Inverted concave bob

in tenet logic, as time "travel" is not instantaneous (like classic time travel movies), does that mean if i invert myself, i can never go back to my original timeline?
e.g. bob and mary are moving forwards in normal time. on wednesay bob inverts himself and spends two day inverted, arriving at Monday. in those two days, mary would have arrived at friday. so in bobs timeline, on Monday if he reverts himself and moves forward again, marys reality is on friday, and hes on monday. so in marys reality, wouldn't bob have just suddenly disappeared from her life??

Hi!
I'm looking for someone that can spare some time for free to help me improve my Ashe (and perhaps cass and sombra) gameplay. I have been as high as diamond in one previous season in OW1. I am currently Plat 5 support mainly using Ana and Illari (a bit of Bap and moira here and there). As DPS, I was hardstuck Silver 2 for a month, and finally was able to climb a bit to Gold 4, feel like I'm already getting hardstuck here again.
I feel that whenever I get put into a "pressure" game (aka loser queue), I can't get a win. Can't help but feel like a victim of the infamous forced 50/50. Whenever I win 2 or 3 in a row, it feels like you are punished with a bad team because the game wants you to be the carry. I thought this was an urban legend, but Blizz pretty much confirmed it with the May 14 patch.
I HAVE done my homework (I'd enjoy a conversation about my knowledge of the game so you can assess my level of understanding), but feel there's something that needs expert advice. Here's what I've improved on :

• Aim and mechanical skill in general. Being able to consistently hit diving tracers, genjis, sombras, echos, pharas, mercy's and lucios. Being confident in my aim and standing my ground to get the killing shot instead of running (on low targets or targets that i know will die before reaching me).
  
• Taking angles, abusing high ground and smart flanks while complimenting my other dps creating situations where the opposing team has to decide which flank to counter
  
• Creating space with my bob or using it to create an extra flank
  
• Positioning in general and knowing how to get ready for the next fight.
  
• Knowing then a fight is lost and falling back instead of feeding. Invertly, also knowing when to commit to win the fight. This has greatly made me die WAY less.
  
• Target selection (not focusing on a single target unless they are low, not going for tanks unless they are low or if the team needs me to mitigate/suppress a push attempt)
  
• Tracking enemy CD's and ults in general
  
• Trading CD's with the enemy using my dynamite (provoking nades , suzus and sometimes ults)
  

Here's what I feel I need to work on:

• Countering the enemy team when they identify I am the carry and they try to kill me first
  
• Dueling hanzo and widow
  
• Dealing with a full dive comp (is there any way to stay hitscan or do I have to play CounterWatch?)
  
• Dealing with certain maps that are not necessarily convenient for Ashe, especially the newer maps they've added.
  
• Being able to claim a flank space when the enemy team is highly aware of me
  
• Getting a consistent performance / gameplay (playing at the same level performance level in every game)
  

There's even been games where i get 40 - 50 kills, 15k damage, 5 - 6 deaths and still lose. In these cases, my logic tells me the fault is somewhere else, but im sure its me.
I know that there's the concept of VOD reviews, but I feel that I can get the most out of a live session where someone spectates my gameplay and gives me feedback on the fly. Let me know if you can spare some time to view my gameplay and give me some pointers. I would greatly appreciate it!
You can contact me thru DM here on reddit, reply to this post, or discord me at elkioscotv.

Is there a generally agreed procedure – or at least a handful of useful techniques?
Background:
I'm learning about concavity in curves of functions, specifically identifying the turning points and inflections in such curves.
To do this I'm building sign diagrams of f(x), f'(x) (first derivative) and f''(x) (second derivative).
For example:

x	-1	0	1/2	1
y'	-	-	+	+

• By working out the signs of the 1st derivative, I can determine the turning points of the curve.
• By working out the signs of the 2nd derivative, I can determine the inflection points of the curve.

The functions tend to be polynomial, e.g.:

• f(x) = x^2 - x^4
  
  • so that f'(x) = 2x - 4x^3
  • and f''(x) = 2 - 12x^2
• f(x) = x^4 - 3x^2 + 6x
  
  • so that f'(x) = 4x^3 - 6x + 6
  • and f''(x) = 12x^2 - 6

So far my "technique" is pretty scrappy.
First I determine zero points (by inspection, completing the square or applying the quadratic formula).
Then I just punch tiny permutations into my calculator, e.g. `1.0001^2 - 1.0001^4`, etc, randomly to see whether they're negative or positive, and scrawl down the results. Then I try to throw together a sign diagram that seems right.
I would prefer to follow a consistent method that can generally get me accurate results.
So far I've got this short list:
A) Inspecting for obvious forcing of the whole result.
E.g. in an expression like: 2x^2 - x^2, the result can only be positive, because both sides square x and the left side only doubles that value, so will always be larger than the right.
B) Factoring/grouping.
Factor the polynomial into groups of multiplications if possible, then solve the sign of each group separately, then combined them in the end.
For example:

1. x^4 - x^3 - 5x => (x^2 - 3x)(x^2 + 2x)
2. Make two sign diagrams, one for (x^2 - 3x) and one for (x^2 + 2x)
3. Then combine the signs, i.e. - * - = +, - * + = +, + * + = +

C) Tabulating permutations.
Drawing up a table of values of x (columns) and groups of the polynomial (from the Factoring/grouping above).
For example:

x	-1	-1 + 0.001	0 - 0.001	0	0 + 0.001	1 - 0.001	1
(x^2 - 3x)	2 (+)	≈ 3.995 (+)	≈ 0.003 (+)	0	≈ -0.002 (-)	≈ -1.998 (-)	-2 (-)
(x^2 + 2x)	...	...	...	...	...	...	...

This can then easily be converted to a sign diagram.
D) Applying values of powers of fractions.
I noticed it's common that a fraction raised to a power will give a radically (no pun) different result to the whole polynomial.
For example:
6x^3 - 6x will be:

• Negative for fractions; e.g. (6 * (0.5^3)) - (6*0.5) = -2.25
• Positive for whole numbers; e.g. (6 * (2^3)) - (6*2) = +36

So it might be useful to quickly identify where powers are applied to fractions and solve for them early.
I'm thinking of memorising (or at least being able to quickly build from memory) a table like the following:

x	2	3	4	...
1/2	1/4	1/8	...	...
1/4	...	...	...	...
1/6	...	...	...	...
...	...	...	...	...

E) Inverting the polynomial (or grouped parts of it) to find zero points.
For example, given: 5x^2 - 1.
I can invert 5x^2 to get sqrt(x/5) so that sqrt(1/5) gives me a zero point of the expression.
Then I can add/subtract tiny amounts to build the sign diagram around it.
E.g.

x	sqrt(1/5)-0.001	sqrt(1/5)	sqrt(1/5)+0.001
	-	0	+

What do you think?
Am I generally right to try and find a systematic method or at least a collection of tools to solve this kind of problem?
If so, are there any good books out there that cover such methods, so I don't have to discover them on my own by trial-and-error?
Or if not, then maybe this would be a good topic for a math book or blog post that I should write on my own!

i thought it would kind of fun to flip the script and have ice man in mavericks role and maverick in ice mans role.
boy oh boy do you really cut out a lot of the side plot like penny, rooster drama.
In Universe #2, Iceman didn't make #1 in Top Gun; he made #2. Maverick made #1 in the class of 1986.
In 2022, we see Iceman kiss his wife goodbye as he leaves his house in the suburbs. He gets in his car and drives to the experimental aircraft testing base.
Iceman arrives and steps out of his car, walking to the hangar with the Darkstar plane, greeted by Hondo.
Hondo informs Iceman that Admiral Cain is going to shut them down for underperforming and shuffling money to this drone program.
We see Iceman say they're going to get the plane to Mach 10.
Iceman does the pre-flight check-up, puts on the suit, and walks to the Darkstar to prep it for launch.
The Darkstar takes off. Admiral Cain arrives and asks what the hell is going on.
Iceman puts the Darkstar through her paces and eventually hits Mach 10. Unlike Maverick, he doesn't go past it and throttles down after hitting Mach 10, bringing her back to base.
After landing, he is escorted by shore patrol to Admiral Cain's office.
At Cain's office, he reads out Iceman's record: citations, 38 years of service, combat medals, only man to shoot down 2 enemy planes in 40 years, distinguished.
"Yet you can’t get a promotion, you won’t retire, and despite your best efforts, you refuse to die. You should be at least a 4-star admiral by now, if not a senator. Yet here you are: Captain. Why is that?" Cain questions.
Iceman just bluntly says he likes flying.
Cain says that the future is with unmanned drones and Iceman's kind is headed to extinction. Cain received a call from upstairs from Iceman's guardian angel and that he's to be transferred to Top Gun.
Cain dismisses Iceman.
Iceman then leaves and gets in his car and drives to North Island.
We see Iceman arrive at Top Gun. He walks through the lobby and on the wall, he sees a portrait of 4-star Admiral Pete Mitchell, Commander in Chief Pacific Fleet, along with a photo of Iceman and Maverick shaking hands on the hanger after that eventful mission in the Indian Ocean.
We see Iceman meet and greet Rear Admiral Bates aka Warlock and 3-star Admiral Beau Simpson, Air Boss aka Cyclone. They trade quick pleasantries before going over the mission: unsanctioned uranium enrichment plant built in violation of a multilateral NATO treaty.
Iceman goes through a rundown of what would need to be done with the F18s and precision-guided laser bombs.
Iceman assumes he'll be the one to fly the mission but Simpson tells him he's here to teach not actually fly the mission.
Simpson shows Iceman the pool of Top Gun grads that will be participating in the mission.
Iceman is confused.
Simpson tells Iceman that Iceman is only here at the request of Admiral Mitchell someone that Simpson admires and Mitchell believes Iceman has something to still offer the navy, what that is Simpson can't see it.
Iceman takes the job.
Iceman is not much of a drinker so he doesn't go to the bar and is home enjoying a glass of ice-cold water with his wife.
So next day, Iceman drives to the Top Gun school for evaluation and review of the candidates.
The 12 pilots are introduced to Admiral Bates and Bates says with the new 5th generation fighters the USAF and the USN no longer have total air superiority.
Six of them will be chosen and 6 will be in reserve.
Bates introduces the 12 pilots to Captain Tom Iceman Kazansky, one of the finest pilots that Top Gun ever produced.
Iceman says he will see what each one of them can do because it's all about the pilot.
They run through the fighter maneuvers. Iceman tests them and schools all of them. The only one to even give Iceman any kind of trouble was Hangman but Hangman also is no match for Iceman. They all have to do 200 pushups: Phoenix, Bob, Payback, Fanboy, Hangman, Coyote, Hammer, Fritz, Halo, Yale, Harvard, Omaha.
Hangman and Coyote look at pictures of old Top Gun class graduates and see a picture of Iceman with Maverick.
This is the second day and they actually run through the drills of the bombing mission.
Phase one of the mission will be a low-level ingress attacking in two-plane teams.
You’ll fly along this narrow canyon to your target.
Radar-guided surface-to-air missiles defend the area.
These SAMs, they’re lethal.
But they were designed to protect the skies above, not the canyon below.
That’s because the enemy knows no one is insane enough to try and fly below them.
That’s exactly what I’m gonna train you to do.
On the day, your altitude will be 100 feet maximum.
You exceed this altitude…
[Radar beeping] Radar will spot you and you’re dead.
[Beeping intensifies]
Your airspeed will be 660 knots minimum.
Time to target: Two and a half minutes.
That’s because fifth-generation fighters wait at an air base nearby.
In a head-to-head with these planes in your F-18s, you’re dead.
That’s why you need to get in, hit your target and be gone before these planes even have a chance of catching you.
This makes time your greatest adversary.
You’ll fly a route in your nav system that simulates the canyon.
The candidates all failed either crashing into the wall, each other, or going above the altitude limit triggering the SAM missiles.
At the debriefing, Hangman and Rooster almost come to blows because Hangman basically says Rooster sucks.
Kazansky decides to pay Admiral Mitchell a visit at his home, a big mansion.
Admiral Mitchell's aide-de-camp opens the door for Kazansky.
There’s nothing else they can do.
Even speaking is painful now.
[Michell coughing]
[Coughs]
[Coughing]
Admiral.
Kazansky: How’s my wingman?
[Typing]
Please, don’t worry about me.
What can I do for you?
[Sighs]
All right.
[Chuckles]
Kazansky: these kids suck.
[Typing]
The mission is less than three weeks away.
The kid’s not ready.
[Typing]
Mav, please, don’t ask me to send someone else to die.
Please don’t…
Don’t ask me to send him.
Send me.
I don’t know how.
[Sighs]
I’m not a teacher, Mav.
I’m a fighter pilot.
A naval aviator.
It’s not what I am.
It’s who I am.
How do I teach that?
It’s not what the Navy wants.
That’s why they canned me the last time.
The only reason I’m here is you.
If I send him on this mission, they might never come home.
And if I don’t send him, he’ll never forgive me.

• A bit of backstory: Iceman, unlike in Earth 1, feels responsible for Goose's death since Mav and Goose got caught in his jet wash and Goose got his neck broken when they tried to eject out of a flat spin.

[Sighs]
I know.
I know.
[Exhales deeply]
[Grunts]
[Coughs]
[Hoarsely] The Navy needs Iceman.
The kid needs Iceman.
That’s why I fought for you.
That’s why you’re still here.
Thank you, Mav, for everything.
One last thing.
Who’s the better pilot?
You or me?
Kazansky: you obviously, you got 1st place.
[Laughing]
Instead of wasting time playing football, Iceman has them run more drills over and over again to get it right.
[Warlock] Good morning.
The uranium enrichment plant that is your target will be operational earlier than expected.
Raw uranium will be delivered to the plant in ten days’ time.
As a result, your mission has been moved up one week in order to avoid contaminating the target valley with radiation.
Kazansky: Sir, no one here has successfully flown a low-level course.
Nevertheless, you’ve been ordered to move on.
Captain.
[Iceman] We have one week left to focus on phase two.
It’s the most difficult stage of the mission.
It’s a pop-up strike with a steep dive, requiring nothing less than two consecutive miracles.
Two pairs of F-18s will fly in a welded wing formation.
Teamwork. Precise coordination of these aircraft is essential to both the mission’s success and your survival.
As you know, the plant rests between two mountains.
On final approach, you’ll invert directly into a steep dive.
This allows you to maintain the lowest possible altitude and the only possible attack angle.
Your target is an impact point less than three meters wide.
The two-seat aircraft will paint the target with a laser bull’s-eye. [Beeping]
The first pair will breach the reactor by dropping a laser-guided bomb on an exposed ventilation hatch.
This will create an opening for the second pair.
That’s miracle number one.
The second team will deliver the kill shot…
[Target lock beeps]
And destroy the target.
That’s miracle number two.
If either team misses the target…
That’s a miss. [Iceman] The mission is a failure.
Egress is a steep high-g climb out to avoid hitting this mountain.
A steep climb at that speed, you’re pulling at least eight G’s.
Nine, minimum.
Rooster: The stress limit of the F-18’s airframe is 7.5.
[Iceman] That’s the accepted limit.
To survive this mission, you’ll pull beyond that, even if it means bending your airframe.
You’ll be pulling so hard, you’ll weigh close to 2,000 pounds, your skull crushing your spine…
Your lungs imploding like an elephant’s sitting on your chest,
fighting with everything you have just to keep from blacking out.
And this is where you’ll be at your most vulnerable.
This is coffin corner.
Assuming you avoid crashing into this mountain, you’ll climb straight up into enemy radar while losing all of your airspeed.
Within seconds, you’ll be fired upon by enemy SAMS.
You’ve all faced sustained G’s before, but this…
This is gonna take you and your aircraft to the breaking point.
Phoenix/Bob and Coyote run the course and fail except Coyote crashes his plane and dies.
Then, with a bird strike hitting Phoenix's plane, both engines fail along with their ejection seats, and crash, both die.
Both are ruled as accidents and not held against Iceman.
Admiral Pete Mitchell passes away from throat cancer and Iceman attends his funeral with full military honors.
While Iceman was at Mitchell's funeral, Admiral Simpson thought of grounding Iceman for good but thought what better way than for Iceman to fail and Admiral Simpson will have full evidence to terminate Iceman for good.
Iceman thinks it's better to show them that the course can be done so Iceman himself demonstrates it and successfully completes it with bombing and all with no weapons officer.
Admiral Simpson is shocked as are the other surviving lieutenants in attendance.
With Iceman's amazing flying skills, Simpson just appoints Iceman team leader.
On the aircraft carrier, Iceman has some quick words with Admiral Warlock and Warlock wishes him good luck along with saying his goodbyes.
Iceman picks Payback and Fanboy, Rooster, and Hangman for his mission.
Everyone else will standby on the carrier.
Admiral Simpson in command of the mission.
They run through the mission one more time.
They launch from the carrier.
The supporting destroyers launch their Tomahawk missiles on Admiral Simpson's commands.
While Iceman and his team are en route, radar only detects 2 enemy fighter craft in the air.
The Tomahawks hit their targets and destroy the enemy runways so they can't launch any more planes.
The first pair of planes (Payback, Fanboy) which include Iceman, they hit the target opening up a hole for team 2 to drop the bomb in the reactor.
The second pair (Rooster, Hangman) manage to also hit their target and destroy the reactor.
While everyone is trying to climb out of the mountain, the SAM missiles are triggered and fire missiles at the fighters. Rooster's plane is hit and destroyed.
Admiral Simpson orders all carrier planes to return to the carrier. Hangman, Payback, Fanboy, and Iceman successfully make it back to the carrier.
We see Iceman go home to his wife and the sequence fades to black.
THE END

I am turning 40 this month, and have just passed my shoulder length hair. Its that awkward stage- not long but not short. I am contemplating what I'd call an angled bob this summer. Inverted bob? Not sure the name- but would like it short in the back and angled longer in the front. Is this completely out of style- or any suggestions for inspiration of this style? Id like it to be a bit of an edgy style, and a noticable angle w/ blunt ends. I workout/ run daily- so need to be able to throw it up well. Thanks hair pros!

Al Talaqny, from Al Hassan Bin Ali Al Adwy, from Abad Bin Saheyb, from his father, from his grandfather, from Al Rabie, companion of Al Mansour who said, ‘Abu Abdullah Ja’far Bin Muhammad Al-Sadiq-asws attended a gathering of Al-Mansour one day, and in his presence was a man from India reading the books of medicine, and he went on to connect Abu Abdullah Ja’far-asws Bin Muhammad-asws to his reading. When the Indian was free, said to him-asws, ‘O Abu Abdullah-asws! Do you-asws want anything with me?’ He-asws said: ‘No, for what is with me-asws is better than what is with you’. He said, ‘And what is it?’ He-asws said: ‘I-asws cure the hot with the cold and the cold with the hot, and the wet with the dry and the dry with the wet, and I-asws refer the matters, all of them, to Allah-azwj Mighty and Majestic, and I-asws utilise what Rasool-Allah-saww said: ‘And know that the stomach is a house of illness, and the diet, it is the medicine’, and I-asws return the body to what it used to be’. The Indian said, ‘And is the medicine except this?’ Al-Sadiq-asws said: ‘Do you see me-asws as having taken it from the books of medicine?’ He said, ‘Yes’. He-asws said: ‘No, by Allah-azwj, I-asws do not take except from Allah-azwj the Glorious. Inform me, am I-asws more knowing with the medicine or you are?’ The Indian said, ‘No, but I am’. Al-Sadiq-asws said: ‘So, can I-asws ask you something?’ He said, ‘Ask’. He-asws said: ‘Inform me, O Indian! How many purposes are there in the head?’ He said, ‘I don’t know’. He-asws said: ‘Why has the hair made to be on him from above him?’ He said, ‘I don’t know’. He-asws said: ‘Why has the forehead made to be free from the hair?’ He said, ‘I don’t know’. He-asws said: ‘Why are the lines and indentations for it?’ He said, ‘I don’t know’. He-asws said: ‘Why are the two eyelids from above the two eyes?’ He said, ‘I don’t know’ He-asws said: ‘Why have the eyes made to be like the two almonds?’ He said, ‘I don’t know’. He-asws said: ‘Why has the nose made to be in what is between the two?’ He said, ‘I don’t know’. He-asws said: ‘Why does the nose have holes in its lower part?’ He said, ‘I don’t know’. He-asws said: ‘Why are the lips and the moustache made to be from above the mouth?’ He said, ‘I don’t know’. He-asws said: ‘Why are the incisors sharp, and the molars wide, and the canines long?’ He said, ‘I don’t know’. He-asws said: ‘Why has the beard made to be for the men?’ He said, ‘I don’t know’. He-asws said: ‘Why are the two palms free from the hair?’ He said, ‘I don’t know’. ‘He-asws said: ‘Why are the nails and the hair devoid of life?’ He said, ‘I don’t know. He-asws said: ‘Why is the heart like the pine?’ He said, ‘I don’t know’. He-asws said: ‘Why are the lungs in two pieces, and their movement has been made to be in their places’. He said, ‘I don’t know’. He-asws said: ‘Why is the liver humpbacked?’ He said, ‘I don’t know’. He said, ‘Why is the kidney like a seed of the bean?’ He said, ‘I don’t know’. He-asws said: ‘Why is the folding of the two knees to be to the back?’ He said, ‘I don’t know’. He-asws said: ‘Why is the foot convex (below)?’ He said, ‘I don’t know’. Al Sadiq-asws said: ‘But, I-asws do know’. He said, ‘Then, answer’. Al-Sadiq-asws said: ‘There are purposes in the head because the concave, when it was without joints, the headaches would be quicker to it, so then it was Made to be with joints, so that headaches can be far from it; and the hair was Made to be from above him for the fat (oil) to arrive to the brain and the vapour to exit from its sides, and the heat and the cold can be contained upon it; and the forehead is empty from the hair because it is a conduit to the eyes, and the lines and the indentations in it are to withhold the sweat coming from the head, from the eyes, by a measurement of what the human being can wipe off from himself, like the rivers in the earth which withhold the water. And the eyelids had been Made to be above the two eyes to return from them the light by a measurement of the sufficiency. Do you not see, O Indian, that the one who is overwhelmed by the light makes his hand to be upon his eyes in order to block from them by a measure sufficient from it? And the nose has Made to be in between them to divide the light into two parts equally to each eye; and the eye is (shaped) like the almond in order for the needle to flow in it with the medication and throw out the disease from these, and if it was square or circular, the needle would not flow in it, and the medication would not arrive to it nor would the disease come out from it. And the holes of the nose have been Made to be in the bottom in order for the diseases to descend from it, rolling down from the brain, and the winds to ascend into it to the smelling, and if (the holes) were in its upper part, the diseases would not descend, nor would he be able to find aroma; and the moustache and the lips have been Made to be above the mouth to withhold what descends from the brain from the mouth (nose) lest it interfered upon the human being of his food and his drink, and he can wipe it off from himself. And the beard has been Made to be for the men in order to him to be needless with it from the detection regarding the looks and it can be known by it, the male from the female; and the incisor has been Made to be sharp because it is the location of the biting, and the molar is Made wide because by it occurs the grinding and the chewing, and the canines to strengthen the molars and the incisors like the cylinders in the building. And the two palms are free from the hair because the touch occurs by them. If there was hair in them, the human being would not know what is kissing him and touching him; and the hair and nails are devoid of life because their elongating is filthy and their clipping is good. If there was life in these, the human being would not have clipped them due to pain; and the heart is like a seed of the pine because it is inverted, and its head is Made delicate for the aeration to enter in and it can be cooled by its coolness, lest the brain is scorched by its heat. And the lungs have been Made as two pieces between the compressors so they can be aerated from it by its movement; and the liver is humpbacked to weigh down the stomach and fall all of it upon it, so it would squeeze it to bring out whatever is in it from the vapour; and the kidney is Made like the seed of the bean because upon it is the outlet of the semen, drop after drop. If it were square or circular, it would withhold the first drop to the second, and the living (human) would not derive pleasure from its exit when the descend of the semen was from the spine of the back to the kidney. It is like the worm which squeezes and spreads (moves forward), shooting it first to the bladder like the arrow from the bow. And the folding of the knee is Made to the behind because the human being walks to what is in front of him, so the movement would be equal, and had it not been for that, he would wall in his walking; and the foot has been Made convex because the thing, when it falls upon the ground in its entirety (flat), it would be heavy, the weight of the milestone. If it was upon its edge, the child could have pushed him, and when he falls upon his face, his movement would be difficult upon the men’. The Indian (man) said to him-asws, ‘From where has this knowledge (come) to you-asws?’ He-asws said: ‘I-asws took it from my-asws forefathers-asws, from Rasool-Allah-saww, from Jibraeel-as, from the Lord-azwj of the world, Majestic is His-azwj Majesty Who Created the bodies and the souls’. The Indian said, ‘You-asws speak the truth, and I testify that there is no god except Allah-azwj, and that Muhammad-saww is a Rasool-saww of Allah-azwj and His-azwj servant, and you-asws are the most knowledgeable one of the people of your-asws era’ Bihar Al-Anwaar – V 10,p 205 The book of Argumentation, S 3 Ch 13 H 9
الطالقاني ، عن الحسن بن علي العدوي ، عن عباد بن صهيب ، عن أبيه ، عن جده ، عن الربيع صاحب المنصور قال : حضر أبوعبدالله جعفر بن محمد الصادق علیه السلام مجلس المنصور يوما وعنده رجل من الهند يقرء كتب الطب ، فجعل أبوعبدالله الصادق جعفر بن محمدع ينصب لقراءته ، فلما فرغ الهندي قال له : يا أبا عبدالله أتريد مما معي شيئا؟ قال : لا ، فإن ما معي خير مما معك.
قال : وما هو؟ قال : اداوي الحار بالبارد ، والبارد بالحار ، والرطب باليابس ، واليابس بالرطب ، وأرد الامر كله إلى الله عزوجل ، وأستعمل ما قاله رسول الله ص : « واعلم أن المعدة بيت الداء والحمية هي الدواء » واعود البدن ما اعتاد. فقال الهندي : وهل الطب إلا هذا؟ فقال الصادق ع : أفتراني عن كتب الطب أخذت؟ قال : نعم ، قال : لا والله ما أخذت إلا عن الله سبحانه ، فأخبرني أنا أعلم بالطب أم أنت؟ فقال الهندي : لا بل أنا.
قال الصادق ع : فأسألك شيئا ، قال : سل ، قال : أخبرني ياهندي كم كان في الرأس شؤون؟ قال : لا أعلم. قال : فلم جعل الشعر عليه من فوقه؟ قال : لا أعلم. قال : فلم خلت الجبهة من الشعر؟ قال : لا أعلم. قال : فلم كان لها تخطيط وأسارير؟ قال : لا أعلم.
قال : فلم كان الحاجبان من فوق العينين؟ قال : لا أعلم. قال : فلم جعلت العينان كاللوزتين؟ قال : لا أعلم. قال : فلم جعل الانف فيما بينهما؟ قال : لا أعلم. قال : فلم كان ثقب الانف في أسفله؟ قال : لا أعلم.
قال : فلم جعلت الشفة والشارب من فوق الفم؟ قال : لا أعلم. قال : فلم احتد السن ، وعرض الضرس ، وطال الناب؟ قال : لا أعلم. قال : فلم جعلت اللحية للرجال؟ قال : لا أعلم. قال كـ فلم خلت الكفان من الشعر ، قال : لا أعلم. قال : فلم خلا الظفر والشعر من الحياة؟ قال : لا أعلم. قال : فلم كان القلب كحب الصنوبر؟ قال : لا أعلم. قال : فلم كانت الرية قطعتين ، وجعل حركتها في موضعها؟ قال : لا أعلم. قال : فلم كانت الكبد حدباء؟ قال : لا أعلم. قال : فلم كانت الكلية كحب اللوبيا؟ قال : لا أعلم. قال : فلم جعل طي الركبتين إلى خلف؟ قال لا أعلم. قال : فلم تخصرت القدم؟ قال : لا أعلم.
فقال الصادق ع : لكني أعلم ، قال : فأجب. قال الصادق ع : كان في الرأس شؤون لان المجوف إذا كان بلا فصل أسرع إليه الصداع ، فإذا جعل ذا فصول كان الصداع منه أبعد. وجعل الشعر من فوقه لتوصل بوصوله الادهان إلى الدماغ ، و يخرج بأطرافه البخار منه ، ويرد الحر والبرد الواردين عليه. وخلت الجبهة من الشعر لانها مصب النور إلى العينين. وجعل فيها التخطيط والاسارير ليحتبس العرق الوارد من الرأس عن العين قدر ما يميطه[١] الانسان عن نفسه ، كالانهار في الارض التي تحبس المياه. وجعل الحاجبان من فوق العينان ليراد عليهما من النور قدر الكفاف ، ألاترى يا هندي أن من غلبه النور جعل يده على عينيه ليرد عليهما قدر كفايتهما منه؟
وجعل الانف فيما بينهما ليقسم النور قسمين إلى كل عين سواء. وكانت العين كاللوزة ليجري فيها الميل بالدواء ويخرج منها الداء ، ولو كانت مربعة أومدورة ماجرى فيها الميل ، وما وصل إليها دواء ، ولا خرج منها داء. وجعل ثقب الانف في أسفله لتنزل منه الادواء المنحدرة من الدماغ ، ويصعد فيه الارابيح إلى المشام ، ولو كان في أعلاه لما انزل داء ، ولا وجد رائحة. وجعل الشارب والشفة فوق الفم لحبس ما ينزل من الدماغ عن الفم لئلا يتنغص[٤] على الانسان طعامه وشرابه فيميطه عن نفسه. وجعلت اللحية للرجال ليستغني بها بها عن الكشف في المنظر ويعلم بها الذكر من الانثى. وجعل السن حاد الان به يقع العض. وجعل الضرس عريضا لان به يقع الطحن والمضغ. وكان الناب طويلا ليسند الاضراس والاسنان كالاسطوانة في البناء. وخلا الكفان من الشعر لان بهما يقع اللمس ، فلو كان فيهما شعر مادرى الانسان ما يقابله ويلمسه. وخلا الشعر والظفر من الحياة لان طولهما سمج وقصهما حسن ، فلو كان فيهما حياة لالم الانسان لقصهما. وكان القلب كحب الصنوبر لانه منكس فجعل رأسه دقيقا ليدخل في الرية فتروح عنه ببردها ، لئلا يشيط الدماغ بحره.
وجعلت الرية قطعتين ليدخل بين مضاغطها فيتروح عنه بحركتها. وكانت الكبد حدباء لتثقل المعدة ويقع جميعها عليها فيعصرها ليخرج ما فيها من البخار. وجعلت الكلية كحب اللوبيا لان عليها مصب المني نقطة بعد نقطة ، فلو كانت مربعة أو مدورة احتبست النقطة الاولى إلى الثانية فلا يلتذ بخروجها الحي ، إذا لمني ينزل من فقار الظهر إلى الكلية ، فهي كالدودة تنقبض وتنبسط ، ترميه أولا فأولا إلى المثانة كالبندقة من القوس. وجعل طي الركبة إلى خلف لان الانسان يمشي إلى ما بين يديه فيعتدل الحركات ، ولولا ذلك لسقط في المشي ، وجعلت القدم مخصرة لان الشئ إذا وقع على الارض جميعه ثقل ثقل حجر الرحى ، فإذا كان على حرفه دفعه الصبي وإذا وقع على وجهه صعب نقله على الرجال.
فقال له الهندى : من أين لك هذا العلم؟ فقال ع : أخذته عن آبائي : عن رسول الله ص ، عن جبرئيل ، عن رب العالمين جل جلاله الذي خلق الاجساد و الارواح. فقال الهندي : صدقت وأنا أشهد أن لا إله إلا الله ، وأن محمدا رسول الله وعبده ، وأنك أعلم أهل زمانك. بحار ج10 ص205 https://lib.eshia.i11008/10/205

Last week's post https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1c9t9iy/roundup_ufos_kona_blue_unhidden_osmium_bob/
Archive https://web.archive.org/web/20240421213019/https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1c9t9iy/roundup_ufos_kona_blue_unhidden_osmium_bob/
Moon phase waxing gibbous, two days before full
Mars Right Ascension 23h 38m 14s
.1 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1c9tcxy/what_is_this/ photos, nighttime sky, at home, outside window, contemporaneous report, single light object, low over rooftop, stationary, duration 20 minutes, orange 🟠, photos show brightness change, it was as if the centre of it darkened for a moment and then returned to Orange., eye 👁, urban area, South Dublin Ireland 🇮🇪 , near an army aerodrome ., [GOODPOST], OP deleted, lost data
.2 https://old.reddit.com/Skydentify/comments/1c9kuxq/have_you_ever_seen_a_ufo/ discussion of sightings
.3 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1c9nfjh/ufo_sighting_sedona_412_810pm/ video, nighttime sky, urban area, Sedona Arizona, single light object, diffuse, friend said they saw two little lights behind the main large light too, smaller objects accompany it, two witnesses
.4 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1c9ys5c/weekly_mexican_and_peruvian_ufo_disclosure/ information, state of disclosure, Mexico and Peru https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cadymb/all_the_relevant_uap_updates_from_april_1521/ different OP, state of disclosure USA
.5 https://old.reddit.com/astrophotography/comments/1ca9rxb/caught_something_drone_bird_crossing_the_luna video, nighttime sky, single dark object moving fast, traversing the face of the moon,
.6 reference ISS https://old.reddit.com/astrophotography/comments/1ca7cxl/my_first_decent_picture_of_the_iss/ photo, international space station, ISS, nighttime, single light object, irregular shape, white ⚪️ light
.7 https://old.reddit.com/AnomalousEvidence/comments/1ca1bfh/an_experience/ dream description, entities, communication, They told me that they could see us but we couldn’t see them.
.8 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1ca28gj/ufo_sighting_upstate_ny_19931995/ childhood sighting description, from car, nighttime, single light object, zigzag movements, I saw a light in the sky, moving in a perfect zig zag pattern. Like a "VVVVV" pattern. It was white, spherical. , Moira new York state, apathy in other witnesses,
.9 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1ca4ln7/ufos_at_daytime/ video, daytime sky, repeat visitors, ongoing, threelights
.10 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cakyps/need_help_identifying_object/ video, nighttime sky, possible timelapse, moon?, from home security camera, OP is not the witness, single light object moving, descending
.11 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1camz3s/what_are_these_lights_in_the_chicago_night_sky/ video, nighttime cloudy sky, fourlights, diffuse, spotlights type, splitting and merging, from car, urban area, Chicago Illinois , repeat visitor, emotional reaction unease, What’s really weird is that a week ago I was telling someone about how might have seen a UFO when I was younger and I described them just like this video. This is the 3rd time I’ve seen these lights with this pattern in Chicago. And when I saw them again Saturday night, my heart sank a bit on how weird it was that they appeared not even a week into talking about it.
.12 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cakt3z/possible_sighting/ video and photo, nighttime sky, OP is a pilot, over central Kentucky , fleet, all different directions, moving erratically, formation change observed, forming shapes and maneuvering in reference to each other., duration 1 hour, [GOODPOST], photo shows triangle formation
.13 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cavgzg/any_idea_what_this_is_i_filmed_this_object_on/ video, nighttime sky, southwest Oklahoma, single light object moving straight, satellite?
.14 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cat6ss/first_sighting_meta_observations/ sighting description and discussion of apathy, contemporaneous report, daytime, two witnesses, fleet, overhead, duration 4 minutes, six silver things in the sky that were unlike anything I've seen before.,
.15 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cb8kez/seeking_other_constructive_opinions_as_to_what/ video, nighttime sky, threelights, triangle formation, stationary, from airplane, contemporaneous report, approach to Seatac International Airport, Seattle Washington, near water pacific ocean, video shows flareup, one object moving horizontally, possible light beams, landing lights?, two witnesses
.16 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cb240p/ufo_or_satellite/ long exposure photo, nighttime sky, single light object moving, trajectory change, Hampshire the UK 🇬🇧 , downvoted to zero, OP comments downvoted
.17 https://old.reddit.com/aliens/comments/1cazsm7/im_going_to_go_ahead_and_write_about_my_experience/ sighting description, at home, single object, V-shaped, approach, It was a open V with one side longer than the other. It had a red 🔴 shiny spot at the top of the long side. The short side had varied blues 🔵 and shiny white like diamonds . The frame was a metallic shiny green 🟢, moving and stationary, directly in front, splitting, sudden departure, All the sudden it turned into uniformed balls of white light in a spiraling motion. It was just gone after that., emotional reaction unease, I didn’t feel well afterwards for some time.
.18 https://old.reddit.com/aliens/comments/1ca3whk/i_could_have_seen_a_ufo_once/ sighting description, single light object, possible reaction to being observed, vanishing, California
.19 https://old.reddit.com/aliens/comments/1c9cg28/do_aliens_visit_me/ experience description, at home, audio description beeping sound outside the house. , repeat visitor, two witnesses, heard a beep coming from my room, and I whispered "they're going to leave," and then I fell asleep., She says when I said that, the beeping went away. , Sometimes when I was falling asleep when I was about 12 or 13, I heard some kind of celestial or galactic music outside my window.
.20 https://old.reddit.com/aliens/comments/1c9dxrw/green_ball_falling_down_fast/ sighting description, at home, outside window, single light object moving fast, descending, green 🟢, two witnesses, the Netherlands 🇳🇱 , has anyone seen?
.21 https://old.reddit.com/aliens/comments/1c963b2/fully_robed_aliens/ dream description, landed craft, entities, aliens that were tall and they were all completely covered in black robes like a niqab but even their eyes were covered.
.22 https://old.reddit.com/ufo/comments/1cap7gl/invertedv_no_lights_ufo_later_cloaked/ sighting description and reference image, V-shaped, has anyone seen?, at home, backyard, It was an inverted-V shaped UFO flying apex first. It had a weird clear bubble around the point or nose of the craft and it had water vapor pouring over the wings. I tried to draw that part in myself. It was banking when I saw it before it turned parallel to the ground and cloaked itself. The cloak looked similar to the cloaking style in the movie “The Predator.”, two objects observed, haze, orientation change, similar sightings in comments, [GOODPOST]
.23 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cbmj59/indepth_jason_sands_is_legitimate/ discussion of Jason Sands, OP is a member of the Intelligence Community, I am here to vouch for Jason Sands in attempt to support his credibility and encourage you all to also show support for him., OP comments downvoted, big debunker energy
.24 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cbpw5q/help_identifying_object_seen_today/ video, daytime sky, contemporaneous report, at work, Mojave California, powerlines, single object blackwhite, moving slowly, tumbling, approach, moving and stationary and moving, trajectory change to vertical, It was traveling against the wind. It came down into the field across the road and came close to ground level and hovered for a bit. After hovering for a bit it began to rise directly vertically until it rose out of sight., downvoted to zero, OP comments downvoted, big debunker energy
.25 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cbuu8n/fleet_of_lights_over_australian_beach/ sighting description, fleet, Far North Queensland Australia 🇦🇺 , starlink?, 20 to 30 anomalous lights all following the same flight path, all at the same height, stopped at 19:27., three witnesses, similar sighting in comments , downvoted to zero
.26 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cc658p/was_this_a_sighting_happened_a_few_weeks_ago/ sighting description, urban area, single light object moving and stationary and moving, jumpy movement, trajectory change, kind of stood there for a second, then reversed, and continued to drop a bit. Finally, it did a loopy ∞ shape, just before shooting "up" and disappearing., sudden departure upward, thought its behavior was sentient, dancing, downvoted to zero , information about UFOs in Peru 🇵🇪
.27 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cc98a6/ufo_sighting_in_cardiff_uk/ sighting description, contemporaneous report, Cardiff the UK 🇬🇧, nighttime, urban area, single light object, metallic sphere, solid silver orb with what I can only explain as white/orange 🟠 electricity or plasma shifting around the object., haze , reaction to being observed, vanishing, duration 15 seconds, emotion of fear, shock, evening cloudy sky
.28 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1ccde77/orb_like_object_over_galway_bay_ireland/ video, nighttime sky, single light object, over water, Galway Bay Ireland 🇮🇪, stationary, pulsating, three witnesses, moving, looked to me like a grid pattern.
.29 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cce86y/thoughts/ photo, nighttime sky, Helensbay Northern Ireland the UK 🇬🇧, two objects, possible pyramid shape, multiple lights, splitting, She described the two objects as moving stars two and then both became three each.
.30 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1ccf2p2/richmond_virginia_sightings_in_past_month/ photos, multiple events, repeat visitors, near water, James River, Richmond Virginia, similar sightings in comments, at home, nighttime, witness woke up, felt compelled to go outside, made three passes, directly in front, zigzag movements, The third time was just last week and the craft seem to move left to right three times in front of me.
.31 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1ccfhon/nycwhat_is_this/ photos, nighttime sky, at home, outside window, contemporaneous report, fleet or single object multiple lights splitting, contemporaneous report, low over rooftop, urban area, NYC New York state, downvoted to zero, OP comments downvoted, duration 1 hour
.32 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1ccftbw/i_finally_saw_something/ sighting description, downvoted to zero, contemporaneous report, Arkansas, nighttime, single light object moving, silent, two witnesses, perception discrepancy, other witness observed plane,
.33 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cctozw/high_speed_object_caught_near_airport/ video, daytime cloudy sky, single object moving fast, from airport, RHO Diagoras Greece 🇬🇷, near water, Mediterranean sea , OP is not the witness
.34 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cchu9a/saint_augustine_fl/ video, nighttime sky, urban area, st augustine Florida, single light object, pulsating, video shows stationary and moving, observed splitting, twolights observed , One bright orange light comes out, splits into 4,
.35 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1ccop7z/unknown_flying_object/ video, nighttime sky, single light object, flareup, I was filming what I thought was a satellite but then this very bright flash happened, contemporaneous report, urban area, Quebec Canada 🇨🇦, very bright, golden to the naked eyes
.36 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1ccoybi/weird_point_of_light_in_the_sky/ sighting description, contemporaneous report, nighttime, single light object, moon for comparison observed, duration 5-10 seconds, witness looked away and looked back, vanished
.37 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cczt88/sighting_in_minneapolis_42424_story_in_comments/ video, urban area, Minneapolis Minnesota, two witnesses, duration 10 minutes, threelights, flying in formation, reaction to being filmed, formation change, lighting configuration change, As I started filming on my phone, the 'lead' light moved out in front of the others and off to the side. Shortly after, the second light disappeared, leaving just one which hovered in place until we lost sight of it behind some trees., from car, nighttime, contemporaneous report, has anyone seen? , near airport, Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport.,
.38 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1ccqc4l/strange_moving_lights/ video, nighttime sky, from car, woodland hills California, single object multiple lights, moving erratically, trajectory change, crossed directly in front, possible law enforcement response, a few cops with lights and sirens passed by quickly after.,
.39 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cc7mbl/ufos_what_is_this/ video, daytime cloudy sky, urban area, Groningen the Netherlands 🇳🇱 , contemporaneous report, fleet, flashing erratically, video shows appearing out of nowhere, horizontal trajectory,
.40 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cc6vqz/potential_sighting_in_london/ video, daytime cloudy sky, fleet observed, video shows single light object, orange 🟠, urban area, London England the UK 🇬🇧, made two passes, twolights, two witnesses, reaction to being filmed, vanishing, When I told my wife to record, four of them disappeared and only one remained. I then drove towards Highbury and Islington roundabout, and then two appeared after.,
.41 https://old.reddit.com/aliens/comments/1cd1cih/went_back_through_some_old_videos_i_took_last/ video, nighttime cloudy sky, diffuse light, low over treeline, anomalous to witness, at home, that night the land was glowing in a way we’ve never seen before, maybe I’m a crazy old lady but it looked like something landed there., electronic effects camera interference, Canada 🇨🇦 ,repeat visitor ,two witnesses https://old.reddit.com/aliens/comments/1cdfpty/tonights_blue_cloud_et_show/ more video, contemporaneous report
.42 https://old.reddit.com/aliens/comments/1cbn6cl/can_someone_identify_this_green_beem/ photo, nighttime cloudy sky, powerlines, single light object, elongated, vertical orientation, green 🟢, Atlantic island of st. Vincent part of the cape verde archipelago, near water Atlantic Ocean, stationary, duration 10 minutes,
.43 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cdmlce/maybe_caught_something_on_camera_nj/ video, daytime cloudy sky, single object, observed moving erratically, abruptly zipped back and forth as though under control., somerset new jersey
.44 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cdbxj2/what_am_i_seeing/ timelapse video, nighttime sky, multiple objects, trajectory change horizontal to vertical, Ontario Canada 🇨🇦, downvoted to zero
.45 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cdf2wc/what_is_this/ video, daytime cloudy sky, from car, powerlines, Gold Coast Australia 🇦🇺, contemporaneous report, single object blackwhite
.46 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cd59kz/ufo_i_personally_shot_footage_of_at_the_end_of/ video, at home, urban area, Miami Florida, possibly rotating, moving erratically, up down left right, duration 40 minutes, witness went to sleep, I got tired at some point and took a small nap, woke up it was still there, went to sleep, woke up again and it was gone. , downvoted to zero, OP comments downvoted, daytime cloudy sky, single dark object, elongated, horizontal orientation, stationary
.47 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cdm7hi/tracking_the_plasmoid_is_quite_difficult_as_the/ video, nighttime sky, through infrared camera, repeat visitors , downvoted to zero
.48 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cdpxba/just_saw_this_from_lambertville_nj_headed_west/ sighting description, contemporaneous report, Lambertville new jersey, daytime sky, single light object moving straight, plane for comparison observed, downvoted to zero
.49 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1cbk7rv/random_stories_from_the_life_of_a_boring_person/ experience descriptions, multiple events, ongoing, at home, two witnesses, single light object, approach, jumpy movement, blue 🔵, Almost like it zeroed in on us as soon as it knew that we noticed it., emotion of fear, witnesses left the area, similar sightings in comments
.50 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1ccbgls/strange_happenings/ sighting descriptions, multiple events, entity, Ohio, ongoing, multiple people saw a large creature standing in the woods between trees watching all these players, through night vision scope, humanoid, antlers, vanished, anomalous silence, footsteps, missing time , mimicking
.51 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1cddvg5/does_anybody_remember_being_an_energy_orb/ memory description, has anyone seen?, I remember I was part of a litter of lights with siblings all around me. A tribe of little stars with the background of the universe except all these galaxies and such were brighter.... I chose my parents....I was raising my legs, resting on the floor on my back while my diapers were getting changed. And I clearly thought, "Aww shit, here we go again."
.52 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1ccr8tq/7_tall_shadow_silhouette_in_my_bedroom_what_do_i/ sighting description, at home, nighttime, inside bedroom, entity, humanoid, shadow figure, witness looked away and looked back, vanished, it looked slightly hunched over and was staring directly at me, contemporaneous report, similar sightings in comments
.53 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1cd3tot/my_sighting_that_made_me_believe/ sighting description, Bibione Italy 🇮🇹 , daytime, over water, Mediterranean sea, single light object, metallic sphere, overhead, stationary, witness looked away and looked back, vanished, similar sightings in comments
.54 ➡️ https://old.reddit.com/ufo/comments/1cddyzb/interesting_object_near_langley_afb/ photos and videos, nighttime, from car, fleet or single object multiple lights, there was a string of lights and some blinking green lights., duration 45 minutes, stationary or moving slowly, video shows flashing in sequence, multicolored, near USAF, Langley Virginia, [GOODPOST]
.55 https://old.reddit.com/ufo/comments/1cdal29/unidentified_object_flying_over_san_jose_ca_today/ photo, daytime cloudy sky, single dark object, elongated, vertical orientation, contemporaneous report, urban area, san Jose California, two witnesses duration 1 minute, disappeared into clouds
.56 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cdv28y/what_looks_like_a_moving_star_that_moves_in_a/ sighting description, contemporaneous report, nighttime, single light object, moving and stationary and moving, overhead, jerky movement as it was constantly speeding up and slowing down in two second increments., at home, two witnesses, duration 3 minutes, Tartu Estonia 🇪🇪, similar sightings in comments
.57 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cdwhk9/ufo_sighting_westchester_ny_october_2023_at_2am/ photos, nighttime cloudy sky, at home, outside window, twolights, reaction to being filmed, sudden departure, Westchester new York state, over water, Hudson River, downvoted to zero
.58 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cdynoc/3_white_orb_ufos_over_carson_city_nv_april_24/ video, nighttime sky, threelights, urban area, Carson city Nevada, single light object stationary and moving, reaction to being observed, additional twolights, overhead,
.59 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cdynswhat_was_it/ video, nighttime sky, single light object, flashing erratically or jumpy movement, possibly rotating, repeat visitor, possible reaction to being filmed, Used to see them often and I haven’t seen them again since then. , similar sighting in comments , urban area, Las Vegas Nevada
.60 https://old.reddit.com/aliens/comments/1cdxz9j/i_guess_ill_just_throw_this_experience_out_there/ childhood experience description, entity, I just have this memory of running through what seemed to be a building. I was running away from someone, but I don't remember why, I ran until I came across this door that opened by itself and hid inside. Then this tan or brown colored "mantis" being appeared in the doorway. I don't remember anything after that., event amnesia
.61 https://old.reddit.com/ufo/comments/1cdw5ka/uniform_cloudgas_ball_with_bright_light_inside/ long exposure photo, nighttime sky, single light object moving, also seen by eye, Northern Arizona., two witnesses, powerlines,
.62 ➡️ https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1ce1lmi/a_light_from_above_lit_my_friends_entire_house_up/ experience description, no craft, at home, nighttime, witness woke up, outside window, backyard, darkness bright as day, After he looked out the front, he said the light was everywhere, as if it were coming from above. , upstate New York, anomalous silence, he noticed everything fell completely silent. , apathy, witness went to sleep, he felt compelled to no longer search for the source of the light, despite spending a few minutes looking already., similar sightings in comments, [GOODPOST]
.63 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1ce3snh/earliest_memory_is_of_an_owl_when_i_was_3_years/ childhood experience description, my earliest memory is of an owl, and me riding on its back to the back of my parents property, and then me walking back in my pajamas and climbing back in the window. , repeat visitors, downvoted to zero, Michigan
.64 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cdw4vl/by_the_facilitators_of_the_x_space_full_jason/ the Jason Sands interview, OP is the interview host
.65 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1ceh0c2/strange_orange_light_silently_moving_in_unison/ video, nighttime cloudy sky, single light object, orange 🟠 observed, urban area, Sydney Australia 🇦🇺, recorded on 2 different cameras, flew overhead, emotion of fear, I felt a bit of fear and my legs started shaking as the lights silently moved above my head., fleet observed, two pairs of twolights, [GOODPOST]
.66 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1ce8i3v/i_saw_my_first_ufo_i_think/ video, nighttime sky, near home, i noticed something very odd on top of a tree in my neighbor's front yard., single dim object, irregular shape, shape change observed, looked like some sort of net just floating there, it looked translucent., reaction to being observed, stationary and moving, vanishing and reappearing or second object, over the witness home, video shows diffuse object, elongated, horizontal orientation, felt as it was absorbing the light in the back yard and emitting a sparkly light., downvoted to zero, OP comments downvoted , near USAF, Lockheed Air Force Base, fort worth Texas, physical effects goosebumps, wtf_is_this
.67 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1ceilz4/my_ufo_encounter_in_khartoum_2016_similar_to/ sighting description and drawing, Khartoum- Bahri Sudan 🇸🇩 , nighttime, single object, crescent 🌙 shape or manta, moving straight, possibly cloaked, silent, duration 30 seconds,
.68 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cedcsw/i_think_i_saw_a_ufo/ sighting description, contemporaneous report, nighttime, two witnesses, single dim object moving straight, This thing was barely visible with a few brighter white dots here and there, it was also absolutely silent.,orientation change, boomerang 🪃, approach, trajectory change, disappeared behind treeline, Australia 🇦🇺
.69 https://old.reddit.com/aliens/comments/1ce2bam/flying_over_detroit_at_the_draft/ video, daytime cloudy sky, single dark object, oval-shaped, tumbling, trajectory change, descending, low over rooftop, two witnesses, contemporaneous report, urban area, Detroit Michigan
.70 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1ceptdd/mysterious_orange_lights_in_the_sky/ photo, nighttime sky, threelights, triangle formation, orange 🟠, at home, backyard, low over treeline, the UK 🇬🇧, They moved in really weird speeds and directions while one of the lights was stationary for a couple of seconds., similar sightings in comments
.71 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1ces9bl/ufo_didnt_show_up_on_camera/ video, daytime cloudy sky, single dark object observed, electronic effects camera can't detect it, two witnesses, moving straight, possibly rotating or tumbling, The other odd thing is it looked like it had distortion around it., submission statement issues, removed, urban area, Philadelphia Pennsylvania
.72 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1ceo8w3/truth_too_strange_for_public_consumption_old_man/ information, family story, father, worked at Wright Patterson air force base for over 20 years, aliens were not pacifists. As they had several battles one destroyed a planet beyond mars, then the battle moved to mars where they stripped the atmosphere with weapons and the survivors from the multiple races then came to earth as a last resort. Only ape men were here when they came.
.73 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cesul0/ufo_yesterday_upstate_new_york_jet_followed_5/ photo and reference images, daytime cloudy sky, single light object, elongated, trail or disk shape, angled from the horizon, plane for comparison observed
.74 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1ce5m5l/has_anyone_else_had_an_encounter_with_a/ sighting description and drawing, entity, cloaked, has anyone seen?, inside home, suddenly out of no where, A large being appears in front of me. It was tall and slim. It was like the silhouette of a man. It was, what I always described as, “see through.” , wavy edges, directly in front, physical effects paralysis, It then raised its right arm, witness felt observed, emotion of, witness left the area, similar sightings in comments, [GOODPOST]
.75 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cevkh8/today_around_230am_i_was_able_to_capture_some/ video, nighttime sky, fleet, multiple objects, Camargo Chihuahua Mexico 🇲🇽 , moving slowly, low over rooftop, urban area, very bright, satellites?
.76 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cf0nhn/uaps_spotted_in_central_alabama_april_5_2024/ video, daytime cloudy sky, Prattville Alabama, downvoted to zero, three witnesses, cylinder shaped observed https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cfd99y/uaps_spotted_in_central_alabama_april_5_2024/ slowed version, single light object moving fast, possible disk shape with dome or triangle 🔺️, horizontal orientation, smaller objects accompany it
.77 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cex9x8/possibly_true_ufo_story/ sighting description, family story, grandmother's father, Russia 🇷🇺, nighttime, from car, out of nowhere, there’s a massive floating disk in the sky, which flies right over them. My granny’s dad pulls the car over, and looks at this flying disc, which was still right above them, and a bright light beams out for a good amount of time (do not know the exact time) and just flies away at a unnatural speed, overhead, sudden departure, two witnesses, possible physical effects illness, colleague died of a sudden cancer a year later.
.78 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1ceid79/i_stumbled_into_what_i_can_only_describe_as_a/ experience description, hiking, At one point during my walk, I had an intense sensation of crossing some kind of boundary. , emotional reaction shock, The first thing I noticed was the branches, covered in fuzzy black things that moved like “electrical” or energy wisps. , audio description distant, deep, vibrating noise that undulated back and forth., physical effects paralysis, I saw what looked like a geometric pattern in the woods., temperature change, it had become much colder. However, I felt a warmth coming from behind me, light illuminating surroundings, emotion of fear, witness left the area, Blue Ridge Mountains Virginia, the cathedral - a complex vaulted structure that seems to underlay what we experience as reality. , similar experiences in comments
.79 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1ceo42v/central_florida_east_side_near_colonial_town_and/ video, nighttime sky, contemporaneous report, fleet, one following another, low below treeline, horizontal trajectory, urban area, central Florida, similar sighting in comments
.80 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1cex54b/dreams_where_greys_teach_me_how_their_engines_work/ dream description, entity, inside craft, a Grey alien took me onto his ship. While on the ship he taught me how their engines worked. The only things I remember specifically is that they have a "photon engine" and that it works like the large hadron collider., has anyone seen?
.81 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1cdrecc/hypnopompic_hallucinations_showing_me_the_words/ experience description, at home, nighttime, witness woke up, the words "syntax error" were written multiple times around a central anchor spot like a wheel of fortune spin thing., similar experiences in comments
.82 https://old.reddit.com/ufo/comments/1cf1he6/my_ufo_story/ sighting description, nighttime, near water, Prince Rupert British Columbia Canada 🇨🇦, two witnesses, underwater light, single dark object, exiting water, green red and blue 🟢🔴🔵, flashing in sequence, silent, approach, flew overhead, military response helicopter, the coast guard had dispatched a helicopter to follow it and it was really loud. It followed the UFO as it passed over the city sky, out of view. the USO began to sink into the harbour, and eventually disappeared., entering water,
.83 https://old.reddit.com/ufo/comments/1ce7a9c/i_observed_an_unusual_shining_object_in_the_sky/ sighting description, Chandapur Karnataka India 🇮🇳 , at home, nighttime, single light object moving fast, possibly elongated, similar sighting in comments
.84 https://old.reddit.com/Thetruthishere/comments/1cey4ce/i_think_i_saw_a_witch/ sighting description, la bruja, three witnesses, daytime
.85 https://old.reddit.com/Glitch_in_the_Matrix/comments/1cevddw/blue_plasma_ball/ sighting description, two witnesses, single light object, blue 🔵, nighttime, horizontal trajectory, low over ground, from car, similar sightings in comments
.86 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cf6osq/new_to_reddit_saw_tons_of_ufos_at_sessanta/ sighting description, moving stars, multiple objects observed, single light object moving and stationary, flareup, possible electronic effects monitors showing the stage glitched for a few minutes after that. , north Carolina
.87 ➡️ https://old.reddit.com/Glitch_in_the_Matrix/comments/1cbozwe/a_tear_in_space_a_glitch_in_the_matrix/ experience description, near USAF, Travis AFB northern California, daytime sky, plane for comparison, part of the sky started to glitch and warp like it was shorting out., a cloud-like structure started to form from nothing. It began to swirl horizontally., two witnesses, When he left that day. I saw the look on his face. He looked shattered., wtf_is_this, physical effects paralysis, As we kept watching, another part of the sky began to glitch., A long vertical line materialized., A huge battleship slowly appeared in the void on the other side of the tear., structure observed, stationary, duration 10 minutes, vanishing , got the feeling we weren't supposed to see this., [GOODPOST]
.88 https://old.reddit.com/Glitch_in_the_Matrix/comments/1cekl9g/the_light_disappeared_for_a_second/ experience description, flash of darkness,
.89 https://old.reddit.com/Glitch_in_the_Matrix/comments/1cf8n14/here_is_my_story_and_i_am_interested_in_hearing/ experience description, no craft, at home, witness woke up, audio description computer sounds, brief duration, physical effects paralysis, for a split second all the cats and myself froze in place.

Delton and Alyrria find a meaningful way to communicate, meanwhile some unexpected guests arrive.
[Prev][Next]
[First]
Cover
As was happening all to often these past few days, Alyrria sat confused as to the quirks and antics of her new guest.
After contemplating what Del’tohn might be able to eat, she decided to let them pick for themselves. To that end, she’d entered her pantry and asked Shaldir to help her grab an armful of various foodstuffs. Shaldir had pointed out that Del’tohn had flat front teeth like the vegetarian Zahira of the northern continent. However, when he had spoken, Alyrria swore she could see a few small pointed teeth as well, nowhere near what a Kan’rysi would have, but they were present none the less.
With that knowledge, they focused on grabbing what few root vegetables and fruits they she had left, not that she especially needed them in her diet, but she did enjoy the occasional sweet treat. In addition, she’d made sure to bring out a small sack of various grains for them to peruse as well as a pieces of smoke-cured meat.
There was a sense of satisfaction as Del’tohn stared, wide eyed, at the impressive array of food laid on the table before them. Gesturing between them and the food, Del’tohn seemed to understand that she had left them with the final decision of what they would like. They went to each item in turn, stomach growling once again, and looked everything over. They picked up, examined, sniffed, and put down everything from the reedy cylarro shoots to the lumpy and misshapen sweetroots that she had gathered on the night she had first rescued the smaller being. In the end though, Del’tohn let out a sigh and leaned against the table, shaking their head.
They looked… in pain? No, nothing so intense, as they mumbled something to themselves in their singsong language before they gestured to the table and shrugged.
Can their people not move their ears? I guess not… She thought as she observed that, while their ears did bob up and down a little as they spoke, they either couldn’t or wouldn’t swivel in the way she expected. Her attention snapped back to Del’tohn as they said something.
[Whel, thankz, bhat ai haav noh aideea eef theez ar poisonuzz tooh mee ohr nhat.]
She looked at them expectantly, assuming that once they found something they liked they would dig right in. No such luck.
The awkward pause stretched on for several more seconds until she came to the eventual realization that they must not have seen any of these plants before and so, they was just as clueless as her as to what they could and couldn’t consume.
Frustration started to creep into her mind. She was a hunter, she helped provide the village with meat for the butcher and hides, teeth and bones for crafting and trade. It was what she was good at, and for the first time in a very long time, she was forced to sit back and watch helplessly. It seemed like Del’tohn would probably be forced to starve or else eat something potentially poisonous to them. Del’tohn too, now seemed more blatantly frustrated at this setback. Resting their hands on its hips once more, their shoulders sagged as they hooked their thumbs into their belt loops.
Picking up on the dilemma, Shaldir seemed to be brainstorming ideas as well when, several seconds later, Del’tohn suddenly perked up. Both Kan'rysi glanced over as they started patting their hands around their belt and pants, looking for something. Before long they seemed to feel something in a back pocket somewhere.
[iiiess!] They exclaimed suddenly, sounding more like a hiss under its breath than an actual word. Alyrria continued to be surprised at the range of noises Del’tohn was capable of producing.
With a proud flourish, Del’tohn produced what looked like a series of colored metal ingots from one of their many pants pockets. Some type of lettering seemed to be imprinted on them while both ends of the ingots were stamped flat with serrated edges.
Shaldir was the first to speak, addressing the pieces of metal in Del’tohn’s hand despite knowing they couldn’t understand each other, “Look, I think Aly and I both appreciate that you’d want to pay us back or trade for whatever you need but that doesn’t help that we still don’t know what you can eat.” The end of her statement was drawn out as she gestured both hands towards the ingots for emphasis.
Del’tohn placed two of the ingots back into a pocket, putting up a hand in a gesture to placate the exasperated Kan'rysi. They made a show of presenting the ingot when they pinched the middle of one of the serrated edges with both of their hands and pulled each hand in opposite directions.
Alyrria and Shaldir looked on in amazement as the metal ingot tore in half as easily as paper with nary a sound to reveal a brown and red speckled brick contained within. A sweet aroma started to permeate the air, tinged with some nuttiness and a few other scents that were otherwise unidentifiable.
“Huh, a parcel of some kind?” Alyrria wondered aloud.
“Must be.” Shaldir replied, sniffing and tasting the air.
They watched as Del’tohn stuck one end of the brick in their mouth and bit down, easily crunching through. The brick seemed to be made of some type of baked grain, cemented together with a sweet paste.
Alyrria resolved to somehow ask about how Del’tohn was able to hammer metal to such thinness and flexibility and why they would store food like that later, once some way of communicating had been worked out. In the meantime, she was just relieved that the food issue was resolved for a little while, seeing as Del’thon had a few more of the metallic packets.
She gestured for Del’tohn to take a seat as she made her way to a series of cabinets placed against a nearby wall, located above a well-used counter. As Del’tohn took the offered seat, Alyrria produced three ceramic cups, she filled them with water from a simple bronze jug and headed back, placing a cup each in front of Shaldir and Del’tohn before taking a seat next to the hungry being, her own cup in hand. Del’tohn looked at the cup and nodded in appreciation. The two Kan’rysi watched silently for a few minutes as the smaller being finished eating before raising the cup and sniffing its contents. Determining that it wasn’t harmful, Del’tohn took a tentative sip. It briefly scrunched its face with a look of… confusion or maybe slight disgust she had to guess, before proceeding to down the entire cup with a contented sigh.
Alyrria chuckled lightly, “Thirsty too I guess.”
Shaldir grunted in thoughtful agreement, her head propped up on her hand.
Del’tohn stared at the now empty parcel for a few seconds, brow furrowed. It looked like it was trying to contemplate some puzzle when Alyrria tapped them on the shoulder to get their attention. Startled, Del’tohn looked over and realized that Alyrria had extended her hand, palm up, while pointing to the parcel. Figuring her intention, they handed over the tattered remnants.
[Whel, ae proteen bhar eesent ahn ai deel brakefhaast ahfthur hoo noes hao lhong, bhat eets bhetter thahn nohtheeng.] Del’tohn quietly commented.
Whatever this parcel was made of, it wasn’t metal. As it turned out, it was some material that was closer to cloth, but was smoother than firebeetle silk. Alyrria gave the parcel a few experimental tugs and it snapped taught. She tried ripping it but it took a surprising amount of force just to get it to stretch. She then imitated Del’tohn, pinching one of the serrated ends between both hands and pulling in opposite directions. To her surprise, it parted just as easily as Del’tohn had made it look and tore evenly down its entire length despite the wrinkles that seemed to be permanently creased into it after Del’tohn had finished eating. She wanted to see if Shaldir was curious but she just waved it away when Alyrria tried to hand the remains of the parcel over.
Her curiosity satisfied for now, she gave the tattered parcel back to Del’tohn, who proceeded to fold it up and place it in one of the many pockets that adorned their pants.
The three of them sat in contemplative silence for a few minutes before Shaldir spoke up.
“Hey Ali,” She started. “I need to head back and report to my mentor about this before it gets too late in the day.”
“The old man will be happy to know that our guest seems to be doing fine.” Alyrria replied.
“Since when has he ever been happy about anything?” Shaldir asked, rhetorically.
“Yeah, good point.” Alyrria conceded as they both shared a quiet laugh.
Shaldir then got up and the two of them proceeded to gather up all the foodstuffs left on the table and carry it back into the pantry as Del’tohn watched with intense interest. Goodbyes were said and Shaldir bundled herself up in a heavy, fur lined, leather coat before proceeding out the entryway.
The snow had piled up some since earlier in the day, and by this point, the sun had started to dip lower in the horizon. It wouldn’t be night for some time yet but the air was growing steadily chillier as the day wore on. With the door shut and latched, Alyrria headed back to the pantry and retrieved some more firewood before tending to the flame, stoking it back to life for a few more hours and ensuring that there would be a healthy bed of coals to keep the house warm through the night.
As she was doing that, Del’tohn had made their way back to the table and produced a trinket which they was now tinkering with. Curious, she made her way over to get a better look. It seemed like a small box, with its lid pried open. Inside was a mess of flat, rainbow colored, sheets shot through with gold leaf in geometric lines. Some kind of puzzle maybe? She wasn’t sure. She watched as Del’tohn moved, removed, and replaced these sheets before closing the box and pressing a circular button on the side. After a second, a bright orange ring lit up on one face of the box, pulsing with a gentle light every few seconds. Del’tohn made a noise that seemed to indicate giddiness or pleasure as they pumped their fist in the air.
Seemingly taking notice of her for the first time since the tinkering had started, Del’tohn proudly showed off the box before realizing that she had no idea what it did. Regardless, Alyrria was happy that this small task seemed to have lifted Del’tohn’s spirits.
An idea seemed to come to them as they suddenly waved their hands to get Alyrria’s attention. She paid attention as they made a pinching motion with one hand while dragging the pinched fingers haphazardly across the other hand’s open palm. Del’tohn repeated this action a few times.
It took a few seconds before Alyrria’s eyes grew wide.
“Yeah, that makes sense!” She cried before darting into the room next to the one Del’tohn had been placed in.
What followed was Alyrria desperately throwing open drawers, looking through various shelves, and shuffling aside random curios. She knew she’d placed it here somewhere! Wardrobe? No. Under the mattress? No. Writing desk? No. Drawer under the writing desk? Nope. With a frustrated sigh, she stood up.
“Where in the five domains did I put the damned thing?” She muttered, leaning against a wall hard enough to jostle the door. As it closed slightly, she saw the writing slate hanging on a hook behind the door.
“Of course.” She stated, humorlessly.
Grabbing the slate and a few fresh writing sticks from the desk, she made her way back out, presenting it to Del’tohn.
Looking at it, Del’tohn excitedly took it and started to scribble something.
Alright, let’s see what you have to say. She thought to herself.
---
Pwip… Pwip… Pwip…
It took a couple of cycles for Lily to realize what her sensors were telling her.
Pwip… Pwip… Pwip…
A few milliseconds later, she could barely contain herself. “Cass! Get in here now! Del’s transponder just reactivated!”
After a brief pause, a hatch slammed shut as the stomping of boots could be heard getting louder and louder. Cassandra burst into the cartography room, eyes wide and breathing heavily. She could hardly believe what she was hearing.
“Say that again. Just so I know I’m not dreamin’.” She gasped.
“Del’s transponder just reactivated!” Lily was almost yelling, “he must have been able to repair it! It’s broadcasting from the same direction that Taka and Gordon are heading in so I think it’s safe to say his hunch was correct.”
“Finally, some good news!” Cassandra laughed, “Is there any way to reach them and fill them in?”
“Not yet, they’re still below line of sight to our radio antenna, but they should be able to pick up the signal as they get closer. The only downside is that with only a rough idea of where exactly we, and they, are, we can’t get an accurate fix on Del’s position.”
Cassandra made a move to speak before Lily cut her off.
“But,” Lily continued, “as they get closer, it will get easier for them to determine the direction and distance the signal is coming from.”
Cassandra breathed out a sigh of relief. “Alright, let’s hope the next time they check in, they’ll have our pilot in tow. I’m sure the captain will be happy to hear this.” With that, the medical officer left the cartography room with an obvious spring to her step, leaving Lily standing on the holotable.
Lily turned towards the projection of the surrounding area. Her yellow holographic form floated over to the line showing the direction Delton’s signal was coming from.
“Hang on Del, help’s coming.” She quietly hoped. As she deactivated the holographic projectors, her transparent avatar flickered out of existence before reappearing in the medical bay where Cassandra was animatedly talking to the captain.
--–
Del was overjoyed when Aleeria handed him the slate, it was one thing to try and interpret gestures and body language, but now he’d be able to convey magnitudes more complex ideas, or at the very least clarify more basic subjects. He was already able to figure out he’d been unconscious for about three days since Aleeria had found him.
“Alright, I kinda need my knife back.” He muttered as he scribbled the rough shape of his utility knife onto the slate, holding the finished image up for Aleeria to see, “I need to know if you’ve seen my knife. Taka would kill me if he knew I’d lost it.”
Aleeria stared at the picture for a second before their eyes flashed in understanding. Standing up from their seat, they made their way to the room where they had first grabbed the slate. They soon returned, holding a conspicuously knife-like shape wrapped in cloth. The blade looked like a pocket knife when held in Aleeria’s hands. As they handed the blade over, Del carefully unwrapped it and gave it a quick inspection before reaching behind his back and slipping it back into its sheath with a satisfying click. He smiled and gave Aleeria a quick nod of appreciation.
Once again picking up the slate, Del proceeded to draw two simple stick figures next to each other, one with a triangular torso and one in which the triangle was inverted, leaving plenty of space for more drawings just in case.
“I can’t keep on thinking of you as a “them” now can I?” He asked aloud, a little thankful that he couldn’t be understood.
He turned the slate around, pointing to the figure with an inverted triangle for a torso then pointing to himself. Aleeria stared for a few seconds, they looked unsure of his intentions with the drawings. Del then turned the slate back around to inspect his work.
Maybe I wasn’t clear enough? He thought to himself before an idea took shape in his mind’s eye. He drew an arrow pointing from the figure with an upright triangle body and drew a smaller figure at the end of the arrow. Once again, he turned the slate around.
Once again, Aleeria leaned in to take a look. It was fascinating to observe the gears turning in their head and Del couldn’t help but be reminded of a cat with the way their pupils involuntarily contracted as they thought.
A few more seconds later and Aleeria looked like they realized what he was asking as they leaned back with their head slightly tilted and their eyes more relaxed. They gestured to the long piece of chalk that he was holding, and when he gave it to them, they drew a line from the figure with the inverted triangular torso, to the figure with the upright triangular torso, then to the smaller figure next to it. Looking up, they pointed from the figure with the inverted torso then to him, and their eyes widened when he nodded and affirmed their gesture by tapping that same figure again and then his own chest.
Aleeria thoughtfully mumbled something unintelligible before looking back to him. They then pointed to the figure drawn from the upright triangle and then back to themselves a couple times, making sure that he could clearly see where they were pointing.
“Oh okay! So you’re a ‘she’.” Delton stated aloud only for Aleeria to beckon him to look again at the slate.
And so, the exchange continued like this for a few more minutes. Through this impromptu game of pictionary, Del learned that Alleria’s people hatched from eggs, but gave live birth, and that their females tended to be taller and leaner while their males were shorter and much more strongly built.
Then came the question of, presumably, each of their livelihoods, prompted by Aleeria drawing what Delton recognized as a bow.
She grew excited once he showed his understanding by roughly pantomiming the nocking and loosing of an arrow. Enthusiastically, she had made her way back to her room and retrieved her favorite tool, a massive and heavily recurved composite bow. While it looked like a longbow in his hands, was much more modest when she wielded it. He had no idea what exactly it was made of, but whatever it was, it was clear that considerable time and effort had been put into its construction. The black horn-like material along its inside complemented the dark red wood of the body while some type of shaved plant fiber or bark had been braided along the arms. This protected the seam where the two materials had been joined together and gave the front bow a faintly lustrous braided pattern thanks to the lacquered finish and deep red fibers.
He was so caught up in admiring it that he felt a little embarrassed when he looked up to find her staring at him expectantly and gesturing for him to take his turn on the drawing slate. As he handed the unstrung bow back, he thought about the best way to convey that he was a part of a team of explorers.
Guilt welled in his chest as he realized that he had allowed himself to get distracted from his main priority, checking on the crew and then getting the ship back in running order. Aleeria seemed to notice the change in his demeanor as he saw her expression change and her ears turn downwards slightly. Thinking hard, he decided to try and see if she knew what a boat was.
He drew a basic rendition of an old sailing ship on rocky seas complete with sails. Once complete, he backed away. He gestured towards her, then pretended to scribble on the slate, then himself as he quickly pantomimed working her bow again. He then did the same in reverse, with himself doing the scribbling and then gesturing to her. She looked at the drawing and nodded, filling in some simplified waves to show her understanding.
“Ok, perfect.” Del stated as he then drew a few figures on the boat and pointed to himself and one of the figures.
Aleeria glanced between him and the slate and nodded.
He then wiped the slate clean once more and drew a small rendition of the populated boat to one side of the slate as Aleeria watched intensely. He then drew a simplified rendition of the top view of the Onager, except this time he placed seven figures in the middle of the ship’s outline. Showing the sketch to Aleeria, he circled the seafaring boat, circled the Onager, and then drew a line between them.
Aleeria scrutinized the sketch for a moment before Del heard creaking somewhere below them. Looking down he saw that her hands were digging into her pants, claws starting to rend small furrows in the cloth. She looked up with what could only be described as a shocked expression, jaw slightly opened, eyes wide, brow slightly furrowed, her face seemed slightly more pale as well. She turned quickly enough that the flattened scales on the back of her head clicked together as she snatched the slate from Del’s hands and haphazardly smudged out the drawing. In its place she drew a single figure, pointing to Del. Once he nodded, she then drew six more figures before looking back at him.
She could only stammer in shock as he nodded again with a determined look.
--–
Oh no, oh no no no… Alyrria thought numbly. If she was understanding this correctly, not only was that giant contraption some kind of vessel, there were at least six others of Del’tohn’s people still trapped on the thing and she left them there! She got up and rushed to the door. Unlatching it, she looked outside hoping to see even a hint of light, but the sun had already set, the last of the goldish-pink rays disappearing far beyond the horizon.
How could she have let this happen? Why hadn’t she taken a closer look? At worst they might have all burned in the fire or frozen to death by now all because she hadn’t acted sooner or been more thorough.
She brought her hand up to the sides of her head, her claws clicking against her scalp as she wracked her brain, trying to plan out the quickest route back to the vessel. It had been a few days. At best they would still be alive and waiting, she could even bring Del’tohn to attempt to communicate with them now that he was awake.
At worst, there would be six new graves in a few days.
They couldn’t set off now, even knowing where the vessel was, she would need help to assist six others, moreover, Del’tohn was still injured and him traveling in the dark in his state would only be inviting accidents to happen. Setting off on her own was one thing, but a two day trek with a group required so much more planning and no one else, well, except maybe for Shal, would be willing to set off on a trek all the way to Lake Omson just after dark, especially not after a day busy with early winter preparations. A series of rapid footfalls broke her out of her train of thought as Del quickly ran up to her.
“Yes I know! I’m sorry! I’m trying to think of something!” Alyrria cried desperately, hoping that she could force him to understand.
He shoved the slate up towards her face, forcing her to back up a step. He had drawn the odd, bug shaped vessel again, but this time had the six figures in a circle. He pulled her back towards the table and made a show of drawing two crossed rectangles in the middle of the circle and a series of wavy lines above them, a campfire. He looked at her with an intensity she hadn’t expected and pointed slowly, making sure she looked at the campfire before drawing a series of stacked rectangles next to the group and drawing a line from the stack to the two crossed rectangles.
Alright, I think he’s saying they have some way of keeping warm. To confirm what she thought, she pointed to the drawing of a fire and then pointed to the fireplace in the middle of her home. Del’tohn nodded reassuringly and gently clapped her on the shoulder. He then produced another one of his metallic parcels, pointed to it, and to the slate, and drew another small pile of rectangles.
Right, calm down, so they have food and some way to keep warm, and if I’m understanding this, they have plenty of both so we have some time.
--–
Despite only meeting her a few hours ago, it hurt to see Aleeria so distressed. It seemed like she understood what he was saying but he hadn’t expected such an extreme reaction to her figuring out his friends were still on the ship. Luckily, he seemed to be able to convince her that they weren’t in too much danger. Truth be told, he didn’t know if they were alright or not, but Lily hadn’t said anything about the sleeper pods being damaged after they had landed, and he knew they were designed to take a beating and had emergency batteries that would last for a few months at least.
If they were alive, those pods should keep them safe for a while, and if not, well, if they were dead it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.
So for the time being, his only concern was making sure his rescuer didn’t do anything rash.
He watched as Aleeria sketched something else on the slate.
Looking over at the drawing, she had drawn a large circle with a spiral in the middle rising from a horizontal line across the slate. Additionally, she had drawn a small group of figures, one of which was much shorter than the rest, on the left side of the line and another dotted line leading to a crude approximation of the Onager on the right.
The meaning seemed pretty clear to him, they’d set out in the morning.
Putting those thought aside for now, Del nodded to Aleeria and she seemed to relax slightly. The tension of the past few minutes gone, his stomach growled again, her’s followed soon after as he realized that she hadn’t eaten anything this entire time. With a tired sigh, she got up and headed over to the pantry as Del took out another protein bar from his cargo pants pocket. He laid the bar on the table as he went over and refilled their cups from earlier with the bronze jug. By the time he was finished, Aleeria had returned with what looked like a small loaf of purplish black bread and a hunk of cured meat. Del sat back down and watched as she pulled a simple glazed ceramic plate from the shelf, produced a knife, and prepared her meal. He waited for her to sit down before opening and slowly nibbling on the bar.
Both of them ate in silence, Aleeria tore into the bread and sliced meats as Del slowly consumed his second meal bar of the day.
Hmh. First actual meal together with my new friend and we can’t even eat the same things. He thought wryly. Oh well. The ship seemed mostly intact and Lily was still talking, so there’s a good chance everyone else is alright as well. Once I get back it should be easy enough to assess the damage and figure out what needs to be done. Worst case, if we need to stay long term and we can’t figure out what’s edible, there’s still a couple years of preserved food stores we could use if we ration things out.
Once they’d finished their respective meals, Aleeria gestured for Del to place his cup in a basin of water next to the food preparation table as she did the same with her dishware.
He was in for one last surprise when it seemed like Aleeria had forgotten something. She went to the entrance and ducked outside for a moment before returning with a box containing a glass lid. A soft white/blue glow emanated from the box. His curiosity piqued, he watched as she opened the box to reveal about a dozen glowing crystals. She smiled and gestured for him to follow as she entered the room he had been given and placed a crystal into what Del had originally thought was a candlestick.
“Oh wow…” He gasped, awestruck.
She chuckled softly, her voice like tumbling gravel, as she demonstrated taking a small bell-shaped cover next to the crystal holder. She placed it over the crystal to snuff out its light before lifting it back off, allowing the gentle whitish glow to fill the room once more. He went up to the writing desk and gingerly touched the crystal, he expected it to be warm to the touch and was surprised to find it was ice cold.
Duh, it’s winter, and this rock’s been sitting outside all day. He reminded himself.
With the demonstration of the new light source concluded, she once again gestured for him to follow as she grabbed a two small towels, a waxy bluish green bar, and shallow pail. She entered into the pantry and filled the basin with water before proceeding outside. Del zipped up his flight jacket as she led him down a short path behind the house, blazing a path through the fresh snow that was also lit by the glowing crystals. She then proceeded to show him what was essentially a detached bathroom, complete with a large stone bathtub easily big enough for two people, a segregated latrine, and an area with a polished metal mirror and shelf where she placed the pail. He was pleasantly surprised to hear running water coming from somewhere deep within the latrine.
Nodding his understanding, he retreated to the house to give Aleeria some privacy. Half an hour later, they both prepared to settle in for the night. Sleep came easily to Del, he didn’t understand it but despite being unconscious for a few days he was still exhausted. Aleeria, on the other hand, spent a couple hours more staring at the ceiling, lost in thought, before her eyes eventually grew heavy.
--–
The morning came quickly and both of them were up before dawn. Aleeria joined him as the sun just started peeking over the horizon. She had donned her leather armor and was just finishing tightening the straps laying across her ribs. A quick breakfast soon followed, with Del enjoying another protein bar.
Ok, these are getting old real quick. He complained internally.
As they were finishing up, there was a knock at the door. Both of them looked at each other, confused. Since Del was closer to the door, he approached and glanced at Aleeria. When she nodded, he undid the latch and started to slide the door open. Peeking around the corner, he was expecting Aleeria’s friend from yesterday, he wasn’t expecting to meet the masked visages of two human-sized people in very familiar looking thermal suits pointing rifles at him. By how they recoiled, they weren’t expecting to see him here either.
“Del?” The lead figure asked, incredulous, as he lowered his firearm.
“Taka?” Delton asked in response.
[Prev][Next]
[First]
A/N: I apologize if the first part is a bit paingul to read with the pronouns. A part of it was intentional, moreover, in the first draft, I used "it" instead of "they" which seemed a little pejorative so I changed it at the cost of having ambiguous pronouns. I tried to be as clear as I could without getting too repetitive and apologize if it was not enjoyable.

I remember my very first day of work nearly six months ago with horrifying clarity, the memories still shining like keloid scars across my mind. My new partner and I got sent to a Victorian house in the middle of a forest of dead, twisted trees. Our boss, an old Greek man with balding hair who chain-smoked Marlboros constantly, had warned us that the scene would be a fiasco. An entire family of six had suffocated from a freak carbon monoxide leak. Soon after that, the bizarre occurrences began.
“They sent a repairman out there for something or another,” George explained through a cloud of thick, gray smoke, smashing out a half-smoked cigarette and lighting up another one without pausing. We sat in the office across the desk from him, wearing our dark blue uniforms with the logo of “Big George’s Cleaners” emblazoned across the chest. I had laughed when I first saw the name of the cleaning business. Big George sounded like the name of a seven-foot-tall pimp to me, not this small, bent man with a thick Greek accent and white fluffs of hair forming a wispy horseshoe around his head.
“So what happened?” I asked. George inhaled deeply, meeting my gaze.
“Well, I don’t know exactly what he saw, but he was screaming about baby’s arms and spiders.” I groaned.
“Dead spiders?” my partner, Xavier, asked hopefully. George shook his head ruefully.
“Don’t know, son. I figure you’ll find out when you get there, eh?” George got up and slapped me on the back in a fatherly way. “Don’t worry. You’re in good hands with Xavier. He’s worked here for over three months. One of our longest-lasting employees!”
I looked over at my new partner doubtfully. Gang tattoos ran up the lengths of his arms, and he had a teardrop tattoo below his left eye. He looked like the type of person who only got a job to keep his parole officer happy.
We walked out into the clean summer air, the small town around us bustling with midday traffic. Xavier pointed to the panel van parked behind the building, an ancient, black rusted heap of a van with the company’s logo peeling off the side.
“That’s our ride. She’s a beauty, huh?” Xavier said. I smiled politely. “What’s your name again?”
“Brian,” I said curtly. “Brian Felman. So this company has a high turnover rate, huh?”
“High turnover rate, high disappearance rate.” He shrugged apathetically. “None of my business. That’s why we get hazard pay, right?” He laughed- a shrill, dry sound that sounded much higher than his normal voice.
We got in, and Xavier put on some blaring rap song that I tried to block out. We drove for what felt like hours, going deeper and deeper into the middle of nowhere. The GPS started taking us down pothole-strewn dirt trails before finally failing completely five miles from the place. We drove up and down the road until, after thirty minutes of searching, we found the only house in the area. The thin, looming turrets loomed overhead, like sharp spikes set up to impale the sky. The exterior of the building appeared dull and filthy, the white paint yellowed with age. Cracked windows covered in dust and grime leered at us from the top floors.
“Well, that’s gotta be it,” I said, glancing down at the paperwork George had given us. It just said “1 Ghoulish Road, Barton.” I looked up at the house, but it had no number on it. The road hadn’t even had a street sign. From what I saw, Barton probably didn’t have more than a hundred people living in it. Perhaps they didn’t use street signs in such an abandoned area.
Then I saw the police crime scene tape rolled out in an X across the door, and I knew we had arrived at the right house.
“I hate spiders,” Xavier offered like a piece of sage advice, sighing. He lit a cigarette in the van, which technically wasn’t allowed but, after all, no one was here to complain. He handed the pack to me and I took one. I looked over at him.
“Well, as long as they’re dead, who cares?” I said. He got out and started putting on protective gear, tucking his pants into his socks while he fished out two pairs of thick rubber suits. “They are dead, right?” He gave me a grim smile.
I sighed as I looked down at the suit. It looked like something an Axis frogman might have worn during World War 2. I wondered where George got half this stuff.
After we both put on the hot and stuffy rubber suits, Xavier reached into the back doors of the van and pulled out two gas masks. I stuffed one on my head and began adjusting the straps, making sure it was airtight. It felt somewhat suffocating and also obscured my peripheral vision. Two small circular holes of ballistic glass were the only opening for sight.
I glanced over at Xavier. He looked like a cross between a SWAT officer and a scuba diver figurine from a fish tank. I figured I looked exactly the same. We took the canisters of poison with a sprayer nozzle out of the van. I strapped the heavy metal cylinder to my back.
“Just in case,” Xavier said with fake nonchalance as he put on his own sprayer. “Spiders have a tendency to be hardy little bastards. Supposedly, the exterminators already came and sprayed the house once, according to George, but…” He trailed off, his voice quivering with fear at the end. I could see his eyes rolling and wild behind the mask. Yet he still walked towards the door, ripped away the police tape and walked right inside. I followed close behind him.
The front hallway looked totally dark. I tried flicking a light next to the door, but I got absolutely no response. I didn’t know if the electricity was cut or if the light bulbs had all gotten smashed by vandals. I took out a small LED flashlight from the random items looped into my work belt, clicking it on and shining the bright white beam around. An instinctual, primordial horror came over me as I saw what scurried all around us.
It looked like brown recluse spiders, some of them nearly a foot long, and they most certainly were not dead. There were thousands of them, but that wasn’t even the worst part.
They all had strange, small, white baby legs and arms, slightly longer and more emaciated-looking than something taken from a Barbie doll. Each had four grasping arms in the front and four bent legs in the back. Except these didn’t look plastic. All the miniaturized limbs looked real, with tiny dimples in the elbows and smooth rolls of fat like an infant’s.
The spiders made sounds that sounded almost human. They opened their fanged mouths and cried out with the cooing or shrieking of a baby. Infantile cries began to sound all around us, echoing and mixing in a cacophony of high-pitched shrieking and wailing. I tried to block it out, pulling out my poison nozzle to start spraying. I took a headlamp George had given me out of my belt and flicked off the flashlight.
I looked for the best place to start. A layer of dead spiders littered the floors, their curled-up doll legs facing upwards with tiny fingers clenched in death. The white skin of the miniature human appendages peeled off in dry, papery layers.
But I didn’t look at the hundreds of spider corpses for too long, because at that moment, something heavy landed on my shoulder. I screamed through my gas mask. The sound came out muffled and choked. Spinning around crazily, I tried to get the spider off my protective suit. I craned my head and saw a massive brown recluse only inches away from my face. I gasped as I looked at this mutated abomination.
It had six black, soulless eyes. The pincers clicked open and closed, dripping clear fluid. The venomous spider’s long back had a marking like a dark brown violin. As its pincers flew wide open, it opened its mouth wide, and I saw teeth inside no spider should possess. Tiny, fanged teeth, like the canines of a human. It had an entire set of these sharp, vampiric fangs. Then, in a blur, it lunged for my face. I felt it smash into the side of the gas mask, and then, emanating cries like a hungry baby, it tried to bite through it.
I dropped the large poison canister I carried and ran shrieking towards the door, more spiders falling down all around me as I went. Some jumped from the ceiling. Others skittered over the bodies of their comrades, bodies that covered the floor like a rug from some nightmarish acid trip.
Xavier hadn’t fared much better. I heard him close behind me, his steel-toe boots smashing the mutated corpses with muted thuds. I felt like I couldn’t breathe in the confining gas mask. I had a sudden insane urge to rip it off. But I felt more spiders skittering across my shoulders and back now, and I knew that both of us were likely covered. A large part of me wanted to run screaming from that house, clean the century-old wood with the pungent, refreshing smell of gasoline and watch those abominations burn.
We sprinted out the door out into the summer light streaming down from a clear blue sky, covered in dozens of the freakish spiders. One of them skittered up my chest and covered my face. I couldn’t see anything, but I still had the poison canister attached to my back. I brought it up and began spraying it at the abomination. It gave a very human whimper as its doll legs began to kick and seize, its surreal mouth opening into a O of surprise. It gave a cry like a starving infant and fell to the black earth in front of me, its miniature demonic face finally relaxing as the mouth went slack and its six eyes glazed over.
Over the next few minutes, Xavier and I killed all the spiders that still attached themselves to our thick rubber suits. To my horror, a few dozen of them streamed out the open door and into the surrounding dead trees. I ran over as soon as I saw them escaping. I wondered if they would begin a new population of mutated, freakish spiders in the environment.
Shaking and traumatized, we went back to the van. Xavier said George had supplies for just such an occasion.
“Do you know what Zyklon B is?” he asked me, lighting a cigarette and checking his phone. I shrugged.
“Not really,” I admitted.
“It’s basically just pellets of stabilizer mixed with hydrogen cyanide,” he said. “The entire can is kept under high pressure, so once we open it, cyanide gas is released and begins spreading throughout the entire area. However, you can speed up the reaction by pouring the pellets into a metal bucket of sulfuric acid.” He pulled out a heavy barrel with danger logos prominently emblazoned in bright red all around its perimeter, then told me to grab a small metal container with the letters “H2SO4” and “Warning: Do Not Inhale. Do Not Allow to Come in Contact with Skin” written prominently on the side.
“We’re going to have to gas those fuckers,” Xavier admitted, grinning.
***
Needless to say, the fumigation worked. We started at the front door, running in and slamming it behind us. With tightly-secured gas masks and full body coverings, I put the small metal bucket of sulfuric acid down in the middle of the writhing mass of spiders and Xavier poured the pellets in. We quickly ran out of the house, but as we left, I saw great, billowing clouds of white chemical smoke exploring the hallways and corridors with opaque, reaching fingers.
By the end of the day, after airing out the house, we only had the problem of having to dispose of tens of thousands of freakish spider-doll corpses. A few of them still clung to life as we swept the bodies up into barrels and trash bags, trying to use their eerily human teeth to inject us with the brown recluse’s agonizing hemotoxic poison. However, our protective suits did their jobs well enough, and no one died- at least not on my first day.
As we did a final sweep through the house, I went into the basement and found a trapdoor. It had a rusted black metal handle that stuck up a fraction an inch from the surrounding beams. I nearly tripped over it, otherwise I would never have seen it through the dirt and grime covering everything down there. The worn boards looked fused to the aging floor, so much so that I couldn’t even see the trapdoor’s seam. Curious, I called up to Xavier.
“Hey, buddy, there’s a trapdoor down here. Should we open it, you think?” I said. “It could be filled with more spiders. Imagine if some Karen and her shitty husband and bratty kids moved in here and found half-human spiders pouring out of some hidden compartment in the basement.” Xavier came down the stairs, smoking a cigarette, having taken his gas mask off once the last of the cyanide gas had dissipated out all the open windows and doors. We both still wore thick rubber suits.
Xavier had just finished pouring the soiled sulfuric acid off the porch into the weed-strewn dirt in front of the house, laughing and grinning, turning his head up to the sky and screaming cheerfully, “Those fuckers won’t be able to grow a lawn here for a dozen years!” I had laughed at the pure enjoyment and lunacy in his face. I could tell this was a person who never held back anything.
“Ah, shit,” he said, frowning as he climbed down the basement stairs. He took a deep drag on his cigarette, looking at the trapdoor with one eye squinted, as if it were a particularly pernicious cockroach he wanted to crush. He sighed, letting out a long, unhappy breath. “Well, I guess we might as well check it out. Put your gas mask back on and grab the poison sprayer, just in case. It’s a small space, so we could probably just spray it.” We suited up. I walked over and flung open the trapdoor, but there wasn’t a single spider down there. The dirt floor of the small hidden room was swept clean in eerie spiral patterns, reminding me of pictures of crop circles.
Instead of spiders, we found what looked like a site for ritual sacrifices. On an ancient table ten feet below us, human arm and leg bones formed an inverted pentagram around a grinning skull. A gleaming black dagger with an obsidian handle pierced the skull through its topmost point, the spot where Hindus say the crown chakra is located. A circle had been drawn around the ritual site with salt. Various ancient-looking leather-bound books lay on the long, mahogany table, written in an alphabet I had never seen before.
“This is freaking weird,” I said, frowning. Xavier quickly pulled me out and we slammed the trapdoor shut, giving each other wary looks. Something didn’t feel right about this. I felt a sense of energy rising from the secret chamber, a smell like ozone and a sizzling in the air that made the hairs on my body stand straight up.
Far worse than the feeling, however, was what I thought I saw. I kept seeing something pale and bloodless and tall peeking around corners, its face twisted in an unnatural grin. But when I turned to look, whatever it was had gone. I hoped that this was only my imagination. I didn’t tell Xavier about it.
“I think we need to call a professional this week,” he said. “Whoever set this shit up is probably the cause of the freakish spiders. We might have a witch on our hands.”
***
Now that I had an idea of what was expected of me at the job, I really didn’t know how thrilled I felt about it. But George was paying extremely well, over $30 an hour after hazard pay bonuses, and there was simply no way I could make that kind of money anywhere else without a degree or professional skill, except maybe by selling drugs.
So I went back to work the next day. I don’t know if the stars frowned upon me that week or if I was just naturally cursed, but things didn’t improve at all.
In fact, the second crime scene we cleaned was worse by far.
***
There was a psychopath in the area called Dr. Satan, though I don’t know if he legitimately had his PhD or any family relation to the fallen archangel. Dr. Satan inspired the kind of fear in our area of the country that one rarely sees, even with serial killers. And the ironic part was, Dr. Satan never killed anyone, despite having dozens of victims. Not a single person died at his hands.
Now, his victims probably wished they had died, because the torture he inflicted upon them was some of the worst agony imaginable. Dr. Satan had turned them into mockeries of human beings. He had cut off their legs and arms in pieces, using a surgical saw and no anesthetic or painkillers. He cauterized the wounds as he went before stitching them up. He kept them alive and healthy with antibiotics and intravenous fluids, hence the bestowed media moniker of “Doctor”.
With only a torso and a screaming head remaining, the person basically became a shrieking pillow with hair. But Dr. Satan wasn’t done with them yet. He wanted the complete destruction of their sanity, the worst kind of torture and punishment for his victims. He would use a scalpel and cut out their eyes and peel off the eyelids, then start on their ears. He would puncture the eardrums so they couldn’t hear anymore. Then he’d cut out the tongue and start on the nose.
By the time he finished, they had barely any senses left and almost certainly no sanity. They couldn’t walk or grab anything or move their bodies in any way, except perhaps lifting their heads. They would be in a pain so severe that perhaps only burn victims could understand, but this went on much longer than burning alive.
Dr. Satan would trap them in the blackness of their mind for the rest of their lives. They could scream all they wanted in their own heads, but without tongues, the screams would simply die and fester inside them. And the worst part was, he did this in stages over a period of months.
The victims would know there was always more slicing, more torture in the future, but not exactly when. None of the victims of Dr. Satan were able to communicate with anyone in any way. In a few cases, the family members had given the suffering, insane individuals a lethal overdose of barbiturates or opiates as a form of mercy.
I had talked to the police and first responders who found the victims of Dr. Satan. Some of the shrieking human torsos were found in isolated cabins deep in the woods, often foreclosed buildings owned by major banks. Other victims were abandoned in front of churches or in empty parking lots, a nightmarish surprise for anyone who came upon this supreme desecration of the human form. As far as I know, a lot of the first responders who found these horrid scenes are still in therapy, and will likely carry mental scars from what they saw for the rest of their lives.
After a long police investigation, they found an abandoned house Dr. Satan had used for his bizarre surgical practices. It was a cabin on the edge of a stagnant lake, a stinking, fetid hole of a pond that shone a shade of cancerous green. From what Xavier told me on the ride over, the cops had taken three mutilated, totally insane wrecks of human beings from cold steel tables in the cracked basement of the old cabin. The bank who owned the property eventually called our company to try to clean up the immense amounts of blood left staining the entire basement. But there were apparently other remnants from Dr. Satan’s experiments left in that house.
Our secretary, Caroline, had answered the phone to hear someone screaming on the other end of the line.
“Hello?” she said. “You’ve reached Big George’s Cleaners. I’m sorry, but I can’t hear you with all that shrieking in the background.”
“There’s eyes in the walls!” someone cried in a voice choked with terror. “The blood has faces peering out of it! God, please send someone!”
“Who is this?” Caroline asked in a calm, nonchalant tone, having dealt with this kind of situation many times before. It was, after all, a dangerous job.
“I’m with Federal United Bank. Oh God, I…” She heard a door slamming, she said, then a car engine revving. An inhuman wail like a banshee growled over the line, reverberating for a full minute without creature needing to inhale. She heard the man cursing and hyperventilating. It sounded like the man was accelerating at maximum speed, but the demonic wailing drew closer and closer. Finally, the agent came back on the line.
“I just left that cursed cabin. I barely escaped with my life. We need someone to come to Turtleback Road. You’ll see it. It’s marked with police tape. Please come as soon as… Oh, no! God, it’s following me!” She heard glass shattering and the shrieking of tearing metal, then the line went dead.
“Ah, shit,” she muttered, writing down the information. She had a feeling that the agent would not be calling her back.
***
We pulled up to the cabin early in the morning, not knowing what exactly to expect. We heard a recording of the call to our office. George called the bank and confirmed the existence of the contract to clean the place, even though the man who had originally signed off on it hadn’t returned to the office or been heard from by anyone. Where his car had gone, I had no idea, and really didn’t care. I didn’t get paid to worry about details like that.
We saw the filthy pond from a distance as the black van rumbled along the dirt road, the well-worn engine grumbling like an old man having a nightmare. The log cabin sat on a patch of black earth in the midst of ancient pine trees. From far away, the building looked innocuous, even idyllic- just a humble hunting retreat for a middle-class bachelor, maybe. Little did I know the horrors that place would bring.
The pond only ten feet from the cabin’s right wall frothed and hissed, sounding as if it whispered secrets to me in the bursting bubbles of rancid gas that constantly rose to the surface. Strange, barely-glimpsed creatures flitted through the murky, dark-green waters. Algae blooms covered the water like a leper’s rotting skin. Wide, circular patches of algae were absent in many areas. Through them, I saw slitted eyes and flicking tongues.
In the light of the rising sun, something dark green and slimy slithered out of the farther shore. It turned and looked back at us as we pulled the van to the side of the road. A long, coiled snake with two heads coming off its slick black body regarded us with yellow, slitted eyes. Both heads bobbed and flicked their tongues as they watched us impassively. Then it turned and disappeared into the tall grass and thick evergreens beyond.
“Weird shit,” Xavier grumbled, lighting up a cigarette. He gave the cabin a distrustful look, reminding me of a kicked dog. “I still remember the first time I saw those snakes. I nearly shit myself out of mortal terror.” I stared at him, confused.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“What do you mean?” he answered. “It’s exactly like I said.”
“How did you see the snakes before?” I said. He stared for a few seconds at the pond, his eyes distant and haunted. He turned to look at me from the driver’s seat, reading my face. It looked like he was judging how much he wanted to tell.
“Well, we did some cleaning a couple months ago. My old partner was with me. I don’t know where he is now. One day, he just stopped showing up. And then his family called the office and asked if we had seen him. Caroline told them no, she had no idea where he was.” He heaved a deep breath, looking shaky and pale. The tattoos stood out like open sores on his trembling body.
“Well, the day that he disappeared, we cleaned a house together, maybe ten miles from here. The entire place was filled with mutated snakes. Some of them had multiple heads, others had withered, white limbs sticking out of their sides, dancing and weaving listlessly as they slithered. The limbs had no use and many didn’t even face the ground. Some also had compound eyes like an insect, six or eight pairs strewn across their black faces. It looked like they had been through a nuclear war or something, man. Something changed those snakes, just like something changed those spiders. Those things shouldn’t exist, but they do. And you know what I found there?” I shook my head at his story, fascinated.
“I found a skull with a black dagger sticking through its head, just like at the other place. It was part of some weird black magic ritual set up in a hidden room in the attic. And something was following us as we killed the snakes. I couldn’t ever see it directly, but I knew it was following us. I kept seeing a face leering around corners at me, a grinning, bloodless face that nearly scraped the ceiling. While I drove us back to the office, my partner kept screaming that the thing was following him. He saw it hiding behind trees or in the windows of houses. He started to lose his shit, and later that night, he disappeared forever.”
***
We pulled up next to the swampy waters before the front door into the idyllic log cabin. It had a brownstone brick chimney and an open porch. A few rocking chairs lay there, wavering in the slight breeze.
Xavier went first, muttering to himself. When he took a step up on the porch in front of me, his blue button-down shirt rode up on his skinny body. I caught a flash of a concealed pistol tucked tightly into a hidden holster around his waist.
“You have a gun?” I asked. He looked down, cursing.
“Of course I have a gun, cabron,” he said, giving me a quick backwards glance.
“Why?” I felt baffled. What could he possibly shoot during crime scene clean-ups? Not the spiders or two-headed snakes.
“What do you mean, why? Why don’t you have a gun?” he asked. “I can get you one for a few hundred bucks. They’re probably stolen, but…”
“Have you ever had to use it?” I asked. He shook his head.
“Not at work,” he said cryptically. “Not yet.” He opened the front door to the cabin, peering inside nervously. He looked left and right, checking the corners, as if he were a SWAT officer clearing a crime scene. Then he inhaled sharply and walked inside. I followed close behind.
The cabin looked beautiful on the first floor. Paintings of mountains and nature covered the walls. A comfortable-looking couch stood in front of a TV and liquor cabinet. Bookshelves filled with thousands of books covered the walls.
“This is actually pretty nice,” I said, smiling. I felt a sense of relief wash over me. Xavier had started sweating heavily, his eyes large and searching.
“Let’s do this quick,” he said, heading for the basement. “We need to see what kind of equipment we need to do the job. This is just bloodstains, so…” He flung open the door and began descending. I followed him down into the dark.
The police had apparently taken all the dismembered body parts out, but the place still looked horrifying. Three steel, blood-stained tables were fused to the concrete floor. Cracks ran along the concrete and cockroaches and spiders skittered up through them. Blood covered nearly everything, including the walls and the floor. It had dried into a sticky dark paste. With every step, our shoes made a tacky sucking noise.
“This isn’t so bad,” I said. “I mean, it’s definitely horrifying, but at least there’s no two-headed snakes or anything, right?” Xavier didn’t respond. A sense of energy seemed to sizzle in the air. I felt a change in pressure as if a snowstorm were sweeping in. The smell of ozone mixed with the stink of old, rotting blood.
“I have a bad feeling about this place…” Xavier said when all hell started breaking loose. The basement began to shimmer. A mist as dark as a starless sky billowed around the walls and ceiling in great, swirling currents. And then the walls started to change, the blood on the surfaces rejuvenating, dripping again, brightening into the red of a freshly-slashed throat.
Pale, bloodless hands came out of the walls, stretching and lengthening as if they had minds of their own. The emaciated arms cracked and shivered with pleasure and anticipation. Random splotches of dark blood and flecks of gore stained their skin. Dozens of them reached towards us, constantly extending and thinning their freakish limbs. Bones snapped and popped like firecrackers going off.
I heard a shrill, faraway shrieking. Everything moved slowly, as if seen through water. Waves of adrenaline coursed through my body.
I looked up and saw a shimmering ripple pass through the bare wooden boards of the basement ceiling. A cloying mist the color of blackened, frostbit tissue began to spread from the misty void that seemed to eat the ceiling like some potent acid.
And then the mist began to clear. Hundreds of eyes stared down from the ceiling as the starving, inhuman arms lengthened and reached towards us. I could see a morphing sheet of them above me, human eyes and insect eyes and snake eyes and countless other ones I didn’t recognize.
They all stared down at us with malice and hatred, a fire burning deep in those alien orbs. I began to pray, knowing I would soon die in this cursed place.
Part 2
https://www.reddit.com/nosleep/comments/190gvoo/im_a_cleaner_for_haunted_houses_skulls_pierced/

I remember my very first day of work nearly six months ago with horrifying clarity, the memories still shining like keloid scars across my mind. My new partner and I got sent to a Victorian house in the middle of a forest of dead, twisted trees. Our boss, an old Greek man with balding hair who chain-smoked Marlboros constantly, had warned us that the scene would be a fiasco. An entire family of six had suffocated from a freak carbon monoxide leak. Soon after that, the bizarre occurrences began.
“They sent a repairman out there for something or another,” George explained through a cloud of thick, gray smoke, smashing out a half-smoked cigarette and lighting up another one without pausing. We sat in the office across the desk from him, wearing our dark blue uniforms with the logo of “Big George’s Cleaners” emblazoned across the chest. I had laughed when I first saw the name of the cleaning business. Big George sounded like the name of a seven-foot-tall pimp to me, not this small, bent man with a thick Greek accent and white fluffs of hair forming a wispy horseshoe around his head.
“So what happened?” I asked. George inhaled deeply, meeting my gaze.
“Well, I don’t know exactly what he saw, but he was screaming about baby’s arms and spiders.” I groaned.
“Dead spiders?” my partner, Xavier, asked hopefully. George shook his head ruefully.
“Don’t know, son. I figure you’ll find out when you get there, eh?” George got up and slapped me on the back in a fatherly way. “Don’t worry. You’re in good hands with Xavier. He’s worked here for over three months. One of our longest-lasting employees!”
I looked over at my new partner doubtfully. Gang tattoos ran up the lengths of his arms, and he had a teardrop tattoo below his left eye. He looked like the type of person who only got a job to keep his parole officer happy.
We walked out into the clean summer air, the small town around us bustling with midday traffic. Xavier pointed to the panel van parked behind the building, an ancient, black rusted heap of a van with the company’s logo peeling off the side.
“That’s our ride. She’s a beauty, huh?” Xavier said. I smiled politely. “What’s your name again?”
“Brian,” I said curtly. “Brian Felman. So this company has a high turnover rate, huh?”
“High turnover rate, high disappearance rate.” He shrugged apathetically. “None of my business. That’s why we get hazard pay, right?” He laughed- a shrill, dry sound that sounded much higher than his normal voice.
We got in, and Xavier put on some blaring rap song that I tried to block out. We drove for what felt like hours, going deeper and deeper into the middle of nowhere. The GPS started taking us down pothole-strewn dirt trails before finally failing completely five miles from the place. We drove up and down the road until, after thirty minutes of searching, we found the only house in the area. The thin, looming turrets loomed overhead, like sharp spikes set up to impale the sky. The exterior of the building appeared dull and filthy, the white paint yellowed with age. Cracked windows covered in dust and grime leered at us from the top floors.
“Well, that’s gotta be it,” I said, glancing down at the paperwork George had given us. It just said “1 Ghoulish Road, Barton.” I looked up at the house, but it had no number on it. The road hadn’t even had a street sign. From what I saw, Barton probably didn’t have more than a hundred people living in it. Perhaps they didn’t use street signs in such an abandoned area.
Then I saw the police crime scene tape rolled out in an X across the door, and I knew we had arrived at the right house.
“I hate spiders,” Xavier offered like a piece of sage advice, sighing. He lit a cigarette in the van, which technically wasn’t allowed but, after all, no one was here to complain. He handed the pack to me and I took one. I looked over at him.
“Well, as long as they’re dead, who cares?” I said. He got out and started putting on protective gear, tucking his pants into his socks while he fished out two pairs of thick rubber suits. “They are dead, right?” He gave me a grim smile.
I sighed as I looked down at the suit. It looked like something an Axis frogman might have worn during World War 2. I wondered where George got half this stuff.
After we both put on the hot and stuffy rubber suits, Xavier reached into the back doors of the van and pulled out two gas masks. I stuffed one on my head and began adjusting the straps, making sure it was airtight. It felt somewhat suffocating and also obscured my peripheral vision. Two small circular holes of ballistic glass were the only opening for sight.
I glanced over at Xavier. He looked like a cross between a SWAT officer and a scuba diver figurine from a fish tank. I figured I looked exactly the same. We took the canisters of poison with a sprayer nozzle out of the van. I strapped the heavy metal cylinder to my back.
“Just in case,” Xavier said with fake nonchalance as he put on his own sprayer. “Spiders have a tendency to be hardy little bastards. Supposedly, the exterminators already came and sprayed the house once, according to George, but…” He trailed off, his voice quivering with fear at the end. I could see his eyes rolling and wild behind the mask. Yet he still walked towards the door, ripped away the police tape and walked right inside. I followed close behind him.
The front hallway looked totally dark. I tried flicking a light next to the door, but I got absolutely no response. I didn’t know if the electricity was cut or if the light bulbs had all gotten smashed by vandals. I took out a small LED flashlight from the random items looped into my work belt, clicking it on and shining the bright white beam around. An instinctual, primordial horror came over me as I saw what scurried all around us.
It looked like brown recluse spiders, some of them nearly a foot long, and they most certainly were not dead. There were thousands of them, but that wasn’t even the worst part.
They all had strange, small, white baby legs and arms, slightly longer and more emaciated-looking than something taken from a Barbie doll. Each had four grasping arms in the front and four bent legs in the back. Except these didn’t look plastic. All the miniaturized limbs looked real, with tiny dimples in the elbows and smooth rolls of fat like an infant’s.
The spiders made sounds that sounded almost human. They opened their fanged mouths and cried out with the cooing or shrieking of a baby. Infantile cries began to sound all around us, echoing and mixing in a cacophony of high-pitched shrieking and wailing. I tried to block it out, pulling out my poison nozzle to start spraying. I took a headlamp George had given me out of my belt and flicked off the flashlight.
I looked for the best place to start. A layer of dead spiders littered the floors, their curled-up doll legs facing upwards with tiny fingers clenched in death. The white skin of the miniature human appendages peeled off in dry, papery layers.
But I didn’t look at the hundreds of spider corpses for too long, because at that moment, something heavy landed on my shoulder. I screamed through my gas mask. The sound came out muffled and choked. Spinning around crazily, I tried to get the spider off my protective suit. I craned my head and saw a massive brown recluse only inches away from my face. I gasped as I looked at this mutated abomination.
It had six black, soulless eyes. The pincers clicked open and closed, dripping clear fluid. The venomous spider’s long back had a marking like a dark brown violin. As its pincers flew wide open, it opened its mouth wide, and I saw teeth inside no spider should possess. Tiny, fanged teeth, like the canines of a human. It had an entire set of these sharp, vampiric fangs. Then, in a blur, it lunged for my face. I felt it smash into the side of the gas mask, and then, emanating cries like a hungry baby, it tried to bite through it.
I dropped the large poison canister I carried and ran shrieking towards the door, more spiders falling down all around me as I went. Some jumped from the ceiling. Others skittered over the bodies of their comrades, bodies that covered the floor like a rug from some nightmarish acid trip.
Xavier hadn’t fared much better. I heard him close behind me, his steel-toe boots smashing the mutated corpses with muted thuds. I felt like I couldn’t breathe in the confining gas mask. I had a sudden insane urge to rip it off. But I felt more spiders skittering across my shoulders and back now, and I knew that both of us were likely covered. A large part of me wanted to run screaming from that house, clean the century-old wood with the pungent, refreshing smell of gasoline and watch those abominations burn.
We sprinted out the door out into the summer light streaming down from a clear blue sky, covered in dozens of the freakish spiders. One of them skittered up my chest and covered my face. I couldn’t see anything, but I still had the poison canister attached to my back. I brought it up and began spraying it at the abomination. It gave a very human whimper as its doll legs began to kick and seize, its surreal mouth opening into a O of surprise. It gave a cry like a starving infant and fell to the black earth in front of me, its miniature demonic face finally relaxing as the mouth went slack and its six eyes glazed over.
Over the next few minutes, Xavier and I killed all the spiders that still attached themselves to our thick rubber suits. To my horror, a few dozen of them streamed out the open door and into the surrounding dead trees. I ran over as soon as I saw them escaping. I wondered if they would begin a new population of mutated, freakish spiders in the environment.
Shaking and traumatized, we went back to the van. Xavier said George had supplies for just such an occasion.
“Do you know what Zyklon B is?” he asked me, lighting a cigarette and checking his phone. I shrugged.
“Not really,” I admitted.
“It’s basically just pellets of stabilizer mixed with hydrogen cyanide,” he said. “The entire can is kept under high pressure, so once we open it, cyanide gas is released and begins spreading throughout the entire area. However, you can speed up the reaction by pouring the pellets into a metal bucket of sulfuric acid.” He pulled out a heavy barrel with danger logos prominently emblazoned in bright red all around its perimeter, then told me to grab a small metal container with the letters “H2SO4” and “Warning: Do Not Inhale. Do Not Allow to Come in Contact with Skin” written prominently on the side.
“We’re going to have to gas those fuckers,” Xavier admitted, grinning.
***
Needless to say, the fumigation worked. We started at the front door, running in and slamming it behind us. With tightly-secured gas masks and full body coverings, I put the small metal bucket of sulfuric acid down in the middle of the writhing mass of spiders and Xavier poured the pellets in. We quickly ran out of the house, but as we left, I saw great, billowing clouds of white chemical smoke exploring the hallways and corridors with opaque, reaching fingers.
By the end of the day, after airing out the house, we only had the problem of having to dispose of tens of thousands of freakish spider-doll corpses. A few of them still clung to life as we swept the bodies up into barrels and trash bags, trying to use their eerily human teeth to inject us with the brown recluse’s agonizing hemotoxic poison. However, our protective suits did their jobs well enough, and no one died- at least not on my first day.
As we did a final sweep through the house, I went into the basement and found a trapdoor. It had a rusted black metal handle that stuck up a fraction an inch from the surrounding beams. I nearly tripped over it, otherwise I would never have seen it through the dirt and grime covering everything down there. The worn boards looked fused to the aging floor, so much so that I couldn’t even see the trapdoor’s seam. Curious, I called up to Xavier.
“Hey, buddy, there’s a trapdoor down here. Should we open it, you think?” I said. “It could be filled with more spiders. Imagine if some Karen and her shitty husband and bratty kids moved in here and found half-human spiders pouring out of some hidden compartment in the basement.” Xavier came down the stairs, smoking a cigarette, having taken his gas mask off once the last of the cyanide gas had dissipated out all the open windows and doors. We both still wore thick rubber suits.
Xavier had just finished pouring the soiled sulfuric acid off the porch into the weed-strewn dirt in front of the house, laughing and grinning, turning his head up to the sky and screaming cheerfully, “Those fuckers won’t be able to grow a lawn here for a dozen years!” I had laughed at the pure enjoyment and lunacy in his face. I could tell this was a person who never held back anything.
“Ah, shit,” he said, frowning as he climbed down the basement stairs. He took a deep drag on his cigarette, looking at the trapdoor with one eye squinted, as if it were a particularly pernicious cockroach he wanted to crush. He sighed, letting out a long, unhappy breath. “Well, I guess we might as well check it out. Put your gas mask back on and grab the poison sprayer, just in case. It’s a small space, so we could probably just spray it.” We suited up. I walked over and flung open the trapdoor, but there wasn’t a single spider down there. The dirt floor of the small hidden room was swept clean in eerie spiral patterns, reminding me of pictures of crop circles.
Instead of spiders, we found what looked like a site for ritual sacrifices. On an ancient table ten feet below us, human arm and leg bones formed an inverted pentagram around a grinning skull. A gleaming black dagger with an obsidian handle pierced the skull through its topmost point, the spot where Hindus say the crown chakra is located. A circle had been drawn around the ritual site with salt. Various ancient-looking leather-bound books lay on the long, mahogany table, written in an alphabet I had never seen before.
“This is freaking weird,” I said, frowning. Xavier quickly pulled me out and we slammed the trapdoor shut, giving each other wary looks. Something didn’t feel right about this. I felt a sense of energy rising from the secret chamber, a smell like ozone and a sizzling in the air that made the hairs on my body stand straight up.
Far worse than the feeling, however, was what I thought I saw. I kept seeing something pale and bloodless and tall peeking around corners, its face twisted in an unnatural grin. But when I turned to look, whatever it was had gone. I hoped that this was only my imagination. I didn’t tell Xavier about it.
“I think we need to call a professional this week,” he said. “Whoever set this shit up is probably the cause of the freakish spiders. We might have a witch on our hands.”
***
Now that I had an idea of what was expected of me at the job, I really didn’t know how thrilled I felt about it. But George was paying extremely well, over $30 an hour after hazard pay bonuses, and there was simply no way I could make that kind of money anywhere else without a degree or professional skill, except maybe by selling drugs.
So I went back to work the next day. I don’t know if the stars frowned upon me that week or if I was just naturally cursed, but things didn’t improve at all.
In fact, the second crime scene we cleaned was worse by far.
***
There was a psychopath in the area called Dr. Satan, though I don’t know if he legitimately had his PhD or any family relation to the fallen archangel. Dr. Satan inspired the kind of fear in our area of the country that one rarely sees, even with serial killers. And the ironic part was, Dr. Satan never killed anyone, despite having dozens of victims. Not a single person died at his hands.
Now, his victims probably wished they had died, because the torture he inflicted upon them was some of the worst agony imaginable. Dr. Satan had turned them into mockeries of human beings. He had cut off their legs and arms in pieces, using a surgical saw and no anesthetic or painkillers. He cauterized the wounds as he went before stitching them up. He kept them alive and healthy with antibiotics and intravenous fluids, hence the bestowed media moniker of “Doctor”.
With only a torso and a screaming head remaining, the person basically became a shrieking pillow with hair. But Dr. Satan wasn’t done with them yet. He wanted the complete destruction of their sanity, the worst kind of torture and punishment for his victims. He would use a scalpel and cut out their eyes and peel off the eyelids, then start on their ears. He would puncture the eardrums so they couldn’t hear anymore. Then he’d cut out the tongue and start on the nose.
By the time he finished, they had barely any senses left and almost certainly no sanity. They couldn’t walk or grab anything or move their bodies in any way, except perhaps lifting their heads. They would be in a pain so severe that perhaps only burn victims could understand, but this went on much longer than burning alive.
Dr. Satan would trap them in the blackness of their mind for the rest of their lives. They could scream all they wanted in their own heads, but without tongues, the screams would simply die and fester inside them. And the worst part was, he did this in stages over a period of months.
The victims would know there was always more slicing, more torture in the future, but not exactly when. None of the victims of Dr. Satan were able to communicate with anyone in any way. In a few cases, the family members had given the suffering, insane individuals a lethal overdose of barbiturates or opiates as a form of mercy.
I had talked to the police and first responders who found the victims of Dr. Satan. Some of the shrieking human torsos were found in isolated cabins deep in the woods, often foreclosed buildings owned by major banks. Other victims were abandoned in front of churches or in empty parking lots, a nightmarish surprise for anyone who came upon this supreme desecration of the human form. As far as I know, a lot of the first responders who found these horrid scenes are still in therapy, and will likely carry mental scars from what they saw for the rest of their lives.
After a long police investigation, they found an abandoned house Dr. Satan had used for his bizarre surgical practices. It was a cabin on the edge of a stagnant lake, a stinking, fetid hole of a pond that shone a shade of cancerous green. From what Xavier told me on the ride over, the cops had taken three mutilated, totally insane wrecks of human beings from cold steel tables in the cracked basement of the old cabin. The bank who owned the property eventually called our company to try to clean up the immense amounts of blood left staining the entire basement. But there were apparently other remnants from Dr. Satan’s experiments left in that house.
Our secretary, Caroline, had answered the phone to hear someone screaming on the other end of the line.
“Hello?” she said. “You’ve reached Big George’s Cleaners. I’m sorry, but I can’t hear you with all that shrieking in the background.”
“There’s eyes in the walls!” someone cried in a voice choked with terror. “The blood has faces peering out of it! God, please send someone!”
“Who is this?” Caroline asked in a calm, nonchalant tone, having dealt with this kind of situation many times before. It was, after all, a dangerous job.
“I’m with Federal United Bank. Oh God, I…” She heard a door slamming, she said, then a car engine revving. An inhuman wail like a banshee growled over the line, reverberating for a full minute without creature needing to inhale. She heard the man cursing and hyperventilating. It sounded like the man was accelerating at maximum speed, but the demonic wailing drew closer and closer. Finally, the agent came back on the line.
“I just left that cursed cabin. I barely escaped with my life. We need someone to come to Turtleback Road. You’ll see it. It’s marked with police tape. Please come as soon as… Oh, no! God, it’s following me!” She heard glass shattering and the shrieking of tearing metal, then the line went dead.
“Ah, shit,” she muttered, writing down the information. She had a feeling that the agent would not be calling her back.
***
We pulled up to the cabin early in the morning, not knowing what exactly to expect. We heard a recording of the call to our office. George called the bank and confirmed the existence of the contract to clean the place, even though the man who had originally signed off on it hadn’t returned to the office or been heard from by anyone. Where his car had gone, I had no idea, and really didn’t care. I didn’t get paid to worry about details like that.
We saw the filthy pond from a distance as the black van rumbled along the dirt road, the well-worn engine grumbling like an old man having a nightmare. The log cabin sat on a patch of black earth in the midst of ancient pine trees. From far away, the building looked innocuous, even idyllic- just a humble hunting retreat for a middle-class bachelor, maybe. Little did I know the horrors that place would bring.
The pond only ten feet from the cabin’s right wall frothed and hissed, sounding as if it whispered secrets to me in the bursting bubbles of rancid gas that constantly rose to the surface. Strange, barely-glimpsed creatures flitted through the murky, dark-green waters. Algae blooms covered the water like a leper’s rotting skin. Wide, circular patches of algae were absent in many areas. Through them, I saw slitted eyes and flicking tongues.
In the light of the rising sun, something dark green and slimy slithered out of the farther shore. It turned and looked back at us as we pulled the van to the side of the road. A long, coiled snake with two heads coming off its slick black body regarded us with yellow, slitted eyes. Both heads bobbed and flicked their tongues as they watched us impassively. Then it turned and disappeared into the tall grass and thick evergreens beyond.
“Weird shit,” Xavier grumbled, lighting up a cigarette. He gave the cabin a distrustful look, reminding me of a kicked dog. “I still remember the first time I saw those snakes. I nearly shit myself out of mortal terror.” I stared at him, confused.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“What do you mean?” he answered. “It’s exactly like I said.”
“How did you see the snakes before?” I said. He stared for a few seconds at the pond, his eyes distant and haunted. He turned to look at me from the driver’s seat, reading my face. It looked like he was judging how much he wanted to tell.
“Well, we did some cleaning a couple months ago. My old partner was with me. I don’t know where he is now. One day, he just stopped showing up. And then his family called the office and asked if we had seen him. Caroline told them no, she had no idea where he was.” He heaved a deep breath, looking shaky and pale. The tattoos stood out like open sores on his trembling body.
“Well, the day that he disappeared, we cleaned a house together, maybe ten miles from here. The entire place was filled with mutated snakes. Some of them had multiple heads, others had withered, white limbs sticking out of their sides, dancing and weaving listlessly as they slithered. The limbs had no use and many didn’t even face the ground. Some also had compound eyes like an insect, six or eight pairs strewn across their black faces. It looked like they had been through a nuclear war or something, man. Something changed those snakes, just like something changed those spiders. Those things shouldn’t exist, but they do. And you know what I found there?” I shook my head at his story, fascinated.
“I found a skull with a black dagger sticking through its head, just like at the other place. It was part of some weird black magic ritual set up in a hidden room in the attic. And something was following us as we killed the snakes. I couldn’t ever see it directly, but I knew it was following us. I kept seeing a face leering around corners at me, a grinning, bloodless face that nearly scraped the ceiling. While I drove us back to the office, my partner kept screaming that the thing was following him. He saw it hiding behind trees or in the windows of houses. He started to lose his shit, and later that night, he disappeared forever.”
***
We pulled up next to the swampy waters before the front door into the idyllic log cabin. It had a brownstone brick chimney and an open porch. A few rocking chairs lay there, wavering in the slight breeze.
Xavier went first, muttering to himself. When he took a step up on the porch in front of me, his blue button-down shirt rode up on his skinny body. I caught a flash of a concealed pistol tucked tightly into a hidden holster around his waist.
“You have a gun?” I asked. He looked down, cursing.
“Of course I have a gun, cabron,” he said, giving me a quick backwards glance.
“Why?” I felt baffled. What could he possibly shoot during crime scene clean-ups? Not the spiders or two-headed snakes.
“What do you mean, why? Why don’t you have a gun?” he asked. “I can get you one for a few hundred bucks. They’re probably stolen, but…”
“Have you ever had to use it?” I asked. He shook his head.
“Not at work,” he said cryptically. “Not yet.” He opened the front door to the cabin, peering inside nervously. He looked left and right, checking the corners, as if he were a SWAT officer clearing a crime scene. Then he inhaled sharply and walked inside. I followed close behind.
The cabin looked beautiful on the first floor. Paintings of mountains and nature covered the walls. A comfortable-looking couch stood in front of a TV and liquor cabinet. Bookshelves filled with thousands of books covered the walls.
“This is actually pretty nice,” I said, smiling. I felt a sense of relief wash over me. Xavier had started sweating heavily, his eyes large and searching.
“Let’s do this quick,” he said, heading for the basement. “We need to see what kind of equipment we need to do the job. This is just bloodstains, so…” He flung open the door and began descending. I followed him down into the dark.
The police had apparently taken all the dismembered body parts out, but the place still looked horrifying. Three steel, blood-stained tables were fused to the concrete floor. Cracks ran along the concrete and cockroaches and spiders skittered up through them. Blood covered nearly everything, including the walls and the floor. It had dried into a sticky dark paste. With every step, our shoes made a tacky sucking noise.
“This isn’t so bad,” I said. “I mean, it’s definitely horrifying, but at least there’s no two-headed snakes or anything, right?” Xavier didn’t respond. A sense of energy seemed to sizzle in the air. I felt a change in pressure as if a snowstorm were sweeping in. The smell of ozone mixed with the stink of old, rotting blood.
“I have a bad feeling about this place…” Xavier said when all hell started breaking loose. The basement began to shimmer. A mist as dark as a starless sky billowed around the walls and ceiling in great, swirling currents. And then the walls started to change, the blood on the surfaces rejuvenating, dripping again, brightening into the red of a freshly-slashed throat.
Pale, bloodless hands came out of the walls, stretching and lengthening as if they had minds of their own. The emaciated arms cracked and shivered with pleasure and anticipation. Random splotches of dark blood and flecks of gore stained their skin. Dozens of them reached towards us, constantly extending and thinning their freakish limbs. Bones snapped and popped like firecrackers going off.
I heard a shrill, faraway shrieking. Everything moved slowly, as if seen through water. Waves of adrenaline coursed through my body.
I looked up and saw a shimmering ripple pass through the bare wooden boards of the basement ceiling. A cloying mist the color of blackened, frostbit tissue began to spread from the misty void that seemed to eat the ceiling like some potent acid.
And then the mist began to clear. Hundreds of eyes stared down from the ceiling as the starving, inhuman arms lengthened and reached towards us. I could see a morphing sheet of them above me, human eyes and insect eyes and snake eyes and countless other ones I didn’t recognize.
They all stared down at us with malice and hatred, a fire burning deep in those alien orbs. I began to pray, knowing I would soon die in this cursed place.
Part 2
https://www.reddit.com/nosleep/comments/190gvoo/im_a_cleaner_for_haunted_houses_skulls_pierced/

I remember my very first day of work nearly six months ago with horrifying clarity, the memories still shining like keloid scars across my mind. My new partner and I got sent to a Victorian house in the middle of a forest of dead, twisted trees. Our boss, an old Greek man with balding hair who chain-smoked Marlboros constantly, had warned us that the scene would be a fiasco. An entire family of six had suffocated from a freak carbon monoxide leak. Soon after that, the bizarre occurrences began.
“They sent a repairman out there for something or another,” George explained through a cloud of thick, gray smoke, smashing out a half-smoked cigarette and lighting up another one without pausing. We sat in the office across the desk from him, wearing our dark blue uniforms with the logo of “Big George’s Cleaners” emblazoned across the chest. I had laughed when I first saw the name of the cleaning business. Big George sounded like the name of a seven-foot-tall pimp to me, not this small, bent man with a thick Greek accent and white fluffs of hair forming a wispy horseshoe around his head.
“So what happened?” I asked. George inhaled deeply, meeting my gaze.
“Well, I don’t know exactly what he saw, but he was screaming about baby’s arms and spiders.” I groaned.
“Dead spiders?” my partner, Xavier, asked hopefully. George shook his head ruefully.
“Don’t know, son. I figure you’ll find out when you get there, eh?” George got up and slapped me on the back in a fatherly way. “Don’t worry. You’re in good hands with Xavier. He’s worked here for over three months. One of our longest-lasting employees!”
I looked over at my new partner doubtfully. Gang tattoos ran up the lengths of his arms, and he had a teardrop tattoo below his left eye. He looked like the type of person who only got a job to keep his parole officer happy.
We walked out into the clean summer air, the small town around us bustling with midday traffic. Xavier pointed to the panel van parked behind the building, an ancient, black rusted heap of a van with the company’s logo peeling off the side.
“That’s our ride. She’s a beauty, huh?” Xavier said. I smiled politely. “What’s your name again?”
“Brian,” I said curtly. “Brian Felman. So this company has a high turnover rate, huh?”
“High turnover rate, high disappearance rate.” He shrugged apathetically. “None of my business. That’s why we get hazard pay, right?” He laughed- a shrill, dry sound that sounded much higher than his normal voice.
We got in, and Xavier put on some blaring rap song that I tried to block out. We drove for what felt like hours, going deeper and deeper into the middle of nowhere. The GPS started taking us down pothole-strewn dirt trails before finally failing completely five miles from the place. We drove up and down the road until, after thirty minutes of searching, we found the only house in the area. The thin, looming turrets loomed overhead, like sharp spikes set up to impale the sky. The exterior of the building appeared dull and filthy, the white paint yellowed with age. Cracked windows covered in dust and grime leered at us from the top floors.
“Well, that’s gotta be it,” I said, glancing down at the paperwork George had given us. It just said “1 Ghoulish Road, Barton.” I looked up at the house, but it had no number on it. The road hadn’t even had a street sign. From what I saw, Barton probably didn’t have more than a hundred people living in it. Perhaps they didn’t use street signs in such an abandoned area.
Then I saw the police crime scene tape rolled out in an X across the door, and I knew we had arrived at the right house.
“I hate spiders,” Xavier offered like a piece of sage advice, sighing. He lit a cigarette in the van, which technically wasn’t allowed but, after all, no one was here to complain. He handed the pack to me and I took one. I looked over at him.
“Well, as long as they’re dead, who cares?” I said. He got out and started putting on protective gear, tucking his pants into his socks while he fished out two pairs of thick rubber suits. “They are dead, right?” He gave me a grim smile.
I sighed as I looked down at the suit. It looked like something an Axis frogman might have worn during World War 2. I wondered where George got half this stuff.
After we both put on the hot and stuffy rubber suits, Xavier reached into the back doors of the van and pulled out two gas masks. I stuffed one on my head and began adjusting the straps, making sure it was airtight. It felt somewhat suffocating and also obscured my peripheral vision. Two small circular holes of ballistic glass were the only opening for sight.
I glanced over at Xavier. He looked like a cross between a SWAT officer and a scuba diver figurine from a fish tank. I figured I looked exactly the same. We took the canisters of poison with a sprayer nozzle out of the van. I strapped the heavy metal cylinder to my back.
“Just in case,” Xavier said with fake nonchalance as he put on his own sprayer. “Spiders have a tendency to be hardy little bastards. Supposedly, the exterminators already came and sprayed the house once, according to George, but…” He trailed off, his voice quivering with fear at the end. I could see his eyes rolling and wild behind the mask. Yet he still walked towards the door, ripped away the police tape and walked right inside. I followed close behind him.
The front hallway looked totally dark. I tried flicking a light next to the door, but I got absolutely no response. I didn’t know if the electricity was cut or if the light bulbs had all gotten smashed by vandals. I took out a small LED flashlight from the random items looped into my work belt, clicking it on and shining the bright white beam around. An instinctual, primordial horror came over me as I saw what scurried all around us.
It looked like brown recluse spiders, some of them nearly a foot long, and they most certainly were not dead. There were thousands of them, but that wasn’t even the worst part.
They all had strange, small, white baby legs and arms, slightly longer and more emaciated-looking than something taken from a Barbie doll. Each had four grasping arms in the front and four bent legs in the back. Except these didn’t look plastic. All the miniaturized limbs looked real, with tiny dimples in the elbows and smooth rolls of fat like an infant’s.
The spiders made sounds that sounded almost human. They opened their fanged mouths and cried out with the cooing or shrieking of a baby. Infantile cries began to sound all around us, echoing and mixing in a cacophony of high-pitched shrieking and wailing. I tried to block it out, pulling out my poison nozzle to start spraying. I took a headlamp George had given me out of my belt and flicked off the flashlight.
I looked for the best place to start. A layer of dead spiders littered the floors, their curled-up doll legs facing upwards with tiny fingers clenched in death. The white skin of the miniature human appendages peeled off in dry, papery layers.
But I didn’t look at the hundreds of spider corpses for too long, because at that moment, something heavy landed on my shoulder. I screamed through my gas mask. The sound came out muffled and choked. Spinning around crazily, I tried to get the spider off my protective suit. I craned my head and saw a massive brown recluse only inches away from my face. I gasped as I looked at this mutated abomination.
It had six black, soulless eyes. The pincers clicked open and closed, dripping clear fluid. The venomous spider’s long back had a marking like a dark brown violin. As its pincers flew wide open, it opened its mouth wide, and I saw teeth inside no spider should possess. Tiny, fanged teeth, like the canines of a human. It had an entire set of these sharp, vampiric fangs. Then, in a blur, it lunged for my face. I felt it smash into the side of the gas mask, and then, emanating cries like a hungry baby, it tried to bite through it.
I dropped the large poison canister I carried and ran shrieking towards the door, more spiders falling down all around me as I went. Some jumped from the ceiling. Others skittered over the bodies of their comrades, bodies that covered the floor like a rug from some nightmarish acid trip.
Xavier hadn’t fared much better. I heard him close behind me, his steel-toe boots smashing the mutated corpses with muted thuds. I felt like I couldn’t breathe in the confining gas mask. I had a sudden insane urge to rip it off. But I felt more spiders skittering across my shoulders and back now, and I knew that both of us were likely covered. A large part of me wanted to run screaming from that house, clean the century-old wood with the pungent, refreshing smell of gasoline and watch those abominations burn.
We sprinted out the door out into the summer light streaming down from a clear blue sky, covered in dozens of the freakish spiders. One of them skittered up my chest and covered my face. I couldn’t see anything, but I still had the poison canister attached to my back. I brought it up and began spraying it at the abomination. It gave a very human whimper as its doll legs began to kick and seize, its surreal mouth opening into a O of surprise. It gave a cry like a starving infant and fell to the black earth in front of me, its miniature demonic face finally relaxing as the mouth went slack and its six eyes glazed over.
Over the next few minutes, Xavier and I killed all the spiders that still attached themselves to our thick rubber suits. To my horror, a few dozen of them streamed out the open door and into the surrounding dead trees. I ran over as soon as I saw them escaping. I wondered if they would begin a new population of mutated, freakish spiders in the environment.
Shaking and traumatized, we went back to the van. Xavier said George had supplies for just such an occasion.
“Do you know what Zyklon B is?” he asked me, lighting a cigarette and checking his phone. I shrugged.
“Not really,” I admitted.
“It’s basically just pellets of stabilizer mixed with hydrogen cyanide,” he said. “The entire can is kept under high pressure, so once we open it, cyanide gas is released and begins spreading throughout the entire area. However, you can speed up the reaction by pouring the pellets into a metal bucket of sulfuric acid.” He pulled out a heavy barrel with danger logos prominently emblazoned in bright red all around its perimeter, then told me to grab a small metal container with the letters “H2SO4” and “Warning: Do Not Inhale. Do Not Allow to Come in Contact with Skin” written prominently on the side.
“We’re going to have to gas those fuckers,” Xavier admitted, grinning.
***
Needless to say, the fumigation worked. We started at the front door, running in and slamming it behind us. With tightly-secured gas masks and full body coverings, I put the small metal bucket of sulfuric acid down in the middle of the writhing mass of spiders and Xavier poured the pellets in. We quickly ran out of the house, but as we left, I saw great, billowing clouds of white chemical smoke exploring the hallways and corridors with opaque, reaching fingers.
By the end of the day, after airing out the house, we only had the problem of having to dispose of tens of thousands of freakish spider-doll corpses. A few of them still clung to life as we swept the bodies up into barrels and trash bags, trying to use their eerily human teeth to inject us with the brown recluse’s agonizing hemotoxic poison. However, our protective suits did their jobs well enough, and no one died- at least not on my first day.
As we did a final sweep through the house, I went into the basement and found a trapdoor. It had a rusted black metal handle that stuck up a fraction an inch from the surrounding beams. I nearly tripped over it, otherwise I would never have seen it through the dirt and grime covering everything down there. The worn boards looked fused to the aging floor, so much so that I couldn’t even see the trapdoor’s seam. Curious, I called up to Xavier.
“Hey, buddy, there’s a trapdoor down here. Should we open it, you think?” I said. “It could be filled with more spiders. Imagine if some Karen and her shitty husband and bratty kids moved in here and found half-human spiders pouring out of some hidden compartment in the basement.” Xavier came down the stairs, smoking a cigarette, having taken his gas mask off once the last of the cyanide gas had dissipated out all the open windows and doors. We both still wore thick rubber suits.
Xavier had just finished pouring the soiled sulfuric acid off the porch into the weed-strewn dirt in front of the house, laughing and grinning, turning his head up to the sky and screaming cheerfully, “Those fuckers won’t be able to grow a lawn here for a dozen years!” I had laughed at the pure enjoyment and lunacy in his face. I could tell this was a person who never held back anything.
“Ah, shit,” he said, frowning as he climbed down the basement stairs. He took a deep drag on his cigarette, looking at the trapdoor with one eye squinted, as if it were a particularly pernicious cockroach he wanted to crush. He sighed, letting out a long, unhappy breath. “Well, I guess we might as well check it out. Put your gas mask back on and grab the poison sprayer, just in case. It’s a small space, so we could probably just spray it.” We suited up. I walked over and flung open the trapdoor, but there wasn’t a single spider down there. The dirt floor of the small hidden room was swept clean in eerie spiral patterns, reminding me of pictures of crop circles.
Instead of spiders, we found what looked like a site for ritual sacrifices. On an ancient table ten feet below us, human arm and leg bones formed an inverted pentagram around a grinning skull. A gleaming black dagger with an obsidian handle pierced the skull through its topmost point, the spot where Hindus say the crown chakra is located. A circle had been drawn around the ritual site with salt. Various ancient-looking leather-bound books lay on the long, mahogany table, written in an alphabet I had never seen before.
“This is freaking weird,” I said, frowning. Xavier quickly pulled me out and we slammed the trapdoor shut, giving each other wary looks. Something didn’t feel right about this. I felt a sense of energy rising from the secret chamber, a smell like ozone and a sizzling in the air that made the hairs on my body stand straight up.
Far worse than the feeling, however, was what I thought I saw. I kept seeing something pale and bloodless and tall peeking around corners, its face twisted in an unnatural grin. But when I turned to look, whatever it was had gone. I hoped that this was only my imagination. I didn’t tell Xavier about it.
“I think we need to call a professional this week,” he said. “Whoever set this shit up is probably the cause of the freakish spiders. We might have a witch on our hands.”
***
Now that I had an idea of what was expected of me at the job, I really didn’t know how thrilled I felt about it. But George was paying extremely well, over $30 an hour after hazard pay bonuses, and there was simply no way I could make that kind of money anywhere else without a degree or professional skill, except maybe by selling drugs.
So I went back to work the next day. I don’t know if the stars frowned upon me that week or if I was just naturally cursed, but things didn’t improve at all.
In fact, the second crime scene we cleaned was worse by far.
***
There was a psychopath in the area called Dr. Satan, though I don’t know if he legitimately had his PhD or any family relation to the fallen archangel. Dr. Satan inspired the kind of fear in our area of the country that one rarely sees, even with serial killers. And the ironic part was, Dr. Satan never killed anyone, despite having dozens of victims. Not a single person died at his hands.
Now, his victims probably wished they had died, because the torture he inflicted upon them was some of the worst agony imaginable. Dr. Satan had turned them into mockeries of human beings. He had cut off their legs and arms in pieces, using a surgical saw and no anesthetic or painkillers. He cauterized the wounds as he went before stitching them up. He kept them alive and healthy with antibiotics and intravenous fluids, hence the bestowed media moniker of “Doctor”.
With only a torso and a screaming head remaining, the person basically became a shrieking pillow with hair. But Dr. Satan wasn’t done with them yet. He wanted the complete destruction of their sanity, the worst kind of torture and punishment for his victims. He would use a scalpel and cut out their eyes and peel off the eyelids, then start on their ears. He would puncture the eardrums so they couldn’t hear anymore. Then he’d cut out the tongue and start on the nose.
By the time he finished, they had barely any senses left and almost certainly no sanity. They couldn’t walk or grab anything or move their bodies in any way, except perhaps lifting their heads. They would be in a pain so severe that perhaps only burn victims could understand, but this went on much longer than burning alive.
Dr. Satan would trap them in the blackness of their mind for the rest of their lives. They could scream all they wanted in their own heads, but without tongues, the screams would simply die and fester inside them. And the worst part was, he did this in stages over a period of months.
The victims would know there was always more slicing, more torture in the future, but not exactly when. None of the victims of Dr. Satan were able to communicate with anyone in any way. In a few cases, the family members had given the suffering, insane individuals a lethal overdose of barbiturates or opiates as a form of mercy.
I had talked to the police and first responders who found the victims of Dr. Satan. Some of the shrieking human torsos were found in isolated cabins deep in the woods, often foreclosed buildings owned by major banks. Other victims were abandoned in front of churches or in empty parking lots, a nightmarish surprise for anyone who came upon this supreme desecration of the human form. As far as I know, a lot of the first responders who found these horrid scenes are still in therapy, and will likely carry mental scars from what they saw for the rest of their lives.
After a long police investigation, they found an abandoned house Dr. Satan had used for his bizarre surgical practices. It was a cabin on the edge of a stagnant lake, a stinking, fetid hole of a pond that shone a shade of cancerous green. From what Xavier told me on the ride over, the cops had taken three mutilated, totally insane wrecks of human beings from cold steel tables in the cracked basement of the old cabin. The bank who owned the property eventually called our company to try to clean up the immense amounts of blood left staining the entire basement. But there were apparently other remnants from Dr. Satan’s experiments left in that house.
Our secretary, Caroline, had answered the phone to hear someone screaming on the other end of the line.
“Hello?” she said. “You’ve reached Big George’s Cleaners. I’m sorry, but I can’t hear you with all that shrieking in the background.”
“There’s eyes in the walls!” someone cried in a voice choked with terror. “The blood has faces peering out of it! God, please send someone!”
“Who is this?” Caroline asked in a calm, nonchalant tone, having dealt with this kind of situation many times before. It was, after all, a dangerous job.
“I’m with Federal United Bank. Oh God, I…” She heard a door slamming, she said, then a car engine revving. An inhuman wail like a banshee growled over the line, reverberating for a full minute without creature needing to inhale. She heard the man cursing and hyperventilating. It sounded like the man was accelerating at maximum speed, but the demonic wailing drew closer and closer. Finally, the agent came back on the line.
“I just left that cursed cabin. I barely escaped with my life. We need someone to come to Turtleback Road. You’ll see it. It’s marked with police tape. Please come as soon as… Oh, no! God, it’s following me!” She heard glass shattering and the shrieking of tearing metal, then the line went dead.
“Ah, shit,” she muttered, writing down the information. She had a feeling that the agent would not be calling her back.
***
We pulled up to the cabin early in the morning, not knowing what exactly to expect. We heard a recording of the call to our office. George called the bank and confirmed the existence of the contract to clean the place, even though the man who had originally signed off on it hadn’t returned to the office or been heard from by anyone. Where his car had gone, I had no idea, and really didn’t care. I didn’t get paid to worry about details like that.
We saw the filthy pond from a distance as the black van rumbled along the dirt road, the well-worn engine grumbling like an old man having a nightmare. The log cabin sat on a patch of black earth in the midst of ancient pine trees. From far away, the building looked innocuous, even idyllic- just a humble hunting retreat for a middle-class bachelor, maybe. Little did I know the horrors that place would bring.
The pond only ten feet from the cabin’s right wall frothed and hissed, sounding as if it whispered secrets to me in the bursting bubbles of rancid gas that constantly rose to the surface. Strange, barely-glimpsed creatures flitted through the murky, dark-green waters. Algae blooms covered the water like a leper’s rotting skin. Wide, circular patches of algae were absent in many areas. Through them, I saw slitted eyes and flicking tongues.
In the light of the rising sun, something dark green and slimy slithered out of the farther shore. It turned and looked back at us as we pulled the van to the side of the road. A long, coiled snake with two heads coming off its slick black body regarded us with yellow, slitted eyes. Both heads bobbed and flicked their tongues as they watched us impassively. Then it turned and disappeared into the tall grass and thick evergreens beyond.
“Weird shit,” Xavier grumbled, lighting up a cigarette. He gave the cabin a distrustful look, reminding me of a kicked dog. “I still remember the first time I saw those snakes. I nearly shit myself out of mortal terror.” I stared at him, confused.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“What do you mean?” he answered. “It’s exactly like I said.”
“How did you see the snakes before?” I said. He stared for a few seconds at the pond, his eyes distant and haunted. He turned to look at me from the driver’s seat, reading my face. It looked like he was judging how much he wanted to tell.
“Well, we did some cleaning a couple months ago. My old partner was with me. I don’t know where he is now. One day, he just stopped showing up. And then his family called the office and asked if we had seen him. Caroline told them no, she had no idea where he was.” He heaved a deep breath, looking shaky and pale. The tattoos stood out like open sores on his trembling body.
“Well, the day that he disappeared, we cleaned a house together, maybe ten miles from here. The entire place was filled with mutated snakes. Some of them had multiple heads, others had withered, white limbs sticking out of their sides, dancing and weaving listlessly as they slithered. The limbs had no use and many didn’t even face the ground. Some also had compound eyes like an insect, six or eight pairs strewn across their black faces. It looked like they had been through a nuclear war or something, man. Something changed those snakes, just like something changed those spiders. Those things shouldn’t exist, but they do. And you know what I found there?” I shook my head at his story, fascinated.
“I found a skull with a black dagger sticking through its head, just like at the other place. It was part of some weird black magic ritual set up in a hidden room in the attic. And something was following us as we killed the snakes. I couldn’t ever see it directly, but I knew it was following us. I kept seeing a face leering around corners at me, a grinning, bloodless face that nearly scraped the ceiling. While I drove us back to the office, my partner kept screaming that the thing was following him. He saw it hiding behind trees or in the windows of houses. He started to lose his shit, and later that night, he disappeared forever.”
***
We pulled up next to the swampy waters before the front door into the idyllic log cabin. It had a brownstone brick chimney and an open porch. A few rocking chairs lay there, wavering in the slight breeze.
Xavier went first, muttering to himself. When he took a step up on the porch in front of me, his blue button-down shirt rode up on his skinny body. I caught a flash of a concealed pistol tucked tightly into a hidden holster around his waist.
“You have a gun?” I asked. He looked down, cursing.
“Of course I have a gun, cabron,” he said, giving me a quick backwards glance.
“Why?” I felt baffled. What could he possibly shoot during crime scene clean-ups? Not the spiders or two-headed snakes.
“What do you mean, why? Why don’t you have a gun?” he asked. “I can get you one for a few hundred bucks. They’re probably stolen, but…”
“Have you ever had to use it?” I asked. He shook his head.
“Not at work,” he said cryptically. “Not yet.” He opened the front door to the cabin, peering inside nervously. He looked left and right, checking the corners, as if he were a SWAT officer clearing a crime scene. Then he inhaled sharply and walked inside. I followed close behind.
The cabin looked beautiful on the first floor. Paintings of mountains and nature covered the walls. A comfortable-looking couch stood in front of a TV and liquor cabinet. Bookshelves filled with thousands of books covered the walls.
“This is actually pretty nice,” I said, smiling. I felt a sense of relief wash over me. Xavier had started sweating heavily, his eyes large and searching.
“Let’s do this quick,” he said, heading for the basement. “We need to see what kind of equipment we need to do the job. This is just bloodstains, so…” He flung open the door and began descending. I followed him down into the dark.
The police had apparently taken all the dismembered body parts out, but the place still looked horrifying. Three steel, blood-stained tables were fused to the concrete floor. Cracks ran along the concrete and cockroaches and spiders skittered up through them. Blood covered nearly everything, including the walls and the floor. It had dried into a sticky dark paste. With every step, our shoes made a tacky sucking noise.
“This isn’t so bad,” I said. “I mean, it’s definitely horrifying, but at least there’s no two-headed snakes or anything, right?” Xavier didn’t respond. A sense of energy seemed to sizzle in the air. I felt a change in pressure as if a snowstorm were sweeping in. The smell of ozone mixed with the stink of old, rotting blood.
“I have a bad feeling about this place…” Xavier said when all hell started breaking loose. The basement began to shimmer. A mist as dark as a starless sky billowed around the walls and ceiling in great, swirling currents. And then the walls started to change, the blood on the surfaces rejuvenating, dripping again, brightening into the red of a freshly-slashed throat.
Pale, bloodless hands came out of the walls, stretching and lengthening as if they had minds of their own. The emaciated arms cracked and shivered with pleasure and anticipation. Random splotches of dark blood and flecks of gore stained their skin. Dozens of them reached towards us, constantly extending and thinning their freakish limbs. Bones snapped and popped like firecrackers going off.
I heard a shrill, faraway shrieking. Everything moved slowly, as if seen through water. Waves of adrenaline coursed through my body.
I looked up and saw a shimmering ripple pass through the bare wooden boards of the basement ceiling. A cloying mist the color of blackened, frostbit tissue began to spread from the misty void that seemed to eat the ceiling like some potent acid.
And then the mist began to clear. Hundreds of eyes stared down from the ceiling as the starving, inhuman arms lengthened and reached towards us. I could see a morphing sheet of them above me, human eyes and insect eyes and snake eyes and countless other ones I didn’t recognize.
They all stared down at us with malice and hatred, a fire burning deep in those alien orbs. I began to pray, knowing I would soon die in this cursed place.

Thank you u/SpacePaladin15 for this universe!
And many thanks to u/TheManwithaNoPlan for being a full co-writer on this project!
[First]-[Prev]-[Next]
Memory Transcription Subject: Sharnet Investigative Journalist. Date [Standardized Human Time] October 31st, 2136
I collapsed back into my seat, panting heavier than I had before. The ship was still cloaked, and the light had been shut off. Now that Vane knew Judge- that Vane was properly scared, we would be able to follow him to his den of serp- to wherever Malcos was hiding. We can follow and see them smited wh-
I shook my head, pulling myself upright in my seat. My tail jittered like it was hooked up to a battery, and my ears flicked randomly as I tried to gain control of my emotions. I needed to Focus. Breathe. Calm. Focus. Breathe. Calm.
Focus.
Breathe.
Calm…
I was still inside Leraninro’s ship as it hovered outside the restaurant, its cloak still active. I pulled Vekna’s holonote off the console and activated the tracking app. The map showed my holonote was already on the move, and given the direction, he wasn’t heading to the hotel. “Vane is heading to the Temple of Solgalick,” I announced. “We can head him off and watch him lead us straight to Malcos.” I sighed with relief and refocused my attention on my companions.
Oh Stars, right.
Both Leraninro and Vekna had their heads pointed directly towards me, their eyes wide as salad bowls. My ears twitched nervously as my right hand clenched on some wool on my thigh. “Uh, yeah,” I coughed awkwardly, “we, uh, we can get going.” The faint hum of the shuttle’s engines filled the cockpit, waiting for anyone to break the silence.
“WHAT THE BRAHK WAS THAT??”
The loud sound of multiple voices hit my ears, all with complete simultaneous shock. It was likely an affect of my mental state, but I swore I heard a third voice speak beside Vekna and Leraninro’s. I flinched at the sounds, startled by the sudden, simultaneous outbursts. “Speh! I know, don’t shout!” I grimaced, “Look, Vane is already driving off! We need to keep track of them!”
Leraninro spluttered, his whole body wiggling. “Vane? Wha-what about you? You just- how did you know those words? I sure didn’t, but I understood them! How did I understand them?? What- I- how???”
How was I supposed to explain that?? I mean, I had a guess sure, but I really didn’t want to consider that as a possibility right now, even if I follow Their companion Stars. Yes, we’re in a holy city right next to the most sacred temple site of the deity, but come on! That kind of thing doesn’t just happen!
…does it?
“We can discuss this later,” I asserted, poking a claw at Vekna’s holonote’s screen. “Regardless, if what…might have just happened did happen, then I doubt we should give up the pursuit now to try and figure it out. That might make things weird yet, if such an outcome is even possible.” I huffed as I let myself settle into the seat, trying not to think too hard about the implications.
“I…you know what? Yeah, let’s just get going,” Leraninro agreed, his seat sliding forward so he could take the controls. As he tapped in directions for the autopilot to navigate to the temple, I noticed Vekna looking at me in my periphery. She looked equal parts concerned, excited, and confused. She tilted her head as she examined me, likely for any residual signs of further divine intervention.
“I’m fine, Vekna,” I said, trying to assuage her concerns. Her ears shot up, as if she hadn’t expected me to comment on her staring, but they quickly fell in turn. Seeing this, I hastened to correct myself. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate your concern, but… I’d really just rather not think about that right now. We’re on the cusp of completing our mission, the last thing we need is to get sidetracked again.”
Vekna opened and closed her mouth repeatedly, as if trying to get the right words out, before finally settling on a course of action. “Alright then. It is kind of exciting, being so close to our goal. What do you think you’ll do once this is done?” As she asked that question, the shuttle lurched forwards towards the main attraction of the district, which was currently blocked by the buildings around us.
“I…don’t know,” I admitted, the question catching me off-guard. So much of my time had been spent thinking about how I would bring the men who caused Tarlim so much pain to justice, but hardly a consideration was given to what I would do once that achievement was satisfied. “Probably return to the VRPBN to receive another assignment, preferably something remote. I’d…also like to spend some more time with Tarlim.” I felt myself lightly bloom thinking about him in full again. “When we left, he promised that he’d work to be worth my affection. I want to make sure he knows he already is, and then some.”
“I see…” Vekna said, flicking her ears in approval, but the motions were noticeably delayed. At that point, I realized that once this assignment was over, Vekna would likely be pulled back into the VRPBN and assigned another story to chase. She’d be alone again, like she had been when we first met. Stars, how was that only about a herd of paws ago??
“What about you?” I asked, “I remember you saying you originally hadn’t thought of this as a way to get a new data pad. But, hee, a lot has happened since then.” I couldn’t help but let out a whistle. “So much that I wouldn’t blame you if you refused to have any job related to journalism ever again.”
“No no, I think I’ll keep working for the VRPBN,” Vekna said, her tail swaying behind her through the gap in her seat’s backrest. “Pays way better than any other job that I’ve had, even if I’m earning every millicredit. It’s just…once this is done, I’ll probably be reassigned to another case. Another partner, or maybe it’ll just be me this time. It’ll be weird, doing this without you. Hopefully I can manage on my own with all that you’ve taught me.” Even though she tried her best to put on a comforting face, I could hear the doubt and sadness in her voice.
I gave my tail a wag. “I am sure it will be great. Just hope it can be something more low profile then this whole case was!” A tired bray exited my mouth. “Stars, wonder how much our faces are plastered on the net by now just from the Sidestar stuff. And now we’re gunning for the head of a massive drug trafficking operation! Just- wow.”
“Hah, yeah…” Vekna affirmed with a short whistle of her own, but she looked more concerned about that fact than anything else. But why… right, her condition. I could understand why she wouldn’t want her face plastered everywhere, and here I was celebrating it. I was about to apologize for doing so, but I was interrupted by a sudden shudder as Leraninro’s ship started to slow down. I glanced out the windshield to see what laid before us, and I was stunned with what I saw. “Wow,” Vekna bluntly exclaimed, and I agreed with her simple response.
I had known the Temple of Solgalick was a grand building, as it was one of the most visited religious sites on the planet, but those words simply didn’t come close to doing justice to the experience of actually being here. Not only for the grandeur of the temple itself, but also for the infrastructure needed to accommodate the visitors traveling to it! There looked to be three separate train stations placed circularly around the temple to accommodate the pilgrims, and fields of both personal and mass transport vehicles sat in expansive parking lots in the areas between them. But those lots and stations were mostly hidden from our view, as the area was almost completely shaded by a forest of solar panels sculpted to look like the inverted trees further into the band. It was an astounding feat of engineering, supplying power for the district while keeping the visitors and pilgrims cool under its canopy.
But there was one spot the solar trees weren’t: the long shadow of the Temple. And that shadow brought my eyes to the building creating it, or rather, buildings. In the center was an enormously tall tower, constructed mostly of ancient stone and mortar and kept stable in the modern day by carefully placed braces. It looked to be at least [200 meters] tall with a base spanning [100 meters], but I didn’t have all the exact measurements in front of me. It tapered up to a smaller, but still sizable, open air room on the top floor, likely where the ancient rituals of those following Solgalick would be held. The fact that a structure of this size could be created with such primitive technology was incredible, saying nothing of how long it’s lasted.
Around the central tower are three triangular pyramids, each created at a slant to face the central tower. They barely even breached [75 meters] if I had to guess, given the immense size of the central tower and how high they came up to it. As we approached, I could start to see people flocking to and fro from the religious compound. Most looked to be Venlil, but as we descended, I saw a small, but surprising, contingent of other species amidst the herd. That did present an entirely new issue, though: How do we take down Malcos without anyone else getting caught in the crossfire?
When we came here, I had a plan in mind. Ensure Malcos was somewhere they couldn’t escape either by tying him up or locking him in, knock out his few guards with a taser and plasma pistol, then contact the High Magister to force a code zero or anything to guarantee officers would come in and actually arrest Malcos. But all the specific details had been dependent on there only being at max 10 other people near Malcos who were working for him, not hundreds of civilians!
“That’s a lot of people,” Leraninro commented as he circled the shuttle around and looked for a, likely secluded, landing site. “Least that means you two could more easily blend into the crowd.”
“It’s also going to be a problem,” Vekna stated as she craned her neck so she could get a good view at the herd below. “If things go the way I think they’re gonna go, civilians shouldn’t be anywhere close. We’ll need a way to get them-” She sounded as if she was going to continue, but something seemed to click in her head. “No, wait, I think I have an idea on how to clear this place out.”
“What is it?” I asked, wondering how she planned to disperse the crowd as Leraninro started taking us down.
“Vane hasn’t arrived yet, and unless that Yotul we saw is the quickest runner on the planet, he’s likely still a way’s out. If what Vane said about radio silence is true, then he’ll have no idea we’re here. And that means we have the element of surprise. If we can get our paws on a few cans of Sun Bliss, we could probably pop them in the crowd and cause a security emergency on the outer layers. It serves double-duty: We get Malcos more or less alone while making sure innocents are out of the line of fire.” She looked at me expectantly. “So, what do you think?”
The entire time I was listening to Vekna, my tail was wagging like mad. As I felt the shuttle rumble as it landed, I flicked my ears earnestly. “We would need to find the Bliss first, but if things go well, your plan should be perfect! Now, all we need to do is blend in with the herd and figure out where the drug stockpiles are. After that, we can finally bring Malcos and his cabal to overdue justice, once and for all!” I slammed a balled paw against my other to accentuate my point, both mine and Vekna’s tails wagging in excited anticipation.
“Sound’s good!” Leraninro piped in as he turned his chair around, having landed the shuttle right outside the premises. “I should probably sit this one out, a big pink worm slithering around with you might draw unwanted attention. Once you're done, I might…end up making an offering, or whatever you do with Solgalick. I don’t want to risk anything.” As soon as he finished saying that, his holonote buzzed. He opened it, and I managed to catch a glimpse of the message. Something about not knowing the half of it?
I wasn’t given a chance to read any further, as he quickly closed the device and bobbed his head again. “Yeah, definitely gonna sit this one out. Need to make sure the cells are still in place after that little stunt, after all!” He then slid out of his chair and made his way to the side of the shuttle. Once there, he pressed his mitted hand against a computer and the door opened to the desert, hot air blasting unwelcomed into the temperature-controlled shuttle. I have a feeling I’ll miss that feature very shortly. “Well, Followers of Solgalick, your herd awaits. Make sure to give Malcos a solid kick in the teeth from ol’ Ler, eh?”
“We most certainly will,” I stated, stepping off the shuttle with confidence in my stride. We had a plan, we had the time, and most importantly, we had all the people we met along the way counting on us to bring Malcos’ reign of terror to a permanent end. As both I and Vekna cleared the ramp, it retracted back into the shuttle, the cloaking system doing its job wonderfully. I looked back at Vekna and she looked at me, our mutual determination evident in the vibes we both exuded.
We have a monster to take down.
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[First]-[Prev]-[Next]

Originally posted on the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction Vol 132, No 3 & 4, March-April 2017.
Retrieved from the Internet Archive
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Continued From Here
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It was like this: Tom, fortunately, had no difficulty acquiring a new battery. Parts were tricky to locate, even on the world market; batteries were not. It was much harder to find an outlet converter. VOOM! came from a time when the country used a different standard from the rest of the world. Once located, battery and convertor arrived within the week.
​
Not only was VOOM! now fully powered and capable of presenting the illusion of motion through Mappo™'s "street-level" projections on the windows, but the "real" electrical engine drove the "real" wheels of the vehicle to a maximum of five kilometers per hour, a fact that infuriated Agnes.
​
"There's a reason things get put into attics!" Agnes had faced down the VOOM! and its metallic-painted grill. "A crazed idiot, who for the moment will remain nameless, might get behind the wheel and start rolling this monstrosity around the floor without regard for the little ones standing by!"
​
If given the chance, Tom might have explained to her that Axel still had no way to control the vehicle. He was not equipped in size or shape to operate the car in the manner intended by its manufacturers. He had to stand on the front seat and lean very far forward, almost as if he were in a full run, just to get his forepaws on the steering wheel. This posture afforded him little in the way of maneuverability for turning.
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The accelerator and brake were, from this vantage point, unattainable.
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Not to mention that he couldn't see over the dashboard.
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Axel was undeterred. He searched for sticks and levers and pulleys. Unfortunately, the sticks were too short or too long, or they slipped from their makeshift moorings; the levers had no way of being secured.
​
That might have been the end of it, until the day before Danner's visit, when Axel noticed Ross heading up to the attic and followed him.
​
Ross was never one to deviate from his activities: attending to the traffic reports; staring out the window; listening to the "music" played by the Five Wise Buddhasaurs; a rare game of Not So Hard with Alphonse. But he rarely went up past the second floor.
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Ross scoured the museum, then the attic space where VOOM! had been discovered. He scrounged around through cartons of what looked like random stuff: things put away in haste to be sorted out later, but never were.
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"Hey, Ross!" Axel could not restrain his curiosity. "Whatcha lookin' for?"
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"Click Thing." He spoke without stopping his search.
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"Click Thing?"
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"Click Thing. Goes 'click.'" He moved on to another carton.
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"That's neat," said Axel.
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"Not neat. Click!" Ross opened a carton that was filled with coffee mugs and quickly closed it back up.
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"What you need it for?"
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"Not for me. For you!" He looked into a shoebox that contained, alas, nothing but shoes, and closed it up again.
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"Me?"
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"Click Thing. You click 'go,' it go. You click 'stop,' it stop. You click 'on,' it on."
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"What's on?"
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"VOOM! on!"
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"VOOM!?"
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"VOOM! Click 'off,' it off."
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"So if we find the Click Thing, I can make VOOM! go?"
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"What I said."
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"Can I help?"
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"Why not?"
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Axel did more than open the next carton; he leapt into it. If the Click Thing could make VOOM! go, it had to be found.
​
He found a waffle maker and a toaster. But no Click Thing. From another carton, Axel pulled out an ear syringe and showed it to Ross.
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"Too big." He batted it from Axel's grip. "Not like that!"
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"What's it look like?"
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"Click Thing small. Square. Like wrecked angle. Little guy. Fit in your paw."
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Axel dug into another carton. And another. And one more. From each, he pulled a dozen things and presented them to Ross.
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Ross shook his head each time. "Not Click Thing."
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They continued to search. Axel delved into yet another carton. In the bottom was a wooden box originally made for something once (maybe still) called cigars. This cigar box contained sets of cards that used to be bound together by rubber bands now gone flaccid and brittle. One deck featured humans in sports uniforms. Another bundle of cards depicted starships and "space guys" in red uniforms. One pack was devoted to wizards and dragons. At the bottom of the box was a thick stack featuring pictures of dinosaurs. Ross cast the cards aside.
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"Wait!" Axel retrieved one of the scattered cards. "This guy looks like Baraboo Bob!"
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Ross refused the distraction. "You want Click Thing or no?"
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Axel, with a stifled moan, let the card drop. "Yes! Click Thing! Yes yes yes!"
​
"Here!" Ross pointed to an enameled tile about the size and shape of a domino. It looked very much like a domino, with its eight dots on one side, grouped four and four. The dots, unlike those on dominoes, were not concave, but convex. When you pressed any of them, they made a distinctive "click" sound.
​
One more thing distinguished it: it was pink.
​
Ross handed it to Axel. "See?" With a digit of his left forepaw, he pointed to each tiny button. "On. Off. Stop. Go. Back. Left. Right." He gestured energetically to the buttons. "These make VOOM! move."
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"What's that one?" Axel pointed to last concave spot on the face of the Click Thing, at the bottom right.
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"That," said Ross, "is NO!"
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"No?"
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"NO! Don't press! Don't ever press!"
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Axel stared at it, absorbed in its mystery. "Oh, I'll never use the last button! I promise! Never never never!"
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"Unless," Ross pointed upward with one digit, "emergency!"
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Axel nodded vigorously. "Emergency! Then NO! is YES!"
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Ross nodded. "When Tom charge Click Thing, you own da road!"
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"What?"
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Almost from nowhere (for it had to come from somewhere) Ross took out a parsnip and with its narrow end he tapped Axel. " You own da road!" He tapped him again. " You."
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"I don't know how to thank you."
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"No thank! Own da road!" He put the tip of the parsnip in his mouth.
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"How did you know about the Click Thing?"
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Ross nibbled on his parsnip before answering. "Been around."
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"Around what?"
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"All around." He spoke as he chewed. "Gow-boys. Gobos. Ganadians."
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"Why'd you find it for me?"
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"You OH-kay. Make Agnes mad. You OH-kay."
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"Okay?"
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"Oh-KAY!" Still nibbling his parsnip, Ross started back down the stairs.
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"Okay!" Axel, with the Click Thing, followed after.
​
He still needed one more element: height. Even with the Click Thing charged and operative, he still couldn't see over the dashboard. It would be no fun to roam the world if all you could see were a plastic panel, buttons, dials, and a steering wheel.
​
Fortunately, Hubert contributed a book from the library. It was a volume of more than two thousand pages, very old, from a period some scholars refer to as "Paste Modern." The book was titled Zemblia. No one remembered the name of the author, but the body of the text appeared to be a random dusting of words taken from other novels, cut to shreds, and randomly re-pasted. The best purpose for which such a book could be employed was to provide Axel with sufficient elevation to see past the dashboard. It took some effort for Hubert to carry it over, but he was glad to see it finally put to use.
​
Axel was almost ready.
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Agnes, however, would not relent.
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"No good ever came from anything pink!"
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"You may not have noticed," said Charlie, looking across the room to Bronte's eggling, "but little Guinevere is pink, too."
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Agnes, undeterred, was about to speak again when Elliot, the red stegosaur, timidly concurred. "He's right."
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"Yeah," Baraboo Bob, the styracosaurus, added his vote. "Guinevere is pink."
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Several other saurs muttered in agreement.
​
A small, curious crowd gathered around Agnes, who was standing in front of VOOM! with Sluggo and Leslie. Also in the crowd was Lana, a sauropod of unquestionably pink color. She didn't look angry, only interested in seeing a plated quadruped backpedal.
​
Kara regarded Agnes the same way.
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As did Bronte.
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And, of course, Guinevere.
​
Agnes stared at them as if she were surrounded by assassins.
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"Are you all idiots? It's not the same thing! Guinevere is not pink! She is salmon!"
​
A number of saurs laughed. More of them wanted to laugh, but were afraid to.
​
A little one whispered to another saur standing nearby, "Agnes said Guinevere is a fish."
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"That's not what I said at all!"
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"Salmon is a fish," said another little one.
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"Salmon is a color, too!" Agnes shot back.
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"Color of a fish," said Tex, a blue-gray hadrosaur.
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"Guinevere is not a fish!"
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"You said she was a salmon," Tex insisted.
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"Salmon- colored — not a salmon! Are you listening?"
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"I don't know about you," said Charlie, "but salmon sure looks pink to me!" He smiled at Guinevere, who smiled back.
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Some little ones repeated, "Fish!" Others chanted, "Salmon!"
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"You've all gone crazy!" Agnes shouted at them. "Or stupid! Can't you see it doesn't matter what color Guinevere is?"
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And another chant started—an easy one for saurian voices; they had no trouble with the dominant vowel, and the consonants were simple to articulate:
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"VOOM! VOOM! VOOM!"
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Agnes's sides drew in and out. The plates along her back rippled like waves in a troubled stream.
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"Fools! Idiots! Cretins!"
​
She would have kept haranguing everyone had she not noticed, standing next to Sluggo, her eggling—her Leslie. He looked up at her, wide-eyed (or as wide-eyed as an eggling can manage) and trembled.
​
Agnes, more often than not, had an impenetrable surface when it came to what she knew and what she believed to be right. She never doubted: the world was wrong, plain and simple, and it was her duty to make that point clear to everyone until such time as the world became right—until the world shaped up.
​
But then there was Leslie. The way he looked at her.
​
Her anger didn't lessen, but it eased with her breathing. She swung her tail around and, with its momentum, turned away from VOOM! From everyone.
​
"Sluggo! Leslie! Come along!"
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Sluggo and Leslie came along, the little one looking first to Sluggo for assurance.
​
The advantage to having a physique that places your head near the floor is that parent and offspring can see eye-to-eye from an earlier age.
​
Later, when she had calmed down, Agnes climbed the plastic stairs up to the table near the window in the former dining room and walked directly up to the ReggiesystemTM computer portal.
​
"Hey, Reggie! I'm sending a message!" She spoke to the Reggie icon in the center of the portal display screen.
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"To whom do you wish to send the message?" The icon, who previously wore a serene expression, appeared more guarded now.
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"To the idiot President."
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"Another message?"
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"There a problem?"
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A pause before the reply. "Audio or voice-to-text?"
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"I don't care, as long as she gets it. Make sure you copy it to all other humans."
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"All humans?" Reggie accented each syllable tersely.
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"Scratch that. Let her worry about it."
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Another pause. "You may begin dictating."
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"Good." She began without hesitation. "Dear President Idiot: It has recently come to my attention that dangerous killing machines have been left available and unguarded in places where possibly unstable—delete that 'possibly'—where unstable lunatics can acquire these weapons and use them against innocent and unsuspecting members of the saurian constituency! How can you possibly live with yourself in good conscience—"
​
​
"You know," said Dr. Margaret Pagliotti, the woman who kept track of the saurs' health, "Agnes has a point."
​
Dr. Margaret rarely qualified her statements. No "maybe." Never "perhaps."
​
"I know," said Tom.
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They were in Tom's office the day before Danner's visit, drinking coffee. "Dr. Margaret," as most of the saurs called her, had already completed her rounds and was surprised at how contagious Axel's enthusiasm for the VOOM! had become. "You said yourself you don't know where this car came from. No record of its delivery. It's not inventoried with the rest of the things in the attic."
​
"I found an empty crate up there," said Tom. "It's the right size. It could be no one ever looked in it before."
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Dr. Margaret frowned. "Maybe, for safety's sake, you should intervene this time."
​
They were sitting together on a little green couch next to Tom's desk. Each had an arm around the other. At her words, Tom withdrew and sat forward to the edge of his seat.
​
"My job isn't to do what I think is right. It's to trust them to do the right thing—to figure it out. Make sense?"
​
"Yes. I don't like it, but it makes sense."
​
"You're a doctor, always making decisions for others."
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"That's not true!" She shoved him with the palm of her hand. "Not...not always. Besides, we treat people like toys sometimes, don't we?" She stood up and poured herself another cup of coffee from the carafe at the edge of Tom's desk.
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"We used to make toys for people. Maybe now it's the other way round." Tom held out his empty mug.
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"I don't even know what a toy is anymore." She poured him some more coffee and returned to the seat next to him.
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"I'm glad I don't have to know." Tom took Dr. Margaret's hand—the one not holding her coffee—and squeezed it gently. "All I have to do is live with them."
​
You live with them too much, Dr. Margaret thought, making decisions again.
​
​
"Who cares about a bunch of rejects?" Christine Haig had asked when Nicholas Danner, rather spur-of-the-moment, offered her the chance to visit the saurs with him.
​
"You should care," said Danner, staring at his screen.
​
"Why?"
​
"You're in the toy business now. It's what you do."
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She replied offhandedly, "Bioengineered toys that triggered one of the worst marketing disasters in retail history."
​
"It was a disaster we created. Right here."
​
"So?"
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"You can learn a lot from a disaster." He spoke as he worked.
​
"Like what?"
​
"Like, the simplest thing about a disaster is creating one."
​
Christine nodded. "Right. The hardest part is the cleanup. Oil spills. Cadmium in foodstuffs. Meltdowns. Pesticides. Collapsed infrastructure. All that fun stuff."
​
"That's not the hardest part."
​
"What is, then? Since you're so smart."
​
"Preventing it."
​
Christine cleared her throat. "Easy to say."
​
"I know. That's why I said it. Still true."
​
The thing about all Danner's "stuff"—the pictures pushpinned to the walls, the books (all the novels of Ellis Lawrence Cartwright), the models, the old tools from bygone days—was not how they distracted Danner but how they distracted others.
​
In contrast, Christine's space was devoid of the slightest ornament. Were it not for her name plaque pinned to the cubicle partition, it would have been anonymous. She caught herself staring at Danner's photograph of a railroad engine that had crashed through the outer wall of the grand old Montparnasse train terminal in 1895. The engine, having been on a track a level above the street, now hung at a precarious angle and was surrounded by debris. When she realized she was staring at the picture, she turned back to her screen.
​
"You're crazy," she said. "You sound like my dad."
​
She lied. He sounded nothing like her dad. And she didn't really believe he was crazy. He was fun to work with, but something must have been wrong with him. A smart guy in such a low-grade job—why waste time with him?
​
"Want to see something?" He was still staring at his screen.
​
"What?"
​
"Something."
​
"What?"
​
"Take a look."
​
It wasn't a busy day. Already she was filling up her time archiving. She came around to his cubicle and stood behind him, peering at his screen from over his shoulder.
​
He played her part of a Canadian documentary about a small, green corythosaur with a canvas tote bag slung across his back, bandolier-style. He collected coins he found in the plaza just outside the television studios, took them to a convenience store a block or two away, and bought food.
​
"I've seen this," said Christine. "He buys carrots, right?"
​
"Parsnips."
​
"But so what? An abandoned bio-toy adapts. He can count, knows what money is, and buys food. So what?"
​
"Keep watching."
​
The documentary went on to show that the corythosaur carried back to the plaza bags of popcorn and sunflower seeds for the sparrows and squirrels that also foraged in the area.
​
"A 'bio-toy,' as you call him, who learns to buy food and to feed himself is one thing. For that 'toy' to return to feed his fellow creatures...can you still call him a 'toy'?"
​
"From a performance perspective—"
​
"Fuck performance!" His voice echoed through the entire Sequencing Department. "You ask someone to play 'Pop Goes the Weasel' and you get a Chopin sonata instead and you fail him on a 'performance perspective'! It's 'Not to plan.' Are you nuts?"
​
"But that's what it—"
​
"Forget that. Look at this."
​
He cued another video, a hearing in a Senate chamber crowded with suited legislators and their aides, and media people of the type who used to be called "journalists."
​
At screen center, a beige tyrannosaur sat behind one of the big tables reserved for witnesses, their counsel, and guests.
​
These were the famous "Koine-Belter Hearings" on whether or not to grant special status to certain bioengineered life-forms—namely, the saurs.
​
The beige tyrannosaur was small enough that he could have stood on the table and seen things from a human eye level, but instead he sat on a raised chair. Perhaps it felt undignified to stand on the table. His deep baritone cut through the riot of voices that burst from the committee when Senator Conman protested the Atherton Foundation's request that one of the saurs be allowed to testify. Conman insisted it "insulted the dignity" of the committee to allow a "genetically manipulated beast" a voice in the chamber, like "allowing a dog to bark for its freedom." The senator went on to say the "dinosaur" was "obviously manipulated and cannot possibly think for itself."
​
The tyrannosaur replied: "I well understand the senator's concern to establish my authentic autonomy. Let me assure you, I am not a ventriloquist's dummy. Nor am I a piece of technology, nor the medium for anyone's speech but my own. But—"
​
Senator Belter tried to cut in, but the saur raised his voice.
​
"— may I remind the committee, with all due respect, as difficult as it is for them to establish my autonomy, so I find it difficult to confirm yours. Are you not all ventriloquists' dummies for other vested interests?"
​
The committee room went wild with shouting, gavel-pounding, and cameras rolling.
​
"Someday," Danner halted the video, "you should hear the complete testimony."
​
"I have."
​
"And you call that the 'worst marketing disaster in the history of retail'?" Danner scratched his head.
​
"I don't care." Christine was back at her desk. "That's in the past. No one will ever duplicate it. Get over it. Move on."
​
Danner sighed, exited the videos, and returned to his work.
​
A few moments later, Christine's phone beeped. She spoke softly, briefly, then walked over to Zoey's office, as if she had been summoned.
​
The door closed behind her.
​
Danner didn't like closed doors. After thirty-three years with a troubled company, the click of a shutting door sounded remarkably like a hammer being drawn back on a revolver.
​
And the revolver was always aimed at your head.
​
The door stayed closed for an hour before Christine returned to her desk.
​
For another hour she said nothing. Then: "Maybe I will go with you to the house."
​
Something is up, Danner thought. Christine was a smart kid. He wanted her to see what she was potentially dealing with—that they weren't making bio-widgets rolling off an assembly line. She wouldn't be working in Sequencing for long; she'd jump up to more important posts, and quickly. She didn't need to engage in subterfuge. Maybe she didn't know that. Just out of college. Maybe he could still save her soul if he approached it the right way.
​
He knew that last part—about saving her soul—was a joke. How dare he think he could help anyone? And yet he did.
​
Or he had to try.
​
"Sure," he said. "I'll pick you up. Mind taking my car?"
​
​
THE DAY DANNER went to see the saurs was the same day Tibor was ready for VOOM!
​
The Click Thing and the battery had been charged the night before.
​
Once Tibor reminded him, Axel, of course, was supercharged. He sprinted over to the vehicle, hopped up (it took a hop for him to reach up to the door with his forelimbs), and climbed in. Tibor followed a few paces behind, maintaining a regal distance.
​
Axel had placed the Click Thing on the front seat the night before. If he had left it anywhere else he would have forgotten where he put it.
​
He'd also arranged for the voice of Reggie to be audible through the car "stereo" speaker, so that Reggie could function as a sort of navigator.
​
Tibor planned to sit on top of the front seat-back. It afforded him the best view as well as the best place from which to be viewed. He knew he would be greeted by adoring throngs as he entered the city. Thousands would line the street; some might be holding signs or banners. "Welcome Tibor!" "We love Tibor!" Were they not able to see Tibor—their brave leader—they would surely be disappointed. It was a hardship to summon two theropods, Slim and Slam, to bring the plastic stairs for him to climb atop the front seat, but Tibor was willing to forgo his natural modesty, for Tibor loved his people.
​
Tibor assured Slim and Slam that when he addressed the Great Tiborean Council (not to be confused with the Grand Tiborean Council, which was purely ceremonial) in the megalopolitan Temple of Tibor, he would mention them both by name in humble gratitude.
​
Slim and Slam secured the plastic stairs and beat it.
​
The top of the front seat was narrow, but Tibor was small, and he had no worry of lurching from his perch when the vehicle accelerated or came to an abrupt halt.
​
As a further concession to Agnes's protests, Charlie had suggested that the wooden wedges be placed under each of the tires. Unless the engine was given a real jolt, pedal to the floor, the wedges would prevent the car from any forward or reverse movement.
​
This didn't completely mitigate Agnes's concerns, but it was better than Axel's suggestion to station Rotomotoman in front of the car with raised hand and the word "HALT!" flashing boldly on his torso display screen.
​
Axel asked Tibor, "So, where you wanna go?"
​
"Tiboria!"
​
"Where's that?"
​
"The great city to the north."
​
Reggie, through the car speaker, informed the two: "Mappo™ does not indicate any destination by that name."
​
"It is a secret name," said Tibor, "known only to a select few."
​
"It appears," said Reggie, "that Mappo™ is not a member of the select few."
​
"Is it anywhere near a train station?" Axel stared at the speaker. "I dreamed about a train station last night."
​
"The Grand Tiborean Terminus," Tibor said, not missing a beat. "It is well known and much admired throughout the galaxy."
​
"Let's go there!" Axel hopped onto the copy of Zemblia on the front seat.
​
Tibor gave the destination a moment of thought. "It is exactly where Tibor intends to go."
​
"Mappo™ does not indicate any destination by that name," Reggie replied.
​
"The big one!" Axel insisted
​
Reggie paused to search. "A visual scan indicates you have identified the Oscar Gordon Memorial Mass Transit Center, often referred to as 'the O. G.'"
​
"Oh! Gee!" Axel raised his forelimbs as far as he could raise them. "Let's go!"
​
He reached for the Click Thing and...
​
...It wasn't there!
​
"The click thing is gone! The click thing is gone!"
​
He stared at the spot where he had left it the night before, as if it might materialize in response to his need. It didn't. He searched the front seat, the back seat (as much of a back seat as there was), the floor, the trunk, the engine—all around (and underneath) the car. He followed an often practiced though consistently ineffectual rule: if shouting for something brings no results, shout louder: " The click thing is gone! The click thing is gone!"
​
The degree of alarm, panic, injury, and even despair in his voice attracted a number of saurs, including Bronte and Kara, who raced from the library where they had been reading to Hetman, the blind and broken tyrannosaur relegated to a wheeled, child-sized hospital bed.
​
"Did you forget it somewhere?" Kara asked.
​
"No!" Axel returned to the spot on the front seat where he had left the Click Thing the night before.
​
"Did it fall on the floor?" asked Bronte.
​
"No!"
​
"It must be someplace." Kara looked around the living room. "No one would be so cruel as to steal, especially something that means so much to you."
​
"I know who steal!" said Ross, standing on the couch and looking down at the gathered saurs. "Someone not like Click Thing! Someone not like VOOM! Someone not like PINK!"
​
They all stared in the direction of Agnes's lair.
​
"Of course I didn't steal it!" Agnes told them. "All I did was confiscate a piece of dangerous equipment."
​
"You take Click Thing I give Axel!" Ross pointed his parsnip at her. "You steal!"
​
Agnes reared back. " You are an accessory to lunacy!"
​
"You shouldn't have done that," Bronte said to Agnes.
​
In a louder voice, Kara added, "You have no authority!"
​
"I have all the authority I need!" Agnes twisted her tail around until her spikes faced downward. "Am I the only one present who cares about the safety and well-being of everyone here, especially the little ones?"
​
"No!" said Kara. "You're not! Even if you were, you don't just take things by cover of night! It's devious!"
​
"I don't care!" Agnes said.
​
"You act like human!" said Ross.
​
"Take that back!" Agnes raised her tail.
​
"Not take back!" Ross folded his forelimbs stubbornly.
​
"It's cruel," said Bronte. "Cruel to Axel."
​
"Are you blind?" Agnes stomped the floor with a foreleg. "This isn't just Axel—it's that dimwit Tibor, too! And wherever Tibor sticks his goofy green hat, you know that Geraldine can't be far behind."
​
It was a sensitive note to strike with Bronte, given her concern for Guinevere's ongoing fascination with the strange saur's "lab." With less certainty, Bronte replied, "We don't know if Geraldine has anything to do with this."
​
Agnes snorted.
​
"Agnes—" Axel looked at the stegosaur with the expression of someone who has missed his train...forever.
​
"No!"
​
"Please! Give it back! I promise—"
​
"I don't have to give back anything!" Agnes looked him straight in the eye. "It isn't mine, but it isn't yours, either!"
​
Doc arrived, as quickly as his tricky left leg allowed. He swayed a little as he found his balance and caught his breath.
​
"My dear Agnes—"
​
"Oh, shut up!" Agnes shook her head. "Don't even start!"
​
"Is anyone else here protesting?" He looked around the room. "Who here wishes to see this VOOM! returned to the attic?"
​
No shouts of "Aye!" No raised forelimbs.
​
Agnes dismissed them all. "What do you know? You're all brainwashed!"
​
"Agnes, please!" Axel wailed. "Please please please please please!"
​
Tom came in from the kitchen, where he had been clearing up from breakfast. He sat down on the floor among them so the saurs wouldn't have to look up so far to see his face.
​
"Is there any way you can come to a compromise?" He spoke to everyone but looked straight at Agnes.
​
"I thought you'd ask that. I'm not going to hand over that damn Clicker, or whatever you call it." She stared defiantly at Axel, then at Ross, and finally at Tom. "I've hidden it. If you can find it, you can have it, but I won't simply give it back."
​
"Where is it?" Kara asked.
​
"That's for you to find out!"
​
"Agnes—" Kara's tone grew sharper.
​
"That's my compromise, take it or leave it!" She slapped her tail against the floor like a judge pounding a gavel, turned away, and headed for her lair.
​
Sluggo, who had been standing next to Agnes all this time and whom no one noticed until now, said to the others, "I think she's wrong." And to Axel: "I'm sorry. If I knew where it was, I would tell you."
​
"When is Tibor's estimated time of arrival in Tiboria?" asked Tibor, who somehow managed to miss...everything.
​
From Agnes's lair: "Hah!"
​
"Axel not worry." Ross patted Axel on the back. "We find Click Thing."
​
"Where?" Axel's voice sounded weaker than anyone had heard it in a long time.
​
"Where Agnes hide. Where else?" He pointed to the window of the former dining room. "Let's ride!"
​
"Ride?"
​
"What Gow-boys say."
​
"Up there?"
​
From somewhere (again), Ross found a parsnip, held it by the thick end, and pointed the other end toward his head. "We think like Agnes." He then pointed to Agnes's lair. "Then we know where Click Thing is."
​
Axel looked frightened by the prospect. "She's too smart."
​
Ross poked him with the parsnip. "You say you smarter now, right?"
​
"I did!" Axel raised his forepaw to his jaw, as if remembering a forgotten promise. "I did say I was smarter!"
​
"Smart enough to think like Agnes," said Ross, in softer voice, as if Agnes might overhear them.
​
"Oh, I'll never be that smart!"
​
"You lucky!" He pointed to the window. "Let's think!"
​
If Agnes heard, she gave no sign to them. One never knew. Agnes was a lurker.
​
Ross dragged over a set of plastic stairs, which they used to ascend to the seat of the couch. From there they climbed on the armrest, and from there to the top of the seat-back, which was a step or two from the window ledge. They placed their hind legs on the ledge while their tails rested against the seat-backs.
​
Ross nibbled his parsnip and stared out at the trees surrounding the grounds. Axel, following his lead, also stared out at them.
​
"Ross?"
​
Ross nibbled his parsnip and said nothing.
​
"What are we looking at?"
​
"Not looking! Thinking!"
​
"About what?"
​
"Agnes!"
​
"Ohhhh! Right."
​
"Where Agnes hide Click Thing."
​
"Right."
​
"Not right! Where!"
​
"I don't know."
​
"That's why you think!"
​
"Oh!"
​
He tried to think about Agnes, but all he could think about were the trees.
​
Ross must have been thinking about trees, too, in spite of what he said about Agnes and the Click Thing. He stared into the distance and said, " Them still out there."
​
Axel didn't have to ask who "them" referred to. They were the "guys from Toyco." They listened, with high-tech, high-power equipment. They waited for a chance—slim, but still a chance—that through some oversight on the part of Tom or Dr. Margaret, they might acquire a few DNA samples good enough to allow them to...to what? They didn't quite know. They knew that the saurs—the ones who dwelled here, and in other similar homes—did not live up to the specifications Toyco thought they had hard-coded into them: limited intelligence; a three-year life-span; sterility. Toyco had surrendered their ownership of the genomes in exchange for release from a tsunami of liability cases.
​
It didn't take long for Toyco to regret the decision. It was as if they had given away penicillin, thinking it nothing more than moldy bread. If a saur lived ten times past her life-span, "bad" toys could be good medicine.
​
Or something. No one knew. It was important enough to attract the attention of the multinational SANI Corporation, a major defense contractor. They were determined to get Toyco: all that it owned and all it ever had owned.
​
Including the unmarked van parked in the woods outside the house, with humans inside staring out at Axel and Ross...who were staring back at them.
​
"Still out there." Ross nibbled his parsnip.
​
"Bad guys," Axel said—not like he was afraid of them; he just didn't know what else to call them.
​
"Geraldine get 'em once." Ross bit down on the tip of his parsnip and made a loud snap. "Get 'em good!"
​
Ross hadn't seen it, but had been told many times about the flash that came from Geraldine's "lab," and the sizzling noise followed by the van (the "old" van, the one that had the bogus "Forestry Service" logo) tearing out of its spot in the woods, blue smoke trailing from the back and the smell of burning plastic in the air. It was why Tom now kept the fire extinguishers up in the workroom.
​
Axel had to ask, "Are we still thinking about Agnes?"
​
"Sure."
​
"Why are we looking at the trees?"
​
"Looking at forest!"
​
"Oh!" Axel stared more carefully. "That's out there, too?"
​
Ross cocked his head and stared at the driveway. "Listen!"
​
"To what?" Axel heard plenty of sounds inside—voices; checkers sliding across the floor; music from the video playing in the living room; the "music" of the Five Wise Buddhasaurs, tweedling, honking, bellowing—but nothing from out side.
​
"Car coming!" Ross raised one digit of his forepaw as if he could balance the sound on the end of it.
​
Continued Here