone felt a pang of loss for their sacrifice. In the cold, dark forest of the galaxy, somebody heard their trees fall.
Kara collected her thoughts, adjusted the bun in her hair, and lowered the tinted EVA helmet over her face once more.
She cleared her throat as she glanced at the screen and activated the microphone in her helmet, “Special Platoon Commander Treiriu. This call is encrypted, but the enemy Znosians in orbit are trying to find your location from the signals, so we’ll have to make it as quick as we can. Have your defensive lines completed your preparations?”

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Thanks for reading my story! This is a standalone chapter in my Grass Eaters story, meant to be enjoyable all on its own. If you're interested in more of my writing, please do subscribe to the update waffle bot or check out the rest of the universe in Grass Eaters.
(Grass Eaters posts every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. We are closing in on the end of Book 1.)

f16, 130lbs 5”3 chronic migraines, POTS and ehlers dhanlos syndrome
I ended up in A&E on Saturday last week after being sent up by out of hours GP who suspected a ruptured cyst or appendicitis. I was sent straight to the surgical ward and was immediately nil by mouth. They took my blood and when that came back my inflammation markers were slightly higher than they should be but not a great enough to be considered for surgery. They decided that I could go home and return on Monday morning for an ultrasound. So I did. During the ultrasound the radiologist kept asking if I was going up to the ward after (which I was) and as I said yes she replied with “Okay good make sure you do” This caused some alarm bells to start ringing and my anxiety sky rocketed. I went up to the surgical assessment ward and met with my surgeon once again. She went on to tell me how my ovaries looked fine and they couldn’t actually locate my appendix but assume it was nothing to do with that. She moves on to tell me I have a growth on my gallbladder. She called a polyp. She told me about this and sent me on my way. I’m having extreme pain in my upper right quadrant every time I eat. My skin is so itchy and I’m sweating all the time (not normally a sweater). I’m worried that the growth isn’t a polyp or is perhaps something else. I’ve been in pain for 2 weeks now constantly. I keep being sick this bright greenish yellow sick (TMI) and have a very bloated and hard stomach. I asked my GP if I could have some anti-sickness and pillkillers and they put me on the callback list for yesterday and never got back to me despite me explaining everything. I am not blaming them because I know GP’s are under a lot of pressure right now. I just really need advice on who to turn to about my symptoms. I am overwhelming exhausted all the time I feel as though I can’t do anything I feel weak and dizzy all the time and I don’t know what’s happening to me. Please can someone give me advice/tell me what’s maybe happening to me? TIA

Around Thanksgiving last year, my 22 year old daughter Izzy started complaining about her back hurting. We just assumed she pulled a muscle or had a pinched nerve. After a couple weeks, the pain seemed to be getting worse. She went to urgent care on a Friday and they confirmed she probably had a pinched nerve. They gave her some meds. That following Monday (Dec. 18) she was in a lot of pain, so I rushed her to the hospital. It was her back and her left arm now bothering her. They blew her off and said that she was fine. I insisted that she get an MRI or cat scan done. Finally at my request they did a cat scan on her back and said they didn't see anything wrong. They said it's probably a pinched nerve, gave her more meds and sent us home.
The week of Christmas everything changed. She woke up each night covered in sweat. On the 28th, her heart was beating fast, she was extremely pale, and had two knots appear on the left side of her neck and one under her left underarm. I brought her to a different hospital.
When we got to the ER, they immediately took her to a room. Her vitals were extremely high (170 heart rate) from the pain she was in. They were considering that she could have meningitis or mono. They wanted to get tests ran right away. They admitted her, and did a spinal tap and MRI. 2 days later (Saturday) the doc said they found a large tumor on her spine. Can't say if it's cancer yet, she would need a biopsy first. They informed us that she would be moved that day to their sister hospital that specializes in cancer.
When we arrived, she was put on the neurology ward in a regular room. They immediately put her on a lot of meds. She was on so many pain drugs, (Oxy, Dilaudid, muscle relaxers, Morphine, Xanax, etc.) that I kept asking, "Is this end of life? Can she overdose from all these drugs?" They would respond with, "no, it's just to keep her comfortable and we're trying to get her heart rate down." On New years day they gave her Ativan. She responded horribly to it. It was a rough day. She was hallucinating and freaking out all day and night. The next day she told them to NEVER give her that again. They told her when we first arrived that anything she didn't want to take, they would respect and not put it in her charts to receive. They would put it under allergies. We assumed they would do so as they said they would.
They finally did the biopsy on Wednesday the 3rd. When she came back from surgery, she wouldn't wake up. She slept all day Wednesday and most of Thursday. I was really concerned.They kept adding more pain meds to her chart. I again was scared she would forget to breathe. That night she wasn't breathing properly and her vitals were going down. She had to be rushed to NeuroICU. They got her stable and explained it was from all the different drugs. They explained that it's trial and error. They're trying to figure out what works for her and they decided to put her on a drip line of Dilaudid. They still gave her other drugs but Dilaudid seemed to help her pain somewhat. They also said she had a spot on her lungs what looked like pneumonia starting.
All week she was constantly telling us that she was losing feeling in her legs and her left arm. By Saturday of that week she was paralyzed. They finally took her for an MRI and saw that the tumor had spread up and down her spine and to her ovaries, and it was stealing her blood supply. She would need emergency surgery asap. They of course came to explain what was happening and the surgeon informed me that Ativan would be used during surgery. I immediately told him no, and that she is allergic to it and it was supposed to be on her allergy list. I explained to him what happened when she received it before. On Sunday they rushed her into surgery and cut the blood supply to the tumor. It was too dangerous to try and remove any of the tumor. They didn't know if the paralysis was permanent, but they were hopeful that the surgery would work. It didn't we would later find out.
When she returned from surgery, she was out of control. She was violent and cursing at me. In 22 years I had never heard her curse, but she was fluent! She was hallucinating bad and kept freaking out. It was scary to watch. They decided to give her some meds to make her to sleep, to help her heal. For 2 straight days my baby screamed blood curdling screams, she would cry out "mommy, mommy" while she slept. She screamed so much and so loud that anyone in ear shot were questioning what was going on. It was heartbreaking to witness. I thought she was having a bad reaction to the anesthesia. I later found out that they were giving her Ativan anyway. They NEVER put it in her chart as an allergy the week before, and the doctor disregarded what I said about not giving her that. They had other options they could have used but he still chose to do what he wanted. I only found out because the nurse mentioned that she would be right back with her Ativan. The nurse had no knowledge that my daughter refused that medication previously. I informed her not to give that drug to her. She went and spoke with the attending physician who changed it to haldol and ketemine. That was Monday night. By Wednesday she finally calmed down from screaming, so they decided to try and wake her up.
When she woke up she could no longer speak properly, use her left arm, or move her legs. Her fingers and toes were turning black. They said it was from a certain med she was on. That it's normal. A lay person could see something was horribly wrong.
Everyday we would see up to 30 doctors. I say we, because I never left her side. One would say one thing while another would say something else. It was confusing and scary. We still didn't have a diagnosis. We just knew she had cancer. They suspected stage 4 but couldn't say until pathology came back. It was traumatic and a nightmare. It went from a diagnosis of a pinched nerve to stage 4 cancer in a matter of a week. WTF?
We finally got the diagnosis on Tuesday the 9th.. Stage 4 anaplastic large cell lymphoma. Very rare and aggressive. They said they were starting chemo immediately. They gave her the first dose that Wednesday night. We had hope. It was a rollercoaster of terror, but the doctors kept saying that she could beat this. I googled everything I could and prayed for a miracle. It's always been my girl and I, so I was desperate for her to live through this. She wasn't just my daughter, she was literally my everything.
By week 2, she needed blood on a daily basis. She couldn't eat or drink. She couldn't relieve herself. She couldn't move. She couldn't speak clearly to explain her needs or wants. Her breathing was shallow. Her vitals were not normal. They would go down and then jump extremely high. She was so out of it, that they had to come to me concerning everything. Her oxygen was dropping significantly and they had to keep changing out the masks and oxygen levels to help her breathe. They kept changing her meds and she had multiple complications from that. They couldn't find any good spots on her arms to put her IVs anymore, and her legs were so swollen that they couldn't locate a useable spot anywhere. They put it on her right side of the neck. During all this she had multiple medical emergencies. One example is they said that spot on her lungs wasn't pneumonia but they now suspected a small blood clot. That medicine she was given would hopefully help, the only problem was that medication was causing problems for her back surgery. A few days later we found out it was blood and it was completely filled up in her chest. She was drowning in her own blood. They couldn't do surgery right away because she would bleed out since her platelets were so low even while receiving blood transfusions. That blood was somehow going into her lungs. I was floored. Everyday I would ask about it and I was told it was getting better, nothing to worry about. In fact the doctor said that very morning it had cleared up significantly. Imagine my shock when the critical team comes rushing in that evening to do ultrasounds on her and tells me they suspect it's why her breathing was going downhill.
On Monday she was transferred to a MICU room on a different floor. This floor felt uneasy to me. There was death all around and you could see it. They said that this floor was where her main doctors were, so that she would get the best care. Now they introduce fentanyl to her med regimen. They explained it that it would help with her pain. She would be allowed so much every hour if needed.
The next day they decided to do the surgery to put a tube in her chest to drain the blood. She now had an extremely dangerous back surgery, staples running up her entire back with tubes, a huge scar under her arm from the biopsy with tubes, and now a huge tube coming out her chest. Her fingers and toes at this point were in a stage of necropsy. But they couldn't do anything about it. They would just have to fall off in time. It was devastating. My daughter was a trooper through out this whole time. She never complained or was negative. She was just scared when she understood what was going on. Honestly I've never seen so much courage in my life.
When it came to her pain meds she was only on fentanyl and Dilaudid drip. She would only receive it when she asked. That was her rule. She was scared she would overdose or become hooked on it and didn't want that monster on her back. She would be in so much pain but would just sit through it. Her vitals were better, but when the pain would become to much to bare, her heart rate would go into the 150 to 170 range. As soon as she got some meds it would go down to the teens to low twenty's.
On Thursday night she had a new nurse. He would administer pain meds even when she didn't request it. I saw him give her shot when she was sleeping. I walked in on him. I asked him if she requested it as I saw she was asleep and he said no. He stated he was trying to keep her comfortable. I asked him not to unless she asks. He didn't listen.Throughout the night as we slept, he would give her meds that she didn't even need. He gave her haldol. She only received that for two days after her back surgery. No one had given her that since. He would give her a shot of fentanyl behind it. I later found this out while talking with her doctors and from her records.
That Friday morning she started having these weird episodes, what later looked like seizures to me. Her vitals would drop and she would go into a deep stare. They blamed the meds. It was constant apologies for her being over medicated again. Even the doctor didn't understand why he gave her so much.She had 4 separate episodes before they (at my constant request) sent her to get a MRI done.
She had a blood clot in her brain. Again they said nothing to worry about. But after experiencing what we went through already, I was highly concerned. As I should have been. They kept apologizing and said they would change her medication up again. I told them it wasn't the medicine it was the nurse. I couldn't understand why he would give her two doses of haldol when she didn't need it. The nurse said my daughter was anxious and thought it would help. My daughter was sleeping so how could she have been anxious. I went off. Something in my spirit was telling me to get her out of there. But how could I when she was hooked up to all these tubes. She was suffering and I couldn't help her. The only thing I could do was use my voice to try and protect her and be her advocate. The next day Jan. 20th, I woke up after a couple hours of sleep, and I knew something was wrong. She was awake and trying to talk. Her vitals were back at a steady 170 with high blood pressure and a low oxygen number so I knew she was in pain. I could feel it in every bone of my body something was different that day. I felt my baby didn't have long as I thought cancer was winning. I called all of our family to come see her. I can't explain it. At one point I pulled one of her doctors out of her room and begged him to tell me what was happening. Shoot it to me straight. He kept saying she's always been critical but she would pull through. He had so much hope.
They gave her some meds to help bring her vitals down and it started to work again. Her vitals started going from 160 to 150. At this point she was having a brain scan done in her room to see what the episodes were exactly. She was awake but could no longer move from her neck down. Which had just started the 2 days before. She had a blood infection and they had to move the pic line from the right side of her neck to the left side but we're unsuccessful because she had obstructions there (2 huge tumors) They had to put the new line back on the right side in the back of the neck. I don't know what happened since I wasn't allowed in the room. I do know my daughter said after they finished, she wasn't able to feel anything but her face. She never turned her head again.
During that day she kept having flem and spit from the congestion she had due to the chest infection and surgery. I would sit there and suck it out for her. No problem, I had been doing it for days with no complaints on my end. The doctors were coming in and out constantly all day to check her brain test and at one point the doctor seeing me and my nephew take shifts suctioning her out said he wanted to try a new medicine she had never received. My daughters nurse interrupted him and said that she didn't think that it was a good idea. They went back and forth for a few minutes and I stepped in and said, it was fine, I would sit there and suction out forever if I had to. Something felt different in this exchange as well. In all of 24 days of being in the hospital, I never saw a nurse challenge a doctor. I immediately went to the computer, where the nurse had typed in the order for this drug, and googled it. The first thing that popped up, was not to give this drug to someone with high blood pressure or high heart rate. It causes a person's heart rate to shoot up high quickly. It was too late. They already administered it to her. Since her heart rate was already high it caused her to go into cardiac arrest. I just stood there in shock screaming is she in cardiac arrest? To which the doctor finally responded "I'm sorry, yes"
They ushered me and my nephew out of the room so they could work on her. After about 30 minutes they called my phone and told me she flatlined but they got her heart beating again. I went flying back in that room screaming at them. I refused to leave the room. She was now on life support, but there was no hope for her to ever wake up again. After consulting with my family and her doctors, and looking at where her vitals were, I decided to pull the plug. She passed within seconds. I feel like the doctor should have listened to the nurse, but his ego would not allow him to. I feel like he's somehow responsible, but at the same time I saw what was happening to her on a daily basis and what cancer was doing to her body. I also witnessed a lot of negligence too on their part. I've been going back and forth since January 20th, about contacting an attorney and seeing if I have a case. I requested an autopsy to be performed, because I wanted to know what all was wrong with her. They informed me they normally don't do that because of the cancer. I argued with them and said I wanted one anyway. I wanted to know what happened. I was trying to understand this whole situation. 25 days prior it was just supposed to be a pinched nerve, but it wasn't. They explained I would have to pay for the autopsy, and I was okay with that. The next day after she passed away, I received the phone call to give my permission for an autopsy. They said it would take a couple days and would let me know when it was finished so the funeral home could pick up her body.
I've been calling for months about the autopsy report with no luck. Here we are in May, I go to the hospital to get the autopsy results and it's all of five pages. It's not even an autopsy report. It doesn't even state her cause of death. It's just bullshit paperwork. All it mentions is the necropsy to her fingers and toes and her basic info like height and weight. I'm so angry right now. I have her medical records, and I noticed on the 19th of January they finally put she was allergic to Ativan. There's a lot wrong with this situation. I even asked for a CD of all her images, from pathology. What I received only two images come up. Everything else is blocked from opening. I know my daughter took multiple MRIs, ultrasounds,and CAT scans in those three and a half weeks. There's no way it's only two images.
I counted all the times the nurse gave my daughter pain meds that Thursday night and it was double what any other nurse had given her at any other time plus with other drugs she didn't need at that time. I found out that haldol and fentanyl is something they give to patients that's in end of life care. Which I was constantly told my daughter was not. Her death certificate states she passed from lymphoma related cardiac arrest. I'm just so confused on what to do. I feel like I'm letting my daughter down if I don't look into this further.
I'm sorry this a novel. I couldn't just ask a simple question with out the back story for you to understand. It was so much more believe me, this was the short version!
Do I have a case or should I just move on and accept my daughter died from cancer related complications? Thank you....

I am known to have pretty bad allergies, however it doesn’t feel like it’s affected me too bad this season other than what I’m experiencing now. Usually i’ll get very congested and it will go away after a couple days.
I have been experiencing tension headaches, weird feeling in temples (sometimes painful), ear fullness, sides of neck fullness/pain, always hawking a loogie (clearish) and dissociation/dizziness for almost 2 weeks now. The weird pressure feeling from my temples feel like it creeps its way to my eyes which makes my eyes feel weird too. Occasionally I will feel tired, eyes and head will feel heavy. Haven’t had a fever or night sweats or anything. Have had some blood when blowing nose out of left nasal cavity.
My doctor put me on 2 nasal sprays which seem to help get rid of the morning crud in my nose but that’s about it. Other than that my nose is clear the most of the day. When i try to be active i get head pressure, ear fullness, and a little dizziness. I have an ENT appointment in 6 days.
My concern is that it’s not a sinus problem. Has anyone experienced this and have found the ‘cure’? I can’t get myself to do anything because i’m so anxious about it.

A/N: yeah I changed up the Alliance admiral's name from Shepard Adama to Sheparda Dama (so creative i know) because the old one was going to fuck me over badly at some point. It would be like trying to make a legitimate, serious fantasy novel with a wizard named Albus Gandalf. I was NOT cooking when I came up with that shit.
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It was said that no plan ever survived contact with the enemy. That, at least in the case of Marcus Wayne’s infiltration of Neldia, was proven entirely true.
His ship, the Peacemaker, had undergone an extensive refit before its jump to Neldia to both modify its sensor signature and repair its failing Aegis barrier. The first objective succeeded. The second did not.
One day later, leaving the derelict Ultimate Vigil behind in deep space, the United Human Alliance courier ship Winged Deliverance logged a real space entry at the edge of the Neldia system. Its crew, having spent their waking hours plagued by hallucinations and enduring horrible nightmares as they slept, found this shift very welcome. The worst, though they could hardly believe it, was still yet to come.
“The Neldian fleet is mustering for war,” rumbled the man who had once held the title and security codes of an Alliance sector admiral. Now, he was a traitor to his homeland. “Security will be high.”
“No need to worry, Admiral,” said Marcus Wayne. “Your code will get us through.” It would not.
It took two hours for the Peacemaker, disguised as the Winged Deliverance, to be challenged by the Neldian Armada. “Transmit clearance code,” said an automated voice. Marcus took out a data disc with the admiral's clearance code on it.
“Hold,” said Terris. She was clad in black, her active camouflage offline to save battery, and she had been sitting at the passive sensor console for the past three hours. “Look at this.” A news broadcast popped up in front of Marcus Wayne and his officers. Sector Admiral Sheparda Dama, or at least he was once a sector admiral, had been tried and convicted of high treason.
“It was a secret trial,” Dama said, still in shock at the revelation. “I had no knowledge of this.”
“Well, that tracks, but what do we do now? What code gets us through?”
“Transmit clearance code,” the voice said again, “or adjust course.”
Dama thought for a moment. “Change course,” he said. “We’re not getting through.”
They did. A great sense of defeat took hold in the hearts of the crew. They would never reach the Neldian hypercom. Sheparda Dama, who would have gladly given his life in defense of humankind, would never get the chance to be the man who broke their chains.
The Peacemaker was halfway out of the Neldia system before Terris spoke again. “Hold it,” she said. “I have an idea.”
That was why she had been placed where she was. Clad in an airtight stealth suit. Inside a hollowed-out asteroid. On a ballistic journey to the heart of Neldian space. It was the most insane idea that Marcus Wayne had ever seen.
But, sometimes, insanity was a symptom of genius.
Terris flew past the Neldian Armada undetected. Many asteroids entered the inner system this way, flung by outer-system prospecting ships to the foundries and shipyards in Neldian orbit, and they were thrown and caught so frequently that only the most cursory of inspections was put upon each one. Terris passed the Alliance fleet entirely undetected.
Terris’ chameleon suit could mimic the sensor return of the precious metals it was buried in, at least enough to fool a probing scan, and the cuts made by Protectoral engineers had been so precise that Terris had fit inside there with barely a centimeter of space to spare. She was effectively entombed inside sixty meters of solid rock.
Interstellar espionage was not a job for the claustrophobic.
Finally, after days of waiting, the signal came. She was in range. A mental command triggered a series of shaped charges in the rock above her, if such directions existed in microgravity, and forty pea-sized explosives blasted a circular tunnel all the way to the asteroid surface. If just one of them had failed, that rock might have been her tomb.
Terris tried not to think about that as she began climbing her way out. A brief burst from her suit’s EVA thrusters was enough to start her on her way, and the tunnel out was wide enough for her to use her arms and legs to speed things up. Finally, after too long a wait, Terris saw the Neldian sun for the very first time.
There was fire in the distance. Comm chatter on every band. Warships burning hard for the outer system. The Coalition fleet was here.
She zoomed in, far more than she had ever had to before, and she could pick out the faintest flashes of blue as warships exploded in the black. A brief crawl around the asteroid, which also helped to warm up her muscles after days of inactivity, let her discern an attack force engaging the Alliance fleet. After a moment’s hesitation, weighing the risks, Terris activated her passive sensor suite to try and decrypt Alliance military chatter.
Instantly, her sensors were flooded with noise from the defensive bastions. The fleet base at the L5 point was loudest, its comm operators screaming indecipherably at fellow Alliance elements fighting in the black. Neldian orbit, where the hypercom station was, seemed to be the centerpiece of all the communications traffic. The hypercom, unsurprisingly, was being used as a relay for comm traffic all across the system. Terris made a note to hack its server banks for intelligence, and perhaps leave a timed virus or two to shut down the system after she was gone.
Her suit bleeped, alerting her that she was in optimum position to make the leap to the hypercom. She zoomed in on it, a red and spiked thing just like everything else the Alliance made, and calculated the right trajectory to land right on its metal surface.
Trying to jump from a moving asteroid out past Neldia’s rings and hit a hypercom station barely three hundred meters in diameter was like shooting a rifle from a jumbo jet in hopes of hitting a mosquito down on Earth. A nearly impossible shot, even with Coalition computers to help make the jump, and anyone lucky enough to make it would have been better served bankrupting their local casino at the slot machines.
Terris gave a command to her suit, activating a set of ion thrusters to boost her off the asteroid and adjust her course mid-flight. She’d never believed in luck.
She coasted silent and graceful past the particle guns in high orbit, like a majestic swan flying on a summer wind. Their sensor arrays were directed out, past her, to the far distant parts of space where a trillion tons of steel were locked in deadly battle. Terris really did wish she could smile at the moment. She was about to have unrestricted access to the biggest communications relay in the star system, able to send out viruses and receive vital intelligence that could cripple the Alliance fleet if placed in the right hands. Terris, confident as ever, knew they would be.
She would make the Neldian Armada burn, and they had no idea she was even coming.
She reached the hypercom station in just under a day, agonizingly slow for a woman like her, hovering just above its surface to avoid triggering pressure sensors. After that, it was simple enough to get inside. Terris found it almost trivial to bypass the airlock sensor grid and trigger the outer bulkhead to open unnoticed, its report to the command room destroyed before it ever arrived. Entering the station itself was easy after that.
Here, there was gravity. She could not hover like she had on the outside of the station. But here, there were no pressure sensors. She really had no need to hover.
The corridor she found herself in was large enough, though nothing like the expansive halls of a dreadnought, and a patrol of marines in powered suits trundled towards her obliviously. Terris had made the right call not to wear a Phantom powered suit. She ducked into an alcove, the chameleon suit concealing her from even their impressive sensor batteries, and they passed by with no clue at all.
Terris made it to the server banks with ease. Most of the hypercom’s security measures took the form of warships in orbit, clustered tightly around the planet to prevent exactly this scenario from happening, but those warships were off waging war. The station defenses were hopeless now that she was actually inside.
The data was encrypted, and she could neither access it nor copy it without potentially fatal consequences, but she wasn’t there to steal data. A brief, milliseconds-long connection to the primary server was all it took to riddle the entire system with custom-tailored computer viruses. The viruses were self-replicating, rather like an electronic version of the biological ones on Earth. They worked similarly, too, meant to latch onto outgoing communications signals and remain inert for a certain amount of time before activating and wreaking havoc across cyberspace.
The program would be scoured from the net in seconds once it began its assault, but it would cause plenty of chaos before then. And, with another critical transmission being scheduled to send at around that time, Terris knew her mostly-ineffective virus attack would be just enough of a distraction to make sure its message was heard.
Terris planned to leave the station in approximately thirty minutes. Shortly after that, the fireworks would begin. It was going to be beautiful.
She heard footsteps. A maintenance worker, no doubt. It was time for her to go. She disconnected from the server, taking pains to hide her involvement, and snuck out of the server room like a ghost in the night.
Next was the transmission array. This room was better-guarded, its door being flanked by marines, but Terris slipped inside by trailing behind an officer as he entered on some unknown pretext. After that, her daring and sleight of hand made sure Admiral Dama’s pre-recorded propaganda transmission was uploaded to the hypercom transmitter. It came with a set of instructions bearing the Admiralty’s seal, changed to be anonymous, to ensure as many people as possible heard his message.
In just under one standard hour, the United Human Alliance would be shaken to its very core. Terris had just made sure of it.
It took longer than she had expected for the door to open again and give her a chance to slip out. Terris had spent that time quite productively, downloading as many incoming and outgoing messages as she could to the internal hard drive just by her spinal cord. Even if they were encrypted, they’d be useful intelligence once Coalition codebreakers took a crack at them.
After that, it was trivial to slip past marine patrols and escape to the hull of the hypercom station. Terris found her ride, an Alliance warship by the name of Brightest Thunder, holding orbit just near the hypercom station. Admiral Dama, even if he was no longer an admiral, still had connections.
She charged her ion thrusters by tapping into the station reactor, an act which did not go unnoticed, but by then it was too late to respond. She had completed her incursion. The damage had been done. Perhaps if the Alliance acted swiftly and accurately, they could undo it, but Terris was a careful woman. She had covered her tracks well.
Waving one final goodbye to the crew of the hypercom station, Terris triggered her thrust pack and shot off into the ink.
“You must be my passenger.” A man in an Alliance captain’s uniform was waiting for her in the Brightest Thunder’s airlock. He wore a helmet and gloves, hermetically sealed to his airtight outfit, so he felt no effects from the vacuum of space. “I was sent by Sector Admiral Sheparda Dama,” he announced after a period of silence, “To transport you and whatever you may have safely to the Coalition fleet.” Nothing. Apart from the dull thudding of the ship’s railgun batteries, firing missiles at range to ward off a strike force of Coalition ships, the airlock was quiet as a ghost.
“You cannot expect me to endanger my life and the lives of my crew without at least some identification that you are who you claim to be!” Silence. Captain Senar Trevy had been standing in that airlock for three and a half hours, while his ship was tasked with screening Neldia and her eighteen billion inhabitants from harm, and he was just now wondering if he had been talking to a ghost.
“I am,” came a voice. Cold. Sterile. Inhuman. Exactly the kind Trevy expected from the secret spies of his former admiral.
“So you are.” Captain Trevy thought for a moment. He cycled the airlock. If his guest held hostile intent, one steel bulkhead would make no difference. “I’ve been stocking the crew with handpicked men and women since I received word of the operation,” he explained as they walked through the ship’s corridors. The crewmen he passed thought him insane. “I can’t vouch for them all, but the ship as a whole will obey me.” No response. Sometimes, Captain Trevy thought himself insane as well.
“This is my personal quarters,” he told the specter, stepping inside and sealing the door behind him. “I must warn you, for your own safety, it would be best not to leave it. The crew are mostly still Alliance loyalists.” He looked around, paying no heed to the decorated furniture or artificial sky, and finally shrugged and sighed. “Are you even here, still?”
Terris decloaked. She stood between him and the door, winged and cloaked in black like a demon of ancient myth. “I am.”
“You’re a black angel.” Senar Trevy, to his credit, kept his composure well. “A spy for the Ierad Republic.” He questioned her purpose here. They both knew it.
“You weren’t told?”
“I was told an alien would be coming aboard, but…” Trevy shrugged again, as if to say ‘what am I supposed to do?’ “The admiral vouched for you. That much is enough for me.” He also knew he had no choice in the matter. From what he knew about black angels, his ship had been lost the moment she boarded.
“I could have impersonated him,” said Terris, voice a perfect replica of Captain Trevy’s own. Even his own mother could not have told the difference. “And I’m trained to lie.” She was testing him, gauging his reaction to assess his personality. She was good at that.
“I could have you screened for deception,” Trevy countered, pointing up at a pearl-sized camera in the ceiling. Terris made a note that it was disabled. “And I could have had the technology officers vet your transmission.”
“I’m trained to lie well.” Terris sat down on Captain Trevy’s bed, a spartan thing compared to the sleeping quarters of most officers. There were no chairs in the room, so her options were few. She took off her helmet and tried to at least appear relaxed. In reality, she was anything but. “It comes with the job, really.”
“Fair,” Trevy chuckled, feigning calm. “I suppose the question now becomes whether or not you can trust me.”
“It’s a safe gamble.” Terris made a mental calculation. It would take her between thirty and fifty seconds to kill Captain Trevy, take the bridge, and vent the ship. That was a very safe gamble. “Besides, that’s what a peace treaty is.” Trevy looked confused. “A leap of faith. You trust your enemy to back their word, and you trust them to trust you as well. If we can’t get along here, can’t put aside our differences to work toward a common goal, then the Alliance will be right. And I hate it when they’re right.”
“I’m speaking to you now because I know they are wrong.” That came as no surprise to either of them. “You know, I was once a foreman of a labor crew in the munitions factories. The most productive unit in my sector.” That one did come as a surprise. “As a foreman, you get leeway to make certain decisions regarding the… well, I suppose they are slaves, under your command. Food intake and the like.” Captain Trevy looked pained when he brought up such memories. Terris wasn’t convinced that was how he really felt. “They use it to weed out any potential xeno sympathizers from the populace. Of course, at the time, I wasn’t so empathetic.”
“So you were a slave driver, and you beat your slaves to make them work. I hope every one of those shells was sabotaged.” Terris’ voice dripped with disdain. She had almost forgotten the Alliance captain was her enemy.
“No, I showed mercy,” Trevy defended himself. “I was generous.” This made Terris reconsider. Perhaps Senar Trevy could be an ally, if not a friend. “I won’t say I was a good man, but I wasn’t cruel. I was practical. Strong, healthy, well-treated workers are more productive than the beaten sacks of flesh in the other factories. My crew’s output was unmatched.”
“And?” Terris cocked her head inquisitively. For a high-ranking officer in the space navy of a genocidal regime, Senar Trevy really did not seem so bad. To be fair, however, she had set the bar pretty low.
“I was investigated for anti-human activity.” Terris could have predicted that. She almost did, too. “They sent me to the fleet, and my labor crew was reacquainted with the energy whips and pain beams.” There was no carrot for an Alliance labor slave. Only the stick. “Their productivity fell thirty percent in the first two weeks alone.” He sounded almost mournful as he said that. He was not lamenting the loss in productivity.
“You see,” said Trevy, “Hatred is not natural. It has to be caused, sustained, nurtured from the day a man is born until the day he dies.” With that, at least, Terris agreed. “And, as you’re about to see, a nation built around cruelty or prejudice cannot sustain itself. It will have to apply pressure to maintain its flawed status quo, like it did with me, and the pressure will build and build until it cannot build anymore.” He tapped a few buttons on the data disc in his hand. It began projecting an image of the battle for Neldia. He placed it on the bed next to Terris. “Now it’s breaking.”
“I wonder if they’ll find themselves in need of more shells.” Terris knew it wasn’t just shells. Every time a slave driver prioritized hatred over hard work, put cruelty over their quota, or even just bowed their head and obeyed the traditional dogma, they hurt the Alliance. Across nine worlds, with billions of slaves not working as they could have, things started to add up. “You know, for a superior species, your fleet is really getting its ass kicked right now. Might want to work on that.”
Captain Trevy nodded. His data disc beeped. He was needed on the bridge. “Agreed,” he said. “I hope this war ends soon, and to our mutual benefit. I’d hate to face you on the battlefield.” He picked up the data disc and turned to leave.
“Oh, forgot to mention, there’s a virus embedded in the transmissions you’ve received. Self-replicating. Nasty piece of work.” Terris shifted a bit in her seat. “Almost forgot about that.”
“Well, better to know now than when it’s activated,” Trevy smiled. “I’ll have Technology Officer Galdir investigate it.” With that, he left. His duty to the Alliance was nonexistent, but the men and women under his command still needed him. He had waited too long in the stateroom.
Terris, with nothing better to do, got to work on cracking the encryption in the transmissions she had copied. She failed. A transmission from deep in unknown space, sent from a dreadnought at the head of a task force known only as the Deep Expedition Fleet, was the only message she could read. Its contents, while troubling, mattered little at the moment. What was far more crucial, however, was the message Terris could not decipher. The military battle plan of Janus Ora’s personal armada.
The battle plan that, when analyzed on a Republic starship, would reveal its terrible secret too late.
The Coalition fleet was walking into a trap.
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INT. CABIN #12 - DUSK
A BLACK TV SCREEN fills frame. Silent and stoic.
Rachel sits on the couch, regarding the tape in her hands. Plain black tape, plain white sleeve.
Just the etched "ring" on its spine to suggest it's something other than blank.
Shadows lengthen in the room. Rachel glances to the window. The sun has almost set. Last vestiges of light FLARE through the branches of the maple outside.
She stares out for a long moment. Then pulls the tape from its sleeve.
She kneels at the VCR and inserts it in the VCR. She turns on the TV: STATIC fills the screen.
She glances to the window, just as the sun dips from view. The branch-shadows behind her fade.
Rachel looks back to the snowy screen and hits "Play." The screen goes black.
A low hum from the VCR as the tape turns.
The screen stays black.
Then WOBBLES, as if losing vertical and horizontal hold. A streak of lost pixels rolls sideways--
And then re-balances. Black screen.
Swiftly, another WOBBLE. This time, a hiccup of SOUND: like crashing WAVES. A beat of silent blackness -- and then a swerving, scrolling image -- an ECLIPSE -- a black orb covering a white moon, casting a bright "ring"-- --
which wavers as pixels slide and JAG, as if trying to "tune in" the image--
ON FULL SCREEN
As it goes black.
Silence. And with a BUZZING SEAR, the "ring" image SLASHES back. Buzz. Wobble. Hiss. Image locks -- on steady pictures:
A RED WOODEN LADDER leans against a rustic wall. A strange LOW MOAN on the audio track. Undulating ...
Then a TERRIFYING FAST-MOTION SHUDDER: something spasms under black plastic. Jarring nails-on-chalkboard SOUNDS--
FULL-SCREEN STATIC. The static flows and swells, as if liquid.
A FLY feels its way across the screen-corner in SILHOUETTE.
Suddenly, the BLACK SPASMING--
Then a DARK ANIMAL EYE stares through a keyhole--
More SPASMS, too fast to identify the source--
A VIDEO WOBBLE shakes across frame, a lightning-sear of stuttered pixels before lMAGE RESETS--
A BRIGHT WHITE HOSPITAL ROOM. A single chair in room's center. The MOAN resumes...
... and continues under a shot of OBSCURE SHAPES, lying on a sloping nighttime beach. Surf washes, moving them slightly-- --
as a FLASH OF LIGHT reveals the shapes to be beached CARCASSES OF UNKNOWN ANIMALS-- --
then suddenly pixels slide and jag with a FLASH CUT of the eclipse -- the moan track disappears as--
BLACKNESS. As COMB TEETH rip through, streaking LIGHT--
--OVEREXPOSING a gaping MOUTH with a thin, hairy UMBILICAL emerging from within.
The freakish SPASMING again--
A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN IN AN OVAL MIRROR, IN A WHITE GOWN. She calmly brushes her hair. The undulating MOAN is there.
JUMP CUT: The MIRROR MOVES.Switches position to the wall's other end, reflecting the woman, now in the distance, walking away into shadow--
--then JUMPS BACK. The seated woman (as before) half-glances over her shoulder. Smiles into the mirror like she's smiling directly at the viewer.
A SUDDEN JOLT: SCRAPING METAL as GRIDS and DOTS appear. An EYECHART with letters turned backwards.
FLASH CUT: DROPLETS OF WATER trickle toward center-frame, congealing into a PUDDLE.
FLASH CUT: The SPED-UP SPASMS behind black plastic.
A lone tree in a forest is ON FIRE. BOLD, RED FLAMES.A surrealist-touch to the image, the foliage translucent. Distorted MOANING constant ...
FLASHCUT: Roiling, foamy WHITE WATER, turning slowly BLOOD RED.
FLASHCUT: the keyhole EYE.
FLASHCUT: The FAST-MOTION SPASMS, now BATTERING the frame, causing the image ~ to bounce and shake.
And as the IMAGE LOSES HOLD, slippng with SEARS of STATIC, with the UNDULATING MOANS and SHRILL BARKS AND SCRAPES building to a crescendo--
-and an IMAGE of a BRIGHT WHITE MOON, high in a pitch black sky. (The sound of DISTANT WAVES and a faint, scratchy KEENING accompanies this image -- the same whispers heard beyond the door before Katie's death.)
A black orb slowly SLIDES ACROSS it -- as ANGLE closes in. And as it fully ECLIPSES it -- a RING OF LIGHT shines a "halo" outline-- --the image loses hold, jarring and skidding and then--
--becoming an image of a STONE MOUND in a wooded clearing. The whisper-keening continues for three seconds...
... until the screen jags to WHITE NOISE. Tape's over.
ANGLE ON RACHEL
She stares at the screen, breathless.
CONTINUED:
The room's grown totally dark. She swallows, takes a deep breath and reaches to shut off the TV.
The screen goes black -- with a blurred reflection of Rachel, and a FIGURE IN WHITE far behind her, RECEDING into darkness--
Rachel spins! But there's no one there.
Just a shadowy room. She settles, shutting her eyes ...
AS THE PHONE RINGS
Rachel jumps, goes dead pale.
It TRILLS once. Twice. Three times.
Rachel stands shakily. She steps to the phone ... and lifts it from the cradle. Puts to her ear ...
...and hears the SOUNDS of distant waves, a faint and raspy high-pitched WHISPER-KEENING, and then ...
DISTORTED VOICE (O.S.) Sevvveeeenn Daayyzzz ...
She slams down the phone!
EXT. CABIN #12 - NIGHT ~
Rachel darts outside, spinning for signs of someone watching her. But the night's still.
She's breathing hard. Her eyes are searching.
She's all alone.
CUT TO BLACK.

I have had a full head of red hair until a few years ago when it started darkening on my head and thinning. I’ve always dealt with low blood pressure, and when I took Wellbutrin XL I’d get tinnitus and phlegmy.
I think it’s down to a weird thing specific to redheads called proopiomelanocortin. It would give you atypical adrenaline levels. I used to run 10k at an average of 188 beats per minute. I get really shaky with caffeine and react to MDMA and THC differently than most.
Been diagnosed with ADHD, auditory hypersensitivity, and depression. Going on an anti-anxiety medication and an antihistamine was eye opening because it flooded me with serotonin and I felt just like I did on ecstasy.
Speaking of MDMA, I have trouble toeing the line with hyponatrmia because I have to pee all the time. My last electrolyte panel had a low anion gap, meaning my blood is on the basic side. I have had IBS as long as I’ve been on medications. I’ve always been nauseated by water and am very particular about how I can drink it. Turns out nausea from water is a common occurrence for histamine intolerant people.
Ringing a bell for anyone? Probably in a STEAM field. I do data viz primarily. Probably a hot sleeper, too

"Why did you do it?" He asked, eyes fixed to hers.
“I… I don’t know.” She turned her head down but never broke his gaze. “I guess, I just liked the way he looked.” She seemed to be scanning him, looking for a sign of empathy.
“The way he looked? That’s all it took?” A troubled expression was awarded with this information, it didn’t seem to fill his desire to understand. “What about me? Do you like the way I look? Would you have done the same to me?”
Her expression changed into one of remorse, and regret. Not of authentic origin. She had strategically made this change.
If silence was deafening before, it had become maddening in its tone now. The room filled with the air of dread, and a weight was cast down upon the two men.
Standing in the corner, was the eldest of the two. Sporting short auburn hair, not yet touched by gray. He was donning a pair of round frame, wire rim glasses. His mustache short, well kept, and just stretching the length of his top lip.
The other man, was about ten years younger. His shaggy mop, dripping down over his forehead to his eyebrows. Only stubble decorating the length of his jaw line, and chin. This man was sitting across from the woman, asking the questions.
Their hearts, (while not racing) were thumping rhythmically and strong. They could feel the anticipation building in them with each thump getting stronger.
Thump, thump, thump…
“Would you?” His voice heightened in pitch.
Thump, Thump, Thump…
They never broke her gaze, eagerly awaiting her response.
THUMP, THUMP, THUMP…
She looked as if she was about to speak, her lips pursed together, indicating the thought behind her next move.
Then a flicker of the single overhead light, with both men uneasy, it caused them to reach for their hips. Their faces now beaded with sweat, and eyes narrowed on to her.
She was smiling…
“Do I scare you gentlemen?” A genuine question, filled with malice.
Out came a gruff voice “We saw what you did.”
The older of the two, stepping from the corner right hand hovering on his hip. Left shoulder turned toward the woman, and his left leg rooted in front of him.
“What if I was attacked? He hit me, threatened me, he was crazy!” Feigned innocence.
“No sign of struggle, and you show no indication of injury.” The smaller of the two voices claimed, sitting to her parallel.
Her smile deepened, and her gaze fixed only to him. Gave the impression, they were the only two in the room.
“You don’t have to struggle either,” she claimed “I can make it quick.”
He stood up, fast. his chair shot out from behind him. He attempted to pull the cold steel from his waist.
In a blur, her arm swiped up, smacking the swinging light off its fixes. Launching it across the room and into his chest, sending him back to the wall, with the sound of metal onto the concrete floor.
Four shots rang out from toward the corner, deafening from inside the small room.
POP, POP, POP, POP…
The room being illuminated with each trigger squeeze, then a pause.
Blackness, silence, the interrogation room was filled with the manic mixture. Then a wet THUD from the far wall. Two more shots.
POP, POP…
Ringing ears, and strong rapid heart rate. The detective steps back into his corner, weapon out In front; scanning the width of the concrete box. Peering for any sign of movement.
“Jay,” he quietly calls out “Jay, are you alright?”
Silence for a moment, then a voice from HIS corner.
“I told him, I’d be quick.” A whisper.
Before he could rotate his body, a pair of hands were on his face. Shattering the metal spectacles. The fingers, with nails sharpened into shiv like instruments, dug into the skin. One claw at the bottom of his brow piercing through his eyelids. The other protruding through his eyeballs, each popping like soft grapes.
“Ahhhh” a panicked scream echoed out.
He fell to his knees as she pulled her arms away from each other. One up, one down. Ripping his cheekbones from their respective place. Exposing the fleshy insides once hidden by laugh lines, and crows feet.
The sound of a hollow clatter as she released the mass in one hand. Then the soft thud of the body as she loosened the grip of the other.
The door swung open, low light peering in from the outside. An officer swings through the door, and peers around the void. A shadow passes through the open gap, as he draws his flashlight and places it under the gun in his right hand.
Click
The beam darts across the room. His breath stops, as he looks upon the gore fest decorating the cement box. The building is silent, and the danger is gone. Though the horror will loom decades.