Taken from: https://www.theringer.com/movies/2024/5/21/24161120/greatest-movie-car-chase-scenes-ranked-furiosa-mad-max-saga
In honor of the imminent ‘Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,’ we’re shifting into high gear to determine the best chase scene in cinema history
By Miles Surrey May 21, 2024, 6:30am EDTGetty Images/Ringer illustration
After wowing audiences with Mad Max: Fury Road, director George Miller returns to the franchise’s post-apocalyptic wastelands for Furiosa, the epic origin story of the eponymous heroine (now played by Anya Taylor-Joy), premiering on Friday. As the follow-up to one of the greatest action films ever made, it’s hard to overstate the hype for Furiosa, and that was before word got out about a showstopping 15-minute sequence that required nearly 200 stuntpeople and took 78 days to shoot. While Furiosa will have its own distinct flavor, as is true of every Mad Max movie, there’s one thing that unites these projects: intense, jaw-dropping scenes of vehicular mayhem. And what better way to honor the franchise than by celebrating what it does best?
Ahead of Furiosa’s release, we’ve put together our definitive ranking of the best car chases in cinema. There weren’t any strict rules in place, other than capping the list at 20—mostly for my own sanity—and limiting every franchise to one entry. (Apologies to Fury Road’s kickass predecessor The Road Warrior.) We also won’t discriminate against scenes that feature motorbikes, so long as cars (and/or trucks) remain part of the equation. As for what, exactly, constitutes a good car chase? Like list making, it’s bound to be subjective, but I tend to gravitate toward two key elements: the skill of the stuntwork on display and the ways in which a filmmaker conveys the action in relation to the story. (Also, the less CGI, the better.) Buckle up, ’cause we’re not wasting any time shifting into high gear.

20. Quantum of Solace (2008)

There have been some memorable car chases in the James Bond franchise: the first sequence featuring the iconic Aston Martin DB5 in Goldfinger, the corkscrew jump in The Man With the Golden Gun, the Lotus Esprit submarine in The Spy Who Loved Me. But I’m going with a somewhat controversial pick here: Quantum of Solace. There are many issues with Quantum of Solace—namely, it was one of the most high-profile blockbusters affected by the 2007-08 writers strike—but its opening scene isn’t one of them. Picking up right where Casino Royale left off, we find Bond (Daniel Craig) evading henchmen through the narrow roads around Italy’s Lake Garda. The frenetic, furious chase mirrors Bond’s sense of anguish after losing Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), the woman he opened his heart to, and his relentless quest for answers. It’s a thrilling tone-setter for Quantum of Solace and one that doesn’t overstay its welcome, capped off by Bond sending his final pursuers flying off a cliff:
If we’re being honest, though, it feels like James Bond has yet to create a franchise-defining car chase. Perhaps that’s a mission the newest 007, whoever it ends up being, can undertake.

19. Mission: Impossible—Rogue Nation (2015)

The Mission: Impossible franchise is no stranger to electrifying chase scenes, the best of which find Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt working up his heart rate. When it comes to action behind the wheel, though, Fallout tends to dominate the discussion—even on this very website. But I think the vehicular chase in Rogue Nation is being slept on. What we have is effectively two sequences for the price of one: The first finds Hunt pursuing Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) by car through the narrow streets of Casablanca alongside some nefarious henchmen; the second sees him continue the chase outside the city on motorbike. (Adding to the chaos: Hunt had only just been resuscitated, and he’s clearly not all there.) In terms of death-defying stunts for the audience’s entertainment, a helmetless Cruise taking corners like a MotoGP racer is child’s play compared to his other exploits, but the actor’s authentic reaction to scraping his knee on the road underlines that there’s no one else in Hollywood doing it like him:
We’ll be sure to update this ranking if and when Cruise does something even more dangerous down the road, pun unintended.

18. Vanishing Point (1971)

A movie that counts the likes of Steven Spielberg and Quentin Tarantino among its biggest fans, Vanishing Point is the first of a few entries on this ranking that’s essentially one extended car chase. The film stars Barry Newman as Kowalski, a man tasked with delivering a Dodge Challenger T 440 Magnum from Colorado to California while eluding police across four states. One of Kowalski’s most memorable run-ins comes when a guy driving a Jaguar E-Type convertible challenges him to an impromptu race. Incredibly, we’re expected to believe the man in the Jag comes out of this crash in one piece:
Vanishing Point might not boast the impressive production values of other movies on this list, but considering Tarantino would go on to feature a white Challenger in Death Proof, its influence in the car cinema canon is undeniable.

17. Fast Five (2011)

Let’s face it, Fast & Furious has seen better days. Some believe the franchise’s dip in quality coincided with the death of Paul Walker; others are dismayed by the pivot from street racing to absurd feats of superherodom—emphasis on the Dom. Perhaps it’s a bit of both, but the very best movie in the series, Fast Five, manages to strike the perfect balance: It’s a relatively grounded heist thriller that nevertheless takes the franchise to ridiculous new heights. After Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and his crew steal $100 million from a Brazilian kingpin, they drag the entire bank vault holding the money through the streets of Rio de Janeiro, all while being pursued by authorities. It’s a delightfully destructive sequence that does untold damage to Rio’s infrastructure and features some of the most bone-crunching crashes committed to film:
If the Fast franchise is going to break out of its recent slump, it would do well to remember that there’s nothing better than letting its heroes live their lives a quarter mile at a time—no detours to outer space required.

16. The Blues Brothers (1980)

A good car chase isn’t reserved just for action flicks: Comedies can get in on the act, too. In The Blues Brothers, starring the recurring Saturday Night Live characters played by John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, the beloved bandmates must prevent the foreclosure of the orphanage where they were raised by scrounging together $5,000. Naturally, that’s easier said than done: Along the way, the Blues Brothers draw the attention of neo-Nazis, a country-and-western band, and local police. While The Blues Brothers has amusing gags and musical numbers, its chase sequences with the Brothers behind the wheel of a 1974 Dodge Monaco are what really steal the show—and none are better than a climactic pursuit across Chicago. More than 60 old police cars were used in the film, some of which are wrecked in a comically over-the-top pileup:
The sheer scale of The Blues Brothers’ final set piece is commendable in and of itself—as is the movie’s commitment to treating real-life cars like a bunch of Hot Wheels.

15. Baby Driver (2017)

For good and for ill, Edgar Wright’s movies exude an abundance of style, and Baby Driver is no exception. Baby Driver is centered on a clever gimmick: The action works in tandem with its soundtrack because the film’s protagonist, Baby (Ansel Elgort), suffers from tinnitus and constantly plays music to drown out the ringing. When everything’s clicking into place, Baby Driver feels like a supersized series of music videos, and nothing hits quite like its opening sequence. Baby acts as the getaway driver for a bank robbery while listening to the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion’s “Bellbottoms.” The ensuing chase works around rhythms of the song, as if Baby’s Subaru WRX were the star of its own dance number. Take nothing away from the actual driving, either, which puts the rally car to good use:
Baby Driver’s gimmick stretches a little thin by the end, but it’s hard to deny the crowd-pleasing power of Wright’s film when it’s firing on all cylinders.

14. The Raid 2 (2014)

With a trio of kickass Indonesian martial arts films under his belt, Gareth Evans has established himself as one of the most exciting action directors on the planet—someone who seems most in his element staging positively brutal hand-to-hand combat. In The Raid 2, however, Evans also brought his signature brand of carnage to the road. While there’s some cleverly executed close-quarters fighting within the confines of an SUV, courtesy of Iko Uwais’s hard-hitting protagonist, what really cements this sequence’s greatness are the moments when Evans turns the cars into an extension of the characters’ fists:
This belongs in an entirely new category of combat: car fights. There are so many action scenes in The Raid 2 worth writing home about—the kitchen showdown is an all-timer—but the fact that Evans casually tossed in an unforgettable car chase shows why he’s one of one.

13. The Driver (1978)

I’ll say this for Walter Hill’s The Driver: It sure lives up to its title. In this stripped-down thriller—one where none of the characters have a name—we follow the Driver (Ryan O’Neal), a getaway driver who has become a thorn in the side of the LAPD. In the film’s best scene, we see its taciturn protagonist living up to his reputation. With the Driver behind the wheel of a 1974 Ford Galaxie, a cat-and-mouse game unfolds when a handful of police cars are hot on his tail. What I love about this sequence is the pared-down nature of it all: The Driver outwits the cops as much as he outraces them. (Though, ironically, that wasn’t entirely by design: As Hill later explained, an accident on the last night of shooting meant they had to cobble together what had already been filmed.) Frankly, you’d never know the difference from the finished article:
If the general vibes of The Driver seem familiar, that’s because it was a major inspiration for Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive, which just so happened to feature an unnamed protagonist (Ryan Gosling) evading police through the streets of Los Angeles.

12. The Bourne Supremacy (2004)

The shaky-cam style of the Bourne franchise isn’t for everyone—just ask John Woo—but credit where it’s due: These movies know how to deliver a good chase scene. (A friendly reminder that The Bourne Legacy is an underrated gem with an awesome motorbike sequence to boot.) But there’s one Bourne chase that stands above the rest: the Moscow getaway in The Bourne Supremacy. After being wounded by the Russian assassin Kirill (Karl Urban), Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) hijacks a taxi, with both the police and Kirill in hot pursuit. This isn’t the kind of sequence that lingers on any one shot; instead, what makes it work is the frenetic nature of the editing, which allows the viewer to feel like they’re in Bourne’s fight-or-flight headspace:
If I’m being honest, I’m usually one of those people who doesn’t like the Bourne movies’ shaky-cam style, but when it’s executed with such craftsmanship, you can’t help but get caught up in its adrenaline-pumping power.

11. The Seven-Ups (1973)

Philip D’Antoni was the producer of two movies featuring Hall of Fame car chases, Bullitt and The French Connection, the latter of which won him an Oscar for Best Picture. And with his lone directorial feature, The Seven-Ups, D’Antoni sought to craft an iconic sequence of his own. The film stars Roy Scheider as NYPD detective Buddy Mannuci (elite Italian American name; I can practically smell the gabagool), who commands a unit handling major felony cases that lead to seven-plus-year prison sentences; that’s why they’re known as the Seven-Ups. Midway through the movie, when one of the team members is killed by two shooters who flee the scene, Buddy chases after them. The 10-minute sequence, which starts in the Upper West Side before moving out of the city, is thrillingly immersive, alternating between close-ups of the characters and wider shots of all the damage they’ve caused. But the chase’s defining moment comes right at the end, when Buddy narrowly avoids a grisly death:
The sequence isn’t quite at the level of Bullitt or The French Connection—very few are—but D’Antoni still manages to leave an unmistakable imprint on the car chase canon.

10. Death Proof (2007)

If you ask Quentin Tarantino, Death Proof, his knowingly trashy tribute to exploitation cinema, is the worst movie he’s ever made. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot to admire about the film, which honors the unsung heroes of Hollywood: stunt performers. The first half of Death Proof follows three female friends who cross paths with Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell), a misogynistic serial killer who takes them out in his “death-proof” Chevy Nova. Fourteen months later, a group that includes stuntwoman Zoë Bell, playing herself, also lands on Mike’s radar. As Bell and her friends test out a ’70s Challenger, she performs a “ship’s mast” stunt, clinging onto the hood of the car with fastening belts. Unfortunately, when Mike pursues the women, it puts Bell in a precarious situation. Most of the entries on this list celebrate some next-level driving skills, but Death Proof’s inclusion is all about Bell pulling off one of the wildest stunts you’ll ever see. She’s quite literally hanging on for dear life:
If the Academy handed out Oscars to stunt performers—and let’s hope it does happen one day—Bell would’ve won in a landslide.

9. To Live and Die in L.A. (1985)

William Friedkin was already responsible for an all-time great car chase in The French Connection (more on that later), but the filmmaker made a commendable bid to outdo himself with To Live and Die in L.A. In this neo-noir thriller, Secret Service agent Richard Chance (William L. Petersen) is hell-bent on arresting an expert counterfeiter, Rick Masters (Willem Dafoe), who kills Chance’s partner days before his retirement. To capture Masters, Chance and his new partner, John Vukovich (John Pankow), attempt to steal $50,000 from a jewelry buyer for an undercover operation. The sting goes bad when the buyer, who is later revealed to be an undercover FBI agent, is killed and a group of gunmen goes after Chance and Vukovich. It’s a clever inversion of the usual car chase formula—this time, it’s the lawmen running away from the criminals. The outside-the-box thinking extends to the film’s most astonishing stretch, in which Chance evades the gunmen by driving into oncoming traffic:
The fact that Friedkin shot the chase at the end of filming—in case anything disastrous happened to the actors—underscores just how risky the endeavor was. The pulse-pounding results speak for themselves.

8. The Matrix Reloaded (2003)

The Matrix sequels have never been held in high esteem, but I’m ready to live my truth: The Matrix Reloaded fucking rules. (If anyone’s got a problem with this take, file your complaints with the Architect.) What’s more, the film happens to boast the finest action set piece of the franchise: the highway chase. After Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) and Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) free the Keymaker (Randall Duk Kim), a program capable of creating shortcuts within the Matrix, they’re pursued by the Twins (Neil and Adrian Rayment). Morpheus once warned that going on the freeway was “suicide,” and it doesn’t take long to see why: The chase draws the attention of several Agents, who repeatedly take over the bodies of other drivers on the road. The scene is the best of both worlds: There’s some incredible stuntwork on display, including when Moss weaves around on a Ducati, and CGI augments some feats of superhuman strength. But the most jaw-dropping aspect of the sequence is how it came together, as the production spent $2.5 million to construct its own highway (!) on California’s Alameda Island. If that weren’t unique enough, I’m pretty sure Reloaded is also the only movie in existence in which a katana takes out an SUV:
The Matrix remains the Wachowskis’ masterpiece, but don’t get it twisted: The filmmakers were still cooking with gas in the sequel.

7. Gone in 60 Seconds (1974)

Size isn’t everything, but for H. B. Halicki, who produced, wrote, directed, and starred in Gone in 60 Seconds, it’s certainly part of the package. The indie action flick follows Maindrian Pace (Halicki), a Los Angeles insurance investigator who has a lucrative side hustle jacking high-end cars. The plot kicks into motion when a South American drug lord enlists Pace to nab 48 cars within five days in exchange for $400,000. Of course, Gone in 60 Seconds is best known for what happens after Pace is caught stealing a 1973 Ford Mustang Mach 1, when he leads police on a chase that lasts a whopping 40 minutes. (More than 90 cars were destroyed in the process.) Halicki, for his part, did all the driving himself, including a spectacular jump off a makeshift ramp of crashed cars:
While Halicki wound up making a few more indies after Gone in 60 Seconds, he died in an accident on the set of its sequel. His legacy as a do-it-all daredevil, however, lives on.

6. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

Long before James Cameron immersed himself in the world of Pandora, he was a pioneer of state-of-the-art visual effects. Case in point: Terminator 2: Judgment Day is credited for having the first CGI character in a blockbuster, the T-1000 (Robert Patrick), a killing machine composed of a futuristic liquid metal. But Cameron also understood that the CGI of that era shouldn’t be the main attraction: It worked best as a complement to the practical effects, as seen in Judgment Day’s epic viaduct chase. When the T-1000 tracks down a young John Connor (Edward Furlong) in a shopping mall, he’s saved at the last minute by the Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger), giving John a chance to escape on his dirt bike. As the T-1000 gives chase, the David and Goliath vibes between man and machine are further epitomized by the T-1000’s commandeering of a truck. The sequence already has a terrifying sense of urgency, but it hits another level when the T-1000 crashes through the viaduct like the Kool-Aid Man:
Big Jim is still revolutionizing what can be achieved with visual effects in the Avatar franchise, and while I cherish those movies, nothing beats his old-school showmanship.

5. Duel (1971)

The feature-length debut of Steven Spielberg—perhaps you’ve heard of him—the TV movie Duel is essentially one extended chase sequence between salesman David Mann (Dennis Weaver) and a sinister trucker determined to drive him off the road. I’ve attached a clip from the ending of the film, but that doesn’t do Duel justice. What cements this movie’s greatness is how it sustains an unbearable level of tension across its 90-minute running time—with a budget under $500,000, no less. Spielberg’s masterstroke is never once showing us the other driver, anthropomorphizing the truck itself as a monster. (You can see a lot of similarities with how he would build suspense in Jaws.) When Mann finally gets the upper hand, tricking his adversary into driving off a cliff, it feels like you can breathe again:
Spielberg would move on to bigger and better things after Duel, but considering how much the director accomplished with so little, you can’t help but wonder what else he could conjure up with limited resources.

4. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

Like Duel, Fury Road is basically one long car chase—the difference is Miller got to work with a blockbuster budget, and made every cent of it count. It’s hard to pick a single standout sequence in Fury Road, but if I had to choose, I’d go with the first attack on the War Rig after Furiosa (Charlize Theron) flees with the wives of Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne). Here’s why: Think back to when you saw Fury Road for the first time, before you fully grasped the vehicular carnage that was in store. And then stuff like this kept happening:
To quote Steven Soderbergh’s thoughts on Fury Road: “I don’t understand how they’re not still shooting that film and I don’t understand how hundreds of people aren’t dead.” Whether or not Miller manages to one-up the action in Furiosa, the director is already in the pantheon.

3. The French Connection (1971)

We return to the Friedkin-verse for what may be his best film, The French Connection, the crime thriller based on Robin Moore’s 1969 nonfiction book of the same name. The story concerns two NYPD detectives, Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle (Gene Hackman) and Buddy “Cloudy” Russo (Roy Scheider), and their tireless pursuit of a French heroin smuggler. But while there’s plenty to admire about how The French Connection illustrates the thin line between police and criminals, its greatest claim to fame is its car chase. After Popeye narrowly survives a sniper attack, he goes after the shooter, who escapes on an elevated train. The ensuing sequence is true daredevil filmmaking that Friedkin shot without permits, leading to real crashes with New Yorkers that made the final cut. But Friedkin’s finest touch was mounting a camera to the front of the car, making the audience feel like they’re part of the action:
My Ringer colleague Justin Sayles believes The French Connection’s chase should’ve landed at no. 1, and I’m sure many folks will agree with him. Being the only film on this list to win Best Picture, however, is a solid consolation prize.

2. Bullitt (1968)

When it comes to modern car chases, all roads lead back to Bullitt. A Dad Cinema classic, the film stars Steve McQueen as Frank Bullitt, a San Francisco detective who pursues a group of mobsters after a key witness is killed in protective custody. In his search for answers, Bullitt realizes he’s being tailed by a couple of hitmen, and then turns the tables on them. From there, the chase is on. Aside from McQueen doing most of his own stunts behind the wheel of a Ford Mustang GT 390 Fastback, what’s so impressive about the sequence is how timeless it is. Even the little imperfections, like hubcaps repeatedly coming off the wheels, work to the film’s advantage, stressing just how much these drivers are living on a razor’s edge. It’s been more than 50 years since Bullitt revolutionized the car chase, and yet few movies since have felt like they’re pushing the envelope to such an exhilarating degree:
That the car driven by McQueen was recently sold at auction for $3.74 million, a then-record price for a Mustang, underlines Bullitt’s enduring legacy.

1. Ronin (1998)

“If I’m going to do a car chase,” filmmaker John Frankenheimer said in an interview with the American Society of Cinematographers, “I’m going to do a car chase that’s going to make somebody think about whether or not they want to do another one!” Boy, did he ever. In Frankenheimer’s late-career masterpiece, Ronin, the director actually incorporated several chases, but it’s the climactic sequence that stands alone as the greatest ever filmed. The movie concerns an international group of mercenaries who are hired to steal a mysterious briefcase; a series of double-crosses and double-bluffs ensue. But for the final chase, all you need to know is that Sam (Robert De Niro), a mercenary with ties to the CIA, is in pursuit of Deirdre (Natascha McElhone), an IRA operative in possession of the case. Winding through the streets and tunnels of Paris, what’s most striking is just how fluid it all feels. You’re completely engrossed in the chase’s forward momentum, captured from every conceivable angle; a symphony of controlled chaos. The driving styles even reflect the characters: Deirdre is reckless and impulsive, while Sam remains calm and controlled.
There are many worthy car chases in this ranking, but in my view, Ronin takes pole position. And while I can’t imagine a movie ever topping what Frankenheimer achieved, I’d love nothing more than to be proved wrong.

This is my first reddit post, although I have been a long time lurker of many subreddits. I am 23 years old and an only child. I am not a native english speaker, so please forgive any weird formatting or any spelling/grammar mistakes.
As the title states, my mom died ... and I am currently writing this to try and process this whole situation. I've tried to section all the paragraphs in chronological order, to make reading easier. Sorry for the extremely long post - I just needed to get it all out.
We only just celebrated her 60th birthday back in february. She did all the cooking, cleaning and planning without any trouble - even down to picking out the perfect napkins and flowers for her white and gold theme.
My mother was without a job. She had been jobless for almost 2 years now, after she was fired from her old cleaning job due to frequent sick days because of stomach cramps and pain. She was seen by a doctor back in 2022 for her stomach aches, and they found no physical cause - hence why we concluded it must've been due to stress. The stress and stomach pains subsided after she'd been fired. So we thought no more of it.
In march she was doing a 4-week internship in a local supermarket to see if she might've been a good fit for a permanent paid position. This is common practice for unemployeed people here in Denmark.
My mother started having stomach pains again during this internship, soon followed by back pains as well. She figured this was due to her spending most of the day sitting as a cashier in an uncomfortable position. My mother wasn't very tall, so she had trouble reaching the floor pedals that control the cashier conveyer belt.
In the beginning of april, she went to the doctor. Her stomach and back pains hadn't gone away although the internship was over. Her doctor also concluded it was most likely due to her uncomfortable working position, and that it would pass in a few weeks time. The doctor did some bloodwork, and found that she was severely lacking vitamin D, but nothing else seemed concerning at the time.
In the middle of april, her pains had only gotten worse, and she went to the doctor again. Her doctor did more bloodwork, and did a phisycal exam of my mothers stomach. Her doctor ordered a CT scan to check for anything serious.
19th of april. I accompany my mother to the hospital for her CT scan. We get told that we'll have the results in a week or so. My mother is not looking good when I pick her up at the bus station. She is more pale than usual, and has trouble walking at her usual pace.
23th of april. My mother received a referral to a meeting at the hospital with a doctor and nurse, to discuss the results of the CT scan. This referral is sent from the hospitals cancer department. My mother and I speak on the phone, she is concerned, but I tell her that this type of referral must just be standard pratice, and that she shouldn't worry untill we have spoken with the doctor. I cried that night.
25th of april. The day before her meeting with the doctor, I received a phone call from my mother. She tells me that she had fallen while at home, but that I shouldn't worry. I, of course, worry.
I pack my things and leave for my mothers house, I live an hour away by bus. When I finally arrive my mother seems okay-ish, but the house is another story. My mother is normally known for being a clean freak, and her house has always been clean and organized, But it wasn't anymore.
Her kitchen was a mess, and the dishwasher hadn't been empited or loaded for at least two weeks. Her bathroom is even worse, and I won't even begin to describe the state of the toilet it self. It is a sight that will horrify me for the rest of my life. I cleaned everything, while my mother rested.
My mother had also started sleeping on the guest bed, saying her own was too uncomfortable for her.
While cleaning the bathroom, my mother wakes up. Despite her state, she says she wants to help. But before I can even tell her no, my mother has another fall. Her legs essentially just crumble beneath her, and she falls backwards and lands head first on the floor. We argue back and forth about calling an ambulance, but she refuses to let me - so I don't, even though I should have. I guess I still respected my moms authority too much.
My mother lives alone, as my parents are divorced (they are very good friends though). My mother refuses to let me call my dad and tell him about this whole situation. She is stubborn and too proud to admit defeat.
26th of april. We take a taxi to the hospital. The taxi driver has a help my mother into the car. During the carride my mother says very little, but seems slightly delirious and very tired. When we arrive at the hospital, I quickly borrow a hospital wheelchair for my mother. She is almost unable to walk unassisted at this point.
After waiting for a while in the waiting area, a nurse comes and guides us to a meeting room. My mother is very tired at this point, and still delirious, and I have to handle most of the conversation with the doctor.
The CT scan results showed Pancreatic cancer. The cancer had already spread to her liver and abdomial cavity.
I had read about this cancer a few days prior, trying to figure out what was wrong with my mother. I knew what this meant, and I knew that it was effectively a death sentence. The doctor told us that an operation was out of the question, since the cancer had already spread. And due to the clearly weak state of my mothers health, chemo would also not be offered, as it would finish her.
I told the doctor of her two falls and the state of her home, and that she would not be safe on her own. The doctor had her admitted to a nearby bed department for stomach- and gastrointestinal surgery patients.
The hospital did a ton of bloodwork on my mother when she got admitted, and everything was off. All numbers were either too high or dangerously low. My mothers health was in fact so bad, that I was told she was a heart attack risk. I was also told that if a heart attack happened, she would not be brought back - as it would only prolong a very short and painful life.
I called my dad.
27th of april. My mother slept most of the day.
28th of april. My mother had another fall during the night, trying to get to the bathroom.
29th of april. My dad shows up to the hospital. He wasn't able to get off work until now, as he works in the other end of the country. He is shocked to see my mother in this state. We are told once again by a different doctor that nothing can be done. They are looking into getting her a spot at a nearby hospice.
The rest of the remaining week is spent in hospital. My dad and I are by my mothers side every day. She doesn't leave her hospital room, apart from a few times a day for a smoke break outside. My dad and I take her outside in a wheelchair, which she needs help to get in and out of.
Her bloodwork is showing some slight improvements, but she is still having trouble with infections and receives a lot of antibiotics. She eats like a mouse, but drinks a lot of fluids.
My mother is often very confused or tired most days. She gets referred for an MR scan, to see if the cancer has spread to her brain, or if one of her falls has caused permanent damage. Lucikly the MR scan shows that nothing is wrong with her brain.
She gets confused about her diagnosis a few times, thinking that she had brain cancer instead due to the MR scan. I have to remind her a couple times about what the doctor actually said.
6th of may. My mother seems to have stabilized somewhat so my dad has gone back to work.
7th of may. I get told by the hospital staff that my mother is to be transferred to a different hospital, which is one hour away. I become very upset by this news, and unfortunately yell at one of my mothers nurses in frustration. I yell at her that It'll be harder for me to get to my mother in time if something were to happen. I am ashamed of this childish behavior, as the transfer was the best desicion for my mother in hindsight.
I leave with my mother as we get transferred to the new hospital and their department of palliative care.
I am very ashamed by my behavior to my mothers old nurse, as this department for palliative care was truly the best place for my mother. She seemed very satisfied and happy to have been transferred. They have a large garden with wild flowers, and lovely staff. And my mother got a much bigger room all to herself. She also meets with their physical therapist, who helps my mother relieve some of her pain.
My mother and I have dinner together in the evening in her hospital room. My mom is her old self, although with some delayed speaking. I unfortunately have to rush a bit when leaving, as to not miss my bus home, so I quickly say goodbye to her and leave.
8th of may. In the morning on my way to the new hospital, I received a phone call from her new doctor. My mothers liver has suddenly started to fail due to the cancer. When I arrive, she is asleep. I am told she wont wake up again.
I called my dad, but he wont arrive until the evening, due to the distance from his workplace.
I spend most of the day in my mothers hospital room, listening to her sleep. She occasionally attempts to cough in her sleep, but it mainly just sounds like yells. It is terrifying. The nurses give her pain medication and some sleep medication to help her body relax.
My dad arrives in the late evening. We drive to my mothers house and stay the night there. We spend most of the late evening looking at pictures and scrapbooks of my mother, and packing a bag with clothes for her, for when she passes.
When prepareing the guest bed for my dad, we find a blanket that my mother slept on. It is stained, matching the previous state of the bathroom. We throw the blanket out.
9th of may. Mom is sleeping. Dad and I spend the day at the hospital, but we don't sit in her hospital room. It is too eerie and uncomfortable. We check on her occassionally. Towards the evening, her breathing becomes slightly more rapid and quick. But the nurses tell us to go home. There is no reason for us to sit by her side during the night - as it'll only make it worse for us.
10th of may. I wake at 6.12 am to my phone ringing. It is a nurse. My mother has passed away in her sleep at 6.05 that morning due to liver failure. My dad and I drive to the hospital. I am the first to see her body after the nurses prepared and dressed it in the clothing we picked.
(warning: the following paragraph may be slightly upsetting to some readers)
It it eerie and uncomfortable to see my mother like this. A symptom of pancreatic and liver cancers is that your skin will yellow. Something that I hadn't noticed in my mother till now. I cant help but think that she looks like a wax doll, although I feel horrible for thinking it. I finally touch her hand, after gathering the courage to, almost like I am afraid to distrub her. Her hands are cold, and only get colder as I sit by her side. I am supposed to say my goodbyes to her, and tell her how much she means to me, but in this moment I am speechless. I can't say anything, even on my mothers deathbed. I feels wrong to speak to a corpse. I should've said those things while she could hear them instead. I kiss her forehead before I leave the room.
17th of may. Funeral. The church and casket was beautifully decorated with colorful flowers, like my mother had requested. She didn't want anything white or depressing. I cried all the way through the funeral service, stopping only when it was time to carry the casket out. My dad on the left side, and me on the right, and some other family members behind us. Purple rain by Prince was played on the church piano as we carried the casket. I knew the casket would be heavy, but nothing prepared me for the sheer weight of that thing.
21th of may. Today. I don't really know what to think of my mothers death. Some days I almost forget that shes gone or that all this has been happening, until something reminds me of it.
In a way, I am thankful. Of course I didn't want my mother to die, but I'm glad that her suffering wasn't prolonged for months while she slowly withered away to cancer. And I'm thankful that my mother didn't live to suffer from alzheimers, like her own mother. And I am glad that if anything, my mothers death has brought my dad and I closer.
But at the same time, I am angry that she didn't get to live more of her life. She was only 60 years old, and should have had 20 more years at least. If she at least was 70, it might've been easier to lose her but I doubt it.
I think mostly of all the things she will miss out on, which saddens me the most. I am 23 and my mother wont get to see most of my life or my achivements. If I have kids, she'll never meet them, and she I get married, she'll never see it. My 24th birthday is coming up soon, and I don't know how I'll handle that day without my mother for the first time - or christmas for that matter.
I want my mom.

Hi!
I had certain body parts undergo laser hair removal using gentlemax pro from different clinics. Here are my reviews:
Wink - Underarm laser hair removal / Revlite laser whitening (interchangeable) - P22, 500 for 10 sessions, no expiration - I've used 8 out of 10 sessions so far. 6 sessions for laser hair removal, 2 for whitening. I also bought 1 session separately before prior to buying a package so nakaka 7 LHR sessions na ako as of writing. - Pros: NO cancellation fee. I've rescheduled same day, multiple times and they are patient. You can use the package to any Wink branch. Their staff are thorough and friendly. Very responsive sa viber. Tried both Podium and Santolan Branch. Very effective. 6 sessions pa lang and masasabi ko na 95% hair free na. - Cons: None so far except that they rarely have promos! Kaya more expensive than others.
Skinhouse Laser ( Pasig Branch) - Brazilian laser / revlite face (Promo for 12 sessions, 36k. Interchangeable between the two) no expiration - Also bought 2 individual sessions of upper lip laser hair removal for only 2.5k - Pros: Much more affordable than Wink for the same machine and often has promos. Just check their IG. Yung underarm LHrevlite sila, 21k for 12 sessions compared to Wink na 22.5k for only 10 sessions. Also effective like Wink. 6 sessions so far for Brazilian, and halos wala ng tumutubo. Makapal ang hair ko prior to availing their package kasi I never waxed down there before. For upper lip, only tried 1 session so far pero manipis naman na hair ko dito. Their revlite face (which can be used alternatively with Brazilian) is also nice. It whitened my upper lip hair haha kaya planning na after 2 sessions ng upper lip LHR, ok na siguro sa Revlite na lang - Cons: Package not interchangeable to other branch. More strict cancellation policies and 500 pesos for same-day cancellation
Kamiseta Skin - Also uses Gentlemax pro and they currently have ongoing 50% off promos for their laser hair removal packages until May 31! 5 sessions per package sila. 9k for underarms, 10k for Brazilian, 20k for full legs, 15k for full arms, 4k for upper lips, 12.5k for lower legs. Anybody who tried their LHR? How was it? :)

Hi everyone. I’m going on vacation in three weeks and have been wanting to get laser on my Brazilian area. I figured I would get my first laser treatment before my vacation to be as smooth as possible for the following two weeks.
However, I’m reading that for some, the hair grows back immediately and takes some time to fall out. I just want to be smooth for as long as possible for my vacation (also visiting my bf who I’m long distance with). Should I just wax before my vacation and start my laser treatments when I return after waiting a few weeks?
I am Mexican and have fair skin with dark, coarse hair so I fear I won’t be hair free very long after my first laser treatment. If it does take a while for the hair to fall out, should I time my laser appointment two weeks before vacation? If it takes a while for the hair to grow back, then I am happy to carry on with the laser as long as my skin is smooth at least while I’m on vacation. Any advice?
Thanks in advance!
Edit: I’m a Type III on the Fitzpatrick scale.

Hi everyone. I’m going on vacation in three weeks and have been wanting to get laser on my Brazilian area. I figured I would get my first laser treatment before my vacation to be as smooth as possible for the following two weeks.
However, I’m reading that for some, the hair grows back immediately and takes some time to fall out. I just want to be smooth for as long as possible for my vacation (also visiting my bf who I’m long distance with). Should I just wax before my vacation and start my laser treatments when I return after waiting a few weeks?
I am Mexican and have fair skin with dark, coarse hair so I fear I won’t be hair free very long after my first laser treatment. If it does take a while for the hair to fall out, should I time my laser appointment two weeks before vacation? If it takes a while for the hair to grow back, then I am happy to carry on with the laser as long as my skin is smooth at least while I’m on vacation. Any advice?
Thanks in advance!
Edit: I’m a Type III on the Fitzpatrick scale.

I had a BBL (Brazilian Butt Lift) a while ago, which involves liposuction. My doctor recommended setting up lymphatic massages for a certain amount of months at a certain duration to help with the “swell hell” and pain from the liposuction. I researched the best lymphatic drainage massage therapist in my area that does house calls and set up all of my appointments a full month before my surgery. He had great Yelp reviews, great phone interview, and obviously knew his stuff. After the surgery, recovery was rough. I was groggy AF and I felt like I couldn’t think clearly for months, due to medication, waxing and waning of pain, the emotional roller coaster that comes with a plastic surgery change, the works. The massage therapist was a little socially awkward but I never felt uncomfortable or unsafe and he was great for what I hired him for. Lo and behold, he worked at the same medical massage business as one of my best friends and I had no idea. It was a good two months of me using his services before I knew they knew each other. My friend said that my lymphatic massage therapist expressed an interest in dating her and she asked me what I thought. I was honest and said I didn’t think he would be a good match for her with his particular brand of social awkwardness, religious trauma (that came up in discussion during massage small talk) and the fact that he was in his 40s and still a virgin who had never been in any lasting relationship. In contrast to this 40-something virgin, my friend tends to intimately connect very quickly with people she dates. Friend also has religious trauma from the same religion, which I felt would be a very toxic mix. I shared all of these thoughts with her at the time and tagged onto the end that I would never get in the way of something she truly wanted.
She decided to date him. When she told me, I said “I really don’t think dating him is a good idea and I hope I’m wrong. Be careful. And please, for your own sake, don’t take his V card.” But they had already been dating a few days and it was too late, as they had already done the deed. Knowing his religious background and some of his beliefs, I facepalmed. Hard. They dated for about 3 months and then she broke up with him because she said it was a toxic relationship. No surprise there. She acknowledged that I advised against dating, without hearing anything akin to an “I told you so” from me. By this time, I had moved out of needing regular lymphatic massage and was using that massage therapist for monthly massage to manage pain from a spine surgery that had never been managed so well before this massage therapist; 4 years of constant tension in my back and the pain was finally resolving with how he was working on me. After the breakup, my friend demanded that I stop seeing him for massage therapy and I said no. That’s where I might be the AH. This friend is still mad at me 4 year later. I was offended that she would even ask me that because she knew how much he was helping me with my back, getting great results, I found him independently, vetted him independently, my body and overall health hadn’t been that good in years, and I advised against them dating in the first place because I saw problems in that pairing before they began and she did it anyway. So, why should I stop using his services? It didn’t seem logical to me why she was lumping me into their breakup. He quit working at the massage place that he and my friend had both worked at but he still had his independent mobile massage business, which I was using. I set boundaries with both of them: I never talked to him about her (he tried but I always redirected); I never talked to her about him (she also tried but not as much). After a short time, she said she felt unsafe that I was still using his services, even though I never allowed her to be a topic of conversation in massage sessions and I found him and hired him independently from her involvement and the only reason I was keeping him was because he was improving my physical quality of life like no other massage therapist I’ve had before. Friend eventually said she had to set the boundary that she would no longer be in contact with me while he was still in my life. That felt like an ultimatum, not a boundary, but I’m not sure of the difference in this case. Mind you, I had never once spent time with him outside a professional massage therapist setting other than of when they were dating and my friend invited me along to hang out with them. That happened only twice, to my memory. A part of me feels like I could be the AH, deciding to choose my own pain management over my friend’s emotions. Another part of me felt really triggered by this boundary/ultimatum that came out of nowhere because it felt like an attack on the one thing that helped me manage my pain. The way things have been going, even though I’ve moved states and have not been in contact with that massage therapist for years, the friendship will never truly recover. AITA? Is she the AH? Are we both the AH?

Waxing rash or allergic reaction ? Help pls!
I started waxing I did a Brazilian wax but then my skin broke out all over and it’s dark bumpy and itches/burns to the touch. Does anyone know what went wrong and how to heal it back to normal?! This is the 2nd time this has happened after a wax but I never happened before then.

The wiry black tree stood out that snowy January morning like an abysmal blot. Devoid of leaves to indicate life, it managed to stain the cloudy white sky with its presence. It looked down on me as I filled my bright red percolator with grounds and water, a dark always in my peripheral, though I rarely looked directly at it. Its shadowy tendrils followed me for the whole day, through the long rows of dispassionate wood tables and cold white plastic chairs, the cramps in my forearm when I wrote too quickly, and teachers calling out time for students. As soon as another student looked down on their paper, or a teacher turned away, the shadows advanced, licking my face, drowning out my surroundings. The voices of the teachers, the sight of the paper under my pencil, the pain of the hangnails and ripped cuticles on my finger—all faded away. By the time exams had finished, I had been lulled into a haze, a stupor that lured me into deceitful sleep.

Your reflection refracts a million times in between the mirror’s cracks, each piece of glass portraying some dream of you, or, maybe, some memory. Two candles light up the room, one red and one white. Each conveys different light, and each flicker illuminates our skin uniquely. I look at you in the mirror’s shards, each contour of your face accentuated slightly differently. More white light there and shifting shadows hitting at new angles. The red and white candlelight dances on you, caressing your painted white face and red lips a little bit differently in each image. I open my lips to speak. “Do you realize I love the way you look me in my eyes?” As I turn to look at you, I see your eyes are black and your body is rigid. I feel myself falling, slipping away from you. I rush to kiss you before you disappear, but your face falls apart as our lips meet; your skin sloughs and flakes off, and your eyes are still black, like two drops of ink in water, and I can’t hold all of you together. My head jerks out of water. Bright rose petals are scattered on its surface, and dim candles lit on white marble surround me. It seems like I’m in a bathtub. I wipe my face, but warm, thick liquid covers my arms, and I look down to see partially coagulated blood on my hands. It disperses when I rub it off, but as more blood falls, I realize that it’s dripping from my neck. My throat’s cut; raw and filled with some rough, frayed substance. The sharp, smoky smell of sage wafts up to me. Blood from my throat and hands spreads in the bath, and after just moments, all of the water in the bath is tinted red. I move closer to inspect the candles, and I realize that they’re part of a shrine. At its center is a mask; covered in black and white paint, with light peering through its eye and mouth holes. When I reach to examine it, I feel a sharp burning on my back. A candle has melted onto me. I try to wipe it off, but it burns my hand when I touch it. Another candle melts, and another, and another. Red and white wax fills the tub, steaming as the hot wax meets the cool, rose-colored water. At first, the water cools it, but as more pours into the tub, the water begins to heat. I snap up, but sharp, thin claws pull me down. Four emaciated figures are dragging me further down into the boiling water. I open my eyes underwater, and for a brief moment, before the sizzling water sears my eyes closed, I’m able to make out a face—black hair and pale skin, with red cuts all over. I flail and resist, and eventually, I gasp, but as I try to breathe in, boiling water fills my throat and I die. Dancers whirl across the room, encircling the center, rotating this way and the other. My friend tells me I should ask you to dance, but I brush it off. It’s not worth it; I was never much of a dancer. So I just sit there and watch as you and your friends talk, laugh, dance, sing and take pictures. When I’m around you, I see myself through you. Each time you laugh, I want to laugh, and when you smile, I can’t hold mine back. I find myself picking petals from roses when I’m around you too long. We’re so beautiful; your new white dress, and my teary red eyes. I look at you and whisper. “Let's touch the sky, I’ma, I’ma change your life”. For an instant, I see you looking back. You pause, no longer talking to your friends, like we’re frozen together as the crowd buzzes around us. Your eyes get big and your mouth opens like you’re about to say something. Then you turn away, and the crowd consumes you and leaves me behind, and finally, I wake up in a cold sweat. The shadows in the room lengthened, wrapping themselves around me, smothering me and my deferred hopes and indiscretion. The moonlight filled the room, and the trees stared at me, with harsh branch faces chastising me, and I pulled the blanket around me, closer and closer, enveloping as much as it could. For a moment, the whole world turned red and white—red like my face as heat rose from my throat to right behind my cheekbones and eyes, pushing itself higher and higher, threatening to burst out of my skull, and white like the cloudy winter tones that had characterized the sky for weeks at this point. 

After that, everything faded to gray. My red cheeks cooled, and my eyes became sullen, and the white snow that my window peered onto was dirty and impure. I remember when you told me that at the beginning of the book, he’s gray, and then he’s colorful, and then, at the end of the book, he’s gray again. Sometimes you sound like my biographer. But there’s one thing you missed. We never stopped seeing the color, it just became safer for us to hide from the oversaturated reds and whites that burn our eyes, the sounds that sound too loud, and the pretty girls with pale skin and black hair who only kiss us in our nightmares. I stay up the rest of the night with my lights on to beat back any shadowy tendrils that come my way, biting my fingertips and white cuticles until they’re red, bleeding and raw, until I return to my playlist, ready to walk into school tomorrow and pretend I’m alive.

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

strength:

• Manhandles Jon and carries him outside
  
• Manhandles Jon and crams his entire body into a cat carrier
  
• Manhandles Jon and uses his foot to plug a leaky faucet
  
• Manhandles Jon, using him as a TV remote
  
• Ragdolls John with a single swipe
  
• Kicks Jon’s chair over, with Jon in it.
  
• Gives Jon a limp
  
• Stuffs Jon’s head in a bottle
  
• Implies he can rip off Jon’s lips.
  
• Actually does it.
  
• Shreds Jon’s chair into an unrecognizable mess
  
• Shreds a couch up until there’s nothing left but a tiny scrap of fabric.
  
• Slams a mailman around like nothing
  
• Hauls Jon up a tree at running speed
  
• Holds himself up by his teeth
  
• Lifts his body weight with his teeth
  
• Rips out a tv’s screen with his teeth
  
• Bends a mirror
  
• Drives a long nail through a door
  
• Pushes Odie all the way around a swingset
  
• Cleanly bisects a christmas tree by slamming a door
  
• Sends a snowman’s head flying with a baseball bat
  
• Breaks a table in two with a stomp
  
• Stomps Odie flat
  
• Stomps through the floorboards
  
• Flings an apple hard enough to knock Odie flying
  
• Knocks Jon over with a snowball
  
• Bashes down a door
  
• Punches down a door
  
• Accidently pushes a door off its hinges
  
• Knocks a down a door by tackling Jon into it
  
• Pushes a door off its hinges and walks with its weight on his back into his house
  
• Busts a hole in the door
  
• Again
  
• Smashes a cat door off its hinges with a single push
  
• Smashes a door in half with Odie
  
• Working with Odie, busts down a door using Jon’s chair as a battering ram.
  
• Sends a fence gate flying off its hinges by smashing into it
  
• Smashes his head through a table
  
• Catches up to a car and rips its fender off
  
• Catches up to a car and rips an entire axle off
  
• Rips a fender off a car and a mailbox out of the ground
  
• Sends Jon flying with a kick
  
• Hurls an adult woman out of his house
  
• Drags a woman back to Jon
  
• Drags a mailman to Jon as a gift
  
• Drags and carries Jon outside
  
• Walks with the weight of Jon and a chair on his back
  
• Rips the cap off a fire hydrant
  
• Launches Odie into the horizon
  
• Punches another cat so hard they go flying
  
• Launches another cat into the horizon
  
• Launches Odie above the panel
  
• Kicks Odie to the ceiling
  
• Kicks Odie from one room into the other
  
• Punts Odie into the distance
  
• Launches Odie above the panel. Claims to have sent him to the moon.
  
• Kicks Odie so hard, he spins fast enough to hover in the air
  
• Kicks Odie so high in the air, it takes a significant amount of time for him to fall back down
  
• Smacks Odie with a signpost hard enough to send him flying far into the distance.
  
• Smacks Nermal high into the sky
  
• Sends Nermal flying with a flick
  
• Sends Nermal through a door
  
• Again
  
• And again
  
• Sends Nermal flying through a wall
  
• Smashes an enormous spider with a rolled up newspaper
  
• Lifts a table full of food
  
• Juggles a sofa
  
• Hurls a tv
  
• Holds up a tv
  
• Nails a tv to the ceiling
  
• Lifts a refrigerator
  
• Lifts a refrigerator and a giant magnet
  
• Pushes a refrigerator
  
• Rips a refrigerator door off its hinges offscreen
  
• Moves Jon’s above ground pool inside to disguise it as a food dish
  
• Dumps a large piano onto a scale
  
• Holds up a large safe on a pulley
  
• Reels a stone birdbath into his mouth
  
• Carries an entire tree into his house
  
• Holds up a giant coffee cup
  
• Holds up a giant donut with one hand
  
• Holds a giant burger
  
• Punts Odie into the distance
  
• And again
  
• Together with Odie, smashes through a wall
  
• Pulls down a chunk of wall
  
• Smashes into a wall with enough force to crack it
  
• Again
  
• Pushes his way out from inside the walls
  
• Jumps through the ceiling
  
• None of Odie's attempts to move him makes him budge
  
• Jon can’t pull him an inch on a leash
  
• Smashes an alarm clock
  
• Smashes a phone
  
• Mangles a scale
  
• With a swipe of his claws, knocks two bricks out of a fireplace
  
• Rips the concrete basin off a birdbath and carries it away
  
• Karate chops a table leg in two
  
• Either carries or creates a giant snowball on the roof of the house and pushes it onto Jon
  
• Throws a massive snowball high into the air to land on Jon.
  
• Pushes Jon’s bed out the window
  
• Rips a fire hydrant out of the ground
  
• Bends a traffic sign by accidentally running into it
  
• Carries a Christmas tree in his teeth
  
• Catches a shark and carries it to shore
  
• Using all of the snow in his yard, builds an enormous snowman that dwarfs his house.
  
• Smashes an ice cream truck, causing its roof to cave in
  
• Slams a window so hard the entire house collapses
  
• Lifts up his house using a jack
  
• Lifts a Christmas tree and shakes all its needles off
  
• Lifts a pile of food larger than himself
  
• Pulls a fish’s skeleton out of its body
  
• Rips a dial off a tv and sends it through a window
  
• Throws Odie
  
• Smacks a clown through a circus tent
  
• Walks with a pile of mud 2/3rds as tall as Jon stuck to his feet
  
• His tongue punches a hole through his bowl and the table it’s on
  
• Blows a spider out of a rolled up newspaper with enough force to stretch a screen window as far as the door it’s attached to is tall.
  
• Inflates a balloon so large it expands beyond the confines of the house he's in and lifts it off the ground
  
• Sucks an entire roast chicken through a straw
  
• Similar feat
  
• The coffee he drinks seems to grant improved strength, allowing an ordinary fly to carry Jon through the air at full speed
  

Durability:

• No-sells a potted plant to the head
  
• Tanks a watermelon to the head
  
• Takes multiple shoes to the head in succession
  
• Is hit in the head by a thrown spotlight
  
• Takes a hit from a guided newspaper launcher
  
• Gets mauled by a puma
  
• Is thrown against a wall by a buff mailman
  
• Gets smacked flying off-panel by a dog
  
• No-sells a kick from Odie
  
• Survives being accidentally set on fire while soaked with alcohol
  
• Falls onto a lit grill
  
• Ignores his blanket being on fire while wrapped in it
  
• Is inside a fondue pot as it boils
  
• Survives a heat wave so bad it melts a radio into liquid
  
• Eats lit candles
  
• Sticks his tongue in a waffle iron
  
• Implied to regularly drink and enjoy coffee so strong a few drops of it melts through a table and bends spoons.
  
• His face gets frozen into a birdbath
  
• Has his lips ripped from his face by the g-force of sledding down a hill
  
• Has a concentrated beam of sunlight shine directly into his eye
  
• Gets shocked by Jon’s electrified cookie jar
  
• Gets struck by lightning
  
• Survives being trapped inside a washing machine as it runs
  
• Again
  
• Is stuck by every single quill from a porcupine
  
• Is eaten by a snake
  
• Is run over by a lawnmower
  
• Has his tail stuck in a pencil sharpener
  
• Is flung through through a window
  
• Has a door slammed on him hard enough to crack a wall
  
• Is flattened by Jon slamming a door
  
• Again
  
• Is squashed flat as a pancake by a larger cat
  
• Gets brutalized by a whole gang of street dogs at once and enjoys it
  
• Survives a fall so hard he leaves a deep hole in the ground
  
• Again
  
• And Again
  
• Has a fridge fall on him
  
• Has a piano fall on his head
  
• Again
  
• Is crushed under a chunk of crumbling wall
  
• Is crushed under a larger chunk of wall
  
• Is crushed under a huge section of wall
  
• Has a slab of concrete fall on his head
  
• Has a giant can of cola fall on him
  
• Has a tree fall on him
  
• Has a large pile of sand dropped on him
  
• Has a large stone wheel hurled at him
  
• Is hit by a wrecking ball
  
• Falls from the roof of his house onto concrete
  
• Falls down a chimney
  
• Falls down a manhole
  
• Falls down a sinkhole
  
• Has his head rammed through the ceiling
  
• Again
  
• Steps out of a car going over 50mph
  
• Is bounced back by a screen door hard enough to crack a wall and topple furniture
  
• Gets smashed through a wall
  
• Is used as a battering ram to bust through a wall
  
• Falls from a great height out of a bird’s grip 1, 2
  
• Has a land mine explode in his face
  
• Implied to have been hit by a truck
  
• Is hit by a car
  
• Has a house collapse on him
  
• Survives without his stomach after it temporarily leaves his body
  
• Has the endurance to hang from a treebranch for an entire week
  
• Stays in the same spot long enough for the moon to wax from crescent to full waiting for a flower to grow.
  

Speed/Agility:

• Eats an immense amount of food in a single panel. Doubles as a durability feat for his stomach, as Jon states that that much food should cause him to burst if he tries to eat it all
  
• Eats all the food in a refrigerator in a very short time
  
• Eats a million meals in the same day by noon. This is even more impressive, as Garfield is famously averse to waking up early and fond of sleeping in, meaning it’s likely he didn’t have much time after waking up to eat a million meals before 12:00. For a little more context, Jon states that Garfield sleeps an average of 18 hours a day.
  
• While on a short walk, eats so many canaries he causes a city-wide shortage
  
• With Odie, completely wrecks Jon’s living room in a single second
  
• Leaves with all the furniture in a room after Jon leaves it briefly before he can return
  
• Outruns a charging bull
  
• Dodges out of the way of speeding cars
  
• Leaps out of the path of a speeding truck
  
• Keeps pace with a speeding car
  
• Again
  
• Keeps pace with an ice cream truck
  
• Claims to be “faster than a speeding delivery truck”
  
• Outruns rolling donuts, reaching the floor before they can fall off a table.
  
• Outruns the world’s largest ball of twine as it rolls down a hill after him
  
• Outruns a rolling snowball
  
• Runs up the wall and across the ceiling to the other side of the room in only a few panels
  
• Dodges a thrown shoe
  
• Dodges a thrown pair of binoculars
  
• Dodges a thrown pie with enough force behind it to knock the moon out of the sky
  
• Catches a thrown potted plant
  
• Eats his birthday cake out from under its candles, leaving them briefly suspended in the air
  
• Catches on to Odie’s tongue as he runs by
  
• Leaps to catch a piece of toast mid-air the second it pops up
  
• Again
  
• Eats several apples out of the air as Jon is juggling them
  
• Eats a butterfly out of the air mid-flight
  
• Snatches a fly out of the air
  
• Leaps to snatch a donut out of Jon’s hands before he can take a bite
  
• Rapidly decorates a tree in what Jon estimates to be a world record
  
• Catches up to a car and rips its fender off
  
• Catches up to a car and rips an entire axle off
  
• Demonstrates shocking agility chasing after a thrown mouse
  
• Does a flip
  
• Flips in midair to land on his feet at the last second
  
• Leaps from the floor to the ceiling off-panel
  
• Leaps from a table to the ceiling
  
• Walks on his front paws
  
• Balances a potted plant on his head while rolling atop a ball
  
• Swims rapidly into the sunset
  
• Spins his leg around so fast he takes flight like a helicopter
  
• While trying to escape a sweater, spins fast enough he becomes a small tornado
  
• Moves as a blur for a quick costume change
  
• After eating caffeinated sweets, he becomes a blur, bouncing off the walls and ceiling.
  
• Moves so fast, he seems to vanish panel-to-panel. Gets to his food dish and cleans it out before Jon can finish saying his name
  
• Moves so fast, his slipstream shreds Jon’s clothes
  
• Zooms in from a long distance away before Odie can take a bite of his food
  
• Catches a sandwich before it can hit the floor
  
• Zooms out of bed, eats dinner, and returns before his blanket has time to fall to the ground
  
• Spots a snowflake, and runs back inside, dragging Jon out to see it before it touches the ground.
  
• Moves to his bed before a lightbulb can go out
  
• Moves faster than the speed of sound
  
• Regularly keeps up with the mice in his house, who are implied to be FTE (except for the fat ones).
  
• Moves FTE
  
• Moves FTE, eating all the food out of his food bowl in the time it takes Jon to blink
  
• Eats a goldfish FTE in the space it takes the reader to blink
  
• Somehow loops back around after leaving the panel while Jon is still watching him
  
• Lets go of a tree branch to rub his arms, then grabs back on before he has time to fall
  
• Changes channels on a tv so fast it explodes and the remote starts to smoke
  

Misc:

• Eats an entire lasagna, pan and all
  
• Eats 219 lbs of lasagna
  
• Eats so many calories in one sitting, Jon’s calculator violently malfunctions from processing such a large number
  
• While on a walk, eats so many canaries he causes a city-wide shortage
  
• Eats an entire bowl of food, bowl included
  
• Again
  
• Eats the pants off of Jon
  
• Eats a tv remote
  
• Eats a bag of tools Jon bought from the hardware store, then spits one back up
  
• Eats a brick
  
• Casually eats a coffee cup
  
• Eats a poison frog
  
• Ate a poison toad
  
• Fits an entire cake in his mouth
  
• Again
  
• And Again
  
• He just keeps going at it
  
• Fits 200 french fries in his mouth
  
• Fits an entire glass fishbowl in his mouth
  
• Implied to have eaten an entire cow
  
• Eats a large fish-shaped sign
  
• Eats a giant burger larger than himself
  
• Eats a puffer fish, and has it expand to fifty times its size inside him
  
• Burps for 43 seconds straight
  
• Burps hard enough to send Jon and Odie flying, blow a door off its hinges, and peel away sections of sidewalk.
  
• Breathes fire after eating a peruvian death pepper
  
• Sneezes the petals off a large group of flowers
  
• With a single sneeze, he blows away Jon, Odie, and a whole room’s worth of furniture
  
• Sneezes hard enough to propel himself partially through a wall, widening an existing mousehole
  
• Can walk on ceilings
  
• Again
  
• And again
  
• His weight crushes a scale
  
• [Even Santa Claus thinks he’s fat]
  
• His weight bends a long wooden table
  
• His weight tips over Jon’s bed
  
• Again
  
• His weight bends metal playground equipment
  
• His weight causes a section of floor to collapse
  
• His weight topples a tree when he tries to climb it
  
• His weight causes ripples in a hardwood floor
  
• He is so heavy that he causes Jon’s chair to bounce into the air just by running nearby
  
• He’s heavy enough to pound a very deep, very wide hole into the ground just by cannonballing into a pool
  
• His weight warps the very medium of his existence, causing a panel he’s in to bend
  
• Wins a cat show
  
• Nobody can kill him without an appointment
  
• Apparently, he’s already dead
  
• With a single swipe, perfectly slices a loaf of bread
  
• Swats three spiders at once
  
• Scares off a dog larger than he is
  
• Can intimidate machinery into fixing itself
  
• Intimidates light itself to move
  
• Intimidates a balloon into staying afloat
  
• He commands snow to stop falling. With a glare, he even sends an errant flake back into the sky.
  
• Is completely unafraid of monsters
  
• Kills a flower with a single word
  
• His breath melts a vase and a picture frame
  
• His breath melts a metal fork and a glass cup
  
• His breath melts his own teeth
  
• His breath instantly knocks out Jon
  
• Nails Jon right under the nose with a party horn
  
• Lands several thrown donuts on Jon’s novelty moustache
  
• Hits Jon right between the eyes with a toy bow & arrow
  
• Plays at skeet shooting pieces of toast as they pop out of a toaster, and doesn’t miss a single one (we don’t see any arrows on the ground that haven’t impaled toast
  
• Nails Jon in the head with a rock
  
• Nails a mouse with a snowball
  
• Rapidly nails Jon and Odie with snowballs
  
• Uses a birdbath to hit Jon with a perfectly ricocheted snowball
  
• Can rapidly spit tennis balls like an automatic launcher
  
• Is an expert fisherman---without even using a pole!
  
• Pretty good at throwing his voice
  
• Steals Jon’s credit cards and uses them to buy himself a designer Italian suit
  
• Pickpockets an old man without him noticing
  
• Manages to sneak inside his own birthday cake without Jon or Odie seeing him
  
• Is aware he’s in a comic strip
  
• Addresses his reader directly
  
• Knows he’s printed on paper
  
• Is aware what angle he is being drawn from
  
• Pops his own snooze bubble
  
• Rotates his own snooze bubble
  
• Uses his knowledge of the fourth wall to steal a snooze bubble from Jon, depriving him of sleep
  
• Smacks Jon in the face with his snooze bubble
  
• Throws his own snooze bubble at Jon as a weapon
  
• Can play a piano from inside of it
  
• Can play guitar
  
• Makes a sandwich so large it stretches from his house across the street
  
• Can precisely identify the dish a stain came from by taste
  
• Knows what old hyena tastes like
  
• Hears Jon whispering from across the house
  
• While asleep, hears a pizza delivery happening three blocks away and is able to tell what toppings are on it.
  
• Can “hear ice cream”
  
• Implied to also be able to hear donuts.
  
• Chases an invisible mouse
  
• Steals a security camera out from under Jon’s nose, then pawns it without him noticing until later
  
• Plans out an exact chain reaction triggered by John slamming a door
  
• Perfectly measures out a hole to cut in the floor for Jon
  
• Double-Bamboozles Jon
  
• Melts his rubber mouse down and makes earplugs out of it
  
• Builds a revolving glass door into a refrigerator
  
• Rebuilds the front door so that it opens like a pet door and vice versa.
  
• Builds a trap door into a table for spiders
  
• Uses parts from an automatic dog door Jon bought to create a remote activated trap door for Odie
  
• Disables Jon’s brakes
  
• Reprogramme’s a scale with a complex AI.
  
• Creates an elaborate blueprint for his birthday cake, including electrical wiring schematics
  
• Builds a remote activated trap for birds “disguised” as a birdbath
  
• Creates an elaborate trap for a dog
  
• Sets a working trap for Santa Claus
  
• Sets traps for mailmen
  
• Sets up snowball lobbing booby traps all over the yard
  
• Robs a bank. Claims it was an accident.
  
• Steals milk from babies
  
• Turns Jon into a tourist attraction, and gets on the news
  
• Has a secret plan to lead cats to world domination
  
• Counts all the bricks in a silo
  
• Knows the exact moment when Jon will wake up every morning
  
• Pulls all the fabric off a chair, then knits it perfectly back into shape
  
• Using only his claws, carves a sofa into a statue of himself
  
• Elongates his body
  
• Has his body squeezed and elongated by a corset
  
• Has his neck stretched thin by a tight turtleneck
  
• Has his body stretched thin and compressed by a shrinking sweater
  
• Squashes himself flat with a recliner
  
• Able to have his body freely stretched
  
• Temporarily alters his body to appear extremely muscular
  
• Again
  
• Rapidly accumulates muscle mass in his arms simply by eating
  
• Has his face squashed into a square shape from sleeping in a corner
  
• After colliding with Odie, both have their front halves flattened
  
• Can tuck his head into his body like a turtle
  
• Can transfer his mass from his torso to his tail
  
• Gets squashed into a space between fence posts
  
• Squeezes into a vase far smaller than him
  
• Again
  
• Squeezes his entire body into a coffee cup
  
• He and Jon’s heads are shoved into the same bottle
  
• Hides his entire body flat under his cat bed
  
• Hides his entire body behind a thin lamp
  
• Stretches his arm to fit around a refrigerator
  
• Stretches his lips far from his face
  
• Extends his jaw
  
• Transforms into a monster on Halloween
  
• Is able to breathe while submerged in food
  
• Has his face turned upside down
  
• Has his face pucker inwards, folding in on itself
  
• Has opposable thumbs
  
• Sheds. A lot. Completely blankets John and a table with shed hair.
  
• His stomach can separate from the rest of his body, acting independently
  
• By viewing the world upside down, he alters the direction of gravity
  
• Able to move in slow motion at will, reducing his falls to a snail’s pace
  
• Warps reality by tilting a painting
  
• Sends Odie through time into the future with a kick
  
• Wills himself from an alternate time back to his own
  
• Can apparently travel freely between comic strips. Also more fourth wall awareness.
  
• Just.. completely breaks physics
  
• Seems to be able to make wishes and have them granted, albeit in a way he doesn’t always like
  
• Makes a birthday with for his cake to be bigger and has it come true
  
• Manifests objects from his dreams in real life
  
• Seems to be able to physically manifest and interact with figments of his psyche. Eats donuts representing his conscience, leaving behind crumbs that indicate they’re in some way real.
  
• Can infiltrate other people’s daydreams and interact with them
  
• Breaks a mirror with his looks
  
• Sings a note high enough to “shatter paper”
  
• Flicks off Odie’s nose
  
• Swaps noses with Odie, forcing him to suffer a sneeze
  
• Adjusts a dog’s nose like a dial to force it to bark more quietly
  
• Seemingly teleports Odie’s head from a top hat into his food dish
  
• Moves a mousehole while it’s still in the wall
  
• Has a flamethrower
  
• Has a chainsaw
  
• Has a dart gun
  
• Has a giant slingshot
  
• Has a “mouse call”
  

Things I really like but also hate

• King Kong canonically exists in Garfield’s world
  
• So do monsters
  
• And aliens
  

Hi, I know some of you have been interested in Joost’s written stuff, so this is one of them. It’s a short story that Joost wrote for Boekenweek voor Jongeren (Book Week for Young People) in 2019. There’s more info about it here (in Dutch) https://www.vice.com/nl/article/qvgzpv/joost-klein-schreef-een-kort-verhaal-over-een-wilde-nacht-in-berlijn and there was also this promo video for it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wx7wxnpxps0. It's been translated from Dutch - maybe not the most perfect translation but it's readable. Original in Dutch here. Enjoy

"How come he suddenly has cash?" I looked at Gurb, but he avoided my gaze. Louis never had money and yet he was buying another round. Meanwhile, a Moby song was playing and nothing made sense. "If he has money for drinks, he can surely pay me back, right?"
Just a few hours ago, I was alone in Berlin. Now, ten hours later, I'm standing in some obscure techno club with my best friends. Loud rock music with drunken shouting. "Hey, Miss Murder, can I make beauty stay if I take my life?" I woke up that day with a mild hangover from the lonely yet people-filled night before. Perfect conditions for a 20-year-old dropout.
The Hard Rock Café was the most beautifully ugly place in Berlin. Gurb had driven for seven hours straight in his mother's car, but we didn't notice. An iconic black Mini Cooper. Your body leads your mind, the beat never stops, and you can conquer the world. Louis threw in another crazy dance move. We were happy.
"Do you want another drink, brother?" Gurb asked me, half shouting. An evening filled with rhetorical questions. He saw me dancing and already knew the answer.
Gurb always had money. Louis, on the other hand, never did. Louis was also the youngest of us three. He had just turned 18. I wouldn't call him a cunning fox. More like a jack-of-all-trades. Like the time he made a lot of money on a Wadden Island with a group of boys. They sold large blocks of hash.
"Crazy dude!" I shouted at him. He yelled something back.
"Do you remember back then?" Louis said.
"Back then? Back then? Yeah man, of course!" I had no idea what he meant. "Do you mean the party?"
"Do you mean the party, he says! This guy. When I look at you like this, it makes me happy. The exact same kid is here letting loose just like back in high school!"
We knew each other from secondary school. He joined when I was in the second grade. He was very intelligent. Too young, too much knowledge of the world. His mother is from Brazil. We often went to his mother's place to play on the Playstation Louis and I had bought together.
I lived everywhere at that time. In the crisis shelter where I stayed for a while, for example, I wasn't allowed to have a Playstation. So we set it up in an accessible place, near school. It was always fun with Louis. Going together to the Apple Store. Taking all kinds of photos with all the webcams, posting them on Hyves, and then leaving. Louis always knew how to cheer me up.
"Aaaaaaaaaa!" There was Gurb with five drinks in his hands. Gurb was wearing a blue checkered shirt. Two buttons undone. Hair slicked back. "You look good, brother!"
"You look fresh too! We all look fresh!" Gurb said enthusiastically. Louis was wearing a completely white outfit. We quickly bought this before going out. He also bleached his hair.
"You look like the Brazilian cousin of James Dean in these clothes," I said. Louis laughed. "Let me take a picture."
Suddenly, the DJ switched to some kind of techno. "Ah, here Berlin briefly takes off its mask." I was fine with it all. Louis was talking to a lady.
Voluptuous breasts, I thought to myself. He gave her one of his two drinks.
"He's with a girl and he's thinking with his dick," I said to Gurb. "Let him be, tonight Berlin is ours!"
The bass kept pounding. "I simply don't have the patience for the club," I said to Gurb. He looked surprised. Like a sweet dog, tilting his head. "I'm just waiting for tomorrow. Can't do my thing here. Don't have patience for the already known. I want adventure and I want it now!"
Gurb started laughing. "Patience is a virtue." Yes. Patience is all well and good, but I think it's a waste of my time. Gurb grabbed my shoulder.
"I think it's time for another beer."
Louis and I were walking through Leeuwarden a year ago when suddenly a red Ford Ka stopped in front of us. It was Gurb, casually driving around the city. He invited us into his car. We hopped in. Since that afternoon, the three of us were together. A few months later, Louis got a tattoo on his ribs in honor of our friendship. It was the name of our group chat. Braddar Force Indigo.
There were also days when Gurb would take me for a drive around Friesland. He reminded me how beautiful Friesland is. The world doesn't spin there. The newspapers I threw away in the Stiens forest in 2011 could still be lying in the same spot, so to speak.
Just before midnight, I found myself in line for the restroom. My eyes fell on a pair of striking shoes. Cigarette smoke invaded my nose for the fourth time. "Müssen Sie eine Zigarette haben?" a female voice spoke to me. I felt like Tom Hanks in the final scene of Angels & Demons, where the new pope first steps onto the balcony. The curtains opened. There I was, witnessing an important moment in history. I was just told how I was sent by God, but my ears didn't want to hear any of it. At least that's how I felt. My mouth was empty. I had no words left. That's when I knew for sure. Berlin might really be as crazy as literally everyone says.
Dark blond, silky hair. Was this real beauty then? She wouldn't look 40, but I think she was. A true woman. Beautiful in all her elegance. I always joked about being interested in older women, but tonight one stood in front of me. "I don't smoke," I said to her.
Someone tapped me. "Please, just go to the toilet!" He was right. I hadn't peed in a while either. My urine was cloudy. "Glomerulonephritis," I said to myself on the toilet. This is an unusual condition. It's an inflammation in the kidneys, I thought I remembered. They should never have given me access to Google.
The evening progressed, and Louis kept buying rounds. "But seriously now. How does Louis suddenly have all that money for drinks?" I asked Gurb. He was outside smoking with a group of Swiss girls. I had strategically positioned myself so that I could always leave the crime scene if necessary.
"You shouldn't ask me," said Gurb. He was laughing with the temporary girlfriend group of Louis. Gurb has a beard. A lot of chicks like that. I get it too.
As much as I enjoyed Louis and Gurb being here for me, something didn't sit right with me. It couldn't just be about the money. "What's up with him?" I heard one of the Swiss girls say to Gurb.
Those kinds of questions really tire me out. "Not much, with you?" I replied.
They all started laughing. "That's not what she meant, brother," said Gurb.
"I couldn't care less whether she meant it or not. Send that brace-face back to Switzerland. Don't drive me crazy, alright!"
Actually, I hadn't drunk that much that evening. "Two vodka Sprites, please!" It's rare for me to get just one drink. "I always get two drinks, then you have to wait shorter for the third one!" Maybe the alcohol was affecting me more than I wanted to admit. Oh well, it was still the three of us against the world.
"Nice shoes, are those Prada?" I asked a random girl at the bar.
"No, these are fake. Why would I buy real ones for 600 dollars if I could just buy these for 20?"
"..."
I'm not very good at that. Talking. To women.
Louis and Gurb were in the smoking area now. It was less blue than the dance floor itself. My clothes already stank, so a visit to the smoking area couldn't hurt. "These people are so underground!" Gurb shouted. Louis was filming him with his phone. "These people..." There was a brief pause. As if Gurb forgot the only line he had. "...so underground!" All three of us burst into laughter. The alcohol flowed through our veins as if it came from the purest mountains. People seemed doubled and the room was full. We had been in the same club in Berlin for several hours.
"Leonardo! What are you hiding from the big boss?" I sometimes called Louis ‘DiCaprio.’ "You a rich guy, now?" I said, with an accent as if I were from the Bronx.
Louis started laughing. "Eh, you know nothing. Bullshit talk."
I had to laugh too. What was I even worried about? Friends are friends, with or without money. That shouldn't matter. Louis probably just worked for that money. Maybe it wasn't as bad as I thought. Maybe he just had enough to buy rounds. But what if my gut feeling was right? That feeling was never wrong. Except for that one time at the Holland Casino in Groningen. Even the best of us have slip-ups. I was just getting worked up again. When it comes down to it, Louis is one of the sweetest guys I know. I had to let it go. After all, it's still Louis.
"I think I'm going to have sex soon, man," Louis said.
"With who?" I asked immediately.
"That one girl."
"Which one?"
"The one with the boobs."
"Oh, her. Just be careful."
"What kind of reaction is that?" Louis asked indignantly.
I'd only had four drinks, but I was acting like a mess. Louis was right. I didn't understand myself. Where was my head at? I'm here in Berlin, supposed to be having the time of my life, but here I am feeling lonely and sad again. Joost once again couldn't control his emotions.
"Sorry," I suddenly said to Louis. "Sorry for my behavior. Been acting dumb towards you all night. It's unnecessary." Sometimes I have that. Mood swings. "Know that crime is never the solution. We've talked about this so many times. Yes, it's tempting and sometimes easy money. I sometimes find it amusing too, but it's always hypothetical. Ask me for help. I can help you, even with illegal things. I'll always have your back." The dancing was kind of over.
The words I had just placed on Louis's plate came from my heart. My Frisian, irregular boys' heart.
Crying in the club. I had never seen myself like that. Crying, yes. In the club, no. I never understood the taboo around crying. Or emotions in general. I saw myself in the mirror. They weren't tears of joy. They weren't tears of sadness either. It was me letting everything go. All the emotions I had ever felt. The emotions I felt between my brother and sister and myself because they wanted to take on a parental role over me, but I was in puberty, so I pushed them away. The emotions I felt when my old neighbors were supposed to take care of my dog, but didn't tell me that he was bitten by one of their dogs. They didn't have money for the surgery, they later told me. They were ashamed of their lack of money. My dog died from this injury. Even the emotions that were all jumping at once during the retake for my swimming diploma A, I let go of.
No emotions. Just for a moment, not feeling anything. Is that too much to ask for?
"You still don’t smoke?"
It had to be the voice of the woman with the cigarettes. I looked over my shoulder through the mirror. It was her. The one with dark blond, silky hair.
"Not to be rude, but this is the men’s room," I said. She took a step closer and kissed me on my lips. It tasted like more. We started kissing. It had been a while since I had had female contact at this level. It probably didn't look good and it didn't feel good either. She started kissing my neck. Slowly, I noticed the pressure in the erectile tissues of my penis starting to increase. "I really don't have time for this!" I thought to myself. The woman with the cigarettes started to slowly sink down until she was on her knees. I didn't want this. Not now, not like this. She unraveled my penis from my Polo Ralph Lauren underwear. Her tongue was blue. It was probably from cheap shots of alcohol.
Was this real beauty then? Was this the beginning or the end of her story? And had I become the boy my parents hoped I would be? I thought about the fact that this was once someone's little daughter. Somewhere in the world, an old man might be wondering what his daughter is doing. Am I really putting pleasure above my own morals and values?
With my semi-erect circumcised penis still exposed, I lifted her up. After giving her a kiss on her forehead, I pulled up my pants and left the toilets.
It was the usual last hour in any club ever. I met Louis and Gurb at the bar. "Should we have another drink?" I asked Gurb. "I feel like having a cocktail. Something sweet. Lots of sugar. What about you?"
Gurb looked at the menu. "A cognac would go down well right now."
"A cognac? You're only nineteen!" Gurb and Louis laughed. "Two Tequila Sunrises please!" I called to the bartender. "Also, two beers! Thanks!" I also got a beer for Louis. At first, I didn't want to, but I didn't want to spoil the mood either. Besides, I didn't want to show too much that it bothered me so much.
We danced away the last minutes. The club closed, and we decided to walk with the group of Swiss girls. Apparently, they were staying nearby.
As I lagged behind the group, one of them tried to start a conversation with me. "Are you okay?" she asked kindly.
"I'm fine. Just had too much beer. Makes me sleepy." Not true at all, but I've heard people say that.
"You’re tired? The fun has only just began!" And as she said this, she pulled something out of her inner pocket. Her clenched fist, shielded by a half jacket. Who is this girl, anyway? I thought to myself. She opened her hand flat, and right in the center of her palm lay two small pills with a smiley face on them. At least, they looked like it.
"Oh, I don’t do drugs. Sorry."
"Me neither!" And she swallowed a pill. "Now it’s your turn... Or are you scared?"
Scared? Who did this crazy Swiss witch (with really beautiful eyes) think she was. With her "are you scared". I'll show her who's scared.
"Scared? I’m not scared." I picked up the remaining pill and swallowed it.
Everything went in slow motion. Was this who I had become? Was this the same boy from high school? And just before I could swallow, I spat out the pill. She was shocked. I picked up the pill again, dried it with my jacket, and put it back in her fist. "Maybe later!" I shouted, running back to the group, over my shoulder.
I have nothing to say to 9 out of 10 peers I come across. Of course, I can be social. I can also have fun with random people in random situations, but that night, it just tired me out. I also didn't understand what we were doing there. Those girls found me strange anyway. Suddenly, I was the fifth wheel.
"We know this place where they go until 7 in the morning!" The girl leader of the group spoke. I wanted to go home. "If you guys want, you can go. Don't worry about me," I said to Gurb and Louis. The boys had a brief discussion. We agreed to stay for just a little while longer for some drinks. I consented. I was thirsty. "I'll have a Fanta, Louis."
Gurb had reached the last cigarette in his pack. Louis and a girl from the group were nowhere to be found. It didn't even bother me. This guy just walks around with some cash in his pocket and all hell breaks loose. After a night full of stimuli, I understood Louis. Of course, I understood Louis. He's a young god. Handsome, smart guy. But that didn't make me any less angry. It was purely about trust for me. Something inside me said I should stop subconsciously expecting things from people too. It prevents disappointment.
"Hotel please!" I jokingly suggested to Gurb. "Should you call Louis or should I?" I added. Gurb immediately grabbed his Android smartphone and called Louis. He put the call on speaker.
"Are you ready?" Gurb asked.
"Yeah. Sort of."
"What do you mean?"
"We didn't have sex."
"That's fine, right? Tomorrow's a new day!"
"I think I'm in love, man," Louis said.
"...," Gurb said, chuckling as he let out a sigh.
Once we arrived at the girls' hostel, it was already getting light. Louis was thankfully back. There were stains on his pants, around his knees. My focus was solely on arranging a taxi. Although the boys were still flirting, I was really done now. "How are we going to pay for this taxi?" I said a bit too loudly.
There was a silence. "Don't worry. I still have cash," Gurb said.
"Yeah, I knew you would," I replied.
My words clearly hit Louis. "What do you mean by that?" he said.
It was as if time stood still for a few seconds. "Exactly what I said. Better listen." Louis pulled out a small wad of green bills from his pocket. At least 400 euros. "I don't even want to see that money," I reacted. I walked away.
I'll just order a taxi myself.
"Why are you walking away now?" Gurb said.
"Twelve hours ago, I was alone too, and I had a lot more fun then."
"Do you really want to know how I got this money?" Louis said.
Yes, I did want to know. My whole evening revolved around that damn money.
He took a second of pause before he began speaking. "The answer lies in the Mini."
What on earth could be in Gurb's mother's car? Louis was trying to get into my head. "Taxi!"
Once in the taxi, the division was clear. Gurb was upfront, chatting animatedly with the driver. All adventures ever were recounted. Louis and I in the back. One of my best friends since I was thirteen. Funny how things turn out. It was quiet between us. I was in my head, rehearsing how I would bring up the money again. It didn't add up, and he knew it himself. "I don't care, you know," I said, hoping he'd break.
"What don't you care about?"
"About that money."
"What money? You're really a crazy woozy man." Louis burst out laughing again.
On the other hand, it was silent. Gurb had started talking about the driver's family. The driver didn't appreciate it. Gurb meant well. The driver smelled of alcohol. Or was it me? His nails were polished. Maybe his wife was a specialist. I bite my nails myself. Like now.
"In the Mini, oh yeah."
"Shut up. Illegal man."
"You'll never know."
"Stop playing. Just say it!"
Louis grabbed my head, pulled himself towards me, and brought his mouth to my right ear. "Why so serious?" he whispered. He didn't want to tell me.
"But always with this damn money, huh?" I almost shouted at Louis. I broke every silence within a radius of 10 kilometers.
"I'm trying my best, bro. It is what it is. I can't make it any different," he replied. It was clearly bothering him deeply. He ran his hands through his hair. "Sometimes people have to do things. And you know that better than anyone. Sometimes they have to do things they don't really want to or aren't supposed to do."
I knew this spiel all too well. Through all the drunken haziness, I suddenly saw a small glimmer of light. A tiny spark of sincerity. Louis was serious this time.
"I'm sorry. I didn't want to involve you in this. I'm sorry," sweat dripped from his forehead.
"You're serious, huh? Damn, man. What mess have you gotten yourself into now? Worse than Terschelling?" Worse than Terschelling would mean stolen goods. Maybe even violence.
"It's not what you think."
"The Adlon Hotel, right?" the driver chimed in. Always saved by the bell, that Louis.
Suddenly I hit my head against the seat in front of me. Of course, I wasn't wearing my seatbelt. The last thing I saw was Gurb waking up in panic from his drunken stupor. One by one, I started losing my senses. It started with the feeling in my fingers. For a brief moment, everything wasn't quite black, and I could only see a vague pattern of colors repeating inside my eyelids. You could compare it to the brief moment after the commercial break before the movie starts in the cinema. The movie was about to begin.
I knew I wasn't dying. At least not yet. Not like this. Not after an overall mediocre night out in Berlin. I found comfort in the image I forced myself to see. It was all in my head. There I was, unconscious.
I saw myself in a third-person point of view. It wasn't like I was actually leaving my body. More like there was a webcam hanging in one of the upper corners of the taxi.
As a child, I used to dream a lot about death. Nights spent awake.
At some point, I developed a kind of compulsive behavior. I kept swaying my torso from left to right with my hands under my head. It became almost like a workout before bedtime. Every night.
I called it dream shuffling. Just like I had learned to shuffle puzzle pieces or playing cards. Making things a little exciting for yourself. But what I almost never told anyone was that I was scared. I was afraid of burglars, who were very agile and muscular.
Especially afraid that they would murder me. I really wanted to know what death was like. It scared me.
These fear visions originated during an all-inclusive vacation in Turkey. I was 6 years old and already in bed. There was a big old TV in our hotel room, so I could secretly watch TV from bed. Every evening, my parents sat on the balcony. Here they discussed their day while enjoying a glass of alcohol. There was a Japanese animated series on TV. In the few seconds that I watched, I saw a scary creature climbing a sort of apartment complex via the balconies. The creature had hundreds of teeth and blond hair. It quickly entered to decapitate the people, then drained them and, as a final insult, robbed them. Dozens of carcasses of dead people were scattered around the apartment complex. The complex on TV resembled the resort where we were in reality, and the TV world merged with my surroundings. I became part of it. I saw people watching. No matter how loudly I screamed for help, they didn't react. The sun became very bright, and the people turned into nothing more than shadows. As the intensity of the sun increased, something became clear to me. These were not people. They had a sort of orange skin. Where I had previously thought it was their nose and mouth, it turned out that these shadowy figures did not have such physical features. They simply had three holes in their heads. The police tried to do something, but in vain. Since then, we always kept the light on in the hallway outside my bedroom. By rocking back and forth, from left to right, I could glance fleetingly at the beam of light under the door. That bit of light, escaping from the hallway into my room, gave me an advantage. It allowed me to stay one step ahead of the burglars. Pretty smart, right?
"From Jamaica to the world!
It’s just love. Why must the children play in the street?"
It was Bob Sinclar with "Love Generation" speaking to us through the taxi's speakers. We were stationary. I was conscious again, but I didn't feel alive at all. "How long was I out?" I asked Louis.
I could tell by his expression that he was relieved. Relieved that I was back. "One minute," he almost apologized. Louis gave me a pat on the shoulder. Gurb, on the other hand, was sleeping. He slept like a baby cub.
I put my right index finger on my forehead. It felt wet, but it wasn't blood. Blood feels different. Meanwhile, I kept hearing whistling.
"Be the love generation! Oh yeah!" It was still that same song by Bob Sinclar.
The earlier scent of alcohol had now been replaced by the smell of incense. It smelled like the same incense I had in my room. Sold to me as Tibetan 39 incense. I had bought it at a coffee shop in Rotterdam. I pulled up my notes on my phone. "Who lights incense in a CAR????" I let Louis read from my screen. He took the phone from my hands and started typing as well.
"Look at Gurb >>>" Gurb was so deeply asleep that his head drooped. His seatbelt held his torso in place, but his head ended up on the driver's shoulder. The man didn't mind. He didn't move. I made eye contact with the driver through the rearview mirror, and soon I found him. He winked at me.
We arrived at the hotel. Gurb awakened from his alcoholic hibernation. "Who's going to pay for the taxi?" I asked. Clearly rhetorical. I already knew I would take this one for the team, as usual. I refused to use Louis's money. It was uncomfortably quiet. "By card please," I said.
"I'll always protect you, Louis. You really need to know that. I care about you like my own little brother. I'll always try to help you. But you have to be honest with me. Can you do that?" Louis didn't hesitate.
"Yes. Yes, I can. I'll show you. It's really in the Mini." Meanwhile, the taxi driver's card machine indicated that I had insufficient funds. That couldn't be right. Maybe I had withdrawn too much that evening.
"I have cash in the hotel room," Gurb said to me. Gurb informed the driver in broken English that he would go get his cash. The driver agreed. Money is money, whether it comes now or later. As long as it feels good in your hands.
Louis and I got out of the taxi. "You're not going to light a cigarette now, are you?" Louis wanted to smoke. "Especially for stress. That's really for people who can't handle pain. You need to feel pain. Pain needs to brand you for the rest of your life so you finally learn not to do such stupid things." It fell silent again. My blood boiled. All pots were on the stove. I felt like Gordon Ramsay in the kitchen. "Show me then. Do it."
Louis remained silent and walked around the corner of the hotel. Towards the parking lot. I followed him. "You're not going to find much," said Louis.
"Why not? Are you a magician?"
"No. Just. Not much."
"So there's suddenly magically nothing in Gurb's car?"
"Stop. Get out. Get out of my head!" Louis shouted. Louis had had enough. He was done with the parade. Normally we dealt with hypothetical stories. Only this time it wasn't a joke. I was sure now. Louis had dropped his mask. The revolution had begun. The government had fallen and the dikes had broken. The people were in charge. "You shouldn't freak out like this. Always wanting more. Sweet boy, think about yourself."
After Gurb gave the money to the driver, he came to us. He had a smile on his face, lit a cigarette, and exclaimed, "Brothers!" Once with us, he hugged me. He started laughing. "Maybe I haven't been entirely honest either." Sometimes Gurb seemed like a 38-year-old man. In a positive way. He exuded confidence in a way I didn't often see. Affectionate, with a hint of authority.
We stood in the middle of a large parking lot. "Look. We've reached a point where I might not even care anymore. You guys are teasing me." It did matter to me. Maybe more than ever. I was supposed to be two steps ahead of them, but I couldn't figure it out. "I give up."
The delightful silence returned. Louis and Gurb looked at each other. "You guys win. Apparently, I'm not to be trusted as a friend."
From Louis's expression, I could tell he disagreed with this. "Not true. Come to the car."
We arrived at the car. Louis unlocked it and searched for the trunk button. Gurb had started his third cigarette. "It's a corpse, isn't it? Say it now. I can still help you. I can still help us. I can book a ticket for you. We can get you out of here," I said to Louis.
"Just wait. Nutcase."
"Why won't you accept my help?"
Louis started laughing nervously. Or at least it seemed that way. Perhaps a sly laugh too. Had Louis killed someone? "It's not a corpse. That can't be. You wouldn't be stupid enough to use their ID. You're smarter than that. So it must be something stolen. Haven't you found that button yet?"
Suddenly, we heard a click. Louis had found the button. Somewhere, I didn't want to know. Shouldn't I just trust Louis? Wasn't that the whole point of friendship?
Finally, the moment had arrived. I placed my right hand in the slot of the rear hatch. Something in me doubted. Still. I still doubted. Louis looked dead serious. "You wanted to know, didn't you? Then you also have to be man enough to accept it." Louis was clearly not joking. Or was he acting again? "Pussy," Louis said. I looked away. "You're afraid of what's inside, huh? You're afraid of the real Louis." He began to laugh manically. "Open that thing, man. Nutcase!"
I started laughing too. Why did I make such a big deal out of it? Sweat broke out from every pore in my body. It was even a bit damp in the no man's land between my scrotum and my anus. A tropical climate. It had been quite an adventure the whole evening. I took my hand off the rear hatch and first gave Louis a hug. Not some half-hearted birthday wish. No, a real hug.
"It's okay, buddy," Louis said to me. I had no idea what he meant by that. It fit the moment though.
It was really time now. I opened the rear hatch.
"Where is it?"
"In front of you," said Louis.
"In some secret compartment?"
There was nothing in the trunk. Absolutely nothing. An empty trunk. For an empty evening, in an empty Berlin, with an empty group of guys. I didn't get it.
"You won, man," I whispered. "You finally fucking done did it."
I couldn't believe my eyes. Empty? There was still nothing in the car. Louis just stood there. Emotionally, I was a wreck. I had felt every emotion this evening. Seen every color and smelled every scent. I was done. My body was ready. No longer needed. My mission was complete.
"But why did you do this?" I asked Louis, laughing.
He scratched his chin. It felt like the end of a bad movie.
"I sold our Playstation. Wanted to tell you only after I had sorted everything out again. I terminated my lease. Had some debts, and I also wanted to have some money for once. Once not empty-handed in the club. Once not dependent on my best friends. This is not who I am... I know how much that Playstation meant to you. It was ours together. I should have just told you."
"… and how does Gurb actually make his money?"

My mother always told me I was born with a gift. As a child, I saw monsters lurking in the shadows whenever the lights went out. I would sprint to my room, heart pounding, terrified they would catch me. Most kids have this fear, I suppose, but I never outgrew it.
When I was very young, these monsters were shapeless, shadows that morphed and slithered just beyond the reach of light. I would lay in bed, eyes wide open, blanket pulled up to my chin, ears straining to catch the faintest whisper of movement. My nights were a constant battle between exhaustion and fear, sleep a rare and precious commodity. My mother would come in, sit on the edge of my bed, and tell me soothing stories about brave children and protective spirits. It never worked. The moment she left, the shadows would return, and with them, the monsters.
As a teenager, I became the outcast, the one everyone avoided because I was scared of everything. My classmates whispered about me, their words a low hum of derision and curiosity. While others explored abandoned buildings and partied in the woods, I refused. They thought I was a coward. What they never realized was that I saw things they couldn’t. Their parties in the woods were to me gatherings of unseen horrors, their abandoned buildings were haunted in ways they could never comprehend.
What I have learned is that the young ones are particularly sensitive to them. Do you ever wonder why children always seem to be afraid of monsters? They see something under their bed and want to sleep in their parents’ room? It’s because they know what I know, before their parents convince them it's not real and their gift goes away. I bet you have some memories of this, too. Maybe you remember a time when you were certain there was something in the closet, or the way the shadows seemed to shift and change when you were alone in your room. Maybe you dismissed it as childish imagination. I couldn't afford that luxury.
They don’t mind children seeing them. I’m not sure why. It could be that they don’t perceive them as a threat because no one will believe them. Parents dismiss the fears, tell their children there are no monsters, it’s just the wind, it’s just the house settling. They smile and turn off the lights, leaving their children alone in the dark.
But the monsters react differently when you get older. As a teenager, I noticed they became somewhat agitated when I made eye contact with them. Now, as a young adult, they get furious if they realize I can see them. My life has become a facade of constantly pretending I don’t notice them. When I go to a friend's house for dinner, I have to act like there isn’t a young girl hanging by a rope in the living room.
Have you ever been reading horror stories or watching a scary movie late at night, then suddenly you feel like something moves in the shadows at the edge of your periphery? I know you know what I’m talking about. You’re more sensitive to them then, but they always escape before you get a good look. Consider yourself lucky. I loved my mother, and I miss her dearly, but she was dead wrong. This is not a gift. It’s the furthest thing from it.
They surround me every day, everywhere I go. After a while, some friends at school approached me, wanting to know what I saw. They saw it as a thrill. To them, I was a glorified Ouija board. I agreed to come to a sleepover and tell them what I saw. It was a way for me to get back at the monsters haunting every waking moment. A way to expose them. I should have known it was a bad idea. Trust me when I tell you, you do not want to know what's in your house.
That night, we gathered in the dimly lit living room of my friend Samantha’s house. She turned off all the lights and lit some candles, casting a soft, flickering glow that made the shadows dance and twist in the corners of the room. The group of girls sat around me in a semicircle, their pajamas a mix of bright colors and comforting patterns, a contrast to the dark atmosphere that had settled over us. Each of them clutched their pillows, their eyes wide with anticipation, their breaths shallow and quick.
The room was silent except for the occasional creak of the house settling and the steady drip of wax from the candles. It felt like the entire world had shrunk down to the circle of light we were sitting in, the darkness outside our only audience. They asked what I saw, their voices barely above whispers, as if speaking too loudly might summon the very things they were curious about.
I saw three that night. The first was a tall, gaunt woman, her head nearly touching the ceiling. Her presence was overwhelming, like a dark, looming tree. Her long black hair cascaded down, reaching the floor and almost completely obscuring her body. Her eyes were hollow, empty voids that seemed to swallow the light. As I began to describe her, she turned slowly, deliberately, and walked across the back of the room. Her huge feet thudded on the floor with each step, a sound that echoed in the oppressive silence, sending shivers down our spines. The girls’ faces blanched, their eyes darting to the spot where I said she stood.
The next was a young boy, crouched underneath the coffee table. He was small, with a face twisted in fear and pain. His clothes were tattered, and his skin was pale, almost translucent. As I spoke of him, his mouth opened in a silent scream, a scream that seemed to vibrate in the very air around us. His eyes were wide, filled with a terror that was all too familiar to me. He stayed there for a moment, his silent scream lingering, before he disappeared into the shadows. The flickering candlelight played tricks on the girls’ eyes, making them see the boy where there was nothing but darkness.
Finally, there was a man outside the window, his face pressed against the glass. His eyes were dark and piercing, filled with a malevolent intensity. His mouth was twisted into a snarl, revealing teeth that looked sharp and jagged. The more I described him, the angrier his expression became. He didn’t just watch us; he stared into us. Slowly, methodically, he began to climb up the side of the house, his movements jerky and unnatural. The sound of his fingers scraping against the windowpane was a grating, nails-on-chalkboard noise that made everyone flinch.
The room’s temperature seemed to drop several degrees, the cold seeping into our bones. My friends’ faces reflected a growing horror. Their initial excitement had evaporated, replaced by nervous laughter that was thin and strained. They tried to brush it off, to convince themselves and each other that it was just a game, just a story. But their eyes betrayed them. They didn’t understand. They couldn’t. The monsters I described were real, and they were angry. The more I revealed, the more restless the creatures became. I could feel their hatred, their desire to remain unseen, to continue their existence in the periphery of human awareness.
Samantha’s lower lip began to tremble, and tears welled up in her eyes. She started to cry, her voice breaking as she spoke. “When I was a little girl, I used to hear a thudding noise around my house. I thought it was just my imagination, but now... now I think I’m hearing it again.” Her words hung in the air, heavy with fear and a chilling confirmation of my worst fears. She was hearing it. I was sure of it.
As Samantha's tears flowed, her body shook with quiet sobs. The room was thick with tension, every girl's gaze darting around, trying to spot the unseen threats I described. The flickering candlelight cast shifting shadows that seemed to reach out toward us, amplifying the fear that had taken root in each of us. I reveled in the monsters' anguish. They hated me seeing them; they hated even more that I made others see them. It was a small victory in a war I had been fighting alone for so long.
I continued to describe her, feeding off their terror. "She's in the corner now," I said, my voice low and steady, "her hair brushing against the floor, her eyes fixed on us." The tall, gaunt woman seemed to react to my words, her movements becoming more pronounced. "She's moving faster now," I added, "her strides growing longer, more frantic." Each step she took reverberated through the room, a heavy thud that made the girls grip their pillows tighter, their knuckles turning white with fear.
The woman's pace quickened, her massive strides carrying her across the back of the room in seconds. Her feet banged against the walls with each pass, a relentless, haunting rhythm that seemed to echo inside our skulls. I described her in excruciating detail: the way her hair tangled and swayed, the hollow look in her eyes, the musty, decaying smell that followed her. The room felt colder with each word, as if the temperature dropped in response to her growing fury.
I knew I should have stopped, but the hatred I held for these creatures drove me on. They had tormented me for years, and now, finally, they were suffering too. The other girls could hear her now, the thudding, the scraping, the low, guttural moans that filled the silence between each stride. They were no longer just figments of my imagination; they had become real, tangible horrors to everyone in that room.
Then, there was a moment of stillness. The pounding stopped, and the air seemed to freeze. Time itself felt suspended as we strained to hear any sign of the monsters. The silence made every second stretch into an eternity. We sat there, paralyzed, listening, waiting.
Suddenly, a loud bang shattered the silence as the front door swung open with a violent crash. Samantha lunged for the light switch. The room was flooded with harsh, artificial light, dispelling the shadows and revealing nothing but a group of crying, terrified teenage girls.
“Get out! Get out of my house!” Samantha screamed, her voice hysterical. She pushed me towards the door with surprising strength, her hands trembling. I stumbled outside, turning back just in time to see her slam the door in my face. The sound echoed in the still night, a final punctuation to the terror I had unleashed.
I stood there for a moment, the cold air biting at my skin, my heart pounding. I had gone too far, I knew it. But there was a small, dark satisfaction in knowing that someone else had experienced just a fragment of my reality. The feeling was fleeting, quickly replaced by a deep sense of regret and dread.
The next Monday at school, Samantha didn’t show up. Whispers followed me through the halls, hushed conversations that ceased abruptly whenever I walked by. Faces turned away, eyes averted, as if acknowledging me would make them part of the nightmare. By lunchtime, the gossip had spread like wildfire. I was the girl who saw demons, who had brought them into Samantha’s house. The teachers looked at me with a mixture of concern and suspicion, their whispers almost as loud as the students’.
After lunch, I was called into the school psychologist's office. The room was warm and cluttered, filled with shelves of books and comfortable chairs. The psychologist was a kind-hearted old man, his eyes gentle behind wire-rimmed glasses. Looking back on it as an adult, I realized he could have probably made a fortune in private practice, but he chose to take half the pay to help kids who really needed it. I respected him for that. But respect didn’t stop me from lying.
He asked me gentle, probing questions, his voice calm and soothing. “I’ve heard some stories going around,” he began, “about you seeing... things. Can you tell me about it?”
“No,” I replied, my voice steady. “I don’t see ghosts. I didn’t go to a sleepover. I’m not still afraid of the dark.” Each lie was smooth, practiced. I had learned long ago how to hide my reality from the world. I knew better than to tell the truth. Telling the truth would mean more questions, more attention, and possibly even more disbelief.
The psychologist leaned back in his chair, his eyes fixed intently on me. “It’s important to be honest about what you’re experiencing,” he said softly. His voice was calm, measured, but there was an underlying intensity in his gaze. “Sometimes our minds can play tricks on us, especially when we’re scared or stressed.”
I nodded, my expression carefully neutral. “I understand, but there’s nothing to worry about. It’s just silly rumors.” I was proud of how convincing it sounded, even to me.
He sighed, a deep, weary sound. He wasn’t convinced, but he couldn’t push further without more evidence. “Alright,” he said, his tone casual. “Then, you don’t mind if I turn out the lights, do you?”
The question hung in the air. He was good. Years of experience had honed his instincts, allowing him to see through the facade I presented. He could tell when children were lying, when they were saying they were okay when they weren’t. His eyes bore into mine, challenging, probing. I had a fleeting moment of doubt, but I pushed it aside. I was confident in my ability to handle whatever appeared. After all, I had been dealing with these entities for as long as I could remember.
The room was already dimly lit, the late afternoon sun casting long shadows through the blinds. As he flicked the lights off, the room plunged into near darkness, the weak light from outside doing little to dispel the gloom. My heart sank.
The woman from the house was there in the corner. She stood still, her tall, gaunt figure blending into the darkness. Her eyes, deep and hollow, made every hair on my body stand straight up. I fought against the rising tide of fear and emotion, struggling to maintain my composure. “See, there’s nothing here,” I said. “I’m fine.”
But I wasn’t fine. I really, really wasn’t. You need to understand that these spirits are always confined to the same place. If I saw something in a basement, it was always in that basement. It was never anywhere else. But this woman—this tree woman—had followed me. The realization was a cold, hard knot of fear in my stomach. Her presence here, in this room, shattered everything I thought I knew about the boundaries of their existence. I could feel her anger.
My emotions betrayed me. The psychologist was still watching me, his gaze unwavering. He must have seen the fear in my eyes, the slight tremor in my hands. When he flicked the lights back on, tears were streaming down my face. The dam burst. I didn’t just cry, I wailed. The sound was raw, primal, a release of years of pent-up fear and anguish. I collapsed to the floor, my body convulsing with sobs.
He came over and tried to console me, his hands gentle on my shoulders, his voice soothing. But I was inconsolable. My life had been spent on the edge of a mental breakdown, and through my own stupid actions, I had pushed myself over the edge. The realization that the monsters could follow me, that they could breach the boundaries, was too much to bear.
They took me to inpatient mental health and loaded me up with drugs designed to dull my senses and calm my nerves. The fluorescent overhead lights and smell of disinfectant were both sterile and institutional, but somehow I found a modicum of peace here.
Art therapy sessions became a refuge, a way to express the darkness inside me. I poured my fear and anguish into my drawings, the images of the monsters taking form on paper. The act of creation was cathartic, a way to externalize the internal horrors that plagued me. Yoga sessions grounded me to the present, and reading groups helped me express my thoughts. Most importantly, the lights were always somewhat on.
Despite the circumstances, I actually made friends with a lot of the other girls. We bonded over our shared experiences, our struggles and fears. In a strange way, these friendships felt more genuine, more solid, than any I had in regular life.
We jokingly called the place our grippy sock jail, on account of us all having to wear socks so we didn’t strangle ourselves with shoelaces. The name brought a sense of levity, a way to reclaim some control over our environment. We laughed together, shared our hopes and dreams, and for a while, the monsters seemed distant, their presence muted by the bonds we formed.
I did everything in my power to perpetually convince my doctor that I wasn’t ready to return to my life. I fabricated symptoms, exaggerated fears, anything to stay in the protective cocoon of the mental health facility. But after a few months, despite my efforts, they managed to transition me back home. My mother was ecstatic to see me, her eyes brimming with tears of joy. She embraced me tightly, kissing me all over in front of the window where I could see all my friends watching and laughing. It was a mortifying moment, but the laughter outside wasn’t the mean-spirited kind I had been accustomed to. It was genuine, warm, and for the first time, I felt a flicker of normalcy.
Back in my room, I kept the lights on twenty-four seven. The brightness was a comforting shield against the encroaching darkness. Per the doctor’s orders, we slowly started turning off lights in the house as I felt ready. It was a painstaking process, taking several months for the house to even get dim at night, but the monsters never returned. Each day was a small victory, each night a battle won.
Before I knew it, I was sleeping in perfect darkness, a smile on my face. I slept like a baby, the kind of deep, restful sleep I hadn’t known in years. It was as if I was catching up on a decade of sleep deprivation, and every morning I woke up feeling a little more like myself.
Years later, I got my own place while attending community college. It was a small apartment, but it represented freedom and independence. The memories of my childhood nightmares only came infrequently, like faint echoes of a distant past. Feeling confident and in control, I decided to cut down on my medication, wanting to experience life without the dulling effects of the drugs. Nothing happened for weeks, and I started to believe that the horrors of my past were truly behind me.
One night, after brushing my teeth, I flicked off the bathroom light and walked to my room. As I entered and turned off the light, my heart nearly stopped. The tree woman was in the corner, her tall, gaunt figure hunched over, barely fitting under the eight-foot ceiling. Her presence was overwhelming, a dark, suffocating force that made the air thick and heavy. I almost screamed, but instinct kicked in. Somehow, I managed to regain control and casually pretended like I didn’t see her there. Every muscle in my body was tense, my hands shaking as I moved.
She stood still, watching me with those hollow, penetrating eyes. I was shaking, almost violently, and it took every fiber of my being to hide it as I casually crawled into bed. My movements were slow, deliberate, as if any sudden action would trigger an immediate response from her.
The sound of her massive feet thudding on the ground as she walked over to my bed echoed in the room. She stood over me, her presence a looming, oppressive shadow. I was drenched in sweat, quivering from fear. My heart was pounding so hard I thought it might burst. Somehow, I managed to reach into my nightstand, my fingers trembling as I grabbed the bottle of pills. I took triple the dose of my medication, swallowing the pills dry, hoping they would take effect quickly.
In a desperate attempt to distract myself, I pulled out my laptop from the nightstand and started browsing Facebook. The bright light from the screen obscured the shadows, creating a barrier between me and the horror standing over my bed. I forced myself to focus on the mundane, scrolling through posts and liking pictures, anything to keep my mind occupied.
Minutes turned into hours, and it was past 5 a.m. by the time I closed my laptop. The soft blue glow of early morning filtered into the room, casting gentle rays that illuminated the remnants of night’s shadows. With the arrival of dawn, a sense of safety and relief washed over me. The oppressive presence of the tree woman had vanished, retreating into the shadows where she belonged. I let out a shuddering breath, my body finally relaxing as the tension ebbed away. Exhausted, I lay back, my limbs heavy and my mind hazy. Despite the lingering fear, sleep claimed me quickly, pulling me into its embrace.
As I drifted off, I knew deep down that I would never truly escape this nightmare. The monsters were a part of me. But for now, I had survived another night, and that small victory was enough.
In the days that followed, I clung to my routine. I kept a healthy supply of antipsychotics on standby and took my pills like clockwork. The medication was a fragile barrier between me and the shadows that lurked in the darkness. Missing a dose was not an option; I would sooner die than risk it.
Years passed, and I managed to carve out a semblance of normalcy. I found a decent desk job, one that didn’t demand too much of me mentally or emotionally. The predictability of office life was a comfort, the monotony a balm for my frayed nerves. I met someone, a kind and patient man who became my boyfriend. He didn’t know the full extent of my past, but he accepted me, quirks and all. Together, we built a life that felt safe and stable.
Yet, the shadows of my past never fully disappeared. They lingered at the edges of my consciousness. Every so often, a stray noise or an unexpected shadow would send me into a full-blown panic attack. Despite the medication and the semblance of a normal life, I remained vigilant, always on guard against the return of the darkness. It was a delicate balance, a precarious dance between sanity and the abyss. I knew better than to let my guard down completely.
I’ll leave you with this: In the end, the monsters feed on fear and attention. Acknowledging them gives them power, and power is something they must be denied at all costs. So, when you feel a chill in the room, keep your eyes forward and your mind steady. Remember, sometimes the safest path is the one that keeps you blissfully ignorant of the horrors that lie just out of sight.
If you find yourself up late one night, and you see something out of the corner of your eye, just laugh it off. Don’t turn your gaze to it, and don’t go looking for things you’d rather not find. When you feel that chill creep up the back of your neck, whatever you do, do not gaze into the darkness.

Hello! I'll start talking about myself, then about my boyfriend, then how our relationship went down and how we got back together. Sorry for my English in advance.
So. I'm Brazilian and a 20 year-old Law student. I'm very empathetic, and I came from a family with many challenges - financial and emotional. My parents marriage isn't the best, and I grew up in a pretty hostile environment (in the sense that my parents were very strict about grades, and my father is very aggressive in general). However, they did the best they could with what they had. Last year, I came to live in another state, 7 hours away from home by car, because I got into one of the best colleges in the country (currently second best at Law) and couldn't miss the opportunity. I've been learning how to be an adult more and more day by day. I've got a nice internship and work another job aside from that.
When I thought I was finally free from my mother's controlling behavior, I decided it was finally a good time to date someone. And so I began talking to this boy (at the time, a 22 year old) through the internet. He seemed wonderful. Spent three years in Romania to study (even tho he didn't get to graduate) and then came back to Brazil to pursue his true passion, International Relations. We hit it off pretty quickly and started officially dating after a month.
At that time, even thought he had dated multiple girls in the past, I was his first serious relationship. Even today, he says I'm the only girl he ever felt (and still feels) love for. I got to know later on that he had Bipolarity, depression and Borderline Personality Syndrome - all of those conditions that weren't being treated or medicated for months.
He had problems with money, problems with dates, problems with compromises, problems with his grades, problems with his addictions (cigarettes). He didn't know exactly how to make a girlfriend feel safe, he would often not include me in his routine, sometimes he wasn't careful with his wording... and many other things. Every time I talked about our problems, he would only say "sorry" "I can't guarantee I'll actually change" "maybe I'm not the one you're looking for". He followed a LOT of girls, and always told me "I don't check out Instagram anyways so it's nothing".
Then, after 7 months in the relationship, I went over to my mother's house for Christmas and New year. He also went to his dad's house at that time. We cried a lot when we had to part, because we did absolutely everything together.
Well. Once he got into his dad's house, he began to be more distant (if we chatted for 10 minutes a day, that was rare) and I was exhausted. I just wanted a conversation of some minutes, and I understand he wanted to be with his family, but a nice call at the end of the day or just a few texts wouldn't keep him from them. I talked about that with him and I ended up being the one apologizing for not being understanding.
Phew...
Then, after two weeks of vacation, it happened. A girl going to my DMs and exposing an intimate conversation she and my boyfriend had just a few minutes ago. I exploded. She was Spanish. She wasn't even Brazilian. She was an online friend. He sent messages talking about how he wanted to kiss her on her bed, about how he was horny, asking her for a fit check, and sending pictures of his underwear.
She checked his Instagram later just to find out my name in his bio. So she went over and sent me everything. Every screenshot.
I was betrayed. I never thought he would ever do this to me.
I talked to him. He said he was sorry, that he loved me, that he didn't get why he'd done that, that he was stressed, that he would never do it again, that I was wonderful, that I didn't do anything wrong and he didn't want to lose me...
I'll be honest, at that time, I didn't want to break up. But I HAD to.
So I broke up with him, but told him we could try again if he made an effort, and we should also talk in person about everything. Told him he should seek therapy and a psychiatrist. My condition was that he would tell me if he got together or flirted with another woman until I got back from vacations so we could have that talk.
It didn't take long for him to start telling me he was feeling numb. That he didn't think it was a good idea to get back together. However, he would send me good morning and good night texts every single day, and sometimes he would text me that he loved me. Weeks later, when he stopped texting as much, I found out he was flirting with other girls. So I cut off contact, and told him that I couldn't believe he didn't keep what he promised me (telling me if he flirted with someone else). He hid it from me, and I didn't even understand why.
Days later, I found out he slept with a prostitute, and even told his friends to gang b*ng her. My heart completely stopped. I was heartbroken.
My own depression came out of hiding. So I contacted a therapist, and tried to appreciate the other things in life other than him.
Later on, I came to know he was also working on himself, getting medicated and all.
2 months later, I come back to the state I studied in, where he already was. I come in peace, relaxed, and happy to be in another place full of opportunities. But my heart still weighed.
Then I went to have that talk to him. He apologized for everything. We had a long, long talk about things, and I felt a lot better. But then he started getting physical; hugging me for hours, caressing me, kissing my cheek, kissing my forehead, putting his hand on my thigh...
Before anything could get any more serious, I went back home alone.
Then, another day, he came to get gifts I had gotten for his family (it was his stepmom's birthday, whom I cherished, and on vacations it was his little brother's birthday). I wanted to go to the pharmacy after that, and he asked to accompany me. I accepted, as it was late and I didn't want to go alone.
After sometime, he started talking about how he missed me. How he missed my jokes, my humour, my personality, my presence in his life. He hugged me. I told him it was a bit late for that. That I had given him the chance to have me back, and he didn't appreciate it.
Then we went to talk in a park. We sat together, and he started to tell me even more things. That he would see my clothes and other things in his room and cry, wondering why he'd cheated on me, telling himself he was stupid for letting me go and disrespecting me. He would often miss his way from home and go to my place by mistake. That he'd never stopped loving me, and that he was just running away from conflict l.
Well. I couldn't help it. I missed him like hell and he told me everything I wanted to hear. I ended up kissing him.
We then got back together oficially after three months of going out and sorting things out. He's been wonderful, everything I asked for and more.
But it still hurts, as you might think.
Most of the times I feel insecure he comes running over to my place to make sure I'm not breaking up with him again.
He knows I know about the prostitute, btw.
I just don't get it. He says he regrets it, that he regretted before and after. Well, if he regretted before, he could have just not done it. I didn't get anything... I still couldn't accept why he'd done everything. I felt ugly, I felt like I was not enough...
Then he told me about his past with childhood trauma, which explained a lot to me in my head. I cried when he told me his story, and apologized for what they've done to him, because the person who did bad things to him him was his family and never apologized. He'd never told this story to anyone.
That alone explained a lot of things in my head. His hypersexuality, his tendency to deal with things alone, etc. But the prostitute thing still gets to me.
I keep wondering what she'd looked like. How was it. If he liked it. Why he'd done it.
He says he did it because he just wanted to forget everything, but it just didn't work. That he's here for me now, that he'll never do such thing again, that he'll be good to me from now on...
Idk what to do. I want to stop thinking about her, but idk how.

I’m aware that this is unconventional. Believe me, I’ve tried conventional – it didn’t end well for anyone. I require a certain open mindedness that I’m hoping I might find here, but more importantly, I need my future husband to know the rules. Meet-cutes are well and good on the screen, but they don’t guarantee a partner’s ability to follow basic instructions. That was my mistake the first time.
So, begging your pardon for my bluntness, I’m going to be clear about my requirements. Please read carefully – if you can’t meet them, there’s no point in going any further.

• Must want children. At least one child, anyway. I’m open to the idea of more, but one is an absolute must.
• Must be in it for the long haul. Until our child turns eighteen, to be precise. I understand that level of commitment is a daunting prospect, particularly when we have not yet met. After our child is born, you are welcome to ignore me, if you please, or take your pleasure elsewhere – though I will warn you that it might be difficult to come by. But you will live under my roof until our child is an adult.
• Homebody preferred. It will make the next two decades easier on you.
• Must have impeccable manners. I will provide a manual outlining the required etiquette, but you must at least have a grasp of basic courtesy to begin with. If you let your tongue run away with you, or don’t bother to wish your neighbours a good morning when you pass them in the street, stop reading – this is not the opportunity for you. Seriously.

This is the part where I should talk about myself, but let’s face it, this is hardly a romantic proposal. I require commitment up-front and there’s no guarantee that, once we do meet, we’ll really even like each other. If we do? Fantastic! It’ll help the years fly by. If we don’t, you’ll still have the main prize – years of rent-free, expenses-free living at The Old Oak Hotel.
A sanctuary has stood in this spot in one form or another since before the ley lines. During its tenure, it has been flooded, put to the flame, and pounded into dust. Time and again, it has been reimagined and rebuilt. Most of the current building dates back to Victoria’s reign, though the oldest parts were constructed in the 13^th century. At the very bottom of the garden, cut into the surrounding hills, there is a cave bearing handprints of red ochre.
There has always been an Edwards at the hotel, though of course we haven’t always gone by that name. You would think a family so tied to one place would do a better job of keeping records, but no one is certain of our origins. Perhaps it was a cosmic bargain, or perhaps mere luck – whether good or bad, I have never been able to decide. Either way, our presence is required. Throughout our spotty past, there’s a story here and there of an Edwards deserting their post, and it always coincides with a particularly brutal period of history.
I inherited the position five years ago. At midnight on my eighteenth birthday, my parents took their already-packed suitcases and left. I don’t blame them for their abandonment; I intend to one day do the same thing to my – or, hopefully, our – child.
They send me postcards and photos from time-to-time, always smiling on sunny beaches. Money isn’t a concern for them. That’s part of whatever mysterious deal our ancestors made – when a caretaker leaves in good-standing, they will never want for anything again. They could travel the world for the rest of their lives, always sleeping in the softest sheets and dining in the finest restaurants, and never find their pockets empty.
Keep this point in mind, for if you can meet my requirements, you will share my good fortune.
And what must we do in return? I can all but hear you scream the question. Why, very little. The presence of an Edwards ensures that the guests can’t stray from the hotel grounds. Most of our guests are live-in residents, though we do get the occasional walk-in. Where they come from, I don’t know, for we are not visible to most people who stumble upon our lonely corner of the world. I’ve come to believe the hotel chooses to reveal itself when its lacking entertainment, or to fill a need.
Jimmy, my first husband, was one such guest.
For the most part, the guests are harmless. They’ll give you a little fright from time-to-time, popping out from a wall or turning your bathwater into blood, but I find it hard to hold it against them. I’ve found twenty-three years here dreary; I can’t imagine how bored I would be after five hundred.
There are a few exceptions you should be aware of:

• Eric. Our resident serial murderer. He claims to have been Jack the Ripper while he still drew breath, but I think he’s just a blowhard. He knows better than to harm an Edwards, but I’m afraid spouses are fair game. Years ago, my grandmother managed to confine him to the fourth floor, so you will be perfectly safe from him as long as you never set foot there. Occasionally, the lift will stop on that floor even though you haven’t pressed the button for it. Do not get out. Even if the lift appears to be on fire or starts filling with murky water. Wait for the doors to close again, then go to another floor. It should only take a few hours.
• The Thing in the Cellar. I don’t know what It is; no one ever has. We only know It eats rats and must be fed once a day. If I’m ever ill or incapacitated, this task will fall to you. Harvest the rats from the traps in the garden, then stand at the cellar door and throw them down the stairs. Do not walk down the stairs and do not forget to feed It. You don’t want to be the first person to see Its’ face.
• Mrs Jones. Old fashioned and a stickler for manners, she’s the reason I’m advertising for a husband rather than a boyfriend. She won’t abide a couple living in sin under the same roof as her. Really, though, she’s a sweet old thing. Full of stories about the war and always ready to help if I get stuck on a recipe. I don’t blame her for what happened with Jimmy at all. I’d warned him enough times.

Guests aside, there are other rules you will need to follow to ensure a safe, satisfactory stay at The Old Oak Hotel. They are listed in a book that has been re-penned many times over the centuries. If you choose to accept this opportunity, I will insist that you read it until you can recite the pages word-for-word.
However, there are some rules so critical for your survival that I feel compelled to list them here:

• With the exception of the fourth floor, you are welcome to roam the hotel and its grounds as you please. But you must never set foot outside of our land – not until our child is old enough to fulfil their duties. If I were to do so, it would unleash pandemonium – plague, peril, perhaps another world war. I’m afraid you would be less crucial to the fate of the world, but it would certainly be a personal disaster.
• Never look in the mirrors in room 33.
• I’ve touched this point already, but it bears repeating: never be rude to Mrs Jones.

Failure to observe that last rule is what got Jimmy.
She doted on him. I think he reminded her of her long-dead son, for she pampered him as if he were one of her own. Each morning, she had breakfast ready for him before I had so much as opened my eyes, and she developed a habit of trailing along after him, complimenting his skill as he oiled rusted hinges or set a crooked picture straight.
At first, Jimmy basked in the attention. But by the end of his second month, he was growing bored of Mrs Jones, me, and the hotel itself. We pride ourselves on our facilities. If you need more activity than a turn around the garden, we have a lovely indoor pool – it freezes over every now and then, but most of the time it’s perfectly usable. Our library is unmatched. Although the room is cramped, it has every book imaginable; you only need to think of a particular title, and it will appear on one of the shelves. And now that I’ve dragged us kicking and screaming into the 21^st century, we have a wide array of streaming services.
It wasn’t enough for Jimmy. He wanted to go out – eat in a restaurant, watch a film in the cinema, see any faces other than the ones he was surrounded by every day. He began having a drink each evening. One drink turned into several, and after a few weeks, the bar became his permanent residence between dusk and midnight.
He wasn’t the only one getting bored. I had been thrilled when he first arrived; ecstatic when he agreed to stay. How marvellous to feel real flesh beneath my fingers after five years of only the dead for company. What a relief to have some assistance in the many tasks required to keep the hotel running as it should.
The more he drank, the less inclined he was to help – or even spend time in my company. He no longer visited my bed, choosing a room for himself on the opposite end of the floor. When our paths did cross, at best he would ignore me. At worst, he would nitpick or outright rail against me, blaming me for his captivity.
Still, I made an effort to be present whenever he frequented the bar. As lovely as Mrs Jones can be, she does have a tendency to nag. Before and after her death, she was close to teetotal, only consenting to take a single sherry at Christmas, and drinking outside of special occasions is something of a bugbear of hers.
“Think of your health, dear,” she would tell Jimmy brusquely. “You’ll miss it when it’s gone.”
Or, “How about we switch to a nice apple juice now? You’ve had quite enough to drink for one night.”
Most of the time, Jimmy managed to pull himself together enough to flash a charming smile and distract her with a compliment about her latest meal. But after one drink too many, I’d noticed him gritting his teeth and just barely managing to hold his tongue.
It was better if I was present. Playing the doting wife, I insisted on pouring his drinks, watering them down out of his sight. When Mrs Jones’s nagging bordered on relentless, I could always distract her with a game of gin rummy.
On his final day, I was running behind. The ghoul on the second floor – usually the least demanding of our guests – had come down with some dreadful illness, or else decided he wanted to inconvenience me. Either way, I had woken that morning to the foulest stench I had ever experienced. I followed it to his room and found every surface covered in putrid green-blank gunge, its consistency somewhere between mucus and vomit.
All day I scrubbed, taking only brief breaks to step outside before I fainted. By the time the room was restored to a passable state, and I had filled several bin bags to bursting with filthy rags, it was already deep into the night. Mindful of the time, I paused only long enough to wash the streaks of muck from my arms and face before racing to the bar.
I arrived just in time to hear Jimmy’s last words. After he spat them at Mrs Jones, she only stared for a small eternity, her mouth frozen in the motherly smile she wore whenever she scolded him.
Then, like melted wax, her face began to shift.
I shouted at Jimmy to run, but he didn’t need to be told. Before the words left my mouth, he leapt from his barstool and streaked through the door. Mrs Jones followed him seconds later. Her lips were already peeling back to reveal rows upon rows of long, wickedly sharp fangs, while claws sprouted from beneath her lace-edged cuffs.
I sprinted after them, but Jimmy was fuelled by fear and Mrs Jones by whatever force propels the Mrs Joneses of the world. I followed the screeching to the lobby. Breathless, I arrived to see he had arrived within mere feet of the entrance before Mrs Jones grabbed him.
Claws wrapped around his throat, she lifted him into the air. As I watched, her jaw unhinged, the lower part dropping so that it was nearly level with her chest.
That sight drove all the sense out of my head. Forgetting every rule my parents had ever drilled into me, I lunged at her.
She batted me away as though I weighed no more than a fly.
I crashed into the reception desk, the breath bursting from my lungs in a great woosh. I was certain that I would die, for no amount of effort seemed to force air back into my aching chest. At last, as my vision began to dim, I managed to take a small gulp – then another, and another, until I was able to draw myself together enough to regain my feet.
By that time, Mrs Jones had nearly finished her dinner. Jimmy’s chest was splayed open, muscle and shattered ribs protruding every which way from his flesh, and she was devouring the last few bites of his heart.
His head was angled towards me. The light had winked out from his eyes, but they still held his final terror – and an accusation which, I was quite certain, was directed at me. I would like to say I felt only horror, but I couldn’t help my sudden jolt of irritation. How may times had I told him to mind his manners?
Mrs Jones gulped, the sound thick and wet in her gullet, and dropped what remained of Jimmy to the floor.
Then she turned to me.
Here’s another rule for you, one which I hope you never have cause to use: never interfere with a kill.
The Mrs Jones who used to kiss my grazed knees, who argued with my mother for the right to read me bedtime stories, was no longer at the wheel. No amount of pleading or reasoning would move her.
I could only run.
Spinning around, I vaulted over the reception desk and raced for the office behind it. If Jimmy had not been out of his mind with fear and booze, he might have remembered the rules and survived; it was one of several staff-only rooms throughout the hotel warded to keep out unwanted guests.
Just ten steps from desk to door, yet it was the longest journey of my life. My hard-won breath burned my throat; my heart pounded in my ears, deafening me to all other sounds than Mrs Jones’s heavy, pounding footsteps.
Grasping the handle, her hot, copper-tanged breath was on my neck. Fire exploded in my flesh as she raked her claws down my back. A step further away, and I wouldn’t have made it; the pain would have been too great. But I managed to throw myself into the office and slam the door before crumpling to the ground.
Before I passed out, I heard her grunting and shrieking outside, furious that she couldn’t get in.
Three days I spent in the office, emerging only to feed The Thing in the Cellar before scurrying back to my hiding place. Whenever I left, I tried not to look at the mangled heap that used to be Jimmy. There was no avoiding the smell, though.
With no small difficulty, and the help of a first aid kit, I managed to treat and bandage the wounds on my back. They bled sluggishly all throughout the first day, but thankfully didn’t fester.
On the morning of the fourth day, there was a tentative knock on the door followed by the sound of rapidly retreating footsteps. I waited until they had disappeared down the corridor before cracking the door open. On the floor was a freshly baked Victoria sponge and a beautifully written note of apology.
It took every ounce of courage I possessed, but that evening I forced myself to go to the dining room. Mrs Jones was waiting for me, her eyes red-rimmed, a steaming cottage pie on the table. I tried not to flinch as she took my hand, re-iterating the apology she had already delivered in writing.
The next morning, she helped me clean Jimmy up.
We treated each other cautiously for a while, but eventually we got back to playing gin rummy again. When the scars on my back twinge, as they sometimes do, she helps me rub a soothing ointment into them. Even though I’ve told her it’s not necessary, she apologises every time.
So, you’ve heard my story and you have my proposal. If you think you could be the man for me, I invite you to visit. You will need to drink a cup of ram’s blood (a pinch of nutmeg makes it a little more tolerable) and light a black candle before bedtime. When you next wake, you will find yourself at our gates. As travel arrangements go, it’s hardly the Orient Express, but it beats the airfare.
If you have read this without flinching, if you can stomach the journey to get here, if you walk up to our door and find the nerve to open it, I have one more instruction for you.
Just as you enter, look to your right. You will see a deep brown stain on the lobby carpet. I’ve scrubbed and scrubbed but it just won’t come out. Perhaps that’s for the best. It’s a good reminder of what will happen to you should you call Mrs Jones a “nosy old bat”.
And when you run into Jimmy – as you will, for he still likes hanging around the bar in the evening, his silvery wounds glistening as though they had just been inflicted – don’t let him convince you he was some sort of victim.
He knew the rules.

Hello, all!
I recently wanted to share my success with Duke Dantalion for a petition. My partner and I split in April, and I wrote a petition to Dantalion asking for a second chance. He answered and has delivered results
The day I buried my love uncrossing spell with Dantalion, my partner texted me asking to talk about a path forward for us. We met yesterday, and it went really well. While we haven’t fully reconciled, I can see the path ahead. They told me that they will always still love me, and confessed they’ve been having a really hard time coping with the break up.
They said I looked great, they said they were proud of how well I was doing, and that they will always want me by their side. They even offered to do something special with me on my birthday! I found this detail amusing, because while I did not expect Duke Dantalion to follow a specific time frame, I did mention that I “wouldn’t be upset if reconciliation occurred on or before my birthday” as somewhat of a birthday present from my partner.
It has been a little over a week since I submitted my petition, and I am feeling more confident and thankful in Duke Dantalion than ever. I am keeping my promises I outlined in our petition, and will be finishing the book I promised to read with them, The Art of Seduction by Robert Greene, tomorrow.
Since then, I have done the second half of this spell work with Dantalion and buried it. This was a sweetening spell, and while the candle burned, the wax formed a couple kissing (which I will picture below). I took this as a sign that the spell and petition will work as intended. Even before the spell was cast and I was gathering supplies, I went to my local apothecary to get balm of gilead for the spell. The cashier said they had just gotten it in that day after having in out of stock for a long time. She even asked me if I had seen their Instagram post announcing it was back, which I had not. I took this as another sign that Dantalion was looking out for me, and helping me gather all that I need to bring my desires into the physical.
I just wanted to share this and publicly praise Dantalion. He has done wonders for my mental and emotional state, as well as paving the path forward for reconciliation between my partner and I! I have so much trust in Dantalion and what wonders he has and will continue to do for this petition
Ave Duke Dantalion! 🖤

The Brazilian State of Rio Grande do Sul is suffering from unprecedented floods. The international media coverage is lacking, so I'm trying to bring more info there from Brazilian media.
But first, let me tell some facts about the affected area: Rio Grande do Sul is one of Brazil's largest states (by area). With 281,730 km², it's bigger than Colorado or the country of Ecuador. It is home to 10.9 million people.
Now, picture this: the whole state was impacted, 90% of its cities are claiming damages from either the floods or the rain. 618,000 people are now displaced. The water level reached 30 meters (98.4 ft) in some cities. 148 confirmed deaths, 127 missing people so far. The capital, Porto Alegre, has seen water reaching 2.6m (8.5 ft) from the street level. Its International Airport is now closed and will remain for a long time — it's filled with water from the runway to the gates. It's being compared to the Katrina floods.
[This article has a satellite imagery comparison for Porto Alegre before and after the flood]
Millions lost their cars, their furniture, their documents and will have to make repairs to their houses (or demolish it) when the water goes down. Talking about water going down, it's going to take weeks to months for it to go away.
Why did it happen? Basically, a cold air mass came from South but faced a hot air mass just north of Rio Grande do Sul. The water in the hot air mass condensed and it rained 700mm over 15 days (5 months worth of rain). Geography did the rest, with downstream rivers and lakes accumulating water from upstream rivers and flooding. And it's still raining right now, 300mm more rain is expected for the next days. To make matters worse, temperature is going down and it's expected to reach 5°C (41 F) this week — with thousands of displaced people having nothing but the clothes on their back.
I don't even need to say that this rain is linked to climate change. Past floods in the state never reached this level, even the worse ones.
[More pictures and comparisons]
However, Porto Alegre was technically prepared for such events. It has a dike and drainage system that could handle up to 6m of water (relative to the Guaíba lake), more than the current flood (5.3m). Still, there was so much water that pumps started failing, causing more pumps to become overflowed in a cascade effect (it didn't help that the local government ignored some maintenances too).
This is what extreme weather events look like. You can tell yourself that you're safe because the geography of your area is different or that your local government is trustworthy, but ask yourself: are you really sure your city can handle 1,000mm of rain over a couple of days? Can the lake or river next to you handle it without overflowing? Can you reach the next city if all bridges get destroyed? Because extreme rainfalls and hurricanes are becoming more common thanks to global warming, and very few cities in the World are ready for this. The collapse of Rio Grande do Sul is a cautionary tale for the whole World.
Side note: because of the hot air mass, at the same time Rio Grande do Sul flooded, many Brazilian states were suffering with the hottest April/May on record and one of the driest. So that's the World at +1.58 °C, where cities just 500 mi apart are simultaneously suffering from a record flooding and a record dry hot wave.