Black goatees

For me, it's:
Year Negative Four

• J'onn J'onzz is accidentally teleported to Earth by Dr. Saul Erdel. He disguises himself as police detective John Jones, using his powers in secret, but never revealing his Martian identity to anyone.

Year Negative Two

• After years of exploring the world, Arthur Curry discovers Atlantis and is imprisoned by its current rulership for three years.

Year One

• Clark Kent debuts as Superman in Metropolis (he was never Superboy)
  • Other than Luthor, Gerald Shugel, Prankster, and Bizarro, Superman's first year is mostly spent intervening in ordinary crimes and crises, as not a lot of supervillains have come out of the woodwork yet.
  • By the end of the year, Clark learns of his Kryptonian heritage.
• Bruce Wayne returns to Gotham after training abroad and begins operating as the Batman.
  • Batman has his first encounters with Catwoman, Hugo Strange, the Mad Monk, and Dr. Death. Other than this, Batman is mostly fighting street and organized crime.
  • The Bat-Signal is established by the end of the year.
• Diana leaves Themyscira and begins operating as Wonder Woman.
  • Wonder Woman is mostly working to stop Aries' plot, but she also encounters Paula von Gunther, Angle Man, Dr. Poison, and The Cheetah (Priscilla Rich).
• Hal Jordan encounters Abin Sur and becomes the Green Lantern of Sector 2814.
  • Jordan first encounters Hector Hammond and Legion.
  • Sinestro begins mentoring Hal.
• Barry Allen becomes The Flash.
• Oliver Queen returns to Star City and becomes Green Arrow.

Year Two

• Arthur Curry escapes prison and makes his public debut as Aquaman.
• The wizard Shazam appoints Billy Batson to be Captain Marvel.
• Superman first encounters kryptonite, The Parasite, Metallo, Toyman, and Mister Mxyzptlk.
  • Superman and Batman first meet.
  • Superman later has his first encounters with other superheroes, teaming up with them when their paths cross.
• Batman first encounters The Joker, The Scarecrow, The Penguin, The Riddler, Poison Ivy, and Killer Croc.
  • The Holiday murders begin.
  • Batman wrestles with a venom addiction before kicking it.
  • By the end of the year, the Falcone and Maroni gangs are mostly dismantled, and Harvey Dent becomes Two-Face.
• Wonder Woman first encounters Dr. Psycho, Circe, Giganta, and The Cheetah (Barbara Minerva).
• Hal encounters the Puppeteer, Sonar, Black Hand, Evil Star, and the Invisible Destroyer.
  • Sinestro is stripped of his ring and exiled after it is revealed that he is misusing his power to rule Korugar.

Year Three

• Superman first encounters Brainiac, whom he stops from bottling Metropolis.
  • Superman first encounters General Zod and his confederates when they escape from the Phantom Zone.
  • Superman has his first encounters with the machinations of Darkseid, as Intergang begins using mysteriously advanced weaponry and emissaries of Darkseid begin to attack Project Cadmus.
    • Orion and the Forever People come to Earth to work against Darkseid.
    • Superman first encounters a Boom Tube and visits SuperTown, where he meets Lightray and other new Gods for the first time.
• Batman first encounters Mr. Freeze, Clayface, and the Mad Hatter.
  • Batman first encounters Mr. Freeze, Clayface, Deadshot, and Man-Bat.
  • Bruce Wayne adopts Dick Grayson, who starts operating as Robin.
• Roy Harper becomes Speedy.
• Guy Gardner is appointed as a back-up Green Lantern.
• Alec Holland becomes the Swamp Thing.

Year Four

• Wally West becomes Kid Flash.
• Kara Zor-El lands on Earth and becomes Supergirl.
• J'onn J'onzz unites Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, the Flash, and Aquaman to fend off a White Martian invasion. They temporarily operate out of a satellite Batcave in Rhode Island and form The Justice League.
  • No longer keeping his presence hidden, J'onn J'onzz starts operating publicly as "Martian Manhunter" at the encouragement of his teammates.
  • The League builds the Hall of Justice in Washington, D.C., which becomes their stable base of operations.
  • The League later encounters Starro, Kanjar-Ro, Doctor Destiny, the Royal Flush Gang, and other villains.
  • Green Arrow becomes the first League recruit and helps Bruce Wayne finance the Watchtower Satellite.
  • Zatanna discovers her magical powers and enlists various superheroes to help her find her father, reconnecting with Bruce Wayne in the process.
  • The League later recruits Black Lightning, Zatanna, Black Canary, The Atom, Hawkwoman, and Hawkman.
• Aquaman takes the throne as ruler of Atlantis.
  • Garth becomes Aqualad.
• Barbara Gordon becomes Batgirl.
• Jack Ryder becomes The Creeper and Boston Brand becomes Deadman.
• Superman first meets Darkseid face-to-face.
  • Superman encounters Mongul and War World.
  • Morgan Edge's WGBS buys out the Daily Planet.

Year Five

• Aquaman meets Mera.
• The League recruits Elongated Man, Red Tornado, Metamorpho, and Firestorm.
• Robin, Speedy, Aqualad, Wonder Girl, and Kid Flash form the Teen Titans.
• Oliver Queen loses his fortune, grows the goatee, and redesigns his costume from the Silver Age green-and-red suit to the Neal Adams suit.
• Batman first encounters Ra's al Ghul.
• Roman Sionis becomes Black Mask.
• Helena Bertinelli becomes The Huntress.

Year Six

• Hal Jordan and Oliver Queen go their road trip across the U.S., going from being mere colleagues to friends.
  • John Stewart is inducted as a Green Lantern.
• Nathaniel Adams returns and General Eilling starts Project Atom, blackmailing Adams to work as a government asset while posing as Captain Atom.

Year Seven

• Dick Grayson starts attending Hudson University, meaning that he and Batman begin to work together less frequently, though they still keep in touch and team up when Dick is on holidays.
  • Bruce Wayne moves from Wayne Manor to his downtown Penthouse.
• Raven unites Robin, Kid Flash, Wonder Girl, Cyborg, Beast Boy, and Starfire to form a new version of the Teen Titans.

Year Eight

• Dick Grayson becomes Nightwing.
• Jason Todd becomes Robin.
• Batman, Robin, and Wonder Woman visit Superman to celebrate his birthday, only to find that he has been captured by Mongul.
• Barry Allen dies saving the universe from the Anti-Monitor.
  • Wally West becomes The Flash.
• Power Girl from Earth-2 becomes stranded on Earth-0.
• Amanda Waller launches Task Force X.
• While the original Justice League is on hiatus, the U.N. forms the Justice League International.
• Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters stuff starts happening now.
• Swamp Thing, Constantine, Etrigan the Demon, and the Phantom Stranger team up to fight the Great Darkness.

Year Nine

• Deacon Blackfire's cult takes over Gotham, but he is stopped by Batman and Robin.
• Jason Todd is killed by The Joker.
• Barbara Gordon is paralyzed by The Joker.

Year Ten

• Anarky debuts.
• Tim Drake assumes the mantle of Robin.
• Virgil Hawkins becomes Static.

After the first decade or so, time starts being more amorphous and operating on some cross between a timeline that develops and a stationary Simpsons-like timeline where time doesn't really move. Some things progress, some things don't, everything is kept vague, and characters don't notice or call attention to this. Essentially, large amounts of time are zipped into small amounts of time, and both the longer and shorter time intervals between events are "correct" depending on how much we're zooming in on the timeline. For example, Kyle Rayner had a good number of years as a solo Green Lantern and Tim Drake was Robin for a solid amount of time before Hal Jordan returned and Damian Wayne showed up, but somehow, superheroes in general have only been operating for about 10 to 15 years, max. This is really the only way you can keep Batman perpetually in his 30s or 40s without having weird consequences like each Robin only holding the title for a year before he gets a new one.
So after this, I stop having specific "years" and it becomes more like "periods of time in which certain things co-occur." So there might be considerable time intervals between events, yet those events might also paradoxically be squished into some 10-15-year timeline.
The Fall of Heroes Era

• The Death and Return of Superman happen.
  • Superboy and Steel debut.
• Bane debuts and Knightfall happens.
• Diana is replaced by Artemis as Wonder Woman.
• Shortly after Clark and Bruce return, Hal becomes the Parallax.
  • Kyle Rayner becomes Earth's Green Lantern.
• Oliver Queen dies.
  • Connor Hawke becomes Green Arrow.

The Reconstruction Era

• Clark Kent and Lois Lane get married.
• Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern (Rayner), The Flash (West), Aquaman, and Martian Manhunter reform the Justice League.
  • Electric Superman Blue never happened, lol.
• Robin, Superboy, and Impulse form Young Justice.
• Cataclysm, Contagion, and No Man's Land happen (sorry for having so much destruction during the reconstruction era)
• Cassandra Cain becomes Batgirl.

The Millennium Era

• Obviously didn't happen around the turn of the millennium anymore because floating timeline.
• Our Worlds at War and Bruce Wayne: MurdereFugitive happen around here.
• Oliver Queen returns from the dead.

The Infinite Crisis Era

• Hal Jordan and the GLC return.
• Infinite Crisis, 52, and OYL happen.

The Final Crisis Era

• The War of Light (Sinestro Corps War through Blackest Night) stuff happens.
• The Black Glove/Leviathan Saga (Batman & Son through Batman Incorporated) stuff happens.
  • Bruce meets Damian Wayne.
• The New Krypton stuff happens.
• Katherine Kane becomes Batwoman.

There are things I'm on the fence on, such as whether the Golden Age heroes are part of this timeline. On the one hand, I like the idea of Superman being the world's very first superhero and the public never having had encountered anything fantastical until his debut. If the JSA existed before him, then his debut would be met with "hey look, I guess flying men are back" instead of "can you BELIEVE a man can fly?!" Batman's debut also seems more striking if Gotham was never patrolled by a Green Lantern (that guy probably would have single-handedly demolished Gotham's mob in the '40s instead of letting it grow to the size it would later become).
On the other hand, I wouldn't want to jettison the cool relationships that exist between the Golden Age and later characters, like Kyle Rayner knowing Jade. I think I lean toward "keep them on Earth-2, but allow them to have regular meetings and friendships with the Earth-0 guys." But if the walls between universes are that porous, that just raises the question of why Power Girl got stuck on Earth-0 when the rest of the Earth-2 people can go home whenever they want.

PC
Reddit Account: u/unicornpuncher
Discord: red5redsquadron
Name and House: Sumner Banefort
Age: 22
Cultural Group: Westerman
Appearance: Fine black hair, well trimmed beard, with grey icy eyes and handsome face.
Trait: Champion
Skills: Swords (e), Andal Knight, Footwork, Riding
Talents: Dancing, Boasting, Gambling
Negative Traits: N/A
Starting Titles: Knight of House Banefort
Starting Location: Opening Feast
Alternate Character: N/A
AC
Name and House: Morgon Banefort
Age: 41
Cultural Group: Westerman
Appearance: Long black hair, well groomed mustache and goatee, with angular face.
Trait: Inspiring
Skills: Swords, Tactician, Engineer
Talents: Cyvasse, Brooding, Drinking and knowing things
Starting Location: Banefort
Alternate Characters: N/A
Timeline:
3 AC: Sumner is born to Morgon Banefort and Briony Banefort.
5 AC: Sumner's brother Damion Banefort is born.
9 AC: Sumner starts training swords and learning to ride horses.
15 AC: Morgon gets his sworn-shield, Ser Davenport to take Sumner as his squire.
20 AC: Sumner wins a small local tourney and is knighted by Ser Davenport.
24 AC: Sumner's cousin, Lady Lyene is now Lady of house Banefort.
25 AC: House Banefort visits King's Landing to attend the festivities.
Family Tree:
https://www.familyecho.com/?p=START&c=xou9xfssbfupxipa&f=272537706305268709
ARCHETYPES:
Ser Davenport - Warrior
Damion Banefort - Questioner

Click here for pictures of Estrellado!
Click here for more information about adoption and other ways to help!
Click here for a link to Workin’ Whiskers’ main website.
ESTRELLADO was saved by an independent rescuer back in late 2017. He was a tiny kitten. Well fast forward to over a year ago, the lady was killed by a drunk driver. We were asked to help with her rescues and to our dismay, her house was a horrific hoarding case. We pulled 55 cats that were still alive. Our rescue took 26 of those cats into out rescue. ESTRELLADO is the second one to be ready for adoption.
Meet ESTRELLADO, a one-of-a-kind feline companion! This adult cat’s personality shines as bright as his name suggests. ESTRELLADO is a delightful mix of sweet and friendly, with an independent streak that only adds to his charm. His curious and goofy nature will keep you entertained, while his gentle, mellow demeanor makes him the perfect lap cat. He’s not just funny, he’s smart too! His playful antics are balanced by a cuddly side that loves nothing more than to give hugs.
ESTRELLADO is also loyal, always ready to provide companionship. He’s a fan of can food, making meal times a joy. With a personality as rich and varied as ESTRELLADO’s, he promises to make every day brighter. Adopt ESTRELLADO, and let his star shine in your home.
ESTRELLADO comes running when it’s time to get his can food. He will actually let you know to hurry up! He has the cutest goatee and his half black sock on his foot is so unique. His purr box is very loud. He’s looking for his REAL FUREVER home.
ESTRELLADO is a DOMESTIC SHORT HAIR / TABBY MIX. He is 6 years 9 months old. He has lived with cats but needs proper introduction. We think he would do better with a cat friendly dog. He has lived with dogs. He has never been around children.

Sorry about all the red and black squares covering my face. I'm just shy and like my privacy. Hope y'all understand. So I'm 40 years old. I tried to grow a beard in 2020, but I ended up cutting it off after 4 months because a section by my chin completely broke off. My hair follicles are VERY thick, but I have low density. I have good coverage, bar a couple patchy areas; but my main issue is the low density, and also that my chin and moustache do not connect. I could never be able to rock just a goatee, it would only be possible for a Van Dyke. I didn't take many photos throughout. At the 11 week stage. Today actually. My beard patches have not filled in, but they have somewhat been covered by the hair length. My beard is maybe an inch or an inch and a half long. The hair length seems to be uniform throughout. I don't seem to have any shorter sections, all pretty much the same length allover. My cheek line has not gotten any higher. I think there maybe some vellus hairs that have appeared at the top of the cheek line, but nothing enough to make a difference to the height or appearance. My chin and moustache area do not connect. I have just grown the moustache sides to try and hide the patches. I lifted the moustache up in one of the photos to show you how they don't connect. After 11 weeks you can still see my cheeks and jawline through the beard. I'm hoping that if it grows even longer then you won't see my skin through the beard. I think this would be more possible if I had a higher cheek line.
I have NOT trimmed my beard at all and I have not shaped up the beard. Not the cheek line and not the neck line. I feel like if i shape my cheek line then it will look a lot lower than it is now and thinner. The only thing I shape is the top of the moustache and trim by the lip line.
My issue is that my beard is very coarse and follicles are very thick. I get a lot of breakage and hair shed. Also I'm worried about that section of hair by my chin breaking off again like it did in 2020. This is caused by the way I sleep. For someone reason I seem to sleep on the side of my chin and it causes pressure point that breaks the hair. To counter this I have started a beard regimen and bought silk pillow cases as well as a beard bonnet thing, just to see if it will stop the hair breaking. Tried sleeping with my head in a different position, but doesn't work.. The head wants what the head wants lol. The section that breaks is also a think low density area. It hasn't broken off yet, but worried it might do by the 4th month, if history was to repeat itself.
I'm not by any means an expert on the regimen but I try to research things. I have been trying to see what works for me, but I'm still getting hair breakage and it still feels really coarse. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
My Regimen: Morning I spray a water based leave in conditioner in my beard, made up of aloe vera, rose water and shea butter leave-in spray conditioner. I mix it together and spray it on my beard. I then add a little small amount of leave-in conditioner cream into my beard. Then I add some oil. A mixture of rosemary oil, black castor oil, peppermint oil, coconut oil and jojoba oil. Sometimes I add some beard balm if i'm going out to shape it.
At night I I spray the same water based leave in conditioner in my beard. Then I add some raw shea butter that I melt in my palms and add it to my beard, followed by some oil. I then put the beard bonnet/bandana thing on and go to sleep.
When I wake up the beard feels very coarse. But to be honest, my beard always feels coarse even after applying conditioner and oil. A little softer to the touch, but still coarse.
Any advice would be great. I'm a bit worried that by 6 months I will have the length but don't want my skin to be seen through my beard.

This video just cracked me up at the time, and now I can't find it using any search terms. I'm 90% sure I saw it on YouTube and not another platform (would expect it to be replicated on YT anyway) I think it was part of the no arms challenge that went around. I saw it around 8 months ago.
The guy has a goatee, dressed in black. he's sat at a dining table at home. Think he's got a southern USA accent (I'm from the UK so guessing here). His arms are behind his back, and his girlfriends arms are poked between his arms, and she feeds him whilst hidden, making a terrible job and cramming burger into his mouth, and pouring drink down his face when he tries to drink. He comments on the burger being spicier than expected. Then he finds it all bit much, and is just laughing. It's only around 5 mins long

Malcolm's heart pounds through the design of a moth circling a lit candle on his black t-shirt. The morning sun creeps over the horizon. Saturating his pallor skin with blood orange rays. Malcolm’s short auburn hair flits in the wind.The crimson clouds overhead appear as if the sky is bleeding. Malcolm peers ahead. The straight path before him. a cruel joke. It's a relentless reminder of the unyielding grip his past has on him. Each step a battle against the anxiety dragging him back into the darknessHeavy-eyed, he gazes upon the looming hotel. Parking in the parking lot, illuminated by a lonely streetlight. The air, thick with the scents of morning dew and urine. An assault on the senses. Ahead, cowers a young lady. Her face, bearing too much rouge. Her delicate jawline, framed by red hair, though it's now past its prime. Her attire speaks of success, but the swollen left eye betrays her. Short red skirt. Black fishnet stockings over long. Thin legs, her feet fight to fit into petite black high heels. a faded sky blue tank-top. Christened with a spattering of fresh blood—amongst other fluids.Her current trick is an arrogant punk with tall, drooping shoulders. He wears an ire-filled smile and an unkempt goatee. His cue ball head reflects the streetlight. Revealing his ugly dark-blue Dickies covered in grease. As well as With his open, garish work shirt, exposing a red wife-beater. Sean managed to embody everything Malcolm found repulsive. A name tag hangs off the punk’s shirt like a crooked portrait: Sean.Scumbags like Sean are a tempting meal. Malcolm’s mouth waters. He tries to look away. Bang! Malcolm snaps his head up. His eyes find the streetwalker as she rolls off the hood of a shitty muscle car—no doubt Sean’s. A smart man would mind his own business. When a man has an opportunity for pleasure. it's hard to resist. Malcolm is an anomaly and anything but “smart”.The air crackles with tension as Sean's words slice through. “The fuck you want?”Give me a reason. The thought chants in Malcolm’s head. A surge of anger courses through Malcolm. his muscles tense with the urge to retaliate, but beneath the surface, fear gnaws at him. .Sean steps up to Malcolm. Within seconds, they stand eye-to-eye. “Mind your own business, man,” Sean says."Is this really worth it?" the girl asks, her voice tinged burdened with pain.Give me a reason. The thought continues to chant in Malcolm’s head. With each word. the atmosphere grows heavier, suffocating Malcolm with a sense of dread. He struggles to keep his composure, his thoughts an eye in the storm.“I will fuck you up.” Sean says.Give me a reason.The girl buckles as she tries to get back up.. Sean kicks her. “Stay down, bitch!” The sight of Sean's violence against the girl sends a jolt of hunger through Malcolm. His blood boils as he watches her struggle.“Fuck off.” Sean lobs a fist at Malcolm; to Sean’s pupils are pins, Malcolm allows it to connect.His lip split, Malcolm tastes the familiar rush of life filling his mouth. pain explodes through his senses, followed by a rush. It's a familiar sensation, one that ignites a fire. Action beats from Malcolm’s heart to his limbs. Joy washes over him. Sean’s eyes widen, his true cowardice reveals itself now that trouble flashes in front of his eye.Malcolm gives him a cheerful grimace and spits out “Thank you.”

The world was a boozy whirl of lights and sounds. Images, broken and fragmented, came and went. Voices, laughter, screaming. The ground pitched like the deck of a tempest-tossed ship, and he felt heavy, as though the ground were pulling him to it. C’mere, Dommy. He fell, lay on the pavement, and pushed himself up again, staggering like a drunk on his way home. His head spun, his body ached, and things seemed blurry, like half-formed images glimpsed underwater.
It was the light blue hour before dawn and Dom was…somewhere. He should have recognized the stores and street signs around him, but he didn’t. His head felt like it was stuffed with cotton, and a sense of confusion gripped him so strongly that he was beginning to panic. Where was he? What happened?
The world spun away again and the next thing he knew, he was lying in a heap of garbage bags, used needles, and rubbish. He came awake with a jerk and sat up so fast that a bolt of pain jammed into his skull. He winced and pressed his hand to his forehead. He felt hot, clammy.
Something was seriously wrong.
Somehow he got to his feet again and started walking. The sun was up now and the streets were filled with people. They all sneered in disgust as he passed, and he wrapped his arms around his chest like a baby comforting itself. He was getting cold. His muscles were sore. Tears streamed down his face and he wanted to cry.
Going on instinct alone, Dom made his way back home and climbed the steps to his apartment. Exhaustion swept over him and he sagged against the door as he dug in his pocket for the keys. They shook in his hand and he had to focus really hard to get the key into the lock.
Inside, he collapsed onto the couch and his eyelids instantly drooped. He was so weary that he couldn’t lift his head, couldn’t form a single coherent thought. Dom felt himself starting to sink, and snapped his eyes open with a start. Something in his soul told him that if he slept, he would die.
He couldn’t help it, though. He was falling, tumbling, hands reaching up from hell to grab him. His eyes fluttered closed again and the world started to go dark, his heart slamming in fear. He tried to fight, but the pull of darkness was too strong, too alluring. Why was he fighting? Why not just…give up? Hadn’t he thought of killing himself before? Didn’t he hate his life and himself? What was there to fight for? A wife? Kids? A community that loved and respected him? Shit, affordable groceries?
No.
There was nothing.
He had nothing and was nothing.
A sense of peace blossomed from the darkness, and suddenly death didn’t seem so scary. In fact, it was warm…inviting.
It was life that was cold and hateful. Not death.
Death accepted you no matter who you were. It didn’t reject you…it didn’t ignore you. If you sought it, you would find it, and if you embraced it, it would embrace you.
With that thought in mind, Dom gave up.
And died.
***
Bruce Kenner, captain of the 5th Albany precinct, sat behind his desk on the morning of June 28 and lazily leafed through a stack of files as he sipped from a mug of coffee. A roughly built man with a dark goatee and graying blonde hair, he looked more like a small town southern sheriff than a low level public works functionary. In fact, he tended to act like it too. He liked to hunt, fish, and drink beer on his off time. Albany wasn’t a big city, but it was big enough that you never got a fucking break. Run here, run there, arrest this asshole, investigate that asshole. By the time Friday rolled around, he was so ready for the peace and tranquility of a fishing trip he could taste it.
Already this Monday morning, he was looking forward to another one.
Over the weekend, three kids went missing in the Pine Hills and Washington Park area, bringing the total for that summer up to eight. All were teenagers, all were troubled. Most were boys, but two were girls.
Troubled kids run away all the time. They might be gone a few days, sulking at a friend’s house over something their father or mother did, but they’d eventually come home. None of these kids had come back yet and from what he knew, a few of them weren’t the runaway types. They were shits at school and caused problems, but they had no reason to up and leave. Hell, Bruce himself raised hell as a kid, but he always found his way back home, even if he spent the previous night dying in a field from Mad Dogg 20/20 poisoning.
One or two kids going missing…okay, it happens. Eight? Over a span of four weeks?
Yeah, something was wrong here.
But what?
There was nothing on any of these kids. No one saw them, no one knew anything - one minute they were here, the next they weren’t. What could he or anyone else do with that?. The public broke cops’ balls all the time, but if you don’t have evidence, you don’t have evidence. What do you want? Door to door searches? Roadblocks? Dogs and helicopters? Yeah, then when you actually do it, they cry fascism. Guess I’ll just use my Spidey Senses.
Bruce wished he had spidey senses. He wanted to find these kids as much as anyone, and he was starting to get pissed off that he couldn’t. He took another sip from his mug and read on. The latest kids to go missing were three boys between the ages of fourteen and eighteen.
They were all white, all thin (except for one). If there was a serial killer in town - and Bruce hoped to fuck there wasn’t - he had a type. What, black kids aren’t good enough to kill, cannibalize, and wear like a skin suit? They should charge him with a hate crime for discrimination.
That way he’d actually stay locked up.
The door opened and Vanessa Rodregiez, his deputy, came in. A tall, shapely Hispanic woman with dark eyes and a mouth poised always on the edge of a smile, she wore her black hair in a ponytail that would look stern and severe on anyone else, but on her, looked childlike. She was twenty-seven and had been on the force for three years, but you could be forgiven for thinking her much younger. “Bright and early, I see,” she said with a grin.
Bruce grumbled.
Vanessa held down the fort during the graveyard shift, acting to the night as he acted to the day. She was young and full of energy, which clashed with Bruce, who was old and just wanted to be left alone. Despite their differences, Bruce loved her like a kid sister…an annoying kid sister he wanted to throat punch sometimes.
“You missed all the fun last night,” she said and parked her butt on the edge of Bruce’s desk. He glared at her, but she ignored him.
“Good,” he said. Then: “What happened?”
“Big fight outside of Club Vlad,” she said. “It looked like a WorldStar video.”
For a moment, Bruce was lost. “Club what?”
“Club Vlad,” Vanessa said. “Where the Fuze Box used to be.”
Ah, right. The Fuze Box was an Albany landmark, a night club for punks…or goths…or someone. Certainly not for Bruce Kenner. It was small, dingy, and always had people in black waiting outside. On Friday and Saturday nights, it blasted strange music with lyrics about fighting The Man. Kids had been fighting the Man since before Bruce was even born and they hadn’t beaten him yet. Kudos to them for still trying.
Last year, The Fuze Box closed down and someone else bought it. It reopened last month and looked more or less the same: Posers, shitty music, and spiked hair. So much spiked hair. “Place is still a pain in the ass,” Bruce said.
“Yep,” Vanessa chirped. “It doesn’t know what it wants to be now. One minute they play nightcore, the next EDM. It’s all over the place.”
Bruce raised a quizzical brow.
“Not that I’ve ever been there in my free time,” Vanessa said in a tone that suggested she had,
Bruce gave a judgemental hum.
“Anyway,” Vanessa went on, “you see we have some new missing persons?”
Sighing, Bruce sat back in his chair. “Yeah. I did.”
“People are starting to ask questions,” Vanessa warned.
That brought a terse smile to Bruce’s weathered face. “Maybe they’ll solve it then.”
“Ha, fat chance,” Vanessa said. She got up and stretched. “Anyway, I’m bushed. Here’s my…” she trailed off and looked at her empty hands. “Damn, where’s my report? I just had it?” She turned in a confused circle as if she might be able to spot her report making a break for it. “Huh,” she said. She left the office and came back a moment later holding a folder. “Found it,” she grinned.
Bruce just looked at her.
“Um…here it is.”
He didn’t take it.
Her smile faltered. She carefully sat it on top of the files Bruce was looking at.
And his hands.
“I’ll just leave that right here.” She patted it for good measure.
“Thank you,” Bruce said.
“Okay. Night.”
“Goodnight,” Bruce said as she left through a shaft of morning sunlight. Alone, Bruce sat her report aside and went back to the missing kids. This case was giving him a headache and it wasn’t even nine. With a deep sigh, he slumped back in his chair and drummed his fingers on the armrests.
Was it Saturday yet?
He could really use a fishing trip.
***
Dom came awake in the cold purple twilight with a shocked gasp like a man coming up seconds before drowning. His eyes strained from his sweaty face and his mouth hung slack, twisted in a gruesome parody of The Scream. His mind was muddled, murky - he didn’t know where he was or even who he was, but he knew this,.
He couldn’t breathe.
He opened and closed his mouth like a fish, but his lungs did not fill with air. A great, unseen weight seemed to bear down on his chest, and panic gripped him. He tried to move, but his arms refused to heed his brain’s command. The weight seemed heavier, all over, crushing him like a bug. Confusion filled him and he started to pant.
Without warning, his bowels and bladder loosened, and horrible wetness filled his pants. He tried to sit up, but his body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. His chest rose and fell with the frantic labor of his breath, but his lungs remained inert. A cry of fear bubbled up inside of him, but escaped his mouth only as a breathy groan.
A bust of adrenaline shot through him and he tried to stand, but succeeded only in falling off the couch instead, landing face first against the cold tile floor. He felt his nose crunch, but the pain was muted.
Dom thought he lost consciousness after that, but wasn’t sure. His next memory was of shivering so violently that his teeth clacked together. A phantom chill - perhaps from the floor - had settled into his bones, and was colder than he had ever been in his life, colder even than the time he fell into a snowbank and got lost when he was two. Shudders racked his body, and though he tried to turn over, he was too fucking heavy. It was like every muscle in his body had turned to dead weight. Fragmented thoughts swirled in his head, faint colors in the dark, but he couldn’t put any of them together.
With great effort, he managed to push himself slightly up, but a wave of lightheadedness crashed over him and he lowered his head once more. He stopped trying and simply lay there. Shortly, his eyes began to burn and he realized that he wasn’t blinking. Jesus Christ, he wasn’t blinking.
For some strange reason, that brought a fresh bout of panic. He started to hyperventilate, but his lungs still wouldn’t work. He wasn’t blinking…he wasn’t breathing…what was happening to him?
A whimper burst from his throat and he started to cry.
He must have cried himself to sleep, because he woke sometime later to the most intense headache he’d ever had. It felt like something was eating his brain from the inside out. He was sore all over, and could feel his muscles twitching, as though a thousand living things were burrowing through his body. A cramp shot down his right leg, and the toes of his left foot curled involuntarily. Slowly, his jaw clenched closed, and the muscles in his neck began to strain…then to burn. His panic turned to terror, and Dom wiggled across the floor like a worm, his limbs screaming in red agony and his brain filling with heat. He somehow wound up on his right side, and his arms curled slowly up to his chest, crossing at the wrists like a mummy. He tried to pull them apart, but the slightest movement sent waves of excruciating pain cutting through his body. His knees began to draw up to his stomach, and his fingers clenched tightly.
Cramps and spasms attacked every muscle in his body. He screamed through his teeth and shook, resembling a man in the electric chair as 40,000 volts of justice coursed through him. The pain grew gradually, getting worse and worse as minutes ticked by like hours. Higher, higher, higher - he clenched his eyes closed and shrieked as it became unbearable. Disjointed thoughts flashed through his mind - prayers, threats, curses, Jesus fucking…FUCK.
What was happening? God, what was happening to him? Was it fentanyl? He’d seen videos of people high on fentanyl, and they leaned in weird positions. He didn’t do drugs but maybe he ingested it somehow.
His panic may have returned if all of his muscles hadn’t picked that moment to contract as one. His eyes bulged from their sockets and his jaw unclenched just enough for him to utter a high. Agonized scream that echoed through his empty apartment like thunder.
A human being can only take so much before giving out. When the pain reached a crescendo, and Dom mercifully sank into consciousness once more. The sun rose and cascaded through the apartment’s sole window, falling over his huddled form. Slowly, it tracked across the sky before setting again. As the last rays disappeared behind the horizon, Dom’s eyes opened. The pain of the night before was blessedly gone, replaced by a feeling of numbness - the cool ash after the hot fire. His thoughts were slow and thick like molasses, but he could actually think again. Nightmare memories flooded back to him, but he wasn’t sure they were real. He was lying on his side, his arms wrapped around his chest as if for warmth, and his teeth lightly chattered against the icy chill. He was so cold that he didn’t want to move, but he couldn’t stay here forever. He needed help. He needed…
A shower.
Yeah, a hot shower. That would warm him up.
Gritting his teeth, he slowly sat up, ready for a burst of pain.
But none came.
He did, however, feel heavy. Getting to his feet, he stumbled and nearly fell, catching himself against the counter. His limbs had no feeling. It’s like they weren’t even there. Head hung, Dom tried to catch his breath, but it felt like he wasn’t breathing at all. His eyelids drooped closed and he felt like he was going to fall down. Summoning all the might he could, he shuffled into the bathroom with the stiff gait of an old man. He snapped the light on, and cold, white brilliance filled the space, blinding him.
Leaning heavily against the sink, he gripped the cold porcelain. Suddenly, he was afraid of looking into the mirror. He was sure that whatever reflection he saw, it would be of something else, something monstrous.
Dom lifted his head and faced the glass.
His heart shrank.
The man in the mirror was him but different. His skin was white as milk, lacking all color whatsoever save for the ugly purple patch on the left side. IResembling a giant bruise, it started at the temple and extended down to the slope of his neck, disappearing beneath his T-shirt. He gingerly lifted the shirt, and moaned when he saw that his entire left side was discolored, the purple edged with a puffy shade of pink. His sallow skin clung tight to his ribcage, and his hip bones stuck out so much it looked painful. Back in the mirror, his cheeks were sunken, hollow, and his eyes were a hazy, dishwater gray. His skull seemed bigger, his hair longer. Dom wanted to whip his head away from the phantom before him, to never see it again, but he was transfixed.
There was no way that thing was -
Dom looked away, cutting that thought off before it could finish.
A shower.
He needed a shower.
Slowly, stiffly, Dom undressed, peeling off his shirt and his soiled pants. He dropped them in a heap on the floor and stepped under the spray. He could feel the water pounding against him, but it provided no heat. It was neither hot nor cold. It was simply there.
Dom pressed his head to the slick shower wall and stood there for a long time. He was spent, tired, and fried - he had no more emotions left to give. He got out after a little while, dried off, and put on a clean pair of shorts. He settled into bed and lay there with his hands folded over his chest and his eyes open. They felt gritty, dry. His stomach felt bloated, gassy. He was drowsy now, the weight of the past two days (or was it two weeks?) coming down on him all at once. He closed his eyes and fell asleep.
He was still asleep - but aware - when the knocking on his door started the next morning. Time was funny in this state of being, fast and jerky but also slow and echoing. Keys rattled the knob turned. The landlord came in with a cop. They saw him on the bed, laid out like a corpse for a viewing, and the cop radioed in a code 35. Soon, cops were all around him, making noise and touching things. He had the vague sense of discomfort and embarrassment at the intrusion. A baling man in a suit stood over him, a cop who looked like a redneck beside him. “He didn’t die here,” the medical examiner said.
The cop looked at him questioningly. Dom caught the name KENNER on his name tag.
“See this?” the M.E. said and gestured to Dom’s face. “That’s livor mortis. When you die, your blood pools at the lowest point. If you’re on your left side, for example, it pools on the left.”
Kenner looked at Dom and then back to the M.E. “Someone moved him?”
“Looks like it,” the M.E. said.
“When did he die?”
The M.E. examined Dom as though he were nothing more than a side of beef. “At a glance? Three days. I won’t have a better answer until I open him up.”
Dom was still awake when they put him into a body bag and zipped it up. He felt a stirring of fear beneath the cold numbness, but he was too tired to worry about it now.
Later, he thought.
He would panic later.
For now, Dom slept.

The world was a boozy whirl of lights and sounds. Images, broken and fragmented, came and went. Voices, laughter, screaming. The ground pitched like the deck of a tempest-tossed ship, and he felt heavy, as though the ground were pulling him to it. C’mere, Dommy. He fell, lay on the pavement, and pushed himself up again, staggering like a drunk on his way home. His head spun, his body ached, and things seemed blurry, like half-formed images glimpsed underwater.
It was the light blue hour before dawn and Dom was…somewhere. He should have recognized the stores and street signs around him, but he didn’t. His head felt like it was stuffed with cotton, and a sense of confusion gripped him so strongly that he was beginning to panic. Where was he? What happened?
The world spun away again and the next thing he knew, he was lying in a heap of garbage bags, used needles, and rubbish. He came awake with a jerk and sat up so fast that a bolt of pain jammed into his skull. He winced and pressed his hand to his forehead. He felt hot, clammy.
Something was seriously wrong.
Somehow he got to his feet again and started walking. The sun was up now and the streets were filled with people. They all sneered in disgust as he passed, and he wrapped his arms around his chest like a baby comforting itself. He was getting cold. His muscles were sore. Tears streamed down his face and he wanted to cry.
Going on instinct alone, Dom made his way back home and climbed the steps to his apartment. Exhaustion swept over him and he sagged against the door as he dug in his pocket for the keys. They shook in his hand and he had to focus really hard to get the key into the lock.
Inside, he collapsed onto the couch and his eyelids instantly drooped. He was so weary that he couldn’t lift his head, couldn’t form a single coherent thought. Dom felt himself starting to sink, and snapped his eyes open with a start. Something in his soul told him that if he slept, he would die.
He couldn’t help it, though. He was falling, tumbling, hands reaching up from hell to grab him. His eyes fluttered closed again and the world started to go dark, his heart slamming in fear. He tried to fight, but the pull of darkness was too strong, too alluring. Why was he fighting? Why not just…give up? Hadn’t he thought of killing himself before? Didn’t he hate his life and himself? What was there to fight for? A wife? Kids? A community that loved and respected him? Shit, affordable groceries?
No.
There was nothing.
He had nothing and was nothing.
A sense of peace blossomed from the darkness, and suddenly death didn’t seem so scary. In fact, it was warm…inviting.
It was life that was cold and hateful. Not death.
Death accepted you no matter who you were. It didn’t reject you…it didn’t ignore you. If you sought it, you would find it, and if you embraced it, it would embrace you.
With that thought in mind, Dom gave up.
And died.
***
Bruce Kenner, captain of the 5th Albany precinct, sat behind his desk on the morning of June 28 and lazily leafed through a stack of files as he sipped from a mug of coffee. A roughly built man with a dark goatee and graying blonde hair, he looked more like a small town southern sheriff than a low level public works functionary. In fact, he tended to act like it too. He liked to hunt, fish, and drink beer on his off time. Albany wasn’t a big city, but it was big enough that you never got a fucking break. Run here, run there, arrest this asshole, investigate that asshole. By the time Friday rolled around, he was so ready for the peace and tranquility of a fishing trip he could taste it.
Already this Monday morning, he was looking forward to another one.
Over the weekend, three kids went missing in the Pine Hills and Washington Park area, bringing the total for that summer up to eight. All were teenagers, all were troubled. Most were boys, but two were girls.
Troubled kids run away all the time. They might be gone a few days, sulking at a friend’s house over something their father or mother did, but they’d eventually come home. None of these kids had come back yet and from what he knew, a few of them weren’t the runaway types. They were shits at school and caused problems, but they had no reason to up and leave. Hell, Bruce himself raised hell as a kid, but he always found his way back home, even if he spent the previous night dying in a field from Mad Dogg 20/20 poisoning.
One or two kids going missing…okay, it happens. Eight? Over a span of four weeks?
Yeah, something was wrong here.
But what?
There was nothing on any of these kids. No one saw them, no one knew anything - one minute they were here, the next they weren’t. What could he or anyone else do with that?. The public broke cops’ balls all the time, but if you don’t have evidence, you don’t have evidence. What do you want? Door to door searches? Roadblocks? Dogs and helicopters? Yeah, then when you actually do it, they cry fascism. Guess I’ll just use my Spidey Senses.
Bruce wished he had spidey senses. He wanted to find these kids as much as anyone, and he was starting to get pissed off that he couldn’t. He took another sip from his mug and read on. The latest kids to go missing were three boys between the ages of fourteen and eighteen.
They were all white, all thin (except for one). If there was a serial killer in town - and Bruce hoped to fuck there wasn’t - he had a type. What, black kids aren’t good enough to kill, cannibalize, and wear like a skin suit? They should charge him with a hate crime for discrimination.
That way he’d actually stay locked up.
The door opened and Vanessa Rodregiez, his deputy, came in. A tall, shapely Hispanic woman with dark eyes and a mouth poised always on the edge of a smile, she wore her black hair in a ponytail that would look stern and severe on anyone else, but on her, looked childlike. She was twenty-seven and had been on the force for three years, but you could be forgiven for thinking her much younger. “Bright and early, I see,” she said with a grin.
Bruce grumbled.
Vanessa held down the fort during the graveyard shift, acting to the night as he acted to the day. She was young and full of energy, which clashed with Bruce, who was old and just wanted to be left alone. Despite their differences, Bruce loved her like a kid sister…an annoying kid sister he wanted to throat punch sometimes.
“You missed all the fun last night,” she said and parked her butt on the edge of Bruce’s desk. He glared at her, but she ignored him.
“Good,” he said. Then: “What happened?”
“Big fight outside of Club Vlad,” she said. “It looked like a WorldStar video.”
For a moment, Bruce was lost. “Club what?”
“Club Vlad,” Vanessa said. “Where the Fuze Box used to be.”
Ah, right. The Fuze Box was an Albany landmark, a night club for punks…or goths…or someone. Certainly not for Bruce Kenner. It was small, dingy, and always had people in black waiting outside. On Friday and Saturday nights, it blasted strange music with lyrics about fighting The Man. Kids had been fighting the Man since before Bruce was even born and they hadn’t beaten him yet. Kudos to them for still trying.
Last year, The Fuze Box closed down and someone else bought it. It reopened last month and looked more or less the same: Posers, shitty music, and spiked hair. So much spiked hair. “Place is still a pain in the ass,” Bruce said.
“Yep,” Vanessa chirped. “It doesn’t know what it wants to be now. One minute they play nightcore, the next EDM. It’s all over the place.”
Bruce raised a quizzical brow.
“Not that I’ve ever been there in my free time,” Vanessa said in a tone that suggested she had,
Bruce gave a judgemental hum.
“Anyway,” Vanessa went on, “you see we have some new missing persons?”
Sighing, Bruce sat back in his chair. “Yeah. I did.”
“People are starting to ask questions,” Vanessa warned.
That brought a terse smile to Bruce’s weathered face. “Maybe they’ll solve it then.”
“Ha, fat chance,” Vanessa said. She got up and stretched. “Anyway, I’m bushed. Here’s my…” she trailed off and looked at her empty hands. “Damn, where’s my report? I just had it?” She turned in a confused circle as if she might be able to spot her report making a break for it. “Huh,” she said. She left the office and came back a moment later holding a folder. “Found it,” she grinned.
Bruce just looked at her.
“Um…here it is.”
He didn’t take it.
Her smile faltered. She carefully sat it on top of the files Bruce was looking at.
And his hands.
“I’ll just leave that right here.” She patted it for good measure.
“Thank you,” Bruce said.
“Okay. Night.”
“Goodnight,” Bruce said as she left through a shaft of morning sunlight. Alone, Bruce sat her report aside and went back to the missing kids. This case was giving him a headache and it wasn’t even nine. With a deep sigh, he slumped back in his chair and drummed his fingers on the armrests.
Was it Saturday yet?
He could really use a fishing trip.
***
Dom came awake in the cold purple twilight with a shocked gasp like a man coming up seconds before drowning. His eyes strained from his sweaty face and his mouth hung slack, twisted in a gruesome parody of The Scream. His mind was muddled, murky - he didn’t know where he was or even who he was, but he knew this,.
He couldn’t breathe.
He opened and closed his mouth like a fish, but his lungs did not fill with air. A great, unseen weight seemed to bear down on his chest, and panic gripped him. He tried to move, but his arms refused to heed his brain’s command. The weight seemed heavier, all over, crushing him like a bug. Confusion filled him and he started to pant.
Without warning, his bowels and bladder loosened, and horrible wetness filled his pants. He tried to sit up, but his body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. His chest rose and fell with the frantic labor of his breath, but his lungs remained inert. A cry of fear bubbled up inside of him, but escaped his mouth only as a breathy groan.
A bust of adrenaline shot through him and he tried to stand, but succeeded only in falling off the couch instead, landing face first against the cold tile floor. He felt his nose crunch, but the pain was muted.
Dom thought he lost consciousness after that, but wasn’t sure. His next memory was of shivering so violently that his teeth clacked together. A phantom chill - perhaps from the floor - had settled into his bones, and was colder than he had ever been in his life, colder even than the time he fell into a snowbank and got lost when he was two. Shudders racked his body, and though he tried to turn over, he was too fucking heavy. It was like every muscle in his body had turned to dead weight. Fragmented thoughts swirled in his head, faint colors in the dark, but he couldn’t put any of them together.
With great effort, he managed to push himself slightly up, but a wave of lightheadedness crashed over him and he lowered his head once more. He stopped trying and simply lay there. Shortly, his eyes began to burn and he realized that he wasn’t blinking. Jesus Christ, he wasn’t blinking.
For some strange reason, that brought a fresh bout of panic. He started to hyperventilate, but his lungs still wouldn’t work. He wasn’t blinking…he wasn’t breathing…what was happening to him?
A whimper burst from his throat and he started to cry.
He must have cried himself to sleep, because he woke sometime later to the most intense headache he’d ever had. It felt like something was eating his brain from the inside out. He was sore all over, and could feel his muscles twitching, as though a thousand living things were burrowing through his body. A cramp shot down his right leg, and the toes of his left foot curled involuntarily. Slowly, his jaw clenched closed, and the muscles in his neck began to strain…then to burn. His panic turned to terror, and Dom wiggled across the floor like a worm, his limbs screaming in red agony and his brain filling with heat. He somehow wound up on his right side, and his arms curled slowly up to his chest, crossing at the wrists like a mummy. He tried to pull them apart, but the slightest movement sent waves of excruciating pain cutting through his body. His knees began to draw up to his stomach, and his fingers clenched tightly.
Cramps and spasms attacked every muscle in his body. He screamed through his teeth and shook, resembling a man in the electric chair as 40,000 volts of justice coursed through him. The pain grew gradually, getting worse and worse as minutes ticked by like hours. Higher, higher, higher - he clenched his eyes closed and shrieked as it became unbearable. Disjointed thoughts flashed through his mind - prayers, threats, curses, Jesus fucking…FUCK.
What was happening? God, what was happening to him? Was it fentanyl? He’d seen videos of people high on fentanyl, and they leaned in weird positions. He didn’t do drugs but maybe he ingested it somehow.
His panic may have returned if all of his muscles hadn’t picked that moment to contract as one. His eyes bulged from their sockets and his jaw unclenched just enough for him to utter a high. Agonized scream that echoed through his empty apartment like thunder.
A human being can only take so much before giving out. When the pain reached a crescendo, and Dom mercifully sank into consciousness once more. The sun rose and cascaded through the apartment’s sole window, falling over his huddled form. Slowly, it tracked across the sky before setting again. As the last rays disappeared behind the horizon, Dom’s eyes opened. The pain of the night before was blessedly gone, replaced by a feeling of numbness - the cool ash after the hot fire. His thoughts were slow and thick like molasses, but he could actually think again. Nightmare memories flooded back to him, but he wasn’t sure they were real. He was lying on his side, his arms wrapped around his chest as if for warmth, and his teeth lightly chattered against the icy chill. He was so cold that he didn’t want to move, but he couldn’t stay here forever. He needed help. He needed…
A shower.
Yeah, a hot shower. That would warm him up.
Gritting his teeth, he slowly sat up, ready for a burst of pain.
But none came.
He did, however, feel heavy. Getting to his feet, he stumbled and nearly fell, catching himself against the counter. His limbs had no feeling. It’s like they weren’t even there. Head hung, Dom tried to catch his breath, but it felt like he wasn’t breathing at all. His eyelids drooped closed and he felt like he was going to fall down. Summoning all the might he could, he shuffled into the bathroom with the stiff gait of an old man. He snapped the light on, and cold, white brilliance filled the space, blinding him.
Leaning heavily against the sink, he gripped the cold porcelain. Suddenly, he was afraid of looking into the mirror. He was sure that whatever reflection he saw, it would be of something else, something monstrous.
Dom lifted his head and faced the glass.
His heart shrank.
The man in the mirror was him but different. His skin was white as milk, lacking all color whatsoever save for the ugly purple patch on the left side. IResembling a giant bruise, it started at the temple and extended down to the slope of his neck, disappearing beneath his T-shirt. He gingerly lifted the shirt, and moaned when he saw that his entire left side was discolored, the purple edged with a puffy shade of pink. His sallow skin clung tight to his ribcage, and his hip bones stuck out so much it looked painful. Back in the mirror, his cheeks were sunken, hollow, and his eyes were a hazy, dishwater gray. His skull seemed bigger, his hair longer. Dom wanted to whip his head away from the phantom before him, to never see it again, but he was transfixed.
There was no way that thing was -
Dom looked away, cutting that thought off before it could finish.
A shower.
He needed a shower.
Slowly, stiffly, Dom undressed, peeling off his shirt and his soiled pants. He dropped them in a heap on the floor and stepped under the spray. He could feel the water pounding against him, but it provided no heat. It was neither hot nor cold. It was simply there.
Dom pressed his head to the slick shower wall and stood there for a long time. He was spent, tired, and fried - he had no more emotions left to give. He got out after a little while, dried off, and put on a clean pair of shorts. He settled into bed and lay there with his hands folded over his chest and his eyes open. They felt gritty, dry. His stomach felt bloated, gassy. He was drowsy now, the weight of the past two days (or was it two weeks?) coming down on him all at once. He closed his eyes and fell asleep.
He was still asleep - but aware - when the knocking on his door started the next morning. Time was funny in this state of being, fast and jerky but also slow and echoing. Keys rattled the knob turned. The landlord came in with a cop. They saw him on the bed, laid out like a corpse for a viewing, and the cop radioed in a code 35. Soon, cops were all around him, making noise and touching things. He had the vague sense of discomfort and embarrassment at the intrusion. A baling man in a suit stood over him, a cop who looked like a redneck beside him. “He didn’t die here,” the medical examiner said.
The cop looked at him questioningly. Dom caught the name KENNER on his name tag.
“See this?” the M.E. said and gestured to Dom’s face. “That’s livor mortis. When you die, your blood pools at the lowest point. If you’re on your left side, for example, it pools on the left.”
Kenner looked at Dom and then back to the M.E. “Someone moved him?”
“Looks like it,” the M.E. said.
“When did he die?”
The M.E. examined Dom as though he were nothing more than a side of beef. “At a glance? Three days. I won’t have a better answer until I open him up.”
Dom was still awake when they put him into a body bag and zipped it up. He felt a stirring of fear beneath the cold numbness, but he was too tired to worry about it now.
Later, he thought.
He would panic later.
For now, Dom slept.

The world was a boozy whirl of lights and sounds. Images, broken and fragmented, came and went. Voices, laughter, screaming. The ground pitched like the deck of a tempest-tossed ship, and he felt heavy, as though the ground were pulling him to it. C’mere, Dommy. He fell, lay on the pavement, and pushed himself up again, staggering like a drunk on his way home. His head spun, his body ached, and things seemed blurry, like half-formed images glimpsed underwater.
It was the light blue hour before dawn and Dom was…somewhere. He should have recognized the stores and street signs around him, but he didn’t. His head felt like it was stuffed with cotton, and a sense of confusion gripped him so strongly that he was beginning to panic. Where was he? What happened?
The world spun away again and the next thing he knew, he was lying in a heap of garbage bags, used needles, and rubbish. He came awake with a jerk and sat up so fast that a bolt of pain jammed into his skull. He winced and pressed his hand to his forehead. He felt hot, clammy.
Something was seriously wrong.
Somehow he got to his feet again and started walking. The sun was up now and the streets were filled with people. They all sneered in disgust as he passed, and he wrapped his arms around his chest like a baby comforting itself. He was getting cold. His muscles were sore. Tears streamed down his face and he wanted to cry.
Going on instinct alone, Dom made his way back home and climbed the steps to his apartment. Exhaustion swept over him and he sagged against the door as he dug in his pocket for the keys. They shook in his hand and he had to focus really hard to get the key into the lock.
Inside, he collapsed onto the couch and his eyelids instantly drooped. He was so weary that he couldn’t lift his head, couldn’t form a single coherent thought. Dom felt himself starting to sink, and snapped his eyes open with a start. Something in his soul told him that if he slept, he would die.
He couldn’t help it, though. He was falling, tumbling, hands reaching up from hell to grab him. His eyes fluttered closed again and the world started to go dark, his heart slamming in fear. He tried to fight, but the pull of darkness was too strong, too alluring. Why was he fighting? Why not just…give up? Hadn’t he thought of killing himself before? Didn’t he hate his life and himself? What was there to fight for? A wife? Kids? A community that loved and respected him? Shit, affordable groceries?
No.
There was nothing.
He had nothing and was nothing.
A sense of peace blossomed from the darkness, and suddenly death didn’t seem so scary. In fact, it was warm…inviting.
It was life that was cold and hateful. Not death.
Death accepted you no matter who you were. It didn’t reject you…it didn’t ignore you. If you sought it, you would find it, and if you embraced it, it would embrace you.
With that thought in mind, Dom gave up.
And died.
***
Bruce Kenner, captain of the 5th Albany precinct, sat behind his desk on the morning of June 28 and lazily leafed through a stack of files as he sipped from a mug of coffee. A roughly built man with a dark goatee and graying blonde hair, he looked more like a small town southern sheriff than a low level public works functionary. In fact, he tended to act like it too. He liked to hunt, fish, and drink beer on his off time. Albany wasn’t a big city, but it was big enough that you never got a fucking break. Run here, run there, arrest this asshole, investigate that asshole. By the time Friday rolled around, he was so ready for the peace and tranquility of a fishing trip he could taste it.
Already this Monday morning, he was looking forward to another one.
Over the weekend, three kids went missing in the Pine Hills and Washington Park area, bringing the total for that summer up to eight. All were teenagers, all were troubled. Most were boys, but two were girls.
Troubled kids run away all the time. They might be gone a few days, sulking at a friend’s house over something their father or mother did, but they’d eventually come home. None of these kids had come back yet and from what he knew, a few of them weren’t the runaway types. They were shits at school and caused problems, but they had no reason to up and leave. Hell, Bruce himself raised hell as a kid, but he always found his way back home, even if he spent the previous night dying in a field from Mad Dogg 20/20 poisoning.
One or two kids going missing…okay, it happens. Eight? Over a span of four weeks?
Yeah, something was wrong here.
But what?
There was nothing on any of these kids. No one saw them, no one knew anything - one minute they were here, the next they weren’t. What could he or anyone else do with that?. The public broke cops’ balls all the time, but if you don’t have evidence, you don’t have evidence. What do you want? Door to door searches? Roadblocks? Dogs and helicopters? Yeah, then when you actually do it, they cry fascism. Guess I’ll just use my Spidey Senses.
Bruce wished he had spidey senses. He wanted to find these kids as much as anyone, and he was starting to get pissed off that he couldn’t. He took another sip from his mug and read on. The latest kids to go missing were three boys between the ages of fourteen and eighteen.
They were all white, all thin (except for one). If there was a serial killer in town - and Bruce hoped to fuck there wasn’t - he had a type. What, black kids aren’t good enough to kill, cannibalize, and wear like a skin suit? They should charge him with a hate crime for discrimination.
That way he’d actually stay locked up.
The door opened and Vanessa Rodregiez, his deputy, came in. A tall, shapely Hispanic woman with dark eyes and a mouth poised always on the edge of a smile, she wore her black hair in a ponytail that would look stern and severe on anyone else, but on her, looked childlike. She was twenty-seven and had been on the force for three years, but you could be forgiven for thinking her much younger. “Bright and early, I see,” she said with a grin.
Bruce grumbled.
Vanessa held down the fort during the graveyard shift, acting to the night as he acted to the day. She was young and full of energy, which clashed with Bruce, who was old and just wanted to be left alone. Despite their differences, Bruce loved her like a kid sister…an annoying kid sister he wanted to throat punch sometimes.
“You missed all the fun last night,” she said and parked her butt on the edge of Bruce’s desk. He glared at her, but she ignored him.
“Good,” he said. Then: “What happened?”
“Big fight outside of Club Vlad,” she said. “It looked like a WorldStar video.”
For a moment, Bruce was lost. “Club what?”
“Club Vlad,” Vanessa said. “Where the Fuze Box used to be.”
Ah, right. The Fuze Box was an Albany landmark, a night club for punks…or goths…or someone. Certainly not for Bruce Kenner. It was small, dingy, and always had people in black waiting outside. On Friday and Saturday nights, it blasted strange music with lyrics about fighting The Man. Kids had been fighting the Man since before Bruce was even born and they hadn’t beaten him yet. Kudos to them for still trying.
Last year, The Fuze Box closed down and someone else bought it. It reopened last month and looked more or less the same: Posers, shitty music, and spiked hair. So much spiked hair. “Place is still a pain in the ass,” Bruce said.
“Yep,” Vanessa chirped. “It doesn’t know what it wants to be now. One minute they play nightcore, the next EDM. It’s all over the place.”
Bruce raised a quizzical brow.
“Not that I’ve ever been there in my free time,” Vanessa said in a tone that suggested she had,
Bruce gave a judgemental hum.
“Anyway,” Vanessa went on, “you see we have some new missing persons?”
Sighing, Bruce sat back in his chair. “Yeah. I did.”
“People are starting to ask questions,” Vanessa warned.
That brought a terse smile to Bruce’s weathered face. “Maybe they’ll solve it then.”
“Ha, fat chance,” Vanessa said. She got up and stretched. “Anyway, I’m bushed. Here’s my…” she trailed off and looked at her empty hands. “Damn, where’s my report? I just had it?” She turned in a confused circle as if she might be able to spot her report making a break for it. “Huh,” she said. She left the office and came back a moment later holding a folder. “Found it,” she grinned.
Bruce just looked at her.
“Um…here it is.”
He didn’t take it.
Her smile faltered. She carefully sat it on top of the files Bruce was looking at.
And his hands.
“I’ll just leave that right here.” She patted it for good measure.
“Thank you,” Bruce said.
“Okay. Night.”
“Goodnight,” Bruce said as she left through a shaft of morning sunlight. Alone, Bruce sat her report aside and went back to the missing kids. This case was giving him a headache and it wasn’t even nine. With a deep sigh, he slumped back in his chair and drummed his fingers on the armrests.
Was it Saturday yet?
He could really use a fishing trip.
***
Dom came awake in the cold purple twilight with a shocked gasp like a man coming up seconds before drowning. His eyes strained from his sweaty face and his mouth hung slack, twisted in a gruesome parody of The Scream. His mind was muddled, murky - he didn’t know where he was or even who he was, but he knew this,.
He couldn’t breathe.
He opened and closed his mouth like a fish, but his lungs did not fill with air. A great, unseen weight seemed to bear down on his chest, and panic gripped him. He tried to move, but his arms refused to heed his brain’s command. The weight seemed heavier, all over, crushing him like a bug. Confusion filled him and he started to pant.
Without warning, his bowels and bladder loosened, and horrible wetness filled his pants. He tried to sit up, but his body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. His chest rose and fell with the frantic labor of his breath, but his lungs remained inert. A cry of fear bubbled up inside of him, but escaped his mouth only as a breathy groan.
A bust of adrenaline shot through him and he tried to stand, but succeeded only in falling off the couch instead, landing face first against the cold tile floor. He felt his nose crunch, but the pain was muted.
Dom thought he lost consciousness after that, but wasn’t sure. His next memory was of shivering so violently that his teeth clacked together. A phantom chill - perhaps from the floor - had settled into his bones, and was colder than he had ever been in his life, colder even than the time he fell into a snowbank and got lost when he was two. Shudders racked his body, and though he tried to turn over, he was too fucking heavy. It was like every muscle in his body had turned to dead weight. Fragmented thoughts swirled in his head, faint colors in the dark, but he couldn’t put any of them together.
With great effort, he managed to push himself slightly up, but a wave of lightheadedness crashed over him and he lowered his head once more. He stopped trying and simply lay there. Shortly, his eyes began to burn and he realized that he wasn’t blinking. Jesus Christ, he wasn’t blinking.
For some strange reason, that brought a fresh bout of panic. He started to hyperventilate, but his lungs still wouldn’t work. He wasn’t blinking…he wasn’t breathing…what was happening to him?
A whimper burst from his throat and he started to cry.
He must have cried himself to sleep, because he woke sometime later to the most intense headache he’d ever had. It felt like something was eating his brain from the inside out. He was sore all over, and could feel his muscles twitching, as though a thousand living things were burrowing through his body. A cramp shot down his right leg, and the toes of his left foot curled involuntarily. Slowly, his jaw clenched closed, and the muscles in his neck began to strain…then to burn. His panic turned to terror, and Dom wiggled across the floor like a worm, his limbs screaming in red agony and his brain filling with heat. He somehow wound up on his right side, and his arms curled slowly up to his chest, crossing at the wrists like a mummy. He tried to pull them apart, but the slightest movement sent waves of excruciating pain cutting through his body. His knees began to draw up to his stomach, and his fingers clenched tightly.
Cramps and spasms attacked every muscle in his body. He screamed through his teeth and shook, resembling a man in the electric chair as 40,000 volts of justice coursed through him. The pain grew gradually, getting worse and worse as minutes ticked by like hours. Higher, higher, higher - he clenched his eyes closed and shrieked as it became unbearable. Disjointed thoughts flashed through his mind - prayers, threats, curses, Jesus fucking…FUCK.
What was happening? God, what was happening to him? Was it fentanyl? He’d seen videos of people high on fentanyl, and they leaned in weird positions. He didn’t do drugs but maybe he ingested it somehow.
His panic may have returned if all of his muscles hadn’t picked that moment to contract as one. His eyes bulged from their sockets and his jaw unclenched just enough for him to utter a high. Agonized scream that echoed through his empty apartment like thunder.
A human being can only take so much before giving out. When the pain reached a crescendo, and Dom mercifully sank into consciousness once more. The sun rose and cascaded through the apartment’s sole window, falling over his huddled form. Slowly, it tracked across the sky before setting again. As the last rays disappeared behind the horizon, Dom’s eyes opened. The pain of the night before was blessedly gone, replaced by a feeling of numbness - the cool ash after the hot fire. His thoughts were slow and thick like molasses, but he could actually think again. Nightmare memories flooded back to him, but he wasn’t sure they were real. He was lying on his side, his arms wrapped around his chest as if for warmth, and his teeth lightly chattered against the icy chill. He was so cold that he didn’t want to move, but he couldn’t stay here forever. He needed help. He needed…
A shower.
Yeah, a hot shower. That would warm him up.
Gritting his teeth, he slowly sat up, ready for a burst of pain.
But none came.
He did, however, feel heavy. Getting to his feet, he stumbled and nearly fell, catching himself against the counter. His limbs had no feeling. It’s like they weren’t even there. Head hung, Dom tried to catch his breath, but it felt like he wasn’t breathing at all. His eyelids drooped closed and he felt like he was going to fall down. Summoning all the might he could, he shuffled into the bathroom with the stiff gait of an old man. He snapped the light on, and cold, white brilliance filled the space, blinding him.
Leaning heavily against the sink, he gripped the cold porcelain. Suddenly, he was afraid of looking into the mirror. He was sure that whatever reflection he saw, it would be of something else, something monstrous.
Dom lifted his head and faced the glass.
His heart shrank.
The man in the mirror was him but different. His skin was white as milk, lacking all color whatsoever save for the ugly purple patch on the left side. IResembling a giant bruise, it started at the temple and extended down to the slope of his neck, disappearing beneath his T-shirt. He gingerly lifted the shirt, and moaned when he saw that his entire left side was discolored, the purple edged with a puffy shade of pink. His sallow skin clung tight to his ribcage, and his hip bones stuck out so much it looked painful. Back in the mirror, his cheeks were sunken, hollow, and his eyes were a hazy, dishwater gray. His skull seemed bigger, his hair longer. Dom wanted to whip his head away from the phantom before him, to never see it again, but he was transfixed.
There was no way that thing was -
Dom looked away, cutting that thought off before it could finish.
A shower.
He needed a shower.
Slowly, stiffly, Dom undressed, peeling off his shirt and his soiled pants. He dropped them in a heap on the floor and stepped under the spray. He could feel the water pounding against him, but it provided no heat. It was neither hot nor cold. It was simply there.
Dom pressed his head to the slick shower wall and stood there for a long time. He was spent, tired, and fried - he had no more emotions left to give. He got out after a little while, dried off, and put on a clean pair of shorts. He settled into bed and lay there with his hands folded over his chest and his eyes open. They felt gritty, dry. His stomach felt bloated, gassy. He was drowsy now, the weight of the past two days (or was it two weeks?) coming down on him all at once. He closed his eyes and fell asleep.
He was still asleep - but aware - when the knocking on his door started the next morning. Time was funny in this state of being, fast and jerky but also slow and echoing. Keys rattled the knob turned. The landlord came in with a cop. They saw him on the bed, laid out like a corpse for a viewing, and the cop radioed in a code 35. Soon, cops were all around him, making noise and touching things. He had the vague sense of discomfort and embarrassment at the intrusion. A baling man in a suit stood over him, a cop who looked like a redneck beside him. “He didn’t die here,” the medical examiner said.
The cop looked at him questioningly. Dom caught the name KENNER on his name tag.
“See this?” the M.E. said and gestured to Dom’s face. “That’s livor mortis. When you die, your blood pools at the lowest point. If you’re on your left side, for example, it pools on the left.”
Kenner looked at Dom and then back to the M.E. “Someone moved him?”
“Looks like it,” the M.E. said.
“When did he die?”
The M.E. examined Dom as though he were nothing more than a side of beef. “At a glance? Three days. I won’t have a better answer until I open him up.”
Dom was still awake when they put him into a body bag and zipped it up. He felt a stirring of fear beneath the cold numbness, but he was too tired to worry about it now.
Later, he thought.
He would panic later.
For now, Dom slept.

Hi all,
I want to ask around a bit on this subreddit to see if someone maybe has a similar experience with this person.
Last month and a few months before that I have been followed by a man at Eindhoven Central station. Both times were the same person that followed me. Im a male and was with my girlfriend both times.
The first time the man followed us through the station itself, we even went through the gates and back and he still kept following us. Then we decided to wait at a place that still had some people waiting there. We sat down, the man followed us and just stood next to us while we were sitting. Looking at us en making fake phone calls. When we got up to the train the guy followed us and waited next to us to enter the train. We then walked all the way to the back of the train to enter there so we could maybe lose him. He again followed us. We were lucky enough to meet some friends of ours so we got on the train together probably scaring him off? We got off the train at an other station together with our friends.
The second time, last month. We were waiting on the train. Suddenly the same guy stood right behind me at the platform just staring at us again. I already knew that he would probably be following us again. Although I still do not know the reason. So once again..... we entered the train, tried to shake him off by going into a different cart, he followed us. We sat down in a four seater (we were with 3 people this time) . The four seater next to us was empty. He decided to not sit down and just stand in the pathway. Standing next to my seat. Staring directly at me, again fake calling someone. There were plenty of empty seats in the train. Then the train staff came in to check tickets. He didn't have a valid ticket and was talking to the staff with his back facing us. We then decided to walk to the last cart in the train while he was busy. We once again were realllly lucky to meet someone we knew. Keep in mind we walked through maybe 4 or more different carts to move to the last cart. After 5 minutes the guy walks into our cart again... He then sits right in front us and starts talking to us. He talks about us also not having a ticket because he saw us walk away while the conductor talked to him. We politely said no and told him we were meeting up with our friend here. He then asked us which station we were headed to. We ignored him. He tried to make contact but we kept ignoring him. The man then walk to a cart intermediate section and kept staring at us through a window in the door. We knew the conductor was still heading our way to check tickets. So my gf walked back into the rest of the train to meet up with the conductor. She told him that this man has been following us and that this was the second time. The conductor then proceeded to walk to our cart, talk to the guy who was still at the intermediate section and said we could go to first class, away from him. The conductor then kept him on the train so he couldnt get off at our station (shout out to the conductor).
Both times we tried to avoid conflict with the guy because we do not know what he wants or what he is capable off.
I would like to know if someone maybe recognises this guy or has had a similar experience at Eindhoven station.
The guy was quite tall, id say 1.90m - 2.00m. Black skin colour. A bit of facial hair (rough patchy not so hairy goatee) . Black hair, dreads with a few blonde highlights. Both times wore fairly baggy/ oversized clothing. I guess he is around 30 - 40 years old. He keeps pretending like he is calling someone.
Both times he followed us at Eindhoven Central station at around 22:00.

Hey there guys.
Looking for this Martial Arts or Kung Fu film. I would say it was made and released anywhere between the 1970s to late 1980s. It's definitely not American Samurai or Best Of The Best 2. It had an Oriental/Asian tone to it. The movie had a hero (good guy) can't remember exactly who and the main villain (bad guy) was this very well built muscular Asian man (Chinese or Japanese) with either a fully shaved head with a long black braid with a hidden arrow tip or blade in it, or, long black hair with a hidden braid with a blade. He had a fu man chu style facial hair, or a longer goatee for his facial hair. He was wearing black leather gaunlets on his wrists and had long black pants. Pretty sure he wore a black top when he was not fighting like a sleeveless black gi and when he fought he was shirtless from memory. He had a lighter Asian skin colour and high Shang Tsung vibes from Mortal Kombat. Almost looked like Shang Tsung from the Mortal Kombat Conquest series. He would whip his hair around in a capoeira or wushu style of fighting, using the momentum of the flipping to kill the other fighters with the blade in his hair. He was the only fighter that had a weapon in the film. It was almost like it was not known by the other fighters he fought against, and he would hide it to use the blade to cheat and try and kill other fighters in the tournament.
I remember a particular scene of him at some point in the movie, entering the arena or fight area through like a prison cell door. He then turned around and closed the door behind him and then he walked along this catwalk or walkway with a menacing walk and it had like a sideview camera angle of him while walking eith some eerie music playing. He then went to go and sit down and watch some deathmatches between other fighters. When it came time for him to fight, he would use the momentum of his style and he would try and land or catch other fighters in the throat with the arrow tip or blade from his hair. He had a few fights in the film.
A few fighting scenes with the main villain I remember are:
One fight he was dancing and flipping around, just toying with his opponent. (Using the wushu or capoeira fighting style to do it). Eventually he beat his opponent to death or caught him in the throat with the blade.
Another fight I remember he started slicing a guy with his hair slowly, (like a shark preying on him bite by bite) and then he eventually either strangled the guy to death or caught him in the throat with the hair blades again which killed him.
Then the final fight from memory he had in the film I remember was when he was against the hero (main protagonist). The hero faces him and the blade fighter's ponytail gets caught by the hero or something happens where he makes a mistake and he is then stabbed to death with his own hair blades, or, beaten to death by I'm pretty sure the main protagonist and hero.
Pretty sure it was some sort of illegal kumite tournament movie like bloodsport but a lot more gritty and violent. It had multiple different fighters with different styles. In some almost prison like environment that was torchlit and the fighters would fight on a big sandpit with a rectangular or squarish big black cage that had steel bars surrounding them. There was no escape between fights. A gong would sound between some fights and it was almost like it was illegal human cockfights. I cannot remember entirely if the fights were voluntary, they were trying to win something like a prize or if they were all being held against their will, but they had to fight in order to advance or survive. The other fighters I believe were being held behind steel bars or cells and watching the fights. Almost like Bloodfist 2 in a way. I definitely think the film was more 70s or even 80s. The movie was extremely violent and very brutal. From memory, it was well shot to. It was most likely a B Grade film though and it had that Asian martial arts feel to it.
Thank you in advance guys.

I’m in a stageplay, and need to play an older character, but I’m not sure of what I should get to artificially gray my hair to make me look older. I’m looking for something temporary but won’t leave much of a mess on clothes.
I have ve somewhat curly dark brown hair that looks black, mustache with goatee. Plan to gray my facial hair and my sideburns, maybe the rest? I do wear a hat, if briefly.
Am thinking Mehron Makeup Hair White or Hair Silver, but I’d like other people’s opinions.

Hey there guys.
Looking for this Martial Arts or Kung Fu film. I would say it was made and released anywhere between the 1970s to late 1980s. It's definitely not American Samurai or Best Of The Best 2. It had an Oriental/Asian tone to it. The movie had a hero (good guy) can't remember exactly who and the main villain (bad guy) was this very well built muscular Asian man (Chinese or Japanese) with either a fully shaved head with a long black braid with a hidden arrow tip or blade in it, or, long black hair with a hidden braid with a blade. He had a fu man chu style facial hair, or a longer goatee for his facial hair. He was wearing black leather gaunlets on his wrists and had long black pants. Pretty sure he wore a black top when he was not fighting like a sleeveless black gi and when he fought he was shirtless from memory. He had a lighter Asian skin colour and high Shang Tsung vibes from Mortal Kombat. Almost looked like Shang Tsung from the Mortal Kombat Conquest series. He would whip his hair around in a capoeira or wushu style of fighting, using the momentum of the flipping to kill the other fighters with the blade in his hair. He was the only fighter that had a weapon in the film. It was almost like it was not known by the other fighters he fought against, and he would hide it to use the blade to cheat and try and kill other fighters in the tournament.
I remember a particular scene of him at some point in the movie, entering the arena or fight area through like a prison cell door. He then turned around and closed the door behind him and then he walked along this catwalk or walkway with a menacing walk and it had like a sideview camera angle of him while walking eith some eerie music playing. He then went to go and sit down and watch some deathmatches between other fighters. When it came time for him to fight, he would use the momentum of his style and he would try and land or catch other fighters in the throat with the arrow tip or blade from his hair. He had a few fights in the film.
A few fighting scenes with the main villain I remember are:
One fight he was dancing and flipping around, just toying with his opponent. (Using the wushu or capoeira fighting style to do it). Eventually he beat his opponent to death or caught him in the throat with the blade.
Another fight I remember he started slicing a guy with his hair slowly, (like a shark preying on him bite by bite) and then he eventually either strangled the guy to death or caught him in the throat with the hair blades again which killed him.
Then the final fight from memory he had in the film I remember was when he was against the hero (main protagonist). The hero faces him and the blade fighter's ponytail gets caught by the hero or something happens where he makes a mistake and he is then stabbed to death with his own hair blades, or, beaten to death by I'm pretty sure the main protagonist and hero.
Pretty sure it was some sort of illegal kumite tournament movie like bloodsport but a lot more gritty and violent. It had multiple different fighters with different styles. In some almost prison like environment that was torchlit and the fighters would fight on a big sandpit with a rectangular or squarish big black cage that had steel bars surrounding them. There was no escape between fights. A gong would sound between some fights and it was almost like it was illegal human cockfights. I cannot remember entirely if the fights were voluntary, they were trying to win something like a prize or if they were all being held against their will, but they had to fight in order to advance or survive. The other fighters I believe were being held behind steel bars or cells and watching the fights. Almost like Bloodfist 2 in a way. I definitely think the film was more 70s or even 80s. The movie was extremely violent and very brutal. From memory, it was well shot to. It was most likely a B Grade film though and it had that Asian martial arts feel to it.
Thank you in advance guys.

Hey there guys.
Looking for this Martial Arts or Kung Fu film. I would say it was made and released anywhere between the 1970s to late 1980s. It's definitely not American Samurai or Best Of The Best 2. It had an Oriental/Asian tone to it. The movie had a hero (good guy) can't remember exactly who and the main villain (bad guy) was this very well built muscular Asian man (Chinese or Japanese) with either a fully shaved head with a long black braid with a hidden arrow tip or blade in it, or, long black hair with a hidden braid with a blade. He had a fu man chu style facial hair, or a longer goatee for his facial hair. He was wearing black leather gaunlets on his wrists and had long black pants. Pretty sure he wore a black top when he was not fighting like a sleeveless black gi and when he fought he was shirtless from memory. He had a lighter Asian skin colour and high Shang Tsung vibes from Mortal Kombat. Almost looked like Shang Tsung from the Mortal Kombat Conquest series. He would whip his hair around in a capoeira or wushu style of fighting, using the momentum of the flipping to kill the other fighters with the blade in his hair. He was the only fighter that had a weapon in the film. It was almost like it was not known by the other fighters he fought against, and he would hide it to use the blade to cheat and try and kill other fighters in the tournament.
I remember a particular scene of him at some point in the movie, entering the arena or fight area through like a prison cell door. He then turned around and closed the door behind him and then he walked along this catwalk or walkway with a menacing walk and it had like a sideview camera angle of him while walking eith some eerie music playing. He then went to go and sit down and watch some deathmatches between other fighters. When it came time for him to fight, he would use the momentum of his style and he would try and land or catch other fighters in the throat with the arrow tip or blade from his hair. He had a few fights in the film.
A few fighting scenes with the main villain I remember are:
One fight he was dancing and flipping around, just toying with his opponent. (Using the wushu or capoeira fighting style to do it). Eventually he beat his opponent to death or caught him in the throat with the blade.
Another fight I remember he started slicing a guy with his hair slowly, (like a shark preying on him bite by bite) and then he eventually either strangled the guy to death or caught him in the throat with the hair blades again which killed him.
Then the final fight from memory he had in the film I remember was when he was against the hero (main protagonist). The hero faces him and the blade fighter's ponytail gets caught by the hero or something happens where he makes a mistake and he is then stabbed to death with his own hair blades, or, beaten to death by I'm pretty sure the main protagonist and hero.
Pretty sure it was some sort of illegal kumite tournament movie like bloodsport but a lot more gritty and violent. It had multiple different fighters with different styles. In some almost prison like environment that was torchlit and the fighters would fight on a big sandpit with a rectangular or squarish big black cage that had steel bars surrounding them. There was no escape between fights. A gong would sound between some fights and it was almost like it was illegal human cockfights. I cannot remember entirely if the fights were voluntary, they were trying to win something like a prize or if they were all being held against their will, but they had to fight in order to advance or survive. The other fighters I believe were being held behind steel bars or cells and watching the fights. Almost like Bloodfist 2 in a way. I definitely think the film was more 70s or even 80s. The movie was extremely violent and very brutal. From memory, it was well shot to. It was most likely a B Grade film though and it had that Asian martial arts feel to it.
Thank you in advance guys.

Hey there guys.
Looking for this Martial Arts or Kung Fu film. I would say it was made and released anywhere between the 1970s to late 1980s. It's definitely not American Samurai or Best Of The Best 2. It had an Oriental/Asian tone to it. The movie had a hero (good guy) can't remember exactly who and the main villain (bad guy) was this very well built muscular Asian man (Chinese or Japanese) with either a fully shaved head with a long black braid with a hidden arrow tip or blade in it, or, long black hair with a hidden braid with a blade. He had a fu man chu style facial hair, or a longer goatee for his facial hair. He was wearing black leather gaunlets on his wrists and had long black pants. Pretty sure he wore a black top when he was not fighting like a sleeveless black gi and when he fought he was shirtless from memory. He had a lighter Asian skin colour and high Shang Tsung vibes from Mortal Kombat. Almost looked like Shang Tsung from the Mortal Kombat Conquest series. He would whip his hair around in a capoeira or wushu style of fighting, using the momentum of the flipping to kill the other fighters with the blade in his hair. He was the only fighter that had a weapon in the film. It was almost like it was not known by the other fighters he fought against, and he would hide it to use the blade to cheat and try and kill other fighters in the tournament.
I remember a particular scene of him at some point in the movie, entering the arena or fight area through like a prison cell door. He then turned around and closed the door behind him and then he walked along this catwalk or walkway with a menacing walk and it had like a sideview camera angle of him while walking eith some eerie music playing. He then went to go and sit down and watch some deathmatches between other fighters. When it came time for him to fight, he would use the momentum of his style and he would try and land or catch other fighters in the throat with the arrow tip or blade from his hair. He had a few fights in the film.
A few fighting scenes with the main villain I remember are:
One fight he was dancing and flipping around, just toying with his opponent. (Using the wushu or capoeira fighting style to do it). Eventually he beat his opponent to death or caught him in the throat with the blade.
Another fight I remember he started slicing a guy with his hair slowly, (like a shark preying on him bite by bite) and then he eventually either strangled the guy to death or caught him in the throat with the hair blades again which killed him.
Then the final fight from memory he had in the film I remember was when he was against the hero (main protagonist). The hero faces him and the blade fighter's ponytail gets caught by the hero or something happens where he makes a mistake and he is then stabbed to death with his own hair blades, or, beaten to death by I'm pretty sure the main protagonist and hero.
Pretty sure it was some sort of illegal kumite tournament movie like bloodsport but a lot more gritty and violent. It had multiple different fighters with different styles. In some almost prison like environment that was torchlit and the fighters would fight on a big sandpit with a rectangular or squarish big black cage that had steel bars surrounding them. There was no escape between fights. A gong would sound between some fights and it was almost like it was illegal human cockfights. I cannot remember entirely if the fights were voluntary, they were trying to win something like a prize or if they were all being held against their will, but they had to fight in order to advance or survive. The other fighters I believe were being held behind steel bars or cells and watching the fights. Almost like Bloodfist 2 in a way. I definitely think the film was more 70s or even 80s. The movie was extremely violent and very brutal. From memory, it was well shot to. It was most likely a B Grade film though and it had that Asian martial arts feel to it.
Thank you in advance guys.

Chapter One: The Knight It Began
It was a cool November night when Professor Jameson Hyde Whitewas driving his 1969 Chevrolet Silverado down Welker Lane. In the truck bed was a crate. Inside was a suit of black medieval armor, dark as the midnight sky above. Legends said that when the moon is full, like on this dreadful night, the armor would come alive. The suit once belonged to Sir Ripley, a knight that betrayed King Arthur to Morgan Le Fay. Only during the fifth stage of the lunar cycle could his spirit inside the armor come alive. And the Professor was unaware of the armor’s curse. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t remain that way for much longer. The Black Knight creaked open its box and drew its sword, which was modeled after King Arthur’s blade, from next to him. As the Professor switched the stations on his radio, the ebony blade of the Knight pierced his chest. As he choked out his final breath through the blood that was filling his lungs, he swerved the car into a tree. The Knight merely cleaned off his blade and put himself into his crate, under the orders of a mysterious figure clad in orange and red robes. The man was ancient and drew a wooden wand before vanishing in a cloud of crimson mist. A nearby sign read: “Welcome to Coolsville.”
Coolsville was a town in Ohio founded in 1815 by businessmen Joe Spears and Ken Ruby. It was a small town. A quiet town. That was until 2013. Judy Reeves, wife of mayoral candidate Fred Jones Sr, died in a tragic car accident. To say he was distraught would be an understatement. He left behind his seven year old son Fred Jones Jr with his brother Eddie and his wife Peggy. Jones Sr dropped out of the race and vanished for several years before returning in 2017 and winning the election. He took back custody of his son. This was six years ago. It was now 2023. Fred Jones Jr woke up at six in the morning. He had a very tight routine. He turned on his MP3, blaring his mix. Songs on this tape consisted of the likes of Frank Sinatra’s Strangers in the Night, Davy Jones’ I Can Make You Happy, Jerry Reed’s Pretty Mary Sunlight, and others from the 50s, 60s, and 70s. This was all his mother left him: a final birthday gift.
First thing he did, as usual, was go to the indoor gym. Weights, treadmills, and exercise bikes galore. He ran a mile on the treadmill, spent thirty minutes on the bike, and bench pressed. He smiled as he finally hit his goal weight: 220 pounds. Then, he got dressed. His usual attire consisted of a white t-shirt, a white and blue letterman, blue athletic pants with an orange side stripe, brown sneakers, and his lucky ascot. Finally, he went for a run. Silverman’s, a local malt shop, was his usual destination. As he walked inside, he was graced by familiar sights. KISS blaring on the jukebox, Walt working the counter, and, oddly, a man sitting in a booth. “Morning, Freddie. The usual?” he asked, wiping down a mess from a spilt shake. “Yeah, Walt. But make it two.” Fred responded. “Who’s the man in the suit?” Walt asked. Fred smiled and took the drinks before sitting in the booth with the man in the suit. He wore a blue suit with a white undershirt and a red tie. He had bright blonde hair, similar to Fred’s, and black round glasses. “Here you go, Mr-” “Byrdman. Harvey Byrdman. Attorney at law.” the man in the suit responded. Fred smiled. “So I have a case?”
“Yes, Mr Jones. Yes you do. Financial records show an increased spending after your mother’s passing. According to her will, she left you a million dollars. Accounting for inflation, she left you $1.3 million dollars. These finance records show that your father spent roughly 75% of that on his campaign. Unfortunately, because you were a minor, he could control your funds. But now that you're an adult, you can sue for your money.” Harvey explained. “How much do you need from me?” Fred asked. “None. I'll take this case pro-bono.” Harvey answered, soothing Fred’s monetary worries. The duo talked until Fred got a notification from his phone. “I’m sorry to cut this short, Mr Byrdman. But I have to get to school.” he said, before leaving. He gave Walt $20 and left.
On the other side of town in the rich neighborhood of North Hills, Daphne Blake was awoken by her alarm clock. She brushed her scarlet hair out of her face and got dressed in her usual attire: lavender shirt and tights, a purple leather jacket, lavender go-go boots, a green scarf, and a purple headband. As she went down the stairs, she heard her parents arguing like every morning. “Damn it, Nan! I told you to cut the spending. Now I have the fucking IRS on my ass. This is your fault. You told me to lie. You told me to-” “Don't you dare put this shit on me, Barty! You were the one who cooked the books, not me. You were the sell-out who let Destroido Corp. take over the company. Not me.” As the two went back and forth, a gentle hand tapped on Daphne’s shoulder. She quickly turned around, only to have a sigh of relief. “Jeepers. You scared me, Jenkins.” Daphne said to her butler, Edwin Jenkins. The pair went into a customized purple and green 2022 Cadillac CT5. “As cold as your father may seem, he does care for you, Ms Blake.” Jenkins said somberly, before starting the car.
In Cape Cohn sat a bookstore: Dinkley’s Domum Mysterii. If you wanted to see or search for the supernatural, this was your stop. The sixteen year old daughter of store owners Angela and Dale Dinkley, Velma was wise beyond her years. She was wearing her traditional clothing: a red miniskirt, red high-top sneakers, orange knee high socks, and an orange turtleneck sweater.. She wore a red blazer over this, with a pendant of a gold magnifying glass with a question mark inside. Velma was a certified genius, with an IQ of 185. She should technically be in college. But her and her parents agreed it was important to experience high school so as to not become detached. She was sitting on the couch inside, reading Vincent Van Ghoul’s latest novel: Mansion on Murder Mountain. She finished the book, closed up shop, and took the bus to Coolsville High.
In the heart of Coolsville was a neighborhood called Tumbletown. It was actually the first part of Coolsville built. But time hasn't been kind. Between the robberies in the 1850s by the mercenary Cold Steel, the terrorist attacks in the 1870s by Nitro Wazinksy, and famously the Kasem incident, when an entire family was brutally murdered outside of the Kasem Radio Station. As such, the town has abandoned Tumbletown. But many still lived there. Norville Rogers, or as he’s commonly called, Shaggy was awoken by his dog, Scooby-Doo licking his face. “Like, Scoob. If I wanted to shower, I'd go to the bathroom.” he said, chuckling. “Rorry, Raggy. Rut Rad raid rit’s rime ror rool.” the dog said. Shaggy wasn’t shocked. Scooby-Doo’s grandfather was part of a science experiment in the early 2000’s. An organization called the STORM (Science, Technology, Organics, Research, and Mechanics) Foundation, ran by Professor Phineas Pericles, began experimenting with animal genetics. This led to various animals gaining another level of sentience, including the ability to speak. After a hacker known as Mr E exposed the project, the talking animals were freed and allowed to live their lives. Scooby-Doo was a byproduct of that experiment. Shaggy went into the bathroom, observing himself in the mirror: long scruffy hair accented by a small goatee. His eyes were beat red. “Zoinks! If Dad sees this, he’ll kill me.” he said, splashing water in his face. Shaggy had been a stoner since his dad got divorced years ago. Scooby tried to comfort his owner as best he could. Shaggy put on a loose-fitting green t-shirt, brown sweatpants, and a dark green zip-up hoodie. He grabbed a bag of blunts from his closet, put them in his pocket, and went downstairs. His dad, Colton, was passed out watching reruns of The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour. Shaggy scoffed at his father and went outside into his green and blue 2020 Nissan NV Passenger van. He turned on the radio, playing the Hex Girls’ Earth, Wind, Fire, and Air, before driving off

A long time ago, I told you about my OC, Gabriel Hope. Now, months later, and lots of tinkering with concepts on character AI, I have began development of the script for Gabriel Hope: Odd Attorney! Here's the intro. (Among the busy lawyers investigating horrendous murders and chatter among the Wright & Co. Office, there's a small desk in the corner, where a lawyer is sleeping on his desk, without a care in the world. This lawyer is a newbie named Gabriel Hope. He's not like the attorneys around him, willing to do anything to win, even forging evidence, in fact, he's the opposite. This Canadian Immigrant is possibly one of the most friendly lawyers anybody will ever meet! His laid back and kind attitude is quite unusual in a field filled with cold and serious business moguls. Instead of yelling at suspects, he talks to them like he's talking to a friend. His clients genuinely care about him, and are willing to tell him just about anything! This has led him to be undefeated in his first few cases, actually! But, right now, he's sleeping on the job, ignoring his duties. He doesn't quite look like a lawyer. Instead of a black suit, with khakis and dress shoes, and combed hair, Gabriel dresses in gray shorts, a red T-shirt, messy brown hair, a thin goatee, and a black hoodie around his waist. It's an absolute miracle that he hasn't been dress-coded yet. Right now, you may be thinking, why is he so successful as a defense attorney? One word. Intellect. Most lawyers are smart, but he has an amazing IQ of 155. But, at this point, he hasn't been able to express his knowledge very well in the courtroom. All 3 of his cases at this point have been small misdemeanors, being quite easy to solve with ease and effectiveness. The case that this man is about to get, however, is what most people call, “A big breakthrough.” But, Gabriel, and his weird ways to say normal phrases, calls it “A major occurrence that will change the trajectory of a person’s career permanently.” Either way you say it, it will change his life forever. I welcome you all, to Gabriel’s first murder case.) All ideas and recommendations will be greatly recommended. But, for the general ideas of the cases, I got all of them for the first game, which will be 5 cases, but I may make a sequel if it's good. (This is not a game. Yet...) I hope you enjoy this, and I would love anybody support, from concepts to art or just a compliment, it goes a long way for me!