Worksheets for adding ing and ed to words
Salty satire and morons unite.
2016.11.01 10:33 tilnewstuff Salty satire and morons unite.
A subreddit about people who miss the joke/satire.
2018.11.15 00:28 Eating Disorders Anonymous
A public subreddit for discussing the struggles of having an eating disorder. Much like an Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous group, we offer emotional support and harm reduction but no encouragement of furthering ED behaviors. This subreddit is not officially associated with the support group Eating Disorders Anonymous. We are not exclusive to or trying to “force” recovery on anyone.
2014.11.14 19:11 leelem0n Fuck Eating Disorders
Eating disorders have many misconceptions, in part due to sufferers hiding their illness from loved ones who don’t understand, perpetuating the cycle of silence. FED is here to confront eating disorders and provide a place for anyone to ask questions.
2024.05.21 17:49 Fearlessbrat How fast did you start noticing the behaviour of alienation in your child?
For my kids it started almost within two months and then now they barely talk to me. My 11 year old lied to the guardian ad litem and told her things I did not say and that I hit him and rubbed his ears and that I told him he is “an entitled bitch” I have never said this phrase in my life. I normally may use the F word but that that’s about it. He said I called him a narcissist, and a racist. Oddly these are things his dad says not me!
submitted by Fearlessbrat to ParentalAlienation [link] [comments]
2024.05.21 17:48 Necessary_Creme_182 DM treats cheater like main character
This is an abridged version of a 7,000+ word monstrosity spanning 4 campaigns, have fun! And TW for misogyny and human trafficking/slavery. Most of us were new to 5e, and signed up for a paid online DnD group during the start of Covid. There were 2 campaigns running simultaneously DMed by Enabler and his wife (who is really sweet and not the problem.) Deren started a free Phandelver game, then eventually Manipulator who was the director of the group started a campaign as well. Most of the cast played in all 4 games, but I couldn’t join Deren’s because of scheduling. Most of the drama happened in the campaign ran by Enabler which I’ll call the A-Men.
Cast:
Luno - a human Twilight Cleric. Cool dude.
Corgi - Didn’t play with the A-Men, but played a dwarf Battle Smith in the campaign parallel to ours. Wife to Luno irl. Cool lady.
Deren - half-elf Grave Cleric. Also cool dude.
Me - played a goliath Tempest Cleric
Dick - A perpetually drunk, arrogant asswipe. Played a warforged artificer.
Enabler - DM for the A-Men.
Manipulator - The main directoowner of the paid group.
Things started out nice in Enabler’s campaign, Luno, Deren, and I became fast friends and loved roleplaying with each other. But pretty soon the difficulty of combat started getting very difficult, and Enabler was forcing us to fight in encounters that would’ve been balanced for a party more than triple our level. As in, we as a level 2 party managed to take on an orc war chief, 2 ogres, an Eye of Gruumsh, and 5 or so orcs all in a cramped basement. The only way we were able to not die was by the 3 clerics spamming Healing Word on each other like whack-a-mole. This campaign and the group as a whole was marketed as “D&D for Beginners,” and we were all new to the game. At the time I didn’t realize how absurd the encounters were, I just thought it was my fault for being bad at the game. I don’t know why, but Enabler really wanted to kill all our characters… except for Dick’s.
Let me just get this out of the way first: Dick, was a dick. He would come to sessions sloshed, and continue drinking all game. He tried to get two different parties TPK’ed for no reason. He’d spout a bunch of racist and homophobic “jokes” that were very clearly not jokes. Oh, and he cheated, like, a lot. None of us liked him, but Enabler treated him like a golden child. None of us know why. He was showered with magical items and thousands of more gold than any of the rest of us. He was allowed to use busted homebrew none of the rest of us were. And most infuriatingly, he was allowed to cheat, more or less in the open. He’d fudge dice, even in DnD Beyond where his rolls were recorded. Hi warforged had higher health and stats than anyone, was allowed to use both a shield and a 2-handed rifle simultaneously, had more infusions than was allowed, and “mixed up” the loading and reloading properties between Eberron’s guns and Critical Role’s Bad News so he was allowed to do about 30 damage per turn, while the rest of us were doing about 5. Again, since all of us were new, we didn’t realize the blatant cheating till months later, and thought we just had to git gud.
Weirdly enough, Enabler never seemed to target Dick with his monsters. Couldn’t afford to risk scratching his favorite player’s gold-plated ass, certainly not! But for whatever reason my characters especially drew the Enabler’s ire. My cleric had chainmail and a shield so she was pretty tanky, and I guess he didn’t like that? During the basement orc fight he complained that he couldn’t put her down. I thought he was joking at the time, but looking back… yeah he wasn’t. Eventually I got tired of spending 3-4 hours unconscious so I took a level in Fighter to gain the Defense style for +1 AC. I was not hit by a single attack for the rest of the campaign. Everywhere the party went, regardless of the setting or context, every time we rolled initiative a mass of enemy clerics would spawn in and pelt me with 4-6 Sacred Flames and down my character within the first round or so. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. In a wizard’s tower? Clerics. Robbing a vault? Cleric are sitting in the vault. Keep in mind that Dick’s AC has been about 25 through all this because shenanigans.
Turns out Enabler was an asshole and a misogynist in his own right. He completely disregarded all female players in either his or his wife’s campaign (they were basically the same campaign, with the same plot and setting). Rarely responded to questions about the rules from me, and never bothered to send Corgi (who was playing a dwarf) his homebrew dwarf lore, even though the whole setting revolved around dwarves. Corgi found out about the dwarf lore through Luno. He asked me to write the worldbuilding for the goliaths, which I was happy to do. I researched the Poetic and Prose Eddas to make a culture based off the Jotunn, sent it to him, and he approved it. Wan’t till months later that I learned he scrapped the whole thing. Also, he rewrote my character’s backstory and never even bothered to tell me until (again) months later, in the middle of a session. I was the only girl in the A-Men. Shocker.
There were also only 2 friendly female NPCs the entire campaign, one of which was unconscious basically the whole time we knew her. But all those clerics we were mowing down? All Lolth cultists. Same goes for literally any other enemy spellcasters throughout the campaign (except for any Intelligence casters, those were men, of course.) Oh yeah, and he also made a human trafficking ring, just for my character! Basically he wanted the party to sell my character into slavery in order to progress the plot. Fun. Thankfully they didn’t do that (absolute Chads). This wasn’t in the other version of the campaign, of course.
Things finally ended when Dick tried to TPK the party again, and Enabler took the opportunity to try and kill the party once and for all. He triggered all encounters in the entire dungeon at once while our party was stuck in a pair of long hallways. My character was downed within the first round as usual from 6 Sacred Flames, got most of the party low with about 4 groups of 3-6 enemies each, then had the pair of bosses cast cloudkill and insect plague in the same area at the same time, then summoned a Barlgura. Despite Dick’s protests, the rest of the party drug my unconscious character out of the spell blender, turned around, and left the dungeon.
A few days after the session we got together and I posted a message on the group’s Discord detailing Dick’s cheating, and that I didn’t want to play with him anymore. I didn’t even mention my personal gripes with Enabler. Immediately I get a message from Manipulator, asking me to jump into a voice call with him and Enabler. Alarm bells start ringing in the back of my head, and ask if the other players can join as well. Enabler disappeared, and wouldn’t talk unless I was alone. Of course, a few days later when we did all get together to talk over voice chat, I was the problem player. Manipulator scolded me for not being communicative with Enabler. Luno immediately yelled “Bullshit!” Reminder, Enabler ignored all my messages and wouldn’t talk with women in the group. Luno, Corgi, and Deren all stood up for me (again, absolute Chads.) And Luno is a pretty quiet guy, and that was the only time I’ve ever heard him yell. There was a lot more going on with Manipulator, he sold us fake stickers, tried to get Corgi and Luno to work for him for free, and was a nightmare DM all on his own, but that’s a story for another time.
We all jumped ship after that, and I hear things got pretty nasty on the VC after I left. Apparently we were the first of several mass exoduses out of that group. Now we have our own free group and play often. Since then Corgi and Luno more or less adopted me as part of their family. We spend holidays together, they attended my college graduation, the whole nine yards. The lot are the sweetest people you could meet. Happy ending!
submitted by Necessary_Creme_182 to rpghorrorstories [link] [comments]
Cast:
Luno - a human Twilight Cleric. Cool dude.
Corgi - Didn’t play with the A-Men, but played a dwarf Battle Smith in the campaign parallel to ours. Wife to Luno irl. Cool lady.
Deren - half-elf Grave Cleric. Also cool dude.
Me - played a goliath Tempest Cleric
Dick - A perpetually drunk, arrogant asswipe. Played a warforged artificer.
Enabler - DM for the A-Men.
Manipulator - The main directoowner of the paid group.
Things started out nice in Enabler’s campaign, Luno, Deren, and I became fast friends and loved roleplaying with each other. But pretty soon the difficulty of combat started getting very difficult, and Enabler was forcing us to fight in encounters that would’ve been balanced for a party more than triple our level. As in, we as a level 2 party managed to take on an orc war chief, 2 ogres, an Eye of Gruumsh, and 5 or so orcs all in a cramped basement. The only way we were able to not die was by the 3 clerics spamming Healing Word on each other like whack-a-mole. This campaign and the group as a whole was marketed as “D&D for Beginners,” and we were all new to the game. At the time I didn’t realize how absurd the encounters were, I just thought it was my fault for being bad at the game. I don’t know why, but Enabler really wanted to kill all our characters… except for Dick’s.
Let me just get this out of the way first: Dick, was a dick. He would come to sessions sloshed, and continue drinking all game. He tried to get two different parties TPK’ed for no reason. He’d spout a bunch of racist and homophobic “jokes” that were very clearly not jokes. Oh, and he cheated, like, a lot. None of us liked him, but Enabler treated him like a golden child. None of us know why. He was showered with magical items and thousands of more gold than any of the rest of us. He was allowed to use busted homebrew none of the rest of us were. And most infuriatingly, he was allowed to cheat, more or less in the open. He’d fudge dice, even in DnD Beyond where his rolls were recorded. Hi warforged had higher health and stats than anyone, was allowed to use both a shield and a 2-handed rifle simultaneously, had more infusions than was allowed, and “mixed up” the loading and reloading properties between Eberron’s guns and Critical Role’s Bad News so he was allowed to do about 30 damage per turn, while the rest of us were doing about 5. Again, since all of us were new, we didn’t realize the blatant cheating till months later, and thought we just had to git gud.
Weirdly enough, Enabler never seemed to target Dick with his monsters. Couldn’t afford to risk scratching his favorite player’s gold-plated ass, certainly not! But for whatever reason my characters especially drew the Enabler’s ire. My cleric had chainmail and a shield so she was pretty tanky, and I guess he didn’t like that? During the basement orc fight he complained that he couldn’t put her down. I thought he was joking at the time, but looking back… yeah he wasn’t. Eventually I got tired of spending 3-4 hours unconscious so I took a level in Fighter to gain the Defense style for +1 AC. I was not hit by a single attack for the rest of the campaign. Everywhere the party went, regardless of the setting or context, every time we rolled initiative a mass of enemy clerics would spawn in and pelt me with 4-6 Sacred Flames and down my character within the first round or so. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. In a wizard’s tower? Clerics. Robbing a vault? Cleric are sitting in the vault. Keep in mind that Dick’s AC has been about 25 through all this because shenanigans.
Turns out Enabler was an asshole and a misogynist in his own right. He completely disregarded all female players in either his or his wife’s campaign (they were basically the same campaign, with the same plot and setting). Rarely responded to questions about the rules from me, and never bothered to send Corgi (who was playing a dwarf) his homebrew dwarf lore, even though the whole setting revolved around dwarves. Corgi found out about the dwarf lore through Luno. He asked me to write the worldbuilding for the goliaths, which I was happy to do. I researched the Poetic and Prose Eddas to make a culture based off the Jotunn, sent it to him, and he approved it. Wan’t till months later that I learned he scrapped the whole thing. Also, he rewrote my character’s backstory and never even bothered to tell me until (again) months later, in the middle of a session. I was the only girl in the A-Men. Shocker.
There were also only 2 friendly female NPCs the entire campaign, one of which was unconscious basically the whole time we knew her. But all those clerics we were mowing down? All Lolth cultists. Same goes for literally any other enemy spellcasters throughout the campaign (except for any Intelligence casters, those were men, of course.) Oh yeah, and he also made a human trafficking ring, just for my character! Basically he wanted the party to sell my character into slavery in order to progress the plot. Fun. Thankfully they didn’t do that (absolute Chads). This wasn’t in the other version of the campaign, of course.
Things finally ended when Dick tried to TPK the party again, and Enabler took the opportunity to try and kill the party once and for all. He triggered all encounters in the entire dungeon at once while our party was stuck in a pair of long hallways. My character was downed within the first round as usual from 6 Sacred Flames, got most of the party low with about 4 groups of 3-6 enemies each, then had the pair of bosses cast cloudkill and insect plague in the same area at the same time, then summoned a Barlgura. Despite Dick’s protests, the rest of the party drug my unconscious character out of the spell blender, turned around, and left the dungeon.
A few days after the session we got together and I posted a message on the group’s Discord detailing Dick’s cheating, and that I didn’t want to play with him anymore. I didn’t even mention my personal gripes with Enabler. Immediately I get a message from Manipulator, asking me to jump into a voice call with him and Enabler. Alarm bells start ringing in the back of my head, and ask if the other players can join as well. Enabler disappeared, and wouldn’t talk unless I was alone. Of course, a few days later when we did all get together to talk over voice chat, I was the problem player. Manipulator scolded me for not being communicative with Enabler. Luno immediately yelled “Bullshit!” Reminder, Enabler ignored all my messages and wouldn’t talk with women in the group. Luno, Corgi, and Deren all stood up for me (again, absolute Chads.) And Luno is a pretty quiet guy, and that was the only time I’ve ever heard him yell. There was a lot more going on with Manipulator, he sold us fake stickers, tried to get Corgi and Luno to work for him for free, and was a nightmare DM all on his own, but that’s a story for another time.
We all jumped ship after that, and I hear things got pretty nasty on the VC after I left. Apparently we were the first of several mass exoduses out of that group. Now we have our own free group and play often. Since then Corgi and Luno more or less adopted me as part of their family. We spend holidays together, they attended my college graduation, the whole nine yards. The lot are the sweetest people you could meet. Happy ending!
2024.05.21 17:48 TheLastRiter I never should have gone to this farmhouse alone [Part 2]
[Part 1]
Day 3
I woke the next morning from the sunshine in my eyes. My head was resting ever so slightly on Eli's arm as we had both fallen asleep on my bed after I begged him to stay. I blanched in horror at the drool stain I had left on the arm of his white t-shirt.
I began to slowly move myself and retreat downstairs as the memories of the night before came flooding back. How I had broken, screaming in terror, and how Eli had saved me, not knowing the true reason he found me curled up on the floor crying.
As I stepped off the bed, my leg got snagged in the frilly bed cover, and I went crashing to the ground, making quite the noise as I landed. With a yawn, Eli's eyes opened, and I felt myself blushing as he turned to look at me.
We both kind of stared at each other for a moment, not speaking. Eli opened his mouth, then closed it again as if unsure of what to say.
"Coffee?" I asked quickly, filling the awkwardness of our situation.
"Please," Eli said, smiling.
In minutes, I had a pot brewing as I leaned against the kitchen counter. Eli was picking up the scattered photographs from the floor and looking at them quizzically.
"Why do you have pictures of the Harmons?" Eli asked, showing me the photos of the yellow-haired man and his family.
"Is that their names? I found them out in the barn under a blanket," I answered as I rooted around the cupboards for two mugs.
"In the barn? I cleaned it out just last week. No way I would have missed this trunk," Eli said while examining the wooden trunk with its simple rustic hinges. It was plain and unadorned with any embellishments. Basic as basic could be.
"Well, you must have missed it because it was there," I said, putting emphasis on the "was" in a way that reminded me of my mother chastising my father.
"That's so weird," he said, shifting through the photos while sitting at the table. I brought him a cup of coffee and sugar, and he began absentmindedly adding a lot of sugar to his coffee. About six scoops later, he began stirring and sipping it.
"Well, anyways, thanks for coming last night. I wasn't myself, I hope you know that I'm not some damsel in distress," I said quickly, like word vomit, and I even chuckled at the end, feeling like a total weirdo.
"What happened anyway? You didn't say last night," he said, putting the photos down in a jumble on the table.
I paused for a moment, considering how to answer. As I sipped my coffee, I stared out into the yard beside the barn where the scarecrow stood, glancing around the edge of the barn, hanging limply in his hole. His appearance once again sad and dejected instead of murderous and terrifying.
"I was just scared, I had a nightmare, and it just scared me," I said dumbly, trying not to turn crimson again under his intense gaze.
His eyes seemed to cut right through my lie, as if he were staring directly into my being before he simply glanced away out the window. We fell silent again, and I filled some moments by sipping my drink. It seemed to revitalize me; the sun and the company made me feel secure.
"Why were you here anyways?" I asked after a moment.
"I heard screaming, so I came running. I live just on the other side of the grass there, behind the barn," Eli said, pointing to the barn out the window.
"Must be really close, I didn't see any houses on the way in," I said, prying deeper into the situation.
"It's actually a trailer, maybe like two hundred yards from here. I was outside getting some air when I heard you scream. So, I came running," Eli said, finishing his cup of coffee and placing it in between us like a barrier, as if he was hiding something.
"Could you, uh, not do that?" Eli asked, with an uncertain grin on his face.
"What am I doing exactly?" I asked, startled for a moment, my stomach doing a sort of flip.
"It's just that you like stare at people. You've been staring at me for like my whole cup of coffee, I don't think you blinked the whole time," Eli said, averting his eyes shyly.
"No, I don't," I said until I realized he was right. I never noticed that about myself.
"Right, well, I've got to go. I am probably going to start painting today, so you might see me in a bit," Eli said, rising and heading to the door.
"Wait," I said, grabbing his arm for only a moment before releasing it like it was scalding hot.
Eli glanced at my hand for a moment, then at his arm, before he, too, blushed crimson.
"I just wanted to say thank you again. For last night, I mean. Well, what I mean is I appreciate it," I said, my eyes downcast in, for some reason, shame. Like he had seen me at my weakest and it weighed on my gaze appropriately.
"It was nothing, besides I didn't get much sleep with your constant snoring," Eli said, laughing at me.
"I so don't snore," I said, swatting at him but unable to control a smile creeping up onto my face.
After Eli left, I felt instantly colder, my eyes kept returning to the scarecrow. I grabbed my camera from upstairs and went out to the yard. I scanned the dirt for anything out of the ordinary. There was no blood, or anything on the dirt where the scarecrow stood just last night. I slowly made my way to the scarecrow, but nothing happened. I snapped a photo of the inanimate object, and it didn't even flinch. I poked it, but all I felt was straw underneath its clothes. I removed its mask, expecting a severed head, but it was just straw. Nothing was here but straw. I dropped the mask on the ground and took another photo proving it was just straw and nothing else.
An idea struck me as I regarded the source of my torment. If I planned to stay even one more night here, I needed to do something about this scarecrow. I rooted around in the barn, a series of tools hung from nails in the wall. On one hung what I was searching for. An old rusted shovel with a dirty wooden handle that was worn smooth from use.
I returned to the side of the barn beside the scarecrow, knowing for whatever reason this thing only came when night fell and didn't react at all when I moved or touched it during the day.
Before my morning coffee had even settled, I began to dig at the dusty earth, loose and easy to dig, it came away in shovelfuls. Within an hour, I had a fair-sized hole in front of me. Sweat dripped from my brow, and when I wiped under my eyes, they came away black from last night's makeup. Glancing at the field of grass and knowing Eli could appear at any time, I decided to head inside and shower. The hot water was a godsend, and I lingered for longer, letting the water drain down my head and back, my eyes closed, trying to forget the images from the last two nights. I should just pack up my car and leave right this minute. But how could I explain this to my family? I decided to go through with my plan and bury the scarecrow. I could last one more night if I prepared for it.
I left the shower and dressed modestly, in another one of my old rock t-shirts and a pair of shorts. I returned to the yard and with a satisfying push, I dropped the scarecrow into the pit. It fell with a nice thud, and I smiled at my power over it in the day; it's just at night when I should fear it.
As I threw the first shovel of dirt back on top, I heard a noise in the grass, and it parted, revealing Eli wearing the same pair of jeans and work boots, but he had changed his shirt to a plain black one. In each hand, he held cans of paint and a brush.
"Should I even ask why you are burying that old scarecrow?" He asked as he came to stand beside me.
"Probably best if you didn't," I admitted, leaning on the shovel.
"Well, I'm going to anyway. Polly, why are you burying that old scarecrow?" He asked, a rare smile coming to his face.
"Because it's been haunting me at night," I said bluntly.
"Mhm, yeah, okay. Fine, don't tell me. I've been meaning to get rid of it anyway, but normal people take things to the landfill," Eli said with a smirk as he turned to the house and began setting up for his painting.
I finished burying the scarecrow and stomped the dirt down flat. I finished my job by moving my car and parking it directly over top of the spot where I buried it.
Eli watched me curiously but didn't remark. I returned the shovel to the barn and went out into the yard. I decided to go for a hike around the property. I needed some time alone to think and unwind.
As I made my way through the grass, it began to confuse me. This had obviously been a large farmland, but how had the wild plants grown in such a thick, endless maze of greenery?
It gave me an eerie feeling, like I was being watched as the grass covered three-quarters of my body, like there would be something lurking out in the grass, crouched low, waiting for me.
After a half-hour or so, I came upon a clear lake, only big enough to be considered an old swimming hole, I thought as I dipped my hand into the cool water.
I took off my outer clothes and decided to go for a swim. I lowered myself in slowly and reveled at the cool water. The pond wasn't deep, but the water was clean. A small rope swing had been hung from a large oak tree that bordered the pond. It also provided a nice layer of shade that made it the ideal spot to spend the day. I floated on my back in the water for what seemed like hours. The day seemed to slip away from me. A small beach of sand sat at one side of the pond, so I lay out in the sun and closed my eyes. The warm day warmed my soul, and soon I felt myself drifting off into sleep.
I awoke to the sound of crickets and darkness. I couldn't believe it. I had slept through the day; the long nights had finally caught up to me, and now I was stuck far away from the farmhouse. I didn't know if my plan with the scarecrow had worked, and this wasn't the place to test my theory.
A full moon lay overhead, casting a silvery glow on the world before me. A sea of grass swayed gently in the wind, sending shivers down it in shuddering waves. I looked around, but I was thankfully alone, just the crickets chirping along melodically as my only companions.
I had to make it back to the house, so I started on my way, my hands trailing along the tall grass. The pale light played easily on the deep green grass. Step by step, I made my way back towards the farmhouse and the barn, throwing caution to the wind, and I started to jog along, anything to get back faster. I would have to find Eli; maybe if we were together, he could stop it like before.
If I thought the field was creepy during the day, by night, it was a whole new world. Every sound made my heart stop for a beat before restarting in protest. When all of a sudden, the crickets stopped chirping. I dropped to my knees, letting the long grass cover me from sight. Through the strands, I could make out a shape moving slowly through the tall grass, the swish of the plants as it made its passage through them. My heart dropped. Was this Eli looking for me, or was it the scarecrow come for me?
That's when I heard a voice, a voice cutting through the silence. It started off quiet and raspy as it sang an eerie children's song.
"Did you, did you, did you come for me?
Run and hide, don't you know that I seek
The world it claims that I be not clean
When I come, you'll see how filthy I can be.
Tonight, it is happening, tonight you'll see
Beneath the moon, my shadows they do creep.
In this world, at night I shall be free.
Tonight it's happening, tonight you'll see.
When I come, you had better flee, or else I'll come and give my filth to thee."
I was frozen to the spot. It hadn't found me, but it knew I was in the grass somewhere. Now, with each word, chewed up and spat out like it was unhappy with it, now it was accompanied by the whistle of something in the air and a slicing sound as it cut through the grass around me.
It finished another round of its song, but now it stood within feet of me, its blade whistling as it cut. I took a moment to ready myself, and as it raised its blade to cut through the grass I hid in, I dashed out of my hiding spot and slammed into it. But nothing resisted me; I fell through it like it was a ghost.
In a tangle of limbs, I landed hard on the ground and tried quickly rolling to my feet. The blade of its weapon pierced the earth beside me. Now I could see it was a two-handed scythe the scarecrow carried, but something was off, its hands were human. Pale milky skin like a newborn baby. I had little time to examine the creature except for the canvas bag over its head. Two large black eyes came out of the slits that leaked a dark red blood like tears.
It screeched loudly and swung its scythe, but it was slow, and I took off through the grass in the direction of what I hoped was the farmhouse.
I completely gave up all pretense of hiding and sprinted as fast as I could without looking back. The grass seemed to part for me as I ran in terror. I was just glad that in high school, I had taken track as it was paying off now.
I could hear the noise of footsteps behind me, but I never turned. I ran and ran until my lungs felt like they were going to burst Something silver flashed to my left, and I tripped over something hard and unexpected. The wind was driven from my lungs as my chin slammed hard into the earth. I scrambled back, trying to escape, but the scarecrow was on me, its blade flashing angrily in the pale moonlight.
I wanted to move, I wanted to fight, but my body was weak and unable to catch its breath, and I lay there helpless as it swung its scythe towards me. I closed my eyes in fear, but I only heard the thud of dirt before I opened my eyes. The scythe was discarded, and the scarecrow stood staring at me.
It seemed to be struggling with something, one hand reached out towards me only to be snapped back to its side. A roar of rage pierced the canvas sack over its head as it struggled against its invisible bonds. For a moment, I thought I saw something behind it, three sets of hands holding it back. One feminine in nature, and the other two must have belonged to children. In a flash, I saw a beautiful woman who looked vaguely familiar with her long brown hair and plain dress.
"Run," she moaned as the scarecrow swung around wildly.
I didn't hesitate and fled, my breath had returned, and while my body still ached from my fall, I powered on, knowing this was the only respite I would receive tonight.
In the distance, I could see a small sheet metal shape; Eli's trailer was slowly coming closer as I ran, and I beelined it for the trailer. I could hear the footsteps behind me again as the scarecrow resumed its chase after me.
I reached the old trailer and banged on the door as loud as I could; I rattled the handle, but it was locked.
"Eli, it's me. It's Polly, please let me in. Please," I begged as I banged over and over again on the door of his trailer.
Nothing responded to me, and the trailer was dark. The single window in the back held no life inside the trailer. From the trailer, I couldn't tell which direction the farmhouse was in the dark, so I fled into the tall grass and crouched low, watching the clearing around the trailer.
While I caught my breath, I watched the scarecrow enter the clearing, its scythe back in its hand as it circled the trailer. When its raspy voice began singing again low and quiet, only loud enough for me to hear.
"Did you, did you, did you come for me?
Run and hide, don't you know that I seek
The world it claims that I be not clean
When I come, you'll see how filthy I can be.
Tonight, it is happening, tonight you'll see
Beneath the moon, my shadows they do creep.
In this world, at night, I shall be free.
Tonight it's happening, tonight you'll see.
When I come, you had better flee, or else I'll come and give my filth to thee."
The song made me shiver uncontrollably at the lyrics and the voice; it sounded demented like a crazy person letting their demons out into a nursery rhyme.
I lay perfectly still; for some reason, it couldn't find me. This creature I assumed was all-knowing seemed to have some very human weaknesses. It moved and talked like a human, even had certain body parts that were from a human; it even felt human the way it chased and reacted.
The scarecrow moved on through the tall grass, and I let out a sigh of relief as it lost my trail. How terrifying that beast was. In my pocket was the keys to my car. Eli had told me that the farmhouse was fairly close to his trailer. I had to navigate to the car, then drive as fast as I can away from this place. The fact that I hadn't left already because I was worried about money was insane. Who cares, I could drive to Barb's and demand my money back. Go home and just tell my parents the truth. The whole reason for actually leaving home this summer, why I was actually here in this field shivering uncontrollably in fear. But I couldn't think about that now, not now, there will be time to deal with that later. Now I needed to focus on staying alive, getting to the car, and getting out of here.
I went in the direction the scarecrow had; he knew the land better than I did, and every noise I made in the silence of the night made my heart drop. It took all my courage there and then to take one step forward, then another. I felt like I was going to be sick; my stomach was in knots to where it felt like even if I was sick, the only thing to come out would be only bile and stomach acid.
With each careful step, I made my way closer to the farmhouse and the scarecrow. Through the darkness, I could see my goal, the farmhouse, and the barn. Within minutes, I had made it securely to the farmhouse yard.
My car still sat in the same spot overtop of the hole where I buried the scarecrow. In the moonlight, I could see that the dirt had not been disturbed.
The scarecrow was nowhere to be seen, and I cautiously made my way to my car, my keys in my hand as I approached the driver's door. I hadn't locked the car, and it opened on the first try. I turned on my car as quietly as I could, but nothing could have prepared me for what happened next.
Something landed heavily on top of the roof of my car, making it dent inwards slightly. With horror, I saw the scarecrow swing its scythe into the back window of my car. With a crash, the glass shattered inwards; I put my car into gear and roared away down the lane. In my rearview mirror, I couldn't see anything, so I swerved back and forth, trying to shake the creature from the roof of my car when the scythe crashed in through the front window, making a hole just large enough for it.
The glass spidered, and I couldn't see out the window very well. I swerved down the road, but the scythe remained in the car, allowing the creature purchase. In a panic, I spun my wheel wildly, trying to dislodge it, but I lost control, and soon felt something crash into the front of my car. The airbag went off in my face, and I hadn't been wearing my seatbelt. I slammed hard into something else, and my vision went dark. I was in a daze; I must have passed out because I don't remember a lot of what happened next. I felt the car door open with a crunching tear, and it landed loudly as it was torn off. My body being grabbed and tossed on the ground. I felt no pain, just a gentle numbness. I felt blood on my head as I raised my arm to touch my face.
Then just blackness, complete, and empty just feelings, fear, unease, sadness. My eyes opened, and the scarecrow was overtop of me. Pain on my chest and my vision went dark again. Coughing as something poured down my throat. I couldn't breathe, why couldn't I breathe?
My eyes opened one last time, and I saw the scarecrow pouring a dark liquid from its mouth directly into my mouth and eyes. My vision was red and bloody before I closed them one last time.
The words of its song echoed into the emptiness of my thoughts.
"Did you, did you, did you come for me?
Run and hide, don't you know that I seek?
The world it claims that I be not clean.
When I come, you'll see how filthy I can be.
Tonight, it is happening, tonight you'll see,
Beneath the moon, my shadows they do creep.
In this world, at night, I shall be free.
Tonight it's happening, tonight you'll see.
When I come, you had better flee, or else I'll come and give my filth to thee."
The darkness enveloped me, and I felt myself slipping away, the sounds of the night fading into oblivion.
Day 4
When I awoke, it was morning, and I found myself lying in a hospital bed. My head throbbed with pain, and my body ached all over. The memories of the terrifying night flooded back to me, and I shuddered involuntarily.
A nurse entered the room, her kind eyes filled with concern. "You're awake," she said softly, her voice gentle like a soothing balm. "You're lucky to be alive. You were found unconscious by the side of the road next to your car. Do you remember what happened?"
I tried to speak, but my throat felt raw and dry. I croaked out a few words, barely audible. "The scarecrow... it attacked me..."
The nurse frowned, her brows furrowing in confusion. "Scarecrow? What scarecrow?"
My heart raced with panic as I realized the truth. Had it all been a nightmare? But the pain in my body felt too real, the memories too vivid to be mere hallucinations.
I tried to explain, to tell her about the terrifying creature that had pursued me through the night, but she only looked at me with concern, as if I were delusional.
"I'll get the doctor, and there is a young man who brought you in. He has been here all morning," the nurse said with a sly wink.
After a few minutes, she came back with Eli and a doctor, both of whom smiled gently at me through the window. The doctor came in first and went over my health with me. I had a concussion and bruises all over my body. A generous-sized cut from some glass on my scalp had been stitched and bandaged. My mind flashed back to the night before. How the scarecrow had filled me with its gooey red blood.
"Did you find anything else?" I asked cautiously, trying to avoid another scandal like with the nurse.
"No, as long as you have someone to pick you up and take you home, you are free to go. That nice young man out there said he would take you back home," the doctor said, pointing to Eli as he rose with a slight grunt.
I glanced at Eli, and he waved uncertainly at me. The doctor went out and began talking to Eli for a few minutes.
While I waited, my mind began to have strange thoughts. Something was wrong; I felt weird. My vision turned red, and I began to see images before my eyes.
The Harmons. They flashed before my eyes in real-time—the husband hugging his wife, then swinging his kids around, chopping wood outback next to the barn while his wife cooked in the kitchen.
As Eli entered the room, the visions stopped suddenly. Like my saving angel for the third time now, I was extremely grateful to Eli.
"Heyyyyy," Eli said, elongating the word in a sort of familiar yet awkward way.
"Hi," I said, closing my eyes and letting my embarrassment pass in only a few seconds.
"Why is it that fifty percent of the times we meet, you're in serious trouble?" Eli asked, coming to sit on the edge of my bed.
"Oh, you know me, bad luck, I guess," I said simply, becoming aware that under my blankets, I was in a backless hospital gown, and he was inches away from me.
I pulled the blanket up to my chin as a sort of cover for my appearance, but Eli didn't seem to notice. He continued talking to me. It was actually really sweet the way he seemed to care for me.
"Anyways, the doctor said I could take you back to the farmhouse to rest," Eli said.
"No," I said suddenly, becoming serious.
"What? Why not?" Eli asked.
"I just, I just can't right now. I'll tell you later. Just, we can't spend the night anywhere near the farm," I said, grabbing him by the arm, hoping to sway him.
"Well, I mean, if you want, we can grab your stuff, and my house can literally go anywhere," Eli said in an offhand manner, as if he had expected this.
"Promise?" I asked, trying not to seem too afraid.
Within the hour, we had returned to the farmhouse. The hole I dug was still covered over, and I stared at it as we parked in Eli's black pickup truck.
I ran inside and quickly got changed into my only clean clothes, grabbing everything I had from the farmhouse. I paused at the dinner table, looking down at the photographs of the Harmons and thinking back to that weird moment in the hospital with that odd vision.
The day was getting longer, and I hurried back to Eli, waiting in the pickup truck. I threw my bag in the back and climbed in beside him. He smiled and backtracked down the lane. We turned to the left and went down a side road where we came upon my poor old car. It had crashed directly into a tree, and the whole front part of the car had been destroyed. Fluid leaked all over the road, and I almost shed a tear for my departed friend. We had traveled far together. I grabbed a few things from the car, but something was off about the car. The front door had been knocked off and was discarded on the far side of the road. It looked impossible; the door hadn't even hit the tree.
Eli hooked his truck up to his trailer, and we sped off, leaving the property behind us. We headed into town and found a pullout on the side of the road with a set of bathrooms to camp at for the night. Eli's trailer was messy but cozy. He had laundry strewn over most surfaces, but it didn't smell bad.
The room consisted of a small kitchen with a bed in one corner. There were also a lot of posters and artwork on the walls. I examined one of a pretty girl with long raven-black hair. It was a realist painting, obviously taken from real life.
"Who is this?" I asked as Eli made us some food.
"That is just a friend," Eli said, glancing at the painting he had done.
"Well, she is a pretty friend," I said, enjoying watching the back of his ears turn bright red.
"Dinner's ready," he said, pouring the mixture of food he had made onto a pair of plates.
Eli served me and handed me a can of Coke to drink. I thanked him and sat on his bed. It was the only serviceable piece of furniture in the whole trailer. We both sat in silence for a moment while we ate. I could tell something was bothering Eli as he kept making glances toward me.
"What? What is it, Eli? Just say it," I said between bites.
"Tell me what happened, Polly. Tell me why you were burying the scarecrow, why you were passed out in the road with straw in your hair. Tell me why you were muttering about the Harmons and a scarecrow when I found you," Eli said suddenly, as if he were unloading a machine gun.
I looked Eli square in the face and relented. I told him about the last couple of nights at the farmhouse, about how the scarecrow had been tormenting me every night. About how he had saved me and how last night I had fled through the fields to his trailer and then to my car. I told him about the vision I had about the Harmons in the hospital. By the end of it, I was in tears. I felt so foolish and childish.
Eli took it in stride. He asked a few questions during my retelling, but by the end of it, he was silent. Tears fell down my face and landed in my lap. We had both put our plates on the counter, and Eli hugged me. He put his arms around me, and I nuzzled into his shoulder, feeling comforted again in him at the lowest points of my life.
With a gentle hand, he wiped away my tears, and I smiled, letting a nervous laugh escape my lips. I looked up into his face and felt his stare before I saw it. His pale blue eyes shone with comfort, and then his lips were on mine as he kissed me quickly before pulling away slightly.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that. That was insensitive of me. You're sad, and I took advantage of that," Eli said, moving back slightly.
"Shut up," I said, and grabbed his shirt, bringing him back in.
submitted by TheLastRiter to nosleep [link] [comments]
Day 3
I woke the next morning from the sunshine in my eyes. My head was resting ever so slightly on Eli's arm as we had both fallen asleep on my bed after I begged him to stay. I blanched in horror at the drool stain I had left on the arm of his white t-shirt.
I began to slowly move myself and retreat downstairs as the memories of the night before came flooding back. How I had broken, screaming in terror, and how Eli had saved me, not knowing the true reason he found me curled up on the floor crying.
As I stepped off the bed, my leg got snagged in the frilly bed cover, and I went crashing to the ground, making quite the noise as I landed. With a yawn, Eli's eyes opened, and I felt myself blushing as he turned to look at me.
We both kind of stared at each other for a moment, not speaking. Eli opened his mouth, then closed it again as if unsure of what to say.
"Coffee?" I asked quickly, filling the awkwardness of our situation.
"Please," Eli said, smiling.
In minutes, I had a pot brewing as I leaned against the kitchen counter. Eli was picking up the scattered photographs from the floor and looking at them quizzically.
"Why do you have pictures of the Harmons?" Eli asked, showing me the photos of the yellow-haired man and his family.
"Is that their names? I found them out in the barn under a blanket," I answered as I rooted around the cupboards for two mugs.
"In the barn? I cleaned it out just last week. No way I would have missed this trunk," Eli said while examining the wooden trunk with its simple rustic hinges. It was plain and unadorned with any embellishments. Basic as basic could be.
"Well, you must have missed it because it was there," I said, putting emphasis on the "was" in a way that reminded me of my mother chastising my father.
"That's so weird," he said, shifting through the photos while sitting at the table. I brought him a cup of coffee and sugar, and he began absentmindedly adding a lot of sugar to his coffee. About six scoops later, he began stirring and sipping it.
"Well, anyways, thanks for coming last night. I wasn't myself, I hope you know that I'm not some damsel in distress," I said quickly, like word vomit, and I even chuckled at the end, feeling like a total weirdo.
"What happened anyway? You didn't say last night," he said, putting the photos down in a jumble on the table.
I paused for a moment, considering how to answer. As I sipped my coffee, I stared out into the yard beside the barn where the scarecrow stood, glancing around the edge of the barn, hanging limply in his hole. His appearance once again sad and dejected instead of murderous and terrifying.
"I was just scared, I had a nightmare, and it just scared me," I said dumbly, trying not to turn crimson again under his intense gaze.
His eyes seemed to cut right through my lie, as if he were staring directly into my being before he simply glanced away out the window. We fell silent again, and I filled some moments by sipping my drink. It seemed to revitalize me; the sun and the company made me feel secure.
"Why were you here anyways?" I asked after a moment.
"I heard screaming, so I came running. I live just on the other side of the grass there, behind the barn," Eli said, pointing to the barn out the window.
"Must be really close, I didn't see any houses on the way in," I said, prying deeper into the situation.
"It's actually a trailer, maybe like two hundred yards from here. I was outside getting some air when I heard you scream. So, I came running," Eli said, finishing his cup of coffee and placing it in between us like a barrier, as if he was hiding something.
"Could you, uh, not do that?" Eli asked, with an uncertain grin on his face.
"What am I doing exactly?" I asked, startled for a moment, my stomach doing a sort of flip.
"It's just that you like stare at people. You've been staring at me for like my whole cup of coffee, I don't think you blinked the whole time," Eli said, averting his eyes shyly.
"No, I don't," I said until I realized he was right. I never noticed that about myself.
"Right, well, I've got to go. I am probably going to start painting today, so you might see me in a bit," Eli said, rising and heading to the door.
"Wait," I said, grabbing his arm for only a moment before releasing it like it was scalding hot.
Eli glanced at my hand for a moment, then at his arm, before he, too, blushed crimson.
"I just wanted to say thank you again. For last night, I mean. Well, what I mean is I appreciate it," I said, my eyes downcast in, for some reason, shame. Like he had seen me at my weakest and it weighed on my gaze appropriately.
"It was nothing, besides I didn't get much sleep with your constant snoring," Eli said, laughing at me.
"I so don't snore," I said, swatting at him but unable to control a smile creeping up onto my face.
After Eli left, I felt instantly colder, my eyes kept returning to the scarecrow. I grabbed my camera from upstairs and went out to the yard. I scanned the dirt for anything out of the ordinary. There was no blood, or anything on the dirt where the scarecrow stood just last night. I slowly made my way to the scarecrow, but nothing happened. I snapped a photo of the inanimate object, and it didn't even flinch. I poked it, but all I felt was straw underneath its clothes. I removed its mask, expecting a severed head, but it was just straw. Nothing was here but straw. I dropped the mask on the ground and took another photo proving it was just straw and nothing else.
An idea struck me as I regarded the source of my torment. If I planned to stay even one more night here, I needed to do something about this scarecrow. I rooted around in the barn, a series of tools hung from nails in the wall. On one hung what I was searching for. An old rusted shovel with a dirty wooden handle that was worn smooth from use.
I returned to the side of the barn beside the scarecrow, knowing for whatever reason this thing only came when night fell and didn't react at all when I moved or touched it during the day.
Before my morning coffee had even settled, I began to dig at the dusty earth, loose and easy to dig, it came away in shovelfuls. Within an hour, I had a fair-sized hole in front of me. Sweat dripped from my brow, and when I wiped under my eyes, they came away black from last night's makeup. Glancing at the field of grass and knowing Eli could appear at any time, I decided to head inside and shower. The hot water was a godsend, and I lingered for longer, letting the water drain down my head and back, my eyes closed, trying to forget the images from the last two nights. I should just pack up my car and leave right this minute. But how could I explain this to my family? I decided to go through with my plan and bury the scarecrow. I could last one more night if I prepared for it.
I left the shower and dressed modestly, in another one of my old rock t-shirts and a pair of shorts. I returned to the yard and with a satisfying push, I dropped the scarecrow into the pit. It fell with a nice thud, and I smiled at my power over it in the day; it's just at night when I should fear it.
As I threw the first shovel of dirt back on top, I heard a noise in the grass, and it parted, revealing Eli wearing the same pair of jeans and work boots, but he had changed his shirt to a plain black one. In each hand, he held cans of paint and a brush.
"Should I even ask why you are burying that old scarecrow?" He asked as he came to stand beside me.
"Probably best if you didn't," I admitted, leaning on the shovel.
"Well, I'm going to anyway. Polly, why are you burying that old scarecrow?" He asked, a rare smile coming to his face.
"Because it's been haunting me at night," I said bluntly.
"Mhm, yeah, okay. Fine, don't tell me. I've been meaning to get rid of it anyway, but normal people take things to the landfill," Eli said with a smirk as he turned to the house and began setting up for his painting.
I finished burying the scarecrow and stomped the dirt down flat. I finished my job by moving my car and parking it directly over top of the spot where I buried it.
Eli watched me curiously but didn't remark. I returned the shovel to the barn and went out into the yard. I decided to go for a hike around the property. I needed some time alone to think and unwind.
As I made my way through the grass, it began to confuse me. This had obviously been a large farmland, but how had the wild plants grown in such a thick, endless maze of greenery?
It gave me an eerie feeling, like I was being watched as the grass covered three-quarters of my body, like there would be something lurking out in the grass, crouched low, waiting for me.
After a half-hour or so, I came upon a clear lake, only big enough to be considered an old swimming hole, I thought as I dipped my hand into the cool water.
I took off my outer clothes and decided to go for a swim. I lowered myself in slowly and reveled at the cool water. The pond wasn't deep, but the water was clean. A small rope swing had been hung from a large oak tree that bordered the pond. It also provided a nice layer of shade that made it the ideal spot to spend the day. I floated on my back in the water for what seemed like hours. The day seemed to slip away from me. A small beach of sand sat at one side of the pond, so I lay out in the sun and closed my eyes. The warm day warmed my soul, and soon I felt myself drifting off into sleep.
I awoke to the sound of crickets and darkness. I couldn't believe it. I had slept through the day; the long nights had finally caught up to me, and now I was stuck far away from the farmhouse. I didn't know if my plan with the scarecrow had worked, and this wasn't the place to test my theory.
A full moon lay overhead, casting a silvery glow on the world before me. A sea of grass swayed gently in the wind, sending shivers down it in shuddering waves. I looked around, but I was thankfully alone, just the crickets chirping along melodically as my only companions.
I had to make it back to the house, so I started on my way, my hands trailing along the tall grass. The pale light played easily on the deep green grass. Step by step, I made my way back towards the farmhouse and the barn, throwing caution to the wind, and I started to jog along, anything to get back faster. I would have to find Eli; maybe if we were together, he could stop it like before.
If I thought the field was creepy during the day, by night, it was a whole new world. Every sound made my heart stop for a beat before restarting in protest. When all of a sudden, the crickets stopped chirping. I dropped to my knees, letting the long grass cover me from sight. Through the strands, I could make out a shape moving slowly through the tall grass, the swish of the plants as it made its passage through them. My heart dropped. Was this Eli looking for me, or was it the scarecrow come for me?
That's when I heard a voice, a voice cutting through the silence. It started off quiet and raspy as it sang an eerie children's song.
"Did you, did you, did you come for me?
Run and hide, don't you know that I seek
The world it claims that I be not clean
When I come, you'll see how filthy I can be.
Tonight, it is happening, tonight you'll see
Beneath the moon, my shadows they do creep.
In this world, at night I shall be free.
Tonight it's happening, tonight you'll see.
When I come, you had better flee, or else I'll come and give my filth to thee."
I was frozen to the spot. It hadn't found me, but it knew I was in the grass somewhere. Now, with each word, chewed up and spat out like it was unhappy with it, now it was accompanied by the whistle of something in the air and a slicing sound as it cut through the grass around me.
It finished another round of its song, but now it stood within feet of me, its blade whistling as it cut. I took a moment to ready myself, and as it raised its blade to cut through the grass I hid in, I dashed out of my hiding spot and slammed into it. But nothing resisted me; I fell through it like it was a ghost.
In a tangle of limbs, I landed hard on the ground and tried quickly rolling to my feet. The blade of its weapon pierced the earth beside me. Now I could see it was a two-handed scythe the scarecrow carried, but something was off, its hands were human. Pale milky skin like a newborn baby. I had little time to examine the creature except for the canvas bag over its head. Two large black eyes came out of the slits that leaked a dark red blood like tears.
It screeched loudly and swung its scythe, but it was slow, and I took off through the grass in the direction of what I hoped was the farmhouse.
I completely gave up all pretense of hiding and sprinted as fast as I could without looking back. The grass seemed to part for me as I ran in terror. I was just glad that in high school, I had taken track as it was paying off now.
I could hear the noise of footsteps behind me, but I never turned. I ran and ran until my lungs felt like they were going to burst Something silver flashed to my left, and I tripped over something hard and unexpected. The wind was driven from my lungs as my chin slammed hard into the earth. I scrambled back, trying to escape, but the scarecrow was on me, its blade flashing angrily in the pale moonlight.
I wanted to move, I wanted to fight, but my body was weak and unable to catch its breath, and I lay there helpless as it swung its scythe towards me. I closed my eyes in fear, but I only heard the thud of dirt before I opened my eyes. The scythe was discarded, and the scarecrow stood staring at me.
It seemed to be struggling with something, one hand reached out towards me only to be snapped back to its side. A roar of rage pierced the canvas sack over its head as it struggled against its invisible bonds. For a moment, I thought I saw something behind it, three sets of hands holding it back. One feminine in nature, and the other two must have belonged to children. In a flash, I saw a beautiful woman who looked vaguely familiar with her long brown hair and plain dress.
"Run," she moaned as the scarecrow swung around wildly.
I didn't hesitate and fled, my breath had returned, and while my body still ached from my fall, I powered on, knowing this was the only respite I would receive tonight.
In the distance, I could see a small sheet metal shape; Eli's trailer was slowly coming closer as I ran, and I beelined it for the trailer. I could hear the footsteps behind me again as the scarecrow resumed its chase after me.
I reached the old trailer and banged on the door as loud as I could; I rattled the handle, but it was locked.
"Eli, it's me. It's Polly, please let me in. Please," I begged as I banged over and over again on the door of his trailer.
Nothing responded to me, and the trailer was dark. The single window in the back held no life inside the trailer. From the trailer, I couldn't tell which direction the farmhouse was in the dark, so I fled into the tall grass and crouched low, watching the clearing around the trailer.
While I caught my breath, I watched the scarecrow enter the clearing, its scythe back in its hand as it circled the trailer. When its raspy voice began singing again low and quiet, only loud enough for me to hear.
"Did you, did you, did you come for me?
Run and hide, don't you know that I seek
The world it claims that I be not clean
When I come, you'll see how filthy I can be.
Tonight, it is happening, tonight you'll see
Beneath the moon, my shadows they do creep.
In this world, at night, I shall be free.
Tonight it's happening, tonight you'll see.
When I come, you had better flee, or else I'll come and give my filth to thee."
The song made me shiver uncontrollably at the lyrics and the voice; it sounded demented like a crazy person letting their demons out into a nursery rhyme.
I lay perfectly still; for some reason, it couldn't find me. This creature I assumed was all-knowing seemed to have some very human weaknesses. It moved and talked like a human, even had certain body parts that were from a human; it even felt human the way it chased and reacted.
The scarecrow moved on through the tall grass, and I let out a sigh of relief as it lost my trail. How terrifying that beast was. In my pocket was the keys to my car. Eli had told me that the farmhouse was fairly close to his trailer. I had to navigate to the car, then drive as fast as I can away from this place. The fact that I hadn't left already because I was worried about money was insane. Who cares, I could drive to Barb's and demand my money back. Go home and just tell my parents the truth. The whole reason for actually leaving home this summer, why I was actually here in this field shivering uncontrollably in fear. But I couldn't think about that now, not now, there will be time to deal with that later. Now I needed to focus on staying alive, getting to the car, and getting out of here.
I went in the direction the scarecrow had; he knew the land better than I did, and every noise I made in the silence of the night made my heart drop. It took all my courage there and then to take one step forward, then another. I felt like I was going to be sick; my stomach was in knots to where it felt like even if I was sick, the only thing to come out would be only bile and stomach acid.
With each careful step, I made my way closer to the farmhouse and the scarecrow. Through the darkness, I could see my goal, the farmhouse, and the barn. Within minutes, I had made it securely to the farmhouse yard.
My car still sat in the same spot overtop of the hole where I buried the scarecrow. In the moonlight, I could see that the dirt had not been disturbed.
The scarecrow was nowhere to be seen, and I cautiously made my way to my car, my keys in my hand as I approached the driver's door. I hadn't locked the car, and it opened on the first try. I turned on my car as quietly as I could, but nothing could have prepared me for what happened next.
Something landed heavily on top of the roof of my car, making it dent inwards slightly. With horror, I saw the scarecrow swing its scythe into the back window of my car. With a crash, the glass shattered inwards; I put my car into gear and roared away down the lane. In my rearview mirror, I couldn't see anything, so I swerved back and forth, trying to shake the creature from the roof of my car when the scythe crashed in through the front window, making a hole just large enough for it.
The glass spidered, and I couldn't see out the window very well. I swerved down the road, but the scythe remained in the car, allowing the creature purchase. In a panic, I spun my wheel wildly, trying to dislodge it, but I lost control, and soon felt something crash into the front of my car. The airbag went off in my face, and I hadn't been wearing my seatbelt. I slammed hard into something else, and my vision went dark. I was in a daze; I must have passed out because I don't remember a lot of what happened next. I felt the car door open with a crunching tear, and it landed loudly as it was torn off. My body being grabbed and tossed on the ground. I felt no pain, just a gentle numbness. I felt blood on my head as I raised my arm to touch my face.
Then just blackness, complete, and empty just feelings, fear, unease, sadness. My eyes opened, and the scarecrow was overtop of me. Pain on my chest and my vision went dark again. Coughing as something poured down my throat. I couldn't breathe, why couldn't I breathe?
My eyes opened one last time, and I saw the scarecrow pouring a dark liquid from its mouth directly into my mouth and eyes. My vision was red and bloody before I closed them one last time.
The words of its song echoed into the emptiness of my thoughts.
"Did you, did you, did you come for me?
Run and hide, don't you know that I seek?
The world it claims that I be not clean.
When I come, you'll see how filthy I can be.
Tonight, it is happening, tonight you'll see,
Beneath the moon, my shadows they do creep.
In this world, at night, I shall be free.
Tonight it's happening, tonight you'll see.
When I come, you had better flee, or else I'll come and give my filth to thee."
The darkness enveloped me, and I felt myself slipping away, the sounds of the night fading into oblivion.
Day 4
When I awoke, it was morning, and I found myself lying in a hospital bed. My head throbbed with pain, and my body ached all over. The memories of the terrifying night flooded back to me, and I shuddered involuntarily.
A nurse entered the room, her kind eyes filled with concern. "You're awake," she said softly, her voice gentle like a soothing balm. "You're lucky to be alive. You were found unconscious by the side of the road next to your car. Do you remember what happened?"
I tried to speak, but my throat felt raw and dry. I croaked out a few words, barely audible. "The scarecrow... it attacked me..."
The nurse frowned, her brows furrowing in confusion. "Scarecrow? What scarecrow?"
My heart raced with panic as I realized the truth. Had it all been a nightmare? But the pain in my body felt too real, the memories too vivid to be mere hallucinations.
I tried to explain, to tell her about the terrifying creature that had pursued me through the night, but she only looked at me with concern, as if I were delusional.
"I'll get the doctor, and there is a young man who brought you in. He has been here all morning," the nurse said with a sly wink.
After a few minutes, she came back with Eli and a doctor, both of whom smiled gently at me through the window. The doctor came in first and went over my health with me. I had a concussion and bruises all over my body. A generous-sized cut from some glass on my scalp had been stitched and bandaged. My mind flashed back to the night before. How the scarecrow had filled me with its gooey red blood.
"Did you find anything else?" I asked cautiously, trying to avoid another scandal like with the nurse.
"No, as long as you have someone to pick you up and take you home, you are free to go. That nice young man out there said he would take you back home," the doctor said, pointing to Eli as he rose with a slight grunt.
I glanced at Eli, and he waved uncertainly at me. The doctor went out and began talking to Eli for a few minutes.
While I waited, my mind began to have strange thoughts. Something was wrong; I felt weird. My vision turned red, and I began to see images before my eyes.
The Harmons. They flashed before my eyes in real-time—the husband hugging his wife, then swinging his kids around, chopping wood outback next to the barn while his wife cooked in the kitchen.
As Eli entered the room, the visions stopped suddenly. Like my saving angel for the third time now, I was extremely grateful to Eli.
"Heyyyyy," Eli said, elongating the word in a sort of familiar yet awkward way.
"Hi," I said, closing my eyes and letting my embarrassment pass in only a few seconds.
"Why is it that fifty percent of the times we meet, you're in serious trouble?" Eli asked, coming to sit on the edge of my bed.
"Oh, you know me, bad luck, I guess," I said simply, becoming aware that under my blankets, I was in a backless hospital gown, and he was inches away from me.
I pulled the blanket up to my chin as a sort of cover for my appearance, but Eli didn't seem to notice. He continued talking to me. It was actually really sweet the way he seemed to care for me.
"Anyways, the doctor said I could take you back to the farmhouse to rest," Eli said.
"No," I said suddenly, becoming serious.
"What? Why not?" Eli asked.
"I just, I just can't right now. I'll tell you later. Just, we can't spend the night anywhere near the farm," I said, grabbing him by the arm, hoping to sway him.
"Well, I mean, if you want, we can grab your stuff, and my house can literally go anywhere," Eli said in an offhand manner, as if he had expected this.
"Promise?" I asked, trying not to seem too afraid.
Within the hour, we had returned to the farmhouse. The hole I dug was still covered over, and I stared at it as we parked in Eli's black pickup truck.
I ran inside and quickly got changed into my only clean clothes, grabbing everything I had from the farmhouse. I paused at the dinner table, looking down at the photographs of the Harmons and thinking back to that weird moment in the hospital with that odd vision.
The day was getting longer, and I hurried back to Eli, waiting in the pickup truck. I threw my bag in the back and climbed in beside him. He smiled and backtracked down the lane. We turned to the left and went down a side road where we came upon my poor old car. It had crashed directly into a tree, and the whole front part of the car had been destroyed. Fluid leaked all over the road, and I almost shed a tear for my departed friend. We had traveled far together. I grabbed a few things from the car, but something was off about the car. The front door had been knocked off and was discarded on the far side of the road. It looked impossible; the door hadn't even hit the tree.
Eli hooked his truck up to his trailer, and we sped off, leaving the property behind us. We headed into town and found a pullout on the side of the road with a set of bathrooms to camp at for the night. Eli's trailer was messy but cozy. He had laundry strewn over most surfaces, but it didn't smell bad.
The room consisted of a small kitchen with a bed in one corner. There were also a lot of posters and artwork on the walls. I examined one of a pretty girl with long raven-black hair. It was a realist painting, obviously taken from real life.
"Who is this?" I asked as Eli made us some food.
"That is just a friend," Eli said, glancing at the painting he had done.
"Well, she is a pretty friend," I said, enjoying watching the back of his ears turn bright red.
"Dinner's ready," he said, pouring the mixture of food he had made onto a pair of plates.
Eli served me and handed me a can of Coke to drink. I thanked him and sat on his bed. It was the only serviceable piece of furniture in the whole trailer. We both sat in silence for a moment while we ate. I could tell something was bothering Eli as he kept making glances toward me.
"What? What is it, Eli? Just say it," I said between bites.
"Tell me what happened, Polly. Tell me why you were burying the scarecrow, why you were passed out in the road with straw in your hair. Tell me why you were muttering about the Harmons and a scarecrow when I found you," Eli said suddenly, as if he were unloading a machine gun.
I looked Eli square in the face and relented. I told him about the last couple of nights at the farmhouse, about how the scarecrow had been tormenting me every night. About how he had saved me and how last night I had fled through the fields to his trailer and then to my car. I told him about the vision I had about the Harmons in the hospital. By the end of it, I was in tears. I felt so foolish and childish.
Eli took it in stride. He asked a few questions during my retelling, but by the end of it, he was silent. Tears fell down my face and landed in my lap. We had both put our plates on the counter, and Eli hugged me. He put his arms around me, and I nuzzled into his shoulder, feeling comforted again in him at the lowest points of my life.
With a gentle hand, he wiped away my tears, and I smiled, letting a nervous laugh escape my lips. I looked up into his face and felt his stare before I saw it. His pale blue eyes shone with comfort, and then his lips were on mine as he kissed me quickly before pulling away slightly.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that. That was insensitive of me. You're sad, and I took advantage of that," Eli said, moving back slightly.
"Shut up," I said, and grabbed his shirt, bringing him back in.
2024.05.21 17:46 postandforgetaboutit I wish that she had been more upfront with me
I’ve posted about my situation a few times here, but the long and short of it is my girlfriend of 2.5 years broke up with me about a month ago. In my mind, the breakup was fairly unexpected; I had a few job commitments that took me out of the country, and led to us being able to spend less time together than usual in the months leading up to the breakup. Still, I felt secure enough in our relationship to the point I thought it was an obstacle we’d overcome together, as we had done before in the past.
During the conversation that led to the breakup, she said she had found herself gradually losing feelings for me, and wanting the opportunity to be single to learn more about herself. This was all fresh for me at this point, so I asked her if there was any hope for reconciliation. She indicated she didn’t think it was likely, as she had been feeling this way for months.
She then went into a sort of “it’s not you, it’s me” speech. She assured me I didn’t do anything wrong and that there wasn’t anything I could’ve or should’ve done differently. In her own words, her previous partners were absolute scum (physically/emotionally/sexually abusive, unfaithful, etc.) so she said that she cherished me for being the first man to show her that pure and unconditional love really does exist. She added that how good I was to her made it all the more hard to go through with this, and that she wishes she felt different.
I truly didn’t want to, but I knew that for both of our sakes, we’d have to enter a period of limited/no contact. She was understand and supportive of this. I’d say this lasted for about 10 or so days until she reached out to me to clarify that while her feelings for me had diminished, they weren’t completely gone, and that she’s given it a lot of thought and would be open to the possibility of reevaluating trying again in the future. In hindsight, I shouldn’t have clinged to this or let it give me as much as hope as I did. But I responded to say that I was glad she felt that way and would also be willing to reconsider things down the line.
This was about 3 weeks ago now, and it’s been radio silence ever since. She, her family members, and friends have all since removed me from all social media, and have deleted every trace of me from the last few years. It feels like an absolute 180 occurred here.
I don’t know why she reached out to say those things only to then go and stand firmer on her decision. Maybe it was a moment of weakness on her part and she was feeling conflicted or confused. Maybe she was trying to let me down easier.
In any event, I wish she had been more transparent and straightforward with me about where she stood instead of this back and forth.
submitted by postandforgetaboutit to BreakUps [link] [comments]
During the conversation that led to the breakup, she said she had found herself gradually losing feelings for me, and wanting the opportunity to be single to learn more about herself. This was all fresh for me at this point, so I asked her if there was any hope for reconciliation. She indicated she didn’t think it was likely, as she had been feeling this way for months.
She then went into a sort of “it’s not you, it’s me” speech. She assured me I didn’t do anything wrong and that there wasn’t anything I could’ve or should’ve done differently. In her own words, her previous partners were absolute scum (physically/emotionally/sexually abusive, unfaithful, etc.) so she said that she cherished me for being the first man to show her that pure and unconditional love really does exist. She added that how good I was to her made it all the more hard to go through with this, and that she wishes she felt different.
I truly didn’t want to, but I knew that for both of our sakes, we’d have to enter a period of limited/no contact. She was understand and supportive of this. I’d say this lasted for about 10 or so days until she reached out to me to clarify that while her feelings for me had diminished, they weren’t completely gone, and that she’s given it a lot of thought and would be open to the possibility of reevaluating trying again in the future. In hindsight, I shouldn’t have clinged to this or let it give me as much as hope as I did. But I responded to say that I was glad she felt that way and would also be willing to reconsider things down the line.
This was about 3 weeks ago now, and it’s been radio silence ever since. She, her family members, and friends have all since removed me from all social media, and have deleted every trace of me from the last few years. It feels like an absolute 180 occurred here.
I don’t know why she reached out to say those things only to then go and stand firmer on her decision. Maybe it was a moment of weakness on her part and she was feeling conflicted or confused. Maybe she was trying to let me down easier.
In any event, I wish she had been more transparent and straightforward with me about where she stood instead of this back and forth.
2024.05.21 17:46 Bimb0bratz As if being a SM wasn’t hard enough
I (21F) have a 1 1/2yr old son. He’s going through, what I hope, is a picky eater phase. Will throw food everywhere, straight up spit stuff out. Luckily and not so luckily I’m in between jobs right now, plus I just graduated college so I’m seeking full time employment. Which means im unemployed for the moment. I’m half way across the country from any kind of family bc my sons dad blocked my relocation even after saying he’d let me go back home. Surprise he’s not a man of his word. Anyways I have no help. Which is just fantastic bc I’m worried about when I start a job and I’m rushing in the morning and then my son throws his food tantrums. I’m also mortified that he won’t behave well in daycare and that they’ll drop him. I’m also mortified about when he gets sick and I get sick and we’re both too sick to do anything. (Ik kids in daycare get sick alot more). I get a lot of anxiety about the things I can’t control bc I always like to be prepared. Being a SM w no village is not for the weak and I try my absolute hardest to make it even just a tiny bit easier for me when I can. But recently my son just got super picky with all of the food that I give him. That makes my anxiety ten times worse. And hearing from my mom that I wasn’t picky at his age doesn’t help. Ik my little boy can’t help it but I just wish I had gotten the longer end of the stick here. As if being a SM wasn’t hard enough I know have the added anxiety of his food tantrums and how that’ll effect the possibility of stable daycare and a good workday.
submitted by Bimb0bratz to singlemoms [link] [comments]
2024.05.21 17:45 Open_Sun_2088 If I call the recruiter who’s supposed to help but isn’t answering, would it reflect poorly on me?
I interviewed for an entry-level hospital position (Patient navigator) 2 weeks ago and both the hiring manager and program supervisor said that their HR recruiter would contact me so I can formally apply for the position. I sent an email to HR recruiter who answered once but then didn’t help me again after I stopped CC’ing the hiring manager. It was literally “Hi, how can I formally apply? - Hi, do you have an account on the Careers website? - Yes. Let me know if you can see it.” And she did not let me know, so i sent 2 follow-up emails. No response so I sent another one last Friday with the hiring manager cc’ed… still crickets.
Should I just call her at this point? I’m not even asking for a job status update, i just wanna know how to formally apply so my application is in the system. But I don’t wanna come off desperate. Like I already cc’ed the manager and she won’t answer me either
submitted by Open_Sun_2088 to careeradvice [link] [comments]
Should I just call her at this point? I’m not even asking for a job status update, i just wanna know how to formally apply so my application is in the system. But I don’t wanna come off desperate. Like I already cc’ed the manager and she won’t answer me either
2024.05.21 17:40 Revolutionary-Way225 Difficult Recovery - omnitrope to blame?
I had my 4th retrieval on Thursday, and I am having a horrible recovery. I feel bad all around. I'm not sleeping, I'm nauseous, I'm weak. I am still having some abdominal pain, although I'd rate it low level (2 or 3).
My previous retrievals had a much easier recovery. I was definitely back to 100% by day 5.
This round, I was on a much more aggressive medication regime, and had omnitrope added for the first time. My estrogen was triple what it had ever been before. I had 27 eggs retrieved, but only 11 fertilized. I was prescribed antibiotics and cabergoline post retrieval.
Has anyone experienced such an extended recovery and have tips? I suspect that I'm going through some extreme detox - in other words, I don't think there is much I can do to feel better other than wait it out. It's miserable though - I just want to crawl in bed and cry.
Any advice welcome, otherwise, thank you for letting me vent!
submitted by Revolutionary-Way225 to IVF [link] [comments]
My previous retrievals had a much easier recovery. I was definitely back to 100% by day 5.
This round, I was on a much more aggressive medication regime, and had omnitrope added for the first time. My estrogen was triple what it had ever been before. I had 27 eggs retrieved, but only 11 fertilized. I was prescribed antibiotics and cabergoline post retrieval.
Has anyone experienced such an extended recovery and have tips? I suspect that I'm going through some extreme detox - in other words, I don't think there is much I can do to feel better other than wait it out. It's miserable though - I just want to crawl in bed and cry.
Any advice welcome, otherwise, thank you for letting me vent!
2024.05.21 17:31 prostrednik Sharing some of the learning from growing our Webflow freelance business
I wanted to share some of our failures and lessons learned while building our Webflow freelance practice.
submitted by prostrednik to webflow [link] [comments]
- Fail 1: Not taking Webflow seriously sooner - Basically, I've been discarding the idea going all in on Webflow bc I thought it would be a 'step back' in my career. I was very wrong.
- Fail 2: Trying to skip a few steps ahead - Ads didn't work for us. Good old word of mouth did.
- Fail 3: Making a customer happy at any cost - Don't undersell yourself, even if you're getting started. Scope the project as well as you can and stick to it.
- Picking a business model that suits us - we have a subscription model. I know it get's hated on a lot, but for us it fits our needs. At least for the moment being.
- Overdelivering - basically treat a $100 as a $1000 project.
- Being active in the community - talk to people in the community, good things will follow.
2024.05.21 17:31 The_randomizer03 I (21M) feel lost and confused in my relationship with my gf (23F). I dont know what to do, but I am expecting the worst.
I (21 M) felt that I lost myself yesterday and today in my relationship with my gf (23 F). Recently she joined a discord server full of people that are now working to make friends (because she has no consistent friend group and she longs for a relationship with friends that feels nice). I was happy for her when she told me she loves her friends and that it was nice to feel the interaction. But these past few days i felt that our communication changed. I asked her if we were ok then she said she realized that her friends can fill the gap that I couldnt, which is relatability. Ngl, i felt replaceable since she said that and added that she wants to feel the love again and the idea of support past words from me. This is where I got troubled because I do things like going to her house if she’s sick, picking her up and dropping her off, spending time with her, etc. So I really got frustrated since this was an issue also during february. Now i just asked for space because I felt that I lost myself yesteray and today. I want your honest thoughts about this. Thank you.
submitted by The_randomizer03 to adviceph [link] [comments]
2024.05.21 17:30 kfspai Spice v0.13-alpha (May 20, 2024) is now available!
The v0.13.0-alpha release significantly improves federated query performance and efficiency with Query Push-Down. Query push-down allows SQL queries to be directly executed by underlying data sources, such as joining tables using the same data connector. Query push-down is supported for all SQL-based and Arrow Flight data connectors. Additionally, runtime metrics, including query duration, collected and accessed in the spice.runtime.metrics table. This release also includes a new FTP/SFTP data connector and improved CSV support for the S3 data connector.
submitted by kfspai to spiceai [link] [comments]
Highlights
- Federated Query Push-Down (#1394): All SQL and Arrow Flight data connectors support federated query push-down.
- Runtime Metrics (#1361): Runtime metric collection can be enabled using the --metrics flag and accessed by the spice.runtime.metrics table.
- FTP & SFTP data connector (#1355) (#1399): Added support for using FTP and SFTP as data sources.
- Improved CSV support (#1411) (#1414): S3/FTP/SFTP data connectors support CSV files with expanded CSV options.
Contributors
- @Jeadie
- @digadeesh
- @ewgenius
- @gloomweaver
- @lukekim
- @phillipleblanc
- @sgrebnov
- @y-f-u
What's Changed
- Remove milestones from Enhancement template by @lukekim in #1373
- Update version.txt and Cargo.toml to 0.13.0-alpha by @sgrebnov in #1375
- Helm chart for Spice v0.12.2-alpha by @sgrebnov in #1374
- Add release cargo feature to docker builds by @ewgenius in #1377
- FTP connector by @gloomweaver in #1355
- Provide ability to specify timeout for s3 data connector by @gloomweaver in #1378
- Clickhouse-rs use tag instead of branch by u/gloomweaver in #1313
- Store runtime metrics in spice.runtime.metrics table by @ewgenius in #1361
- Update bug_report.md to include the kind/bug label by @digadeesh in #1381
- Remove redundant [refresh] in log by @lukekim in #1384
- Implement federation for DuckDB Data Connector (POC) by @phillipleblanc in #1380
- Update wording for spice cloud connection by @ewgenius in #1386
- Fix dataset refreshing status by u/y-f-u in #1387
- Clickhouse friendly error by u/y-f-u in #1388
- Initial work for NQL crate and API by @Jeadie in #1366
- Fully implement federation for all SqlTable-based Data Connectors by @phillipleblanc in #1394
- Use df logical plan to query latest timestamp when refreshing incrementally by u/y-f-u in #1393
- Refactor datafusion.write_data to use table reference by @ewgenius in #1402
- Add federation to FlightTable based DataConnectors by @phillipleblanc in #1401
- SFTP Data Connector by @gloomweaver in #1399
- Use GPT3.5 for NSQL task by @Jeadie in #1400
- Update ROADMAP May 16, 2024 by @lukekim in #1405
- Add ftp/sftp connector to readme by @gloomweaver in #1404
- Add FlightSQL federation provider by @phillipleblanc in #1403
- Refactor runtime metrics to use localhost accelerated table by @ewgenius in #1395
- Use JSON response in OpenAI, text -> SQL model by @Jeadie in #1407
- Support more common csv options by u/y-f-u in #1411
- Add a TLS error message in data connector and implement it for clickhouse by u/y-f-u in #1413
- Add CSV to s3 data formats by @gloomweaver in #1414
- Fix up dependencies now 0.5.0 disappeared by u/Jeadie in #1417
- Add NSQL to FlightRepl by @Jeadie in #1409
- Update Cargo.lock by @phillipleblanc in #1418
- Enable spice.ai replication for runtime.metrics table by @ewgenius in #1408
- Restructure the runtime struct to make it easier to test by @phillipleblanc in #1420
- Make it easier to construct an App programmatically by u/phillipleblanc in #1421
- Add an integration test for federation by @phillipleblanc in #1426
- wait 2 seconds for the status to turn ready in refreshing status test by @y-f-u in #1419
- Add functional tests for federation push-down by @phillipleblanc in #1428
- Enable push-down federation by default by @phillipleblanc in #1429
- Add guides and examples about error handling by @ewgenius in #1427
- Add LRU cache support for http-based queries by @sgrebnov in #1410
- Update README.md - Remove bigquery from tablet of connectors by @digadeesh in #1434
- Update acknowledgements by @github-actions in #1433
- CLI wording and logs change reflected on readme by @y-f-u in #1435
- Add databricks_use_ssl parameter by @Sevenannn in #1406
- Update helm version and use v0.13.0-alpha by @Jeadie in #1436
- Don't include feature 'llms/candles' by default by @Jeadie in #1437
- Correctly map NullBuilder for Null arrow types by @phillipleblanc in #1438
- Propagate object store error by @gloomweaver in #1415
2024.05.21 17:29 Rakxit_shetty Feels like, I'm not in the IT Team and I'm the IT Team
I didn't get to sit for college placements as I didn't have the cutoff 60% + in my PU and hence got an intership on my own in a small scale regional SaaS startup in my home town with other 3 more classmates.
when I started the company had a team of 4 developer, the day I joined i got to know that we don't maintain docs and 2 of them are on notice period and after 4 month of me joining as an intern the remaining 2 developer left as all of them got great offers.
Now the company's dev team is run by interns, me and and 3 others classmates of mine.
After the intership me and 3 other classmates got a job offer from the company and as we didn't had any other offers at hand we accept it, (role was Jr FullStack developer [MERN]).
Everyone had a in-hand salary of 23k but I was giving 26k, (I never exposed my salary to my classmates) as I had performed well as an intern.
But things got crazier with time :
I'm responsible for building the database structure for any new projects, PWA's, socket Servers, react fkups, Rest APIs, FTP Servers.
I'm responsible for answering any bugs that our clients face in the production. (We have no Testers 🤡, we test on prod)
I'm responsible for adding any new features for existing projects.
I'm responsible for code reviewing my classmates code (if they write something).
I'm responsible for understanding and unf**k the merge conflicts that my classmates have and merge their branches.
I'm responsible for deploying S3 and and E2 instance.
Recently, I was responsible for taking interview and hire new interns to the team. ( Company doesn't want to hire any experienced candidates )
After my senior left, if any change or urgent work needed, I used to do it quickly, and felt like if I handed the work to this guys it will take time so let me make room and handel it myself.
I was proactive when I started and It was noted by my classmates and the management, now I feel like they leave everything to me to handel and they only work with minnor stuff and any static page client we receive.
Even tho, I had no experience with WordPress recently I have written a custom WordPress tamplate from scratch with bootstrap within a week and deployed for one of the client, and after the deployment of the project it's moved to my classmates to change some background colours 🤡.
My classmates/ colleagues are highly demotivated on their field and I don't find any connection with them.
It's been 8 months of me joining as a FullStack dev after the intership, I feel like I'm not in the IT Team and I'm the IT Team. 🤡
In the new FY everyone got hike and the new revised salary is 26k for them and 30k for me. (No EPF or insurance is provided by the company)
I was doing DSA and leetcode everyday but recently I have stopped it because, what is the use of DSA grinding where I sent my resume everyday and get no reply. Unless I have 2+ YOE 🤝😐
I have seen my other classmates, who didn't even know what's the difference between Compilers and Interpreters have been placed in college placements in good MNCs and doing well.
submitted by Rakxit_shetty to developersIndia [link] [comments]
when I started the company had a team of 4 developer, the day I joined i got to know that we don't maintain docs and 2 of them are on notice period and after 4 month of me joining as an intern the remaining 2 developer left as all of them got great offers.
Now the company's dev team is run by interns, me and and 3 others classmates of mine.
After the intership me and 3 other classmates got a job offer from the company and as we didn't had any other offers at hand we accept it, (role was Jr FullStack developer [MERN]).
Everyone had a in-hand salary of 23k but I was giving 26k, (I never exposed my salary to my classmates) as I had performed well as an intern.
But things got crazier with time :
I'm responsible for building the database structure for any new projects, PWA's, socket Servers, react fkups, Rest APIs, FTP Servers.
I'm responsible for answering any bugs that our clients face in the production. (We have no Testers 🤡, we test on prod)
I'm responsible for adding any new features for existing projects.
I'm responsible for code reviewing my classmates code (if they write something).
I'm responsible for understanding and unf**k the merge conflicts that my classmates have and merge their branches.
I'm responsible for deploying S3 and and E2 instance.
Recently, I was responsible for taking interview and hire new interns to the team. ( Company doesn't want to hire any experienced candidates )
After my senior left, if any change or urgent work needed, I used to do it quickly, and felt like if I handed the work to this guys it will take time so let me make room and handel it myself.
I was proactive when I started and It was noted by my classmates and the management, now I feel like they leave everything to me to handel and they only work with minnor stuff and any static page client we receive.
Even tho, I had no experience with WordPress recently I have written a custom WordPress tamplate from scratch with bootstrap within a week and deployed for one of the client, and after the deployment of the project it's moved to my classmates to change some background colours 🤡.
My classmates/ colleagues are highly demotivated on their field and I don't find any connection with them.
It's been 8 months of me joining as a FullStack dev after the intership, I feel like I'm not in the IT Team and I'm the IT Team. 🤡
In the new FY everyone got hike and the new revised salary is 26k for them and 30k for me. (No EPF or insurance is provided by the company)
I was doing DSA and leetcode everyday but recently I have stopped it because, what is the use of DSA grinding where I sent my resume everyday and get no reply. Unless I have 2+ YOE 🤝😐
I have seen my other classmates, who didn't even know what's the difference between Compilers and Interpreters have been placed in college placements in good MNCs and doing well.
2024.05.21 17:28 Ok_Butterscotch_719 AITA for contacting our landlady about my roommate-"friend"'s scam?
So I've been friends with - lets call him Steve - for over 10 years. We've hung out loads of times, talked about many things, a good friendship.
Backstory before getting into the real issue: He cheated on his girlfriend, whom he was living with, so she left him and moved out abruptly. He couldn't afford the rent on his own, and I was looking for a new apartment, so I thought it would be win/win if I moved in, so I did. He said that rent was 750$ all included per person, and it sounded reasonable to me, especially with the current housing crisis in Canada. (Hi fellow Canadians!)
Fast forward, we get papers explaining the rent increase, and he doesn't understand them so he shows them to me. I notice that our increased rent would be a total of 985$. Which made me go "Huh?" because, reminder, I pay 750$. He said "Oh don't mind that" but spoiler alert - I did mind that.
Days later, I asked him what everything (rent, wifi, electricity, etc.) costs so I could make myself a budget. He said "No worries, I already told you it's 750$/person everything included" and I played innocent and said "Yeah but I really need each cost separately so I can plan out my budget efficiently" - so he disclosed the costs.
And so I discovered that if I paid half of everything, it would cost me 690$ all-included. For those like me who suck at math, that means I pay 750$ to cover all costs while he only pays 630$.
I confronted him and he said that he never said I would pay half of everything - he made me a "friend deal" of 750$ all included. He said that if we weren't friends, it would cost me 800$ and I wouldn't have access to the living room.
I told him that I agreed to pay 750$ because he said it was per person, insinuating that he, the other person, was paying the same. I said that I would therefore pay the real price - 690$ - from now moving forward. He said that it's impossible and that I'm a horrible friend for going back on my word.
He tried calling my best friend so she would convince me that what he's doing is totally fair. She's my best friend, so she was already aware of the whole situation, but she played dumb just to see what he would say his version of events is.
She asked him what everything costs - he lied and added 5-10$ to every charge to make it seem like not as much of a discrepancy and possibly a slight miscalculation.
She badgered him to know what I get extra for paying extra - to which he had no answer, and finally confessed that I pay more than him because it was the only way he could make his budget work. She told him that I'm not responsible for paying part of his budget, and he was apparently flabbergasted by that.
She suggested to write out 2 contracts; one that I would pay half of everything, and that I swear to do half the chores (which he said I never do). In the other one, I would pay 750$ as agreed, but he swears to do all of the chores. Then I'd choose which one to sign. Obviously, I'd choose the first one, but I have yet to see any contract.
Then he started hiding the toilet paper. I wish I were kidding. I had to start buying toilet paper and hiding it in my room.
SO. Here's where the AITA question comes in. Our landlady has no idea that he's subleasing his rooms. Hell, I doubt she even knows that I live there. AITA for thinking about informing her about the whole situation and risking my friend getting kicked out?
For those who want more backstory, here are my current living conditions.
His girlfriend - the girl he cheated on his previous girlfriend with - is ALWAYS over here - doesn't pay a single penny - and I wouldn't mind if she had respect for me and our surroundings.
She wakes me up on weekends at 8am by blasting a Spanish podcast in the kitchen instead of listening it with headphones and/or in my roommate's room. My room is right next to the kitchen.
She eats cinnamon-flavoured toast every morning - I'm allergic to cinnamon.
I have to wash the bathtub every time I want to take a shower because she leaves clumps of long dark hair. My hair is pink, so it's obviously not mine.
I allowed access to my Netflix account, and she changed all the settings to Spanish without even asking me first.
I told her and my friend about all these issues, but they keep happening as if I never said a thing.
submitted by Ok_Butterscotch_719 to CharlotteDobreYouTube [link] [comments]
Backstory before getting into the real issue: He cheated on his girlfriend, whom he was living with, so she left him and moved out abruptly. He couldn't afford the rent on his own, and I was looking for a new apartment, so I thought it would be win/win if I moved in, so I did. He said that rent was 750$ all included per person, and it sounded reasonable to me, especially with the current housing crisis in Canada. (Hi fellow Canadians!)
Fast forward, we get papers explaining the rent increase, and he doesn't understand them so he shows them to me. I notice that our increased rent would be a total of 985$. Which made me go "Huh?" because, reminder, I pay 750$. He said "Oh don't mind that" but spoiler alert - I did mind that.
Days later, I asked him what everything (rent, wifi, electricity, etc.) costs so I could make myself a budget. He said "No worries, I already told you it's 750$/person everything included" and I played innocent and said "Yeah but I really need each cost separately so I can plan out my budget efficiently" - so he disclosed the costs.
And so I discovered that if I paid half of everything, it would cost me 690$ all-included. For those like me who suck at math, that means I pay 750$ to cover all costs while he only pays 630$.
I confronted him and he said that he never said I would pay half of everything - he made me a "friend deal" of 750$ all included. He said that if we weren't friends, it would cost me 800$ and I wouldn't have access to the living room.
I told him that I agreed to pay 750$ because he said it was per person, insinuating that he, the other person, was paying the same. I said that I would therefore pay the real price - 690$ - from now moving forward. He said that it's impossible and that I'm a horrible friend for going back on my word.
He tried calling my best friend so she would convince me that what he's doing is totally fair. She's my best friend, so she was already aware of the whole situation, but she played dumb just to see what he would say his version of events is.
She asked him what everything costs - he lied and added 5-10$ to every charge to make it seem like not as much of a discrepancy and possibly a slight miscalculation.
She badgered him to know what I get extra for paying extra - to which he had no answer, and finally confessed that I pay more than him because it was the only way he could make his budget work. She told him that I'm not responsible for paying part of his budget, and he was apparently flabbergasted by that.
She suggested to write out 2 contracts; one that I would pay half of everything, and that I swear to do half the chores (which he said I never do). In the other one, I would pay 750$ as agreed, but he swears to do all of the chores. Then I'd choose which one to sign. Obviously, I'd choose the first one, but I have yet to see any contract.
Then he started hiding the toilet paper. I wish I were kidding. I had to start buying toilet paper and hiding it in my room.
SO. Here's where the AITA question comes in. Our landlady has no idea that he's subleasing his rooms. Hell, I doubt she even knows that I live there. AITA for thinking about informing her about the whole situation and risking my friend getting kicked out?
For those who want more backstory, here are my current living conditions.
His girlfriend - the girl he cheated on his previous girlfriend with - is ALWAYS over here - doesn't pay a single penny - and I wouldn't mind if she had respect for me and our surroundings.
She wakes me up on weekends at 8am by blasting a Spanish podcast in the kitchen instead of listening it with headphones and/or in my roommate's room. My room is right next to the kitchen.
She eats cinnamon-flavoured toast every morning - I'm allergic to cinnamon.
I have to wash the bathtub every time I want to take a shower because she leaves clumps of long dark hair. My hair is pink, so it's obviously not mine.
I allowed access to my Netflix account, and she changed all the settings to Spanish without even asking me first.
I told her and my friend about all these issues, but they keep happening as if I never said a thing.
2024.05.21 17:27 The_randomizer03 I (21M) feel lost and confused in my relationship with my gf (23F). I dont know what to do and what to expect. But Im expecting the worst. What should I do now?
I (21 M) felt that I lost myself yesterday and today in my relationship with my gf (23 F). Recently she joined a discord server full of people that are now working to make friends (because she has no consistent friend group and she longs for a relationship with friends that feels nice). I was happy for her when she told me she loves her friends and that it was nice to feel the interaction. But these past few days i felt that our communication changed. I asked her if we were ok then she said she realized that her friends can fill the gap that I couldnt, which is relatability. Ngl, i felt replaceable since she said that and added that she wants to feel the love again and the idea of support past words from me. This is where I got troubled because I do things like going to her house if she’s sick, picking her up and dropping her off, spending time with her, etc. So I really got frustrated since this was an issue also during february. Now i just asked for space because I felt that I lost myself yesteray and today. I want your honest thoughts about this.
submitted by The_randomizer03 to relationship_advice [link] [comments]
2024.05.21 17:23 TwongStocks Analysis of Mino-Lok Topline and Next Steps
After so many delays and setbacks with the Mino-Lok trial, they finally released the topline results.
PRIMARY ENDPOINT
The primary endpoint was a comparison of the time until catheter failure between the Mino-Lok and ALT groups. Failure events in patients receiving Mino-Lok occurred substantially later than in patients in the Control arm (p value = 0.0006). In other words, treatment with Mino-Lok resulted in a longer time until a catheter failure event. A p-value less than 0.01 is considered very statistically significant.
ALT Group:
The most critical secondary endpoint was proportion of patients at six weeks with overall treatment success. Overall treatment success is defined as a patient at 6 weeks who did not have catheter failure, demonstrated clinical cure, and demonstrated microbiological eradication.
No serious adverse events (SAEs) were drug-related
This looks really good imo. Mino-Lok having a longer MTF than ALT was established with statistical significance. Lower bound of Mino-Lok's 95% CI at 50 days suggest very few events happened in the Mino-Lok group. Looks like most events occurred in the ALT group.
However that begs the question, why did they extend the trial for so long after hitting 92 events? Based on these numbers, they probably could have saved 4-5 months of expenses and stopped the trial at 92 events with similar results. But that's just an assumption on my part, given the very limited nature of the topline release.
One thing that didn't exactly get fleshed out is the 57.1% on the secondary endpoint for overall success. While it was still statistically significant over ALTs (p=.0025), that is far below the 100% that they achieved during the Phase 2b.
Overall though, the primary and secondary endpoints were hit with strong statistical significance. Can't ask for much more than that.
The next step is most likely a pre-NDA meeting with the FDA. They'll go over the topline and the requirements for the NDA filing. Since Mino-Lok has a QIDP designation, the pre-NDA is where the FDA will also confirm whether the company can make a rolling NDA submission, which allows them to submit sections of the NDA as it is completed. .
Per the FDA's Industry Guidance, a pre-NDA is considered a Type B meeting. Type B meetings are scheduled 60 days after they are requested. If CTXR requests a pre-NDA after the topline data, then the earliest they could hold that meeting would be in July.
For reference, the E7777 topline data was released in Apr 2022. The company announced a successful pre-BLA meeting in July 2022.
NDA SUBMISSION AND PDUFA DATE
The NDA submission is what will start the clock. I assume the NDA will be submitted a few months after they hold a pre-NDA meeting with the FDA. Until we get further details, I assume the NDA submission will be later this year, sometime in the 2nd half at the earliest.
But don't be surprised about an early 2025 submission. As we saw with Lymphir, the NDA will encompass more than just the data. Manufacturing and controls will also be a part of the NDA package. To avoid a CRL, they need to ensure the NDA submission is complete. The NDA isn't a rush job.
After the NDA is submitted, the FDA will take up to 60 days before they accept it and announce the PDUFA date. The review period is 6 months for a priority review and 10 months for a standard review. Mino-Lok is eligible for the priority review. However, the priority review will NOT be confirmed until the FDA accepts the NDA submission and announces the PDUFA date. That normally happens about 60 days after the submission.
submitted by TwongStocks to CTXR [link] [comments]
The study met its primary endpoint with a statistically significant improvement in the time to failure event in patients receiving Mino-Lok compared to Control arm patients receiving clinician-directed anti-infective lock solution. The data demonstrate that Mino-Lok is well-tolerated.
Topline Data
A total of 241 patients across the US and India. They did not break down how many came from the US and how many from India. Of the 241, 119 were in the Mino-Lok group and 122 were in the ALT group.PRIMARY ENDPOINT
The primary endpoint was a comparison of the time until catheter failure between the Mino-Lok and ALT groups. Failure events in patients receiving Mino-Lok occurred substantially later than in patients in the Control arm (p value = 0.0006). In other words, treatment with Mino-Lok resulted in a longer time until a catheter failure event. A p-value less than 0.01 is considered very statistically significant.
ALT Group:
- 122 patients.
- MTF was 33 days. 61 catheters had a fail event before Day 33, 61 had a fail event after Day 33.
- 95% Confidence Interval was 14-40. Since this trial is just a random sample, the 95% CI provides a range of values that is likely to include the true population value. In other words, if they were to run this trial again, they would have 95% confidence that the MTF for ALTs would fall between 14 and 40 days.
- 119 patients
- MTF was not determinable, because it exceeded the time patients were on trial (6 weeks)
- 95% CI was 50 - NE (not estimable). If they were to run this trial again, they would have 95% confidence that the MTF for Mino-Lok would be above 50 days.
The most critical secondary endpoint was proportion of patients at six weeks with overall treatment success. Overall treatment success is defined as a patient at 6 weeks who did not have catheter failure, demonstrated clinical cure, and demonstrated microbiological eradication.
- Overall treatment success was 57.1% for Mino-Lok (68 patients) and 37.7% for ALT (46 patients).
- P-value 0.0025
No serious adverse events (SAEs) were drug-related
- 45.1% of patients with an SAE for Mino-Lok
- 46.1% of patients with an SAE for ALT
- No mention of any patient deaths in the trial, for ether group
This looks really good imo. Mino-Lok having a longer MTF than ALT was established with statistical significance. Lower bound of Mino-Lok's 95% CI at 50 days suggest very few events happened in the Mino-Lok group. Looks like most events occurred in the ALT group.
However that begs the question, why did they extend the trial for so long after hitting 92 events? Based on these numbers, they probably could have saved 4-5 months of expenses and stopped the trial at 92 events with similar results. But that's just an assumption on my part, given the very limited nature of the topline release.
One thing that didn't exactly get fleshed out is the 57.1% on the secondary endpoint for overall success. While it was still statistically significant over ALTs (p=.0025), that is far below the 100% that they achieved during the Phase 2b.
Overall though, the primary and secondary endpoints were hit with strong statistical significance. Can't ask for much more than that.
Next Steps
Topline data is just the first step for eventual approval. This is a process and they are dealing with a bureaucratic government entity, the FDA. Realistically, we are looking at approval sometime in 2025. As long as they get the priority review, the PDUFA date will be approximately 8 months after the NDA submission. As of now, there is no timeline from the company for the NDA submission."We look forward to engaging with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to determine the optimal path forward for Mino-Lok. Our focus remains on improving outcomes for patients and offering a much-needed alternative to the current practice of catheter removal and replacement," added Mazur.PRE-NDA MEETING
The next step is most likely a pre-NDA meeting with the FDA. They'll go over the topline and the requirements for the NDA filing. Since Mino-Lok has a QIDP designation, the pre-NDA is where the FDA will also confirm whether the company can make a rolling NDA submission, which allows them to submit sections of the NDA as it is completed. .
Per the FDA's Industry Guidance, a pre-NDA is considered a Type B meeting. Type B meetings are scheduled 60 days after they are requested. If CTXR requests a pre-NDA after the topline data, then the earliest they could hold that meeting would be in July.
For reference, the E7777 topline data was released in Apr 2022. The company announced a successful pre-BLA meeting in July 2022.
NDA SUBMISSION AND PDUFA DATE
The NDA submission is what will start the clock. I assume the NDA will be submitted a few months after they hold a pre-NDA meeting with the FDA. Until we get further details, I assume the NDA submission will be later this year, sometime in the 2nd half at the earliest.
But don't be surprised about an early 2025 submission. As we saw with Lymphir, the NDA will encompass more than just the data. Manufacturing and controls will also be a part of the NDA package. To avoid a CRL, they need to ensure the NDA submission is complete. The NDA isn't a rush job.
After the NDA is submitted, the FDA will take up to 60 days before they accept it and announce the PDUFA date. The review period is 6 months for a priority review and 10 months for a standard review. Mino-Lok is eligible for the priority review. However, the priority review will NOT be confirmed until the FDA accepts the NDA submission and announces the PDUFA date. That normally happens about 60 days after the submission.
- If they get a priority review, the PDUFA date (approval/CRL decision) will be approximately 8 months after the NDA submission. Up to two months for the FDA to accept it and 6 months for the priority review.
- If they get a standard review, the PDUFA will be approximately 12 months after the NDA submission. Up to two months for the FDA to accept it and 10 months for the standard review.
2024.05.21 17:22 cokebinge Deep dive WordPress site
Hi,
I’m attempting to get a website made for some physical products I sell.
Please appreciate I’ve had an ongoing interest in computing my whole life but am in no terms an expert in anything, especially web development of which I have close to no experience with. I can appreciate my lack of knowledge in this field and appreciate any input. Please assume I know nothing and am asking the entirely wrong questions.
It’s a site I expect will generate a bit of organic traffic as it’s a niche product you wouldn’t necessarily go to Amazon or eBay for and feel like payment processing is required for both convenience and product legitimacy.
From some cursory research I think I’ve decided to settle with a self hosted (Not a physical server I’m running, just managing and in control of) WordPress site that uses WooCommerce and Stripe.
As it’s a niche product I think there’s some chance I can do well with SEO and probably AdWords.
My main questions are about the architectural choices I’m making and whether or not they will turn out to be more trouble than they are worth down the line.
It might be helpful to list some of the assumptions I’ve made:
Aside question: What are the main vectors for security compromise? I’d have to assume it’s abandoned plugins, plugins turned malicious, databases and insecure forms? In this context is there a distinction between plugins and themes or are they equal problem areas?
// Plugins
I want to keep plugins to a bare minimum as mentioned for performance and security reasons.
Yoast or Rank Math - Both apparently offer the same thing and seem well known within the community. I feel these are tools that I could make use of as I would like to rank on search engines. Is there a big value difference between the plugins themselves and also with the paid versions?
WP Rocket - I don’t understand caching and how it works but this plugin seems popular and apparently helps quite a lot with load times which I can appreciate as a massive value add.
WooCommerce - A necessary condition if I want ecommerce functionality.
PCI compliance - What is this, is it necessary and if so how do it build it in, in a sensible way?
Analytics plugins
See bottom of post - re: Compliance
Any plugins of value that I’ve missed or should I be right with these?
// Themes
Themes aren’t something I know a lot about. I assume they have a huge effect on page load times and also assume that the more well known themes would be easier for a larger designedeveloper base to work on as they are probably already familiar with them.
Themes I’ve heard thrown around a lot are Elementor and Astra. Am I right in seeing Elementor as more of a page builder lots of WordPress devs can use to “Make their own themes” and Astra as just a straight up theme?
If demanding Astra, am I taking a position of restricting the creative liberty of the designer at the ostensibly safer and/or more optimised Astra theme? Or have I got this wrong? Admittedly I have done very little research on WordPress themes and any input here would be much appreciated.
// Backups
UpdraftPlus - Looks to be a plugin that’ll backup and export data out. What are the security considerations here? Any value to the paid version?
Are there other plugins that do a better job, cheaper?
// Security
For my small ecom website, are these security plugins bloat or value?
Sucuri
Wordfence
Are the premium versions worth it? Have I missed any ?
// Legal and compliance
I don’t know much about tracking and marketing but assume I’ll want to pursue social media marketing in the future. Am I right in assuming I should be implementing tracking pixels and analytics from the get go?
As stated, I assume I’ll want to run Facebook tracking pixels. Is there a particular plugin or way I should be implementing them into a WP site?
Analytics. What’s the distinction between Google site kit, Google tag manager, GA4 etc. I presume I’ll need a plugin for this.
Cookies, privacy policies and notices - I don’t want pop ups but I want to be compliant where I need to. If pop ups are completely necessary is there a way to have them only pop for people visiting from areas that require it? Can I segment this to it’s own page?
PCI Compliance
Still not entirely sure what this entails - I understand it pertains to payment processing?
// Hosting
As I understand it these shouldn’t be in the scope of the web dev proposal and I’ll take responsibility for their implementation.
Any recommendations for hosts? Load speed and uptime are critical and pricing comes secondary to me.
The business is located in Australia but I would like decent access from around the globe.
Cloudflare. I’m still not entirely sure what they offer. As I understand, they run a huge part of the internet's infrastructure and offer DNS servers, DDOS protection and have vast CDN’s. Should I be using their services which I think are free? Am I subjecting people using VPN’s to constant captchas? Am I missing what other offerings they have? By virtue of using their DNS servers, am I using their CDN’s? And what value might I realise from them?
In general what conclusions should I walk away with?
WP needs to be constantly maintained but offers more flexibility?
WP if it isn’t maintained will break and have constant security issues?
WP will allow me to realise cheaper and faster website development on account of it’s frameworks, plugins and popularity within the community?
Anything I’ve missed?
Sorry for the massive post but I’m pretty new to this and just trying to cover all the bases.
Appreciate any wisdom and I’m more than willing to buy you coffee if you DM me
Thanks heaps
submitted by cokebinge to Wordpress [link] [comments]
I’m attempting to get a website made for some physical products I sell.
Please appreciate I’ve had an ongoing interest in computing my whole life but am in no terms an expert in anything, especially web development of which I have close to no experience with. I can appreciate my lack of knowledge in this field and appreciate any input. Please assume I know nothing and am asking the entirely wrong questions.
It’s a site I expect will generate a bit of organic traffic as it’s a niche product you wouldn’t necessarily go to Amazon or eBay for and feel like payment processing is required for both convenience and product legitimacy.
From some cursory research I think I’ve decided to settle with a self hosted (Not a physical server I’m running, just managing and in control of) WordPress site that uses WooCommerce and Stripe.
As it’s a niche product I think there’s some chance I can do well with SEO and probably AdWords.
My main questions are about the architectural choices I’m making and whether or not they will turn out to be more trouble than they are worth down the line.
It might be helpful to list some of the assumptions I’ve made:
- More devs are familiar with WP and it’s a lot quicker to build out sites therefore cheaper compared to websites built from the ground up - Also if I need a different person to change it up in the future, it’ll be easier as it isn’t custom made.
- WooCommerce and Stripe are cheap, well supported, well known and integrate with WP easily.
- Building out a WP site as opposed to paying for something like Shopify yearly, isn’t a false economy, if managed, perpetually.
Aside question: What are the main vectors for security compromise? I’d have to assume it’s abandoned plugins, plugins turned malicious, databases and insecure forms? In this context is there a distinction between plugins and themes or are they equal problem areas?
// Plugins
I want to keep plugins to a bare minimum as mentioned for performance and security reasons.
Yoast or Rank Math - Both apparently offer the same thing and seem well known within the community. I feel these are tools that I could make use of as I would like to rank on search engines. Is there a big value difference between the plugins themselves and also with the paid versions?
WP Rocket - I don’t understand caching and how it works but this plugin seems popular and apparently helps quite a lot with load times which I can appreciate as a massive value add.
WooCommerce - A necessary condition if I want ecommerce functionality.
PCI compliance - What is this, is it necessary and if so how do it build it in, in a sensible way?
Analytics plugins
See bottom of post - re: Compliance
Any plugins of value that I’ve missed or should I be right with these?
// Themes
Themes aren’t something I know a lot about. I assume they have a huge effect on page load times and also assume that the more well known themes would be easier for a larger designedeveloper base to work on as they are probably already familiar with them.
Themes I’ve heard thrown around a lot are Elementor and Astra. Am I right in seeing Elementor as more of a page builder lots of WordPress devs can use to “Make their own themes” and Astra as just a straight up theme?
If demanding Astra, am I taking a position of restricting the creative liberty of the designer at the ostensibly safer and/or more optimised Astra theme? Or have I got this wrong? Admittedly I have done very little research on WordPress themes and any input here would be much appreciated.
// Backups
UpdraftPlus - Looks to be a plugin that’ll backup and export data out. What are the security considerations here? Any value to the paid version?
Are there other plugins that do a better job, cheaper?
// Security
For my small ecom website, are these security plugins bloat or value?
Sucuri
Wordfence
Are the premium versions worth it? Have I missed any ?
// Legal and compliance
I don’t know much about tracking and marketing but assume I’ll want to pursue social media marketing in the future. Am I right in assuming I should be implementing tracking pixels and analytics from the get go?
As stated, I assume I’ll want to run Facebook tracking pixels. Is there a particular plugin or way I should be implementing them into a WP site?
Analytics. What’s the distinction between Google site kit, Google tag manager, GA4 etc. I presume I’ll need a plugin for this.
Cookies, privacy policies and notices - I don’t want pop ups but I want to be compliant where I need to. If pop ups are completely necessary is there a way to have them only pop for people visiting from areas that require it? Can I segment this to it’s own page?
PCI Compliance
Still not entirely sure what this entails - I understand it pertains to payment processing?
// Hosting
As I understand it these shouldn’t be in the scope of the web dev proposal and I’ll take responsibility for their implementation.
Any recommendations for hosts? Load speed and uptime are critical and pricing comes secondary to me.
The business is located in Australia but I would like decent access from around the globe.
Cloudflare. I’m still not entirely sure what they offer. As I understand, they run a huge part of the internet's infrastructure and offer DNS servers, DDOS protection and have vast CDN’s. Should I be using their services which I think are free? Am I subjecting people using VPN’s to constant captchas? Am I missing what other offerings they have? By virtue of using their DNS servers, am I using their CDN’s? And what value might I realise from them?
In general what conclusions should I walk away with?
WP needs to be constantly maintained but offers more flexibility?
WP if it isn’t maintained will break and have constant security issues?
WP will allow me to realise cheaper and faster website development on account of it’s frameworks, plugins and popularity within the community?
Anything I’ve missed?
Sorry for the massive post but I’m pretty new to this and just trying to cover all the bases.
Appreciate any wisdom and I’m more than willing to buy you coffee if you DM me
Thanks heaps
2024.05.21 17:22 Ok-Letterhead-934 Mobile Welding Leads and Mechanicing
Hey guys, I'm having a hard to advertising and getting my name out. I've had a few small clients but nothing major yet. Wondering for your small business, what worked for you guys?
Context: I have a website, I'm on Google, I've done facebook ads, and some word of mouth.
Website: https://www.all-in-onewelding.com/
submitted by Ok-Letterhead-934 to Bozeman [link] [comments]
Context: I have a website, I'm on Google, I've done facebook ads, and some word of mouth.
Website: https://www.all-in-onewelding.com/
2024.05.21 17:06 random_koala777 The Seeds Cultivated by Time – A theory about Cryo
I was doing some digging around about the meaning of Cryo and it’s “ideal”, and stumbled across a few interesting connections. I am not sure if anyone else has found these connections already (from a quick check) – I tend to only hop on here when I have a crazy theory I want to share. Hopefully I am not rehashing something that's already been covered!
The main theory is that the power of Cryo, like Anemo, is related to Time.
To be more specific, I think Cryo may be the power that creates the "Seeds" that are carried by "the winds of time".
I came across this idea when trying to look into the "ideal" of Cryo.
From what we have seen in the game, all elements are tied to an “ideal”, and each “ideal” is tied to a deeper meaning connected to the world itself. To give some brief examples:
And then from there I kind of spiralled!
The main theory here is explained in the first two sections, and the rest of the sections I try and use this theory to explain other mysteries in the game. Those sections might be heavier in speculation.
The Meaning of Cryo
While I'm not sure I have a concrete “meaning” or understanding of Cryo yet, I came across a few interesting themes surrounding the Cryo Element:
Thematically I can see the ties between these – we love our family(typically) and want to protect them, and the things we protect can be seen as our vulnerability(and/or, we protect things that are vulnerable).
So "love" inspires us to "protect".
Love and it's connection to "protection" is an important part of this theory.
Cryo and Time
There are a few instances in descriptions where both ice/snow/Cryo and time are mentioned together.
We have seen how Cryo might be related to the idea of “protection” as well, or perhaps preservation?.
So perhaps we can say that the Cryo element seems to be able to "protect" things from the flow of time?
“Seeds of stories, brought by the wind and cultivated by time. Stories brought on the wind will bloom into legends in due time.” - Sundial in Mondstadt related to the God of Time.
In this quote above, it says that “seeds” are brought by the wind/Anemo.
But what are these “seeds”?
While I can’t say exactly what they are, I think that perhaps these “seeds” are at least partially created through the powers of Cryo.
I came to this conclusion after looking at the themes that surround Cryo: love, protection and vulnerability.
These themes, to me, seem to apply perfectly to the concept or function of “seeds”.
A seed tends to need a protective shell, to shield the “vulnerable” parts within.
A seed waits for the correct conditions to sprout, remaining dormant otherwise.
This dormancy can be seen as being “frozen in time”. A seed is effectively “frozen in time” and won’t sprout until the correct conditions are met. This power of protection from time being related to Cryo may be similiar to how the power of Dendro is related to the power of dreams.
Also, remember that when asked about the Cryo Archon, Venti said that “500 years ago, I knew her well.”?
Sure, they are both Archons, but perhaps they were also close because either 1) they both served the God of Time or 2)Cryo Archon is a god of time (perhaps less likely, though).
So the “seeds” frozen in time and/or protected from time, by Cryo, are then carried by the winds of Anemo, to the correct moments that allow them to sprout.
The Love of the Three Moons
This part gets a little more speculative, but fun!
So the three Moon Sisters are suspected to be possible Gods of Time, and also seemed to rule over the Seelie in some capacity.
Love seems related to the fall of the Seelie – as the Seelie seemed to have been forbidden from falling in love with humans. It was after one of the Seelie married a “traveller from afar” that the Seelie fell – some catastrophe struck as a result, soon after this “marriage”.
With the added context that love possibly means or results in the protection from time – that could explain why falling in love with a human was seen as bad. Abusing your powers to protect a human from time sounds bad, for sure.
And maybe, just maybe, the “love” the Seelie had were finite in some way? Which would explain why they couldn’t dish it out to humans freely. Maybe, they had none of this “protection” left over for themselves after giving it away… leaving them to deteriorate and become the lifeforms we see them in today?
In fact, if this is true, then the Seelie gave their love to a “Traveller from afar” which sounds like it could have been an entity similar to the Traveller. The Traveller is said to be a star themselves.
What’s interesting about that is both the Abyss Sibling and the Travellers are stars, and they are possibly very old. In fact, in the We Will Be Reunited quest, the Abyss Sibling tells the Traveller that “I have more than enough time to wait for you, we’ve always had enough time.”
While this seems to be hinting that they have a lot of time, not necessarily immunity from time, it is interesting when you remember that the book Moonlit Bambo Forest says that the Moon Sisters “shared but one love, the stars of daybreak”.
If love is the protection from time, then it could mean that the twins have gained an immunity from the flow of time. Time does not affect them – as they have received the love of the Moon Sisters, who are possibly Gods of Time.
Khaenri’ah, Dainsleif and the Inteyvat
While the pure-blooded Khaenri’ahns are cursed with Immortality, they still seem to be under the effects of time. They don’t seem to be immune.
They seem to still be undergoing some sort of decay – whether it be their memories, mental state, or decaying “from within” (As Chlothar speculates).
HOWEVER – remember how Dainsleif said that he was able to resist the effects of his curse due to the presence of “it”? It was somewhere in the Chasm questline, where he was unsure how the Black Serpent Knights were able to retain some of their humanity without “it”.
Perhaps Dainsleif has also received the “love” of a Seelie/Moon SisteTime god (or whatever the Cryo Archon actually is)?
In fact, now I am wondering if this is also related to the Inteyvat flower, which would harden when In Teyvat, and then return to normal when back in Khaenri’ah.
Khaenri’ah might be located somewhere in the Abyss, and the Abyss seems to have a strange flow of time, after all.
So it might not be too far of a stretch that the Inteyvat flowers are also “protected from time” with this power of love/Cryo until the flower returns to the correct “time” – Khaenri’ah. Though that would also mean that Khaenri’ah is located in a different place in time – in the future or the past, which would be interesting. But probably not impossible from what we have seen in Ei’s second story quest and the Perilous Trails Chasm quest.
Possible Links between Paimon and the Tsaritsa
So there seems to be possible links between the element of Cryo, love, and protection.
The God of Cryo, who is potentially the God of Love and, by extension, potentially the God of Protection…hm.
Remember the “About Yashiori Island” voice lines?
In those voice lines, Paimon claims to be the “god of protection”.
Sure she seems cheeky about it, and was probably joking, but who knows at this point! She might have remembered something subconsciously or this may just be foreshadowing, etc, etc.
Either way, I started digging around to see if I can find any mythological links in real life.
A few interesting things I found:
In fact, the goddess Hathor is said to be the Egyptian version of Aphrodite, god of love, and from reading the wikipedia page, Hathor seems very similar to the Goddess of Flowers – who was a Seelie - and the Seelie served the Moon Sisters, who may have been gods of Time.
There isn’t much more for me to say here – I am not saying that Paimon and Tsaritsa are the same person, but just that I find it interesting that there may be some overlaps between the two characters. I can’t say for sure what this overlap means. Maybe Paimon is a fragment of the Tsaritsa, maybe Paimon was a servant of the God of Time along with the Tsaritsa, maybe Paimon is the God of Time and is therefore the Tsaritsa’s boss. Who knows. Just interesting.
Time and the Preservation of Memories
In the Parable of the Lethied Lotus in the Book of Sun and Moon, it says:
"A ship captain searching for the way back to the surface discovered a tribe of people who ate these lotuses. Some crew members stayed in that place. Others rejected that temptation."
In this story, staying where people ate these lotuses is said to be a "temptation". The title of this Parable described the lotuses as "lethied" which is related to the Lethe river of greek mythology, where drinking from it causes you to "forget". In other words, forgetting is a temptation they wanted to avoid.
This is in the same book that mentions the God of Time, and Enkanomiya, where they worshipped the God of Time.
Now, Ganyu, a Cryo character, uses Amos Bow, and the literal translation of this weapon, according to the wiki, is "Determination to Not Forget".
So perhaps this power of "protection" can also protect memories.
Since time causes memories to "fade" (best example, Dainsleif's own faded memory due to his long life) then perhaps this power of time immunity can also be used on memories.
TLDR:
Cryo protects things from time, and those things are then carried by Anemo. Cryo seems to have the ability to freeze things in time (possibly), or in other words, to protect them from the flow of time. The Tsaritsa, as the Cryo Archon, may have a deeper relationship to the God of Time (or she is a god of time – if you think that there are multiple aspects that rule different types of time).
There are also some interesting possible connections between Paimon and the Tsaritsa, which, if they are both related to the god of time, makes sense.
The twins may have also received some sort of protection of time, since they are stars and the Moon sisters loved the stars of daybreak.
Also this might also be related to Dainsleif and his ability to resist his curse somewhat, and Inteyvat flowers.
And this "protection from time" may also be used to preserve more intangible things - like memories.
Discussion/Conclusion
So what does “Love” mean in the world of Teyvat?
In Genshin, the power of Cryo, and therefore the power of love, may be the power to protect things from the flow of time. It protects things from the flow of time, creating a "seed", and that seed stays dormant or "frozen in time" until its the perfect moment for those things to “sprout”.
If true, this calls a lot of things into question.
The Tsaritsa’s plans to possible recreate the world may also link back to this idea of “seeds” – she may blanket the world in snow to make it a “seed” for the next world.
I also think that if this is true, then it is quite poetic that Shneznaya – the land of the Cryo Archon – is the last region in Teyvat we visit (Khaenri’ah probably/possibly not being counted as “in Teyvat” if its located in the Abyss).
Anemo also seems to signify death in some ways (Venti’s Story Quest), and if Cryo is related to the concept of “seeds”, then Cryo represents life or birth.
“Seeds brought on the wind will bloom into legends in due time.”
Anemo is death, and is the wind that carries the seeds, and Cryo is birth, the creation of the seeds.
We started the game in the land of Anemo, of wind, and death – we started our journey in the land of “endings” and, if this theory holds true, then the last place we’ll visit in Teyvat will be the land of Cryo, of ice, seeds, and birth.
We started at the end, and will end at the start.
That is more or less it. I hope you all enjoyed reading my descent into madness! Hopefully not too wordy as I have trouble making things concise and I was getting real tired towards the end of this ha ha. What do you guys think? I would love to hear any thoughts or input, or even corrections if I got some things wrong.
submitted by random_koala777 to Genshin_Lore [link] [comments]
The main theory is that the power of Cryo, like Anemo, is related to Time.
To be more specific, I think Cryo may be the power that creates the "Seeds" that are carried by "the winds of time".
I came across this idea when trying to look into the "ideal" of Cryo.
From what we have seen in the game, all elements are tied to an “ideal”, and each “ideal” is tied to a deeper meaning connected to the world itself. To give some brief examples:
- Anemo – freedom, time and perhaps Death
- Geo – Contracts(perhaps between mortal and divine?) and perhaps history.
- Electro – Eternity and what is eternal, and Change is eternal or constant.
- Dendro – Wisdom, memories and knowledge through experience.
- Hydro – Justice, life and emotion.
- Pyro – War and rebirth and the erasure of memories (as seen from Arlecchino).
And then from there I kind of spiralled!
The main theory here is explained in the first two sections, and the rest of the sections I try and use this theory to explain other mysteries in the game. Those sections might be heavier in speculation.
The Meaning of Cryo
While I'm not sure I have a concrete “meaning” or understanding of Cryo yet, I came across a few interesting themes surrounding the Cryo Element:
- The descriptions of both the Large Cryo Slime and Cryo Abyss Mage mention their protective shields, despite the fact that similar enemies don’t mention this in their description (Geo Slime and other Abyss Mages)
- The Cryo Abyss Mage description also says that their body is vulnerable (hence its need for protection).
- Cryo Hypostasis gameplay has the Hypostasis create a shield while it is healing (protection while vulnerable)
- Tiara of Frost artefact description: “facing fatal flaws. Fatal flaws are born of a fear of death. Fear of death is born of having things and people to care about” (Fatal flaws are the “vunerability” to protect?)
- Tiara of Frost artefact description: “life as weak, and earth blanketed in unending ice” (weakness is a vulnerability – and also I am not sure if the ice is a bad thing here, perhaps the ice was meant to protect the “weak” life?)
- The Spirit Locket Of Boreas description mentions that Andrius let his power seep into the land to “protect” it.
- Childe who is from Shneznaya says “it’s all about family where I am from” (family and love are easy to relate to each other)
- Qiqi Vision Story: Qiqi has a Cryo Vision and apparently before she received it she missed her family.
Thematically I can see the ties between these – we love our family(typically) and want to protect them, and the things we protect can be seen as our vulnerability(and/or, we protect things that are vulnerable).
So "love" inspires us to "protect".
Love and it's connection to "protection" is an important part of this theory.
Cryo and Time
There are a few instances in descriptions where both ice/snow/Cryo and time are mentioned together.
- Qiqi Vision story: before receiving her Cryo vision (while she was dying or on the verge of dying), Qiqi wished that time could stop.
- Cryo Hypotasis drop, the Crystalline Bloom, says: “Perhaps it is stagnant time, that never-thawing bosom, that is the essence of this undying flower.”
- Blizzard Strayer artefact set, Frozen Homeland’s Demise, says: “An ancient hourglass with fine powdered snow flowing in it. Even the coldest winter cannot freeze the flow of time. "The cold that descends from the sky can freeze time itself."
- To me, this might be drawing a distinction between ice and “Cryo”. Like how Hydro and water are not considered the same thing because Hydro is toxic, as seen in the description of Hydro slimes. So normal winters can’t freeze time but perhaps Cryo can?
- We are able to melt frozen boars in game and when melted, they are completely fine. It seems that they were literally “frozen in time”.
- We also have that quest with Xiangling, where we find Olaf who was frozen by a Cryo Regisvine 300 years ago - and seems to have survived this process unscathed. He effectively time travelled from the past to the future.
We have seen how Cryo might be related to the idea of “protection” as well, or perhaps preservation?.
So perhaps we can say that the Cryo element seems to be able to "protect" things from the flow of time?
“Seeds of stories, brought by the wind and cultivated by time. Stories brought on the wind will bloom into legends in due time.” - Sundial in Mondstadt related to the God of Time.
In this quote above, it says that “seeds” are brought by the wind/Anemo.
But what are these “seeds”?
While I can’t say exactly what they are, I think that perhaps these “seeds” are at least partially created through the powers of Cryo.
I came to this conclusion after looking at the themes that surround Cryo: love, protection and vulnerability.
These themes, to me, seem to apply perfectly to the concept or function of “seeds”.
A seed tends to need a protective shell, to shield the “vulnerable” parts within.
A seed waits for the correct conditions to sprout, remaining dormant otherwise.
This dormancy can be seen as being “frozen in time”. A seed is effectively “frozen in time” and won’t sprout until the correct conditions are met. This power of protection from time being related to Cryo may be similiar to how the power of Dendro is related to the power of dreams.
Also, remember that when asked about the Cryo Archon, Venti said that “500 years ago, I knew her well.”?
Sure, they are both Archons, but perhaps they were also close because either 1) they both served the God of Time or 2)Cryo Archon is a god of time (perhaps less likely, though).
So the “seeds” frozen in time and/or protected from time, by Cryo, are then carried by the winds of Anemo, to the correct moments that allow them to sprout.
The Love of the Three Moons
This part gets a little more speculative, but fun!
So the three Moon Sisters are suspected to be possible Gods of Time, and also seemed to rule over the Seelie in some capacity.
Love seems related to the fall of the Seelie – as the Seelie seemed to have been forbidden from falling in love with humans. It was after one of the Seelie married a “traveller from afar” that the Seelie fell – some catastrophe struck as a result, soon after this “marriage”.
With the added context that love possibly means or results in the protection from time – that could explain why falling in love with a human was seen as bad. Abusing your powers to protect a human from time sounds bad, for sure.
And maybe, just maybe, the “love” the Seelie had were finite in some way? Which would explain why they couldn’t dish it out to humans freely. Maybe, they had none of this “protection” left over for themselves after giving it away… leaving them to deteriorate and become the lifeforms we see them in today?
In fact, if this is true, then the Seelie gave their love to a “Traveller from afar” which sounds like it could have been an entity similar to the Traveller. The Traveller is said to be a star themselves.
What’s interesting about that is both the Abyss Sibling and the Travellers are stars, and they are possibly very old. In fact, in the We Will Be Reunited quest, the Abyss Sibling tells the Traveller that “I have more than enough time to wait for you, we’ve always had enough time.”
While this seems to be hinting that they have a lot of time, not necessarily immunity from time, it is interesting when you remember that the book Moonlit Bambo Forest says that the Moon Sisters “shared but one love, the stars of daybreak”.
If love is the protection from time, then it could mean that the twins have gained an immunity from the flow of time. Time does not affect them – as they have received the love of the Moon Sisters, who are possibly Gods of Time.
Khaenri’ah, Dainsleif and the Inteyvat
While the pure-blooded Khaenri’ahns are cursed with Immortality, they still seem to be under the effects of time. They don’t seem to be immune.
They seem to still be undergoing some sort of decay – whether it be their memories, mental state, or decaying “from within” (As Chlothar speculates).
HOWEVER – remember how Dainsleif said that he was able to resist the effects of his curse due to the presence of “it”? It was somewhere in the Chasm questline, where he was unsure how the Black Serpent Knights were able to retain some of their humanity without “it”.
Perhaps Dainsleif has also received the “love” of a Seelie/Moon SisteTime god (or whatever the Cryo Archon actually is)?
In fact, now I am wondering if this is also related to the Inteyvat flower, which would harden when In Teyvat, and then return to normal when back in Khaenri’ah.
Khaenri’ah might be located somewhere in the Abyss, and the Abyss seems to have a strange flow of time, after all.
So it might not be too far of a stretch that the Inteyvat flowers are also “protected from time” with this power of love/Cryo until the flower returns to the correct “time” – Khaenri’ah. Though that would also mean that Khaenri’ah is located in a different place in time – in the future or the past, which would be interesting. But probably not impossible from what we have seen in Ei’s second story quest and the Perilous Trails Chasm quest.
Possible Links between Paimon and the Tsaritsa
So there seems to be possible links between the element of Cryo, love, and protection.
The God of Cryo, who is potentially the God of Love and, by extension, potentially the God of Protection…hm.
Remember the “About Yashiori Island” voice lines?
In those voice lines, Paimon claims to be the “god of protection”.
Sure she seems cheeky about it, and was probably joking, but who knows at this point! She might have remembered something subconsciously or this may just be foreshadowing, etc, etc.
Either way, I started digging around to see if I can find any mythological links in real life.
A few interesting things I found:
- Aphrodite, the greek goddess of love, according to some myths, was born from sea foam. And we first met Paimon after we fished her out of the sea.
- Aphrodite seems to be related to the Cherubs (She mothered Eros, who together with its roman equivalent Cupid, influenced the iconography of the Cherubs) and apparently Paimon in the Ars Goetia might have been a Cherub (at least according to Wikipedia).
- Paimon in the Ars Goetia could “bestow dignities and lordships”. Genshin Paimon gives people nicknames – but the Tsaritsa bestows “new names” upon her Harbingers. Maybe a coincidence, but you could say that both of them “bestow dignities and lordships”.
- Paimon in the Ars Goetia is said to be able to create “visions” (as in dreams) and we do know the Tsaritsa’s Fatui have Delusions, which are fake Visions.
- Paimon in the Ars Goetia is also said to have the power of “acquiring and dismissing servant spirits” –perhaps the Fatui Harbingers?
In fact, the goddess Hathor is said to be the Egyptian version of Aphrodite, god of love, and from reading the wikipedia page, Hathor seems very similar to the Goddess of Flowers – who was a Seelie - and the Seelie served the Moon Sisters, who may have been gods of Time.
There isn’t much more for me to say here – I am not saying that Paimon and Tsaritsa are the same person, but just that I find it interesting that there may be some overlaps between the two characters. I can’t say for sure what this overlap means. Maybe Paimon is a fragment of the Tsaritsa, maybe Paimon was a servant of the God of Time along with the Tsaritsa, maybe Paimon is the God of Time and is therefore the Tsaritsa’s boss. Who knows. Just interesting.
Time and the Preservation of Memories
In the Parable of the Lethied Lotus in the Book of Sun and Moon, it says:
"A ship captain searching for the way back to the surface discovered a tribe of people who ate these lotuses. Some crew members stayed in that place. Others rejected that temptation."
In this story, staying where people ate these lotuses is said to be a "temptation". The title of this Parable described the lotuses as "lethied" which is related to the Lethe river of greek mythology, where drinking from it causes you to "forget". In other words, forgetting is a temptation they wanted to avoid.
This is in the same book that mentions the God of Time, and Enkanomiya, where they worshipped the God of Time.
Now, Ganyu, a Cryo character, uses Amos Bow, and the literal translation of this weapon, according to the wiki, is "Determination to Not Forget".
So perhaps this power of "protection" can also protect memories.
Since time causes memories to "fade" (best example, Dainsleif's own faded memory due to his long life) then perhaps this power of time immunity can also be used on memories.
TLDR:
Cryo protects things from time, and those things are then carried by Anemo. Cryo seems to have the ability to freeze things in time (possibly), or in other words, to protect them from the flow of time. The Tsaritsa, as the Cryo Archon, may have a deeper relationship to the God of Time (or she is a god of time – if you think that there are multiple aspects that rule different types of time).
There are also some interesting possible connections between Paimon and the Tsaritsa, which, if they are both related to the god of time, makes sense.
The twins may have also received some sort of protection of time, since they are stars and the Moon sisters loved the stars of daybreak.
Also this might also be related to Dainsleif and his ability to resist his curse somewhat, and Inteyvat flowers.
And this "protection from time" may also be used to preserve more intangible things - like memories.
Discussion/Conclusion
So what does “Love” mean in the world of Teyvat?
In Genshin, the power of Cryo, and therefore the power of love, may be the power to protect things from the flow of time. It protects things from the flow of time, creating a "seed", and that seed stays dormant or "frozen in time" until its the perfect moment for those things to “sprout”.
If true, this calls a lot of things into question.
The Tsaritsa’s plans to possible recreate the world may also link back to this idea of “seeds” – she may blanket the world in snow to make it a “seed” for the next world.
I also think that if this is true, then it is quite poetic that Shneznaya – the land of the Cryo Archon – is the last region in Teyvat we visit (Khaenri’ah probably/possibly not being counted as “in Teyvat” if its located in the Abyss).
Anemo also seems to signify death in some ways (Venti’s Story Quest), and if Cryo is related to the concept of “seeds”, then Cryo represents life or birth.
“Seeds brought on the wind will bloom into legends in due time.”
Anemo is death, and is the wind that carries the seeds, and Cryo is birth, the creation of the seeds.
We started the game in the land of Anemo, of wind, and death – we started our journey in the land of “endings” and, if this theory holds true, then the last place we’ll visit in Teyvat will be the land of Cryo, of ice, seeds, and birth.
We started at the end, and will end at the start.
That is more or less it. I hope you all enjoyed reading my descent into madness! Hopefully not too wordy as I have trouble making things concise and I was getting real tired towards the end of this ha ha. What do you guys think? I would love to hear any thoughts or input, or even corrections if I got some things wrong.
2024.05.21 17:04 Stupid_Fucking_Bird Recent MFA graduate w/ professional credits. How they hell do I break into Higher Education?
The title more or less explains it but to give more detail, I am a 29 year old theatre actor with professional credits on my resumé in regional theatre. Currently living in DC and performing in DC's Drunk Shakespeare while planning a move with my fiancé to NYC. We are both from the City originally and she's lining up a job for herself as a public school teacher in Brooklyn. I earned my Master's in Fine Arts in the field of Classical Acting from GW and Shakespeare Theatre Company this past January.
I have been continuously applying to adjunct positions in higher ed for about the past year. My dream situation is a parallel career in academia and the arts with the end goal of a full-time professorship allowing me to do Shakespeare in the summers. I know this goal will require me to work hard and I am; I'm continuously auditioning, performing, and I'm adding to my teaching resumé through teaching artist work. My problem is I cannot seem to make the jump from working as a teaching artist--primarily teaching 3rd-5th graders--to higher education. No matter how many applications I send out I just can't seem to get my foot in the door. I'm qualified, educated, professional, and I truly believe I would make a fantastic acting teacher at an undergraduate level. How in the world do I break into this field? Are my teaching credits with younger students meaningless? I'm trying to find ways to work with increasingly older students but frankly the vast majority of the opportunities are with the littles. Truly any advice from someone who has done this or knows someone who has done this would be appreciated. What aren't I doing that I should be doing?
submitted by Stupid_Fucking_Bird to Theatre [link] [comments]
I have been continuously applying to adjunct positions in higher ed for about the past year. My dream situation is a parallel career in academia and the arts with the end goal of a full-time professorship allowing me to do Shakespeare in the summers. I know this goal will require me to work hard and I am; I'm continuously auditioning, performing, and I'm adding to my teaching resumé through teaching artist work. My problem is I cannot seem to make the jump from working as a teaching artist--primarily teaching 3rd-5th graders--to higher education. No matter how many applications I send out I just can't seem to get my foot in the door. I'm qualified, educated, professional, and I truly believe I would make a fantastic acting teacher at an undergraduate level. How in the world do I break into this field? Are my teaching credits with younger students meaningless? I'm trying to find ways to work with increasingly older students but frankly the vast majority of the opportunities are with the littles. Truly any advice from someone who has done this or knows someone who has done this would be appreciated. What aren't I doing that I should be doing?
2024.05.21 17:00 CDown01 Eagles Peak Pt.11
Previous Part
My eyes darted around the room, still shocked from the brutality I just witnessed from Shaoni. Katrina had strutted out of view and when my eyes turned to where Brooke’s crumpled form should’ve been he was gone to. At some point both Robert and John had run off towards the growing sounds of gunfire. Shaoni and I still stood in the coliseum, shaken to our cores but both for very different reasons.
*CLANG*
The sudden noise startled me, the sound of metal on metal. The sound came again, this time I heard it clearly and turned around to face the noise only to be met by a few familiar faces.
“Don’t mean to bother you but their shootin up the place, could ya let us the hell in!”
Rocco shouted as he beat Brookes stolen lighter against the metals bars that closed off the back entrance to the coliseum. Bianca gave me a sheepish wave as I looked over their faces again. Frank, Stein, and Tuck were with her. They must have come through the same way Bianca and I had a few days before.
“NOW!”
Rocco shouted in irritation as my brain finally kicked into gear and I ran over to let them through the barred metal gate.
“What’s going on up there?”
I wondered out loud, concerned by how shell shocked they all looked.
“I’d guess something involving the government, with equipment like that I doubt it would be anyone else. Just as we got to the hole Bianca mentioned several men in black tactical gear came out of the forest at our sides. When we didn’t clear out like they demanded they started firing so we dove in.”
Stein explained.
“I take it that’s Shaoni?”
He added, pointing towards where she lay, hunched over and taking shaky breaths on the ground.
“Is she alright?”
Bianca chimed in, craning her neck to get a better view of her past everyone else.
“The hell should we care!? Isn’t it her fault we’re doin’ any of this in the first place?”
Rocco grumbled up at us as he laid back on the ground. Glad to see he wasn’t taking things to seriously. Tuck just stared at Shaoni with this intense anger in his eyes, he didn’t say a word.
I know I shouldn’t care what happened to her at this point but a part of me just couldn’t leave Shaoni like this. Sure, she probably didn’t deserve the sympathy but I couldn’t help feeling a little bad for her now that the anger had passed. When I made my way over to her I got the sense I was seeing the real Shaoni for once. I was seeing someone who witnessed her people rise and fall, saw the country we live in change and grow as it became what we know today. Someone who’d lived countless lifetimes as a piece that just didn’t quite fit the puzzle anymore. I thought about everything Bianca had learned about Shaoni, how she was given her powers, no, her burden in the first place. Suddenly I had a pretty good idea of what exactly she brought everyone here for.
“Shaoni?... Are you… uh, you ok?”
I said like I was trying to comfort a dying animal. The closer I got the more I could hear, she was crying. It was that held back sort of crying right before the dam breaks into full on sobs. She was cracking but still trying to put on a tough face, still trying to be every bit as imposing as she had been the first night I saw her. But she wasn’t, now she just looked pitiful.
“You… you’re right you know Keith. I’m not Justice anymore… I…I don’t think I have been for a very long time.”
She choked out through tears that flowed freely down her face as she rose to her feet.
“I don’t know why I brought you here… I was just so desperate to…”
She trailed off but that was alright, I already knew what she was going to say.
“To escape? Pass on your burden? This whole thing was to chose someone to pass the Thunderbird spirit onto wasn’t it?”
I asked, sure that I was right.
“Yes, this is what I wanted from the start, to give my burden to one of you. At first I wanted the trials to help me make my decision but by the time all of you arrived I just wanted a way out. I wanted to finally live a real life. I’ve lived too long… I just want to live simply before the end that should’ve come so long ago.”
Shaoni cried, more controlled now as she finally started to get a hold of herself.
“So what? You’d just give it to someone else! What about what that would do to them?”
“I just wanted out Keith! I know it was selfish, I don’t care! I just want the nightmare to be over!”
Shaoni screamed out at me. She was hysterical enough that I saw Stein’s hand shoot towards his belt. I’m sure he had that gun I saw yesterday waiting there so I held out my hand to signal him to wait.
“We did good once, in the beginning. But that changed, the wars the injustice I just couldn’t stand by and let that happen so I fought back. I spread the idea that fighting to the death was better than compromising for peace, compromising to save lives. That’s when we… I went wrong. I lead them astray! I was responsible for their deaths! Every! Single! One! I was bitter and resentful for years and I took it out on anyone I thought was guilty. I’ve lived with that for centuries! Do you think I don’t know I’ve become a monster Keith?!”
Shaoni finished with a look of profound shame on her face.
I never thought I’d see the day when I actually felt bad for Shaoni. Not some spur of the moment there’s a full on shootout going on above us and I probably shouldn’t let her die, feeling bad. No, I genuinely felt sorry for her after hearing her talk about the past with total honesty for once.
“You could come with us.”
I offered, looking back to everyone who’d gathered around her at that point. The looks on their faces all told me they weren’t fans of that Idea but only Tuck protested.
“I won’t help her crawl outta the bed she made! Keith, do you honestly think she doesn’t deserve everything thats comin’ to her?!”
“No, but I think she’s suffered enough. Besides, I really don’t want to leave someone down here to die knowing I could’ve done something about it.”
“You know what, fine! You care to much about this Keith, she deserves it! But if you want to take her with us don’t be surprised when she goes on and stabs ya in the back! Now come on, we should get moving.”
Tuck finished, throwing his hands up in the air in an act of frustrated surrender.
“So you realize we’ve got to go out there right? We’re not climbing back out the way we came in so heading out the main entrance is our only option at this point.”
Frank said bluntly as we watched Rocco scurry out of the hole they had dropped in from. We’d all collectively decided we were better off sending Rocco back home. Frank was right though, and even though the sounds of gunfire had started to sound a little farther away I still wasn’t a fan of getting anywhere closer to them.
“I might be able to help with that.”
Shaoni replied, getting to her feet with an air of determination.
“Stay behind me and move when I tell you to.”
We all fell into line behind Shaoni without another word. I guess all of us realized the the sobbing mess we’d seen before also just so happened to be the same Thunderbird that reduced most of Imalone to ashes. So despite how we felt about letting her lead us around it was probably our best chance at the moment.
I was a little surprised that none of… whatever was happening out there hadn’t spilled into the mine and made its way to us. We found out why just as soon as the single file line behind Shaoni made it out of the mine. The camp was devastated, what wasn’t on fire or covered in bullet holes was smashed or ripped to pieces. The ground was littered in bodies and shell casings. A few hundred feet in front of us a small group of Shaoni’s followers where taking shots at the men in black tactical gear Stein had mentioned. There was maybe ten of them but it looked like those ten had slaughtered nearly all of the followers that had made up this camp.
I threw up on the spot, I was so shocked by the scene in front of me I didn’t even manage to bend over, it just kinda waterfalled out of my mouth. I heard Bianca groan in disgust from behind me. I didn’t understand why everyone else wasn’t reacting the same way I was. As I came back to my senses after a minute or so I took off my now vomit covered jacket and felt the cool air through my shirt. Shaoni had instructed us to move and I must’ve moved on my own. All of us were gathered behind a small rocky outcrop near the entrance to the mine.
“You doing alright?”
Bianca asked quietly from behind me, putting a hand on my shoulder. I turned to look at her and noticed the jewel encrusted dagger from before was clutched in her hand, twinkling with reflections from her now glowing blue eyes.
I could barely hear Bianca over the sounds of gunfire. Which almost certainly meant the last of the survivors were being wiped out. I couldn’t watch anymore death today so I just ducked lower behind our cover.
“You hear me Keith? Are you ok?”
Bianca persisted with a little more concern in her voice. I was still trying to pretend I hadn’t just seen dozens of dead bodies but I couldn’t really ignore her forever.
“No not…not really.”
I said, my voice coming out silent as a church mouse.
“Was it the-”
I cut her off
“I’ve never seen a dead body before, I mean I have but not like… not like that. The one guy his jaw was just…. Just gone. How do you guys do it? How do you just look at that and not react?”
Bianca sighed and looked me in the eyes. There was a kind of recognition in them, like she was seeing a little bit of herself in my situation.
“We’ve all seen a lot of horrible stuff in our lives, we’re used to it. Still it doesn’t make it feel normal to see… this. Do you think you can hold it together a bit longer or do you want me to…”
Bianca trailed off but it was obvious to me what she meant. Bianca was offering to soothe that terrified part of me with her powers again.
“Thanks but no, I’ll be alright I’ll probably be seeing this in my dreams for weeks though.”
I answered, trying to make a stupid joke to lighten the mood. Bianca cracked a hint of a smile and that was enough for me.
While we’d been talking everyone had failed to notice Shaoni was gone. She had stood up and was walking straight towards where those men in black gear where picking through what was left of her followers. She was glowing though, every single tattoo glowed with an intense white light and then in a flash she was gone, and the Thunderbird was in her place. Frank and Stein stared in awe of the huge beast in front of them. The Thunderbird looked exactly as I remembered. The blue feathers and steel gray beak reflecting in the light from its crackling white eyes.
“That’s it, That’s the god damn bird!”
Tuck yelled like we couldn’t see what was right in front of us. I think he was just surprised to see the Thunderbird again. Even after years of swearing to get back at “the bird” for the friends he lost I don’t think he ever thought he’d come face to face with it again. Seeing it must be bringing up more than a few memories he’d rather forget.
“Don’t do anything you’ll regret! She’s been helping us Tuck, at least put your differences aside until we’ve gotten all this figured out.”
Stein yelled over an ear splitting screech from the massive bird as Tuck began to tense up. Every muscle in his body looked like it was about to pop, they were bulging to an inhuman degree. With a long exhale he loosened up and the swelling went down.
“Damn it… fine! But only till we got things settled here, after that I need to have a “conversation” with that… thing!”
Tuck shouted in begrudging agreement.
The men in front of us all turned toward Shaoni, her new form towering over them. Then I heard a familiar voice shout out,
“You wanted it gone, You’re looking at it! What’re you all waiting for!”
A commanding voice rang out from one of the people in front of us. I didn’t take long to spot the platinum blonde hair poking out from under the armored black helmet the woman wore, not just any woman, Katrina. I didn’t have much time to let that sink in before Katrina made a fist, stuck two fingers up in the air and shook them forward at us. After that, all hell broke loose.
The men behind Katrina rushed forward, guns drawn. Stein drew his own pistol and cocked it, taking aim at the approaching men. Tuck tensed up again and this time he didn’t hold himself back. Bones cracked and skin shifted to accommodate the inhuman muscles he now possessed. Hair sprang up all over his body and under it his face became more angular, his nose almost snout-like. Tuck looked something like a werewolf but definitely not the wolf man I expected. He looked more like an extremely hairy, unnaturally muscular feral person than any wolf man. Frank, Bianca, and I all hunkered down behind the outcrop, waiting for the worst to happen. Shaoni took to the sky with a flap of her massive wings as the gunfire started.
Nothing ever really prepares you for how loud a gunshot actually is, especially a whole bunch of them from fully automatic weapons. There’s nothing quite like being shot at either, at some point you just have to accept the fact that at any moment one of those things flying around you is going to hit you and just get ready for it. That doesn’t actually do anything to calm you down though, at least it didn’t for me. I was huddled behind that little outcropping like a puppy hiding from fireworks on the fourth of July. Wind gusted all around us as Shaoni flapped her wings furiously. The wind coming from her winds was so intense it blew the bullets being fired at her off course. Lead rained all around us as I listened to the cracks of even more bullets being fired. I heard growling as something roughly Tuck sized tore forwards toward the gunfire.
The sky was turning an enraged black and rain had already started to fall in sheets. Lightning struck the ground every so often as well, to close and regular to be natural. I peaked up over the outcrop at one point. I was just in time to see one of the men get struck by a bolt of lightning and tense up as he fell to the ground. As the men kept firing at Shaoni some of their shots started to hit home. The bullets that didn’t get turned away with the wind glanced off her massive form. Whatever those feathers were made off seemed to stop most of the bullets dead in their tracks but it was becoming obvious Shaoni couldn’t keep this up. From our position behind the outcrop Bianca and I both felt the beats of her wings and the gusts of wind that came with it coming slower and slower. We shared a glance for just a second, from the look in Bianca’s eyes, I felt certain we were doomed. More and more of the bullets seemed to be hitting Shaoni and her movements became slower still until eventually it happened.
With a shrill cry she fell from the sky, her blue features stained red in places. Shaoni hit the ground with an earthshaking crash and lay still. Katrina screamed something I couldn’t hear in the violent storm that still raged all around us. When I inched my way up to take a look I saw Katrina and her men charging toward Shaoni guns drawn. Behind them I caught sight of Tuck’s muscular figure getting back up from the ground. I hadn’t been keeping an eye on him before but it looked like he’d seen better days. He hesitated a bit before me moved, looking back to the outcrop where we were and over towards where Shaoni lay. He looked once, twice, then shook his head, mind apparently made up and ran at the men on all fours.
They didn’t hear him coming from behind over the storm and as they raised there weapons Tuck pounced. With one swipe of his humongous hand he sent one of the men flying off towards the forest. Even Katrina was surprised by Tuck’s sudden attack. The time provided by everyone taking a moment to decided who to point their gun at gave Shaoni just enough time to act. She shot one wing out, glancing off everyone near her and knocking them to the ground. One of them men’s helmets flew off with the hit and Stein quickly lined up a shot and fired, hitting the man in the top of the head. The look in his eyes was devoid of any emotion as he ducked back down behind the outcrop. I got the sense this wasn’t the first time Stein had killed, not surprising considering his time in Germany. Still, there was something unsettling about that look in the old scientists eyes.
As Katrina and her men got their bearings again and started firing at Tuck bullets plinked off the outcrop. Apparently they hadn’t forgotten we were there. I stole a quick glance over to where Shaoni had fallen but the Thunderbird was gone revealing a hole in the ground created from the impact of her fall.
“TUCK!”
I screamed out to get his attention for a moment. Tuck’s head swirled towards me just long enough for him to see my outstretched hand pointing to the hole in the ground. I grabbed Bianca’s hand and pulled her to her feet, making a mad dash to the hole. Frank and Stein saw what we were doing and followed after us. Stein fired wild shots off towards Katrina and her men while Tuck kept harassing them.
By some miracle Tuck was still going even as I saw bullets tear into him, he was an animal. He tossed the men around like rag dolls and at one point I turned to see him bring his now claw-like fingernails arching upwards. The head of the man he’d hit was bent back at a sickening angle, he was dead there was no question but Tuck didn’t even stop to spare a thought for the man. Seeing one of their comrades killed in front of them seemed to get the attention of the entire group of them. I hated to admit it but it was exactly the distraction we needed.
As we ran past the chaos of the fight I heard a mix of screams of agony and determination. At one point one of the men’s broken bodies flew over the four of us and hit the ground with a wet crunch that sent a shiver down my spine. We just kept running though, everyone following behind me because I looked like I had a plan. To be fair I did, it was just a bad plan, more of a feeling honestly. I thought if we could get into that hole Shaoni made we might find a way out, a real long shot but it was the best I could do right now.
By the time we reached the hole and I jumped in Tuck had thrown just about every one of Katrina’s men all over the little clearing we were in. Some where very clearly dead but some where rolling around and groaning. Katrina was still standing though, just before I fell deep enough into the hole I got a quick glance at her as she took aim at Tuck who seemed to finally be feeling all the punishment he’d been taking.
I didn’t even have time to scream a warning before my feet hit the hard rock below me and everyone else fell in on top of me.
“Sorry… sorry”
Bianca squeaked out as she pulled herself out of the pile of bodies we’d become. Frank, Stein, and Bianca seemed alright but my ankle was definitely sprained, badly.
“Can you walk on that?”
Bianca asked, examining my ankle in the strange blue light that emanated from further down the chamber we’d fallen into.
“Maybe? Here can I just lean on you?…. yeah, yeah that’ll work.”
I told her, using her to pull myself to my feet and leaning on her for support.
“What are we looking for Keith?”
Frank wondered out loud, a little fear creeping in to his voice as he looked around the chamber.
“I’m not actually sure, I was hoping we’d find Shaoni down here, maybe a tunnel out.”
I grunted out honestly, still reeling form the pain shooting up from my ankle.
“Wait where’s Tuck?”
“If he didn’t make it down we have to assume the worst. We can’t afford to wait now.”
Stein answered, quickly and professionally like someones life wasn’t at stake.
“He never had to come out here for me! We can at least wait for him, give him a chance-”
Stein cut me off
“None of us had to come here for you! We knew the risks so did Tuck. If we wait here now his sacrifice means nothing!”
Stein yelled at me. He was right, none of them needed to be out here but I still didn’t like leaving someone behind. As Frank and stein trudged forward Bianca and I hesitated a bit.
“I don’t want to leave him either but Stein’s right. Just lean on me and lets keep moving, we can come back later and look for his…”
Bianca trailed off before she could say body but I got the message, and if Bianca was moving forward I really didn’t have much of a choice.
We didn’t have to go far to find Shaoni, her usual deerskin clothing was ripped and stained with blood in places. All in all she didn’t look as bad as I thought she would. The light we saw at the entrance was coming from her tattoos as every one glowed brightly with blue light. The same light glowed faintly from four Thunderbird totems placed in the corners of the huge room.
“Welcome to my nest.”
Shaoni said with a dry chuckle, extending her arms out to her sides before immediately clasping them back over a wound in her side.
“Shaoni, are you… are you going to be alright.”
I asked, but before I could get any sort of answer I was interrupted by snarky laughter and a cocking gun.
“Well thanks for leading me right to where I wanted to be Keith.”
Katrina remarked as she walked into the room.
Bianca’s eyes glowed that all to familiar blue but Katrina was a step ahead of her.
“Yeah I wouldn’t try that if I were you. Sure you could force me to walk right out of here but it’s going to take a second to break me, longer than it would take me to pull this trigger.”
Katrina responded with a sneer, turning the gun on Bianca. Bianca jumped back like a scared cat. Ducking under my arm and putting all my weight back on my sprained ankle.
“Wait Don’t!… Argh!”
I cried out at her just before I fell to the ground.
“Ok, ok just… don’t.”
Bianca conceded, putting her hands up and backing away as the blue glow faded from her eyes. When he saw what Katrina was doing Frank wrestled Stein’s gun out of his hands and pointed it straight at Katrina, finger trembling on the trigger.
“Don’t you dare hurt her!”
Frank shouted, face turning red with fury.
“Well thats cute…”
And with an earsplitting bang Katrina turned and shot Frank in the leg. He fell to his knees, dropping the gun he’d been holding as Stein scrambled to hold him up.
“Don’t get in my way, don’t threaten me, and I won’t have to hurt anyone. Now Shaoni, where were we?”
Katrina cooed with murder in her voice as she took a step forward. I tried to pull myself up to my feet, only succeeding in making a pitiful cry as I fell back down again. Bianca flinched towards me but backed up fast when Katrina’s gaze shot her way.
“Keith, you’re still alive? I don’t know how you keep getting mixed into things but you’ve gotta learn when to just give up. I was supposed to kill all of you down there after the third trial. I gave you an out and you just stuck around. Tell you what though, you can still walk away cause I feel bad you got dragged into this in the first place. I have no idea what she was thinking, roping you into this with no idea about the supernatural at all.”
Katrina addressed me, pointing over at Shaoni after helping me to my feet. It hurt to stand but I was getting used to the pain.
“Above everything else I was supposed to kill the Thunderbird and thats what I’m going to do, after that you all can walk out of here.”
Katrina took slow steps toward Shaoni who simply glared at her. She didn’t try to run though, something told me she was ready, no matter how the next few minutes played out. But I had one more trick up my sleeve as I limped over, putting myself in between Shaoni and Katrina.
“She just wants out of all this Katrina! You have to know about where she came from, everything she’s been through!”
I yelled through gritted teeth, biting back the white hot pain shooting up from my ankle.
“I know enough It’s sad sure, but everyone’s got a sad story these days. She’s been flying around taking out whole towns to use as havens for people who want to follow this ass backwards sense of justice she’s got. I don’t want to become that person who’s hunting down supernaturals like her no questions asked just because I was ordered to. But in this case she’s responsible for hundreds of deaths. The “accidents” that happen in those towns are all her fault, and not all of them are as nice as Eagles Peak. The kind of people a town outside of any real form of government or law attracts aren’t the people you want to be neighbors with. She’s got to die Keith, so do you if your going to try and stop me.”
Katrina explained as she stalked closer to me. I really didn’t want to do what I knew I had to do next but I couldn’t watch anyone else die today.
“Alright, I guess there’s no other way then, Shaoni I’ll take on your burden.”
The whole room exploded into a chorus of “what” in varying degrees of shock but my mind was made up. I turned to Shaoni as she asked,
“Are you sure Keith?”
“Yes.”
Before anyone could recover from the shock of what I was about to do she reached out and grabbed my hands. I took hold of her’s and she said something in a language I couldn’t hope to understand as my vision went white.
When I could see again I was… somewhere else. Lightning flashed intermittently overhead and a grassy field extended out forever around me. In front of me stood a misty grey form of a bird it was huge, easily twice the size of the form I’d seen Shaoni take. Through its shifting misty form I could see Shaoni. The bird seemed to be talking to her but I couldn’t make anything out, I could only guess it was a Thunderbird spirit. It seemed to nod to Shaoni before it turned to me and stared me dead in the eyes. Its beak didn’t move, actually no part of it moved but I still heard its voice in my head as its eyes continued to boar into me.
“My chosen, Justice, claims she has lost her way, is this true?”
I couldn’t begin to describe how this voice sounded, powerful is the only word that came to mind. I didn’t feel like I was in any danger though, in fact I felt calmer than I ever had.
“She has.”
I got the sense that quick simple answers were probably best here.
“Justice spoke very highly of you. You offered to succeed her if she is to be believed.”
“I did, but how exactly do we-”
But I was cut off with a bow from the spirit who evaporated all around me. My vision blurred and everything went white again as I collapsed into the soft grass.
I came to on the floor next to Shaoni, it couldn’t have been that much later because neither of us had any new bullet holes in us.
“What did you just do?”
Katrina asked standing above me and looking absolutely stupefied.
“The Thunderbird is dead.”
Was my simple, potentially completely bullshit answer. Katrina looked from me to Shaoni and back again, eyes growing wide as the realization dawned on her.
“You know what? That works for me, just don’t cause us any trouble and we can just forget this whole thing ever happened. Oh, I like the new eyes by the way.”
With that Katrina walked off and climbed a rope ladder she had attached to the ground outside the hole we fell through.
Everything else that happened was a blur, we went back out and found pretty much all of Katrina’s men dead. Tuck was shot several times and barley breathing when Shaoni of all people found him. She called us over and Stein assured us he’d be alright if we got him back to the lab soon. We carried Tuck’s hairy form over to one of the SUV’s and raced back into town. On the way we drove past Katrina who’d also taken one of the SUV’s and was heading out of town. Bianca made a comment at some point that I looked different. When we got back to the house I looked in a mirror and saw my eyes where the same shade of grey Shaoni’s had been.
Speaking of Shaoni we took her with us, she followed us over to the car after she found Tuck. She looked a bit like a lost puppy at that point if I’m honest. I guess finally being able to live your life free of some strange sense of duty after hundreds of years will do that to you. Shaoni hasn’t actually said much since we settled back in at Bianca’s house. She eats and goes through the motions of normal life, she’ll even shoot you a warm smile if she catches you staring at her. I’m still not used to seeing her with green eyes though. I think she just feels lost but I’m ready to help show her the ins and outs of normal-ish life when she’s ready to ask for help.
Frank and Stein went back to doing their normal experimenting pretty fast. The whole thing past them by like a particularly eventful weekend. Even Frank’s bullet wound was quickly forgotten about. Pretty much as soon as he treated it it was like it never even happened to him. Tuck got back on his feet with a lot of help from Frank and Stein. He walks with a permanent limp now but other than that he’s fine. Richelle just about had a conniption when we told her what happened and she hasn’t left Tuck’s side since. She seemed surprised when we described his transformation and we came to find out he never told her about his, “Condition”. That may be why they’ve been so inseparable lately, she just wants to help him however she can and he sure isn’t complaining about that.
Tuck and Shaoni have been getting along as well. I never thought I’d see the day those two sat down and just talked but after a tense first few weeks they came to an understanding. They aren’t old friends now by any means but I’ve walked in on them both talking about their pasts. Maybe sharing stories helps them deal with living such long lives.
As for me and Bianca we started dating and thats been… well that’s been just great. I think its good for both of us cause after everything that happened at the old mine I was just a bundle of nerves. Having someone like her to talk to, someone who gets it, who’s seen so much worse helps put things in perspective. She finally has someone to really talk to in town too. Theres not a whole lot of trouble for us to get up to but we’ve started making a habit of pouring over Frank and Stein’s notes on the supernatural. Not the most riveting idea for a night in but I like learning more about whats really out there.
I still don’t feel any different after taking on Shaoni’s “burden”. Maybe that sense of duty she felt really was just all in her head, a promise to her people that she never let go. Honestly I haven’t tried to use whatever powers might come with my own condition. I just don’t feel like I need to. Like I told Katrina, the Thunderbird is dead. I’m sure not going to be the next Shaoni or anything like that but maybe It’ll help us find Brooke.
Thats the one thing that keeps Bianca and I up at night, we never found Brooke’s body. The two of us went up to the old mine a week or so after everything happened to look around for any sign of him but we didn’t find a trace. In fact the whole thing was cleaned up and the entrance to the mine was collapsed. I’m willing to bet whoever Katrina works for came back to try and wipe away any traces they may have left here. Maybe they found Brooke out there and dealt with him themselves, maybe he’s still out there somewhere. But for now everything’s been pretty calm, even normal around here.
Rocco is still a menace, Tuck still leaves the Eagle’s Roost door unlocked at all hours of the day, and theres still next to no people living here. Without Shaoni and her trials looming over me life is actually pretty good here. So that’s my story, how a storm and a huge bird dragged me halfway across the country and I started dating a succubus…right after I became the Thunderbird. It still seems crazy when I say it like that. Maybe I’ll dig up something on Brooke but for now I think I’ve finally found my new normal out here in the curiously named town with no Eagles and no Peaks.
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My eyes darted around the room, still shocked from the brutality I just witnessed from Shaoni. Katrina had strutted out of view and when my eyes turned to where Brooke’s crumpled form should’ve been he was gone to. At some point both Robert and John had run off towards the growing sounds of gunfire. Shaoni and I still stood in the coliseum, shaken to our cores but both for very different reasons.
*CLANG*
The sudden noise startled me, the sound of metal on metal. The sound came again, this time I heard it clearly and turned around to face the noise only to be met by a few familiar faces.
“Don’t mean to bother you but their shootin up the place, could ya let us the hell in!”
Rocco shouted as he beat Brookes stolen lighter against the metals bars that closed off the back entrance to the coliseum. Bianca gave me a sheepish wave as I looked over their faces again. Frank, Stein, and Tuck were with her. They must have come through the same way Bianca and I had a few days before.
“NOW!”
Rocco shouted in irritation as my brain finally kicked into gear and I ran over to let them through the barred metal gate.
“What’s going on up there?”
I wondered out loud, concerned by how shell shocked they all looked.
“I’d guess something involving the government, with equipment like that I doubt it would be anyone else. Just as we got to the hole Bianca mentioned several men in black tactical gear came out of the forest at our sides. When we didn’t clear out like they demanded they started firing so we dove in.”
Stein explained.
“I take it that’s Shaoni?”
He added, pointing towards where she lay, hunched over and taking shaky breaths on the ground.
“Is she alright?”
Bianca chimed in, craning her neck to get a better view of her past everyone else.
“The hell should we care!? Isn’t it her fault we’re doin’ any of this in the first place?”
Rocco grumbled up at us as he laid back on the ground. Glad to see he wasn’t taking things to seriously. Tuck just stared at Shaoni with this intense anger in his eyes, he didn’t say a word.
I know I shouldn’t care what happened to her at this point but a part of me just couldn’t leave Shaoni like this. Sure, she probably didn’t deserve the sympathy but I couldn’t help feeling a little bad for her now that the anger had passed. When I made my way over to her I got the sense I was seeing the real Shaoni for once. I was seeing someone who witnessed her people rise and fall, saw the country we live in change and grow as it became what we know today. Someone who’d lived countless lifetimes as a piece that just didn’t quite fit the puzzle anymore. I thought about everything Bianca had learned about Shaoni, how she was given her powers, no, her burden in the first place. Suddenly I had a pretty good idea of what exactly she brought everyone here for.
“Shaoni?... Are you… uh, you ok?”
I said like I was trying to comfort a dying animal. The closer I got the more I could hear, she was crying. It was that held back sort of crying right before the dam breaks into full on sobs. She was cracking but still trying to put on a tough face, still trying to be every bit as imposing as she had been the first night I saw her. But she wasn’t, now she just looked pitiful.
“You… you’re right you know Keith. I’m not Justice anymore… I…I don’t think I have been for a very long time.”
She choked out through tears that flowed freely down her face as she rose to her feet.
“I don’t know why I brought you here… I was just so desperate to…”
She trailed off but that was alright, I already knew what she was going to say.
“To escape? Pass on your burden? This whole thing was to chose someone to pass the Thunderbird spirit onto wasn’t it?”
I asked, sure that I was right.
“Yes, this is what I wanted from the start, to give my burden to one of you. At first I wanted the trials to help me make my decision but by the time all of you arrived I just wanted a way out. I wanted to finally live a real life. I’ve lived too long… I just want to live simply before the end that should’ve come so long ago.”
Shaoni cried, more controlled now as she finally started to get a hold of herself.
“So what? You’d just give it to someone else! What about what that would do to them?”
“I just wanted out Keith! I know it was selfish, I don’t care! I just want the nightmare to be over!”
Shaoni screamed out at me. She was hysterical enough that I saw Stein’s hand shoot towards his belt. I’m sure he had that gun I saw yesterday waiting there so I held out my hand to signal him to wait.
“We did good once, in the beginning. But that changed, the wars the injustice I just couldn’t stand by and let that happen so I fought back. I spread the idea that fighting to the death was better than compromising for peace, compromising to save lives. That’s when we… I went wrong. I lead them astray! I was responsible for their deaths! Every! Single! One! I was bitter and resentful for years and I took it out on anyone I thought was guilty. I’ve lived with that for centuries! Do you think I don’t know I’ve become a monster Keith?!”
Shaoni finished with a look of profound shame on her face.
I never thought I’d see the day when I actually felt bad for Shaoni. Not some spur of the moment there’s a full on shootout going on above us and I probably shouldn’t let her die, feeling bad. No, I genuinely felt sorry for her after hearing her talk about the past with total honesty for once.
“You could come with us.”
I offered, looking back to everyone who’d gathered around her at that point. The looks on their faces all told me they weren’t fans of that Idea but only Tuck protested.
“I won’t help her crawl outta the bed she made! Keith, do you honestly think she doesn’t deserve everything thats comin’ to her?!”
“No, but I think she’s suffered enough. Besides, I really don’t want to leave someone down here to die knowing I could’ve done something about it.”
“You know what, fine! You care to much about this Keith, she deserves it! But if you want to take her with us don’t be surprised when she goes on and stabs ya in the back! Now come on, we should get moving.”
Tuck finished, throwing his hands up in the air in an act of frustrated surrender.
“So you realize we’ve got to go out there right? We’re not climbing back out the way we came in so heading out the main entrance is our only option at this point.”
Frank said bluntly as we watched Rocco scurry out of the hole they had dropped in from. We’d all collectively decided we were better off sending Rocco back home. Frank was right though, and even though the sounds of gunfire had started to sound a little farther away I still wasn’t a fan of getting anywhere closer to them.
“I might be able to help with that.”
Shaoni replied, getting to her feet with an air of determination.
“Stay behind me and move when I tell you to.”
We all fell into line behind Shaoni without another word. I guess all of us realized the the sobbing mess we’d seen before also just so happened to be the same Thunderbird that reduced most of Imalone to ashes. So despite how we felt about letting her lead us around it was probably our best chance at the moment.
I was a little surprised that none of… whatever was happening out there hadn’t spilled into the mine and made its way to us. We found out why just as soon as the single file line behind Shaoni made it out of the mine. The camp was devastated, what wasn’t on fire or covered in bullet holes was smashed or ripped to pieces. The ground was littered in bodies and shell casings. A few hundred feet in front of us a small group of Shaoni’s followers where taking shots at the men in black tactical gear Stein had mentioned. There was maybe ten of them but it looked like those ten had slaughtered nearly all of the followers that had made up this camp.
I threw up on the spot, I was so shocked by the scene in front of me I didn’t even manage to bend over, it just kinda waterfalled out of my mouth. I heard Bianca groan in disgust from behind me. I didn’t understand why everyone else wasn’t reacting the same way I was. As I came back to my senses after a minute or so I took off my now vomit covered jacket and felt the cool air through my shirt. Shaoni had instructed us to move and I must’ve moved on my own. All of us were gathered behind a small rocky outcrop near the entrance to the mine.
“You doing alright?”
Bianca asked quietly from behind me, putting a hand on my shoulder. I turned to look at her and noticed the jewel encrusted dagger from before was clutched in her hand, twinkling with reflections from her now glowing blue eyes.
I could barely hear Bianca over the sounds of gunfire. Which almost certainly meant the last of the survivors were being wiped out. I couldn’t watch anymore death today so I just ducked lower behind our cover.
“You hear me Keith? Are you ok?”
Bianca persisted with a little more concern in her voice. I was still trying to pretend I hadn’t just seen dozens of dead bodies but I couldn’t really ignore her forever.
“No not…not really.”
I said, my voice coming out silent as a church mouse.
“Was it the-”
I cut her off
“I’ve never seen a dead body before, I mean I have but not like… not like that. The one guy his jaw was just…. Just gone. How do you guys do it? How do you just look at that and not react?”
Bianca sighed and looked me in the eyes. There was a kind of recognition in them, like she was seeing a little bit of herself in my situation.
“We’ve all seen a lot of horrible stuff in our lives, we’re used to it. Still it doesn’t make it feel normal to see… this. Do you think you can hold it together a bit longer or do you want me to…”
Bianca trailed off but it was obvious to me what she meant. Bianca was offering to soothe that terrified part of me with her powers again.
“Thanks but no, I’ll be alright I’ll probably be seeing this in my dreams for weeks though.”
I answered, trying to make a stupid joke to lighten the mood. Bianca cracked a hint of a smile and that was enough for me.
While we’d been talking everyone had failed to notice Shaoni was gone. She had stood up and was walking straight towards where those men in black gear where picking through what was left of her followers. She was glowing though, every single tattoo glowed with an intense white light and then in a flash she was gone, and the Thunderbird was in her place. Frank and Stein stared in awe of the huge beast in front of them. The Thunderbird looked exactly as I remembered. The blue feathers and steel gray beak reflecting in the light from its crackling white eyes.
“That’s it, That’s the god damn bird!”
Tuck yelled like we couldn’t see what was right in front of us. I think he was just surprised to see the Thunderbird again. Even after years of swearing to get back at “the bird” for the friends he lost I don’t think he ever thought he’d come face to face with it again. Seeing it must be bringing up more than a few memories he’d rather forget.
“Don’t do anything you’ll regret! She’s been helping us Tuck, at least put your differences aside until we’ve gotten all this figured out.”
Stein yelled over an ear splitting screech from the massive bird as Tuck began to tense up. Every muscle in his body looked like it was about to pop, they were bulging to an inhuman degree. With a long exhale he loosened up and the swelling went down.
“Damn it… fine! But only till we got things settled here, after that I need to have a “conversation” with that… thing!”
Tuck shouted in begrudging agreement.
The men in front of us all turned toward Shaoni, her new form towering over them. Then I heard a familiar voice shout out,
“You wanted it gone, You’re looking at it! What’re you all waiting for!”
A commanding voice rang out from one of the people in front of us. I didn’t take long to spot the platinum blonde hair poking out from under the armored black helmet the woman wore, not just any woman, Katrina. I didn’t have much time to let that sink in before Katrina made a fist, stuck two fingers up in the air and shook them forward at us. After that, all hell broke loose.
The men behind Katrina rushed forward, guns drawn. Stein drew his own pistol and cocked it, taking aim at the approaching men. Tuck tensed up again and this time he didn’t hold himself back. Bones cracked and skin shifted to accommodate the inhuman muscles he now possessed. Hair sprang up all over his body and under it his face became more angular, his nose almost snout-like. Tuck looked something like a werewolf but definitely not the wolf man I expected. He looked more like an extremely hairy, unnaturally muscular feral person than any wolf man. Frank, Bianca, and I all hunkered down behind the outcrop, waiting for the worst to happen. Shaoni took to the sky with a flap of her massive wings as the gunfire started.
Nothing ever really prepares you for how loud a gunshot actually is, especially a whole bunch of them from fully automatic weapons. There’s nothing quite like being shot at either, at some point you just have to accept the fact that at any moment one of those things flying around you is going to hit you and just get ready for it. That doesn’t actually do anything to calm you down though, at least it didn’t for me. I was huddled behind that little outcropping like a puppy hiding from fireworks on the fourth of July. Wind gusted all around us as Shaoni flapped her wings furiously. The wind coming from her winds was so intense it blew the bullets being fired at her off course. Lead rained all around us as I listened to the cracks of even more bullets being fired. I heard growling as something roughly Tuck sized tore forwards toward the gunfire.
The sky was turning an enraged black and rain had already started to fall in sheets. Lightning struck the ground every so often as well, to close and regular to be natural. I peaked up over the outcrop at one point. I was just in time to see one of the men get struck by a bolt of lightning and tense up as he fell to the ground. As the men kept firing at Shaoni some of their shots started to hit home. The bullets that didn’t get turned away with the wind glanced off her massive form. Whatever those feathers were made off seemed to stop most of the bullets dead in their tracks but it was becoming obvious Shaoni couldn’t keep this up. From our position behind the outcrop Bianca and I both felt the beats of her wings and the gusts of wind that came with it coming slower and slower. We shared a glance for just a second, from the look in Bianca’s eyes, I felt certain we were doomed. More and more of the bullets seemed to be hitting Shaoni and her movements became slower still until eventually it happened.
With a shrill cry she fell from the sky, her blue features stained red in places. Shaoni hit the ground with an earthshaking crash and lay still. Katrina screamed something I couldn’t hear in the violent storm that still raged all around us. When I inched my way up to take a look I saw Katrina and her men charging toward Shaoni guns drawn. Behind them I caught sight of Tuck’s muscular figure getting back up from the ground. I hadn’t been keeping an eye on him before but it looked like he’d seen better days. He hesitated a bit before me moved, looking back to the outcrop where we were and over towards where Shaoni lay. He looked once, twice, then shook his head, mind apparently made up and ran at the men on all fours.
They didn’t hear him coming from behind over the storm and as they raised there weapons Tuck pounced. With one swipe of his humongous hand he sent one of the men flying off towards the forest. Even Katrina was surprised by Tuck’s sudden attack. The time provided by everyone taking a moment to decided who to point their gun at gave Shaoni just enough time to act. She shot one wing out, glancing off everyone near her and knocking them to the ground. One of them men’s helmets flew off with the hit and Stein quickly lined up a shot and fired, hitting the man in the top of the head. The look in his eyes was devoid of any emotion as he ducked back down behind the outcrop. I got the sense this wasn’t the first time Stein had killed, not surprising considering his time in Germany. Still, there was something unsettling about that look in the old scientists eyes.
As Katrina and her men got their bearings again and started firing at Tuck bullets plinked off the outcrop. Apparently they hadn’t forgotten we were there. I stole a quick glance over to where Shaoni had fallen but the Thunderbird was gone revealing a hole in the ground created from the impact of her fall.
“TUCK!”
I screamed out to get his attention for a moment. Tuck’s head swirled towards me just long enough for him to see my outstretched hand pointing to the hole in the ground. I grabbed Bianca’s hand and pulled her to her feet, making a mad dash to the hole. Frank and Stein saw what we were doing and followed after us. Stein fired wild shots off towards Katrina and her men while Tuck kept harassing them.
By some miracle Tuck was still going even as I saw bullets tear into him, he was an animal. He tossed the men around like rag dolls and at one point I turned to see him bring his now claw-like fingernails arching upwards. The head of the man he’d hit was bent back at a sickening angle, he was dead there was no question but Tuck didn’t even stop to spare a thought for the man. Seeing one of their comrades killed in front of them seemed to get the attention of the entire group of them. I hated to admit it but it was exactly the distraction we needed.
As we ran past the chaos of the fight I heard a mix of screams of agony and determination. At one point one of the men’s broken bodies flew over the four of us and hit the ground with a wet crunch that sent a shiver down my spine. We just kept running though, everyone following behind me because I looked like I had a plan. To be fair I did, it was just a bad plan, more of a feeling honestly. I thought if we could get into that hole Shaoni made we might find a way out, a real long shot but it was the best I could do right now.
By the time we reached the hole and I jumped in Tuck had thrown just about every one of Katrina’s men all over the little clearing we were in. Some where very clearly dead but some where rolling around and groaning. Katrina was still standing though, just before I fell deep enough into the hole I got a quick glance at her as she took aim at Tuck who seemed to finally be feeling all the punishment he’d been taking.
I didn’t even have time to scream a warning before my feet hit the hard rock below me and everyone else fell in on top of me.
“Sorry… sorry”
Bianca squeaked out as she pulled herself out of the pile of bodies we’d become. Frank, Stein, and Bianca seemed alright but my ankle was definitely sprained, badly.
“Can you walk on that?”
Bianca asked, examining my ankle in the strange blue light that emanated from further down the chamber we’d fallen into.
“Maybe? Here can I just lean on you?…. yeah, yeah that’ll work.”
I told her, using her to pull myself to my feet and leaning on her for support.
“What are we looking for Keith?”
Frank wondered out loud, a little fear creeping in to his voice as he looked around the chamber.
“I’m not actually sure, I was hoping we’d find Shaoni down here, maybe a tunnel out.”
I grunted out honestly, still reeling form the pain shooting up from my ankle.
“Wait where’s Tuck?”
“If he didn’t make it down we have to assume the worst. We can’t afford to wait now.”
Stein answered, quickly and professionally like someones life wasn’t at stake.
“He never had to come out here for me! We can at least wait for him, give him a chance-”
Stein cut me off
“None of us had to come here for you! We knew the risks so did Tuck. If we wait here now his sacrifice means nothing!”
Stein yelled at me. He was right, none of them needed to be out here but I still didn’t like leaving someone behind. As Frank and stein trudged forward Bianca and I hesitated a bit.
“I don’t want to leave him either but Stein’s right. Just lean on me and lets keep moving, we can come back later and look for his…”
Bianca trailed off before she could say body but I got the message, and if Bianca was moving forward I really didn’t have much of a choice.
We didn’t have to go far to find Shaoni, her usual deerskin clothing was ripped and stained with blood in places. All in all she didn’t look as bad as I thought she would. The light we saw at the entrance was coming from her tattoos as every one glowed brightly with blue light. The same light glowed faintly from four Thunderbird totems placed in the corners of the huge room.
“Welcome to my nest.”
Shaoni said with a dry chuckle, extending her arms out to her sides before immediately clasping them back over a wound in her side.
“Shaoni, are you… are you going to be alright.”
I asked, but before I could get any sort of answer I was interrupted by snarky laughter and a cocking gun.
“Well thanks for leading me right to where I wanted to be Keith.”
Katrina remarked as she walked into the room.
Bianca’s eyes glowed that all to familiar blue but Katrina was a step ahead of her.
“Yeah I wouldn’t try that if I were you. Sure you could force me to walk right out of here but it’s going to take a second to break me, longer than it would take me to pull this trigger.”
Katrina responded with a sneer, turning the gun on Bianca. Bianca jumped back like a scared cat. Ducking under my arm and putting all my weight back on my sprained ankle.
“Wait Don’t!… Argh!”
I cried out at her just before I fell to the ground.
“Ok, ok just… don’t.”
Bianca conceded, putting her hands up and backing away as the blue glow faded from her eyes. When he saw what Katrina was doing Frank wrestled Stein’s gun out of his hands and pointed it straight at Katrina, finger trembling on the trigger.
“Don’t you dare hurt her!”
Frank shouted, face turning red with fury.
“Well thats cute…”
And with an earsplitting bang Katrina turned and shot Frank in the leg. He fell to his knees, dropping the gun he’d been holding as Stein scrambled to hold him up.
“Don’t get in my way, don’t threaten me, and I won’t have to hurt anyone. Now Shaoni, where were we?”
Katrina cooed with murder in her voice as she took a step forward. I tried to pull myself up to my feet, only succeeding in making a pitiful cry as I fell back down again. Bianca flinched towards me but backed up fast when Katrina’s gaze shot her way.
“Keith, you’re still alive? I don’t know how you keep getting mixed into things but you’ve gotta learn when to just give up. I was supposed to kill all of you down there after the third trial. I gave you an out and you just stuck around. Tell you what though, you can still walk away cause I feel bad you got dragged into this in the first place. I have no idea what she was thinking, roping you into this with no idea about the supernatural at all.”
Katrina addressed me, pointing over at Shaoni after helping me to my feet. It hurt to stand but I was getting used to the pain.
“Above everything else I was supposed to kill the Thunderbird and thats what I’m going to do, after that you all can walk out of here.”
Katrina took slow steps toward Shaoni who simply glared at her. She didn’t try to run though, something told me she was ready, no matter how the next few minutes played out. But I had one more trick up my sleeve as I limped over, putting myself in between Shaoni and Katrina.
“She just wants out of all this Katrina! You have to know about where she came from, everything she’s been through!”
I yelled through gritted teeth, biting back the white hot pain shooting up from my ankle.
“I know enough It’s sad sure, but everyone’s got a sad story these days. She’s been flying around taking out whole towns to use as havens for people who want to follow this ass backwards sense of justice she’s got. I don’t want to become that person who’s hunting down supernaturals like her no questions asked just because I was ordered to. But in this case she’s responsible for hundreds of deaths. The “accidents” that happen in those towns are all her fault, and not all of them are as nice as Eagles Peak. The kind of people a town outside of any real form of government or law attracts aren’t the people you want to be neighbors with. She’s got to die Keith, so do you if your going to try and stop me.”
Katrina explained as she stalked closer to me. I really didn’t want to do what I knew I had to do next but I couldn’t watch anyone else die today.
“Alright, I guess there’s no other way then, Shaoni I’ll take on your burden.”
The whole room exploded into a chorus of “what” in varying degrees of shock but my mind was made up. I turned to Shaoni as she asked,
“Are you sure Keith?”
“Yes.”
Before anyone could recover from the shock of what I was about to do she reached out and grabbed my hands. I took hold of her’s and she said something in a language I couldn’t hope to understand as my vision went white.
When I could see again I was… somewhere else. Lightning flashed intermittently overhead and a grassy field extended out forever around me. In front of me stood a misty grey form of a bird it was huge, easily twice the size of the form I’d seen Shaoni take. Through its shifting misty form I could see Shaoni. The bird seemed to be talking to her but I couldn’t make anything out, I could only guess it was a Thunderbird spirit. It seemed to nod to Shaoni before it turned to me and stared me dead in the eyes. Its beak didn’t move, actually no part of it moved but I still heard its voice in my head as its eyes continued to boar into me.
“My chosen, Justice, claims she has lost her way, is this true?”
I couldn’t begin to describe how this voice sounded, powerful is the only word that came to mind. I didn’t feel like I was in any danger though, in fact I felt calmer than I ever had.
“She has.”
I got the sense that quick simple answers were probably best here.
“Justice spoke very highly of you. You offered to succeed her if she is to be believed.”
“I did, but how exactly do we-”
But I was cut off with a bow from the spirit who evaporated all around me. My vision blurred and everything went white again as I collapsed into the soft grass.
I came to on the floor next to Shaoni, it couldn’t have been that much later because neither of us had any new bullet holes in us.
“What did you just do?”
Katrina asked standing above me and looking absolutely stupefied.
“The Thunderbird is dead.”
Was my simple, potentially completely bullshit answer. Katrina looked from me to Shaoni and back again, eyes growing wide as the realization dawned on her.
“You know what? That works for me, just don’t cause us any trouble and we can just forget this whole thing ever happened. Oh, I like the new eyes by the way.”
With that Katrina walked off and climbed a rope ladder she had attached to the ground outside the hole we fell through.
Everything else that happened was a blur, we went back out and found pretty much all of Katrina’s men dead. Tuck was shot several times and barley breathing when Shaoni of all people found him. She called us over and Stein assured us he’d be alright if we got him back to the lab soon. We carried Tuck’s hairy form over to one of the SUV’s and raced back into town. On the way we drove past Katrina who’d also taken one of the SUV’s and was heading out of town. Bianca made a comment at some point that I looked different. When we got back to the house I looked in a mirror and saw my eyes where the same shade of grey Shaoni’s had been.
Speaking of Shaoni we took her with us, she followed us over to the car after she found Tuck. She looked a bit like a lost puppy at that point if I’m honest. I guess finally being able to live your life free of some strange sense of duty after hundreds of years will do that to you. Shaoni hasn’t actually said much since we settled back in at Bianca’s house. She eats and goes through the motions of normal life, she’ll even shoot you a warm smile if she catches you staring at her. I’m still not used to seeing her with green eyes though. I think she just feels lost but I’m ready to help show her the ins and outs of normal-ish life when she’s ready to ask for help.
Frank and Stein went back to doing their normal experimenting pretty fast. The whole thing past them by like a particularly eventful weekend. Even Frank’s bullet wound was quickly forgotten about. Pretty much as soon as he treated it it was like it never even happened to him. Tuck got back on his feet with a lot of help from Frank and Stein. He walks with a permanent limp now but other than that he’s fine. Richelle just about had a conniption when we told her what happened and she hasn’t left Tuck’s side since. She seemed surprised when we described his transformation and we came to find out he never told her about his, “Condition”. That may be why they’ve been so inseparable lately, she just wants to help him however she can and he sure isn’t complaining about that.
Tuck and Shaoni have been getting along as well. I never thought I’d see the day those two sat down and just talked but after a tense first few weeks they came to an understanding. They aren’t old friends now by any means but I’ve walked in on them both talking about their pasts. Maybe sharing stories helps them deal with living such long lives.
As for me and Bianca we started dating and thats been… well that’s been just great. I think its good for both of us cause after everything that happened at the old mine I was just a bundle of nerves. Having someone like her to talk to, someone who gets it, who’s seen so much worse helps put things in perspective. She finally has someone to really talk to in town too. Theres not a whole lot of trouble for us to get up to but we’ve started making a habit of pouring over Frank and Stein’s notes on the supernatural. Not the most riveting idea for a night in but I like learning more about whats really out there.
I still don’t feel any different after taking on Shaoni’s “burden”. Maybe that sense of duty she felt really was just all in her head, a promise to her people that she never let go. Honestly I haven’t tried to use whatever powers might come with my own condition. I just don’t feel like I need to. Like I told Katrina, the Thunderbird is dead. I’m sure not going to be the next Shaoni or anything like that but maybe It’ll help us find Brooke.
Thats the one thing that keeps Bianca and I up at night, we never found Brooke’s body. The two of us went up to the old mine a week or so after everything happened to look around for any sign of him but we didn’t find a trace. In fact the whole thing was cleaned up and the entrance to the mine was collapsed. I’m willing to bet whoever Katrina works for came back to try and wipe away any traces they may have left here. Maybe they found Brooke out there and dealt with him themselves, maybe he’s still out there somewhere. But for now everything’s been pretty calm, even normal around here.
Rocco is still a menace, Tuck still leaves the Eagle’s Roost door unlocked at all hours of the day, and theres still next to no people living here. Without Shaoni and her trials looming over me life is actually pretty good here. So that’s my story, how a storm and a huge bird dragged me halfway across the country and I started dating a succubus…right after I became the Thunderbird. It still seems crazy when I say it like that. Maybe I’ll dig up something on Brooke but for now I think I’ve finally found my new normal out here in the curiously named town with no Eagles and no Peaks.
2024.05.21 16:59 CDown01 Eagles Peak Pt.10
Previous Part
The first sound I heard that morning was foot steps outside my tepee.
“Get up! Shaoni wants you all in town.”
The gruff but familiar voice of my driver from three days ago shouted at me. It had to be some sick sense of humor on Shaoni’s part, sending this guy to come get me for things again and again. Honestly, even I was starting to feel bad for him. Bianca stabbed his friend I knocked him off that stage yesterday with one of the war clubs. I speak from experience when I say those things HURT.
“Alright alright, just give me a second to get dressed!”
I yelled back to the man as I rushed to get around inside. At least he had the common courtesy to stay outside. A minute or two later I stepped out to see everyone else gathered around the man. Brooke, Katrina, John, and Robert all stood there, just staring at me.
“Mornin’ sleeping beauty”
Robert finally said after what seemed like forever, nearly choking on laugher at his own joke.
“I thought you were never going to wake up. Did you not hear Shaoni last night? We were supposed to be up 6 sharp.”
He explained after his laughing fit. Apparently I had missed that bit of Shaoni’s whole presentation last night. Katrina grabbed a pair of keys out of her pocket and started walking away.
“Come on, we’ve got to get into town and finish this whole thing.”
She called back to us just a little too eagerly.
“She’s letting us drive? I thought she didn’t want us heading back to town without some kind of supervision.”
I questioned as we all walked toward the same beat up red pickup that had brought me here.
“I guess she decided to make an exception.”
Katrina replied, not even bothering to look at me.
“Besides I don’t think running is much of an option at this point.”
She continued, pointing up towards the sky. A storm was brewing there, a killer one by the looks of it. The odd thing was it didn’t seem to want to break, it was just stuck in that state right before it starts raining cats and dogs. The dark, angry clouds tapered off in the sky the further they got from town, Shaoni’s doing, it had to be.
The five of us would just about fit in the truck, not comfortably but we would fit.
“Oh hell no! I’m not dealing with you up here!”
“Why not?! You know you love it.”
Brooke and Katrina argued as he tried to take the passenger seat next to her.
“No you go in the back or I’m driving us straight into a tree, I can’t put up with you anymore.”
Katrina yelled at Brooke, tensing up and getting ready for a fight.
“Would you guys just knock it off! Just sit in the back Brooke, I’ll take the passenger seat.”
I scolded both of them, I was done with their little arguments, it was starting to get under my skin. An evil grin crossed Brooke’s face as he turned to me
“What’s up with you two? You’ve been all buddy buddy with him since we all beat the shit out of each other with wooden sticks. He didn’t get to you first did he? Hmmmm?”
Brooke prodded with a wink.
Katrina Immediately punched him in the face before I even had a chance to respond.
“Ey that’s a good right hook! Give em’ another one, come on come on!”
A heavily accented voice cut in from below my feet. Rocco had managed to slip in without any of us noticing. When Brooke lay eyes on him he just about jumped straight into the truck bed. Apparently whatever Rocco did to him yesterday had left quite the impression.
“I’m not even gonna ask, just shut up and take a seat.”
Katrina told Rocco, slamming her door shut as I took a seat next to her and Rocco hopped in the back. Robert and John pretty much made themselves flat to their doors as Rocco took a seat in between them in the back. Brooke rode in the bed, shooting nervous glances at Rocco every now and then.
Katrina drove like a bat out of hell through the woods and back into town. I’m not sure if she was in that much of a hurry to get all this over with or if she just hoped her crazy driving would throw Brooke overboard. Given where we were headed and how close we would probably be to Bianca, I can’t say I wasn’t hoping the same thing.
We pulled into the parking lot of the Save-A-Lot I’d gotten groceries from my first day here. The storm over head was raging but oddly enough It still wasn’t raining or anything like that. The wind was picking up and the sky looked absolutely sinister but other than that everything seemed fine in the town.
Before Katrina’s combat boots had even touched the ground she was already giving orders.
“Alright listen up, We’re working as a team this time wether you all like it or not. I want us to split up and see what we can find. Anything out of place, anything that seems suspicious, I want you to make a note of it. We have to figure out who the victim is going to be and who’s doing the killing. We have nothing to go on either so nothing is to small here. Lets all take a look around town and meet back here in two hours. That’s two hours sharp Keith!”
Katrina barked, taking charge of the situation and leveling one quick jab at me before turning on her heels and heading out into the town.
As everyone else hurried off in different directions I took a second to think. If I was looking for someone where would I go? Where in town would I most likely go no matter what? That line of thought is what led me to the front door of the Eagle’s Roost. Cliche I know, but a bar was a good a place as any to start, even if it was 8 in the morning. Maybe someone new had stopped by and Tuck would know something about it.
The door was unlocked as usual so I let myself in, if Tuck didn’t want guests I’m sure he’d lock it.
“Hey, Tuck? You in here?”
I called into the bar as I noticed the usually roaring stone fireplace had fallen silent.
“Tuck’s not here right now sweet heart, but I can take a message if you’d give me a moment.”
“Oh, ok take your time then.”
I answered before realizing the motherly southern voice couldn’t possibly belong to Tuck.
“Wait who are you?!”
I chirped as I rushed up to the bar and peered back into the kitchen where Tuck usually was. In his place was a dark skinned woman that looked a little older than Tuck. She wore a pink checkered shirt under an apron that read, “Kiss the cook”.
“My, I haven’t seen you around. I’m Richelle, Tucker’s wife.”
She answered. Her southern accent was smooth and calm. The exact opposite of Tuck’s brutal hillbilly speak that he tried to hide.
“Did he not mention me? He doesn’t like to introduce me to the new comers, always worrying about me that one.”
“No, I think he mentioned you helped keep this place running when I first met him.”
“He must like you then, most people round here don’t even know he’s married. Anyways what can I help you with sugar?”
Her motherly voice did wonders for my stress. I could see why Tuck married her, with just a few words I’m sure she could set anyone at ease.
“I was wondering if anyone new came into town or passed through here. Maybe someone out of place, something like that? Oh, and where’s Tuck?”
“Well I can help with both those things. There was a man here, got off a bus last night all alone and came right in. I don’t know what it was but I just had a bad feeling about him, made me shiver.”
She gave a little shiver at that, to demonstrate I guess?
“As for Tuck he’s been staying with those scientists and…. and I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone that.”
She explained, a look of embarrassment crossing her face as she finished.
Before I had a chance to respond I heard the door slam open behind me. I swore I heard someone shriek my name. All I saw before someone knocked me over the stool I’d been standing next to was a blur of black hair flying toward me, and bright glowing blue eyes.
Bianca wrapped me in a bear hug on the floor.
“What happened to you, are you hurt, how are you back!?”
She fired questions at me as fast as she could.
“Bianca, crushing my… can you just, ease up a bit.”
I pleaded as she squeezed me harder than a boa constrictor.
“Sorry! I just didn’t think I’d see you…”
She squeaked, trailing off suddenly. A single tear making its way down her face as she blushed slightly and released me. In that moment I realized Bianca, who had stabbed a guy not to long ago for grabbing her hand, just bear hugged me. I’m not sure what I felt about that but at the moment, I was just happy to see her and even happier that she was happy to see me.
“Shaoni let us back into town for the last of the trials. We’re supposed to stop a murder in town.”
“A murder?! Is that what you were asking about? Is that man a murderer? My, what is going on in this town.”
Richelle shrieked, reminding Bianca and I that we weren’t alone in here. I felt the hot blood rush to my face as I looked up to see Bianca blushing as well, even redder than before.
“So, did you end up finding anything out about Shaoni?”
I asked Bianca as we took a seat at the bar, getting straight down to business as Richelle started stress cleaning in the kitchen.
I was a bit surprised by what she said. I never expected Shaoni to be THE Thunderbird or a descendent of them. I was still trying to wrap my head around the whole thing.
“So she went into hiding here then? That cave we stumbled into that was connected to the mines. Was that her… nest?”
I thought out loud, hoping Bianca would have some kind of answer.
“I guess, that’s what Frank and Stein have been calling it too. Speaking of Frank and Stein we should probably go see them. We were planning to break you out today, guess we were a little late on that huh.”
Bianca said, getting up from her seat at the bar. I’m not sure reuniting with Frank, Stein, and the rest of them was the best idea. At the moment I didn’t have a whole lot of other options though. I got up and followed Bianca out the door, heading back to her house to call off their rescue mission.
“Good luck darlin’!”
Richelle called after us, I felt sure we could use all the luck we could get.
“How the hell’d ya get back here son?!”
Tuck asked as soon as Bianca and I walked through the front door. Rocco had already found his way back and had apparently been filling everyone in on what had been happening. Stein was unloading some sort of pistol with a long thin barrel on the kitchen table.
“I’m glad I won’t have to use this at least. It’s been… many years since I’ve had to take this out of storage.”
Stein explained to no one in particular while staring at the gun. No doubt it brought back memories of his time with the German military. Frank walked out of the basement at that moment and nodded to me.
“Glad to have you back Keith.”
He said, clapping a hand on my shoulder.
“It’s great to see you all but I can’t stay too long, I’ve got to go back.”
“WHAT?!”
Everyone yelled in unison, even Rocco.
“It’s the last trial and Shaoni is overseeing it personally. You see that storm outside? That’s all her, if I don’t go back she’ll know and I’m sure there will be consequences. Besides Brooke is here too, I don’t want to give him any reason to go looking for me and bump into Bianca.”
I explained to everyone, not enough to wipe the shock off all their faces but at least Stein seemed to understand. Just the mention of Brookes name made Bianca freeze up. Only for a second but I could see this tension pass over her whole body and her eyes suddenly glowed blue and widened with fear. I was paying so much attention to how she’d react to that name that I almost didn’t feel her reach out and squeeze my hand from her place at my side. She sighed quietly before her eyes returned to normal but she still kept my hand in hers.
“You can’t go back! We only just got you back!”
Bianca protested, but my mind was made up.
“I need to see this through and besides someone’s life is at stake. I should try and stop that at least.”
Bianca couldn’t argue with that, neither could anyone else. I could tell Tuck and her wanted to but they didn’t. All Tuck did was quietly nod his head and grunt. I could tell Bianca was running through every possible argument in her head to try and make me stay but wasn’t coming up with anything. Bianca let go of my hand and asked,
“Can I at least come with you? To help stop the murder I mean.”
She looked into my eyes like a puppy, begging me to say yes.
In any normal circumstance I would’ve given in immediately to that, especially coming from someone who looked like her. This time though, I just couldn’t. I couldn’t take the chance that Brooke would see her and something bad would happen.
“You can’t Bianca, I don’t want anything happening to you especially with… him out there. I think Shaoni offered to help him find you if he showed up for these trials or something like that. Either way I’m pretty sure he’s here for you.”
I told her as gently as I could. I could see her recoil at the idea that Brooke might be here just for her. She was scared, maybe more scared than she’d ever been that there was even a small chance of Brooke getting his hands on her again.
“I… no, no your right.”
I didn’t expect her to give in so easily but it was a welcome surprise.
“I hope you know what yer doin son.”
Tuck told me as I got ready to head back out. Frank and Stein cornered me before I could leave as well.
“Take this.”
Frank said, thrusting what looked like a jury rigged walkie talkie into my hands.
“If you need anything call us on that. We’ll help however we can, and don’t expect us to sit around quietly when you go back. We fully intend get you out still, no reason to let a perfectly good plan go to waste.”
I thanked them for the walkie talkie. I was glad they were still looking out for me even if I doubted they could do much against whatever was to come, it was good to have people in your corner. Bianca was waiting for me when I got to the door.
“At least I get to say goodbye this time.”
She said with a little smirk. She’d been acting different since I got back, much more… personable?
“Yeah I guess so. What’s been up with you? You’ve been acting… different.”
I asked her, a little nervous for some reason.
“You helped me… a lot actually. Your the first person who’s really cared about me in years.”
“That’s not true, look at Frank and Stein.”
I responded, missing the point of what she was saying.
“No, not like that. I mean your a friend, a good friend… no that’s not, ugh.”
She said, shaking her head and looking a little embarrassed. Then she did something I really didn’t expect, she leaned over and kissed me.
“Just… make sure you come back ok? For me.”
She added as she pushed me out the door, starting to turn lobster red. My head was spinning but there was a bug dumb smile on my face, I’m sure of that. Filled with all the confidence that brought me, I headed back to the Save-A-Lot to see what everyone else had turned up on the impending murder.
As I walked back lighting began to crack across the sky. The lightning took all kinds of unnatural shapes. I swore one time it almost looked like a pair of eyes, watching me from the sky.
“Alright everyone, I want reports!”
Katrina shouted like a drill instructor, bring the group of us gathered around the hood of the truck to attention.
“The elderly cashier inside, she was… disquieted. More so than I would expect of someone in this strange town.”
John spoke, saying the first words I’d ever heard from him in a wise sage-like voice.
“I looked around for some kinda police station but this shit hole town doesn’t have one. How the hell am I supposed to report a murder if there’s no police!”
Brooke complained to the crowd.
“So, you accomplished absolutely nothing, I kinda figured that.”
Katrina scoffed at him.
“Yeah there hasn’t been a police station here as long as I remember. We never needed one, everyone either moved on to fast or stuck around and just wanted to be left alone, never caused any problems. Still, it’s a little strange come to think of it, would’ve figured the government would make us have some kind of police.”
Robert informed us before giving his own report.
“I looked around a bit myself, didn’t come across much on account of there not being all that many people to talk to in this town. Those old scientist types in the big white house never answered the door when I knocked and I couldn’t find their daughter.”
To my horror Brooke’s eyes lit up and he was suddenly razor focused on what Robert had to say.
“I did see some guy I’d never seen in town before walking around. Didn’t want to talk much though, he just turned around and walked the other way as soon as he caught sight of me.”
Robert finished with a shrug. Brooke seemed less interested after he heard nothing else about the daughter Robert mentioned. Did he know Robert was taking about Bianca?
“Wait that strange guy, was he wearing an old hat? Some kind of bowler I think, looked really out of place.”
Katrina asked suddenly, her eyes lighting up.
“Yeah now that you mention it I think he did.”
Robert answered after thinking for a second.
“Damn it! He saw me and ran when I was searching around town myself. So next order of business we find that guy. Keith! Did you see anything else?”
Katrina asked, whirling around to face me.
“I stopped by the bar and the bartender there told me someone new came into town a few days ago. Apparently she had a bad feeling about him. Maybe its the same guy you two saw?”
I proposed, pointing to Robert and Katrina. Katrina paced around for a bit, thinking I guess. She finally came to a rest again at the front of the truck, apparently she’d come up with another plan.
“Alright, I want that guy in the bowler hat found so we’re breaking into teams of two.”
“Uh, isn’t there five of us, that won’t work.”
Brooke interjected, earning him a look of pure murder from Katrina.
“Keep that up and I’ll find that raccoon, you can pair up with him!”
She yelled completely over Brooke’s attitude.
“I’ll go alone, Robert, John, you two are together same with you Keith and asshole.”
“I have a name you know!”
Brooke complained, getting yet another look from Katrina. If he kept that up I had a pretty good idea of exactly who the murderer and victim would be.
“Alright alright Jesus lady cool your jets!”
He said, putting his hands up in surrender as Katrina took a threatening step towards him.
A few minutes later Brooke and I had broken off from the other three having all agreed to meet up back at the truck in another hour. Brooke had insisted we go to the bar and search for the guy but I had a feeling there was more to it than that. He proved me right when he ducked into an alley and pushed me up against the side of a building right on main street. Usually that would be instantly seen by someone but here wasn’t like anywhere else. There was no one around to help me out or even see what was going on.
“I know we’re supposed to be looking for a murderer but I’ve got other things in mind. That daughter Robert was talking about, you know something about her don’t you.”
Brooke questioned with a growl, arm against my throat holding me uncomfortably tight against the building.
“Daughter? What are you talking about?”
I choked out, deciding to play dumb. He didn’t like this to much and pushed me even harder against the wall.
“That raccoon mentioned her name the other day when the fuckin thing attacked me and it seems pretty buddy buddy with you! Bianca! ring any bells!”
I felt my face grow red at the mention of her name as I thought back to the way she kissed me at the door. That reaction betrayed me and the beginnings of a twisted smile appeared in Brooke’s eyes.
“Oh yeah, you know her don’t you? Know what she can do to I bet. Did she tell you about me, how she threw away everything I could’ve given her.”
He hissed at me, venom dripping off every word.
“At first I didn’t care but then I heard stories of this whore who could wrap you around her finger like nothing else. She’d do whatever you wanted but you’d also pay whatever she asked, do whatever she asked. Imagine my surprise when I started looking into it and it turned out to be my little escaped bird.”
Brooke continued, grinning like a mad man. He was obsessed with her, it didn’t take a genius to see that. But I was in no position to argue with him, I could barley speak with the pressure on my neck from his arm.
“They called her a succubus, the crazy ones at least. Turns out they were right though, there was something off about her from the first day I met her but I had no idea she was something exotic like that. See I make a habit of collecting things, rare things, and she’s the rarest I’ve ever been able to find. I was so close to having her at one point but she just had to break away. When I met Shaoni late one night researching the supernatural she agreed to look into her for me on one condition. I agree to show up in this town in the ass end of nowhere and participate in some trials for her. Easiest deal I ever made, now I’m this close to getting my hands on her again. Imagine what she could do for me, what I could get with her powers.”
Brooke finished his monologue, finally letting me go.
“Now you’re going to show me where she is and I’m going to get the hell out of here. Get going!”
He shouted at me, drawing a pocket knife from his white suit jacket.
My first reaction was to look around and search for a way out. I couldn’t fight him, that was clear. I really didn’t want to get stabbed either. My eyes darted around trying to find anything that could get me out of this. Then I found exactly what I was looking for on the other side of the street.
Katrina had found the man in the bowler and he was running back toward the Save-A-Lot like Usain Bolt himself.
“Katrina, HELP!”
Brooke whipped his head around, trying to catch sight of her before she did anything. Katrina wasted no time though. She took one look at him, pulled the gun from its holster on her waist, and fired. The crack of the bullet made me run on pure instinct and Brooke dropped to the ground. It hadn’t hit him unfortunately, but it had bought me enough time to run.
“Argh that bitch! I’ll find her myself!”
Brooke shouted before getting back to his feet and running the other direction. The guy Katrina had been chasing used the distraction to make some distance on her. He was nearly to the corner that turned towards the Save-A-Lot. I took off after him as Katrina did the same, ripping the walkie talkie from my pocket as I ran.
“Stein get Bianca out of there! Head out to the mine, maybe there aren’t to many people there now, just get her out of town! Brooke is here and he’s looking for her I’ll meet you once this is all over ok.”
I think Stein said something back but I didn’t catch it. The adrenaline spike of getting shot at and chasing this guy who was likely a soon to be murderer made it hard to hear.
We weren’t as fast as we hoped but we were just fast enough to see the consequences of that. As Katrina and I got into the parking lot the guy was already inside, pointing a gun of his own at the elderly cashier that gave me a hard time about my ID. I made out the movements of her lips just before he pulled the trigger. It looked like she said “Oh, you’re the one she sent then.” Just before he killed her.
I stopped dead when I saw the body drop, I’d never seen someone die before. In Imalone people had died but I’d been knocked out for most of it. Seeing it up close though, it made my stomach drop. I fell to my knees and threw up on the spot, the blood, god the blood splatter behind her it was horrible.
Katrina didn’t stop after the shot, if anything she charged in even faster. The gun was still in her hand and she held it up in front of her, using the weight of the gun to smash through the glass doors with the bottom of the grip. The shards of glass rained down on the murderer who surprisingly, seemed just as stunned as I was by the corpse. Katrina dropped her shoulder and charged into him, hitting him so hard they both fell to the ground. She was back on her feet quick as lighting, flipping the guy over onto his front and putting a knee on his back in between his shoulder blades. Katrina locked his arm behind his back and said something I couldn’t hear. At that point I kinda spaced out. The only other thing I remember before getting in the truck was Katrina leading the man out of the store with his hands zip tied behind him. The few people who were in the store had come out and were starting to pick over the scene as we shot out onto the road back to the mine.
I noticed one of us was missing when we came to a stop.
“Where’s Brooke?”
“I wasn’t waiting for him, not after whatever he pulled in town. He can find his own way back.”
Katrina answered me while pushing the man she’d apprehended out of the truck and toward the entrance to the mine.
“Are you doing ok? You looked a little white on the way out here, like you saw a ghost.”
Robert asked me as we got out and followed behind Katrina.
“Sure sure I just… never saw someone die like that you know.”
I said, never so sure that I wasn’t ok. Robert gave me a knowing nod as we made our way down to the coliseum.
Shaoni and Katrina were waiting for us already. Brooke was there too, beaten and bloody against the wall. It looked like someone had dragged him back here against his will, probably Shaoni if I had to guess.
“I can’t say I’m pleased with what went on in town but in the end you did discover the murderer, even if it was too late. Now it’s time for the second part of this trial. I want to hear your judgements, what should this man’s punishment be?”
Shaoni greeted us, ignoring everything that had gone on before like it didn’t even matter. Something about that made my blood boil.
“Katrina, you first. What should this man’s punishment be?”
“P please.. you said.”
The man muttered before Shaoni slapped him hard across the face.
“You will be silent!”
She ordered, the room suddenly becoming electric with her temper. Katrina stepped up in front of Shaoni and gave her judgment.
“He took a life, he should be killed as well. It’s the only way to be sure he doesn’t do something like that again.”
Shaoni nodded at that and pointed to me.
“You next Keith, what should we do with him?”
I was filled with a rage I’d never felt before as I looked at the whole situation. Shaoni was meant to be a spirt of justice, or so I thought. Yet she let that woman die. Worse still, after what the woman said I believed Shaoni may have arranged the whole thing, murderer, victim, and all. That’s not justice, that’s playing god, using her power and influence to mess with people like pieces on a chessboard and for what? Just so she could “test” a few people who’d caught her eye?
“You deserve punishment Shaoni. That man is innocent, you put him up to it didn’t you? Him, the victim, all of it! It’s all just some kind of game to you isn’t it?! You keep claiming you represent justice but from what I’ve heard you’ve had a problem with that. This is something else though, where is the justice in this Shaoni, where! I don’t pretend to know what you’ve been through over the years Justice, but this isn’t right. If it was up to me this man should be let go so he doesn’t have you whispering in his ear and you should go back to sleep like you had been years ago.”
I shouted at her, not caring what she would do to me. It felt good though, to finally let her have it, especially after all she’d put me through.
I learned Shaoni’s real name from Bianca but hearing it seemed to make her shrink. The second I said it I had her full attention.
“No! You don’t understand Keith! These people were terrible, guilty of their own crimes. I found them both and offered them a deal. Submit to my judgment or do something for me and face the judgment of another. They got their punishments, I’m no monster!”
She roared back, the beginning of tears brimming in her eyes.
“Guilty or not you used them like pawns Justice! None of this is right, there’s no justice in it, no right and wrong. It’s just a game to you! Don’t you see this is wrong!”
I yelled at her again.
“DON’T YOU USE THAT NAME!”
She thundered back.
“Would you prefer Vengeance?!”
I added, shattering her.
The mention of that name brought Shaoni to tears and she lost her temper. She threw her hand out toward the man still zip tied on the ground in an act of anger. The tattoos on her arms glowed with a blue, ghostly light. The energy grew until a bolt of lightning arced from the tattoos, filling the room with the scent of ozone. The bolt hit the man in the head, searing the skin of his face black in an instant as his body went still.
“You don’t understand, all those years, all those mistakes. Do you know what that…!”
Shaoni started to scream to me again, but she was cut off by the sound of vehicles above us and the cracks of gunfire.
I looked around in surprise, still in shock after the brutal death of the murderer in front of me. I saw Katrina holding her own walkie talkie and smiling.
“Looks like my ride is here, time to end this little charade. Keith, I’d suggest running if I where you. Shaoni, I’d say its been fun but you’re the whole reason they sent me out here in the first place. You’ve been way too much trouble but for what its worth, good luck.”
Katrina hissed at the two of us. Robert, John, and I were stunned, even Shaoni herself seemed shocked back to reality by whatever was happening. With her piece said, Katrina turned and walked out of the mine, towards the growing sounds of shouting and gunfire coming from outside.
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The first sound I heard that morning was foot steps outside my tepee.
“Get up! Shaoni wants you all in town.”
The gruff but familiar voice of my driver from three days ago shouted at me. It had to be some sick sense of humor on Shaoni’s part, sending this guy to come get me for things again and again. Honestly, even I was starting to feel bad for him. Bianca stabbed his friend I knocked him off that stage yesterday with one of the war clubs. I speak from experience when I say those things HURT.
“Alright alright, just give me a second to get dressed!”
I yelled back to the man as I rushed to get around inside. At least he had the common courtesy to stay outside. A minute or two later I stepped out to see everyone else gathered around the man. Brooke, Katrina, John, and Robert all stood there, just staring at me.
“Mornin’ sleeping beauty”
Robert finally said after what seemed like forever, nearly choking on laugher at his own joke.
“I thought you were never going to wake up. Did you not hear Shaoni last night? We were supposed to be up 6 sharp.”
He explained after his laughing fit. Apparently I had missed that bit of Shaoni’s whole presentation last night. Katrina grabbed a pair of keys out of her pocket and started walking away.
“Come on, we’ve got to get into town and finish this whole thing.”
She called back to us just a little too eagerly.
“She’s letting us drive? I thought she didn’t want us heading back to town without some kind of supervision.”
I questioned as we all walked toward the same beat up red pickup that had brought me here.
“I guess she decided to make an exception.”
Katrina replied, not even bothering to look at me.
“Besides I don’t think running is much of an option at this point.”
She continued, pointing up towards the sky. A storm was brewing there, a killer one by the looks of it. The odd thing was it didn’t seem to want to break, it was just stuck in that state right before it starts raining cats and dogs. The dark, angry clouds tapered off in the sky the further they got from town, Shaoni’s doing, it had to be.
The five of us would just about fit in the truck, not comfortably but we would fit.
“Oh hell no! I’m not dealing with you up here!”
“Why not?! You know you love it.”
Brooke and Katrina argued as he tried to take the passenger seat next to her.
“No you go in the back or I’m driving us straight into a tree, I can’t put up with you anymore.”
Katrina yelled at Brooke, tensing up and getting ready for a fight.
“Would you guys just knock it off! Just sit in the back Brooke, I’ll take the passenger seat.”
I scolded both of them, I was done with their little arguments, it was starting to get under my skin. An evil grin crossed Brooke’s face as he turned to me
“What’s up with you two? You’ve been all buddy buddy with him since we all beat the shit out of each other with wooden sticks. He didn’t get to you first did he? Hmmmm?”
Brooke prodded with a wink.
Katrina Immediately punched him in the face before I even had a chance to respond.
“Ey that’s a good right hook! Give em’ another one, come on come on!”
A heavily accented voice cut in from below my feet. Rocco had managed to slip in without any of us noticing. When Brooke lay eyes on him he just about jumped straight into the truck bed. Apparently whatever Rocco did to him yesterday had left quite the impression.
“I’m not even gonna ask, just shut up and take a seat.”
Katrina told Rocco, slamming her door shut as I took a seat next to her and Rocco hopped in the back. Robert and John pretty much made themselves flat to their doors as Rocco took a seat in between them in the back. Brooke rode in the bed, shooting nervous glances at Rocco every now and then.
Katrina drove like a bat out of hell through the woods and back into town. I’m not sure if she was in that much of a hurry to get all this over with or if she just hoped her crazy driving would throw Brooke overboard. Given where we were headed and how close we would probably be to Bianca, I can’t say I wasn’t hoping the same thing.
We pulled into the parking lot of the Save-A-Lot I’d gotten groceries from my first day here. The storm over head was raging but oddly enough It still wasn’t raining or anything like that. The wind was picking up and the sky looked absolutely sinister but other than that everything seemed fine in the town.
Before Katrina’s combat boots had even touched the ground she was already giving orders.
“Alright listen up, We’re working as a team this time wether you all like it or not. I want us to split up and see what we can find. Anything out of place, anything that seems suspicious, I want you to make a note of it. We have to figure out who the victim is going to be and who’s doing the killing. We have nothing to go on either so nothing is to small here. Lets all take a look around town and meet back here in two hours. That’s two hours sharp Keith!”
Katrina barked, taking charge of the situation and leveling one quick jab at me before turning on her heels and heading out into the town.
As everyone else hurried off in different directions I took a second to think. If I was looking for someone where would I go? Where in town would I most likely go no matter what? That line of thought is what led me to the front door of the Eagle’s Roost. Cliche I know, but a bar was a good a place as any to start, even if it was 8 in the morning. Maybe someone new had stopped by and Tuck would know something about it.
The door was unlocked as usual so I let myself in, if Tuck didn’t want guests I’m sure he’d lock it.
“Hey, Tuck? You in here?”
I called into the bar as I noticed the usually roaring stone fireplace had fallen silent.
“Tuck’s not here right now sweet heart, but I can take a message if you’d give me a moment.”
“Oh, ok take your time then.”
I answered before realizing the motherly southern voice couldn’t possibly belong to Tuck.
“Wait who are you?!”
I chirped as I rushed up to the bar and peered back into the kitchen where Tuck usually was. In his place was a dark skinned woman that looked a little older than Tuck. She wore a pink checkered shirt under an apron that read, “Kiss the cook”.
“My, I haven’t seen you around. I’m Richelle, Tucker’s wife.”
She answered. Her southern accent was smooth and calm. The exact opposite of Tuck’s brutal hillbilly speak that he tried to hide.
“Did he not mention me? He doesn’t like to introduce me to the new comers, always worrying about me that one.”
“No, I think he mentioned you helped keep this place running when I first met him.”
“He must like you then, most people round here don’t even know he’s married. Anyways what can I help you with sugar?”
Her motherly voice did wonders for my stress. I could see why Tuck married her, with just a few words I’m sure she could set anyone at ease.
“I was wondering if anyone new came into town or passed through here. Maybe someone out of place, something like that? Oh, and where’s Tuck?”
“Well I can help with both those things. There was a man here, got off a bus last night all alone and came right in. I don’t know what it was but I just had a bad feeling about him, made me shiver.”
She gave a little shiver at that, to demonstrate I guess?
“As for Tuck he’s been staying with those scientists and…. and I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone that.”
She explained, a look of embarrassment crossing her face as she finished.
Before I had a chance to respond I heard the door slam open behind me. I swore I heard someone shriek my name. All I saw before someone knocked me over the stool I’d been standing next to was a blur of black hair flying toward me, and bright glowing blue eyes.
Bianca wrapped me in a bear hug on the floor.
“What happened to you, are you hurt, how are you back!?”
She fired questions at me as fast as she could.
“Bianca, crushing my… can you just, ease up a bit.”
I pleaded as she squeezed me harder than a boa constrictor.
“Sorry! I just didn’t think I’d see you…”
She squeaked, trailing off suddenly. A single tear making its way down her face as she blushed slightly and released me. In that moment I realized Bianca, who had stabbed a guy not to long ago for grabbing her hand, just bear hugged me. I’m not sure what I felt about that but at the moment, I was just happy to see her and even happier that she was happy to see me.
“Shaoni let us back into town for the last of the trials. We’re supposed to stop a murder in town.”
“A murder?! Is that what you were asking about? Is that man a murderer? My, what is going on in this town.”
Richelle shrieked, reminding Bianca and I that we weren’t alone in here. I felt the hot blood rush to my face as I looked up to see Bianca blushing as well, even redder than before.
“So, did you end up finding anything out about Shaoni?”
I asked Bianca as we took a seat at the bar, getting straight down to business as Richelle started stress cleaning in the kitchen.
I was a bit surprised by what she said. I never expected Shaoni to be THE Thunderbird or a descendent of them. I was still trying to wrap my head around the whole thing.
“So she went into hiding here then? That cave we stumbled into that was connected to the mines. Was that her… nest?”
I thought out loud, hoping Bianca would have some kind of answer.
“I guess, that’s what Frank and Stein have been calling it too. Speaking of Frank and Stein we should probably go see them. We were planning to break you out today, guess we were a little late on that huh.”
Bianca said, getting up from her seat at the bar. I’m not sure reuniting with Frank, Stein, and the rest of them was the best idea. At the moment I didn’t have a whole lot of other options though. I got up and followed Bianca out the door, heading back to her house to call off their rescue mission.
“Good luck darlin’!”
Richelle called after us, I felt sure we could use all the luck we could get.
“How the hell’d ya get back here son?!”
Tuck asked as soon as Bianca and I walked through the front door. Rocco had already found his way back and had apparently been filling everyone in on what had been happening. Stein was unloading some sort of pistol with a long thin barrel on the kitchen table.
“I’m glad I won’t have to use this at least. It’s been… many years since I’ve had to take this out of storage.”
Stein explained to no one in particular while staring at the gun. No doubt it brought back memories of his time with the German military. Frank walked out of the basement at that moment and nodded to me.
“Glad to have you back Keith.”
He said, clapping a hand on my shoulder.
“It’s great to see you all but I can’t stay too long, I’ve got to go back.”
“WHAT?!”
Everyone yelled in unison, even Rocco.
“It’s the last trial and Shaoni is overseeing it personally. You see that storm outside? That’s all her, if I don’t go back she’ll know and I’m sure there will be consequences. Besides Brooke is here too, I don’t want to give him any reason to go looking for me and bump into Bianca.”
I explained to everyone, not enough to wipe the shock off all their faces but at least Stein seemed to understand. Just the mention of Brookes name made Bianca freeze up. Only for a second but I could see this tension pass over her whole body and her eyes suddenly glowed blue and widened with fear. I was paying so much attention to how she’d react to that name that I almost didn’t feel her reach out and squeeze my hand from her place at my side. She sighed quietly before her eyes returned to normal but she still kept my hand in hers.
“You can’t go back! We only just got you back!”
Bianca protested, but my mind was made up.
“I need to see this through and besides someone’s life is at stake. I should try and stop that at least.”
Bianca couldn’t argue with that, neither could anyone else. I could tell Tuck and her wanted to but they didn’t. All Tuck did was quietly nod his head and grunt. I could tell Bianca was running through every possible argument in her head to try and make me stay but wasn’t coming up with anything. Bianca let go of my hand and asked,
“Can I at least come with you? To help stop the murder I mean.”
She looked into my eyes like a puppy, begging me to say yes.
In any normal circumstance I would’ve given in immediately to that, especially coming from someone who looked like her. This time though, I just couldn’t. I couldn’t take the chance that Brooke would see her and something bad would happen.
“You can’t Bianca, I don’t want anything happening to you especially with… him out there. I think Shaoni offered to help him find you if he showed up for these trials or something like that. Either way I’m pretty sure he’s here for you.”
I told her as gently as I could. I could see her recoil at the idea that Brooke might be here just for her. She was scared, maybe more scared than she’d ever been that there was even a small chance of Brooke getting his hands on her again.
“I… no, no your right.”
I didn’t expect her to give in so easily but it was a welcome surprise.
“I hope you know what yer doin son.”
Tuck told me as I got ready to head back out. Frank and Stein cornered me before I could leave as well.
“Take this.”
Frank said, thrusting what looked like a jury rigged walkie talkie into my hands.
“If you need anything call us on that. We’ll help however we can, and don’t expect us to sit around quietly when you go back. We fully intend get you out still, no reason to let a perfectly good plan go to waste.”
I thanked them for the walkie talkie. I was glad they were still looking out for me even if I doubted they could do much against whatever was to come, it was good to have people in your corner. Bianca was waiting for me when I got to the door.
“At least I get to say goodbye this time.”
She said with a little smirk. She’d been acting different since I got back, much more… personable?
“Yeah I guess so. What’s been up with you? You’ve been acting… different.”
I asked her, a little nervous for some reason.
“You helped me… a lot actually. Your the first person who’s really cared about me in years.”
“That’s not true, look at Frank and Stein.”
I responded, missing the point of what she was saying.
“No, not like that. I mean your a friend, a good friend… no that’s not, ugh.”
She said, shaking her head and looking a little embarrassed. Then she did something I really didn’t expect, she leaned over and kissed me.
“Just… make sure you come back ok? For me.”
She added as she pushed me out the door, starting to turn lobster red. My head was spinning but there was a bug dumb smile on my face, I’m sure of that. Filled with all the confidence that brought me, I headed back to the Save-A-Lot to see what everyone else had turned up on the impending murder.
As I walked back lighting began to crack across the sky. The lightning took all kinds of unnatural shapes. I swore one time it almost looked like a pair of eyes, watching me from the sky.
“Alright everyone, I want reports!”
Katrina shouted like a drill instructor, bring the group of us gathered around the hood of the truck to attention.
“The elderly cashier inside, she was… disquieted. More so than I would expect of someone in this strange town.”
John spoke, saying the first words I’d ever heard from him in a wise sage-like voice.
“I looked around for some kinda police station but this shit hole town doesn’t have one. How the hell am I supposed to report a murder if there’s no police!”
Brooke complained to the crowd.
“So, you accomplished absolutely nothing, I kinda figured that.”
Katrina scoffed at him.
“Yeah there hasn’t been a police station here as long as I remember. We never needed one, everyone either moved on to fast or stuck around and just wanted to be left alone, never caused any problems. Still, it’s a little strange come to think of it, would’ve figured the government would make us have some kind of police.”
Robert informed us before giving his own report.
“I looked around a bit myself, didn’t come across much on account of there not being all that many people to talk to in this town. Those old scientist types in the big white house never answered the door when I knocked and I couldn’t find their daughter.”
To my horror Brooke’s eyes lit up and he was suddenly razor focused on what Robert had to say.
“I did see some guy I’d never seen in town before walking around. Didn’t want to talk much though, he just turned around and walked the other way as soon as he caught sight of me.”
Robert finished with a shrug. Brooke seemed less interested after he heard nothing else about the daughter Robert mentioned. Did he know Robert was taking about Bianca?
“Wait that strange guy, was he wearing an old hat? Some kind of bowler I think, looked really out of place.”
Katrina asked suddenly, her eyes lighting up.
“Yeah now that you mention it I think he did.”
Robert answered after thinking for a second.
“Damn it! He saw me and ran when I was searching around town myself. So next order of business we find that guy. Keith! Did you see anything else?”
Katrina asked, whirling around to face me.
“I stopped by the bar and the bartender there told me someone new came into town a few days ago. Apparently she had a bad feeling about him. Maybe its the same guy you two saw?”
I proposed, pointing to Robert and Katrina. Katrina paced around for a bit, thinking I guess. She finally came to a rest again at the front of the truck, apparently she’d come up with another plan.
“Alright, I want that guy in the bowler hat found so we’re breaking into teams of two.”
“Uh, isn’t there five of us, that won’t work.”
Brooke interjected, earning him a look of pure murder from Katrina.
“Keep that up and I’ll find that raccoon, you can pair up with him!”
She yelled completely over Brooke’s attitude.
“I’ll go alone, Robert, John, you two are together same with you Keith and asshole.”
“I have a name you know!”
Brooke complained, getting yet another look from Katrina. If he kept that up I had a pretty good idea of exactly who the murderer and victim would be.
“Alright alright Jesus lady cool your jets!”
He said, putting his hands up in surrender as Katrina took a threatening step towards him.
A few minutes later Brooke and I had broken off from the other three having all agreed to meet up back at the truck in another hour. Brooke had insisted we go to the bar and search for the guy but I had a feeling there was more to it than that. He proved me right when he ducked into an alley and pushed me up against the side of a building right on main street. Usually that would be instantly seen by someone but here wasn’t like anywhere else. There was no one around to help me out or even see what was going on.
“I know we’re supposed to be looking for a murderer but I’ve got other things in mind. That daughter Robert was talking about, you know something about her don’t you.”
Brooke questioned with a growl, arm against my throat holding me uncomfortably tight against the building.
“Daughter? What are you talking about?”
I choked out, deciding to play dumb. He didn’t like this to much and pushed me even harder against the wall.
“That raccoon mentioned her name the other day when the fuckin thing attacked me and it seems pretty buddy buddy with you! Bianca! ring any bells!”
I felt my face grow red at the mention of her name as I thought back to the way she kissed me at the door. That reaction betrayed me and the beginnings of a twisted smile appeared in Brooke’s eyes.
“Oh yeah, you know her don’t you? Know what she can do to I bet. Did she tell you about me, how she threw away everything I could’ve given her.”
He hissed at me, venom dripping off every word.
“At first I didn’t care but then I heard stories of this whore who could wrap you around her finger like nothing else. She’d do whatever you wanted but you’d also pay whatever she asked, do whatever she asked. Imagine my surprise when I started looking into it and it turned out to be my little escaped bird.”
Brooke continued, grinning like a mad man. He was obsessed with her, it didn’t take a genius to see that. But I was in no position to argue with him, I could barley speak with the pressure on my neck from his arm.
“They called her a succubus, the crazy ones at least. Turns out they were right though, there was something off about her from the first day I met her but I had no idea she was something exotic like that. See I make a habit of collecting things, rare things, and she’s the rarest I’ve ever been able to find. I was so close to having her at one point but she just had to break away. When I met Shaoni late one night researching the supernatural she agreed to look into her for me on one condition. I agree to show up in this town in the ass end of nowhere and participate in some trials for her. Easiest deal I ever made, now I’m this close to getting my hands on her again. Imagine what she could do for me, what I could get with her powers.”
Brooke finished his monologue, finally letting me go.
“Now you’re going to show me where she is and I’m going to get the hell out of here. Get going!”
He shouted at me, drawing a pocket knife from his white suit jacket.
My first reaction was to look around and search for a way out. I couldn’t fight him, that was clear. I really didn’t want to get stabbed either. My eyes darted around trying to find anything that could get me out of this. Then I found exactly what I was looking for on the other side of the street.
Katrina had found the man in the bowler and he was running back toward the Save-A-Lot like Usain Bolt himself.
“Katrina, HELP!”
Brooke whipped his head around, trying to catch sight of her before she did anything. Katrina wasted no time though. She took one look at him, pulled the gun from its holster on her waist, and fired. The crack of the bullet made me run on pure instinct and Brooke dropped to the ground. It hadn’t hit him unfortunately, but it had bought me enough time to run.
“Argh that bitch! I’ll find her myself!”
Brooke shouted before getting back to his feet and running the other direction. The guy Katrina had been chasing used the distraction to make some distance on her. He was nearly to the corner that turned towards the Save-A-Lot. I took off after him as Katrina did the same, ripping the walkie talkie from my pocket as I ran.
“Stein get Bianca out of there! Head out to the mine, maybe there aren’t to many people there now, just get her out of town! Brooke is here and he’s looking for her I’ll meet you once this is all over ok.”
I think Stein said something back but I didn’t catch it. The adrenaline spike of getting shot at and chasing this guy who was likely a soon to be murderer made it hard to hear.
We weren’t as fast as we hoped but we were just fast enough to see the consequences of that. As Katrina and I got into the parking lot the guy was already inside, pointing a gun of his own at the elderly cashier that gave me a hard time about my ID. I made out the movements of her lips just before he pulled the trigger. It looked like she said “Oh, you’re the one she sent then.” Just before he killed her.
I stopped dead when I saw the body drop, I’d never seen someone die before. In Imalone people had died but I’d been knocked out for most of it. Seeing it up close though, it made my stomach drop. I fell to my knees and threw up on the spot, the blood, god the blood splatter behind her it was horrible.
Katrina didn’t stop after the shot, if anything she charged in even faster. The gun was still in her hand and she held it up in front of her, using the weight of the gun to smash through the glass doors with the bottom of the grip. The shards of glass rained down on the murderer who surprisingly, seemed just as stunned as I was by the corpse. Katrina dropped her shoulder and charged into him, hitting him so hard they both fell to the ground. She was back on her feet quick as lighting, flipping the guy over onto his front and putting a knee on his back in between his shoulder blades. Katrina locked his arm behind his back and said something I couldn’t hear. At that point I kinda spaced out. The only other thing I remember before getting in the truck was Katrina leading the man out of the store with his hands zip tied behind him. The few people who were in the store had come out and were starting to pick over the scene as we shot out onto the road back to the mine.
I noticed one of us was missing when we came to a stop.
“Where’s Brooke?”
“I wasn’t waiting for him, not after whatever he pulled in town. He can find his own way back.”
Katrina answered me while pushing the man she’d apprehended out of the truck and toward the entrance to the mine.
“Are you doing ok? You looked a little white on the way out here, like you saw a ghost.”
Robert asked me as we got out and followed behind Katrina.
“Sure sure I just… never saw someone die like that you know.”
I said, never so sure that I wasn’t ok. Robert gave me a knowing nod as we made our way down to the coliseum.
Shaoni and Katrina were waiting for us already. Brooke was there too, beaten and bloody against the wall. It looked like someone had dragged him back here against his will, probably Shaoni if I had to guess.
“I can’t say I’m pleased with what went on in town but in the end you did discover the murderer, even if it was too late. Now it’s time for the second part of this trial. I want to hear your judgements, what should this man’s punishment be?”
Shaoni greeted us, ignoring everything that had gone on before like it didn’t even matter. Something about that made my blood boil.
“Katrina, you first. What should this man’s punishment be?”
“P please.. you said.”
The man muttered before Shaoni slapped him hard across the face.
“You will be silent!”
She ordered, the room suddenly becoming electric with her temper. Katrina stepped up in front of Shaoni and gave her judgment.
“He took a life, he should be killed as well. It’s the only way to be sure he doesn’t do something like that again.”
Shaoni nodded at that and pointed to me.
“You next Keith, what should we do with him?”
I was filled with a rage I’d never felt before as I looked at the whole situation. Shaoni was meant to be a spirt of justice, or so I thought. Yet she let that woman die. Worse still, after what the woman said I believed Shaoni may have arranged the whole thing, murderer, victim, and all. That’s not justice, that’s playing god, using her power and influence to mess with people like pieces on a chessboard and for what? Just so she could “test” a few people who’d caught her eye?
“You deserve punishment Shaoni. That man is innocent, you put him up to it didn’t you? Him, the victim, all of it! It’s all just some kind of game to you isn’t it?! You keep claiming you represent justice but from what I’ve heard you’ve had a problem with that. This is something else though, where is the justice in this Shaoni, where! I don’t pretend to know what you’ve been through over the years Justice, but this isn’t right. If it was up to me this man should be let go so he doesn’t have you whispering in his ear and you should go back to sleep like you had been years ago.”
I shouted at her, not caring what she would do to me. It felt good though, to finally let her have it, especially after all she’d put me through.
I learned Shaoni’s real name from Bianca but hearing it seemed to make her shrink. The second I said it I had her full attention.
“No! You don’t understand Keith! These people were terrible, guilty of their own crimes. I found them both and offered them a deal. Submit to my judgment or do something for me and face the judgment of another. They got their punishments, I’m no monster!”
She roared back, the beginning of tears brimming in her eyes.
“Guilty or not you used them like pawns Justice! None of this is right, there’s no justice in it, no right and wrong. It’s just a game to you! Don’t you see this is wrong!”
I yelled at her again.
“DON’T YOU USE THAT NAME!”
She thundered back.
“Would you prefer Vengeance?!”
I added, shattering her.
The mention of that name brought Shaoni to tears and she lost her temper. She threw her hand out toward the man still zip tied on the ground in an act of anger. The tattoos on her arms glowed with a blue, ghostly light. The energy grew until a bolt of lightning arced from the tattoos, filling the room with the scent of ozone. The bolt hit the man in the head, searing the skin of his face black in an instant as his body went still.
“You don’t understand, all those years, all those mistakes. Do you know what that…!”
Shaoni started to scream to me again, but she was cut off by the sound of vehicles above us and the cracks of gunfire.
I looked around in surprise, still in shock after the brutal death of the murderer in front of me. I saw Katrina holding her own walkie talkie and smiling.
“Looks like my ride is here, time to end this little charade. Keith, I’d suggest running if I where you. Shaoni, I’d say its been fun but you’re the whole reason they sent me out here in the first place. You’ve been way too much trouble but for what its worth, good luck.”
Katrina hissed at the two of us. Robert, John, and I were stunned, even Shaoni herself seemed shocked back to reality by whatever was happening. With her piece said, Katrina turned and walked out of the mine, towards the growing sounds of shouting and gunfire coming from outside.
2024.05.21 16:58 Opposite-Emotion2995 I can feel your pain, guy with the bike
Dear you,
I noticed your energy right away. Something about you feels so relatable and familiar, like we've always been friends. Yet, we can't even say a word to each other.
I shouldn't have made eye contact with you. I was attracted to your energy, trying to befriend you. I'm sorry if my attention caused, or added to, your manic episode. I don't want you feel uncomfortable because of me.
Besides apologizing to you, I have to thank you for noticing me and my own crazy energy. You made me feel so special.
I notice and appreciate you. You are a valuable person. I hope that are not hurting too much these days ❤️🩹
submitted by Opposite-Emotion2995 to UnsentLetters [link] [comments]
I noticed your energy right away. Something about you feels so relatable and familiar, like we've always been friends. Yet, we can't even say a word to each other.
I shouldn't have made eye contact with you. I was attracted to your energy, trying to befriend you. I'm sorry if my attention caused, or added to, your manic episode. I don't want you feel uncomfortable because of me.
Besides apologizing to you, I have to thank you for noticing me and my own crazy energy. You made me feel so special.
I notice and appreciate you. You are a valuable person. I hope that are not hurting too much these days ❤️🩹
2024.05.21 16:57 CDown01 Eagles Peak Pt.9
Previous Part
The next day went by in a blur. Rocco was walking the perimeter of the camp, keeping an eye out for Brooke when I woke up. I didn’t really think he’d leave, but it seemed to give Rocco something to do other than being a general menace to society. All of us ate breakfast as normal but no one really said much. I’m not sure if they were still reeling from things they saw yesterday or if they just weren’t in a talking mood. The thought occurred to me that Shaoni may have payed a visit to each of them as well. Prying into what they saw and answering questions they might have. Honestly the whole thing felt like we were guinea pigs. Shaoni didn’t really seem to have a great handle on the trials so far. It was… mildly concerning that the ringmaster of all this didn’t seem 100% in control anymore.
Actually, I’d thought about that a lot last night. Shaoni just sort of left us to our own devices when we went through those “visions” yesterday. It’s not like she backed up her claim that she’d know what we’d seen either. If anything the fact that she came to ask me about it made me even more suspicious that she wasn’t really sure what she was doing. It was the first time I’d ever thought of Shaoni as anything other than in complete control. Slowly but surely it was becoming glaringly obvious that wasn’t the case.
If I was remembering correctly today’s trial was the trial of strength. I sincerely hoped that was a metaphor for something. You’ve got to understand, I’m not a very strong person, not physically anyways. I hoped Shaoni wanted to test mental strength or strength of will something like that. My hopes shattered as we arrived at the coliseum and saw an arena set up. There were several dummies in a corner, the kind you would see used in martial arts or HEMA or something to that effect. At the foot of the dummies were several wooden clubs. I couldn’t see them to clearly but they almost looked clawed from a distance. The real centerpiece was the platform in the middle of the coliseum. It looked like a stage and I’m sure that’s exactly how we were going to use it. The raised wooden platform had been constructed with boards placed across the top. It looked like those boards could be removed and under that was simply the cold hard ground about two feet below.
Katrina’s eyes lit up as she looked over the room.
“Now this is what I’m talking about, a real trial!”
She just about shrieked in excitement, throwing one fist in the air and startling the rest of us to attention. Katrina was the only one that really seemed excited about this. John and Robert just looked accepting and I’m not sure Brooke had put two and two together yet. I’d seen the clubs laid out by the dummies and already figured we’d be sparing with each other.
“Good morning everyone, I hope your ready for today.”
Called Shaoni, emerging unseen from behind us. Anyone who wasn’t fully awake at that point sure was then. There’s just something about Shaoni that makes you really really not want her to show up behind you unannounced. Probably why she kept doing it to us.
“Today I will test your strength, while I’d rather avoid conflict it’s sometimes unavoidable. My ideal candidate not only knows themselves but can handle themselves as well. We will allow you some time to familiarize yourself with the war clubs you’ll be using. Then you will compete against each other to find the strongest, most skilled warrior among you.”
Shaoni explained, Katrina’ excitement growing with every word.
I wasn’t to keen to participate in any of this but, like usual, I didn’t really have much of a choice at this point.
“So will you be sticking around this time then?”
I asked, wondering if Shaoni was going to cut and run again.
“I have other matters to attend to today. While I would like to stay and observe the whole day I need to prepare things for the final trial tomorrow. I’ll be back in time to see you test each other though.”
She replied dismissively, already on her way out. Shaoni seemed almost uninterested in us now. For someone evaluating us she seemed awful happy to pass off the evaluation to her followers. I didn’t say anything else as she walked out of the coliseum and towards the exit.
As I walked over to the little training area I saw the clubs were actually ornate masterpieces. They were carved from a hard dark wood. The handles resembled an eagles talon, curving near the end to grip a wooden orb. Whoever made these was beyond skilled, these things were works of art. I didn’t have much time to admire them before Katrina interrupted me.
“Hey, Keith was it? Want me to show you how to use these things?”
She called over to me, it was more of a command than a question but that’s pretty par for the course with her.
“If you want, sure. I’m uh… I’m kinda a fish out of water with this find of thing.”
I told her, rubbing the back of my neck with one hand in embarrassment. I wasn’t sure why she was singling me out for that but she answered that question for me.
“Good, Those two creep me out and that one has been drooling over me since we got here.”
She said, pointing over at Robert and John who had already started practicing, then at Brooke. Katrina showed absolutely no subtly in any of this, earning us looks from all three of the others.
I was a little afraid of Katrina teaching me anything, if someone was gonna kill me by accident it would be her. That and she still had that gun on her. Despite my misgivings she was actually a pretty good teacher. She was a bit like a drill instructor but I learned a thing or two. By the time we were done I felt like I might stand half a chance in this trial.
“Just remember your footwork, keep your balance and the rest should come natural. Oh, and if we get paired up, take a dive, it’ll be less painful.”
Katrina added with a smirk, walking over towards the group by the stage in the center of the room. Shaoni had just come back in and was up on the balcony. A few of her followers had collected us and informed us we were about to start the, ”practical part”, as they put it.
“There’s five of you so for the first matchup one of my own will serve as the opponent. Anyone what to go first?”
Shaoni asked us, looking down with a raised eyebrow and waiting for a response. Before I realized what I’d done my hand was in the air, my body subconsciously wanting to get this over with as fast as possible. Shaoni actually looked surprised as she gestured for me to take my place on the stage. Two of the boards had been removed on either side leaving us something like six feet of space to work with before falling off the platform. But I was far less concerned about that after I saw the guy walking over. It was the driver from a few days ago when Shaoni had me brought out to the camp. The guy that had his friend stabbed by Bianca, he didn’t look like he’d forgotten about that as they gave him his club.
As I took my place on the stage the only thing I was thinking was exactly how bad it hurt when you got hit with one of these things.
“Begin when you are ready.”
Called Shaoni from her place on the balcony. The guy across from me took absolutely no time to think, charging at me wildly right away. I tried to brace myself and remember Katrina’s training, taking an even stance and angling my club for the coming blow. I did manage to block his strike but the force of it threw me to the ground. My mind went into full survival mode as he swung down at me. He was way less fluid than Katrina had been when she was showing me the ropes. He just seemed like he wanted to hurt me by any means necessary. As I rolled from side to side avoiding his blows I waited for an opening. He took a particularly hard swing at my head and I rolled at the last possible second. He lost his balance, giving me a chance to slip between his legs and get back to my feet. I stood back up narrowly avoiding a swing for my head as my opponent regained his balance and swung back at me. His wide hate fueled swing carried his whole body around with it and gave me another opening. I planted my feet and took one hard swing at the man’s turned shoulder hitting him right on the bone with a sickening crack. He stumbled around towards the edge, turning his back to me. I took one final swing, hoisting the club above my head and bringing it down in between his shoulder blades with a hollow thud. The blow sent him tumbling forward over the edge and off the stage, falling to the floor below.
Katrina shot me a quick thumbs up as I walked off the stage while Shaoni looked down at me and gave me an approving nod. No one else seemed to pay me any mind as I rejoined the group. I felt empowered, I hadn’t expected to get even that far, maybe there was a chance for me in this trial after all. Robert and John fought next and despite their age they each held their own. In the end John forced Robert off the edge, his age and weight throwing off his balance. I was still impressed either of them could move like they had, I guess I shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. Then Katrina fought Brooke in the last… round I guess I’d call it. The smile on her face was unsettling from the moment she realized she’d be paired up with him, like a shark smelling blood in the water. You could just tell that she was going to take pleasure in what happened next.
That smile was still on her face as she walked up onto the stage and took her place across from Brooke.
“I hope you like it rough baby, cause I’m not going easy on you!”
Brooke called to her from the other side of the stage making a point to puff out his chest and flex his muscles. That set her off like a bomb, the smile disappeared and she exploded towards Brooke. I saw the exact moment that false confidence left his eyes and he actually turned to run, he was far to late and way to slow. Her first strike went low, shooting out in front of Brooke and coming back to catch his knee sending him tripping forward. He tried to regain his balance but she had no intention of letting him. Katrina swung out in front of him again, this time catching his neck with the club on its way back. That sent him flat onto his back, the club falling form his hand and rolling off the edge of the stage was the only sound in the whole coliseum. All eyes focused on Katrina as she took a breath then delivered a kick to Brooke’s ribs so hard that he went rolling off the edge, following his club. I returned her thumbs up she had given me as she rejoined the group.
Next, those of us who remained got matched up with each other. Shaoni wanted to use another one of her followers to stand in but Katrina insisted on just going twice. That meant I’d fight her and then the winner would fight John to see who the victor of the day was. As I stood across from Katrina I considered taking her advice from before, “…Just take a dive…” she had said. I thought about it, I really did, but I’d done so well earlier right? Why stop now? While I’d been thinking Katrina had walked up to me and started to swing. I had just enough time to realize my mistake before she cracked me across the head so hard she knocked me out.
I came to an hour later, alone on an animal skin cot. I was still in the coliseum but everyone else had left apparently. The only thing I saw when I got up from the ground was the torchlight illuminating the passage that lead back outside. That and the note scribbled on a scrap of a sticky note taped to my fore head.
“I told you to take a dive.”
Well at least she might feel bad about knocking me out. I figured we must be done for the day given how dead the camp seemed when I emerged back into the light. With nothing better to do, I walked off towards the forest to clear my head. I wondered what Bianca had been up to since I’d been gone as I aimlessly wandered around the forest’s edge.
“No that wouldn’t work! We don’t know what’s up there and we are not just waltzing in through the front gates!”
Stein yelled at me as I went over my most recent idea for breaking Keith out of whatever trials were going on out by the old mine. It had been two days since I watched him get kidnapped in front of me and I was getting drastic, aaaannd maybe a little dramatic.
“But I could do it guys! Remember back at the reservation? Those guys were willing to do anything for me and there can’t be that many guards in one place. Maybe I just convince a small group to lead us in and make an excuse for us.”
“For the last time Bianca, They’re just about cultists far as I can tell. You ain’t gonna be able to fight the kinda conviction they have to that bird, even if ya could its to much of a risk.”
Tuck protested from his seat at the kitchen table.
The kitchen table had become our war room over the past few days. A map of Eagles Peak Frank had made lay across it with dozens of pins stuck in around where the old mine would be.
“I don’t think an approach from the front is a good idea at all. You and Keith got to the mine through the forest once. Could we follow that path, approach without anyone knowing we were there?”
Stein theorized as he paced back and forth at the head of the table.
“Well, we really just wandered around for a bit and ended up there. We didn’t find the mine either, it was a hole that lead down to an old cavern near the mine. They turned out to be connected but that was just dumb luck.”
I explained to the group. Tuck looked like that had given him an idea.
“So you two got some backdoor entrance figured out that you’re only just tellin’ me about? That could be perfect! The four of us could make our way out and drop through that hole, take em all by surprise!”
Tuck exclaimed, leaping to his feet. His enthusiasm was nice but it wasn’t going to be that easy.
“We… kinda made a bit of a scene when we were there, they might be watching for something like that to happen again.”
“True, but it’s the best entrance strategy I’ve heard so far, I think following up on it is worth a try.”
Frank added with a nod. Stein then started pacing up and down the length of the table for a bit. He was coming up with something, that much was obvious.
“So we’ll enter through this hole leading into a cave connected to the old mine. From what you told us about your time there its some sort of staging area for these trials, at least that’s my best guess. Odds are there won’t be many people there overnight so we make our way out there during the night. From there we move through the cave and into the mine but after that we know nothing about what we’re running into.”
Stein lectured to his audience.
“But I think we have a solution for that. Frank do we still have that drone?”
An hour later the four of us were gathered at the edge of town on that path Keith and I had taken into the forest. The trees growing together forming a sort of arch over our head’s were unsettling but I couldn’t decide why. It just didn’t sit well with me, it looked unnatural I guess and that just gave me the creeps. I get that’s rich coming from a literal succubus but its how I felt.
“Alright, just watch the trees as you take it up, I don’t want a repeat of Missouri.”
Stein instructed Frank as he got the drone in the air.
“You’re never going to let me live that down are you?”
Frank chuckled, shaking his head.
“It was the first time we used this thing, there was bound to be a few unexpected variables.”
“If you call “unexpected variables” an itchy finger on the throttle. We had to have Rocco untangle it from the branches.”
Stein joked as he checked to make sure the drones camera was feeding back into the app on his phone.
I hadn’t seen them like this, being friendly with each other. There was never a time where they hated each other or anything like that but they’d been so… business like with for a long time now. It was nice to see them act like real people again. Leaning over Stein’s shoulder I got a birds eye view from the drone.
“ Just go East, its what we did. Just walked East till we stumbled into everything.”
Frank followed my advice and flew the drone due East. Eventually a campsite came into view, there were a bunch of tepees and a bunch of people just walking around.
“What, they just look normal?!”
I blurted out, a little louder and a bit more distressed than I meant to.
“How’re they supposed ta look then?”
Tuck asked
“They’re just people like you n’ me. Nothin to special about em other than the fact they worship some big ass bird.”
He continued with mild annoyance.
“I don’t know, I guess I expected these creepy guys in tarps, like from Keith’s story. These are just… well they’re just people!”
I responded, Throwing my arms out to my sides in exasperation. Tuck was right, I shouldn’t have expected everything to be just as Keith had said. Still, something just didn’t fit together for me about that whole thing. What had the deal been with those people in Imalone then? I shook my head, clearing the question from my mind, it wasn’t important now.
“There! That’s the entrance to the old mine.”
Tuck told Stein as he looked at screen. I looked over myself and felt my entire being freeze. It was Brooke, walking out from the entrance with some bitchy looking girl and two older guys that I’d seen around town before. How could he be here? After all this time why, why was he anywhere near me?
My vision swam, when it came back Frank was standing in front of me. His mouth was moving but I couldn’t hear anything.
“…anca! Are you ok, what’s going on? Bianca!”
I finally heard over the sudden ringing in my ears.
“Him.”
Was the only thing the escaped my lips as I pointed one finger at the screen. I felt warmth coming back into my limbs as that frozen feeling slowly left me.
“He’s here…. Shouldn’t be here… why.”
I mumbled to myself as Frank helped me into the back of the SUV twenty minutes later. I was still nearly catatonic as we headed back into town.
“So… that was him, the one you were running from when we found you.”
Stein said, breaking the silence that had fallen. I could talk normally again but I still only managed a quick “yes”.
“You know you don’t have to come with us, I’d understand.”
Frank said, snapping me to attention again.
“NO! I’ve got to help Keith, I don’t care if… if Brooke’s up there too.”
I tripped over my words just mentioning his name.
“I can do it, I can do this Frank, please.”
I begged, taking deep breaths to try and calm myself down. We pulled into the driveway before Frank said anything back. As we were all getting out he muttered something under his breath. He didn’t mean for me to hear him but I did.
“I’m not sure you can girl.”
I went straight up to my room after that, I didn’t want to be around anyone. All I caught before I left Frank, Stein, and Tuck before running up the stairs was the hard look Stein shot both of them. A look that said “We need to talk” and told me that he finally had a real plan. I spent the rest of that night thinking about the past and what I’d been through. Could I go out to that mine and rescue Keith if I had to face Brooke again? The last time I’d seen him had been as I leapt out of a moving car as my eyes turned to meet his one last time, rolling down that hill to freedom. I’d never seen him since and it was rare for him to even cross my mind. I wanted to go with the rest of them but despite what I said I really wasn’t sure I could do this anymore. Eventually I just decided only time would tell, hopefully Stein’s plan was a good one and we could put this whole thing behind us.
“Ey! Ey Keith!”
Someone yelled out as I came back from my little hike around the edge of the forest. My eyes darted around behind me before they finally focused on a rustling bush. Rocco jumped out of it holding a cigar in his mouth.
“That Brooke asshole hasn’t gone anywhere, I found him out by that trail the trucks drove in on with this.”
He said, tossing the cigar up in the air where it twirled around before he caught it in his mouth again.
“I figured I should frisk him just in case. I took a bite of his pants and stole this little number out of his coat pocket.”
He continued, shaking a silver lighter with a gold inlayed image of a lion in his paw.
“Oh and the cigar, I took that too. Cuban so the guy’s got taste, still a prick. Anyways, it looked like someone got to him before me. The guy was pretty beaten up, had some nasty bruises.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I was just trying to picture Brooke getting mugged by a raccoon In my head and I burst out laughing. Rocco walked back to the camp in toe with me, only stopping to look up at some weird buzzing sound we both heard above us. Probably some rickety old plane or something way up there. I think I was finally starting to get why Frank and Stein had kept Rocco around. He may be a furry criminal mastermind but when he was motivated he could actually be really helpful. I never would’ve been able to keep any sort of tabs on Brooke without his help.
We made our way back to the long tent that still had remnants of lunch sitting on the table. Usually I would’ve tried to hide Rocco but at this point I figured he deserved the free food. Plus I just didn’t want to argue with him after getting my shit rocked most of the morning. Someone walked up behind me and I heard Shaoni’s voice, of course she was creeping up behind me again.
“Your feeling alright after today I hope?”
She asked me, taking a seat next to me.
“I’ll be alright, I’m sure I’ll have a killer headache in the morning but I’ll manage.”
“Good, good. We’ll be gathering in a few hours so I can announce the final trial. I expect you out by the entrance to the mine by 6.”
“What’s the matter? No cryptic questions this time Shaoni?”
I asked, paying no mind to what was sitting next to me.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you always stop by to check in after these trials. You don’t have any questions this time?”
“No, Katrina was the victor today, there is no question about that, the woman is… brutal. I just wanted to make sure she didn’t hit you to hard, you were unconscious for some time.”
She answered, some genuine concern slipping into her voice again.
“Heh careful, I might start to think you actually care.”
I joked, less nervous than I should’ve been.
“I’ll see you tonight with the rest for the announcement.”
She said with a deep sigh, standing up and walking off toward where ever she came from.
I took a nap and just barely managed to wake up in time for this “meeting” Shaoni had planned. I couldn’t find Rocco before I left but I wasn’t all that concerned about that anymore. When I got to the entrance a massive bonfire was lit and Shaoni stood alone in front of it. Robert and John were already there and Katrina showed up a little after me. Brooke hadn’t arrived before Shaoni started her speech.
“I thank all of you for coming here tonight. Regrettably one of you is missing but I won’t be waylaid by his absence.”
She spoke with clear annoyance in her voice.
“Tomorrow marks your final trial, the most important of the three. The trial of justice. Tomorrow there will be a murder in Eagles Peak. I want you all to work together to stop it. Then, succeed or fail, pass judgment on those involved in the murder. Afterwards I will select which among you will receive my gift. But for tonight, talk amongst yourselves, plan, and rest. Prepare yourselves for tomorrow, I will have my eye on each of you.”
With that Shaoni stepped away from the fire and into the night. Not accepting any questions about anything she had said.
“What do you think she has planned?”
Robert asked me as I took a seat by the bonfire to think over everything Shaoni had said.
“I don’t know, a murder apparently. Shouldn’t you know more about it? You’re one of her followers after all.”
I said as I turned my head to see John walking off into the night. That man was weird, really weird. I knew next to nothing about him and he seemed to never speak.
“Usually sure, but she hasn’t said anything to us about this. It’s why she hasn’t directly overseen all the trials, she’s set this last one up all on her own. I guess there’s nothing to do but wait, we’re all in this together for the first part of the trial I guess.”
Robert explained, leaning back and sprawling out on the ground. He was right, there wasn’t much we could do until we were in the middle of it.
I looked around, searching for Katrina in the firelight. I found her leaning against the rocky wall that made up the entrance of the mine. I stood up, leaving Robert to relax and made my way over.
“How’s the head?”
She asked, feigning taking a swing at me again with an evil grin on her face.
“I told you to take a dive.”
“Yeah, I should’ve listened.”
I admitted, rubbing the goose egg that had formed on my head over the course of my nap.
“So what do you thin about this last trial?”
“Well, I can say that If that Brooke guy tries flirting with me one more time the murder won’t be that hard to solve. Seriously though, I think she’s gone off the deep end. How does she know there’s going to be a murder?”
Katrina made a really good point, how was Shaoni so sure?
“That’s… hmmmm, you’re right.”
“Well I’m gonna head to bed then. Something tells me tomorrow is gonna be a headache. Just try to stay out of my way when we’re all forced to work together and you should be fine. All goes well and maybe we’ll be out of here tomorrow, I know I will.”
Katrina said as she pushed herself off the rock wall she’d been leaning against. Something about the way she said that last part, it made me think she was up to something. Like she was leaving no matter what or she had some sort of exit strategy.
As I left Robert relaxing by the fire and hiked back to my own tepee for the night I spied Katrina. She had climbed up a tree and had her legs wrapped around the trunk and one of her arms gripped a branch above her. There was some kind of box in her other hand, a radio maybe. I had no idea what she was saying, she was too far off, but it had to mean something. As far as I knew none of us had any contact with the outside world since we got here. My gut feeling was that she wasn’t meant to be doing that. I wasn’t going to bother her at this point though so I went my own way and settled down for the night.
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The next day went by in a blur. Rocco was walking the perimeter of the camp, keeping an eye out for Brooke when I woke up. I didn’t really think he’d leave, but it seemed to give Rocco something to do other than being a general menace to society. All of us ate breakfast as normal but no one really said much. I’m not sure if they were still reeling from things they saw yesterday or if they just weren’t in a talking mood. The thought occurred to me that Shaoni may have payed a visit to each of them as well. Prying into what they saw and answering questions they might have. Honestly the whole thing felt like we were guinea pigs. Shaoni didn’t really seem to have a great handle on the trials so far. It was… mildly concerning that the ringmaster of all this didn’t seem 100% in control anymore.
Actually, I’d thought about that a lot last night. Shaoni just sort of left us to our own devices when we went through those “visions” yesterday. It’s not like she backed up her claim that she’d know what we’d seen either. If anything the fact that she came to ask me about it made me even more suspicious that she wasn’t really sure what she was doing. It was the first time I’d ever thought of Shaoni as anything other than in complete control. Slowly but surely it was becoming glaringly obvious that wasn’t the case.
If I was remembering correctly today’s trial was the trial of strength. I sincerely hoped that was a metaphor for something. You’ve got to understand, I’m not a very strong person, not physically anyways. I hoped Shaoni wanted to test mental strength or strength of will something like that. My hopes shattered as we arrived at the coliseum and saw an arena set up. There were several dummies in a corner, the kind you would see used in martial arts or HEMA or something to that effect. At the foot of the dummies were several wooden clubs. I couldn’t see them to clearly but they almost looked clawed from a distance. The real centerpiece was the platform in the middle of the coliseum. It looked like a stage and I’m sure that’s exactly how we were going to use it. The raised wooden platform had been constructed with boards placed across the top. It looked like those boards could be removed and under that was simply the cold hard ground about two feet below.
Katrina’s eyes lit up as she looked over the room.
“Now this is what I’m talking about, a real trial!”
She just about shrieked in excitement, throwing one fist in the air and startling the rest of us to attention. Katrina was the only one that really seemed excited about this. John and Robert just looked accepting and I’m not sure Brooke had put two and two together yet. I’d seen the clubs laid out by the dummies and already figured we’d be sparing with each other.
“Good morning everyone, I hope your ready for today.”
Called Shaoni, emerging unseen from behind us. Anyone who wasn’t fully awake at that point sure was then. There’s just something about Shaoni that makes you really really not want her to show up behind you unannounced. Probably why she kept doing it to us.
“Today I will test your strength, while I’d rather avoid conflict it’s sometimes unavoidable. My ideal candidate not only knows themselves but can handle themselves as well. We will allow you some time to familiarize yourself with the war clubs you’ll be using. Then you will compete against each other to find the strongest, most skilled warrior among you.”
Shaoni explained, Katrina’ excitement growing with every word.
I wasn’t to keen to participate in any of this but, like usual, I didn’t really have much of a choice at this point.
“So will you be sticking around this time then?”
I asked, wondering if Shaoni was going to cut and run again.
“I have other matters to attend to today. While I would like to stay and observe the whole day I need to prepare things for the final trial tomorrow. I’ll be back in time to see you test each other though.”
She replied dismissively, already on her way out. Shaoni seemed almost uninterested in us now. For someone evaluating us she seemed awful happy to pass off the evaluation to her followers. I didn’t say anything else as she walked out of the coliseum and towards the exit.
As I walked over to the little training area I saw the clubs were actually ornate masterpieces. They were carved from a hard dark wood. The handles resembled an eagles talon, curving near the end to grip a wooden orb. Whoever made these was beyond skilled, these things were works of art. I didn’t have much time to admire them before Katrina interrupted me.
“Hey, Keith was it? Want me to show you how to use these things?”
She called over to me, it was more of a command than a question but that’s pretty par for the course with her.
“If you want, sure. I’m uh… I’m kinda a fish out of water with this find of thing.”
I told her, rubbing the back of my neck with one hand in embarrassment. I wasn’t sure why she was singling me out for that but she answered that question for me.
“Good, Those two creep me out and that one has been drooling over me since we got here.”
She said, pointing over at Robert and John who had already started practicing, then at Brooke. Katrina showed absolutely no subtly in any of this, earning us looks from all three of the others.
I was a little afraid of Katrina teaching me anything, if someone was gonna kill me by accident it would be her. That and she still had that gun on her. Despite my misgivings she was actually a pretty good teacher. She was a bit like a drill instructor but I learned a thing or two. By the time we were done I felt like I might stand half a chance in this trial.
“Just remember your footwork, keep your balance and the rest should come natural. Oh, and if we get paired up, take a dive, it’ll be less painful.”
Katrina added with a smirk, walking over towards the group by the stage in the center of the room. Shaoni had just come back in and was up on the balcony. A few of her followers had collected us and informed us we were about to start the, ”practical part”, as they put it.
“There’s five of you so for the first matchup one of my own will serve as the opponent. Anyone what to go first?”
Shaoni asked us, looking down with a raised eyebrow and waiting for a response. Before I realized what I’d done my hand was in the air, my body subconsciously wanting to get this over with as fast as possible. Shaoni actually looked surprised as she gestured for me to take my place on the stage. Two of the boards had been removed on either side leaving us something like six feet of space to work with before falling off the platform. But I was far less concerned about that after I saw the guy walking over. It was the driver from a few days ago when Shaoni had me brought out to the camp. The guy that had his friend stabbed by Bianca, he didn’t look like he’d forgotten about that as they gave him his club.
As I took my place on the stage the only thing I was thinking was exactly how bad it hurt when you got hit with one of these things.
“Begin when you are ready.”
Called Shaoni from her place on the balcony. The guy across from me took absolutely no time to think, charging at me wildly right away. I tried to brace myself and remember Katrina’s training, taking an even stance and angling my club for the coming blow. I did manage to block his strike but the force of it threw me to the ground. My mind went into full survival mode as he swung down at me. He was way less fluid than Katrina had been when she was showing me the ropes. He just seemed like he wanted to hurt me by any means necessary. As I rolled from side to side avoiding his blows I waited for an opening. He took a particularly hard swing at my head and I rolled at the last possible second. He lost his balance, giving me a chance to slip between his legs and get back to my feet. I stood back up narrowly avoiding a swing for my head as my opponent regained his balance and swung back at me. His wide hate fueled swing carried his whole body around with it and gave me another opening. I planted my feet and took one hard swing at the man’s turned shoulder hitting him right on the bone with a sickening crack. He stumbled around towards the edge, turning his back to me. I took one final swing, hoisting the club above my head and bringing it down in between his shoulder blades with a hollow thud. The blow sent him tumbling forward over the edge and off the stage, falling to the floor below.
Katrina shot me a quick thumbs up as I walked off the stage while Shaoni looked down at me and gave me an approving nod. No one else seemed to pay me any mind as I rejoined the group. I felt empowered, I hadn’t expected to get even that far, maybe there was a chance for me in this trial after all. Robert and John fought next and despite their age they each held their own. In the end John forced Robert off the edge, his age and weight throwing off his balance. I was still impressed either of them could move like they had, I guess I shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. Then Katrina fought Brooke in the last… round I guess I’d call it. The smile on her face was unsettling from the moment she realized she’d be paired up with him, like a shark smelling blood in the water. You could just tell that she was going to take pleasure in what happened next.
That smile was still on her face as she walked up onto the stage and took her place across from Brooke.
“I hope you like it rough baby, cause I’m not going easy on you!”
Brooke called to her from the other side of the stage making a point to puff out his chest and flex his muscles. That set her off like a bomb, the smile disappeared and she exploded towards Brooke. I saw the exact moment that false confidence left his eyes and he actually turned to run, he was far to late and way to slow. Her first strike went low, shooting out in front of Brooke and coming back to catch his knee sending him tripping forward. He tried to regain his balance but she had no intention of letting him. Katrina swung out in front of him again, this time catching his neck with the club on its way back. That sent him flat onto his back, the club falling form his hand and rolling off the edge of the stage was the only sound in the whole coliseum. All eyes focused on Katrina as she took a breath then delivered a kick to Brooke’s ribs so hard that he went rolling off the edge, following his club. I returned her thumbs up she had given me as she rejoined the group.
Next, those of us who remained got matched up with each other. Shaoni wanted to use another one of her followers to stand in but Katrina insisted on just going twice. That meant I’d fight her and then the winner would fight John to see who the victor of the day was. As I stood across from Katrina I considered taking her advice from before, “…Just take a dive…” she had said. I thought about it, I really did, but I’d done so well earlier right? Why stop now? While I’d been thinking Katrina had walked up to me and started to swing. I had just enough time to realize my mistake before she cracked me across the head so hard she knocked me out.
I came to an hour later, alone on an animal skin cot. I was still in the coliseum but everyone else had left apparently. The only thing I saw when I got up from the ground was the torchlight illuminating the passage that lead back outside. That and the note scribbled on a scrap of a sticky note taped to my fore head.
“I told you to take a dive.”
Well at least she might feel bad about knocking me out. I figured we must be done for the day given how dead the camp seemed when I emerged back into the light. With nothing better to do, I walked off towards the forest to clear my head. I wondered what Bianca had been up to since I’d been gone as I aimlessly wandered around the forest’s edge.
“No that wouldn’t work! We don’t know what’s up there and we are not just waltzing in through the front gates!”
Stein yelled at me as I went over my most recent idea for breaking Keith out of whatever trials were going on out by the old mine. It had been two days since I watched him get kidnapped in front of me and I was getting drastic, aaaannd maybe a little dramatic.
“But I could do it guys! Remember back at the reservation? Those guys were willing to do anything for me and there can’t be that many guards in one place. Maybe I just convince a small group to lead us in and make an excuse for us.”
“For the last time Bianca, They’re just about cultists far as I can tell. You ain’t gonna be able to fight the kinda conviction they have to that bird, even if ya could its to much of a risk.”
Tuck protested from his seat at the kitchen table.
The kitchen table had become our war room over the past few days. A map of Eagles Peak Frank had made lay across it with dozens of pins stuck in around where the old mine would be.
“I don’t think an approach from the front is a good idea at all. You and Keith got to the mine through the forest once. Could we follow that path, approach without anyone knowing we were there?”
Stein theorized as he paced back and forth at the head of the table.
“Well, we really just wandered around for a bit and ended up there. We didn’t find the mine either, it was a hole that lead down to an old cavern near the mine. They turned out to be connected but that was just dumb luck.”
I explained to the group. Tuck looked like that had given him an idea.
“So you two got some backdoor entrance figured out that you’re only just tellin’ me about? That could be perfect! The four of us could make our way out and drop through that hole, take em all by surprise!”
Tuck exclaimed, leaping to his feet. His enthusiasm was nice but it wasn’t going to be that easy.
“We… kinda made a bit of a scene when we were there, they might be watching for something like that to happen again.”
“True, but it’s the best entrance strategy I’ve heard so far, I think following up on it is worth a try.”
Frank added with a nod. Stein then started pacing up and down the length of the table for a bit. He was coming up with something, that much was obvious.
“So we’ll enter through this hole leading into a cave connected to the old mine. From what you told us about your time there its some sort of staging area for these trials, at least that’s my best guess. Odds are there won’t be many people there overnight so we make our way out there during the night. From there we move through the cave and into the mine but after that we know nothing about what we’re running into.”
Stein lectured to his audience.
“But I think we have a solution for that. Frank do we still have that drone?”
An hour later the four of us were gathered at the edge of town on that path Keith and I had taken into the forest. The trees growing together forming a sort of arch over our head’s were unsettling but I couldn’t decide why. It just didn’t sit well with me, it looked unnatural I guess and that just gave me the creeps. I get that’s rich coming from a literal succubus but its how I felt.
“Alright, just watch the trees as you take it up, I don’t want a repeat of Missouri.”
Stein instructed Frank as he got the drone in the air.
“You’re never going to let me live that down are you?”
Frank chuckled, shaking his head.
“It was the first time we used this thing, there was bound to be a few unexpected variables.”
“If you call “unexpected variables” an itchy finger on the throttle. We had to have Rocco untangle it from the branches.”
Stein joked as he checked to make sure the drones camera was feeding back into the app on his phone.
I hadn’t seen them like this, being friendly with each other. There was never a time where they hated each other or anything like that but they’d been so… business like with for a long time now. It was nice to see them act like real people again. Leaning over Stein’s shoulder I got a birds eye view from the drone.
“ Just go East, its what we did. Just walked East till we stumbled into everything.”
Frank followed my advice and flew the drone due East. Eventually a campsite came into view, there were a bunch of tepees and a bunch of people just walking around.
“What, they just look normal?!”
I blurted out, a little louder and a bit more distressed than I meant to.
“How’re they supposed ta look then?”
Tuck asked
“They’re just people like you n’ me. Nothin to special about em other than the fact they worship some big ass bird.”
He continued with mild annoyance.
“I don’t know, I guess I expected these creepy guys in tarps, like from Keith’s story. These are just… well they’re just people!”
I responded, Throwing my arms out to my sides in exasperation. Tuck was right, I shouldn’t have expected everything to be just as Keith had said. Still, something just didn’t fit together for me about that whole thing. What had the deal been with those people in Imalone then? I shook my head, clearing the question from my mind, it wasn’t important now.
“There! That’s the entrance to the old mine.”
Tuck told Stein as he looked at screen. I looked over myself and felt my entire being freeze. It was Brooke, walking out from the entrance with some bitchy looking girl and two older guys that I’d seen around town before. How could he be here? After all this time why, why was he anywhere near me?
My vision swam, when it came back Frank was standing in front of me. His mouth was moving but I couldn’t hear anything.
“…anca! Are you ok, what’s going on? Bianca!”
I finally heard over the sudden ringing in my ears.
“Him.”
Was the only thing the escaped my lips as I pointed one finger at the screen. I felt warmth coming back into my limbs as that frozen feeling slowly left me.
“He’s here…. Shouldn’t be here… why.”
I mumbled to myself as Frank helped me into the back of the SUV twenty minutes later. I was still nearly catatonic as we headed back into town.
“So… that was him, the one you were running from when we found you.”
Stein said, breaking the silence that had fallen. I could talk normally again but I still only managed a quick “yes”.
“You know you don’t have to come with us, I’d understand.”
Frank said, snapping me to attention again.
“NO! I’ve got to help Keith, I don’t care if… if Brooke’s up there too.”
I tripped over my words just mentioning his name.
“I can do it, I can do this Frank, please.”
I begged, taking deep breaths to try and calm myself down. We pulled into the driveway before Frank said anything back. As we were all getting out he muttered something under his breath. He didn’t mean for me to hear him but I did.
“I’m not sure you can girl.”
I went straight up to my room after that, I didn’t want to be around anyone. All I caught before I left Frank, Stein, and Tuck before running up the stairs was the hard look Stein shot both of them. A look that said “We need to talk” and told me that he finally had a real plan. I spent the rest of that night thinking about the past and what I’d been through. Could I go out to that mine and rescue Keith if I had to face Brooke again? The last time I’d seen him had been as I leapt out of a moving car as my eyes turned to meet his one last time, rolling down that hill to freedom. I’d never seen him since and it was rare for him to even cross my mind. I wanted to go with the rest of them but despite what I said I really wasn’t sure I could do this anymore. Eventually I just decided only time would tell, hopefully Stein’s plan was a good one and we could put this whole thing behind us.
“Ey! Ey Keith!”
Someone yelled out as I came back from my little hike around the edge of the forest. My eyes darted around behind me before they finally focused on a rustling bush. Rocco jumped out of it holding a cigar in his mouth.
“That Brooke asshole hasn’t gone anywhere, I found him out by that trail the trucks drove in on with this.”
He said, tossing the cigar up in the air where it twirled around before he caught it in his mouth again.
“I figured I should frisk him just in case. I took a bite of his pants and stole this little number out of his coat pocket.”
He continued, shaking a silver lighter with a gold inlayed image of a lion in his paw.
“Oh and the cigar, I took that too. Cuban so the guy’s got taste, still a prick. Anyways, it looked like someone got to him before me. The guy was pretty beaten up, had some nasty bruises.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I was just trying to picture Brooke getting mugged by a raccoon In my head and I burst out laughing. Rocco walked back to the camp in toe with me, only stopping to look up at some weird buzzing sound we both heard above us. Probably some rickety old plane or something way up there. I think I was finally starting to get why Frank and Stein had kept Rocco around. He may be a furry criminal mastermind but when he was motivated he could actually be really helpful. I never would’ve been able to keep any sort of tabs on Brooke without his help.
We made our way back to the long tent that still had remnants of lunch sitting on the table. Usually I would’ve tried to hide Rocco but at this point I figured he deserved the free food. Plus I just didn’t want to argue with him after getting my shit rocked most of the morning. Someone walked up behind me and I heard Shaoni’s voice, of course she was creeping up behind me again.
“Your feeling alright after today I hope?”
She asked me, taking a seat next to me.
“I’ll be alright, I’m sure I’ll have a killer headache in the morning but I’ll manage.”
“Good, good. We’ll be gathering in a few hours so I can announce the final trial. I expect you out by the entrance to the mine by 6.”
“What’s the matter? No cryptic questions this time Shaoni?”
I asked, paying no mind to what was sitting next to me.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you always stop by to check in after these trials. You don’t have any questions this time?”
“No, Katrina was the victor today, there is no question about that, the woman is… brutal. I just wanted to make sure she didn’t hit you to hard, you were unconscious for some time.”
She answered, some genuine concern slipping into her voice again.
“Heh careful, I might start to think you actually care.”
I joked, less nervous than I should’ve been.
“I’ll see you tonight with the rest for the announcement.”
She said with a deep sigh, standing up and walking off toward where ever she came from.
I took a nap and just barely managed to wake up in time for this “meeting” Shaoni had planned. I couldn’t find Rocco before I left but I wasn’t all that concerned about that anymore. When I got to the entrance a massive bonfire was lit and Shaoni stood alone in front of it. Robert and John were already there and Katrina showed up a little after me. Brooke hadn’t arrived before Shaoni started her speech.
“I thank all of you for coming here tonight. Regrettably one of you is missing but I won’t be waylaid by his absence.”
She spoke with clear annoyance in her voice.
“Tomorrow marks your final trial, the most important of the three. The trial of justice. Tomorrow there will be a murder in Eagles Peak. I want you all to work together to stop it. Then, succeed or fail, pass judgment on those involved in the murder. Afterwards I will select which among you will receive my gift. But for tonight, talk amongst yourselves, plan, and rest. Prepare yourselves for tomorrow, I will have my eye on each of you.”
With that Shaoni stepped away from the fire and into the night. Not accepting any questions about anything she had said.
“What do you think she has planned?”
Robert asked me as I took a seat by the bonfire to think over everything Shaoni had said.
“I don’t know, a murder apparently. Shouldn’t you know more about it? You’re one of her followers after all.”
I said as I turned my head to see John walking off into the night. That man was weird, really weird. I knew next to nothing about him and he seemed to never speak.
“Usually sure, but she hasn’t said anything to us about this. It’s why she hasn’t directly overseen all the trials, she’s set this last one up all on her own. I guess there’s nothing to do but wait, we’re all in this together for the first part of the trial I guess.”
Robert explained, leaning back and sprawling out on the ground. He was right, there wasn’t much we could do until we were in the middle of it.
I looked around, searching for Katrina in the firelight. I found her leaning against the rocky wall that made up the entrance of the mine. I stood up, leaving Robert to relax and made my way over.
“How’s the head?”
She asked, feigning taking a swing at me again with an evil grin on her face.
“I told you to take a dive.”
“Yeah, I should’ve listened.”
I admitted, rubbing the goose egg that had formed on my head over the course of my nap.
“So what do you thin about this last trial?”
“Well, I can say that If that Brooke guy tries flirting with me one more time the murder won’t be that hard to solve. Seriously though, I think she’s gone off the deep end. How does she know there’s going to be a murder?”
Katrina made a really good point, how was Shaoni so sure?
“That’s… hmmmm, you’re right.”
“Well I’m gonna head to bed then. Something tells me tomorrow is gonna be a headache. Just try to stay out of my way when we’re all forced to work together and you should be fine. All goes well and maybe we’ll be out of here tomorrow, I know I will.”
Katrina said as she pushed herself off the rock wall she’d been leaning against. Something about the way she said that last part, it made me think she was up to something. Like she was leaving no matter what or she had some sort of exit strategy.
As I left Robert relaxing by the fire and hiked back to my own tepee for the night I spied Katrina. She had climbed up a tree and had her legs wrapped around the trunk and one of her arms gripped a branch above her. There was some kind of box in her other hand, a radio maybe. I had no idea what she was saying, she was too far off, but it had to mean something. As far as I knew none of us had any contact with the outside world since we got here. My gut feeling was that she wasn’t meant to be doing that. I wasn’t going to bother her at this point though so I went my own way and settled down for the night.