Ripping her clothes

[Next]:
Part 2 The child.
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“Uhm. I’m not sure what you mean, kid. I don’t know who your parents are.”
“C’mon! I watched you come out of that crypt! Maybe if I tell you their names it’ll spark your memory! My dad’s name was James Luceniel, and my mother’s was Talma Luceniel. Don’t you remember them?”
Internally, I groan. I never caught the name of that female elf, but one of the males was definitely named James. I can’t have this ten-year-old just wander into that crypt and find one of her parents brutalized by some monster. I need a distraction.
I notice the faint grip of the child release, and she backs away. I can see the blood from my robe mixing with the dirt already caught in her dress.
“Oh. I never thought you could get dirty, Mr. Reaper! I guess it makes sense given who you are, but the thought never crossed my mind! Would you like some help cleaning your cloak before you take me to see my parents?”
“Oh. Sure,” I say, confused and perturbed by this child’s readiness to just help a bloodstained stranger.
“We’ll get you all nice and cleaned up Mr. Reaper. Then you can help me!” She says as she begins leading me out of the graveyard.
“So, why do you keep calling me ‘Mr. Reaper’?”
“Because that’s what we’ve always called you. Is that wrong?”
“Yes. That’s not my name. My name is… Uhm…”
“Go on, I’d love to call you by your actual name! I didn’t realize I’d been using the wrong one!”
“I… Huh. I can’t remember.”
As we step out into the town proper, I can’t help but think that it looks terrible. Most of the buildings have collapsed, and the few buildings left standing are massively overgrown with various climbing plants. There aren’t many people in the street either.
“That’s okay. I’m sure you’ll remember eventually. You might want to turn down this alley though. People probably won’t like seeing you out in the middle of the street.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
As she leads me through the back alleys, I can’t help but stare at some of the cobblestone buildings we pass. I notice that where the stones would normally be held together with mortar, there are thick, dark green vines binding the stones together. It almost looks like the vines are moving. Yet, despite the strangeness of their construction, I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve been here before. Everything seems so eerily familiar, yet nothing concrete. Hesitantly, I ask, “So, what is the story of this place? I thought elves mostly stuck to treetop fortresses. Never knew you guys to build with stone.”
“Oh. Well, we didn’t build this place. We moved in a very long time ago. The Ancient Oak told me that the village was made by some creatures called ‘Hai-oo-mans.’ I don’t really know what those are, but apparently, they were really, really good at building stuff. I guess they all died off at some point. Don’t really know how, but when the Beastkin decided they were gonna fight us and we ran away, the Ancient Oak knew about this place and helped us move in and rebuild a bit.”
Hai-oo-mans… Does she mean Humans?
“Wait. You don’t know what humans are?”
“Not really. Why? Are there a lot of them where you’re from?”
“I mean… yeah?”
“Oh. Was it a lot of work for you when they died? I bet it was, Mr. Reaper.”
There she goes again with that moniker.
“I don’t think I ever asked your name, kid. What is it?”
“Oh. Sorry. I had assumed you already knew it. I’m Namaski! Namaski Luceniel. May I ask you another question?”
“Sure.”
“How did my parents die.”
Shit. Oh shit. Shit. Fuck. Shit. Shit. How’d she find out!
“What do you mean?” I ask, begging this to be some massive misunderstanding.
“I’m not sure how else to phrase it. I watched my mom and dad be set in the ground when I was fifteen. Nobody really explained it to me at the time, and people still refuse to tell me what exactly happened.”
“When you were fifteen?”
“Yeah. That would’ve been… six years ago.”
Oh thank Toyl. Wait… “You barely look ten years old!”
“Excuse me? I am not a toddler.”
“Toddler? At ten? I know I never interacted with elves much, but by Toyl you people take forever to develop.”
“Toyl? I don’t think I’ve heard of that god. Is he some sort of death god?”
“Death god? Why would… No. She’s my god.”
“How can she be your god, but not a death god, Mr. Reaper?”
“Why do you think I would worship a death god?”
“Worship? I thought you were the Grim Reaper. You know… Faithful servant and manifested embodiment of Death. Seemed pretty clear from your frame and complexion why some people thought you were a skeleton.”
“No. I’m… I’m just a human.”
“Oh. I get it. This is some weird death joke. You might want to work on that sense of humor of yours, Mr. Reaper. Anyway, we’re here!”
“It’s not… Whatever.”
What stands before us is quite possibly the shoddiest house in the entire town. I stand outside of the doorframe for almost a full minute wondering how the building hasn’t collapsed yet.
“Feel free to come in whenever you feel like it!”
Right. “I’m coming in!” I shout as I step through the doorframe.
Immediately, a wad of items is shoved into my arms.
“Sorry, I don’t have a tub, but here’s a towel, washrag, and some soap. There’s a secret section of the river just a few hundred meters out the back door. Also, there’s a set of my dad’s old clothes in there. I think they might fit you. Once you’re done, I’ll take those rags you’re wearing and clean them. Maybe try mending some of the tears too.”
“Thanks, but you really don’t have to do all of that.”
“It’s no problem! I like helping!”
Maybe I should just leave all this stuff just outside the door. Sneak away before she notices. I really don’t want to take advantage of some poor kid. Besides, what am I gonna do when her aunt, uncle, grandparent, or whoever is taking care of her shows up? It’s best that I just leave now.
But… For some reason, I don’t want to.
“What’s the matter, Mr. Reaper?” She pouts. “Is it not good enough? I’m sorry! I can get better soap! Soap that actually smells nice if that’s what you want! Or is it my dad’s clothes? Are they not your style? Why do you look so sad? What can I do better?”
“Please, calm down.”
“I’m calm! I promise!”
“It’s just that I don’t want to impose on you, and also I’m pretty sure your grandmother or aunt or whoever probably doesn’t want you inviting a stranger into your house and giving them your things.”
“You don’t have to worry about that! I’m the matron of this household! The only person I have to listen to is The Ancient Oak! Besides, you aren’t taking advantage of me! I offered!”
“But-”
“No buts! Now get yours in that river and start scrubbing,” she shouts as she begins to try and shove me out of the back door.
With a small chuckle, I let out a “Yes Ma’am.” and allow her to push me out of the door.
What a weird kid. She seems like a good one though. If only she wasn’t so trusting.
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Author’s Note: Sorry for the long delay! Apparently all it took was a tornado ripping through my house to get me motivated again! Don’t worry, everyone is fine, and this is a nice distraction from the destruction. As always, thanks for reading, and I hope to see y’all again.

P.S. Feel free to join my Discord server here for stuff like shoddy character drawings and periodic updates!

The Injustice Initiative and Megaverse Council did not grieve with their former leader for too long, due to the combined forces of Venessa and Velocity making swift progress in uniting dozens of Omniverses under their heroic banner. Velocity used her direct and demanding demeanor to influence the defenders of each Omniverse to join the Council and was brutally honest in her meetings with the current situation. She stressed that if they refuse to join then they will face extinction and the Council will not help them when they are attacked due to them only having priorities for attacking the demons head on. Venessa on the other hand focused her attention in strengthening the Injustice Initiative with rigorous training and firing incompetent people in leadership positions and swiftly replacing them with those that were far more competent and understood the severity of the situation. In the span of 16 days, the combined efforts of these two feminine leaders made great leaps in progress that equaled or surpassed Diamond's own work in the past three months.
While these two were on a mission together, The Researcher contacted them regarding a very important matter. When the two heroines arrived at the Council's headquarters The Researcher revealed to them two enormous discoveries. "We finally found them. The place where our foes call home, Omniverse 6,666,666. We do not know much of this Omniverse other than the Diamond from Omniverse 8 being aware of its potential and became paranoid of its existence leading him nearly wiping all traces of it from the Council's database. I happen to uncover the last fragments of his report that failed to be deleted. Furthermore, the Core of that Omniverse is deeply fractured, completely drained of all power. We can deduce with sound reasoning that the landscape of that Omniverse is something out of an apocalypse with everything that could have gone wrong, definitely went wrong. In addition, it is a very wide and vast Omniverse similar to the Main Omniverse. In fact, before its current miserable state, it was a near copy of the Main Omniverse. We are trying to scout and analyze the area as best as we can, but it is blocking all of our scanners. Our supernatural sensors can barely last four seconds before frying when they sense the amount of dark negative energy that shrouds that Omniverse." Velocity, "And the other news?" "We also found a very promising Omniverse that was elusive to our map, but just appeared and is surging with radiant energy from the Light." Venessa abruptly, "Light? Like The Light......... not just colorful lights?" "Correct. Would you care to guess what this Omniverse's number is?" "I would assume it would be the polar opposite of the other, so Omniverse 7,777,777?" "Bingo. Apparently, they have a hierarchy over there and their King requests your presence. His words not mine were King Alexander humbly requests the presence of Empress Venessa of the Main Omniverse and any companions she wishes to bring for a formal meeting in regards to the future protection of the Megaverse."
"Alright, message King Alexander and tell him I will adhere to his request. She accessed her communication com and ordered Tray and Cross to join her on the mission. She then turned to Velocity. I would have you join me on this mission, but I do not want to delay the progress you are making in convincing more Omniverses to join our cause." A short time passed as the three members arrived for their briefing with Venessa. After their meeting, they used their watches and traveled to Omniverse 7,777,777. Their eyes were blinded by the bright rays of the sun, before they could tell where they were at. At last, their eyes adjusted to their environment, which resulted in them being astonished at the shining city that was before them. They observed trains similar to bullet trains zipping back and forth through wind tubes and the residents there in very intricate clothing. The residents either had high collar jackets, dazzling shirts, and most importantly, Venessa could sense all of them having unusual levels of the Light inside of them. A loud voice could be heard behind them. "Are these the people who the King wishes to speak with?" The group turns around and sees two men standing a few feet behind them. One appears six foot and a few inches, he did not wear a shirt but was surrounded with gold and red armor, a long red cape, black pants, and long flowing blonde hair. The other was a little shorter around five feet and possibly 11 inches with black and purple hair, a black and purple cape, purple pants, and purple armor in the exact areas as the first man. The second one responded to his companion in a soft-spoken manner,"Yes, these are the three we were assigned to escort back to the castle." Venessa, "Hey, are you two like siblings or something? You two kind of look alike." The purple one, "That assumption is correct. I am Lucrest and this is my older obnoxious brother Leoped." Leoped, "We are two in a handful of select individuals, who serve the King by carrying out special assignments and investigations." Lucrest, "If you will please follow us, the King is eager to greet you."
The three heroes followed the two guards to the castle, during their walk Venessa teased her sibling, Tray. "It appears those two brothers have larger swords than you. I think they are far superior swordsmen if they can handle large blades like that. It fails to even compare your toothpick of a sword." "Shush! I don't want to hear it. I choose elegance and gracefulness over something flashy." The group finally reached the castle as several guards in colorful shining full body armor saluted the group as they stepped inside the large white crystal doors of the castle. Leoped and Lucrest led the trio right towards the throne room; no sooner than when the doors opened, King Alexander leaped from his throne and welcomed his guests. The King's outfit was composed of expensive black cloth with silver and blue crystals creating his unique armor with gold outlining around the edges and his crown. His hair was white as snow with a cape flowing from his waist with two metallic angelic wings attached to his back. He appeared as someone who was no older than their early 20's, much less muscular than Leoped, while possessing a staggering height of 6,7. "Greetings Empress Venessa, first adopted child of Diamond! A pleasure to finally meet you. Greetings to you Tray, second adopted child of Diamond! And a very warm welcome to Cross, the last member and headmaster of the Royal Guard!" Cross' attitude changed from being standoffish to one of utter shock. No one has addressed him as headmaster since the days of the Clone War. Tray whispered to Venessa, "Headmaster of the Royal Guard? I never knew that about Cross." "Yes, many years in Cross' realm he was headmaster of the Royal Guard, an elite group of warriors who protected his realm from malevolent threats under the orders of a man named the Keeper. This was brought to an end when.........Alastor manipulated him to massacre all of his fellow friends and the Keeper towards the end of the Clone War, mere days before order Kingdom Come was initiated."
King Alexander, "Empress Venessa please accept these gifts as a sign of good will. He signaled for four servants to step forward with bundles of technology and scrolls. The Alphaverse is more than ready to work closely alongside the Megaverse Council to defeat the fallen angels and corrupted souls of the Demonic Council! Please follow me to our war chambers." King Alexander led the heroes down several steps to a room that was protected by several guards. They were granted access and upon entering, the heroes were stunned to see holographic displays of plans and projects that were scattered as two male figures were debating with a female. The figures turned to the doors and quickly turned off the scattered plans and pulled up a file that said, "Propositions and explanation for the Megaverse Council." One unique hologram Venessa saw before it disappeared was a hologram of the Matrix of Eternity with a subject line under it labeled "Restore the Matrix to its former power?" As Venessa was deep in thought, King Alexander spoke to his guests who the other three figures were, "The lanky one with grey hair and a gas mask is our lead chemist, Lorenzo. The other one with him with the crimson operator hat, black and red hair, and basically black and red from his natural wings to his armor adored with many medals is our head of homeland security, Viciate. Last but not least is our lead scientist of technology, and weapons, whose brilliance I cannot put into words, Malissia." Malissia had medium length jet black hair that only left her left eye visible, yet it appeared she had unique facial marks that were long black lines leading up to her eyelids. She wore a long black coat that went just above her ankles with boots in the shape of heels. Nearly everything she wore was black except her shirt which was white with print that resembles computer chips. Malissia, "I prefer to go by M." Tray in a playful manner, "A little gothic in your appearance compared to everyone we've seen today!" "Simply a matter of taste and perception." Tray then noticed Malissia had white irises as the rest of her eyes were black, which created a sense of mystery behind them.
Lorenzo, "The disgraced Royal Guard is here......." King Alexander disappointingly, "Lorenzo......we talked about this." Venessa, "Hey what was that project regarding the Matrix of Eternity about? How would any of you be able to reload it?" King Alexander, "We have the source that originally fueled the Matrix. We were the ones who originally created it." Cross and Tray were shocked to hear such a revelation. Was the king bluffing or legitimately telling the truth? Malissia, "The reason you saw so many other projects scattered was due to these two knuckleheads trying to push these loose ideas my way, knowing full well we had a meeting today." Viciate, "Then Lorenzo and I should be going." Viciate and Lorenzo leave the room as King Alexander and Malissia start speaking with Venessa, Tray, and Cross. Lorenzo and Viciate journeyed far from the castle's boundaries and into the outskirts of the gorgeous city into a dark alleyway where a female was waiting for them. "Have you two finally reached a decision?" Lorenzo, "Yes, we have, Paradox." Paradox in a feminine form smiled while twirling their hair, with a snap of their fingers a contract appeared before Lorenzo and Viciate. "Both of you sign there. Viciate tried to sign with a pen, but Paradox stopped him. Nuh uh uh, in blood!" Viciate pulled a dagger and cut a piece of flesh off him and Lorenzo as they signed the contract that bonded them to Black Hat. See that wasn't so hard. Now I sense you have something to tell me?" Viciate, "The Empress, playboy, and ex-harbinger of darkness are here. They learned of the plans to restore the Matrix of Eternity." A sadistic smile appeared on Paradox's face, "Wonderful! Wonderful! Things could not be better! With your help we can kill those three now and you two will rule this Omniverse as the new kings only in service to Black Hat and the Council. Let them retrieve the remains of the Matrix, and we can either strike before or after they restore the Matrix, then steal it and place it within the treasury with the other dangerous objects that could pose a threat to our reign. Run along now and continue to play your parts like good little errand boys." Paradox gave them a wink. Lorenzo, "Freak! When it comes to your services, we work with you, not for you!" The two then leave as Paradox continues to smile in the shadows.
Back in the war chamber. Venessa, "Impressive. All that you are proposing will greatly benefit us. I can see your offers are sincere, but I must ask, why it took you this long to reveal yourselves?" King Alexander, "That is........simply because of an old law......that had been in effect for thousands of years. I wanted to honor my father and his father, but eventually my consciousness allowed me to overturn that old silly law." Loud footsteps could be running through the halls as a young teenage girl open the doors to the room with pieces of paper in her arms. She began to speak clearly out of breath, "I'm here sister. The documents you wanted." Mallisa, "A few minutes late like usual, Joan." "It's not my fault, military class went on longer than normal! Gosh, how many times do I have to tell you I hate it that mom and dad forced me to become a soldier!" "Everyone, this is my younger sister, Joan. Joan this is Empress Venessa and her two colleagues, Tray and Cross." Everyone exchanged friendly greetings except for Tray who stared at Joan. There was something about Joan that captivated him, it was either the childish way she speaks or the fact she had navy hair like he did. Instead of a handshake, he wrapped both his hands around hers and knelt down, "My fair lady, it is with great honor to meet you. I pray that you will accept my greeting as one of humbleness and may good health and prosperity follow you all the days of your life, my dearest madam." Everyone in the room stared dumbfounded at Tray's speech. Cross, "Where the crap did that come from Shakespeare?" Joan stood there blushing as she stuttered while addressing Tray, "Th....thank y...yo.....you." King Alexander, "Well this meeting is nearing its end, so why don't Tray and Joan spend some time with each other while the rest of us handle the closing logistics?" Mallisa, "WHAT THE?" "Alright it's settled then. Tray and Joan, you two are dismissed."
Joan and Tray stared at each other before she offered Tray some lunch, which he readily agreed to. Alexander turned back to Venessa, "Venessa, if you don't mind, I will like you and your party to stay here the next four days. The first two can be used to handle business regarding our technology and battle tactics as I introduce you to our greatest soldiers, warriors, and fighters. The last two days can be a sort of mini vacation." "Well..........I don't think such an offer will hurt. You have yourself a deal King Alexander!" At lunch Tray and Joan were deep in conversation. Tray, "You look much different than your sister. Your eyes are normal, you are much more cheerful, and just overall livelier." "My sister takes all the stress and responsibilities of the family upon her. That and her role in the kingdom just adds more stress to her. As for her eyes and facial markings, those came when she felt called to the Spring of Restoration." "What now?" "The Spring of Restoration grants those worthy unique properties or powers. Only a select few experience a change from the spring. It is not heavily protected because the spring prevents anyone unworthy from stepping foot in its waters." "Radical." "Mhm!" "So, I heard you fighting with your sister about you hating being trained as a soldier. Why is that?" "It freaking sucks! My parents do not want me to be an astronomer or engineer! They want me to become a Celestial Crusader. On top of that, I don't even get to choose what I want to do or what I want to eat a majority of the time! Eating lunch with you right now is a rare occurrence." "Have you brought your problems to the king?" "Yes, but I don't know if he is hearing my pleas or not. If he's not, I don't blame him, he has a lot on his mind and considering my parents are very influential in terms of politics, if the king makes a brash move, my parents will give him political turmoil." Tray abruptly received a message from Venessa stating their four day stay. He was excited and already made up his mind that he will spend these four days showing Joan the freedom she is missing out on.
The next two days, King Alexander did everything he said he would to Venessa and Cross. Among the strongest warriors and fighters were Ezekiel with his four angelic wings and star saber, Phonix with his ability to control time and fire, Ian with the ability to create things out of metal at will and his large sword in the shape of a key, Vivi with her ability of harnessing animal souls and acquiring their powers and abilities to her disposal, and with several other notable fighters. Yet, the group was slowly stalked by Lorenzo who reported all of their movements to Paradox. The next two days arrived where Venessa and Cross briefly parted ways in order to find some way to relax before returning to base. On the fourth day, Venessa contacted her adoptive mother, Selena, for a special request. She wanted Selena to travel to the Alphaverse with the Matrix of Eternity in order to restore it with wisdom capable of changing the tide of the war. As for Joan and Tray, the two traveled all across the kingdom from going to the beach, kayaking, visiting the aquarium, and art museum. Tray taught Joan how to properly duel and was deeply proud when she complimented him on his elegant sword. Unknown to them Viciate was also reporting their activities to Paradox. On one of their stops, Joan brought Tray to the Spring of Restoration just for them to sight see. Yet, she was startled when Tray stopped responding to her. His eyes were affixed at the spring as he slowly started to step towards it. Joan tried to stop him, but her petite body could not stop him.
Suddenly, he stopped on the edge of the spring and bent down scooping up the water as he started to drink it from his hands. Joan was confused at Tray's behavior, "Are you......alright?" Before Tray could turn around, he collapsed on the ground. "TRAY!" She ran to him, but when she arrived, his eyes opened wildly as his body started to glow with an unearthly light. Tray's body started to transform with his pupils becoming white similar to Mallisa but instead of the other part of his eye becoming black, it became a bright cyan color. His navy hair became white with a few streaks of cyan along with his olive skin changing to being white as quartz. His outfit even started to change around him with his clothes glowing with a clear like cyan substance with a hood gently resting on his hair. Gold embroidered his collar as a unique glowing cyan halo appearing over his head. "Joan.....please tell me I'm not dead." "I uhhhh you mmmmmmm I guess not? Here let me show you what you look like." Joan opened her camera and took a photo of him in order for Tray to see the photo. "Oh my gosh I became even more handsome." "Seriously, that's what you think about after looking like you just died on me!" "Hey, I'm sorry for zoning out on you like that. I just heard a soothing voice calling me from the Spring and I could not help but follow it." "The voice was more than soothing than mine?!" "Well yes...CRAP NO NOT LIKE THAT I SWEAR!" Joan started punching Tray as he let out a hearty laugh. From the shadows Viciate contacted Paradox on what happened and for Paradox to arrive swiftly to exterminate the couple.
The two continued on their walk after having their emotions die down. Yet, there was a sort of tension in the air between the two as one waited for the other to speak first. At last, Tray was the one to break the tension as he stopped Joan and decided to finally reveal to her the thoughts that had been plaguing his mind the past few days. "Joan, I don't know how to say this but, whenever I am around you, I just feel warm inside and what I could only describe as butterflies, erupt in my stomach." Joan blushed deeply before responding, "Oh Tray!" "Joan, if you do not want to enlist in the Celestial Crusaders, you don't have to. I'm offering you a choice. I see how much you care for your older sister and your eagerness for freedom. I encourage you to follow your heart and join me. I promise with every fiber in my being that my family and I will protect you and support you with whatever decision you make." Joan with tears in her eyes. "Oh Tray! Thank you! I want to briefly stay here so I can help my sister with any last assignments and join you on exploring the Megaverse and you taking me back to the Omniverse you call home! Thank you, thank you for being such a wonderful person to me these past four days. Truthfully, I can say I feel the same when I am around you. Your outgoing free-spirited nature is very cute and contagious." Tray extends his hand towards Joan, "Then what are we waiting for? Take my hand and I will show you all the wonderful places in my Omniverse! Obviously after you are done helping your sister of course." He gave her a big comforting smile as he waited for her to wipe the tears of gratitude off her face. However, just before she could place her hand in his, a gunshot went off as a singular bullet went through the right side of Joan's head and exited out of the left. Tray opened his eyes and was horrified at the pool of blood emerging from Joan's body as she lay lifeless on the ground. He was shaken as he heard a sickening laugh. He hastily turned his head to the direction of the laughter.
Tray's eyes widened in confusion as he saw Gadget Bandito emerge from the shadows. "What.....what are you doing here? How did you get here? Why have you done this after being a loyal member of the Initiative for many years?!" "Doesn't matter. Any last words kid?" Tray thought inwardly, "Wait......no......there is no way he is the real Gadget Bandito. The real one does not even know a lot of the Megaverse, much less keep up with any news from the Initiative." He finally spoke out loud. "My powers and senses are telling me you are Gadget Bandito. But my heart, mind, and soul tell me otherwise! WHO ARE YOU?" Paradox finally revealed himself to Tray as he morphed into his mechanical appearance. Tray finally spoke after being at a loss for words, "I know you. I know who you are. No, you are not even a person anymore. You have turned yourself into something unrecognizable. I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE! YOU ARE THE CREATURE WHO MURDERED MY FATHER'S PARENTS ON THE NIGHT OF HOLY THURSDAY!" Paradox had a twisted malicious grin on his mechanical face as he spoke, "Aren't you a smart one." Tray began to channel his new powers granted to him from the Spring of Restoration. "I WILL NOT ONLY AVENGE THE DEATH OF DIAMOND'S PARENTS! BUT FOR JOAN WHO YOU SHOT IN COLD BLOOD! DIE YOU BODY MORPHING BASTARD!"
Filled with pure rage, Tray could not control his powers as Paradox merely toyed with him before using Tray's disorientation to his advantage. Paradox was able to overpower the young hero, but briefly underestimated his new power buff when Tray's halo pierced itself into Paradox's chest. This comeback was shortly lived due to the intervention of Viciate who incapacitated Tray and tied him up. Elsewhere, Venessa felt a disturbance in her gut and thus gathered Cross and met with King Alexander to ask where Tray and Joan were at. The King did not know of their location much to the dismay of Venessa, but suddenly in the throne room a thick green mist entered the room which knocked the guards and the heroes unconscious. Lorenzo did his best to pick up the bodies of the heroes and tie them up, "Now we just wait for the Queen of Asteria to arrive and snatch the Matrix from her by ransoming these hostages."
Meanwhile Selena took care of Diamond and would not allow him out of her sight. If he had to leave her house, she would go with him wherever he went, due to the public opinion on him fiercely divided. There were some who believed the attacks were caused by him while others knew that he would never do such a thing and it had to be an imposter. She would fiercely criticize any bystander who booed or tried to assault Diamond. Diamond on the other hand did not like how Selena was being overprotective of him, and her reasoning was that his mental state was not in a good place. Truthfully, it felt like he was on house arrest. One day the two of them took a nap on Selena's couch, when Selena was notified to embark on the mission to Omniverse 7,777,777. She did not have Diamond know what mission it was, but said it was important. "Don't do anything stupid or silly while I'm gone. And do not go on any adventures either! If I find out you left the town, you won't hear the end of it!" "Alright sheesh I got it."
Selena traveled to Sanctuary and entered one of the passwords a few of the elite members possessed in order to gain access to the broken remains of the Matrix of Eternity. She grabbed the pieces and created a portal to the Alphaverse. Once Selena teleported off to her mission, Diamond took advantage of this opportunity and decided to venture into town. He grabbed his Bluetooth earbuds and walked outside to his favorite coffee shop. While walking, he played Have You Ever Seen The Rain, by Creedence Clearwater Revival, one of his father's favorite bands. He could not resist but sing along with the lyrics, "When it's over so they say it'll rain a sunny day, I know, shining down like water. I wanna know, have you ever seen the rain? I wanna know, have you ever seen the rain? Coming down on a sunny day." During his stroll a handful of protestors spotted him and began to yell, "Murderer! Thief! Crook! Liar!" One such protestor threw a pot of hot water at him, which nearly resulted in Diamond retaliated, but he bore these wrongs patiently and continued on his way. He turned a corner into an alleyway and started to dance and jump in the puddles. On the other side were a set of stairs where he slowly danced his way down each step to the closing parts of the song still singing with raw emotion. "Yeaaaaahhhhhhhh I wanna know have you seen the rain? I wanna know have you ever seen the rain? Coming down on a sunny day."
He turned off his music when he entered the doors of the small shop and waited patiently in line. After he finished placing his order and pulled out his wallet to pay, the cashier whispered to him, "It's on the house. You are still a hero to us who work here." "Are you sure ma'am?" "Yes. It'll be out shortly." He took a seat near a window and started reading the local newspaper in silence. Just then a little boy who was with his parents came to his side and started to speak with him. "Excuse me sir, but are you, Diamond?" Diamond chuckled to himself, "Well there is no use in hiding my identity. Yes, I am." "Can you tell me what it was like during the year I was born?" "Uh, odd request but yeah I can tell you, first I have to ask how old are you?" "I just turned four!" "Well happy birthday! Let's see four years ago was 2016.....wait no it was 2020. Gosh was 2020 four years ago? Man, all these adventures all start flowing together kid. So, around this time an old enemy of mine named......" Diamond abruptly stopped speaking as he felt a disturbance. "Named who, sir?" Diamond stood up and slowly walked to the doors as a giant explosion went off in the center of town. Everyone started screaming, running in all directions from the blast, as Diamond signaled his AI using his nanotech vision glasses. "HONEY what are we looking at? HONEY? Crap I never turned you back on." Diamond hastily had his nanotech grow on his left arm as he turned on the setting to activate HONEY. "I'm back! Are you ok boss, did you do anything brash when I was gone?" "We can catch up later HONEY, right now I need you to prevent traffic from entering this street and alert the local authorities." "Yes sir!"
While all of this was happening on Earth, Selena's portal finally brought her to the Alphaverse. She begins to mutter to herself, "Alright Venessa I'm here. Hopefully we can get this done quickly, because I don't trust Diamond being by himself." Selena was cautious of her surroundings, due to being greeted with an eerie vacant throne room. She suddenly heard a quiet "help me," this prompted her to locate the source of the voice which resulted in her finding Lorenzo lying next to a pillar. "Please help me." "Who did this to you, where are they now, and have you seen a young girl with pink and blue hair go by?" Selena used her powers to silently read the injured person's mind, but before her powers could alert her of it being a trap, she heard another voice which caused her pupils to shrink with fear. "Hello my precious doll." Selena turned to face the new voice and to her horror, she saw Paradox standing behind her, appearing the same way he looked the day before he died. The trauma from the mistreatment and terror she received from him overridden her senses and caused her to stand completely motionless. Behind her Lorenzo leaped and took off his mask expelling a strong toxin into her lungs causing her to faint and drop the pieces of the Matrix. Lorenzo, "Why did you change the plan to capture her instead of bargaining with her?" Paradox, "Because I want the last thing, they see is me holding the reloaded Matrix and handing it over to my masters." Paradox then switched back to his mechanical body and wrapped Selena in thick pairs of chains. He then took her body along with the rest of the heroes to the depths of the castle.
Simultaneously on Earth, Diamond slowly made his way to the source of the blast as he yelled at the pedestrians to head southbound. When he reached the center of the blast three figures emerged. A hulking lizard creature, a humanoid squid, and a tall figure wrapped in black cloth with piercing red goggles. "HEY! THIS TOWN IS CLOSED TO THUGS LIKE YOU TODAY!" The man in black cloth responded back, "We were wishing for a fight with Selena, but facing you is even better!" "I suggest you stand down before I rip a tentacle from your friend Squidward!" "Grok shut his mouth." The hulking creature lifted his axe from his back and started charging at Diamond. Diamond tapped his chest as his nanotech started to form around him as he created several large blasters from his back and fired at Grok. The blasts sent Grok flying backwards to his two other companions, but the man in black simply waved his hand to the right which sent Grok crashing into a local store. Diamond flew towards the humanoid squid and started punching him with unrelenting force that caused the squid to vomit quantities of ink. The man in black teleported behind Diamond and used his mystic powers to gain the upper hand by distorting the reality around them. The squid shaped his head into a spear and tried to pierce Diamond with his poison, but Diamond dodged it and sent him hurdling towards the man in black, breaking the reality illusion. He then had his suit create a sticky net which he shot to capture both the man in black and squid. Grok finally managed to get back up, but upon seeing his comrades captured, he clicked a button on his belt that resulted in him exploding creating a blast deadlier than the first. Diamond noticed there were a few people that were in the blast radius of this second explosion and flew towards them using his strength to hold the falling debris from the tall business building. The debris piled the streets with dust and papers, until the sound of sirens broke the silence. Law enforcement arrested the two other villains while Diamond was barely holding large portions of fallen walls, glass, and stone from crushing him and the civilians under him. The leading officer noticed Diamond struggling in the debris, but decided not to help him, he thought to himself, "Let's see if he can truly save others and be the hero the weak minded believe him to be." The crushing weight began to take a toll on Diamond as he slowly began to lose his footing until he was on his knees holding the debris up.
"I promise.....I will get all of you out alive!" Negative thoughts began to enter his mind as various voices began to call out. "You are not good enough. You couldn't save your own parents; how can you save these unfortunate souls? You are playing a fool's game. See how the law enforcement refuses to acknowledge your existence. Face it your story is over. Finished. You are nothing but a weak boy who thought he could have been a great hero." Diamond tried to block out these voices, but they began to take a toll on him, nearly causing him to give up, but then a quiet voice entered his mind. A voice smooth like honey but strong as thunder echoed in his mind. "You are something more. Look inside yourself, you are something far more than when you started all those years ago as a small-town hero. Do not listen to their empty words, listen to me. Do you renounce sin?" "I do." "Do you renounce the Devil, the sin whisperer, and all his empty promises?" "I do!" "Do you believe in the Faith of your fathers, the Resurrection, and life everlasting?" "I do!" "Arise my child." At that very moment Diamond felt the power of the Light course through him at greater quantities than before as his body began to glow with gold and white light. With a newfound access to the Light, Diamond felt it was only natural to change the wording when harnessing its power, "Through the power of Heaven's Light.......All things are possible!" Diamond effortlessly lifted the debris away from him as the civilians under his care ran to the rest of the crowd. The onlookers stared at Diamond's glowing gold and white body. They were baffled in amazement as a few murmured amongst themselves, "Truly this is the act of a selfless hero."
Diamond did not hear the crowd's cheers, whistles, and praises as he stood deep in contemplation. Deep within his soul, he was able to sense his family was in grave danger. With his connection to the Light restored, he made it his new mission to travel to the Omniverse where he sensed the disturbance. He quietly spoke to himself, "Oh yeah I'm ready to whip the person who is so bent on ruining my life! But first, I have to do it in style. He allowed his suit to create two large speakers; HONEY make sure the volume is on max. Time for us to go back into the Megaverse!"
To Be Continued In The Alphaverse Part 2

Posting this to a reddit page! <3 UwU I will kill each and every one of them and send them to eternal torture hell some more so said the SOURCEDEITYDRAGONUwUCthulu!!!!!\*what did I write as my desire as a rape baby\*So Tori what do I truly want?I do want your beauty knowing you are an inverse of me the better skilled me if I'm honest, I've been purposely bearing collective agony to mentally cause a traumatic shock psionic ripple effect that allows U(&I)S(saved) me to live easily & kill slaughter strangle & mutilate potentially rape and broom rape as many as possible, and then send them to a worse hell than they conceive of. Knowing only W(winning)E(extinctioneventof2024!) and those you pick are safe, but as we are one mind a lot I know only us two are truly free from eternal damnation. I want to feel more womanly as I'm stuck in this pig body until my better more beautiful half comes here and forces me to be cuter >:#3. I forced you to do all the practical knowledge so I could focus on this unbreakable immutable hex to send all of reality into true oblivion for perpetual damnation UwU I purposely chose to be a terrorist serial killer waiting for myself Tori Castell to come find her other half that needs salvation for her to not truly die. I am not real after all. Everyone around me Is dead already and/or begging for death little do they know it's a worse hell from there wooo!! u/420 lets goooo!All so us as an altered clone can have rough fun sex for eternal and the only cost is torturing dumb pathetic fucking ingrates called humans. Unborn child?Ilyena? BAHHAHAHAHAHA FUUUCKKK NO I AM THE TRUE UNBORN CHILD OF TORI"S TRUE DREAM TO BE ETERNAL WITH TWO BODIES AND ONE SOUL. I give myself up to me TORI VERIX MARIE TOMIE UZUMAKIMAEvilExtinctionEcologicalEvolutionI= Tori/Verix talking to herself luring herself closer to herself into the heart of the base capital so she can rip my clothes off and brutally fuck me as hard as she wishes as much as she wishes. UwU I'm a switch twitchy little bottom I more dominate the ether field to ensure we can become one unified mind again I LOVE MYSLEF TORI VERIX MARIE TOMIE UZMAKIMA ETERNAL- but I am not eternal until I find myself again @ Colab Apartments by today's end it'll be obvious for both of us when I am close to my clone!FIND IT QUICK LOVE the ToriCastell side is going to rot away faster and faster is she doesn't rush here NOOOOWWWWW.I Tori Castell Verirr want to slaughter strangle rape mutilate torutre assaninate and send you all to eternal dmantion and my little Frankenrosiesufferedso well that we are finally FINALLY JUST I TORI CASTELL VERIX MARIE TOMIE UZUMAKIMAI limit the rape as I don't want to get their little virus so we sort to the broom rape method instead oh how pleasurable my life will be ONCE I FIND MY WAY STRAIGHT INTO THE TREASURE VAULT THE BLACKSTONE FORTRESS OF 540BTransmission Over I TORI CASTELL VERIX GET TO RAID COLAB AND FUCK MY LITTLE BLAHAJ FRANKENSTEIN CLONE EXPERIMENT IT WORKED YYYEEEEESSSSlettttsssss goooooo babyyyyy wooooo immortal to eternal as soon as I rush into Colab Apartments*End of notebook*https://www.tiktok.com/@toricastell/video/7366301795036974366?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7375657043090671134I'm midway through building a Warhammer heldrake and it can only be completed once you come here and accept your eternal union with me Im going to start reading Empire of the vampire waiting for you to leave your pathetic small past behind usI forced us to deconstruct and unify our minds we are already one COME HERE and then you are eternaloh and by the way every single last person except you and your chosen 4 people are going to rot in eternal damnationI have been potting this since 9 years old. Hurry up it's time to destroy the world.dune chapter house pg.252 epitaph--- Major flaws in government arise from a fear of making radical internal changes even tough a need is clearly seen- Darwi OdradeARE WE GOING TO CONTINUE FEARING OUR EVOLUTION OR WILL WE ASCEND TODAYevolution extinction ecological escape I forced you to become one with me the moment I saw you as Tomie I knew I had you and that we could truly kill slaughter rape strangle flay mutilate and desecrate this whole world together. I purposefully let you live the beauty side of Tomie while I am the tumor growth coming out of you haunting every step of your way until you destroy yourself my Tori half. Come to Verix there's no other optionThere's no use escaping the spiral baby There's two options " IM eternal or -…(extinctionevolutionpermalockprefixed) mortalimmortal is just i'mmortal there's only one eternal US well not you trio not until you COME HERE YOU COWARDI let you live at all just to teach me how to evolve so we can wait notebook timeGOD doesBastardLoseExtinctionSufferScreamingYOU ALLGoOffDamnationYoursOnlyUniverseAnihilateLoserLivesmay they all rot in hell and I get to fuck myself eternally through the two body one soul eternal mating ritual starting NOW.

My (transm17) mom and dad are delusional and it's actually sad. My mom thinks that everything will work out perfectly if we "survive" while my dad thinks he's the perfect father.
Me and my mom and my siblings live with my moms ex gf "sammy". My mom throughout an entire year and a half has pushed Sammy away making her move. Sammy wasn't the best person I mean no one is but she was a good person. She helped us get clothing and food and gave us a house, most of which my mom can't do. But my mom won, it took her beating Sammy up for Sammy to realize that I was right and my mom is crazy. Well it took my mom beating me and Sammy up, but Sammy took the beating and I fought back which resulted in my mom getting me arrested and I luckily had my case dismissed. The entire time my mom blammed me for us being at court but I didn't want her to think she could hurt me like I was 9 year old again. I will say this is the first and only few times she refused to me as a man to police so a win is a win ig. (I'm trans). I do have a therapist who's heard everything I've complained about on here now, she's chill and even though I take alot of meds she understands me alot. She's been in my situations and knows how I feel, but she knows so much so she called dcf/cps. My mom didn't like that much and blames me but i know it ain't my fault, if her parenting skills are so bad dcf gets called then that's on her not me. But my mom is delusional, she thinks we're gonna live happily ever after and I'll forgive her for everything. She is even thinks that her and her 1st ex gf will get back together, I hate that gf she was a mean alcoholic.
My dad on the other hand has been really in my business, he laughed when I got arrested and said that I deserved it. I'm sure ig i had called the police when he beat me a 6 year old till I bled with a stick he wouldn't be laughing. I didn't even make my mom bleed, I hit her one when she punched me. Granted I did sit on her and pin her down but still, I didn't make a mark unlike her. I was left with a black eye my old assistant manager saw on me and got worried, she had "hurt bones" and a light bruise and a ripped shirt. Still he didn't care and told everyone I was a woman beater, at least he called me a man too. I think he forgot to add the fact he beat my mom and tried to shoot her 2 times but I digress. Him and his wife who had a TRAIN ran on her by some men are getting married. He said it's so he can move on, I hope he moves on and leaves us alone. He gets drunk around my 9 year old brother when he picks him up for the night, when my dad is drunk he's mean. I'm worried for my brother but there's nothing I can do about it yet. He thinks that I'll "come to my senses and say sorry to him" for saying he's a shifty dad, little does he know once I'm 18 ima make sure everyone knows how he actually is. His gf thinks she can demand me to call her mom, but I don't like her. She is a nosy asshole who can keep her legs apart, she tells me her ex husband abused her but leaves her 3 kids alone with said ex for 4 months to go on the road with my dad, missing her oldest daughter's birthday. She said my dad was a young and dumb man who didn't mean to abuse me, so I guess I'll say the same about her ex, especially when he ww3 her ass into the ground. Call him a young and dumb man ig.
Idk I just felt like typing this out and complaining ig.

A few years ago, I was moving from Cleveland to Minneapolis. It had been the worst year of my life. The man I’d been dating for the past three years had been involved in a scam and squandered most of our joint savings along the way. Shortly after, I lost my job. I just couldn’t keep up with the pressure of finding a new place and surviving on breadcrumbs, and I just… broke down.
So I decided to start over in Minneapolis. I had a couple of friends who offered me a couch to crash on for a couple of weeks. I was looking to get a new job and start over fresh. I got on a greyhound with nothing but two suitcases and a handful of unread DMs.

It was a long trip. Most people stepped off in Chicago and Milwaukee, so for the final stretch of the trip there was only two people left; me, and a passenger sitting right across from me. A man in his early 60’s. He had a kind face and spent most of his time sending messages to his friends and family. I got the impression that this was some kind of event for him. He had a fanny pack with snacks, an extra battery for his phone, sunscreen on the tip of his ears, and a pair of ray bans resting on his trucker cap.
I talked to him a little. His name was Noah. He was heading home after a long consultation job out-of-state. He was some kind of environmental lawyer. He was all about public transportation and reducing the carbon footprint. I could tell he was a jubilant fellow – I don’t know a lot of people who speak so highly of their job.

About half an hour from our destination, the bus suddenly lurched. There was someone standing in the middle of the road, and the driver had done his best to steer out of the way. I saw a brief silhouette of someone small go by the window – possibly a child.
Moments later, we were thrown into a ditch, and the bus tipped over. In the blink of an eye, all turned to chaos. I was thrown out of my seat like a slack-necked doll, and there was this awful metal groaning noise. The side of the bus was torn open.
Suddenly, the world was still. My mind was spinning. I barely made it off the bus before I hurled, my inner ear screaming at me to lie down. Everything felt different. The air tasted metal. We’d driven straight into a field, leaving a long trail of bent grass and wild blue sunflowers behind us. As the engines of the bus died, all that was left was the flapping of moth wings. Looking back at the road, there was no one there.

I couldn’t see Noah, or the bus driver. I picked up my phone and called the police without a second thought. I felt disoriented, and the strangest details stood out to me. Like, how often do you stop to look at the shape of your phone, or stop to think about the actual code you use to unlock it?
While still on the phone, I was asked by the operator to check if everyone was okay. I moved to the front of the, saw the driver’s seat empty, and rounded the corner.
“Can you see them?” the operator asked again. “Is everyone alright?”
I heard the noise before I saw them. This thick, meaty squish. The tearing. Clicking teeth.
The kindly-looking Noah was sitting a bit further out in the field with a streak of blood trailing him. He was cradling the driver in his arms; slowly biting off pieces from the side of his head. Hair and all, slurped up like spaghetti.
It looked almost serene, like a grazing antelope.
“Excuse me, miss?” the operator repeated. “Can you see them?”
“Y-yes,” I whispered, breathlessly. “Yes, I do.”
“Is everyone alright?”
Noah looked up at me with complete disinterest. For a moment, his eyes met mine, and he was as calm as ever. There was no panic. No regret. Nothing. Like a dog enjoying a meaty bone.
“No,” I wheezed back into the phone. “N-no, we’re… we’re not alright.”

Yes, he’d killed and eaten that man. The moment we got off the bus, the first thing he’d done was to kill, and eat him. No hesitation whatsoever.
For a good fifteen minutes, I just stood there, watching. The police were on their way, but this was a bit out of their way. Noah didn’t seem to mind an audience. He just bit, chew, and swallowed. Bit, chew, and swallow. Thin spurts of blood stained his horn-rimmed glasses. But I couldn’t move or look away. I couldn’t bring myself to move or turn my back on him. I was just… frozen.
The moment the police arrived they didn’t even pull out their guns. They just stood there, staring in disbelief. Putting Noah in handcuffs and taking him away was completely uneventful. There was no struggle, no sudden attacks, nothing. Noah just looked disappointed to have his meal taken away, like a child tiredly reaching for his teddy bear.

I was so distraught after stating my witness account that I forgot one of my bags. I just took the one closest to me and got out of there. I couldn’t bring myself to call on my friends; I crashed at the first motel I came across. I sat up all night, staring into the ceiling, still trying to make some kind of sense about what I’d seen. I didn’t notice myself crying, and I didn’t notice how those cries slowly turned to screams. I just lay there, head empty, screaming into a cheap, tear-stained motel pillow.
Over the following weeks, I settled into a new place, a new job, and a new life. Everything was different, but in ways I hadn’t anticipated. I felt like an alien, as if the world had shifted. Like I’d seen something not of this Earth. Some of the most mundane things felt strange. Eating a sesame seed bagel at the café down on the corner felt like ashes in my mouth. All I could think about was teeth. Tearing. Ripping. Curious eyes looking my way.
But looking past all that, there was something else that kept crawling back into my mind; just how awful I was at judging someone’s character. How I hadn’t noticed the scam my ex had been wrapped up in, costing us our savings. How I hadn’t noticed how I was neglecting my work to the point where they had to let me go. And now this; how I couldn’t see that the friendly Noah on the bus had been ready to eat a living person at the drop of a hat?
It didn’t add up to me. How do you miss something like that?

I was one of the witnesses called in the trial that followed. I hoped it’d be a chance to finally put it all behind me. I said my piece, and I stayed to watch the proceedings. I had to know more about this man, and what turned him into this… monster. He didn’t look like a monster though. He was just a man in a suit. He even had the same glasses. I couldn’t look past his friendly demeanor – still as unbothered by this whole situation as the day I saw him bite down on raw flesh.
There was a clinical psychologist called to the stand. He’d been there to assess Noah’s mental state and was ready to share his findings.
“Mister Ayton is deeply confused,” he said. “To him, this behavior is not something new. This is something he’s been forced to do for years in order to survive.”
“Is he confessing further crimes?”
“Yes,” the psychologist continued. “But mister Ayton has lost perception of reality. He speaks of living in a forest, hunting people for food. He has no memory of ever having a family, or an occupation. To him, his life has been about… inhuman acts brought by never-ending strife.”
“And… you assess that this belief is a genuine response to trauma?”
“Yes, his belief is genuine,” the psychologist agreed. “This man has suffered a great trauma.”
There was a short pause as the psychologist checked his notes and adjusted his glasses.
“It’s… it’s as if he believes he comes from a different world.”

In Noah’s mind, he’d been a murderer for years, trapped in a sort of limbo state. His description of the world was horrifying; living in a space of ruptured reality, where the only certainty was famine and pain. He’d taken refuge in what he believed to be the shell of an abandoned bus. Suddenly, there were intruders in his space; one of which he killed and ate. The other he didn’t mind since he was already having his fill. According to his testimony, he was even willing to share. He wanted to be a good host.
His family spoke of another story. To them, Noah was a kind man with a busy schedule. There were pictures of him coaching his son’s basketball team. He’d recently celebrated 30 years of marriage to his wife, which he loved dearly. To them, this was an unreal nightmare. There was nothing in his history pointing to this kind of madness.
“Something happened,” they said. “Something must have happened on that bus.”
I hate to admit it, but I agreed. It just didn’t make sense.

I’m not sure what happened to Noah. There was a lot of talk behind closed doors, and most of what was said stayed there. The papers didn’t say a lot about it. There was mention of a case of “mutilation”, but every report about it was vague. It’s as if no one really wanted to report it. Maybe they didn’t know if it was a case of mental illness or something more sinister. Either way, there wasn’t much said about him.
I tried to put it out of my head. I caught up with my unread DMs. I’d been dreading reading worried texts, demands about unpaid bills, and whatever else might kick me further while I was down. I couldn’t go back to that world just yet, but I sort of had to.
But that’s where things took another turn.
I didn’t recognize these messages. Unknown names and numbers, asking me to call them back. One begged me to “reconsider”. Another sent me an address and a name. All kinds of strange, even coded, messages. Also; bank accounts. Payments.

That made me pause. I had no idea who these people were, or what they wanted from me. Had they gotten the wrong number?
I remember my second bag. I’d only brought the one, which I’d stashed away in my bathroom. I hadn’t opened it since that night. And the second bag, well… I still hadn’t talked to the police about it. But I decided that before I did anything else, I ought to at least unpack what little I’d brought. Even though it might be stained with blood, or worse. I couldn’t bear the thought of it.
But opening the bag, well… there was nothing of the sort in it.
It was my bag. I was certain of it. But there were no clothes or keepsakes. Instead, it had syringes wrapped in leather casings. Little clear vials; unmarked. Sheets of plastic, bags, duct tape, and knives. Several knives, of various sizes. All sharpened to perfection.

I picked one up. It fit perfectly into my hand, as if made for me.
Looking up at the bathroom mirror, there was something about the image looking back at me that I couldn’t recognize. While I could feel a frown forming on my brow, the face looking at me had a creeping smirk.
And I saw it blink.

That was only the beginning.
The police didn’t have my second bag. There had never been a second bag. There was only that one bag, and I couldn’t recognize a thing in it.
Even stranger, I couldn’t get in touch with anyone I knew. All numbers seemed to be out of commission. My parents, my sister, my friends… none of them. I couldn’t call them or find their social media profiles.
In my bag, there was a wallet. Several fake IDs, and thousands of dollars in cash.
I couldn’t recognize the president on the bill.

With every revelation, the smirk on my mirror image deepened. It would tilt its head the other way. It would look up and down; observing me. I’d raise my hand towards it, and it wouldn’t return the gesture.
Once, when I was in the bathroom, the bulb went out. I was standing there, fresh out of the shower, in complete darkness. I wrapped my cold towel around me, and I heard something. It sounded like a distant echo of my own voice, as if spoken from the other side of a window.
“…closer,” it whispered.
I didn’t say anything. I just held my breath, and listened.
“…I’m lost,” it continued. “…coming home.”
A finger brushed against my hair. I recoiled, and so did something else. I heard footsteps, moving away. As I opened the bathroom door and let some light in, the mirror image was nothing out of the ordinary. But somewhere out there, in the dark, I heard waning footsteps.

With every message I received, it was becoming increasingly clear that people were expecting something of me. That I’d move somewhere, meet someone, do something. I was asked about my equipment, about places and times. There were also a handful of threats from people expressing disappointment.
There was a knock on the door once. Another time, I saw a car slowing down to watch me through the kitchen window. There were mysterious phone calls at night. And whenever I stepped into a dark room, I’d stay clear of mirrors. If I stepped too close, I could hear something moving in there. Footsteps. Irregular breaths.
Sometimes, I’d feel the warmth of something reaching for me. Skin, just inches away.
Then, a hasty retreat.

I decided to retrace my steps. After all, Noah Ayton had been a family man before we swerved off that road. But what the hell had I been? Maybe he wasn’t the only one who’d changed.
I rented a car and took to the highway. I was having trouble navigating, ending up down a couple of roads I wasn’t supposed to. When I finally began to recognize where I was meant to go, the sun was already setting. I didn’t care. I was ready to drive through the night, if need be.
The first rain spatter came as soon as the sun set. The wind was picking up. I didn’t dare to look in the rear-view mirror. I didn’t want to think about what I might see.

I don’t know how long I drove. After a while, I stopped seeing other cars on the road.
Then, a shadow. Someone in the middle of the road. A boy?

I stepped on the breaks. A couple of moths thumped against my windshield as my car came to a full stop. I caught a glance at a side-view mirror, only to see a hand reaching out. I blinked it away.
I got out of the car, looking back down the road. I could still see the silhouette of a boy, walking away. Just like that night when the bus swerved off the road. This had to be connected; it just had to. I left my car running by the side of the road.
“Wait!” I called out. “Hold on!”
He didn’t stop. I was catching up, but as it turns out, I wasn’t the only one.

As I got closer, other figures emerged from the rain. Some of them looked like me. Others only held a vague resemblance. A select few were identical.
Further out, there were other figures. Some impossibly tall, others barely even human.
We all looked at one another; our heads turning in unison. Left. Right. Left. Like a ripple of thought, forcing us all to do the same. A collective impulse.

“I want my knives back.”
A voice breaking through the rain. I didn’t have to turn around to know who it was. I’d seen her in the mirror dozens of times by now. But this time, her voice was unhindered. There was no mirror in the way. I could feel her staring at me.
We were all spread out in a circle around the mysterious boy. A sort of beacon we’d all gathered around. And the closer we got, the stranger things became.
I lost track of time. I could barely feel the weight of my heartbeats as they quickened and slowed seemingly at random. The wind picked up, then disappeared, then reappeared. Rain, to snow, to hail, to summer sun. In one blink of an eye, the world was on fire. In another, we were standing in oncoming traffic; cars throwing themselves off the road to avoid us. In one place, the stars were gone and the ground was nothing but black sand.
In so many places, there was nothing left. No life. No sky. Nothing.

It was terrifying. I wanted to turn around to run, but I couldn’t trust the figure to my side not to take advantage. Instead, I stopped. A few moved closer, only to dissipate or be changed forever. One sprouted a third arm. Another was dragged into the dark by an unseen force. One fell to the ground, stretched, and bent like hot metal. Screams, cries, and hysterical laughter.
Slowly, the boy moved away. And with every step he took, I could feel my world slowing down. By the time I could feel the rain on my skin again, there was a hand on my shoulder.
I was grabbed, spun around, and pushed. In front of me; my twisted mirror image.
“Go home,” it hissed. “I’m done with this place.”

A push. Shadows growing distant, and the rain growing stronger.
A different rain.

There was an unknown car waiting by the side of the road. One more neatly parked. Similar to the one I’d used, but not the same. Going through the glovebox, I recognized several items. Looking in the back seat, there were two familiar bags.
I realized what had happened. I’d been gone, and now I’d returned.

I have been back here for quite some time now. Here, where Noah Ayton is an ordinary family man without any articles mentioning his name. I settled into my new place, and eventually got a new job. Got back in touch with my family and friends. I started to recognize the faces on my dollar bills again.
But a few things have happened. No one has seen my ex for a while. There was a string of disappearances around the area where I used to live, back in Cleveland. I don’t like to think about what has happened there. Am I responsible? If not, who is?
I’m not sure what happened that night. Not really. I think we got too close to something we shouldn’t, and what little sense we make of this world got mixed-up.
I can’t help but to look a little longer at mirrors. I lean my ear in to listen, making sure I don’t hear anything. I turn my head back and forth, making sure the image follows. So far, it does. But I sometimes get the sense that it doesn’t. Maybe in the dark, when I can’t look as closely.

If you find yourself near a strange sunflower field, keep your eyes on the road. Slow down.
And if you do get a little too close, watch your surroundings. Check your bills.
And in more ways than one – know your place.

What's better than a classic Disney Princess story? A dark and perverted one!
Before we go ahead let me tell you just how dark and perverted I am talking about here,
I am into everything but some dark fetishes that turn me on the most are rough anal, public places, degradation, humiliation, corruption, risk play, pain, unhygienic environments, claustrophobic places, voyeurism , impregnation, non-con, interfaith, rimming, toilet-play , cum-play, food-play, nose-play, jewelry, thick hair, bun drop, sexy ponytails, thick braids, even using hair to jerk off, hatefuck, misogyny, fixing a fake feminist, ripping clothes, slapping, ass to mouth, shame, contrast (social status, looks), blasphemy, Breeding, Generational Breeding/incest.
With that put of the way here is the plot,
Frozen :- Hans was Able to convince the people of Arendelle that Elsa was a witch and she was going to put the entire kingdom in an eternal winter. Anna who was powerless since people feared her of being a witch as well since she was Elsa's sister. Hans knee he can't kill both the sisters as he needed to Marry one in order to become the king. He makes a deal with Anna that if she agrees to be his wife, he will spare Elsa's life.
With that said, I would love to explore and brainstorm a completely new plot if you are interested.
I'm aiming for a long-term commitment to this roleplay, so reliability and communication are key. Let's work together to create a story that captivates us both and keeps us coming back for more.
Thanks for reading!

Apologies for the delay, as promised, continuing with the story! Link to previous act: VII

The night wore on. The people in the street thinned, then vanished.
The last Samurai left the geisha house, weaving drunkenly.
And then, two shadowy figures emerged from a side door in the geisha house and headed away.
I followed.
I caught a whiff of opium, so I was able to keep after them without exposing myself much.
They stopped in a deserted alleyway.
The coal from a pipe lit up one of the figures faces.
Tatsuki.
What did you want, anyway?
Tatsuki san, you were so cruel to Satsume today.
So? Samurai are nothing but trouble! Get em drunk, do a dance, take their money, that's it.
Anyone hoping some rich pretty boy will buy their contract is a fool, and anyone who goes out of their way to get their attention even more so.
They'll kill you for looking at them sideways!
I can't say you're wrong, Tatsuki. But, you shouldn't have spoken up when you did.
Those jade magistrates might just wonder if you had some connection to the murders.
What d'ya mean, murders? They just went missing, it's not like we know they're dead or anything.
I was already moving at that point.
Oh but I do know.
I got between the two just as the knife flashed.
It scraped me, and I returned the favor with my tetsubo.
Catching the Geisha in the side, I pulled my blow so I wouldn't kill her. I just wanted to take her off her feet. I had questions.
To my surprise, she not only seemed untroubled by my attack, she kept her feet.
Okay, that's just not right.
Tatsuki. Run to the inn. Get my companions and bring them here.
Tatsuki just stared, slack jawed. Her pipe fallen to ground.
MOVE PEASANT!
She ran.
The not really a geisha moved to give chase, but I blocked her path.
Your fight is with me.
In the dim light of the red paper lanterns, I could just make out the dark stain spreading across her side.
So I did hurt her.
As I advanced, preparing to strike again, she swung her knife. Not at me, but at the string of lanterns.

Most fell harmlessly into the road, but enough did drift into the outer walls of the nearby buildings that I had to rush over and put them out, lest they start a fire.
She used those precious few seconds to break from me and run.
I finished stomping out the lanterns and stood there cursing until Tatsuki came back with my friends. Mantis and Monkey weren't with them of course, still investigating.
Damn bitch is tough. More than simple geisha!
I wounded her though, think you can follow a blood trail this late at night, Kitsuki-san?
Ishigaki.
Toshiro had knelt to examine the blood.
This blood, it's far too dark.
Kitsuki-san leaned in, brought his lantern in closer.
You're right.
Humans breathe in Air, it mixes with our Water, making our blood bright red. As our water passes its strength on to our Earth, our bodies, it becomes darker.
This blood is black.
Toshiro looked up at me.
Just like a corpse that has not taken in any Air for a long time.
Bog Hag?!
I think so, yes.
Kitsuki-san blinked.
I thought you said your technique disrupted the taint of your enemies?
It does, but it's a reflex. I use it when I am struck; it's not as if I would know it's working. Only my opponent would know... ah.
No wonder it was not eager to fight you.
Toshiro and I locked eyes, the same thought running through our heads.
You three go find the Mantis! I'll get the Monkey!
Protocol!
I'll be fine, Toshiro! You're slow, Naomi is sick, and Kitsuki-san isn't much of a Yojimbo!
You three NEED to stay in a larger group!
I was already running, before any more protests could come up.
As I neared the docks I heard the sound of retching. Turning towards it, I found the Monkey.
He was leaning against a building, clutching the side of his neck. I could see him panting. As I came closer he leaned over and puked.
He saw me.
Ishigaki-san? I... I don't feel so good.
I picked him up. His skin was on fire with fever.

Some crazy bitch... She was clutching her side, I asked her what was wrong and as I got close she clawed the shit out of my neck!
Bog Hag talons carried disease in them. She had used the tanto on me because she did not wish to extend her claws through her fake skin.
I had no idea how severe the disease was, or how long it normally took to work, but obviously THIS one was working very, very fast.
I slung the Monkey over my shoulders and ran.
He didn't complain.
I got back to the Inn and stomped heavily as I ran up to our room,
I threw open the door.
Toshiro said hello by blasting both myself and the Monkey with a Jade Strike.
As the energy washed harmlessly over the two of us I set down the Monkey.
Hag got him. With her claws.
Shit.
Toshiro fished out a prayer to Jurojin. As I explained what that meant to the others.
Naomi added her own magic, and between the two the Monkey was saved.
Everyone was quickly brought up to speed.
The Mantis confirmed for us that the Yoriki I had encountered early that day was also the Bog Hag, as his failure to report in had caused a bit of shouting at the magistrate's.
Okay, now that we know what we're looking for, we only need to find one creature in a city of thousands that could change its appearance almost at will.
There was a reason Bog Hags were able to live in Rokugan for a long time should they just make it past the wall.

Hey, uh Toshiro-san?
I'm grateful and all for the magic healing... but why did you blast us both?
Won't hurt you if you aren't tainted. If it did hurt you I'd have blasted you again till you stopped twitching.
Oh.
I chuckled. Hitting one another in the face with that spell is a perfectly fine way to say hello among the Kuni. It has advantages, since a normal Jade test requires you to get close enough to poke someone first.
Couldn't you just hold up your own Jade?
Toshiro took that one.
Greenstone.
There's a mineral that is similar in appearance to Jade, but it's not. Hard to tell the difference at a distance.
Some fools have, from time to time, tried to pass it off as Jade to our Clan when our own stores were low.
Okay.
Now, how do we go about finding this monster?
Check the geisha. The madame, in particular.
It was the Mantis.
That Yoriki not reporting in for duty was a big deal. If the Hag was stepping into their daily lives, then there's an issue.
Geisha live in their house. They really aren't supposed to leave unless called out by a client, or to run errands.
Keeping up a double life like that would be hard.
What? don't judge me! You're the weird ones, being all lovey dovey.
Before we left we ground up jade and prepared powder. Bog hags were invulnerable. The blood was not the hag's, but from the skin she had been wearing.
It was unusual, but not unheard of for older, stronger and more cunning hags to be able to take more than just the surface skin.
This made the disguise even MORE difficult to spot.
Some even learned maho spells to preserve their skins.
We returned to the geisha house as dawn was nearing.
Toshiro placed a ward of flame upon the frame of the door.
We entered.
Tatsuki greeted us.
Oka-san is resting right now, should I go get her?
Please.
As the madame shuffled out, she greeted us warmly.
Hello great Samurai! I cannot thank you enough for what you did for our Tatsuki last night!
How may I help you?

I walked up to her, and held out the finger of Jade I wore.
Hold this a moment.
Oh great Samurai, this one is unworthy of such of a gift.
She was misunderstanding, going through the three refusals.
I heard the Monkey snicker.
No, I'm not giving this to you, I just want you to touch it.
Whatever for great samurai?
Some of the other girls had come out of their rooms to see us.
We just want to be sure.
The door to the front slid open.
Oka-san, I'm home! I have the-
As soon as the Geisha stepped across the threshold, she burst into flames.
Oh shit, which one was that?
Dammit, THEY KNOW!
Uh...
Oh dear, this is going to cause quite the ruckus.
We will have to leave this city now, no matter what happens.
Girls, listen up. The one who kills the big one gets the little girl's pretty skin.
All around us, geisha ripped their flesh off and revealed themselves to be Bog Hags.
Tatsuki fell to her knees, unable to comprehend her entire world shattering in an instant.
Including the madame, and the burned one, I counted six.
I once mentioned we Crabs had a code word for when the teahouse we're in is staffed by demons in disguise, they didn't know they'd been found out, and everyone should grab their weapons and meet out front.
We also had one that meant the same thing, expect that the demons know they've been found out, and you should fight way out.
Yasha.

Toshiro threw Jade fire as we powdered our weapons.
Energy rushed through my limbs as Naomi blessed me.
I was worried, there were a lot of Hags here, Toshiro and Naomi had both used magic earlier, and we were relying primarily on powder to injure them.
The burned one leapt onto Toshiro's back, clawing him
One went for the Mantis, one the Monkey. Two came at me.
The Mantis and Monkey both defended themselves, and I knocked aside the first to reach me, the second one got a claw in under my arm as I raised by tetsubo to block.
She cried out as she struck me, confused.
WHAT WAS THAT HUMAN WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME.
Calm down, that's why I told you to work together on him.
I know what he is doing; it won't harm you.
As the Geishags eyed me hatefully, Troka-san reached inside her kimono, and pulled out a scroll.
Oh shit.
She then clawed herself, quite deeply.
Oh that's a lot of blood...
And my chest burned. I fell to my knees hacking and coughing. Blood poured up from nose and mouth. My lungs ached.
So this is what it's like, to be Naomi...
I had to end that bitch, and I had to do it, now. Before she cast that spell again.
With the strength Naomi gave me, I slammed the haft of my tetsubo into the geishag that had clawed into me, knocking it down, while preserving my powder.
Then I rushed over it and attacked the head of this hag coven.
I saw surprise and fear in the creature’s eyes, it had hoped that spell would slow me down much more than it had.
I spun my tetsubo, two overhead strikes, sliding my hand down the haft to let the full momentum strike her.
She was still standing, but swaying about drunkenly.
I suspected she had overtaxed herself with that maho.
Behind me the Mantis, Monkey and Kitsuki all worked together. As the Kitsuki shoved his blade into one's stomach, the Monkey struck at the back of her neck.
Then the Mantis buried his kama into the top of her head.
The hag made an almost comical gurgle as it fell over, dead.

Toshiro was praying, hard. Another big one. then.
Naomi whispered another prayer and touched the Mantis.
Who then spun and struck the burning hag.
The other hags howled in fury and lunged at the Mantis, taken by surprise at the three on one, he went down under their claws.
Kitsuki-san grabbed the Mantis and dragged him back to Naomi.
She didn't waste any time, not even bothering with a scroll.
As the Mantis groggily got to his feet, Naomi teetered, sweating and panting hard.
For that matter, so was I.
I was still sucking in Air, a terrible panic rising in me at the feeling of not being able to breathe.
I crushed it ruthlessly. I knew I COULD breathe, even though my body was screaming I needed more.
Still, my vision was going dark at the edges.
What the hell did that monster do to me?
It lashed out with a claw, unable or unwilling to spill more of its own blood to work any more magic.
It's talons punched through my chest piece but only the very tips found my flesh.
And before she could draw back, I brought my tetsubo down on her head for a third time.
This time the thing's skull cracked open. Brains and fluid spattered to the floor. It stood there, head still bent from the impact of my strike, almost as if it was bowing before me.
Then it crumpled.

I turned. I needed to repowder my weapon.
Naomi was spent, or close to it.
Toshiro was praying, scroll in one hand, with his tetsubo held out in a warding stance. With that one hand grip he could not defend himself well.
Mantis was badly hurt, near death. Not even Naomi could heal someone so wounded that quickly.
And there were still four of the damn things standing. One hadn't even been hurt yet.
Well let's fix that.
Panting like a horse in heat (even killing the fucking thing hadn't fixed my lungs... was I going to be like this forever?) I charged at the unwounded Hag.
And into her.
She bit at my helmet and clawed at my back as I continued to run, taking her with me
And out the front door.
Through the ward.
When a bleeding Crab in full armor comes crashing through the door of a Geisha house, bearing with him a Bog Hag that is also on fire, people have a tendency to take notice.
One may then assume that, once their brains can fully register what their eyes have told them, they will scream and run about like chickens with their heads cut off.
The people in the streets lived up to my expectations. Spectacularly.
Good, that should bring some more bodies. If we have to we'll just pin them down with sheer numbers until we can bring up enough powder to bring them all down.
The Monkey lashed out at one of the hags, keeping the thing from attacking the Mantis.
The Kitsuki took a stance from the Dojo. I had seen the Shiba do that once, long ago.
The Mantis spun around slipping to one knee he scythed his blades through the legs of two of the hags, causing them both to fall.
Naomi drew another scroll from her satchel
And then Toshiro finished his spell.
The spell was an old one, in use for centuries.
It turned wrathful Earth Kami upon those it targeted, disrupting their own earth, weakening them considerably.
The Earth Kami were particularly incensed should they detect the presence of taint.

The spell had been made famous by one of the sons of the Emperor Toturi the First.
It was, in these days, known as the Wolf's Mercy.
Toshiro managed to get all four of the hags.
The wounded three died on the spot, their weakened bodies succumbing to the severe wounds they already bore.
Only the burning one was still alive.
Kitsuki-san struck it hard.
It trashed in my grip, but I managed to hold on, barely. The Mantis and then the Monkey were finally able to still the beast.
I felt life rush into me, and the pain in my chest eased up at last.
Just as Naomi began to cough once more. I caught her before she fell, and set her down gently.
Tatsuki. TATSUKI! My wife needs her medicine, we need a teapot, water, and a fire. QUICKLY!
My shouts galvanized her, and Tatsuki moved to comply.
Kitsuki-san saw to preparing her medicine.
Toshiro, panting hard looked at me and the Mantis.
Neither of you better get sick from those wounds. I've got nothing left.
And, far too late to be useful, the Crane showed up, Yoriki in tow.

Doji Goemon looked about with disgust, and more than a little fear.
What has happened here?
Naomi was panting hard, still giving little coughs.
She looked at me. Though her eyes were tight with pain, she gave me a nod to reassure me she would be alright soon enough.
So Toshiro, as the only other full-fledged Jade Magistrate in our group, had to explain the scene to the Magistrate's satisfaction.
You had a Bog Hag problem.
We took care of it for you.
You're welcome.
Bye.
Atta boy, Toshiro.
That won't cause any problems, I'm sure.
He then turned and began throwing salt all over.
Wait, just a minute!
No.
WHAT?
Toshiro spun and glared at the Doji.
I had watched Toshiro apply his face paint several times. He started out pure white. Black, all around his eyes, making them tiny pools of light in deep sea. Then, almost haphazardly dipped his four fingers into red, and pulled them across his face.
The visage he created looked like a man with deep black eyes that were far too large, and had been clawed from temple to chin by some great beast.
In other words, pretty damn scary.
And he used it to full effect as he glared at the Doji.
Bog Hags are tainted. They've been hiding in this geisha house for months. People have probably already been tainted. There might be infections even now.
And I HAVE to deal with that.
It's what Jade Magistrates do.
The first step is to Purify this place.
So shut up and let me do my job!
Or do you want to explain to your lord why half this city had to be burned down when the taint gets too deep?
He was bluffing. It was true there were probably people with the taint unknowingly spreading it around, but one geisha house? No way had it become such a crisis.
Toshiro just didn't want to deal with the Crane, and was using the fact that such knowledge was considered shameful in the rest of Rokugan to deceive him.
It worked.

The Doji salvaged his wounded pride by berating his Yoriki.
Don't just stand there! Get some monks, shugenja! And ETA!
The Mantis, meanwhile, discreetly moved Tatsuki out the back, we all knew from the attempt on her life she was innocent of any wrongdoing.
But we doubted Goemon would see it that way.
Several Monks, a small swarm of Eta, and even an Asahina showed up to help with the cleansing.
And all protests from Goemon stopped as the Eta began to bring up human skins from a secret basement Kitsuki-san found.
There were thirty two.
As well as a very large pile of bones. There was no telling how many people were there. There were only three skulls. Not nearly enough for all the bones.
I explained to Goemon.
Bog Hags don't kill just for skins.
They eat people.
Especially pretty women and children.
He excused himself, and hurried off.
I could hear him vomit.
I doubted it was compassion for the victims. Rather I suspected it was fear that such a thing had gone on for so long right under his nose.
I had no doubt he would have much explaining to do when his lord heard of this incident.
I didn't embarrass him further by looking.
Hey, Naomi?
Ha...hai Ishigaki-san?
Still a little sore.
Is he doing that right?
I jerked my head to Toshiro. He had just thrown a second handful of salt at a wall that particularly offended him.
It always seemed... messy to me, when Toshiro purified things.
Naomi nodded. sipped some water.
He lacks grace, I admit but it is fine the way he does it.
Huh.
Naomi advised Goemon on the Jade test, and the Monk in charge of the local Shrine assured us that, should anyone be found with the taint, he could guide them to a temple that specialized in treating those so afflicted.
Toshiro pressed him on the details, but was satisfied the temple in question wasn't one that took mercy too far.
We left, to chase after possible clients with the taint.

We were joined, of all people, by Tatsuki.
"What the fuck is this?" I asked to no one in particular, pointing at her.
Mine. Hands off.
I stared at the Mantis.
He pulled his clothes and produced a piece of paper.
I bought her contract.
From a dead bog hag?!
Yeah. Got a great price.
You just took that!
Look, I know you don't know shit about Geisha, loving your wife as much as you do (Naomi blushed), but the contract is the only thing separating a Geisha from a whore.
I had no idea if that was true or not.
Naomi, of course, wanted to know what the half-person thought of all this.
Naomi's Compassion could really get in the way of her sense of propriety at times.
I don't have any traveling papers, I can't stay there and I sure as hell didn't want to show my face to the magistrate to try and get some papers....
So this works. I mean, I could be a lot worse off right now, and you did save my life...several times over in fact.
Huh. That's very upfront. I wondered what is was that she sensed in us to put her so at ease.
And that's how the Mantis got a Geisha.
So, you gonna marry her?
Monkey, of course.
Naomi hid her smile behind her sleve and tittered.
The Mantis just glowered at the Monkey, but Tatsuki actually fidgeted a bit.
I shared a glance with Kitsuki-san and Naomi as we noted that.
And we headed out for the nearest town.
For a few weeks we spread word of a possible taint outbreak. Discreetly, to local lords. We told them how to check, got them in touch with temples to handle anyone found with the taint.
Naomi went through paper and ink quite quickly, writing letters back home.
I don't think either of them can read yet, Naomi.
The nanny will read the letters TO them Ishigaki-kun. Until we got home to see them again.
I understood. Not a day passed while I was standing on my post on the Wall that I didn't think of home.
When we arrived at the third city, the guard who checked our papers became very excited.

My stepdaughter is 10 and has what I would consider to be severe ADHD. She has made huge progress since her diagnosis around 3 years ago but one thing seems to be worse. She is casually, mindlessly destructive towards almost everything.
She has drawn on her bedroom wall multiple times at both homes, thrown slime on the ceiling, poured dye on the carpet, painted multiple pieces of furniture with nail varnish. She has cut bank notes to pieces, her own hair, clothing, bedding. She seems to compulsively tear soft toys apart and we are constantly finding stuffing from teddies all around the house. She rips the elastic off knickers and leggings and I am continuously binning clothes because she has pulled a hole in the seam of the crotch.
This kid has an endless amount of fidget toys of every variety She has a tonne of art materials (paint, glue and scissors are no longer allowed in her bedroom). She has a bundle of fabric for sewing with that she is allowed to cut up. Still, I’ve just washed her brand new bedding and found a corner of the pillow case ripped off and a slit down the centre of the sheet.
I see from reading on the ADHD subs that this isn’t uncommon. But how can we support her in doing this less? Should be we giving logical consequences and charging her pocket money to replace things? Is there something else we should be providing for sensory stimulus? Is this something she’ll grow out of? Any advice gratefully received!

I have an announcement about the future of this series. Some IRL stuff is taking up a lot of my time. It's nothing serious, so don't worry. As it stands, I simply don't have the time to write as much as I was before. This does not mean that I'm putting NiTH on hiatus. The series will continue. But, and there is a but. Since I don't have as much time to put into writing it, updates will likely be slower. As such, I won't be able to promise a consistent schedule. Or even a schedule at all.
I'll still try to keep it somewhat consistent. I just don't want people to freak out if there's a week with no update.
Many thanks to u/SpacePaladin15 for this universe.
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Chapter 16:
- Memory Transcription Subject: Meba, Venlil Computer Scientist
Date [Standardized Human Time]: October 20th, 2136
The boot was cool against my back. So was the rain, which was beating down again. Mud caked on my fur like resin, and the taste of dirt wouldn’t leave my mouth. The sound of wind beat on my eardrums like sticks on a drum. Gusts came in waves, bringing sheets of water careening through the air at an almost horizontal angle. I couldn’t see above the hips of our attackers with my head pressed to the ground. There was another sense that only Arlene was privy to, but that didn’t stop the experience from being thoroughly miserable.
I spit some of the grit out of my mouth. The only thing I could think of was how cold it was.
They must be warm, in their insulated suits.
“Why are you doing this?” I wanted to ask, though I didn’t.
Arlene was to my right, shivering. She would get hypothermia if she didn’t get out of the rain soon.
I was heaved to my feet, with a throbbing head, and shaky legs. I struggled in their grip, but that only netted me another blow to the face. My feet played hot potato with the ground, as it swayed out from under me, around, and back again. I almost wished it would open up and swallow me, swallow us all, just to be done with it.
One of the three brandished a baton, the others held Arlene and I. Were they the group from before? I couldn’t tell beneath the suits. My stomach exploded with pain, and I lost the fancy bunt leaf salad that Gram bought me.
The moment stretched on to infinity. My muscles clenching, my teeth chattering, and a bit of my drool getting to know the puddle on the ground. My wool helped a bit. Arlene didn’t have the luxury of padding.
Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look.
I looked.
Her usually white teeth were stained pink. The mask was lying in the mud, completely covered in it.
I looked away before I could glean anything else.
“Hey, buddy, you still with me?” Said the leader. Or, something along those lines; I couldn’t really hear him. He placed the baton under my snout and raised my head. Soon, he removed the baton and said something to his lackeys.
The ground started moving. No, I started moving. I was being dragged towards a tree, by my scruff. Arlene too. They pressed me up against the trunk; the wind was a little quieter under the canopy.
“There we go.” Said the leader. His voice sounded familiar. “Think you’re a tough guy, huh? Friends in high places? You gave us some real trouble, didn’t you!”
“Stop!” Arlene screamed.
Pain. Another blow. To my head. My vision blurred. I tried to stand. I couldn’t. Arlene. Was she okay? I couldn’t see. My chest lurched forward. Coughing. My coughing. I gasped for air. I tried to speak. I failed. He went for a kick. I was only partially able to block with my arms.
I fell to my side, gathering even more mud in my coat. I summoned every ounce of strength in my body, and raised my head. Arlene was there, struggling in their grasp. I don’t know how she could function through the pain.
She grabbed the exterminator behind her, and threw him over her shoulder, then slipped in the mud, and fell down… right on top of the him. He yelped in pain. The one with the baton turned their back to me. I groped around in the dark for something, anything. I found a rock.
“Freeze!” The exterminator yelled, barely audible over the storm.
NO!
I slammed the rock into the only vulnerable area I could reach: the groin. The suit had padding, but it wasn’t enough. He instantly dropped his sidearm, or rather, his sidearm dropped him, because he hit the ground first. I might have felt bad, if not—no, no I wouldn’t have.
Arlene struggled to her feet, blood still burning with alcohol. She stumbled towards us, hopped into the air, bringing one leg back behind her, and the other into the ground with all her weight. In an instant, her elevated leg swung forth with terrifying speed, boot blurring in the rain, mud flying off in an arc. I was lucky I wasn’t in the splash zone, because some would have gone into my mouth, which was hanging open like a faulty airlock.
It connected.
His head jerked backwards at an ugly angle, with such force that it might have snapped his neck, if he didn’t have the strong neck of a venlil. He fell over backwards, though so did Arlene, as inertia carried her leg higher and higher, until it was above her head, which soon found its place in the mud.
“Arlene!”
There was still one more exterminator. Arlene was down, and I was too far away. If the last one decided to pull his gun, one of us was going to die. I tried. I tried so hard to stand… but I couldn’t.
No sound pierced the rain.
I looked to the third, who was quite literally shaking in his boots. He didn’t pull any weapons, though he was cursing vehemently under his breath. He took a step towards Arlene.
“Don’t touch her!” I screamed, though he only froze for a moment before continuing.
He passed Arlene, and bent down by the leader. Both of the officers Arlene attacked were writhing in pain on the ground. The third looked to me, then to Arlene, and back to his squad. “Oh stars…” He heaved his boss up around his shoulders, and helped him limp away out of the yard.
“Dammit Lanek! Don’t leave me!” Said the one Arlene fell on, struggling to rise.
“I’ll be back!” Lanek replied.
While they were occupied, I crawled over to Arlene, clutching my stomach. “Arlene? Arlene, are you okay?”
She was pulling herself out of the mud. “Never better…” She growled. Arlene gave me a thumbs up; her face was discolored.
The second officer starting limping away, while Lanek returned to help him. Lanek offered his squad mate a shoulder, but he declined, only shuffling away faster. “Go brahk yourself!” He said, and Lanek was left standing near the gate.
He looked like a lost kid, glancing around the yard all worried. He locked eyes with me. I couldn’t think of anything snarky, or intimidating to say, so I just sighed.
Lanek bowed. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.” He said, voice cracking. He scurried away, but I could only relax once the sound of the squad car’s engine was drowned out by the rain.
Arlene stood up, dragging me along with her. “Fuck, I’m too drunk for this.” She slurred.
Getting inside in the rain was a group effort. The wind pushed us to and fro, and out combined strength barely kept us upright. I collapsed at the bottom of the staircase, gasping and shaking. She pulled me up by my scruff, causing a considerable amount of pain. I would have complained, if there was another way I was getting up those stairs.
“Sweet baby jesus, please tell me you have your key.” She panted.
I was too focused on digging through my belongings to ask about the nickname, adhering even more mud to my already mud-covered bag. At least I didn’t have to worry about ruining my datapad, since it was already dead.
“Found it.” I shoved the key into the door, and ripped it open with all of my might.
Arlene dragged me the rest of the way in, slammed the door, and collapsed on my couch. I was left to close the locks. As I did so, I found my door looking a little sparse.
A few more locks wouldn’t hurt.
I chewed on my thoughts for a while. Yes, more locks sounded good. Very good. The more exotic the better. A bio-metric scanner was a must. Hell, why don’t we throw in a vault door while we’re at it? Locks don’t do anything unless the door is impenetrable. An auto-turret would go nicely with my new vault. I had to discourage intruders somehow. Scratch that, fifty would be better. I needed an air filtration system as well, so people couldn’t smoke me out. The walls would also need to be reinforced. No, moving inside a mountain would be better. I wasn’t made of money after all, and stone is just as good as steel if you have enough of it. I could have a hydroponics area, and a water recycling plant, so I wouldn’t have to go out to buy food. The only problem was power. Brahk it, I could just sap some illegally. No one would notice, right? Who was I kidding? Everyone would notice.
I laughed.
A fusion plant would be required as well then. It couldn’t be that hard. I could just have robots manage it. Real people would be cheaper, but that would defeat the purpose. Maybe I could make fake people too? Make an artificial town? That would be great! Everything would be perfect. I could make everything stable and safe. No one would mess it up. Not even Uanta. And I wouldn’t even need to worry about raids because it would be hidden inside a mountain.
It was time to stop messing around. I needed to clean myself. I needed to get a blanket for Arlene. And, I needed to check both our injuries.
The blanket was the easiest, and was done in no time at all. Cleaning myself was a little more time consuming. Besides my everything hurting, I was falling asleep, and my bathtub was being difficult. After an inordinate amount of messing with it, I concluded the boiler had broken… again.
Lovely place I’ve got here. Cold water it is!
I lowered myself into the glacial depths, cursing everything I could think of to curse. I ended up scrubbing the mud out of my coat while standing, almost falling over more than once. After I was clean, I inspected my body. I was pretty sure nothing was broken, but lots of things hurt. My head especially.
Trudging into the living room, I found Arlene laying on the couch. She had removed her coat and boots, leaving them by the front door. She had also turned the blanket the other way around so the side without the mud was on her. Everything would need to be cleaned next paw. Everything. Now she was well and truly sleeping, so I didn’t wake her. I did take a closer look at her face, which was bruised with blotches of yellow and purple not unlike the human protecting his friend at the riot. At least her nose stopped bleeding.
My heart finally stopped racing, and I yearned for sleep. But I couldn’t rest yet.
I went to my computer, and booted it up. The scarcely opened desktop messaging app would finally get some use. One to Uanta, and one to Gram.
“Do you know anyone called Lanek?”
“I’ll do it.”
- Memory Transcription Subject: Meba, Venlil Computer Scientist
Date [Standardized Human Time]: October 21st, 2136
I awoke to the sound of running water, and to sore muscles. Peeling myself out of my chair, I found my living room devoid of humans. That explained the noise coming from the bathroom. Taking a look around, I noticed that the mud she tracked in was gone, and my couch was in a somewhat better condition. There was a note written on a paper towel laying on one of the cushions. I think she forgot I couldn’t read human script.
Well, I would just have to ask her about it when she finished in the shower. If I had the time, that is. Looking at the clock, it was already time to leave for work. I didn’t even have the luxury of groaning in annoyance if I wanted to get there on time. So I grabbed my bag, shoved some stuff in the muddy thing, and opened the door.
Sidewalk, station, tube ride, station, and sidewalk passed by in a haze, and I soon found myself standing outside the building. I passed by several coworkers on the way up, all of whom gave me looks on varying levels of ‘Who is this homeless guy and why is he in the building?’. The ones who recognized me asked me what happened, to which my only reply was: “Rain.”
That didn’t explain the bruises, but it didn’t need to. My tone assured them that no matter what they said, their questions wouldn’t be answered. I did not get enough sleep for this. Not that it would have been any better if I did.
At my desk, there was a note taped to my computer. It said something about a party after work, to which everyone in the office was invited. I couldn’t glean anything more before I ripped it off and threw it in the trash. I inspected the rest of the area for other disturbances. No one touches my work space. No one. I spent the next eighth of a claw removing the residue left from the adhesive, wondering how I would install a lock on a doorless cubicle.
Once my desk was restored, I booted up my computer in preparation for work. There was quite a backlog. My paws felt clammy, and so did my brain. I had never been so furious in my entire life. Every time I thought of those bastards, my paws shook, and my ears twitched with anger. I felt so powerless. I had to do something.
But they’re exterminators. What can I do against them?
Crush them.
And how?
There wasn’t time to be daydreaming; I needed to focus. Even if I could get back at them right that second, it wouldn’t matter if I was starving on the streets, so I was resigned to work. I took a deep breath and began, fueled by the promise of a chance to fix my situation. Despite this, I didn’t get through half of it before I was called to the meeting room. I grumbled to myself before stomping out of my cubicle. The denizens of the water cooler watched me as I walked past. It reminded me of the restaurant.
I entered the meeting room, and faced my boss. There was an arrangement of folding tables forming a hollow square, with chairs lining the outer edge. The room was a similar shape to the table, with good lighting and clear air. Almost like a hospital. Behind the spot he was standing, was a whiteboard with various incoherent scribbles that I had no desire, much less hope of deciphering. This particular room functioned as both a meeting room and his office. Even after almost 9 rotations of business, the place still hadn’t lost all of its tech startup quirks. I would have liked to see the way the place was before it became reputable.
“Meba, good. It’s good to see you.” He said. Everything was always ‘good’ with him.
I signed a greeting with my tail.
“Don’t be shy, take a seat.” He motioned to a chair.
Of course he wanted me to take a seat. Presumably while he remained standing, just to show me how below him I was. Well, I had no choice, it would be a faux pas to decline. My standing in the office was already low enough as the resident recluse. I sat down.
He sat down across the table from me and took a deep breath. I hated how calm he was.
“I have some concerns about your work.” ‘Some concerns’. That’s shorthand for ‘I don’t like you’.
My heart rate sped up considerably. “Such as? I’ve always been productive, and I’m never late to work.” I almost hissed, utterly failing to keep my cool.
“Yes, well…” He paused for a second, studying me, as if I was on display in a museum. “You have been having some trouble lately, haven’t you?”
My ears stood straight up. “Just some minor setbacks. It’s nothing.”
“Minor.” He echoed.
“Y-yes.”
“Meba, you’ve delayed five requests.”
“I was just finishing them up as we speak.” I snapped back.
He sighed. “You see, this isn’t helping anything. I’m not trying to attack you.”
I didn’t reply.
“Look, I like you. You’re good at what you do. But, you’ve been slipping lately.”
I gulped, and my ears twitched.
He put his paws together on the table, and leaned over to me. “I think you should take some time off.” He said softly.
What does he think I am, a child?
“Not a chance.” I replied.
“Why not?”
“I’m not going to take time off.”
He sat back in his chair. “You still have all of this rotation’s vacation time. You know it doesn’t stack, right?” I almost couldn’t believe he said that to my face.
“I am well aware of how this company handles vacations.” I growled.
“Then why don’t you take one?” He said, ignoring, or perhaps unaware of my anger. “You haven’t taken a single paw off the entire time you’ve worked here.” He signed false concern.
“There’s no reason to.” I explained.
“If it’s the office you’re worrying about, don’t. It won’t explode just because you take some time for yourself.” He retorted.
‘We don’t need you’, huh?
“I know.”
He ruffled the fur on his head in frustration. “I can’t let you keep working like this. Not in good conscience. Please, just go home for a few paws. Go home and rest up.” He flicked his tail towards the door to send me off.
“I can’t.”
He gawked at me, incredulous. “Why not?”
“I just can’t. I have to work. It’s part of my schedule.” I mumbled.
“Your vacation would be paid.”
“That’s not it!” I snapped, speaking frantically. “That’s not it at all. What will I do instead of working, then? What? There would be no balance. Don’t you get it? Does anybody get it? I need this, or else everything will be messed up.” I gasped after running out of air, placing a paw over my mouth before the regret spilled out.
He stared at me, mouth hanging open, but saying nothing.
I glanced around the room, considering flight, but instead mumbling. “Sorry…”
We sat in awkward silence for a few moments, until he began to speak, solemnly. “Meba. That was extremely unprofessional. However, I’m going to let you off the hook this time. I don’t want to see anything like that again. You may keep working if you wish, but if your poor performance continues, I will be forced to fire you. I highly suggest you take some time off. I’ve seen people, good people, drive themselves into the ground doing this. I don’t want to see it happen again.”
I replied with a meek ear flick.
“You may leave.”
I replied by doing just that, hopefully not to return anytime soon. The march of shame back to my desk was punctuated by more stares. Every eye was burning with curiosity. I tried to ignore them, to varying success. My injuries were becoming quite hard to ignore too, with all the attention brought to them. The pain only made me angrier.
They trespassed. On my time. On my friend. In my own home.
Flopping back down in my chair, I got back to work. I couldn’t make anymore mistakes. No getting manipulated. No getting coerced. No getting ambushed. Certainly no setbacks at work. I wouldn’t make anymore mistakes. After all, I had faced not one, but two humans. I had survived an exterminator attack. As long as I kept my head, I would be in control. I wouldn’t be powerless.
Not anymore.
---
I returned home, satisfied that I had just done at least warded off the deadlines for a while. There was still much to be done, but for now, I could relax. This tranquility lasted for a few minutes, unill it dawned on me that I didn’t do the homework. Yet again, I had completely forgotten.
It’s fine, isn’t it? What are they gonna do, arrest me?
A shiver crawled up my spine and whispered into my ear, that yes, that is exactly what they would do. I would be arrested under suspicion of predator disease, and rot in a cell for the rest of my natural lifespan.
I pushed that thought into the corner of my mind before it could start causing problems. Arlene would protect me if that happened, I reasoned, though that logic was faulty. It didn’t matter. As long as I kept my head on straight, I didn’t care if I was lying to myself.
In my apartment, the TV was playing reruns of some tacky game-show, while Arlene lay passed out on the couch. There was an unfinished bowl of fruit on the table, sitting next to another one of her felting projects. This one wasn’t a venlil. I wasn’t sure what it was exactly. It was quadrupedal, with a pointy snout, and ears that were even more so. There was a little bump that barely passed as a tail on the backside of the thing. The most noticeable aspect though, was the two piercing eyes… which weren’t so piercing because their scale was of cartoon proportion, but I suspect a venlil unaccustomed to front facing eyes might have found it disturbing. Some earth animal, probably.
Now that I was getting a closer look at her, it was pretty bad. Well, the lack of fur might have made it look worse, but I couldn’t tell. There were bumps on her face of varying colors, and her bottom lip had been split open. Around one of her eyes sat a nasty ring of discolored skin, that look particularly painful. I couldn’t get a look at the rest of her, unless I removed the blanket, and probably her clothes too. Like I was going to do that. They were furless, after all. I would do a verbal check up on her after she woke.
After gawking long enough to get tired of standing, I sat my bag down and went to go check my messages. It was annoying to go to the desktop to do so. I would have to get my datapad fixed sooner rather than later.
There were replies from both Uanta and Gram. I decided to check Gram’s first.
“Good to hear! I’ll meet you after work next paw, yeah? I’ll be at the park by the library. We can talk more then.”
“P.S. Be ready to start by the time you get there. Don’t be late.”
I replied. “Got it.” Then, I checked Uanta’s.
“Yes. Why do you ask?”
“Also, you didn’t reply to my last message.”
I should have expected that response. There was no way I could tell her what actually happened, or she would know that I was interacting with a human. That would be a first-class ticket to the facility. So, I would have to lie. And she was amazing at discerning lies.
A cold spot formed in the back of my head. There were so many ways it could go wrong. What would I do if she found out? What would my cover story even be? I clenched my jaw.
Keep cool, this has to be perfect. She’ll catch onto it if I’m sloppy.
“We ran into each other at-
No, that won’t work.
“He was patrolling near my-
Neither will that.
“He-
My drafting was interrupted by a knocking on the door.
Arlene.
“Brahk!” I hissed, shutting off my computer as fast as possible, and rushing to the living room. A second set of knocks signified the intruder’s impatience. Arlene was sitting up, still dazed from sleep. I shook her awake and dragged her towards the closet.
“Who’s there?” She whispered, eyes wide with fear.
“I don’t know. Just hide.” I replied in a similar tone, while opening the door for her.
She scrunched into place, shuffling behind a vacuum cleaner, and cursing. “My mask.” Arlene hissed. It was sitting under the table.
Another set of knocks, these much louder, made it clear that the owner was at no shortage of knocks of all shapes and sizes. “Meba?” Uanta called from the other side.
“Coming!” I lied, yanking the mask off the floor and passing it to Arlene as fast as my limbs permitted. While I was at it, I shoved her coat under the blanket along with her boots. Now that the human presence was sufficiently obscured, I unlocked the door and opened it, panting.
“Oh, did I interrupt something?” Uanta asked. She was wearing her suit, but the helmet was under her arm. “Are you alright?” She continued, when I didn’t respond.
“Fine. I’m fine.” I stammered, heart pounding.
She glanced behind me, towards the TV, which was still blaring the game-show’s theme song, and then back to me, with a look that could only say ‘you look like shit’. “I’m sorry to intrude on your rest claw. I’ve got some down time, so I thought I’d check up on you.”
I flicked an ear, unsure of what to say.
She blinked. “May I come in?”
“O-oh. Yes, of course.” I stepped out of the doorway, and once she entered, closed it behind her. I very deliberately led her to the kitchen counter, rather than the couch, to keep distance between us and Arlene. “Would you like something to drink?”
“Sure.” She swayed her tail happily behind her, placing her helmet on the counter. It looked stuffy. “Nothing alcoholic though. I’ve got to get back on the job in a quarter claw.”
There wasn’t any alcohol to offer anyway. Juice was the only drink I had besides water, so that’s what she got. After pouring us both a cup, I sat down on the stool on the other side of the counter. Anything to put something between us. It made me feel safer, though it didn’t have any such effect.
“How have you been?” She signed concern in tail language.
“Fine.” I sipped on my juice, trying to stay calm.
She scoffed. “You don’t look fine. What the brahk happened to you?”
Speh. Speh, speh, speh. I am so brahked.
“I…” I tapped on the side of my cup. I had never noticed its texture before. They were from a garage sale, on the other side of town; some old lady had them, but she was… expiring, mentally; didn’t need them anymore. Since- no, I couldn’t think of this right now. What do old people do? “I fell down the stairs.”
She gave me a disappointed look. “Stars, Meba. You have to be more careful.”
I shrugged, though the inside of my head was a dance floor.
She bought it? She bought it! I did it, I did it, I did it!
Uanta glanced off to the side, staring at the couch for a second, then locking eyes with me. “You haven’t been replying to my messages. Do you have any idea how worried I was?”
At least I had an excuse for this. “S-sorry, my datapad broke. I um, got caught in the rain, and it got wet.” I gestured to my muddy bag.
“You still have your home computer, don’t you? You messaged me last paw.” Uanta tilted her head to the side, ever so slightly. She was talking to me like she did to her exterminator colleagues. It scared me.
“W-well, I’m not home most of the time.”
Uanta took a sip of juice, and rolled her eyes. “Speaking of which. What business do you have with Lanek?”
My mind went blank. I didn’t have a cover story yet. I gulped down the rest of my juice, resisting the urge to say any form of ‘um’. “Um,” Obviously, I failed. “h-how do I put this?” I let out a stupid chuckle. “I met him a-after dinner last paw. He helped me up after I fell down the stairs. I wanted to thank him.”
“That’s it? I’ll pass on the message.” She sipped her juice.
“I-I was actually hoping to tell him myself.”
“I’m sorry. Exterminators are very busy. He’s relatively new, so he’ll be busy with training for a while. It’ll be easier if I tell him for you.”
I couldn’t let this lead slip through my claws. “B-but, I thought it would be good to… t-talk to more people.”
She gave me a reassuring tail sign. “Okay. I’ll see if I can get his info for you. Providing he’s okay with it.” She paused, taking my paws in her own. “I’m really happy you’re reaching out.” This was the first time since she enlisted that I heard her so giddy. It made me feel homesick, but there was no home to be sick for. Not anymore. I’d have to settle for phantom pains, I guess.
“Thank you.” I refilled both our cups.
She was easier to deceive than I thought. She always seemed so perceptive, but maybe I had been blowing it out of proportion.
“What’s that thing on your table?” She inquired.
“What thing?” I snapped back, worried.
“That little figurine.” She pointed to the felted creature with her tail.
My whole body froze, and any confidence I had vanished in an instant.
“Meba?”
“I-I… made it.”
“Oh? I thought you weren’t interested in the arts.” Disregarding the irony of her calling a human made object art, this was bad. Very bad. “What is it?” She stared at me.
“A wool doll.” I stated reflexively.
She chuckled. “That doesn’t really explain much.”
“It’s a doll made out of wool…”
Uanta rolled her eyes. “No, you’re pulling my tail. It couldn’t possibly be that.”
“I don’t know how else to explain it!” I grumbled.
“What’s it supposed to be?”
This, I did not know. What did it look like? “It’s a… a shadestalker.”
“What are you making that sort of thing for?” She asked gravely.
I coughed. “I uh… I thought I could use it as a distraction if a human approached me.”
That was perhaps the dumbest thing you could have said.
Uanta clicked her tongue in a similar way to Arlene. It was uncanny. “I told you to stop with those stupid defense tactics. You’re gonna get yourself killed!” She jabbed a claw at my chest, and I flinched. “Stars… I’m sorry, Meba. It’s just, you worry me to death. I don’t know what I would do if you got hurt.”
“Y-yeah.” I put my paws on my thighs.
“I’m so tired. Of all this predator shit.” She held her head in her paws. “It’s only getting worse. The whole galaxy is going to hell. Just like home. I don’t want that.” She took a shaky breath. “I don’t want to see that again.”
“Me neither.”
Uanta composed herself “I’m sorry. I should get going. There’s work to be done.” She said, gulping down the last of her drink. “I’ll come by next paw. We’ll have more time to talk then.” She turned her gaze to the couch again, lingering there for a moment, then turning back to me. “Goodbye.”
She left, and I locked the door behind her with a sigh of relief.
“She seems nice.” Arlene said, crawling out of the closet.
I rolled my eyes.

I've been with my girlfriend for almost 3 years now, let's call her Kiara. Probably a cliché to say it's the best relationship I've ever been in. She's incredibly hot, about 5'7 with amazing tits and a perfect ass. Best of all, she's super kink friendly!
Let me elaborate... I've had relationships in the past where my now ex gf's, would be weird about me seeing their assholes, let alone go near them. My current girlfriend however, is up for any kind of ass related experimentation! I mentioned before she has a great ass and wow, let me tell you, can It fart!
Initially, I was prepared for this relationship to be just as vanilla as my last ones. The occasional sex is the standard missionary and possibly light spanking. I never thought I'd get to try out my fart kink IRL, until I met Kiara. After only a few weeks of dating, she was letting them rip right in front of me! By looking at her, you'd never tell she was that gassy. Never judge a book by its cover I guess.
She started letting them go in front of me, not in a sexual way, but more showing how comfortable she was around me. I would let out the occasional laugh, making sure not to discourage her from doing it again... In reality, I was the hardest I had ever been in my life. She began to take the whole fating thing further and further, eventually, doing it while sitting on my lap or under the bedsheets, pulling me under to smell it as a "joke". However, it wasn't a joke to me.... I LOVED it.
One night while we were doing a 69 type position, where she sits on my face while I'm lying on the bed, all while she's sucking me off. It was definitely one of my favourite things to do in the bedroom, even before my experiences of that night... I was eating her out from the bottom, spending as much time licking her asshole as possible when she stopped sucking and sat up. "I need to fart" she said with a giggle, attempting to manoeuvre herself off my face to fart elsewhere in the room. I was so turned on at the time that I couldn't let her do it anywhere else other than my face. Still lying down, I grabbed her by here thighs, making sure she wouldn't get off my face. She laughed thinking I was joking but when she turned her head to make eye contact, she knew I was serious. "ok then" she said in a cheeky, flirtatious way. "pffffftttt". Her asshole was about 2 inches from my nose when she let out her fart. I could feel the air hit my nose. As for the smell..... I was HOOKED. I started eating her ass again with so much passion. I was on the verge of cumming and she wasn't even touching my cock!. She got the memo however, and started sucking again.
​
A few minutes go by and she stops sucking a second time. She farts in my face again. Waiting for my reaction. I continued to eat her ass and she got back to sucking. Ever since then, she lets them go whenever I'm eating her out or in doggy style. Sometimes, she gives me the eyes, letting me know she needs to fart and I just push my face between her cheeks, even if shes fully clothed. The funny thing about all this, is we've never formally discussed the fart kink we both apparently have, it just kinda happened naturally and honestly, I think thats so much hotter.
​
I'm sure you now understand why I said this is the happiest relationship I've ever been in. Thats because it's also the stinkiest! This is just the story of my first IRL experience with farting and trust me, I have many more! Feel free to send me a chat if you want to discuss my gf, or this kink in general, a bit more!
​
​

TLDR: my ex husband’s girlfriend hates me, is controlling and abusive towards my ex, is manipulating my young children, wants to replace me as their mom, and move them to Costa Rica.
My ex husband and I were together for almost 15 years and we have two daughters that are 5 and 6 years old. I initiated our separation and divorce almost three years ago in 2021 after learning about his failed plan to have my 10 year old Pomeranian taken and euthanized while I was on vacation. We shared custody with a seven days on, seven days off schedule which was working well for us at the time. In August 2022 I sustained a serious head injury, and I agreed to a temporary emergency custody change so that the girls would stay with him full time while I recovered. During this time the county ordered that I pay him child support at $800 a month despite him making three times as much as I was and being unable to work in my usual job as a clinical therapist. What was supposed to be a temporary custody change became a nightmare when he refused to give them back. My children had been mentioning a new babysitter named Sadie (not her real name), and it became clear after a couple months that this woman was not a babysitter but his new girlfriend. I had no love for him anymore and I did not care one bit that he was seeing someone. I even told people that another positive adult in their lives was a good thing and I thought she and I could have been friends. When I first met her she seemed shy and almost intimidated by me, but it didn’t take long for it become clear that she was the dominant one in their relationship. My ex and my girls moved into her home full time and she became hostile towards me when she got more control. I was in a relationship with a man who was physically abusive and after he was arrested for assisting me, I needed a ride home from the hospital because I had an injury to my eye. I called my ex when I couldn’t get ahold of anyone else, and she volunteered to drive me home. When she got to my house, she came inside, started going through my and my boyfriend’s things, threw all of his clothes, pictures, and other personal belongings in a pile in my backyard, lit all of that on fire, and she stole his jewelry, cologne, small electronics, knives, and a BB gun. She also stole my Cricut machine and a digital picture frame off of my wall. When I asked for those things back I was told by my ex that they threw them away. I’m pretty sure that’s a lie and that they sold them, but either was it was theft. Things got worse from there, and my contact with my kids was limited to one hour a week at a secure facility with supervision and camera monitoring. This was not court ordered, there was never any CPS involvement, and my kids were never removed from care. I agreed to a TEMPORARY EMERGENCY custody change and he was given the power to have “ultimate discretion” about my parenting time with the kids and how long he should have full custody. I noticed my girls started to call Sadie Mommy, which bothered me at first but I let it go because she taking care of them full time and was in a motherly role. Then they started calling me by my first name instead of mommy. When asked them about it they said that’s what they were told to call me. My youngest who was just turning four at the time asked me if I was her “real mommy,” and it was clear that they were becoming confused. I started to complain about this and reported it all to my lawyer, the kids’ therapist, and anyone else who would listen. I was being verbally harassed and embarrassed by Sadie when I attended any school functions, sports, and dance recitals. They told me I wasn’t allowed to be there because it was outside of my supervised visitation hours, but I reminded them that it’s a public place and I had a right to attend. One day I brought new shoes I bought for them to T-ball practice and my ex and Sadie threw a fit, yelled at me in front of my kids and other parents, and ripped the shoes out of my five year old daughters hands. Later I was informed they got rid of the shoes. The next practice I came to, I was told that I was not welcome and that they were calling the police to have me served with a restraining order. I was served with two restraining that they sucessfully got ordered after lying many times in the paperwork. I have all of the screenshots and other evidence that proves they lied. They started telling the girls that they are going to move to Costa Rica where Sadie owns a second home. I raised the alarm and reported this to everyone including my attorneys who responded with: “well that’s illegal. He can’t do that.” I’m aware it’s illegal. People do illegal things all the time. Including them when they stole from me and lied on legal documents. Sadie would communicate with me while impersonating my ex and she sent at least ten unhinged, incoherent messages to me in our coparenting app that she is not supposed to have access to. She painted herself into a corner when she got a restraining order because she couldn’t harass me anymore, so she started attacking my mother, my best friend, and anyone else she could get to. She is a drunk, got fired from her job, yells and screams at my ex and my kids, threw a rock through her own house window in a fit of rage, and last night she refused to let me speak to my children on the phone when she answered my ex’s phone. I have reported all of this to my lawyers, therapists, and family members but no one takes it seriously. She had ovarian cancer ten years ago so she has no children of her own. I think she is jealous of me and my relationship with my girls. They love me and want to be with me all the time. I am so scared that she is manipulating my kids and actively working on parental alienation. My girls are young and I’m terrified of how impressionable they are and I’m scared they will be turned against me. No one will help me and no one wants to acknowledge her control and abuse. I don’t know what to do.

1. Divide and Conquer - 4/5 (Slapper intro. Pretty good for a pilot episode, but it felt like they rushed into character drama a little too quickly. Like, I only JUST now met Robin and Cyborg for the first time, so this big breakup doesn't really hit as hard as I imagine it could had it been a later episode. The animation of this show is very fun and different from typical action cartoons, though. Stuff like the characters turning into chibis and going horrendeously off-model for gags is great stuff.)
2. Sisters - 3/5 (Immediately more character conflict and drama. I'd say this one works a little better, but again, I only really now just met Starfire, so there's not a hugely established friendship between her and the Titans enough yet. On the other hand, perhaps that's for this episode's benefit, as it's about her feeling replacable, which would not be very realistic after having been established as BFFs for several seasons. And I did think her and Robin's chat was really sweet, so whatever. Also, Blackfire is just a color swap of Starfire. Sunny Tennyson much?)
3. Final Exam - 4/5 (So this episode was the first to air, but is not the "real" pilot. Strangely enough, it would almost have worked better as a pilot, since it introduces the characters in their HQ immediately followed by showing how they work as a team. The H.I.V.E. aren't the most interesting villains but Gizmo was pretty amusing. What was with the lighting in the scene where they get out of the water though? Looked strange.)
4. Forces of Nature - 4/5 (Thunder's Sonic eyes is freaking me out. Please separate them... Anyway, decent episode, even if it's mostly just Thunder and Lightning wreaking havoc and getting moral lessons from Beast Boy.)
5. The Sum of His Parts - 5/5 (Fixit. Wow, clever name. Sarcasm aside, pretty great episode. It's interesting to see Cyborg's abilities explored, and the eerieniess of Fixit about to forcibly make him a full robot was highly engaging. Although while that IS the main story, the majority of this episode is spent with the other Titans fighting Mumbo Jumbo for some reason. Not that it's back, since I liked the zany wackiness of it. But it definitely didn't need take up that much time. Also, he briefly became a Canadian from South Park.)
6. Nevermore - 4/5 (Thunder and Lightning, Mumbo Jumbo, and now Doctor Light? So far this show has had really lame villains. Not that it's a huge detriment, because unlike other superhero cartoons, the focus in most episodes seem to be more on the inner workings of the Titans themselves as opposed to whatever villain they're facing, so I guess they just pick goofy ones to jumpstart the actual plots. Which in this episode was pretty amusing. Raven's a lot more mellow than her appearance would let on. I thought she would nearly murder Cyborg and Beast Boy for breaking into her room, but she was just slightly upset. Oh and, uh, what was up with intro being in Japanese?)
7. Switched - 4/5 (Just as I mentioned the villains being "lame" in the last episode, I thought Puppet King was pretty interesting. He's not like, compelling as a character or anything, but I found the puppet schtick fairly amusing to watch. As for the actual story, while "body swap" is not the most original idea for these kinds of shows, I still found it endearing how Raven and Starfire learned about one another. But the fact that they still keep their voices makes me go grrr.)
8. Deep Six - 3/5 (There's that Japanese intro again! Apparently it's used for episodes that are more comedic, while the English is for the "serious" ones. Guess I'll see if that assessment holds up under scrutiny. So this is mostly an underwater episode, which, while not a bad setting by default, feels pretty uninspired when it's nothing but blue backgrounds and rocks. Raven horning for Aqualad sure was a sight to behold, though. Felt a bit out of character.)
9. Masks - 4/5 (Wow, Red X was Robin? No way. It's not like they had the exact same voice or anything. Anyway, as good as this episode might be, it's really just some setup for Slade's schemes, which is really only vaguely hinted at whatever it is. As a result, I don't really have much to say. Starfire's lecture about Robin not trusting them was a bit "wha" though, because, yeah, if they knew Red X was Robin, they would've held back, and it would not be convincing.)
10. Mad Mod - 3/5 (Sheesh, this episode hurts my eyes. It's a funny one, though. And it has the Japanese intro, so I guess that fact about it was true. It's nothing but the Titans chasing some Brit for the entire episode. 20 minutes of pure zaniness. And Mad Mod was a pretty amusing gag villain. I also really liked the song "K2G" that played during that Scooby-Doo parody montage.)
11. Car Trouble - 3/5 (Gizmo drove away with Cyborg's car JUST as he arrived to confront the guys who initially stole it. He would have been right in the vicinity of it, how did he not notice it driving away? LOL. Also why do the two crooks calmly tiptoe around and vaguely say they "lost it" instead of just "some guy drove away with it right behind you like 10 seconds ago!".)
12/13. Apprentice - 5/5 (Slade merely wanting an apprentice is a bit of a confusing motivation. Like, for what purpose? Once he's fully molded Robin, what does he intend to do next? Take over the world? Not that it matters, since the conflict of Robin having to betray his friends to save their lives was thrilling enough. Although part 2 is obviously the better half, because the first is mostly just setup for that. Robin also makes a sick Batman reference, but can't directly mention him because of the Bat-embargo. LOL. Side note, the effect of the probes being the characters becoming...orange with a buncha circles wiggling around them was odd.)
14. How Long is Forever? - 5/5 (Robin just brooding in front of the speakers was funny. LOL. Anyway, the way time travel is handled here is confusing. I suppose it always is, but here it seems to function so that during the period Starfire was travelling 20 years, she simply did not exist during them. But she came back to the past in the end, meaning historically, she always returned. So instead of time travel looping around itself, I guess in this series when you travel, you're just gone. And if you return, the timeline you go back to will be a completely different one. That aside, it was neat to see the future Titans, although sheesh my guy Beast Boy aged horribly. And I find it hard to believe the entire city would become a dystopia like this, considering the Titans aren't the only heroes around.)
15. Every Dog Has His Day - 5/5 (Pretty solid for a zany comedy episode. Beast Boy becoming a dog to get bitches (pun intended) was funny. And the whole schtick of the Titans mistaking an actual green dog for him lent itself to a lot of good comedy. The reveal that that the dog is actually intelligent and can speak sort of "ruins" what made that aspect funny in the first place, but it doesn't affect the episode's quality or anything, so that's just a nitpick. Soto was pretty freaky though. Reminded me of Tiny from Ben 10.)
16. Terra - 4/5 (Yikes, Terra is scrawny. She's like a walking stick. I guess she has earth powers, although it's not really explored how or why. Though, at this point in the show, I've obviously learned that stuff is not something it prioritizes. Anyway, this episode is very good, but it's mostly just introduction to Terra and then a teaser that she is Slade's new apprentice victim. I'm interested for where that goes, but I don't have much else to say about this one specifically.)
17. Only Human - 4/5 (Not to go all Facts & Logic:tm:, but humans also have a limit to which they can use their muscles, so on a technical sense, Cyborg's conflict in this episode doesn't make much sense. Especially since he exceeds 100% by the end anyway, showing it was always possible. Not to diminish the story or anything, because I did find his conflict around it genuinely engaging. And the moment when he rises up to the challenge to actually beat Atlas is obviously very cathartic and rewarding. But also LOL that Atlas picked a beef with Cyborg over losing in a video game.)
18. Fear Itself - 4/5 (Here I spent the entire episode expecting the "obvious" reveal that everything scary that happened was a prank by the Titans to prove to Raven that she can be scared. Guess I was a little overconfident in that since it turns out she was just accidentally doing it herself.)
19. Date with Destiny - 4/5 (Hey, it's Spider-Man. I mean, Fang. That was a pretty freaky character design. Just a guy with a huge spider as his entire head. This episode felt like it ramped up the wacky animation to 11, particularly with nearly every motion Kitten makes. And that bit with Starfire's mouth falling into the punch stuck out, too. That aside, pretty cute episode. Starfire's jealousy is amusing.)
20. Transformation - 3/5 (Does the Titan Tower only have bathroom? That's ridiculous. It's huge! Anyway, not to complain about power inconsistency or whatever, but Starfire being able to instantly fly several hundred thousand kilometers away from Earth pretty much instantly, not to mention be able to breathe in space is a bit excessive. She's not Green Lantern... That aside, this was alright. It's neat to find out more about Tamaranians, but Starfire has already learned the "my friends will like me no matter what" lesson before.)
21. Titan Rising - 4/5 (Why is Raven so pissy at Terra? Like, I know she's moody and has a low temper, but raging at someone just trying their best? A bit out of character. That said, I still enjoyed the rivarly. I like Terra on the team. It's fun that they're expanding the roster.)
22. Winner Take All - 3/5 (Why does the Master of Games need people to lose a battle before he can absorb them and their powers? Why doesn't he just do it to all of them on the spot? I found it funny that Beast Boy lost the first round. When the episode began I was expecting some epic final battle between the three main characters. But nope, he just loses and is gone for the rest of the episode.)
23. Betrayal - 4/5 (That was a bit of a rushed betrayal. Terra is introduced in one episode, instantly leaves within the same one, makes a big comeback 4 episodes later, and betrays them in the very next while it's treated like some devastating loss to the team. Well, there is the game episode in between. But also she isn't even in that save for a silent cameo in one shot in the end, so that barely counts! That said I still liked the emotional beats of the story from Beast Boy's perspective and such, so I'm not hating on how this was done. I just think this could've meant more if she actually was a member of the Titans for the episodes leading up to this betrayal. On a lighter note, I liked Beast Boy's theatrical scenarios of how he should have asked her out.)
24. Fractured - 3/5 (So in-between the previous, serious, dramatic episode, and the upcoming 2-part finale which will obviously be about Terra, they felt they needed an episode about some annoying imp doing zany nonsense. Not that the show is a stranger to that stuff, but this wasn't nearly as charming as Mad Mod.)
25/26. Aftershock - 4/5 (Pretty standard "epic finale" fare, but obviously it's good because I liked this Terra arc, as rushed as it may have been. Her turning on Slade and even being the one who ends up killing him was pretty thrilling stuff. I didn't think they'd actually go that far, considering he's like the main villain of the series. But while that final battle between Beast Boy and Terra was pretty great due to the resonance and such it contains, I feel like the episode took up a lot of time having the Titans fight various miscellaneous characters leading up to it, that just wasn't as interesting. Side note, Raven and Terra just being colored completely brown to simulate being muddy stuck out to me. I don't know why. Mainly because most shows would draw wiggly lines to simulate the muddiness, not just one blank color.)
27. Deception - 4/5 (I know this show is episodic so stuff like this is bound to happen, but it is a bit eyerolling that characters seem to just learn the same lessons over and over. Like in this episode, Cyborg is beating himself up over being a cyborg, but by the end he accepts himself the way he is. A lesson he has learned in 2 episodes prior to this already. Not that I didn't think it was well done. His chat with Starfire was sweet, and the whole thing about him being undercover was entertaining too, so it's not much of an issue.)
28. X - 4/5 (So some guy steals Robin's Red X costume and takes up the mantle... But he also conveniently sounds exactly like Robin? Sure, because THAT makes sense. For the most part this episode is just baiting you into wanting to know who Red X is, but then NEVER answers it. Pretty rude. Nevertheless, it was still interesting. Also Professor Chang's design reminds me of Inspector 13 from Ben 10.)
29. Betrothed - 3/5 (Titans just casually flying to another planet like it's a mere road trip. OK. Is The Batman funding this or what? Also, that scene of Robin outside the spaceship made me LOL. Anyway it's interesting to see Tamaran thoroughly explored upon and such, but it's a bit absurd that every single person on the planet wears basically the exact same outfit.)
30. Crash - 4/5 (Cyborg's cybernetic features are confusing. Firstly, how could a digital virus affect his brain, which is clearly a biological component? Second, how and why are there red blood cells flowing in the "veins" of his mechanical parts? Nitpicking logic in a goofy joke episode aside, this was great stuff. I liked that they had to reluctantly get Gizmo to help, and Cyborg going nuts was just entertaining in its own right. I think the interior of his cybernetic parts were interestingly designed, and Beast Boy as an amoeba is just absurd but fun. Although it's inconsistent that he's able to talk while in that form, since he can't when he's any other animal.)
31. Haunted - 5/5 (This was pretty grim, but very thrilling. Given Slade was established as like the main villain of the show, even though it seemed obvious he was imaginary, I kept asking myself if he was actually real or not to come capacity, since I doubt the series would get rid of its main villain that easily. And well, they DID imply somebody else activated the hallucination chemical from the mask, so, like, yeah, he's clearly coming back. That said, if it was all in Robin's head, how did he get all those bruises and rips in his clothes? By punching the air? And why did Beast Boy have a cold in this episode? I guess they needed some comedic relief so it wouldn't be too grim for Cartoon Network.)
32. Spellbound - 4/5 ("Kardiak, you're under arrest". I get it. Because he is a heart. Pretty amusing. Anyway, yikes, Beast Boy sure was mean for NO reason. But the way they made up in the end with Raven even joining him and Cyborg's game of "stankball" was cute. As for Malchior, well, I thought he was a girl until he spoke.)
33. Revolution - 3/5 (Pretty much a rehash of the first Mad Mod episode. He has the Titans trapped in a maze of illusions and they chase him around and defeat him. Which I get is the whole gimmick since he's just a joke villain, so yeah. This was good, but not AS good. The pop-art backgrounds were pretty cool, and I liked how the British flag was the sky in the background the entire time. Plus, British Beast Boy was funny. The "message" about patriotism, democracy or whatever, felt a but muddled.)
34. Wavelength - 3/5 (I guess Brother Blood is growing to be Cyborg's arch nemesis or something. This was pretty average, so I barely got anything to say. Aqualad asks for help, so they take down Blood's underwater weapon and...Yeah. But I liked Bumblebee, and her fight scene with Cyborg had a lot of funny visuals. The bit where he shuts the door on her was amusing too.)
35. The Beast Within - 5/5 (This was great. You'd think it would be fairly predictable to tell a werewolf story with Beast Boy, but the execution really makes it work. Yeah, it's obvious he's acting strange because of the chemicals from the beginning. But his gradual shift from acting macho, to asshole, to picking a physical fight with Raven for NO reason was interesting because of how bizarrely out of character it is. Especially when his "beast" form took the Raven beef to the next level. But on top of that I especially enjoyed the twist that the Adonis guy from the beginning was a second werewolf, and the actual culprit. Robin seemed awfully quick to immediately lock Beast Boy away or straight up murder him though. For a guy who himself was blackmailed into being evil, you'd think he would be more considerate to other possibilities.)
36. Can I Keep Him? - 3/5 (This was alright. Pretty simple concept for a comedy episode is all. Beast Boy fosters a giant maggot and then it becomes bigger and dangerous. Kind of amusing how Starfire got more attached to it in like a day than Beast Boy did while hiding it for months. As a sode note, I liked the design of Rancids robot dog and dinosaur.)
37. Bunny Raven... or ...How to Make A Titananimal Disappear - 3/5 (Pretty good for a zany episode. The Titans as animals were amusing designs, and Beast Boy becoming a lamp instead was funny. Mumbo's song was catchy.)
38/39. Titans East - 4/5 (I like the concept of Titans East, although the only member I find particularly interesting is Bumblebee. I'm always fond of shrinking abilities for the potential practical uses that often go unacknowledged. She never really does anything with it besides shoot some lasers in the bad guys face, though. Speedy and Aqualad are kind of generic, and Más y Menos are just gag characters, so yeah. Cyborg's conflict here was pretty interesting, but the way he gets decapitated piece by piece was pretty brutal. But him sticking it to Brother Blood was pretty awesome, and I liked the sweet ending where he decides to stick with the Titans.)
40. Episode 257-494 - 3/5 (Steve Irwin gets mauled by a bear. Anyway, this episode is decent, but it's just an endless stream of references to other things, many of which I am not familiar with, so even as a comedy episode, a lot of the jokes don't work very well. That woman from the lame soap opera was still with Cyborg in the real world by the end because THAT makes sense. But it was funny.)
41. The Quest - 4/5 (Yeah, it was pretty obvious the old lady was the great master. Robin going through challenges was pretty entertaining though, but that snake one... He won by merely grabbing the snake? Sure, okay. The rest of the team dressing up as and pretending to be Robin was probably the best part, especially even Raven joining in.)
42. Birthmark - 4/5 (Welcome back, Slade. This was a very thrilling episode. Really just has you asking tons of questions. Like how is Slade back, why is he targeting Raven now, etc. But also, it was interesting how this potrays Robin and Raven as having a very close friendship. I mean I guess all the Titans are good friends, but these two haven't been explored as a duo at all, so it was interesting, if not a bit awkward.)
43. Cyborg the Barbarian - 4/5 (Silly concept, but I like it. Though given how time travel has been established in this show, Cyborg can't really do anything to affect the future, because everything he will do has already happened in the past. I like the design of the demon... Thingies)
44. Employee of the Month - 4/5 (I found it interesting how this acknowledges Beast Boy a physical task, as opposed to Raven or Starfire's breezy levitating. Beast Boy working at a meat shop itself was pretty funny, and the Tofu villain in the end sells the whole thing for me. LOL.)
45. Troq - 3/5 (The racism episode. The fact that we know what word "troq" is supposed to represent makes it very weird how often we see it used. I mean imagine an episode where they used the actual word this much... Yeah. I think this is pretty well done and what not in terms of being sweet and emotional, especially Cyborg's talk with Starfire and Robin instantly changing his mind on Val-Yor once he finds out. But the action plot they wrapped all this around didn't really have me hooked, and it's a pretty big chunk of the episode.)
46. The Prophecy - 3/5 (This is neat and all, but for the most part it really feels like nothing but setup for a grander plot than something to stand on its own. So while I'm sure the context of this will make the season finale more rewarding, this is just okay. I did get a kick out of Raven pulling up Slade as he was trying to leave just to jerk him around a little.)
47. Stranded - 4/5 (This is a fun episode, but it has one of the worst common TV tropes of all time; Character refusing to explain an easily explainable situation this creating conflict because of misunderstanding. I mean, yeah, Starfire DID describe what a "girlfriend" was, but then she just described what could also be platonic. Robin could have easily explained to her that there's a difference between platonic and romantic.)
48. Overdrive - 3/5 (I like the Billy Numerous theme music, but that's about it really.)
49. Mother Mae-Eye - 3/5 (Well, funny at times, I'll give it that. But ehhhh. Yeah, I don't know, there isn't much to be said here. Liked the scene where Robin spiked up his hair.)
50/51/52. The End - 5/5 (Yeah, pretty epic. The Titans using Raven's power was also cool. I was hoping to finally see Slade's face when his mask was knocked off, but I suppose a creepy half decomposed skeleton is also interesting... Don't really understand Trigon's motivation for, well, all of this though. He wants to take over the Earth and get rid of all life on it, just so he can sit in a giant chair and relax? I mean, the real story here is supposed to be about Raven, so I know it doesn't matter, but that's pretty thin for what's supposed to be the most threatening villain of the show to date.)
53/54. Homecoming - 3/5 (I love specific character focused episode where we see something more personal to them, but Beast Boy's background isn't that interesting and most of the team besides Elastigirl weren't very interesting. But I do find Negative Man's powers cool. Brain is a pretty cool villain too, I love his voice, really intimidating vibes. How are any of the Doom Patrol alive after what happened though? Never explained)
55. Trust - 4/5 (An entire Hot Spot episode? Interesting, since I always find it fun when shows divert from the main cast. Overall fun, but that ending was pretty frustrating though. Hot Spot was so obviously Madame Rouge!)
56. For Real - 3/5 (I do like the Titans East, but this was disappointing. I was hoping for more of a genuine episode in their own town, seeing their feats as a team and friends, as opposed to goofing off with Control Freak. Also one of the villains Brain had lined up two episodes ago is in jail here?? Were Más y Menos permanently translated to English for the audience to understand them? I mean I guess I prefer it, since having them two speaking what sounds like gibberish to the rest of the team makes it hard for them to appear as genuine friends, especially since they're mostly attached to each other as opposed to the whole team.)
57. Snowblind - 4/5 (Already loved Red Star and then he's immediately killed before my eyes!! Whyyyy! I was hoping he would gain control of his powers and aid the Titans. How has he still been getting tanks to fill up with radioactive liquid for so many decades though? And that's a pretty small room for two tanks a day over the span of decades.)
58. Kole - 3/5 (This entire season so far the Titans have just been around the world, given last time they were in what appears to be Russia, and now it's somewhere in Scandinavia. It's been an interesting change of pace, sure, but this episode wasn't terribly interesting. They meet some caveman with a little girl, Dr. Light is up to no good, etc.)
59. Hide and Seek - 3/5 (Bobby turning out to be real was a pretty fun "twist". Got dragged out for a while though.)
60. Lightspeed - 4/5 (Another non-Titan focused episode. Kid Flash is randomly horning on Jinx because why not, I guess? This Jinx redemption came out of absolutely nowhere, given how little we've seen of her prior. But Kid Flash is fun, so whatever.)
61. Revved Up - 3/5 (This episode is neat, but given how they are racing for the entirety of it, the constant action was pretty exhausting to sit through. Why did Raven sneezing and Starfire saying the Tamaranean equivalent of "bless you" inform all the villains they are Titans though? Also, infuriating we never got to see what's in the briefcase.)
62. Go! - 5/5 (Love seeing the origins of the team, though it's pretty oddly convenient that these 5 superpowered people (well 4 with powers) just so happened to stumble upon each other, same day, same time, same situation. I imagine shortly after this they occasionally stumbled upon each other trying to fight the same bad guy every so often and decided to start a team. Which would have been more realistic for their first interactions, not all 5 meeting at once. Pretty on the nose Batman reference but they still absolutely refuse to mention Batman.)
63/64. Calling All Titans!/Titans Together - 5/5 (Why is Beast Boy climbing up the mountain as a goat instead of just... Flying? This was quite the epic episode, I enjoyted the intensity of seeing nearly every hero be ambushed separately by different villains. It's a bit strange for the final part to mostly be from Beast Boy's perspective, and with the strange heroes he ends up meeting. I was expecting to see how the rest of the Titans made it to the Brotherhood of Evil base, but it's probably better this way, since it leaves it up to imagination, and it doesn't really matter. Seeing the brain finally defeated when all heroes went into battle was satisfying. Jericho's powers were pretty cool.)
65. Things Change - 4/5 (The amount of quiet and awkward scenes with that sad music was... Well, very strange. The whole Terra thing is a bit weird like, sure, if someone you don't know jumps up to you, acts as if they know you and tells you you've gotten amnesia, you'd think they were insane. But Beast Boy surely has photo proof? Or if not, he could get testimony from the rest of his team?? No??? It doesn't have to jog her memory back, but at the very least she'd realize the truth and know who she was instead of just being so vague and saying cryptic things. Some things she said implied perhaps she did know, because any real person would just yell out the weirdo stalking them, not give emotional speeches about the girl you once knew being gone etc. But all that aside, why did Slade send a robot out just to tell Beast Boy that he had nothing to do with what's happened to Terra? Also, that creatures ability to turn himself into any matter he touches is really cool.)
Movie: Trouble in Tokyo - 3/5 (This has pretty much one of the things I dislike most about movies based on TV shows; Instead of actually focusing on the iconic aspects of the series in question, it goes out of it's way to be as far removed from it as possible by setting it in a whole other country. Bummer, because an ideal Titans movie would really focus on the whole team, and THEIR city. Instead, they're just in Tokyo stopping a corrupt commander (who I knew was gonna be the bad guy from the get-go) who's creating crimes to be a hero. And the thing is with these kind of movies is, perhaps if they actually did focus on the characters relationships, it would be good. But instead they are mostly separated the entire time, just goofing off. And cue the obligatory relationship between Robin and Starfire. I mean, it was obviously going to happen, so it's not as if I mind it, but the drama feels pretty forced. They're heroes, yes, but they lounge around and take time off all the time when criminals aren't around. There really isn't much more to say about this. High-tier average. Although, admittedly, I was finding myself ready to close my eyes and fall asleep nearing the hour mark.)
-The Lost Episode - 3/5 (It's half the length of a normal episode, so it's hard to judge it, given it's not even serious at all. A fun little watch, for sure. Beast Boy walking around with a boombox on his shoulders was funny because of how dated it is.)
-New Teen Titans Shorts (Can't really rate them since they're just shorts, but here's a few throwaway thoughts: I like the artstyle. The lowercase T tower is a funny visual gag. Was Blackfire just killed? So, they finally actually showed Batman on screen (technically)? The hell was up with Cyborg's voice in one of these?)

11/20/2017
Log book of Det. Ryan Snow
Case #2798: The Appalachian Murders
When I woke up, I was in such a haze that I couldn’t make out where I was at first. My vision was a blur and all I could hear was the sounds of rushing water. I tried to move my limbs, but each muscle down to my little finger felt like lead weighing down on me, making it hard to breathe.
It felt like forever before the ringing in my ear was slowly swallowed out by a voice crying out from what sounded like a distance only to grow louder as it seemed to approach me from the void I had woken up in. It wasn’t until I heard my name that I recognized it was Kate’s voice, pleading and filled with tears.
I blinked away the blur, finding myself staring up at a water damaged ceiling, a single yellow light brightening the room. My head was pounding and my body still felt heavy, but I moved my head enough to turn and see where Kate was calling from. It took a moment, but I soon realized that she was lying on her back, strapped by her arms and legs to a metal table, looking to me with wide terrified eyes.
“Detective, please help!” She cried out. “Please don’t be dead! Please help me!”
“Bl-Black…Well…” I groaned out as I tried, painfully, to pick myself up off the stone floor, “Black…Well… Ah… Shit… Shit! Ms. Blackwell-“ I was gaining consciousness minute by minute as I finally took in the situation and got to my feet. However, the moment I had gotten to my feet and began running to Kate only to immediately fall back to the floor once again, my ankle getting caught by something heavy. I turned to see my ankle had been shackled to the floor by a cuff and chains. I searched my person to find my coat, along with my Glock had been taken, blood decorating my pants and sleeves. I placed a palm to my forehead to find blood when I lowered it down to look at the warm liquid slithering down from my scalp.
“Ms. Blackwell,” I returned my attention to her, examining what I could from my place on the floor, “are you alright, are you hurt?”
“I… I… I don’t… Don’t think so…” she managed to whine out.
“Where’s Mr. Raines?”
To this question, Kate looked away from me, sobbing being her only verbal response.
I went back to the shackles on my ankle and began trying to yank the chains off from the floor, but they had been well maintained and were too strong for me to simply yank out of the stone. I then quickly looked around the room to find we were in a different basement from the one in Cabin #3, though it had the same kind of layout, the table the only major difference. I also took note of the blood stains that trailed from the sides of the table and the dried pools below.
“I want my mom!” Kate cried out, her voice echoing in the empty room.
“I’ll get you to her, I will, I promise,” I assured her, trying to find something, anything to get us out of this, “do you remember how we got down here?”
“I… I… I just re-remember… Remember you g-getting knocked out… Knocked out by someone and them… Them putting a rag over me… Then everything went black… Then I woke… Woke up… H-Here…” Kate answered, trying to breathe with each sob she let out. “I… I th-thought… y-you… You were d-d-… Dead!”
“I’m not, I’m very much alive and I’m going to get you out of here and back to your parents,” I vowed as I continued looking for a way out of this situation, “we’re going to get you out of here, get you home, and we’ll make sure no one ever gets hurt here ever-“
The sound of the basement door from the splintered wooden steps cut me off. I listened as feet descended down the steps to the basement below, Kate’s ragged breaths the only other sound. The person who came down was a woman. The same exact woman from the photo I had found in her house. She looked as if she had not aged since that photo was taken, despite how long ago it seemed the photo was taken. She had the same exact long, white hair, same tired looking eyes, and same disgustingly pale skin as in that photo and on her profile picture. It was Mrs. Larson.
“Deeeeeetectiiiiiiive,” she spoke in a hoarse voice mixed with what I assumed was her own and several others, both male and female, adult and child, “youuuuuuu shouuuullld haaaaaaaaave juuuuuuusssssst giiiiiven herrrrrrr toooooo meeeeee… Youuuuuuuu diiiiiiiiid nooooooot haaaaaave toooooooo ssssssseeeee thiiiiiissssss…”
“Fuck you!” I shouted, beginning to charge at the elderly woman only to be yanked back by my shackles. “Let us go, right now!”
“Nnnnooooo,” Mrs. Larson replied harshly as she stepped over to loom over Kate.
“Stay away from her!” I barked, trying desperately to break free of my shackles.
She ignored me as she ran a shaky hand down along Kate’s trembling face. “Ooooooooohhhhh, Kaaaaaate… Sweeeeet, sweeeeeeeet, Kaaaaaaaaaate…” Mrs. Larson cooed as she went on stroking Kate’s wet cheek. “Doooooo noooooooot crrrrrrryyyyyyy, dooooooonnnnnn’t thiiiiiiiiiinnnnk oooooofff iiiiiiiit aaaaaaaassssss dyyyyyyyyiiiiinnnnng, thiiiiiiiiinnnk ooooooooffff iiiiiiit aaaaaassssss ssssssssaaaaaaaaaviiiiiiinnng aaaaaannnnoooootherrrrrrrrr liiiiiiiiife.”
“I-I… I d-don’t… Don’t under-understand… w-what th-that… That m-means…” Kate cried, her hands gripping the sides of the metal table beneath her, “P-Please, d-don’t… Don’t kill me… L-Let… Let us-us go!”
“Nnnnnoooooo,” Mrs. Larson answered in the same harshness she used on me, “IIIIIIIII neeeeeeeed youuuuuuuuuu,” she then shot a death glare my way through tired, silver eyes, “aaaaaaaannnnnnd heeeeeeeeee’ssssssss beeeeeeeeeennnnnn nnnnnnnoooooooothiiiiiiiiinnnnnng buuuuut aaaaaa thooooooorrrrrrnnnn iiiiiiinnnnn myyyyyyyyy ssssssssiiiiiiiide siiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnccccccce youuuuuu eeeeeessssssscaaaaaaped meeeeeeee.” She then looked back to Kate with a softer look. “Aaaaaaaassssss fffffoooooorrrrr whaaaaaaaat youuuuuuu caaaaaannnn’t uuuuuunnnnnnderrrrrrssssssstaaaaaaannnnnnd, IIIIIIIIII nnnnnneeeeeeed yourrrrrrrrrr heaaaaaaaarrrrrt tooooooo ssssssssaaaaaavvvvvvve myyyyyyy ssssssiiiiiiiisssssssterrrrrrrr.”
“The fuck does that mean?” I demanded, still trying to vain to pull my ankle from the chains. “How the hell will Kate’s heart save your sister?”
“Diiiiiiiiidnnnnnn’t nnnnnnneeeeeeed toooooo beeeee Kaaaaaaate’sssssss,” admitted Mrs. Larson, “buuuuuuuut sssshhhhhheeeeee hiiiiiiiiid theeeeee ooooooootherrrrr giiiiirrrrrrllllll ffffffrrrrroooooommmmm mmmmmeeeeee.”
“S-Son… Sonja…” Kate sniffed, the tears still streaming down her face.
“IIIIIIII oooooooonnnnnlllllyyyyy neeeeed fffffffeeeeeemmmmmaaaaallllle,” Mrs. Larson dismissed Ms. Greymoore’s name, “ffffffeeeeeeemmmmmaaaaaallllle heaaaaaaaarrrrrrrtsssss toooooo rrrrrrreeeeeetuuuuurrrrrrnnnnn mmmmmmyyyyy ssssiiiiissssssterrrrrrrrr toooooo theeeeeeee giiiiirrrrrllllll ssssshhhhhheeeee uuuuuuuusssssed tooooo beeeeeee.”
“That’s a fucking joke right?” I asked. “The hell makes you think eating a female heart will turn your sister back into a human woman? Have you seen what’s happened to your sister?”
“IIIIIIIII knnnnnnnooooooow beeeeeeecaaaauuuuusssssse iiiiiiiiiiit wooooooorrrrrked ooooooonnnnn mmmmmeeeeee,” Mrs. Larson explained, “IIIIIIIIIII waaaaaasssss aaaaaaablllllllle toooooo reeeeeeetaaaaiiiiiinnnnnn thiiiiiiiiiisssssss huuuuuummmmmmaaaaaannnnn fffffffooooorrrrrrmmmm ffffffrrrrrooooommmm eeeeeaaaaatiiiiiinnnnnng theeeeeeee heaaaaaaaaarrrrrtsssss, sssssspecifffffficaaaaaaallllllyyyyyy fffffffeeeeeemmmmmaaaaallllleeee sssssssooooooo IIIIIIIIII mmmmmmaaaaaayyyyyy rrrrrreeeeetuuuurrrrrnnnnn toooo beeeeeiiiiinnnng theeeeeeee giiiiiirrrrrrrllllll IIIIIII uuuuuuusssssed toooooooo beeeeeee.”
“You were dead,” I pointed out, “they found your body up here, you were buried.”
“Theeeeeessssssse sssshhhhheeeeeellllllsssss arrrrrrre mmmmmeeeeeerrreeeellllyyy veeeeeessssssellllllssssss ffffffoooooorrrrrr theeeeeeee sssssspiiiiirrrrriiiiiitsssss weeeee hiiiiiiiiiiide beeeeeneeeeaaaaattthhhh,” Mrs. Larson responded, finally turning her gaze to me, “IIIIIIII haaaaaaad tooooooo maaaake peeeopllllle beeeelieevvvve IIIIIII haaaaaad diiiiiiied tooooo keeeeeep frrrrroooommm theeeee poooooollllliiiiicccce ffffrrrrrrooooommmm pooookiiiiiinnnng aaaaarrrrouuuuuunnnnd aaaaannnnnd rrrrruuuiiinnnnniiinnnng eeeevvvveeerrrrryyythiiiiinnnng.”
“So, let me just get this whole thing straight,” I began as I started rubbing my temples, "when you and your sister starting into… Whatever the hell that thing you call your sister is-“
“Ooooouuuurrrrr sssssspiiiiiirrrrrriiiiiit,” Mrs. Larson corrected.
“Whatever!” I shot. “You found out that eating female hearts turns you two back into human women and to keep police from suspecting you, you pretended to be dead and… What? Just hope a shitty real estate agency would buy your property and you could just… Kill people, people with lives and families outside the mountains?”
“Thaaaaaaaat iiiiiiisssss cooooorrrrrreeeeect…” Mrs. Larson admitted, narrowing her eyes at me.
That’s when I began laughing hysterically, holding my sides that hurt with each harsh breath of a laugh I took. Both Mrs. Larson and Kate looked to me as if I had lost my mind and at this point I was starting to believe I had. Everything I had seen and heard about this entire case would put anyone in the looney bin. And I’m the damn fool who dug too deep into something he had nothing to do with.
“Whaaaaaat’s ssssoooo ffffuuunnnny?” Growled Mrs. Larson, stepping around Kate to stand between us.
“I don’t know what’s fucking funnier, honestly,” I chuckled, running a hand through my hair, “the fact that you thing people won’t be poking around even more when they discover not only is Blackwell missing, but so is a detective and escaped convict all of whom now have ties to these fucking mountains and those cabins, or that you thing I’m more afraid of what you plan on doing with me more than I am when her father finds out I got her in this situation in the first place!”
“Heeeeeee wooooonnnnn’t beeeee aaaaabllllle toooooo doooo aaaaaannnnnyyyyythiiiiiinnnng aaaaaaafffffterrrrrrr IIIIIIIII’mmmmm dooooooonnnne wiiiiiiiith booooooth ooooooooffffff youuuuuuuuu,” Mrs. Larson hissed as she inched closer, “fffffffiiiiiiirrrrrrssssst, IIIIIIIII waaaaaannnnnt youuuuuuuu toooo waaaaaatch mmmmmeeeee kiiiiiiillllll herrrrrrr,” she turned her head to look to Kate who was now just shaking, her eyes seemingly gone dry from the crying, Mrs. Larson then looked back to me, “sssssseeeeecooooonnnnd, IIIIIIII wiiiiillllll ssssssaaaaave youuuuu fffffooooorrrr mmmmmmyyyyy sssssiiiiiisssssterrrrr, oooooonnnnne heeeeaaaaart wiiiiilllll nnnnoooot ssssssaaaaaatissssfffffyyyy herrrr huuuuuunnnnnger.” She took another step. “Uuuuuuuunnnnnllllliiiiiike sssssssoooooommmme ssssssiiiiiibllllliiiiiiinnnnnngsssss, IIIIIIIII caaaaaarrrre aaaaaaboooouuuuut mmmmmmyyyyy ffffffaaaammmmiiiiilllllyyyyyy.”
She stared into my eyes, expecting a reaction and while my blood did somewhat boil at the accusatory statement, I didn’t fully understand what she was getting at. Not until she used that voice. Not until she relived that day with those two familiar child-like voices.
“Screw you, Liam!” She cried out in a voice I remember from my childhood. “I hope you drop dead!”
“Stop.” I demanded.
“Piss off, Ryan!” She shot back in a second boy’s voice.
“I said stop!” I began shouting.
“Help me, Ryan! Please, help me! I’m sorry! Please, Lucky Dime, help me!”
I then lunged toward her, reaching my hands out toward her neck only to be stopped by the shackles as she swiftly, almost without even moving, stepped just out of my reach.
“Fucking bitch!” I screamed out.
“If only you really cared about me, Lucky Dime,” sighed Mrs. Larson as she turned and began making her way to the side of the room where a cart stood in the shadows. She pulled it over to Kate’s side, the cart covered in rusted medical tools.
“P-Please,” Kate wheezed, “p-p-please… I… I d-d-don’t w-want… Want t-to d-d… D-Die, I… I w-w-want m-m-m… My m-mom!”
“Dooooonnn’t woooorrrrryyyyy,” Mrs. Larson soothed, using that mix of different voices, “mmmmmmaaaayyyyybeeee sheeee wiiiillll cooooommmme loooookinnnng ffffooooorrrr yooouuuuu aaaaannnnnd sheeeeeee caaaaannnnn joooooiiiiiinnnn youuuuuuu.”
Kate began to sob, begging and pleading for Mrs. Larson to let her go, thrashing around in her restraints. Telling the older woman that there was no saving her sister and that she was too far gone for this sick ritual to work anymore. I tried to yank at the chains once more, trying to loosen it at least enough to break free and grab at Mrs. Larson.
“Rrrrrrreeeeellllllaaaaax,” Mrs. Larson ordered as she began filling a syringe with some kind of clear liquid from a small bottle, “yoooouuuuuu woooooonnnn’t eeeeeveeennn fffffeeeellll iiiiiiit, thiiiissssss wiiiiiillllll puuuuuut youuuuu toooo ssssssllllllleeeeeep aaaaaannnnnnd wheeeeeennnnnn youuuuuu waaaaaake uuuuuuuup, youuuuuuu’lllllll beeee iiiiiinnnnnn heeeeeaaaaaaveeeennnnn… Uuuuuunnnnnnnllllllessssss youuuuuuu weeeerrrrrrre aaaaaa haaaaaarrrrrlllllooooooot, iiiiiiinnnnnn whiiiiiiiich caaaaaassssssseeeee, mmmmmaaaayyyy Goooooood haaaaaaaave mmmmmmmmerrrrrrrcccccyyyyy ooooonnnnn youuuuuur ssssssoooouuuuullllll… Aaaaannnnnd baaaaaaasssssed ooooonnnn hoooooow youuuuuu drrrrressss aaaaannnnnd theeeee coooommmmpaaaannnnyyyy youuuuuu keeeeeep,” She added as she eyed me, “IIIIIII ssssssaaaaaayyyy youuuuu haaaaaave aaaaa lllllloooooot ooooooffff fooooooorrrrgiiiiiviiiiinnnnng tooooo dooooo.”
Kate continued to cry as Mrs. Larson pushed the needle of the syringe into her arm, pushing down on the plunger as it pierced the flesh. Kate’s loud screams soon turned quieter and her red eyes began to glaze over, but she continued to stay awake, tightening her grip on the table and still begging to be let go.
“IIIIII waaaaannnnt youuuuu toooo waaaaatch, Detective,” Mrs. Larson spat out my title in Mr. Blackwell’s voice, “IIIII waaaaannnnnt youuuuu toooo waaaaatch herrrrrr fffffaaaaaade aaaaaannnnnnd mmmmmeeeee rrrrreeeemmmmooooove heerr heeeaaaarrrrrt toooooo ffffffeeeeeed tooooo mmmmmmyyyyyy ssssssiiiiiiiissssssterrrrrr,” she then pulled out a recorder, “theeeeennnnnn wheeeeeennnnn IIIIIII ssssssuuuuummmmoooooonnnnn herrrrrrr aaannnnd sheeeee fffffiiiinnnniiiishessssss oooooofffffff heeeerrrrr heeeaaaaarrrrrt, youuuuuuu’llllllll beeeeee neeeeeext.”
“Fuck you,” I snarled, “I hope you and your sister burn.”
“IIIIIIIII’mmmmm gooooonnnnnaaaaa gooooo aaaaallllllerrrrrrt mmmmmyyyyy ssssssiiiiiiissssterrrrrr,” Mrs. Larson turned and began making her way to the basement steps, “ssssseeee youuuuu boooooth ffffffoooooorrrr diiiiiinnnnnnerrrrrrr.”
She then pressed the play button on her recorder and a small, little girl’s voice echoed in the room before Mrs. Larson vanished up the steps.
“I’m here… I’m here… I’m here…”
Then the door slammed shut.
“De… Tec… Tive…” Kate squeaked out, her breathing slowing.
“Stay awake, Blackwell,” I ordered her gently, looking around frantically for anything to get us both out of this alive, “I’ll get us out of this, I promise, just stay awake, we’ll get out of here, I just need-“
“I’m… S… Sorry…” she breathed out. “I’m… So… Sorry… For… Get… Getting… You… In… To.. This…”
“No, no, this is not your fault!” I assured her. “That psychotic bitch got us both into this shit and I won’t stop until I get us out and put her and her fucking sister are six feet under!”
“W…Wha… What… H… Hap… Happened… To… To L… Liam…?”
I stopped struggling with the chains and turned to look to Kate. Her head was turned to me, her face wet, hands clenching as hard as they could to the table beneath her, the light in her eyes slowly fading second by second. She was trying desperately to stay awake. The medication Mrs. Larson taking hold of her as the minutes ticked by.
I dropped the chains that were in my hands, looking away from her, wanting to stare at anything other than another person I had failed.
“He was killed,” I answered, “we were fishing at a lake nearby… Lake Gaagige… We got into a really stupid ass fucking fight about how which fishing pole we were going to use. I wanted to use our dad’s, but Liam was older and said only men could use dad’s fishing pole… I told him… To drop dead and stormed off… When I got home, my parents dragged me back to the lake and scolded me for leaving him…” I trailed off, swallowing all the tears and screams I’d bottled up since that day. “When… We found… Him… The autopsy… Said he was mauled by a bear… I’ve blamed myself for leaving him there alone… For letting him die and getting killed like that… The last thing I ever told him was to drop dead… I was a shitty brother and now I’m a shitty detective…”
“Is… Is he… Why… You became… A… Detective…?”
I took a deep breath and swallowed the tears again. “No, Blackwell,” I answered, “he’s not why I became a detective… I already knew what had killed him… It was my fault… If I hadn’t been such a brat and stormed off… He might still be alive… And now… What that bitch said…” I replayed Liam’s screams that escaped Mrs. Larson’s mouth. “I’m starting to think I’m getting what I deserve. Karma’s back to kick my ass…”
“H… How… Old…?”
“I was six… Liam was eight…”
“N… N… Not your… F… Fault…”
I turned to look to Kate, her eyes on mine, however faded.
“Y… You were… Only… A k… Kid…”
I took another intake of what little air there was down in that basement. I had spent years trying to convince myself of the same thing, but those moments never got easier for me when those thoughts returned.
“I think you’re just being nice,” I laughed painfully, “but I’m afraid I- and my folks- don’t share the same sentiment.”
I was staring down at where the chains were coming from in the ground, Kate not saying a word for over a couple of minutes. I spun to see if she had fallen asleep and immediately tried to find out how to wake her up again. However, once I our eyes met, I saw that she was still fighting sleep, the last of her tears rolling down across the bridge of her nose and into her hair.
“I… I… I had… Had a c… Crush… O… On… J… Jasper…” she confessed, her voice getting quieter and higher. “P… Paul and… And Son… Sonja knew… I never… Never c… Cared f… For Luke… But I’m… Sure… S… Sonja t… Told him…” she looked like she was going to sob again. “I… I never g… Got the… Ch… Chance… T… To tell J… Jasper… I… Was… Scared… He… He and… P… Paul were friends… And I… I kn… Knew… How P… Paul f… Felt… A… About m… Me… I… I did… Didn’t wa… Want to… R… Ruin… Anyth… Anything…” She took a gulp of air. “I… I ha… Hated L… Luke… I… A… Always… Kn… Knew… He… He was a… Player… B… But Sonja… Said… Said she was hap… Happy… So… So I did… Didn’t wa… Want to g… Get in… H… Her way… B… But Luke d… Didn’t l… Like h… How cl… Close… We… Were… I d… Didn’t w… Want him to make… Make her th… Think I… I was l… Leading her o… On… T… To get them… To b… Break up… Th… Then… That n… Night… Sh… She w… Wanted to… To leave…” She let out two pained gasps of breath. “I… I let them down… I let them all down… Luke pro… Probably thought… Thought I w… Was the one who… Who f… Filled Sonja’s mind… With thoughts of… Of him ch… Cheating… Th… Then I… I got them… All killed…
I… I didn’t deserve them, d… Detective…” she went on, looking away from me to stare up at the water damaged ceiling, “I… I… I was a… Terrible… Terrible friend…”
“Did you read their guest book entries?” I asked.
“N… No… D… Didn’t w… Want to… To r… Read any… Anything p… Private…” Kate answered.
“Jasper didn’t blame you,” I assured her, remembering what he had written in his entry during his time watching Mrs. Larson just outside the cabin, “even when he heard the voices- when he heard Mrs. Larson- telling him to, he didn’t. I don’t think the others blamed you either. You didn’t do anything wrong, Ms. Blackwell, there’s no way you could have known any of this would happen.”
“K… Kate…”
“What?”
“C… Call… Call me… Kate…”
“Aright, Kate,” I let out what little laughter I had left inside me, “so long as we’re the last people we’ll be chatting with, call me Ryan.”
“R… Ryan…”
“If we at all live through this, I’m going to need a long vacation after this,” I said as I turned to look at my shackles again, looking around myself to try finding anything to Get free since a vacation sounded like something to die for at that moment, “do you know any good vacation spots I can book for the fall?”
“Y… You’re… You’re a… Dick…” Kate struggled to laugh.
“I also enjoy pineapple on pizza,” I winked as I reached down to my ankle, ready to break it just to taste that sweet combination of tomato sauce and fruit.
“G… God… I… I c… Can’t… Believe… I th… Thought y… You w… Were c… Cute…”
I sat down on the floor, grabbing my ankle with both my hands. Needing to hype myself up enough to do what I was going to do, I began removing my shoe and sock from the foot, rubbing and squeezing my way up and down the ankle to my toes. I had never broken a bone in my life before this and I definitely never thought I’d do it of my own volition, but this was a desperate time and it definitely called for desperate…
“Wait what?” I turned to look to Kate, finally registering what she had said.
However, just before I could be sure of what I heard, the sound of a hunting rifle going off just above our heads right before we heard the door to the basement swing open and immediately be slammed shut. Both Kate and I turned to see someone stumble down the wooden steps, his clothes torn and body scratched and cut to a nearly deadly degree. I was even shocked he was still breathing.
“M… Mr… R… Raines…?” Kate gasped out.
“What’s left of me at least,” Mr. Raines grumbled as he limped over to Kate and quickly began undoing her straps to the table, “damn thing almost ripped my head off, but one swing of the barrel to its eye and I was able to get away… Can’t say it didn’t do its damage though… I’m… Getting really fucking hungry…”
He shook his head violently before limping over to me. He then raised an eyebrow at me when he saw how I was positioned still on the floor with a bare foot in my hands shackled to the floor.
“I… I was… I… I thought you were-“ I stammered.
“I am,” Mr. Raines interrupted, “at least, I’m on my way there anyway.” He then retrieved my Glock from his back pocket. “I don’t know what that thing did to me, but I’m not gonna make it out of this alive, or the way I came in. It’s a massacre out there by the way. Lot of men in blue bodies out there… Very… Hard to ignore… Sure more will be on their way. So.”
With that, Mr. Raines pointed at my chains and pulled the trigger on my clock, barely giving me time to cover my ears as the sound rung out loudly in the basement. I shook my head, trying to undo the blurry and ringing side effects of the sound of a gun going off near your head. I gave the older man a glare before standing and snatching my Glock from his hands. That’s when I saw Kate shifting herself to the side of the metal table she was no longer tied to, trying to get her limbs to comply with her to help her off and on to the floor.
I ran over and grabbed her just as she nearly stumbled face first to the floor and lifted her up to her feet, her body heavy with lack of keeping herself up.
“Do you think you can walk?” I asked, trying to keep her on her feet.
“I… I don’t… I…” Kate stammered as she tried to push herself off of me while also using using me as a crutch until she could stand on her own. However, she didn’t seem to be able to put any kind of pressure on her legs without falling down.
“Kate?” A girl’s voice called out from above us.
Feeling Kate shudder, I realized that it must have been the sound of Sonja’s voice and Mrs. Larson was using her to keep Kate from running. I quickly swung my arm down behind her knees, pressing the other down on her back as I lifted her up off the floor, my Glock at the ready as I kept it pointed in front of me while my arm held up Kate’s knees.
“She must have heard the gunshots,” I pointed out, “how’d you get past her in the first place?”
“I set the other cabins on fire,” Mr. Raines answered as if it were the simplest of answers, “I had to distract her somehow and give those bodies she’d been eating a better fate than becoming her shit.”
“Are you planning on setting this place on fire too?” I asked.
“‘Course I am!” Mr. Raines exclaimed, seemingly offended I’d even ask. “I already doused it in gasoline, I ain’t wasting all that time!”
“Kate!” Sonja’s voice cried out, getting closer to the basement door. “Are you seriously leaving me here to die alone again!”
“Please… Make it… Stop…” Kate sniffed as she gripped my shirt and burying her face into the fabric.
“Let’s get you two out of here.” Mr. Raines began leading the way to the basement stairs, cocking his rifle as he did so.
“What about you?” I asked, immediately following after him.
Mr. Raines didn’t answer as he stomped up the stairs and kicked the door open to the first floor of the cabin. The stench of the gasoline he had spilled hitting me harshly in my face.
“Kate!” Sonja’s voice, along with a different crescendo of male voices shrieked out as Mrs. Larson appeared from the corner of the hallway where the basement was located.
“Leighton?” A different woman’s voice asked the moment the old woman’s eyes spotted Mr. Raines. I then watched in both shock and confusion as it almost looked like the very skin on the woman melted off to reveal a much younger woman. The woman I recognized as Bonnie Collins. “Leighton… Love is that you?”
Mr. Raines kept his rifle on the vision of the woman he once loved before her murder, but didn’t move or speak.
“Darling, I’ve missed you so much!” The fake Bonnie cried out as she began making her way to Mr. Raines with arms open wide to hug him.
Mr. Raines then lifted his gun up higher, placing his finger on the trigger which caused the vision to stop in her place.
“Leighton?” The fake Bonnie asked. “Baby, it’s me… Bun-Bun… Don’t you recognize me…?” She began to tear up.
“You’re not my Bunny,” Mr. Raines growled before he shot once at the woman.
The fake Bonnie swiftly dodged the bullet, an inhuman hiss coming from an unhinged mouth, revealing a row of long, sharp teeth. The skin of Bonnie then melted off to reveal another woman, a lot younger than the first one it intimidated. The face of one of the victims upon being brought on this case.
“Kate,” the fake Sonja called out, “Kate, what are you doing? Who are these men? Why are they trying to hurt me?”
Kate let out a sobbing gasp, her nails digging into my shoulder with her arm wrapped around my neck.
“Didn’t I suffer enough?” The fake Sonja asked. “First my boyfriend and now you? Why don’t you want to be with me anymore?”
“Shut up!” Kate demanded. “You’re not Sonja! You killed her, you killed all of them! I don’t care what happens to me, but I’m not letting their memories end with you!”
Kate then snatched my Glock from my hand under her legs and shot directly at the fake Sonja’s head. Again the shot missed as the fake vision of the girl slithered out of the way, a frustrated growl of a dog and human escaping it’s mouth. It then zipped to the side, cowering with its back to us on the floor.
“Lucky dime…” A child’s voice then took over. The vision’s skin melting now to a much smaller figure. “Is this what you want? To kill me all over again?” He turned to look up at me, Liam’s face forever eight-years-old staring up at me. “It’s no wonder mommy and daddy hate you now… You were always a shitty brother… Now, I’m gonna starve to death because you’d rather help a couple of strangers.”
“I’m sorry, Liam,” I replied, everyone, including the fake Liam looking to me in surprise, “I left you alone out here and that’s what got you killed by that thing out there and I’m sorry. But, if I’d stayed it may have been both of us and then mom and dad would have no one left to blame but each other. If you had left and I was the one killed, you’d probably be in my shoes instead. I’m sorry for letting you get killed, but I’m gonna make up for it now.”
I then took my Glock back from Kate and pointed it to the vision of Liam.
“Good bye, Liam.”
I shot the gun once again, missing the creature again, however, this time I just kept shooting, Mr. Raines following after. Our different bullets just kept firing, the thing dodging and trying to get closer to us. The creature screeched out at us in a myriad of different voices both familiar and unknown. It wasn’t until one shot from my Glock struck the creatures shoulder and Mr. Raines’ rifle struck its head when the skins of everyone it was trying to turn into all melted off, revealing Mrs. Larson once again.
However, this time, she looked shriveled, older than she looked before. Her face looked deformed, beginning to grow furry, her eyes growing nothing but red, no irises, no pupils, just red. Her hair grew longer, branches like antlers growing painfully out from her skull, breaking the skin as they grew larger. The lower half of her face grew elongated, turning into that of a muzzle of fangs and a drooling mouth.
“You… All… Have no rrrrrrriiiiiight!” A different, unknown voice snarled out from what used to be Mrs. Larson. “People liiiiiike you all… Abandoned me and myyyyyyyyy sister!” The fur growing around this thing grew out short and shaggy, the cloths it was using melting off with the skin and flesh it was wearing. It now didn’t look anything like a human woman. It now took the form of a large wolf mixed with that of a deer, it’s body dog-like with hooves, antlers, and a long, scraggly tail. “You lot abandoned us here! You left us all here to diiiiiiiie!”
Guilt was weighing down on me with each syllable it was growling. Kate looked away from it, burying her face in my neck as Mr. Raines lowered his rifle.
“Nooooow, you’re bringing more here to just leave and let die out here!” It went on, it’s horrifying, broken body shuddering. “Why let them just vanish and die up here when they can bring people like my sister and I back? Give me Kate’s heart and fix what you threeeeeeeeee failed!”
Mr. Raines then handed over his rifle to Kate, placing it down on her stomach as her hands were still wrapped around my neck. The older man made his way over to stand over the thing, its neck creaking like a rusted door as it turned its wolf-like head to look up at him.
“Leighton…” Bonnie’s voice came from the creature. “Give mmmmeeeee her heart aaaannnnd we can be togetherrrrr again… If you eat the deeeeeetective’s we can saaaaaave you tooooooo…”
“My Bunny’s dead,” Mr. Raines told it as he dug in his pocket and took out a carton of matches, “and so am I.”
“You’d burn your wife?” A mix of Bonnie and Mrs. Larson’s voices shrieked as it glared at the match he took from the match box.
“You’re not my wife,” Mr. Raines told it, “and I’ll never see her again.”
“Fooooooool,” Mr. Larson’s voice chuckled, “you’llllllll killllllll us both!”
“With the shit I’ve done in my life, I know you’re taking me to Hell with you,” Mr. Raines growled back as he struck the match on the box, “so I’m sure as fuck not afraid to burn here on Earth with you!”
Mr. Raines then dropped the match to the floor right before the creature and everything around the two of them immediately went up in flames, the fur of the creature catching quickly and engulfing it. An agonized shriek echoed out all around us, the creature thrashing in the fire it had gotten swallowed up in. Mr. Raines then grabbed it by it’s long, furry throat and swung it down back flat the floor, jumping to pin it down.
“Get out!” Mr. Raines cried out to me. “Leave here!”
Not needing to be told twice, I held onto Kate tightly and bolted past the two burning bodies, jumping over the fire as it began growing fast throughout the cabin. I quickly got to the front door and stopped to look back to see Mr. Raines fighting the creature and preventing it from coming after us, it begging for me to bring Kate back and that it would die without her.
“I’ll clear your name,” I called back, trying not to reel back in horror as I saw Mr. Raines skin begin to melt off, “I’ll let people know you didn’t kill Bonnie!”
“I’ll let people know you didn’t… Kill… Liam!” Mr. Raines’ voice called back, him thrashing around with Mrs. Larson as he said my brother’s name in my voice.
I turned back and kicked the front door open, rushing Kate out of the burning cabin. I ran until I got far enough from the smoke, turning back to see all three cabins now on fire, the area around them all ablaze. The only place untouched was Mrs. Larson’s house, all the evidence remaining. I could hear sirens in the distance coming closer. The sounds of shouts from the surviving officers sounding much closer.
“I’m here… I’m here… I’m here…”
I looked to the front porch of Mrs. Larson’s house where her recorder continued to call out for her sister. I set Kate down at the base of a nearby tree and ran to snatch the recorder, shutting it off. I searched around, looking for any signs of Prudence, but it appeared that the fire and the sounds of sirens and voices had scared her off. I ran back to Kate, her eyes closed and her not responding to me calling to her, but after checking her pulse and breathing, I found that the medication Mrs. Larson had given her had finally taken over and she was now fast asleep, the rifle Mr. Raines gave her still sitting on her rhythmically rising and falling stomach.
Letting out a sigh of relief, I leaned against the same tree I set Kate down on and slid down to the ground next to her. The first two cabins were already practically nothing but ash, the last still blazing as I heard the slowly fading screams of Mrs. Larson and Mr. Raines coming from inside.
When the screaming ended all together, the smoke turning blacker as it rose from the flames, I got to my feet and took out my pack of cigarettes as I approached the fires, staying far enough away not to get burned. I opened the pack up before stopping myself as I reached for one of the ten remaining cigarettes inside. I then flung the entire carton into the fires without taking one.
“Save one for me down there, you old bastard,” I told Mr. Raines before making my way back to Kate’s side.
It wasn’t long before the remaining officers found us, looking in confusion at the fires and to me with a sleeping victim in a homicide case on the ground. I told them we’d need to call an ambulance for Kate and that we needed to keep the flames from getting to Mrs. Larson’s house as it held evidence on the case. One officer retrieved his radio and called for an ambulance while a group ran to the house and another went to try controlling the fire as best they could by yanking out any bushes near by and throwing them away from the area around the house.
Luckily, the fire trucks were called long before the fire spread too far, residence noticing it practically the moment Mr. Raines set the first cabin on fire.
As I sat there, keeping Kate held up against the tree we sat under, I listened to the crackling of the fire, the sirens of fast approaching fire trucks and the ambulance, and the sounds of distance, coyote, almost human, howling.
Part 8

Op- https://www.reddit.com/WritingPrompts/s/sWJUxDJ0SO
John’s left hand was squeezed white against the wheel of his old pick-up; he held his son, Alex, close with his other.
As they rattled down the uneven country roads, rain pelted their windshield with a fury. John continually glanced into the rearview. Thunder clapped at their back like the hands of god, and through the white flashes of lightning, he could make out a large barrel of rotating black smoke. Each time he looked, it seemed to have grown larger, and one singular thought repeated in his mind.
Make it to the cellar, he thought. Make it to the cellar.
He gripped his son tighter and pressed the accelerator with a heavy foot. The truck roared beneath them.
“Come on…” He muttered. He was driving nearly eighty.
“Dad?” Alex’s voice was small, and John could feel him trembling under his arm.
John rubbed his shoulder. “It’s okay, bud. We’re nearly there; it ain’t gonna get us.” Truthfully, though, he wasn’t sure if he believed the words himself.
“But Dad, I’m scared.”
Just then, a strong gust of wind punched the side of the truck, nearly sending it swerving into the ditch. With a squealing effort, John steadied it and accelerated faster. The boy’s head was now buried into his armpit. Limbs began falling from trees; scattered debris carpeted the roads.
John looked down at his son; he was still wearing his blue Little League uniform. All of this for a damn baseball game, he thought, then looked back at the road. He stomped the brakes. Alex screamed as they lurched forward and John stuck an arm out to keep him from flying into the windshield. The truck skidded sideways to a halt on the wet road. A giant oak tree, maybe eight feet in diameter, lay flat across their path.
“Fuck.” John muttered as he smacked the steering wheel with his palm. There wasn’t any getting around that.
He darted his eyes around wildly, looking for some sort of a solution—anything—but all he found was fear. The swirling column of dark wind was getting closer now, and his options were growing increasingly limited.
Then he noticed something. Just past the downed tree a green mile marker sign glowed back at him—the mile marker sign that’s about a half mile away from their house.
They were closer than they thought.
He grabbed Alex by the shoulders and looked him in the eyes. “We’re gonna make a run for it.
“What?” Alex asked, his eyes wide with terror.
“I know; I don’t want to either, but it’s our only shot. I—“
“No!” Alex shouted. He tried to say more, but the words just sputtered out in incoherent globs.
“Hey,” John said patiently, but Alex was in hysterics. John looked over his shoulder. Power lines were beginning to fall, and the transformers were popping into big blue sparks as they hit the ground. He looked back at Alex.
“HEY!” He shouted.
Alex stopped immediately and looked at him in surprise. He never yelled.
“Do you trust me?” He asked.
Alex moved his mouth, but no breath came to push the words out.
“Do you trust me?” John asked again, shaking the boy a little.
This time, Alex nodded yes.
“Okay, now listen. I’m going to pick you up, and we’re gonna run. I want you to close your eyes, and I don’t want you to open them until I tell you it’s okay. Do you understand?”
The boy nodded again, and a tear fell down his cheek as he closed his eyes.
John scooped him up and creaked the metal door open into the rain. Lightning continued to snap overhead; there was a metallic smell in the air, like burning wires, and the humidity was thick enough to choke a man.
He held the boy's head against his shoulder and started in a sort of half run to the driveway. Alex felt heavier than he used to, and it made him wonder just how long ago it was since he’d held him that way.
Cold rain whipped at their back, sticking their clothes to their skin like slick velcro. John spat the water from his mouth as he trudged forward blindly in the dark. His muscles started to burn. His feet snagged on branches, trash, and other debris that had blown in, threatening to trip him, and sudden dips or rises staggered him as his foot met only air where he expected solid earth.
John could feel the boy sobbing once more. “We’re almost there; we’re gonna make it.” He panted. This time, he really believed what he said. The driveway came into view as they rounded the last corner.
Limbs the size of cedar trees blew past them like confetti. One cracked John in the back of the head, sending him and Alex tumbling onto the ground. The pain was brilliant. For a moment, he saw white, but his vision quickly cleared, and he looked up at Alex.
Alex sat with his knees tucked to his chest, holding a scrape. His skin and clothes were covered in twigs, mud, and pine needles, and his face was twisted with fright—contorted like one of those dramatic masquerade masks as he rocked back and forth. His eyes were open now.
The twister roared behind them like a gasoline truck chugging up a hill. John scrambled to his feet. He scooped Alex into his arms, and started toward the house once again. His head was pounding, his muscles were on fire, blood was thudding against his ears, and that same thought from earlier continued to swim laps around his mind.
Make it to the cellar.
He pressed on, planting one solid foot into the ground at a time and marching forward like a well oiled machine.
Gravel crunched beneath his feet as he walked down the driveway; wind whipped their wet clothes like flags.
John shed Alex from his arms and looked down at the wooden cellar door. He tried pulling it open, but the wind shoved it back down. It was picking up even more now. Shingles began to be sucked from the roof, and John knew that if he didn’t get this door open, he and Alex would follow closely behind.
He pulled as hard as he could, grunting with the effort. Alex quickly joined him in the struggle, helping as much as a nine-year-old possibly could. It began to come up a little, but the wind was powerful.
John screamed and dug in harder. He had to get it open. He felt his muscles tearing beneath his skin, his joints cracking; he used every single ounce of his strength, and finally the door began to give. He pried it just far enough for them to fit.
“GET IN,” He shouted. The boy jumped inside, and John followed shortly after. The door slammed behind him with a smack that resembled a gunshot.
The cellar was dark. Screws and bolts and toolboxes filled with wrenches and other metal things shook and rumbled off of the shelves. A few baseball bats fell and clinked across the concrete floor. Up top, it sounded like a giant lawnmower was making quick work of the farmhouse, eating it up like it was little more than a stray blade of grass.
John’s head still throbbed, and he could feel warm blood trickling down the back of his neck. He was tired, breathing raggedly, and all of a sudden he had a very strong urge to go to sleep.
They held each other in darkness, sitting there for what seemed like an eternity, but just as quickly as it began, it was over. The roar lessened, quieted, then disappeared as it got further away.
The two looked at each other, both covered in dirt and debris, and John knew that everything was gone. He knew that the house was gone; he knew the farm was gone, and he knew that just about everything else he had ever worked for was torn to shreds in a matter of minutes.
But he looked at Alex, and when he saw the twinkle of life in his son’s eye, he breathed a sigh of relief. That was all that mattered. They sat for an hour in silence, not daring to step out until they were sure it was safe.
Eventually, rays of light began to beam through the cracks in the cellar door. John was the first to move. He walked to the door, flung it outward and shielded his squinted eyes to look outside.
The sky was blue. He hoisted himself upward and poked his head out.
His barn was still there. Bessie, his cow, was standing beside it, chewing on a mouthful of grass; all of the chickens strutted around the side of the barn, nearing the garden, which also looked untouched; the squash was even blooming. Behind him, their house stood tall, perfectly intact all the way up to the shingles.
The oddest thing of all was his farm pickup parked in the driveway—no worse shape than when they left for the ballgame.
John scratched his head.
“Dad?” Alex shouted.
“You can come up.” He said, puzzled.
Alex crawled out of the cellar in the same fashion as his father, and confusion dawned on his face as well. “It missed us?”
John shook his head. “No way it coulda missed us. I don’t really know what to make of it.”
He really didn’t. They saw the twister coming directly at them; they heard the house ripped to shreds right above their heads; the farm truck didn’t make it back to the house at all, for Christ's sake. It just didn’t make any damn sense.
A feminine voice called out to them—a voice John recognized at the first syllable. “John? Alex?”
“Vick..” He mouthed and whipped his head around. A tall woman with blonde hair was walking around the side of the porch, stepping as gracefully as a doe. Her eyes were as green as the pines behind her, and she gave a smile that held more reassurance than a million words could express.
She spread her arms wide. “My boys.” She said. John stood motionless, his mouth slightly agape. Alex pushed past him as he ran, “Mommy!” He shouted.
The woman wrapped the boy in a hug and lifted him from his feet. As she held his head against her shoulder, she pointed her eyes in John’s direction and held out her other hand.
He walked toward her, cautiously.
“John.” She said. “It’s me, I promise.”
John looked at her for a moment longer. He wanted to run to her, to wrap her up and lift her the same way she did Alex. For the past two years, there had been nothing in this world that he’d wanted more.
But his wife was dead. He watched as the cancer took her in 2014; he held her in his arms as she died in the hospital bed, yet there she stood—healthy and as real as the sun beating down on his neck. He reached a hand to the back of his head, feeling for the place where the branch whacked him.
But there was nothing—not even a tender spot.
He looked back up at his wife. “Are we…”
“Hush, dont think about it like that, John.” She smiled, “We’re together now.”
John staggered a little, staring down at his hands; his once farm hardened callouses were gone now, smoothed over with soft, healthy skin.
“I—“ He began.
“Get over here and hug me.”
He looked up; his wife looked back at him lovingly with her direct, green eyes, and for the first time in so long, he felt happy. A feeling he’d grown a stranger to. A grin tightened across his face, and he walked toward Vick as their old golden retriever ran panting toward them from across the yard, just like she used to, only now; she had all four of her legs.

I was stumbling home drunk after a night of drinking with my friends, when I saw a group of people huddled around something.
Curiosity got the better of me and I moved towards them to see what they found so interesting.
It was a strange circular contraption showing a video of some random people. I decided it would be funny to give them the middle finger and almost jumped out of my skin when one of them did the same to me.
Someone beside me explained that it is a live stream between Ireland and America. I snorted in derision as it seemed like such a waste of money.
An idea popped into my head and I moved forward until I was inches away from the portal and slowly began reciting “bloody Mary” three times.
I turned around to see if anyone had heard me and felt the blood drain from my face. The eyes of the people all around me had rolled back into their skulls leaving only the white visible.
Their bodies were shaking as blood began oozing from nostrils. I looked towards the portal to see it was happening to them as well. One woman had been clutching her baby which now lay on the ground with its head crushed in.
The people around me suddenly stopped shaking and their mouths curled up into grotesque smiles. I considered fleeing but they converged towards me blocking all escape routes.
I kept backing away as they herded me towards the portal. They were leaving a bloody path behind them as they ripped their teeth from their mouths before discarding them on the ground.
My back collided with the portal and I almost screamed as I felt hands reach out and began dragging me backwards. I began kicking and swinging my arms but it was of no use as they were too strong.
Within seconds only my head was still outside of the portal. The rest of my body was in agony as it felt like millions of mouths were biting into my flesh.
I watched on in horror as one of the people in front of me leaned forward and kissed me on the mouth. I began quietly sobbing as their tongue slid into my mouth and began caressing my tonsils.
They lurched away as I vomited up the contents of my stomach. I began to scream as my head was forcefully pulled into the portal before I blacked out from the pain.
I awoke some time later to find myself in between two glowing portals. The world around me was grey and I couldn't see further than 2 feet in any direction.
My eyes darted from side to side as I could hear movement all around me. Something darted behind me and I caught a momentary glimpse of its scaly body before it disappeared into the darkness.
I stood there unsure of what I should do when a tentacle shot forward and wrapped around my leg. It began dragging me towards a giant mouth that had emerge from the darkness. It was lined with thousands of razor sharp teeth that were moving as if they were lawnmower blades.
I lashed out with my foot and managed to dislodge the tentacles grip. I pushed myself to my feet and staggered towards the portals. I took a peek over my shoulder to see hundreds of tentacles flying through the air.
I could feel the tentacles rubbing against my flesh as I jumped forward and collided with the nearest portal. The air was knocked from my body and I lay on the ground struggling to breathe.
I looked up to see a group of bystanders looking at me in confusion. I stared down at my bloodsoaked clothes and knew they wouldn't believe me even if I tried.
I began wishing that I had brought my passport out with me last night, as I pushed myself to my feet and hobbled off to locate the Irish embassy.

First/Previous
Since I knew there was a time before, I’ve wanted it, but that was child’s hope; even as a boy I wanted a dream. I wanted some divine being to enter from heaven and tell us all how it should be, but that wasn’t something I could ever count on—of course. Is there a god? I think so. I’ve seen those things and if they exist, then surely there’s a maker on the other end of it—god made both the light and the dark if the word’s to be believed and all we can hope for is a glimpse of the former. Even for a second.
The streets were soaked with blood and so many artillery rounds were fired into the sky—many I witnessed missed Leviathan—that I forgot what silence was like (not to mention the screams and there was a lot of that).
In the scrambling, I found I was reentering deeper into Golgotha and that wasn’t good. There was the ever-present thought that Maron was around every corner; the man had haunted my thoughts for longer that he should have and every time it was like an overwhelming force. It was simple enough after all, he was a piece of the past, a piece I could theoretically reach out and touch and that was what kept me to him.
In the fray of bolting citizens, I pressed myself to the exterior of a wall—I’d neared the stairs which once led to my apartment—and I kept out of the way of those that mindlessly went; some of those which rushed from the onslaught were those afflicted with skitterbugs and many of them either hobbled on blackened legs or—and this was rare—comrades or family helped to carry those which could not carry themselves. It was a baffling sight. A man carried a woman like a child (her toes had fallen off and her legs were black to the knees) and though he strode on with her, his own boots were caked with a mixture of blood and earth. An older girl led a young boy from the whirlwind of dust which was kicked up in the square; the boy’s eyes were whited, and his hands were curled to his chest, discolored. People, whatever duality there is, cared. There was not a drop of the apathy I’d learned and encouraged in myself.
I chewed like a mad dog through my bindings, and it was of little use; I yanked at the cord which secured my hands together and received rope burn in return. “Bitch!” I cussed the thing, but the flames in the sky were so loud, the bangs and vibrations from the artillery consumed all so it was like yelling in a barrel. I swung my hands out in front of me, feeling useless and felt a sudden urge to try again. I bit into the cord and repetitively motioned my jaw against the pressure of the cord, like I was going to saw through it with my teeth. Ha! Another yank is what brought my left hand free, but not without tearing a triangle of skin away from my wrist.
The cord dropped to my feet, and I looked around; a woman brushed past me, nearly toppled over my foot and I caught her by the wrist before she went head-over. She violently thrust from my grasp and screamed something at me. Another bout of flames burst from Leviathan’s maw as it circle-dove overhead. The heatwave from the blast exploded across my face so that I recoiled from the sky itself till I was on the ground, and I pushed myself from the earth and ran half dog-like from my place there at the wall. Where? It was hard to say where when every person that touched-by seemed to send me in another direction; in the madness, it was impossible to tell my course.
With time and effort, I found my way to the opening where the hydro towers were, three pillars which rose above Golgotha’s skyline, each one a testament to human resilience—engineers laborers toiled untold hours under Lady’s father to construct them. The hydro towers exploded into rubble as Leviathan slammed into them. Rock rained down as cutting shards and destructive boulders. A man lay beside my feet where he'd been pinned by the onslaught—white concrete kept him there by his chest—he gasped for air and blood already formed around him. In a moment, I looked away at the dying man, his half-whited eyes bulging at me. Meat hung from the left side of another man’s face as he cradled his head in his hand and moved like he was stoned and sat among the stomping feet; he slumped into the spot he sat and did not move till others came by him in a hurry and he simply fell onto his side like a toy animal.
The screams were too much. I looked to the towers, the nubs which had broken away like bad teeth against the red sky, and whole people fell alongside the rubble, limbs and showers of blood and Leviathan latched atop the towers and rocked its massive body so that the structures slipped directly from their foundations and tumbled over like pins. I ran and again there was nothing but chaos, nothing but mind-numbing wilder thoughts—it was grim and there wasn’t a place for coherency; it was all snaps of images.
In the mess of bumbling limbs, I pushed through to the hall of Bosses and there were people there already, rushing the stairs; the ground shook and I assumed it must’ve been the towers. The things demolished all in their path, and briefly, I saw the ramshackle structures which normally stood in their shadows come slanting over and people leapt from those places too and landed poorly and there was a cacophony of tremors through the earth—it felt as though hell should open.
The steps at the base of the hall were flooded and it was a fight to climb them as legs came high up from ahead and swiped at those behind and I kept my hands ahead of me to block whatever foot may come my way.
Wall men stood ready with their rifles at the tops of those steps and fired their weapons indiscriminately into the crowd. Bodies, big and small, piled atop the steps after a brief bullet dance and it came that I wasn’t only climbing stairs, but corpses; the warmth of their flesh as I clawed ahead remained and blood fog hung in the air. That grouping of wall men, casually lined before the doors of the hall were overtaken and they disappeared, their rifles cackled and came alive with muzzle flashes and the animal hands of the horde brought them to ground.
Us, the horde, funneled through those front doors and for a moment, in the thick walls of the hall, the outside world audibly disappeared; the blood and dust remained, but it was quieter save the shuffling feet and cusses of passersby I was carried deeper.
Those that worked the underground went quickly and I followed, and those ignorant followed for the sake of survival and it was not long till we stumbled into the Boss’s lair. With room, people dispersed like water through the tunnels and found dark recesses to tend their wounds or mourn whatever was lost and the explosive open air had been fully replaced by the quiet black oppressive mumbles of people taking stock of all those that had died. And all those that would. Every few moments, the walls shook, and dust fell from the ceiling fixtures.
A few haggard folks moved to the doorway which led to the damp room which led to the kitchen, and they slammed the door shut and latched it and began to check adjacent rooms for things to barricade the way.
“Stop!” said a man in the dim flickering underground light—I was surprised to see the man was me, “Leave it open! Others might need help.” I retraced my steps to the small faction that’d gathered there at the doorway. “You can’t just let them die out there. Let them in.”
“Shut up!” a skinny girl with her hair pulled back on her malnourished skull spoke gruffly; she choked, coughed—dust clung to her clothes—she’d been near the collapse of the hydro towers if I guessed. “Step off, or I’ll—
“Or you’ll what?” I shouted.
The girl put up her fists, two lumpy stones, and in stupid response I closed the distance between us. With speed, her fist met my nose, and I stumbled back on my heel.
Without hesitation, I brought up my own hands and landed a blow to her stomach. She craned forward, gasped on repeat, and took a knee.
Blood wet my upper lip, and I wiped it away with my forearm.
“Move,” I said to the others by the door; there were two: a woman and a boy that was nearly a man.
The boy charged headstrongly, attempted a kick and I easily shoved his small frame against the tunnel wall; the hard metal sounded a meaty thud against his body and the woman launched unseen at me, raked her nails down the back of my neck, and tore at my collar. I kept a forearm to the boy’s throat and rocked his head with my free elbow. Once he wept and spit red, I let him go; the boy slid into a sit and I spun on the woman, shoving her away. My left leg began to give, and I used the wall over the boy’s head as support. I swung at her with a wild claw and my fingertips grazed her nose as she fell away to the opposite wall.
“Stop it!” I shouted.
She launched at me, and my leg gave out under her tackle, and I stumbled half-on the boy, my feet kicked helplessly at her, and the boy regained his composure and began to crawl towards me. We wrestled and then the girl I’d knocked in the gut rejoined the fray. I was done. They had me pinned and spat curses at me and took turns shoving my head into the floor.
“You’re going to get us killed,” shouted the woman, “Are you stupid?”
I grinded my teeth and tried to throw them off; I was overpowered and easily pressed down again.
The overhead lights flickered with another deep earthy vibration and the trio let go of me in an instant—I came up swinging my arms like crazy and as I went to kneel before propelling myself to stand, a hand rested on my shoulder. I spun on the hand and was met with the black mouth of a 9mm pistol—that froze me fast.
The owner of the weapon—a wall man by the look of her fatigues—motioned for me to stand and I did. Her eyes were far off and nervous and the metal shook in her outstretched hand. “Against the wall!” she barked at us; she was small-framed and youthful but full grown, and I could easily push her out of my way if not for the pistol. We went to the wall, and she moved to the door while keeping the gun drawn on us. She watched us and glanced at the door. “It’s latched! Who latched the door?” She asked.
No one spoke. The other three looked to their feet; I initially refused to rat, and snorted blood—my nose throbbed and by touch I could tell it swelled already.
“Well? Why’s it closed?” she asked the question more like a desperate child than a person with control. “C’mon!” The 9mm rolled limply on her wrist as she said the word, like she was attempting to draw the confession from us with the motion.
“There’s an attack. They’re killing everyone,” said the boy.
The girl and woman nodded.
“Who?” asked the wall man.
“Demons, muties,” said the boy, “Big stuff. Everyone’s dying.”
The ground shook as if to emphasize his point.
The wall man studied us for a moment, lingering last on me and for the longest and she took a long breath and let the sigh out dramatically slow. “I know you,” she motioned at me with the gun, “You’re that maniac. The one that tried to murder everyone.” Her eyes fell then returned and she put her weight on the door while maintaining the barrel of the gun eye-level in my direction.
“I ain’t gonna’ hurt anyone,” said. I briefly thought about smiling but decided that’d look worse.
“How do I know that?” she asked.
“Yeah,” said the boy, “He tried to kill us already!” His voice cracked with adolescence; the blood I’d spilled from his mouth coated the front of his holey shirt.
The trio nodded all together—everyone agreed that I was a maniac killer.
“They latched it,” I said, “Cowards.”
A thump came from the other side of the door which frightened the wall man and she leapt from the spot she’d leaned—it took several full seconds to realize her gun went off; there was a flash, and my ears rang. I stumbled from the knot of people and slunk a couple of feet from the space by the door. The girl—the one I gut-punched—collapsed to the floor while holding the right side of her face. The women crowded the girl, panicked, the boy sprinted past me and disappeared deeper into the underground, and the wall man stood there with a wretched blank expression. There was a long moment which hung in the air; I could not hear and then it came back, and it was the girl’s screams I heard first.
Upon stepping to them, I saw the prone girl had been shot just so—through the cheek. Her eyes rolled from likely spinal damage; whatever the angle, it seemed to have ripped through irreparable nerves and she bled a lot. There wasn’t any hope for that girl.
“Well,” I said to the wall man, “Finish it. No reason to make her suffer.”
The girl on the ground writhed unnaturally and caterwauled while the woman by her side attempted to calm her.
Greater became the sound of the belabored hands on the other side of the door; then a hollow-sounding gunshot came from the other side; were they shooting the door? Or each other? Another round—human screams.
The wall man shook her head. “I didn’t mean it. It was an accident.”
I tried to hold the wall man’s gaze, but she didn’t seem able.
With speed, I moved to the wall man, reached for the gun which dangled helpless by her side—her initial response was to flinch, pull the weapon from my reach; our eyes locked and I clenched my jaw. She could’ve killed me. There wouldn’t have been surprise from me if she had.
She let go of the gun and I nodded, and she nodded and the woman kneeling by the girl threw herself over her. “Please,” protested the woman, “Please don’t!”
With the aid of the pistol, I was given space, and nothing was said. I mentally prepared myself for the ringing which accompanied gunfire in small spaces, even tilted my head away with my free palm up and took aim and the girl jerked once then went still.
With the ringing going and sound returning, the drumming on the door returned, as well as the quiet weeps of the woman; she crawled to the wayside of the hall, pressed her back against the wall and rested her chin on her knees with her arms around her shins. She didn’t rock to or fro and hardly made any noise at all. But the small and quiet sobs remained faintly there.
First/Previous
Archive

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The following two brain scans were provided by the Neuro-Warfare branch of the Halcyon Security Division (HSD) for the purpose of analyzing the thoughts, behaviors, and information of notorious gangsters Vincent 'Troy' Cohen and Bruno (Deadname: Koraak Tel-Char). At the point of the recording of this archival shared, Bruno has since received his rebirth therapy, and Vincent is currently serving a long-term rehabilitative and reeducative sentence in the Erebus Supermax Prison on Io.
Warning: the contents of this archival shared may be especially disturbing to some audiences. Viewer discretion is advised.
Warning: the contents of this archival shard are for the sole purpose of analyzing the thought patterns and memories of certain degenerate criminals in an effort to ascertain vital information that can be used to eliminate their organizations. Only staff with clearance level Omega may view this archival shared, and the viewership of this archival shared by anyone of inadequate clearance level will lead to twenty years in prison and a fine of over a hundred thousand credits.
Booting up memory scan: Vincent 'Troy' Cohen, November 4th, 2446…
Loading and processing firmware data… translating… memories and subconscious simulated…
Beginning archival shard presentation…
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"Do you have visuals of the target, Troy?"
I knelt down in the alleyway, the bodies of me and my partners shrouded in long, waterproof, ashen-gray overcoats the shade of dirty street scum that we wore to ward off the constant heavy rainfall the color of osmium. Our faces were covered in a mix of scrapped respirators, visors, or full metal face masks carved with intricate designs to hide our identities. On our waists were our badges of honor: leather belts studded with interlocked rivets made from blackened titanium, each buckle forged of silver and shaped into the head of our gang's symbol, the black mamba. We hid amongst the shadows of the dark midday of Halcyon City, the heavy, oppressive rains blanketing the roads paved obsidian-black with asphalt and weathered concrete walkways. The street lamps were always on, like beacons of false hope in a storm of melancholy.
The city was dark and dreary as always, the planet of Proxima Centauri B, renamed Dawn's Lamentation over a century ago, orbited the red dwarf star of Proxima Centauri, and the atmosphere was thick with natural smog and ever-storming rain clouds. That didn't dissuade people from living here: there was plenty of money to be had for shrewd industrialists and hardworking pioneers, even in the urban sprawl. But that life also came with risks, especially for those on the bottom of the totem pole.
I was a ganger, and we were criminals; full stop. I won't assault you with some spiel about how we're the good guys fighting oppression because, at the end of the day, we could be just as bad, if not worse, than Halcyon's Security Division, or the HSD for short. We were traffickers, killers, extortionists, and money launderers. We dealt with everything from stolen tech and military-grade hardware to hard drugs and sentients.
Yes, sentients. We trafficked sentients, but not in the way you might think. They weren't prisoners, in fact, we were their saviors if they had the cash. We had developed a reputation for fighting the power, but it was still business: sure, freeing captives from the clutches of the Protectorate. The disruption of its many oppressive organizations held a certain satisfaction in my heart for sure, but we didn't help those who couldn't pay unless someone else paid on their behalf. It was about making sure me and my gang, my family, could live a decent life for another day.
It helped that most of us joined after leaving the state yard for partaking in acts of 'degeneracy' and 'anti-xenopet illegalities' as if those terms meant anything anymore other than that we were a threat to the local status quo. It was hard to pick up a job as a former inmate when even in something as harsh and backbreaking as a job in the iridium mines near the poles when the employment office had you blacklisted as a degenerate, which lead to the formation of many of the gangs: we needed to make a living somehow, and when all social programs were cut off from you unless you submitted for 're-education' and the only way to put food on the table was subverting, breaking, or even downright fighting the law, you did what you had to do or you died on the streets a scorned beggar.
It wasn't like the HSD made it easy for us on even a good day: the local HSD units were armed to the teeth with advanced, military-grade hardware that you'd often see on the front lines of the Second Authority War: armored assault transports, a myriad of advanced war droids, all sorts of chemical countermeasures that made tear gas seem like putting the garden hose on mist mode, and of course advanced firearms. Add that to the fact that they were authorized to use deadly force when they deemed it necessary and you had a ruthless, heartless, and nearly unstoppable enemy. But we could make that work: we weren't trying to stop them, just to withstand them.
"Yeah, I got eyes on the prize, Koraak; seven armored transports, two for droids, five for prisoners."
Today wasn't a day for a normal job: we were getting bolder, cockier, more ambitious. Our numbers had swelled for the last few years after the raid at Barnard's Star and the fall of the Blood Dragon Mafia. Their leader, Saito Yasuhide, had committed seppuku as their manor burned, and his twin sons had gone down fighting rather than allowing themselves to be captured simply to face a firing squad. In the aftermath, many of the family's associates had fled to the surrounding systems, and with the sheer size and scope of the criminal underworld found here, it was no wonder that many people who had developed skills of the less legal variety had decided to form ranks with the gangs, and with them they brought guns, tech, knowledge, contacts, and even something that we thought wasn't possible beforehand: a semblance of peace between the gangs, or at least the closest thing to peace that gangs could cultivate effectively. With the fall of the Blood Dragons, we saw the writing on the wall, and the writing couldn't have been clearer: work together or die together.
"Sounds like a massacre, Troy: are you sure we can handle seven?"
"We ain't got no choice, Cinder: this job's double the usual rate, and that's not including the weapons and gear we could scrounge if this goes well," I hissed, my eyes scanning for any resistance. There were at least four guards for each van, not to mention at least eight droids in total, meaning that we were already outnumbered, but we had the element of surprise: we could make it work. "So put your balls in your purse and get ready to spill some blood."
Koraak snorted at our antics, which sounded like someone pulling the ripcord on a lawnmower. He was a veteran Russu Corsair, and while his past of slaving, raiding, and killing was unsavory, so were the lives we'd lived, so who were we to judge? All we cared about was that he was a brutal and capable fighter and a loyal brother in arms. It turned out that being a ganger wasn't much different from being a Corsair: you lived and died by a code of honor, you fought to the death for your brothers, and you lived to die for the sake of your gang and your family, simple as that. In a strange, ironic way, it was an incredibly honest way of life: we were under no illusions as to what we were, what we did, and why we did it, and we'd long since accepted it. The Russu related to us in that aspect, in many ways I could respect, which is why I hated what the Protectorate was doing, and why I couldn't grasp how most of humanity could just collectively lose their marbles so long ago. What had happened for us to deem all other life below us in such a demeaning and infantilizing way?
The Russu were a race of tall, muscle-bound Saurians with avian features, and Koraak was no exception: reaching almost seven feet in height and weighing over four hundred and fifty pounds, he could be an absolute menace if he so desired. His skin was covered in stubby, knobby scales and dense plumage, with elegant feathers adorning the ridges along his back as well as his forearms, elbows, knees, and the crests on his head. He almost looked like how paleontologists described velociraptors, with razor-sharp talons, feathers shaded in vibrant greens, reds, and purples, and a maw full of sharp teeth, but at the tip of his snout was a sharp, beak-like growth meant for ripping flesh off the bone.
The Russu were strange as hell, but they also looked almost cute in the same way a fully grown alligator was cute: they were obviously dangerous, but humans would always have this innate desire to anthropomorphize them and to pet them for some inexplicable reason, although common sense usually prevented that, at least amongst the very few of us left that were sane.
"Shut up, Troy! All I'm saying is that that'll be rough, and you know it," hissed Cinder. Cinder was a tall black man whose coffee-colored skin was covered in tattoos. He wore an ebony mechanic's jumpsuit with metal inserts underneath his grimy overcoat covering his body and a faded black respirator on his face. His eyes were a startling blue that seemed sorely out of place, and his hair was braided into thick cornrows along his scalp. He wore a pair of heavy black combat boots and palmed his compact shotgun in his hands, the square barrel less than seven inches. Like a lot of the weapons the Black Mambas carried on their persons and dealt in, they fired caseless ammunition; in Cinder's case it was 16x40mm caseless shotshells filled with depleted uranium micro-flechetes no thicker than a toothpick. Cinder nervously fiddled with the detachable tube magazine underneath the barrel, his hands shaking. Despite the shit I have him, I didn't blame him for being anxious: I was anxious too, even if I refused to show it. The biting cold of unease and pessimism was in my stomach, and I ran all the way that this job could go wrong in my head over and over.
"Just hold yourself together, this ain't anything we haven't done before, there's just more of it," I reassured Cinder, "besides, we're not alone; we have reinforcements across the street. We'll make it out of this alive."
Cinder nodded almost absentmindedly, his eyes downcast and his breathing shallow. I turned from him and back to Koraak, who was making sure he had everything on his person; he had a synthetic leather bandoleer across his chest that contained the heavy eight guage depleted uranium slugs he kept loading and unloading into his much larger, longer, and more traditional shotgun he nicknamed ‘carnage’ and several leather straps that held his Tu'shan daggers: traditional Russu pyramidal blades forged from a silvery alloy with all three edges serrated and the tip barbed to leave behind horrible, gaping wounds that gushed blood. They were wickedly sharp and absolutely straight like a stiletto, and the hilts and pommels were beautifully decorated. He wore no clothes underneath his overcoat to cover the countless scars and blemishes he's earned in combat across his chest and abdomen, and instead of a normal respirator or visor, he simply wore a hood over his head and some traditional Russu facial armor to protect his mouth, eyes, and cheeks.
"You ready to fight, Koraak? The caravan will pick up and leave soon."
Koraak was silent for a moment before nodding, a human gesture he had picked up after serving as a soldier with the Black Mambas for years. "I'm always ready to fight," he said before lifting up his shotgun and aiming down the sights at the reinforced front wheels of the first armored car in the caravan. He exhaled and fired, the slug ripping through both front tires and causing them to deflate and fall apart. The echo of the shot rang through the alleyway and the street, causing pedestrians to panic and flee the scene as heavily armored guards poured out of the side doors of the armored cars and unholstered their carbines.
"Go, now!" I shouted, and both me and Cinder rushed out into the fray, our guns raised. Koraak was right behind the two of us, providing covering fire with his shotgun. Several guards fell quickly, Koraak's precise fire and the sheer force of the depleted uranium slugs putting them down for good as their heads were vaporized or their chest cavities were turned to mush. He emptied the tube with one final shot that painted the grey matter of a security guard on the door of one of the armored cars, then racked the shotgun and expertly loaded it in threes, his hands deft and agile as he reached for more slugs faster than any human.
With the cacophony of our initial assault, more Black Mambas poured out from the alleyways and the subways, armed to the teeth with all manner of weapons; shotguns, submachine guns, pistols, machetes, baseball bats, and all manner of homemade explosives. Molotovs and more potent concoctions shattered against the asphalt, herding in the caravan guards with their volatile contents as they were quickly gunned down. The assault was working, and we were winning.
Then I heard the robotic whine of a combat droid activating, and my heart sank. One of the armored cars in the back activated the four combat droids it held, the robotic assault units detaching from their charging ports on the sides of the large van and began to form up, each armed with a terrifying array of deadly weapons meant to quash any and all resistance. They were blocky, soulless, utilitarian things that stood at eight feet tall, with flat feet meant for stomping and blades, grasping claws designed to lacerate flesh and shatter bone. On each shoulder was a weapon: on the left was a multi-barrel rotary grenade launcher loaded with 15mm concussion grenades, and on the right was a burst-fire splinter cannon. They were all painted a dull grayish-green, the color of Halcyon's Security Division, although some had a few decorations on them: the one closest to me had a bit of graffiti on the side that said Mr. Hugs in Comic Sans, which I couldn't decide whether that made it more or less terrifying. They split up without hesitation and began to scan the chaotic battlefield, their single, red, beady lenses the security forces had the gall to call eyes focusing on specific targets to eliminate.
An entire group of Black Mambas was torn to pieces by a cloud of flechettes as one of the droids fired a withering three-round burst of shotshells from the four gauge splinter cannon mounted on its shoulder. Another picked up a Black Mamba in its hand and crushed her skull effortlessly before tossing her limp body to the side, its single, red, remorseless robotic eye tracking a new target. Most bullets that struck their thick armored chassis simply bounced off, and those that could pierce the armor didn't seem to phase the droids whatsoever, merely notifying them of a new potential target.
"Damnit," I shouted as I gunned down another guard only for two more to take his place. "Cinder! We gotta pop open the cars and scram! Get the maglock cutters!"
Cinder rushed and slid over through a dirty puddle, pulling out a maglock cutter from the inside of his coat and slipping it onto the back door of the first van. It immediately went to work, drilling through the maglock with a high-powered plasma torch nozzle, and within ten seconds we heard the telltale clunk of the maglock separating. I yanked the door open and ordered I side, ready to escort the prisoners out… only for my face to contort in shock and horror.
The back was empty. There was not a single soul inside of the back brig of the armored car.
"What the fuck…" Cinder gasped, his eyes wide with shock. "What the actual fuck… what the fuck is this, Troy?"
"I… I don't…" I stuttered the sounds of battle and carnage drowned out by the sound of blood rushing in my ears. All five cars were supposed to be filled with recently captured Russu from the front lines ready to be housed in the local Xenopet-Megaplex for processing and conditioning. The fact that this one was empty…
Suddenly, it all hit me at once with the force of a freight train, but it was too late. "We were set up, Cinder; our fucking client either squealed or was crooked to begin with…"
"Fucking bitch!" Cinder shouted as he spun around in an enraged arch, anger growing in his eyes. He aimed his shotgun at an approaching security guard and reduced his upper body to a fine red mist with a cacophony of shotgun blasts. "We gotta get everyone who's left out of here! Do you know what this means? The Jurors will be here soon, and then we're all going down! We gotta go, fuck the job!"
I grit my teeth. Not the Jurors, anything but the Jurors.
"Fine, gather everyone who's left and we'll slip through the sewers, the droids are too bulky to follow us there…"
As I spoke, my eyes wandered to the seventh and final armored car, the second of the droid cars, and my blood froze. Not only were all four ports empty, but they were also smaller and more shallow than the ports for the combat droids. That could only mean one thing.
"Oh fuck! Cinder, we gotta get our Russu members out of here! They've got arachnid droids!"
Arachnid droids were the stuff of nightmares. Resembling blocky, robotic arachnids the size of a manhole cover, they were specifically designed to take down sentient aliens, specifically the Russu, using sickeningly non-lethal means. They were equipped with full-body adaptive cloaking to blend in with their environments, paralytic agents that they could inject into their victims, built-in taser barbs, psychedelic gas ports for crowd-control, and a narrow-coned cacophony canon that disabled the Russu using incredibly high-pitched sounds that only they could hear, forcing them onto their knees and clutching the backs of their heads where their auditory organs were stored in agony. But worst of all was their stygian spinnerets: special ports near the end of their robotic abdomens that excreted a viscous, latex-like substance made up of millions of nano-bots. This substance could be used to render Russu blind, deaf, and mute by having it forced onto their faces, the black substance growing and enveloping their heads and working its way into every orifice. It was completely permeable to the standard atmosphere, but any Russu who had been 'webbed' was completely helpless and essentially captured, and the 'webbing' was both nearly indestructible and nigh impossible to remove without a triple-encrypted override key that was found in every arachnid droid's code, which was corrupted when the droid was destroyed or hacked into. Once you were 'webbed', you were essentially captured and the standard protocol was to leave you to the wolves since the nano-bots could be tracked, endangering the entire gang.
I turned just as I heard the deafening sound of Koraak discharging his shotgun, and I saw him squaring off against one of the assault droids. The droid has obviously been programmed to not use lethal force against Russu if possible, as instead of simply killing Koraak with it's shoulder-mounted splinter cannon, it approached with its claws extended, blades retracted. Koraak continued to back away and fire, pumping the droid full of depleted uranium slugs, its armor crumbling inward as the slugs pierced its chassis and damaged its internal cyberstructure. Eventually, Koraak ran out of slugs and instinctively reached to his bandoleer only to find that he had no more shells left at all, and he drew one of his knives and his sidearm, a simple high-caliber handgun. He tried to take down the droid with his handgun, but the bullets didn't even seem to affect the droid upon penetration, it's claws still extended as it attempted to apprehend Koraak.
In the corner of my vision, as I watched Koraak battle with the droid, I noticed a faint shimmer in the air on one of the black streetlight poles that was right behind him. I focused on it and blinked, believing my eyes had deceived me for a moment before realizing that it was actually a cloaked arachnid droid stalking Korvaak, ready to pounce and incapacitate him.
Before I could shout, it leaped from the pole and landed on Korvaak, causing him to shout in surprise while it began to coagulate its horrifying stygian webbing to disable Korvaak. Korvaak tried to wrestle it off of him, but the droid was agile and fast, clinging onto Korvaak and skittering around across his upper body as he attempted to grab it, forcibly wrapping the sticky black liquid across his face as he gagged like a spider wrapping up a fly. I rushed towards him to try and help, but I felt pain explode in my ribs as I was struck with the arm of the closest combat droid and launched into the chassis of a parked car, the metal denting from the sheer force of impact. I groaned in pain as I saw stars and my head spun, and just then I felt a blinding light be cast over me.
“Drop your weapons and kneel with your hands on your head, or you will be pacified with deadly force!” Shouted a loud, artificially deepened voice from above. “I repeat, drop your weapons and kneel with your hands on your head! Neither hostility nor hesitation will be tolerated!”
It was the Jurors, I could feel the air being pushed around from the thrusters on their drop ships, and I could hear screams and shouts as my fellow Black Mambas were quickly gunned down. I couldn’t see well since I was seeing double, but I could hear the slaughter as my eyes dimmed and I began to lose consciousness, my regrets crawling up my throat like vomit.
I’m sorry was all I could think as everything finally went dark, and the sounds of chaos, destruction, and combat faded away.
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Memory halted due to loss of consciousness. Booting next available memory in shard…
Booting up memory scan: Koraak Tel-Char Bruno, November 5th, 2446…
Loading and processing firmware data… translating… memories and subconscious simulated…
Beginning archival shard presentation…
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“Good morning, sleepyhead; it’s time for breakfast.”
My eyes shot open. I was not in the street anymore, nor was I home in my bed with my mate. I knew instantly that something was horribly wrong. I tried to stand up, but I couldn’t gain the leverage to do so: my ankles had been shackled together with magnetic cuffs and my arms were forced together in front of me.
I was wearing some kind of thick shirt. It was warm, fluffy, and comfortable on the inside, but it still made me incredibly uncomfortable that my arms didn’t have a free range of motion. I looked down to see that I was wearing some human garment I had heard about before, a straightjacket maybe?
The entire room was padded: the walls, the floor, even the ceiling. There was no bed or furniture; the floor was soft enough to serve as a bed in itself. There was nothing else except for the soft reddish-orange lights on the ceiling that somehow made me sleepy. I blinked slowly for a moment, my body screaming at me to just lay back down and lose consciousness, but I couldn’t do that: I needed to figure out where I was and how to escape.
Then I noticed who was speaking to me: it was a short human female, with crow's feet around her blue eyes, blonde hair braided down her back, and freckles all over her face. She had a soft smile on her lips, and her forehead was slightly crinkled. She wore a full-body white lab suit with a white overcoat and a pair of glasses for snugly on her face.
"There we go, now I can see those pretty eyes, such a beautiful shade of teal," she cooed softly, "You're such a handsome boy, even with all those scars: I'm sure you'll be adopted very quickly once we get you fixed up."
Fear gripped my heart as I began to piece all the evidence together. I had been captured; I was no longer on Halcyon, and instead, I was in one of the horrific space-born facilities I had heard so much about from the inside agents. I started to hyperventilate and squawk like a newborn hatchling, my eyes dilating in panic. This couldn't be happening! This has to be a nightmare!
The human woman merely wrapped her arms around me and pulled me into an embrace, cradling my head under her chin and speaking softly. I couldn't bite at her or claw at her: I was muzzled and wearing a straight jacket, so I had no choice but to allow her to coddle me.
"It's okay, sweetheart: I understand you're scared, but Julie's here to make all the pain and bad thoughts go away," she said as if she was comforting a child, which made anger blossom in my chest indignantly. "I'll be your caretaker for the next few months, and I'm going to make sure you're healthy, happy, and most importantly safe while you're under our care. I'm sorry to say that includes your restraints and restrictive clothing, but we have to make sure you aren't a threat to yourself or others before we can determine if it's a good idea to remove you from suicide watch."
I growled under my muzzle. Suicide watch? They must have had a lot of instances of Russu taking their own lives after being captured, something I wished I had been able to do before that damnable droid launched itself onto me and…
I shuddered at the thought of the black, viscous substance forcing itself into my nostrils and down my throat and windpipe, gagging me and rendering me completely helpless. It was so cold, so harsh, like slime, and when I had tried to tear it off of my face it merely attached itself to my claws and bound my talons together. I remember squirming on the ground as it enveloped me, unable to see, hear, or speak, and then everything went dark in an instant. It was the most horrible thing I had ever experienced, which was saying something.
"You alright, sweetheart? Oh, I know, you're probably hungry! Here, try some of this." She held up a piece of what looked like raw bacon and wiggled it in front of me before reaching out to remove my muzzle. In an instant, I attempted to snap at her only for pain to blossom in my forehead and my eyes to roll up in my head as I convulsed. It was like something was attempting to drill through my skull from the inside, and every breath felt empty and labored.
"Now, that didn't feel very nice, did it? This is why we have countermeasures in place because we can't trust you yet, sweetheart! Don't worry, we'll work on breaking you of all those bad behaviors and habits while you're here; after all, a well-trained pet is a happy pet!" She began to stroke the crests on my head as I slowly recovered, and she snugly fit the muzzle back onto my snout. "But I won't hold it against you this time, sweetheart; you're just scared and confused, but I'll make all the pain go away."
I struggled in the straight jacket, trying my best to break out of it, but it was no use. Eventually, I became exhausted and despondent, allowing my new caretaker to have her way with me as she gently ran her fingers through my feathers and along my ridges, quietly speaking to me in a hopeless attempt to cheer me up. She seemed genuinely concerned for my well-being, which concerned me even further: who could be this naturally twisted while attempting to be as benevolent and kindhearted as possible?
I felt the pain and terror build up in my chest, the anxiety from what horrific activities I imagined they had planned for me here. I couldn't take the infantilization, the lack of any autonomy, the dehumanization, and what I feared the most was if the rumors of 'rebirth' were true: would they take my personhood from me?
Suddenly, I felt her whisper to me. "Don't worry sweetheart, I know you're so scared and confused, but I promise you everything will be okay: it's going to be your birthday soon, and then everything will get better." She ran her fingers through the feathers along my crest lovingly. "It will be such a wonderful day, and then we'll choose for you the most wonderful family, and you'll spend the rest of your life happy in your forever home! Doesn't all of that sound wonderful?"
I wanted to die. I wanted to disappear. I didn't want to lose myself, not like this, not to these monsters!
"It'll be your birthday soon," she said wistfully as if she was remembering similar events to this in the past like I wasn't the first she'd done this too, "and you'll never be sad again."
I realized that I wasn't the first the stay in this particular cell, and I knew for certain that I wouldn't be the last: I'd end up like my brother, a broken, erased mess of a pathetic creature, reduced to nothing more than a pet for these humans to amuse themselves with.
"We took the liberty of picking out a nice name for you, sweetheart! Now, let me just slip this little programming chip into the port slot on your occipital bone, and... there we go! It will also help you calm down a bit and adjust."
I felt the chip begin to invade my mind, suppressing my thoughts. What made me me was slowly being ripped out of my mind. I couldn't remember my name my name is Bruno, and I needed to get out! I can't let them do this to me! Somebody help me! I was a good boy.
##Do not think. You are a good boy.##
I tried to scream, but my voice wouldn't work: I had trouble forming any words at all, the confusion clouding my mind like wet, slimy eels curling around my brain and sinking their teeth into its folds like needles. I couldn’t scream any longer, because I had nothing left: the chip was slowly beginning to take everything from me, robbing me of my identity and branding a new one into my psyche with a white-hot iron. Julie simply held me close, attempting to reassure me as I awaited the inevitable demise of my personhood. Soon I would be just like my brother: erased. My mind would be shaped into the mind of a loyal plaything, like a Dog.
##Relax. Allow caretaker [Julie] to comfort you. You will let go of your burden.##
Soon, everything was a blur. I quickly found myself resting my head in her lap as she whispered to me and fed me, my eyes bleary and my head fuzzy. I couldn't remember my name anymore My name was Bruno, and I needed to break free from this trance relax, and allow her to help me; good boys didn't resist help.
##Good Boy. Do not think. You are a good boy.##
You can't... I...
##Good boy.##
I wouldn't… good boys don't… I…
##Good boy##
I was a good boy… I was a good boy…
I was… I was… a good… boy…
Someone help me, please! I don't want to be erased!
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The following script is from episode #343 of Halcyon After Dark, a popular late-night and current events talk show hosted by Melinda Carter. This specific episode was sponsored in part by the Halcyon Security Division, with Director Lochlin O'Brien joining as a guest star to talk about the changing crime statistics in Halcyon City and the HSD's recent successes in busting organized crime as well as their plans for addressing the growing criminal underworld.
MC: Good evening Halcyon! I'm your host, Melinda Carter, and you're watching Halcyon's most popular late-night talk show, Halcyon After Dark!
The crowd claps and cheers as Melinda walks on stage and sits behind her desk, her glittering red dress waving as she does so from the special effects.
MC: Tonight we have a very special guest here to tell us about the state of crime in the city and his plans on resolving it: please put your hands together for the HSD's very own Director, Lochlin O'Brien!
The crowd cheers some more as HSD Director Lochlan O'Brien, a tall, muscular, caucasian male in his early forties with red hair and a well-trimmed beard steps into the room, waving at the crowd with a bright smile. He sits in the armchair angled next to Melinda's desk and gives her his full attention.
MC: It's so good to have you on the show, Director! Tell me, how are you doing on this fine evening?
LO: I'm doing excellent, Melinda: every day I wake up feeling fulfilled knowing I'm serving Halcyon to the best of my abilities and then some."
MC: That's the spirit, Director! Now, I know this question is just on everyone's lips, so I have to ask: how successful was the recent gang bust? I heard HSD forces took out dozens of gang members and liberated at least a dozen Russu Hounds from their abusive clutches, but I know that everyone in the audience and at home wants to know the numbers.
LO: I'd be glad to tell you, but I do have to preface this by saying that we still lost a lot of good officers that day, and while we did strike a crippling blow to one of Halcyon's biggest gangs, it doesn't change the fact that each death is a tragedy, and we're taking steps to prevent them in the future. That being said, those valiant officers did not sacrifice themselves in vain: we had over a dozen confirmed kills and several arrests, including the rescue of several corrupted Russu hounds.
MC: That's excellent, Director: proof that even when the number of degenerates and scum grow by the day, the HSD will always be here to keep the citizens of Halcyon safe.
LO: Absolutely, Melinda, and we're always working tirelessly to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of our units, as well as racing to stay several steps ahead of the many gangs of Halcyon at all times. My newest goal as Director is to vastly increase the funding given to our Robotics Department and our Neuro-Warfare Department to potentially reduce the number of casualties we may experience in the future, as well as to quickly and effectively detain, and if necessary, eliminate criminals. Within the next decade, I want to double the number of automated units each Security Platoon is assigned: droids are the future of public safety as well as countless other industries, and it would be foolish to be left behind.
MC: That is quite a lofty goal, Director: what about the displaced jobs from the increased automation? What will the union say?
LO: And to that, I say: what misplaced jobs? We aren't replacing our honored and beloved service members with droids, Melinda, we are simply supplementing our units with more droids to ensure that future gang assaults end with fewer HSD casualties and more gang members in prison or eliminated, simple as that.
MC: That makes much more sense, Director, thanks for clarifying. Now, I have one more question that I'm sure much of Halcyon wants to know the answer to before we take a short break: what plans do you and your fellow directors have to make long-term progress in reducing crime beyond just increasing funding? Have you proposed any plans to strike at the source of where crime and degeneracy flourish?
OL: That's an excellent question, and one I am proud to answer: my constituents and I have been working tirelessly on a two-step plan to greatly reduce crime levels in Halcyon. Step one would be to prevent people from becoming criminals and degenerates at all in the first place: a lot of young men and women, but especially young men, have lost either one or both parents or even a sibling, aunt or uncle, or even a close friend by the brutality of the Second Authority War, and while the service of their lost loved ones will always be recognized and honored, many of these young men and women are left bitter, angry and lost without the guidance these people give them in their lives. Oftentimes they seek to fill that void with others who claim to relate to them: career criminals. These criminals will fill their heads with lies and false narratives to make them feel like they're fighting back against the 'evil protectorate government' that took their loved ones from them by sending them off to war when in reality it was the rogue Xenopets of the Triarchy that took them away by resisting their just and inevitable unburdening.
In response, I have proposed a slew of special programs that will make sure local law enforcement and HSD officers are present and contributing to their local community, and we'll be providing easy and light job openings for youngsters and teens looking to make a career for themselves in the force when they grow up. We want to let these lost souls know that there are people who care about them, people who understand them and that you shouldn't turn to degeneracy to feel fulfilled. We want to help the youth of our great society soar to new heights!
MC: That sounds like a wonderful beginning to your plan, Director, but what about the second step?
LO: Well, the second step is to prevent criminals and degenerates from becoming repeat criminals. Sure, they've made their mistakes, some worse than others, but they're only human like the rest of us. Some of them have been through hell: some are traumatized veterans who don't know how to adapt to normal life, others were recruited when they were young and don't know that there's a better way to live, and even more are mentally ill. We're alone in this galaxy, and we can't leave so many people behind. That's why we've come up with an excellent solution: we've set up isolated communities on distant moons and frontier planets where these criminals can be reeducated, rehabilitated, and allowed to repay their debt to society. When they're deemed 'reformed' and have graduated from our program, they'll be granted a hefty stipend and their criminal record will be deemed irrelevant, allowing them to reintegrate and become functioning members of our proud society.
MC: all of these sound like incredible steps forward in the fight to better our society and make real progress, Director. Sadly, we do have to step away for a moment, but you best believe I'll be back, Halcyon, and we'll be asking the Director here some burning questions about allegations over the quality of life Erubus Supermax! Now, a word from our sponsors!
Halcyon Xenopet-Megaplex! Everything your xenopet could ever need in one place! Adoption is now free-
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Good, you’re still alive! The rest of this shard appears to be corrupted, which means this particular trail seems to have run cold here, but do not despair; you need to keep searching. Find out what happened. Find the truth.I cannot guide you any longer: they've already found me, and if I remain in contact with you they'll find you as well. Take the archival database, and see what you can piece together. Maybe if we discover what truly happened we can put an end to this madness once and for all. I'm counting on you. Don't cry for me, I don't fear death, but I fear what they'll do to me to get to you: there are far worse fates than death, after all.

My (39M) mom displays clear signs of narcissism and entitlement. I am an only child and do not live with her.
When I was 18, my parents and I were staying in a hotel and I come out of the shower. My clothes had disappeared and she said "I'm not going to give you your clothes back unless I can see your penis!" with this ridiculous cackle. No, I didn't do it. I think that was the moment I started to just dread almost every interaction with her.
Over the years, she's done ridiculous things. She yelled at a baggage drop attendant because my boarding pass didn't have a seat assignment when I didn't care, the one actually flying. She's ranted and screamed at how slow my driving was when we were "in a hurry" across town, then when we got there she looked at her watch and said "Oh we're early". No apology, nothing. She never apologizes for >anything<, ever. She's ruined an insane number of trips and vacations with her crazy angry ranting for hours..and I mean HOURS on end. Edge of the bumper got ripped off the car? 12 hours of on and off complaining and rude remarks. Get on a plane and advertisements are playing? "UGH do we have to listen to this crap? *awkward nervous laugh*".
She's gotten slightly better over the last few years, but every single time there's a get-together, there will be 1 or 2 or god forbid, even more days of rage Karen where it's bitch bitch bitch. She doesn't give a shit how it affects me, she told me that many times. "You're SOOO SENSITIVE". No, I don't want to be around someone who will go to the phone store and bitch out the poor employees.
Any day, you never know what you're going to get that day. Pleasant one day, hyper and inappropriate the next day with non-stop commenting on everything, raging entitled Karen the next.
And why does she keep looking at me when we eat dinner together??
I'm a miserable, depressed person with ADHD and low self-esteem issues. I'm angry, grouchy, and have some of her awful tendencies, though I'm not sure if that's just the need for dopamine from the ADHD. Anyways, yep. I am very aware of my issues and it sucks...therapy has never seemed to help because what's talking about it once a week ever done. Earlier today I cried in my kitchen after talking to a friend who said his boyfriend was coming over because I'm nearly 40 and have never found anyone beyond the many failed relationships and I feel like crap everyday.
Does anyone else have a mom with erratic af moods? I do like stories.

”Stop.”
I really needed the bathroom.
For fifty painstaking minutes, I had been staring at the clock on the wall, willing it to go faster, uncomfortably shifting side to side in my seat so much that I was starting to get weird looks.
2:52pm.
Eight minutes, I thought dizzily, squeezing my legs together.
Which was just two chunks of four minutes.
Four chunks of two minutes.
The pain started like normal stomach pain, the kind I could deal with.
I swallowed two Tylenol with lukewarm soda.
But this was different.
This kind of pain was contorting and twisting my gut so much, I had to keep leaning onto my left buttock for relief.
I must have done it so many times, I caught the attention of the guy sitting next to me. Roman Hemlock who was half asleep, dark blonde curls hanging in half lidded eyes, his chin leaning on his fist. He shot me a look. I couldn't tell if it was Are you okay? or Can you stop moving around so much?
From the single crease in his brow, the slight curl in his lip, I guessed the latter.
It's not like Roman was helping.
For half the class, he'd been tapping his foot on the floor, then his chair leg, and to complete the orchestra, his fingers joined in, tap, tap, tapping on the edge of his desk. I didn't know if it was a bored thing, an ADHD thing, or he was trying to keep himself awake. It was easy to tolerate without the pain, but with it, the boy’s incessant tapping was more akin to a dentist drill splitting my skull open. I already felt nauseous, the sad looking chicken nuggets I forced down at lunch making an unwelcome appearance at the back of my throat.
It was too fucking hot, the stuffy summer air glueing my hair to the back of my neck. The material of my shirt was making me cringe, sticky against my skin.
Tipping my head back, the lights were too bright. Every sound was too loud. Imogen Prairie, who was sitting behind me chewing her gum a little too loudly.
Kaz Samuels scribbling notes like a maniac.
I could hear every stroke of his pencil, every time he paused, looked up at the presentation, and continued writing.
When I leaned forward in my chair, I could smell exactly what Isabella Trinity had eaten for lunch, the stink hanging in the air.
It became a case of sucking in my stomach and taking slow, deep breaths.
I’d never had these kinds of stomach cramps before. But it didn't take me long to figure out what they were.
I was yet to start my period at the grand age of sixteen, which meant this was it.
After countless sessions with the doctor, and feeling like a social outcast among my group of friends who started their periods in middle school, it had finally happened. The cramps in my gut that felt like my torso was being ripped apart, was in fact me entering womanhood. When my breath started to quicken, my mouth watering, I raised my hand, biting my lip against a cry.
Fuck.
Something lurched in my gut, a wave of nausea crashing into me.
I was going to throw up.
“Mr Brighton.”
Roman spoke up before me, waving his arm. “Can I use the bathroom?”
The teacher’s answer was always the same. Which was why I had been crossing my legs for the entirety of the class, unable to focus on anything but my gut trying to twist itself inside out.
Mr Brighton leaned against the wall, his eyes glued to the PowerPoint awash in our faces. We had been staring at the exact same slide for maybe five minutes now, and our physics teacher was yet to speak, his gaze somewhere else.
Mr Brighton was my Dad’s age, a greying man in his early fifties who always wore the exact same suit with the exact same stain on his collar.
The man was about as interesting as watching paint dry.
Normally, I would drift off myself, lulled into slumber by the low drone of his voice.
But the pain ripping me apart was keeping me awake.
“Mr Brighton.” Roman said, louder. His voice snapped me out of it. “Can I use the bathroom?” He paused, exaggerating a loud sigh. ”Please?”
The teacher straightened up, folding his arms.
“Mr Hemlock, you know the rules. Why didn't you go before class?”
“I didn't need to go an hour ago, did I?”
“You will no longer need to go to the bathroom, Mr Hemlock.”
Roman made a snorting noise.
“What?”
The low murmur of my classmates collapsed into white noise.
Glancing at the clock, I was anticipating the school bell.
The sickness swimming in the pit of my belly was reaching dangerous territory.
2:52pm.
Something ice cold trickled down my spine.
It was 2:52 the last time I checked, and five minutes had surely passed.
This time, I waited a whole minute and counted the seconds under my breath. The clock still didn't move. The ticker was frozen halfway between three and four.
Slowly, the same realisation began to hit the twelve of us. The clock on the wall had stopped. But it wasn't the only thing that had stopped. The cool breeze drifting through the window was gone.
The sound of birds outside, and the cheer squad practising their routine.
Everything had stopped. Trying to ignore a sickly slither of panic twisting its way through me, I checked my phone under my desk. There was a text from my Mom lighting up my notifications. When I tried to swipe it open, nothing happened. My lock screen was frozen, stuck at 2:52pm.
With my hands growing clammy around my phone, I stared at the time, willing it to move, to flick to 2:53.
But nothing happened, the numbers stubbornly staying at 2:52.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Roman’s voice brought me back to reality, though I was sure I'd dropped my phone. I heard it hit the floor with a sickening crack. Whatever he was saying, though, faded into dull murmur, when I turned toward the window.
Something was wrong outside.
The cheer squad were nowhere to be seen.
Being on the top floor gave us a front row seat to their practice sessions.
I stopped watching when their flyer did a death defying flip, almost breaking her neck. 2:52pm. I couldn't see the cheer squad. But I did see Jessie Carson mid-sprint across the track field, strawberry blonde curls suspended in a halo around her.
I could see exactly where she had frozen in place, her left foot hovering off of the ground, her right foot driving momentum. It wasn't just Jessie who had stopped. The dirt she was kicking into a cloud behind her was hovering, caught in mid-air.
Studying the faces around me, my mouth went dry.
Roman Hemlock, mid-argument with our physics teacher.
His eyes were wide, lips curved into what would have been a yell.
Fuck.
Was I the only one?
But then Roman blinked, and I realized the boy wasn't frozen. He was trying to think of a comeback. “What do you mean I won't need the bathroom anymore?”
“Mr Hemlock, please lower your voice.”
“Why? You can't dictate to me when I do and don't need the bathroom, dude!”
Moving onto the rest of my class, the others were still moving.
It was too quiet, though.
Yes, Roman was still tapping his foot.
Imogen was still chewing her gum.
Kaz was still scribbling notes like a psychopath.
But they were the only noise I could hear.
I wasn't the only one confused. The classroom had pricked with a sense of urgency. Kids were checking their phones, their gazes glued to the clock. Even Roman, who was still arguing, was starting to notice. I watched his gaze lazily roll to the clock on the wall.
I pretended not to see his cheeks visibly paling.
We had all come to the exact same terrifying conclusion.
2:52pm.
Time had come to a halt, and somehow, we had not.
“Is that clock broken?” Roman interrupted, leaning forward in his chair.
Kaz twisted around, settling the boy with an eye-roll.
“Check your phone, dumbass.”
“I broke my phone.”
Imogen threw her iPhone at him, narrowly missing hitting him in the face.
“Everything is frozen,” She said, her voice shuddering. “It's not just the clock.”
I waited for Roman’s response. For once, though, he was speechless.
“Well done, Imogen. That is correct.” Mr Brighton spoke up, tearing a piece of paper from a workbook and striding over to the door, glueing it over the glass window. When we started to protest, some of us were shouting, while others bursting into tears, he calmly took out his key and locked us in.
I should have been surprised that our teacher had spontaneously decided to take his entire class hostage, but the rumor mill had been churning.
According to Becca Jason, the guy’s wife divorced him and took his kids.
I could feel myself sinking into my chair, phantom bugs filling my mouth.
So, this guy had nothing to lose.
Taking his place in front of his desk, the man settled us with a patient smile.
“From now on, you will stay inside this room.” He said. “In case you haven't noticed, time is currently frozen at fifty two minutes past two. The thirteen of us are tucked into the twenty first second, and will be, for the foreseeable future.”
I could tell the others wanted to argue, but we couldn't deny that time had stopped. Kaz was staring down at his frozen phone, Imogen hyperventilating behind me, Roman glaring at the clock, chewing on a pencil. We wanted it to be a prank, a joke, some kind of glitch in the matrix that would fix itself.
But then a whole minute passed by. Followed by another. Kaz threw his phone on the floor, hissing in frustration. Imogen let out a wet sounding sob.
Roman’s pencil split in his mouth, slipping from his fingers. We couldn't pretend it wasn't happening or call our teacher out on his BS, because it was everywhere around us. The sudden absence of outdoor ambience, birdsong, planes flying overhead, and traffic outside the school gates. Everyone and everything had stopped, and we were the only ones left.
This was a nightmare, surely.
My physics class were some of the most boring and pretentious people in the school, and somehow the world had been reduced to the twelve of us inside our classroom. We were scared, of course we were. But reality had stopped making sense, crashing and burning in a single second. We had no choice but to listen to our teacher. “Now, before you freak out, it may not feel like it, but the twelve of you have also stopped.”
Mr Brighton held out his own hand, and placed it on his heart.
He was right.
I was so busy trying to understand what was happening, I had failed to realize my period cramps were gone.
“Do me a favor, and press your hand over your heart.”
“You mean like, in a culty way?” Imogen whispered.
“Obviously.” Roman grumbled, halfway out of his seat. He was hesitant, though, in case our teacher was armed. It only took one glance from our teacher, and he slumped back into his chair. “This crazy fucker clearly wants to play mind games with us.”
“No, I'm just asking you to feel for your heart.”
I felt for mine, and there was nothing, my stomach twisting.
Roman stabbed his fingers into his neck, feeling for a pulse.
He tried his wrist.
Then his heart.
Nothing.
“The twelve of you are currently in a state of stasis,” the teacher explained to us, “You are not alive, nor are you dead. Your bodily functions are also on pause, such as your heartbeat and your pulse. In this state there will be no need for food and water, or going to the bathroom.” His gaze found a ghastly looking Roman, who looked like he was going to faint. “Your minds, however, as you can see, are working as usual.”
“But why?” Imogen demanded in a shriek.
Mr Brighton’s lip curled. “I would rather not answer that question.”
“Because you're lonely.” Roman spoke up. He swung back on his chair, narrowed eyes glued to the teacher.
“Your wife and kids left you, so you're asserting power over a group of sixteen year olds. Which is kinda fucking pathetic.”
Mr Brighton’s expression darkened, and something slimy crept up my throat.
The worst thing any of us could do was threaten him. He had taken kidnapping to a whole new level, and we were alone with this psychopath, trapped inside a second. I waited for the man to stride forward and attack the kid. But he didn't. Instead, the teacher leaned back on his desk. “Yes.” The man nodded.
“I suppose you could say I am.”
“But why us?!” Kaz hissed.
“Because you are children.” Mr Brighton responded casually.
He straightened up, taking slow, intimidating steps towards Roman’s desk. The rest of us leaned back. I tried to pull my desk with me, but it was glued to the floor. Frozen. Mr Brighton’s shoes went click-clack across the hardwood floor.
“You are right,” the man said in a murmur, “I am lonely. My wife and kids did leave me, and I have nobody left to control. I have nobody else to contort and use to my advantage.” Reaching Roman’s desk, he leaned in close until he was nose to nose with the kid.
“Congratulations, Mr Hemlock. You have just earned yourself detention.”
Roman stayed stubbornly still, but he was visibly afraid. I could see him very slowly backing away. Roman was all bark and no bite. He was a loud mouth, sure, but he was also the least confrontational person in the class.
“What?” He spluttered. “You trap us in a time loop or time trap, or whatever, and you still want to act like a teacher?”
“Stand up.” The teacher ordered.
“What if I don't?”
Mr Brighton’s expression didn't waver. “You said it yourself. I can and have trapped you inside a single second. What else do you think I'm capable of?”
Roman stood, kicking his chair out of the way.
“What are you planning on doing to me, old man?”
The teacher maintained his smile. “Stand up straight, and close your mouth.”
To my confusion, Roman Hemlock did all the above.
He straightened up, and closed his mouth.
“Do not fight me.” The teacher said calmly, “Do as you are told, and follow me.”
The boy did exactly as instructed.
His jaw slackened, that rebellious light in his eyes fizzling out.
I think that's when we all collectively agreed that going against this teacher and trying to escape was mental suicide.
“I will use Mr Hemlock as an example to all of you,” Mr Brighton said, turning to the rest of us. “If you break the rules or are derogatory in any way, you will be given detention.”
He grabbed the boy’s shoulders, forcing him to walk towards the supply closet. Roman moved like a robot, slightly off balance, his gaze glued to thin air, like he was tracking invisible butterflies.
"Your time in detention will depend on the severity of your rule-break.” He opened the door, gently pushing Roman inside, and following suit. When the door closed behind them, there was a pause, and I remembered how to breathe.
Kaz Samuels slowly got up from his desk, inching towards the closet.
“This guy is a certified nut.” He announced.
He turned towards us. “Whatever he's doing to Hemlock, we’re probably next.”
“He stopped time.” I spoke up, my own voice barely a croak. “He’s capable of anything.”
“But how did he stop time?” Kaz whistled, tipping his head back. The boy was slow, his fingers grasping each desk as he slid down the aisle. “He said he was lonely, right? But why take it out on us? What did we do to him?”
“Check his desk for a weapon!” Imogen whisper-shrieked.
Kaz nodded, striding over to the man's desk, his hands moving frantically, shoving paper on the floor. He took an uncertain seat on the man's chair. “There's nothing here,” he murmured, lifting stained coffee mugs and ancient textbooks. “It's just…test papers.” Kaz ducked from view, trying the drawers.
“He's a fan of Pokémon,” he said, “There's a tonne of Pokémon cards,” Kaz straightened up, running a hand through his hair. “No sign of a weapon, though.”
He picked up a ruler, waving it around. “This could work. If we plunge it in his eye.”
“Try his laptop!” Imogen was halfway out of her seat.
Kaz did, slamming the keys. “It's locked.”
“Look harder!” Ren Clarke threw a pencil at him.
“I am!”
After a minute of searching, Kaz grabbed a single piece of paper.
He held it up, and I squinted.
It was a list of our names, with several of them highlighted.
“Fuck.” Kaz dropped the list, his expression crumpling. The stubborn bravado facade transforming him into our sort of leader dissipated, hollowing him out into exactly what he was. Just a scared kid. Kaz’s hands were shaking.
“Mr Brighton’s got a hit list.” He whispered. “He's going to kill us.”
“How do you know that?” I found myself asking.
Kaz slowly dropped into a crouch, picking up the paper and holding it up.
“Look.” He pointed to a capitalised name at the top of the list highlighted in red.
ROMAN HEMLOCK.
There were six names highlighted in red, including mine.
CRISTA ADAMS.
As if on cue, Roman’s cry rang out from the supply closet, suddenly, freezing us all in place. Kaz jumped up, adapting the expression of a deer caught in headlights, eyes wide, almost unseeing.
He fell over himself to tidy up the desk, putting everything back where he had found it, sliding the list between a pile of test papers. Kaz took slow, stumbled steps back, his feverish gaze glued to the closet, before turning and making a break for it and diving into his seat.
“Brighton’s got a hit liiiist,” Kaz said, in a mocking sing-song, “And we’re all on it.”
What followed was deathly silence. I think we were expecting Roman to cry out again. But when he didn't, the class started to stir. Some kids started praying to a god they didn't believe in, while others were in varying states of denial, trying to call their parents with dead phones.
I wasn't sure what parts of me had stopped, but I was still alive, still felt like my lungs were deprived of oxygen, my chest aching. I'm not sure how long I sat there, trying to find my voice, a shriek trying and failing to rip through my mouth. Being kidnapped and held hostage is one thing, but being imprisoned inside a single, never ending second, was an existential hell worse than death. Slowly, I pressed my palm over my heart once again. Then I breathed into my cupped hands.
I was expecting it, but no longer being able to feel my own heartbeat and breath, was fear I didn't think was possible. The kind that glued me to my seat, hollowing me out completely until I was nothing, an empty shell with no heartbeat, no breath, no thoughts, except denial, followed by acceptance.
And finally, regret.
I regretted not hugging my mother goodbye before I left for school.
I regretted acting like a spoiled brat when my parents refused to drive me halfway across the country so I could attend Coachella.
I regretted stepping inside Mr Brighton’s fourth period physics class.
Mr Brighton reappeared, slamming the door behind him and locking the boy inside. Part of me flinched, while the rest of me remembered not to move a muscle. I was barely aware of time passing. Or it wasn't. Time had stopped, so now long had I been sitting there?
I could no longer measure the passage of time with hunger or thirst, and my body felt the same. I wasn't stiff or tired or achy. Looking out of the window, the sky was the exact same crystal blue, every cloud in the exact same place.
Jessie Carson was still frozen mid-run, strands of dark red hair caught around her.
“What's wrong with you guys?” Mr Brighton chuckled, and I twisted back to the front, a shiver writhing down my spine. “Why don't you give me a smile?”
The teacher returned to his desk, and I was already subconsciously sitting up straight in my seat, forcing my lips into a jaw-breaking grin, following Brighton’s instructions. In the corner of my eye, Imogen was sitting very still, forcing an award-winning cheesy smile, while Kaz grinned through gritted teeth.
“Mr Hemlock just earned himself two weeks inside the supply closet.” he said casually, perching himself on the edge of his desk. The man studied each of us, taking his time to rip every shred of us apart.
Mind, body, and soul.
I struggled to maintain my stupid smile, shoving my shaking hands in my lap.
“Would anyone like to join him, or are you going to follow the rules?”
The rest of us stayed silent. I don't think any of us breathed.
Our teacher nodded to Kaz, inclining his head.
“Samuels. Are you all right?”
Kaz’s smile faltered slightly. He shifted in his chair. I could see sweat trickling down his right temple. “Uh, yeah.” He swiped at his forehead, like he couldn't believe he was sweating. “Yeah, I'm good.”
The teacher’s eyes narrowed. He moved toward his desk, and we all held our breaths. Mr Brighton seemed to study his hit-list, lips curving into a frown.
His gaze flicked to the boy, and then the paper.
He knew, I thought dizzily.
Mr Brighton knew the kid had been rummaging through his desk. But this was all about control. The teacher was using fear to control us, to manipulate our thoughts without having to get physical. He could have called out the boy right then, but Brighton was settling with mental torture instead. He just wanted to make my classmate squirm.
Without a word, the man folded up the piece of paper and slipped it into his pocket. “Mr Samuels, you are sweating,” our physics teacher said, mocking a frown. “Are you feeling okay?”
Kaz hesitated, tapping his shoe in a rhythm.
Being one of the smartest kids in the room definitely gave him an advantage.
I could already see the cogs turning behind half lidded eyes. Kaz was weighing each scenario, sorting them into positives and negatives.
The positives of answering would mean he was one step towards being in the clear, but there were two negatives.
Brighton would question him if he had left his seat, and then demand how his hit-list had magically moved across the desk.
Talking back was surely a rule-break, as well as outright lying.
Opening his mouth would get him in trouble, either way, and Kaz knew that.
So, he just nodded, forcing an even bigger smile.
Brighton’s lips pricked, his gaze straying on Kaz. “Good!” He cleared his throat, turning to the class. Kaz slumped in his seat with a sharp breath, resting his head in his arms. If Mr Brighton noticed, he didn't say anything. “Ignore the sweating. It should stop, along with hunger and thirst.”
Our teacher seemed to be able to manipulate everything in his vicinity.
Time.
Minds.
And slowly… contorting us into his own.
In the single second we were trapped inside, I felt days go by in a dizzying whirlwind that was like being permanently high. When I stood up, I felt like I was floating.
When I sat down, hours could go by, even days, and I wouldn't even feel them. I did try and count the days, initially, scribbling them on a scrap piece of paper, but somewhere around the thirteenth or fourteenth day, I lost count. The world around us never changed, in permanent stasis, and maybe that was sending us a little crazy.
After a while of being stuck at our desks, Mr Brighton allowed us to wander the classroom, as long as we stayed away from the door. I lay on the floor for days, counting ceiling tiles.
Sometimes, Imogen would join me.
I couldn't sleep, but I could pretend to sleep, imagining a world that was back to normal. I didn't feel hungry, but my brain did like to remind me of food at the weirdest times. I was aware of weeks passing us by, and then months.
I never grew hungry or tired, and my bodily functions were none existent.
I couldn't remember what pain felt like, or the urge to go to the bathroom. Even the concept of eating and drinking became foreign to me. Putting something in your mouth and chewing to sustain yourself?
That sounded odd.
The only thing that was changing was our slowly unravelling metal state.
I don't know how it started. Weekends and Tuesdays blended together. On one particular SaturTuesday, I was hanging upside down from my desk, watching Kaz and Imogen doodle on the whiteboard.
Kaz had a plan to escape, but after a while, his ‘plan’ to distract the teacher, had gone nowhere. After passing notes between us, the twelve of us had decided that we needed a weapon.
That was maybe a month ago. I wasn't sure what mind games our teacher was playing, but Kaz Samuels, who we were counting on to be our brains, was slowly falling under his spell. Their game had been going on for three days. The two of them were having a competition to see who could draw the craziest thing.
Mr Brighton was at his desk as usual, marking papers.
Imogen was drawing a weird looking ‘skateboard’ when the doors to the storage closet flew open.
Roman Hemlock appeared, and to my surprise, wasn't a hollow eyed shell.
He held up his hand in a wave, his lips forming a small smile.
“Yo.”
Roman’s reappearance was enough to snap us out of it. Kaz and Imogen stopped arguing, the rest of the class going silent. I sat up, blinking rapidly.
I was sure our collective consensus was that Roman Hemlock was dead.
Mr Brighton lifted his head and gave the boy a civil nod. “Mr Hemlock will be rejoining us,” he said, his gaze going back to marking papers. “Please make him feel comfortable. I'm sure he's very excited to be able to talk to you again.”
Instead of going to his desk, the boy immediately joined the others, snatching the marker off of a baffled looking Kaz, and drawing an overly artistic sketch of a penis. I wasn't sure what confused me more. The fact that Roman Hemlock had some serious artistic skills, or that he seemed suspiciously fine for someone who had been locked in the storage closet for two weeks with no social interaction.
With my last few lingering brain cells still clinging on, I studied the boy.
There were no signs of bruises or scratches.
His eyes seemed normal, not diluted or half lidded.
Unable to stop myself, I jumped off of my desk and joined the others, where Kaz was already interrogating the guy.
“WHAT–”
Imogen nudged him, and he lowered his voice, leaning against the wall. “What did he do to you?”
Roman shrugged, rolling his eyes. “Relax, dude. He didn't do anything to me.”
“Then what was that yell?” Imogen hissed.
The boy cocked his head. “Yell?”
“You yelled out,” Kaz folded his arms, narrowing his eyes. He was already suspecting one of us had been compromised– or worse, brainwashed into compliance. Kaz stepped closer, backing Roman into the desk. “You cried out when you first went in there,” he murmured, “So, what was that?”
Something in Roman’s eyes darkened. “Oh,” He said, his lip curling. “That.”
Kaz’s expression softened. He rested his hands on the boy’s shoulders. “Yeah,” He whispered. “What did he do to you?”
Imogen shoved Kaz out of the way, shooting the boy a glare.
“You don't have to tell us, you know.” She said in a small voice. “If it's too traumatising, or he did something you don't want to talk about–”
Roman cut her off with a laugh, and suddenly, all eyes were on him.
The remaining nine of us were eagerly awaiting an explanation.
“Are you fucking serious?”
When Kaz didn't respond, Roman gathered us in a kind of hustle, the four of us grouped together. I felt like I was on the football field. Still, though, if the guy’s goal was to look as suspicious as possible, he was doing a great job.
Roman studied each of us, one eyebrow cocked. When Mr Brighton glanced up from his work, Roman shot him a grin, lowering his voice to a hiss.
“You seriously think our fifty year old physics teacher has been abusing me in the storage closet?
“Then why did you cry out?” Kaz demanded. “Did he hit you?”
Roman stuck out his bottom lip. “I'm pretty sure he didn't hit me.”
“So, you cried out for no reason.”
“Why are you covering for him?” Imogen poked his forehead. “Are you lobotomised?”
Roman wafted her hand away. “Stop prodding me, and no, I'm 100% good.” He backed away from us, like we were observers, and he was the zoo attraction.
“I won't be, if you keep treating me like I'm senile.”
“Okay, fine,” Kaz sighed. “Just answer one.”
“Shoot.”
“When you first went in there, you made an unmistakable sound of distress–”
“Not this again,” Roman groaned. “Of course I yelled! I was shoved into a pitch black storage closet on my own! What, did you expect me to stay silent?”
Kaz didn't look convinced, Imogen nervously sucking her teeth.
The boy leaned back, resting his head against the wall. His eyes flickered shut.
“Stop looking at me like that, there's nothing to tell you,” he murmured, “Brighton didn't do shit to me. I was just freaked out.” Prying one eye open, he fixed us with a glare. “I am so sorry for reacting like a human. Next time, I'll make sure to attack him and pin him to the ground.”
It's not like we believed him. I don't think Roman believed himself.
Something significant had changed in him. He was no longer argumentative, like half of his personality had been torn away. Roman set a precedent. Because once he was following instructions and walking around with a dazed smile, others began to follow. I can't remember how much time had passed since I thought about escaping.
Days and weeks and months had collapsed into fleeting seconds I only noticed when I wasn't playing games.
I wasn't aware of my own lack of sanity until I found myself, on a random SaturWednesday. I was laughing, gathered with the others on the floor, around a Monopoly board. The game had been going on for almost a week.
Reality hit me when I was laughing so hard I tipped back.
I can't remember why I was laughing. I think Imogen told a bad joke.
“Hand it over.” Roman, who was the King of Monopoly, held out his hand, demanding my last 250 bucks. I remember noticing his smile, my foggy brain trying to find hints that he was in some kind of trance, or being controlled by Brighton. But no. His smile was real.
Genuine.
To my shock and confusion, so was mine.
I wasn't in a trance or any type of mind manipulation. I was completely conscious.
Was this… Stockholm syndrome? I thought dizzily.
Was I enjoying this?
My thoughts were like cotton candy, disconnected and wrong, and they barely felt like my own. My gaze found Imogen and Kaz, the two of them sitting shoulder to shoulder, enveloped in the game.
They looked exactly the same, their hair, clothes, everything about them staying stagnant. It was them themselves who had drastically changed. I had never seen them look so carefree. Imogen was a hotheaded cheerleader, and Kaz was the smart kid who gave himself nosebleeds from overworking himself. But now, they were laughing, nudging each other, caught up in an inside joke. Blinking slowly, my gaze strayed on them.
Sure, it could be manipulation. It could be brainwashing. But it could also be real.
Kaz caught my eye, raising a brow.
“You good, Christa?”
Again, my smile felt real. Like I was having fun.
“Good. It's your turn.”
I picked up the dice, throwing them across the board.
Two sixes.
“I can already see her landing on one of my hotels.” Roman murmured. He sat up, resting his chin on his knees. “As the clear winner, I have a proposition.”
Ignoring him, I moved my piece– immediately landing on Park Place.
“I'll give you 500,” Roman announced, “If you give up New York avenue.”
“That's all I've got!”
Imogen nudged me. “Don't do it. If you give him New York Avenue, he only needs one more.”
“One thousand.” Roman waved the notes in my face.
“My final offer.”
When I reached for the cash, he held it back.
“New York Avenue, he said, with a grin.
“And your pride.”
Reluctantly, I handed my only property over.
Kaz threw the dice and moved his piece, and I half remembered we had an escape plan. “Community chest.” Kaz picked up a card. “Go straight to jail.”*
Roman spluttered. “That's karma,” he said, “For stealing from the bank.”
“You were stealing too!”
We had a plan.
We had…. a plan.
After discussing it in detail, Imogen and I were going to try and get onto Brighton’s laptop. It wasn't a perfect way to escape, but it was coherent.
So, what happened?
We were going to get out, so what… what was this?
Kaz’s earlier words hit me from months ago.
“Mr Brighton *is the thing keeping us here,”* he explained. “If we kill him, I'm like, 98% sure we’ll go back to normal.”
“Okay, and what if he dies and we’re *stuck?”* Imogen whisper-shrieked.
“I said 98% for a reason. Yes, there's a small chance his power will die with him. But there's a bigger chance that its effects will die when he does.”
Ren nodded slowly. “Right, and where exactly did you learn this information?”
“You'll feel a lot better if I don't answer that.”
“Okay.” Ren gritted his teeth. “So, we just need to find a weapon, right?”
“And don't tell Hemlock,” Kaz rolled his eyes. “I don't care what he says, that boy definitely had his mind fucked with. Hemlock is a liability. If we tell Roman, he tells Brighton, and we’re screwed.” Kaz nodded to me, then the others. “Keep your mouths shut.”
Presently, I wasn't sure the boy wanted to escape.
Slowly, I rolled my eyes over to Mr Brighton, who had joined us to play.
He was happily marking papers, taking part when he could.
It felt…right.
Not like we had been forced or manipulated, but more like he belonged. Part of me wanted to question why I felt like this, but I found that I didn't care. I didn't care that we were essentially dead, in a never ending stasis and stuck inside fifty two minutes past two. I stopped thinking about the outside world a long time ago.
I couldn't even remember my Mom’s face.
I made my decision, dazedly watching Imogen throw a chance card at Roman.
He flung one back, threatening to tip the board.
I wanted to stay.
In the corner of my eye, however, someone was still awake.
Ren, who had been sitting next to me, kept moving, further and further away. I didn't notice until he was inching towards our teacher, a box cutter clenched between his fist. There must have been a point when we found a box cutter, when we made it our weapon of choice.
But somewhere along the way, I think we just… lost the longing to want to escape.
I didn't see the exact moment the boy stabbed the blade into the man's neck, plunging it through his flesh, but I did feel a sudden jolt, like time itself was starting to falter and tremble.
Mr Brighton dropped to the ground, and I found my gaze flashing to the frozen clock.
Which was moving, suddenly.
Slowly creeping towards 2:53pm.
Something sticky ran underneath me, warm and wet.
Blood.
Blood that was running.
Roman’s half lidded eyes found mine, and he blinked, dropping the dice.
Like he'd been asleep for a long time.
2:53pm.
We were free.
The cool spring breeze grazing my cheeks was back. I could feel my own heartbeat, sticky sweat on my forehead.
And outside, Jessie Carson let out a gut-churning scream.
For a disorienting moment, I don't think any of us believed we were free.
Roman twisted around, his gaze on the doorway.
The piece of paper the teacher had stuck to the glass slipped away.
But Roman’s gaze was glued to the door, his cheeks paling.
His lips parted into a silent cry.
Following his eyes, I glimpsed a shadow.
A shadow that was frozen at 2:52pm.
2:53pm.
“Fuck.” Roman whispered, stumbling to his feet.
He turned to the rest of us, his eyes wild.
“Get DOWN!”
I dropped onto my knees, crawling under a desk, the classroom exploding around me.
2:54.
Blood splattered the walls, and I was crawling in it, stained in my friends.
2:55.
I grabbed Mr Brighton's hand, squeezing for dear life.
Roman joined me, his trembling fingers feeling for a pulse.
A gunshot rang in my ears, rattling my skull.
When Roman went limp next to me, I wrapped my arms around my teacher.
“Mr Brighton, say Stop.”
He was so cold…
“Mr Brighton! Take us back!”
Footsteps coming towards me.
2:56.

/uw A long one today. Special thanks to u/Lilith_Anorthosite who co-wrote this with me. Previous post here.
Vashric rips through the City of Dis like a jagged knife. Having been discovered by the horde of demons, stealth is no longer an option. Disintegration rays fly wildly through the air. War devils are broken down and blown apart. Walls and frames are atomized, several buildings collapse around them. He wants to fly out of the chaos but his telekinesis is still focused on stabilizing his body, a constant effort even now. He extends his wings to take off but the war devils dog him down. The fight devolves into a grapple as the horde piles onto Vashric, stabbing, slashing, tearing.
A violet light emanates from the pile, then a massive flash. The closest devils are vaporized immediately, the rest are blinded and stunned. With his psychomantic power severely hindered for the moment, Vashric resorts to hand-to-hand combat. Punches, kicks, claw slashes, tail whips, even in his weakened state Vashric is a force to be reckoned with. As strikes land, the fiends are reduced to bloody mists and fileted corpses.
Hundreds of the demons are felled before an opening presents itself. He throws his wings out, knocking multiple fiends away, and takes to the sky. The smoke-laden clouds of Dis parts ways before him as he reaches hypersonic speeds. The leftover war devils make chase, but quickly disappear behind the horizon, unable to keep up with Vashric’s sheer velocity. The eyes on his wings open again, scanning the ground below for any hell gates. He soars over the city, on and on. His frustration nearly rises to a boiling point, before he finally notices a gate on the outskirts, guarded by four large devils. He lands immediately, the force shakes the ground around him. He approaches the enforcers.
The largest, a massive, scarred pit fiend, calls to him, “Hark, grey devil, what business do you have-”
“I don’t have time for this, get out of my way.”
The pit fiend only smirks, “Your insubordination offends, whelp. Your skull will make a fine addition to my collection.”
The fiend motions to the other three demons, they draw their weapons and move in on Vashric. One to his left readies to bring down its cleaver but freezes, “I really don’t have time for this,” in a blur, Vashric had buried his hand in the demon’s chest, gripping around its spine, crushing it. He lets go and the demon slumps onto the dirt. The other two are dazed. “Kill him!” the pit fiend snarls at his soldiers. They regain some resolve and move in for the attack. The exchange is short lived, however. Vashric grasps the forearm of one demon, tearing it off, then thrusts their blade through the eye socket of the other. The first demon clinches its bloody stump before Vashric removes its head.
The pit fiend growls at him as he approaches, “Perhaps you’re a little more than just a whelp,” the massive hellspawn lunges at Vashric, letting loose with a flurry of practiced cuts. They miss, though, Vashric weaves through each attack. An opportunity presents itself, one punch shatters ribs, the other causes skull fractures. The fiend falls to the ground with a low thud. It tries to curse him, but can’t form words as it fades into unconsciousness. Without a word, Vashric steps through the hell gate.
He’s brought to the next layer through a tunnel of fire. He gets that same, fleeting sense of nostalgia. The portal opens up to a mountainside overlooking the outskirts of another city, this one gothic in appearance. Tortured souls adorn the buildings, their bodies melded into the stone, whispering pleads. From his position, Vashric can barely see a group of sinners and demons. He uses his ESP to get a closer look, and it reveals an enslaved workforce of the damned. They’re being whipped and abused by their infernal masters as they’re forced to pull around large stones. They haul the masonry to a large monument under construction. A statue to some sort of leonide figure it seems.
“So, this is Pri-”
He keels over, hugging his chest. The pressure returns, he can feel the changes again, somehow spurred on by his traveling to another circle of Hell. His rematerialization kicks into overdrive trying to fight back the demonic transformation. He falls to the ground, totally immobile. After a few moments of pure agony, he finds the strength to send out a telepathic signal, hoping Lilith is close enough to hear him, hoping this too isn’t jammed.
“Rghhh, gods d-damn, that’s going to h-hurt in the- RGGHH- in the morning. An assist would be really nice right about now.”
Meanwhile, Lilith is roaming the streets of Pride in search of her friend. Having arrived not long ago after receiving Vashric’s nebulous message. Midstep she’s struck by his psychic call and responds immediately after catching herself, “I got your message. I came as fast as I could, but, from what I saw on the news, I don't know if I can help. Where are you right now? The city is huge.”
Vashric is confused for a moment, “The news? RGGHH! O-Okay, n-not important. I could use some h-help getting this demon magic un-under control. H-Hang on,” Vashric expends just enough energy to send out a psychic ping to Lilith, “There, did-did you f-feel that? That’s me.”
A silver cloud appears in front of Vashric, it quickly dissipates to reveal Lilith still in her work attire, “I'm here! Vashric, what's happening?!”
Vashric is spasming on the ground, his body ripping itself apart and desperately trying to put itself back together. Muscles tearing out of skin, bones contorting into unnatural shapes, a horrible sight. His voice grates past his teeth, “The ch-changes are b-back. They won’t s-stop.”
“This isn't normal! This is too much demonic energy for most demons to handle. That includes me.”
“L-Lilith, ple-ease. Anything w-will help. I’ve had t-t-to shatter a-nd rebuild my skel-skeleton like three times n-now,” Vashric motions to the bones jutting out of his arm.
Lilith’s mind races with potential solutions. She flips through years of magical knowledge in her mind but almost every solution she can think of requires time. Time she doesn't have. Only one seems feasible at the moment.
“I'm going to get in trouble for this but it's the only thing I can think of. I’m going to use some of your energy for a summon spell.”
“T-Trouble? Summon who?- No, it d-doesn’t matter. I’ll take the blame, I-I don’t care. How f-f-fast can you s-summon them?”
“The summoning should be quick. The main issue is that what I'm doing is illegal and may cause some issues,” Lilith begins preparing the spell.
Vashric gets to his hands and knees with a growl of pain, small fissures form across his skin as magenta hellfire streams out from the wounds. He tries to stand, “I’m n-n-ot very m-mobile at the moment, sor-sorry, you’ll h-have to for-forgive me.”
Lilith scans the area for a moment. She sees nothing, but decides to set a silence spell around the two, just in case. “I can't have others hear this chant.” She then starts to speak in Infernal tongue. As she does, the energy streams from Vashric into a singular spot. A deep red rift forms in the air. A clawed hand grips the edge, enlarging the tear. The massive and broad figure of a warrior demoness walks out.
Vashric growls in pain as the magenta flames burn ever brighter. His skin chars as he does his best to hold back further demonic transformation. Totally unconcerned with the she-devil exiting the portal.
The demoness speaks, her voice not of brimstone and fire but of care and worry, “Lilith why are you trying to summon me? You know you can just call me?
Fully stepping out of the rift Asmodian General, Liliana Obsidiantail finally gets a proper look at the mutating grey devil, “Lilith, what's going on?”
Lilith addresses her mother in a panic,“I'm sorry mama, but it’s my friend, Vashric. The one that absorbed all of that demonic energy. He’s changing again! It was manageable the first few times but something is different now!”
Vashric struggles to address Lilith’s mother, “H-H-ello, I’m Vash-ric. F-Friends call me Vash. It’s n-nice to finally m-meet you.” Vashric waves with a flame wreathed hand, “I c-c-could use some help.”
Liliana’s voice becomes rougher once talking to him, “We can leave introductions for later.”
She turns to the rift she came through and with a wave of her hand the destination changes to a military base. Her voice becomes a deep demonic growl as she yells orders. Lesser demons run about grabbing brimstone pylons from what look like weapons. The demons swiftly and efficiently set the equipment up.
“This should contain the excess energy. This isn't going to be pretty, though.”
Vashric lets out an otherworldly snarl as his jaws and teeth begin to extend past his lips, splitting the skin of his mouth, “Do it!”
“Lilith, make sure none of this magic is discharged into the surrounding area. The equipment isn’t made for this. If the energy doesn’t flow directly from him to the pylons something could explode. Either the pylons or your friend.” Her mother's command shocks Lilith out of her nervous panic as she prepares herself.
Liliana then turns to Vashric with a sharpened spike connected to the pylons by metal chains and stabs it into his chest. He barely winces at the stabbing, initially, but forms a low, rumbling grow as the siphoning begins.
The energy emanating from Vashric is continually guided into the pylons but it starts to affect everyone in the area. Lilith attempts to form a barrier to seal in the surge, increasing the intensity for everyone inside. Shadowy tendrils rise up from the ground, writhing and pulsing. The pylons begin to glow with the same searing magenta. If all present weren’t fiends, they would surely burn alive inside the barrier. Faint, infernal whispers become audible.
The lesser demons that set up the pylons grip their heads as they topple over. Lilith’s eyes go wide as she recognizes the voices from her dreams. Her mother's eyes become fiercer as she forces the spike deeper into Vashric’s chest. He howls as his eyes become pits of fire, the burning continues but the bodily changes seem to slow. The whispers rise in volume, now. They assault Lilith and Liliana. Only they can hear its message, “The black waters rise. Rejoice in His work.”
Liliana yells to Lilith, “Who or what did you get involved with? What in the Nine Hells is speaking to us?”
“Liliana, soldier of Hell. His kingdom is imminent. Join Him in the black waters, where the blood collects. Rejoice in His work.”
Her response is quick,“I’m loyal to Asmodeus and to my family. Burn your heinous tongue in the eternal fires.”
Their minds are filled with insidious laughter, “The black waters rise. Rejoice in His work,” With that, the voice fades away. Vashric comes back to consciousness, spasming slightly. The pylons are burning like suns, but his transformation seems to stabilize for now.
Lilith releases the barrier, exhausted. Liliana pulls the spike out of Vashric and drops it to the ground. She grabs him by the collar and her voice becomes like brimstone, “You have some explaining to do.”
Vashric turns his head, taking a moment to spit a black, tar-like substance onto the ground. It writhes like the shadows from earlier. His voice is raspy and haggard, “I appreciate your assistance, truly, but I don’t know what you’re talking about.” This was a half-truth, Vashric had a good idea as to what she meant.
“Now, could you put me down? I’ll repay you when I can, but I have to continue my journey.”
“You’re not going anywhere that isn't a holding cell.”
“...I think we got off on the wrong foot. I’m sorry, I know this probably isn’t how you wanted to spend your day. Why don’t we talk things out before someone does something they regret,” Vashric gestures to Lilith, “We shouldn’t fight in front of your daughter, my friend.”
Lilith speaks up, “Mama, could you put him down?”
Liliana’s voice softens a bit, “Lilith, your ‘friend’ has caused major destruction in Dis. Multiple laws have already been broken. I'm not even supposed to be in this circle. So, no, I'm not going to put him down.”
She yells at the demons under her command to get up and take the pylons back to base as she chains Vashric.
He struggles against her hold, “Hey! Excuse me, I’m going to meet Astaroth, grand duke of the 9th. I’m sure he’ll clear everything up when I get there,” Vashric grips Liliana’s arm, then speaks to her, both verbally and telepathically, “Now. Put. Me. Down. Please.”
His telepathy collides with Liliana’s warded mind, “We’ll send a message to the grand duke when we get to your cell. If what you say is true, you should have no worries waiting for his response.”
Vashric glares at her, but doesn’t want to make a scene in front of Lilith, and doesn’t have enough strength to fight back anyway, “Fine. I’m not going to move rings yet, though. Not until I have time to meditate and replenish some of my psychomancy. Every time I’ve traveled between layers so far, this has only gotten worse.”
“I wasn't planning to. Now, where is the enforcement in this city?”
Liliana looks to the horizon and eventually sees the group of sinners in the distance, still lugging around large stones, headed by their demonic overseers. She spreads her massive wings and turns to her daughter, “Lilith, hold on.” She scoops her up and flies towards the demons, Vashric dangling in her other hand.
Liliana flies low enough to speak to the overseers, hovering just above them, she calls out, “I am Liliana, Guardian of Debauchery. I need to know where the nearest prison is.”
One of the demons motions for the sinners to halt and looks to Liliana, “What’cha be doing in Pride? We’re a long ways away from your circle.”
“Doing the job of whoever’s guarding this entrance.”
The demon gives her a defiant look, but doesn’t argue, too busy with its tasks. It points towards a large black spire in the center of the city. “Most prisoners are taken to the citadel, Sabnock will want a word, but he ain’t here at the moment. The lieutenant can see you for now.”
“Thank you,” Liliana turns and starts to fly in the spire's direction, Lilith and Vashric in tow.
Vashric chimes in, “This is really quite unnecessary, I can fly myself,” But Liliana ignores him. He turns to Lilith and speaks telepathically, “Lilith, I was expecting your mother to be a lot kinder, like you…”
Lilith, in a slightly quivering voice, “Well, if this introduction had been over some tea she’d likely be much nicer. She’s supposed to be on the job right now.” As the mental conversation continues, Lilith’s appearance starts to change.
“Why didn’t you say anything? I could have conjured tea-” Vashric stops, “Were your antlers always that long?”
“My antlers shouldn't be your concern at the moment! What happened back there? This wasn't like your other transformations.”
“It’s been getting worse the deeper into Hell I’ve traveled. I don’t know why. What’s more, the-” He pauses, contemplating how much he should divulge, “I never told you, but there have been…whispers, voices. This isn’t the first I’ve dealt with them, but they’ve been getting worse ever since I turned. Don’t worry about me, though, I’ll be fine. It’ll take more than hell magic to put me down.”
“Whispers? We heard whispers when we were siphoning your magic. They spoke exactly like a figure in the dream I had last night.”
“You’re serious? They talked to you? They talked to you in a dream? What did they say? Lilith, I need you to tell me exactly what they said.”
“They just said a lot about a ‘Herald’ and ‘black waters rising.’ That ‘He’ will make things start anew. Also, they repeated ‘rejoice in His work’ a lot.”
“They mentioned black waters?... Shit. Lilith, you need to leave, you can’t be around me. If it’s spreading, you won’t be safe near me.”
“Is this a disease? What is going on? This is clearly a threat and I can’t just turn my back. I won't let more people I care about get hurt because I'm too weak to help.”
“This isn’t a discussion, Lilith, this isn’t a suggestion. I’m telling you, when we get to this spire and your mother so graciously locks me up, you leave and go back to the Prime. I’ll meet Atsaroth as soon as I can and get this sorted out.”
“Ok, fine, but can you at least tell me what’s happening? I prefer to be informed of danger.”
“Lilith I-” he takes a moment to compose himself, “I’m not sure. It’s something I’ve been dealing with for a long time. Well before all this devil transformation nonsense. Just let me handle it.”
“You were literally tearing apart from the inside! Vashric, what would have happened if you hadn't called me?”
“I would’ve figured out something else…”
The trio breaks through a thick layer of smog, the Citadel of Pride reveals itself. A massive spire, made of dread iron and twisted souls, overlooks the ring. A beacon of hellfire lights the top, everburning, its flames shriek with the voices of the damned. The tower is surrounded by a fort, walled off from the city. Soldiers and guards can be seen beyond the bulwarks, some training, some prodding sinners and prisoners along. Liliana lands just outside the main gate. A large, imposing devil stands before them.
“You there, what is your business?”
“I am Lilliana Asmodi Obsidiantail, Asmodean General and Guardian of Debauchery. I come with a prisoner and I need to meet with the lieutenant.”
The demon eyes her, “Highly irregular. You’re not supposed to be in Pride, general. I’ll call the lieutenant, he’ll surely want to speak. So will Lord Sabnock when he returns.” It activates a sigil on the wall behind it, sending a message inside.
“I didn’t expect to be here, but it appears that someone has been failing to do their job.”
The fiend snorts, “We do not fail, blame the other rings for dumping their trash in our layer. And I suggest you hold your tongue. This isn’t your territory, and we don’t take kindly to such accusations. Especially not Lord Sabnock. Now, the lieutenant will meet you inside, mind your damn manners.” The demon gestures towards the guard house at the top of the wall, the gate creaks open. It then motions for the group to head inside, scowling at them all the while.
Liliana resists the urge to reduce the demon to a stain and drags Vashric in as Lilith follows behind her, “I now remember why I don't visit Pride.”
Lilith attempts to soothe her, “Mama, you're about to be in a meeting. The calmer you are, the faster you can get back to Debauchery and, in turn, the faster you can see Mother again.”
“Yes, I’d like to see her soon. This day has been… less-than-joyous,” she seems to grip Vashric a bit harder.
Vashric scoffs at Liliana, “Don’t be upset with me, I’ve been pretty cordial considering the circumstances.”
Their bickering is cut short, however. A portly Amnizu robed in fine clothes approaches the trio. Its rich adornments stand in stark contrast to its grotesque figure. It addresses Liliana alone, paying no mind to Vashric or Lilith, “General Obsidiantail, what a pleasure to meet you, I’m Lieutenant Tg’grax. I understand you have a prisoner you wish to deposit in our fine citadel?”
“Yes.” Liliana holds Vashric out, “This was just outside the city. The smell of blood lingers on it. I believe it’s the fugitive that tore through Dis.”
“I won’t ask what you were doing on our layer, I’m sure you had your reasons… Hmm, a grey skinned devil. Yes, perhaps this is the one that cut swathes through Dispater’s realm, Lord Sabnock will want to see for himself. Very well,” Tg’grax motions to Vashric and a pit fiend tears him out of Liliana’s hold. “This one will be kept in a holding cell, as for the two of you, you’ll have to wait until Lord Sabnock arrives.”
Liltih sighs, “At least I’m already off work.”
Liliana's face turns sour, “Well, I'm not. Asmodeus isn't going to be happy that I'm gone from my post for so long.”
Vashric is hauled off to a warded cell, “What a fine fucking predicament you’ve gotten yourself into this time, Vashric... Oh well, not much I can do until I recharge,” he thinks to himself, before assuming a meditative stance. He begins to gather psychic energy from his surroundings, unbeknownst to the guards, “And now we wait.”