Wye did the guy from bme pain olympics do that

Alright, so… I (18F) kinda made this reddit account just to get some feedback about this situation, since I’m too ashamed to ask my parents. The girl in question is 16, and is probably one of the most annoying people I’ve ever met…
(TLDR: This girl I was pretending to be friends with in High School obsessively fantasized about murdering someone for an entire semester, is overbearing as a person, interrogates people on a daily basis and is nosy, injects herself into drama that isn’t her own, throws temper tantrums when she doesn’t get her way, constantly touches people and makes unwarranted comments about girl’s bodies, asked me to draw CP for her, and MADE FUN OF HER SUICIDAL BROTHER. And I wrote a hate-letter telling her that all of this stuff is a problem, but now I feel bad about it because I think she might actually have mental issues. It’s a really wild ride and a long story, so if you choose to read it, you should expect to be here for a while. And it’s High School drama, so I’ll try to discard the boring details.)
At the beginning of this year, I ended up in a small Sports Medicine class with literally 8 students total in it. That made things quiet, which gave us some room to start talking and getting to know each other after the teacher was done with the lesson and we had our small hands-on tests and assignments out of the way. (The classes took about 20 minutes every day. Really quick and easy. Laid back. It met curriculum requirements actually, because there wasn’t constant bullshit from other students making the lesson longer.). There’s this girl, who… I’ll call her Storm. You’ll find out why. Storm quickly became the most annoying person in the class. Any time she talked, she didn’t have anything interesting to say, but just kept going on and on and on endlessly. It was annoying, but we just kinda played along to be nice. Well… Around a month into school, Storme started opening up and became comfortable talking about personal topics. She told us this story about how one of her other friends (I’ll call her Katie) “betrayed” her the previous year, and then went on to talk about how much she hated Katie and didn’t care if she lived or died. (Honestly, Katie’s offense was miniscule. At most, she replaced Storm with someone else as her best friend. You know… Regular High School drama that wasn’t that deep. I honestly forgot all of what Katie did because it was just so miniscule.) Then Storme started saying ludicrous stuff like “I hope she falls into a volcano”, or “I hope she gets eaten by sharks falling from the sky. Like Sharknado.”. But like… She kept saying it constantly, out loud in class. She ranted about how she wanted Katie to get kidnapped by the Mafia, be flown up to the moon, and be dropped into a black hole to become “Katie-spaghetti”. It was honestly really funny at first, so me and a few other people in the class joined in a little bit and added our own stupid, childlike scenarios. (Katie has a reputation for being… A slut. That’s why it was funny at first.) But then after this schtick got old, Storm just kept going and going and going… She ranted about Katie until it physically hurt to hear her talk anymore. She was back to being annoying and boring again, but it was worse this time because it was obvious that she was trying to re-kindle our intrigue without realizing that she should move on to something else. Instead of assessing herself, she just kept yapping until everyone rolled their eyes every time she opened her mouth, because we knew she would just keep going on and on about all of the stupid ways she wanted Katie to die. Even the damn teacher told her to stop doing that, but she never listened and the teacher eventually just gave up telling her off (And honestly, I think the teacher started zoning her out.). Katie then gradually started to get more morbid with the things she was saying, to the point where I genuinely considered calling the cops and getting this girl some grippy socks. She talked until she became red-faced, started tweaking, and laughed in a neurotic, nervous angry way while she started wringing out her trembling hands. She genuinely looked and sounded unhinged, and what didn’t help was that she started saying stuff like “There aren’t metal detectors in this school, right?”, and “I wish I wasn’t such a good person, because if I wasn’t, I’d be acting on my impulse to cave her skull in the next time I see her. One of these days I’m going to snap and then just do it..” …Yeah, so I was genuinely considering getting the police involved in this because of those two sentences. Thankfully Katie is safe and sound to this day and Storm never acted on these “impulses”. I’m so glad it worked out that I didn’t have to call the cops, but I was seriously worried for a minute… One of my other friends in that class, (I’ll call him Mark), eventually kinda snapped and called her out for being the annoying piece of crap she is. Quickly, Storm and Mark started getting into arguments just about every day and started throwing things like wads of wrapping-tape at each other, and I was becoming worried that they were going to start actually full-on fighting. It doesn’t sound logical in hindsight, but I ended up taking it upon myself to step in and start acting friendly toward her and listening to her (or pretending to listen to her) just to draw her attention away from him. Pretty soon she started talking mostly to me, and this was intentionally done on my part so that the other people in the class could relax a little bit and start doing whatever on their phones and zone her out instead of having to pretend to listen in agony. Ultimately, it was an exchange that benefited everyone, because after Storme got that angry energy out of her, she shut up for the day. She continued to talk about Katie, but mostly to me. She talked about this topic endlessly, her words getting increasingly violent until Christmas break. Yeah… 5 months. She ranted about the ways she wanted Katie to die for 5 whole months. Months. But then when she was done ranting, she finally shut up. …Oh God, the silence sounded like angels singing. I didn’t even really retain any of the information she spewed onto me, but holy crap, when it was over it was like heaven on Earth. So that’s what I did – I acted like the “lightning rod” for this Storm of a person until it passed (kinda). She wrote a note to Katie explaining “You hurt me really badly, but I’m a Christian so I forgive you and I hope you the best”... As if she didn’t rant about her for 5 months straight. Make it make sense. But enough about that. Here’s where my fuck ups began. I gave Storm my number and we quickly started saying that we were friends, though I didn’t actually like her at all and just wanted to keep the peace. We had a few things in common, but I still didn’t like her whatsoever. She continued to rant to me nonstop about Katie, even over text, and I was burnt out listening after a while. So… To dampen the impact of this girl’s obsessive ramblings, I started sending her pictures of my drawings. (I’m an artist). I had characters that I liked to draw that are ocs of an anime fandom (all of which are underage), and she seemed to calm down a bit and hyper-focus on them. She even has a folder in her phone’s gallery completely dedicated to storing my artwork. That’s great and all, but… One day, the topic of Wattpad came up in one of our conversations. I, myself, was one of those cringy Wattpad 12 year olds who made the most illiterate fanfictions ever to be conceived by a human being (They’ve long since been deleted. Thank God, those were awful.) Then… The topic of “Wattpad smut” came up, because I admitted that I used to read those because of the awful grammar and I thought it was funny. I still do sometimes, actually. The way people on Wattpad can’t write to save their lives is just hilarious. Like the stupid “Shrek x Donald Trump” ones are the ones that make me wheeze. I don’t take them seriously, and I love it when the author doesn’t take it seriously either. It’s hilarious. …But then this asshole said: “I don’t like to read bad grammar, it makes me mad. But I do like to read that type of content… For a different reason”. So uhh… That’s… Weird. But then she asked: “Have you found any… Good ones? Do you have any recommendations? Asking for a friend.” …FUCK NO. No thank you. Nope, I’m done. No jerkoff material for you, ma’am. Nope. You’re done. Seriously, I put down my phone for a little bit and went outside to go stare at some birds at the bird feeder until my sickness went away. I fell nauseous because of that (though in hindsight, that seems like an overreaction). When I came back, I didn’t answer that question and kinda skated past it, and that seemed to be the end of it. …But there is NEVER an end with Storm. She DID forget about the resolution to that conversation, but since we talked about smut to begin with, she started asking me some questions about my art. She asked if I had ever drawn p0rn in my life. Of course, I didn’t really admit to anything. I skated past it too, but then she said: “I think (character 1) and (character 2) are really cute together… Like… Really, really cute together.”. That’s great, she likes my characters… Cool, cool. And then my worst nightmare: “Have you ever drawn p0rn of them?” …Of course I didn’t, because that would be CP… Plus I’ve never thought of those characters as being “sexual”... They’re literally 14 and 15 years old. Then basically, she made an indirect “suggestion” for me to draw them together. I said fuck no. Hell fucking no. She tried to convince me to draw them “aged up”, but again I refused. She eventually dropped it, but since then, she passively talked about things of that nature… Like if she saw a guy she thought was cute, she’d tell me she thought he’s cute or hot or gorgeous or whatever and allude to -other- awkward desires that I didn’t want to know about. She put me off from drawing those characters ever again. I haven’t drawn them since and I don’t take my sketchbook to school anymore because I don’t want her to see my drawings and be reminded of that BS.
But enough about that… Storm is a church-going girl, and so she has a few church-going friends. (This also makes everything I’ve said before all the more ironic.). One day when I was transitioning from my 5th to 6th period, I saw her talking angrily to one of her church friends (I’ll call her Isabelle) outside the school building. Storm was accusing Isabelle of lying about smoking weed/vaping and drinking, and she seemed to be so interested in it that you’d think it had an impact on her personally. Isabelle denied doing that, and they eventually parted ways to go to class. I walked with Storm to 6th period (the Sports Medicine period), and I asked her why she was so damn interested in Isabelle’s habits. Know what she said? Storm said “I just don’t like liars.”... So let me get this straight: She thought she had the right to interrogate someone half to death because she just “doesn’t like liars”? Make that make sense. I’ve heard many stories about how Storm interrogates other people, too. If she sees a guy/girl’s name pop up on the screen of someone she knows, she’ll pester them until they give her one of two answers: either “I’ll tell you later”, or the actual answer. She’s done that to me too, in front of everyone in class. The thing that upsets me about this is that she claims to be “nosy”, but thinks it’s a positive attribute rather than an annoying one. She brags about being “nosy” sometimes.
And the sexual assault… Since we were in a sports medicine class, our projects involved a lot of hands-on things. That didn’t bother me by itself, but with Storm, it was a nightmare. This girl, in the process of strapping an ice bag to my thigh, called my thighs “small”, and said that I have a “beautiful body”. We also did shoulder stretching stuff the next week, and I happened to fall under her care while she stared into my eyes and made weird faces at me, all the while she made sound effects and made the process much more uncomfortable than it needed to be. One week, we ended up as partners again and she ended up wrapping my shoulder. This shoulder-wrap wasn’t an issue for me, but having her as a partner made it an issue. As expected, she made sound effects, but this time she stated the obvious as if it was new information that nobody would have ever suspected: “Wow, this is squishing your boobies huh?”... Emphasis on the word “boobies”. Jesus Fucking Christ, it was already awkward as hell before she even brought that up, why would she say something like that?? I didn’t even realize that until she brought it up. In fear of being subjected to her uncomfortable BS again and feeling violated, I texted her and told her that she’s been making me feel uncomfortable, and to please stop being so…. Weird. I get it’s an awkward thing to wrap up your classmate’s thigh, but that’s a moment to keep comments to yourself. Her response? “I’M SORRY I’M SORRY I’M SORRY I’M SORRY I’M SORRY I’M SORRY I’M SORRY I’M SORRY I’M SORRY-” Just… Stop it. I didn’t introduce the topic as a big deal and told her not to worry about it, but she kept apologizing for it nonstop. Just endlessly, like everything else. Even when I tried to change the subject to something else, she just kept apologizing for it practically until she went to bed. (She has a bedtime at 9:30… At 16 years old.) All of this stuff contributed to my overall hatred toward her. I don’t like her at all, and it’s a wonder I didn’t explode and insult her entire personality and deplorable behavior to her face (Meg Griffin style). Things are just so awkward and awful whenever she opens her mouth, and it just doesn't ever stop. But because of all of this, when it came time for my Senior prom, I decided to secretly invite one of my friends from that class as a plus one, and NOT Storm. I was worried that if I told her that to her face, I would all of a sudden be the new “Katie” in her conversations, because the infraction Katie did was so miniscule that it seemed to be less like a “betrayal” than what I did. (In hindsight, it was probably the other way around.) So… I just kept the whole thing to myself and so did the friend I took to prom (I’ll call her Beyonce. Because… She loves Beyonce.).

If this wasn’t bad enough, strap in because not even three weeks ago, Beyonce was doing her usual schtick of making fun of random things. She once made fun of cool whip and the entire state of Texas at the same time and somehow made it make perfect sense. She should really have a comedy show, I swear. But this time, Beyonce was making fun of the name “Gage”, saying “Why would anyone name their kid after a 12-gage shotgun?” and “People named Gage seem untrustworthy. I wouldn’t want to be near one in a zombie apocalypse, because he’d just feed me to those fuckers.”. Funny stuff. Storm then said “My brother’s name is Gage”, and in order to preserve the flow of the conversation (and also to tick her off a little, I’m ngl), Beyonce asked her: “Is your brother untrustworthy?” And then without a single millisecond wasted, she said, in a Disney Channel comedy fashion: “Welll… We can’t trust him with his own life, sooo…”.. And then she laughed as if it was funny. Like.. Rib-stitches type of laughing. ….So then the others (understandably) went quiet, which left only me and her talking for a moment after her laughter quieted down. She complained about how confused she is that nobody finds her joke funny, and said that her joke had the “perfect timing and everything”... So then my idiot ass decided to say what I was thinking at that moment: “You don’t seem to be taking it seriously. That’s your brother, but you don’t sound sympathetic at all.” She tried to “defend” herself, but Mark interjected into the conversation and changed the course of it entirely, which just left her to sit there in silence, pouting. I felt bad for that statement, so I apologized for it over text when I got home from school. Quickly, we erupted into an argument, (with me holding back), and she ended up saying “What does it matter to you? He’s not your brother. If Beyonce said that about her brother, you’d laugh. But when I do, it’s bad.”. Beyonce’s brother is 8 years old…. So no, that would be even worse. …So then I had to explain to her how human decency works, and how making fun of your s*icidal siblings isn’t funny whatsoever and how that joke could be considered to be in very poor taste, even for people who like dark humor. When me, Beyonce or Mark made “suicide” jokes, it was about OURSELVES and it was usually in a statement like “I don’t want to take a test next period, I’m gonna kms.”... …Storm ended up getting so mad that we weren’t having a conversation anymore; we were just throwing shit around. I told her that if she was being livestreamed at that moment, she’d be bashed on the whole internet for a week or so and be called “evil” for that joke. In hindsight I shouldn’t have said that, but my goal was just to tell her how insensitive others might perceive her comment to be. She said that it wasn’t my business to tell her how to feel about her own brother, but I wasn’t doing that at all, that wasn’t my angle whatsoever – I was just explaining what people find funny. I even said repeatedly that I wasn’t trying to tell her how to feel, and that I know comedy can help lighten situations, but somehow she forgot about that part. And then she went on this whole thing about ending every massive text block with “Not that it’s YOUR business, or anything” to snap at me, despite me being in the room at the time of the joke... So I ended the conversation right then and there because it was pointless to keep going and I really didn’t want to spend any more energy on her. The next day, I apologized to her again. I retracted my statements and told her that I was sorry for talking out of line. She accepted the apology, and things went back to “normal”. She forgot about it, but I didn’t. …So here are the reasons why I feel bad, before I delve into the contents of the “hate letter” I wrote to her. Here’s a list of my crimes: 

I pretended to be her friend for an entire school year. - I hid the fact that I was going to prom with Beyonce from her, and then lied to her face repeatedly whenever she asked if I went to prom or not. - I got into business that wasn’t my own and criticized her. - I wrote a hate-letter to her that I directed her to read at home on the last day of school.
…Here’s why I feel bad: Storm doesn’t seem to be emotionally intelligent and is unable to control her mouth whenever she feels strong emotions. She talks nonstop about her second cousin’s friend’s pet hamster’s wife’s sister’s drama, hoping we’ll find something funny or interesting or impressive, while seeming unable to understand that she needs to change her tune. All she wants is to be listened to and understood, but nobody can and nobody truly wants to. She feigns confidence and goes overboard with compliments in the hopes of catching the attention of people who want to be friends with her. She’s not used to change and is very naive, to the point where (just yesterday) she quit her job at a fast food restaurant after only the first day of working there. For the longest time she didn’t have access to the internet, so she doesn’t really have a means to connect with other people through sharing videos or memes or whatever. …I feel like a bad person because I knowingly, intentionally played into all of this just for the pathetic reason of making her shut up in class. It’s despicable what I did, and I’m beating myself up for it every day. I was just originally going to leave the school, block her and never talk to her ever again in my life, but when she made that joke about her brother, I decided (stupidly) to take it upon myself to be the bearer of bad news. I gave her a letter. Within the “hate letter”, it isn’t actually hate, per se. It’s more like… A report on the behavior she needs to fix, as well as an admission to my lies over the course of this whole year. I told her the awful truth. I told her about everything I mentioned in this post and tried to keep it “professional”, though I did end up going as far as to say “you have all of the attributes of an obnoxious piece of stale bread”........... And what’s worse is… I told her to read it on the last day of school, and my reasoning is pathetic at best. I told her to read it on the last day of school because I didn’t want her to burden the class with her nonstop ranting about me, since she, Mark and Beyonce are sophomores and I’m the only senior in the “friend group”, which means that I left the school an entire week earlier than them. I’ve been intentionally delaying her pain and still talking to her over text acting like things are “normal” so that she doesn’t read it early, knowing damn well that on that last day of school, my words are going to hurt her so badly that she might not be able to recover for a while. In the letter, I told her that by the time she reads it, I would have already blocked her because I don’t want any more conversation with her due to me feeling so bad and having nothing more to say. If the plan goes right, she’ll read it on May 23rd, and on that day I will block her.

I feel awful for all of this. I feel like a monster for this. It’s painful knowing that I’m going to cause her pain and that I planned when it’s going to happen, but at the same time I feel like she deserves it. But at the same time, I know damn well that it wasn’t my place to do that. I should have left everything alone. Nobody I can talk to irl would even hear me out; they’d just stop at the words “hate letter”, which means my only option is to seek advice from people on Reddit. Do my motives for doing things make sense? Am I actually a bad person for this? Am I the asshole? Does she deserve what she’s getting? 

Edit 1: I removed some asterisks (they're annoying).

i know this sounds crazy, but it womt be as crazy as you think when you read the story.
my ex-girlfirend of 3 years cheated on me right after she moved countries (guess it was the distance), it fucked me up and even when i (biggest mistake of my life btw) gave her another chance, she did it again with the SAME guy. im not going to talk so much about how much it hurt, but it was safe to say it was the worst pain in my life.
they guy we’ll call him brad, brad thought she was his girlfriend too, he even lived with her for the 9 months they were together, but he never knew about me, as soon as he did, he made his best efforts to contact me, and he did, told me that she lied, even when she admitted to cheating, she lied about how many times she had sex, and lied about basically everything, and that she’s a compulsive liar and lies about tiny things to his mom from what he saw.
i confornted her, “alexa, did you do this and that?” after pushing and pushing, she fessed up even after trying to make me feel bad for bringing it up again, and even when she fessed up she said “its not like that.. we didnt have sex again, we were about to but i stopped”, i went and told brad that, he said “PFFFT” and i went back to her and told her i have solid proof of what she did (bluffing but it worked), then she fessed up, everything, including that she raped brad, and that she physically assaulted him and was pushy for him to have sex with her every single time. she sounded different, almost like a sociopath, no.. she IS a sociopath, considering she started cheating right after i buried my dad.
the first time i found out she cheated, i was so extremely hurt, the second time? i surprisingly moved on in three days, and why is that? because me and brad became best buddies, he’d tell me about all these crazy stories alexa did, and i’d be like “YOOOO SHE DID THE SAME TO ME!”, and we sort of bonded on being victims of the same abuser. we both moved on, and i just.. i dont feel that sick feeling in my stomach anymore, i dont feel hurt, it feels so good, because the first time around it took me 3 months to BEGIN healing even.
brad suggested he brings me to america, since opportunity there is better than where im from, i told him “honestly, i’d go on a paddleboat if i had to”, and he asked if im willing to do anything for it, i said yes, and he said “hear me out, let’s get married”.
obviously we’re not in love, but the idea that there’s a chance i end up marrying HIM is so funny to me, this story lacks a lot of details because i already ranted about it a million times, and this time? im not hurt enough to be complaining, this is the first funny post about what happened that i made in the last year.
if you’re curious about anything, go ahead and ask me, im alllll experienced about falling in love with an abusing sociopath rapist.

Apologies for any grammatical errors or formatting errors as I’m not the best at it.
So I all started back around August in 2023 when all this happened. I wasn’t in the right mindset as there were a lot of things going on in my life with losing family members to finding out my mother had dementia to just not wanting to have any sort of outside life and be a homebody. Just out of the blue I feel I just disconnected myself from everything and everyone and was just going to work and nothing else. I stopped talking to my gf without any reasoning after we got into an argument that I can no longer remember what it was about but turned out to be the “trigger” for me to just give up. By this time we had already been together for 5 years and living together for 3 years as well. So it got hard for us as we were both stubborn and did not try to talk after this fight. As time progressed through the months we just stopped talking and did our own thing while still living together and avoiding each other as much as we could. We didn’t talk much other than bills that needed to be paid and purchasing food as well. We somewhat talked a month or so later and mentioned that we were just civilized roommates nothing more and this continued until February of this year. During that time she would go out with friends and dates from what we discussed when we got back together and I would just stay home collecting myself and slowly getting back together by playing COD with friends almost every night.
Once February came around after valentines I decided to talk to her to see what our future would be in terms of selling the house working it out or whatever the case may be. Strangely enough she asked me if I wanted to join her at the movies that day and of course me being the stubborn asshole I am told her no also because I had already made plans to go the the movies with a friend. So she still ended up getting ready and I asked her if she was still going to the movies. She said no that she was going to her mom’s house to see a movie with her niece. I get ready and head out and lo and behold I see her walking to the theatre with another guy. This make my heart drop and realize she lied to me about going to her moms. She notices me and waves me down like nothing and just tells me “oh I didn’t know you were coming to the movies. I’m just here with a friend too” so I tell her what about her moms and said oh no I wasn’t planning to go and ask if I wanted to meet him. Wanting to call her bluff I decide to say no and drive off. She continues to call me and Ignore her and go with my friend to eat instead. I’m definitely devastated by this considering I was going to talk to her about making up and seeing if we still had a future or not. I understand that we were not together during this time but seeing it actually hurt more than just knowing. The day comes to an end and we decide to talk that night. We talked about the 6 months that passed what we did(not in detail) and if we really wanted to work things out. We agree to work it out and move forward.
During this time it’s still fresh and I notice the guy is still texting her and possibly others she dated a month before. I bring it up to her to discuss it and I ask her to please let them know we are trying to work it out and not to think she is available. Time passes by for about 2-3 weeks after we talked. The guy is still messaging her and i bring it up again that it’s not right and that she should say something. So she finally decides to meet with him in person to let him know that she is trying to work it out with me and that she needs some space. Only I come to realize later this month(May) that she told him she needs time for herself and did not mention trying to work it out with me.(could this be a red flag?)
As time moves on we have little hiccups here and there and I start to feel this guy feeling that doesn’t sit right with me. Not sure if what it is but it makes me feel down and my mind starts to wonder. I can’t help to wonder that she is still messaging someone else and I begin to investigate. This is all happening in May and by this time we are good(or so we say but don’t feel it) and by this time I find out that her close friends which is two do not know about us working it out and a new close friend she made at work as well does not know about us. Which is fine I guess but it kinda bothers me because her new close friend has a friend that introduced her to him to see if they can hit it off. This triggers something for me and I ask her why hasn’t she mentioned that we are talking but her excuse is she’s afraid that she’s going to look stupid in front of her friends if I leave her again like I did 8 months ago..I understand where she is coming from but I we discussed earlier I tell her I am devoted to her and want to make this work because I love her. Maybe I am looking too much into this but I figured by now she would’ve mentioned something that we are trying to work it out and are back together again since February.
So a couple days ago I get that feeling again and try to push it away but I still have that gut feeling something isn’t right. This past Friday we decide to go to the movies and make plans. All of a sudden she decides not to go to a certain theatre and go to a different one instead. I figured oh nice we get to go to another one since they serve food there so it’s a bit fancier. Before we go we decide to have lunch and then go. During that time she decides to switch it again and say to go back to the original place. So I don’t mind and say yes so she goes to the app to get the tickets. I get up to get a refill and decide to watch over as she does and she brings to panic. She tells me she wants a refill too even though her cup is almost full. I tell her she doesn’t need one but insists that she does but I tell her no and play if off as I am leaving. As I turn back I notice she is messaging someone and then goes in to cancel a ticket the guy made for her. I knew about her going to another movie after ours with her friend and the group but didn’t know she was messaging him directly. I ignore it rather than bring it up for now as I do not want to start an argument or ruin the date we are having until tonight. The night continues and we go home and go to sleep. Meanwhile my mind is all over the place and I can’t stop thinking about it and why is she messaging him.
The next day we make plans to do our own thing and she has plans with her friend. My mind is racing as I start to think if she is actually going out with her or with this guy who I find out later she invited to the movies..the plan was to go to lunch while I work on some things at the house and then meet up to take the dog to the vet. She leaves and I begin to let my mind unravel and by this time I’m just trying to keep my sanity but I decide to do something stupid. I call the restaurant to see who she is with. Probably the lowest I’ve gone to creeper status..but my mind and my heart are just in so much pain thinking of that time I caught her with another guy. I find out it’s just both of them so I am relieved.
She comes back for lunch and I head over to pick up the dog to go to the vet only to find out the waitress told her I called the restaurant to see if she was there.(again my fault because I told her I had a surprise for her 🤦🏼‍♂️) she asks me if I called the place and I said yes. My thing is always about honesty and loyalty. I own up to what I did for the reason I did it and apologize. She tells me she got embarrassed because her friend who has been against me since day one just tells her that she should move on and not do anything with me. Which I understand but all my gf has told her is the negative things and not about us trying to fix it and her being caught doing things as well. Which is fine because any friend will obviously take their side.
By this time we stop talking and she stays at her mom’s house to cool off. I message her asking if we could talk but this time I want to let it all out. How I feel what I’ve seen, how this is emotionally, physically, and mentally draining me. We’ve had these talks before and even before we got back together as well. I have given her an out that is she does not want to be with me then we can break up and move on with our lives. We do still owe on the house but I have even told her we can sell it or I can just leave and my part of the house would be lost because I do not care for the money. I would just find an apartment and live my life and she can continue talking to the man or men and pursue what she wants with them. I’ve mentioned that I am willing to work it out because I know I still feel something for her and I want to spend my life with her if she is willing to as well. Multiple times has this conversation been brought up and in the end she says she loves me and wants to work it out.
She comes home changes I get her a drink and snacks and turn off the tv. I had already written down key points of what is bothering me and what I feel is hurting us and me. So I explain to her that i do not like how she has kept us a secret that we are trying to work things out with her friends. It’s been two months and they still believe she is single and having dates and this is something that even though they are probably against me on she should still be mentioning something. She tells me that she’s afraid to look like an idiot and will tell them later. Am I wrong on this?
Then I mention how I saw the messaging and sometimes in the middle of the night she gets a message from this guy. I know that her friend tried to hook them up even though she says she didn’t and also mentions that he is just a friend of the group. I tell her it’s not right because he doesn’t know either that’s she is with me and trying to make it work and how she was acting weird that day I saw the messages. She says there is nothing going on but I feel otherwise and I know I’m not wrong. I tell her again that if she is interested in him then we can break up and she can pursue it if she decides. I ask her who it is and she tells me the name and is the guy that they were trying to hook up together. The guy messages her every morning and I’m sure throughout the day as well. What I can’t wrap around my head is that why would she do this if she is commuting to me and yet is disrespecting me in this way even after I ask her if they are messaging and she says no. But yet I happen to see the messages between them and she still denies it. During our talk it goes back and forth and tears and coming down. So I ask her to show me her phone messages and she begins saying no and that she doesn’t want to when I easily offer my for her to go through as I have nothing to hide. She finally agrees to do it and I see a whole lot of messages but she only shows me photos that they share of her dog, nice and Katy Perry. Only showing me what she wants me to see even though they have messaged throughout the day. I also noticed that she had the messages on silent as well and her excuse is that so I don’t get mad if I see his name pop out. We go back and forth on this and I tell her if she is interested in him then to leave me and we can move on. I can’t explain it any more clearer that we cannot be together if she is having something with him. I tell her I want her loyal, trustworthy, and honest with me if we are going to make it work. She says she still wants to work it out since she says she loves me but is just afraid that she will get hurt. Which I understand but I am willing to make up for what I did and prepared to spend my life making up for what I did and being happy. Moving forward after everything we have a clean slate and see how this goes..I asked her if he messaged her yesterday and she says he did about Katy Perry and just random text. Come this morning she happen to leave her phone unlocked and I noticed he messaged her good morning and responded to her conversation they had as it seems that she deleted the text she sent him and he responded this morning. I’m so confused as she tells me she loves me and wants to be with me and shows me affection, support and everything else we discussed as if nothing is wrong but still messages this guy on the side while they are on silent. I also noticed she deleted the chat history and started fresh as well since Sunday. idk what to do anymore I am so torn right now…i wanted to spend my life with this girl and only to find out she is still doing this and also may be going on a trip with her friend and their group which includes this guy as well without me since she wants to be able to spend time with them separately which I’m fine with me as I have no problem with that other than the guy she’s been messaging will be there. What can I do..I feel like I have already been transparent about how I feel and what is expected but to see these messages and even when asking her absolutely it she says no makes me wonder wtf is going on…why not just leave me. I don’t want to be checking her phone when I get a chance as I feel that puts me just as guilty. Please help.
Should I just move on and start new? Or should I continue to be with her and see how it goes?

I’m 20, and I want to change who I am. I have done a lot of introspection and I want to feel confident, happy, less arrogant and more importantly to heal and let things go a littleI think that to do this, I have to let go of the past and the pain it caused me, but I frankly don’t know how to do so.
I’d say that 3 things affected me in a major way : - I’ve been raped by my cousin from age 5 to 8. It crushed my soul and I don’t know if I’ve been able to feel like myself ever since. It has destroyed a lot of things in my life and has damaged my trust abilities a lot, but it is something I am willing to work on, I just… don’t know where to begin. - My father was abusive towards me, my mom and little brother. He was violent with me and my brother, used to tell us very humiliating and harsh things. Not having a paternal figure has been hard, and feeling hates by your own father feels horrible. It surely damaged my self esteem, increased my anxiety. I developed OCD at an early age because of it, it’s really hard. - Last, but not least and I only realized it recently, my mom has also hurt me. A lot. Maybe even more than my father, because even if he said terrible things, I knew he didn’t cared and didn’t love me. But my mom; it’s not that she doesn’t care. She loves me and always ment the best, but sometimes there are those moments where she snaps and I’m scared.
She is very religious, and me being a girl, I was supposed to fit a certain role : long hair, pretty dresses, quiet and organized. Everything child me wasn’t. I was messy, loud, I loved football and dinosaurs. She never really hid her disappointment, telling things like « I didn’t gave birth to a son ». She cut my hair short because I refused to let her style them ( I wanted long hair like rapounzel ). Weirdly, despite her wanting me to be the cliche of a girl, there was one thing she never tolerated : crying, and every strong emotion in general. When I was sad or upset and showing it, she would fly into one of those rages and lock me up in my room until I stopped. Once, my father throw the remote tv in my face me because I was too loud. It didn’t really hurt tbh, but I was shocked. So shocked that I froze during like 10 seconds before actually being able to cry, and my mom gave me the most terrifying look, a mix of disgust, anger and mockery, and she said « you’re not gonna cry, I saw what he did, it didn’t even hurt that bad. Quit pretending or I’ll give you a reason to cry ». I was 5, that was 15 years ago, but I still feel the pain and isolation I felt that day.
One of her favorite thing to do was also stopping to « be my mom ». She would just ignore me all day, and if she talked to me she called me by a different name as if I was a stranger, saying things like « why would I cook for you, you’re not my daughter ». To be clear here, she never refused me food nor water. But those words, ngl, they still hurt like a motherfucker.
I could keep going on and on. She laughed at me when she found a letter where I detailed how I would off myself, because I was supposedly attention seeking. She yelled at me until I broke down because she wanted me to tell her if I had a boyfriend (which I hid to her because he isn’t a catholic and she said that I would loose my soul if I ever dated a non religious guy). She stole private letters that were destined to vent and made them read to my dad, only making things worst, and when I asked her why she didn’t support me, she said she was scared. I was too, but I was here for her when she told me about her marital problems and her sex life when I was 10 . She called me a liar each time I confessed feeling down. And now she feigns surprise when she realizes she doesn’t know anything about anymore. I just can’t trust her anymore, because I know showing my weaknesses will simply let her where to strike the next time she snaps.
And I want to make this clear, but my mom isn’t a horrible person at all, she sacrificed everything for us and most of the time she is sweet and gentle. She even let me stay home even if I don’t work (because I have disabilities) and she accepted my boyfriend once she knew. She suffered so much because of my father, and has some problems of her own. And the fact that she only does it with me, and not with my little brother and sister shows that she has learned it wasn’t a way to treat you kids, and I’m happy they only got to know her loving and amazing side.
Which makes me feel even more guilt, and that’s why I want to forgive her. Problem is, whenever I talk with her about all of this, she straight up denies it ever happened, or say it’s in the past I shouldn’t hold grudges. And I mean, it’s fine if she doesn’t apologizes, but at least please acknowledge that what happened to me was real and that I’m not a liar ? I feel like I’m crazy and that everything I live was simply in my head, but I know it’s real. I’m having nightmares about it several times a week, panick attacks, night terrors.
I want to forgive those people, but at these point I feel like I’m dying inside. It feels impossible, and I feel even more guilt and shame about myself. Despite trying harder and harder, I have very dark thoughts crossing my mind because I feel trapped with my mother, with my faith - or rather her view of how I should practice my faith - and ultimately I feel like I don’t matter.
So how do I forgive those people, how do I let go of the past and begin to heal ?
Thank you for taking some of your time to read about me and my life, and even more thank you of gave me of your time to answer. Sorry about mistakes, I know there must be some but English isn’t my first language. Take care of you 💕

I had a wonderful childhood. I couldn't have asked for a better one. My parents, brother, family, ... so much love in my life.
As I got older, I started to become exposed to the harsh realities of life. The people closest to me and the ones I loved the most started to get sick and pass away. I lost my dog. Life wasnt the same. And later, was diagnosed with Crohns which had a massive impact on my life and self confidence. I felt like a lab rat.. so many tests, doctor visits, medicine, diets, needles, ... eventually extensive surgery.
Luckily, after years of torture, I made it out ok. I started to build back my confidence, and was optimistic about the future. Before I knew it, I met the love of my life. I felt so extremely lucky to have you in my life. It felt like a dream. I felt that after all that pain and loss, I had finally had something good happen to me.
As time we on, we became best friends. You confessed your love to me, said I was different than all the rest, and you saw a future with me. You expressed how special I was to you. I felt the same way.
We met eachothers families, who became so close with eachother. I truly loved your family, they felt like home. My family loved you so much... my parents loved you like a daughter, and I knew you loved them too. We had everyone's support and love. We were the golden couple. We grew and experiences so much together. Bought our first house, saw the world, new jobs, school, ... Everyone was so proud of us, and we were proud of eachother.
Somewhere along the way, you started seeking outside the relationship for attention. I knew you were very social, so at first, I was happy to see you making friends. I knew you had a difficult childhood and past, and didn't have many good friends, so I was very supportive and encouraged you to do things with your friends.
We were inseparable. Always going things together, planning trips, going on adventures. Everything was easy. We enjoyed eachothers company so much. We made eachother laugh, feel loved, and safe. We were so comfortable and open, goofy with eachother, and always so intimate.
We shared a lot of the same hobbies: plants/garden, camping, trails, video games, movies, travel, outdoors, relaxing at home, ... it didn't seem to matter what we were doing, we were happy together.
I loved making you smile and laugh. I loved seeing you happy doing what you loved, or eating a meal I'd prepare for you.
I always wanted you to have the best. Since you were in school, I provided for you. Food, toys, restaurants, trips, ... whatever you wanted. I wanted to give you the world. It felt so good to make you happy.
You would tease me and hint towards wanting to get engaged. After 3 years, it happened. We were so happy, and you were so excited and happy to share the big news. We started planning our wedding, moved into a bigger house, new jobs, everything felt good.
I never expected to love someone so much. This young woman brought so much love, happiness, and adventure into my life. She completed changed everything. Everything was so easy.. effortless.. felt right.
When we moved into your dream home, things became more stressful. The house needed a lot of work, as well as the property. Regardless, we were willing and eager to tackle projects together and were excited to make things our own.
As time went on, and school/work seemed to become more stressful for you, I was left finishing a lot of our projects and maintaining them by myself. I also stepped up and started trying to take on more of the chores and responsibilities so that you could focus on school/work and still have time to relax. I was happy to help give you some relief.
After a few months, your brother asked to be our roommate for a time. I was hesitant, but you encouraged me that it would be a good thing. He would pay and help around the house. At first, it was nice. However, as time we on, it became more and more stressful.
The stress of doing everything and having a roommate that didn't mesh well with us overwhelmed me. I knew it was temporary, so I endured it.
One day, you came home from your new job and expressed what a good day you had.. that you had the chance to work with a different doctor, and that he was very fun and nice. I was so happy to hear it, since I knew you hadn't been having good days and people had been difficult. I was glad you seemed to have a mentor.
You started to have more good days than bad, working with this person more and more. You started talking to me about them more, sharing things you learned and talked with him about. As time went on, I started to feel a bit jealous. You had been spending more time with this person than me... your shifts were long, and I hadn't been seeing you as much. You started even talking to our parents about this person.
I started to notice you texting him while we were at home together. I'd ask, and you'd happily share whatever it was you guys were talking about. One evening, you were texting this doctor late at night. I approached you about this, and expressed how it was making me feel. I felt that it had started to become too much, and wasn't appropriate. I didn't like the idea of this older married man communicating with my young fiance so much. I expressed that I was happy that you had a friend at work, but felt that it was becoming too personal and inappropriate. You tried to reassure me that you were just friends, and that he was old and married, you would never be attracted to him. I stood firm and expressed that I would like for you to only communicate while at work, or for work related matters. You agreed and assured me it was nothing.
As time went on, I noticed you would sometimes hide your phone, turn it away, flip it upside down, or turn it off as I walked by. At first, I thought it was just me being paranoid. But as time went on, it started to mess with my head... otherwise, everything was good, so I told myself it was nothing. You started to enjoy that type of work and decided to join his practice. I was happy you were able to make up your mind and find something you enjoyed. Time went on. At some point, you needed an invasive procedure done... and you requested that doctor complete it. I didn't love the idea, but you preferred to have someone do it that you trusted. After that, the doctor seemed to be a thing of the past.
As the wedding date approached, the excitement increased. We had everything planned out and we were so excited for our big day. I saw how happy you were throughout the whole process. I couldn't believe our big day was right around the corner.
Our wedding was like a dream. Everything came together so nicely. We had the best night of our lives. I loved seeing you so happy with our friends and family there to celebrate with us. We went on a wonderful honeymoon and I felt so loved and appreciated.
Once we returned home, our roommate left, and stress started to decrease dramatically in the house. I was so relieved. You finished school, graduated, and I threw you a big surprise party to celebrate. I had always put together parties for all your special occasions, and I knew you really appreciated that. After so many nights helping you study, it felt wonderful to see you walk across that stage and finally finish.
You shortly after moved to a different hospital, and seemed to really like your new job and everyone there. Life was so good...
The house and our list of responsibilities and all the maintenance was still a lot, but I felt we were quickly starting to knock things off our list.
One week, you started working a lot... I hardly saw you that week. We'd always text and check in, saying we loved eachother, missed eachother, and looked forward to seeing eachother. When the weekend finally arrived, you had mentioned your best friend invited you to join her for girl time. I realized you hadn't seen her much lately and encouraged it.
That weekend, my grandmother had been struggling. I felt alone in our big house and had wished you were there. We checked in on eachother while you were gone. I was expecting you to return one evening, so I had dinner prepared. I was hurt when you didn't arrive and decided to stay another night with your friend.
When I saw you the next morning, I was feeling pretty down. I was already sad about my grandmother, but also felt like an after thought that week. You were so happy to see me, which was nice. We had a nice evening, spent time together, .. you never stopped telling me you loved me.
The next day after work, I got home, and you seemed so cold and distant. You seemed bothered by something. I checked in, asked if you needed anything, then went about my day. It seemed like you wanted space. I checked in every few hours, and you were busy doing something on your laptop.
I prepared dinner and started watching TV. I encouraged you to take a break, eat, and relax some before bed. You joined me on the couch, but was quiet and explained that you had some work to finish.
As it got late, I went up to bed. You explained you'd be up a little longer while you finished your work. As the hours went by, I thought it was so odd that you weren't in bed yet. I knew you had to get up early... sleep was always such a priority. I got up to check on you and to get some water. You were still on your laptop.. I noticed you were looking at rooms to something. I encouraged you to get some sleep. You joined me, looking exhausted.
We cuddled, said we loved eachother, then fell asleep. The next morning, I finished getting ready for work while you slept. As I was getting ready to leave, I sae your laptop. I decided to check and see what you were looking at... another air bnb for a trip? I was curious. We shared the laptop, so I didn't feel like I was invading her privacy.
I opened the laptop and saw apartments. I was so confused. I checker her email.. apartments. I noticed she had Facebook messenger up with recent messages. I checked... my world turned upside down. Those seconds felt like eternity as my heart sounded and my stomach sank. I read a message to a friend saying she wanted a divorce, never loved me, felt like a stranger in her house, dreaded coming home to me, ... that she loved a doctor.. he's married, but his wife is a lesbian. That was easily the worst moment of my life. I panicked and didn't know what to do... I was in shock. After a few minutes, I decided to address this with you.
I quietly walked up the stairs, sat on the edge of the bed, and calmly woke you up. You were sleepy, asking why I woke up.. you still had about 30m before work. I apologized for waking you.. As I looked at you silently, I started to cry. I quietly said "I know...". "I saw the messages". She looked back at me in shock.. eyes wide in the dark. I asked if she had been having an affair. She said no.. then started to look at me as if I wad a stranger. It was a terrible feeling.
You got up to get ready for work, and said we'd talk later that evening. You left. I was standing in the driveway and felt sick. I wasn't sure if I could make it to work.. but being at the house was making me feel worse, so I left. I didn't eat anything that while day. While at work, I prepared myself for our talk.
When we both got home, you pulled up to the house and started to pack some things while I sat on the couch. When you finally joined me, you were quiet.. asked about my day, I asked about yours.. then more silence. I asked what you needed from me. You explained that you were feeling very anxious, and didn't want me to get upset. You said you were going to stay with a friend for a few days to clear your head and wanted to talk once we were both rested.
You left for almost a week while I stayed in our big empty house, taking care of our pets, and completely confused and dead inside. I hardly ate or slept. I desperately started reading and watching whatever information I could find to help explain what was happening and to prepare myself. I spent most of my time thinking, reflecting on our life. I started tonrealize how stressed I had been... and thought about all the things I should/could have done differently. I knew I treated her so well, but no one is perfect.
Looking back, I started to think about all the red flags. Love is blind. I truly loved, trusted, and cared for this person more than anyone in the world. I thought she felt the same way... I never imagined us seperating.
I started to think of that doctor she used to talk about.. and realized she probably never stopped talking to him. I started to realize that my wife had stopped opening up to me... was no longer emotional or vulnerable... her emotional? affair started to kill the emotional intimacy between us.
I was happy just to have her in my life and enjoyed just being with her... she never expressed or talked about being unhappy... if I had known, I feel certain that we could have fixed whatever was lacking. I would have met whichever needs werent being met.
Were you lonely while I was busy working hard for us? Was she bored? I would have happily planned more outings... whenever I suggested something, you expressed that you were tired or didn't show interest. I knew you enjoyed time alone, so I never felt bad doing my own thing. I figured you would tell me of you needed or felt something...
I was so confused... started to question what was real. When did this all start? Why? How? Terrible thoughts entered my mind... so many late shifts, staying the night at the hospital, leaving early to get the air bnbs ready, ...
I also realized that towards the end, you had suddenly started to listen to different music, got a nose piercing, tattoo, talked about signing up for a sport, working out, ... these were all things I knew you had wanted to do for awhile, but it was all so sudden.
Why didn't you ever communicate... I recall you expressing your concern with my stress, but nothing else. I felt that my stress was reasonable considering everything I was doing.. and knew it was temporary. I didn't ignore it though. I saw a therapist, and started making changes. Was it all too late?
When we finally spoke again, it was so nice to just see you. We sat and you were so friendly and sweet - it reassured me that everything was going to be ok. We made small talk and joked, which immediately lightened the mood. You suggested I spoke first. I expressed my feelings and how important the marriage was.. that I'd so anything to save it. I took responsibility for my side of things and expressed the changes I had made and would continue to make. When you started, you expressed that you would always cherish our time together, but we're set on divorce. That we both deserved to be truly happy. Shortly after, you left.
The days after, you started packing your things while I was at work. I was living in a big empty house, every day getting more and more empty. I was a complete mess living in hell. Her family started to reach out to me and shower me with support, apologies, and disbelief. No one could make sense of this.
After a week or so, I couldn't take it any more, so I moved to stay with my parents while we finished moving out. I attempted to stay cordile through all this. You seemed so unphased and happy... texting me and talking to me like we were still best friends.
You explained that you felt bad for saying you never loved me... that you did, but not in the way a wife should love their husband. That it could be years, but in the future, I could count on you.
As time went on, and the pain increased, I was more distant. You texted more and more. Finally, I suggested that we limit communication unless she was interested in working on our marriage.
As the days went by, you grew colder and irritated.. I started to feel like the bad guy. I know you started to feel the weight of your decisons, and starred to project onto me. Making me the bad guy made you feel better. I attempted to end things on a good note... being helpful throughout the move out process, but you were so cold. It hurt so much... 5 wonderful years tossed aside like it never mattered.
I havent talked to you in weeks... I miss my best friend, my love, your family, our pets, and the wonderful life we built. I'm left trying to pickup the pieces. I feel so lost, confused, broken, ...
The tremendous amount of support I've gotten from both sides has helped a lot. I'm seeing a therapist, reading a lot, eating more, working out, and focusing on my self. The days are getting better, but I still have days where I am a mess.
I havent been sleeping well... always tired. Waking up several times, terrible nightmares and thoughts of you being with another man... I still have believe you would be capable of all this.. of hurting me so much.
I have urges to reach out to you... wanting to fix this, that there must be a misunderstanding... there are so many things I'd like to say. I got complacent and comfortable during our time together. I stopped doing the little things as often as I used to... I never meant to hurt you, make you feel lonely, unloved, unappreciated, ... whatever it is you felt. It's difficult for me to accept that my sweet innocent wife was capable of this... surely there was a reason?? I was just so caught up in my list of things... I was working so hard for our future.
I feel like my wife was manipulated by this man... why does an older doctor (20 years older) have a lesbian wife? He doesn't love her like she seems to think... he is using her. I feel sorry for her... I know there is no future there.
I've done a lot of reading on Attachment Styles, Limerence, love addiction, and other things that come as a result of childhood trauma. I feel like a lot of this has to do with her trauma... but also her selfishness and emotional immaturity. There is nothing I can do. I just pray she figures things out on her own, finds longlasting happiness, and puts an end to this cycle.
I would love it if we were able to reconnect in the future... I still deeply love and care for her. I don't want our story to end... none of this feels right. My gut is screaming that this is all wrong. I just know we both need to work on ourselves for the time being.
One day I had it all, the next, it crashed down before my eyes. Meeting you was the best thing to happen to me... you leaving was the worst. You rushed out of my life so quickly... I wish things were different.

Never thought I would be making a post on here, but I only get 3 free therapist visits a year so here I am.
TLDR : My parents have fully replaced me with some guy (M28) they met at work/ church. I'm slightly hurt but ultimately it's their life and they can do what the please. I am more bewildered, and concerned about my parents being taken advantage of.
First some relevant background info:
My parents are VERY religious boomers. by this I mean more religious than you would believe until you actually spoke to them. growing up this created a lot of friction between us. As I reached my teens I became disillusioned with organized Christianity mostly due to the fact that a lot of modern day interpretations miss the point of what is written in the Bible. the hypocrisy I witnessed was rampant among church members including my parents. I strongly disliked their thinly veiled revulsion for any people who they considered "sinners", a title which was doled out on a whim. even while I was in the church it would be weaponized against other church goers and even myself once. a pastor from another church told a girl I was hanging out with that I would lead her to hell, despite the fact that I also went to church. she promptly cut off all contact despite admitting that she didn't want to, but was being threatened with being kicked out of her church groups of she did not.
back to my parents: we were at odds throughout my teen years as I began to avoid church and anything about it. I did not stop believing but I did not want to be associated with their type of toxic Christianity. this was not something they could understand. when I say they are fully indoctrinated it means they are irredeemable in many of their views. they were willing to ignore any and all boundaries I set about religion even to this day. despite me telling them that what they were doing would tear our family apart. in the end they chose religion over their children. my sister is essentially no contact with them.
as a very young child, our family moved around a lot. I was a continual outsider. I had no friends, at all. my parents would say it was no big deal cause I was just a kid and kids don't care about that stuff really, kids don't know the difference, etc. but I knew the difference and I desperately wanted friendship and community. the only constants were 2 hyper controlling parents who wanted a quiet and obedient follower.
eventually we moved to a place where I was able to form solid friendships for the first time in my life. it was , to this day, the happiest time period of my life. this lasted until my final year of high school when my parents decided to move. despite me having many friends whose parents offered me a place to stay for the final year, my parents forced me to move. this caused me to spiral into a deep depression for around 3 years. I developed enduring social anxiety which I deal with to this day. I have made peace with the fact that I will never have a lot of friends, but thinking about what I missed out on is painful. years later I found out they forced me to move because they prayed and God told them it would be better for all of us if I moved with them. we needed to stay together as a family. then 2 years later they moved back to the place they took me from. all I can do is laugh at this because it is so dark and obviously bullshit. when it was my life getting fucked up "God" said ok we needed to stay together as a family. when I needed support he said naw just ditch him and move away.
my life was destroyed by religion. I have since learned that of course, we are ultimately in charge of our own happiness, but at the time I had no knowledge of trauma or therapy. simply 2 parents who reduced every concern I ever had in my life to "just pray about it". in fact throughout my entire life they diminished all of my concerns, big and small. in addition, they would often judge me for everything I did, even if they were innocent to a non religious person. so I would only tell them about things when I absolutely had no other choice. and they would treat them as wholly unimportant. they also believed that men should not be upset or emotional and should figure things out for themselves. so they would help my sister out whenever she needed it, including buying her a new car, while I was riding my bike an hour each way to go to engineering school. there were many points in my life where I was at rock bottom, and despite them having more than enough means to help me, they did not.
compounding this is the fact that all the while they diminished my own concerns, they would bend over backwards to help people not in our family. they always wanted to appear nice and helpful, but this never extended to me. in fact they would often do things to inconvenience me in order to help some random person they just met.
All of these circumstances created a very weird relationship dynamic between us all. I became avoidant, negative and pessimistic for years before I discovered therapy and began to work through my mental health issues. I struggled in many relationships I had, and always felt like I was a lesser person than everyone else. this persisted until around 3 years ago when I began to correct the errors in my thinking patterns. despite therapy, I still struggle to have a relationship with my parents. all they talk about is religion. I have given up trying to enforce the boundary there. there is no point. they don't know anything else. they cannot be different and have no desire to change, in fact they see no error in their actions throughout the years. despite me obviously having issues. they essentially chalk it up to me just being a bad egg. I have since been able to forgive them, but the trauma I experienced throughout my life has left me with tendencies they hate. I withdraw when I am depressed, I am prone to anxiety from time to time, I have ADHD, I distance myself from them because all they do is cross my boundaries to preach at me, etc etc.
Back to the present:
Before my dad retired he hired this guy, let's call him Raj, at his work. just a basic bank employee. he is a nice enough guy I think. a little awkward but nice enough. I believe he has an engineering degree from another country but it got rejected by our country, so he had to just take whatever job he could get. he is new to the country and a bit of a fish out of water, this is the reason I think most people looked past his non ordinary behavior.... I literally cannot imagine myself ever hanging out or going on vacations with my boss, who is 20+ years older than me.
he struggled to understand the job and my dad had to spend a lot of time with him to get him up to speed. he began to go to my dad for life advice beyond work, as he struggled with making friends or getting a girlfriend. I think eventually my parents invited him to church and he went, despite being originally Hindu. eventually he went with them regularly and integrated himself with them to a wild extent that I did not realize until this past weekend when they came to "visit". they brought this motherfucker with them without saying shit beforehand. paid for his hotel and all his food. bought him clothes and took him on errands. all while saying they didn't really have time to assist me; I cannot drive anymore as I began having seizures 3 years ago.
when we did finally hang out, my own parents mistakenly called me his name many times. they acted like a family and treated me like I was just some dude lol.
we went out to dinner with some friends of theirs who were also in town. during dinner they called Raj my parents adopted son. needless to say I was very weirded out. but did not say anything. if I did they would just say I was being negative and I look like the asshole.
I know Raj does not make a lot of money but somehow he was able to buy a small house a year after starting work. I have not seen proof personally but my sister has said she is sure that my pprovided the down payment. this is where I began to be concerned they are being taken advantage of. this is very out of character for my parents.
I have considered also the weirdest possiblity, that they may have some kind of weird ass sugar baby relationship but I simply cannot see that being the case. they are hypocrites about some aspects of Christianity, such as not judging people, but they are 1000% devout when it comes to what they would deem as sin.
I get the impression that they have empty nest syndrome and compounded with their propensity to bend over backwards for non family members, they have essentially adopted this guy. he is at their house several times a week. as far as I know my mom prepares most of his meals.
it appears to me that they found a replacement for me with none of the mental health issues and resentment ( that they caused) and who was willing to play the part of a church goer. I fear now, based on watching them shop together that he is taking advantage of them. If they are just choosing to help him out money wise that is MASSIVELY out of character for them to do so to this extent. this is the main reason I think they are being taken advantage of. they are doing things for this guy they would NEVER do for anyone.
I am not sure how to approach this situation or what to even think about it. I lack the bandwidth to really mull it over or be upset about it. one thing I am certain of is that me saying anything about this will do nothing except make them mad and bring them closer together .they think I am simply a negative person and don't really listen to my thoughts on things, whether I am right or not.they have always treated me like I'm a moron
Is this as weird to you as it is to me? What would you do in this scenario?

I had a wonderful childhood. I couldn't have asked for a better one. My parents, brother, family, ... so much love in my life.
As I got older, I started to become exposed to the harsh realities of life. The people closest to me and the ones I loved the most started to get sick and pass away. I lost my dog. Life wasnt the same. And later, was diagnosed with Crohns which had a massive impact on my life and self confidence. I felt like a lab rat.. so many tests, doctor visits, medicine, diets, needles, ... eventually extensive surgery.
Luckily, after years of torture, I made it out ok. I started to build back my confidence, and was optimistic about the future. Before I knew it, I met the love of my life. I felt so extremely lucky to have you in my life. It felt like a dream. I felt that after all that pain and loss, I had finally had something good happen to me.
As time we on, we became best friends. You confessed your love to me, said I was different than all the rest, and you saw a future with me. You expressed how special I was to you. I felt the same way.
We met eachothers families, who became so close with eachother. I truly loved your family, they felt like home. My family loved you so much... my parents loved you like a daughter, and I knew you loved them too. We had everyone's support and love. We were the golden couple. We grew and experiences so much together. Bought our first house, saw the world, new jobs, school, ... Everyone was so proud of us, and we were proud of eachother.
Somewhere along the way, you started seeking outside the relationship for attention. I knew you were very social, so at first, I was happy to see you making friends. I knew you had a difficult childhood and past, and didn't have many good friends, so I was very supportive and encouraged you to do things with your friends.
We were inseparable. Always going things together, planning trips, going on adventures. Everything was easy. We enjoyed eachothers company so much. We made eachother laugh, feel loved, and safe. We were so comfortable and open, goofy with eachother, and always so intimate.
We shared a lot of the same hobbies: plants/garden, camping, trails, video games, movies, travel, outdoors, relaxing at home, ... it didn't seem to matter what we were doing, we were happy together.
I loved making you smile and laugh. I loved seeing you happy doing what you loved, or eating a meal I'd prepare for you.
I always wanted you to have the best. Since you were in school, I provided for you. Food, toys, restaurants, trips, ... whatever you wanted. I wanted to give you the world. It felt so good to make you happy.
You would tease me and hint towards wanting to get engaged. After 3 years, it happened. We were so happy, and you were so excited and happy to share the big news. We started planning our wedding, moved into a bigger house, new jobs, everything felt good.
I never expected to love someone so much. This young woman brought so much love, happiness, and adventure into my life. She completed changed everything. Everything was so easy.. effortless.. felt right.
When we moved into your dream home, things became more stressful. The house needed a lot of work, as well as the property. Regardless, we were willing and eager to tackle projects together and were excited to make things our own.
As time went on, and school/work seemed to become more stressful for you, I was left finishing a lot of our projects and maintaining them by myself. I also stepped up and started trying to take on more of the chores and responsibilities so that you could focus on school/work and still have time to relax. I was happy to help give you some relief.
After a few months, your brother asked to be our roommate for a time. I was hesitant, but you encouraged me that it would be a good thing. He would pay and help around the house. At first, it was nice. However, as time we on, it became more and more stressful.
The stress of doing everything and having a roommate that didn't mesh well with us overwhelmed me. I knew it was temporary, so I endured it.
One day, you came home from your new job and expressed what a good day you had.. that you had the chance to work with a different doctor, and that he was very fun and nice. I was so happy to hear it, since I knew you hadn't been having good days and people had been difficult. I was glad you seemed to have a mentor.
You started to have more good days than bad, working with this person more and more. You started talking to me about them more, sharing things you learned and talked with him about. As time went on, I started to feel a bit jealous. You had been spending more time with this person than me... your shifts were long, and I hadn't been seeing you as much. You started even talking to our parents about this person.
I started to notice you texting him while we were at home together. I'd ask, and you'd happily share whatever it was you guys were talking about. One evening, you were texting this doctor late at night. I approached you about this, and expressed how it was making me feel. I felt that it had started to become too much, and wasn't appropriate. I didn't like the idea of this older married man communicating with my young fiance so much. I expressed that I was happy that you had a friend at work, but felt that it was becoming too personal and inappropriate. You tried to reassure me that you were just friends, and that he was old and married, you would never be attracted to him. I stood firm and expressed that I would like for you to only communicate while at work, or for work related matters. You agreed and assured me it was nothing.
As time went on, I noticed you would sometimes hide your phone, turn it away, flip it upside down, or turn it off as I walked by. At first, I thought it was just me being paranoid. But as time went on, it started to mess with my head... otherwise, everything was good, so I told myself it was nothing. You started to enjoy that type of work and decided to join his practice. I was happy you were able to make up your mind and find something you enjoyed. Time went on. At some point, you needed an invasive procedure done... and you requested that doctor complete it. I didn't love the idea, but you preferred to have someone do it that you trusted. After that, the doctor seemed to be a thing of the past.
As the wedding date approached, the excitement increased. We had everything planned out and we were so excited for our big day. I saw how happy you were throughout the whole process. I couldn't believe our big day was right around the corner.
Our wedding was like a dream. Everything came together so nicely. We had the best night of our lives. I loved seeing you so happy with our friends and family there to celebrate with us. We went on a wonderful honeymoon and I felt so loved and appreciated.
Once we returned home, our roommate left, and stress started to decrease dramatically in the house. I was so relieved. You finished school, graduated, and I threw you a big surprise party to celebrate. I had always put together parties for all your special occasions, and I knew you really appreciated that. After so many nights helping you study, it felt wonderful to see you walk across that stage and finally finish.
You shortly after moved to a different hospital, and seemed to really like your new job and everyone there. Life was so good...
The house and our list of responsibilities and all the maintenance was still a lot, but I felt we were quickly starting to knock things off our list.
One week, you started working a lot... I hardly saw you that week. We'd always text and check in, saying we loved eachother, missed eachother, and looked forward to seeing eachother. When the weekend finally arrived, you had mentioned your best friend invited you to join her for girl time. I realized you hadn't seen her much lately and encouraged it.
That weekend, my grandmother had been struggling. I felt alone in our big house and had wished you were there. We checked in on eachother while you were gone. I was expecting you to return one evening, so I had dinner prepared. I was hurt when you didn't arrive and decided to stay another night with your friend.
When I saw you the next morning, I was feeling pretty down. I was already sad about my grandmother, but also felt like an after thought that week. You were so happy to see me, which was nice. We had a nice evening, spent time together, .. you never stopped telling me you loved me.
The next day after work, I got home, and you seemed so cold and distant. You seemed bothered by something. I checked in, asked if you needed anything, then went about my day. It seemed like you wanted space. I checked in every few hours, and you were busy doing something on your laptop.
I prepared dinner and started watching TV. I encouraged you to take a break, eat, and relax some before bed. You joined me on the couch, but was quiet and explained that you had some work to finish.
As it got late, I went up to bed. You explained you'd be up a little longer while you finished your work. As the hours went by, I thought it was so odd that you weren't in bed yet. I knew you had to get up early... sleep was always such a priority. I got up to check on you and to get some water. You were still on your laptop.. I noticed you were looking at rooms to something. I encouraged you to get some sleep. You joined me, looking exhausted.
We cuddled, said we loved eachother, then fell asleep. The next morning, I finished getting ready for work while you slept. As I was getting ready to leave, I sae your laptop. I decided to check and see what you were looking at... another air bnb for a trip? I was curious. We shared the laptop, so I didn't feel like I was invading her privacy.
I opened the laptop and saw apartments. I was so confused. I checker her email.. apartments. I noticed she had Facebook messenger up with recent messages. I checked... my world turned upside down. Those seconds felt like eternity as my heart sounded and my stomach sank. I read a message to a friend saying she wanted a divorce, never loved me, felt like a stranger in her house, dreaded coming home to me, ... that she loved a doctor.. he's married, but his wife is a lesbian. That was easily the worst moment of my life. I panicked and didn't know what to do... I was in shock. After a few minutes, I decided to address this with you.
I quietly walked up the stairs, sat on the edge of the bed, and calmly woke you up. You were sleepy, asking why I woke up.. you still had about 30m before work. I apologized for waking you.. As I looked at you silently, I started to cry. I quietly said "I know...". "I saw the messages". She looked back at me in shock.. eyes wide in the dark. I asked if she had been having an affair. She said no.. then started to look at me as if I wad a stranger. It was a terrible feeling.
You got up to get ready for work, and said we'd talk later that evening. You left. I was standing in the driveway and felt sick. I wasn't sure if I could make it to work.. but being at the house was making me feel worse, so I left. I didn't eat anything that while day. While at work, I prepared myself for our talk.
When we both got home, you pulled up to the house and started to pack some things while I sat on the couch. When you finally joined me, you were quiet.. asked about my day, I asked about yours.. then more silence. I asked what you needed from me. You explained that you were feeling very anxious, and didn't want me to get upset. You said you were going to stay with a friend for a few days to clear your head and wanted to talk once we were both rested.
You left for almost a week while I stayed in our big empty house, taking care of our pets, and completely confused and dead inside. I hardly ate or slept. I desperately started reading and watching whatever information I could find to help explain what was happening and to prepare myself. I spent most of my time thinking, reflecting on our life. I started tonrealize how stressed I had been... and thought about all the things I should/could have done differently. I knew I treated her so well, but no one is perfect.
Looking back, I started to think about all the red flags. Love is blind. I truly loved, trusted, and cared for this person more than anyone in the world. I thought she felt the same way... I never imagined us seperating.
I started to think of that doctor she used to talk about.. and realized she probably never stopped talking to him. I started to realize that my wife had stopped opening up to me... was no longer emotional or vulnerable... her emotional? affair started to kill the emotional intimacy between us.
I was happy just to have her in my life and enjoyed just being with her... she never expressed or talked about being unhappy... if I had known, I feel certain that we could have fixed whatever was lacking. I would have met whichever needs werent being met.
Were you lonely while I was busy working hard for us? Was she bored? I would have happily planned more outings... whenever I suggested something, you expressed that you were tired or didn't show interest. I knew you enjoyed time alone, so I never felt bad doing my own thing. I figured you would tell me of you needed or felt something...
I was so confused... started to question what was real. When did this all start? Why? How? Terrible thoughts entered my mind... so many late shifts, staying the night at the hospital, leaving early to get the air bnbs ready, ...
I also realized that towards the end, you had suddenly started to listen to different music, got a nose piercing, tattoo, talked about signing up for a sport, working out, ... these were all things I knew you had wanted to do for awhile, but it was all so sudden.
Why didn't you ever communicate... I recall you expressing your concern with my stress, but nothing else. I felt that my stress was reasonable considering everything I was doing.. and knew it was temporary. I didn't ignore it though. I saw a therapist, and started making changes. Was it all too late?
When we finally spoke again, it was so nice to just see you. We sat and you were so friendly and sweet - it reassured me that everything was going to be ok. We made small talk and joked, which immediately lightened the mood. You suggested I spoke first. I expressed my feelings and how important the marriage was.. that I'd so anything to save it. I took responsibility for my side of things and expressed the changes I had made and would continue to make. When you started, you expressed that you would always cherish our time together, but we're set on divorce. That we both deserved to be truly happy. Shortly after, you left.
The days after, you started packing your things while I was at work. I was living in a big empty house, every day getting more and more empty. I was a complete mess living in hell. Her family started to reach out to me and shower me with support, apologies, and disbelief. No one could make sense of this.
After a week or so, I couldn't take it any more, so I moved to stay with my parents while we finished moving out. I attempted to stay cordile through all this. You seemed so unphased and happy... texting me and talking to me like we were still best friends.
You explained that you felt bad for saying you never loved me... that you did, but not in the way a wife should love their husband. That it could be years, but in the future, I could count on you.
As time went on, and the pain increased, I was more distant. You texted more and more. Finally, I suggested that we limit communication unless she was interested in working on our marriage.
As the days went by, you grew colder and irritated.. I started to feel like the bad guy. I know you started to feel the weight of your decisons, and starred to project onto me. Making me the bad guy made you feel better. I attempted to end things on a good note... being helpful throughout the move out process, but you were so cold. It hurt so much... 5 wonderful years tossed aside like it never mattered.
I havent talked to you in weeks... I miss my best friend, my love, your family, our pets, and the wonderful life we built. I'm left trying to pickup the pieces. I feel so lost, confused, broken, ...
The tremendous amount of support I've gotten from both sides has helped a lot. I'm seeing a therapist, reading a lot, eating more, working out, and focusing on my self. The days are getting better, but I still have days where I am a mess.
I havent been sleeping well... always tired. Waking up several times, terrible nightmares and thoughts of you being with another man... I still have believe you would be capable of all this.. of hurting me so much.
I have urges to reach out to you... wanting to fix this, that there must be a misunderstanding... there are so many things I'd like to say. I got complacent and comfortable during our time together. I stopped doing the little things as often as I used to... I never meant to hurt you, make you feel lonely, unloved, unappreciated, ... whatever it is you felt. It's difficult for me to accept that my sweet innocent wife was capable of this... surely there was a reason?? I was just so caught up in my list of things... I was working so hard for our future.
I feel like my wife was manipulated by this man... why does an older doctor (20 years older) have a lesbian wife? He doesn't love her like she seems to think... he is using her. I feel sorry for her... I know there is no future there.
I've done a lot of reading on Attachment Styles, Limerence, love addiction, and other things that come as a result of childhood trauma. I feel like a lot of this has to do with her trauma... but also her selfishness and emotional immaturity. There is nothing I can do. I just pray she figures things out on her own, finds longlasting happiness, and puts an end to this cycle.
I would love it if we were able to reconnect in the future... I still deeply love and care for her. I don't want our story to end... none of this feels right. My gut is screaming that this is all wrong. I just know we both need to work on ourselves for the time being.
One day I had it all, the next, it crashed down before my eyes. Meeting you was the best thing to happen to me... you leaving was the worst. You rushed out of my life so quickly... I wish things were different.

hello fellow soaders, I haven't seen too much discussion on here about this book. I unfortunately missed the signing in nyc because I was out of state on vacation so bummed about that. Just picked the book up on Sunday when I returned and finished it a few minutes ago so EXTREMELY fresh on my mind.
First, i'd love to hear everyone's thoughts who read it. I'm of course going to be biased because System was such a big part of growing up for me so it is ingrained in my life story. I read cool gardens when it was first released, bought serart the day it released. I own every SOB album, johns album, I even remember the shavo rza project so I'm a SUPER FAN. seen them 5 or 6 times live dating back to the toxicity era. for that reason there's going to be deep bias. I recognize that and would love to see other opinions who perhaps are not as biased, more casual etc.
nonetheless, I have not read many rock memoirs, only this and the maynard james keenan memoir as system and tool are my two favorite bands of all time. while their life stories were drastically different, i enjoyed them both as both have incredibly creative outlooks on life. without diving too much into a comparison, here's what I loved about down with the system
Serj has always had a way with words, though i'm sure there were ghostwriters, editors etc, this is a man who has been comfortable writing (think understanding oil) for decades, so without knowing how much of a hand ghostwriters had in this project, his fingerprint is unmistakably all over it. there is a certain flow and lyricism to the writing itself that one would expect from serj. It is funny, silly, smart and honest. It is well written which is really a necessity for a good book.
the historical deep dive into the armenian genocide really took me back to my university studies on the holocaust. truly the pain and horror felt by his grandparents and the armenian people in that era recounted in such detail was difficult to read, but really important. it helped slow down my own life, take a deep breath and really appreciate the air. I forced myself to learn about the armenian genocide as a young teen after being exposed to SOAD, but hearing the tale so personally was harrowing and deeply impacting. as a student of history, geopolitics, a father and a Catholic, it was gripping. on the basis of that alone I can recommend the book.
as an artist myself, so much of serj's journey resonated with me. the way art awakens something in you. the power of art for arts sake. the contentedness one strives to feel regardless of something being understood, demanded, monetized, not demanded, not understood etc it spoke so much to me. being unapologetic in making music regardless if anyone wants to hear it. i love that.
unlike mjks memoir which did not touch much on music, serj gave really deep dives into inspirations for particular songs (deer dance, chop suey!, war, bounce, prison song)., albums, lyrics, the songwriting process and a more intimate look at the band dynamic through his eyes. In particular, the background to the lyrics of toxicity added an entirely new layer of awesomeness to that song. I have a really in depth breakdown on the lyrics to that song somewhere on this subreddit, and it was very satisfying personally to see how close I was flying to the target, but also to see the inspiration for the song, where serj came up with it and the mindset he was in when he wrote it.
i can imagine if i were the rest of the band, i would be irritated with serj at how they were depicted. there is a clear indication that the band places the band at the center of their respective universes and they are extremely rigid creatively. at times they are depicted as sneaky, petty, profit-driven and at times irrational. i can only imagine daron and the rest of the crew probably have some specific stories to share about how they think serj is a jerkoff too, but there is def. some personal tension that anyone can clearly read in this book despite the band insisting the hold up has been creative all of these years.
i am glad though he paid specific respect to daron. in many ways it was satisfying to see serj acknowledge that daron always puts the music first and that he is obsessed to a degree with the music and doing what he feels is best for the music. as a fan of the music, i really appreciate that because clearly that has lead to incredible moments in the catalog.
i continue to be one of the hold outs on this subreddit that hopes these guys compromise with one another and give us one last legendary album. after reading this book, it only reaffirms what we've all been saying - it seems unlikely. in order for it to happen, serj will need to be allowed to bring more songs. that seems to be the only way and he will have to do more shows than he would like. those seem like two non-starters.
according to serj - daron seems to see serj writing more for the band as an attack on his ability as a songwriter. john sees that as upending the way they've always done things. on the flipside, it seems that the two most recent songs were extremely micromanaged by daron which does not bode well for the type of artistic freedom serj is clearly seeking and also in some ways hurt the songs imo at least (speaking specifically on how high up in the volume mix daron was and how prominent his vocals played).
it seems like the band is on the cusp any minute of announcing that they will no longer play together, and yet serj ropes the fans back in saying that he really enjoyed 2023 sick new world. as a fan begging for new music it was a roller coaster.
Nonetheless, I'm sorry my thoughts are all over the place, I'm just giving my immediate reaction so it's all very raw and I haven't reflected on it much. I'd love to discuss with anyone but overall, I genuinely enjoyed the book.

I (f22) have been with my fiancé (m23) for 7 years. I’ll call him jack. Jack and I met in highschool. We were each others first bodies, and jack is still my only body. Once graduated jack decided to join military. I was sad but it was only army National gaurd so I knew he’d be home often and I just had to stick it out for l deployments. we get our own apartment & adopt a senior pitt bull! we commonly spend our nights watching youtube and anime, playing games on the computer and loving eachother (or so i thought)
2022 he leaves for a year long deployment. I wait loyally. He ghosted me all deployment saying it was a military thing because they’re so busy all day. I took the benefit of the doubt because I don’t know shit about military. He called me one time on thanksgiving. I could see he would be on his phone overseas but never to message me , I was muted. TW- SELF HARM actually tried to OD and performed a lot of self harm while he was gone due to the fact that he ghosted me without reason. I was up night after night delerious wondering why.. losing so much weight, being in pain and heartbroken.
Anyway . He came home and for the last year we were regular best friends again. I cooked, cleaned, all the housewife shit but on another note, we woke up together, played video games & watched anime together everyday. we went gambling together lol, dates every other damn day, car rides.
Anyway he had to leave 2 weeks ago to Trinidad for his annual National gaurd 2 weeks. He left. He promised never again will he ghost, and he promised nothing would happen. He talked about the date we were gonna go on when he comes home on the 15th.
he leaves for trinidad for 2 weeks - No suprise, he ghosted. He was sent out to Trinidad and was working and “busy” but I had a gut feeling something was weird. The 15th comes, and he’s now not even traceable on life 360. On the 16th, I Started to worry. I assumed maybe they worked a little more out in Trinidad. On the morning of the 17th, I text his sergeant, asking when they would be home. Sergeant told me they arrived home early morning on the 15th. Wow.
So I had no idea where he was at . He finally text me saying he’s at a guys house. He said “I don’t want to talk about it, I’ll be home tomorrow.” He doesn’t have friends. We share the same 4 guy friends and we were all looking for him. i was freaking out and crying until he came home the next day. He comes home the next day like he said. I was crying when he came through the door . He was staring at me cold and rash. He said we’re done cause he wasn’t “happy for a while now”. He told me I can still stay at his apartment, but we’re single. Heartbroken and confused, I go about my night . I come back to the apartment around 1am. I get in bed and he kisses my forhead. He said I’ll be back I’m going to get some food.
I secretly turned his location back on. My app shows him pull up to some house down the street. I immediately drove there . Best believe his truck was right parked outside the house it said he was at. I knock on the door crazy af . He comes outside pale, and tells me I have to leave. I busted into her house and screamed “he has a fiancé of 7 years he’s cheating on me” he covers my mouth and drags me out. He tells me to leave he says “I met her on deployment you have to go this isn’t right, I told her we broke up” “YEA YOUVE BEEN SEEING HER ALL WEEK . YOU CHEATED AND BROKEUP WITH ME DAYS LATER. WE WERE TOGETHER 7 years” i screamed this so she could hear it. She had a suprised reaction. My fiancé was saying he didn’t even know me. I’m not gonna lie I keyed his new tundra truck on the way out.
how he met her - he admitted to “mentally breaking up with me months ago” just not “telling me that part” FUCK YOU! he said she’s in his unit and he’s had a crush on her but made his move in trinidad by letting her know of his crush on her. they flew home together on the 15th and he gave her a ride from the airport, and asked her if he could stay the night .
NOW - he is letting me continue to live at the apartment with him. because he let me QUIT my job last week and admitted to taking care of me so i can study for a better career. now i’m single with no job. I spoke to the girl he cheated on me with 1 on 1 and turns out of course he was lying about a lot including him telling her he broke up with me months ago. so she left him and said she won’t be seeing him anymore . she’s pretty nice and genuinely apologetic. anyway he’s been moping around the apartment and i don’t know what to do or how to act. He was crying in his bed last night when i was about to go out with a friend and i felt bad. my head is fucked with i can’t tell if he’s sad about what he did or sad that he lost her. i personally am a little bit over it already , because cheating is one of those things where i just straight will hate and be disgusted by you . that being said , is it smart of me to continue speaking to him? i’ve known him since he was 15 he has a fucked up family (drugs & alc) and no friends. i told him regardless of what he did i’ll still be a friend for him. what would you do and how would you act as the roomate? i won’t lie we’ve cried and hugged a few times but that’s cause we know it’s over .

I had a severe pain deep in my right groin a couple of times. It was "wiping out" pain. Nothing else existed. But it didn't last long. Hmmm I thought as my wife watched me writhe, I better see a doc." I wrote 'em a note about it on one of those new whiz bang clinic interfaces we have now. Naw, they didn't wanna see me. Just come in at my regular appointment time. I would rate the tone of it as God to worms.
That forced me to get nasty so I pointed out tendon pain was a possible side effect of prescribed drugs. “Don't you read the literature that accompanies the drugs you prescribe,” I asked. If you have to declare war against the turkey doctor fate has given you sometimes you just have to. I HATE having to do it. I hate being driven into incivility. The only thing that the medical community now fears is a lawsuit, and they've managed to water down those in Texas, in return for campaign contributions. So anyway, a veiled reference brought them around
No complaints about the waiting time and all, but I was again asked about a debt of $130 for which I had previously produced the cancelled check. The negotiations have been poisoned at all times by a front end phone system that doesn't work. You basically can't call anyone, and when the desk gives you a number, it's obsolete.
I was also concerned about two drugs my doctor had prescribed. X, 10 mg. per day, and Y, 180 milligrams per day. I’ve had bad triglycerides and blood fat forever. We used to control it with statins but then the doc cut them off because the statins were eating my muscles. The cholesterol went up, the CPK went down. This doc retires, the second one moved away and I basically took what was available.
I am worried about the drugs, because the counter indications or side effects seem targeted to chronic conditions I already have. “So why would you prescribe a drug to me that seems custom designed to drive nails into my coffin.” You might as well talk to a brick and that includes the cardiologist and the primary physician. Not only that, three of the side effects the literature warned patients to look out for began soon after I began taking the drugs, or that is: Chronic conditions worsened or re-emerged. I had to knock out a lung infection with steroids and antibiotics. My right shoulder got stiff. Hip pain peaked. First big leg cramp in months. A doozie. So I’m concerned. In addition there’s a debate about whether treating patients with cholesterol reducing drugs improves outcomes in people my age. But others disagree. Especially for people like me who have every early indicator of heart disease, and a family history where the only escape from arterial disease was accidental death, which many achieved.
For now I’m going to take the drugs. I still respect the opinions of doctors but my God some of them are challenging.
So here’s my beef. The doc performs the examination and concludes that I passed kidney stones. It took all I could do to not say: “Doc, those are my nuts, my kidneys are up a ways in my back.” But I would do what I always do. Read and then decide. Yep, ya can’t get kidney stones in yer nutsack. During his to examination, he did manage to find a super tender spot on one of my nut cords I was unaware of. I’ll Google it. This guy just withdrew his hand. Nothing, not another word. I’ll read about it and decide. Medicine in corpus.
But then I’ve lived a long life, I’m nearly 80, and only have a few months to go to make it and the thinking that went into this writing makes me wonder about the high percentage of pure craziness I have encountered in my life that has been in medical offices. This is probably normal everywhere. Welcome to America.

The brawl between multiple servants and masters was about to begin. Everyone stood eyes glancing around towards one another.
Archer: I’d rather first kill the rift raft!
portals appeared aiming at Assassin and in a brilliant show of power, several weapons popped out of the portals shooting at Assassin who could barely dodge all!
Ky: Is that his noble phantasms?!
Leo: Noble what?!
Saber: Do you seriously not know yet master!?
Leo: Nobody told me!
Ky: I guess it slipped my mind… think of them like a servant's ultimate move! Based on their legends or what they are most remembered for!
Leo: HUH?!
Saber: But his noble phantasm seems to be other noble phantasms!
Archer: Die you filthy mongrel!
Assassin was insanely fast even still managing to dodge even just barely the many chains, swords, axes, spears, and so on.
Meanwhile, Berserker began charging toward Leo! Saber would easily block the attack and deflect the blow of Berserker’s sword! She went to stab the purple-haired servant but she dodged to the left.
Saber: I shall keep you safe even still master!
Leo: OK Saber!
Ky: Damn it… Leo just back up.
Leo and Ky hid behind Saber and Lancer both charging forward giving Berserker quite the challenge at the same time. Until Katie picked up a few rocks from her pocket and tossed them at Saber freezing her arm and leg in place.
Saber: Magic crystals?!
Ky: Damn it… TRANSPORTATION!
Ky would summon a car above Katie that crashed into her!
Katie: Ugh! God damn it! Berserker! Help me!
But her Berserker was struggling to keep pace with the faster Lancer. Tied with Assassin for the fastest servant in this war. Lancer kicked Berserker in the leg before cutting them across the chest.
Archer: That boy…
He saw what Ky did. He threw his own master and Leo who caught Pat in mid-air crashing into the old rickety wood of the docks. Archer would ignore the tired Assassin and turn his portals towards Ky.
Archer: Give me the best you got!
Several swords flung down from his portals toward Ky who dodged with extreme difficulty. He grabbed one of the swords mid-air and threw it back at the golden armor servant who swatted it away with his hand.
Archer: You dare touch one of my treasures? Fine, then I shall make your death painful!
Ky(thoughts): How the hell do I beat this guy-
Ky’s mind stopped thinking for a moment as he was grabbed and dragged into the city with Lancer and Saber unable to stop him.
Leo: PAT GET YOUR SERVANT TO BRING HIM BACK!
Pat: L-Leo I can't!

Ky wasn't sure what to do as Archer threw him into a car denting the vehicle…
Ky: Remember what he said... VISUALIZE!
Archer: What are you blabbering about you mongerl?
More portals opened up shooting a rain of axes, swords, and saws that Ky dodged expertly.

Elegant: Get strong enough to surpass me…

Ky: I NEED TO GET STRONGER THAN HIM! Nature!
Several trees spawned and protected Ky from the many weapons for a few seconds allowing him to visualize... But a spear ripped through the trees and went straight for Ky’s head but with an outstretched arm at the last possible moment he let himself block the spear letting stab through his hand rather than his head!
Archer: You are shocking strong!
Ky: VISUALIZE! WAR!
A tank spawned behind Ky and shot at Archer who wasn't even hurt. With a flick of his wrist and some lances destroyed the tank that blew up sending Ky only a few feet in front of the floating Archer.
Ky: Heh… fine.
He learned how to expand his interpretation in a moment of desperation learning to make life from mana.
Ky: Summoning living creatures is hard… maybe that's why I could never spawn certain things before… but fuck it! WAR! the FUCKING HOLY GRAIL WAR!
In a desperate gamble, Ky had summoned a large monster behind him.
Ky: Fine then there's my servant...
Ky crashed the the ground all his mana being used to support the existence of his summon.
Archer: I was right… you weren't boring!

(teaser!) Leo: KY THE HELL WAS THAT?!
Ky: MY FINAL STAND!
Saber: Are you insane you might die!
Ky: I was going to die either way…
Leo: Stick around when we continue in Holy Grail War: Rock Smash!

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

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

Hey guys, thought I’d share what helps me through a flare-up because the more info that’s out there, the more we’ll know about treating this condition - I’m also really hoping that this helps someone like it did with me.
There’s a concept in traditional chinese medicine where if you have too much ‘heat’ in your body, it can cause some health issues. This heat might be from foods you eat like diary, some types of seafood, and red meats for instance - the way I’d describe this heaty feeling is that almost sick feeling you get in your stomach after a rich meal.
I’ve always been told by my family that my boils were a result of being heaty, and I didn’t believe them until I started doing things that were ‘cooling’ for the body, like eating certain fruits. But namely, having cooling tea (also known as ‘leung cha’ or ‘liang cha’) during a flare-up - I’ve had some nasty flareups before, had about 2-3 cups of this tea in a day, and seen the HS sites reducing almost drastically in size and pain the next day. I continue with this routine for about 2-3 days while getting some proper sleep and have noticed that it becomes significantly more manageable.
It’s no cure but it does help me a lot and I really really hope this helps someone else too. Here’s a thing about cooling drink if anyone’s interested. I think you should be able to find it in your local asian grocer(?). All you need to do is rinse the dust off the herbs, boil it for an hour, strain and drink it (apparently more effective when it’s hot). If anyone else has tried this too, I’d love to hear your experience with it

The abusive words, sexist words, are that I could only be rich if I agreed to be porn star and hooker (new ones) until I died. Next issue, why is it ok if THEY talk about time machine, but forbidden if I consider how one MIGHT have been used to make my life worse? They called people who contacted me for other jobs for a long time, so I won't get hired soon. WhileI am harasssed, then I will survive by the Will of Divine.
Abusive words? How could I guy I haven't actually had meaningful conversations with be "madly in love" with me? He's said to be a drug dealer? Then that means he's being exploited by drug addict with access to an old HDD that I USED to use so used old email. Scam artist wasn't me! It should be obvious to everyone watching. Besides why did I have to PRETEND twins born in 2001 are his, or that I wasn't married AT ALL before that? Nope. Love isn't growing when lies are important. No man calls someone he loves a porn star and lets them get insulted every day!
Do they call me crazy for time machine comment? Why aren't they considered crazy for thinking a woman with college degrees WANTS to be poor, on welfare, or porn star or sex worker?? THAT"S CRAZY and I am tired of the narcissistic behavior that local people think is "cool". I really am. I'm tired of people who KNOW that certain kids ain't mind, but still saying I am because they photoshopped some of her records to use with my name??
Facts: sex workers (M/F/other) are the lowest paid women and worst treated of all. FACTS: porn actresses and actors are paid nothing because the film production companies make the most $. FACTS: brothels should be illegal wordwide except for ones regulated to prevent additional crimes. FACTS: JUST STOP pretending that I'm sleazy when I'm not.
Return what doesn't belong to you ASAP. God is watching and you know it was taken on purpose and it took effort on your part. The biggest effort was NOT teling me, but telling rest of the world. Biggest proof that information was meant to cause HARM. Malicious use of information if harmful.
Today, a former dental hygeniciest, AL, might use her contacts at dentaloffices to prevent dental care for my son (like she has since he turned 20) because she might have used my name off and on. Did she use old gold jacket after it was trashed too? Who has the jacket right now?I KNOW they saved it for "their special museum". They brag she controls the $ (in fake name) that prevents my son from getting treatment for dental pain? Why does she deserve to live by killing others? #dentalcare Corruption and #organizedcrime Why was my family on Medicaid at any point and time BESIDES identity fraud? Because forged documents existed and people embezzled to buy designer clothes.

PART 1:

 Every town has their own version of “The Boogeyman”. A monster, cryptid, phantom, whatever you want to call it, it’s all essentially the same thing- just a scary story they tell kids in an attempt to get them to behave. An urban legend is just a life lesson disguised as a horror story after all. For us folk living up in the tiny and once prosperous gold-mining town of Trillium, ours was known simply as The Locust Man. Now, let me start by saying, I realize how ridiculous that name must sound to you. “The Locust Man”?? Pftt…What’s he do, besides get stuck in the grill of someone’s pick-up truck. Destroy some crops? Oooh, he sounds real scary... yeah, I know. But yet, as I sit here today 20 years after the fact - a grown woman who’s wiser, stronger, and even more grounded in reality than she was at 12, I still hesitate to even write down that name. 

As a young child I had always thought it to be a little weird that our town was called Trillium, considering I had never seen a single one growing there. If you don’t know, a trillium is a small flower, usually white but they come in other color varieties as well, with three pedals and a bright yellow center. They sort of look like if you took a lily and tore off every other pedal playing “He loves me, he loves me not”. In school, about 2nd grade or so, we were taught everything about this elusive flower I’d never seen in real life, and told how proud our town was to be named after it. Trillium, Colorado was established in 1922 - A new town born in the wake of a great tragedy which befell the town that had previously sat in the same location. For us, and those that came before us, the trillium was supposed to be a symbol of hope. Knowing all that I know now, that sentiment almost makes me want to laugh - in a morbid way.

 Growing up in a small, mostly isolated town, there really wasn’t much for a kid to do. You’d have to drive 45 minutes to get to the closest mall and movie theater. The high school kids would usually all hang out at the roller rink downtown or at the old run-down burger joint called Slim’s that sat across it. But at that age, I wasn’t allowed to go hang out there by myself yet and for me, going with my parents tagging along wasn’t an option I was open to. My neighborhood was on a long dead end road leading up to a large patch of woods that separated the main part of town from the abandoned mine. The old trail the miners used was still accessible up until a point, and so me and the other kids from my street would hang out in those woods all the time. We had a “secret spot” which was, what we thought at the time, about half way through the woods, 10 steps away from a small shallow creek that pretty much ran the length of the area. Rain Creek, we called it. There was a small clearing there, and we had created our own little clubhouse using old milk crates as supports, half- broken wooden pallets as walls, along with some old lawn chairs one of the neighbors was throwing out one day. I made my contribution by bringing a tarp we had in our basement that served as the roof of our establishment. Our parents didn’t love the idea of five 10 to 12 year olds running around in the woods by ourselves, but as long as we stayed within earshot and made it back before the streetlights came on, they probably figured it was safer than us being across town galavanting unsupervised. 

It was me, Lacey, Devin, Mikey and Michelle. We were all best friends - pretty much inseparable, except the boys weren’t invited to the girls’ sleepovers and vise versa. Everyday after school, we’d get dropped off by the bus at the very beginning of our road, and it was a running joke between the Rain Street Gang (as we liked to call ourselves) for all of us to try and run off the bus as quickly as possible, while me, Lacey and Devin would all yell in unison ‘Last two home are some rotten eggs!!’, as Mikey and Michelle tried to push past us to get a head start. The aforementioned two were siblings, and lived in the very last house on our row right next to the woods, so they’d always get home last, regardless of their efforts. Although, the year that Mikey got a pair of Heelys for Christmas he finally got his edge over the rest of us, leaving Michelle to be the lone “rotten egg” until the next summer when one of his wheels broke off. The whole point of it all was just to get home and get our chores and homework done as fast as possible, so we could meet up at Mikey and Michelle’s house with enough daylight left to make our trek into the woods and back - together as a group. All five of us had made a pact to never visit the clubhouse without all members present, although us girls always had a sneaking suspicion that the boys thought themselves exempt from that rule. They, after all, were the ones that had discovered the spot in the first place, and not to mention, did most of the physical labor of dragging our provisions out there. Me and Lacey initially only heard about the spot a day after the boys found it; Michelle had walked into Mikey’s room in the middle of him and Devin talking about it, and immediately relayed the message to us. Michelle wasn’t necessarily more loyal to the girls than the boys, she was just the youngest among us and honestly couldn’t resist blurting out any mildly relevant information she thought she might have, in an effort to be included. But in that regard, if the boys had ever gone out there on their own, they would’ve had to be extremely sneaky about it, because Michelle’s number one objective in life was to gather any piece of intel she could. It was a seemingly normal Saturday morning when we learned our suspicions about the boys may have been warranted.
I had slept over at Lacey’s house the night before. We had just woken up and were still sitting on her bed discussing our possible plans for the day, when Michelle busted through the door with a look on her face that immediately told us she had finally gotten a hold of some juicy information, before she could even open her mouth to stutter out, “You-you-you guyssss, guess w-w-what!?!” Lacey gestured the nail file that was in her hand toward her, raising her eyebrows bluntly as Michelle tried to catch her breath. “So… Devin came to sleep over last night, annnnnd I was pretending to go to the bathroom so I could spy on them. Seeeeee, I was supposed to be sleeping but I -“ “Ughh come on Michelle, get to it! What’d you hear?” Lacey snapped “Ughh okay okay. So, I heard the boys talking, anddddd…. they’re planning to go explore the old mine today!!” “Alright Michelle! Good spying!” I chuckled, trying to encourage her after Lacey’s impatience. Lacey rolls her eyes, then immediately stands up. She takes the scrunchie off her wrist, ties her long blonde hair into a messy bun, and simply said, “Let’s go.” “Lacey..” I said “What??” She responds as if she hadn’t registered the tone of my voice at all. As I opened my mouth to begin explaining all the logical and practical reasons why even if the boys were stupid enough to go play around somewhere dangerous, we shouldn’t be, Michelle exclaims, “That’s where the Locust Man lives!!” I close my mouth in defeat, as I know Lacey will take this nonsense as a challenge, and because of that, no amount of my warnings concerning actual dangers would have any effect on her decision. Lacey dismisses her comment as she attempts to shove her foot into one of her new pink sneakers that she refuses to admit are too small for her. “Pshhh, don’t be such a baby Michelle, he’s not real, you do know that right?” Michelle crinkled her face and yelled back, “Yes he is Lacey! He is!! And th-th- that’s where he lives, and he eats kids that go there!” Lacey laughs at her and says “Oh yeah? You still believe in Santa clause too? What about the tooth fairy?” Michelle looked down at her shoes, and although she could admittedly be annoying, I found myself feeling bad for her. “Come on Lacey, she’s just scared.” Lacey shot me a look like she was expecting me to burst into laughter, but I just gave her a smirk and a shrug, and she rolled her eyes and said “Get dressed.”

 We walked in silence toward the end of the road, though the reasons for all three differed drastically. Lacey’s was determination and resolve, mine was comtemptousness and defeat, and Michelle’s was just fear. I found myself half-way hoping the boys had left already, but as we approached the driveway we caught them just as they were about to step off the porch. 

“Hey!!” Lacey yelled, in her trademark cheerleader cadence. “Where do you boys think you’re going without us?”. Mikey let a groan and rolled his eyes, while Devin said through a coy smile, “Well, we were actually just heading out to go to find you girls.” “Liar.” Lacey snapped, quickly wiping the grin off Devin’s face. “Michelle already blabbed- we know where you two are going and we’re coming too.” The boys looked at each other, then Mikey shot Michelle an angry look as she tried to shrink herself behind me, and said, “Fine, whatever, but no cry baby snitches allowed!!” Michelle then proceeded to prove both of his accusations correct by yelling back, “I am not a cry baby!! I’m telling mom if you don’t let me come with you!!” At that point I finally spoke up. “Alright, listen.” I said sternly, then once I had their attention I lowered my voice a bit to say, “Just for the record, I think us going to that grody old mine is a dumb idea and a big waste of time, but if one of us goes, we all go. That’s the deal, so make your decisions.” Lacey folded her arms in solidarity beside me, and with that we all had an unspoken understanding. So, with the boys out ahead leading the way, we headed toward the tree line.

 As we entered the woods, I felt a sense of dread wash over me - but to be fair, as a preteen emo kid who had already reached an adult level of cynicism, I felt a certain level of dread towards almost everything in life. So take my premonition with a grain of salt, but for some reason, this felt… different. I remember the woods being abnormally quiet that day. It took some time for me to even notice, but as soon as I did, I interrupted the mindless chatter going on to say, 

“Where are all the freakin’ birds?” Everyone turned to look at me as if I’d completely lost my mind. “Uhhh… What are you talking about?” Devin asked me. I pointed up toward the treetops. “Listen…. ” They all looked up, then looked around at each other in confusion. “Every time we’ve ever been in these woods, there’s always birds chirping back and forth. We’ve been walking almost 5 minutes now and I haven’t heard a single bird, have you guys?” “Damn, yeah, that is weird.” Mikey agreed. “They probably all just migrated!!” Devin goofily offered. “That’s stupid Devin, it’s spring. If anything, there should be more birds here, not less you moron.” Lacie argued. Devin flipped Lacie off, which was the best rebuttal he could usually come up with, and then turned toward me and said, “Okay whatever, what’s your point exactly?” “Just that - “ I looked over to Mikey, then back at Devin. “It’s weird.” I didn’t want to say what I was actually thinking. That the woods being too quiet was never a good thing. That when birds aren’t chirping, it could mean there’s a predator nearby. Besides, I was pretty confident that the boys, having both been in the scouts, knew what I knew, so saying it out loud would only serve to annoy Lacie and further frighten Michelle. Mikey broke his gaze that had been fixed on me, and while scanning our surroundings he said, “Let’s stop by the clubhouse on the way.” With a nod from me, we continued. When we arrived at our pit stop, Lacey hobbled over to the closest lawn chair and plopped herself down in it. “Ughhh, my feet are killing me!!” “I wonder why.” I mutter under my breath. “Excuse me, what was that?” “Just saying. Those shoes are gonna be the death of you Lace, you can barely walk in them.” “Pshhh, shut up. They just need to be broken-in okay? You’re just jealous cuz you’re still wearing your dirty old Vans from last year.” “Oooh yeah, you got me there. I am so sad I don’t have a pair of ugly pink Sketchers that don’t fit me.” She stuck her tongue out at me and we both laughed. I was just about the only person who could go toe to toe with Lacey’s sass. It’s part of the reason we ended up being best friends, besides being neighbors. In regard to style, personality and interests, we were almost polar opposites. But when it came to humor we were equals. And more importantly, we both had a mutual understanding when it came to our differences- I was me and she was her, and neither of us felt the need to try and make the other one be more like us. Besides, I was the only person who had ever really stood up to Lacey and didn’t take any of her crap, so I think she respected that. While that exchange had been going on, Michelle had started picking tiny pink flowers, and the boys were rummaging in the clubhouse for something. I yelled in their direction, “Hey! Big Mike and Dirty D!!” Me and Lacey giggled and she mouthed the word “big” with air quotation marks. They didn’t respond, so I walked over to the entryway and looked in. They were standing with their backs to me while looking down at an open metal box, and Mikey was reaching to grab whatever was in it. As he stood back up, I could see what it was. “What the fuck Mikey, seriously?” Hearing me cuss, Lacey and Michelle crowded in behind me. “Chill, it’s just a BB gun.” “I know it’s a BB gun Michael, what are you doing with it, and why is it here?” I was livid at the thought that he might be coming out here and shooting at animals just to be a shithead. I expected something like that from a goober like Devin, but not Mikey. Michelle butted in, “I’m telling mom!!!” “Nice try, dad knows I have it.” He looked at me and softened his tone. “It’s for protection, just in case we come across a black bear, or some weirdo creep out here. Seriously… it’s just to scare off something, not hurt it.” He knew how I felt about killing animals, especially for no good reason. A lot of people out here are poor and hunt for food, which I could accept as a reality. But hurting animals just for fun is psycho behavior, so I was relieved to hear him dispel my fear; I really didn’t want to have to hate him. “Do you even know how to shoot that thing?” Lacey asked. “Yeah, my dad showed me.” Devin clapped his hands together, making us all jump and himself laugh. “Well alright then, let’s get going!” I turned to Michelle, still holding the flowers. “You okay?” She nodded. “If you want me to walk back with you, I can.” I was slightly hoping she’d say yes so I’d have an excuse to get out of this excursion, but she just shook her head and forced a smile. I knew she was scared, but she was just too curious. Maybe I was too.

 We walked for what felt like half an hour. The trees had gotten more dense and the path narrowed from the overgrowth. Still no birdsong. I kept scanning the area in search of any sign of life other than us. Looking for movement of creatures scurrying away, listening for the sound of rustling as we passed, hoping for a squirrel, a lizard, even a bug. Nothing. 

“How much further is this damn thing?” Lacey groaned. Mikey answered without even turning around. “We should be coming up on it any time now.” “You said that like 10 minutes ago.” “Yeah, and now we’re like 10 minutes closer to it. And hey guess what, you insisted on inviting yourself - so suck it up buttercup.” “Hahahaha!” Devin laughed like a maniac at Mikey’s quip, while Lacey folded her arms and for once in her life didn’t have a snappy comeback. This time however, I did. “Well we really only came along to make sure you idiots didn’t kill yourselves.” “Oh, so you girls came out here with us to be our protectors, huh?” Devin laughed. “Ehh, more like babysitters.” Needless to say, I was flipped off for that statement. We rounded the next bend and suddenly all came to an abrupt stop one after another, starting with Mikey. Devin positioned himself beside him and let out a disappointed groan. “Shit Mikey!” A huge tree had fallen and was blocking the trail completely. There was no way we could climb over it because of all the leaves and branches - we’d have to go around it, which meant leaving the safety of the trail and crossing Rain Creek twice to get back to it. “Seriously???” Lacey exclaimed. “Maybe it’s a sign that we shouldn’t be going.” I shrugged. Mikey didn’t seem fazed by the obstruction at all. In fact, he seemed more confident. More calm. More sure of his intended mission. “It’s fine, we’ll just go around.” Michelle, who had been mostly quiet this whole time, finally broke her fear induced silence. “We are NOT supposed to leave the tr-tr-trail Michael! We could get lost!” “We aren’t gonna get lost Michelle, I have a compass. Plus, it’s literally just a few paces that way, then we cross the creek and circle back once we pass the tree and we’re right back on the trail.” “Oh you have got to be kidding me” Lacey said, “I’m not treading through that nasty water!” “Yeah Mikey, what about Lacey’s brand new shoes??” I laughed, and she playfully slapped me in the arm. Mikey’s patience was wearing thin with us. “Look, we already walked this far - if we turn back now, we’ve wasted the whole day for nothing. If you girls wanna be lame and turn around, then go for it - but me and Dev are going.” That’s all Lacey needed. A challenge to accept; someone to prove wrong. “I’ll show you lame.” She pushed past the boys and lead the way into the thick brush towards Rain Creek. It wasn’t very wide across, and there were lots of fallen limbs and large rocks spread throughout it. The current was barely that of a trickle, and the depth was no more than knee deep for us. It was definitely doable - just an inconvenience. And of course, one more ominous obstacle lying directly in our path. Another hint from the universe telling us to turn around. We didn’t listen. Lacey placed one foot on the closest limb and pushed down a few times to test its sturdiness. “I got this.” She stepped out onto it with both feet, then shimmied sideways until she was close enough to the large exposed rock in the middle of the creek, and hopped onto it. She turned around with a full grin and said, “Coming?” Mikey made his way across the limb as Lacey hopped onto a different limb which led her to the other side of the creek. Devin followed, then me, and then it was Michelle’s turn. “I’m scared to fall in!” Of course she is, I should have made her go before me. “It’s okay Michelle, it’s easy!” I reassured her. She didn’t look convinced in the slightest. “Come on Chelle, we’re leaving you!” Mikey yelled, already walking away. “Nooo!! I’m coming! Wait!” She made it across, but instead of just walking like everyone else did, she got down on her hands and knees and gripped the limb as if it were the only thing in between her and a 50 foot drop to the ground, which was funny to see but prolonged the whole process further. After all, we were about to have to do all of this again. Next go round went a lot smoother. The creek was more shallow here, and there were a whole lot more stepping rocks and debris built up. Having just crossed successfully a few minutes ago, we were all more confident in our abilities, including Michelle - who this time we made go first. “Just walk across like it’s a bridge! You got this!!”, we all cheered for her, and then clapped when she made it to the other side. Before we knew it we were back on the trail, and it wasn’t long after that we finally arrived at our intended destination.

 We all stopped and stared at it for a minute, carefully examining the dilapidated exterior of the place that had brought both prosperity and destruction upon our town. Mikey bent down, picked up a rock and threw it into the entrance. We heard it bounce a few times before it stopped. 

“Just to make sure nothing’s in there.” he turned around to clarify. “Did anyone think to bring a flashlight?” I asked. “It’s dark as hell in there.” I was hoping for just one more reason not to go. Devin reached into his cargo shorts pocket and pulled out a small keychain-sized flashlight, smiling with the satisfaction of finally being useful. “Okay, Mikey’ll hold the gun, I’ll shine the light and you girls follow behind us. Let’s go.” Mikey shifted the BB gun from its position of resting on his shoulder, to holding the barrel in his left hand and the butt in his right; trying his best to emulate a soldier’s stance. Something his dad had taught him I’m sure. We ducked down a bit to enter. “How far in we going?” Lacey asked. “Until we see something cool.” Mikey answered. I turned around to check on Michelle, still hovering in the doorway. “You coming?” I could see in her eyes that fear had finally gotten the better of her, and curiosity had taken a backseat. With wide eyes she shook her head. “The-the Locust Man lives in there.”, she tried to whisper. “I knew you were gonna be a baby about this!” Mikey yelled. I crouched down and put my hand on her shoulder. Against my better judgment, I say “How bout you just wait here for us and pick some more flowers. We won’t be long, there’s nothing in there, I promise. Just.. don’t move from this spot and we’ll be right back, okay?” I could feel her unease, but she seemed to accept my reassurance nonetheless. “Okay.” I smiled, then stood up and looked down at my watch to check the time. 12:46 PM. I turned and headed into the darkness, trying to catch up with everyone else. I didn’t feel good about leaving Michelle, but I didn’t feel good about letting the rest of them go in there alone either. And if I’m being honest, maybe a little part of me wanted to see what was in there too. When I caught up to Lacey she asked, “Where’s Michelle?” “Stayed behind at the entrance, she was too scared. I told her to pick flowers and wait there for us.” “Pshh, figures.” “Yeah. How’s your feet?” “At this point, numb actually.” It was so dark in there that even Devin’s rinky dink flashlight was illuminating the area enough for me to start taking a closer look at my surroundings. I looked around at the rock walls, they were covered in what looked like orange mold and green algae. There was a slight breeze coming in from the entrance, but the whole place just had a staleness to it. The boys stopped and turned around as we arrived at the first curve. “So ladies, what do you think? Cool huh?” Devin asked excitedly. “Smells like a fart in here.” I said.

 The most dangerous thing about exploring an old mine wasn’t getting lost in the maze of tunnels, or tripping on the rusted tracks and slamming your head against the wall - it was something simply referred to as bad air. Pockets of still air that have dangerously low levels of oxygen, the old men in town would call it “black damp”. There was also something produced from the old chemicals they once used called “stink damp”, which smelled like rotten eggs. Both were lethal. 

“I wonder if there’s dead bodies in here!” “Uh, Dev… we’re gonna be the dead bodies in here if we go in too far. I wasn’t just making a joke, you know that rotten egg smell can mean bad air.” Mikey interjected. “The entrance isn’t far behind us, there’s still enough fresh air coming in. We won’t go in too far, let’s just get to the end of this tunnel where it splits off and look around a bit, then we’ll turn around.” The fork in the tunnel really wasn’t that much further, and even though I knew once we rounded this curve I wouldn’t be able to see the entrance behind me anymore, I decided what the hell. Maybe a hundred more steps, then we can finally turn around and this whole dumb situation would be closer to being over with. When we got there, we looked down the length of the connecting tunnels each way. Everything looked unusually identical in its deterioration. I could see how someone could easily get disoriented and lost down here. “Hellooooo…” Mikey yelled to the left, his voice echoing through the corridor. Devin turned to the opposite direction and called out, “Hey yo, Locust Man!! You in here?” We all giggled, which made me think about Michelle, still waiting at the entrance for us, alone in the woods. I looked down at my watch. 12:46 PM. “Hey what the f-“ My cuss word was interrupted by a loud bang that came from the passageway Devin had just been hollering into. We all froze. I didn’t have time to process that my watch had stopped right as we entered the tunnel, or that Michelle had been left alone for who knows how long now, or that we had just heard what sounded like a support beam crashing to the ground, because next came a horrifying screeching buzzing sound. It sounded distant at first, but was quickly increasing in volume. We silently looked around at each other and backed away stunned at what we were hearing. Mikey never took his eyes off the tunnel though, and slowly he began to raise the BB gun to firing position. Without even thinking, I grabbed the barrel and pushed it downward. He quickly tore his eyes away from his target to look at me. I shook my head and managed to barely choke out the word, “Explosion.” He nodded and I let go. I looked down at the gun in his hands, and seeing his finger had already been on the trigger, I realized how lucky it was that I didn’t make him shoot himself in the foot. All of a sudden, the noise stopped. “What the hell was that?” Lacey asked. “I don’t know, nothing good.” I said. “Let’s just get the fuck out of here before this whole place caves in on us or something.” Another loud bang erupted from the right, extremely close to us. “Shit!!!” We all turned around and ran as fast as we could back toward the entrance. Devin tried to push past me, but as he did my elbow knocked the flashlight out of his hand. “My flashlight!!!” “Leave it!” Mikey shouted “The turn is right here, we won’t need it!” We rounded the corner, and using what little light there was illuminating from the entrance to guide us back, we ran like our lives depended on it. And they may have- none of us dared to look back, not like we would have been able to see anything anyway. When we finally made it out, we were all completely out of breath. I felt like I was going to throw up. I have to admit though, once we had made it back to safety I felt a rush of adrenaline like I had just had a near death experience. That feeling quickly faded into sheer panic when I looked around and realized Michelle was nowhere to be seen. “Uh, where’s Michelle?” Mikey asked me. “I told her to stay right here, she can’t be very far… Michelle!!!!” We all called her name, as loud as we could. No answer, no sign of her anywhere. “Alright look, she probably went off a little further looking for flowers to pick.” I tried to rationalize. “Let’s just split off in 4 directions and walk in a straight line while calling for her. She’s bound to hear one of us.” Everyone agreed, and even though I appeared outwardly as the level-headed calm person you need to take control in an emergency, inside I was petrified that something had happened to her, and that it would be my fault. I took the east, and headed out. It didn’t take too long before I passed a large tree and saw her sitting down behind it, looking at something on the ground. “Michelle! Oh thank god!! Didn’t you hear us calling for you??” She didn’t answer me, or even turn around. “Michelle, didn’t I tell you to stay by the entrance and not move?!?” My relief was quickly turning into annoyance as she continued to ignore me. I walked up closer to see what she was looking at, and my mouth dropped in awe of what she had found. It was a single white trillium.

 They say it takes 8 years for a trillium plant to produce a flower, and conditions have to be just right for it to bloom. That’s what makes them so special and rare. I stared down at it almost in a trance, like I was seeing a mythical creature. Michelle slowly reached out her hand towards it and I snapped out of it. 

“No!!” I grabbed her by the arm and she finally turned around to look at me. “If you pick the flower, the plant will die.” She ripped her arm away from my grasp and whined, “But I want to show my mom!” We heard Mikey calling from the north and I cupped my hands over my mouth to yell back, “I found her, she’s over here!!” I looked back at her. “No Michelle, come on, you can just tell her about it when we get back home.” I had enough, I was beyond ready to go and we still had at least another 45 minutes of walking to even get back to the clubhouse; an hour if Michelle kept up her crap. I grabbed her arm again and pulled her up to a standing position, looking back at the trillium as I walked her away. Mikey caught up to us, breathless but trying to hide his concern. “You little shit, we should have left you out here! What the hell were you doing?” I let go of her arm and she walked toward Mikey. “She was trying to pick a flower over there.” “It was a trillium!!” Michelle said, with the biggest smile on her face. “Wait, really?” He looked at me in disbelief. Before I could respond, a blood curdling scream echoed through the forest, coming from the west. It was Lacey. My heart dropped into my stomach and once again, every molecule in my body went into full blown panic mode. This time, I couldn’t contain my composure. “Laceyyyyyy!!!!!” A panicked shriek erupted from my lungs and I took off running. Mikey grabbed Michelle and sprinted after us. The trees became a blur; I didn’t even feel all the scratches and scrapes. Had she come across a coyote? A mountain lion? A bear? I didn’t even stop to think about the danger I might be about to come in contact with, I just ran. And then I found her. She was lying on the ground, holding her left foot. “Lacey!!” I said, trying to choke back the tears that were building up. “I think I twisted my ankle!!” “Oh god damn it, you bitch.” I struggled to catch my breath. “I thought you were dead.” “I might as well be, I have cheerleading practice on Monday!” Mikey and Michelle caught up to us. “What happened?” He asked “She’s being a drama queen, she just rolled her ankle.” I was angry. “Can you get up?” He asked her. She was able to stand, but as soon as she tried to put any pressure on her foot at all, she screamed in pain. We spotted Devin running over from the south as he was yelling out, “Hey yo, everyone alive and accounted for?” “Yeah, Lacey hurt her ankle.” Mikey yelled back. As he approached he looked concerned. “Can you walk on it?” He asked her. “No.” Without hesitation he replied, “Well alright then, looks like you’re gonna have to piggyback it all the way back home.” He lowered himself enough to where she could hop up onto his back, and we headed back toward the trail. Even though my nerves had begun to settle a bit, I knew we were still far from being out of the woods, in more ways than one.

Ok, So I've decided to speak my final peace and be done even thinking about this shit considering I'm pretty sure you have a new man anyways. It'll be long, so.. Read it or not. I've gotta do it. Lots you've heard over and over. Some maybe not. But, here goes..
L,
I TRULY, ONLY, ever wanted what is absolute best for you. I've only ever wanted you to be happy. And i hate that it couldn't be "us" that did that for you. That being said. I still don't even truly know what to believe. I don't know what was real, What wasn't. Given everything that happened and the way it happened and noticing more things as i go back and watch our vod. It truly seems to me like you weren't even that into me the whole time. Unless it had to do with anything sexual. And I'm beginning to believe even that may have been an act. I don't think we were real to you. I think that you came here just to distract me from the truth. And I'm sorry that didn't work out for you.
I do, however. HIGHLY regret talking to you the way i did. Even given what you did and what you were doing. I should've just walked away instead of letting my temper get the best of me and Yelling and name calling like i did. I'm far too old for that shit and I was acting like a child. I do acknowledge the fact that some of the things I've said out of pure anger and pain could have very well hurt your feelings. And this is my final, yet, VERY sincere apology for acting in such ways. I regret it every day. Not a day goes by that i don't. I was just hurt. VERY hurt. I think a lot more hurt than you'll ever realize, or even care to. I just wanted you to do right by me so bad. I knew what was happening. I knew the mistakes we were both making before, during, and the aftermath that was to come. And i was so MAD at you for not listening to me knowing how i felt about you and knowing how honest i really have been with you. I was telling you the whole time that you were showing loyalty to someone else over me. And that's not what you're supposed to do in a relationship. It's supposed to be you and your person against the world. And i felt like it was you and them, against me. While i DO regret how I've acted. I do not regret the intent and my reasoning behind acting such ways. Because just like i told you. It was indeed, The only way i knew how to fight for us and try to talk some since into you from so far away. I was trying to get you to treat me right and give me the same respect I'd given you. To this day, I have nothing hidden from you. I always to the truth, No matter how hard, or afraid for any reason i may have been. Even if i lied at first. I myself always came to you with the 100% truly and i gave you proof in ways leaving you no room to doubt as reassurance i was doing just that.
I'll say it again, stop listening to you friend. If he was any friend at all. As SOON as you told him you were in love with somebody he would stop communicating everyday all day. Because in the real world.. Communicating like you two do will always put some sort of doubt into your partners mind rather it be subconsciously or well conscious and expressed clearly. In a relationship. It is NOT ok to send the types of pictures you sent to him given your past be "dating" or "fuck buddies" whatever you were. And him clearly stating to you that he will ALWAYS "have the hots for you" (that's hitting on you, in case you didn't know). And it is NOT ok to talk about playing with yourself nor your sex life with your partner to somebody whose been such in your life of the opposite sex. Therapists being the exception. Idc what anyone says about how much they trust their partner, Things like this will cause issues. Pretty sure it's a universal boundary unless you're in an open relationship. Which we'd clearly stated was not our case. So, you knew better. And so did he. So if he was truly your friend, He would've well understood if you politely told him you'd crossed boundaries that were not ok and wished not to continue talking like you did. A every now and then "check in" or "catch up" is fine. And i told you that as well. But you'd proven you could not be trusted conversing with this person as you were. I feel like i asked nothing outrageous or unfair given the circumstances of this situation. Specially considering the photos sent, passing up plenty of appropriate photos that would've gotten the same point across.
Now, he used an analogy with me once. " If the police came knocking at your door asking to come inside and look around, just to clear you as a suspect. And you had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to hide and you were COMPLETELY INNOCENT. and they didn't have a warrant, just wanted to clear your name. would you let them in?" I said "Yes, why wouldn't I? I'm innocent and have nothing to hide. I let them in and they see that.. my name is cleared and they see I'm innocent. Therefore, leaving me alone"
He called me crazy as fuck and said he absolutely would not. He's rebellious for no reason. He's the type that ends up getting shot during a traffic stop just for being an idiot and making himself look like hes up to no good even if hes not up to shit.
Now, I understand we as humans deserve our privacy. 100% agree with that. But, You also have to understand that.. like I've said, It's situational. If I'm COMPLETELY INNOCENT and have nothing to hide.. I don't and will never mind giving up a tad bit of privacy for a brief moment to prove so. SPECIALLY when it's for somebody i love and to prove to them that even though I've agreed and they have every right to think something. I'm innocent and they have nothing to worry about. I'd show them anything they wanted to see, given i was innocent... that is. Even if I'd had enough and was leaving anyways.. I'd do it just for them. Because i loved them and wanted them to know even though we're done. I was good to them and they will never have to question it. Not to mention... It would just make them look dumb for blaming me and i could show them anything proving they were wrong lol
He knew what he was telling you made you look guilty, Everyone knew and even you said not showing it made you look guilty. So there's only ONE reason i STILL have NOT seen it. And....well... LMAO
Anyways...
Regardless if anything was EVER real on your part. Which it doesn't seem like it was. Considering everything. Specially how you knew my current life outside of us and how it was going. And you knew my past and how EVERYONE has hurt me. You continued to do so, Having the power to AT LEAST give me a little peace of mind. Or AT LEAST a little clarity. You were leaving anyways. It wouldn't have hurt you. But, You still seen how you were making me feel, and the things you were making me question. And CHOSE to do NOTHING. I wouldn't do what you did to me to you, EVER. Because i loved you. Hell I wouldn't do a STRANGER the way you did me. Just to be honest. But i get it, honestly. You COULDN'T tell the truth or show it. Because you were scared I'd tell his wife. And some of my other "friends" knew too and were keeping it from me. And your bad advice friend, wouldn't let you. Even though you say he had no influence. I know he told you he wouldn't be your friend anymore if you showed me. Once again showing loyalty to another person over me.. Telling me i was the love of your life.
I loved you. With all of me. I would never tell you something i think about do you any harm. I'll ALWAYS have your best interest at heart. ALWAYS. Even given everything that's happened and you making me out to be the bad guy. Read back through it all bbygirl. Even when i was asking you to prove things. I was telling you then i wanted you to prove what i was seeing wasn't true and i WANTED us to work. I was just seeing too much.
But, I guess me still proving up until now you could TRUST ME. And that I LOVE YOU. And that I'm loyal to YOU. Isn't and never will be good enough for you to tell everyone else to fuck off. Look at what actually happened and how long i was still there. And Bring your ass HOME.
last time I'll ever say this. I didn't care what the truth was. I never did. You're the only person I've ever considered an open relationship, JUST to keep you. So i didn't really care that you may or may not have fucked him... or him... or anyone else for that matter. I've been shitty in my day. Beyond shitty. I'm not here to judge you. What i DID, CARE about. Was you hiding things from me. Was you lying to me. Was you telling me you loved me and being loyal to somebody who not only did you say you didn't give a fuck about.. But threw you STRAIGHT under the bus and gave you up to try and save himself. ALL you had to do... was show me ONCE AND FOR ALL. after EVERYTHING... That you were down to ride for ME. THE TRUTH... And i would've worked with you through anything. I loved you like that.
But, too late now i guess. I tried my absolute hardest. Came here talking shit out of anger bc I'm STILL mad at you for messing up and running instead of fixing it. For breaking us both apart. i wasn't innocent.. But my GOD L. That shit was overkill. I've never been so dirty :(
Learn from this. So that with this guy.. You don't make the same mistakes. And you can be happy. Take my advice.. I PROMISE it'll last A LOT longer than we did. And you deserve to be happy. And that little one of yours deserves a father figure to love her like she was his. Don't settle for less.
I love ya, dork.
This is mys LAST, LAST letter to you.
BC i think it was all fake anyways. No way all the shit I've seen and how you were towards the end, was it not. NOT POSSIBLE. Because like i said. I actually loved you. And there's no amount of money nor evil that could make me do you how you did me in the end. period.
Take it easy,

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

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

Previous Part
“I knew it, I knew he’d pull something like that!”
Was the only thought running through my head as I watched Keith get forced into the truck outside. I was scared for Keith and I was angry, that kind of anger you feel in the pit of your stomach. Not at Keith though, my fury was directed at myself for freezing again. I just sat in the window and watched him get taken. Headache or not I should’ve done something, anything! Instead I just sat there and watched, powerless as always. My first instinct was to go running back home, maybe Frank and Stein could help somehow. Imagine my surprise when I walked in the door and they were looking for me. Well maybe I wasn’t to surprised, I hadn’t told them I didn’t plan on coming back home when I left yesterday.
“Bianca! We were just going to come looking for you, Keith had this idea and… are you alright?”
Frank asked, concern covering his face like a shadow. I must’ve looked like a mess, and the hot wet feeling on my face told me I’d started crying at some point on my way over as well.
“Are you ok? Did something happen?”
Frank repeated in his best fatherly voice. I could barley stammer out the words.
“Keith… gone… they took him.”
My babbling was enough though, realization shown on both their faces. Stein said something to Frank that I couldn’t hear then they nodded to each other.
“He was almost spot on with the timing. Well we best start getting around to do our part then.”
Stein said in his usual uncaring and mildly haughty manner. I don’t know why but it really boiled my blood this time. Keith was gone and he’s just moving on with things?
“Does no-one care about what just happened?! We agreed to look out for him and what did we do? Nothing!”
I screamed at no-one in particular. Those two just gave me a look like I was a misbehaving child.
“We’ve done what we could Bianca, besides Keith is the one who suggested what we’re about to do next.”
Frank stated, in an even and calm tone that made me stop and realize how ridiculous I was acting. Freaking out wouldn’t get us anywhere, even though I really wanted to. So I took a deep breath and stepped back for a second to collect myself.I hated to admit it but in a way their cold, calculating, order of operations approach would probably help here. Those two would never crack under pressure like me. While they didn’t talk about it, I’m sure they’d seen far worse working with the government.
Stein was rushing around looking for car keys when I came back into the kitchen. Frank however, stopped what he was doing to come over to me. I held up my hand to stop him when he opened his mouth to say something.
“No, you don’t have to try and convince me, I’ll come with you. What was Keith’s plan anyways? What did he put you guys up to?”
I asked, much calmer than before but still a little on edge. I couldn’t help but to feel at least a little responsible for what happened to Keith. I know it wasn’t my fault but I came with him for a reason. As much fun as last night had been I wasn’t taking it seriously. I should’ve stayed up to watch for Shaoni, maybe looked around for something she left when she was there before. Regardless, I had to be better next time.
“Keith thought that maybe someone from the reservation a little while outside town may have heard legends about Shaoni. She’s the Thunderbird, that’s an important figure in their stories and legends. Being so close to where she had been sleeping for years he thought there might be a connection. So he asked us to go out and ask around.”
Stein answered me before Frank had a chance to, walking into the room and tossing a jacket my way.
“And put this on, its cold out there.”
It was actually funny how often Stein tried to care and actually came off as so much colder. Almost like he was doing it because he had to, not because he actually cared about me.
“Don’t mind him, he’s just stressed with everything going on lately.”
Frank explained, trying to comfort me. He was right of course, but it didn’t change the fact that it still rubbed me the wrong way.
Ten minutes later I was in the car headed out toward the reservation. It wasn’t a very eventful ride and the pine trees didn’t make for great scenery, I’d seen it all before anyways. Frank and Stein were quiet the whole time and we couldn’t find Rocco before we left. Part of me wondered where he was and part of me didn’t want to know. This gave my mind time to wander and I found myself thinking my life before meeting Frank and Stein. It was weird, I usually tried not to think about it at all but something had brought those memories roaring back. Probably due to Keith asking about it the other day. No-one ever seemed to care about that, my past that is. Every now and then I’d get bored and wander around town. Someone might come up to me and talk but not like Keith did. The only real questions they asked were usually something along the lines of “What’re you doing tonight?” And other variations of that. They were usually looking for something I had no interest in. Sometimes it wasn’t entirely their choice to talk to me. I’d just use my powers simply to have a conversation with someone. Keith actually cared about me though, at least I think so.
A loud honk broke me out of my trance, we had arrived on the reservation. The improvised trailer park we’d arrived in wasn’t much to look at. A dog or two ran around the cluttered ground, free from any sort of leash. An older car missing most of the front end sat raised on a few blocks of concrete. The trailers themselves were run down and rusted. Despite the sorry sight of the place three men sat around a fire, laughing and generally having a great time. The trio looked up as we walked over, recognition passing over their faces. We must’ve looked out of place here in our shiny SUV and Frank and Stein’s three piece suits. Those two were always overdressed when they went out. The only place they fit in was the lab and they seemed more than fine with that.
“Stein! Is that you?”
Exclaimed the man on the left, standing to meet us. He looked happy to see Stein, though I had never seen the guy before in my life. Which meant he must’ve been a friend from before I knew Stein.
“My friend! How have you been? Have you had any difficulties with your… condition.”
Stein replied, cutting his eyes at the other two men like he didn’t trust them.
“They know old friend, no need to beat around the bush here.”
He had to have some supernatural abilities, that’s the only way Stein knew anyone. The question was, what was he?
The man’s name was Sam, Frank told me as we joined the men at the fire. I asked him for more, like what he meant by condition but he wouldn’t budge. Condition usually meant supernatural but a lot of them just looked like normal people. I’m sure everyone has some picture of a succubus in their head and I’m… not that. So I couldn’t even begin to guess at what Sam’s “condition” was.
“So what brings you out here Stein? I hate to say it, but I never expected to see you again.”
Sam said, trying to be as friendly as possible while ultimately telling Stein he didn’t really want him here. He didn’t feel nervous, that much I sensed for sure. No, it was fear that drove him to try and push Stein away, but what did he have to be afraid of?
“I assure you I’ll be gone before I overstay my welcome. I just have a few questions I’d like answers to. It’s entirely possible that you know nothing as well, in which case I’ll be gone even sooner. But you wouldn’t lie to me just to see me gone, now would you?”
Stein almost threatened, some of the friendliness slipping out of his voice. There was more going on here than what I could see or even sense. I’ve got a really good sense of what people are feeling at any given time but the context of those feelings can get lost on me. Sam was feeling fear, way too much fear for the situation. Maybe he knew what Stein was going to ask but I couldn’t tell for sure. I looked to the two scientists, cutting my eyes from Frank to Stein trying to see if they wanted me to step in and calm them down.
“Stein… I can’t… if she knew I talked to you she’d come here. The things I’ve done… what you helped me stop doing. She wouldn’t see it that way if she came here… she would…”
Sam blubbered out, completely losing his composure before Stein raised a hand and cut him off.
“She? You mean Shaoni, we’re aware of what’s going on. We still do have some questions about her though, ones I hope you have answers to.”
At the mention of her name all three men shot up, so I stepped forward. Frank protested but he was to slow to stop me. It’s difficult to describe how I can make people do what I want, these days I just kind of will it to happen and it does. I can force an emotion, or a feeling onto someone else by imagining it myself and projecting it onto them. Frank and Stein think it has something to do with pheromones my body produces. These pheromones can induce certain emotions or feelings if I want them too. In this case I wanted these men to feel tired, cooperative, compliant, and that’s just what they became. Just as soon as they tried to stand they buckled to their knees. I was pushing a little to hard so I eased up a bit, I didn’t want to just put them to sleep or something. Sam got back to his feet and sat down in his chair as the others did the same.
“I’d like to know about Shaoni, The full story, as much as you know.”
I commanded more than asked Sam as he just nodded towards me, a vacant look in his eyes.
“Where should I start exactly little lady?”
Sam asked me, his tone a mix of nervous and compliant.
“I want to know what you know about her, all of it, then we’ll go.”
I answered, trying to ignore the looks Frank and Stein were giving me. They knew I was taking a risk, he didn’t want to share what he knew so I was forcing it out of him. He wanted to tell me now but it wasn’t really “him”. I was in his head, and while he wasn’t going to fight me on anything now, I was sure a part of him was screaming deep down. Fighting desperately to keep his mouth shut to avoid the consequences of telling me anything. I tried not to think about what I was doing to him as Sam began his story.
“Well to start her name wasn’t always Shaoni, It’s hard to keep one name when you’ve lived as long as her. Her name meant “Stormcaller” as near as it translates to your language. She was an elder in a long forgotten tribe in what you know as Canada today. She was renowned for her ability to over see trials and solve debates among her people, always able to set right apart from wrong. The exact name and place of her tribe have been lost to the ages but I do know that it was wiped out. As the story goes the tribe met its end at the hands of “explorers”, all save for Stormcaller were killed. She fled far into the forests and eventually stumbled upon four spirits, the original Thunderbirds. At this time they were still great spirits, created by Nanabozho. Those spirits took pity on Stormcaller, allowing her to live with them in the four corners of the world. With them she learned many things, how to fight, how to think as only a spirit can, and most of all she sharpened her already formidable sense of justice. That need to see justice done, and the proper sense to see what was right from what was wrong is what lead the chief of the Thunderbird spirits to bind itself to her, giving her the powers she’s said to have today, letting her exist as spirit and man made one.
The other Thunderbird spirits eventually followed this example, choosing representatives of their own, each representing an Ideal: Courage, so that our people would never falter in the face of adversity. Solidarity, so that, divided as they may be at times our people were one at heart. Duty, so that our people would never forget their place in the world and the customs and traditions we upheld. Finally there was Justice to lead them all, so that no wrong would be left to stand, and so that one among the ideals would keep the rest in check. These four formed a council that watched over our people for many years.
As imperialism grew in the world and more crimes were committed against their people this council became more and more warlike. Often Stormcaller, now simply known as Justice spearheaded these actions. She sought to right the wrongs committed against her people and hold all responsible accountable for their actions. In accordance with her duties as the embodiment of justice for our people. This war of hers would prove to be her downfall, every day her sense of justice became more absolute, more black and white. She stopped consulting the council to help guide her decisions, believing she and she alone knew what was best for her people and fellow ideals. One thing that changed when the Thunderbird spirits bound themselves was their immutability. As a spirt nothing could harm them, they were eternal, they were and always would be. But once they had become one with a man they could be ended, They would live forever but man’s mortality meant they could be killed unlike before. Something Justice would learn for herself in time.
As her warlike nature grew, Justice began to involve the ideals in open conflict with those who sought to take their peoples land and desecrate their way of life. Eventually Solidarity fell in battle, and those who saw him fall learned of the greater forces at play. These people sought to learn the truth of the power the had seen from Solidarity and doubled their intrusions into sacred land, searching for answers. Suddenly the hunters had become the hunted, perhaps if Justice had not clung so tightly to her convictions everything would’ve ended differently. Instead Justice doubled down on her pursuit to right every wrong she could lay her eyes upon, spurred on by the death of Solidarity. Eventually Courage fell and so to did Duty, only hardening Justice’s resolve. It was only when she revealed herself to her people one day and they fled from her, afraid of what she would do. Afraid that they to had committed some wrong that she sought to right in her own violent way. This reception forced Justice to realize what she had allowed herself to become. Justice had become Vengeance, lost in anger for wrongs she could never hope to right she had lost herself, becoming something else entirely.
She shed her name, her duties, her people and disappeared into the world. Watching what would come for her people broke her. She had lost what she sought to guide and guard, let the people the Thunderbird spirits sought to protect so long ago fall to ruin. Her need to see justice done never left her, but what was once a raging inferno became nothing more than a spark. If she came across one that had escaped justice, hidden their tracks or found a way out she would know. She would right the smaller wrongs of the world in her own way, stoking what remained of the flame within and finding her own purpose in the world. Eventually she would take on a new name, Shaoni, why I do not know but it is what she choose. Her sense of justice was still absolute, she saw no shades of grey just right and wrong. But the scale of her judgment was reduced, no longer would she try and right every wrong the world had to offer but only those she could reach. The world is a dark place though, and sometimes a lesser evil can ease pain. Shaoni didn’t see lesser evil as something she could abide and so her judgements often left more pain in their place. She grew weary of her pursuit once again, seeing how little she had changed and how much pain she had brought. She chose to settle down and remove herself from the world. Shaoni would never be able to die, not from the passing of time. She could remove herself from the equation in a cave not to far from where we stand now.”
Sam’s story hurt to listen too, in some ways it only seemed like Shaoni did what she thought was right. Yet time and time again she failed to see shades of grey, and that cost her everything. It made me think of who I was years ago in a way, not that I was some all powerful spirit thing like her but still. What would Shaoni think of the person I was? How would she judge me for my actions before I meet Frank and Stein? I certainly wasn’t a saint, but did that mean I couldn’t be better? I shook my head, now wasn’t the time to think of things like that. I stopped forcing Sam to answer my question, leaving him to his own devices. There was always some lingering effects after I… did my thing. I’m not sure how exactly it felt for them but I don’t imagine it was pleasant. Realizing you weren’t really in control of yourself has a way of causing issues for a person. Sam seemed to be shaking it off pretty well though, I’d seen worse things happen after I’d finished with someone, like Keith losing hours of time sitting in the kitchen. Playing with emotions can cause stress in the brain, especially since I’m forcing an emotion or feeling on them. More than once I’d seen someone left with uncontrollable swings in mood or a complete lack of emotion or feeling of any sort because of me. I hopped that wasn’t going to happen again here.
“Bianca what was that!”
Frank complained, finally breaking free of the spell the situation had cast over him. He ran over to the other two men that hadn’t gotten up from their chairs like Sam. Worry crashed over me like a wave as I realized why Frank sounded so concerned. One of the men was seizing on the ground, his body shaking violently as spasms coursed through him, had I done that? Sam was in a blissfully ignorant sate, he just sat in his chair watching the fire, unaware of what was happening to his friend. Frank and Stein leapt into action, holding the seizing man on the ground. Stein pulled off his belt and placed it in the mans mouth, trying to keep him from biting himself. My eyes were fixed on the third man who lay motionless on the ground. I took small steady steps toward him, hoping against hope that I could find a pulse. As I got closer I realized his chest was rising and falling. He was alive but who knew what he was going through right now. I felt distant, Frank was yelling something at me but I didn’t catch a word. I had to do it right? I had to make them tell us what they knew, it could help Keith right?
“What did you do to them?”
Sam asked me, apparently free of the aftereffects of my influence. I snapped my head to the side and watched him take a threatening step towards me. I backed away, afraid he might do something rash. I shouldn’t have done that, Stein could’ve convinced them on his own.
“What did you do to them? What’s wrong with them?”
Sam asked again, his voice growing more desperate. Stein picked that moment to appear at my side.
“Sam they’ll be ok just give them a minute. She didn’t mean to hurt you or your friends, just let it go. I’m helping her the same way I helped you, she’s not always in control.”
Sam softened a little bit at that but he was still wary of me. What Stein said was a lie, I had control of my abilities most of the time these days but Sam didn’t know that. Frank walked over to where we were standing with a relieved look on his face.
“They’ll be alright, they just need rest. What about you, are you feeling alright Sam?”
Frank asked, nodding towards him. Sam didn’t answer but it was plain to see he was doing far better than his friends.
“I’d like you all to leave.”
Sam ordered, putting his metaphorical foot down. Whatever favor he owed Stein didn’t matter anymore, he wanted us out. People were beginning to come out of some of the other trailers, gawking at the scene in front of them. As the three of us were leaving Sam said one more thing,
“Stein, this makes us even.”
He growled in an even but angry tone. You could just tell he was staring daggers at us the whole way back to the SUV. I turned back for a moment and I could’ve sworn his skin was wriggling and changing. Like he was just barley holding back something. What concerned me even more was what he felt, not anger or worry, but fear.
The ride back was less than pleasant. You know that feeling when you’ve done something wrong but no one really wants to address it yet? Yeah, that’s what was going on here, the air was practically electric.
“We needed him to talk…”
Stein cut me off immediately, shouting,
“Sometimes you don’t need to help! Look… I know you meant well but you can hurt people with that power of yours. I’ve never seen it that bad before but then again you’ve never done it to a group of people that long. Who knows what longterm consequences it might have. Just… be more careful in the future.”
Stein wasn’t as angry as he tried to appear, part off him was even relived, maybe because I had been the one to handle the situation instead of him.
“I know, I know its just… Keith is stuck out there at that mine with her, I couldn’t leave with nothing.”
I agreed, He was right, it was a risk but how could I have just let it be? No-one else was going to look out for him so that fell on us now. As much as I hated having to force things out of people I was good at it, really good. Despite how I felt about what I could do to people that was the easiest way to get Sam to speak back there.
“Where did this whole drive to help Keith come from anyways? A few days ago you talk him into watching the house and throw some money, our money, at him for the trouble. I’ve seen you do that a few times before with others so you could come with us when we went to stock up on things. Regardless of our misgivings surrounding your methods. So it didn’t go that well this time and he found out about you and us. Something like that was bound to happen eventually. What I can’t picture is why you go out of your way to help him. I don’t personally have any issue with you jumping to his defense. Its not too hard to understand why someone would, considering his situation. But for you, well it seems out of character for you.”
Frank chimed in with a question of his own. I’m sure he didn’t mean anything by it hurt to see him so surprised that I’d consider helping another person.
I never answered Frank’s question, I thought about it a lot the rest of the way back though. Why was I so intent on helping Keith? All my life I’d done things just to survive, even when I was really young I had to find a way to get by on my own. Sure I had my mother but she had her hands full with her own life. She didn’t have much after my father left and did everything she could to make ends meet. I just tried to stay out of her way and help where I could. I never complained when she forgot to make dinner, or when there just wasn’t food around the house. I’d just go without or take what I needed from someone else. Even back then I knew it was wrong but I always had looks on my side. Combine that with pity and not a lot of people would say no to the cute hungry kid. After Brooke, I only had myself and I just kept doing what I needed to. This was different though, I didn’t have to help Keith but I wanted to help him all the same. I didn’t get around town much and I always felt like I just existed around Frank and Stein. With Keith I wasn’t just this thing lying around the house, I was a person, a friend even. That was it, the first time it really clicked for me, Keith was my friend, not because I had wanted him to be or because I made him think he was. No, he was actually there for me and it was all his choice. I didn’t have to puppet him around myself, he actually wanted to be there. I didn’t have to wonder if it was just me and everything I could do pulling him in. For the first time in years someone had actually cared enough to ask about me, Frank and Stein never really did because they knew how much it hurt. Keith didn’t know how much it hurt to talk about but still. I needed to actually talk about all that happened to me with someone who listened for real.
Coming to that realization only made me want to do something stupid. Like run up to that mine and try to get Keith out of there myself. But that’s exactly what it was, stupid. If we wanted to get Keith back we’d need something better than just me. We’d need a real plan, one I’d just started thinking of. There was something else eating at me to. Keith had offered to take some burden from Shaoni back in Imalone, I had an idea what it might be and it scared me. If I was right well, Keith was in more danger than we all thought.
When we pulled back into the driveway Tuck was waiting at the door.
“Where’ve Y’all been?! I been lookin’ for ya damn near all afternoon! Somein’ happened o’re at Keith’s place, He’s gone. I cain’t find that “lab assistant” of yours neither.”
Tuck said hurriedly, his southern accent that he usually tried to hide seeping out into his words.
“We know, it was those trials he told us about. I presume he told you as well then?”
Stein informed him as he got out of the car and marched towards the door, barely making eye contact. Stein had an idea, I could read it all over him. He got this way when he was away from home and wanted too test something, once he was back there was no standing between him and his lab.
“Yeah, the kid told me something like that. Would explain where all those people were goin’ to. Couple of the regulars in town, ones I know look up to that damn bird, left this morning headin’ towards the old mines.”
Tuck spoke to no one in particular, nodding to himself as if to check off the fact that Keith disappearing and people leaving town were two related things.
“Why don’t you come in then, you might be able to help out with the situation. We just learned a few things about this… “damn bird” of yours. I really would’ve appreciated if you told us about that years ago. Perhaps you’d like to tell us what you know of the Thunderbird in the lab?”
Stein ordered rather than asked, pointing to the door for no more than a moment before continuing on his march to the basement. Frank and I filed in after them but I didn’t join them in the lab.
I looked around the house for Rocco but couldn’t find a trace. It wasn’t like him not to leave some trail of destruction in his wake. Well hidden or not, we usually found evidence of whatever he was up to but this time there was nothing. I had no clue where he’d gotten off to, maybe I was better off not knowing. After I gave up I joined the others in the basement, to their surprise I actually had decided to make an appearance. Frank and Stein were a little rattled at first but soon went back to their work. Tuck just beamed at me proudly, like he knew something I didn’t. We set about comparing notes on Shaoni, and separating fact from fiction based on Frank and Stein’s many years working with the supernatural. It was… nice, in a family bonding kind of way. Keith had brought us all together, gave these scientist a new problem to solve. Gave Tuck a chance for some kind of justice for the friends he’d lost in the mine collapse all those years ago. For me, he’d brought me together with the family I’d fallen in with. Strange as they were, this was my family, or at least the closest thing I had to it. I had to help, not just for Keith but for them. I’d been a burden, scared to go outside, hateful of what I could do despite using it to make life easier for myself. Worst of all I’d been stuck in my own head, I’d gone through awful things, done awful things, used my body and my charm to get through life. I’d been every bit as evil as Brooke had been to me. I did everything he’d done to me to others, only it was so much easier for me to do it. I hate myself for it, maybe I always would, but I couldn’t let that stop me now. I had to set all that aside and be there for the people in my life, I had to be a person again, not just hope everyone would treat me like one.

TW: childhood neglect and verbal abuse - me remembering so many things after last night's session. I just need to tell someone! I repressed this childhood since I moved out of my parents. It's like I died that day and moved on like a robot.
It is as though the illusion I've kept up for the past 24 years of me being always 'happy' and living a happy childhood just shattered entirely.
I have this diary I wrote in a lot in 2014, which is from exactly 10 years ago when I was 14. I cherished it a lot and sometimes would look into it to remember the old days. However, just last week I looked into it again after several months of being more focussed on my mental health (and especially on my childhood & parents.). This time, I saw something entirely different in this cute colorful happy diary.
All I see now, is how I was suffering. Suffering alone and always walking on eggshells. Nothing was ever good enough. Almost every page I refer to 'future me', the one who will understand me. I didn't get that from my parents. Old me, who will listen to how I am feeling and give me the comfort and soothing I so desperately needed.
I write about how I was completely exhausted from highschool, and then constantly bash myself with extremly self critical words. I have pictures of me in there with apologies for being ugly, and stories of 'how I didn't work hard enough'. Several pages describe forms of catastrophizing over the smallest mundane things.
In some pages, I casually mention a family member I dearly loved dying but then downplay it with something else. It's ups and downs by the sentence "It was my birthday yesterday, I had a great time! I am exhausted and drained and school is horrible. I did get a nice gift. I hope grandma stays alive" etc.
All this time I was happily keeping up this story of how happy I was. How I had such loving parents who where always there for me. They would shower me with gifts they could barely afford.
In my house, there were no rules. There was no bedtime. There was no structure - no breakfast together or chores I had to do. Everyone was jealous of me, because I was so free, but child and teenage me were constantly longing for someone to care.
I would be gone from home as much as I could. The atmosphere was so hectic. One day you'd come home to a happy loving mom who has all the patience and curiousity to hear about my day and my struggles. The other I would walk in and get scolded about how I was nothing. One day she was willing to help me with my feelings and emotions, but in other days she'd scold me for having them! I should be strong because according to mom, she's cyinic, and the world is 'angry and cruel. The world is unfair.' Now get up and don't wallow in your sadness and self-pity.
It's like they would give a gift sometimes, just to then call me ungrateful every day after. According to them I was unthankful, selfish, and my mom said I'd act as if the world revolved only around me. If I'd say "huh, I never said that?! I would never say such a thing?" she said "that is just what you think you are doing. But in reality, you're ruining it for everyone".
Eitherway, after going through the entire diary without skipping a page, I remembered I once made a video of my mom attacking me. I looked it up, and for the first time in 8 years I had the mental energy to watch it. My jaw dropped to the floor. I never even saw someone act so horrible before but it's me going through it....
t's like my world shattered. My mom was treating me absollutely horribly in this video. I don't even remember! You can see her face, and she is so scary! Here eyes look like pure hurt, as if she was throwing her own traumatic upbringing onto me and blaming me for it. She looks at me as if she's completely disgusted by me! The entire rant of hers is a complete mind trip where she downplays everything I say and spins it around as if I was just a burden who tried to make life for my parents worse.
I would never help with chores. Because, if I asked if she needed help, she didn't. I didn't have to do anything in the house but also did not know how to do anything. Then on other days she'd get angry I wasn't doing enough in the house and mention how our life should be about "giving and taking" and I should participate in that.
Now having read all of this, and watching some more video's of these attacks, I remember many things. How my parents would lock me up in the dark cold hallway because I had a "tantrum". They say it 'wasn't that long' but overstimulated and panicked todler me would bawl her eyes out. I felt so abandoned. In my life, alltogether, my strongest feeling is guilt. I feel guilty for everything. I feel shame. I feel ugly when I cry.
I only managed to teach myself how to release emotions in january this year. I never knew. I couldn't cry since years. When I finally managed this year, I'd notice I'd feel so ugly. My cries sound like my mom crying. She'd cry in our house regularly at some point. Really messy, really loud.
Because of constantly being told I wasn't doing enough, or that I didn't care, I wanted to please. I would muster up the courage and shun myself for how difficult and bad it felt to do so. I would ask her "mom, are you okay? Do you need a hug?"
She'd turn around on her desk chair and YELL. Loud. Screaming at me to get out of her face. Just get out of our life. This happened several times. I'd just walk away from the house. I felt so alone and unwanted. I never could do it right. My dad would just avoid my gaze.
Some days I would be begging my mom for a hug. Just for some attention. But she was so overstimulated that she couldn't even give me a touch. I would feel so lost and alone and just go outside and distract myself with imaginary games. I remember because of this, the moments where I would overheat my parents show off to parents of friends of mine how "I was such an easy kid" and how I could entertain myself and be happy for hours. The other parents would be jealous. I wouldn't know why this would make me cry
My life first going to school was just sheer terror. I felt so abandoned. Every time mom dropped me off I'd kling around her leg crying and screaming. Then afterwards, I wouldn't want to go home either. I remember how later in my childhood I still felt guilty for this behavior, because mom must have been so ashamed. I'd hang around teachers and daycare adults all the time. I wanted to hug everyone, because that was what I so desperately wanted.
My dad could never give hugs. Sometimes he'd allow it, but it would feel so distant. If my mom was starting to freak out about me, he'd sometimes intervere and call me to 'it's done now!' and 'go to bed'! No matter the time. I'd lay in my bed, just trying to curl up and feel somewhat comfortable.
In primary school, I would constantly visit friends. It continued in highschool too. I had two music classes and sports, so for four days a week I was settled after school - not having to go home immediately. Home didn't feel safe. It wasn't a constant. Some days there would be dinner at a nicely put dinner table and we'd eat together, some days I'd just eat some bread myself.
Some days mom would just be lying in bed. I found a video, that's why I remember. She would'nt get out until the beginning of the evening. This was in the time she would normally make me some lunch, or ya-know, take care of me. Suddenly I'd have to do everything alone.
I was constantly entertaining myself with imaginary friends at home. I'd play outside until I was 17 or so, alone. My cat was pure innocence and love but when I told my parents he was 'coughing' they didn't want to believe me. They only took him to the vet when it was too late and never apologized or were able to own up for this.
When I was 14 I wrote in my diary I was looking forwards to visit grandma. She's my mom's mom, and I would sometimes spend up to a week there just to be able to relax and be loved unconditionally. My mom would terroize me with her stress and anger and accusations to a point I couldn't focus on school. I wrote how she'd come into my room calling me names and how I couldn't read my homework papers through the tears.
My dad was never really there. He'd choose himself to be out of the house in the morning before mom and I'd be out and then when he was back he wouldn't make it further into the house than his TV chair. My parents would watch TV for hours when I was a kid. If I asked "what are you watching" they'd both go "Shhhh!". If I'd push it futher, the'd send me upstairs.
I feel like I spend so much time just hiding from my parents. Wheter it was upstairs in my bedroom all day, and night, or if it was outside. I now also remember just biking for hours crying hoping someone would stop and console me. I'd make the wrong friends and smoke weed at 16 just to stop the thoughts.
I would visit friends just because their house was calm and safe. I'd get a nice dinner there, and it would be a whole new experience. My parents would always be easily agitated. I am hyper senstive, hyper aware. I get uncomfortable just seeing them being uncomfortable. I remember I could already feel the energy from streets away. Sometimes I knew it would be wrong and I'd just bike somewhere else and go home later.
In one diary entry, I describe how my parents told me to write a letter to my dad's mom for her birthday. I finish the letter, and only then I allowed myself to take a shower and take care of myself. I would rot in bed, and rot in my dirty hair for days, just like mom. On other days she'd be so happy, she'd be re-decorating the entire house, invite me to go rollerskating.
But I also remember how many times my parents threatened to throw me out of the car. I remember how my 'reaction' to whatever they 'gave me' would never suffice. Then I would be the bad guy, for not being thankful.
My parents, they did everything for me. They paid for everythingg. Ya-da Ya-da, but I never had a proper hug from my dad. I don't know why he's even with my mom. I think he's a fun dude, but he's in mental pain. My mom told me way too young how her trauma's affected her. My dad's childhood would always be an excuse that I had to empathize with when I asked mom as a kid "if dad really loved me".
Other memories involve me running upstairs and then one parent following me. I don't remember getting hurt physically, but I remember all my life the pain I can see in their eyes.
If I look at pictures from my teenage years now, I can finally see the depression in my eyes. It took me up until this year to finally understand that having a clean kitchen and bathroom is something you do because you think you are worthy of a clean space. I had to get out of a depressionhole again over the years many times. I now realize the constant self critisism should have been self love. So that I would feel worthy of taking a shower and brushing my teeth.
I now see how what I saw as 'good experiences' are mostly just my parents taking me somewhere to do some activity and it just fits the perfect family picture. I was their only child but we'd celebrate christmas with many, many presents for me. But once my grandparents didn't live anymore, the birthday parties and tradition celebrations weren't hosted anymore by my parents. I wonder for who they truly did it. I was a golden child, but later in life I was just a burden.
I moved out the first chance I got. They didn't stop me. I was barely 17. I got into partying and drug abuse. I would sleep for weeks in bed. Barely ate. Then I would drag myself out of it again and have missed my mom's birthday. I was the one ruining the relationship to them.
I realized last year my parents had not called me for over 7 months. That was the first time I cried since the last time I did as teen. It's always coming from me.
My depression, my axieties and the treatment my parents gave me were never seen. It was never validated until I could finally read my diary with new eyes and watch those videos. I never got professional help but I will look for this now. I am really longing for someone to tell me what I was going through wasn't normal.
I did not remember this until yesterday, BUT, I am so used to being called weak, sensitive, a cry-baby, a bitch, for telling my mom how her verbal abuse made me feel. I feel so weird, how I repressed all of this for so long and the past years I tried so hard to still visit them and give them hugs and they felt good and now it all just feels fake and weird again.
Well yeah, so this is about everything that's been on my mind today. I feel totally weird. It's a tuesday and I couldnd't even work today. I am lost.

First of all, I wanted to thank everyone for their kind words and support from the last post. A lot has happened since then, and a bunch of context is needed, so I hope you'll bear with me as I explain the details.
***
Back during the peak of the blinking crisis, I remember having a lot of difficulty sleeping. It was common for me to average only four or five hours a night, and the little sleep I did get was marred by terrible nightmares. One in particular recurred many times.
I was only eight, but somehow I was in the driver's seat of our family's old SUV. My arms were long enough to steady the wheel, but my legs didn't quite meet the pedals. It didn't matter though, since the car seemed content to continue on at a constant pace. I looked over and saw my mom in the passenger seat. Her face was a blurry likeness pieced together from the dozen or so picture's I'd seen of her over the years. I tried to bring her into focus, not only because I missed her dearly, but because she was speaking—pleading, even. She waved frantically at me, then brought her leg up and slammed it down on the floor mat several times. I didn't understand what had her so upset until she pointed out the front windshield, and I saw we were hurdling directly toward a giant tree that had fallen in the middle of the road.
Panicking, I stomped for the brake, but my seatbelt protested and pulled me back like an invigorated dog on a short leash. I sat up and tried clicking it off, but it wouldn't budge. My breaths became hollow cries, and I felt my heart beat against the bars of its bony prison. I grabbed the steering wheel and pulled it to the left, then right, attempting to swerve off the road, but it was as if whatever kind of glue was locking up the seatbelt was also fixing the steering wheel in place.
"Mom! what do I do!?" I yelled, tears streaming from my eyes. She was yelling back at me, but it was as if there was a divider between us, and neither of us could hear each other. I turned back just in time to see the giant Oak tree meet the front bumper, and then I jolted awake with a piercing pain in my chest that radiated up through my throat in the form of a giant scream. My little legs kicked under the covers and tears rained down on my pillow until my dad ran in and knelt at my bed.
"Lauren, are you okay? Did you have a bad dream?"
I grabbed my pillow and hugged it so my face was covered, then effused a "Mmm-hmm" in a long wheeze while rocking to either side.
"Oh, honey," he soothed and brushed my hair, then the tears from my face when I would allow it.
Time would pass in silence, and when I began to get the sense that my dad was ready to leave, I'd chirp out, "stay" in that way children do when they're embarrassed about wanting something.
"Always," my dad would reply; then he'd post up on the floor with my large tomato plushie as a pillow.
One night in particular, it was deep in the night, and I had woken to a tapping sound outside my window. I was so afraid that a monster had snuck into my room while I wasn't looking that I made him lay next to me and face outward. I'd peek my eyes open every minute or so to check and make sure my dad was there, staking out the room. Eventually, he rolled in close and said something that I still remember to this day.
"Hey, baby, guess what." he whispered.
"Mmm" I mumbled.
"I think you scared the monster away."
I tried to picture this through the fog of my fatigue. Something seemed off about the statement, like it wasn't logically possible, but before I could piece together the words to express that, my dad cut back in.
"It was scared because it realized you're a superhero. And you know what your greatest superpower is?"
I shook my head, making sure to rub my forehead against his shoulder so he could sense it in the dark room.
"You're greatest power is that you get to tell the monsters what to do. Because the monsters are only as strong as the stories you tell about them. And there's all kinds of stories. Happy ones. Sad ones. Scary ones. Tell me, this monster you think snuck in, would you say he's part of a scary story?"
"I don't know," I said, confused. "Maybe"
"Hmm," he hummed, contemplating. "Well, I want you to remember this. You have the ability to tell any kind of story you want. Maybe there are monsters, but that means there's heroes and angels, too, right?"
I was beginning to doze off to the comforting sound of my dad's deep voice, but I gave another affirmative "Mm-hmm".
"So, if you're ever scared, honey, just dream up a better story. A story that will bring you peace. Do you understand?"
But I was already out.
***
I woke up the next morning to the feeling that someone was in the hotel room with me. The drapes were drawn and the only sound was the AC unit blowing cold air, but when I looked toward the dark corner of the empty coat rack, my mind conjured the face of my dad, smiling at me, chanting that same, awful line—Oh, Lauren… you know who we are.
I was no longer a child, but it took a couple minutes of cold focus before I muscled the courage to ascend from the safety of my covers and flick on the lamp light. The small amber radius extended to where my dad's feet would have been if he was standing there. But there was no one. I let out a sigh and collapsed back onto the mattress, thinking back on all those years growing up. The same man who had helped me conquer my fear of the dark was now the monster hiding in its shadow.
I looked over my shoulder and saw the clock read 10:15. My meeting with Trent was in three hours. I moaned and stretched my arms back until they knocked against the headboard, then I collapsed back onto the mattress, meditating, gathering energy like a compressed spring. All at once, I jumped up and glided over to the drapes, opening them in a single, fluid motion. I grimaced at the sunlight, but the warmth felt good against my face. I stopped by the nightstand and gulped down the final few swigs of a bottle of Mello Yello that I had purchased from a vending machine the previous night, then undressed and hopped in the shower.
The warm water wasn't enough to wash away the previous night's memories. When I closed my eyes to lather my hair, I was back in my living room, standing opposite the demon that had taken on my dad's form. His smile. His laugh. It was like someone in my head was flipping a switch between the man I loved growing up and a terrible monster. But the fear was more powerful. I heard something drop onto the tile floor on the other side of the curtain. The noise made me gasp, and I opened my eyes while shampoo was still streaming down my face. I swiped the shampoo out of my now burning eyes and squinted at the curtain, trying to see through it, but I couldn't make anything out. "I-is anyone," I started, trembling, afraid to finish the sentence. I reached out and pinched the end of the curtain. My heart was in overdrive. I swallowed, then pulled it toward me and peeked out. I scanned the room, but I couldn't see anything out of place.
It wasn't until after I finished showering and wound myself up in one of the hotel's too-small towels that I saw what had made the noise. I bent down and picked up the stub of a razor blade that had fallen onto the tile right next to the puffy, gray shower rug. It wasn't mine, and I was pretty sure hotels didn't keep unguarded razor blades just laying around. When I held it up, it occurred to me that if it had simply fallen a few inches to the left, it would have been buried in the rug, and perhaps I would have stepped on it. I stared at myself in its steely reflection. Cold. Lonely. Small. What if I—was all I was able to think before the blade blinked out of my hand.
I threw on some clothes, packed up the few belongings I had into my purse, then checked out of my room. I didn't feel safe going back home after what happened, but I also didn't want to go anywhere else. I got in my car and drove aimlessly up and down the town's streets, focusing only on the car ahead of me. Anytime I started to travel down an avenue of thought, I'd make a turn, or speed up, or hit the brakes: anything to keep my mind distracted. It was sweltering outside, but I'd turn the heat on for minutes at a time until I felt drenched, then toggle max AC until I was cool, then back to heat. I repeated the basic driving tenet "10 and 2", "10 and 2", "10 and 2" like a mantra—a chant to focus my attention on a single point, and then I pictured that point disappearing. I began to think that maybe I wanted to disappear.
I fully intended to keep going that way until 1:00, but after about thirty minutes, my meandering route had led me to St. Mark's Catholic Church, where a large group of people were gathered around a long line of tables in front of the building. I slowed down. At the front of the venue was a large, white cardboard sign which read, "Plant a Seed, Share the Joy". I wasn't sure what that meant, but my boredom had come to a head, and I rationalized that if there's any place on God's green earth that would be safe, it was this one. I parked along the closest side-street, then walked over to the church.
Rows of white tables were covered with cardboard boxes filled with small plants that were wrapped up in individual paper pots. I watched from a distance as people behind the tables carefully removed the plants, one by one, and offered them to passersby. I continued down the line, a sheep in the herd, and allowed myself to sink into childhood memories. I had somehow made it out the other end near the Narthex when I heard a woman's voice call to me.
"Hey, deary, have you gotten one yet?"
I turned and saw a small, gray-haired lady with rose-colored glasses. "Oh, no," I started, attempting to decline, then paused. The old lady grabbed one of the plants and held it out for me.
"Here," she said. "Come on, I won't bite."
As far as you know, I thought, and stumbled forward with a sigh. "Thanks," I said and took the plant. "What is this all for, anyway?"
"It's a giveaway," the old woman responded. "Staff have been growing these plants—tomatoes and garlic, mainly—so they could offer them to members of the Parish. The idea is to have the members grow the produce, then donate it to St. Mark's Food Pantry to give to those in need."
"Oh, that's actually pretty cool." I replied and inspected my plant which was at present nothing more than a small green stem. "So which kind is this one?"
"That one is—" the old lady stopped and inspected the other plants near where she had grabbed mine—"tomato."
"Tomato," I repeated. "Well, thanks again."
"Of course, dear." the old lady beamed. "We're all responsible for each other."
I nodded, then continued back through the crowd toward my car when, through the large vestibule windows, I saw a Priest speaking to a young couple. It had been a little over a decade since I had attended a service (I stopped going during High School when I started studying other religions), and I didn't recognize this Priest. He was short (just over five feet tall), bald, and African American. He wore the customary black robe and white collar, and there was something in his smile and the way seemed to be affirming the couple that made me yearn to speak with him. I considered for a moment, a bit embarrassed to be stepping back into church after all this time, but the thought of being able to burn ten minutes talking with someone who might have some insight into my situation was too tempting to pass up.
I waited near a portrait of Mary Magdalene, my tomato plant in hand, staring off at the pristine series of stained glass images portraying the death and resurrection of Jesus. About a minute in, the Priest met my eyes; he smiled, his way of telling me he knew I was waiting, then finished up with the couple and made his way over. He had a bit of an accent when he spoke—it was Ugandan, from best I could tell—and a proclivity for laughing at the end of his sentences.
"Hello, Miss, I don't believe I've had the privilege," he said and held out his hand. He leaned in as he spoke, and his smile tugged on the corners of his eyes which were already marked with use.
I shook his hand and returned what I'm sure was a weak smile. "No, I don't think so. My name's Lauren. I used to come here when I was little. It's—been a while."
"Well, I see you picked a good day to visit. If you're into gardening, that is." He remarked with a laugh and gestured toward the plant. "It's nice to meet you, Lauren. My name's Martin—Father Martin, if you prefer."
"Father Martin," I repeated, "I have a friend named Martin. It's a good name."
He laughed and said, "Thank you, I'll pass that one along to my mother. She loves the praise."
I laughed back. He carried himself in such a carefree way that I was put immediately at ease. Almost to the point where I forgot what I wanted to talk to him about. "Um," I started, attempting to word my question in a way that didn't sound like I needed psychiatric help. "I have a couple of religious questions for you, if you have time."
"That's what I'm for. Ask away."
"They're about… miracles. Like the ones in the Bible. I was wondering, do you think that miracles still happen today?"
"Miracles, huh," he started. "You mean like water into wine?"
"Kind of, yeah,"
"Hmm…" he contemplated. "Well, I haven't seen them, myself. You know, I may be a Priest, but I also have a degree in Physics. I think God made the world according to laws, right? But I do think God has the power to intervene. Yes. I just have never seen it… like … you know, the biblical type of miracles. To me, there are miracles happening all around us—miracles we can't see."
"Exactly," I responded, thinking about how no one else could see the blinks, "those kinds of miracles. What are those miracles we can't see?"
One of Father Martin's eyebrows raised and he rubbed his chin. "Well, I think the greatest miracle is the miracle of God's love which was perfected in Christ and offered to each of us. It's his power to heal even the most troubled mind. By coming into alignment with God's will for us, we can see the true purpose of this existence."
No, he's not getting it, I thought. I scrambled to my other entry-point. "What about the story of Job? God made a bet with the Devil that Job would stay faithful to him no matter what the Devil did to him. Do you think that kind of situation is possible?"
Father Martin's expression drooped into a concerned frown. "There's quite the difference between miracles and the story of Job. I suppose I see what you're getting at, though. Job's suffering is in some ways the antithesis to positive miracles. In this life, we are tested, sometimes to the point of losing everything, but even that person who has more reason to hate God than anyone else can once again find peace and eternal happiness through faith. In fact, it's often the person who is lowest in the pit of suffering that needs the Light of Christ more than anyone else."
I thought back on the first night that I prayed. It was in my moment of greatest helplessness that I reached out to God, and I thought I had found my answer in Him. But now, after what happened last night, after all these years of chaos—not merely losing things that were important to me, but my very sanity—I needed more than just blind faith. I couldn't just sit idly by and hope things would get better. I smiled at the Priest and said, "Thank you, Father, this has been very insightful."
"Of course, sister. I'm sorry if I couldn't have been of more help."
"No, I think I understand now. I've been… wrestling with something, and I think God wants me to confront it. I think I've been running away and hiding from it for so long that I'd convinced myself it disappeared."
Father Martin nodded in understanding. "Well, in that case, will you let me leave you with a prayer?"
I was a bit taken off guard by the request, but I accepted. "Sure, Father."
I watched as he made the sign of the cross, then he lifted his hands and closed his eyes. "Dear God, I am so happy to have had the privilege of meeting with Lauren today, especially on a day such as this where we are offering gifts for those who need them. You have heard her desire to confront the things that are troubling her. I ask that you bless her with strength and peace and a clear conscience, that she may overcome these challenges. God, bless us with your spirit, that we may see your hand in our lives. Amen."
"Amen," I said.
As I was leaving, Father Martin called out to me and said, "Oh, just so you know, this Friday at 7 we are having a barbecue at the Parish Center. I would love to see you there, if you're able and wanting."
Turning back, I smiled and said, "Oh, ok, thanks Father. I'll think about it."
The priest nodded, and with a smile, he sent me off.
***
I walked into the Deli at 1:00 on the dot. The customers who had arrived for the lunch rush were already cleaning up their trash and heading out. I dodged past a few of them on my way down the long, narrow path leading to the front counter. While I waited behind a couple of elderly folk who were picking which soup they wanted to pair with their Ultimate Grilled Cheese, I looked around for Trent. He hadn't sent me a picture or any way of contacting him throughout the day, so I wasn't sure what I was looking for, but I figured I'd see some man half-hidden behind a newspaper, scouting me out. Maybe I watch too many movies, I thought.
"Ahem, ma'am. You're up." croaked the teenager behind the register.
"Oh, right, sorry" I replied and stepped up to the counter. "Uhh," I muttered, scanning the menu for something that looked edible. "Could I just get…" I made sure to mouth every syllable as they were words of their own.
"We have a deal—the try two combo. Sandwich and a soup for $9.99." the cashier repeated for what was probably the fiftieth time that day.
"Yes, that sounds good. I'll do the Italian sandwich and potato soup. And a drink, please."
After I paid for the food, I wandered around the tables, hoping to find someone who looked like a Trent. I was picturing a short guy, runner's build, with long brown hair, tucked somewhere neatly away in the corner. So I was not prepared when the Hulk's stunt double growled my name from a table smack dab in the middle of the restaurant. He had a pale, square face that was spotted with freckles and a sinking property that comes with the lethal combination of stress and age. His hair was relatively short. Probably it was brown or auburn, but since it was slicked back, it looked almost black. And he wore what looked like janitor coveralls. There was even a cloth tag pinned to his chest which read, "Trent".
"Lauren?" He repeated.
"Yes, that's me." I said and took a seat across from him. I saw a brown tray on the table in front of him, and on the tray was a large, white soup bowl. It was empty and beginning to crust along the edges. He must have been here for some time already. "I didn't know where you'd be, so I was worried we might miss each other. I'm glad you found me though." I said while looking over Trent more thoroughly. His large hands were stretched out in front of him on the table. He wasn't wearing a ring, so he probably wasn't married. And his face, it was stern. He seemed like a no-bullshit kind of guy. Then I saw his eyes. They were sapphire blue—probably the most stunning I'd ever seen.
"We only spoke on the internet, so I hope you don't mind, but I usually run a preliminary test on anyone I meet who claims to have abilities such as yours." Trent said while reaching into his pocket and removing a device that had the size and shape of an electric razor. "All you have to do is look into it. It takes maybe five seconds. Ten at most."
"Oh, um, sure," I said reluctantly. "Do I just—" I asked while reaching for the device.
Trent clicked a button and released the cylindrical head which opened, revealing a glass circle about the size of an iris. "I'll hold it, just look into the center. A red cross should appear, then it'll take the picture."
"Okay…" I replied and did as he instructed, leaning my head forward to look into the device. Sure enough, a red cross appeared. "Is it…" was all I got out before the light turned blue and I saw a gray fog disperse and billow throughout the inside of the tube, extending for what I perceived to be miles. My jaw went slack and I couldn't breathe for maybe five seconds. Then Trent reshuttered the device and turned it over.
"Damn, 72." He said with a hint of shock. "That's the highest I've scanned to date." He looked back at me, more relaxed now, and muttered to himself. "How have you been able to function for this long? At this level, you should basically be half in, half out."
I rubbed my forehead, feeling a mixture of pain and frustration and fatigue and impatience which all poured out at once. "Listen, Trent," I said as sternly as I could, "I came here because you said you knew what was wrong with me and that you could help me. I get you have to make sure I am who I said I am, but now it's your turn to pay up. How do I know you know anything about my condition? You said my mom might still be alive. What does that even mean? I saw her die right in front of me. I want answers."
I waited for Trent to respond, but he only lifted his head. I turned around and saw a girl holding a tray of food.
"Um, hi, sorry to interrupt. I have an order 36 for Lauren."
"Oh, yes, thank you." I said. The worker placed the tray down on the table in front of me, and when I saw the food, I suddenly realized how hungry I was. Trent must have also realized this, because he folded his arms and said, "go ahead and eat. I'll explain while you do."
I wanted to protest, but my salivating mouth made other plans. "Fine," I said. I grabbed the metal spoon off the tray and started on the soup, bracing against the steaming heat of the potato chunks.
As I ate, Trent moved all of the items on his tray off to the side, then he flipped the tray over so it was raised slightly off the table. He took his cup and placed it face down in the center, then he rolled up a few of his used, blue mayonnaise packets and charted a track across the tray.
"What are you doing?" I croaked out between bites.
Trent ignored me and continued by ripping up a napkin into strips and placing them alongside the mayonnaise packets. Finally, he snapped ten toothpicks in half and stuck them in the tomb of a dozen overlayed napkins. "It's your diorama," he said at last.
"It's my what?"
"From the story you sent me. Your diorama. When I read about it, it gave me a good idea of how to explain the 'blinking'."
I pointed at the cup in the center. "Is that supposed to be a pyramid? Because I'm pretty sure you're in the wrong geometric neighborhood with that one."
"It's an analogy," he said.
"Of an analogy," I quipped back.
"Look," he picked out one of the toothpicks and held it out in front of me. "This could be a person, an animal, a crowbar—whatever you want. The point is, this diorama is a stand in for our universe. This is everything that exists, that we can see. Okay?"
"Okay,"
"Now, me," Trent placed a hand over his heart. "I'm not in the diorama. I don't exist in the universe."
"In the universe where a cup is a pyramid, or the actual universe?" I said, unable to control myself.
Trent grimaced.
"Sorry, keep going. I get it."
"Things pop into," Trent threw the toothpick back onto the tray, "or out of," he picked the toothpick back up, "our universe at will, based on forces," he patted his chest again, "that exist in other realms" he gestured to the room, "that are connected to our universe," he tapped two fingers against the tray. "These things could be objects, like, say, a toothpick, or entities, like the one you encountered yesterday. The blinking experience that you described aligns with the typical experience of a moderate Antenna. That's what I call people like us—Antennas; because we can pick up on signals others can't."
"We—you mean you see the blinking, too?"
"Yes, but not to the same extent as you. If all the blinks are gathered in a giant picture that you can see, I'm traversing the image through binoculars, maybe even a microscope, depending on where we are."
I thought about this. I guess it was possible there were other people like me out there, but since I had never met anyone, I didn't really consider the idea until now. And then for him to say my ability was somehow much stronger than his… "But," I started, "I haven't even seen that many blinks since I was a child. It's just more focused and malicious now."
"Yeah," Trent scratched his head, "that's the thing that got me really interested in you. Somehow you seem to be able to control it without gear, just by praying. And, look, that's all well and good, but I don't want to give you the false impression that I'm some kind of religious leader. I like to look for logical, scientific explanations for things. So that's the frame I'm coming at this from."
I took a sip from my drink. "That's fine," I said, "the truth is that's why I reached out to you in the first place. I wanted an explanation I could understand. An explanation that was directly related to what I'm going through."
"Then we should get along just fine."
I was scooping out the last potato that was stubbornly gliding along the bottom of the bowl when, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of the old man from the line shooting up from his bench and standing in army-erect form. I felt a tingling sensation tickle the back of my neck. I didn't want to turn toward him. I knew what I'd see if I did. "Trent," I whispered, trying to tip him off.
"Huh?" he grunted. Then when he saw my expression, he snuck his right hand under the table and said, "Do you see it? Is it here?"
I cocked my head to the left, signaling toward the old man that was now facing us, but Trent didn't seem to notice him: his eyes just kept scanning the entire front of the restaurant. Then I saw the old man take a step in our direction.
"Lauuurennnn, oh Lauuuurennnn, I've been looking for you, Laurenn." The old man said in a low, gravelly voice that gave the impression he was gurgling liquid tar. I turned and saw his face. It was cold and expressionless, and a butter knife was poking out of his left fist. When I met his eyes, he smiled that horrible smile."You're a slippery bitch, you know that?" He spat. "Why can't you just stay put? Don't you get tired of running from your old friend? Or have you forgotten about me?"
"Trent," I mumbled out. "Right there."
"And this guy. You think he can help you? He's only here to help himself. If that's not clear, you really are a lost little lamb."
"Quick, give me your hand," Trent instructed.
I was silent, my eyes still pinned to the old man.
"Tsk-tsk-tsk," the demon possessed senior wagged his finger at me, taking a step, then another step, shortening the distance as much as he could while I was entranced. Then, suddenly, he sprinted forward at a speed that shouldn't have been possible for a man his age.
"Trent!" I screamed.
"Lauren, give me your hand!"
I spun around and grabbed Tren'ts outstretched arm just as the old man lifted the butter knife over his head like a pickaxe. Then I saw Trent pull out what looked like a toy gun from under the table and point it at the demon.
"Got you," Trent remarked. I braced for a gunshot, but there was no noise. After a couple seconds, I looked back and saw the old man sitting in the booth opposite his wife, his hand tremoring as he reached for his large drink.
"What did you?" I asked, but Trent was already pulling me out of my seat. "Come on, we have to go," he said, "the effect is temporary, he'll be—"
Before he could get out the last word, I saw the cup-pyramid on Trent's tray blink out of existence. The sound of a plate shattering rang out from a table up ahead. The lone woman standing there slowly turned around, smiling, with a fork in one hand and a piece of the broken plate in the other. Trent shot her with the toy gun as we ran past and then barreled through the front door.
"Where—are we going?" I asked between gasps.
"My van. It's loaded with kit."
"And then where?"
"Your house" replied Trent who stashed his gun back in his pocket and took out a key fob.
"My house? But that's where he—it appeared."
"Yeah, and that's where you banished it."
Trent waved me into the passenger seat of his RAM 3500 Promaster. I noticed right away the dash which looked more like it belonged in a new limited-edition EV than a cargo van. The ignition kicked on automatically, and I heard the beep of a sonar ping precede an English woman's voice calling out like some auxed-in GPS saying, "scanning for anomalies". Trent shifted the van into gear, and I heard the wheels sputter as we accelerated backward and whipped out of the small parking lot.
"What's your address?" Trent asked. I gave it to him, and then speaking to his dash, he said, "Car, take us to ****."
"Redirecting to ****," replied the British woman. "Currently detecting 31 novel emergences. Updating pings every 300 milliseconds. Chance of contact: 0.23%"
"What does that mean?" I asked.
"The van has sensor equipment which can detect blinks. It's much more accurate than either of us."
"And it sees 31?"
"Yes, that's not as many as it sounds." Trent said and tore past a car that blinked out of existence right as we turned onto the main street.
We drove on for another couple minutes, the Englishwoman updating the number of novel emergences every ten seconds or so. Her constant babbling eventually became a comforting background noise, and I was able to think again.
"In the message you sent me, you said my mom may still be alive." I looked at Trent to see if he would react to me bringing her up, but he remained stolid. "What did you mean by that?"
Trent thumbed his steering wheel. "I shouldn't have sent that." He said at last.
"Shouldn't have… What do you mean? You can't just say that now."
Trent took one hand off the wheel and turned toward me. "Look, we're going back to your house because we need to determine your origin point. All Antennas have them. It's a place of high energy where many realms intersect, kind of like a station, and it's the place where you first acquired your abilities. Based on everything you wrote, I'm guessing that place is where the forest where the accident happened when you were a young child. But I need to confirm it. Once I confirm that that's the place…" Trent hesitated.
"Then… what? You want us to go back there? To the place where my mom died, or at least where I think she died until you told me she might be alive but are now taking it back? That place?"
"It's the only way to—"
"Now detecting novel agent," the Englishwoman interrupted. We both perked up as she gave another update. "Net anomalies: 437. Novel Agents: 1. Chance of contact: 78%."
"Shit," Trent muttered. "Car, course correct."
"Attempting course correct to avoid collision. Attempts made: 10, 50, 75, 79… No alternate route detected. Chance of contact: 96%."
"Time until contact?"
"Time until contact: 13 seconds."
I shuddered. Looking out the front windshield, I saw cars pop out of existence left and right, opening up a clear path to the four way intersection ahead. In a blink, the streetlights all turned green, and then they vanished completely. It was as if the entire world was being stripped down bare, and all that remained was the road, boxed in by the rows of buildings along either side. In the distance I could see a large tanker barreling toward us.
"Trent,"
"I know," he replied and clicked a different button on the console which opened a new toggle for the shifter labeled "TD". He pushed the stick forward, engaging the new mode, then pressed the accelerator all the way to the ground. "You're going to want to hold on."
"What are you doing!?" I yelled, grabbing onto my seatbelt.
"No time to explain. Car, release phase lock."
"Phase lock released."
I watched in horror as the color drained from the road and buildings and sky, transforming it all into a dim tunnel, with only the headlights of the oncoming semi-truck visible up ahead. I had the sudden thought that this was all a dream, just like the ones from my childhood. I looked over and no longer saw Trent, but my mother. And then I realized this wasn't a dream. This was hell. I was being forced to relive the worst moment of my life, over and over again. Just when I thought I had escaped, I was pulled right back into that car, helpless as we approached but never arrived at our impending fate. I closed my eyes right as the lights engulfed the windshield and braced for the usual pain in my chest, for the feeling of breaking.
But it didn't come.
"Shift" was the last word out of Trent's mouth, and then I was infused with the sensation of being at the pinnacle of a roller coaster. I was suspended there for what felt like hours, but somehow I knew that not even a second had passed. Everything inside the van: the dashboard, windows, ceiling, doors, even Trent himself began to radiate enigmatic particles. They were a mass of constant motion, like raindrops falling through the air but never landing. I looked down at my hand, but it was gone. Diffused into an unknowable number of untraceable particles. The world outside, once devoid of color, was now nothing but color. When I tried to focus on a particular spot in the infinite geometric folds of whatever realm we were traversing through, I could sometimes detect a trace of our world.
The old lady from the church. She appeared as if through a window, standing behind a table, holding out a plant. Only this image was so much brighter. And the plant she was holding was pure gold. Then I'd catch a glimpse of the razor blade. It was large, many hundreds of times larger than the van, and surrounded by darkness. These ghostly images appeared like holograms or reflections that caught the light at just the right angle, then dissipated.
I stayed there, looping between the archetypes of my life for a long, long time.
***
I knew we were returning when I felt the first sense of motion. Breath filled my lungs for the first time in what felt like a day. I blinked. And then we were back in town, driving down the same road with the blue sky above. People were jogging on the sidewalk past the little street shops. The streetlights were active. I checked the side mirror and saw the tanker had just passed by.
I looked over at Trent, who met my eyes. We shared a look of knowing, and unknowing. For some reason, that was enough, and we continued on in silence.
***
We agreed to stay the night at my house.
Trent had parked a couple blocks away in front of a couple vacant houses so as not to arouse suspicion from the neighbors. Then he lugged a large duffel bag with his equipment in and set it up in the living room. He scanned the scrapbook which contained the newspaper clippings from the accident several times and confirmed that was likely my 'origin point'. I simply nodded and then went back out onto the back porch. I sat there for hours, basking in the sun. Something had changed in the past day, but I couldn't pick out what it was. Too much had happened. I had too little time to process any of it.
When the sun set, I went inside and Trent told me about his plans for the next couple days. He said he needed to run a few errands in the morning, then meet up with a couple of his associates. After that, we could begin our drive to Southern Illinois. He said it was likely that the entity that was chasing me had first tied itself to me during my childhood accident. For whatever reason, we came into contact, and now it didn't want to leave. Trent would help me get rid of it. He didn't go into many details regarding how that was to happen, but I don't think in my tired state I would have been able to understand much anyway. He had a plan, and that was enough for me. At least for a while.
After our meeting, I made sure Trent had enough pillows and blankets like a proper host, then I retired to my room. I laid down on my twin bed and stared up at the cream-colored ceiling. Then I turned and saw the participation awards for my junior soccer league stashed on my dresser. I pictured myself on the field, running with the ball, out ahead of everyone except the goalie. I took a shot, but it was blocked. Then I ran back to defend. How can such a simple game be so much fun? Was the last thought I had before drifting off to sleep.
I woke up only once during the night. It was still dark out. The room was warm despite the small, flower petal fan churning away, shifting the hot, humid air from one pocket of the room to the next. I waited in apprehension, sensing that something had disturbed me. I saw the tomato plushie peeking out at me from the slightly ajar closet door where I had stashed it so many years ago. I felt like I was missing something. Something important.
And then I heard it.
There was a tapping at my window.