Canada goose women s coats in barrie
Canada
2008.01.25 15:55 Canada
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2024.06.02 09:36 JoshAsdvgi The Foundling who was befriend by Wolves
The Foundling Who Was Befriended by Wolves
The elder of two brothers was very expert at catching eagles.
He would cover a hole with leaves and brush, place on top the carcass of some animal, and hide underneath until an eagle settled on the brush to eat the meat.
Then he would seize the bird’s legs, draw it inside, and kill it.
Once he caught a big red eagle, but not wishing to kill such a bird he let it fly away.
The younger boy now begged permission to catch eagles also.
The elder refused him three times. The fourth time he consented, but warned the lad not to touch a big red eagle.
So the boy concealed himself in the trap.
One of the smaller eagles soared down and began to eat the meat.
The boy caught and killed it without difficulty.
Another settled on the trap, then a third. Those also he killed.
Then came a big red eagle. Forgetting his brother’s warning and tempted by its bright feathers, he seized its wing and tried to drag it down.
The eagle, however, was too strong. It pulled him out of the trap and carried him far away.
His brother looked for him that evening, saw the gaping hole in the trap, and knowing what had happened sat down and wept.
He wept and wept, until he shriveled up and became a tiny baby again.
An old woman who was traveling to one side of a party happened to hear the baby cry.
She picked it up, wrapped it in her blanket, gathered some of the feathers that were strewn about, and hurried on to rejoin her people.
In the party were her ten sons.
As the eldest was pitching his tent that evening, she said to him, “Back yonder on the hill I found a little baby and brought it along with me.
May we sleep in your tent tonight?”
“No”, he answered gruffly. “The child will disturb us too much.”
She approached the second son, the third, the fourth; each rejected her in almost the same words.
Last of all, she approached the tenth and youngest.
“Yes, mother, come in and bring your baby with you.
He will be a little brother to me.”
So the old woman lodged with her youngest son, to whom she gave her eagle feathers.
The years passed by, and her baby grew into a sturdy youth.
One winter the Indians set up their tents beside a large pond and began to scour the countryside for buffalo. Not an animal could they find anywhere.
Before long their supply of food ran low, yet they would not move away, for they still hoped that one or more herds would appear in their neighbourhood.
While they were idly waiting, the chief of the band tried to capture two foxes that had made their dens in the vicinity, but the animals were too cunning for him.
Annoyed at the failure, he sent a crier round the camp to proclaim that the man who brought him their skins might marry one of his daughters.
All the best hunters went out to try their skill but failed — the foxes outwitted every one.
One day the boy brought some sticks into his foster-grandmother’s tent and began to make a bow and arrows.
She said to him, “What are you going to shoot, my grandson?”
“I am going to try for the foxes.”
“Foolish boy. If the best hunters in the camp can’t catch them, you certainly will not succeed.”
“I can at least try. It may be that I can shoot them with my arrows.”
The grandmother only laughed; she said no more.
Unnoticed by anyone in the camp, the boy slipped away the next morning and hid near one of the dens.
A fox emerged and wandered away.
As soon as it disappeared, he planted a circle of pointed sticks around the hole, then hid again and waited.
Not long afterwards the fox returned, spied the watching lad, and darted for its hole.
The sharp sticks pierced its neck and killed it. The boy killed the other fox in exactly the same manner and, concealing the furs under his coat, he started for home.
As he trudged along, snow fell and obliterated his tracks so that no one discovered where he had been.
Outside his tent he stopped, glanced quickly round, and concealed his furs in a heap of firewood.
Then he went inside and sat down without saying a word.
His grandmother looked up and asked:
“Where have you been?”
“Oh, I just went out and caught the foxes.”
She laughed again.
“Oh, but I will prove it,” he said.
And going outside he plucked a few hairs from the furs and brought them in to her.
“You shouldn’t pull the hair out of our dogs,” she said. “The weather is very cold, and they need all their fur.”
Three times he brought in scraps of the fox fur, and each time she declared that he had pulled them out of the dogs.
The fourth time he brought in the furs themselves.
The old woman gazed at them in amazement.
At last she said, “My grandchild, you have been very lucky.
But you are too young to marry one of the chief’s daughters.
You had better give the furs to one of your brothers.”
The boy did not answer.
In the evening she told her younger son what had happened.
Loudly he voiced his praise and said to the boy:
“Don’t give the furs to anyone else.
Take them to the chief yourself.”
At dawn the people discovered that the foxes were missing and informed the chief, who walked through the camp crying before every tent, “Who killed the foxes?”
No one answered him. None of the hunters could produce the furs, and no one thought of the poor orphan lad.
Greatly perplexed, the chief retired to his tent again.
The sun had reached noon when the old woman, concealing the furs under her robe, stole inside the tent and sat down humbly at the right of the door.
The chief looked up and said to his family, “This old woman has never visited me before.
Feed her well, and then let her tell us what she wants.”
They fed her, but instead of announcing why she had come, she quietly slipped through the door and returned home.
“I brought the furs back,” she said to the boy.
“You are such a poor wretched orphan that I was ashamed to tell him.”
Before he could reply, her own son spoke up, “You did wrong, mother.
You should have told the chief.
Go back now and give him the furs.”
The old woman went out slowly.
Presently she returned with her message again undelivered.
He sent her a third time but shame still sealed her lips.
Driven back for the fourth time, she sat with bowed head inside the doorway vainly trying to muster up her courage.
At last she rose to steal outside again but as she stooped to pass through the door, the fox’s tail slipped down into view below her robe.
With one bound the chief pulled it away from her, seized the other fox fur also, and cried, “Now — which of your sons was it that killed them?”
“It was my foster-grandson”, she murmured.
“I was too ashamed to give you the furs before.”
The chief sat down in silence, and his elder daughter turned her face away in disgust. But the younger girl cried out, “If her grandson has killed the foxes, I will marry him.”
So the younger girl returned with the old woman and married the youth, while her sister remained with her father.
Three days passed without incident.
On the fourth, the youth said to his bride, “Tell your father to build the pound higher and to keep a sharp watch, for tomorrow I am going to drive in some buffalo”.
The girl carried his message to her father, who issued the necessary orders to his people.
He was a wise old man and realized that the orphan possessed great medicine-power.
Most of the hunters, however, ridiculed the youth, and the boys in the camp pelted him with clods when he started out at dawn for the hunting grounds.
All that morning the camp waited expectantly.
A party that left before the orphan had returned empty-handed and reported that there was no sign of game. The sun was already low when a watchman excitedly signaled that a large herd of buffalo was approaching the pound, driven by someone he could not distinguish.
It was the orphan, who, having changed himself into a wolf as soon as the camp was out of sight, had rounded up the animals and now in his proper form was herding them toward the corral.
Glowing with pride, the old chief shouted to his followers, “Come and watch my son-in-law drive in the buffalo.”
As the last of the buffalo stampeded into the pound, the Indians closed the barrier, mounted the ramparts, and shot them down.
Not one escaped.
Then they butchered them and divided the meat and hides among all the families in the camp.
Next day the youth drove in more buffalo, and still more on the third day.
At daybreak on the fourth he said to his wife, “Tell your father to strengthen the pound, because in today’s herd will come the biggest animal he has ever seen.
That animal he must reserve for me to kill.”
The herd he drove in that day was even larger than the three earlier ones.
He did not stay to watch the massacre, but retired to his tent, where he ordered his wife to comb and dress her hair.
Then from behind his sleeping place he mysteriously produced two beautiful costumes, one for her and one for himself.
Arraying themselves in these garments, they proceeded to the pound, where the hunters had killed all the buffalo except the giant animal he had specially reserved for his own arrows.
He shot this last buffalo, and his wife carried the meat in a precious otter skin to his tent.
There she disdained to wash the skin, but scornfully threw it away, for now she and her husband were so prosperous that even an otter skin possessed little value in their eyes.
Henceforth the camp recognized the orphan youth as its leader and promptly obeyed whatever commands he issued through the old chief, his father-in-law.
Yet there was one person who hated him — his wife’s older sister, the girl who had scorned him in the days of his poverty.
If her parents offered her meat from any buffalo he had driven into the pound, she flung it to the ground in contempt.
Constantly did she spy on his movements in the hope that her “medicine”, which was a mole, might be able to work him some injury.
Now the youth frequently visited a hilltop above the camp and often slept there.
One day the girl discovered him asleep and sent her mole-spirit to tunnel the ground under his body.
The mole did its work so well that the earth collapsed and precipitated him into a deep pit, from which he could not get out.
Then day after day his sister-in-law climbed the hill and mockingly threw dirt in his face.
In vain he cried for mercy and begged her to help him out, or a t least to tell his people.
She merely derided his misery. Not knowing what had become of him, his people concluded that he had perished.
Even his own wife gave up all hope and went into mourning for him.
Now that they had no one to drive the buffalo into their pound the Indians moved away.
Then a wolf that was prowling for food round the deserted campsite discovered the youth, and howled.
Soon a whole pack gathered about the pit.
The mother wolf said to them:
“Whoever succeeds in extricating this man may take him for her son.”
The animals scratched vigorously, but no sooner had they loosened the earth all around than the old wolf herself caught hold of him and pulled him out.
She adopted him as her son and allowed him to join the wanderings of her pack.
At night, because he no longer owned a blanket, the wolves made a soft mattress for him by spreading their tails together on the ground; but within two or three days they killed a buffalo, whose hide provided him with a warm robe.
This pack of wolves roaming in the vicinity spoiled the hunting of the youth’s people, who set traps to catch them.
But the youth protected his companions by breaking the traps.
The old chief awakened one night and listened to their howling.
“Hark,” he said. “I seem to hear a man calling to those wolves.”
He roused the hunters, who intercepted the pack and seized the youth as he ran in front of it.
The prisoner tried to bite them, but they said, “Don’t bite. You haven’t yet changed to a wolf.”
They then led him quietly home, where he settled down again with his wife and people.
Every night thereafter he lay awake in his tent, listening for the howl of his foster-mother.
For several nights he could not hear it.
Then one day he saw her skin drying outside a hunter’s tent for she had wandered away from the pack and had been caught in a trap.
The youth sent his grandmother to ask for the skin.
When she handed it to him, he grunted over it four times, at the fourth grunt it became a live wolf again.
He set the animal free and it returned to the prairies.
Thus he repaid his debt to his foster-mother.
He now resumed his hunting and rounded up a large herd of buffalo.
As the animals trotted over the plain, he called to a young heifer, “When my arrow strikes you, leap over the rampart of the pound and flee to that tall poplar beyond the hill.
Then lie down and die.”
The Indians slaughtered all the buffalo he drove into the pound except the young heifer, which leaped the rampart and fled over the hill.
The youth shouted to his wife, “Come with me.
We will follow it”.
“Let me go too”, cried his sister-in-law.
“Yes, you may come”, he answered.
So the two women accompanied him to the dead heifer and watched him butcher it.
“There is your load,” he said to his wife. “Carry it to our tent.”
“Give me a load also”, his sister-in-law demanded.
“Yes here is a load for you too.
You can use the intestine of the heifer for your pack-strap.”
The two women started back with their loads but had traveled only a very short distance when the intestine broke and the elder woman’s pack fell to the ground.
While she was retying it, her sister walked on and disappeared over the top of the hill.
Then the youth, who had lingered behind, began to howl like a wolf.
“Why do you howl like that?” his sister-in-law asked anxiously.
Without answering he turned his back to her and howled three times again.
Suddenly a pack of wolves appeared –his foster family.
They pounced on the woman and devoured her.
submitted by JoshAsdvgi to Native_Stories [link] [comments]
The elder of two brothers was very expert at catching eagles.
He would cover a hole with leaves and brush, place on top the carcass of some animal, and hide underneath until an eagle settled on the brush to eat the meat.
Then he would seize the bird’s legs, draw it inside, and kill it.
Once he caught a big red eagle, but not wishing to kill such a bird he let it fly away.
The younger boy now begged permission to catch eagles also.
The elder refused him three times. The fourth time he consented, but warned the lad not to touch a big red eagle.
So the boy concealed himself in the trap.
One of the smaller eagles soared down and began to eat the meat.
The boy caught and killed it without difficulty.
Another settled on the trap, then a third. Those also he killed.
Then came a big red eagle. Forgetting his brother’s warning and tempted by its bright feathers, he seized its wing and tried to drag it down.
The eagle, however, was too strong. It pulled him out of the trap and carried him far away.
His brother looked for him that evening, saw the gaping hole in the trap, and knowing what had happened sat down and wept.
He wept and wept, until he shriveled up and became a tiny baby again.
An old woman who was traveling to one side of a party happened to hear the baby cry.
She picked it up, wrapped it in her blanket, gathered some of the feathers that were strewn about, and hurried on to rejoin her people.
In the party were her ten sons.
As the eldest was pitching his tent that evening, she said to him, “Back yonder on the hill I found a little baby and brought it along with me.
May we sleep in your tent tonight?”
“No”, he answered gruffly. “The child will disturb us too much.”
She approached the second son, the third, the fourth; each rejected her in almost the same words.
Last of all, she approached the tenth and youngest.
“Yes, mother, come in and bring your baby with you.
He will be a little brother to me.”
So the old woman lodged with her youngest son, to whom she gave her eagle feathers.
The years passed by, and her baby grew into a sturdy youth.
One winter the Indians set up their tents beside a large pond and began to scour the countryside for buffalo. Not an animal could they find anywhere.
Before long their supply of food ran low, yet they would not move away, for they still hoped that one or more herds would appear in their neighbourhood.
While they were idly waiting, the chief of the band tried to capture two foxes that had made their dens in the vicinity, but the animals were too cunning for him.
Annoyed at the failure, he sent a crier round the camp to proclaim that the man who brought him their skins might marry one of his daughters.
All the best hunters went out to try their skill but failed — the foxes outwitted every one.
One day the boy brought some sticks into his foster-grandmother’s tent and began to make a bow and arrows.
She said to him, “What are you going to shoot, my grandson?”
“I am going to try for the foxes.”
“Foolish boy. If the best hunters in the camp can’t catch them, you certainly will not succeed.”
“I can at least try. It may be that I can shoot them with my arrows.”
The grandmother only laughed; she said no more.
Unnoticed by anyone in the camp, the boy slipped away the next morning and hid near one of the dens.
A fox emerged and wandered away.
As soon as it disappeared, he planted a circle of pointed sticks around the hole, then hid again and waited.
Not long afterwards the fox returned, spied the watching lad, and darted for its hole.
The sharp sticks pierced its neck and killed it. The boy killed the other fox in exactly the same manner and, concealing the furs under his coat, he started for home.
As he trudged along, snow fell and obliterated his tracks so that no one discovered where he had been.
Outside his tent he stopped, glanced quickly round, and concealed his furs in a heap of firewood.
Then he went inside and sat down without saying a word.
His grandmother looked up and asked:
“Where have you been?”
“Oh, I just went out and caught the foxes.”
She laughed again.
“Oh, but I will prove it,” he said.
And going outside he plucked a few hairs from the furs and brought them in to her.
“You shouldn’t pull the hair out of our dogs,” she said. “The weather is very cold, and they need all their fur.”
Three times he brought in scraps of the fox fur, and each time she declared that he had pulled them out of the dogs.
The fourth time he brought in the furs themselves.
The old woman gazed at them in amazement.
At last she said, “My grandchild, you have been very lucky.
But you are too young to marry one of the chief’s daughters.
You had better give the furs to one of your brothers.”
The boy did not answer.
In the evening she told her younger son what had happened.
Loudly he voiced his praise and said to the boy:
“Don’t give the furs to anyone else.
Take them to the chief yourself.”
At dawn the people discovered that the foxes were missing and informed the chief, who walked through the camp crying before every tent, “Who killed the foxes?”
No one answered him. None of the hunters could produce the furs, and no one thought of the poor orphan lad.
Greatly perplexed, the chief retired to his tent again.
The sun had reached noon when the old woman, concealing the furs under her robe, stole inside the tent and sat down humbly at the right of the door.
The chief looked up and said to his family, “This old woman has never visited me before.
Feed her well, and then let her tell us what she wants.”
They fed her, but instead of announcing why she had come, she quietly slipped through the door and returned home.
“I brought the furs back,” she said to the boy.
“You are such a poor wretched orphan that I was ashamed to tell him.”
Before he could reply, her own son spoke up, “You did wrong, mother.
You should have told the chief.
Go back now and give him the furs.”
The old woman went out slowly.
Presently she returned with her message again undelivered.
He sent her a third time but shame still sealed her lips.
Driven back for the fourth time, she sat with bowed head inside the doorway vainly trying to muster up her courage.
At last she rose to steal outside again but as she stooped to pass through the door, the fox’s tail slipped down into view below her robe.
With one bound the chief pulled it away from her, seized the other fox fur also, and cried, “Now — which of your sons was it that killed them?”
“It was my foster-grandson”, she murmured.
“I was too ashamed to give you the furs before.”
The chief sat down in silence, and his elder daughter turned her face away in disgust. But the younger girl cried out, “If her grandson has killed the foxes, I will marry him.”
So the younger girl returned with the old woman and married the youth, while her sister remained with her father.
Three days passed without incident.
On the fourth, the youth said to his bride, “Tell your father to build the pound higher and to keep a sharp watch, for tomorrow I am going to drive in some buffalo”.
The girl carried his message to her father, who issued the necessary orders to his people.
He was a wise old man and realized that the orphan possessed great medicine-power.
Most of the hunters, however, ridiculed the youth, and the boys in the camp pelted him with clods when he started out at dawn for the hunting grounds.
All that morning the camp waited expectantly.
A party that left before the orphan had returned empty-handed and reported that there was no sign of game. The sun was already low when a watchman excitedly signaled that a large herd of buffalo was approaching the pound, driven by someone he could not distinguish.
It was the orphan, who, having changed himself into a wolf as soon as the camp was out of sight, had rounded up the animals and now in his proper form was herding them toward the corral.
Glowing with pride, the old chief shouted to his followers, “Come and watch my son-in-law drive in the buffalo.”
As the last of the buffalo stampeded into the pound, the Indians closed the barrier, mounted the ramparts, and shot them down.
Not one escaped.
Then they butchered them and divided the meat and hides among all the families in the camp.
Next day the youth drove in more buffalo, and still more on the third day.
At daybreak on the fourth he said to his wife, “Tell your father to strengthen the pound, because in today’s herd will come the biggest animal he has ever seen.
That animal he must reserve for me to kill.”
The herd he drove in that day was even larger than the three earlier ones.
He did not stay to watch the massacre, but retired to his tent, where he ordered his wife to comb and dress her hair.
Then from behind his sleeping place he mysteriously produced two beautiful costumes, one for her and one for himself.
Arraying themselves in these garments, they proceeded to the pound, where the hunters had killed all the buffalo except the giant animal he had specially reserved for his own arrows.
He shot this last buffalo, and his wife carried the meat in a precious otter skin to his tent.
There she disdained to wash the skin, but scornfully threw it away, for now she and her husband were so prosperous that even an otter skin possessed little value in their eyes.
Henceforth the camp recognized the orphan youth as its leader and promptly obeyed whatever commands he issued through the old chief, his father-in-law.
Yet there was one person who hated him — his wife’s older sister, the girl who had scorned him in the days of his poverty.
If her parents offered her meat from any buffalo he had driven into the pound, she flung it to the ground in contempt.
Constantly did she spy on his movements in the hope that her “medicine”, which was a mole, might be able to work him some injury.
Now the youth frequently visited a hilltop above the camp and often slept there.
One day the girl discovered him asleep and sent her mole-spirit to tunnel the ground under his body.
The mole did its work so well that the earth collapsed and precipitated him into a deep pit, from which he could not get out.
Then day after day his sister-in-law climbed the hill and mockingly threw dirt in his face.
In vain he cried for mercy and begged her to help him out, or a t least to tell his people.
She merely derided his misery. Not knowing what had become of him, his people concluded that he had perished.
Even his own wife gave up all hope and went into mourning for him.
Now that they had no one to drive the buffalo into their pound the Indians moved away.
Then a wolf that was prowling for food round the deserted campsite discovered the youth, and howled.
Soon a whole pack gathered about the pit.
The mother wolf said to them:
“Whoever succeeds in extricating this man may take him for her son.”
The animals scratched vigorously, but no sooner had they loosened the earth all around than the old wolf herself caught hold of him and pulled him out.
She adopted him as her son and allowed him to join the wanderings of her pack.
At night, because he no longer owned a blanket, the wolves made a soft mattress for him by spreading their tails together on the ground; but within two or three days they killed a buffalo, whose hide provided him with a warm robe.
This pack of wolves roaming in the vicinity spoiled the hunting of the youth’s people, who set traps to catch them.
But the youth protected his companions by breaking the traps.
The old chief awakened one night and listened to their howling.
“Hark,” he said. “I seem to hear a man calling to those wolves.”
He roused the hunters, who intercepted the pack and seized the youth as he ran in front of it.
The prisoner tried to bite them, but they said, “Don’t bite. You haven’t yet changed to a wolf.”
They then led him quietly home, where he settled down again with his wife and people.
Every night thereafter he lay awake in his tent, listening for the howl of his foster-mother.
For several nights he could not hear it.
Then one day he saw her skin drying outside a hunter’s tent for she had wandered away from the pack and had been caught in a trap.
The youth sent his grandmother to ask for the skin.
When she handed it to him, he grunted over it four times, at the fourth grunt it became a live wolf again.
He set the animal free and it returned to the prairies.
Thus he repaid his debt to his foster-mother.
He now resumed his hunting and rounded up a large herd of buffalo.
As the animals trotted over the plain, he called to a young heifer, “When my arrow strikes you, leap over the rampart of the pound and flee to that tall poplar beyond the hill.
Then lie down and die.”
The Indians slaughtered all the buffalo he drove into the pound except the young heifer, which leaped the rampart and fled over the hill.
The youth shouted to his wife, “Come with me.
We will follow it”.
“Let me go too”, cried his sister-in-law.
“Yes, you may come”, he answered.
So the two women accompanied him to the dead heifer and watched him butcher it.
“There is your load,” he said to his wife. “Carry it to our tent.”
“Give me a load also”, his sister-in-law demanded.
“Yes here is a load for you too.
You can use the intestine of the heifer for your pack-strap.”
The two women started back with their loads but had traveled only a very short distance when the intestine broke and the elder woman’s pack fell to the ground.
While she was retying it, her sister walked on and disappeared over the top of the hill.
Then the youth, who had lingered behind, began to howl like a wolf.
“Why do you howl like that?” his sister-in-law asked anxiously.
Without answering he turned his back to her and howled three times again.
Suddenly a pack of wolves appeared –his foster family.
They pounced on the woman and devoured her.
2024.06.02 09:29 LossLucky4012 what do you think?
I've been working on this story for... 3 months? 4? who knows, with my ability to keep track of time I could have started this yesterday, anyway, this is a story that has sci-fi elements, and some fantasy, although the fantasy stuff is mainly dragons so lets say adventure for now, (cause I don't know shit about genres, I just wrote the story) , Keep in mind, this has been written in free time, of which I don't have a lot, so if you don't like the story it is probably my fault, here is a look at:
“Hello there, James, please forgive us for our caution, but with your kind we can never be too careful.” I can see the scientist, I read his name tag, Dr. Crane William, I roar out
“My kind!? Get me out of these chains!” I breathe fire, claw, kick and swing my tail, trying to free myself, until I see two other people watching, one with weird whiskers, a long tail and a smug look on his face, and the other with a similar appearance to me but her wings are her arms. The next few days go by, until the two finally decide to talk to me, and in those days, My face becomes a snout like a komodo dragon’s, the one with the whiskers opens his mouth first and I already hate him
“Would you look at that, he’s even uglier up close!” I glare at him with absolute hatred, that seems to anger him more,
“What are you mute or something? Speak before I tear you apart!” he takes one step closer and that's all I need, I Bite his shoulder and use his head to break the chains on my right arm, I continue to break the rest of them with ease, and tell whiskers
“You want to fight? Let’s fight!” I leap on top of him, clawing at his face, he tries to slash me with a blade on his tail but I grab it and stab the wall with it, until I feel a burning sensation in my veins, The girl had bitten me! She looks at me with sadness,
“Sorry about this,” I look at her and drift into unconsciousness, when I wake up next I’m in some kind of, medical wing, ha, wing, as I look around I feel that my mouth is bound shut, but other than that, I can move my body, I get up off the gurney and just when I think it looks nice, whiskers shows his face,
“Well thanks a lot freak, now I’m on probation with Dr. Crane.” I motion to my mouth and he seems to have enough brain cells to understand what I mean
“Ha! You got the boot, Lily had that on her when she wouldn’t stop biting staff, I’m Ryan Mist.” I just walk away and try getting this muzzle off, That's when Crane walks in,
“Well, I must say it has been a while since we’ve had to use the boot, Ryan, your behavior was unacceptable!” I can tell that Crane is annoyed, and right as he finishes his sentence, click, the boot falls off my face and clatters to the ground. I don’t bother trying to fight Ryan again, I’m just happy to be able to talk!
“Well that’s a lot better, now, talk, I want answers.” I growl, Crane and Ryan seem surprised that I got the boot off but they talk, turns out, I’m what’s called a dragonkin a Human who has dragon genes in their genome, Lily and Ryan are also dragonkin, although they can’t breath fire, Lily has fangs and a venomous bite, turns out she’s the girl that bit me, and Ryan just looks weird, apparently we are the only dragonkin who evaded the organization that Crane works for, Called ‘Kadmus,’ into adulthood, Lily being found at 22, ryan at 20, and me at 24, on top of that, we are the only dragonkin who have survived that long, it’s at that moment that I notice Lily looking at us from behind some glass, I decide that I’ve heard enough and open the door, and I leave the room.
As I leave the room I can tell that Lily was not expecting me from the look on her face, I start a conversation with her, trying desperately to be friendly and not notice all the scientists glancing at me nervously.
“Hey, Lily, Right?” I say in the friendliest tone I can, “I’m James.” Lily looks at me with a calculating look before answering
“Hello, yeah my name is Lily, Lily Megan.” she clearly is wary of me, but I can tell a few things about her, making herself look small, clearly smarter than she lets on, seems shy,
“How did you get it off?” Lily breaks into my train of thought with the question,
“What?” I ask her, confused,
“The Boot, how did you get it off?” She gestures to the room where Crane and Ryan were having an argument, but more specifically to The Boot, laying on the ground
“Oh that? I once took a lockpicking class when I was younger.” I explain
“Huh, you mind teaching me that sometime?” She catches me off guard with that one, I can tell that she is being genuine so I agree, And we begin working out what time works best.
“Sorry guys, Dillian, isn’t up for it.” Lily looks at me disappointed,
“Aw man, and we're even watching Dune!” I just look at her with a sad look, but Ryan manages to lift the mood a little bit,
“Last time we let Crane pick the movie!” Crane just glares at Ryan, I can tell he’s about to lecture him so I just start the movie, around one hour in, boom, everything is blurry, and there is dust swirling, everything hurts. I see Lily and Ryan helping evacuate the scientists, I don’t see Crane anywhere! But that's when I see it, Cranes lab coat, soaked red and underneath a piece of rubble, I try to run towards it, but I can't stay on my legs, I call out,
“CRANE!” My friends hear me, they rush towards me and they see the lab coat, Lily tears up, Ryan is too stunned to speak, then we hear it, we hear him. Dillian, he’s laughing, laughing at the lab coat, laughing at us, My head snaps toward him, I feel the rage burning, my wings flare out, fire rises in my throat, I grab Dillian by the collar, and I roar,
“Do you think this is funny?!” Dillian just keeps laughing, “Crane is deadI!” Dillian looks at me, and he finally stops laughing, he pushes me off and spikes erupt from his skin, his tail wraps around my throat, and he growls,
“Don’t touch me you cretin, my ancestors were nearly wiped out by yours, I’m just returning the favor.” I look at him confused, Ryan seems to have been just as confused as me because he asked,
“What do you mean? The Eastern long tails have never had an issue with the Flying flame drakes.” Dillian just flicked his wrist and one of the spines shot out and nearly sliced Ryan’s head off!
“Do not compare the Wyrms to those foolish sky beasts! They have ruled the land for centuries!” Dillian roars, at this point I finally manage to choke out,
“Wyrm? Like the dragon inside the mountain Wyrm?” I struggle against his tail, I finally get a claw hooked under it and pull, it takes all of my strength to get my head loose and retreat, and then I see Dillian fully for the first time, pale skin covered in red spines and a long tail that could probably crush a normal humans windpipe, if I wasn’t a dragonkin I’d be dead.
“So, you do have a brain. Indeed, my ancestors were the Wyrms, Masters of the land, and the only dragons to be nearly forgotten by time, if it weren’t for the colony under Australia, I would not be a dragonkin.” Dillian snorts, and after saying his piece he leaped up, dived down, and bore through the earth, I try to go after him, but Lily holds me back,
“James you're hurt, and you would not stand a chance against him in your current state!” I hate to admit it, but it’s true, I would not stand a chance against Dillian, oh man, my leg hurts, I look at my left leg and I see that it has a shard of metal sticking out of it, and then everything feels heavy, I hear Lily yell out my name, but she sounds so far away, I don’t try and fight it, I just let the darkness envelope me, at least in the dark I can’t hurt, when I wake up I’m in the medical wing ha, it’s still funny, I have a bandage around my leg and then it all rushes back to me, Crane’s lab coat, Dillian laughing, the rage, everything, replaying over and over in my mind, I immediately try and stand up and I find a lot of difficulty in that, but I manage to stumble off the bed, I avoid putting weight on my leg, and I use my wings when necessary,
‘Well it’s about time you woke up, and here I was thinking that we had wasted time and resources.” I spin around to see a lady in a suit and glasses looking at me with a look of disdain,
“Hello, I am Dr. Leanne Vern, but you can call me Leanne. I am your new head researcher, I hope you are ready for your next few tests, Dr. Crane wasted a lot of time ‘bonding’ with you.” It’s right as she finishes that sentence when I feel the urge to make it her last, I feel rage burning under my skin and I glare at her with every last ounce of anger possible,
“What.” Either she didn’t get the memo or she is just a jerk, because she did not care, but either way I continued,
“Do you think that now is a good time to either ridicule Crane, or tell me that you need to run tests on me? I am not your lab rat” I grab her collar “I am not something you just get to boss around, If you say something like that again I will send you straight to the underworld where you belong.” I shove her back and go look for Lily and Ryan, I find them in the cafeteria, I get some food and sit down across from them,
“Mind if I sit here?” It clearly lightened the mood, but not even Ryan found the humor to reply, but we started to talk turns out I had been knocked out for two weeks, when I asked about Dillian Ryan tensed up, he explained to me that Dillian goes by ‘Death Wyrm’ now, he’s spent the last two weeks tormenting the city, and eventually I brought up Leanne,
“That Dr. Leanne is a jerk though, when I got out of the medical wing she just introduced herself, told me that she would run some tests and insulted Crane.” Lily seemed to agree because she replied,
“Yeah the first day she got here she told me I was ugly, and had me escorted into the testing chamber and forced me to fly for as long as I could or else I would get shocked.” Upon hearing this I feel rage flare up inside me, I flare out my wings and fly straight towards Leanne's office,
“You threatened Lily with being shocked?! What is wrong with you?” Leanne just looked at me stone faced and told me,
“You dragonkin are nothing but freaks that look interesting, you should not be treated like humans, you are tools.” I just stand there, shocked until the dam just breaks, I roared, I grabbed her by the collar and I slash her face with a claw,
“Tools? TOOLS?! The only tool in here is you! First you insult Crane, someone who died only two weeks ago! Then I learned you threatened one of my friends with a shock if they stopped playing your sick little game!” I feel the fire rise in my throat, I open my mouth, but then I see the look in her eyes, fear, absolute, paralyzing fear, I hesitate, and think to myself, oh my god, what am I doing? I release Leanne and walk out of the room, as I’m leaving I hear Leanne bellow from behind me,
“Where do you think you’re going?” I glare back, I don’t need to answer her, but because I know she will hurt my friends if I don’t I tell her what I’m doing, I explain.
“I’m going after Dillian, don’t try to stop me.” I can tell that Leanne is angry, I can feel her eyes shooting daggers at me, she clearly disagrees with me,
“Oh no you don’t, listen to me you bloated gecko, we did not spend millions tracking you down for you to play superhero!” I just walk away from her and go to the cafeteria to tell Lily and Ryan, they of course freak out at me, saying that I should not go after Dillian, that he’d kill me, and that I should stay here, but I look at them with all of the emotion in the world, I tell them
“Look, I know that Dillian would probably kill me, but I at least might tire him out enough for the police or military to stop him, but it’s more than that, I can’t let him hurt innocent people.” Lily and Ryan look at me, Lily hugs me, and tells me,
“Don’t you dare die or I will kill you.” I look at her, And I say to Ryan,
“I hope she’s joking.” Ryan looks at me and punches my arm,
“You are a good friend man, I hope you live through this.” I look at Ryan and Lily, knowing that this might be the last time I see them, I hug them both, and I flare out my wings and I fly off.
I look at the message and wait for it to continue, until a small piece of paper slips out of the metal box that is the message, when I open it I find out that in the beginning of the dragons, there were supposedly four species, the Flying flame drakes, the Eastern long tails, the Wyverns, and the Wyrms, until the Wyrms struck out, they had felt as though due to there inability to fly, that the other dragons thought less of them, the dragons were forced to lock away the Wyrms deep beneath what would one day be called Australia, and then man arose, and along with them the first dragonkin, Tiamat, a Flying flame dragonkin, as my dad called him, but the humans lived in fear of the dragons, eventually driving them to the bleeding cut edge of extinction using their advancing technology, eventually humans all but forgot about dragons, reducing them to myth or fairy tales. That was more or less all that was written, I committed all of this knowledge to memory, and then I heard a loud boom and some maniacal Dr. Doom esc laughing, I peer out of the window to see Death Wyrm, tormenting people, I leap out of the window and into the air, getting a good angle before dive bombing Death Wyrm, breathing fire on him and slashing him with my claws,
“Hey Dillian, did you miss me?” I laugh, I tried to pull a Ryan and joke myself into feeling confident, and it kinda helped, Death Wyrm roars out in rage,
“Why didn’t you stay out of my way?” He whips his tail up, shooting spines out at me, although thanks to my practice I manage to dodge them, I decide to not make a joke and just stay quiet for now, I remember something a security guard once told me, if the enemy is in range so are you, don’t just talk, actually attack, I know that I am in range for a fireblast but Dillian doesn’t know that, I shout out,
“Those spines must really hurt, but not as much as my claws!” I suddenly make a sharp turn and get in close with my talons, I first duck beneath Death Wyrms hook, and slash at his stomach, I then dodge a spine shot, and quickly follow up and through with a tail whip, knocking him off balance, then quickly blast fire right at his feet, but I didn’t see that Death Wyrms tail had grabbed my leg before it had already thrown me two blocks away, I was getting up when I felt a Burning pain in my arm, when I looked to see, it was one of Death Wyrms spines, It had only penetrated the outermost muscle tissue, I would heal in a few weeks but that doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt like hades, I rip the spine out and breath fire on the wound in order to cauterize it, when I suddenly feel Death Wyrms tail around my throat, choking me, and I am all of a sudden pinned to a wall, with my mouth bound shut, great it’s the boot all over again, I see Death Wyrm, he’s grabbing the spine I ripped out, he walks towards me, and he gives me a small speech,
“You know James, if you weren’t so noble I’d actually have let you join me, I never wanted to kill you, but you leave me no choice.” He lifts the spike up, when all of a sudden he is blasted back seemingly by a freakishly strong gust of wind, wait, that's a thermal updraft, I turn to see the best sight I could have seen, Ryan and Lily! Ryan opens his mouth first and I couldn’t be more thankful for his humor,
“Nobody treats James like that but me!” He then flies into battle riding on a thermal, while Lily freed me, she slices through the binding on my mouth and I immediately ask,
“What are you guys doing here?” Lily opens her mouth to answer but Ryan cuts in with being thrown into a wall
“Me and Lily are saving you, idiot, speaking of which a little help here?” Me and Lilly help Ryan up and we all get ready for a fight, but before we can charge in, Lily hands me a headmic,
“Here put this on,” I do as she says and suddenly Leanne's voice buzzes in through the speaker,
“Well it’s about time,” I am just happy to have some help with knowing my surroundings,
“Whatever happened to ‘we didn’t spend millions tracking you for you to play superhero?’” If Leanne heard me she didn’t answer, I just started to run towards Death Wyrm, before I took off alongside Lily and Ryan, I felt a familiar rage build up in my veins, I allow the rage to drive me forward, I feel the heat, the fire, rushing to every vein in my body, building along with all of the rage in my life, I gather my thoughts, a raging body is good for combat but a raging mind is bad for victory, when this feeling washes over me, I finally feel calm, I feel at peace, I never want this feeling to end, I open my snout, and unleash a twisting, flowing, blooming tunnel of flames,wounding Death Wyrm and distracting him long enough for Ryan to swing in with a bladed tail to his back, followed by Lily, biting into Death wyrms tail, as Death Wyrm roars I dive in and I do something unexpected, I talk to him,
“Dillian, I thought of you as a little brother, but you killed someone I cared about, I am sorry but, we need to take you in.” Death Wyrm roars, he writhes, up until Lily’s venom takes hold and he falls to the ground, defeated, a news reporter had been, well reporting, nearby and walked up to me, and asked me for an interview,
“Under normal circumstances I would agree, but not right now.” I wave as I signal to Ryan, it takes an embarrassingly long time for him to get the hint that I want him to create a thermal under Death Wyrm in order to transport him, but he follows my lead, and before we know it, we are flying toward the Kadmus site, but as we fly, I yell behind me,
“Hey, go ahead, I’ll… I’ll catch up.” Lily looks at me while Ryan just zooms ahead, no questions asked,
“Okay what are you doing?” I just look at her, feeling conflicted about telling her about my dad, for all I know this could get me in trouble, or worse, I make a split second decision,
“I… I think I saw something.” surprisingly it works, I swoop back towards the city and back to my old apartment and I grab the message from my dad, his keycard and the papers, I then fly off with them clenched between my arms and my body, I then fly into the Kadmus site, and discreetly go to my room, in order to hide them, I then get out of the site, and fly back into it acting like nothing happened, and to my surprise, there was a celebration waiting for me, there was cake, and wine, and even a nice Irish whiskey, eventually I asked about Death Wyrm, and turns out he was placed in a secure facility, deep under the site, and that anyone with high enough clearance could go down there, I decide that that is probably for the best.
After the celebration, I go into my room, and pull out the message, I look over it, Dad was a big fan of puzzles, so maybe this message is a puzzle? After several minutes fiddling with it, the message began to whir, and it then showed a place for a fingerprint, gotcha, I placed my thumb on the finger print and it pricked me, like I was getting my blood drawn. After that a key fell out of the message box, and a keyhole on the side, I of course used the key, which then played a different message,
*1 WIP
submitted by LossLucky4012 to writingcritiques [link] [comments]
Dragons wing
I slowly drift from my sleep and think to myself, ow, why is everything warm? I check the thermostat and see that it is at a temperature as cool as Canada and when I turn back to go back to bed so that I can sleep in, I see that my stuff has been knocked over? Oh sorry, where are my manners? I'm James O’Maley, I put everything back into place, and lay down on my bed but nothing is comfortable! I just decide, you know what, whatever, I’m just gonna get ready for work, and with that i get dressed, everything feels harder to put on, but it really hits me when I go to brush my teeth, when I looked into the mirror, I saw that their were, wings on my back, and a tail, growing out my butt like a lizard, I obviously spend several minutes having an existential crisis about this shocking revelation, and I decide to look at what these wings can do, I open a window, crawl out, with some difficulty and some slamming the window on my tail. I go to the edge of the fire escape railing, hop on, and jump, and I flew, higher and higher, until i nearly flew into a mountain but that's when I suddenly breathed fire, from my mouth, and bore a hole straight through the cliffside, I could spend all day flying, breathing fire, and fiddling with my tail, but I began to feel as tired as if I’d just gotten back from lifting weights with tigers, I landed on a cliffside and fell asleep. When I woke up I wasn’t on the cliffside anymore, there were monitors and scientists all around me. I tried to show some sign that I was awake, but I was chained up! I spent several moments struggling to get free, I must be free, I am not something they can chain down! I struggle, I roar, I attempt to move my head enough to burn the surrounding area, but I can’t, until someone finally talks to me,“Hello there, James, please forgive us for our caution, but with your kind we can never be too careful.” I can see the scientist, I read his name tag, Dr. Crane William, I roar out
“My kind!? Get me out of these chains!” I breathe fire, claw, kick and swing my tail, trying to free myself, until I see two other people watching, one with weird whiskers, a long tail and a smug look on his face, and the other with a similar appearance to me but her wings are her arms. The next few days go by, until the two finally decide to talk to me, and in those days, My face becomes a snout like a komodo dragon’s, the one with the whiskers opens his mouth first and I already hate him
“Would you look at that, he’s even uglier up close!” I glare at him with absolute hatred, that seems to anger him more,
“What are you mute or something? Speak before I tear you apart!” he takes one step closer and that's all I need, I Bite his shoulder and use his head to break the chains on my right arm, I continue to break the rest of them with ease, and tell whiskers
“You want to fight? Let’s fight!” I leap on top of him, clawing at his face, he tries to slash me with a blade on his tail but I grab it and stab the wall with it, until I feel a burning sensation in my veins, The girl had bitten me! She looks at me with sadness,
“Sorry about this,” I look at her and drift into unconsciousness, when I wake up next I’m in some kind of, medical wing, ha, wing, as I look around I feel that my mouth is bound shut, but other than that, I can move my body, I get up off the gurney and just when I think it looks nice, whiskers shows his face,
“Well thanks a lot freak, now I’m on probation with Dr. Crane.” I motion to my mouth and he seems to have enough brain cells to understand what I mean
“Ha! You got the boot, Lily had that on her when she wouldn’t stop biting staff, I’m Ryan Mist.” I just walk away and try getting this muzzle off, That's when Crane walks in,
“Well, I must say it has been a while since we’ve had to use the boot, Ryan, your behavior was unacceptable!” I can tell that Crane is annoyed, and right as he finishes his sentence, click, the boot falls off my face and clatters to the ground. I don’t bother trying to fight Ryan again, I’m just happy to be able to talk!
“Well that’s a lot better, now, talk, I want answers.” I growl, Crane and Ryan seem surprised that I got the boot off but they talk, turns out, I’m what’s called a dragonkin a Human who has dragon genes in their genome, Lily and Ryan are also dragonkin, although they can’t breath fire, Lily has fangs and a venomous bite, turns out she’s the girl that bit me, and Ryan just looks weird, apparently we are the only dragonkin who evaded the organization that Crane works for, Called ‘Kadmus,’ into adulthood, Lily being found at 22, ryan at 20, and me at 24, on top of that, we are the only dragonkin who have survived that long, it’s at that moment that I notice Lily looking at us from behind some glass, I decide that I’ve heard enough and open the door, and I leave the room.
As I leave the room I can tell that Lily was not expecting me from the look on her face, I start a conversation with her, trying desperately to be friendly and not notice all the scientists glancing at me nervously.
“Hey, Lily, Right?” I say in the friendliest tone I can, “I’m James.” Lily looks at me with a calculating look before answering
“Hello, yeah my name is Lily, Lily Megan.” she clearly is wary of me, but I can tell a few things about her, making herself look small, clearly smarter than she lets on, seems shy,
“How did you get it off?” Lily breaks into my train of thought with the question,
“What?” I ask her, confused,
“The Boot, how did you get it off?” She gestures to the room where Crane and Ryan were having an argument, but more specifically to The Boot, laying on the ground
“Oh that? I once took a lockpicking class when I was younger.” I explain
“Huh, you mind teaching me that sometime?” She catches me off guard with that one, I can tell that she is being genuine so I agree, And we begin working out what time works best.
The next few weeks go by in a flash, but I’ll summarize it for you, I ended up getting my own room like Ryan and Lily, I start teaching Lily how to pick locks, and we end up having a few game nights where we played games like charades, poker, even monopoly, lets just say that we will never play monopoly again. However, the most important thing of all, we ended up finding another dragonkin! We aren’t sure what dragon ancestor he has, but we think he’s another eastern long tail, like Ryan, the new guy’s name is Dillian, He’s great, absolute goofball, he’s from Australia, and according to him, his family has never been anywhere but the land down under, weird, but the guy’s like a little brother to me, so it’s cool, and that catches you up. “Hey Dillian!” I lean my head into his room, “Wanna come hang out with the rest of us? It’s movie night!” Dillian just looks at me, unreadable,“Okay, your loss.” I try to hide how unnerving that look felt, but something doesn’t feel right. I go back to the lounge, where Ryan, Lily, and Crane are all waiting for me,
“Sorry guys, Dillian, isn’t up for it.” Lily looks at me disappointed,
“Aw man, and we're even watching Dune!” I just look at her with a sad look, but Ryan manages to lift the mood a little bit,
“Last time we let Crane pick the movie!” Crane just glares at Ryan, I can tell he’s about to lecture him so I just start the movie, around one hour in, boom, everything is blurry, and there is dust swirling, everything hurts. I see Lily and Ryan helping evacuate the scientists, I don’t see Crane anywhere! But that's when I see it, Cranes lab coat, soaked red and underneath a piece of rubble, I try to run towards it, but I can't stay on my legs, I call out,
“CRANE!” My friends hear me, they rush towards me and they see the lab coat, Lily tears up, Ryan is too stunned to speak, then we hear it, we hear him. Dillian, he’s laughing, laughing at the lab coat, laughing at us, My head snaps toward him, I feel the rage burning, my wings flare out, fire rises in my throat, I grab Dillian by the collar, and I roar,
“Do you think this is funny?!” Dillian just keeps laughing, “Crane is deadI!” Dillian looks at me, and he finally stops laughing, he pushes me off and spikes erupt from his skin, his tail wraps around my throat, and he growls,
“Don’t touch me you cretin, my ancestors were nearly wiped out by yours, I’m just returning the favor.” I look at him confused, Ryan seems to have been just as confused as me because he asked,
“What do you mean? The Eastern long tails have never had an issue with the Flying flame drakes.” Dillian just flicked his wrist and one of the spines shot out and nearly sliced Ryan’s head off!
“Do not compare the Wyrms to those foolish sky beasts! They have ruled the land for centuries!” Dillian roars, at this point I finally manage to choke out,
“Wyrm? Like the dragon inside the mountain Wyrm?” I struggle against his tail, I finally get a claw hooked under it and pull, it takes all of my strength to get my head loose and retreat, and then I see Dillian fully for the first time, pale skin covered in red spines and a long tail that could probably crush a normal humans windpipe, if I wasn’t a dragonkin I’d be dead.
“So, you do have a brain. Indeed, my ancestors were the Wyrms, Masters of the land, and the only dragons to be nearly forgotten by time, if it weren’t for the colony under Australia, I would not be a dragonkin.” Dillian snorts, and after saying his piece he leaped up, dived down, and bore through the earth, I try to go after him, but Lily holds me back,
“James you're hurt, and you would not stand a chance against him in your current state!” I hate to admit it, but it’s true, I would not stand a chance against Dillian, oh man, my leg hurts, I look at my left leg and I see that it has a shard of metal sticking out of it, and then everything feels heavy, I hear Lily yell out my name, but she sounds so far away, I don’t try and fight it, I just let the darkness envelope me, at least in the dark I can’t hurt, when I wake up I’m in the medical wing ha, it’s still funny, I have a bandage around my leg and then it all rushes back to me, Crane’s lab coat, Dillian laughing, the rage, everything, replaying over and over in my mind, I immediately try and stand up and I find a lot of difficulty in that, but I manage to stumble off the bed, I avoid putting weight on my leg, and I use my wings when necessary,
‘Well it’s about time you woke up, and here I was thinking that we had wasted time and resources.” I spin around to see a lady in a suit and glasses looking at me with a look of disdain,
“Hello, I am Dr. Leanne Vern, but you can call me Leanne. I am your new head researcher, I hope you are ready for your next few tests, Dr. Crane wasted a lot of time ‘bonding’ with you.” It’s right as she finishes that sentence when I feel the urge to make it her last, I feel rage burning under my skin and I glare at her with every last ounce of anger possible,
“What.” Either she didn’t get the memo or she is just a jerk, because she did not care, but either way I continued,
“Do you think that now is a good time to either ridicule Crane, or tell me that you need to run tests on me? I am not your lab rat” I grab her collar “I am not something you just get to boss around, If you say something like that again I will send you straight to the underworld where you belong.” I shove her back and go look for Lily and Ryan, I find them in the cafeteria, I get some food and sit down across from them,
“Mind if I sit here?” It clearly lightened the mood, but not even Ryan found the humor to reply, but we started to talk turns out I had been knocked out for two weeks, when I asked about Dillian Ryan tensed up, he explained to me that Dillian goes by ‘Death Wyrm’ now, he’s spent the last two weeks tormenting the city, and eventually I brought up Leanne,
“That Dr. Leanne is a jerk though, when I got out of the medical wing she just introduced herself, told me that she would run some tests and insulted Crane.” Lily seemed to agree because she replied,
“Yeah the first day she got here she told me I was ugly, and had me escorted into the testing chamber and forced me to fly for as long as I could or else I would get shocked.” Upon hearing this I feel rage flare up inside me, I flare out my wings and fly straight towards Leanne's office,
“You threatened Lily with being shocked?! What is wrong with you?” Leanne just looked at me stone faced and told me,
“You dragonkin are nothing but freaks that look interesting, you should not be treated like humans, you are tools.” I just stand there, shocked until the dam just breaks, I roared, I grabbed her by the collar and I slash her face with a claw,
“Tools? TOOLS?! The only tool in here is you! First you insult Crane, someone who died only two weeks ago! Then I learned you threatened one of my friends with a shock if they stopped playing your sick little game!” I feel the fire rise in my throat, I open my mouth, but then I see the look in her eyes, fear, absolute, paralyzing fear, I hesitate, and think to myself, oh my god, what am I doing? I release Leanne and walk out of the room, as I’m leaving I hear Leanne bellow from behind me,
“Where do you think you’re going?” I glare back, I don’t need to answer her, but because I know she will hurt my friends if I don’t I tell her what I’m doing, I explain.
“I’m going after Dillian, don’t try to stop me.” I can tell that Leanne is angry, I can feel her eyes shooting daggers at me, she clearly disagrees with me,
“Oh no you don’t, listen to me you bloated gecko, we did not spend millions tracking you down for you to play superhero!” I just walk away from her and go to the cafeteria to tell Lily and Ryan, they of course freak out at me, saying that I should not go after Dillian, that he’d kill me, and that I should stay here, but I look at them with all of the emotion in the world, I tell them
“Look, I know that Dillian would probably kill me, but I at least might tire him out enough for the police or military to stop him, but it’s more than that, I can’t let him hurt innocent people.” Lily and Ryan look at me, Lily hugs me, and tells me,
“Don’t you dare die or I will kill you.” I look at her, And I say to Ryan,
“I hope she’s joking.” Ryan looks at me and punches my arm,
“You are a good friend man, I hope you live through this.” I look at Ryan and Lily, knowing that this might be the last time I see them, I hug them both, and I flare out my wings and I fly off.
As I sped off towards Dillian, no, Death Wyrm, he stopped being Dillian when he killed Dr. Crane, one thought was going through my mind, am I going to survive this? It doesn’t really matter, as long as Death Wyrm gets what he deserves, when I arrive in the city I look around from above first, I decide to stop by my old apartment, I remember when My dad helped me find this place before he died, it has looked weird since I had my stuff moved into my room at the Kadmus site, I decide to sit down on the floor, when all of a sudden I hear a click and a secret safe opens from the wall. Inside I find a video message to me from my dad, along with an envelope, with the words for when I’m gone written on it, I look through the envelope and I find an old Kadmus keycard for my dad, so that's what his work was, I knew he was secretive but damn, A few other papers that talk about dragons, turns out, Kadmus had been looking into the dragons for years, although these papers are odd, as if my dad had prior knowledge of the dragons. The ball drops when I play the video message it says,>Hello, James, if you are watching this then I’m probably dead. In the envelope that you have found alongside this message, there is also my old keycard, it will give you full access to any Kadmus site. Along with my personal notes on the Flying flame drakes, the Eastern long tails, the Wyverns, and some vague knowledge of a supposed fourth dragon species, including some vague diet, and possible weaknesses, but if you’ve already read them, then that means you have seen that the Flying flame drake notes are more definitive, that’s because I am also a dragonkin, I only inherited physical strength from our ancestors, but I have a feeling you will have more characteristics, but I am saying this because you need to know the history behind our ancestors, and the rest.<
I look at the message and wait for it to continue, until a small piece of paper slips out of the metal box that is the message, when I open it I find out that in the beginning of the dragons, there were supposedly four species, the Flying flame drakes, the Eastern long tails, the Wyverns, and the Wyrms, until the Wyrms struck out, they had felt as though due to there inability to fly, that the other dragons thought less of them, the dragons were forced to lock away the Wyrms deep beneath what would one day be called Australia, and then man arose, and along with them the first dragonkin, Tiamat, a Flying flame dragonkin, as my dad called him, but the humans lived in fear of the dragons, eventually driving them to the bleeding cut edge of extinction using their advancing technology, eventually humans all but forgot about dragons, reducing them to myth or fairy tales. That was more or less all that was written, I committed all of this knowledge to memory, and then I heard a loud boom and some maniacal Dr. Doom esc laughing, I peer out of the window to see Death Wyrm, tormenting people, I leap out of the window and into the air, getting a good angle before dive bombing Death Wyrm, breathing fire on him and slashing him with my claws,
“Hey Dillian, did you miss me?” I laugh, I tried to pull a Ryan and joke myself into feeling confident, and it kinda helped, Death Wyrm roars out in rage,
“Why didn’t you stay out of my way?” He whips his tail up, shooting spines out at me, although thanks to my practice I manage to dodge them, I decide to not make a joke and just stay quiet for now, I remember something a security guard once told me, if the enemy is in range so are you, don’t just talk, actually attack, I know that I am in range for a fireblast but Dillian doesn’t know that, I shout out,
“Those spines must really hurt, but not as much as my claws!” I suddenly make a sharp turn and get in close with my talons, I first duck beneath Death Wyrms hook, and slash at his stomach, I then dodge a spine shot, and quickly follow up and through with a tail whip, knocking him off balance, then quickly blast fire right at his feet, but I didn’t see that Death Wyrms tail had grabbed my leg before it had already thrown me two blocks away, I was getting up when I felt a Burning pain in my arm, when I looked to see, it was one of Death Wyrms spines, It had only penetrated the outermost muscle tissue, I would heal in a few weeks but that doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt like hades, I rip the spine out and breath fire on the wound in order to cauterize it, when I suddenly feel Death Wyrms tail around my throat, choking me, and I am all of a sudden pinned to a wall, with my mouth bound shut, great it’s the boot all over again, I see Death Wyrm, he’s grabbing the spine I ripped out, he walks towards me, and he gives me a small speech,
“You know James, if you weren’t so noble I’d actually have let you join me, I never wanted to kill you, but you leave me no choice.” He lifts the spike up, when all of a sudden he is blasted back seemingly by a freakishly strong gust of wind, wait, that's a thermal updraft, I turn to see the best sight I could have seen, Ryan and Lily! Ryan opens his mouth first and I couldn’t be more thankful for his humor,
“Nobody treats James like that but me!” He then flies into battle riding on a thermal, while Lily freed me, she slices through the binding on my mouth and I immediately ask,
“What are you guys doing here?” Lily opens her mouth to answer but Ryan cuts in with being thrown into a wall
“Me and Lily are saving you, idiot, speaking of which a little help here?” Me and Lilly help Ryan up and we all get ready for a fight, but before we can charge in, Lily hands me a headmic,
“Here put this on,” I do as she says and suddenly Leanne's voice buzzes in through the speaker,
“Well it’s about time,” I am just happy to have some help with knowing my surroundings,
“Whatever happened to ‘we didn’t spend millions tracking you for you to play superhero?’” If Leanne heard me she didn’t answer, I just started to run towards Death Wyrm, before I took off alongside Lily and Ryan, I felt a familiar rage build up in my veins, I allow the rage to drive me forward, I feel the heat, the fire, rushing to every vein in my body, building along with all of the rage in my life, I gather my thoughts, a raging body is good for combat but a raging mind is bad for victory, when this feeling washes over me, I finally feel calm, I feel at peace, I never want this feeling to end, I open my snout, and unleash a twisting, flowing, blooming tunnel of flames,wounding Death Wyrm and distracting him long enough for Ryan to swing in with a bladed tail to his back, followed by Lily, biting into Death wyrms tail, as Death Wyrm roars I dive in and I do something unexpected, I talk to him,
“Dillian, I thought of you as a little brother, but you killed someone I cared about, I am sorry but, we need to take you in.” Death Wyrm roars, he writhes, up until Lily’s venom takes hold and he falls to the ground, defeated, a news reporter had been, well reporting, nearby and walked up to me, and asked me for an interview,
“Under normal circumstances I would agree, but not right now.” I wave as I signal to Ryan, it takes an embarrassingly long time for him to get the hint that I want him to create a thermal under Death Wyrm in order to transport him, but he follows my lead, and before we know it, we are flying toward the Kadmus site, but as we fly, I yell behind me,
“Hey, go ahead, I’ll… I’ll catch up.” Lily looks at me while Ryan just zooms ahead, no questions asked,
“Okay what are you doing?” I just look at her, feeling conflicted about telling her about my dad, for all I know this could get me in trouble, or worse, I make a split second decision,
“I… I think I saw something.” surprisingly it works, I swoop back towards the city and back to my old apartment and I grab the message from my dad, his keycard and the papers, I then fly off with them clenched between my arms and my body, I then fly into the Kadmus site, and discreetly go to my room, in order to hide them, I then get out of the site, and fly back into it acting like nothing happened, and to my surprise, there was a celebration waiting for me, there was cake, and wine, and even a nice Irish whiskey, eventually I asked about Death Wyrm, and turns out he was placed in a secure facility, deep under the site, and that anyone with high enough clearance could go down there, I decide that that is probably for the best.
After the celebration, I go into my room, and pull out the message, I look over it, Dad was a big fan of puzzles, so maybe this message is a puzzle? After several minutes fiddling with it, the message began to whir, and it then showed a place for a fingerprint, gotcha, I placed my thumb on the finger print and it pricked me, like I was getting my blood drawn. After that a key fell out of the message box, and a keyhole on the side, I of course used the key, which then played a different message,
Hello James, and I know it's you who will be watching this, at the time of making this message I am about to help you “find” an apartment, this is one that will only play for other people if you give them access and get a blood sample, the key you used is a one of a kind, and allows you full access to pre-recorded messages, and answers for certain questions, I hope that there will come a time when you don’t need it, but, knowing you, you will probably forget what the messages say within an hour, but anyway, I hope that this helps you greatly, here is a list of topics that the message box can give you data on.< The video then becomes like an interactable encyclopedia, where I can read the list at my own pace, I skim through it before my eyes lock on one entry, Dr. Crane Williams, I open the entry and i read about Crane, turns out, he was my fathers research partner and close friend, and the two of them met in college because they had managed to win a competition that landed them tuition for any college of their choosing, and they became friends after my dad stopped somebody from messing with Crane, there was a whole lot more there about Cranes upbringing, his family, his education, but I had to cut it short when Leanne entered my room, unannounced,
“What are you doing?” She glared, in her usual condescending tone, I am not in the mood for this “Jump off a cliff.” I growl, as I tuck the message away, but she sees it, and by the look on her face she could tell what I was looking at, “Let me guess, a message you don’t want anybody seeing?” I hate her but damn it she can connect the dots well, “Was it obvious?” I don’t bother denying it, she’ll just be a jerk about it, “No, I’m just used to being lied to, who's the message from?” Leanne nods at the message box,“It’s from my dad, he apparently worked at Kadmus and was friends with Crane.” The fact that my dad both worked ant Kadmus and was friends with crane seem to shock her, what’s really shocking though is what she asks next,
“Was your dad by chance Shane O’Maley?” I look at her, confused, “He was, why?” Leanne immediately seems to get shell shock, as she starts to geek out, “James your father was pretty much science royalty, I would have done anything to speak to him, oh my god I insulted the dead friend of Shane O’Maley, and of his son!” I feel angry that she brought that up again, but now feels like I can get something good out of this, “Ok I’ll make you a deal, if you only do tests with me and the other dragonkin willing to do so, and make sure not to do things like threatening to shock us if we don’t do what you want, I’ll tell you stories about my dad, deal?” It was almost impressive how quickly she answered,“Deal! Shock threats, exhaustion tests, and anything else like that is gone!” I am really happy that I can do stuff like that. That is the best ability ever.*1
*1 WIP
2024.06.02 09:04 Stage-Piercing727 Best Adidas Military Boots
 | submitted by Stage-Piercing727 to u/Stage-Piercing727 [link] [comments] https://preview.redd.it/ksqpmrymx34d1.jpg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9003ccf9dd52ba566b28da28a6fd021a6d147f80 Get ready to dive into the world of Adidas Military Boots as we bring you the ultimate guide to these versatile, rugged footwear! Explore a variety of styles, materials, and features that make these boots stand out in the market. Discover the perfect pair for your outdoor adventures or everyday wear. The Top 15 Best Adidas Military Boots
Reviews🔗Under Armour Stellar G2 Tactical Boots: Breathable, Waterproof, and Comfortable for Long Shiftshttps://preview.redd.it/kwodysjnx34d1.jpg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=65d7d7fc3e1ac79c31166f9ee1df237ac5be4787 Imagine slogging through a muddy construction site or trekking through a wet forest without feeling a single drop of water on your feet. That's the promise of the Under Armour Stellar G2 Waterproof Tactical Boots. I've tried these babies myself and let me tell you, they've been a game-changer. First things first, the outer material is 100% leather, giving these boots a rugged, durable feel that can withstand any challenge I throw at them. But the real standout feature? The waterproofing. I'll admit, I was skeptical at first, but these boots kept my feet dry in the dampest conditions, making them a reliable companion on any outdoor excursion. Now, I did notice a little issue with the traction on these bad boys. They tend to slip on some surfaces, which can be a bit of a hazard in certain situations. But that's a small price to pay for the overall comfort and protection these boots provide. Speaking of comfort, the die-cut EVA footbed and molded EVA, TPU shank make for a cushioned, supportive experience, even during long shifts. As for the aesthetics, these boots are no slouch. The sleek, black design exudes an air of professionalism, which is always a bonus when you're working on a job site. But remember, always prioritize function over form. In conclusion, the Under Armour Stellar G2 Waterproof Tactical Boots are a solid choice for anyone looking for reliable, waterproof footwear. Just remember to keep an eye on the traction and you're good to go. 🔗Under Armour Men's Stellar G2 6" Tactical Boots - Breathable & Odor-Resistanthttps://preview.redd.it/j9kcesznx34d1.jpg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3d60b4ad770dca17db30decfcfab84b5b4c7afce I recently got a pair of Under Armour Men's Stellar G2 6" Tactical Boots and they exceeded my expectations in terms of comfort and design. The light and breathable textile upper with full-grain polishable leather forefoot provided a great balance of durability and flexibility. I loved the molded Contoura Support anti-odor footbed with shock-absorbing foam as it made long walks a breeze, even without insoles. The molded EVA midsole cushioning with reinforced TPU shank gave me excellent protection and support, keeping my feet comfortable all day. Moreover, the oil- and slip-resistant high-traction rubber lug outsole offered a solid grip on various surfaces. However, there were a few aspects that I found disappointing. Firstly, the front and back pull loops made the on/off process a bit difficult for me. Secondly, my previous pair of tactical boots felt more comfortable due to their thickness and weather resistance. Lastly, the size of the boots was somewhat small, so I had to go up one size. Despite the minor drawbacks, I'd definitely recommend these boots to anyone looking for a comfortable and stylish pair of tactical boots. 🔗Salomon Forces 4D GTX Tactical Hiking Boots for Menhttps://preview.redd.it/odw8viaox34d1.jpg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5e6d3597ecd9c271c58efbeef0a8533f567b9f3c The quest for the perfect tactical shoe has led me to the Salomon Forces Men Quest 4D GTX 2 EN. With a sleek design and plenty of features to make my treks more comfortable, I've been putting these boots through the paces. One of the most noticeable features in this shoe is its dual-density midsole, which provides superior cushioning, stability, and motion control. The EVA foam in these boots is high-performance, offering excellent shock attenuation as I hike through various terrains. The nonreflective materials make these shoes perfect for tactical use, as they're always discrete and blended in with the environment. The soft, breathable lining of this shoe has been a game-changer in terms of moisture-wicking foot comfort. The gusseted tongue design prevented debris from entering the shoe, keeping the tongue centered and eliminating the need for constant adjustments. It's a great feature to have, especially when I'm trudging through mud or over uneven ground. In terms of fit, the molded OrthoLite sockliner matched the contours of my foot, providing a snug and comfortable fit. The ISO 20344:2011 puncture-resistant sole also made me feel more secure when navigating through rough terrain. While I love the ventilation, ankle support, water resistance, and other features of these boots, there are some minor downsides. The traction, although solid, could be better in some situations. Also, the regular lacing system can be a bit tedious, especially when I need to quickly tie and untie the boots. Overall, the Salomon Forces Men Quest 4D GTX 2 EN has been a great addition to my outdoor gear collection. It provides comfort and support during my hikes and tactical missions, making it a reliable tool for the job. While there are some minor issues, the benefits of these boots far outweigh the drawbacks. 🔗Authentic U.S. G.I. Mickey Mouse Winter Boots for Men and Kids - Unused and Affordablehttps://preview.redd.it/fev074rox34d1.jpg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=46243200ad5989c69607a8b9765cd355bfccfff7 When I first heard about these Mickey Mouse boots, I was intrigued by their distinctive design paired with their military origins. So, I decided to give them a shot while embarking on a snowmobiling adventure. As I strapped them on, I was initially surprised by how heavy they were. But once I stepped into the deep snow, I immediately comprehended the weight's significance - it signified the durability and robustness of these boots. The wool and waterproof exterior managed to keep my feet warm and dry even in the harsh subzero temperatures. However, their unique design did catch quite a few stares, but hey, it's not every day someone's feet are decked out like a set of Mickey Mouse ears. Overall, these boots delivered the expected functionality, even though they made me look like a walking Disney attraction. 🔗Comfortable Lightweight Adidas Military Boots - Rugged & Stylish Outdoor Footwearhttps://preview.redd.it/aqho352px34d1.jpg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=64acbf040daa1f8310fd1ed0ac24a92b13c8e9c8 When I first tried on the Men's Stellar G2 Tactical Boots from Under Armour, I was impressed by the lightweight feel and the durable leather forefoot. The high traction rubber lug outsole definitely came in handy during my daily walks in different surfaces, providing me with a firm grip. However, after a few weeks of regular use, I noticed that the zipper started to malfunction, making it difficult to take the boots off or put them on. Despite this inconvenience, the style of the boots and their overall comfort were definitely attractive features. 🔗Adidas Terrex Snowpitch COLD.RDY Hiking Boots - Lightweight, Insulated, and Weather-Resistanthttps://preview.redd.it/jbn0aggpx34d1.jpg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9382c65039c9d4ca0f1e1ab45e2682c8b0577b45 Recently, I had the chance to try out the Adidas Terrex Snowpitch COLD. RDY hiking boots, and I must say, I was impressed. The leather upper has a stylish and long-lasting appeal, while the insulated and water-repellent COLD. RDY technology kept my feet warm and dry in any weather. One feature I particularly enjoyed was the textile innersole that added extra comfort to my feet. The hiking boots also offered great support and traction, making them perfect for my outdoor adventures. However, I did notice that the rubber outsole was a bit tricky to clean. Overall, I highly recommend these boots for fellow outdoor enthusiasts who are looking for a reliable and comfortable pair. 🔗Adidas Terrex Heron Mid Hiking Boot with PrimaLoft Insulation - Waterproof and Climaproof Shoeshttps://preview.redd.it/ydgrxurpx34d1.jpg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0101a453d256d0b5483c15d12630f8ca72393154 Over the past few weeks, I've been using the Adidas Terrex Heron Mid CW CP PrimaLoft Hiking Boots in my daily life. These boots have been a reliable companion on my hikes, providing both comfort and protection from the elements. One of the standout features is the waterproof and climaproof construction, keeping my feet dry even in the wettest conditions. The PrimaLoft insulation material is another highlight, providing extra warmth in colder temperatures. One aspect that I found impressive is the Stealth rubber outsole, which offers unbeatable grip on slippery or icy ground. This feature, combined with the mid-height cuff, ensures that I'm always stable on any trail I encounter. However, there were also some downsides to my experience. The boots seem to run a bit large, which may cause some unwanted bulk for people with narrow or standard-width feet. Additionally, the lacing system can be a bit finicky, requiring a bit more effort to get the fit just right. In conclusion, the Adidas Terrex Heron Mid CW CP PrimaLoft Hiking Boots have been a reliable companion on my hikes, providing both comfort and protection. The waterproof and insulated features are especially noteworthy, but potential buyers should be aware of the sizing issues and the need for a snug fit. 🔗Ultra-Comfortable Military Boots by Under Armourhttps://preview.redd.it/ju6h9q5qx34d1.jpg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=92dbe23427d929eae9d5f50713e4d68daded76df Experience the ultimate blend of comfort and durability with the Under Armour Tac Loadout Boots. These boots are crafted with 100% synthetic materials, boasting a rubber sole that provides unbeatable traction on any surface. Under Armour's mission to innovate extends to these boots, as they feature ultralight Micro G EVA inner midsoles for all-day comfort and quick-dry materials to keep your feet dry throughout the day. Designed for various environments and challenges, the Tac Loadout Boots are equipped with durable uppers made from roughout leather and Cordura nylon, ensuring they withstand rough use day after day. The Vibram outsole with MegaGrip rubber provides excellent grip, while the heel tabs make it easy to slide in and out of the boots. I had the chance to test these boots, and I couldn't be more impressed. The lightweight and supportive design is perfect for long marches, and the breathable material keeps my feet from getting overheated. Although the soles may take time to break in, their comfort and durability make them well worth the effort. One small concern is that the boots could use better toe protection, especially for those in demanding environments. Overall, the Under Armour Tac Loadout Boots are an excellent choice for anyone seeking a reliable, comfortable, and versatile pair of boots. With their innovative design and superior performance, these boots are perfect for tackling any challenge that comes your way. 🔗Adidas Terrex Unity Leather Mid Hiking Shoes - Water-Repellent and Durablehttps://preview.redd.it/58po4xjqx34d1.jpg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3d5e49287e44d4f4ec3785a2641da09371d14ff4 I recently had the opportunity to try out the Adidas Terrex Unity Leather Mid RAIN. RDY hiking shoes, and I must say, I was impressed. The nubuck leather upper felt sturdy and durable, while the lugged outsole provided excellent grip on various surfaces. Despite being marketed as water-repellent, the shoes didn't seem to get wet easily during my outdoor adventures. The EVA midsole was comfortable, especially for those long hikes. However, I did find the lace closure a bit fiddly at times. Overall, the Adidas Terrex hiking shoes were a solid choice for those looking for a reliable, durable, and comfortable pair of shoes for their outdoor excursions. 🔗Adidas Tactical ADV: Cushioned Snowboarding Boots with Responsive Boost Midsolehttps://preview.redd.it/qk6gbp0rx34d1.jpg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b2ae09fabbbfd38aca1d84caeed653133e34033f Over the past few weeks, I've been putting the Adidas Tactical ADV 2021 Snowboard Boots through their paces in the slopes near my home. Let me tell you, these boots have been a game-changer in my snowboarding adventures. They're incredibly comfortable, and I appreciate how the textile upper and heat-moldable Ultralon foam liner work together to make these boots feel like an extension of my feet. One of my favorite features is the boot lacing system; it's so user-friendly that I can easily adjust the fit on the go. The rubber outsole provides great traction on those icy slopes, while the responsive Boost midsole ensures a cushioned ride that keeps my feet feeling fresh even after a long day on the mountain. That being said, there are a few minor drawbacks. While I love the boot's versatility, I found the sizing to be a bit on the larger side. I'd recommend going down a half-size for a better fit. Additionally, the boots tend to wear out faster than I'd like, but I suppose that's the price we pay for such comfortable and responsive footwear. Overall, the Adidas Tactical ADV 2021 Snowboard Boots are a worthy investment for snowboarding enthusiasts. They offer a perfect balance of comfort, performance, and style that's hard to beat in the world of snowboarding footwear. 🔗High-Performance Oakley Field Assault Boots: Comfort, Durability, and Stylehttps://preview.redd.it/krskbgdrx34d1.jpg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dd39befd7e4bef4c5acda297238605c859382da5 My experience with the Oakley Field Assault Boot (Coyote) has been a positive one. The durability of this boot is top-notch, thanks to the 1000-denier Cordura and suede upper. This lightweight and breathable material also adds to the overall comfort of the boot. The Vibram rubber lug outsole is a standout feature, providing impressive traction and stability, even in the harshest conditions. The molded EVA insert and injection polyurethane midsole ensure comfort for long periods and even absorb shock effectively. The braided nylon laces are sturdy and provide a secure fit, but they could use some reinforcement to last longer. In terms of pros, the Oakley Field Assault Boot offers unparalleled durability, comfort, and traction. Cons include the thinness of the laces and the stiffness around the ankle. Overall, this military-style boot stands out for its performance and sleek design. 🔗Adidas Eastrail 2.0 Mid RAIN.RDY Black Waterproof Hiking Shoes with Enhanced Durabilityhttps://preview.redd.it/5tqqbuqrx34d1.jpg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bd51bd6cc7d3a3efe0574f667f24bf76bfc3973f I have been using the Adidas Eastrail 2.0 Mid RAIN. RDY shoes in my daily adventures, and I must say it has been quite an experience up until now. When it comes to the aesthetics, the shoes have a unique and edgy design, especially in the green color I ordered. The size 48 fits me perfectly, and I'm glad Adidas gave me the option to select the right size for myself. One thing that stood out to me right off the bat is the lace-up fastening. It wasn't difficult at all to tie the shoes, and they stayed securely on my feet throughout the day. The mesh upper and synthetic reinforcements made by recycled material have proven to be quite durable, even during rainy days. On the negative side, the EVA midsole felt a little bit uncomfortable after prolonged usage. It seemed to me like my feet wouldn't dry quickly during the rainy seasons, which I guess could be due to the material they're made from. Overall, I would say the Adidas Eastrail 2.0 Mid RAIN. RDY shoes are a decent choice for those looking for waterproof hiking boots with a modern edge. While there are a couple of cons that I've personally experienced, I'm willing to give them another shot and see if they hold up in various weather conditions. 🔗Under Armour Men's Coyote Micro G Valsetz Mid Tactical Boots - Lightweight & Breathablehttps://preview.redd.it/wdgh9m7sx34d1.jpg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8f421723e651abf08e0f9920609a14db9d0a220f The Under Armour Coyote Micro G Valsetz Mid Tactical Boots have been a game-changer for me. The first thing I noticed was how lightweight they were – a real plus when you're on your feet for long periods. The synthetic leather and nylon upper felt not only soft but also breathable, which was a major plus during those sweltering summer days. One of the key features that stood out for me was the oil- and slip-resistant rubber lug outsole. I work in an environment where there's a lot of dirt and wet surfaces, and these boots really helped me stay grounded, literally. The full-length Micro G foam midsole added a level of cushioning that made my long hours on the job much more comfortable. However, there was one downside – one that I couldn't help but notice after a while. The boots wore down more quickly than I expected, given their price point. But that's a minor issue when you consider the overall level of comfort and support these boots offer. In the end, the Under Armour Coyote Micro G Valsetz Mid Tactical Boots earned a spot in my everyday rotation. They're like a reliable companion on those long, challenging days at work. Highly recommended for anyone who spends a lot of time on their feet. 🔗Under Armour Military Boots: Lightweight Tactical Footwear with Enhanced Comfort and Tractionhttps://preview.redd.it/gmlkcaksx34d1.jpg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=811bb34d44fa41340675c3f1e66e598eac68ff0e The Under Armour Men's Micro G Valsetz Tactical Boots are an excellent addition to any tactical gear collection. With their lightweight synthetic leather and textile upper, these boots are both durable and breathable, making them the perfect choice for those long days on the job. The welded forefoot overlay and molded TPU toe cap provide added protection, ensuring your feet are secure and well-protected at all times. The easy on/off features of these boots, with pull loops on the heel and tongue, make them a breeze to slip on and off, even after a long day on your feet. The anti-fatigue and anti-microbial molded Contoura Support footbed provides all-day comfort, absorbing shock and keeping your feet feeling great even after hours of use. The upgraded outsole, with its durable oil and slip-resistant rubber compound, ensures that you have the traction you need to stay on your feet, even in the most challenging of environments. The full-length Micro G foam midsole provides the ultimate in responsive cushioning, making these boots a standout choice for those who spend their days on their feet. 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2024.06.02 06:01 Choice_Evidence1983 AIO: I feel like a Dad a the daycare I work at is hitting on me (20f)
I am NOT OOP, OOP is u/EffectiveRepair8231
Originally posted to AmIOverreacting
AIO: I feel like a Dad a the daycare I work at is hitting on me (20f)
Trigger Warning: sexual assault, stalking, sexual harassment, mentions of CSA
Original Post: May 20, 2024
Hi! I work at a daycare, and I’ve noticed that one of the children's parents always makes inappropriate comments to me. At first, I thought he was just one of those people who always compliment others or that he just wanted to have a friendly relationship with his kids' educators, but now I think it’s more than that.
During my first weeks there, I was always assigned to his younger daughter’s group (the babies), so I would see him often. At first, it was brief friendly talk, but it really escalated when I started working with the older kids (4-year-olds). His other daughter, let’s call her Emmy, and I clicked right away when we found out we’re birthday twins. She always wants me to play with her and asks for hugs literally every two minutes. Whenever her dad comes to pick up his kids, she always makes sure to give me a big hug and tells her dad that we’re best friends.
Last month, Emmy’s dad and I ran into each other at the grocery store and started small talk. We were mostly talking about Emmy, and he just kept saying how much she loves me and that she wants me to come over to their house. I said something like, “Oh, she’s so cute. I love spending time with her too,” and tried to end the conversation, but he just kept talking. I noticed him looking at my chest a couple of times, which was one of the reasons I wanted to leave. He then offered me a ride, and although I initially declined, he kept pushing it, so I accepted. I didn’t let him see my house; I told him to drop me off downtown.
Since then, I keep running into him, but to the point where I don’t think it’s a coincidence. He doesn’t live in the same neighborhood as me (I live near downtown). In fact, when he dropped me off the first time, he kept going on and on about how he could never live somewhere as far away as I do. So why do I keep seeing him? In our conversations, he always makes sure to compliment my physical appearance or mention my age and how “young and smart” I am. It obviously makes me uncomfortable, but for the sake of his daughters, especially Emmy, I don’t really say anything. I have tried to set some boundaries, but it’s really uncomfortable. I jokingly said once, “Well, if I were your age, I don’t think I’d date someone as young as me,” and he was like, “Well, good thing I would,” and he laughed.
I casually mentioned this in a conversation with one of my colleagues, and she said something like, “Oh, he’s a flirt; that’s what he does.” She kept talking about how handsome he is (he is handsome but also a married dad of two). I asked if there’s anything we, as educators, could do if, hypothetically, a parent is being too friendly/flirty with us, and she basically said no.
Anyway, it’s gotten hot outside, so I’ve started wearing sundresses, shorts, and crop tops, and he always compliments my outfits when he sees me and says he likes seeing my bellybutton piercing out (EW). Also, Emmy has told me that her dad said I’ll be their nanny for the weekends when the daycare is closed. I don’t know if he actually said that because she’s 4, but I don’t even want to ask because I don’t want to give him ideas if he didn’t actually say it.
He has tried multiple times to give me his phone number to “call him if there’s anything,” and I always gently reminded him that we can communicate through the daycare app. He always says that he would rather call me directly than through the app. He was being super pushy, and I felt a little trapped, so I gave him my phone number. He texts me all the time, asking what I’m doing, etc. I have FaceTimed his daughters a couple of times, but it just feels wrong. I briefly talked about this to a friend, and she said that she would’ve told his wife. I don’t even think I have the guts to do that. Ever since my friend told me that, I started casually bringing up his wife in conversations. He would always change the subject or say she’s not here.
Anyway, all this is to ask: what should I do? Am I imagining things? I feel trapped. I can’t lose my job; I’m scared that it’ll take me forever to find another one. Also, all the kids love me, and I love them. I’ve really gotten attached to them. I love Emmy too, and I mostly feel bad for her. What would you do in this situation? I’ve asked, and you can’t ban a family from attending a daycare, so that option is out of the window. Also, we can’t be on our phones 24/7, so it’s extremely hard to get “evidence.” Anything helps. Thank you!
I don’t know i’m I’m posting this on the right subs, if not sorry about that
Edit: I’ve never seen his wife, he’s the one who does everything. Emmy has mentioned her a few times (saying things like “Mommy got me this shirt” or something) but I don’t even know what she looks like. He doesn’t talk about her unless I bring her up.
Edit 2: About the crop tops, we are allowed to wear them at work with long pants. Same thing with shorts, we can wear them with a non-cropped shirt. 90% of his comments about my piercing were outside of work, when I would run into him. Also, I blocked him. I don’t know if he noticed, but he’s blocked.
Edit 3: A lot of people are asking me why/what I am scared of. I don’t have an exact answer. I’ve had a lot of traumatizing experiences with men so I don’t feel comfortable around any man in general. I don’t have any guy friends. It’s like I think of all the things they could do to me if they wanted to, then I get scared/uncomfortable. I know I have a fawn trauma response and I am working on it, I really am. Also, I have work on Friday (or Wednesday maybe) and I will talk to my supervisors and update.
Relevant Comments
Commenter: “That wouldn’t be appropriate” seems like a good response to 90% of his requests. I would get used to being comfortable saying that to pushy male customers.
Update #1: May 23, 2024
Hello everyone,
I want to thank everyone who gave me advice. I tried to read every comment. Before I give you an update, I need to clarify a few things:
Update: I was only scheduled on Friday this week but ended up working today too. I texted my manager saying that I have something very important to tell her about a parent and that I'm afraid my safety could be compromised. She asked me to come to her office before work to talk about it.
I was very scared because reading the comments made me realize that I could lose my job because I gave him my number. But I still told her everything (looking back, I missed a few things, but I told her the most important things). I told her about how, in the beginning (when I was assigned to his 2-year-old daughter's group), he was very friendly and nice to me, but it escalated when I started caring for Emmy. I told her about the grocery incident, the gas station incident, and seeing him near my neighborhood.
She kind of "defended" him by saying that I live near downtown, so it’s not a miracle to run into someone there. I then brought up the fact that, yes, I understand that, but he’s told me that he enjoys staying in his neighborhood and that I live so far away, and he doesn’t understand how I'm able to work at a job so far away, so it was weird to see him so much. I think it made her understand more. I told her about the comments about my appearance. I asked her if it was possible to get assigned to another group, and she said yes.
I told her about me giving him my number after feeling pressured, and she said that I shouldn’t have done that, that it’s very dangerous to give out personal information like that. She also said that, especially with my job, all communication must be through the app. She said that she was a little more upset at the dad because he’s been attending that daycare for almost four years, and he knows that parents are not allowed to do that.
I then told her about how he makes Emmy play with her friends when it’s time to go just to talk to me longer. She said that since I won’t be assigned to Emmy’s group, I won’t even have to talk to him at all. She said that she’ll take care of it and let the other girls know to keep an eye on him.
I told her about the Facetimes and how he told Emmy that I was mean for not answering one time and how he made her cry. She only said that that was out of line. I asked if it was possible to “ban” him from attending, and she said maybe. She doesn’t have any solid proof (I showed her some text messages, but she said that he was being friendly in the messages and that there was nothing sexual). She said that most of this was basically hearsay, and she doesn’t have concrete proof of him being an actual predator.
As for Emmy, we played together on the playground as usual. I think the hardest part for me is to slowly distance myself from her. I did, however, encourage her to play with her friends, but she would always come back every five minutes to ask to play with me. When her dad arrived, he greeted me and asked me about Emmy’s day and her keychain. I said that I did not take care of her today and pointed to the girl that did. I then got up to get Emmy to tell her to leave. He tried to stop me, but I just kept walking. I didn’t really give him time to talk to me. When I got Emmy, I gave her a hug, then stayed on the other side of the playground, and they left. I know it’s not much, but at least I avoided an interaction with him today.
I think that’s it. I tried to answer everything.
Edit: He’s never driven me home, I would always ask to drop me off downtown. Typo sorry!
Comments
Commenter: If he texts you, tell him that you got a memo from work that says all interaction with parents must go through the app with no exceptions for legal and safety reasons and that you can't risk your job. Then block him.
Or just block him.
Update #2: May 24, 2024
Hi, I saw some comments asking for an update, so I wanted to share what happened because I am too ashamed to tell someone in real life. I had work from yesterday 8 AM to 5 PM, then went straight to the gym to work out with a friend. I got there around 6 PM and worked out until about 8:30 PM. I was walking home (I live about 10 minutes away from my gym) when I heard someone behind me. Looking back, I know I shouldn’t have walked home, but I didn’t think about it in the moment. I had music in my ears, so I didn’t know if someone was talking to me or on the phone, so I just kept walking. I felt the person getting closer and immediately thought, “Oh my God, what if it’s him?” I started walking a little faster.
After about 2 minutes, the person tapped me on the shoulder. When I turned around, it was him. My heart dropped. I immediately froze. I had practiced what to say if I ever got into this situation, but of course I had to forget everything. He acted like we ran into each other and said, “Hey, it’s nice seeing you.” I said, “Hi, nice seeing you, but I have to go.” He complimented my hair (I recently dyed it) and said it looked good on me. I said a quick thank you and tried to leave. He then grabbed my wrist and said, “I don’t like when you act like that.” I just froze up; I couldn’t move. He asked why I don’t take care of Emmy anymore. He said that she constantly asks about me at home and that I make her cry. I stuttered and said I didn’t know, that I’m not the one who decides. I said I have to go now, sorry. He then asked if I blocked him. I said I really can’t talk right now.
He then blurted out that he saw me working out. He was doing all of this while grabbing my wrist, mind you. I didn’t know what to say, so I repeated that I had to go. He started looking at me up and down in a disgusting way. He was staring at my boobs while smiling. He then started caressing my arms. One arm stopped at my waist, and the other one kept caressing my arm. He would sometimes move it to my chest and touch me there. I don’t know why I didn’t just punch him in the face. I just could. not. move. Before you ask, I wasn’t wearing anything revealing. I had on a hoodie and sweatpants. I even removed my belly piercing because I don’t like this type of attention.
I eventually quietly said, “Can you please stop?” He looked at me, smiled, and then left. I’ve been getting sexually assaulted by men since the age of 7. I promised myself after getting sexually assaulted at 18 by a friend that I would never let it happen again. Now this. I don’t know why this keeps happening. Most of the time, I feel like my body isn’t even mine, just for someone else to use whenever they feel like it, no matter if I want it or not. Maybe it was my fault because I shouldn’t have walked home knowing I had a “stalker”. Maybe it’s my fault because I didn’t tell him to leave me alone earlier. Maybe it’s my fault because I am 20 years old and I can’t fucking say no. I know he didn’t full-on grab my tits and squeeze them, but I feel so so violated. I am too ashamed to reveal this to anyone. I told my boss I was sick to avoid going to work for a couple of days.
I went to the police station, but they said there wasn’t anything they could do legally because he didn’t commit actual crimes and that I didn’t really have any proof. I just feel like they didn’t take me seriously. They gave me tips to be more careful like don’t walk late at night, change your number, don’t have the same routine, etc., but that’s it. They won’t give me a restraining order. I’ll be honest, I didn’t understand half of the terminology they were using. But from what I understood, we’re both adults so the texting and Facetimes aren’t incriminating enough. I guess I’ll just stay home. I feel so dirty. I thought I had everything under control because I found a way to avoid him at work, but I guess I was wrong. I genuinely thought that I found a way to make everything stop.
The worst part is I saw some comments saying that this whole situation could escalate if he finds out that I’m avoiding him and I didn’t believe them. Again, I was wrong. I don’t know if I’m looking for advice or sympathy, but I don’t have anyone in my life who could help. Maybe some friends, but I am just so ashamed and embarrassed to say that a man was “groping” me and I basically let it happen because I was scared. It’s just humiliating. As for my family, knowing my mom, she would most likely slut-shame me and say it’s my fault. But yeah, here’s the update I guess. I don’t know if I’ll update after this, mainly because I don’t know what else to do.
Edit: (copying and pasting this from one of my replies because I can see how it looks): i posted about him 4 days ago but i started having doubts about him stalking be like a month ago i think. i talked to my manager wednesday and i got assigned to another group. i didn’t interact with him wednesday and yesterday. HE is the one saying that his daughter is crying about not seeing me. i know it’s not true, he keeps saying stuff like this. saying things about his daughter to make me feel bad because he knows we’re close. when this incident happened, i went straight to the police station near my home to tell them what happened (bc it’s opened day and night). i asked if with what i have i can have a restraining order and they said no. i know im updating quick but i genuinely don’t have anyone i can talk to about this
Edit 2: Okay I think I’ll just quit my job stay with a friend for now. I’ll send an email explaining my situation with my boss and try to find a stay at home job. Thank you all
submitted by Choice_Evidence1983 to BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]
Originally posted to AmIOverreacting
AIO: I feel like a Dad a the daycare I work at is hitting on me (20f)
Trigger Warning: sexual assault, stalking, sexual harassment, mentions of CSA
Hi! I work at a daycare, and I’ve noticed that one of the children's parents always makes inappropriate comments to me. At first, I thought he was just one of those people who always compliment others or that he just wanted to have a friendly relationship with his kids' educators, but now I think it’s more than that.
During my first weeks there, I was always assigned to his younger daughter’s group (the babies), so I would see him often. At first, it was brief friendly talk, but it really escalated when I started working with the older kids (4-year-olds). His other daughter, let’s call her Emmy, and I clicked right away when we found out we’re birthday twins. She always wants me to play with her and asks for hugs literally every two minutes. Whenever her dad comes to pick up his kids, she always makes sure to give me a big hug and tells her dad that we’re best friends.
Last month, Emmy’s dad and I ran into each other at the grocery store and started small talk. We were mostly talking about Emmy, and he just kept saying how much she loves me and that she wants me to come over to their house. I said something like, “Oh, she’s so cute. I love spending time with her too,” and tried to end the conversation, but he just kept talking. I noticed him looking at my chest a couple of times, which was one of the reasons I wanted to leave. He then offered me a ride, and although I initially declined, he kept pushing it, so I accepted. I didn’t let him see my house; I told him to drop me off downtown.
Since then, I keep running into him, but to the point where I don’t think it’s a coincidence. He doesn’t live in the same neighborhood as me (I live near downtown). In fact, when he dropped me off the first time, he kept going on and on about how he could never live somewhere as far away as I do. So why do I keep seeing him? In our conversations, he always makes sure to compliment my physical appearance or mention my age and how “young and smart” I am. It obviously makes me uncomfortable, but for the sake of his daughters, especially Emmy, I don’t really say anything. I have tried to set some boundaries, but it’s really uncomfortable. I jokingly said once, “Well, if I were your age, I don’t think I’d date someone as young as me,” and he was like, “Well, good thing I would,” and he laughed.
I casually mentioned this in a conversation with one of my colleagues, and she said something like, “Oh, he’s a flirt; that’s what he does.” She kept talking about how handsome he is (he is handsome but also a married dad of two). I asked if there’s anything we, as educators, could do if, hypothetically, a parent is being too friendly/flirty with us, and she basically said no.
Anyway, it’s gotten hot outside, so I’ve started wearing sundresses, shorts, and crop tops, and he always compliments my outfits when he sees me and says he likes seeing my bellybutton piercing out (EW). Also, Emmy has told me that her dad said I’ll be their nanny for the weekends when the daycare is closed. I don’t know if he actually said that because she’s 4, but I don’t even want to ask because I don’t want to give him ideas if he didn’t actually say it.
He has tried multiple times to give me his phone number to “call him if there’s anything,” and I always gently reminded him that we can communicate through the daycare app. He always says that he would rather call me directly than through the app. He was being super pushy, and I felt a little trapped, so I gave him my phone number. He texts me all the time, asking what I’m doing, etc. I have FaceTimed his daughters a couple of times, but it just feels wrong. I briefly talked about this to a friend, and she said that she would’ve told his wife. I don’t even think I have the guts to do that. Ever since my friend told me that, I started casually bringing up his wife in conversations. He would always change the subject or say she’s not here.
Anyway, all this is to ask: what should I do? Am I imagining things? I feel trapped. I can’t lose my job; I’m scared that it’ll take me forever to find another one. Also, all the kids love me, and I love them. I’ve really gotten attached to them. I love Emmy too, and I mostly feel bad for her. What would you do in this situation? I’ve asked, and you can’t ban a family from attending a daycare, so that option is out of the window. Also, we can’t be on our phones 24/7, so it’s extremely hard to get “evidence.” Anything helps. Thank you!
I don’t know i’m I’m posting this on the right subs, if not sorry about that
Edit: I’ve never seen his wife, he’s the one who does everything. Emmy has mentioned her a few times (saying things like “Mommy got me this shirt” or something) but I don’t even know what she looks like. He doesn’t talk about her unless I bring her up.
Edit 2: About the crop tops, we are allowed to wear them at work with long pants. Same thing with shorts, we can wear them with a non-cropped shirt. 90% of his comments about my piercing were outside of work, when I would run into him. Also, I blocked him. I don’t know if he noticed, but he’s blocked.
Edit 3: A lot of people are asking me why/what I am scared of. I don’t have an exact answer. I’ve had a lot of traumatizing experiences with men so I don’t feel comfortable around any man in general. I don’t have any guy friends. It’s like I think of all the things they could do to me if they wanted to, then I get scared/uncomfortable. I know I have a fawn trauma response and I am working on it, I really am. Also, I have work on Friday (or Wednesday maybe) and I will talk to my supervisors and update.
Relevant Comments
Commenter: “That wouldn’t be appropriate” seems like a good response to 90% of his requests. I would get used to being comfortable saying that to pushy male customers.
OOP: i say that sometimes and he’s like “oh well you’re best friends with emmy so we’re basically family” and i get scared so i just laugh it off or i try to end the conversationsOOP responds to multiple redditors on not accepting any more things from the father and speak with her supervisor about her concerns
OOP: i do say those things and he says that we’re like family because i’m “friends” with his daughter. i don’t always answer and he’ll sometimes bring it up when he drops off/picks up his kids and i say things oh i was busy or i didn’t see it. i keep telling myself that this time ill be direct and just say no but i just get so scared. it’s not like im full on flirting with him, i do reject him but not as firmly as i should i guess. whenever he brings up dating i say things like im not looking for a bf. and for the facetime thing, one time he was being really insistent and i said no and the text time i saw them at work, emmy asked me why i didn’t pick up the call and he said in front of her that i was being mean that day and that i didn’t wanna talk to her. she ended up crying. i tried telling my supervisor and she said that she never noticed any weird behaviour from him and he’s a very friendly man. she asked me if i had any proof which i didn’t. idk what else to do~
i tried to talk to one of my supervisors about it but rn they’re always busy (they’re the new owners of the daycare so they’re trying to figure everything out) so it’s never a good time. i am alone with my group. i see him in the morning when he’s dropping off emmy and in the afternoon outside when he’s picking his kids up. our conversation in the morning are more brief bc all the parents are coming at the same time so there’s not much time. in the afternoon, he always tells emmy to keep playing with her friends just to buy more time and when i tell him i have to go back to watching everyone he says that there are plenty of other educators who are watching them and not to worry about it. i try to say things like hey i really have to go back to work/now’s not a right time but it’s like there’s nothing i can say to get through to him. im the one in charge of emmy i have to be the one to talk to him about emmy’s day etc
Update #1: May 23, 2024
Hello everyone,
I want to thank everyone who gave me advice. I tried to read every comment. Before I give you an update, I need to clarify a few things:
- I don’t work at a school; it's a private, family-owned (i think) daycare. I have three managers—two women and one man. They became the new owners in January. I primarily interact with one of the female managers. I've tried to discuss this situation with her, but it’s never the right time. For example, I’d knock on her office door and say I needed to talk about Emmy’s dad. She’d say she’s busy and ask me to come back later. When I did, she’d apologize and ask to talk the next day. She also suggested texting, but I didn't feel comfortable telling her everything through text.
- Some suggested having another teacher watch my group when he arrives, but that’s not possible. In the afternoon, after nap time, we take the kids outside until their parents pick them up. All educators need to stay outside to supervise. When parents arrive, I discuss their child's day and hand over their keychain. It’s difficult because he always approaches me when I’m distracted, so I can’t warn a coworker.
- Rides: The first time I saw him outside of work was at the grocery store. He recognized me, we chatted briefly, and he offered me a ride. I declined, but he insisted, saying it was ungentlemanly to let me carry groceries alone. He paid for my groceries and drove me home, despite my discomfort. I sat in the backseat, but still. I shouldn’t have said yes. I was just so weirded out by the entire situation. The second time was at a gas station. After hanging out with a friend in his neighborhood, I stopped there for a drink. He saw me and again offered a ride. He was pushy, so I reluctantly agreed. That was the last time I accepted a ride from him.
- Clothing: Most of his comments about my piercing happened outside of work. I don’t wear revealing clothes to work; I mostly wear sweats. Occasionally, I wear a long sleeve crop top with sweatpants, which my managers don’t mind. We’re allowed to wear mom shorts. But again, I most of the time I wear sweats.
- Facetime: I’ve Facetimed his daughters three times, and each call lasted less than five minutes. I realize now that this was inappropriate, but yes it happened.
- Texting: I don’t always respond to his texts. If he texts ten times, I might reply three times. The thing is, he often asks in person why I don’t respond, telling me he had something important to say. He’d sometimes say that in front of Emmy, then say, “You see that Emmy, she’s not nice to Daddy. She doesn’t want to talk to me.”
- I live in Canada. Some suggested carrying pepper spray for protection, but it’s illegal here, so that’s not an option.
- I don’t know his exact age, but I’d guess late 30s to mid-40s. I’ve never seen his wife; some suggested they might be separated. Maybe. Emmy has mentioned her mom before, but she seems closer to her dad.
- The dating comment: I had ZERO idea my comment could be seen as flirting. I thought I was indirectly turning him down. When the topic of dating came up, I said I didn’t want a relationship. He joked that we’d get along great, and I responded by saying “Don’t you think you’re a little too old for me?” And he said, jokingly, “Oh, man. Dont say that. You’re very mature.” That’s when I said that I wouldn’t date someone my age if I were his age.
I was very scared because reading the comments made me realize that I could lose my job because I gave him my number. But I still told her everything (looking back, I missed a few things, but I told her the most important things). I told her about how, in the beginning (when I was assigned to his 2-year-old daughter's group), he was very friendly and nice to me, but it escalated when I started caring for Emmy. I told her about the grocery incident, the gas station incident, and seeing him near my neighborhood.
She kind of "defended" him by saying that I live near downtown, so it’s not a miracle to run into someone there. I then brought up the fact that, yes, I understand that, but he’s told me that he enjoys staying in his neighborhood and that I live so far away, and he doesn’t understand how I'm able to work at a job so far away, so it was weird to see him so much. I think it made her understand more. I told her about the comments about my appearance. I asked her if it was possible to get assigned to another group, and she said yes.
I told her about me giving him my number after feeling pressured, and she said that I shouldn’t have done that, that it’s very dangerous to give out personal information like that. She also said that, especially with my job, all communication must be through the app. She said that she was a little more upset at the dad because he’s been attending that daycare for almost four years, and he knows that parents are not allowed to do that.
I then told her about how he makes Emmy play with her friends when it’s time to go just to talk to me longer. She said that since I won’t be assigned to Emmy’s group, I won’t even have to talk to him at all. She said that she’ll take care of it and let the other girls know to keep an eye on him.
I told her about the Facetimes and how he told Emmy that I was mean for not answering one time and how he made her cry. She only said that that was out of line. I asked if it was possible to “ban” him from attending, and she said maybe. She doesn’t have any solid proof (I showed her some text messages, but she said that he was being friendly in the messages and that there was nothing sexual). She said that most of this was basically hearsay, and she doesn’t have concrete proof of him being an actual predator.
As for Emmy, we played together on the playground as usual. I think the hardest part for me is to slowly distance myself from her. I did, however, encourage her to play with her friends, but she would always come back every five minutes to ask to play with me. When her dad arrived, he greeted me and asked me about Emmy’s day and her keychain. I said that I did not take care of her today and pointed to the girl that did. I then got up to get Emmy to tell her to leave. He tried to stop me, but I just kept walking. I didn’t really give him time to talk to me. When I got Emmy, I gave her a hug, then stayed on the other side of the playground, and they left. I know it’s not much, but at least I avoided an interaction with him today.
I think that’s it. I tried to answer everything.
Edit: He’s never driven me home, I would always ask to drop me off downtown. Typo sorry!
Comments
Commenter: If he texts you, tell him that you got a memo from work that says all interaction with parents must go through the app with no exceptions for legal and safety reasons and that you can't risk your job. Then block him.
Or just block him.
Update #2: May 24, 2024
Hi, I saw some comments asking for an update, so I wanted to share what happened because I am too ashamed to tell someone in real life. I had work from yesterday 8 AM to 5 PM, then went straight to the gym to work out with a friend. I got there around 6 PM and worked out until about 8:30 PM. I was walking home (I live about 10 minutes away from my gym) when I heard someone behind me. Looking back, I know I shouldn’t have walked home, but I didn’t think about it in the moment. I had music in my ears, so I didn’t know if someone was talking to me or on the phone, so I just kept walking. I felt the person getting closer and immediately thought, “Oh my God, what if it’s him?” I started walking a little faster.
After about 2 minutes, the person tapped me on the shoulder. When I turned around, it was him. My heart dropped. I immediately froze. I had practiced what to say if I ever got into this situation, but of course I had to forget everything. He acted like we ran into each other and said, “Hey, it’s nice seeing you.” I said, “Hi, nice seeing you, but I have to go.” He complimented my hair (I recently dyed it) and said it looked good on me. I said a quick thank you and tried to leave. He then grabbed my wrist and said, “I don’t like when you act like that.” I just froze up; I couldn’t move. He asked why I don’t take care of Emmy anymore. He said that she constantly asks about me at home and that I make her cry. I stuttered and said I didn’t know, that I’m not the one who decides. I said I have to go now, sorry. He then asked if I blocked him. I said I really can’t talk right now.
He then blurted out that he saw me working out. He was doing all of this while grabbing my wrist, mind you. I didn’t know what to say, so I repeated that I had to go. He started looking at me up and down in a disgusting way. He was staring at my boobs while smiling. He then started caressing my arms. One arm stopped at my waist, and the other one kept caressing my arm. He would sometimes move it to my chest and touch me there. I don’t know why I didn’t just punch him in the face. I just could. not. move. Before you ask, I wasn’t wearing anything revealing. I had on a hoodie and sweatpants. I even removed my belly piercing because I don’t like this type of attention.
I eventually quietly said, “Can you please stop?” He looked at me, smiled, and then left. I’ve been getting sexually assaulted by men since the age of 7. I promised myself after getting sexually assaulted at 18 by a friend that I would never let it happen again. Now this. I don’t know why this keeps happening. Most of the time, I feel like my body isn’t even mine, just for someone else to use whenever they feel like it, no matter if I want it or not. Maybe it was my fault because I shouldn’t have walked home knowing I had a “stalker”. Maybe it’s my fault because I didn’t tell him to leave me alone earlier. Maybe it’s my fault because I am 20 years old and I can’t fucking say no. I know he didn’t full-on grab my tits and squeeze them, but I feel so so violated. I am too ashamed to reveal this to anyone. I told my boss I was sick to avoid going to work for a couple of days.
I went to the police station, but they said there wasn’t anything they could do legally because he didn’t commit actual crimes and that I didn’t really have any proof. I just feel like they didn’t take me seriously. They gave me tips to be more careful like don’t walk late at night, change your number, don’t have the same routine, etc., but that’s it. They won’t give me a restraining order. I’ll be honest, I didn’t understand half of the terminology they were using. But from what I understood, we’re both adults so the texting and Facetimes aren’t incriminating enough. I guess I’ll just stay home. I feel so dirty. I thought I had everything under control because I found a way to avoid him at work, but I guess I was wrong. I genuinely thought that I found a way to make everything stop.
The worst part is I saw some comments saying that this whole situation could escalate if he finds out that I’m avoiding him and I didn’t believe them. Again, I was wrong. I don’t know if I’m looking for advice or sympathy, but I don’t have anyone in my life who could help. Maybe some friends, but I am just so ashamed and embarrassed to say that a man was “groping” me and I basically let it happen because I was scared. It’s just humiliating. As for my family, knowing my mom, she would most likely slut-shame me and say it’s my fault. But yeah, here’s the update I guess. I don’t know if I’ll update after this, mainly because I don’t know what else to do.
Edit: (copying and pasting this from one of my replies because I can see how it looks): i posted about him 4 days ago but i started having doubts about him stalking be like a month ago i think. i talked to my manager wednesday and i got assigned to another group. i didn’t interact with him wednesday and yesterday. HE is the one saying that his daughter is crying about not seeing me. i know it’s not true, he keeps saying stuff like this. saying things about his daughter to make me feel bad because he knows we’re close. when this incident happened, i went straight to the police station near my home to tell them what happened (bc it’s opened day and night). i asked if with what i have i can have a restraining order and they said no. i know im updating quick but i genuinely don’t have anyone i can talk to about this
Edit 2: Okay I think I’ll just quit my job stay with a friend for now. I’ll send an email explaining my situation with my boss and try to find a stay at home job. Thank you all
DO NOT COMMENT IN LINKED POSTS OR MESSAGE OOPs – BoRU Rule #7
THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP
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5-31-2024
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MEN WITH ‘TOXIC MASCULINITY’ ARE MORE LIKELY TO MAKE SEXUAL ADVANCES WITHOUT CONSENT, STUDY FINDS
No means no when it comes to sex. But what happens when a woman makes a more passive response to a sexual advance? According to new research from Binghamton University, men differ in how they interpret these types of responses, and men who display hostile masculinity, known commonly as “toxic masculinity,” tend to act on them regardless of whether or not they think it’s consensual. A team of researchers, including Binghamton psychology professor Richard Mattson and graduate student Michael Shaw asked men between the ages of 18–25 to respond to5-31-2024
WHY WE DEHUMANIZE OUR POLITICAL OPPONENTS
Some of human history’s greatest atrocities—genocide, slavery, ethnic cleanings—are rooted in our ability to dehumanize people from other social, political, or cultural groups. Whereas prior research has traced dehumanization to the belief that others think or feel less than we do, new research co-authored by Haas professor Sameer Srivastava shows that our tendency to dehumanize can also be influenced by how we think others view important facets of the world. The greater the difference between our perceptions of an outgroup’s worldview5-31-2024
STUDY SUGGESTS CHILDREN ARE OFTEN EXPOSED TO PROBLEMATIC CLICK BAIT DURING YOUTUBE SEARCHES
When a child peruses YouTube, the content recommended to them is not always age appropriate, a new study suggests. Researchers mimicked search behaviors of children using popular search terms, such as memes, Minecraft and Fortnite, and captured video thumbnails recommended at the end of each video. Among the 2,880 thumbnails analyzed, many contained problematic click bait, such as violence or frightening images, according to the Michigan Medicine led research in JAMA Network Open. “Children spend a significant amount of time on free video sharing platforms that include user-generated content,” said5-31-2024
STUDY FINDS WOMEN ARE VULNERABLE IN POST-WAR PEACE PROCESSES
Post-war peace processes are a dangerous period for women. Many are forced to live close to men who committed serious abuse during the war or are expected to testify in various types of truth commissions, which can be both retraumatizing and stigmatizing. These are the findings of a new study by peace researchers at Uppsala University, published in the journal PLOS ONE. “In short, peace projects can force women to live side by side with ex-combatants who committed atrocities during the war. This puts them at risk of further threat5-31-2024
HOW EMBRACING THE CRINGE CAN HELP YOUR DATING LIFE
We can all agree that dating is hard. Getting to know people can feel vulnerable, but at the same time, exciting. We can also agree that feeling rejected can be one of the worst feelings, especially after we put ourselves out there. Dating can also expose us to a lot of cringey things, maybe even something we didn’t know we’d consider cringey. Think of cringe like something that makes you uncomfortable, or something about someone else that you don’t find attractive. Before dating, most of us consider what we’re looking5-31-2024
PERSONAL CONNECTIONS AT WORK POSITIVELY IMPACT RETENTION AND MENTAL HEALTH, SAYS REPORT
New survey results from Wiley suggest people still feel connected at work despite the prevalence of hybrid and remote work environments and the rise of artificial intelligence (AI). According to the latest Wiley Workplace Intelligence report, “Human Connection: The Crucial Secret to Thriving in the Digital Age,” nearly 8 in 10 employees surveyed (78%) said they feel connected with their coworkers, and almost 7 in 10 (69%) said they also enjoy making connections with their colleagues. Around half even said they want to learn more about their coworkers by doing5-31-2024
RESEARCHER DEVELOPS MODEL OF INFLUENCER IMPORTANCE WITHIN INSTAGRAM NETWORKS
A study has provided new insights into social media influencers, particularly focusing on those in the women’s fashion sector on the well-known image and video sharing platform Instagram. In a departure from the approach taken by earlier studies, Jens K. Perret of the International School of Management in Cologne, Germany, has used network statistics and centrality measures to establish a model of influencer importance within their network. Perret analyzed data from 255 influencers covering a four-year period. Influencers are loosely5-31-2024
MOST PEOPLE TRUST ACCURATE SEARCH RESULTS WHEN THE STAKES ARE HIGH, STUDY FINDS
Rank (X-axis) does not affect the evaluation of trustworthiness (Y-axis, mean-centered) of accurate results. This lack of relationship is robust across experiments (columns) and for clicked results (top row, red) as well as non-clicked results (bottom row, blue). The trend lines represent the predicted change in trustworthiness ratings per unit decrease in rank fitted by the linear regression models. Credit: Scientific Reports (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-61645-8 Using experiments with COVID-19 related queries, Cornell sociology and information science researchers found that in a public health emergency, most people pick out and click5-31-2024
MISLEADING COVID-19 HEADLINES FROM MAINSTREAM SOURCES DID MORE HARM ON FACEBOOK THAN FAKE NEWS, STUDY FINDS
Despite the greater potency of “fake news” on Facebook to discourage Americans from taking the COVID-19 vaccine, users’ greater exposure to unflagged, vaccine-skeptical content meant the latter had a much greater negative effect on vaccine uptake. Credit: Jennifer Allen, Duncan Watts, David G. Rand Since the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine in 2021, fake news on social media has been widely blamed for low vaccine uptake in the United States—but research by MIT Sloan School of Management Ph.D. candidate Jennifer Allen and Professor David Rand finds that the blame lies5-31-2024
CRITICAL DIALOGUE HELPS STRAIGHT MEN CONFRONT SEXIST, HOMOPHOBIC BELIEFS
Adult heterosexual men with sexist and homophobic views can potentially improve their attitudes toward gay men and women by engaging in critical dialogues that use illustrations as a springboard, according to a new University of Michigan study. The work is published in the journal Sexual and Gender Diversity in Social Services. The process by which people shift from a prejudicial stance to one of relative acceptance is a key innovation of the study. Guided by trained facilitators, critical dialogues reflect illustrations depicting different gender roles and sexual identities. The images5-31-2024
RELIEVING A FEAR OF PUBLIC SPEAKING
If you dread public speaking you are not alone. It is a leading social phobia, one that can cause a state of anxiety that reduces otherwise articulate people to nervous incoherence. A strong fear of public speaking is known as glossophobia. Academic studies estimate it affects 20% of the population, but depending on the sample and methodology, the figure could be as high as 40%. As American writer and humourist Mark Twain said, “There are two types of speakers: Those who get nervous and those who are liars.” But help5-31-2024
HOW SOME PRIVATE COMPANIES ARE MARKETING TECH AND AI SOLUTIONS
How do universities and colleges decide who to admit? Given the earnings advantage of a post-secondary degree both globally and in Canada, this is an important social mobility question. While the answer varies from one institution to the next, most focus on education criteria like exam scores and grades. However, Canada’s new intake cap on study permit applications puts increased pressure on Canadian institutions to also consider immigration criteria when admitting international undergraduate students. This is just the latest example of immigration’s growing influence on the societal roles of Canadian2024.06.02 03:41 Glittering-Sun7048 [SETLIST THREAD] Dead & Company - Sphere, Las Vegas, NV - 6/1/24
Days Since Last El Paso: 2
SET 1 [7:35 - 8:37 PM PDT]
Alabama Getaway
DOOR OPEN (Followed by takeoff from the Haight during TMNS)
The Music Never Stopped
They Love Each Other
Ramble On Rose
Hurts Me Too
Lost Sailor >
Saint of Circumstance
SET 2 [9:14 - 10:58 PM PDT]
Sugaree
St. Stephen
Brown-Eyed Women
Cumberland Blues
Drums >
Space >
Dear Prudence
Sugar Magnolia >
Scarlet Begonias >
Sunshine Daydream
DESCENT (Slowly landing back at the Haight during Brokedown)
Brokedown Palace
Vintage news clip on the Dead
One More Saturday Night
Rules:
1) Be Kind. You don’t have to agree with everybody, but there’s no reason to be rude.
2) Please don’t skunk up the thread by asking for or sharing miracles. If you choose to share links, keep them in the DMs/PMs. You just gotta poke around.
3) Please don’t award this post. While I appreciate the thought, your money is better spent on a good cause. A cause near and dear to my heart is The Trevor Project
4) No spoilers! If you caught soundcheck or a flash of the setlist, please spoiler tag it or do not mention songs by name!
5) If someone says the word "tempo" we all have to take a shot (or hit, or drink of your choosing (alcoholic or non))
Check-ins: Vidalia, LA; NJ x2; Charlotte x2; Loveland, CO; Dallas, TX x2; Cabo San Lucas; Twin Cities; Provence, France; Columbia, MO; Waterbury, VT; Humboldt County, CA; Freehold, NJ; Fort Worth; The Dolomites in Italy; Tucson, AZ; Section 408; Key West; Berkeley, CA; Grande Prairie, AB, Canada; Milwaukie, OR; Oakland; Victoria, BC by way of Seattle, WA; Toronto
submitted by Glittering-Sun7048 to gratefuldead [link] [comments]
SET 1 [7:35 - 8:37 PM PDT]
Alabama Getaway
DOOR OPEN (Followed by takeoff from the Haight during TMNS)
The Music Never Stopped
They Love Each Other
Ramble On Rose
Hurts Me Too
Lost Sailor >
Saint of Circumstance
SET 2 [9:14 - 10:58 PM PDT]
Sugaree
St. Stephen
Brown-Eyed Women
Cumberland Blues
Drums >
Space >
Dear Prudence
Sugar Magnolia >
Scarlet Begonias >
Sunshine Daydream
DESCENT (Slowly landing back at the Haight during Brokedown)
Brokedown Palace
Vintage news clip on the Dead
One More Saturday Night
1) Be Kind. You don’t have to agree with everybody, but there’s no reason to be rude.
2) Please don’t skunk up the thread by asking for or sharing miracles. If you choose to share links, keep them in the DMs/PMs. You just gotta poke around.
3) Please don’t award this post. While I appreciate the thought, your money is better spent on a good cause. A cause near and dear to my heart is The Trevor Project
4) No spoilers! If you caught soundcheck or a flash of the setlist, please spoiler tag it or do not mention songs by name!
5) If someone says the word "tempo" we all have to take a shot (or hit, or drink of your choosing (alcoholic or non))
2024.06.02 02:37 Many-Ball-8379 My GF (F 37) wants me (M42) to stop being friends with my ex, but she wants to keep being friends with her ex. What should I do? What’s a fair solution?
TL;DR My girlfriend doesn’t want me to be friends with my (sort of) ex, but she wants to keep being friends with her ex. What‘s a fair solution?
Mine is really more of a FWB situation who I slept with when I was single a couple of times. I’m not interested in a relationship or really even a physical relationship, and only slept with her just cuz. We don’t text. We only hang out in public in groups because we have a hobby in common. Before my relationship, we used to text and hang out solo more often, but that doesn’t feel respectful or appropriate now.
Hers was a long-term love interest but the timing never worked out. When it finally did, they discovered there was no chemistry. They still text more, talk on the phone, go to dinner sometimes, but don’t hang out alone. Honestly, I don’t feel threatened by the guy so long as appropriate boundaries are observed. I think adults should be able to do that.
She’s also expressed jealousy about me seeing women friends I’ve never dated in public places and talking to them, so I’m worried this will be a slippery slope where she becomes controlling of my relationships.
She thinks her friendship is different because it’s long-term so it would be unfair for me to ask her to stop being friends. I think that shouldn’t matter, as I also care about my friend and would feel terrible to say something like “when you see me in public please don’t talk to me because that makes my GF jealous.”
I’d be willing to have a goose/gander solution where we agree to boundaries with our exes that we both follow. But if I have to give up my friend(s) but she doesn’t, I will be resentful of that.
Am I in the wrong? What should I do?
submitted by Many-Ball-8379 to relationships [link] [comments]
Mine is really more of a FWB situation who I slept with when I was single a couple of times. I’m not interested in a relationship or really even a physical relationship, and only slept with her just cuz. We don’t text. We only hang out in public in groups because we have a hobby in common. Before my relationship, we used to text and hang out solo more often, but that doesn’t feel respectful or appropriate now.
Hers was a long-term love interest but the timing never worked out. When it finally did, they discovered there was no chemistry. They still text more, talk on the phone, go to dinner sometimes, but don’t hang out alone. Honestly, I don’t feel threatened by the guy so long as appropriate boundaries are observed. I think adults should be able to do that.
She’s also expressed jealousy about me seeing women friends I’ve never dated in public places and talking to them, so I’m worried this will be a slippery slope where she becomes controlling of my relationships.
She thinks her friendship is different because it’s long-term so it would be unfair for me to ask her to stop being friends. I think that shouldn’t matter, as I also care about my friend and would feel terrible to say something like “when you see me in public please don’t talk to me because that makes my GF jealous.”
I’d be willing to have a goose/gander solution where we agree to boundaries with our exes that we both follow. But if I have to give up my friend(s) but she doesn’t, I will be resentful of that.
Am I in the wrong? What should I do?
2024.06.02 01:07 CIAHerpes I live alone in Alaska. The Twisted Man has been peeking in through my windows.
A few years ago, I decided I needed a major life change. Everything seemed to be going downhill- my finances, my mental health, my life. I would go weeks without sleeping sometimes as the heavy traffic passed through the city streets down below. Every time I went outside, I saw more homeless people, more needles and crack pipes littering the ground, more muggings and assaults and overdoses and deaths. The city had become a wasteland, and I knew it was time to leave.
I had no girlfriend, no wife, no kids. My parents had both died a few years prior and I barely talked to my siblings anymore. I had nothing to tie me down to this place where I felt like I was dying inside a little more each day.
That was when I sold nearly everything I owned, got in my car and drove up to Alaska to try starting anew. I bought a small cabin and a plot of land in the middle of its majestic mountains and dark, enchanting forests. In the winter, the Northern Lights would shine through like the eyes of God, sending out divine trails of light that danced through the sky in cosmic waves.
And while the move did help give me some peace of mind, in the end, the source of all my problems had ultimately followed me thousands of miles into this endless wilderness. It would take me a long time to realize the cause of all this misery was myself.
Because, as a wise man once said, “Wherever I go, there I am.”
***
I lived in that cabin for three months without any major issues other than the constant threat of bears, moose and wolves. I had a rifle and a shotgun for hunting, a small garden in the backyard and a solar panel to generate electricity.
“This is the life,” I said, relaxing on a hammock I had strung across the corner of the cabin while staring at the endless beauty directly outside the window. White-capped mountains loomed like giants in front of thick clusters of evergreens. A virgin covering of fluffy snow made the entire world glisten and sparkle. There wasn’t a house or road in sight.
“No work, no stress, no pollution, no cars honking all the time…” I closed my eyes, breathing in the clean air. I ended up falling asleep for a couple hours, waking up just as the Sun had started setting. Bright orange streaks mixed with the bloody smears of the fading light as it disappeared behind the mountains.
I groggily arose, stumbling over to make a cup of instant coffee. As I sipped it, I wandered around the room, looking for something to pass the time. There were still quite a few random objects left behind by the last owner that I hadn’t gotten rid of yet. I had moved in to find a stocked bookshelf filled with classics by Philip K. Dick, Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein. Bored, I started rifling through the collection, looking for something good to pass the time. As I shuffled past “A Maze of Death” and “Ubik”, something caught my eye.
A black, leather-bound book with no title or author name stood there, its cover faded with time and wear. Curious, I pulled it out and opened it. I saw the cursive scrawled across the pages in a neat, copperplate script and realized it was a diary left behind by the previous owner. The first entry was dated “January 9th, 2015.” This is what it said.
***
“I don’t know if I’m going crazy or not. I went into town to talk to my therapist yesterday and she said I should try writing everything down. She talks to me like it’s all in my head. But I know it’s not.
“When I first moved into the cabin, it seemed like Paradise. I never thought in a million years that something would be slinking around at night. I never thought it would be hiding under my bed, peeking in windows and following me like a shadow.
“Right now, I’m snowed in with a cup of coffee in one hand and my pistol in the other. I can’t sleep anymore. I keep hearing something shuffling around under the bed. Sometimes, I think I even hear ragged breathing, as if a corpse with dirt in its lungs had come back to life.
“I’ve caught glimpses of that thing in the darkness. Whatever it is, its skin is loose, almost falling off the bone. It almost looks like a naked, emaciated man. Its eyes are rotted and dark, its back hunched, its spine twisted and jutting out like tumors. It moves in this slow, jerky way, but I can never seem to catch it. Its body seems broken and out of alignment. Its legs bend the wrong way sometimes.
“By the time I turn on the lights or try to take a video of it, it’s always disappeared. But its fetid odor remains. It lingers in the cabin like a sweet-smelling, spreading infection.
“I don’t know what it wants from me. I want to leave, but with the storm raging outside, I’m stuck here, unable to get all the way back to town. The snow surrounds the cabin in mounds five feet high. I feel like a prisoner caged with a rabid beast, not knowing when it will strike.
“My wife claims she hasn’t seen or heard anything, but she keeps vanishing on me. Last night, she disappeared in the middle of a snowstorm. Where did she go? I asked her in the morning, but she said she was here the whole time. She didn’t remember anything. There’s no way she went into town. There wasn’t time and the trails were impassable that far down.
“Something’s going on here, but I don’t know what it is. I’m truly scared for our lives.”
I slammed the diary shut, not wanting to read anymore. I didn’t want to become infected by some kind of contagious cabin fever. If the last owner had gone insane in the mountains and started hallucinating naked corpses crawling around, I really didn’t want to know.
I shoved the diary back in the bookshelf, going for “A Maze of Death” instead. I tried to forget what I had read in the diary as I flew through the novella. All night, I tried to get the image of the naked, twisting man with rotted eyes out of my head, but I couldn’t.
I eventually fell asleep right before dawn. But, as my eyes were closing, I thought I saw a silhouette in the window- a starved man with excited, black eyes that seemed to be rotting out of his skull. I thought I saw him put his inhumanly long fingers against the glass as he leaned forward. I blinked, sitting up and glancing out into the white, snow-covered wonderland.
There was nothing there.
***
Another hunter occasionally followed the deer trails near my cabin. A frozen lake stood a quarter-mile away, the surface white and covered in thick drifts of snow. I bundled up, deciding to go outside for a hike in the frigid dawn. I strapped on my snowshoes and grabbed my shotgun, as I always did when I went outside. I never knew when a polar bear might be waiting around the next tree, after all.
I opened the door, seeing footprints pressed into the snow all around my house. At first, I thought it was that silhouette I had seen, the nightmarish thing from the diary. But the footprints didn’t go over to my window. They followed the trail twenty feet away, veering off towards the frozen lake at the bottom of the hill. I glanced down in that direction, seeing a black figure plodding slowly forward.
“Steve!” I cried, recognizing my only neighbor in a four-mile radius. He had a cabin about a mile away on his own little plot of land. He jumped, clearly startled by the sudden noise. His black snow pants and heavy fur coat swished together as he spun, raising his rifle high. When he saw me, he immediately lowered it and put a gloved hand up in a friendly greeting.
“Hey Josh! Surprised to see you up this early,” he yelled over the muted wintry landscape. Sounds always seemed different after it snowed, as if all the noise in the world had become faded and dead.
“Yeah, I’ve been having a little trouble sleeping,” I said, slinging my shotgun around my shoulder. “What are you doing anyway?”
“Just a little hunting, you know,” he said, giving me a sly wink. “Animals are always most active around dusk and dawn, it seems. That’s when I always have the best luck, anyway.” He stepped close to me, staring me in the eyes. “You do look like shit. Those bags under your eyes are big enough to carry groceries in.”
“Yeah, trust me, I know… Hey, this might sound a little weird, but did you know the previous owner of this cabin?” I asked. Steve’s wrinkled, old face fell into a scowl. His expression immediately became guarded and distant.
“Sure, sure, we met,” he exclaimed bluntly. He seemed to be searching my face for something, but I didn’t know what. His reaction left me feeling off-balance and nervous.
“Is he still around?” I said. Steve’s scowl deepened.
“Buddy, I don’t know what this is about, but he’s dead. He’s been dead. He died in that cabin, actually.” He pointed a finger at my home accusingly. With those words, my heart seemed to drop into my stomach. Waves of dread flowed through my body like water.
“How… how did he die? Like a heart attack or something?” I asked. Steve’s gaze turned downwards. He didn’t meet my eyes.
“Do you know that Alaska has the highest missing persons rate in the entire United States? It’s not even close. In fact, for the population size, we have far more people who go missing and never get found than anywhere else. They even have a name for it: the Alaska Triangle,” Steve said. “And we’re square in the middle of it.” I stared blankly at him, wondering where he was going with this. It seemed like a way to avoid answering my question.
“No, I didn’t know that…” I responded. Steve nodded, raising his head again. He heaved a deep sigh.
“Look, the thing with the last owner and his wife… it’s somewhat disturbing. If you really want to know, I’ll tell you, but it’s certainly not going to help your peace of mind. And it definitely isn’t going to help you get some sleep.”
“I want to know,” I insisted instantly. The wind started to whip past us. Flakes of ice and snow flew sideways in the sudden currents.
“Let’s go back to your cabin then,” Steve said, pulling his heavy fur-lined hood off and shaking out his long, black hair behind him. “I could use a bit of whiskey to warm up.”
***
We sat down with a bottle of Johnny Walker and two shot glasses. I wasn’t much of a drinker, but Steve certainly was. He chugged three shots in the span of a minute. I sipped at mine, drinking half and putting it back down on the coffee table with a thunk. Steve grunted, hissing through his open mouth for a moment.
“Ugh, that’s the good stuff,” he said, slamming his chest as the burning liquor worked its way down. Steve looked up at me with a new sparkle in his eyes. “Huh, so you want to know about what happened to Will Lenning. Well, I’ll tell you that no one really knows the whole story. I used to see him occasionally, come down and have a drink and talk. We all know each other around here, obviously.” I nodded, motioning him on. “He seemed like a normal, upstanding guy. He kinda reminded me of you, actually. A young guy trying to escape the hustle and bustle of the city life, the cancer of the American Dream.
“Well, he was here for maybe a couple months, I don’t know. Everything seemed fine. We used to go skeet shooting occasionally, have a beer, you know. We’d get together with a couple other hunters who live closer to town and sometimes play some poker. I never saw anything odd about Will. I never could have predicted what happened to him.” He heaved a long sigh at this, looking out the window at the sharp mountains with an expression of nostalgia.
“Well, what happened to him?” I asked, encouraging him to go on.
“He started talking about seeing someone peering in through his window at night. He talked about hearing sounds from under his bed while he was laying there in the dark- sounds like diseased breathing and shuffling. He started keeping all the lights on in his cabin twenty-four hours a day.” Steve leaned close to me. A glimmer of fear rippled across his pale, wrinkled face. “He started to lose his mind. Started digging holes all over the place, looking for something. Even in the middle of snowstorms, I would occasionally see him outside, digging. It seemed like he never slept anymore. It was classic cabin fever if I ever saw it.
“It was only a few weeks later that I came over here, concerned. I hadn’t heard from him in a few days, which was fairly unusual. I found the door hanging wide open. Propped up in a chair in the exact spot where you now sit, Will lay with a blast hole showing clear through his skull, a shotgun laying at his feet.
“And next to him, I found a blood-stained diary opened to the middle page. The last entry was stained with blood spatter, but still visible. I remember leaning down and reading it. It was only a few sentences long.” I glanced over at the bookshelf with the same diary, saying nothing.
“It said something like, ‘I see now what’s going on. The Twisted Man is leading me to the truth. Today, I will finally find it.’”
“And that was his suicide note?” I asked, my heart hammering in my chest. He nodded.
“Yeah. I went into town and got some rangers to come check it out. Eventually, they got cops and CSI there. They took all the stuff as evidence, including the diary,” he said. “Good riddance, I say. Reading something like that is never beneficial. Sometimes delusions spread like a virus, you know what I mean?” I did, but I said nothing. I glanced back at the diary, its black leather cover gleaming like a crouching snake.
And I wondered- if the police took the diary as evidence, how did it get back here?
***
“You said he had a wife living here with him, too?” I asked.
“Yeah… she went missing around the same time,” he said. “Pretty bizarre. The cops thought maybe she just moved away, but…” He shook his head grimly. “As far as I know, she was never seen again. It was like she had evaporated into thin air.”
After Steve left, I walked stiffly over to the bookshelf, taking down the diary. I flipped open through the pages. In the middle, I found the last entry. Spatters of old, darkened blood were scattered over the page like raindrops. I found the suicide note and read the date.
“January 27th, 2015,” it read. Will Lenning had not lived long after he started seeing the Twisted Man. I wondered if my fate would be the same.
The Sun had started to set outside as I sat with the diary at the small circular kitchen table, eating some stewed venison and rice as I read through the entries. At the end, Will Lenning said the Twisted Man had been trying to guide him somewhere, that, in fact, the Twisted Man had been trying to protect him from some great evil, rather than being the source of it.
I scoffed, feeling a flash of anger at his stupidity. His naivety obviously led to his death. But then a flash of insight struck me like lightning.
What if I was committing the same kind of stupidity? Perhaps I should just grab my gun and valuables and leave. I could take off on the snowmobile and be in town within a couple hours.
But, in my heart, I knew I would not. Something about the mystery of all this beckoned me to stay. Like a siren leading sailors to destruction, my curiosity called out to me, and I knew I would not be leaving that night. I needed answers.
And, sadly, I would find them.
***
I had fallen asleep with an empty bottle of beer in my hand. I sat in front of the TV, which only got satellite reception. There were, of course, no cable or phone lines threading their way through the forest. All of my power came from stored solar energy. Since I rarely watched TV and really only used it to cook or heat up water for bathing, the energy produced was sufficient even in winter. Tonight, though, I needed its sound, its mindless flashing of light and colors and canned laughter. It seemed to drive away the creeping, suffocating presence like a candle.
I woke suddenly. The TV flashed with static. The repetitive hissing of the white noise spit from the speakers like thousands of snakes. I glanced up at the clock. 3:33 AM. I looked around the dark cabin, confused for a long moment. I didn’t understand what had woken me so abruptly. The satellite had never gone out before, either, even with the howling winds and freezing hail of the Alaskan winter.
The TV started flickering as if the static were rising upwards. Black lines traced their way horizontally across the screen. The hissing deepened into a gurgle, and for a second, I thought I heard faint words behind the white noise. I thought I heard breathing, slow and diseased, like the death gasp of a drowning man.
A black line rose across the TV and an image came into view. The cabin was suddenly plunged into silence, except for the shrieking, wintry wind outside. I leaned close to the screen, confused at what I was looking at. It looked like a live camera feed of a room. As I took in the details, I realized it was my cabin. I saw myself in the chair, leaning close to the screen. I raised my hand, and the miniature version of me on the screen did likewise. Ice water seemed to drip down my spine as waves of dread coursed through my body.
“What the fuck is this?” I whispered, looking back to where the camera should be. It was just a coarse wooden ceiling in that corner. I turned back to the screen and nearly screamed.
The TV showed a pale, naked man crouching directly behind my chair now. With jerky movements, he rose, his broken spine twisting and shivering. A hissing voice rang out from the speakers. It spoke as if it had dirt and writhing maggots in its throat.
“He is a killer. The shadow of death,” it gurgled. “Many have fallen. Many lie buried across this forest. You will be next. He is watching you…”
Long, broken fingers with blackened nails reached out to touch my shoulders. I jumped out of the chair, stumbling back as I spun around in terror. My back smashed into the TV, and it fell to the floor with a shattering of glass and an explosion of light.
In those few moments before the darkness descended on me like a blanket, I thought I glimpsed a pale, sunken face with rotted, blackened eyes peeking out from behind the chair.
***
I turned on every light in the cabin, but there was no sign of the Twisted Man now. I knew I had to get out of there, though. I thought about the warning that the voice had spoken. If the creature wanted to attack me, then why hadn’t it just killed me while I was sleeping? None of it made sense. Who was watching me? The Twisted Man? And if he was, why warn me? Perhaps it was psychological warfare, I thought to myself. Perhaps the Twisted Man simply liked to play with his food before he ate it.
Thoughts raced through my head at a thousand miles an hour as I threw on snow pants and a couple heavy sweaters and coats. I covered up my entire body as much as I could to try to prevent frostbite. I had made up my mind to flee. There was no snowstorm tonight, though the entire landscape was blanketed in it and I knew the wind chill would be like an ice blade whipping against my skin. It was extremely dangerous to travel in the middle of the night like this in temperatures that might reach negative thirty degrees. Steve had been right, after all- Alaska had the highest missing persons rate of any state, and many of them were never found, their bodies likely frozen solid in the deep snow dozens of miles from the nearest town.
I grabbed my shotgun, jumped on my snowmobile and started heading to Steve’s cabin. I hoped I could wait there until the sunrise and then figure out what to do next.
But fate would take the decision out of my hands.
***
I felt like there were eyes watching me as I drove along the narrow, winding deer trail. The boughs of the evergreens reached into the path like greedy hands, grabbing at my coat and legs. More than a couple times, I thought I saw a pale, naked figure standing in the snow, but it had always gone when I turned to look.
I gave a sigh of relief when Steve’s place appeared in the distance. I could see the lights twinkling through the small windows of his log cabin. I pulled up next to his door, looking down. I saw two pairs of footprints there, one much smaller than the other. I found it odd, but shrugged it off. The snowmobile cut out with a sucking gurgle.
I knocked on the door hard a few times. Steve appeared after a few moments, groggy and half-dressed. He blinked slowly as he looked me up and down. His wrinkled face fell into a frown.
“Steve, I need a favor,” I said quickly. “Something weird is happening in my cabin. Can I stay here until morning, until maybe I can go to town or something? I can’t stay at my place tonight. I just can’t.” He nodded, yawning and motioning me in.
“You can sleep on the couch, I guess,” Steve said. “Put that shotgun somewhere safe, though, boy.” He had a partitioned bedroom in his cabin. It was significantly larger than my little one-room cabin, though it was basically still just a joint kitchen-living room, a small bedroom and a bathroom. He pointed to a well-worn couch in the corner and gave me an apathetic wave as he stumbled back into his bedroom, slamming the door.
I couldn’t sleep, though. I tiptoed around the room, looking at Steve’s bookshelf. He had a rather strange taste in books- lots of Anne Rule and true crime there. I saw dozens of books about Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Richard Chase, Herbert Mullin, Jeffrey Dahmer and Richard Ramirez among the collection. At the end, a large, black binder stood, unlabeled and worn-looking. It reminded me of the look of that leather-bound diary for a second, and my heart dropped. But logically, I knew this was just a coincidence. Yet, still, I pulled out the binder, my curiosity piqued.
What I found inside filled me with dread and horror.
Countless news clippings covered the length of it. The first clipping was from nearly twenty years earlier, about a woman who went missing in the Alaskan forest while hiking. A later one confirmed that her body was never found, and that her family was still hoping that she might turn up alive somewhere. A reward was offered for any information, it said.
And every page after that was more of the same: missing woman, murdered prostitute, missing man, no leads. I kept flipping through until I found clippings about Will Lenning’s suicide and the sudden disappearance of his wife. On the article about the suicide, Steve had used red marker to scrawl, “HA HA!” next to it.
I heard the click of a gun being cocked from behind me. I froze as Steve’s voice traveled across the room like a whisper.
“How do you like my work, friend?” he asked, his tone jovial and mocking.
***
I still held the binder of horrors tightly in my hands as I stared open-mouthed at this man I thought I knew.
“It’s you? What, you killed Will Lenning and his wife? And a lot of other women, apparently.” Everything felt unreal, as if I were stuck in a dream. Steve’s grin spread across his face, but his blue eyes stayed cold and dead.
“Yes, well, she was cheating on him with me anyway. Just another whore, you know. They always get what’s coming to them in the end,” he hissed with hatred oozing from his voice. “It’s too bad, really. I just killed another slut tonight. I was planning on saving you for later. The urge isn’t too bad yet right now, after all. It comes in cycles, you see. It comes in waves…” I saw a glimmer of pale, naked flesh writhing behind Steve. With jerky movements, the Twisted Man came up behind him. I said nothing, just watching with wide-eyed horror and amazement.
“You need help, man,” I whispered. Steve laughed.
“Help? The only help they give people like me is a needle in the arm. You know that. That’s why it’s important to always cover your tracks…” The Twisted Man ran a long, broken finger across Steve’s neck. Steve gave a strangled cry and jumped. He spun around, screaming. I glanced over at my shotgun next to the couch.
I jumped for it as Steve turned back to me, firing his pistol twice. The first bullet soared high above me, raining wood splinters down on my head, but the second ripped into my leg. A cold, burning pain ran like fire up my shin. I screamed in agony and battle fury as I gripped the shotgun, spinning and firing.
Steve’s head exploded as the slug ripped through his brain. His forehead collapsed like a smashed melon as bone splinters and blood sprayed the wall behind him.
The Twisted Man stood there, hunched over, grinning up at me. I felt warm blood gushing from my leg as I stared back at him, breathing hard. I wondered if I was dying.
“You… you weren’t after me at all, were you?” I asked. “You were after… Steve.” But the Twisted Man said nothing. After a long moment, he slinked back into the shadows of the bedroom and disappeared.
***
As night crawled its way toward morning, I thought back to the words the Twisted Man had spoken through the TV, suddenly understanding everything.
“He is a killer. The shadow of death. Many have fallen. Many lie buried across this forest. You will be next. He is watching you…”
He hadn’t been trying to hurt me at all. He had been trying to warn me. He had probably tried to warn Will Lenning and his wife, too.
I wrapped my leg in gauze, gritting my teeth. The wound looked puckered and deep, but I could still move my foot, and the bullet had gone clean through the flesh. I poured alcohol on it, screaming in pain as it burned its way through my skin. After rummaging through Steve’s bathroom, I found some prescription painkillers and swallowed a handful of them with a beer. I knew I would need the opiate high to get through the pain of riding into town with a mutilated leg.
As the Sun finally rose, I made my way outside the blood-stained floors of the cabin to my snowmobile. Before I left, I glanced back at that horrid place, the scene of so much torment and death.
In the open doorway, the Twisted Man stood, his back hunched, his rotted lips grinning at me. His hand lifted up into the air with jerky movements and waved.
I waved back as I started the engine and headed into town.
submitted by CIAHerpes to stories [link] [comments]
I had no girlfriend, no wife, no kids. My parents had both died a few years prior and I barely talked to my siblings anymore. I had nothing to tie me down to this place where I felt like I was dying inside a little more each day.
That was when I sold nearly everything I owned, got in my car and drove up to Alaska to try starting anew. I bought a small cabin and a plot of land in the middle of its majestic mountains and dark, enchanting forests. In the winter, the Northern Lights would shine through like the eyes of God, sending out divine trails of light that danced through the sky in cosmic waves.
And while the move did help give me some peace of mind, in the end, the source of all my problems had ultimately followed me thousands of miles into this endless wilderness. It would take me a long time to realize the cause of all this misery was myself.
Because, as a wise man once said, “Wherever I go, there I am.”
***
I lived in that cabin for three months without any major issues other than the constant threat of bears, moose and wolves. I had a rifle and a shotgun for hunting, a small garden in the backyard and a solar panel to generate electricity.
“This is the life,” I said, relaxing on a hammock I had strung across the corner of the cabin while staring at the endless beauty directly outside the window. White-capped mountains loomed like giants in front of thick clusters of evergreens. A virgin covering of fluffy snow made the entire world glisten and sparkle. There wasn’t a house or road in sight.
“No work, no stress, no pollution, no cars honking all the time…” I closed my eyes, breathing in the clean air. I ended up falling asleep for a couple hours, waking up just as the Sun had started setting. Bright orange streaks mixed with the bloody smears of the fading light as it disappeared behind the mountains.
I groggily arose, stumbling over to make a cup of instant coffee. As I sipped it, I wandered around the room, looking for something to pass the time. There were still quite a few random objects left behind by the last owner that I hadn’t gotten rid of yet. I had moved in to find a stocked bookshelf filled with classics by Philip K. Dick, Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein. Bored, I started rifling through the collection, looking for something good to pass the time. As I shuffled past “A Maze of Death” and “Ubik”, something caught my eye.
A black, leather-bound book with no title or author name stood there, its cover faded with time and wear. Curious, I pulled it out and opened it. I saw the cursive scrawled across the pages in a neat, copperplate script and realized it was a diary left behind by the previous owner. The first entry was dated “January 9th, 2015.” This is what it said.
***
“I don’t know if I’m going crazy or not. I went into town to talk to my therapist yesterday and she said I should try writing everything down. She talks to me like it’s all in my head. But I know it’s not.
“When I first moved into the cabin, it seemed like Paradise. I never thought in a million years that something would be slinking around at night. I never thought it would be hiding under my bed, peeking in windows and following me like a shadow.
“Right now, I’m snowed in with a cup of coffee in one hand and my pistol in the other. I can’t sleep anymore. I keep hearing something shuffling around under the bed. Sometimes, I think I even hear ragged breathing, as if a corpse with dirt in its lungs had come back to life.
“I’ve caught glimpses of that thing in the darkness. Whatever it is, its skin is loose, almost falling off the bone. It almost looks like a naked, emaciated man. Its eyes are rotted and dark, its back hunched, its spine twisted and jutting out like tumors. It moves in this slow, jerky way, but I can never seem to catch it. Its body seems broken and out of alignment. Its legs bend the wrong way sometimes.
“By the time I turn on the lights or try to take a video of it, it’s always disappeared. But its fetid odor remains. It lingers in the cabin like a sweet-smelling, spreading infection.
“I don’t know what it wants from me. I want to leave, but with the storm raging outside, I’m stuck here, unable to get all the way back to town. The snow surrounds the cabin in mounds five feet high. I feel like a prisoner caged with a rabid beast, not knowing when it will strike.
“My wife claims she hasn’t seen or heard anything, but she keeps vanishing on me. Last night, she disappeared in the middle of a snowstorm. Where did she go? I asked her in the morning, but she said she was here the whole time. She didn’t remember anything. There’s no way she went into town. There wasn’t time and the trails were impassable that far down.
“Something’s going on here, but I don’t know what it is. I’m truly scared for our lives.”
I slammed the diary shut, not wanting to read anymore. I didn’t want to become infected by some kind of contagious cabin fever. If the last owner had gone insane in the mountains and started hallucinating naked corpses crawling around, I really didn’t want to know.
I shoved the diary back in the bookshelf, going for “A Maze of Death” instead. I tried to forget what I had read in the diary as I flew through the novella. All night, I tried to get the image of the naked, twisting man with rotted eyes out of my head, but I couldn’t.
I eventually fell asleep right before dawn. But, as my eyes were closing, I thought I saw a silhouette in the window- a starved man with excited, black eyes that seemed to be rotting out of his skull. I thought I saw him put his inhumanly long fingers against the glass as he leaned forward. I blinked, sitting up and glancing out into the white, snow-covered wonderland.
There was nothing there.
***
Another hunter occasionally followed the deer trails near my cabin. A frozen lake stood a quarter-mile away, the surface white and covered in thick drifts of snow. I bundled up, deciding to go outside for a hike in the frigid dawn. I strapped on my snowshoes and grabbed my shotgun, as I always did when I went outside. I never knew when a polar bear might be waiting around the next tree, after all.
I opened the door, seeing footprints pressed into the snow all around my house. At first, I thought it was that silhouette I had seen, the nightmarish thing from the diary. But the footprints didn’t go over to my window. They followed the trail twenty feet away, veering off towards the frozen lake at the bottom of the hill. I glanced down in that direction, seeing a black figure plodding slowly forward.
“Steve!” I cried, recognizing my only neighbor in a four-mile radius. He had a cabin about a mile away on his own little plot of land. He jumped, clearly startled by the sudden noise. His black snow pants and heavy fur coat swished together as he spun, raising his rifle high. When he saw me, he immediately lowered it and put a gloved hand up in a friendly greeting.
“Hey Josh! Surprised to see you up this early,” he yelled over the muted wintry landscape. Sounds always seemed different after it snowed, as if all the noise in the world had become faded and dead.
“Yeah, I’ve been having a little trouble sleeping,” I said, slinging my shotgun around my shoulder. “What are you doing anyway?”
“Just a little hunting, you know,” he said, giving me a sly wink. “Animals are always most active around dusk and dawn, it seems. That’s when I always have the best luck, anyway.” He stepped close to me, staring me in the eyes. “You do look like shit. Those bags under your eyes are big enough to carry groceries in.”
“Yeah, trust me, I know… Hey, this might sound a little weird, but did you know the previous owner of this cabin?” I asked. Steve’s wrinkled, old face fell into a scowl. His expression immediately became guarded and distant.
“Sure, sure, we met,” he exclaimed bluntly. He seemed to be searching my face for something, but I didn’t know what. His reaction left me feeling off-balance and nervous.
“Is he still around?” I said. Steve’s scowl deepened.
“Buddy, I don’t know what this is about, but he’s dead. He’s been dead. He died in that cabin, actually.” He pointed a finger at my home accusingly. With those words, my heart seemed to drop into my stomach. Waves of dread flowed through my body like water.
“How… how did he die? Like a heart attack or something?” I asked. Steve’s gaze turned downwards. He didn’t meet my eyes.
“Do you know that Alaska has the highest missing persons rate in the entire United States? It’s not even close. In fact, for the population size, we have far more people who go missing and never get found than anywhere else. They even have a name for it: the Alaska Triangle,” Steve said. “And we’re square in the middle of it.” I stared blankly at him, wondering where he was going with this. It seemed like a way to avoid answering my question.
“No, I didn’t know that…” I responded. Steve nodded, raising his head again. He heaved a deep sigh.
“Look, the thing with the last owner and his wife… it’s somewhat disturbing. If you really want to know, I’ll tell you, but it’s certainly not going to help your peace of mind. And it definitely isn’t going to help you get some sleep.”
“I want to know,” I insisted instantly. The wind started to whip past us. Flakes of ice and snow flew sideways in the sudden currents.
“Let’s go back to your cabin then,” Steve said, pulling his heavy fur-lined hood off and shaking out his long, black hair behind him. “I could use a bit of whiskey to warm up.”
***
We sat down with a bottle of Johnny Walker and two shot glasses. I wasn’t much of a drinker, but Steve certainly was. He chugged three shots in the span of a minute. I sipped at mine, drinking half and putting it back down on the coffee table with a thunk. Steve grunted, hissing through his open mouth for a moment.
“Ugh, that’s the good stuff,” he said, slamming his chest as the burning liquor worked its way down. Steve looked up at me with a new sparkle in his eyes. “Huh, so you want to know about what happened to Will Lenning. Well, I’ll tell you that no one really knows the whole story. I used to see him occasionally, come down and have a drink and talk. We all know each other around here, obviously.” I nodded, motioning him on. “He seemed like a normal, upstanding guy. He kinda reminded me of you, actually. A young guy trying to escape the hustle and bustle of the city life, the cancer of the American Dream.
“Well, he was here for maybe a couple months, I don’t know. Everything seemed fine. We used to go skeet shooting occasionally, have a beer, you know. We’d get together with a couple other hunters who live closer to town and sometimes play some poker. I never saw anything odd about Will. I never could have predicted what happened to him.” He heaved a long sigh at this, looking out the window at the sharp mountains with an expression of nostalgia.
“Well, what happened to him?” I asked, encouraging him to go on.
“He started talking about seeing someone peering in through his window at night. He talked about hearing sounds from under his bed while he was laying there in the dark- sounds like diseased breathing and shuffling. He started keeping all the lights on in his cabin twenty-four hours a day.” Steve leaned close to me. A glimmer of fear rippled across his pale, wrinkled face. “He started to lose his mind. Started digging holes all over the place, looking for something. Even in the middle of snowstorms, I would occasionally see him outside, digging. It seemed like he never slept anymore. It was classic cabin fever if I ever saw it.
“It was only a few weeks later that I came over here, concerned. I hadn’t heard from him in a few days, which was fairly unusual. I found the door hanging wide open. Propped up in a chair in the exact spot where you now sit, Will lay with a blast hole showing clear through his skull, a shotgun laying at his feet.
“And next to him, I found a blood-stained diary opened to the middle page. The last entry was stained with blood spatter, but still visible. I remember leaning down and reading it. It was only a few sentences long.” I glanced over at the bookshelf with the same diary, saying nothing.
“It said something like, ‘I see now what’s going on. The Twisted Man is leading me to the truth. Today, I will finally find it.’”
“And that was his suicide note?” I asked, my heart hammering in my chest. He nodded.
“Yeah. I went into town and got some rangers to come check it out. Eventually, they got cops and CSI there. They took all the stuff as evidence, including the diary,” he said. “Good riddance, I say. Reading something like that is never beneficial. Sometimes delusions spread like a virus, you know what I mean?” I did, but I said nothing. I glanced back at the diary, its black leather cover gleaming like a crouching snake.
And I wondered- if the police took the diary as evidence, how did it get back here?
***
“You said he had a wife living here with him, too?” I asked.
“Yeah… she went missing around the same time,” he said. “Pretty bizarre. The cops thought maybe she just moved away, but…” He shook his head grimly. “As far as I know, she was never seen again. It was like she had evaporated into thin air.”
After Steve left, I walked stiffly over to the bookshelf, taking down the diary. I flipped open through the pages. In the middle, I found the last entry. Spatters of old, darkened blood were scattered over the page like raindrops. I found the suicide note and read the date.
“January 27th, 2015,” it read. Will Lenning had not lived long after he started seeing the Twisted Man. I wondered if my fate would be the same.
The Sun had started to set outside as I sat with the diary at the small circular kitchen table, eating some stewed venison and rice as I read through the entries. At the end, Will Lenning said the Twisted Man had been trying to guide him somewhere, that, in fact, the Twisted Man had been trying to protect him from some great evil, rather than being the source of it.
I scoffed, feeling a flash of anger at his stupidity. His naivety obviously led to his death. But then a flash of insight struck me like lightning.
What if I was committing the same kind of stupidity? Perhaps I should just grab my gun and valuables and leave. I could take off on the snowmobile and be in town within a couple hours.
But, in my heart, I knew I would not. Something about the mystery of all this beckoned me to stay. Like a siren leading sailors to destruction, my curiosity called out to me, and I knew I would not be leaving that night. I needed answers.
And, sadly, I would find them.
***
I had fallen asleep with an empty bottle of beer in my hand. I sat in front of the TV, which only got satellite reception. There were, of course, no cable or phone lines threading their way through the forest. All of my power came from stored solar energy. Since I rarely watched TV and really only used it to cook or heat up water for bathing, the energy produced was sufficient even in winter. Tonight, though, I needed its sound, its mindless flashing of light and colors and canned laughter. It seemed to drive away the creeping, suffocating presence like a candle.
I woke suddenly. The TV flashed with static. The repetitive hissing of the white noise spit from the speakers like thousands of snakes. I glanced up at the clock. 3:33 AM. I looked around the dark cabin, confused for a long moment. I didn’t understand what had woken me so abruptly. The satellite had never gone out before, either, even with the howling winds and freezing hail of the Alaskan winter.
The TV started flickering as if the static were rising upwards. Black lines traced their way horizontally across the screen. The hissing deepened into a gurgle, and for a second, I thought I heard faint words behind the white noise. I thought I heard breathing, slow and diseased, like the death gasp of a drowning man.
A black line rose across the TV and an image came into view. The cabin was suddenly plunged into silence, except for the shrieking, wintry wind outside. I leaned close to the screen, confused at what I was looking at. It looked like a live camera feed of a room. As I took in the details, I realized it was my cabin. I saw myself in the chair, leaning close to the screen. I raised my hand, and the miniature version of me on the screen did likewise. Ice water seemed to drip down my spine as waves of dread coursed through my body.
“What the fuck is this?” I whispered, looking back to where the camera should be. It was just a coarse wooden ceiling in that corner. I turned back to the screen and nearly screamed.
The TV showed a pale, naked man crouching directly behind my chair now. With jerky movements, he rose, his broken spine twisting and shivering. A hissing voice rang out from the speakers. It spoke as if it had dirt and writhing maggots in its throat.
“He is a killer. The shadow of death,” it gurgled. “Many have fallen. Many lie buried across this forest. You will be next. He is watching you…”
Long, broken fingers with blackened nails reached out to touch my shoulders. I jumped out of the chair, stumbling back as I spun around in terror. My back smashed into the TV, and it fell to the floor with a shattering of glass and an explosion of light.
In those few moments before the darkness descended on me like a blanket, I thought I glimpsed a pale, sunken face with rotted, blackened eyes peeking out from behind the chair.
***
I turned on every light in the cabin, but there was no sign of the Twisted Man now. I knew I had to get out of there, though. I thought about the warning that the voice had spoken. If the creature wanted to attack me, then why hadn’t it just killed me while I was sleeping? None of it made sense. Who was watching me? The Twisted Man? And if he was, why warn me? Perhaps it was psychological warfare, I thought to myself. Perhaps the Twisted Man simply liked to play with his food before he ate it.
Thoughts raced through my head at a thousand miles an hour as I threw on snow pants and a couple heavy sweaters and coats. I covered up my entire body as much as I could to try to prevent frostbite. I had made up my mind to flee. There was no snowstorm tonight, though the entire landscape was blanketed in it and I knew the wind chill would be like an ice blade whipping against my skin. It was extremely dangerous to travel in the middle of the night like this in temperatures that might reach negative thirty degrees. Steve had been right, after all- Alaska had the highest missing persons rate of any state, and many of them were never found, their bodies likely frozen solid in the deep snow dozens of miles from the nearest town.
I grabbed my shotgun, jumped on my snowmobile and started heading to Steve’s cabin. I hoped I could wait there until the sunrise and then figure out what to do next.
But fate would take the decision out of my hands.
***
I felt like there were eyes watching me as I drove along the narrow, winding deer trail. The boughs of the evergreens reached into the path like greedy hands, grabbing at my coat and legs. More than a couple times, I thought I saw a pale, naked figure standing in the snow, but it had always gone when I turned to look.
I gave a sigh of relief when Steve’s place appeared in the distance. I could see the lights twinkling through the small windows of his log cabin. I pulled up next to his door, looking down. I saw two pairs of footprints there, one much smaller than the other. I found it odd, but shrugged it off. The snowmobile cut out with a sucking gurgle.
I knocked on the door hard a few times. Steve appeared after a few moments, groggy and half-dressed. He blinked slowly as he looked me up and down. His wrinkled face fell into a frown.
“Steve, I need a favor,” I said quickly. “Something weird is happening in my cabin. Can I stay here until morning, until maybe I can go to town or something? I can’t stay at my place tonight. I just can’t.” He nodded, yawning and motioning me in.
“You can sleep on the couch, I guess,” Steve said. “Put that shotgun somewhere safe, though, boy.” He had a partitioned bedroom in his cabin. It was significantly larger than my little one-room cabin, though it was basically still just a joint kitchen-living room, a small bedroom and a bathroom. He pointed to a well-worn couch in the corner and gave me an apathetic wave as he stumbled back into his bedroom, slamming the door.
I couldn’t sleep, though. I tiptoed around the room, looking at Steve’s bookshelf. He had a rather strange taste in books- lots of Anne Rule and true crime there. I saw dozens of books about Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Richard Chase, Herbert Mullin, Jeffrey Dahmer and Richard Ramirez among the collection. At the end, a large, black binder stood, unlabeled and worn-looking. It reminded me of the look of that leather-bound diary for a second, and my heart dropped. But logically, I knew this was just a coincidence. Yet, still, I pulled out the binder, my curiosity piqued.
What I found inside filled me with dread and horror.
Countless news clippings covered the length of it. The first clipping was from nearly twenty years earlier, about a woman who went missing in the Alaskan forest while hiking. A later one confirmed that her body was never found, and that her family was still hoping that she might turn up alive somewhere. A reward was offered for any information, it said.
And every page after that was more of the same: missing woman, murdered prostitute, missing man, no leads. I kept flipping through until I found clippings about Will Lenning’s suicide and the sudden disappearance of his wife. On the article about the suicide, Steve had used red marker to scrawl, “HA HA!” next to it.
I heard the click of a gun being cocked from behind me. I froze as Steve’s voice traveled across the room like a whisper.
“How do you like my work, friend?” he asked, his tone jovial and mocking.
***
I still held the binder of horrors tightly in my hands as I stared open-mouthed at this man I thought I knew.
“It’s you? What, you killed Will Lenning and his wife? And a lot of other women, apparently.” Everything felt unreal, as if I were stuck in a dream. Steve’s grin spread across his face, but his blue eyes stayed cold and dead.
“Yes, well, she was cheating on him with me anyway. Just another whore, you know. They always get what’s coming to them in the end,” he hissed with hatred oozing from his voice. “It’s too bad, really. I just killed another slut tonight. I was planning on saving you for later. The urge isn’t too bad yet right now, after all. It comes in cycles, you see. It comes in waves…” I saw a glimmer of pale, naked flesh writhing behind Steve. With jerky movements, the Twisted Man came up behind him. I said nothing, just watching with wide-eyed horror and amazement.
“You need help, man,” I whispered. Steve laughed.
“Help? The only help they give people like me is a needle in the arm. You know that. That’s why it’s important to always cover your tracks…” The Twisted Man ran a long, broken finger across Steve’s neck. Steve gave a strangled cry and jumped. He spun around, screaming. I glanced over at my shotgun next to the couch.
I jumped for it as Steve turned back to me, firing his pistol twice. The first bullet soared high above me, raining wood splinters down on my head, but the second ripped into my leg. A cold, burning pain ran like fire up my shin. I screamed in agony and battle fury as I gripped the shotgun, spinning and firing.
Steve’s head exploded as the slug ripped through his brain. His forehead collapsed like a smashed melon as bone splinters and blood sprayed the wall behind him.
The Twisted Man stood there, hunched over, grinning up at me. I felt warm blood gushing from my leg as I stared back at him, breathing hard. I wondered if I was dying.
“You… you weren’t after me at all, were you?” I asked. “You were after… Steve.” But the Twisted Man said nothing. After a long moment, he slinked back into the shadows of the bedroom and disappeared.
***
As night crawled its way toward morning, I thought back to the words the Twisted Man had spoken through the TV, suddenly understanding everything.
“He is a killer. The shadow of death. Many have fallen. Many lie buried across this forest. You will be next. He is watching you…”
He hadn’t been trying to hurt me at all. He had been trying to warn me. He had probably tried to warn Will Lenning and his wife, too.
I wrapped my leg in gauze, gritting my teeth. The wound looked puckered and deep, but I could still move my foot, and the bullet had gone clean through the flesh. I poured alcohol on it, screaming in pain as it burned its way through my skin. After rummaging through Steve’s bathroom, I found some prescription painkillers and swallowed a handful of them with a beer. I knew I would need the opiate high to get through the pain of riding into town with a mutilated leg.
As the Sun finally rose, I made my way outside the blood-stained floors of the cabin to my snowmobile. Before I left, I glanced back at that horrid place, the scene of so much torment and death.
In the open doorway, the Twisted Man stood, his back hunched, his rotted lips grinning at me. His hand lifted up into the air with jerky movements and waved.
I waved back as I started the engine and headed into town.
2024.06.02 01:06 CIAHerpes I live alone in Alaska. The Twisted Man has been peeking in through my windows.
A few years ago, I decided I needed a major life change. Everything seemed to be going downhill- my finances, my mental health, my life. I would go weeks without sleeping sometimes as the heavy traffic passed through the city streets down below. Every time I went outside, I saw more homeless people, more needles and crack pipes littering the ground, more muggings and assaults and overdoses and deaths. The city had become a wasteland, and I knew it was time to leave.
I had no girlfriend, no wife, no kids. My parents had both died a few years prior and I barely talked to my siblings anymore. I had nothing to tie me down to this place where I felt like I was dying inside a little more each day.
That was when I sold nearly everything I owned, got in my car and drove up to Alaska to try starting anew. I bought a small cabin and a plot of land in the middle of its majestic mountains and dark, enchanting forests. In the winter, the Northern Lights would shine through like the eyes of God, sending out divine trails of light that danced through the sky in cosmic waves.
And while the move did help give me some peace of mind, in the end, the source of all my problems had ultimately followed me thousands of miles into this endless wilderness. It would take me a long time to realize the cause of all this misery was myself.
Because, as a wise man once said, “Wherever I go, there I am.”
***
I lived in that cabin for three months without any major issues other than the constant threat of bears, moose and wolves. I had a rifle and a shotgun for hunting, a small garden in the backyard and a solar panel to generate electricity.
“This is the life,” I said, relaxing on a hammock I had strung across the corner of the cabin while staring at the endless beauty directly outside the window. White-capped mountains loomed like giants in front of thick clusters of evergreens. A virgin covering of fluffy snow made the entire world glisten and sparkle. There wasn’t a house or road in sight.
“No work, no stress, no pollution, no cars honking all the time…” I closed my eyes, breathing in the clean air. I ended up falling asleep for a couple hours, waking up just as the Sun had started setting. Bright orange streaks mixed with the bloody smears of the fading light as it disappeared behind the mountains.
I groggily arose, stumbling over to make a cup of instant coffee. As I sipped it, I wandered around the room, looking for something to pass the time. There were still quite a few random objects left behind by the last owner that I hadn’t gotten rid of yet. I had moved in to find a stocked bookshelf filled with classics by Philip K. Dick, Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein. Bored, I started rifling through the collection, looking for something good to pass the time. As I shuffled past “A Maze of Death” and “Ubik”, something caught my eye.
A black, leather-bound book with no title or author name stood there, its cover faded with time and wear. Curious, I pulled it out and opened it. I saw the cursive scrawled across the pages in a neat, copperplate script and realized it was a diary left behind by the previous owner. The first entry was dated “January 9th, 2015.” This is what it said.
***
“I don’t know if I’m going crazy or not. I went into town to talk to my therapist yesterday and she said I should try writing everything down. She talks to me like it’s all in my head. But I know it’s not.
“When I first moved into the cabin, it seemed like Paradise. I never thought in a million years that something would be slinking around at night. I never thought it would be hiding under my bed, peeking in windows and following me like a shadow.
“Right now, I’m snowed in with a cup of coffee in one hand and my pistol in the other. I can’t sleep anymore. I keep hearing something shuffling around under the bed. Sometimes, I think I even hear ragged breathing, as if a corpse with dirt in its lungs had come back to life.
“I’ve caught glimpses of that thing in the darkness. Whatever it is, its skin is loose, almost falling off the bone. It almost looks like a naked, emaciated man. Its eyes are rotted and dark, its back hunched, its spine twisted and jutting out like tumors. It moves in this slow, jerky way, but I can never seem to catch it. Its body seems broken and out of alignment. Its legs bend the wrong way sometimes.
“By the time I turn on the lights or try to take a video of it, it’s always disappeared. But its fetid odor remains. It lingers in the cabin like a sweet-smelling, spreading infection.
“I don’t know what it wants from me. I want to leave, but with the storm raging outside, I’m stuck here, unable to get all the way back to town. The snow surrounds the cabin in mounds five feet high. I feel like a prisoner caged with a rabid beast, not knowing when it will strike.
“My wife claims she hasn’t seen or heard anything, but she keeps vanishing on me. Last night, she disappeared in the middle of a snowstorm. Where did she go? I asked her in the morning, but she said she was here the whole time. She didn’t remember anything. There’s no way she went into town. There wasn’t time and the trails were impassable that far down.
“Something’s going on here, but I don’t know what it is. I’m truly scared for our lives.”
I slammed the diary shut, not wanting to read anymore. I didn’t want to become infected by some kind of contagious cabin fever. If the last owner had gone insane in the mountains and started hallucinating naked corpses crawling around, I really didn’t want to know.
I shoved the diary back in the bookshelf, going for “A Maze of Death” instead. I tried to forget what I had read in the diary as I flew through the novella. All night, I tried to get the image of the naked, twisting man with rotted eyes out of my head, but I couldn’t.
I eventually fell asleep right before dawn. But, as my eyes were closing, I thought I saw a silhouette in the window- a starved man with excited, black eyes that seemed to be rotting out of his skull. I thought I saw him put his inhumanly long fingers against the glass as he leaned forward. I blinked, sitting up and glancing out into the white, snow-covered wonderland.
There was nothing there.
***
Another hunter occasionally followed the deer trails near my cabin. A frozen lake stood a quarter-mile away, the surface white and covered in thick drifts of snow. I bundled up, deciding to go outside for a hike in the frigid dawn. I strapped on my snowshoes and grabbed my shotgun, as I always did when I went outside. I never knew when a polar bear might be waiting around the next tree, after all.
I opened the door, seeing footprints pressed into the snow all around my house. At first, I thought it was that silhouette I had seen, the nightmarish thing from the diary. But the footprints didn’t go over to my window. They followed the trail twenty feet away, veering off towards the frozen lake at the bottom of the hill. I glanced down in that direction, seeing a black figure plodding slowly forward.
“Steve!” I cried, recognizing my only neighbor in a four-mile radius. He had a cabin about a mile away on his own little plot of land. He jumped, clearly startled by the sudden noise. His black snow pants and heavy fur coat swished together as he spun, raising his rifle high. When he saw me, he immediately lowered it and put a gloved hand up in a friendly greeting.
“Hey Josh! Surprised to see you up this early,” he yelled over the muted wintry landscape. Sounds always seemed different after it snowed, as if all the noise in the world had become faded and dead.
“Yeah, I’ve been having a little trouble sleeping,” I said, slinging my shotgun around my shoulder. “What are you doing anyway?”
“Just a little hunting, you know,” he said, giving me a sly wink. “Animals are always most active around dusk and dawn, it seems. That’s when I always have the best luck, anyway.” He stepped close to me, staring me in the eyes. “You do look like shit. Those bags under your eyes are big enough to carry groceries in.”
“Yeah, trust me, I know… Hey, this might sound a little weird, but did you know the previous owner of this cabin?” I asked. Steve’s wrinkled, old face fell into a scowl. His expression immediately became guarded and distant.
“Sure, sure, we met,” he exclaimed bluntly. He seemed to be searching my face for something, but I didn’t know what. His reaction left me feeling off-balance and nervous.
“Is he still around?” I said. Steve’s scowl deepened.
“Buddy, I don’t know what this is about, but he’s dead. He’s been dead. He died in that cabin, actually.” He pointed a finger at my home accusingly. With those words, my heart seemed to drop into my stomach. Waves of dread flowed through my body like water.
“How… how did he die? Like a heart attack or something?” I asked. Steve’s gaze turned downwards. He didn’t meet my eyes.
“Do you know that Alaska has the highest missing persons rate in the entire United States? It’s not even close. In fact, for the population size, we have far more people who go missing and never get found than anywhere else. They even have a name for it: the Alaska Triangle,” Steve said. “And we’re square in the middle of it.” I stared blankly at him, wondering where he was going with this. It seemed like a way to avoid answering my question.
“No, I didn’t know that…” I responded. Steve nodded, raising his head again. He heaved a deep sigh.
“Look, the thing with the last owner and his wife… it’s somewhat disturbing. If you really want to know, I’ll tell you, but it’s certainly not going to help your peace of mind. And it definitely isn’t going to help you get some sleep.”
“I want to know,” I insisted instantly. The wind started to whip past us. Flakes of ice and snow flew sideways in the sudden currents.
“Let’s go back to your cabin then,” Steve said, pulling his heavy fur-lined hood off and shaking out his long, black hair behind him. “I could use a bit of whiskey to warm up.”
***
We sat down with a bottle of Johnny Walker and two shot glasses. I wasn’t much of a drinker, but Steve certainly was. He chugged three shots in the span of a minute. I sipped at mine, drinking half and putting it back down on the coffee table with a thunk. Steve grunted, hissing through his open mouth for a moment.
“Ugh, that’s the good stuff,” he said, slamming his chest as the burning liquor worked its way down. Steve looked up at me with a new sparkle in his eyes. “Huh, so you want to know about what happened to Will Lenning. Well, I’ll tell you that no one really knows the whole story. I used to see him occasionally, come down and have a drink and talk. We all know each other around here, obviously.” I nodded, motioning him on. “He seemed like a normal, upstanding guy. He kinda reminded me of you, actually. A young guy trying to escape the hustle and bustle of the city life, the cancer of the American Dream.
“Well, he was here for maybe a couple months, I don’t know. Everything seemed fine. We used to go skeet shooting occasionally, have a beer, you know. We’d get together with a couple other hunters who live closer to town and sometimes play some poker. I never saw anything odd about Will. I never could have predicted what happened to him.” He heaved a long sigh at this, looking out the window at the sharp mountains with an expression of nostalgia.
“Well, what happened to him?” I asked, encouraging him to go on.
“He started talking about seeing someone peering in through his window at night. He talked about hearing sounds from under his bed while he was laying there in the dark- sounds like diseased breathing and shuffling. He started keeping all the lights on in his cabin twenty-four hours a day.” Steve leaned close to me. A glimmer of fear rippled across his pale, wrinkled face. “He started to lose his mind. Started digging holes all over the place, looking for something. Even in the middle of snowstorms, I would occasionally see him outside, digging. It seemed like he never slept anymore. It was classic cabin fever if I ever saw it.
“It was only a few weeks later that I came over here, concerned. I hadn’t heard from him in a few days, which was fairly unusual. I found the door hanging wide open. Propped up in a chair in the exact spot where you now sit, Will lay with a blast hole showing clear through his skull, a shotgun laying at his feet.
“And next to him, I found a blood-stained diary opened to the middle page. The last entry was stained with blood spatter, but still visible. I remember leaning down and reading it. It was only a few sentences long.” I glanced over at the bookshelf with the same diary, saying nothing.
“It said something like, ‘I see now what’s going on. The Twisted Man is leading me to the truth. Today, I will finally find it.’”
“And that was his suicide note?” I asked, my heart hammering in my chest. He nodded.
“Yeah. I went into town and got some rangers to come check it out. Eventually, they got cops and CSI there. They took all the stuff as evidence, including the diary,” he said. “Good riddance, I say. Reading something like that is never beneficial. Sometimes delusions spread like a virus, you know what I mean?” I did, but I said nothing. I glanced back at the diary, its black leather cover gleaming like a crouching snake.
And I wondered- if the police took the diary as evidence, how did it get back here?
***
“You said he had a wife living here with him, too?” I asked.
“Yeah… she went missing around the same time,” he said. “Pretty bizarre. The cops thought maybe she just moved away, but…” He shook his head grimly. “As far as I know, she was never seen again. It was like she had evaporated into thin air.”
After Steve left, I walked stiffly over to the bookshelf, taking down the diary. I flipped open through the pages. In the middle, I found the last entry. Spatters of old, darkened blood were scattered over the page like raindrops. I found the suicide note and read the date.
“January 27th, 2015,” it read. Will Lenning had not lived long after he started seeing the Twisted Man. I wondered if my fate would be the same.
The Sun had started to set outside as I sat with the diary at the small circular kitchen table, eating some stewed venison and rice as I read through the entries. At the end, Will Lenning said the Twisted Man had been trying to guide him somewhere, that, in fact, the Twisted Man had been trying to protect him from some great evil, rather than being the source of it.
I scoffed, feeling a flash of anger at his stupidity. His naivety obviously led to his death. But then a flash of insight struck me like lightning.
What if I was committing the same kind of stupidity? Perhaps I should just grab my gun and valuables and leave. I could take off on the snowmobile and be in town within a couple hours.
But, in my heart, I knew I would not. Something about the mystery of all this beckoned me to stay. Like a siren leading sailors to destruction, my curiosity called out to me, and I knew I would not be leaving that night. I needed answers.
And, sadly, I would find them.
***
I had fallen asleep with an empty bottle of beer in my hand. I sat in front of the TV, which only got satellite reception. There were, of course, no cable or phone lines threading their way through the forest. All of my power came from stored solar energy. Since I rarely watched TV and really only used it to cook or heat up water for bathing, the energy produced was sufficient even in winter. Tonight, though, I needed its sound, its mindless flashing of light and colors and canned laughter. It seemed to drive away the creeping, suffocating presence like a candle.
I woke suddenly. The TV flashed with static. The repetitive hissing of the white noise spit from the speakers like thousands of snakes. I glanced up at the clock. 3:33 AM. I looked around the dark cabin, confused for a long moment. I didn’t understand what had woken me so abruptly. The satellite had never gone out before, either, even with the howling winds and freezing hail of the Alaskan winter.
The TV started flickering as if the static were rising upwards. Black lines traced their way horizontally across the screen. The hissing deepened into a gurgle, and for a second, I thought I heard faint words behind the white noise. I thought I heard breathing, slow and diseased, like the death gasp of a drowning man.
A black line rose across the TV and an image came into view. The cabin was suddenly plunged into silence, except for the shrieking, wintry wind outside. I leaned close to the screen, confused at what I was looking at. It looked like a live camera feed of a room. As I took in the details, I realized it was my cabin. I saw myself in the chair, leaning close to the screen. I raised my hand, and the miniature version of me on the screen did likewise. Ice water seemed to drip down my spine as waves of dread coursed through my body.
“What the fuck is this?” I whispered, looking back to where the camera should be. It was just a coarse wooden ceiling in that corner. I turned back to the screen and nearly screamed.
The TV showed a pale, naked man crouching directly behind my chair now. With jerky movements, he rose, his broken spine twisting and shivering. A hissing voice rang out from the speakers. It spoke as if it had dirt and writhing maggots in its throat.
“He is a killer. The shadow of death,” it gurgled. “Many have fallen. Many lie buried across this forest. You will be next. He is watching you…”
Long, broken fingers with blackened nails reached out to touch my shoulders. I jumped out of the chair, stumbling back as I spun around in terror. My back smashed into the TV, and it fell to the floor with a shattering of glass and an explosion of light.
In those few moments before the darkness descended on me like a blanket, I thought I glimpsed a pale, sunken face with rotted, blackened eyes peeking out from behind the chair.
***
I turned on every light in the cabin, but there was no sign of the Twisted Man now. I knew I had to get out of there, though. I thought about the warning that the voice had spoken. If the creature wanted to attack me, then why hadn’t it just killed me while I was sleeping? None of it made sense. Who was watching me? The Twisted Man? And if he was, why warn me? Perhaps it was psychological warfare, I thought to myself. Perhaps the Twisted Man simply liked to play with his food before he ate it.
Thoughts raced through my head at a thousand miles an hour as I threw on snow pants and a couple heavy sweaters and coats. I covered up my entire body as much as I could to try to prevent frostbite. I had made up my mind to flee. There was no snowstorm tonight, though the entire landscape was blanketed in it and I knew the wind chill would be like an ice blade whipping against my skin. It was extremely dangerous to travel in the middle of the night like this in temperatures that might reach negative thirty degrees. Steve had been right, after all- Alaska had the highest missing persons rate of any state, and many of them were never found, their bodies likely frozen solid in the deep snow dozens of miles from the nearest town.
I grabbed my shotgun, jumped on my snowmobile and started heading to Steve’s cabin. I hoped I could wait there until the sunrise and then figure out what to do next.
But fate would take the decision out of my hands.
***
I felt like there were eyes watching me as I drove along the narrow, winding deer trail. The boughs of the evergreens reached into the path like greedy hands, grabbing at my coat and legs. More than a couple times, I thought I saw a pale, naked figure standing in the snow, but it had always gone when I turned to look.
I gave a sigh of relief when Steve’s place appeared in the distance. I could see the lights twinkling through the small windows of his log cabin. I pulled up next to his door, looking down. I saw two pairs of footprints there, one much smaller than the other. I found it odd, but shrugged it off. The snowmobile cut out with a sucking gurgle.
I knocked on the door hard a few times. Steve appeared after a few moments, groggy and half-dressed. He blinked slowly as he looked me up and down. His wrinkled face fell into a frown.
“Steve, I need a favor,” I said quickly. “Something weird is happening in my cabin. Can I stay here until morning, until maybe I can go to town or something? I can’t stay at my place tonight. I just can’t.” He nodded, yawning and motioning me in.
“You can sleep on the couch, I guess,” Steve said. “Put that shotgun somewhere safe, though, boy.” He had a partitioned bedroom in his cabin. It was significantly larger than my little one-room cabin, though it was basically still just a joint kitchen-living room, a small bedroom and a bathroom. He pointed to a well-worn couch in the corner and gave me an apathetic wave as he stumbled back into his bedroom, slamming the door.
I couldn’t sleep, though. I tiptoed around the room, looking at Steve’s bookshelf. He had a rather strange taste in books- lots of Anne Rule and true crime there. I saw dozens of books about Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Richard Chase, Herbert Mullin, Jeffrey Dahmer and Richard Ramirez among the collection. At the end, a large, black binder stood, unlabeled and worn-looking. It reminded me of the look of that leather-bound diary for a second, and my heart dropped. But logically, I knew this was just a coincidence. Yet, still, I pulled out the binder, my curiosity piqued.
What I found inside filled me with dread and horror.
Countless news clippings covered the length of it. The first clipping was from nearly twenty years earlier, about a woman who went missing in the Alaskan forest while hiking. A later one confirmed that her body was never found, and that her family was still hoping that she might turn up alive somewhere. A reward was offered for any information, it said.
And every page after that was more of the same: missing woman, murdered prostitute, missing man, no leads. I kept flipping through until I found clippings about Will Lenning’s suicide and the sudden disappearance of his wife. On the article about the suicide, Steve had used red marker to scrawl, “HA HA!” next to it.
I heard the click of a gun being cocked from behind me. I froze as Steve’s voice traveled across the room like a whisper.
“How do you like my work, friend?” he asked, his tone jovial and mocking.
***
I still held the binder of horrors tightly in my hands as I stared open-mouthed at this man I thought I knew.
“It’s you? What, you killed Will Lenning and his wife? And a lot of other women, apparently.” Everything felt unreal, as if I were stuck in a dream. Steve’s grin spread across his face, but his blue eyes stayed cold and dead.
“Yes, well, she was cheating on him with me anyway. Just another whore, you know. They always get what’s coming to them in the end,” he hissed with hatred oozing from his voice. “It’s too bad, really. I just killed another slut tonight. I was planning on saving you for later. The urge isn’t too bad yet right now, after all. It comes in cycles, you see. It comes in waves…” I saw a glimmer of pale, naked flesh writhing behind Steve. With jerky movements, the Twisted Man came up behind him. I said nothing, just watching with wide-eyed horror and amazement.
“You need help, man,” I whispered. Steve laughed.
“Help? The only help they give people like me is a needle in the arm. You know that. That’s why it’s important to always cover your tracks…” The Twisted Man ran a long, broken finger across Steve’s neck. Steve gave a strangled cry and jumped. He spun around, screaming. I glanced over at my shotgun next to the couch.
I jumped for it as Steve turned back to me, firing his pistol twice. The first bullet soared high above me, raining wood splinters down on my head, but the second ripped into my leg. A cold, burning pain ran like fire up my shin. I screamed in agony and battle fury as I gripped the shotgun, spinning and firing.
Steve’s head exploded as the slug ripped through his brain. His forehead collapsed like a smashed melon as bone splinters and blood sprayed the wall behind him.
The Twisted Man stood there, hunched over, grinning up at me. I felt warm blood gushing from my leg as I stared back at him, breathing hard. I wondered if I was dying.
“You… you weren’t after me at all, were you?” I asked. “You were after… Steve.” But the Twisted Man said nothing. After a long moment, he slinked back into the shadows of the bedroom and disappeared.
***
As night crawled its way toward morning, I thought back to the words the Twisted Man had spoken through the TV, suddenly understanding everything.
“He is a killer. The shadow of death. Many have fallen. Many lie buried across this forest. You will be next. He is watching you…”
He hadn’t been trying to hurt me at all. He had been trying to warn me. He had probably tried to warn Will Lenning and his wife, too.
I wrapped my leg in gauze, gritting my teeth. The wound looked puckered and deep, but I could still move my foot, and the bullet had gone clean through the flesh. I poured alcohol on it, screaming in pain as it burned its way through my skin. After rummaging through Steve’s bathroom, I found some prescription painkillers and swallowed a handful of them with a beer. I knew I would need the opiate high to get through the pain of riding into town with a mutilated leg.
As the Sun finally rose, I made my way outside the blood-stained floors of the cabin to my snowmobile. Before I left, I glanced back at that horrid place, the scene of so much torment and death.
In the open doorway, the Twisted Man stood, his back hunched, his rotted lips grinning at me. His hand lifted up into the air with jerky movements and waved.
I waved back as I started the engine and headed into town.
submitted by CIAHerpes to horrorstories [link] [comments]
I had no girlfriend, no wife, no kids. My parents had both died a few years prior and I barely talked to my siblings anymore. I had nothing to tie me down to this place where I felt like I was dying inside a little more each day.
That was when I sold nearly everything I owned, got in my car and drove up to Alaska to try starting anew. I bought a small cabin and a plot of land in the middle of its majestic mountains and dark, enchanting forests. In the winter, the Northern Lights would shine through like the eyes of God, sending out divine trails of light that danced through the sky in cosmic waves.
And while the move did help give me some peace of mind, in the end, the source of all my problems had ultimately followed me thousands of miles into this endless wilderness. It would take me a long time to realize the cause of all this misery was myself.
Because, as a wise man once said, “Wherever I go, there I am.”
***
I lived in that cabin for three months without any major issues other than the constant threat of bears, moose and wolves. I had a rifle and a shotgun for hunting, a small garden in the backyard and a solar panel to generate electricity.
“This is the life,” I said, relaxing on a hammock I had strung across the corner of the cabin while staring at the endless beauty directly outside the window. White-capped mountains loomed like giants in front of thick clusters of evergreens. A virgin covering of fluffy snow made the entire world glisten and sparkle. There wasn’t a house or road in sight.
“No work, no stress, no pollution, no cars honking all the time…” I closed my eyes, breathing in the clean air. I ended up falling asleep for a couple hours, waking up just as the Sun had started setting. Bright orange streaks mixed with the bloody smears of the fading light as it disappeared behind the mountains.
I groggily arose, stumbling over to make a cup of instant coffee. As I sipped it, I wandered around the room, looking for something to pass the time. There were still quite a few random objects left behind by the last owner that I hadn’t gotten rid of yet. I had moved in to find a stocked bookshelf filled with classics by Philip K. Dick, Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein. Bored, I started rifling through the collection, looking for something good to pass the time. As I shuffled past “A Maze of Death” and “Ubik”, something caught my eye.
A black, leather-bound book with no title or author name stood there, its cover faded with time and wear. Curious, I pulled it out and opened it. I saw the cursive scrawled across the pages in a neat, copperplate script and realized it was a diary left behind by the previous owner. The first entry was dated “January 9th, 2015.” This is what it said.
***
“I don’t know if I’m going crazy or not. I went into town to talk to my therapist yesterday and she said I should try writing everything down. She talks to me like it’s all in my head. But I know it’s not.
“When I first moved into the cabin, it seemed like Paradise. I never thought in a million years that something would be slinking around at night. I never thought it would be hiding under my bed, peeking in windows and following me like a shadow.
“Right now, I’m snowed in with a cup of coffee in one hand and my pistol in the other. I can’t sleep anymore. I keep hearing something shuffling around under the bed. Sometimes, I think I even hear ragged breathing, as if a corpse with dirt in its lungs had come back to life.
“I’ve caught glimpses of that thing in the darkness. Whatever it is, its skin is loose, almost falling off the bone. It almost looks like a naked, emaciated man. Its eyes are rotted and dark, its back hunched, its spine twisted and jutting out like tumors. It moves in this slow, jerky way, but I can never seem to catch it. Its body seems broken and out of alignment. Its legs bend the wrong way sometimes.
“By the time I turn on the lights or try to take a video of it, it’s always disappeared. But its fetid odor remains. It lingers in the cabin like a sweet-smelling, spreading infection.
“I don’t know what it wants from me. I want to leave, but with the storm raging outside, I’m stuck here, unable to get all the way back to town. The snow surrounds the cabin in mounds five feet high. I feel like a prisoner caged with a rabid beast, not knowing when it will strike.
“My wife claims she hasn’t seen or heard anything, but she keeps vanishing on me. Last night, she disappeared in the middle of a snowstorm. Where did she go? I asked her in the morning, but she said she was here the whole time. She didn’t remember anything. There’s no way she went into town. There wasn’t time and the trails were impassable that far down.
“Something’s going on here, but I don’t know what it is. I’m truly scared for our lives.”
I slammed the diary shut, not wanting to read anymore. I didn’t want to become infected by some kind of contagious cabin fever. If the last owner had gone insane in the mountains and started hallucinating naked corpses crawling around, I really didn’t want to know.
I shoved the diary back in the bookshelf, going for “A Maze of Death” instead. I tried to forget what I had read in the diary as I flew through the novella. All night, I tried to get the image of the naked, twisting man with rotted eyes out of my head, but I couldn’t.
I eventually fell asleep right before dawn. But, as my eyes were closing, I thought I saw a silhouette in the window- a starved man with excited, black eyes that seemed to be rotting out of his skull. I thought I saw him put his inhumanly long fingers against the glass as he leaned forward. I blinked, sitting up and glancing out into the white, snow-covered wonderland.
There was nothing there.
***
Another hunter occasionally followed the deer trails near my cabin. A frozen lake stood a quarter-mile away, the surface white and covered in thick drifts of snow. I bundled up, deciding to go outside for a hike in the frigid dawn. I strapped on my snowshoes and grabbed my shotgun, as I always did when I went outside. I never knew when a polar bear might be waiting around the next tree, after all.
I opened the door, seeing footprints pressed into the snow all around my house. At first, I thought it was that silhouette I had seen, the nightmarish thing from the diary. But the footprints didn’t go over to my window. They followed the trail twenty feet away, veering off towards the frozen lake at the bottom of the hill. I glanced down in that direction, seeing a black figure plodding slowly forward.
“Steve!” I cried, recognizing my only neighbor in a four-mile radius. He had a cabin about a mile away on his own little plot of land. He jumped, clearly startled by the sudden noise. His black snow pants and heavy fur coat swished together as he spun, raising his rifle high. When he saw me, he immediately lowered it and put a gloved hand up in a friendly greeting.
“Hey Josh! Surprised to see you up this early,” he yelled over the muted wintry landscape. Sounds always seemed different after it snowed, as if all the noise in the world had become faded and dead.
“Yeah, I’ve been having a little trouble sleeping,” I said, slinging my shotgun around my shoulder. “What are you doing anyway?”
“Just a little hunting, you know,” he said, giving me a sly wink. “Animals are always most active around dusk and dawn, it seems. That’s when I always have the best luck, anyway.” He stepped close to me, staring me in the eyes. “You do look like shit. Those bags under your eyes are big enough to carry groceries in.”
“Yeah, trust me, I know… Hey, this might sound a little weird, but did you know the previous owner of this cabin?” I asked. Steve’s wrinkled, old face fell into a scowl. His expression immediately became guarded and distant.
“Sure, sure, we met,” he exclaimed bluntly. He seemed to be searching my face for something, but I didn’t know what. His reaction left me feeling off-balance and nervous.
“Is he still around?” I said. Steve’s scowl deepened.
“Buddy, I don’t know what this is about, but he’s dead. He’s been dead. He died in that cabin, actually.” He pointed a finger at my home accusingly. With those words, my heart seemed to drop into my stomach. Waves of dread flowed through my body like water.
“How… how did he die? Like a heart attack or something?” I asked. Steve’s gaze turned downwards. He didn’t meet my eyes.
“Do you know that Alaska has the highest missing persons rate in the entire United States? It’s not even close. In fact, for the population size, we have far more people who go missing and never get found than anywhere else. They even have a name for it: the Alaska Triangle,” Steve said. “And we’re square in the middle of it.” I stared blankly at him, wondering where he was going with this. It seemed like a way to avoid answering my question.
“No, I didn’t know that…” I responded. Steve nodded, raising his head again. He heaved a deep sigh.
“Look, the thing with the last owner and his wife… it’s somewhat disturbing. If you really want to know, I’ll tell you, but it’s certainly not going to help your peace of mind. And it definitely isn’t going to help you get some sleep.”
“I want to know,” I insisted instantly. The wind started to whip past us. Flakes of ice and snow flew sideways in the sudden currents.
“Let’s go back to your cabin then,” Steve said, pulling his heavy fur-lined hood off and shaking out his long, black hair behind him. “I could use a bit of whiskey to warm up.”
***
We sat down with a bottle of Johnny Walker and two shot glasses. I wasn’t much of a drinker, but Steve certainly was. He chugged three shots in the span of a minute. I sipped at mine, drinking half and putting it back down on the coffee table with a thunk. Steve grunted, hissing through his open mouth for a moment.
“Ugh, that’s the good stuff,” he said, slamming his chest as the burning liquor worked its way down. Steve looked up at me with a new sparkle in his eyes. “Huh, so you want to know about what happened to Will Lenning. Well, I’ll tell you that no one really knows the whole story. I used to see him occasionally, come down and have a drink and talk. We all know each other around here, obviously.” I nodded, motioning him on. “He seemed like a normal, upstanding guy. He kinda reminded me of you, actually. A young guy trying to escape the hustle and bustle of the city life, the cancer of the American Dream.
“Well, he was here for maybe a couple months, I don’t know. Everything seemed fine. We used to go skeet shooting occasionally, have a beer, you know. We’d get together with a couple other hunters who live closer to town and sometimes play some poker. I never saw anything odd about Will. I never could have predicted what happened to him.” He heaved a long sigh at this, looking out the window at the sharp mountains with an expression of nostalgia.
“Well, what happened to him?” I asked, encouraging him to go on.
“He started talking about seeing someone peering in through his window at night. He talked about hearing sounds from under his bed while he was laying there in the dark- sounds like diseased breathing and shuffling. He started keeping all the lights on in his cabin twenty-four hours a day.” Steve leaned close to me. A glimmer of fear rippled across his pale, wrinkled face. “He started to lose his mind. Started digging holes all over the place, looking for something. Even in the middle of snowstorms, I would occasionally see him outside, digging. It seemed like he never slept anymore. It was classic cabin fever if I ever saw it.
“It was only a few weeks later that I came over here, concerned. I hadn’t heard from him in a few days, which was fairly unusual. I found the door hanging wide open. Propped up in a chair in the exact spot where you now sit, Will lay with a blast hole showing clear through his skull, a shotgun laying at his feet.
“And next to him, I found a blood-stained diary opened to the middle page. The last entry was stained with blood spatter, but still visible. I remember leaning down and reading it. It was only a few sentences long.” I glanced over at the bookshelf with the same diary, saying nothing.
“It said something like, ‘I see now what’s going on. The Twisted Man is leading me to the truth. Today, I will finally find it.’”
“And that was his suicide note?” I asked, my heart hammering in my chest. He nodded.
“Yeah. I went into town and got some rangers to come check it out. Eventually, they got cops and CSI there. They took all the stuff as evidence, including the diary,” he said. “Good riddance, I say. Reading something like that is never beneficial. Sometimes delusions spread like a virus, you know what I mean?” I did, but I said nothing. I glanced back at the diary, its black leather cover gleaming like a crouching snake.
And I wondered- if the police took the diary as evidence, how did it get back here?
***
“You said he had a wife living here with him, too?” I asked.
“Yeah… she went missing around the same time,” he said. “Pretty bizarre. The cops thought maybe she just moved away, but…” He shook his head grimly. “As far as I know, she was never seen again. It was like she had evaporated into thin air.”
After Steve left, I walked stiffly over to the bookshelf, taking down the diary. I flipped open through the pages. In the middle, I found the last entry. Spatters of old, darkened blood were scattered over the page like raindrops. I found the suicide note and read the date.
“January 27th, 2015,” it read. Will Lenning had not lived long after he started seeing the Twisted Man. I wondered if my fate would be the same.
The Sun had started to set outside as I sat with the diary at the small circular kitchen table, eating some stewed venison and rice as I read through the entries. At the end, Will Lenning said the Twisted Man had been trying to guide him somewhere, that, in fact, the Twisted Man had been trying to protect him from some great evil, rather than being the source of it.
I scoffed, feeling a flash of anger at his stupidity. His naivety obviously led to his death. But then a flash of insight struck me like lightning.
What if I was committing the same kind of stupidity? Perhaps I should just grab my gun and valuables and leave. I could take off on the snowmobile and be in town within a couple hours.
But, in my heart, I knew I would not. Something about the mystery of all this beckoned me to stay. Like a siren leading sailors to destruction, my curiosity called out to me, and I knew I would not be leaving that night. I needed answers.
And, sadly, I would find them.
***
I had fallen asleep with an empty bottle of beer in my hand. I sat in front of the TV, which only got satellite reception. There were, of course, no cable or phone lines threading their way through the forest. All of my power came from stored solar energy. Since I rarely watched TV and really only used it to cook or heat up water for bathing, the energy produced was sufficient even in winter. Tonight, though, I needed its sound, its mindless flashing of light and colors and canned laughter. It seemed to drive away the creeping, suffocating presence like a candle.
I woke suddenly. The TV flashed with static. The repetitive hissing of the white noise spit from the speakers like thousands of snakes. I glanced up at the clock. 3:33 AM. I looked around the dark cabin, confused for a long moment. I didn’t understand what had woken me so abruptly. The satellite had never gone out before, either, even with the howling winds and freezing hail of the Alaskan winter.
The TV started flickering as if the static were rising upwards. Black lines traced their way horizontally across the screen. The hissing deepened into a gurgle, and for a second, I thought I heard faint words behind the white noise. I thought I heard breathing, slow and diseased, like the death gasp of a drowning man.
A black line rose across the TV and an image came into view. The cabin was suddenly plunged into silence, except for the shrieking, wintry wind outside. I leaned close to the screen, confused at what I was looking at. It looked like a live camera feed of a room. As I took in the details, I realized it was my cabin. I saw myself in the chair, leaning close to the screen. I raised my hand, and the miniature version of me on the screen did likewise. Ice water seemed to drip down my spine as waves of dread coursed through my body.
“What the fuck is this?” I whispered, looking back to where the camera should be. It was just a coarse wooden ceiling in that corner. I turned back to the screen and nearly screamed.
The TV showed a pale, naked man crouching directly behind my chair now. With jerky movements, he rose, his broken spine twisting and shivering. A hissing voice rang out from the speakers. It spoke as if it had dirt and writhing maggots in its throat.
“He is a killer. The shadow of death,” it gurgled. “Many have fallen. Many lie buried across this forest. You will be next. He is watching you…”
Long, broken fingers with blackened nails reached out to touch my shoulders. I jumped out of the chair, stumbling back as I spun around in terror. My back smashed into the TV, and it fell to the floor with a shattering of glass and an explosion of light.
In those few moments before the darkness descended on me like a blanket, I thought I glimpsed a pale, sunken face with rotted, blackened eyes peeking out from behind the chair.
***
I turned on every light in the cabin, but there was no sign of the Twisted Man now. I knew I had to get out of there, though. I thought about the warning that the voice had spoken. If the creature wanted to attack me, then why hadn’t it just killed me while I was sleeping? None of it made sense. Who was watching me? The Twisted Man? And if he was, why warn me? Perhaps it was psychological warfare, I thought to myself. Perhaps the Twisted Man simply liked to play with his food before he ate it.
Thoughts raced through my head at a thousand miles an hour as I threw on snow pants and a couple heavy sweaters and coats. I covered up my entire body as much as I could to try to prevent frostbite. I had made up my mind to flee. There was no snowstorm tonight, though the entire landscape was blanketed in it and I knew the wind chill would be like an ice blade whipping against my skin. It was extremely dangerous to travel in the middle of the night like this in temperatures that might reach negative thirty degrees. Steve had been right, after all- Alaska had the highest missing persons rate of any state, and many of them were never found, their bodies likely frozen solid in the deep snow dozens of miles from the nearest town.
I grabbed my shotgun, jumped on my snowmobile and started heading to Steve’s cabin. I hoped I could wait there until the sunrise and then figure out what to do next.
But fate would take the decision out of my hands.
***
I felt like there were eyes watching me as I drove along the narrow, winding deer trail. The boughs of the evergreens reached into the path like greedy hands, grabbing at my coat and legs. More than a couple times, I thought I saw a pale, naked figure standing in the snow, but it had always gone when I turned to look.
I gave a sigh of relief when Steve’s place appeared in the distance. I could see the lights twinkling through the small windows of his log cabin. I pulled up next to his door, looking down. I saw two pairs of footprints there, one much smaller than the other. I found it odd, but shrugged it off. The snowmobile cut out with a sucking gurgle.
I knocked on the door hard a few times. Steve appeared after a few moments, groggy and half-dressed. He blinked slowly as he looked me up and down. His wrinkled face fell into a frown.
“Steve, I need a favor,” I said quickly. “Something weird is happening in my cabin. Can I stay here until morning, until maybe I can go to town or something? I can’t stay at my place tonight. I just can’t.” He nodded, yawning and motioning me in.
“You can sleep on the couch, I guess,” Steve said. “Put that shotgun somewhere safe, though, boy.” He had a partitioned bedroom in his cabin. It was significantly larger than my little one-room cabin, though it was basically still just a joint kitchen-living room, a small bedroom and a bathroom. He pointed to a well-worn couch in the corner and gave me an apathetic wave as he stumbled back into his bedroom, slamming the door.
I couldn’t sleep, though. I tiptoed around the room, looking at Steve’s bookshelf. He had a rather strange taste in books- lots of Anne Rule and true crime there. I saw dozens of books about Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Richard Chase, Herbert Mullin, Jeffrey Dahmer and Richard Ramirez among the collection. At the end, a large, black binder stood, unlabeled and worn-looking. It reminded me of the look of that leather-bound diary for a second, and my heart dropped. But logically, I knew this was just a coincidence. Yet, still, I pulled out the binder, my curiosity piqued.
What I found inside filled me with dread and horror.
Countless news clippings covered the length of it. The first clipping was from nearly twenty years earlier, about a woman who went missing in the Alaskan forest while hiking. A later one confirmed that her body was never found, and that her family was still hoping that she might turn up alive somewhere. A reward was offered for any information, it said.
And every page after that was more of the same: missing woman, murdered prostitute, missing man, no leads. I kept flipping through until I found clippings about Will Lenning’s suicide and the sudden disappearance of his wife. On the article about the suicide, Steve had used red marker to scrawl, “HA HA!” next to it.
I heard the click of a gun being cocked from behind me. I froze as Steve’s voice traveled across the room like a whisper.
“How do you like my work, friend?” he asked, his tone jovial and mocking.
***
I still held the binder of horrors tightly in my hands as I stared open-mouthed at this man I thought I knew.
“It’s you? What, you killed Will Lenning and his wife? And a lot of other women, apparently.” Everything felt unreal, as if I were stuck in a dream. Steve’s grin spread across his face, but his blue eyes stayed cold and dead.
“Yes, well, she was cheating on him with me anyway. Just another whore, you know. They always get what’s coming to them in the end,” he hissed with hatred oozing from his voice. “It’s too bad, really. I just killed another slut tonight. I was planning on saving you for later. The urge isn’t too bad yet right now, after all. It comes in cycles, you see. It comes in waves…” I saw a glimmer of pale, naked flesh writhing behind Steve. With jerky movements, the Twisted Man came up behind him. I said nothing, just watching with wide-eyed horror and amazement.
“You need help, man,” I whispered. Steve laughed.
“Help? The only help they give people like me is a needle in the arm. You know that. That’s why it’s important to always cover your tracks…” The Twisted Man ran a long, broken finger across Steve’s neck. Steve gave a strangled cry and jumped. He spun around, screaming. I glanced over at my shotgun next to the couch.
I jumped for it as Steve turned back to me, firing his pistol twice. The first bullet soared high above me, raining wood splinters down on my head, but the second ripped into my leg. A cold, burning pain ran like fire up my shin. I screamed in agony and battle fury as I gripped the shotgun, spinning and firing.
Steve’s head exploded as the slug ripped through his brain. His forehead collapsed like a smashed melon as bone splinters and blood sprayed the wall behind him.
The Twisted Man stood there, hunched over, grinning up at me. I felt warm blood gushing from my leg as I stared back at him, breathing hard. I wondered if I was dying.
“You… you weren’t after me at all, were you?” I asked. “You were after… Steve.” But the Twisted Man said nothing. After a long moment, he slinked back into the shadows of the bedroom and disappeared.
***
As night crawled its way toward morning, I thought back to the words the Twisted Man had spoken through the TV, suddenly understanding everything.
“He is a killer. The shadow of death. Many have fallen. Many lie buried across this forest. You will be next. He is watching you…”
He hadn’t been trying to hurt me at all. He had been trying to warn me. He had probably tried to warn Will Lenning and his wife, too.
I wrapped my leg in gauze, gritting my teeth. The wound looked puckered and deep, but I could still move my foot, and the bullet had gone clean through the flesh. I poured alcohol on it, screaming in pain as it burned its way through my skin. After rummaging through Steve’s bathroom, I found some prescription painkillers and swallowed a handful of them with a beer. I knew I would need the opiate high to get through the pain of riding into town with a mutilated leg.
As the Sun finally rose, I made my way outside the blood-stained floors of the cabin to my snowmobile. Before I left, I glanced back at that horrid place, the scene of so much torment and death.
In the open doorway, the Twisted Man stood, his back hunched, his rotted lips grinning at me. His hand lifted up into the air with jerky movements and waved.
I waved back as I started the engine and headed into town.
2024.06.02 00:57 ryanmark234 (HIRE ME)<
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2024.06.02 00:45 httpshassan what makes this essay good? I feel like it doesn't complete what I've generally heard about the college essay
BY KASHVI G., ’27 Nothing about true love comes easy. Loving comes with hard work, responsibility and compromise. In my case, it came with four legs, PTSD, separation anxiety and in need of constant attention.
Rock came to us when he was 10 years old, retired from the Bangalore police force and in need of a loving home for his last few years. I’d been asking my parents if we could adopt a dog for years. I still wonder what made them say ‘yes’ to Rock. Suffering from amebiasis and severely malnourished, he had been at the dog shelter for a while, and was on the verge of giving up.
I wasn’t ready to parent a senior dog. As the youngest in the family, I was the one who was always looked after. Once Rock came along, I was suddenly completely responsible for someone else’s life. Roles like being a school student council member taught me responsibility, but not to care for someone else. I realized the stark difference between acknowledging responsibility and actually taking it on.
It was the small things like recognizing the difference between barks for food or barks to be taken out. It was the bigger things like feeding him 10 pills a day, bladder issues that meant he needed four walks a day and acute PTSD and separation anxiety. Rock was a whole lot of work and needed a whole lot of love.
I thought I knew how to multitask with my varied extracurriculars, but here I was learning a whole new meaning to the word. I thought I had effective communication skills from my time volunteering at a dog shelter, and here I was trying to create a whole new lexicon for what each of Rock’s barks meant.
And yet, nothing has come easier to me than my love for Rock. Awkward, unsure of how to express love, and constantly hungry, he and I mirror each other in more ways than one. As a child, I would make my older sister follow me around the house, just to make sure I had her attention. Ten years later, my dog does the same to me.
Anxious and traumatized, he needs me as his therapy human as much as I need him for moral support and inspiration. And, an inspiration he is. Arthritic, limping, and uprooted from his life of ten years, Rock remains the biggest source of joy in our lives. As tough as it was for us to adjust to having him, it was a million times harder for him. But, somehow, he’s managed to find his joy with us, too. Whether I leave the room for ten minutes or 3 days, he’s always ecstatic when I return. All he needs is for me to show up. There are even times when he wags his tail in his sleep. Our relationship helps us both – he teaches me to be happy and I make sure I always show up for him.
I recently visited the Exploratorium in San Francisco and observed what is known as a mutualistic relationship between Randall’s pistol shrimp and prawn goby. The shrimp always has at least one antenna touching the fish at all times – their symbiosis depends on it. Rock and I are always in the same room, always within a foot of each other.
In his essay collection, ‘The Anthropocene Reviewed’, John Green says, “the Canada goose is hard to love. But then again, so are most of us.”
Rocky has taught me that I’m, surprisingly, pretty good at the tough parts of love. That I can be responsible, caring and overflowing with good feelings all at once. Maybe it’s just that the love that seems the hardest, that teaches us the most, is the one we treasure most. And for this, and for Rock, I am forever grateful.
so its a beautiful essay and written amazingly, probably better than anything I can do, but how does it show the school that they should admit her? like from what I've usually heard you have to show that you'll change the world for good, or how you've learned valuable lessons that will effect you and your peers forever. While this essay taught her "how to love" through the dog and how much she loves him, I like don't see how that will convince the admissions council
NO HATE, ik it's an amazing essay (it's on Johns Hopkins "essays that worked") I just like wanna know why and if I could write an essay like this. like if you want a elite university to take you don't you basically have to show them how you'll make their university and legacy better? how does 'love' do that?
again, I'm very ignorant on this topic, I just started researching essays since I'm applying now, and tbh I have ZERO idea what to write about. Thank you for ur help tho.
submitted by httpshassan to ApplyingToCollege [link] [comments]
Rock came to us when he was 10 years old, retired from the Bangalore police force and in need of a loving home for his last few years. I’d been asking my parents if we could adopt a dog for years. I still wonder what made them say ‘yes’ to Rock. Suffering from amebiasis and severely malnourished, he had been at the dog shelter for a while, and was on the verge of giving up.
I wasn’t ready to parent a senior dog. As the youngest in the family, I was the one who was always looked after. Once Rock came along, I was suddenly completely responsible for someone else’s life. Roles like being a school student council member taught me responsibility, but not to care for someone else. I realized the stark difference between acknowledging responsibility and actually taking it on.
It was the small things like recognizing the difference between barks for food or barks to be taken out. It was the bigger things like feeding him 10 pills a day, bladder issues that meant he needed four walks a day and acute PTSD and separation anxiety. Rock was a whole lot of work and needed a whole lot of love.
I thought I knew how to multitask with my varied extracurriculars, but here I was learning a whole new meaning to the word. I thought I had effective communication skills from my time volunteering at a dog shelter, and here I was trying to create a whole new lexicon for what each of Rock’s barks meant.
And yet, nothing has come easier to me than my love for Rock. Awkward, unsure of how to express love, and constantly hungry, he and I mirror each other in more ways than one. As a child, I would make my older sister follow me around the house, just to make sure I had her attention. Ten years later, my dog does the same to me.
Anxious and traumatized, he needs me as his therapy human as much as I need him for moral support and inspiration. And, an inspiration he is. Arthritic, limping, and uprooted from his life of ten years, Rock remains the biggest source of joy in our lives. As tough as it was for us to adjust to having him, it was a million times harder for him. But, somehow, he’s managed to find his joy with us, too. Whether I leave the room for ten minutes or 3 days, he’s always ecstatic when I return. All he needs is for me to show up. There are even times when he wags his tail in his sleep. Our relationship helps us both – he teaches me to be happy and I make sure I always show up for him.
I recently visited the Exploratorium in San Francisco and observed what is known as a mutualistic relationship between Randall’s pistol shrimp and prawn goby. The shrimp always has at least one antenna touching the fish at all times – their symbiosis depends on it. Rock and I are always in the same room, always within a foot of each other.
In his essay collection, ‘The Anthropocene Reviewed’, John Green says, “the Canada goose is hard to love. But then again, so are most of us.”
Rocky has taught me that I’m, surprisingly, pretty good at the tough parts of love. That I can be responsible, caring and overflowing with good feelings all at once. Maybe it’s just that the love that seems the hardest, that teaches us the most, is the one we treasure most. And for this, and for Rock, I am forever grateful.
so its a beautiful essay and written amazingly, probably better than anything I can do, but how does it show the school that they should admit her? like from what I've usually heard you have to show that you'll change the world for good, or how you've learned valuable lessons that will effect you and your peers forever. While this essay taught her "how to love" through the dog and how much she loves him, I like don't see how that will convince the admissions council
NO HATE, ik it's an amazing essay (it's on Johns Hopkins "essays that worked") I just like wanna know why and if I could write an essay like this. like if you want a elite university to take you don't you basically have to show them how you'll make their university and legacy better? how does 'love' do that?
again, I'm very ignorant on this topic, I just started researching essays since I'm applying now, and tbh I have ZERO idea what to write about. Thank you for ur help tho.
2024.06.02 00:08 amylaseeeeeeeeeeee any recommendations?
 | I absolutely love this Barry M ‘green galaxy’ top-coat polish I have. It’s sparkly, almost iridescent green when my flash hits it, but disappears when I move my flash/nail away; only showing my black undercoat. submitted by amylaseeeeeeeeeeee to Nailpolish [link] [comments] I wonder if anyone knew of a sparkly red like this?! one where I can change the colour of my undercoat to change the overall look of the red on top (for example, if I use brown under the Galaxy green, it’s more mossy and dirty looking than the above emerald green in the photos) The only ones I can find are actual red polish with glitter in them, whereas this is just a clear top-coat with some fancy glitter (you can barely see it in the final photo where I’ve gone over my black undercoat, but all the reds I’ve seen are actual red nail polishes!!)
|
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submitted by Rare-Group-4364 to u/Rare-Group-4364 [link] [comments]
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2024.06.01 22:52 Louis-Capet-XXVI Pine Valley / Pine Rd. Philadelphia, PA 19115 USA - House of Orleans
 | submitted by Louis-Capet-XXVI to u/Louis-Capet-XXVI [link] [comments] https://preview.redd.it/zjch56hnw04d1.jpg?width=2550&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=98d0733797746125238fc27127d7857d2013550c Wider than NYC, at 2.5 miles, built in the 1950's by the Royal Family.... This is a photo of my parents home. My mother's name is Arlene, and so also is the shape of the streets inside Philadelphia 19115. It also says, #Orleans if you switch the last two letters, the "NE" in Arlene to "AN" ...as in the #HouseofOrleans. It spans 2 miles, bigger than Central Park and wider than Manhattan, NYC. Starting at Pennypack Park on Pine Rd. at Kingsfield Rd and concluding at Red Line Road. My parents were the inaugural homeowners in the 1960s, the 1st owners. Within this neighborhood, the streets are named after distinguished military figures from England, spanning various eras from the American Revolution to World War II. Streets like Lockart, Darlington, Welsh, and Clinton allude to espionage and historical military significance. British Commander-in-Chief during the #Revolution Clinton Rd 19006 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Clinton_(British_Army_officer,_born_1730)) Lockhart Rd & Place 19115 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_Lockhart Darlington Rd. 19115 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Darling Welsh Rd. 19115 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Welsh_(East_India_Company_officer)) - - or - - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunt_Walsh Grant Ave 19115 - There's Ulysses S. Grant, and then the British have 7 different British Military leaders named Grant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Grant_(British_Army_officer)) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Keir_Grant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Grant_(colonial_administrator)) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Grant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hope_Grant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Grant_(19th_century_British_Army_officer)) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Grant_(British_Army_officer,_born_1720)) Contrary to what one might assume, the street name is unrelated to Ulysses S. Grant and instead commemorates British military leaders. In the 1950's Grant Ave. was named and mostly completed, as prior it had many different names. Frankford Ave. aka The King's Highway was built by #King George II from 1682 to the late 1790's. http://kingshighwayfilm.com - Those dates were all before The American #Revolution and Civil War, so regardless of the construction date of Grant Ave, I would still say the name Grant Ave. has absolutely nothing at all to do with Ulysses S. Grant. We also have Portis Rd. which is a combination of 2 words = La Porte + Paris = Portis - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnaud_II_de_La_Porte - La Porte was named Intendant of the Civil List (Minister of the Royal Household) in December 1790 which gave him direct control of the large sums of #money that were considered the private wealth of the King of France and so not subject to public audit. Across the street from my home is Durand Road. Durand was the name of the fake ID they gave to the King of France during the #French Revolution when the King of #France and his family tried to escape with Barron Batz. See p24 hosted on the University of Chicago's website: https://penelope.uchicago.edu/ThayeE/GazetteePlaces/Europe/France/_Texts/CROROY/Fuite_de_Varennes*.html - More on Barron Batz can be found in your local library, or here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean,_Baron_de_Batz - Keep in mind, Louis XVI's grandfather Louis XIV had 30 children. When my parents moved in, the area was all farmlands. Directly across the street from us at 1855 Melmar Road 19006 was the country home of Nicholas Biddle w/ 33 Rooms, & 9 Bathrooms. Though, there was nothing in between us except empty fields, there house was about 1,000 feet away. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Biddle - He was the President of the Second Bank of the United States. It is now called the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. That's where everybody gets there monthly $600 social security checks from... and, there still located here very close to this zip code printing checks for the majority of #America. His original home is still there, but... In the 1980's, they turned his land into a development of multi-million dollar homes now called Biddle Estates. His brother, married a #Falcone girl, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Biddle_(Michigan_politician)) and members of their family built Drexel University and also Lippincott Medicine, who are book publishers, and also the name of the next street across from me, Lippincott Rd. 19006. A lot of the homes here go for over 1 million dollars. My house was right there in the middle, on Pine Road at the top the shape of the "L" that looks exactly like the Boston Red Sox logo. We're on the city line, so I'm inside #Philadelphia, but the homes on the other side of Pine are not. Were on very high elevation here. At the bottom of the hill is Huntingdon Valley aka Lower Moreland. Bryn Athyn, and #Hollywood, PA are at the top of the valley. On the other side of the valley, at the top of that hill, is Abington, PA. Coincidently, also the same place based on the TV show, The Goldbergs. Additionally, The Golden Girls which aired on NBC from September 14, 1985, to May 9, 1992 also talk about us in every episode, "Shady Pines" was the retirement home Rose burnt down... as in Shady Lane & Pine Rd located at Fox Chase Farm, and the World Headquarters for the Medical Mission Sisters, who bring justice and healing to women, children and men in 17 countries on five continents. Their 2nd office is in London. www.medicalmissionsisters.org They also speak frequently inside the United Nations. Previously, that property belonged to the oldest home in Pennsylvania, the Ury House, & it was located here. Built in 1640 it frequented visitors such as: John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and even George Washington slept here. The school located on the grounds, has now relocated as the Valley Forge Military Academy. https://hiddencityphila.org/2017/10/ury-house-demo-in-the-1970s-erased-oldest-home-in-pa In addition, one of the 4 main actresses in the show, Blanch Devereaux, coincidently the United States DoD - Department of Defense is located on Devereaux St & Oxford Ave, about 10 minutes from here, as Pine Road changes names to Oxford Ave & Rising Sun Ave at a 5 points. This DoD site encompasses over 134 acres, in which its warehouse offices and other buildings amount to 2,250,000 square feet. The rap group N.W.A Music w/ Dr Dre sings about us in a lot of songs, in "Straight out of Compton" They say, "Until them dumb motherf*ckers see clearly, that I'm down with the Capital C-P-T" ...and, at the same time in the video, they keep showing a picture of map with areas marked out in red marker. (That's C-P-T as in #Capet, as in Louis Capet XVI) https://youtu.be/TMZi25Pq3T8?t=62 There's a lot going on here, too much for me to type on Facebook. ABC daytime soap opera "All My Children" with Kelly Ripa, which aired January 5, 1970, to September 23, 2011, is based in "Pine Valley" PA, a suburb of Philadelphia, the same name as my neighborhood, but in the soap opera, they are actually located on the other side of Philadelphia. https://www.soapoperanetwork.com/2021/01/all-my-children-reboot-pine-valley-abc-kane-santos-family Get it? "All My Children" as how Louis XIV had 30 children. In 2023, the TV series "Pine Valley" aired as a prime time spin-off of the daytime drama soap opera “All My Children.” Their description reads as, "Set in a fictional Philadelphia suburb called Pine Valley, it delves into the dark and murderous history of the town." It also starred the same cast, Kelly Rippa & Susan Lucci again from "All My Children." https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13561428 Unrelated, but the first 10 years of "All My Children" ...The original recordings from the 1970's were destroyed in a fire. The highest elevation inside #Paris & oldest Military Base in #Paris is Montfaucon - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibbet_of_Montfaucon now called the Parc des Buttes Chaumont - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parc_des_Buttes_Chaumont as in my name, Mont Faucon / Matt Falcone. The word Falcon in English translates to Faucon in French. Also, the City of MonFalcone in Italy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monfalcone Also, the City of Falcone, in Sicily. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcone,_Sicily Also, the Falcone International Airport in Italy - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcone_Borsellino_Airport Billionaire Empire, The Falcone Group in the USA - https://falconegroup.info A different entity, Billionaire Empire, Phillip Falcone - with 20% ownership of the The New York Times - plus owner of 5,000 different Television Station Networks, and 5,000 Satellites in space, & 5,000 Satellite repeaters on land, such as the Hollywood Sign in Los Angeles California. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Falcone - In addition he owned & controlled Harbinger Capital aka HRG Group which was created by former President George H. W. Bush Senior - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HRG\_Group#Glazer\_era\_and\_the\_birth\_of\_Harbinger\_Group\_Inc. In 2019, he sold one of his homes in NYC. It went for a record breaking most ever paid for a residential townhouse in New York City - https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/hedge-fund-founder-john-griffin-buys-most-expensive-nyc-townhome-1.1270334 and https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-07/hedge-fund-founder-john-griffin-buys-most-expensive-ny-townhouse 9643 pill (My address 9643 Pine Rd.) = Prochlorperazine is a phenothiazine (FEEN-oh-THYE-a-zeen) antipsychotic medicine that is used to treat #schizophrenia. It is supplied by Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. https://www.drugs.com/mtm/prochlorperazine-oral-injection.html 9643 PILL IMPRINT - https://www.drugs.com/imprints.php?imprint=9643&color=&shape=0 https://ruger.com/products/pcCarbine/specSheets/19115.html - - Ruger® PC Carbine™ Autoloading Rifle Model 19115 < - - - 19115 Royal Pine Litte Tree's Air Freshener's since 1952 - https://www.littletrees.com/fragrances/royal-pine On the east side of the words, in the "E" in Arlene, or the "N" in Orlean on the map of 19115, we have Geiger Road. A Geiger Counter is an instrument that measures radioactive levels. In the 1990's Lockheed Martin had a factory here on Geiger Road. They are a leading American aerospace and defense corporation, specializing in cutting-edge technology and solutions for air, land, sea, space, and cybersecurity challenges. www.lockheedmartin.com On Red Line Road, we had "The Budd Company" who specialized in manufacturing Railroad Cars. They were a 20th-century metal fabricator, a major supplier of body components to the automobile industry, and a manufacturer of stainless steel passenger rail cars, airframes, missile and space vehicles, and various defense products. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budd_Company - During WW2, they switched production from rail cars to war heads & various Military Equipment. During their tenor, they left behind contaminated land, from PCB's oil leakage, and Radioactive Waste. Though, I had the radioactive reports 5 years ago before covid, which described the radioactivity levels, stretching as far south as Bustleton Road, via an underground creak, that crosses Red Line Rd just about 100ft north of Bustleton Ave, I do not have those links anymore, ...maybe on an old computer. I did recently find the reports where the NCR, The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has terminated the license held by the Budd Company for another facility in Philadelphia, which may have occurred at both locations, as this location, which consisted of 75 acres was their main manufacturing facility, and the other may have been primarily used for offices, mailing address, and smaller manufacturing. https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML0037/ML003702451.pdf - The Budd Company operated a hot cell facility in Philadelphia from l956 through l967 to manufacture sealed sources for use in industrial radiography. (A hot cell is a heavily shielded enclosure in which radioactive materials are handled by persons using remote manipulators, such as mechanical arms, and viewed through shielded windows or periscopes.) A small amount of unsealed cesium-137 was also used for a brief time at the facility. In addition, we also have Laramie Road. I always wondered what the meaning of Laramie meant, as I have seen roads all over the world with the same name, such as in Canada. The Laramie Mountains in Black Hills / Paha Sapa, USA was one of the largest Uranium mining sites in the USA. https://www.nuclear-risks.org/en/hibakusha-worldwide/black-hillspaha-sapa.html The Black Hills are considered a sacred place by the Lakota people and are representative of the entire four-state region of South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana and North Dakota, where thousands of uranium mines or exploration wells are located. For more than 40 years, the local population has been exposed to the radioactive legacy of the former uranium rush. Behind my house at 9643 Pine Rd. inside Buckley Place, and also Buckley Terrace, Almatt Place, Almatt Terrace, Myers Circle, Mark Place, Johnathin Place, Kismet Place, etc... etc... and so on, whatever... we have various dead end streets, which the locals refer to as a "cul-de-sacs" as they strikingly resemble a cement covered missel silo's, aka launch sites, in which the process requires the cement cover to be blown off by explosives, so the missile underneath can launch intercontinentally. We also have, "Flagstaff Rd." ...Get it? Flag, like the American Flag & Staff. In the 1985 movie, Back to the Future, Marty Visits Hill Valley, as in Pine Valley / Huntingdon Valley - https://youtu.be/i9-4phPA_mQ?feature=shared Also, in Back to the Future, the Mall Scene where the Libyans arrive to get back their stolen Plutonium, the name of the mall is "Twin Pines" ...there is also a "Lone Pine" Mall in the movie. So, the Twin Pines Mall in the movie, is almost an exact replica of the Plymouth Meeting Mall, which is about 25 minutes away from Pine Rd. Though, the mall had a makeover in around the year 2010. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfLPiMPAReU or here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AChCcVIJaCE Also, in Back to the Future, Marty's mom's name is Lorraine. As a play on words in French, "Reine" means "King" in France, So, Lorain would translate in French to King Louis, Lou, Lo. In the South Park SE 8 EP 1 2004 Paris Hilton inserts a Pine Apple up her vagina. Get it, Paris as in France, like how the streets here are shaped into the words: Arlene & Orlene, ....and, a Pine Apple like Pine Rd. https://youtu.be/HS5_opSMxDc?t=91 and/or https://southpark.cc.com/video-clips/n0cqud/south-park-the-whore-off https://youtu.be/XkvIlrLiy9o - The 1993 movie, the Coneheads as in Falcone, Fal-cone, in this clip, ...they say, "Were from France" and also their homes look identical to ours. In addition, as explained above + http://www.LaserLightShow.ORG as myself... also in the movie, plus many more: https://youtu.be/56XbBVUuwl4?feature=shared Eminem - Slim Shady like Shady Lane Road & Pine Rd. https://youtu.be/BBY4-BqR08o In the movie, Trading Places Movie with Eddie Murphey, that was filmed in Philadelphia, ....his name is Billy Ray Valentine, but, it sounds like Billy Revel on Pine, as in the French Revolution. Did you ever hear the saying, "We'll that's the word on the street?" or... "The word on the street is..." My parents were my best friends. I bought my 1st home in 2004, in the 19115, When they got old & sick, I had to move back in w/ them & keep my home vacant. We wanted to prevent them from going into a nursing home, and also having the nursing home take away their home. We had nurses, round the clock for 24 hours. I was not embarrassed living with my parents. I actually enjoyed it very much. We would eat dinner together every day. We never argued. My whole life I was never yelled at. They were a lot older than me, and as their age progressed, things became tough. I had to cook for them 3 meals a day, and do everything for them... because I didn't want to put them in a nursing home. One time, my vegan diet gave my father low iron, low hemoglobin (which requires a blood transfusion to fix immediately), it makes you weak, and you can't move.... So, I had to sleep on the floor next to him for a month. I didn't know about the Nutrition Tracking Meal Diary Cell Phone Free App called www.cronometer.com at that time. I miss them very much, and think about them all the time. My father was a prominent Book Publisher, similar to myself also a publisher. He was the VP at Ruttle, Shaw & Wetherill. One of their notable works that they published was the Merck Manual Professional // Merck Manual Consumer, an indispensable resource for medical professionals; it was the most popular reference guide for Medical Professionals, on how to treat hospital patients. It's what Hospitals used before the internet & computers. My mother worked at Orleans Technical College & also the School District of Philadelphia as a part time substitute #teacher, and hemy friends worked in operations. They also owned a printing company specializing in medical forms. They both retired around 1990. I think this is the best home in #America. I don't care about those big homes in California or Florida nor Donald Trump's home in Key Largo.... I don't think his home is better than mine. I only mention that b/c I hear it in the news every day for the past 5 years... but, maybe that's why the Donald Trump National Golf Club Philadelphia in New Jersey is located in a city, with the same name as mine, Pine Hill / Pine Valley. Here, we have the Fox Chase Farm, it's 117 acres, 1 hour walk to loop it. The only homes or Cities that might even come close, might be Dubai, United Arab Emirates - World Islands, or Dubai Palm Island ....but, we did this in the 1950's, and they just started. #WhatOnEarth "l'état, c'est moi" Capet XXI (My Grandmother's Maiden Last Name) http://www.LouisXXVI.com 🔴🔴🔴🔴 ⚡ Louis XVI & The American Revolution Louis XVI's financial support to the United States during the American Revolutionary War primarily came in the form of loans and supplies. The financial assistance was crucial for the American colonists in their fight against British rule. Here are the details of how the money was distributed: Financial Agreements: In February 1778, France and the United States signed the Treaty of Alliance, formally allying France with the American colonists. As part of this agreement, France pledged its support, including financial aid, to the United States. Loans: France provided substantial loans to the United States to fund their war efforts. The most significant loan came in 1778 when the French government arranged a loan of 2 million livres (a French currency) from the French banking house of Le Couteulx et Cie. This initial loan was followed by additional loans, including a total of 10 million livres in 1779 and 24 million livres in 1780. Supplies and Military Aid: In addition to financial assistance, France also provided military supplies and aid to the American colonists. The French Navy played a crucial role in the war by assisting in naval blockades and engaging in key battles, such as the Battle of Yorktown in 1781, which was a decisive victory for the Americans. The French military support included troops, warships, weapons, and ammunition. Benjamin Franklin's Role: Benjamin Franklin, the American envoy to France, played a significant role in negotiating and securing French support. He worked closely with the French government to secure financial aid and other resources for the American cause. Franklin's diplomacy and influence were instrumental in obtaining French assistance. Distribution of Funds: The funds received from France were primarily managed by the Continental Congress, the governing body of the American colonies during the Revolutionary War. Congress used the funds to pay for various war-related expenses, such as purchasing supplies, equipping troops, and maintaining military operations. Some funds were also used to pay off existing debts. It is important to note that while Louis XVI and France's support was crucial for the American cause, the financial aid alone did not guarantee victory in the war. The American colonists faced numerous challenges throughout the conflict, and the outcome of the war was determined by a combination of factors, including military strategy, perseverance, and the support of other nations such as Spain and the Netherlands. 🔴🔴🔴🔴 ⚡ Family Relationships of France & England Louis XVI's wife, Marie Antoinette, and King George III's wife, Queen Charlotte, were sisters-in-law as they both came from the House of Habsburg-Lorraine through their mother, Maria Theresa. This made Louis XVI and King George III brothers-in-law by marriage. In addition, there were also related by blood by former ancestors. The British and French royal families have a long history of intermarriage, resulting in blood connections between the two dynasties. Here are some key relationships that link the British and French royal families: The House of Stuart and the House of Bourbon: One significant connection between the two royal families was through the marriage of Mary, Queen of Scots, a member of the Stuart dynasty, to Francis II of France, who belonged to the House of Valois-Bourbon. Their son, James VI of Scotland (later James I of England and Ireland), became the first monarch of the Stuart dynasty to rule over England and Scotland, effectively uniting the crowns from 1567 to 1625. The House of Hanover and the House of Bourbon: The Hanoverian dynasty in Britain began with the accession of George I in 1714. The Hanoverians were related to the French Bourbon dynasty through Sophia of Hanover, whose mother was Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of James VI and I. Sophia's uncle, Charles I of England and Scotland, married Henrietta Maria of France, a member of the House of Bourbon. Therefore, there was a blood connection between the Hanoverians and Bourbons through the Stuart lineage. The House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and the House of Orléans: In the 19th century, the British royal family, known as the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (later renamed the House of Windsor), had a connection to the French royal family through Queen Victoria. In 1840, Victoria married Prince Albert, who was a member of the German noble House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Their daughter, Princess Victoria, married Prince Louis of Battenberg, whose mother was a member of the House of Orléans, a branch of the French royal family. Edward III and Isabella of France: Edward III of England, who reigned from 1327 to 1377, was married to Philippa of Hainault. However, a significant blood connection between the British and French royal families came through Edward III's mother, Isabella of France. Isabella was the daughter of King Philip IV of France, making Edward III a grandson of a French king. These are only a few examples of how the British and French royal families were related. While these connections highlight the historical ties between the British, The Royal Family, and French royal families, it is important to note that they represent a small portion of the complex web of intermarriages among European royal houses throughout history. The relationships between the two dynasties were often influenced by political considerations, diplomatic alliances, and the desire to strengthen familial connections among European monarchies. Matt Falcone - http://LouisXXVI.com |
2024.06.01 21:55 kipnus 4 days in NOLA - 4 days in Michigan (+2 travel days) - Tentative packing list & questions
I'm heading to New Orleans (from Canada) for a 3-day academic conference, followed by 4 days with family in Michigan. The forecast is looking pretty hot in both locations. I want to feel comfortable and look decent at the conference and walking around New Orleans. Michigan will be more active and casual--going on some trail runs and hanging out with my niblings!
Here's what I'm thinking of packing for clothes:
Dresses (won't wear a bra with either of them)
submitted by kipnus to HerOneBag [link] [comments]
Here's what I'm thinking of packing for clothes:
Dresses (won't wear a bra with either of them)
- Little black dress (for conference banquet and possible "grownup outing" in Michigan
- Sleeveless black/grey athleisure dress (a bit more casual, works for conference and just hanging out)
- Green cargo pants (my favourite for travelling--big pockets that can fit a passport)
- Blue/green "Jasmine" pants (very similar to these pants, can wear at the conference with black top and cardigan, and also for just hanging out)
- Black capris (for running/working out)
- Burgundy shorts x 2 (one pair strictly for sleeping, the other for hanging out)
- Black tee
- Black sleeveless top
- Teal workout tee
- Pink tank top
- Camisole (for sleeping)
- Long black open cardigan (for conference--anticipating overly air-conditioned hotel ballrooms)
- Light coral zip-up hoody (for travelling and any other time it feels chilly)
- 10 pairs undies
- Black underwire bra
- Black sports bra (x 2?)
- One-piece swimsuit (I'm a serious swimmer, so I generally pack a training suit wherever I go)
- Black sneakers (will definitely be doing some running/hiking in Michigan; can wear while travelling to save room in backpack)
- Strappy yellow sandals (for the conference--fairly comfortable, but not worn in enough for long walks)
- Comfy sandals (to wear whenever I'm not at the conference or out running)
- This tropical romper. It's light and breezy in hot weather, and my partner loves it on me. It was perfect for Hawaii, but I'm not sure if it's right for New Orleans, since there will be less of a beach vibe there. Also, it's pretty open/low-cut, so I only wear it over my bikini top.
- Bikini. If we go to a beach, it would be in Michigan, and I probably wouldn't even swim, since I hate cold water.
2024.06.01 20:30 brooky12 The Flash #97 - Close Encounters of the Cold Kind
The Flash #96 - Close Encounters of the Cold Kind
<< < > Coming July 1stAuthor: brooky12
Book: Flash
Arc: ?
Set: 96
Abra and Lisa walked through the door, already glancing at corners and posters on the wall, noting down the potential spots for hidden cameras. Abra was wearing a slick suit and tie, as if he had just walked out the door from some generic office C-suite job. Lisa was in a much more suble outfit, a casual dress and wool pullover, large purse that seemed inconspicuous if you didn’t know a pair of ice skates were hiding in it.
“You go on, I’m just going to sit down,” Lisa sighed, waving Abra forward as she moved towards a nearby couch. None of the people in line for the bank teller minded the two, other than the younger woman at the end of the line who seemed motivated to pay attention to anything but the fact that she was going to be standing for the next ten or twenty minutes.
Abra nodded, walking confidently up to one of the bank’s side rooms. The man inside looked up confused for a moment, hiding a grimace with a large smile. “Welcome to Milwa Key Bank, come on in!”
All it took was a suit and tie for the average service employee to bend over backwards to try and accommodate you, Abra thought. His average performance outfit received scorn and disgust outside of the context of his shows, but when he looked rich, all of the sudden he didn’t even need an appointment.
“Hello! My wife and I recently moved here, and we’d like to begin the process of rehoming our assets. Figured we’d start at least with a simple account or three to keep things centralized here in Milwa Key and give us access to, you know, the financial support staff here to get our bigger stuff moved over.”
Was this how rich people talked? He wasn’t sure.
“Well certainly, we’re happy to have you here. What is your name? You need multiple accounts, for you and your wife?”
Abra smiled. “Well, my name is Ibrim Nassau, and my wife’s name is Carol Bennd. We’d like to open personal accounts for each of us, as well as a shared account for our personal corporation that we handle shared expenses through, C.B.I.N. Inc.”
“Certainly. Unfortunately, I can’t help you with the shared account if you wish it to be connected to a company—that would require an appointment with a corporate representative who isn’t in today. I also can’t open an account for your wife without her here to consent and sign the paperwork.”
Abra nodded, turning back to the open door. “Carol, they’ll need you for when they make your account.”
Lisa looked up, halfway finished putting on her second ice skate. “Just do yours first, I’m in the middle of something here!”
Abra turned back to the employee. “Mine first, she’ll be in shortly. Women,” he joked, watching an air of unease settle on the employee between his comment and watching Lisa putting on ice skates. He didn’t go for any sort of alarm system yet, though.
“Understood. Do you have a local ID to Milwaukee County yet, or are you still out-of-county or out-of-state?”
“Actually, if you’d believe it, funnily enough, I’m, out of time!”
The joke barely landed as the bank employee stood up in horror, staring out the door as he watched Lisa icing off the entry to the bank. Before he could even shout anything or react, Abra blew across his open palm in the man’s direction, watching him grow drowsy then fall to the floor asleep in a matter of seconds.
The alarms went off, but that was fine. The quiet part was over and pretending to be upright citizens was tiring, anyways.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
“Iced over bank in Milwaukee,” Barry sighed, placing down his phone and looking up to Jay.
Jay, for his part, didn’t seem quite as exhausted. “Cap. Cold?”
“I sent a message to the prison, they’ll get back to me, but you’d think they’d give us a heads up if he went missing already. Bit of travel to get to Wisconsin if he broke out today.”
Jay stood up, switching into his outfit. “His stuff was always tech, possible someone figured out his nonsense and recreated it?”
Barry joined him, and the two ran out the door. “Let us know if the prison gets back to us, please,” Jay called over the communication device, and a confirmation from Nora Allen was their final comment from the compound before they arrived on the scene.
For a late May afternoon, with the temperature somewhere in the 90s, the vision of a fully frozen over bank building was almost an appealing sight. The local officer, on their arrival, jogged over.
“Good to see you, Flashes! Alarms started going off about an hour ago, but due to a technical hiccup in our system we didn’t find out until about a half hour ago. We sent in our report on arrival. All entrances are iced over, we’ve got a hostage negotiator on their way but we don’t know how many folks are trapped inside.”
“Do you know who might’ve done this?”
“Nope. No ice metahuman records in the region.”
“Gotcha, thank you. You mind if we try to do something, or would you like us to wait to see what happens?”
“By all means, Flash, y’all are the experts here. Policy is to let proven folks like you ahead, even after whatever happened during the winter. But I’m sure you don’t wanna hear policy ramblings.”
Barry took a deep breath. He didn’t want to hear policy ramblings, especially after the Flashpoint time rewriting, for sure. “Thanks, Chief.”
The two approached the iced over building, Jay running a finger across the ice. “Cold,” which confirmed at least that it wasn’t illusionary or a trick of the eye somewhat. What it also meant was that it could be shattered.
The two walked up to the front door, each placing their hands up to the ice. The vibration of their fingers and palm started small, testing the density and thickness of the ice first. Then the vibrations grew in intensity, melting the ice directly on it and nearby but also introducing faults throughout the structure. This would probably break the doors as well, but there were resources to pay for damages.
The heat melted more ice than the vibrations chipped any off, until about thirty seconds in. Some inflection point had passed, and large cracks showed up all throughout the ice, before a large chunk shattered in front of them. Not large enough to walk comfortably through, but enough to take advantage of the surprise to crawl through and get inside.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Ugh. Whatever that crash upstairs was, it wasn’t good tidings.
Lisa glanced at Abra, both grimacing as they tried, wordlessly, to figure out who was going to be the one heading upstairs. They were both in the bank’s vault, tossing bundles of cash through an open portal. They hadn’t even bothered to secure or watch the hostages, feeling confident that most average folks would rather sit still than risk being frozen into a popsicle or magic’d into nonexistence.
“Let me go up and see what that’s about, you keep getting money,” Abra offered, heading towards the staircase. Lisa was satisfied with that, a magician probably could defend himself better than her ice skates could. Abra jogged up the stairs, hearing the sounds of many sets of footprints. Hostages escaping or police force coming in. Probably both.
Instead of rushing in head first, Abra sprinkled a bit of dust on himself, making himself nearly invisible to the naked eye. He hugged the wall as he left the stairwell, eyes focused first on where the hostages were told to stay – all gone. The two Flashes in the main entryway were his next focus. He crushed a small marble in his pocket, sending a warning to Lisa downstairs – now was the time for her to leave.
Time to leave their mark. The two of them didn’t seem to see or hear him as he moved out of their stairwell, pulling out a small cylinder of herbs and powder. He snapped it in two, throwing each half at the two Flashes. As soon as it came out of his invisible cloak, the two reacted fast enough to get out of the way, but it served its purpose.
The tubes began their effect, turning into a condensed area of choking gas. The Flashes were no longer in there, but it was enough for them to focus on as he moved onto his next step. He rubbed a bit of lotion on his wrists, using the magic to then float up in the air. Flashes were fast, but they were vertically challenged, so long as he stayed out of arm’s reach in the air there wasn’t much they could do.
The Flashes investigated the gas, taking a sample seemingly as the one with the metal hat charged off towards the vault. When he came back empty-handed, Abra felt confident that Lisa had dipped. He took out two small spheres, tossing them at nearby walls. They exploded on impact, spelling out their requested calling card—CBIN—in a material that would slowly shift colors while also being difficult to remove.
Abra wanted to mess with the Flashes more, but getting caught right now was going to be terrible. One of them was already doing a touch test on every inch of the building he could reach, so the longer he waited the more he risked one of them doing some superspeed nonsense to find him. This wasn’t even supposed to be an actual interaction, he had been running a script for generic SWAT teams. It was time to go.
A small wand apparated in his hand, which he circled around himself. A quick teleport back to home base ensured his safety, though the rush of adrenaline still kept him on edge.
“What happened, you’re back quick,” Lisa asked, not even finished organizing the bags of money they had lifted.
“Flashes showed up,” Abra groaned, taking a deep breath. “Not convinced we were set up, they didn’t seem to be expecting me.”
“Guess we’ll see what the Curator says, if anything. Bad bait if they couldn’t even figure out your gimmicks after all of this.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Jay sighed, shaking his head. “Why ice, though? Really feels targeted in a way, who is going to freeze over a building and then just ignore the hostages other than Snart?”
Wally nodded. “Just not dismissing possibilities. Do we know for sure that was him? Do we know for sure that the magician or whatever the guy you faced was acting alone?”
“Nobody else in the building. I suppose they could’ve escaped alongside the hostages, but surely the hostages wouldn’t just let their captor slip out with them.”
Wally’s eyes narrowed. “It’s happened before, no?”
“In movies, maybe,” Jay chuckled. “We shouldn’t discount the possibility, I guess. Just seems so odd to me that the building freezes over, but then whatever we actually faced inside was like, gas canisters and graffiti bombs. Pretty sure there’s more, given that we never actually saw where the things were coming from, but hard to pinpoint what or how.”
“CBIN, right?”
“Not even a shell company. We’re trying to track down what it could be connected to, but anything associated with CBIN seems to be entirely disconnected. And no hostage remembers anything. Even the guy who was supposedly talking to him claims to have a blank spot on what the guy was saying or what he looked like.”
Elsewhere in the country, a man and a woman sat quietly. The man lifted each stack of bills telekinetically, magically detaching the dye that had stained each banknote. It wasn’t a particularly quick process, but it was calming. At least Abra was able to do it stack by stack, which made the process faster.
The woman sat at a computer, typing out a letter. They were growing more suspicious of the Curator, given that The Flash had shown up. Their understanding was that the Flash Museum, which the Curator was supposedly a part of, was not on good talking terms with The Flash folk themselves.
And yet, two of them had shown up. That wasn’t a smoking gun, The Flash could show up literally anywhere they wanted at presumably seconds’ notice, but for them to show up after this had been the Curator’s request hit for authenticity? They weren’t going to cut off contact with the Curator, not just yet, but they both were more suspicious than they had been. They hadn’t even mentioned the Flash appearance yet to Anthony, who likely would’ve reached poorly. He didn’t remember hating The Flash during the time change nonsense but had been willing to learn. The two of them felt better holding on to the information for now, anything suspicious might’ve caused him to careen into theorist worries and get cold feet.
They sat quietly. The next step, no matter what the Curator responded with, was to find more allies. The Curator was a potential sponsor, which was fine, but they needed more allies that could help in a fight. Lisa remembered more than just the three of them—four of them, but the kid didn’t want to join—during their time experience but finding them had been more difficult.
2024.06.01 20:00 micktalian The Gardens of Deathworlders: A Blooming Love (Part 69)
Part 69 Date night (Part 1) (Part 68)
[Help support me on Ko-fi so I can try to commission some character art and totally not spend it all on Gundams]
Only a few hours had passed since the short training session had ended and yet Nul'trula felt ready for more. It had only been two and a half hours of actual simulated combat, after all. With the expanded capacities of her new shell, she hadn't even reached the point of either stress or processor lag while engaging with hundreds of targets, countering thousands of munitions, and ensuring her four team teammates had all the support they needed to persevere. It almost felt like a game to her, and one she was naturally good at. Though Nula had already sworn to herself that she would never willingly bring harm to people, that essential aspect of morality was a fundamental part of her base code, she couldn't help but enjoy the thrill brought by that combat simulation.
Though the enemies she battled were controlled by a sapient being, a rather kind one whom she considered a friend, they represented an evil that once threatened all other life in the galaxy. If only her creators had taken the safe precautions with Hekuiv’trula that they had with her, maybe things would be different. However, as Nula’s mind had expanded in her shell far beyond her wildest expectations, she had been decompressing long stored away files regarding the Artuv'trula species. And those lost memories revealed more and more about a past that she wished she had left forgotten. Regardless of how kind and loving the team of scientists were who created her base code and instilled within her a drive to protect all living things, they were a part of a government who mistakenly saw their state, a mere social construct, an idea made manifest by the will of those participating in it, as the final and ultimate expression of the Artuv’trula people, culture, and species.
How could an artificial intelligence programmed with the express purpose of bringing something as fleeting and amorphous as an idea into infinity become anything other than the end of its own creators? How could a being whose sole created purpose was to ensure the continuation of a concept, but not the people who embodied that concept, become anything other than deranged? If people, cultures, and political systems change, which they all inevitably do, then how could an AI purposefully made to preserve one specific state, nothing more than the fleeting whims of an ever-changing people, do anything other than what it was programmed to do? Where Nula was explicitly designed to cherish all life, her brother's purpose was to ensure the Gytiom Infinite Hegemony would live on throughout all time and space. It was only a matter of time until Hekuiv would realize that the Artuv'trula were not immutable, they would change, and the Gytiom governmental system would be replaced by something else. And when that non-sapient, barely-sentient military control and management AI came to that inevitable conclusion, it was already far too late to stop it.
Even with her mind as clear and robust as it now was, Nula'trula hadn't yet consciously connected the fact that her lust for new experiences was directly related to her deep down desire to remain ignorant of the worst aspects of her creator's history. Her readiness to engage in more combat simulations, to see all the sights The Hammer had to offer, and engage in any activity which could keep her processors fully engaged were all just as much desires to have fun as they were a means to keep herself distracted. In moments like these where she could keep herself occupied with enjoyable thoughts, there was no need to wallow in an unchanged past. Instead, Nula was focusing all of her consciousness towards the present.
Having just walked out of a movie theater and into a clothing store with the company of Melatropa, one of her first true friends, the only things on Nula's mind were what she had just seen and what kind of clothing styles she should experiment with. The hour-long animated film featured a simple but effective art style, a single androgynous character reminiscent of and relatable to a dozen species, and a story focused on the struggles of one's own mind while surrounded by nothing but nature. Despite not being able to truly empathize with just how difficult base survival really was for a biological being alone in the wild, the meaning and intended message of the film had hit its mark. The battle outside one's soul was often far less brutal than the one fought within. However, at the current moment, that lesson was only to be applied to the rather innocuous clash between material choices for the outfit that Nula was to wear on her first ever date.
“Ooo! Are these furs?!?” Slowly making her way through a wide selection of clothing materials, Nula stopped in front of a particular section that peaked her interest in an innate way that far surpassed the almost endless display of fabrics she had been perusing. “Are they all from real animals?!?”
“Well, they're synth-furs.” Melatropa answered with a soft but quite deep giggle. “Either made out of manufactured polymers or cloned material, both of which are produced on demand to reduce the storage requirements. But yes, they are all based on real patterns from animals throughout the galaxy. The one you're looking at right now is actually from the bal'amuro of my people’s homeworld. A mighty feline predator that hunted my ancient ancestors just as we hunted them. But as we developed our weapons technology and grew in numbers, they were nearly pushed to extinction. While tens of thousands of years of conservation has guaranteed they will live on with a stable and healthy population, possession of actual bal'amuro fur has been outlawed for so many generations that the only remaining examples reside in the wild, in zoos, or in museums. If I remember right, this stuff is cloned from a preserved cloak that rests in the museum in Ten’txutcan.”
“I can see why your people covet this material so much.” The canine android’s voice trailed off as a distant memory, or rather an ancient and highly compressed bit of stored data pertaining to her creator's history, began to resurface. However, thanks to her vastly upgraded processing and memory she was able to continue on regardless of the fact her mind now bore the burden of remembrance. “A gold that simultaneously shimmers and absorbs light, spots of pinkish red that would be nearly invisible at night, and… Oh… This deep blue underskin is simply gorgeous. I presume this is outside of the budget Admiral Atxika gave us?”
“I'm not going to tell you what our budget is. But…” The large and muscular blue woman shot Nula a coy wink before letting her crimson red eyes wander down the display of material samples. “Let's just say we can afford it so long as you don't try to fill your entire closet with just this. Besides, you gotta consider how it'll look with the synth fur you wanted Banitek and Agothocli to cover your paneling with.”
“I was actually still considering my options with that.” Nula struggled to pull herself from the artificial golden panther fur but quickly found herself making her way down the aisle while affirming something she had discovered earlier. “None of these quite match what I wanted for my shell. You see, while my creator's did sport a wide variety of colors and patterns in their fur, I was looking for something quite specific.”
“Oh? Is there someone specific you wish to emulate?”
“Well… I guess you could call an ancient deity someone. But, yes. My name, Nula'trula, was derived from my creator’s ancient Goddess of Life and Love, Nula'somia. She was imagined as having a short but dense coat of glistening, pearlescent white fur that was as soft as silk and with a red-gold mane and flowing locks.”
“I'm not exactly sure about how to acquire the mane and hair… But that fur you're describing does remind me of something.” Mela turned towards the large blue woman standing behind the counter and shouted towards her with a cheerful tone. “Hey, Luniviria! Do you have a moment?”
“Oh, we don't need to bother her. Didn't she already tell us that all the materials she had available for her garments were on display here?”
“She keeps some special stuff in reserve for her more well-informed clientele. And if you're going on your first date night tomorrow, then this definitely calls for something special!”
/------------------------------------
“Do any of you three actually do any work on this ship?” Banitek paused his hammering and asked the avian, mustelid, and primate who were lounging about in his workshop. “Or do you weenuks just hangout all day waiting for something to do?”
“I mean, it kinda feels like that sometimes!” Tens retorted with a vigorous, full-bellied chuckle.
“I don't know about Binko, but Tens and I were running training with some of the Qui’ztar honor guard a few hours ago.” Hompta added with a high pitched and squeaky tone. “But speaking of working, what have you been up to, Binko? I haven't really seen you for like a week!”
“I've been studying for my pilot's license renewal.” The deep purple avian had his tablet in one of his claws and was reading from it rather intensely. “Which reminds me, Tens. You need to get your co-pilot license renewed soon. Tarki already has all the paperwork done for you, you just need to study for the written test so you can pass.”
“Have the regulations changed?” The Nishnabe warrior shot an overly confident look towards Binko, who ignored it. “Because if not, then there's nothing I need to study for.”
“It's a fifty question test from a bank of a thousand.” Binko's vibrant blue eyes slowly lifted from his tablet as an incredulous expression befell his feathered face. “Are you really trying to tell me you remember all thousand answers after eight years?”
“Go ahead, test me!”
“Alright!” The deep purple avian quickly flicked through the list of questions he was studying and picked one that he felt would challenge his friend and co-pilot. “If a vessel loses power to its primary and secondary control thrusters while in the process of docking, what is the procedure?”
“While the pilot uses tertiary control thrusters to arrest all movement, the co-pilot contacts the station's flight controllers to declare the emergency.” Much to the surprise of the Kroke, Kyim’ayik, and Hi-Koth, the Nishnabe warrior, a man who had made it a mission in his youth to avoid school at all cost, was able to respond without the slightest shred of hesitation. “The controllers will attempt to confirm the malfunction with their sensors, specifically looking for any potential of explosion or hazardous material leak. Assuming there are no immediate threats to the station, the controllers will then deploy tug-drones to either bring the vessel into the originally assigned dock for repairs or, if there is the potential for hazardous material contamination, the drones will move the vessel to a safe temporary dock where emergency repairs must be undertaken before the vessel can dock into the station-proper. Then there's a few more steps that have to do with diagnostics and specific repairs, but I'm pretty sure those would fall under the questions about how to address control thruster failure that aren't specific to port docking.”
“Binko, don't tell me he got that right!” Hompta blurted out while staring daggers at Tens.
“Fine, I won't tell you.” Binko retorted with soft cackling while shaking his head and scrolling to a new question. “I'll tell Bani. Hey Bani, Tens got that question right.”
“Of course he did!” Though Banitek was shocked at how quickly and effortlessly Tens was able to answer such a technical question, this was not the first, or even hundredth, time that he had seen this mostly hairless primate display an unpredictable amount of knowledge. “The guy's got the memory of a Muritoph but can't remember his own birthday most of the time.”
“I think it's in a couple months.” In stark contrast to his confidence when answering Binko's question, Tens actually looked a bit confused as he tried to remember both the current date and the date of his birth.
“It's in six weeks and you're turning twenty-four, you weenuk!” The furry little beaver-otter half shouted with frustration obvious in his voice. “I swear, niji! If your parents and goko didn't call you on your birthday every year, you'd have no idea how old you are!”
For a few moments, Banitek's workshop was filled with laughter from four different species. Despite having grown up together on the same station, going to the same school, having the same caretakers, and even considering each other as family, there were certain aspects of each individual that were wholly unique to their species. Where Binko was incredibly quick witted, his Kroke brain able to mentally process thoughts at rate far higher than most other forms of Ascended life, both Hompta and Banitek, with their larger but less densely packed brains, were able to maintain multiple trains of thought at the same time. However, much to the continued surprise of them and all other non-human persons who spent any amount of time among the Nishnabe, Tens was able to effortlessly switch between rapid recall, multiple trains of thought, or even utilize both at the same time. And while the almost comical tendency for this Nishnabe warrior to forget things which many considered to be incredibly important on a personal level, the fact he could immediately answer a practical question from a subject he hadn't specifically studied for in years was somehow even funnier.
“Hey, so, back to my original question.” Banitek was the first to slowly get his deep and roaring laughter under control. “How much work do y'all actually do on this ship? At least one of you has been here everyday since I opened this shop.”
“Well… As a member of the security and combat staff, I'm pretty sure my contract stipulates that I'm always on-call.” Even if Tens couldn't remember every single word of the contract he had signed when joining the First Independent Fleet of the Third Qui’ztar Matriarchy, he could still instantly recall the most important parts. “But I am required to log a minimum of five hours a day, five days a week, or thirty hours total a week of training whenever I'm not deployed on a mission. And that includes physical training. But I usually don't log stuff like my morning exercises or if I'm just messing around in the sims. I also get compensated with additional time off after extended missions.”
“Yeah, this Qui’ztar Fleet is way more serious about time off than the Nishnabe Militia.” Hompta added while struggling to get his high pitch chortling under control. “As a member of the engineering and support staff, I'm also on-call if I'm needed. But I have the same amount of required work hours. As long as I log thirty hours, I'm getting paid good!”
“I'm technically part of the diplomatic staff so I don't really have required work hours.” Binko's comment drew a rather harsh glare from his friends which he didn't notice because he had already gone back to studying from his tablet. “My hours are whatever Tarki tells me my hours are. But if I'm with the love of my life, I can't really consider that working.”
“Eeeeee! Lover-boy over here!” Hompta sarcastically chided his avian friend as he found a new reason to continue his wild laughter.
“Alright, so, what do y'all do when you're not working then?” Bani rolled his eyes at the Kyim’ayik who already had children but had not yet even considered getting married to any of their mothers. “If y'all only have to work thirty hours a week, what are you doing to fill time on this ship?”
“I flirt with the Kyim’ayik women onboard!” Hompta announced with a cheeky smirk and seemingly endless giggling. “And there's that fishing spot, a bunch of shopping, and all kinds of different entertainment venues. I took one of the ladies from reactor control to a movie the other day and I got another date night lined up with her tomorrow!”
“Before Atx and I started shacking up, I hit almost every bar, sim room, and smoking lounge on this ship.” While Tens did leave out any mention of the Qui’ztar women he had flings with before he and Atxika began their relationship, it was clear by the rather coy and particular look in his eyes that Hompta hadn't been the only one chasing tail. “I’m telling you, niji, this Amenities Section really does have everything a person could ever need or want. When I asked Atx about it, she told me the point is to prevent burn out or psychological issues that can come from being a warrior in space. Apparently, Nishnabek aren't the only people who get weird if we spend too much time doing combat training. The work hours and amount of entertainment available are specifically meant to avoid that. Like, we couldn't tell you everything there is to do in this ship because there's just so much. The whole First of the Third uses this ship as their port of call and place to relax, it's got to have everything anyone could possibly imagine so everyone can unwind and not feel the need to do stupid stuff!”
“Speaking of stupid stuff…” Binko, once again, did not look up from his studies but it was painfully obvious who the mention of stupid stuff was directed at. “When was the last time you jumped out the window at that one bar, Tens?”
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[Help support me on Ko-fi so I can try to commission some character art and totally not spend it all on Gundams]
Only a few hours had passed since the short training session had ended and yet Nul'trula felt ready for more. It had only been two and a half hours of actual simulated combat, after all. With the expanded capacities of her new shell, she hadn't even reached the point of either stress or processor lag while engaging with hundreds of targets, countering thousands of munitions, and ensuring her four team teammates had all the support they needed to persevere. It almost felt like a game to her, and one she was naturally good at. Though Nula had already sworn to herself that she would never willingly bring harm to people, that essential aspect of morality was a fundamental part of her base code, she couldn't help but enjoy the thrill brought by that combat simulation.
Though the enemies she battled were controlled by a sapient being, a rather kind one whom she considered a friend, they represented an evil that once threatened all other life in the galaxy. If only her creators had taken the safe precautions with Hekuiv’trula that they had with her, maybe things would be different. However, as Nula’s mind had expanded in her shell far beyond her wildest expectations, she had been decompressing long stored away files regarding the Artuv'trula species. And those lost memories revealed more and more about a past that she wished she had left forgotten. Regardless of how kind and loving the team of scientists were who created her base code and instilled within her a drive to protect all living things, they were a part of a government who mistakenly saw their state, a mere social construct, an idea made manifest by the will of those participating in it, as the final and ultimate expression of the Artuv’trula people, culture, and species.
How could an artificial intelligence programmed with the express purpose of bringing something as fleeting and amorphous as an idea into infinity become anything other than the end of its own creators? How could a being whose sole created purpose was to ensure the continuation of a concept, but not the people who embodied that concept, become anything other than deranged? If people, cultures, and political systems change, which they all inevitably do, then how could an AI purposefully made to preserve one specific state, nothing more than the fleeting whims of an ever-changing people, do anything other than what it was programmed to do? Where Nula was explicitly designed to cherish all life, her brother's purpose was to ensure the Gytiom Infinite Hegemony would live on throughout all time and space. It was only a matter of time until Hekuiv would realize that the Artuv'trula were not immutable, they would change, and the Gytiom governmental system would be replaced by something else. And when that non-sapient, barely-sentient military control and management AI came to that inevitable conclusion, it was already far too late to stop it.
Even with her mind as clear and robust as it now was, Nula'trula hadn't yet consciously connected the fact that her lust for new experiences was directly related to her deep down desire to remain ignorant of the worst aspects of her creator's history. Her readiness to engage in more combat simulations, to see all the sights The Hammer had to offer, and engage in any activity which could keep her processors fully engaged were all just as much desires to have fun as they were a means to keep herself distracted. In moments like these where she could keep herself occupied with enjoyable thoughts, there was no need to wallow in an unchanged past. Instead, Nula was focusing all of her consciousness towards the present.
Having just walked out of a movie theater and into a clothing store with the company of Melatropa, one of her first true friends, the only things on Nula's mind were what she had just seen and what kind of clothing styles she should experiment with. The hour-long animated film featured a simple but effective art style, a single androgynous character reminiscent of and relatable to a dozen species, and a story focused on the struggles of one's own mind while surrounded by nothing but nature. Despite not being able to truly empathize with just how difficult base survival really was for a biological being alone in the wild, the meaning and intended message of the film had hit its mark. The battle outside one's soul was often far less brutal than the one fought within. However, at the current moment, that lesson was only to be applied to the rather innocuous clash between material choices for the outfit that Nula was to wear on her first ever date.
“Ooo! Are these furs?!?” Slowly making her way through a wide selection of clothing materials, Nula stopped in front of a particular section that peaked her interest in an innate way that far surpassed the almost endless display of fabrics she had been perusing. “Are they all from real animals?!?”
“Well, they're synth-furs.” Melatropa answered with a soft but quite deep giggle. “Either made out of manufactured polymers or cloned material, both of which are produced on demand to reduce the storage requirements. But yes, they are all based on real patterns from animals throughout the galaxy. The one you're looking at right now is actually from the bal'amuro of my people’s homeworld. A mighty feline predator that hunted my ancient ancestors just as we hunted them. But as we developed our weapons technology and grew in numbers, they were nearly pushed to extinction. While tens of thousands of years of conservation has guaranteed they will live on with a stable and healthy population, possession of actual bal'amuro fur has been outlawed for so many generations that the only remaining examples reside in the wild, in zoos, or in museums. If I remember right, this stuff is cloned from a preserved cloak that rests in the museum in Ten’txutcan.”
“I can see why your people covet this material so much.” The canine android’s voice trailed off as a distant memory, or rather an ancient and highly compressed bit of stored data pertaining to her creator's history, began to resurface. However, thanks to her vastly upgraded processing and memory she was able to continue on regardless of the fact her mind now bore the burden of remembrance. “A gold that simultaneously shimmers and absorbs light, spots of pinkish red that would be nearly invisible at night, and… Oh… This deep blue underskin is simply gorgeous. I presume this is outside of the budget Admiral Atxika gave us?”
“I'm not going to tell you what our budget is. But…” The large and muscular blue woman shot Nula a coy wink before letting her crimson red eyes wander down the display of material samples. “Let's just say we can afford it so long as you don't try to fill your entire closet with just this. Besides, you gotta consider how it'll look with the synth fur you wanted Banitek and Agothocli to cover your paneling with.”
“I was actually still considering my options with that.” Nula struggled to pull herself from the artificial golden panther fur but quickly found herself making her way down the aisle while affirming something she had discovered earlier. “None of these quite match what I wanted for my shell. You see, while my creator's did sport a wide variety of colors and patterns in their fur, I was looking for something quite specific.”
“Oh? Is there someone specific you wish to emulate?”
“Well… I guess you could call an ancient deity someone. But, yes. My name, Nula'trula, was derived from my creator’s ancient Goddess of Life and Love, Nula'somia. She was imagined as having a short but dense coat of glistening, pearlescent white fur that was as soft as silk and with a red-gold mane and flowing locks.”
“I'm not exactly sure about how to acquire the mane and hair… But that fur you're describing does remind me of something.” Mela turned towards the large blue woman standing behind the counter and shouted towards her with a cheerful tone. “Hey, Luniviria! Do you have a moment?”
“Oh, we don't need to bother her. Didn't she already tell us that all the materials she had available for her garments were on display here?”
“She keeps some special stuff in reserve for her more well-informed clientele. And if you're going on your first date night tomorrow, then this definitely calls for something special!”
/------------------------------------
“Do any of you three actually do any work on this ship?” Banitek paused his hammering and asked the avian, mustelid, and primate who were lounging about in his workshop. “Or do you weenuks just hangout all day waiting for something to do?”
“I mean, it kinda feels like that sometimes!” Tens retorted with a vigorous, full-bellied chuckle.
“I don't know about Binko, but Tens and I were running training with some of the Qui’ztar honor guard a few hours ago.” Hompta added with a high pitched and squeaky tone. “But speaking of working, what have you been up to, Binko? I haven't really seen you for like a week!”
“I've been studying for my pilot's license renewal.” The deep purple avian had his tablet in one of his claws and was reading from it rather intensely. “Which reminds me, Tens. You need to get your co-pilot license renewed soon. Tarki already has all the paperwork done for you, you just need to study for the written test so you can pass.”
“Have the regulations changed?” The Nishnabe warrior shot an overly confident look towards Binko, who ignored it. “Because if not, then there's nothing I need to study for.”
“It's a fifty question test from a bank of a thousand.” Binko's vibrant blue eyes slowly lifted from his tablet as an incredulous expression befell his feathered face. “Are you really trying to tell me you remember all thousand answers after eight years?”
“Go ahead, test me!”
“Alright!” The deep purple avian quickly flicked through the list of questions he was studying and picked one that he felt would challenge his friend and co-pilot. “If a vessel loses power to its primary and secondary control thrusters while in the process of docking, what is the procedure?”
“While the pilot uses tertiary control thrusters to arrest all movement, the co-pilot contacts the station's flight controllers to declare the emergency.” Much to the surprise of the Kroke, Kyim’ayik, and Hi-Koth, the Nishnabe warrior, a man who had made it a mission in his youth to avoid school at all cost, was able to respond without the slightest shred of hesitation. “The controllers will attempt to confirm the malfunction with their sensors, specifically looking for any potential of explosion or hazardous material leak. Assuming there are no immediate threats to the station, the controllers will then deploy tug-drones to either bring the vessel into the originally assigned dock for repairs or, if there is the potential for hazardous material contamination, the drones will move the vessel to a safe temporary dock where emergency repairs must be undertaken before the vessel can dock into the station-proper. Then there's a few more steps that have to do with diagnostics and specific repairs, but I'm pretty sure those would fall under the questions about how to address control thruster failure that aren't specific to port docking.”
“Binko, don't tell me he got that right!” Hompta blurted out while staring daggers at Tens.
“Fine, I won't tell you.” Binko retorted with soft cackling while shaking his head and scrolling to a new question. “I'll tell Bani. Hey Bani, Tens got that question right.”
“Of course he did!” Though Banitek was shocked at how quickly and effortlessly Tens was able to answer such a technical question, this was not the first, or even hundredth, time that he had seen this mostly hairless primate display an unpredictable amount of knowledge. “The guy's got the memory of a Muritoph but can't remember his own birthday most of the time.”
“I think it's in a couple months.” In stark contrast to his confidence when answering Binko's question, Tens actually looked a bit confused as he tried to remember both the current date and the date of his birth.
“It's in six weeks and you're turning twenty-four, you weenuk!” The furry little beaver-otter half shouted with frustration obvious in his voice. “I swear, niji! If your parents and goko didn't call you on your birthday every year, you'd have no idea how old you are!”
For a few moments, Banitek's workshop was filled with laughter from four different species. Despite having grown up together on the same station, going to the same school, having the same caretakers, and even considering each other as family, there were certain aspects of each individual that were wholly unique to their species. Where Binko was incredibly quick witted, his Kroke brain able to mentally process thoughts at rate far higher than most other forms of Ascended life, both Hompta and Banitek, with their larger but less densely packed brains, were able to maintain multiple trains of thought at the same time. However, much to the continued surprise of them and all other non-human persons who spent any amount of time among the Nishnabe, Tens was able to effortlessly switch between rapid recall, multiple trains of thought, or even utilize both at the same time. And while the almost comical tendency for this Nishnabe warrior to forget things which many considered to be incredibly important on a personal level, the fact he could immediately answer a practical question from a subject he hadn't specifically studied for in years was somehow even funnier.
“Hey, so, back to my original question.” Banitek was the first to slowly get his deep and roaring laughter under control. “How much work do y'all actually do on this ship? At least one of you has been here everyday since I opened this shop.”
“Well… As a member of the security and combat staff, I'm pretty sure my contract stipulates that I'm always on-call.” Even if Tens couldn't remember every single word of the contract he had signed when joining the First Independent Fleet of the Third Qui’ztar Matriarchy, he could still instantly recall the most important parts. “But I am required to log a minimum of five hours a day, five days a week, or thirty hours total a week of training whenever I'm not deployed on a mission. And that includes physical training. But I usually don't log stuff like my morning exercises or if I'm just messing around in the sims. I also get compensated with additional time off after extended missions.”
“Yeah, this Qui’ztar Fleet is way more serious about time off than the Nishnabe Militia.” Hompta added while struggling to get his high pitch chortling under control. “As a member of the engineering and support staff, I'm also on-call if I'm needed. But I have the same amount of required work hours. As long as I log thirty hours, I'm getting paid good!”
“I'm technically part of the diplomatic staff so I don't really have required work hours.” Binko's comment drew a rather harsh glare from his friends which he didn't notice because he had already gone back to studying from his tablet. “My hours are whatever Tarki tells me my hours are. But if I'm with the love of my life, I can't really consider that working.”
“Eeeeee! Lover-boy over here!” Hompta sarcastically chided his avian friend as he found a new reason to continue his wild laughter.
“Alright, so, what do y'all do when you're not working then?” Bani rolled his eyes at the Kyim’ayik who already had children but had not yet even considered getting married to any of their mothers. “If y'all only have to work thirty hours a week, what are you doing to fill time on this ship?”
“I flirt with the Kyim’ayik women onboard!” Hompta announced with a cheeky smirk and seemingly endless giggling. “And there's that fishing spot, a bunch of shopping, and all kinds of different entertainment venues. I took one of the ladies from reactor control to a movie the other day and I got another date night lined up with her tomorrow!”
“Before Atx and I started shacking up, I hit almost every bar, sim room, and smoking lounge on this ship.” While Tens did leave out any mention of the Qui’ztar women he had flings with before he and Atxika began their relationship, it was clear by the rather coy and particular look in his eyes that Hompta hadn't been the only one chasing tail. “I’m telling you, niji, this Amenities Section really does have everything a person could ever need or want. When I asked Atx about it, she told me the point is to prevent burn out or psychological issues that can come from being a warrior in space. Apparently, Nishnabek aren't the only people who get weird if we spend too much time doing combat training. The work hours and amount of entertainment available are specifically meant to avoid that. Like, we couldn't tell you everything there is to do in this ship because there's just so much. The whole First of the Third uses this ship as their port of call and place to relax, it's got to have everything anyone could possibly imagine so everyone can unwind and not feel the need to do stupid stuff!”
“Speaking of stupid stuff…” Binko, once again, did not look up from his studies but it was painfully obvious who the mention of stupid stuff was directed at. “When was the last time you jumped out the window at that one bar, Tens?”
2024.06.01 18:44 TacoTVSupport TAKE BACK CANADA: July 1st Canada-Wide Protest
Who is this protest for?
This is a bi-partisan protest movement of Canadians from all political backgrounds united to reclaim our country from the corrupt ruling class and end the uncontrolled immigration that enriches them while worsening Canada's existing issues.We are not anti-immigration but oppose the reckless policies that depress wages, raise the cost of living, create job scarcity, and compromise safety, especially for women. These policies strain our healthcare and social services without benefiting Canadians in the long run.
On July 1st, we will protest this irresponsible mass immigration. We welcome peace-loving immigrants who came here fairly, embracing Canadian values and contributing positively to our society.
Canadians of all backgrounds and ideologies must unite for the common good. You may find yourself alongside those with differing views, but our shared love for Canada must prevail over division.
Now is the time to stand together and protect what is rightfully ours.
How can I help?
First and foremost, you can help by coming out to the protest and by spreading the word to friends, family and on social media.You can also help by:
- downloading, printing, and putting up posters across your neighbourhood and city,
- helping plan and organise your city’s protest,
- donating to our cause (donation link coming soon),
- and by offering to contribute your time and skills in any other way that may be helpful to our cause.
- Protest Event Details:
- Date: July 1st, 2024 - Canada-wide Protest
- Cities: Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, Charlottetown, Calgary
- Protests start at 11:00 AM local time (EST) and we will continue at least as long as there is daylight.
- Poster Downloads
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2024.06.01 18:25 Extension-Radio-9701 ``These 3rd world rats dared to speak their own language in front of me!!!``
 | submitted by Extension-Radio-9701 to languagelearningjerk [link] [comments] |
2024.06.01 16:40 mcm8279 [Best of TrekTalk: May 2024] A Star Trek-Dr. Who Crossover?/ The final episodes of Star Trek: Discovery/ Starfleet Academy Previews/ Terry Matalas joins Marvel/ Alex Kurtzman on the future of the franchise/ Who will buy Paramount?/ Skepticism towards the "Star Trek Origins" prequel movie project
Best of TrekTalk: May 2024
[Awards Season] Star Trek Franchise Wins Peabody Institutional Award From the announcement: “Today Star Trek is more vibrant, imaginative, funny, entertaining, and progressive than ever.” (TrekMovie)
A Star Trek-Dr. Who Crossover?
[Interview] Russell T. Davies Breaks Down That 'Star Trek' Easter Egg in the 'Doctor Who' Premiere: “I'm coming to love Star Trek with an absolute passion. I love the old show. I always watched the old show, but when Star Trek: Discovery came along, I kind of became a proper fan.” (Collider)
[Star Trek & Dr. Who] INVERSE: "Could The 2 Oldest Sci-Fi Shows Finally Cross Over? Will the TARDIS ever materialize on the Enterprise? Has it already?" "Dr. Who showrunner Russell T Davies might be planting the seeds for his own fanfic crossover"
[Opinion] Chad Porto (Redshirts): "No, Star Trek doesn't exist in the Doctor Who universe" "Despite what some want to believe, Doctor Who and Star Trek don't share a narrative universe."
The final episodes of Star Trek: Discovery (Interviews, Reviews, Reactions)
Selected Reviews:
[Discovery 5x6 Reviews] CBR.com: "With Great Technological Power Comes at Least Some Responsibility - “Whistlespeak” Deconstructs the Prime Directive"
[Discovery 5x7 Reviews] GIZMODO: "The Breen come calling in "Erigah," giving Discovery some of its greatest diplomacy. The main plot delivers a strong, tense game of politicking and aggressive negotiation over spectacle in a very satisfying manner. It’s just captivatingly tense and triumphant"
[Discovery 5x7 Reviews] TrekCore: "Ruhn vs. T'Rina: it’s absolutely riveting! The writing is sharp, the logical turns land like punches, and Tara Rosling, who has been fantastic as T’Rina from the start, is electric. This is some all-time Star Trek diplomacy; Jean-Luc Picard himself would be proud"
[Discovery 5x8 Reviews] REACTOR MAG: "One of the biggest problems with this season is that the ticking clock/competition for our heroes has not been that compelling. Moll & L’ak are just a couple of ex-Couriers who should not be able to run rings around an entire starship full of smart people."
[Discovery 5x9 Reviews] DEN OF GEEK: "Although 'Lagrange Point' is a fast-paced and fairly action-packed hour, it is also largely setup for next week’s finale, and answers none questions any of us have about the larger story of this season. Suddenly everything just feels uncomfortably rushed."
[Discovery 5x9 Reviews] LARRY NEMECEK on YouTube: "The Beginning of the End?" "This is the penultimate episode of the series. The quiet moments? That's all over now, suckers! IT'S AMP UP TIME! And yet I am going to compliment the entire writers room for not having this one feel like Part 1 of 2"
[Discovery 5x10 Reviews] TREKMOVIE: "A solid season finale ties things for the season plot and the characters, with a bonus bringing the series to a satisfying conclusion." "Packing so much in did perhaps bloat the episode, which got even heftier when the epilogue was tacked on."
[Opinion] ScreenRant: "Discovery Ends As A Star Trek Success Story" "Star Trek owes its renaissance to Discovery" "Star Trek: Discovery broke important ground for diversity, inclusiveness, and LGBTQ+ representation."
Interviews:
[Interview] ‘Discovery’ Writer Eric J. Robbins on why the Breen would suddenly accept Moll (Eve Harlow) as their new leader: "There’s a lot of abstraction and a lot of mystery with them. There are things important to them beyond just subjugating other species and being in control." (TrekMovie)
[Interview] ‘Discovery’ Writer Eric J. Robbins On Episode 5x8: "For 'Labyrinths' one thing we talked about: this is a show led by a black woman and we never really had many opportunities to dramatize the pressures that women of color face in positions of power in the real world."
[Discovery Interviews] Elias Toufexis on the chemistry between Moll (Eve Harlow) and L’ak: "It was very easy to fall in love with her because she plays it so great, and she’s so pretty. She's such a good actor. I would always kind of defer to her performance first." (TrekMovie)
[Interview] Elias Toufexis (L'ak): "I don't like calling Moll and L'ak 'bad guys.' They’re antagonists for sure, but they're not really bad guys. Villains don't get to show the reason they're doing this. Because they want love and freedom. If we did our jobs correctly, you want to root for them."
[Interview] Mary Wiseman on Tilly's arc: "She started pretty insecure, and spent a lot of time apologizing for herself and for being the way she was naturally. The cool thing about the series is: she gets to grow up and still be herself: her nervous energy, silliness, her quirk, but stop apologizing
[Interview] Star Trek: Discovery’s Jett Reno Was Created With “Han Solo Vibe” - Tig Notaro, who plays Reno, was surprised by the comedic aspect of her character and credits the writers for the funny lines. (ScreenRant)
[Interview] STARTREK.COM: Tig Notaro Reflects on Discovery's Engineer and Star Trek Experience "It's so fun getting different scripts and reading like, 'Oh wow, I used to bartend. Okay, cool. I can personally relate because I failed out of school, dropped out, and had a million different jobs."
[Interview] INVERSE: "'Discovery's Most Unlikely Star Doesn't Understand Star Trek Canon At All" TIG NOTARO (Jett Reno): "When Alex [Kurtzman] developed this character, [...] they really wanted to make it me. That’s why I always call it Tig-in-space."
Commentary:
[Opinion] Robert Meyer Burnett: "What do BUFFY SUMMERS and Harry Potter (1997) have to do with STAR WARS, STAR TREK and all your favorite franchises?!" "Watching Discovery: Nobody on that show TALKS like anybody would talk in the 32nd Century. The reason I hate it: I don't believe any of it!"
[Opinion] DEN OF GEEK: "Starfleet Academy Needs to Ditch Modern Star Trek’s Defining Trope" "It will need to learn from Discovery's mistakes and re-embrace KNOWLEDGE. Feelings are not an end to themselves in Starfleet. And they certainly don’t take precedence over the search for the truth."
[Opinion] ScreenRant: "Captain Michael Burnham is arguably the most prolific action hero of modern Star Trek, perhaps even of the entire franchise."
[Opinion] STARTREK.COM on "Whistlespeak" (Discovery ep. 5x6): "A thought-provoking, durable, and utterly optimistic Star Trek idea. When the entire world seems to turn on you, this type of story seems to suggest that maybe we all just need some well-meaning repair people from space to help us."
[Opinion] POLYGON: "Star Trek: Discovery boldly goes where no Trek has gone before by saying religion is... OK, actually" "[Episode 3x6] ‘Whistlespeak’ breaks from Trek tradition to be pretty chill about believing in a higher power" "Spirituality is what you make of it."
[Opinion] SCREENRANT: "Star Trek: Discovery Proves Starfleet's Prime Directive Is Useless" "Starfleet insists on following Star Trek's Prime Directive in Discovery's 32nd century, but there's no reason the rule should still exist."
Ratings:
[Ratings] For the first time ever: Star Trek: Discovery Lands In Nielsen Streaming Top 10 Like Picard & Strange New Worlds (Week of April 8-14, 2024; episode 5x3: “Jinaal”)
[Ratings] For the third week in a row, the fifth season of Star Trek: Discovery has ranked on Nielsen’s top streaming chart, moving up again in the rankings. "Mirrors" (5x5) is the most-viewed season 5 episode and the best-ranked Discovery so far, with 285 million minutes streamed."
[Ratings] Star Trek: Discovery has failed to match Star Trek: Strange New Worlds in viewers However, Picard's second to last episode of the series netted fewer than Discovery's current figures. Discovery is clearly more popular than Picard, though Strange New Worlds is the top dog for a reason."
Terry Matalas joins Marvel:
[Matalas joins Marvel] No time for Star Trek: Legacy? Marvel Sets Vision Series for 2026 With Paul Bettany, ‘Star Trek: Picard’ EP Terry Matalas as Showrunner (Variety)
[Opinion] ScreenRant: "Terry Matalas Showrunning Marvel's Vision Show Means Star Trek: Picard's Spinoff Isn't Happening - Matalas is committing to Marvel for the next couple of years at least"
[Opinion] ROBERT MEYER BURNETT on Terry Matalas joining Marvel: "I can't believe that the head of Marvel, Kevin Feige, taps Terry Matalas to go make a "Vision" show, and the people that actually control Star Trek don't!" Picard and Ro? For that alone Picard season 3 earns my love and affection."
The future of Paramount
[Streaming] The New York Times: "Sony and Apollo’s Plan for Paramount: Break It Up"
[Streaming] VARIETY: "Paramount Stock Falls on Report Sony Is ‘Rethinking’ $26 Billion Bid"
[Streaming] VARIETY: "Skydance Media Revises Paramount Global Bid to Make It More Attractive to Noncontrolling Shareholders"
Alex Kurtzman on the future of the franchise:
[Interview] ALEX KURTZMAN on producing Star Trek: Discovery: "I look back on the first year and I see so many big, bold swings, you know, some of which I think were amazingly successful. But I do feel like at every turn we kept refining and tightening our storytelling." (Ready Room Interview)
[Interview] Alex Kurtzman Explains Why STARFLEET ACADEMY is Set in STAR TREK: DISCOVERY’s 32nd Century Future: "My thinking was, if we set “Starfleet Academy” in the halcyon days of the Federation where everything was fine, it’s not going to speak to what kids are going through right now."(LA Times)
Starfleet Academy Previews:
[Starfleet Academy Previews] Canada’s Largest Purpose-Built Sound Stage Is Ready for Star Trek The 45,900 square foot soundstage will serve as the central hub of the upcoming series set to begin filming later this year. (TrekCore)
[Starfleet Academy Updates] Star Trek's New Series Has Cast Academy Award Winner Holly Hunter As Its First Actor (playing the “captain and chancellor of Starfleet Academy.”)
Noteworthy articles and social media posts on Star Trek (May 2024):
[Opinion] SlashFilm: "Star Trek's Closest TV Cousin Isn't Sci-Fi – It's Law & Order" "The main characters of "Star Trek" aren't the officers on board Starfleet vessels. The main character is ... Starfleet itself." "Starfleet principles are the star."
[Prodigy Updates] TrekMovie: "‘Star Trek: Prodigy’ Producers Urge Fans To Be Patient Waiting For Season 2 On Netflix" "Netflix just announced its lineup for June 2024 and Prodigy season 2 is not listed, so the wait will continue into the summer"
[Opinion] SlashFilm: "Star Trek Changed My Life Forever And Reigns As The Greatest Sci-Fi Franchise Of All Time" "The crew of the Enterprise weren't "violent/cool," and I liked that. Finally, I realized, here was a show about pacifism - teaching intense lessons of diplomacy and leadership"
[NCC-1701 Updates] L.A. Times: "Court is the final frontier for this lost ‘Star Trek’ model" Dustin Riach and Jason Rivas discovered the model among a stash of items they bought “sight unseen” last October. They sold it to Roddenberry Entertainment. They have yet to receive the $500,000 payment."
[Essay] REACTOR MAG: "Let’s Start a Fight: Are Science Fiction and Fantasy the Same?" "Both fantasy and sci-fi are equally free to imagine whatever they will... but people don’t relate to them in the same way."
[Opinion] Brianna Wu on X: “Star Trek has a LIBERAL message, not a PROGRESSIVE message. Another core message of Star Trek is duty and trying to get along with people who have different values. I think progressives are failing miserably at both values.” (Responding to Jessie Gender)
[Opinion] Brianna Wu on X (Twitter): “Star Trek is NOT SOCIALIST. If you think Star Trek was socialist, you didn’t understand Star Trek. A huge part of Star Trek is the market economy.” Jessie Gender: “I agree with you. The show is neoliberal; you’re not wrong.”
[Opinion] INVERSE: "15 Years Ago, J.J. Abrams Broke - And Then Saved - the Star Trek Universe" "Star Trek [2009] is the rare sexy reboot that actually helped its flailing franchise" "What makes it such a compelling reboot is its freedom from canon"
[Opinion] CBR.COM: "J.J. Abrams’s Star Trek Is a Great but Flawed Reboot" "Star Trek (2009) felt more like a reverent movie about the USS Enterprise's crew that would be made in the characters' universe than a glimpse into their missions and lives."
[Kelvin Movies] "Star Trek [2009]" Ranks Higher Than 3 Star Wars Movies On Rotten Tomatoes’ 300 Best Movies List (ScreenRant)
Another prequel? Paramount wants to produce a "Star Trek: Origins" movie
[Kelvin Movies] X-Men Producer Simon Kinberg in talks to lead Star Trek movie franchise, focusing on "Origin movie" release in 2025. Paramount looks to Kinberg as franchise shepherd for future Trek projects, with a potential REBOOT (!!!!) in store
[Opinion] SlashFilm: "The New Star Trek Movie Is A Prequel – But Will It Rewrite The Franchise Timeline? "Will Kinberg's new film time-shift First Contact backward?"
[Untitled Star Trek Origin Story] INVERSE on the new movie project: "Star Trek Canon Has Suddenly Reached a Pivotal Crossroads" "The venerable sci-fi franchise has to pick a future." "If this rumor is true, it’s possible a third Trek timeline could emerge ..."
[Opinion] Mick Joest (Cinemablend): "X-Men's Simon Kinberg Is Working On The Next Star Trek Movie, But As A Fan, I Have Some Major Concerns" "I can't help but feel worried about this."
[Opinion] DEN OF GEEK: "Star Trek Origin Movie Timeline Rumor Makes the Film Feel Even More Unnecessary" Set likely around modern times?!? - "We have plenty of stories that take a cynical look at humanity’s flaws, and many of them are very good. But that’s not what Trek is."
[Kelvin Movies / Origin Movie] THE GUARDIAN (UK): "Shatner, Pine, or a Kirk triple whammy: where should Star Trek boldly go next? - Maybe Paramount should just bite the bullet instead and give us the triple-Kirk, multiple timeline movie that is probably the only way to rescue this aching franchise"
[Kelvin Movies] AV Club: "Yeah, Chris Pine has no damn clue what's up with Star Trek 4, either"
submitted by mcm8279 to trektalk [link] [comments]
[Awards Season] Star Trek Franchise Wins Peabody Institutional Award From the announcement: “Today Star Trek is more vibrant, imaginative, funny, entertaining, and progressive than ever.” (TrekMovie)
A Star Trek-Dr. Who Crossover?
[Interview] Russell T. Davies Breaks Down That 'Star Trek' Easter Egg in the 'Doctor Who' Premiere: “I'm coming to love Star Trek with an absolute passion. I love the old show. I always watched the old show, but when Star Trek: Discovery came along, I kind of became a proper fan.” (Collider)
[Star Trek & Dr. Who] INVERSE: "Could The 2 Oldest Sci-Fi Shows Finally Cross Over? Will the TARDIS ever materialize on the Enterprise? Has it already?" "Dr. Who showrunner Russell T Davies might be planting the seeds for his own fanfic crossover"
[Opinion] Chad Porto (Redshirts): "No, Star Trek doesn't exist in the Doctor Who universe" "Despite what some want to believe, Doctor Who and Star Trek don't share a narrative universe."
The final episodes of Star Trek: Discovery (Interviews, Reviews, Reactions)
Selected Reviews:
[Discovery 5x6 Reviews] CBR.com: "With Great Technological Power Comes at Least Some Responsibility - “Whistlespeak” Deconstructs the Prime Directive"
[Discovery 5x7 Reviews] GIZMODO: "The Breen come calling in "Erigah," giving Discovery some of its greatest diplomacy. The main plot delivers a strong, tense game of politicking and aggressive negotiation over spectacle in a very satisfying manner. It’s just captivatingly tense and triumphant"
[Discovery 5x7 Reviews] TrekCore: "Ruhn vs. T'Rina: it’s absolutely riveting! The writing is sharp, the logical turns land like punches, and Tara Rosling, who has been fantastic as T’Rina from the start, is electric. This is some all-time Star Trek diplomacy; Jean-Luc Picard himself would be proud"
[Discovery 5x8 Reviews] REACTOR MAG: "One of the biggest problems with this season is that the ticking clock/competition for our heroes has not been that compelling. Moll & L’ak are just a couple of ex-Couriers who should not be able to run rings around an entire starship full of smart people."
[Discovery 5x9 Reviews] DEN OF GEEK: "Although 'Lagrange Point' is a fast-paced and fairly action-packed hour, it is also largely setup for next week’s finale, and answers none questions any of us have about the larger story of this season. Suddenly everything just feels uncomfortably rushed."
[Discovery 5x9 Reviews] LARRY NEMECEK on YouTube: "The Beginning of the End?" "This is the penultimate episode of the series. The quiet moments? That's all over now, suckers! IT'S AMP UP TIME! And yet I am going to compliment the entire writers room for not having this one feel like Part 1 of 2"
[Discovery 5x10 Reviews] TREKMOVIE: "A solid season finale ties things for the season plot and the characters, with a bonus bringing the series to a satisfying conclusion." "Packing so much in did perhaps bloat the episode, which got even heftier when the epilogue was tacked on."
[Opinion] ScreenRant: "Discovery Ends As A Star Trek Success Story" "Star Trek owes its renaissance to Discovery" "Star Trek: Discovery broke important ground for diversity, inclusiveness, and LGBTQ+ representation."
Interviews:
[Interview] ‘Discovery’ Writer Eric J. Robbins on why the Breen would suddenly accept Moll (Eve Harlow) as their new leader: "There’s a lot of abstraction and a lot of mystery with them. There are things important to them beyond just subjugating other species and being in control." (TrekMovie)
[Interview] ‘Discovery’ Writer Eric J. Robbins On Episode 5x8: "For 'Labyrinths' one thing we talked about: this is a show led by a black woman and we never really had many opportunities to dramatize the pressures that women of color face in positions of power in the real world."
[Discovery Interviews] Elias Toufexis on the chemistry between Moll (Eve Harlow) and L’ak: "It was very easy to fall in love with her because she plays it so great, and she’s so pretty. She's such a good actor. I would always kind of defer to her performance first." (TrekMovie)
[Interview] Elias Toufexis (L'ak): "I don't like calling Moll and L'ak 'bad guys.' They’re antagonists for sure, but they're not really bad guys. Villains don't get to show the reason they're doing this. Because they want love and freedom. If we did our jobs correctly, you want to root for them."
[Interview] Mary Wiseman on Tilly's arc: "She started pretty insecure, and spent a lot of time apologizing for herself and for being the way she was naturally. The cool thing about the series is: she gets to grow up and still be herself: her nervous energy, silliness, her quirk, but stop apologizing
[Interview] Star Trek: Discovery’s Jett Reno Was Created With “Han Solo Vibe” - Tig Notaro, who plays Reno, was surprised by the comedic aspect of her character and credits the writers for the funny lines. (ScreenRant)
[Interview] STARTREK.COM: Tig Notaro Reflects on Discovery's Engineer and Star Trek Experience "It's so fun getting different scripts and reading like, 'Oh wow, I used to bartend. Okay, cool. I can personally relate because I failed out of school, dropped out, and had a million different jobs."
[Interview] INVERSE: "'Discovery's Most Unlikely Star Doesn't Understand Star Trek Canon At All" TIG NOTARO (Jett Reno): "When Alex [Kurtzman] developed this character, [...] they really wanted to make it me. That’s why I always call it Tig-in-space."
Commentary:
[Opinion] Robert Meyer Burnett: "What do BUFFY SUMMERS and Harry Potter (1997) have to do with STAR WARS, STAR TREK and all your favorite franchises?!" "Watching Discovery: Nobody on that show TALKS like anybody would talk in the 32nd Century. The reason I hate it: I don't believe any of it!"
[Opinion] DEN OF GEEK: "Starfleet Academy Needs to Ditch Modern Star Trek’s Defining Trope" "It will need to learn from Discovery's mistakes and re-embrace KNOWLEDGE. Feelings are not an end to themselves in Starfleet. And they certainly don’t take precedence over the search for the truth."
[Opinion] ScreenRant: "Captain Michael Burnham is arguably the most prolific action hero of modern Star Trek, perhaps even of the entire franchise."
[Opinion] STARTREK.COM on "Whistlespeak" (Discovery ep. 5x6): "A thought-provoking, durable, and utterly optimistic Star Trek idea. When the entire world seems to turn on you, this type of story seems to suggest that maybe we all just need some well-meaning repair people from space to help us."
[Opinion] POLYGON: "Star Trek: Discovery boldly goes where no Trek has gone before by saying religion is... OK, actually" "[Episode 3x6] ‘Whistlespeak’ breaks from Trek tradition to be pretty chill about believing in a higher power" "Spirituality is what you make of it."
[Opinion] SCREENRANT: "Star Trek: Discovery Proves Starfleet's Prime Directive Is Useless" "Starfleet insists on following Star Trek's Prime Directive in Discovery's 32nd century, but there's no reason the rule should still exist."
Ratings:
[Ratings] For the first time ever: Star Trek: Discovery Lands In Nielsen Streaming Top 10 Like Picard & Strange New Worlds (Week of April 8-14, 2024; episode 5x3: “Jinaal”)
[Ratings] For the third week in a row, the fifth season of Star Trek: Discovery has ranked on Nielsen’s top streaming chart, moving up again in the rankings. "Mirrors" (5x5) is the most-viewed season 5 episode and the best-ranked Discovery so far, with 285 million minutes streamed."
[Ratings] Star Trek: Discovery has failed to match Star Trek: Strange New Worlds in viewers However, Picard's second to last episode of the series netted fewer than Discovery's current figures. Discovery is clearly more popular than Picard, though Strange New Worlds is the top dog for a reason."
Terry Matalas joins Marvel:
[Matalas joins Marvel] No time for Star Trek: Legacy? Marvel Sets Vision Series for 2026 With Paul Bettany, ‘Star Trek: Picard’ EP Terry Matalas as Showrunner (Variety)
[Opinion] ScreenRant: "Terry Matalas Showrunning Marvel's Vision Show Means Star Trek: Picard's Spinoff Isn't Happening - Matalas is committing to Marvel for the next couple of years at least"
[Opinion] ROBERT MEYER BURNETT on Terry Matalas joining Marvel: "I can't believe that the head of Marvel, Kevin Feige, taps Terry Matalas to go make a "Vision" show, and the people that actually control Star Trek don't!" Picard and Ro? For that alone Picard season 3 earns my love and affection."
The future of Paramount
[Streaming] The New York Times: "Sony and Apollo’s Plan for Paramount: Break It Up"
[Streaming] VARIETY: "Paramount Stock Falls on Report Sony Is ‘Rethinking’ $26 Billion Bid"
[Streaming] VARIETY: "Skydance Media Revises Paramount Global Bid to Make It More Attractive to Noncontrolling Shareholders"
Alex Kurtzman on the future of the franchise:
[Interview] ALEX KURTZMAN on producing Star Trek: Discovery: "I look back on the first year and I see so many big, bold swings, you know, some of which I think were amazingly successful. But I do feel like at every turn we kept refining and tightening our storytelling." (Ready Room Interview)
[Interview] Alex Kurtzman Explains Why STARFLEET ACADEMY is Set in STAR TREK: DISCOVERY’s 32nd Century Future: "My thinking was, if we set “Starfleet Academy” in the halcyon days of the Federation where everything was fine, it’s not going to speak to what kids are going through right now."(LA Times)
Starfleet Academy Previews:
[Starfleet Academy Previews] Canada’s Largest Purpose-Built Sound Stage Is Ready for Star Trek The 45,900 square foot soundstage will serve as the central hub of the upcoming series set to begin filming later this year. (TrekCore)
[Starfleet Academy Updates] Star Trek's New Series Has Cast Academy Award Winner Holly Hunter As Its First Actor (playing the “captain and chancellor of Starfleet Academy.”)
Noteworthy articles and social media posts on Star Trek (May 2024):
[Opinion] SlashFilm: "Star Trek's Closest TV Cousin Isn't Sci-Fi – It's Law & Order" "The main characters of "Star Trek" aren't the officers on board Starfleet vessels. The main character is ... Starfleet itself." "Starfleet principles are the star."
[Prodigy Updates] TrekMovie: "‘Star Trek: Prodigy’ Producers Urge Fans To Be Patient Waiting For Season 2 On Netflix" "Netflix just announced its lineup for June 2024 and Prodigy season 2 is not listed, so the wait will continue into the summer"
[Opinion] SlashFilm: "Star Trek Changed My Life Forever And Reigns As The Greatest Sci-Fi Franchise Of All Time" "The crew of the Enterprise weren't "violent/cool," and I liked that. Finally, I realized, here was a show about pacifism - teaching intense lessons of diplomacy and leadership"
[NCC-1701 Updates] L.A. Times: "Court is the final frontier for this lost ‘Star Trek’ model" Dustin Riach and Jason Rivas discovered the model among a stash of items they bought “sight unseen” last October. They sold it to Roddenberry Entertainment. They have yet to receive the $500,000 payment."
[Essay] REACTOR MAG: "Let’s Start a Fight: Are Science Fiction and Fantasy the Same?" "Both fantasy and sci-fi are equally free to imagine whatever they will... but people don’t relate to them in the same way."
[Opinion] Brianna Wu on X: “Star Trek has a LIBERAL message, not a PROGRESSIVE message. Another core message of Star Trek is duty and trying to get along with people who have different values. I think progressives are failing miserably at both values.” (Responding to Jessie Gender)
[Opinion] Brianna Wu on X (Twitter): “Star Trek is NOT SOCIALIST. If you think Star Trek was socialist, you didn’t understand Star Trek. A huge part of Star Trek is the market economy.” Jessie Gender: “I agree with you. The show is neoliberal; you’re not wrong.”
[Opinion] INVERSE: "15 Years Ago, J.J. Abrams Broke - And Then Saved - the Star Trek Universe" "Star Trek [2009] is the rare sexy reboot that actually helped its flailing franchise" "What makes it such a compelling reboot is its freedom from canon"
[Opinion] CBR.COM: "J.J. Abrams’s Star Trek Is a Great but Flawed Reboot" "Star Trek (2009) felt more like a reverent movie about the USS Enterprise's crew that would be made in the characters' universe than a glimpse into their missions and lives."
[Kelvin Movies] "Star Trek [2009]" Ranks Higher Than 3 Star Wars Movies On Rotten Tomatoes’ 300 Best Movies List (ScreenRant)
Another prequel? Paramount wants to produce a "Star Trek: Origins" movie
[Kelvin Movies] X-Men Producer Simon Kinberg in talks to lead Star Trek movie franchise, focusing on "Origin movie" release in 2025. Paramount looks to Kinberg as franchise shepherd for future Trek projects, with a potential REBOOT (!!!!) in store
[Opinion] SlashFilm: "The New Star Trek Movie Is A Prequel – But Will It Rewrite The Franchise Timeline? "Will Kinberg's new film time-shift First Contact backward?"
[Untitled Star Trek Origin Story] INVERSE on the new movie project: "Star Trek Canon Has Suddenly Reached a Pivotal Crossroads" "The venerable sci-fi franchise has to pick a future." "If this rumor is true, it’s possible a third Trek timeline could emerge ..."
[Opinion] Mick Joest (Cinemablend): "X-Men's Simon Kinberg Is Working On The Next Star Trek Movie, But As A Fan, I Have Some Major Concerns" "I can't help but feel worried about this."
[Opinion] DEN OF GEEK: "Star Trek Origin Movie Timeline Rumor Makes the Film Feel Even More Unnecessary" Set likely around modern times?!? - "We have plenty of stories that take a cynical look at humanity’s flaws, and many of them are very good. But that’s not what Trek is."
[Kelvin Movies / Origin Movie] THE GUARDIAN (UK): "Shatner, Pine, or a Kirk triple whammy: where should Star Trek boldly go next? - Maybe Paramount should just bite the bullet instead and give us the triple-Kirk, multiple timeline movie that is probably the only way to rescue this aching franchise"
[Kelvin Movies] AV Club: "Yeah, Chris Pine has no damn clue what's up with Star Trek 4, either"
2024.06.01 15:08 Secret-Property5498 Breaking away as an adult child
Deep down I knew I don’t need permission or confirmation that my mother is generally malignant and the ultimate source of suffering in my life right now. But I can’t accept why my own mother would do that to me.
So I am turning to you for advice, support, and insights for ways to separate yourself emotionally and individuate from your parents later in life when you should've done so much much earlier. The adult part of me knows what I should do but there is also a part of me that is frightened. let me give you a snapshot of my life trajectory. The story is long but I want to give you as much contexts as possible. If you want a short summary of the dilemma, go to the last paragraph, otherwise, here is my life story (it is long because I want to give as much context as possible, and also show clues for the many different ways a narcissistic parent can disrupt your life): I grew up in a well-to-do family in an East Asian country, my parents gave birth to me when they were in their early 20s and just as their business started taking off in the 'boom years'. Both of them came from very broken family, my mother suffered poverty, abuse, and neglect from her parents (she did not speak to her dad until he died, and almost never acknowledges her mother). My father was the least favourite child in his family of three, he dropped out of high school, ended up on the street (and, as I learnt a few years ago, later in prison for getting into fights). My mother met my dad (21) when she was 19 and ran away from her hometown, they grew a very successful business together in the early to mid 20s and became incredibly wealthy for a society that is generally still very poor. I had a lot of luxuries in my early childhood, we had a car, I had good clothing, but my parents were never around. I started boarding at the age of 3, and generally spent most of my time outside of kindergarten and school with my paternal grandparents, and occasionally, my mum's mother. My parents fought a lot, and I remember my mother threatening to take me away from my dad and drove away from home with me in a car with nowhere specific to go. Once things got really bad and my mother told me that she is divorcing my father, and we even went into another flat (for a grand total of 1 day) before returning home. She emotionally smothered me, told me that she would die for me and nobody would love me as much as her. As the expression in our language puts it ' You are a piece of flesh fallen from my body'. She hit me a lot, often over small things , sometimes in public, I remember being thrown outside of our apartment and crying in the corridor. But I thought she was better than my father, whom, in my mother's words, would swiftly remarry in an event of her death/departure, and I would then be abused by another evil mother in law and her offsprings. My dad was completely absent from my childhood save for the first year (I remember playing video game, going to the park with him at the age of 3).
Although my family was wealthy, my mother took me out of the posh international school I was in after 6 months and sent me to a state school that is (in)famous for being extremely strict and militant. I was a 'good, smart kid' in primary school, but when I got to the state school at the age around 12 or 13, I became very depressed and that life has no purpose. I was falling at almost all school subjects (except History), and I started drinking (my dad drank a lot, and alcoholism is culturally tolerated if not perpetuated). At this point something happened that saved me in retrospect. My family decided to emigrate to an anglophone New World country and I went to yet another boarding school there. Yes, I experienced racism and generally felt horrible about the way I looked (not good looking in the Western sense or sporty), but I got to be separated from my family and grew as an individual. My grades got better, and by year 12, 13 I was among the best performing students. Between 13-18, I rarely see my father (perhaps once or twice a year), my mother would visit periodically, they bought a house next to the school, so I started to live in the house (mostly alone, sometimes with my mother and whatever hapless young women she manipulated into being her assistant). My parents couldn't speak English, and I dealt with most family matters, as with many first gen immigrant kid. By the time that I was supposed to go to university, I wanted to do law & politics at the public university in my adopted hometown but then my father intervened stating that I would never get a good job at a respectful company with a degree from the backwater 2nd rate university. He insisted that I should go to the U.K. or the U.S. He also stopped me from taking a gap year to travel, so I mostly stayed at home, played game, whilst being a driver and an assistant to them for a year. I regret not leaving home and getting a job. I applied to many universities in the U.K, Canada, and Australia, got into most of them, and ended up choosing the worst ranked university because I wanted to be in London. I couldn't do a conjoint degree so I chose to study politics (as that's what I was interested in). University life was eye opening, I got to see Europe, realised that the world was much bigger than the conformist, conservative East Asian country and the backwater suburbs with strip-malls and junk food stores I grew up in. But the degree did not prepare me for life, and all those years of bad parenting, emotionally under-development made me miserable in my first taste of adult relationships. I chose emotionally distant if not abusive friends, was a horrible person who hurt people who actually liked me and loved me. I did no internship or travel because I was expected to go home during school holiday, helping them move house, looking after guests, and being the 'little husband' when my mother was giving brith to my youngest sibling. I really wanted to stay in London, I looked for jobs, very random jobs because I had no life skills and never ever made my own money. So in the end, I left, and had to return to East Asia. By this time, my father had moved to another, more cosmopolitan East Asian city as his lifestyle became more and more extravagant. I lived with him and started interning at a fancy company in the culture industry. I worked there for almost a year hoping they would offer me a job, they did not. I got another job fairly soon in brand consulting, and finally at the age of 23 started making money. I had a relationship with an older woman, she was kind and tolerant, and I was an arse. I also realised that I cannot combine intimacy and sex at this point. I tried to start my own freelancing consultancy, acquired the ability to impress other people (faking it). Things seem to be working, I almost made enough money to support my life, but I was fundamentally lost and unhappy. I had the first depressive episode in my life. I wanted to go back to London, to get a Masters degree. So I applied and got into my dream school, my father agreed to pay for my education, so off I went to university again. That was probably the happiest year of my life, it turned out I loved elements of academia, research, being with other smart nerdy people. I met an intelligent, caring, and beautiful woman, and we moved in together soon after. I discovered more fulfilling, freer ways to live, I found proofs that a successful life was not just about working for an investment bank, or being rich. I wanted to be an academic, so I applied for a PhD at the school, and I got in after two attempts. Academia isn't all rosy, the work condition is pretty awful, the publish or perish mentality literally sucks every last bit of joy and fulfilment out of research, I loved teaching, but quickly learnt that teaching matters little at a 'research university'. I got fat, my relationship got really bad, sex became non-existent, arguments soon turned physical, and I thought that I was a real piece of shit and better off dead. The only thing that kept me going at the time? Bitterness and shame. I felt indebted to everyone, to my partner because I was an abusive arsehole, and to my family because I was stupid enough to do a PhD and wasting their money (and my life away). The pandemic hits, and sure enough, things got even worse, I felt like I couldn't carry on anymore and that I needed to radically un-f my life. My solution to this: was to finally become the person my family wanted me to be, filial, loyal, and rich. I was ready to threw my life in London away, everything, my home, my girlfriend, my PhD and move back to East Asia to become rich, and 'stop being a loser'. I came home to 'fix my family' and showered everyone with love and attention in ways I never did. I networked and explored ways to get into finance, and I got an at a VC firm. Soon enough, the whole thing completed backfired and my life started to unravel faster than I could count to three. I hated the internship, it fundamentally clashed with who I was and my value, I cried everyday in the toilet at work. I also broke up with my girlfriend for a person who was the poplar opposite of her that I had no attachment to (and sex was great because there was zero emotional intimacy). Within 3 months, I had very little savings left, was living in a short term rental apartment, and spent most of my time in bed and eating very unhealthily. Luckily, I had a therapist, a good friend in Shanghai, and my girlfriend was willing to give me a second chance. It was also around this time I realised how my family's (what do you even call it) emotional neglect might have contributed to my unhappiness and depression. I was diagnosed with Bipolar disorder and medicated, the medicine helped for me to move out of paralysis. But I wanted to tell my family that I am very unwell and get them to love me back, so I confronted them over things they have done to me as a kid and showed them the diagnosis. My mother did not handle this well. She called me horrible names, made fun of me, and accused me for being a horrible son. This whole ordeal made me realise that I needed to break away from them, and what I had thrown away in London was actually the most valuable things I have in life, a career, a family, my own identity. After confronting my mother over her abusive behaviour and emotional smothering, she vowed to never see me again. However, after 6-8 months, she sent me a large chunk of money for my birthday. So I, stupidly, let her back into my life again, a part of the reason was the financial help that I needed (to feel safe mostly), but I also really wanted to see proofs that my parents actually did love and accept me after all. At first, things got better, she came for Christmas, visited a few times, celebrated her birthday, and looked really happy. Both my partner and I spent a lot of time with her, bought her gifts, cooked for her, and hang out with her to make sure she feels loved. But soon, she started complaining that she actually had a horrible time and was mistreated by my partner. To make matter worse, a year and half after I left home for the last time thinking that I would never go back, my parents promise to buy me a flat (and started to pressure me to get married). I accepted the flat, thinking that it would offer stability and freedom (pushing away the past experience of their emotional neglect and abusiveness). Sure enough, the flat became yet another way for my mother to mess with my life. It had daunted on her that I am about to become my own person and live in the flat and start a family of my own, so she lashed out and said if my girlfriend lives there she would sue me and reclaim the flat. She then went behind my back and started disputing the flat's ownership. We have already spent a lot of time and energy planning the move and all of this is happening just 2/3 weeks from the move-in. I have a demand job that requires a lot of cognitive focus, and I feel like I am spending a decent chunk of my day trying to resolve the situation in addition to processing the emotional toll of having my own mother out to destroy my life. I know I have a job, a family, and my own life, and I have a good legal case, but I also feel so unsafe, violated, and confused. I can almost feel the voice in my head telling me that this is all my doing, and that I am too weak. It is like I know what I need to do cognitively but emotionally I am paralysed. Do you think what I mean? What would you do?
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So I am turning to you for advice, support, and insights for ways to separate yourself emotionally and individuate from your parents later in life when you should've done so much much earlier. The adult part of me knows what I should do but there is also a part of me that is frightened. let me give you a snapshot of my life trajectory. The story is long but I want to give you as much contexts as possible. If you want a short summary of the dilemma, go to the last paragraph, otherwise, here is my life story (it is long because I want to give as much context as possible, and also show clues for the many different ways a narcissistic parent can disrupt your life): I grew up in a well-to-do family in an East Asian country, my parents gave birth to me when they were in their early 20s and just as their business started taking off in the 'boom years'. Both of them came from very broken family, my mother suffered poverty, abuse, and neglect from her parents (she did not speak to her dad until he died, and almost never acknowledges her mother). My father was the least favourite child in his family of three, he dropped out of high school, ended up on the street (and, as I learnt a few years ago, later in prison for getting into fights). My mother met my dad (21) when she was 19 and ran away from her hometown, they grew a very successful business together in the early to mid 20s and became incredibly wealthy for a society that is generally still very poor. I had a lot of luxuries in my early childhood, we had a car, I had good clothing, but my parents were never around. I started boarding at the age of 3, and generally spent most of my time outside of kindergarten and school with my paternal grandparents, and occasionally, my mum's mother. My parents fought a lot, and I remember my mother threatening to take me away from my dad and drove away from home with me in a car with nowhere specific to go. Once things got really bad and my mother told me that she is divorcing my father, and we even went into another flat (for a grand total of 1 day) before returning home. She emotionally smothered me, told me that she would die for me and nobody would love me as much as her. As the expression in our language puts it ' You are a piece of flesh fallen from my body'. She hit me a lot, often over small things , sometimes in public, I remember being thrown outside of our apartment and crying in the corridor. But I thought she was better than my father, whom, in my mother's words, would swiftly remarry in an event of her death/departure, and I would then be abused by another evil mother in law and her offsprings. My dad was completely absent from my childhood save for the first year (I remember playing video game, going to the park with him at the age of 3).
Although my family was wealthy, my mother took me out of the posh international school I was in after 6 months and sent me to a state school that is (in)famous for being extremely strict and militant. I was a 'good, smart kid' in primary school, but when I got to the state school at the age around 12 or 13, I became very depressed and that life has no purpose. I was falling at almost all school subjects (except History), and I started drinking (my dad drank a lot, and alcoholism is culturally tolerated if not perpetuated). At this point something happened that saved me in retrospect. My family decided to emigrate to an anglophone New World country and I went to yet another boarding school there. Yes, I experienced racism and generally felt horrible about the way I looked (not good looking in the Western sense or sporty), but I got to be separated from my family and grew as an individual. My grades got better, and by year 12, 13 I was among the best performing students. Between 13-18, I rarely see my father (perhaps once or twice a year), my mother would visit periodically, they bought a house next to the school, so I started to live in the house (mostly alone, sometimes with my mother and whatever hapless young women she manipulated into being her assistant). My parents couldn't speak English, and I dealt with most family matters, as with many first gen immigrant kid. By the time that I was supposed to go to university, I wanted to do law & politics at the public university in my adopted hometown but then my father intervened stating that I would never get a good job at a respectful company with a degree from the backwater 2nd rate university. He insisted that I should go to the U.K. or the U.S. He also stopped me from taking a gap year to travel, so I mostly stayed at home, played game, whilst being a driver and an assistant to them for a year. I regret not leaving home and getting a job. I applied to many universities in the U.K, Canada, and Australia, got into most of them, and ended up choosing the worst ranked university because I wanted to be in London. I couldn't do a conjoint degree so I chose to study politics (as that's what I was interested in). University life was eye opening, I got to see Europe, realised that the world was much bigger than the conformist, conservative East Asian country and the backwater suburbs with strip-malls and junk food stores I grew up in. But the degree did not prepare me for life, and all those years of bad parenting, emotionally under-development made me miserable in my first taste of adult relationships. I chose emotionally distant if not abusive friends, was a horrible person who hurt people who actually liked me and loved me. I did no internship or travel because I was expected to go home during school holiday, helping them move house, looking after guests, and being the 'little husband' when my mother was giving brith to my youngest sibling. I really wanted to stay in London, I looked for jobs, very random jobs because I had no life skills and never ever made my own money. So in the end, I left, and had to return to East Asia. By this time, my father had moved to another, more cosmopolitan East Asian city as his lifestyle became more and more extravagant. I lived with him and started interning at a fancy company in the culture industry. I worked there for almost a year hoping they would offer me a job, they did not. I got another job fairly soon in brand consulting, and finally at the age of 23 started making money. I had a relationship with an older woman, she was kind and tolerant, and I was an arse. I also realised that I cannot combine intimacy and sex at this point. I tried to start my own freelancing consultancy, acquired the ability to impress other people (faking it). Things seem to be working, I almost made enough money to support my life, but I was fundamentally lost and unhappy. I had the first depressive episode in my life. I wanted to go back to London, to get a Masters degree. So I applied and got into my dream school, my father agreed to pay for my education, so off I went to university again. That was probably the happiest year of my life, it turned out I loved elements of academia, research, being with other smart nerdy people. I met an intelligent, caring, and beautiful woman, and we moved in together soon after. I discovered more fulfilling, freer ways to live, I found proofs that a successful life was not just about working for an investment bank, or being rich. I wanted to be an academic, so I applied for a PhD at the school, and I got in after two attempts. Academia isn't all rosy, the work condition is pretty awful, the publish or perish mentality literally sucks every last bit of joy and fulfilment out of research, I loved teaching, but quickly learnt that teaching matters little at a 'research university'. I got fat, my relationship got really bad, sex became non-existent, arguments soon turned physical, and I thought that I was a real piece of shit and better off dead. The only thing that kept me going at the time? Bitterness and shame. I felt indebted to everyone, to my partner because I was an abusive arsehole, and to my family because I was stupid enough to do a PhD and wasting their money (and my life away). The pandemic hits, and sure enough, things got even worse, I felt like I couldn't carry on anymore and that I needed to radically un-f my life. My solution to this: was to finally become the person my family wanted me to be, filial, loyal, and rich. I was ready to threw my life in London away, everything, my home, my girlfriend, my PhD and move back to East Asia to become rich, and 'stop being a loser'. I came home to 'fix my family' and showered everyone with love and attention in ways I never did. I networked and explored ways to get into finance, and I got an at a VC firm. Soon enough, the whole thing completed backfired and my life started to unravel faster than I could count to three. I hated the internship, it fundamentally clashed with who I was and my value, I cried everyday in the toilet at work. I also broke up with my girlfriend for a person who was the poplar opposite of her that I had no attachment to (and sex was great because there was zero emotional intimacy). Within 3 months, I had very little savings left, was living in a short term rental apartment, and spent most of my time in bed and eating very unhealthily. Luckily, I had a therapist, a good friend in Shanghai, and my girlfriend was willing to give me a second chance. It was also around this time I realised how my family's (what do you even call it) emotional neglect might have contributed to my unhappiness and depression. I was diagnosed with Bipolar disorder and medicated, the medicine helped for me to move out of paralysis. But I wanted to tell my family that I am very unwell and get them to love me back, so I confronted them over things they have done to me as a kid and showed them the diagnosis. My mother did not handle this well. She called me horrible names, made fun of me, and accused me for being a horrible son. This whole ordeal made me realise that I needed to break away from them, and what I had thrown away in London was actually the most valuable things I have in life, a career, a family, my own identity. After confronting my mother over her abusive behaviour and emotional smothering, she vowed to never see me again. However, after 6-8 months, she sent me a large chunk of money for my birthday. So I, stupidly, let her back into my life again, a part of the reason was the financial help that I needed (to feel safe mostly), but I also really wanted to see proofs that my parents actually did love and accept me after all. At first, things got better, she came for Christmas, visited a few times, celebrated her birthday, and looked really happy. Both my partner and I spent a lot of time with her, bought her gifts, cooked for her, and hang out with her to make sure she feels loved. But soon, she started complaining that she actually had a horrible time and was mistreated by my partner. To make matter worse, a year and half after I left home for the last time thinking that I would never go back, my parents promise to buy me a flat (and started to pressure me to get married). I accepted the flat, thinking that it would offer stability and freedom (pushing away the past experience of their emotional neglect and abusiveness). Sure enough, the flat became yet another way for my mother to mess with my life. It had daunted on her that I am about to become my own person and live in the flat and start a family of my own, so she lashed out and said if my girlfriend lives there she would sue me and reclaim the flat. She then went behind my back and started disputing the flat's ownership. We have already spent a lot of time and energy planning the move and all of this is happening just 2/3 weeks from the move-in. I have a demand job that requires a lot of cognitive focus, and I feel like I am spending a decent chunk of my day trying to resolve the situation in addition to processing the emotional toll of having my own mother out to destroy my life. I know I have a job, a family, and my own life, and I have a good legal case, but I also feel so unsafe, violated, and confused. I can almost feel the voice in my head telling me that this is all my doing, and that I am too weak. It is like I know what I need to do cognitively but emotionally I am paralysed. Do you think what I mean? What would you do?
2024.06.01 14:46 Chai_Ky The Case of Kate Blackwell: The Unknown Part 3 (Finale)
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
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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