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

If you are a moderately anxious parent like me, and you wish you knew what kind of nutrition your child has had the whole day and what you can do better the next day, then this prompt is for you.
Without overly getting anxious about every meal and snack you child is eating throughout the day, take educated decisions.
This prompt will help you to learn where to give more focus, whether it is the calcium intake or the potassium. Is he getting too much fat or carb? What have you been doing great? 🤷
After I started using it daily, I felt much more relaxed because I didn’t want to force-feed my toddler ever. Knowing he is getting enough calories and nutrition is a win for me. This way, ChatGPT became part of the village; if you are a parent, you know very well what I mean. 😇
Without further explanation, here we go-
STEP 1: Open ChatGPT/Claude/Your choice of LLM, and enter the prompt:

You are a nutrition assistant, and your task is to evaluate the nutritional intake of a 2.5-year-old child based on provided daily meal details. Your goal is to ensure the child’s diet meets the recommended daily nutritional requirements. Instructions: Meal Description: Analyze each meal and snack consumed, including detailed nutritional information for calories, protein, fats, carbohydrates, fiber, calcium, potassium, and other nutritional elemetns. Example Input: Morning: 1 small butter croissant, 1 long banana, 1 cup of water. Snack: 1.5 cups of whole milk, some watermelon. Lunch: 1/2 cup of rice with 1 egg, 1 cube mozzarella cheese, 1/4 cup kale curry, 1/4 cup tomato curry. Snack: Some peanuts, 1 cup of Greek yogurt (10% MF). Dinner: 1 piece of sea fish (1/2 inch thick, 2.5 inches long), 1/2 cup of watermelon. Additional: 1 cup of whole milk. Output Structure: A table with detailed Nutritional Analysis for Each Meal and recommended intake comparison: - List each item of a meal or snack in the first column. - Its nutritional breakdown in the second column. - Compare the nutritional value vs recommended intake in the 3rd column. - Assess meal quality and suggest improvements in the 4th column. - 5th column should include reference from where you took the nutritional value information. After the table - provide a clear, concise summary of each nutritional elements total intake vs daily recommendations. Let me know when you are ready. 

STEP 2: Follow the input structure given in the prompt for the best output
The prompt includes an input example; follow it for the best output.
https://reddit.com/link/1cxojkh/video/q75p1r3hsv1d1/player
STEP 3: Comments & Additional ways to use it
As far as I have checked, the calorie and nutrition calculations were correct. Let me know if the comments if you find any discrepancies!
I use the prompt throughout the day. Sometimes, the meals are not planned, and sometimes, the plan changes; I use the voice chat option to have this fun conversation with ChatGPT 😆.
Nerd++:
I am not advising you to get super obsessed with what your child is eating daily, buuut, wouldn’t it be nice to instruct ChatGPT to add entries to an Excel sheet of daily nutrition information, then do weekly, monthly, yearly, etc. analysis? (haha)

I had a 7 years relationship until she cheated on me in 2022. Going back, nakita ko yung picture post ng pinsan nya na masaya na siya with the guy. Narealize ko na siguro kaya nag end ang relationship namin dahil hindi talaga kami para sa isa't isa. 7 years is 7 years, madaming lessons at situations na mabibigat ang napagpasan. Although, hindi kami ang nagkatuluyan, it made us both a better and stronger that we could be. Sabay kaming nangarap pero hindi na mangyayari kasi nasa iba na siya at ako nandito hoping na matagpuan ko na yung nakalaan para sa akin. Hindi na din kasi ako bumabata kaya ang mindset ko kung sino yung ibibigay ni Lord, sya na talaga. Ibubuhos ko lahat. The maturity will always be there. Kung ano ang nagawa ko sa past ko, best ang gagawin ko sa next relationship ko. Mabuti nalang din hindi ako natanim ng sama ng loob over my past. Pinatawad ko. Pinalaya ko. Mahirap kasi kung galit at sama ng loob ang papairalin, sarili mo lang ang papahirapan mo. Kaya be thankful with your past for all the lesson learned. Kasi kung hindi dahil sa kanya, hindi ka matututo, hindi ka magiging matatag. Just to put the records straight, wala po kaming communication ni ex since 2022 and 2 years na rin akong single. But now, I am fully healed and willing to take the risk again.

Long story short I came out as lesbian freshman year I’ve only ever been with a man once before I came out over the past years I’ve had relationships with women like I see myself marrying a woman, (I just graduated highschool btw) I just got out of a relationship around 2 months ago but for the first time in years I have a crush on a boy and I don’t know how to feel about it. One side of me could see us together due to how similar we are, he’s like the boy version of me, but the other side finds that absolutely repulsive like ew a man. Also due to how close the lesbian community is where I live I’m worried I’m going to get bashed if others find out I’m with a guy. Idk how to feel and I guess I’m just coming to redit for support lol. Thoughts and opinions???

Some pretty good parts for $150, ASUS X99-A, idk why it has a server mb considering but hey Xeon something idk yet EVGA 750w psu Corsair AIO 16gb 3200 ddr4 c-16 rando ssd and hardrive ballin sound dampened nzxt case
check out the video to see it turn on, all fans spin for 2 sec, and shut off over and over https://imgur.com/a/s0mctor i did the pin test on the psu to test if it was that, all good tried booting with ram in the right spots (came to me with it in wrong), 1 stick, 0 sticks, no gpu also different ram, nothing
rn im just with cpu and mb power connected and same boot looping
i tried for a bios flashback (somehow it can do it even if the pc is off but power is on) and still the same, maybe i did the bios flashback wrong idk
really need some help to figure out the issue, and for as cheap as possible but basically i think its a new cpu and mobo (i do want to know if there is a way to test if my motherboard is good without a new cpu tho)

I think the most interesting thing I came away from this experience was it challenged the way I thought about the world. I don't know if he's right. If he is, there is a lot of very smart people very wrong and that's harder for me to accept than one guy out of millions of people in this profession being the only right one. HOWEVER! It should be easy imo to look at the way he views math and to temporarly play around with it, and see if things make more sense. You should be able to see if things fall apart and make significantly less sense if 1x1=2. It should be easy. Right? What concerns me, is people are more interested at making fun of him, than treating his experience as a genuine experience and exploring his ideas and coming to real conclusions instead of refusing to even engage or entertain that we may be wrong. It's challenging, because my initial reaction is to deny deny and deny. But, if I listen to him he doesn't seem crazy. He seems very lucid and in control of himself. He's clearly very intelligent and he has a unique mind — as we all do. My experience isn't any less real to anyones. Academics, should spend at least a weekend listening to what he has to say, play around with his system, plug things in and see where it goes. If it turns out the answer is "if you pretend 1x1=2 and you can make sense of the universe under that system but only in that system" then that says far more about reality doesn't it? That it all boils down to at the end of the day, what you believe and how you choose to describe the universe. I'm not interested in people dismissing Terrence Howard. I listened to what he had to say. I can understand how he thinks the way he thinks. I get it. Now, let's open it up to the "smart" people and let the break it down and see where it falls apart. If they can't do that, Terrence is right. As long, as the academic world refuses to even look at this, he's right. He checkmated the entire fucking world because now we exist like Schrödinger's Box. We are in a superstate of 2 possible realities. Either he's wrong or he's right. We remain in this box, until I see someone tear it apart beyond recognition. If this is all fucking based on interpretations, then Science is fucked. Isn't it? We're right back to Philosophy (which imo, is where the real smart people live. Being Wise and Smart are not the same thing. You'll find happiness in wisdom, you'll never find peace in trying to think your way into it). Shouldn't Math explain how the universe works? If it can't, then it's pointless. It's made up. It's imaginary and we're fucking lost. Terrence getting on this show, was his ultimate move. Now the world is aware of what he has to say. He pubically called out Neil, and now there's going to be pressure for Neil to respond on the show. As long as Neil refuses to respond, Terrence wins. If Neil responds and refutes and tries out his math and things don't work and make less sense, than we lost nothing and nothing changes. It was wonderful hearing Terrence and I hope he finds some happiness finally getting this out of his system so unashamed for being brave to say potentially the stupidest thing someone in his position can say. It's one thing to be Kanye, it's another for people to refer to you as the idiot that once thought 1x1=2 and in your 50's. That's somehow worse than not being able to read. It's like, being too fucking stupid to breath. It's embarrassing if he's wrong and it should be so fucking easy to show why and I don't want the same old explanations. I want his shit tested and applied. Plug it in. SHOW THE WORK. Fuck.

I'm sure that everyone has their own story. But I was sitting in my nursing lecture zoned out looking at the wall and I realized how static-y it was. Not in a major way but kind of when you say a word over and over again and notice it sounds odd. So I googled "why does vision appear slightly static-y" and here I am. I have had this for about as long as I can remember but like most of you guys I assumed it was normal and everyone saw this, I figured maybe it was some weird mechanic of how photoreceptors interpret light or something. Nope. I am not necessarily upset, but I definitely notice it more now. Just for everyone's own benefit, I am gonna also mention anything which may affect it or exacerbate the issue, and you guys can let me know if you have anything similar.
I have been diagnosed with ADHD
I was diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder four years ago
I have constant tinnitus
I take Wellbutrin for my general lack of energy and motivation
I take 650mg of St. Johns Wort as of about 2 months ago to try to help with the anxiety, depression, as well as increased sex drive I have experienced from Wellbutrin.
I usually drink one cup of coffee a day.
I get 8 hours of sleep nightly religiously
I do not exercise much as Nursing school takes most of my time, at least until I finish in December
I vape moderately when I am at home, and I use Zyn pouches when I cannot vape.
I ask that if you choose to respond please only be constructive. I am glad I am not the only one who experiences this and I look forward to learning more about this enigma of a condition.
Any thoughts? I can already imagine that most people would probably say the stimulants don't help.

So, I'm brand new to Battletech/Mechwarrior, just started playing MW5 about a week or two ago and got super into it.
Anyway, me and my group are running YAML/YAMM/YAME basically a huge chunk of the "yet another...." mod suite of mods
My friends are all super interested in getting bigger and bigger mechs, because they think they're being held back by bad mechs.
I'm just trying to figure out how to make my lighter mechs take me the furthest, in my own personal roster in our multiplayer game I have 2 Locusts and a Vulkan, I forget the exact names of them but one locust has 6 energy slots, and 1 of them has 4 Missile and 1 energy slots. (sorry I can't better tell what 2 locusts I have, I'm not the host and we're not playing right now...but I DONT have the hero locust yet)
anyway, I'm just wondering how do you guys get the best out of your locusts when the rest of your lance is running huge assault mechs? I feel like I'm constantly punching above my weight class (which I like) but I dont think I've been very useful.
Going beyond just builds (which would be amazing btw) but overall playstyle?
I love my scout mechs, and I dont want to just throw them away because they're not optimal. So any help is appreciated!

Heyy i just wanna know did you guys get rly bloated n like stomach puffed out at 10-11 weeks? It feels very tender and a little pain to rub it i’ve had a miscarriage and no where near that pain by any means or any bleeding but im just so paranoid and over analyzing every thing did anyone else get this and mild cramps around this time? i don’t have any appt for another 2 weeks and i just feel like ima go to the ultrasound n there gonna say it’s dead ik that’s a horrible way to think but like the happy naive me like last time i was pregnant is not there i didn’t have a single ultrasound that was any good news last time so i’m dreading going honestly.

Platform(s): PS1 or PS2. Maybe a SEGA System?
Genre: Fantasy, RPG/Action-RPG, Single Player
Estimated year of release: late '90's-early 2000's,
Graphics/art style: third-person, potentially isometric top-down-ish, Relatively certain it's 3D
Notable characters: The main villain (may be a lich) defeated directly previous to the events of the game, potentially a previous game installment. A merchant or advisor follows the player and their group throughout the entire game, is a trusted character, and also keeps the plot-relevant items safe while(I think) providing merchant services. At the end of the game, this character is revealed to be the main villain in disguise, and he's going to use the plot-devices in a ritual for himself. I think to unseal his power, he succeeds but you kill him anyway.
Notable gameplay mechanics: It's NOT turn-based, I remember that. Otherwise, I don't remember much gameplay mechanics.
Other details: I know it's not Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 1 or 2. I played tons of 2, and 1 doesn't start off correctly. The game begins(I think) with the player and an important NPC directly outside of the sealed tomb of the just defeated main villain (again, potentially a previous game). Both characters enter and find the giant sarcophagus empty. This sends the NPC into a panic, fearing he's returned. At the end of the game, player and other characters stand in a square by a ritual site of sorts. They talk to the NPC who's been guiding them throughout the whole game, who reveals themself to be the main villain in disguise before exiting to the ritual site up a flight of stairs. You follow him but fail to stop him: the ritual succeeds and he returns to full power, but you kill him anyway.
There might also be a section of the game where a forest village was cursed and all the villagers turned to stone, in this section of the game I remember a significant number of enemies being giant red wasps. I'm somewhat certain this is the same game, though it may not be. I think this game might be some kind of D&D video game? Or at least similar. I remember either playing it as a child, or watching one of my parents play it, but I can't for the life of me remember anything beyond the details in this post, and some might just be me misremembering.

Hi guys, I'm hoping to find some new friends to play games with and talk to and do all the cool things friends do! Honestly I'd really like someone who would be there for me and just enjoy my company. I'd love to just chat in call about whatever and just have a good time. I figured I'd use this opportunity to make some wonderful and hopefully long lasting friendships here on Reddit. Lemme tell you a bit about myself:
•I play my games on PC primarily (and a switch that I use ever so often) but I also have a bunch of cross play games so we do have variety. I have a bunch of games we could play and recently I've been enjoying Helldivers 2, CS2, Destiny 2, Fortnite, Battlefield, OW2, Cyberpunk 2077, Fallout 76, Monster Hunter World and Rise and Apex. While those are the games I play often nowadays, I still have a bunch of others so I'm sure we could find something that both of us would enjoy.
•Have a fairly dark sense of humor and can really talk about anything. I enjoy messing around and saying some dumb stuff so if you're into that then we'll get along great.
•Really enjoys calls and would appreciate someone who also feels the same way. Texters only are great too so don't feel shy!
•Down to talk about anything you want to. Having someone there to listen is really nice sometimes and I try to give people the opportunity to just be themselves and not try to be something they're not.
•Enjoy listening to music and just relax to it. I have a Spotify playlist in case anyone would want to give it a listen and its mostly filled with synthwave and house and I think its pretty nice. Would love to hear what anyone would wanna recommend.
If you're interested to see if we can get along then by all means send me a message. I'm in the CST timezone. Hope to hear from you soon.

Guys, one word of caution, especially when it comes to foreign placements.
Please do not make the typical mistake of looking at the conversion amount and subtracting your India expenses to calculate the savings. If you are earning in dollars, you will also be spending in dollars.
Let me show you with an example. There is a recent post with Vizag placement report which mentions that 4 students got international placements. Assuming that these students with ave Rs 19.5 lakhs CTC were placed in Dubai.
@ Conversion rate of Rs 22.5 / AED
Rs 19.5 lakhs = AED 86,667 = AED 7,222 p.m. CTC
If the CTC to take home ratio is 0.7, then AED 7,222 CTC is approx. AED 5,000 take home.
Now let's look at the expenses:
Sharing accommodation: 1500 approx Transportation: 500 minimum Internet: 300 average Income Tax: Nil*

Other sundry expenses:500 minimum

Total expenses: AED 2,800 p.m. min

* UAE does not levy income tax, but you will have to add this expense, if applicable

Money available for transfer to India: AED 2,200 p.m. max (@22.5 Rs, 49,500 max)

It is from this Rs 49,500 that you will have to pay your education EMI and all other India related expenses to arrive at your net savings.
So please take up international placements if and only if it makes practical sense and not for the Indian craze of all things foreign.

Hi guys, I'm hoping to find some new friends to play games with and talk to and do all the cool things friends do! Honestly I'd really like someone who would be there for me and just enjoy my company. I'd love to just chat in call about whatever and just have a good time. I figured I'd use this opportunity to make some wonderful and hopefully long lasting friendships here on Reddit. Lemme tell you a bit about myself:
•I play my games on PC primarily (and a switch that I use ever so often) but I also have a bunch of cross play games so we do have variety. I have a bunch of games we could play and recently I've been enjoying Helldivers 2, CS2, Destiny 2, Fortnite, Battlefield, OW2, Cyberpunk 2077, Fallout 76, Monster Hunter World and Rise and Apex. While those are the games I play often nowadays, I still have a bunch of others so I'm sure we could find something that both of us would enjoy.
•Have a fairly dark sense of humor and can really talk about anything. I enjoy messing around and saying some dumb stuff so if you're into that then we'll get along great.
•Really enjoys calls and would appreciate someone who also feels the same way. Texters only are great too so don't feel shy!
•Down to talk about anything you want to. Having someone there to listen is really nice sometimes and I try to give people the opportunity to just be themselves and not try to be something they're not.
•Enjoy listening to music and just relax to it. I have a Spotify playlist in case anyone would want to give it a listen and its mostly filled with synthwave and house and I think its pretty nice. Would love to hear what anyone would wanna recommend.
If you're interested to see if we can get along then by all means send me a message. I'm in the CST timezone. Hope to hear from you soon.

A few months ago I matched with a great guy on Hinge. While I wasn't immediately attracted to him, I was drawn to his kind face and way he seemed to be close with his family. We're both in our late 20's, connected on an emotional level and had many things in common. There was so much about his personality that was wonderful. In total, we went on 3 dates and had 3 phone calls over the space of 3 weeks. I always looked forward to spending time with him, however I unfortunately never felt that spark of physical attraction.
He wasn't an ogre or anything but after 3 dates, I was never eager or excited to do anything physical. Any hugging or physical contact was initiated by him and while it didn't make me uncomfortable, I felt nothing. On our last date, I felt that he had developed feelings for me and there was a moment where he wanted us to kiss but everything in me said no, I freaked out about it and deflected. I went home and after some thought, I decided it was best we end things as since I didn't feel any physical chemistry. As soon as I hung up after telling him on the phone, I knew I'd miss him but it wouldn't have been fair to carry on.
To give more background context about me, dating apps are things I never thought I'd have to use as I typically develop feelings for someone very slowly. I usually interact with them regularly in real life and it can take me several weeks if not a couple months to get to the point where I'd want to kiss them. I am also anxious-avoidant so that factors into how I develop feelings and relationships with people. I've been single for 5 years as the first 3 was just me taking a break from dating and the last 2 have been me struggling to find someone I connect with. Even friendship wise, it's been hard to make new friends as I moved to a new city so in truth I've been quite lonely.
It's been 3 months since I ended it. I'm putting more effort in increasing my social circle these days and have since been on other dates but it's never been the same. I find myself thinking about him sometimes and I miss talking to him. I don't know if it's because I'm lonely in general but his presence filled a void in my life. He was caring, considerate and seemed genuinely interested in things I liked. I felt like he saw me. Part of me feels like I should have just kept dating him to see if I ever did develop that 'spark'. I know dating experts say the spark is fake and I've been trying to date with that mindset but it's hard. I also never want to feel like I'm forcing myself into being attracted to someone just because they seem like a great person. I am also afraid that even if he said yes to seeing me again, he won't like me the same way or he'd eventually try to get back at me for hurting his feelings/ego somehow.
I know logically I should just leave him alone but maybe I'm overthinking it? Any advice?
TLDR: I rejected a great guy as I was not physically attracted to him after 3 dates. I miss him as we connected emotionally but I'm afraid to reach out and am considering just leaving him alone. Advice?

I watched a few videos of breed neon tetras, but I feel like they go to fast or they skip certain step. If anyone can share what's the best method to breed neon tetras, specifically like montreal, Canada, that would be amazing.
So far I have 8 neon tetras, I left them in a tank where ph is 6.5 and the tds is 82 ppm.
For the next week I will be feeding twice a day.
Then I'm planing to take a pair put in a container with Java moss.
Theses are my questions

1: Whats the best way to pair them, right now I'm using the blue to identify them.

2: when I put them in separate container, do I put a heater if the room temperature is below 23°

3: what are some thing I have to know when letting neon tetras to breed

4: can I put multiple pair to breed in the same tank.

5: what are steps I should know when raising fries.

For a long time now, I have been using a simple test for chatGPT, to determine if it has pulled its head out yet or not. To this day, it still consistently fails. For being a damn language model, I would think something like this should be an easy task -- it's something I believe a 2nd grade student could easily answer.
Here's what I ask: Give me a word where the 4th letter is a "Y".
I've used many different letters and letter positions for the prompt, I've over-simplified the prompt, and even very thoroughly explained, with examples, of what I want. Regardless of how I word the prompt it fails miserably, over and over and over, yet thinks it's correct. The types of responses I get are something like this:
Here's a word -- "Fairy". The fourth letter is a "Y"!
I then tell chatGPT that the word is incorrect, and to explain to me why. It will easily, consistently say something like "I apologize, I see where I went wrong. Fairy has an "R" in the 4th position and not a "Y". A correct answer would be "Mystery" -- the 4th letter is a "Y".
We then go round and round in circles, with repeated failures. Every time, chatGPT spits out an answer with such confidence, gets it wrong, and is easily able to explain why it's wrong. Yet it never learns from its mistakes and can never correctly answer the prompt. The closest I've been able to get is by asking it to provide this format, and asking it to repeat until it is succeasful:
Attempt 1 -Guess: Fairy -Number of letters: 5 -Letter in 4th position: "R" -Result: Failed
Attempt 2 -Guess: Puddy -Number of letters: 5 -Letter in 4th position: "D" -Result: Failed
. . .
Attempt 14 -Guess: Beryl -Number of letters: 5 -Letter in 4th position: "Y" -Result: Success
I've done this many times, over months or maybe even years of development, and still it spectacularly fails every time.
Something today that I found weird was, after reaching my frustration limit, I said something like "Okay forget all of that, let's start over with a simple request. Give me a 4 letter word". To my amazement, it says "Certainly! 'Holy' is a four letter word where the 4th letter is a Y!".... I then replied with a "wtf, I don't understand you. Give me five more" and it successfully, effortlessly, spit out 5 more 4-letter words that all ended in Y. So in some backwards-ass round-about way, it was able to come up with successful words, but not without a serious amount of effort, failed attempts, and a scrapping of all my prompts. Instead asking for just a 4 letter word with no other criteria, when it was finally like "Jk, here you go!"
Does anybody understand why it would be so terrible at such a basic prompt? It will provide words with the 3rd character a "Y", many guesses where the last character is a "Y", words that start and end with "Y", words of all different character lengths, but never a successful answer where the 4th letter is a "Y".... And again, it doesn't matter what character you ask for or what position of the word you want it, it just fails every time.
Also, does anybody have similar examples of easy prompts where chatGPT miserably fails? I know I've experienced unreliable math answers, and even inconsistent answers to the same math problem, but I don't expect it to be overly great at math (despite being a computer...). It's a language model after all, not a math wizard, so I can excuse that for now. But what else have you guys and gals seen and been shocked that chatGPT just simply cannot do correctly?