Im glad y'all liked the last chapter. I'm going to continue this story and see where it goes. As usual, if you like this then make sure to like and comment: I really value your feedback. I'm also thinking of going back and editing some things, as I thought of some cool ideas that might make the story more interesting, mainly some Meta ideas to increase the depth of this litRPG. So make sure to go back and read the last chapter in a bit: some things may be different.
First
I gripped the rough leather hilt of my new sword tightly as I walked down the newly lit hall within this strange labyrinth. The air was dank and musty, and cobwebs hung from every corner. The dented blade glowed in the firelight, as did the breastplate, and I was just starting to warm up.
I didn't like this place: it made me feel uneasy. The loneliness was also crushing, but for some reason I was used to it. The weight of all my gear was also heavy, with all the weapons and rations causing my shoulders to ache, but I pressed forward. Something inside me insisted that this was familiar, and if I could do it before then I could do it now.
At first, the hall seemed unending, but after what felt like hours I finally reached a large, open room with a humble wooden throne in the center. The edges of the vaulted ceilings held great tapestries that had faded over time, the once magnificent artistry lost forever. Candelabras, urns, and braziers all forged from bronze and inlaid with different gems and precious metals were strewn about, and there was a gigantic bronze brazier at the center of the room, just in front of the throne.
On the throne sat a withered corpse wearing a crown of twisted branches, as well as rusted armor that had fused with flesh long ago. Simple wooden coffins lined the walls, six in total, each likely containing another corpse.
Then I noticed the brazier in the middle: it had long gone cold, the coals dead and waiting to be given life again by flame. But what worried me more was the burnt remains of the skeleton in the center: it was a reptilian thing, tall and robust judging by the size of the femurs, and it gripped a sword much like mine…
Okay, I didn't like this place at all, not one bit. Whoever was here before me obviously met some horrible fate, maybe even burnt alive within the brazier, which was a fate I had no desire to experience.
Next to the throne was a chest, and anyone with common sense knew that opening the chest would probably be a bad idea. So I looked for something far more valuable: an exit. At the far end of the room we're a pair of double doors made from polished slate, and soni approached them. I ran my scaly hands across it and admiring the beautiful masonwork: engraved with elegant images of all sorts of events, such as men slaying giants, terrifying dragons burning down villages, great treasures hidden away, and a large mead hall with a boat as it's roof nestled on a hill, it was something out of legend. But that didn't matter, I just needed them to open so I could leave. They didn't budge from me pushing them, nor did they possess any handles or bars, so something else has to activate them.
I decided to see if I could get some answers out of the magic note turned journal. I pulled it out and began writing with the quill, the tip seemingly possessing an endless supply of ink. How do I open the doors?
Once again, my good hand began moving if it had a mind of its own, scribbling out a minimalist sentence that would probably be of no use to me. Open the chest.
I grumbled and wrote down another response. Will bad things happen if I open the chest?
More furious scribbling against my will. Bad things will happen either way.
Well, that was reassuring.
What will happen when I open the chest?
Bad things. I wanted to punt the book across the room. I just stuffed it back into my bag and growled again, the depth of my reptilian voice startling me. I was sure I wasn't supposed to sound like that, but I did. Maybe I was just overthinking this, and it was just a side effect of some kind of amnesia, but I really felt like I was in the wrong body.
I turned back to the throne and the chest next to it. It was a simple wooden thing with no lock, so it wouldn't be challenging to open at all. I walked towards it, sword in hand, anxiety shooting through me like electricity, and as I bent down to open it up I couldn't help but look behind me as I did so.
Then, with one simple motion, I opened it. There was more than I expected, but still not much, just a small pile of rough gold coins and a few assorted gems. I dipped my hand into the gold and pulled out a handful, the coins each easily the width of a golf ball and decently hefty too. Then I looked for a place to put them: if I was going to be put in danger for opening this damn chest, then I was going to get something out of it.
As I stuffed the gold into my pack, I heard creaking next to me, and I instinctively dropped my pack onto the ground and kicked it to the side before rolling away. The withered corpse lifted itself up from the wooden throne, a faint hissing escaping its lips as if its vocal chords no longer worked. Then it turned to me, eyes glowing red with hatred and jaw clenched. It balled its fists and deeper its hateful gaze before pointing at me and unleashing an ear-splitting hiss like that of copper pipes coming apart. I lifted up my longsword and held it in a defensive stance, backing away slowly as my ears rang. Then I felt a bony hand on my shoulder.
I spun around and swung the blade, vivisecting another corpse halfway. All the other coffins were bursting open, and the angered dead were hobbling out, some holding rusted and chipped weapons, others simply meandering towards me with the same hatred in their eyes as the first. I was surrounded.
I swung my sword and cut one’s head off, the otherwise dry and leathery flesh of its neck giving way to my old longsword. Then I sliced through the knee of another, sending it sprawling to the ground before I stomped its head into pieces. That left four, including the one on the throne. That one stood back, glaring at me and waving its hands as if conducting an orchestra, its armored robes flowing despite the lack of ventilation. It must be the one controlling the undead.
I matched forward, sword lifted again and swung at the leader of the undead. It blocked the strike with its armored bracer and swiped at me, bony hands scraping against my breastplate but also imbuing me with an overwhelming weakness to the touch, as if I hadn't slept for days. With a grunt, I kicked him back and onto the floor, but the rest of the dead seemed to fall into a frenzy, charging at me as if they were rabid ghouls. I needed to end this, and I needed to end it now.
I impaled the first undead and kicked him off alongside their ringleader, then slammed the pommel of by sword into the forehead of the next with a spiteful roar that seemed to charge the air with static, crushing the undead’s skull inward and releasing the energy trapped within as if crumbled to the floor. The third swiped at my arm, causing an intense cold to run through me and a horrible pain to erupt from the deceptively small laceration, as if maggots were chewing on my flesh. I roared again and swung diagonally, vivisecting the decrepit thing all at once.
That left the composer. It stood back up and seemed even angrier than before, as if it had actually cared for those skeletons. Then I heard a voice behind its bestial whispers, a voice that almost sounded… pained. “Hadvar, Børge, Aegilief, Gunhild, Halfdan, Ivar! Do not fall, not to this dragon’s bastard!” It seemed to exclaim, but its cries seemed to fall on deaf ears as the corpses were no more, what remained of the flesh disintegrating into nothing more than ash, leaving only dirty bones behind.
“You shouldn't have attacked me.” I said behind grit fangs, my body still recovering from the effects of their icy touch. But no matter how much I tried to justify it to myself, it always felt like a weak response: I was probably plundering some poor guy's tomb, and then proceeded to kill all his friends to boot. I was in the wrong here, but I wasn't just going to be trapped in this shit hole of a tomb forever.
Then I looked at the brazier, which was now lit and burning, the otherwise bleached white bones of the reptile thing within coated in fresh soot. They would've killed me, or I would've starved. And they were already dead, anyway: for all I knew the undead here were held together by nothing more than old memories and whatever terrible magic possessed this place. I wasn't going to die yet, I at least wanted to see the sun one last time.
“Sorry about you and your friends, but I'm not going to die here today,” I said, trying to seem apologetic, “I've only got one shot, or so I've been told.” I matched forward again, unwavering, and busted him in the head with my pommel before slicing off his arm at the joint when he tried to reach out for me again, hissing with anger. Then, as I bullied him backwards to put some length between us, I finally kicked him one last time and jammed the end of my sword into his empty eye socket, sending the blade through his rotting head and out the back. He let out one last hiss before going limp, whatever magical nonsense holding him together dissipating as his body crumpled and his bones unknitted themselves.
I dropped the sword with a grunt and sank to my knees. My head felt like it was stuffed with cotton, and my stomach was churning. The horrible sickness the undead gave me when it swiped at me seemed to be winding down, the pain in my arm dull and more distracting than painful, but the unbearable cold and discomfort was still coursing through me. I needed to get out of this wretched place. This was a tomb, right? Maybe that door led to some kind of exit to the outdoors, or at least a pathway to it.
I forced myself back up on my feet, retrieved my bag and filled it with the rest of the treasure from the chest, and strapped everything on my back once again. I would probably want to find some kind of civilization, maybe a place where this gold would hold some value, because then maybe I could use it to find some answers.
Behind me, the doors began to crumble with a glowing purple light, as if the magic that has sealed it had been broken with the death of the undead on the throne, and I could see some semblance of light. I rushed towards it, only to find myself in an even colder area than before. The air was frigid and filled with a thick, looking fog that seemed to sap the strength out of me. It felt like an early spring morning, when it would go just above freezing and the rain had come in droves overnight, leaving behind the mist. Spruces, pines and other evergreen trees towered around me, and the forest floor was coated in thick roots, mossy rocks, vines, and dead evergreen needles. A dirt path that had long been overtaken by the forest stretched away from the tomb I had emerged from, leading me away from this place.

So this idea just popped in my head. An ex-SAS Harry gets involved in the Ginza Incident while buying souvenirs for Teddy. At first he sticks to scavenged weapons and stealthily conjured bullets. He manages to fight and evac as many civvies as he could until he finds himself in the middle of a heavily monitored street.
Now, he can't use visible magic but he is well known amongst his muggle associates for being able to achieve feats of superhuman proportions by basically flooding his body with his magic (muscles, nerves, ligaments, bones, etc.).
Hemione agreed to writing a doctor's note saying that he can willingly trigger his innate Hysterical Strength when under a certain amount of duress to explain it away to nonmagicals. For why his body doesn't suffer the backlash of using it? Well, he's trained hard to keep abusing it with diminished consequences. Also, adrenaline is one hell of a drug.
So, end result; the Japanese got to watch how just one foreign stranger singlehandedly held the line using a goddamn medieval fantasy war scythe of all thing against an invading medieval fantasy army until the JSDF finally came to his backup to the sight of a small hill of corpses and the glowing green eyes of the Reaper that sent them to the afterlife.
He promptly passed out after that.
Yes, this incident got recorded and spread throughout the net. It wouldn't be a HP story if he didn't have accidental fame. They call him the Reaper of Ginza now. Some more enterprising netizens even found his (admittedly fake) identity of Jameson Black; former SAS Captain.
[Well, there goes his fucking anonymity in the real world]
So, one thing leads to another and while he was asleep from overtaxing himself, the typical JSDF gate mobilisation happens but this time with the Japanese MOM involved. On the other hand, with the major players on UN getting uppity over a 'balanced foreign presence' in the Special Region, the Japs contact UK and basically saying:
"Could we borrow one of your elite guys? It's the insane one who was on vacation here and turned a quarter of Caesar's Legion LARPers into caesar salad with the power of the Queen and Anime on his side. Thanks."
So now, Harry has to head into the Special Region with Itami's group.
[And all this shit cuz Teddy wanted a couple fucking Gundams while he was here]

I sit alone in my room on the seventh floor, writing what will surely be my last will and testament. The heroin which allowed me to forget and to sleep for the last couple of years has lost its power to keep the screaming terrors away. The drug destroyed my body and mind, gradually eating away at them like a corrosive acid. Now I have become a slave to it. And yet, without it, I do not sleep for weeks, but instead continuously see the scenes from that terrible night running through my head on repeat as worsening waves of madness crash on the shores of my consciousness.
In the caverns under the town of Frost Hollow, I found the meaning of true madness. Ever since I escaped that den of horrors, it is difficult to tell what is real and what is only the feverish delirium of an unhinged mind.
Even now, they wait behind the door to this cheap, bare rented room. They drag their claws over the wood. I hear them hissing in that strange, ancient tongue, the one I first heard in the tombs of rock that had been undisturbed for countless millennia.
***
I had first heard rumors of an unexplored cavern from my friend, an experienced caver named Sonia who had explored caverns all over the world. I had been looking for some excitement in my life, some break from the constant monotony and boredom of simply working and sleeping. I had gone caving quite a few times over the year leading up to the trip, but I was not nearly as experienced and had never explored a supposedly virgin passageway of cavern before.
“How do you know no one’s gone down there?” I asked, curious. We sat across from each other at a local diner, getting some early breakfast before our planned descent. The sunrise was still another half-hour away, the sky flat and dark. We would be joined by Sonia’s husband, Phil, who would meet us there shortly after sunrise. I repressed an urge to yawn, chugging half of the steaming hot coffee in one long swallow. Sonia leaned close to me, her nearly colorless blue eyes reminding me of chunks of ice floating down a muddy stream.
“Phil’s friend just found it randomly,” she whispered before glancing around conspiratorially, as if she feared someone would care enough to eavesdrop on a conversation about a cave. “Well, it’s in the middle of a farm, and Phil’s friend, Jack Graysole, owns the entire property and surrounding woods. Jack says he noticed the cows kept going over to a certain spot in the field when it got really hot during the summertime. They would all gather around this little indentation in the grass. After seeing it a few times, Jack got curious and went to investigate what the cows were doing.
“He found a small hole in the ground, almost entirely covered by weeds and grass. He said he felt a cool breeze constantly blowing out of the hole, a breeze that smelled like burning matches and charred metal. After bringing out some shovels and digging down a couple feet, Jack realized that the hole wasn’t a hole at all, but the beginning of a steep passageway leading deep into the bowels of the earth.”
***
The owner of the land decided to unofficially call the newly-discovered cavern Graysole Caverns. Out of respect for him, this is also the name we all used. This is the story of how I found myself in the bowels of a strange subterranean tunnel, a tunnel where creatures beyond my comprehension slunk and hunted, skittering monstrosities who would be more at home in a nightmare.
After grabbing a couple coffees to take with us, Sonia drove over to Graysole Farms. Cows stood out in the grassy fields, huddled in tight circles as they repetitively chewed. The thin silhouette of Jack Graysole waited for us next to the herd. He had a face like a raisin, I thought to myself. I watched his thin, shaking body standing in the middle of an overgrown grassy field. Jack stared down blankly at something only he could see. Sonia and I started unloading some equipment from the car while we waited for Phil.
Once we had the backpacks loaded with some simple supplies, such as water, food, headlamps, rope, a couple extra batteries, some buck knives, and radios, we headed over to accompany Jack. We weren’t taking much, as we didn’t really expect to be down there for more than six or seven hours at the most.
Jack Graysole’s withered old face was as slack and expressionless as that of a corpse. He stared down at the ground as if he were in a trance, waving back and forth slowly on his feet like a plant in a light breeze.
“Jack?” Sonia called out as we approached. I could hear the man’s teeth chattering as we got nearer.
“Hey, what are you doing over here this early? You interested in accompanying us down there?” Sonia joked. But Jack might as well have been totally deaf for all the reaction he gave. Sonia glanced over at me with an anxious expression. I wondered if the old man was having a stroke.
I quickly walked over to where he stood, staring down at a black circular hole about three feet across directly in front of his feet. The entrance to Graysole Caverns stared up at us like a sightless pupil. As I drew within a few feet of Jack and looked straight into his blank eyes, I noticed something alarming.
His pupils were quickly dilating and constricting before my eyes. They would shrink to tiny pinpoints, then, a couple seconds later, rapidly expand until they became dark and serious. I could see his thready, rapid heartbeat pulsating in a vein on the side of his temple. Alarmed, I reached forward and put my hand on his shoulder.
Instantly, he came to life, like a man waking up from a nightmare. Shrieking, he looked at me with fully dilated pupils, reminding me of a panicked deer surrounded by wolves. His quavering old man’s voice shook with ineffable existential horror and mortal fear.
He took a step back away from us, seeming to realize where he was and what he was doing. He looked around, confused, then straight at me and Sonia. His eyes focused with anger and fear, as if we were demons here to drag him down to Hell. His eyes flicked back and forth between us constantly. Jack raised a trembling hand and pointed it straight at my heart.
“It’s you,” he said, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. His teeth chattered despite the warm spring air. His skin looked deathly pale. “You’re the one who will bring an end to humanity, who will release the ruler of nightmares upon us.” He continued to point accusingly for a long moment at me, his face turning chalk-white. Then his eyes rolled up in his head. Slowly, he stumbled and fell backwards onto the soft grass of the field.
“Jack!” Sonia cried, running over to the old man. Jack’s breaths had started to come in slow, drawn-out gurgles, like a man with a slit throat trying to breathe. Frothy blood bubbled from his lips as they turned blue. Staring up at the endless expanse of cloudless sky, he exhaled one last shuddering breath and died.
***
Phil showed up only a couple minutes later. He found me and Sonia in a state of utter panic, both of us bent double over the still body of Jack. Sonia was on the phone with 911, and I was trying to give Jack chest compressions. The way his fingernails and lips shone with that cyanotic blue cast made me feel sick and weak. I knew it was futile, that I was simply playing with a corpse at this point, but I didn’t know what else to do. I felt if I didn’t do something, I might explode.
I heard the faint wailing of sirens approaching as Sonia’s panicked voice continued babbling to the 911 operator. Phil stood by her side, his tall, dark features searching and lost.
“Oh God, I think he’s dead!” Sonia cried over and over to the operator, as if she thought the operator could do anything about it. I didn’t hear what the operator said in response. As the ambulance pulled in, I gave up on chest compressions. I stood up and took a step back, looking sadly down on the kindly old man’s dead body.
The paramedics ran over. Phil, Sonia and I stood back while they worked on the corpse, trying to shock the heart back into life. But Jack’s open eyes stayed glazed as they stared sightlessly up into eternity.
***
The paramedics left. A couple police officers stayed behind to ask us a few routine questions. Eventually, after an hour or so, they left, too.
“What a fucked-up day,” Phil said, shaking his head grimly. “Do you guys still want to do this? Maybe it’s an omen from God telling us to go home.” Sonia and I exchanged a glance, then we both nodded at the same time.
“Definitely,” she said. “It’s sad what happened to Jack, but realistically, we don’t know what’s going to happen to this property now that he’s passed away. It might get sold or taken by the bank for all we know. This could be our one and only chance to explore this cave.”
“I don’t believe in omens. I’m still down,” I said, feeling slightly sick from the experience. I still remembered how Jack’s body had cracked under the weight of my chest compressions, how his ribs had snapped like bones shattering in greedy hands. “We’ll do it in memory of Jack. I plan to put this up on YouTube.” I pulled my GoPro out of my bag, turning it on. Phil groaned at that.
“Do we have any idea how far down this cave goes?” Phil asked. I felt a sense of relief now that the topic had changed from the death of the old man.
“I sent a little camera down on a rope, but it only went about a hundred feet,” Sonia responded. “It’s pretty steep at first, then it levels out. I couldn’t really see much after it leveled out, but it looks like it should be easy to climb down. There’s plenty of handholds, lots of jutting rocks.”
Phil put on his headlamp and small pack. As he crawled down into the hole, his tanned face looked up at us and gave us one last devilish grin. Once he had gone down a few dozen feet, Sonia started descending. She looked excited and happy. I noticed how she couldn’t stop smiling as she disappeared from view.
I watched their lights grow smaller and dimmer in the circular tunnel. I marveled at how perfectly circular the entrance was. It almost didn’t even look natural.
Taking a deep breath in, I followed my friends down into the dark.
***
“This isn’t too bad,” I said as I climbed down. The jutting rocks gave plenty of handholds and footholds for us. It wasn’t so tight that it felt like a coffin, either.
“It only gets easier from here!” Sonia called up.
“How do you know?” I asked. “You said you’ve never been here before.” She laughed.
“I know. Probably just wishful thinking,” she said. Far below us, Jack’s voice drifted up, faint and weak. He had already reached the bottom.
“The tunnel really opens up down here, guys,” he called. “It’s somewhat… bizarre, though.”
“What do you mean by that?” Sonia asked. I looked down, seeing Sonia and I would reach the bottom in seconds. “Forget it, I’ll let it be a surprise.” I heard her drop down. Slowly and carefully, I lowered myself down the last few feet. There was a short fall onto a smooth granite floor. I looked up, seeing what Phil and Sonia were so mesmerized by.
“Oh, wow,” I said, speechless. I blinked rapidly, wondering if the image would clear like a mirage. The tunnel was cut into a perfectly triangular shape, each side about seven feet long. The ceiling met in a point above our heads.
All along the smooth walls of gray rock, I saw thousands of black orbs peeking out. They looked similar to obsidian, but they were perfectly smooth and circular, each about the size of an orange. They were formed into interlocking diagonal patterns and followed the tunnel straight down as far as the eye could see.
“What is this place?” Sonia asked, taking a tentative step forward. I looked up, seeing the distant pinpoint of sunlight far above our heads. Our voices continued to echo off down the massive tunnels, disappearing in eerie waves into the thick curtain of shadows.
“Are you recording all this?” Phil asked me. I laughed, giddy.
“Of course! This is internet gold right here,” I said. “No one’s going to believe that this isn’t man-made, however. I can’t even believe it. Do you think Jack was playing a joke on us or something?”
“Jack had the sense of humor of a wet paper towel,” Phil whispered, shaking his head. “No, he wouldn’t do something like this.”
“Well, let’s go check it out,” Sonia said, taking a step forward. Her headlamp bobbed up and down rapidly, throwing dancing shadows through the triangular tunnel. It continued straight ahead, without the slightest deviation or curve, disappearing off into a dark point in the distance.
***
We walked as fast as we could, excited to see where, if anywhere, the strange tunnel led. Phil, always the conspiracy theorist, babbled excitedly.
“This has to be aliens, man,” he said, running his fingers through his dark hair. “I bet that scientists will find out this shit is millions of years old when we get back up and tell everyone. Maybe aliens came to earth in ancient times and made a bunch of stuff underground.” Gradually, as we walked, I noticed the tunnel opening up. The pointed triangular ceiling rose up higher above our heads and the walls moved outwards, as we were walking up a triangular funnel. At first, it was so subtle that I didn’t believe it when Sonia pointed it out.
“No, look,” she said, raising her hand above her head. “When we first started down this weird tunnel, my fingers were only maybe a foot away from the top. Now it’s a couple feet.” I was about to respond when our headlamps illuminated something standing in the middle of the tunnel.
“What the fuck is that?” I whispered, stopping cold in my tracks. Phil and Sonia looked up at the abomination at the same time. Its back was to us. It stood nearly as tall as the tunnel, which was now about twenty feet high.
The bottom half looked black and spidery with dozens of long, jointed legs. A bloody, white spine rose out of the mass of legs. Inhumanly long, skeletal arms stretched out in front of it. Its face was pointed away from us, but the back of its head resembled an enormous pointed skull with deep fissures like the cracks of an earthquake running through the bone. The abomination stayed as still as a statue, and for a long moment, I wondered if we were looking at some macabre work of art.
Then, suddenly, one of its insectile legs twitched. A moment later, the other legs started jerking and twisting. There was a sound like bones shattering as it rose up to its full height, turning around to face us.
Its face was like something from a nightmare, melting and reforming constantly like dripping candle wax. I would see a black eye appear on its forehead, then a grinning mouth on its chin, then the features would get sucked back into the folds of melting flesh. After a few moments, two enormous eyes appeared on its face, dark and cold like craters on the surface of the Moon. The mouths and noses disappeared back into the dripping skin, and only the two lidless eyes remained, emanating a cold, reptilian consciousness beyond the ability of my mind to comprehend. I felt terror radiating from its body like freezing waves.
“Free me,” it cried in a gurgling voice that seethed with insanity. It had a shrieking, metallic ringing behind every word that gave it an alien quality. “Free me, and I will give you the waters of eternal life. Within me, I contain the seeds of immortality. Within the nightmares, we live forever, always together, never alone.”
“Who are you?” I asked, terrified. The black reptilian skin of the enormous beast glistened as it knelt down, its massive face drawing near to mine. A sideways mouth burst out of the liquified flesh, showing hundreds of fangs growing like tumors from its white, bloodless gums. The fangs varied in size from only a couple inches to long, sword-like projections that stabbed into the creature’s flesh, causing white blood glittering with rainbows to fall like raindrops all around me.
“I have many names,” it hissed, its thousand voices rising and falling in crashing waves of sound. “I was present at the beginning, when this planet was no more than dead cliffs and endless freezing oceans. Those holy ones who search for us, the ancient ones, call me Niralahoth.”
“How do we free you?” Phil asked, looking terrified. He held Sonia’s hand tightly.
“By letting me into your mind and body,” Niralahoth cried, shaking the cavern. “I was thrown down here, cursed and forgotten. I cannot leave this place of shadows within this body. But in the body of another, my consciousness can be free, and the seeds of new life can spread beyond this prison.”
“There’s no way anyone’s going to do that,” I said, my eyes widening as Niralahoth’s reptilian skull turned towards me in fury. “I mean, you’re asking one of us to give up our individuality, our lives, right?”
“I am asking you to become one with me and gain power undreamt of by mortals,” it cried. “I have within me the fountain of life, the waters that send death away screaming.” I glanced anxiously at Phil and Sonia, wondering if we would have to run.
“The answer is no,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, we can’t do that,” Phil said, backing me up. “But, anyways, I think our trip has ended. It’s time to turn around…”
“You will never return,” Niralahoth cried, skittering away from us. “If you will not accept salvation, then you must accept death.” Within seconds, it slunk away from us, backpedaling on its many skittering legs into the shadows.
***
All around us, a rumbling started.
There was a pounding that crashed through the rock tunnel, as if an insane blacksmith were hammering on a massive anvil. The ringing of crashing rock started off slowly, with a few stones smashing down around us with heavy blasts of sound. Within seconds, the cacophony sped up, rising into a constant stream of destruction. The black orbs were spinning in place all up and down the tunnel, their glossy obsidian surfaces flashing with sparks of blue light.
“It’s collapsing!” Phil cried, running back in the direction we came, holding Sonia’s hand as she tried to keep up with him. I could only stare for a long moment, not sure what to do. It seemed that the direction Phil was heading stood closer to total collapse.
“Wait!” I cried, but my voice was drowned out in the destruction all around us. I felt a rock smash into my shoulder, sending me down to my feet. I heard Phil give a scream of pain, then another stone came down and smashed into my forehead. I remember seeing everything spinning around me as the world went black.
***
I awoke to find my headlamp still shining straight up in the dusty tunnel. Large chunks of the tunnel had slid out of place and crashed to the stone floor. The granite chunks that had fallen looked unnaturally smooth, most of them in the shapes of cylinders or cubes and varying in size from that of an egg to that of a small car.
My head throbbed. It felt as if a tight belt of fire were wrapped around my temples. Groaning, I put my fingers up to my forehead. They came away slick with blood.
Slowly, I started pushing myself up on my feet. I was relieved that nothing seemed broken. I had a deep gash running from the center of my scalp down to my left temple and some shallower cuts on my shoulders and back, but I knew none of that was life-threatening.
“Sonia?” I whispered, my voice coming out weak and strained. I reached into my pack and found a bottle of water. I chugged it quickly in one long swallow.
“Phil?” I cried again, this time stronger. I heard a soft weeping nearby. Staggering, I followed the sound.
Sonia was bloody and covered in cuts and scrapes, sitting next to Phil’s prone form. I saw Phil’s right arm pinned under a massive slab of granite. His arm disappeared from the elbow down in a spreading puddle of thick, dark blood.
“Oh God, Max, I think he’s hurt really bad,” she wept. Phil’s eyes rolled wildly in his head, his face pale and bloodless. I looked down the way we had come, seeing the entire tunnel blocked by large slabs of stone, many with strange, black orbs peeking out like the lenses of cameras.
***
I don’t know how much time passed. My phone died after a day, and then we were counting the endless darkness in breaths and tears.
Phil swam in and out of consciousness as his arm putrefied and blackened around the crush site. After a couple days, Sonia and I agreed that something had to be done. We told Phil we would need to amputate his arm. He was half-delirious, but he came back long enough to understand us and nod weakly.
We made a fire with Phil’s pack, trying to find fuel to throw in it to get it roaring. As it grew, I saw one of the black orbs near the flames abruptly ignite, as if it had been covered in gasoline. Blue, almost colorless flames rose from its surface. We started throwing the small black orbs on the fire until it rose high in the air. I sanitized the buck knife with the flames and pulled a rope tourniquet tight around Phil’s arm. He was conscious but seemingly insane, talking to himself more than anyone else.
“How are we going to get the car started without a key?” he gurgled to someone only he could see. “We need to look around. It has to be here somewhere.”
“Phil, can you hear me, bud? We need to fix your arm. We need to get you out of this mess. OK?” I said as comfortingly as I could. Phil’s eyes rolled wildly, but they didn’t meet my own. I sighed and looked over at Sonia.
“Let’s do it,” I said, giving a grim nod.
I pulled the buck knife out, slicing quickly down through the flesh next to the tourniquet. His veins throbbed like fat worms as the blackened, necrotic skin split easily under the blade, releasing a rancid-smelling gas that hissed out of the wound.
I couldn’t believe how hard it was to slice all the way through the arm. It felt like I was stuck in that hellish task forever. Phil’s eyes rolled in his head as his skin turned the color of clotted milk.
“God, Jesus, make it stop,” Phil whispered over and over, exhaling ragged, pain-filled breaths. The blood spurted from the blackened, dying tissue all over the dust-covered cavern floor, covering my hands in its warm, slick embrace.
After what was probably only three or four minutes, but felt like hours, I had sliced all the way down to the bone. The infected tissue of his arm spurted great gouts of orange pus mixed with rivulets of blood. The hard part was over.
Standing up, I took my steel-toe sneaker and stomped down on his arm as hard as I could. Phil cried out in a powerful voice, as if all the agony and suffering in the world was contained in that one shriek. The bone snapped under my weight with a sound like a tree branch cracking. A moment later, Phil rolled away from the rock that had pinned me in place for so long. Something alien and spongy was shoved into my face, a mass of destroyed red tissue pulsating in time with a runaway heartbeat. At first, shell-shocked and revolted, my mind couldn’t comprehend that I was looking at the stump of Phil’s mutilated arm. I hardened my heart and forced the giddiness and madness to the back of my mind. The time had come to cauterize the wound.
“Sonia, give it to me,” I said with a tremor in my voice. I reached out a hand towards her, a hand stained with Phil’s blood. It looked as if I were wearing a wet, crimson glove. Sonia only stared blankly at me for a long moment, however. A surge of anger ran up my chest.
“Sonia, toughen the fuck up! He’s going to die if you just sit there!” I swore at her, hearing my deep, angry voice bounce around the caverns. Sonia pulled back, as if she were struck. Inwardly, I cursed having a woman as my only able-bodied companion in this situation. She was a competent enough caver, but what would happen if violence and blood came over us? What would happen if, or more realistically when, we needed to fight?
Grimly, Sonia leaned forward and yanked the burning black orb out of the roaring fire, handing it to me on the end of a buck knife that had just barely pierced its hard, strange exterior. The handle of the knife felt coarse and splintery under my filthy skin. I put it to the spongy stump of Phil’s arm. The stump twitched violently. Phil tried to pull away as black smoke rose from the burning flesh.
There was a smell like bacon sizzling. The searing meat of Phil’s arm blackened and crisped under the heat of the orb, which had become no more than a cylinder of glowing blue embers by this point. I felt simultaneously sick and giddy. I didn’t know if I wanted to laugh or vomit. I felt like I was on the verge of some kind of madness, that the stress and insanity of the experience had started to shatter my mind.
His eyes rolled back in his head and he appeared to go into a seizure for a few seconds. With a long exhalation of breath, he finally, mercifully, lost consciousness. It’s hard to admit it, even this close to the end, but a small, sick piece of me was jealous of Phil. Most likely, he would be dead soon, maybe within hours, while Sonia and I would slowly starve and dehydrate like animals over a period of weeks. I looked at her lithe body and soft skin, seeing the feminine curves of her hips and chest. She was a beautiful woman. I knew Phil to be a lucky man. At least, before this trip, he was.
I watched her body, wondering if I had what it took to eat her or Phil if I had to. Did I have an iron heart that would allow me to slice into my friends and consume their raw, cold flesh? Perhaps, by that point, it would be hunger and madness driving me forward, and I wouldn’t even hesitate. I shuddered at the very thought.
***
I fell asleep that night, having strange dreams of massive gods with melting faces sitting in judgment in a circle around me. We had very little food or water left. No one knew we were down here. Rescue was not coming.
When I awoke, I found myself alone. Phil had died from his injuries while I slept, the black streaks of septic shock spreading up his arm towards his heart. His eyes stared sightlessly up at the rock ceiling.
“Sonia?” I called out, my heart racing as I sat up. “Where are you?” My headlamp was growing dim. I looked in my pack, realizing I was on the last of my batteries. I saw a silhouette walking out of the darkness, the thin, pale form of Sonia. She was trembling badly.
“I saw them,” she said. “Niralahoth and its priests. The priests aren’t human. They look reptilian with sideways mouths and too many eyes.” She shuddered.
“Why would you do that?” I asked. Her eyes grew distant.
“You know we’re not getting out of here alive,” she said. “Not on our own. I wanted to see what it offered. It says that if we take a piece of its nightmare into us, we will gain the power to leave this place, that it simply wants to see the surface and spread its nightmares there.” I shook my head.
“Insanity,” I muttered. “We’d be better off dead.” Sonia nodded.
“My thoughts exactly,” she responded grimly. I didn’t realize what she meant until the next day, when I woke up and found her hanging next to Phil’s body, her tongue swollen and blue as it poked out of her cyanotic lips. And then I was truly alone.
***
Soon after Sonia committed suicide, the last of the batteries for the headlamp died. I had run out of food and had only a small sip of water left. I don’t know how much time passed in the darkness, starving and raving, following the tunnel by running my hands over the walls. I heard many things skittering in the darkness, and a few times, I heard the demonic voice of Niralahoth as it split and distorted.
“You are on death’s door,” it hissed. “Will you not drink from the fountain of life?” I couldn’t tell where the voice came from in the maddening blackness. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. I had lost nearly all of my sanity in that pit of shadows by this point. I tried laughing constantly to keep my spirits up, and when that failed, I simply cried.
“I’ll do it,” I wailed. “I’ll do it. Just let me see the sky again. Get me out of here, Niralahoth.” Everything went deathly silent all around me, then a laugh rang out like the grinding of glass.
In front of me, I saw a tornado of fire descending from the ceiling, surrounding the massive, spidery form of Niralahoth. It rose its skeletal arms upwards, as if it were Zeus calling down lightning. In the sudden brightness, I saw the fiery form of snakes slithering and centipedes skittering forwards in that tornado, each massive creature sculpted from flames in the spinning cyclone of energy. Niralahoth reached into the tornado of fire with its sharp points of fingers and plucked something small from it. The fire instantly dissipated. In its hand, I saw a tiny, swirling orb that looked like it contained a firestorm within it.
“The nightmare seed,” Niralahoth gurgled as it skittered forward towards me. I could only stare, open-mouthed and starving. I hadn’t slept for days, it felt like, and everything seemed slow and unreal.
In a blur, its skeletal arm shot out and forced the orb into my mouth. Despite the fire raging within it, it felt freezing cold. As it touched my tongue, it gave off a sensation like frostbite all throughout my mouth. I screamed and tried spitting it out, but it seemed to have a mind of its own. It started liquifying, dripping down my throat.
I felt something cancerous and sick spreading throughout my body, radiating out from my heart and stomach to every inch of it. I tried to scream, but it caught behind my teeth. I fell to my knees, clawing at my face as that insane, alien laugh continued resounding all down the tunnel. I fell unconscious and woke up under a beautiful sky in the fields of Graysole Farms.
***
Soon after, I realized that my life would never be the same. Everywhere I went, I could hear the wailing voice of Niralahoth. Behind the trees, I always saw skittering shadows, creatures with long, spidery legs that stalked me every day and night. I slept with every light in the house turned on, yet when I woke up, they would all be shut off, and I would find myself in darkness, next to something in the bed with far too many legs and a face that dripped like burning wax.
I sold everything I owned and tried to move far away, to give as much distance between myself and those cursed caverns as I could, but the nightmares followed me like a shadow. I realize what a fool I was in those ephemeral moments of madness. Sonia was much wiser than myself; I should have killed myself or died rather than allowing that thing inside of me.
Even now, I can feel it creeping through my heart, spreading through my blood. I feel it trying to crawl its way out of my throat, the thin, black legs peeking out at the back of my esophagus.
I only hope that, when I finally jump and feel my bones shatter against the concrete far below, I will kill whatever is inside of me. For I fear the consequences for the world if it were to escape.

I know I’m young and all to be posting this at all but I genuinely need advice on this matter, for it makes me feel bad :( Before any backlash, we have been dating for a 1 year and 6 months already and when we first met, I was on the chubby side for I was, of course, going through hormone changes as any 15-16 year old would. He was also on the chubby side and we both loved each other for it! Eventually we both thinner out more as we both went through these hormones changed together but, recently he’s been making comments about how he loved when I was “chunky” and that I lost my body that I had before. His comments have been going on for a while now and it doesn’t help that my family also says the same thing now, but no matter how much I eat, the weight doesn’t seem to change and no I don’t have a eating disorder in case some of y’all are wondering! I’ve been to the doctor already and I’m at a healthy weight for my height but genuinely am starting to feel like I’m just skin and bones in his eyes :(( Please help :(

I am a 21 years old F, latina living on USA, i started getting symptoms when i was a child. First i fainted without reason while i was washing plates, they took blood tests, said everything seems ok and left it like that, then i started feeling joint pains when i was 10 years old but didn't gave attention to it, i started to fain multiple times between the ages of 14 to 18 doing normal thing, singing the anthem at school, taking a shower, playing with friends, etc. Again, every time they only bother to do blood tests and when everything went out fine they didnt say anything else and send me home.
I stopped fainting because i started to recognize the cues and would take fast action, every time i would faint i would start feeling my blood pressure drop really fast and start seeing black, my mom made me take my blood pressure constantly to make sure i was going to be ok and i always had it lower than average. Because of covid i started to only be at home and nothing else but started to feel bad joint pains and felt comfortable sitting on random positions, my mom would ask me why i was doing that but i just felt good sitting like that.
I moved to USA 8 months ago to start working, the joint paints became annoying to the point i started to use joint supports because i could barely walk or use my hands from feeling them. Decided that i finally had money to go see if at least here in usa they could give me a diagnosis, the doctors made blood tests gain that came back normal, sent me to see my bones multiples times and they were normal, made me take steroids that only make my stomach week so they stopped, sent me to a bones specialist that assessed me and searched in my family history of arthritis for like 15 minutes to finally say i don't see anything bad on your bones i cant give you any clues just take ibuprofen if the pain is bad.
all those test cost me thousands of dollars for a pat in the back basically, so i would like to know if anyone can give me clues on what to do now.
edit: forgot to add that all the doctors added to the their notes that i have hyper mobility but they dint say anything to me, they just put it on the notes that i read after they send them to me
Another things i have that may or may not be connected would be: -my dad and brother have autism, i haven't got tested never to see if i too have it -really bad sight, i cant see without my glasses and suffer from myopia and astigmatism -Get dizzy and nauseous REALLY REALLY easily, even by just playing a game i could start felling super nauseous -cant tell when im hungry until i fell like i have been starving for hours -constant need to pee urgently -really bad abdominal pain when i get my period -random bruises on my body .don't have good spacial awareness, i trip and brake things even when i try to be careful -insomnia
i don't smoke, do drugs or drink, don't like anything addictive and my only activities are work and staying at home

Previous Part
My eyes darted around the room, still shocked from the brutality I just witnessed from Shaoni. Katrina had strutted out of view and when my eyes turned to where Brooke’s crumpled form should’ve been he was gone to. At some point both Robert and John had run off towards the growing sounds of gunfire. Shaoni and I still stood in the coliseum, shaken to our cores but both for very different reasons.
*CLANG*
The sudden noise startled me, the sound of metal on metal. The sound came again, this time I heard it clearly and turned around to face the noise only to be met by a few familiar faces.
“Don’t mean to bother you but their shootin up the place, could ya let us the hell in!”
Rocco shouted as he beat Brookes stolen lighter against the metals bars that closed off the back entrance to the coliseum. Bianca gave me a sheepish wave as I looked over their faces again. Frank, Stein, and Tuck were with her. They must have come through the same way Bianca and I had a few days before.
“NOW!”
Rocco shouted in irritation as my brain finally kicked into gear and I ran over to let them through the barred metal gate.
“What’s going on up there?”
I wondered out loud, concerned by how shell shocked they all looked.
“I’d guess something involving the government, with equipment like that I doubt it would be anyone else. Just as we got to the hole Bianca mentioned several men in black tactical gear came out of the forest at our sides. When we didn’t clear out like they demanded they started firing so we dove in.”
Stein explained.
“I take it that’s Shaoni?”
He added, pointing towards where she lay, hunched over and taking shaky breaths on the ground.
“Is she alright?”
Bianca chimed in, craning her neck to get a better view of her past everyone else.
“The hell should we care!? Isn’t it her fault we’re doin’ any of this in the first place?”
Rocco grumbled up at us as he laid back on the ground. Glad to see he wasn’t taking things to seriously. Tuck just stared at Shaoni with this intense anger in his eyes, he didn’t say a word.
I know I shouldn’t care what happened to her at this point but a part of me just couldn’t leave Shaoni like this. Sure, she probably didn’t deserve the sympathy but I couldn’t help feeling a little bad for her now that the anger had passed. When I made my way over to her I got the sense I was seeing the real Shaoni for once. I was seeing someone who witnessed her people rise and fall, saw the country we live in change and grow as it became what we know today. Someone who’d lived countless lifetimes as a piece that just didn’t quite fit the puzzle anymore. I thought about everything Bianca had learned about Shaoni, how she was given her powers, no, her burden in the first place. Suddenly I had a pretty good idea of what exactly she brought everyone here for.
“Shaoni?... Are you… uh, you ok?”
I said like I was trying to comfort a dying animal. The closer I got the more I could hear, she was crying. It was that held back sort of crying right before the dam breaks into full on sobs. She was cracking but still trying to put on a tough face, still trying to be every bit as imposing as she had been the first night I saw her. But she wasn’t, now she just looked pitiful.
“You… you’re right you know Keith. I’m not Justice anymore… I…I don’t think I have been for a very long time.”
She choked out through tears that flowed freely down her face as she rose to her feet.
“I don’t know why I brought you here… I was just so desperate to…”
She trailed off but that was alright, I already knew what she was going to say.
“To escape? Pass on your burden? This whole thing was to chose someone to pass the Thunderbird spirit onto wasn’t it?”
I asked, sure that I was right.
“Yes, this is what I wanted from the start, to give my burden to one of you. At first I wanted the trials to help me make my decision but by the time all of you arrived I just wanted a way out. I wanted to finally live a real life. I’ve lived too long… I just want to live simply before the end that should’ve come so long ago.”
Shaoni cried, more controlled now as she finally started to get a hold of herself.
“So what? You’d just give it to someone else! What about what that would do to them?”
“I just wanted out Keith! I know it was selfish, I don’t care! I just want the nightmare to be over!”
Shaoni screamed out at me. She was hysterical enough that I saw Stein’s hand shoot towards his belt. I’m sure he had that gun I saw yesterday waiting there so I held out my hand to signal him to wait.
“We did good once, in the beginning. But that changed, the wars the injustice I just couldn’t stand by and let that happen so I fought back. I spread the idea that fighting to the death was better than compromising for peace, compromising to save lives. That’s when we… I went wrong. I lead them astray! I was responsible for their deaths! Every! Single! One! I was bitter and resentful for years and I took it out on anyone I thought was guilty. I’ve lived with that for centuries! Do you think I don’t know I’ve become a monster Keith?!”
Shaoni finished with a look of profound shame on her face.
I never thought I’d see the day when I actually felt bad for Shaoni. Not some spur of the moment there’s a full on shootout going on above us and I probably shouldn’t let her die, feeling bad. No, I genuinely felt sorry for her after hearing her talk about the past with total honesty for once.
“You could come with us.”
I offered, looking back to everyone who’d gathered around her at that point. The looks on their faces all told me they weren’t fans of that Idea but only Tuck protested.
“I won’t help her crawl outta the bed she made! Keith, do you honestly think she doesn’t deserve everything thats comin’ to her?!”
“No, but I think she’s suffered enough. Besides, I really don’t want to leave someone down here to die knowing I could’ve done something about it.”
“You know what, fine! You care to much about this Keith, she deserves it! But if you want to take her with us don’t be surprised when she goes on and stabs ya in the back! Now come on, we should get moving.”
Tuck finished, throwing his hands up in the air in an act of frustrated surrender.
“So you realize we’ve got to go out there right? We’re not climbing back out the way we came in so heading out the main entrance is our only option at this point.”
Frank said bluntly as we watched Rocco scurry out of the hole they had dropped in from. We’d all collectively decided we were better off sending Rocco back home. Frank was right though, and even though the sounds of gunfire had started to sound a little farther away I still wasn’t a fan of getting anywhere closer to them.
“I might be able to help with that.”
Shaoni replied, getting to her feet with an air of determination.
“Stay behind me and move when I tell you to.”
We all fell into line behind Shaoni without another word. I guess all of us realized the the sobbing mess we’d seen before also just so happened to be the same Thunderbird that reduced most of Imalone to ashes. So despite how we felt about letting her lead us around it was probably our best chance at the moment.
I was a little surprised that none of… whatever was happening out there hadn’t spilled into the mine and made its way to us. We found out why just as soon as the single file line behind Shaoni made it out of the mine. The camp was devastated, what wasn’t on fire or covered in bullet holes was smashed or ripped to pieces. The ground was littered in bodies and shell casings. A few hundred feet in front of us a small group of Shaoni’s followers where taking shots at the men in black tactical gear Stein had mentioned. There was maybe ten of them but it looked like those ten had slaughtered nearly all of the followers that had made up this camp.
I threw up on the spot, I was so shocked by the scene in front of me I didn’t even manage to bend over, it just kinda waterfalled out of my mouth. I heard Bianca groan in disgust from behind me. I didn’t understand why everyone else wasn’t reacting the same way I was. As I came back to my senses after a minute or so I took off my now vomit covered jacket and felt the cool air through my shirt. Shaoni had instructed us to move and I must’ve moved on my own. All of us were gathered behind a small rocky outcrop near the entrance to the mine.
“You doing alright?”
Bianca asked quietly from behind me, putting a hand on my shoulder. I turned to look at her and noticed the jewel encrusted dagger from before was clutched in her hand, twinkling with reflections from her now glowing blue eyes.
I could barely hear Bianca over the sounds of gunfire. Which almost certainly meant the last of the survivors were being wiped out. I couldn’t watch anymore death today so I just ducked lower behind our cover.
“You hear me Keith? Are you ok?”
Bianca persisted with a little more concern in her voice. I was still trying to pretend I hadn’t just seen dozens of dead bodies but I couldn’t really ignore her forever.
“No not…not really.”
I said, my voice coming out silent as a church mouse.
“Was it the-”
I cut her off
“I’ve never seen a dead body before, I mean I have but not like… not like that. The one guy his jaw was just…. Just gone. How do you guys do it? How do you just look at that and not react?”
Bianca sighed and looked me in the eyes. There was a kind of recognition in them, like she was seeing a little bit of herself in my situation.
“We’ve all seen a lot of horrible stuff in our lives, we’re used to it. Still it doesn’t make it feel normal to see… this. Do you think you can hold it together a bit longer or do you want me to…”
Bianca trailed off but it was obvious to me what she meant. Bianca was offering to soothe that terrified part of me with her powers again.
“Thanks but no, I’ll be alright I’ll probably be seeing this in my dreams for weeks though.”
I answered, trying to make a stupid joke to lighten the mood. Bianca cracked a hint of a smile and that was enough for me.
While we’d been talking everyone had failed to notice Shaoni was gone. She had stood up and was walking straight towards where those men in black gear where picking through what was left of her followers. She was glowing though, every single tattoo glowed with an intense white light and then in a flash she was gone, and the Thunderbird was in her place. Frank and Stein stared in awe of the huge beast in front of them. The Thunderbird looked exactly as I remembered. The blue feathers and steel gray beak reflecting in the light from its crackling white eyes.
“That’s it, That’s the god damn bird!”
Tuck yelled like we couldn’t see what was right in front of us. I think he was just surprised to see the Thunderbird again. Even after years of swearing to get back at “the bird” for the friends he lost I don’t think he ever thought he’d come face to face with it again. Seeing it must be bringing up more than a few memories he’d rather forget.
“Don’t do anything you’ll regret! She’s been helping us Tuck, at least put your differences aside until we’ve gotten all this figured out.”
Stein yelled over an ear splitting screech from the massive bird as Tuck began to tense up. Every muscle in his body looked like it was about to pop, they were bulging to an inhuman degree. With a long exhale he loosened up and the swelling went down.
“Damn it… fine! But only till we got things settled here, after that I need to have a “conversation” with that… thing!”
Tuck shouted in begrudging agreement.
The men in front of us all turned toward Shaoni, her new form towering over them. Then I heard a familiar voice shout out,
“You wanted it gone, You’re looking at it! What’re you all waiting for!”
A commanding voice rang out from one of the people in front of us. I didn’t take long to spot the platinum blonde hair poking out from under the armored black helmet the woman wore, not just any woman, Katrina. I didn’t have much time to let that sink in before Katrina made a fist, stuck two fingers up in the air and shook them forward at us. After that, all hell broke loose.
The men behind Katrina rushed forward, guns drawn. Stein drew his own pistol and cocked it, taking aim at the approaching men. Tuck tensed up again and this time he didn’t hold himself back. Bones cracked and skin shifted to accommodate the inhuman muscles he now possessed. Hair sprang up all over his body and under it his face became more angular, his nose almost snout-like. Tuck looked something like a werewolf but definitely not the wolf man I expected. He looked more like an extremely hairy, unnaturally muscular feral person than any wolf man. Frank, Bianca, and I all hunkered down behind the outcrop, waiting for the worst to happen. Shaoni took to the sky with a flap of her massive wings as the gunfire started.
Nothing ever really prepares you for how loud a gunshot actually is, especially a whole bunch of them from fully automatic weapons. There’s nothing quite like being shot at either, at some point you just have to accept the fact that at any moment one of those things flying around you is going to hit you and just get ready for it. That doesn’t actually do anything to calm you down though, at least it didn’t for me. I was huddled behind that little outcropping like a puppy hiding from fireworks on the fourth of July. Wind gusted all around us as Shaoni flapped her wings furiously. The wind coming from her winds was so intense it blew the bullets being fired at her off course. Lead rained all around us as I listened to the cracks of even more bullets being fired. I heard growling as something roughly Tuck sized tore forwards toward the gunfire.
The sky was turning an enraged black and rain had already started to fall in sheets. Lightning struck the ground every so often as well, to close and regular to be natural. I peaked up over the outcrop at one point. I was just in time to see one of the men get struck by a bolt of lightning and tense up as he fell to the ground. As the men kept firing at Shaoni some of their shots started to hit home. The bullets that didn’t get turned away with the wind glanced off her massive form. Whatever those feathers were made off seemed to stop most of the bullets dead in their tracks but it was becoming obvious Shaoni couldn’t keep this up. From our position behind the outcrop Bianca and I both felt the beats of her wings and the gusts of wind that came with it coming slower and slower. We shared a glance for just a second, from the look in Bianca’s eyes, I felt certain we were doomed. More and more of the bullets seemed to be hitting Shaoni and her movements became slower still until eventually it happened.
With a shrill cry she fell from the sky, her blue features stained red in places. Shaoni hit the ground with an earthshaking crash and lay still. Katrina screamed something I couldn’t hear in the violent storm that still raged all around us. When I inched my way up to take a look I saw Katrina and her men charging toward Shaoni guns drawn. Behind them I caught sight of Tuck’s muscular figure getting back up from the ground. I hadn’t been keeping an eye on him before but it looked like he’d seen better days. He hesitated a bit before me moved, looking back to the outcrop where we were and over towards where Shaoni lay. He looked once, twice, then shook his head, mind apparently made up and ran at the men on all fours.
They didn’t hear him coming from behind over the storm and as they raised there weapons Tuck pounced. With one swipe of his humongous hand he sent one of the men flying off towards the forest. Even Katrina was surprised by Tuck’s sudden attack. The time provided by everyone taking a moment to decided who to point their gun at gave Shaoni just enough time to act. She shot one wing out, glancing off everyone near her and knocking them to the ground. One of them men’s helmets flew off with the hit and Stein quickly lined up a shot and fired, hitting the man in the top of the head. The look in his eyes was devoid of any emotion as he ducked back down behind the outcrop. I got the sense this wasn’t the first time Stein had killed, not surprising considering his time in Germany. Still, there was something unsettling about that look in the old scientists eyes.
As Katrina and her men got their bearings again and started firing at Tuck bullets plinked off the outcrop. Apparently they hadn’t forgotten we were there. I stole a quick glance over to where Shaoni had fallen but the Thunderbird was gone revealing a hole in the ground created from the impact of her fall.
“TUCK!”
I screamed out to get his attention for a moment. Tuck’s head swirled towards me just long enough for him to see my outstretched hand pointing to the hole in the ground. I grabbed Bianca’s hand and pulled her to her feet, making a mad dash to the hole. Frank and Stein saw what we were doing and followed after us. Stein fired wild shots off towards Katrina and her men while Tuck kept harassing them.
By some miracle Tuck was still going even as I saw bullets tear into him, he was an animal. He tossed the men around like rag dolls and at one point I turned to see him bring his now claw-like fingernails arching upwards. The head of the man he’d hit was bent back at a sickening angle, he was dead there was no question but Tuck didn’t even stop to spare a thought for the man. Seeing one of their comrades killed in front of them seemed to get the attention of the entire group of them. I hated to admit it but it was exactly the distraction we needed.
As we ran past the chaos of the fight I heard a mix of screams of agony and determination. At one point one of the men’s broken bodies flew over the four of us and hit the ground with a wet crunch that sent a shiver down my spine. We just kept running though, everyone following behind me because I looked like I had a plan. To be fair I did, it was just a bad plan, more of a feeling honestly. I thought if we could get into that hole Shaoni made we might find a way out, a real long shot but it was the best I could do right now.
By the time we reached the hole and I jumped in Tuck had thrown just about every one of Katrina’s men all over the little clearing we were in. Some where very clearly dead but some where rolling around and groaning. Katrina was still standing though, just before I fell deep enough into the hole I got a quick glance at her as she took aim at Tuck who seemed to finally be feeling all the punishment he’d been taking.
I didn’t even have time to scream a warning before my feet hit the hard rock below me and everyone else fell in on top of me.
“Sorry… sorry”
Bianca squeaked out as she pulled herself out of the pile of bodies we’d become. Frank, Stein, and Bianca seemed alright but my ankle was definitely sprained, badly.
“Can you walk on that?”
Bianca asked, examining my ankle in the strange blue light that emanated from further down the chamber we’d fallen into.
“Maybe? Here can I just lean on you?…. yeah, yeah that’ll work.”
I told her, using her to pull myself to my feet and leaning on her for support.
“What are we looking for Keith?”
Frank wondered out loud, a little fear creeping in to his voice as he looked around the chamber.
“I’m not actually sure, I was hoping we’d find Shaoni down here, maybe a tunnel out.”
I grunted out honestly, still reeling form the pain shooting up from my ankle.
“Wait where’s Tuck?”
“If he didn’t make it down we have to assume the worst. We can’t afford to wait now.”
Stein answered, quickly and professionally like someones life wasn’t at stake.
“He never had to come out here for me! We can at least wait for him, give him a chance-”
Stein cut me off
“None of us had to come here for you! We knew the risks so did Tuck. If we wait here now his sacrifice means nothing!”
Stein yelled at me. He was right, none of them needed to be out here but I still didn’t like leaving someone behind. As Frank and stein trudged forward Bianca and I hesitated a bit.
“I don’t want to leave him either but Stein’s right. Just lean on me and lets keep moving, we can come back later and look for his…”
Bianca trailed off before she could say body but I got the message, and if Bianca was moving forward I really didn’t have much of a choice.
We didn’t have to go far to find Shaoni, her usual deerskin clothing was ripped and stained with blood in places. All in all she didn’t look as bad as I thought she would. The light we saw at the entrance was coming from her tattoos as every one glowed brightly with blue light. The same light glowed faintly from four Thunderbird totems placed in the corners of the huge room.
“Welcome to my nest.”
Shaoni said with a dry chuckle, extending her arms out to her sides before immediately clasping them back over a wound in her side.
“Shaoni, are you… are you going to be alright.”
I asked, but before I could get any sort of answer I was interrupted by snarky laughter and a cocking gun.
“Well thanks for leading me right to where I wanted to be Keith.”
Katrina remarked as she walked into the room.
Bianca’s eyes glowed that all to familiar blue but Katrina was a step ahead of her.
“Yeah I wouldn’t try that if I were you. Sure you could force me to walk right out of here but it’s going to take a second to break me, longer than it would take me to pull this trigger.”
Katrina responded with a sneer, turning the gun on Bianca. Bianca jumped back like a scared cat. Ducking under my arm and putting all my weight back on my sprained ankle.
“Wait Don’t!… Argh!”
I cried out at her just before I fell to the ground.
“Ok, ok just… don’t.”
Bianca conceded, putting her hands up and backing away as the blue glow faded from her eyes. When he saw what Katrina was doing Frank wrestled Stein’s gun out of his hands and pointed it straight at Katrina, finger trembling on the trigger.
“Don’t you dare hurt her!”
Frank shouted, face turning red with fury.
“Well thats cute…”
And with an earsplitting bang Katrina turned and shot Frank in the leg. He fell to his knees, dropping the gun he’d been holding as Stein scrambled to hold him up.
“Don’t get in my way, don’t threaten me, and I won’t have to hurt anyone. Now Shaoni, where were we?”
Katrina cooed with murder in her voice as she took a step forward. I tried to pull myself up to my feet, only succeeding in making a pitiful cry as I fell back down again. Bianca flinched towards me but backed up fast when Katrina’s gaze shot her way.
“Keith, you’re still alive? I don’t know how you keep getting mixed into things but you’ve gotta learn when to just give up. I was supposed to kill all of you down there after the third trial. I gave you an out and you just stuck around. Tell you what though, you can still walk away cause I feel bad you got dragged into this in the first place. I have no idea what she was thinking, roping you into this with no idea about the supernatural at all.”
Katrina addressed me, pointing over at Shaoni after helping me to my feet. It hurt to stand but I was getting used to the pain.
“Above everything else I was supposed to kill the Thunderbird and thats what I’m going to do, after that you all can walk out of here.”
Katrina took slow steps toward Shaoni who simply glared at her. She didn’t try to run though, something told me she was ready, no matter how the next few minutes played out. But I had one more trick up my sleeve as I limped over, putting myself in between Shaoni and Katrina.
“She just wants out of all this Katrina! You have to know about where she came from, everything she’s been through!”
I yelled through gritted teeth, biting back the white hot pain shooting up from my ankle.
“I know enough It’s sad sure, but everyone’s got a sad story these days. She’s been flying around taking out whole towns to use as havens for people who want to follow this ass backwards sense of justice she’s got. I don’t want to become that person who’s hunting down supernaturals like her no questions asked just because I was ordered to. But in this case she’s responsible for hundreds of deaths. The “accidents” that happen in those towns are all her fault, and not all of them are as nice as Eagles Peak. The kind of people a town outside of any real form of government or law attracts aren’t the people you want to be neighbors with. She’s got to die Keith, so do you if your going to try and stop me.”
Katrina explained as she stalked closer to me. I really didn’t want to do what I knew I had to do next but I couldn’t watch anyone else die today.
“Alright, I guess there’s no other way then, Shaoni I’ll take on your burden.”
The whole room exploded into a chorus of “what” in varying degrees of shock but my mind was made up. I turned to Shaoni as she asked,
“Are you sure Keith?”
“Yes.”
Before anyone could recover from the shock of what I was about to do she reached out and grabbed my hands. I took hold of her’s and she said something in a language I couldn’t hope to understand as my vision went white.
When I could see again I was… somewhere else. Lightning flashed intermittently overhead and a grassy field extended out forever around me. In front of me stood a misty grey form of a bird it was huge, easily twice the size of the form I’d seen Shaoni take. Through its shifting misty form I could see Shaoni. The bird seemed to be talking to her but I couldn’t make anything out, I could only guess it was a Thunderbird spirit. It seemed to nod to Shaoni before it turned to me and stared me dead in the eyes. Its beak didn’t move, actually no part of it moved but I still heard its voice in my head as its eyes continued to boar into me.
“My chosen, Justice, claims she has lost her way, is this true?”
I couldn’t begin to describe how this voice sounded, powerful is the only word that came to mind. I didn’t feel like I was in any danger though, in fact I felt calmer than I ever had.
“She has.”
I got the sense that quick simple answers were probably best here.
“Justice spoke very highly of you. You offered to succeed her if she is to be believed.”
“I did, but how exactly do we-”
But I was cut off with a bow from the spirit who evaporated all around me. My vision blurred and everything went white again as I collapsed into the soft grass.
I came to on the floor next to Shaoni, it couldn’t have been that much later because neither of us had any new bullet holes in us.
“What did you just do?”
Katrina asked standing above me and looking absolutely stupefied.
“The Thunderbird is dead.”
Was my simple, potentially completely bullshit answer. Katrina looked from me to Shaoni and back again, eyes growing wide as the realization dawned on her.
“You know what? That works for me, just don’t cause us any trouble and we can just forget this whole thing ever happened. Oh, I like the new eyes by the way.”
With that Katrina walked off and climbed a rope ladder she had attached to the ground outside the hole we fell through.
Everything else that happened was a blur, we went back out and found pretty much all of Katrina’s men dead. Tuck was shot several times and barley breathing when Shaoni of all people found him. She called us over and Stein assured us he’d be alright if we got him back to the lab soon. We carried Tuck’s hairy form over to one of the SUV’s and raced back into town. On the way we drove past Katrina who’d also taken one of the SUV’s and was heading out of town. Bianca made a comment at some point that I looked different. When we got back to the house I looked in a mirror and saw my eyes where the same shade of grey Shaoni’s had been.
Speaking of Shaoni we took her with us, she followed us over to the car after she found Tuck. She looked a bit like a lost puppy at that point if I’m honest. I guess finally being able to live your life free of some strange sense of duty after hundreds of years will do that to you. Shaoni hasn’t actually said much since we settled back in at Bianca’s house. She eats and goes through the motions of normal life, she’ll even shoot you a warm smile if she catches you staring at her. I’m still not used to seeing her with green eyes though. I think she just feels lost but I’m ready to help show her the ins and outs of normal-ish life when she’s ready to ask for help.
Frank and Stein went back to doing their normal experimenting pretty fast. The whole thing past them by like a particularly eventful weekend. Even Frank’s bullet wound was quickly forgotten about. Pretty much as soon as he treated it it was like it never even happened to him. Tuck got back on his feet with a lot of help from Frank and Stein. He walks with a permanent limp now but other than that he’s fine. Richelle just about had a conniption when we told her what happened and she hasn’t left Tuck’s side since. She seemed surprised when we described his transformation and we came to find out he never told her about his, “Condition”. That may be why they’ve been so inseparable lately, she just wants to help him however she can and he sure isn’t complaining about that.
Tuck and Shaoni have been getting along as well. I never thought I’d see the day those two sat down and just talked but after a tense first few weeks they came to an understanding. They aren’t old friends now by any means but I’ve walked in on them both talking about their pasts. Maybe sharing stories helps them deal with living such long lives.
As for me and Bianca we started dating and thats been… well that’s been just great. I think its good for both of us cause after everything that happened at the old mine I was just a bundle of nerves. Having someone like her to talk to, someone who gets it, who’s seen so much worse helps put things in perspective. She finally has someone to really talk to in town too. Theres not a whole lot of trouble for us to get up to but we’ve started making a habit of pouring over Frank and Stein’s notes on the supernatural. Not the most riveting idea for a night in but I like learning more about whats really out there.
I still don’t feel any different after taking on Shaoni’s “burden”. Maybe that sense of duty she felt really was just all in her head, a promise to her people that she never let go. Honestly I haven’t tried to use whatever powers might come with my own condition. I just don’t feel like I need to. Like I told Katrina, the Thunderbird is dead. I’m sure not going to be the next Shaoni or anything like that but maybe It’ll help us find Brooke.
Thats the one thing that keeps Bianca and I up at night, we never found Brooke’s body. The two of us went up to the old mine a week or so after everything happened to look around for any sign of him but we didn’t find a trace. In fact the whole thing was cleaned up and the entrance to the mine was collapsed. I’m willing to bet whoever Katrina works for came back to try and wipe away any traces they may have left here. Maybe they found Brooke out there and dealt with him themselves, maybe he’s still out there somewhere. But for now everything’s been pretty calm, even normal around here.
Rocco is still a menace, Tuck still leaves the Eagle’s Roost door unlocked at all hours of the day, and theres still next to no people living here. Without Shaoni and her trials looming over me life is actually pretty good here. So that’s my story, how a storm and a huge bird dragged me halfway across the country and I started dating a succubus…right after I became the Thunderbird. It still seems crazy when I say it like that. Maybe I’ll dig up something on Brooke but for now I think I’ve finally found my new normal out here in the curiously named town with no Eagles and no Peaks.

Previous
So, if you’re just joining us, I work at a haunted zoo now. Since I’ve gotten some rest, it feels like I’ve got my head on straight, at least, so I’d like to continue where I left off.
I sat on the floor in the office after meeting the ghost until I’d settled my rattled mind (and realized I’d forgotten to ask her name, how rude is that?). I took a deep breath and got up off the floor. Walking over and falling into the rolling chair in front of the large screen of camera views, when I brought up the camera that covered the area in which I’d spotted her, she was still there, and it seemed she hadn’t moved an inch.
Sitting there, at a loss, I continued to watch her. The ghost hung around for another five minutes or so, appearing to look at a few things off-screen, though I’m not sure what. Then she walked off into the forest and left the view of the cameras. I wasn’t sure if she vanished into the ether or if she’d gone looking into the trees to look for something.
But that wasn’t the end of the job interview, so let me jump back there. It continued into what kind of animals the zoo had, with Andrew asking me how much experience I had with dangerous animals.
I took a moment to consider the question. “So, ah…I’ve been going hunting and fishing with a neighbor since I was sixteen,” I told him. “We always have to keep an eye out for gators, bears, and hogs. Then there’s snakes, of course…snapping turtles… Since I’ve lived here my whole life and been aiming for a job with wildlife for a long time, I know a lot about the animals in Arkansas in general. But good advice for all of the above is avoid them, so I’ve had encounters, but I don’t know if you’d say I have experience with them.”
“That’s fine,” Andrew said, nodding. “That’s an answer I’m satisfied with. Now, the ghost was the appetizer, Ripley; here’s the main course. To start with, the pay isn’t twenty-five an hour. It’s fifty.”
Staring in shock for a moment, I asked, “Are you serious?”
“Yeah. But that’d be weird to post online considering what applicants think we need, so I halved it.”
“That’s… Okay, why?”
“The animals are already here. You just can’t see them.”
I stared at him for a long moment, some disbelief worming its way into my expression, before saying, “Sorry, what?”
“There’s a chance you’d naturally never see them, or at least some of them,” he continued casually. “It depends on both your genetics and how long you stay on the job. I can naturally see six of them, but that’s it. Suzanne can see all of them, and more. Some are what people would label demons or ghosts. Or magic. Mostly you’d call them cryptids. The ghost was just a warm-up; I mentioned her first because it never takes more than a week to see her if you work the night shift. If you manage to handle her okay, soon you’ll be able to see the animals too. The more time you spend on the grounds, for weird reasons,” he said, wiggling his fingers in the direction of the back door, “the more you’ll be able to see.”
“So, this…this is a zoo for cryptids,” I echoed slowly. He nodded once, waiting to find out what kind of reaction I would have. I gestured vaguely around the room. “If this is a hidden camera show, will you cut me a check for showing up and participating?”
Andrew coughed out a chuckle and shook his head. “No joke. There are a ton of stories out there that have been written to death, pulverized until they’re not the Grimm stories of old and instead they’re Disney films. A lot of those stories come from what some humans have seen. There are dozens of other worlds pressed up against ours, and occasionally things come through by accident. If they’re smart, they’ll lay low and then make their way back when they can. If not, they become local folklore until someone helps them back. I’m just from London, but Suzanne is from somewhere else. She hires people like us for this zoo. Humans.”
Sighing, I shook my head. “That makes no sense. Why would she hire a muggle for a magic zoo?”
Andrew burst out laughing at that, and then waited to gather himself before he continued. “Fair point, but this is less about magic and more about animals, and you’re missing some information that will explain it. First of all, if I misjudge an employee, and they think they can make bank by outing the endangered and valuable animals we have, it’s easy to relocate the zoo.”
“Because magic?” I asked.
“Exactly,” he replied, ignoring the thread of skepticism in my tone. “That means it isn’t the end of the world if that happened, though it is a pain in the arse. But second…let me ask you a question. Speaking of reality shows, say the Discovery Channel put out a call to replace Steve Irwin when he passed. Imagine they had a line out the door,” he said with a gesture, “of people who thought they had the skill and natural talent to replace him, to take on everything he’d been doing his whole life. How many do you reckon would lose an arm, a leg, or their life, by the end of the day?”
My lips parted in surprise and I narrowed my eyes at him. “You’re saying people from…wherever…they’re just as dumb as humans, but they’re worse, because they actually think they can handle these things.”
Andrew pointed the pen at me. “Things. Exactly. You called them things. Suzanne and her friends grew up with them and would call them animals. These animals have dispositions and temperaments that we’ve studied for as long as there have been scientists. Where Suzanne’s from, they know the weaknesses of these animals, and also they’re in enclosures here, even if you and I can’t see the walls because they’re invisible things called ‘wards’. If I hire someone who’s got magic on top of all that, they’ll have almost no instinctive fear.
“Everything here is nocturnal, and every one of them is a hunter. Some of these things? Humans see them and they pass out. Not that I want you passing out, but I need someone who is scared of these things, who knows to stay out of the enclosures no matter what. Not someone who thinks they can train them to do tricks, who gets close enough for them to grab a mouthful of hair and drown them. Once, we had a night shift manager injured, and once killed, because they didn’t take these animals seriously enough.”
Thinking back to the Sea World orca incident I knew he’d been referencing, I remembered wondering how someone at that level of her profession could be so careless as I watched the video on YouTube. It made sense when he explained it like that. I hesitated before mentally throwing my hands up and going all in. “So, why put this place here, then? If they’re endangered and also dangerous, why have a zoo at all instead of just a small reserve?”
He pursed his lips, looking disappointed in me. “Ripley. You know that already. You already said as much.”
Thinking back through our conversation, I said, “The rich humans who pay top dollar to see supernatural animals.”
“Not humans,” he told me. “But people, yes, and they are rich, and they’re making donations and spending their money on a ticket here because everything we have is endangered.”
“So…”
I just let my voice trail off and my mind started to drift. Andrew remained silent, letting me do so. There’s that thing people say, ‘I believe that you believe it,’ which is just a kinder way of saying, ‘Bullshit.’ Parents say it about closet monsters. Psychologists say it to people who say they’ve been abducted and probed by aliens. I wanted to say it to Andrew.
But I also wanted a job. If it meant working overnight at an empty zoo, that was fine. When it came down to it, especially when I took the tone of our conversation into account, this was a zoo specifically focused on preserving endangered ‘animals’, and it was allegedly doing important work. Also, if this turned out to be the real deal and I started seeing the animals, I would deal with it, just like I would deal with an enclosure that had a lion or tiger or gorilla. If it came with a ghost and invisible creatures, I really didn’t see what the difference was, if I couldn’t go in the enclosures either way.
On that note, I’d like you to imagine a kid who looks at a roller coaster, watching everyone screaming and grinning as they go up and down and all around and they’re like, ‘Heck, I could do that! That looks like a blast!’
Then they get on, the first drop hits, and they realize they’ve made a terrible mistake.
“All right,” I sighed. “I can’t say I’m going to turn down a job just because it’s going to be scary. Especially not one with this paycheck.”
Andrew smiled. “Awesome. There’s an adjustment process for anyone working here, similar to a dog that gets adopted, actually. I know the general guidelines of, ‘three days, three weeks, three months’ in terms of milestones, until they finally feel they’re where they’re supposed to be,” he told me, “and you can think of your time here along those lines. I really think you’re a great fit, and once you reach the milestone of working here for three months, I’ll officially consider you our new night shift guard. And I hope you’ll stay with us for many years.”
I nodded and smiled at the flattery of an employer wanting me to work a great job for them for a long time. I’d never had a dog, but those milestones were well-known among anyone who knew animals, especially dogs. The first three days, the dog is getting to know its new digs, exploring, and decompressing. At three weeks, they’ve gotten used to their environment and are starting to get comfortable with their surroundings and the routines of the humans they live with. By three months, they know the rules and follow them, they trust you, and they feel they are where they’re meant to be. I could only hope to be so lucky.
I saw the ghost two days ago and she has yet to make another appearance (for those who are curious, I asked, and her name is Leila), and I still hadn’t seen any animals. I did hear one, though, I feel compelled to note. A growling roar sounded from the lake on occasion, echoing across the vast zoo, sending a shiver down my spine. Whatever that animal was, it sounded gigantic.
Andrew said there was apparently a group that wanted to visit for a birthday and they were offering a huge donation, so he let me know they were making an exception and that this group would be walking through the park that night. That meant I’d be watching people watching animals that, as far as I could tell, weren’t there.
It was anticlimactic. Even the three people who came for the tour just looked like people, not like aliens or something eldritch from another dimension, and I stayed in the security office the whole time. Andrew was the one giving the tour. I watched them spend about five minutes at each enclosure, the hour or so that they were there passing without incident. It was clear that they were able to see all the animals, though, since they motioned excitedly at each enclosure and spoke to Andrew, who presumably answered any questions they had.
If they could see the animals, that was that. There was still that niggle in the back of my head, from my twenty-three years of life never encountering anything like ghosts or cryptids, telling me that this was ridiculous. Waiting for someone to knock on the door, a camera mounted on their shoulder, to tell me that it was a big joke and they wanted to see how long I’d play along. But from all I saw, this was a real place with real, invisible animals.
I do carry a taser and pepper spray in my capacity as a security guard. Though it isn’t for the animals, since they’re in the enclosures; they’re actually for the rare instance of a break-in. Andrew mentioned that it had happened several times it the past, someone trying to steal an animal in the hopes of selling it on the black market. They’d been successful before, but apparently my predecessor Roger was good at his job, and mostly they left in handcuffs.
I’ll be honest, I’m not a huge fan of confrontation, but my job was to call Andrew and then confront the person, not kick their ass. That’s what the police were for, or rather, the people Andrew would call in lieu of police in certain situations.
Fifty bucks an hour. That’s the key here.
Andrew hadn’t set up direct deposit, since he was sticking with a strategy of waiting to see if I’d continue to work there once I found out myself dealing with the animals (I’ve decided I am going to just call them animals). Instead, I got an old-fashioned check after my shift every Friday. The number on the first check was delightful. I went out that evening and had a big dinner at the local diner, order my most expensive favorites on the menu and a big slice of pie for dessert.
When it came to the paychecks in general, though, I had this weird feeling of not wanting to tell my dad and brother about the fact that it was actually $50/hr. I previously mentioned that my dad, his name’s Nathan if you’re curious, works at a local grocery store. Our town has a couple food franchises, but I think its size is just short of whatever threshold Walmart uses to decide where to open. He earns $14/hr. and that’s after the tiny raises he’s gotten over the past thirteen years.
That’s not to say he’d feel bad about not making as much as me. On the contrary, he would be ecstatic for me and really proud. But, like me, he’d be suspicious. That hourly rate was the biggest hint that this was more than just a private zoo for cryptids. And as soon as that fat check cleared without problems, my dad wouldn’t be satisfied with reassurances; he’d want to come visit the zoo and look around.
I’d told him it’s a private preservation with scheduled (expensive) visits only and that it had only eleven animals, so he’d been appeased by me brushing off the idea of a visit. Also, I took a few photos of my workplace; one of the security room, one of me sitting in my chair, one photo of the many screens I watched, and a selfie where I was feigning sleep out of boredom, slouched in my chair with my mouth open in a faux snore. That let him feel like he knew where I was and what I was doing, and that I was safe.
But if I told him I was making double what he thought, my father would practically order me to quit. No job was worth my safety, he’d tell me. I was quite of the opposite opinion, however, considering how crucial any and all conservation efforts were these days. Especially with the steep extinction levels due to humans competing with other animals for space, not to mention climate change. Working in any job that helped preserve species and keep ecosystems in balance, or put them back in balance, was so important.
Then again, my father would also point out something I had realized right away: the fact was that I was working with endangered species that were not from Earth. I wasn’t helping my planet. To be honest, though…that didn’t matter to me. Especially after that talk with Andrew about why he hired a human for this job, I figured whichever dimension these animals came from had the equivalent of us, razing forests to the ground, clouding the planet with pollution, and leaving the animals with no avenue of recourse when yet more land was taken from them.
I really do hope to keep working here for a long time, though, and not just because of the money. I can’t help it; I want to know what these things were, and I want to work with them, to do the job of a zookeeper. The same way you go up to the chain-link fence to get close to a carnivore on the other side who thinks you’d make a nice afternoon snack. You just want to be closer to them, to experience that incredible, daunting feeling of being in their presence.
Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t long before I got what I wanted.
The day after we had the tour go through, I was doing my sweep when I saw the ghost again. She was sitting on a small boulder in the same area I’d seen her the first time, looking identical, blood covering the front of her slashed shirt, the wounds visible underneath. I stopped and stood there for a moment before I decided to raise my hand in a small wave.
The young woman cocked her head at me and raised a hand in the air in an imitation of my gesture, her expression showing a bit of curiosity.
She was low-key, seemingly not concerned with my presence, looking at me as a novel phenomenon in her world. I wondered what that world consisted of. Was she always here, sometimes visible and sometimes not? Or did she have another world next to ours, in the ether, where she left everything in this world behind and floated in her disembodied form? Did she still feel emotions? Was that really curiosity on her face, or was I projecting? Did she feel happiness? Fear? Did she have the option of moving on, or was she stuck here?
Many questions that I might never get the answers to. And that was assuming Andrew knew the answers, since I’d never met Suzanne Cooper and he hadn’t even mentioned that possibility. This place was clearly her baby, but I’m sure running it was a lot of work. Plus, if she was rich enough to own it, she was rich enough to have other businesses and charities to run.
When it comes to the enclosures, they’re all wrapped by a barrier of some kind, though never one that seems adequate. There was not a single place with the ugly metal weavings of a chain-link fence, and no stretches of circular razor wire. Instead, there are nice fences. Black iron, or wrought steel fencing in a similar style to the one circling the perimeter of the zoo, just shorter and with different patterns. Or a spaced picket fence, the wood stained in some tone of brown, or a split two-rail fence. As if to say, ‘This is the border of your enclosure, but we’re just letting you know out of courtesy.’
When I started to pass enclosure number seven last night, a young woman’s voice spoke, “Hello.”
I startled, unaware that I hadn’t been alone. “Oh. Hi,” I said, staring at her standing a few yards in.
She had been next to a large tree and I hadn’t seen her. This enclosure was behind a picket fence, and she walked through the large area of wild grasses and flowers that stretched across the other side of the fence. There were fewer tall grasses closer to the fence, which I guessed was because it had been tromped down by her regular pacing along it when there were visitors, or if she wanted to see the various enclosures of the zoo. Her sudden appearance was a bit weird, considering I had been expecting to see a cryptid and instead I was looking at, it seemed, an attractive Asian woman.
She wore a black kimono, the soft silk robe draped gently over her body, with beautiful patterns of cherry blossoms, more so over her left side, and red and blue birds with their wings spread. A sash wrapped around her abdomen, she wore socks and sandals on her feet, and her hair was up in those rolls that gave volume to the style.
I was no expert on any fashion, much less that of another country, so I just assumed it was all traditional Japanese clothing. Most likely, the visitors who came liked to see a certain time-honored style and that’s what she stuck with. Or maybe she played on stereotypes. That would be amusing.
“I’m Yui. It’s nice to meet you,” she spoke, arriving at the border of the fence and holding out a hand for me to shake.
I’d been standing about three yards away from her, and I’ll be honest, muscle memory tried to kick in. But I only made it two steps, my hand starting to rise, before I froze, the hand falling limply at my side. “Nice to meet you, too,” I answered, my voice quiet.
Damn. I wonder how many times that honey trap works back where she comes from.
The pleasant look on her face faded, and she lowered her hand. “You won’t shake hands with me? Isn’t that rude?”
“I mean, I kind of like my hand where it is. You know, attached to me.”
Her demure smile widened into something more amused. “I would never do something so revolting.”
Looking her up and down, as if more visual information would give me more knowledge of what she was, I asked her, “What would you do?”
“I would be less wasteful,” she said softly.
A finger of ice trailed down my spine, and I had the sudden image in my head of her grabbing my outstretched hand in an iron grip and yanking me over the fence, leaving me to sprawl on the ground. Then killing and consuming me efficiently, without a single careless step, the same way humans slaughtered pigs, using everything from the hog but the squeal. I was struck with a shiver at the idea of her consuming everything from me but my screams.
Slowly, I took one step further down the path, then another. Just as I got to a walking pace, though, I realized the woman had started walking too, in the same direction. I’d have eventually gotten to the end of her enclosure and keep going, leaving her behind, but she spoke up. “Are you leaving?”
I came to a stop, meeting her gaze again. “My job is to walk the zoo every hour. Then I’ll get back to the security room and stay there until my next walk.”
“Have you met the others yet?”
I hesitated before saying, “Just Leila.”
She blinked languidly. “That means nobody welcomed you here.”
“Andrew did.”
She didn’t reply to that. Instead, she slowly started to lean forward, and I flinched backward a few steps further as I saw insect legs start curling out from her back.
No. Not insect. Arachnid.
The eight legs ended in small ‘paws’ with tiny claws, a layer of hairs covering the leg from top to bottom, like any typical tarantula. I took two more slow steps back and my mouth went dry as the jointed legs just kept lengthening, until they were large enough to lever her off the ground.
My gaze had been on the spider legs, but my heart skipped a beat as I realized her human legs had melded together and turned into a bulging abdomen. Her skin was shifting to a carapace, eventually all the way up to her shoulders and down her arms, her fingers elongating and her nails stretching to claws. From there down, her body was that of a pale tarantula with pedipalps the size of my arms and piercing fangs in her jaws that looked like they could take my head off.
There was a moment, my vision blurring, where I was worried that I might piss myself. The part of my brain that still had its humor intact in that moment told me that I should keep an emergency set of clothes in my car, or at the very least, start wearing Depends to work.
“I show you my true form,” she said softly, her voice now raspy like an eighty-year-old after a lifelong smoking habit. “Welcome to Suzanne Cooper’s zoo. The night shift guard for many years was Roger, before he retired and the zoo moved, and I miss him dearly. What should I call you?”
I choked on my words. There was no way my throat was going to cooperate enough for me to clearly get a sentence out. Instead, I realized my legs had taken control of the situation themselves, unsatisfied with my conscious brain’s decision to stand and stare, taking steps backward. I backed up a yard, then five yards, then ten.
My mind focused on the fact that spiders don’t waste anything, and pictured my demise. I’d be wrapped in a cocoon, killed, and made nice and mushy before she had me for dinner.
The whole time, my brain was a frenzied mess, my pupils were probably the size of dimes, and I was staring at that tiny, pathetic fence between her and me. There was so much adrenaline pumping through my body that I felt like my bones were vibrating. The fence was, to my eyes, the only thing between us. The only thing keeping her from tackling and killing me. My only hope was that she’d do it quickly.
But she didn’t move. As I absorbed her innocent, polite words, the look on her face was calm, and I wondered if this was typically the way a conversation went before she devoured her prey. I wondered how many people she’d eaten. Not humans, not people from Earth, but the ones from where she came from. The fact that she doesn’t scare the shit out of those people means they’re staggeringly dumber than humans.
Finally, I rounded a corner, both relieved at having her out of my sight and worried that she would take that moment to come find me. When she’d been within eyeshot, I had at least known where she was and could run in the other direction. But I didn’t hear the sound of faint footsteps moving rapidly toward me. All was quiet, in that deep, smothering way that only an empty business in the middle of the night in small town America could be.
My hands trembling, I barely paid attention to anything but the confirmation that my surroundings were free of the colossal spider as I finally got back to the door. Grabbing the handle and letting my eyes dart around for about ten seconds and my ears prick for the slightest sound, I finally swiped my key card across the pad and went inside, shutting the door behind me and engaging the backup deadbolt.
Maybe that was why they had decided on keycards. If I was running from something and panicking, using an actual key or inserting the card like at a hotel would keep me from getting to safety considering my hands were shaking enough to mix a margarita.
Walking over to my chair, I fell into it, letting my body flush itself of terror as I looked up at the cameras. There she was, still in arachnid form, exactly where I’d left her behind that rinky-dink fence, casually looking around and slowly pacing back and forth. I stared at her as my racing heart gradually slowed, and a minute or so later she turned on her eight legs and walked back into the trees.
Whatever invisible fences the enclosures have apparently work, which is nice, because I wasn’t keen on getting killed by one of the creatures here. And that’s what brings me here, spilling out everything that’s happened so far. Because nearly passing out from terror isn’t something I wanted to deal with at work, obviously, but I keep going over what she did in my head again and again, and I feel like I reacted like a child who spotted a wolf spider on their bed. I started to worry for my overactive sense of self-preservation, at least in my capacity as an employee here.
The spider didn’t even try to hurt me, and so I was feeling a bit foolish. Even annoyed, actually, at the fact that I’d freaked out so hard and took off instead of trying to engage in at least basic conversation. I got the sense that she wasn’t at human-level intelligence, but I was never going to be able to hold any level of conversation with an alligator.
Sure, she did mention that she wouldn’t be so crass as to yank off my hand because she’d rather just have my entire corpse, but wouldn’t a wolf do the same if it was hungry? Wouldn’t any carnivore? Actually, they probably would’ve been satisfied with one of my hands. The fear here was from the fact that she turned into a giant spider. If she’d turned into Clifford, I would’ve reacted the same way, if not better than, meeting Leila.
With that, I decided I’m staying on the job. Considering how frustrated I can get with foolish people, it’s a bit hypocritical, and I’m being a bit of an idiot. But…there are definitely wards keeping them in their enclosures. Also, I signed up for creatures for another dimension, whether or not I believed in them at the time, and I will not let encountering my first one in an objectively boring way be the reason I quit.
The money is a factor, I’ll grant you. Of course it is. And I can’t spend it if I’m dead, but all signs point to surviving as long as I don’t do anything dumb. Also, yes, I’ll admit there’s a not-so-little voice in the back of my head that’s desperate to know what else is here. I never thought I’d do something like this, but finding out these things are real, I honestly do want to learn more about them.
Still, though, I decided to call Andrew at the end of my shift to ask if the pepper spray and taser I carried worked on a certain spider, as well as the other animals I’d yet to meet.
Previous

Previous Part
The next day went by in a blur. Rocco was walking the perimeter of the camp, keeping an eye out for Brooke when I woke up. I didn’t really think he’d leave, but it seemed to give Rocco something to do other than being a general menace to society. All of us ate breakfast as normal but no one really said much. I’m not sure if they were still reeling from things they saw yesterday or if they just weren’t in a talking mood. The thought occurred to me that Shaoni may have payed a visit to each of them as well. Prying into what they saw and answering questions they might have. Honestly the whole thing felt like we were guinea pigs. Shaoni didn’t really seem to have a great handle on the trials so far. It was… mildly concerning that the ringmaster of all this didn’t seem 100% in control anymore.
Actually, I’d thought about that a lot last night. Shaoni just sort of left us to our own devices when we went through those “visions” yesterday. It’s not like she backed up her claim that she’d know what we’d seen either. If anything the fact that she came to ask me about it made me even more suspicious that she wasn’t really sure what she was doing. It was the first time I’d ever thought of Shaoni as anything other than in complete control. Slowly but surely it was becoming glaringly obvious that wasn’t the case.
If I was remembering correctly today’s trial was the trial of strength. I sincerely hoped that was a metaphor for something. You’ve got to understand, I’m not a very strong person, not physically anyways. I hoped Shaoni wanted to test mental strength or strength of will something like that. My hopes shattered as we arrived at the coliseum and saw an arena set up. There were several dummies in a corner, the kind you would see used in martial arts or HEMA or something to that effect. At the foot of the dummies were several wooden clubs. I couldn’t see them to clearly but they almost looked clawed from a distance. The real centerpiece was the platform in the middle of the coliseum. It looked like a stage and I’m sure that’s exactly how we were going to use it. The raised wooden platform had been constructed with boards placed across the top. It looked like those boards could be removed and under that was simply the cold hard ground about two feet below.
Katrina’s eyes lit up as she looked over the room.
“Now this is what I’m talking about, a real trial!”
She just about shrieked in excitement, throwing one fist in the air and startling the rest of us to attention. Katrina was the only one that really seemed excited about this. John and Robert just looked accepting and I’m not sure Brooke had put two and two together yet. I’d seen the clubs laid out by the dummies and already figured we’d be sparing with each other.
“Good morning everyone, I hope your ready for today.”
Called Shaoni, emerging unseen from behind us. Anyone who wasn’t fully awake at that point sure was then. There’s just something about Shaoni that makes you really really not want her to show up behind you unannounced. Probably why she kept doing it to us.
“Today I will test your strength, while I’d rather avoid conflict it’s sometimes unavoidable. My ideal candidate not only knows themselves but can handle themselves as well. We will allow you some time to familiarize yourself with the war clubs you’ll be using. Then you will compete against each other to find the strongest, most skilled warrior among you.”
Shaoni explained, Katrina’ excitement growing with every word.
I wasn’t to keen to participate in any of this but, like usual, I didn’t really have much of a choice at this point.
“So will you be sticking around this time then?”
I asked, wondering if Shaoni was going to cut and run again.
“I have other matters to attend to today. While I would like to stay and observe the whole day I need to prepare things for the final trial tomorrow. I’ll be back in time to see you test each other though.”
She replied dismissively, already on her way out. Shaoni seemed almost uninterested in us now. For someone evaluating us she seemed awful happy to pass off the evaluation to her followers. I didn’t say anything else as she walked out of the coliseum and towards the exit.
As I walked over to the little training area I saw the clubs were actually ornate masterpieces. They were carved from a hard dark wood. The handles resembled an eagles talon, curving near the end to grip a wooden orb. Whoever made these was beyond skilled, these things were works of art. I didn’t have much time to admire them before Katrina interrupted me.
“Hey, Keith was it? Want me to show you how to use these things?”
She called over to me, it was more of a command than a question but that’s pretty par for the course with her.
“If you want, sure. I’m uh… I’m kinda a fish out of water with this find of thing.”
I told her, rubbing the back of my neck with one hand in embarrassment. I wasn’t sure why she was singling me out for that but she answered that question for me.
“Good, Those two creep me out and that one has been drooling over me since we got here.”
She said, pointing over at Robert and John who had already started practicing, then at Brooke. Katrina showed absolutely no subtly in any of this, earning us looks from all three of the others.
I was a little afraid of Katrina teaching me anything, if someone was gonna kill me by accident it would be her. That and she still had that gun on her. Despite my misgivings she was actually a pretty good teacher. She was a bit like a drill instructor but I learned a thing or two. By the time we were done I felt like I might stand half a chance in this trial.
“Just remember your footwork, keep your balance and the rest should come natural. Oh, and if we get paired up, take a dive, it’ll be less painful.”
Katrina added with a smirk, walking over towards the group by the stage in the center of the room. Shaoni had just come back in and was up on the balcony. A few of her followers had collected us and informed us we were about to start the, ”practical part”, as they put it.
“There’s five of you so for the first matchup one of my own will serve as the opponent. Anyone what to go first?”
Shaoni asked us, looking down with a raised eyebrow and waiting for a response. Before I realized what I’d done my hand was in the air, my body subconsciously wanting to get this over with as fast as possible. Shaoni actually looked surprised as she gestured for me to take my place on the stage. Two of the boards had been removed on either side leaving us something like six feet of space to work with before falling off the platform. But I was far less concerned about that after I saw the guy walking over. It was the driver from a few days ago when Shaoni had me brought out to the camp. The guy that had his friend stabbed by Bianca, he didn’t look like he’d forgotten about that as they gave him his club.
As I took my place on the stage the only thing I was thinking was exactly how bad it hurt when you got hit with one of these things.
“Begin when you are ready.”
Called Shaoni from her place on the balcony. The guy across from me took absolutely no time to think, charging at me wildly right away. I tried to brace myself and remember Katrina’s training, taking an even stance and angling my club for the coming blow. I did manage to block his strike but the force of it threw me to the ground. My mind went into full survival mode as he swung down at me. He was way less fluid than Katrina had been when she was showing me the ropes. He just seemed like he wanted to hurt me by any means necessary. As I rolled from side to side avoiding his blows I waited for an opening. He took a particularly hard swing at my head and I rolled at the last possible second. He lost his balance, giving me a chance to slip between his legs and get back to my feet. I stood back up narrowly avoiding a swing for my head as my opponent regained his balance and swung back at me. His wide hate fueled swing carried his whole body around with it and gave me another opening. I planted my feet and took one hard swing at the man’s turned shoulder hitting him right on the bone with a sickening crack. He stumbled around towards the edge, turning his back to me. I took one final swing, hoisting the club above my head and bringing it down in between his shoulder blades with a hollow thud. The blow sent him tumbling forward over the edge and off the stage, falling to the floor below.
Katrina shot me a quick thumbs up as I walked off the stage while Shaoni looked down at me and gave me an approving nod. No one else seemed to pay me any mind as I rejoined the group. I felt empowered, I hadn’t expected to get even that far, maybe there was a chance for me in this trial after all. Robert and John fought next and despite their age they each held their own. In the end John forced Robert off the edge, his age and weight throwing off his balance. I was still impressed either of them could move like they had, I guess I shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. Then Katrina fought Brooke in the last… round I guess I’d call it. The smile on her face was unsettling from the moment she realized she’d be paired up with him, like a shark smelling blood in the water. You could just tell that she was going to take pleasure in what happened next.
That smile was still on her face as she walked up onto the stage and took her place across from Brooke.
“I hope you like it rough baby, cause I’m not going easy on you!”
Brooke called to her from the other side of the stage making a point to puff out his chest and flex his muscles. That set her off like a bomb, the smile disappeared and she exploded towards Brooke. I saw the exact moment that false confidence left his eyes and he actually turned to run, he was far to late and way to slow. Her first strike went low, shooting out in front of Brooke and coming back to catch his knee sending him tripping forward. He tried to regain his balance but she had no intention of letting him. Katrina swung out in front of him again, this time catching his neck with the club on its way back. That sent him flat onto his back, the club falling form his hand and rolling off the edge of the stage was the only sound in the whole coliseum. All eyes focused on Katrina as she took a breath then delivered a kick to Brooke’s ribs so hard that he went rolling off the edge, following his club. I returned her thumbs up she had given me as she rejoined the group.
Next, those of us who remained got matched up with each other. Shaoni wanted to use another one of her followers to stand in but Katrina insisted on just going twice. That meant I’d fight her and then the winner would fight John to see who the victor of the day was. As I stood across from Katrina I considered taking her advice from before, “…Just take a dive…” she had said. I thought about it, I really did, but I’d done so well earlier right? Why stop now? While I’d been thinking Katrina had walked up to me and started to swing. I had just enough time to realize my mistake before she cracked me across the head so hard she knocked me out.
I came to an hour later, alone on an animal skin cot. I was still in the coliseum but everyone else had left apparently. The only thing I saw when I got up from the ground was the torchlight illuminating the passage that lead back outside. That and the note scribbled on a scrap of a sticky note taped to my fore head.
“I told you to take a dive.”
Well at least she might feel bad about knocking me out. I figured we must be done for the day given how dead the camp seemed when I emerged back into the light. With nothing better to do, I walked off towards the forest to clear my head. I wondered what Bianca had been up to since I’d been gone as I aimlessly wandered around the forest’s edge.
“No that wouldn’t work! We don’t know what’s up there and we are not just waltzing in through the front gates!”
Stein yelled at me as I went over my most recent idea for breaking Keith out of whatever trials were going on out by the old mine. It had been two days since I watched him get kidnapped in front of me and I was getting drastic, aaaannd maybe a little dramatic.
“But I could do it guys! Remember back at the reservation? Those guys were willing to do anything for me and there can’t be that many guards in one place. Maybe I just convince a small group to lead us in and make an excuse for us.”
“For the last time Bianca, They’re just about cultists far as I can tell. You ain’t gonna be able to fight the kinda conviction they have to that bird, even if ya could its to much of a risk.”
Tuck protested from his seat at the kitchen table.
The kitchen table had become our war room over the past few days. A map of Eagles Peak Frank had made lay across it with dozens of pins stuck in around where the old mine would be.
“I don’t think an approach from the front is a good idea at all. You and Keith got to the mine through the forest once. Could we follow that path, approach without anyone knowing we were there?”
Stein theorized as he paced back and forth at the head of the table.
“Well, we really just wandered around for a bit and ended up there. We didn’t find the mine either, it was a hole that lead down to an old cavern near the mine. They turned out to be connected but that was just dumb luck.”
I explained to the group. Tuck looked like that had given him an idea.
“So you two got some backdoor entrance figured out that you’re only just tellin’ me about? That could be perfect! The four of us could make our way out and drop through that hole, take em all by surprise!”
Tuck exclaimed, leaping to his feet. His enthusiasm was nice but it wasn’t going to be that easy.
“We… kinda made a bit of a scene when we were there, they might be watching for something like that to happen again.”
“True, but it’s the best entrance strategy I’ve heard so far, I think following up on it is worth a try.”
Frank added with a nod. Stein then started pacing up and down the length of the table for a bit. He was coming up with something, that much was obvious.
“So we’ll enter through this hole leading into a cave connected to the old mine. From what you told us about your time there its some sort of staging area for these trials, at least that’s my best guess. Odds are there won’t be many people there overnight so we make our way out there during the night. From there we move through the cave and into the mine but after that we know nothing about what we’re running into.”
Stein lectured to his audience.
“But I think we have a solution for that. Frank do we still have that drone?”
An hour later the four of us were gathered at the edge of town on that path Keith and I had taken into the forest. The trees growing together forming a sort of arch over our head’s were unsettling but I couldn’t decide why. It just didn’t sit well with me, it looked unnatural I guess and that just gave me the creeps. I get that’s rich coming from a literal succubus but its how I felt.
“Alright, just watch the trees as you take it up, I don’t want a repeat of Missouri.”
Stein instructed Frank as he got the drone in the air.
“You’re never going to let me live that down are you?”
Frank chuckled, shaking his head.
“It was the first time we used this thing, there was bound to be a few unexpected variables.”
“If you call “unexpected variables” an itchy finger on the throttle. We had to have Rocco untangle it from the branches.”
Stein joked as he checked to make sure the drones camera was feeding back into the app on his phone.
I hadn’t seen them like this, being friendly with each other. There was never a time where they hated each other or anything like that but they’d been so… business like with for a long time now. It was nice to see them act like real people again. Leaning over Stein’s shoulder I got a birds eye view from the drone.
“ Just go East, its what we did. Just walked East till we stumbled into everything.”
Frank followed my advice and flew the drone due East. Eventually a campsite came into view, there were a bunch of tepees and a bunch of people just walking around.
“What, they just look normal?!”
I blurted out, a little louder and a bit more distressed than I meant to.
“How’re they supposed ta look then?”
Tuck asked
“They’re just people like you n’ me. Nothin to special about em other than the fact they worship some big ass bird.”
He continued with mild annoyance.
“I don’t know, I guess I expected these creepy guys in tarps, like from Keith’s story. These are just… well they’re just people!”
I responded, Throwing my arms out to my sides in exasperation. Tuck was right, I shouldn’t have expected everything to be just as Keith had said. Still, something just didn’t fit together for me about that whole thing. What had the deal been with those people in Imalone then? I shook my head, clearing the question from my mind, it wasn’t important now.
“There! That’s the entrance to the old mine.”
Tuck told Stein as he looked at screen. I looked over myself and felt my entire being freeze. It was Brooke, walking out from the entrance with some bitchy looking girl and two older guys that I’d seen around town before. How could he be here? After all this time why, why was he anywhere near me?
My vision swam, when it came back Frank was standing in front of me. His mouth was moving but I couldn’t hear anything.
“…anca! Are you ok, what’s going on? Bianca!”
I finally heard over the sudden ringing in my ears.
“Him.”
Was the only thing the escaped my lips as I pointed one finger at the screen. I felt warmth coming back into my limbs as that frozen feeling slowly left me.
“He’s here…. Shouldn’t be here… why.”
I mumbled to myself as Frank helped me into the back of the SUV twenty minutes later. I was still nearly catatonic as we headed back into town.
“So… that was him, the one you were running from when we found you.”
Stein said, breaking the silence that had fallen. I could talk normally again but I still only managed a quick “yes”.
“You know you don’t have to come with us, I’d understand.”
Frank said, snapping me to attention again.
“NO! I’ve got to help Keith, I don’t care if… if Brooke’s up there too.”
I tripped over my words just mentioning his name.
“I can do it, I can do this Frank, please.”
I begged, taking deep breaths to try and calm myself down. We pulled into the driveway before Frank said anything back. As we were all getting out he muttered something under his breath. He didn’t mean for me to hear him but I did.
“I’m not sure you can girl.”
I went straight up to my room after that, I didn’t want to be around anyone. All I caught before I left Frank, Stein, and Tuck before running up the stairs was the hard look Stein shot both of them. A look that said “We need to talk” and told me that he finally had a real plan. I spent the rest of that night thinking about the past and what I’d been through. Could I go out to that mine and rescue Keith if I had to face Brooke again? The last time I’d seen him had been as I leapt out of a moving car as my eyes turned to meet his one last time, rolling down that hill to freedom. I’d never seen him since and it was rare for him to even cross my mind. I wanted to go with the rest of them but despite what I said I really wasn’t sure I could do this anymore. Eventually I just decided only time would tell, hopefully Stein’s plan was a good one and we could put this whole thing behind us.
“Ey! Ey Keith!”
Someone yelled out as I came back from my little hike around the edge of the forest. My eyes darted around behind me before they finally focused on a rustling bush. Rocco jumped out of it holding a cigar in his mouth.
“That Brooke asshole hasn’t gone anywhere, I found him out by that trail the trucks drove in on with this.”
He said, tossing the cigar up in the air where it twirled around before he caught it in his mouth again.
“I figured I should frisk him just in case. I took a bite of his pants and stole this little number out of his coat pocket.”
He continued, shaking a silver lighter with a gold inlayed image of a lion in his paw.
“Oh and the cigar, I took that too. Cuban so the guy’s got taste, still a prick. Anyways, it looked like someone got to him before me. The guy was pretty beaten up, had some nasty bruises.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I was just trying to picture Brooke getting mugged by a raccoon In my head and I burst out laughing. Rocco walked back to the camp in toe with me, only stopping to look up at some weird buzzing sound we both heard above us. Probably some rickety old plane or something way up there. I think I was finally starting to get why Frank and Stein had kept Rocco around. He may be a furry criminal mastermind but when he was motivated he could actually be really helpful. I never would’ve been able to keep any sort of tabs on Brooke without his help.
We made our way back to the long tent that still had remnants of lunch sitting on the table. Usually I would’ve tried to hide Rocco but at this point I figured he deserved the free food. Plus I just didn’t want to argue with him after getting my shit rocked most of the morning. Someone walked up behind me and I heard Shaoni’s voice, of course she was creeping up behind me again.
“Your feeling alright after today I hope?”
She asked me, taking a seat next to me.
“I’ll be alright, I’m sure I’ll have a killer headache in the morning but I’ll manage.”
“Good, good. We’ll be gathering in a few hours so I can announce the final trial. I expect you out by the entrance to the mine by 6.”
“What’s the matter? No cryptic questions this time Shaoni?”
I asked, paying no mind to what was sitting next to me.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you always stop by to check in after these trials. You don’t have any questions this time?”
“No, Katrina was the victor today, there is no question about that, the woman is… brutal. I just wanted to make sure she didn’t hit you to hard, you were unconscious for some time.”
She answered, some genuine concern slipping into her voice again.
“Heh careful, I might start to think you actually care.”
I joked, less nervous than I should’ve been.
“I’ll see you tonight with the rest for the announcement.”
She said with a deep sigh, standing up and walking off toward where ever she came from.
I took a nap and just barely managed to wake up in time for this “meeting” Shaoni had planned. I couldn’t find Rocco before I left but I wasn’t all that concerned about that anymore. When I got to the entrance a massive bonfire was lit and Shaoni stood alone in front of it. Robert and John were already there and Katrina showed up a little after me. Brooke hadn’t arrived before Shaoni started her speech.
“I thank all of you for coming here tonight. Regrettably one of you is missing but I won’t be waylaid by his absence.”
She spoke with clear annoyance in her voice.
“Tomorrow marks your final trial, the most important of the three. The trial of justice. Tomorrow there will be a murder in Eagles Peak. I want you all to work together to stop it. Then, succeed or fail, pass judgment on those involved in the murder. Afterwards I will select which among you will receive my gift. But for tonight, talk amongst yourselves, plan, and rest. Prepare yourselves for tomorrow, I will have my eye on each of you.”
With that Shaoni stepped away from the fire and into the night. Not accepting any questions about anything she had said.
“What do you think she has planned?”
Robert asked me as I took a seat by the bonfire to think over everything Shaoni had said.
“I don’t know, a murder apparently. Shouldn’t you know more about it? You’re one of her followers after all.”
I said as I turned my head to see John walking off into the night. That man was weird, really weird. I knew next to nothing about him and he seemed to never speak.
“Usually sure, but she hasn’t said anything to us about this. It’s why she hasn’t directly overseen all the trials, she’s set this last one up all on her own. I guess there’s nothing to do but wait, we’re all in this together for the first part of the trial I guess.”
Robert explained, leaning back and sprawling out on the ground. He was right, there wasn’t much we could do until we were in the middle of it.
I looked around, searching for Katrina in the firelight. I found her leaning against the rocky wall that made up the entrance of the mine. I stood up, leaving Robert to relax and made my way over.
“How’s the head?”
She asked, feigning taking a swing at me again with an evil grin on her face.
“I told you to take a dive.”
“Yeah, I should’ve listened.”
I admitted, rubbing the goose egg that had formed on my head over the course of my nap.
“So what do you thin about this last trial?”
“Well, I can say that If that Brooke guy tries flirting with me one more time the murder won’t be that hard to solve. Seriously though, I think she’s gone off the deep end. How does she know there’s going to be a murder?”
Katrina made a really good point, how was Shaoni so sure?
“That’s… hmmmm, you’re right.”
“Well I’m gonna head to bed then. Something tells me tomorrow is gonna be a headache. Just try to stay out of my way when we’re all forced to work together and you should be fine. All goes well and maybe we’ll be out of here tomorrow, I know I will.”
Katrina said as she pushed herself off the rock wall she’d been leaning against. Something about the way she said that last part, it made me think she was up to something. Like she was leaving no matter what or she had some sort of exit strategy.
As I left Robert relaxing by the fire and hiked back to my own tepee for the night I spied Katrina. She had climbed up a tree and had her legs wrapped around the trunk and one of her arms gripped a branch above her. There was some kind of box in her other hand, a radio maybe. I had no idea what she was saying, she was too far off, but it had to mean something. As far as I knew none of us had any contact with the outside world since we got here. My gut feeling was that she wasn’t meant to be doing that. I wasn’t going to bother her at this point though so I went my own way and settled down for the night.

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.

Its always tough to figure out what to say in a post like this because I feel like it is one of thousands looking for the same thing. So i will just shoot from the hip and give you a glimpse of who we are and what we will be looking for and if it appeals and you would like to know more you can reach out for additional details. For starters she (u/tt540517) is a beautiful long legged red head who is married, but not to me. She is as open minded as she is gorgeous and likes nothing more than to give me control and let me push her buttons in all the ways they aren't being pushed at home. I cherish that opportunity and love nothing more than being the reason she smiles on a daily basis. To this point our play has been virtual but that will likely change in the future. We have a ton of fun chatting and playing and have recently been discussing what it would be like to have someone else join in that fun.
What we are looking for: A sub/switch female or couple who would like a discreet and safe outlet for all the desires and kinks that you dont share with those members of your everyday world. My Girl doesnt have a Dominant bone in her body so she would never want to be one to take the lead.....but would eagerly submit to the right person. Age is just a number but attraction is important to us both.
We are in a position to be picky as we already have a ton of fun. Figured we would give it a shot and see if there was anyone out there worth having fun with. She has posts out herself as well on other Subs so thought I would give this one a try. Feel free to reach out with any questions. Look forward to chatting!

Hi all,
I just wanted to share my story of primary hypothalamic amenorrhea recovery with you all in the hope that it will inspire any of those who find themselves in a similar situation, as I haven't seen many stories like mine on this sub and I was always searching for them myself when I was going through it.
So, my story goes that I was a normal child and was quite developed for my age around 11/12 and looked as though I would probably start my period within the next year or so, like my mum and sister had done. However, at this age, I developed an eating disorder and also began to run competitive cross country. The development that I had (boobs, hair etc) remained, but as I lost weight, I didn't develop any further and I didn't start my period.
By age 15 I still had no sign of a period and I was still running a lot, even though my relationship with food was a bit better and I had a healthy BMI (19.5). My mum took me to see a gynaecologist who did bloods and an ultrasound which came back saying my oestrogen was very low and that my uterus was not fully developed. The doctor strongly recommended putting me on oestrogen to develop my body and uterus before I reached adulthood and also hoped that the oestrogen might kickstart my period. He wasn't sure of the cause of my primary amenorrhea (this is called primary not secondary because I had never had a period before and so I didn't have one to lose) and whilst he said it could be running, he also said I was a healthy weight and that I should just carry on as normal.
So I did, I took the oestrogen, grew boobs, my uterus developed and I carried on running competitively, like 50 miles a week, aged 15!! (Crazy to look back on and think that I thought this was normal!!) Anyway, surprise surprise, I didn't get a period. By age 17, the doctor decided to put me on the combined pill to induce a withdrawal bleed and make sure I didn't have any issues with bone strength, so I did that, had my first bleed but still did not stop running. The doctor said I was fine, that I should just stay on the pill until I wanted to have kids at which point he would give me drugs to help me ovulate as my ovaries looked fine and my AMH levels were good. Anyway, I just carried on with my life and assumed that I could never get a period on my own.
Throughout my early 20s, I began reading up a bit more about hypothalamic amenorrhea and wondered if it was what I might have, but I couldn't be sure because I could only ever find stories about women who had gotten their periods and then lost it, not people like me who had never even had one. The people who hadn't had one seemed to have issues with their pituitary gland, which I didn't have, so I just couldn't work out what was the matter with me and I felt like a freak!
Aged 22, I was still running but my relationship with food was a lot better, and so I decided to come off the pill again to have a check-up. This time, the ultrasound showed that my ovaries looked polycystic, and so that was the diagnosis I was given for STILL not having a period. But it didn't seem to add up. I had no other symptoms of PCOS (excess body hair etc), my weight was normal, my oestrogen was on the lower side and my LH to FSH ratio was low not elevated like in PCOS, but that's what the doctor said it was, so...you guessed it, I went back on the pill and carried on with my life, which included lots of exercise.
Anyway, in the last couple of years I went through a trauma that meant I quit running completely, and just lived my life. I did lots of walking, ate what I wanted and gained about 10-15lbs taking me from a BMI of 19-20 to 21-22. At this time, I also began to read more about amenorrhea recovery and books like "No Period Now What," and how often people like me can be misdiagnosed with "lean PCOS," especially as I was nowhere near clinically underweight. So, given that I had stopped running and had gained weight, and because my husband and I would like kids in the next few years, I decided to do my own experiment, I came off the pill, and after a couple of months, would you believe it, I got my FIRST NATURAL PERIOD AGED 29 YEARS OLD!!!
I couldn't believe it, I had always had withdrawal bleeds on the pill, but because of what I had been told all my life that the switch in my brain that made me have a period was just somehow broken, I honestly believed I could never have a period on my own. I thought all these secondary amenorrhea recovery stories could never apply to me because I had never had one in the first place, and I just assumed my body no longer knew how to do it, but it DID!! I wish to god someone had just told me when I was a teenager that if I stopped running and gained weight, I would have gotten my period, that even though my body was a healthy weight, it wasn't a healthy weight FOR ME! I feel let down by doctors and sports coaches who encouraged me to keep running and told me I was so healthy, when it could have saved me so much stress, anxiety, and possibly future health issues if I'd just let my body get to be where it had needed to be all those years ago. But I also wanted to share this story to let you know how truly and incredibly resilient our bodies are!! If I can recover after never having a period for 29 YEARS! You can do it too! Hope is not lost and you must have faith in your body's ability to heal. My periods are still quite irregular now, (long cycles between 40-60 days) but I hope they will get more regular over the next year or so and that my husband and I can start a family!
Anyway, I'm sorry for the very long post - but I wanted to share this story with you in the hope that it inspires you to keep going with recovery - you got this!! xxx

While my friend was in a relationship I heard all kinds of nice things from her like how pretty I am or good looking. But she broke up with her boyfriend of 2 years and she went back to how she was exactly 2 years ago.
I was at a shop buying press on nails when a random girl hugged me,until I've realized that was an old classmate and her twin. They complimented me saying I lost a lot of weight and one said I got prettier. When I came back to my friend she just looked at me confused "did she just say you got prettier??" In a weird,shocked tone. I've also started to make some self deprecated jokes,not cuz I'm insecure,I just thought they were funny,like how I can't do a slicked back bun because my head is round and I'd look like an egg and she said that I would look like that. When I told another girl how we both have the same weight but she is distributed evenly,she said it's mostly because of the gym(I workout at home) and she got into the convo just to say it's the truth. She also is texting a guy who saw her a couple of times and liked her,and now she sees me as lame and annoying because well,no one ever approaches me
Even while buying those press on nails,she said that none of them fit me because I have weird hands,and that she has normal feminine hands unlike mine(I am literally big boned,I have broad shoulders,big hands and feet and a wide ribcage) and that surgery for hands exist
I know I'm no catch,I don't have a body,but I honestly hate how I fucking look even more. You know you look fine,so why come at me when someone gives me a compliment or if I joke about myself

I know most Marines are hard chargers and like to push ourselves but don't neglect your medical care. It is a huge pain in the ass to get your injuries documented but do it - even if it's the smallest thing.
I had chronic ankle issues and got them documented every time I got injured. My tendons were messed up and it was bone on bone contact every time I rolled my ankle.
When I was a boot I got called a bitch for going to medical often. By the time I was a Sgt with a medical record 4 inches thick, I was the smart one building a case for my VA record.
Light duty is 100% a recommendation that you can turn down. Just get it documented. You only get 1 body and the Corps won't care about you once you EAS.
Hope some young Marine takes this to heart. It will pay off for decades into your future by making your VA claims immediately substantiated.
Also, stay in touch with your buddies - witness statements surrounding AD injuries add a lot of weight to your claims.

Background: 30 year old female competitive long course triathlete. First tore that meniscus in April 2022. Returned to racing September 2022. Pain onset this time June 2023. Stopped running October 2023. I've had pain ever since June. The scan I attached was from November 2023 - I had one in April 2024 which says much the same but adds large areas of full thickness articular cartilage loss. My knee pretty ok to walk and cycle, but never really feels "normal", and the moment I hop or try to run, or go up stairs, I have instant pain anterior medially. Tried a hyaluronic acid which did nothing for me... I'm a nurse for work, so on my feet a decent amount.
Do you think I'll ever be pain free? Do you think my knee can get better? Do you think I'll ever run again? Or compete again? Or now that the meniscus has torn, the cartilage has worn down, the bone is therefore exposed to higher loads and I'm doomed to be on the one-way road of irreversible knee degeneration and pain?
I've pushed my body hard over the years, and expected to have to retire from sport at some point, just not this soon. Or I thought there would be cures for this stuff by the time I started having problems...
Yes I have seen a sports physician, ortho, and currently see a physiotherapist. Sports Dr and physio say it should improve. Physio says I should 100% get better and will be able to return to competing. While I appreciate his belief and optimism, and I need that, it's just weighing on my mind that after almost a year it's not gotten better :( I'm wondering if I need to adjust my expectations/goals...
What do you guys make of all this? I realise it's near impossible to make accurate diagnosis/predictions based on the information I've given you, and I will be taking responses with a grain of salt. But I'm getting desperate and am keen to hear anyone's opinion nowadays (especially if it can give me some hope).
Thanks for reading

If I train in the gym (for example, do bicep curls) and I have a fractured ankle, does that slow down the healing process of my ankle because muscular recovery also takes up resources, or does it not work like that? This isn't a medical advice question, I was just wondering how the body allocates resources to heal your muscles and bones.

I'm really insecured everytime nasa group pictures ako even though di naman sya mataba tingnan in the mirror or selfies. I'm getting self conscious about this haha. I've tried everything like doing cardio for years, and even using guasha and to no effect, body weight ko lang nababawasan. I really want to have defined cheek bones since I think of myself as a b class panget.
Every time I hangout with my friends they always joke about my facial fat kesyo ganto ganyan, even my classmates, heck kahit acquaintances ko lang. Nakikitawa lang ako kahit medj naooffene ako (ppl pleaser aq e)
So if ever, may experience dito how to reduce facial fat, pls drop suggestions. (Ps. I have a slow metabolism too kaya maingat rin me sa diet)

I was considering going no-contact with my family minus a brother I’m close to 3 years ago and was almost out until my father died in a freak accident and I got roped back in. My sister has spent the last 30 years making my life a living hell and my parents never stuck up for me or protected me from her. My mother, now alone, is terrified of her. We had a shitty childhood and all have different survival tactics, but after going to therapy for four years now, I’ve gotten away from those and surround myself with happy, healthy, amazing, supportive people. In regard to family, I keep my distance when I can (living 3.5 hours away helps), but often am the one everyone turns to when shit goes sideways to fix everything, calm people down, figure out what to do next. I’m tired of it, especially now realizing no one does the same for me.
I recently got married and had a 40 person head count, with 38 yeses. After a bunch of random crap, 13 of my 20 invitees flaked 3 days to 2 hours before the party, all of which were very, very close family members including a brother and two of my BILs. Had I known this, with ample timing, I would have invited more friends who WOULD have shown, but due to family taking up so much of the headcount, I couldn’t extend invites to them all. I vented to my mother who said at least I have my sister coming, who I said was only invited since the others were and she has never been nice to me or my husband - which my mother agreed with and said was a self-centered survival thing. I said she should learn a little kindness which would get her far. She despises my husband, who is genuinely as nice as can be, even to a fault. Doesn’t have a bad bone in his body, god bless him. But he supports me and loves me and we do well off each other and thrive, which she doesn’t like. Other siblings have commented on the fact she treats him so poorly when he is nothing but so kind to her.
Come party, 2 hours in and she’s nowhere to be seen. We’re waiting around to cut cakes since her household consisted of 5 people and we didn’t want to have people randomly walk in on it and ruin the photographs, miss the momentous moment, etc. My brother gets in touch with her and relays the message that I’m a monster, I’m childish and horrible and never welcome her to anything and I’m irrelevant and no one likes me which is why everyone bailed on me and I should be embarrassed. The only person I said those things to was my mother (who couldn’t come to party due to health reasons). I spent a majority of my wedding party crying on a fire escape because I was so upset by her words, so upset that everyone bailed, and so upset I didn’t follow my gut inviting other friends who would have come over obligatory family invites. I blocked my sister and her friend who joined in on her meanness. She has taken to emailing and texting me under spoof emails and phone numbers. Calling me irrelevant, embarrassing, disgusting, ugly, childish, greedy, no one showed up because they don’t like me, never been liked, etc.
My mother has spoken to her, but hasn’t reached out to me since the party when I said I was hurt at what she shared in confidence and need to think about what I want from this family anymore. My mother swears she went through her phone and saw the messages, but other parts of her (mothers) story don’t align. My mother historically has victim mindset over everything and could do no wrong. I try to do nothing but support my mother but she can never ever see how she’s in the wrong - ever. For example, she put her electric bill under my name and SS and defaulted on it for years. When I called her out on it after the company started reaching out to me, she said it’s always been like this, I didn’t say anything years ago so what’s the difference now, she’s doing no wrong and if I want her to go without electric and ruin the family then by all means go ahead and shut it off if I want.
I’m hurt, I’m upset. My husband has been amazing, but he doesn’t have any family that we could lean on ever. I’m torn between going fully no contact between my siblings who enable my sister, my mother who is emotionally abusive and enables her and doesn’t protect the rest of us, and calling it a day. Or going no contact with siblings, low contact with my mother, and never returning until they get their shit together and go to therapy. I just don’t know what is best anymore since I know my mom will never stand up to her. Family is all I’ve ever really had outside a close knit group of 3 friends, so it’s hard to go from everything to nothing in the blink of an eye.
Ever since my dad died and my sister took over, I have felt like I don’t have a spot in the family anymore. My sisters best friend of 15 years has always wanted to be apart of our big family since she had a dysfunctional one herself, and joins us on family vacations, Christmas, every waking moment. She is just as bad as my sister, and my sister is her only friend so she bows down to her. Since dad died, it’s like my sister and her friend don’t want me in the family and want to give the bff my daughter spot and to ostracize me. All of this is making me spiral and spiral and spiral. I haven’t been this bad mentally in a really, REALLY long time and it’s triggering me a lot.
I feel like as a woman, I’m held to a different caliber than the others. My brothers could do whatever they damn well please, and they do, and everyone turns a blind eye. With my sister being the oldest, she gets the same treatment. I am overwhelmed with what this family puts me through. My husband doesn’t have any family anymore for us to lean on, spend holidays with, etc. How do you move on? How do you find peace? How do you be okay with the fact nothing will ever change in this dynamic so it’s all or nothing?
FWIW - have an amazing therapist, amazing support group. Am ok, just sad and upset.