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

I want to thank Meatcanyon and Wendigoon for starting Creepcast. I've played around with writing horror, and here is my first short story. I will post it for free in a few other places to see what people think. Please enjoy!
A Hike to Remember
By R.L. Oclen
Chapter 1
A woman sits with hastily pulled-up fire-red hair in the waiting room of the state patrol station. The procedurally sterile off-white walls and decade-old magazines do little for comfort. With her head hanging low, her shoulders pushing forward, and her boots rapidly tapping on the floor, something has to give.
"Please just let her be okay." The woman growls as a pair of officers come in from the field. The officers' demeanors quickly change when they see the familiar face.
"Tabitha, did Officer Nichols call you?" one of the state patrol officers asked sympathetically.
"Yes, he asked me to come in and pick up a few things," Tabitha said, shooting back a muted look.
" I'll let them know you're here." The officer said, nodding to Tabitha as they passed the security door. Tabitha leaned back against the hard plastic chair, staring blankly into the fluorescent light. She had done this dance in the macabre repeatedly over the past month. The last image of her younger sister, Lisa, still burned in her mind. Tabitha had always been protective over her younger sister after their parents died. A pang of guilt shoots through her chest as she thinks about her and Lisa's argument.
"Tabitha Hymm, Officer Nichols is ready for you."
"Okay," she stood up, shaking off her guilt, and followed the officer back. The familiar surroundings of the state patrol station blurred as Tabitha stared forward. She followed the officer as they came to a rustic wooden office door, which was embossed with "Officer Nichols."
The escorting officer turns the old brass door knob. "Sir, I have Tabitha Hymm here." A grizzled West Virginia Highway State Patrol veteran sits behind the desk and nods. The escorting officer steps aside, pushing the door open as Tabitha pushes past him and slumps in the awaiting chair like so many times before. An uncomfortable relationship had formed between the two, born out of necessity and duty.
"Cup of coffee?"
"No thanks. Let's just cut to the chase. You don't have anything new?"
The worn laugh lines and Officer Nichols's face flattens. His eyebrows contour sympathetically as he shakes his head.
"Tabitha, I don't have anything else new for you. I wanted to give you the clothes returned from the lab." Her face darkened at the same response she had heard many times.
"As we discussed two weeks ago, there is nothing new and no signs of struggle or foul play," Officer Nichols said while placing a box marked evidence on the table and sliding it forward. Tabitha began to weep at the realization of Lisa's clothes in front of her. In a coordinated queue, Officer Nichols brought out a box of tissues. Reluctantly, Tabitha took a few moments to unblur her vision.
"How does someone stop their car in the middle of the Remington West Virginia State Park, lock it, and then walk into the woods?" Officer Nichols clasped his hands together and sighed at her worn question.
"Tabitha, I wish I had an answer for why your sister stopped her car in the woods and simply walked off. We're still going through her cell phone, but no signs exist that anyone forced her. On that Tuesday morning, she pulled over to the side of the road, secured her car, and walked away." Officer Nichols said empathetically.
Tabitha became stoic at the same explanation she had heard many times before. " So what next?"
"You should go back to Ohio, and I'll contact you as soon as I have more information." She winced at Officer Nichols's words. Reality began to pull at her that bills and work wouldn't wait much longer.
"If I leave, she's gone for good."
" You staying won't bring her back." Officer Nichols said sympathetically.
" So is that it? She's just gone?"
" Tabitha, I'll be honest with you. In cases like this… when people do things like this. Recovery is harder in the spring due to the weather and the animals. You know her mental condition better than I do. I can't explain why she did what she did. But until I find a solution, a suicide note, some intention, or body. She's not here. Tabitha, I'm-"
" Don't you fucking say sorry!" Tabitha stood up, screaming at Officer Nichols, throwing the plastic chair backward against the wall. " I should just look for myself."
"No!" Officer Nichols said momentarily, gripping the desk as his face hardened, then relaxed. Tabitha was caught off guard by Officer Nichols, who was normally composed. "Tabitha, I know this is unbearable. I've sat on this side of the desk and had these conversations. Trust me; I need you to be safe if I need your help later."
Tabitha nods, knowing Officer Nichols is right. She reaches down, picks up the evidence box of her sister's belongings, and leaves.
" Tabitha, if you're heading home, don't stop your car; just keep driving." Tabitha stops to look at Officer Nichols, feeling an eeriness to his words.
" Goodbye, Officer Nichols," Tabitha said as she closed the rustic wooden door behind her. She counted the tiles as she exited the West Virginia State Patrol Station. Placing her sister's belongings carefully in the back seat of her Jeep, Tabitha then sat momentarily behind the steering wheel, staring at the emblem. The familiar numbness washed over Tabitha as she pushed the start button. She pulled onto the highway, driving to the motel that had been home for the last month or so. Muted pop music accented the drive back as her mind raced with questions. Once inside the two-and-a-half-star motel room, Tabitha sat her sister's belongings on the corner table, crumbled onto the bed, and cried.
***
Tabitha wiped the steam from the slightly spotted mirror above the bathroom sink. The hot water from the shower felt good and loosened some of the stress from her body. Looking back at her, Tabitha's face was framed by damp curls around her shoulders. Her face marked the stress of the past month. Frowning, she examined the bags under her eyes; sleep had to come tonight. Walking into the living area, She changed into her favorite gym shorts and oversized sleep shirt. The alarm on her phone flashed "7:00 am," so she could drive home five hours after breakfast.
Tabitha hated feeling comfortable in this once strange room, but falling asleep was getting easier now. Her eyes closed slowly as the ceiling fan droned evenly. At first, nothing came in her dreams, but she let her guard down and slipped further into sleep.
As she dreamed of floating overhead like a bird of prey, Tabitha soared over the vast Remington National Park. The high noon sun bore down on the crisp woods, perfectly contrasting sky and forest. The heat of the sun felt good on her feathers. Distant cries rang out through the dream-like forest, catching her attention. Tabitha tilted her wings toward the screams, feeling a sense of familiar curiosity.
She now recognized the sobs and cries for help as she flew closer, her sharp eyes locked on her sister leaning against a large oak tree. She glided overhead without care, examining the situation below. Lisa clung to the tree, her eyes darting back and forth, scanning upwards. Lisa's face reflected desperation, looking for help in any direction. Tabitha lazily circles Lisa several times before perching on a sturdy branch higher in one of the oak trees. She watched Lisa intently with hunger. She bellowed deeply, hearing the unnatural sound she made, catching Lisa's eyes. Lisa's expression changed; she became calm, almost uncaring, as she stared back at Tabitha's form. Hunger grew exponentially in Tabitha as she spread her large wings. Her large eyes gaze down at Lisa before diving straight for her sister.
Tabitha jolts awake to the alarm on her phone flashing "7:23 AM." She breathes in sharply, shaking off the last horrible thoughts from the reoccurring nightmare. The strange details become more vivid each time. The lingering memories of folk stories her mother told sat in the back of her mind. In those stories, the dead would reach out in dreams as a matter of warning. Leaning back on the headboard, she searched for the advice her psychologist gave her. During their last session, Dr. Ryland explained dreams are a form of self-actualization of guilt. He told Tabitha that it was natural to feel responsible when losing a loved one in this manner.
Tabitha grumbled, lightly running her hands through her red hair; she pushed everything to the back of her mind. "Get it together!" She grumbled to herself. She pushed herself off the bed and got ready to leave. It was going to be a long trip home, and the only thing she could do now was leave things in the authorities' hands. Packing up was pretty easy since she only cycled through the outfits she brought. The local laundromat must have made a small fortune off her. Tabitha took one last look at the box of Lisa's belongings before throwing them in her duffle bag. She was thankful she didn't have to spend another night in this room.
***
Tabitha sat behind the wheel, waiting for the 90's model minivan to finish their order so she could grab a breakfast burrito on the way out. Considering the situation, the Deer Stop Family Restaurant did have a good breakfast. Finally, pulling up to the 70-style drive-in board, Tabitha rolled off the order she had been accustomed to. " I'll take a large iced tea with the double breakfast burrito meal and hash browns, please."
" Would you like some happy hot sauce with that?"
" That's fine, and a few ketchup packets as well."
" Your total is $8.79. Please pull around."
She pulled around to her window, flashed her debit card, got the receipt, and waited for her food. Luckily, the young woman serving her wasn't very talkative in the morning. The last thing she wanted was a conversation about the weather or meaningless small talk.
" Here's your large iced tea and breakfast meal. Ketchup and happy hot sauce are inside."
" Thanks," Tabitha said while mustering her best fake smile. The woman only smiled and nodded as the service window automatically closed. She pulled into the parking lot and dug into breakfast. Turning the radio to the weather, Tabitha sat back and enjoyed her meal. The local DJ read through the headlines, making nonpartisan comments about politics and grumbling about improving the economy. Tabitha powered through the updates of the "out-of-state woman" who'd gone missing. It was nice that the local radio station gave Lisa's name, description, and a missing person's number for sightings or leads. Tabitha even interviewed with the local news and radio stations, hoping it would bring Lisa home. But she soon found all it brought was a sorrowful look from the locals as she interacted with them in her day-to-day life.
Finishing the last of her hash browns, Lisa wadded up everything in the paper bag and threw it in the back seat. The 9 AM weather report said it was nothing but clear skies and sun the rest of the week. Tabitha flipped the radio over to the greatest hit station, pulled out of the parking lot, and began her trip home. She memorized the roads, every bend and turn in the early weeks as she frantically looked for Lisa. There's something hypnotic about the trees: the way they flow together. The trees' green tops and the oak trees' wide trunks were a relaxing view. Tabitha enjoyed the lazy s-curves of the road, bending and winding around the hills and the trees. The occasional farmhouse or field dotted the sides of the road as she made her way to the main highway.
The blur of a semi-truck snapped Tabitha's attention as she pulled up to the mouth of the highway. She had four and a half hours ahead of her, which would be a long ride. Tabitha pulled onto the highway and picked up speed, noting sparse traffic. She relaxed into her seat, letting her gaze gloss over the blur of green foliage. Without warning, Tabitha caught a large shadow from the corner of her left eye. When she registered the black feathery form, Tabitha tensed up and slammed on the brakes as it swooped across the vehicle's hood. Quickly, she pulled the car safely off the road. She couldn't determine exactly what it was, but it was bigger than any bird she'd seen. It was a bird, right? Tabitha turned off her Jeep and grabbed the keys and cell phone. Standing before the Jeep, she looked over the grill to see if she made contact with the entity.
Bewildered, she scanned the tree line, spotting something in the distance. Sitting in the clearing of the large oak forest was an enormous black owl. It stared intently at Tabitha with bright, shiny yellow eyes. She pushed the lock button on her keys, causing the jeep to beep securely. She turned, looking across the open field, an enormous black owl perched in the upper branches of an old oak tree. Each step she took away from the road piqued her curiosity. Soon, Tabitha stood in the middle of the open field, staring intently into the eyes of the enormous owl.
The horn of a passing semi-truck blared, pulling Tabitha's attention away from the mysterious large creature. She looked back and saw that she had walked farther away from the Jeep than she had thought. She glanced back to the forest line only to see the enormous owl was deeper into the woods than before. She narrowed her vision to find the two large, bright yellow eyes staring back. Had it moved? The day's stress, care, and worry suddenly poured out of Tabitha. It was replaced by only curiosity and overbearing tranquility. She warmly smiled for the first time in months as her feet pulled her further into the woods.
Chapter 2
The tug of gravity pulls Tabitha to her senses as her body reacts, falling forward. Her arms thrust forward, bracing for impact. Water rushes around her face as she struggles to get her bearings. Quickly, Tabitha pushed herself up in the ankle-high stream she fell in. The haze slowly clears from her mind as she stares at the muddy water. The dull ache throbs up her legs. Tabitha can smell the sweat from her clothes. Her face contorted in panic as she quickly stood up in the water, looking for her cell. Thankfully, the device was still in her pocket, dry and unscathed.
"One o'clock. How can that be?" Tabitha says, slowly looking up from the screen to see the vast, dense West Virginia forest encompassing her view. She shakes her head back and forth with disbelief. A smile gently spreads across her face, with the last bit of tranquility leaving her body. How did I get out here? Her breathing becomes faster as her pulse begins to quicken. I'm in the forest. I'm all alone—just like Lisa!
"NO, NO, NO, NO! THIS FUCKING CAN'T BE HAPPENING TO ME!" Tabitha screams into the void of trees. Her eyes well up with tears as she crumbles to her knees, gripping her phone tightly to her chest. Her sobs ring out through the thick oak trees. Her breath slows a little as she regains her composure. She begins to search her mind for anything. What is the last thing I can remember? The image of the black shadow crossing her vision while driving flashes into her mind.
"Okay, I got out of the Jeep, the…then what?" Tabitha says, trying to refresh her memories. She thinks her memory is not just gone; it's a black void in her mind. Complete blackness fills her mind right after remembering locking the Jeep and then turning to see the…
"Fuck I saw something. What was it!" Tabitha says, frustrated with her mind. She knew there must be a logical reason she was out here. Officer Nichols warned her not to go looking for her sister. She wasn't stupid; she just said that as a last-ditch effort to get him to do anything. Now I'm here.
"Run!" Tabitha heard Lisa's voice in her ear. Before she could turn around, she heard a loud bellowing coming from overhead. Fear shot down her back, reminding her of the nightmares she had over the past month. She shot forward full bore as something crashed to the ground behind her. Glancing back as she ran, a black mass of feathers convulsed between the broken branches of the trees. Its slick black feathers rippled across its surface as its bones crackled and flesh tore. Its body contorted and twisted from the shape of an owl to something bigger.
"Run, Tabby! Don't let it catch you!" Tabitha pushed forward, hearing Lisa's scream beside her face. Her breath burned in her chest, and she moved past the old oak trees bent over the creek bed. Her feet slammed rapidly, splashing along the side of the creek. Another loud bellow comes from behind as the trees bend and break to the force behind her. A small opening in the rocky creek bed catches her sight from the left. She dives into the crevasses, not caring where the fathoms lead. Tabitha tumbles in the pitch black, taking scrapes and sharp jabs from the rocks as she tumbles further into the void.
She finally tumbles to a stop on the sandy, wet floor of the cave. Her body aches from the sudden burst of exhaustion. The cool water running around her body from the creek is soothing despite her bumps and bruises. Pushing herself up, she scoots out of the water. Feeling her way forward, she finds a dry spot to collect herself. Quickly pushing her hand into her pocket, she finds her phone undamaged.
The sound of footsteps pushing against the creek fills the void around Tabitha as the light steps move closer to each other up the underground creekbed. She slowly removes her cell from her pocket and then shines the camera light toward the sound. A pair of scratched and bruised pale bare legs hold up a frail form in front of her in the creek. She wears the darkness as a shroud with nothing else to clothe her. Tabitha froze, not wanting to shine the light further in the pale form before her.
"Tabby, turn your light off. You need to save your battery." Tabitha turned off the light and then rushed forward, embracing Lisa—the how or why didn't matter, only the now. The pale form hugged her tightly. Tabitha felt her cold, bare skin. The darkness couldn't hide the feeling of the marks across her back and torso.
"Lisa, I'm-"
"Hush! I don't have much time. This wasn't your fault! I'm with Mom and Dad now. You have to survive, Tabby! Listen. Wait until the sun shines through the cracks, making a trail out. Follow it down the creek until you come to the opening. You'll see a large hill you hike up for a cell signal. And remember…If you can't see it… It can't hurt you. I love you-"
Tabitha stumbled forward before catching herself. The void in front of her arms was only filled by cool air. She looked up and noticed a faint glimmer of light pushing through the ceiling. She sat down, relaxing against the limestone wall of the cave, waiting for the trail of light to form.
***
After a few hours, the light shining through the cracks of the cave ceiling was bright enough to lead Tabitha to the other side. She stepped onto the creek bed, thankful for the sun hanging lower in the sky. Scanning the sky, Tabitha saw only a few clouds. The foothills of Appalachia backdropped the forest as she scanned for the hill. Her eyes found the trail leading up the steady slope of an impressive hill. The top of the hill was bare. Part of the hill must have sheared off in a landslide, leaving the top void of trees and a jagged cliff face. Tabitha started her hike up the back of the hill. She was careful to stay under the heavy canopy of the old trees, hopefully avoiding the creature's eyes.
She did her best to quiet her mind while hiking up the trail. Come on, almost to the top, then I can call 911, she replayed repeatedly in her mind. Her adrenaline made up for the lack of food since morning. She drank some water from a clean spot in the creek. She was placing her bet on rescue rather than worrying about the water.
Leaning against one of the trees, Tabitha took out her cell and measured the signal.
"Damn it, nothing!" She swore under her breath. She listened nervously and cautiously peered her head out from the tree line. Standing at the tree line, the cell phone still had a low signal. She pushed her anxiety down with a swallow and slowly stepped forward onto the bare rock. Tabitha was now out in the open. She walked with the cell phone pointed upwards, measuring the signal. Within three feet of the cliff face, her signal bar punched up to full. Tabitha began to punch in the numbers just as a pair of large yellow eyes appeared. She felt her legs become weak, and her vision blurred as the creature snared her in its gaze.
Tabitha ducked, missing the giant owl's claws as it swooped for her. She squinted her eyes shut, momentarily breaking the hold of the infernal beast as it crashed to the ground, tumbling down the path of old trees. On her hands and knees, she tucked the dialed phone back into her pocket. She heard the creature's loud bellowing, followed by the snapping of bone and flesh ripping. It was changing its shape to finish her off.
Tabitha tried to get up, but the flash of its eyes did something to her. Her legs were numb, her stomach was in knots, and she could barely put a few thoughts together.
"If you can't see it, it can't hurt you." Tabitha heard clearly in her left ear. She quickly pushed herself into a sitting position and fumbled for the key chain in her right pocket. Pulling the long chain of keys, luck charms, and keepsakes, her father's Swiss army knife dangled at the end. She slowly opened the half-inch blade. Her body wholeheartedly rejected her plan and tried to fight her. Every internal warning system sounded as her body fought against her as she brought the blade against the corner of her left eye.
She didn't know if she could do it until the creature bellowed in her direction. With one quick motion, the half-inch blade sliced across her left eye. The world dimmed and then went black on her left side. Behind her, the beast's thundering gallop was getting closer. Tabitha plunged herself into total darkness with the last bit of her strength. Her hand gripped tightly around the bloody knife as she folded forward onto the ground. She could feel herself weeping blood. She squinted, doing her best to stem the tide of blood loss.
A large feathered paw drove into Tabitha's right side, flipping her onto her back. She lay still as the hulking creature stood over her. It remained motionless, and Tabitha was confused about why it didn't move or bite her. Then she started to giggle, just a little at first. Then, laughing madly into the creature's face as it growled back at her. She could not see it; she couldn't see anything. Her mind couldn't be eaten!
The creature roared into Tabitha's face while plunging one of its sharp claws into her shoulder. Tabitha screamed in pain, slashing the knife downward. The blade hit something soft, and she ripped the blade down, rending whatever she had hit on the abomination. A bright yellow, foul-smelling liquid gushed in a torrent over Tabitha's face. She turned to cough, having swallowed a portion of it. The creature reared back, squealing in pain. Its hind leg came down hard on Tabitha's leg, snapping her tibia. She jerked her leg up, causing the creature to tumble forward and fall over the edge of the cliff side.
Tabitha heard the creature crash below at the base of the hill. A large dead tree speared the creature through its chest. Tabitha could hear the labored whines of the creature as its cries became weak and slowed. A wave of sickness hit her as she rolled over and vomited. The foul smell drenched her. She did her best to focus, reaching into her pocket and pulling out the phone. By memory, she typed in the unlock pin. She held her breath and placed her thumb where the call button should be.
She could hear the call being made then, "911. What is your emergency?"
"Please help me! A bear has attacked me, and I can't see. I think I am on a hill."
"Ok, ma'am, stay with me! Do you know where you are located?"
"No, I'm lost. Please send help."
"It's okay. Stay with me on the phone, and I'll use the cell signal to try to find you."
"I'm on top of one of the hills. I think I am lying on a bare roc-" Tabitha slipped unconscious with the cell still tightly in her hand. Her body began to tremble and convulse.
"Ma'am! Ma'am! Stay with me. I have help on the way."
Chapter 3
A young man in military fatigues frantically compiles images and reconnaissance data from his drone feed. Confirming his hunch, he commands the winged surveillance drone to make a hard left and send a live video feed. His eyes widened as he saw a large owl-shaped shadow crash onto the top of a hill. He watches in awe as the sleek black owl twists and shifts into something much larger, like a grizzly. As the drone turns, he sees a woman at the cliff's edge trying to steady yourself on her hands and knees.
He bolts up from the command module, jotting down the drone's coordinates on one of the printouts. The drab government-issued office motif for the watch station blurs in the corner of his eye as he rushes down the hallway to the watch commander's office.
"Sir, recon has eyes on AMOS! And it's feeding!" the man said, swinging the heavy wooden door open. He took the hastily compiled file and pushed it forward to the commanding officer.
An older, tanned man quickly stands, reaching for the files. His brow furls, seeing his charge is awake. "Keep eyes on it! Go Adams!" The young man nods, turning on his heel and bolting for the drone command module. As his office door slams shut from the subordinate officer, he grabs his headset and frantically dials the closest military outpost to the coordinates.
"Hello, Sergeant Klein; this is Agent Smith of Black Watch outpost 7948! Shadow is active, code Alpha, Mike, Oscar, Sierra. The coordinates and data package have been sent. A civilian is on the ground; deploy strike-and-rescue ASAP.
"We'll be up in five, Agent Smith! The line cuts as Agent Smith closes out the call on his headset and rushes to the door. The normally quiet watch station buzzes alive, with personnel flooding the central command station. The background echoes resource allocation calls, frantic typing, and the hum of cold computers warming up.
"Adams, get our eyes back on Amos!"
"Coming back around in 30 seconds." Thirty sets of eyes stare at the three giant screens, anxiously waiting for the drone feed to clear the bank of trees. The camera clears the tre top to see the giant feathered grizzly rear back slinging its massive head away from its prey. Its large yellow right eye spews bright yellow liquid all over the red-haired woman and the cliff face. The giant feathered grizzly missteps, crushing the woman's leg and causing the creature to tumble over the cliff face.
"Fuck!" Agent Smith yells in horror as he watches AMOS fall four stories, impaling a sharp, 3-meter-tall log lodged in the boulders. The command center freezes wide-eyed at the flailing dying creature on screen. Agent Smith pulls his cell out quickly and dials.
"Klein, Scrub the current request! AMOS is down! Switch to rescue and harvest now!
"What, someone took out AMOS?"
"YES! It's at the bottom of the cliff, bleeding out essence! The woman is covered in it as well. Clean as much of it off her as possible before you take her to the ER.
"Understood!"
Agent Smith, in a rage, slings his phone straight forward, connecting with Private Adams's skull. Adams flinches at the sudden impact of the hard plastic and covers his head. Agent Smith grabs the table in front of him and flips it over, sending the computer equipment crashing to the government-issued tiled floor.
"A two-year cycle gone! All that essence is gone! Now I have to wait another 24 months for AMOS to resurrect!" Agent Smith screams, causing the rest of the staff to recoil away in fear.
"Jones!" Agent Smith says sternly, turning to a petite woman on his left. She stares at him, pleading.
"Yes Sir?'
"Get Officer Nichols on my office line. That fuck up has some explaining. He should have told us AMOS was awake."
"Right away!" Jones quickly sits back down and begins dialing Nichols, thankful she doesn't have to deal with Agent Smith further. The command center quickly shifts gears as Agent Smith returns to his office.
***
Two Weeks later…
"Tabitha… Tabitha… This is Doctor Wilhelm. Wake up." The kind older gentleman said as they gently nudged Tabitha in her hospital bed.
"Where am I?" Tabitha asked, waking from what felt like years of sleep. She sat up, the world still pitch black, but an odd sense of the world around her seemed to hum just behind her eyes.
"You're in the hospital, dear; you scared us. Do you remember anything?" He said as he sat down on the side of her bed.
Tabitha thought for a moment the last parts after she slashed her eyes were a blur. She remembers people yelling and the sound of two or three helicopters over her. " No, it's really all just a blur."
"Well, it's probably for the best. You had some very serious injuries. The first night, we honestly didn't think you would make it. Then…" The doctor trailed off with a concerned expression, not knowing how to explain things further.
Tabitha felt his pulse quicken somehow. She didn't understand it but fully felt or sensed the doctor beside her. She sensed the two other nurses standing at the end of the bed. Her body didn't hurt. She felt great. She felt hungry.
"Doctor, you said had. What happened to my injuries?" She said calmly, trying not to startle the old doctor further.
"Well, Tabitha, it's the closest thing to a miracle I've ever seen. You had violent seizures from the minute you hit the entrance of the ER. We couldn't even set your leg. The medications we gave you had a minimal effect, and you thrashed so much that we had to restrain you. Then, the early morning check-in found you in a deep sleep. All but your eyes were completely healed. So we switched gears to support care and treated your eyes the best we could." He said, watching her reaction.
Tabitha leaned back in her bed, taking in the wild account. "Do you know how I healed so quickly?"
"What happened to you is beyond all scientific reason. A miracle is the only way the staff and I can explain it. I know you have been through a lot, but I want to check your eyes."
"Thank you for all your help, Doctor Wilhelm." She said, sitting up in bed.
"You are most welcome, dear. Now I am going to unwrap your eye-dressing. Hold still, please." he said as he reached up and pulled on the bandage tape. Tabitha felt a quick tug and felt the bandages loosen from around her head. The doctor slowly unwrapped the bandages. The doctor's brow wrinkled as he examined the two large black scabs covering Tabitha's eyes.
"Tell me if this hurts at all, ok?"
"Yes, doctor." She relaxes as the doctor's gloved fingers pass over the scab. He pushes and gently tugs at the side of one, and it starts to lift. He pulls on the scab more, and Tabitha begins to sense the light as it hits her eyelid.
"Oh, I can sense the light, Doctor Wilhelm!" She said, smiling.
"Wonderful! Nurse Allen, please hand me some saline solution. I think a little water will loosen these right up. Hold still; this may feel cold," he said as he reached for the solution. She felt the cool liquid flush over the left eye, then the right. The scabs fell away with a gentle tug from the doctor. She could see the light shine through her eyelids. She grinned widely, happy to have some form of sight left.
"Please open your eyes for me," he said as he sat back on the bed. Tabitha slowly opened her eyes. The flood of light was almost too much, causing her to squint. After a few moments, she adjusted to the fluorescent lights. Three figures began to take shape in front of her. First, the distinguished older features of Doctor Wilhelm came into view quickly, followed by the brunette and blonde younger nurses standing at the end of the bed. Suddenly, her vision snapped into place, crisp and clear.
"I can see perfectly! This is amazing! Thank you, Doctor Wilhem!" she said, turning to look directly into his eyes, but he stared back at her unmovingly.
"Doctor Wilhelm?" she said as her expression became more worried. Doctor Wilhelm just sat staring, intensely focused on her eyes. His expression was overbearingly calm. She glanced at the nurses, rigidly staring back at her with trapped, calm expressions. Doctor Wilhelm began to twitch slightly. It traveled from the base of his spine out to his limbs, finally convulsing.
"Doctor Wilhelm, are you okay?" Tabitha yelled as the doctor began to have a seizure and fell on top of her bed.
"Help Him!" She screamed at the two nurses only to see both of them crumble to the tiled floor. One of them bashed her head off the bed frame. Tabitha recoils back from Doctor Wilhelm in terror as he starts foaming at the mouth. She climbs over the bed rail and hits the tiled concrete floor with a thud. Her adrenaline surges as she bolts for the door, looking for help.
At the entrance of her hospital room, she sees another nurse leaving the adjacent room. "Please, my doctor and staff need help!" As the male nurse turns to see Tabitha, he suddenly goes stiff before collapsing into a violent seizure, spilling his cart over with him.
"What's happening!" Tabitha screams, thinking something is in the air, or everyone has come down with something. A pair of security guards round the corner, hearing the screams and commotion.
"Ma'am, are yo-" The guard freezes mid-stride as he makes eye contact with Tabitha. Both men start to convulse and topple over, thrashing violently on the hard tile.
"No, no, no, no!" Tabitha yells as she darts into the women's bathroom, a few doors up the hall. She runs in, terrified of the situation. She approaches one of the sinks, bracing herself against the cool porcelain. Her stomach turns, and she dry heaves in the sink. She steadies herself while turning on the cold water. Leaning in, she takes a drink. As she looks up, a glint of two yellow eyes catches her. Tabitha stumbles backward on reflex. Then, she sees her reflection in the mirror. Two completely bright yellow eyes stare back at Tabitha. She screams at herself in the mirror, not feeling hungry anymore.
The end.
I will

The Dungeon Dungeon Fruit is a paramecia-type devil fruit that allows the user to become a living dungeon, making them a Dungeon Master.

Strengths

Upon consuming the Dungeon Dungeon Fruit, the user will gain a permanent pocket dimension of a dungeon within themselves which they are able to customise however they like. The user can teleport people and objects into their dungeon through touch, shrinking them down and transporting them into the dungeon's interior.
The user also gains the ability to transform their body into a full-size dungeon matching the pocket dimension one as it is just the pocket dimension one expanding into the world and transforming the user into the building. If the user is above ground their dungeon will resemble a tower as it towers above the ground with its height dependent on the number of flours the user has created. If the user does it above ground the dungeon's rules of floors get flipped and the lower floors are weaker with the higher ones being stronger. Also, there will be an entranceway for people to enter or exit at the bottom of the "tower" form. If the user is underground their dungeon will meld with the environment and go down with the height dependent on the number of flours the user has created, additionally, the user will rise or sink to have an opening on the surface marking the entrance into the dungeon. When transformed the user has complete control over the dungeon, allowing them to manipulate its structure, features, and contents as if it were an extension of their own body. The user can enhance the durability of their dungeon, fortifying it against environmental hazards and potential threats.
Inside the dungeon, the user is able to create anything that can be found in a dungeon, including but not limited to, weapons, monsters, treasures, puzzles, traps, etc. The user is able to take out their creations however they must keep physical contact with it constantly and if they don't it will disappear and reappear back in their dungeon when the user has the energy to create it again.
Inside the dungeon, the user has absolute control capable of creating and controlling anything and everything in relation to dungeons.

Weaknesses

Standard devil fruit weaknesses apply.
Floors: The user has to separate the structure of their dungeon into floors, with every floor down able to create stronger entities and items with more elaborate and stronger traps and treasures.
Creatures: The creatures that the user creates in the dungeon are able to be influenced and controlled by the user's direct orders but anything besides the user's direct orders can possibly be disobeyed or dismissed by the creatures.
Outside contact: Items and creatures that the user made within their dungeon will turn into dust once they are apart from the user. Meaning that an item or creature can be taken out but only partially. The user can take out a sword and use it as a weapon but once they discard it or it no longer makes physical contact with them it will start to turn to dust.
Energy: It takes energy for the user to make anything within the dungeon be it items, monsters, or even them manipulating the dungeon to their will to make the impossible happen, or even remake the dungeon and its contents. The stronger the things/creatures that they create the more energy it will cost the user.
Space & Haki: Strong haki can neutralize creatures within the dungeon and make passage throughout the dungeon really easy, additionally any space manipulation can enable people the ability to escape from the user's Dungeon unless the user is constantly twisting space to prevent them from doing this.
'Magic': The dungeon is filled with the user's energy which they can use like magic. The 'Magic' within the dungeon can only ever be the user's energy that they used to create phenomenon, it is not real magic but the user using their ability to create anything within the dungeon. Haki can disrupt this energy and make the user's control over the dungeon unstable/erratic and it acts as a kind of anti-magic.
Destruction: Vistors can destroy the dungeon and trigger a full-scale collapse in order to get out of the dungeon quickly.
Dungeon Limit: The Dungeon can be of any size be it 1 floor, 10 floors, 100 floors or even 10,000 floors as many as the user wants, and these floors can be as big or as small as the user wants with space distorting to the users will. As well as the contents being however the user wishes them to be. However, the user is limited to having only one Dungeon created at a time.

Techniques:

The core of the Dungeon: This technique allows the user to merge their physical form with their dungeon, becoming the true core and centre of the Dungeon. When activated, the user's body undergoes a transformation, imbuing them with the visual appearance of their dungeon while retaining their base form's humanoid shape. The user appears as their usual self but with subtle manifestations of their dungeon's architecture spread across their entire body visible both internally and externally. Parts of the user's body may take on a spectral or ethereal quality, resembling stone, wood, or other materials found within their dungeon. Floors within the dungeon will be visible on the user's body and the user can interact with them like normal. While in this state, the user's control of their dungeon and sense of the dungeon as a part of their body is strengthened, granting them unparalleled control over its features and inhabitants. They can sense disturbances, manipulate the environment, and summon forth creatures or objects from within their domain with ease. The user's thoughts and intentions shape the very fabric of their dungeon, allowing them to adapt and respond to any situation. The Core of the Dungeon technique offers numerous tactical advantages. In addition to serving as a formidable defensive measure, it enables the user to access their dungeon's resources and defences instantaneously. They can summon forth weapons, traps, or allies as needed instantaneously. Additionally, the strongest part of this technique is that the user is able to take on the full condition of the dungeon allowing them to be as durable as the entire dungeon combined, as smart as the entire dungeon combined, and the user is able to draw on all the strength of the entire dungeon, etc.
Dungeon Gate: The user is able to create a portal on any part of their body, this portal can connect to anywhere within their dungeon. The user can use this to take out something or someone from their dungeon temporarily, the user can also use this to make an opening for one of their creatures to attack from the portal or to take out an item.
Treasure: The user can create valuable items or weapons from their dungeon and bring them into the real world by maintaining physical contact. However, these items will disappear if contact is broken.

• Eternal Chalice: A mystical cup that, when filled with any liquid, will never run out of that liquid until the cup is turned over completely and the contents are completely spilt out.
• Golem's Heart: A magical gem that, when placed on the ground, summons a powerful stone golem to protect the owner of the treasure. The Golem is about the same size as a goblin and is made of solid stone, it will last until it is completely broken.
• Chrono Amulet: An amulet that allows the wearer to slow down and speed up their movements at will, giving them a significant advantage in battle. However, there is a high energy consumption which increases the more the wielder wants to speed up or slow down.
• Spectral Lantern: A lantern that can summon spirits to aid the user in various ways, such as scouting, fighting, or showing the way. The wielder must make sure the spirits they summon listen to them and make sure that the spirits don't try to lead the wielder to the dead's same fate.
• Serpent's Eye: An orb that grants the user the ability to see through illusions and detect hidden objects or beings. The orb has a swirling pattern inside that resembles a serpent's eye. However, Continuous use can strain the user's eyesight.
• Dragon’s Eye: A gem that allows the wielder to see through illusions and detect lies by emitting a faint glow when deception is present. The wielder must be paying attention to the gem to see it glow, plus someone may be talking too fast for the wielder to understand what words they said are a lie or not. It also has a limited range of effectiveness.
• Death's Whisper: A pendant that allows the user to communicate with the dead, gaining their knowledge and advice. The pendant is shaped like a skull with glowing eyes. However, communicating with the dead can attract malevolent spirits.
• Spirit Stone: A gemstone that can capture and contain the essence of defeated enemies, allowing the user to temporarily harness their abilities. The stone has a limited capacity and requires time to recharge between uses. Using too many abilities at once can overwhelm the wielder or allow them to be possessed by the collective spirits within the gemstone should their spirit not be strong enough.
• Starlight Pendant: A pendant containing a fragment of a fallen star. It allows the user to harness the power of starlight, creating blinding flashes, energy beams, and shields of light. The pendant's power diminishes in the absence of starlight or strong light sources. Continuous use can cause the pendant to overheat, requiring a cooldown period.
• Serpent's Fang Dagger: A dagger crafted from the fang of a mythical serpent. It can inject a potent venom that paralyzes or weakens its victims. The venom needs time to replenish after each use, limiting the number of effective strikes in a short period.
• Starry Night Robe: A robe adorned with patterns that mimic the night sky, granting the wearer the ability to blend into their surroundings and move silently. The camouflage effect is less effective in brightly lit environments.
• Abyssal Grimoire: A dark tome filled with forbidden knowledge and powerful spells. Reading from the grimoire allows the wielder to cast devastating dark magic at the cost of their own vitality. Each spell cast siphons a portion of the wielder’s life force, and prolonged use can lead to severe consequences, including physical and mental corruption.
• Eclipse Ring: A ring that harnesses the power of lunar and solar eclipses, allowing the wielder to cast powerful light and shadow magic. The ring’s power is tied to the phases of the moon and solar cycles, making it weaker during certain times.
• Whispering Leaves: An enchanted book filled with ancient knowledge of nature magic. When read, it allows the wielder to communicate with plants and animals. Requires time to read and understand the spells. Using powerful spells can drain the wielder's energy and concentration.
• Evil Dispelling Talisman: A talisman that wards off evil spirits and curses, providing protection against dark magic and supernatural threats. One-time use.
• Talisman of Fortitude: A talisman that increases the wearer’s resilience, providing protection against physical and magical damage. The protection requires energy to maintain and can fail if the wielder is overwhelmed by powerful attacks. One-time use.
• Shadow Dagger: A dagger that allows the user to merge with shadows, becoming invisible and intangible while within them as well as allowing them to directly attack someone's shadow as if it were tangible. It is ineffective in well-lit environments, and cannot physically harm anyone bar their shadows.
• Vortex Gauntlet: A gauntlet that can create and control miniature vortices, allowing the wielder to manipulate wind and suction forces. The gauntlets have high energy consumption and limited range. Overuse can cause severe strain on the user’s arm.
• Stockpile Gauntlet: A gauntlet encrusted with crystals that can absorb and store magical energy, which can then be released in powerful bursts. Has a limited capacity for storing energy and can become unstable if overloaded. The release of energy is also taxing on the user’s arm causing it to strain from the backlash of powerful attacks/blasts.
• Warlock's Staff: A staff imbued with dark magic that enhances the wielder's spellcasting abilities and allows them to drain the life force of enemies. The staff’s dark magic can corrupt the wielder over time, leading to physical and mental deterioration.
• Harmony Orb: An orb that balances opposing forces, allowing the wielder to neutralize magic. The orb’s power can be overwhelmed by extremely powerful magic.
• Tempest Bow: A bow that allows the wielder to shoot arrows infused with the power of wind, capable of creating powerful gusts and small tornadoes on impact. The bow has a high energy cost and requires the wielder's energy to create wind-infused arrows. The bow's effectiveness is reduced in enclosed or windless environments.
• Blazing Quiver: A quiver that enchants any arrows placed within it to become flaming arrows, capable of setting targets ablaze on impact. The fire enchantment drains the user’s stamina, and arrows can be extinguished by water or strong winds.
• Seeker’s Map: A magical map that reveals the location of hidden treasures, secret passages, and important landmarks. It can easily be burned or torn and damaged by water like aged papyrus.
• Orb of Whispers: A crystal ball that allows the wielder to communicate telepathically with anyone they have met before, no matter the distance. The telepathy is one way and there is no way to know if the message they sent was successful without meeting up with them.
• Frostfire Lantern: A lantern that can switch between emitting a freezing cold light or a searing hot flame, depending on the wielder's needs. The lantern drains energy quickly when used in either mode, and the user must be careful to avoid harming themselves or allies with the extreme temperatures.
• Mermaid’s Locket: A locket that grants the wearer the ability to breathe underwater and communicate with aquatic creatures. The locket’s power is limited to water environments and drains energy if outside of water for extended periods.
• Phoenix Tear Flask: A flask containing a single, precious tear from a phoenix, which can heal any wound or cure any illness when consumed. The flask only contains a single use, and once used, it cannot be refilled. The healing effect can be overwhelming and incapacitating for a short period.
• Shifting Sands Bottle: A bottle filled with enchanted sand that can transform into various shapes and forms at the wielder's command. Controlling the sand requires mental concentration, and the transformations are temporary, reverting to sand if not maintained.
• Thunder Drum: A drum that, when played, can summon thunder and lightning to strike at the wielder's command wherever they are looking. Playing the drum is physically demanding, and summoning lightning requires precise timing and significant energy.
• Astral Compass: A compass that points towards the nearest source of magical energy, helping the user find enchanted objects and places. The compass can be misleading if multiple sources of magic are nearby, and it requires mental focus to interpret correctly.
• Seraphim’s Feather: A single, radiant feather that grants the wielder the ability to manifest wings and fly and create protective barriers of light. When the wielder manifests wings they gain a slight regeneration capable of suppressing minor illnesses and closing small cuts. However, flying and creating barriers drain the user’s stamina quickly, and the feather’s power diminishes if used excessively without rest.
• Celestial Harp: Crafted from the finest celestial metals and adorned with shimmering angelic runes, this harp produces music that can heal wounds, soothe minds, and uplift spirits. When played, it can calm storms, mend broken hearts, and bring peace to troubled souls. However, its power can only be harnessed by those with a pure heart.
• Saint's Cloak: A cloak woven from threads of starlight and blessed by archangels. It grants the wearer invisibility, protects them from harm, and allows them to move silently and swiftly. The cloak also has the power to create protective barriers that can shield allies. Only those with a heart dedicated to good can wear the cloak without it losing its power.
• Inferno Ring: A ring that grants the wearer the ability to control and manipulate fire, allowing them to create fireballs, walls of flame, and other fiery constructs. The ring consumes a significant amount of energy, and the ring is unable to be used when it is covered in water or ice.
• Moonstone Pendant: A pendant that enhances the wearer’s intuition and allows them to see in complete darkness. The enhanced intuition can be overwhelming, causing sensory overload if used for extended periods.
• Gauntlet of Titans: A gauntlet that grants the wearer immense strength, allowing them to perform feats of great physical power. The increased strength drains the user's stamina rapidly and can cause muscle strain if overused.
• Enchanted Quill: A quill that can write on its own, create detailed maps, transcribe spoken words, or draw intricate designs. The quill requires the wielder's concentration and drains mental energy, becoming less effective if used for extended periods.
• Gale Fan: A fan that controls the wind, allowing the user to create powerful gusts or gentle breezes. The fan requires physical effort to use effectively, and prolonged use can cause fatigue.
• Slothful Amulet: An amulet that induces a state of lethargy and apathy in the wearer, allowing them to no longer feel fatigued more than the amulet makes them, making them capable of doing strenuous activity while having the same amount of energy. However, prolonged use leads to a life devoid of purpose or ambition, trapped in a perpetual cycle of laziness and stagnation.
• Prideful Armour: Armour adorned with intricate designs and enchantments, the more prideful the wearer is the stronger the armour becomes allowing it to take attacks that appear instantly fatal. However, once the user takes off this armour they will feel worthless and will despair until they wear the armour again or learn to live without it.
• Greed's Coin: A golden coin that multiplies the wielder's wealth with each transaction, bringing untold riches to its owner. However, every gain comes at the expense of others, leading to exploitation and manipulation. The insatiable desire for wealth will eventually drive the user to commit increasingly ruthless acts, ultimately isolating them from all but their material possessions.
• Glutton's Chalice: A chalice that endlessly produces the finest foods and beverages, satisfying every craving of the user. Indulging in its offerings grants temporary pleasure and sustenance but leads to insatiable hunger and addiction. Over time, the user becomes enslaved by their own desires, unable to resist the allure of excess.
• Wrath's Broken Sword: A broken Zweihänder infused with the fury of the enraged, granting the wearer immense strength and destructive power. When activated, the sword will grow as if healing itself from all of its lifetime of damage, and then it engulfs the user in a raging aura of flames, enhancing their combat prowess but clouding their judgment with unbridled anger. Prolonged use risks losing control and becoming consumed by rage.
• Envy's Mirror: A mirror that reflects the desires of the beholder, showing them what they covet most in the world. When gazed upon, the user can see what they want the most in the world, and then they can take it out of the mirror, a mirrored copy of what they want the most. However, the more they use the mirror the more they will begin to envy those around them succumbing to its temptations which can lead to obsession and eventual downfall.
• Lust's Mask: A mask that enhances the allure and charisma of the wearer, captivating all who gaze upon them with irresistible charm and desire. While wearing it, the user can manipulate others to fulfil their every whim and desire. However, once the mask is removed the user will look disfigured permanently, with only a holy artefact that can remove curses capable of dispelling the terrible effects.
• The Crown That No One Wanted: A Crown that once worn will grant its wearer the power to be empowered by every sin they commit and others commit in the wearer's vicinity. However, this crown can not be removed except upon the wearer's death, and everyone the wearer sees the wearer will be able to see all of their sins and the next sin they are about to commit.
• Amulet of the Demi-Lich: An ancient amulet crafted from obsidian and etched with ominous glyphs, housing the imprisoned essence of a powerful demi-lich. When worn, the amulet bestows upon the wearer all the Demi-Lich's knowledge of dark magic and necromancy, granting access to the lich's vast repository of forbidden spells and arcane rituals. The wearer gains the ability to draw upon the demi-lich's powers, wielding dark energies to bend the forces of life and death to their will. Shadows obey their command, and the air grows thick with the whispers of the undead. However, with each use of the amulet's power, the malevolent consciousness of the demi-lich begins to seep into the wearer's mind, whispering temptations and promises of unimaginable power. The wearer's thoughts become consumed by the lich's desires, their will is slowly eroded by its relentless influence. If the wearer succumbs to the lich's control, their body becomes a vessel for its resurrection. The amulet shatters, releasing the demi-lich's essence to merge with the wearer's soul, transforming them into a vessel of undeath. From the ashes of the wearer's humanity, the demi-lich rises once more, eager to unleash its reign of darkness upon the world once more.
• Lich's First Wand: Crafted from the ancient and gnarled wood of the Veilwood trees, this wand holds the essence of the lich's earliest forays into magic, before corruption took hold. The wood is smooth to the touch, with delicate carvings depicting scenes of nature and life. When wielded by a skilled mage, the Veilwood Staff channels the untainted magic of its creation, granting the user the ability to manipulate the forces of nature and harness the primal energies of the earth. It can conjure gentle breezes, summon vines to entangle foes, and heal wounds with the touch of its tip. Unlike the dark artefacts associated with lichdom, the Veilwood Staff does not seek to corrupt or dominate its wielder. Instead, it serves as a reminder of the lich's origins and the purity of their magical pursuits before succumbing to the allure of immortality. However, despite its benign nature, the staff still bears the lingering echoes of the lich's ambitions and desires. Those who wield it may experience faint whispers and visions of the lich's past, offering glimpses into the choices that led to their transformation. The lich's pleads for help to find the one that he could not echo in the wielder's dreams, to complete what he never could.

Dungeon Master's Clarvoiant Gaze: The user can see through the eyes of any creature or object within their dungeon, providing them with complete surveillance of their domain. Although this can be very helpful to the user to help them survey their dungeon as if they are all seeing, without training, they will have no attention of their surroundings and may be ambushed in their distraction.
Monster Maker: The user manifests fearsome creatures within their dungeon, bringing them to life from the depths of their imagination. By channelling their energy and focusing their will, the user can create a wide variety of monsters, each with unique abilities, characteristics, and behaviours. These creatures serve as guardians, minions, or challenges within the dungeon, obeying the user's commands and defending their domain against intruders. To create a creature the user goes through three steps; Visualization, Energy Channeling, and Materialization. Firstly the user begins by visualizing the creature they wish to create, envisioning its form, size, and attributes in vivid detail. They draw upon their knowledge of mythology, folklore, and imagination to craft a truly unique monster. Then with a focused mind and a surge of energy, the user channels their power into the creation process, infusing the imagined creature with life force. This energy serves as the catalyst for bringing the creature into existence within the dungeon. Lastly, as the energy takes shape, the creature materializes within the user's dungeon, emerging from the depths as a tangible entity. The user can control the creature's appearance, abilities, and behaviour to suit their needs and objectives. The user can make any type of monster that they like, the only limit is their energy and their imagination, but some examples include; Beasts: Ferocious creatures such as dire wolves, giant spiders, or griffins, possessing keen senses and formidable physical abilities. Undead: Reanimated corpses, skeletal warriors, or spectral apparitions, instilling fear and dread in those who encounter them. Elementals: Living embodiments of natural elements, including fiery salamanders, watery serpents, or earthen golems, each with unique elemental powers. Aberrations: Bizarre and otherworldly entities, such as tentacled horrors, shape-shifting mimics, or mind-controlling aberrations, capable of confounding and terrifying intruders. Constructs: Artificial beings crafted from magical or mechanical components, ranging from clockwork automatons to golems forged from enchanted stone or metal. They can also create many more, but these are only some examples. The user can control their creations in multiple ways and command them to act together; The user can maintain their control over the monsters they create, commanding them with their will and asserting their dominance as the Dungeon Master. The monsters obey the user's orders without question, serving as loyal guardians or relentless assailants. Also, the user can tailor the behaviour and objectives of the monsters to suit their needs, directing them to patrol specific areas, guard valuable treasures, or attack intruders on sight. The main limitations of Monster Maker are its energy consumption, maintenance, and the limits of the user's control, just meaning that the monsters can possibly rebel if they are strong enough and the user has mistreated them.
Fake Floor: The user creates a temporary floor within their dungeon that can hold illusions, making it seem like a normal, physical floor with traps, monsters, or treasures. All of the illusions on this floor seem real and can actually work to a degree on this floor with illusions capable of causing damage (although weaker than normal and unable to cause any damage if the illusion is seen through) and even treasures appearing to work within the fake floor, but upon exit of the fake floor, they will find out that everything they gained from the floor was but an illusion.
Safe Floor: The user creates a temporary floor within their dungeon that can act as a sanctuary for those within the dungeon. This floor is imbued with a protective aura that prevents any monsters or hostile entities from entering. Additionally, it has a restorative effect, healing anyone inside over time. The effect of keeping monsters out acts as a semi-permeable barrier and can be broken or pierced by high-ranking creatures.

• A Sanctuary For Everyone: If a low-lever monster is pulled into the safe zone by others then it can turn into a normal harmless creature like a deer, squirrel, badger, etc.

Exit Floor: The user creates a temporary floor within the dungeon in between any floor that they want that allows visitors to leave the dungeon. The Exit floor will appear at the end of every dungeon and will be the turnaround point for the visitor(s) allowing them to go back into the dungeon from the start, where they came from, or even leaving the dungeon entirely.
Empty Floor: The Empty Floor is the start and the end of the dungeon, it will always be present and from here the user can create the dungeon, store whatever they want to, keep others safe here, etc. The empty Floor will be present even when the dungeon is destroyed, it can never be destroyed except with the death of the user. This floor is free from all laws, no laws from the universe exist in this space without the user making them. No laws not even life, death, time, space, reality, cause and effect are present within this floor without the user making them exist. In the case of Life and death do not exist here letting those who die in the dungeon live here should the user want them to, the user can even reincarnate them into a creature however this would make them completely reliant on the dungeon and die should they leave the dungeon and the connection with the user. Anyone within this floor is capable of moving throughout the dungeon as they please and even leave as they, please.
Dungeon Collapse: The user can start a dungeon collapse, making their dungeon and all of its floors begin to collapse, starting from its first floor and going to its last floor. Space will begin to distort and the monsters will either flee to other floors in order to survive a little longer or crumble to dust from the cataclitic wave of destruction that the user set in motion. The user can send any creatures that they wish to survive into the Empty Floor. Any visitor within the Dungeon will have to flee from the dungeon collapse as quickly as they can and reach the exit, if they cannot make it in time then they will be heavily wounded and possibly killed by the collapse of the dungeon depending on debre, and they will wake up in the Empty Floor dead or alive.
Treasure Trove: The user can create hidden chambers within their dungeon filled with valuable treasures and artefacts. These chambers can only be accessed through secret passages or by solving intricate puzzles. Creating elaborate treasures consumes a significant amount of the user's energy.
Gate: The user can create temporary portals within their dungeon that allow instant travel between different locations. These portals can be used for rapid deployment of allies or for quick escapes. Gates require precise control and consume a large amount of energy. Misuse can lead to unintended destinations or portal malfunctions.

• Defensive Gate: The user creates a gate on their body which either pulls in someone who makes contact with it, or it takes in an enemy's attack making that attack directly damage the dungeon in the location of wherever the user set the destination of the gate.
• Pocket Gate: The user creates a gate on their body and pulls out an item or stores an item in it allowing for quick storage and allowing the user to take out weapons from seemingly nowhere.
• Gate Binding: The user makes multiple gates on their body and traps a target's limbs in the different gates stopping their movements. The gates are not strong enough to rip the target apart but the user can use creatures on the other side of the gates to hold the target in place.

Awakening:

With the awakening of the Dungeon Dungeon Fruit, the user can now use their abilities on a much larger scale, with their mind finally caught up with their powers, their powers are able to affect the world around them spreading much further than their body once stopped them. Their power spills over into the world around them, letting them expand their dungeon into the environment shaping it to their desire. The user is able to extend their abilities to what could be considered impossible or illogical, empowering old techniques to new heights and creating new ones that were not possible before.

Awakening Techniques:

Heart of the Dungeon: Similar to "The Core of the Dungeon," the Heart of the Dungeon allows the user to merge their physical form with their dungeon, but it comes with even greater powers and capabilities. When the user activates the Heart of the Dungeon, they gain the extraordinary ability to morph and reshape their immediate surroundings to form the intricate corridors, chambers, and traps of their dungeon. This transformation is both fluid and immediate: walls sprout from the ground, ceilings stretch overhead, and floors ripple like liquid, all under the user's absolute control. The entire dungeon environment responds to the user's movements and commands, making it a living extension of their will. Moreover, the Heart of the Dungeon bestows upon the user the power to draw strength from everything within their dungeon. This includes the treasures hidden within its depths, the creatures that inhabit its halls, and the traps laid to ensnare intruders. Every element of the dungeon, whether animate or inanimate, contributes to the user's power, enhancing their physical abilities, powers, and overall resilience.
Dungeon break: The user is able to create a gate that connects to the inside of their dungeon and then releases whatever they want, may it be the creatures, treasures, or even the dungeon itself causing space to distort and merge the dungeon with the world around them. Creatures will pour out of the gate in a stampede, treasures and items can pour out of the gate like a sea of gold, and the dungeon can expand out of the gate like a crawling calamity. The gate while being a spatial distortion can still be broken with enough force. Once the gate(s) are closed then the creatures, items, and/or dungeon will be sucked back into the gate returning to the user's dungeon.

• Creatures: The user is able to create a massive amount of creatures within their dungeon and then release them from themselves pouring all the creatures with weapons and items that the user has created come out of a gate they created able to be used freely without fear of them disappearing until the user has run out of energy to sustain them.
• Dungeon: By creating a gate connecting to the user's dungeon, the user causes the surrounding area to 'fold' into their dungeon, effectively transporting portions of the external world into their dungeon and vice versa, until the gate is closed.

Authority: The user is able to grant a portion of their authority to people they brought into the dungeon or any creature they want, allowing them to control the creatures and the contents of a specific floor.

• Limited Trust: Limit the granted authority by time or a specific action, automatically revoking control after a certain period of specific condition(s) are met, ensuring temporary stewardship.
• Delegate: The user can specifically define the level of control an individual has over creatures and traps, fine-tuning the balance between autonomy and oversight.

Living Dungeon: The user can create a 'living' dungeon that adapts to intruders, capable of thought and acting in the best interest of the user and their dungeon. Capable of dynamically generating obstacles and challenges to test visitors specifically based on their observed strengths and weaknesses.
Trap Reave: With a single gesture, the user can implant numerous traps in their immediate environment or even within themselves that can then be activated and affect those nearby. These traps can have a multitude of hidden triggers and can be adjusted to be more potent, and capable of protecting larger areas with complex mechanisms.

• Chains: The user summons chains from the depths of their dungeon, binding and dragging enemies into their dungeon, whether it be from their gate or their main body, forcing targets to escape their dungeon.

Mini-Dungeon Core: The user creates a crystal-like smooth ball that contains a Dungeon within it, anyone who touches this mini-dungeon core will be drawn into the dungeon within and have to clear the dungeon to escape. However, since this is a mini-dungeon core it has a few limitations, firstly the dungeons in the mini-dungeon core can only have a maximum of 10 floors, additionally, the mini-dungeon core can be broken out of with either strong haki, spatial abilities, or any abilities that allow someone to break the crystal balls shell and release those trapped within it.

• Gate Landmark: The user can use the Mini-dungeon as a spatial anchor to allow them to teleport to the inside of the dungeon from their own dungeon and then exit it letting them be able to have a limited form of teleportation outside of the dungeon.
• Dungeon Master's Watch: Through the mini-dungeon core, the user can spy on those trapped inside the mini-dungeon, gathering information or learning from the way they handle the challenges presented to them.
• Dungeon Master's Hidden Influence: The user can control the creatures within the mini-dungeon core remotely, using them to perform tasks or relay messages to the outside world as if they were puppets. The user can also possess the creatures allowing them to share their senses and see through the creature's eyes and control them as easily as they can control their own body, however, the user will feel all of the body's physical pain and will also feel it's death should the creature die with the user possessing it.
• Fake Core: This generates a copy of the mini-dungeon core, which operates as a decoy, with both the original and the duplicate appearing legitimate to outsiders.

Awakening Weaknesses:

Energy: The vast expansion of power and control can be incredibly draining, meaning the user could risk total exhaustion or burnout if they use these abilities too frequently or for extended periods of time.
Heart of the Dungeon: While the user is merged with their dungeon the dungeon will be taking damage directly making every hit they take shake the dungeon and possibly collapse it. Additionally when the user is using a creature(s) and they take a serious hit that creature will die if that hit is strong enough to kill the creature(s). The same applies to treasures.
Dungeon Awareness: The user may need to split their awareness to monitor the larger area of effect of their dungeons and mini-dungeons, which can leave them blind to certain regions or overextended in their vigilance.
Waning Authority: Granting authority to too many individuals could dilute the user's overall control and open up the possibilities for internal conflict or sabotage.
Gate Fragility: The gates, while powerful and useful, are a lifeline for the user and their comrades getting in and out of the dungeon. The gates themselves are fragile and can be destroyed with enough strength or anyone capable of cutting space temporarily severing the user's lifeline in and out of the dungeon and cutting off a large amount of their powers until another can be made.
Dungeon Dissonance: The larger-scale dungeon transformations(brought into the environment) may not be as finely tuned as smaller-scale manipulations leading to instability or flaws that clever opponents can exploit.
Complexity: As old techniques are powered to new heights, the complexity of managing and understanding them also increases, which can lead to mistakes or malfunctions in their execution. Or it can just make it where the user is unable to make new techniques for most techniques.
Sensory Feedback: When the user possesses a creature they feel everything their controlled creatures feels, and then they might suffer from sensory overload or distraction during critical moments.

We killed Joseph Glass for the first time on August 18th, 1999.
I knew he was a strange case since day one. Never seen a guy so happy to die before. It was like we were doing him a favor. He refused the automatic appeal. He refused to be seen by a chaplain. He just wanted it over with. It had only taken a little over a year, and it was already time for him to make his appointment with God.
He freaked me out, just passing by his cell. He was like our very own Hannibal Lector, the way he just stood there in the back of his cell like he’d been waiting for you. The lights always burned out in any cell he was in, and maintenance had gotten tired of fixing them. Not that he seemed to mind in the slightest. The darkness seemed to swallow his top half, and all I could see were the whites of his beady little eyes poking out of all that black.
Billy drummed his baton against the bars. “Up and at ‘em, cowpoke,” he called in that mocking tone. “Time finally come for you to pay what you owe, you sick son of a—”
“Billy.” Warden Taft silenced him with a word. “If you can’t act like a professional, you’re going to have to sit this one out.”
Billy paused… and licked his chapped lips. “Naw,” he muttered. “This a show I can’t miss.”
Glass seemed to tick Billy off more than any prisoner before him. He liked ‘em to at least pretend to feel sorry for what they’ve done, or act scared of what’s coming to ‘em. This one didn’t even have the common decency to shed a tear. He was as stone-faced as a statue, even while being marched to the chair. Billy liked to joke sometimes that we ought to take the guy out back with some car batteries and really put the fear of God into him, get him to cut out that stoic act. I think he was only half-joking.
After what this guy did to those girls… well, Billy has a daughter, so I guess it struck a chord.
We all watched him fry. The warden, his closest men. The thin-faced man representing the Commissioner of Corrections. The prison physician. The families of those poor girls. It couldn’t have gone more by the book. Only oddity I’d noticed at the time was that the stench of death never quite left the clothes I’d worn that day.
And then the next morning, we came into work to see the whites of those beady little eyes staring at us from the darkness again. “Good morning, sirs,” he said, just as he did every morning, in that airy, hoarse little voice.
I’ll admit it. I dropped everything I was carrying, stumbled back, stammered like a confused child. Hell, I almost screamed. “You… you’re not… y-you’re supposed to be…”
“I don’t know what you mean, sir.” He leaned in like he was trying to stare a hole through my chest. His tone almost sounded disappointed. “You never came for me. You promised me that yesterday would be the end, sir, but you never came. I waited all night long. Why did you lie to me?”
Me and Taft looked at eachother. We both had the exact same question on our minds. If Glass was still alive… who the hell did we roll into the morgue last night?
“Jesus Christ.” Taft gagged when he pulled back the cadaver cover, stumbling away. “It’s Billy.”
I looked. I know I shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t help it. And I’ll be forever haunted by the sight of my friend lying there on his back, mouth agape and cloudy eyes staring into the ceiling, open wide as if he’d spent his last moments in a state of terror.
The public never found out what happened. The cover up story was that poor Billy had been taken by cardiac arrest. Internally? It was the scandal to end all scandals. Worst case of incompetence and negligence in history, they called it. They brought the hammer down on anyone even tangentially involved. Me and Taft were out on our ears, and they would’ve prosecuted us too, but that would’ve required admitting it ever happened.
But I just could never wrap my head around it. Of those dozens of witnesses, not a single person noticed we were strapping a guard to the chair, not an inmate? It was impossible to the point of absurdity. Glass had been the man in that chair. I’d never been more certain of anything in my life.
Some months later, I noticed power flickering off all over the city one evening. It was brief, so I thought nothing of it. At least until I got a call from a familiar number the very next morning. “I understand you were one of the staff who regularly worked with one Joseph Glass. We would like to consult with you about an… evolving situation.”
“Oh?”
“At 7 PM yesterday, we attempted the execution of Joseph Glass for the second time.” There was a long pause, and when the voice returned, the professionalism had melted away, replaced with a baffled anxiety. “And, well… it, uh, it didn’t… it didn’t work.”
I blinked. “It didn’t… what?”
There came a long sigh. “Perhaps… it’d be best if you saw for yourself.”
And just like that, me and Taft had our jobs back.
Officially, Joseph Glass had been successfully executed on August 18th, 1999. Unofficially, they’d tried again six months later, just to tie up loose ends. This time, he hadn’t even had the courtesy to pretend to die. He just sat there on the chair, motionless and unaffected, while the CO who’d flipped the switch suddenly seized up and began to convulse, screaming and gnashing and wailing as electricity seared him beneath his skin, clawing at his chest until his eyes popped in his skull and rolled down his face like melted candle wax. All around him, lights flickering, machines bursting from pressure, electrical panels vomiting arcs of static. It was a mess.
The feds were crawling all over this case now, from a department I’ve never heard of. Something about investigating ‘preternatural activity’. They told me Glass was refusing to speak with anybody but the CO’s who’d once cared for him. Being walked into that interrogation room almost made me feel like I, myself, was a convict being marched to his execution.
Glass was staring at me when I walked in, like he’d been sat there, motionless, waiting for me. I expected nothing less. I took a shuddering breath as I sat across from him. I’d sat across from serial killers and psychos before and showed no hint of fear. But how could I not, now, sitting across from a man who can kill people without touching them? “Glass.”
“Officer Mendez.” His tone betrayed no emotion. “I had thought you’d abandoned me.”
I winced. “No. No, Glass, I’d just been… temporarily relieved. It’s… good to see you again. Would you like a glass of water?” I offered it to him. He didn’t even look at it. His eyes just bored into mine, relentless. “I… I’m here to ask you a few questions.”
Silence.
“Okay. Um… Glass, I need to know… how you killed Billy and Cramer.”
“I didn’t,” he replied. “It did.”
“It?”
“The thing standing behind you.”
I didn’t bother to turn around. I had enough experience with prisoners trying to trick me into looking the other way while they pulled off some half-baked escape plan. “Glass, please, let’s take this seriously,” I replied. “I’ve always treated you with respect, haven’t I? You’ve never had any problems with me.”
“Actually, I do. I have a problem with all of you.”
“Oh?”
“You here all believe that… death is a punishment.” There was the first hint of emotion I’d ever heard in his voice. “It’s not. It’s freedom — the only freedom. You promised me that gift. You promised me you’d let me die. You’ve given it to so many other prisoners, while leaving me behind. With all of your machines and your science and your knowledge… surely you can find a way, if anyone.”
My throat felt suddenly dry. I had to take a sip of the water myself, and hoped it would quell my burning nerves. “I… we’re… we’re trying our best, Glass. But you have to work with us. It may help if you told us… what, exactly, is preventing us from executing you?”
He moved for the first time. Leaning in, so slow as to be almost imperceptible. “It won’t let me die.”
And that’s when I felt a hand settle on my shoulder from behind.
Everything stopped. My lungs stopped inflating. I swear, my heart stopped beating, and my blood froze in place in my veins, and it all felt so cold. I could see the hand in the corner of my eyes, long and veiny and black. I could feel the breath on the back of my neck.
I’d once mocked the way deers froze in headlights. Now I understood. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t blink, I couldn’t think. I couldn’t even take a single breath. Even as my lungs began to cry out for air, and my vision blurred, and my thoughts melded together. All I could see was Joseph’s eyes staring into mine. Those infinite fathoms of darkness, that stygian sea that swirled and stormed and thundered in the blackness of his iris, and the eyes of things waiting a million leagues below the waters.
And I would have suffocated there, too terrified to even breathe, if those agents in black had not called off the interrogation then and come storming into the room.
Later, they showed me the tapes from the security camera. There’d been nothing behind me. Nothing placing its thin hand upon my shoulder. Nothing at all.
On May 7th, 2001, Glass was set to be executed for the third time — via hanging, or so I heard — in some government blacksite somewhere, far from prying eyes.
While it was set to happen, me and Taft were sharing glasses of scotch in his office, nominally to celebrate. Really, because we were scared. Taft always struck me as young at heart despite his years, but this was the first time the warden had ever looked truly, properly old. He watched the yard below as he had a drink. “Did I ever tell you why I chose this line of work, Mendez?”
I shook my head, and he sighed. “Back in `63, they found a woman’s body in the back seat of a burnt out car, in some state park near my neighborhood. A prostitute. One of her johns had… chopped her up. Burned all the evidence. And you know what got me, Mendez? Nobody cared. Nobody bothered to investigate. Who will notice one less hooker on the corner of 5th Avenue, right?”
“It… didn’t sit right with me. The way I see it, Mendez, every life matters. Even the ones we try and cast aside. Everybody’s got people who love them, and childhood memories, and all that. Everybody deserves justice. No matter who they were.” He set down his glass and looked me in the eyes. “So I joined the force. Got the case reopened. Found the guy. And I watched him fry. And I like to imagine she was there watching, too, as he burned.”
There was a tense moment. And then a chuckle. “Course, after that bullet to the hip in `71, I couldn’t walk the beat anymore. But I’ve been just as happy here. Watching justice be served… it makes me feel like there’s some kind of karmic order to the world. Good deeds and bad deeds get repaid in kind.”
It was clear there was something lurking beneath his words, some unspoken thesis. Eventually, with old, wrinkled, tired eyes, he said it. “I’ve thought about it, and… if Glass doesn’t die tonight, I’m finally going to retire, Mendez,” he confessed. “After what he did to those girls, what kind of… what kind of order can there be in a world, where a monster like that is just… beyond justice?”
I was shocked. Warden Taft always struck me as an unmoving fixture. What would we do without him? “He’ll die, sir,” I promised. “It’ll work this time. It has to.”
But he seemed deeply uncertain. With one last shuddering drink, he leaned forward. “His eyes.” He stared at my expression, as if desperate for me to understand, for me to know. “Those things… in his eyes. Haven’t you seen them?”
And at that moment, Taft was yanked up out of his chair.
It was so sudden, so inexplicable, I could barely register what I was witnessing. Some unseen force lifted him two or three feet above the ground, dangling him there. He choked, coughed and sputtered, desperate to gasp down air which would not come, and clawed at something around his neck which I could not see. He was hanging, I realized. And with wide, horrified eyes — the same as Billy’s had been — he silently begged me for help.
I sprang from my chair and wrapped my arms around his dangling legs. At first I tried to pull him down to the floor, but I realized it was only tightening the invisible noose around his neck. Then I tried lifting him as high as I could, which gave him some relief, but not much. Tears rolled down his face as it swelled and turned blue, and even though I could not see the noose, I could see the bruised purple skin where it had squeezed around his neck. All the while, I screamed myself hoarse. “Help! Somebody, please! Jesus Christ, we need help in here!” But nobody came.
And all of a sudden, some unseen forced seemed to sweep my feet out from under me.
I dropped like a bag of bricks, but I was so startled I maintained my grip around the warden’s legs. I fell and yanked him down with me, and his body suddenly jolted with a sickening crack.
It took me a while to manage the courage to look up at him. His neck had been stretched far too long, and his head was bent to the side at almost a 90 degree angle. Eyes wide, round and bloated tongue hanging from dry lips. And then whatever force had suspended him disappeared, and his body fell upon me while I screamed and screamed.
I came bursting from his office to find my coworkers casually chatting and working just outside. Somehow, despite all my screaming and begging while Taft was dying, none of them had heard a thing.
I took a page from Taft. I wanted out. We were dealing with something unholy here, something whose tendrils could reach any distance, and my life — who knows, maybe even my soul — was at hazard. But the agents in the sharp suits made one thing clear: if I refused to cooperate, well, I would make the perfect scapegoat for the murder of Warden Taft.
I was marched into the interrogation room to find a Joseph Glass that had abandoned all pretense of humanity. His eyes had darkened to a pure black. Or perhaps he had no eyes at all, only windows into some place of outer darkness. I was shaking like a leaf as I sat in front of him, feeling more like a prisoner than he was.
“M-m-mister… Glass.” No reply. I shuddered, trying to focus on my little piece of paper to distract myself from the blackness of his eyes. “I… I-I have some… questions I’m supposed to ask you. Is… is that okay?”
Silence. I take a deep breath. “How… old are you, Glass?” I thought it was just one of those basic questions. Conversation starters, really. I couldn’t have prepared myself for his answer.
“I am old, child.” His voice was nothing like I remembered. It was deep and low and rumbling, like there were multiple people speaking in unison, and all were equally ancient. “Older than you could possibly know. Older than this nation, and older even than the empire that once bore it.”
I had to fight the basic animal instinct to flee. Focus on the questions, I thought. “Why did you do… what you did to those girls?”
“Just so I could feel something again,” he whispered. “Anything.”
“Did you not feel the slightest bit of… guilt? Remorse?”
“You ask that… of me? Me, who has watched empires rise and fall?” He almost sounded amused. “Does time feel remorse? For time has killed far more than I. But mankind is like the hydra. All I’ve killed will be replaced by, essentially, identical stock, and in greater numbers. And then they will die and be replaced. And so the cycle will continue forever.”
“Did you expect me to pity them for being given the death I, myself, covet? Only the dead are given leave of the cycle. It is a blessing.” And suddenly, he stood from his chair, as if he’d never been restrained at all. “A blessing you promised me, Officer Mendes.”
I stared up at him in disbelief. “What — how did you —“ But I couldn’t even stammer a sentence out before he was upon me, crawling over the table with the eerie grace of a spider.
These were no longer the imperceptible hints of emotions I’d come to expect. It was like a switch had been flipped. Tears streamed down his cheeks, snarling with genuine rage, hurt, betrayal. And beneath those black seas in his eyes, all the things that haunted the fathoms below were rising to the surface. “You owe me a death. Make good on your word. Pay your debt.”
I cried out and recoiled from his every touch with disgust, but he was stronger than he looked. I couldn’t worm my way out of his impossible grip. “I won’t! Get off of me, you sick bastard!”
“Do it! Pay me what you owe!” It was like a thousand different voices screaming in my ear. Straining and weeping, I locked my hands around his neck and pressed my thumbs against his throat, trying to strangle him. But instead, I could just feel that grip upon my own neck, squeezing the life out of myself as my lungs burned for air. Yet I kept pressing harder and harder, as if hoping I might somehow break through whatever unholy force was protecting him.
And then those terrible hands grasped my shoulders again, and I was paralyzed by a terror that could be called nothing but ancient and primal. Like the thing standing behind me was the same force that had kept my ancestors huddled terrified in their caves a hundred thousand years ago, and every one of those voices was crying out to me through my very blood. And it pulled me from my chair, threw me as though I were weightless… and the next thing I knew, I was waking up in the infirmary.
Once more, none of this was captured on the security camera. In the footage, I just enter the room and have a seat with strange, almost robotic movements. And then the both us just sit there, staring at eachother, without speaking, without moving, without blinking. For an hour.
After this, Joseph Glass entered a catatonic state, and from then on refused to converse with even me. Now that my usefulness had ended, the agents discarded me like yesterday’s trash. Don’t even seem to care if I tell anybody. Who would believe me?
I thought I’d gotten lucky. That my nightmare was over. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Go sorting through any public records, and you won’t find a single mention of the name Joseph Glass. They’ve squirreled him away in that off-the-books blacksite and scrubbed away every other trace of him. I’d say he’d been unpersoned, if indeed he could ever be called a person at all. But they’re still trying every execution method in the book. I don’t know quite why. Maybe it’s for research. I’m sure the US military would love to find the secret to making its men as unkillable as Glass. And besides, they’re not the ones who have to deal with the consequences.
On June 3rd, 2005, they tried a firing squad. I know this because me and my wife were out on our second honeymoon, slow dancing by the lake at night to our favorite song, when I felt a wetness against my chest. I looked down to see her eyes as gray and dull as foggy glass, and her chest shredded to swiss cheese by rounds that made no sound.
On December 23rd, 2012, they tried lethal injection. That was the day they found my son’s car wrapped around a tree, and baffled coroners discovered that he was dead before the accident even occurred, his bloodstream polluted with Pavulon and potassium chloride.
It’s been years since I’ve isolated myself from everyone I knew, hermiting away in this cabin out in the middle of nowhere, and yet the stench of death still follows me. Just a couple years ago, I found a news report mentioning my nephew. Apparently, he’d been found completely exsanguinated, his veins emptied utterly despite no signs of a struggle. God knows what kind of arcane methods of execution they’re trying by now.
He’s not going to let me walk away from this. Not while I still owe him a debt.
But I’ve been doing some research, too. Research into those untold legions of things I witnessed staring up from that blackened sea in Glass’s eyes. I’ve learned things men were not meant to know. Practiced rites, assembled tools, ingredients. And I think I know where they’re keeping him. Even though they blindfolded me, I counted the second between every turn on our way to the blacksite, and I’ve since spent weeks watching the place, cataloging every entry point.
Maybe I’m slipping into madness. Or maybe I’ve truly found the way to put an end to the horror. To finally give this monster the justice that Taft would have wanted for him. Joseph Glass had been right about one, single thing: I have to pay what I owe.
Even if it kills me.

My normal posts are 2-5 paragraphs. This is long because it's a starter.
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The sloping ground around the Kiaurk family mesa had been sculpted into shelves or terraces, and it was on one of those upper terraces that Kiaurk Nshurr now lounged beneath a pergola anchored to the striated stone face behind her. The mesa rose at her back: an enormous, looming, almost sheer outcrop that her family's dwellings had been carved into the face of. Wide, shallow steps cut into the artificial (but entirely convincing) sandstone wound their way up between landings and porticos leading inward, between tiny balconies shaded by bright solid-colored canopies, between rooms with flat walls and rounded corners that came jutting out to shadow the steps below. Rriigkhans rarely used glass as window barriers; smooth-edged holes had been cut through the rock in varying shapes and sizes. It could be difficult to tell which apertures were windows and which were entryways. A physical barrier that kept out the elements was obsolete in all but the crudest dwellings, though some of these larger holes were curtained with braided string or strips of cloth that served a purely decorative purpose.
From her high vantage point Nshurr could see the shelves stretching out below her as the base of the mesa leveled out to flattish terrain that was a wonderland of vegetation in muted rainbow colors: mustard yellows, clay reds, earthy browns and the occasional dash of sage or dusty blue. This scrubland lay like a blanket around everything below that was not part of the village between the mesas. Down there, adobe compounds never taller than two or three storeys seemed so squat compared to the mesas that Nshurr could see towering in the distance, many of those family mesas only a few hours walk from her own if she traveled by foot. The village sprawled, with tile parkways winding in serpentine fashion between the various buildings, courtyards, parks, and ponds. There were no property lines, no clear division of the land into neat little plots owned by the individuals who lived and worked in these places. It all seemed to be part of a whole, with a single unifying aesthetic. The village housed those rriigkhans of the lower castes, the kharratah and chelhautah, and the humans which were a caste all their own, haukagh-ar, except for a small number who lived with their masters in the caverns of the mesas or up on the plateau.
This planet, Sgarrl, terraformed over three hundred years ago, was home to more human servants than any other Ssaarian world – aside from Earth, of course, discovered eighty years ago. The fact that humans shared so much in common with rriigkhans made them the perfect species to incorporate into the rriigkhan caste structure as servants. They breathed the same mix of gases and required similar gravities, and their nimble little fingers were very useful for all sorts of work.
The rriigkhan language was not necessarily too complex for humans, but it was wholly unfamiliar – too many phonemes that did not fit comfortably in human mouths, from grunts to huffs, to rolling trills that might by voiced or not, sometimes rumbling out like a purr. To a human, Nshurr's name was a sigh and a trill, and yet she was accustomed to humans vocalizing her name in their heavy, slurring way: Na-Shuurr! Nasher! Sometimes simply: ɽ͡r! which she recognized more easily as her name, or at least part of it, and not some random sounds.
Still, despite the weird pidgin humans had made of her language and their English, she liked the little creatures. She had come to live with her Grandmother on Sgarrl only days ago, and had never encountered them before. The males only stood as tall as her collar. The females were shorter still, much like the males of her own species.
To human eyes Nshurr was felinoid, with a muscular swimmer's body and the broad muzzle of a big cat, with watchful, forward-facing predator's eyes that seemed unexpectedly expressive, because rriikghans had almost as many muscles around their eyes as humans did around their mouths to convey the nuances of emotion. Despite being larger than even many Earth men, she was considered sleek by rriigkhan standards. She made up for that with her broader crest.
The rriigkhan crest was something like the crest of Utahceratops – a keratinized plate growing up out of the skull, except divided into three lobes instead of two, with scalloped edges along the outer rim. Unlike depictions of Utahceratops, the rriigkhan crest was not covered by skin. At least, not on the top. Thick ropy veins squiggled under velvet fur on the underside, closer to the neck. (A thick, arching neck muscular enough to support the weight of that crest meant that Rriigkhans walked with a stoop that made them seem hunchbacked, to humans.) The surface of the plate on top was often rough, even bumpy or corrugated like deer antlers in some areas, smooth in others. Every female crest had four tines jutting from the front – a pair several inches above the eyes, and another pair further up. Directly above the lowest set of tines were twin holes, the howrf channels, just big enough for a human to insert a finger. These holes were very much like nostrils – much deeper, but damp inside, and lined with short, fine hairs to protect the sensitive mucous membrane from debris. The organs housed within these channels were the heart of rriigkhan culture, the foundation of all relationships, of sex.
Male rriigkhans, of course, had only their neotonous crests: diminutive, mostly smooth with rounded edges, without tines or howrf channels. Cute.
Nshurr's crest was wider than average, her upper tines spaced further apart, and combined with a compact face this made her look top-heavy. (A human might say that she was more snow leopard than lion.) Most female crests did not interfere with the movement of the ears – highly mobile, highly expressive paddle shaped things – but the edges of Nshurr's crest did jut out enough to almost shield them.
That her crest was weighty, that it was inconvenient, that she was often aware of it – this was Nshurr's pride. Her long tail curled in pleasure when she caught males looking at it. Humans seemed to be intimidated by it sometimes, as if she might decide to gore them with her “horns.” She considered herself a confident person; not a braggart, but self-assured, and to carry her jhekaah so visibly pleased her to no end.
Her fur was an almost peachy off-white, but a mask of pale peach shaded each seafoam green eye. The mask blended into the white further up her forehead until fur gave way to bone-tan crest, and was split between her eyes by the white of her nose. Oblong spots in that same peachy color, each blending from dark to light, streaked down her sides.
These weren't the natural colors of her distant ancestors. It was unheard of to see a rriigkhan who was not gene-modified in some way, even if those modded genes had been part of rriigkhan life for so long that no one thought of them as mods any longer. She also thought nothing of the subtitles her augmented reality implant displayed whenever a human spoke, AI translated to help her decipher the pidgin. AR was simply a part of her, had been since she was a kit.
Reclining as she was on a padded lounger in front of an iron brazier, full of cold ashes from last night's fire, Nshurr was dressed in a pale coral shift only a few shades darker than the peach of her fur. Medallions trailing fringes of cloth had been sewn onto the front bottom half of the knee-length garment. A row of those ornate medallions defined a plunging neckline that bared much of her chest, muscular and broad, possibly even masculine to a human. Her breasts were lower on her body and similar in appearance to a mare's udders: long nipples on a pudge of fat nestled close together on the pelvis, just above the place where her thighs joined her body. They were only small lumps beneath the shift when Nshurr stretched out her legs so that the thin fabric fell across them. It was the roundness of her hips and buttocks that marked her female to the human eye. (As if her crest didn't make that obvious!)
She was listening to the sound of two younger female cousins wrestling on a nearby terrace, and although from her vantage point Nshurr could not see them, she could imagine the scene from what she heard: Fherou and Lahk growling while they grappled with their arms, the crack of crest hitting crest and then the scrape of tine sliding against tine. Each was fighting to control the other's head, each trying to bite the other. It wasn't easy when each had a shaggy ruff to protect her neck, and any attempt to bite the other's face would be thwarted by an interposing crest. Rriigkhan hands were less dexterous than human hands, more pawlike with stubby fingers, but capable of delivering hard blows, and once or twice Nshurr heard a cousin snarl in response to a strike against her body.
The competitive pheromones her cousins exuded from their unextended howrfs, quite unconsciously, were beginning to make Nshurr's own heart beat faster. The end of her long tail, where it hung down from the reclining chair, lashed in agitation. She was beginning to imagine sinking her teeth into someone's skin herself, and if her cousins had not been so much younger and smaller than herself she might have gone down to their terrace to show them a thing or two. It was putting her off the human flute music she'd been listening to, fed directly into her own brain through her implant for her private enjoyment. (Certain aspects of human culture were very popular here on Sgarrl; she'd been curious about it.)
She did not feel like going inside to escape the pheromones; Nshurr craved the warmth of the sun on her fur, not the cool stone and artificial light of those warrens. Most of her male cousins had gone into the village for boating today. Well, perhaps she would go down and join them after all.
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OOC Information:
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For this prompt I imagine you'd play a human servant, probably a new arrival to Sgarrl but maybe someone who was born there. Even though I've set up a situation where my character would have a lot of power and yours very little, I want to clarify that I'm not interested in abusing your character I am looking for a slow burn interspecies romance that develops naturally. This story may deal with power imbalances and even speciesism, but I'd like to explore those topics realistically.
I want to explore all aspects of loving relationship... Flirting, cuddling, kissing, lots of romantic scenes and character growth. My “type” that I'm most attracted to are men with average bodies in the 40-60 age range, with realistic personality flaws. I am more than willing to tailor my character's personality and physical attributes to suit your tastes, within reason. I appreciate partners willing to do the same.
I prefer to reply more than once a day. 2-3 replies per day would be ideal, but I understand life gets in the way. I usually write 2-5 paragraphs, or 150-450 words per post. This starter is much longer than my typical post length, but my lengths vary according to need. If I'm introducing a new character or setting a scene, my post might go up to 1,000 words.
Please send a writing sample if you have none in your post history. No need to custom write anything for me, old samples are fine. Click here to PM me!

My normal posts are 2-5 paragraphs. This is long because it's a starter.
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The sloping ground around the Kiaurk family mesa had been sculpted into shelves or terraces, and it was on one of those upper terraces that Kiaurk Nshurr now lounged beneath a pergola anchored to the striated stone face behind her. The mesa rose at her back: an enormous, looming, almost sheer outcrop that her family's dwellings had been carved into the face of. Wide, shallow steps cut into the artificial (but entirely convincing) sandstone wound their way up between landings and porticos leading inward, between tiny balconies shaded by bright solid-colored canopies, between rooms with flat walls and rounded corners that came jutting out to shadow the steps below. Rriigkhans rarely used glass as window barriers; smooth-edged holes had been cut through the rock in varying shapes and sizes. It could be difficult to tell which apertures were windows and which were entryways. A physical barrier that kept out the elements was obsolete in all but the crudest dwellings, though some of these larger holes were curtained with braided string or strips of cloth that served a purely decorative purpose.
From her high vantage point Nshurr could see the shelves stretching out below her as the base of the mesa leveled out to flattish terrain that was a wonderland of vegetation in muted rainbow colors: mustard yellows, clay reds, earthy browns and the occasional dash of sage or dusty blue. This scrubland lay like a blanket around everything below that was not part of the village between the mesas. Down there, adobe compounds never taller than two or three storeys seemed so squat compared to the mesas that Nshurr could see towering in the distance, many of those family mesas only a few hours walk from her own if she traveled by foot. The village sprawled, with tile parkways winding in serpentine fashion between the various buildings, courtyards, parks, and ponds. There were no property lines, no clear division of the land into neat little plots owned by the individuals who lived and worked in these places. It all seemed to be part of a whole, with a single unifying aesthetic. The village housed those rriigkhans of the lower castes, the kharratah and chelhautah, and the humans which were a caste all their own, haukagh-ar, except for a small number who lived with their employers in the caverns of the mesas or up on the plateau.
This planet, Sgarrl, terraformed over three hundred years ago, was home to more humans than any other Ssaarian world – aside from Earth, of course, discovered eighty years ago. The fact that humans shared so much in common with rriigkhans made them the perfect species to incorporate into the rriigkhan caste structure. They breathed the same mix of gases and required similar gravities, and their nimble little fingers were very useful for all sorts of work.
Still, despite the weird pidgin humans had made of her language and their English, she liked the little creatures. She had come to live with her Grandmother on Sgarrl only a month ago, and had never encountered them before. The males only stood as tall as her collar. The females were shorter still, much like the males of her own species.
To human eyes Nshurr was , with a muscular swimmer's body and the broad muzzle of a big cat, with watchful, forward-facing predator's eyes that seemed unexpectedly expressive, because rriikghans had almost as many muscles around their eyes as humans did around their mouths to convey the nuances of emotion. Despite being larger than even many Earth men, she was considered sleek by rriigkhan standards. She made up for that with her broader crest.
The rriigkhan crest was something like the crest of Utahceratops – a keratinized plate growing up out of the skull, except divided into three lobes instead of two, with scalloped edges along the outer rim. Unlike depictions of Utahceratops, the rriigkhan crest was not covered by skin. At least, not on the top. Thick ropy veins squiggled under velvet fur on the underside, closer to the neck. (A thick, arching neck muscular enough to support the weight of that crest meant that Rriigkhans walked with a stoop that made them seem hunchbacked, to humans.) The surface of the plate on top was often rough, even bumpy or corrugated like deer antlers in some areas, smooth in others. Every female crest had four tines jutting from the front – a pair several inches above the eyes, and another pair further up.
Nshurr's crest was wider than average, her upper tines spaced further apart, and combined with a compact face this made her look top-heavy. (A human might say that she was more snow leopard than lion.) Most female crests did not interfere with the movement of the ears – highly mobile, highly expressive paddle shaped things – but the edges of Nshurr's crest did jut out enough to almost shield them.
That her crest was weighty, that it was inconvenient, that she was often aware of it – this was Nshurr's pride. Her long tail curled happily when she caught males looking at it. Humans seemed to be intimidated by it sometimes, as if she might decide to stab them with her “horns.” She considered herself a confident person; not a braggart, but self-assured, and to carry her jhekaah so visibly pleased her to no end.
Her fur was an almost peachy off-white, but a mask of pale peach shaded each seafoam green eye. The mask blended into the white further up her forehead until fur gave way to bone-tan crest, and was split between her eyes by the white of her nose. Oblong spots in that same peachy color, each blending from dark to light, streaked down her sides.
These weren't the natural colors of her distant ancestors. It was unheard of to see a rriigkhan who was not gene-modified in some way, even if those modded genes had been part of rriigkhan life for so long that no one thought of them as mods any longer. She also thought nothing of the subtitles her augmented reality implant displayed whenever a human spoke, AI translated to help her decipher the pidgin. AR was simply a part of her, had been since she was a kit.
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OOC Information:
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For this particular prompt I imagine you'd play a human, probably a new arrival to Sgarrl but maybe someone who was born there. Even though I've set up a situation where my character would have a lot of power and yours very little, I want to clarify that I'm only looking for a mutually loving, slow burn romance.
My “type” that I'd like you to play would be an average man in the 40-60 age range, with realistic personality flaws.
I prefer partners who like to reply more than once a day. 2-3 replies per day would be ideal, but I understand life gets in the way. I usually write 2-5 paragraphs, or 150-450 words per post. This starter is much longer than my typical post length, but my lengths really vary a lot. If I'm introducing a new character or scene, my post might be 1,000 words, or it could be 100 words if our characters are in the middle of a conversation.
Please send a writing sample if you have none in your post history. No need to custom write anything for me, old samples are fine.

So this stupid Riven spoon-fed the enemy Lee top with no enemy ganks, he just kept bashing his skull towards the same brick wall of dueling dueling dueling hoping he would win, and mind he lost having flash ignite vs flash TP. Anyways, I obviously left top to rot while I camped bot and kept the game aflote.
Enemy jungle and I basically traded map sides, he got 5 grubs and herald while I got 3 drags and my Jhin adc is fed like 5/1 while Riven is 0/5.
20-22 mins in, I'm at ~1050 gold and this sub-human steals my golems even when I yellow ping him while I was busy with my red and I'm forced to recall with 1150 for just a blasting wand and boots instead of completing my rod at 1250.
20 seconds later my team is mid while I'm contesting the Lee split-pushing tier 2 turret bot, I only have Liandry's, basic boots and blasting wand. He's 2 levels ahead, has Profane Hydra, Sundered Sky and basic boots. I deliberately wait for him to use his cooldowns on the wave before I fight him, he only used E (5 seconds cd) and Hydra (10 cd).
I smite him first for a guaranteed slow then land my E seed and flash his Q and use my own Q at max range. Put him to sleep, I wait 2 seconds for my Q's cd, clench my butthole and bashed his head with my W with the fury of a thousand deers AND BOOM!!! I EEP THAT MOTHERFCKER!!!!
I Q again and he's left with only 200-150 hp and ticking with my multiples DoTs: red pet, red buff, lyandries and my passive, I only had my basic attacks at this point.
He ward hops away and I chase, he has less than 50 hp + shield at this point…I swore to God I had him dead to rights but before I could Q again, he bought enough time to flash towards me point-blank to basic me with a crit-sunderer proc healing him for 100 then R kicks me Q-Q refreshed hydra and I'm fcking dead 100 to 0 in 0.5 seconds.
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu-
Enemy team starts baron, Lee recalls and TPs to it. My team cant possibly contest. Dog-shite Riven and Leona try to steal but to no avail, they both die. Jhin ults but all his bullets are blocked by their bodies.
They b and come back even stronger. They still have herald at this point, my tier 2 and 3 are demolished by Shelly while they push top at the same time, lost 2 inhibitors. We tried to defend but we all died in 2 seconds and GG.
I could have won that duel if I had the rod instead of wand…so tilted.

”Stop.”
I really needed the bathroom.
For fifty painstaking minutes, I had been staring at the clock on the wall, willing it to go faster, uncomfortably shifting side to side in my seat so much that I was starting to get weird looks.
2:52pm.
Eight minutes, I thought dizzily, squeezing my legs together.
Which was just two chunks of four minutes.
Four chunks of two minutes.
The pain started like normal stomach pain, the kind I could deal with.
I swallowed two Tylenol with lukewarm soda.
But this was different.
This kind of pain was contorting and twisting my gut so much, I had to keep leaning onto my left buttock for relief.
I must have done it so many times, I caught the attention of the guy sitting next to me. Roman Hemlock who was half asleep, dark blonde curls hanging in half lidded eyes, his chin leaning on his fist. He shot me a look. I couldn't tell if it was Are you okay? or Can you stop moving around so much?
From the single crease in his brow, the slight curl in his lip, I guessed the latter.
It's not like Roman was helping.
For half the class, he'd been tapping his foot on the floor, then his chair leg, and to complete the orchestra, his fingers joined in, tap, tap, tapping on the edge of his desk. I didn't know if it was a bored thing, an ADHD thing, or he was trying to keep himself awake. It was easy to tolerate without the pain, but with it, the boy’s incessant tapping was more akin to a dentist drill splitting my skull open. I already felt nauseous, the sad looking chicken nuggets I forced down at lunch making an unwelcome appearance at the back of my throat.
It was too fucking hot, the stuffy summer air glueing my hair to the back of my neck. The material of my shirt was making me cringe, sticky against my skin.
Tipping my head back, the lights were too bright. Every sound was too loud. Imogen Prairie, who was sitting behind me chewing her gum a little too loudly.
Kaz Samuels scribbling notes like a maniac.
I could hear every stroke of his pencil, every time he paused, looked up at the presentation, and continued writing.
When I leaned forward in my chair, I could smell exactly what Isabella Trinity had eaten for lunch, the stink hanging in the air.
It became a case of sucking in my stomach and taking slow, deep breaths.
I’d never had these kinds of stomach cramps before. But it didn't take me long to figure out what they were.
I was yet to start my period at the grand age of sixteen, which meant this was it.
After countless sessions with the doctor, and feeling like a social outcast among my group of friends who started their periods in middle school, it had finally happened. The cramps in my gut that felt like my torso was being ripped apart, was in fact me entering womanhood. When my breath started to quicken, my mouth watering, I raised my hand, biting my lip against a cry.
Fuck.
Something lurched in my gut, a wave of nausea crashing into me.
I was going to throw up.
“Mr Brighton.”
Roman spoke up before me, waving his arm. “Can I use the bathroom?”
The teacher’s answer was always the same. Which was why I had been crossing my legs for the entirety of the class, unable to focus on anything but my gut trying to twist itself inside out.
Mr Brighton leaned against the wall, his eyes glued to the PowerPoint awash in our faces. We had been staring at the exact same slide for maybe five minutes now, and our physics teacher was yet to speak, his gaze somewhere else.
Mr Brighton was my Dad’s age, a greying man in his early fifties who always wore the exact same suit with the exact same stain on his collar.
The man was about as interesting as watching paint dry.
Normally, I would drift off myself, lulled into slumber by the low drone of his voice.
But the pain ripping me apart was keeping me awake.
“Mr Brighton.” Roman said, louder. His voice snapped me out of it. “Can I use the bathroom?” He paused, exaggerating a loud sigh. ”Please?”
The teacher straightened up, folding his arms.
“Mr Hemlock, you know the rules. Why didn't you go before class?”
“I didn't need to go an hour ago, did I?”
“You will no longer need to go to the bathroom, Mr Hemlock.”
Roman made a snorting noise.
“What?”
The low murmur of my classmates collapsed into white noise.
Glancing at the clock, I was anticipating the school bell.
The sickness swimming in the pit of my belly was reaching dangerous territory.
2:52pm.
Something ice cold trickled down my spine.
It was 2:52 the last time I checked, and five minutes had surely passed.
This time, I waited a whole minute and counted the seconds under my breath. The clock still didn't move. The ticker was frozen halfway between three and four.
Slowly, the same realisation began to hit the twelve of us. The clock on the wall had stopped. But it wasn't the only thing that had stopped. The cool breeze drifting through the window was gone.
The sound of birds outside, and the cheer squad practising their routine.
Everything had stopped. Trying to ignore a sickly slither of panic twisting its way through me, I checked my phone under my desk. There was a text from my Mom lighting up my notifications. When I tried to swipe it open, nothing happened. My lock screen was frozen, stuck at 2:52pm.
With my hands growing clammy around my phone, I stared at the time, willing it to move, to flick to 2:53.
But nothing happened, the numbers stubbornly staying at 2:52.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Roman’s voice brought me back to reality, though I was sure I'd dropped my phone. I heard it hit the floor with a sickening crack. Whatever he was saying, though, faded into dull murmur, when I turned toward the window.
Something was wrong outside.
The cheer squad were nowhere to be seen.
Being on the top floor gave us a front row seat to their practice sessions.
I stopped watching when their flyer did a death defying flip, almost breaking her neck. 2:52pm. I couldn't see the cheer squad. But I did see Jessie Carson mid-sprint across the track field, strawberry blonde curls suspended in a halo around her.
I could see exactly where she had frozen in place, her left foot hovering off of the ground, her right foot driving momentum. It wasn't just Jessie who had stopped. The dirt she was kicking into a cloud behind her was hovering, caught in mid-air.
Studying the faces around me, my mouth went dry.
Roman Hemlock, mid-argument with our physics teacher.
His eyes were wide, lips curved into what would have been a yell.
Fuck.
Was I the only one?
But then Roman blinked, and I realized the boy wasn't frozen. He was trying to think of a comeback. “What do you mean I won't need the bathroom anymore?”
“Mr Hemlock, please lower your voice.”
“Why? You can't dictate to me when I do and don't need the bathroom, dude!”
Moving onto the rest of my class, the others were still moving.
It was too quiet, though.
Yes, Roman was still tapping his foot.
Imogen was still chewing her gum.
Kaz was still scribbling notes like a psychopath.
But they were the only noise I could hear.
I wasn't the only one confused. The classroom had pricked with a sense of urgency. Kids were checking their phones, their gazes glued to the clock. Even Roman, who was still arguing, was starting to notice. I watched his gaze lazily roll to the clock on the wall.
I pretended not to see his cheeks visibly paling.
We had all come to the exact same terrifying conclusion.
2:52pm.
Time had come to a halt, and somehow, we had not.
“Is that clock broken?” Roman interrupted, leaning forward in his chair.
Kaz twisted around, settling the boy with an eye-roll.
“Check your phone, dumbass.”
“I broke my phone.”
Imogen threw her iPhone at him, narrowly missing hitting him in the face.
“Everything is frozen,” She said, her voice shuddering. “It's not just the clock.”
I waited for Roman’s response. For once, though, he was speechless.
“Well done, Imogen. That is correct.” Mr Brighton spoke up, tearing a piece of paper from a workbook and striding over to the door, glueing it over the glass window. When we started to protest, some of us were shouting, while others bursting into tears, he calmly took out his key and locked us in.
I should have been surprised that our teacher had spontaneously decided to take his entire class hostage, but the rumor mill had been churning.
According to Becca Jason, the guy’s wife divorced him and took his kids.
I could feel myself sinking into my chair, phantom bugs filling my mouth.
So, this guy had nothing to lose.
Taking his place in front of his desk, the man settled us with a patient smile.
“From now on, you will stay inside this room.” He said. “In case you haven't noticed, time is currently frozen at fifty two minutes past two. The thirteen of us are tucked into the twenty first second, and will be, for the foreseeable future.”
I could tell the others wanted to argue, but we couldn't deny that time had stopped. Kaz was staring down at his frozen phone, Imogen hyperventilating behind me, Roman glaring at the clock, chewing on a pencil. We wanted it to be a prank, a joke, some kind of glitch in the matrix that would fix itself.
But then a whole minute passed by. Followed by another. Kaz threw his phone on the floor, hissing in frustration. Imogen let out a wet sounding sob.
Roman’s pencil split in his mouth, slipping from his fingers. We couldn't pretend it wasn't happening or call our teacher out on his BS, because it was everywhere around us. The sudden absence of outdoor ambience, birdsong, planes flying overhead, and traffic outside the school gates. Everyone and everything had stopped, and we were the only ones left.
This was a nightmare, surely.
My physics class were some of the most boring and pretentious people in the school, and somehow the world had been reduced to the twelve of us inside our classroom. We were scared, of course we were. But reality had stopped making sense, crashing and burning in a single second. We had no choice but to listen to our teacher. “Now, before you freak out, it may not feel like it, but the twelve of you have also stopped.”
Mr Brighton held out his own hand, and placed it on his heart.
He was right.
I was so busy trying to understand what was happening, I had failed to realize my period cramps were gone.
“Do me a favor, and press your hand over your heart.”
“You mean like, in a culty way?” Imogen whispered.
“Obviously.” Roman grumbled, halfway out of his seat. He was hesitant, though, in case our teacher was armed. It only took one glance from our teacher, and he slumped back into his chair. “This crazy fucker clearly wants to play mind games with us.”
“No, I'm just asking you to feel for your heart.”
I felt for mine, and there was nothing, my stomach twisting.
Roman stabbed his fingers into his neck, feeling for a pulse.
He tried his wrist.
Then his heart.
Nothing.
“The twelve of you are currently in a state of stasis,” the teacher explained to us, “You are not alive, nor are you dead. Your bodily functions are also on pause, such as your heartbeat and your pulse. In this state there will be no need for food and water, or going to the bathroom.” His gaze found a ghastly looking Roman, who looked like he was going to faint. “Your minds, however, as you can see, are working as usual.”
“But why?” Imogen demanded in a shriek.
Mr Brighton’s lip curled. “I would rather not answer that question.”
“Because you're lonely.” Roman spoke up. He swung back on his chair, narrowed eyes glued to the teacher.
“Your wife and kids left you, so you're asserting power over a group of sixteen year olds. Which is kinda fucking pathetic.”
Mr Brighton’s expression darkened, and something slimy crept up my throat.
The worst thing any of us could do was threaten him. He had taken kidnapping to a whole new level, and we were alone with this psychopath, trapped inside a second. I waited for the man to stride forward and attack the kid. But he didn't. Instead, the teacher leaned back on his desk. “Yes.” The man nodded.
“I suppose you could say I am.”
“But why us?!” Kaz hissed.
“Because you are children.” Mr Brighton responded casually.
He straightened up, taking slow, intimidating steps towards Roman’s desk. The rest of us leaned back. I tried to pull my desk with me, but it was glued to the floor. Frozen. Mr Brighton’s shoes went click-clack across the hardwood floor.
“You are right,” the man said in a murmur, “I am lonely. My wife and kids did leave me, and I have nobody left to control. I have nobody else to contort and use to my advantage.” Reaching Roman’s desk, he leaned in close until he was nose to nose with the kid.
“Congratulations, Mr Hemlock. You have just earned yourself detention.”
Roman stayed stubbornly still, but he was visibly afraid. I could see him very slowly backing away. Roman was all bark and no bite. He was a loud mouth, sure, but he was also the least confrontational person in the class.
“What?” He spluttered. “You trap us in a time loop or time trap, or whatever, and you still want to act like a teacher?”
“Stand up.” The teacher ordered.
“What if I don't?”
Mr Brighton’s expression didn't waver. “You said it yourself. I can and have trapped you inside a single second. What else do you think I'm capable of?”
Roman stood, kicking his chair out of the way.
“What are you planning on doing to me, old man?”
The teacher maintained his smile. “Stand up straight, and close your mouth.”
To my confusion, Roman Hemlock did all the above.
He straightened up, and closed his mouth.
“Do not fight me.” The teacher said calmly, “Do as you are told, and follow me.”
The boy did exactly as instructed.
His jaw slackened, that rebellious light in his eyes fizzling out.
I think that's when we all collectively agreed that going against this teacher and trying to escape was mental suicide.
“I will use Mr Hemlock as an example to all of you,” Mr Brighton said, turning to the rest of us. “If you break the rules or are derogatory in any way, you will be given detention.”
He grabbed the boy’s shoulders, forcing him to walk towards the supply closet. Roman moved like a robot, slightly off balance, his gaze glued to thin air, like he was tracking invisible butterflies.
"Your time in detention will depend on the severity of your rule-break.” He opened the door, gently pushing Roman inside, and following suit. When the door closed behind them, there was a pause, and I remembered how to breathe.
Kaz Samuels slowly got up from his desk, inching towards the closet.
“This guy is a certified nut.” He announced.
He turned towards us. “Whatever he's doing to Hemlock, we’re probably next.”
“He stopped time.” I spoke up, my own voice barely a croak. “He’s capable of anything.”
“But how did he stop time?” Kaz whistled, tipping his head back. The boy was slow, his fingers grasping each desk as he slid down the aisle. “He said he was lonely, right? But why take it out on us? What did we do to him?”
“Check his desk for a weapon!” Imogen whisper-shrieked.
Kaz nodded, striding over to the man's desk, his hands moving frantically, shoving paper on the floor. He took an uncertain seat on the man's chair. “There's nothing here,” he murmured, lifting stained coffee mugs and ancient textbooks. “It's just…test papers.” Kaz ducked from view, trying the drawers.
“He's a fan of Pokémon,” he said, “There's a tonne of Pokémon cards,” Kaz straightened up, running a hand through his hair. “No sign of a weapon, though.”
He picked up a ruler, waving it around. “This could work. If we plunge it in his eye.”
“Try his laptop!” Imogen was halfway out of her seat.
Kaz did, slamming the keys. “It's locked.”
“Look harder!” Ren Clarke threw a pencil at him.
“I am!”
After a minute of searching, Kaz grabbed a single piece of paper.
He held it up, and I squinted.
It was a list of our names, with several of them highlighted.
“Fuck.” Kaz dropped the list, his expression crumpling. The stubborn bravado facade transforming him into our sort of leader dissipated, hollowing him out into exactly what he was. Just a scared kid. Kaz’s hands were shaking.
“Mr Brighton’s got a hit list.” He whispered. “He's going to kill us.”
“How do you know that?” I found myself asking.
Kaz slowly dropped into a crouch, picking up the paper and holding it up.
“Look.” He pointed to a capitalised name at the top of the list highlighted in red.
ROMAN HEMLOCK.
There were six names highlighted in red, including mine.
CRISTA ADAMS.
As if on cue, Roman’s cry rang out from the supply closet, suddenly, freezing us all in place. Kaz jumped up, adapting the expression of a deer caught in headlights, eyes wide, almost unseeing.
He fell over himself to tidy up the desk, putting everything back where he had found it, sliding the list between a pile of test papers. Kaz took slow, stumbled steps back, his feverish gaze glued to the closet, before turning and making a break for it and diving into his seat.
“Brighton’s got a hit liiiist,” Kaz said, in a mocking sing-song, “And we’re all on it.”
What followed was deathly silence. I think we were expecting Roman to cry out again. But when he didn't, the class started to stir. Some kids started praying to a god they didn't believe in, while others were in varying states of denial, trying to call their parents with dead phones.
I wasn't sure what parts of me had stopped, but I was still alive, still felt like my lungs were deprived of oxygen, my chest aching. I'm not sure how long I sat there, trying to find my voice, a shriek trying and failing to rip through my mouth. Being kidnapped and held hostage is one thing, but being imprisoned inside a single, never ending second, was an existential hell worse than death. Slowly, I pressed my palm over my heart once again. Then I breathed into my cupped hands.
I was expecting it, but no longer being able to feel my own heartbeat and breath, was fear I didn't think was possible. The kind that glued me to my seat, hollowing me out completely until I was nothing, an empty shell with no heartbeat, no breath, no thoughts, except denial, followed by acceptance.
And finally, regret.
I regretted not hugging my mother goodbye before I left for school.
I regretted acting like a spoiled brat when my parents refused to drive me halfway across the country so I could attend Coachella.
I regretted stepping inside Mr Brighton’s fourth period physics class.
Mr Brighton reappeared, slamming the door behind him and locking the boy inside. Part of me flinched, while the rest of me remembered not to move a muscle. I was barely aware of time passing. Or it wasn't. Time had stopped, so now long had I been sitting there?
I could no longer measure the passage of time with hunger or thirst, and my body felt the same. I wasn't stiff or tired or achy. Looking out of the window, the sky was the exact same crystal blue, every cloud in the exact same place.
Jessie Carson was still frozen mid-run, strands of dark red hair caught around her.
“What's wrong with you guys?” Mr Brighton chuckled, and I twisted back to the front, a shiver writhing down my spine. “Why don't you give me a smile?”
The teacher returned to his desk, and I was already subconsciously sitting up straight in my seat, forcing my lips into a jaw-breaking grin, following Brighton’s instructions. In the corner of my eye, Imogen was sitting very still, forcing an award-winning cheesy smile, while Kaz grinned through gritted teeth.
“Mr Hemlock just earned himself two weeks inside the supply closet.” he said casually, perching himself on the edge of his desk. The man studied each of us, taking his time to rip every shred of us apart.
Mind, body, and soul.
I struggled to maintain my stupid smile, shoving my shaking hands in my lap.
“Would anyone like to join him, or are you going to follow the rules?”
The rest of us stayed silent. I don't think any of us breathed.
Our teacher nodded to Kaz, inclining his head.
“Samuels. Are you all right?”
Kaz’s smile faltered slightly. He shifted in his chair. I could see sweat trickling down his right temple. “Uh, yeah.” He swiped at his forehead, like he couldn't believe he was sweating. “Yeah, I'm good.”
The teacher’s eyes narrowed. He moved toward his desk, and we all held our breaths. Mr Brighton seemed to study his hit-list, lips curving into a frown.
His gaze flicked to the boy, and then the paper.
He knew, I thought dizzily.
Mr Brighton knew the kid had been rummaging through his desk. But this was all about control. The teacher was using fear to control us, to manipulate our thoughts without having to get physical. He could have called out the boy right then, but Brighton was settling with mental torture instead. He just wanted to make my classmate squirm.
Without a word, the man folded up the piece of paper and slipped it into his pocket. “Mr Samuels, you are sweating,” our physics teacher said, mocking a frown. “Are you feeling okay?”
Kaz hesitated, tapping his shoe in a rhythm.
Being one of the smartest kids in the room definitely gave him an advantage.
I could already see the cogs turning behind half lidded eyes. Kaz was weighing each scenario, sorting them into positives and negatives.
The positives of answering would mean he was one step towards being in the clear, but there were two negatives.
Brighton would question him if he had left his seat, and then demand how his hit-list had magically moved across the desk.
Talking back was surely a rule-break, as well as outright lying.
Opening his mouth would get him in trouble, either way, and Kaz knew that.
So, he just nodded, forcing an even bigger smile.
Brighton’s lips pricked, his gaze straying on Kaz. “Good!” He cleared his throat, turning to the class. Kaz slumped in his seat with a sharp breath, resting his head in his arms. If Mr Brighton noticed, he didn't say anything. “Ignore the sweating. It should stop, along with hunger and thirst.”
Our teacher seemed to be able to manipulate everything in his vicinity.
Time.
Minds.
And slowly… contorting us into his own.
In the single second we were trapped inside, I felt days go by in a dizzying whirlwind that was like being permanently high. When I stood up, I felt like I was floating.
When I sat down, hours could go by, even days, and I wouldn't even feel them. I did try and count the days, initially, scribbling them on a scrap piece of paper, but somewhere around the thirteenth or fourteenth day, I lost count. The world around us never changed, in permanent stasis, and maybe that was sending us a little crazy.
After a while of being stuck at our desks, Mr Brighton allowed us to wander the classroom, as long as we stayed away from the door. I lay on the floor for days, counting ceiling tiles.
Sometimes, Imogen would join me.
I couldn't sleep, but I could pretend to sleep, imagining a world that was back to normal. I didn't feel hungry, but my brain did like to remind me of food at the weirdest times. I was aware of weeks passing us by, and then months.
I never grew hungry or tired, and my bodily functions were none existent.
I couldn't remember what pain felt like, or the urge to go to the bathroom. Even the concept of eating and drinking became foreign to me. Putting something in your mouth and chewing to sustain yourself?
That sounded odd.
The only thing that was changing was our slowly unravelling metal state.
I don't know how it started. Weekends and Tuesdays blended together. On one particular SaturTuesday, I was hanging upside down from my desk, watching Kaz and Imogen doodle on the whiteboard.
Kaz had a plan to escape, but after a while, his ‘plan’ to distract the teacher, had gone nowhere. After passing notes between us, the twelve of us had decided that we needed a weapon.
That was maybe a month ago. I wasn't sure what mind games our teacher was playing, but Kaz Samuels, who we were counting on to be our brains, was slowly falling under his spell. Their game had been going on for three days. The two of them were having a competition to see who could draw the craziest thing.
Mr Brighton was at his desk as usual, marking papers.
Imogen was drawing a weird looking ‘skateboard’ when the doors to the storage closet flew open.
Roman Hemlock appeared, and to my surprise, wasn't a hollow eyed shell.
He held up his hand in a wave, his lips forming a small smile.
“Yo.”
Roman’s reappearance was enough to snap us out of it. Kaz and Imogen stopped arguing, the rest of the class going silent. I sat up, blinking rapidly.
I was sure our collective consensus was that Roman Hemlock was dead.
Mr Brighton lifted his head and gave the boy a civil nod. “Mr Hemlock will be rejoining us,” he said, his gaze going back to marking papers. “Please make him feel comfortable. I'm sure he's very excited to be able to talk to you again.”
Instead of going to his desk, the boy immediately joined the others, snatching the marker off of a baffled looking Kaz, and drawing an overly artistic sketch of a penis. I wasn't sure what confused me more. The fact that Roman Hemlock had some serious artistic skills, or that he seemed suspiciously fine for someone who had been locked in the storage closet for two weeks with no social interaction.
With my last few lingering brain cells still clinging on, I studied the boy.
There were no signs of bruises or scratches.
His eyes seemed normal, not diluted or half lidded.
Unable to stop myself, I jumped off of my desk and joined the others, where Kaz was already interrogating the guy.
“WHAT–”
Imogen nudged him, and he lowered his voice, leaning against the wall. “What did he do to you?”
Roman shrugged, rolling his eyes. “Relax, dude. He didn't do anything to me.”
“Then what was that yell?” Imogen hissed.
The boy cocked his head. “Yell?”
“You yelled out,” Kaz folded his arms, narrowing his eyes. He was already suspecting one of us had been compromised– or worse, brainwashed into compliance. Kaz stepped closer, backing Roman into the desk. “You cried out when you first went in there,” he murmured, “So, what was that?”
Something in Roman’s eyes darkened. “Oh,” He said, his lip curling. “That.”
Kaz’s expression softened. He rested his hands on the boy’s shoulders. “Yeah,” He whispered. “What did he do to you?”
Imogen shoved Kaz out of the way, shooting the boy a glare.
“You don't have to tell us, you know.” She said in a small voice. “If it's too traumatising, or he did something you don't want to talk about–”
Roman cut her off with a laugh, and suddenly, all eyes were on him.
The remaining nine of us were eagerly awaiting an explanation.
“Are you fucking serious?”
When Kaz didn't respond, Roman gathered us in a kind of hustle, the four of us grouped together. I felt like I was on the football field. Still, though, if the guy’s goal was to look as suspicious as possible, he was doing a great job.
Roman studied each of us, one eyebrow cocked. When Mr Brighton glanced up from his work, Roman shot him a grin, lowering his voice to a hiss.
“You seriously think our fifty year old physics teacher has been abusing me in the storage closet?
“Then why did you cry out?” Kaz demanded. “Did he hit you?”
Roman stuck out his bottom lip. “I'm pretty sure he didn't hit me.”
“So, you cried out for no reason.”
“Why are you covering for him?” Imogen poked his forehead. “Are you lobotomised?”
Roman wafted her hand away. “Stop prodding me, and no, I'm 100% good.” He backed away from us, like we were observers, and he was the zoo attraction.
“I won't be, if you keep treating me like I'm senile.”
“Okay, fine,” Kaz sighed. “Just answer one.”
“Shoot.”
“When you first went in there, you made an unmistakable sound of distress–”
“Not this again,” Roman groaned. “Of course I yelled! I was shoved into a pitch black storage closet on my own! What, did you expect me to stay silent?”
Kaz didn't look convinced, Imogen nervously sucking her teeth.
The boy leaned back, resting his head against the wall. His eyes flickered shut.
“Stop looking at me like that, there's nothing to tell you,” he murmured, “Brighton didn't do shit to me. I was just freaked out.” Prying one eye open, he fixed us with a glare. “I am so sorry for reacting like a human. Next time, I'll make sure to attack him and pin him to the ground.”
It's not like we believed him. I don't think Roman believed himself.
Something significant had changed in him. He was no longer argumentative, like half of his personality had been torn away. Roman set a precedent. Because once he was following instructions and walking around with a dazed smile, others began to follow. I can't remember how much time had passed since I thought about escaping.
Days and weeks and months had collapsed into fleeting seconds I only noticed when I wasn't playing games.
I wasn't aware of my own lack of sanity until I found myself, on a random SaturWednesday. I was laughing, gathered with the others on the floor, around a Monopoly board. The game had been going on for almost a week.
Reality hit me when I was laughing so hard I tipped back.
I can't remember why I was laughing. I think Imogen told a bad joke.
“Hand it over.” Roman, who was the King of Monopoly, held out his hand, demanding my last 250 bucks. I remember noticing his smile, my foggy brain trying to find hints that he was in some kind of trance, or being controlled by Brighton. But no. His smile was real.
Genuine.
To my shock and confusion, so was mine.
I wasn't in a trance or any type of mind manipulation. I was completely conscious.
Was this… Stockholm syndrome? I thought dizzily.
Was I enjoying this?
My thoughts were like cotton candy, disconnected and wrong, and they barely felt like my own. My gaze found Imogen and Kaz, the two of them sitting shoulder to shoulder, enveloped in the game.
They looked exactly the same, their hair, clothes, everything about them staying stagnant. It was them themselves who had drastically changed. I had never seen them look so carefree. Imogen was a hotheaded cheerleader, and Kaz was the smart kid who gave himself nosebleeds from overworking himself. But now, they were laughing, nudging each other, caught up in an inside joke. Blinking slowly, my gaze strayed on them.
Sure, it could be manipulation. It could be brainwashing. But it could also be real.
Kaz caught my eye, raising a brow.
“You good, Christa?”
Shaking my head, I nodded.
Again, my smile felt real. Like I was having fun.
“Good. It's your turn.”
I picked up the dice, throwing them across the board.
Two sixes.
“I can already see her landing on one of my hotels.” Roman murmured. He sat up, resting his chin on his knees. “As the clear winner, I have a proposition.”
Ignoring him, I moved my piece– immediately landing on Park Place.
“I'll give you 500,” Roman announced, “If you give up New York avenue.”
“That's all I've got!”
Imogen nudged me. “Don't do it. If you give him New York Avenue, he only needs one more.”
“One thousand.” Roman waved the notes in my face.
“My final offer.”
When I reached for the cash, he held it back.
“New York Avenue, he said, with a grin.
“And your pride.”
Reluctantly, I handed my only property over.
Kaz threw the dice and moved his piece, and I half remembered we had an escape plan. “Community chest.” Kaz picked up a card. “Go straight to jail.”*
Roman spluttered. “That's karma,” he said, “For stealing from the bank.”
“You were stealing too!”
We had a plan.
We had…. a plan.
After discussing it in detail, Imogen and I were going to try and get onto Brighton’s laptop. It wasn't a perfect way to escape, but it was coherent.
So, what happened?
We were going to get out, so what… what was this?
Kaz’s earlier words hit me from months ago.
“Mr Brighton *is the thing keeping us here,”* he explained. “If we kill him, I'm like, 98% sure we’ll go back to normal.”
“Okay, and what if he dies and we’re *stuck?”* Imogen whisper-shrieked.
“I said 98% for a reason. Yes, there's a small chance his power will die with him. But there's a bigger chance that its effects will die when he does.”
Ren nodded slowly. “Right, and where exactly did you learn this information?”
“You'll feel a lot better if I don't answer that.”
“Okay.” Ren gritted his teeth. “So, we just need to find a weapon, right?”
“And don't tell Hemlock,” Kaz rolled his eyes. “I don't care what he says, that boy definitely had his mind fucked with. Hemlock is a liability. If we tell Roman, he tells Brighton, and we’re screwed.” Kaz nodded to me, then the others. “Keep your mouths shut.”
Presently, I wasn't sure the boy wanted to escape.
Slowly, I rolled my eyes over to Mr Brighton, who had joined us to play.
He was happily marking papers, taking part when he could.
It felt…right.
Not like we had been forced or manipulated, but more like he belonged. Part of me wanted to question why I felt like this, but I found that I didn't care. I didn't care that we were essentially dead, in a never ending stasis and stuck inside fifty two minutes past two. I stopped thinking about the outside world a long time ago.
I couldn't even remember my Mom’s face.
I made my decision, dazedly watching Imogen throw a chance card at Roman.
He flung one back, threatening to tip the board.
I wanted to stay.
In the corner of my eye, however, someone was still awake.
Ren, who had been sitting next to me, kept moving, further and further away. I didn't notice until he was inching towards our teacher, a box cutter clenched between his fist. There must have been a point when we found a box cutter, when we made it our weapon of choice.
But somewhere along the way, I think we just… lost the longing to want to escape.
I didn't see the exact moment the boy stabbed the blade into the man's neck, plunging it through his flesh, but I did feel a sudden jolt, like time itself was starting to falter and tremble.
Mr Brighton dropped to the ground, and I found my gaze flashing to the frozen clock.
Which was moving, suddenly.
Slowly creeping towards 2:53pm.
Something sticky ran underneath me, warm and wet.
Blood.
Blood that was running.
Roman’s half lidded eyes found mine, and he blinked, dropping the dice.
Like he'd been asleep for a long time.
2:53pm.
We were free.
The cool spring breeze grazing my cheeks was back. I could feel my own heartbeat, sticky sweat on my forehead.
And outside, Jessie Carson let out a gut-churning scream.
For a disorienting moment, I don't think any of us believed we were free.
Roman twisted around, his gaze on the doorway.
The piece of paper the teacher had stuck to the glass slipped away.
But Roman’s gaze was glued to the door, his cheeks paling.
His lips parted into a silent cry.
Following his eyes, I glimpsed a shadow.
A shadow that was frozen at 2:52pm.
2:53pm.
“Fuck.” Roman whispered, stumbling to his feet.
He turned to the rest of us, his eyes wild.
“Get DOWN!”
When the thing crashed through the door, our classroom exploding around us, chairs splintering against the walls, I was already dropping to my knees, crawling under a desk. It took me a moment to understand I was already kneeling in what was left of Imogen.
Her body had been hollowed out, singed straight through.
I was crawling through pieces of her flesh, mounds of her bisected brain.
Keeping my hand over my mouth, I watched this… thing.
A bulbous black monster, chewing its way through my classmates. Blood splattered the walls, raining from the ceiling, and that same striking pain ripped through my gut, agonising enough to force a cry through my lips.
My frantic gaze found the clock.
2:54pm.
Lurching forwards, I heaved up what was left of my lunch, agonising pain wrenching my stomach back and forth.
I jumped when another body joined me, thankfully alive, squeezing under the desk.
Roman, his face slick and dripping scarlet.
When the thing was gone, neither of us moved.
3:05pm.
“What are those things?” I managed to get out.
“I don't know,” Roman whimpered, covering his mouth. “But they're everywhere.”
3:10pm.
Another thing found our classroom. This time I saw it up close, a giant, bulbous black thing with an eye stalk. It knew we were there, peeking under the desk we were hiding. But it didn't kill us.
The thing left the room, stopping to gorge on half of Ren’s torso.
Roman shot me a questioning look, but I could only be relieved.
3:15pm.
Roman threw up black slime all over me.
He caught my eye, swiping his mouth. “Well, that can't be good.”
The pain in my gut was getting harder to deal with.
3:20pm.
“Did you have chicken nuggets for lunch?” Roman murmured. He got a little too close, his breath on my neck.
I had to suck in my stomach to stop the pain.
I was going hot and cold, sweat dripping down the back of my neck.
“Why?” I hissed back, taking deep, shaky breaths.
“I dunno,” Roman murmured, “I can smell them on your breath.”
His teeth grazed my flesh, sending shivers down my spine.
“Weird… huh.”
3:30pm.
Roman nudged me.
“Fuck.” He hissed. “Is that Kaz?”
Following his gaze, I found the remnants of Kaz under a crushed desk starting to… convulse.
“Was he bitten?” I whispered.
Roman’s eyes were a strange color. “Maybe.”
3:35pm
“Mr Brighton.” I was on my knees, sobbing, shaking my physics teacher.
“Mr Brighton! Take us back!”
I squeezed his ice cold hand for dear life.
“Say, ‘stop’,” I whispered “Please!”
3:40pm.
The thing that found me didn't attack me. It sat there, head cocked, watching me roll around on the floor, the pain writhing through me. I watched its transformation in short bursts, consciousness swimming in and out.
When I found light again, the thing was sitting cross legged next to me, chewing on a human arm. Maybe I was hallucinating. I watched it for a long time, trying to figure out why it was wearing strips of Roman’s white shirt.
3:52pm.
No longer in the school, I was in the back of an ambulance, a lady screaming in my face. I could see the time on her watch. She told me I was going to be okay, and I think I was. But I wasn't sure how to tell her she smelled good.
Like chicken.
It's been three months since my teacher froze time.
Mr Brighton wasn't imprisoning us. He was protecting us.
I'm still alive, but I have to take regular shots. I think they're just in case I was infected by those things.
I asked Mom if the incident has been on the news, but there's no coverage.
According to the people in white who treated me, everything has been covered up. According to the Mayor, ten kids died in a gas leak.
No mention of the monstrous things hunting us down…
Our town is just a blip on the map. You can't find us. I wish you could, though.
I need help.
I'm terrified of myself.
I’m not going to tell Mom she smells like chicken, because she'll freak out.
Last night, someone, or something knocked on my window.
When I turned on the light, a single, bulging eye was staring at me through the glass.
I still don't know why it was crying.

https://gofund.me/ce14217a
​
Hello! My name is Ian Joseph Laveck. I'm starting a go fund me today to bring to life a dream that I have only been dreaming of. As a die hard fan of the Evil Dead series I have always wondered what it would be like to re-create the cult classic cabin. Not even just the cabin but a fully functional experience! My Dream consist of a movie accurate Evil dead cabin down to the finest of detail. my ideas include: the cabin itself, the work Shedd, and the cellar. the cabin will be fully functional home. but it doesn't stop there! along with a movie accurate cabin in the woods, the cellar will be fitted with a home theater ideally for fans to experience the Evil Dead trilogy and show in the very cabin it takes place in! what better place to watch this Horror classic then to be in the very cellar that the characters themselves are afraid to enter! in addition to this I plan on fitting the cabin itself with various sound equipment and animatronics such as the deer head and the laughing lamp to give you the experience of staying in the most cursed cabin of all! the work shed you enter will have Linda's animatronic deadite skull clamped into a vice that will talk to you and say various lines from the movies and show. Outside of the cabin you will find fog machines hidden in the ground that will automatically kick on after dark, and strategically placed projectors that will project scenes such as Linda's Moon dance on to the fog so you and your friends can watch from the cabin window with horror! This is my dream and it is my calling to make this a reality. And with your help I just might be able to pull it off!
Please follow the Community on reddit, there you will find any updates such as contracting companies we will be using, and any other updates following the progress of the cabin. Please note Updates will only come as fast as the donations, for this is the first step of many.
stay groovy.

https://gofund.me/ce14217a
Hello! My name is Ian Joseph Laveck. I'm starting a go fund me today to bring to life a dream that I have only been dreaming of. As a die hard fan of the Evil Dead series I have always wondered what it would be like to re-create the cult classic cabin. Not even just the cabin but a fully functional experience! My Dream consist of a movie accurate Evil dead cabin down to the finest of detail. my ideas include: the cabin itself, the work Shedd, and the cellar. the cabin will be fully functional home. but it doesn't stop there! along with a movie accurate cabin in the woods, the cellar will be fitted with a home theater ideally for fans to experience the Evil Dead trilogy and show in the very cabin it takes place in! what better place to watch this Horror classic then to be in the very cellar that the characters themselves are afraid to enter! in addition to this I plan on fitting the cabin itself with various sound equipment and animatronics such as the deer head and the laughing lamp to give you the experience of staying in the most cursed cabin of all! the work shed you enter will have Linda's animatronic deadite skull clamped into a vice that will talk to you and say various lines from the movies and show. Outside of the cabin you will find fog machines hidden in the ground that will automatically kick on after dark, and strategically placed projectors that will project scenes such as Linda's Moondance on to the fog so you and your freinds can watch from the cabin window with horror! This is my dream and it is my calling to make this a reality. And with your help I just might be able to pull it off!
Please follow the Community on reddit, there you will find any updates such as contracting companies we will be using, and any other updates following the progress of the cabin. Please note Updates will only come as fast as the donations, for this is the first step of many.
stay groovy.

This year is going to be my first time at Wasteland Weekend. I've been slowly putting together my costume and found a deer skull today when walking my dog in the woods. Seems like it'd be right on theme, and I was wondering if anyone had ideas on how I could incorporate it into my costume or camp?

Hi Everyone!
This is my first write-up of any kind of unresolved mystery, on any platform, so I apologize for any formatting errors and my storytelling ability. Today I would like to hear your thoughts on the very mysterious death of Noah Presgrove, a 19 year old from Comanche Oklahoma. I have tried to be as thorough as possible with the details, but there is a great deal of conflicting information in the news reports, so I primarily used facts stated by Noah's family in interviews. With that said, let's begin...
Noah Presgrove was a handsome, athletic 19 year old from Comanche Oklahoma, which is located just south of Oklahoma City in the middle of the state. Noah had recently graduated high school in the spring of 2023 and was waiting for his cousin to do the same the following year so they both could enlist in the Marine Corp together and serve our country. By all accounts Noah was a ladies man, standing at 6'2" with an athletic build, in high school he was a 4-sport athlete with American Football and Wrestling among them. His family also says he was adventurous, kind and very much a jokester who would happily play pranks on his family. Last Labor Day weekend, the first weekend of September 2023, Noah was deciding between attending Rocklahoma, an annual 3-day hard rock and metal festival held in Pryor, Oklahoma, with family members or attending a 4-day Labor Day weekend bash/22nd birthday party of a friend. Noah considered going to Rocklahoma, but changed his mind when the family members he'd be attending with said they didn't think it was a good idea for Noah's 16 year old friend to join them there, since they didn't know this friend's family and Rocklahoma is big for consuming alcohol. With that, everyone went their own way to celebrate the holiday weekend.
The Labor Day/Birthday party was for a female friend of Noah's who was turning 22. It had been advertised on Snapchat, even containing the address, so quite a few people were expected to attend. Noah drove himself to the party on Saturday and by all accounts enjoyed himself. He did text his family member who was at Rocklahoma and express regret at not going with them, but it doesn't appear that this put too much of a damper on his attitude at the house party. After spending Saturday at the birthday girl's house, Noah returned home Sunday, probably to freshen up and take care of any outstanding errands or just check in with his grandmother, with whom he lived. Also, Noah's car was leaking from the oil pan, so it sounds like part of the reason to return home was to leave it there so he wouldn't have to worry about it. There are two stories about what happened next: The first is that one of Noah's friends picked him up from his house on Sunday, but took him to a truck stop so he could grab some food from the Sonic there. Oddly, the friend who took him there says he left him there and Noah was then given a ride to the party by the birthday girl, who had to come pick him up. The other story is that his best friend picked him up from his house and took him directly to the party, leaving him in the driveway. Either way, Noah was back at the party on Sunday and according to those present, was very much enjoying himself. There were videos from the party showing Noah and his friends doing "guy things" like the Slap Game, where two people try to slap each other across the face as hard as they can. Just "macho" drunken teenage guy things. There was also video from the party of the guests playing "classic" party games such as beer pong.
With all the drinking going on, some issues were bound to arise. A confrontation happened between Noah and his best friend. Noah had been in a corner with his best friend's girlfriend and apparently they had their backs to everyone else while talking. The best friend took exception to this and an argument ensued. Luckily, it did not become physical and they made up shortly after, but this event with the best friend and his girlfriend is important for later. A second confrontation occurred between Noah and a 16 year old guest that did become physical. The 16 year old accused Noah of hiding his phone, although the reasons why he thought Noah did it have not been stated. During the argument the kid "fishhooked" Noah and Noah returned the favor by biting his finger. It seems like the other people there were able to diffuse the situation and the kid's phone was found underneath another guest who was sleeping on a couch. As the day went on, things continued to become crazier as the people at the party drank more and more. At one point girls at the party started signing their names on Noah's torso and buttocks, writing things such as "Noah's hot!" and drawing a cartoon penis on his rear-end. Noah and the best friend he had the argument with even drove a John Deere "Gator" UTV "Side by Side" around the property, but stopped when Noah scrapped his hand almost flipping it over. Some people even say that Noah was tossed from the UTV, but he was checked out by a nurse at the party and she said he had nothing to worry about. Another event worth mentioning is that the birthday girl seemed to have a crush on Noah. Noah realized this, or was told this, and while talking to her about it called her a "fat, nasty b*tch". I assume that they were close friends and this is just a drunken teen being a drunken teen. An odd thing to mention is that this girl's mother, who also lives in the home, had told Noah's family that she believed Noah wanted her sexually. Whether this is true or not, I have no clue, but it seems a very weird thing to say to the family of a 19 year old your daughter is friends with.
So here's where the mystery comes in. Early Monday morning (September 4th, 2023), after 2:00am, the guests say that Noah was upset about something and that it might have had to do with sleeping in either the birthday girl's or her mother's bed. One of them either heard, or saw, Noah attempting to sleep in their bed and demanded that he go on the floor. This apparently upset Noah so much that he said he needed to go out for a walk, completely drunk, very early in the morning. The guests say Noah was wearing his best friend's shorts (we'll get to his clothes later) and could only find one of his shoes, so he grabbed another shoe lying around the house and took off out the front door. The house had a 1/2 mile long driveway that then went out to US-81, a major North-South highway that runs for 1,200+ miles through the central US. At 3:41am, a friend of Noah's posted a weird Snapchat: a photo of a girl at the party smiling, with the caption "well, Noah's missing". This was the last Snapchat posted by any of the partygoers after days of constant videos and pics. Around 5:00am, a semi-truck driving along US-81 saw something he believed to be a body lying on the shoulder of the road. After driving past, he became concerned and turned around to confirm what he saw. By the time he got back, two other vehicles had stopped in front of the lifeless body of Noah on the shoulder. He was completely naked wearing only 2 mismatched shoes and curled up in a fetal position. He appeared to have blunt force trauma to the back of his head. He had small scrapes on his left shoulder and left hip and his fingertips on both hands were reported as being "shredded", down to the bone. Noah's front top and bottom teeth had also been knocked out and they were found scattered at the scene. There was no blood found at the scene, other than a small amount around Noah's injuries. Very concerning was the fact that there was no writing on his body anywhere. Not on his torso and not on his buttocks. The shorts Noah was wearing were found folded up next him. The people at the party said "They must've been knocked off when he was hit.", which obviously does not make sense.
Around 6:00am, with the police already notified by the people who found Noah, all Snapchat's/social media from people at the party was deleted. His friends and acquaintances at the party say they have no idea what led up to his death and they were unaware of it. The police did not search the house because they said: "Noah wasn't found there.". They did eventually conduct a "mass" interview with all the partygoers. During this interview, Noah's best friend's girlfriend, the one that led to his first confrontation, told police she had never met Noah. She had wiped her phone so completely that even her boyfriend's number had been deleted. When the guests were asked about Noah being naked, the girls said they gave Noah a "shower", but Noah's mental state at the time, whether mildly drunk or completely inebriated, has been an area of dispute among the guests. Some say he was joking around and being himself while being showered, other accounts state that he was barely conscious. Noah's clothing he wore to the party that night has never been located. Police were told that after Noah showered his clothes were dirty, so he wore his friend's shorts. There is a rumor that his best friend's father found Noah's shirt from the party, which was then cut-up and distributed to the party attendees as a "memento". In addition to this event with his shirt, there is also information that his best friend's father had some of Noah's teeth in his pocket. He stated he "accidentally" picked them up from the crime scene. It's worth stating that this particular individual has been on Noah's family's Facebook memorial page for months, arguing with others on there. Just very odd behavior from an adult father who's son's best friend died mysteriously. But, on this same topic, NONE of the partygoers or their families have ever visited Noah's family to express their condolences. Never once.
Since Noah's friends and others at the party said they didn't know what happened, the police had their work cut out for them. The Oklahoma Highway Patrol obtained a "geofence" warrant covering a 1-1/2 mile radius around the party house. What they found was a bit disturbing. Around the time it is believed Noah died, 2 phones were traced as having left the house, heading to the location of his body. After briefly staying there, the two phones returned to the house. People at the party told a private investigator hired by Noah's family that they went out looking for Noah in the UTV/Gator that Noah and his friend had been on earlier. If they had really done this, they would have found him since the phones were at the spot Noah was found. It has not been released who exactly this was. Also revealed when police searched phones was a video of the birthday girl and her sister on their front porch, screaming at each other about Noah leaving the party. It is believed that this could be relevant. The Texas Rangers also became involved, due to the fact that two men at the party were from Texas. It is not known if these men are persons of interest. The Oklahoma Highway Patrol also quietly issued a warrant for a "black pick-up truck" believed to have been used to dump his body, but it is unknown why they are looking for this particular vehicle. The Oklahoma Highway Patrol has unequivocally stated that this was 100% NOT a hit-and-run. They have now also said that this is NOT a murder investigation. The Medical Examiner's report released on Monday, May 13th 2024 stated that Noah died from "Multiple Blunt Force injuries", but list the manner in which this happened as "unknown". His report also detailed extensive injuries to the teen's upper body, including 10 broken ribs, serious skull, neck, and spine fractures, internal bleeding, brain and organ damage, and cuts and grazes all over his body. The autopsy also revealed air in both his cranial cavity and spinal cord, extremely rare conditions only caused by massive head trauma. The family has heard rumors that a golf club from the set in his best friend's truck may have been involved, but nothing else has come of this.
The family has engaged with a private investigator, who did uncover previously unknown information, and gave that to the police. They have also said that there is much more which has not been publicly released and that the search of the phones did uncover good information. Also according to the family, some evidence has been covered-up or lost and that the day after the party, the birthday girl's house and property reeked of bleach. Despite this, his family says good things are going on behind the scenes.
So, with all of the above information, it doesn't seem to be a stretch to say that someone from the party knows something. It is my personal belief that this case will be resolved, but I think three things will have to happen: Time, Pressure and Guilt. At some point in the future, someone from the party will feel guilty, or media pressure will get to them and they will talk. Unfortunately, it may take some time unless the police uncover new evidence sooner. Thank you very much for reading this, but please let me know your thoughts on this case and feel free to ask questions.
Sources:
Podcast (Interview w/ Noah's family): https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jimny-carpenteepisodes/The-Suspicious-Murder-Of-Noah-Presgrove-Part-1-e2dchac
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13421341/Oklahoma-teen-Noah-Presgrove-beaten-death-gang-doctor-claims.html
https://kfor.com/news/local/m-e-releases-more-details-in-19-year-olds-death/
https://www.foxnews.com/us/oklahoma-teen-military-hopefuls-family-cant-imagine-was-murdered-offers-theory-about-last-hours

Weapons

Quad Explosive +1 Perception Railway
Vampire’s 50VHC 15FR Railway
Gourmand’s 25FFR 15FR Railway
Juggernaut’s 50 Crit 15 VATS Charge Railway
TS E 25 VATS AP Cost Handmade
TS 50 Crit 15R Handmade
(I can put either the Hot Rod Flames or the Intergalactic Paint on the Handmades)
Vampire’s 50 Crit 25 AP Cost Enclave Flamer (Severe Beta Wave Tuner, Stabilized Flamer Barrel, Stabilized Stock)
Juggernaut’s 50 Crit 100 Aiming Move Speed Enclave Sniper (Prime Capacitor, Aligned Sniper Barrel, Stabilized Stock, Long NV Scope)
Mutant’s 25 Weapon Speed 25 AP Cost Enclave Flamer (Aligned Flamer Barrel, Stabilized Stock, Long NV Scope)
Quad 25 Weapon Speed 50 Aiming DR Enclave Plasma Rifle (Aligned Automatic Barrel, Stabilized Stock, Reflex Sight)
Prime Automatic Enclave Plasma Rifle (Prime Capacitor, True Automatic Barrel, Stabilised Stock, Reflex Sight)
Junkie’s +1 Agility Flamer (Used to be Explosive, is now a 1 Star and a 3 Star)
Quad 15AP Refresh +1P Sightless Tesla Rifle
Unrolled Sightless Tesla
Tradable The Gutter (Without skin)
200 Range Furious Explosive Black Powder Rifle (Level 45)
Unrolled 200 Range Black Powder Rifle (Level 25)
Vampire’s 50 Hit Chance 15 Reload Gatling Plasma
Vampire’s Explosive 15 VATS Charge The Fixer
Berserker’s 25 Weapon Speed 15 Reload Submachine Gun
Bloodied 50 Crit 15 VATS Charge Submachine Gun
AA 25FFR 15 VATS Charge Combat Rifle
AA 50 Crit 15FR Double Barrel Shotgun

Treasure Maps

Ash Heap #01 - 250
Ash Heap #02 - 250
Cranberry Bog #03 - 2600
Cranberry Bog #04 - 2350
Mire #02 - 4675

Aid

Leader Bobbleheads - 230
Misc Serums - Around 250

Mods

Enclave Plasma Gun Refined Beta Wave Tuner
Enclave Plasma Gun Calibrated Capacitor
Enclave Plasma Gun Stabilised Stock
Enclave Plasma Gun Aligned Flamer Barrel
Enclave Plasma Gun Stabilized Automatic Barrel
Enclave Plasma Gun Stabilised Short Barrel
Enclave Plasma Gun Stabilised Sniper Barrel
Enclave Plasma Gun True Sniper Barrel 2x
Enclave Plasma Gun True Splitter
Enclave Plasma Gun Long NV Scope 2x
Enclave Plasma Gun Medium NV Scope
Enclave Plasma Gun Short NV Scope
Enclave Plasma Gun Long Scope

Outfits

Yellow Asylum Worker Uniform
Blue Asylum Worker Uniform
Green Asylum Worker Uniform
Brown Asylum Worker Uniform
Soiled Mr. Fuzzy Costume Set
Clean Space Suit Set 2x
Skull Lord Blood Eagle Set 2x
Brotherhood Special Ops Set
Chally the Moo Moo Set
(Plus a lot of other sets of equal value to the ones above)

Junk

5000 Stable Yellowcake Flux
4000 Stable Violet Flux
3000 Stable Cobalt Flux
900 Stable Crimson Flux
900 Stable Fluorescent Flux
100k Steel
14k Nuclear Waste
48k Molded Plastic
20k Lead
20k Adhesive
20k Crystal
20k Copper
10k Ballistic Fiber
24k Aluminium

Ammo

140k Cryo Cell
40k Fuel
60k Fusion Cell
120k Ultracite .50
200k Ultracite 5.56
200 Ultracite Plasma Core

Plans

Alien Disintegrator Plan 5x
Alien Blaster Plan 8x
Electro Enforcer Plan 4x
Cutting Fluid Plan
Several each of the Legacy Mounted Plans (Antlers, Beaver, Brahmin Heads, Cat Head, Deer Head, Dog Head, Fox, Molerat Head, Mongrel Head, Opossum, Squirrel)
(Plus I got loads of Fasnacht Plans and other random assortments of plans and I can craft the Black Powder Rifle Large Bayonet and a few other scrap learn plans as well)

Power Armor

Overeater’s Sentinel Ultracite PA Set
Assassin’s Sentinel Ultracite PA Set

Weapons

Quad Explosive +1 Perception Railway
Vampire’s 50VHC 15FR Railway
Gourmand’s 25FFR 15FR Railway
Juggernaut’s 50 Crit 15 VATS Charge Railway
TS E 25 VATS AP Cost Handmade
TS 50 Crit 15R Handmade
(I can put either the Hot Rod Flames or the Intergalactic Paint on the Handmades)
Vampire’s 50 Crit 25 AP Cost Enclave Flamer (Severe Beta Wave Tuner, Stabilized Flamer Barrel, Stabilized Stock)
Juggernaut’s 50 Crit 100 Aiming Move Speed Enclave Sniper (Prime Capacitor, Aligned Sniper Barrel, Stabilized Stock, Long NV Scope)
Mutant’s 25 Weapon Speed 25 AP Cost Enclave Flamer (Aligned Flamer Barrel, Stabilized Stock, Long NV Scope)
Quad 25 Weapon Speed 50 Aiming DR Enclave Plasma Rifle (Aligned Automatic Barrel, Stabilized Stock, Reflex Sight)
Prime Automatic Enclave Plasma Rifle (Prime Capacitor, True Automatic Barrel, Stabilised Stock, Reflex Sight)
Junkie’s +1 Agility Flamer (Used to be Explosive, is now a 1 Star and a 3 Star)
Quad 15AP Refresh +1P Sightless Tesla Rifle
Unrolled Sightless Tesla
Tradable The Gutter (Without skin)
200 Range Furious Explosive Black Powder Rifle (Level 45)
Unrolled 200 Range Black Powder Rifle (Level 25)
Vampire’s 50 Hit Chance 15 Reload Gatling Plasma
Vampire’s Explosive 15 VATS Charge The Fixer
Berserker’s 25 Weapon Speed 15 Reload Submachine Gun
Bloodied 50 Crit 15 VATS Charge Submachine Gun
AA 25FFR 15 VATS Charge Combat Rifle
AA 50 Crit 15FR Double Barrel Shotgun

Treasure Maps

Ash Heap #01 - 250
Ash Heap #02 - 250
Cranberry Bog #03 - 2600
Cranberry Bog #04 - 2350
Mire #02 - 4675

Aid

Leader Bobbleheads - 230
Misc Serums - Around 250

Mods

Enclave Plasma Gun Refined Beta Wave Tuner
Enclave Plasma Gun Calibrated Capacitor
Enclave Plasma Gun Stabilised Stock
Enclave Plasma Gun Aligned Flamer Barrel
Enclave Plasma Gun Stabilized Automatic Barrel
Enclave Plasma Gun Stabilised Short Barrel
Enclave Plasma Gun Stabilised Sniper Barrel
Enclave Plasma Gun True Sniper Barrel 2x
Enclave Plasma Gun True Splitter
Enclave Plasma Gun Long NV Scope 2x
Enclave Plasma Gun Medium NV Scope
Enclave Plasma Gun Short NV Scope
Enclave Plasma Gun Long Scope

Outfits

Yellow Asylum Worker Uniform
Blue Asylum Worker Uniform
Green Asylum Worker Uniform
Brown Asylum Worker Uniform
Soiled Mr. Fuzzy Costume Set
Clean Space Suit Set 2x
Skull Lord Blood Eagle Set 2x
Brotherhood Special Ops Set
Chally the Moo Moo Set
(Plus a lot of other sets of equal value to the ones above)

Junk

5000 Stable Yellowcake Flux
4000 Stable Violet Flux
3000 Stable Cobalt Flux
900 Stable Crimson Flux
900 Stable Fluorescent Flux
100k Steel
14k Nuclear Waste
48k Molded Plastic
20k Lead
20k Adhesive
20k Crystal
20k Copper
10k Ballistic Fiber
24k Aluminium

Ammo

140k Cryo Cell
40k Fuel
60k Fusion Cell
120k Ultracite .50
200k Ultracite 5.56
200 Ultracite Plasma Core

Plans

Alien Disintegrator Plan 5x
Alien Blaster Plan 8x
Electro Enforcer Plan 4x
Cutting Fluid Plan
Several each of the Legacy Mounted Plans (Antlers, Beaver, Brahmin Heads, Cat Head, Deer Head, Dog Head, Fox, Molerat Head, Mongrel Head, Opossum, Squirrel)
(Plus I got loads of Fasnacht Plans and other random assortments of plans and I can craft the Black Powder Rifle Large Bayonet and a few other scrap learn plans as well)

Power Armor

Overeater’s Sentinel Ultracite PA Set
Assassin’s Sentinel Ultracite PA Set

Blachowicz here.
Kept yah’ waiting, huh? Heh, sorry about that one, but I can explain. As we all know… we lost a few good men the last few months.
That’s the brutal part of a hybrid war like ours: We’re fighting a foe unconventional, with half our arsenal tied down because those who grant us authorization are either in disbelief of the true facts, or scared… or already assimilated. That being said our momentum recently was a change not seen in years, and because of that… despite the losses we have garnered, we were close through a breakthrough. One last night Krol pulls myself and other two must trusted squad leads into the back of our COP. There is one of our equipment cages, surrounded by m-bitter radios, tripods, and several hundred thousand dollars of equipment he brought us around a simple worn table. Before us he laid a map of eastern poland… red markings indicating cells that seemed to dot the countryside like a pestilence, or used to… as deep gashes of advance from raids had trisected their lines, even if ones did pop up in the interior.
It was a back and forth; an outside virus infecting Polska at it’s heart, and we were the antibodies sent to drive them out. To which… Major Krol points to one of the largest symbol on the map: a dark red diamond, the NATO symbol for an enemy unit, deep inside of an untouched wooded area, adjacent to a mountain ridge. Several jagged lines indicated entrenchment, with red horizontal lines indicating possible enemy control… or our contested control, for over 20kms surrounding it. Letting us all look, the Major lit himself a cigarette.
“Sir, you sure it’s wise to smoke in here with the dive tanks just behind us” 1st Squad’s lead quipped. “Fuck off” Krol dryly said.
“Alright… this is it… this is the one we’ve been searching for for years, this is the nucleus my predecessor commander died trying to find” he says, pointing to it. Not far from Zamosc, it was almost touching the border with Belarus, the contested area indicating the Strigoi did operate over it… indicating one of the largest spill through points. “-It’s an old soviet bunker, made during their 1960s initiative it was designed to hold the munitions and manpower of several units in the event of a NATO first strike” Krol explained. “It’s gotta be massive then…” I said gazing at the map; “Didn’t the army demolish all of the old soviet hulks near Belarus to prevent any infiltrations?” 3rd Squad’s lead asked. “National Police took the effort over… and by extension, the Strigoi. It was halfway demo’ed before they burrowed into it and have been using it as a bridgehead ever since. This is it…” Krol said. He looked around at all of us, a sense of certainty I had never seen before as he blew smoke from his nostrils; “We’ve been fucking around in the dark for so long, it’s hard to believe we’ve made any progress, but this is it. With this gone, this will set them back over a decade and the momentum will finally shift into our favor… into Poland’s… -Europe’s”.
I swear there was almost a flash of joy, of pride in his eyes and a phantom of a smirk before reality set back in “That being said… we can’t leave this to chance, especially not something as important as this. We’re going to have to go there ourselves… clear through every inch of that place, and tear it all down, piece by piece. I will be straight with you all… when we go, there will be some of us that aren’t coming back. -but we are going… a whole generation is counting on us, and unborn billions rely on us to succeed”. We all nodded, a silent agreement washing over us as we took this upon ourselves. Echo-1 spoke up: “So… They’re authorizing a raid? How big?”. “We’re rolling in as a hard target, armor, explosives, and air support” Krol answered, taking a drag off his cigarette. “Aviation? How the hell did we get that approved, we’ve gotten attempts shot down four times due to those leeches” I said in disbelief. “There’s too much evidence here pointing to the human trafficking tied to their actions… We’ve finally got too much weight pinning them down, to keep the hammer from slamming into their necks” Krol chuckled. He looked around “Any questions?”. “When?” Echo-3 asked. “Three hours. We’re hitting them in the dead of night, only time we could get the birds authorized. Get your boys ready. We’re rolling out” Krol said, dying the cigarette bud out on the table. I can’t begin to tell you the euphoria we felt leaving that cage, as our men started arriving, they did so a lot quicker, and with their heads a lot higher than they had in weeks. As Second Squad’s lead we were going to be one of the main arms of attack into the bunker, thus I made sure we had a breacher loaded with enough thermite, charges, and tools to cut through anything. Our shield bearer we ready to go, as was our assaulters, grenadiers, and machine gunner. I double checked each and everyone of their weapons; ensuring the feeder paws of our squad’s belt fed were intact, making sure every breach charge we had was properly set and packed. There was going to be no mistakes, no slip ups. The margin of error needed to be the smallest it had ever been for us tonight if we were going to make the gore spilt worth it.
Finally… there on the outside of the building, the bright LED lights kept the darkness of the ensuing night at bay as the roar of our MRAPs could be heard. It was said once that war is 99% peace, and 1% chaos, they were right. The slow periods where the blood slowed and the doubt creeped in was the worst… yet we all kept it at bay. We needed to, there was going to be no backing down tonight. All three squads were up, all of us ready to go… we circled up… short stares and shaky nods telling us one things: We were in this together, till the end… the finish line so many before us had been searching for, we were being granted tonight.
A single set of footsteps could be heard as we turned, Major Krol stepping into the center. He took the last drag of a cigarette, throwing it down to the ground and stamping it out onto the damp concrete. He looked around… his chin strap blowing in the weak air as he met everyone of our gazes… then mine… then looked around. “I want you to remember every detail of tonight, as you have every other night… when you are situationally aware, scanning for the enemy, liberating the subjugated, I want you to remember the sting of anxiety, the shake of adrenaline, the chill of the bunker, the heat of your weapon as it cuts them down… because tonight we are going to write every fine detail of our victory, their defeat, in history…” Krol’s words echoed deep into our souls. He paused for a moment, staring around he looked down… a small pause before he said “When you are ruthless in combat, remember to be patient, and reserved in victory. This conflict is for our existence… a lot of innocents have bled due to the mistakes of those who failed to listen, a lot of our brothers are now laid under because we had to bridge the gap of uncertainty with their lives. We remember them now… but in an hour? We forget them… when we raise our barrels, when we cut into those foes, and we liberate Polska!! This does not end tonight, but history puts everything in it’s place, and patience is the companion of the victor… All of our hard work will be cemented, no matter the obstacles we face in that darkness… no matter the demons, the blood, no matter what incomprehensible horrors, we will make them comprehend that to invade our land, to bleed our people, the justice will be paid in full… Load up. It’s time*”*.
The purpose in our steps was heavy as we climbed the back ramps of the MRAPS; Four of the heavily armored vehicles, one for each squad with an additional for attached personnel including our JTAC, the term means Joint Terminal Attack Controllers. With air support requisitioned to us for this operations, there needs to be a definite liaison on the ground who can directly communicate to the birds, and coordinate their fire and progress. I’d worked with many of them in the past, resourceful guys, quick thinking though I guess that comes with the position they hold of needing to quickly figure out what bombs to drop, on which target, at what precise points, whilst taking contact. He loaded in the lead vehicle with Major Krol… and soon, our convoy kicked off.
The drive was several hours as myself and my squad sat in the back of that forty ton goliath, the rumbling of the engine keeping us awake as the crap heater fought to keep the cold from the outside frost from setting in. I looked around to each of them, some were catching some sleep because even with the circumstances… better to get all the energy you can, than to stay awake for nothing. Others were checking their weapons… My gunner locked eyes with me, the same one from the village extraction… many of these men I had trained with for a while now, fought with for months.
We may have met on unconventional circumstances but those in JW Grom thrive on austere chance and create opportunity from scratch. I was pulled from my thought by the sound of a transmission, my peltors were set up for dual comms so I could both receive information from the Major and other leads, whilst communicating with my team.
Krol himself sent out: [“Approximately 10 minutes from enemy AO…”]. As the rest of the squads acknowledged, I quickly sent out [“Echo-2 Copies”], before kicking the boots of any of them sleeping: “Look alive, we’re here”. Through the exterior net armor of the MRAPS, and the bars protecting the small reinforced windows, we could barely see jack shit. I reached up, turning off the overhead light as we all looked through our nods to scan the outside. A dark wall of dense trees was shown before us, making it difficult to see… in addition to night vision capabilities we had also requisitioned ourselves some thermals… when mounted onto rifles they were bulky, made it a pain to aim down quickly, but considering the supernatural capabilities of spotting our foes we needed every advantage necessary.
I flipped out one of my tubes… scanning the outside with my scope. I looked over to one of my assaulters who had been assigned to man the turret of the MRAP, seated near the view screen as he controlled the 50. Cal. Each of the vehicle turrets had been assigned a direction to cover… we took the 9 o’clock, the left flank. “See anything?” I asked. He shook his head; “Negative… wait… I’ve got two cold signatures, front left heading to our rear”.
I quickly scanned the far tree line, at approximately 60 meters off our left were two cold signatures… followed by a third heading to our front… then another. They were surrounding us, moving at speeds so fast I could barely keep my reticle on them. Is this what the National Police saw? What they faced at that lodge without the benefit of a foot of heavy armor protecting them on all sides. Then… suddenly. Something slammed into the side of our MRAP so hard, it caused it to shake. From over the leader comms, Echo-3 quickly shouted [“Contact right!! 4 hostiles!!”].
One of the Strigoi… so bold, had charged and slammed into the side of our MRAP. I quickly looked to see the figure, a dark blue mass of cold energy through my thermal, back away without so much as a stagger… as they tried to flee into the woods, the white hot justice of Echo-3’s gun fired at them, cutting them down. “Blachowicz I’ve got a few breaking for our vic” my man on the turret called out, I spun around, spotting out the window.
Just then, Major Krol announced [“weapons free, watch and shoot for targets of opportunity…”]. I turned to him… “take those fuckers out-”. Without hesitation my vic’s turret began to quickly target them, and through the darkness I saw a stream of outgoing fire bisect one of them, the ISR of the black blood freaking out the optic so badly it didn’t know what temperature to register it as… but it did register it. As another was cut down, one broke through the tree line and latched onto the side of our MRAP. The thing tore at one of the outer net armor panels, usually made to stop RPGs. It grabbed at the bars near the windows, tearing one off… I lowered my rifle as we locked eyes through the reinforced window.
The thing… the Strigoi looked at me, skin cracked as putrefied muscle fibers seemed to leak through dead flesh. It’s teeth were corroded and worn down to sharp fragments, alongside newly mutated fangs that messily protrude from the jaws. Even through the thick walls of the MRAP I could hear it’s roar, as it then tried to punch it’s way through… it cracked the outer coating of the vehicle… but it wasn’t getting anywhere near. My machine gunner, seated next to me, seemed to chuckle at the sight, quippily saying “Yeah… fuck you too”. It’s then our vehicle lurched upwards, as we began to climb the small incline of the bunker. I knew the layout, mapped it in our head, the main entrance was built into the rocky side of an old cliff meaning we could easily set up a defensive perimeter around it, a horseshoe. Krol’s vehicle was first, taking to the right as Echo-3’s MRAP followed. My vehicle, third, left the incline and took a left and… that’s where things got complicated.
We’re still trying to work out what happened but… from what Joakim says his drone captured. Right when the MRAP turned, several of the monsters quickly slammed into the side of the vehicle, as another more bulkier one, pushed at it’s undercarriage. The result.. Was the 40 ton armored vehicle tipped over. It wasn’t uncommon, hell in some cases a well placed IED, a good shot with a recoilless rifle, have been known to tip over Oshkoshs and Maxpros all the time. But this beast? Needless to say we barely had a second to comprehend it as it leaned to the left; “Grab on to something-” is all I had time to shout. A mess of gear and men spilled onto one side of the vehicle as it slammed into the old gravel and dirt.
Several of my assaulters, my grenadier planted right ontop of myself and the others as we came to a stop. Someone’s knee slammed directly into the side of my skull, causing me to dazily bob in and out of consciousness as my face was smushed against the glass of one of the windows.
Through my peltors, the other squads were erratic;
[“Echo-2’s vehicle is down!!”].
[“Echo-3 to Echo-2… Echo-3 to Echo-2…”].
Krol’s voice came through the comms;
[“Echo-Lead to Echo-2… Fuc-... Echo-1 secure Echo 2’s flank, Echo-3”].
[“Echo-3 to other units, they’re spilling through, I’ve got several enemy combatants converging on Echo-2’s vehicle”].
I pushed the legs of my grenadier off my head as I fought to my hands and knees, unfucking my nods as I looked around… “Fuck it… we’re going lights on, shield your eyes” I muttered as I reached for the overhead lights and flipped them on. The bright LEDs bathed the inside of the vehicle as we all gained our bearings, a mess of multicam, gear, and weapons as we quickly pushed each other off. My gunner caught as he fought to realign his promask, from what I gathered one of the assaulters had landed directly into his gun, pushing it directly into his jugular, as pulled back at the rubber and coughed, freeing up his esophagus. We didn’t have time to think however… the sound of bending metal caught our attention… as the back ramp door of the MRAP was ripped clean off. I could barely believe it but as the white light of the MRAP’s interior poured to the outside, a hulking mass leaned in, the dead flesh on it’s face nearly fallen off as the hideous Strigoi leaned inside.
Without hesitation I aimed took aim, yelling “Keep to the deck!!” to any of those inbetween myself and the invader as I opened fire. A burst of full auto fire tore through it’s collar and neck, my men quickly clung to either sides of the fallen MRAP as a few more fired out. As the thing backed up, a blast of .50 cal fire quickly tore it to shreds, along with several others as I realized they were fuckin swarming over the outside of our vehicle. Echo-3’s vehicle continued to carefully fire on the Strigoi on the outside, the sounds of .50 cal ricocheting off the outside of our armor was enough to make the pucker factor set in.
[“Echo-3 to Echo-2”].
[“This is Echo-2, we’re green on ammo, equipment, men”].
[“Roger, we’re shifting fire, exit the vehicle”].
“Hurry up let’s go!!” I barked to my men, leading the way as I staggered out. I turned on my peq, taking aim at silhouettes in the brush as I began to fire. The sounds of machine guns lighting up the brush, as a sea of growls, howls, and incomprehensible roars fired back at us was the ambient noise of the night. My men quickly exited, my gunner being the last as he and I pulled back to the rest of the defensive perimeter. I set in my men to take up the frontal security, as 3rd squad took the right flank, 1st squad to the left. Major Krol and the JTAC were bickering with each other; “How far out are the birds”. “They’re entering airspace now…” Joakim said, already scanning his smart book.
I asked “What’ve we got?”. He then flipped through… to the NATO combined arms segment, quippily saying; “Apaches…”. This caused me to pause as Echo-3 turned their head whilst directing their squad’s fire “The hell… where did we get apaches from?”. “The Americans… they volunteered” Krol said dismissively as he took aim at the darkness, firing off a controlled trio. “Volunteered? They’re aware of what’s going on?” I asked.
Krol seemed to stop, glancing back at me before returning his focus “There’s a lot more going on than you realize, Blachowicz… Prep the breach, you and 1st are going on”.
I quickly pulled my breacher off the line, securing some thermite as the reinforced bunker door wasn’t going to go as easily as a conventional door breach would. 1st Squad pulled back, stacking up and preparing themselves to be the first in. All the while… Joakim gave his firing solution; “Alpha Hotel Two Five Nine, This is Bravo-4…… Type 2….”.
I snapped to my right, watching as a Strigoi managed to dark across the clear gravel field, only to be cut down by my gunner, the peq’s laser marking the burst as it tore through the beasts’ hips, as it hit the ground and still continued to claw, another GROM operator took aim and fired into it’s skull. Joakim popped up to his feet…. “Marking laser, high power…”. He then pulled out a target marking laser… if you’ve watched night operations, you’ve probably seen them.
The green laser than as it says on the label, marks targets. The pattern of which can vary… if it’s a point target, it’ll usually lasso an area, or remain on target until the target is removed with extreme prejudice. If its close air support, then it’ll be a line of the general area… and Joakim damn near marked the entire perimeter around us. He quickly pocketed the tool, turning back to Krol; “Don’t go past 20 meters unless you want to be liquidated”.
With that… 2nd and 1st stacked up at the door as 3rd squad took up the perimeter security. As Major Krol went over to Echo-1… I saw them. A single blinking IR strobe from the beasts as they moved on the far off horizon, converging from several angles… and fired. The sound of the Apache’s main gun, the M230, truly sounds like the hammer of god… the 30mm cannon shot through the dark sky, lighting it up as we saw three incoming streams tear up the woods. Only then as the sound broke did we start to hear their rotors as they broke and began to circle, firing again… then… Joakim dipped his head and looked to Krol; [“Foxtrot Mike, hang onto your teeth…”]. One of the Apaches fired off a AGM-114… a Hellfire. I barely saw it out of the corner of my eye as the Apache from our right flank fired off at a target approximately 200 meters off. A fireball lit up the forest as the horrendous roar echoed throughout… then went silent.
Echo-3 scanned the horizon carefully;
[“Echo-3 to Echo-Lead, enemy contact is starting to die down”].
[“Maintain perimeter, Close Air is to maintain fire mission until we are boots up, Break…”].
[“Echo-Lead to Echo-1, condition white has been met. Proceeds”]. I saw Echo-1 and his men quickly stack up close to the wall and gesture to me; Breaching. I quickly pulled my stack back against the wall as his and mine breacher quickly hit their actuators. Now under normal circumstances, it doesn’t take much for thermite to melt the locks off of a metal surface, in fact it’s a more precise took as alternative means get real medieval like saws, pry bars… we weren’t in the mood for precision, we need to breach their little lair, and drag them out. The sound of several pounds of hellfire burning through the metal could be heard around the corner as a sea of white and red sparks flew out… after several seconds, two of our men tossed a fragmentation grenade and a nine-bang through the opening… a series of concussive blasts and a large explosion rang out.
Echo-1 and his men maneuvered. 1st Squad quickly converged as we followed them in.
Stepping through the black wall of smoke, the dark abyss of the interior was illuminated in a white light as entered barrels raised. Shots rang out as several of the beasts near the entrance were cut down, though not immediately, rounds disconnected the shoulder of one of them, leading to their arm hanging limply by a single tendon as they roared… another series of rounds putting them down. What greeted us was a messy concrete hell of rust and debris, fecal matter, trash, and all kinds of obstacles laid in our way, our boots sticking to the floor. I thank every god we had promasks that night. I called my shield bearer up, 2nd squad leapfrogging ahead to take the next corridor as 1st squad checked their weapons.
One of my men mule kicked the metal door ahead, twice, finally the latch gave away as we tossed in a grenade. A horrifying roar was cut off as an M67 shook the walls of the ancient soviet mausoleum, frag and spall kicked off the walls as I moved in right behind my shield man. The cramped russian design meant there was barely enough space for three people, and that’s three normal people, not in 50kgs of kit, moving slowly and maneuvering against creatures of the dark. Still… we moved forward, my shield bearer and I pushing the pace as two stacked of either squad formed on either wall.
As we passed doorways they flowed in… “Door Left!!”, “Door Right!!”. “Move!!”.
Two men entered each side, no gunshots, we moved up, a roar came.
“Door left!!-”. A series of gunshots came out as we continued to push forward.
“Two down!!”. “Confirm them” Krol commanded, as a series of gunshots run out in response. From one of the doorways, a Strigoi emerged… a female… clumps of hair had been ripped from her decaying skull, as her blooded eyes locked on myself and my shieldman. The skin on her hands had been tore down to the point where barely her bones and tendons remain… looking like huge talons as she roared and lunged at us. He fired off his pistol, though the rounds did little to stop her as she pushed against our stack.
“Fuck!!” he muttered, somehow her strength caused him to stagnate, holding up the advance… fuck that. I shoved the muzzle of my MK18 into her ribcage, flipping the weapon to auto as I fired of round after round. The 5.56 salvo disconnecting her spinal column, causing her to fall as I continued to fire, along with a man to our right and left as the stacks reformed as we pushed to the end of the hall. I fell back, dropping the magazine and loading a fresh one, like clockwork a GROM Operator from 1st squad took my place. Krol was beside me as we approached the end of the hall.
[“-Prep an entry”] I radioed to my breacher, a comrade handed him one of the charges from his back panel as he took to the door, quickly securing it. We all moved as far back as we could, look away, exhale. The blast knocked metal and wood in all directions, scrapping against our uniforms and kit as we made our way in and what laid before us was… it used to be the center atrium of one of these bunkers. Soviet’s loved their grandiose designs, the complex was supposed to be a circular room around a central planning table… instead. It had been turned into some sort of church. Runes and old eastern Romuva pagan symbols written in black ink and blood across the walls, old rotten filing cabinets, long receipt terminals. In the center… several of the Strigoi were kneeling before the table where someone had been tied down, flayed, and… shared amongst the group. They rose to their feet, we aimed our barrels…
The ladder amongst turned to us… his skin wasn’t cracked, or flayed, it was smooth… it still looked dead as the body on the table but it seemed more… accustomed to it. I don’t know… evolved? Under the surface however I could see it’s darkened veins pumping whatever cursed blood ran through them as it locked two blood red eyes onto each of us. It’s nose had long since been turn off, exposing boney nostrils to the open air as it seemed to smirk. All across it’s body were the same symbols on the walls, in every cell… markings of death, of rebirth, of assimilation… From behind this seemingly Alpha emerges another figure I had never seemed before… dressed in a white cloak with a deer head.
"So they've followed the trail... they're too late" the Deer headed individual spoke, definitely not from here, a dialect similar to an Americans but... aristocratic? Each word was drawn out, assurance as if they had everything mapped down to our actions. They didn’t sound like they were from Poland or the east.
“Doesn’t matter…” the Alpha growled… and then, it lunged at us. Quickly breaking from their ground it slammed into my shield man knocking both him and myself at the ground as it displayed an intense feat of strength. Around us I could see several of the Strigoi leap at our comrades… though to no fruitful endeavor as I could see one GROM operator cut two down, as another got into a hand to hand confrontation… my breacher, crafty as they were, reached back and slammed one of the prybars of his kit into the skull of the beast.
The Alpha however was not content as it threw away the 90lb shield, sending it flying across the room as it grabbed my comrade by the skull. I quickly kicked up at it, firing my MK18 into it’s body as the rounds pierced it’s gray and rune covered flesh. The thing simply seemed to chuckle… that was until Major Krol blasted away at the side of it’s head, the alpha turned… and it’s smirk turned to a scowl when face to face with the major. A knowing pause almost like they had done this dance before…
The creature lunged, locking up with Major Krol as it swung and slammed railing. Krol didn’t back down however as he pushed against the creature, hiptossing it to the ground even as it tore at his armor and gear. But the beast pulled, both of them rolled and the Major was on his back as the thing reached for his neck. I fought to a kneel, firing into the creature messily with my MK18, trying not to hit my commander… then…
Click. A sound sends a chill up the spine of every warfighter during a firefight.
My gun ran dry. I dropped the magazine, looking to load another, but the thing came up and with one of it’s claws, sliced deep into my cheek, through the pro mask. I could feel my own blood go flying through the air as I landed hard on my back plate, spitting out red iron as I quickly tried to adjust my mask. Through my fogged up, blood covered lense… I saw my shield man raise his pistol, firing into the skull of the thing staggering it with a roar. Krol came from behind, drawing his knife he sunk it deep into the neck of it…. I reached for my rifle, forcing a new magazine in and damn near punching the bold release. ““Sir, down!!” I shouted, Krol rolled away, back to his own rifle as I fired. So did my comrade as he continued to fire his pistol… so did the Major as he fired his rifle. All of us chewing through that apex predator of darkness, that beast… the leader that had been preying on our people for so long. Layer by layer, muscle group by bone… eventually… the alpha landed on whatever was left of his back.
The silence of the fight died down as all of us checked our surroundings, GROM Operators putting controlled pairs in the heads and nerve stems of any Strigoi laying around… I flicked my weapon onto safe, letting it hang as I pulled off my mask. I dared not touch the wound on my face… the pain nearly crippling me if it wasn’t sheer will pushing me through, and adrenaline doing all it could to subdue it. The sound of the apaches continuing to lay hate drew us from our moment of contemplation as the Major went back to work; [“Confiscate any info, burn the rest…”]. He turned back to me as I shoved my damaged M50 mask back into it’s bag, chuckling as he looked at the sight; “You need a medevac, Blachowicz?” he quipped.
I shook my head, barely able to speak as I muttered; “Negative sir…”. The two of us scanned the room as my shield bearer went to collect his defense implement turned 90lb projectile, we scanned the center of the room, checking and confirming bodies, until we got to the last one alive. His white gown was soaked in red crimson and black ooze, as his dear head was mangled from bullet fire and impact from falling on it. I swear… the way his blood poured out of it though made me wonder if it was a mask. I gave it no second thoughts as he looked to Krol; “You… you can’t stop this, they’ve already-”.
The Major was in no mood for communication as his rifle snapped up and fired off three rounds to the body, four the head. The violent yet quick salvo ending the cultists life, I looked down at it, then to him as he remarked; “Have your squad drag him out to the front, burn the rest”. I stood alongside him, looking down as the sight of it’s deer head was both captivating and horrifying… the curiosity in me wanting to look closer at it fighting the primal instinct I had to burn the thing to ash. “-Haven’t seen one of those before…” I muttered, thinking the Major had an answer.
He didn’t. Krol saying “Neither have I…” shortly before he walked away, was what truly shook my soul about that entire night. Victory stood firm in our hearts that night as we stood outside of the bunker. The night sky burning with fire and white phosphorus as we watched the ruin burn from the inside from the other side of the lot. In the distance, the Apaches continued to scan and circle the forests, no longer firing…. Which meant they had driven any or turned to glass any enemy combatants within a four miles, probably both, more than likely the latter. Echo-1 patted me on the shoulder as we stood there, soaking it all in, though Krol looked none to pleased. “In the time it took us to take this one down, they’ll be trying to set up three more cells… that being established…” he said, looking to either of us, then to Echo-3. “-Hell of a thing we did tonight, been waiting for this one for a decade, cleanly, maybe more… but no time to rest on our laurels… we’ll have another task for us as soon as we’re boots down back home” he said, to which his eyes followed mine, the body of whatever cultist that was zipped up in a black body bag beside the wheel of one of the MRAPs. The fire from the bunker casting an orange hue over it’s shiny jet black outside, something didn’t sit right with me… “That wasn’t a Strigoi…” I said to Krol.
“That’s very clear…” the Major said, shoving his mask under his arm and lighting a cigarette. “So… someone’s helping them?” I asked. The meer notion of it shook me to my core, sickened me. This parasite was already badly infecting Europa, Polska… if it was spread like this throughout the world. Krol settled my nerves: “We’ll be ready… It’s not just us anymore”. As he said that, I realized what he meant… my eyes looking to the Apaches as they started to form up, leaving the areas as their thunderous propellers melted into the night’s calm, unnerving ambience.
It’s been a couple of weeks since then, Echo Detachment has been busy. We’ve gained good ground against the enemy and honestly I think in a few years, we might see a much larger change. For now… we must keep going, that being said the Strigoi aren’t the only ones we’ve been combating. Recently we’ve made contact with of some sort of extermination coalition, they’ve known about the Strigoi, and others plaguing the world, the level of corruption and corrosion on society goes deep. Regardless a lot of the units we’ve been working with are apart of NATO, such as this “4th Special Forces Group” of the American Military. I don’t know where the road from here leads, but we’ve gotten momentum on our side, finally. Just remember… these things are out there, in every town, every city, every nation… preying and waiting for you to be alone, vulnerable, so they can take you and replace you.
Watch your back, and stay safe.
For now, Blachowicz signing out. Until next time

(I made this a while ago on a old account and just remembered about it so I decided to post it here hopefully y'all enjoy)
I don't have long. I go on walks in the woods before bed nothing too creepy happens. Well one time I head a wolf so I had to run didn't go back in the woods for a few week. But then I started my nightly walks it was the middle of winter and unlike most stories there was no snow. So I was walking around just exploring I had a bottle of water and a pack of peanuts and some chips. I usually walk for a hour or two so I was at the 45 minute mark of my walk when I heard what sounded like a stick being stepped on.
I stopped form a moment and waited to see if I head any thing else sounded like somebody walking. Not here's something u should know I don't ever see anybody else out here unless if it somebody who needs me and came looking for me. So hearing this was creepy I started walking a little faster but trying to stay quiet so who or what ever was out there didn't find me. I wouldn't go back cus it sounded to my right and a little behind me I turned around and kept looking over my shoulder but I didn't see anything.
It did stop for a bit and after 15 minutes I thought I would head back plus it was starting to get dark so I kept a kinda fast pace just in case. It took about 25 minutes before I head it again but this time it sounded close and was back the way I came and now to what's now my right what what would of been my left earlier. So I when into a speed of someone skipping and after about what felt like 3 minutes I head a small quiet moan. It sounded like a old man that had fallen and was in pain. I stopped hoping no body was hurt I listened and head it again it's wasn't louder or quieter it sound the same direction away.
The voice called and said simiss who ever there please help me I fell and I thing I twisted my ankle. It took me a moment to think and called out. Are you ok do u need me to get help I don't have my phone but I'll run and get help it mite take me a moment.
It took the man a moment before I head.
No please don't leave me out here I don't want to be eaten by a bear or wolf's please I was out looking for my dog I haven't seen her in a few days and I came looking I head u and I was trying to ask if you seen her.
I was about to answer him but then I remembered something a few nights ago I was out for my usual walks a butt earlier in the day than usual. I was bored that day and had nothing to do anyway I was walking around when I smelled something It Small like death I thought a wolf or bear had killed something so I went towards the smell carefully not to be head by any animals just In case one was eating. What I saw scared me it was a dog it was black with white areas on it not sopts but just ares of white. What I say made me pulk the fruit snacks I was eating while walking don't worry I was putting the trash in my pocket.
Anyway what u saw was the dogs guts and all our own the ground blood everywhere and bugs on and Inside the thing it was disgusting I was starting to tear up I didn't know what to do but the thing that scared me was that it looked like it was ripped open and bite marks was on its neck and on its back it was missing it left front leg and back right leg.
I took a picture of it before leaving that was 5 days ago now back to the old man. I asked him what color his dog was and he said.
It was black and patches of white fur.
And before I said anything else I realized something was worng about his story he said his dog went missing 3 days ago but the corpse of the dog I found was 5 days ago. Meaning eather there was two different dogs that where black and white or this guy was lying. Eather way I had my guard up just in case. I know I didn't mention this before but I always bring a pocket knife with me just in case. I asked the man if he was alone he said.
Yes but my wife will be worried if I'm not back soon.
It was almost completely night if I didn't figure this out soon then it would be harder to get help with it being dark and the animals that will come out. I ask the guy if he lived hear by and if I could get his wife and this is what he said.
NO! i-i-i m-mean I live a bit away about 37 minutes u mite not "come back in time". And I don't want to "be" by my self for to long do please ( now crying ) PLEASE COME HERE.
I started to become scared he sounded louder and a bit closer and mader. And before I respond some caught me off guard his voice when he said.
Come back in time. And be.
His voice sounded lowers and not of a old man. I took 2 steps back and yelled to him. ILL BE Bring HELP IF I RUN IT SHOULDN'T TAKE ME LONG. ... ... ... I didn't go hear anything for a what felt like 27 seconds I heard a loud deep scream. It only took my a second before I booked it I hard running behind me I only looked back once and that all I need to run faster. What u saw was a haft rotten corpse of a old man running after me his limbs was moving at odd angle as the Thing ran it looked like it was losing ski. It had a missing eye and a few teeth missing. I ran and ran I heard it getting closer and closer. After what felt like forever of running I remember I had a knife
I took the knife in my hand I didn't have good ame so if I wanted to slow it down I had to get close. ... Way to close. So after a little bit more of running I turned around with my knife in hand and blade open. When I turned around I saw nothing I knew I heard it running but I had ran for a good bit so it mite of stopped with out me knowing. But I didn't stick around cus I thought I heard leafs breaking so I started running again after a bit I got back to my house and took no time unlocking the door and going inside and locking the door but I still didn't feel safe so I went around my small home and looked I. All the rooms after that I made sure all the doors were locked and locked all the windows and closed the blinds and certains.
I heated me up some left over pizza I had and went to my room and watched some YouTube. I didn't sleep that night the for the next few safe to say the I haven't went out at the for the next few days after a week I started to be able to sleep I work form home so I didn't leave unless I had to which wasn't often just to get food/drink's/mail now for the main reason I'm telling this story I watch the news form time to time and on this night I was watching it while scroll through TikTok when I heard on the new they found a missing guy dead on the road.
Now I turned up the volume just u don't hear this alot atlest I don't want scared me the most that it was the guy that was chasing me when I say the my jaw dropped then I found out it was the road about 5 miles away from my house. Let's just say that I got me some food and water my knife block full of all of it's knives and locked me in my bedroom and the other door leading to my baft room the thing that terrified me the most is the big window in my bedroom room this is not a tiw storie house so if anything could happen.
Now the reason I'm waiting all this I heard tapping on my window and knocking on my front door ik it's that thing and I now know what it is I saw it's shadow on my window certain it had a human like body with what looked like a deer skull I'm being hunted by a wendigo and ik I will died if this is my last time hear I just want y'all to know if u ever hear walking in the woods RUN cus I don't have long to live.

As If It Were Kismet: Prologue
Matt tore through the brush, blind in the dark. He didn’t care where he was going. He only knew he needed to be elsewhere. Far from here.
Behind him a creature howled that shocked his mind. It’s form was cruel and dangerous, though female. Nothing like the young woman she had once been. Nothing but a girl, a small and slight female.
It’s guttural growls and howls only grew closer as Matt tried to pick between seeing where he was going and getting away. The few times he looked he caught sight of the creature behind him. Hopping through the air with a speed that told him he was being toyed with. As if he were a mouse being played with by a cat.
But the reflex in him to run kept him going. His adrenaline going as hard as it could. The tightness and burning in his core tensing and locking up as his legs felt like there were being burned from within while taking on more of a heaviness.
His lungs were starting to betray him as he tried to gulp big breaths of air but only rapid and shallow breaths were all that he could manage. His brain was starting to burn….and then he was falling.
Falling down the side of a hill he saw the creature dart in a spring towards him, imperceivably fast almost. Catching him in mid air it seemed.
Managing to wrap its body around him and cushion his impact against the ground as they rolled. His mind barely took in what was happening during the roll. Only starting to understand what was happening once they were still.
The creature's triple D-cup breasts were unmistakably pressed hard against his back as he laid facing up at the night sky.
For a few seconds the world stilled and the needle light pain hitting the center of his brain took over for the cooking heat his brain had felt. His whole body felt heavy and reluctant to move.
Even if he could have really moved, a dull ache came over his limbs making them feel stilled and trapped as if by immeasurable amounts of sand that had engulfed him.
Slowly the arms holding him started to move. Moving so the creature's hands could start exploring him. Causing Matt to unstoppably let out a pathetic moan that made him go cold inside as hands lifted up his shirt and started to touch his exposed stomach and then his chest.
He would have whimpered so pathetically had he not still been in the depths of terror.
As its hands felt and groped his pecs he tried to situp as if to get away. For his efforts, his reward was a hand around his throat and a collection snarls and growls against his ear. A beastly, guttural voice spat words at him while somehow holding a feminine tone.
“Don’t move….I don’t know if I can calm down…”
Her words were not helped by her moans in his ear and the subsequent kissing of his ear. The flesh of his ear going between her lips as she moaned and seemed to pant. Releasing it and licking the side of his face with a moist warmth. He could feel its spittle, viscous and coating his flesh where the tongue touched. He could smell something in his saliva. Something that subtly entranced him.
Matt went stock still with fear and the confusion of mixed arousal. He barely perceived her right hand traveling lower on his body. A surprised moan and shudder echoed in the night from Matt’s lips as she took ahold of him. Her hand above his pants but still….stimulating him.
A light squeezing and almost probing of her digits kept him aroused and confused within her grasp. Resigning himself to the strange fate, Matt looked up at the stars as his mind tried not to shatter under the strange maelstrom of events and sensation that had started mere minutes ago.
His mind was only more confused as a slight figure, feminine in build, how it seemed to thunk the ground audibly as she landed on her feet out nowhere. Her knees barely bending under the pressure of the landing. Yet dirt was kicked up anyways and some of it onto Matt. Feeling it pepper his shirt and pants as it fell.
The figure, lit only faintly by moonlight, roared some dark tone Matt could only perceive as a demon as her eyes went bright with a crimson light. A light in the darkness that should not have been. “Let him go you bitch.” Was its words following the roar. Spittle escaping its mouth with faint droplets hit Matt's face.
The creature holding him by his throat and crotch seemed to tighten the grasp of both hands as it roared back. “HE IS MINE!”
The figure paused with a moment's hesitation. He was also her quarry. She had felt his fear without him knowing. His confused arousal. His fear. His terror.
And now he laid at the center of a struggle between two monsters. Unsure of who he wanted to win.
As If It Was Kismet Ch. 1
Matthew Berkshire hadn’t seen his mom in two years. Not that he had seen her much over the last six years.
A messy divorce between messy people and mom’s chaotic want for a life in Alaska had been one of the most…upsetting times in life. Setting him up for so much of what had defined his life thus far but then that had really started two years before he ever turned.
His ear buds were basic and simple. A part of cheap five pack, common for his life as he was known to lose little things. Small things. They had a mix of metal and hard rock playing in them. Some classics, some alternative. Whatever made him feel something, anything. Even if it was hate. Anger. Rage. It was better than feeling numb. Not belonging.
The escalator down to his lone bag to go with his lone carry on showed his mom waiting for him. His had a type, that’s for damn sure. Not that it helped him in the genetics department as he was stuck at 5’9” to go along with his mother’s five foot even as his dad stood six foot. Forever leaving him to feel small, to pale, under his dad’s shadow. Did he ever stand a chance?
The guy next to her with the unkempt former seventies porn stache was “Dave.” He’d met him twice when his mother came and visited him in Florida. To his credit the guy didn’t look annoyed. Kind of concerned kind of which made Matthew want to break his frozen look but he was well practiced. Having removed any note of sadness from his face through much…tribulation.
His mother’s look on her face betrayed a hint of worry as the bruises on his face lightly showed up close. Saying his name was his like a distant echo that belonged to someone else.
Dave cut in and pulled out his right headphone. “What the hell bud, they knock you hard enough to hurt hearing? Your mom’s asking how you are doing.”
Matthew pulled out the other bud and grunted an empty “sorry.”
“You still have bruises after two week? What did they do to you?” His mom’s voice was full of worry. Something he hadn’t heard in….too long. Too long to make him feel anything. To ever make him believe there was any sincerity to her words. To not think her voice and mannerisms were an act. An act by someone who…wasn’t really there.
“It’s only fair. I took a nose. Fractured a couple orbital bones. Left one with having to get his jaw wired shut. And one will never walk right again for what I did to his knee cap.” Matthew said it all with a bored and disinterested tone. Perhaps well rehearsed.
“My man, handing out ass kickings, not bothering to take names.” Dave was quick to be the typical man’s man about it. Matthew wasn’t quite done yet. Lifting up his shirt to expose the right side near his kidney. Revealing a nasty scar from a six inch blade. “Luckily they gave me this first so they could rule it all in self-defense. The fuck didn’t get it in more than inch before I ruined his knee cap and then I took the nose of one of the fucks holding me.” Now he chose to smile keeping the well practiced dead look in his eyes.
No retorts. No questions. Just horrified looks on their faces. As he liked. As he preferred. They could hate him. They could be disgusted by him. But by God they would fear him.
“Well the doc did a good job sewing you up.” Dave commented uncomfortably. “Dissolving sutures. Ain’t they grand.” He smiled again and let it abruptly fall off his face and started walking to the carousel for the baggage claim.
Waiting and making small talk with Dave as his mother stood in silence. He was not the little boy she abandoned. The little boy she left with an angry man. While never hitting him. Left him in constant fear till he turned twelve and just didn’t care anymore. Something snapped. Broke. And he didn’t care if he died. Didn’t care if he stole. Didn’t even care if he killed. He just knew not to get caught. Something left over from his grandfather’s wisdom which came to make more and more sense with each passing year of life since that thing inside him broke.
Finally his bag came around and Dave went to try first to grab it but Dave practically leapt ahead of him. “Is that your grandfather’s rucksack bag?” his mother asked in a perplexed voice.
“Figured it’s been around since Viet Nam. So it’d serve me better than any of the worthless stuff they called luggage.” Dave commented after Matthew’s words. “Well hell yeah I still got mine from Desert Storm. You know the first one.” Dave laughed and Matthew eyed him oddly. Be it in the south or whether it was Alaska, country boys are country boys he guessed.
The car ride to the two people’s house, as Matthew thought of them. Was uneventful and full of vistas he imagined metropolitan types wetting themselves over. At most they meant isolation to him. Furtherness from the world as there were no mountains in Florida. And what mountains he had last seen in another state had been when he was eight. Another life, to Matthew it felt like. A life alien to him.
As If It Was Kismet Ch 2
Dave and his mom’s place was some two story type tucked into a tree line far up an elevated point. It was by no means the highest point in the mountain but it certainly felt up there.
Rocks were where the driveway should have been Matthew thought. Grabbing his backpack and rucksack from Dave’s jeep was no hard thing for him. Matthew was in formidable shape for someone his age, maybe even five years older. He had gotten a mix of fairly big shoulders and arms along with the chest to go for it when compared to most kids his age. A side effect of working out at least twice a day. First thing in the morning, some time in the evening, and the school’s gym when had had a good semester in school before he had to leave Florida.
Dave tried to come up and help him but Matthew walked past him towards the house. His mom was not sure what to make of his demeanor. Matthew was not the sweet kind boy he had once been. But she had been gone from his life essentially for a long time.
Ushering him into the house she cracked some joke he did not hear. He was too busy looking about and seeing a mix of old outdated decorating mixed with the strange and odd flair of his mother. Color contrasting against drab and dated. Like brightly painting over an old home that was falling apart he thought.
“Your room is this way Mattie.” His mom brightly intoned.
Without expressing any interest he followed his mother. Still faced and nonplussed. Just going along with the current. Pushed and pulled with its roll like a piece of driftwood.
The room was simple. A single small bed. A set of rubber weights with a curl bar and barbells. “Your dad said you were into weight lifting so we got you a bunch of stuff. Dave says it looks like his department’s gym almost. The woman’s smile felt very alien to him.
“Thank you. I appreciate it. I’ve got most of my stuff from home.” Matthew starting unpacking his rucksack and pulled out cables of repetitive and mixed colors. A single plastic barbell handle. The ruck sack could be filled with water bottles for added weight during pushups he figured. Remembering a Michael Keaton movie he watched with his dad post-Batman movies where he played a convicted killer using plastic bags filled with water for weights.
Matthew caught movement outside his lone fairly large window that could let him step out onto the roof of the house given its layout.
He saw a number of people running together through what he guessed was the backyard of the property, not that it had any fences to mark boundaries
They wore clothes that looked similar yet different from each other at the same time.”Oh those are the Johnston’s. Really nice bunch of people. Been on the mountain for a long time Dave tells me.”
Matthew looked at the group of people running and noticed the lack of resemblance. “They are related?” Matthew quizzically asked. Seeing a black and possibly a hispanic person amongst the bland looking white people.
“Oh well they are all adopted but for one or two of them…besides the parents of course. The family has a long tradition of taking in orphans they say. Real nice of them to do that don’t you think.”
Matthew looked at his mother and the hosier accent made no sense to him as he arched his left eye brow. Her and his dad were both from Florida. Born and raised. Sure her parents were from New York city but…
Matthew shook his lightly without turning to look at his mother as his vision was grabbed by one of the runners in particular. A girl of moderate height. Soft brunette. A plain beauty he figured with a slim build….and lack of remarkable breasts and rear to make any note of but….girls in general were his type at his age.
She was pretty enough. He couldn’t deny that but he found himself transfixed by her visage.
But the way she turned and looked at him, especially at that distance felt very disconcerting to him. Even if she was smiling like…she was a taste of a bright shiny day. Somehow.
Matthew’s mom noticed the exchange and smiled to herself with closed lips. “Oh that’s Vicky. She’s your age I think. Very sweet girl, who does the charity functions. You know bake sales, blood drives, car washes and the like. I think you should get to know her. Might be good for you.”
A truck horn sounded a couple of beeps in rather succession. “Oh that must be Mack, he said he might come by later this evening but he seems early.”
Matthew’s mother turned and left his room. Leaving Matthew to exchange a few looks with the alluring Vicky as she turned her head away from him to talk to the others in her group and look back at him.
Still Matthew’s left eyebrow was arched. In a way that reminded him of Spock from Star Trek that he and his grandpa used to watch on some streaming service or another.
As he heard ambient chatter elsewhere outside the house he figured to check it out as the alluring sight of Vicky would be around he figured. It was dull to stare at artwork. He was a boy who preferred jet skis and the like. Something he could ride and enjoy immensely. Even if at times it got him stabbed.
As If It Was Kismet Ch 3
Matthew sauntered out of the house and down the rockway that stood in for a driveway.
A few new people had come over from what he could first surmise of the situation. As he got closer it was obvious they were indigenous people. A couple of grown men…and a girl?
She was mousey. Maybe five foot. Hiding behind glasses and a big camo jacket that was far too big for her. It looked made for a grown man and the backwards trucker hat on her head kept her long black a beautiful mess of sorts.
She was cute in a way. A little androgynous but she had a cute energy to her. She reminded him of the more tomboyish Puerto Rican girls he had gotten into back in Florida. Given the deer corpses in the back of the truck….probably more dangerous to play with given the men in her family.
Small chatter passed between the adults when the girl noticed but turned away, trying to hide the tiny hint of a smile.
“Oh Mattie, this is Mack. He works with Dave at the sheriff’s department and John, he’s with fish and wildlife.” Matthew nodded at his mom’s words with some blankness as he looked at the deer the in the back of the pickup truck.
“Gale tells us you hunted with your dad some in Florida and Georgia.” Mack offered with a light hearted laugh camouflaged by his big simple and cheery but husky way he spoke.
Looking in the back of the truck he spoke. “We used lever action thirty-thirties and Mosin Nagants in seven-six-two-fifty-four-rimmed.” Mack and John whistled in an exaggerated fashion. Leaving Matthew to wonder if they were mocking him.
Mack spoke. “Well we just used thirty-odd-six in a custom gussied Garand.” That caught Matthew’s attention. “You have a Garand…” Matthew finally demonstrated interest in anything. “My dad has an SVT-40 and a Hakim 8mm but he always wanted a Garand but was too cheap to buy one.”
Gale, his mother, chimed in loudly. “Oh his Dad loved his guns but was such an odd duck about how he bought or why he bought them. Never made sense to me how he wasn’t a collector but he didn’t get the latest and greatest.” Gale laughed uncomfortably. At least it seemed that way to Matthew.
Matthew pointed to the girl with an underhanded pointing hand. “And who is this? A cute little mute mouse or does she have a name?” Dave and the other men laughed.
Mack again spoke. “Well you people call her Rebecca, she’s my adopted daughter.” Matthew was taken aback by what he heard. “You people?”
Rebecca kindly spoke with a soft but almost melodic voice as she struggled to maintain eye contact. “White people or rather not members of our tribe. It’s just easier to appease the colonizer kind of thing. Borrowed from when the Jesuit missionaries chased us up here.”
Mack stepped in. “It’s just easier to have white people names than have them try to say our tribal names. And we don’t want them shortening or Anglicising our names kind of thing.” Rebecca stepped back into the conversation cutting off her adopted father. “It’s an insult to our history basically.”
Matthew cocked his head sideways raising his eyebrows shortly before letting them drop. “Well as soon as I’m eighteen I’m out of here and back to Florida so I’m a sort of involuntary colonizer of sorts. So I won’t be taking any of your land from you. The Seminoles on the other hand are still shit out of luck.”
Rebecca’s smile caused Matthew to reflexively smile. Mack made the moment more awkward. “See Becca, I told you someone off the reservation would like you some. You just have to be creative.” Mack laughed in a chiding manner…Matthew presumed. He sensed that he was the butt of some kind of cultural joke. Like marrying a white guy was some sort of insult or mark of shame. That kind of thing.
Rebecca turning away from him was not something he had been expecting. Her then getting in the truck in a huff left the group in a silence for a moment.
Dave spoke to break the awkward silence. “Well just bring the truck to work on Monday and leave it for me to grab up.” Mack acknowledged Dave and they started to get off as Rebecca looked at Matthew for another instance. Matthew couldn’t look away for some reason as the two seemed to lock eyes for an instance.
Till Vicky and family seemed to come jogging down the road. While Matthew’s eyes diverted from Rebecca’s. Hers did not till she realized he was looking elsewhere. And her vision found Vicky and what had been a hint of smile on her face turned glum and disappointed.
Matthew did not look away from the vision of Vicky but instead of a starry eyed fool looking longingly. It was a baffled look. Well baffled for him, with his eyes drawn narrow and night with a focus.
There was something about her…he couldn’t quite put a name too. The way she appeared to him. One second brunette. The next second blonde or blonde like. As if the color appeared in her air and disappeared in fractions of seconds. Much the same way her body almost seemed to…shift…very subtly…smoothly. A nicer bum. Larger breasts. And then back to a simple and plain form. Feminine no doubt. Attractive. But not so…remarkable.
As If It Was Kismet Ch 4
The next two days passed without incident. Nothing of any real substance or challenge to note.
Matthew got settled somewhat and started working out almost immediately. Exploring around the woods but Dave told him not to go far. Especially without a hunting rifle. Dave had left a simple semi-auto Winchester out for him. His bear gun as Dave referred to it with its four round magazine. But Matt figured till he got some practice with the rifle to leave it alone. He made a hiking stick like his grandpa taught him and treated it over a low fire. He would take some electrical tape for the end his hand would grip around. Plenty enough to ward off anything smaller than a bear he figured.
The ride to school was a pain in the neck but simple enough. Dave would let him use a clunker pickup truck he had laying around. It wasn’t pretty but it would get him to and from. Even if it was from the eighties and still backfired on occasion. But for now Dave and his mom took him on their way to the sheriff’s department.
It wasn’t much of a school. It wanted to be modern but its fifties original construction was very obvious. It serviced the pipeline families and familys’ of fisherman who worked the seasons in between their time at the pipeline.
Matt was to report to the principal for some reason Dave and his mom wouldn’t share. Which annoyed him but he figured it was to read him the law of land. Small towns with their big views of the outside world and like.
Dressed in jeans, a grey sweatshirt under a light jacket with steel toed boots set him more apart then he expected. His buzzed head didn’t help matters. Already he was feeling like a stranger in a strange land but he was quite strange after all. And he liked it that way. Normal people were so pathetically disappointing to him.
A secretary or assistant or some such led him to the principal’s office. Where it reeked of real wood that was old and fabric and upholstery that needed to be updated for the last twenty years, Matt figured.
“This is Matthew Berkshire, Principal Andrews.” The man was turned with his back to the door and he was quick to wave her off as he turned her around.
He was an older man. Fat and large. Tall with a body built like he had once been fit and a demeanour of annoyed and irate already as he fixed Matt with a scowl and look of disgust. Another worthless government whore. Matt thought to himself. His father and his grandfather had bestowed unto him a natural disrespect for government workers and the figures that wore unjustified authority as a shield but pretended the weight of the state was not at their back ready to crush all who resisted. Little figures of valor pretending to be mighty and alone but acting with the tyranny of the state and all the backing.
“Mr. Berkshire, please sit down.” His tone wasn’t unusually hostile, just gruff. As if he had better things to do.
Matt complied and took a seat in the chair while maintaining a friendly facade. Not everyone was an enemy. And not everyone needed to be an enemy. Even if anybody could be any enemy. There was no reason to make enemies you didn’t have to. Another of his grandfather’s bastardised wisdoms.
“Well I looked over you file and you have quite the history Mr. Berkshire.” Matt resisted qiuping back a joke. Instead he waited for Principal Andrews to continue as he remained nonplussed and looking as if he felt no need to respond. A simple head tilt with dead eyes looking back at the principle as if he was not even there would suffice.
Matt’s reaction or lack of a reaction rather made Principal Andrews only narrow his eyes with examination. He was not used to a kid not responding to him. Especially with his gruff and hard act going on.
“Well by all accounts you moved here after some problems at your last school. A fight broke out and you did some real harm to your fellow students it appears.” Of course, he would take the side of the perpetrators. School administrators always did. Especially when they weren’t white. Just a fact of the times. Cowardice and pathetic mediocrity was the way they leaned, like good government workers sucking the dick of Big Daddy government. Worthless whores.
Matt chose to reply. “Oh you mean the criminals that stabbed me. Got arrested at the hospital and then pled to felonies. Yeah Florida, with the American counties are good like that.” Principal Andrews went real still. No shame. No fear. No penitence. He didn’t like that.
“Well be it as it may Mr. Berkshire we don’t tolerate that kind of behaviour here…” Matt cut him off responding with a deadpan tone. “You mean self-defense meant to save one’s own life while the cowardly and pathetic school workers look on with zero interest but to keep their money rolling in and will allow known gang members with records of violent acts and crimes that should have them expelled many times over, where in certain Democrat counties such cowardice and idiocy empowered a couple school shooters?”
Principal Andrews looked at the Matt with a note of disgust. “Look here Mr. Berkshire, your beliefs matter not one bit here. This isn’t Florida. We don’t like our way of life being disrupted by outside agitators who have problems with authority.”
Matt did his best not to roll his eyes and let the older fat man drone own as he dead-stared him. Lifeless and without emotion.
The man came to a finish and Matt spoke up without having listened to him or paid him any attention. “Great now that’s taken care of. Can I please get to class and finish my sentence of two years at your wonderful school?”
Principal Andrews huffed and snorted before calling in Vicky. Vicky stood in the corner after entering with a quiet and seamless presence. Matt felt disturbed and tried not betray his feelings as the young Vicky was perceived and not perceived to be moving.
Principal Andrews made the introductions and Matt nodded back. She was to be his chaperone for the day. They had the same classes and she was to show him the ropes so to speak. The ins and outs of the school. The locations of their classes.
He recognized her. It was hard not to. The way her appearance seemed to shift fluidly almost. The petite and skinny brunette ever so lightly had a big bust and blonde hair with curves added when she seemed to shift before his eyes. Like watching a film but each frame had a different person.
Matt didn’t say anything about it. Even if he did he would only be acknowledging his crazed state, if he had one. If.
Unlike an obedient puppy dog he got up in a slow and awkward fashion and followed behind her as his oddly disproportionate frame allowed. Causing her a note of concern for some reason. As if she was seeing something she shouldn’t have been….Or he was just weird. And Matt could admit to himself he was just weird. Part of his charm, he would jest about it at times. Not that he had many people to jest to now.
As If It Were Kismet Ch. 5
Following Vicky into the hall off to their first class was simple. She exchanged small talk and he slightly smiled as if to obviously suggest he was just being polite.
Inside his head, Matt was trying to figure out if he was having a psychotic break. The way Vicky looked kept changing and he looked at the other people around him and they stayed the same.
He was searching his mind as they were walking. And thus he wasn’t paying attention to where he was looking and so fell to his face forward over his feet seemingly out of nowhere.
A series of laughs erupted as it sunk in that he was obviously tripped. Like in prison this was a challenge to his superiority. If he let this pass he would be mocked and sneered at by this same group of boys. He wouldn’t walk to them like he was going to do nothing like a little bitch.
In a rage he turned and punched the stomach of the first face he saw. Some typical blonde haired wannabe jock. He knew from experience not to aim for the ribs. Instead he needed to aim for where he thought the belly button was.
Yells and screams blindly echoed around him as his after the punch he followed up his elbow of the opposite arm slamming into the face of the jock. Harder than a fist, the elbow struck the jock’s jaw and seemingly dropped him against a locker. Just in time to catch an errant and soft punch to the nose that sure enough hurt but did little to slow him down as his dad had taught him to fight through the pain. Blood and scars happened. They were a natural consequence of life to a man.
Taking the punch and falling further into his red state Matt headbutted the punch thrower before another guy arm bared his throat from behind. Which he managed to get his grip on the arm over a letterman jacked and jerk the unprepared boy to the side with him still latched on.
A few feet away from the lockers Matt knew his only chance was to jump and push off the lockers and knock the boy to the ground and so he did. He heard a thunk of the boy’s skull bouncing off the ground and he turned to pull out of the grapple.
The beatings he had taken from his father, the grapples, being choked unconscious. Had prepared him for fighting little bitches who didn’t know what a fight was. It wasn’t gay porn with rabbit punch fists flying.
Blood was running down his face and the pain started to hit him as the threats had been eliminated. Only then did he remember to breathe. Taking breathes as Vicky came up to him with tissues and took a hold of his nose.
“Owww owww owww what the fuck my nose could be broken.” He said to Vicky as she pulled his head up and back.
“It’s ok Carl. It’s done.” Matt tried to look to see who Vicky was talking to. It was a boy taller than his 5’9” by more than a small margin. The boy eyed him bored and annoyed before speaking. “What happened here?” An unoriginal line but one Matt couldn’t be a smart aleck about. “Well you see there was an outbreak of tripping and we all tripped over my dick. It happens.” Matt was about to laugh when Vicky seemed to pull up while still gripping his nose causing Matt no small amount of pain which he audibly evidenced.
Vicky spoke in a tone he wasn’t expecting. As if she was accustomed to issuing orders. “Keep Iris away from the hall till we sanitize the site. We have blood from at least three people contaminating the site. And have Jake bring me a spare jacket and shirt for this moron.”
Carl seemed to acknowledge her orders and seemed to blink away. Maybe the punch hit harder than he expected. He had no time to wonder as Vick took her hand away from his and pushed him against the lockers. With ease he had not been expecting from her form and stature.
Before he could respond Vicky licked his blood covered chin and then his lips and spoke to him. “Focus on me you little blood bag.” Her tone had an annoyed yet feminine sneer.
“Look into my eyes. Look at me. You belong to me. You are just another food source in a collection of food sources.” Her eyes were a beautiful hazel Matt thought. Almost green. Pretty like jewels in some old treasure collections. The eyes he could get lost in before kissing her. Finally Vicky was just a slight and petite brunette and he thought she was beautiful.
She would make a hell of a girlfriend. Some cute thing he could see laying on the beach in Florida on their sides laughing and smiling before trading light kisses while hands wandered innocently. Before his mind could drift further he felt her lips on his. It took him a second to mentally grasp the kiss but his arms were around her back as her hands were at his sides. His eyes reflexively closed as he saw hers close.
It was ineffable to Matt. Beyond words, what was happening. The kiss, the moments beforehand. The way his brain tickled with electricity and gentle warmth. He had never had a kiss like this and he had traded more than a few kisses with at least a few girls.
The kiss was like a warm bath with his consciousness slipping beneath the surface. Their lips only parted to try new angles and approaches as Matt struggled to take in breath. It was a moment he could have stayed trapped in for….he didn’t know. But a curt throat clearing by another girl pulled them out of the moment.
The girl was taller than Vicky. Blonde. With slight curves. Vicky addressed her bewildered and gobsmacked, and perhaps a bit embarrassed. “Tina?”

This is an expansion of a recent post and also incorporates some ideas from this theory (by u/ndependent-Design17). Throughout the series the reader is repeatedly reminded that "only death can pay for life" — that magic, especially powerful magic, comes at great cost.

"Only death can pay for life, my lord. A great gift requires a great sacrifice.”

Davos, ASOS
This phrase or variations of this phrase are repeated by Melisandre, Mirri, etc. at various points throughout the series. That which follows is a highly speculative theory on the nature of the cost of magic in the series. Specifically, that souls are central to the exercise of magic and can be used as magic currency.

1. establishing the concept of the soul

Oh, to be sure, there is much we do not understand. The years pass in their hundreds and their thousands, and what does any man see of life but a few summers, a few winters? We look at mountains and call them eternal, and so they seem… but in the course of time, mountains rise and fall, rivers change their courses, stars fall from the sky, and great cities sink beneath the sea. Even gods die, we think. Everything changes.

Bran, AGOT
What happens after we die? Is there some part of us that lives on or do we simply cease to exist. These are fundamental questions that are essentially unanswerable in life but not in ASOIAF. The reader is given a point-of-view account of death in the prologue of ADWD. After unsuccessfully attempting to steal the body of Thistle, a wildling spearwife, Varamyr dies and briefly becomes a disembodied consciousness:

The white world turned and fell away. For a moment it was as if he were inside the weirwood, gazing out through carved red eyes as a dying man twitched feebly on the ground and a madwoman danced blind and bloody underneath the moon, weeping red tears and ripping at her clothes. Then both were gone and he was rising, melting, his spirit borne on some cold wind. He was in the snow and in the clouds, he was a sparrow, a squirrel, an oak. A horned owl flew silently between his trees, hunting a hare; Varamyr was inside the owl, inside the hare, inside the trees. Deep below the frozen ground, earthworms burrowed blindly in the dark, and he was them as well. I am the wood, and everything that’s in it, he thought, exulting.

Prologue, ADWD
Afterward his "spirit," or soul, is eventually transferred into a body of wolf and he begins his second life. This event, and the process of skin-changing more generally, appears to involve projection or transfer of a soul from one body into another. The process of projecting or transferring souls to either animal vessels or the weirwoods is central to the magic of the Children of the Forest.

“Someone else was in the raven,” he told Lord Brynden, once he had returned to his own skin. “Some girl. I felt her.”
“A woman, of those who sing the song of earth,” his teacher said. “Long dead, yet a part of her remains, just as a part of you would remain in Summer if your boy’s flesh were to die upon the morrow. A shadow on the soul. She will not harm you.”
"Do all the birds have singers in them?"
“All,” Lord Brynden said.

Bran, ADWD
After death a "shadow on the soul" of the Singers remain in the crows. The soul of Orell is also described as living on in the body of his eagle after his death.
This process appears to take two forms: the soul can be temporarily projected from one body into another (e.g., as happens when Bran skin-changes into Hodor) or can be permanently transferred as is described in the separate examples above.
These transferred souls merge with their recipient, at least to some degree, and may decay over time:

"The wolf is part of you from that day on, and you’re part of him. Both of you will change.”
Other beasts were best left alone, the hunter had declared. Cats were vain and cruel, always ready to turn on you. Elk and deer were prey; wear their skins too long, and even the bravest man became a coward. Bears, boars, badgers, weasels … Haggon did not hold with such. “Some skins you never want to wear, boy. You won’t like what you’d become.” Birds were the worst, to hear him tell it. “Men were not meant to leave the earth. Spend too much time in the clouds and you never want to come back down again.
...
"They say you forget," Haggon had told him, a few weeks before his own death.
"When the man's flesh dies, his spirit lives on inside the beast, but every day his memory fades, and the beast becomes a little less a warg, a little more a wolf, until nothing of the man is left and only the beast remains."

Prologue, ADWD
Bran is provided with similar warnings about the danger of spending too much time in Summer's skin by Jojen.

2. shadow magic requires souls

As above the reader is repeatedly reminded throughout the series that "only death can pay for life." What is specifically being sacrificed, though? Is the magic being fueled by the blood of the sacrificed or by something else?
To answer this let us examine one of the most concrete example of magic in the series, the use or exchange of Stannis Baratheon's "life-fire" in order for Melisandre to manifest the shadows used to kill Renly Baratheon and Courtney Penrose.

Shadows only live when given birth by light, and the king's fires burn so low I dare not draw off any more to make another son. It might well kill him."
Melisandre moved closer.
"With another man, though... a man whose flames still burn hot and high... if you truly wish to serve your king's cause, come to my chamber one night. I could give you pleasure such as you have never known, and with your life-fire I could make..."

Davos, ASOS
According to this explanation, the cost of producing these shadow appears to have been part of his "life-fire," or soul. The shadow is specifically described as having the shape Stannis supporting this. Whether this applies to other types of magic — specifically blood magic or fire magic — is less clear but shadow magic very much appears to require the use of souls.
This type of exchange is also directly referenced in the story of the Night's King provided by Old Nan:

A woman was his downfall; a woman glimpsed from atop the Wall, with skin as white as the moon and eyes like blue stars. Fearing nothing, he chased her and caught her and loved her, though her skin was cold as ice, and when he gave his seed to her he gave his soul as well. (Credit to u/DigLost5791 for this reference.)

Bran, ASOS
Stannis is described by Davos afterward as follows:

The look of him was a shock. He seemed ten years older than the man that Davos had left at Storm’s End when he set sail for the Blackwater and the battle that would be their undoing. The king’s close-cropped beard was spiderwebbed with grey hairs, and he had dropped two stone or more of weight. He had never been a fleshy man, but now the bones moved beneath his skin like spears, fighting to cut free. Even his crown seemed too large for his head. His eyes were blue pits lost in deep hollows, and the shape of a skull could be seen beneath his face.

Davos, ASOS
Asha later describes Stannis as appearing life a "man with one foot in the grave."

What little flesh he’d carried on his tall, spare frame at Deepwood Motte had melted away during the march. The shape of his skull could be seen under his skin, and his jaw was clenched so hard Asha feared his teeth might shatter.

Asha, ADWD
These descriptions seem appropriate for a character that has lost part of their "life-fire" or soul.
Throughout the series Stannis is forced to make a series of increasingly difficult decisions. The most significant of these decisions regards the fate of his nephew, Eric Storm. Melisandre repeatedly urges him to "give [her] the boy," presumably to be burned, but is rebuffed by Stannis.

“I know the cost! Last night, gazing into that hearth, I saw things in the flames as well. I saw a king, a crown of fire on his brows, burning… burning, Davos. His own crown consumed his flesh and turned him into ash. Do you think I need Melisandre to tell me what that means? Or you?” The king moved, so his shadow fell upon King’s Landing.
"…what is the life of one bastard boy against a kingdom?”
“Everything,” said Davos, softly.

Davos, ASOS
Is the life of this bastard boy worth the lives of millions that would die if the Others break through the Wall? Making a deal with the devil and literally selling his soul in pursuit of some greater good seems very appropriate for his character, thematically. The description of his flesh turning to ash in this vision is representative also supports this interpretation.

3. blood and fire magic

As opposed to the creation of the shadows described above, we are also provided an example of so-called blood magic in the leech burning ritual.

“Give me the boy, Your Grace. It is the surer way. The better way. Give me the boy and I shall wake the stone dragon.”
...
Melisandre bowed her head stiffly, and said, “As my king commands.” Reaching up her left sleeve with her right hand, she flung a handful of powder into the brazier. The coals roared. As pale flames writhed atop them, the red woman retrieved the silver dish and brought it to the king. Davos watched her lift the lid. Beneath were three large black leeches, fat with blood. The boy’s blood, Davos knew. A king’s blood. Stannis stretched forth a hand, and his fingers closed around one of the leeches.
“Say the name,” Melisandre commanded.

Davos, ASOS
Following this ritual all of the mentioned individuals do die but do so as the part of separate conspiracies (e.g., Robb Stark is betrayed by the Freys and Boltons, Joffrey Baratheon by Littlefinger and the Tyrells, etc.) which were already in place. It is left intentionally ambiguous by the author but it does not appear that the ritual meaningfully contributed to their deaths.
The creation of the shadows is said by Melisandre to have required part of Stannis' "life-fire" or soul. Could it be that the leech burning ritual was unsuccessful because blood alone is not sufficient as a sacrifice?
These forms of magic are frequently described in the community as "shadow magic" and "blood magic." These concepts — "fire and blood" and "flame and shadow" — are highly associated with one another in the text:

“Shadow?" Davos felt his flesh prickling. "A shadow is a thing of darkness."
”You are more ignorant than a child, ser knight. There are no shadows in the dark. Shadows are the servants of light, the children of fire. The brightest flame casts the darkest shadows."

Davos, ACOK
I speculate that these are different expressions of the same concept; that all of these fall under the general umbrella of fire magic and share common principles. "Fire consumes and in the end there's nothing left."

4. dancing shadows

The tent was aglow with the light of braziers within. Through the blood-spattered sandsilk, she glimpsed shadows moving.
Mirri Maz Duur was dancing, and not alone.
...
No, Dany wanted to say, no, not that, you mustn’t, but when she opened her mouth, a long wail of pain escaped, and the sweat broke over her skin. What was wrong with them, couldn’t they see?
Inside the tent the shapes were dancing, circling the brazier and the bloody bath, dark against the sandsilk, and some did not look human. She glimpsed the shadow of a great wolf, and another like a man wreathed in flames.
“The Lamb Woman knows the secrets of the birthing bed,” Irri said. “She said so, I heard her.”
“Yes,” Doreah agreed, “I heard her too.”
No, she shouted, or perhaps she only thought it, for no whisper of sound escaped her lips. She was being carried. Her eyes opened to gaze up at a flat dead sky, black and bleak and starless. Please, no. The sound of Mirri Maz Duur’s voice grew louder, until it filled the world. The shapes! She screamed. The dancers!
Ser Jorah carried her inside the tent.

Daenerys, AGOT
The introduction of shadow magic in the series is provided above with Mirri Max Duur. Following this ritual Drogo is described as a lifeless husk:

"He seems to like the warmth, Princess," Ser Jorah said. "His eyes follow the sun, though he does not see it. He can walk after a fashion. He will go where you lead him, but no farther. He will eat if you put food in his mouth, drink if you dribble water on his lips."

Daenerys, AGOT
It has previously been speculated that Mirri "reverse skin-changed" Drogo (e.g., "strength of the mount go into the rider, strength of the beast go into the man."). The description provided is less consistent with a horse soul inhabiting a human body than it is with the complete or near-complete absence of a soul. It appears more likely in retrospect that Mirri sacrificed part of Drogo's soul to summon the shadows and likely as a means to kill Daenerys' unborn child.

“The stallion who mounts the world will burn no cities now. His khalasar shall trample no nations into dust."

Daenerys, AGOT

5. reanimation

If "only death can pay for life" and souls are used as a form of magical currency how does one explain the reanimation or resurrection process?
There is a paucity of information on the reanimation of the dead in the series. The resurrection of Beric Dondarrion, for example, appears to be different in fundamental ways from that of the wights or Cold Hands. (We are potentially given a point-of-view account of this process if you accept that Victarion died in ADWD.)

“Thoros, how many times have you brought me back now?”
The red priest bowed his head. “It is R’hllor who brings you back, my lord. The Lord of Light. I am only his instrument.”
“How many times?” Lord Beric insisted.
“Six,” Thoros said reluctantly.
“And each time is harder. You have grown reckless, my lord. Is death so very sweet?”
Arya, ASOS

There is no immediately identifiable magical cost for these "kisses of life," at least at first glance. Thoros later tells us that he breathed part of his "flames" or soul into Beric:

“That first time, his lordship had a hole right through him and blood in his mouth, I knew there was no hope. So when his poor torn chest stopped moving, I gave him the good god's own kiss to send him on his way. I filled my mouth with fire and breathed the flames inside him, down his throat to lungs and heart and soul. The last kiss it is called, and many a time I saw the old priests bestow it on the Lord's servants as they died." (Credit to u/watchersontheweb for providing this quote in the initial thread.)

Arya, ASOS
Thoros is also described as appearing very different after performing this ritual several times in a way that is not entirely dissimilar to the changes in Stannis’ appearance referenced above.

“Here’s the wizard, skinny squirrel. You’ll get your answers now.”
He pointed toward the fire, where Tom Sevenstrings stood talking to a tall thin man with oddments of old armor buckled on over his ratty pink robes. That can’t be Thoros of Myr. Arya remembered the red priest as fat, with a smooth face and a shiny bald head. This man had a droopy face and a full head of shaggy grey hair.
...
“Thoros of Myr. You used to shave your head.”
“To betoken a humble heart, but in truth my heart was vain. Besides, I lost my razor in the woods.” The priest slapped his belly. “I am less than I was, but more. A year in the wild will melt the flesh off a man. Would that I could find a tailor to take in my skin. I might look young again, and pretty maids would shower me with kisses.”

Arya, ASOS
Thoros attributes these changes to his renewed devotion to the Red God and spending "a year in the wild" as above although he is not exactly forthcoming with Arya about the resurrection process. It is also likely that he does not entirely understand what specifically is being exchanged here.
Later he describes Beric giving the "kiss of life" to the corpse of Catelyn Stark:

“The Freys slashed her throat from ear to ear. When we found her by the river she was three days dead. Harwin begged me to give her the kiss of life, but it had been too long. I would not do it, so Lord Beric put his lips to hers instead, and the flame of life passed from him to her. And… she rose. May the Lord of Light protect us. She rose.”

Brienne, AFFC
Notably, this process produces a reanimated Catelyn (a.k.a. Lady Stoneheart). The soul of Beric, or at least whatever is left of his soul at this point in the series, is consumed in order to resurrect Catelyn and not transferred.

6. cold shadows (wild speculation)

The terms "white shadows," "pale shadows," and "cold shadows" are repeated used to describe the Others. The Others are also highly associated with ghosts — the spirits or souls of the dead bound to the earth. (The forrest in which they are introduced is literally called the Haunted Forrest.)

The Others made no sound.
Will saw movement from the corner of his eye. Pale shapes gliding through the wood. He turned his head, glimpsed a white shadow in the darkness. Then it was gone. Branches stirred gently in the wind, scratching at one another with wooden fingers. Will opened his mouth to call down a warning, and the words seemed to freeze in his throat. Perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps it had only been a bird, a reflection on the snow, some trick of the moonlight. What had he seen, after all?
“Will, where are you?” Ser Waymar called up. “Can you see anything?” He was turning in a slow circle, suddenly wary, his sword in hand. He must have felt them, as Will felt them. There was nothing to see. “Answer me! Why is it so cold?” It was cold.
Shivering, Will clung more tightly to his perch. His face pressed hard against the trunk of the sentinel. He could feel the sweet, sticky sap on his cheek. A shadow emerged from the dark of the wood. It stood in front of Royce. Tall, it was, and gaunt and hard as old bones, with flesh pale as milk. Its armor seemed to change color as it moved; here it was white as new-fallen snow, there black as shadow, everywhere dappled with the deep grey-green of the trees. The patterns ran like moonlight on water with every step it took. Will heard the breath go out of Ser Waymar Royce in a long hiss. ...
The Other slid forward on silent feet. In its hand was a longsword like none that Will had ever seen. No human metal had gone into the forging of that blade. It was alive with moonlight, translucent, a shard of crystal so thin that it seemed almost to vanish when seen edge-on. There was a faint blue shimmer to the thing, a ghost-light that played around its edges, and somehow Will knew it was sharper than any razor.

Prologue, AGOT
This is again highly speculative but it seems reasonable to consider that these cold shadows are not "ice demons" or "ice zombies" but are in fact ghosts, the spirits or souls of men that are bound to the earth through magic by the Children of the Forest. (The textual evidence of the creation of the Others by the Children has previously been discussed at length in the community in separate posts.) "Fire consumes, but cold preserves."
This would explain several of the unusual characteristics of the Others described by Tormund:

“Tormund,” Jon said, as they watched four old women pull a cartful of children toward the gate, “tell me of our foe. I would know all there is to know of the Others.”
The wildling rubbed his mouth. “Not here,” he mumbled, “not this side o’ your Wall.” The old man glanced uneasily toward the trees in their white mantles. “They’re never far, you know. They won’t come out by day, not when that old sun’s shining, but don’t think that means they went away. Shadows never go away. Might be you don’t see them, but they’re always clinging to your heels.”
...
Tormund turned back.
"You know nothing. You killed a dead man, aye, I heard. Mance killed a hundred. A man can fight the dead, but when their masters come, when the white mists rise up… how do you fight a mist, crow? Shadows with teeth … air so cold it hurts to breathe, like a knife inside your chest … you do not know, you cannot know … can your sword cut cold?"

Jon, ADWD
A reasonable interpretation of this information is that the Others are present during the day, at least in some capacity, and are only able to assume corporeal form at night.
The Others are also described as "going lightly upon the snow" which would also supports the idea that they are ghosts:

“The white walkers go lightly on the snow,” the ranger said. “You’ll find no prints to mark their passage.”

Samwell, ASOS

7. conclusions

This highly speculative theory attempts to reconcile several seemingly disparate concepts in the series related to magic, namely the actual nature of magical sacrifice ("only death can pay for life") and shadows or shadow magic. More specifically, I suggest that souls are the primary magical currency and can be consumed using fire magic to summon shadows, create glamours, etc. I also speculate that similar processes took place during Mirri Maz Duur's shadow-binding ritual in AGOT and during the repeated resurrections of Berric Dondarrion in ASOS. I further suggest that the Others are ghosts, the spirits or souls of the dead bound to the earth.
EDIT: edited several times to address formatting issues