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WaltDisneyWorld would not let me post my travel thoughts, so posting here for others.
Firstly I want to say that I've been visiting Disney world since regularly for 40 years and I know all the parks and the history very well. In the early 2000's I lived in Windermere directly behind the Magic Kingdom and was a annual passholder. I'm also a Disney stock holder, so I follow the financials of the company and am aware of most if not all of the management decisions that have been made regarding the revenue of the parks and cost of running them. My hope is that this channel is monitored by Disney management personnel and some of my observations from an experience standpoint will fall on (mouse) ears.
I now live in Texas and have not been to any of the Disney parks for many years, so I was eager to take my 9 year old for her birthday to see the new attractions that everyone has been talking about this week (5/28 - 5/31). I had some old park hopper tickets that I was able to update to the new card system, which I immediately found complicated and arbitrary. I received several plastic cards to replace the paper tickets I had, but I could only determine what each of the cards had remaining on them by looking up each cards serial number using the Disney "Experiences" app. Now if you use Genie+ or Lighting Lane pass, every ride you go on requires you scan either your card, phone, or as I later discovered my iWatch if I paired it with the "Experience App". This required me to constantly pull out my card which quickly grew tiresome. My daughter saw everyone with a LED mickey wristband, which I learned was called a Magicband. I found out that it could be used to scan her into the rides and had an added benefit of playing a little audio clip on gold character statues around the park, and vibrated during fireworks, so I bought the cheapest one @ $35. A smart move by Disney to solve a problem with another upsell that they created in the first place.
I'm a software developer, so most technology does not usually confuse me, but the design of the "Experiences" app is pretty bad. It's very hard to get the information you need, the features are categorized poorly, not explained well, and navigation is redundant and unintuitive. I really don't know how the average family makes heads or tails of it. I think that the feature that I utilized the most was the Cast Member Chat, because they were the only one that could make any sense of the extensive rules and restrictions that have been added to all the parks and access. I leaned on the Disney ticket agent who was a 26 year Disney employee veteran to help setup which parks my daughter and I were interested in. I had to purchase an additional child's single day ticket ($5 off the $179 adult ticket) so I had the ticket agent set that up as well. The ticketing process is so confusing that even the 26 year Disney employee had a problem with the setup that I'll explain later.
The first day we went to Epcot for the Guardians Coaster, Ratatouille, and the Frozen ride what I had not seen before. I was told that to reserve the Guardians ride, I needed to get on the "Experiences" app at 7am to reserve a virtual queue in line. I loaded the app at 6:55am and kept refreshing until at 7 the screen switched to "Press to enter the Virtual Queue" button appeared. In the 4 seconds it took me to read the text on the page, the app told me that the virtual queue was already full and I would now have to wait until 1pm to try again or buy a lighting lane pass for $36 for the 2 of us. I wanted to park hop to Magic Kingdom and you are required to be in the park at 1pm to try the queue again so I simply bought the lighting pass to get it over with rather than spend my vacation pulling out my phone out and checking my watch and queue status all day.
Just as a FYI, I was successful queueing the next day for Tron, by using the same technique but hitting the "Press to enter the Virtual Queue" immediately, a process that I estimate took me 2 total seconds. Doing so I received a queue group of 72 which resulted in our group being called at 2:45pm in the afternoon. Needless to say I was left with a very bad taste in my mouth as I had to be on my phone at 7am every morning with mixed success and then even when I was successful I constantly had to check my phone to see where I was in the queue to avoid missing our place. Even my 9 year old was so annoyed by my phone obsession and eventually suggested that we only check the phone after we get off a ride.
We had to scan our fingers on the initial check in, which I'd heard about to lock our tickets to us. As a privacy advocate I'm not super excited about this, nor the idea that I cannot easily swap users of the card to another family member at my choosing, but I'm sure that others have expressed these concerns so I won't elaborate further. We were staying at a Disney Resort, so we arrived at the Epcot back entrance exactly at 8:30am to rope drop Ratatouille. Apparently that was everyone else's idea because the outdoor line queue for Ratatouille was already at 35 minutes when we arrived. When we did get on the ride, I was very underwhelmed with the presentation and felt that the quality of what I had known Disney to produce had severely dropped. I had to wear 3D glasses on a practical dark ride that moved in parts from 3D projection screens to small room breaks that had no characters or effects which required my to constantly remove and again put on the glasses to see anything clearly. As far as I could see there were no animatronics or real characters within the practical scenes and the 3D screens were dark, poorly aligned when attempting to create false parallax, and frequently distorted. Overall it reminded me of a rip-off of the Spiderman ride at Universal that was made about 10 years ago.
I bought 2 Genie+ passes in addition to the $36 Guardians Lighting Lane passes, so that added another $100 to our park tickets. As soon as we got in the park I made a Genie+ reservation for the Frozen ride, but the first available slot was 1:45pm, so I guess that's a popular one too. Since we had some time to wait for our 11:15am Guardians Lighting Lane reserve, we walked around world showcase, which was pretty much how I remember it and walk over to the new Moana water thing. I've probably been to Epcot about 200 times so I thought I knew my way around pretty well, but when I got the old communicore fountain area I got completely lost by the labyrinth of narrow paths and hidden turns. It seems Disney's original rule of designing a park to lead the patron to the next focal point has not been adopted by the current designers. The moana experience was wedged in between the restrooms between The Land and Living Seas pavilions, which was an odd choice when it seems they could have put it where the old communicore fountain was to both add tropical beauty to that previously dull area as well as implement an impressive water feature. As it is installed now, the experience is hidden, cramped, and overall does not really communicate the naturalist messaging that the numerous signs in the pathway claimed to resemble.
There was also a new choke point that was introduced between Spaceship Earth and the Land where the only path on that side of the park was about 12 feet wide. A great idea now that every other family either has a double wide stroller or electric scooter taking up even more of the pathway than they used to. I also noticed this at Hollywood Studios in the new Galaxy Edge area. Not sure why the current Disney design team thinks the paths in the parks should narrower than they were before, but my assumption is that it's a cost saving measure.
We made it on the new Guardians coaster with our lighting pass, and I appreciate that we did not have to wait in the regular queue and got on the preshow portion of the ride in 5 minutes. I thought the ride was ok, not great with heavy use of video projection in both the preshow and ride. The extent of practical effects was a giant planet that you rotate around which seems flat and unrealistic. For a ride that is supposed to be the new high standard of Disney Imagineering, it seems that a nearly completely reliance on some projection screens in a dark coaster seems cheap and uninspired. Does anyone remember the giant glowing future city at the end of World of Motion? How did we go from that to this?
We finished Epcot at the Frozen ride, which was lackluster with no story, cheap animatronic character that had disturbing glowing projection faces with dead stares. Not that the Norway ride was that great, but it at least and some interesting scenery, a troll with fiber optics and a drop with the Miniature practical Storm and Oil Rig which were slightly memorable. To replace it with a bunch of flat, black light painted wood panels to recreate one of the highest grossing animated modern era Disney films seems uninspired and unimaginative. I mean they couldn't even design an interesting mirrocrystal room for Elsa's Ice Palace that would make you feel like your are in a much bigger and impressive space?
The next day we went to Hollywood Studios and I paid another $44 for both of us to go on Rise of Resistance and $70 for 2 more Genie+ passes, so another $114 in addition to the cost of the park tickets. We did Tower of Terror first which thankfully has not been redesigned and still holds up over the years, even though I think the drops have been reduced and shortened, a change I'm sure my 9 year old did not have any objection with.
We made our way over to the new Pixar area which I found to be very garish and infantile, more like if McDonalds designed a theme park, not Disney or Pixar. The wait for Slinks coaster was already 90 minutes at 10:30am and even though we had the Genie+ pass, it was not available so we skipped it. On another note it was already 94 degrees and there is no shade in most areas of the new areas of this park other than some haphazardly placed umbrellas on the sides of the path that guests huddle underneath. It's like the park designers have never visited Florida in summer or simply don't care if anyone bakes in the sun.
We made it to the Star Wars area and I found it very confusing and mazelike. I never knew where I was, as the other areas I mentioned there were multiple choke points in the paths in a area that proved to be the most crowded in the park. The detailing of the buildings and nature features seemed cheapy executed and fake. They didn't really remind me much of the Star Wars universe and would barely hold up in an episode of the Mandalorian. My favorite experience by far was the Millennium Falcon ride where my daughter and I got to pilot the ship which was a dream experience. Even the queue area of this ride is amazing with the level of detail and nostalgia that I would expect from a E-Ticket Disney Ride.
Rise of the Resistance was fine, not worth $44, containing more of the poorly executed fake projection screens effects and motion vehicles traveling though cheaply constructed Empire/Order hallways. I'm also 95% sure that the Kylo Ren animatronic at the end is the recycled from the Wicked Witch from Great Movie Ride. I feel like the animation was even recycled.
Last day we went to Magic Kingdom with the intention of riding Tron and Snow White Mine Train. I bought Lighting Lane passes for both rides adding another $66 ($26 for SN and $40 for Tron) to the tickets. I again got up at 7am to enter the virtual raffle for the Tron queue, and discovered that I could now add my daughter to the queue group. I immediately contacted a Disney chat agent who discovered that the helpful Disney ticket agent who I purchased a single day ticket to Magic Kingdom had put in the wrong date for our visit. By doing so, it effectively made my daughter ticket ineligible for virtual queues (and may have not granted her access to the park for the day I paid for). Thankfully the online agent was able to change to date so I could actually use the $175 single park ticket that I bought the night before I intended to use it.
Snow White was well done and fun, sort of a combination or Matterhorn and Barnstormer. I did notice that it also contained the cheap animatronic characters that had disturbing glowing projection faces like the Frozen ride. Is it that really that hard to maintain facial articulation on audioanimatronics? Disney did it since Carousel of Progress and the projection faces seem like a huge step backward.
Tron was what I was most excited about being envious of the Tokyo version. The building that houses Tron is impressive and clearly designed to be a key feature to draw guests in with an extended walkway and LED effects on the scaffolding. I was able to reserve a virtual queue for the day, so I reserved a 10:00pm Lighting Lane pass. I preferred the night ride, as there was more constant immersion with indoooutdoor areas of the coaster. I thought the reclined ride cars were unique and well done if not a bit uncomfortable. They are slightly constrictive how they hold you in and I noticed that a child in the car in front of me was restrained to tightly and started to have trouble breathing screaming for help from her parents by the end of the ride, which was unsettling, so consider asking for the last car that does not have this type of restraint for little ones. The ride again was plagued with projection screens inside the ride in lieu of practical effects and reminded me or Guardians. We also bought a Diecast Tron lightbike with LEDs in the giftshop and upon getting home the bike was made in China, was broken and did not illuminate.
After all the travel, tacked on cost of all the addons, special ride passes, and the inconvenience of the highly restrictive and expensive park tickets and the cheaper quality of the rides, I don't feel like Disney offers a good value or exceptional experience anymore. I actually felt bad for families with several kids that clearly were spending thousands of dollars for a vacation that honestly felt more like a job most of the time. I also noticed cast members that were either rude, impatient, or audibly complaining about their job position, shift, the heat, or anything else that an average worker would complain about. I understand that Disney employees are regular people and not robots, but previously I always felt that Disney employees were extremely proud to be working at Disney World and it reflected in how they treated guests and it added to the magic. Now I just felt like I'm was six flags and everyone was just counting the minutes until they could go home. I'm glad that I could take my daughter and have the experience with her, but I will not be returning to Disney World any time soon as it seems that the company and how they value the guest experience has diminished significantly from what I remember.

Firstly I want to say that I've been visiting Disney world since regularly for 40 years and I know all the parks and the history very well. In the early 2000's I lived in Windermere directly behind the Magic Kingdom and was a annual passholder. I'm also a Disney stock holder, so I follow the financials of the company and am aware of most if not all of the management decisions that have been made regarding the revenue of the parks and cost of running them. My hope is that this channel is monitored by Disney management personnel and some of my observations from an experience standpoint will fall on (mouse) ears.
I now live in Texas and have not been to any of the Disney parks for many years, so I was eager to take my 9 year old for her birthday to see the new attractions that everyone has been talking about this week (5/28 - 5/31). I had some old park hopper tickets that I was able to update to the new card system, which I immediately found complicated and arbitrary. I received several plastic cards to replace the paper tickets I had, but I could only determine what each of the cards had remaining on them by looking up each cards serial number using the Disney "Experiences" app. Now if you use Genie+ or Lighting Lane pass, every ride you go on requires you scan either your card, phone, or as I later discovered my iWatch if I paired it with the "Experience App". This required me to constantly pull out my card which quickly grew tiresome. My daughter saw everyone with a LED mickey wristband, which I learned was called a Magicband. I found out that it could be used to scan her into the rides and had an added benefit of playing a little audio clip on gold character statues around the park, and vibrated during fireworks, so I bought the cheapest one @ $35. A smart move by Disney to solve a problem with another upsell that they created in the first place.
I'm a software developer, so most technology does not usually confuse me, but the design of the "Experiences" app is pretty bad. It's very hard to get the information you need, the features are categorized poorly, not explained well, and navigation is redundant and unintuitive. I really don't know how the average family makes heads or tails of it. I think that the feature that I utilized the most was the Cast Member Chat, because they were the only one that could make any sense of the extensive rules and restrictions that have been added to all the parks and access. I leaned on the Disney ticket agent who was a 26 year Disney employee veteran to help setup which parks my daughter and I were interested in. I had to purchase an additional child's single day ticket ($5 off the $179 adult ticket) so I had the ticket agent set that up as well. The ticketing process is so confusing that even the 26 year Disney employee had a problem with the setup that I'll explain later.
The first day we went to Epcot for the Guardians Coaster, Ratatouille, and the Frozen ride what I had not seen before. I was told that to reserve the Guardians ride, I needed to get on the "Experiences" app at 7am to reserve a virtual queue in line. I loaded the app at 6:55am and kept refreshing until at 7 the screen switched to "Press to enter the Virtual Queue" button appeared. In the 4 seconds it took me to read the text on the page, the app told me that the virtual queue was already full and I would now have to wait until 1pm to try again or buy a lighting lane pass for $36 for the 2 of us. I wanted to park hop to Magic Kingdom and you are required to be in the park at 1pm to try the queue again so I simply bought the lighting pass to get it over with rather than spend my vacation pulling out my phone out and checking my watch and queue status all day.
Just as a FYI, I was successful queueing the next day for Tron, by using the same technique but hitting the "Press to enter the Virtual Queue" immediately, a process that I estimate took me 2 total seconds. Doing so I received a queue group of 72 which resulted in our group being called at 2:45pm in the afternoon. Needless to say I was left with a very bad taste in my mouth as I had to be on my phone at 7am every morning with mixed success and then even when I was successful I constantly had to check my phone to see where I was in the queue to avoid missing our place. Even my 9 year old was so annoyed by my phone obsession and eventually suggested that we only check the phone after we get off a ride.
We had to scan our fingers on the initial check in, which I'd heard about to lock our tickets to us. As a privacy advocate I'm not super excited about this, nor the idea that I cannot easily swap users of the card to another family member at my choosing, but I'm sure that others have expressed these concerns so I won't elaborate further. We were staying at a Disney Resort, so we arrived at the Epcot back entrance exactly at 8:30am to rope drop Ratatouille. Apparently that was everyone else's idea because the outdoor line queue for Ratatouille was already at 35 minutes when we arrived. When we did get on the ride, I was very underwhelmed with the presentation and felt that the quality of what I had known Disney to produce had severely dropped. I had to wear 3D glasses on a practical dark ride that moved in parts from 3D projection screens to small room breaks that had no characters or effects which required my to constantly remove and again put on the glasses to see anything clearly. As far as I could see there were no animatronics or real characters within the practical scenes and the 3D screens were dark, poorly aligned when attempting to create false parallax, and frequently distorted. Overall it reminded me of a rip-off of the Spiderman ride at Universal that was made about 10 years ago.
I bought 2 Genie+ passes in addition to the $36 Guardians Lighting Lane passes, so that added another $100 to our park tickets. As soon as we got in the park I made a Genie+ reservation for the Frozen ride, but the first available slot was 1:45pm, so I guess that's a popular one too. Since we had some time to wait for our 11:15am Guardians Lighting Lane reserve, we walked around world showcase, which was pretty much how I remember it and walk over to the new Moana water thing. I've probably been to Epcot about 200 times so I thought I knew my way around pretty well, but when I got the old communicore fountain area I got completely lost by the labyrinth of narrow paths and hidden turns. It seems Disney's original rule of designing a park to lead the patron to the next focal point has not been adopted by the current designers. The moana experience was wedged in between the restrooms between The Land and Living Seas pavilions, which was an odd choice when it seems they could have put it where the old communicore fountain was to both add tropical beauty to that previously dull area as well as implement an impressive water feature. As it is installed now, the experience is hidden, cramped, and overall does not really communicate the naturalist messaging that the numerous signs in the pathway claimed to resemble.
There was also a new choke point that was introduced between Spaceship Earth and the Land where the only path on that side of the park was about 12 feet wide. A great idea now that every other family either has a double wide stroller or electric scooter taking up even more of the pathway than they used to. I also noticed this at Hollywood Studios in the new Galaxy Edge area. Not sure why the current Disney design team thinks the paths in the parks should narrower than they were before, but my assumption is that it's a cost saving measure.
We made it on the new Guardians coaster with our lighting pass, and I appreciate that we did not have to wait in the regular queue and got on the preshow portion of the ride in 5 minutes. I thought the ride was ok, not great with heavy use of video projection in both the preshow and ride. The extent of practical effects was a giant planet that you rotate around which seems flat and unrealistic. For a ride that is supposed to be the new high standard of Disney Imagineering, it seems that a nearly completely reliance on some projection screens in a dark coaster seems cheap and uninspired. Does anyone remember the giant glowing future city at the end of World of Motion? How did we go from that to this?
We finished Epcot at the Frozen ride, which was lackluster with no story, cheap animatronic character that had disturbing glowing projection faces with dead stares. Not that the Norway ride was that great, but it at least and some interesting scenery, a troll with fiber optics and a drop with the Miniature practical Storm and Oil Rig which were slightly memorable. To replace it with a bunch of flat, black light painted wood panels to recreate one of the highest grossing animated modern era Disney films seems uninspired and unimaginative. I mean they couldn't even design an interesting mirrocrystal room for Elsa's Ice Palace that would make you feel like your are in a much bigger and impressive space?
The next day we went to Hollywood Studios and I paid another $44 for both of us to go on Rise of Resistance and $70 for 2 more Genie+ passes, so another $114 in addition to the cost of the park tickets. We did Tower of Terror first which thankfully has not been redesigned and still holds up over the years, even though I think the drops have been reduced and shortened, a change I'm sure my 9 year old did not have any objection with.
We made our way over to the new Pixar area which I found to be very garish and infantile, more like if McDonalds designed a theme park, not Disney or Pixar. The wait for Slinks coaster was already 90 minutes at 10:30am and even though we had the Genie+ pass, it was not available so we skipped it. On another note it was already 94 degrees and there is no shade in most areas of the new areas of this park other than some haphazardly placed umbrellas on the sides of the path that guests huddle underneath. It's like the park designers have never visited Florida in summer or simply don't care if anyone bakes in the sun.
We made it to the Star Wars area and I found it very confusing and mazelike. I never knew where I was, as the other areas I mentioned there were multiple choke points in the paths in a area that proved to be the most crowded in the park. The detailing of the buildings and nature features seemed cheapy executed and fake. They didn't really remind me much of the Star Wars universe and would barely hold up in an episode of the Mandalorian. My favorite experience by far was the Millennium Falcon ride where my daughter and I got to pilot the ship which was a dream experience. Even the queue area of this ride is amazing with the level of detail and nostalgia that I would expect from a E-Ticket Disney Ride.
Rise of the Resistance was fine, not worth $44, containing more of the poorly executed fake projection screens effects and motion vehicles traveling though cheaply constructed Empire/Order hallways. I'm also 95% sure that the Kylo Ren animatronic at the end is the recycled from the Wicked Witch from Great Movie Ride. I feel like the animation was even recycled.
Last day we went to Magic Kingdom with the intention of riding Tron and Snow White Mine Train. I bought Lighting Lane passes for both rides adding another $66 ($26 for SN and $40 for Tron) to the tickets. I again got up at 7am to enter the virtual raffle for the Tron queue, and discovered that I could now add my daughter to the queue group. I immediately contacted a Disney chat agent who discovered that the helpful Disney ticket agent who I purchased a single day ticket to Magic Kingdom had put in the wrong date for our visit. By doing so, it effectively made my daughter ticket ineligible for virtual queues (and may have not granted her access to the park for the day I paid for). Thankfully the online agent was able to change to date so I could actually use the $175 single park ticket that I bought the night before I intended to use it.
Snow White was well done and fun, sort of a combination or Matterhorn and Barnstormer. I did notice that it also contained the cheap animatronic characters that had disturbing glowing projection faces like the Frozen ride. Is it that really that hard to maintain facial articulation on audioanimatronics? Disney did it since Carousel of Progress and the projection faces seem like a huge step backward.
Tron was what I was most excited about being envious of the Tokyo version. The building that houses Tron is impressive and clearly designed to be a key feature to draw guests in with an extended walkway and LED effects on the scaffolding. I was able to reserve a virtual queue for the day, so I reserved a 10:00pm Lighting Lane pass. I preferred the night ride, as there was more constant immersion with indoooutdoor areas of the coaster. I thought the reclined ride cars were unique and well done if not a bit uncomfortable. They are slightly constrictive how they hold you in and I noticed that a child in the car in front of me was restrained to tightly and started to have trouble breathing screaming for help from her parents by the end of the ride, which was unsettling, so consider asking for the last car that does not have this type of restraint for little ones. The ride again was plagued with projection screens inside the ride in lieu of practical effects and reminded me or Guardians. We also bought a Diecast Tron lightbike with LEDs in the giftshop and upon getting home the bike was made in China, was broken and did not illuminate.
After all the travel, tacked on cost of all the addons, special ride passes, and the inconvenience of the highly restrictive and expensive park tickets and the cheaper quality of the rides, I don't feel like Disney offers a good value or exceptional experience anymore. I actually felt bad for families with several kids that clearly were spending thousands of dollars for a vacation that honestly felt more like a job most of the time. I also noticed cast members that were either rude, impatient, or audibly complaining about their job position, shift, the heat, or anything else that an average worker would complain about. I understand that Disney employees are regular people and not robots, but previously I always felt that Disney employees were extremely proud to be working at Disney World and it reflected in how they treated guests and it added to the magic. Now I just felt like I'm was six flags and everyone was just counting the minutes until they could go home. I'm glad that I could take my daughter and have the experience with her, but I will not be returning to Disney World any time soon as it seems that the company and how they value the guest experience has diminished significantly from what I remember.

timestamp+gallery I am the second owner and will include the original invoice from their initial purchase for warranty purposes. Headphones have been cleaned with a dry microfiber cloth. About 100 hours on them, very good condition.
Includes the following:

• LCD-5 Headphones
• Travel carry case
• Less clamping head band installed by Audeze
• Balanced LCD Premium Cable (2.5m)
• DIY "Black Dragon" Balanced Cable (1.5m)
• Serial + Manufactured date card
• Keys for the case
• Mickey mouse gloves
• Digital copy of the original invoice for warranty

Asking $2450 PayPal G&S OBO. Can offer a discount if you pickup local in 90025. Price includes shipping to CONUS fully insured with signature required. Sorry, no trades.

Timestamp
Looking for $70 USD shipped, or $60 local to 63366.
Razer Deathadder V3 Pro (1k hz) with installed BT.L white skates. Comes with original packaging (minus the little plastic mouse holder), and all of the original accessories. It comes with a set of black grip tape (unsure if this was originally in packaging lol).
Please comment before messaging. Thank you!

Cannibal had made up his mind a few moves ago: If this kid doesn't swing this chair, doesn't absolutely fuckin' nail me, then he's getting taxed, and big time.
The kid's name is Rob Small, and he's supposedly some hot-shot rookie fresh out of the local school. But Cannibal doesn't get it. Everything about the kid bugs him, right down to the name. The sport lost something when people stopped calling themselves ridiculous things, like 'The Big' this, or 'Ultimate' that.
And besides, it's a dirty trick. It's too easy, just like everything the new kids are doing. It's almost too real. And the audience doesn't want real. They only think they do. Cannibal knows this better than just about anyone.
Cannibal feels that he's been carrying them both since the bell. Again, it's this new, soft shit. Flipping, and posing, and nobody wants a single scratch on their pretty mugs. The word fake doesn't exist in this business, but as Rob winds up for another one of his little tricks, all flare, no impact, you can kind of see where people get that idea.
Cannibal takes a knee, then another, but wide, because that's how you take a real hit. Rob pulls the chair back.
"Don't fuck this up," Cannibal says.
The blade of the chair just grazes Cannibal's eyebrow, opening two inches of scar tissue, and perforation.
This is good. Unintentional, but good.
The crowd isn't theirs yet, but the stream of blood pulls a few people forward and gets them almost leaning into the next row down.
The blood is good, no doubt about it. But the sound of skull on steel would've lit them on fire, and that's just science.
Rob moves to the ropes, taking a squeaky-clean moment to acknowledge the crowd. He waves his arms around like he's leading a marching band or something, and it "earns" him a small pop of recognition.
Here's the problem- there's no story here. No tale of the tape. Just some rookie nobody cares about, and an aging prick that people care even less about. This is when every move is supposed to count. Not just every move, but every transition, every facial expression too. The kid's athletic, sure. But so is everybody. He doesn't have the rhythm yet, and his nose is too straight. And Cannibal is tired of carrying this match.
Cannibal starts back on his feet, quickly, counter-intuitively, like a jump scare. The kid's finally connecting with the crowd now, lifting the chair like some intramural trophy. But it's too little, too late, and Cannibal sees his opportunity.
First Cannibal snatches the chair, up, and behind Rob, then steadies his giant, calloused fingers with a well-timed exhale. He whirls Rob around, ready or not, and drives the lip of the chair into the liver side of his waist, which folds him directly in two. The crowd chatters a bit, but he isn't finished.
Cannibal throws the chair less than a foot away, then sets up the move that's going to win the crowd.
He didn't invent the move, not even close. It's not even particularly uncommon. But he made his name off this move. Here's some wisdom from the old school: There are precious few people who make money from this business by looking good. And if you can't look good, you need to look vicious.
Cannibal hooks his arms under Rob's armpits, then wrenches both arms so violently that the triceps almost touch. Operating on pure panic, and instinct, Rob's legs unwind, independently searching for a better position, but never finding it.
"Hey, easy up there," Rob says from somewhere near Cannibal's midsection, but he may as well be speaking to the mat now.
Cannibal wrenches Rob's arms again, but this time the triceps touch for one moment of searing pain. He does this half for show, and half as a warning to keep quiet during his finisher. He looks out at the crowd, and their features form for the first time since he entered the arena. Before then, they were nothing, just a wallpaper pattern of merch, and facial hair. There's a difference between the individual faces in the first row, and the voice that fills the venue, and guides your match.
A single fan can be wrong, but a crowd never is.
But Cannibal takes some of that power back now, and he's staring at the crowd, the entity, right in the face, starting with the first row.
The first few faces that he locks eyes with are rabid, their eyes wild with anticipation. They're gesticulating wildly, like they can't believe, or can't wait for what's coming next. The next face is a little boy who shies away and looks at his dad for help. He scans about a seating section and a half, screaming spittle-seasoned insults along the way.
Mid-taunt, before anybody can count it off, Cannibal hits his finisher, The Flesh Eater.
Cannibal pushes off the toes of his boots, about a foot into the air, bringing Rob's craned arms with him. That's why you really need to wrench. With Rob feeling real pain at each arm's socket, he has no choice but to sell. At the height of his jump, Cannibal shoots his legs straight out in a wide V, unclenching his ass for a nice, cushioned landing.
Rob's face hits the chair a microsecond before Cannibal's legs, and underside absorb the remainder of the blow. It's enough to make the aluminum ring out into the high warehouse ceiling and put a pretty little face-sized dent in the seat.
The crowd reacts with screams, with horror, with finally, some fucking emotion.
Cannibal climbs to his feet, while the lights flick on-and-off, on-and-off in Rob's eyes. Rob props himself on his palms, and knees, finding the floor he wasn't even looking for.
But he loses it again with a big, booted punt to the ribs. The crowd boos now from every direction.
This is good. It means that right now, they hate Cannibal. It means that when they go home, they'll remember how much they hated him. It means that he did his job.
Cannibal takes a victory lap around the ring while Rob writhes in presumably authentic agony. Cannibal leans over the top rope, pointing at the front row again, dissolving the boundary between them. He's screaming at a fan. He may even be screaming at one hundred fans when he notices a face that shouldn't be in attendance.
Was it section B? He looks over but can't find the face anymore.
He darts his eyes wildly, unfocusing them so that the crowd transforms into nothing but eyebrows, and merch, approval, and disgust.
He glances back toward Section B, right around where he thinks he saw the face, right as Rob crawls from behind, hooks his leg, and rolls him into a three count.
Both men roll onto their backs; Rob, because the pain from his neck, down to his waist puts him there. Cannibal, because he's defeated and confused.
Had he really seen that face? He knows he hadn't. One, because that would make no sense. And two, because, and he only saw it for a second, but the face was significantly younger than it should have been. About 20 years younger. Which would put it right around a time that he doesn't think, or speak about. Cannibal decides that he didn't see the face after all. He doesn't believe in ghosts. Especially not ghosts that haven't even died.
***
Cannibal collects his pay, and the doc plugs up his gash, in that order. He's got a show in a bigger market tomorrow, so the butterfly stitches just need to hold until then.
He unlaces his boots in the parking lot, then trades them for some once-white Adidas from the back seat of his gray Toyota Camry. Then he thinks about the ghost again. The one that he didn't see, the one that isn't even dead as far as he knows.
He stands still in his untied sneakers and thumbs a few reps through his social pages. If he had died, the news would have picked it up by now. An old friend would have even messaged,
"Here if you need to talk." Or, "It's not your fault"
Something like that, anyway. But Cannibal doesn't see anything, no messages, neither of their names gracing, or disgracing any headlines. And besides, that doesn't exactly solve the issue at hand. Maybe the kids are right, he thinks. I've officially taken too many blows to the skull.
For twenty years, Cannibal has always driven to the next city, or the next stop on the road, the night prior. Tonight, he checks into the nearest hotel/rest stop that connects to the main road. It's only about a four-hour drive, three if he can avoid traffic, and the need to piss. He doesn't even need to check into the venue until 5 pm. That's ample time, he decides for the first time in his career.
"I just need a bed and a shower", Cannibal tells the night clerk, a pimply boy who has deepened his voice since the exchange intensified.
He's the only employee, except for a few maids pushing yellow baskets around the parking lot, and a few unofficially affiliated girls prowling around from the local skin bar.
The boy wants to avoid a hassle. He knows that the nearest signs of life are the old warehouse a few exits down, and the sheriff's office even further.
"I'm sorry sir," he begins, and he's really using diaphragm now, speaking to the back of the house, "But all's we got left tonight is the honeymoon suite."
"So it's $30 extra for a dirty mirror on the ceiling, and a vase full of plastic fuckin' roses?"
The clerk winces at the swear, then gleams over Cannibal's right shoulder into the mostly empty parking lot. Cannibal gives the kid his best mean mug, the same one that he'd shoot toward a new opponent or a crowd that hates his guts. The quiet moment lingers, and then, wouldn't you guess it, just like that, thirty dollars gets shaved off the tab.
Cannibal tosses his duffel onto the frilly red sheets, then rolls off his sneakers as his reflections oblige in both the ceiling and wall-length mirrors. He sits on the bed, then wiggles his toes a bit generating a sound like gravel crunching in a driveway. He wants to get up and shower off some of the dried blood that's clotted his hair to his face, but the world rocks, and spins, and he lays down and falls asleep without even killing the bedside lamp.
He can't remember the ramp, the fans, or the bell. He can't remember the promos, or what angle he's supposed to be taking. But judging from the dark cherry splatted canvas, and the ringing in ears, it's been a fuckin' barn-burner so far. He looks directly ahead, at the high, pipe-laden ceiling, and realizes he's on his back. A boot lands next to his head, then another. Maybe it's the high-intensity discharge lights that are stinging his eyes, maybe he's still rattled from whatever move put him on his ass, but as his opponent steps over him, he can't seem at all to make out their face.
Whoever his opponent is, he begins to pick him up by the hair, and that's when Cannibal notices that the abstract art on the mat has mostly come from the back of his head. Drops of blood race down his opponents wrists, and pool near his elbows. Cannibal is bent over looking down at the mat, at his opponent's standard-issue black boots, and at the fresh coat of bright red, which will soon dry darker.
His opponent cranks his arms clumsily but with intensity. He can feel his blood greasing his opponent's grip, not allowing for any real traction. Then his opponent's knees square up, then bend, and Cannibal realizes. "Hey, that's my fucking move!" he says, or tries to say, but his opponent's airborne, and then so is he.
Usually, there's a nice thud when you hit the mat, but not this time. This time it sounds more like a series of wet pops, like cracking your knuckles underwater. Cannibal tries to roll over and assess the situation. Then he tries to roll over again.
Oh. Shit.
He's face down on the mat, and he intuits, rather than feels his opponent hurry off him, and in that same foggy way, he can feel the crowd. The beast with one thousand eyes is silent, but it isn't bored. It's murmuring, but with a sort of upward inflection, like it's asking him a question can't answer. Now a referee rolls him over. Cannibal awakens in a panic and tries to jump out of bed, away from the red sheets, but his body is uncooperative. His head lolls at an unnatural angle toward the mirrored wall. He can move his eyes, but nothing else.
He wants to scream for the pimply-faced boy or one of the night girls, but nothing comes out of his mouth. He can see his reflection, the collapsed muscles in his face, and the pool of spit that's collected on the pillow by his ear. The parts of the bed directly under him appear a darker red than the rest of the sheets. His eyes roll wildly and take in different parts of the same wall that he's frozen on. He can barely feel his breathing, but he knows that it's sporadic and shallow. He keeps rolling his eyes, searching for a modicum of control over his own body. And that's when he sees him again.
The ceiling mirror casts its reflection into its wall counterpart, and with the furthest strain of his eyeball muscles, Cannibal can just barely recognize him. He's a little older than he looked in the crowd earlier, but it's unmistakable this time. Fucking ghosts. Ghosts who aren't even dead yet. From somewhere behind his eyes Cannibal feels the onset of rage.
His eyes blink involuntarily, and a well of tears are pushed, and guided down into the spit-soaked pillow. He imagines himself rocking forward and tries to send this signal to a part of his body that doesn't exist. He imagines it again. He tries to kick a leg, throw an elbow, he'll settle for anything. He sends that signal in random intervals like he's trying to surprise his own faculties. He "throws" another elbow.
Except this time his arm releases from his side and soars out in front of him. His body follows, and he feels a vile concoction of fear, and relief as he falls off the bed, with arms and legs too weak to break his fall. He narrowly avoids contact with the corner of the nightstand and lands with a thud on the carpeted floor. He wiggles his toes, and the sound of tires on gravel rings out into nothing. ***
After regaining some strength, Cannibal uses his recently renewed limb strength to tear through every creak, and crack of the hotel room. He finds nobody in the room, nobody in the mirrors, just himself and his aching fucking cranium. Exhausted, but no longer tired, Cannibal grabs his duffel and checks out of the hotel room by tossing his key in the general direction of the unsuspecting clerk. He tears his car door open, then drives off with only half a plan in mind.
The morning sun breaks as Cannibal pulls up to a red light, and re-reads his early morning text to the promoter, 'Can't make it tonight. I'll make it up to you somehow.'
He's never backed out of a show before, and he knows that he'll have to confront that fact soon, but right now, it doesn't seem to matter. He needs to see him. He cobbles his route out of headlines and news stories that he manages to search up between red lights and stop signs.
Where are they now? 6 Wrestlers Whose Careers Ended In Tragedy The Real Story of Ernie "The Eagle" Samson Former World Champion Contender in Hospice After 20-Year Battle
Cannibals mind races as single sentences fire out at him like shrapnel. He scrolls past his own names, both gimmick and government a few times over. He feels the rage, and tears form behind his eyes again.
You weren't the only one that lost your legacy that day, you prick.
After twenty years he knows these roads well. Well enough to cruise over to the hospice unassisted by a map, or GPS. He acknowledges his thoughts as his motions become routine.
Ernie Samson was poised to be the next big thing back before all the wrestling territories got swallowed up by the Big Guy in the corporate machine. He was a handsome bastard, and a city man with the strength of a farm boy. He could talk fear into the crowd without raising his voice, and he pulled women who didn't know and didn't care what he did for a nightly living. Cannibal hated him, but in a brotherly way that was steeped in admiration. Even in those times, Cannibal was more brutish and uglier than everyone in the locker room. It was a stroke of momentary genius when some otherwise dipshit promoter first suggested that they pair up. Some sort of beauty and brawn type gimmick. The monster and his mouthpiece.
And you know what? It worked. People ate that shit right up. Cannibal chewed through his opponents with ferocity, while Ernie dazzled the crowd with his mixture of strong style, flips, and tricks. They melted the imaginary territory perimeters and became shooting stars in every market they played. Men paid off their tabs at the bar, and Ernie was gracious enough to send some trim Cannibal's way every now and again. It was a nice system, comfortable even.
Then that dipshit promoter had another bright idea. The team was ready to break up.
The way he described it, they'd take all that heat they had amassed together, and cover double the ground. This storyline was a natural, mostly because it was real. What the promoter was saying, in his dickhead way, was that Cannibal had served his purpose. He'd put the real star in place for his meteoric rise. Cannibal looked at where his career was, and how far it had come, and he agreed. They'd go out in one final bloodbath of a match, and defeat their current rivals, The Maniacs. Then Cannibal would attack Ernie, severing their ties, and launching their individual careers. Cut, dry.
Right up until the end, that match stands in Cannibal's memory as his finest work. If he'd been vicious before, he was rabid in this match. The hits were real, the emotions were high, and the crowd invested in every last pectoral twitch. After nearly half an hour of slogging and bruising, Cannibal hit his finisher and covered his opponent to the tune of twenty-something-thousand screaming fans. As the three-count fell, the crowd hit a decibel that he'd never heard before. They were screaming so loud, that it almost dampened in volume, and became a whisper in his ears.
The Maniacs had done their jobs well, bloodying and bruising Cannibal and Ernie for a gruesome glamor shot that would make the following day's paper. That image, of Ernie raising Cannibal's arm before the inevitable turn, would haunt almost every article written about either of them from that day forward.
Soaked in the moment, and each other's blood, Ernie hoisted Cannibal's arm, and they spun the ring, facing every single fan in attendance. Normally you'd wait for a break in the volume before the next big moment, but this crowd had no intention of quieting down. They faced each other, and Ernie mouthed the words.
"You ready?"
To this day Cannibal doesn't exactly know what went wrong. First, he felt sadness. Then he felt anger. He realized that the cheers wouldn't end for Ernie, but there was a very real possibility that this was his own last big pop. He went ahead as planned. First with an absolutely brutal kick to the midsection, which softened Ernie's abs into dough. Ernie let out a real, dry cough as the crowd's cheers morphed into shock and confusion. Then he cranked his arms, clumsily, but with intensity. Ernie's arms were slick with blood, and Cannibal couldn't sink in his hooks correctly. His legs shot out gracelessly, and rather than hearing the cushioned thud of his own ass, all he heard was a sick, wet pop.
Cannibal notes that he is about one exit from the hospice, and shakes his head vigorously as if to erase his thoughts. The exit approaches, and he cuts in deftly. He is immediately greeted by a green, bustling town, in a decent Midwestern neighborhood.
He cruises toward the hospice, passing a few young couples, and their church-clothed children. Bells chime nearby, and a dog emits a medium-sized bark from a nearby public park.
Cannibal glances in his rear-view as he changes lanes. Ernie is seated behind the middle console, smirking, but with no joy in his eyes. Cannibal tries to scream, but can't.
With the wheel slightly angled for his turn, Cannibal cruises subtly across lanes, onto the sidewalk, then into the park.
The first few couples dive out of the way with synchronized, but inharmonious shrieks. A young man pushes his wife and child to the ground, and the driver's side front wheel crunches, and shatters his ankle. The next few people aren't so lucky.
A group of friends sprawled across a picnic blanket snap around toward the source of the commotion just in time to greet the Toyota Camry's fender. Cannibal's eyes dart between his windshield and the rearview where Ernie sits smirking. He sees a young woman snatched from his sight line and hears a gunshot of a pop as the back of her skull smacks against some concrete. Tears roll down Cannibal's face as he wills his arms, legs, or fucking anything to move. The litter of bodies test the car's shocks, as the wheels find their way over strange terrains of bone and flesh. Then, a street lamp.
Cannibal's forehead smacks against his wheel a millisecond before the airbags deploy. He flinches, and his arms twitch as the bag chafes his nose and brow. He has regained control of his movement, if only slightly. He kicks open the door but does not face the trail of mayhem that succumbed to his vehicle. Instead, he realizes that he is just one block away from the hospice. With the remaining screams a comfortable distance behind him, he half runs, half stumbles to the reception desk.
People react to Cannibal's arrival with appropriate confusion and terror. The butterfly stitches have ceased to hold, and a rigid pattern of blood trails him as he staggers across the linoleum tile.
"Sir, do you need help?"
"Samson. I need Ernie fucking Samson."
He peers over the desk and sees a directory of sorts, like a cheat sheet of hospice patients, and their assigned rooms. He leaks blood from his brow over the counter, and onto the sheet, and the seated receptionist recoils with disgust as he snatches and reads it.
Ernie Samson 211
Cannibal marches now on sturdy feet to the nearest stairwell. A small security guard attempts to stand in his way, but Cannibal dwarfs his face with his gigantic palm, and smashes it into the drywall behind him, eliciting a collective gasp from the lobby waiting room. He kicks open the stairwell door and drags himself up the single flight of stairs onto the landing. Then he kicks open the second door.
Nurses gasp and take a step back as he emerges from the stairwell, ferocity emblazoned across his face and written in his scar tissue. He observes the direction in which the numbered rooms flow and stomps toward Room 211.
Half a dozen people are stood outside the room, with hospital staff accounting for only two of them.
"Bradley?" an older woman asks, as Cannibal tears past her, and into the room.
Inside the room is a white sheet spread over a series of lumps on a lightly inclined bed. A young man is seated near the side of the bed where the railing has been temporarily removed. His eyes are bloodshot, and his cheeks are damp.
"Brad, what the fuck is-" he begins to say.
Cannibal lifts his leg and boots the man right off the green cushioned chair. Then he turns to the white lumps and tears the blanket off.
Ernie's face appears as it did in his back seat but without the rigid smirk. The muscles in his face are weak and sag as if they'd collapsed several years before his death. His dull eyes are still open, still staring at Cannibal.
"Ernie, you fucking prick," Cannibal starts, "You fucking prick, you get back here right now! You gonna fuck with me? You gonna fuck with me, Ernie? I fucking made you Ernie! We both fucking died that day!"
A small militia of security guards pour into the room, and it takes every last one of them to restrain Cannibal. He fights, and squirms as the fattest guard sits on the wide of his back, and pulls his arms. Cannibal thrashes and screams like an animal as he is restrained. He bashes his face into the tiled floor, leaving increasingly large spots of blood at the sight of impact. The fat guard applies some pressure to his hold, as small, wet pop emits from Cannibal's back.
There's no story here. No tale of the tape. Just a has-been wrestler in tomorrow's headlines, and a family mourning a loss that begun two decades prior. The crowd of mourners gasp and scream as all the fight leaves Cannibal's body at once. Then a woman breaks into sobs. She used to know Bradley Hughes. The real Cannibal. But nobody wants real.
They only think they do.

I was extremely bored one night and bad things tend to happen when there was nothing to keep me out of trouble. I found myself down a rabbit hole looking at old or interesting websites. I think I saw the Space Jam site still up like a small internet time capsule. Seeing that had been a bit of a trip down memory lane. Through clicking random links, I found a site claiming to be a monster blind dating site. I only saw it for a second and the entire thing went down before I got a good look at it. After digging for information about it I read that it could only be accessed at midnight. If you clicked on the link at 12:01, you may get a glance of it but then it would go down before you could fill out a dating profile.
I thought it was a cute little gimmick. There was no way it could be real. I mean, a monster dating site sounded like something my kid sister would read. But I kinda did want to see what the site looked like. The second it was up I saw a chunky mouse cursor and blocky sidebars that reminded me of what the internet looked like in the 90’s. I can still remember the dial-up tone and my Neopets username...
The next night I found myself counting down the seconds until midnight. I refreshed the page a second after the clock rolled over. An odd excitement came when I saw the site go live. It reeked of the early internet, and I loved it. The webpage didn’t lag and didn’t have any terrible design choices that made it impossible to read text or find links like real older sites.
I didn’t plan on filling out a dating profile. Just to look around. I had a countdown of 13 minutes and not much else to look at. The home page displayed a few dating profiles of monsters complete with grainy images making it hard to really see their features. All of them were booked up. When I refreshed the page a few of the profiles changed and at least two had some availability. When I clicked on them, they became booked up within a second.
Were other people on this site? Or was it just a script running in the background? Was this just a fun little joke or some sort of code for people to actually hire sex workers but in a discreet way? I thought I would never find out the answer.
Another option was to make your dating profile instead of trying to book a certain monster. It asked very basic questions and thankfully lacked a spot to fill out your credit card information. As a joke I filled out a fake profile and used my burner email address I made just for things like this. My time ran out and the site went down. At least I'd been fun while it lasted. I wanted to get a screenshot of it but when I did, the image was black. I didn’t find that strange, but I felt a little disappointed I didn’t have any proof of the odd website.
That was until my cellphone pinged showing I had a text. I read the message of dread coming to my stomach. This could not be right. It was from an unknown number saying a date was arranged at ten PM next Friday with a Google Street View image of a nearby street corner.
I tried to think of a way this joke site got my phone number. I was under a family plan, so my number wasn’t even under my own name if they somehow got my name from, what? Hacking my computer somehow? Did I click a bad link somewhere? My Anti-Virus was normally so good at protecting me from my own mistakes. Maybe I should stop being cheap and pay for a VPN. Just to be safe I deleted the message and blocked the number. I then did a massive password overhaul and a few virus scans that came up empty.
I kept an eye on my bank and emails to see if anyone tried getting into my accounts to have nothing happen in the next few days. I learned my less than just clicking random links and going on a sketchy site wasn’t worth it.
I also avoided the street corner for the rest of the week. I needed to take a long way home from work but refused to be anywhere near the place. I got worried about how they got my address. Did they really have my address or just a general location and send the text to freak me out? I couldn’t really do anything about it besides keeping my doors locked and an eye out for anything strange. The cops would laugh in my face if I brought this to them.
I fully planned on staying on Friday night. Best not to even be outside in case this wasn’t a prank pulled by someone with a bad sense of humor. But a friend of mine called me over requesting I bring him some soup from a restaurant down the street. Everything was within walking distance and my buddy was sick as hell. He didn’t want to pay the ten-dollar delivery fee, plus the tip when he could just ask me to do it and give me the tip instead. I put aside my fear and did him the favor to get him his damn broccoli and cheddar soup. He'd done a bunch of stuff for me in the past, so I needed to help him out.
On the way back from his place I kept my hands in my pockets and looked around expecting someone to be following me. It was Friday night and almost ten. The sun has long since set and the street empty of other people. I took the long way again, still refusing to go near that street corner. My pulse rose every time I heard a sound on my walk. Only two blocks to go from home and I relaxed a little. I felt silly letting that site get to me so badly.
From behind I heard some papers fluttering in the wind. Nothing strange about that so I didn’t turn around to look. If I did, I would have gotten a head start at running.
“Mr. Stevens...?”
A voice came from behind and I stopped dead in my tracks. The voice sounded paper thin and hard to hear over the other rustling sounds. I realized that papers could not be fluttering in the wind because there wasn’t a breeze. Slowly, I turned only my head, trying to see the source of the voice that called my name.
The street was lined with lamp posts. From between two posts, a shape came out of the darkness and into the same light I stood under. The thing is at least ten feet tall and long. The body was in constant motion and made of different-sized pieces of dark stained paper. I didn’t see any kind of arms or legs on the creature, instead, it appeared to float a few inches off the ground. I darted my eyes upwards to look at the face. A large scroll hung down from the forehead attached to a massive twisted golden horn. The paper covering most of the face had odd golden writing on it. Under the paper, I saw a pair of sunken dark eyes and a mouth that reached to each end of the face. The hair was also made up of those papers flowing outwards. They were covered with the same golden writing. We made eye contact, and a smile came that showed off countless needle-pointed teeth.
Yeah, no.
I booked it. I wasn’t going to deal with whatever this thing was. I ran down the block, my legs burning within seconds. I wished I stayed in shape. The thing following behind, easily keeping pace. The countless papers rustled with each movement and the damn thing started to laugh making my heart nearly stop from fear.
Laughter grew making my head get dizzy. The sound echoed off the empty road and sounded so clear, almost as if someone was clicking glasses together. My vision faded and I found myself running the wrong way. I should have taken a left to get home but I turned it right and towards a park. When I pulled through the brain fog, I didn’t have a chance to correct myself. If I turned around, I would run right into the creature chasing me.
I couldn’t keep up running for much longer. My face dripped with sweat, my face red from effort. I ducked inside some trees a part of the very small park thankful my city even had a park like this. I slammed into a tree, panting and listening for the monster. The laughter stopped and I didn’t hear the paper rustling again. Was I going crazy There is no way that thing was real. I shook my head trying to figure out what I should do. I pulled out my phone to call for help. Even if it wasn’t real, I needed someone to come down here to get me to a hospital to get my brain looked at.
I stood sweating and fear turning my body cold. My phone refused to turn on. I held down all the side buttons forcing the phone to restart. It came back on, but the screen showed a glowing golden symbol and not the photo of my baby sister as my lock screen. This simply could not be happening. I needed to find a person, a real person to help.
I looked up through the dark trees and saw some leaves that looked a bit strange. All at once, golden writing flickered on showing the outline of the monster wrapped around a tree staring in my direction. I let out a scream that in any other situation would be embarrassing. Blinded by fear I ran right into a tree, smashing my nose and causing it to bleed.
I ran again, mind blank. I had no thoughts but to just get the hell out of there. I spilled out from the trees and into the park. The play equipment was off in the distance, but no one was in sight. I also considered trying to hide in the plastic slide, or inside the worn-out hollow plastic dinosaur that had seen better days. My feet became tangled trying to race up the hill and I fell forward.
The papers were on me at once. I rolled on my back, looking up at the creature and directly at the face inches away from my own. The eyes glittered in twisted joy at my fear. I was mistaken about this thing not having any limbs. A set of arms came from under the papers to grab my own. The ice-cold skin made my entire body crawl. I kicked my feet, and more arms shot out. Soon I was pinned down to the hard ground with too many hands to count. The creature let out another ringing laugh that made me nearly pass out. I snapped back, when the thing flicked out a tongue to run it over my face, tasting the blood from my nose.
“I Do not normally kiss on the first date, but you are a precious little thing.” The monster spoke, the whispery voice causing my body to shake.
“D-date...?” I choked out, mind moving slowly.
Was that damn monster dating website real? I didn’t have a chance to really think about it. The face came down over my own, the flesh colder than anything else I’ve ever felt. The sheer cold hurt my skin. Second passed and the pain became bearable, and the icy feeling started to fade. The hands gripped tighter, bruising in some places. When the monster pulled away, I gasped for air, unable to do anything else. I looked up and did not like the look in that creature’s eyes. It looked starving. Mouth wide and twisted in an uneven smile with saliva starting to drip out of the corners of the mouth. The long tongue came out and licked it away, but it was a losing battle to keep its face clean. I started to worry this thing had other ideas for me besides tearing my organs out as a snack.
“You are such a darling creature. I cannot help myself. I do hope you forgive my forward nature.” The monster spoke, and the tone sounded as hungry as it looked.
I struggled again against those hands knowing I wouldn’t get free. To my horror, the papers fanned out and they all came down wrapping around my body and blacking out my vision. I assumed this was another way this monster could eat me and was thankful it was fairly painless.
I jumped awake, finding myself in my bed safe and sound. Well, not entirely sound. My body had hand-shaped bruises everywhere that monster grabbed me. I looked around stunned by the previous events. It was early in the morning, and I wore the same thing I did the night before. I even still had my shoes on. I heard pans moving coming from my small kitchen and smelled of cooking.
Slowly I started to leave the room holding a bowling trophy as a weapon. I really didn’t have anything else and thought the heavy base might do some damage. I didn’t get the jump on the one inside my kitchen. The person turned around from where they stood at the stove and gave such a wide and blinding smile it made my head stop working. They were tall with an androgynous body. They were wearing my clothing that didn’t fit on their frame. I’ve never seen someone with such a beautiful shade of dark skin. Every feature was perfect down to evenly arranged pulled-back long dreadlocks.
“I made you some breakfast. I can’t stay long. You need to buy more food, there isn’t much here. Do you need money? Hang on.”
My mind was still in shock leaving me unable to respond. I watched as the stranger placed some scrambled eggs on a plate and set them down on the counter. I didn’t own a table and just ate my computer desk. When the person stopped in front of me, I became so spellbound by their golden eyes that I didn’t even notice they took my weapon away and placed something in my hand. I shook my head to look down to see a small pile of glittering gold pellets in my hand. No, they had a shape I recognized and wanted to toss the gold when I saw they were human teeth of different sizes.
“I can turn things to gold. I had these just taking up space, so I made them useful. Get yourself something nice and don’t be late for our date next Friday. Although I don’t mind chasing you down. That was the most fun I’ve had in a while.”
I couldn't find my voice. I had a million questions. The first one was why they just had human teeth. With so many questions I found it impossible to pick one to speak. This person didn’t look like the monster from the night before. They didn’t look like a monster at all. When a quick kiss was placed against my cheek, and I felt the cold feeling all over again I knew who this creature was.
“I... What... date this Friday?” I croaked out stunned thoughts jumbled together.
“Oh, you are too much!”
Three more quick kisses were placed on my cheek and if it was anyone else, it would be a cute action. The monster drew away and then quickly headed towards the door, face shining with a smile.
“I normally eat my partners quickly, but I’ll keep you around for a bit. We’ll have a great time together until I can’t hold back.”
Without being able to stop them, the monster left through the front door with a wave. A second after it peeked a head through to add one more thing.
“My name is Guild!”
And then they were gone again leaving me standing in the middle of my kitchen with a handful of golden human teeth and the first breakfast someone had made for me since I was a child.
I put the teeth down first and ate the eggs with some issues. My stomach turned. Somehow, I’d gotten myself into a huge mess. I would need to keep seeing the nightmare of a monster for dates until it decided to eat me. My life is now to be decided by someone else. I quickly sent a text to my sister telling her I loved her in case Guild came right back for brunch. She was confused at the random message, but I figured it was long overdue.
The only upside to this entire nightmare I found myself in was Guild looked cute disguised as a human. And I suppose I didn’t have to worry about money either, but I didn’t want to ask Guild for gold fearing what I may be handed next. My new relationship started with hundreds of red flags I can’t do a damn thing about.
Do me a favor and if you do come across a monster dating website, don’t humor it. I wish I never made that mistake. Just don’t go clicking on random links online. You’ll never really know where it might take you and what kind of horrible outcome it may have on your life.

For Pawther's Day I'd like for Gojo to paint a little picture for his Pawther's new office (he's getting a promotion with an office and we are super proud of him!) I know I can put pain on a canvas inside a plastic bag & then Churu on the bag and he will thus lick his way, spreading the paint. To me that doesn't leave paw prints or anything else like that. Sphynx have the really distinct beans and I just thought it would be nice but idk of any cat safe paints. Does anyone know of any? Or should I just stick with the paint, plastic bag and Churu? Thanks!