Thermometer anger

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Hello everyone, I am a 22/F and work at an early childhood education center. The place I work at is privately owned by a man, but is a corporation, if that makes sense. There have been a lot of issues since working here. First off, they encourage sick children and workers to come here. If one of my kids is throwing up, running a fever, or obviously very ill, they do not make them go home. They just tell us to give the parents a courtesy call and let them know the child does not have to go home. For workers, they do not let us go home if we get sick at work. We have a stomach bug going around and 3 of my coworkers are vomiting in the classroom bathrooms or trash cans. Our directors will not let them go home because they are fever free. One time, I was running a 102.8°F temperature and vomiting. I sent them a picture of the thermometer and said I would not make it in as I was sick. They responded saying they were understaffed and needed me to come in or it could possibly result in a write up. I got a doctor’s note so they couldn’t write me up. I was out a few days. The issue is, not everyone here has a backbone and they come to work sick when the directors tell them they can’t call off. There is always something going around at work. There was another time I contracted hand foot and mouth disease. I saw the doctor on my lunch break and confirmed it. I went to my boss’s office after my break, gave her my doctor’s note and let her know I had to go home as I was contagious. She said no and made me stay the whole day. I did not know how to advocate for myself. They would not let me go. This is a major issue here. Everyone here is always sick because of it. I’m sick at least once a month. I am sick today and my boss went off on me stating that people calling off here has become normal and she is tired of it. She told me she feels like I don’t even want to be here and that I am faking sick to get out of work. She told me if I stay home today, regardless of a doctor’s note, she will write me up and I am at risk for being fired. Every time I’ve been sick I have provided a doctor’s note. I have never not provided one. My call outs have always been valid. If I am not contagious, I am here. I am here today despite being in pain and contagious, though. Another example, 4 months ago, a 13 month old girl went to the doctor. She tested positive for RSV and came back. The mother said the doctor said she needs to be out until she is fever free, but she works here and had no one to take her child, so her and her child were here. The whole school broke out in RSV, and one girl was hospitalized for a few days.
Another issue is the directors play favoritism. The directors and 9 of the teachers here always go out and party together. All of their kids are best friends. The directors let these teachers they are besties with get away with anything and everything. It took one of them smoking weed in the bathroom to get fired, despite neglecting kids. I went into her class once and her kids had not had diaper changes in 5 hours. One of the kids’ diaper was split in half. Parents were complaining about their kids having severe diaper rashes. She would also scream in their faces and chase them with a hose outside. Again, it took her smoking weed in the bathroom to get fired. But I’m at risk for being fired because I get sick a lot. I was never sick a lot before working here, by the way.
They are also really rude with the way they talk to people. One of the teachers was concerned because we were out of ratio so she called the director asking for help. The director came outside and yelled at her, saying she knows ratio and knows how to do her job and does not need help because she’s been doing it for years. Also, this school is never following QA unless QA is here.
There is probably more I’m not even thinking about right now that has happened. There is more I didn’t mention just because this is already so long. I’m just stumped at what to do, who to call? Do I just quit? I’ve been here a little over a year and I’m tired of it.
We also signed contracts stating that we have to give 60 days notice before quitting, or they can keep our last paycheck due to trauma from lack of staffing. They said they can even ask us to give more money than the last paycheck if deemed necessary. These contracts, to my knowledge, aren’t actually legal contracts since they aren’t notarized.
Edit: Another teacher got fired today. One of the directors best friends. She should’ve been fired a long time ago and only was today because a parent saw it. She would threaten to punch kids in the face and call them stupid. She finally injured a kid because she couldn’t control her anger. She gave the kid a bloody nose. This kid would’ve never been hurt and traumatized if this teacher was fired a long time ago. They told her, “you can come back tomorrow and act like nothing happened and see if the parent takes it to DCFS, or you can stay home. If you stay home, we will consider you terminated and file a report with DCFS.” So they gave her the option to either be fired or not….. She fired herself.

My name is Joey. I’m 24 now and I believe it’s time I share something that's been haunting me for the last 7 years. Things have just gotten to the point I can’t handle it by myself anymore. I need closure. Obviously you read the title in my post here. That I found a journal years ago. Before I get ahead of myself I need to start from the beginning and what's been going on.
I remember when I was a dumb 17 year old kid, long hair and boisterous. I worked at an Arby’s at the time as a manager, this boosted my confidence making a sweet 8.15$ a hour back in 2017. I was also obsessed with the occult and abandoned building hunting. This fit my personality at the time as a rebellious teen making “tons of cash” and the thoughts of being oppressed fresh in my head. However, I still couldn’t afford a car even with “all the money” I had. I was adventurous with my friends nonetheless. One of my closest friends at the time, Austin, was the only one with a car between the 4 of us. Austin, Michael, Ben, and me. We had promised not to talk about it or what we found. With summer coming up and us going into senior territory next year this meant this was the last summer we would enjoy before adulthood. We had to make the most of it this year. I never realized just how memorable those moments would be.
The idea started at one of our classic boy sleepovers. Snacks, video games and the occasional chat about girls or what the Game of the Year will be this time around. Michael was the first to bring up an idea of us going up to a place abandoned he saw while his family was driving through a town up north on the I-15. It has been slightly destroyed with graffiti / outside damage and mostly left abandoned. Michael had said something about it looking like some vagrants had made it their home. Ben, his brother, had confirmed Michaels statements with nothing but a quick smirk and head nod. Vagrants weren’t something we feared as its pretty common place when exploring these places. A quick just looking around usually calmed their minds and they’d leave us alone. Austin usually had a pocket knife or butterfly blade on him, which we found cool at the time but in reality it was probably a way to make him look better for not having a complex personality. He really didn’t need the knife due to the size of him. He was nearly 6 feet tall and a larger guy around 200 something pounds.
Ben had some words while we were chatting about the location and what to do if there were vagrants around. “I mean, I really don’t know if this is something we can do in a day. Even though it was far away, I'm pretty sure it was a 2 or 3 story building.”
“Stop being a little bitch Ben” Michael said afterward.
“I’m just saying…asshole” Ben retorted.
“Dude’s stop bitching and we’ll figure it out when we get there. It’s like an hour and half away and if we leave after lunch we can have most of the day to check it out and see what we can find!” I said after all their bickering. This was the last thing said before we all solidified the plan. Austin always looked like he had something to say but he never did. Instead we assured him we’d pay for dinner and some gas. The next day was spent preparing and getting ready for August 17th, a Wednesday. We took snacks, chips ahoy and potato chips. Waters and some rope. I was the only one that was agile enough to climb and lift myself over ledges and such. This was another boost in my otherwise confident self. It always meant I was first however. This never failed to make me nervous as I had a light fear of the dark. Though the last things we packed were some sleeping bags and blankets just in case what Ben said was true and we’d have to spend the night there. The rest of that night was us talking and playing games. The next night was our adventure of course.
The morning light hit my face from the floor of Michaels room and my joy was unbreakable. I woke all the guys up like a kid excited for christmas morning. They all rolled out of bed and they all began to get ready and showered while I moved quickly to get things into Austin’s car trunk. After about an hour or two I managed to get everything into the car trunk as the guys barely started to pile in. “Dude you haven’t eaten anything yet, you sure you’re ready to go? Need a protein bar or something?” Austin asked me, giving me a look of concern. Something I knew all too well as he was the dad figure of the group. I remember only nodding as I hopped in the back with Ben. Michael always took the front seat shotgun. We never really know why he needed it so badly, he would fight us if Ben or me ever sat there first. We chalked it up to him just being an idiot. The drive was long and boredom set in quick as we started. We stopped at some random Burger King and got some mediocre nuggets and burgers before we hit our destination a half hour later. This was something even today I still miss having. The monotone lull of calm as we drove miles together as brothers more than friends. Low quality music playing in the background relaxing before a big adventure. Haven’t had another since then.
“Yo guys! We’re here.” Austin shouted from the front in a sort of slightly shaky voice.
“Finally, I’ve been so fucking bored since we left.” Michael said with some eagerness in his voice.
“What do you think is inside? Obviously besides the homeless dudes.” Ben said with a devious smirk on his face. Just poking fun at us seeing if Austin would cringe in fear. To which he winced slightly. Never being a fan of confrontation with them.
After we arrived on the highway I-15 we saw what looked like a broken 3 story home. Some notable graffiti and damage was just as Michael and Ben described. This time around the vagrants weren’t either noticeable or at the residence when we got there. It looked like a mansion in size as we approached from the locked car we left on the highway. Large flowering grasses riddled the land around the home. The Utah mountains in clear view with a small pond to the right of the mansion. The closer we got, the more grand the building was. Intricate designs engraved in the wood of the front porch were whittled away by the wind and elements. As we approached the front porch however, we saw something we never expected. It was clean compared to the rest of it. We were so used to cobwebs and satanic graffiti around the outside like what we saw before. Just some basic looking spray paints names on the outside. “Doctor is in” was one in particular we saw and joked about. Other ones we saw on the way in were “Charley X Marley”, “Cher”, “Mikey”. Again, just names lost to time with their memory forever painted on the side of a building. Of course once inside it was nothing like the outside. The outdoors being broken down and shoddy in appearance.The inside was pristine. As if someone had upkeep on the building inside. Immediately the Mormon in Austin yelled out “Guys are we in somebody's house right now? I think we should leave before someone gets home or calls the cops.”
“Dude, nobody lives here. My dad checked online with the housing association stuff. You know the thing with him selling houses and stuff. Said no one lived here and the water, gas and electric have been shut off for like 100 years or something. History wise my dad said that the last guy to live here was a high class loser. Died in 1930 something. So no, dumbass, no one lives here.” Michael said this with a mean gaze towards Austin almost condescending. “Now let's check out the back. I really wanna see that pond.” He finished telling the group.
What we saw was fairly gross. A couple dead geese in the pool that had rotted long ago. Making the water turn a disgusting brown and green mixture. The pond was covered in large vines and the stench of death. As we approached we saw nothing but groups of rat, geese and cat bones surrounding the area. Scattered around like somebody was throwing them around. Seeing what abomination could be created by doing so. We only stood there for a small while before coming back inside. Ben and Austin made audible disgust upon coming back in. As soon as our feet touched the floor we heard footsteps run up the stairs. We all jumped only to be calm within seconds. “Probably that homeless dude we saw earlier.” Ben stated as we all began to head up to approach them. We were all silent as we got up to the 2nd floor. Oddly we didn’t find one on the second floor despite the immediate climb after the footsteps were heard.
The second floor felt off. It was blacked out. We quickly flashed our phone lights and found the floor covered in the area we expected. Cans, bags, chalk drawings, trash and spray paints scattered about. The final thing we saw on the second floor I personally found. Something I'd regret in my later years. A simple locked notebook about the size of an average book with damage to its face and back. Having some chain from face to back. Most likely a lock that was lost to time. No writing was found on either side. “Nice! You think we can sell it to the museum or something?” Ben said. The moment he said this it scared me shitless as I wasn’t prepared for sounds to be made.
“Dude! Fuck you. You scared the absolute shit outta me. Austin, Michael, you wanna go see if that guy is upstairs?” I said as I stood there inspecting the book. They simply looked at me and flipped me off in tandem. I put the book away and stuck it inside my ripped jean pocket. We headed up to the 3rd floor but were met with a door. Surprisingly the door was fairly intact. So much so that even the lock worked. “Motherf-ugh. They locked themselves in.” I knocked hard. “Hey asshole, we're not here to take your house. We just wanna explore.” After about 2 minutes of no reply the door unlocked. I ended up opening the door almost immediately “Thanks dude. We don’t wanna intrude. We’re just adventurous. That was really cool of y-” Before I could finish my sentence the room was completely empty. My brothers were just as silent. The room on the 3rd floor was bright due to the hole we saw earlier in the roof portion of the house. By this time it had been somewhere around 5 PM MST. We happened to stop in the middle of the room as Austin whipped out the knife in case someone were to jump out. “Ok dude. If you happened to hide somewhere like the closet please don’t jump out, we don't wanna hurt you or something.” I was almost screaming this but tried to keep my composure with my voice. So my brothers wouldn’t feel scared. I was sure they were.
Austin crept around the closet with Ben and me as we were prepared to jump if someone attacked. He flew the doors open and as we were ready to jump and grab someone we saw a chute instead. We were more terrified of this than if we just found the person inside. Michael came over and threw a rock he took from the pond area and watched as it fell for what seemed like a few minutes. It was more than 3 floors high for sure. Ben walked off at this point and locked the door so no one could get in. Afterward we started to search the room long into the night. After this Ben was the one to find a key. It didn’t fit any locks or anything from the remaining furnishings and dressers. He kept it in his pocket until later.
Reluctantly we knew we had to get back to the car to at least get our stuff or drive off and go to sleep. All of us talked about renting a motel and coming back the next day. Michael, Austin and Ben were of similar mind so we went to a motel 8. The front desk guy couldn’t have been much older than us. He never even checked id’s or anything. That night we all looked inside the notebook. However the first thing we noticed was that it had a note card glued to the 1st page. We carefully tore it off but we did end up ripping a bit off the 1st page. Opening this was probably the first thing that sparked my unhealthy habit of wanting to search the rest of the house.
“To my love, Dr. Prestine. I can’t feel my legs anymore since the last time we met in your basement. Your love has done so much to improve my life and you send shocks through my body with the way you touch me. I can’t move forward without your love. I know you’re leaving by tomorrow. This is my last letter to you! Please take me with you! I love you and I can’t see you finally leaving this place. After taking care of me for so many years. - Love Evie”
This was something I found amazing! My brothers however, couldn’t give two shits. They fell asleep soon after the reading as we promised each other to see more in the morning. Especially this suspicious basement in the note and the chute. The homeless person we saw sure would leave after the first of daylight. I kept reading all into the night. I could tell Austin was annoyed as we shared the floor of the motel together. The next few pages of the notebook were fantastical and romantic. They ended abruptly. The 1st page we ripped a bit we pieced together early and said something odd to say the least.
“May 19th 1930. Today I purchased this lock and key book to detail my final days. Pneumonia. My father sent over a Doctor to come help me. Father said he met him around the town selling some medicinal herbs from far up north in Oregon. He should be here soon but I don’t believe he can help me. My body is too far gone and everything hurts. The coughing and the blood seem never ending.” The page had already sent me into a heart ache immediately. It could've been the fact that she signed her name and age into the inside of the face. “Evie Jonstan 15” or maybe it was the pain she wrote about. The Page after was a bit afterward but a good read.
“July 2nd 1930. The Doctor has been here for a couple months and the miracle of life has blessed me. In our basement he took me and gave me an elixir that cured me in 2 days. I felt so much better! Only thing I can’t understand is why father makes him watch me overnight. It feels unnecessary now that I'm better. The Doctor must have some love for me. His care is around the clock. The way he stares at me makes my heart skip a beat. I might enjoy the time we have together until its his time to leave.” This entry made me feel odd but understanding of the situation. There's some smaller entries within the first page detailing why she was in the home alone in the first place. “April 13th 1930. Father put me here so I couldn't infect my sister.” These simple lines are usually unnecessary but the first entry sent me. Something sad. I couldn’t imagine being the age I am now, alone. Nothing but the wind as a friend. That would haunt me at night and would be lonely beyond anything I could ever imagine. She must’ve gone through so much pain both emotionally and physically. The 3rd page only brought me in more so.
“January 1st. 1931. You’ve been with me close to 8 months. I’ve been pretending to be sick the whole time. By placing the thermometer under the lamp at night and using salt water as fake sweat. Painting on some paleness for more effects. I’m assured that father would feel so appreciative that you’ve kept me happy. The basement treatments have been more odd but he must love me. He puts me to sleep to get more and more done to fix me! Sometimes I wake up and I hurt. But I would stay doing this everyday just to keep you here to take care of me. If only I could tell you how I feel. The idea of you leaving eventually gives me anxiety and pain.” How could I read this and not feel something drop inside me. It was at this point a fear began taking over as she began to hold him hostage by omission. Staying “sick” to keep someone there, just so you’re not lonely. I still couldn’t blame them as if I were in their shoes I might do the same. This story only got stranger as I realized a few pages were torn out. It was at this point I read one more page and noticed that it was the last in the series.
“December 25th 1936. Yesterday you took me into the basement for our last time. I;ve been touched by you for the last 6 years. Love has truly touched my heart. I’ll be writing a letter to confess my love. Merry Christmas my love. The basement has been the happiest time of my life. Although the sleeping agent gets longer and longer. I know you must be giving me love so that you don’t hurt me when you leave. I see the marks you leave everytime and I think of them all the time I haven't been able to see for some time. You told me it was the medication but you leave my eyes bandaged. I can’t wait for the surprise you promised me! I can’t feel my legs so it must also be part of the effects. My face I'll bring up to you tomorrow. As it feels odd. Numb? Ever since you took my mirror I've been patiently awaiting the reveal you have ready for me. You must have something huge for our anniversary coming. Perhaps that new nose we’d talked about from before. I’m so excited. I love you so much Dr!” This final entry made me pale. What had this Doctor been doing? It was extremely late by this time. My brothers beside me are completely asleep. I stayed awake that night until they got up to go back to the house. I needed to know what happened.
The next day my eyes were sunken. I felt my head move on a swivel every everytime we stopped. But the adventurer inside of me had to know about the basement. As we made our way inside the room felt odd. We all felt the hair on our arms stick up. Austin pulled out his knife immediately. Michael, Ben and I looked around the building and after getting to the stairs. We saw a shadow run up to the second floor. We left it alone this time and heard the sliding of a person down a metal slide. It sent a shudder down our spines. Much of this time we spent inside the group had been silent. Scared to death. Not soon after we found the door to the basement. Boarded heavily. We found it and my body felt sick. We all looked at one another and wondered. How this homeless person got up and down the 90 degree slide. Even the thought of them crawling back up made us all want to run. I somehow managed to convince the group we have numbers. Compared to one of them. We started pretty easily tearing it down. The wood had been rotted for some time. I opened the door and a stench of rot flooded our nostrils.
“I’m gonna fucking puke dude. I’m pretty sure these motherfuckers have been shitting in here.” Austin blurted out unexpectedly.
“Yeah Joey this is just disgusting I think we should leave before we get too far.” Ben said and honestly I should’ve listened. Because I again convinced them to move forward so we could be done and maybe find the rest of the pages. I also assured them early on before we left if we got the rest we might make some money from the discovery.
“Look guys lets just find this guy or whatever the fuck animal this could be and just look around for the pages.” It was then something shook me to my core unfortunately. It was heard in the middle of the room underneath a surgeon's table placed crookedly.
“Give it back…” The voice of an elderly woman echoed through the foul smelling basement. Our flashlights shone through the darkness to reveal jars and vials filled with clotted blood and molds. To our surprise no fecal matter or vomit had been seen. Just clotted moldy blood vials broken and splattered throughout the room. It was then as we shot multiple beams around we saw her. An elderly woman, her face completely disfigured. Her eyes were gone alongside her nose. Her mouth is elongated by slits from each corner from ear to ear held together by loose stitching. Her legs were unsightly. Rotted away. Bones were peeking out from them like they’ve been mistreated and gone for so long. Her arms looked frail but the most disgusting was the two extra appendages attached by the elbow. Moving like they were second nature. From this split second of sight Ben and Michael vomited on the floor and ran.
Austin and I were frozen. Stuck in place and by this time she spoke again in a strange painful rasp “Give it back you fucking filth…” Her breathing became heavy and she began to bleed through the stitching on her mouth. Austin grabbed me hard, So hard I had bruises for weeks. The last thing I remember I threw the journal to her and tried saying her name
“Evie?” The elderly woman looked at me and through the crinkle of her face showed me nothing but anger. She ran towards Austin and me. He stood in front of me and jabbed at the woman. We ran and only heard screaming from within. He left the knife and never turned back. Soon the screaming stopped once we left. I am sure she had died. Me and my group left at such speeds we eventually got pulled over by an officer on I-15. Austin's first ticket. We left after but I could tell the Officer was intrigued by the ghost white teenagers he had pulled over. He asked if we were ok and was sure he followed us back to Michaels house. Our stomachs and eyes were peeled for the next week. Austin was never the same. He became more outgoing and unhinged. He seemed to leave his innocence behind. I don’t think he’ll ever get over the possibility he killed that woman. Michael and Ben weren’t around enough to know what we did. They still can’t ever look at those abandoned places without feeling violently ill. I, however, went back in 2018. I couldn’t find the body or the blood. She wasn’t inside although I looked and poked around. Ben gave me the key the year prior and I kept it. I checked the basement after I began my extensive search and found not only the now bloodied notebook but a drawer that the key fit.The only page that was found inside was horrific. A lost ending page that I have to share with all of you.
“February 15th 1937. Dr.Prestine you brought me flowers. You told me how much you cared about me. I never got to give you my final note. The smell made me feel free. You’ll never leave me again. Our love was forged by God himself. You still insisted that you would leave. I had kept convincing you to stay since Christmas. You told me you’d be back. I found something in our basement that made me upset. A set of underwear. It wasn’t mine. It hurt me a lot Charles. But you won’t leave me. I felt sad to use the basement on you. I turned the valve off when you were going to put me to sleep again. I think I did well. Without my eyes or legs it made it difficult. I know you were upset with me after you woke up. Soon you calmed down and didn’t say much after. It made me sad to know you sleep so much after my surgery with you.
March 22nd 1937. I can’t find the town on my own even though I’m off the medication you had for me. I’ve been cleaning while you sleep. I’ve gotten good at hunting. I hear the animals really well. Some are easier than others. The geese that sleep on the pond have been absolutely delicious! Of course for another night you refused to eat! You’re so silly dear. I love you though. You needed a shower for a while. So I gave you one and you were so hard to move. I washed you but you were running through the mud. So much gunk fell off from you. I put you back in the room and we slept together again. You were so much colder than I was. So I knew you needed my warmth. I love you. I’ve been doing so well. I love you so much my husband. Charles you’ve become my whole world. I wish you were more talkative like before when you’d stand at the foot of my bed and tell me how good I made you feel. I love you Charles.
August 17th 2000. Some robbers came into our dream home. I tried to scare them into leaving but they said they only wanted to explore. I don’t believe them. I kept them running around. They left after searching and tearing our room apart. I was so scared. Charles I knew I had to take care of you. Nothing can separate us. They never checked the bathroom on the second floor where I hid you. The hunting grounds had been disturbed and all of our stuff has been scattered around. I kept this paper and pen in the drawer to write the final days. My heart is becoming tired. Charles It's been so long since you touched me. I’m terrified. The day was spent getting the basement ready for them to come back. Everything was so scrambled and I was so scared. My heart almost couldn’t take it. I will always protect you Charles.
August 18th 2000. The burglars came back. I think they’re here to steal our valuables. They already took my notebook! Charles I can’t believe it. Those hooligans! They’ve taken so much already without ever giving us a break. Let us go back to our quiet life. Charles I love you and I’ll make sure we're safe. They’ll be sorry if they enter our sanctuary in the basement. I’ll make sure they leave.If I have to kill them to save our livelihood I will.
This is it. I really hurt charles. They got me. I love yo charles. I lov you charles. I will cleen and get things redy chelys. Cold. I’m coming to bed charles.”
The last segment bothered me the most. After reading it I left immediately and never came back.It ran my blood cold for years.
“I love you sweetheart. Don’t worry about cleaning up Evie. I left this note for the burglars when they made it back. You should’ve seen Evie before my treatments. She was gorgeous. You could never understand our love. If you need to know where the last pages are. Check the restroom on the second floor. Come find us. I know you’ve been curious. I love you too, stranger. Come see us in the second floor bathroom.”
My curiosity was no longer there. I left and no longer went back. The house was clean. The smell of rot reeked heavily from upstairs. A small puddle started to bubble from the ceiling in the kitchen which I passed to get to the basement. I had no questions about what it could be. I had to tell this story. My brothers Michael, Ben and Austin never speak about what happened that day. Nor do I blame them. Ever since I went back I felt something more sad and horrific. These people were delusional. The Dr. and Evie were forever locked in this house. Did their love come from the Doctor's horrible experiments over countless years or Evies tragic ending where she herself took Charles' ability to leave. This was truly a painful thing to see. Yet somehow beautiful. My mind needs to post this for closure reasons. It’s been 6 years. I’m married. Have 2 cats and have a thriving business! Yet this experience took my sleep away for years. The haunting image of this old woman Evie’s body has forever burned into me. I stay awake at night and tell my wife random bullshit excuses. She has no idea that this happened. If she happens to find it she can read it. Before questions I have to apologize. The Notebook was given to the local Lehi museum and after giving it they never gave us money. They probably threw it out by now. The pictures I had on my Iphone have been lost for a long time. I transferred phones years ago and unfortunately never kept the sim card. I had this written out for years just as a draft. I hope you can forgive me. I can only hope you believe me as well.

Part 1
https://www.reddit.com/nosleep/comments/16hw52t/i_worked_as_an_iceroad_trucker_in_russia_along/
Part 2
https://www.reddit.com/nosleep/comments/16k0p69/i_worked_as_an_iceroad_trucker_in_russia_along/
While conditions seemed bad right now, with the truck stuck like it was, I gave thanks that at least the engine started without issue. At times, it got so cold in Siberia that the engines would fail to start. The temperature had started to increase, however, and outside the wind had died down. The snow had stopped, and looking at the thermometer I kept on the outside of the truck, I saw that it was “only” -5 degrees Fahrenheit now. I cursed, putting on many layers while I sat in the truck’s driver seat, the little girl sitting between me and Yakov on an empty bucket she had turned upside-down. She didn’t seem affected by the cold at all. She had probably grown up in far worse.
“What are you doing?” the girl said with widening eyes, watching me. I looked at her, shaking my head.
“Obviously, we have to go get your sister,” I said.
“No!” she said. “I’m not going back there! Never! I will never go back to that place!” She started to cry. “The legs… the fence… the ovens… the cages… you have no idea how horrible it is!”
“Calm down,” I said. “You have to lead us back towards the hut. You probably won’t have to go in. We just need to get your sister and come back, then we can leave. What’s your name?”
“Irina,” she said.
“That’s a very pretty name,” Yakov said. “My name is Yakov, and this is Nikolai. We’re the good guys. We can fight off that witch and bring your sister home. If we do nothing, your sister will die. You know that.” Irina nodded, wiping her eyes. Bundled up in her layers of clothing with a fur jacket on the outside, she looked almost like a little eskimo sitting here in my truck. I repressed the crazy urge to laugh at the image, remembering what was happening.
“Let’s do this,” I said, getting out of the truck. I grabbed more ammo from the glovebox, and saw Yakov grabbing some bullets from the satchel of random goods he carried around with him in a leather skin. He left the rest of his possessions in the truck, folding the leather carefully back over them and tying it with a cord.
It felt eerie, like the dawn before a major battle. I had goosebumps all over my body, and not just from the cold. The idea of going up against an infamous witch, an ogress, a child-eating monster- well, it didn’t raise my confidence. Though this happened years ago, I still remember that terrible feeling- as if everything had been leading up to this point, and now everything stood still, watching.
I had heard legends of Baba Yaga growing up, how Satan had taken twelve women who were murderers and criminals, thrown their bodies in a pot together, mixed it up- and out came Baba Yaga. Of course, I scoffed at such myths now that I was older. But seeing her there had made me question many things.
Irina went out first, not minding the cold at all, her breath coming out in steamy plumes. Yakov and I had flashlights from the truck, jumping down behind her. Their light came out dimly, but it gave enough lumination on the white snow to see. The clouds had started to part, and the Moon had come out in the sky, looking down on us like a single blind eye- like the cataract-ridden eye of Baba Yaga I had seen earlier.
As we started walking across the M56 and into the woods, that shrill, gurgling shriek came ringing out again. I knew Baba Yaga was close, likely even watching us. She might attack at any moment.
We walked further down the trail, a winding deer trail only a couple feet wide, with branches that would smack me in the face and rocks to trip over every few steps. Just as I turned to Yakov to say that we may have lost her, she attacked.
I saw a blur, then an intense pain in my side as she tackled me, knocking me quickly to the snowy ground. I kept a death-grip on my gun, smacking my head against a tree trunk- and the world went white. I drifted in and out of consciousness for a few moments, or perhaps it was longer. Time got strange. As if from a great distance, I heard gunshots and more screaming- then my vision started to return, and I focused.
I saw Yakov crouched on the ground, holding his left hand tightly. I saw a fountain of blood running over his gloves, staining the snow in strange droplets and splotches, like a Rorschach inkblot made by a serial killer.
I tried to sit up, but a lightning bolt of pain seared my brain. I groaned, raising my hand to my head. I felt something sticky on my scalp, and pulling my hand back, I saw it covered in blood. It felt warm and wet, running down from the right side of my scalp and showing no signs of slowing. I felt nauseated and weak for a second, seeing all that blood, how it stained my clothes and the snow below me. I took a few deep breaths, in and out, slowly concentrating and steadying myself. My hand still trembled, and my legs felt like jelly as I tried to stand, but I leaned against the tree and let the waves of weakness and nausea pass by.
Yakov wasn’t doing much better. He was hyperventilating, staring in shock at his spurting hand. His left thumb looked like it was mostly or entirely gone.
“We’ve… got to put pressure…” I said slowly, gulping air. “...on the wound. And ice and snow.” I began to tear a strip from one of my shirts, then walked slowly over to Yakov on unsteady legs. I looked into his eyes. They looked dark and tortured, and he quickly looked away, tears forming in his eyes from the shock and pain. Irina sat next to him on a log, and she watched in horror, looking away whenever she noticed the blood.
“Let’s do this,” I said. “Ready?” He nodded weakly. I pulled the strip of cloth around the hole where his thumb used to, running it around his hand in circles, tightening it. He screamed. I gave him a piece of wood to bite down on, and pulled it even tighter. I saw teeth marks forming deep in the wood, a solid branch one inch in diameter I had snapped in half. His breath came in and out so fast, I thought for sure he would pass out. But he kept with me. Soon I had pressure on the wound, and the bleeding had slowed considerably.
I repeated the process with my head, wrapping more strips of cloth around the bloody scalp wound and pulling. I gritted my teeth, but the pain wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought, except for the crushing migraine. More than anything, I just felt weak, and waves of nausea kept assailing me. Splotches would rise in my vision, black dots that seemed to precede passing out, but I would sit down quickly and, after a few minutes, I had regained most of my strength.
“Let’s keep going,” I said weakly. Irina stood next to Yakov, looking petrified.
“I don’t want to go,” Irina said stubbornly. “Please don’t make me go.”
“Irina,” I sighed. “Your sister might die if we turn around. We have no choice.”
“I’m too scared,” she said. “You have no idea how bad it is there. You can’t imagine.” But after a few minutes of convincing, she continued to lead us- a ragtag group of injured men and a child, limping through the thick snow in the freezing cold.
We walked for an hour in silence, the little girl following her tracks, looking for landmarks she had passed when she had escaped the first time. She had grown up in the woods, most likely, and her family must have taught her much. I was worried about freezing to death, but then I started to notice my body growing warmer. I thought, perhaps, it was simply the first sign of hypothermia.
And yet, as we walked, I noticed changes in the forest. It actually had gotten warmer; it wasn’t just in my mind. Soon the snow had all gone. I looked around and noticed the trees were all dead, their naked arms extending up to the sky. I had to take off a jacket, then a sweater too. I saw the others doing the same, sweating as it warmed up. A fog began to roll in, covering the whole area.
“This is the space between the world of the living and the dead,” Irina said in her sweet child’s voice. It made the statement all the more horrible. “The hut is near here. This is the border of her home.” Through the mist, I swore I could see faces appearing and disappearing, the horror-stricken visages of children and eternally grinning skulls.
Soon, we came to a clearing. All the trees stopped in a large circle, a few hundred feet in diameter. In horror, I looked at what lay beyond.
A fence surrounded the property, made of children’s bones. It extended high up, at least twenty feet, countless arm and leg bones stacked one on another, bound together with twine and braced with more bones attached vertically against the others. I saw no gaps bigger than an inch, and no way to climb it. Looking at the top, I saw pieces of sharpened bones sticking up, like some razor wire from Hell. Irina shook at my side, and she grasped my hand suddenly, her small body exuding a strength that seemed beyond her physical abilities. I smiled down at her, smoothing her long, black hair with my right hand. I felt almost entirely recovered from my earlier concussion, though my head still pounded in time with the beat of my heart. I wished I had brought some aspirin.
“How do we get in?” Irina asked, taking off another sweater and hanging it over her shoulder. I had absolutely no idea.
“Let’s look around,” I said. We began to circle the fence, walking along the circumference of the clearing. I could see a hut beyond through the small gaps.
After a minute, we came to the gate. It stood twenty-feet-tall, like the rest of the fence, and would be almost impossible to scale. Unlike the rest of the fence, the gate had been fashioned entirely from skulls. I saw all the small skulls stacked one on top of another. As I imagined how many children had died to build just this macabre gate, a feeling of sickness and dread washed over me.
Sticking out of the front of it, in the exact center, I saw a larger skull. It looked like that of a man. In its open mouth, I saw a silver keyhole. In anger, I tried shaking the gate- and it came swinging open, totally silent.
“It’s open,” Yakov said, amazed. I looked at him.
“This feels like a trap,” I said. He nodded. Irina hid behind Yakov now, not wanting to look at the eternally grinning skulls stacked in front of her, bound together with some sort of invisible glue.
I looked through the gate at the hut beyond. My breath caught in my throat.
It stood on two massive legs. The feet looked like those of a chicken, but the legs loomed ten feet above the ground, where they somehow attached to the hut, holding it up suspended in the air. They were skeletal, all the flesh and muscle long ago wasted away.
“Are those chicken legs?” Yakov asked, his voice low. I felt eyes on me. I looked back into the forest, but I saw no one.
“Who the hell knows?” I asked. “But where do you get a chicken that’s the size of an elephant? Or bigger?”
“From Hell?” he asked. I laughed.
“You think they have massive chickens in Hell, just going around pecking at the Hell grains?” I said. He smiled.
“I don’t know, and I don’t want to find out. Let’s do this.” We began to walk forwards into the clearing. I could see the circular hut more clearly now. An inner light burned, sending out a fiery, red glow through the windows. Unlike the rest of this horrible place, it looked like the hut was actually built of wood and stone. It had a quaint look, like the hut of an ancient serf. The top of it met in a point, with thatch and twigs carefully aligned to form a rounded dome. The windows were lined with stones. Trunks of dead trees formed the main construction material, pressed one against the next, stacked vertically in a perfect circle. They had their branches cut off, their bark stripped, the wood ground down to a smooth, uniform texture.
“My sister is in there,” Irina whispered. “Please don’t make me go back. Please. You don’t know what they do in there. What she does in there.” I grabbed her hand.
“Irina, we can’t leave you behind,” I said. “I think we’re being watched. I’m sorry, but you have to come with us.” She put her head down, looking like a beaten dog. She trudged alongside us slowly as we examined the property. But we saw no sign of anyone. I sighed deeply.
“Alright, let’s go inside,” I said. “Let’s find out what horrors await us in that hut.”
As we walked forward, I heard the gate click closed behind us. I turned and looked, but I saw no one. It seemed as if it had closed on its own.
I saw, to my horror, that I would need a key to get out as well as in. Another skull, its mouth open and filled with a silver locking mechanism, stuck out on this side as well. The metal in its mouth made it look like it was choking, the eternally gaping mouth like it was screaming.
I turned away, focusing on the task at hand, hoping I would survive the next few minutes.
Part 4
https://www.reddit.com/nosleep/comments/16nl7hj/i_worked_as_an_iceroad_trucker_in_russia_along/

As Ron pulled over, Henry and Sera exited the vehicle. Linking up with Kelmithus, they walked towards the approaching caravan and stood in the center of the narrow dirt road. As the caravan drew closer, Henry could make out more details, confirming the data he’d received from Overwatch.
“Tier 5 adventurers, predominantly,” Kelmithus pointed out.
Henry gave their gear a cursory look-over. He probably couldn’t have told from a first glance, but he could see how Kelmithus knew. Their gear looked like basic stuff out of Steelforged – nothing at all like the fancy products from higher-end shops like Mithrilforged.
The lead wagon slowed to a stop, a distance of about a basketball court away from them, with sounds that fell somewhere between a hiss and a neigh coming from the dradaks. The driver eyed them warily, his eyes growing wide at the sight of the MRAPs. A door in the lead wagon opened up as a well-dressed merchant stepped out of it. Taking one of the adventurers, he approached Henry.
“Hail, travelers,” he called out with a slightly apprehensive – almost inquisitive – voice. “What ventures lead you hither?”
Henry stepped forward, offering a wave. “Just passing through,” he said with a smile. “Saw your caravan and thought we’d check in, make sure everything’s alright.”
The man’s wariness seemed to ease a bit, although this was more likely due to the presence of Sera and Kelmithus than it was to his friendliness. “Ah, your concern warms the heart. Truth be told, our journey’s been none too gently of late.”
The adventurer he brought with him, a tall, lean man with a sword at his hip, stepped forward. “By the heavens,” he breathed, “Lady Seraphine and Archmage Kelmithus, an honor it is to stand amidst such company.” He gave a slight bow.
Sera smiled, inclining her head in acknowledgment. “The honor is ours, good sir. But do tell, what troubles have befallen your caravan?”
The merchant whispered to the adventurer. If Henry had to guess, he probably said something along the lines of, ‘Do you know who they are?’ After conferring with the adventurer, the merchant relaxed a bit more and explained, “Our paths were bound for Hactis, a Nobian city to the west. Prosperous trade awaited, weeks in the making. Yet, not a day past did we encounter our plight.”
Henry exchanged a glance with Sera. “What do you mean?”
The merchant’s demeanor became slightly distressed as he recounted his experiences. “A fog descended upon us… unbidden! We were beset by a sudden chill, then a dense fog enveloped us. And the clamor… by heavens, striking were the sounds we heard – colder than the chill itself.”
The adventurer nodded grimly. “Aye, ‘twas like nothing I’ve ever heard before. Howls, screeches, unsoundly shrieks of a creature in torment. And through the fog was there a massive beast, though only its shadow we’ve seen.”
Henry frowned. A mysterious fog, anomalous temperature readings… it didn’t sound good. “Did you get a good look at it?” he asked.
The merchant shook his head. “Nay, nothing seen; the fog swallowed all vision. Yet, from the shadow it cast, vast beyond reckoning, it might well have been a beast of legends, a Tier 10 dragon, I daresay. Such as the one spoken of lately, the target of the latest Campaign!”
The adventurer held up a hand. “Aye, Tier 10 might be stretching the tale. More like Tier 8 or 9, I’d wager.” He turned back to Henry, “But make no mistake, even at that, it’s a formidable beast.”
“And then what happened?” Kelmithus asked.
The merchant sighed. “We bid a swift retreat, that’s the truth of it. The entire caravan turned on its heels, making for the opposite direction with due haste. Bound for Hactis by the longer route do we now find ourselves, all in the name of sidestepping any shadow of that menace.”
He continued, “Unnatural is the touch of ice there. A darkness, a foulness resides in whatever place that creature has laid claim to. Whatever you’re looking for, ‘tis not worth the risk.”
“We appreciate the warning,” Henry said, “but our quest is important.”
The merchant looked at them for a long moment, then exhaled heavily. “Your minds seem set, then. But heed this plea: venture carefully. Should that fog-bound beast find you, think not of valor. Instead, choose flight. Survival is the greater part of valor here.”
Henry appreciated the man’s concern. “We’ll keep that in mind. Thank you for the information, and good luck on your journey to Hactis.”
The merchant offered a weary smile in return. “Luck be with you too, on your path. May the gods grant you their favor.”
After the merchant left to board his wagon, Henry turned to Sera and Kelmithus. “Facing our first dragon, huh? Sounds fun.”
Kelmithus smiled. “An exciting prospect indeed, but no more exciting than what we might discover after slaying the beast.”
Henry led Sera and Kelmithus back to the MRAPs, allowing the caravan to pass through on the road. Climbing back into his vehicle, Henry updated Armstrong. “Overwatch, Alpha Team. We’ve made contact with the caravan. They reported encountering Tier 8 or 9 fauna in the fog, possibly a dragon. Advise updating mission parameters and threat assessment. Over.”
“Overwatch copies, Alpha Team,” came the response. “ISR confirms increased electromagnetic interference in your AO. Threat level updated. Recommend proceeding with extreme caution. Thunder 1-2 is on standby for immediate support if needed. Over.”
“Copy, Overwatch. Alpha Team out.”
As they continued their journey, the narrow dirt road merged into a wider, decrepit Baranthurian road. The ancient asphalt – or whatever they used – still held together. What sort of techniques they used to compact and pave them must’ve been incredibly advanced. Was it possible that they learned some insights from the Gatebuilders? Maybe. After all, it was what they wanted to do as well.
The silhouette of a tower in the distance came into view, its angular form juxtaposing the jagged edges of the surrounding mountains. The deeper they ventured into the forest, the closer the tower got, and the more the temperature seemed to drop. It was gradual at first, barely noticeable, but as they pressed on, the change became more pronounced.
Henry rubbed his finger against the window, wiping at a thin layer of condensation to peer out into the forest. That’s when he noticed the fog, which – as far as he could tell – appeared out of nowhere. Initially, he could make out the shapes of trees and the winding path ahead for half a mile, the visibility dimming but still discernible. Just a few minutes later, the fog thickened rapidly. It swallowed the landscape in a gray blanket until he could scarcely see beyond the hood of the MRAP, visibility dropping to less than 100 meters.
As the fog intensified, so too did the magical energy in the area. Henry glanced at the readings on the EMF meter beside him, watching as the numbers climbed steadily higher.
“Be advised,” he reported over local comms, “EMF readings are up to 10,000 milligauss. Expect potential interference with long-range comms.”
“Copy that, Cap,” Isaac’s voice crackled back, the signal still holding strong between the two MRAPs. “We’re seeing the same on our end. Overwatch, do you copy?”
There was no response from Overwatch, as expected. He continued to scan the forest through the CROWS, the thermal imaging struggling against the dense fog. No threats popped up as they approached the clearing, but Henry managed to catch wind of something peculiar. The condensation on the windows grew worse, frost beginning to spread across the glass. At the same time, the fog thickened, as if tied to the dropping temperature.
As if? What if it was? Henry recalled what he knew about fog formation. Fog was essentially a cloud at ground level, formed when water vapor condensed into liquid water droplets in the air. This usually happens when the air cools to its dew point, which could be triggered by a variety of factors – mixing of different air masses, cooling of the ground and ambient air, or even an increase in humidity. For all intents and purposes, all of these could be brought upon through the use of magic. And if magic could cause it, couldn’t it also reverse it?
“Kelmithus,” he called out over their comms as the MRAPs slowed down, “You can control temperature, right? Is that how you’re able to make fireballs?”
“Indeed so,” Kelmithus responded. “Have you a plan?”
He didn’t know much about magic, and the dossiers certainly didn’t cover anything like this, but he needed this hail mary to work. “Can you manipulate the temperature of a specific area, like the width of the road around our vehicles?”
Kelmithus paused for a moment. “I – Yes, I can try. What would you have me do?”
There wasn’t enough time to calculate or run simulations. He’d have to stick with the basic principles. “Let’s uh, let’s start with room temperature – 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Raise the temperature outside to room temperature, but gradually; 5 degrees per minute. If that’s too precise for you to gauge, just do it as consistently as you can.”
“Understood,” Kelmithus confirmed, followed by the sound of a hatch popping. “I shall begin now.”
Henry then turned to Sera and addressed her. “Sera, once Kelmithus starts raising the temperature, I need you to use your wind magic to help disperse the fog.” He helped open the roof hatch on their MRAP, the freezing air outside seeping in. “Gentle, just enough to help the warmer air mix with the colder air. Oh, and keep your helmet on. Might be uncomfortable for your ears, but it’s better than going deaf.”
“Very well.” Sera positioned herself under the hatch and readied herself. “I await your signal.”
Henry gave the order, and the two Sonarans began their work. He could feel the chill slowly recede as the air around them got warmer. Kelmithus didn’t have a thermometer to work with, but the result was as gradual and consistent as he could expect from simple intuition. Simultaneously, Sera created a soft breeze that swirled around the clearing. The circulation looked like it was working. The warm air from Kelmithus’ efforts mixed with the cooler, fog-laden air, gradually thinning the mist.
However, there remained the possibility that this fog was present for a reason, and that whatever created the fog wouldn’t be too happy about it suddenly disappearing. “Owens, Hayes, keep circling ‘round the clearing.”
Henry kept a close eye on his display. The fog was still thick, but he could clearly see the treeline at the edges of the clearing now, and the entrance to the Gatebuilder structure. He allowed himself a small smile. It was working. The plan, unconventional as it was, was actually working. Scientific knowledge to enhance magic… who would have thought?
But the smile quickly faded as a guttural rumble cut through the dissipating fog, a sound far more terrifying than what he’d seen come from T-Rexes in a theater. It wasn’t natural. Well, maybe for this world it was, but it didn’t sound real at all.
“Contact,” Henry reported. “Unknown contact at the treeline, southeast from the entrance.”
Another rumble echoed through the clearing, closer this time. Henry could feel the vibrations through the chassis of the MRAP.
“There!” Sera shouted, “South, by our path in!”
Henry swung the CROWS toward their ingress point – the Baranthurian road that led to the clearing. He strained to see through the mist. For a moment, there was nothing. Then, a shadow flickered between the trees. It was serpentine and massive, a bit over two stories tall and somewhere between an Olympic-size swimming pool and a commercial airliner in length.
“Unknown hostile, engaging!” Henry called out, aligning the targeting on his CROWS with the creature’s midsection.
He opened fire, sending .50 cal rounds and grenades toward the treeline. Most of the rounds ricocheted off its scales, but a few found their mark, drawing spurts of dark blood. The grenades did their work in chipping away at the scales, but he didn’t think they were enough. They might as well be shooting at a tank with a BB gun.
The creature recoiled, a screech of pain and anger that almost drowned out the sounds of gunfire and explosions. Judging from the relatively minor damage they’d inflicted, it was probably more out of anger. With a speed that defied its size, it whipped around and headed straight for his MRAP.
“Oh, shit, shit, shit!” Ron called out, jerking the wheel in an attempt to avoid the strike.
The tail grazed the side of their vehicle, the force of the impact sending a shudder throughout the MRAP. Henry held on to Sera’s leg, keeping her grounded.
“It’s a Lindwyrm!” Sera shouted. “A Sentinel Lindwyrm!”
This was the first time he ever heard genuine concern in her voice. Sentinel Lindwyrm… Henry gritted his teeth. This was a Tier 9 monster. Even between the TOW missiles and the Switchblade 600 sitting in its mounted launch tube, he wasn’t sure if that was something they could handle.
“Doc,” Henry said over the comms, “Send up a blue flare. I repeat, blue flare.”
“On it!” Dr. Anderson replied.
Through the CROWS feed, Henry saw a door open, followed by a hand aiming a flare gun into the air. His order materialized as the flare rocketed skyward, a brilliant blue streak against the gray clouds.
The Lindwyrm, meanwhile, seemed to be changing its tactics. It gave up on trying to slam into the MRAPs and instead retreated back to the treeline, raising its two frontal limbs. The fog began to swirl, coalescing into small objects shimmering around its head. Was it… casting a spell?
The fog dissipated even faster, allowing Henry to land more hits on the thing. Removing the fog should’ve been a good thing, but something didn’t seem right. Suddenly, a barrage of icicles emerged from the treeline, launching towards the vehicles with incredible speed.
The MRAPs swerved, but there were too many, coming too fast. Sera managed to deflect one away from herself, but it damaged the switchblade mount. Looking outside, Henry watched as several icicles slammed into Ryan’s MRAP, the impacts resonating through the vehicle’s frame. He could see the aftermath of the attack. Kelmithus’ instinctive defensive magic seemed to have kept him unharmed, but the vehicle itself, not so much. The armor held, but barely, deep dents forming in the crumpled metal. One of the icicles had hit the window on Isaac’s side, blinding his left.
“We’re hit!” Ryan reported. “No casualties, but vision on our left is compromised!”
“Fuck,” Henry swore under his breath. The Lindwyrm was adapting, using its magic to attack from a distance. Another hit like that could disable Ryan’s MRAP. They needed to end this as soon as possible. Luckily, the attack didn’t come without downsides. In siphoning the nearby water to form the icicles, the Lindwyrm was now clearly visible through the trees.
“Hayes, status on the TOW?” he asked as he laid down some suppressive fire on the Lindwyrm. The rounds and grenades didn’t do much, but at least they drew attention away from Ryan’s damaged MRAP.
“Need a line of sight! We gotta draw it closer to the clearing!”
How were they gonna do that? The creature was smart enough to use the trees for cover, but like all predators, it had to go after its prey eventually. He needed to bait it out. An idea formed in his mind. It was risky, but they couldn’t just sit around and take another hit waiting for the Apache to get here.
“Owens, I need you to drive toward the treeline. Get as close as you can, then slow down.”
“Uh, repeat that last?” Ron asked, disbelief evident in his voice.
“We need to lure the Lindwyrm out for a clear shot. Slow down near the treeline to bait it out, then floor it. Once it’s clear of the trees, Hayes can take the shot. Sera, once it jumps at us, I’ll need you to hit it with a spell – anything and everything you’ve got.”
There was a moment of silence as Ron rested his forearms on the steering wheel. “Copy that. I hope you know what you’re doing, dude.”
“Eloquently said, Lieutenant,” Sera agreed.
“Yeah, you and me both,” Henry sighed. “Execute.”
Ron gunned the engine, the MRAP lurching forward with a roar. They sped towards the treeline, positioning themselves directly ahead of Ryan’s MRAP, Ron angling the vehicle for a quick getaway. Henry could see the Lindwyrm shifting in the trees, preparing to attack.
They were closing the distance rapidly. 50 meters. 30 meters. 20 meters.
“Steady,” Henry said.
More of the surrounding fog began condensing into icicles, the beast rearing back as if readying itself for a pounce.
“Go!” Henry shouted as the monster lunged forward.
Ron slammed his foot on the gas, wrenching the wheel and causing the MRAP to swerve violently away from the treeline. At the same moment, Henry opened fire on its head while Sera unleashed a bolt of lightning at it.
The beast recoiled, its icicle attack going wide and shattering harmlessly against the trees and the ground. It let out a roar, no doubt pissed off at Henry’s MRAP. Overtaken by its emotion, it charged out of the trees with terrifying speed. It was frightening, but also heartening – this was exactly what Henry wanted to see.
“Hayes, now!” he yelled over the comms.
“Yup,” Ryan responded. “TOW away!”
-- --
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I have to preface this with a note that we did get this guy off facebook, so i'm already leaning towards it probably being a scam.
We needed to get our fridge fixed after a power outage caused damage, leading of course to food going bad. We found this guy with the business name "Lionel's Refrigeration". We ask him to diagnose the issue, which he almost immediately pointed to the compressor and that it's overheating. I feel the compressor, thing is piping hot. He says just switch it off for a bit and on again...the hell, it works. No work done, no harm, no foul.
A week goes by and the compressor heats up again. At this point he has our trust and we ask him to come and check it out, but again i ask him to diagnose the issue first. He exclaims, it's definitely the compressor, "did you feel how hot it is?" he said again.
We let him replace the compressor, whilst having a charismatic conversation and him explaining all the details, which at the time seem to make absolute sense. Guy cleans up his work, pushes the fridge back, tells me, "Feel there, getting cold already" to which i responded "it feels the same". He says, "just give it like 10 minutes, you guys will have ice blocks in no time". He heads to the car after we talk compensation and heads off to his next appointment.
I start second guessing this work, because he said give it 10 minutes but the temp still kind of feels the same, so i put a digital thermometer in the fridge and i wait for the temp to drop before making payment. three hours pass, the fridge hasn't even reached 5 degrees yet, still lingering above 10 (it was lingering at 7 before the fix).
Here's the kicker, he was sent a picture and video of the temperature not dropping and at the point of the video being made, there was a sound coming from the back of the fridge, presumably the compressor. He calls back saying, with anger in his voice, "We are unfair for not paying him and now his children has to go hungry", to which i responded that the fridge isn't fixed and that his tone is coming off as hostile, to which he responded by ending the call abruptly.
Did some checking up on this dude and there is one result having a hellopeter link which explained what we were about to experience with this dude.
Fast forward to this morning and our whole house smells like the gas he used during the installation of the compressor. The fridge is now worse than it was before the fix, no low temperature and weird sound coming from the compressor and this dude exclaims he's coming to get his compressor back.
Edit: Guy came out, spoke some long story about what he did and that it wasn't because of what he repaired and left not fixing the actual issue.
Warning: It may be his business but he conducted himself terribly, do not do business with this person. Dude has basically left me with a broken appliance(albeit at it's end), but damn it was sub 7 degrees at least.

Summary: Never fake a sick day
Sick Day
So, it finally happened. I caught COVID. I haven't taken a sick day since grade school. I had perfect attendance since the 4th grade. I probably sound like a real brown noser. It's not because I haven't gotten sick between then and now. Tell you the truth, I'm not terribly sick now. I'm not bragging and I hope it stays this way. It's because of something I tried not think about for almost three decades. I'm thinking about it now and I'm horrified to be as isolated as I am now. So I have to involve you, you the reader, you the listener, even if you think I'm crazy.
The irony about my last sick day is I wasn't sick. I was faking it. I just wanted to stay home and play on the Joy Node game console. I waited for my mom to leave for work, I heard the engine start and her Ford rattle its way from the drive way to the street and then it was silence. I was under some blankets beside a thermometer, a glass of water, a pile of tissues I smeared with some fake snot mixture I learned how to make in science class. I just started to lean up and to head towards the game console in front of the tv. I was about to settle down into a day long video game session when I heard the closet door on the far side of the room creak open.
I fell back down to the covers and let go an exaggerated sick groan in case mom or dad had returned like ninjas. I turned my head towards that end of the room and I saw the closet door slide the rest of the way open by itself. My curiosity and a creeping terror brought me to watch the closet while prone over the couch's arm rest with my head and face partially recessed under the covers.
“Is she gooooone?” A permeating mirthful high pitched voice shook the room. It was a dry, and raspy like when you talk into a fan but it was also shrill. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, like it was being carried by electronic feedback.
“Is she goooone?” The voice turned deeper, raspier, impatient and on the verge of cracking into hostile. The imminent anger in the voice broke giving way to a torrent of unhinged nearly breathless giggling.
A mustard yellow football sized and shaped head emerged about my height from the dark of the closet. I could make out two black gems pressed into the stuffed fabric which looked like eyes while a shattered button was dead center like a nose. His ears were asymmetrical and notched like a rescue cat. More black gems and white stitching formed an over sized grin completing the figure's face.
My fear gave way to curiosity and hope as the full figure resembled a character from a child's tv show I fond of at the time but it was like a Great Value knock off distorted version of it. My mind stirred with loving hope that this surprise was an elaborate get well gift from my parents. I watched with amazement as the entity swung out from the closet entirely as if he was suspended by wires and puppeted like on the tv show. After a few seconds of a hard gaze I could make out no wires or strings. The human boy-like with the football shaped head puppet swam freely in the air into the center of the room before me. I could make out more details as its arms were worn and discolored with stuffing poking out through some tears on its torso and it appeared to have dried blood on both of its hands. The fake jeans it wore on the show were muddy and its red shirt was stained with something resembling the color and consistency of used motor oil.
“Well Helllo there Ronald. Do youuuuu know myyyyy name?” It shrieked at me.
At this point I was stunned, trembling, I cowered under the covers on the couch but I knew I couldn't even pretend to hide. This thing knew I was there, I locked eyes with the churning tempest of shimmering red on the black shine of it's gem eyes.
The voice changed tone from shrill to deep and the movement of its mouth, from a slight wiggle along the mouth line to something violent punching under the fabric around its lips, “Oh come on now Ronald, my name is Jointment. He HA!” The windows and couch seemed to shake as it called out its own name. “I'm here to make you well! He HA!” The puppet finished nearly every statement with its signature “He HA!” giggle. For those who don't know, the character on the show was not named Jointment.
“Look here Ronny! IIIIII Brought you a present!” The figured walked on the air but still swayed back and forth as it approached me. The puppet turned itself 360 degrees around and produced an elaborately wrapped gift box from thin air behind its back. “You must be soooo tired from being soooo sick! Here! Let me help you!”
The puppet lifted its hand and despite not being physically able to, I heard a snapping fingers noise and then white smoke emitted from the box. The box then began to move around by itself in the puppet's hands and arms. The contents of the box started to bark, whine and then whimper.
“Do you remember Bailey? Do want to see what I found outside house in the TRAAAAAASH?! Ronald!? What did you do to her!? He HA!”
The puppet pushed the box under my face and opened lifted the top off. Inside the box was my light colored golden retriever puppy, Bailey but rendered to life in the same form from the same materials as the puppet intruder. Bailey was whimpering, crying, and riving around the box in pain from the injuries she suffered when a car struck her ending her life a year ago.
“Ronny...” The puppet started to sing, “do you remember how Bailey died? Did you daddy tell you he found her like this? Well he's a liar! A LIAR!! A LIAR!! A LIAR!!” He broke from the song into a frightful shaking bark of the word lair then he resumed his mirthless melody, “He ran her over by accident and didn't tell you.” He rattled the box with Bailey inside as my fitful glances bounced between the figure and the sad eyes of my puppy puppet.
“Ohhhh Ronny, she's in so much PAIN! Why don't you help me PUT HER OUT OF HER MISERY! You can do it mercifully, right Ronny? Why don't you take the game controller and WRAP IT AROUND HER NECK AND PULL until she stops crying!” I remember being in a full sweaty panic paralyzed by the twin shackles of terror and sadness. I finally breathed and after catching my breath, I started to scream as loud as I could.
“Ronny, Ronny, Ronny, you know no one can hear you. There's no one home in the suburbs. Everyone is at work like your parents! Sushsssss, here, let's bring out our happy friend: Jeffery the Vacuum Cleaner!”
With that, the closet doors started to shake and there was a brief dimming of the lights before an old style army green cylinder tank type vacuum cleaner, similar to one seen on the show the puppet originated from, emerged into the room. It came slinking along the floor by extending and contracting it's banded snake-like hose between the rusted dirt tank and the dented floor attachment which included a softly glowing single headlamp.
“Well, if you won't do it. Ahem, oh Jeffery!” Jointment beckoned the vacuum cleaner over in front of us and lowered the box with Bailey inside. Jeffery's hard floor attachment cartoonishly took on jagged steel teeth and the headlamp turned a blood red as its suction motor roared to life with the intensity of a jet engine. Jointment grabbed the handle of the floor attachment and shoved it into the box containing Bailey. The felt puppy let out a piercing howl before disappearing up the floor attachment and down the hose as a bulge before turning silent into the tank. The engine noise powered down and Jeffery let out a heavy gulp and then a loud belch. Ribbons of red cloth, cotton, and felt flew out of the tank's exhaust vents like bloody confetti.
I don't remember doing it because I was so traumatized by this but I know I flew off of the couch and started to run. I fled through the family room, through dinning room, to the kitchen where the nearest door to the outside was. It was cold and kind of snowy that morning and I was in pajamas and bare foot but I had no intent to stop for shoes or a jacket. As I rounded the turn into the kitchen Jointment was already there. He put what looked like a cartoon bomb with red sticks of dynamite wrapped in tape and rusty nails and a wires on the knob to the door.
“I thought we were...having fun. He HA! Hey, I can't let you outside in this cold, you'll get even sicker! So let's doing something even MORE FUN!”
I was stopped in my tracks by the bomb on the door. I knew still had no idea what was going on or how any of this was happening but as a kid it looked too real and I couldn't risk touching the knob. I was frozen again in my fear of this powerful entity who already proved it could easily remain one step ahead of my fastest stride through the house.
“Hmmmmm,” Jointment lifted its one hand to its check in pensive gesture, “I know,” The phantom snapping fingers echoed through the room again, “Let's play with the chemicals under the sink HEHEHEHEHEHE! I'm having so much fun with you Ronny. Let's play with the stuff Mommy and Daddy don't want you to play with!”
Jointment folded into something impossibly thin as it disappeared through the locked cabinet doors only to burst forth moments later with jugs of chemicals.
“You know Ronny, you how some times Mommy and Daddy get MAD AROUND YOU!? Like they say mean things and they make you feel like you want to DISAPPEAR!? Well, now you can disappear...with me...so you can MAKE THEM HAPPY!” The cap of what I know now to be bleach spun off by itself while he waved it around. “Oh...well, maybe you can do what I'm doing here and mix these chemicals together in Mommy and Daddy's room at night while they're asleep! Maybe that will teach them a lesson for killing Bailey and NOT TELLING YOU!”
As the smell of bleach and ammonia from the open jugs singed my nostrils a sane thought finally flashed in my head. This was like watching a scary movie that I needed to turn off. I needed to unfreeze myself and hit that button on the VCR at all costs. Jointment dumped a good amount of the bleach into a separate yellow bucket he had levitate out from under the sink cabinets. “Okay Ronny,” Jointment said preparing to dump the ammonia in the bucket, “Hold your breath and get ready to breathe in REAL DEEP!”
I launched the yellow bucket into the air under the puppet where it splashed up on his felt body before settling mostly back into the bucket which remained upright on its fall to the floor. I just barely caught the ammonia jug from spilling its contents as Jointment seemed to lose his magical grip on it. Jointment wailed soaked in the caustic bleach, “ DO NOT BLEACH. IT SAYS RIGHT ON MY TAGS YOU LITTLE SHITTTTTTTTTTT!” His voice became distorted, his form became rippled and discolored and shape twisted and contorted almost as if it was suddenly entangled in its invisible strings. I saw a moment of vulnerability and I took it. I reached up and grabbed Jointment and shoved him into the garbage disposal in the sink.
Jointment began to make thunderous groans which rattled the faucet and locked cabinet doors as it struggled against the bleach and torrent of water I was dousing him with the high pressure spray nozzle beside the sink. I started to reach for the switch on the wall behind the sink to turn the disposal on but my hand slipped and I fell from the counter to the floor with a hard thud. I knew I was hurt bad but I didn't think too much of it, I could think about turning on that switch. I reached across the counter on my tip toes but couldn't reach. The puppet seemed to begin to regain its voice and cohesion so I jumped and jumped again with all my strength over the ache and burn from the fall. The puppet let out a shriek and wail as it started to be shredded and ground down in the disposal. As it swirled in the middle sink, the bomb placed on the door and Jeffery the Vacuum Cleaner flew over the drain trapped sinking into the dirty fabric and cotton tornado made from Jointment's shards being slurped down the disposal. All three entities shriveled and vanished down the drain with only Jointment's voice briefly churning the air, “I'll be back for you little shiiiiiiiiii!” I kept the disposal on until all I could hear is the placid sound of running water against the gurgling of an empty drain free of fabric and the hard facial features.
I don't remember what happened next. I must have been so terrified I retreated back to the couch and yet so exhausted from all the terror I passed out. Eventually, my parents came home and I woke up. After a few blissful seconds all of it came rushing back to my mind and I made a bee line for the kitchen. I found it immaculate. There was no blood, no fabric, no bleach, no buckets or odors, nothing. I tried the child proof cabinet doors to see if they were still compromised. Still nothing. I raced back to the closet door and threw it open and dug around inside. There was nothing but DVDs and board games.
Mom stopped me and tried to get me to take my temperature. She was worried I was burning up and acting strange because of it. I settled down and I told them what I came to believe for a time which was I had a very bad, very vivid nightmare. Just a bad dream I told myself again and again. A weak later I was almost over all of it. I had managed to convince myself it really was a dream but then my Dad turned on the garbage disposal for the first time since that day and it was fiercely rattling. Dad pulled out fifteen pebble sized pieces of black cut glass. That's what was left of Jointment, at least I hoped so.
I'm telling you this because like I said earlier, I'm home alone sick for the first time since. He might come back and finish what he started. I'm telling you this because I'm here for ten days and I need someone, anyone to check in on me here. To the untrained eye death by chlorine and death by covid may appear similar.
By Theo Plesha

Summary: Never fake a sick day
Sick Day
So, it finally happened. I caught COVID. I haven't taken a sick day since grade school. I had perfect attendance since the 4th grade. I probably sound like a real brown noser. It's not because I haven't gotten sick between then and now. Tell you the truth, I'm not terribly sick now. I'm not bragging and I hope it stays this way. It's because of something I tried not think about for almost three decades. I'm thinking about it now and I'm horrified to be as isolated as I am now. So I have to involve you, you the reader, you the listener, even if you think I'm crazy.
The irony about my last sick day is I wasn't sick. I was faking it. I just wanted to stay home and play on the Joy Node game console. I waited for my mom to leave for work, I heard the engine start and her Ford rattle its way from the drive way to the street and then it was silence. I was under some blankets beside a thermometer, a glass of water, a pile of tissues I smeared with some fake snot mixture I learned how to make in science class. I just started to lean up and to head towards the game console in front of the tv. I was about to settle down into a day long video game session when I heard the closet door on the far side of the room creak open.
I fell back down to the covers and let go an exaggerated sick groan in case mom or dad had returned like ninjas. I turned my head towards that end of the room and I saw the closet door slide the rest of the way open by itself. My curiosity and a creeping terror brought me to watch the closet while prone over the couch's arm rest with my head and face partially recessed under the covers.
“Is she gooooone?” A permeating mirthful high pitched voice shook the room. It was a dry, and raspy like when you talk into a fan but it was also shrill. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, like it was being carried by electronic feedback.
“Is she goooone?” The voice turned deeper, raspier, impatient and on the verge of cracking into hostile. The imminent anger in the voice broke giving way to a torrent of unhinged nearly breathless giggling.
A mustard yellow football sized and shaped head emerged about my height from the dark of the closet. I could make out two black gems pressed into the stuffed fabric which looked like eyes while a shattered button was dead center like a nose. His ears were asymmetrical and notched like a rescue cat. More black gems and white stitching formed an over sized grin completing the figure's face.
My fear gave way to curiosity and hope as the full figure resembled a character from a child's tv show I fond of at the time but it was like a Great Value knock off distorted version of it. My mind stirred with loving hope that this surprise was an elaborate get well gift from my parents. I watched with amazement as the entity swung out from the closet entirely as if he was suspended by wires and puppeted like on the tv show. After a few seconds of a hard gaze I could make out no wires or strings. The human boy-like with the football shaped head puppet swam freely in the air into the center of the room before me. I could make out more details as its arms were worn and discolored with stuffing poking out through some tears on its torso and it appeared to have dried blood on both of its hands. The fake jeans it wore on the show were muddy and its red shirt was stained with something resembling the color and consistency of used motor oil.
“Well Helllo there Ronald. Do youuuuu know myyyyy name?” It shrieked at me.
At this point I was stunned, trembling, I cowered under the covers on the couch but I knew I couldn't even pretend to hide. This thing knew I was there, I locked eyes with the churning tempest of shimmering red on the black shine of it's gem eyes.
The voice changed tone from shrill to deep and the movement of its mouth, from a slight wiggle along the mouth line to something violent punching under the fabric around its lips, “Oh come on now Ronald, my name is Jointment. He HA!” The windows and couch seemed to shake as it called out its own name. “I'm here to make you well! He HA!” The puppet finished nearly every statement with its signature “He HA!” giggle. For those who don't know, the character on the show was not named Jointment.
“Look here Ronny! IIIIII Brought you a present!” The figured walked on the air but still swayed back and forth as it approached me. The puppet turned itself 360 degrees around and produced an elaborately wrapped gift box from thin air behind its back. “You must be soooo tired from being soooo sick! Here! Let me help you!”
The puppet lifted its hand and despite not being physically able to, I heard a snapping fingers noise and then white smoke emitted from the box. The box then began to move around by itself in the puppet's hands and arms. The contents of the box started to bark, whine and then whimper.
“Do you remember Bailey? Do want to see what I found outside house in the TRAAAAAASH?! Ronald!? What did you do to her!? He HA!”
The puppet pushed the box under my face and opened lifted the top off. Inside the box was my light colored golden retriever puppy, Bailey but rendered to life in the same form from the same materials as the puppet intruder. Bailey was whimpering, crying, and riving around the box in pain from the injuries she suffered when a car struck her ending her life a year ago.
“Ronny...” The puppet started to sing, “do you remember how Bailey died? Did you daddy tell you he found her like this? Well he's a liar! A LIAR!! A LIAR!! A LIAR!!” He broke from the song into a frightful shaking bark of the word lair then he resumed his mirthless melody, “He ran her over by accident and didn't tell you.” He rattled the box with Bailey inside as my fitful glances bounced between the figure and the sad eyes of my puppy puppet.
“Ohhhh Ronny, she's in so much PAIN! Why don't you help me PUT HER OUT OF HER MISERY! You can do it mercifully, right Ronny? Why don't you take the game controller and WRAP IT AROUND HER NECK AND PULL until she stops crying!” I remember being in a full sweaty panic paralyzed by the twin shackles of terror and sadness. I finally breathed and after catching my breath, I started to scream as loud as I could.
“Ronny, Ronny, Ronny, you know no one can hear you. There's no one home in the suburbs. Everyone is at work like your parents! Sushsssss, here, let's bring out our happy friend: Jeffery the Vacuum Cleaner!”
With that, the closet doors started to shake and there was a brief dimming of the lights before an old style army green cylinder tank type vacuum cleaner, similar to one seen on the show the puppet originated from, emerged into the room. It came slinking along the floor by extending and contracting it's banded snake-like hose between the rusted dirt tank and the dented floor attachment which included a softly glowing single headlamp.
“Well, if you won't do it. Ahem, oh Jeffery!” Jointment beckoned the vacuum cleaner over in front of us and lowered the box with Bailey inside. Jeffery's hard floor attachment cartoonishly took on jagged steel teeth and the headlamp turned a blood red as its suction motor roared to life with the intensity of a jet engine. Jointment grabbed the handle of the floor attachment and shoved it into the box containing Bailey. The felt puppy let out a piercing howl before disappearing up the floor attachment and down the hose as a bulge before turning silent into the tank. The engine noise powered down and Jeffery let out a heavy gulp and then a loud belch. Ribbons of red cloth, cotton, and felt flew out of the tank's exhaust vents like bloody confetti.
I don't remember doing it because I was so traumatized by this but I know I flew off of the couch and started to run. I fled through the family room, through dinning room, to the kitchen where the nearest door to the outside was. It was cold and kind of snowy that morning and I was in pajamas and bare foot but I had no intent to stop for shoes or a jacket. As I rounded the turn into the kitchen Jointment was already there. He put what looked like a cartoon bomb with red sticks of dynamite wrapped in tape and rusty nails and a wires on the knob to the door.
“I thought we were...having fun. He HA! Hey, I can't let you outside in this cold, you'll get even sicker! So let's doing something even MORE FUN!”
I was stopped in my tracks by the bomb on the door. I knew still had no idea what was going on or how any of this was happening but as a kid it looked too real and I couldn't risk touching the knob. I was frozen again in my fear of this powerful entity who already proved it could easily remain one step ahead of my fastest stride through the house.
“Hmmmmm,” Jointment lifted its one hand to its cheek in pensive gesture, “I know,” The phantom snapping fingers echoed through the room again, “Let's play with the chemicals under the sink HEHEHEHEHEHE! I'm having so much fun with you Ronny. Let's play with the stuff Mommy and Daddy don't want you to play with!”
Jointment folded into something impossibly thin as it disappeared through the locked cabinet doors only to burst forth moments later with jugs of chemicals.
“You know Ronny, you how some times Mommy and Daddy get MAD AROUND YOU!? Like they say mean things and they make you feel like you want to DISAPPEAR!? Well, now you can disappear...with me...so you can MAKE THEM HAPPY!” The cap of what I know now to be bleach spun off by itself while he waved it around. “Oh...well, maybe you can do what I'm doing here and mix these chemicals together in Mommy and Daddy's room at night while they're asleep! Maybe that will teach them a lesson for killing Bailey and NOT TELLING YOU!”
As the smell of bleach and ammonia from the open jugs singed my nostrils a sane thought finally flashed in my head. This was like watching a scary movie that I needed to turn off. I needed to unfreeze myself and hit that button on the VCR at all costs. Jointment dumped a good amount of the bleach into a separate yellow bucket he had levitate out from under the sink cabinets. “Okay Ronny,” Jointment said preparing to dump the ammonia in the bucket, “Hold your breath and get ready to breathe in REAL DEEP!”
I launched the yellow bucket into the air under the puppet where it splashed up on his felt body before settling mostly back into the bucket which remained upright on its fall to the floor. I just barely caught the ammonia jug from spilling its contents as Jointment seemed to lose his magical grip on it. Jointment wailed soaked in the caustic bleach, “ DO NOT BLEACH. IT SAYS RIGHT ON MY TAGS YOU LITTLE SHITTTTTTTTTTT!” His voice became distorted, his form became rippled and discolored and shape twisted and contorted almost as if it was suddenly entangled in its invisible strings. I saw a moment of vulnerability and I took it. I reached up and grabbed Jointment and shoved him into the garbage disposal in the sink.
Jointment began to make thunderous groans which rattled the faucet and locked cabinet doors as it struggled against the bleach and torrent of water I was dousing him with the high pressure spray nozzle beside the sink. I started to reach for the switch on the wall behind the sink to turn the disposal on but my hand slipped and I fell from the counter to the floor with a hard thud. I knew I was hurt bad but I didn't think too much of it, I could think about turning on that switch. I reached across the counter on my tip toes but couldn't reach. The puppet seemed to begin to regain its voice and cohesion so I jumped and jumped again with all my strength over the ache and burn from the fall. The puppet let out a shriek and wail as it started to be shredded and ground down in the disposal. As it swirled in the middle sink, the bomb placed on the door and Jeffery the Vacuum Cleaner flew over the drain trapped sinking into the dirty fabric and cotton tornado made from Jointment's shards being slurped down the disposal. All three entities shriveled and vanished down the drain with only Jointment's voice briefly churning the air, “I'll be back for you little shiiiiiiiiii!” I kept the disposal on until all I could hear is the placid sound of running water against the gurgling of an empty drain free of fabric and the hard facial features.
I don't remember what happened next. I must have been so terrified I retreated back to the couch and yet so exhausted from all the terror I passed out. Eventually, my parents came home and I woke up. After a few blissful seconds all of it came rushing back to my mind and I made a bee line for the kitchen. I found it immaculate. There was no blood, no fabric, no bleach, no buckets or odors, nothing. I tried the child proof cabinet doors to see if they were still compromised. Still nothing. I raced back to the closet door and threw it open and dug around inside. There was nothing but DVDs and board games.
Mom stopped me and tried to get me to take my temperature. She was worried I was burning up and acting strange because of it. I settled down and I told them what I came to believe for a time which was I had a very bad, very vivid nightmare. Just a bad dream I told myself again and again. A weak later I was almost over all of it. I had managed to convince myself it really was a dream but then my Dad turned on the garbage disposal for the first time since that day and it was fiercely rattling. Dad pulled out fifteen pebble sized pieces of black cut glass. That's what was left of Jointment, at least I hoped so.
I'm telling you this because like I said earlier, I'm home alone sick for the first time since. He might come back and finish what he started. I'm telling you this because I'm here for ten days and I need someone, anyone to check in on me here. To the untrained eye death by chlorine and death by covid may appear similar.
By Theo Plesha

Merry new year tributes and welcome back to stories of Panem. I am your host Colt and as usual before we begin, I would like to thank Christan Blanco, original writer of Tales of the hunger games and Lauren from Panem reborn to which these tales are inspired by. And I don't have much else to say besides I hope everyone has a great 2024 and yep let's dive into Panem for today. (Tw for forced glossectomy)
104 tribute names (140): District 1 Carl Gaia District 2 Pallace Pixie District 3 Bonnor Batrina District 4 Angel Carla District 5 Teddy and Unkown Girl District 6 AJ Montgomery District 7 Woddy Carol District 8 Knitter Aya District 9 Orzua Acre District 10 Waren Li District 11 Callum Naomi District 12 December June District 14 Deo Isan
After the massively successful games Whisterio Janseion, last year's victor, arrived in District 6 in the early morning of the 2nd day of the reaping. Mayor Delaware Hix gave him a warm hello, but Whisterio hid behind his sister before Carine lightly nudged him to talk to Hix. After a tour of the district's main resources and a near miss with a morphling accident, Carine encouraged Mayor Hix to “Get shit going.” Mayor Hix soon obliged as the gray cladded youths were ushered into the square with heightened security. Camila even revealed that a nearby hovercraft hanger had been attacked by the “Morphlings” of the district, hence the security. After Mayor Hix addressed the population on the importance of the hunger games Whisterio quickly scampered to the female reaping bowl quietly speaking “Montgomery Ashley 17 years old..”
As a young woman with mottled skin was spotted, she smiled surprisingly vindictively Camilia screamed in fear seeing this creature walk up to the stage her orange hair looking rottener than ever causing the Capitalites watching in snow square to recoil in disgust. As Aj shook Whisterios hand he also recoiled in disgust. “Aww what pretty boy your hands are gonna get dirty via touching my hands.” Whisterio snarled in annoyance before gripping his nose in disgust causing capital citizens to laugh as he then picked the name of 17 year old Aj Carnvile.
A tall boy with long brown hair that reached his necks gave a guilt-ridden smile before glumly walking forward. As Camilia's attitude “Reformed'' She gasped seeing Aj’s light tan skin with sullen brown eyes she eagerly told her cohost Asmodeus that “he looked clean enough.” As Aj shook Whisterios hand Whisterio muttered “Sorry.” Aj smiled and told him not to fret as he stood by the left. However, As Whisterio tried to wish District luck a morphling needle was thrown at him. As Whisterio yelled like a cat's tail who stepped on Carine and his entourage took him to the hovercraft as Peacekeepers ushered the pair into the hall of justice to meet their families.
Montgomery visited her elder sister Atlanta and brother. Montgomery soon started further into her siblings' eyes humming the old language as her siblings muttered in confusion a peacekeeper came in bringing her to the train. As for Aj he was visited by his friends from school (Rhode) (Anabell) (Topeka) and his mother. They quickly hugged him as he looked glumly forward. However, before he left, he tossed out his morphine tablets out and said dryly “I'm being given a death sentence have them figured I try at least.” As this scene was revealed in snow square Asmodeus soon remarked that this greeting had been quite the odd one for District 6. Due to the district being nothing but morphine addicts that used hovercrafts. Rhode soon tossed his necklace to Aj saying good luck as Aj grinned, he soon joined Montgomery in the bullet train as it was about to make its journey to the Capital.
Aj and Montgomery soon entered the train as their mentor an elderly stern woman with a tall war like physique entered in with a mechanical themed outfit revealing herself to be Victoria Heath Snow, Victoria lightly took a piece of her brown, gray hair and muttered “Druggie”. As Montgomery came into view she shrieked as Victoria through a morphine antidote causing Montgomery to pass out. She soon walked over to Aj before sticking a thermometer in his mouth. “Red good.” “I am trying to stay clean.” Victoria smiled before saying “for now…” She soon yanked Aj by the elbow before giving him a lecture on being good mannered in the capital. He nodded in a content manner before lowering his hood watching him seeing himself in the mirror. “You ok there boy?’ As Aj nodded grimly, he walked to his carriage causing his mentor to follow. Victoria softens a bit as she knocked on the door, she said she had something for him. Viewers in Snow square was rather surprised as a hand stuck out as Victoria placed the herbs in Aj’s hand. Aj soon bolted the door again apologizing to Victoria that “Withdrawal sucks”. Victoria chuckled before leaving her mentee be. As the day soon turned into evening, she noticed Montgomery not waking up so after some “friendly persuasion” involving a nice bottle of cold water being thrown at Montgomery. As Montgomery snarled in annoyance, she irritably listened to Victoria’s lecture about staying off the “crack” and the games the pair from 6 soon arrived in the Capital, “Tidy up and freshen up kiddos.”
Aj walked out of the train seeing the surprising large number of capital citizens waving in their black and gray cladded citizens smiling. As Victoria and Montgomery soon followed, Aj was getting asked many questions by the capitol citizens. The nearby news reporters for Golden 24 asked Aj about the necklace and his more tired attitude. “Don't worry I am happy to see you guys.” As the reporters laughed Victoria grinned as she soon observed from afar watching Montgomery being talked to by the elderly citizens. However, as an elderly capital leader tried to ask more questions to Montgomery, she shooed him away causing Victoria to step in and thanking the capital for their time as Aj was soon swooped in the limousine as it was driven to the accommodation tower. Along the journey Aj peered out the window he saw two avoxes getting tasered by peacekeepers as he yelped quietly Victoria brought him back as she was congratulating the pair for doing a “Better job than the last years debacle.” Montgomery soon replied that Flordia had “been chased by the tree boy.” Causing Victoria to sigh annoyingly as they arrived at the accommodation tower.
Their stylist Euclid Lansing entered in a happy grin. Euclid introduced himself to Aj and Montgomery. He soon displayed a chemist themed outfit with vials that could contain substances and had a satch of mechanical gears crossing it. However, as AJ looked ahead at the substance vials, he soon screamed. “Oh sweet god no!” Aj screamed as he ran to the balcony and started to hyperventilate. Euclid soon sighed before walking to the balcony with him. He apologized before calming him down hearing his rants of the night terrors he had from the morphine. As Aj began to sob Euclid hummed an old melody known in the American era as Clair de lune. Aj soon began to hum the tune, the sobs soon ceasing causing Euclid to lightly pick him by the shoulder gently guiding him back to the living room. Aj soon allowed Euclid's styling team to nitpick and rage warfare on his hair and face. After the outfits were done the pair from 6 still had a little time left before the parade that was due to commence later that evening. Aj soon got bored and watched capital tv watching camilia ravenstil going over the rather uninteresting reaping in District 11 occurring.
After a brief tour of the rather humid district 11 Mayor Roseray brought Whisterio and his entourage back up to the reaping stage which laid in the middle of a flower field. “Ok, you just gotta go quick and here's a gaia bounter.” Capital citizens were in awe over Mayor Roseray’s kindness as she placed a rose in Whisterio suit. As he was nudged slightly forward by Acacia, he looked ahead seeing the ebony cladded youths wall. After a brief speech Whisterio walked to the female reaping bowl before throwing his hand elbow deep into the bowl grinning before hurling out the name of 17-year-old Roselia Carter.
As a pitch scream was soon heard a young male soon fainted later being revealed by Camila to be Mayor Roseary’s son (Shane) her daughter's boyfriend but as Roselia tried walking up to the stage a young lady volunteered. “Who are you ?” Whisterio asked. As this young lady who volunteered walked up she revealed herself to be 15 year old Naomi Whisterian. Camilia and Asomedus but recoiled in disgust seeing Naomi’s hideous battered dress and green jeans leading to Asomedus to ask in a bemused manner “Did someone fall onto a berry hill.”
Naomi shook Whisterio’s hand before glumly watching him picking the name of 12-year-old Valention Darken. Immediately another yelp was heard as a young boy with brown hair attempted to run but peacekeepers caught him however as Valention was being ushered up to the bowl another volunteer made himself known. As a boy with light blonde hair with nice ebony skin that complemented his smile walked up to the stage, he revealed himself to be 18-year-old Callum Dialio. He grinned at the nearby capital camera causing many capital citizens, mainly women to swoon. Naomi shook Callum's hand as Whisterio announced them as this year's tributes before rushing to the nearby hovercraft apparently having a “Allergy Attack.”
Naomi was visited by her grim looking mother Mirs Whisterian muttering about her eldest son Devin who died in the 101st games. Naomi tried to calm her hysteric mother but all she said was to “Give the Capital hell” before throwing a 3-finger salute up. Naomi then shouted “pose ça maman”(Put that down ma). She gave a warm smile to her daughter wishing her luck as peacekeepers soon came in forcefully ejecting Naomi to the train as her mother was sent to pond bay by chief peacekeeper Laurel. As for Callum he was visited by his mother and brother. The pair were in hysterics seeing the situation unfold. Callum reassured them that he would be fine and promised to return. As his brother handed him a small trinket for luck, Callum embraced his family one last time before heading to the train.
Their mentor Gale Devocte soon came in the hovercraft warmly hugging the pair in gray suits. Naomi blinked in confusion before Callum peered over pondering in confusion before sitting at the dining table with the avoxes bringing in the dinner buffet which consisted of a roasted pig covered in a honey roast of apple with vegetables on the side. Callum grinned before loudly barking “FOOD.” Gale chuckled as Naomi and Callum widely dug into the food as if they were in a food eating contest. However, as he tried to talk to his tributes about the upcoming week Naomi asked, “Where’s Cupid” “He’s my brother’s mentor.” As Naomi repeated this question a total of 85 times Gale angrily slammed his hands on the table screaming “ENOUGH!” “HE'S DEAD HE DIED LAST YEAR YOU DUMBASS!.” As Naomi began to cry Gale sighed saying “I need a drink.” Naomi soon ran to her own carriages as Callum looked at Gale in a bemused manner. Gale soon replied “Wanna join.” Callum replied sure. As the boys had a nice triple vodka Crane Gale soon talked to Callum about games, However Callum soon grew bored, so Gale allowed him to go to bed. As Gale did as well.’
The next day the pair of 11 soon arrived in the capital. As a weepy Naomi was hurled to bed Callum was rubbing his eyes, appearing to be ragging warfare to look representable enough. The Capital ladies swooned seeing Callum's tan skin and buff build causing him to blush even receiving one flower by a guy admirer causing Callum to grin. However as for Naomi she had rough begging cussing out one eager capital teen Callum noticed and pulled his head over speaking “You know us out liars aren't that lucky so shut up and be happy.” As Naomi scowled and slapped Callum this was adorned with laughs and a few gears going viral on Golden 24 in the matter of seconds. Gale stepped in before thanking them for their time slowly cussing Naomi out in annoyance as the pair arrived in the capital moments later via limousine.
Clauddius Creed, former district 11 stylist, soon came in greeting the three alongside great grandson Alberto Creed. However, as Alberto soon looked on, he heard a strange hum. Clauddius even whispered to Gale asking “La marseillaise.” Gale’s face soon whitened as he remembered his days of being a peacekeeper general alongside his husband Cupid, he angrily stepped forward looking at Naomi. Naomi smiled replying in French with hint of a Spanish accent “Que l'enfer commence, mon frère sera "vengé", ça ne fait pas de mal de se précipiter depuis le district 14 voisin de la Normandie et de la république canadienne.” (Let the hell begin my brother shall be "Avenged '' it doesn't really hurt to rush from the nearby District 14 of France Normandy and the Canadian republic.)
As Peacekeepers soon barreled in Callum yelped as Gale yanked him away allowing the peacekeepers to “Do their job.” Naomi managed to escape however with help from detective Realm Jones victor of the 101st games she was hunted down and therefore dismissed from this year's games and later having become a Avox. This is where the files end for Naomi Armstrong however her rebellious family heritage does not end here. If you would like to look further on the rebellious Armstrong family of District 11 please see story 116 Windel 142 Mccain's farewell and 180 4 normal victors 1 rebellious.
Looking on in confusion Callum Gale Claddius and Alberto were told to stay in as a form of house arrest. As the actions of Naomi Armstrong were later revealed to president McCaine and his military personnel they made the executive decision to not make a big issue on the manner later contacting Camellia Ravenstil to make the live announcement of Naomi’s passing and how no “District hopping will be tolerated” enforcing more peacekeepers in the outlying districts. As chief peacekeeper Mackenzie was informed by Arcadian fling who was in President McCain's office at the time, she informed Gale that a fast reaping would not be taking place and are free to continue what they are doing. Callum blinked in shock but obliged as Alberto began to nitpick and make a wine themed outfit for Callum. Gale sniggered quietly seeing the rather unconventional outfit for his tribute but after Claudius gave a stern look at Gale, he told Callum to ready up. After he tried the outfit on, he adored the lilac purple and vines that went throughout the outfit. He even joked saying he looked like a rose bush.
Gale chuckled before him to the parade trying his best to forget the problems that occurred with Naomi. Brushing it off as “A brief fiz", Aj and Montgeomry were given a pep talk by Euclid, however as the careers begun to walk by Angel from 4 and Pixie from 2 cackled seeing their outfits. Montgomery soon joined in making fun of her own outfit before Aj rolled his eyes seeing Pixie’s Golden eagle feathered outfit before he put his own hands on his hips calling Pixie a “Spooked possum.” Pixie sniggered and replied, “Here how bought you take these Panem Bucks and go buy yourself a chianti ok.” Aj growled in annoyance before lunging at Pixie as the pair begun to fight Angel Victoria and even Pallace from 2 tried to yank Pixie off. However Aj had the last laugh as the crushed morphine tablets fell into Pixie;s mouth causing her to hurl in disgust. As peacekeepers soon rushed in to end the fight the 2s mentor Tavia Hardone rolled her eyes as she yanked Pixie to the front of the carriage. Palace and Angel soon chuckled before rolling eyes at the now rouge d up Aj as they returned to their own carriages. “You did good holding your own with her.” Aj rolled his eyes before stepping on Montgomery's foot saying “I'm not the goody tooshies you think I am.’ As peacekeepers soon ordered the pair to board the carriage at gunpoint they did so. Angel looked back before somewhat mouthing to Aj saying, “Your welcome in the pack.” Aj chuckled before nodding. Camilia and Asmodeus were highly speculating about the fight that happened before Camilia replied that she thought “Mrs. trigger happy from 2 would win.” Causing Asmodeus to shrug saying the boy from 4 and AJ were growing on him. As for Callum, Gale and Alberto gave some final touch ups before telling him to shine.’ The parade begun as the pair from 1 and 2 were given fanfare but Nico ridiculed Pixie for “Unbeautifying herself”. As for Aj and Montgomery they waved in a strained manner with Nico Anderson appearing to be in two minds about the outfits. Calling them “Mad scientists.” As for Callum the capital citizens noticed the rugged look of Callum's winery themed outfit and the fact Naomi was nowhere to be found but ever the professional Camilia redirected the curious Capital citizens to the flowing outfits going throughout the tribute hall. At the end President McCaine did his usual presidential speech of the glory of Panem before welcoming Nico Anderson to the stage. He congratulated the tributes on a ok impression before making a joke about the fight the pair from 2 and 6 had. He soon crowned the pair from 6 with the title of Anderson fashion best dressed garnering many gasps and shock throughout the square and even Victoria and Euclid to look at each other in bewilderment as the parade ended. However, Pixie angrily through her wreath onto the ground, stomping it. Aj giggled seeing Pixie throwing a “Fit” before joining his bewildered district partner mentor and stylist.
Aj, Montgomery, Vic and Gale partied until 11 as Victoria soon sent the pair to bed to prep for the training that would follow the next day. Arcadian Fling soon arrived with a rather sour look tributes even Realm Acacia and Whisterio looked in in a shocked manner knowing their own experiences with the legendary training master. After a rather sadistic greeting Arcadian dismissed the tributes leaving allowing the tributes to disperse. Aj was immediately flagged down by Angel and Carla both from 4 with the pair from 1 looking in a rather confused manner. Pixie from 2 muttered quietly “Why am I not the spotlight.” Aj soon yelped as he called out for his mentor as he was yanked to the spear station by his career allies. Surprisingly Aj had good skills with throwing spears even earning a nod of approval from Victoria, he also developed a friendship with the pair from 1 however as he tried to hurl 10 spears at once he missed almost all of them garnering a laugh from his “allies” even Pixie from 2 cackled causing Aj to stop. He grew angry as he walked toward Pixie to “Say it out loud” apparently hearing her “Gossip”. As Pixie spat as headmaster fling stepped in he forced them into the fight. As a crowd of spectators came a rather intense fight broke out with Aj eventually wining 18-17. An enraged Pixie lost her cool slamming Aj against a wall trying to “get shit going early” peacekeepers and Arcadian removed Pixie for the day as Aj looked on at the surprised career members admiring outliers and shocked members. Even Whisterio asked Acacia if “Maybe we can get a 3rd victor in 3 years” causing Acacia to shrug good naturally.
Aj soon went to the camouflage station camouflaging himself into a forest background calming himself down and being “Content” again. After the fight Montgomery wandered aimlessly appearing to just take a nap. Even when training staff came in Headmaster Fling grew annoyed as he hurled Montgomery to knife station for the remainder of day 2. As for Callum he befriended Warren from 10. A butcher's assistant with glossy black hair with a physique like a model Camilia jokingly added in. The boys stayed together at the knife station and edible station with Warren even calling Callum “Bonita ''. Causing Callum to blush.
At the end of the third day the tributes were brought to the assessment hall as game maker Gonazlaz eagerly assessed the tributes. After a chaotic display from the careers besides the not interesting displays of the pair from 3 and 5 Aj was welcomed in. He gave halfhearted sigh before hurling a myriad of knives before his mind grew “Tranquil” continuously throwing with accurate precision. Left and right none stopped twiddling with each knife the game makers looked on. Some with horror and some with admiration. In the end Aj had made knife art and made a portrait of president McCaine. As cheers soon followed Aj grinned as he walked out surprisingly high fiving Montgomery. Montgomery soon followed. She presented a rather poor knife display. However, after mistakenly throwing the knife at lamp light she stomped her foot in anger throwing a “temper tantrum” running out in annoyance as the game makers laughed. Later on, in the lineup Callum soon followed he took a brief glance as he requested for fire to be brought in. Immediately after the fire was brought in Callum soon viciously hurled knives that were lit on fire. However, this went wrong rather quickly as a large fire soon yelped. The game makers panicked as Callum was soon yanked back to the accommodation tower as “Damage control was done.” After the assessments ended tributes and mentors soon turned to Camilia’s live tv show just as she was about to read the scores. With the rather chaotic career pack Carl from 1 and Swoosie 1 Angel from 4 Carla from 4 Aj from 6 scored 10. Montgomery scored a 4 and Callum was the first tribute to ever score a one. Euclid happily congratulated the pair as Victoria soon prepped the pair for the interviews with Camila as Euclid made the outfits. Callum was enraged hearing that he got a 1 for a “little accident” wildly passing through out the apartment as Alberto and Gladdius made Callums outfit as Gale tried to calm him.
The evening that followed Camilia Ravenstil eagerly welcomed the excited capital audiences, eagerly twirling in her prominent gold dress with embellishments of hazel leaves and her newly dyed ebony hair. After an interesting set of eager careers and geeky pair from 5, Aj was welcomed to the stage. His long hair was put up into a man bun and was adorned in a gray suit with hints of motor oil across his cheeks to accentuate the look of a car engineer which endeared him to the Capital audience. His numb and quiet responses endeared him to the interview host later stating, ‘Quiet and smart quite the good pairing.’ He nodded contently slowly opening up to interview host talking to her about airport hangar he worked at in the district even cracking some jokes about his boss head peacekeeper Ravenski causing the capital audience to laugh uncontrollably. After word Camilia asked Aj on the “real business.” Aj abruptly cut her off saying “Just wanna get home again thats all.” As he looked back at the capital audience, they applauded his courage as he soon left the stage.
Montgomery soon followed being adorned in a silver gown with viles from the parade all over her dress. However, before the interview even commenced Montgomery passed out. As Camila asked aloud if paramedics were in the capital audience. Lead capital doctor Brit Rivelta came in and took her pulse. At the revelation knowing that Montgomery had died the capital citizens screamed in shock/horror and surprise the interviews were cut short. As another live discussion was held in President Mcaines he sighed in a surprised tone of annoyance before replying to his coworkers and fellow peacekeepers that the games would go on. Regardless the fact 24 tributes remained and the no longer the original 26. He ordered peacekeepers to the accommodation towers to watch over all the tributes making sure no more deaths happened until the actual games.
Once Aj heard the news, he grimaced before having with final chat with Euclid and Victoria resting. As for Callum he was in more distress the pretty boy persona left him. Before Gale could get a word across to him, he angrily slammed the door going to bed for the night. The next morning all tributes were flown to the arena’s holding room and given the arena outfits. A breathable t shirt and sweatpants. Aj was visited by Victoria. She condemned him on staying away from alcohol and morphine for so long. Aj smiled before hugging Victoria thanking her for her strong mentor ship causing Victoria to smile before hugging him before wishing him luck. Callum on the other hand was quite the hectic hall for Gale. He refused to get into his uniform. Gale grew angry replying to his shouts of abuse that “What would Naomi think.” Callum grew quiet before telling him to go. As Gale protested he soon ceased wishing him luck as Callum rose into the arena.

Because I do, and Id like to hear your stories as well.
Ill go first: TW
I very vividly remember the moment. My brother had fallen ill and we had no clue that he was. He did complain something about it, but my mom brushed it off because we were supposed to get our shots that day. At the doctor, the doc checked my brothers temperature, but the thermometer was broken. The doc didnt bother to go look for a working one so she also shrugged it off. We shouldnt take shots if were sick, but we had no proof that my brother was actually sick at the moment. We got our shots and stopped at a store to buy some sweets for me and my brother for taking the shots so bravely. I went alone because my mom wanted to stay with my brother. I bought us candy and gave him the other one. At home when I began snacking on my piece of candy, he didnt want his at all which is unusual. My mom checked his temperature and sure enough he had fever. With the shit combined, it was obvious that he was going to get very ill. Hours pass and its late in the evening. My family is in the livingroom and my mom is holding my brother. I was casually walking to our livingroom when I came out of our shared bedroom and thats when he said ”puke is coming”. My mom grabs his potty and he throws up. It splattered everywhere except for the potty and there was so much of it. It was white with pieces of cucumber. I dont know why but the sight was so terrifying for me, I got a phobia that night. I was in the second or first grade and he was just a toddler. I screamed and cried while he continued puking. He went to the bathroom to puke more and I knew because he was a toddler, he would totally miss the toilet and splatter the puke everywhere else. Luckily, I wasnt there to witness that part because I was hiding under a blanket by then. Of course my brother was feeling the worst that time, but I also needed to be reassured. I yelled to my mom ”Ill never use the bathroom again because he threw up everywhere in there!” Ss I was afraid of the puke & germs in it, and she replies to me very very angrily ”well dont use the damn toilet then”. It was confusing because I knew I wouldnt just be able to not use the bathroom ever again and I needed an answer. I was most likely having my first ever panic attack. That night has left me with a horrible, active phobia that haunts me to this day. It has been 8 or 9 years at this point if not more
I think Ill always have some sort of eternal hatred, anger and fear towards him despite the fact it wasnt really his fault. But it was so traumatizing for me, that it has left me with the feeling like it was his fault after all and I cant help it. I remain cautious of him to this day. Hell, Im even afraid of touching him or him touching me. Its his touch specifically that I avoid 24/7. I genuinely always freak out when he gets too close to me. We dont have a good relationship, and my phobia just makes it worse. Its like the same hatred and fear comes back from the day I got this phobia. Ive gone batshit crazy at him because of this, and I know its not fair. The anger and whatever freaking out is like a tic for me that Im not in control of. I feel bad for feeling like that. In all honesty I dont really even like him, but despite that I still worry and feel bad if I freak out at him. And before anyone complains, yes I am an absolute shit sister and I know that. Ive done so much wrong. Ive failed as a sister. He hates me too and thats okay, its completely reasonable, valid, and I totally deserve to be disliked by him. But you cant always have a perfect relationship with your family members, like me with my brother. It happens and theres not much I can do about it. Please remember that and dont add insult to injury. Thank you

Using what I’ve learned in a book titled “The Stoic Challenge” by William B. Irvine, as well as basic YouTube videos, I’ve been able to prevent anger from arising in everyday obstacles. Sometimes I am successful, other times I am not. This anger that I’ve been experiencing recently is not your usual setback though. I (17m) find it hard to prevent anger from arising when my parents criticize each other.
For context, my parents have been divorced since I was 3. They hate each other, and rarely speak. I live at my mom’s for the most part, because it’s my hometown and all my friends live there.
Last night, while I was at my dads house, I had a fever of 102.5 degrees, and could not sleep. I was able to maintain my cool until a workaround was presented , which in this case was the passing of time. Today, I went back to my mom’s house, and upon arrival she immediately began to almost blame this sickness on my dad. She also accused him of using a faulty thermometer, among other things. This is quite ironic, because my dad is a doctor.
My question for fellow people practicing Stoicism is how do I prevent negative emotions from arising when this happens? I want to defend my dad, or defend myself when her criticism is directed at me, but is difficult to do so when these are such important people in my life. Thoughts?

Part 1
https://www.reddit.com/nosleep/comments/16hw52t/i_worked_as_an_iceroad_trucker_in_russia_along/
Part 2
https://www.reddit.com/nosleep/comments/16k0p69/i_worked_as_an_iceroad_trucker_in_russia_along/
While conditions seemed bad right now, with the truck stuck like it was, I gave thanks that at least the engine started without issue. At times, it got so cold in Siberia that the engines would fail to start. The temperature had started to increase, however, and outside the wind had died down. The snow had stopped, and looking at the thermometer I kept on the outside of the truck, I saw that it was “only” -5 degrees Fahrenheit now. I cursed, putting on many layers while I sat in the truck’s driver seat, the little girl sitting between me and Yakov on an empty bucket she had turned upside-down. She didn’t seem affected by the cold at all. She had probably grown up in far worse.
“What are you doing?” the girl said with widening eyes, watching me. I looked at her, shaking my head.
“Obviously, we have to go get your sister,” I said.
“No!” she said. “I’m not going back there! Never! I will never go back to that place!” She started to cry. “The legs… the fence… the ovens… the cages… you have no idea how horrible it is!”
“Calm down,” I said. “You have to lead us back towards the hut. You probably won’t have to go in. We just need to get your sister and come back, then we can leave. What’s your name?”
“Irina,” she said.
“That’s a very pretty name,” Yakov said. “My name is Yakov, and this is Nikolai. We’re the good guys. We can fight off that witch and bring your sister home. If we do nothing, your sister will die. You know that.” Irina nodded, wiping her eyes. Bundled up in her layers of clothing with a fur jacket on the outside, she looked almost like a little eskimo sitting here in my truck. I repressed the crazy urge to laugh at the image, remembering what was happening.
“Let’s do this,” I said, getting out of the truck. I grabbed more ammo from the glovebox, and saw Yakov grabbing some bullets from the satchel of random goods he carried around with him in a leather skin. He left the rest of his possessions in the truck, folding the leather carefully back over them and tying it with a cord.
It felt eerie, like the dawn before a major battle. I had goosebumps all over my body, and not just from the cold. The idea of going up against an infamous witch, an ogress, a child-eating monster- well, it didn’t raise my confidence. Though this happened years ago, I still remember that terrible feeling- as if everything had been leading up to this point, and now everything stood still, watching.
I had heard legends of Baba Yaga growing up, how Satan had taken twelve women who were murderers and criminals, thrown their bodies in a pot together, mixed it up- and out came Baba Yaga. Of course, I scoffed at such myths now that I was older. But seeing her there had made me question many things.
Irina went out first, not minding the cold at all, her breath coming out in steamy plumes. Yakov and I had flashlights from the truck, jumping down behind her. Their light came out dimly, but it gave enough lumination on the white snow to see. The clouds had started to part, and the Moon had come out in the sky, looking down on us like a single blind eye- like the cataract-ridden eye of Baba Yaga I had seen earlier.
As we started walking across the M56 and into the woods, that shrill, gurgling shriek came ringing out again. I knew Baba Yaga was close, likely even watching us. She might attack at any moment.
We walked further down the trail, a winding deer trail only a couple feet wide, with branches that would smack me in the face and rocks to trip over every few steps. Just as I turned to Yakov to say that we may have lost her, she attacked.
I saw a blur, then an intense pain in my side as she tackled me, knocking me quickly to the snowy ground. I kept a death-grip on my gun, smacking my head against a tree trunk- and the world went white. I drifted in and out of consciousness for a few moments, or perhaps it was longer. Time got strange. As if from a great distance, I heard gunshots and more screaming- then my vision started to return, and I focused.
I saw Yakov crouched on the ground, holding his left hand tightly. I saw a fountain of blood running over his gloves, staining the snow in strange droplets and splotches, like a Rorschach inkblot made by a serial killer.
I tried to sit up, but a lightning bolt of pain seared my brain. I groaned, raising my hand to my head. I felt something sticky on my scalp, and pulling my hand back, I saw it covered in blood. It felt warm and wet, running down from the right side of my scalp and showing no signs of slowing. I felt nauseated and weak for a second, seeing all that blood, how it stained my clothes and the snow below me. I took a few deep breaths, in and out, slowly concentrating and steadying myself. My hand still trembled, and my legs felt like jelly as I tried to stand, but I leaned against the tree and let the waves of weakness and nausea pass by.
Yakov wasn’t doing much better. He was hyperventilating, staring in shock at his spurting hand. His left thumb looked like it was mostly or entirely gone.
“We’ve… got to put pressure…” I said slowly, gulping air. “...on the wound. And ice and snow.” I began to tear a strip from one of my shirts, then walked slowly over to Yakov on unsteady legs. I looked into his eyes. They looked dark and tortured, and he quickly looked away, tears forming in his eyes from the shock and pain. Irina sat next to him on a log, and she watched in horror, looking away whenever she noticed the blood.
“Let’s do this,” I said. “Ready?” He nodded weakly. I pulled the strip of cloth around the hole where his thumb used to, running it around his hand in circles, tightening it. He screamed. I gave him a piece of wood to bite down on, and pulled it even tighter. I saw teeth marks forming deep in the wood, a solid branch one inch in diameter I had snapped in half. His breath came in and out so fast, I thought for sure he would pass out. But he kept with me. Soon I had pressure on the wound, and the bleeding had slowed considerably.
I repeated the process with my head, wrapping more strips of cloth around the bloody scalp wound and pulling. I gritted my teeth, but the pain wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought, except for the crushing migraine. More than anything, I just felt weak, and waves of nausea kept assailing me. Splotches would rise in my vision, black dots that seemed to precede passing out, but I would sit down quickly and, after a few minutes, I had regained most of my strength.
“Let’s keep going,” I said weakly. Irina stood next to Yakov, looking petrified.
“I don’t want to go,” Irina said stubbornly. “Please don’t make me go.”
“Irina,” I sighed. “Your sister might die if we turn around. We have no choice.”
“I’m too scared,” she said. “You have no idea how bad it is there. You can’t imagine.” But after a few minutes of convincing, she continued to lead us- a ragtag group of injured men and a child, limping through the thick snow in the freezing cold.
We walked for an hour in silence, the little girl following her tracks, looking for landmarks she had passed when she had escaped the first time. She had grown up in the woods, most likely, and her family must have taught her much. I was worried about freezing to death, but then I started to notice my body growing warmer. I thought, perhaps, it was simply the first sign of hypothermia.
And yet, as we walked, I noticed changes in the forest. It actually had gotten warmer; it wasn’t just in my mind. Soon the snow had all gone. I looked around and noticed the trees were all dead, their naked arms extending up to the sky. I had to take off a jacket, then a sweater too. I saw the others doing the same, sweating as it warmed up. A fog began to roll in, covering the whole area.
“This is the space between the world of the living and the dead,” Irina said in her sweet child’s voice. It made the statement all the more horrible. “The hut is near here. This is the border of her home.” Through the mist, I swore I could see faces appearing and disappearing, the horror-stricken visages of children and eternally grinning skulls.
Soon, we came to a clearing. All the trees stopped in a large circle, a few hundred feet in diameter. In horror, I looked at what lay beyond.
A fence surrounded the property, made of children’s bones. It extended high up, at least twenty feet, countless arm and leg bones stacked one on another, bound together with twine and braced with more bones attached vertically against the others. I saw no gaps bigger than an inch, and no way to climb it. Looking at the top, I saw pieces of sharpened bones sticking up, like some razor wire from Hell. Irina shook at my side, and she grasped my hand suddenly, her small body exuding a strength that seemed beyond her physical abilities. I smiled down at her, smoothing her long, black hair with my right hand. I felt almost entirely recovered from my earlier concussion, though my head still pounded in time with the beat of my heart. I wished I had brought some aspirin.
“How do we get in?” Irina asked, taking off another sweater and hanging it over her shoulder. I had absolutely no idea.
“Let’s look around,” I said. We began to circle the fence, walking along the circumference of the clearing. I could see a hut beyond through the small gaps.
After a minute, we came to the gate. It stood twenty-feet-tall, like the rest of the fence, and would be almost impossible to scale. Unlike the rest of the fence, the gate had been fashioned entirely from skulls. I saw all the small skulls stacked one on top of another. As I imagined how many children had died to build just this macabre gate, a feeling of sickness and dread washed over me.
Sticking out of the front of it, in the exact center, I saw a larger skull. It looked like that of a man. In its open mouth, I saw a silver keyhole. In anger, I tried shaking the gate- and it came swinging open, totally silent.
“It’s open,” Yakov said, amazed. I looked at him.
“This feels like a trap,” I said. He nodded. Irina hid behind Yakov now, not wanting to look at the eternally grinning skulls stacked in front of her, bound together with some sort of invisible glue.
I looked through the gate at the hut beyond. My breath caught in my throat.
It stood on two massive legs. The feet looked like those of a chicken, but the legs loomed ten feet above the ground, where they somehow attached to the hut, holding it up suspended in the air. They were skeletal, all the flesh and muscle long ago wasted away.
“Are those chicken legs?” Yakov asked, his voice low. I felt eyes on me. I looked back into the forest, but I saw no one.
“Who the hell knows?” I asked. “But where do you get a chicken that’s the size of an elephant? Or bigger?”
“From Hell?” he asked. I laughed.
“You think they have massive chickens in Hell, just going around pecking at the Hell grains?” I said. He smiled.
“I don’t know, and I don’t want to find out. Let’s do this.” We began to walk forwards into the clearing. I could see the circular hut more clearly now. An inner light burned, sending out a fiery, red glow through the windows. Unlike the rest of this horrible place, it looked like the hut was actually built of wood and stone. It had a quaint look, like the hut of an ancient serf. The top of it met in a point, with thatch and twigs carefully aligned to form a rounded dome. The windows were lined with stones. Trunks of dead trees formed the main construction material, pressed one against the next, stacked vertically in a perfect circle. They had their branches cut off, their bark stripped, the wood ground down to a smooth, uniform texture.
“My sister is in there,” Irina whispered. “Please don’t make me go back. Please. You don’t know what they do in there. What she does in there.” I grabbed her hand.
“Irina, we can’t leave you behind,” I said. “I think we’re being watched. I’m sorry, but you have to come with us.” She put her head down, looking like a beaten dog. She trudged alongside us slowly as we examined the property. But we saw no sign of anyone. I sighed deeply.
“Alright, let’s go inside,” I said. “Let’s find out what horrors await us in that hut.”
As we walked forward, I heard the gate click closed behind us. I turned and looked, but I saw no one. It seemed as if it had closed on its own.
I saw, to my horror, that I would need a key to get out as well as in. Another skull, its mouth open and filled with a silver locking mechanism, stuck out on this side as well. The metal in its mouth made it look like it was choking, the eternally gaping mouth like it was screaming.
I turned away, focusing on the task at hand, hoping I would survive the next few minutes.
Part 4
https://www.reddit.com/nosleep/comments/16nl7hj/i_worked_as_an_iceroad_trucker_in_russia_along/

Shut your skin tone chicken bone google chrome no home flip phone disowned ice cream cone garden gnome extra chromosome metronome dimmadome genome full blown monochrome student loan Indiana Jones overgrown flintstone x and y hormone friendzone Sylvester Stallone Sierra Leone autozone professionally seen silver patrone ching Chong lin long suck my ding dong headass remote control autism down syndrome stage four terminal brain cancer O'Riley autoparts silver bronze ash amino UV light pen sushi ram ramen Harisson Ford gamer bitch ass Virgin lamp thermometer lean mean string bean Charlie Sheen limousine canteen trampoline serpentine anti histamine wolverine submarine unclean nectarine broken gene Halloween detective spleen smoke screen James Dean putting green tiny peen anti vaccine aquamarine eugene extra green nicotine vaseline jelly bean magazine protein Lightning McQueen vending machine what'chu mean ocean man by ween head ass tf up bitch California, I'll bet you couldn't pour piss out of a boot with instructions on the heel. You are a canker. A sore that won't go away. A zit on the butt of society. I would rather kiss a lawyer than be seen with you. You are a fiend and a coward, and you have bad breath. You are degenerate, noxious and depraved. I feel debased just for knowing you exist. I despise everything about you. You are a bloody nardless newbie twit protohominid chromosomally aberrant caricature of a coprophagic cloacal parasitic pond scum and I wish you would go away. You're a putrescence mass, a walking vomit. You are a spineless little worm deserving nothing but the profoundest contempt. You are a jerk, a cad, a weasel. Your life is a monument to stupidity. You are a stench, a revulsion, a big suck on a sour lemon. You are a bleating fool, a curdled staggering mutant dwarf smeared richly with the effluvia and offal accompanying your alleged birth into this world. An insensate, blinking calf, meaningful to nobody, abandoned by the puke-drooling, giggling beasts who sired you and then killed themselves in recognition of what they had done. I will never get over the embarrassment of belonging to the same species as you. You are a monster, an ogre, a malformity. I barf at the very thought of you. You have all the appeal of a paper cut. Lepers avoid you. Because off your face the rabbit population actually decreased. You are vile, worthless, less than nothing. You are a weed, a fungus, the dregs of this earth. And did I mention you smell? If you aren't an idiot, you made a world-class effort at simulating one. You snail-skulled little rabbit. Would that a hawk pick you up, drive its beak into your brain, and upon finding it rancid set you loose to fly briefly before spattering the ocean rocks with the frothy pink shame of your ignoble blood. May you choke on the queasy, convulsing nausea of your own trite, foolish beliefs. You are weary, stale, flat and unprofitable. You are grimy, squalid, nasty and profane. You are foul and disgusting. You're a fool, an ignoramus. Monkeys look down on you. Even sheep won't have sex with you. You are unreservedly pathetic, starved for attention, and lost in a land that reality forgot. You are a waste of flesh. You have no rhythm. You are ridiculous and obnoxious. You are the moral equivalent of a leech. You are a living emptiness, a meaningless void. You are sour and senile. You are a disease, you puerile one-handed slack-jawed drooling meatslapper. On a good day you're a half-wit. You remind me of drool. You are deficient in all that lends character. You have the personality of wallpaper. You are dank and filthy. You are asinine and benighted. You are the source of all unpleasantness. You spread misery and sorrow wherever you go. I cannot believe how incredibly stupid you are. I mean rock-hard stupid. Dehydrated-rock-hard stupid. Stupid so stupid that it goes way beyond the stupid we know into a whole different dimension of stupid. You are trans-stupid stupid. Meta-stupid. Stupid collapsed on itself so far that even the neutrons have collapsed. Stupid gotten so dense that no intellect can escape. Singularity stupid. Blazing hot mid-day sun on Mercury stupid. You emit more stupid in one second than our entire galaxy emits in a year. Quasar stupid. Your writing has to be a troll. Nothing in our universe can really be this stupid. Perhaps this is some primordial fragment from the original big bang of stupid. Some pure essence of a stupid so uncontaminated by anything else as to be beyond the laws of physics that we know. I'm sorry. I can't go on. This is an epiphany of stupid for me. After this, you may not hear from me again for a while. I don't have enough strength left to deride your ignorant questions and half baked comments about unimportant trivia, or any of the rest of this drivel. Duh. Maybe later in life, after you have learned to read, write, spell, and count, you will have more success. True, these are rudimentary skills that many of us "normal" people take for granted that everyone has an easy time of mastering. But we sometimes forget that there are "challenged" persons in this world who find these things more difficult. I wish you the best of luck in the emotional, and social struggles that seem to be placing such a demand on you. P.S.: You are hypocritical, greedy, violent, malevolent, vengeful, cowardly, deadly, mendacious, meretricious, loathsome, despicable, belligerent, opportunistic, barratrous, contemptible, criminal, fascistic, bigoted, racist, sexist, avaricious, tasteless, idiotic, brain-damaged, imbecilic, insane, arrogant, deceitful, demented, lame, self-righteous, byzantine, conspiratorial, satanic, fraudulent, libelous, bilious, splenetic, spastic, ignorant, clueless, illegitimate, harmful, destructive, dumb, evasive, double-talking, devious, revisionist, narrow, manipulative, paternalistic, fundamentalist, dogmatic, idolatrous, unethical, cultic, diseased, suppressive, controlling, restrictive, malignant, deceptive, dim, crazy, weird, dystopic, stifling, uncaring, plantigrade, grim, unsympathetic, jargon-spouting, censorious, secretive, aggressive, mind-numbing, arassive, poisonous, flagrant, self-destructive, abusive, socially-retarded, puerile, clueless, and generally Not Good. You useless piece of shit. You absolute waste of space and air. You uneducated, ignorant, idiotic dumb swine, you’re an absolute embarrassment to humanity and all life as a whole.
The magnitude of your failure just now is so indescribably massive that one hundred years into the future your name will be used as moniker of evil for heretics. Even if all of humanity put together their collective intelligence there is no conceivable way they could have thought up a way to fuck up on the unimaginable scale you just did.
When Jesus died for our sins, he must not have seen the sacrilegious act we just witnessed you performing, because if he did he would have forsaken humanity long ago so that your birth may have never become reality.
After you die, your skeleton will be displayed in a museum after being scientifically researched so that all future generations may learn not to generate your bone structure, because every tiny detail anyone may have in common with you degrades them to a useless piece of trash and a burden to society.
No wonder your father questioned whether or not your were truly his son, for you'd have to not be a waste of carbon matter for anyone to love you like a family member.
Your birth made it so that mankind is worse off in every way you can possibly imagine, and you have made it so that society can never really recover any state of organization. Everything has forever fallen into a bewildering chaos, through which unrecognizable core, you can only find misfortune.
I would say the apocalypse is upon us but this is merely the closest word humans have for the sheer scale of horror that is now reality. You have forever condemned everyone you love and know into an eternal state of suffering, worse than any human concept of hell.
You are such an unholy being, that if you step within a one hundred foot radius of a holy place or a place that has ever been deemed important by anyone, your distorted religious soul will ruin whatever meaning it ever had beyond repair.
You are an idiotic, shiteating, dumbass ape and no one has ever loved you. You are a lying, backstabbing, cowardly useless piece of shit and I hate you with every single part of my being.
Even this world's finest writers and poets from throughout the ages could never hope to accurately describe the scale on which you just fucked up, and how incredibly idiotic you are.
Anyone that believes in any religion out there should now realize that they have been wrong this entire time, for if divine beings were real, they would never have allowed a being such as you to stain the earth and this universe.
In the future there will be horror stories made about you, with the scariest part of them being that the reader has to realize that such an indescribable monster actually exists, and that the horrific events from the movie have actually taken place in the same world that they live in right now.
You are the absolute embodiment of everything that has ever been wrong on this earth, yet even that would only represent a small part of your evil. Never in the history of mankind has there been anyone that could have predicted such an abomination, but here you are.
It’s hard to believe that I am seeing such an incredible failure with my own eyes, but here I am, so unfortunately I cannot deny your existence. Even if I did my very best, my vocabulary is not able to describe the sheer magnitude of the idiotic mistake that is you.
Even if time travel some day will be invented, there still would not be a single soul willing to go back in time to this moment to fix history, because having to witness such incredible horrors would have too many mental and physical drawbacks that not even the bravest soul in history would be willing to risk it.
I cannot imagine the pure dread your mother must have felt when she had to carry a baby for nine months and then giving birth to such a wretched monster as you. Not a single word of the incoherent, illogical rambling you may be wanting to do to defend yourself or apologize would ever be able to make up for what you just did.
The countries of the world would have wanted to make laws preventing such a terrible event like this from ever happening again, but sadly this is not possible since your horrific actions just now have shattered every form of order this world once had, making concepts such as laws irrelevant.
Right from the moment I first set my eyes on you I knew you were an absolute abomination of everything that is wrong with humanity. I was hoping I would have been able to prevent your evil from being released upon this world by tagging along and keeping my eye on you, but it is clear to me now that not even the greatest efforts would have been able to prevent a terrible event in this scale from occurring.
You are the worst human being, or even just being in general, that I have ever had the misfortune of witnessing. Events like the Black Death and the Smallpox pandemic only happened with the goal of preparing humanity to survive such a horrible event as the one you just created, but not even mankind’s greatest trials were able to even slightly prepare anyone for the insufferable evil you have just created.
If you ever had them, your children would be preemptively killed to protect this universe from the possibility of anyone in your bloodline being even half as bad as you are, except you will never be able to have children, because not a single human being will ever want to come within a hundred mile radius of you and anything you have ever touched.
You are a colossal disappointment not only to your parents, but to your ancestors and entire bloodline. The disgusting mistake that you have just made is so incredibly terrible that everyone who would ever be to hear about it would spontaneously feel an indescribable mixture of immense anger, fear and anxiety that emotionally and physically they would never truly be the same ever again.
The sheer scale of your mistake, if ever to be materialized, would not only surpass the size of the world, but it would reach far beyond the edges of the known, and almost certainly the unknown universe.
I could sit here and write paragraphs, nay, books describing your immense failure, yet even if I were to dedicate my life to describing the reality of what has just gone down here, and I would spend every moment of it until my heart stops beating, working as hard and efficiently as possible, there is not even a snowballs chance in hell that I would be able to come close to transcribing the absolute shitshow you have just released upon the world.
When people of Columbia fought to break free from Lungmen, countless soldiers fought and lost their lives in favor of a chance at a better future for their children, they did not give their lives to have you fuck the world up beyond repair to the degree that you are doing right now. Honestly, even when technology advances and studies on the subject become more and more accurate, I do not think humanity will ever truly be able to understand what your failure actually means for the universe.
My hate for you and everything you stand for is so much deeper than the depths of Shambala that you could probably take the entire Lungmen population down there and back up around twenty million times before you would have sunk to the end of my hate. Fuck you you dumb bitchy itchy ugly wugly sugly fatherless attention wanting even looking at you hurts my eyes you want to sex with a damn pedophile and say "GO HARDER DADDY" and he just sayin "SUCK MY 1 INCH DICK" and he cheated on you with a damn LAMA and you are like "YOU SICK PSHYCHOPAT MOTHER FUCKER" and he be like "Atleast looking at her doesnt hurt my eyes and you eat my poop saying that its for yo damn FAMILY ALBUM OF POOPS" Your father left faster than flash when you were born and said "SWEET HOME ALABAMA" Shut your skin tone chicken bone google chrome no home flip phone disowned ice cream cone garden gnome extra chromosome metronome dimmadome genome full blown monochrome student loan Indiana Jones overgrown flintstone x and y hormone friendzone Sylvester Stallone Sierra Leone autozone professionally seen silver patrone ching Chong lin long suck my ding dong headass remote control autism down syndrome stage four terminal brain cancer O'Riley autoparts silver bronze ash amino UV light pen sushi ram ramen Harisson Ford gamer bitch ass Virgin lamp thermometer lean mean string bean Charlie Sheen limousine canteen trampoline serpentine anti histamine wolverine submarine unclean nectarine broken gene Halloween detective spleen smoke screen James Dean putting green tiny peen anti vaccine aquamarine eugene extra green nicotine vaseline jelly bean magazine protein Lightning McQueen vending machine what'chu mean ocean man by ween head ass tf up bitch Shut Yo Ching Chong Bing Bong Ding Dong Shing Shong Google Chrome Skin Tone Underground Flinstone Chicken Wing Butter Built Like A Minecraft Skeleton With That Todays Video Is Sponserd By Raid Shadow Legends 🤓 Lookin Sayo Gensin Benjing Goofy Ahh 🤡 Mom Disowned You Father Got The Milk 🥛 Chromosomes Look Monochrome With That X To Doubt You Looking Like Goblin D The Ugly Ass Mofo Picture I Sent Roku TV Shits On Floors Cant Draw A Straight Line Wii Remote Went Wee At Your Roku TV After You Played With It Favorite Movie Probaly Pussy In Boots With That Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Im Hating It Walks Like Braden Jackson Donaldson Slow As A Slug Hads In Pockets 24/7 Head Down Probaly Gay Infact Evey Thing In LGBTQQIP2SAA TEACHER YOU FORGOR THE HOMEWORK Lookin Insett Cash Or Card 🤓 Probaly Dosnt Know What Ligma Is 😈 If You Had A VR Headset You Would Feed It To Your Dog Before You Could Break It Homeless Poorer Then Joe Oh Who's Joe? JOE MAMMA Lookin Things COD Is A Fishing Game.

Chapter 1: Down Dark Tides the Glory Slides
Although its dark red stains were simple paint, the wooden circle nailed to the mast testified to a grim maritime tradition of blood sacrifice. Something must lure the winds, the sailors will explain, and it is better that one man die by an opened throat than everyone aboard succumb to slow thirst and maddening sun. At the center of this primitive ritual site, a clean cross-section of a willow, a sacrilegious nail supported the modern miracles of a thermometer and an aneroid barograph.
Further up the mast, in the crow's nest, another assurance against a dead calm and starvation shivered in the evening air, awakened by the chunky tumult of the icebreaker straining to prove its name with the painful zeal of an inadequate heir.
Kingfisher Volganin stood up and let the bedding slide off her back. Her long legs, built to wade through shore and swampland, dug into the wood for balance as she adjusted her precious leather bookbag and pushed aside her cedar trunk. She sniffed and brushed the flaking skin from under her nose. The heavy air of Samyy Severnyy's vast port smelled different than most sea fronts, too cold for the pungent scent of rotting kelp, but the acrid winds spread the unctuous odor of the Alchemists' Isle whaling lots and the fish canneries of the Royal Island. The port was quieter than most, with the cawing gulls facing heavy competition from terns, white waders, and auks both great and little.
Volganin hopped from her barrel nest on the central masthead to the bow mast's top, and to the lowest spar of its square rig. She grasped a taught loading cable, avoiding the sailors' work routes as she descended to the deck with the crane hook. The aging, three-mast warship had been refitted into a cargo ship, trading armaments for a spacious hold, block-and-tackle loading mechanisms, and an ice-breaking grill empowered by emergency boilers and the thrust of a great steam screw. The Imperator Dragomir's high center of gravity protected it from treacherous, icy scrapes but slaved it to pernicious Polar Sea weather and cursed it with a stomach-churning sway. The North's cruel wind chilled her bare legs and numbed her lips. She thought that the navigator's promise of warmer days ahead had fallen through, but the thermometer supported him. A horror gripped her as she realized that yes, this was
indeed the warmth of the Severnayan Thaw.
She struggled to find a spot in the work detail as she regained her balance and warmed herself with pumped legs and quaking shoulders. She apologized for waking late, but the crew ignored her. It was the tightest ship she had ever witnessed.
The black-coated mariners brought down the sail with a song led by an aged and respected boatswain with a stunningbasso profundo voice. She smiled at the brief show of warm humanity. After a week of long travel, their admirable professionalism shifted to an eerily, quiet solemnity. Their departure from Novoport was quite possibly the cleanest and fastest she could recall. Their discipline became off-putting, uncanny even.
“Have you ever been this far north?” she asked, interrupting the second mate's inspection of an sail painted with lucky stripes of ultramarine, sacred to the sea god Craethion. At night, the enchanted canvas darkened and twinkled with phosphorus star charts.
“Out west, once,” whispered the thin man, without pausing his scan of the deck, “But we don't come to Northernmost, Dame Kingfisher.”
“We?” she asked. “This crew?”
“Tsokiri,” he said.
She tilted her head quizzically. Northernmost was, last she heard, part of the Homelands.
One heavy-set sailor, winding a rope around his forearm, looked up at her and said, “They service foreigners from all over the Polar Sea, and further west and east. But they're enemies of Chernograd, even if they don't have the guts to act on it.”
“How can they survive up here without the capital?” she asked. “It's frozen for more than
a season.”
“Northernmost has been dying slowly, for a century,” said the Second Mate, “The port thrived, until the Vankiri armada tried to blockade. And its burning. After that, things went very...hush, hush. These Severnayans had ambitions, tried to break away from Tsokir...and then came the curse.”
“Serves them right,” said the heavy sailor. “To much of the Old Guilds in them.”
Kingfisher visited many of the ports that once belonged to the Confederation of Maritime Guilds, who retained a common tradition of elected mayors, merchants' councils, and various laws and customs. But the league's promise of mutual protection faltered when the Boreal Empire claimed Swanlands, Palantoke, and Ingeborg, and Tsokiri armies captured Lentora, the Timorats, and the Shankir. The Severnayan State, with Northernmost as its capital, was an even older alliance of northern cities and counties, absorbed into the Volgamazgan crown seven hundred years ago.
To the Throne of the Fallen, foreign rivals had always had a dangerous foothold in the empire's north.
“Curse?” Kingfisher asked. Something caught her eye through the inland fog, a thick shadow looming behind the amber haze. It was Northernmost's legendary tower of black iron, stretching at least half a kilometer into the sky. The natives say it was here before them.
“I've only heard rumors,” said the second mate, and the sailor concurred with a nod. “Ask those foreign doctors in the hold. Like I said, we don't come up here.”
Kingfisher had barely heard from them in their rickety berths in the underdeck; one spoke good Tsokiri, and another decent Merovene, but they kept to themselves, and did no work above deck. She wanted to ask what changed, what drew this ship to Northernmost, but the sailor and the second mate turned from her, driven away by the First Mate's scowl.
In stretches of sea notoriously infested with mermaids and sirens, a woman called the Captain's Wife is brought aboard, with smelling salts and horns to break their enchantments. Wayland and Merovy send out entirely female crews through the worst of them, but this is vanishingly rare elsewhere. This dangerous task, more than any, was why ship insurers and captains sought out Kingfisher's services, despite the misfortune brought by her womanhood and the malevolent winds in her veins. She could break a siren song, fight off invaders, and even pull fish, flotsam, and castaways from the blue.
Still, men usually kept their distance from her for the first few days of a voyage. But by the end of the first week, that same femininity, at least until the span of her shoulders and the top of her knee, provoked prurient remarks and offers. Not these men.
A feral part of her wished to sing to them. To draw out that lust. It wanted to join the work song and transform these labors into a bacchanal. She smothered that bestial impulse under righteous disgust and got to work as the ship maneuvered to the dock under an odd combination of falling sail and steaming mechanical oar.
A pair of men pulled a heavy canvas cloth from the anchor, a heavy stone slab rather than the traditional bowed steel weight. She had never seen such a practice, but she assumed it had something to do with the Polar Sea's ice and hearty barnacles.
She grabbed the end of a heaving line, fluttered to the dock, and returned with a pair of bulky hawsers attached to mooring winches. The heavy hauling ropes fought against her legs like constrictor snakes, animated by the winds sweeping across the coast. After choking them down against the docks and looping them through the bridles' eyes, she returned to the winches to turn the crank. She gasped and recoiled from a steam-heated crankshaft. She laughed at herself in embarrassment, the mechanism was merely unexpectedly warm, not scalding, and she should have noticed that something had de-iced the device. She then gasped again as she slipped on black ice, and spread her wings wide, accidentally ringing a silver bell mounted on a dockside lantern. She drew up the air to catch herself, to the horror of a nearby longshoreman.
The old man clutched at his chest as he steadied himself against the dock's pylon. His hands quickly snapped up, pulling his cap down and cupping his scalloped ears. He struck at the silver bell, meant to break curses, hauntings, and enchantments. Volganin tried to calm the man, but quickly realized that her continued advance would have driven the old man into the icy drink of Seal Skinners' Head.
Kingfisher called herself an alkonost when she had to, but the old man called her by her people's common names.
“Siren...” he gasped in a soft, wheezy voice. “Harpy!”
She tried to say that she meant him no harm, but the automatic winch let out a clanking howl as it drew in the sixth-rate post ship, drowning out her reassurances. She instinctively entered a deferential stance, with wings covering a downcast face. The yard-man slipped, and she forced the air behind him to cough up a salty wind. She righted the old man, and clasped his right wrist with the bend of her wings. She curled the single digit on each wing to hide its fearsome claw.
“Everything is going to be fine,” she said with a smile. “Let's unload this ship.”
The crew was already at work, and the anchor sunk below the waves with an echoing splash. A gust pushed past her, bending a few pinions, as the ships' other passengers, a pair of foreign doctors, made their way down the dock.
Kingfisher flew back to the crow's nest. The boat roared and strained and broke. Kingfisher shrieked and turned, blind and deaf above an inferno that screamed across the water and warped the wharf. The rapidly-heated wood moaned and cracked, drowning out the breaking of bones and the gasps of lungs beaten flat by the pressure wave. Frothing water surged through the dockyards and workers panicked as flayed whales rose as vengeful revenants on blood-pink tides.
The shock and updraft tossed Kingfisher towards the clouds, with such force that she strained against an outright inversion of her wings. Above the graying mists, the sea and sky blurred into a tangerine nightmare. A second blast tore through the hold, and the aft of the sundered ship splintered. Kingfisher closed her eyes as the fireball expanded. They were met with a blinding pillar of smoke when opened, and she cried out. The crowd along the shore was a riot of madmen, and she could have sworn she heard gunfire. She fluttered clear of the pillar and turned her wings to sweep outward and circle back. A second smoking pillar swirled from the corner of the port market, the militia's powder magazine ignited by the pressure wave. After wiping her eyes clean on her biceps, she turned her keen gaze to the water, searching for men to rescue.
She circled twice and found only the dead. The torn-open, the headless, the charred and the broken... and limbs, limbs everywhere. She let out a hoarse cry of distress. The smell of blood and grease the sight of gore kindled a vicious hunger within her. Small flames danced across the rippling harbor. The orange tinge to the water cooled into a soupy, golden brown that Kingfisher recognized as half-melted blubber. The voices along the shore buzzed like horseflies swarming on carrion. She dropped her water-proofed dittybag on an outcropping, tensed her wings and tightened them towards her chest, straightened her spine, and took the plunge.
The ringing in her ears died down below the surface. She heard a brief hum from the water, eerie yet gentle, like whale-song. She tried to listen for an enchanting melody, as countersinging undines was one of her duties. She ignored the strange tone upon spotting a young man floating, intact but for a superficial head wound. She hooked her head under his armpit and kicked towards the shore. She deposited the man on a beach of ice and pebbles, balled up a talon, and forced the water from his chest with a blow. She lowered her head towards his and felt his failing breath. She listened to his chest, placed her mouth over his, and set a vital wind whirling through his collapsed left lung.
Kingfisher gasped upon hearing the crack of a rifle and the cries of militiamen.
“Vulture!”
“Looter!”
“Harpy!”
She deflected the bullet with an exhausting blast of air and dove into the water. Each chilling dive was a stunning blow, with the thunderbolt alertness of arctic immersion clashing with mind-obliterating cold. She dove deeper and glimpsed the faint outline of something like a traditional bowed anchor in a broken crate swallowed up by the great darkness, her eyes easily picking up the contrasts in fields of gray and blue. Black swirls of bitumen leaked from two dozen barrels, grasping at the wreckage like a ghostly kraken. She took a quick count of the bodies, some thirty, obviously dead or hopeless. One seemingly intact man sent her panicking with the revelation of a skinless face with a boiled-away eye.
She breached the surface for another lungful and remembered her locker, tucked away in the crow's nest. She panicked again and searched for the mainmast. Its high construction saved the nest from destruction, but the search strained muscles and frayed her nerves, to the point that even a diving puffin sent her into a tizzy. The salty sea water ablated the insulating, waterproof oil on her feathers, and the universal cold suppressed her pores' capacity to replace it. The bone-deep cold came quickly, and her talons were not her own when she gripped them around her locker's handles.
She was not sure how she did it, but she found the strength to circle back and retrieve her book bag. She waded ashore on quaking limbs, and blew her nose, sneezing out a thick and bloody brine to the din of the dockside rabble. She snapped to attention as a blur of men in naval black and longshoreman's gray focused into rescue teams running chains and stretchers up the wharf and a firing squad standing dangerously still. The chill in her hollow bones fought a paradoxical war with the burning strain of back muscles as she fled from the local militiamen and the crack of their rifles. A wall of hot smoke met the icy fog, and Kingfisher dove straight into their firing line. Her glaucous wings matched their marengo coats, her pale underside, the rising smoke. Watchers along the shorefront market of Lukomorie Bay screamed and gasped. The irregulars parted and ducked as she had hoped, buying her enough time to fade into the haze of Northernmost.
She flew up the Inland Prospekt and towards the Mayoral Tower at the center of the mainland development, catching the thermal rising from the eerie heat of its black iron majesty and the mundane concrete and tar-pavement. In the harbor she acknowledged its size on an intellectual level, but up close, spiraling up a weather system created by its mere presence, the tower was confounding, terrifying. What intelligence, what forgotten empire, could have made such towers?
Kingfisher turned to the west over the fortified Merchant Court, pivoting outside the warm shadow of the Mayoral Tower. She hissed as a chilling wind rolled down from Hyperborea, the north pole's wrath impeded only by the shadow of a short mountain and the pines of the taiga. She passed over a fine set of houses in the neighborhood of Griffon's Nest, where people milled about outside, craning their necks to see the tower of smoke in the harbor.
Kingfisher came down on a scale-shingled tent-roof. She scanned her surroundings, watching for the flow of emergency traffic to the docks. In the Bereginya, a neighborhood along the Narrows that terminated in the smoldering charcoal kilns of Nine Bear Cave, she saw a tailor's shop and the Quill, a playwrights' café next to a trio of large buildings teeming with activity. The nearest, the wooden, wedge-roofed Driftwood Theatre; the furthest, a castle with a cluster of five great onion domes called the House of Wisdom, the greatest temple of the Severnayan region. Some sort of civilian rescue effort mustered here.
Between the house of gods and the arena of heroes, just a small hop across Ogre-Back Row and down Scheznik Avenue, stood a large stone building with a bochka roof, elevated half-barrels rising into a single bulky dome. Nurses stood outside, preparing triage, while runners carried supplies to shore. Kingfisher focused her eyes on its sign, “Blessed Kiril's Infirmary,” unchanged from the aged sketches of the House of Wisdom. It had a somewhat melted quality to its stone edifice, common to the area, with creamy traces on its window frames. The Alchemists' and Royal Isles are ancient calderas from the Great Northern Volcanic Ring, rich in sulfur and cinnabar. Hot-melt sulfur forms the mortar of much of the stonework, and local carpenters decorate their woodwork with inlays of molten sulfur, poured into their etchings from tinker's tools and scraped away when scarred. In this land of ever-present cold and water, the natives clung to heat and fire.
Local alchemists and priests, shamans from the Pokinutin East, doctors, naturalists, and alienists toiled here for a cure to Northernmost's medical crisis. It would be a good place, she thought, to save people.
As the hummingbird rush of her escape ebbed away, the exhaustion and killing cold ganged up on her. Her knees gave out, and her thighs rested awkwardly against her tarsi, taught and shaking like the great cables of a tall ship's mast. She shook the water from her wings, and cringed as whale oil dripped down her pinions. Wind-worn scales rubbed against each other, painfully overlapping in places, sloughing off a cheesecloth sheet of taupe skin. Her wickedly curved, syndactyl toes tightened their grip around the stony lip of a corbel decorated with a grinning gargoyle. She hopped up onto the roof and ducked tightly against the brick chimney. She nodded off, before feeling returned, and the soaked and freeing bandage on her ankle inspired a surge of panic that sent her scrambling to open her bags and trunk.
She breathed a visible sigh of relief. Her blouses were damp, but not damaged. Her cuirass and arming doublet were perfect, and the saltwater did not breach the leather case around her storybook, manual, and grimoire. More damage had been done by her talons frantically scratching into the clamps and straps. That was today's small blessing.
Kingfisher scanned for prying eyes, and quickly changed her chemise and put on the sleeveless doublet. All of her clothing had to be specially tailored; they snapped or laced together over the shoulder or side so she could dress herself by mouth and the hooked finger on her wing. She was rather embarrassed by her body; while clothed, her torso and head resembled a human woman, but a glimpse of her bare form revealed the subtle oddities. While most of her was thin and wiry, her biceps were comparable to those of a strongman's, and slabs of muscle covered her shoulder and back.
She finally slipped into the century-old cuirass and sealed its side with a slam against the brick chimney. For once, she was overjoyed that the metal plates retained heat like a smelter's kiln.
She was so cold, tired, and hungry that her eyelids appeared to have launched a coordinated effort with the stomach, torturing and blinding their foe while its ally rumbled demands. A trade mission had been dispatched to her toes, but they were halted and possibly lost on the winter march.
She peaked her head out as she finished fastening her cloak. Perhaps an hour had passed since the explosion, and the town had settled down once it was clear that the fire was confined to the waterfront. The sailor must have been brought here by now, if at all.
“Hey!” a voice cried out. “What are you doing up here?”
Kingfisher's head darted towards the source of the noise, an old, wiry man in a raggedy gray coat darkened by soot. He held a broom and a bucket in webbed hands.
“Are you the chimney sweep?” Kingfisher asked.
“I sweep the entire fucking hospital,” the man said. “You can't be up here. Get back inside.”
“Inside?” Kingfisher said.
She snorted and sneezed out another glob of sea salt and dried blood.
“I... Did a young man come in recently?”
“Young man?” he said. “What, your husband? Brother? Why'd you creep up here?”
“No, I didn't know him. A sailor, pulled up from the harbor,” she said. “There was an explosion...”
“Yeah, heard about that,” the custodian said. “Hell, I heard it. But no, I don't handle the patients, miss. Not the living ones, heh... The door is open. Get back inside. Looks like your hair's wet, you'll catch your death.”
She didn't rise.
“Can you... run a message to them? About the sailor? He was blond, a score and five years, at most. Please, sir, I will pay you two prince-heads.”
“See, I like the offer, but I don't like that you're hiding, miss,” he said. “You're sounding more and more like an assassin. Stand up.”
“I can't,” Kingfisher said.
“Why?” he barked.
She looked down and tried to think of something that wasn't truly a lie.
“I am not wearing a dress. Or breeches,” she said.
“Then get inside or you'll be dead by morning, you damn fool.”
He shuffled towards her, and she instinctively skittered backward, but could not hide the blue-gray of her wings.
He sputtered and hurled the bucket at her and retreated, his broom pointed at her like a halberd.
She fluttered out of the way and landed on the lip of the chimney, ready to use its rising warmth for a quick getaway.
“Look, look, I know how this looks–”
“You won't be singing me off this roof!” he yelled. “Back! Back!”
“I just want to know if the sailor is safe!” she shouted back.
“So you can eat him?” he yelled in a strained, reedy voice.
“No!” Kingfisher spat. “Look, call the constables or the militia. If you want me dead... let them kill me. I'm too exhausted to fight back. I only... want to know if I saved one life today.”
The old man pulled the broom back.
“I'll go ask about the matter. You stay here. Don't try any tricks,” he said.
He backed towards the door.
Before he closed it, he added, “You eat fish?”
Kingfisher nodded.
She bode her time by opening up her old storybook, Tarasov's Tales of Great Deeds and Chivalry, a thick volume of romances sung by troubadours and mistrals, legends of heroic virtue written by ancient philosophers, elfen-songs and retelling of primordial fables and titanomachies.
The old man crept outside again, with baked cod stewed with sour cream, onions, and potatoes, served on kelp in a trencher resting on a hospital blanket.
“Alright, girl, here you go, it's been steamed... the blanket, I mean. It was from a patient with a foot injury, so no need to worry... Eh, the cod's probably steamed, too,” he said. “I don't know, that ogre nurse made it.”
“Ogre nurse?” Kingfisher asked, perhaps too quietly to hear.
“Oh, your boy... I don't know, miss, he's not woken up,” he said. “But give him time, just arrived.”
Kingfisher lowered her head, shielding her face with a wing.
“He would have certainly died if you hadn't dragged him out,” he said. “You gave him a chance, at least. That's all you can do.”
Kingfisher peaked up from her fanned feathers.
“Can you eat this?” he asked.
Kingfisher mumbled aimlessly, before nodding. She cocked her head at the blade of kelp.
“Right, you sound Southern,” he noted.
“I'm from the Grand Duchy Gulf,” she said, somewhat indignantly.
A slight curl crossed the corner of his lip, and his tone soured as he asked, “Novoport?”
“Peresheyeka Derevnya,” she said. “On the north shore.”
“This is Northernmost. You're a Southerner. And that's kelp,” he said. “It won't grow in the sea, so we grow it in caves. They burn it on Alchemists' Island, for glass and soap and gunpowder. And those tinctures, for the surgeries. I mean the, uh, soda ash. But it's good for you. Especially if you ever get pregnant. Or, er, egg.”
“I will try to remember that,” she said.
“Can I set this here?” he said, setting the blanket and trencher on a rooftop steam stack.
The harpy nodded.
“You'll catch your death out here, I think.”
“Thank you,” she said, as she carefully placed the folded trencher in a leather ration bag. She watched the suspicion in his eyes warm at her unexpected politeness. “We handle wet, cold... wetness...better than Urizen's folk.”
“The blanket still has some steam heat in it,” he said, closing the trunk for her. “If you want to roost up here, I won't tell nobody, but I'm not sticking around to protect you, neither. If you want a shelter, you might look over to Shura's Inn. Middle of the Staretsy's Prospekt, dead south of the Mayoral Tower. Some of the young doctors are there. And the innkeep will be good to someone like you.”
He pointed to the southeast.
Northernmost was uncommonly easy to navigate, its roads planned from the bottom up by Imperator Svyatopolk II's builders, wide and straight for rolling lumber from the taiga or long-hauling loads from the ships. These thick roads cover and brace a network of subterranean rivers and aqueducts, carved by lime-rich water leaching out to sea from the inland karst, thaw after thaw. These bituminous, cement roads held in heat, serving as convenient thermal routes. A grid of bronze pipes allowed salamanders to pass through and warm the streets.
The necessities of logging also left Northernmost vulnerable. It was the first city she had seen without a wall or palisade, instead protected by a series of wooden towers, and raised bastions filled with ash and seashells. Kingfisher noted that all the other cities were messy whirls ebbing from a river, with streets like cracked glass.
It did, however, take her a three-lap run down the prospekt to find Shura's Inn, stopping to watch a cat with seven toes on its back paws writhe on the ground, mewling like a human infant. She'd seen many ship's cats in her career, crew mascots, and mousers, but she had never seen one behave like this. The closest she could remember was Pork N. Beans, a Waylander cat that had chimerized with a pig, who liked wallowing in mud and squealing.
Shura's Inn stood at the foot of that ancient tower. Its two-stories of brown wood vanished against its dizzying black majesty. The inn bore the typically elaborate signage of Severnayan businesses, curling thorn bushes of wrought iron and hinges that slough off the ice and cater to illiterate sailors with negative-space iconography.
It took Kingfisher a moment to puzzle out the silhouette of a troika stagecoach, as seen from the side. She usually saw them top-down. She had a twinge of anger when she read the sign. The Inn seemed to be properly called 'Eternal Flame,' or maybe 'Evening Will-o'-the-Wisp'; it was hard to read, a cursive, wiry tangle in a baroque style about two centuries out of fashion. The name was painted plainly beneath in Waylander, Merovene, Skeironic, Argaman, and Murmurish, but that was no help to Kingfisher. It was only a bit of eagle-eyed scanning that picked up the worn-down name of Shura above the door frame.
The inn had grown from a small depot, with a once detached livery barn for horses. A later overhang bridged the gap, with the added benefit of sheltering an insulated chicken coop set next to what looked to be a brick oven and smoker.
Kingfisher flapped up and down in front of the door, hoping to see through the closed slat in the window. Feverishly, she realized that midnight must be approaching, yet the sun had not set. She was going to miss the night sky, and the constellations, and the racing stars which flickered in their close circuit around the globe.
A woman in a white and red sarafan dress opened the door. Kingfisher noted that there was something vaguely familiar about her but couldn't place it.
“Hey,” she said. “We have two rooms available, one grivenka a night, breakfast in the morning, meal at night included, tea all day. There's a banya next door, tell them you came by us. And we no longer have a hosteler on hand, but still supply horses.”
“I'm a harpy,” Kingfisher said, rather bewildered that she was the one to table the issue.
“I saw the wings and claws and pieced it together, yeah,” the innkeeper said. “And I assumed you knew, so why bring it up?”
“Will it be a problem?”
“Perhaps not,” the innkeeper said.
She spoke in an artificially clear, slow way, enunciating for travelers who may not be fluent in Tsokiri. While it slipped a bit, her accent resembled something closer to a school-taught Chernogradic.
Kingfisher noticed that the other Severnayans spoke like old people, or like the rustics in her books, pronouncing syllables that people in the Gulf or Chernograd long ago slurred together, and threw in nautical terms from Waylander, Murmurish, and Rannican. While Northernmost liked the mythology of the Kochniks, hearty seasiders in icebreakers and tall fur hats, the majority of Tsokiri in the port were descendants of the Shitikmen, settlers from the balmier, downstream marshes of the Otmel who paddled northwest in their riverboats to escape the Ölek Hordes. The accent of Northernmost ironically sounds more southern and inland than those they call “southerner” or “inlander.”
The innkeeper looked at the harpy's talons. “You're not going around snatching up sailors, right?”
Kingfisher shook her head and bit her lip. It was a lie if taken literally, but she was justified in the spirit of the concern and didn't want to spend time explaining the asterisk.
She wore a leather band around her left leg for easy access to a few coins for petty spending. Three grivenka around the ankle, thirty-four in her trunk. She pulled out a silver queen's-head and presented it with her right talon. The innkeeper looked at the face of the half-grivenka coin, frowned, and pocketed it.
She gestured for Kingfisher to step inside and spoke with an older man with a deep, raspy voice. Kingfisher assumed that they were daughter and father, separated by some thirty-five years. Both had a rustic look to them, with stocky builds, wide necks, and powerful hands. Their chests were notably broad; she was buxom, and he looked like a brawler. The knot in his nose hinted at a long-healed but brutal break. In his youth, a punch from him must have been devastating, and he could probably still lay someone out, well into his late sixties or early seventies. There was still some of her hair's copper in the old man's stubble, although any remaining hair on his head hid under a river flotilla cap. It matched the coloration of their eyes, not just a light brown, but a glistening bronze that shone through narrow, heavy lids.
Kingfisher's heart sank when she noticed a gray braid bound in a silver ring hooked to the wall, a charm of Incano's hair given to those who have lost a mother or wife. The gods of Aquilo embodied contradictions – kingly Urizen was bound in chains of law and discipline, while his kindly wife Incano was the mistress of death, spinning fate with her withered left hand. Urizen was once said to be the Divine Centaur, a wild beast tamed and divided into Man and Horse by his mate, a hag who aged in reverse. Their parting, it was said, would send Urizen back into bestial madness and return Incano to the shape of an all-devouring spider. It was only the chains of civilization and the silk of life, that bound humans to their humanity.
The woman handed Kingfisher a matchbox and a hooligan lantern and said that it was complimentary, even if it wouldn't get dark out for another five fortnights. The wick hooked through the gills of the alcohol-soaked candlefish. Harvesting and preparing the invasive Thrascian eulachon was a minor industry in Northernmost, both straight from the ocean, and, preferably, out of the freshwater rivers when the larger, oilier males come upstream to spawn like salmon. Severnayan hooligan lanterns could be found far to the south, traded down the 'grease trails' along the White Meska.
The woman pointed out the mail lockers and the work board for job postings, usually teamsters, small-time laborers, and sailors. These menial listings hung below a two-tier woodcarving set with sulfur, a divine Titanomachy over a farce of pygmies fighting cranes.
The master of the house, seated and doing sums in a ledger, slightly rose from his work behind the bar and added, “If you sweep the roof, we'll give you a free night. Some snow and leaves up there... Lena won't let me make that climb anymore.”
Kingfisher agreed with a nod and a tired “tomorrow” and looked at the faces around the common room. It was late enough that most of the crowd had dispersed, but a couple of older human men were leaving the bar, stumbling on their weak legs, leaving a twitchy gnome behind. Kingfisher noted that the barwoman, in her mid-thirties, may have been the youngest native she had seen so far. The merwoman playing the spring bagatelle cabinet could be anywhere from a score to centuries old, but the latter seemed more likely. One man in the corner looked to be in his twenties, but Kingfisher assumed that he was a traveler from the Boreal Empire, with a waterproofed watchcoat and a top hat of felted black beaver fur. He read from a heavy book while drinking coffee. From across the room, Kingfisher could make out an anatomical plate demonstrating the dissection of a woman's swollen throat. He looked up to speak to the barmaid as she poured dandelion and burdock mead into a glass. He tapped on his own wrist to indicate her arthritic brace, but his voice quickly trailed off as he spotted the siren.
A hooded Acthnico sat in the opposite corner, marked by an Ouroboros armband. Kingfisher was a bit unnerved by the salamander's yellow, slitted eyes and serpentine scales, but decided that monsters in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Although she did wonder why serpentfolk were so obsessed with the snake motif; humans don't typically shape everything they own into a humanoid pattern, and she had personally never seen a reason to sit in a siren-shaped chair. But perhaps once your culture settles on a footless form as the ideal, one feels the need to hammer the point home in the face of some persistent and obvious doubts.
A bluebird crafted from wood chips hung from a large black duct that rose from the ground and terminated through the ceiling. The bird of happiness had no glue; its split pine petals interlocked like an elaborate puzzle, light enough to spin slowly as hot air rose through the inn. Kingfisher interpreted it as providence, not knowing that similar 'sun doves' hung in almost every Severnayan household.
-Word Count Capped-
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Despite the biting wind and surrounding darkness, I couldn't help but feel a childlike glee as the snow crunched beneath my boots. Each step was a miniature symphony, a testament to the eight inches of powder that blanketed the fields like a pristine new blanket. It was most likely the novelty of never getting snow when you saddle the Alabama and Tennessee border. Moonlight, slightly escaping the thick clouds, occasionally flooded the landscape, transforming the fields into shimmering pools of bright light. Even the frozen pond in the center, usually cloaked in shadows, glinted like a forgotten coin.
This beauty, however, couldn't quite drown out the gnawing unease twisting in my gut. The wind, whistling through the bare trees, seemed to toy with the rickety barn I was passing by. With each gust, its weathered wood groaned, the building lurching drunkenly against the night. In any other setting, the crunchy serenade and moonlit spectacle would have been pure magic. But tonight, under the watchful eye of that dilapidated structure, I felt uneasy as I continued up the hill. Normally, the hill was an easy stroll, but now it felt as if I was scaling a mountain. At the top, I could see the light pour from the windows on the snow below. With a grunt, I continued the tiring climb, eyes drawn to the red pickup truck buried beneath a thick blanket of snow. Two footprints, the signs from the warm house, pointed downwards, the field and the cement bridge over the creek bed where packed snow concealed a treacherous sheet of ice. Reaching the top, I paused to catch my breath before navigating to the front door. A quick kick sent a flurry of white powder dancing from my boots and pant legs before I finally stepped inside.
The house reeked of stale coffee, burning firewood and unease. I found my wife huddled on the sofa, a tangled mess of brown hair cascading down her pale face, exhaustion etched in the shadows beneath her eyes. When I spoke, "How's he feeling?" my voice rasped, the question catching in the thick throat of worry.
Her face, glazed and distant, remained fixed on the window leaving the light colored walls of the room only to stare out from the window to the sea of white that laid outside. “I think even if we could get down the hill in the truck that bridge itself is too slippery to risk. We would just end up in the creek bed,” I continued.
The silence returned, heavier now, a suffocating feeling that muffled my hope. Each crackle of fire resonated like a hammer blow against my chest. Finally, I said, "Another night then? We'll see how things stand at dawn. When the sun rises, I'll make my way down there myself. But depending on the weather, afternoon might be the earliest..."
My words trailed off, yearning for a reply, any crack in the wall of her worry. But she remained motionless, a statue built of a silent grief. The air grew thick with unspoken fear, the only response to the howling of the wind outside. I walked over to the kitchen pouring a cup of coffee for myself. It was going to be another long night.
Entering the room, I found him silent, unmoving. The familiar shade of his mother's hair plastered damply to his forehead. I rested my hand gently on his forehead. The poor child was burning up. I reached for the thermometer laying on the bedside table to see the glass next to it. The clear glass full of sprite still whispering with bubbles, sat untouched. The child had not stirred since I had walked to the bridge that hung over the creek bed.
The thermometer beeped, its soft sound crushing my own hope for good news. A frantic press of the button revealed the harsh truth: 103.8 degrees. "Dammit," I muttered, the plastic digging into my palm. Pacing the blue colored room, frustration turned to fear. We were prisoners of winter, phones useless without wifi, and of course, even that had decided to abandon us. Trapped forty five minutes away from the nearest town, and me, the only one willing to whisper a word. It was starting to become maddening.
A sliver of light peeked through the gap in the curtains, illuminating a scene that left me without words. The light suspended in the field below the hill, a luminous orb of white light pulsed softly, casting an eerie glow on the snow-covered expanse. It wasn't the familiar twinkle of reflected moonlight on the frozen pond; this was something different.
I stood transfixed to the window, mesmerized by the spectacle. My mind raced for a rational explanation. Was it a drone, a strange weather phenomenon, or something altogether more... fantastical? The possibilities swirled in my head, each one leaving more questions in my mind than actual answers.
The unsettling thoughts fled my mind as I saw the orb had finally budged. No longer rooted, but moving slowly, inching closer to the house as if with purpose. Panic surged through me. I bolted out of the room, racing toward the front door. My wife remained on the couch, frozen like a statue. "Honey, keep an eye on him," I managed, my voice strained with a tremor. "There's something outside."
Silence. Again. I stepped outside, the frigid wind instantly biting into my skin. The orb, previously a distant anomaly, now loomed in the distance, its slow approach mirrored by the intensifying snowfall from the night sky above. I walked down the stairs leaving another set of footprints on the stairs.
I walked over the edge of the hill, my eyes fixed on the glowing orb inching closer to my house, closer to my family. "Hello? Is anyone there?" I screamed, my voice ragged.
I stepped towards the down slope on the slick snow, my boots failing to find traction as I stumbled downhill. One misstep sent me sprawling, tumbling headfirst into the cold pit that laid at the bottom of the hill.. Snow clung to my clothes like a shroud, the harsh cold biting into my skin. Dazed, I lay there, the white snow greeting my face.
I heaved myself up, my arms struggling as I lifted my head. The white orb still hung motionless. Eyes squinting against the blizzard, I stared into the pulsating light, searching for its source. "Hello?" I rasped, the word painful by the cut of another burst of cold wind.
Then, it shifted. The orb dipped, revealing a hulking figure shrouded in a puffy black coat. Details were drowned out by the snow, but I could feel the weight of his gaze as I scrambled to stand. “Who are you?” I asked, panicked.
Cloaked in the shadows and snow falling,, a deep voice bellowed, “Who are you?”
Startled, I realized I hadn't introduced myself to the neighbors. Maybe I should have done it earlier, but I hadn’t really thought about it. We hadn’t lived here for very long, but we were originally what the area would call city folk, who had moved into the area searching for bigger houses and not paying city premiums for it. “You one of the neighbors?” I asked, sheepishly
A guttural laugh echoed. “None of your concern.”
Unsettled, I pressed, “What does that even mean?”
His silhouette stiffened. “Means you don’t belong here,” he growled, the spotlight in his hand casting an ominous glow.
"My heart hammered, but I forced a retort. 'Excuse me? This is my home.'
The spotlight snapped to my face at my defiance, almost blinding me. '”Now I know your face, city boy. I'll be back.”
“What do you mean you will be back?”
A chilling chuckle hung in the air. “You've been bleeding a while, friend” The figure slowly vanished into the darkness, leaving only a trail of heavy foot prints and the echo of his threat. I stood there stiff trying to get my bearings.
The man's final words hung in the air as I stood frozen, the sting of warmth sliding down my cheek. Rubbing my face, I found red smeared beneath my fingers. My fall, worse than I thought, or my adrenaline's tease? But the sight of my own blood snapped me back. Scaling the hill, I burst through the front door, slamming it shut like a barrier against the winter terror.
"He threatened us!" I gasped, checking the snow-swirled darkness out the window. "Where's Claire?" No answer. The living room couch, empty. She was just just here, I thought to myself. I raced towards the bedroom, imagining her huddled with our child. But the blue room held only the untouched glass of Sprite on the nightstand only.
"Where are you?" I screamed, then saw it again - the distant light, defiant in the field. Cold air tickled my neck. The back door, swinging open in the wind. “You have to stay in the house, someone is out there and he threatened me,” I said cautiously walking to the door stepping outside to the familiar crunch of snow beneath my feet.
The winter silence swallowed my voice whole as I called out, "Sweetie? Are you out there?" My eyes strained past the barely visible trees silhouetted against the property line, their bare branches like bony fingers scratching at the fading twilight. Stepping out onto the back porch, I felt embraced by the icy caress of winter, drawing it in deep as I tried to pierce the gathering darkness.
Below, my gaze snagged on a trail of footprints marring the pristine white canvas of the snow. Each step was an accusation, a silent testament to an unseen presence. Had the man with the light been a mere decoy, a sinister plot to distract me? Were there two of them, stalking the shadows like wolves in the night?
A shiver, not just from the cold, danced down my spine. Curiosity, barbed with unease, urged me forward. I followed the footprints, their rhythm erratic against the snow. They snaked around the house, culminating in deep imprints beside the truck. Here, the snow had surrendered to the weight, yielding to the pressure of a pause, a moment's indecision. Had they tried to flee, only to find the escape route locked shut?
My eyes glued to what felt like a bread crumb trail, I watched the footprints snake down the slope, leading to the rickety barn. I made another glance towards the field, I saw the light vanish entirely, swallowed by the night. A prickling sensation crept down my spine; we were being toyed with. But I had to find them. Carefully, I descended the hill, the barn's weathered wood again groaning in every passing breeze.
I reached the door, slightly cracked and rattling precariously in the wind. Pushing it open, I stepped inside. The cold had wrenched life from the dirt floor, hardening it like stone. Most of the interior was shrouded in dark green plastic covering the tool shelves and equipment. My voice barely above a whisper, I hissed, "Are you here? We need to get back to the house, lock everything up. We're in danger!"
A harsh crumple of plastic ripped through the darkness of the barn. Metal clattered on the cold dirt, the sound raw with panic. Someone – or something – was in here with me, and it wasn't my family. "Where are they?" I shrieked, the question hurting from my throat.
More plastic rasped, more objects tumbled. The unseen presence stirred with a frantic energy, its movements bordering on desperation. I lurched forward, tearing at the suffocating green sheet, desperate to see. Below, a workbench spilled with chaos – tools flung across its dusty surface. The unseen sound continued, whether for escape or attack, I couldn't tell.
"Where are they?" I screamed again, each word being an angry sob, as I yanked another sheet free, revealing the rusty old lawnmower beneath it. It almost felt like it was trying to run as I heard feet dash to another place in the camouflage of darkness.
Another shape sitting idly in the corner. I lunged toward it, hands clenched into fists. An scared gasp, a tremor running through whatever huddled beneath. I'd cornered it, whoever it was. "Fucking found you," I roared, knuckles white as I tore away the final veil, revealing the figure hiding beneath.
A frail figure with a drooping white beard stood shivering in front of me. His eyes darted like those of a trapped animal, his lips almost the color blue, and his weathered face creased with fear. Light-colored sweatpants and a dark sweatshirt, both plastered with snow, frozen dirt, and something else – crimson streaks, scattered across his body.
"Please," he whimpered, voice raspy with cold, "Let me in, I'm freezing!"
"Where are they?" My fists clenched involuntarily, sending a fresh tremor through the shivering man. His eyes, already wide, bulged further. "Where is my family?"
“I was just trying to help,” he whined loudly. “Please, I will die out here if you don’t let me in!”
“I just want to know where my family went!”
My fingers dug into the clammy wool of his sweatshirt, adrenaline making my grip ironclad. He thrashed beneath me, a wild fury twisting his features. "I only wanted to help!" he rasped, the words tumbling over each other in a desperately
A bright light speared through the barn door, briefly blinding me. The frail old man noticed this, quickly. I felt his hands shove against my chest, sending me staggering back. I sprawled onto the dirt, watching as he scurried towards the light like a frightened rat.
Scrambling to my feet, I lunged forward, but the sun glare was searing, a blinding barrier between me and my attacker. The light stayed paused, silhouetted against the light, followed by a mocking laughter echoing in the barn. "Just leave us alone!" I roared, my voice raw with despair.
As I neared the barn door, the light went out again, as if both men had simply vanished. The snow’s fury escalated: snow plastered my vision white, wind clawed at the barn's weathered boards, and tree limbs lashed out in a silent duel. Through it all, one sound pierced the chaos - the man's echoing laughter, laced with harsh triumph, "Told you, city boy, you don’t belong here!"
The cold air snapped at my face, the snow devouring everything around me. Through the flurries, I glimpsed two silhouettes, wrestling with the storm towards the end of the field. They were heading to the bridge. My own feet drug through the snow, driven by anger and fear. I was going to catch up to the two men who had tormented me. But wait… One of those figures… much smaller than the other. The wind struck again, blowing the largest figure to reveal its dark color. I knew then that it wasn’t the men.
It was my family.
"Get back to the house!" I roared, each word a punch into the blizzard. My legs sank in snow with each desperate lunge, the distance to their retreating figures widening like a chasm. "The bridge! It's too dangerous!" But they continued on, swallowed by the storm.
Cold gnawed at my limbs, turning them limp. I had to reach them, drag them back to the fireplace’s warmth, huddle and plan defenses together. I noticed my shadow suddenly appeared before me. The sinister bright light was now bathing me from behind. “Keep going, get off this land,” The voice echoed behind me.
I put my head down, I pushed against the wind, the only thing left in this field drowned by snow. Stopping wasn't an option. The snow kept going down harder with every inch I took, making it impossible to find any trail of their shoe prints, but I knew they were heading to the bridge.
"Keep going, city boy," the man shouted, slowly trailing behind me, his words dripping with malice and the hope of our cold deaths. I squinted the gravel road, a silvery ribbon cutting through the flurries, but still no flicker of movement, no sign of my wife and son. They had to be there. Where were they? "Almost there!" the voice cackled, punctuated by the wind's unforgiving song. I tucked my head lower, trying to shield my face from winter's bite. My foot struck a hidden patch of ice, sending me sprawling onto the snow-crusted earth. Pins and needles erupted across my skin, a harsh contrast to the numbness my legs were feeling.
"Oh, so close!" The laughter echoed, a taunt lost in the howl of the blizzard.
“Fuck you!” I snapped back as I pushed myself up in defiance. I could see the bridge in the distance and kept pushing on.
“Oh, look at you, got some fight left, don’t ya?” he taunted and erupted in laughter, once again.
“Why are you doing this?” I said begging. “It don’t matter, I just want you to keep going!”
I felt a glimpse of hope flickered, faint yet enough to keep me pushing.. Each step was like I was in combat with nature, but I battled it with defiance to reach my family. It was dark. I turned to see the man and his bright spot light had once again disappeared.
“Hello? We have to get back to the house,” I urged as I continued to walk to the bridge. I did not see any sight of my wife and son. “Where are you?”
My foot hit the bridge, a slick shock that jolted me upright. Where were they? Desperate, I peered down the seven-foot plunge to the creek bed. There, in the frozen creek, something dark, indistinct but enormous. My breath caught in my throat.
It was a car. It had flipped into the creek bed. "Shit," I muttered under my breath, stepping off the bridge and skirting the edge for a better view. Had these two men emerged from the wreckage? Did they decide rather than ask nicely they would rather take my house with no regard for me and my family?
I spied a tangle of branches clinging near the slope. Gripping them like a a rope, I began my descent, each step sending snow tumbling down the frozen creek bed below. My boots, already wet against the unforgiving terrain, offered little grip, but I had to check it.
Finally, my boots crunched onto the frozen surface of the creek. A faint, amber glow pulsed from the mangled car lodged precariously against the far bank, drawing me closer. With each cautious step, the glow intensified. I first thought it was a headlight, but strangely it seemed to be coming from the driver side strangely enough. It grew brighter as I started to see someone was stuck in the wreckage. Only the spotlight greeted my question, blinding me again. A familiar voice, different from the taunts before, cut through the haze. “Mister, wake up,” it said.
Another voice, equally familiar, joined it. “Hold on, the ambulance is on its way.” My eyes focused through blur and pain, I saw two men in the beam, their faces obscured. My forehead throbbed, as I lifted my head to feel the blood oozing down. “Where is my family?” I whimpered in pain.
The man pointed to the side of the creek bed where I saw the two of them standing there with worry on their face and said, “Don’t you worry, they are safe. It seems you were the only one who got hurt.”

Hi All,
Firstly I would like to apologize in advance if this post is offensive to anyone who does have a diagnosis. I am a first time mom to the best little boy, but with his 2nd birthday coming up and anxiety that I never had before having him, I’m just wondering if there’s something off developmentally.
My son is so smart and his receptive language is incredible. He understands anything you ask him to do in English and Spanish, will follow directions. He knows about 70 words and uses about 45 regularly. He knows all his animal sounds, family names, can ask for what he wants. He doesn’t really put together 2 words yet unless it’s with a name (ie “mommy pipi” to let me know he peed). He can identify all his favorite characters and animals.
His MCHAT at 18 months was perfect according to his pediatrician and he has his 2 year appt coming up next week, but some things I’m wondering/worried about:

• he doesn’t really put 2 words together often, barely at all
• He knows all his body parts and can point them all out when asked but lately if I ask he won’t do it. He just smiles at me and digs into his belly button since he just discovered it. Today at bathtime though he did point them out, so maybe I’m making a big deal for nothing?
• Lately he just mostly throws his toys instead of actually playing with them, not out of anger or violence just to throw them
• The one thing on the MCHAT that was a “risk” when I looked it over on my own is that he doesn’t pretend play? The example given was feeding a bottle to a doll but he doesn’t have dolls so he doesn’t do that. He’s done other things like he’ll get his thermometer and put it in his ear. He plays with his cars and trucks and he cuts his play food.
• He got some little people sets for Christmas and seems totally disinterested in them.

Some things I’m unsure of: - he LOVES balls and throwing them and playing with them. He gets super excited when we play ball with him and after throwing the ball he’ll flap his hands a bit. That’s the only time he does it and I’m not sure if it’s stimming or just excitement - If he’s bored or hasn’t been outside he just legit runs around the house (not like in circles just all over). He squeals while running and lately will hold out on arm just to swipe against whatever is there (wall, pantry, etc)
Some things that I read are not typically signs of autism, but I’m not entirely sure: - he’s super affectionate and loves hugging his caregivers - He’ll smile at strangers and blowing them kisses, but won’t like go off with them or run up to them. It’s like with cashiers at the grocery store and stuff - He LOVES other kids and gets excited when he sees them. He just hasn’t been in a daycare setting yet so he doesn’t know the appropriate interactions and will like swipe at them, but he wants to play and will share his toys - He makes great eye contact - He’s unfazed by loud sounds, doesn’t seem to have sensory issues. He’ll look kind of grossed out when he gets dirt on his hands at the park, but he’ll just rub his hand on me and carry on - He’s not a picky eater, eats all kinds of things - He has toddler tantrums when he doesn’t get his way, but he’s never had a meltdown. He usually is over it in a few minutes
I don’t know if I’m just making myself crazy, but I guess I’m scared he’s regressed since he’s not saying more words or not pointing to the body parts like he used to, etc. I also read that not saying 2 words together or having 100+ words at 2 is a warning sign for autism and that has me worried. Does anyone have any insight or experience that would help me? Thanks in advance!

I'll always remember that Christmas when the storm blew in.
This was back in 82 or 83, and my family was living in a little house in North Georgia. Dad worked as a logger, Mom stayed at home to take care of me and my brother, and Grandpa had lived with us ever since Grandma died the year before. My Uncle and Aunt had come to stay with us for the holidays and my two cousins, Ella and Jasper, were sharing a room in the loft attic with me and my brother. Our little three-bedroom cabin seemed pretty cramped, but we all just thought it would be until after the holidays.
That was until the blizzard rolled in.
It was December twentieth, four days before Christmas, and we were all playing outside. The adults had said we were being too loud and had asked us to go out for a bit, so we put on our coats and mittens and went out to play. My brother wanted to play hide and seek, and my cousins and I, all of us about four to six years older than him, had agreed begrudgingly. We were too old for baby games, my youngest cousin a whole year older than me, but we agreed, mostly so we would have something to do.
So Jasper and I were hiding under the porch, talking about something to do with hunting, I think, when I blinked as something drifted past my face. Jasper quieted as he noticed it, and I reached out my hand and caught a delicate-looking snowflake. I had seen snow before, you don't live in North Georgia for long without seeing some snow, but this was the first snow I thought might actually stick. It had been unseasonably warm for North Georgia, most days sitting around forty-five, and we had been worried that our white Christmas might be a bust.
As the snow began to fall harder, really coming down, we abandoned our game of hide and seek and devolved into little kids at the sight of all that powder. It was really amazing how quickly it came down, half a foot seeming to appear in minutes, and we began making snowmen, having snowball fights, and looking for the sleds in the tool shed so we could go to the holler and glide down with the fresh powder. Our parents came out onto the porch, looking in awe at all the snow, and when Dad tapped his little thermometer that hung next to the rain gauge, I realized that it was pushing fifty degrees. I didn't think about it at the time, but there was no way all that snow could be sticking. It was above freezing, and the snow should have been turning to slush before it hit the ground.
To us, it seemed like a Christmas miracle, but as the sun began to set and the adults went inside, I noticed Grandpa had come out and was looking at the sky with distrust.
I watched him as he walked out to the wood pile and took a piece of stovewood back in with him, my distraction earning me a snowball upside the head from Ella.
Looking back on it, Grandpa had to know what was coming, and even then he started getting ready for it.
We went to bed that night with visions of snowball fights and sledding dancing in our heads, but we woke up to a blizzard outside. Dad and Uncle went to stare at it on the porch, drinking coffee as they discussed what to do. Dad had laid by food, but he was worried that he didn't have enough for nine people long term. My Uncle joked that we could always eat Grandpa, but Dad said that would be like chewing on a boiled owl and they both laughed. Grandpa, on the other hand, was whittling something from the stove wood. He had been working on it through the night, and it kind of looked like a crossroads sign. It was thick through the middle, however, which made me think there might be more to it.
I was too excited for another snow day, however, to pay Grandpa much mind.
Not when there were winter festivities to get up to. My cousins and I played in the blizzard that day, but our games were muted some as the wind picked up and the snow began to fly. The wind was blowing too hard for our snowballs to fly straight. We tried sledding, but the snow was coming down too hard for us to see, and the ice that was forming hurt our ears and faces. By lunchtime, we were forced to come in out of the cold. Our coats, mittens, and hats were soaked through and after hanging them on the pegs in the mudroom, we went into the attic loft where we were all sleeping to warm up. We had all been set up in sleeping bags up here, my aunt and uncle taking the room I shared with my brother, and it was like having a little campout. The heat from the fire in the living room made it very warm up here, and as Jasper and I watched from the upper window, he leaned close to the glass and pointed into the woods.
"Do you see that?" he asked.
I squinted into the sea of white, trying to find it, and finally picked out a single silhouette. It looked like an animal, something on all fours, but it was gone as the winds blew up again, and we were both left looking at the snowy forest. He asked if I had seen it, probably trying to figure out if he had been seeing things, and I assured him I had seen it too.
We both sat by the window after the adults had gone to bed, looking out and hoping to catch a glimpse of something in the blowing snow.
We didn't see anything, at least I didn't, but we both assured the other that we could see all sorts of spooky things.
The next day, the blizzard was even worse.
December twenty-second was too stormy for any of us to even think about going out to play, and when my Uncle and Father came out bundled to the eyes in several winter coats and the old deer skin britches they sometimes wore for winter work, I knew they intended to go out anyway. Mom told them they were crazy, but Dad said they needed supplies. The town was only about two miles north through the woods, and they would get the essentials and head back before lunch. He kissed my mom and told me to hold down the fort while he was gone.
"I should be back soon. It's only a couple of miles."
They set out at seven, just after breakfast, and I didn't envy them.
With the blizzard raging, we mostly sat around the house and watched TV. The set only got ten channels on a good day, and today we were lucky to get two. The local weather station came through, on and off, and as the little kids watched public access stuff, I sat and read on the saggy old couch. My older cousin had decided to read a magazine he'd brought, and the only break up over the muffled sounds of the TV was Grandpa as he carved his little figure. The sciff sciff sciff of Grandpa's whittling knife kept leading me away from the adventures of Frodo and Sam, and I found myself looking at him as he worked. If he was self-conscious about it, he never showed it. Grandpa wasn't so old that he seemed ancient, but even as a kid he seemed like some wise old elf to a sprat like me.
After a while, I finally asked him what he was making, and his answer made me put my book down entirely.
"A totem."
"Like a tribal thing? Like in Robinson Caruso?"
He smiled wetly at me, "Kind of. This one is to keep something specific away though, something we may get a look at if we're very unlucky."
"What's that?" my cousin asked, and I realized he had been listening too. The magazine lay across his lap now, and as Grandpa sat his knife aside, he lay it on the arm of the chair and moved over to sit closer.
Grandpa had just opened his mouth to speak, when the lights suddenly went out, and the living room was left in semi-darkness. The power had struggled on manfully, but it had finally given up the ghost. The fire in the grate cast Grandpa in a ghostly pall, and I imagined that this was how his own Grandfather had looked when he told stories once upon a time.
"When I was young, younger than you two but right about little Mack's age there," he said, pointing at my brother, "There was a blizzard much like this one. It blew in right after Christmas, and it stayed for five days. My brothers and I thought it was great, and we played in the snow as the adults looked on with concern. Did we have enough firewood? Did we have enough food? None of that mattered to us, though. Those were matters for adults and we threw snowballs and built forts and played until the sun set each day."
The fire crackled as the little kids moved closer to Grandpa, and we settled in for a story.
"As the blizzard went on, we noticed that something was stalking the woods around the cabin. It came on all fours, like a deer or a stag, but sometimes, if you were quick, you could see it on two legs as well. It never got close, not in the beginning, but as the blizzard went on, it crept closer and closer to the house. At night, my brothers and I would watch it from the attic window and sometimes its eyes were red as coals in the dark."
We were all gathered around him then, listening to the tale, enveloped in the mystery of the creature.
Me and Jasper, especially, since I was pretty sure we had seen it yesterday.
"Every day, it got a little closer, and every day the storm got a little worse. My own Grandpa, a man who had seen the beginning of a new century, sat in a chair by the fire and whittled from the first day of the storm to the last. His old knife, this knife, actually," he said as he held up a fixed blade knife with a silver handle, "was very sharp and the wood had fallen in thick curls as he worked. I was enthralled by the little carving he was making. I asked him what it was as more of it came out, and he told me it was a ward against things that might come with the storm. I watched him, studied him, and at night we watched the red eyes of the deer thing get closer and closer to the house. By the second night, the eyes might as well be right on the porch, and we shuddered in our blankets as we wondered what it was."
The storm outside made a perfect backdrop for the story, and we were so captured by the tale, that we didn't even hear my mother stepping in from the kitchen.
"On the last day, as the blizzard raged, we heard hoofbeats on the porch. My father wanted to go out and see what it was, but Grandpa said he would fix it. He told us to go into the attic, told my father and mother to go to their room, and took the thing he had carved out to the porch. There, as we tried to see through the window, we saw a bright light and the deer fell back into the snow. The deer, however, was wrong. Its legs were too long, its arms ended in strange hands, and its eyes were,"
"Pop!" My mother said, making all of us jump, "I know you're not trying to keep these kids up all night with such tales?"
Grandpa had jumped a little too, so enthralled by his own story. He looked sheepish, like he had been caught doing something wrong, and shrugged as he gave another gummy smile. We all looked at her incredulously, as if not sure what to make of her, but if it made her self-conscious, she didn't budge.
"Just a little Christmas ghost story, Peg. I didn't mean any harm."
My mother gave him a hard look, “Well, if these boys are awake all night, shivering at the ghost of some story, you can sit up with them.”
She returned to the kitchen then, the smells of lunch still wafting from the wood stove she had in there.
"What was it?" I asked Grandpa, keeping my voice low so mom wouldn’t hear, but he shook his head as he returned to his whittling.
"Better not say, boy. Don't want your mother to tell your Dad, and get myself thrown out in the snow like the leftovers," he said with a wink.
He tried to play it off as a joke, but I knew that Grandpa was always very aware that he was a guest in my parent's house. He lived with us for most of my young life, seeing me graduate high school before dying in his sleep one spring, but Mom told me once that it was a blessing to him to be so close to her and my dad and his grandkids.
Her other siblings had moved away when they grew up, and Grandpa couldn't imagine himself living anywhere but in the woods he loved so much.
As night fell and my Dad and Uncle hadn't returned, Mom started getting worried. The town wasn't that far away and they should have been back well before now. She figured they had just gotten turned around, and maybe they would come stumbling in after dark, but as the dinner dishes were cleared away and we all prepared for bed, my mom and aunt became less sure.
As we watched through the window, seeing the red eyes that Grandpa had told us about, I heard them making plans to go look for them the next day.
"What do you reckon it is?" my older cousin asked, the two of us watching the eyes as they moved fitfully through the trees that surrounded our cabin.
"Dunno," I admitted, "I've never seen anything like it."
As my mom and aunt turned in and the lights that filtered through the boards went out, we settled in as well, still not sure what tomorrow would bring.
December twenty-third dawned cold with still no sign of my Dad or Uncle. Mom was frantic, flitting around the kitchen like a hummingbird, and when she called us to the kitchen around noon, we all expected what was coming. She was dressed warmly, her two thickest coats thrown over a pair of snow pants, and the boots she had on were some of Dad's with several pairs of socks underneath.
"I'm going to town to see about your father. Until I get back, your Aunt is in charge. You boys listen to her, okay, and keep an eye on your Grandpa. He may need help, and if I'm not here to help him then it's up to you two. Be good, and be safe. If the phones come back on, call the Sheriff and tell him your father never came home. If I haven't made it to town, then someone will need to go out and look for us."
She left around eleven, lunch already on the table, and I watched her go from the front door as she disappeared into the snow. I hoped I would see her again, but after watching my Dad and Uncle disappear out there too, I wasn't sure I would. As I watched, I could also see the shadow of the creature as it stalked our little home. It was still on all fours, its antlers sometimes knocking snow from the trees, but sometimes when the wind would blow up I would see it rise onto its back legs for the briefest of moments before it was lost from sight.
Mom didn't come back for dinner, and as we went to bed I could hear my Aunt crying in the room she had shared with my Uncle.
We all woke up on the twenty-fourth, Christmas Eve, feeling hopeless and unsure of what to do. With every passing day, this felt less like a fun time and more like a real problem. My cousins and I started to feel like a bunch of westbound settlers who were watching the hills for Indians. My Aunt didn't get up to make us breakfast, and Ella said that she had fallen asleep in my brother's bed with an empty bottle by her head. It was probably the corn whiskey that Dad kept for emergencies, and I supposed this counted as one of those. We ate cold food from the fridge, Jasper making some eggs to go with it, and the two of us sat and watched the shadowy creature from the porch as we ate.
My brother and Ella had gone back to the attic, feeling like they might just go back to sleep, which is why they weren't there for what happened next.
As we sat munching on cold ham and burnt eggs, the creature stalked the house from the depths of the rising storm. The blizzard was focused, a swirling vortex that seemed to enclose us in a swirl of winter. We were powerless to do anything about it, so we just sat and watched as it raged and frothed. The creature was barely visible, an outline more often than not, and it seemed odd now that we weren't more worried about it.
Both of us had hunted deer, however, and the thought of being scared by a half-starved buck seemed silly.
When it turned its horned head towards us, its eyes boring into our conversation as it stepped slowly towards the house, the idea no longer seemed so silly.
"What in the hell?" my cousin said, rising so quickly that his stool went spilling over, "What is that thing?"
It had come out of the storm, and we could see that it was a solid white buck, its skin hanging on it like a carcass. Carcass was an apt word. The deer looked like a corpse, like some half-eaten piece of roadkill that had gotten up to seek revenge. Its antlers were huge, the tines many and majestic. It was a thirteen or fourteen-point buck by my quick count, but as I watched, the sharp bones seemed to move with an eerie independence from their host. They squirmed like a nest of snakes, and the creature reminded me of Medusa as it stood glowering at us. Its blazing eyes still glowed like coals, and it was baring its flat teeth at us like it meant to bite.
I wished, suddenly, that I had my rifle, but it was in the room with my aunt and absolutely no use to me here.
I don't think either of us was truly afraid until the creature stood up on its hind legs, legs that now seemed as boneless as the Gumby character my little brother liked to watch, and began to run at us.
We barely made it into the house, slamming the door behind us, when it hit the wood hard enough to shake it in the frame. Jasper and I went deeper into the house, but as I came to the ladder that led to the attic, I remembered that Grandpa was still in the living room. Mom's words echoed in my head, and I told him to go on and make sure the others were okay.
He nodded, understanding, and when I got to the living room, I found Grandpa still working on his totem.
"Grandpa, we've got to go," I told him, trying to help him up, "This thing going to get us if we don't,"
"I'm almost finished, kiddo. Once I'm done we'll be safe."
I heard the door beginning to splinter, but Grandpa just shrugged me off as I tried to help him up.
"Grandpa, we need to get up into the attic. I've seen this thing, and I can tell you that your carving isn't going to," but I never finished.
The door burst open then, and the cadaverous deer creature came snorting into the living room.
I was frozen in fear as it strode in, its hooves clicking on the floor, and I saw its front legs end in the same kind of snakey appendages that decorated its head. They were like fingers in some nightmare picture, and his red eyes focused on us as he came striding into the living room. His horns made a hellish noise as they scrapped the ceiling, sending curls of wood down in a shower. He was focused on Grandpa, his eyes boring into him, but as I started to bolt, Grandpa swept out an arm and held me back.
I looked down and found that, to my surprise, the old man was smiling.
"Fancy meeting you again after all this time," Grandpa said, the deer snarling and snorting a mere fifteen feet away.
He started moving after a few tense seconds, and when Grandpa lifted his hand, I was momentarily blinded by a white-hot light that emanated from the carving there. I saw the face carved there for half a bitter second, the huge eyes and roaring mouth looking formidable, and then I had to throw my hands over my ears as my senses were assaulted by a sudden cry of primal rage. It was as if the totem was bellowing at the interloper, screaming down the deer thing that meant to kill me and grandpa, and all of my senses seemed assaulted at once. I was blind, deaf, smellless, unspeaking, and incapable of thought. I was as Adam must have been for the first few moments of his creation, and when I was able to gain my senses, I found myself lying on the floor as Grandpa looked on placidly.
Of the deer, there was no sign, and Grandpa's totem looked as if it had been through the heart of a blazing inferno. The features were still perfect, only charged to a dumb muteness by the effort of expelling the deer thing. It had taken everything the little effigy had to set the creature aside, and now it was used up.
Grandpa handed it to me, the carving leaving char stains on my fingers as it passed between us, "Here, you might need to know how to carve one yourself someday."
I started to thank him, but that was when I heard my father's angry yell as he asked just what the hell had happened to the door.
Some of his anger was set aside when I came running up to hug him, and I could see both my Uncle and my Mother standing slightly behind him and looking concerned and confused.
I tried my best to explain what had happened, but I don't think they believed me. Dad was skeptical that all this had happened in the few hours he had been gone, but Mom pointed out that he had been gone for at least a day and a half. That really threw him, and when he told her that he had just left this morning, she said he had been in the woods since at least the twenty-first.
"Yes," he agreed, "This morning."
The two went back and forth, but when I told Mom that she had been in the woods overnight as well, she also looked confused. Both of them had been in the woods overnight, Dad had actually been in the woods for two nights, but both parties said the sun had never set. They had been roaming through the woods, looking for town, and had just appeared back here all of a sudden. When Dad had found Mom out in the woods, he assumed she had come looking for him. They had all three returned home, a trip that had taken less than a few minutes, and figured they had all just gotten turned around in the blizzard.
Speaking of the blizzard, it had stopped as suddenly as it had started.
The power came back on a little while later, and when my aunt woke up to find her husband had returned, we all took stock of the fridge and began working on one of the best Christmas Dinners ever.
That particular Christmas was one I will always remember, and not just because of the deer thing.
We had many more Christmases like it in the years to come, but none quite so tumultuous as that.
I still live in that house, both my parents long dead, but every year we all get together and have Christmas like we used to.
We tell our kids, and Grandkids, about that Christmas we were snowed in, and I've been practicing my whittling since that day Grandpa sent the deer thing away in a blaze of light.
I haven't seen one since, but who knows who might come to visit one snowy Christmas in Appalachia?

I'll always remember that Christmas when the storm blew in.
This was back in 82 or 83, and my family was living in a little house in North Georgia. Dad worked as a logger, Mom stayed at home to take care of me and my brother, and Grandpa had lived with us ever since Grandma died the year before. My Uncle and Aunt had come to stay with us for the holidays and my two cousins, Ella and Jasper, were sharing a room in the loft attic with me and my brother. Our little three-bedroom cabin seemed pretty cramped, but we all just thought it would be until after the holidays.
That was until the blizzard rolled in.
It was December twentieth, four days before Christmas, and we were all playing outside. The adults had said we were being too loud and had asked us to go out for a bit, so we put on our coats and mittens and went out to play. My brother wanted to play hide and seek, and my cousins and I, all of us about four to six years older than him, had agreed begrudgingly. We were too old for baby games, my youngest cousin a whole year older than me, but we agreed, mostly so we would have something to do.
So Jasper and I were hiding under the porch, talking about something to do with hunting, I think, when I blinked as something drifted past my face. Jasper quieted as he noticed it, and I reached out my hand and caught a delicate-looking snowflake. I had seen snow before, you don't live in North Georgia for long without seeing some snow, but this was the first snow I thought might actually stick. It had been unseasonably warm for North Georgia, most days sitting around forty-five, and we had been worried that our white Christmas might be a bust.
As the snow began to fall harder, really coming down, we abandoned our game of hide and seek and devolved into little kids at the sight of all that powder. It was really amazing how quickly it came down, half a foot seeming to appear in minutes, and we began making snowmen, having snowball fights, and looking for the sleds in the tool shed so we could go to the holler and glide down with the fresh powder. Our parents came out onto the porch, looking in awe at all the snow, and when Dad tapped his little thermometer that hung next to the rain gauge, I realized that it was pushing fifty degrees. I didn't think about it at the time, but there was no way all that snow could be sticking. It was above freezing, and the snow should have been turning to slush before it hit the ground.
To us, it seemed like a Christmas miracle, but as the sun began to set and the adults went inside, I noticed Grandpa had come out and was looking at the sky with distrust.
I watched him as he walked out to the wood pile and took a piece of stovewood back in with him, my distraction earning me a snowball upside the head from Ella.
Looking back on it, Grandpa had to know what was coming, and even then he started getting ready for it.
We went to bed that night with visions of snowball fights and sledding dancing in our heads, but we woke up to a blizzard outside. Dad and Uncle went to stare at it on the porch, drinking coffee as they discussed what to do. Dad had laid by food, but he was worried that he didn't have enough for nine people long term. My Uncle joked that we could always eat Grandpa, but Dad said that would be like chewing on a boiled owl and they both laughed. Grandpa, on the other hand, was whittling something from the stove wood. He had been working on it through the night, and it kind of looked like a crossroads sign. It was thick through the middle, however, which made me think there might be more to it.
I was too excited for another snow day, however, to pay Grandpa much mind.
Not when there were winter festivities to get up to. My cousins and I played in the blizzard that day, but our games were muted some as the wind picked up and the snow began to fly. The wind was blowing too hard for our snowballs to fly straight. We tried sledding, but the snow was coming down too hard for us to see, and the ice that was forming hurt our ears and faces. By lunchtime, we were forced to come in out of the cold. Our coats, mittens, and hats were soaked through and after hanging them on the pegs in the mudroom, we went into the attic loft where we were all sleeping to warm up. We had all been set up in sleeping bags up here, my aunt and uncle taking the room I shared with my brother, and it was like having a little campout. The heat from the fire in the living room made it very warm up here, and as Jasper and I watched from the upper window, he leaned close to the glass and pointed into the woods.
"Do you see that?" he asked.
I squinted into the sea of white, trying to find it, and finally picked out a single silhouette. It looked like an animal, something on all fours, but it was gone as the winds blew up again, and we were both left looking at the snowy forest. He asked if I had seen it, probably trying to figure out if he had been seeing things, and I assured him I had seen it too.
We both sat by the window after the adults had gone to bed, looking out and hoping to catch a glimpse of something in the blowing snow.
We didn't see anything, at least I didn't, but we both assured the other that we could see all sorts of spooky things.
The next day, the blizzard was even worse.
December twenty-second was too stormy for any of us to even think about going out to play, and when my Uncle and Father came out bundled to the eyes in several winter coats and the old deer skin britches they sometimes wore for winter work, I knew they intended to go out anyway. Mom told them they were crazy, but Dad said they needed supplies. The town was only about two miles north through the woods, and they would get the essentials and head back before lunch. He kissed my mom and told me to hold down the fort while he was gone.
"I should be back soon. It's only a couple of miles."
They set out at seven, just after breakfast, and I didn't envy them.
With the blizzard raging, we mostly sat around the house and watched TV. The set only got ten channels on a good day, and today we were lucky to get two. The local weather station came through, on and off, and as the little kids watched public access stuff, I sat and read on the saggy old couch. My older cousin had decided to read a magazine he'd brought, and the only break up over the muffled sounds of the TV was Grandpa as he carved his little figure. The sciff sciff sciff of Grandpa's whittling knife kept leading me away from the adventures of Frodo and Sam, and I found myself looking at him as he worked. If he was self-conscious about it, he never showed it. Grandpa wasn't so old that he seemed ancient, but even as a kid he seemed like some wise old elf to a sprat like me.
After a while, I finally asked him what he was making, and his answer made me put my book down entirely.
"A totem."
"Like a tribal thing? Like in Robinson Caruso?"
He smiled wetly at me, "Kind of. This one is to keep something specific away though, something we may get a look at if we're very unlucky."
"What's that?" my cousin asked, and I realized he had been listening too. The magazine lay across his lap now, and as Grandpa sat his knife aside, he lay it on the arm of the chair and moved over to sit closer.
Grandpa had just opened his mouth to speak, when the lights suddenly went out, and the living room was left in semi-darkness. The power had struggled on manfully, but it had finally given up the ghost. The fire in the grate cast Grandpa in a ghostly pall, and I imagined that this was how his own Grandfather had looked when he told stories once upon a time.
"When I was young, younger than you two but right about little Mack's age there," he said, pointing at my brother, "There was a blizzard much like this one. It blew in right after Christmas, and it stayed for five days. My brothers and I thought it was great, and we played in the snow as the adults looked on with concern. Did we have enough firewood? Did we have enough food? None of that mattered to us, though. Those were matters for adults and we threw snowballs and built forts and played until the sun set each day."
The fire crackled as the little kids moved closer to Grandpa, and we settled in for a story.
"As the blizzard went on, we noticed that something was stalking the woods around the cabin. It came on all fours, like a deer or a stag, but sometimes, if you were quick, you could see it on two legs as well. It never got close, not in the beginning, but as the blizzard went on, it crept closer and closer to the house. At night, my brothers and I would watch it from the attic window and sometimes its eyes were red as coals in the dark."
We were all gathered around him then, listening to the tale, enveloped in the mystery of the creature.
Me and Jasper, especially, since I was pretty sure we had seen it yesterday.
"Every day, it got a little closer, and every day the storm got a little worse. My own Grandpa, a man who had seen the beginning of a new century, sat in a chair by the fire and whittled from the first day of the storm to the last. His old knife, this knife, actually," he said as he held up a fixed blade knife with a silver handle, "was very sharp and the wood had fallen in thick curls as he worked. I was enthralled by the little carving he was making. I asked him what it was as more of it came out, and he told me it was a ward against things that might come with the storm. I watched him, studied him, and at night we watched the red eyes of the deer thing get closer and closer to the house. By the second night, the eyes might as well be right on the porch, and we shuddered in our blankets as we wondered what it was."
The storm outside made a perfect backdrop for the story, and we were so captured by the tale, that we didn't even hear my mother stepping in from the kitchen.
"On the last day, as the blizzard raged, we heard hoofbeats on the porch. My father wanted to go out and see what it was, but Grandpa said he would fix it. He told us to go into the attic, told my father and mother to go to their room, and took the thing he had carved out to the porch. There, as we tried to see through the window, we saw a bright light and the deer fell back into the snow. The deer, however, was wrong. Its legs were too long, its arms ended in strange hands, and its eyes were,"
"Pop!" My mother said, making all of us jump, "I know you're not trying to keep these kids up all night with such tales?"
Grandpa had jumped a little too, so enthralled by his own story. He looked sheepish, like he had been caught doing something wrong, and shrugged as he gave another gummy smile. We all looked at her incredulously, as if not sure what to make of her, but if it made her self-conscious, she didn't budge.
"Just a little Christmas ghost story, Peg. I didn't mean any harm."
My mother gave him a hard look, “Well, if these boys are awake all night, shivering at the ghost of some story, you can sit up with them.”
She returned to the kitchen then, the smells of lunch still wafting from the wood stove she had in there.
"What was it?" I asked Grandpa, keeping my voice low so mom wouldn’t hear, but he shook his head as he returned to his whittling.
"Better not say, boy. Don't want your mother to tell your Dad, and get myself thrown out in the snow like the leftovers," he said with a wink.
He tried to play it off as a joke, but I knew that Grandpa was always very aware that he was a guest in my parent's house. He lived with us for most of my young life, seeing me graduate high school before dying in his sleep one spring, but Mom told me once that it was a blessing to him to be so close to her and my dad and his grandkids.
Her other siblings had moved away when they grew up, and Grandpa couldn't imagine himself living anywhere but in the woods he loved so much.
As night fell and my Dad and Uncle hadn't returned, Mom started getting worried. The town wasn't that far away and they should have been back well before now. She figured they had just gotten turned around, and maybe they would come stumbling in after dark, but as the dinner dishes were cleared away and we all prepared for bed, my mom and aunt became less sure.
As we watched through the window, seeing the red eyes that Grandpa had told us about, I heard them making plans to go look for them the next day.
"What do you reckon it is?" my older cousin asked, the two of us watching the eyes as they moved fitfully through the trees that surrounded our cabin.
"Dunno," I admitted, "I've never seen anything like it."
As my mom and aunt turned in and the lights that filtered through the boards went out, we settled in as well, still not sure what tomorrow would bring.
December twenty-third dawned cold with still no sign of my Dad or Uncle. Mom was frantic, flitting around the kitchen like a hummingbird, and when she called us to the kitchen around noon, we all expected what was coming. She was dressed warmly, her two thickest coats thrown over a pair of snow pants, and the boots she had on were some of Dad's with several pairs of socks underneath.
"I'm going to town to see about your father. Until I get back, your Aunt is in charge. You boys listen to her, okay, and keep an eye on your Grandpa. He may need help, and if I'm not here to help him then it's up to you two. Be good, and be safe. If the phones come back on, call the Sheriff and tell him your father never came home. If I haven't made it to town, then someone will need to go out and look for us."
She left around eleven, lunch already on the table, and I watched her go from the front door as she disappeared into the snow. I hoped I would see her again, but after watching my Dad and Uncle disappear out there too, I wasn't sure I would. As I watched, I could also see the shadow of the creature as it stalked our little home. It was still on all fours, its antlers sometimes knocking snow from the trees, but sometimes when the wind would blow up I would see it rise onto its back legs for the briefest of moments before it was lost from sight.
Mom didn't come back for dinner, and as we went to bed I could hear my Aunt crying in the room she had shared with my Uncle.
We all woke up on the twenty-fourth, Christmas Eve, feeling hopeless and unsure of what to do. With every passing day, this felt less like a fun time and more like a real problem. My cousins and I started to feel like a bunch of westbound settlers who were watching the hills for Indians. My Aunt didn't get up to make us breakfast, and Ella said that she had fallen asleep in my brother's bed with an empty bottle by her head. It was probably the corn whiskey that Dad kept for emergencies, and I supposed this counted as one of those. We ate cold food from the fridge, Jasper making some eggs to go with it, and the two of us sat and watched the shadowy creature from the porch as we ate.
My brother and Ella had gone back to the attic, feeling like they might just go back to sleep, which is why they weren't there for what happened next.
As we sat munching on cold ham and burnt eggs, the creature stalked the house from the depths of the rising storm. The blizzard was focused, a swirling vortex that seemed to enclose us in a swirl of winter. We were powerless to do anything about it, so we just sat and watched as it raged and frothed. The creature was barely visible, an outline more often than not, and it seemed odd now that we weren't more worried about it.
Both of us had hunted deer, however, and the thought of being scared by a half-starved buck seemed silly.
When it turned its horned head towards us, its eyes boring into our conversation as it stepped slowly towards the house, the idea no longer seemed so silly.
"What in the hell?" my cousin said, rising so quickly that his stool went spilling over, "What is that thing?"
It had come out of the storm, and we could see that it was a solid white buck, its skin hanging on it like a carcass. Carcass was an apt word. The deer looked like a corpse, like some half-eaten piece of roadkill that had gotten up to seek revenge. Its antlers were huge, the tines many and majestic. It was a thirteen or fourteen-point buck by my quick count, but as I watched, the sharp bones seemed to move with an eerie independence from their host. They squirmed like a nest of snakes, and the creature reminded me of Medusa as it stood glowering at us. Its blazing eyes still glowed like coals, and it was baring its flat teeth at us like it meant to bite.
I wished, suddenly, that I had my rifle, but it was in the room with my aunt and absolutely no use to me here.
I don't think either of us was truly afraid until the creature stood up on its hind legs, legs that now seemed as boneless as the Gumby character my little brother liked to watch, and began to run at us.
We barely made it into the house, slamming the door behind us, when it hit the wood hard enough to shake it in the frame. Jasper and I went deeper into the house, but as I came to the ladder that led to the attic, I remembered that Grandpa was still in the living room. Mom's words echoed in my head, and I told him to go on and make sure the others were okay.
He nodded, understanding, and when I got to the living room, I found Grandpa still working on his totem.
"Grandpa, we've got to go," I told him, trying to help him up, "This thing going to get us if we don't,"
"I'm almost finished, kiddo. Once I'm done we'll be safe."
I heard the door beginning to splinter, but Grandpa just shrugged me off as I tried to help him up.
"Grandpa, we need to get up into the attic. I've seen this thing, and I can tell you that your carving isn't going to," but I never finished.
The door burst open then, and the cadaverous deer creature came snorting into the living room.
I was frozen in fear as it strode in, its hooves clicking on the floor, and I saw its front legs end in the same kind of snakey appendages that decorated its head. They were like fingers in some nightmare picture, and his red eyes focused on us as he came striding into the living room. His horns made a hellish noise as they scrapped the ceiling, sending curls of wood down in a shower. He was focused on Grandpa, his eyes boring into him, but as I started to bolt, Grandpa swept out an arm and held me back.
I looked down and found that, to my surprise, the old man was smiling.
"Fancy meeting you again after all this time," Grandpa said, the deer snarling and snorting a mere fifteen feet away.
He started moving after a few tense seconds, and when Grandpa lifted his hand, I was momentarily blinded by a white-hot light that emanated from the carving there. I saw the face carved there for half a bitter second, the huge eyes and roaring mouth looking formidable, and then I had to throw my hands over my ears as my senses were assaulted by a sudden cry of primal rage. It was as if the totem was bellowing at the interloper, screaming down the deer thing that meant to kill me and grandpa, and all of my senses seemed assaulted at once. I was blind, deaf, smellless, unspeaking, and incapable of thought. I was as Adam must have been for the first few moments of his creation, and when I was able to gain my senses, I found myself lying on the floor as Grandpa looked on placidly.
Of the deer, there was no sign, and Grandpa's totem looked as if it had been through the heart of a blazing inferno. The features were still perfect, only charged to a dumb muteness by the effort of expelling the deer thing. It had taken everything the little effigy had to set the creature aside, and now it was used up.
Grandpa handed it to me, the carving leaving char stains on my fingers as it passed between us, "Here, you might need to know how to carve one yourself someday."
I started to thank him, but that was when I heard my father's angry yell as he asked just what the hell had happened to the door.
Some of his anger was set aside when I came running up to hug him, and I could see both my Uncle and my Mother standing slightly behind him and looking concerned and confused.
I tried my best to explain what had happened, but I don't think they believed me. Dad was skeptical that all this had happened in the few hours he had been gone, but Mom pointed out that he had been gone for at least a day and a half. That really threw him, and when he told her that he had just left this morning, she said he had been in the woods since at least the twenty-first.
"Yes," he agreed, "This morning."
The two went back and forth, but when I told Mom that she had been in the woods overnight as well, she also looked confused. Both of them had been in the woods overnight, Dad had actually been in the woods for two nights, but both parties said the sun had never set. They had been roaming through the woods, looking for town, and had just appeared back here all of a sudden. When Dad had found Mom out in the woods, he assumed she had come looking for him. They had all three returned home, a trip that had taken less than a few minutes, and figured they had all just gotten turned around in the blizzard.
Speaking of the blizzard, it had stopped as suddenly as it had started.
The power came back on a little while later, and when my aunt woke up to find her husband had returned, we all took stock of the fridge and began working on one of the best Christmas Dinners ever.
That particular Christmas was one I will always remember, and not just because of the deer thing.
We had many more Christmases like it in the years to come, but none quite so tumultuous as that.
I still live in that house, both my parents long dead, but every year we all get together and have Christmas like we used to.
We tell our kids, and Grandkids, about that Christmas we were snowed in, and I've been practicing my whittling since that day Grandpa sent the deer thing away in a blaze of light.
I haven't seen one since, but who knows who might come to visit one snowy Christmas in Appalachia?