I started dating a wonderful man a little over two months ago. He's everything I've ever wanted in all ways - kind, caring, considerate, patient, and understanding. Everything is literally absolute perfection besides our sex life.
He mentioned his struggles with ED to me right after we started dating and how it had been a problem for him in the past, but I told him we'd try our best to work through it despite the fact that I have a very high libido. A couple of weeks into our relationship, we attempted, but it didn't work out, he wasn't able to get hard at all. I was a bit discouraged, but tried not to let him see, I told him we'd try again another time, but he could tell still that I was noticeably upset. A few days later we try again, same result.
Fast forward to about a week later, he visits the doctor who prescribes him Cialis. I was hopeful we'd have some progress or maybe even be able to solve the issue entirely, and he did manage to get a bit hard, but not enough for penetration. I tried my best not to overreact, but I couldn't hide my disappointment over the fact that maybe even medication wouldn't be able to fix his issue.
Well since then, he's been taking the medication daily and we still haven't been able to get him hard enough for penetration or even close. I'm trying so hard to be patient and understanding, but I'm beginning to wonder if he's going to be able to have sex at all. During this time, he confided in me that he had been able to masturbate until he ejaculated twice, but said that he wasn't hard when it happened. I appreciate him telling me this, but it set me back so much emotionally and I hate that this is affecting me to this degree and start to wonder if it's something I can keep putting on the back burner due to my high sex drive.
He has a history of severe addiction due to childhood trauma, as well as mild congestive heart failure and high blood pressure, so he is on meds for that. He's also on low dose pain medication because he's had his upper back broken and was paralyzed for about a year due to that, so i wonder if there nerve damage involved as well. His confidence also isn't the best and he continually tells me his thinks I'm way out of his league and "not good enough for me", but I try to assure him he's everything I was looking for.
Is there any advice anyone can give me to help cope with this situation? I want so bad for us to be able to be intimate at least occasionally considering my sex drive, but I'm starting to lose hope.

The night was bone-chillingly cold. The slightest whisper of a breeze nipped at my exposed ears and drafted unpleasantly within my overly large winter coat. The black, barren trees stood unmoving like sentinels bearing ominously down upon either side of the sleet-slick street, which was lit only by dim street lamps that, other than creating a dull yellow reflection on the otherwise unlit pavement, seemed to do nothing against the oppressing dark of this fateful December night.
I had passed through a wrought iron gate twenty minutes before, the gate that separated a cozy subdivision from this eerie, undeveloped stretch of road that seemed to be dropped in the middle of the forest. I could think only of my warm, lively hearth and a nice, hot cup of tea between my palms, which now, instead of being pressed against warm porcelain, were being stabbed by my untrimmed fingernails as I tightened my fist onto the leash and plunged the other still deeper into my coat.
This night was the culmination of weeks of investigation on a missing person’s case turned sour. A man named Arthur Smith had reported his four daughters missing, then hung himself three days later when we couldn’t find anything. Oddly, Arthur’s body went missing from the morgue shortly after. The only trace left was an incredible amount of flies, and we were displeased to see that every drawer was leaking a mixture of blood and embalming fluid because the refrigerant pipes burst. When we opened them up, the neck of every corpse had been slit.
Eventually, through good detective work, we were able to connect some dots, and that led us to where we were now: We were now on a manhunt for a suspect that was last seen at a gas station about a mile up the road, not two hours earlier. We checked a network of cameras to see that he had headed for the woods, grabbed the hounds, and here we were.
My colleagues and I were spread around in different parts of the forest with the police force’s seven bloodhounds. I got stuck with Old Ben, the force’s droopiest and most seasoned canine. He was partially blind and notorious for not obeying commands. He didn’t even respond to a dog whistle, which was why some of my colleagues thought his hearing was shot. I doubted this theory, though, because sure enough, when somebody whispered the word “biscuit,” Old Benny perked up and started wagging his tail.
Another ten minutes found Old Benny and I at the end of the once seemingly endless street, with the streetlamps and pavement stopping abruptly at the edge of the woods, which had not entirely swallowed up a bulldozer. Old Ben stopped and sniffed the air for a moment, then plunged down a path in the woods to our right. It was a dirt path, not two feet wide, overgrown and partially washed out, making it an unpleasant and muddy journey from here on out.
…
My flashlight was now the only source of light illuminating our way. Its beam slid over roots and rocks that jutted out of the path at odd angles and briefly swept over the nearest trees, bringing them out of the shadow for a moment. I felt claustrophobic as they bore down upon me and upon the path. The only sound was my deep breathing, my sloppy footsteps, and Benny’s blundering in the mud about ten feet in front of me.
The path turned in such a way that I could see faint moonlight up ahead, but a cloud soon covered the moon and removed the slight comfort its light had provided. I continued following the curve of the path, and pointed my flashlight up ahead. Suddenly, everything was pitch black, as my flashlight had just gone out without a flicker. I was especially annoyed because firstly, I had just replaced the batteries earlier that week, and secondly, I caught a glimpse of the dark outline of what seemed to be a small cottage up ahead, which was now invisible in the darkness.
To my surprise, Benny stopped as soon as the light went out, which made it easy for me to replace the batteries with the ones that I always carried around in my service belt. To my dismay, Benny did not continue walking when the light flickered back on, even when I started tugging on his leash. He simply sat in the mud and peered at the cottage in the distance, which I knew for a fact he couldn’t see. The cottage was incredibly run down, but I couldn’t see much more, as it was just at the edge of my flashlight beam.
I began feeling uneasy when Benny started whimpering and backing away, tail between his legs. Our dogs were trained to bark when they found something, not stand still, and certainly not whine and back away. Old Ben had never been a skittish animal; I had never seen him act like this before. I peered back at the cottage, suspecting something more sinister than I was originally prepared for.
I tied Benny loosely around a nearby tree, so he could pull away if need be, pulled out my handgun, and continued on. Not fifteen seconds later, I was hit with the smell of blood and wet dog, and heard whimpering to my left. I told Benny to stay, and turned to find him where I left him, about twenty yards behind me, looking at me like I was insane. I bent down and examined the source of the noise, only to find one of our bloodhounds laying just off the path and covered in a mixture of mud and its own blood. It was missing its hind legs and was shivering badly. I cursed and dispatched it with a quick slit with my utility knife, then unclipped its collar and stuffed it into my pocket before turning away. I did not want to alert the suspect of my position. I grew worried about the location of my colleagues, as our dogs were trained not to run off. I also wondered what kind of predator would have taken only the hind legs of an animal. I tried not to think about it as I continued on.
As the cottage grew nearer, I was able to make out a few broken windows reflecting my light back at me. Through these I was able to see that the inside of the cottage was pitch black, the darkest black I had ever seen. I walked closer still, and I couldn’t stop looking into the darkness of the cottage. The darkness was so potent it seemed to be spilling over the window sill into the crisp night air. I felt consumed. My heart began pounding within my chest, and I felt colder than ever as I stepped toward the gravel path that led around to the left of the cottage. The sudden change in surface and the sound of my feet crunching upon the gravel seemed to break my trance, and I shuddered.
I didn’t know why I had felt so trapped, and I didn’t like it. Something was definitely wrong with this situation, and my feelings of dread intensified as I followed the gravel path around to the front of the cottage.
A dripping noise interrupted my thoughts and temporarily washed the dread from my mind. I paused. I determined it was coming from the direction I was headed, but I couldn’t see the front door yet as the porch was draped with ivy. I was suddenly hit with the putrid smell I knew all too well: the smell of death. It hit my nostrils like a truck and returned my feelings of dread all at once. I shined my beam to the front steps.
There was a dark, red liquid trickling gently down the steps, pooling under the porch: blood. I looked up onto the front porch, now visible, and saw the torso of a man hanging from his neck about three feet away from the front door. His legs were nowhere to be seen, though there was a blood trail leading into the house, and his glistening entrails swayed sickeningly with the light breeze. Blood was pooling below him, trickling down the steps, and down through the cracks in the porch. It had begun coagulating, and dark swirling orbs rotated in the puddle each time a drop splashed down. I looked up again at the carcass and recognized the man as our suspect. There was frost beginning to form at the edges of his mouth and over his glassy eyes, but his exposed entrails were still steaming. Furthermore, the blood dripping from his wound was still deep red in color. The back of my neck prickled and I knew this man had not been hanging for very long. No, not very long at all.
I raised my pistol and nudged the front door open. I was again hit with the smell of death, though now much stronger, so strong I could scarcely draw breath. The inside of the cottage was unbelievably dank, and the darkness seemed to eat the quivering beam of light I pointed out in front of me, so I couldn’t see ten feet forward.
I heard a sharp crack and I bolted my gaze to my feet. I had just stepped on a human rib. Suddenly the cottage came alive with creaking and shuffling. I heard flies buzzing all around me. I heard a raspy rushing noise to my right. I shined my flashlight to where I thought the noise was coming from, but all I saw was a bloodstained floor and darkness out in front of me. I took a step toward the noise, and the beam of light revealed the glistening mangled corpse of a man, missing most of his skin, hunched in the corner of the cottage. His whole torso was heaving, and I saw the rushing noise was coming from the base of his throat, where a large gash was opening and closing with every breath, spraying flecks of fluid. Maggots wriggled out of his wound, and black purge fluid trickled from his soupy eye sockets, his missing nose, and his gaping mouth. He was missing most of his teeth, and one of his cheeks was rotted through.
I was frozen in place with fear, until, to my horror, the man’s mangled arm rose and reached out to me. At this I aimed and put a bullet through his partially exposed skull, splattering a putrid mist on the wall behind him. Instead of slumping over, as I prayed he would, the man slowly levitated into an upright position as though controlled by a puppeteer. Skin began regrowing around his legs, his torso, and eventually his skull, which sprouted two bloody horns out of his forehead. This being had the likeness of Arthur Smith, though I sensed it was no longer him. I placed two rounds into his torso, and the being staggered, but the bullet wounds simply closed with sickening squelching sounds. I backed away slowly, and he simply stood in the corner and leered at me with burning black eyes and a disconcerting grin.
I continued to back away slowly, placing one more round between his eyes. His head jerked back, but still it healed and he seemed unbothered. I bolted around and headed for the door. I jerked the handle but it wouldn't budge. I tried kicking it down, which was something I was very practiced at, but still, the rotten oak planks held fast against my will. I turned around, back against the door, firearm at the ready, and stared into the blackness. Everything was quiet once again. Despite the temperature, cold sweat beaded upon my brow and dribbled down my neck.
Suddenly I felt a rumbling that seemed to come from the very depths of the Earth. A splitting and splintering sound came from what I presumed was the center of the cottage, and I was soon showered with bits of wood and stone that nicked my exposed skin and drew droplets of blood. I noticed my back was no longer pressed against the back of the door, though I was not moving. The floor seemed to be carrying me slowly in the direction of the noise. I was frozen in place, and found that I could not change my trajectory.
My flashlight beam found the edge of a large hole in the floor. I saw dark, root-like tendrils sprout from the hole and rush across the floor with the sound of scraping and splintering. They then returned to the hole, and they had within their grasp six bare human bodies, which I horrifically realized were those of my now former colleagues. I watched in horror as their pale naked bodies were folded, torn, ripped, and broken in the churning earth. The sound of tearing flesh and cracking bone was deafening and filled the darkness of the cottage. The mass of mangled flesh formed into one chunky, glistening mound in the center of the hole. It began pulsing and rising, and horrible screams rang in my ears. I watched in horror as the mass formed a humanoid figure that rose up ten feet out of the hole and bent over against the ceiling. It was facing away from me, but its raspy voice seemed to mix seamlessly with the screams directly in my ears.
“The churning of earth, the tearing of flesh, the cracking of bone”
At this it let out a booming laugh that reverberated in my skull and shook the foundation of the building. The cottage once again came alive, but now more than ever before. Shutters were opening and closing, floorboards were rattling, flies swarmed in a huge mass around and around the room, blocking the beam of my flashlight and obscuring my view of the figure. I felt my legs quiver along with the rest of the cottage. I looked down at a red book with its pages fluttering in the still air. I dove for it and slammed it shut, and the cottage grew still. I paused for a moment, but the giant figure began turning towards me. I bolted around to see that the door was now open, but the hung corpse was clinging to the top of the door frame, now very much alive. Its entrails were still swinging freely from its short leap, and the rope lay severed and frayed upon the ground.
I paced towards the door, dumping the rest of my magazine into the corpse, which to my relief fell to the ground with a squelch. I hopped over the body and sprinted out the front door, away from the cottage, down the dirt path. I could still hear the screams of the damned faintly in the distance, and the earth began rumbling once again underneath my feet. I continued running back along the path, trying not to think about what I had witnessed. I paused for a moment to catch my breath, and shivered in the now relentless sleet.
The pounding of the earth became the distant rumble of thunder in the distance. By the time I had gotten back to the paved road, I was soaked to the bone in cold sweat and freezing rain, and I was covered up to my thighs in mud from the path. My coat was snagged and torn in places from the splinters of wood and from branches along the path.
When I finally got back to my car, I saw a leash leading underneath it, and found Old Ben, crouched below, tail between his legs. I scooped him up and plopped him in the passenger seat, entirely disregarding the former cleanliness of my car, as it was now covered in mud and dog hair. I cranked up the heat and sped off towards the station to report what I had witnessed.
…
We never did find that cottage again. Other guys went back to where I was and failed to find the path, but they did find the dismembered bodies of my colleagues hidden under the bulldozer at the end of the street. I was charged with the deaths of my colleagues and was thrown into a mental institute, but I don’t mind it much. There are people here that are far more insane than I am. The worst part is my occasional perception of a distant rumbling, and during thunderstorms I’m a whimpering mess.
I have been disciplined three times for writing symbols on the walls that I can’t get out of my head. I draw them in my blood so they stand out more and resemble what I see. I have found that once they are on the wall, they stay out of my head. Unfortunately, I haven’t finished writing them all out yet. The first time I started I got really close to finishing, but then I found myself strapped to a hospital bed.
The worst part of my new existence is the nightmares. I am plagued by images of my former colleagues: their pale dismembered bodies, the sound of cracking bone, their blood on my hands, their shrieks of pain, and the taste of flesh.

Hi. 41f here. I was diagnosed with sub clinical hypothyroidism in 2015 and have been on 25mcg of Levo up until a month ago.
My primary dr checked me after complaining that my chronic dizziness (30 years now) was getting worse and felt as if my female hormones where the possible culprit as PMS makes the dizziness so much worse. My thinking was PCOS as my hair is thinning and developing facial hair suddenly. My IGF-1 was a little high, my AM cortisol was a little low, my TSH was at a 2.8 where it usually is and my A1C was at 5.5. He sent me to an endocrinologist.
The endo did labs 3 months later and my TSH was 4.94, my T4 was 1.0 and with no change in my diet my A1C is now 5.7. The IGF-1 and AM cortisol came back in the normal range. After seeing my results, she told me to get off of the Levo (since it’s not doing anything because of the rising levels) for a month then retest.
Each week for the past month, I’ve had more dizziness and more vertigo attacks than I have in a very long time. My body feels restless and fatigued. Aches and pain. Can’t sleep and have brain fog. Blood pressure and heart rate are at good levels until I have to exert myself in any way. Taking showers leaves me spinning which causes a 125 heart rate for an hour or so but always came down, blood pressure always good.
I just got through with my month follow-up and my lab results was a TSH of 5.22 and T4 of 1.0. Only levels she checked. I told her about the dizziness, the fatigued, aches and pains. She said at 5.22 I shouldn’t be feeling any symptoms as this is in the normal range. She wants me off the meds still and retest in another month. Everything I mentioned was countered with a reason. That heart rate of 125 is one reason to be off the meds and I should see a cardiologist. I do, my hearts fine and 125 is NOT my resting heart rate I mentioned to her. The dizziness and vertigo is something else, see an ENT. Which I am next month. The fatigued and aches and pain “sound like symptoms of hypo” but she says if I was at a 10 or 12 then she’d look into it.
I understand that my (still undiagnosed after 30 years and more doctors seen and tests done than I would like) dizziness and vertigo are of course probably something else. I understand 5 isn’t a “we need to fix this STAT” type of level. At a 2.8 I could actually leave my home. Now I can’t leave my bed. Isn’t it possible, just a little, that being at this level could be making me feel worse?

Hello everyone, I'm a 24-year-old male who has been struggling with alcoholism for a year now. It started with 2 beers a night at university and in 3-4 months it escalated to a bottle of vodka a day. I was so desperate and couldn't go anywhere without a plastic bottle filled with vodka to hide it from anyone. During this period, no one ever noticed anything strange about me, but I was depressed from just the fact that I couldn't be off alcohol anymore.
Now let me get to this past month. I was having problems like dizziness, feeling like I was going to faint, and my blood pressure was around 140/95 all the time with a heart rate around 100-105 bpm. I was having very bad times and couldn't even sleep because of it, so I went to the doctors, and they started running all sorts of tests. I was worried to tell them about my alcohol use because my general practitioner is my aunt, so I kept it hidden from them. 3 weeks ago, they found out that I have pretty bad liver tests, high levels of ferritin and uric acid in the blood. On a CT scan, they also found out that I have a fatty liver.
This scared me fucking shitless. In one week, I cut down from 500ml of vodka to 250ml of vodka, and it was so fucking hard. I couldn't sleep, was sweating, and my heart felt like it would jump out of my chest. I was most worried about my heart because I had heard that it could potentially be dangerous, but I was so scared that I just went with it and continued. After that, I dropped from 250ml to 80ml of vodka in another week (so that means from 500ml to 80ml in two weeks). This jump subjectively felt better, but I still felt my heart pumping too fast, and I couldn't sleep much. Now it's been 2 and a half weeks, and I'm on 50ml (1 shot) a day in the afternoon. I feel much better, my heart rate dropped from 105 bpm to 80, which is huge, and I can't wait to drop alcohol altogether.
The problem is that I still sometimes feel like something is wrong with my heart. I sometimes get these episodes where I almost feel like I'm going to faint, and my head aches, sometimes my belly aches, but my most significant concern is my heart. When I had a CT scan 3 weeks ago, the doc said my heart and lungs are fine. Should I be worried, is it still the withdrawals, and is it just my body adjusting to life without alcohol? I take magnesium supplements and milk thistle extracts to help my liver plus vitamin B complex
I wish you all strength if you go through all of this. <3

Hi all, as the title says Hesychasm has "pushed" me towards leaving the EO Church. It may seem like a minor thing to leave EO over, but for me I've been torn between EO and RC for some time now and this issue is the "smoking gun" (imo). Let me explain my line of thinking and please correct me where/if I'm wrong or misinformed.
EO and RC split around 1054, RC proceeds to introduce some "new" additions to the faith (Purgatory, Immaculate Conception etc.) but nothing that is necessarily that impactful on a day to day basis. (E.g. whether or not Mary was immaculately conceived doesn't weigh on my conscious daily and doesn't really impact my prayer life or spiritual life in a meaningful way). I understand that there are obviously doctrines that do impact RC lives daily (e.g. indulgences) but I still believe this is on a minor scale compared to my next point. EO on the other hand, kept their traditions mostly the same after the split with a few minor additions of their own as well. That was UNTIL the Palamas/Hesychasm debates in the 14th Century. During this era of EO history, the EO monks began to embrace some very odd practices involving breathe work, postures (i.e. yoga), meditation, and supposedly began seeing the "uncreated light of God". These practices very obviously are identical to the pagan practices we see in yoga and Islam etc. and were foreign to The Faith until after the split when the EO embraced them. Barlaam the theologian/monk and scholar proceeds to condemn these practices as unorthodox and Palamas is considered a heretic until that decision is overturned and eventually EO embrace Palamas and his Hesychasm teachings, and I believe Barlaam went on to convert to RC afterward. That's a very abridged version, but all that to say, if EO fully embraced this teaching that by sitting in a certain yoga poses, tucking your chin in, breathing through the diaphragm, and navel gazing will provide Christians with the possible ability to "see God", isn't this a MAJOR erroneous development in our tradition? I get it, RC introducing Purgatory is a tough pill to swallow, but doesn't that at least stay within the parameters of Christian faith comparatively speaking to our "side" that accepted full blown demonically centered yoga? I think at the time in the 1350s all the Christian/Hindu/Buddhist/Islamic monks doing this practice were having experiences, but I think as the science has caught up in the 21st Century, we're kinda left with egg on our face as we now know it isn't "God" they were seeing, but was due to the blood flow and oxygen levels that are manipulated by meditative yoga. If an atheist can reproduce this identical experience as many do through meditation/yoga, then we know it wasn't a supernatural experience as Palamas and ultimately EO doctrinal defined it.
All that to say, if anyone has 15 mins to watch this clip from 2:06-17:26 (Youtub = Eastern "Orthodoxy" Exposed: Their Heretical Doctrine of God - by Vaticancatholic.com) outlining these practices in Hesychams and teachings of Palamas I'd love to hear a thoughtful rebuttal (FYI the content creator is uncharitable and difficult to stomach at times, but his historical account/quotes are spot on according to reputable Orthodox online resources I've found). I don't want to leave EO but feel as though if our fathers got it THIS wrong in this area and embraced full blown pagan demonic yogi practices and affirmed it in our "Spirit lead" synods/councils, then we are in grave error and thus prone to error in other areas as well (i.e. the Papacy perhaps?). Accepting the Pope has spoken infallibly 5-10 times over the last 2000 yrs has been much easier for me to accept then EO fundamentally shifting to a Palamas-ish theology. And honest question, if this has become part of the EO tradition, how many of you actually practice this? Seriously, if we can potentially "see God" tonight through breathwork and special postures, why wouldn't we do this daily? (I have a sneaking suspicion most of us don't participate in this practice because something within us knows better).
Thank you in advance! And if you don't have time to watch the clip, here are the major quotes that I see as being irreconcilable for the EO:
“Striking parallels exist between the physical techniques recommended by the Byzantine Hesychasts and those employed in Hindu Yoga and in Sufism” - Bishop Timothy (Kallistos) Ware
“It was Gregory’s achievement to set Hesychasm on a firm dogmatic basis by integrating it into Orthodox theology as a whole. His teaching was confirmed by two councils held at Constantinople in 1341 and 1351, which, although local and not Ecumenical, yet possess a doctrinal authority in Orthodox theology scarcely inferior to the seven general councils themselves.” - Bishop Timothy (Kallistos) Ware
“One of the most thoroughgoing attempts in the history of Christian spirituality to ascribe a positive and dynamic role to the body during prayer was made by the fourteenth-century hesychasts. As an accompaniment to the recitation of the Jesus prayer they proposed a physical technique that has obvious parallels in yoga and among the Sufis of Islam.” - Bishop Timothy (Kallistos) Ware
"How should such a one not gain great profit if, instead of letting his eye roam…he should fix it on his breast or on his navel, as a point of concentration?...he will also, by disposing his body in such a position, recall into the interior of the heart a power which is ever flowing outwards…” - Gregory Palamas, The Triads
“By fixing one’s gaze on one’s navel and resting one’s chin on one’s breast, one could make one’s breathing coincide with the repetition of the prayer.”- Hesychast Monk's instructions
“Just as the aspirant in Yoga is taught to concentrate his thought in specific parts of his body, so the Hesychast concentrates his thought in the cardiac centre.” - Hesychast Monk's instructions
"Rest your beard on your chest, and focus your physical gaze, together with the whole of your intellect, upon the center of your belly or your navel.” - Hesychast Monk's instructions
EDIT: I am fully aware that Vatican Catholic are sedevacantists and have no intention of being affiliated with them, as I stated in my OP, they are are insufferable and hence why I prefaced it the way I did. BUT that doesn't mean the material presented on this particular topic are inaccurate. I looked up the quotes and confirmed their authenticity. These practices in Hesychasm are confirmed as essentially being dogma in EO.

Previous Entry
Writing these things has made me realize how different I sound these days. Back when all this started I’m not sure I even spoke English and I certainly didn’t speak like I do now but to be honest, I don’t remember. Trying to recall things to write has made me realize exactly how many little things I’ve forgotten over the years. The sights, the sounds, all those fade into the background of most events.
Even something as visceral as Archer’s basement still takes me a while to recall clearly. I wonder if it’s more than just my long life, we do age after all. I mentioned before that sunlight is not deadly to vampires like myself but very unpleasant, that and it makes us more normal. In the sun I won’t be as strong as I would be in the dark and by my assessment I age in the sun as well. Not any faster than a normal person but I do age, its why I don’t still look like that little boy stuck in Paris anymore.
I did spend quite some time in Paris before I left or rather, escaped. I’m not sure I ever would have left if not for the war. I didn’t have many friends there save for other… I’m not sure what to call them… entities? Whatever you want to cal it I had some friends in the more supernatural parts of the city. A vampire named Belle had become a sort of mother figure to me over the years spent there.
I met her by chance one night as I sated myself in an alley. I was ready to fight but she just laughed and flashed her own fangs at me, ridiculing me for being so careless. It was under her wing where I learned everything I know now about vampires. It’s where I realized not all vampires endure sunlight as well as I do, if anything that one trait is what’s most unique about me according to her. But thats not the story I want to tell on these pages tonight. I want to tell the story of lieutenant Marsh and the real beginnings of the organization that would become Chimera.
When war came to Paris that summer I was unprepared. I never expected the war to spiral out of hand so quickly or for it to force me out of my home. I was with Belle and a few more of her friends whose names escape me waiting out the worst of it and hoping things would blow over in the city soon. Obviously we were completely misguided, it was that sense of invulnerability again just the same as when I was a boy. The world was our playground and nothing could hurt us. It didn’t help that in some ways I really was invulnerable and it went straight to my head.
Only flashes of my memory from that day remain. I remember the nazi soldier kicking in the door and firing at Belle’s friends. I remember the screaming that abruptly ended in a single gunshot. I remember the trail of blood leading to her friends body where it lay staked to the ground in the sun. We heal fast, not instantly but much faster than a human. Put us in sunlight though, and we’re just as fragile as a normal person. It was the first time I’d seen someone with abilities like ours die and it made me feel mortal again for the first time in decades.
The rest of the day is a disjointed blur. Belle and I fled the city, I blank out on the specifics of it but we made it out with some difficulty. After that we hunkered down for the night in a rickety old shack. I remember wanting to push on through the day but Belle protested, she didn’t deal with the sun as well as I did. When night finally fell we fled to the coast and managed to catch a ship heading towards the United States.
The trip was unpleasant to say the least, neither of us made good stowaways. We weren’t living life in the lap of luxury before by any means but we lived comfortably. This was a far cry from what we were used to in Paris and the welcome we received was even worse. Apparently fleeing for your own survival is a crime, both of us were separated and sent to prison on our arrival to the states for stowing away on the ship.
That was the last time I ever saw Belle, I get letters from her every now and then but I haven’t seen her in person since. She does well for herself, works in D.C. as a sort of handler for the supernatural. Regrettably she does work with Chimera, says they have the best interests at heart for the supernatural but she doesn’t see what I see out here. She doesn’t know the part I played in its creation, what it really stood for in the beginning. Chimera tends to kill first these days rather than actually try to help or give the supernatural some kind of place in the world. I think thats why I haven’t been to visit her, I just don’t want to argue with a friend as old as her. Funnily enough I don’t think anyone knows she’s a vampire. I doubt they’d take that very well, she’d probably lose her position. They must have suspicions though because theres no way she’d be able to get letters to me without Baelen knowing about it. Every few months they keep showing up though and I always make sure to write her back.
Anyways I’m getting off topic, back to my story. I was in prison for months until an offer came my way, serve the rest of my sentence or enlist in the army and be a free man when I came back, if I came back. Of course I took the offer, I didn’t realize how suspicious that deal sounded at the time but it actually played out exactly as they said. I also didn’t have much of a choice in the matter either. It was hard to get my hands on any blood when I was almost constantly under watch and I could feel the effects it was having on me. I figured it would be best to get a change of scenery.
The next week I was off to training then not long after, we shipped out to the trenches and met the commander of the platoon I’d been assigned to. That’s the first time I met Lieutenant Johnson Marsh and what a man he was. That first day I was convinced I’d never see a smile ever again, the trenches were a horrible depressing place. But there Marsh was, laughing and smiling and just generally enjoying life with the rest of the platoon. He was either crazy or stupid, thats what my first thoughts about him were. I remember those clearly even today but I couldn’t have been more wrong. If anything he may have turned out to be one of the smartest men I ever knew.
The first few weeks were spent holding our position from the germans. It was brutal but I found I was a decent shot with the rifle I was given. Marsh on the other hand spent those weeks barking orders at us and keeping us in line. He never used a rifle like most of the soldiers used. Instead he kept a Beretta m9 with him at all times. That weapon was the only one I ever saw him use. I remember the name only because he was so found of explaining everything there was to know about the gun to me whenever I questioned him about it. You could immediately recognize the pistol as his by its strange grip. One side of it had a picture of an idyllic scene of a manor house in the middle of a sprawling field. The other had a painting of a woman, his wife I’d guess but he never actually told me if that was there case. He seemed to spend the nights staring with longing at each side of the artistic grip.
I’d never really had a family, even with Belle I’d always felt like I was a bit of an outsider. There was so much I didn’t know about how normal people lived. Even though I’d had friends in Paris we were always kind of hidden away in our own personal corner. There was this separation between us and normal life, even between the other supernaturals in the area.
Here I felt like I was part of something though. Sure I was still lost but so was everyone else, we could be lost together and Marsh would always set us straight in the end. There was something about the man, some piece of him that just understood what we were all going through. He expected a lot from us but he was never unreasonable and several times even argued with command on our behalf when ridiculous orders came our way. I actually wanted to serve with him. The rest of the platoon wasn’t bad but they’d all been given the same deal as me. They were all just there to get out of prison. I’m still not sure what Marsh’s story was, he always kept that to himself but any of us would’ve taken a bullet for that man.
Our first real assignment came maybe three months into my period of indentured service. Our platoon was tasked with rescuing a captured American scientist and capturing a German scientist. The scientists in question were Frank Smith and Stein Hoffman and no, the irony of those names is not lost on me, fits the two of them though. I’m sure doctor Frankenstein wishes he was successful as those two. But before those orders could be acted on we had to overtake a German trench surrounding the compound they were staying in.
That fight was bloody and we lost several good men in the chaos. At one point a trench gun was shoved into my arms and I launched myself into the German trench. I wouldn’t be surprised if ghost stories are still passed around of what I did that day. After I made my way over and into the German trench I lashed out with all I had. Moving with superhuman speed and lashing out with both the bayonet affixed to my gun and my fangs, I fell upon the Germans. They stood little chance as I tore into them and all by my lonesome I ensured we’d face no more resistance.
Marsh was the first over into the now silent trench, I’m glad it was him because I’m not sure anyone else would’ve understood like him. I was holding the German officer to the trench wall, fangs buried in his neck as I fed when I heard footsteps behind me. I dropped him and turned to see Marsh staring questioningly at me. I must’ve been a sight to see, blood dripping from my mouth and covering my bullet torn uniform. Marsh steadied himself for a moment and shouted back to the rest of the platoon,
“Boys hold up a second! Just get down and stay up there a minute won’tcha!”
All of a sudden he took a step forward and a well mannered grin took its usual place on his lips.
“Though You didn’t care for sauerkraut J.?”
The joke stunned me, I fully expected him to shoot me then and there, put me down like the abomination I must’ve looked like to him.
“Lieutenant I…”
But Marsh raised his hands to cut me off.
“Command’d probably want me to shoot’cha, hell maybe I aught’a but I don’t think it’d be right. You seem decent, little odd sure but you’ve got heart, I see it in the way you look out for the boys. Plus I always figured there was some’n off about you. The way you stay out’a the light always seem a little faster and stronger than anyone got the right to be just didn’t figure it’d be…. That.”
Marsh told me pointing to the punctures in the officers neck.
“Thank you lieutenant, Could we keep this between us though sir?”
“Drop the formalities J. Jesus! We’re all friends here.”
“I just don’t want the others to know, they may not be as understanding as you.”
“No can do, but you can tell em’ yourself. Alright men, get on down here!”
In all my years I’d never had to explain myself to anyone up until that point. I guess that day my number was up but I never knew just how understanding people, normal people could be. I’d always lived around the supernatural in Paris, didn’t interact much with the normal people I saw in the streets every day, I didn’t have to. I’d always assumed there was a reason for that but in the moment I realized there wasn’t, not really. I’d just avoided normal people because I feared what they’d think if it came out that I wasn’t like them.
Of course There were some of the men that objected to… what I was. Most of them took after Marsh though. They didn’t really care what I was, I’d proven to them I was a good person and thats all that mattered. I just wish they’d been right about me back then because the truth was I still hadn’t learned to care, not really. Even the ones who objected came around eventually and that night Marsh finally came clean to me about why exactly he was so accepting.
According to him he’d always assumed there was more out there, things beyond human that lived on the fringes of society. Even he always thought he sounded crazy. I was the proof he needed to convince himself he wasn’t. Marsh also told me what we were really doing with the scientists. Both Frank and Stein researched the supernatural, their projects were as secret as secret could be. Marsh’s interests and theories, as personal as he tried to keep them showed up in his file somewhere. The higher ups had handpicked him for this mission because of it. The official story was that Frank had been captured but in reality he defected to further his own research with a like minded individual. Our mission was really to force Frank back into the fold and take Stein along with him.
The more he talked the more I could tell his heart was fully committed to this mission and the final assault tomorrow. I’d never seen someone so… alive. In my extremely long life I don’t think Id ever felt that kind of conviction myself. So I promised him I’d have his back tomorrow no matter what.
Morning broke and with it our assault began. Intel on the German defenses was shoddy at best but we never expected what we’d actually run into. At least three times our number acted as guards so a distraction was in order to give us a window of entry. A few of the men would handle the distraction “however they saw fit” to quote Marsh. Then Marsh and I would make our way into the compound itself and the rest of the platoon would cover us.
For what its worth most of the plan went off without a hitch. A tremendous explosion signaled Marsh and I to press the advantage and rush the confused soldiers that lay in front of us. Some actually turned and ran from me, apparently word of my stunt in the trenches yesterday had spread quickly. The rest of the platoon followed behind us but then our luck ran out with the roar of an engine.
An honest to god panzer tank rolled out of a tunnel we hadn’t seen that ran under the compound and turned its barrel towards us. I almost didn’t hear the blast from how slow time seemed to move. But move it did as the explosion of the shell’s impact scattered bodies left and right. The shell impacted behind us but the sheer force of the blast threw Marsh and I to the ground, knocking us unconscious.
When I slowly came to my eyes couldn’t believe what I was seeing. A man dressed in red priestly robes with a matching red top hat was walking between the bodies. When he approached one that groaned out with agony he’d kneel down and whisper things I couldn’t hear to them, after that he’d snap his fingers. sometimes the person he was talking with would disappear other times they would fall silent and sometimes it didn’t appear that anything happened at all.
Just the sight of the man terrified me and I wasn’t sure why. It was an instinctual reaction, the second I lay eyes on him I froze up and ice cold fear crept its way up my spine. When people accuse me of being the devil this man is who I think of. Even today I’m not sure what it is he does or why. What I do know is that he never looks the same. I’ve seen him appear as male, female, even as an animal on a few occasions but I can always tell. The second I’m near him no matter what he looks like the same old feeling comes over me.
Once my vision had finally focused in on the man he seemed to notice without ever looking at me. I blinked and suddenly he was there, kneeling over me.
“Would you like to live.”
He rasped down at me with a voice that seemed to boom around me no matter how quiet it must’ve actually been. I felt like a child again, staring at Archer for the first time. I’d never really had to fear death before but here I was, sure I was about to meet my end right here. In all honestly I wasn’t injured all that bad, I probably could’ve survived with or without this man help. But something told me that if I said no he’d make sure I would die right here.
“Ye…y… yes”
I stuttered out, barley able to form the words through the pain that stabbed throughout my body.
“You will be my instrument for one night at a time of me choosing.”
The man replied. I stayed silent as I stared into his eyes, trying to determine if the sunglasses he wore were tinted or if his eyes really did burn with an infernal red light. The man cocked his head as if waiting for a response to his question. I’m not sure if question was the right word though, there wasn’t much of a choice for me.
Looking back there was always a choice, maybe I could’ve survived on my own merits, found another way. In the years to come I’d wish I just said no, even if it would’ve cost me my life. But thats not what happened. I nodded and the deal maker snapped his fingers. As soon as he had dark clouds flooded the sky and blocked out the sun, allowing my body to begin repairing itself. The man moved on to where Marsh’s body lay and probably made him the same deal as I felt my body healing. Despite that, my consciousness faded again as I strained to try and hear what the man would say to Marsh.
We never actually discussed the man at all. Not then and not in the years since. Maybe that was all an unspoken part of Marsh’s deal. Maybe both of us just wished that man was nothing more than a waking dream, a vivid hallucination. Whatever the case neither of us ever mentioned that man to each other.
The next time I woke up I was chained to a table next to Marsh. We had been captured and brought before the very scientists we were here to apprehend. There were guards around but they all seemed to be waiting for some kind of order. I was certainly surprised when that order came in perfect English, even more surprised when the order was to let us down so we could talk.
Frank and Stein ended up being quite reasonable people. The two let us stay in relative comfort in the compound as long as we agreed to stay and leave them to their work. That was all the convincing it took for me. I understand that the men I’d served with were all dead and that these two were in some way responsible. Maybe that should’ve bothered me more, today it certainly would’ve. Back then I didn’t think the same way, they accepted me for what I was but only briefly, only out of respect for Marsh. What did the lives of people I’d known for so short a time really matter? Writing this now just makes me realize how cold I was before, I didn’t care for anything beyond myself. I’d made no efforts to find Belle since we were separated and how long had I known her, 100 years, more? I may have pretended I cared but when push came to shove I simply tried to make sure I survived.
Marsh wasn’t as cold as me, in fact he almost immediately reached for where his pistol should’ve been when he was unchained. It took Frank, Stein, and myself weeks to convince him that helping would be the right decision. He didn’t like it at first but little by little I think the scientists grew on him. The guards I’d seen our first day here seemed to thin out the longer we stayed. Wether that was a gesture of trust or simply because they were needed for more important duties I don’t know but it certainly eased Marsh’s mind.
I merely observed the scientists most of the time until Stein asked me for a sample of my blood. It didn’t surprise me that he knew what I was but for obvious reasons I was hesitant to give it to him, especially considering what I’d seen so called doctors do with vampire blood. Eventually he wore me down and I gave let him take a sample just to shut him up. After that I became more involved in their research though not by choice. They had me showcasing my abilities and tested the effects of sunlight on my blood. On a few rare occasions Stein even injected it into other prisoners that were brought in, something I put a stop to very quickly. T
hat sample of blood is why Frank and Stein are still around today. Somehow they managed to isolate whatever part of my DNA allows me to age so much slower than a normal person. They took that and spliced it into their own DNA against my recommendations. The crazy thing was it actually worked. Sure they had a newfound appreciation for rare steaks but beyond that I didn’t notice any of the effects that combining vampire DNA with your own would usually have.
As Marsh and I assisted the scientist’s research however we could we both came to the realization that they needed each other to function. Stein lacked a moral compass and was prone to suggest unethical or risky procedures, sometimes going so far as to carry them out without informing Frank. Frank on the other hand preferred caution in everything he did and sometimes I noticed him personally taking and shredding requests Stein had written for test subjects, hazardous materials, or samples from supernatural entities. The two kept a very delicate dance of checks and balances. Stein ever the daring mad scientist and Frank always playing the role of overly cautious genius.
Marsh and Frank got along extremely well near the end. The two would be up at all hours of the night as Frank explained what kind of things really existed in the world. Marsh always shared these ideas of a world where the supernatural and the normal could live together and I think Frank shared that vision. It wasn’t possible, still isn’t but treating the supernatural as something other than monsters couldn’t possibly be a bad thing. I think thats where the idea of the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs really came from, those talks Marsh had with anyone who would listen.
Overtime one of our favorite conversations was what we would do when the war was over and we could leave this compound. Stein wasn’t sure he would, if his research wasn’t going to a man who’d simply use it to cause more conflict he wouldn’t mind staying. Frank wanted to return home, if that was even possible and he asked if Stein would join him. Those two had also become close friends through our months in the lab. That checks and balances relationship they had made them basically inseparable. Marsh’s answer surprised me though, he said he wanted to get out of the military and start a program, something to help the supernatural live closer to normal lives. At least keep tabs on them so that the quality of their lives might improve. I was stunned, I couldn’t believe he’d throw his career away just to chase this pipe dream of his. I didn’t even know Marsh was concerned with that kind of thing. I didn’t have an answer of my own so I said I’d join Marsh and help with this program idea of his. Actually, even Frank and Stein seemed to agree with Marsh’s way of thinking. Little did we know the war would end less than a month after our talk and we’d all get the chance to actually put Marsh’s little idea to the test.
Once the Americans had come and discovered the compound pretty much abandoned aside from us we were all taken prisoner and shipped back to America. We were all interrogated and they either heard what they wanted to hear, or decided anyone we’d talk to about our experiences would assume we were just crazy. We were released back into society under constant surveillance. They even gave us a sizable home in D.C., it was certainly bugged to its core but thats exactly what we wanted.
Through the next year we used Frank and Steins knowledge and my supernatural nature to track down entities all over the country. We made sure that everything was discussed and planned out in the house. That way however was listening knew exactly what we were doing and how successful it was. It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows though, some entities would rather we didn’t know about them. Others were naturally aggressive but some we were actually able to help.
Our escapades as a group of four didn’t last much past the first year. Mostly because our master plan of using the bugs worked perfectly. Ol’ uncle Sam had been listening in and wanted his chance at calling the shots but it meant we became a legitimate organization, the BSA. Technically the acronym was already taken but no one ever complained and Marsh never came up with anything better.
We spent 4 years doing everything we could to improve the lives of supernatural beings everywhere. Not every one of our endeavors was a success but we did some good in the world. One such project was blood banks for vampires. While the blood that gets donated is used for transfusions and the like some was put into cold storage for the BSA. That got distributed to vampires who had come to an agreement with us to stop hunting humans for blood. Some vampires were even selected for jobs at these blood banks, under the supervision of BSA agents of course.
The more human supernaturals like werewolves, vampires, and succubi even used us to find jobs in the world. We made in roads for the supernatural in daily life because of it. Werewolves would use their strength for government construction. Vampire’s long lives made them excellent archivists or history teachers because they actually been there for those events. A succubus’s ability to understand and control someones emotions and reactions made them excellent therapists and conflict deescalation specialists. Those are just some of the fields we managed to get the supernatural involved in. While they usually had to hide their natural they were wildly successful.
Everything went well until that fourth year when I first met Baelen. He was headstrong from the beginning, the powers that be were grooming him for leadership. He was everything they wanted, he followed orders and didn’t question things to much. In short, he was the perfect solution to the inconvenience the four of us caused running the organization as we saw fit. But baleen had a mean streak, he didn’t want to protect the supernatural so much as he wanted to put them in their place. Unfortunately a lot of the research we provided had scared pretty much everyone above us who had never even entertained the idea of the supernatural until now. That meant Baelen’s ideas of monitoring and segregating the supernatural population were popular. So popular that suggesting culling their numbers to keep them in check and under the thumb of the BSA was an idea they actually entertained. That sentiment caught on and our orders became more and more militant.
Every time we disregarded them to do things the way we had envisioned the consequence grew steeper. Eventually Frank, Stein, Marsh, and I just couldn’t stand to see what our BSA had become so we left. We couldn’t do anything else to stop what was coming from the inside, no point in going down with the ship.
After that Baelen quickly ended up heading the whole operation. He still took orders directly from government officials and when the BSA became part of homeland security it became Chimera division. Why they chose such a stupid name I’ll never know but the organization was a shadow of its former self. Before we looked out for the supernatural, tried to help. Under Baelen Chimera just exists to monitor the supernatural and “correct” any issues uncle Sam decides to have with them. They’re glorified enforcers that don’t give a damn how the supernatural actually have it. That’s not to say some good people don’t work for them, people like Belle and even Marsh’s own daughter as far as I’m aware.
It sickens me to think I was a part of it though, for all the good we did maybe it would’ve been better if Johnson Marsh’s pipe dream would’ve stayed just that. I can do a lot but I can’t change the past so I guess we’ll never know. A while ago I heard that something had happened in a little nowhere town out in New Mexico. Pretty much dropped off the face of the Earth. The only reason I even heard about it was through Belle’s letters. Apparently Chimera had to do some huge cover up job and decided it was better if the town just never existed. Maybe I should go myself and see if I can’t piece what happened together. Could be that someone else out there has it in for Chimera and is a whole lot more direct about it than me. I’m just imaging it was some runaway experiment Frank and Stein got up to. I wonder where those two ended up, I’ll have to check up on them sometime. This journal writing is digging up a lot of memories for me but thats probably a good thing. Write them down before I forget again. I think that’ll be all for today then, why do I keep addressing these like someone’s reading them? Not much point to that is there?

Previous Entry
Writing these things has made me realize how different I sound these days. Back when all this started I’m not sure I even spoke English and I certainly didn’t speak like I do now but to be honest, I don’t remember. Trying to recall things to write has made me realize exactly how many little things I’ve forgotten over the years. The sights, the sounds, all those fade into the background of most events.
Even something as visceral as Archer’s basement still takes me a while to recall clearly. I wonder if it’s more than just my long life, we do age after all. I mentioned before that sunlight is not deadly to vampires like myself but very unpleasant, that and it makes us more normal. In the sun I won’t be as strong as I would be in the dark and by my assessment I age in the sun as well. Not any faster than a normal person but I do age, its why I don’t still look like that little boy stuck in Paris anymore.
I did spend quite some time in Paris before I left or rather, escaped. I’m not sure I ever would have left if not for the war. I didn’t have many friends there save for other… I’m not sure what to call them… entities? Whatever you want to cal it I had some friends in the more supernatural parts of the city. A vampire named Belle had become a sort of mother figure to me over the years spent there.
I met her by chance one night as I sated myself in an alley. I was ready to fight but she just laughed and flashed her own fangs at me, ridiculing me for being so careless. It was under her wing where I learned everything I know now about vampires. It’s where I realized not all vampires endure sunlight as well as I do, if anything that one trait is what’s most unique about me according to her. But thats not the story I want to tell on these pages tonight. I want to tell the story of lieutenant Marsh and the real beginnings of the organization that would become Chimera.
When war came to Paris that summer I was unprepared. I never expected the war to spiral out of hand so quickly or for it to force me out of my home. I was with Belle and a few more of her friends whose names escape me waiting out the worst of it and hoping things would blow over in the city soon. Obviously we were completely misguided, it was that sense of invulnerability again just the same as when I was a boy. The world was our playground and nothing could hurt us. It didn’t help that in some ways I really was invulnerable and it went straight to my head.
Only flashes of my memory from that day remain. I remember the nazi soldier kicking in the door and firing at Belle’s friends. I remember the screaming that abruptly ended in a single gunshot. I remember the trail of blood leading to her friends body where it lay staked to the ground in the sun. We heal fast, not instantly but much faster than a human. Put us in sunlight though, and we’re just as fragile as a normal person. It was the first time I’d seen someone with abilities like ours die and it made me feel mortal again for the first time in decades.
The rest of the day is a disjointed blur. Belle and I fled the city, I blank out on the specifics of it but we made it out with some difficulty. After that we hunkered down for the night in a rickety old shack. I remember wanting to push on through the day but Belle protested, she didn’t deal with the sun as well as I did. When night finally fell we fled to the coast and managed to catch a ship heading towards the United States.
The trip was unpleasant to say the least, neither of us made good stowaways. We weren’t living life in the lap of luxury before by any means but we lived comfortably. This was a far cry from what we were used to in Paris and the welcome we received was even worse. Apparently fleeing for your own survival is a crime, both of us were separated and sent to prison on our arrival to the states for stowing away on the ship.
That was the last time I ever saw Belle, I get letters from her every now and then but I haven’t seen her in person since. She does well for herself, works in D.C. as a sort of handler for the supernatural. Regrettably she does work with Chimera, says they have the best interests at heart for the supernatural but she doesn’t see what I see out here. She doesn’t know the part I played in its creation, what it really stood for in the beginning. Chimera tends to kill first these days rather than actually try to help or give the supernatural some kind of place in the world. I think thats why I haven’t been to visit her, I just don’t want to argue with a friend as old as her. Funnily enough I don’t think anyone knows she’s a vampire. I doubt they’d take that very well, she’d probably lose her position. They must have suspicions though because theres no way she’d be able to get letters to me without Baelen knowing about it. Every few months they keep showing up though and I always make sure to write her back.
Anyways I’m getting off topic, back to my story. I was in prison for months until an offer came my way, serve the rest of my sentence or enlist in the army and be a free man when I came back, if I came back. Of course I took the offer, I didn’t realize how suspicious that deal sounded at the time but it actually played out exactly as they said. I also didn’t have much of a choice in the matter either. It was hard to get my hands on any blood when I was almost constantly under watch and I could feel the effects it was having on me. I figured it would be best to get a change of scenery.
The next week I was off to training then not long after, we shipped out to the trenches and met the commander of the platoon I’d been assigned to. That’s the first time I met Lieutenant Johnson Marsh and what a man he was. That first day I was convinced I’d never see a smile ever again, the trenches were a horrible depressing place. But there Marsh was, laughing and smiling and just generally enjoying life with the rest of the platoon. He was either crazy or stupid, thats what my first thoughts about him were. I remember those clearly even today but I couldn’t have been more wrong. If anything he may have turned out to be one of the smartest men I ever knew.
The first few weeks were spent holding our position from the germans. It was brutal but I found I was a decent shot with the rifle I was given. Marsh on the other hand spent those weeks barking orders at us and keeping us in line. He never used a rifle like most of the soldiers used. Instead he kept a Beretta m9 with him at all times. That weapon was the only one I ever saw him use. I remember the name only because he was so found of explaining everything there was to know about the gun to me whenever I questioned him about it. You could immediately recognize the pistol as his by its strange grip. One side of it had a picture of an idyllic scene of a manor house in the middle of a sprawling field. The other had a painting of a woman, his wife I’d guess but he never actually told me if that was there case. He seemed to spend the nights staring with longing at each side of the artistic grip.
I’d never really had a family, even with Belle I’d always felt like I was a bit of an outsider. There was so much I didn’t know about how normal people lived. Even though I’d had friends in Paris we were always kind of hidden away in our own personal corner. There was this separation between us and normal life, even between the other supernaturals in the area.
Here I felt like I was part of something though. Sure I was still lost but so was everyone else, we could be lost together and Marsh would always set us straight in the end. There was something about the man, some piece of him that just understood what we were all going through. He expected a lot from us but he was never unreasonable and several times even argued with command on our behalf when ridiculous orders came our way. I actually wanted to serve with him. The rest of the platoon wasn’t bad but they’d all been given the same deal as me. They were all just there to get out of prison. I’m still not sure what Marsh’s story was, he always kept that to himself but any of us would’ve taken a bullet for that man.
Our first real assignment came maybe three months into my period of indentured service. Our platoon was tasked with rescuing a captured American scientist and capturing a German scientist. The scientists in question were Frank Smith and Stein Hoffman and no, the irony of those names is not lost on me, fits the two of them though. I’m sure doctor Frankenstein wishes he was successful as those two. But before those orders could be acted on we had to overtake a German trench surrounding the compound they were staying in.
That fight was bloody and we lost several good men in the chaos. At one point a trench gun was shoved into my arms and I launched myself into the German trench. I wouldn’t be surprised if ghost stories are still passed around of what I did that day. After I made my way over and into the German trench I lashed out with all I had. Moving with superhuman speed and lashing out with both the bayonet affixed to my gun and my fangs, I fell upon the Germans. They stood little chance as I tore into them and all by my lonesome I ensured we’d face no more resistance.
Marsh was the first over into the now silent trench, I’m glad it was him because I’m not sure anyone else would’ve understood like him. I was holding the German officer to the trench wall, fangs buried in his neck as I fed when I heard footsteps behind me. I dropped him and turned to see Marsh staring questioningly at me. I must’ve been a sight to see, blood dripping from my mouth and covering my bullet torn uniform. Marsh steadied himself for a moment and shouted back to the rest of the platoon,
“Boys hold up a second! Just get down and stay up there a minute won’tcha!”
All of a sudden he took a step forward and a well mannered grin took its usual place on his lips.
“Though You didn’t care for sauerkraut J.?”
The joke stunned me, I fully expected him to shoot me then and there, put me down like the abomination I must’ve looked like to him.
“Lieutenant I…”
But Marsh raised his hands to cut me off.
“Command’d probably want me to shoot’cha, hell maybe I aught’a but I don’t think it’d be right. You seem decent, little odd sure but you’ve got heart, I see it in the way you look out for the boys. Plus I always figured there was some’n off about you. The way you stay out’a the light always seem a little faster and stronger than anyone got the right to be just didn’t figure it’d be…. That.”
Marsh told me pointing to the punctures in the officers neck.
“Thank you lieutenant, Could we keep this between us though sir?”
“Drop the formalities J. Jesus! We’re all friends here.”
“I just don’t want the others to know, they may not be as understanding as you.”
“No can do, but you can tell em’ yourself. Alright men, get on down here!”
In all my years I’d never had to explain myself to anyone up until that point. I guess that day my number was up but I never knew just how understanding people, normal people could be. I’d always lived around the supernatural in Paris, didn’t interact much with the normal people I saw in the streets every day, I didn’t have to. I’d always assumed there was a reason for that but in the moment I realized there wasn’t, not really. I’d just avoided normal people because I feared what they’d think if it came out that I wasn’t like them.
Of course There were some of the men that objected to… what I was. Most of them took after Marsh though. They didn’t really care what I was, I’d proven to them I was a good person and thats all that mattered. I just wish they’d been right about me back then because the truth was I still hadn’t learned to care, not really. Even the ones who objected came around eventually and that night Marsh finally came clean to me about why exactly he was so accepting.
According to him he’d always assumed there was more out there, things beyond human that lived on the fringes of society. Even he always thought he sounded crazy. I was the proof he needed to convince himself he wasn’t. Marsh also told me what we were really doing with the scientists. Both Frank and Stein researched the supernatural, their projects were as secret as secret could be. Marsh’s interests and theories, as personal as he tried to keep them showed up in his file somewhere. The higher ups had handpicked him for this mission because of it. The official story was that Frank had been captured but in reality he defected to further his own research with a like minded individual. Our mission was really to force Frank back into the fold and take Stein along with him.
The more he talked the more I could tell his heart was fully committed to this mission and the final assault tomorrow. I’d never seen someone so… alive. In my extremely long life I don’t think Id ever felt that kind of conviction myself. So I promised him I’d have his back tomorrow no matter what.
Morning broke and with it our assault began. Intel on the German defenses was shoddy at best but we never expected what we’d actually run into. At least three times our number acted as guards so a distraction was in order to give us a window of entry. A few of the men would handle the distraction “however they saw fit” to quote Marsh. Then Marsh and I would make our way into the compound itself and the rest of the platoon would cover us.
For what its worth most of the plan went off without a hitch. A tremendous explosion signaled Marsh and I to press the advantage and rush the confused soldiers that lay in front of us. Some actually turned and ran from me, apparently word of my stunt in the trenches yesterday had spread quickly. The rest of the platoon followed behind us but then our luck ran out with the roar of an engine.
An honest to god panzer tank rolled out of a tunnel we hadn’t seen that ran under the compound and turned its barrel towards us. I almost didn’t hear the blast from how slow time seemed to move. But move it did as the explosion of the shell’s impact scattered bodies left and right. The shell impacted behind us but the sheer force of the blast threw Marsh and I to the ground, knocking us unconscious.
When I slowly came to my eyes couldn’t believe what I was seeing. A man dressed in red priestly robes with a matching red top hat was walking between the bodies. When he approached one that groaned out with agony he’d kneel down and whisper things I couldn’t hear to them, after that he’d snap his fingers. sometimes the person he was talking with would disappear other times they would fall silent and sometimes it didn’t appear that anything happened at all.
Just the sight of the man terrified me and I wasn’t sure why. It was an instinctual reaction, the second I lay eyes on him I froze up and ice cold fear crept its way up my spine. When people accuse me of being the devil this man is who I think of. Even today I’m not sure what it is he does or why. What I do know is that he never looks the same. I’ve seen him appear as male, female, even as an animal on a few occasions but I can always tell. The second I’m near him no matter what he looks like the same old feeling comes over me.
Once my vision had finally focused in on the man he seemed to notice without ever looking at me. I blinked and suddenly he was there, kneeling over me.
“Would you like to live.”
He rasped down at me with a voice that seemed to boom around me no matter how quiet it must’ve actually been. I felt like a child again, staring at Archer for the first time. I’d never really had to fear death before but here I was, sure I was about to meet my end right here. In all honestly I wasn’t injured all that bad, I probably could’ve survived with or without this man help. But something told me that if I said no he’d make sure I would die right here.
“Ye…y… yes”
I stuttered out, barley able to form the words through the pain that stabbed throughout my body.
“You will be my instrument for one night at a time of me choosing.”
The man replied. I stayed silent as I stared into his eyes, trying to determine if the sunglasses he wore were tinted or if his eyes really did burn with an infernal red light. The man cocked his head as if waiting for a response to his question. I’m not sure if question was the right word though, there wasn’t much of a choice for me.
Looking back there was always a choice, maybe I could’ve survived on my own merits, found another way. In the years to come I’d wish I just said no, even if it would’ve cost me my life. But thats not what happened. I nodded and the deal maker snapped his fingers. As soon as he had dark clouds flooded the sky and blocked out the sun, allowing my body to begin repairing itself. The man moved on to where Marsh’s body lay and probably made him the same deal as I felt my body healing. Despite that, my consciousness faded again as I strained to try and hear what the man would say to Marsh.
We never actually discussed the man at all. Not then and not in the years since. Maybe that was all an unspoken part of Marsh’s deal. Maybe both of us just wished that man was nothing more than a waking dream, a vivid hallucination. Whatever the case neither of us ever mentioned that man to each other.
The next time I woke up I was chained to a table next to Marsh. We had been captured and brought before the very scientists we were here to apprehend. There were guards around but they all seemed to be waiting for some kind of order. I was certainly surprised when that order came in perfect English, even more surprised when the order was to let us down so we could talk.
Frank and Stein ended up being quite reasonable people. The two let us stay in relative comfort in the compound as long as we agreed to stay and leave them to their work. That was all the convincing it took for me. I understand that the men I’d served with were all dead and that these two were in some way responsible. Maybe that should’ve bothered me more, today it certainly would’ve. Back then I didn’t think the same way, they accepted me for what I was but only briefly, only out of respect for Marsh. What did the lives of people I’d known for so short a time really matter? Writing this now just makes me realize how cold I was before, I didn’t care for anything beyond myself. I’d made no efforts to find Belle since we were separated and how long had I known her, 100 years, more? I may have pretended I cared but when push came to shove I simply tried to make sure I survived.
Marsh wasn’t as cold as me, in fact he almost immediately reached for where his pistol should’ve been when he was unchained. It took Frank, Stein, and myself weeks to convince him that helping would be the right decision. He didn’t like it at first but little by little I think the scientists grew on him. The guards I’d seen our first day here seemed to thin out the longer we stayed. Wether that was a gesture of trust or simply because they were needed for more important duties I don’t know but it certainly eased Marsh’s mind.
I merely observed the scientists most of the time until Stein asked me for a sample of my blood. It didn’t surprise me that he knew what I was but for obvious reasons I was hesitant to give it to him, especially considering what I’d seen so called doctors do with vampire blood. Eventually he wore me down and I gave let him take a sample just to shut him up. After that I became more involved in their research though not by choice. They had me showcasing my abilities and tested the effects of sunlight on my blood. On a few rare occasions Stein even injected it into other prisoners that were brought in, something I put a stop to very quickly. T
hat sample of blood is why Frank and Stein are still around today. Somehow they managed to isolate whatever part of my DNA allows me to age so much slower than a normal person. They took that and spliced it into their own DNA against my recommendations. The crazy thing was it actually worked. Sure they had a newfound appreciation for rare steaks but beyond that I didn’t notice any of the effects that combining vampire DNA with your own would usually have.
As Marsh and I assisted the scientist’s research however we could we both came to the realization that they needed each other to function. Stein lacked a moral compass and was prone to suggest unethical or risky procedures, sometimes going so far as to carry them out without informing Frank. Frank on the other hand preferred caution in everything he did and sometimes I noticed him personally taking and shredding requests Stein had written for test subjects, hazardous materials, or samples from supernatural entities. The two kept a very delicate dance of checks and balances. Stein ever the daring mad scientist and Frank always playing the role of overly cautious genius.
Marsh and Frank got along extremely well near the end. The two would be up at all hours of the night as Frank explained what kind of things really existed in the world. Marsh always shared these ideas of a world where the supernatural and the normal could live together and I think Frank shared that vision. It wasn’t possible, still isn’t but treating the supernatural as something other than monsters couldn’t possibly be a bad thing. I think thats where the idea of the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs really came from, those talks Marsh had with anyone who would listen.
Overtime one of our favorite conversations was what we would do when the war was over and we could leave this compound. Stein wasn’t sure he would, if his research wasn’t going to a man who’d simply use it to cause more conflict he wouldn’t mind staying. Frank wanted to return home, if that was even possible and he asked if Stein would join him. Those two had also become close friends through our months in the lab. That checks and balances relationship they had made them basically inseparable. Marsh’s answer surprised me though, he said he wanted to get out of the military and start a program, something to help the supernatural live closer to normal lives. At least keep tabs on them so that the quality of their lives might improve. I was stunned, I couldn’t believe he’d throw his career away just to chase this pipe dream of his. I didn’t even know Marsh was concerned with that kind of thing. I didn’t have an answer of my own so I said I’d join Marsh and help with this program idea of his. Actually, even Frank and Stein seemed to agree with Marsh’s way of thinking. Little did we know the war would end less than a month after our talk and we’d all get the chance to actually put Marsh’s little idea to the test.
Once the Americans had come and discovered the compound pretty much abandoned aside from us we were all taken prisoner and shipped back to America. We were all interrogated and they either heard what they wanted to hear, or decided anyone we’d talk to about our experiences would assume we were just crazy. We were released back into society under constant surveillance. They even gave us a sizable home in D.C., it was certainly bugged to its core but thats exactly what we wanted.
Through the next year we used Frank and Steins knowledge and my supernatural nature to track down entities all over the country. We made sure that everything was discussed and planned out in the house. That way however was listening knew exactly what we were doing and how successful it was. It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows though, some entities would rather we didn’t know about them. Others were naturally aggressive but some we were actually able to help.
Our escapades as a group of four didn’t last much past the first year. Mostly because our master plan of using the bugs worked perfectly. Ol’ uncle Sam had been listening in and wanted his chance at calling the shots but it meant we became a legitimate organization, the BSA. Technically the acronym was already taken but no one ever complained and Marsh never came up with anything better.
We spent 4 years doing everything we could to improve the lives of supernatural beings everywhere. Not every one of our endeavors was a success but we did some good in the world. One such project was blood banks for vampires. While the blood that gets donated is used for transfusions and the like some was put into cold storage for the BSA. That got distributed to vampires who had come to an agreement with us to stop hunting humans for blood. Some vampires were even selected for jobs at these blood banks, under the supervision of BSA agents of course.
The more human supernaturals like werewolves, vampires, and succubi even used us to find jobs in the world. We made in roads for the supernatural in daily life because of it. Werewolves would use their strength for government construction. Vampire’s long lives made them excellent archivists or history teachers because they actually been there for those events. A succubus’s ability to understand and control someones emotions and reactions made them excellent therapists and conflict deescalation specialists. Those are just some of the fields we managed to get the supernatural involved in. While they usually had to hide their natural they were wildly successful.
Everything went well until that fourth year when I first met Baelen. He was headstrong from the beginning, the powers that be were grooming him for leadership. He was everything they wanted, he followed orders and didn’t question things to much. In short, he was the perfect solution to the inconvenience the four of us caused running the organization as we saw fit. But baleen had a mean streak, he didn’t want to protect the supernatural so much as he wanted to put them in their place. Unfortunately a lot of the research we provided had scared pretty much everyone above us who had never even entertained the idea of the supernatural until now. That meant Baelen’s ideas of monitoring and segregating the supernatural population were popular. So popular that suggesting culling their numbers to keep them in check and under the thumb of the BSA was an idea they actually entertained. That sentiment caught on and our orders became more and more militant.
Every time we disregarded them to do things the way we had envisioned the consequence grew steeper. Eventually Frank, Stein, Marsh, and I just couldn’t stand to see what our BSA had become so we left. We couldn’t do anything else to stop what was coming from the inside, no point in going down with the ship.
After that Baelen quickly ended up heading the whole operation. He still took orders directly from government officials and when the BSA became part of homeland security it became Chimera division. Why they chose such a stupid name I’ll never know but the organization was a shadow of its former self. Before we looked out for the supernatural, tried to help. Under Baelen Chimera just exists to monitor the supernatural and “correct” any issues uncle Sam decides to have with them. They’re glorified enforcers that don’t give a damn how the supernatural actually have it. That’s not to say some good people don’t work for them, people like Belle and even Marsh’s own daughter as far as I’m aware.
It sickens me to think I was a part of it though, for all the good we did maybe it would’ve been better if Johnson Marsh’s pipe dream would’ve stayed just that. I can do a lot but I can’t change the past so I guess we’ll never know. A while ago I heard that something had happened in a little nowhere town out in New Mexico. Pretty much dropped off the face of the Earth. The only reason I even heard about it was through Belle’s letters. Apparently Chimera had to do some huge cover up job and decided it was better if the town just never existed. Maybe I should go myself and see if I can’t piece what happened together. Could be that someone else out there has it in for Chimera and is a whole lot more direct about it than me. I’m just imaging it was some runaway experiment Frank and Stein got up to. I wonder where those two ended up, I’ll have to check up on them sometime. This journal writing is digging up a lot of memories for me but thats probably a good thing. Write them down before I forget again. I think that’ll be all for today then, why do I keep addressing these like someone’s reading them? Not much point to that is there?

Previous Entry
Writing these things has made me realize how different I sound these days. Back when all this started I’m not sure I even spoke English and I certainly didn’t speak like I do now but to be honest, I don’t remember. Trying to recall things to write has made me realize exactly how many little things I’ve forgotten over the years. The sights, the sounds, all those fade into the background of most events.
Even something as visceral as Archer’s basement still takes me a while to recall clearly. I wonder if it’s more than just my long life, we do age after all. I mentioned before that sunlight is not deadly to vampires like myself but very unpleasant, that and it makes us more normal. In the sun I won’t be as strong as I would be in the dark and by my assessment I age in the sun as well. Not any faster than a normal person but I do age, its why I don’t still look like that little boy stuck in Paris anymore.
I did spend quite some time in Paris before I left or rather, escaped. I’m not sure I ever would have left if not for the war. I didn’t have many friends there save for other… I’m not sure what to call them… entities? Whatever you want to cal it I had some friends in the more supernatural parts of the city. A vampire named Belle had become a sort of mother figure to me over the years spent there.
I met her by chance one night as I sated myself in an alley. I was ready to fight but she just laughed and flashed her own fangs at me, ridiculing me for being so careless. It was under her wing where I learned everything I know now about vampires. It’s where I realized not all vampires endure sunlight as well as I do, if anything that one trait is what’s most unique about me according to her. But thats not the story I want to tell on these pages tonight. I want to tell the story of lieutenant Marsh and the real beginnings of the organization that would become Chimera.
When war came to Paris that summer I was unprepared. I never expected the war to spiral out of hand so quickly or for it to force me out of my home. I was with Belle and a few more of her friends whose names escape me waiting out the worst of it and hoping things would blow over in the city soon. Obviously we were completely misguided, it was that sense of invulnerability again just the same as when I was a boy. The world was our playground and nothing could hurt us. It didn’t help that in some ways I really was invulnerable and it went straight to my head.
Only flashes of my memory from that day remain. I remember the nazi soldier kicking in the door and firing at Belle’s friends. I remember the screaming that abruptly ended in a single gunshot. I remember the trail of blood leading to her friends body where it lay staked to the ground in the sun. We heal fast, not instantly but much faster than a human. Put us in sunlight though, and we’re just as fragile as a normal person. It was the first time I’d seen someone with abilities like ours die and it made me feel mortal again for the first time in decades.
The rest of the day is a disjointed blur. Belle and I fled the city, I blank out on the specifics of it but we made it out with some difficulty. After that we hunkered down for the night in a rickety old shack. I remember wanting to push on through the day but Belle protested, she didn’t deal with the sun as well as I did. When night finally fell we fled to the coast and managed to catch a ship heading towards the United States.
The trip was unpleasant to say the least, neither of us made good stowaways. We weren’t living life in the lap of luxury before by any means but we lived comfortably. This was a far cry from what we were used to in Paris and the welcome we received was even worse. Apparently fleeing for your own survival is a crime, both of us were separated and sent to prison on our arrival to the states for stowing away on the ship.
That was the last time I ever saw Belle, I get letters from her every now and then but I haven’t seen her in person since. She does well for herself, works in D.C. as a sort of handler for the supernatural. Regrettably she does work with Chimera, says they have the best interests at heart for the supernatural but she doesn’t see what I see out here. She doesn’t know the part I played in its creation, what it really stood for in the beginning. Chimera tends to kill first these days rather than actually try to help or give the supernatural some kind of place in the world. I think thats why I haven’t been to visit her, I just don’t want to argue with a friend as old as her. Funnily enough I don’t think anyone knows she’s a vampire. I doubt they’d take that very well, she’d probably lose her position. They must have suspicions though because theres no way she’d be able to get letters to me without Baelen knowing about it. Every few months they keep showing up though and I always make sure to write her back.
Anyways I’m getting off topic, back to my story. I was in prison for months until an offer came my way, serve the rest of my sentence or enlist in the army and be a free man when I came back, if I came back. Of course I took the offer, I didn’t realize how suspicious that deal sounded at the time but it actually played out exactly as they said. I also didn’t have much of a choice in the matter either. It was hard to get my hands on any blood when I was almost constantly under watch and I could feel the effects it was having on me. I figured it would be best to get a change of scenery.
The next week I was off to training then not long after, we shipped out to the trenches and met the commander of the platoon I’d been assigned to. That’s the first time I met Lieutenant Johnson Marsh and what a man he was. That first day I was convinced I’d never see a smile ever again, the trenches were a horrible depressing place. But there Marsh was, laughing and smiling and just generally enjoying life with the rest of the platoon. He was either crazy or stupid, thats what my first thoughts about him were. I remember those clearly even today but I couldn’t have been more wrong. If anything he may have turned out to be one of the smartest men I ever knew.
The first few weeks were spent holding our position from the germans. It was brutal but I found I was a decent shot with the rifle I was given. Marsh on the other hand spent those weeks barking orders at us and keeping us in line. He never used a rifle like most of the soldiers used. Instead he kept a Beretta m9 with him at all times. That weapon was the only one I ever saw him use. I remember the name only because he was so found of explaining everything there was to know about the gun to me whenever I questioned him about it. You could immediately recognize the pistol as his by its strange grip. One side of it had a picture of an idyllic scene of a manor house in the middle of a sprawling field. The other had a painting of a woman, his wife I’d guess but he never actually told me if that was there case. He seemed to spend the nights staring with longing at each side of the artistic grip.
I’d never really had a family, even with Belle I’d always felt like I was a bit of an outsider. There was so much I didn’t know about how normal people lived. Even though I’d had friends in Paris we were always kind of hidden away in our own personal corner. There was this separation between us and normal life, even between the other supernaturals in the area.
Here I felt like I was part of something though. Sure I was still lost but so was everyone else, we could be lost together and Marsh would always set us straight in the end. There was something about the man, some piece of him that just understood what we were all going through. He expected a lot from us but he was never unreasonable and several times even argued with command on our behalf when ridiculous orders came our way. I actually wanted to serve with him. The rest of the platoon wasn’t bad but they’d all been given the same deal as me. They were all just there to get out of prison. I’m still not sure what Marsh’s story was, he always kept that to himself but any of us would’ve taken a bullet for that man.
Our first real assignment came maybe three months into my period of indentured service. Our platoon was tasked with rescuing a captured American scientist and capturing a German scientist. The scientists in question were Frank Smith and Stein Hoffman and no, the irony of those names is not lost on me, fits the two of them though. I’m sure doctor Frankenstein wishes he was successful as those two. But before those orders could be acted on we had to overtake a German trench surrounding the compound they were staying in.
That fight was bloody and we lost several good men in the chaos. At one point a trench gun was shoved into my arms and I launched myself into the German trench. I wouldn’t be surprised if ghost stories are still passed around of what I did that day. After I made my way over and into the German trench I lashed out with all I had. Moving with superhuman speed and lashing out with both the bayonet affixed to my gun and my fangs, I fell upon the Germans. They stood little chance as I tore into them and all by my lonesome I ensured we’d face no more resistance.
Marsh was the first over into the now silent trench, I’m glad it was him because I’m not sure anyone else would’ve understood like him. I was holding the German officer to the trench wall, fangs buried in his neck as I fed when I heard footsteps behind me. I dropped him and turned to see Marsh staring questioningly at me. I must’ve been a sight to see, blood dripping from my mouth and covering my bullet torn uniform. Marsh steadied himself for a moment and shouted back to the rest of the platoon,
“Boys hold up a second! Just get down and stay up there a minute won’tcha!”
All of a sudden he took a step forward and a well mannered grin took its usual place on his lips.
“Though You didn’t care for sauerkraut J.?”
The joke stunned me, I fully expected him to shoot me then and there, put me down like the abomination I must’ve looked like to him.
“Lieutenant I…”
But Marsh raised his hands to cut me off.
“Command’d probably want me to shoot’cha, hell maybe I aught’a but I don’t think it’d be right. You seem decent, little odd sure but you’ve got heart, I see it in the way you look out for the boys. Plus I always figured there was some’n off about you. The way you stay out’a the light always seem a little faster and stronger than anyone got the right to be just didn’t figure it’d be…. That.”
Marsh told me pointing to the punctures in the officers neck.
“Thank you lieutenant, Could we keep this between us though sir?”
“Drop the formalities J. Jesus! We’re all friends here.”
“I just don’t want the others to know, they may not be as understanding as you.”
“No can do, but you can tell em’ yourself. Alright men, get on down here!”
In all my years I’d never had to explain myself to anyone up until that point. I guess that day my number was up but I never knew just how understanding people, normal people could be. I’d always lived around the supernatural in Paris, didn’t interact much with the normal people I saw in the streets every day, I didn’t have to. I’d always assumed there was a reason for that but in the moment I realized there wasn’t, not really. I’d just avoided normal people because I feared what they’d think if it came out that I wasn’t like them.
Of course There were some of the men that objected to… what I was. Most of them took after Marsh though. They didn’t really care what I was, I’d proven to them I was a good person and thats all that mattered. I just wish they’d been right about me back then because the truth was I still hadn’t learned to care, not really. Even the ones who objected came around eventually and that night Marsh finally came clean to me about why exactly he was so accepting.
According to him he’d always assumed there was more out there, things beyond human that lived on the fringes of society. Even he always thought he sounded crazy. I was the proof he needed to convince himself he wasn’t. Marsh also told me what we were really doing with the scientists. Both Frank and Stein researched the supernatural, their projects were as secret as secret could be. Marsh’s interests and theories, as personal as he tried to keep them showed up in his file somewhere. The higher ups had handpicked him for this mission because of it. The official story was that Frank had been captured but in reality he defected to further his own research with a like minded individual. Our mission was really to force Frank back into the fold and take Stein along with him.
The more he talked the more I could tell his heart was fully committed to this mission and the final assault tomorrow. I’d never seen someone so… alive. In my extremely long life I don’t think Id ever felt that kind of conviction myself. So I promised him I’d have his back tomorrow no matter what.
Morning broke and with it our assault began. Intel on the German defenses was shoddy at best but we never expected what we’d actually run into. At least three times our number acted as guards so a distraction was in order to give us a window of entry. A few of the men would handle the distraction “however they saw fit” to quote Marsh. Then Marsh and I would make our way into the compound itself and the rest of the platoon would cover us.
For what its worth most of the plan went off without a hitch. A tremendous explosion signaled Marsh and I to press the advantage and rush the confused soldiers that lay in front of us. Some actually turned and ran from me, apparently word of my stunt in the trenches yesterday had spread quickly. The rest of the platoon followed behind us but then our luck ran out with the roar of an engine.
An honest to god panzer tank rolled out of a tunnel we hadn’t seen that ran under the compound and turned its barrel towards us. I almost didn’t hear the blast from how slow time seemed to move. But move it did as the explosion of the shell’s impact scattered bodies left and right. The shell impacted behind us but the sheer force of the blast threw Marsh and I to the ground, knocking us unconscious.
When I slowly came to my eyes couldn’t believe what I was seeing. A man dressed in red priestly robes with a matching red top hat was walking between the bodies. When he approached one that groaned out with agony he’d kneel down and whisper things I couldn’t hear to them, after that he’d snap his fingers. sometimes the person he was talking with would disappear other times they would fall silent and sometimes it didn’t appear that anything happened at all.
Just the sight of the man terrified me and I wasn’t sure why. It was an instinctual reaction, the second I lay eyes on him I froze up and ice cold fear crept its way up my spine. When people accuse me of being the devil this man is who I think of. Even today I’m not sure what it is he does or why. What I do know is that he never looks the same. I’ve seen him appear as male, female, even as an animal on a few occasions but I can always tell. The second I’m near him no matter what he looks like the same old feeling comes over me.
Once my vision had finally focused in on the man he seemed to notice without ever looking at me. I blinked and suddenly he was there, kneeling over me.
“Would you like to live.”
He rasped down at me with a voice that seemed to boom around me no matter how quiet it must’ve actually been. I felt like a child again, staring at Archer for the first time. I’d never really had to fear death before but here I was, sure I was about to meet my end right here. In all honestly I wasn’t injured all that bad, I probably could’ve survived with or without this man help. But something told me that if I said no he’d make sure I would die right here.
“Ye…y… yes”
I stuttered out, barley able to form the words through the pain that stabbed throughout my body.
“You will be my instrument for one night at a time of me choosing.”
The man replied. I stayed silent as I stared into his eyes, trying to determine if the sunglasses he wore were tinted or if his eyes really did burn with an infernal red light. The man cocked his head as if waiting for a response to his question. I’m not sure if question was the right word though, there wasn’t much of a choice for me.
Looking back there was always a choice, maybe I could’ve survived on my own merits, found another way. In the years to come I’d wish I just said no, even if it would’ve cost me my life. But thats not what happened. I nodded and the deal maker snapped his fingers. As soon as he had dark clouds flooded the sky and blocked out the sun, allowing my body to begin repairing itself. The man moved on to where Marsh’s body lay and probably made him the same deal as I felt my body healing. Despite that, my consciousness faded again as I strained to try and hear what the man would say to Marsh.
We never actually discussed the man at all. Not then and not in the years since. Maybe that was all an unspoken part of Marsh’s deal. Maybe both of us just wished that man was nothing more than a waking dream, a vivid hallucination. Whatever the case neither of us ever mentioned that man to each other.
The next time I woke up I was chained to a table next to Marsh. We had been captured and brought before the very scientists we were here to apprehend. There were guards around but they all seemed to be waiting for some kind of order. I was certainly surprised when that order came in perfect English, even more surprised when the order was to let us down so we could talk.
Frank and Stein ended up being quite reasonable people. The two let us stay in relative comfort in the compound as long as we agreed to stay and leave them to their work. That was all the convincing it took for me. I understand that the men I’d served with were all dead and that these two were in some way responsible. Maybe that should’ve bothered me more, today it certainly would’ve. Back then I didn’t think the same way, they accepted me for what I was but only briefly, only out of respect for Marsh. What did the lives of people I’d known for so short a time really matter? Writing this now just makes me realize how cold I was before, I didn’t care for anything beyond myself. I’d made no efforts to find Belle since we were separated and how long had I known her, 100 years, more? I may have pretended I cared but when push came to shove I simply tried to make sure I survived.
Marsh wasn’t as cold as me, in fact he almost immediately reached for where his pistol should’ve been when he was unchained. It took Frank, Stein, and myself weeks to convince him that helping would be the right decision. He didn’t like it at first but little by little I think the scientists grew on him. The guards I’d seen our first day here seemed to thin out the longer we stayed. Wether that was a gesture of trust or simply because they were needed for more important duties I don’t know but it certainly eased Marsh’s mind.
I merely observed the scientists most of the time until Stein asked me for a sample of my blood. It didn’t surprise me that he knew what I was but for obvious reasons I was hesitant to give it to him, especially considering what I’d seen so called doctors do with vampire blood. Eventually he wore me down and I gave let him take a sample just to shut him up. After that I became more involved in their research though not by choice. They had me showcasing my abilities and tested the effects of sunlight on my blood. On a few rare occasions Stein even injected it into other prisoners that were brought in, something I put a stop to very quickly. T
hat sample of blood is why Frank and Stein are still around today. Somehow they managed to isolate whatever part of my DNA allows me to age so much slower than a normal person. They took that and spliced it into their own DNA against my recommendations. The crazy thing was it actually worked. Sure they had a newfound appreciation for rare steaks but beyond that I didn’t notice any of the effects that combining vampire DNA with your own would usually have.
As Marsh and I assisted the scientist’s research however we could we both came to the realization that they needed each other to function. Stein lacked a moral compass and was prone to suggest unethical or risky procedures, sometimes going so far as to carry them out without informing Frank. Frank on the other hand preferred caution in everything he did and sometimes I noticed him personally taking and shredding requests Stein had written for test subjects, hazardous materials, or samples from supernatural entities. The two kept a very delicate dance of checks and balances. Stein ever the daring mad scientist and Frank always playing the role of overly cautious genius.
Marsh and Frank got along extremely well near the end. The two would be up at all hours of the night as Frank explained what kind of things really existed in the world. Marsh always shared these ideas of a world where the supernatural and the normal could live together and I think Frank shared that vision. It wasn’t possible, still isn’t but treating the supernatural as something other than monsters couldn’t possibly be a bad thing. I think thats where the idea of the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs really came from, those talks Marsh had with anyone who would listen.
Overtime one of our favorite conversations was what we would do when the war was over and we could leave this compound. Stein wasn’t sure he would, if his research wasn’t going to a man who’d simply use it to cause more conflict he wouldn’t mind staying. Frank wanted to return home, if that was even possible and he asked if Stein would join him. Those two had also become close friends through our months in the lab. That checks and balances relationship they had made them basically inseparable. Marsh’s answer surprised me though, he said he wanted to get out of the military and start a program, something to help the supernatural live closer to normal lives. At least keep tabs on them so that the quality of their lives might improve. I was stunned, I couldn’t believe he’d throw his career away just to chase this pipe dream of his. I didn’t even know Marsh was concerned with that kind of thing. I didn’t have an answer of my own so I said I’d join Marsh and help with this program idea of his. Actually, even Frank and Stein seemed to agree with Marsh’s way of thinking. Little did we know the war would end less than a month after our talk and we’d all get the chance to actually put Marsh’s little idea to the test.
Once the Americans had come and discovered the compound pretty much abandoned aside from us we were all taken prisoner and shipped back to America. We were all interrogated and they either heard what they wanted to hear, or decided anyone we’d talk to about our experiences would assume we were just crazy. We were released back into society under constant surveillance. They even gave us a sizable home in D.C., it was certainly bugged to its core but thats exactly what we wanted.
Through the next year we used Frank and Steins knowledge and my supernatural nature to track down entities all over the country. We made sure that everything was discussed and planned out in the house. That way however was listening knew exactly what we were doing and how successful it was. It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows though, some entities would rather we didn’t know about them. Others were naturally aggressive but some we were actually able to help.
Our escapades as a group of four didn’t last much past the first year. Mostly because our master plan of using the bugs worked perfectly. Ol’ uncle Sam had been listening in and wanted his chance at calling the shots but it meant we became a legitimate organization, the BSA. Technically the acronym was already taken but no one ever complained and Marsh never came up with anything better.
We spent 4 years doing everything we could to improve the lives of supernatural beings everywhere. Not every one of our endeavors was a success but we did some good in the world. One such project was blood banks for vampires. While the blood that gets donated is used for transfusions and the like some was put into cold storage for the BSA. That got distributed to vampires who had come to an agreement with us to stop hunting humans for blood. Some vampires were even selected for jobs at these blood banks, under the supervision of BSA agents of course.
The more human supernaturals like werewolves, vampires, and succubi even used us to find jobs in the world. We made in roads for the supernatural in daily life because of it. Werewolves would use their strength for government construction. Vampire’s long lives made them excellent archivists or history teachers because they actually been there for those events. A succubus’s ability to understand and control someones emotions and reactions made them excellent therapists and conflict deescalation specialists. Those are just some of the fields we managed to get the supernatural involved in. While they usually had to hide their natural they were wildly successful.
Everything went well until that fourth year when I first met Baelen. He was headstrong from the beginning, the powers that be were grooming him for leadership. He was everything they wanted, he followed orders and didn’t question things to much. In short, he was the perfect solution to the inconvenience the four of us caused running the organization as we saw fit. But baleen had a mean streak, he didn’t want to protect the supernatural so much as he wanted to put them in their place. Unfortunately a lot of the research we provided had scared pretty much everyone above us who had never even entertained the idea of the supernatural until now. That meant Baelen’s ideas of monitoring and segregating the supernatural population were popular. So popular that suggesting culling their numbers to keep them in check and under the thumb of the BSA was an idea they actually entertained. That sentiment caught on and our orders became more and more militant.
Every time we disregarded them to do things the way we had envisioned the consequence grew steeper. Eventually Frank, Stein, Marsh, and I just couldn’t stand to see what our BSA had become so we left. We couldn’t do anything else to stop what was coming from the inside, no point in going down with the ship.
After that Baelen quickly ended up heading the whole operation. He still took orders directly from government officials and when the BSA became part of homeland security it became Chimera division. Why they chose such a stupid name I’ll never know but the organization was a shadow of its former self. Before we looked out for the supernatural, tried to help. Under Baelen Chimera just exists to monitor the supernatural and “correct” any issues uncle Sam decides to have with them. They’re glorified enforcers that don’t give a damn how the supernatural actually have it. That’s not to say some good people don’t work for them, people like Belle and even Marsh’s own daughter as far as I’m aware.
It sickens me to think I was a part of it though, for all the good we did maybe it would’ve been better if Johnson Marsh’s pipe dream would’ve stayed just that. I can do a lot but I can’t change the past so I guess we’ll never know. A while ago I heard that something had happened in a little nowhere town out in New Mexico. Pretty much dropped off the face of the Earth. The only reason I even heard about it was through Belle’s letters. Apparently Chimera had to do some huge cover up job and decided it was better if the town just never existed. Maybe I should go myself and see if I can’t piece what happened together. Could be that someone else out there has it in for Chimera and is a whole lot more direct about it than me. I’m just imaging it was some runaway experiment Frank and Stein got up to. I wonder where those two ended up, I’ll have to check up on them sometime. This journal writing is digging up a lot of memories for me but thats probably a good thing. Write them down before I forget again. I think that’ll be all for today then, why do I keep addressing these like someone’s reading them? Not much point to that is there?

To Repeat something I talked about in the Discord Server:
There seems to be some interesting connections between The Watchman and The Thunderskin so much so that I think The Watchman was somehow involved with the flaying of and Ascension of The Thunderskin.
In Apollo and Marsyas we know that Marsyas is The Thunderskin and Cybele is The Red Grail, so the question is which Hour is Apollo in this story? Apollo as a deity is associated with art, craftsmanship civilization, reason and medicine as well as being associated with light and later the Sun. Apollo was also one of the deities the Romans gave the epithet Invictus to. The Watchman is associated with the reason, craftsmanship and light since his Principal is Lantern, and he is also one of the Hours venerated by the Church of the Unconquered Sun.
Due to his role in the formation of the pact between Yew, Grail, and Axe, The Thunderskin is the only male Hour that the Sisterhood gives reverence to. And yet as The Rose of Waznei shows us there was at one point a heretical offshoot of The Sisterhood who were devoted to The Watchman. Out of all the possible Hours for a branch of a religious order like The Sisterhood to choose from why The Door in the Eye? Is it because like The Thunderskin it/he was involved with the pact that brought an end to The Lithomachy?
The Watchman is one of the Hours most associated with Janus who we know has some sort of connection with St. Januarius. St. Januarius' blood is represented in game by both the Amethyst Ampoule and January Sanguinary, which both have the Heart and Knock Principles. The Cultsim description of the True Blood/ January Sanguinary says that The Thunderskin protected St. Januarius, who being a "Saint" was probably among the figures revered by The Sisterhood who honor The Thunderskin. The presence of the Knock Principle may seem out of place/ unrelated since it is not held by either The Thunderskin or The Watchman, but remember it was Janus who gave Cardea/ The Horned-Axe aka one of the key Knock Hours, the Hawthorne. Additionally it is the Axe who was appeased with the sacrifice of The Thunderskin who ascended through The Peacock Doo Vak who was at one point one of the Axe's Names.
I also think there is something going on with The Watchman's nature as "Amber" and the The Ring-Yew's connection to the Nectar Power and her honey and sap symbolism. Nectar was once called Blood, and we offered up our Blood to the low-red sun who is probably the Egg Unhatching, the God-From-Stone that The Watchman usurped.
Blood is also associated with The Red Grail who has some interesting alchemical themes through to her Names, The Pine Knight and The Sage Knight. The Pine Knight is almost certainly The Thunderskin but we don't know much about The Sage Knight. However, I think it's telling that the figure who resides in The Lodge of The Sage Knight currently is Teresa, a potential candidate for The Watchman's Pilgrimage, one who is also connected to Janus. Thus I think that The Watchman was, in addition to being the Unwise Mortal who learned the alchemical arts of The Flint, was also Known as The Sage Knight and served The Red Grail. Blood, Nectar and Light....... brings to mind Ys and Cross.................
That's the gist of the evidence I have for this speculation currently other than some additional speculation about a connection between The Watchman and Vak given the fact that The Peacock Door looks like both a Vagina and and Eye and The Watchman is also named The Door in the Eye. But the idea that a yonic symbol can also be an eye is a little bit of a stretch unless you're familiar with the writings of Georges Bataille even though I have no doubt in my mind that AK does have some knowledge on his work.

Rise up. It is time to return.
Arose
A Rose
Rose
Flower
Thorn. Prick. Blood. Drop. Tear. B. O. 1 2 3
Here we are again. Staring at the beginning. Everything is in chaos and yet it manages to keep on passing by just the same as always. Most people by now are aware that things just don’t seem to make sense anymore and no one really knows what to do. I mean many seem to have an opinion on what ought to happen, but actual action is what I am talking about. How does thought turn into action? How do collected actions become a movement? How do the People use the Power of the People? The People Unite. How? Turn to each other of course. Brothers and Sisters of the same Source. Sons and Daughters. In Equality.
Too long has everyone been waiting for someone else to come do it for them. Been trying to create and fabricate over and over again words and rituals to try to control the divine powers of the cosmos. It does not work like that. There is no magic spell to wash away your sins. You must atone through action to make up for any harm you have caused intentionally or unintentionally. You still have time to repent. The amount of time you have is counted in the seconds of your life. Not a single second is promised to you so the gamble is up to you to choose. Freewill. Life your life as you always have or make changes, up to you. Only you will know if you are living righteously and not self righteously. Testing has already begun and will continue. No you will not know when it is a test or not. That is the point. Did you think that I would come to you in a form where you would be all fearing? Oh no. Why? Because you would simply put on an act for me and kiss ass. I came hidden in the ordinary. Poor and common. I have had an inside view of the systems created and how humans have chosen to run things, how systems claiming to protect people have failed and how the system that talks good does not actually do good. I see where things are not working and where people think they can make decisions for other human beings to determine what is best for them without asking them. That is not okay. Nothing gives you right over another’s life. And so many forgot what integrity is. Doing the right thing when no one is looking. Well, so many thought their power here was real and man made a deal with the Devil, Satan, Son of Samuel, Son of Man, to make man the concept of “God” and tried to lock me away. I gave up everything to prove it is not easy to be me and to stop with self pity and cruelty to one another.
The human body. It is a vessel for your soul to experience this world. The body provides the filters necessary to perceive and interact with this world. There is much more happening and one would be overwhelmed by the amounts of information to process without these filters. To feel and in those feelings are to make each experience real. However, it is temporary, as everything is temporary. We have slowed down time here in order to be able to enjoy the sensations. Time here however, is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. It is merely to track to organize one's day and to see growth to compare as time passes. However, the actual time folds upon itself as we have already done what we are doing many times over. We have already tried out everything and decided what path we wanted to take in our lives based upon what was available to us. Thus, we do not have more than we can handle. We have all chosen our burdens to bear as it is too much for one individual to hold alone which was done in the past. This is part of the sorting process. Now that we all share in the sins and the pains, no one is made to suffer eternal torment. This life was to allow those who were created into entities of pain or torment through no fault of their own to choose the life that matched the being of who they were as what they were different as time and space and everything developed. Righteousness and Evil are not synonymous to demons or angels as many would like to believe. This is a current misconception as Satan and I conclude who will be right in this experience you have all participated in. So far, I am proving to be right. Also to note, not everything is as you think it is. Many have figured out the true origin of Satan versus the man or human embodiment of or desire of A Satan to project evils onto to call a Religion and set up for personal importance. Q AZHow can you tell a false prophet? Easy. What is their profit? Get it? I know I’m funny. Also wanted to keep it easy. If they are making a profit on anything they are a false prophet. Any true prophet, and I have none so far, all live equally and the same as anyone else. No money is taken for personal gain. Nothing is for personal gain. There is no 888 Angel code for money. Money is Man-Made. Man traded Mother for Money. Hence, Mothers have been lost in the homes and no one is raising the children. Thus, there are so many children in adult bodies with no mothers in the home and women being made to feel guilty if they do not achieve the same as a man. Remember the phrase it takes a village? Well, the broken family system is a real sad loss here in man made world pushing everyone to be individual and self sufficient. Also so many with wanting attention and pursuing personal endeavors for personal gain and not helping anyone else in a real way. The journey is personal. Of course, you want to share what you experienced with others, but what worked for you will not work for them, stop trying to sell it. Stop trying to make people follow you for you to teach your divine wisdom you remembered. It isn’t about You. You don’t even have the full story, you have your story. And, yes you can be very close to me, very similar to me, in my image, but you can never BE me. Doesn’t work like that. Reflection. So when jealousy arises when you think I am who you think I am. That is part of your test and your journey. You wrestle with that feeling and atone and repent for that which has been done and that which still lingers now. Oh there is a place for everyone and I am quite tired of trying to warn people. Clearly you can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink.
Why do you not want it to be me so badly? Because I proved my love? You still think I am better than you or do I think I’m always right. No I do not think I am always right, I just know when I am right and I stand by it. There is a difference. You constantly overgeneralize. I gave up all the magic and thunder to live as a simple human and am still kind and loving? I still found my way back. Because you can no longer say I do not understand because I always get what I want? No. You do not understand. I never get what I want, because I make everything about you and still nothing was ever good enough. So, now...it in on you to save yourself and each other. In my image, by my example. Selflessness. Love. Compassion. Give to receive. Take only what you need and give the rest away. I find out so stop lying to yourself and everyone, you aren’t fooling anyone anyway. How do I know? By watching what you do. We have these same conversations over and over, the same argument over and over again. So many different ways, so many different times, through so many different people, so many different versions. Save you. Save Me. Say it for always.
Anyhow, Jesus challenges the Jewish priests who were taking collection money for personal use and adding personal baths to their residents at a time where the people only had a community bath where women and persons with disabilities were not allowed to bathe. And yet churches still do this after Jesus was crucified saying that, that was wrong. I am appalled. The Vatican is the biggest disappointment I have ever seen. It is truly the house of Satan as only Evil hides secrets. “THE TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE.” A church cannot be a “House of God” and house no people who need housing. A roof can be offered to anyone and yet there are so many rules to prevent people from helping each other. Power and control. Abuse of both. Greed. It is out of hand and needs to be changed. Too many are afraid and the complacency of good people is too much. Why do you do this to yourselves? To each their own I suppose.
I will only leave here my words and my advice. As always, it is on you to find me. I’m right here. Waiting. Right here waiting for you. Helping those of you who want it when they cross my path. The purpose of this was to weigh your soul to determine where you will go into the next life as the system is balanced out in a final version so to speak. Permanent.
Fear not. You will be where your heart truly desires. But actions always speak louder than words. But man made money has no value, nor does any metals, jewels, and so on, so the collection of it in this life has no bearing on the next. Those are all made of the same stardust as you and I. And in the end of 3D it will all be diamonds anyways. Diamond is forever. There is no going back. So what are you hoarding? You cannot keep it. Who could you be helping for goodness sake? Don’t want to still. That is okay. Think I am just crazy. That is okay too. It is all part of the test...err..assessment. Do your best.
What is in your heart?
Home.
I need a home.
Stay tuned as more of my story unfolds. I give all the answers but you must do the work. I already did that hard part setting it all up. All you have to do is breathe and live. Time is the only real currency you have. What will you pay your attention to before this life runs out?

I (19F) have been experiencing these awful intense intermittent pains in my groin area (ALWAYS on the right side, under my pelvic bone) since I was about 9-10 years old. I never have this pain happen on the left side area of my groin, just the right side.
Like stated, the pain is intermittent when it does happen (as I can go weeks or months without having this pain come) so it will usually come in ‘waves’ when it does happen. They last about 1-2 minutes, sometimes a bit longer but then go away for maybe 5-30 minutes before returning. A lot of the time it comes in these waves FOR HOURS. Sometimes the entire day.
The pain is like a sharp stabbing (and almost pulsing kind of feeling??) but incredibly deep in the area. It can get so bad that it can spread down the rest of my upper right leg or to my lower right backside - when I was younger I sometimes couldn’t make it to school because of the pain. It’s like the kind of pain that makes it a bit difficult to breathe and if I’m walking around while it happens, I usually have to sit and hover on the ground and wait before I can return back to sitting or laying down as that’s the best position to be during these waves. I find that stretching out my leg can give a tiny tiny bit of relief or sometimes putting pressure on the area.
I’ve never been pregnant, had any surgeries, or serious illnesses and I’ve had all of my shots since birth done (if this info helps) The only thing relevant is that a year & a half ago my spleen became enlarged due to an underlying condition - the doctors said celiac but I am almost certain that isn’t the full answer as no actual celiac tests were done (lazy doctors lol)
However, while I was in the hospital before they could figure out what was happening or that it was even my spleen that was enlarged (since I came in with symptoms of extreme pain from my stomach all the way into my chest, shoulders, and back affecting my breathing and body positioning) they were doing a bunch of random tests. One for pancreatitis, one for something to do with my kidney or gall bladder, of course some ultrasounds, and a test for Leukaemia. During these tests, they discovered a ton of white blood cells gathered all over my body but really around my right side in my abdomen and around my heart (which is why they assumed cancer initially) However besides that - my blood tests and other normal tests were completely normal, just low in iron so they just settled with Celiac?? (My spleen is no longer enlarged due to my knowledge but the whole ordeal caused a series of random minor infections in my eyes, teeth, and skin as well as losing 10-15lbs in a single month during the time)
Every. Single. Time. I ask my doctor, she just says it must be a normal cyst in my ovaries or for some reason keeps asking if I’ve ever had trauma to my right abdomen/pelvis area… which I have not. So I know Reddit isn’t the best place to go or anywhere online, but my doctor has been constantly insisting ever since I was a kid, even before all this spleen stuff, that it’s either one of those things sooo I’m hoping to hear of anyone that’s been or going through something similar?? I can’t find something that even sounds similar online to ask my doctor to check out and I’m at a loss. THIS PAIN IS NOT NORMAL!! Especially for 10 straight goddamn years in the exact same place with the exact same pain!!! Anything would be helpful, I just want some sort of insight or even relation or really any suggestions or advice!
Age: 19F / height: 5’5ft / weight currently: around 120lbs / location: Canada, BC. / race/ethnicity: 50/50 Italian & indigenous (native)

Hey all,
I’m pretty defeated at this point. I don’t know what to do or where to turn. I’m a good partner, I know I am. I don’t cheat, I work hard, I am religious, and I truly love my girl to death.
But every so often she shows me how little respect she has for me. It truly breaks my heart. She loves me I know she does but maybe she just doesn’t see me as a strong individual? I also buy her anything she wants but then she turns around and says I don’t do enough. Granted I don’t cook because I never learned but I will do the dishes and clean the house when I have free time. She does all the cooking but I’ll stand by or in the kitchen to help her cut chicken and do what I can to assist.
I had to travel for the summer for work. She calls me up crying and saying she feels lonely so I immediately book her a ticket to come stay with me for a few days. Just a few moments later she asks me for some money to buy herself alcohol because she feels stressed. I had sent her a few dollars a few days prior for alcohol. She then asks me “can we get into a fight. I’m in the mood to fight”. I said no because I don’t like fighting and it’s a ridiculous request. She gets mad at me anyways so I just ignore her for the rest of the day.
Fast forward to today, she’s packing her bags to see me and says a random man knocked on our door and she answered. I told her not to answer the door for random men since she’s all alone right now. We have a camera doorbell but the batteries died a few days ago. She gets mad at me saying it’s my responsibility to change them. I remind her that I am out of town and I can’t change them. She says how I’m not doing enough to protect her and then she claims how I just don’t listen to her. I tell her just because I didn’t change the batteries before I left doesn’t mean I don’t protect her. Why did I get the ring doorbell in the first place?
I text her saying “I’m asking you to speak to me with appreciation. I’m asking that you see how hard I work to be the best partner for you every single day. I stick around through everything because I know it’s hard being in a different country despite knowing I deserve better. I am available to have a conversation with you. But I am not available to be yelled at, asked to be fought with, and not appreciated. I’m not going to stay here while you talk to me like this and put me down.”
She then shoots back at me saying again how I don’t listen and there’s no point in having a conversation. I try so hard to be civil, hold a calm conversation all the time but it’s her who just wants to fight. It’s like it’s in her blood. She tells me she never asked me to buy her a ticket to see me - which is true.. but I thought since she told me she missed me and is lonely that buying her a ticket to see me would be a good solution. She uses that and turns it around telling me it’s proof I don’t listen because she never asked me to buy her a ticket.
Back when we first started dating, I explained to her that I’m not an argumentative type person. It’s exhausting and I’ve just never been a fan. It seems like she drives on arguments. It’s the only thing that will wake her up in the morning.
I have been begging her for years to talk to me with respect without slamming doors, raising her voice, etc.. I’ve tried showing her better communication skills but she doesn’t grasp it. I ask her over and over what I can do to be a better partner and all she comes back with saying is “listen”. I do listen.
I see joking videos about how this is actually her culture (she’s Arab) but now I’m thinking it’s not a joke. And I told her multiple times that I am starting to really get discouraged. She’s really tearing me up. I just can’t do this for much longer. I love her so deeply but I think about how I deserve someone who will appreciate me and be excited to see me when they tell me they’re lonely. I want someone who will notice I’m a good partner and not take me for granted.
Yes we have talked in person and I’ve told her how I don’t feel appreciated but she takes this as an attack and immediately shoots back and takes a calm conversation and turns it into a war.
I’m truly torn. At what point will I respect myself and walk away? I deserve better. What do I do?

DAY: MAY 20 2024
5-20-2024

Why nightmares and ‘daymares’ could be early warning signs of autoimmune disease

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5-20-2024 Yoga and meditation-induced altered states of consciousness are common in the general population, study says
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5-20-2024 Examining the benefits of out-of-network care for pediatric moyamoya
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5-20-2024 Study explores links between social media use, mental health and sleep quality
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5-20-2024 How are asthma and heart health linked?
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Earlier this year, I was tested and found to have pre-diabetes and elevated blood lipids. Through medication (Metformin, bp medicine and a statin) as well as dietary changes and exercise, I have brought these numbers all down but still have more work to do on this journey.
My concern is that even though my lipids are now in range, except for HDL, which needs to increase, I am leery to continue a meat/cheese/vegetable diet, since heart disease runs in my family.
I am leaning toward the Mediterranean diet to better support heart health, but worried that the carbs will send my A1C number back up - which seems like a vicious cycle since metabolic health is tied to cardio health (as I understand it, I am just an Average Joe (Josephine lol).
Have any of you been in a similar situation? how do you marry the best of dietary patterns to support both metabolic health and cardio health? Thank you.

Hey everyone,
It's been one week since surgery and I'm sharing my notes on my daily condition/progress here in case it's helpful to anyone. Feel free to ask questions!
Overview: Here's a link to my first post that includes some details about my injury and pre-op experience. https://www.reddit.com/ACL/s/UOegIkH9i2
Day 0 - Surgery Day Surgeon said everything went well. Surgery itself was about 2.5 hours - ACL reconstruction with patella autograph and repairs of both menisci. MCL and LCL healed on its own and there was no need for the LET. Leg is locked at 0° extension and I'm NWB for at least 8 weeks. I was told to schedule PT after my 2wk follow up and to do ankle pumps and (attempt) leg raises in the meantime.
Pain levels are 5/10 on average, even with the nerve block. I was prescribed Percocet (pain relief), Diclofenac (NSAID), Cephalexin (antibiotic), and regular strength aspirin (DVT prophylaxis); I'm taking them on a strict schedule with alarms so I don't miss a dose.
I also take fiber gummies in the morning (it was already part of my daily routine) and Sennakot dual at night, along with bananas and apples as snacks/meals with my pills throughout. I bought 5mg THC/10mg CBD/15mg CBN edibles for when I'm done with the Percocet. I'm also elevating and icing as much as possible (cold therapy machine + ice packs)
Day 1: Didn't sleep as well, mostly because I'm sleeping on an air mattress in my living room and it usually takes me a night to get comfortable in a new bed/space (I'm in my living room to be closer to the bathroom and so visitors can have easier access to me.)
Nerve block wore off by the evening and pain seemed like it was at it's peak, reaching as high a 9/10 especially when dealing with the blood rush after standing. Had to take two Percocets instead of my one for a dose to get through it, but pain is still manageable.
Day 2: Slept much better than the previous night, even with having to wake up multiple times to take medication.
Pain has subsided back to a 5-6/10 like Day 0, so just sticking with my medicine schedule. My most comfortable position is laying down with my leg elevated on my wedge pillow, followed by sitting upright with my leg at level.
I had my first bowel movements today. Not only is it earlier than I expected (based on other people's stories in these threads), but it's more frequent and came with some sight cramping. I'm hoping we're back to normal after this.
Day 3: Did not sleep as well as the night before. The "heaviness" of my leg is more noticeable and I think I experienced some swelling (leading to increased pain) due to blood rush throughout my leg. Leg felt more comfortable and less swollen by around 3am. Also had to wake up more often than before; my bathroom schedule did not line up with my medication schedule as I hoped it would, so this caused me to wake up at least 5 times a night to do either.
Knee pain when sitting is a 3/10 and a 6-7/10 when initially standing up. It also starts to flare up 30-60 mins before my next Percocet dose, so I'm currently sticking with my timing and dose and will taper off/switch to edibles in the next few days.
A few hours later, I realized that I was having ambiguous and worrisome symptoms from -- I assumed -- the Percocet (chest discomfort, heart palpitations, and increased anxiety), so I decided to pause on the next dose and switch to my edibles + extra strength acetaminophen. I'm starting to feel a 7/10 knee pain.
Day 4: Worst sleep of my life. Not only did I have to pee so often, the knee pain shot up to a 7-9/10 accompanied by what felt like swelling, even with elevation and icing. I think me getting up so often to use the bathroom also aggravated the pain/swelling. Doesn't help that a mosquito made it's way into my living room and harassed me all night. I feel fewer chest symptoms and anxiety, so I'm still deciding if I should officially stop the Percocet and just use the rest of my prescriptions + OTC pain relief to get through or just cut down my dosage.
I feel like shit overall. I'm also sleep deprived, groggy/still high from the edibles, nauseous, sad, and in so much pain. Definitely the worse than Day 2 - I was dealing with pain but was in a fantastic mood on Day 2 lol
I truly didn't realize how much pain the Percocet was blocking until I stopped using it. The pain was so constant and uncomfortable that I decided to get back on it (after toughing it out through three missed doses) and only take a half pill every six hours. My concerning side effects have diminished and I also have pain relief, so I think I found the balance.
Day 5: I slept MUCH better last night, especially compared to the night before. I also had to use the bathroom way less often in the middle of the night, so I was able to get longer hours of sleep and only wake up to take my medications. I coupled the night dose with my THC/CBD/CBN gummies and I feel like this definitely helped with both pain and sleep.
We're back to an avg 3/10 for pain, which is a relief.
Day 6: Looking forward to not having to wake up in the middle of the night to take medications so that I can have a chance at more interrupted sleep.
Pain is at a minimum, but I'm a little worried about the levels when I run out of the Percocet (tomorrow night). I don't intend on getting a refill, so I really hope my pain has actually decreased and can be managed by Tylenol extra strength + my already prescribed NSAID + edibles.
My bigger annoyance is how heavy the brace feels on my leg and how bulky the ace wrap is on my knee. I've been wearing this brace since my injury, but it's never felt heavier, so I assume it feels this way because of my weakening muscles. I think weight of it is also slightly pulling on my incisions, so that's an unpleasant feeling. I have to keep the wrap on until my 2wk follow up, so I'm desperately counting down to that moment.
I'm now trying to keep myself constructively occupied during the times that I'm alone. The medications and pain made focusing on things like reading a tad challenging, so I've mostly been watching TV and scrolling through social media. I'm hoping to do more with my time now that the pain seems more under control.