It was white and clear with no smell 17F I was on anti depressants that took away my period but stopped them last month and had a period, my period is normally the 28th give or take a week. We had sex last week, unprotected but he did pull out and my breasts don’t feel sore etc etc this was our only time having any sort of unprotected sex

Im a 31 year old female with endometriosis and ADHD. I weigh 45kg and 154cm in height. White, female, generally pretty healthy bar the endometriosis and physically active. Take ADHD meds during day and melatonin at night usually for ADHD related sleep onset issues.
Now on codeiene 30mg, Pregabalin 50mg x 3 times per day. Anti sickness meds from post op complications and suspected pudenal neuraglia.
I had a larsoscopy in January. My aterty was cut (unsure which bit likely a branch of lilo lumbar or espgatric) I bled into my pelvis and labia and crashed in the ward a few hours after surgery. I developed a grade 3 hematoma. The hospital discharged me with no follow up or aftercare plan so no one has physically assessed me since surgery bar my GP. My GP arranged an ultrasound 4 weeks post op to confirm blood has reasborded. I had a UTI around this time, which resolved. However the nausea, stabbing pains in hematoma site, reduced ability to open my bowels/bladder, reduced sensitivity on my left leg and labia have not resolved. My GP suspects nerve damage, and I am now on Pregabalin as a result to manage the burning sensation and pain in my groin. I can barely walk or sit some days due to pain. I've been on Pregabalin 2 months so fairly adjusted to it. It brings some relief.
However, Everytime I have a "pain flare up" my former hematoma site darkens and becomes bruised, this can be from as little as having sex or walking to trying to do more physical activity. This builds up over days until it is sore to touch and I begin to lose mobility due to pain. Opening my bowels and fully emptying my bladder becomes almost impossible, to the point I'm in agony just going to the toilet. I've started to manually evacuate (I've done this occasionally for many years due to IBS related to endometriosis) and notice how blocked my actual back passage feels, it feels like there is this bump pushing down into it from the part close to my vagina that I cant seem to adjust or move. I cannot tolerate insertion to my vagina that is at 12 o'clock (near my bladder) or six o'clock (near my rectum).
Yesterday I lost my footing due to trying to get off the toilet after weeing due to stabbing pain in surgery site after emptying my bladder. I noticed the entire area has developed patches of brown/blue markings, and I am experiencing loose bowel motions and today. The pain is so bad I can't sit anymore today and have been in bed most the day. My usual stretches and pain killers are bringing no relief.
My GP is concerned and has referred me to a urologist, endo specialist and rectal surgeon. My boyfriend is also a doctor (junior) and has no idea why the bruising appears and what causes these bad pain flares. All vaginal swaps and urine tests came back clear.
If anyone has any ideas or in this area, please let me know.

today marks 100 days since I've really dived into this work. Now, I know I still have along way to go, but last night was one of my most successful meditations, BOTEC 1. I realized I have to work my way up through the next few originally because i skipped around and it was so intense for me, I felt like I need to really master 1 before i move forward. and Boy oh Boy, did last night really feel excellent! I felt "IT" if you've tapped into the Divine you know What I mean. and I felt time slow waaaayyyy down. Sometimes while I'm meditating i sway a little bit, felt my whole body freeze up and when i would sway so slowly. I felt so good afterwards, I didn't need anything, I went blissfully to sleep. been feeling sick, been feeling sore, turned 36 on May 5th and just caught strep throat, i think covid too, and just been no energy, and last night was a great reawakening. I know this works, I know it, I just have to stick to it!

24M, 6'1, 200mg Lamictal, Occasional Cigarette smoker So about 12 days ago I woke up with what felt like a bruised/swollen bottom right lip. Not any tingling, just felt tender. Over the next few days, the swelling went down except for in more isolated spots still on the bottom of the right lip that felt like small bumps (near the border but I think on the lip). there hasn't really been any pain, only annoyance from licking the spot and really drying the skin. Then about 9 days in a couple of white heads similar to the one in the picture popped up and rose to the surface very quickly. I popped them and a tiny bit of white pimple-like fluid came out. Now another tiny white head popped up and the skin is just extremely dry. Everyone I've asked to look at it doesn't think it is/was a cold sore but I cant figure out what else it could be. Thoughts?
Sorry for the shitty picture!

Kind of a random thing to post but NSI season is back and I know that this time last year I was searching for some tips. If anyone finds this I was the girl who broke both her legs in Charlie 1 last year cycle 3. Anyways, here are some super random tips for those of you about to go.

1. Feminine supplies, you can bring your own and you SHOULD, what they supply are tampons and overnight pads, they will not take them from you if you bring your own. Also put your hairbrush, hair ties, and gel in a similar bag to grab. They took my bag with my stuff in them and I was stranded with 2 hair ties until we got to go to the recruit store.
   
2. Bring a backpack, not a duffel, not a suitcase. Just trust.
   
3. Wear a polo and khaki pants, if you have a unit polo and belt even better. My unit did not tell me that and it really sucked to stick out like a sore thumb. If you're a girl come with your hair done.
   
4. If you have longer hair get a donut bun or bun twisties, I used both but much preferred the twisties. They will not issue supplies to do your hair.
   
5. When you shower (if you're female or just dirty) grab your display towel and put it inside of your rack, then grab another towel from the rack and use them, you will be on your period for random times, if you stain your white towel you're screwed. Leave a tampon in until after you shower or whatever.
   
6. You wash your waterbottles with bleach, they will taste like pool water. You're not drinking bleach you're fine. Really scrub the creases with a bleach papertowel if you can, mold will start to grow in them by week 2, and will make you more sick than you already are.
   
7. You WILL get sick. Try and take 1,500mg of vitamin C every day for a week before hand.
   
8. Try and get moleskin early your feet will be torn up, layer it on everyday BEFORE you get blisters.
   
9. Get the shoe insoles and extra cough drops, drip drop, and hair gel from the recruit store.
   
10. They don't use (a lot of) salt to cook the food, layer it on you'll start to pass out due to lack of electrolytes.
    
11. ONLY PETTY OFFICERS ARE ALLOWED TO SEE CHITS, don't get bullied into anything else and don't do anything outside of your chit if you get issued one, they are orders from the medical officers.
    
12. If you get allergy medication only take it at night, it will make you drowsy all day and fall asleep during classes.
    
13. Fix your uniform and the organization of your rack at night.
    
14. Learn to count before you go, you know who you are people who can't.
    
15. Journal what you learn and your experience, you'll enjoy it afterwards.
    
16. Just turn your brain off like 80% of the day, don't think too much into anything, it's good if the petty officers and MIDN don't know your name for being stupid.
    
17. Try not to get pink eye or covid or foot fungus or strep or whatever candidate crud is floating around.
    
18. Don't give up, I broke my legs (8 stress fractures on my left and six on my right from distance running pre-NSI and a bad accident at NSI) and I was out there doing fire fighting on 5,000mg of ibuprofen to pass, it's not that bad I promise. Let the Hooyah lobotomy happen. Enjoy being a boot while at NSI.
    
19. Don't try and get your family to see graduation, let them travel for your commission, NSI graduation is lame, you get to see them for 15 mins and then get loaded on a bus right after to be shipped home anyways, but if they're close go for it.
    
20. If you like keepsakes make a 'yearbook' I took a page off of my legal page and had all of my friends sign it on the last night, with words of encouragement/fun stuff. I framed it and love to see it and all the memories.
    
21. If you're not good at something ask someone to teach you at night, people will help you if you ask. It's important that you know how to drill. You don't want to be the reason your division is smoked.
    
22. For you nervous folks the gas chamber will be the easiest thing you do. Stress about it the least.
    
23. When I was there they wrote the daily schedule on the fishbowl whiteboard every night for the next day, it's a nice way to be in the know. They also put the shit list up there.
    

That's all I can think of for now. Comment any other tips/questions :)

Hi y'all. I'm pretty much at my wits end.
I have a dermatologist appointment today but thought I'd ask around here anyway.
Backstory: I had eczema when I was really really young, honestly so young that the only thing I remembered of it was having a patch of it on my butt and my mom applying cream to it and then never really dealing with it ever again. She thought I had eczema on my face though it appeared as white patches and I vaguely remember this but for at least a decade or more I did not have eczema. My skin was perfect, genuinely so clear I didn't have to use much product on it.
Fast forward to November of 2019; I started taking hormonal birth control and noticed within a few months that I started getting eczema patches (also was having facial rashes but I thought this was due to trying out a new skincare) I went to the dermatologist who prescribed me Triamcinolone 0.1% ointment for my body rashes. I don't ever EVER remember using steroids much. I'd use it one to two days, and would stop when it starts to fade. Anyway my eczema was pretty lowkey in general and in 2021, we adopted a cat. I did notice my eczema worsening slightly ever since getting my cat but was managing with Triamcinolone (I think at this point my dermatologist prescribed me a tub of it I think December of 2021)
Again, I don't use steroid much and when I do I think it's really just for emergencies (my eczema was genuinely such a secondary aspect of my life I don't even remember much of how I managed it other than letting it ride and maybe applying steroid when needed). I remember the tub expired and I hadn't used even half of the ointment. I was also prescribed Mometasone and Fluoccionide? But I never used either of them as I didn't feel comfortable to.
In September of 2022, I caught COVID while overseas and it caused a pretty gnarly flare on the inner side of my elbows. Since I was overseas I just managed with moisturizing but I remember applying steroid when I came home. We adopted a second cat later this year.
Since then I think my eczema HAVE gotten worse, but there was a period of at least 6 months where I wasn't using steroid creams at all because I was either just dealing with it or it was barely there.
Fast forward to 2023.
I noticed a rash on the top of my right hand that I was initially managing with just moisturizing. But I remember having such intense itch on this rash that I kept itching, and at one point I itched with my shirt and it caused it to be infected. It was so gnarly, bright red, oozing, literally would not stop oozing, painful. I went back to my dermatologist 5 days later when I realized that oh this might be worse than just a regular eczema. She gave me Mupirocin and another tube of Triamcinolone (since my previous one expired) as well as a course of Doxycycline. I used the Mupirocin as directed for I think 10 days, and was not yet using Triamcinolone as I was worried about using it when it looked like there were still open wounds on it. I didn't finish my Doxy course because it was giving me horrible stomach pains. I came back to the dermatologist January 3rd and she told me it was OK to use Triamcinolone twice daily up to two weeks.
At this point I was already having eczema rash on my arms as well and some on my back but I don't think I was using Triamcinolone much on them (I'm pretty sporadic with using the steroid, I never really committed to the full 2 weeks)
Now, this is where things became a doozy.
January 5th: Caught strep, had difficulty breathing and had to go to urgent care. I was prescribed antibiotics, Prednisone (20mg, twice daily for 5 days), and Albuterol. I had asthma when I was younger and it's almost like it came back when I caught strep. My eczema was calm during this time and I thought it was because it rained a lot this week but now I realized it may be the Prednisone. Could not remember if I was using Triamcinolone as well on my hand during this time.
Sometime in early February: Went for a run and literally rolled my ankle so bad. Unrelated to everything else but my body sustained injury and looking back at old pictures I was starting to get patches of eczema on my legs.
Then I caught what felt like the flu in mid February and this is the first time my eczema flared to my face. My left eye was half swollen but at this time I thought it was from my sinus being blocked as it went away in a few days (though the rash stayed).
Early March: Got admitted to the hospital from Appendicitis. I spent 3 nights at the hospital and my eczema was literally non existent. No itchiness, just intense dryness but nothing else. I remember my friend noting my face was super dry but my rashes were slowly drying out. To be fair I was in so much pain the first day I was knocked out most the time from the pain medication they gave me and I was on a couple antibiotics due to the infection.
I came home from the hospital and this is when things start to really get insane. I got home, laid in bed, and immediately could not stop itching my neck and body. My face became swollen the next day but I was unable to take allergy meds because I was on antibiotics and had to wait for that course to be done. That eventually settled out.
I figured maybe I was having an allergic reaction to the cats (and thought maybe my mattress too, we had vacuumed it a few times and I suspected it disturbed the dust mites inside). I slept outside and on an air mattress for I think a few days, if not up to a week. The cats were still sleeping with me at this time and I was somewhat itchy but it wasn't the worst. Then I decided I was going to sleep in the bedroom again and this caused the worst flare I had ever ever EVER gone through. My face became so swollen, my left eye swollen again and it was oozing (this had NEVER happened to me before other than my infected hand) I don't know why this oozed since I never scratched my face, and my inner elbows, wrists and top of right hand got so red and puffy. At this point too my eczema on my right hand was starting to spread towards my palm. These areas also got pretty dry especially on my face. I called Teladoc Dermatology and they prescribed me Mupirocin for the oozing, Tacrolimus for the inflammation on my face and Triamcinolone for the body. He told me to apply Mupirocin first until the oozing calms, then stop and apply the other ointments.
At this point I had become SO SO SO terrified of TSW. It was all over my Tik Tok, my algorithm, I couldn't stop thinking and worrying about it and fearing that this flare is because I'm going through it. He told me to use Triamcinolone for twice daily for two weeks, then once daily for two weeks, then every other day for two weeks to help prevent rebound. I only used Triamcinolone twice daily for 5 days, then I did once daily for a few more days and by the time I saw my current dermatologist, I was using it every other day (I essentially tried to taper within the two weeks).
My current derma prescribed me Clobetasol and told me to mix 2oz of Clobetasol with 7.5oz of Vanicream or Cerave and smear myself in it once a day at night for one week, then once a day at night every other day for the second week. It was a very controlled instruction.
BUT I was SO afraid of TSW that I did not do this.
Instead, I took a one week break and I did 3 weeks of Triamcinolone, and even then I did it sporadically. I did about 10 days of once daily and then the second half I did twice daily. When I started doing twice daily was when I finally saw some improvements.
The problem is it has been a week since I last used any steroids and I have rebounded. Although my eczema rash genuinely looks so weird and I am having the dermatologist look at it properly today. My arms are constantly dry, my right hand (the problem spot since December) now have what looks like blisters on them and I never have eczema that look like this even though it's apparently common. The frustrating thing is that it feels like my eczema just keeps spreading. They are full body and it's freaking me out because it looks as if I have TSW even though I don't think I ever used steroids for that long at all, and I was only prescribed it back in 2020.
To be fair I thought I should've committed to the Clobetasol treatment because then we can see if the strongest steroid worked or not but I felt like I was going to flare again anyway and didn't want to use something really strong only for it to not work.
I had an allergy test done and I am allergic to both species of dust mites, dogs, cats, along with some other environmental things. I just don't understand why I am only now flaring uncontrollably like this. I am 95% covered in eczema. Either spots or just straight up long red rash. I am taking antihistamines daily and have been taking Probiotic pills pretty consistently (partly because I was on so many antibiotics back to back). I've been using Hyphocolorus Acid Spray as well.
On Sunday night, I tried to sleep over at my friend's place who did not have cats to test and see if my cats are my main trigger and I kept waking up itching myself, both my arms and legs and my chin and neck started oozing again. Which was INSANE as I did not itch either of them. The oozing on both have mostly stopped (I've only used Mupirocin and Vaseline to help control the infection and moisturize) but I just don't understand.
I'm scared, I have never had eczema become so severe so fast and I'm genuinely so scared. Something feels wrong but I don't know what it is. The way my eczema looks look like a combination of an allergic reaction and just a rash but I don't understand how I can have such an intense allergic reaction towards things I've been around all the time. We've lived in the same place since June of last year and the only thing I can think of is that we had the heater on almost daily in the winter and we found out end of April that our heater is incredibly dusty.
I'm getting my IUD removed next week as well as I'm confident birth control has something to do with my eczema coming back, and I plan to get allergy shots.
I'm just tired, it's consumed my life and it's causing me a lot of health anxiety. I look so genuinely terrible I can't even understand it.

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

Oh man! That White's Bite is real. For anyone who is interested in PNW boots from White's or Nick's or Frank's here is my experience with the initial break in process. I found a pair of White's Packers on ebay for a good price. They looked okay in the pictures but it was hard to tell what kind of shape they were in. I was pleasantly surprised when the arrived. They were basically new old stock. Never broken in. No creasing in the leather and no signs of wear on the soles. Manufacture date was 2006. Boots almost 20 years old and basically brand new. I have a beat up pair of the exact same boot (Original Packer in the 690 last in 9D) so I knew that the size was right. The other pair I have I bought on ebay for cheap. They arrived pretty beat up and fit my foot like a slipper.
I was not prepared for how different a new pair feels. The old pair is soft and supple and my feet slide right in. No pinch points and plenty of room. The leather on a new pair is insanely stiff. I tried to put them on my feet but could not get my foot in them. After switching to the thinnest socks I could find I was able to get my foot in by alternating between pulling on the tongue and the pull loop. My foot slid in and holy hell! My immediate reaction was hell no! Felt like a vice on my feet. I can completely understand now why people post online about whether or not they got the right size. I am lucky in that I know they are the right size because I already have a pair broken in that feel perfect.
After getting both feet in the boots I removed the laces and walked around the house like that. Felt like the boots wanted to kill my feet. It took about 15 minutes for my feet to settle into the boots and find their place. At that point it felt better so I laced them up. Here is a key to knowing that your size is right- If they feel better after a few minutes of wear than they did when you first put them on. This means that your feet have settled in and found their place in the boot. Now at this point they are still tight. Feels like a firm hand shake. No bad painful spots though. And, I can walk in them. They are so stiff I feel like I can't walk correctly but they don't hurt my feet when I walk. They just feel like they are squeezing them tight.
At that point I knew they were going to be okay. That squeeze I feel now is going to mean a perfect custom fit once the leather softens.
Woke up this morning and put them on. Felt like hell on my feet and my right toes felt like they couldn't straighten out. Walked around the house a bit and allowed my feet and toes to settle in. I'm in them about 2 hours now and they feel better than they did when I first put them on. That's another sign of a good fit. I have a pair of sneakers with me for when I can't stand it anymore. It ain't easy breaking in a pair of Whites but the reward is the best fitting and most comfortable shoe you have ever worn.

Whats up my dudes, we are back at it with another chapter for you all. We are getting the swing of things and have another chapter or two to start the main plot fully, we are just getting to know our leads for now. I hope you enjoy
Lets get this bread
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The movement from the nightclub to Stitch’s clinic was grueling. Typically lugging a passed-out HVI or some other sod halfway across the city's district would not be a challenge. With his cybernetics, Conor was in decent enough shape and could sprint ten kilometers in full battle rattle without breaking a sweat, but Conor had pushed himself and didn’t need to wax a few Voodal in his way.
Conor had heard that Kurlatra were dense, but his assumptions about how heavy they were came nowhere close to the reality of picking one up.
Whatever this woman's name was, she likely weighed north of eighty kilograms. It was a shock because she was a meter and a half tall at most. For Urka’s sake, Conor only weighed one hundred and fifty kilograms despite being two meters tall and filled to the brim with wires.
He thought a bit about the woman's build and realized why she must weigh so much. She had hips and legs that could crush a man's skull. Along with a pair of tits just big enough that they would overflow from your hands.
Conner was made all the more well aware of those traits as he adjusted her to ensure he would not drop the little lass. Her fatty chest and plump thighs would try to swallow his hip each time he did. No sentient this small had any right being heavier than his entire breacher kit, explosives, anti-rifle armor, and all.
If not for Brakul expecting this rosey scag to be delivered to Stitch’s place, Conor would have lugged her to his safe house, which was far closer. But no, he had another job and order to follow.
The only shining light on this impromptu extraction was that the Voodal did not follow him. He had been worried about that last ganger he had shot; they had only eaten one round through the midchest. At the time, it looked like it might not have been a heart shot, and since he was picking this bimbo up at the time, he did not have a chance to ensure they were put down permanently.
Conor took a deep breath as he rounded the corner into a dirty alleyway, leaving the bustling thoroughfare behind. Thankfully, the residents of Heavalun knew better than to mess with him or anyone else who regularly did mercenary work, especially when they were carrying a body—alive or not.
Those who stopped his type tended not to live long, so he was ignored other than a few passing glances.
After traveling a few meters into the alleyway, Conor stopped and tucked behind a dumpster. His feet squelched in a puddle of rank trash water leaking from the impromptu cover. While Conor was reasonably sure no one had followed him, a quick double-check was always good for his skin.
Conor did not want to bring trouble to Stitch’s place. He did not have the slightest idea where he would find another techy who could synthesize the cocktail of stimulants Stitch made to keep his broken body held together. Pissing the tech head off was not high on his priority list.
Over the next ten minutes, the only thing his thermal vision picked up between him and the main road was a few Zlit rats scurrying atop discarded food. Their fleshy tendrils groped the garbage and pulled it into maws of razor-sharp teeth.
The sight of them sent a shiver down his spine. Those foul little mammals were high on his list of hated creatures, having been bitten by them more than once since he was a kid slinking around the gutters of Heavalun.
Pushing those memories away, Conor traveled deeper and rounded a blind corner. The sounds of the crowd's chatter entirely vanished as he entered the backstreet where Stitch’s clinic was nestled.
The rest of the journey was only a few hundred meters and only required Conor to sidestep some used needles and shit; He also had to kick one homeless bum who tried to grab the girl out of the cover of his jacket. Usually, he would have just shot the piece of hreck shit, but with his hands full, a swift boot to the jaw got the message across.
With the bum limping away, broken jaw clutched in pain, Conor hammered on the metal door; its frame and the neon sign to its side quivered under his brute strength. Then began the worst part of dealing with Stitch, waiting for the asshole to open the door.
Conor waited until ten minutes had passed and received no answer. Then he punched the door harder, his metal hand denting the surface. Several seconds later, a heavily synthesized voice echoed out of the speakers hidden around the area—speakers that Conor had never been able to locate, no matter how fervently he tried.
“What do you want, Conor?” Stitch questioned. “Did you break more of your wiring?”
Conor sighed heavily, knowing Stitch had this entire block wired with multispectrum cameras and could see him a kilometer out. If this were a visit for his wiring, Stitch would know. The man was just being paranoid and wanted Conor to state his business.
“I got a girl I need you to check up on,” Conor said, pushing his jacket slightly open and letting the girl's ref scales shine.
“What another hooker pass out on a bad trip?” Stitch chuckled cruelly. “This is the fourth this month; you are getting soft merc.”
Rolling his eyes, Conor could admit he was softer than most of the other mercenaries and gangsters in the city's neutral sections. Having seen his fair share of how bad this city can be, Conor did his best not to fuck over those who were just down on bad times and were not trying to cause him issues.
Life was arduous enough for them. So he gave back by lugging hookers and junkies to the nearest tech head and paying for their treatment or the closest Zential clinic. The Zentials were more than willing to treat the downtrodden for free, unlike the other medical services in Heavalun—stitch included.
He considered it his way of giving back and maybe finding Urka's good grace. Perhaps the god might forgive him for being a general piece of hreck shit if he continued to until he did. But he would not know until he finally kicked the bucket.
His intervention was a drop of clean water in the ocean of venom in this city. The other locals were more than willing to pick those he aided clean in minutes. They might as well be a swarm of bealit beatles eating carrion with how ravenous they were.
“It ain’t that. Just open the damn door,” Conor growled, punching the door again.
“Hold on, you greased-up cyborg,” Stitch frantically complained, worried that Conor would break his door again.
Conor smirked, glad the strange form of tolerance he and Stitch had built over the years was still strong. At this point, it was their modus operandi. Neither hated the other; no, they respected one another's role in this shithole.
Both toles put them in harm's way and brought them respect and infamy.
However, Conor found the way the denizens of Heavalun treated them funny. If you asked the average COS or GU citizen, who was more brutal: a mercenary with a pension for hyper-violence and little regard for collateral damage—-or a skeletal Itelv doctor who regularly performs life-saving surgery? They would choose Conor ten out of ten times. They did not know Stitch like Conor, Brakul, or most of the people in this city section.
They would tell you the truth of the good doctor.
They would weave you a tale of a greedy, crit-pinching asshole and that Stitch was the type of man who would stitch up for pay but would just as quickly harvest your organs for sale, or Urka forbid he would stick some experimental tech inside you and wait for your inevitable death to retrieve his property.
The door at long last opened with a vile hiss, and a gangly grey-skinned hand forced it open.
Stitch was just about as tall as Conor. But his thin grey limbs made him look one stiff breeze away from taking flight, with only his heavy artificial spider-like legs keeping him firmly on the planet.
Draped over his pencil-thin neck was a once-white apron. After years of use, it was stained with blood, oil, and hydraulic fluid.
“If she ain't one of your precious hookers, put her on the table. I will get my tool ready,” Stitch hissed, jamming his thumb over a shoulder.
“I ain’t selling this one to you either. Girlie got tagged by visage, and I need yah to treat her,” Conor replied, pushing past and laying the blonde on the recovery bed.
“You said she ain’t some hooker,” Stitch complained following, having gotten tired of Conor no longer bringing him fresh meat to sell.
Once Conor turned around and was about to explain the situation, Stitch pressed a bony finger into Conor's chest. “I told you, I'm selling the next one. She is it,”
“Can it doc. She is a client,” Conor replied. “Or are you going to explain to Brakul why you cut her up?”
Stitch clicked his tongue but did not try to move closer. His glassy, verdant eyes pulled Conor and the girl apart as he weighed the pros and cons of allying with Conor and Brakul another time.
“What is in it for me?” Stitch questioned, tapping a finger on a scalpel attached to his tool belt.
Conor sighed, realizing he should have expected this question, but he was not the broker of deals. That was Brakul’s schtick, and he was running late.
“You can take her jewelry and any credsticks you find on her. Alright?” Conor replied, knowing Brakul likely would have made a similar deal.
Stitch nodded and slinked closer to the woman. He lifted the necklace from her chest and carefully examined the jewels with a prudish eye any good businessman should have. After Stitch activated his magnified eyes, his cornea glowed gold, letting him see the atoms of the shiny trinket.
The doctor grinned cruelly, letting his crystalline teeth show proudly. The sight was unsettling and made Conor grip his pistol, fearing the doctor would flip his shit and decide it was not enough payment and try to cut the girl up.
But he did not start to slice her skin open. Instead, he sniggered nearly uncontrollably for a few moments, then spoke. “Yes, yes, yes. This will do just fine,” He sneered.
Conor was unsure what the jewels were, but they must be worth far more than he initially thought. For Urka's sake, Stitch was drooling on the necklace and the passed-out girl's chest.
“Good. So you will take care of her?” Conor questioned, needing to hear an assured answer.
Quickly slipping the jewelry into his pocket, Stitch looked back at Conor, his demeanor having done a complete one-eighty. “Of course, I always have room for paying customers.”
“Oh sweet, Conor, you handled the deal,” Brakul said, having just stepped in through the doors.
Why Brakul was allowed unfettered access to Stitch’s clinic and Conor was not something Conor had wondered for years but had accepted it as something to do with their role in the duo.
“Yeah, and he will watch the client. But we had yet to lay out the finer details,” Conor explained.
“Ah, no issue, I can take it from here,” Brakul replied.
-----
so what did you think? a decent chapter or total trash? either way I wanna know. I will see you all in the comments. please don't forget to comment and updoot.
your baker
-Pirate
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PART 1:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'm a 73-year old male. Three weeks ago, I developed a sore throat, followed by inflamed gums, as well as sores on the roof of my mouth and tongue. The pain was intense, and prevented me from eating solid food for nearly a week.
I had a slight fever in the evening, and experienced deep fatigue in the afternoon. Even moderate exercise exhausted me.
I went to urgent care two weeks ago, and was diagnosed with a viral infection. I was prescribed a two-day course of valacyclovir. The lesions in my mouth improved very gradually but did not go away completely. Concerned that my fatigue hadn't lifted, last week I saw my primary care physician. He agreed that I had a viral infection, specifically HSV-1. He said that my symptoms should probably resolve themselves in a couple more weeks.
Today, the symptoms in my mouth have not completely resolved, but I’m able to eat normally and brush my teeth very carefully, though one area of my gums still bleeds.
I am most concerned about the deep fatigue I am experiencing, which has not improved.
This detail may not be helpful, but I should mention that although I am vaxed and boosted, I did contract Covid 8 weeks ago. I got better, but two weeks later I experienced some of the same symptoms I have now, though not the mouth sores, and the fatigue was not as severe.
I seemed to improve for a few weeks, and then I started experiencing this current bout of the symptoms.
I have read that many people suffering from Long Covid experience many of the symptoms I have experienced, including mouth sores. I would appreciate any insights on what my symptoms indicate, and if they could be due to Long Covid.

Previous Part
At some Point Bianca and I both fell back asleep. It was all I could do at this point, getting whisked away back to those mines seemed inevitable so I might as well sleep. The morning did not go well, largely due to Bianca, who threw me off the couch with a scream when she woke up.
“What’re you doing!”
Bianca squeaked, hand darting towards her pants pocket where her dagger would usually be. I woke up very quickly somewhere between the couch and the floor. I was fully awake by the time I was pushing myself back to me feet, raising my hands in a gesture of surrender.
“What’s going on?! You’re fine you just fell asleep on my couch!”
“Why were you… why was I?”
“Hey, calm down alright. We had a few drinks last night and I guess we both fell asleep on the couch together, that’s all that happened.”
I explained, leaving out the part where she pulled me back when I tried to go to my own room earlier.
“Yeah… yeah ok. Ugh my head is killing me.”
Bianca groaned, taking a breath or two then putting her head in her hands. I didn’t have the heart to tell her she was probably hungover so I just went to the kitchen to make something for her.
I decided on toast and some bananas, it was always a go to for me after a long night. In hindsight I probably should’ve seen her reaction coming. Look at what she did in the caves because that guy grabbed her, it can’t be that much better waking up on someones shoulder and not quite remembering it. The whole thing did give me second thoughts though. If she was such a live wire did I really want her stressing out over the trials and whatever that would bring? I suppose it was too late for that though, she’d already moved herself into my house so she could keep watch, for all the good that did seeing as Shaoni waltzed right in last night.
I still had a lot on my mind when the smell of burning toast sobered me up. I swore and ran over to salvage what I could of the blackening toast.
“What’s burning in here?”
Bianca asked a little worry creeping into her voice. She still had her head clasped firmly between her hands as she walked into the kitchen.
“Breakfast”
I replied flatly, holding my arms out to either side gesturing to the mild chaos I was causing. Bianca gave me an questioning, “thanks” and grabbed the plate I had made for her while I tried to think of what to do next. Like it or not, Shaoni had people coming to pick me up and take me back out to those caves today. I had to come up with some kind of game plan and right now, it seemed letting Frank and Stein know was the best idea.
Bianca stayed back at my place nursing her hangover when I left to visit the mad scientist duo. I had no problem with that, in fact it was probably best because I’m sure she would’ve insisted on going with me if she heard I planed to take Shaoni’s “invitation”. I wasn’t sure if Shaoni would let me take Bianca with me and personally I’d rather not push her buttons and try to negotiate bringing a plus one.
“Have you seen Bianca at all?”
Frank asked hurriedly as I came in. I was afraid of this, She hadn’t told them anything and just disappeared.
“Yeah, she pretty much moved the contents of her room to my couch yesterday. Something about keeping an eye on me, she’s fine though, I wouldn’t worry.”
I answered, a little worried myself that I’d catch hell from them if they knew she was currently working her way through her first hangover on that same couch. Frank seemed to calm down at that and finally got to asking the important questions like why was I back in the house… again.
“So let us get this straight, you just plan to go right to Shaoni?”
Frank and Stein said together in disbelief as the three of us sat at the kitchen table.
“It’s not like I really have a choice in the matter, besides I can’t really fight her if she wants me to go somewhere. If I try a stunt like that things go from bad to worse for me.”
They both shook their heads in solemn agreement, recognizing I was right.
“Anyways, I had a thought on the way over here, Thunderbirds are something from native American legend right? Well, if we’ve found a real one wouldn’t she have ties to a tribe or something in the area? She was sleeping here when they woke her up in the mine, maybe there was a reason for that, maybe she was close to home?”
I explained, hoping g they’d catch on to what I was asking.
“What exactly are you getting at then Keith?”
Frank questioned, furrowing his brow with an intrigued look on his face. Stein just remained silent but I could tell he was thinking, maybe even coming to the same conclusion as I had.
“What I’m thinking, is we check reservations in the area. Maybe they know something about the creature from their legends that just so happened to be sleeping nearby. I know it’s a stretch but maybe we could learn something useful. I’d go myself but I’m not going to have the chance. You guys though, you guys could take Bianca and Rocco with you and ask around.”
I explained, hoping I was onto something. I was pulling at straws but it was the best idea I had at a moments notice. Plus it would get Bianca out of town for a little while when I was figuring out what exactly Shaoni’s trails would mean for me.
“Keith that’s… no that actually makes sense let me check some maps.”
Stein agreed, walking away and into the basement. He came back a few minutes later with a map in his hand.
“There’s a Seneca reservation not to far from here, maybe 30 miles. That’s not the only one but I have a friend there from years ago, someone I helped. There’s a good chance he’d be willing to return the favor.”
“Great, then I’ll count on you. I’ll let Bianca know, I’m sure she won’t be happy about it but I’ll feel better if she’s with all of you.”
I walked out in a rush to get back home, almost stepping on Rocco on my way to the door. He made a frightening chittering hissing sound at me as he leapt out of my path. I briefly wondered where he was going and what he was up to, probably better I didn’t know though. As I got onto the bike and headed back towards home I hoped I’d be able to talk Bianca into going along with this plan. I was sure she’d rather come with me but after this morning I wasn’t sure she was ready for that. Don’t get me wrong I’m sure she wants to help and I know she means well but she’s jumpy and snaps at the littlest things. I didn’t want her to make things worse by accident or get hurt because she froze up again. My mind was made up as I drew nearer to my house but as it turned out I’d never have the chance to talk to Bianca. As soon as I rounded the corner I saw the rusty pick up waiting in front of my house, I’d arrived just in time to meet Shaoni’s “helpers”.
The men looked normal, just like the people in the cave. Come to think of it they could very well be those same people. I waved them over as I came to a stop in-front of the house.
“Can I just go in and grab a few things?”
I asked the three men sheepishly as I walked up.
“No, your late as it is, we’ve got to get going.”
A scruffy looking man with a gruff voice said from the drivers seat. Two men got out from the back of the truck and grabbed my arms, pulling me into the back seat. They weren’t rough with me but they were very firm. Like they wanted to hurt me but were ordered not to so they just made a show of force. After I was loaded into the back I saw the reason for their demeanor. One of the men, the one in the front passenger seat, was wrapped in bandages. The bandages covered his abdomen and snaked up around the back of his neck. It was pretty obvious to me that this was the man Bianca had stabbed. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say these four were probably the same ones we had encountered in the cave. As I turned and looked out the window I saw Bianca’s face peaking out of it. She looked angry and scared, like she knew exactly what was happening but she didn’t move. Bianca just sat there, watching me be taken away and I cursed myself for not being just a little bit faster on the ride back.
We took a way out of town I’d never seen before, turning away from the road leading to the dirt path we had biked down on our expedition into the forest. Instead we drove back through town, past Bianca’s house and the Eagle’s Roost before hanging a right onto a road I’d never been down. Eventually the road made its way into the forest and ended at a wooden sign warning that the road was impassable ahead. The driver stopped the truck and got out as another man emerged from the woods, holding up his hand and opening it to reveal the eagle tattoo I’d become so familiar with. The driver rolled up his sleeve and showed his own similar tattoo. Without a word he got back into the truck and the other man moved the sign off the road. It didn’t fill me with confidence to see the entrance to this place watched in such a way. It would make sense to have it hidden but being so brazenly out in the open meant they didn't really care who saw it. Not that anyone would think anything other than that the road was impassable but still. The truck eventually pulled off the road and into the woods, following a newly made track that lead to the entrance of the old mine that we escaped from just 2 days ago.
“I think you know your way in.”
The driver growled at me, parking the truck and signaling me to step out.
“Your just letting me walk myself in? Couldn’t I just run?”
“You could but do you think you could outrun her?”
He asked threateningly, pointing up at the sky. I knew exactly who he was talking about and no, I didn’t like my chances of running from Shaoni.
“She gave us all orders to leave any runners to her.”
At that moment I decided it may be good idea to be on my best behavior.
“Yeah that’s what I thought.”
The driver barked back at me as I obediently walked towards the entrance.
Walking into the mine I realized it had undergone a huge transformation in a very short time. The walls were now host to several torches that lit the pathway back down to the coliseum. It felt like I was walking into the dark ages as I made my way down into this pit by torchlight. Although I had to admit it was homey in an “evil layer” kind off way. The coliseum was lit up with torchlight as well but its not what drew my attention. Where the awful metal structure met the stone roof of the cave I looked into a brewing storm. Lightning flashed across the roof but there was no sound of thunder. Raindrops shown in the shadows cast by the lightning but I felt none of them on my skin. I had to admit, it was a pretty impressive trick. Paintings adorned the walls, all of them seeming to be tribal in nature. Many seemed to be various depictions of the thunderbird.
“Well at least she doesn’t have an ego”
I chuckled to myself as I walked into the center off the coliseum.
There were four other people waiting in the center of the floor. A clean shaven, well dressed man relaxed against the wall of the arena. He had perfectly trimmed slicked back blonde hair and a chiseled face. His rippling muscles seemed to be for vanity rather than strength. Just by looking at him I could tell I wasn’t going to like him. The only one of the bunch I knew, Robert, stood on the far side of the coliseum, watching me approach. He looked about the same as he had from the brief glance I got at the Eagle’s Roost. Balding white hair and a unkempt beard hung off his sagging face. Despite his age he carried himself with purpose, like he deserved to be there and wanted everyone else to know it. Then there was the blonde bombshell that was making her way towards the chiseled blonde guy. She seemed incredibly confident in herself but none of it was a show. Her confidence came from a place that made her absolutely sure of it. The final person stood in the corner and seemed to be talking to himself. He was a middle aged man of native American descent with a mess of black hair atop his head. He carried a look in his eyes that spoke of wisdom beyond his years.
I walked past all of them and took a seat on the floor, trying my hardest to ignore them. The effort was ultimately wasted as the muscular blonde guy walked over and held out a hand.
“Hey, my names Brooke, you are?”
My blood turned to ice as he said that, it couldn’t be the same Brooke Bianca told me about, could it? I stared dumbly at him for a moment before I responded.
“I’m… uh… Keith. Any idea what we’re doing here?”
“No clue, only know that the thunderbird wanted us here so we came. Hopefully she makes good on her promise, to me at least.”
His voice sounded like the “to cool for you” bully from any 80’s movie, it was almost annoying to listen to him.
“So you’ve met everyone else I take it?”
“Yeah, the weird guy in the corner is John, we don’t know much about him but apparently him and that Robert guy, the old one with the beard, worked for the thunderbird. Katrina, that beauty over there is a wild card, no-one seems to know anything about her but she looks like she’s hot shit and well, just plain hot.”
As Brooke gave me the run down of everyone in the room I quietly wondered to myself if Shaoni had given everyone the same offer as me. The way Brooke had said it, “promise”… that wasn’t how I would’ve phrased it. Maybe Shaoni cut everyone here a unique deal.
“…Anyways, I’m gonna go see if I can’t figure out that bombshell’s deal, I’ll see ya later Keith.”
Apparently Brooke had been talking to me the whole time but I only tuned in for the tail end of it as he walked off toward Katrina. I wondered where exactly Shaoni was, I had expected her to be here already but, as it turned out I wouldn’t have to wait long.
A thunderous boom cracked out above our heads and we all looked up at once, but the sound was coming from outside. I heard the flap of wings as Shaoni came in for a landing somewhere above our heads. It went so silent we could’ve heard a mosquito cough, then Shaoni stepped into the room. Not from either entrance but from a balcony above us I hadn’t seen before. She was wearing the same thing she had been when I ran into her in the cave, once again looking like a hardened, tattooed Pocahontas.
“Welcome everyone! I take it you’ve gotten to know each other?”
She thundered down to us as we all shot to attention.
“I’ve gathered you here to give a gift to one of you, but you must prove yourselves deserving. I’ve told some of you what I intended to do here and others may be hearing it for the first time. So for those of you who are gathering here for the first time pay attention. There will be three trials held here, one to test your morals, one to test your strength, and one to test your judgement.”
At this point Brooke spoke up in the way only a spoiled little shit like him could.
“You made me a promise! You never said anything about trials! I got all the way out here to this shitty little backwater and now your telling me I’ve got to compete to earn what you owe me?! Sorry, but I’m going to need more than that.”
Shaoni looked like she could’ve ended him right there. She was the judge and jury here, if Brooke wasn’t careful she’d become the executioner too.
“What you asked me for is in this town, that’s all I will say on the matter.”
Shaoni responded with less venom than I had expected judging by her expression. She didn’t actually seem to care that she had to tell him something to shut him up. It was the insult of being interrupted that struck a nerve. I was a little concerned by what she said, if he was looking for something that was in town and Bianca was there… could he be looking for her? “…Today though, just enjoy the company of one another. You’re all welcome to stay here at the camp I’ve had prepared for you outside. If you wish to return to town you may but you will be watched. No-one is to leave town until the trials are completed.”
Shaoni finished, I hadn’t really been listening to her welcome speech. She said everything I cared about when she told us what the trials where going to test for, after that I kind of tuned out. Shaoni disappeared in a flash, just like she had back at my house the day before and with that the five of us were alone again. I left, heading back outside to see this camp she mentioned. The others talked with each other but I really had no desire to. That didn’t stop Robert from running to catch up with me, wheezing when he got there.
“Hey you’re the one who ran out of the bar the other night! She’s said a lot about you, I’d almost think she had a favorite.”
Robert huffed out between breaths, punching me in the arm in a friendly but wholly unwelcome way.
“I’ve heard you know nothing about the supernatural, I’d be happy to tell you what I’ve seen working with Shaoni.”
Robert offered, fishing for any reason to hold a conversation with me.
“No, that’s alright really, I’ll manage. What do you guys do anyways, working for her I mean? I get the sense she could really run this whole operation on her own if she wanted.”
“She probably could do this alone. Most of the time we don’t work directly with her, this is a special case for those of us she’s got helping with the trials. There’s maybe 50 of us total and not just here, I mean 50 of us overall. She’s very selective with the followers she keeps so there isn’t many of us. We tend to sit around up-holding her ideals till she asks something of us through dreams, like the ones that brought you here.”
Robert explained, confusing me a little bit. I found it hard to believe a crew of 50 people got everything here done. I guess it wasn’t to outlandish when put in perspective though. If you told me Shaoni got all this done herself I probably would’ve believed you so 50 people organized by her, yeah I could see that.
“Wait, so you guys barley ever actually work with her, and what are her ideals exactly?”
“Have you heard the legends of the thunderbird? A lot of it depicts the thunderbird as a spirit of justice that fights evil spirits from the underworld, that’s really watered down but you get the point. I’ve never seen her do anything like that but she does uphold a certain sense of justice and that’s what she expects of us. Sure, she seems really intimidating but she wants to right wrongs that no one else will, it makes her a little harsh but she has to be. We just do that same thing when we aren’t getting orders right from her. Maybe you think she’s in the wrong here because she pulled you into this but we really want to help, sometimes there’s a price for that.”
Robert lectured, you could tell he really believed in what he was saying though. He may have been older but when he was telling me about the thunderbird and what she stood for he was filled with vigor again. Maybe he’s not as bad as I thought, I wanted all these people working for her to be some kind of weird cult like in Imalone. The more I heard the more I doubted that. They were people who followed her for a reason, not just because she gave them some kind of power. In reality I think what she really gave them was purpose. That sort of thing is more than enough for most people to follow someone.
When I broke away from Robert and got outside I found a huge camp had been set up while we were in the cave. Tepees of various sizes had been constructed all around the entrance to the old mine and one big canvas tent had a huge table running through it filled with food. For 50 people these followers of the thunderbird sure worked fast. I hadn’t decided if I wanted to go back to town yet. I hoped Frank and Stein had convinced Bianca to go with them, at least then they could get some answers while I was stuck here. If they were gone though what reason did I have to go back? As long as I was out here surrounded by people who work with Shaoni maybe I could get some answers of my own. I wasn’t really sure what information about Shaoni would do for us but she was a mystery to me. Everyone was here for a reason, I agreed to take on a burden, Brooke was here because of some promise Shaoni made, and I’m sure the rest had similar stories. Shaoni gained nothing from any of that though, besides this burden I had agreed to take. I’m not sure why, but it felt like figuring out what She stood to gain from this was important. If I could do that maybe I could put the pieces to this puzzle together. Two people had pointed out I knew nothing about the supernatural as well, Shaoni and Robert. That didn’t seem to matter to much to me but if all the others here had some experience in it maybe it should. It seemed like we were all on a level playing field though, Brooke hadn’t heard about the trials and neither had I. Robert and that strange John guy probably had some idea but they worked with Shaoni, I would expect them to know. Katrina, the blonde was probably just as surprised as Brooke, if I had to guess. None of us knew exactly what the trials would test for, so why did everyone keep brining up not knowing about the supernatural like it put me at a disadvantage?
“Why indeed.”
A familiar voice said, sending lightning through my veins and breaking my train of thought. I just about tossed the turkey leg I’d been eating directly at the source of the noise.
“Shaoni, you have got to stop doing that.”
I said, crawling back into my skin after she scared me out of it. Shaoni still looked just as she had when she addressed us earlier, adorned in her animal skins and feathers. It took me a second but it finally clicked that she had said something strange when she sat down next to me.
“Hang on a minute, can you read my mind? Was I thinking out loud or something?”
“No, you just looked lost in thought and I figured I’d chime in.”
“Oh, alright… why?”
I squeaked out, abruptly realizing that this was Shaoni, the thunderbird who was sitting next to me. There was a second there where I wasn’t as intimidated by her as I normally was but it had passed quickly.
“I wanted to know how your doing, I know all this can’t be easy to take in.”
“I’m doing fine, I think I’m adjusting pretty well but I did want to ask you some questions.”
An amused look ran across Shaoni’s face at this. She wasn’t being as commanding as before either, she almost seemed to genuinely care about my well-being.
“Would you walk with me, I’ll answer your questions on the way.”
Shaoni asked, standing and waiting for me to follow her. Not seeing any better options I stood up and left alongside her.
We walked around the perimeter of the camp, out of ear shot of anyone else. I’m sure she did that on purpose, though I wasn’t sure if it was so no-one could hear my screams if I asked a question she didn’t like or if she just wanted privacy.
“Why me Shaoni? Why chose me out of everyone, was it just a coincidence?”
“Straight to the point hmm. Think Keith, when I found you in the position you were in you needed my help. Sure, I planned to dispose of the cultists that were threatening you anyways but I stopped to help you. You saw me descend from the sky, swoop down, and bring them to their knees, I extended an offer to you and you just took it. You didn’t bargain or ask for anything more after I shattered your perception of what does and doesn’t exist, just accepted my offer. Most people would have bargained, tried to look for a better deal for themselves but you saw what the price of my help would be and paid it, no second thoughts. That interested me Keith, you recognized what had to be done and didn’t try to avoid the cost, that’s why I chose you.”
“So I appealed to whatever sense of justice you have? That’s it, that’s the only reason?”
She looked almost hurt as I asked this and she stopped walking. I definitely stepped on a nerve, I expected her to snap but she didn’t, She just asked very quietly,
“Do you think I’m a monster Keith?”
I was stunned by the question. Could I really say she was a monster? What had she done so far? Save me, that’s what, was that really so monstrous? Sure it may have come at a cost but nothing is ever free. Shaoni even came to warn me about the trials ahead of time, just barely ahead of time but it was something.
“No Shaoni, you’re not a monster just… someone with the powers you have… it’s terrifying for a normal person. Can you really say I’m in the wrong for being afraid of you?”
Even as I said it I knew it was a lie, at least partially. I wasn’t just afraid of her, I wanted her to be evil and she just wasn’t, not really. Maybe she was a bit intense but everything she had done to me so far couldn’t be called evil.
“Fear is only natural when you see something like me, but I’m not a monster. The thunderbird has always stood for justice. That’s what I represent, I can’t be everywhere but I make it a point to uphold justice where I am. Those who I’ve chosen to follow me hold my justice in their own town, in their own lives. I can be harsh but I am just.”
She said this with such intensity I had no choice but to believe her. Her conviction to justice was zealous but I still wanted to pry a little bit more.
“So what does justice mean to you then? I don’t mean to be disrespectful but I want to hear it from you,”
I asked, growing a little more confident in talking to Shaoni. For once I didn’t feel like she would kill me on a whim. Give her a reason, and Shaoni would do it without a second thought but I don’t think she cared that much about my questioning.
“Justice is black and white, right and wrong. Normally there’s a pretty good system in place to punish those that deserve it but sometimes things slip through the cracks, that’s where I come in. I take care of the heinous acts people get away with, people that think they’ve gotten away with murder, so to speak.”
“So your a vigilante then? That’s what I’m hearing here.”
“I wouldn’t be so crass but yes, I suppose you could call me a vigilante but I promise you that’s an oversimplification. Suffice it to say my opinion on matters of serving justice is respected.”
Shaoni seemed a little uncomfortable at the word “respect”, I think a better word would’ve been “feared”. I wasn’t going to say it to her but I knew she suspected it. I could see something about that really hurt her. I couldn’t put my finger on it, the reason Shaoni didn’t want to be feared. Despite being the scariest thing I’d seen so far she didn’t want to be known for that.
We talked for a while longer about a whole lot of nothing. Eventually we got back around to the camp and she bid me goodnight despite the fact it was 3 in the afternoon at the time. She was probably right though, I was going to need the rest if I wanted to be ready for the first trial tomorrow. I found my way to a tepee conveniently marked with my name. I didn’t remember it being marked before and I didn’t understand the point of giving us specific tepees, privacy I guess? The fur sleeping bag was a rustic but welcome touch and despite lacking the amenities of a usual home the tepee was quite comfortable. As I settled in for the night I heard a rustling on the far side of the tepee, then a voice, one whose heavy accent I recognized immediately.
“So, turns out they don’t check under the truck. Ya got me here with you now.”
Rocco said, emerging from a blanket in the corner. That revelation didn’t exactly set my mind at ease. Rocco must’ve sensed my apprehension to the fact that he was anywhere near me right now.
“What?! I’m here to help out! I heard you going on about a trial or somethin’ so I figured I’d tag along under that truck when they picked you up, can’t have enough back up ya know.”
He continued, pulling a belt with several tools out from under the blanket as he spoke. I wasn’t pleased to have him here but maybe I could make use of him.
“I was hoping you’d go with Bianca and the other two but honestly, it might be nice to have a friendly face around here. Just… try to stay out of trouble.”
“Trouble? When do I ever get into trouble?”
I hoped he was being sarcastic, you can never tell with him. I bit my tongue as Rocco walked out into the camp, silently praying no-one would see him. With that I settled into my sleeping bag and tried to think of what I could expect from the first trial tomorrow.

Hi,
I am 31 y.o. and have had all sorts of G.I., skin and sleep issues for as long as I can remember. I take high quality probiotics daily (been a few years now). A couple months ago I started developing a thick white coating on my tongue, occasionally yellow or brown. This coincided with my gut, stomach, sleep and skin issue intensifying - I am better now but still the permanent white tongue and occasional dermatitis occur.
One thing to say is that it’s worse in the morning (waking up with super dry mouth and a horrible bitter taste in my mouth with dense saliva). I have tried to use a tongue scraper daily but doesn’t get rid of the coating at all, it stays on my tongue permanently. Been tested for candida (not found via swab), have tried all sorts of rinses and oil pulling, probiotics, scraping, nothing works. So I’m thinking the cause might be rooted somewhere else and It’s not a local issue.
Photos here (NSFW): https://imgur.com/a/gZuzUgH
Any pointers would be a HUGE help, thank you!! Been loosing my mind recently with this…

I'm British 34F, 156cm and maintain around 16% body fat. Eat a high protein and fibre diet, avoid eating UPF. No other medical conditions, never been to hospital before and usually slather white tiger balm or patches on my forehead for headaches.
I moved from Japan to SE Asia temporarily for work. After being here for 2.5 months I was getting the worst headaches of my life when my wisdom teeth started coming through. The headaches were concentrated above my left eye and blurred my vision in my left eye.
I went to a dentist within an English speaking hospital who said my wisdom teeth were fine but they recommended I went to the onsite pharmacy due to the headaches. They gave me 8/500mg co-codamol (effervescent tablets) and wrote 'Max 3 per day' on the packet in English.
I took 1 a day for the first 4 days, none of the 5th and 6th days and then took 1 a day for the following 4 days. 8 within 10 days.
The morning after I took the last tablet I woke up with jaundice - eye whites, face, chest, abdomen and arms. I also had diarrhoea, sore throat, lots of spots on my lower face, a different type of headache that felt more like swelling on the top of my head, feeling dizzy whenever I sat up/down and very fatigued.
I went to a different hospital and paid for a blood, kidney and liver test and was told it came back on the high side of normal. They said the dose I took wasn't consistent with my symptoms and I may be sensitive to paracetamol and may have Gilbert's syndrome. They said to come back if the jaundice worsened or I started feeling pain in my abdomen - thankfully neither happened.
It's now 8 days since I took the last tablet and I still have a hint of jaundice, it has gone down though and my skin is usually very cool toned. I still feel extremely tired, I usually exercise most days (rowing and weights) but at the moment my thighs and calfs feel exhausted after walking up 3 flights of stairs.
Do I need to do anything else/seek more medical attention? Will this damage my liver in the longterm? I'm here for another 6 weeks. Excuse the throwaway, a bit too personal for my main.

I'm using nasal pillows with the P10 I believe.
I'm 5-6 years in and it's been great. However the past 4-5 months, I notice as I am falling asleep I'll get a little air bubble in my mouth.
I can just push it out easily, but will get another.
I'd been really good about keeping my mouth closed and if it does open I hear and feel it. But that's when I've been awake. I think if it'd happen while sleeping I'd hear it because it's pretty loud.
Im at 0.3-0.5 most nights. High for me is 1.1.
In my early days I did have a cloth sort of hat with a chin strap. I'm going to start using that again and see if it remedies.
I did do tape for the second half of the night, and got the little bubble a few times falling asleep again.
[Some additional context: I'd had a tremendous amount of mouth dryness all day. I considered an open mouth at night caused it—but tried stopping Famotidine that helped with acid reflux and eczema, gargling with a non alcohol mouth rinse, as well as stopping singing (and not yelling or screaming to warm up.) And my mouth dryness is a lot less, and no soreness in my throat. I also laid off meat in general and found my acid reflux and my eczema are almost in remission.]
I don't plan on using a face mask, but just wondering how that bubble now is coming up in my mouth. I have significantly relaxed my jaw over time, so I assume something like my tongue position is now letting air in since I relaxed so much more.
Anyway, I'm wondering 'why' this happens, what from a simply physical pov (like something my tongue may be doing) and have remedies of tape and the hat/strap thing—but if others have more ideas.
Besides that, I'm really jamming on sleep this past year. I fall asleep within a minute or two, and usually just get up once per night, hitting 8 hours almost exactly.

This never really happened on a SAD diet but has happened a few times on wfpb. Parts of my tongue especially near the molars gets very sore which makes it difficult to eat. I think it’s allergies but I’m not sure. I supplement b vitamins with b complex, in the past I went heavy on nutritional yeast and quality methylcobalamin, no change.

https://facts.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/15-facts-about-fats-waller-1689249690.jpg
This is a subreddit primarily focused on modern pop music, but for his 120th birthday I want to take a moment to remember one of the most iconic pop acts in American history:

Thomas Wright "Fats" Waller

A jazz pianist, a singer, and a prolific songwriter famous for his ability to jump onstage and "lift up the band," Fats Waller was a regular fixture of the nightlife scene in New York (an important figure of the legendary Harlem Renaissance) and toured his act all around the country in addition to working as a recording artist in the budding record industry.
In a way, he was one of America's first pop stars- a musical prodigy who dropped out of high school, broke into the music industry when he was a teen, sold tons of records, and developed a huge onstage persona and lived a hard partying lifestyle. We've heard that story a million times, but Fats did it first.
An often repeated story about him recounts a shocking incident where gangster Al Capone kidnapped him off the street to force him to play at a birthday party, because everybody wanted to party with Fats Waller! A less repeated story is this one I found in an NPR article that describes him selling eight of his original songs in exchange for eight hamburgers, which he then consumed in a single sitting.
So certainly, a larger than life figure.

The Records

His legacy as a founding figure of America's pop scene extends to a place you might not expect: back in 1926, he signed a recording contract with the Victor Talking Machine Company, one of the earliest manufacturers and distributors of phonographs and records, which would be bought out by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) in 1929. Then in 1968, the company would be renamed... RCA Records!
RCA is still a powerful record label today and it's partially thanks to Fats, who was a big moneymaker for them in the early days of the record industry when they were literally selling records.
Over the course of his twenty five year career, he copyrighted around five hundred recordings- supposedly, the label would send him into a recording booth with bunches of sheet music bought from Tin Pan Alley composers and he would rearrange them on the spot to give them that special Fats Waller touch!
But he's best remembered for his skills as a pianist and, most importantly, his songwriting skills. I want to take a moment to highlight that because I firmly believe he's one of the greatest songwriters in history- many of his hits have been accepted as standards and are still in rotation with jazz singers today.

The Music

You might have heard his song "Ain't Misbehavin'," which became something of his signature song after he performed it in the landmark film Stormy Weather (1943), and it's the perfect encapsulation of his style. A clever piano line, a catchy melody, a touch of humor, and a lot of heart. It's just timeless music.

I know for certain / The one I love
I'm through with flirtin' / It's just you I'm thinkin' of
Ain't misbehavin' / Saving my love for you (for you)
(And you) (And you)

There's a tongue-in-cheek sense of humor to the song that's signature Fats- in addition to the lyrics he wrote, he was known to improv and throw new jokes in on the fly during live performances.
We're lucky enough to have footage of him performing "Your Feets Too Big" (another one of his signature numbers where he chastises a woman for, you guessed it, her foot size) and you can just see the charisma oozing off of him as he banters with the band and makes eyes at the camera. All while playing the piano too!
And he was no innocent either, often lacing his songs with innuendo that will shatter any illusions you have about old music being overly conservative. Take, for example, Hattie Noel's recording of "Find Out What They Like," which begins with a disclaimer that the song is "strictly about home cooking" before she sings this:

Find out what he likes / And how he likes it
Go on and give it to him just that way
Give it to him when he wants it / And any time he wants it
And don't you have a single word to say!

He was often performing in nightclubs and bars, which meant he knew how to get the crowd going- "The Joint Is Jumpin'" is the quintessential 1920s party anthem, with the title referring to a secret code phrase that bootleggers would use during the prohibition era to let people know that a party had illegal alcohol. The jaunty music he wrote did a lot to get people on the dance floors as well!
But though he's associated with lively entertainment, there was some grit beneath all that as well. Despite his success, Waller was still a black man living in early 20th century America, and he channelled that into legendary "Black and Blue" (a hit for Louis Armstrong) which is considered by some to be one of the first jazz protest songs:

I'm white inside, but that don't help my case / 'Cause I can't hide what is in my face
How would it end? Ain't got a friend / My only sin is in my skin
What did I do to be so black and blue?

Whatever the occasion, Fats had a song for it.

The End

But like a lot of great artists, Fats had his troubles. He was known for his hard partying lifestyle and frequent money problems that pushed him to be constantly working, and he would tragically pass away in 1943 from pneumonia while on tour.
The man was only 39 years old at the time, but as of today his legacy officially stretches 120 years! So spin a record today for Fats Waller, and get the joint jumpin' in his memory.
If you'd like to hear more of his music, I'd strongly recommend setting aside ninety minutes to watch the Broadway musical Ain't Misbehavin' because it's an incredible piece of theatre that showcases his music spectacularly. Diana Ross & The Supremes did an adorable tribute to him on The Ed Sullivan Show that's worth a watch too.
Any other Fats Waller fans in the sub? What are some of your favorite recordings of his songs?

“Will you look at that,” Captain Yontan marveled from the observation deck. They had arrived in the Solar System at long last, the old bastion of knowledge mankind had abandoned many millennia ago.
“Such a basic tech, yet so beautiful, so… poetic,” Lezlybe uttered, gazing at the constant flux of Sunfire Conduit pulled from the sun to one, two, three relays, and finally to the surface of Pluto, where its energy was being harnessed inside a crater. “And you’re certain that’s where the Ultimate Knowledge is stored?”
“Yes,” Yontan nodded. “Every clue leads to Pluto. Can you imagine? The Ultimate Knowledge, lost for millennia, on this planet out of all places.”
“Ready to descend at your command, captain,” announced Ghenna.
Yontan turned to his crew and smiled. It was the first time they had seen him do that in months. “Hover around the south-south-eastern quadrant of the crater. That’s where the entrance is supposed to be.”
“Yes, Sir!”
Lezlybe’s turned to face the captain, her long black hair swirling around with her.
“Wouldn’t that energy burn us on approach?”
“It might be basic tech, but not that basic, Lez,” said Yontan. “It’s safe up to a distance of 100 meters. Don’t underestimate the intelligence of our ancestors because they built this thing in the distant past. They were as smart as us. Smarter even, in certain aspects, I’m sure.”
“Found the entrance, captain,” said Ghenna. It was a pale peach colored door built on the craterside.
“Land near it, wherever it’s stable.”
“Yes, Sir!”
The ship touched down next to the Hollis Crater. Yontan and four others suited up and left the craft. Before heading for the door, the team stopped to gaze at the Sunfire Conduit from their position. It went up, up, up as far as the eye could see.
Jmerr was awestruck.
“I can’t believe we’re able to look at it with basic sun visors. Do you think our ancestors purposefully designed it like that?”
“Of course,” said Yontan, mesmerized by the spiraling blaze swooshing down the crater. “Aesthetics have always been important, especially since it used to be connected to three planets, two dwarf planets, and eight moons. Many renown painters have depicted the Conduits in their art. Although no physical portraits survived, their works have been well documented over hundreds of books.”
Lezlybe approached Jmerr and put her hand over his shoulder.
“I kind of wish we could hear its thunderous sound. I imagine it’d be a satisfying swoosh, kind of like a blowtorch.”
“You’d be deaf before you’d hear a thing,” laughed Yontan. “We’re speaking of extremely powerful jets coming from a star, after all. I can’t wait to see why they’re pulling so much energy on such a small planet. It’s totally excessive in my view.”
“Maybe it’s not,” said Lezlybe. “Especially if the Ultimate Knowledge is behind this door.”
The team approached the door, a small black panel to its side. Yontan placed a round device on top and, seconds later, it retracted into the ground.
“A Grampus?” frowned Jmerr, even though no one could see his face behind the visor. “Why do you use this old AI?”
“Because I don’t know the code,” explained Yontan as they stepped inside a long hall. “So I brought this device with me to crack the password. Don’t forget that this here is also old tech. Newer devices could break something.” He glanced over his shoulder at the wide-open entryway with the ship not too far behind. “But it looks like the Grampus broke it anyway since it doesn’t slide shut.”
At the end of the wide turquoise hall, another door was easily popped open with Yontan’s device. This time, however, the heavy door closed shut when the last person stepped in.
“I hope we’re not trapped in this small room,” gulped Lezlybe.
“Don’t worry, we can ask someone on board to cut it open if needed,” said Yontan. “After all we –”
PSHHHHHHHH
A burst of gas sprayed them from all sides, followed by a shower of heavy liquid. A few moments after it stopped, the door in front of them opened, and a gentle male voice greeted them.
“Welcome to U.K. ONE. The current air pressure is at 101.3 kilopascals, with a temperature of 22.4 degrees Celsius and a humidity level set at 60% RH.”
The voice then proceeded to inform them about the room’s condition among other sets of data.
“I see. We were inside a basic decompression chamber,” muttered Jmerr.
The tallest crewmate, Lessandre, popped his helmet off and took a deep breath.
“Ah, historical fresh air,” he boomed, looking around the oval room. “It brings a tear to my eye.”
“What are you doing?” Yontan shouted. “We don’t know what particles or microorganisms could linger in here.”
“Relax, captain. Tyche analyzed the air and told me it’s fine. Why don’t you all retract your visors and experience this multimillennial-old air? You’ll never have the chance to do that again, you know.”
Yontan checked with his own version of his AI, Tyche, and everything seemed to be fine, so he retracted the visor of his helmet as well, just in time to scratch an itch on his beard. The rest of the crew followed, except for Jmerr.
“Come on, Jmerr. It’s a unique experience, my friend,” beamed Lessandre, tapping on his shoulder.
Jmerr scowled at Lessandre. “I refuse to take unnecessary risks.”
“As you wish,” Lessandre grinned, loudly sniffing the air. “Ahhh. The air in here is exceptionally… how to describe it?”
“Dusty?” Lezlybe chimed in. “I think the auto-clean on the filter stopped working long ago.”
Yontan was ignoring his crew, inspecting the walls of this oval room for clues. But the room was pretty much empty, outside of the air conditioning holes and lights flickering on the ceiling.
“I know there’s another door on the other side of the crater, but that one’s the entrance to the accumulator and workspaces,” he muttered to himself, caressing the wall in the hopes of finding a button or a gap of sorts.
“Is that place also turquoise?” asked Lessandre. “I really hate this color. Reminds me too much of my ex.”
Lezlybe rolled her eyes.
“Then why don’t we go there?” asked Ghenna, who had closed her visor since she didn’t like the smell.
“Because,” began Yontan absent-mindedly while brushing his hands over the wall, “every document points to this place. We’ll check the other site if we don’t find anything here. Now if only I – aha! A button. This might be it.”
Yontan pushed it with his finger. Instead of clicking, like any other button would, his index finger sank completely in. He immediately withdrew it, fearing something might cut his finger off. But the button came back, except it was now white and protruded out of the wall. Yontan hesitantly pressed it.
An oval pedestal emerged from the middle of the floor, gradually rising until it reached chest height. The left side slid open with melodious clicks, and out came a small table with a round black object on it with a sky-blue center. Before they had the time to guess what it was, a hologram rose from it, displaying the head of an old balding man with a lazy eye.
“Greetings, future humans,” said the feeble voice. “And welcome to K.U. ONE. What is your purpose here?”
Yontan glanced at his crew, who gave him a nod and shrugs. He cleared his throat and spoke clearly, “We’ve come here to gain access to the Ultimate Knowledge, which is said to contain the answers to our purpose within the universe.”
“I see. And you are one, two, five. Oh! That is good news, good news indeed. I’ve been waiting for you. Well, not me per se, since I’m long dead, I suppose,” the hologram laughed, “but my digital image. And five? Oh, proof that nothing happens at random.”
Yontan was slightly taken aback.
“Wait. You’re not a simple recording?”
“No, no. I’m enhanced with artificial intelligence. It speaks as I would speak, saying what I asked it to say – with a bit of panache. Now, move to the other side of the pedestal. It will pop open and contain a box.”
The other side popped open, displaying a silver box embossed with gold on the edges. It was beautiful. Lessandre grabbed it and tried to pry it open.
“Tut-tut! You need the key to open the box. I’ll hand it over only of you accept to eat its contents.”
“Eat it?” Yontan uttered in excitement. “Will it alter our brains? Give us the knowledge we yearn for?”
“Not quite. But it is a necessary step.”
“I won’t touch it,” Jmerr stated firmly. “I don’t trust this man. Whatever’s inside, it’s been in there for thousands of years. There’s no way it’s still edible.”
“Oh but it is,” grinned the man. “What do you think the Sunfire Conduit is used for?”
“What?” uttered Lezlybe. “The power of the sun used for… food?”
“Of course, there’s more to it. But a lot of energy is necessary to cool it down to near zero kelvin and keep it that way until it’s very slowly reheated to the ideal temperature for you to savor.
“Now, will you eat its contents or not?”
“Why don’t we bring it back to the ship and study it?” suggested Jmerr.
“The moment you leave the room with the box, its contents will be destroyed, and so will the key to Ultimate Knowledge.”
Yontan exchanged a glance with his crew. Lessandre gave him thumbs up, Ghenna nodded and Lezlybe shrugged. Jmerr was the only one to firmly shake his head.
“Fine, we’ll eat its contents,” said Yontan, upon which Jmerr put his hands up in the air in frustration.
A key appeared from the front of the pedestal. Yonan used it to open the box Lessandre was holding. Five dark-brown spherical objects were neatly placed within fitting molds, resembling the five dots on a die.
“Behold the Five Orbs of Knowledge,” the hologram said solemnly. “I recommend one for each of you.”
Jmerr crossed his arms. “There’s no way I’m touching this.”
“What if someone eats two?” asked Yontan, eyeing Jmerr.
“It would sadden me, even though it might be beneficial to grasp the Ultimate Knowledge.”
Without hesitation, Lessandre popped the middle one in his mouth. Every other crewmate was staring at him. A few bites in, he suddenly froze, eyes wide open. His gaze slowly shifted from Yontan, to Lezlybe, to Ghenna – whose visor was now lowered – and finally stopped on Jmerr.
“Awl eash ‘em bofh,” he rapidly chewed, popping a second one in. “Awl eash ‘em owl ihf you guysh downt.”
Yontan’s hand was shaking as he picked his Orb. Lezlybe and Ghenna also chose one.
“On the count of three,” gulped Yontan, as he noticed the horrified look on Jmerr. “One… two… three!”
The shell of the Orb had a slight crunch, with a rather soft, creamy inner core, gently melting on their tongue. Sweet with a zest of bitterness. Each bite, each movement of their tongue was another moment they savored, dreading the end of this unique flavor. It was an explosion of exoticism, a sensory overload inside their mouth; the richness of the Orb filled their taste buds and souls alike with pure bliss.
Then there was the aroma, dissolving the dusty odor of the room with its arboraceous perfume. It reminded them of Terrestrial woods, now planted across various planets in the Milky Way. Comforting, ancient, nostalgic, and so raw at heart.
Fortunately, this jolly adventure didn’t end after they swallowed it, no, each residue, sticking to the various corners of their mouths, lingered like a fleeting memory soon to disappear forever. Yet it was still there, to grasp with the palm of their hands. But when they tried to, it became vapor, dwindling, yet etched in their brains with such strength it would be impossible to ever forget this moment. Ever.
Their minds were still floating on a cloud of ecstasy when Yontan stared at Lessandre.
“You ate two,” he breathed. “And you,” he turned to Jmerr, “you have no idea what you’ve just missed. It’s… indescribably delectable.” Yontan faced the hologram. “Please, give us one more, for Jmerr. He has to try this… Orb.”
The hologram grinned widely, creasing the old man’s entire face.
“These were the last five. There are no more.”
“WHAT?” everyone shouted at once.
“Th– that’s it? No more?” Yontan’s shoulder slumped. “Why didn’t you tell us earlier? We could’ve taken it back to the ship and try to recreate it.”
“It’s impossible without the recipe.”
“A recipe? Give it to us, I don’t care about Ultimate Knowledge anymore,” Lessandre laughed.
“But you had two,” Lezlybe scowled.
“And I want more,” he chuckled. “I’ve never felt better in my life. Even two were far too few!”
“Yes, hand us the recipe so we can share it with the rest of the crew,” pleaded Yontan.
The hologram seemed more and more pleased with itself.
“Even if I gave you the recipe you couldn’t make it when the main ingredient’s missing.”
“What’s the main ingredient?” Ghenna asked.
“Cacao. And these were chocolate truffles, which I made myself utilizing the very last cacao beans to ever exist. I’m sorry. You’ll never eat chocolate ever again.”
Jmerr seemed disappointed upon hearing it, especially after seeing how everyone reacted to it.
“B – but… why?” Yontan asked. “Why offer us a delicious treat only to punch us in the gut right after?”
The hologram smiled. “Think. What is your purpose here?”
“To acquire Ultimate Knowledge… But I fail to understand…”
“If my clock is correct, 3622 years have passed since the last human – which is myself – set wheels in this room. 3622 years of technological advancement, of accumulated mastery of various sciences and understanding of the universe. Yet you believe Ultimate Knowledge is to be found in the past?”
The crewmembers looked at each other, dumbfounded.
“So… it doesn’t exist?” suggested Lezlybe. “We’ve come this far for nothing…”
“Haven’t you just experienced the ultimate delicacy of humankind? Therein lies everything you need to know.”
“It’s not about the knowledge,” began Yontan, “but about the experience we savor?”
“Exactly!” Clapping hands appeared in front of the hologram’s face. “Instead of looking for something that may not be, learn to cherish the transient nature of existence through every experience you encounter. Who knows what happens once you’re dead? Constant hesitation leads to a life of lost opportunities. One of you has learned this lesson the hard way, I’m afraid. However, the tall man over there has greatly benefited from this lesson. Balance in all things!”
“No data is ever lost,” snorted Jmerr scornfully. “Death is simply the temporary loss of information until it’s retrieved.”
“The no-hiding theorem,” smiled the hologram. “Of course. But you wouldn’t be here if you could completely determine the state of the entire universe. Thus, my rhetoric stays valid. For as long as this is beyond our grasp – likely until humanity’s extinction – you ought to cherish every experience and lose your fear of consequences within reason.”
The room went silent, the subtle taste of chocolate still lingering in their mouths like the fading words of an old love letter.
“What do we do now, captain?” Ghenna asked shyly.
“Take your new-found knowledge and share it with others,” the hologram said before Yontan could open his mouth.
“So… there really is nothing else here?”
“Nothing at all.”
The hologram fluttered for a moment.
“Were these really the last pieces of chocolate?”
“Yes.”
“Then why didn’t you eat them yourself?”
“Because sharing is the quintessential attribute of humanity. And I’m glad to have contributed my part, even though it took several millennia.”
“So why use all that energy from the sun?” asked Lezlybe.
“It’s twofold,” said the hologram. “Partially to keep this chocolate in pristine state, as I said before. You’ll understand the second reason soon enough. Let’s say it’s a parting gift, for that man who hasn’t eaten his Orb.”
“I don’t understand.” Yontan was running his fingers through his hair. “You speak of sharing, yet we won’t be able to share this exquisite experience. There’s no chocolate left.”
“Share the wisdom you’ve acquired. Or perhaps you shall find something unique to share with others as I did. Even the stories of your adv–”
The man disappeared for a few seconds.
“–entures – Ah? We’ve been cut. Soon I shall be free, just like your minds. Swiftly return to your ships, and sail t–”
It flickered again and stopped for nearly ten seconds.
“–he vast empty space to… wherever your heart leads you. Farewell. Fare well indeed.”
The hologram zoomed out to show an old man sitting on a wheelchair, waving both hands. It flickered one last time before completely fading out with a hum.
Suddenly, a familiar voice spoke from everyone’s earpiece.
“Captain, is everything all right?” asked one of the crew left on the ship in a panic.
“Why? Did the entrance crumble down?”
“No, Sir. It’s the Conduit. You need to see this for yourself.”
The crew put on their visors and hurried out of the room, through the hallway, out on the freezing surface of Pluto. They gasped upon staring up.
“The Conduit!” Ghenna uttered.
It was oscillating, slowly shrinking until the last flames swooshed back and forth from the relay to the crater, and then, it retracted entirely.
“It’s… it’s gone…” sighed Yontan.
“The parting gift,” Jmerr sobbed. “He knew. He knew someone might not try out the chocolate truffle, and he purposefully shut down the entire system.”
Lessandre turned to Jmerr. “Consider this your incredible experience. We must be the only humans to ever see this happen in real time.”
“But we can reconnect it, unlike the chocolate, can’t we?” said Lizlybe.
Yontan shook his head. “Do you know of the ancient pyramids in the northern African continent?”
“Yeah…” she hesitated. “Vaguely.”
“Do you know why they’ve never been rebuilt?”
Lezlybe shrugged.
“Because there’s nothing to gain in doing so.” He pointed his finger at the vast expanse above him. “We’ve never rebuilt the ancient pyramids – not due to complexity, but due to loss of time and resources involved without any actual benefit. I’m afraid this is the last time anyone has admired this old tech at work.”
Upon their return on the ship, they told the rest of the crew what inside the U.K. ONE.
“So the Ultimate Knowledge doesn’t exist?” one of the crewmember asked.
Yontan took one last glance at the crater as the ship took off.
“I believe it does,” he beamed, looking at the bemused faces of his crew. “Not here.” He gently tapped his temple. “But here.” His hand rested on his chest. “And there.” His arms were wide open, as if trying to embrace his whole crew at once. “Acquired wisdom is the Ultimate Knowledge. And the ability to share experiences with others is our greatest gift.”