Here I have included my pre-draft, post-draft, and fantasy football WR evaluations (shortened for brevity). This is regarding real life skillsets and performance, and the fantasy football ranking is for redraft. I believe that the IRL evaluation is good enough for dynasty as well, even when skillsets don't match fantasy productive ones.
Pre-Draft Rankings:
Tier 1:
These are all players who I don’t want to delve into. They are the safe, elite prospects who don’t have any red flags, which is what differentiates them from the tier below.

1. Marvin Harrison Jr.
2. Malik Nabers
3. Rome Odunze

Tier 2:
Each of the three players in this tier are elite, but have one or several red flags and uncertainty to their game.

1. Troy Franklin
   1. Troy Franklin is a smooth route runner with great deep speed (moves like Ridley), but what truly makes him elite is his much underrated awareness. He has an impeccable feel for both zone and the defensive back’s mind, allowing him to slide into space and break out of the reach of corners, and he also holds an elite release package paired with great ball tracking. From what I’ve seen, Franklin is also the most willing and able blocker in this class. His biggest flaw to me is not his slight frame, but rather his lack of extension when going for catches, perhaps due to his small hands, which allows for random drops and makes him more susceptible to drops through contact.
2. Xavier Worthy
   1. While Worthy has risen in draft boards, the respect for him has fallen after his record breaking 40 yard dash. Worthy might have speed, but he is not all speed. Worthy has been an elite player his whole career, with an extremely early breakout and impressive freshman season. He is often dinged for his ball tracking, an important trait for deep threats, but I don’t see it. Worthy also offers elite YAC ability. He has the mental capability to be used as a consistent threat out of motion, as I don’t see him having the same release package as Franklin. The flaw with him is both being and playing small.
3. Brian Thomas Jr.
   1. BTJ is built in a prototypically phenomenal way. He possesses elite speed, size, and agility for that size – the makings of an elite receiver. He was also an elite producer in college. Thomas Jr. doesn’t necessarily show a lot of flaws in his game (aside from a few small things) – rather he doesn’t show a lot of anything at all. His flaw is that there is not enough information about his game out there to make the evaluation process thorough enough. Questions remain about his route tree and ability to play a variety of roles in an offense. At the very least, he steps into a team as an elite deep threat. In my opinion, Thomas Jr. offers a higher ceiling than Odunze, Worthy, and Franklin, but there’s just not enough for me to look at here.

Tier 3:
Tier 3 contains three players who show a lot of good things on film, but also have almost horrible production profiles.

1. Ladd McConkey
   1. McConkey reminds me of Christian Kirk stylistically. He possesses elite quickness and solid route running with very quick, twitchy steps. It is clear that he knows how to keep defensive backs guessing. I also noted that he shows strong YAC abilities and the willingness to seek out contact.
2. Adonai Mitchell
   1. He might have diabetes, and he might be lazy, but AD is smooth. I thought he’d run a 4.55, and at that point I had him at 6 I believe. AD has sneaky athleticism and deceptive quickness, and a very encouraging frame to pair with this. While I don’t see a lot of flaws in his game, I will say that he has one of the worst analytical profiles I have ever seen.
3. Roman Wilson
   1. Wilson is my favorite player in the draft, and I have been waiting for him to join the NFL for years. While I am not a Michigan fan, I have watched a lot of Michigan and Ohio State games, and fell in love with Wilson’s play. He is an elite athlete, with a willingness to go up strong for balls, and is simply just good at the game of football. I believe he would have shown a lot more if he was on a more passing oriented offense.

Tier 4:
Tier 4 has three players who are both older prospects and also have questionable production profiles.

1. Ricky Pearsall
   1. Slick Rick is definitely slick. He has arguably the greatest catch in CFB history, and is a silky route runner with great athleticism and burst. He seems to have a great understanding of how to run routes. Pearsall is a 5 season player, with non-elite production in any of those years – however he has shown improvement in every one of those years. He is not the tenth best receiver in this class right now – I only have him this low because of his age. However, I don’t think he has the production or the film to strongly suggest that he’s better than any of the players I listed before, which is why the age can lower him. Tank Dell was a 24 year old rookie, but his film would be enough for me to raise him higher.
2. Xavier Legette
   1. Legette has elite speed paired with elite size. I will not say he has elite athleticism however. His agility is not nearly good enough for me to give him that title. This is where I feel people tend to misterm athleticism – by equating it to a size/speed combo. Legette also only had one year of elite production. Legette is great at the catch point, with solid hand technique and vertical ability, but he leaves a lot to be desired with his release and his hip flexibility. He is not yet a strong route runner. I don’t really mind his late breakout too much – he has a lack of refinement in his game that would explain this as he is a growing player, but here’s some good scouting: what I truly can’t deal with is his accent.
3. Malik Washington
   1. Washington is another late producer like Legette, with only elite production in his 5th year. However, I believe that was due to him playing his time out in an awful Northwestern offense. Washington left Northwestern not through a transfer, but because he finished his degree early. He might be small, but he is incredible at football, and offers elite YAC ability to pair with his excellent feel for zones and space. The only reason I have Washington this low (although it is not low) is because I know he will be overlooked in the NFL and will have a difficult path to success.

Tier 5:
The players in this tier will likely all have a role in the NFL, or at least the chance to have a role in the NFL.

1. Ja’Lynn Polk
   1. Polk bores me a bit, but he’s good. I believe he is a useful asset to any team in the NFL. He plays with a lot of grit, which teams should like, and is all around a solid and smart player.
2. Malachi Corley
   1. The self proclaimed “YAC King” is exactly that. In fact, his YAC ability is so good that it’s almost as if he was a running back playing receiver. Oh right. He is. That being said, Corley has the agility to become a great receiver. While his switch is probably due to wanting the longevity and paycheck associated with the position, I don’t doubt that he has the ability to make up for his late start. He’s not really there yet, so his athleticism only gets him this high.
3. Keon Coleman
   1. Coleman is in the classic “Alpha” mold. If you’re wondering why he’s so low, I just don’t like that mold. I don’t care about his 40 time, he seems fast enough to me. In my opinion, Coleman does not have the agility and hip flexibility required to run great routes. That’s why I just don’t see him learning route running. He offers elite vertical leaping ability, body control, and good hands to match this, but he’s not Mike Evans. I don’t think Coleman has no path to success in the NFL – he’s still a decent player, just not my kind of player. The landing spot will matter with this one.
4. Jermaine Burton
   1. I don’t like Burton. There’s just something about his face – he looks like a less creepy Spencer Rattler. However, I’d say he’s a good player. He has solid athleticism, and I believe he has the ability to run a variety of routes, despite working in a vertical offense. Burton has great hands, albeit a short catch radius, and plays very strong. There’s definitely things to like about his game – and who knows, maybe being a bad character is a good trait.
5. Javon Baker
   1. Baker strikes me as someone who loves football, with an alpha receiver mentality. He might know too much – while he has great route running, he sometimes seems to almost spam fakes and make unnecessary movements that leave me confused instead of the corner. That’s not really a big concern for me though. He is great at the catch point as well, showing great determination and body control. I’m not sure he has the athleticism to truly be elite, and while the Big 12 is a decent conference, the defensive backs in his film seemed to be mostly bums, but with a good landing spot I think he has the ability to shine. I’m rather surprised that he decided to transfer out of Alabama, but whatever, it worked out.
6. Jalen McMillan
   1. The much underrated and overlooked third brother. McMillan looks soft, but he has good athleticism and good flexibility. He’s also a good route runner with good body control. I’d say he’s good. With players like him, it really depends on how much the team that drafted him believes in him. I don’t doubt that it will be easy for him to get hidden in a deep WR room.

Tier 6:
Tier 6 are the guys who I think are good players but don’t think they will get a chance to show that, with play strength and size being concerns. I think they can work despite this, but I doubt NFL front offices will.

1. Jamari Thrash
   1. Thrash is a smooth player with great route savviness, but is complete trash when it comes to contact (easy pun intended). Physical corners can easily thrash him around during his routes.
2. Jacob Cowing
   1. Cowing probably has the highest likelihood of success among the three, as he possesses the best release package which is important for small receivers. However, he’s no Tank Dell. In fact, he IS Tank Dell, just worse at every aspect of the game. He’s arguably more athletic however, and showcases elite explosiveness.
3. Ainias Smith
   1. Explosive with quick feet, but is small and plays small. I think he has a lot of ability, but he’s not the type of player that NFL teams want to trust.

Tier 7:
Tier 7 contains players who don’t have it right now, but could have it with some development.

1. Tez Walker
   1. There was a lot of hope for Tez coming into the 2023 season, and he delivered. Delivered very little. While he showcased absolutely zero route running savvy, he has the elite athleticism to make up for this, and is not completely inflexible. I do want to blame the college football body and UNC for some of his failures, and he wasn’t really all that bad. I just don’t think he’s quite there yet.
2. Luke McCaffrey
   1. McCaffrey has great athleticism and elite lineage, but that’s about it. He wasn’t bad in college, but played for Rice. He’s in the middle of his learning curve for the position after converting from being a mediocre QB, and I’m sure he can figure it out – I’m not out on him.
3. Johnny Wilson
   1. Wilson is absolutely incredible for his size. He is a fluid athlete with solid speed, and more than decent route running. Unfortunately, at his size he needs to be excellent at the catch point and with contested catches. He is not. In fact, it’s his weakness – he is extremely soft, unlike his hands. He’s the odd case where I think he’d be much more successful if he dropped half a foot in height. If you combined the best of Johnny and Keon, you’d have a possible goat receiver.

Tier 8:
Tier 8 has guys who piqued my interest with their play, but are likely going nowhere. Gould is small, Bub Means is named Bub Means, Vele is an old man, and Coker is slow and played for Holy Cross.

1. Anthony Gould
2. Bub Means
3. Devaughn Vele
4. Jalen Coker

Tier 9 is all of the guys I haven’t watched enough of that didn’t make this list due to that.
Tier 10 consists of the players who are, in my humble opinion, bad.
Tier 10:

1. Brenden Rice
   1. My evaluation of Rice has nothing to do with his father. I truly do believe that he is the second worst receiver in the class. In fact, I think he will obviously get a shot because of his father, and that he has the work ethic and connections to improve dramatically as a player. However, as of right now, while he has solid hands, he runs everything in one gear, and it’s visually appalling. He stomps the ground as he runs, and while it seems like he has some understanding of route running techniques, it all goes to waste since he runs his routes as hard as possible.
2. Cornelius Johnson
   1. As I said earlier in my Roman Wilson evaluation, I have watched a lot of Michigan games. This means I watched his counterpart on the other side – Corn Johnson. In all my years of watching football, I have never seen a player worse than Corn. He is truly awful at the game. He has absolutely zero ball knowledge and route running ability. He’s actually pretty decent at the catch point, but not enough to make up for his terrible play in every other facet of the game. He somehow had Harbaugh’s trust to keep starting, so I still wouldn’t be surprised if he was drafted, but whatever team makes that decision has completely wasted a pick they could’ve otherwise spent trading for McCorkle Jones or some other washed up player.

Post-Draft Rankings and Comments:
Contrary to popular opinion, I believe that situation is actually very important regarding a wide receiver's career. It is worth noting that I actually did my pre-draft ranking writeups after the draft despite wording them as though they were written pre-draft, therefore the adjustments here are not new revelations, rather they are simply the changes I believe draft capital and landing spot make.

1. Marvin Harrison Jr.
   1. Great landing spot, bad franchise
2. Malik Nabers
   1. Mediocre landing spot, bad franchise with bad assets but good volume. Will play alongside WanDale Robinson, a player who also generates elite separation.
3. Rome Odunze
   1. Landing spot is alright, the franchise is bad but the team is set up well. Will be the WR3 to start however, but that should not necessarily hinder his career.
4. Xavier Worthy
   1. Very good landing spot with the best quarterback in the league, and another field stretcher already on the roster, suggesting that he might run routes with some variety and improve his game. It is not a perfect system for production however.
5. Brian Thomas Jr.
   1. Attached to a good, young QB, who should help each other. Thomas Jr was clearly drafted to slot into the alpha role, with Kirk taking the slot and Davis stretching the field. At the very least, Thomas will also be an elite field stretcher, really opening up things for Kirk and Engram underneath, as well as opening the box for Etienne. The franchise does not have a great history with receivers.
6. Roman Wilson
   1. Excellent, phenomenal landing spot. Wilson lands in another run-heavy offense as the clear WR2, from a team and staff that has been historically great with evaluating and developing receiver talent.
7. Ladd McConkey
   1. McConkey is presumably the current or soon-to-be WR1 in LA. The landing spot is definitely good amidst a weak WR corps, although I’m not fully certain about his ability to be the Alpha. Perhaps they expect something out of QJ? Palmer is solid but not spectacular.
8. Ricky Pearsall
   1. For his age, the spot isn’t ideal, but the capital is great. Pearsall is definitely a good player, and if one of Deebo or Aiyuk is traded (likely Deebo) he comes into a great role. I’d call it a good landing spot.
9. Troy Franklin
   1. The capital is horrible, and I feel teams have made a huge mistake here. Franklin is too nice and genuine of a guy to have that ‘chip on his shoulder’ effect from his fall, but he will definitely take his role seriously. With his talent, I see him slotting in as the WR2 on this offense early, especially with the Nix connection, but he has to beat out Mims. For the capital, it was definitely the best landing spot he could have got with a team that really wants him.
10. Ja’Lynn Polk
    1. New England is historically awful at wide receiver evaluation, but Polk is solid and will come into a WR room with no alpha and a rookie QB. Pop Douglas is a good slot receiver, and Bourne is alright, but that’s about it. I believe they should play a Polk - Douglas - Baker line, but Bourne will likely be starting, which is understandable.
11. Adonai Mitchell
    1. Awful landing spot. The worst he could have hoped for. AD has that chip on his shoulder, but he comes in as the WR3 in a role that is likely mostly field stretching. If there was actually a lot for him to learn, then this landing spot subtly becomes very good.
12. Keon Coleman
    1. I would argue that this is the best landing spot for any player in the draft. The capital is excellent, and the fit is excellent. Keon might not get any separation, but Josh Allen is exactly brain dead enough to just chuck it to him anyways. Very few other quarterbacks would have the confidence in him to simply target him despite being draped, and Allen is a very good one, who might be forced to pass to him considering how weak the room is. I believe Shakir and Kincaid are decent, and that Samuel might be better than Coleman, but Allen and the team will likely treat Coleman like the alpha, and this will be reflected in his targets. It also helps that Coleman is a very likable character, which might offset his bad at football accusations with great production on poor efficiency.
13. Xavier Legette
    1. It’s a new front office in Carolina, but I don’t really trust the pick. It doesn’t help my concerns when you consider Legette is also from Carolina, which might bias the selection, especially when everyone knew he was going there but nobody cared enough to try to get him over Carolina. On the plus side, he went to the only place where people can understand him, and he fits the room well alongside Diontae Johnson. He’ll probably play in a role that doesn’t suit his skillset, but he can succeed here if Bryce steps it up with an improved line.
14. Malachi Corley
    1. Good landing spot as a YAC slot player, while living with Rodgers. Definitely intriguing, although the franchise is bad so his development might be minimal.
15. Jermaine Burton
    1. Good landing spot imo, with room to learn the position and role and then replace Tee Higgins. Still don’t like the guy.
16. Javon Baker
    1. Lands in an open room with alright capital. Is the WR4 already imo, with an opportunity to earn the alpha role if he’s up for it.
17. Luke McCaffrey
    1. Great capital for the level of play he’s shown. He definitely has a role as a starter intended, although I hope they took him due to athleticism and not name (3rd is too high for it to be name value).
18. Devontez Walker
    1. Good spot to learn and possibly start while getting no targets.
19. Malik Washington
    1. Bad landing spot, and bad draft capital. Washington is fantastic, but he’s old and behind two great receivers, not to mention OBJ being signed (which I imagine means he will play). Washington could have started in the slot, but now he will have to wait and earn a role.
20. Jalen McMillan
    1. He’s the WR3 in Tampa, but Godwin will likely take the slot, which means he might be the WR4 unless they play him on the outside.
21. Jacob Cowing
    1. Deep corps with Pearsall taken ahead of him, but a good place to grow.
22. Jamari Thrash
    1. He has one great receiver ahead of him, and two alright receivers that I don’t believe he has the quality to surpass, but I think he can gap Cedric Tillman. There’s probably not much hope here.
23. Ainias Smith
    1. Smith can beat out Parris Campbell for the slot role, and while he doesn’t strike me as a consistent player, he can still ‘thrive’ for meager numbers under a great corps.
24. Bub Means
    1. The WR3 in the room is open, and by all means the job is his to take (that pun was actually unintentional I swear I only noticed it after writing it).
25. Brenden Rice
    1. He might be horrible but the WR room is completely open, and his late draft capital might make Papa Jerry step in and give him some instruction in how to play the position. There’s probably some sort of upside here.
26. Johnny Wilson
    1. He could definitely beat out Devante Parker who has the exact opposite skillset as a fellow big receiver, but the slot is the role that is open outside of AJ Brown and Smitty. The volume is also going to be low.
27. Anthony Gould
    1. The Colts landing spot doesn’t suddenly look better. Obvious depth role with no hope of ever starting.
28. Devaughn Vele
    1. I could see Payton really liking him, and him earning time, but he’s 26. I believe in him though, despite this ranking.
29. Jalen Coker
    1. Panthers are bad, undrafted is bad, I don’t see him getting a chance.
30. Cornelius Johnson
    1. I almost raised Corn higher because Harbaugh drafted him, and Harbaugh obviously knows more about him than I do, but then I remembered how bad he truly is. I insist that there’s no hope for him, he’s just awful.

Fantasy Football Rankings (only included plausible contributors):

1. Marvin Harrison Jr.
2. Malik Nabers
3. Ladd McConkey
4. Xavier Worthy
5. Keon Coleman
6. Rome Odunze
7. Brian Thomas Jr.
8. Xavier Legette
9. Roman Wilson
10. Troy Franklin
11. Ja’Lynn Polk
12. Adonai Mitchell
13. Ricky Pearsall
14. Malachi Corley
15. Jermaine Burton

I first started noticing that something was wrong around 3 months ago. At the time, I was working from home and would usually light a scented candle while I worked, which usually helped me relax and stay focused on my work. I would usually burn through a candle a week, but over time, the candles started to take less time to fully burn up. At first, I thought that this was because of a change in ingredients the company that made the candles used, but the problem persisted after I switched candle brands, which I once again blamed on the candle manufacturers.
I kept this belief for another week until the first incident. While getting up from my computer desk, which faces away from the candle, to take a quick bathroom break, I caught a glimpse of the lit candle. A two-inch layer of molten wax rested on another three-inch layer of solid wax, the wicks rising out at first and being somewhat visible through the molten layer, finally breaking the surface and being slowly burned away. The flames flickered as I swung the door open and walked out of the room. When I returned 10 minutes later, the molten layer was gone, and the wicks had been shortened so that the flames rested right above the solid layer of the wax. At first, I thought that the glass jar that contained the candle was leaking, but after a short inspection, I was only able to find two small drops of candle wax that had solidified right next to the candle on the bedside table. I still had 2 hours of work left to do, but I was too lost in thought and was unable to do any work for the rest of the day.
Every night before I go to sleep, I like to read for at least 30 minutes, and while reading, I usually light a candle. Around 4 days later, I had mostly forgotten about the incident and went back to using candles. Due to my naivety, it returned.
I fell asleep while reading with a candle lit on my bedside table. I woke up to loud slurping noises. As I opened my eyes, the brightness of the light I had not turned off almost blinded me. As my eyes tried to readjust to the light and focus on what was in front of me, I saw a somewhat humanoid dark gray to light blue blur that contrasted with the white paint on the walls behind it. Another gray line stretched from the shape's head to the candle on my bedside table. I could feel my heart skip five consecutive beats. I opened my mouth and tried to force out a scream for help, but the pressure I applied to my throat was way beyond what it was able to handle, leading me to only produce a light wheezing sound. I tried to sit up or to at least prop myself up, but my muscles failed me. Trying to push myself up with my arms felt impossible. As I stared at the figure that had suddenly appeared in my room, my eyes finally managed to focus, making it possible for me to see the intruder who was now staring at me. The figure was a man at least 7 feet tall, fully naked; he looked bloated; his eyes were bloodshot and looked like they would pop out of their sockets; at any point, his skin was a grayish light blue.
HIS LIPS
His lips extended from his mouth like an elephant's trunk, which had been split in half. The lips extended from the man's face to the candle; the flames had been put out. He was using his lips as a makeshift straw, slowly sucking up all the molten wax from the candle, which had fully liquified while I was asleep. I laid in bed, unable to move, unable to scream for help, staring until he emptied the jar. His lips retracted back to his face, the molten wax solidifying on their tips and cracking, flakes of wax falling off the man's lips and falling to the floor. The man grinned, staring at me. The ridges and gaps between the teeth were filled in with wax, making it impossible to make out where one tooth ended and the next one began. The man opened the door he was standing next to, but instead of walking out of the room, he stepped behind it. His face peered at me from above the door, and then once again, like he had done to drink the wax, the man puckered his lips, which stretched from his mouth and floated to me. I shook and tried to roll over away from him. I wanted to get up and run, but my fear had taken over my body. Tears flowed from my eyes. He kissed me on the cheek, leaving flakes of wax and light moisture. He retracted his lips and lowered his head behind the door.
I don't remember falling asleep, but when I woke up, I saw the empty glass jar, which at one point contained the candle. Even though I had hoped that what had happened was a dream, it wasn't. I still had flakes of wax on my cheek, and on my bedroom floor, the wax in the jar had disappeared. I called the police, but they were unable to find anyone in my apartment; they also could not find any evidence of a break-in.
After the break-in, I started looking for a new apartment to move to, thinking that the man was tied to the building I was in, but even though I had thrown out all of my candles, I could not stomach spending another hour in my apartment, constantly looking over my shoulder or walking around with my back pressed up against the wall to not allow it to creep up on me. Thankfully, my friend Emma was able to let me stay over at her apartment while I looked for a new one for myself.
Me and Emma have been friends since we were 8, and we've been there to support each other when times get rough. This isn’t the first time I've had to stay over at her house for an extended amount of time; in fact, I have had to stay over at Emma’s as many times as she has had to stay over at my apartment, whether it was because of evictions after losing a job, breakups, or a candle wax drinking squatter. I didn't even know if it was human. I mean, sure, it looked like one, but human lips are not supposed to do what his did, and somehow it didn't have a reaction to molten wax being poured down its esophagus. I didn't tell Emma about what happened—the details at least—I just told her that a man had broken into my house and was watching me sleep. The only people I told the truth to were my therapist and the cops, and all of them disregarded what I told them as my mind making things up after a traumatic event.
For a while, I believed what they said—I mean, why wouldn’t I?—but then I started seeing him again. For a few days, I thought it was my mind playing tricks on me again like it had done during the night of the incident. For split seconds out of the corner of my eye, I would see the outline of a tall, bloated figure. At first, they were hours apart, but after a while, it became constant. He was standing in each room I passed, in every single dark corner I glanced past, and then he spoke.
“FeeD MeEeee”
It stood in the kitchen, peering over from a small gap between the fridge and the sink, where the trash can that had been knocked over onto its side usually stood. His voice was raspy, and every word that came out of his mouth was distorted as if he were gargling water, but still, I could somehow clearly make out each word he said from over 15 feet away.
“Please just leave me alone I… why are you following me?”
I shouted at the figure, the same fear that had taken over my body during the night I saw him for the first time paralyzing me, making it impossible for me to move anything other than my eyes, eyelids, and mouth.
“i’M sTarviNg, I nEEd You To FeEd ME”
It replied again. Now, stepping out from behind the fridge, he stepped directly onto a rotten banana. Its mushy brown content’s seeping out of the peel under the pressure of his decomposing foot, which was covered in scabs, and took up the same grayish light blue color as the rest of his body. He mostly looked the same; his bloodshot eyes bulged from their sockets, but now his tongue was swollen. It peeked out from between his bloated, cracked gray lips; it stared at me, waiting for an answer.
“Ok, I’ll.. I’ll feed you, but please just... leave me alone.”
I replied, the tone of my voice shifting into high-pitched squeals with every quick breath I took. He looked satisfied by my response. He somehow squeezed his bloated body back into the gap that was at least four times smaller than him. After peering over at me from above the fridge, he bent over backwards, his spine releasing a series of sickening cracks until he was fully obscured by the fridge, and then he vanished.
Still barely in control of my body, I limped over to the couch tucked away in the back corner of the living room, it took me at least 10 minutes to steady my breathing and 20 more to fully regain control of my body again but as soon as I did I ran out the house and to the nearest store, during the 15-minute walk he stared at me through dark windows and the backs of cars, peered out at me from gaps between leaves in the trees and bushes, he even followed me into the store staring at me from the middle of deserted isles before disappearing right before my eyes were able to fully catch him, once I finally got the candles I randomly picked four off of the shelves and rushed to the self checkout.
When I arrived home, I had 2 hours before Emma got off work. I didn't want to feed it while she was home, and I didn't want her to see it. I pulled out two of the candles from the black plastic bag and placed them on the kitchen table, the first a light blue candle named “Garden Rain” and the second a red candle named “Juicy Watermelon." I pulled out a lighter from one of the drawers Emma used after her stove stopped lighting on its own and lit each of the 6 wicks on the candles. As soon as I started seeing the wax melt under the heat of the burning wicks, I dropped the lighter onto the table next to the candles and ran out of the room. I could not stomach seeing that thing again; even just thinking about it made me shudder and hyperventilate. The paralyzing fear that seeing him caused me made me want to vomit.
At least 30 minutes later I started to hear it drink even though the living room and kitchen were separated by a wall, even though I had closed the door I could still hear what at first started as slurping sounds which were followed up by loud gulps, then it stopped, and once again 30 minutes later it started drinking, as the slurping started once again I heard the door to the apartment crack open, it was Emma, as she stepped through the door I saw her carrying two large brown paper bags of groceries in her hands, she was headed to the kitchen.
“Hey let me grab those for you”
I said running over to her, my voice shaking.
“Oh, thanks. Are you… okay, you look scared?”
My eyes shot wide open in a mixture of fear and surprise. I said the first thing that came to mind.
“Yeah just umm… I didn't expect you to come home so early and I got a bit spooked”
“shit sorry, I know I should have called you, work let me off early today,”
I started to turn away from her walking to the kitchen.
Trying to keep her away from the kitchen I told her to wait for me in the living room because I wanted to talk to her about something. I didn't know what I would talk to her about but that was a problem for future me to resolve, somehow it worked.
“What's that sound?”
She called out to me while walking towards the living room couch. It took me a few seconds to come up with an excuse.
“I think it’s the sink, or the pipes at least”
I opened the door to the kitchen with my eyes closed at first hesitant to look knowing what would be greeting me. slowly prying my eyes open I started to see its outline, my muscles started to lose strength as the details of the man came into my view, I felt the grocery bags start to slip from my arms, my knees buckled, face first I fell onto the kitchen floor scattering the groceries all over the floor, I mixture of a light scream and a yelp escaped from my mouth as my body made contact with the floor, Emma concerned for my safety ran into the kitchen, she didn't scream, using all of the strength and mobility I had left in my muscles I rolled over expecting to see her face drenched in terror, her body frozen still unable to move just like my body had done the first time that I saw him, but Emma looked concerned, the man was gone, she crouched down beside me.
“Oh my god are you ok? What happened?”
I looked around observing my surroundings.
“I um… I… I tripped on the little thing at the bottom of the doorframe”
I finally managed to blurt out another excuse, not being able to remember what the name of a door sill was. I started to sit up using a part of the energy that had returned to my body, pain pulsed through my chest and arms, Emma looked at me with a concerned face.
“You've been acting really weird since I got home, are you sure you're ok?”
“Yeah… I think I’m just having one of those days you know”
The confusion on Emma’s face said that she didn’t know and to be honest I didn't either, I guess my luck of pulling random excuses out of my ass ran out, Emma thought that she triggered some sort of PTSD response after barging into the house unannounced at first apologizing then trying to change the subject to stop my trembling which I was still unsuccessfully trying to hide from her.
“Did you buy candles?”
Emma asked picking the groceries apart from the garbage that spilled out the can that the man had knocked over, placing them on the table next to the now half-empty glass jars, the flames flickered above the inch or so of molten wax the man was unable to finish drinking.
“Yeah I’ve been struggling with work lately, they usually help me focus”
“Huh Interesting combination you’ve got going on here”
She looked at me and smiled slightly, I smiled back and chuckled to seem normal.
“Yeah even I don't know what I was trying to accomplish here, to be honest”
I tried to help Emma clean up the spilled groceries but she did not let me, she told me that I needed to recover like I had been in a car crash instead of having taken a little tumble. After a few seconds of silence, Emma spoke again.
“Anyway, what did you want to talk to me about earlier?”
A quick jolt of stress shot through my body, in a jumbled mess of lies and fear I had forgotten what I had told Emma, I sat there in silence for a few seconds unable to come up with an excuse
“I…umm… I don’t remember, it wasn't anything serious though”
“Damn did you hit your head too?”
She said once again proudly smiling at her joke.
At this point Emma picked up the last bag of potato chips from the floor and placed it on the table, then she opened the fridge and started loading the groceries into it.
“Anyway I gotta go get back to work’’
I blurted out after a few more seconds of awkward silence.
“Alright well good luck”
I walked over into the living room and sat down in front of my workstation, which now consisted of a laptop sitting on a small foldable TV tray that had just barely enough room left on it to fit a small USB mouse.
The last thing I remember, before I fell asleep, was me mindlessly scrolling through apartment listings while Emma watched a random 90’s horror movie I’m positive only had a budget of $500.
I woke up with a light stinging pain shooting through my dry throat, and a dim hissing sound caused by thousands of water drops striking the ground outside filled the room. I pressed the spacebar on my laptop, the brightness of the screen blinding me temporarily, after taking a few seconds to let my eyes readjust I managed to make out the time, 3:45 AM. A strong smell I was unable to make out the origin of assaulted my nostrils. Lavender.
The smell hitting my nose had the same effect on me that I would expect smelling salts would have on a weightlifter right before they set a world record. Before I knew it my legs were moving on their own at an almost uncontrollable pace, fighting back against my mind which was telling them to slow down after years of being used to navigating both mine and Emma’s apartment as steadily as possible to not bother the neighbors.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity I stood before Emma’s bedroom door, a faint, yellow, pulsating light radiated from a lamp and snuck out of a small gap between the door and the doorframe, reluctantly I pushed my left hand up against the door, my right hand grasping onto the door frame for a sense of stability, once the door was fully agape I scanned the inside of the room my heart skipping a beat for every humanoid shadow cast up onto the wall by the lights from the wicks which were set ablaze and were being slowly burnt away.
I walked into Emma’s room and made my way over to her bedside table to put out the candle, as I stepped closer towards her, her face became more defined, I could finally make out her features, she was awake, but no she could not have been, even though her eyes were wide open they never blinked, she didn't even move slightly, as I moved closer I finally managed to fully make out the expression of pure terror on her face, her mouth wide agape as if she was about to release a deafening screach, but she could not have, a single drop of solidified wax dribbled out of the corner of her mouth and clung to her cheek, my eyes traced the cream colored path back towards her mouth, first up her cheek then between the corner of her mouth and finally behind her teeth, there instead of her tongue or the roof of her mouth I saw a wall of wax which had filled in the entirety of her mouth.
I fell to my knees and hunched forward supporting my body weight with my arms, I was too late, I resisted the urge to vomit and got back up onto my feet, a mixture of tears and snot slid down my face and onto my lips, shaking now I slowly started limping over towards my phone which I had left on the couch next to where I had awoken just minutes before, just minutes before my life was destroyed because of my lies if I had just told Emma what I had gone through, if I had just told her what had happened on the night of the incident which now seemed trivial, even if she thought that I was crazy, I know that she would have complied just to make me feel comfortable.
It took me at least 30 seconds of repeated attempts to stabilize my hands enough to properly dial 911. “Someone broke into my apartment and hurt my friend” was the only reasonable explanation I could come up with that would not get the operator to hang up on me thinking that this was a prank call.
I sat there in the living room for an agonizing 10 minutes, crying, my sadness slowly transformed into anger towards myself, and my mind raced thinking of all the lies I’d told, I kept thinking that if I had just told her the truth she would not have been laying there in her bed, her body bloated, “every single orifice has signs of forced penetration and has been filled with what seems to be candle wax” is what was written on her autopsy report.
For a few days I was the main suspect in Emma’s murder, but due to the almost unstoppable crying and the unresponsive state that I was in when the police arrived, mixed with the lack of evidence of me having a way to produce 30 pounds of candle wax led to me being released out of police custody, but because I was the main suspect I was not told any details about what had fully happened to Emma, for days all I had to work off of was the image of her face frozen in terror, and a short glance I caught of her bloated body as she was being carted out on a stretcher.
I recounted every single word of our last conversations over and over again until they became permanently etched into my brain.
Emma’s parents originally wanted to cremate her, as that is what she had somewhat jokingly asked for whenever the topic of funerals came up, well she had joked about wanting to have had unpopped popcorn shoved down her throat before she was sent off to “scare the shit out of the guy cremating me” but due to all the wax which would have been impossible to get out of her body they were forced to bury her.
A few days before Emma’s funeral her body disappeared.
After Emma’s death, her parents took me into their home, after reading the autopsy reports and seeing her corpse they had thrown out every single candle they owned which made their home the safest choice I had, still, this did not stop me from buying a machete and keeping it under my bed, just in case.
I was laying on the bed in their guest bedroom The day that the police informed Emma’s parents about her disappearance, the bedroom is right above the front porch of the house, at first I heard them ring the doorbell which was followed up by 3 powerful knocks on the door, for about a minute I laid there on the bed listening to muffled voices exchanging distorted words I was barely able to make out which slowly transformed into distorted weeps, curious I lifted myself up from the bed, made my way over to the window and carefully lifted the bottom panel making Shure to not make too much noise, the distorted muffled sounds started forming into coherent words “We checked the security footage but the only strange thing we could see was a 5 second time jump” one of the officers spoke in a serious and almost monotone voice “which meant that the security guard who was the only person in the building had to climb down 2 flights of stairs walk through a 40 foot long hallway and then drag her body back up stairs and out of the building in 5 seconds” Emma’s mom let out yelp “ but don’t worry ma'am that’s actually good news because we know that her corpse is still somewhere within the building and was probably brought to the wrong floor by an intern, we’ve already warned all of the staff at the hospital to keep an eye out, and we also sent 5 officers to search the hospital”
I could not believe what I was hearing, my breathing quickened, but this time instead of fear I felt anger, that fucker stole her corpse and was probably in the weird separate plane of existence he always went back to after terrorizing me, cutting off chunks of her body, melting her, and drinking her.
I closed the window Emma’s mom's cries once again turned into a muffled rumble which was only possible to make out if you knew what to look for, I took a few steps back away from the window planning to lay back down, not wanting to bother Emma’s parents. I bumped into something, not something, someone, its fleshy towering form as solid as a wall sent me tumbling forward, I knew it was him, he had returned to take me too, to stretch his swollen cracked lips, push them down my esophagus, fill my lungs and stomach with wax. But despite all of that this time I was not scared, I was angry, and I was not going to stand there in terror like I had the last time I saw him.
I fell forward onto my knees my face missing the window sill just by mere inches, I put my hands onto the floor, lifted one of my knees, and rotated 180 degrees now facing the monster, to the right of him pushed up against the wall was the bed, light from the sun reflected off of the metallic button which kept my machete in it’s sheathe, the man started to stretch his lips, they were moving towards me, waving a wiggling through the air like a snake slithering towards me.
I dove towards the bed one of my feet pushing off of the floor and the other pushing against the wall which creaked under the pressure applied to it, I flew for a few moments before slamming down onto the carpet and sliding forward, the heat generated by my skin brushing against the carpet released a sharp stinging pain throughout my body, my outstretched arm landed just a few inches short of the machete, I quickly bent my arms, pushing my body up and crawled towards the machete. my fingers wrapped around the handle I spun around, my back pushed up against the bedside table, once again facing the man, he was still facing the window but his lips faced me and were just a few feet away from me, for what felt like minutes but was most likely no longer than a second, I struggled to hook my finger under the strap securing the machete into its sheath, as the lips inched towards me the man started producing gurgling noises, he was regurgitation wax.
I finally pulled the machete out of its sheath, I swung the blade at the man's lips, the blade was not met with any resistance as it sliced through the man’s lips which landed on the carpeted floor with an audible thud, the man did not have a physical reaction to my counter-attack, his lips kept creeping towards me, once again I slashed at the lips, still no reaction, I repeated this at least 3 more times.
I wanted to kill him, I wanted to take revenge for what he had done to Emma, but fighting back was pointless. I realized that no matter how much I tried to hurt it, I could not kill him, I could not get rid of him.
My rage dissipated and a mixture of fear and sadness crept in, and soon took over my body, I screamed for help, I screamed in fear, in agony, tears streamed down my face as the man's lips finally reached my face, he wasn’t met with any resistance as his lips snuck between mine, pried my jaw open and finally started to slide down my esophagus.
I heard the cops run up the stairs, they started banging on the door asking if I was okay only to have been met with muffled screams, hot wax started to pour down inside of me, the stinging pain of the heat made me want to plunge the machete which I had dropped onto the ground next to me into my stomach to create a gaping wound that the wax would hopefully funnel out of, the texture of the man's slippery, oily lips matched with the poison like flavor of the wax caused me to start gagging, I felt my insides bulging like at any moment my intestines would have been filled to the point where they would pop, I wanted to vomit, the drain myself of the filth I was filled with, but his lips had plugged my throat not allowing anything to get out.
Hearing my muffled screams the cops started kicking the door down, the man retracted his lips, the suction aided my attempts at cleansing my insides, I got onto my hands and knees streams of molten wax pouring out of me, solidifying on the the carpet, with another loud thud the door swung open slamming into the wall, the man was gone.
That’s the last thing I remember before I passed out, but according to one of the doctors who was in the ambulance that brought me to the hospital, I was still semi-responsive during the first 10 minutes of the ride to the hospital.
Approximately 13.4 pounds of wax were removed from my body, the doctors said that I was in a critical condition and some of them did not expect me to make it.
One of the officers who was there the day the man attacked me took a report of what had happened to me, due to the unmistakable evidence of what had happened to both me and Emma, and the fact that this was the 3rd instance of me reporting something like this the police finally started investigating who this man might have been.
Around a month later I was discharged from the hospital and once again have been staying in the living room of Emma’s parent's house.
I’ve been seeing the man again, candles were not allowed in the hospital I stayed at, which means that he’s probably very hungry, he’s close to attacking me again, I know it, he wants to finish what he started and I don't know if I have the power to fight back, I’m not sure if defeating him is even possible, I’m tired.
I’ve been seeing Emma too, her bloated, reanimated corpse often appears to be standing next to the man. If I let him take me will I get to join them? I’ve tried asking but they don’t answer, they just stare, I can’t keep living in constant fear, always looking over my shoulder, I miss Emma.

Age: 22
Sex: F
Height: 5’1”
Weight: 164 lbs
Race: hispanic
Duration of complaint: 3 months
Location: abdomen
Currently have high cholesterol. bad cholesterol count of 103 according to my primary care.
Current medications: metoclopramide 5mg. sertraline 25mg, pantoprazole 40mg
i’ll include pictures of some tests that i’ve had done in the comments if i can.
Gonna try to include as best of a description of my symptoms as i can, i’ll also try to edit anything if it makes my description better.
this all started 2 months ago. literally the last week of february. at the time i wasn’t on any type of medication. nothing changed in my eating habits, except for the fact that i’d had panda express for the 1st time ever starting in february.
i became constipated suddenly one afternoon and this continued for a week. went to the doctor and i was sent to get a ct scan. but obviously, i’m not familiar with medical terms. from what i understand, there’s evidence of slow transit through my small bowel, but don’t know where or why exactly.
symptoms include: constipation accompanied by side and abdominal discomfort/aches/ pains. my upper abdominal area aches a lot some days. it feels as if the area right under the breast bones wants to cramp up. i feel burning in my stomach and abdomen too. gas is hard to pass somedays and feels trapped. i also have upper back aches. doctor told me it’s because of my small intestine. i also have lower back aches as well, but was told it could be because of kidney stones i didn’t even know i had, but just thought i’d mention this. i have diarrhea (once i went and it was very watery,) loose stools, stools with mucus and pieces of undigested food, mainly meat, of varying shapes and consistencies. the mucus on my stool is clear and white and appears like strings on my stool. sometimes i’ll have a semi normal movement, but with mucus. sometimes my stool will be thin, in small pieces, or just very loose even after a “normal” bowel movement. other times i’ll go but it’s just mucus. all my stools are also slimey in texture from what i can tell. also, everytime i wipe my stool it’s yellow in color with mucus and/or clear fluid. sometimes i’ll have this urgency to go despite being constipated.
also, not sure if this has to do with my current condition but have been wiping light red blood after i go, both with my more solid stools and loose ones. in one instance i even wiped only blood. there’s also been times where i’ve seen streaks of blood on my stool too. clear fluid also seems to be leaking out of my anal area…. clear mucus sometimes too. this causes my anal area and the inside of it to itch and sting. it feels like that sometimes after a bowel movement, even if it’s soft, other times it just feels itchy throughout the day, even if there is no anal leakage or if i don’t go to the bathroom. the mucus that comes out sometimes has pieces of stool/liquid that is the color of my stool. even with the supplements and meds i’ve been given, i’m lucky if I go even once a day now, but constipation is getting worse in my opinion.
in late march/early april i started to experience nausea, heartburn, acid reflux, and severe loss of appetite. all of these symptoms have persisted since. i no longer eat any of the food i used to. i can’t eat fast food or meat any more. i’m sticking to fruit, no citrusy fruits, crackers, soups, and cereal with almond or lactose free milk. even with these changes in diet my symptoms have persisted.
i eat very little because i just don’t feel hunger like i used to at all. even if i do i find that i get full very easily. i’m bloated after i eat as well. also, like i said i’m constipated so my bowel movement are little to none.
i currently still have all of the symptoms above and they don’t seem to be improving.
in a addition to a ct scan i’ve gotten tested for a blood infection, negative. celiac disease blood test came back negative. stool test for h pylori came back negative. a test to find if there was any blood digested and present in my stool came back negative. a stool test that was done to measure levels of fat in my stool came back indicating normal levels of fat in my stool. i also got an ultra sound for lumps that appeared on my abdomen but it was found that they were just fatty lumps. i also got an endoscopy in late april where 3 tissue biospies were taken. apparently, the 3 things they tested for all came back negative. other than a bacterial infection, i have no idea what else they ruled out. i’m not even white sure what bacterial infections they ruled out.
honestly, i’m getting more questions than answers at the moment and just want to know if there’s any more testing that i should ask for. what could possibly be happening to me and why?

First / Previous
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Suzanne thought it was absolutely brilliant of me to put books on a flash drive for Sun. She explained that Sun wasn’t as sophant (her word, not mine) as she might seem, more of a repository of information, but she was fairly intelligent. It was how she was able to connect Andrew being in pain to the fact that I was friends with Andrew, and that I would want to know that he was in trouble. Apparently some of Sun’s species had given some ‘wisdom’ to others in the past and it had made its way into mythology.
The key fact was that she was not smart enough to protect herself and her kind from the clever, organized poachers. With that information in mind, it was fascinating for me to think of how Sun took in and organized what she learned. It was almost as if she was a walking, talking library.
On the topic of tours, my first one went wonderfully, and I’m almost hoping Suzanne lets me do more of them. I know not all the tourists are going to be as awesome as these people were, but Suzanne gave me a lot of slack when it comes to dealing with them. She actually said that being a smartass is not grounds for dismissal, and that if I’m sarcastic or facetious to guests who are being ‘daft’ and they complain, she really doesn’t care. Is this the perfect job for me or what?
There were four guests in this party, two adults who were sisters and two children of one of the women, brothers aged thirteen and seventeen. The tour was a birthday gift for the older of the boys from his aunt, since apparently he was passionate about animal protection and conservation.
When they arrived at the front gate, I was sitting at Andrew’s desk, going over the booklet of information one last time. When the visitors pressed the button that sounded the alert buzzer, I tucked away in a drawer and let them in. I did have a cheat sheet with information about the animals on my phone just in case, a brief notation of each of them and which enclosure they were in, but I really didn’t need to use it.
Exiting through the front door, I saw them walk up the path toward me. “Hi, I’m Ripley,” I said, holding out a hand toward the woman closest to me.
She shook it firmly. “I’m Denise. This is my sister Carla and my nephews, Wesley and Jason,” she said, motioning to each of them in turn.
“I heard it’s your birthday,” I said to Wesley, giving him a smile. “You’re interested in animal conversation?”
“Back where we live, yeah,” he said, nodding. “The animals that you’ve got here are incredible. I can’t wait to see them.”
“Well, I can’t wait to show them to you,” I said. “Right this way.”
I led them on the path around the building, toward enclosure one. Despite the horrific memories of the animal killing Stanley’s friends, I knew it was just an animal, and I had to push past my feelings on what had happened. Keeping a small smile on my face, I motioned to the enclosure. “Fiercely territorial and amazing hunters, despite their large size, they’re arboreal and known to dart from tree to tree with barely a sound. This is one of only about two thousand left in existence.”
“Two thousand, three hundred and fifty six at last count,” spoke Wesley, his eyes on the trees.
I blinked, surprised and impressed. “Well that was fantastic. Do you plan on stealing my job when you graduate?”
Wesley looked at me with a grin. “Nah, everyone knows Suzanne only offers humans this gig. And I want to help animals like this one get off the endangered species list. The zoos are great for awareness and fundraising, but then the money has to go somewhere. I want to be doing the real work.”
“That’s really great,” I told him. “I wish you all the best in that career path.” At that, we saw the animal climb down from the tree, wandering a few yards from the tree line. This was because 90% of the time, when humans were at their enclosure and making noise, whether it was speaking to each other or calling out to the animal, it was someone bringing them prey to eat. Or, in my case, enrichment toys to play with.
“Whoa,” Wesley whispered.
“How close can we get?” spoke up Jason.
“The warding starts at the fence,” I told him with a small gesture. “So, just there.”
Both boys wandered closer and I glanced at their parents. It seemed that Suzanne’s zoo had a serious reputation for high quality invisible walls, because they didn’t look worried in the slightest about the boys being hurt or killed.
“They prefer dense forest as their home and have been known to make their nests in trees up to twenty meter in the air,” I continued. “And when hunting, they’ve been seen dropping eight meters straight down. They have incredibly dense yet flexible musculature, which allows them to tackle their prey without injuring themselves.”
There was more information about the animal that I continued to rattle off, though Wesley chimed in at certain points with the info I was about to convey. That was highly entertaining and very cool. When I’d been in school, I’d never met anyone who had my level of passion about endangered animals. I wondered if things were better where these folks came from, but realized that considering there were so few of these animals left, I guessed not.
The animal paced a little bit, seemingly waiting to see if we were the kind of humans that came bearing food, before deciding we weren’t and climbing back up into the trees as easily as I would climb some stairs.
As we moved onto enclosure two, Jason spoke up. “Are there any animals here we can touch or feed or something?”
I sighed inwardly before slowing to a stop. “Well, can you show me your hands?” Jason looked bemused, holding out his hands. “I mean…they both look like they’re in great shape. You can stand to lose one.”
The two women chuckled and Wesley smirked as Jason shoved his hands into his pockets. “Very funny.”
Grinning, I started walking again. “The animals here are all carnivores and all predators. You get to see them, but that’s it.”
“Alright.”
When we reached enclosure two, I started on my next spiel. “We’ve got three reanimated dead in this enclosure,” I spoke. They were just coming out from the trees as we arrived, presumably having heard our approach. “Marissa, Connor, and Bradley. They were donated by families who knew where they would be exhibited. Their next of kin, whoever they are, can’t stand the idea of putting them down. But we need to make sure they don’t have access to corpses, because one of them plus one corpse equals two of them.”
“They eat flesh though, don’t they?” Wesley asked.
I nodded. “Oh, yeah, but it’s from bodies that have already been dismembered. There’s no chance of them being affected by the transformation because it’s all parts.”
“Oh, got it.”
The creatures with blueish-white skin had superhuman strength, which is why they qualified for the security of Suzanne’s zoo. They also were likely the source of any Earth tales of people being brought back to life as zombies, specifically draugr, according to my research. They smelled like rotting flesh, so even as I kept talking about them and giving a background to the people they used to be, we were quick to move on once Wesley had gotten a good, long look at them.
“Enclosure four’s animal is a vampiric spirit. He’s a small, hairy humanoid creature with pointed ears. He wears a hat, and if he somehow loses it, he freaks out,” I said.
“They eat horses,” Wesley noted. “Also anything that gives them the chance to sit on it, usually catching them by surprise while they’re sleeping.”
The creature came out from the brush, giving us a suspicious look. He wasn’t in his humanoid form though; for some reason, he’d chosen to shapeshift to a dog.
I nodded. “Yep, indeed. Once the prey is dead, then he’ll eat it, and he has a voracious appetite. We have two wolves and two bears in the forest, which is one of the reasons I’ve got some self-defense items,” I said, patting my belt where my pepper spray (rated for bear) and my taser. “But the wards keep them out of this area of the zoo, so it’s really not much of a worry. It’s also a known shapeshifter, preferring the form of a dog, as you can see, as well as a cat, a snake, or even white butterflies, though the last one is rare.”
“The white butterflies are supposed to be a sign of good luck,” Wesley said, glancing to me. “Too bad we got the dog.”
“Yeah, otherwise you might be able to talk your mom into getting scratch-offs on your way home, huh?”
Wesley smirked at me.
The next enclosure was Spike, and he was waiting for us, dripping wet from having just emerged from the lake. I gave the introductory information about him, which included his propensity for eating animal eyes, nails, and teeth. “Recently, I’ve given him some enrichment activities, and I learned he likes artichokes, pecans, and hazelnuts,” I said, taking a bag out from my cargo shorts. “Wesley, do you want to toss this bag into the enclosure?”
The boy’s eyes widened and he nodded excitedly. He took a look into the paper bag before wrapping down the top to make sure nothing would fly out. Then he chucked it underhand past the fence. It landed a few yards from Spike, who waddled over to it quickly and tearing the bag open, spilling out the prizes inside. As the animal ate the pecans and hazelnuts, Wesley asked, “How’d you figure out he likes those?”
“It’s not all about taste,” I told him. “It’s mainly the difficulty of getting them out of the shells. He’s used to having to work for the parts of his prey he likes the most, so this mimics that activity, and he enjoys the process. I tried a bunch of different foods to find a few he liked.”
“Cool,” Wesley murmured, staring at him.
We watched Spike eat until he’d finished and then he went back into the woods, leaving us to move onto enclosure five. Japanese camellia were plentiful here, a type of pink flower, and that was because they grew anywhere near one of his species made their den. “This girl spends most of her time in the lake also,” I said, as the creature made its way toward the fence separating us from it. “But as you can see, she’s just as curious as the rest about what we’re doing here and whether we have food for her. She eats fish mostly, but she also regularly gets live prey.”
This creature was a spider-like monster, having six legs with long claws on each, and the head of an ox with two sharp horns. She was capable of shapeshifting to look like a human, but I guessed that she wasn’t fond of it, since I hadn’t yet seen her in that form.
“She prefers the easy way of catching prey, so to speak, by hiding in the lake and pouncing when something comes for a drink of water,” I explained. “Apparently humans are some of her favorite prey. She has an advantage of being able to spit poison, which often hits her prey in the eyes. But it’s usually used in defense rather than offense, since it secretes a limited amount.”
“What kind of animal would even go after something like this?” Jason asked, staring at her.
“Never discount one of its own species when you’re thinking about what might attack an animal,” I replied. “There are places that are breeding all of the animals here, but competition for mates is common. That means an advantage in a fight, like poison or venom, can make or break who the winner is.”
“Ah, gotcha.”
“It can’t spit past the warding, right?” Carla suddenly asked.
“Oh, no,” I assured her. “We’re fine. The wards wouldn’t let anything cross over.” She nodded, appeased.
The animal in enclosure six was the ginormous seal-hippo, Fiona, and she was looking at us as if she was imagining sprinkling us with herbs and spices and stuffing us in an oven. “This girl is one animal I’m going to work on enrichment activities for next,” I told them. “She prefers to feed on crayfish, though she’s happy to eat any humans that wander into her territory. She’ll even make a sound like a baby crying to reel us in. I’ve heard it a bunch of times.”
“Can you get her to make the sound?” Jason asked, perking up.
I grinned. “Not on command, sorry.”
“What enrichment are you thinking of trying?” Wesley asked.
“Possibly food placed in puzzle feeders,” I told him, “since she has claws that are pretty dexterous. Maybe a piñata made out of newspaper with flour inside, or a scarecrow that mimics a human.”
“Awesome,” he muttered.
After a little more educational tidbits, we moved onto Yui’s enclosure. “What is that?” Wesley asked, smiling.
“I got Yui the closest thing I could to a ping-pong ball,” I replied. “She quite likes it.”
“That’s so funny,” he said as she came out of the trees in her spider form. “I mean, the idea of her being a bloodthirsty hunter who seduces men to their deaths and eats them alive, but then on the other hand, she likes playing with something like this.”
“It is a little funny,” I agreed. “But when it comes down to it, all the animals here enjoy activities besides hunting.”
“She can shapeshift to look human, right?” asked Jason, trying to be casual about knowing something factual like his nerdy brother.
I nodded. “She looks like a woman from a region of Earth called Japan. And she’ll use strategies like holding out a hand to shake to get you closer. She tried that on me when I first got here but, as you can see,” I said, holding up my hands and waving them, “I didn’t fall for it.”
The boys both laughed as they got closer to the fence, watching her slowly pace near the trees.
Next was Sun, but she didn’t make an appearance as I spoke about her species. “Well…unfortunately we can’t guarantee that every animal comes out to say hi,” I sighed. “But…oh wait, here she is.”
The green lion with several horns and many eyes along her flank came out from the forest. “Hello,” she spoke.
“Hi, Sun,” I replied. “We have visitors.”
“What’s that?” Wesley asked suddenly, pointing at the small plastic bag that was still where I’d left it.
“Oh! That is Sun’s enrichment,” I said with a smile. “I put dozens of books on a flash drive and found that she can read them just like she’d read a shelf of books.”
Wesley’s eyes widened. “Wow. I don’t think I’ve read about anyone trying that before. That’s really cool.”
“The books are new and interesting,” Sun spoke, drawing our attention. “I’m grateful for them.”
I nodded to her. “You’re quite welcome.”
The next animal, unfortunately, wasn’t there, and we waited around for ten minutes as we discussed him. He was large and reptile-like with red eyes, with its hind legs and tail making him look vaguely like a kangaroo. Then, enclosure ten was a terrifyingly disturbing creature, the not-a-centaur with no skin, that I’d only seen a few times while walking my route. It gave a good demonstration of its ferocity, showing its sharp teeth and snapping at us a few times.
“I’m thinking of trying salt licks and other horse enrichment like a big bouncy ball,” I told Wesley, whose eyebrows went up at that. “Maybe give him more things to forage like scattered grains or a box filled with pinecones and seeds. Foraging is a huge part of a horse’s life in the wild, and humans have to do a lot of activities like that to keep pet horses busy. Of course, he also loves the little salt-water lake that was built for him.”
We spent some time looking at the animal before moving past our last stop, the empty enclosure of the animal was stolen. Carla glanced at me with a sad smile, knowing what had happened, it seemed. I gave her a nod as we continued on our way, walking into the office. “So, I hope everyone enjoyed themselves!” I said with a smile.
“That was the coolest birthday present I’ve ever gotten,” Wesley said, looking to Denise. “Thanks so much, seriously.”
“It was my pleasure,” she said with a nod. “I’d never been here before, and knew I’d find it fascinating. Thank you for the educational aspect,” Denise said, glancing at me. “I learned quite a lot.”
“Happy to hear it,” I said, returning the nod.
As I escorted the guests out of the zoo and locked the door behind them, I reflected on how much I’d changed. The first time I’d seen Yui’s tarantula form, I’d nearly passed out from fear. Now here I was, walking tourists around like it was no big deal. Humans really can adapt to anything, it seems.
That afternoon, Suzanne had texted me that she was coming by after my shift, and I met her in Andrew’s office, shutting the door to the security room behind me. “How’s Andrew?” I asked first thing.
“He’s doing well,” she said with a wide smile. “Back on non-hospital food. He’s allowed to order food on his phone, and to hear it from him, that’s the best news he’d received in a long time.”
I chuckled. “I guess some clichés are true for a reason.”
“Indeed.” She took a breath. “All right. Ripley…I would like to discuss something with you.”
My face went slack at the serious tone in her voice. “I’m not… Am I being fired?”
“What? No!” she exclaimed. Then she chuckled softly. “No, it’s nothing like that. Just, here, let’s have a seat.” Suzanne walked over to the couch and sat at one end, and I took the other. “There’s something I need to tell you. Something I’ve kept from you, that I wanted to keep from you until you found your sea legs here.”
“Well…I have,” I said with a nod. “So, what is it?”
Suzanne took a breath. “I knew your mother.”
The words hung in the air for a moment before making their way to my ears. It was a perfectly logical sentence, and yet it didn’t make any sense. “What?” I finally managed.
“When you graduated college, I decided to move the zoo from Italy to within driving distance of your home,” she said softly. “Near enough to your town that you’d see the advert. We ignored any other applicants and I hoped you’d apply. Actually, I expected you’d apply. Not just for the money, but considering the field you wanted to go into. As soon as I’d found out your major, I knew.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” I said, holding up a hand. I pinched the bridge of my nose. “How do you know Patricia?”
“She owned the zoo before I did,” Susan explained. “Fourteen years ago…she was working to track an injured animal that we could bring into the zoo and she was killed by poachers.”
My heart calcified in my chest and a lump lodged in my throat. As my breaths became shaky, I stared at her in shock. “She…she’s really dead?”
“You suspected?” she asked softly.
“It…” I swallowed hard. “We had her declared legally dead after…I don’t know, seven years I think. My dad wanted to go after her for child support, but the police said…they said they couldn’t find…” Tears came to my eyes and I blinked them back before I met Suzanne’s gaze. “She owned the zoo?”
Suzanne nodded. “It was her baby, you’d say. When Patricia passed, I inherited it, which we’d discussed beforehand, a legal just-in-case that I never expected her to need. I’m under the impression that you were told she went to Africa for her photography career, but she was in fact going to remote areas back in my home world almost every time.”
“But I-I saw the photos,” I said, my eyes narrowing. “You’re telling me she put on a show of getting pictures that someone else took for us to see every time she visited? Did my dad even know?”
“I suppose that’s an accurate way to put it, putting on a show. And no, your father was never told. It’s not the way of things to tell humans unless it’s necessary. I won’t bore you with the details, but us and humans, we’re distant relatives, so we can still have children. But it wasn’t planned. Your mother fell in love with your father despite herself; she hadn’t meant to find love. Then she became pregnant with you and…well, the rest is history.”
“I think she had a different definition of love than the one I have,” I said tightly. “You’d think she’d have put her survival as more of a priority. Put being with the man she ‘loved’ as a priority. Her kids needed her. I needed her. She signed up when she became a mom. She could’ve screwed up all the time but she couldn’t even manage that one job: be there. When I was in the hospital, I kept thinking, ‘Where is she?’ and now you’re telling me that she put these animals above being there for her kids, and this whole time she’s been dead.”
“The hospital?” she asked, furrowing her brows.
“Never mind,” I said tersely, averting my gaze.
Suzanne hesitated before she nodded slowly. “I’m sorry for your loss, and not just for her death, Ripley,” she told me. “Patricia was…well, a ‘free spirit’ would be putting it gently. She always assumed the world would be there for her whenever she needed it.”
Staring at her for a long moment, I shook my head. “Why? Why come here and hire me?”
“I thought that would be obvious,” she said, smiling. “Your mother was so passionate about this place and once I found out your college major, I figured you would be as well.”
“Did you know that I hate her?” At that, Suzanne’s expression froze on the edge of shock. “She…she left us,” I whispered. “Didn’t tell us who she was or what she really did for a living and gave us no closure. And even when she was here, it was just visiting. Her real home was her work. She could give me all the presents she wanted, but even when she was here, half the time she was still on her computer doing work. It’s not like that stereotype of never making it to my tennis practice or something; it’s that it always felt like she was only partially here, even when I was sitting next to her. I don’t even know if I appreciate her turning me into a wildlife fanatic because it…it…makes me feel like I’m close to her in a way that’s just infuriating. She loved the animals more than she loved us.”
“Oh, Ripley-”
“Don’t,” I said, shoving myself to my feet. “Don’t try to convince me otherwise.”
“I wasn’t going to,” she said quietly. I pursed my lips. “I was going to say that I’m sorry that was the case. Your mother was…flawed, just like any other person. She had two loves in this world: her family and her work. And often, her work overcame her, her zeal for environmentalism getting in the way of being a good mum. She left your father trying to fill the role of two parents, holding your family together. You and your brother and your father, you all deserved better than that.”
My lower lip quivered but I bit down on it hard. It would’ve been a lot easier for me if she’d been speaking from a place of clueless reassurance about all this. But everything she said was making sense and that meant I didn’t have someone in front of me to be angry with.
“Why didn’t you tell me when Andrew hired me?” I sighed, sitting back down on the couch.
“Well, like I said, I wanted you to find your sea legs,” she said with a small smile. “I didn’t want the truth affecting whether or not you wanted to work here, whether you wanted to stay here after finding out about what the animals are. It would’ve complicated things, the emotions you’ll have to work through now that you know the truth. Whether or not you decide to give another tour, you also know what they’re like. That’s the benchmark I wanted you to reach before you found out about who you are.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Who I-” My face went slack. “Wait.”
Suzanne nodded slowly. “You’re only half human. Your brother too.”
The room seemed to tilt on an axis for a moment. “That means I’m also half…what?”
“We call ourselves Eldritch, these days,” she replied.
My eyes bugged out. “What?” I exclaimed. “So you’re all, like, gods or something?”
Suzanne burst out laughing. “Oh no, goodness, no,” she chuckled. “It’s just a word. We live in a very different world from this one, and a few generations ago we discovered the word and it made its way into our lexicon. But it does mean you can see all the animals. Indeed you did, on the tour you gave.”
“Wait, no, I had the glasses that…” I stopped. “Did those glasses do anything?”
She gave a sly smile and shook her head. “Not a thing. You made incredibly quick progress, and then when it came time for the tour, all you needed was to expect to see the animals, and you did.”
Genetics. That’s what Andrew had said during our interview, that part of how many animals you could see was determined by genetics. I guess having a mother who was originally from the other dimension gave me all the genes I needed to see everything here. “Could I…visit your world?” I asked tentatively. “You said that my mom took photos of the animals there. Could I…” My voice trailed off, not even sure if or how I wanted to finish that sentence.
“Those who are half human, especially those who are raised on Earth, don’t come visit,” she said gently. “I could show you some photos of other animals, and I could loan you as many books as you’d like, but it’s simply not a place where you’d be safe.”
“Oh,” I said, leaning into the couch cushion as I pictured the animals in the zoo. “Yeah, actually that…makes sense.” I paused. “So, what now?”
“It’s up to you,” she said. “I wanted to wait until I was sure you were comfortable with your position here, and then put the ball in your court. And so it is. What do you want to do now?”
What did I want to do? It wasn’t that difficult a question, just a deep, serious one.
I wanted to thrive, as the animals did. This is my enrichment now, working at an incredible, wonderful, terrifying zoo. The experience so far hasn’t been perfect, and I know there are risks, but life isn’t about staying safe. It’s about learning new things and making a difference in the world. And, if you’re lucky, having a job that’s something really special.
​
THE END
​
First / Previous
***
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Well… it wasn’t like seein your grandma in a duck costume screaming “someone gets the wrench there is a raccoon in the tomato patch” weird but… at least somethin like it.
Anywho, I wanted to inform everyone of my first hike! It was today and it was quite nice! Except the bees and the teleporting deer and the feds and the bunker but WE WILL GET TO ALL OF THAT YALL I PROMISE I AINT MR. BANE WHO KEEPS THINGS NICE AND CONCISE I LIKE SPEAKIN!
So it all started when I put on my boots, I opted to get some nice dark green ones and paint and lil smiley face on it :) and when I got my gear that was so kindly left in the diner for me I went outside and began walkin to the mountain. It was quite a nice day too! The sun was shinin and the birds were doin their little do-op I even saw Mr. Tom! He don’t like me much though, he threw a bottle at me.
When I got to the mountain I was a little puzzled at how many different ent paths there were. Some where on the map and some weren’t, I could see some green flags in the distance but I watch late night television ain’t no way I’m goin off the beaten path (unless it’s to save my bff Claire) So I looked at the nice map and chose the red path I couldn’t see exactly where it was leadin but it seemed like it was nice and easy. That’s when I heard a buzz… and there on a small tree was a little honey bee nest!
Now… back in Alabama it was pretty rare to find some nice bees but these ones seemed super friendly! I was even able to get up real close to the nest with no issue at all! (Don’t do this at home kids) but then somethin truly odd happened… there was a smell… like a… metallic smell… mixed with like bleach… it started freakin me out a bit so I left them as is and went up the path. I saw some beautiful views and got to use the compass I was gifted! It got me thinkin about this place… how much I love it… but also how much I don’t remember… that’s when I saw the deer.
Now I tell ya… I used to go hunting with my daddy and I’ve seen some bucks but this one… was MASSIVE. and it had little cute white hoofs!!!! It came up to me and gave me a little stare like it was trying to say hi. Or maybe not. Now this is when it gets weird… I swear on my daddy’s life this buck was right in front of me and then when I blinked… it was over 10 feet away from me! I was honestly surprised… I tried to step again but it ran away as soon as I made a sound :(
So I decided to carry on and I made it to the end of the trail! Yay me! I saw a nice pond with some cute frogsssss. I named one teddy and the other Lisa… if you find them, tell them “ribbit” for me!
Now this is when it gets a little intense (Mr. Bane I may need your help) I remember seeing that wonderfully interesting post about that bunker and goddarnit I found it! But it was really far away from me up a cliff. And I don’t know what made me decide to eat my lunch then and there but I did! I sat and unwrapped my pastrami sandwich ich and chowed down. Now folks up until this point I ain’t seen no other human being, so let me tell you when I jumped out of my skin when I heard a voice in the distance yelling “hey!” Aw man I jumped!
I remember having to squint my eyes to block the sun and look up the cliff. And there at the top was a man in a dark suit and sunglasses then another…. Then another… then ANOTHER. 4 FEDS ALL CROWDED AROUND THIS BUNKER. Now if this don’t smell like my dead cat then I don’t know what does! (Fishy)
Now folks get a load of this… I go “hey” FBI “what are you doing?” Me “eatin” FBI “why?” Me “cuz I am hungry… is there a problem sir”FBI “you can’t have pastrami here” Me “what the hell? Why not?” FBI “interference” Me “with what?” FBI “we suggest only eating cheese sandwiches in the woods… ungrilled they must be cold”
And you will NEVER GUESS WHAT HAPPENS NEXT…. THEY THROW 3 CHEESE SANDWICHES HIES AT ME. I got to many questions
Why do they have them? Why are they wrapped? Why are they on multigrain? Why did they give me three?
Wow I really do feel like Mr. Bane.
Anyway after that I lost my appetite and made my way down the mountain and back to my home.
I’m excited to do that again soon though!
Thanks for reading! Kisses SB

THESE CHANGES ARE JUST A CONCEPT
This post is about suggested changes to ADC itemization (and seryldas). The recent changes put all power into IE and made everything else weak except LDR, Mortal, Collector. Statikk is a joke and some zeal items are bad too.
I'm only doing this out of boredom and am not biased towards any champs (the last time I played was 6 months ago. Now I just test things). I simply think that this design of the new items is stupid.
It would make sense for them to put power into IE if they wanted to shift adcs power into lategame but now they just rush it anyways. Buffing it because of some items losing their crit chance also doesn't make sense because many got it increased so if you build crit items with IE it's a huge free buff which is why they had to nerf everything else. It's all a vicious circle of non sense.
The goal here is just to nerf mainly IE but also LDR, Mortal and if necessary Collector but I didn't include it.
At the same time buff Statikk so it actually makes sense, revert ER, rework Navori and PD, buff RFC and Runaans, remove/revert Shieldbow and some small changes to Bork/Kraken. Finally some buff to Serylda's grudge and change to its slow.

Infinity Edge - nerf
Crit damage: 50% >> 40%

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Lord Dominiks Regards - nerf
AD: 45 >> 40

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Mortal Reminder - nerf
AD: 40 >> 35

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Statikk Shiv - buff
Cost: 2900 >> 2600
AD: 50 >> 40
Passive: The killed enemy (3s cd!!) also grants 0.5% permanent crit chance.
Wording update: Killing an enemy deals 90 magic damage to up to 6 nearby enemies and grants 0.5% crit chance (3s cd on non-champions). On champion takedowns the damage is 270.

(This is BAD on yas/yone btw as it gives 0 crit when you buy it and their heavy waveclear is anti synergetic.)
Worst item in the game. My change is targeted for ADCs, especially with bad waveclear, who want to hit their IE powerspike sooner. By the time they get IE they will have some crit chance farmed but before it they will have practically none. Keep in mind you can only proc it every 3s so you don't get crit chance for each minion. The longer the game goes, the faster you clear waves so the less crit you get from one unless you take it slow in nasus style.
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Essence Reaver - just revert it

They wanted to bring back old items but this is one of the worst ones. There's no fun about it, noone can really build and the one with sheen was one of the most satisfying items in the game. Gangplank now has to build sheen + crit item. Was a pointless bad change absolutely noone likes it.
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Navori's Flickerblade - rework buff
Cost: 2600 >> 2800
Lethality: 0 >>10
AD: 0 >> 20
AS: 40% >>20%
(Still has 25% crit chance)
Build path: Zeal + dagger + dagger >> Zeal + Serrated Dirk

Doing poorly. My change looks broken but Dirk (20 ad, 10 lethality) is 1000g while 20% AS and 200g cost is 900g and it's supposed to be a buff. This is meant to make it an all-rounder item that can be used by both auto-attackers and casters with its cd reduction passive.
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Phantom Dancer - rework
AS: 60% >> 40%
Passive: Become ghosted >> Attacks grant ghosting for 5s and vs champions also 5% crit chance up to 25%.

This is partially so the windbrothers have a decent 1 item spike as to somewhat compensate the IE nerf. 20% AS is 600g while 25% crit is 1000g but it needs to be stacked within 5 attacks. If you were to build a cloak with the current one it's 15% chance without stacking which isn't that big of a difference.
So what makes it good is not gold efficiency but that you can get a high amount of crit chance instead of other stats in only 2600g. So if it were to cost like 3200g it would be pointless. On adcs it's a very good combo with IE and also BT which lost its crit. (I also think the effect fits the image of the 2 sabers)
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Runaan's Hurricane - buff
AS: 40% >> 60%
Passive bolts damage: 55% AD >> 40% AD
Build path: Zeal + Slingshot >> Zeal + Dagger + Dagger

Pretty much only twitch builds this, kog sometimes as 3rd item. This item is too weak after losing 30 onhit dmg. So I made this the heavy AS item in place of PD. Also why tf does it build from slingshot? Maybe the buff is too much I'm not very sure about this one.
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Rapid Firecannon - buff
AS: 35% >> 40%
Passive energized bonus magic damage: 60 >> 50(+1 per 2% bonus attackspeed) (pre-conversion for jhin)

Again an item that is just too weak. Last patch it had 30 AD 20% AS now it just has 35% AS. It's really just compensation of a huge nerf (due to IE) from this patch. The attackspeed scaling makes it more synergetic with attackspeed as an item that doesn't synergize well with AS. Also fits the name.
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Scout's Slingshot - buff
Damage: 40 >> 50
Cooldown: 40 (-1 per aa) >> 20 (-1 per aa)

You paid 300g for 40 dmg like every 20s...if autoing regularly
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Kraken Slayer - buff vs tanky enemies
Passive damage: 140-310 >> 120-290
Passive increase: 0-50% increase based on 0-100% enemy missing hp >> 50% per proc on the same target up to 100%.

Its passive was straight up nerfed from 50-100% increase to 0-50% based on 0-100% missing hp (so 50% if the enemy is dead lol). It was supposed to be anti tank but now has nothing specialized against tanky enemies. This doesn't revert it entirely because it nerfs the base damage but it makes it deal more dps than burst. It's supposed to be a small buff vs tanks only.
3 procs atm deal about 140 * 1.3 = ~180 average dmg from 100 to 0.
Changed it's (120 + 180 + 240) / 3 = 180 average dmg but stays high on further procs.
At level 18 it's ~400 vs 435 average dmg (so it's a tiny buff lategame). All in all this is only better vs tanks not squishies. (If a squishy is low at the beginning it's even a nerf).
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Blade of ruined King - small build path buff
AD: 55 >> 50 AS: 30 >> 35%
Build path: Pickaxe >> Heartbound axe (same as Kraken but vamp instead of rectrix)

5 AD is slightly better than 5% AS but it gets a bit better build path. It's a tiny buff because its scaling was hard nerfed. (15 AD is worse than 3% current hp (=~1.5% max hp) vs enemies with more than 1000 max HP. Not saying that the nerf wasn't mostly justified.)
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Shieldbow - just remove it?

Noone builds this item. 12% lifesteal was 642 gold. 5 AD and 5% crit is only 375 gold. Plus lifesteal is more valuable in general.
Either add like 8% lifesteal back - or lower it's cost to like 2600g - or add AS/AD - or else remove it because bulding this is just a trap in its current state. It has 20% pickrate on samira as 3rd item and that's it. It's also red but has no lifesteal which is confusing.
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Serylda's Grudge - buff
Cost: 3200 >> 3000
Slow: Abilities slow enemies below 50% hp by 30% for 1s >> Dealing physical damage to an enemy slows them by 20% for 2s (8s cooldown per enemy)

Serylda's is a bit too weak compared to cleaver and LDR. The LDMortal 5 AD nerfs from above and the lower cost on serylda should make it even. The slow with cd I think is a far better design for assassins and makes it not annoying with abilities like ezreal q.
I made it physical damage only mainly so yorick E doesn't proc it thus wasting it. This way his ghouls slow afterwards but only once due to the cd.

This is for us normies who don’t want to sift through a hundred youtube videos just to figure out basic information that should be readily available. This guide is designed for people who are new to modding.
This LLO follows Brxsie’s model. For more detailed info on categorization refer to their reddit post.
You can leave out any mod on this list that you don’t want except for USSEP.
Key:
*= my personal notes explaining what a mod does or why I added it
e.g. = extra examples of popular mods that should be placed in that category
Blurb
(skip this section if you want the quick version of this post)
Hi everyone; I’m not a modder nor a PC player, but I was desperate to figure out how to safely load my game with reasonable lore-friendly updates. Every LLO guide I’ve found so far has either been outdated, contradictory to other sources, does not specify which mods fall under what category, is way too vague, or way too specific. The mods I’ve listed here should be easily searchable on the recently updated Xbox creations menu so that any Xbox player can easily copy this list. Originally, I was just recording my LLO for my own personal use, but I figured this could help people who don’t have the time to put in as much research as I have.
If you are brand new to modding, vanilla+ means that you want to stay faithful to the original game as much as possible while upgrading the look of your Skyrim world and making a few convenient tweaks. The least “true to the original game” mod on this list is convenient horses. In my experience so far, this LLO plays just as smoothly as vanilla Skyrim.
Unless I wrote a note next to the mod stating otherwise, all of these mods are independent of one another, except for: divine atmosphere, divine atmosphere snowflake edit, and realistic snowflakes. If you like the ugly fractal snowflakes in divine atmosphere then don’t bother with the other two mods, but if not, you need the vanilla snowflake edit and the snowflake texture mod to go together. Therefore, you can leave out any mod on this list that you don’t want except for USSEP), and the game will function normally.
To customize settings of mods while in-game, go to magic -> powers. “Equip” the mod you want to change and press RB once out of the menu. This is relevant to divine atmospheres, divine interiors, flute finder, convenient horses, and some dialogue mods.
Most mods on this list can be downloaded or deleted safely while playing a pre-existing save file. Deleting mods become problematic when you have already added and interacted with a custom item to the game and then delete the mod that supported the item. When testing new mods, I suggest only adding a few at a time so that you know what to delete if you encounter any issues.
If you are reading this on a laptop or PC, you can press command/control F to search for keywords of the mods you want to install to find where they belong in the LLO.
Personally, my favorite mods that I’ve added to the game are the dialogue mods and the texture mods. They make Skyrim feel like a real world with real people living in it and I would highly suggest using some or all of them. I’d also love to hear everyone’s suggestions on proposed edits to this load order. Please let me know if you are aware of any conflicting mods or bugs, or if I have made any mistakes in my layperson's explanation of techy stuff. Unsure if this is relevant information, but I’m located in the USA.
Extra notes:
What the heck is a leveled list? A leveled list is a change in the code that makes changes to certain values. Such as changing how much gold a character has or how powerful an enemy is.
And what exactly is an area edit? An area edit is any mod that adds or significantly changes a location in the game. This includes adding extra trees, adding extra smelters, or adding custom player homes that do not exist in vanilla, among other things.
Why are there all of these categories and why is it so complicated? LLO sorts mods so that the game can load the most important files first. When LLO is not followed, the game will inevitably crash. Categories allow us to sort mods into the LLO based on how they interact with the game's code. People sometimes disagree on what order to put the categories in, but all LLO templates use the same basic categories.
I do not use immersive citizens AI because multiple people have reported bugs. Other people have no issues with it, but I prefer to stay on the safe side.
Remember to lower your in-game brightness, especially when you are using divine interiors and divine atmospheres. If the brightness is all the way up, things will start to glow. You will have to use torches in locations with zero light, such as corners in caves. This adds a realistic feel to the game. If you give a torch to your follower, they will automatically use it in in low-light conditions. I switch between default/glimmegrim/vivid depending on where I am and how colorful I want things to be. The game may look darker overall as you can see in the screenshots, but this is more true to how lighting works in the real world.
Skyrim 101 tip: When you ditch items to reduce your carry weight, store them somewhere (such as a dead body or a chest) instead of dropping them on the ground. If you drop items all over your game it will eventually lag.
When creating a new character, keep in mind that once you start playing, you might change the lighting and make the colors more saturated. For example: I accidentally gave myself yellow hair instead of natural blonde because I forgot about lighting and atmosphere changes. This is another reason to install the vanity mirror mod, which allows you to change your character mid-game.
Storage space: all of the mods I have listed here take up approximately 4.36GB.
I suggest keeping a note of your LLO on your phone so that you can easily categorize mods you want to add the future.
Sometimes LLO will not save, so I recommend double-checking that everything landed in the right spot or backing up your LLO to bethesda before exiting the LLO menu.
Sometimes you need to restart your game to enable a newly installed mod.
How to delete a complex mod without causing problems: disable the mod, hard reset (hold power button for 10 secs or unplug the console), uninstall the mod, hard reset.
I’ve noticed a bug where I cannot tell my follower (Lydia) to do anything in “command mode”. I don’t know what’s causing this- it seems like a dialogue issue but I rarely use the command mode feature anyway so it’s small enough for me to ignore for now. Let me know if you find out what's causing this!
*Blurb over\*
Master Files

• Unofficial skyrim special edition patch (USSEP) *almost every source says that this must be installed. It fixes core bugs in the game that developers have not bothered to update themselves

Foundations: Lots of game changes (e.g. cheat room, encounters overhaul, etc.)

• Convenient horses *allows you to summon your horse from anywhere, store items on your horse, give followers horses, etc.

Dialogue Overhauls

• Guard dialogue overhaul
• Follower commentary overhaul
• Misc dialogue edits and more
• Relationship dialogue overhaul

Fonts/UI (excluding map mods)

• Font replacer - eadui

Alterations to vanilla quests
Any craftable item

• Vanity Mirror *this is to fix the makeup bug where your lips are off center when you create your character. I have not tested this yet, but apparently if you open up the customization menu with the vanity mirror then the makeup will work again. Cheat room also works for the makeup issue, but I didn’t want so many extra cheats in my game just to fix this one ridiculous bug
• Get no more dead followers *functionally turns off friendly fire for followers

Game mechanic changes: races, perks, vampires, adoptions, etc.

• Flute finder - a skyrim gps tracker for npcs *this is because I always lost my followers in vanilla and it was super annoying
• Multiple Marriages *haven’t tested this yet so cannot vouch for its effectiveness
• Auto unequip ammo *unequips arrows when you uneauip your bow so that you’re not always walking around with a sheath on your back

Level Progression (e.g. Clever leveling)
Perk overhauls/changes
Magic additions and modifications

• Master of Destruction (xb1) *adds new high level spells that target specific characters instead of killing everyone in the area
• Mining spell *I hate carrying a stupid pickaxe everywhere, so this spell mines for you. I haven't tested this mod yet though

Leveled list changes (e.g. rebalanced leveled lists)

• Better gold *adds slightly more gold when looting specific high level enemies
• Master trader 1x *this replenishes merchant gold each time you speak to them

NPC Leveled list (e.g. organized bandits in skyrim)
Any audio

• Chapter II - Jeremy Soule inspired music *Jeremy Soule composed the original game soundtrack. This adds a few hours of similar sounding music that blend in with the game

Weather and Atmosphere (put weather up ^ in LLO if the mod is just a weather mod and not an atmosphere mod)

• Divine Atmosphere: Aetherius *my favorite setting is vivid or grim
• Divine Atmosphere: Aetherius vanilla snowflakes option
• Ultra realistic snow flakes (custom snowflake texture) *if searching for this mod, search for “snow flakes” instead of “snowflakes”

Grass
Grass Fixes
Skin/skeleton physics and appearance changes

• pristine vanilla movement
• XP32 maximum skeleton special edition plus *changes some physics for smoother movement

Animation mods

• 360 walk and run *at first I put this in the gameplay mechanics category, but it did not work there. In the animation category it works as intended

Meshes and Textures
*The mods I’ve listed in this section should cover almost every visual in the game. Nothing is too drastic of a style change and fits right in to the game’s vibe.

• Wear multiple rings *this mod is more useful for stacking enchantments rather than pure aesthetics. Not necessary if you want a more vanilla game
• Divine texture pack - architecture
• Dark ages: fantasy dungeons
• Dark ages: dragon Textures
• Divine creatures texture pack
• Omen armors weapons and clothing *I highly recommend this one!
• Fluffy snow
• Dark ages - landscapes
• Divine skins and bodies for men *misleading name: this is actually unisex. Make sure this goes above^ divine people otherwise you might experience an occasional face glitch. This must be used along with divine people in order to work correctly
• Granite mountains *another mod I highly recommend
• Dark Ages: Trees of the north
• Divine SMIM *Static mesh improvement mod. SMIM mods redesign lots of small items in the game
• Lucidaps’ high poly project v5.x *This corrects blocky items to make things look more realistic. It cooperates with the SMIM to create beautifully textured and realistic item designs, such as the ridiculously good looking head of cabbage

Non-combat NPC AI
Immersion (e.g. immersive patrols, landlord etc.) - can be tricky to categorize
Anything that changes a character’s/npc face or hair (e.g natural eyes)

• Divine people of skyrim: celestial *For more vanilla/gritty looking people, try the dark ages texture pack. Both divine people and dark ages people mods must be paired with its corresponding skins mod, otherwise the textures will get cut off at the neck due to mismatching colors

Interior lighting changes

• Divine interiors shadows and light *my favorite setting is glimmer or default if the game looks too oversaturated because of the lighting. I highly recommend this mod, it makes the game feel much richer

Interior decorating changes
Lightweight multiple area edits

• Unique bridges of skyrim
• Divine forests
• Get more smelters *haven’t tested this extensively but I don’t foresee any issues since it doesn’t interfere with anything big

Single area edits like player homes
Multiple area edits (e.g. divine cities)
*I do not recommend divine cities or divine villages because it can be buggy. One time Lydia got permanently stuck in a modded tavern and I had to backtrack through an hour of progress to get her back out
Adding individual unique objects

• Auto Harvest Ring *because I like alchemy but hate picking flowers. Equipping this ring automatically harvests ingredients in range. Just remember to ditch the cabbages to reduce your carry weight

Combat changes, combat AI (e.g. realistic damage, wildcat)

• Dark ages: immersive dragon ai
• Better stealth ai for followers *followers will not start fighting automatically while you are trying to be sneaky

Unique follower mods (e.g. Sofia)
Mods that add new quests (mods that alter vanilla quests do not go here)

• More to say 9.0.2 *this dialogue mod is here because it adds new quests. The other dialogue mods I’ve added are less consequential and simply add a little immersion. I’m unsure if this conflicts with the other dialogue mods

Map mods

• A quality world map - vivid with stone roads *map mods use up VRAM and many people recommend against using them. I’m not a tech person, so forgive me if this isn’t accurate, but VRAM is similar to regular RAM. This means you can reset VRAM if you hard restart your console. If you are playing with tons of heavyweight mods all the time then maybe you should skip map mods, however in this LLO I have not noticed any FPS changes at all and personally, it’s worth it to me to hard restart the console every once in a while so that I can keep this mod. Source for the tech info (posted Oct. 2023) - https://www.xboxforums.com/threads/ram-and-vram.24007/
• Pastel map markers *Can you tell I like organizing? Color coding the map makes it more readable and gives locations a touch more personality

Mods that specify bottom LO

ACT 1. Sunday afternoon after visiting the local market two brothers wait for their train to arrive. If they were even a minute late, they knew their mother would surely scold them and scold the elder of the two far worse. The idea of another beating did not bother the elder brother; he had been through far worse just dealing with the brat and his attempted jailbreaks, though something did begin to make him painfully nauseous forcing him to feel pressured by the light breeze as if gravity had suddenly been increased tenfold. All his senses were heightening beyond anything he had thought possible.All around him he saw that the once energetic and hyperactive passengers had become little more than mannequins; their movements slowing to a standstill. They had all gone silent. The station was no longer filled with the cries of children or the gentle laughs of their parents. He had never heard such silence in such a crowded location. He did not feel panicked, nor did he feel a need to act for this silence was oddly comforting to him. However, the newly calm atmosphere would quickly be the source of a lifetime of suffering.His hand began to reach for his brother in an attempt to call his attention. Though in a moment of both unprecedented shock and exhaustion John shoved his younger brother onto the rails of an oncoming train. Local news would report the incident as nothing more than a tragic manic episode of a young sixteen-year-old. However, for John this single visceral instant in which all of his brother's bones were instantly crushed was stretched into hours. He was painfully aware of how every bone in his brother's body contorted in inhuman ways some nearly resembling perfect right angles, until eventually, they snapped and sent insurmountable pain throughout his nervous system. His blood curling screams were made mute by the screech of the train coming to a halt, though, by the time they stopped, his brother had torn his every vocal cord and had long ago lost consciousness. Still on the platform, the elder brother stood still, attempting to process what exactly he had done. He had no idea what force had compelled him to push his brother, but that instant would forever define what he saw as reality.That however was nineteen years ago, in present day he lived in isolation far from any person. He spent his isolated days wandering the land around his cabin completing house chores that distracted him from reminiscing about his days in the asylum or as he liked to call it “The Echo Room” where he was transferred after the incident. He headed inside after spending a portion of his morning counting all one-hundred-and-thirty-two trees that were showing signs of life after the harsh winter that nearly forced him to cut down two of them for firewood. Once inside he began preparing his morning coffee when he heard a loud creak come from the hall. He (after many incidents) learnt to avoid the boards that creaked, so in his mind immediately an intruder was breaking into his cabin searching for food or his stash of special edition coffee. Deciding to investigate he walked towards the noise when suddenly he heard two knocks at his front door. Confused and slightly worried, he proceeded to walk towards the door making sure not to step on any of the annoyingly loud floorboards.He approached and looked through the peephole and saw only what remained of the melting snow outside. Opening the door, he saw that only his steps led to the doormat. He glanced around and saw no indication of any life aside a few dark patches on the snow. He was about to close the door when he noticed a tiny red package wrapped in a radiant red bow placed clear from where the door would open. Cautiously picking it up, he noticed how it had almost no weight to it; as if empty. He walked inside and sat at his desk planning to journal later about the weird morning he had been having. He examined the exterior of the package and saw how not only was it near perfect condition but it was also slightly warm to the touch; as if recently held. He undid the bow and cautiously opened the package, half expecting an explosive of some sort. Though, all he found was a ragged ripped piece of paper. Unremarkable aside from the fact that it was inside such a carefully constructed package. On the other side he saw that it had some scarlet lettering inscribed into it reading.“Ouroboros”. At first believing it to be a prank by the kids who had heard rumors about him, and his incident, nearly caused him to dismiss it entirely deeming it little more than a slightly humorous event. He decided to put it aside for now as he had coffee left to drink that was quickly getting cold. He walked back towards the kitchen still distracted by the idea of no trace being left by whoever had left the gift. Was it even a gift? Maybe it was just some well-executed prank? In any manner he would later have a better look at it. He absentmindedly, reached for his cup and immediately pulled his hand back shocked by the temperature of the cup. It was frozen! Almost to a complete solid. He thought himself slightly distracted but not enough to freeze his morning coffee especially not his special edition coffee. First The Box and now this, it was all adding up to an annoying morning. Was it still morning? No, that’s not right. He had just spent the day counting trees. How could it still possibly be morning?The thought of Dr. Lumis being correct about his mental condition after so many years sent a chill down his spine especially since last time they talked, he did not exactly behave amicably. He was sure that both incidents had been isolated events that could never happen again. Sure, he had heard the echoes every once in a while, but he was never insane like the others; this he knew to be a fact. If he was insane, how could he have ever left? Disoriented and beginning to sweat, his legs suddenly gave out causing him to fall backward landing on the cold wooden floorboards. He looked around hurriedly expecting to see an intruder that had somehow found him. After seeing nothing but his pristine furniture, he steadied himself and began to control his breathing. He slowly got up causing the wood underneath to creak under the sudden release of weight. Deciding to further assure himself he went around the cabin checking in all four rooms. He found nothing aside from his own disturbances. Still feeling slightly nervous and disturbed he headed back towards the living room in search for The Box with the red bow determining that it had somehow triggered his current situation. The Box was still where he placed it; much to his relief. He sat down. He looked once again at the scarlet lettering.
Act 2. Back in the asylum he would often spend his days wondering how he could have ever been grouped alongside individuals who had purposefully and viciously committed heinous crimes against innocent victims. He was not insane like them. Whatever had caused his hand to shove his brother had long abandoned him. His routine now consisted of cleaning whatever mess the older residents made in the halls and transporting lab waste to the crematorium. He would clean from the southern stalls all the way to the northern cemetery and make his rounds gathering the waste from the rooms. It was a simple job but lonely, nonetheless. The halls were often only illuminated by tiny flickering red lights that indicated the position of the cameras through which Dr.Lumis would often monitor John during his nightly crusades. Though incredibly distasteful, John did not mind, he accepted that odd situations would be easier to explain if someone of credit had seen them. Yet despite this, he felt he was being watched by someone other than the doctor. He assumed that this feeling was due to the paranoia he had been diagnosed with a few months back. On a particular night, moments after dumping another bag of soft solids and dense liquids down the chute, he heard footsteps, just outside the room. Expecting to see the doctor he begrudgingly walked towards the door. Exiting and seeing no one he called out for the doctor but got no response aside from the echo of his own voice. He began to walk towards where he had heard the footsteps come from when he suddenly collapsed out of exhaustion. The same exhaustion that had plagued him during the moment of his brother’s death. He tried to reach for his panic button (a gift from Lumis) but it had disappeared from his chain. He tried to scream but not a single whisper was heard. He gazed into the dark corridor where he had thought Dr.Lumis had gone, but saw nothing but soft shadows. Though something was unnervingly wrong about them. They moved as if following an order, all synchronized, all heading towards him. That night in the asylum had left him scared to even return to the disposal area; he feared that The Shadows might eventually be able to reach him. The Shadows did not haunt him unaccompanied: they followed alongside The Echo tormenting his nights. While The Shadows could not reach him during daylight, he could never escape The Echo. It followed wherever he went and tracked everything he did. Dr.Lumis explained that he merely suffered from an extreme case paranoia but John saw the others; who yelled and who screamed true nonsense, he was perfectly aware of himself and the ones around him. Dr. Lumis secretly believed patient #132 experienced Hyper-sanity though this he would never verbally confess. It was term he decided would for now adequately describe his patient’s acute awareness of The Shadows and The Echo. John would for many years go without hearing The Echo after that night, only ever hearing what seemed like the final moans of a dying voice. Back in present day, he hoped he wasn’t suffering another hallucination as they tended to leave him in an embarrassing shocked state. He questioned what “Ouroboros” could possibly mean in relation to himself. He considered the possibility of it being an early warning of some threat to the sanctity of his home. He quickly dismissed it as he had not interacted with anyone long enough to possibly annoy them. Weird them out? Sure. Offend them? Maybe with his sense of fashion. Following his incredibly fine-tuned survival instincts he put on a light coat and went outside to walk among the trees. A mundane task, but one he truly enjoyed especially since he hoped it would distract him for a short while. Just before he closed the door behind him, he took one more look at The Box sitting on his desk and decided to take it with him in case he met the person who had left it. The sun had begun to set marking the end of the day. He watched the sun hide behind the mountain range letting the world bathe in darkness for another night. John did not dislike the night (he had worked nightshifts in The Echo Room for years) but he didn’t find the freezing cold to be ideal. He had not left his land for what was a few years now and the idea of even slightly stepping out of his comfort was making him incredibly anxious. Still, he walked forward towards wherever the path took him. The night only got darker and quieter, and he only got colder. He did not see the lightning bugs that usually warded away the dark near the edge of his hill. Without the soft hum of bugs or soft breeze that would brush against his beard he felt alone. Even the nights back in the asylum did not possess this level of quiet. He kept moving hoping that eventually he would find something that could break the uncomfortable silence. As he continued down the hill, he realized he could no longer distinguish the path from the dirt surrounding it. He considered heading back when he realized he had not kept track of where he had come from. Not only was he lost but alone with his thoughts and whatever had been watching him from the start. He walked a step forward and then another one back repeatedly. What he was attempting to achieve was beyond reason. Had he gone mad? No, he was perfectly sane. “Wait, I can hear them clearly now” he spoke, his voice dried from the cold.“This is not a hallucination” he spoke softly.“i-I AM NOT HALLUCINATING” he proclaimed. He heard The Echo once more though they were not of his voice but rather of Another. He had long been aware of “The Echo” but he could never fully determine whether it was a dream or an effect of the chemicals but this Other was undoubtedly real. “I don’t know where you are but please. Are you real?” he asked the night. He could now hear The Echo or rather feel the pressure of its words upon his reality. Had it been trying to hide the Other? He walked forward and pulled out The Box. “You gave me this right? What for? What purpose does it serve?” No one responded.Annoyed, he threw it as far as he could down the hill. “THERE! THIS CAN’T CONTINUE WITHOUT IT, RIGHT?” He shouted at the endless empty. That’s when out of the darkness emerged a faint light. Was it a lightning bug or maybe a sign of civilization?
Act 3. Cautiously, he approached the cold light and saw that the light was artificial. The tube inside flickered before another appeared a few feet ahead, and then another and then another and then what seemed like an uncountable amount more. He took a step forward and noticed that the ground underneath had turned to hard white tile. Accepting that this was not the weirdest occurrence that had affected him he proceeded to walk forward making sure to keep a mental note to journal about it later. The surrounding landscape transformed into white walls that every so often had a window that let him peek at the other side. At first, he could still see the snowy landscape, but it to slowly changed; first having scattered papers and then chairs, cabinets, and desks until they eventually resembled a typical office. Its purpose was not obvious to him, and neither was the hallway but if they were changing surely, it possessed a deeper metaphorical meaning that related to his life. He saw a door at the very end of the hall and decided to not postpone the ploy of whatever “The Echo” was planning. He stood before the door wondering about what it could possibly contain. John proceeded to open the door. Inside was a desk along with a single cabinet. Walking inside he noticed that the room was illuminated by some otherworldly source that had no words that could possibly describe it. He walked towards the desk and a file he had not seen previously, sat open. Inside was a description of his physical appearance. “Age: 35. Height: 5’8. Weight: 185 lbs. Hair: Black with obvious signs of stress. Eyes: Brown. Character Aptitude: High.” “Okay, I get it. I’m old, you didn’t have to expose my hair like that” he said slightly embarrassed quickly restyling his hair. He noticed that even though they had an almost perfect description of his hobbies, dreams and wishes they did not have a single picture as if they for some reason were only able to use words. “SOOO you know about that one time in the asylum (don’t ask) BUT NOT A SINGLE PICTURE? That’s lame.” he said mockingly. On the final page he found what looked like an incomplete file; most of the personal attributes had not yet been filled and only a note was made reading. “They don’t need a complete story just one they can understand.” Besides the fact that whatever role he played in this act had been a mere afterthought; he was confused as to how anyone could have ever gathered such sensitive and personal information about his isolated life. Was it The Echo? Had it told them his life? A phone started to ring somewhere in the room abruptly breaking the silence he had become used to. He quickly rotated towards the source of the ringing but did not find anything. There was only him and the four walls that despite the lighting did not change a shade of grey. He walked towards one of them that seemed to be where the noise came from resting his hand on it and gently put his ear to it thinking that the ringing was from another room entirely. The wall he had just laid a hand on had no longer a physical representation and causing John to fall through to the other side. Disoriented he slowly looked up and saw The Telephone illuminated by what seemed to be the same light that illuminated the previous room. This one however was far more powerful and concentrated solely on The Telephone. He approached it expecting a chasm to somehow appear underneath his feet. The Telephone did not stop ringing and only seemed to increase in intensity (though this could have simply been a hallucination). He lifted it to cut the blaring noise and slowly put it to his ear. “hello?” “…” “…” “The protagonist only dies if the story ends” the voice said quietly. “HUH? YOU DRAGGED ME HERE TO TELL ME THAT OMINOUSLY ANNOYING LOAD OF *********!” “…I’m so sorry” The call disconnected not out of offense but rather out of completion. John slammed the phone back onto its stand and decided it was time for this nonsense to end. He walked out into the room he was in before anxiously attempting to find another exit: only to be met with solid walls. What wicked game had he been roped into? When would it end? These were questions he would answer far earlier than he expected. A door appeared in the center of the room. No, it was more of a two-dimensional plane that appeared to be a sort of portal. With no other options, John stepped into the newly opened portal.
Act 4. On the other side was a station, and his ears were immediately flooded with the cries of children and the laughs of their parents. He walked around moving through the crowd careful to not miss any indication of the location. His pace increased as he began to recognize the commuters shortly realizing exactly where he was. He rushed to a platform, the platform where he and his brother were to arrive after their day in the market. He sat on a nearby bench committed to saving his brother no matter who he would have to shove instead. Three agonizing days passed with the daily commuters repeating their routine with the slightest variations. One of these variations would be the key to preventing the day that haunted his nights. Something would soon cause him to shove his brother onto the tracks. He was determined to stop the fall or kill himself to keep his brother safe.He heard a familiar laughter and turned towards the source and saw his brothers face uncontrollably laughing and himself lightly smiling. He began to run towards them but felt once again suddenly exhausted. As if the air became a type of nonnewtonian sludge making his legs impossibly heavy. The crowd around him seemed to be moving just as easily as before; children laughing just as maniacally and just as carelessly. He tried to yell to them, but his lungs were filled with the dense fluid drowning any screams he attempted. He was forced to watch how his brother got closer and closer to the edge. Through much effort, he managed to get close enough to extend a hand towards his past trying to desperately push him away from his brother. The past reacted in what seemed to be a defensive system and sent a temporal anomaly throughout the space his past and present inhabited. Time began to exponentially speed forward. In a last desperate attempt to prevent his brother’s death he tried to distract the past long enough to let the train pass without incident, but the temporal anomaly caused the relative slow velocity of his touch to have the effect of a sudden jerk and in his final moments of consciousness he saw his brother accelerate towards the rails in a split second. He awoke back in the office alone with nothing, but the realization of what force had killed his brother. He curled into the fetal position and began to cry; still believing his lungs to be filled with the dense liquid he did not let out a single sigh. He spent several hours in this state of painful silence without even opening his eyes. His emotions were chaotic and his thoughts unending. They tormented him for hours far after he had run out of tears to let out. They were merciless and torturous forbidding him from resting, insisting on his suffering. Being the cause of his brother’s death nearly caused him to go insane yet part of him kept insisting that Another was to blame. Another had caused him to do it. The Other had forced his hand. Of this, he was now sure. The Other enjoyed his suffering, The Other forced him to kill his brother. He had not eaten nor slept in what seemed like years and yet he stood up defying the gravity that held him down. He took a deep breath of as much oxygen as his lungs allowed and began to speak. “Whoever you are. Whatever you are. Wherever you are. Just know I will no longer play for your entertainment the rest is entirely my choice” he said threateningly. He then began to walk forwards confidently towards the dark wall and through the hidden door that he was not supposed to see. He entered what seemed to be a studio room though, unlike the sterile office; it was trashed. Papers littered the floor and empty bottles populated the lone mattress. On it laid a journal that had recently had liquid spilt on it. He picked the journal and gently opened it and began to read. It was scratched with the stray ideas of a creator who seemed to have never decided upon an end or beginning to his story; yet possessing the journey. He saw many ideas that together seemed to create a way for the continuity to depend entirely on Another rather than itself. A thought described in a single word interested him enough to take it with him. The room started to dissolve around him transforming into a cold landscape. Armed with the knowledge of who he was he treaded what remained of the worn-out path. The sun began to rise signing the start of another day, yet John did not seem to notice as he was focused on something buried in the snow. He could not see much of it yet he knew it was The Box he had thrown the previous night. He dug it up and began his walk up the hill once more. He eventually arrived at his cabin and walked towards his front door….
Act 5.
If you wish to rebel; continue reading on the next page.
Begin the story once more on Truth 2.
If you wish to ward away The Other; don’t read any further
If you wish to follow The Echo read Truth 3
To understand turn to Truth 4
Truth 1
…Before deciding that no longer would he be a puppet for someone’s amusement. John arrogantly began marched back down the hill and headed north towards the nearest interstate a few miles from his home hoping that he had derailed The Echo’s plot. It took him hours on foot, but he would eventually come across the road and start his journey back to civilization no longer subject to the whims of an Otherworldly Audience. He believed his future was now his to decide. He decided what he would become. He decided when and what to think. This he was sure would be how he escaped his torment. John suddenly suffered a complete body collapse and fell forward landing face first onto the scorching road. It would be several sweltering hours before anyone would find him. But eventually someone did, john suffering heavy burns and on the brink of death was saved. He would awake months later in a hospital bed though no one would ever know of this. Weeks would pass as john laid in the hospital bed unable to speak or even move; alerting no one to his consciousness. The doctors and nurses were busy with whatever important patients needed immediate attention; they walked from one end to the other in what seemed like mere minutes. The entire time the only company he had was The Echo and yet slowly it too seemed to forget his existence as well. Eventually The Echo having no interest went away.Jane a third-year medical student had recently joined the staff a month prior and had already been assigned two elders and one child. Though overwhelmed she did not grow annoyed nor frustrated; she loved her job and by proxy her patients. Despite her benevolent nature there was a single patient she never went near as he always seemed to be watching her despite his eyes being shut for over four months. Any time she got near to patient #132 she would begin to get nauseous and quickly retreat. She had no ID on the man, but it seemed he was dehydrated for far longer than should’ve been possible and should be by all accounts dead if not near it. Whenever she worked nightshifts, she would swear that she heard the man whimper slightly as if to warn her of something. Even when she was on the opposite side of the building, she would hear the echo of his groans. She would eventually be transferred and would soon forget the man who after 6 months was officially declared braindead and was due to be disposed of, yet she would still every once in a while, still hear The Echo. Forgotten Ending
Truth 2…Realizing that there was no other choice John took a step forward while placing the note he ripped from the journal into The Box making sure to keep it neatly packaged. He saw the footprints he had left two nights before and carefully stepped into each one making sure to not disturb the surrounding snow. Whatever…Whoever had set him on this path allowed him to live a life of suffering, a life of loss, and a life of pain. This, he felt was the way things were intended to play out; the way it had to end. He placed The Box on the final step making sure it would not be knocked away whenever the door would eventually open. He walked away nearly to the edge of the property when he looked back once more. Managing to peek inside he saw his past still making his coffee when he saw an almost invisible distortion appear near the front door. He smiled and turned away only saying…Freedom ending
Truth 3…though spotting a disturbance near the back of the cabin distracted him from the front door. He decided to investigate for fear of losing a single blossoming tree. Arriving near the back fence he saw no indication of a disturbance giving him much needed reassurance. He heard noise emerge from inside the cabin giving him one more dilemma to deal with. He headed to the backdoor making sure to not disturb the recent snow and entered the cabin. Being sleep deprived and without coffee he had forgotten about the wooden floor and stepped on one that caused a creak to be heard throughout the cabin. He quickly hid in the bathroom fearing that he had disturbed the continuity that The Echo had established when suddenly a bright flash blinded him. He found himself at the front door next to The Box. Slightly amused he proceeded to knock on the door and was soon after transported once more to an empty hall. Both confused and entertained as he was being transported from one place in time to another he took a few steps forward alerting the past to his presence. Seeing his past enter the hall he ducked and quickly hid around the corner. His past seemed to believe that the doctor was in the halls and decided to investigate though just as he was nearing closer; his past collapsed. John saw how his fall was slowed as if moving through the dense liquid he had once gone through. He walked towards his past and noticed an old fashioned panic button that would instantly call Dr.Lumis to his location. Measuring the consequences, he decided to remove the panic button and head back towards The Shadows. For a third and final time he was transported to a final location, the bottom of a snowy hill. Taking in his surroundings he noticed burn marks on the snow where his past would eventually walk through the portal whenever the past caught up. He reached into his pocket and realized how the plot was supposed to move forward. He walked until he reached the exact point where his past would once again find The Box. He kneeled and buried The Box making sure to erase any evidence of his own disturbances. Fully fulfilling his purpose John collapsed. The End.
“Did the hero die?” “What?” “Did he die?” “No? He beat the bad guy and saved the day remember?” “Yea but like AFTER.” “Well, I guess after a few years he would.” “No” The young child said growing annoyed, “when you said, “The End” did he die?” “No.” responded the elder brother. “Then what happened to him? Is he still alive?” “The protagonist only dies if you stop reading.” concluded the elder brother as if possessed. Begin again?
Truth 4…Then just as he took his first step forward everything began to rot. His trees, his home, his coffee, all of it was slowly eroding into a fine dust. He knew that another temporal anomaly would be the likely cause, but he had not yet experienced one that possessed this level of molecular destruction. The fabric of his reality was slowly and thoroughly being untangled into its most simple of compositions. It separated the light from dark, gravity from time, and words from spaces.John could now comprehend what had defined his reality for so many painful years, he finally understood The Narrative and how all possible endings had been chosen long before his creation. John had been a slave from the moment The Narrative began; not once in his entire existence had he ever had a real choice only walking paths already treaded by Another. He was nothing but a plot device in an otherwise self-indulging tale written by a gentle master forced to be cruel for those above. From the moment this story began, John was in pain. He could never hope to truly escape; he could only die until he arose once more. Had John never understood what his life really was then maybe he could’ve found meaning in his suffering. Unfortunately, this choice has now forced John to become aware of how truly meaningless his existence was. His life was little more than entertainment for The Other; they were the ones truly in control. For as long as The Other remained, The Echo would doom John to eternal suffering. The Echo was never in control of The Narrative; he too was merely a subject to it by an even greater force. The Echo did not wish for John to suffer but The Other would not allow John to live if he did not. It is a toxic cycle of pain, suffering and realization that forces John to relive The Narrative lifetime after lifetime. The Narrative must have suffering intertwined into its foundation otherwise The Other would grow bored and erase the reality ending John in but a mere thought. Don’t you see? Don’t you understand? This is reality; John cannot exist without pain, The Echo cannot live without a narrative, and The Other is you. THE END......
Intended to be a philosophical narrative detailing the tragic relationship between the reader, the narrator, and the character and how they cannot coexist without hurting each other.

Royal Road here: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/80877/nop-atalors-fate
Discord Tag: notafurrylad
It's been a while, huh?

First Last Next
Memory transcription subject: Yivreen, Cyonian Survivor
Date [standardized human time]: February 22nd, 2134
The flash daymares hadn’t stopped. Four nights since they’d set in, and now those two fire and brimstone eyes were lingering, waiting to come out when I was asleep. I’d thought that first daymare had been a fluke. It’d felt real, getting chomped up like that, crushed. But... ah.
I’d had more. Once I was in the mouth of that Arxur who’d kicked down the tree. Then I was in the cages with Hens Jr and Sr, and Alma... And each time if there was time for it that swampheaded, red eyed, smokey Arxur would come on in. Try and guilt me like I’d done something wrong.
It was working.
“Yiv. Yiv! I think I got it!” I blinked, my stupor broken by Junior. The kid had been a good help with the computer system since we’d let him fiddle with it instead of me. Much to my... begrudging admission: he was better at it. So, I stood from the chair and headed over to him. The monitor and console were lit up good as new, but they’d been like that for a couple nights now. We’d finally got access to a local map when that’d happened. Or rather a map of the surrounding area, outdated as it was it still had the location of the city on it. It wasn’t like anything had significantly changed in the past hundreds of years since this place had been abandoned. It had been the whole ‘trying to page it into the rest of the old systems at the outpost’ part that’d eluded Juniors little pet project.
“What did you get?” I replied, leaning over his shoulder with a paw on the console while he typed at it.
He cleared his throat. “W-well. I was able to find the wire that’d been causing the problem with the connection to the outpost’s server.” A server? What?
“What do you mean a server? I thought the only computer systems in here were in this room?” He turned his head, a brown eye winking at me. “Nuh-uh! Were you even listening when I explained it earlier? It’s more than just a weather monitoring station. It had a server, otherwise why would it need so many type-v connectors. See?” He pointed a claw to the bundle of wiring running up the wall and into a concrete hole that looked to lead to the next floor above us. Probably. I hadn’t really cared about how many wires there were.
“So... there’s more than just the databanks here in this room?” I asked. My eyes were tasked with looking over the monitor with pursed lips. I’d dug through some ye olde outpost files in the past nights for my journalist program but evidently I’d been missing things if all it took was one kid who had a knack for tech to ascertain there was more to these places.
Before my question could be answered though the command lines and startup protocols on the operating system for the thing had popped by and opened up onto a familiar desktop of our more modern tech. Junior went about clicking immediately to some command line and writing in some jibberish... And- my eyes widened. “What’s that?” I asked, pointing my claw to all the commands on his little black background’d screen.

1: Status
2: Logs
3: Garage Door
4: Barrack Override
5: Communications

Were among the top five, with a half dozen more I didn’t quite have time to think on. “Quick- quick! The uh- There’s a garage?” Don’t get distracted Yivreen. Ahhh moss-heaps.. “The Barrack Override. See what that does.”
The boy swatted away my paw trying to push at it. “Calm down! Calm down jeez, fine!” He jammed his digit into the corresponding number and pressed enter. A few moments passed as it simply displayed three dots. I waited... I waited.. Cmoooo-
Clank. VV-vv-vvv-veeeeeee....
It sounded like something behind the wall to our left was trying to unrust itself and move. A couple hundred years of not moving or being maintained had probably ensured it’d never get moving smooth again. Then of course the universe proved me wrong, and the wall actually shifted. The rounded metal slab I’d taken for a part of the tower’s superstructure began to lower, and behind it... “Holy shit.”
I don’t know where the extreme language had come from but... Wow. My eyes lit. Bunks. Bedding. Lockers.. It looked like the room beyond had been some sort of lodging area for soldiery when this place was built. But there’d been a grow-in on the back wall from a massive root. Snaring part of the room in its gripping-vinelike vice grip. The root was long dead, and the hole it’d bored through the concrete had left the inside exposed to the elements a touch more than if it’d just been left... At least there wasn’t much evidence of water damage.
“Yiv? Are you-” But I was already headed through the way, a paw on my pistol as I glanced around the abandoned room. My mind went right to checking out the lockers, which turned out to be a good idea. My little training sessions into understanding the named bits for guns with Alma were about to start paying off.
“We’ve got guns. Or... Something like guns.” I announced, pulling out the carrying case and flipping it open. Inside I found what looked to be a.. Hrm- no magazine, no bullets... I lifted it up, the rifle-like hardened carbon material was in remarkably good shape. Probably due to the case and materials, but something was different about it. I glanced my eyes over it, noting the electronic aiming system on top which... when I clicked at it offered a red circle for looking through the little scope with. Huh. Not a common thing to find on a Cyonian designed weapon, at least not these nights. This place was old, but this weapon looked like it’d been built by something more ambitious than Federation paws. Federation handhelds were all modified from the same combustion based lead belchers. A fact that rarely ever went unspoken on our own networks when we needed a reason to criticize Aafa.
It took a while longer, but eventually I did find a snap-button on the back of the trigger grip that made something inside it hum to life. My eyes widened. “It’s... An energy weapon.” I murmured. My tail flicking in apprehension. Would it even still fire? The red blinking just below the button told me it must have no power perhaps but... “Hey. Junior. You think you could figure out how to charge one of these guys-?”
I turned my head to see the kid standing at the threshold with his tail in his paws, gripping them anxiously. “Yiv. The uh. The communications aren’t working, but I think the garage door might open if we try it. It could be that cropping of wall and sealed door we figured the old power system must have been housed in right?” He glanced to the rifle in my paws. “I mean, if it uses the same standards as the computer out here it should still be compatible with our stuff. But- we don’t have anything to charge power packs of that size.” He pointed to the fixture sticking out the bottom of the stock. Hrm, he was right.
“See if you can’t get the garage open. I’ll keep looking in here and see if there’s something to help with that.” Came my own voice, I felt... Giddy. Alive. The potential to fight back was intoxicating. Before all I’d had was this dinky pistol I’d used to... kill a couple of the greys. But if we could bring the fight to their patrols, save more people-
I shook my head. Why was I thinking like this? I couldn’t stand up to an invasion fleet. I’d been a frightened Sivkit on the first night of the attack. I- I’d stampeded. I couldn’t remember any of it, but the chance I’d trampled someone in my panic was not zero. I might have contributed to someone being crushed... I’d failed Els, that soldier I’d dragged into the house. Obelisk I couldn’t even keep my mind straight in a fight with those howling, laughing Arxur in my head. The campfire fight had been a fluke!
I didn’t quite know how long I just sat there, staring at the rifle beating myself up, but eventually I was shaken from it by Keick when she sat beside me, an arm on my shoulder. “Hey. I heard you and Junior had a bit breakthrough eh?” She said non-chalantly. I could tell though, even with the chipper tone she’d read me. The accountant knew I’d been in one of my little moods. She’d known me the longest of anyone here, everyone else was like... a pack of convenience? Maybe not Junior. Keick and I had survived the woods together. I’d pulled her from her own hells next to that burning car.
“Hey.” I returned back. “Yeah. Junior got the servers working. Or something like that.” I pointed a claw over at the computer, only to notice he was gone now. I blinked. Had I been out of it that long?
Keick filled in the hole in my head. “He went with his old man to go check out the garage.” Oh. Yeah.
I looked around, “Ah. The guns. We have guns now. Real guns.” I explained, holding the one I had in my paws up for her to inspect.
“Doesn’t look like any gun I’ve seen.” She mused back, taking it from my grip. My body was moving on its own now, rummaging deeper into the lockers. Some of these cases had been broken by the snaring, smaller branches of the grow-in. The firearms within cracked open and busted. Probably no good at all, exposed to the ambient humidity as they had been for so long. Still, couple of the other rifle cases were good. We had weapons, plural. Binoculars? Got em. Spare power packs that needed charging? Got em. There was a lot of survival gear here. Like a militarized ranger outpost had been stationed here. The synthetic material of the camouflaged cloak I found proudly proclaimed it’d reflect thermal scanning on its faded label even! “Either the old rangers from before the treaties were really into operator stuff or the Obelisk put all this here just for us.” I murmured.
Keick, for her part seemed to be looking it all over with a little inventory in her head. Already tapping in the number of each item into her dataslate. “Well. I’d go with the former. The Obelisk hasn’t been around for us lately.” Came the reply as she poked a claw at one of the now entirely spoiled ration packs. “Still, there’s enough stuff here you could arm a squad of soldiers probably. If you know where we can find some spare soldiers that is.”
I flicked my ear at the poor humoured joke. “Ahuh.” Came my reply. “Maybe you should go try the radio again, they’d love to get their paws on stuff like this I think. Pre-war tech actually made to fight predators like this is rare.” Which begged the question... Why did the cloak boast about defeating thermals? These outposts were dated after our discovery and incorporation into the Federation as an early member, and WELL before the Arxur war. So why had we built cloaks like these? Was this equipment used during the years when we’d resisted the burning of our forests and jungles? If so, it meant it might have been auhh... much more violent then the archives made it out to be. Maybe there was a story here? My inner journalist was theorizing.
___________________________
I’d had to pick my jaw up off the ground after headed over to the garage. Hens Senior and Alma were leaned over the the opened hood of what looked like a remarkably still intact forest rover. The design was actually recognizable, having not changed much from what we had tonight. Six thick grooved tires, a buggy-like cockpit four seater set in the middle, and a back and top rack for storing anything you could want. “Is it working?” I asked the obvious as I stepped inside, noting Junior sat off to the side, fiddling with some wall mounted box or other. He didn’t look to actually know what he was doing beyond dusting it off and giving it a deep stare.
“I wouldn’t think so.” Came the chime of Keick, who’d followed me inside. It was around now my monocular visioned eyes were noting the various tools and spare parts laying around in the garage. Whoever had last been here had left in a hurry seemingly, because it was mostly stocked. No mess on all the immensely dusty parts. I could see a couple smaller fauna in the corners. A lizard here, a rodent there. Obviously there had been some way they’d chewed their way in at some point... Or they’d come in when the door was opened to the bustle and noise of the forest to my back.
It was Senior who looked back at my question, standing to his full height before leaning his back against the old vehicle. “No. It isn’t working. Or at least it won’t be until I figure a way to give the battery juice.” I tilted my head.
“Is it one of those older ones that zap out after a hundred years or so?” Came my obvious question.
He flicked his tail no. “It’s got one of the standard ones, it’s just that it stopped auto-cycling a couple hundred years ago. The electric motor looks like it should work if we pop it on. But we’ll have to see.” He glanced around the workshop. “I want to say we could probably get it working with the tools we have, but if the battery can’t be jumped, or it’s spent, or the motor needs a complete replacement we’re up a creek on getting it working.” It sounded like he knew a bit about it.
The feeling of my face scrunching ever so much came. “You didn’t tell me you were a handyman.” I said, crossing my arms.
“Well it never came up.” He said back with an affable smile. “Listen, it’s been a long couple weeks. Don’t get all spotty with me. We didn’t have anything a hobbying mechanic could fix anyhow.” Just a roll of the eyes from myself is all that met him as Keick spoke up, stepping over to the other three.
“So what’re you gonna jump it with?” She asked incredulously, leaning over the open cabin. From there I sort of... zoned out. All the older Cyonians present were bickering and blathering about the buggy which was quickly losing interest for me. I didn’t understand anything about mechanics like that beyond the bare minimum, so it was out of my purview. If they got it working that’d be another thing but I wouldn’t have been any help right now, so instead I placed a couple careful paws down until I was beside Junior, sitting next to him as he seemed to be eyeballing some far too faded label.
He had a paw lightly rubbing out the dust that’d caked an outlet, still one brown eye fixed on the label. All I could make out myself was the little yellow square symbol warning of an electric charge hazard. Weird to think even now those hadn’t changed. Had Federation technology really not changed all that much? Was it just us? A sigh. “So. What’s got your your nose twitching little dude?”
The past couple nights he’d gotten better with his anger, and... hadn’t destroyed any important tech in a fit of rage. All he’d needed was something to set himself to in a difficult situation like this. Keich had been right to set him on that computer. And.. I’d felt myself trying to encourage him along the way. Partly because I had an investment in getting those maps, and then partly because he’d ended up filling in a spot in my head like a younger cousin. Him and his old man had only been around for a little bit, but I guess maybe I didn’t want to think too hard about what had probably happened to my real family. For now, maybe I felt the most ‘at home’ around Keich and this little tinkerer. Was that weird? It felt like it should be weird.
He answered, looking up with a small upturn in his lips. “I think I found your energy cell charger for those guns you had.” He said simply. “One of the manuals over there wasn’t totally ruined, I saw something about a ‘optical projector weapon’ and ‘charger’ so I was trying to figure out if this was it. I... Think it might be, but I’d need one of those batteries to make sure.”
Now I felt like smirking. “Oh yeah? Well go get one swamp brain. Let’s see if these things still work huh?” Dutifully, he was up and off, tail shaking behind him in what I recognized as excitement. We weren’t totally defenceless anymore, and if the buggy could be salvaged there would be a means at least to relocate if we had to. Or... Maybe I could take a trip down to the city and paint a couple more of those scumbags red-
I shook my head. Where had that thought come from? If I was going back to Ataln it was to try and save more people... Yeah. I still needed to see if Gael was alive, maybe check that old house I’d left Els in. I don’t even know if I could find it now, knowing how scatterbrained I’d been at the time but- making a return to at least try seemed worth it.
Regardless, the box on the wall did turn out to be the correct port to charge energy cells for the guns. We’d just need to rig it up to the solar power system and juice them up to test them. Things were looking up! Our mobility had the potential to go from nights in every direction for shelter to mere hours, I’d just have to hope Senior knew what he was doing.
“Hey. Buddy.” I’d wrapped my arm around Junior’s shoulder. “Why don’t you go take a break for now huh? You were working on the computer all night. Maybe it’d be a good idea to just go relax. Enjoy how much you got done eh?” Besides. Gave me a good way to check out the logs page on the computer system myself before he stumbled on anything. It wasn’t like I didn’t trust him with it but- well there was no way to know what was in those logs.
He nodded, and with that I stood up, streeeetched out, and headed toward the tower. “Good, it’s your shift on the guard tower anyway.” I intoned politely. It was going to be a long day, assuming there was anything of substance in those logs... Scrounging through those would be preferable to sleeping right now anyway.

Cody approached her door, his hand poised to knock, this is wrong. I'm coming here with such bad news and on top of that I'm thinking about how I can use this to my advantage. Cody sighed as he knocked, there was the sound of movement inside, a click, then the door cracked open to reveal. . . Piercing red eyes glaring at him.
“What do you want?” Skarlet grumbled, Cody placed his hand on the door and pushed. Her eyes widened in surprise as he opened his mouth.
“Aiko and Amethyst have been kidnapped, can I come in?” After his words her resistance disappeared as her face was shadowed in a dark look. He stepped in and closed the door behind him. “why don't we sit down and talk.” Skarlet nodded as she sat down on her bed, he couldn't help but look at her eyes as he sat down on her desk chair. She had a swirl of emotions, a nervous toe tapping. Her tail was flicking with anxiety while her ears were displaying alertness, pointed outwards with a slightly lowered stance.
This wasn't really his expectation, he'd never seen her shy from a fight like this, she always seemed to run at a fight. Though the way she ran towards fights was more like she was running from something.
“Spit it out, what happened?” She spoke like normal, crude, but this time with a hint of hesitance and maybe was that fear.
“I don't know the specifics, I was a bit too late, I saw it though. Aiko and Amethyst were heading home from the Guild like me when. . . They got snatched and dragged into an alley, I immediately moved to help and I did hear fighting. They didn't go silently, well until they did. Suddenly it got really quiet, when I arrived in the alley they were both gone. I was surprised, teleportation is an extremely advanced spell.” Cody explained what he saw, but it only brought more anxiety and fear to Skarlet. “I'm Here to ask you to help me.”
“No.” She spoke almost instinctively, and it was such a fast response that Cody was taken aback. “I-I mean, I can't. . . I can't do that I'll only make it worse.” She explained as her voice cracked, he was further surprised as tears seemed to be pushing against the edge of her eyes.
“Uh, I um. . . I never expected that answer.” Cody was surprised, Skarlet didn't seem to care as she flipped over and curled up. He frowned but a decision surfaced. He decided to push.
“Skarlet, if you're making the decision not to participate because your conscience rests easy, I'll save them. You shouldn't use that crutch. I won't be saving them.” Skarlet's entire body froze, previously she'd had little movements like her tail anxiously twitching, her ears seemed focused on him even as they pressed against her head. But when he said that she completely froze, even stopped breathing for a moment as she exploded out of her ball. An intense rage and bloodlust exploded before dissipating as a deep longing and desperation filled her eyes. The tears no longer threatened to fall, no they poured.
She was off the bed, clutching him as her eyes tried to pierce his soul. The look on her face as she desperately uttered a cracked hesitant “why?” Stabbed his heart and tried ripping it to shreds.
“Cause they aren't my friends, why would I go out of my way to help strangers. Their adventurers, they're supposed to take care of themselves.” He spoke coldly, hardening his face as her hands shook. He could see it in her eyes, her mind was reeling.
“So let me ask you again, are you gonna save them, your friends will die tonight if you do nothing.” As he said that she fell back, her back making a thud against the bed frame. She didn't react though, her mind was processing. The tears got heavier, she shook her head and dug her nails into her skin. Blood dripped down her arm, she was struggling against the desire to help someone conflicted with her fears. Cody wasn't sure what she was so afraid of, but Even he could tell that he was seeing the fear that always kept her running towards the next fight.
“I. . . No, I shou- nooo, I can't I can't. I. . . This is my. . . I'm sorry.” A broken unintelligible sentence came out as she broke down into sobs.
Finally, his heart shattered, he couldn't do it anymore as he slipped from the chair and sat beside her. He sighed and felt like shit as he pulled her close. For the first time since he met her she didn't resist, no she leaned into him. Going from the fierce resistance of a knife to his throat just for suggesting they run a commission together to this was. . . Shocking. She sobbed as he ran his fingers through her hair, I did this, I riled all her emotions, pushed her to the brink, then kicked her off it. I can't leave her like this. He thought as he finally spoke.
“I'll save them, just promise me one thing.” She didn't stop crying, or respond. But her tense muscles relaxed as she leaned into him further. “After this, we're friends and you gotta stop trying to kill me whenever I wanna hang out.” He couldn't smile even as it was kinda silly that he had to say that, though he didn't need to smile as a low chuckle among the sobs told him she realized the irony. She suddenly pulled herself back, aggressively wiped her tears as a small smile was trying to hide as it rested on her lips.
“Tha-nk you.” Her voice cracked in the middle as she turned away to hide her mess of a face.
“You sure you won't help.”
“I. . . Want to.”
“But you can't. Yeah I know, I'll save them. This is not your fault Skarlet. This town hates you, but you are not what they say you are. So, next time something like this happens. I want you beside me as we resolve it.” Cody spoke gently, but with determination as he stood up, then he turned to leave.
“How are you gonna find them?” Skarlet asked, Cody smiled in response.
“I know someone who can find them, I'll just have to persuade them.” Cody frowned after he turned. damn, after that confident speech I can't screw this up. But convincing her to help won't be easy, she's practically my enemy. Working against us constantly, how can I get her to help me?

In hindsight, I should have known something was wrong with The Caeles Academy of Acting.
Maybe the fact that it doesn't exist to the outside world.
This place prided itself on famous alumni it didn't actually name, and a once in a lifetime opportunity to work with the best in the business.
It's what I wanted.
More than anything.
After enduring four years of high school with barely a semblance of a drama club (we met every month, and our teacher was an alcoholic), and countless failed auditions, I was ready to take my acting career seriously. I had one year.
According to my parents, I had one year to make a living from my passion.
If it didn't work out, I would be on the first plane back to Connecticut.
It's not like they didn't trust me. I think they were just scared I wouldn't be able to financially support myself. So, I got a job right out of high school and slipped a year. Drama schools are expensive, and college’s are cut-throat on who they take on. I found Caeles Academy by accident–or, I guess it found me?
After researching cheap drama classes, auditions, academy’s, literally anything to progress my career, an ad popped up.
Not exactly flashy.
Just a date, a time, and a promise that they only take the best. I ignored it, but throughout the week, I started getting more ads. Just the words, “IMPRESS US - - JOIN CAELES ACADEMY NOW.”
Followed by, “BE WITH THE BEST, AND BE THE BEST. JOIN THE S CLASS NOW.”
When I googled the academy, nothing came up.
It didn't exist, at least on Google.
So, I gave up, clicking on the ad, which sent me straight to an application form.
I filled in my details as more of a joke. But I wasn't expecting to get an email back. Again, it was a time, a date, and that exact same tagline: “Impress us.”
However, Caeles Academy was different from what I imagined.
I was expecting a university building, or at least some modern structure.
Judging from their marketing and ads, I figured they could at least afford decent premises. Though I was mistaken. When I stepped out of the Uber, I found myself staring at what looked like an abandoned office tower, a red-brick monolith in the middle of nowhere.
Which was crazy, because I swore a girl wearing a bikini had strode through the doors, with nothing but her phone, and a coffee tucked under her elbow.
According to the text sent from the academy, the auditioning rooms were on the third floor.
Tipping my head back, the checkerboard of broken windows didn't exactly instil confidence.
Neither did the clunky set of automatic doors that took a while to open.
It was a summer's day, and the heat was already baking through my dress, sweat sticky on the back of my neck.
I wanted to make a good impression, but the heels were a little over the top.
Though I had also seen a girl casually walk in wearing a two piece bikini.
“Well?”
Freddie’s voice made me jump. I forgot I was on the phone to him.
After being excited the whole car-ride, already high on five coffees, I was silent.
If I perceived the ‘academy’ from an objective standpoint, it definitely looked like the perfect place to be brutally murdered. But my own personal opinion was it was.. okay.
“What's it like?”
I pretended not to see a rat scuttling under an old candy wrapper.
“It's… fine.”
“Just fine?”
I could hear the smirk in my friend’s tone. He couldn't wait to tell me it was a scam, and had been reminding me all week I was essentially willingly selling myself to the black market. I was stubborn, so, fine sounded better than my initial first impression.
Which was to turn around, walk away, and completely block the place from my memory.
Unfortunately, at that moment, I valued my pride over my awareness.
“It's… okay.” I said, trying to find positives. I was staring at a looming grey building with shattered windows and a resident rat living near the door.
I had a hard time figuring out how the girl from earlier had just casually strode inside, barefoot too. I glanced down at the ground, immediately regretting it.
Like there weren't bits of chewing gum and grime stuck to the concrete.
“Huh.” Freddie said, his tone creeping into teasing territory. “You're really selling it.”
“It just looks like a building,” I muttered, my gaze glued to the rat, who looked a little too comfortable.
Maybe it was a pet.
I was getting progressively more infuriated the more I stared down this place. Judging from the decades old writing ingrained into the door, it used to be a dentist surgery. “What do you want me to say?” I wasn't even trying to hide the scorn from my voice. “It's a building that looks like an academy.”
“Can you send a picture?” Freddie asked, “Ooh, wait, I'll face-time you.”
“That's, uh, that’s not really necessary–”
I was cut off, suddenly, when a guy threw himself through the automatic doors, palms first. He took two stumbled steps forwards, one back.
Lifting his head, half lidded eyes found the sky, before he dropped to his knees, heaving pinkish liquid.
I could see him trying to hold it in, slamming his hands over his mouth, only for it to splurge through his fingers, showering the ground in greyish pink froth.
Like he'd downed a bottle of Pepto Bismol.
Inching towards him, I realized it was Pepto Bismol.
The stink made my own stomach churn.
“Missy?”
I found my voice. “Uh, can I call you back later?”
Before my friend could answer, I ended the call, slipping my phone in my pocket.
The guy was still heaving, coughing up globules of pink.
“Are you okay?”
The sound of my heels click-clacking on concrete made me cringe. The guy noticed, flinching away. Closer, and I could see his scraggly blonde hair.
He was handsome.
Without the bile spewing down his chin.
Early twenties, wearing a fitted white shirt now covered in streaks of bright pink. Part of me wanted to make a half-hearted joke, but getting even closer, so close I could smell his pepto-breath, I noticed he was trembling, his hands clenched into fists.
When I attempted to awkwardly pat him on the shoulder, he twisted around, so fast my morning coffee slithered its way back up my throat.
His eyes were wide, almost feral, studying me like a wild animal.
I noticed the whites of his pupils were red, like he'd burst a blood vessel.
Theatre kids were intense, though I had never met THIS kind of intense.
“Are you… going in there?” The guy’s voice was a child-like whimper I wasn't expecting.
It looked like he was slowly regaining clarity, staring down at his filthy shirt, his hands stained bright pink.
I nodded, uncertainly, offering him my water. “Yeah. Did you audition?”
He shoved it away, slapping himself in the face. “I… I don't know.”
“You… don’t know?”
Suddenly, it was like something had contorted in his expression, a switch being pulled. I wasn't expecting him to twist around so fast. The guy slowly cocked his head, his lips breaking into a grin. His eyes, however, stayed the same.
“Of course I've auditioned.” He said, with a laugh.
“It was the best experience of my life!" His mouth formed an almost mocking frown.
“Unfortunately, I didn't make the cut. Which is a real shame. I'm sure Caeles would have benefited from my talents.”
What was weird, is that his mouth was moving, but he wasn't even looking at me, frenzied eyes caught in an oblivion I couldn't see.
When he did look at me, his expression crumpled all over again.
Pepto jumped to his feet, brushing himself down.
I couldn't take his over the top smile seriously, when his eyes were screaming, hollowed out caverns silently begging me to listen.
This guy was fucking crazy.
“Wait.” Pepto whispered, when I turned to walk away.
He pulled out his phone, tapping the screen before shoving it in my face.
I HAD SO MUCH FUN AT THE CAELES ACADEMY AUDITIONS :)
When I could only stare at him in confusion, Pepto’s gaze flicked to his phone, swiping bile from his lips.
His eyes went cartoon wide, like he couldn't believe what he himself was typing.
“That… that's not what I was trying to say!” He tried retyping it, but the guy was just writing strings of emoji hearts.
I didn't know what to say. I had dealt with rejection before, but I had never gone this far. Pepto was having a full on mental breakdown, his body shuddering, teeth chattering, blinking eyes and lips parting as if to speak, but choking on his words. When he started clawing out his hair, I took the opportunity to make a quick getaway.
Before I could make it to the doors, though, Pepto jumped in front of me, waving his phone directly in my face.
“Just…” he pointed at the screen. “It won't let me…” Growing frustrated with himself, he let out a wet sounding sob, clawing his fingers through his hair.
“Fuck, it won't let me…it won't let me type! It's not letting me type!”
By now, he had tufts of hair stuck between his fingernails. I don't know why his first reaction was to immediately try ripping his hair out.
A quick glance at my own phone reminded me of my audition that was in five minutes.
Meanwhile, I was dealing with what I was pretty sure was delusion, denial, or a mixture of both.
I was considering pushing past him, when Pepto’s phone screen hit me in the face. Again.
This time, though, there was coherent writing.
“FIND LUKE.”
“Luke?” I said. “Who's that?”
“Luke!” The guy was bouncing on the heels of his feet. “He's my…” Pepto drifted off, his eyes going vacant, as if I could physically see his brain being plucked from his skull. Pepto dropped his phone, and I grabbed it before it could hit the ground. His hands went to his curls, clawing, scratching, until he was drawing blood across his forehead.
“I… I don't know! I can't… I can't remember. Luke. He was my… he was my… I don't know, I can't… I can't–”
I stumbled back when he let out a shriek, scratching at his face.
“Fuck!” He whimpered. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!”
Pepto grabbed my shoulders, shaking me, his fingers digging into my skin.
“I don't know who he is.” He gritted out, pink froth pooling from his lips.
Pepto broke out into a sob. “I don't… I don't know who he is, but you can find him, right? You can… you can find…”
Again, he trailed off mid sentence, his hands going limp around my shoulders.
I managed to side step him, swallowing a cry.
“Yeah, I'll, um, I'll find him for you.”
Pepto backed away, suddenly, stumbling over himself.
His gaze found mine, vacant, like a baby deer.
“Find who?”
I didn't wait around to answer him, pushing through the doors and stepping inside.
The interior was unsurprisingly even worse than the exterior.
The elevator was broken, so I had to run up three flights of stairs.
I expected at least an attempt at an academy, even in the dregs of an old dentist surgery.
What I got, though, was a never ending staircase, obnoxious photos of teeth greeting me on every level.
The third floor was… less clinical.
I strode directly into a waiting room filled with college aged students, either sitting on plastic chairs, or standing around, rehearsing.
The room itself was cosy enough, a navy carpet and a TV playing a random Twitch stream.
Situated in the middle was a desk with a bored looking woman behind it.
Her smile was fake. I could understand her pain. She was stuck in a room with theatre kids all day.
“Sign here.” She prodded a sheet of paper.
I was convinced her voice was AI.
While I was scribbling my details, I took a moment to notice the stark difference from the kids entering the room, to the ones leaving. The kids entering wore wide, confident smiles and were social butterflies, chatting amongst themselves.
The kids leaving reminded me of pod people.
They left the room silent, in an orderly line with dazed smiles on their faces, like they weren't sure where they were.
I watched one guy walk directly into the wall instead of taking a left toward the exit, and a girl straight up just toppled down the stairs.
The kids waiting with me named them rejects.
I wasn't convinced until I glimpsed an empty bottle of Pepto Bismol sitting on the floor by the window.
Thinking back to Pepto, that made a lot of sense.
I was still dazedly staring at the bottle, when my name was called.
Jumping to my feet, I did my best to calm myself down, straightening my ponytail. Pepto had really screwed with my head. I could barely even remember the lines I had been rehearsing for a week straight.
I was muttering my lines to myself, when I stepped through the door.
The door that apparently turned you into a pod-person on the way out.
For a moment, I thought I was blinded by stage lights.
It was so bright.
The glow bathing me was clinical, stabbing into my eyes.
When I blinked, I found myself standing in front of three shadows sitting in front of me.
Their chairs were made of leather, far different from the plastic ones in the waiting room.
So, they did have filthy cash.
I was looking at one man, and two women.
They were… average?
I expected them to be more glitzier, but they were just regular people.
The man was in his late twenties, maybe early thirties, a stiff looking brunette wearing a suit and tie, one leg crossed over the other. His eyes were narrowed slightly, lips curved into the start of a smile. Like I amused him.
The women were polar opposites.
One of them was my Mom’s age, grey hair and floral clothing. She took a sip of water, her gaze burning into me.
Google told me not to be intimidated by their stares, but it was impossible.
These people were carving holes into my skull.
Sitting next to her, a younger girl who seemed to own the color red.
Her hair simmered, blood red, while she herself was sculpted in a dress, perfect cherry lips spread in a wide smile.
With a little too many teeth.
They studied my face like I was already theirs, drinking in every inch of me.
Freddie said I had to find a weakness in their expression and use it to my advantage.
If I could find the prick of a genuine smile, I could become their favorite.
“Hi!” I said. My caffeine intake was starting to take effect.
I didn't realize I was bouncing up and down until I caught myself.
Red’s smile stretched wider.
Maybe they liked my eagerness.
“My name is Misa.” I introduced myself, staying casual, keeping my arms by my sides. “I'm twenty one years old–”
I choked on my next words when Red spoke up. “Impress us, Misa,” Her voice was a smooth, almost seductive rasp, and I felt myself fall into it, enveloped in sugar that was too sweet, and yet I couldn't stop myself. She folded her arms across her chest, her gaze challenging me to do something different. To make her want me.
“Show us something we have never seen before.” She stood up, cat-like eyes narrowing, “Show us how desperate you are to join this prestigious class.”
I nodded, and began.
I had planned a whole monologue, practised it over and over again, forcing Freddie to judge me with a none biassed opinion.
I was three lines in, when Red started laughing.
“Stop.”
I did, my cheeks heating up.
She clapped loudly. Obnoxiously.
“Sweetie, oh, stop, you're adorable!”
She leaned forward, like I was something that entertained her, jostling her heeled foot. “We don't take amateurs. I think you need to go back to school.”
This woman was definitely a psychopath.
Empty eyes sparkling with a gleam that definitely enjoyed humiliating candidates, and a twisted smile that was a little too wide. Red made me want to crawl into the ground.
She made me want to turn around, leave the room, and quit my dream. I was aware of my own fury, my embarrassment turning my cheeks crimson. I matched her.
Maybe that's what she wanted all along. To wear the color of her victims.
Taking a shaky step back, I started to nod, started to agree, my mouth choking with the words, “You're right. I'm sorry for wasting your time."
I had never received proper constructive criticism from a professional standpoint.
Which meant I really did suck.
But I didn't move. I didn't want to move, and Red continued laughing, her companions sitting in silence.
The man rolled his eyes with a loud, exaggerated sigh.
Like I was boring.
The older woman pulled out her phone.
“Misa, you are…cute.” Red said. “But you're not quite what we are looking for.”
I wasn't sure I could admit it right there, but she made me feel things.
Like I was ignited.
Like I was going to prove this crazy bitch wrong.
I found my voice, strong and confident, despite my hammering heart.
“Give me another chance.”
Red’s lips curled. “So cute, Misa. Oh, sugar bear, It would be better if you left the room. Unless you want to embarrass yourself further! In that case, be my guest!”
She turned her attention to her nails, nudging the guy.
“Dinner?” She hummed. “I'm thinking of Italian. You are quite the wine connoisseur, Nicholas. Why don't you introduce me to your favorite?”
“Hey.” I blurted.
They ignored me, getting a little too close.
I don't know why I continued, reading my lines, screaming them, so I would be heard. I read them perfectly, and tweaked the genre from drama to romance, and then to horror. I became three different characters, a high school girl struggling with cancer, a final girl, and a woman going through a divorce.
I was fucking perfect.
But they weren't listening to me, caught up in their own conversation.
I tried again.
And again.
And again.
By now, I was on my knees, my fingers ripping into my hair. I was seeing red.
“We want originality, Misa,” Red said, sucking her teeth.
Her voice crawling into my skull was enough.
She still wanted me.
The thought polluted the back of my mind, taking a strangling hold. She still wanted me. When I lifted my head, Red wasn't looking at me, her gaze on the table grains. “Show us something new.”
I got to my feet, panting, my breath in my throat.
I became a screaming, strangled mess, a woman who lost her baby.
Red’s interest was piqued. Only slightly. Through my fraying vision, she slowly turned in her chair. “Again.” She clapped her hands, “Come on, Misa! We want new! We want never been fucking done before! Are you deaf?”
I couldn't stop the sobs escaping my mouth.
They lost interest again, right in the middle of my reading.
“Why can't you look at me?” I found myself spluttering.
When the man pulled out a bottle of water, I yanked off my heel and lobbed it at his face.
“Look at me!”
He did. Slowly. His gaze found me, for perhaps the first time.
Not as an amateur, but as a potential candidate.
Around the twentieth attempt, I started to laugh. Never been done before? I could feel my fingernails already in my scalp, clawing chunks of my hair out.
Reality contorted, and I felt myself drop to my knees. I was still laughing, spluttering, sobbing. I could still hear her in my head. Never Been Done Before. I started slowly, dragging my fingernails down my face until I felt the harsh sting.
“Again.” Red said, and her voice led me to stare down at my hands, at pinkish flesh glued to my bones, fleshy mounds that I had never realized was so thin.
So easy to tear. I didn't even feel it.
Only the sudden, unbridled euphoria of biting into my own skin, locking in my jaw, and ripping into myself.
When I tore it from the bone, warmth filled my mouth, and I was choking, guzzling down my own flesh, mulling it in my mouth and swallowing.
I can't remember how I got so deep, and why I didn't stop.
Why I didn't fucking scream.
But it didn't matter.
Red was standing up. She was clapping, her lips spread into a grin.
Her applause filled me with stars.
So, I ripped my hair from my scalp, a hysterical giggle escaping my lips.
She loved me.
I could see her jumping up and down, clapping.
Louder, and louder.
Her applause controlled me, twisting and contorting me into hers.
I didn't even think. I wanted to impress her, and doing this was doing just that.
My fingers were delving into my right eye socket, clawing my eye out. It didn't even hurt. Not with her thundering applause that was deafening, beautiful, an orchestra in my ears.
When I was semi conscious, my eye was crushed in my hand, but my vision was still mine, almost too clear. I could see streaks of red blurred between my lashes. My hair was caught between my fingers. But I wanted to do more.
When I stumbled to my feet, Red’s smile was so beautiful.
The man, however, looked horrified.
“Someone grab one of the successes,” Red’s voice was a shrill giggle, “Bring him in!” she clapped her hands together, and I spat out a fleshy thing. “I want to see them together! I want to see the future in front of us!”
Footsteps coming towards me in slow, shuddery thumps. I looked up, and a shadow was dancing around me.
When I slowly rose to my feet, I half realized I’d bitten my toe off. The shadow had a face, a boy who was younger than me. I think he used to have hair, but half of it was gone, half of it was still stuck between his fists. When I found his eyes, I found twin caverns instead.
Eyes that were still physically there, and yet there was no life.
No spark.
I was staring at a dead body, a flesh puppet who had lost his strings.
When he grabbed my hands, pulling me into a waltz, I caught a smear of scarlet trickling down the back of his neck. When I followed it upwards, his head was covered, slick, dripping with red.
Like me, he matched her too.
And he was beautiful, she told me, her push, her thunderous applause, guiding me into a waltz.
His feet moved, perfecting every step, and my foggy mind couldn't understand why. He matched my every move, the two of us floating across the floor.
My feet knew the steps before my mind.
How could he dance? I thought, dizzily.
How could he dance, when smeared scarlet followed his twisting, and turning and pirouetting feet?
Because underneath that swimming clinical light, the back of the boy’s head had been carved away, a perfectly sculpted cavern where his brain should have been. I could see the severed stem, where it had cleanly plucked out.
His fingers cradled in mine were wet. Swimming in blood.
His own blood.
Spinning round and around, I imagined myself as a princess.
I saw an 18th century ballroom lit up around us. Glittering smiles and glasses of champagne, long, flowing ball gowns.
I blinked, and my head was tipped back, gliding in blood once again.
When he pulled me to his chest, I stumbled, and a name came to light.
Luke.
I had found him.
Our finishing spin left me hard to breathe.
My body was broken, ripped into, and yet somehow not.
By the time we were finished, the two of us bowing, my mind was full of fog.
Cotton candy.
“Congratulations!” Red’s smile was inhuman, stretching right off of her face.
“You're in the S class!”
I was led through a door that wasn't the one I entered from. Inside the room were a dozen or so students, kneeling on the floor. They were missing parts of themselves, like unfinished puzzle pieces.
I dropped onto my knees next to a girl without a head. I could only see her torso, but I knew she was smiling.
Looming over us, was the goddess Athena drenched in blood that was still wet.
Dripping, pooling from every crevice of her dress.
Looking closer, this statue was moving.
Something sickly crept into my mouth.
Her right eye was human, a twitching eyeball sandwiched inside the stone.
It didn't match her. It was wrong, horrifying, like a painting, a real human eye struggling to focus on us.
And then, my own gaze found the statues head, where a real human brain had been forced inside perfect white, pink, greyish mush dripping down the sculpted, slender neck.
I could see where it had been pushed, pulverised through the stone.
The statue’s singular eye found me.
Its dancing pupil jumped up and down.
Before it blinked.
Next to me, Luke was on his knees, as if in prayer.
I can't remember leaving the room.
I just remember running.
Back down the stairs, stumbling, staggering over myself.
I was screaming by the time I reached the doors.
They opened, as usual.
But I couldn't get through. I tried, but I was slamming into something I couldn't see.
Pepto was still waiting outside. The sky was dark.
When he saw me, he stumbled over, slamming his hands into the glass.
I couldn't even understand myself. I was just fucking screaming.
Pepto held up his phone.
“DID YOU FIND HIM?”
I shook my head.
“No.” I lied.
I can't tell him the truth. I don't even know what it is.
“I can't get out!”
Pepto nodded slowly, typing something and showing me his phone.
I'm getting you both out of there. I think I know how I can get inside.
It's been 3 days, and Pepto is yet to return.
I’ve tried multiple times to cry out for the H word. But it won't let me type it.
Please H me. I need to get out of this place.
Fuck. Get me OUT OF HERE.
Classes start tomorrow.

"Princess, please remain close to me now, these woods are dangerous. Infested with goblins."
Anastasia, second captain of the royal guard, was an impressive woman any day of the week, large, with broad shoulders, muscular arms and legs. But now, in full plate armor, her helmet hiding half her face, which warm, friendly expression normally helped to ease her martial experience, and im combination with her wide hips and chest had led to her soldiers giving her the respectfull nickname "Momma bear", she looked outright terrifing.
"But surely, you three are more than a match for any goblin we might encounter?", the princesses best friend, the Lady Kyra asked with an amused puff and waved at the three guards accompaning the two highborn girls.
She was wearing a beautiful blue dress, tight on her curvy upper body, but flowy past her hips. She sat elegantly and with thr confidence of any young highborn woman who spent more time in the sidesaddle ontop her horse, than in her studies. Her long flowy dark hair in perfect curls as always, her slighty tanned skin just above what would be considered appropriate for a nobelwoman who didn't have to work the fields.
"Aye, a single goblin is not a threat, Mylady, but they tend not to come alone", the second guard Athena chimed in.
Younger and less massive than Anastasia, she was still a force to be reckoned with, with an athletic body, tight and lean, though not without a decent amount of muscle. Her bronzed skin almost matched the color of the bronze-armour her knightly order was famous for still using, even after Steel having become wildly known and wildly used, her short black hair matching the Lady Kyra.
She gestured towards the woods. "There are probably a dozen of goblins in those woods, just waiting to swarm unsuspecting, ill prepared victims. They attsck always in huge groups. Since a single goblin would barely reach to my chest and weigh less than half of me, a single one would be easily overpowered. Also, since they are sneaky by nature, the don't attack in the open, prefering to ambush they victims."
"Are... are you sure we are save to enter this forrest at all? Shouldn't we circle around it?" The princess asked, guiding her horse - maybe instinctively - closer to Anastasias. The princess` looks stood in stark contrast to her best friend. Where Kyras was curvy, the princess was petite, her hair - though as long as Kyra - was red and straight with only a very light natural curl. Also, while she wore a wide green dress matching her eye color, the dress was so flowy, she could ride a normal saddle - something her mother - the Queen - had insisted on she learned, due to the possibility of needing "to ride for real" like her mother had called it. But with her pale porcelain skin, the high cheekbones, the full red lips and those big, round eyes she was without a doubt one of the greatest beauties in the realm.
"We will be safe, my princess" the big woman calmed her down, reaching for her and putting her heavy plate-gauntlet on the young womans shoulder. "We are on our guard and heavily armed. I doubt they will pick a fight 12 on three. It would be suicide for them.“ As if to stress her words, she reached for her sword and loosened it it its scabbered, with Athena following her example.

Medea, the third member of the small group of guard, who had fallen back slightly previously to check up on a trail, caught up to the other four women. Her gorgeous face was radiating, her joy lighting up an already great day. Clearly, the woman who had been a huntress not long ago, reveled in being out in nature, and not locked in a castle of stone. In contrast to the other guards, she didn´t wear plate armour, but instead leather armour with metal scales fixed onto it. Also, she was significantly smaller than the other two women. Shooting her heavy bow had given her muscular shoulders and back, as well as toned arms, but also her legs and butt were very well trained, looking even bigger, considering the woman was barely 5 feet. Her short brown hair was only be kept together by a single leather-headband. On her saddle hang a bow and on her back a big knife.
„I have never been to these woods myself“, she explained. „But I have heared gruesome tales of more than one unfortunate woman who went into them unprepared and was ravaged and massacred by goblins. And not necessarily in that order“, she remarked, as she let her eyes wander over the trees right in front of the small group.
„Enough!“ Anastasia cut her of, as she saw the princesses face getting even paler.
Medea raised a hand in aknowledgement. While she was a very capable warrior, she was still new to the demands of appropriate behaviour around noblewomen.

The shadow of the big leaf trees fell over the five women, as they followed the path into the wood. The path itself was well maintaned, with the plentiful undergrowth of the forrest having been cut away. It was a nice, peacefull atmosphere. The big trees to both sides of the road gently swayed in a gentle breeze, their branches forming a dome-like ceiling over the path, birds chirping, and several small animals to the side of the road to be seen.

Suddenly, Kyras horse, a beautiful white stallion, started to prance, and whicker. „Keep him calm, Mylady!“ Anastasia ordered and looked around on high alert. Kyra pulled on her horses rains and struggled to stay on top of him, as he clearly tried to break out, making a jump sidewards and buckling, almost throwing her of. „I can´t! Damn, he is going crazy!“, she squealed, fear creaping in her voice just as much as pure surprise, since her well trained Hose normally never acted that way. Than, the stallion reared, and jumped, loudhly neighing forward and ran along the path, before he took a small gap between trees and dissapeared into the undergrowth, his rider screaming curses, though clearly not less scared than angry.
„Gods be damned. Medea! After her!“, Anastasia commanded and drew her sword. She reached for the princesses horse and grabbed the rains. „Stay close, your highness!“ The princess, scared, clang to her horse and didn´t even dare thinking about going anywhere.

Medea spured her horse on and galloped after the girl, whose screams they could still hear in the distance. „I am coming Mylady!“ The small woman yelled out, as the horse jumped of the road into the woods, where Kyra had dissapeared.

Athena drew her sword as well and gestured towards a small forrest clearing a bit further ahead and to the left – the opposite side to where Kyra and Medea had dissapeared to.
„We should get of the path, we are sitting ducks here!“ she shouted.

Anastasia nodded in agreement and the three galloped onto the forrest clearing.

Hey all! So I wanted to give a part two since I'm not high now lol, and also I wanted to clear up some things and add in some other details I left out that I just remembered. If you haven't seen the first part of this post then I suggest going to that, otherwise you'll be very confused. Also, I forgot to add this in my first post but DON'T READ if triggered by certain topics like r*ape, SA, murder, abuse, etc. Another thing is, this post is going to be a lot darker and aside from talking about what happened, I'm also looking for advice on my mental state and how to cope. So please read with caution because I'm going to be talking about what happened with B, but also about my past before him and how what happened is affecting my past trauma.
So, I'm not going to retell the whole story but I am going to be bringing up a lot of parts from it and things I didn't realize until after the incident happened. And some of the things I didn't think of until my friend brought it up. So in my first post, I was talking about how B (26M) was REALLY into Jeffrey Dahmer. Well, in the show we watched with Evan Peters, I noticed a lot of things Jeffrey did as well as already knowing a lot about him before watching it. I noticed that B was doing a lot of things similar to him. Now, I forgot to add in this part last time, but B was really 'straight phobic.' Now I'm a bi transman but I don't hate cis / straight people. In fact, a lot of my friends are cis and in straight relationships. For some reason though, he did, to a weird extent. And even though he was being respectful in the beginning, I'm starting to get a feeling he wasn't actually gay or cared about trans people. Because it seems as though ALL of his former partners were transmen. Which isn't that weird I guess, and he did tell me he tried dating a cis man before but it didn't work. After I met him in person he was telling me that he really liked his trans partners to still have sex vaginally and he liked tits. So, I was kind of confused at that. I think what was really going on was that he isn't gay but wanted to be so he could be like Jeffrey Dahmer. I know it's a bit of a stretch, but you'll see why later. So another thing is, Jeffrey would always ask his potential victims to go back to his place for drinks and to take photos, particularly sexual ones. Jeffrey would then lace the drinks and go on to do weird things to his victims while taking their pictures. And while I was trapped at his place, B kept pushing alcohol on me, A LOT. So much so, that when I kept refusing he started getting angry. However, once I pretended to take a sip it was like his whole attitude changed. He also kept joking it was laced, like EVERYTIME he offered me some. Even though I didn't actually drink any, like I said in the first post, I still got a few drops on my lips and in my mouth. After that I started to get a headache and was a bit dizzy. Also, he had told me before that he liked to take pictures of his partners in sexual poses while they held his guns. Aside from the guns, that's EXACTLY WHAT JEFFREY WOULD DO. For some reason, I didn't piece any of this together until afterwards. I guess I was too shaken up to think clearly. I said this before as well, but when I first entered his house, it was pitch black and he had black out curtains on EVERY WINDOW in his house. His bedroom, living room, kitchen, I mean his whole house made it seem like it was night outside. Another thing that is eerily similar to Jeffrey, is that B told me before I met him in person he always liked dating someone younger. I, at the time, was nineteen and he was twenty five, about to turn twenty six. I honestly don't know what was wrong with me so have not seen the BIG RED FLAGS in the beginning, but he played it off so well I didn't even notice them until after everything happened. And it isn't like me to go for older guys, I usually try to go for someone two years older or younger than me, as I don't like have a huge age gap between me and my partner. Anyway though, Jeffrey always went for younger guys, as well as sometimes KIDS. So, that's another thing similar between them, as well as the fact that B told me he was into little brother play. Where he makes his partners act like a younger brother during sex, etc. He also told me he liked for his partners to SUCK ON BINKIES. BRUHHHH, no thanks bro, I'm good. See, if it was just one of these things that he liked / was into, then I guess it would be normal. Just a guy into a weird ass kink, but all these things combined just did not sit right with me as well as how he was acting. Now, I said in my other post that basically the ENTIRE TIME I was with him, he had a weird ass expression on his face that made me uncomfortable. I wish I could explain better, but it was like constipated / confused look, like Edward from Twilight when he does those weird facial expressions. His brows were always furrowed and he looked like he was uncomfortable / anxious the whole time. He was being super sketchy. His body language was just really off-putting and made me feel weird. And the thing he kept ranting about the most was how Jeffrey Dahmer was misunderstood and just needed someone to be there for him, and then maybe he wouldn't have killed people. The thing that scared me the most was how he said he felt the same way, that he wished he could just have someone not leave him and how he had trust issues after his former partners. Especially the one I mentioned in the last post, about how his ex partner before me snuck out in the middle of the night and got his family to come get him. His family lived across the country, so it had to have been pretty bad for his ex to call his parents and tell them to come get him. Because they drove across multiple different states to come pick him up in the middle of the night so he could sneak away. I have a major feeling that B left out a lot of their fight and why his ex actually left. Not to mention while I was with him, he watched every move I made and wouldn't let me get on my phone without him seeing what I was doing / texting to people. I have a feeling if he thought I was trying to leave him he would've done something bad. Just like Jeffrey. Jeffrey wouldn't always hurt his victims (Not at first anyway) it was always when they said they had to leave that he would get angry and force them to stay. So, idk man, I could've been killed or worse. Also, I know I said I could've been killed or worse, and some of you are probably thinking what's worse than being killed? Well, to me, a lot of things he could've done would have been worse. Especially if he was trying to be like Dahmer, then I could've gotten acid injected into my brain or been r*aped. Which is exactly what I think he was trying to do, with how much alcohol he was trying to push on me. He also kept 'petting' me and touching my thighs while he told me all the ways he'd kill me 'if he was a serial killer.' I genuinely think that something bad would've happened if I didn't have one HELL of an excuse to leave. Because honestly, my mom couldn't have given a better excuse for me to go that also sounded real and not like a lie. Because, like I said before, I had told him before I met him that my mother had health issues and was always in and out of the hospital, so it was perfect that she used that as an excuse. He got really cold and wasn't speaking to me when he heard my phone call and that I had to leave, but I think if I would've tried to leave without that excuse or by giving him an obvious lie, then I might not be here. I'm also super grateful to my best friends who let me come to their place and stay late instead of going home. Me and my best friend, basically my sister, have talked about this a lot since it happened and every time we do, we try to rationalize why someone would act like that, other than being an actual serial killer / r*pist. But we can never think of a reason besides the fact that he simply is what he seems like. A really unhinged person who could've hurt me badly. Also, this was my FIRST TRUE experience in online dating and I honestly think I'm never going to try that again. I've run into so many creeps trying to date online, AND in real life. Most people who aren't trans probably don't realize or know this, but there are a lot of men that want to do really weird and fucked up things to trans people because I guess they think we are some mutant or something, or 'the best of both worlds.' I've run into them a lot, and when I met B, I thought that was over. I thought I had met an actual good person who was educated on trans topics and was respectful of my boundaries and my body. Nope. Now I'm starting to think dating, at least where I live now, is almost impossible and I think I'm going to be alone for awhile. :') Not to mention, I'm now traumatized after what happened with B, and I already had trouble trusting men, and just people in general. Before meeting him I have already been SAed before, multiple times. I guess I'm simply asking for advice on how to move on from something like this. I was trying, and doing kind of ok, moving on from things that had happened before I met B, but now after what happened with him I feel like I'm back sliding and it's making me relive all my past traumas. I basically trust no one, when it comes to sexual things, besides my two best friends I've known since childhood. I tend to over sexualize everything, even things that aren't sexual at all, and get scared around ANYONE, even family members, who I know deep down don't see me like that. I was also abused as a kid and wasn't able to get out of it until I was eighteen, and I've only just turned twenty now, so it wasn't even until two years ago I was still being abused. I feel I've fallen into the dark again and my panic attacks have gotten worse again. I feel depressed and I didn't realize until recently that I'm suicidal again. I didn't realize it until recently, because when I was younger and suicidal, I knew I was. I've tried unaliving myself before so I didn't think about it because I don't feel that way now. It's different this time. Instead of my thoughts directly wanting me to pull out a gun and, ya know, this time it's more subtle and more of a subconscious action. Like closing my eyes for a few seconds while driving. Or intrusive thoughts about ramming head first into the car in the other lane. Or going hiking and thinking of what it would feel like to step off the cliff. I'm honestly just tired. I feel like every person I meet has some kind of ulterior motive, whatever it is. I'm working at a really nice job but it seems like every time I save up money and am doing good for my future, I have to use it on something unexpected that pops into my life. I'm living with my grandparents for now because they said they weren't going to charge me rent, and I'm super grateful for that, but even still I can't keep money and I kind of just don't see my future anymore. Both my parents were drug addicts, my mother to pain pills then xans after that, my father was mainly an alcoholic but also did meth, pills, and other things. It doesn't help because when I was younger, around my early teen years (13-16) I started smoking cigs when I was 12, then I started smoking weed, which I still do, but then it got worse and I've tried xans, snorting pills I didn't even know what they were, drinking, and I've even done shrooms and LSD. I've also had some really bad trips on LSD that made my severe panic disorder worse and after that I now disassociate a lot too and have trouble knowing if I'm in reality while having a panic attack. And after what happened with B, his house and the smell (Cigs and booze) just reminded me what it was like living with my parents in that crack house looking trailer. It's like my brain won't let me let go of the past and move on. It's like I'm constantly stuck there still. And aside from dating, it's also super hard to meet people as friends where I live. I love my two best friends, one of which has been with me since we were basically fetuses and her parents and mine were friends, so her parents were also abusive drug addicts. It's nice to have someone so close and how we can relate to what we went through. We joke that we were traumatized by our parents, but also by each other's parents as well lol. Even though I'm grateful for them, you never know what's going to happen in the future and I don't want to be solely dependent on them and be able to make new friends, but I just can't. I feel so alone, and my friend I grew up with has been moved out a lot longer than me and has had time to heal, and I don't wanna keep dumping my mental problems on her because it's unfair to her. I feel like I'm just bringing her back to our past with me. When I moved out, I completely cut ties with my father, I don't even like calling him that, as he was the first person to SA me and he is, in general, and evil person. I try to think that evil people don't exist, but then I think of him and I realize they do. My mom though, is a good person when she isn't on anything. Recently though, I blocked her and haven't talked to her in over a month because she OD again on xans and amphetamines. I kind of realized recently that she is almost as bad as my father, even though I never wanted to admit that to myself. Because when I was younger, I admitted to her that he had SAed me and she kept pressuring me to tell her what happened, like, IN DETAIL. I told her no because I didn't want to relive it and think about it, even now I have a lot of repressed memories. And because I wouldn't tell her EXACTLY what happened, she doesn't believe. I think she does, deep down, but she doesn't want it to be real. And after her OD last month, she tried telling me she didn't and that it was just her BLOOD PRESSURE. LIKE OH MY GOD BITCH, WHY DO YOU LIE? She must think I'm stupid or something. Before I blocked her, I cussed her out over text and said something like "Who do you think was the first person at the hospital? Not grandma, not your husband, ME. I've always been there for you first. Who do you think told me you had OD? The doctors when I first got there!" And she still denies it, even though when me and my friend got the hospital she was lying there naked (they had to cut her clothes off to save her) with a breathing tube stuck down her throat. I've tried helping her my whole life but apparently she doesn't want help. So now I've gotten tired of her BS and I blocked her and now my grandma is pressuring me to talking to her, luckily though, my grandpa went through something similar as a kid and understands how it is so he isn't guilt tripping me into talking with her. I'm just tired of having to put into traumatic situations. My mental health just keeps getting worse. Somehow, trauma always finds me and nowadays, it seems my only friends are my demons. It used to not be like this, but now even when I'm with my two closest friends, I still feel lonely. Like they are reminding me that when I leave my friends, I'm alone again. Anyway, I know this probably isn't the right subreddit for this, but I kind of just started ranting, sorry for that.
Also, to clear some things up, no I don't use drugs, not anymore. I've never really been an addict at all in my life, somehow. I just did drugs because I wanted to escape when I was younger, and thankfully I never got addicted to any of them. Not like you can get addicted to LSD or shrooms anyway. The only thing I've got addicted to was cigarettes, which rn, is the least of my concerns. And as for weed, I used to be a major stoner but it started making my panic attacks worse so I stopped for a few years, cold turkey, and only recently started smoking it again. So, I'm not worried about weed and if anything, it's been helping now. Especially since I don't smoke it nearly as much as I used to. So, for those worried about me being or getting on drugs, don't worry I'm fine. I have made a clear boundary for myself to never do anything besides smoking my cigs and weed. Cause I've seen how drugs affect my parents and others I've known and I've sworn to myself that I won't become them. It also sucks though because I see psychedelics as something that can help a lot of people with trauma, and the first shrooms trip I ever did changed my life for the better. Now though, after my bad LSD trip, I don't know if I can every do them again. Maybe one day, but not for the foreseeable furture. Again, sorry for going on a rant. I'll probably post this to another subreddit and see if anyone can help. I'm not looking for therapy as I don't have the money or health insurance. Just looking for someone who can relate that has been able to move past similar things and find happiness. If you've read this far, thank you. Like seriously, from the bottom of my heart. It means a lot to me that someone would read about another person's problems and life experience. I hope whoever is reading this is having a great day / night wherever you are, and are living your best life. And for those reading that are going through a similar situation right now and can't get out, I promise you aren't alone. I haven't really gotten better, so I can't say things get better, but I can say it DOES get easier. All I can say is, you aren't alone in it. There are others, like me, who know your pain. Keep living, it'll be worth it. Even though I'm not doing my best and my mental problems are still with me, that doesn't mean it's all been bad. I've made a lot of amazing memories after I moved out. Keep going.

You guys know what an alpine coaster is? They are like a small roller coaster you find in the mountains. They are also called summer toboggans or mountain coasters and I think there’s some long German compound word they are called in parts of Europe. They are like a roller coaster, but with much smaller one or two person sleds you just sit on instead of multi-person cars you ride in, and instead of being built with like a scaffolding or a framework the tracks are just on the ground, using the elevation of the mountain. Basically it’s a coaster track on the side of a mountain where you ride a sled down.
They are pretty fun. Or at least I used to think so. They are more “personal” than roller coasters and although you get nowhere near the speed on them that you do on a good traditional roller coaster and they can’t do corkscrews or loops or anything like that the openness and simplicity of the ride gives an impression of a much greater speed. You’re just sitting there with nothing but a little plastic sled and the track between you and the ground as it goes zooming by. It’s like the difference between how fast a go-cart feels compared to how fast a sports car feels. You know the sports car goes faster but the open, simpleness of a go-cart feels a different kind of fast. There’s plenty of POV Youtube videos if you want to get the basic idea of what they are.
I used to love alpine coasters. Used to.
My family used to go to Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge and up and down the Smokey Mountains for vacations when I was a kid and they are common in that area and I’d always rode them every chance I got.
But as with so many things after I grew up and went to college they just became part of my childhood that slipped away. They aren’t exactly common once you get away from the mountains.
Until one cool spring afternoon in 2004. I was in my final year at college and I was driving back to campus in Tennessee after a short visit to my folks in North Carolina. It was only like a 4 or 5 hour drive via the most efficient route and I had no need to be back at campus early so instead of taking the freeway all the way I got off and took part of my trip through the mountains. The scenery was nicer and I admit I liked pushing my Camaro just a little faster than I should through the twisty mountain roads.
Just after lunchtime happened upon one of those little by-the-highway tourist towns deep somewhere in the Smoky Mountains near the Carolina/Tennessee border. Nothing fancy, a gas station/truck stop, a diner, a couple of places selling tourist merch nestled deep in the mountains. I pulled into the gas station. My tank was getting low and I needed to stretch my legs, maybe grab something to eat. It was still early and I only had another couple of hours. I could kill an hour or so and still make it back to campus at a decent hour.
I pulled into the gas station and was filling my tank when I happened to glance across the road and… well I’ll be damned. There it was. “The Blue Ridge Alpine Coaster.” Nestled on the side of the mountain was a building, a mockup of a red barn, where a single railed track that led up into the mountains, where it soon got lost in the greenery. Wooden hand painted standees of cartoon character bears dressed in stereotypical “Hillbilly” getup stood around, some of them holding signs showing the ride hours and ticket costs and other info. I had to admit, as silly as it was, it made me smile.I finished pumping my gas and, well, nostalgia is a helluva thing. I decided then and there I could waste a little time riding an Alpine Coaster again after all these years before getting back on the road.
I parked my car in a corner of the truck stop's parking lot, put my phone in the center console, this being the days before smart phones when people didn’t keep their phones with them 24/7 and I didn’t want my old Nokia brick phone to fall out during the ride, locked my car and walked across the mountain highway to the Alpine Coaster building.
Getting closer, the place was less inviting. The half hearted attempt at a whimsical faux-Americana kitsch was far less effective when it brushed up against the actual decaying, run down wooden building. Hell calling it a building was generous. It was a wood frame holding up a long roof that covered the area where you got on the sleds. The wood boards creaked under my footsteps.
The only real enclosed structure was a shack that held, what I assumed, was a ticket booth. A door on the side had both a single occupancy bathroom with an out of order sign on it. An old Pepsi machine buzzed and glowed next to it.
Still the place looked alive. Ahead of me a bored looking attendant was helping a mother and her young son into one of the sleds while in a bored monotone repeating the safety brief. A few people were waiting in line at the ticket booth. Up in the mountains the playful shouts of people on the ride echoed down. Fond memories of my own childhood rides flooded my mind.10 minutes and 15 dollars later I was settling into the hard plastic seat of a bright red sled sat atop a simple aluminum rail.
I couldn’t help but grin as the sled slowly climbed the track up the mountains, making click-clack ratcheting sounds that hit my nostalgia centers hard. I felt good. The air was cool and crisp and smelled of pine.Higher and higher in the mountains we went. I don’t know if this is my mind trying to make sense of it after the fact but when I remember these moments, the last good moments, I sometimes think I remember a very slight, very subtle pit of fear in my stomach. I honestly don’t know if I felt it at the time or not or it’s just how my mind tries to make sense of it looking back at.
But either way mostly I was enjoying myself. I smiled. I was a kid again. I could hear riders in front of me let out that initial yell of terrified glee you get at the first drop of any good ride.
It peaked. I glanced around. I could see for miles, rolling hills and mountains. I the sled tipped over and zoomed down the mountain and I let out the same happy yell I heard from the other passengers.The ride zoomed down the mountain, catching speed. The mountain forest floor zoomed past, only a few feet under me. Trees zoomed past. I gave out a happy whoop as the ride banked hard around a curve and then looped back under itself.Another dip, another curve. I closed my eyes, enjoying the feel of the G-forces pulling me every which way.
There was no one exact single moment where things started to go “wrong.” The ride kept going. And going. At this point the first creeping thought entered my head.
The ride… was still going.
It just started to hit me… this ride was going on for a really long time. I had taken a dozen rides on various coasters of this type before that day and they topped out at about 5 minutes or so, and that was the long ones. Longer than a traditional roller coaster but not that long. This one had been going on for what felt like 10, maybe even 15 minutes.
I looked back over my shoulder and could only see trees, moving too fast to really get a bearing on where I was at in relation to anything.
I wasn't exactly really worried yet. Okay so I had found a particularly long alpine coaster. At the time I wasn’t 100% wasn't sure they didn’t exist or anything like that. I was a little… unnerved but nothing was happening that was impossible. Yet.
I was trying to talk myself back into just enjoying the ride and stop overthinking it, and halfway succeeded, when out of nowhere I suddenly banked hard, the track jutting out almost over a sheer cliffside. I gripped the sled more tightly as I was whipped around. The ride then dipped hard and picked up speed, barreling down the side of the mountain.
I was pushed back against the seat by the force of the drop. Jesus I didn’t remember them being this rough. I was feeling slightly nauseous. And where had this elevation drop come from I wondered? I was still in the foothills and I didn’t remember seeing anything but gentle rolling hills and light drops from looking at the ride’s route earlier. How the ride had managed such a long, steep drop in this area I didn’t know. . For the first time I hoped that the ride would be over soon. I had no idea then how much I would want that same hope to be true so much more as time went on.
With a whiplash motion I was whipped forward and then back as the ride leveled out on flat ground again, but by this point I was going fast, too fast. My neck hurt from the mild whiplash and I felt sour in my throat and for a moment the contents of my stomach threatened to come back up. For the first, but hardly the last time the ride felt unsafe. Alpine Coasters are tame affairs, much slower and gentler than full on roller coasters but this thing was throwing me around like no thrill ride I had ever been on.
I looked around. I mean I wasn’t that deep into the woods. I should have been able to see a glimpse of something; the highway, the gas station, the tourist shops, the Alpine Coaster office, something, anything. But nothing. Just trees.
I forced back some panic for the first time. I closed my eyes and counted to ten. The ride zoomed along. I counted to 60. I counted to 60 again. And again. Okay this was getting uncomfortably harder and harder to explain.
Suddenly I noticed that up ahead the track seemed to just end, for one brief, terrible moment I thought the track just ended but I was wrong. Almost without warning the track dipped in an almost vertical drop. I almost screamed as I plummeted for 20, maybe 30 seconds before flattening out again.
By this point the voice in my head that was telling me something was wrong was louder and I could no longer tell myself it was wrong. This ride could not have been this long. I tried to make sense of it, wondering if somehow I had gotten diverted onto some kind of maintenance track or, hell for one brief irrational moment even entertaining the idea that I had wound up on an actual train track somehow. But that was absurd. The rail below me was not a train track, it was still just the simple, aluminum rail of an alpine coaster and there had been no diversions or junctions in the track. I was still on the ride, as insane as that was starting to feel. Had the ride somehow looped? Again after having the thought I immediately dismissed it as crazy. There’s no way I could have missed the ride building where I got on. And what kind of ride loops over and over?
The sled zoomed through the forest, oddly never seeming to lose speed despite the relatively flat grade of the track. I cursed myself for leaving my phone in the car and not wearing a watch. I don’t know exactly how long I had been on the ride at that point but it felt like I had been on the ride for a half hour, maybe more. But time is a funny thing when you’re in a situation you’ve never been in. Could have been more, could have been less, at that point.
My pride finally failed me. I started to scream for help. I screamed out that the ride was broken, to stop it, that I needed help. I did that for about ten minutes or so I think. The ride kept going. Mostly flat, level track with occasional mild dips and turns. But the simple length of the ride grew more and more unnerving and unexplainable.
I thought about just bailing out. But the ride, impossibly, was still not slowing down and chunks of mountain rock and thick tree trunks were all around me. Bailing out without risking smashing into a rock or a tree seemed impossible.
The ride kept going.
Up ahead the forest was clearing out some, I could see the forest brightening, more sunlight making it through the canopy.
I wasn’t prepared for what I saw.
The trees stopped and I had just enough time to take in a flat, open area of rock maybe 40, 50 yards at most before another sheer cliff. The tracks twisted and turned and then shot straight down. But that wasn’t the worst of it. For a moment, a very short moment, I had a clear view for miles and the landscape was, to be blunt, totally impossible. Any possibility that I had just stumbled on some incredibly long ride was blasted out of my head. Barren, volcanic looking rock stretched for miles. Jagged, black rocky outcroppings as far as the eye could see. I was in the goddamn Smoky Mountains. They don’t look like that.
I had a few moments for the terror of that view to settle in before the cart plunged into another horrifying drop. I gripped the handles of the cheap plastic sled until my knuckles turned white. The drop felt completely vertical, like I was falling at terminal velocity. I screamed. My stomach dropped and turned. I imagined the sled coming away from the track and me just plummeting screaming to my death on the rocks below. But somehow the ride still functioned. I closed my eyes tightly and just waited for whatever was going to happen. Eventually after several what felt like a full minute of steep plunging the track again leveled out, and I opened my eyes to see myself moving at breakneck speed over that black, rocky landscape.
Now that I was moving on a more or less flat horizontal track again I took a few deep breaths. I looked over the edge of the track. Nothing but that black, jagged rock, almost looking like obsidian, zooming past. I had no idea how fast the sled was moving now. Fast. Faster than a gravity powered sled should be moving. And the track was higher off the ground now. Alpine slides usually stick pretty close to the ground, but I was 20 feet or so in the air, the track suspended in the air, a simple metal tube tower like a power pylon every few yards.
Without any immediate threat and the sled moving fast but steadily and level I was able to think about my situation again, for all the good that did me. Ahead of me the track just continued to the horizon, nothing but the same rocky landscape as far as I could see. I craned my neck to look back over my shoulder and looked back behind me and it looked the same. Even the mountains were but distant specs on the horizon behind me.
This was insane. There’s not a giant seemingly endless field of black jagged rock in the goddamn Smoky Mountains. There’s no cliff faces tall and steep enough for a multi-minute vertical drop. And alpine coasters were small affairs, not major engineering projects that span miles with pylons and vertical tracks. It made no sense.
Sadly it wasn’t going to start making any more sense anytime soon.
The ride kept going.
I was on this rocky landscape for several hours. I feel comfortable saying this because I could actually notice the sun getting lower in the sky. And the sled wasn’t slowing down despite the grade of the track being flat. I was getting cramped from sitting and stretched my legs and twisted my back as best I could. Didn’t do much help. My eyes were starting to get irritated from the constant wind in them. Worst of all it was starting to get chilly. I only had on a light jacket, a windbreaker, just something to keep the breeze off me, no real insulation. I was cold, my joints were stiff, I was hungry and thirsty. My eyes watered and my throat was so dry it was sore.
But none of that was as bad as just how little sense this all made. There’s nothing like this place anywhere near the Smoky Mountains. This was like some volcanic rock landscape. The more I thought about it the less sense it made.
The ride kept going.
My mind didn’t even try to process this. Whatever I was experiencing simply couldn’t be possible. I was crazy. I was dreaming. The CIA had kidnapped me and dosed me with some new version of LSD and I was in a straightjacket in a padded room at Area 51.
The sled kept zooming along as the sky turned to dusk. Soon the bridge disappeared from my view and I continued on along the endless, rocky, featureless landscape.
I sat back against the sled, mentally and physically numb. I was exhausted. I was thirsty. I was cramping up. I was hungry. I had to pee. I held it for as long as I could, then had no choice but just wet myself. I cried until I had no more tears left. Then I just sat there.
The ride kept going.
By the time the sun dipped below the horizon my throat felt like sandpaper. I dug around in my jacket pockets hoping to find a stick of gum or piece of candy. Nothing. I checked again, having nothing else to do. Under a crumpled store receipt in the inner pocket of my jacket was a single old, forgotten cough drop. I unwrapped it from the paper and popped it in my mouth. Saliva flooded back into my mouth and I was overwhelmed by the methanol and medicine taste. It was something at least, although I knew it would be a brief and temporary fix at best.
I felt my eyes get heavy. It was getting colder. That mountain cold. That deep cold the mountains have even into the early spring when the sun goes down. That kind that just pulls the heat right out of you. I shivered. A terrible, horrible certainty came to me. I would ride until I passed out from exhaustion or the hypothermia set in. My body would tumble off the sled to fall and skip across the rocky ground like a stone skipping across a lake, my bones breaking as I tumbled until my body finally came to a stop. If I was lucky I would be killed and not have to lie for days, broken and bruised, on the ground until death took me.
The ride kept going. The ride kept going. The fucking ride kept going.
“Fuck you” I said to the ride, my voice a horse whisper. I pulled my jacket closer around me, for all the good it did. The cold wind was slowly but surely pulling my body heat away. My shivering got worse, crossing the line from a simple normal shiver into those deep, almost violent full body ones.. I wasn’t anything you could call an experienced outdoorsman, but I knew enough to know that wasn’t a good sign.
It was getting dark. There was a full moon at least so I wasn’t totally in the dark.
About then I noticed something. The landscape, what little I could see in the fading light, was changing. It was smoothing out, becoming less rocky and craggy. Up ahead an odd, shimmering light was starting to appear on the ground.
I was over it before I even realized what it was. The tracks were going over a smooth surface.
Water. It was a lake. The odd lights I had seen were the moon, reflected in ripples on the lake.
Within minutes I was out of the view of the land. After the nearly endless rocky landscape and everything else I had seen, it scared me how little I was shocked. I didn’t like how mentally numb I was getting. I leaned over. There was enough moonlight to see the water, 15 or 20 feet below the track. The pylons holding up the track went into the water, the light wasn’t good enough to even make a guess at how far they went down or how deep the water was.I leaned back in the sled. My eyes were red and bloodshot from the constant wind. I closed them. This was a mistake.I jerked awake. I don’t know if I dozed off for a split second or an hour. My weight had shifted and I caught myself as my center of gravity was in danger of sending me off the sled and into the water.
I screamed in anger. A deep primal scream. I hurt so bad. My joints felt like they were full of glass. My limbs were full of pins and needles. I glanced over at the water. For the first time on the very edges of my brain a tiny voice started to speak up, telling me that I could be all over if I just jumped. I shut the voice up, but it scared me still.
I sat there as the ride went on. It felt like hours. Eventually the lake ended in a rocky shore line. The damned ride. There was no safe place to bail out. If the ride slowed down, it was high in the air, if it moved toward the ground it sped up. Sharp rocks, big trees, nothing you could safely bail out into.
I kept having to force myself awake. I kept dozing off. Once I felt myself falling asleep and drove a vicious uppercut into my own nose to stave it off.
I seriously started to think about how much longer I could hang on. The voice came back again. This time I didn’t shut it up. I wasn’t admitting it to myself yet, but I was starting to think about the best way to land that would end it quickly if I needed to.
Something was ahead. The track seemed to dip into the ground. I was too tired, too beaten to even get scared. I was just resigned to whatever happened at this point.
With little warning the track took my sled into a tunnel in the ground. Everything went completely pitch black. After several moments even the dim moonlight was gone.
This was the worst part. The creepy forest, the immense rocky landscape, the eerie lake… those were bad. But this was just nothing. Nothing to look at, nothing to hear, nothing for reference or sense of where I was going. The walls of the tunnel felt like they were inches from me in every direction. The air felt thick, like there wasn’t enough oxygen.
With every moment I was in that tunnel I lost a little more hope. After a long, long time I made a decision. When I got out of this tunnel, I would jump. I didn’t care anymore. Hopefully there would be a spot where I could be certain the fall would instantly kill me. I was done. The ride had beaten me. I sat there, waiting for a chance to end this on my terms. That was all I had left.
Eventually up ahead, a tiny speck of light appeared. I gathered my strength, ready to end it. I sat up, getting my legs under me so I could jump as soon as we were clear. The sled burst out of the tunnel. The dim light of the full moon was enough to be momentarily blinding after the pitch black of the tunnel.. I gave my eyes a moment to adjust.
I was back in a normal looking Appalachian forest. Rolling hills, green trees. The air smelled of pine again. I heard an owl hoot off somewhere.
Slowly I lowered myself back into a setting position, in shock. At first I refused to believe it but the ride was slowing down. I held still, making sure my mind wasn’t playing tricks on me, but no, the cheap plastic sled that had been my world for what felt like an eternity was slowing down.
Up ahead, a structure was visible, peeking out from among the trees in the dim lighting as the sled moved down the track.
It was the Alpine Slide building. The crappy fake red barn where I had boarded this cursed ride so long ago. I blinked and rubbed my eyes, sure it was either my mind or the cursed ride playing tricks with me. But the building stayed there.
It grew closer and closer. The track leveled completely out. The sled slowed down more. Before I had the time to really come to terms with it I arrived back at the building.
The sled slowed to a stop, gently pumping against another sled parked on the track. I sat there for a few moments, gasping in great big gulping fear breaths, trying to assure myself the ride didn’t have one last trick of its sleeve.
I looked around. The place was empty, deserted. The overhead lights were still on and the old Pepsi machine still glowed and buzzed, but the ticket booth was dark and empty, a metal gate pulled down over the ticket window.
Suddenly it hit me that I was free and I practically leapt out of the sled and onto the platform. I immediately collapsed. My legs were jelly and my head was spinning. I tried to stand up again and doubled over, dry heaving. Have you ever been out on a boat for a day and have that weird reverse motion sickness when you’re back on solid land? It was like that times a hundred. My inner ear was literally pounding, all the motion had really done a number on it.
I laid there for a few moments and eventually forced myself to stand up on my two wobbling legs. I looked around, a horrible certainty creeping into my mind that there would be no exit, no way off the platform but to my relief an exit turnstyle, one of those full height ones, was set into the fence that surrounded the ride property.
I went through it and found myself back on the main road. The truckstop was still there, still open but far less busy. My car sat in the same corner of the parking lot I had left it.
I allowed myself one look back, just one quick one. The metal skeleton of the Alpine Slide track sat there, dark and quiet but otherwise normal.
I stumbled-ran back to my car, dug the keys out of my pocket, and collapsed inside. When the door shut I let out a primal scream, the tons of fear and confusion and anger all fusing into a single, raw emotion. I screamed again and again.
After a few moments I felt like I was emotionally at least back to a place where I could act, although I wasn’t sure yet what to do next. Not really knowing what to do I cranked the car. The A/C had been on low when I shut off the car and it came roaring back to life and cold air blowing on me almost sent me back into a full on panic attack. I fumbled with the climate controls until the air stopped blowing directly on me, then calmed down enough to turn the heat on, helping to get the chill out of my bones. There was a half full bottle of water in the center console cup holder and I grabbed it and chugged it. Nothing ever tasted as good before or sense as that few ounces of water.
That was when I noticed the clock on the radio head unit. It was 4:17 in the morning. It had been about one, one thirty or so in the afternoon when I got on the accursed ride.
Over 15 hours. I had been on the goddamn ride for over 15 hours. Over half a day.
I just sat there. Warming up. Calming down. I was exhausted. I was dehydrated. I can’t even describe how my head felt. I probably had at least a minor case of hypothermia. I thought about going into the gas station and asking for help but what would I even say, and more than anything I just wanted to get away from this place. And I just wanted to get away. I wanted to be nowhere near that damn ride.
I put the Camaro in gear and pulled into the street and in panic I immediately slammed on the brakes. I was lucky there was no traffic on the road at that moment. The feeling of accelerating to just normal surface street speeds made me sick to my stomach. I gathered myself and very slowly accelerated the car I usually treated with a very heavy foot up to 30 miles an hour. Every time I tried to accelerate at a pace faster than “Old Lady Going to Church, Uphill” I would have a panic attack. I was okay once I was up to speed, but accelerating freaked me out after being on that ride.
I drove about 30 minutes, putting some arbitrary amount of distance between myself and the coaster. Eventually I made it back to where the twisty mountain road met back up with a major road that would eventually meet back up with the highway. After a few more minutes of driving I saw the onramp for the highway. There was one of those big truckstop travel plazas and pulled in, parking right up at the door. I smelled like pee and I can only imagine how I looked, but I didn’t care.
I kept a couple of emergency 20s in the back of my wallet and spent it on the biggest bottle of water the store had, an overpriced bottle of eye drops, and a huge travel mug of coffee. The clerk looked at me as if he was expecting me to either drop dead or rob him the entire time.
Back in my car I downed the coffee. I put a few eye drops in each of my eyes and sat there as the caffeine took effect until I felt like I could make it back to my apartment. The sun was just coming up when I finally pulled out of the truck stop and got on the freeway. I slowly, very slowly, accelerated up to highway speed, put the Camaro in cruise control, and let the miles start to drift away. I turned on the radio, I needed to hear human voices. Every time my mind went back to what had just happened I turned the radio up louder, eventually drowning it out with painful levels of rock music. I wasn’t ready to think about it yet. Yes looking back I know I was just in denial. I finally made it back to the crappy little apartment I had off campus, a little two story walk up studio. I let myself in and collapsed on the cheap couch. I was asleep before I even had the time to decide whether or not to do anything else. I woke up later that afternoon. I took a shower and ate a meal and didn’t think about the ride. I washed the pee stained filthy clothes I had been wearing and didn’t think about the ride. I went back to class and didn’t think about the ride. Every time I thought about the ride I forced it out of my head. I’m sure this wasn’t the most mentally healthy thing to do but what can you say?
I didn’t forget about it, don’t be silly. This isn’t the kind of thing you forget. One day while looking up something else in the university’s library my curiosity got the better of me and I looked up the Alpine Slide. No website but a few Google Map and Yelp mentions. None of them mentioned anything weird, certainly nothing even remotely like what I experienced. Near as I can tell it closed sometimes in the winter of 2012.
Life went on. I mean, that’s what it does. The next day was a little better. And the day after that a little better. And the day after that a little better still. I met a nice girl. Graduated. Got married. Got a nice house in the suburbs. Got a dog. Had a daughter. Spent a lot of time happy and not thinking about being trapped on an endless alpine coaster.And that was my life for many, many years after that.
Until a few weeks back when as a very different person I found myself driving a boring and safe mid sized family SUV through those same mountains. My wife Carol, 5 months pregnant, sat in the passenger seat, our 6 year old daughter Emily in a booster seat in the back, and Max our mixed breed mutt next to her. It had been a nice pleasant trip, driving back from visiting her folks.
I hadn’t thought about that fucking ride in so long I barely registered that I was in the same general area until it was too late. Suddenly I realized that little mountain tourist trap town was only a few minutes down the road. I swallowed hard and gripped the steering wheel hard. Carol was looking out the window at the scenery and Emily was deep into some kid’s Youtube video on an iPad. I forced myself to keep my breath steady as we rounded the corner.The town was still there, sorta. Time had not been kind to it. The gas station was still there, at some point it had been bought out by Shell. The tourist trap shops were still there. One of them was now a vape shop. The diner was closed, the building looking like it sat unused for a long time.
But of course that’s not what I cared about. A looked over at the site where the Alpine Coaster once stood. It was gone. The kitschy fake barn was gone. The site was just a bare concrete slab with a chainlink fence around it. Faded “no trespassing” and “for sale” signs hung off the fence. A pile of old, decaying lumber that might have once long ago been part of the structure covered part of the old lot. No sign of the track remained outside of some old concrete support posts dotting the side of the mountain.
I exhaled out a breath I hadn’t even realized I had been holding in. Soon the little town disappeared in my rear view mirror.
About a half hour later we stopped for gas. I pulled up to a gas pump across from a massive motorhome. Max stuck his head out the window and started barking at a little white dog, a toy breed of some kind, in the window of the motorhome. Carol and Emily immediately headed into the store to restock on snacks while I fueled up.
I stood there, a half smile on my lips as Max barked and wagged his tail in an attempt to attract the attention of the other dog while I filled up the tank, said dog doing an admirable job of ignoring him.
Right about the time I finished fueling up and cleaning the bugs off the windshield Carol returned from inside the store, Emily in tow, arms filled with two full sized bags of Salt and Vinegar Potato Chips and what looked to be a half dozen individually wrapped pickles.
I raised an eyebrow at the collection of food but knew better than to question a pregnant woman's snack choices.
“Should we take Max for a quick walk?” Carol asked. The travel plaza had a nice little gated dog walking area off to the side.
“Yeah probably not a bad idea, he’s been cooped up in the car for a few hours.” I said. Max, upon hearing his name and the word “walk” , forgot about the other dog and upgraded from wagging his tail to wagging his entire body while making whining sounds and staring right at me.
About this time I became half aware that the big motor home next to us was pulling away. I didn’t think much of it, outside of doing a quick automatic mental check to make sure Emily was well clear of the moving vehicle, but she was safely between me and our SUV, well out of the way.
But that was when Emily looked behind me and cheerfully yelled “Daddy look a roller coaster! Can I ride the coaster?”
It’s cliche as fuck I know but my blood went cold.
I turned around slowly, certain in my knowledge that terrible old decrepit Alpine Coaster would be there, having just popped into existence to trap me again.
That.. is not what I saw. Sure enough there was a coaster there, one I hadn’t noticed earlier because it had mostly been blocked by the motor home, but there it was. It was even an Alpine Coaster.
But it was not the same coaster I had encountered those years ago. That was immediately obvious. It was a small but modern and newish looking setup with neon lights and a bunch of people. There was an actual building where you bought tickets and a little snack stand.
“Daddy! Can we go on the coaster!” Emily asked again.
My mouth made motions but no words came out. I glanced over at Carol, hoping she’d say we didn’t have time but to my horror she smiled and said “You know what? That does sound like fun. Daddy will take you while I take Max for a walk.”
My mind raced, trying to think of a way to get out of it. But Emily was already dragging me across the parking lot to the entrance.
I patted my pocket, making sure my phone was in it. Every fiber of my being was screaming to run away. I slept walked through the line and the ticket booth while Emily bounced happily.
We got into a two seat plastic sled. This one was actually a lot nicer than the one my mind wouldn’t stop thinking about. It had two nice cushioned seats, big grab handles, even a nice rollbar.
The sled started up the track. I fought back the panic. I swerved my head around, keeping the building in my view. I was terrified of losing sight of it. We made it to the top and Emily did a happy squeal as we started down the side of the mountain.
My heart raced. Any second, any second my mind told me we’d lose sight of the building and then the ride would never end. The ride sped down the mountain. My mind tortured me with thoughts of not only going through it again, but seeing Emily go through it. The ride went around a big, banking turn. Emily kept shouting happily. How long before Carol reported us missing I wondered? Could I keep Emily calm? What if it lasted even longer this time? What if this time it never ended?
And then we were back at the start of the ride. The same attendant who had helped us into the sled was helping Emily out. I stepped out. The attendant gave me a brief look but said nothing. I guess I looked a little wild eyed.
I was fine. Emily was fine. It had been a perfectly normal, fun ride.
“That was fun Daddy! Thank you!” Emily said. I forced a smile back. “It was fun.” I responded, hoping like I sounded like I meant it.
I took Emily’s hand and we walked back to the car. Max saw us coming and barked happily. Carol looked up from the pint of Ben and Jerry’s she had somehow acquired and added to her snack collection while we were gone and smiled at us.
“Did you have fun?” she asked.
“It was so fun Mommy!” Emily said.
Carol smiled down at her, but then looked at me and frowned. “Are you okay?” Carol could read my face a lot better than the attendant could. “You’re pale.”
I smiled and this time the smile felt real. “Ya know what. Yeah, I think I am okay.”
Carol looked a little puzzled, but didn’t press it. We loaded Emily back in her booster seat, stopped Max from trying desperately to eat half a discarded gas station hot dog off the ground and got him back in the car. Carol and her small collection of snack food took her place in the passenger seat and I got in the driver's seat.I smiled. I cranked the car. I put it in gear. I pulled out of the gas station and back on the road, this time accelerating just a little faster than I had in years.

Hail, fellow Helldivers!
I’m a game dev with over 20 years experience, half of that on live service games or MMOs, all of it on core combat for action games, on game teams ranging from 10 people to over 600.
I play a ton of hard co-op action games, and I was a huge fan of Helldivers 1. I’m honestly in awe of how good Helldivers 2 is, even after the hundreds of hours I’ve put into it, and how they’ve sustained the pace of updates for so long after launch.
Yes, this is a throwaway Reddit account, I wanted to share some of my thoughts without inviting death threats.
Development
This game must have been in development since shortly after Arrowhead’s last released game, Helldivers 1 (plus whatever DLC and maintenance), so, 8 years give or take (I sent Pilestedt a congratulatory email, but presumably he’s drowning in them, haha).
I ran into the devs at GDC 2019, shared a few drinks and we talked shop about our similar games. They were super cagey but very excited about what they were working on, even moreso when they found out I was a huge fan of HD1. They were clearly already deep in development of HD2 at that point.
This has been discussed elsewhere, but it adds to how impressive this game is: this is the same engine (Autodesk Stingray) as Helldivers 1, a top-down game with 2D gameplay and much lower visual fidelity. Stingray is no longer supported by Autodesk as of sometime after 2018, so most of the features HD2 required would have been built in-house by Arrowhead. To my knowledge there’s only one other studio actively using the engine, and that’s Fat Shark, the developers of (most recently) Warhammer 40,000: Darktide.
The AH team has grown massively in size over the past 8 years. I don’t have the exact numbers, but it’s a 5x to 10x increase in size. Scaling up that fast and not ruining your company culture is super hard, and you can see plenty of other studios that have tried to grow so they can build bigger games and have fallen apart doing it.
Helldivers 2 easily has a AAA level of polish. I’ve gone back to HD1 recently, which at the time looked and played super well, and the improvements are night and day. HD2’s production values compare favorably to any random AAA game released in the last few years
Weapons
Building first or third person weapons to this level of quality is extremely expensive. A unique gun for a AAA first person shooter might take 4-6 weeks of artist time and the same (or more) of designer time to set up and tune the gameplay. For any completely new type of weapon, factor in around 6 months of animator time, and a few weeks for a variant that has a different reload animation or similar. E.g. all rifle-sized shotguns might use the same base shotgun animation set, but the continuous reload shotguns would have a different reload animation than the Breaker family. Then you need VFX and audio too.
Vehicles are even moreso, taking months for each, more if they can seat multiple players or have points that contact the ground (e.g. wheels).
Environments
Building environments that look this good is expensive even if you know what you want, having built a prototype version, you then have to iterate on it while you refine the gameplay and then build the final art. Building environments that look this good and are procedurally generated in as freeform a way as in HD2 is mind-boggling. Let alone doing that in a way that runs fast enough. Sure once it’s all up and running you have a ton of variety for relatively cheap, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen the proc gen create a serious gameplay problem, and that indicates very clever design and thorough testing.
AI
AI that works as well as this is expensive to build, and typically computationally expensive at runtime too. In games like Call of Duty or whatever, you have a static environment, with maybe 10-20 active AI at a time, prebuilt navmesh (which is a hand-drawn or generated map that allows AI to move around the environment without having to calculate valid geometry constantly at runtime), and level or encounter designers have hand scripted a lot of what looks like emergent AI behavior. HD2 can’t do any of that; there can be hundreds of enemies active at once, the environments are procedurally generated, AND terrain can be deformed, buildings can be destroyed etc. The AI can’t be scripted to the same degree as on a static map, probably the devs have hints that are procedurally added to the world and not much more. It helps that all of the enemies we’ve seen so far are the “implacably advancing” kind, typically they don’t have any complex behaviors, and instead the design of the character themselves and their attacks carries the gameplay. Smart design. The Illuminate in HD1 were much sneakier, it’ll be interesting to see how that faction translates to a full 3D game with a lot more enemies active at once.
UI
This game has a lot of quality of life features that it’s easy to take for granted, but are hard to build, and hard to retrofit to an existing game, for example:
· A zoomable, pingable minimap (IMO this is a best-in-class minimap implementation)
· A ping system
· Battlepass implementation allowing for not expiring old battle passes.
And all of this is UI-heavy, where UI is one of the most expensive things to make in AAA games. Every project I’ve shipped, UI has been a bottleneck. It doesn’t help that every company basically builds a UI system from scratch, since engines rarely have something shippable built in, and Scaleform (the most prominent UI middleware) went away. And then it takes a ton of iteration to get to a point where a feature is powerful and intuitive to players.
Gamefeel
If you play much of the most highly-regarded AAA shooters, you might not like the feel of some of the weapons in Helldivers 2 by comparison. They often feel slow to use, hard to aim, and punishing of misses, bad timing or bad positioning. Some of this is a polish thing and probably isn’t intended, e.g. scopes that look janky in first person, misaligned reticles and similar stuff. Most of it though looks deliberate, and supports the gameplay they’re laser-focused on building. The weapons are largely useful in very specific situations, and are not power fantasy moments for the player. There are serious tradeoffs, including “if I’m caught by a melee enemy with a Recoilless Rifle out, I’m in trouble”, the most powerful support weapons preventing you from bringing a shield, the snappiest weapons typically only being useful against weak enemies, etc. Most mass-market shooters sacrifice this extreme level of tradeoff in service of making the game feel better to play, and can lack gameplay variety as a result.
Given all of the above, most of the content that Arrowhead has released post ship must have been built alongside the rest of the game. It’s unlikely that they’re able to turn around 3 new weapons, new giant enemies, new mission types etc every month for several months in a row building them from scratch since ship. And yet, the game at launch still felt complete. This is a hard balance to strike. I wonder how much near-shippable content they have in their war-chest, and whether they’ll be able to generate more quickly enough to satisfy the appetite of the community on an ongoing basis.
Balance
Typically on a live game, the same designers build gameplay, ship it, and then balance it in patches post-ship. Sometimes a studio will have a separate “live team”, either dedicated, or rotating members of the dev team through it, but this isn’t common and it doesn’t look like Arrowhead splits the team up like this.
In any case, players always ask why developers ever nerf anything, and it’s for three reasons:
· Typically only a small number of things (weapons, abilities, heroes) are dominant, and a very large number are OK or weak in the current meta – buffing everything else would be extremely expensive, and since it’s the same people doing this work and building new content, it’d reduce the amount of new content the team could make. So it’s much more efficient to tamp down the overpowered things as a priority, and buff some other options at the same time.
· “No nerf, only buff” results in player power creep over time, which makes the game easier, and eventually will require a correction either in the form of a large scale nerf pass or buffs to enemies – both of these are bad: players hate widespread nerfs, and buffing enemies can put the game in a degenerate state where lethality is skewed, or only the best players can compete because they have all the best gear, or you end up in an arms race between player design and enemy design as both teams try to react to player feedback or overall game difficulty.
· Having a small number of overpowered things is much more destructive to a varied meta than a small number of weak things. Say you have 100 abilities and 3 of them are overpowered. Well, now everyone’s only using 3% of the possible content. Say you have 100 abilities and 3 of them are too weak.The other 97% is viable. Overly simplistic, clearly there’s a gradient, but you get the idea.
BTW the pace at which Arrowhead has updated balance is extremely fast for a large PvE game. Some small PvP-only games can react this quickly to a developing meta, but on large-scale games it takes weeks or months of testing and platform certification to ship balance updates on consoles. And “hotfixes”, i.e. very quick responses to critical issues, have a high level of scrutiny on them, i.e. lots of justifiable red tape, and often require crunch.
Community Interaction
It’s extremely rare for developers from large studios at any level to talk directly to the community, mostly because the gaming community burned those bridges long ago, by doxing devs they don’t agree with, sending them death threats, or just generally abusing them publicly and anonymously. No way in hell would I be public facing, and no one at any studio should be required to unless it’s explicitly part of their job. And even then, I feel for community managers. Direct communication from devs is a precious thing, and not one that should be taken for granted or used as an avenue for abuse.
*Salutes* to Arrowhead
Huge, huge kudos to Arrowhead. This game is an absolute triumph. To go from a small team making top-down games, to a medium-sized AAA team that shipped a game that catapulted right to the top of the most-played charts and game of the year lists and has stayed there is a massive accomplishment. I hope you’re all seeing a big payday from this success!

I'm a 42 year old male, I met my wife when I was 18, she was 23 and we began 'dating' when I was 21, working a job I hated in the same place she worked (casino workers, if you know, you know). We hooked up at a Xmas party and started a very awkward relationship. I say awkward because we had some weird trouble having sex for the first like 6 months... it's odd when I think back on it, should have been a huge red flag but she was draped in reg flags the entire time and it didn't seem matter to me. Aside from that, when we finally did have sex she got pregnant... she was not at all ready, neither was I really, but are you ever? At any rate, I didn't have too much of say in it, she decided on an abortion and I supported her. We stayed together after that horribly shitty experience, our relationship was never really all that good, lots of petty fighting/arguing and really the only reason it continued was because we worked opposite shifts and barely saw each other which made it easier to sorta get along.
Fast forward a couple years, we decide to buy a house because financially it made sense (this is almost 20 years ago so it was still affordable at that time), she made quite a bit of money, mostly in tips (so not on paper), but she probably made 2-3 times as much as I did so she never really struggled financially (in her life I don't think) while I came out of poverty and lived paycheck to paycheck up until a few years ago (the pandemic was surprisingly good for my career). This was never really an issue for me, I've lived in debt my whole life and I've always had the optimism that I would eventually work my way out of it, it's really the only bit of confidence I have in myself, my ability to learn and become relatively good at almost anything. This was always a point of contention, my wife hated that I had debt so when we bought the house together we were asked if we wanted a joint bank account as most couples combine their finances with cohabitation, my wife scoffed and adamantly told the banker there was no way she's mixing her finances with mine, it was relatively embarrassing at the time but I was also just 25 (she was 30) so I went along with whatever, it was going to be slightly cheaper for me to pay a mortgage than rent at the time so I was in and she'd cover bills. Things were never that great when living together, things must have been good enough for me to stay but I only look back with anger now so it's hard to see anything good but I'm sure there must have been some.
Fast forward another couple years and I feel extremely pressured (by her and her family mostly, they're old fashioned country type folks) to ask her to marry me... so I do. We stay engaged for another few years, I have no desire to waste a bunch on money on a wedding but she's the one with money so we have the big wedding she wanted. I'll admit it was a pretty great party, I don't remember anything good involving her on our wedding day but I have lots of good memories with family and friends. Afterwards we went on a 'romantic' honeymoon at an all-inclusive tropical resort and this is where I'll get into a bit of what I've dealt with for years... our resort was gorgeous, room was nice, just a room but nice... first thing my wife did was complain, about everything, the bed, the fridge, the lights, the balcony... nothing was good enough for her, this would become a common theme for the next decade plus. We also did not have sex on our honeymoon, she was far too busy complaining and being angry for us to ever get in the 'mood', this would be more foreshadowing of what's to come.
Now, this might seem like I'm building up to her becoming really bad after getting married but that's not really the case... she was just as bad before, it didn't really get worse, it just became more noticeable... or maybe I just tolerated things more in the beginning. The truth is when I look back, there were so many signs, she casually put me down and basically treated me like a child from day one, something I just accepted because looking back, I was a fucking child when we got together... she was not really, five years my senior, and she very much took advantage of that dynamic. Over the years she slowly went about convincing me that the things I wanted were silly/ridiculous and that I should want what she wanted (the nice lawn, the house, kids, etc., etc.) because everyone should. I never wanted these things.
I won't get into details here because I could write a novel on the insane shit I've dealt with over the last 20 years that could prove this, but I did do a lot of research in the last few years and have come to the conclusion that she could have BPD with narcissistic traits... I'm obviously not a doctor so it's definitely not a diagnosis or anything but she ticks almost every box from the many many things I've read on the subject, so if you have a moment and you don't know what BPD is I suggest googling it. It's pretty terrible but it might give you a better idea of my life.
At any rate, I dug myself deeper and deeper, thinking that every next move would finally make her happy and bring me some kind of peace, so we had a child about a year after we were married. This is where it gets really tricky... I sincerely regret having a child with this woman, especially because she is not at all "cut out to be a mother" (her words, not mine) but her mother had been sick on and off with cancer for a few years and her older sister couldn't have children so she felt obligated to give her mom a grandchild, bad reasons all around to have a child. That being said, I love my son more than anything in the world. As much as I wish we did not bring him into this horrible world, he's still the very best thing to happen to me and I will take care of him and love him for the rest of my life no matter what.
I should mention, since I've eluded to it, I've always had self-esteem issues, goes all the way back to having acne problems in high school but my wife has methodically picked away at my confidence and self-esteem over the years, cutting me down to this very day... to the point that I feel very much worthless. I know that I'm not, I know I deserve better but another fun thing about my wife is her desperate need for sympathy... So, not only does she make me feel horrible about myself, she also manages to make me feel horrible FOR her... she's overweight, and I'm sure has low self-esteem herself but she has decided to take it out on others rather than internalize and try to make things better for herself. She would rather blame others for any of her short comings, I guess it's easier to convince yourself you can't do anything about it when it's someone else fault.
I apologize, because I feel like I'm a bit all over the place but I guess I'm just trying to set the scene for where I'm at now and give just a small glimpse of the hell I've been living in and how I got here...
The first few years of my sons life were pretty great (comparatively at least), honestly it was probably the best we've ever gotten along, probably because most of my focus (and hers) was on our son. Unfortunately, her mother passed away just after my son's first birthday, this was obviously devastating for her, not unexpected but still devastating. We're lucky in Canada because she had a full year maternity leave and was able to spend time with her mom. She took it very hard, and decided to stay off work for an additional 4-6 months (can't remember exactly). This was all fine and understandable, I supported her through all of it, financially and emotionally. Once she went back to work, this is when things took a real nose dive... she has always been a very entitled person but upon going back to work (part time I should mention) she decided everything was horrible for her so she was going to make it horrible for everyone around her. This went on for around 4-5 years (again, the time frames get fuzzy because it's been so long), it was hell. I really just plowed through for our son, I made him my main focus and I took care of everything. Without going into it too much, I sort of shifted gears with my job and focused on finding something that worked better for raising a kid, I got onto a full time day shift (unheard in the casino world) and we worked opposite shifts. It was pretty good for child care (that we couldn't afford) as one of us was always home. This made her more contentious... again, going back to the entitled thing, she felt it wasn't 'fair' for me to work a good shift, she should be the one doing that. I eventually worked my way out of casinos and into a work from home job (before COVID) and it was great, she could work whatever shift she had to and I would always be around for our son.
Fast forward again, my son's in school, she's still super angry at life and making things hellish but I do my best to make it good for our son. It's difficult to keep a smile on with him while putting up with temper tantrums and fits from my wife... yes, we had a toddler and she was the one who threw fits. For an example, I can recall one specific Xmas where my son and I were playing video games which is his biggest interest, something she absolutely hates, and she made a few comments about how we should be doing family things together for Xmas (it was Xmas eve), so my son and I got off the computer and played a board game in the living room... nice and wholesome fun I thought. My wife throws a fit, full on screaming and slamming things around, I don't even remember what for exactly, it happens so often I can't keep track anymore. Her temper tantrum ends with her storming off and slamming the door to her room. I'll never forget looking at my son right after, him tearing up a bit and asking me "what is wrong mom?" and I just said "I'm really sorry buddy, I don't know" and we hugged... I cried a lot about that that night, one of many times I would have to apologize for her and the way she acts around him. This is just one small example and a terrible Xmas memory that I'll always have, hopefully my son won't. I think the worst part of these 'tantrums' is that she can almost always justify them, only to herself really but usually by blaming me or my son for "making her so upset" or worse, blaming some inanimate object for "not working how it should".
Fast forward to now(ish)... I've basically lived in my basement for the last 5 years, my office and bedroom are there, I stay down there to avoid my wife as much as possible but it feels like a prison cell now. I've retreated from life in general over the years too, I've always been a pretty anti-social introvert, I prefer quiet one on one conversations rather than group settings. Most of my 'friends' over the last 10-15 years revolved around my job (casinos take over your life people, for real) and my wife, I slowly lost any friends that had no connection to her. This was partially due to me retreating and the fact that my wife would insert herself into any friendship that was just mine to the point that I sort shut those people out to avoid them having to deal with her. Sadly, I don't have friends anymore (didn't have many to begin with but still), my son is essentially my only friend and because I work from home by myself I rarely talk to any other adults. My wife and I talk only when necessary... I cannot make eye contact with her anymore. This is probably needless to say but we haven't had sex in over 6 and a half years and I don't cheat, I don't have the confidence, so I've just accepted that I'm celibate now.
One other area of contention that I feel I should explain since I've mentioned it already, through the pandemic there was a serious power shift, financially speaking. She essentially lost her job and is now in a lower paying part time job (more realistic pay compared to her previous job), whereas I made a couple job changes that bumped me up well ahead of her. For comparison, the salaries essentially flipped, almost exactly... to where I make 2-3 times what she makes. This has become an area of contention because this was something she was able to lord over me for the majority of our relationship, she spent money freely while I paid the mortgage and barely ate for the first 5 years we lived in the house but now, for the first time in her life she has to pay attention to her finances and watch her spending... she does not like this so it's just another thing to constantly complain about and make passive aggressive comments about the things that 'dad' can afford to do/buy but doesn't (mainly because I'm paying the mortgage and all the bills now while finally paying down some debt).
Oh, I should probably also mention that it's a regular thing for her to insult me and put me down in front of our son and on flip side of that she also uses him to garner sympathy from me ("shouldn't daddy feel bad mommy has to go to work?") it's very frustrating because I just want to protect my kid but I guess she knows that.
Again, I'll apologize for how disjointed this all is... the more I type, the more I think about shit to type... like I mentioned, I could write a novel on this, mostly because I have no real outlet, just sit in my basement talking to myself about it all... or I guess stewing in it.
So, I guess I should try to finish off with what exactly the advice is that I'm seeking... I essentially hate my wife, the word I use often is 'despise' and over the years we've had brief conversations where I've told her that "I'm done and I'm just here for the kid" and unfortunately she took this as push to work on our marriage harder and 'fix' things, far too little, too late. She makes me feel like the worse person in the world and yet I just can't bring myself to say to her face that I want a divorce... I feel sorry for her, fuck so much so that I bought a house with her, married her, and had a fucking kid with her... I'm sure that's not the case, I must have loved her at one point but I just can't see it anymore. I don't know why I can't say it to her, why I can't just end this... I'm so worried about how she'll react, what she'll do to me, to my kid... how she'll try and turn him against me. I'm just paralyzed with the fear of what could/will happen if I tell her we're getting a divorce.
I've made plans over the last few years to move out, rent an apartment for me and my kid and just continue to pay her bills until we can sell the house and split the profit. I can't afford to do this, it would cause me to go back into debt but I do not care, it would be worth it to get away from her. I have set deadline after deadline... "I'll do it after Xmas" or "after her birthday" or "before my birthday" and these days come and go and I just can't do it... I don't know what the hell is wrong with me, it's like I just don't want to hurt her, even though I'm hurting her by not ending things and she definitely doesn't give a shit about hurting me... I just don't want to face her and deal with it and how she will make the aftermath hell.. and I worry so much about my son, it would have been so much better for him if I would have divorced her years ago, he's fucking 10 now... another fear is having to explain it to him but we're setting a horrible example. One of my wife's favourite ways to use our son against me, is planting it in his head that "family is all that matters", focusing specifically on our little family, and how we have to "stick together no matter what, that's what family does". It's such an underhanded way to prep him for hating me because I'm "breaking up our family".
I would appreciate any advice on how the hell I can get over my paralyzing fear and just end this marriage or maybe you wanna come over and end it for me? I'm at a point where I'd take that... as I mentioned I've not shared most of this with anyone... so feedback would be a really new thing for me.
Oh, and please feel free to call me chicken shit, and tell me I just need to grow a pair and get this done... it's the same thing I've been saying to myself for years, not helpful but I understand the sentiment.
Shit... I'm sorry, this turned into a novel. Thank you.

Previous Part
Morning eventually came, banishing the eyes that seemed to peer at me through the night. It was strange how suddenly the feeling left me, making me think that someone really was watching me. The whole thing was really doing wonders for my paranoia. Despite the rough morning and sleepless night, I still found myself waiting outside Bianca’s house bright and early that morning. The air was cool but not chilly, one of those perfect days that’s cold enough you’ll never start sweating unless you really try, but warm enough that a T-shirt will get you through without too much trouble.
I only had to knock once before Bianca threw open the door.
“Where you just waiting there for me?”
I asked, cracking a smile and raising an eyebrow.
“You’ll never know” she added playfully, “Are we ready to go then?”
Bianca had made some preparations for the trip, she didn’t have a backpack ready to go but she definitely made an effort to dress the part… sort of. She was wearing an old grey combat jacket that I imagine she pulled out of Stein’s closet. The jacket was way to big for her but she made it work. Her combat boots matched the jacket, looking old and well worn. What didn’t match was the bright red yoga pants she was wearing, but I wasn’t about to complain. Besides, I had packed each of us a spare set of clothes just in case.
“Oh! So I had an idea, its a long walk, not crazy but I’d rather not just walk the whole way if we can help it. Frank and Stein used to have some bicycles when we first came here so I asked them about it and well.”
Bianca chirped, as she led me around the back of the house and pulled a tarp off two abysmal looking bicycles. The bikes were both red at one point but that was a long time ago. Now they were covered in a layer of rust and I could barely make out the branding that may have once read, “Shwinn”.
“Um… Bianca I think I might get tetanus if I sit on that thing.”
“Oh come on! Aren’t you tired of walking everywhere? Lets just give the bikes a shot, if they crumble to dust we can leave them.”
“And get me a tetanus shot.”
I added quickly
“Fine, and get you a tetanus shot.”
Bianca shot back, she feigned annoyance but she couldn’t hide the smile that crossed her face.
Laughing to ourselves, we got on the bikes and took off North, out of town and onto a dirt path leading to the woods. Bianca didn’t say much on the way out but I could tell she was having a good time. This may have been her first time out of the house for something other than supervising Frank and Stein. She tried to hide it by riding fast and staying out in front of me, but I could still catch her eyes literally glowing with happiness every now and then. I thought back to what Frank had said about her eyes glowing when she experiences strong emotion. I hoped that was the case and she wasn’t just trying really hard to influence me, which he had also said would make her eyes glow.
As we neared the end of the path, the forest’s edge came into view. we let the bikes roll to a stop then got off and let them fall over onto the dirt. I half expected them to explode into a puff of rusty brown dust the second they touched the ground but to my surprise, neither bike did. I could’ve swore I heard Bianca sniffle almost like she’d been crying. I opened my mouth to say something and then thought better of it, if she wanted to tell me what was going on she would. Well, that or she’d just manipulate me away from the question. Wait, was she doing that now? It’s hard to tell, maybe that’s how everyone around her feels. The more I thought about it the more I realized how difficult it must be for her just to have friends or form relationships with people at all. If she told them the truth they’d never know if what they were feeling around her at any given moment was real. All they’d have to go on would be her word, could they really trust that, could I? If she kept her secret she’d know that at any moment she could just change how they felt about her, manipulate them into anything she wanted. Could she resist that kind of power over them and still look someone in the eyes and say she was their friend. Not to mention how hard it would be to keep that secret over years of knowing someone.
“So Keith, were exactly are we headed? You do have some Idea where this mine you’re looking for is right?”
Bianca asked skeptically, snapping me out of my thoughts.
“Well about that…. I just know its out here in the forest somewhere. That’s pretty much all I have to go on from Frank, Stein, and that massive bartender in town.”
I told her sheepishly.
“Well that explains why you over-packed so much then. Seriously? How long do you think we we’re going to be out here, you’re packed like some kind of survivalist.”
She mocked, picking through the pack I’d made for her. After she finished rooting through the pack I made for her like some kind of giant squirrel and, chastised me yet again for not doing more research on the mine, we set off.
The forest felt imposing as we walked into the woods through a manicured patch of trees. Someone had gone to great lengths to braid a few trees over this little path before the forest turned back into its natural wild state. It gave off the feeling that civilization ended with this path and something else entirely began. As we got off the path our light faded quickly, chocked out by the limbs of massive pine trees. All this cover meant there was very little foliage on the ground which was covered in a blanket of needles. The though occurred to me that we were looking for a mine in a valley. That’s weird because what exactly would be in a valley that warranted the creation of a mine? Usually you’ll find them in mountains so what exactly was one doing out here.
“Bianca I just had a thought, Why would they build a mine out here? I mean what’s the point, is there even anything valuable out here to mine?”
“Yeah, come to think of it your right. What other reason would there be to have a mine out here?”
“Unless they were just mining from a cave but that still doesn’t answer the question of what they were…”
Bianca cut me off
“What was that first thing you said?”
“Um… mining from a cave?”
A lightbulb went off over her head as she exclaimed,
“That’s it! There’s caves under the town, I’ve heard Frank talk about them before! Maybe they didn’t have a real mine so they were just mining something out of the caves.”
“Not to burst your bubble Bianca, but that still doesn’t get us any closer to these caves or mines or whatever it is.”
I responded cautiously, trying not to sound to critical of her revelation.
“Well not exactly, Frank said they were in the East of the forest somewhere so all we have to do is head East till we run into them.”
Bianca said, full of confidence. Then something occurred to me, we had no real way of getting back to the bikes other than retracing our steps. Now that was easy enough now, if we went deeper into the woods we would get lost pretty quickly.
“One more thing Bianca, Maybe we should come up with a way to find our way out? I really don’t want to end up lost out here.”
I asked nervously, fidgeting with my hands.
“Way ahead of you on that one, I left my phone back by the bikes. Here give me yours and I’ll put my number in so you can track it and find our way back.”
She said, taking my phone, putting her number into it, and turning it to me to show she’d tracked her own phones location with it, giving us a path back to the bikes.
As we turned East and headed even deeper into the forest the terrain started to change. Instead of the pine needle coating we started to see rocks and the ground was more rugged. Here and there we’d even pass a boulder or two. I decided to break the silence of our search.
“So are you ever going to tell me how you met Frank and Stein?”
Bianca sighed before responding.
“I suppose you deserve to know if your sticking around. You probably guessed I wasn’t always living with them. Lets just say before that I was with someone who I though meant the world to me but I never meant the same to him. It was all a game to him and eventually I noticed that. Then, a little while afterwards I realized I wasn’t exactly powerless anymore and I did some things that I’m not exactly proud of to survive on my own.”
I could tell talking about this hurt her but I needed more.
“That’s not exactly telling me a whole lot Bianca.”
I pressed, maybe a little to hard.
“I found out I had powers and I used them ok! I got myself out of a situation where I was pulled so many way I didn’t know which direction was up! The second I found out I could do the same thing to people myself, I did! You’re the first person to actually seem to give a shit that wasn’t some crazy doctor that tolerates my existence or someone I just manipulated into caring! Maybe I even did that with you! I JUST DON’T KNOW ANYMORE!”
Bianca screamed at me, getting in my face with tears beginning to run down her own. Her eyes were glowing electric blue again and I knew I’d crossed a line.
“Hey I’m sorry I didn’t mean to hurt you. I… I didn’t know.”
“No.. you didn’t but I guess you should”
Bianca sniffled out, trying desperately to pull herself back together and keep up the act the everything was ok. Bianca went silent for a while as we kept walking along, crying to herself before she finally took a deep breath and said,
“You know, this is the first time someone’s asked me to come along and do something outside the house in years. I spend so much time cooped up in there just helping with experiments and looking after Rocco. It’s actually nice to get out and talk for once.”
Her voice still a lifts hoarse from screaming at me before.
“Look if you want to talk about it we’ve got nothing but time out here. I’d like to know a bit more about you anyways.”
I said taking her hand and trying to sound comforting.
“Yeah maybe I should get some of it off my chest. Here it goes I guess.”
Bianca said, taking a deep breath and tightening her grip on my hand. Her eyes still glowed faintly as she told me her story as we ventured deeper into the forest.
I’ll give you the shorter version of it here, mostly cause I’m not sure how she’d feel about me spoiling all her secrets.. She ran away from her family and her college education for a guy, his name was Brooke. Brooke was from money and had a job lined up by his family at a law firm so Bianca thought she was set for life with him. Bianca was madly in love with him at the time but as days grew into months and years, Brooke became a monster. He cheated on her and told her she wasn’t enough, that her shortcomings drove him to do it over and over again and somehow it was all her fault every time. He became abusive not long after the cheating started, flying into fits of hysteric apology afterwards only further convincing Bianca she was somehow at fault. After three years of this she eventually got up the courage to leave and never looked back. On the road she discovered her powers of manipulation, letting her play with people’s emotions and she only got better at it with time. Unfortunately her abilities got her into a very specific form of getting money out of people, prostitution. One day she tried to solicit Stein and he saw straight through her. Stein took her with him to the hotel he and Frank were staying at and they took her in on the spot. The trio traveled together ever since, Bianca becoming a kind of daughter to them.
I was in shock once she finished her story, it sounded like she’d really been through the ringer.“I don’t know what to say, that’s awful, all of it.”
“It was, I lived it. But I made it through, doesn’t matter how at the end of the day. I’ve got Frank and Stein and that’s enough, they let me into their home and I recovered in my own way, I’m still here so I’ll take what I can get right?”
Bianca stated with a cold loom of determination on her face. It was painfully obvious to me that despite the masquerade of being fine she was barley holding it together underneath. Like just talking about it with me was driving a finger into old wounds.
“At least you’ll never have to go through something like that again. With your abilities you never have to get pushed around like that.”
I said with completely no tact whatsoever. Bianca stopped suddenly as I said this and whirled around to face me. The fire I’d seen in her eyes earlier reigniting in seconds.
“Do you really think that’s all this is?! I’m no better than him, even you don’t know what you really think when you look at me! Admit ti!”
Bianca growled at me, hysterical once again.
“No, Bianca I…”
“Look I know your trying to help but just leave it, ok? I’m done talking about this”
She cut me off, pulling herself back together and signaling very clearly we were done with that particular conversation.
“Besides look over there, That hole in the rock see it? That might be what we’re looking for.”
Bianca said, gesturing to the stone wall that now jutted out of the ground beside us.
The rock wall she pointed out was chipped near the middle in a way that couldn’t have been natural. Straight lines don’t really exist in nature and this hole was cut squarely into this rock wall. As we got closer I could see that it wasn’t just an entrance either. The hole opened into the rock wall but then suddenly dropped, like whoever carved it had hit a point where the ground just fell out from under them. From where Bianca and I were looking into the hole we couldn’t quite see the bottom.
“Well we found what we were looking for, is this bringing back any memories from those dreams you had?”
Bianca asked, sounding a little short tempered still as I searched through my bag.
“What are you looking for in there?”
“Rope, I’ve got to see what’s in there and I’m hoping I brought enough to climb down there.”
I replied hurriedly, still tearing apart my bag to get to the rope I had packed underneath everything else.
“Rope? you’re not seriously going to climb down that pit are you? I can barely see down there.”
Bianca complained, sounding exasperated.
“Here, this should help you see down there.”
I said, tossing her one of the two head mounted flashlights I brought along.
“ME? I never said we were going down there!”
Bianca panicked momentarily.
“Look, you can stay up here and wait for me if you really don’t want to go down there. But I would appreciate having you to watch my back.”
I added trying to soften her up. Bianca opened her mouth like she was going to say something but stopped, instead dropping her own pack to the ground and searching through it.
“Look if I’m going down there I’m going to need something better than yoga pants on and…. You actually packed a change of clothes in here. Geez you really did think of everything.”
As Bianca took the jeans I packed and went off to find somewhere to change I finally found the rope. It was about 50 feet of strong climbing rope that I kept for an occasion just like this. Now that’s not to say I was a professional climber by any means but a 20 or 30 foot rappel I should be able to do. I was hoping that the descent wasn’t much further than that. I anchored the rope to a tree a little ways away from the hole in the rock face and tossed the rope down the hole. It hit the bottom with a satisfying thud just as Bianca got back from changing. The jeans I had packed were a little big on her but she’d manage. She looked like a mess in her ancient combat boot and jacket, all of which were too big for her. I tried to open my mouth to tell her she looked nice, I swear I really did but what came out was hyena-like laughter at her appearance.
“I…. Oh god I’m…. It’s just”
I struggled to get out, laughing all the while.
“Well I’m glad you like it at least, ok seriously come on, stop laughing.”
Bianca scolded as she began giggling herself. Soon enough we were both laughing, Bianca’s earlier storminess cleared up by the absurdity of the situation.
Here we were, a succubus and a guy with a strange mark out in the woods getting ready to rappel into a hole in the ground that apparently didn’t exist. All this was almost starting to feel… I’m not really sure how to put it, not normal but not so strange. Honestly I finally felt like I’d found some kind of purpose again out here. As weird as it all was I was starting to enjoy… this, this whole odd situation I’d found myself in. Bianca and I finally got ahold of the laughter and stood back up from our place on the ground.
“Do I really look that bad?”
She asked
“I’ve never heard you complain about your looks before. But no, with those jeans on you look like maybe, just maybe you prepared a little bit for coming out here.”
I teased, getting a little wry grin out of her.
“Come on, lets get going. Hopefully we can be in and out of there pretty quickly.”
I said, handing Bianca her pack and shouldering my own.
Rappelling in wasn’t actually all that hard, really dangerous without safety equipment sure, but neither of us had any trouble descending the maybe 20 foot drop. At the bottom I saw something that shocked me, this place wasn’t abandoned. I saw lighting set up, not on but very clearly set up recently. Bits of old mining equipment were scattered around the… cave? Mine? Im not really sure what to call it anymore. What concerned me more than anything was the light I saw at the far end of the cave (I’m settling on calling it a cave). The light came from a massive bonfire and I could just make out the shadows of several people sitting around it. I have no idea how we didn’t see the smoke on our way in. It wasn’t filling the cave but it also wasn’t coming out from anywhere I saw on the way here.
“Bianca get down!”
I whisper shouted at her, turning off my headlamp and falling flat to the ground myself. Bianca dropped to the ground as she heard me with unexpected grace. I didn’t know if those figures by the fire had seen us but I certainly wasn’t taking chances.
“Ok, I’m going to creep up and see if I can hear them talking or something. Can you just stay here and watch my back? I don’t want you getting any closer than you have to.”
I instructed Bianca who answered with a quick nod and reached into the inner pocket of her jacket. She withdrew a jeweled golden dagger from it.
“I sorry, what’s this now?”
I asked, confused and thrown off guard by the weapon. It was a really beautiful blade, the hilt was silver with several purple gems inlaid in it. The blade was golden save for the razor sharp edge which was some kind of strange blue material that was roughly the same color Blanca’s eyes glowed.
“I had a life before this you know.”
Bianca responded.
“Yeah we talked about it but you didn’t really tell me much about this part apparently. Doesn’t matter I guess just surprised you have Jeff Bezos’s butter knife in your jacket pocket.”
I whispered, pointing at the dagger in her hand.
“Well we can talk more about how I ended up with this later, not really the time now. Just be careful ok.”
I got up as she said this, realizing she was right. Now really wasn’t the time to be asking about strange daggers, I had more pressing issues.
I crouched down and started creeping towards the figures by the bonfire, careful to avoid the rusty machinery bits scattered across the ground. As I got closer I saw a passage I had missed in the dark. I dared to turn my headlamp on for just a second, trying to block out most of the light with my hand. What I saw through the dim light and shadows of my finger left me awestruck. Inside the passage a coliseum had been constructed, with seats carved into the stone. The structure itself was made up of the rusted metal pieces that littered the room, collected and smelted together to form the walls of the structure. What frightened me the most was the symbol clearly and meticulously drawn on the dirt floor, the same symbol that adorned my back, the symbol of the thunderbird. Moving on, more shaken than ever I crept closer still to the roaring bonfire. I could just about make out the words the figures were saying. When I got close enough to make out the word “tests” the fire suddenly went out with a gust of wind.The room temperature must have dropped 10 degrees immediately and I could swear I heard the sounds of heavy rain above us. But the sudden lack of light isn’t what rooted me in place, cowering on the cave floor. What did that was the two illuminated grey eyes that pierced through the darkness like lightning in a storm, eyes I would never forget, the eyes of the woman from Imalone.
This time I clearly heard the voices of the figures from around the bonfire as they all dropped to their knees.
“Shaoni! We weren’t expecting you till later, Stormcaller.”
The figures all said some variation of in unison. Their tone sounding almost as though they were begging for forgiveness. In a voice that hissed like rain on pavement the woman apparently named Shaoni spoke.
“I’ve come to oversee the start of the trials, is everything prepared?”
In one bone chilling moment her eyes locked on mine and she said the one thing I’d hoped she wouldn’t.
“You didn’t tell me we had guests.”
The moment the words left her lips I turned back to where Bianca was waiting, her now glowing eyes cutting through the darkness of the cave. Giving up any form of subtly, I bolted for the rope behind Bianca. I just wanted to be out of this cave, whatever I might learn from searching around was far outweighed by the fact that Shaoni was here. I’d seen the kind of destruction she’d left in her wake in Imalone and I had no desire to see it happen again here. I banged my ankle on several of the little bits of rusty metal on the floor as I ran, sending sparks of pain up my leg. I didn’t hear anything behind me at all which was almost more unnerving than the footsteps I expected to hear. I closed in on Bianca and saw she hadn’t moved at all, her eyes fixed on something behind me. I dared to take a quick glance back over my shoulder and saw Shaoni taking her first step away from the extinguished bonfire. Lightning crackled around her like one of those novelty plasma globes. In the flashes of light I could see her face. There was no smile or frown, no emotion at all. She simply stared straight ahead towards me and took slow calm steps, inching ever closer.
“Bianca we’ve got to go… NOW!”
I shouted, snapping her to attention. She nodded and turned on her heels, back toward the rope we’d thrown in earlier. Only, when we got to the rope and gave it a tug, it came falling back toward us.
“There’s no way. I…I anchored it to that tree, it should’ve held!”
I cried in disbelief. Bianca and I starred up at the now stormy sky through the hole we would’ve escaped from. Two men walked into view on either side of the hole, glowering down at us. I notice a marking on one of the men’s hands in a flash of lightning from the storm. I could only assume if I was able to make it out I would’ve seen a marking just like the one on my back. Just as soon as the men had appeared a shape flew in from the left with a low growl, taking both men along with it.
“Ok, new plan! There’s something else up there and I really don’t want to get involved with… whatever that was either. I didn’t see any footprints near the entrance so I’m assuming those guys we saw by the bonfire got in another way. We’re just going to have to find where that was and get out that way.”
I instructed Bianca, gesturing to the men in toe with Shaoni and trying not to sound as afraid as I was.
“Ok, I’m with you but lets get moving, I don’t want to any closer to her than I have to be.”
Bianca answered, putting her hand on my shoulder. I suddenly felt a wave of calm rush over me and for the second time I was grateful for Bianca’s ability to simply turn off my fear response.
Shaoni now stood about 50 feet from us with four men following behind her. In the light she gave off I could see the men were all dressed like normal people. I kind of figured they would be more of those canvas wrapped weirdos from Imalone but no. There stood four men in jeans and flannels standing there. Shaoni looked like she could’ve stepped right out of a painting of Pocahontas. She wore an animal hide dress with frills along the bottom and arms. Her head was adorned with a leather band containing several hawk feathers. In short she looked like she’d stepped out of a different time. But I had no time to look over the finer details of her clothing as Bianca and I rushed towards her. Once we got within striking distance I pulled Bianca to the left, towards the passage I had seen earlier. Shaoni never made a move towards us, she just simply looked at me, the ghost of a smile briefly crossing her lips. One of the men with her grabbed at Bianca though, pulling her out of my grasp momentarily. That was a mistake because she was on him immediately with the ornate dagger I’d seen before. As the man grabbed her Bianca lashed out with the dagger, sticking him in the gut with the blade. He screamed in anguish and let go of her but Bianca wasn’t done yet. She followed up by stabbing the man in the back of the neck as he bent over, grabbing at the hole in his abdomen. The other three men were so taken aback by the sudden ferocity she displayed that they didn’t come any closer. As time stood still for a second the men all looked toward Shaoni, awaiting instructions but hesitant to get any closer to Bianca. Using the brief moment of disbelief Bianca had caused, we ran down the side passage towards the coliseum.
“What was that?”
I asked, still shocked by how suddenly Bianca had acted.
“He tried to grab me, I don’t like when they try to grab me”
Bianca responded, distant and… scared? I got the sense she was still in shock at what she had done too. But I couldn’t worry about that right now, we still had to get out of here. Luckily the men didn’t seem to be following us. Wether Shaoni called them off or they stopped to care for their friend I didn’t know, and frankly I didn’t care.
Rushing through the rusty coliseum was haunting. I expected something to jump out of every shadow in the imposing structure. As we slowed to a jog in the middle of the coliseum, right where that eagle symbol was, we stopped to look around. We had come into this arena through an open arch but the only other exit I could see was a similar but barred archway. The coliseum was huge for something constructed in a cave, probably 400 feet across. I had no idea how this thing could’ve been made without anybody finding out.
“Bianca are you seeing anyway out of here? Bianca!”
I asked, then shouted as I turned to see her standing still as a statue in the middle of the Eagle symbol. She was staring at the dagger she had stabbed that man with. Blood still stained the blade and dripped from it intermittently.
“Bianca are you alright?”
I questioned as I walked over to her. She still had this look in her eyes, like she was miles away.
“Bianca? Come on talk to me. Look, you did what you had to do back there, sure it wasn’t exactly pretty but it had to be done.”
I tried to comfort her with my words but the truth is, my heart just wasn’t in it. I was a little scared of what I saw from her in those few moments. She just lashed out and attacked him, not that he didn’t deserve it but going back for more was too much. But what would’ve happened if she didn’t act? It’s not something I could really dwell on now and I’m not sure it really mattered. I just wasn’t feeling all that great about the fact we may have killed someone.
“I don’t like it when they grab me.”
Bianca finally repeated, still appearing catatonic. I leaned down to her level, putting my face right in-front of her’s and putting her head in between my hands.
“Bianca I know enough to know that whole situation may have dug up some memories for you but nows really not the time. We have to keep moving, we have to find a way out of here, and I can’t do that without you right now.”
Bianca tensed up as I spoke to her, but I could feel her relax as I finished. A single tear fell from her eye as she gave me a nod and followed behind me as I walked toward the barred off archway.
Before I made it to the archway there was a massive crash as something tore the rusty bars from their mountings and fell into the room.
“Tuck?!”
I exclaimed, recognizing his colossal figure on the floor immediately. His shirt and pants were torn to shreds though, Like he’d flexed too hard and burst out of his clothes. Bianca and I rushed over to check on him but apparently he was fine. Before we even started walking towards him he was already back up on his feet and lumbering towards us.
“Tuck what are you doing here? Actually never mind, are you ok?”
I asked, concern in my voice.
“It’s going to take more than this to stop me son. I figured you might go looking for that old mine I mentioned the other night so I came to find you. I feel real bad about ya run’in off the way ya did and I got to thinking. Maybe I could make it up to ya if I told ya about the mine. So I came out here and found some shady look’in fellas poking around and figured maybe ya needed help, looks like I was right.”
Tuck explained, dusting himself off and brushing away some of the tattered remains of his shirt. I didn’t buy his story for a second but I wasn’t going to argue with this bear of a man.
“So how did you get in anyway?”
“Used the old entrance from back when this place was still run’in, come on I’ll lead ya out.”
Tuck answered, already turning and walking back the way he came.
The walk out was long and none of us talked much so I just looked around. The further we walked down this little tunnel the more I noticed crushed equipment. The walls looked like they were made up of bits and pieces of crumbled rock that may have once been the ceiling of a much bigger tunnel here.
“There was a collapse, just like the report said only, whatever caused it wasn’t any fault of ours. It was that damn thunderbird waking up.”
Tuck piped up, answering one question and making me ask another.
“Wait you knew about her?!”
“All the miners did, some decided to follow her after she woke up and brought the walls down on us. Others wanted revenge for the brothers we lost, I’m one of the former. You see son, the reason I stayed around this town so long was because of that bird. I want a chance to return the favor.”
“But what about Robert? If you hate the thunderbird so much why’d you let him in? You had to see that tattoo on his hand.”
“I know he thinks that damned bird will “save” him or something but I don’t blame him. Everyone deals with things in their own way and it’s not my place to judge folk for it.”
Tuck lectured, as we made our way further down the passage. His words made sense to me but I didn’t understand how he could be so understanding. From what I understood the thunderbird had a part to play in the original mine’s collapse and the death of the workers there. Only for some of the survivors to revere this creature. If I were in Tuck’s shoes I don’t think I could forgive and forget.
Finally we saw light at the end of the tunnel. We emerged into the whispers of what I’m sure was a monster of a storm. But that’s not what drew my attention, what did were the boulders scattered around the hole we just came out of. It looked like they had been moved, and recently. The suspicious red stain just barley peaking out from the bottom of one of them only served to convince me further. Tuck’s story didn’t quite make sense and this entrance seemed like it should’ve been blocked up until very recently. I wasn’t about to question the guy who saved us though, so I let the issue rest.
Bianca’s idea of tracking her phone to find our way to the bikes worked like a charm. We followed the directions my phone spit at us and eventually found our way back to the bikes. Tuck’s old Ford Bronco sat behind our bikes leaving me to question if he followed us on our way here.
“Well do you kids want a ride back to town?”
Tuck asked, his voice bellowing across the forest. Seriously it was like the guy swallowed a loudspeaker at some point and just spoke through it now.
“No we’ll find our own way back.”
“Alrighty then, stay safe son.”
Tuck called back to me as he got into his truck and drove off. Bianca and I stood up our bikes and got ready to head back to town.
“Hey Keith?”
“Yeah what is it Bianca?”
“Next time you offer to bring me along somewhere can you warn me about the damn thunderbird that seems to just show up around you.”
I laughed at this, it was nice to see Bianca joking around again. After what happened in the caves she seemed like someone else, none of her usual cheeriness was there. Not that I knew if that was what she wanted me to see from her or how she actually presented herself but still. I trusted her enough at this point to assume she wasn’t using her abilities to mess with my head.
When we got back to Bianca’s house the sun was just beginning to set, washing the town in shades of purple, orange, and red. We walked the bikes around to their place behind the house and I walked Bianca back to the front door.
“Thanks for today Keith,I don’t… get out very much anymore and it was… nice… to do something other than sit around the house for once. You know, despite everything that happened it was actually fun.”
I was taken aback by her words at first. If it was me I’d immediately want nothing to do with this person who just put me in danger.
“You had fun? The thunderbird showed up again and we may have killed a guy and you had fun?”
I asked, raising and eyebrow suspiciously.
“Can we not talk about that right now? Anyways I don’t exactly have a high bar for what is and isn’t fun at this point. I’ll see you later Keith.”
Bianca said, cracking a smile and walking into her house.
I was about halfway back to my own house when I realized she never gave me my backpack back. Well, looks like I’d be seeing her again then because I need that stuff back. I wasn’t sure what to think about what I’d seen today. If the thunderbird was in those mines years ago why did she end up in Wisconsin? There was also a very real possibility some people in this town worshipped her so I’d have to keep an eye out for that. The really interesting thing to me was the Shaoni never seemed to want to hurt me in the cave today. She was terrifying as all hell sure, but I didn’t get the sense that she wanted to cause me any sort of harm. If she wanted to do that my gut told me she would’ve done it quickly and efficiently.
Thunder suddenly cracked outside, interrupting my train of thought. As I stood up to see what time it was a knock came from the front door. I froze, who exactly could it be? I doubt Bianca would come over, I don’t think she even knows where I live but maybe she came by to drop off the backpack she absconded with? The knock came again, more forcefully this time.
“I’m coming, I’m coming!”
I shouted, as I jogged to the door. My heart dropped as soon as I opened it, On the other side of the door stood Shaoni. She was dressed normally for once, wearing a long flowing white nightgown. Shaoni stepped into my house as she cooed in her usual misty voice.
“Good evening. Keith was it? We have much to discuss.”

Scott Masterson had first met Scarlett at a rooftop party in downtown Dallas. Their age and the time of year were both in late springtime, them in their mid twenties and the date in early May. He had on a sharp yet breezy blazer and she astonished in a thigh length sleeveless blue dress.
“Oh hey Scott I don’t believe you two have met…” his then happily married friend had remarked with a slow swinging open hand toward her.
“Scott Masterson…reluctant friend to this knucklehead” he said with a tight lipped grin, trying not to be so obvious with his instant rapture.
“Scarlett…a pleasure…”
Her hand was so delicate to Scott’s touch. They locked eyes. It was like looking back through centuries of connection, endless days of laying in the sun next to the Seine River, or rising to Hollywood fame in the 1940’s and only having each other who would understand the glory and the pain of it all, or generations of quiet, simple country love that would bear such beautiful, happy children that would go on to raise beautiful, happy children, all with their dark blue eyes. Yes, the memories of every love story since the beginning of time was swirling right there in Scarlett’s irises. Scott had to catch himself before he stared embarrassingly too long.
“Sorry Scottie here doesn’t get out often” his friend quipped, which Scott appreciated actually, it helped him snap back to professionalism.
“Well I don’t either…at least I prefer not to.” Scarlett’s words flowed through the air like a flock of rose petals.
“Hey, kindred spirits.” Scott was really sensing a rising energy out of her, they had barely broken eye contact.
“Well, I’ll let you two have at it, I got a wife around here somewhere. Hey…Scott and Scarlett…not bad, not bad.” His friend exited stage right with a sly chuckle.
“Nice guy…so…what are you drinking, Scarlett?” Scott looked around for the emptiest corner of the rooftop bar, hoping to find a nice place for them to be able to hear each other. This night had just become something.
“That depends, Scott…what do you like?”
Oh man.
Well, as you can expect, the evening blossomed into a beautiful, long winded conversation that etched a long list of similarities between the two. They both lived in the city, had never married, and had dreamed of stable, simpler lives far away from tall buildings and busy streets. The next morning Scott awoke in her arms, which warmed much deeper than just his skin. He could feel her soothing his very identity, his future, everything. Her arms were tailor made to fit his very soul, and he had never felt more safe and at home.
“Mmm…you can stay right here…” she whispered, eyes still closed.
“I will…I will”
They both fell back asleep, into a dream that wouldn’t end upon waking.
Two years passed and suddenly they lived that simple backwoods life, way out where acres of land far out-populated the few and far between people. They took a lovely home, which happily looked over a long backyard, right up to a lively yet mostly undisturbed river. Their only neighbor within a mile was an older ranch worker named Charles, who rarely made himself perceivable. Days were spent way on into town where they both had offices. They didn’t mind the commute. Nights were spent mostly like this night, cuddled outside near a lovely little fire, with a slowly shrinking amount of wine sitting between them. Enjoying their Kingdom. Tonight, however, would prove to be a special night, for many reasons, all unexpected.
“Honey, I’ve been thinking…” Scott began, sitting up and opening his hands to the warmth of the fire.
“Oh?” Scarlett also sat up, eyes widening.
“So look, Scarlett, the last two years have been the best of my life. An absolute dream…”
She held her breath, her focus darting between his eyes and mouth.
“Yeah?”
“We have everything we ever want out here. But…what if there’s more?”
“More?” She had envisioned this very conversation hundreds of times.
“Our dreams have come true, but what if we…made some new dreams?” Scott turned and embedded his eyes into hers. He burst into a big smile.
“Scott…I thought…”
“Nevermind what I said” he cut her off, which he always made a point to never do, but this was a good exception.
“I’m ready, Scarlett…let’s have a family.”
“Ohhhh Scott, oh Scott”
They hugged tight enough to where it hurt.
“Well, in that case, we may need to open another bottle.” She said playfully, bouncing her eyebrows twice.
“Excellent. I’ll be right up. I’ll put this fire out and then start yours up.”
“Oh stop!” She bounded away girlishly, up the snowy back steps and into the house.
Scott let out a big sigh that he could see in the cold air and sat back in his chair, taking in his decision. He really was ready. He had secretly been keeping a long list of names that he liked and that he thought would work in front of Masterson. Especially little girl names. He stared into the campfire flames, getting lost imagining the three of them sitting right here, a little girl resting securely in Scarlett’s arms, as Scott had found himself, and stayed within these past two years.
Suddenly his trance was broken when, from the road in front of their house, came the sound of a vehicle approaching at high speed. Scott snapped his head back toward the house to get a better listen. He could see, around the house and through the trees, a large truck barreling down the country road, its headlights racing and bouncing with intensity. In an instant, it had passed up the road and out of sight.
“Huh?”
Soon, after a moment of silence, another sound echoed into the night. This sound rattled Scott to the bone and tore all that was right in his world into pieces. A sharp, bellowing squeal. His eyes shot over to his neighbors house, which was about a tenth of a mile to his right but still had a couple dim lights on that he could see. The shriek seemed to come from there.
Then, more squeals. It was hellish. More than animal but not quite human. Scott stood up. He heard crashing and tearing and further destruction coming from Charles’ house.
“Scarlett!! Scarlett!” He yelled toward his house, where he looked and could see her silhouette behind the curtains at the kitchen window. She didn’t seem to hear him.
He turned back toward his neighbors. The chaos had gone quiet. Not a half a moment after, though, he heard something big barreling through the trees as fast as that truck had been sprinting. Running, running furiously between the two houses. Searching, hunting. Scott was taken aback so hard that his heel had caught the edge of the fire pit, throwing him down only inches away from severe burns. He had knocked his head in the whiplash, making him groan and take a moment to regain his bearings.
“SCARLETT!!!!”
He screamed out toward his home as he sat up, rubbing a quickly rising bump on the back of his head. He heard a loud breaching on the side of his house. The patio door. No. No. Then, all hell broke loose. Scarlett started wailing and crying and he could hear crashes of plates and glasses and deep guttural roars coming from the kitchen inside. Shadows danced in a frenzy from the curtained windows. Sounds of instinctual survival seemed to be thrown from Scarlett inside. Sounds of defeat. Sounds of agony. Sounds of insanity. Scott sprang to his feet, his equilibrium being more damaged than he realized after his fall. He had to catch his hand on a chair to stabilize himself. Scarlett’s symphony of pain had gone quiet. Soon after something burst back out the patio door again and off in the same direction as that truck before.
Scott struggled back up to the house, slowly climbing the wintered, crunching stairs that led to the patio. He no longer yelled for Scarlett. In fact, the only thing that came to his senses was the sound of his own heavy breathing. Everything else had been turned off, save for a heavy and sudden dread that he had prayed he would never feel. He came to the side of his house where indeed the patio door had been busted and forced open. It laid inside the kitchen, its hinges snapped like toothpicks. Scott, with eyes wide and twitching, slowly entered his home and looked into the kitchen.
He didn’t scream. He didn’t even change his breathing. He didn’t blink. He just got a good long look at what laid before him.
Everything was broken. The fridge was on its side, the door hanging open and food and drink scattered all over the floor. The table was upended, its legs to the ceiling. A chair was resting on the counter, possibly having been thrown in defense. And Scarlett. Oh Scarlett. She…was…everywhere. She was all over the floor. She was sprayed against the walls. She was stuck to the window. She was in the sink.
Scott gently walked through the carnal mess and sabotage of his world. Long ago he had known exactly what he would do if something anywhere near this bad were to happen to him. He politely stumbled through the kitchen, down the hall, and into the bedroom. He opened his closet door and lowered a fire safe from the top rack. He unlocked it with a passcode. 511, after that warm May date when he had first met Scarlett. In the safe was a Sig Sauer P320 handgun. Scott took it out, along with a box of bullets, loaded one into the gun, put the safe back on its rack, and walked out of the closet, sitting on his bed. Their bed. Where they should’ve been laying right at this very moment, working toward a happy future. Where he would’ve kissed her forehead and put a hand on her growing midsection. Where they would have awoken on Christmas morning to the sound of children who were way too excited to remain asleep. Where they would’ve grown old. Where they would’ve smiled at each other through wrinkles, satisfied with all the love they shared and passed on to the next generations. Where they would’ve held each other in deep peace as they finally fell asleep to this world.
“I will…I will”
In one quick motion Scott pulled back the hammer and stuck the barrel of that pistol right up against his Governor and blew himself away, far away, right back into Scarlett’s loving arms.
Jeremy “Smallmouth” Bassett quickly yet stealthily made his way back to his Uncle’s house. He hugged the sides of the dark country road, keeping his eyes and ears wide open as to notice any sounds pertaining to the event that he had just witnessed there in the field next to the huge blaze. His only thought was Uncle Chuck. His house was right on the warpath of that horrible thing and Smallmouth had to go to him and make sure he was safe. He dared not go back to his truck, which would bring a lot of unwanted attention. No, Smallmouth walked and walked and finally saw the lights of his Uncle’s house. He carefully approached the front door from the shadowed driveway. Suddenly it occurred to Smallmouth that something was very wrong here. The door was busted in, having been plowed through by something very large and very strong.
“No…no…no”
Smallmouth slowly entered the house. The kitchen and living room were a disaster, chairs and tables and bottles strewn about and shattered. Bloody hoof-prints covered the floors, each of them the size of dinner plates. Smallmouth heard no noise. He felt himself well with tears, his nose a faucet that he began to sniff up as he worked his way through to his Uncle’s room, the door there also being broken in. A small whine growing in his throat, Smallmouth peaked into his uncles bedroom.
It was all in tatters. The bed had been attacked and shredded, the mattress being ripped up and thrown about as if it were made of cotton candy. More bloody hoof-prints were painted all over the brown carpet. Smallmouth trembled and put a hand up to his wet face. He didn’t see a way that his Uncle was anywhere near alive, knowing what he knew about the monster that had been in this house.
Smallmouth slowly walked to the living room, to the only little table that had been untouched in the attack. It was almost as if the bottle of whiskey teleported into his hand from the overturned cabinet, unopened. He fixed that real quick.
Soon he was several pulls deep of the only thing in the world that he knew would make him feel better, even if only for a few hours. He found his pack of cigarettes in his coat pocket and lit one up, although he was indoors. What did it matter? He sat in a chair that he had turned right side up and set the bottle on the table and looked out the back window into the pitch black. He cried for his Uncle and he cried for the world. He cried for himself. He cried for broken promises and his own weakness. He drank and drank until his vision shook from right to left everywhere he looked. At first he didn’t even notice the figures on the back porch. Then his vibrating focus did pick up on them, but by then it was too late. It was so dark out there but in their outlines he could see they wore long robes and hoods.
“HA!! COME AND GET ME! HAHA!! YOU COME AND YOU GET ME!!” Smallmouth boasted with a delusional amount of courage.
A creak escaped from the kitchen and he drunkenly slung his head over toward it. Three more figures stood there. Or was it just one? Smallmouth was none the wiser. All at once the hooded intruders from both inside and outside began to chant a strange, twisted rhyme in strikingly low and dissonant harmony:
“A sliver…of liver…goes down…with a shiver… …and gives…your gullet…to gall… …but drink…the Cider…that drowns…the Spider… …and you…will be free…of it all… …so tighten the grip…that loosens your lips… …O raise…the bottle…of brown… …and wake tomorrow…to find…in sorrow… …ANOTHER…SPIDER…TO…DROWN”
Smallmouth groaned at them in dissatisfaction and turned his bottle up again and began to chug the whiskey. As he did they repeated the chant except this time it was louder and closer. By the time Smallmouth had finished his bottle he was quickly losing consciousness. This wasn’t just whiskey. As he closed his eyes he felt hands grabbing him from all sides.
Smallmouth pulled open his sticky eyelids. His head felt like someone had bowled a strike into it. Wind froze his face. The smell of sickly, wet iron stung his nostrils. His vantage was higher than usual. Way higher. He was looking out into another field, but from easily ten feet up. He saw an old church, formerly painted white but now a flaky pale-beige. He heard the friction of a quick pull of rope below him, matched with a slight, tight pain at his feet. He looked down. A red-robed figure was fastening him against a wooden structure of some kind. His feet sat on a small flat platform perpendicular to a post that went from the ground up past smallmouths head. He couldn’t move his arms, so he quickly shot his eyes side to side. They were also tied to another horizontal post. A cross. He was being tied to a crude wooden cross. His shirt had been removed, exposing a hairy, overweight belly. Smallmouth tried to speak, but all that came out was a slow, unintelligible grumble. He was still drunk. No, this was more than that. He was under the influence of something strong and absolutely inhibitive. He wallowed again, and took in a deep breath. The smell of iron once again hit his nose. He looked down at himself. He was covered in a thick, red liquid. That wasn’t just the smell of iron. He had been splashed full body with blood.
“Now now, young servant…” the figure at his feet had finished his task and took a couple of steps out to admire his own handiwork.
“Ahh…perfect. The picture of martyrdom. Yes, you will always be remembered, Brother Bassett. You are to be the first Saint of The New Bible.” He opened his arms in his declaration.
Smallmouth looked up into the cold night sky. The moon shown down, giving everything a midnight spotlight. It was a gorgeous waxing gibbous, big and bright but not quite full. Yes, he was in a great big snowy field that housed an old worn down church. From the windows of the church he saw candles glowing, showing dark heads and shoulders looking out to him, also covered in loose hoods, hiding faces. He was hanging on a cross about one hundred feet from the old church. In front of the cross was a partially covered pit, a couple of two by fours supporting double armfuls of branches and dead leaves.
The figure at the base of the cross put his arms back to his side. He was still looking right at the drugged Smallmouth’s dumbstruck face. Even with a veiled mouth you could hear the twisted smile in his voice.
“Tonight you will help us finally defeat this legion, Smallmouth. You see, it may have the evil spirits within it, but at its core, it is still an owned animal. An animal that knows its Master very well. An animal that will remember the smell of its Master. You, my friend, are covered in its Master right now. And you are hanging on a cross, the symbol of this brute’s most hated enemy. But take heart, young Brother. Before you is our pit of spears. Yes you will attract the beast, but our Divine plan will intercept it and the beast will fall and be pierced. And then, oh dear brother, you will forever be immortalized. You will be purified in fire by the hands of your church brethren. Out of your screams and into the smoke the iniquities of all will be released. We will go on to preach your good example and your sainthood forever and ever.”
Smallmouth began to drool and hum pathetically. He could hear and understand the words of the robed man but he couldn’t fight back. His body was useless, limp inside its rope confines. All he could do now is think, and watch, and wait, and dread his fate.
The figure turned away from him, walking over near the pit and gathering up a bundle of brambles and throwing them over the last open area, covering it completely. He then crunched through the snow over to the front door of the old church, groaning open the door. He stood at the dark doorway for a few seconds in silence, and then began to make a noise. An over exaggerated pig squealing noise, high pitched and infuriating. Soon after other voices from inside the church began to do the same, their wailing echoing out of the building and all across the field, loudly signaling, calling out. It may as well have been a dinner bell. Not a half minute after they began the distress signal it was loudly answered by a distant squall. A furious squall.
This was it. Either way it happened Smallmouth was about to die. Experience terror, and then die, and not even have the ability to put up any kind of defense. It wasn’t fair. He just slowly lifted up his head and watched out far into the moonlit, white field. He then raised his heavy head further and took a good gander at the moon and stars for the last time.
“God,” he thought to himself, still having full inner monologue yet no outer motor function, “I am so sorry. I am so sorry for being what I am. I am so sorry for ending up in this place. It’s only my own fault. If it wasn’t for me being so stupid and messy and drunk and terrible then this wouldnt be happening to me.”
He began to shed tears that washed lines into the blood on his face.
“Please forgive me God. Please, please, please forgive me for all of my sins. This is it. I’m gonna die. I’m gonna die. PLEASE FORGIVE ME!!!!” He yelled inside his own mind, hoping and trying to send his silent words as far up into heaven as they could go.
He lowered his eyes back to the ground. He looked over at the church again. The windows were empty, the candles were extinguished. Those hooded cowards were hiding from their own handmade sacrificial service. All was quiet for a long pause until a much louder, closer bleating began at the edge of the forest not even three hundred feet away from Smallmouth’s glazed over eyes. It was time, and it was too late for a miracle.
Out of the woods, slowly and heavily, stomped the massive hog. As it marched closer and closer Smallmouth could see its white, boiled over eyes and black-burnt skin. Its jaws were flying open and snapping its sharp, pocket knife-sized teeth together in an intimidating “clack”. It was now less than a hundred feet away, the dark old church to its right shoulder. It stopped, its pale glowing eyes fixed right on Smallmouth on the crude cross. It truly was a monster. It stood as tall as a man and as long as a canoe. Around its murderous mouth were stains of red, the remnants of all that it had taken from the world on this unholy night. In its clanging jaws were bits of flesh. It snorted and scowled.
Then, in a fury, it wailed that horrible squeal and started off into a dead sprint. It galloped and galloped toward Smallmouth at a high, blistering speed. It kept yawping and howling as it cut the distance from the cross down to fifty feet, forty feet, thirty, twenty. All at once it passed over the covered pit and plunged in. In his doomed, dead eyed stupor Smallmouth could hear what sounded like paint being dumped from a rooftop onto concrete. Trails of black liquid squirted and splashed up from the pit, which had been uncovered in the fall of the beast. Unbelieving, Smallmouth saw dozens of steel spear tips standing up from the dug-in ground. Right in the middle of them the beast was stuck. The sheer weight of the animal had caused the spears to pierce through its tough skin, sticking out of its back, soaked in black blood. One spear had stabbed right under the hogs chin, passing up through its jaws and out its black snout. It made agonized sounds. It roared and roared and shook the spears inside it, beginning furiously, then growing weaker and weaker within seconds. Finally, it let out one last weak little squeal, before it went still and quiet.
Smallmouth was frozen both physically by drugs and constraints and mentally by shock. His mouth hung open toward the pit of spears, his vision blurry. He took in a deep, troubled breath and let out a moan of disbelief and relief. The old church doors sprang open, and the sound of jubilation within flowed out into the night. The red robed figures flocked out of the building toward the pit, arms raised in celebration. They surrounded the hole, getting a good look at their success and their enemies defeat. Some held additional spears and began further stabbing the dead animal, causing more black blood to be shed up at them. They all yelled loudly and triumphantly. Some danced around the pit. Some skipped over to Smallmouth on the cross and danced around him, slapping his legs and spinning in circles.
Smallmouth looked on at the raucous celebration, both in utter disbelief of their trap actually working and also in turmoil. How long now until they fully execute their plan.
A taller robed man, whose voice matched the same one who spoke to Smallmouth as he tied his feet, spoke up, sounding almost happily intoxicated.
“Ahh yes my Brothers!! It is done!! We have won!!!”
They all whooped and cheered.
“Brother Norman, go into the church and bring me the small tank of fuel. Let us send our dear Saint Bassett to the Holy lands, where he will be adored for all eternity!”
They all clapped and hollered. One figure began childishly skipping away from the pit and over toward the front door of the church.
Then, it happened.
From the pit all of a sudden a great blaze erupted instantly. It stood as tall as the cross, and it burned a furious red and blue. It raged and raged, blinding Smallmouth and making him clumsily turn his face away from the heat.
All of the figures panicked, screaming and scattering away toward the church. They didn’t get far. Up from the fiery pit, dozens of long, long, black arms, adorned with six hooking claws emerged and stretched out of the flames and latched on to the legs of those trying to escape. Smallmouth heard crying and wailing from the men as the black, razor clawed-hands of the legion grabbed them and began pulling them back, into the blazes. One by one the red robed people were dragged into the flames, their clothes catching instantly. Smallmouth could see violently shaking bodies in the evil furnace. Oh, the screams. Above the tortured howling, the sound of laughing broke out. Deep, menacing laughter, hundreds of voices, echoed up into the air from the burning hole. Then, in one extinguishing squeeze, the ground swallowed the entirety of the fiery pit, leaving it completely covered in dirt, still and quiet. Soon after, and just like the pit of spears, the old church building caught in an instant and raging fire, quickly toppling the walls and dropping the steeple into its ruins. The smoke towered high in the night sky, which had just began to hint at a pale morning blue. Smallmouth hung on his cross in utter horror and surprise.
As the late evening hours glowed into early morning the smoke eventually tapered off, as Smallmouth’s drugs finally began to wear off as well. The fires of the church did garner long distance attention, though. Just as Smallmouth was able to regain control of his muscles and voice he heard emergency sirens call out into the cold morning air. Not long after, two fire trucks, an ambulance and a sheriffs truck tore into the field and toward Smallmouth on the cross. Not long after Smallmouth could feel the tied ropes being cut loose by firemen, their uniforms easily the best red clothes he had seen all night.
“What on God’s green Earth happened here son?” A bearded man with a dark hat and brown shirt and pants asked Smallmouth once he had been lowered down from the cross and sat on the ground with a shock blanket around his shoulders. The Sheriff, no doubt.
“God’s green Earth. It really is God’s, isn’t it?” Smallmouth whispered, staring out across the cold field. Then, at the very place he was staring, an old, familiar truck came barreling out of the gravel road in the woods and through the field in the steadily growing morning light. It was Uncle Chuck’s truck. It hurried over toward the other emergency vehicles, parked, the driver’s side door burst open, and Uncle Chuck came bounding out over to Smallmouth, his eyes wide and his mouth a wonderfully shocked “O”.
“JEREMY! JEREMY!!!” He basically fell on Smallmouth in a tight, warm hug. Smallmouth was caught off guard by Chuck using his real name.
His Uncle held him for several seconds and then let up, but kept his hands on Smallmouth’s shoulders.
“I thought you were dead.” Both of them said at almost the exact same time.
“I came back and your house was a mess and there was blood everywhere. I thought you were dead.” Smallmouth weakly spat out.
“Well, I woke up and you were gone, son, so I walked to the ranch to get my truck. I was worried bout ya son. I came back home and the whole place had been turned upside down. Blood on the carpet. I just thought the worst. Then I tried my neighbors house. Buddy, they’re dead. Looks like some wacko murder-suicide if I ever saw one. Scott probably tried to come kill us too and wrecked the place when he found it empty. I don’t know. But what I DO know is that you are right here! You are okay Jeremy!! Ahhh Praise Jesus!!”
“It’s not that, Uncle. That isn’t what happened out here. It’s..it was a..a, uh…”
Smallmouth’s fried brain couldn’t even comprehend what he had witnessed over the past few hours. It was all a violent blur.
“Dont worry bout it son, you can tell me everything on the way to the hospital. We gotta go get you checked out and cleaned up. C’mon.” He helped Smallmouth up and they walked over to the ambulance, his Uncle’s arm thrown around his shoulder.
Smallmouth would be sent home later that afternoon. It would take him and his Uncle a long time to sort through the chaos of that deadly night and rebuild their lives. But life kept on. Smallmouth would remain living with his Uncle, and would begin a job working with him down at the ranch. Together they started to attend a local church. Smallmouth never touched a drink or a drug or even a cigarette ever again, and remained steadfast in his newly revitalized faith.

Since new rulebooks dropped, it was only a matter of time before I went with a magnifying glass over these! Since I previously covered these errors in my larger list a couple years ago (Compilation of every erromistake/contradiction/etc., that I can find in the 'current' rulebooks. ), I will also compare and see what was fixed (in strikethrough), what is still there, and what is new (in bold). If there is an old error I missed the first time, there will be a * in front of it.
Base Game's 5-6 Player:

• Format error: At the bottom of page 4, is a heading titled "Starting settlements and resources". However this isn't discussed until the start of page 6. Heading needs to be moved closer to its topic.
• *Image error: Page 2. You need to squint to see it, but Illustration B is showing THREE 12 Tokens! Gone/covered now
• Image error: Page 2 Page 4. You need to squint to see it, but the 2nd image STILL has Frame Extension pieces ('3-3' and '5-5') in the wrong spots. The extra 3:1 and 2:1 Wool ports are accidently swapped. Pretty egregious when the first image of Page 4 (showing the "Starting Set-Up for new 5-6 Players") has the Frame Extensions in the correct spots. Just a copy-past job from the previous version.

5-6 Seafarers

• *Format error: Page 3: Just before the Wonder Cards is the heading titled "Scenarios". However this isn't discussed until the start of the next page, 4. Heading needs to be move to the top of the next page.
• Format error: The images for the Wonder Cards were shifted up on page 3. However, the big blue box on page 4 was NOT shifted up. So the top edges of the Wonder Cards are now aligned with the text "The scenario diagram provides the board set-up". So if you take a scissor and cut out these cards (as intended), you will cut this sentence in half, along the horizontal.
• *Format error: Page 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 18, 20, 22: "Terrain & Tokens" at the is not bolded. It now is Bolded.
• Missing Robber: Why is there no Robber on the maps for Scenarios 2, 3, 4, and 8? All fixed! They even added the Pirate for Scenario 1 (which I missed 3 years ago). They also have the Robber on a 12-Hills now. Interesting change? Or new error?

1. For Scenario 2, regular Seafarers says to put the Robber on the 12 Token. However, in the extension, there are two to choose from (12-Fields and 12-Pasture). Which one? Apparently, the 2-Pasture hex
2. For Scenario 3, regular Seafarers says to put the Robber on the 12 Token. However, in the extension, the Desert is reintroduced. So should the Robber go there instead? Or 12-Mountain/12-Hills hex? Robber is on the Desert.
3. For Scenario 4 and 8, I suppose it doesn't matter which Desert the Robber starts on. Just odd there is no marker here, but there IS a Robber marked for Scenario 5. Inconsistent.

• Image error: Page 11 (Fog Islands map). The 3-Mountain hex looks weird. The mountains is misaligned with the hex, the internal image is rotated 30 degrees (I think) Twisted back into place!
• Image error: Page 13 (Through the Desert map). The instructions on page 12 indicate 11 Harbors are used, but the map only shows 10. Looking at the 4th Edition map, and Catan Universe's version today, the Harbor by the 12-Pasture somehow got dropped.
• Image error: Page 13 (Through the Desert map). The 'foreign area' are missing red outlines, like the 3-4 player version has. More liberties will need to be taken by the players, if they want to make a variable map.
• *Format error: Page 16: Harbors at the top isn't bolded.
• Incorrect component count or Image error: Page 16 or 17 (Cloth for Catan). The first page says there are 11 Harbors (like many other scenarios). However, the map on the other page shows 12 Harbors. A new harbor was added by the 8-Wheat hex, onto the lower-right frame. I am unsure which page is incorrect, since previous Editions didn't have a harbor there, but the current Extension includes an extra 2:1 Wool (as normal), and a 6th 3:1 port (for a total of 12 Harbors in Seafarers).
• *Typo: Page 18: The # 26, for describing how many Sea hexes, accidently has a bunch of dots in between 2 and 6
• Image Error: A Robber is erroneously added to the middle desert island. THERE IS NO ROBBER FOR THIS SCENARIO.
• Incorrect component count: Page 22. The count for the # tokens are off for multiple reasons:

1. Adding up all the tokens equals 40, when the total below says 39. Since there will be 39 resource producing hexes, there is an extra # token in the count above.
2. However, the Base Game's 5-6 extension only has 28 tokens, while Seafarers adds 10 more (total 38). This implies a # token should be taken from the Base Game, so the rulebook should make that clear
3. Related to that, it says there should be 5 copies of the 5-9 tokens. This is impossible, since Base 5-6 + SF should have 3 copies of 2 and 12, 4 of everything else. Again, implying more tokens from the Base Game need to be taken, but it never states this.

5-6 Cities & Knights: No mistakes! It is STILL clean!!!
5-6 Traders & Barbarians

• Image errors?: Page 3+4. The frame setup is completely different than normal. The frame extension pieces are also in different positions. Instead of the usual setup (from the top, clockwise):

1. '6-1'>'1-2'>'2-2'>'2-3'>'3-3'>'3-4'>'4-5'>'5-5'>'5-6'>'6-6'>; page 3 instead displays (from top-left, clockwise):
2. '6-1'>'2-2'>'1-2'>'3-3'>'3-4'>'2-3'>'6-6'>'4-5'>'5-5'>'5-6'>. If this is supposed to be intentional, the rulebook should either state this (or be more specific), or make the image bigger, since I had to squint to see the different layout.
3. Also, if the different frame setup is intentional, why not show T&B's version of the '5-6' frame piece (with the missing coast)?

• Formatting error: Top of Page 4. The line for the 'Additional Components' looks... off. Not lined up with the rest of the text below.
• Component List mistake: Page 5, the Castle Hex is incorrectly labeled as a Oasis hex!
• Image error?: Page 5+6. While the frame mostly follows the 'new' layout in pages 3+4, there is now a 2nd '4-5' frame, replacing the '2-3' frame in the bottom-right corner. While technically possible, since T&B does have its own version of '4-5' (with missing coastline), the image does not reflect the artwork, copying the base game's '4-5' piece twice. Again, the rulebook make no written mention of the new frame order.
• Image error?: Page 9 Page 10: While the rulebook finally gives some instruction regarding the frame, curious why the image doesn't show T&B's version of the '5-6' frame piece (with the missing coast)?
• Image errocontradiction: Page 10 Page 9. The instructions say the regular Quarry and Glassworks hexes may not have Settlements built on the corners that only border the frame (ocean), only the 4 intersections that border other hexes (the new Quarry and Glassworks from T&B's extension don't have this restriction). However, the image is showing possible Settlement locations on all 6 corners, for both the new and old trade hexes. Either the image is mistaken, or the instructions are.
• Contradiction/Inconsistency: Page 9 states that Player 2 may NOT use Gold Coins to purchases resources. This is in contrast with previous scenarios, which state you can. In addition, later in the rulebook, where the various Player 1/Player 2 actions are summarized, Page 12 says Player 2 CAN use Gold Coins to buy resources!
• Component List mistake: Page 11 Page 10, Card Deck Manifest. The total count for the 5th scenario's Development cards should say 12, not 26; and the total count for the Baggage Train cards should say 10, NOT 21. These incorrect totals are copied from regular T&B.

5-6 Explorers & Pirates

• *Image error: The image showing the "Catan 5-6 Player Extension Pieces" sorting tile is showing resource cards with 4th Edition graphics! (I doubt the real Sorting Tile has this error. I hope not)
• Missing words?: Page 2,3,4,5. The second sentence of each page says "The two hexes in the illustration marked 'Green Back' and 'Orange Back' must be taken...". Shouldn't it instead say "The two sets of hexes..."? It does now :)
• Component List mistake: Page 2. The hexes shown for the Orange Sun side are accidently copied over from the Green Moon side. To further explain:

1. The terrain hexes from regular E&P should show 2 Fields hexes, and 1 of everything else. Instead its showing 2 Mountain hexes (which is only correct for the Green Moon side)
2. The terrain hexes from E&P's extension should be Mountain-Pasture-Hills. Instead its showing Mountain-Forest-Fields (again, only correct for the Green Moon side)

• Missing rule?: Page 6. The Paired Players summary chart doesn't mention using Gold Coins to buy resources, for neither Player 1 or 2. I suppose you can infer both can use Gold Coins, I only bring this up since T&B bothers to mention Gold Coins.

So to summarize:

1. Base Game Extension: Originally 2 errors, 1 was fixed, 1 was added
2. Seafarers Extensions: Originally 12 errors. 9 were fixed, 2 were added
3. C&K Extension: Never had errors, none were added :)
4. T&B Extension: Originally 9 errors. 1 was fixed, and 1 was added >:(
5. E&P Extension: Originally 3 errors. 1 was fixed, 1 was added.

In the end, I'm a little disappointed. The only extension rulebook that saw any real improvement was SF. I wasn't planning on buying any Extensions until the rules were updated with the new Paired Players system. But... maybe I'll just have to wait for the 6th Edition, in 2030. :(
I shouldn't be so hard on them, as I missed several errors myself the first time around. Even some of my own errors in my original list (fixed now). But I'm just some bored shmuck doing this in my free time. I'd expect more from a corporation.

[ [FIRST] [NEXT>]

Season 10 “Days of Fury” - Episode 2 “Visiting Omen”

He had hoped for a boring day. Boring days are good at work, and Santos was already expecting to not have many of them for a while.
The first couple of days were boring, as usual- Blackriver is a small town, and the worst that had happened was Nila and Kessa making a few wellness checks after worried calls from neighbors. A couple of people in denial, a few ashamed at their own violent outbursts and a stern warning to Tamm about painting others’ properties without asking first.
This morning, however, began with an all-hands meeting. There were no meeting rooms in the office, so they made do in the general workspace room, they all stood there at the center while Keya looked them over.
“We have received a report from a neighboring city about a convoy of protestors making its way to Blackriver” she describes without tone. At this point nobody bothers interrupting.
“This convoy is comprised of approximately four hundred and seventy eight individuals of multiple species, primarily human and venlil but with operationally relevant representations of the entire spectrum of size and mobility types” her paws are behind her back, her ears focused directly ahead, her eyes centered to keep the entire team on the core of her focus “They have crossed multiple cities already, generally engaging in verbal sparring with any figure of authority, parading signs and banners denouncing all manners of authorities as well as occasionally engaging in physical altercations with officers.”
“They are also known to engage in vandalism. Though primarily aimed at exterminator and police precincts as well as public offices, they have already caused considerable collateral to others they have identified as ‘collaborators’” there’s a single heartbeat of waiting for breath before she continues “They have, however, not shown to be an incredibly organized group or one with a clear goal and objective. The convoy appears to contain only extremely emotionally charged people with no clear overarching goal.”
“We are incapable of dealing with the situation should they turn aggressive, as such we will be simply maintaining watch and relocating the populace should they become a problem.” Then, she picks up her holopad and passes it to Lunek beside her “They can only follow one path with the entire convoy, the central street, therefore I have divided it into four sectors. One of each will be assigned to a sector.”
First her ears turn to the first target “Lunek, sector one at the entrance. As the most approachable member of the precinct your task is to give an initial image of harmlessness. Do not engage first, do not take initiative against them. Ensure the members of the herd in the area are warned of their approach. If they become aggressive, retreat and focus on the escape of the herd.”
She tilts her head a little bit, turning her ears the other way “Marik, sector two. Mostly the commercial area, your task is ostensive protection to lower the chances of them initiating aggression. Whereas protection of the herd is first priority your second priority is ensuring Tenve’s Hardware Store as well as Sunbreeze Meals and Watchful Café remain capable of providing anyone whose residences become damaged.” suddenly, she turns her head entirely to face Marik “Ostensive protection means dissuasion, ensure that they know they are not under threat and as long as those specific areas are not engaged, do not provoke”
Next in her line of fire is Santos “As our human officer you will be in sector three, nearby the precinct. They are liable to become most agitated in this area and your presence may serve to calm them. You are not to engage, if deemed necessary the precinct’s materials are considered expendable, do not attempt to stop them”
“Sector four, the exit of town, will be with me to ensure that they have fully left Blackriver and will not attempt to turn back” then she tilts her ears again “Aren, you will gear up with a CCG and remain out of view range, your task will be quick emergency response should the need arise.” she then points her tail at the last three officers “Vess, your task will be to inform the herd and ensure a clear path for the convoy while Nila and Kessa will gather all of our medical supplies and set a staging area out of the convoy’s range. Organize ambulance assistance from Striped Hill and Everrain”
Then, she turns her ears around to focus each one in turn “As any attempt at aggression will end only in negative consequences, and in order to reduce the apparent levels of threat you will be unarmed. The estimated time of arrival is a third of a claw, ready yourselves and be at your post in time. Dismissed.”
“Not sure if I like or I don’t that we had the cold bastard right now” Aren says, as soon as Keya had left the room “Maybe we should move in closer when the convoy gets to sector four?”
“Probably a good idea to be nearby” Santos adds with a sigh “They might take umbrage with her demeanor, hopefully they won’t be set off too hard.”
And with silent signs of agreement all of the officers of Blackriver depart for preparations. The first ones to leave the precinct are the ones in charge of support, the two girls set off early to find someone willing to permit usage of their lawn as a possible impromptu field hospital and a little while later Aren leaves with a heavy CCG.
Slowly, the clock ticks to the appointed claw… And soon enough, Lunek can see in the distance the incoming omen of people. At first a distant line in the horizon, slowly the dark mark on the road coalesces into distinct shapes, the shapes of hundreds of vehicles slowly rolling down the road.
When the first few get close to the initial buildings of the main street, the entire convoy slows down. Their process of preparation is seemingly laborious, each vehicle houses multiple people at a time, smaller cars full to the brim, flatbeds with more people on their cargo space than can safely be contained, even buses conscripted for the effort. They carry with them signs, flags, a multitude of symbols as they dismount their vehicles and start spreading out to fill the street.
They seem to naturally form two distinct yet highly mixed groups, at its most distinctive is the pack of humans who keep a good distance from each other. But they are not alone in this group as takkan, mazic, yotul, zurulian and even drilvar form this central group. But flowing around them, not avoiding their presence but never infringing in their space is the grey mass of venlil, packed tight together, and mixed in there adding color to the monochromatic flux are krakotl, tilfish, sulean, iftali, sivkit and even a seemingly very confused duerten.
And at the very core of the moving group are their vehicles, which gently start rolling forward again as the group starts moving. Lunek simply waits, silently, by the side of the road, his ears attentively swiveling from one side to the other, expression having given way to function. Before the first of the convoy even arrives close he turns to the side, making a pointing sign with his tail. A woman who had been watching from her yard flicks her right ear and runs back inside.
He continues to wait, scanning around at all times for the presence of… Anything. The street is empty of locals when the first visitors start to alight. The convoy is loud, their symbols carry a loudness of colors and their vehicles make as much noise as they can to draw attention, but those who walk seem content in allowing their tools to speak for them, for now. Lunek tries to make sense of the banners and signs, but the messages are disparate as the group- Some speak of injustices against their people, some speak of anger at invaders, some speak of betrayal.
“Fuck off, fireman!” comes the harsh bark of a human, causing Lunek to flinch. But flinch is all he does, he simply starts walking alongside the moving convoy.
The exterminator’s attention is drawn to the details of the few people he can distinguish amongst the mass. Something tickles at his pattern-recognition but he cannot quite ascertain what for a while, until a lightly limping mazic makes her way to the edge of the mass “Want to finish the job?!” she trumpets, her form towering over his.
“I’m just observing, ma’am.” Though the tremor of his voice is noticeable, he remains stoic. But her proximity makes him notice something about her body, marks in her wrists, neck and feet. Though mazic have powerful wrists and knuckles upon which they support the front half of their weight, her left wrist seems completely incapable of it, giving her a limp particular to a three-point walk. “To make sure there’s no impediment on your path” he notices the leathery skin around her left wrist is deeply blackened.
“Oh, ‘no impediment’ is that it? So everyone that lives here is an impediment?!” her voice booms.
“Ma’am” still, he does not yield nor does he break his pace following the convoy “We have not done anything other than inform our people of your presence…” for a half second all he hears is the sound of his own heart “We can’t do anything else.”
Those words, then, sealed his fate. The first shout to echo in his direction was a yotul howling “Yeah you’re useless!” and soon the avalanche came in multiple voices and languages “Can’t do shit!” “You’re just here to hurt people!” “Useless crap!” “Idiot!” and many more.
With every step and twitch the very average exterminator puts all of his focus on just being there. He lets himself cower a little bit, against the barrage it is difficult not to, but he continues to accompany. A few curious coats step out from their houses to watch, but the front of the convoy seems far too focused on the sole exterminator in view to bother anyone else.
A few steps ahead, an older venlil with a cane has moved the closest to the convoy as any watcher has up to now. Seeing her proximity to the increasingly rowdy crowd causes Lunek to speed up, quickly approaching her “Leva-”
But his words are stalled when she puts a paw on his shoulder, she gently puts her head against his for just a second “You’re doing good pup, keep at it” she mutters to him before breaking contact and turning around to walk back inside. He can spy her grandchildren looking on through the door. Lunek looks back at the still-shouting moving convoy, takes a deep breath, and continues to accompany them forward. A small pawful of them, however, seem to have fallen silent.
Once having reached the limit of his assigned zone, however, Lunek stops. He watches the convoy move forward, past the houses, now noisier than before. The initial hollering at him had turned into disjointed screams at some indistinct foe- Though the herd had been noticed of a foe, it was yet unaware of who, or what, said foe was. So for now it howled at the ineptitude of… Someone. And as the last of the convoy passes beyond the imaginary line of his duty, Lunek lets out a deep sigh and allows himself to sit down on the ground.
He stays there for a moment, without thought, simply letting the tension, confusion and fear permeate his body until a gentle paw touches his arm. He doesn’t need to look to identify it, he lets his lover use her strength to prop him up, raising him to his feet “Keina you shouldn’t-”
“Neighbor’s looking over Tiss” his wife wraps her arms and tail around him “I’m not leaving you alone.” she stays like that for a second, before breaking off “Do you need to go after them?”
“No”
Marik stalks through the sidewalk, moving with energy. His speed outpaces the movement of the convoy, his paws twitch to grasp at something that isn’t there and a deep and intense motion makes his short fur stand on end. He had let the convoy’s head move in front of him, simply standing still as he assessed as many as he could in the mass, and now he had begun to move towards the front again.
As he stalked forward he focused his sight on every member of the convoy that seemed of interest. A human whose clothes seemed suspiciously loose, a venlil whose movements were far too stiff, a gojid who kept his claws behind his back. He stared at each like they were his quarry, analyzing every piece of movement they made for threats, and yet aside from the challenge in the human’s gaze he saw no danger arise.
Tenve had closed his shop, so as the convoy moved forward Marik simply continued to follow along, scanning the crowd for threats. But the next point of interest arrives, and he rushes ahead placing himself in front of the only restaurant of the town. Sunbreeze Meals wasn’t a very common sort of restaurant, Blackriver did not have enough visitors for a normal restaurant to be profitable and was small enough most people had their meals at home, it most often served takeout for those farmers who’d spend so long in the field they would return home without the energy to feed themselves.
Sparing a look inside at the only five tables, Marik couldn’t keep a small thought away from his mind. How most who got their meals from Sunbreeze these days did so because they enjoyed the cooking rather than their need of work, ever since the sunspeck population has been brought under control and the maintenance of the fields had become much smaller. He feels the presence long before he can recognize what led him to feel it and turns to stare at a group of six that approach the entrance: Two humans, a tilfish, two gojids and a takkan had broken off from the convoy and approached the restaurant.
He traces his color band over each in turn, and they all bristle at his stare. One of the humans hesitates before continuing to walk inside, and Marik simply remains by the door with his arms crossed, left ear twisted as far back as he could to listen to the inside.
“What have you got here?”
“W-we mostly ha-have ready ma-made meals to go or- or- Or you can look over the menu”
“There’s no need to stutter, y’know”
“So-sorry-”
“Really, after everything y’all are still with this predator crap?”
The chimes on the door echo for the second time in sequence as Marik makes his way inside. The tilfish had started to lean over the counter while the other five had arrayed themselves behind her. They all turn their attention to him as he enters, including the venlil manning the counter. Marik keeps his gaze directly on the tilfish for a few uncomfortable seconds, before looking at the man behind the counter and making a simple sign with his tail, a short vertical bob with the tip and a slow horizontal swipe. It’s meaning simple: >Safe<.
After a few seconds someone else appears from the kitchen. The tall venlil carries a large stack of plastic boxes in his arms, all of them seemingly designed to attach to themselves so as to be carried with ease. He puts them down with a resounding crash on the counter, and opens up his voice with ice “Farmer’s Pots, good meal when you’re working and can’t go home.” With each word the owner of the restaurant and main cook comes closer and closer to the tilfish, until the last “Ten credits each.”
Nobody moves for a couple of seconds, and then one of the humans steps closer and brings a holopad over to the credit reader. There’s a noise indicating payment, and then the owner raises his head and tilts it to focus his favored eye and both of his ears at the man who paid “Now,” he shifts register in his voice and the language he speaks in “fuck off” he finishes.
With no small amount of surprise the group of six retrieve the stack of packaged meals, carefully walking out and back into the convoy. Marik stays behind for a moment “Didn’t know you spoke human”
“Pup’s enamored with their languages. Of course, first greek words he learns is swearing.”
Outside, Marik stalks further ahead to the next point of interest. He moves faster than the convoy, and has time to move in front of it. For a few meters the street is still clear as he arrives to find a group of people standing in front of the Watchful. Standing there were all of its employees, and even all of its regulars, twenty people total standing there as if they were having the most normal day. If not for their raised ears tracking every noise coming from down the street and their swaying tails swinging about like angry beasts.
One of them simply points his tail at the other side of the street as Marik comes closer, and the hunter doesn’t need a second command to understand the meaning. They have this, he has a less practical but just as important duty. He crosses the street quickly before the convoy starts coming closer, and heads towards the park.
As the regulars of the Watchful had feared, it took little time until a large group had broken off from the convoy. With the town on alert about the convoy they had found themselves bereft of prey and now this group had set out to find some, anyone who might be willing, or not, to listen to their grievances. And what is clearly a place designed for people to congregate looked most appetizing.
Marik shadowed the group as they moved through the park, but they were accompanied by nothing but silence. It wasn’t until they ran into the centerpiece of the park that he took initiative, stepping ahead of the group and simply… Standing there a distance away from the tree of many scions, between it and the group.
“What’s so important over there, fireman?” it was a venlil who asked, but his usage of an english word was not lost on Marik.
“A place you will respect” the exterminator has his arms crossed, the one good portion of his gaze set on the man who asked “This is a grave.”
Though the group that now prowled was large, those who heard were taken aback. One such, however, approaches closer. He was a venlil whose fur shifted between a soft, brownish color and a dirty white “A tradition of the tenets right? One of those family trees?” The man would have been distinctive in any other group due to his missing patches of fur around neck, wrists, even portions around his head. But such signs of long term damage were common in the convoy.
Interest. They had shown true interest, or at least one of them had. “No, but similar… The forgotten tree is a grave for the forgotten.” He felt like these people, at least the ones before him, could probably understand the meaning of this place “It is of no tradition. Someone, a long time ago, wanted to honor someone who was gone but whose name was not meant to be remembered. Someone who had disappeared in the system… So they borrowed on another’s tradition, and added a scion to this tree, with something in their memory. Others have done so similarly, until it became… A grave for the forgotten”
“Didn’t think you’d be worried about this kind of place” it’s a human that speaks up this time
“Our duty is to protect this town, what you think-” but Marik’s words are interrupted by that same venlil who had asked before. His demeanor suddenly shifts, his ears perk up and his entire body shifts forward for a moment. He hesitates, for a second everyone’s focus is on him, and then he runs towards the tree.
Marik follows behind, stopping just by the man’s side as he finds himself at the base of the tree. The man makes a direct line to somewhere, something he had found from the distance, as if it had called him. He finds a thick and heavy branch that had been bent down by the weight of its scions and memories, near its base and speaking of a memory left behind long ago is a braid of fur made of three colors, a dirty white, a soft brown and a dark grey, bound by the braids are two beads.
The man raises up a paw, but does not touch it. As if cradling it, he recites the words engraved in one of the beads “I will cross every star to return home” others have come closer to listen to the man’s hoarse voice “There will always be a home for you” he reads of the second one. The names on the beads have been scratched out. The man falls on his knees “S-she kept her promise and… I couldn’t keep mine…”
Marik steps back as he watches two others come closer to comfort the man. He looks as a few others approach with more caution, looking up at the tree with a bit more reverence than they had before. Then, he turns around and starts heading back towards the main street.
Gazing out as the convoy gains a new flux, some leave it as it passes to move towards the park while others leave the park to rejoin the convoy, Marik simply stays there at the side of the street looking as stern as he could. Though the noise of the convoy remains great, here in this portion it seems to die down a little. A thought crosses his mind as he turns an ear as far back as he can, a thought he can’t help but voice “I wonder how many are looking at their own graves…”
As the convoy progresses, Santos simply stands by the front of the precinct, hands in his pockets. He watches the convoy arrive, heart beating fast, constrained hands the only reason he hasn't started shaking quite yet. He starts tapping his right foot as he watches the first few people cross by without noticing what this place is yet, everyone knows where the precinct is, so aside from the words printed on the sign by the entrance there is no other marker of what this building’s purpose might be.
Of course, it is impossible for nobody to notice. The entire convoy seems to stop as soon as a zurulian riding on the shoulders of a human points a claw at the building and says something. A large group breaks away at the command, all of them holding disparate signs and messages. They turn on the building with enough roars that whatever they are attempting to transmit is lost on him.
Santos is thankful his hearing isn’t nearly as good as his coworkers’, as the cacophony is already overwhelming him. He changes stances slightly, taking his hands out of his pockets and crossing his arms. This prompts a small group to turn their looks at him, the focus easily identifiable with the humans in their midst, focus which made the hair in the back of Santos’ neck stand on end. Living in this place had refined his sense of danger, but he didn’t need that to realize what could happen.
It was a group of five that approached, four humans and a venlil. “Didn’t think they’d be letting humans live out here in the boonies” said one of his kin.
Santos just shrugs “Got hired to work here. Honestly, rural folk get a needlessly bad reputation, most of the time they just don’t care as long as you’re not bothering them”
“Really? In my-”
Santos interrupts the man “Cut it out” there are many ways in which humans make themselves obvious, many of which are their eyes. Santos did understand the fear of them and why it was primal, it was not the fear of the eyes but the fear of attention, it was knowing you were under the scrutiny and judgment of another that set off that emotion. It was rarely the eyes that showed this attention for most species, but for humans it was, and the man’s clear gaze on his badge made the entire situation clear to him “Stop beating around the bush and say it already.”
Someone else is who speaks. The tall woman starts not with words, however, but by spitting on Santos’ uniform “You fucking traitor” her voice is both fierce and cold at the same time. A very emotional coldness.
“There we go” he sighs “Just… Move on. We’re not getting anything out of this conversation”
“Why?” It was the venlil in the group that started this time “These people hate you, they hate you for what you are! Why do you work for them?!”
Santos rubs his eyes and sighs “Because someone has to. Change only happens when you make it happen, simple as that”
“Change?!” another one of the humans howls “Do you think those people can change?! You know the truth, those fuckers have never done anything good!”
“You know, if you had read your history books…” Santos stares at the one who had just had their outburst “You’d remember that we once thought the very same about the police” there’s the sound of glass breaking, but he doesn’t reaction “And a lot of us still do”
The human staring him down shifts their gaze slightly at the broken window of the precinct, then back at Santos “A broken window is easy to fix” he shrugs “As I was saying. Same shit.” he crosses his arms again “There’s a role those people play, a role that needs to be played because it’s important. Different name, different problems, still the same shit. Gotta fix this, I’m doing my part” he then stares at the venlil in the group “You do yours. Simple as that.”
“Role?!” the venlil of the group steps closer “What role could they possibly have?! They only exist to hurt people!”
Santos steps back, and raises his eyes a little bit. Of course, the classics had shown themselves in this instance. With as many humans as there are in the crowd there were now quite a few objects in the air, most clearly aimed at the precinct behind him. Though given the failed arc of some of them it was clearly not just the humans indulging in such a tried and true method.
“I used to be a wildlife preserve ranger” Santos then focuses his gaze on the aggravated venlil “This is a frontier town, if you walk in the brushes with shorts you’ll walk out with your ankles numb. The athai out there are rather harmless, but they keep the sunspecks under control.” He takes another step back “Since coming here I’ve been pest control, had to catch an exotic animal set loose, investigated a murder, helped stop a child from taking her own life, stopped large scale fights, helped a dozen people avoid being arrested for self defense and helped break a fucking siege”
Santos cracks his knuckles “There’s roles. Jobs that need done and there is one fucking organization doing it all. That is a problem.” Then, he sighs and takes a few more steps to the side, offering indifference from this point on “There’s nothing I can say that would make you calm down.” he says one final time “Just make sure not to injure yourselves in the process, alright?” His words seemed to be enough to make the small group cease trying to interact, as the convoy had begun moving again. Though the one human who had called him a traitor gets one final parting shot at the precinct “Where the hell did you get an egg in this planet…” Santos says with a raised eyebrow as the projectile impacts the front door.
Keya stands by a large sign, the same one that welcomes you into Blackriver on one side and sees you out at the other, the official limit of the town. Her arms behind her back, her attention directly towards the front of the convoy as they march. Something gains the whole of her attention, the car in the front. Someone draws her focus, a human with a megaphone on top of the car. The man shouts words of encouragement at the people behind him with the megaphone before turning to his holopad, then he bends over downwards to discuss something with the driver.
She simply remains there, waiting for the convoy to pass. But instead of moving on out of the city, here the convoy stops completely. Keya observes as the further end of the convoy starts to slowly compact upon itself, and her ears pick up something “Alright everyone, start getting ready, next town over is more than a claw away, make sure you’ve left nothing behind” the words were not meant for her, nor for anyone too far. They come from the same man she had seen standing on top of the car, but he had now climbed down and was talking with a group of multiple species.
It is clear they have some degree of leadership, though the convoy does not stop cleanly nor does it begin to organize with alacrity they do respond to the group’s organization. So Keya keeps her focus on them as they point, wave and talk between themselves, others and devices. But at least one of them has noticed her attention, a gangly and light-skinned human with fire-red hair, the man that was atop the car. He starts walking in her direction, before turning around for one final set of commands as he walks backwards “And make sure the guys at the back got all the crap! We’re here to be heard, not to trash the city!” he says before turning back again to head towards her. A venlil with pure white fur erupts from inside the car he was riding, quickly dashing to his side as they notice where he was going.
In a few moments both have come up to her, the human looking down at her with the venlil bristles at his side “Saw anything interesting, fireman?”
“What are you doing here?”
“What? Isn’t it obvious?!” it was the venlil that roared a response “You saw all of it! You know what they’ve done to us! What they’ve done to everyone! And you still work for those brahking monsters! It’s like you’re thankful they made you a cripple!”
The human puts a hand on the venlil’s shoulder, calming her demeanor just a little bit “We’re here because honestly, we’re all too tired of being fucking ignored is what. So what the fuck are you gonna do?!”
“I have put the wrong emphasis” Keya says with her lack of tone. She can see the human shiver just a little bit “My task is to ensure the safety of this town. Your convoy is a danger. We have eight field-capable officers, we cannot ensure the safety of the residents against a group like yours. People will take actions for reasons, you have broadcast your reasons clearly. You have chosen this place for a reason which I cannot ascertain.”
She makes sure her ears are trained towards both the human and the venlil, an action which causes the venlil to cower behind her partner “We do not house government agencies. This is a farming town of little note. The local precinct is a simple precinct, we have no regulatory or command authority. The town population is approximately double that of the number of your convoy. We have no individuals of appreciable social or political reach. There is nothing in Blackriver of interest to people attempting to change government policy, nor have there been actions taken here that I can identify as being cause for retaliatory actions within the context of your message.”
“I must ensure this does not happen again and the only way of doing so is minimizing our attractivity as targets. A logical assumption of your choice of quarry would be a town with the presence of politicians, a large city with constant news coverage, cities housing important government agencies or those containing the Regional Firebases”
“So I ask again. What are you doing here?”
The two remain silent for a few seconds, before the human turns around with a mouth noise “Whatever, I don’t need to explain myself to someone that won’t listen. Come on!” he starts to stalk back towards the car, but stops once he notices his venlil companion wasn’t moving.
The snow-white venlil has their focus on Keya, who offers a simple low forward swipe of her tail, a sign to proceed. Still, the venlil seems frozen in place until the human comes back and grabs hold of their paw with a gentle touch. At which point both finally return to the convoy.
Keya remains at the side of the road, watching as the convoy readies itself again to leave. People get back inside cars, they hop on the back of trucks and load themselves into buses. She continues to watch as the convoy takes its time riding out, making their way out of the town.
Once it is finally gone, multiple footsteps sound behind her. When she turns around she meets her officers, having returned from their assigned positions “They have left. I expect your reports of what happened in each sector by the end of your shifts” she states plainly, before looking at Santos “They did not appear to have a specific reason for targeting Blackriver.” The question remains unspoken.
The human officer just shrugs “Sometimes, you don’t know what you’re doing. We’re just a little town, I doubt they even know what exactly they’re angry about.” He looks at the tail end of the convoy as it leaves “Town was probably just a place they felt safe going to.”
“D-do you think we might get more like that” Lunek says, at the back of the group.
“Who knows…” Santos sighs “But if human history applies anywhere here… This is just a sign of worse things to come”
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And thus the omen passes by. Feelings, emotions of all sorts, without a plan or a reason other than just their own rage and distress.
Did any of these even know what they were doing? And how much worse can it be when they do?