Straight talk hack minutes

Ok, as an elementary special education teacher (not teaching in my daughters’ district) I am in need of some advice to help my daughter, almost 10 in 4th grade, to deal with some mean girl behavior at her school. For background, my daughter gets straight A’s in school and always has, does her best to get along with everyone (at home can be a tad bossy with little sister at times), gets great marks in school for her behavior in class and towards others, and has quite a few close friends. She is constantly reading whenever she gets a chance and devours books. She is very musical, plays ukulele and takes lessons outside of the home, and plays cello in the school orchestra. She is super into theater and has done local theater since kindergarten as well as scored the role of the scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz in this years 4th and 5th grade drama club show at school. She loves to sing and is in many school clubs including inclusive ones like Best Buddies. I know, I know, she sounds like the perfect kid, but we’ve worked really hard to make sure we are raising her the right way. She is also a huge eco warrior and cares deeply about lots of things. She can give me a hard time at home because she’s a 10-year-old girl, but overall, I couldn’t be prouder of what an amazing person she is turning out to be.
She had casually mentioned to me about this one girl we will call Virginia. She said they were in gym and were practicing balancing tennis balls on racquets while walking and high fiving the other kids. Virginia gave her a high 5 and then immediately said, “Ew, I didn’t know that it was you.” I told her to ignore the behavior as some kids thrive off of making other people feel bad. I asked her if she had done anything to this girl to make her feel that way and she said she couldn’t think of anything because they’ve never even ever had a conversation other than having to work together in partner groups at school in math.
Last week, she mentioned that her, and this other girl, we will call McKenzie, were saying some mean things on the school bus, or else she thought they were talking about her. I again told her not to feed into it as she knows she hasn’t done anything to them, and she couldn’t be 100% sure they were whispering about her. Virginia is supposed to be her seat partner on the bus and has never sat with her. She told me she never said anything to her bus driver about it because she didn’t want to make it worse.
All week, I’ve asked her if things are continuing and she said no. But tonight, as she was getting ready for bed, she let it out that the girls overheard my daughter talking to her good friend “Addie” who lives up the street and is in 5th grade, about my daughters upcoming sleepover for her 10th birthday. They began to hound Addie and ask her if she was really going to go to go to her sleepover, if she was really friends with her, if it was just a pity thing, and if she really actually likes my daughter. I told her that that was crossing a line and they were dipping toes into mean girl behavior and maybe some light bullying.
She also said there was a strong perfume scent on the bus earlier this week. Some kids were complaining about it and the girls blamed my daughter and tried to get others to join in. She is really worried about looking like a tattletale and/or making it worse.
My advice was for her to go to her teacher who she trusts, and ask for time to talk to her about it alone away from the girls (Virginia is in her class). Then, when they talk, let her know what’s happening and how she has been trying to ignore it and deal with it herself but that it’s getting to be too big of a problem. I told her to explain how this has started awhile ago and that she doesn’t know why they’re targeting her as she has no relationship with them at all. They’ve never been in her class until last year. I told her to let her teacher know that she isn’t looking to get them into trouble, but that she wants the comments/mean behavior to stop and she needs help facilitating a girls circle to have the conversation.
My husband wants to have me reach out to the teachegirl’s parents, but I think my approach is a better first step as our daughter needs to advocate for herself and mean girls are something she’ll have to deal with her whole life. This way it’s at least documented if it continues.
Thoughts? Advice?

You know how you get in a rut, wanting to get in shape, wanting to get better at something, just want to develop a new habit, and you tell yourself, "I'm going to workout everyday for the next month" "I'm going to do leetcode everyday" etc.? You get all hyped up, and you're super motivated, and you start crushing your goals the next day. Then a week goes by, 2 weeks, and that motivation starts to waver off, and you start skipping a day or two, and eventually it just fizzles out...
Motivation is so fickle, so emotional. It can feel so strong that you feel like it will last forever, but sooner or later, it's gone.
But your motivation can be hacked. A few months ago, I did this fitness challenge with a few friends where we all set goals for a set amount of time (30 min at the gym, 5 times a week, for a month). And we all put down $100 and put it in a pool. Everyone kept track of their workouts, and at the end, only those who succeeded in all their checkins split the pot. While the ones who failed in the middle lost their money. So the winners actually ended up making money.
It was incredibly motivating, the desire to not wanting to lose my $100. The original motivation for starting this challenge (wanting to get in shape) was replaced by the much more real motivation of not wanting to lose money. Money is funny that way, it's so much more real and tangible, it actually keeps you going way better than anything else.
Not to mention how fun the challenge was. We were kind of in competition with each other, trash talking and teasing to try and get the others to not work out. But at the same time it was teamwork. We genuinely wanted everyone to succeed.
Anyways, it was so effective and so fun that I ended up making an app for this. The cool thing about making this into an app is that you don't need to have an immediate group of friends with the same goal. We could create a community of people with goals, and strangers could come together online on the app and do challenges together.
The structure of the app is as follows:

• anyone can create a challenge for anything
• you set how much the buy-in ($) is, how long the challenge should last, and the check-in rules
• up to 5 people can join (small groups means better dynamics)
• everyone pays to join
• you check in daily with a photo upload according to the check-in rules set out by the leader
• chat in the private chatroom, encouraging each other
• in the end, the "survivors" split the pot - they can withdraw the money back out

Hope you find this helpful! The app is called Goalie, you can search it on the app stores.

Hey Reddit fam! It's your boy PK here, just a 19-year-old dude from Brazil who's been hustling hard. I come from humble beginnings, but I've been grinding, and my e-commerce gig has taken off. I'm not about flashing cash or bragging, but let's just say I'm not counting pennies anymore.
So here's the deal: I'm about to embark on an epic journey across Europe and beyond, looking to soak up every experience like a sponge. I'm talking about making new friends, diving into different cultures, and maybe, just maybe, finding that special someone along the way. 😏
I'm all about those genuine connections, you know? Whether it's sharing a laugh over a street food mishap or having deep convos under the stars, I'm down. If you're all about that wanderlust life or got some killer travel hacks, hit me up!
And hey, if you're in the same boat, looking to explore and create unforgettable memories, let's link up. Who knows, our paths might cross in a random hostel or at the top of the Eiffel Tower. Life's wild like that, right?
So, to all my fellow travelers, dreamers, and adventure-seekers: let's make this world a little smaller by connecting one story at a time. Drop your best travel stories, tips, or just a 'hello' in the comments. Let's get this global party started! 🎉
Peace out and keep exploring, PK 🚀

The title is a bit clickbaity i know. There is no end of marriage in this life, or failure of it as it is a covenant with God. Perhaps failed relationship is better suited
I debated whether or not to give the backstory, however I feel I will, but first where things are now.
6 months ago my wife asked to for seperation. She wanted "Freedom & Independence" and didnt want to live together anymore and felt that she had been pressured by her Catholic College and family into getting married in the first place (not me but the sacrament). She had been kicking around religious life, but that was more due to her lack of better options as she had struggled with SSA in her life.
We talked, alot and roughly came to the understanding that we would revisit this when our last child was out of the house (we have three all 8-11). She had also wanted to have her "own space" and wanted to build a small tiny house in the backyard where "everything would be how she liked it".
Background
She had relationships with girls in her teens, then a boyfriend who she described as having raped her. I am still struggling to understand what this means exactly as she has given different accounts that vary from consent but then regretted after to more of a consent after relentless asking.
This set her off into full SSA relationships. She then went to a very Orthodox Catholic college but was looking for female connection of that sort. She ended up pulling in her roomate and best friend who then at the end of the first year contacted her mother about the relationship and how sorry she was for being involved, but that she (my wife) needed help.
There was some intervention, praying over her (mother is very charismatic) and then she was ok for awhile. She then was on Catholic SSA support groups but then used that to find people to have emotional long distance relationships with. She had a bunch of SSA relationships during this time. Still struggling with this and her faith she leaned towards religious life, like i imagine alot of attempting to be faithful SSA Catholics do. If i cant be married then i guess its priesthood/sisters. While she was praying at one point she asked God for a sign of where shes supposed to go. she then saw a famous saint holding flowers, but not the same flowers they are normally depicted with. She realized this was her sign.
We met and during the course of the courtship I wasnt the best Catholic, I was just getting back on track in living my faith and realized i needed to seek out women who were going to help me on the path and not drag me off, or let me drag myself off (hold me to account). She always liked a purple so those were the flowers i always got. We had long discussions about the future and she was very honest in that she wasnt sure she was called to marriage. she was still figuring it out. Her mother asked if the sign was given yet, and it hadnt.
That same day of the call with her mom I ended up getting, for no reason in my mind, a different set of flowers. ones that matched perfectly the type and color her sign had been. After that she was convinced. We began to plan for marriage and did all the marriage prep. Talked alot about her past, was told it was in the past and not anything she struggled with anymore and that marriage is forever no matter what.
Throughout our marriage I readily admit i wasnt the best husband at times. I was always trying to find extra ways to make money and develop a business i could run so that, in my mind, I could set our lives up around what we wanted to do, have our own schedules, travel with the kids whenever, etc. I focused on that alot. I spent many if not most nights working on that. She was neglected. She did however all during that time say supportive things, saying i need to keep going, i believe in you, etc etc. The feelings of neglect were never brought up by her (now I can see it very clearly and feel terrible about it, wish i could change it)
At the same time i was dealing with things from the war and secretly drinking those nights as well. I didnt go out. I didnt cheat or anything i just drank to forget. About 5-6 years ago i realized i couldnt control it like i thought i could and stopped completely and then i realized that i had been taking her for granted and neglecting her. I stopped my projects and began to actually spend quality time together. Things were really good. She was also going through therapy to deal with her past and that had brought things up, she had started drinking as well, but we were both moving towards good things. She got pregnant and then things really got perfect.
We were close, spent nights out together, talked, she started to talk about wanting to be more feminine, grow her hair out longer than shoulder, wear dresses etc. I was amazed and thankful to God that he had helped her get in touch with her feminity in a deeply maternal way.
Then....we lost the baby.
We had miscarriages before, and its not to make it sound routine, but from our experiences in the past I knew she would want space, take up the slack, keep up with the housework, do things that made her feel appreciated etc. I did that. I think i gave her too much space. She began to spend more and more time with a friend (Female) go out late, drink, etc.
I very bluntly asked if anything weird was going on she denied it. I began to have more and more panic attacks as I was completely convinced my marriage was over. She continued to deny it, but never stopped spending more and more time with this person. Obsessing over everything in her life and her marriage, her problems. Husband is out of town she needs to stay there until late because other girl doesnt like being alone in the house, husband is back, she needs to go out because the friend is having marriage issues. They start smoking weed together and things get worse and worse. Finally she comes back from a "girls" weekend and breaks down admitting "you are right, i am attracted to her" and "I dont know if i can stay straight for you"
We talk alot, when it comes to me saying they cant hang out anymore she then quickly reverses course and its no longer repentance and needing to change, but "not wanting the devil to win....not wnating to lose another friendship" and wanting to bring her friend "into the church". I was told I was putting all the blame on the friend and that wasnt fair.
Looking back i realize i should have drawn a line in the sand. I should have done alot of things differently but i cant change that now.
The friendship and the obsession continued. The bringing the friend to church was BS as she told her about the rosary for one night and then after that just more weed smoking (its better than drinking and its natural....)
Then finally im heading to a retreat at a monastery and i get a call that they arent friends anymore, she sad. Im happy. Ok i think, we can finally put this behind us. By the time im heading to the airport after the weekend shes back as friends.
Fast forward some months and then she has to talk to me about how shes never been comfortable with physical intimacy (marital act) because of her past and she doesnt think she can handle being pregnant ever again (understandable to a degree) so shes not sure she can be physically intimate anymore. I say outwardly that If i need to do this for her I can manage whether its months or years, sure. inwardly im thinking this is just another step in the wrong direction, but im still praying. Im still trying to maintain hope
Then something happens i dont know what. Her friend is moving and is getting a divorce soon afterwards but they had a fight and got blocked on everything. My wife is distraught, basically shuts down for 2 months. I have been over those two years basically doing everything in the house. from laundry to meals to cleaning. She does some things, but i do the vast majority. I do it so she can see i care, but she doesnt care. We had been in counseling during this time, but she would say things, we would talk, she would say its working, but it wasnt she was lying and holding back.
After this friend left. she ended up finding a new one. Same MO. mentally wonky, isolated, no friends and then they became inseparable. within a year im completely zonked mentally and spiritually i cant handle it and it comes to a head. She breaks down about how her losing the old friend hurt her so bad because there wasnt "closure" which in my experience with her and other friendships just means long talks until they are friends again. She talks about how they were making all these plans and were going to raise the kids together because we werent working (hard to work on the marriage with that going on i would think?)
So thats a light outline of the background and now back to beginning. Asked for separation and now were just "co parenting" under the same roof.
My greatest fear and what advice im seeking is
i worry heavily about the souls of my children and what a divorce (civil i know theres no such thing in the eyes of God) would do them. I see it kids everywhere. Is it better to maintain a facade for them or will the realization down the road scandalize them out of their faith? Will a separation now scandalize them out of the faith?
Is allowing them to grow up in a home where Mom/Wife is gone constantly to "hang out with her friend" going to scandalize them in their future relationships, because for my daughters if they are with any man worthy he wont tolerate that (what does that say about me right?)
So im left with two options, which i dont know which to pick? I care about the faith and souls of my kids and wife, which is best?
1) Continue the facade and chance scandalizing them in the future where they lose trust in the faith i tried to pass along to them and about marriage in general? Give them the wrong example of how a marriage is supposed to be with her as an example of womanhood?
Will my steadfastness in trying to hold the marriage together in hope for reconciliation in the future be a good example of what marriage is for them or just a scandal to avoid? or God forbid repeat?
2) Allow the separation and the fantasy land of "independence" that she dreams of show its true face and that all that lies ahead is barely scrapping by because even in the best alimony imaginable she couldnt afford to keep the house and pay the bills, we barely do together now.
Will my "giving up" scandalize them in the same way
to answer any questions you may have

1. i have talked to a priest about this, i am in contact with a counselor at our diocese that is very orthodox about the situation
2. She says her current friendship isnt "like that" ie like before which infers even more so that I was right about the last friend. She doesnt acknowledge that emotional affairs exist or understand proper boundaries between say a friendship and the emotional nature of a romantic relationship. It seem she thinks as long as nothing physical happens its basically all Kosher. I think growing up with SSA makes it hard as you are attracted romantically to girls but also friends with them so those proper boundaries are never formed mentally as the perversion of SSA is deep.
3. I know marriage is forever. regardless of what the other person does. There are no grounds for annulment as there we both consented fully at the time of the sacrament. She is in the process of the rewriting history of our relationship to sound more like she didnt have full consent "i was pressured...." perhaps to make herself feel less culpable for the present or perhaps in misplaced compassion to give me an "out"

Thank you, Pax et Bonum

26yr old straight guy here. South USA. Just lookin for other STRAIGHT guys my age to chill & talk with. Nothing insane. Feel free to DM me. Having a quiet chill night.

This is just a rant I guess.
But I was with my friend, who JUST got her license a week ago. She was waiting for the cars on her left to pass, and some man in a red jeep got out of his jeep, walked over and yelled at her, calling her a fat cunt and saying she’s holding people up and he’ll beat her ass, blah blah.
Okay, so the next light, he is RIDING our ass. It takes us 2 additional seconds to driving through the green light.
So the man swerves in front of us, and break checks us. So we get hit by the car behind us, and get pushed hard into his jeep, then get hit again from behind.
I get out asking what the f*ck is wrong is wrong with him, he gets in my face and I shove him. Okay fast forward, cops arrive, they don’t talk to us more than 2 minutes. They don’t give us any paperwork, just a card with a number. Then the cop starts telling us it’s our fault for “instigating” him, because “people could have a gun or act out when you instigate them”… So what he did isn’t considered reckless or harassment? Whatever. Turns out the car behind him, was somehow kin to him!
So while we’re upset about her brand new car being completely screwed (I don’t think it’s exactly totaled, but at least close too), he’s laughing and smiling with the cops and his kin. Then the officer tells us “seems like a decent dude.” Like we would be in the mood to hear that.
I have video of him stomping his breaks and us getting hit, but I was shook up and didn’t think to show the cops, didn’t realize I even had it until I got to the hospital just to be looked over and made sure my last injury wasn’t worsened.
But the guy DID get a ticket, and she didn’t thankfully. But it’s just scary how reckless someone can be because they’re impatient.

(Longish post) I’m 20 F and have thought of myself as being straight and maybe demisexual. I don’t have a lot of experience but any romantic/sexual experiences I’ve had have been with men. I’ve had many people assume I’m lesbian because of the way I dress (I sometimes like to dress very androgynous).
In the past year, I’ve had several sexual dreams about women. In one dream I was a man, but the others I was myself. Does this mean anything or is it just my brain having its fun? I don’t watch porn that often but if I do it’s only straight and vanilla stuff.
I get nervous around pretty women. It doesn’t feel like I have a crush on them (I’ve only had a crush on like 2 people my whole life) but when a cool or pretty girl talks to me I get nervous, is it cause I’m flustered or insecure or what? I get a little nervous when a cute guy talks to me but not as much as when a girl does.
I have a nonbinary friend presents very fem. I thought they might have liked me but I recently found out they have a girlfriend. When I found this out I was disappointed. I can’t tell if I’m just jealous because I’m single or upset cause they don’t like me. Which is weird because I’ve never seen them in a romantic way. Is this just normal relationship jealousy and I’m overthinking?
I have another nonbinary friend who is AFAB but very androgynous and I’ve found myself being really jealous of their appearance. What does this mean? I like being a girl but I sometimes wish I looked like they do.
I feel something whenever I see androgynous/gnc women, but I can’t tell if it’s attraction or jealousy. I don’t feel this way with gnc men.
Is this all regular things that straight cis people think? Or does this mean I could be queer?

Since I was born, I have lived in a small town in the eastern bay area of California. It was a small but beautiful city. We were located within contra costa county which was home to many rolling hills and oak trees, I lived with my older brother who was 14 at the time and my parents. We resided in a large home with two stories on the top of a hill where we like often be greeted with the pleasant ocean breeze from the nearby San Francisco Bay. Sometimes, we were greeted with something else, something far less pleasant than ocean breeze. This is the story of the thing
When I was 12 years old, I’d always love to lay my eyes on the beautiful view from our home. I’d sometimes sit for hours just embracing everything I could see. Today was a beautiful day, the clouds were mild and soft, and the sky was bright and full of the signature breeze. As I woke up, I walked down to the kitchen to grab some breakfast where I was greeted by a wonderful sweet smell. “ Hi Matthew, “ my mother said sweetly as she’d always been,
“ come grab a waffle, they are delicious today. “
I was immediately excited as waffles were my favorite thing ever, so I dashed over to the large island to eat my breakfast.
“ Thanks mom! “ I said excitedly, immediately chowing down on my food.
“ Your brother is in the backyard mowing the lawn, sorry about the noise. “ I nodded my head and examined the room, suddenly my eyes were met with the calendar hanging on the wall. It was a pleasant day in May, however that’s not what caught my attention. What I saw was the date of the special day me and my friend would have. Every once in a while, we would ride our bikes to long distance to the Briones Regional Park, which was a beautiful expanse of rolling hills and trails. There we would hike all day long and play in the beautiful hills getting up to god knows what, and today was one of those days.
“ Mom, remember today? “
She looked confused for a moment until the calendar also caught her eyes.
“ Oh, I’ll have to call Lucas’s mother, “ she said, “ What time are you leaving? “
“ 1 o’clock. “
She grabbed her Nokia phone, which was the biggest new thing at the time, and dialed my best friends mothers phone number.
“ Hello, this is Alyssa, Matthew’s mom. “
As she talked on the phone, I saw my brother come in and head into his bedroom where he sneakily picked up my mother’s fashion magazine. I rolled my eyes as I knew what he was doing but ignored it, I went up to my room to text my buddy Lucas on my Nokia.
“ Hey bro, “ I texted awaiting a response. About 5 minutes later I got a response.
“ Hey, my mom says I’ll come to your house at 1 o’clock so we can ride to Briones. “ I told him that he was right and I’d see him at 1 o’clock.
When he arrived, he was all ready with his backpack and everything. “ Hey! “ I called out excitedly. Lucas was a 12 year old fair skinned boy on the cusp of puberty with medium length brown hair and green eyes. We got up to our usual shenanigans until we finally got ready to get on our bikes. Until we saw the thing upon leaving the house.
Every once in a while, flickering lights could be seen from the hills of Briones which were an odd blue color. They were clearly visible and had an off putting presence.
“ What’s that? “ Lucas asked me.
“ Oh, we just see those lights every now and then, we don’t really know what it is. “
This didn’t concern us at the time and after about an hour of riding we finally arrived at one of the trails. We got off of our bikes and started our hike.
“ It’s a nice day bro, “ I mentioned, “ not too hot or cold. “
“ Yeah, good thing we went today. “ Lucas added on.
We started our usual hike to one of our favorite spots in the park which had a big oak tree where we would eat all the usual snacks. However as we were hiking, a familiar voice shouted. “ Hey! “
It was my brother, what was he doing here? He got out of his Honda and ran to me.
“ You forgot your backpack, here. “ He handed it to me and drove off before I could say anything.
“ That was weird.. “ Lucas added.
“ At least we have my backpack now “
The hike was beautiful, we crossed a lot of unmarked trails as where we usually went was deep in the park.
After around 45 minutes of hiking and doing our usual banter, we made it to the oak tree and laid out a picnic blanket.
“ Okay, I brought some snacks and water. “ Lucas commented. As we took out all of our food from our backpacks, I noticed one more thing, my mother’s magazine.
“ What’s that? “ Lucas asked.
“ How did this get here? “ I asked myself puzzled.
“ What is it though? “ Lucas asked me.
“ It’s one of my mom’s women’s fashion magazines, I saw Dallas grab it and head into his room, he must have accidentally left it here. “
Lucas quickly grabbed the magazine and said “ damn “ under his breath. Now that I look back at it it was a pretty normal magazine, but we were 12 going on 13 on the cusp of puberty, how could we resist?
“ Should we take a look? “ Lucas suggested.
“ I-I don’t know bro, should we? “
“ Of course we should! “ Lucas exclaimed.
“ Aight then.. “
I hadn’t got my hands on any magazine as it was the late 1990s and they were hard to find. So obviously I was invested as we flipped through the page. Until I felt a presence, almost threatening.
“ I’ve got a stiffy now, bro. Your brother shouldn’t have put this in by accide- “
“ Do you feel that? “ I interrupted
“ Feel what? “ Lucas asked confused.
“ I don’t know, it just feels off. “
“ You’re just excited bro. “
“ No- well yes, but I feel something off. “
Before he could get a word out, I saw it. I saw the lights. They resembled a moth flying around a lamp. I felt like I was being punished almost, I had no idea why.
“ What the hell? “ Lucas said extremely shakily.
“ I think those were the lights! Let’s go come on! “
“ We are in the middle of this mag! Seriously Matthew? “
“ I don’t care about the hot chicks no more, come on! “
“ Fine! “
We got up and ran to the sight where the lights were seen. After about 10 minutes we saw a sign.
“ What the fuck? “
It was a tall sign that had the words “ Purificationem Statione praesmisit “ written on it. We had no idea what it meant.
“ What the hell does that mean? “ I said.
Before Lucas could say anything, I pointed out a weird industrial looking box building surrounded by electric fence.
“ What is that.. “
I started to feel uneasy again, I felt a terrible sense of dread. Right when we got to the small gate, I heard a whisper right by my ear.
“ You’ve brought something impure to the site, Matthew. “
I shut down in the moment and I felt the Magazine flying at me extremely fast. I blacked out, fading into unconsciousness.
TO BE CONTINUED

I am not sure if anyone listened to Bernstein & Holmes last Wednesday (15th). they were talking about guns and crimes in the top golf in Naperville. It turned ugly
Dan and Laurence slandered the city of Naperville and all of its residents as racists. It was a totally unhinged cringe worthy performance from Dan.
He said (paraphrasing) when people say “Naperville is just like Chicago without being in the city”. What they really are saying is it’s Chicago but better because there are no black people….it continued on for a few minutes of Naperville suburbs are racist dog whistlers or something.
I was a big boers and Bernstein fan and really enjoy the guests on Bernstein and Holmes. I was a big Holmes fan with his solo show. Now I am finding myself struggling to even listen because of the crazy irresponsible rhetoric at times.
I am still shocked by Bernstein comments a few months ago regarding Fields and Bagent. The long rants on racists supporting Bagent or the dog whistles from announcers in the booth. Those two lost their collective minds defending fields as a legit QB post Bagent. For the record Bagent is not a starter either.
The one that almost made me quit the score was the fields press conference. Fields criticized the coaches and later in the week. he walked it back. Dan said…that the Bears leadership confronted fields and made him correct it publicly. The bears were upset with Fields because he was acting too uppity and needed to know his place. Dan continued that if Fields were white this would have never happened. Even Holmes was uncomfortable with it…he had to tell Dan the person that talked to fields was black. Dan wanted to double down to say that there was still some nefarious instruction from someone above that person.
These examples are from a long list of other crazy awful radio segments.

I figured I'd continue this sort of thing with the next weapon class down the list.
Historically, straight-bladed, one-handed or hand-and-a-half swords were sidearms. Either as a backup weapon on the battlefield or as personal defense/a status symbol for everyday carry. I think the devs did a good job of capturing that in game. As a class, straight swords are rarely if ever an outright bad choice, but in any specific circumstance they'll fall well behind a more specialized option. Once you have access to bigger, flashier, or more impressive options they tend to fall by the wayside. But if your main breaks or is the wrong choice for a fight, it's comforting to know that you always have something that's basically OK to fall back on.
One thing that's not historically accurate is the power stance. I actually enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. The damage output was pretty impressive and the specific way you swing both of them seems to have a more generous hitbox than one alone. Would I recommend doing it yourself? Well, definitely with Blue Flame and maybe with a couple others.
There are 18 straight swords in this game so let's get into individual details.
Shortsword
The main thing you notice using this is it's short. Deep insight, I know. Thing is, this is Dark Souls 2 and weapon hitboxes are at least vaguely the same size as the model. At times you can really feel the lack of reach when you find yourself whiffing attacks more than is healthy. The second thing you notice about the Shortsword is it isn't very strong. Straight swords don't have a whole lot of variance in their damage, but the Shortsword is definitely on the lower end of the scale and the above average counter damage can only do so much to cover for it. The third thing you notice is that the moveset is bloody fantastic. I'm always going to value a straight sword with a thrusting attack over one that only slashes. Thrust is just plain a better damage type than slash, it improves performance in tight spaces, and it gives your attacks more forward momentum to keep up aggression (and make up for short reach). It also may just be me, but it feels like the thrusting heavy attacks are better than slashing against NPC invaders too.
Longsword
It's only the second entry on the list and my thrust attack bias is rearing its head again. The 2 handed strong attack of the Longsword is just plain good. Between the damage and the stagger, there's parts of the game where I treat it more like a thrusting sword than a straight sword. There are a few other swords that have the same attack, but the Longsword is the strongest of the bunch (though it's only in the middle of the pack for the overall weapon class). The free fire infused one you can get is fine enough for the price. It performs about as well on average as the base model but it has some advantages against fire weak or slash resistant enemies and some glaring disadvantages once you hit a water or fire level. It's a lot more useful in vanilla where the Dull Ember is a lot harder to get. One last thing: I'd be remiss if I didn't bring up the Longsword's performance in PVP. I don't know nearly enough about that aspect of the game to really talk about it, but something about the specific intersection of reach, stagger, moveset, and requirements means this gets an S rank in a LOT of tier lists.
Broken Straight Sword
Something has to be the worst option, and it's the broken sword's thankless duty to fulfill this role. It's pitifully short, pathetically weak, and disappointingly fragile. It exists mostly to give players a clearly visible bottom of the barrel to compare other weapons to. One thing it does have going for itself is the lowest stamina costs of literally any weapon which is at least something. Poison or Mundane infusion can even make it borderline usable for the masochists out there.
Broadsword
One thing I've noticed about DS2's weapon design is that the first weapon you find in a specific class gets treated as the "default" and most others will be variants of it in some way. The Broadsword fits that mold here and that's not a bad place to be. It's got a decent moveset, decent damage, and it's decently easy to get and use. The thing is that being the archetype for the Basically OK weapon class means that you don't stand out at all. Its damage is a little above average, but it's reach is a little below and it's still well in the middle of the pack for both. All other stats and its moveset are completely standard. There's nothing wrong with using it, as long as you don't need to stab anything that is, but you'll find plenty of better options down the line.
Foot Soldier Sword
Lightweight, extremely low requirements, good reach, decent base damage for infusions, and an excellent moveset. If it weren't for the incredibly low durability this would be one of the best swords in the game. As it stands, well, it can make a decent emergency backup option as long as you don't need to rely on it too much.
Heide Knight Sword
This got done dirty in the Scholar version. First by being shifted from a guaranteed drop to a rare drop, and second when they made infusion much easier to unlock and devalued pre-infused and natural elemental weapons. It's still a Basically OK weapon but it's been knocked down to niche use rather than a staple. I'd say the best use case is someone who wants to use Faith from the start (for instance, helping a friend with a dedicated support build in co-op) and wants at least some payoff in damage before late game. I used it as my left hand weapon in power stance for quite a lot of the game since I wasn't planning to buff that hand anyway and it pulled its weight. That said, there's a reason I didn't use it in the right hand. I'm not a big fan of the one handed moveset. It's not bad per se but the underhanded swings just feel less powerful and I'm not sure why the strong attacks are borrowed from the Royal Dirk.
Varangian Sword
These first 7 swords are available pretty much at the start of the game, with varying levels of effort, so I'm loosely grouping them together as the "starter pack." Out of these, the Varangian Sword is the most viable as a main weapon rather than simply a backup. Broadsword moveset, Longsword length, and noticeably higher damage output than any of the other 6. Durability is something you have to keep in mind, and it can be especially bad for newer players who aren't as experienced with making it last, but for me it was mostly a non-issue.
Blue Flame
You know, when Elden Ring came out and there wasn't a single melee weapon that doubled as a casting tool I was a little confused. But then looking at the ones that appeared in DS2 and 3 and I start to think that the Blue Flame being actually pretty good as both a weapon and a casting tool was some sort of fluke. It's not really the best at either, as a staff it's a bit slow and only about third place in damage and as a sword it's Basically OK most of the time but suffers from the frequency of magic resistant enemies. But it lets me double buff easily in power stance and when you do, it's a blast to use. Now there is the question of infusion. Both Raw and Magic are basically direct upgrades in different ways. Raw works best if you plan to use it primarily as a sword since while it does improve the magic damage, it doesn't do so by a lot. Magic greatly improves spell damage, but is worse than base as a melee weapon, in no small part because it drops the physical damage down to "might as well not exist" level. Personally I think Raw is the better deal overall, especially since you have the option to apply Aromatic Ooze for an even better boost to spell damage than any spell buff, but I can see situations where more powerful spells could tip the balance in your favor. Also a heads up when you use this, due to some quirks in the buff formulas, Great Magic Weapon is only a few points weaker than Crystal on this weapon.
Red Rust Sword
This is an axe. Normally I would be fine with that since I fucking love the standard axe moveset for reasons I can't fully articulate, but this is not a particularly strong axe either. In fact at 40 Strength it's noticeably weaker than the Battle Axe even before you factor in the complete lack of counter damage. And the Battle Axe upgrades with normal titanite. And that;s not even touching on the Bandit Axe. Though granted it is at least strong for a straight sword if you count it as one. The one unique thing about the Red Rust Sword is its power stance performance (as you might have guessed from the person you get it from). It has straight sword compatibility and moveset priority but axe power stance moveset. This means you can pair it with some things that you normally can't pair with axes (daggers, thrusting swords, greatswords, spears, and lances specifically) and putting it in the left hand means it's less likely to override the moveset if you don't care for the axe power stance (and I don't).
Sun Sword
So the thing about weapons in DS2 with noticeably higher scaling than others in their class is they almost always have much lower base damage. This means that high stats are a requirement for use rather than a reward. Said scaling in this case is also a textbook example of DS2's misleading letter grades. The game tells you A/A but doesn't tell you that means 80%/45%. The other semi-unique feature, the one-handed stab, is not nearly as impressive or effective to me as the Longsword's two-handed one. And farming it is a complete pain in the ass even with the best luck boosts and a good plan. But let's take a step back from negativity and look at what this sword really wants you to do. It incentivizes physical stats and one handed use, which to me suggests one of two routes. Sword and board, especially since it comes with its own shield, but I've never felt that that's a particularly interesting playstyle. Or you can use it as the right hand in power stance, and that's where I think it shines. Again, having the option to use thrust damage when needed is very helpful, and the Sun Sword is one of the better options for this specific niche.
Drakekeeper's Sword
This just barely avoids being a direct upgrade to the Broadsword by having no counter damage. Above average reach and stagger, good damage, and high durability make this a very strong if not particularly flashy or dynamic choice. Just a pity that it's found almost at the end of the game.
Black Dragon Sword
Until you get very high stats, this is the strongest straight sword in the game. Both with a Raw infusion when compared to the physical options and with elemental infusions. And unlike the other strongest options, there's no traditional downside to balance it. High durability, Broadsword moveset, average reach, average weight, and no notable stat deficiencies. The real downside, aside from it being a pain to farm, is the opportunity cost of spending your boss upgrade material on something that is only the best of the Basically OK.
Yellow Quartz Longsword
Imagine a Longsword with a Broadsword moveset, worse damage, half the durability, and a bunch of crud smeared on the blade. Preorder weapons had a couple of hits and a bunch of misses. This one's a miss.
Possessed Armor Sword
This one has a few unique things going for it. The least remarkable thing is the above average reach, nice as it is. The moveset borrows a bit from axes and greatswords for a few attacks, and it works pretty decently. But the real draw is in the self-buff. L2 gives you 25 seconds of boosted fire damage at the cost of durability (much like the Watcher and Defender Greatswords). As for how well all of that works in practice, well it's not great but it's not really bad either. The buff doesn't add all that much damage, and fire is in many ways the worst damage type, but as long as you keep an eye on the durability and are not using it on things that resist it, it's Basically OK.
Ashen Warrior Sword
This sword has the same moveset as the Shortsword, with thrusting strong attacks when both one and two handed, so it makes a good first impression. And unlike the Shortsword it has decent reach so it's even better. The cracks start to show when you see the durability, though even then it's not a dealbreaker for me. That comes when you see the damage output and realize it traded actual real damage for bleed. Heartbreaking.
Puzzling Stone Sword
This weapon is unique top to bottom. The light attacks are already a pretty unique combination before you get into the weird extendo whip sword strong attacks. It's even got some weirdly high Dex scaling. Thing is, even with that scaling it's always on the lower end of damage for straight swords. And taking advantage of the extended reach with the strong attacks means dealing even less damage since they're way out of the sword's sweet spot. Still, as a rollcatcher or zoning tool it's pretty effective. Just ask Fencer Sharron.
Fume Sword
This is the longest straight sword by a decent margin, and acts even longer with those thrusting attacks. It has dark scaling, but no requirements in those stats and can be buffed with resin so it works just fine in physical builds. It also has above average counter damage. I think like the Sun Sword, this works best one handed with either a shield or another weapon, just like how its previous owner used it.
Ivory Straight Sword
It's a lightsaber. It deals pure physical Strike damage. It requires 40 Dex. It has no scaling. It weighs 0.5 pounds. It does not benefit from Flynn's Ring at all. It has 250 durability. It breaks after 25 swings no matter what you hit. It deals the least amount of poise damage of any weapon. It has the slowest attacks and the highest stamina costs of any straight sword. The 2 handed strong attack can deal 4 digit damage. Using that attack costs as much stamina as drawing a Twin-Headed Greatbow. I'm about 70% sure it can headshot. It's cool looking and unique. It sucks so bad. If you're intrigued by this thing's design and want to try to make the most of it, there's two different routes you can take to make it work. 1. Treat it like some sort of weird fucked up pocket great hammer and exclusively use the 2HR2. 2. Go play Elden Ring and build around the Carian Knight Sword or Coded Sword instead.

Hi there, I'm not sure if this is the correct sub, so please let me know if it's not. I was hoping for some advice and maybe some words of encouragement. I was fired from my job at a VR Arcade a week ago, and I'm really struggling with feeling like an absoloute failure. I also can't afford rent now, and I'm in my last push of getting my degree, so I'm really stressed out.
I was good at my job, really really good, my manager said so. My colleague doesn't think I should've got fired over what happened - nobody I actually worked with agrees with the decision, but it was out of their hands as it was made by the owner of the company (relatively small business). I believe if it had been down to my manager, I would still be there, as he was backing me while my termination was in discussion. I'm in the UK, for context, if this affects anything. I was employed there twice.
At the VR arcade, we ran VR escape rooms and free-play "gaming sessions" (I don't know why but the name of it makes me cringe), and birthday parties for kids (where they can all play gorilla tag or among us, for example) which are dependent on the PCs...working. They are plagued with technical and physical issues to this day, and bookings often don't run too well.
I had been saying since over a year ago, when I was first employed there, that the PCs weren't running very well, and that we really needed somebody to come down to our store to take a look at what was going wrong, but nothing was done. Then my (old) manager, who was almost 40, confessed feelings for me over text message, and I was 21 at the time. I found it sickening because we had a very "I ask you for life advice and you tell me about your life experiences" relationship, and he was always talking about how he wanted a wife and kids, so I was really upset and uncomfortable. We were the only two people working there. I told my boss that I was really upset and asked if we could be kept seperate. Because there was only the two of us, the bookings wouldn't allow for it (we'd have to work together), and "what he'd done wasn't illegal", my boss refused to accomodate anything at all so I walked out on the spot.
About six months later, I'm asked to come back for a higher wage and I agree. Creepy manager left after I did, they employed two new teenagers, and they've lost another staff member. Again, there is now only two of us working there. For context, sometimes we are expected to help up to 6 kids by ourselves with their games. This sounds relatively fair, until you imagine you're in a room with 6 7-12 year olds trying to play virtual reality, which many of them have never touched before, alongside PC crashes and errors and trying to make sure they all still have fun, whilst their parents are shooting daggers at you and loudly saying "Timmy, is your headset broken?", when in actuality they ignored the instruction talk and are pressing the buttons they were specifically told not to. Meaning I have to put their headset on and get them back into the game that they were in because they've found the settings. As soon as I come out, someone's PC has started throwing out errors and I need to fix that - and then another "excuse me!" - It's hard to juggle by yourself.
I start getting vocal about the PC issues again, and eventually someone comes down to "fix" them but we're still getting issues. There was one complaint because my boss did not pay for the game pass (and xboxes are advertised on the party packages), and kids couldn't play the games that were being advertised. I had to text him, during the party, to get it sorted out (and even then, I had to go and get the card and individually enter it on all of the xboxes and leave the kids in the VR room unattended - coming back to a backlog of issues which I can't fix in a timely manner). Eventually - and only because they thought I might be leaving due to the end of my course when I said I wanted to stay on full time - they hired a third person who is like the Jesus of VR.
On my last day, I had to tell my boss to pay the VR game subscription so that the day could run at all. Of course, this led to all of the PCs freaking out, and my colleague (who is luckily a VR wizard, she develops games for that) managed to fix it just in time for a party but even she experienced some hassle.
I play a lot of games, and I'm great with kids, but I'm not a technician, nor am I a manager and this was not listed in the job description. We have several complaints about the equipment not working on their booking. Our PCs were plaugued with technical issues (critical SteamVR fails for example) and crashes, which meant that entire bookings were being ruined, and I was being spoken to really badly by customers. I'm very sensitive because I have anxiety, so this was awful for me, and I cried several times on different days. I once had somebody ask: "who's running this sh*t show?" and "this is a f*cking waste of money" (on my last day). On my last day too, a lady booked the wrong time and said "the more you talk, the more you're wasting my kids time" and insisting that the booking system was wrong and that it was not her fault - even though the booking system has never messed up and the time she booked was the only available time we'd have had, as I checked the bookings the night prior and she had booked the only free space.
I have a lady that the bosses wife labelled as "horrible" break me in the end, she raised her voice at me while I was doing absoloutely everything I can to make her kids birthday party run well. It was a Saturday, and my boss had understaffed due to wanting to save money, so I was the only person on that floor. I couldn't ask my colleague for help as we're not allowed to leave anyone unsupervised and she was upstairs. It was a packed Saturday, with people turning up early and bombarding me with questions even though they could clearly see how stressed I was. My manager had given himself the day off. It was just me. There are so many people waiting (turning up 30 minutes early), that I run out of space in the xbox room for them to wait, and the party I'm trying to run keeps failing. I end up calling my manager, having an anxiety attack (I think) and having to go out the back. I couldn't breathe and I was crying and I felt dizzy, I almost fell over. My manager comes in and I leave - I tell him over text while he's on the way that I don't want to quit, but I'm sick of being the face of a broken product and getting abuse for it. I ask if I still have a job when I come back into the building and he's arrived, and he said it'll be discussed but that I "shouldn't get fired".
I leave, go to see a fake Radiohead concert with my friends and get super smashed. No surprises was not a pleasant one when you think you're about to get fired LMAO
I start getting messages from my manager and my colleague saying, and I quote, "we looked at the PCs, and we can confirm none of the issues were your fault today". My colleague then messages me privately and gives me some hope, saying that it shouldn't be a big deal.
Well...this "discussion" was supposed to happen the following day, but they postpone it to Wednesday. I found this disrespectful on top of not getting breaks on packed days, being paid late and a general lack of communication from my boss and his wife.
I ask bosses wife what's going on. She calls me: "you're just too anxious, the people in [where you live] are so much more cutthroat than in our other locations, you're just not a good fit".
I think this is so unfair. I was essentially fired for having an anxiety condition, which would never have impacted my work if it wasn't for technical problems that I had raised dozens of times that they should have fixed. I asked if the decision was final and she said yes. She was almost crying, but she still did it - so I don't really care about how hard it was for her anymore. She did it on an unknown number, too, which looking back, I think is kind of weird.
TL:DR; I was fired from my job because issues with equipment that I had raised dozens and dozens of times over the course of nearly two years were ignored. Bookings started getting ruined, we were understaffed and customers were horrible to me, leading to my anxiety condition being triggered and having a panic attack on several occasions. On my last day, it was so bad I had to ask my manager to come in and I left. I was fired on the basis of being "too anxious", and I'm distraught. Does anyone have any advice?

A few weeks ago, our 22 Explorer Hybrid had this issue described in the linked thread. After each of the warnings in the above picture came on, the car shut itself off in the middle of the road. Pretty terrifying. Turned it back on and it was in "limp home" mode with the service engine light on. We set an appointment to bring it to the dealer the next morning. When we took it in, the light was no longer on. When they checked for codes, they said the codes had been cleared so they couldn't do diagnostics. Nothing replicated when they drove it. Okay, fine, but they can see the historical codes in Fordpass, so maybe that would tell us something about what happened? We just wanted to know why they hell our car had a meltdown and shut off while we were driving it, so we can make sure it doesn't happen again.
This is where things get weird.
The dealer was able to find the car's history in Fordpass. The log said that all codes were manually cleared ten minutes before we checked into the dealer when we would have been driving. The dealer was similarly confused about how our codes could have been cleared when we were driving, so they contacted Ford. Ford continually asserted that there was no way these codes could be cleared other than with a OBD-II device. I had no idea how to respond to this...we don't own an OBD-II and drove straight from our house to the dealer. Furthermore, what incentive would we have to clear our own codes on the way to the dealer to address a serious malfunction? This either a lie on the part of Ford or there is some kind of serious issue with the Fordpass software having the ability to remotely clear codes.
Ford told the dealer there was no way they could do diagnostics since "someone cleared the codes" before we got to the dealer. That's it. Nothing's wrong.
So now we have no explanation for why our car shutoff in the middle of the road, and all we can do is hope that it doesn't happen again in an intersection or when our kids are in the car. Aside from the fact that it's crazy that nothing can be done to at least try to figure out what might have happened once a code has been cleared, I'm seriously concerned about the fact that, after such a serious malfunction, the codes were somehow remotely cleared when everyone at Ford insists codes cannot be cleared any other way than manually.
Any advice or insight that might shed light on what is going on is much appreciated. TIA

Hi. Does anyone else struggle with impulsivity and sex? I really want sex but I get constantly rejected. Esp in apps like grindr where its supposed to be the easiest. I am tired of paying for sex. I barley have any money and its making me broke.
On other apps I don't approach it like grindr. I am respectful and nice, I don't even talk about anything physical. I try to talk about them. I don't even get noticed.
I go to parlors and see workers whenever I can, its draining my pocket and I am almost dead broke. I feel like shit. I get rejected even when there is some money involved, I get ghosted at the last minute on apps like grindr.
Idk where to find people irl. I have no friends. Only people I see are at the gym (not talking to people there. people are there to work out and not converse with strangers) and some comedy club but again same thing. We are there for comedy and to get away. Plus there's only like 4 women and 3 are older probably with husbands.
I am sorry for posting this. I am a loser. Idk why I am fixated on sex. I just want someones touch and too feel stimulated. I am tired of older asian women -_- getting high on my addy. when I lost my job due to psychosis what triggered it was going to the amps lol. it was the start.
I workout and lost weight. I am improving myself. Don't say mentally because how can I when I don't get a chance? I am not good enough.

Grandma: She’s a bit of a Conservative conspiracy theorist and doesn’t trust the government, but I love her. She ties everything back into politics and religion, loves America. She’s a bit traditional, but also lets her mouth run wild sometimes. It ends up being a really long, ramble conversation on her end. She trusts sources, but usually only looks at one side so she believes the other side is completely corrupt and evil. She loves and values her big family and God. She also has a lot of love for nature. Her and my grandpa’s love story started out with her winking at him, so she’s DEFINITELY a flirt haha! She’s sassy, and very honest, but has unconditional love for her family… though some things are difficult for her to accept. She has anxious paranoia, tbh. But she’s very social, very honest. She also doesn’t seem to enjoy doing things with the help of others, preferring to be independent. She’s just traditional in the sense that she doesn’t like dyed hair or the style nowadays. She’s also really big on American history, and the past repeating itself, yet when i asked her to tell me her own life story for a school project she was very straightforward.
Types I’ve considered for her: ENTJ, ESTJ, ESTP
Grandpa: So he’s been dead for almost eight years but we were super close so I need to type him. My grandpa was a hard worker who loved old westerns, did not care for talking about politics. He was kind and generous, and took over the role of a father for me when my mom and I moved in. Every time a toy of mine broke, he would fix it for me. He owned a gun shed right next to our house up until his last day, stopping at nothing to work hard. He bought gifts for people just randomly, and loved outdoors. He was proud of working with Eagle Scouts. He was a veteran in the Cold War. He also loved to tease me, as well as teach me lessons. He taught me telling time, counting money, and would have me come to his office to read to him every night. Sometimes he would tell me brief stories to get me to learn responsible lessons, sometimes they were sad for little me. Like in order to get me to stop using so many paper towels, he told me a story about an owl with a name and everything who had lost its home because paper towels were being used too much. So I only took one or two strips after that. He called himself a grumpy grandpa, but was not grouchy, and bought me an Elmo In Grouchland dvd to show he was a grouch. He made me think I was good at everything and could do anything. He also loved Native American history. The only negative thing I can say is he was very particular with my grandmas cooking, and always wanted it just the way his mom used to make it. But me and him had a great relationship, I was his princess. He loved his family, and giving random acts of service. He died a month after I turned 9 because he didn’t want to stay in the hospital anymore. He wanted to keep working. He always spoiled me.
Types I’ve considered for him: ISTP, ISFJ, INFJ
Mom: Raised me as a single mom from the time I was two months old, and we lived at my grandparents house. She’s always been very witty and funny. More than anything else she strives to be good, intelligent, and helpful. She’s pretty self aware, and has strong morals, but she values logic over emotion. She loves logic, and math equations. She doesn’t like it when things make her feel dumb, and it is very hard to talk her out of something logical to her. She said she never had a problem with driving because it’s all logic, and because I struggle with driving she doesn’t know how to help me very well. She loves kids and cats. She didn’t know how much she loved cats until we got them though. She has a very kind, warm, and giving heart. She also spoiled me in childhood, as her only child. We never went on vacations though because we were poor. She is a bit impatient, and sometimes that rubs off on me. But she feels bad whenever I feel as if I’m being abandoned by her and tries to make it up however she can. At church every Sunday, she brings toys and candy for all of the little kids. They love her for it. She doesn’t like hearing lengthy stories, prefers them straight to the point… so I kind of annoy her sometimes. She sacrifices a lot. She’s not mentally healthy at the moment, but she’s my best friend and I love her fr.
Types I’ve considered: INTJ, ISTJ, (maybe) INFJ

Ok, look, I know the title sounds weird but stay with me. I, a gay man was talking to my friend, who is an asexual man, he struggles really badly with depression because of it and I can't bear to see him like this. The thing is, he accepted himself being an asexual when we were in our teens and he doesn't seem to have any sort of internalised a-phobia (if that's even a thing). What he is depressed about is never being able to feel what everyone else feels, he said to me verbatim "I feel like it makes me less of a man, because almost every other man feels it." He says that he knows that it's natural and there's nothing wrong with it but he just feels like he's missing out. He said the only thing that would make him happier is to get to feel sexual attraction. I just want him to feel better, he is in therapy and is coping, but I want to know if there is any hope for him, I as a gay man would also not mind being changed to straight as there will be a much better chance for me finding love.

When me and my younger boyfriend got together we made an agreement that we would disconnect from our fwbs on social media. My younger boyfriend claimed he unfollowed all his fwbs. But I recently discovered he still had one on his Instagram. When I confronted him about it he claimed he didn't see the issue with her still being on there because he told her he's in a relationship and can't see her. Yet he has no proof of any texts showing he told her but there's tons of proof of him telling other fwbs he can't hook up anymore except her. Today he came from school and after he sat down and we started talking I ended up bringing it up again because his answer didn't sit right with me. He accused me of trying to start an argument I said no I just want you to clarify why there's zero proof you told her. He said he deleted the text of him telling her because at the time he felt it would seem sketchy. I exclaimed how it would seem sketchy if you're literally telling her no you can't see her this story sounds like bullshit to b honest. He than yelled at me and told me "what you want me to say I'm still fucking her every Sunday after work? Is that what you want to here!." Than he accused me of random guys on my Instagram who I've never even met before being my fwb"s. I'm so upset he would make such a statement I try to respond but he cuts me off every 5 minutes. Im so hurt he would make such a statement as he knows how much abuse and torment I've endured in my past marriage. He apologised to me for the statement and said he just wanted to make a provocative statement to make a point but I think it was a malicious statement to hurt me.

The HRRFY.
It’s the horror movie festival where something genuinely fucked happens every year. And I mean every year.
Like, there are some screenings that unleash hordes of bats while the movie is playing. You're free to leave whenever you want, but the movie will still play for 2 hours and 15 minutes.
Other screenings hire actors to turn at you and scream at some point in the movie. You have no idea when, or how many times.
It's a festival where the word "illegal" can't even begin to describe what occurs. You'd only attend if you were a young, stupid edgelord like me who was trying to prove he was hardcore to his friends.
Trust me. DO NOT GO.
You have nothing to prove to anyone. Don't be stupid.
Wait for the lamer film versions to come out streaming. That's what everyone else does. They're neutered edits but they're fine.
All they lack is the real gleaming thing everyone wants to see at HRRFY, but who cares. At least you don’t get traumatized. At least you’re not risking your life.
Anyway, if you really want to know what attending HRRFY is like. I’ll be quick and summarize the one screening I went to. It was the 20th anniversary, and I was lucky enough to get in.
***
I had signed up for the HRRFY mailing list, and joined the subreddit. Through a series of cryptic online emails I solved a sequence of riddles and was entered in the lottery for a HRRFY entry.
Lady Luck took a shine to me, because one day in my mailbox, I received a physical ticket. I had done it.
I was going.
The actual ‘ticket’ was a black USB key that announced the location of the festival the night before (which I won’t disclose here) and it did force me to pay for a very expensive flight in order for me to make it on time.
You see, to prevent getting shut down, the location of HRRFY changes every year. Some years the local police have managed to stop it, but for the most part, authorities have given up. What’s the point of arresting or charging anyone, if all the organizers and attendees actually want to be there?
Upon arrival, I had to pick between three participating theaters.
Based on title alone, I decided to go see “Many Drownings” (directed by Oleksander Gołański.) It was in the theater that was furthest away from the downtown core, which meant it was likely the one where the craziest shit was bound to happen.
That’s what I came here for right?
I lined up a solid two hours before the screening like everyone else. The entire line was jittering, just vibrating with excited twenty-somethings. Rumors flew left and right.
“I heard they’re going to force everyone to take acid.”
“I heard an actor’s gonna run in and shotgun the ceiling.”
“I heard they’re going to disappear like four more people this year. At this screening!”
Each year people disappeared. And each year the same people were ‘found.’ And yes this is the worst part, and why should never, ever, ever go to this event.
Again I will repeat myself. DO NOT GO.
No one has ever truly gone 'missing' at HRRFY in any legal or physical sense, because every missing person always shows up a day later, convinced that they are fine—refusing to elaborate further.
There are some small support groups for people who have family members who had gone to HRRFY, and came back irrevocably changed after being ‘found.’
These few unlucky people lose all semblance of personality. They don’t want interviews, or help, or therapy, or contact of any kind. And they never, ever want to talk about what they saw.
Some HRRFY fans think that these ‘found’ people were body-snatched. Cloned in a lab or replaced by a cyborg, or something stupid like that.
But I think there’s a far simpler explanation. The ‘found’ are still the same people. They're just terrified. They got shaken by something that shattered the foundation of their mind, body and soul. They got too scared.
They got HRRFY’d.
***
I should mention I had a cough the day I went. And I was worried my sickly appearance might give me trouble at the airport.
So I invested in an intense double N95 mask which I wore for the whole flight, and continued to wear even at the screening of “Many Drownings.”
It made my face hot and uncomfortable, but it still didn’t stop me from yelling “excuse me, excuse me!” as I ran to snag a seat in the back of the theater.
I always preferred sitting in the far back. You get a good view of the whole screen, and a good view of the whole audience.
Beside me sat a big dude named Sylvester, who apparently flew all the way from Australia to attend HRRFY.
“Worth the full Seventeen hours mate! It’s gonna be epic!” he dropped a massive camping backpack beside me, which I assume contained all of his luggage.
The lights dimmed, and the production company logos started to play.
The whispering, giggling and suspense all stacked upon each other to create an electric feeling in the air. I was giddy. It's like the entire audience was embarking on a massive roller coaster.
The anticipation was the best part for sure. It might have been the only good part.
Then the movie started.
It was a wide shot of a gray, stormy sea. The waves were massive, and the thunderclouds were looming. There was no land visible in any direction.
All we could hear was the sound of waves foaming, swirling, and crashing over and over. Lightning crackled. Rain poured. The camera held perfectly still over this storm as if it was mounted on a perfectly hovering drone. A drone so resilient that it didn’t waver at all.
I thought it had to be CGI.
The shot held like this for the next few moments. Everyone sat glued to their seats. Everyone was thinking the same thing.
What’s going to happen? How are they going to scare us?
People chuckled. People cheered. People wanted to tease whatever was going to happen—to happen already.
But nothing did.
Five, ten, maybe fifteen minutes went by without any change. People started snoring.
I looked beside me and saw that Sylvester—the most excited audience member of them all—had fallen totally asleep. The jet lag must’ve gotten to him.
Then I peered beyond the rest of the audience members and saw other people snoozing too. Heads were keeled over, some people were curled in their seats, some had even spilled out into the aisle and were dozing on the floor.
I looked above the bright screen, at the huge vents in the corner of the theater. I saw a faint white gas emerging from the vents.
Holy shit. What have we been breathing? I tightened the straps on my N95 mask, and made my breathing shallower.
The gas must have been pumping since the opening credits—because how else would an audience of two hundred people all fall asleep?
As I moved my hand through the air in front of me, I could sense the thickness. It was definitely hazier than usual. I took the scarf off my neck and wrapped it around my mouth as well.
Then I spotted movement in front of the screen.
It was a tall blonde man, wearing a black trenchcoat and military-grade gas mask. Beside him arrived six hazmat suits who started pointing at various audience members.
I slunk in my chair, pretending to sleep like everyone else.
Two hazmats walked over to the front row and picked out a sleeping guy in flannel. They lifted flannel up, under the armpits and by his ankles, carrying him between them both like a hammock.
The hazmats walked back up to the stage, where the blonde leader inspected the flannel man and tapped his head. Something was approved?
The hazmats began to swing flannel back and forth, as if they were getting ready to toss him. Despite their masks, I could hear a very muffled, very distant countdown.
“Three…”
“Two…”
“One…”
The flannel audience member was tossed into the screen.
I literally watched him fly into the image of stormy waves … andfallinto them. The flannel man sank into the gray water like a rock, leaving a few bubbles and foam. A wave came crashing down. All trace of him was gone.
What the fuck.
All six hazmats began grabbing more audience members with much more urgency. It became a minute-long process where they would pick the sleeping person up, bring them beside the screen, and then swing-toss them into it.
How was this possible?
I turned slightly to see if there was a projector above me, and realized there was none. Which meant maybe there was no screen on stage.
Which meant … maybe it was a portal?
I tried to wake Sylvester by shaking him. I pinched his leg and arm a bunch.
He was out cold.
The hazmats started grabbing audience members from the middle rows now. They were emptying the whole theater. What the hell was I supposed to do?
I waited until they grabbed another batch, only a few rows down from me. When all hazmats had their backs turned—I broke into a run.
With my left arm, I tightly gripped my mask and scarf against my face, while my right arm vaulted me over seat after seat.
I had never breathed so hard—through so much fabric—in my life.
The hazmats all turned to me. “Hey! Hey!” But their hands were full with their next victims.
I ran all the way down the aisle, to the big exit sign on the left. My heartbeat filled my head. My plan was to dropkick through the exit door.
I imagined myself breaking through like some flying gazelle.
I jumped.
I angled my kick.
It might as well have been a brick wall. I fell ass-first to the ground, followed by my head. Of course the door was locked.
Through a muffled mask I heard a sneering scoff.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Above me stood the one wearing a trenchcoat. I could see his piercing gray eyes through his gas mask.
I rolled aside and tried to run by him. He lifted a foot and tripped me without effort.
My forehead bashed into an empty seat. It dazed me.
The blonde leader bent down and grabbed me by the neck, tearing away my scarf and mask.
“No! No!”
A sweet, ether-like smell filled my nostrils. I did my best to hold my breath, but I could already feel myself getting light-headed.
The other hazmats joined in, grabbing me from all sides. Even if I had the strength to struggle, there was no escape now.
Above me, all I could see was the dark theater ceiling, and some of the light behind me from the cinema screen.
“Three…”
“Two…”
“No. Please. Don’t do thi—”
SPLASH.
I was plunged deep into cold, wet chaos. My head was completely underwater.
Gagging. Bubbles. Spinning.
I fought for dear life, dog-paddling like a maniac.
Churning. Freezing. Panic.
For a second, my head popped above the water. I inhaled all the air my lungs could muster. I stared across a vast, violent ocean.
An enormous thirty foot wave came in my direction.
My whole body lifted higher and higher as the wave approached. I did my best to tread water. It seemed to be working.
Then a series of smaller waves arrived and smacked my chest.
SPLASH.
Spinning. Kicking. Flipping.
My view alternated between the pitch dark ocean beneath me, and the moonlit night sky above.
Again I swam to the surface, popped my head out. Ravenously sucked in air.
There was a small lull in the water.
Around me I now registered the other theater goers. Most of them were lying face-down or sinking … but a few were flapping about like me, fighting for their life.
And above all of us, a floating white shape.
It was painfully bright, I had to lift one hand to look at it.
My jaw dropped.
It was the movie screen, hanging completely still in the air. It showed a dark, empty theater. The exact same theater we all occupied moments ago.
It was tremendously high, above all of our heads. There was no way of reaching it.
Then I saw another thirty foot wave come our way. It grazed the bottom of the screen.
I knew what had to be done.
***
One of the theater goers happened to be on a college swim team. She was the first one able to traverse one of the giant waves and climb into the screen.
Once she was up there, she found a firehose in the theater and reeled it out to us like a rope.
One by one, we swam as hard as we could, praying to God we could reach the rope. Everyone’s energy was sapped. Your body can only sustain itself on adrenaline and fear for so long.
By some miracle, five of us got out.
I was the last.
I climbed the rope coughing and vomiting. I had swallowed so much water that my stomach felt swollen.
When I reached the top and they pulled me into the screen, I sobbed. I couldn’t stop crying.
My life had flashed countless times before my eyes. In bubbling, suffocating visions, I saw both my parents and my brother. I saw my highschool graduation. I saw my favorite Christmas from when I was six years old.
I had almost lost all of that. I had lost almost everything.
On the dirty, carpeted theater floor, I lay with my face down, savoring the fact that I now lay on a hard surface. God bless ground. God bless this filthy, popcorn-strewn ground.
Beside me I heard bantering, hugging, the wringing of wet clothes. Sylvester was the second last to be saved, and he was particularly vocal.
“Wooooooaaaaahh!” He came and drummed me on the back, lifted me up. “Oh my god dude! Holy shit!”
I sat on my knees, wiping the tears and snot off my mouth.
Sylvester clapped his hands, held his face and screamed some more.
“Holy shit dude! That was so fucking scary! Like literally people were dying beside us. Like I SAW people die!”
I nodded, shivering in my drenched clothes. “ I know it was—”
“—That was craaaaazy!”
He laughed and stood up, patting everyone on the back. He kept clapping his hands like this was some sports event.
“That was sick! That was siiiiiiiiick!”
He ruffled someone’s hair then ran up to me with an open palm.
“High five dude! WE MADE IT! High five!
“Don’t leave me hangin’ dude!”

When me and my younger boyfriend got together we made an agreement that we would disconnect from our fwbs on social media. My younger boyfriend claimed he unfollowed all his fwbs. But I recently discovered he still had one on his Instagram. When I confronted him about it he claimed he didn't see the issue with her still being on there because he told her he's in a relationship and can't see her. Yet he has no proof of any texts showing he told her but there's tons of proof of him telling other fwbs he can't hook up anymore except her. Today he came from school and after he sat down and we started talking I ended up bringing it up again because his answer didn't sit right with me. He accused me of trying to start an argument I said no I just want you to clarify why there's zero proof you told her. He said he deleted the text of him telling her because at the time he felt it would seem sketchy. I exclaimed how it would seem sketchy if you're literally telling her no you can't see her this story sounds like bullshit to b honest. He than yelled at me and told me "what you want me to say I'm still fucking her every Sunday after work? Is that what you want to here!." Than he accused me of random guys on my Instagram who I've never even met before being my fwb"s. I'm so upset he would make such a statement I try to respond but he cuts me off every 5 minutes. Im so hurt he would make such a statement as he knows how much abuse and torment I've endured in my past marriage. He apologised to me for the statement and said he just wanted to make a provocative statement to make a point but I think it was a malicious statement to hurt me. Was it wrong for me to say I didn't believe his statement.

The following is a directive by the 2nd Shock Army instructing its subordinate formations and commanders on how to prepare and carry out a breakthrough, including organizational measures to improve its combat effectiveness. 2nd Shock Army was deployed in the rear of 2nd Belorussian Front in December 1944, preparing to participate in the East Prussian Operation. In mid-January to would successfully break out from the Rozhan bridgehead.

DIRECTIVE FOR THE ORGANIZATION AND CONDUCT OF THE EAST PRUSSIAN OFFENSIVE OPERATION
TO THE CORPS COMMANDERS AND CHIEFS OF THE TROOP BRANCHES OF THE 2ND SHOCK ARMY
When preparing for a breakthrough, I require you to focus particular attention on the following issues:
PREPERATORY PERIOD
[1)]
a) Study in the entire tactical depth of the enemy’s defense his engineering structures and obstacles, infantry and anti-tank fire systems, artillery and mortar groups, and the system of observation posts.
b) Know the areas where reserves are concentrated and the possible directions of counterattacks. Senior commanders (commanders of rifle corps and rifle divisions) must also know the operational depth of the enemy’s defense, the location of his operational reserves, the possibility of meeting them and on what lines.
c) Know where tanks are concentrated and the possible directions of their actions.
d) Using an observation system and studying all intelligence data in detail, establish the combat routine of the defending enemy.
2) Organization of observation
a) No later than December 25 the army headquarters will equip one OP [Observation Point] (main) in each direction and two auxiliary ones, providing them with communications equipment, surveillance equipment and specially trained officers.
b) Corps and division commanders must determine places for OPs and report to me no later than 12/18.
All OPs from the platoon commander and above must ensure complete observation of the terrain from the starting position according to the principle - every commander must see the battlefield.
Telephones should be placed at the OP for those where the commander is monitoring the battlefield.
c) Artillery and infantry observation should be organized by the army headquarters from 12/20/44, corps and divisions - by special order with the obligatory keeping of observation logs and a report to the top.
Observation data for the day should be submitted to corps headquarters and artillery headquarters to army headquarters by 10 p.m. daily.
d) At the OP from regiments and above, specially trained and instructed officers (3-4 people), headed by a staff officer and provided with security (2-3 machine gunners), must be located and monitored.
Observers should change every 2 hours.
The senior officer must visit the OP at least once a day.
e) Each commander must have a map with data from his personal observation and data received from other commanders (in different colors).
Artillery and infantry commanders should compare the data received by each of them about the enemy to clarify them.
f) By 12/28, the Army Headquarters will provide the corps and divisions with maps filled with the situation about the enemy based on data received from the defenders, observation from the OPs and from other sources.
3) Study the area
a) Study in detail the features of the terrain in front of the enemy’s front line of defense, in the tactical depth of his defense, and for higher commanders in the operational depth. Pay special attention to studying the terrain in tank terms.
b) Keeping in mind the open nature of the terrain, carefully study all approaches to the enemy’s front line, possible starting positions for the attack and the directions along which the artillery will advance.
Know the roads leading to the front line from the depths, and the roads in the depths of the enemy’s defense in the zone intended for the offensive.
4) Secrecy and camouflage of measures taken to prepare the operation
a) Regrouping of troops (infantry, artillery, tanks) should be carried out only at night.
Carefully camouflage the areas where troops are located, preventing the appearance of smoke during the day and the lighting of fires at night.
b) Eliminate any possibility of communication and conversations with the local population. Under no circumstances should commanders and fighters be allowed to be housed with local residents.
The headquarters of units and formations are usually located in a forest.
c) Warn all personnel about the inadmissibility of revealing the numbering of army units and formations.
d) Avoid talking on the phone about ongoing events. The commanders of the formations personally approve the lists of persons to whom telephone numbers are left and the right to converse.
Strictly prohibit the use of radio equipment until the moment of the attack.
e) Do not allow signs indicating unit numbers, field mail and commanders' names, as well as identification marks of hospitals and rear institutions to be displayed at intersections and at entrances to areas where formations and units are located. The latter will be displayed by special order.
f) Take the strictest measures to protect documents and maps, preventing their loss. Do not take maps with the details of your units to the front line.
g) Army headquarters, rifle corps headquarters, rifle divisions and rifle regiments organize a commandant service, establish commandant posts and patrols and carefully instruct them.
Commandant posts and patrols should not allow accumulations of vehicles, horse-drawn vehicles and manpower, especially in areas of visibility, and ensure strict compliance with all camouflage instructions.
Inform all personnel that the requirements of commandant posts and patrols are mandatory for all officers, regardless of official position.
h) All reconnaissance should be carried out in accordance with special instructions.
5) Combat training
Combat training begins on 12/20/44.
Combat training of troops differs from general combat training in that it is carried out in a specific environment.
Commanders of formations and units should organize combat training based on the specific tasks of each unit (being in the first or second echelon, with whom and when it interacts, etc.).
Conduct combat training on terrain as similar as possible to the one on which you will operate.
Corps and division commanders should be ready for an operational game at army headquarters by 12/26/44 based on the materials and conditions of the operation being prepared.
6) Work of headquarters
a) All headquarters prepare a complete schedule of urgent reports and the procedure for its implementation.
Establish a list of officers responsible for information from higher headquarters, formations of supporting and interacting units.
Consider the failure of the transmission of at least one report at any link to be an emergency.
Pay special attention to the truthfulness of the information.
b) Check the readiness of all means of communication: telephone, telegraph, radio, mobile vehicles (liaison officers, cars, motorcycles, etc.).
Have a reserve of radio equipment to create intermediate stations, especially for communication with mobile groups.
c) Check the distribution of functional responsibilities among staff officers and their mastery.
d) Ensure control over the implementation of combat orders of commanders. Following a combat order, an officer of the operations directorate (department) must be sent to the troops to monitor the implementation of this order.
The officers sent must be instructed by the formation commander or chief of staff and have a firm knowledge of the mission of the formation, unit or subunit to which they are sent.
e) Minimize the production time for operational documents, without in any way “eating up” the time of lower headquarters.
f) Carefully work out in advance all interaction documents for the entire depth of the battle.
g) Prepare SUV (Covert troop management) documents in advance and send them to the troops.
Immediately upon receipt of them, organize training and ensure free use of them by all officers, especially officers and administrators.
7) Logistical support
a) Carefully check the condition of automatic weapons. Each fighter must have the prescribed number of cartridges, each machine gun must have the prescribed number of belts and disks. Belts should not be damp.
Check the winding of the seals, the tension of the return springs, the availability of spacer rings (spare), extractors and antifreeze fluid.
In rifle platoons, which are intended for special work in clearing mines and laying paths for infantry, have carts for pulling away wire and other obstacles.
b) Check the ammunition from the rifle to the gun. Determine where to store ammunition, who, how and where to supply it.
c) The equipment of each fighter must be checked (fitting of uniform, equipment, contents of duffel bag, etc.).
d) Prepare a backpack supply for soldiers in the amount of one daily allowance, the issuance of which will be carried out by special order of division commanders.
Check the feeding arrangements, especially on the first day of the fight.
e) All vehicles must be repaired, possible routes determined, fuel depots installed. Each driver must be familiar with these routes and road conditions in advance. Cars must have chains and tools (shovels, axes).
f) Put horse-drawn transport in order.
g) On roads in the army zone, install signs at all intersections indicating populated areas, marking altitudes and azimuths of directions.
h) In crossing areas, prepare gaps and exits from roads every 50 m in both directions. Crossings should be distributed among commanders of formations and a commandant service should be established on them, avoiding the accumulation of vehicles, horse-drawn vehicles or manpower.
i) Establish a procedure for evacuating the wounded. Designate sanitary picket points.
Explain to the soldiers that the wounded must bring their weapons to the dressing station, and the weapons of the seriously wounded must be picked up by orderlies.
j) Explain to all fighters the inadmissibility of using captured products and “junk”.
k) All commanders should check the unit’s logistics on a daily basis.
PREPARATION AND OCCUPATION OF THE STARTING POSITION FOR THE ATTACK
1) The day before the troops reach their starting position, mark the routes to it for each company to prevent wandering and mixing of units. Set up beacons.
Take the most decisive measures so that soldiers and officers cannot get lost and fall into the hands of the enemy. Under no circumstances should you allow yourself to go over to the enemy’s side.
2) Study the starting position and equip it so that the infantry and materiel are completely covered. Eliminate the possibility of exposure and losses of manpower and materiel.
Considering the dampness of the soil and the appearance of track marks on it after turning off the road, these marks should be immediately smoothed out.
3) Regiment commanders prepare and fix roads to pull everything necessary to the starting position.
4) Consider the organization of communication when reaching the starting position.
5) Reach the starting position over two nights.
On the first night, bring out heavy infantry fire weapons and direct fire weapons. Those guns that can be seen in positions by the enemy should be brought out on the second night.
On the second night, bring out the infantry.
6) When taking over a combat area from defending units, carefully study your own and enemy’s minefields.
Clear your minefields located in the depths of the defense in advance; those located in front of the front line should be cleared of mines two to three days before the offensive, organizing the protection of the passages.
Clear enemy minefields within two nights. This demining is carried out under conditions of careful camouflage from enemy observation.
7) Before leaving for the starting position, explain to all personnel: for what, where and how should they do it, what secrecy and camouflage measures to take.
Bring the combat mission to the fighters 4 hours before the start of the attack.
INFANTRY ATTACK AND COMBAT IN THE DEPTH OF THE ENEMY'S DEFENSE
1) Build battle formations not according to a template, but taking into account the specific actions of each unit and subunit.
During a frontal breakthrough, the battle formation will be straightforward, in a forest battle - along road directions, when crossing rivers - echeloned, and when fighting in the depths of defense - maneuverable.
Pay special attention to the placement of forces and weapons in combat formations at all stages and in all conditions, so that fire weapons do not lag behind the infantry.
Senior commanders check the decisions of subordinate commanders, carefully explain the shortcomings they made in the formation of battle formations and indicate measures to eliminate these shortcomings.
2) Every Red Army soldier must understand that the main goal of an organized breakthrough of the enemy’s defense is to reach the firing positions of his artillery in the first 2-3 hours of the battle.
3) Remind each officer once again that combined arms combat consists of three elements:
a) organizing artillery fire support,
b) organizing close combat between infantry and tanks and
c) organizing close interaction between these two elements.
4) Remember that the basis of artillery fire support is not artillery preparation, but the organization of artillery fire in the depths of the enemy’s defense.
Every officer must know that the success of artillery fire depends on good organization of reconnaissance, on his knowledge of the capabilities of all means of reinforcement and the correct formulation of tasks.
5) An infantry strike must be preceded by a fire strike. This means that it is necessary to follow this order: reconnaissance, then fire strike, then attack, and not the reverse.
6) During the attack, under no circumstances should infantry be allowed to lie in the first trench. It is dangerous because it causes a desire to take cover and, as a rule, is always targeted by enemy artillery.
Don't linger at temporary stops; The longer people lie, the more difficult it is to raise them, the greater the losses.
The attack must be swift.
7) All means must be used to hit one place. Everything must be linked together.
I forbid pointing at others: “The tanks failed,” “The infantry did not rise,” “The artillery did not support.”
Check the implementation of interaction issues at all levels.
The artillery commanders will be with the infantry commanders.
8) During a battle deep in the enemy’s defense, obtaining accurate data on the enemy’s behavior becomes of utmost importance. Report about the enemy only quantitatively, and not organizationally, i.e. 30-40 soldiers and not a company or platoon.
Report exactly where and what enemy firing points are hindering the advance. Do not allow the expressions: “Heavy machine gun or mortar fire.”
9) Each commander knows at any time the position and condition of the formation (unit). The situation report must always be truthful.
The commander must have the courage to report whether his unit can carry out the order at a given moment, and if not, then for what reasons.
10) The depth of the enemy’s tactical defense in front of the army’s front lies at the line of 6-8 km from the front edge (the artillery positions). Until we reached the artillery positions, the breakthrough was not realized.
11) Consider the tactics of using tanks by the enemy:
a) for counterattacks with small groups of infantry,
b) as fixed firing points (armored fortified points) and
c) in night battle conditions.
Introduce to every officer the procedure for organizing anti-tank defense, which should include:
– a two-tier construction of the AT defense is provided;
– measures to combat both counterattack tanks and armored fortified points are indicated.
Take measures to consolidate occupied lines.
The two-tier construction of AT defense should be understood as follows:
– first tier – fire weapons from platoon to regiment (from anti-tank grenades to regimental guns); this tier is mobile and is located in infantry combat formations; his task is to fight enemy tanks and self-propelled guns encountered along the path of troops;
– the second tier is organized in depth from anti-tank fighter regiments and other artillery reinforcement means. This tier moves in jumps from line to line and ensures the advancement of the infantry.
A solid knowledge by officers and soldiers of the order of constructing anti-tank support prevents tank fear.
Each unit should have groups of sapper-hunters to blow up tanks.
12) The battle must be continuous, waged day and night. Continuity is achieved through reserves and the use of battalions specially trained for night combat. When issuing an order to commit a reserve to battle, the same order should also indicate the creation of a new reserve.
The order for a night battle should be given in such a way that the unit is not late in starting action.
13) The attack must be general. Do not allow the formation's battle to turn into battles of individual units. This can only be achieved by good observation of the enemy, knowledge of the situation, immediate response to the course of the battle, and solving the problem using fire weapons.
14) The battle must be deep, which means that commanders are required to know not only the object they are attacking, but also what is behind it, by organizing deep reconnaissance.
15) Provide advance relocation to new command posts and OPs. The relocation plan must be approved in advance by a senior commander. The axis of movement of the command post must be known to junior commanders.
You can move to a new point only when communication is established there.
16) Commanders who have personal radio stations should always keep them with them and during the offensive do not move forward without them.
17) The names of the commanders of units and formations are addressed on the radio only by their operational call signs, because some of them were published in the orders of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief and mentioning them will enable the enemy to establish from which front these units or formations arrived.
18) Prohibit communications on the radio in the clear. Use only communications tables, reference diagrams and coded maps.
ISSUES OF ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT OF FIRE
1) All commanders should check their subordinates’ knowledge of the materiel, ability to eliminate delays, and tactically, competently, fire and use each type of weapon.
2) Check all weapons for trouble-free operation and combat accuracy.
3) Require officers, non-commissioned officers and enlisted personnel to make full use of infantry fire, especially at the moment when artillery fire will be transferred from the first trench to the second.
Carefully consider infantry fire according to the stages of the battle.
2-3 minutes before launching an attack, heavy machine guns should open fire on the enemy trench under attack. Be sure to take into account which heavy machine guns will go on the attack with the infantry and which ones will support them with fire.
Light machine guns must be completely in the combat formations of the attacking infantry and fire on the move and from short stops.
Fire from machine guns on the move during an attack, taking into account to save ammunition when you need to fight in the second and subsequent trenches.
4) Artillery commanders should not dismiss the organization of fire combat for the infantry itself. Take into account the fire of heavy and light machine guns in planning.
5) The guns will be assigned to companies and platoons; you should always help them move with you, and not abandon them.
6) Commanders of rifle corps and divisions and artillery commanders should give instructions to officers up to the company commander on how and what type of artillery should be assigned tasks.
7) Each commander is obliged to know what assets are operating in his offensive zone in addition to his group. Every leader should inform his subordinates about this so that they can take it into account when making a decision.
8) Division commanders must approve the OP for direct fire guns. Each direct fire weapon must have its own target, the nature and position of this target, the number of shells to hit it, and the time for their consumption.
Rifle corps, divisions and regiments must have general fire plans for direct fire guns.
Direct fire guns should only be placed on the observation posts when the latter are fully prepared and all work is camouflaged. After installing direct fire guns, they should also be carefully camouflaged so that the enemy could not guess their presence even with the help of photographs.
9) In terms of artillery fire for the destruction of trenches, each artillery and mortar battery must have its own area, preventing firing in areas.
Check target numbers with batteries and guns to ensure there are no typos or errors. Also check the trench numbers.
10) Particularly consider the issue of organizing fire to repel counterattacks of small groups of the enemy, with the help of which he seeks to delay our advance. In such cases, the counterattacking infantry must be met with organized fire and, pursuing it, burst into his trenches on the shoulders of the enemy.
11) When moving artillery, first of all move those batteries whose fire has reached the [range] limit.
ISSUES OF USING TANKS AND SELF-PROPELLED GUNS
1) Eliminate the shortcomings in the use of self-propelled artillery that occurred in previous battles: excessive fragmentation of self-propelled units, the use of self-propelled guns as tanks, lack of proper assistance from sappers in clearing mines, building bridges, etc.
Self-propelled guns are used to reinforce regiments as infantry escort weapons.
In regimental battle formations, self-propelled guns should be placed behind the infantry.
2) Provide assigned tanks with fire from the guns of the infantry's anti-tank system. The guns accompanying the tanks must be accurately aimed at the enemy firing points that they need to suppress.
3) Fully use the minesweeper tanks attached to formations. The actions of these tanks will be supported by infantry fire.
To remove and neutralize mines not detonated by minesweeper tanks, assign sapper groups to accompany them.
ENTERING RESERVES INTO BATTLE
(second echelons)
1) Take all necessary measures to eliminate the possibility of delay in bringing reserves (second echelons) into battle.
The commanders of the reserve units must be at the OP together with the commanders of the units advancing in the first echelon.
2) Commanders of reserve units are required to conduct reconnaissance on all possible directions of action of their units.
3) Thoroughly work out on the ground issues of interaction related to the introduction of reserves. Determine the boundaries of deployment, reassignment of reinforcement equipment, establish signals and the procedure for organizing communications.
Avoid delays in switching amplifiers.
INTRODUCTION OF MOBILE GROUPS INTO THE BREAKTHROUGH
Commanders of rifle divisions and regiments can be appointed heads of mobile groups. They need to remember the following:
– more initiative; do not wait for the decision of senior commanders;
– conduct thorough reconnaissance, especially engineering;
– always have a group of sappers ready to clear mine routes, fix roads, and build bridges;
– in case of major damage, use all available human resources to correct it, without waiting for the sapper units to arrive;
– ensure communication both within the group and especially with the highest headquarters of the formation in whose zone it operates;
– before the introduction of a mobile group, check that the issues of interaction, communication and support have been worked out by the commander in whose zone the group operates.
BATTLE MANAGEMENT ISSUES
1) By 12/20/44, check the staffing, composition and preparedness of the headquarters of company and battalion commanders and the availability of communications equipment. Avoid loss of control in this link.
Every officer must once again understand that control during battle is the basis of success; its loss threatens to disrupt the offensive.
2) Rocket signals should be a means of control only by the regiment commander. Other commanders duplicate these signals.
The signals should be common throughout the breakthrough area.
3) Use only white flares to indicate our front line when flying our aircraft. These missiles should only be launched at the very front line. Prohibit the use of white flares for any other signals. Corps commanders should check and report the presence of white flares and signal pistols.
4) Ensure that rifle units (companies) are always combat-ready. It is necessary to maintain a combination of manpower and fire.
After each battle, restore the combat readiness and firepower of the attacking units.
5) Each commander must have two pre-appointed deputies.

Met one of my in-laws’ couple friends today - older couple in their early 60s with kids in their 30s and early 40s. The wife hit me with the “is she breastfed” about my baby within 5 minutes of meeting. I admit it’s still a bit of a sore spot sometimes at six months, so I was a bit annoyed. I just muttered “no, formula” and changed the topic.
Turns out this was just her (albeit awkward) way of making conversation and she formula fed her kids too! Later on she asked me what formula I use and when I said Similac she smiled and said that’s what she fed her babies years ago.
Anyway, as much as I think we should as a society change how we talk about feeding babies (I much prefer “how’s feeding going” to assuming breastfeeding), sometimes people really do mean well and just don’t use the right words! Also was nice to be reminded that in 30 years when I’m grandma age, things like this are going to feel so insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

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, Phil’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 if 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 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, Phil’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 if 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.