I’ve always hated the smell of gun oil. It clings to everything it touches, soaking deep into the fibers of my clothes, the lining of my backpack, the coarse hair on the back of my hands. Yet here I am, kneeling on the cracked linoleum of our mudroom, a Remington .308 laid across my thighs, and the stench of gun oil sharp in my nostrils. The early morning light barely scratches at the edges of the blinds, dim and gray like the belly of a dead fish.
My dad Frank is in the kitchen, clattering around with the coffeepot and mumbling under his breath. Today we’re heading up to the woods of Northern Michigan, same as we did every year before Leah… before we lost her.
I can’t help but feel the old scars throbbing as I load bullets into the magazine. It’s been ten years since that hunting trip, the one that tore my family into before and after. Before, when Leah's laughter was a constant soundtrack to our lives; after, when every silence was filled with her absence.
We were just kids back then. I was ten, Leah was eight. It was supposed to be a typical hunting trip, one of those bonding experiences Dad was always talking about. But things went wrong. We got separated from Dad somehow. One minute we were following him, the next we were lost, the dense woods closing in around us.
Dad says when he found me, I was huddled under a fallen tree, my eyes wide, my body frozen. All I could mutter through chattering teeth was "Dogman."
It was only later, after the search parties had combed through every thicket and hollow, that they found her. What remained of Leah was barely recognizable, the evidence of a brutal mauling undeniable. The authorities concluded it was likely a bear attack, but Dad... he never accepted that explanation. He had seen the tracks, too large and oddly shaped for any bear.
As I load another round, the memory flashes, unbidden and unwelcome. Large, hairy clawed hands reaching out towards us, impossibly big, grotesque in their form. Yet, the rest of the creature eludes me, a shadow just beyond the edge of my recall, leaving me with nothing but fragmented terrors and Leah’s haunting, echoing screams. My mind blocked most of it out, a self-defense mechanism, I guess.
For years after that day, sleep was a battleground. I'd wake up in strange places—kitchen floor, backyard, even at the edge of the nearby creek. My therapist said it was my mind's way of trying to resolve the unresolved, to wander back through the woods searching for Leah. But all I found in those sleepless nights was a deeper sense of loss.
It took time, a lot of therapy, and patience I didn't know I had, but the sleepwalking did eventually stop. I guess I started to find some semblance of peace.
I have mostly moved on with my life. The fragmentary memories of that day are still there, lurking in the corners of my mind, but they don’t dominate my thoughts like they used to. I just finished my sophomore year at Michigan State, majoring in Environmental Science.
As for Dad, the loss of Leah broke him. He became a shell of himself. It destroyed his marriage with Mom. He blamed himself for letting us out of his sight, for not protecting Leah. His life took on a single, consuming focus: finding the creature that killed her. He read every book, every article on cryptids and unexplained phenomena. He mapped sightings, connected dots across blurry photos and shaky testimonies of the Dogman.
But as the tenth anniversary of Leah’s death approaches, Dad's obsession has grown more intense. He’s started staying up late, poring over his maps and notes, muttering to himself about patterns and cycles. He’s convinced that the dogman reappears every ten years, and this is our window of opportunity to finally hunt it down.
I’m not nearly as convinced. The whole dogman thing seems like a coping mechanism, a way for Dad to channel his guilt and grief into something tangible, something he can fight against. But I decided to tag along on this trip, partly to keep an eye on him, partly because a small part of me hopes that maybe, just maybe, we’ll find some kind of closure out there in the woods.
I finish loading the rifle and set it aside, standing up to stretch my legs. I wipe my greasy hands on an old rag, trying to get rid of the smell. The early morning light is starting to seep into the room, casting long shadows across the floor.
Dad comes out of the kitchen with two thermoses of coffee in hand. His eyes are bleary and tired.
“You ready, Ryan?” he asks, handing me a thermos, his voice rough from too many sleepless nights.
“Yeah, I’m ready,” I reply, trying to sound more confident than I felt.
We load our gear into the truck, the weight of our supplies and weapons a physical reminder of the burden we carry. The drive from Lansing across the Lower Peninsula is long and quiet, the silence between us filled with unspoken memories and unresolved grief.
—
The drive north is a blur of highway lines and the dull hum of the engine. I drift off, the landscape outside blending into a haze. In my sleep, fragments of that day with Leah replay like scattered pieces of a puzzle. I see her smile, the way she tugged at my sleeve, eager to explore. The sunlight filters through the trees in sharp, jagged streaks.
Then, the memory shifts—darker, disjointed. Leah's voice echoes, a playful laugh turning into a scream that pierces the air. The crunch of leaves underfoot as something heavy moves through the underbrush. I see a shadow, large and looming, not quite fitting the shapes of any creature I know.
Then, something darker creeps into the dream, something I’ve never allowed myself to remember clearly.
Before I can see what it is I wake up with a start as the truck jerks slightly on a rough patch of road. Dad glances over. "Bad dream?" he asks. I nod, rubbing the sleep from my eyes, the remnants of the dream clinging to me like the cold.
"Yeah, just... thinking about Leah," I manage to say.
As we drive, Dad attempts to bridge the silence with small talk. He asks about my finals, my plans for the summer, anything to keep the conversation going. His voice carries a forced cheerfulness, but it’s clear his heart isn’t in it. I respond when necessary, my answers brief, my gaze fixed on the passing scenery.
The landscape changes as we head further north, from flat expanses to rolling hills dotted with dense patches of forest. It's beautiful country, the kind that reminds you how vast and wild Michigan can be, but today it just feels oppressive, like it’s closing in on us.
—
We finally arrive at the cabin, nestled deep in the woods, its weathered wood blending seamlessly with the surrounding trees. The place hasn't changed much since the last time I was here—a relic from another time, filled with the echoes of our past. I can still see Leah running around the porch, her laughter ringing out into the forest.
Dad parks the truck, and we step out into the crisp air. The smell of pine and damp earth fills my nostrils. We start unloading our gear, the tension between us palpable.
“Let’s get this inside,” Dad says, his voice gruff as he hefts a duffel bag onto his shoulder.
I nod, grabbing my own bag and following him to the cabin. Inside, it’s a mix of old and new—the same rustic furniture, but with new hunting gear and maps strewn across the table. Dad’s obsession is evident in every corner of the room, a constant reminder of why we’re here.
As we unpack, we exchange strained attempts at normalcy. He talks about the latest cryptid sightings he’s read about, his eyes lighting up with a fervor that both worries and saddens me.
“Did you hear about the sighting up near Alpena?” he asks, laying out his maps on the table.
“Yeah, you mentioned it,” I reply, trying to muster some enthusiasm. “Do you really think there’s something to it?”
Dad’s eyes meet mine, and for a moment, I see a flicker of doubt. But it’s quickly replaced by grim determination. “I have to believe it, Ryan. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
We finish unpacking, the silence between us growing heavier with each passing minute. I step outside to clear my head, the cool air a welcome relief. The sun is starting to set, casting long shadows across the clearing. I can’t shake the feeling of unease.
"You can take the upstairs room," Dad mutters. His voice is strained, trying to sound normal, but it's clear the weight of the past is heavy on him. I nod, hauling my backpack up the creaking stairs to the small bedroom that I used to share with Leah. The room feels smaller now, or maybe I've just grown too much since those innocent days.
I unpack silently, setting my things aside. The bed is stiff and cold under my touch. As I settle in, I can't help but glance at the corner where Leah and I would huddle together, whispering secrets and making plans for adventures that would never happen. I push the thoughts away, focusing on the practicalities of unpacking.
After settling in, I go back downstairs to find Dad loading up a backpack with supplies for our hunt. The intensity in his eyes is palpable, his hands moving with practiced precision. I know this routine; it's one he's perfected over countless solo trips since that fateful day.
"We'll head out early," he says, not looking up from his task. "Gotta make the most of the daylight."
I nod, though unease curls in my stomach. I'm not just worried about what we might find—or not find—out there. I'm worried about him. Each year, the obsession seems to carve him out a bit more, leaving less of the Dad I knew.
—
The morning air is sharp with the scent of pine and wet earth as Dad and I head into the deeper parts of the forest. The terrain is rugged, familiar in its untamed beauty, but there’s a tension between us that makes the landscape feel alien. Dad moves with a purposeful stride, his eyes scanning the woods around us. Every snap of a twig, every rustle in the underbrush seems to draw his attention. He’s on edge, and it puts me on edge too.
As we walk, my mind drifts back to that day ten years ago. I can almost hear Leah’s voice echoing through the trees, her high-pitched call as she darted ahead, "Catch me, Ryan!" I remember how the sunlight filtered through the leaves, casting dancing shadows on the ground. Those memories are so vivid, so tangible, it feels like I could just turn a corner and see her there, waiting for us.
Dad suddenly stops and kneels, examining the ground. He points out a set of tracks that are too large for a deer, with an unusual gait pattern. "It’s been here, Ry. I’m telling you, it’s close," he whispers, a mixture of excitement and something darker in his voice. I nod, though I’m not sure what to believe. Part of me wants to dismiss it all as grief-fueled obsession, but another part, the part that heard Leah's scream and saw something monstrous in the woods that day, isn’t so sure.
As we continue, Dad's comments become increasingly cryptic. "You know, they say the dogman moves in cycles, drawn to certain places, certain times. Like it’s tied to the land itself," he muses, more to himself than to me. His fixation on the creature has always been intense, but now it borders on mania.
We set up a makeshift blind near a clearing where Dad insists the creature will pass. Hours drag by with little to see but the occasional bird or distant deer.
The sun rises higher in the sky, casting long, slender shadows through the dense canopy. I shift uncomfortably in my spot, the forest floor hard and unyielding beneath me. My eyes dart between the trees, hoping to catch a glimpse of something, anything, to break the monotony. Dad, on the other hand, remains steadfast, his gaze fixed on the treeline as if he can will the dogman into existence by sheer force of will.
A bird chirps nearby, startling me. I sigh and adjust my grip on the rifle. I glance over at Dad.
“Anything?” I ask, more out of boredom than genuine curiosity.
“Not yet,” he replies, his voice tight. “But it’s out there. I know it.”
I nod, even though I’m not sure I believe him. The forest seems too quiet, too still. Maybe we’re chasing ghosts.
As the sun begins its descent, the forest is bathed in a warm, golden light. The air cools, and a breeze rustles the leaves. I shiver, more from anticipation than the cold. The long hours of sitting and waiting are starting to wear on me.
“Let’s call it a day for now,” Dad says finally, his voice heavy with disappointment. “We’ll head back to the cabin, get some rest, and try again tomorrow.”
I stand and stretch, feeling the stiffness in my muscles. We pack up our gear in silence and start the trek back to the cabin. The walk is long and quiet, the only sounds are the crunch of leaves underfoot and the distant calls of birds settling in for the night.
—
Dinner is a quiet affair, both of us lost in our thoughts. I try to make small talk, asking Dad about his plans for tomorrow, but it feels forced. We clean up in silence.
After dinner, I retreat to the small bedroom. The fatigue from the day's hike has settled into my bones, but sleep still feels like a distant hope. I lie down, staring at the ceiling, the room cloaked in darkness save for the sliver of moonlight creeping through the window. Downstairs, I hear the faint sound of Dad moving around, likely unable to sleep himself.
I drift into sleep, but it's not restful. My dreams pull me back to that fateful day in the woods. Leah's voice is clear and vibrant, her laughter echoing through the trees. She looks just as she did then—bright-eyed and full of life, her blonde hair catching the sunlight as she runs ahead of me.
"Come on, Ry! You can't catch me!" she taunts, her voice playful and teasing.
I chase after her, but the scene shifts abruptly. The sky darkens, the woods around us growing dense and foreboding. Leah's laughter fades, replaced by a chilling silence. I see her ahead, standing still, her back to me.
"Leah?" I call out, my voice trembling. She turns slowly, her eyes wide and filled with fear. "Ryan, you have to remember," she says, her voice barely a whisper. "It wasn't what you think. You need to know the truth."
Leah’s words hang in the air, cryptic and unsettling. Before I can respond, she turns and starts running again, her figure becoming a blur among the trees. Panic rises in my chest as I sprint after her, my feet pounding against the forest floor.
“Leah, wait!” I shout, desperation lacing my voice. The forest around me seems to close in, the trees towering and twisted, shadows dancing menacingly in the dim light. I push forward, trying to keep her in sight, but she’s too fast, slipping away like a wisp of smoke.
Suddenly, there’s a rustle, a flash of movement in the corner of my vision. Leah screams, a sound that pierces through the heavy silence. It happens too quickly—I can’t see what it is, only a dark blur that snatches her up.
“Leah!” I scream, my voice breaking. I stumble, falling to my knees as the forest spins around me. My heart races, and the terror is so real, so visceral, that it pulls me back to that awful day, the one that changed everything.
I jolt awake, my breath coming in ragged gasps.
I sit up, wiping the cold sweat from my forehead as I try to steady my breathing. The room is still dark, the shadows cast by the moonlight seem to flicker and dance on the walls. My heart is still racing from the nightmare, the echo of Leah's scream lingering in my ears.
As I struggle to calm down, the floorboards outside my room creak. The door opens slowly, and I see the silhouette of my dad in the doorway, a Bowie knife in his hand, his posture tense.
“Dad, what the hell are you doing?” I whisper, my voice shaking.
“Shh,” he hisses, holding up a hand to silence me. “I heard something. Something moving around in the cabin. Stay quiet.”
I swallow hard, my mouth dry. I glance at the clock on the nightstand—it’s just past three in the morning. The cabin is silent, the kind of deep, oppressive silence that makes every small sound seem louder. I can’t hear anything out of the ordinary, but Dad’s expression is deadly serious.
He motions for me to get up, and I do, moving as quietly as I can. My heart is racing, a mix of lingering fear from the dream and the sudden, sharp anxiety of the present moment. Dad leads the way, stepping cautiously out of the bedroom and into the hallway, the knife held ready in front of him.
We move through the cabin, checking each room in turn. The living room is empty, the furniture casting long shadows in the dim moonlight. The kitchen is just as we left it, the plates from dinner still drying on the counter. Everything seems normal, untouched.
We finish our sweep of the cabin without finding anything amiss. The silence is heavy, punctuated only by our soft footfalls. I can see the tension in Dad’s frame, his grip on the knife unwavering. After checking the last room, we pause in the dimly lit hallway, the air thick with unspoken questions.
“There’s nothing here,” I say, my voice low. “Are you sure you heard something?”
He looks at me, his eyes searching for something in my face. “I heard growling. Deep and close. It was right outside the window.”
“Maybe it was just an animal outside, a raccoon or something?” I suggest, although the certainty in his voice makes me doubt my own reassurance.
“No, it wasn’t like that. It was different,” he insists, his voice tense.
I nod, not wanting to argue, but the seeds of worry are planted deep.
The look in his eyes sends a chill down my spine. It’s not just fear—it’s desperation. The kind of desperation that comes from years of chasing shadows and finding nothing. I can see the toll this hunt has taken on him, the way it’s worn him down, turned him into a man I barely recognize.
We head back to our rooms. As I lie down, my mind races with thoughts of my dad. I can’t help but wonder if he’s losing it, if the years of grief and guilt have finally pushed him over the edge.
Dad wasn’t always like this. Before Leah’s death, he was the kind of father who took us fishing, helped with homework, and told terrible jokes that made us groan and laugh at the same time. He was solid, dependable. But losing Leah changed him. The guilt twisted him into someone I barely recognize, someone driven by a need for answers, for closure, that may never come.
I try to sleep, but my thoughts keep me awake. I can hear Dad moving around downstairs, probably pacing or double-checking the locks. His paranoia has become a constant presence, and I don’t know how to help him. I don’t even know if I can help him.
—
The next morning, the sunlight filters weakly through the cabin windows, casting a pale light that does little to lift the heavy mood. I drag myself out of bed, feeling the exhaustion of another restless night. Dad is already up, hunched over his maps at the kitchen table, his eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep.
“Morning,” I mumble, rubbing the sleep from my eyes as I pour myself a cup of coffee. “Did you sleep at all?”
He shakes his head, not looking up from his notes. “Not much. I couldn’t stop thinking about what I heard last night.”
I sip my coffee, trying to shake off the remnants of my nightmare. “Maybe it was just an animal, Dad. We’re deep in the woods, after all.”
He finally looks up, his eyes intense. “Ryan, I know what I heard. It wasn’t just an animal. It was something else.”
I sigh, not wanting to argue. “Okay, fine, Dad. What’s the plan for today?”
“We’re going back out. I found some tracks yesterday, and I want to follow them. See where they lead.”
I nod, feeling a mix of apprehension and resignation. I can see how much this means to him, how desperate he is for any kind of lead. “Alright. Let’s get packed and head out.”
We spend the morning preparing, loading up our gear and double-checking our supplies. Dad is meticulous, going over everything with a fine-toothed comb. I try to match his focus, but my mind keeps drifting back to Leah and the dream I had. Her words echo in my head, cryptic and unsettling: “You need to know the truth.”
We set off into the woods, the air crisp and cool. The forest is alive with the sounds of birds and rustling leaves, but it all feels distant, like background noise to the tension between us. Dad leads the way, his eyes scanning the ground for any sign of the tracks he found yesterday.
As we walk, I can’t help but notice how erratically he’s acting. He mutters to himself, his eyes darting around as if expecting something to jump out at us. His grip on his rifle is tight, his knuckles white.
“Dad, are you okay?” I ask, trying to keep my voice steady.
He glances at me, his expression unreadable. “I’m fine. Just focused.”
He stops frequently to examine the ground or the bark of trees, pointing out marks and signs that seem meaningless to me.
“Look at this,” he says, crouching down to examine a broken branch. “See how it’s snapped? That’s not a deer or a bear. That’s something bigger. Stronger.”
I crouch next to Dad, squinting at the broken branch. To me, it just looks like a regular broken branch, the kind you see all over the forest. "I don't know, Dad. It just looks like a branch to me," I say, trying to keep my voice neutral.
Dad's eyes flicker with frustration. "You're not looking close enough. It's the way it's snapped—too clean, too deliberate. Something did this."
I nod, not wanting to argue. "Okay, sure. But even if you're right, it could be anything. A storm, another hunter..."
His expression hardens. "I know what I'm looking for. This is different."
I sigh, feeling the weight of the past and the tension between us pressing down on me. "Dad, I had a dream last night. About Leah." The words hang in the air between us, heavy and fraught with unspoken emotions.
Dad's eyes widen, and he straightens up, his entire demeanor shifting. "What kind of dream? What did you see?" His voice is urgent, almost desperate.
"It was... strange. We were in the woods, like we are now, but everything felt different. Leah was there, running ahead of me, laughing. Then she stopped and told me I needed to know the truth, that it wasn't what I thought."
Dad grabs my shoulders, his grip tight. "What else did she say? Did she tell you anything specific? Anything about the creature?"
I shake my head, feeling a chill run down my spine. "No, that was it. She just said I needed to know the truth, and then she was gone."
Dad’s grip on my shoulders tightens, and his eyes bore into mine with a mixture of desperation and hope. “Ryan, you have to try to remember. Think hard. What did the creature look like? Did you see anything else?”
I pull back slightly, uneasy with his intensity. “Dad, I told you. I don’t remember. It was just a dream. A nightmare, really. My mind’s probably just mixing things up.”
He lets go of me and runs a hand through his hair, looking frustrated and lost. “Dreams can be important. They can hold memories we’ve buried deep. Please, try to remember. This could be a sign, a clue.”
I rub my temples, feeling the beginnings of a headache. “I’ve tried, okay? I’ve tried for years to piece together what happened that day. But it’s all just fragments, like pieces of a puzzle that don’t fit. The dream… it felt real, but I don’t think it’s telling me anything new.”
Dad’s face falls, and he looks older than I’ve ever seen him. He turns away, staring into the forest as if it holds all the answers.
—
As we make our way back to the cabin, the sun begins to set, casting long shadows through the trees. The air grows colder, and I shiver, pulling my jacket tighter around me. Dad is silent, lost in his thoughts, his face drawn and haggard.
Back at the cabin, we unload our gear once again in silence. Dad disappears into his room, muttering something about going over his notes. I decide to explore the cabin, hoping to find something that might help me understand what’s going on with him.
In the attic, I find a box of old family photos and documents. As I sift through the contents, I come across a worn journal with Dad’s handwriting on the cover. Curiosity gets the better of me, and I open it, flipping through the pages.
The journal is filled with notes and sketches, detailing his obsession with the dogman. But there’s something else—entries that talk about Leah, about that day in the woods. His handwriting becomes more erratic, the words harder to read. One entry stands out, dated just a few days after Leah’s death:
“June 15, 2013 – It was supposed to be a normal trip. Keep them close, Frank, I kept telling myself. But I failed. Leah is gone, and it’s my fault. I heard her scream, saw the shadows. I tried to get to her, but… the thing, it was there. Too fast. Too strong. My hands… blood everywhere. No one will believe me. I can’t even believe myself. I have to find it. I have to protect Ryan. I have to make it right. God, what have I done?”
Before I can read further, the attic door creaks open, and Dad’s voice slices through the stillness.
“What are you doing up here?” His tone is sharp, almost panicked.
I turn to see him standing in the doorway, his face pale and his eyes wide with something between anger and fear. I clutch the journal to my chest, my mind racing. “I found this… I was just trying to understand…”
In an instant, he crosses the room and snatches the journal from my hands. His grip is tight, his knuckles white. “You had no right,” he growls, his voice trembling.
“Dad, I just wanted to know the truth!” I shout, frustration boiling over. “What really happened to Leah.”
His eyes flash with a mix of rage and anguish, and before I can react, he slaps me across the face. The force of it knocks me off balance, and I stumble backward, my cheek stinging.
For a moment, there’s a stunned silence. We both stand there, breathing hard, the air thick with tension.
“I’m sorry,” Dad says finally, his voice barely a whisper. “I didn’t mean to… I just…” He trails off, clutching the journal to his chest like a lifeline.
I touch my cheek, feeling the heat from the slap, and take a deep breath, trying to steady myself. “Dad, what aren’t you telling me? What really happened that day?”
“Stay out of it, Ryan,” Dad growls, his eyes dark with anger. “You don’t know what you’re messing with.”
He turns and storms out of the attic. I’m left standing there, my cheek throbbing, my mind racing. What the fuck is going on? What really happened to Leah? And what is Dad so afraid of?
—
That night, I sleep with my rifle within arm's reach, more afraid of my dad than any dogman. The slap still burns on my cheek, and the look in his eyes—rage, fear, something darker—haunts me. I lie awake, listening to the creaks and groans of the old cabin, every sound amplified in the stillness. Eventually, exhaustion pulls me under, and I fall into a restless sleep.
The dream returns, vivid and unsettling. I'm back in the woods, chasing after Leah. Her laughter echoes through the trees, a haunting reminder of happier times. This time, though, I push myself harder, refusing to let her slip away.
"Ryan, catch me!" she calls, her voice playful.
"I'm coming, Leah!" I shout, my legs pumping, my breath coming in ragged gasps.
The forest around us is a twisted, shadowy maze, the trees seeming to close in on us. Leah's figure becomes clearer, her blonde hair catching the dim light filtering through the canopy. She stops suddenly, turning to face me, her eyes wide with fear.
"Leah, what is it?" I ask, my voice trembling.
"Look behind you," she whispers, her voice barely audible.
I turn slowly, dread creeping up my spine. In the shadows, I see a figure, its form indistinct and shifting. It’s not quite animal, not quite human—something in between. The sight of it sends a jolt of terror through me, and I wake up with a start, my breath coming in ragged gasps.
I’m not in my bed. The ground beneath me is cold and hard, the smell of damp earth filling my nostrils. Panic rises as I realize I’ve sleepwalked into the woods. I scramble to my feet, my eyes adjusting to the dim light. The moon casts a pale glow over the surroundings, revealing what looks like a long-abandoned animal lair.
The walls are covered in giant claw marks, deep gouges in the wood and earth. The air is heavy with the scent of decay, and a chill runs through me. I can’t shake the feeling that I’m being watched.
Carefully, I start to move, my eyes scanning the ground, desperate for a familiar landmark. That's when I see them—faded scraps of fabric caught on the jagged edges of the underbrush. My steps falter, a sense of dread washing over me as I bend down to examine them. The fabric is torn, weathered by time and the elements, but unmistakably familiar. It's part of Leah's jacket—the bright pink one she wore on the day she disappeared.
As I strain to make sense of it all, a rustling sound behind me snaps my focus. My heart leaps into my throat. I spin around, my hand instinctively reaching for the rifle I don't have—because, of course, I didn't bring it in my unconscious state.
The shadowy figure that emerges from the trees is unsettlingly familiar, mirroring the menacing forms of my nightmares. But as it steps into the moonlight, I recognize the worn jacket, the weary posture. It's Dad.
"Ryan!" he calls out, his voice a mix of relief and stern concern. "I've been looking everywhere for you. What the hell are you doing out here?"
I exhale slowly, the terror ebbing away as reality sets back in. "I—I don't know, Dad. I must've sleepwalked again." My voice is shaky, my earlier dream still clinging to the edges of my consciousness.
Dad stares at me in disbelief. "You haven't sleepwalked since you were a kid, Ry. This... this isn't just a coincidence." His eyes dart around, taking in the surroundings—the eerie, claw-marked den, the unsettling quiet of the woods. "How did you even find this place?"
I shake my head, struggling to find an answer. "I don't know, Dad. I just... I woke up here." The uncertainty in my voice does nothing to ease the tension.
His eyes lock onto the tattered remains of Leah's jacket in my hands, and something inside him snaps. The color drains from his face as he stumbles a few steps backward. "This... this is where it happened," he murmurs, his voice barely a whisper. “This is where we found Leah."
“I thought you said you don’t remember anything from that night,” he says accusingly.
"I swear, Dad, I don't know anything about this place," I insist, my own heart pounding.
“It was you, wasn’t it? You’ve been hiding this from me.” His voice is frantic. “You... last night, the growling, it was you.” His voice rises, tinged with hysteria.
I step back, my pulse racing, feeling the chill of the night and the weight of his accusation. "Dad, I don't know what you're talking ab—”
"No!" he interrupts, his voice breaking as he points a trembling finger at me. "You knew, you always knew. It was you, Ryan. All these years, the evidence was right there, but I refused to see it. You were the dogman. You killed Leah!"
His words hit me like a physical blow, absurd and horrifying in their implications. "Dad, you're not making any sense. You're talking crazy! I was just a little kid! How could I–" I protest, my voice shaky.
He steps closer, his presence looming over me, the outline of his figure distorted by the shadows of the trees. "Think about it! It all makes sense now. You led us here, to this place, because you remember. Because you did it."
"Dad, stop it!" I shout, my heart pounding in my chest. "You're scaring me. You need help, professional help. This isn't you."
But he's beyond reason, his eyes wild with a haunted grief. "I have to end this," he mutters, more to himself than to me, his hand tightening around his rifle.
His finger hovers dangerously over the trigger of his rifle. My instincts kick in, and I know I have to act fast.
I lunge toward him, trying to knock the weapon away, but he's quicker than I expected. We struggle, our breaths heavy in the cold night air, the sounds of our scuffle the only noise in the otherwise silent woods. His strength surprises me, fueled by his frantic emotions. He shoves me back, and I stumble over a root, my balance lost for a crucial second. That's all he needs. He raises his rifle, his intentions clear in his wild, pained eyes.
I dive to the ground just as the shot rings out, a deafening blast that echoes ominously through the trees. The bullet whizzes past, narrowly missing me, embedding itself in the bark of an old pine. I scramble to my feet, my heart pounding in my ears, and I start running. The underbrush claws at my clothes and skin, but I push through, driven by a primal urge to survive.
"Dad, stop! It's me, Ryan!" I shout back as I dodge between the trees. Another shot breaks the silence, closer this time, sending splinters of wood flying from a nearby tree trunk. It's surreal, being hunted by my own father, a man tormented by grief and lost in his delusions.
I don't stop to look back. I can hear him crashing through the forest behind me, his heavy breaths and muttered curses carried on the wind. The terrain is rough, and I'm fueled by adrenaline, but exhaustion is setting in. I need a plan.
Ahead, I see a rocky outcrop and make a split-second decision to head for it. It offers a chance to hide, to catch my breath and maybe reason with him if he catches up. As I reach the rocks, I slip behind the largest one, my body pressed tight against the cold, damp surface. I hear his footsteps approaching, slow and cautious now.
As I press against the rock, trying to calm my racing heart, I can hear Dad's footsteps drawing closer, each step crunching ominously on the forest floor. He's methodical, deliberate, like a hunter stalking his prey.
“Come out, Ryan!” Dad’s voice is ragged, filled with a blend of fury and pain.
My heart pounds against my chest, the cold sweat on my back making me shiver against the rough surface of the rock. I know I can't just sit here; it's only a matter of time before he finds me.
Taking a deep breath, I peek around the edge of the rock, trying to gauge his position. I see him, rifle raised, scanning the area slowly. This might be my only chance to end this madness without further violence. I need to disarm him, to talk some sense into him if I can.
As quietly as I can, I move out from behind the rock, my steps careful to avoid any twigs or leaves that might betray my position. I'm almost upon him when a branch snaps under my foot—a sound so trivial yet so alarmingly loud in the quiet of the woods.
Dad whirls around, looking completely unhinged. "Ryan!" he exclaims, his rifle swinging in my direction. Panic overtakes me, and I lunge forward, my hands reaching for the gun.
We struggle, the rifle between us, our breaths heavy and erratic. "Dad, please, stop!" I plead, trying to wrestle the gun away. But he's strong, stronger than I expected.
In the chaos, the rifle goes off. The sound is deafening, a sharp echo that seems to reverberate off every tree around us. Pain explodes in my abdomen, sharp and burning, like nothing I've ever felt before. I stagger back, my hands instinctively going to the wound. The warmth of my own blood coats my fingers, stark and terrifying.
Dad drops the rifle, his eyes wide with horror. "Oh my God! What have I done?" he gasps, rushing to my side as I collapse onto the forest floor.
As the pain sears through me, a strange, overpowering energy surges within. It's wild, primal, unlike anything I've ever experienced. Looking down in horror, my hands are no longer hands but large, hairy, clawed appendages. The transformation is rapid, consuming—my vision blurs, senses heighten, and a raw, guttural growl builds in my throat.
In that moment, a flood of understanding washes over me, mingling with the horror of realization. These are the hands of the creature from my nightmares, the creature whose face I can never fully recall because, as I now understand, it is me.
What happens next feels detached, as if I'm no longer in control of my own actions, watching from a distance as my body moves on its own. I turn towards my dad, his face a mask of terror. He stumbles back, his eyes wide with the dawning realization of what his son has become.
The forest around us seems to fall silent, holding its breath as the nightmarish scene unfolds. I can hear my own growls, guttural and deep, filling the air with a sound that's both foreign and intimately familiar. The pain in my abdomen fuels a dark, violent urge, an urge that's too strong to resist.
With a ferocity that feels both alien and intrinsic, I move towards him. My dad, paralyzed by fear and shock, doesn't run. Maybe he can't. Maybe he doesn't want to.
The encounter was brutal and swift, a blur of motion and violence. My dad barely puts up a struggle, as though resigned to his fate.
Not that there is anything he can do. The creature that I’ve become is too powerful, too consumed by the wild instincts surging through me. I tear him apart, limb from bloody limb, my hands—no, my claws—rending through fabric and flesh with disgusting ease.
The sound of my dad’s screams, of tearing fabric and flesh is drowned out by the animalistic growls that echo through the trees.
When it’s all over, the red mist that had clouded my vision begins to fade, and the fierce, uncontrollable rage that drove my actions subsides. I'm left standing, my breaths heavy and erratic, in the eerie stillness of the forest. The transformation reverses as quickly as it came on, and I find myself back in my human form. My clothes are ripped to shreds, hanging off my frame in tattered remnants. At my feet lies what’s left of my dad, his body torn and unrecognizable.
I glance down at my abdomen, expecting agony, but instead find my wound miraculously healed. No sign of the gunshot remains, just a faint scar where I expected a bloody mess.
Shock sets in, a numbing disbelief mixed with a gut-wrenching realization of what I've become and what I've done. My hands, now human again, tremble as I look at them, half-expecting to see the claws that had so effortlessly ripped through flesh and bone. But there's only blood, my father's blood against my skin.
I stand there for what feels like an eternity, trapped in a nightmare of my own making.
Eventually, the shock wears thin, and a cold practicality takes hold. I need to get out of here. I need to cover my tracks, to disappear. Because who would believe this? Who would understand that I didn't choose this, that I'm not a monster by choice?
With trembling hands, I do what’s necessary. I bury my dad in a shallow grave, the physical act of digging strangely grounding. I cover him with leaves and branches, a pitiful attempt to hide the brutality of his end. I take a moment, whispering apologies into the wind, knowing full well that nothing I say can change what happened.
I leave the forest behind, my mind a whirl of dark thoughts. As I walk, the first hints of dawn brush against the horizon, the sky bleeding a soft pink. It’s hauntingly beautiful.

WPA – A Completely Average Roadtrip
Disclaimer: Not canon, and I don’t use patreon so please don’t spoil me. Also, any opinion held by a character is that of the characters and not my own. Enjoy.
Town of Ljosalfington, local time 14:00, week 7
Emma Booker
“Again Illunor, I warned you before that this is a utility vehicle, not a party rated smart-limo. I am already compromising more than I should by allowing you to use the sample cooler as a minifridge, one which I can’t even use!” I said as I loaded the materials I had just purchased into the back of the high-G All terrain fusion-ethanol-electric hybrid 24th-century legacy pickup truck that I had printed out earlier this week, carefully avoiding the heavy ordinance hard point.
“That is hardly an excuse for that abysmally cramped leg space barely fit for cattle, never mind the bare minimum for standard decorum suitable for nobility. If this is what a car is like, then I don’t see why you care for your technology,” complained Illunor, who was sitting around idly with a malformed garish bowl of icecream that he had stashed away from lunch.
“If it bothers you so much, perhaps you could help next time with your ‘bigger-on-the-inside’ magic,” I retorted as I slid the last core sample into the back before covering it up with a tarp and strapping it down.
I had originally planned to visit Ljosalfington by myself to acquire much needed exo-materials to test various mana manipulator configurations as I worked to develop my first wand as not all of the materials I needed were procurable locally from Elaseer. I eventually yielded, much to my regret, to allowing Illunor to come with me as he insisted on wanting to deliver a letter personally in town after Thacea had pointed out the wisdom of not travelling alone.
We continued our back and forth for a bit yet as I finished securing my payload a voice called out to me from the direction of the town.
“Excuse me a moment, I couldn’t help but notice but are you from the academy?”
I turned to see an elf dressed in a plain brown buttoned up tunic matched by a slightly shabby pair of trousers with what appeared to be a lute upon his back and a plain and unenchanted longsword on his belt gesturing at our robes. Mine especially were new and unusual, tailored by the academy to go over my armour and allow access to the anchor points and allow me to exit my armour with minimal hassle. Illunor scoffed at what was evidently a commoner’s arrogance at approaching nobility and turned his head away in disgust. I glanced at Illunor and shook my head before turning to face the new man. I had time to spare, and any opportunity to engage in a hearts-and-minds dialogue with the locals outside the bounds of the managed environment of the academy was more than worth the time to chat. Especially as most of the other locals seemed to be content in ignoring me.
“Yes, we are currently studying at the Transgracian Academy. I am Cadet Emma Booker representing the United Nations of Earth and Luna from Earthream, and my aloof compatriot is Lord Illunor Rularia of the Vunerian courts. We were just about to head back but are in no rush. May I ask your name and what brings you by?” I asked with my hand outstretched in greeting.
“Ah yes, yes. My name is Edhel Redoehdelnif, a wandering bard by trade like my father and his father before him. My apologies, Cadet Emma Booker, I am unfamiliar with Earthrealm,” said Edhel as he grasped my hand with both of his and shook it tepidly yet vigorously. Or rather, tried to, as the motors on my suit resisted his efforts.
“News doesn’t seem to spread all that fast around here, so it makes sense you haven’t heard of us. We’re a new realm, and only just got here. Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Edhel Redoehdelnif,” I replied.
“Absolutely fascinating! And a knight no less, or perhaps a squire? I’m sure you have many stories to tell of Earthrealm. Say, by chance are you about to head back to the academy? I have business in Elaseer and the usual coach has been absent as of late so I would rather not go it alone,” said Edhel.
I was hesitant to bring a stranger back in the car with me, even if Illunor was present. However, the opportunity that meeting a bard presented was too good to pass up from an intel perspective and to win the favour of the populace at large.
“That is a great idea. I think I have room for one more…” I paused before gesturing towards Illunor, “provided everyone is ok with it that is.”
Illunor gave a huff and turned his head away in silence.
“Very well, I will allow this. But he will not be joining me in your sorry excuse for a coach,” said Illunor dismissively.
Illunor approached the backseat expectantly and the door opened for him automatically, allowing the dlc kobold to gracefully enter and lounge across the length of the seats, once again ignoring the seatbelts. I sighed as I made my way to the driver’s seat, and Edhel entered from the passenger side as he marveled at the automatic doors and the interior.
“What a strange carriage this is! Although I must say, shouldn’t you be retrieving your horses? I didn’t see any harnesses or sense any artifices,” inquired Edhel as he attempted to make himself comfortable on the car seat, lute in front of him.
“Oh no, this thing doesn’t need horses or magic,” I said with a chuckle as EVI started the car. The elf raised his eyebrows at the sudden hum of the engine and made an expression of alarm when the car started driving itself without my input. “See, purrs like a kitten.”
“Earthrealm must have some large kittens if they purr like that,” noted Edhel, “but you must be concealing the enchantments somewhere. Such a thing as this with such strange yet precise craftsmanship is only possible in the crownlands.”
“Nope, no magic,” I said cheerfully.
“Then how?” Asked Edhel.
“It’s rather simple really. Are you familiar with the workings of a mill?” I asked, deciding to keep things surface level and elementary to avoid provoking the IDOV threshold.
“Somewhat, though I confess to not being familiar with their workings. Are you suggesting this is akin to a mill?” Asked Edhel perplexed.
“It’s the same principal. A mill works by taking a source of rotation such as a waterwheel or windmill, transferring that rotation along a series of rotating shafts and interlocking gears, and finally putting that energy to work by rotating a millstone,” I began as the car pulled out onto the smooth cobbled road in the direction of Elaseer. A notification popped up in the corner of my vision indicating my recon drone swarm had shifted from a holding formation to a convoy screening formation, and while the roads were clear I kept the speed at 60km/h to account for my passenger’s apparent distaste for seatbelts.
“Rotation…” muttered Edhel. He turned to face one of the wheels and EVI pinged an alert for a probable match for a detection spell, “fascinating.”
“Edhel, what are you doing?” I asked.
“Oh, yes, perhaps I should have asked first. Yes, I can see how it all fits together. But the source of this rotation? I see no mighty river or great wind to power this, so where does it come from?” Asked Edhel, not really apologizing. Elven arrogance, it seemed, was not limited by class.
The act reminded me of Sorecar when he inspected my gun, but where the armourer had been respectful with it, Edhel was more flippant. I considered the possibility that he was a spy sent by one of her peers or the crownlands, though this did not mesh with the methods I had seen so far. Edhel may have been just overly enthusiastic. In either case, I quickly decided to only reveal the antique design for the ethanol engine, and not that of the batteries or the emergency coupler to my suit’s fusion reactor.
“Right, well please ask first next time. As to your question, I won’t bore you with the details, but the rotation is generated by creating a periodic sequence of explosions inside of a machine – a manaless artifice – called a combustion engine, said Emma.
“So that’s what that sound is…” pondered Edhel, “are these artifices typical in Earthream?”
“You are awfully inquisitive for a commoner,” noted Illunor as he inspected his nails for dirt, “and rather accepting of something which should be impossible.”
“I wouldn’t be much of a bard if I wasn’t, my lord,” said Edhel shifting uncomfortably in his seat, “perhaps some music might set the mood better?”
“That would be preferable, bard. I have heard enough of the Earthrealmer’s Road Trip Playlist and would like to listen to some music of real culture,” said Illunor.
The bard agreed and proceeded to awkwardly play a ballad about an adventurer who slew a hydra in some frozen wasteland. Partway through, I politely interrupted the Edhel to point out the seat controls much to his fascination and Illunor’s grumbling at their common nature, and after some adjustment the bard went on playing and I half-heartedly listened while I paid attention to the road and my drone feed.
Particularly after EVI detected something unusual and alerted me to its presence.
”Attention Caded Booker. There is a disabled vehicle blocking the primary route to destination. Heat signatures in the woods are consistent with that of an ambush.”
“Damn it,” I muttered.
I glanced at the drone feed to see a broken cart strewn horizontally across a wooden bridge over a brook. On the surface it looked like a pair of civilians who required aid and assistance, but off in the woods were several heat signatures, several of which held weapons of varying levels of enchantments. Occasionally one of the pair on the bridge would talk with them, suggesting they were in cahoots rather than hostages. I recalled crossing that very bridge not a few hours earlier, so the blockade was very recent.
“EVI, did we pass that cart on the way here?” I asked.
”Negative,” replied EVI.
I grimaced. I had been trained to handle road-side ambushes, but it was only something that was a theoretical possibility. Something that should only occur in a warzone or a corrupt and unstable polity. I knew I had the capacity to handle such an encounter, even non-lethally, but that didn’t change the fact that these were civilians and as such were the responsibility of local law enforcement. Combined with the fact that I had passengers I was responsible for and engaging the ambush was a risky option.
“EVI, give me a list of alternative routes,” I commanded.
”Affirmative. Here is a list of routes in order of recommendation,” replied EVI.
I looked over the routes superimposed on a map of the region and quickly dismissed taking a shortcut through the forest and cutting through farmland. A detour caught my eye that extended the journey by roughly ten kilometers and I immediately sent a pair of drones to scout it out before committing to the detour.
“Are you alright, Cadet Emma Booker? You seem distracted,” asked Edhel, snapping me back to reality.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I’m just focused on driving,” replied Emma.
“I suppose it must be quite taxing to command an artificed carriage of this complexity. Perhaps it might ease your mind if you were to regale me a tale of a hero of your realm?” Said Edhel, strumming a complex tune from his lute as he spoke as each and every pluck triggered a low-level spell.
“Well, that may be a problem. We don’t have any monsters to fight, and wars are a thing of the past,” I said while desperately tip-toeing the subject of aunt Ran, the subject of war, and our voyages through the cosmos, “though we are not without the adventurous spirit. We certainly have many stories of grand voyages. Some mythical and fictional such as The Odyssey as told by the Greek poet Homer and some historical such as the race to the south pole.”
“The south pole,” muttered the bard, “so you have explored all of Earthrealm then? I suppose that makes some sense, if you have artifices such as this then traversal of a globe would be quite manageable.”
“You are quite perceptive,” I said, not wishing to elaborate.
“A great performer knows his audience,” said Edhel with a charming, honest, almost human smile.
I felt a pang of homesickness as an intrusive thought reminded me that I could have gone to a real college surrounded by friendly faces my age, engaging in nightly holostreams and dreaming of adventures in the stars from the safety of a college dorm room. The sight of Illunor in the rear camera was the only thing that kept me grounded, as I almost felt like I was back at home on a road trip rather than returning to a fantasy feudal court, constantly evading death at every turn with the fate of humanity on the line. As such, and prompted by EVI, I barely had the wherewithal to take the planned detour.
A fact which did not pass by Edhel.
“I believe you may have taken a wrong turn, Emma,” he commented.
“Nah, I’m just taking the scenic route. I came from that direction on the way here, and you have inspired me to see the other road and I figure it should only add a few extra minutes to our travel time,” I said, gesturing at a paper map which I had referenced exactly once, “though on that subject, you seem to know these lands quite well. Do you have any recommendations on places to visit in the Nexus to scratch that itch?”
Illunor raised his eyebrow at the detour excuse, knowing full well this was not part of the plan. I worried that he might complain about the issue and but thankfully remained silent as he snacked on the contents of the misused sample storage unit. Edhel himself took on a more pensive posture.
“I’m happy to have been such an inspiration, Emma, though I am sure an explorer such as yourself has little need of such. I would normally suggest the skyward fountains of Verdellan or the cloud tides of Asturia, but that may be too casual for someone of your calibre. Perhaps the severed chasm or the fire marsh of Bhandahova may be more to your liking. Or perhaps…” Edhel leaned in, “I have heard rumours of a dragon in the glassy obsidian wastes of Vurcanar.”
I chuckled at that, knowing how I was fortunate enough to fish a dragon scale out of the nearby lake for the ECS. “The thought of going dragon hunting had certainly crossed my mind…” I mused aloud.
“Yet you sound hesitant. Perhaps it is too much for a newrealmer. Perhaps a slime or a dire rat might be more appropriate,” he said with a tease.
“No, it’s not like that! It’s” I stammered, before attempting to change course after realizing I had been goaded, “what I mean is, I was under the impression that dragons were an endangered species. Where I come from, hunting endangered animals is usually illegal, and big game hunting in general is frowned upon. We do make exceptions in the case of problem animals such as if a large predator starts hunting humans, but as a rule we prefer conservation and try to find ways of coexisting with wildlife such as the use of barrier fences and scaring away dangerous animals rather than being forced to cull their numbers. Having a species go extinct would prevent future generations from appreciating them and risks destabilizing the ecosystem they are a part of. Now if this dragon was actively razing villages and eating civilians and livestock, that would be one thing, but this does not look to be the case. I don’t imagine the Nexus has any settlements in this wasteland, and the dragon clearly wants to be left alone. Killing an innocent dragon would be murder.”
I grinned to myself after delivering a diatribe that would have made my tenth grade social and environmental studies teacher beam with pride, though by the expressions of my passengers my view did not appear to be shared. Edhel’s mouth was agape in shock and fascination, while the Venurian in the back seat merely huffed in disapproval.
“I assure you Newrealmer, there are no innocent dragons,” stated Illunor with a hint of terseness breaking through his otherwise regal demeanor.
“Illunor, I understand that Venurians have personal reasons for not liking dragons, but you can’t just extend that disdain to their descendants or those uninvolved just because they are the same species,” I said.
“If I may interject on your behalf, my lord, I believe I can address Cadet Emma Booker’s concerns,” said Edhel with a bow. Illunor nodded in approval.
“Very well, you may proceed,” he said.
“Thank you, my lord. My dear Emma, you must understand that dragons are not simple animals driven entirely off of instinct as it appears to be the case in Earthrealm. They are monsters. Intelligent, long-lived, violent, greedy, cruel, territorial, selfish flesh-eating monsters. They are evil by the very nature of their being, unable to change by their own accord, and unwilling to change when His Eternal Majesty offered them freedom from their nature. It isn’t that they want to be evil. As intelligent animals – intelligent monsters – dragons are capable of understanding morality, and many have tried to overcome their evil nature at great expense to themselves. A well intended and noble sentiment, yet a doomed one as like all animals, they all succumb to their nature in the end. Overcoming one’s nature is impossible,” said Edhel. His eyes took on a stoic, almost remorseful gaze as he spoke, and Illunor nodded with approval.
I was appalled by this claim, not by the contents so much as how blatantly false it was. As a representative of the human race, I was a living counterexample to his whole argument. We had remained physiologically unchanged as a species since the last Ice Age, and yet in spite of that, in spite of our many flaws, we had found peace and balance. If we could do it, anyone could do it.
“Will all due respect Edhel, that is nonsense. Monsters aren’t born, they are made. It is the mark of any intelligent species can adapt their behaviour to their environment for better or worse, and under the right care any so-called monster can grow to be a force for good,” I began, but while I searched for the right words Edhel shook his head.
“I appreciate your race is an empathetic one, Emma, your idealism is unfounded. As flesh eaters, a dragon must take the life of another animal or person to survive, or they will perish. As such, every dragon has taken a life. As long-lived creatures, they will have amassed a significant number of kills. As the land can only support so much animals, a dragon must be fiercely territorial and aggressive to remove competition, lest they starve. As such, even the most kind-hearted dragon alive must be violent and greedy, and their intelligence fuels this even more so if they know a bountiful land of morsels exists just outside their range.
Now perhaps a multitude of dragons may find a way to co-exist together in some settlement, but to support such a venture would require a large territory of prey, or a livestock animal. Perhaps they could support a large colony by farming grain for their livestock, but that would require effort on their behalf. As large animals, such efforts require a great deal of energy. Yet that size makes it easy for them to intimidate smaller races to do their labour for them, and to keep their client race in line dragons must be cruel. And even so, as their numbers grow so do their needs. As such, they must expand into the lands of their neighbours to survive until there is nothing left to devour, at which point they must turn against their own lest they starve. As such, it is the nature of dragons to conquer and devour. That is why there is no such thing as an innocent dragon,” finished Edhel.
I was speechless, not because I believed Edhel had a point, but because I was horrified at how easy he found it to rationalize the extermination of an entire sapient species. If this was how the elves thought, then it wasn’t the dragons who were the monsters. I suppressed that dark thought. Edhel’s thought process was a product of his culture, not a feature of his elven heritage. If there was any hope of peace between our people, I needed to show him there was another way of being. I needed to prove that co-existence was possible, no matter one’s nature.
I took a deep breath to steady myself before replying.
“That- that is a callous way of seeing things,” I began, though the shock was still there in my voice, “you speak as though there is no natural equilibrium with a dragon, that their only state of being must be to be cruel, to devour, to conquer. But I see things differently. In fact, I might wonder if a fledgling civilization might see the presence of a dragon as a boon rather than a curse. Being intelligent, the locals may be able to come to some agreement with the dragon. Perhaps they might leave some land as a hunting ground or offer up a share of their cattle or guard the dragon as it sleeps. In exchange, the dragon might allow them to build a town outside its mountain and protect them in times of danger. An equitable exchange. A civilization might even create artificial lairs to attract dragons for this very reason. True, some dragons may behave tyrannical towards their town, but a well armed populace of a large city would be more than capable of fighting such a threat, and a rational dragon might reason that threatening their own populace would put their reliable source of food and shelter at risk. You see, it’s all a matter of perspective.”
“You certainly are an imaginative one, Emma, to wonder up a quixotic world where the hare and the fox live together in harmony as equals. Even so, you seem to have ignored one key detail to such a society. What would happen should the dragon not be fed for months on end?” Asked Edhel with his eyebrow raised.
“The same thing as stranded a dozen starving, stranded Elves!” I spat back.
[Alert: Vehicle speed above recommended limit for conditions. Recommendation: slow down. ]
“I am driving slow!” I seethed, not realizing I had sped up with manual control enabled.
“I grow tired of this common prattle,” interjected Illunor just in time to prevent an awkward silence, “bard, play us another song.” “As my lord wishes,” said Edhel with a bow before turning to me with another smile, “perhaps a more soothing melody would be in order? A love song perhaps, to honour Cadet Booker’s compassionate nature?”
I said nothing as Edhel began to strum his lute again to the tune of a love story of a pair of doomed lovers named Ramian and Junette, hating his cheeky knowing grin that only served to get under my skin further as I focused on calming down and slowing the car back to a more reasonable pace before investigating a priority alert which I had been blinded to moments prior.
[Alert: hostile roadblock is absent, location unknown.]
Shit.
“Illunor, we may have a problem,” I said.
“Shush, Newrealmer, have you no class? We are almost at the best part! I’m sure it can wait,” replied the contextually clueless lizard.
I had never wanted to throttle Illunor as much as I did now.
“Illunor, shield, now,” I said with a raised voice.
“I don’t see-“ he started, pausing mid-sentence as his ears perked up.
[Alert: Multiple manafield and spell signatures detected!]
I took evasive maneuvers as Illunor tried to piece together a shield spell, fumbling it twice as panic appeared to set in and providing me with a reminder that Illunor was a civilian, not a soldier. A hail of arrows pelted the exterior of the truck, piercing but not penetrating the composite armour. I was tempted to do nothing but just drive away from the arrow fire, but a foreboding premonition of danger filled me as I recalled Sorecar’s hunter-seeker arrows.
Seeking to avoid that fate, I triggered the active defenses.
The smoke screens deployed around the vehicle, obscuring the sight of any who depended on visible light to see me. A barrage of decoy flares equipped with wooden cores shot upward at angles and diffusing to the side like a pair of giant wings which when combined with the MFD, short for mana-field dampener, inside the vehicle meant that the pelting hail of arrowfire softened to a whirr as the arrows whiffed over the top of the truck, retargeted away from the soft flesh of my passengers and even invoking friendly fire amongst the ambushers.
In the chaos, EVI and my drone swarm fed me complete tactical information on the ambush. Of the 26 individuals at the first blockade, 20 were accounted for, and 3 had died from friendly fire. Ahead at the bridge, 5 more of them were at the bridge where a barrier had been hastily erected to cage me in as the river valley was too deep to cross.
“Illunor, we need a bridge,” I said, taking stock of the wellbeing of my passengers.
The bard was huddled down low and suppressing his manafield, but otherwise rather composed. Illunor, on the other hand, was cowering in the gap between the seats with his hands covering his eyes and his tail tucked in.
“A bridge is no small request, Ne- Cadet Emma Booker,” replied Illunor, “and your ‘Emeffdee’ has blinded me to the outside of this moving death trap.”
“If I drop it, can you at least make a ramp?” I asked as I circled the battlefield. Or tried to, at least, as earthen ramparts emerged from the ground from a yet unseen source to cut off other avenues of escape.
“A ramp? Surely you don’t mean-“ he stammered.
“Yes or no,” I said.
Illunor paused, before taking an unsteady breath.
“Yes. But not with that Emeffdee,” he replied.
“Good. Steady your nerves and prepare to make a ramp ahead of us on my signal,” I said, “in the meantime, get your seatbelt on. This is going to be hairy.”
As I circled around to make my approach on the bridge, the final combatant made his appearance on a nearby tree, revealing himself as an elven mage. An alert focused on the air around him indicating he was preparing an unknown high-tier spell, and I locked the predator drone on him indicating the elf as a high-priority target if our escape plan failed, and I was forced to use lethal force.
If I was forced to kill.
It was one thing to know you may have to kill in the line of duty, but it was much harder to reconcile that with reality. No number of simulations could match the real thing, and a part of me wanted to simply offload the responsibility to EVI to keep my hands clean, but to do that would be betraying my duty as a human being. I breathed in deep and tried not to think about it, instead hoping to rely on the ace I held in my sleeve instead.
“EVI, ready the spell jammer,” I said unevenly.
“Acknowledged, the prototype Exo-Radiation Wave-Field Distruptor is primed. High risk target identified and locked, permission to engage?” EVI asked, forcing me to address the dreaded question.
“Negative,” I replied, “hold your fire. If the ramp fails, then you have permission to engage,” I said.
“Affirmative, on your mark,” replied EVI.
I lined up the truck with the bridge and bolted through the smoke, keeping a careful eye on the mage as I went. His spellform took on a more concerning shape as I accelerated, and I realized I could not afford to let him finish his spell. I triggered the spelljammer.
A terrible roar erupted from an array of speakers printed from mana-resistant materials that would have made Godzilla herself beam with pride. The sound was decidedly unnatural, gnarly, dubstep drop composed of an electric eel, a whale, a mountain lion, and a tyrannosaurus rex all being simultaneously assaulted by a swarm of angry cybernetic murder hornets as an equally chaotic wave of mana blasted outwards from the exterior of the truck, with the interior thankfully sheltered by audio and mana dampening.
The ambushing assailants cowered and panicked, and it was enough to cause the Elven mage’s spell to backfire in his face as his form exploded into ashes, meeting a horrific fate which I had tried so desperately to help him avoid. With all the combatants momentarily incapacitated or dead, I lowered the dampener and turned off the smoke.
“Ramp!” I shouted, snapping the lizard back to reality.
The Venerian nodded and hastily formed an earthwork ahead of us right before the blockade, and the truck leapt off the ramp with a not insignificant amount of air beneath our wheels. I braced for impact, regretting skimping on the shocks in the name of preserving materials, but the impact never came.
[Alert: Friendly spell designated ‘Feather Fall’]
Illunor thankfully had enough wherewithal to gently land the steel brick, and I sped off into the distance away from the trap that had unfolded behind us, leaving the interior of the truck in an awkward silence as we each processed our brush with death in our own way. “How many are dead?” I asked EVI.
“6 hostiles confirmed dead,” replied EVI.
I drove on in silence. Those were six deaths I had tried to avoid, and I became lost in thought as I wondered what I should have done differently to avoid the confrontation entirely.
Edhel broke the silence with a bout of laughter.
“Terrific! Absolutely terrific! Why, I can conjure up many a tale from this encounter alone! I live for this kind of inspiration!” Exclaimed Edhel a little too chipperly considering the circumstance.
“I would rather not hear stories about how I bravely ran away,” I moaned in deadpan sarcasm.
“You think too little of yourself, Cadet Emma Booker. It is plain to me that you are no ordinary rabbit. Make no mistake, I see it as a privilege to bear witness to the roar of a vorpal hare!” Said Edhel as he supressed his laughter, “though I am afraid with all the excitement that I must finish my song some other time.”
“How about I play some of our music?” I offered after the elf revealed his thrill-seeking side.
“Splendid, I would like that. Perhaps something of your ‘Roadtrip playlist’ you speak of? It sounds like a collection of your voyages,” said Edhel.
“That would be an improvement on the truth,” said Illunor dismissively as he eased from his state of shock, “it is little more than noise under the pretense of music.”
“Illunor…” I muttered to myself before turning the mic on, “no, no it’s not like that. I have terabytes of pre-recorded songs from various artists back home which can be played by… an artifice called a speaker. A playlist is a set of songs which are grouped together, usually to listen to in specific situations such as studying, partying, or travelling. The latter collection is what Illunor is referring to.”
I very deliberately chose not to reveal my ‘Unfortunate Daughters’ playlist.
“An artifice which plays music, and a magicless one at that. I must say, Emma, I fear for the bards in your realm,” said Edhel with a laugh.
“Your fear is misplaced, Edhel. Entertainers live like kings where I come from,” I retorted with a smirk of my own, “well, the ones with talent at least.”
“Well, well, I suppose I have to hear my competition!” Said Edhel with a laugh.
“Do as you must, though let it be known that I warned you,” said Illunor as he watched a play on his sightseer.
I had EVI compile a list of songs that left out content offensive to Nexian sensibilities or violating OpSec and as it compiled I mused over what type of sample spread I wanted to show off. Then it struck me. What better way to show off our culture than with some good old blue jumpers and nova rock! Sadly, jumpers were unavailable to show but I still had a whole list of modern artists to choose from.
Moments later, the car speakers sprung to life to the tune of ‘Innocent Youth of Mine. Edhel’s eyes lit up like a child visiting a zero-g gravity park for the first time, seemingly star-struck by the antique electric guitar and the synthesizer-drums in particular.
“What… what is this? I have never heard anything like this!” Proclaimed Edhel.
“Dreadful, isn’t it?” said Illunor, doing what he did best and pretending to hate it.
“Oh there is a lot more where that came from,” I said with a cheeky grin of my own, “this one is called ‘Innocent Youth of Mine’ by ‘Cannons and Poppies’. It’s part of the Nova Rock genre.
“And those strange instruments?” Asked Edhel.
“Oh, you mean the electric guitar and the synthesizer. They are electronic instruments, taking advantage of channeled and modulated electricity to create near any sound we can imagine,” I replied.
“Channeled electricity… are you suggesting these sounds were made by some form of lightning?” Asked Edhel.
[Suggestion: Avoid topic of electricity due to OpSec risk]
I nodded at EVI’s warning, thankful that it caught me before I discussed the very thing that all of my equipment ran on.
“It’s not exactly lightning, but close enough,” I said.
“If I had not witnessed to your display of power earlier, I might have perhaps been more skeptical of such a claim, but I suppose a lady must keep her secrets.” said Edhel with a raised eyebrow and chuckle, “but I digress, this music is most interesting.”
“There is a lot more where that came from,” I said with a cheeky grin of my own.
“If I ever have a prisoner in need of torture, I will turn to you first,” replied Illunor, “if you are willing to subject your peers to this madness then I cannot imagine what you would force upon your enemies before dunking them in ice.”
“In your dreams,” I retorted.
I played a few other songs including Astrodesee’s ‘Meteor Struck’, the Martian classic ‘Hotel Cydonia’ and even ‘Switching to Warp’ before Elaseer emerged from the distance, and I pulled up outside the gate to drop Edhel off.
“Here already?” Asked Edhel.
“Well, yeah. I was just running a quick errand, I didn’t want to go too far,” I replied casually.
“That was a distance worth at least five days of walking by foot, and you call that a ‘quick errand’?” Asked Edhel. I shrugged, and he laughed.
“Well in any case, thank you for allowing me passage in your car. I must apologize for my lack of gift or payment…” said Edhel. “Don’t worry about it, it was on the way,” I replied.
“I see, how generous. Perhaps we might one day meet again?” Asked Edhel.
“Maybe, but I’m not sure how likely that is. The academy takes up most of my time,” I replied, “though you never know. I still have a lot of quest hours to complete.”
“Is that so? In that case, I hope we meet again! Goodbye Cadet Emma Booker and farewell Lord Illunor Rularia,” he said. “And good travels to you, bard,” said Illunor.
I waved off Edhel and drove back to the academy, Illunor still sulking in the back seat.
“Perhaps next time, you should steer us away from danger?” Suggested Illunor.
“I tried, but we were tracked,” I replied.
I groaned inwardly at the additional work needed to fix the truck. EVI compiled a list of upgrades for future engagements, batting away my idea for a ‘turbo mode’ and a ‘jump boost’. Though at the end of the day, meeting the bard wasn’t a complete loss. It felt good to talk to someone almost normal for once, and I hoped I met him again.
Edhel Redoehdelnif
I watched as Cadet Emma Booker’s vehicle went off into the distance, getting one last look at the Earthrealmer’s strange artifice before turning towards the gate. The voyage was an exotic experience, not unlike that of a fever dream or a peak into a world completely alien to my own. Indeed, it was a struggle to contain my excitement and enthusiasm and process the experience rationally as I made my way through the southern gates of Elaseer and turned the corner of an alley before entering an impossible structure that did not exist.
“You are earlier than expected,” said the shadowy figure of my handler as I made my way to the meeting hall.
“The Earthrealmer’s means of transportation proved far more expedient than anticipated, my lord” I spoke as I knelt before him, “even with her unexpected departure from the anticipated road and the ambush we traveled for scantly more than an hour.”
“Yes, I will require a full report from you. Perhaps you can shed some light on the ‘smoke dragon’ my men claim intervened on the Earthrealmer’s behalf,” said my handler.
“Smoke Dragon, my lord?” I asked.
My handler responded by activating his sight-seer, revealing how the ambush had appeared from the outside. The Earthrealmer’s uncanny artifice traversed down the road, a pair of manafields displaying proudly from within until the archers began their assault. The artifice then transformed as smoke billowed out from its pores and wings sprung forth above until it was the form of a mighty wrym with a pair of glowing eyes springing forth from its ever extending head where it then gave forth a terrible unholy roar which sent waves of mana outward. The mage working to seal the area and trap their mark vapourized in an instant as his spell backfired. It was apparent to Edhel that his exceptional experience in the carriage was merely a muted rendition of the events unfolding around them.
It would seem the hare had the shadow of a dragon.
“I do have some insight, though I must confess the Earthrealmer did very little in the way of direct action. I suspect she has some unseen means of commanding and scrying through her artifices,” I said, “one which does not utilize magic as we know it.”
“Such a statement is heresy,” said my handler, “but such special circumstances are your reason for being. I will require you submit your memories for verification. What is your appraisal of the new realmer?”
“The girl is far more dangerous than a surface appraisal would suggest, though she prefers to conceal that power rather than utilize it out of a misplaced sense of compassion. Her people appear to have a boundless creative drive through which such artifices are birthed, though again it is misdirected towards more common applications. I believe that if properly tamed, this human animal may provide us with great works of art,” I said with a bow.
“I see. Does the girl know you work for us?” Asked my handler.
“She may harbour some suspicions, though did not voice them outright beyond concealing her knowledge,” I said, “though nothing significant. Provided our next meet is under believable circumstances such as a festival she should view me as cordial.”
“She has indeed proven clever,” conceded my handler, “very well, I will make arrangements for your paths to cross again. Perhaps I will arrange for her to be a contestant at the next inter-academy tournament. In the mean time, prepare your report and don’t wander far. This is a priority assignment.”
“As you wish, my lord,” I said with a bow and a smile.
Emma Booker had proved to be an interesting animal indeed, and I hoped our paths crossed again.

You guys know what an alpine coaster is? They are like a small roller coaster you find in the mountains. They are also called summer toboggans or mountain coasters and I think there’s some long German compound word they are called in parts of Europe. They are like a roller coaster, but with much smaller one or two person sleds you just sit on instead of multi-person cars you ride in, and instead of being built with like a scaffolding or a framework the tracks are just on the ground, using the elevation of the mountain. Basically it’s a coaster track on the side of a mountain where you ride a sled down.
They are pretty fun. Or at least I used to think so. They are more “personal” than roller coasters and although you get nowhere near the speed on them that you do on a good traditional roller coaster and they can’t do corkscrews or loops or anything like that the openness and simplicity of the ride gives an impression of a much greater speed. You’re just sitting there with nothing but a little plastic sled and the track between you and the ground as it goes zooming by. It’s like the difference between how fast a go-cart feels compared to how fast a sports car feels. You know the sports car goes faster but the open, simpleness of a go-cart feels a different kind of fast. There’s plenty of POV Youtube videos if you want to get the basic idea of what they are.
I used to love alpine coasters. Used to.
My family used to go to Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge and up and down the Smokey Mountains for vacations when I was a kid and they are common in that area and I’d always rode them every chance I got.
But as with so many things after I grew up and went to college they just became part of my childhood that slipped away. They aren’t exactly common once you get away from the mountains.
Until one cool spring afternoon in 2004. I was in my final year at college and I was driving back to campus in Tennessee after a short visit to my folks in North Carolina. It was only like a 4 or 5 hour drive via the most efficient route and I had no need to be back at campus early so instead of taking the freeway all the way I got off and took part of my trip through the mountains. The scenery was nicer and I admit I liked pushing my Camaro just a little faster than I should through the twisty mountain roads.
Just after lunchtime happened upon one of those little by-the-highway tourist towns deep somewhere in the Smoky Mountains near the Carolina/Tennessee border. Nothing fancy, a gas station/truck stop, a diner, a couple of places selling tourist merch nestled deep in the mountains. I pulled into the gas station. My tank was getting low and I needed to stretch my legs, maybe grab something to eat. It was still early and I only had another couple of hours. I could kill an hour or so and still make it back to campus at a decent hour.
I pulled into the gas station and was filling my tank when I happened to glance across the road and… well I’ll be damned. There it was. “The Blue Ridge Alpine Coaster.” Nestled on the side of the mountain was a building, a mockup of a red barn, where a single railed track that led up into the mountains, where it soon got lost in the greenery. Wooden hand painted standees of cartoon character bears dressed in stereotypical “Hillbilly” getup stood around, some of them holding signs showing the ride hours and ticket costs and other info. I had to admit, as silly as it was, it made me smile.I finished pumping my gas and, well, nostalgia is a helluva thing. I decided then and there I could waste a little time riding an Alpine Coaster again after all these years before getting back on the road.
I parked my car in a corner of the truck stop's parking lot, put my phone in the center console, this being the days before smart phones when people didn’t keep their phones with them 24/7 and I didn’t want my old Nokia brick phone to fall out during the ride, locked my car and walked across the mountain highway to the Alpine Coaster building.
Getting closer, the place was less inviting. The half hearted attempt at a whimsical faux-Americana kitsch was far less effective when it brushed up against the actual decaying, run down wooden building. Hell calling it a building was generous. It was a wood frame holding up a long roof that covered the area where you got on the sleds. The wood boards creaked under my footsteps.
The only real enclosed structure was a shack that held, what I assumed, was a ticket booth. A door on the side had both a single occupancy bathroom with an out of order sign on it. An old Pepsi machine buzzed and glowed next to it.
Still the place looked alive. Ahead of me a bored looking attendant was helping a mother and her young son into one of the sleds while in a bored monotone repeating the safety brief. A few people were waiting in line at the ticket booth. Up in the mountains the playful shouts of people on the ride echoed down. Fond memories of my own childhood rides flooded my mind.10 minutes and 15 dollars later I was settling into the hard plastic seat of a bright red sled sat atop a simple aluminum rail.
I couldn’t help but grin as the sled slowly climbed the track up the mountains, making click-clack ratcheting sounds that hit my nostalgia centers hard. I felt good. The air was cool and crisp and smelled of pine.Higher and higher in the mountains we went. I don’t know if this is my mind trying to make sense of it after the fact but when I remember these moments, the last good moments, I sometimes think I remember a very slight, very subtle pit of fear in my stomach. I honestly don’t know if I felt it at the time or not or it’s just how my mind tries to make sense of it looking back at.
But either way mostly I was enjoying myself. I smiled. I was a kid again. I could hear riders in front of me let out that initial yell of terrified glee you get at the first drop of any good ride.
It peaked. I glanced around. I could see for miles, rolling hills and mountains. I the sled tipped over and zoomed down the mountain and I let out the same happy yell I heard from the other passengers.The ride zoomed down the mountain, catching speed. The mountain forest floor zoomed past, only a few feet under me. Trees zoomed past. I gave out a happy whoop as the ride banked hard around a curve and then looped back under itself.Another dip, another curve. I closed my eyes, enjoying the feel of the G-forces pulling me every which way.
There was no one exact single moment where things started to go “wrong.” The ride kept going. And going. At this point the first creeping thought entered my head.
The ride… was still going.
It just started to hit me… this ride was going on for a really long time. I had taken a dozen rides on various coasters of this type before that day and they topped out at about 5 minutes or so, and that was the long ones. Longer than a traditional roller coaster but not that long. This one had been going on for what felt like 10, maybe even 15 minutes.
I looked back over my shoulder and could only see trees, moving too fast to really get a bearing on where I was at in relation to anything.
I wasn't exactly really worried yet. Okay so I had found a particularly long alpine coaster. At the time I wasn’t 100% wasn't sure they didn’t exist or anything like that. I was a little… unnerved but nothing was happening that was impossible. Yet.
I was trying to talk myself back into just enjoying the ride and stop overthinking it, and halfway succeeded, when out of nowhere I suddenly banked hard, the track jutting out almost over a sheer cliffside. I gripped the sled more tightly as I was whipped around. The ride then dipped hard and picked up speed, barreling down the side of the mountain.
I was pushed back against the seat by the force of the drop. Jesus I didn’t remember them being this rough. I was feeling slightly nauseous. And where had this elevation drop come from I wondered? I was still in the foothills and I didn’t remember seeing anything but gentle rolling hills and light drops from looking at the ride’s route earlier. How the ride had managed such a long, steep drop in this area I didn’t know. . For the first time I hoped that the ride would be over soon. I had no idea then how much I would want that same hope to be true so much more as time went on.
With a whiplash motion I was whipped forward and then back as the ride leveled out on flat ground again, but by this point I was going fast, too fast. My neck hurt from the mild whiplash and I felt sour in my throat and for a moment the contents of my stomach threatened to come back up. For the first, but hardly the last time the ride felt unsafe. Alpine Coasters are tame affairs, much slower and gentler than full on roller coasters but this thing was throwing me around like no thrill ride I had ever been on.
I looked around. I mean I wasn’t that deep into the woods. I should have been able to see a glimpse of something; the highway, the gas station, the tourist shops, the Alpine Coaster office, something, anything. But nothing. Just trees.
I forced back some panic for the first time. I closed my eyes and counted to ten. The ride zoomed along. I counted to 60. I counted to 60 again. And again. Okay this was getting uncomfortably harder and harder to explain.
Suddenly I noticed that up ahead the track seemed to just end, for one brief, terrible moment I thought the track just ended but I was wrong. Almost without warning the track dipped in an almost vertical drop. I almost screamed as I plummeted for 20, maybe 30 seconds before flattening out again.
By this point the voice in my head that was telling me something was wrong was louder and I could no longer tell myself it was wrong. This ride could not have been this long. I tried to make sense of it, wondering if somehow I had gotten diverted onto some kind of maintenance track or, hell for one brief irrational moment even entertaining the idea that I had wound up on an actual train track somehow. But that was absurd. The rail below me was not a train track, it was still just the simple, aluminum rail of an alpine coaster and there had been no diversions or junctions in the track. I was still on the ride, as insane as that was starting to feel. Had the ride somehow looped? Again after having the thought I immediately dismissed it as crazy. There’s no way I could have missed the ride building where I got on. And what kind of ride loops over and over?
The sled zoomed through the forest, oddly never seeming to lose speed despite the relatively flat grade of the track. I cursed myself for leaving my phone in the car and not wearing a watch. I don’t know exactly how long I had been on the ride at that point but it felt like I had been on the ride for a half hour, maybe more. But time is a funny thing when you’re in a situation you’ve never been in. Could have been more, could have been less, at that point.
My pride finally failed me. I started to scream for help. I screamed out that the ride was broken, to stop it, that I needed help. I did that for about ten minutes or so I think. The ride kept going. Mostly flat, level track with occasional mild dips and turns. But the simple length of the ride grew more and more unnerving and unexplainable.
I thought about just bailing out. But the ride, impossibly, was still not slowing down and chunks of mountain rock and thick tree trunks were all around me. Bailing out without risking smashing into a rock or a tree seemed impossible.
The ride kept going.
Up ahead the forest was clearing out some, I could see the forest brightening, more sunlight making it through the canopy.
I wasn’t prepared for what I saw.
The trees stopped and I had just enough time to take in a flat, open area of rock maybe 40, 50 yards at most before another sheer cliff. The tracks twisted and turned and then shot straight down. But that wasn’t the worst of it. For a moment, a very short moment, I had a clear view for miles and the landscape was, to be blunt, totally impossible. Any possibility that I had just stumbled on some incredibly long ride was blasted out of my head. Barren, volcanic looking rock stretched for miles. Jagged, black rocky outcroppings as far as the eye could see. I was in the goddamn Smoky Mountains. They don’t look like that.
I had a few moments for the terror of that view to settle in before the cart plunged into another horrifying drop. I gripped the handles of the cheap plastic sled until my knuckles turned white. The drop felt completely vertical, like I was falling at terminal velocity. I screamed. My stomach dropped and turned. I imagined the sled coming away from the track and me just plummeting screaming to my death on the rocks below. But somehow the ride still functioned. I closed my eyes tightly and just waited for whatever was going to happen. Eventually after several what felt like a full minute of steep plunging the track again leveled out, and I opened my eyes to see myself moving at breakneck speed over that black, rocky landscape.
Now that I was moving on a more or less flat horizontal track again I took a few deep breaths. I looked over the edge of the track. Nothing but that black, jagged rock, almost looking like obsidian, zooming past. I had no idea how fast the sled was moving now. Fast. Faster than a gravity powered sled should be moving. And the track was higher off the ground now. Alpine slides usually stick pretty close to the ground, but I was 20 feet or so in the air, the track suspended in the air, a simple metal tube tower like a power pylon every few yards.
Without any immediate threat and the sled moving fast but steadily and level I was able to think about my situation again, for all the good that did me. Ahead of me the track just continued to the horizon, nothing but the same rocky landscape as far as I could see. I craned my neck to look back over my shoulder and looked back behind me and it looked the same. Even the mountains were but distant specs on the horizon behind me.
This was insane. There’s not a giant seemingly endless field of black jagged rock in the goddamn Smoky Mountains. There’s no cliff faces tall and steep enough for a multi-minute vertical drop. And alpine coasters were small affairs, not major engineering projects that span miles with pylons and vertical tracks. It made no sense.
Sadly it wasn’t going to start making any more sense anytime soon.
The ride kept going.
I was on this rocky landscape for several hours. I feel comfortable saying this because I could actually notice the sun getting lower in the sky. And the sled wasn’t slowing down despite the grade of the track being flat. I was getting cramped from sitting and stretched my legs and twisted my back as best I could. Didn’t do much help. My eyes were starting to get irritated from the constant wind in them. Worst of all it was starting to get chilly. I only had on a light jacket, a windbreaker, just something to keep the breeze off me, no real insulation. I was cold, my joints were stiff, I was hungry and thirsty. My eyes watered and my throat was so dry it was sore.
But none of that was as bad as just how little sense this all made. There’s nothing like this place anywhere near the Smoky Mountains. This was like some volcanic rock landscape. The more I thought about it the less sense it made.
The ride kept going.
My mind didn’t even try to process this. Whatever I was experiencing simply couldn’t be possible. I was crazy. I was dreaming. The CIA had kidnapped me and dosed me with some new version of LSD and I was in a straightjacket in a padded room at Area 51.
The sled kept zooming along as the sky turned to dusk. Soon the bridge disappeared from my view and I continued on along the endless, rocky, featureless landscape.
I sat back against the sled, mentally and physically numb. I was exhausted. I was thirsty. I was cramping up. I was hungry. I had to pee. I held it for as long as I could, then had no choice but just wet myself. I cried until I had no more tears left. Then I just sat there.
The ride kept going.
By the time the sun dipped below the horizon my throat felt like sandpaper. I dug around in my jacket pockets hoping to find a stick of gum or piece of candy. Nothing. I checked again, having nothing else to do. Under a crumpled store receipt in the inner pocket of my jacket was a single old, forgotten cough drop. I unwrapped it from the paper and popped it in my mouth. Saliva flooded back into my mouth and I was overwhelmed by the methanol and medicine taste. It was something at least, although I knew it would be a brief and temporary fix at best.
I felt my eyes get heavy. It was getting colder. That mountain cold. That deep cold the mountains have even into the early spring when the sun goes down. That kind that just pulls the heat right out of you. I shivered. A terrible, horrible certainty came to me. I would ride until I passed out from exhaustion or the hypothermia set in. My body would tumble off the sled to fall and skip across the rocky ground like a stone skipping across a lake, my bones breaking as I tumbled until my body finally came to a stop. If I was lucky I would be killed and not have to lie for days, broken and bruised, on the ground until death took me.
The ride kept going. The ride kept going. The fucking ride kept going.
“Fuck you” I said to the ride, my voice a horse whisper. I pulled my jacket closer around me, for all the good it did. The cold wind was slowly but surely pulling my body heat away. My shivering got worse, crossing the line from a simple normal shiver into those deep, almost violent full body ones.. I wasn’t anything you could call an experienced outdoorsman, but I knew enough to know that wasn’t a good sign.
It was getting dark. There was a full moon at least so I wasn’t totally in the dark.
About then I noticed something. The landscape, what little I could see in the fading light, was changing. It was smoothing out, becoming less rocky and craggy. Up ahead an odd, shimmering light was starting to appear on the ground.
I was over it before I even realized what it was. The tracks were going over a smooth surface.
Water. It was a lake. The odd lights I had seen were the moon, reflected in ripples on the lake.
Within minutes I was out of the view of the land. After the nearly endless rocky landscape and everything else I had seen, it scared me how little I was shocked. I didn’t like how mentally numb I was getting. I leaned over. There was enough moonlight to see the water, 15 or 20 feet below the track. The pylons holding up the track went into the water, the light wasn’t good enough to even make a guess at how far they went down or how deep the water was.I leaned back in the sled. My eyes were red and bloodshot from the constant wind. I closed them. This was a mistake.I jerked awake. I don’t know if I dozed off for a split second or an hour. My weight had shifted and I caught myself as my center of gravity was in danger of sending me off the sled and into the water.
I screamed in anger. A deep primal scream. I hurt so bad. My joints felt like they were full of glass. My limbs were full of pins and needles. I glanced over at the water. For the first time on the very edges of my brain a tiny voice started to speak up, telling me that I could be all over if I just jumped. I shut the voice up, but it scared me still.
I sat there as the ride went on. It felt like hours. Eventually the lake ended in a rocky shore line. The damned ride. There was no safe place to bail out. If the ride slowed down, it was high in the air, if it moved toward the ground it sped up. Sharp rocks, big trees, nothing you could safely bail out into.
I kept having to force myself awake. I kept dozing off. Once I felt myself falling asleep and drove a vicious uppercut into my own nose to stave it off.
I seriously started to think about how much longer I could hang on. The voice came back again. This time I didn’t shut it up. I wasn’t admitting it to myself yet, but I was starting to think about the best way to land that would end it quickly if I needed to.
Something was ahead. The track seemed to dip into the ground. I was too tired, too beaten to even get scared. I was just resigned to whatever happened at this point.
With little warning the track took my sled into a tunnel in the ground. Everything went completely pitch black. After several moments even the dim moonlight was gone.
This was the worst part. The creepy forest, the immense rocky landscape, the eerie lake… those were bad. But this was just nothing. Nothing to look at, nothing to hear, nothing for reference or sense of where I was going. The walls of the tunnel felt like they were inches from me in every direction. The air felt thick, like there wasn’t enough oxygen.
With every moment I was in that tunnel I lost a little more hope. After a long, long time I made a decision. When I got out of this tunnel, I would jump. I didn’t care anymore. Hopefully there would be a spot where I could be certain the fall would instantly kill me. I was done. The ride had beaten me. I sat there, waiting for a chance to end this on my terms. That was all I had left.
Eventually up ahead, a tiny speck of light appeared. I gathered my strength, ready to end it. I sat up, getting my legs under me so I could jump as soon as we were clear. The sled burst out of the tunnel. The dim light of the full moon was enough to be momentarily blinding after the pitch black of the tunnel.. I gave my eyes a moment to adjust.
I was back in a normal looking Appalachian forest. Rolling hills, green trees. The air smelled of pine again. I heard an owl hoot off somewhere.
Slowly I lowered myself back into a setting position, in shock. At first I refused to believe it but the ride was slowing down. I held still, making sure my mind wasn’t playing tricks on me, but no, the cheap plastic sled that had been my world for what felt like an eternity was slowing down.
Up ahead, a structure was visible, peeking out from among the trees in the dim lighting as the sled moved down the track.
It was the Alpine Slide building. The crappy fake red barn where I had boarded this cursed ride so long ago. I blinked and rubbed my eyes, sure it was either my mind or the cursed ride playing tricks with me. But the building stayed there.
It grew closer and closer. The track leveled completely out. The sled slowed down more. Before I had the time to really come to terms with it I arrived back at the building.
The sled slowed to a stop, gently pumping against another sled parked on the track. I sat there for a few moments, gasping in great big gulping fear breaths, trying to assure myself the ride didn’t have one last trick of its sleeve.
I looked around. The place was empty, deserted. The overhead lights were still on and the old Pepsi machine still glowed and buzzed, but the ticket booth was dark and empty, a metal gate pulled down over the ticket window.
Suddenly it hit me that I was free and I practically leapt out of the sled and onto the platform. I immediately collapsed. My legs were jelly and my head was spinning. I tried to stand up again and doubled over, dry heaving. Have you ever been out on a boat for a day and have that weird reverse motion sickness when you’re back on solid land? It was like that times a hundred. My inner ear was literally pounding, all the motion had really done a number on it.
I laid there for a few moments and eventually forced myself to stand up on my two wobbling legs. I looked around, a horrible certainty creeping into my mind that there would be no exit, no way off the platform but to my relief an exit turnstyle, one of those full height ones, was set into the fence that surrounded the ride property.
I went through it and found myself back on the main road. The truckstop was still there, still open but far less busy. My car sat in the same corner of the parking lot I had left it.
I allowed myself one look back, just one quick one. The metal skeleton of the Alpine Slide track sat there, dark and quiet but otherwise normal.
I stumbled-ran back to my car, dug the keys out of my pocket, and collapsed inside. When the door shut I let out a primal scream, the tons of fear and confusion and anger all fusing into a single, raw emotion. I screamed again and again.
After a few moments I felt like I was emotionally at least back to a place where I could act, although I wasn’t sure yet what to do next. Not really knowing what to do I cranked the car. The A/C had been on low when I shut off the car and it came roaring back to life and cold air blowing on me almost sent me back into a full on panic attack. I fumbled with the climate controls until the air stopped blowing directly on me, then calmed down enough to turn the heat on, helping to get the chill out of my bones. There was a half full bottle of water in the center console cup holder and I grabbed it and chugged it. Nothing ever tasted as good before or sense as that few ounces of water.
That was when I noticed the clock on the radio head unit. It was 4:17 in the morning. It had been about one, one thirty or so in the afternoon when I got on the accursed ride.
Over 15 hours. I had been on the goddamn ride for over 15 hours. Over half a day.
I just sat there. Warming up. Calming down. I was exhausted. I was dehydrated. I can’t even describe how my head felt. I probably had at least a minor case of hypothermia. I thought about going into the gas station and asking for help but what would I even say, and more than anything I just wanted to get away from this place. And I just wanted to get away. I wanted to be nowhere near that damn ride.
I put the Camaro in gear and pulled into the street and in panic I immediately slammed on the brakes. I was lucky there was no traffic on the road at that moment. The feeling of accelerating to just normal surface street speeds made me sick to my stomach. I gathered myself and very slowly accelerated the car I usually treated with a very heavy foot up to 30 miles an hour. Every time I tried to accelerate at a pace faster than “Old Lady Going to Church, Uphill” I would have a panic attack. I was okay once I was up to speed, but accelerating freaked me out after being on that ride.
I drove about 30 minutes, putting some arbitrary amount of distance between myself and the coaster. Eventually I made it back to where the twisty mountain road met back up with a major road that would eventually meet back up with the highway. After a few more minutes of driving I saw the onramp for the highway. There was one of those big truckstop travel plazas and pulled in, parking right up at the door. I smelled like pee and I can only imagine how I looked, but I didn’t care.
I kept a couple of emergency 20s in the back of my wallet and spent it on the biggest bottle of water the store had, an overpriced bottle of eye drops, and a huge travel mug of coffee. The clerk looked at me as if he was expecting me to either drop dead or rob him the entire time.
Back in my car I downed the coffee. I put a few eye drops in each of my eyes and sat there as the caffeine took effect until I felt like I could make it back to my apartment. The sun was just coming up when I finally pulled out of the truck stop and got on the freeway. I slowly, very slowly, accelerated up to highway speed, put the Camaro in cruise control, and let the miles start to drift away. I turned on the radio, I needed to hear human voices. Every time my mind went back to what had just happened I turned the radio up louder, eventually drowning it out with painful levels of rock music. I wasn’t ready to think about it yet. Yes looking back I know I was just in denial. I finally made it back to the crappy little apartment I had off campus, a little two story walk up studio. I let myself in and collapsed on the cheap couch. I was asleep before I even had the time to decide whether or not to do anything else. I woke up later that afternoon. I took a shower and ate a meal and didn’t think about the ride. I washed the pee stained filthy clothes I had been wearing and didn’t think about the ride. I went back to class and didn’t think about the ride. Every time I thought about the ride I forced it out of my head. I’m sure this wasn’t the most mentally healthy thing to do but what can you say?
I didn’t forget about it, don’t be silly. This isn’t the kind of thing you forget. One day while looking up something else in the university’s library my curiosity got the better of me and I looked up the Alpine Slide. No website but a few Google Map and Yelp mentions. None of them mentioned anything weird, certainly nothing even remotely like what I experienced. Near as I can tell it closed sometimes in the winter of 2012.
Life went on. I mean, that’s what it does. The next day was a little better. And the day after that a little better. And the day after that a little better still. I met a nice girl. Graduated. Got married. Got a nice house in the suburbs. Got a dog. Had a daughter. Spent a lot of time happy and not thinking about being trapped on an endless alpine coaster.And that was my life for many, many years after that.
Until a few weeks back when as a very different person I found myself driving a boring and safe mid sized family SUV through those same mountains. My wife Carol, 5 months pregnant, sat in the passenger seat, our 6 year old daughter Emily in a booster seat in the back, and Max our mixed breed mutt next to her. It had been a nice pleasant trip, driving back from visiting her folks.
I hadn’t thought about that fucking ride in so long I barely registered that I was in the same general area until it was too late. Suddenly I realized that little mountain tourist trap town was only a few minutes down the road. I swallowed hard and gripped the steering wheel hard. Carol was looking out the window at the scenery and Emily was deep into some kid’s Youtube video on an iPad. I forced myself to keep my breath steady as we rounded the corner.The town was still there, sorta. Time had not been kind to it. The gas station was still there, at some point it had been bought out by Shell. The tourist trap shops were still there. One of them was now a vape shop. The diner was closed, the building looking like it sat unused for a long time.
But of course that’s not what I cared about. A looked over at the site where the Alpine Coaster once stood. It was gone. The kitschy fake barn was gone. The site was just a bare concrete slab with a chainlink fence around it. Faded “no trespassing” and “for sale” signs hung off the fence. A pile of old, decaying lumber that might have once long ago been part of the structure covered part of the old lot. No sign of the track remained outside of some old concrete support posts dotting the side of the mountain.
I exhaled out a breath I hadn’t even realized I had been holding in. Soon the little town disappeared in my rear view mirror.
About a half hour later we stopped for gas. I pulled up to a gas pump across from a massive motorhome. Max stuck his head out the window and started barking at a little white dog, a toy breed of some kind, in the window of the motorhome. Carol and Emily immediately headed into the store to restock on snacks while I fueled up.
I stood there, a half smile on my lips as Max barked and wagged his tail in an attempt to attract the attention of the other dog while I filled up the tank, said dog doing an admirable job of ignoring him.
Right about the time I finished fueling up and cleaning the bugs off the windshield Carol returned from inside the store, Emily in tow, arms filled with two full sized bags of Salt and Vinegar Potato Chips and what looked to be a half dozen individually wrapped pickles.
I raised an eyebrow at the collection of food but knew better than to question a pregnant woman's snack choices.
“Should we take Max for a quick walk?” Carol asked. The travel plaza had a nice little gated dog walking area off to the side.
“Yeah probably not a bad idea, he’s been cooped up in the car for a few hours.” I said. Max, upon hearing his name and the word “walk” , forgot about the other dog and upgraded from wagging his tail to wagging his entire body while making whining sounds and staring right at me.
About this time I became half aware that the big motor home next to us was pulling away. I didn’t think much of it, outside of doing a quick automatic mental check to make sure Emily was well clear of the moving vehicle, but she was safely between me and our SUV, well out of the way.
But that was when Emily looked behind me and cheerfully yelled “Daddy look a roller coaster! Can I ride the coaster?”
It’s cliche as fuck I know but my blood went cold.
I turned around slowly, certain in my knowledge that terrible old decrepit Alpine Coaster would be there, having just popped into existence to trap me again.
That.. is not what I saw. Sure enough there was a coaster there, one I hadn’t noticed earlier because it had mostly been blocked by the motor home, but there it was. It was even an Alpine Coaster.
But it was not the same coaster I had encountered those years ago. That was immediately obvious. It was a small but modern and newish looking setup with neon lights and a bunch of people. There was an actual building where you bought tickets and a little snack stand.
“Daddy! Can we go on the coaster!” Emily asked again.
My mouth made motions but no words came out. I glanced over at Carol, hoping she’d say we didn’t have time but to my horror she smiled and said “You know what? That does sound like fun. Daddy will take you while I take Max for a walk.”
My mind raced, trying to think of a way to get out of it. But Emily was already dragging me across the parking lot to the entrance.
I patted my pocket, making sure my phone was in it. Every fiber of my being was screaming to run away. I slept walked through the line and the ticket booth while Emily bounced happily.
We got into a two seat plastic sled. This one was actually a lot nicer than the one my mind wouldn’t stop thinking about. It had two nice cushioned seats, big grab handles, even a nice rollbar.
The sled started up the track. I fought back the panic. I swerved my head around, keeping the building in my view. I was terrified of losing sight of it. We made it to the top and Emily did a happy squeal as we started down the side of the mountain.
My heart raced. Any second, any second my mind told me we’d lose sight of the building and then the ride would never end. The ride sped down the mountain. My mind tortured me with thoughts of not only going through it again, but seeing Emily go through it. The ride went around a big, banking turn. Emily kept shouting happily. How long before Carol reported us missing I wondered? Could I keep Emily calm? What if it lasted even longer this time? What if this time it never ended?
And then we were back at the start of the ride. The same attendant who had helped us into the sled was helping Emily out. I stepped out. The attendant gave me a brief look but said nothing. I guess I looked a little wild eyed.
I was fine. Emily was fine. It had been a perfectly normal, fun ride.
“That was fun Daddy! Thank you!” Emily said. I forced a smile back. “It was fun.” I responded, hoping like I sounded like I meant it.
I took Emily’s hand and we walked back to the car. Max saw us coming and barked happily. Carol looked up from the pint of Ben and Jerry’s she had somehow acquired and added to her snack collection while we were gone and smiled at us.
“Did you have fun?” she asked.
“It was so fun Mommy!” Emily said.
Carol smiled down at her, but then looked at me and frowned. “Are you okay?” Carol could read my face a lot better than the attendant could. “You’re pale.”
I smiled and this time the smile felt real. “Ya know what. Yeah, I think I am okay.”
Carol looked a little puzzled, but didn’t press it. We loaded Emily back in her booster seat, stopped Max from trying desperately to eat half a discarded gas station hot dog off the ground and got him back in the car. Carol and her small collection of snack food took her place in the passenger seat and I got in the driver's seat.I smiled. I cranked the car. I put it in gear. I pulled out of the gas station and back on the road, this time accelerating just a little faster than I had in years.

Just another fun little story idea I had. I am still working on Humans are the violent ones but I like to bounce around and experiment with ideas to see what I really like. I also suck at writing more casual stories, as they give me severe writer's block as I try to map out how to make a scene feel genuine in my head, but I promise I'll update that soon. If you like this story and want to see more, then like and comment. I'll gladly continue this series as well.
Start of Personal Log
Humans don't like being told what to do. They don't like being commanded, put in their place, or snubbed. It was an inexorable, inalienable trait of humans, at least any noteable humans, to go against any authority that they believed was against their interests.
Humanity would not fit amongst the stars. Few ever did. It was a trait of most successful species to be willful, ambitious, and to desire more. But once they reached the stars the new (and simultaneously very old) pecking order either quashed any spirit such species had or simply eradicated them. Countless tomb worlds and diaspora served as painful reminders of what became of the nails that chose to stick out. The hammer of order would always strike. There could be no compromise, the very soul of the authority that held the Jurisdiction together relied on a show of unmatched power, or at least the illusion of item.
In reality, the Jurisdiction was an old, fat, and lazy beast. It filled its belly on the corpses of empires far and wide, and sated its bloodlust on the shattered dreams of hopeful cubs. It had every right to, for none could challenge it: there were no new frontiers to explore, nor were there any other enemies to conquer. The Milky Way, as humans had so strangely dubbed our cradle galaxy, as well as Andromeda, had long since been warred over and settled for millennia before humanity had arrived, bright-eyed and with familiar yet otherwise foolish dreams of cooperation and prosperity. The Jurisdiction did not cooperate, nor did it ensure prosperity. Oh, it claimed it did, but in reality it simply took. The rest was just the peace that came with not being the direct target of the biggest fish in the pond. The humans didn't like that, but they had no choice.
Slavery was a common tribute. The Jurisdiction had no use for other resources: it simply took. No, it wanted those who could facilitate that unequal exchange, those raised in a world where the only morality was the one set by your lord. The Jurisdiction was held together by expectations, obligations, and dury more than any kind of shared dream, so when you were ordered to take you did so without question. Humanity was new: they had no niche or value that set them apart, but they had a penchant for killing and taking, so the Jurisdiction gave them a taste of how the galaxy worked. They killed and they took. The humans didn't like that, but what choice did they have?
Humans were strange. They learned, but not in the way most species learned. Most species learned to adapt in a passive way, to adhere to the world around them. They flowed like water, moving past and around obstacles and confirming to the boxes they were assigned too. Humans didn't confirm, nor did they adapt: they made their circumstances fit their desires. They would not move around obstacles, but rather smash through them, and they refused to stay in one box for too long. The Jurisdiction merely saw them as a particularly loud nuisance, but those who faced their wrath knew better.
It is said that when a beast seeks to make an example, it shall humble its rival by killing it's cubs. Children were one of those universal constants that brought entire communities together: the Sok’klar saw their hatchlings as gifts, shaped by the fruitful currents of the universe in perfect harmony. The Yarrack saw each and every newborn whelp as an uncut gemstone, ready to be shaped into something magical. Humanity oftentimes referred to their offspring as angels, or spirits of unbridled good sent by the gods themselves. Children were seen by most of the galaxy as gifts.
The Jurisdiction saw them as a lever to inflict suffering. It had become quite effective at enacting psychological punishments on those that stood up and spoke out. You dare to disobey? You believe you can speak out? Your gifts shall be taken from you, and you shall be without joy.
Humans didn't like this, but the Jurisdiction would have their pound of flesh, and humankind would kneel. And they did. But humans were patient creatures: most species who retained that trait of willful spit also lacked patience.
I had long since become desensitized to the Jurisdiction’s actions: it was simply how the universe worked now, as if it were a constant akin to gravity. Cruelty was the unspoken rule of this seemingly unending age, where our lives never appeared to move forward or backwards, only lay dormant. The Jurisdiction had been the unyielding authority that ruled the galaxy for thousands of years, venerable yet feared all the same.
And for the longest time I was just another cog in its wheel. My name is Kalnuracht Sedjuur-Noumar VII, and was the scion of the noble house Sedjuur-Noumar. I was born into what most would describe as veiled apathy, living a life that could be attributed to the privileged class of feared scribes that enacted the will of those above. I was an administrator and nothing more. And now I am doomed to be far less than that in the eyes of my former constituents within the endless administration. I am the only scion, as is tradition, and without an heir I am the last of my house, our name to be scrubbed from the records, worthless, meaningless, and forgotten.
I am merely Kalnuracht, nothing else and nothing more. I have seen from their eyes, the eyes of the downtrodden, and it makes my crimes of association with the Jurisdiction feel all the more damning on my worthless soul. I am worthless to the world, and this is my story.
End Personal Log #1
Start of Neural Lace Narrative Log #1
They came from the black like carrion birds in the night, encircling our convoy as if it were a dying animal ready to be picked clean without remorse. There was no warning, no list of demands sent out as civilized peoples did, nor was there either any requirement for unconditional surrender nor chance to parlay, as was done so under letter of marque: this was an unmistakable call for violence and nothing else. They sought to reduce us to slag and scavenge the rest.
So, as one would expect, the entire bridge of the ship was nearing a panicked state. This was not the actions of those practicing civility, but rather the common behaviors of despoiling barbarians, the kind that tore their way through the dark reaches of the galaxy as if they owned it.
“Wayfinder, what do your probes see?” Shouted the ship’s sovereign. He was an older Kar’Rowmach, an amphibious cephalopod species with a venerable history within the Jurisdiction going back thousands of years. Normally one such as him would be above me if it weren't for the fact that I was under the authority of the Jurisdiction’s seal of office. He didn't like me very much, but most of his kind shared the same sentiment.
“All dark, honorable Sovereign: the sensor arrays are wailing but the feedback we're reviewing is beyond incomprehensible,” the wayfinder replied with a certain restrained temper in his voice. The Sok'klar wayfinder swayed gently, his tentacled limbs grasping different metallo-liquid braille output arrays, the liquid gallium flexing and reshaping unnaturally to allow him to to take in multiple different sources of sensory output at once, with the primary navigation computer plugged into the cybernetics surrounding his opaque, gelatinous head and plugging directly into his tube-shaped brain.
The Sovereign cursed in Loskat and pointed to his bridge crew while I simply sat in the back, near the Sovereign’s symbolic throne. “Prepare countermeasures and spool up the warp drive, we cannot allow the amanuensis to be taken! He carries sensitive information that only he can translate and transcribe!”
As the bridge crew nodded and began fiddling with their own systems, I preened my feathered hide anxiously. I wasn't a fighter: us nobles of the cloth were the educated minority above all else, not those who waged war or partook in hard labor. Special cybernetics in my brain allowed me to translate triple-encoded messages that usually took a ducal signet codekey or above to parse, but even without that I was a skilled mathematician and logician. I had terabytes worth of knowledge stored within the hardware installed in my head, all well protected of course, but if I were to die it would still be a waste. I could only imagine the damage any malcontenders could do with it if they were able to get their filthy hands on me.
Suddenly, the ship rocked, and the gallium overhead display began to form crescendos like I'd never seen before. “Sovereign, decks A-3 through C-12 are venting atmosphere and our coolant systems have been obliterated,” the Wayfinder spoke in an almost serene voice, as if he was completely unconcerned by current events. I knew they were simply incapable of tonal displays, but it was unnerving nonetheless. “Once we jump, we will not be able to risk another until the vacuum of the void can reduce temperatures to acceptable levels within the plasma capacitors.”
“Damn them,” the armored nautiloid hissed, his barbed feelers coiling in frustration, “May the currents take them. What are our options? what can we see? This fleet cannot fall to the void today, not with such vital cargo.” My hackles rose lightly at the Kar’Rowmach referred to me as some object rather than an esteemed amanuensis of the Jurisdiction, but I bit my forked tongue. Now was not the time to squabble with the sovereign over who was what and what titles I deserved, not while he was so desperately attempting to keep what semblance of order within his fleet that he had left.
I could not blame the crew for being panicked either: wars were practically mythologized now, having been long since rendered obsolete with the rise of the Jurisdiction, and that felt like an eternity ago. Now, either being levied into or joining a ducal naval force was simply another career, more akin to serving as an officer of the law rather than a fully fledged soldier. Minimal training was required, most of it being the technicals of one's duty rather than any kind of combat conditioning, so expecting a fleet to actually be prepared for a combat scenario in a universe where peace was the norm was laughable.
“We are practically blind, Sovereign,” stated the Sok'klar Wayfinder, “our probes are offline, and shipboard graviton displacement sensory arrays have been rendered unreliable at best.”
“What about the particle emission array? Has there been a spike in radioactivity where we were hit?”
The Wayfinder seemed to think for a second, his gelatinous form flexing and morphing a bit before answering. “Affirmative, a jump from negligible to forty billion becquerels along decks A through E-5 on our starboard side.”
“Torpedoes…” the Sovereign hissed, stroking his barbed feelers, “Human Torpedoes. Only those primitives would rely on crude nuclear warheads.” He then turned to his militant leaders on the ship. “Noddos, Rel’ads: organize your phalanxes and prepare to repel boarders. We are bound to be assailed by those rancorous primates, and I want their skulls piled at my feet if they dare set foot on our ship.”
“Your wish is our command, Sovereign,” the two militant commanders spoke as one. Noddos, a large bipedal with multiple sets of curved spines running down his back, a pair of graceful horns sprouting from his head, and multiple rows of sharp teeth in his snout, bowed first, followed by Rel’ads, a marsupial with long saberteeth and thick fur. They both must have been fierce warriors in their own right to each lead a phalanx. They wore thick, semi-powered armor and held dueling polearms alongside their usual plasma casters, and seemed completely unfazed by the situation we were in. As they stomped out of the brightly lit bridge, I let out a quiet squawk of discontentment. “Sovereign, why haven't we jumped again? We are wasting precious time.”
“I am working on it, you spineless beaurocrat!” He warbled back, his feelers tensing in anger, “besides, it's not as if you're the one who will be spilling blood today, amanuensis, so flatten your wretched beak or I shall weld it shut with a plasma torch.
I was about to reply with something indignant, but the ship rocked again, this time causing the lights to flicker and the air to become… thick. The skin under my feathers began to blister, and I became lightheaded and confused. “Seal the damnable vents, initiate radiation scrubbers, and activate secondary life support!” Shouted the Sovereign, “Their nuclear weapons are rendering the ship inhospitable!”
I coughed up magenta blood accidentally, and I could feel more seeping from under my eyes. Some of the crew was in a similar position, but others were more resistant to radiation than I. The Sok'klar seemed completely at ease as he ran his tentacles across his morphic braille arrays before calmly announcing the ship’s status. “I've regained some control over our probes: ten, twelve, and seventeen are active and fully functional, the rest are either still malfunctioning or permanently inoperable. A rapid rise in localized radiation is also interfering with the detection of graviton displacement; we can't sense photon redirection, thus readings will remain inconclusive.
“Wayfinder, damn you, get me some kind of out here! We're easy prey until we can respond in kind!”
“Negative, something has gone awry with our processing hub, I am attempting to troubleshoot-”
And with that, the Wayfinder’s bulbous head exploded in a cascade of opaque lavender blood, covering the front half of the deck crew like a morbid art piece. Some of the crew screamed and shouted in terror before removing their cranial adaptors and choosing to interact with their displays manually. Others died just as quickly, unable to unplug in time as their brain stems fried or their blood boiled. It was a horrible way to go, having your insides neutralized by your own cybernetics, so I was glad I wasn't connected to the system.
“Cybernetic warfare! All systems are to be considered compromised, switch to manual settings or you'll be killed!”
The lights in the bridge flickered again, and the displays went haywire. The bridge crew, which obviously weren't acquainted with working without being hard-linked into the mainframe, moved at a much slower pace.
“Launch missile pods A through F and set to self-target after five hundred kilometers, then rely on their ballistic coordinates to begin firing broadsides! If we can't see the humans due to their meddling, we'll just have to feel them.” Shouted the Sovereign, “and got me a detailed report on the ship’s diagnostics readings. I need to know if this flagship is still capable of escaping or if we'll have to scuttle it and retreat on another.”
“Acknowledged, Sovereign, launching now,” affirmed another deck officer as he swiped across his own gallium output array. I could hear the dull thunk, thunk, thunk of missiles pushing out of their pods before racing off to their intended targets, then the mechanical whirring as the pods rotated to be reloaded by slaves in the lower decks. I was regaining my bearings as the many horrible sensations of being overwhelmed by radiation poisoning were beginning to subside, but I still felt as if I had been microwaved. The air was stale, the crew was horribly sick as well, and even the sovereign himself seemed to be on his last leg. I was beginning to believe that I might die here.
“Sovereign, a message from the lower decks,” shouted a communications officer, his chitin scraping against itself as he turned quickly, “they're requesting reinforcements, something about being overrun.”
“Impossible,” the Sovereign hissed out in a vain attempt to exude confidence, “We must outnumber the humans, they always go for bigger targets out of arrogance.”
“I've received reports that it's not just humans: the primates seem to make up only a third or so of the assailing force, along with some Phaeldaer and Vrex.”
The commander slammed his clawed hands down on his own output array in a fit of rage, obviously overwhelmed by the circumstances, “Then this wasn't just a typical assault, but something more sinister!” The nautiloid warbled, blood seeping from his shell as the full effects of the radiation took hold, “Get Rel’ads on the line, have him divert all spare lances to the lower decks or else we'll lose the only offensive capabilities we can use.”
“Rel'ads has gone dark, Sovereign, his vitals are critical.”
“Then either get me Rel'ads tail-leader or get me Noddos!” He screamed in rage, “don't give me this nonsense! If we don't pick it up we're all going to die, is that what you want?”
“No, Sovereign, I'm simply overwhelmed-”
“We're all overwhelmed! By the tides, I'm dying of radiation poisoning you nincompoop! Get me something I can work with!”
The officer didn't even acknowledge the Sovereign after that, simply turning back to his display. Eventually, the Sovereign was able to get Noddos on the line.
“Sovereign, two thirds of my phalanxes have been decimated by combat with the primitives and the radiation, the rest are in shambles. We must retreat and fortify elsewhere!”
“Then the ship is compromised! Rel'ads is unresponsive and the lower decks are swarming with intruders. We must evacuate the amanuensis to another ship.”
Just as the Sovereign spoke, I heard several gentle thumps rattle against the bridge’s door, and it made me uneasy. Some of the bridge crew seemed to feel the same, as they looked incredibly nervous and some even drew their sidearms. Just as the sovereign turned to give further orders, the door blew inward with a deafening explosion, followed by shouting and gunfire. Several of the bridge officers were dispatched quickly, brain matter and blood splattering against the delicate electronics. Others were shot in the legs, the torso, or in any other exotic yet non-vital body parts. The humans poured in, brandishing primitive ballistic firearms and jury-rigged energy weapons while wearing scavenged, legion-grade powered armor.
The Sovereign was the next to go, but he wasn't afforded an honorable death. He was shot along the arm with a particularly potent plasma caster, burning off his clawed hand and cauterizing the wound, the acrid smell of roasting chitin filling the already hot and cramped bridge. He fell back against his output array, the gallium reaching new highs and lows as more diagnostics and casualty reports were delivered, and he clutched his stump angrily. “I'll burn every last one of you in the foundries! I'll tie you to stakes, cover you in wax and set you alight! Your screams will be broadcasted all over the galaxy!”
One human warrior stomped up and slammed the butt of his rifle into the sovereign’s face, shattering his facial plates and causing blue blood to splatter across his section of the bridge. “Shut the fuck up, you mutant lobster,” the human said before dragging him by both antennae towards the center of the bridge and receiving a stained breeching axe from one of his comrades. “Emmanuel, start recording. We need proof.”
The other human nodded and pressed a button on his armor before lifting up his gun again. The rest of the humans fanned out, holding everyone else at gunpoint. I tried to get up and sneak out, but a human grabbed me by my neck and nearly wrung it out as he forced me to my knees and pointed a sidearm to my skull. “Get down, you piece of shit, before I blow your brains out too.”
“Damnable primate,” I hissed, but he bashed me in my skull with the base of his sidearm’s grip and sent me sprawling, making my already pounding headache worse. Another human shouted at him in a language I didn't recognize, but he sounded furious. The first brought me back up to my knees again, and I complies with a hiss and a groan, blood still leaking from my eyes and mouth and my world was spinning.
The Sovereign struggled, but he was weak from the radiation poisoning and he couldn't exactly resist on account of his lost arm. The human with the breaching ax kicked the Sovereign down and forced him to kneel before lifting up the breeching ax and splitting his chitinous head down the middle with one powerful swing, sending more blood and brains across the floor. “Execution confirmed, take his antennae just in case and we've got ourselves a bounty. Now all we need is that ugly cat’s teeth and the fat hedgehog-thing’s grimy spines and we'll be in business. Although, they do have skulls… we might as well just take their heads.”
The real horror of the situation dawned on me at that moment: they were going to kill us all, or maybe worse. They mentioned a bounty for the commanders, and multiple of the higher ranking ship officers were already dead, their brains splattered against the walls or their bodies torn apart by gunfire. I wasn't dead yet, but that didn't mean much since I wasn't an immediate threat.
“Alright, round them up and bring all the grunts to the hanger bay, then kill the rest,” the leader of the humans said in such a lackadaisical manner that his complete disregard for life almost made me sick… almost. I had seen worse from the Jurisdiction before, but usually that was from me delivering some kind of ordered judgment on a world that had sinned against order. I might have simply been the messenger, but I had seen many of the outcomes. “And make sure to collect whatever proof of bounties you can, we'll need to deliver them to the office to get cashed out. Don't let this be a repeat of last time where Juarez fucking forgot to take a few heads and it ended up cutting our profits in half, the fucking retard.”
Some of the humans chuckled at that as they dragged more of the senior officers away, out of the room and into the hall,where I heard gunshots. The rest of the bridge crew froze in place, different fear instincts kicking in. The remaining Sok'klar corralled together into what seemed to be a singular, semi-congealed mass as if to try and trick the humans into believing that they were much bigger and much more threatening than they actually were. The one Thei’chi on the bridge, an ensign who had clearly thought this would be a simple mission, bore her curved fangs at the humans and growled as they approached, her hackles completely vertical and her eyes dilated. They quickly muzzled and bound her before beating her over the head with a gun stock, sending her sprawling onto the ground. Many others simply cooperated, eyes wide and yet simultaneously empty, as if they couldn't quite process that the ship had been taken and the commanding officers were being executed as the rest were escorted to the hangar.
“Get the damn messenger down to the hanger as well, we need whatever data's in his ugly lizard head, then we can decide on what to do with him.”
I spat at him in spite, as if to try and seem brave, but it was clearly an empty gesture. “You won't get anything, primate! You couldn't possibly crack the encryption!”
The human holding me seemed to wind up for another swing, but the commanding officer simply held up his hand to stop my tormentor before strolling over to me. He knelt down and removed his helmet, revealing a beige-colored face covered in scars, wiry black hair cut down to the scalp, and multiple tattoos. “You're really fucking mouthy for a hostage,” he said before punching me across my beak faster than I could register. I heard a sharp crack as his fist connected, and my head spun again as the metallic taste of blood pooled into my mouth. “I'd advise you to shut up, but I'm sure you won't listen: you aristocratic types are so full of yourselves. Maybe I should have you flogged in the public square until your vocal chords give out once we rip those cybernetics from your head, huh? How's that sound?”
“It won't matter… it won't change anything… the Jurisdiction will hunt you down.”
“Maybe, but I doubt it will happen for some time: they really suck at doing anything that requires effort, even when they're mad enough. They just keep sending their rabid lapdogs to try and smoke us out, and they always end up full of holes,” the human officer said with a smirk, his yellowish-white teeth and green eyes sending shivers down my spine as he drew his knife. “They're just horrible at their job, you know? You've all gotten so lazy and incompetent after being able to just take what you want without resistance, and now that you've met people who are angry and crazy enough to fight back you act as if we're committing some grave injustice,” he placed the knife against my throat, the flat just underneath my now bent beak, “No, we just took a few pages out of your book, ‘cept we've got standards. No kids, for one…” he seemed to look off into the distance as his sneer deepened, “but it's more than that, we don't attack the defenseless in general and we still win against you all in fair fights.”
I went to say something else snarky, but he quickly grabbed my thin tongue with his fingers and yanked it out, blood from my mouth pulling to the floor as he held the blade of his knife against it. “No no, none of that. Say one more thing and I'll cut that rancid little tongue of yours out of your mouth and feed it to you,” he hissed at me, pressing the blade down just hard enough to draw blood. “Do you know what it's like to see a planet turn into a tomb?" he asked me, gritting his teeth, “Do you know what it's like to see everything you've ever known crumble to ash and glass, all the life and the green stripped away leaving nothing but bones? I do. I've seen it happen to countless worlds, and my grandfather always told me stories of how you bastards did it to Earth. He still prays in its direction five times a day, to Mecca, but he knows the Kaaba is gone now, or maybe it's still there, buried in the bones of those who sought refuge there.”
I didn't care for the human’s nonsensical beliefs, but I did care to correct him. “I've seen it before, and I'll see it again. And so will you, it's inevitable. The Jurisdiction will always have its judgment fulfilled, there is no alternative.”
“One day, I hope we can rectify that,” he said, then he sheathed his knife and slammed my head against the metal floor with enough force to nearly knock me out. As I lost consciousness, I could hear him speak. “Take him to the Chop Doc, and make sure the cybernetics don't get damaged: they're supposedly more valuable than any bounty on this ship.”
Warning: Severe radiation poisoning detected. Flush system immediately.
Warning: Neural Lace removal detected, chance of neurological damage high. Proceeded with caution.

Previous Part
Morning eventually came, banishing the eyes that seemed to peer at me through the night. It was strange how suddenly the feeling left me, making me think that someone really was watching me. The whole thing was really doing wonders for my paranoia. Despite the rough morning and sleepless night, I still found myself waiting outside Bianca’s house bright and early that morning. The air was cool but not chilly, one of those perfect days that’s cold enough you’ll never start sweating unless you really try, but warm enough that a T-shirt will get you through without too much trouble.
I only had to knock once before Bianca threw open the door.
“Where you just waiting there for me?”
I asked, cracking a smile and raising an eyebrow.
“You’ll never know” she added playfully, “Are we ready to go then?”
Bianca had made some preparations for the trip, she didn’t have a backpack ready to go but she definitely made an effort to dress the part… sort of. She was wearing an old grey combat jacket that I imagine she pulled out of Stein’s closet. The jacket was way to big for her but she made it work. Her combat boots matched the jacket, looking old and well worn. What didn’t match was the bright red yoga pants she was wearing, but I wasn’t about to complain. Besides, I had packed each of us a spare set of clothes just in case.
“Oh! So I had an idea, its a long walk, not crazy but I’d rather not just walk the whole way if we can help it. Frank and Stein used to have some bicycles when we first came here so I asked them about it and well.”
Bianca chirped, as she led me around the back of the house and pulled a tarp off two abysmal looking bicycles. The bikes were both red at one point but that was a long time ago. Now they were covered in a layer of rust and I could barely make out the branding that may have once read, “Shwinn”.
“Um… Bianca I think I might get tetanus if I sit on that thing.”
“Oh come on! Aren’t you tired of walking everywhere? Lets just give the bikes a shot, if they crumble to dust we can leave them.”
“And get me a tetanus shot.”
I added quickly
“Fine, and get you a tetanus shot.”
Bianca shot back, she feigned annoyance but she couldn’t hide the smile that crossed her face.
Laughing to ourselves, we got on the bikes and took off North, out of town and onto a dirt path leading to the woods. Bianca didn’t say much on the way out but I could tell she was having a good time. This may have been her first time out of the house for something other than supervising Frank and Stein. She tried to hide it by riding fast and staying out in front of me, but I could still catch her eyes literally glowing with happiness every now and then. I thought back to what Frank had said about her eyes glowing when she experiences strong emotion. I hoped that was the case and she wasn’t just trying really hard to influence me, which he had also said would make her eyes glow.
As we neared the end of the path, the forest’s edge came into view. we let the bikes roll to a stop then got off and let them fall over onto the dirt. I half expected them to explode into a puff of rusty brown dust the second they touched the ground but to my surprise, neither bike did. I could’ve swore I heard Bianca sniffle almost like she’d been crying. I opened my mouth to say something and then thought better of it, if she wanted to tell me what was going on she would. Well, that or she’d just manipulate me away from the question. Wait, was she doing that now? It’s hard to tell, maybe that’s how everyone around her feels. The more I thought about it the more I realized how difficult it must be for her just to have friends or form relationships with people at all. If she told them the truth they’d never know if what they were feeling around her at any given moment was real. All they’d have to go on would be her word, could they really trust that, could I? If she kept her secret she’d know that at any moment she could just change how they felt about her, manipulate them into anything she wanted. Could she resist that kind of power over them and still look someone in the eyes and say she was their friend. Not to mention how hard it would be to keep that secret over years of knowing someone.
“So Keith, were exactly are we headed? You do have some Idea where this mine you’re looking for is right?”
Bianca asked skeptically, snapping me out of my thoughts.
“Well about that…. I just know its out here in the forest somewhere. That’s pretty much all I have to go on from Frank, Stein, and that massive bartender in town.”
I told her sheepishly.
“Well that explains why you over-packed so much then. Seriously? How long do you think we we’re going to be out here, you’re packed like some kind of survivalist.”
She mocked, picking through the pack I’d made for her. After she finished rooting through the pack I made for her like some kind of giant squirrel and, chastised me yet again for not doing more research on the mine, we set off.
The forest felt imposing as we walked into the woods through a manicured patch of trees. Someone had gone to great lengths to braid a few trees over this little path before the forest turned back into its natural wild state. It gave off the feeling that civilization ended with this path and something else entirely began. As we got off the path our light faded quickly, chocked out by the limbs of massive pine trees. All this cover meant there was very little foliage on the ground which was covered in a blanket of needles. The though occurred to me that we were looking for a mine in a valley. That’s weird because what exactly would be in a valley that warranted the creation of a mine? Usually you’ll find them in mountains so what exactly was one doing out here.
“Bianca I just had a thought, Why would they build a mine out here? I mean what’s the point, is there even anything valuable out here to mine?”
“Yeah, come to think of it your right. What other reason would there be to have a mine out here?”
“Unless they were just mining from a cave but that still doesn’t answer the question of what they were…”
Bianca cut me off
“What was that first thing you said?”
“Um… mining from a cave?”
A lightbulb went off over her head as she exclaimed,
“That’s it! There’s caves under the town, I’ve heard Frank talk about them before! Maybe they didn’t have a real mine so they were just mining something out of the caves.”
“Not to burst your bubble Bianca, but that still doesn’t get us any closer to these caves or mines or whatever it is.”
I responded cautiously, trying not to sound to critical of her revelation.
“Well not exactly, Frank said they were in the East of the forest somewhere so all we have to do is head East till we run into them.”
Bianca said, full of confidence. Then something occurred to me, we had no real way of getting back to the bikes other than retracing our steps. Now that was easy enough now, if we went deeper into the woods we would get lost pretty quickly.
“One more thing Bianca, Maybe we should come up with a way to find our way out? I really don’t want to end up lost out here.”
I asked nervously, fidgeting with my hands.
“Way ahead of you on that one, I left my phone back by the bikes. Here give me yours and I’ll put my number in so you can track it and find our way back.”
She said, taking my phone, putting her number into it, and turning it to me to show she’d tracked her own phones location with it, giving us a path back to the bikes.
As we turned East and headed even deeper into the forest the terrain started to change. Instead of the pine needle coating we started to see rocks and the ground was more rugged. Here and there we’d even pass a boulder or two. I decided to break the silence of our search.
“So are you ever going to tell me how you met Frank and Stein?”
Bianca sighed before responding.
“I suppose you deserve to know if your sticking around. You probably guessed I wasn’t always living with them. Lets just say before that I was with someone who I though meant the world to me but I never meant the same to him. It was all a game to him and eventually I noticed that. Then, a little while afterwards I realized I wasn’t exactly powerless anymore and I did some things that I’m not exactly proud of to survive on my own.”
I could tell talking about this hurt her but I needed more.
“That’s not exactly telling me a whole lot Bianca.”
I pressed, maybe a little to hard.
“I found out I had powers and I used them ok! I got myself out of a situation where I was pulled so many way I didn’t know which direction was up! The second I found out I could do the same thing to people myself, I did! You’re the first person to actually seem to give a shit that wasn’t some crazy doctor that tolerates my existence or someone I just manipulated into caring! Maybe I even did that with you! I JUST DON’T KNOW ANYMORE!”
Bianca screamed at me, getting in my face with tears beginning to run down her own. Her eyes were glowing electric blue again and I knew I’d crossed a line.
“Hey I’m sorry I didn’t mean to hurt you. I… I didn’t know.”
“No.. you didn’t but I guess you should”
Bianca sniffled out, trying desperately to pull herself back together and keep up the act the everything was ok. Bianca went silent for a while as we kept walking along, crying to herself before she finally took a deep breath and said,
“You know, this is the first time someone’s asked me to come along and do something outside the house in years. I spend so much time cooped up in there just helping with experiments and looking after Rocco. It’s actually nice to get out and talk for once.”
Her voice still a lifts hoarse from screaming at me before.
“Look if you want to talk about it we’ve got nothing but time out here. I’d like to know a bit more about you anyways.”
I said taking her hand and trying to sound comforting.
“Yeah maybe I should get some of it off my chest. Here it goes I guess.”
Bianca said, taking a deep breath and tightening her grip on my hand. Her eyes still glowed faintly as she told me her story as we ventured deeper into the forest.
I’ll give you the shorter version of it here, mostly cause I’m not sure how she’d feel about me spoiling all her secrets.. She ran away from her family and her college education for a guy, his name was Brooke. Brooke was from money and had a job lined up by his family at a law firm so Bianca thought she was set for life with him. Bianca was madly in love with him at the time but as days grew into months and years, Brooke became a monster. He cheated on her and told her she wasn’t enough, that her shortcomings drove him to do it over and over again and somehow it was all her fault every time. He became abusive not long after the cheating started, flying into fits of hysteric apology afterwards only further convincing Bianca she was somehow at fault. After three years of this she eventually got up the courage to leave and never looked back. On the road she discovered her powers of manipulation, letting her play with people’s emotions and she only got better at it with time. Unfortunately her abilities got her into a very specific form of getting money out of people, prostitution. One day she tried to solicit Stein and he saw straight through her. Stein took her with him to the hotel he and Frank were staying at and they took her in on the spot. The trio traveled together ever since, Bianca becoming a kind of daughter to them.
I was in shock once she finished her story, it sounded like she’d really been through the ringer.“I don’t know what to say, that’s awful, all of it.”
“It was, I lived it. But I made it through, doesn’t matter how at the end of the day. I’ve got Frank and Stein and that’s enough, they let me into their home and I recovered in my own way, I’m still here so I’ll take what I can get right?”
Bianca stated with a cold loom of determination on her face. It was painfully obvious to me that despite the masquerade of being fine she was barley holding it together underneath. Like just talking about it with me was driving a finger into old wounds.
“At least you’ll never have to go through something like that again. With your abilities you never have to get pushed around like that.”
I said with completely no tact whatsoever. Bianca stopped suddenly as I said this and whirled around to face me. The fire I’d seen in her eyes earlier reigniting in seconds.
“Do you really think that’s all this is?! I’m no better than him, even you don’t know what you really think when you look at me! Admit ti!”
Bianca growled at me, hysterical once again.
“No, Bianca I…”
“Look I know your trying to help but just leave it, ok? I’m done talking about this”
She cut me off, pulling herself back together and signaling very clearly we were done with that particular conversation.
“Besides look over there, That hole in the rock see it? That might be what we’re looking for.”
Bianca said, gesturing to the stone wall that now jutted out of the ground beside us.
The rock wall she pointed out was chipped near the middle in a way that couldn’t have been natural. Straight lines don’t really exist in nature and this hole was cut squarely into this rock wall. As we got closer I could see that it wasn’t just an entrance either. The hole opened into the rock wall but then suddenly dropped, like whoever carved it had hit a point where the ground just fell out from under them. From where Bianca and I were looking into the hole we couldn’t quite see the bottom.
“Well we found what we were looking for, is this bringing back any memories from those dreams you had?”
Bianca asked, sounding a little short tempered still as I searched through my bag.
“What are you looking for in there?”
“Rope, I’ve got to see what’s in there and I’m hoping I brought enough to climb down there.”
I replied hurriedly, still tearing apart my bag to get to the rope I had packed underneath everything else.
“Rope? you’re not seriously going to climb down that pit are you? I can barely see down there.”
Bianca complained, sounding exasperated.
“Here, this should help you see down there.”
I said, tossing her one of the two head mounted flashlights I brought along.
“ME? I never said we were going down there!”
Bianca panicked momentarily.
“Look, you can stay up here and wait for me if you really don’t want to go down there. But I would appreciate having you to watch my back.”
I added trying to soften her up. Bianca opened her mouth like she was going to say something but stopped, instead dropping her own pack to the ground and searching through it.
“Look if I’m going down there I’m going to need something better than yoga pants on and…. You actually packed a change of clothes in here. Geez you really did think of everything.”
As Bianca took the jeans I packed and went off to find somewhere to change I finally found the rope. It was about 50 feet of strong climbing rope that I kept for an occasion just like this. Now that’s not to say I was a professional climber by any means but a 20 or 30 foot rappel I should be able to do. I was hoping that the descent wasn’t much further than that. I anchored the rope to a tree a little ways away from the hole in the rock face and tossed the rope down the hole. It hit the bottom with a satisfying thud just as Bianca got back from changing. The jeans I had packed were a little big on her but she’d manage. She looked like a mess in her ancient combat boot and jacket, all of which were too big for her. I tried to open my mouth to tell her she looked nice, I swear I really did but what came out was hyena-like laughter at her appearance.
“I…. Oh god I’m…. It’s just”
I struggled to get out, laughing all the while.
“Well I’m glad you like it at least, ok seriously come on, stop laughing.”
Bianca scolded as she began giggling herself. Soon enough we were both laughing, Bianca’s earlier storminess cleared up by the absurdity of the situation.
Here we were, a succubus and a guy with a strange mark out in the woods getting ready to rappel into a hole in the ground that apparently didn’t exist. All this was almost starting to feel… I’m not really sure how to put it, not normal but not so strange. Honestly I finally felt like I’d found some kind of purpose again out here. As weird as it all was I was starting to enjoy… this, this whole odd situation I’d found myself in. Bianca and I finally got ahold of the laughter and stood back up from our place on the ground.
“Do I really look that bad?”
She asked
“I’ve never heard you complain about your looks before. But no, with those jeans on you look like maybe, just maybe you prepared a little bit for coming out here.”
I teased, getting a little wry grin out of her.
“Come on, lets get going. Hopefully we can be in and out of there pretty quickly.”
I said, handing Bianca her pack and shouldering my own.
Rappelling in wasn’t actually all that hard, really dangerous without safety equipment sure, but neither of us had any trouble descending the maybe 20 foot drop. At the bottom I saw something that shocked me, this place wasn’t abandoned. I saw lighting set up, not on but very clearly set up recently. Bits of old mining equipment were scattered around the… cave? Mine? Im not really sure what to call it anymore. What concerned me more than anything was the light I saw at the far end of the cave (I’m settling on calling it a cave). The light came from a massive bonfire and I could just make out the shadows of several people sitting around it. I have no idea how we didn’t see the smoke on our way in. It wasn’t filling the cave but it also wasn’t coming out from anywhere I saw on the way here.
“Bianca get down!”
I whisper shouted at her, turning off my headlamp and falling flat to the ground myself. Bianca dropped to the ground as she heard me with unexpected grace. I didn’t know if those figures by the fire had seen us but I certainly wasn’t taking chances.
“Ok, I’m going to creep up and see if I can hear them talking or something. Can you just stay here and watch my back? I don’t want you getting any closer than you have to.”
I instructed Bianca who answered with a quick nod and reached into the inner pocket of her jacket. She withdrew a jeweled golden dagger from it.
“I sorry, what’s this now?”
I asked, confused and thrown off guard by the weapon. It was a really beautiful blade, the hilt was silver with several purple gems inlaid in it. The blade was golden save for the razor sharp edge which was some kind of strange blue material that was roughly the same color Blanca’s eyes glowed.
“I had a life before this you know.”
Bianca responded.
“Yeah we talked about it but you didn’t really tell me much about this part apparently. Doesn’t matter I guess just surprised you have Jeff Bezos’s butter knife in your jacket pocket.”
I whispered, pointing at the dagger in her hand.
“Well we can talk more about how I ended up with this later, not really the time now. Just be careful ok.”
I got up as she said this, realizing she was right. Now really wasn’t the time to be asking about strange daggers, I had more pressing issues.
I crouched down and started creeping towards the figures by the bonfire, careful to avoid the rusty machinery bits scattered across the ground. As I got closer I saw a passage I had missed in the dark. I dared to turn my headlamp on for just a second, trying to block out most of the light with my hand. What I saw through the dim light and shadows of my finger left me awestruck. Inside the passage a coliseum had been constructed, with seats carved into the stone. The structure itself was made up of the rusted metal pieces that littered the room, collected and smelted together to form the walls of the structure. What frightened me the most was the symbol clearly and meticulously drawn on the dirt floor, the same symbol that adorned my back, the symbol of the thunderbird. Moving on, more shaken than ever I crept closer still to the roaring bonfire. I could just about make out the words the figures were saying. When I got close enough to make out the word “tests” the fire suddenly went out with a gust of wind.The room temperature must have dropped 10 degrees immediately and I could swear I heard the sounds of heavy rain above us. But the sudden lack of light isn’t what rooted me in place, cowering on the cave floor. What did that was the two illuminated grey eyes that pierced through the darkness like lightning in a storm, eyes I would never forget, the eyes of the woman from Imalone.
This time I clearly heard the voices of the figures from around the bonfire as they all dropped to their knees.
“Shaoni! We weren’t expecting you till later, Stormcaller.”
The figures all said some variation of in unison. Their tone sounding almost as though they were begging for forgiveness. In a voice that hissed like rain on pavement the woman apparently named Shaoni spoke.
“I’ve come to oversee the start of the trials, is everything prepared?”
In one bone chilling moment her eyes locked on mine and she said the one thing I’d hoped she wouldn’t.
“You didn’t tell me we had guests.”
The moment the words left her lips I turned back to where Bianca was waiting, her now glowing eyes cutting through the darkness of the cave. Giving up any form of subtly, I bolted for the rope behind Bianca. I just wanted to be out of this cave, whatever I might learn from searching around was far outweighed by the fact that Shaoni was here. I’d seen the kind of destruction she’d left in her wake in Imalone and I had no desire to see it happen again here. I banged my ankle on several of the little bits of rusty metal on the floor as I ran, sending sparks of pain up my leg. I didn’t hear anything behind me at all which was almost more unnerving than the footsteps I expected to hear. I closed in on Bianca and saw she hadn’t moved at all, her eyes fixed on something behind me. I dared to take a quick glance back over my shoulder and saw Shaoni taking her first step away from the extinguished bonfire. Lightning crackled around her like one of those novelty plasma globes. In the flashes of light I could see her face. There was no smile or frown, no emotion at all. She simply stared straight ahead towards me and took slow calm steps, inching ever closer.
“Bianca we’ve got to go… NOW!”
I shouted, snapping her to attention. She nodded and turned on her heels, back toward the rope we’d thrown in earlier. Only, when we got to the rope and gave it a tug, it came falling back toward us.
“There’s no way. I…I anchored it to that tree, it should’ve held!”
I cried in disbelief. Bianca and I starred up at the now stormy sky through the hole we would’ve escaped from. Two men walked into view on either side of the hole, glowering down at us. I notice a marking on one of the men’s hands in a flash of lightning from the storm. I could only assume if I was able to make it out I would’ve seen a marking just like the one on my back. Just as soon as the men had appeared a shape flew in from the left with a low growl, taking both men along with it.
“Ok, new plan! There’s something else up there and I really don’t want to get involved with… whatever that was either. I didn’t see any footprints near the entrance so I’m assuming those guys we saw by the bonfire got in another way. We’re just going to have to find where that was and get out that way.”
I instructed Bianca, gesturing to the men in toe with Shaoni and trying not to sound as afraid as I was.
“Ok, I’m with you but lets get moving, I don’t want to any closer to her than I have to be.”
Bianca answered, putting her hand on my shoulder. I suddenly felt a wave of calm rush over me and for the second time I was grateful for Bianca’s ability to simply turn off my fear response.
Shaoni now stood about 50 feet from us with four men following behind her. In the light she gave off I could see the men were all dressed like normal people. I kind of figured they would be more of those canvas wrapped weirdos from Imalone but no. There stood four men in jeans and flannels standing there. Shaoni looked like she could’ve stepped right out of a painting of Pocahontas. She wore an animal hide dress with frills along the bottom and arms. Her head was adorned with a leather band containing several hawk feathers. In short she looked like she’d stepped out of a different time. But I had no time to look over the finer details of her clothing as Bianca and I rushed towards her. Once we got within striking distance I pulled Bianca to the left, towards the passage I had seen earlier. Shaoni never made a move towards us, she just simply looked at me, the ghost of a smile briefly crossing her lips. One of the men with her grabbed at Bianca though, pulling her out of my grasp momentarily. That was a mistake because she was on him immediately with the ornate dagger I’d seen before. As the man grabbed her Bianca lashed out with the dagger, sticking him in the gut with the blade. He screamed in anguish and let go of her but Bianca wasn’t done yet. She followed up by stabbing the man in the back of the neck as he bent over, grabbing at the hole in his abdomen. The other three men were so taken aback by the sudden ferocity she displayed that they didn’t come any closer. As time stood still for a second the men all looked toward Shaoni, awaiting instructions but hesitant to get any closer to Bianca. Using the brief moment of disbelief Bianca had caused, we ran down the side passage towards the coliseum.
“What was that?”
I asked, still shocked by how suddenly Bianca had acted.
“He tried to grab me, I don’t like when they try to grab me”
Bianca responded, distant and… scared? I got the sense she was still in shock at what she had done too. But I couldn’t worry about that right now, we still had to get out of here. Luckily the men didn’t seem to be following us. Wether Shaoni called them off or they stopped to care for their friend I didn’t know, and frankly I didn’t care.
Rushing through the rusty coliseum was haunting. I expected something to jump out of every shadow in the imposing structure. As we slowed to a jog in the middle of the coliseum, right where that eagle symbol was, we stopped to look around. We had come into this arena through an open arch but the only other exit I could see was a similar but barred archway. The coliseum was huge for something constructed in a cave, probably 400 feet across. I had no idea how this thing could’ve been made without anybody finding out.
“Bianca are you seeing anyway out of here? Bianca!”
I asked, then shouted as I turned to see her standing still as a statue in the middle of the Eagle symbol. She was staring at the dagger she had stabbed that man with. Blood still stained the blade and dripped from it intermittently.
“Bianca are you alright?”
I questioned as I walked over to her. She still had this look in her eyes, like she was miles away.
“Bianca? Come on talk to me. Look, you did what you had to do back there, sure it wasn’t exactly pretty but it had to be done.”
I tried to comfort her with my words but the truth is, my heart just wasn’t in it. I was a little scared of what I saw from her in those few moments. She just lashed out and attacked him, not that he didn’t deserve it but going back for more was too much. But what would’ve happened if she didn’t act? It’s not something I could really dwell on now and I’m not sure it really mattered. I just wasn’t feeling all that great about the fact we may have killed someone.
“I don’t like it when they grab me.”
Bianca finally repeated, still appearing catatonic. I leaned down to her level, putting my face right in-front of her’s and putting her head in between my hands.
“Bianca I know enough to know that whole situation may have dug up some memories for you but nows really not the time. We have to keep moving, we have to find a way out of here, and I can’t do that without you right now.”
Bianca tensed up as I spoke to her, but I could feel her relax as I finished. A single tear fell from her eye as she gave me a nod and followed behind me as I walked toward the barred off archway.
Before I made it to the archway there was a massive crash as something tore the rusty bars from their mountings and fell into the room.
“Tuck?!”
I exclaimed, recognizing his colossal figure on the floor immediately. His shirt and pants were torn to shreds though, Like he’d flexed too hard and burst out of his clothes. Bianca and I rushed over to check on him but apparently he was fine. Before we even started walking towards him he was already back up on his feet and lumbering towards us.
“Tuck what are you doing here? Actually never mind, are you ok?”
I asked, concern in my voice.
“It’s going to take more than this to stop me son. I figured you might go looking for that old mine I mentioned the other night so I came to find you. I feel real bad about ya run’in off the way ya did and I got to thinking. Maybe I could make it up to ya if I told ya about the mine. So I came out here and found some shady look’in fellas poking around and figured maybe ya needed help, looks like I was right.”
Tuck explained, dusting himself off and brushing away some of the tattered remains of his shirt. I didn’t buy his story for a second but I wasn’t going to argue with this bear of a man.
“So how did you get in anyway?”
“Used the old entrance from back when this place was still run’in, come on I’ll lead ya out.”
Tuck answered, already turning and walking back the way he came.
The walk out was long and none of us talked much so I just looked around. The further we walked down this little tunnel the more I noticed crushed equipment. The walls looked like they were made up of bits and pieces of crumbled rock that may have once been the ceiling of a much bigger tunnel here.
“There was a collapse, just like the report said only, whatever caused it wasn’t any fault of ours. It was that damn thunderbird waking up.”
Tuck piped up, answering one question and making me ask another.
“Wait you knew about her?!”
“All the miners did, some decided to follow her after she woke up and brought the walls down on us. Others wanted revenge for the brothers we lost, I’m one of the former. You see son, the reason I stayed around this town so long was because of that bird. I want a chance to return the favor.”
“But what about Robert? If you hate the thunderbird so much why’d you let him in? You had to see that tattoo on his hand.”
“I know he thinks that damned bird will “save” him or something but I don’t blame him. Everyone deals with things in their own way and it’s not my place to judge folk for it.”
Tuck lectured, as we made our way further down the passage. His words made sense to me but I didn’t understand how he could be so understanding. From what I understood the thunderbird had a part to play in the original mine’s collapse and the death of the workers there. Only for some of the survivors to revere this creature. If I were in Tuck’s shoes I don’t think I could forgive and forget.
Finally we saw light at the end of the tunnel. We emerged into the whispers of what I’m sure was a monster of a storm. But that’s not what drew my attention, what did were the boulders scattered around the hole we just came out of. It looked like they had been moved, and recently. The suspicious red stain just barley peaking out from the bottom of one of them only served to convince me further. Tuck’s story didn’t quite make sense and this entrance seemed like it should’ve been blocked up until very recently. I wasn’t about to question the guy who saved us though, so I let the issue rest.
Bianca’s idea of tracking her phone to find our way to the bikes worked like a charm. We followed the directions my phone spit at us and eventually found our way back to the bikes. Tuck’s old Ford Bronco sat behind our bikes leaving me to question if he followed us on our way here.
“Well do you kids want a ride back to town?”
Tuck asked, his voice bellowing across the forest. Seriously it was like the guy swallowed a loudspeaker at some point and just spoke through it now.
“No we’ll find our own way back.”
“Alrighty then, stay safe son.”
Tuck called back to me as he got into his truck and drove off. Bianca and I stood up our bikes and got ready to head back to town.
“Hey Keith?”
“Yeah what is it Bianca?”
“Next time you offer to bring me along somewhere can you warn me about the damn thunderbird that seems to just show up around you.”
I laughed at this, it was nice to see Bianca joking around again. After what happened in the caves she seemed like someone else, none of her usual cheeriness was there. Not that I knew if that was what she wanted me to see from her or how she actually presented herself but still. I trusted her enough at this point to assume she wasn’t using her abilities to mess with my head.
When we got back to Bianca’s house the sun was just beginning to set, washing the town in shades of purple, orange, and red. We walked the bikes around to their place behind the house and I walked Bianca back to the front door.
“Thanks for today Keith,I don’t… get out very much anymore and it was… nice… to do something other than sit around the house for once. You know, despite everything that happened it was actually fun.”
I was taken aback by her words at first. If it was me I’d immediately want nothing to do with this person who just put me in danger.
“You had fun? The thunderbird showed up again and we may have killed a guy and you had fun?”
I asked, raising and eyebrow suspiciously.
“Can we not talk about that right now? Anyways I don’t exactly have a high bar for what is and isn’t fun at this point. I’ll see you later Keith.”
Bianca said, cracking a smile and walking into her house.
I was about halfway back to my own house when I realized she never gave me my backpack back. Well, looks like I’d be seeing her again then because I need that stuff back. I wasn’t sure what to think about what I’d seen today. If the thunderbird was in those mines years ago why did she end up in Wisconsin? There was also a very real possibility some people in this town worshipped her so I’d have to keep an eye out for that. The really interesting thing to me was the Shaoni never seemed to want to hurt me in the cave today. She was terrifying as all hell sure, but I didn’t get the sense that she wanted to cause me any sort of harm. If she wanted to do that my gut told me she would’ve done it quickly and efficiently.
Thunder suddenly cracked outside, interrupting my train of thought. As I stood up to see what time it was a knock came from the front door. I froze, who exactly could it be? I doubt Bianca would come over, I don’t think she even knows where I live but maybe she came by to drop off the backpack she absconded with? The knock came again, more forcefully this time.
“I’m coming, I’m coming!”
I shouted, as I jogged to the door. My heart dropped as soon as I opened it, On the other side of the door stood Shaoni. She was dressed normally for once, wearing a long flowing white nightgown. Shaoni stepped into my house as she cooed in her usual misty voice.
“Good evening. Keith was it? We have much to discuss.”

WARNING ITS LONG.
Here are my ideas for the deep north and what I think it will be like
It’ll be similar to the Ashlands, where it will most likely be cut off from the sea and you’ll have to sail there, you’ll have to navigate icebergs, big and small and once you land there you’ll have to deal with cracks in the ice that you’ll have to navigate or create platforms to get across from place to place however, these gaps are not large, and can be jumped across with some difficulty but some gaps will need to be crossed using other methods of which there are many, similar to the lava, you will not want to enter the frigid cold waters of the deep north. There will be large mountainous terrain, large portions of flat land similar to the Plains, large rocks similar to the mist lands, combining a lot of aspects from multiple biomes and a lot of stuff, they’ve learned from the previous biomes when making the game to create this final one, because it has to be different from anything else and not just like the mountains.
The storms will be dangerous because it will slow you down and you won’t be able to see much because of the snowstorm Very similar to the mist in the mist lands, there will be portions of the land in the deep north that will have deep snow similar to the water in the swamp, which will make your movements sluggish, and if you go deep enough in the deep snow, you won’t be able to attack properly or at all if too deep.
I feel like in the deep north there will be even more worship for a god or something or someone then other biomes like the Ashlands had so for that reason, I think will see a lot of temples and ruins of worship as well
I personally think the boss will be different than any other boss we’ve fought before and for that reason, I think it will most likely be a serpent of some kind, and the mechanics, for it will use a similar item to the balsalt bomb To create new platforms to stand on, that the boss will break, however if the boss runs into enough of these platforms that you create, it will be stunned allowing for Melee, which is what it will be weak against the most, and it will be resistant to Pierce so that it is possible to kill it with ranged attacks, but it won’t be the most fast or effective way and you’ll want to use the mechanics of stunning it to take it down quicker.
It’ll have attacks which include ranged attacks, A whirlpool attack, charging attacks, wave attacks to knock you off your platform into the water, where you would end up getting damaged if you stay long enough in it and a frost debuff 5sec even if you get out quickly.
New accessory Belt of Eternal Emerald Flame craft by using the megingjord & the new boss item from the Ashland to keep you warm in the deep north without it, you freeze to death, it’ll be similar to the strength belt already in the game but you’ll be able to upgrade it later by unlocking a new crafting upgrade for the black forge in the deep north by using the gems to add new powers based on your Play style.
The blood gem will give you increased defense the lower your health is by 0.2%
Ancient lords belt The jade gem I will give you 100% stamina regen when you apply a Immobilized affect
Storm lords belt The lightning gem Will give you 100% eitr regen during storms, add an additional 25% to all lightning damage
Two new gems will be added an ice and a fire one
The fire gem based around attack speed and fire damage related
Ice gem based around preserving and extending the durations of buffs and ice damage related
They will add in new weapons to fill out the rest of the weapon categories that do not have gem upgrades like the atgeir, battle axes, knives, Shields and sledgehammers
which will add 20 new weapons plus an additional 4 New shields and another additional 14 new fire, and ice gemmed weapons for the previous category of weapon types from Ashland, which is not counting any new staffs or individual new weapons
They will add one brand, new armor set, but add in customized upgraded variants for the deep north armor and variants the three armor sets from the Ashland similar to the gem upgrading to provide players with more variation in their place style and builds and cool new looks
The blood gem armor set Will provide an additional 15 base health, her blood armor piece, and if wearing a full set, will bump it up to 25+ base health per armor piece
The jade gem armor set will provide a similar 15 additional base stamina, and with a full set being 25+ base stamina per piece
The lolite gem armor set will provide a similar 15 additional base eitr and increasing it to 25+ base eitr with a full set
The fire gem armor set provides a increased attack speed at the cost of increased calories giving a 5% increase to attack speed And if wearing a full set, will give you a 8.33% increase to attack speed, but will consume your food at twice the normal speed meaning your food duration is cut in half
The ice gem armor set provides a chilled slower metabolism, allowing you to maintain longer durations for your food and a longer rested buff increasing by 25% per piece and 33% for a full set
A new resource that must be harvested however, it is encased in a very thick durable layer of ice and I must be broken with a new siege weapon a flamethrower, Or if you were lucky enough to get dyrnwyn it’ll be slightly less effective at melting ice, or if you have a staff of embers, which will be the least effective method at clearing the ice.
They will also be new fortresses to conquer in the deep north which will require any of the previous siege weapons however, the new flamethrower will be more effective at breaking down specific areas of the fortress that are more weak to fire, allowing for quicker entry to the fortress, these new fortresses will have a dungeon inside them as well, more akin to a temple
There will be the Dvergr outposts there as well, holding some of the new resources
New enemies: ice golem ( slightly larger, with more variety of attacks, including a wave of ice spikes, shooting ice spikes)
Freezling spiders made of what looks to be a hard like Crystaline ice and it’s cold to the touch, they’re the size of a neck, and will run away unless attacked or approached closely enough(similar to boars), and a queen mini boss providing you their eggs, so you can breed them to Farm their silk
iceling (similar to surtlings),
woolly lox(slightly bigger and fluffier with horns, spawning in families pairs of 2-5 with a minimum of 1 parent and 1 baby, and a maximum of 2 parent and 3 babies)
The chilled(similar to the charred but they look like frozen heavily armored Draugr but move much slower, but are capable of very fast bursts of speed to catch you off guard with more erratic movements, making them more unpredictable, also able to phase out into particles of snow, and then reappear closer to you ready to attack) Variants include a great sword and great shield commander variant, A crossbow variant, and a standard battle axe variant.
The commander can rally his troops that are at 20% Hp to provide healing similar to the gray dwarf shaman, but is capable of being interrupted, if hit hard enough resulting in low morale debuff to his troops, reducing their damage, and attacking less frequently by 25%
Phantoms (similar to ghosts and wraiths but more dangerous wielding a sword and capable of magic, however have a weakness they guard their remains slightly below the ground, if located using the wishbone and unearthing their remains allowing for an easy kill)
A new Miniboss providing you with a new tame being the woolly lox. The Miniboss will be a alpha version of the woolly lox where you enter a ruined building It was using as its home to gain access to its children and new food, which can be tamed so you can start breeding them, and a rare new plantable food frost berries that the alpha woolly lox left to feed her kids, which you can now plant to now used to tame other baby woolly lox aswell and cooking recipes, and you can also milk your woolly lox’s too
A new serpent, based off the hatchlings of the new boss serpent similar to the Drake hatchlings of Moder which will roam the seas of the deep north
Adolescent Drake hatchlings about 2 to 3 times bigger than the ones you seen the mountain and are also the children of moder but have grown up more and have moved to the deep north, they can also land on the ground and do attacks similar to moder
A new food resource that you mine: salt
New lighting options using each of the gems also a variety of candles,
A new king size bed,
A new chest providing one extra row on the bottom, or being the same storage size as a black metal chest but smaller allowing for more to be placed in a similar area,
A new chair,
A new bench and throne,
A new table,
more color variety for banners with more colors and shapes,
three new rugs woolly lox rug, chilled fortress rug, ????,
more gold decorations to bling bling up your base,
New shotgun staffs for each element,
New pots or vases,
More flametal building pieces like a smaller door and variants of all the grausten pillars and beams,
New spike walls,
New foods,
New potions,
New arrows
A new portal that allows for the transportation of tames,
New ornaments to put on your buildings, new ones preferably made of metal
A new smaller windmill that doesn’t have to be outside that uses dvergr Technology to run without needing wind, and is able to hold more barley

If you love this type of style where your like "wtf was that drop is's so f**king good and different", check out some of these songs as they have similar "wtf/awesome/mad drops".
Just copy the line of the song and youtube will just find the song (sorry I have not tailored this to spotify) :
Pendulum - The Island - Pt. I (Dawn) [Skrillex Remix]
RÜFÜS - Innerbloom (What So Not Remix)
Illusionize & Shapeless - TIME (I have a feeling you will love this, melty nights and completely gooey!)
Chase & Status - Don't Be Scared (Official Music Video) ft. Takura AC Slater - Bass Inside Wolfgang Gartner & Kill The Noise - Battlestations (F**KING AWESOME AND FUN TRACK! MY SECRET WEAPON TO SHOW PEOPLE!) Don Diablo - People Say ft. Paije Don Diablo - Head Up ft. James Newman GTA - Red Lips feat. Sam Bruno (Skrillex Remix) Loopers - I'm Heavy Mumbai Power (feat. Beam)-Skrillex SCARY MONSTERS & NICE SPRITES (KASKADE REMIX) - SKRILLEX (Just wait for the drop man, it's great and you probably won't have heard it before!) Skrillex, Noisia, josh pan & Dylan Brady - Supersonic (My Existence) Crystal Castles - Not In Love ft. Robert Smith of The Cure Lane 8 - Is This Our Earth? RL Grime - Core Getter - Head Splitter Dog Blood - BREAK LAW Danny L Harle & DJ Danny - On A Mountain (Flume Remix) Flume - Slugger 1.4 [2014 Export.WAV] Knock2 - dashstar* Shotgun Radio - A Bad Place (feat. Mimi Page) (Minnesota Remix) (My favorite track for years!) Chris Lake - I Want You (Just wait for the drop.) Knock2 - dashstar* (VIP) [NIGHTMODE] LOOPERS - I'm Odd Knock2 - REWiND [NIGHTMODE] Skrillex, Missy Elliott, & Mr. Oizo - RATATA Sibewest - Deprived Flume - Go Skrillex & Mr. Oizo - RATATA (KREAM Remix) ft. Missy Elliot (KREAM is killa, check them out. A lot of their stuff is signature sound). ANYMA X GRIMES – WELCOME TO THE OPERA (I know the Anyma synth plucks are going around at the moment but if you haven't heard this sound design it would still be mind tingly.) Tobiahs - Lifetime Martin Garrix - Animals (Of course! ;) )
For songs that have different alternative sounding drops which aren't as insanely different from what you usually hear but are still different sounding drops which are great check out:
Seven Lions - Isis Vicetone - Nevada (feat. Cozi Zuehlsdorff) Birdy Nam Nam - "Goin' In (Skrillex "Goin' Hard" Mix)"
Tchami - "Adieu" OFFICIAL VERSION
Martin Garrix & Troye Sivan - There For You (Official Instrumental) (The original is still "f**king dope! too! Marty has often unique sounding songs and pretty much made his own style of sound!)
Martin Garrix & Dua Lipa - Scared To Be Lonely (Official Instrumental) (Dua was kinda gaining popularity but i feel this was the song that really skyrocketed her into the limelight, the original with her lyrics is still so good!)
Tchami - Shot Caller (Badass madness!)
Lights & Music · Cut Copy (Awesome track, classic for me growing up and just decent for the time it came out!) Martin Garrix & Mesto - Limitless
Nero - Reaching Out
Martin Garrix & Brooks - Quantum
Martin Garrix & Zedd - Follow (F**king great track! Take risks my friend! ;) )
Flume - Say It (feat. Tove Lo) (Illenium Remix) David Guetta, Martin Garrix & Brooks - Like I Do
Bondax - Gold (Snakehips Bootleg) (More chill and not so party party but awesome drop!) Brooks & GRX - Boomerang (GRX is Martin Garrix's alternate stage name.) Martin Garrix & Florian Picasso - Make Up Your MindWarriors Dance - The ProdigyFuji Opener (feat. Alvin Risk)TroyBoi - Do You?Dog Blood - Next OrderOops · Martin Garrix Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike vs. W&W – Arcade (Extended Mix) Savant - Living iPod (Definitely going to love or hate it but it's fun, especially if your a major gamer like me!) Mr FijiWiji - Let The Sky Fall Down Martin Garrix & Jay Hardway Dua Lipa - Don't Start Now (PØNTES Remix) (Awesome, awesome remix and you won't have heard it!) Knock2 - dashstar* (Yellow Claw Trap Edit) [NIGHTMODE] Knock2 - Are U Feelin Me (Ft. DEV) [NIGHTMODE] Shadow Lady · Portwave GRADES - King
For songs which i've come across which are so different from what you'd usually hear but are a complete vibe because they arent "typical sounding" (not saying anything's right or wrong) these are great:
nekoi- exist (Don't be a peeping teemo!) Deadmau5 - Pomogrenate (Original Instrumental)
BICEP ATLAS BICEP OPAL (FOUR TET REMIX)
BICEP APRICOTS (This is really, really different but a phenomenal track. Just be in a good mindset because it's a fricking intense track but really dope!) DJ DIFFERENT - Angels
RITCHRD - PARIS (make sure to check it out on "yotsu"' youtube channel as it's got a cool anime clip!) San Holo - bb u ok? (Drop's great and it's different! Good vibes.)
Kendrick Lamar - HUMBLE. (Skrillex Remix) (I don't listen to rap and i f**king frothed this for ages!)
RL Grime, What So Not, and Skrillex - Waiting
RL Grime x Utada Hikaru - Simple To Know [Flipboitamidles Mashup] (Just a feel good song. Your gonna like it or not!)
Deadmau5 & Kaskade - I Remember (Mr FijiWiji Remix/Cover ft. Laura Brehm)
Guy Gerber - What To Do (&ME Remix)
BICEP JUST
BICEP GLUE
BICEP MELI (II) (Live at Love Saves The Day)
Gemini - Fire Inside (Mr. FijiWiji Remix)
The Presets - My People
BICEP SAKU (FEAT. CLARA LA SAN) RL Grime - Pressure Mitch Murder - The Touch Knock2 - SPEAK up! Mt. Wolf - Life Size Ghosts (Catching Flies Remix)Jonas Mantey - Frei Tom Day - Going Home Fracx - In Your Memory Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number Soundtrack - Run
Parallel Universe · Franky Wah
&ME - The Rapture Pt.II
Keinemusik (Rampa, Adam Port, &ME) - Muyè
Danger - 0:59 Danger - 6:24 (from Furi original soundtrack)
Danger - 7:53 (from Furi original soundtrack)
Marie Davidson - 'Work It (Soulwax Remix)' (Hilarious track, defs different.) Lacchesi & Mac Declos - Give It To Me (Nelly X-Rated Edit) Ytram & Citadelle - Alive &ME, Black Coffee - The Rapture Pt.III (Also check out Pt.1 & Pt 2. for &ME) Amanati x Roniit - Slow (Oh lover lover!) Phelian - Liturgy (F**king love this track! So good for introspection at night!) Artist's I really, really love as personal preference that are so good:
SIBEWEST // Because of you (F**king love this guy, he's so damn good and so my jam!)
Kazukii // Pull
Kazukii - Need
Grimes - So Heavy I Fell Through the Earth (I love this track and grimes has really grown on me slowly and slowly. If you don't know who the artist is it was Elon Musk's most recent wife (you know the richest guy/might still be the richest guy in the world! The comment that i just saw checking it now about the track is: "just learned that this song is about Grimes being pregnant “It’s about getting pregnant,” she said. “The sort of tragedy of agreeing to it, even though it’s this great thing. For a girl, it’s sacrificing your body and your freedom. It’s a pretty crazy sacrifice and only half of the population has to do it.”"
Please, Stay-Matthieu Faubourg KAZUKII // Return Nero - The Thrill Monrroe Ft. Emily Makis - Never Too Old Arle - Close To You (Icarus Edit) Carpenter Brut - Paradise Warfare (Pretty awesome track, Carpenter Brut is great but dark and intense. Really suggest you play this for yourself instead of randomly showing it to someone. Could put them in a bad headspace if they are tripping bells. You will know what I mean by the end of the track!) Le Matos - Montrose (Le Matos are one of my all time favorites, incredibly underrated going by what you see on youtube!)
Kashuks - Universe
Mononoid - Protoplasm (Original Mix)Moby -- After (Drumsound & Bassline Smith Remix)
Banks - Warm Water (Snakehips Remix) Third ≡ Party - Without You (I love this track, makes me feel so good and the statues are so deep! Look up the burning man wire adult and children statues with the adults with the kids inside!) Kazukii - Tension Franky Wah - Love Me (Official Audio) (Extended Mix) Kaneki サウンド - Evening With U Neon Indian - Polish Girl (Indie electronic more so but still great, loved this back in the day!) Amelie Lens - Hypnotized (My favorite techno artist! So good!) Franky Wah - Cry No More (Audio) Grimes - New Gods Skrillex - The Reason Skrillex - Leaving Skrillex & Wiwek - Killa ft Elliphant
Mr FijiWiji - Sentry (Great song with unique sound design though a bit sad sounding. Love to Wiji my Fiji!) Awesome - The Bloody Beetroots
ARTBAT, Shall Ocin feat. braev - Origin Golden Features - 'Touch (feat. Rromarin) (F**CKING SO GOOD AND STILL UNSEEN! OMG FAVORITE TRACK PROBABLY OF ALL TIME!) Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites (Blueshift's Synthwave Cover) (This is a GREAT COVER if you love the original and synthwave.) Skrillex - Scary Monsters And Nice Sprites (Radar Detector Remix) Katana ZERO OST - Hit The Floor (Extended) UPGRADE-OFFL1NX FISHER - You Little Beauty (SCNDL VIP Club Edit) (Get your filth on son! If you love fishy, guarantee you will love this pure debauchery and raunchery!) Sewerslvt - Mr. Kill Myself Sewerslvt - Pretty Cvnt Sewerslvt - Newlove ZHU - Palm of My Hand Deadmau5 - Aural Psynapse (Mr FijiWiji Remix) Deadmau5 - Strobe (Mr FijiWiji Remix) THE OTHERS' (Radio Edit) TV ROCK Vs Dukes Of Windsor [HQ] (Just wait for the drop mang!) Amelie Lens - Drift Crystal Castles - Baptism M.O.O.N. - 'Hydrogen' (Try not to fry someone with this track.) SebastiAn - Kindercut Sebastian - Tetra NYC Beat (Radio Edit) · Armand Van Helden FKA twigs x Skrillex - Ego Death (Yoseppi's Club Edit)(Pretty much just my favorite parts of the original.) Pizza · Martin Garrix Skrillex - Kyoto (Extended) SKRILLEX - RIGHT ON TIME (12TH PLANET & KILL THE NOISE) Flume ft. Vera Blue - Rushing Back (Ekko & Sidetrack Bootleg) No Time-LastlingsI've Got You · Lastlings Lastlings - I've Got You (Rinzen Remix / Audio) Take My Hand (Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs Sky Remix) · Lastlings Lastlings - Out Of Touch (CRi Remix / Visualizer) Lastlings - False Reactions (X CLUB. Remix / Official Audio) Lastlings - Last Breath (Adult Art Club Remix / Audio) Lastlings - Out Of Touch (Paraleven Remix) Lastlings - Deja VuLions in the Wild - Martin Garrix · Third Party Grimes & i_o - Violence deadmau5 - Monophobia (feat. Rob Swire) [Official Video] Chase & Status - Mixed Emotions SHDOW - Spirit. Heatwave · SBTRKT (This guys amazing!) Pharoahs - SBTRKTWildfire - SBTRKTSo Far Away · Lazerhawk Martin Garrix - Poison Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike vs. W&W – Arcade (Extended Mix) If I Know You (Tom Middleton Remix) · The Presets Sneaky Sound System - It's Not My Problem (Thin White Duke Mix) Netsky - Memory Lane Deadmau5 - Ghosts N Stuff (Nero Remix) Golden Features - Worship Dimitri Vangelis & Wyman X Steve Angello - Payback (Original Mix) Martin Garrix & David Guetta - So Far Away Madeon - Finale (Netsky Remix) RL Grime & What So Not - Tell Me RL Grime - I Wanna Know feat. Daya Lane 8 - Survive feat. Channy Leaneagh (Bit of an Anthem when your going through a rough time!) MALO - March of Progress The Presets - Talk Like That I Will Be Here [Wolfgang Gartner Remix Edit] - Tiësto, Sneaky Sound System Electric Youth - The Best Thing Knock2 - PARANOiD Le Matos - Light Again feat. Electric Youth Le Matos - Sarah Knock2 - gettin' hott MIAMI NIGHTS 1984 - Saved By The Bell Matrix Reloaded Rave (Zion Dance Party) - Aphrodite Mix (Awesome mix, great when your Hiding the bishop"Fluke - ZionPorter Robinson - Language STRLGHT - Where Do We Go Helax - Tell Me, Tell Me Lights & Music · Cut Copy Cristian Collodoro – Temperature Remix Follow The Storm · Gauthier Bloc Party - One More Chance (Alex Metric Remix) Kasbo - I Get You ft. Lizzy Land (Fakear Remix) Stranger - House Party (AC Slater Remix) Ravager · VIME Grum feat. Electric Youth - Turn It Up Mr FijiWiji - You Worry Enough Hidden Face - Cold Night Pendulum - Witchcraft (Rob Swire's Drumstep Mix) Sublab - In My Blood (feat. Mads) Skrillex, PinkPantheress & Trippie Redd - Way Back Alan Braxe, Fred Falke - You'll Stay In My Heart (Instrumental) [2023 Remaster] Something In The Water X Skepta W O L F C L U B - Tears 3DS Internet Settings · マドロスMERCURY Rules - A Little More Love (Bootleg Edit) Womack & Womack - Teardrops (Rules Remix) Rico 56 x Korzana x twofaced. - Strangers [NIGHTMODE] Kavinsky - Cameo feat. Kareen Lomax KAVINSKY - NightcallKavinsky - Zenith (Someone on youtube was saying this is supposed to be the spiritual successor to Night Call)Playtime Is Over by Le Matos - Studio Session for Mondopalooza Danger - 22:41 Portal · Rebuke Doja Cat - Streets (MCG Remix) The Chase (Rebūke Remix) THAT KIND - Here Comes The Rain Again (Nalestar Remix) RÜFÜS DU SOL - On My Knees (Adriatique Remix)

Hi, I know some of you have been interested in Joost’s written stuff, so this is one of them. It’s a short story that Joost wrote for Boekenweek voor Jongeren (Book Week for Young People) in 2019. There’s more info about it here (in Dutch) https://www.vice.com/nl/article/qvgzpv/joost-klein-schreef-een-kort-verhaal-over-een-wilde-nacht-in-berlijn and there was also this promo video for it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wx7wxnpxps0. It's been translated from Dutch - maybe not the most perfect translation but it's readable. Original in Dutch here. Enjoy

"How come he suddenly has cash?" I looked at Gurb, but he avoided my gaze. Louis never had money and yet he was buying another round. Meanwhile, a Moby song was playing and nothing made sense. "If he has money for drinks, he can surely pay me back, right?"
Just a few hours ago, I was alone in Berlin. Now, ten hours later, I'm standing in some obscure techno club with my best friends. Loud rock music with drunken shouting. "Hey, Miss Murder, can I make beauty stay if I take my life?" I woke up that day with a mild hangover from the lonely yet people-filled night before. Perfect conditions for a 20-year-old dropout.
The Hard Rock Café was the most beautifully ugly place in Berlin. Gurb had driven for seven hours straight in his mother's car, but we didn't notice. An iconic black Mini Cooper. Your body leads your mind, the beat never stops, and you can conquer the world. Louis threw in another crazy dance move. We were happy.
"Do you want another drink, brother?" Gurb asked me, half shouting. An evening filled with rhetorical questions. He saw me dancing and already knew the answer.
Gurb always had money. Louis, on the other hand, never did. Louis was also the youngest of us three. He had just turned 18. I wouldn't call him a cunning fox. More like a jack-of-all-trades. Like the time he made a lot of money on a Wadden Island with a group of boys. They sold large blocks of hash.
"Crazy dude!" I shouted at him. He yelled something back.
"Do you remember back then?" Louis said.
"Back then? Back then? Yeah man, of course!" I had no idea what he meant. "Do you mean the party?"
"Do you mean the party, he says! This guy. When I look at you like this, it makes me happy. The exact same kid is here letting loose just like back in high school!"
We knew each other from secondary school. He joined when I was in the second grade. He was very intelligent. Too young, too much knowledge of the world. His mother is from Brazil. We often went to his mother's place to play on the Playstation Louis and I had bought together.
I lived everywhere at that time. In the crisis shelter where I stayed for a while, for example, I wasn't allowed to have a Playstation. So we set it up in an accessible place, near school. It was always fun with Louis. Going together to the Apple Store. Taking all kinds of photos with all the webcams, posting them on Hyves, and then leaving. Louis always knew how to cheer me up.
"Aaaaaaaaaa!" There was Gurb with five drinks in his hands. Gurb was wearing a blue checkered shirt. Two buttons undone. Hair slicked back. "You look good, brother!"
"You look fresh too! We all look fresh!" Gurb said enthusiastically. Louis was wearing a completely white outfit. We quickly bought this before going out. He also bleached his hair.
"You look like the Brazilian cousin of James Dean in these clothes," I said. Louis laughed. "Let me take a picture."
Suddenly, the DJ switched to some kind of techno. "Ah, here Berlin briefly takes off its mask." I was fine with it all. Louis was talking to a lady.
Voluptuous breasts, I thought to myself. He gave her one of his two drinks.
"He's with a girl and he's thinking with his dick," I said to Gurb. "Let him be, tonight Berlin is ours!"
The bass kept pounding. "I simply don't have the patience for the club," I said to Gurb. He looked surprised. Like a sweet dog, tilting his head. "I'm just waiting for tomorrow. Can't do my thing here. Don't have patience for the already known. I want adventure and I want it now!"
Gurb started laughing. "Patience is a virtue." Yes. Patience is all well and good, but I think it's a waste of my time. Gurb grabbed my shoulder.
"I think it's time for another beer."
Louis and I were walking through Leeuwarden a year ago when suddenly a red Ford Ka stopped in front of us. It was Gurb, casually driving around the city. He invited us into his car. We hopped in. Since that afternoon, the three of us were together. A few months later, Louis got a tattoo on his ribs in honor of our friendship. It was the name of our group chat. Braddar Force Indigo.
There were also days when Gurb would take me for a drive around Friesland. He reminded me how beautiful Friesland is. The world doesn't spin there. The newspapers I threw away in the Stiens forest in 2011 could still be lying in the same spot, so to speak.
Just before midnight, I found myself in line for the restroom. My eyes fell on a pair of striking shoes. Cigarette smoke invaded my nose for the fourth time. "Müssen Sie eine Zigarette haben?" a female voice spoke to me. I felt like Tom Hanks in the final scene of Angels & Demons, where the new pope first steps onto the balcony. The curtains opened. There I was, witnessing an important moment in history. I was just told how I was sent by God, but my ears didn't want to hear any of it. At least that's how I felt. My mouth was empty. I had no words left. That's when I knew for sure. Berlin might really be as crazy as literally everyone says.
Dark blond, silky hair. Was this real beauty then? She wouldn't look 40, but I think she was. A true woman. Beautiful in all her elegance. I always joked about being interested in older women, but tonight one stood in front of me. "I don't smoke," I said to her.
Someone tapped me. "Please, just go to the toilet!" He was right. I hadn't peed in a while either. My urine was cloudy. "Glomerulonephritis," I said to myself on the toilet. This is an unusual condition. It's an inflammation in the kidneys, I thought I remembered. They should never have given me access to Google.
The evening progressed, and Louis kept buying rounds. "But seriously now. How does Louis suddenly have all that money for drinks?" I asked Gurb. He was outside smoking with a group of Swiss girls. I had strategically positioned myself so that I could always leave the crime scene if necessary.
"You shouldn't ask me," said Gurb. He was laughing with the temporary girlfriend group of Louis. Gurb has a beard. A lot of chicks like that. I get it too.
As much as I enjoyed Louis and Gurb being here for me, something didn't sit right with me. It couldn't just be about the money. "What's up with him?" I heard one of the Swiss girls say to Gurb.
Those kinds of questions really tire me out. "Not much, with you?" I replied.
They all started laughing. "That's not what she meant, brother," said Gurb.
"I couldn't care less whether she meant it or not. Send that brace-face back to Switzerland. Don't drive me crazy, alright!"
Actually, I hadn't drunk that much that evening. "Two vodka Sprites, please!" It's rare for me to get just one drink. "I always get two drinks, then you have to wait shorter for the third one!" Maybe the alcohol was affecting me more than I wanted to admit. Oh well, it was still the three of us against the world.
"Nice shoes, are those Prada?" I asked a random girl at the bar.
"No, these are fake. Why would I buy real ones for 600 dollars if I could just buy these for 20?"
"..."
I'm not very good at that. Talking. To women.
Louis and Gurb were in the smoking area now. It was less blue than the dance floor itself. My clothes already stank, so a visit to the smoking area couldn't hurt. "These people are so underground!" Gurb shouted. Louis was filming him with his phone. "These people..." There was a brief pause. As if Gurb forgot the only line he had. "...so underground!" All three of us burst into laughter. The alcohol flowed through our veins as if it came from the purest mountains. People seemed doubled and the room was full. We had been in the same club in Berlin for several hours.
"Leonardo! What are you hiding from the big boss?" I sometimes called Louis ‘DiCaprio.’ "You a rich guy, now?" I said, with an accent as if I were from the Bronx.
Louis started laughing. "Eh, you know nothing. Bullshit talk."
I had to laugh too. What was I even worried about? Friends are friends, with or without money. That shouldn't matter. Louis probably just worked for that money. Maybe it wasn't as bad as I thought. Maybe he just had enough to buy rounds. But what if my gut feeling was right? That feeling was never wrong. Except for that one time at the Holland Casino in Groningen. Even the best of us have slip-ups. I was just getting worked up again. When it comes down to it, Louis is one of the sweetest guys I know. I had to let it go. After all, it's still Louis.
"I think I'm going to have sex soon, man," Louis said.
"With who?" I asked immediately.
"That one girl."
"Which one?"
"The one with the boobs."
"Oh, her. Just be careful."
"What kind of reaction is that?" Louis asked indignantly.
I'd only had four drinks, but I was acting like a mess. Louis was right. I didn't understand myself. Where was my head at? I'm here in Berlin, supposed to be having the time of my life, but here I am feeling lonely and sad again. Joost once again couldn't control his emotions.
"Sorry," I suddenly said to Louis. "Sorry for my behavior. Been acting dumb towards you all night. It's unnecessary." Sometimes I have that. Mood swings. "Know that crime is never the solution. We've talked about this so many times. Yes, it's tempting and sometimes easy money. I sometimes find it amusing too, but it's always hypothetical. Ask me for help. I can help you, even with illegal things. I'll always have your back." The dancing was kind of over.
The words I had just placed on Louis's plate came from my heart. My Frisian, irregular boys' heart.
Crying in the club. I had never seen myself like that. Crying, yes. In the club, no. I never understood the taboo around crying. Or emotions in general. I saw myself in the mirror. They weren't tears of joy. They weren't tears of sadness either. It was me letting everything go. All the emotions I had ever felt. The emotions I felt between my brother and sister and myself because they wanted to take on a parental role over me, but I was in puberty, so I pushed them away. The emotions I felt when my old neighbors were supposed to take care of my dog, but didn't tell me that he was bitten by one of their dogs. They didn't have money for the surgery, they later told me. They were ashamed of their lack of money. My dog died from this injury. Even the emotions that were all jumping at once during the retake for my swimming diploma A, I let go of.
No emotions. Just for a moment, not feeling anything. Is that too much to ask for?
"You still don’t smoke?"
It had to be the voice of the woman with the cigarettes. I looked over my shoulder through the mirror. It was her. The one with dark blond, silky hair.
"Not to be rude, but this is the men’s room," I said. She took a step closer and kissed me on my lips. It tasted like more. We started kissing. It had been a while since I had had female contact at this level. It probably didn't look good and it didn't feel good either. She started kissing my neck. Slowly, I noticed the pressure in the erectile tissues of my penis starting to increase. "I really don't have time for this!" I thought to myself. The woman with the cigarettes started to slowly sink down until she was on her knees. I didn't want this. Not now, not like this. She unraveled my penis from my Polo Ralph Lauren underwear. Her tongue was blue. It was probably from cheap shots of alcohol.
Was this real beauty then? Was this the beginning or the end of her story? And had I become the boy my parents hoped I would be? I thought about the fact that this was once someone's little daughter. Somewhere in the world, an old man might be wondering what his daughter is doing. Am I really putting pleasure above my own morals and values?
With my semi-erect circumcised penis still exposed, I lifted her up. After giving her a kiss on her forehead, I pulled up my pants and left the toilets.
It was the usual last hour in any club ever. I met Louis and Gurb at the bar. "Should we have another drink?" I asked Gurb. "I feel like having a cocktail. Something sweet. Lots of sugar. What about you?"
Gurb looked at the menu. "A cognac would go down well right now."
"A cognac? You're only nineteen!" Gurb and Louis laughed. "Two Tequila Sunrises please!" I called to the bartender. "Also, two beers! Thanks!" I also got a beer for Louis. At first, I didn't want to, but I didn't want to spoil the mood either. Besides, I didn't want to show too much that it bothered me so much.
We danced away the last minutes. The club closed, and we decided to walk with the group of Swiss girls. Apparently, they were staying nearby.
As I lagged behind the group, one of them tried to start a conversation with me. "Are you okay?" she asked kindly.
"I'm fine. Just had too much beer. Makes me sleepy." Not true at all, but I've heard people say that.
"You’re tired? The fun has only just began!" And as she said this, she pulled something out of her inner pocket. Her clenched fist, shielded by a half jacket. Who is this girl, anyway? I thought to myself. She opened her hand flat, and right in the center of her palm lay two small pills with a smiley face on them. At least, they looked like it.
"Oh, I don’t do drugs. Sorry."
"Me neither!" And she swallowed a pill. "Now it’s your turn... Or are you scared?"
Scared? Who did this crazy Swiss witch (with really beautiful eyes) think she was. With her "are you scared". I'll show her who's scared.
"Scared? I’m not scared." I picked up the remaining pill and swallowed it.
Everything went in slow motion. Was this who I had become? Was this the same boy from high school? And just before I could swallow, I spat out the pill. She was shocked. I picked up the pill again, dried it with my jacket, and put it back in her fist. "Maybe later!" I shouted, running back to the group, over my shoulder.
I have nothing to say to 9 out of 10 peers I come across. Of course, I can be social. I can also have fun with random people in random situations, but that night, it just tired me out. I also didn't understand what we were doing there. Those girls found me strange anyway. Suddenly, I was the fifth wheel.
"We know this place where they go until 7 in the morning!" The girl leader of the group spoke. I wanted to go home. "If you guys want, you can go. Don't worry about me," I said to Gurb and Louis. The boys had a brief discussion. We agreed to stay for just a little while longer for some drinks. I consented. I was thirsty. "I'll have a Fanta, Louis."
Gurb had reached the last cigarette in his pack. Louis and a girl from the group were nowhere to be found. It didn't even bother me. This guy just walks around with some cash in his pocket and all hell breaks loose. After a night full of stimuli, I understood Louis. Of course, I understood Louis. He's a young god. Handsome, smart guy. But that didn't make me any less angry. It was purely about trust for me. Something inside me said I should stop subconsciously expecting things from people too. It prevents disappointment.
"Hotel please!" I jokingly suggested to Gurb. "Should you call Louis or should I?" I added. Gurb immediately grabbed his Android smartphone and called Louis. He put the call on speaker.
"Are you ready?" Gurb asked.
"Yeah. Sort of."
"What do you mean?"
"We didn't have sex."
"That's fine, right? Tomorrow's a new day!"
"I think I'm in love, man," Louis said.
"...," Gurb said, chuckling as he let out a sigh.
Once we arrived at the girls' hostel, it was already getting light. Louis was thankfully back. There were stains on his pants, around his knees. My focus was solely on arranging a taxi. Although the boys were still flirting, I was really done now. "How are we going to pay for this taxi?" I said a bit too loudly.
There was a silence. "Don't worry. I still have cash," Gurb said.
"Yeah, I knew you would," I replied.
My words clearly hit Louis. "What do you mean by that?" he said.
It was as if time stood still for a few seconds. "Exactly what I said. Better listen." Louis pulled out a small wad of green bills from his pocket. At least 400 euros. "I don't even want to see that money," I reacted. I walked away.
I'll just order a taxi myself.
"Why are you walking away now?" Gurb said.
"Twelve hours ago, I was alone too, and I had a lot more fun then."
"Do you really want to know how I got this money?" Louis said.
Yes, I did want to know. My whole evening revolved around that damn money.
He took a second of pause before he began speaking. "The answer lies in the Mini."
What on earth could be in Gurb's mother's car? Louis was trying to get into my head. "Taxi!"
Once in the taxi, the division was clear. Gurb was upfront, chatting animatedly with the driver. All adventures ever were recounted. Louis and I in the back. One of my best friends since I was thirteen. Funny how things turn out. It was quiet between us. I was in my head, rehearsing how I would bring up the money again. It didn't add up, and he knew it himself. "I don't care, you know," I said, hoping he'd break.
"What don't you care about?"
"About that money."
"What money? You're really a crazy woozy man." Louis burst out laughing again.
On the other hand, it was silent. Gurb had started talking about the driver's family. The driver didn't appreciate it. Gurb meant well. The driver smelled of alcohol. Or was it me? His nails were polished. Maybe his wife was a specialist. I bite my nails myself. Like now.
"In the Mini, oh yeah."
"Shut up. Illegal man."
"You'll never know."
"Stop playing. Just say it!"
Louis grabbed my head, pulled himself towards me, and brought his mouth to my right ear. "Why so serious?" he whispered. He didn't want to tell me.
"But always with this damn money, huh?" I almost shouted at Louis. I broke every silence within a radius of 10 kilometers.
"I'm trying my best, bro. It is what it is. I can't make it any different," he replied. It was clearly bothering him deeply. He ran his hands through his hair. "Sometimes people have to do things. And you know that better than anyone. Sometimes they have to do things they don't really want to or aren't supposed to do."
I knew this spiel all too well. Through all the drunken haziness, I suddenly saw a small glimmer of light. A tiny spark of sincerity. Louis was serious this time.
"I'm sorry. I didn't want to involve you in this. I'm sorry," sweat dripped from his forehead.
"You're serious, huh? Damn, man. What mess have you gotten yourself into now? Worse than Terschelling?" Worse than Terschelling would mean stolen goods. Maybe even violence.
"It's not what you think."
"The Adlon Hotel, right?" the driver chimed in. Always saved by the bell, that Louis.
Suddenly I hit my head against the seat in front of me. Of course, I wasn't wearing my seatbelt. The last thing I saw was Gurb waking up in panic from his drunken stupor. One by one, I started losing my senses. It started with the feeling in my fingers. For a brief moment, everything wasn't quite black, and I could only see a vague pattern of colors repeating inside my eyelids. You could compare it to the brief moment after the commercial break before the movie starts in the cinema. The movie was about to begin.
I knew I wasn't dying. At least not yet. Not like this. Not after an overall mediocre night out in Berlin. I found comfort in the image I forced myself to see. It was all in my head. There I was, unconscious.
I saw myself in a third-person point of view. It wasn't like I was actually leaving my body. More like there was a webcam hanging in one of the upper corners of the taxi.
As a child, I used to dream a lot about death. Nights spent awake.
At some point, I developed a kind of compulsive behavior. I kept swaying my torso from left to right with my hands under my head. It became almost like a workout before bedtime. Every night.
I called it dream shuffling. Just like I had learned to shuffle puzzle pieces or playing cards. Making things a little exciting for yourself. But what I almost never told anyone was that I was scared. I was afraid of burglars, who were very agile and muscular.
Especially afraid that they would murder me. I really wanted to know what death was like. It scared me.
These fear visions originated during an all-inclusive vacation in Turkey. I was 6 years old and already in bed. There was a big old TV in our hotel room, so I could secretly watch TV from bed. Every evening, my parents sat on the balcony. Here they discussed their day while enjoying a glass of alcohol. There was a Japanese animated series on TV. In the few seconds that I watched, I saw a scary creature climbing a sort of apartment complex via the balconies. The creature had hundreds of teeth and blond hair. It quickly entered to decapitate the people, then drained them and, as a final insult, robbed them. Dozens of carcasses of dead people were scattered around the apartment complex. The complex on TV resembled the resort where we were in reality, and the TV world merged with my surroundings. I became part of it. I saw people watching. No matter how loudly I screamed for help, they didn't react. The sun became very bright, and the people turned into nothing more than shadows. As the intensity of the sun increased, something became clear to me. These were not people. They had a sort of orange skin. Where I had previously thought it was their nose and mouth, it turned out that these shadowy figures did not have such physical features. They simply had three holes in their heads. The police tried to do something, but in vain. Since then, we always kept the light on in the hallway outside my bedroom. By rocking back and forth, from left to right, I could glance fleetingly at the beam of light under the door. That bit of light, escaping from the hallway into my room, gave me an advantage. It allowed me to stay one step ahead of the burglars. Pretty smart, right?
"From Jamaica to the world!
It’s just love. Why must the children play in the street?"
It was Bob Sinclar with "Love Generation" speaking to us through the taxi's speakers. We were stationary. I was conscious again, but I didn't feel alive at all. "How long was I out?" I asked Louis.
I could tell by his expression that he was relieved. Relieved that I was back. "One minute," he almost apologized. Louis gave me a pat on the shoulder. Gurb, on the other hand, was sleeping. He slept like a baby cub.
I put my right index finger on my forehead. It felt wet, but it wasn't blood. Blood feels different. Meanwhile, I kept hearing whistling.
"Be the love generation! Oh yeah!" It was still that same song by Bob Sinclar.
The earlier scent of alcohol had now been replaced by the smell of incense. It smelled like the same incense I had in my room. Sold to me as Tibetan 39 incense. I had bought it at a coffee shop in Rotterdam. I pulled up my notes on my phone. "Who lights incense in a CAR????" I let Louis read from my screen. He took the phone from my hands and started typing as well.
"Look at Gurb >>>" Gurb was so deeply asleep that his head drooped. His seatbelt held his torso in place, but his head ended up on the driver's shoulder. The man didn't mind. He didn't move. I made eye contact with the driver through the rearview mirror, and soon I found him. He winked at me.
We arrived at the hotel. Gurb awakened from his alcoholic hibernation. "Who's going to pay for the taxi?" I asked. Clearly rhetorical. I already knew I would take this one for the team, as usual. I refused to use Louis's money. It was uncomfortably quiet. "By card please," I said.
"I'll always protect you, Louis. You really need to know that. I care about you like my own little brother. I'll always try to help you. But you have to be honest with me. Can you do that?" Louis didn't hesitate.
"Yes. Yes, I can. I'll show you. It's really in the Mini." Meanwhile, the taxi driver's card machine indicated that I had insufficient funds. That couldn't be right. Maybe I had withdrawn too much that evening.
"I have cash in the hotel room," Gurb said to me. Gurb informed the driver in broken English that he would go get his cash. The driver agreed. Money is money, whether it comes now or later. As long as it feels good in your hands.
Louis and I got out of the taxi. "You're not going to light a cigarette now, are you?" Louis wanted to smoke. "Especially for stress. That's really for people who can't handle pain. You need to feel pain. Pain needs to brand you for the rest of your life so you finally learn not to do such stupid things." It fell silent again. My blood boiled. All pots were on the stove. I felt like Gordon Ramsay in the kitchen. "Show me then. Do it."
Louis remained silent and walked around the corner of the hotel. Towards the parking lot. I followed him. "You're not going to find much," said Louis.
"Why not? Are you a magician?"
"No. Just. Not much."
"So there's suddenly magically nothing in Gurb's car?"
"Stop. Get out. Get out of my head!" Louis shouted. Louis had had enough. He was done with the parade. Normally we dealt with hypothetical stories. Only this time it wasn't a joke. I was sure now. Louis had dropped his mask. The revolution had begun. The government had fallen and the dikes had broken. The people were in charge. "You shouldn't freak out like this. Always wanting more. Sweet boy, think about yourself."
After Gurb gave the money to the driver, he came to us. He had a smile on his face, lit a cigarette, and exclaimed, "Brothers!" Once with us, he hugged me. He started laughing. "Maybe I haven't been entirely honest either." Sometimes Gurb seemed like a 38-year-old man. In a positive way. He exuded confidence in a way I didn't often see. Affectionate, with a hint of authority.
We stood in the middle of a large parking lot. "Look. We've reached a point where I might not even care anymore. You guys are teasing me." It did matter to me. Maybe more than ever. I was supposed to be two steps ahead of them, but I couldn't figure it out. "I give up."
The delightful silence returned. Louis and Gurb looked at each other. "You guys win. Apparently, I'm not to be trusted as a friend."
From Louis's expression, I could tell he disagreed with this. "Not true. Come to the car."
We arrived at the car. Louis unlocked it and searched for the trunk button. Gurb had started his third cigarette. "It's a corpse, isn't it? Say it now. I can still help you. I can still help us. I can book a ticket for you. We can get you out of here," I said to Louis.
"Just wait. Nutcase."
"Why won't you accept my help?"
Louis started laughing nervously. Or at least it seemed that way. Perhaps a sly laugh too. Had Louis killed someone? "It's not a corpse. That can't be. You wouldn't be stupid enough to use their ID. You're smarter than that. So it must be something stolen. Haven't you found that button yet?"
Suddenly, we heard a click. Louis had found the button. Somewhere, I didn't want to know. Shouldn't I just trust Louis? Wasn't that the whole point of friendship?
Finally, the moment had arrived. I placed my right hand in the slot of the rear hatch. Something in me doubted. Still. I still doubted. Louis looked dead serious. "You wanted to know, didn't you? Then you also have to be man enough to accept it." Louis was clearly not joking. Or was he acting again? "Pussy," Louis said. I looked away. "You're afraid of what's inside, huh? You're afraid of the real Louis." He began to laugh manically. "Open that thing, man. Nutcase!"
I started laughing too. Why did I make such a big deal out of it? Sweat broke out from every pore in my body. It was even a bit damp in the no man's land between my scrotum and my anus. A tropical climate. It had been quite an adventure the whole evening. I took my hand off the rear hatch and first gave Louis a hug. Not some half-hearted birthday wish. No, a real hug.
"It's okay, buddy," Louis said to me. I had no idea what he meant by that. It fit the moment though.
It was really time now. I opened the rear hatch.
"Where is it?"
"In front of you," said Louis.
"In some secret compartment?"
There was nothing in the trunk. Absolutely nothing. An empty trunk. For an empty evening, in an empty Berlin, with an empty group of guys. I didn't get it.
"You won, man," I whispered. "You finally fucking done did it."
I couldn't believe my eyes. Empty? There was still nothing in the car. Louis just stood there. Emotionally, I was a wreck. I had felt every emotion this evening. Seen every color and smelled every scent. I was done. My body was ready. No longer needed. My mission was complete.
"But why did you do this?" I asked Louis, laughing.
He scratched his chin. It felt like the end of a bad movie.
"I sold our Playstation. Wanted to tell you only after I had sorted everything out again. I terminated my lease. Had some debts, and I also wanted to have some money for once. Once not empty-handed in the club. Once not dependent on my best friends. This is not who I am... I know how much that Playstation meant to you. It was ours together. I should have just told you."
"… and how does Gurb actually make his money?"

First/Previous
The travel took on a less gloomy quality in the day that passed since Gemma’s self-reflection and although there remained a queer distance in her eyes, she seemed in better spirits in losing the weight of the words.
It was a night just beyond Wabash Crevasse that we pushed on till sunset was almost upon us and we were each tired and the food stocks ran low and so we found harbor in a half collapsed cellar where a home once stood; it was only after examining the slatted, rotted boards of the old place, fallen over, tired with decay, that we spied the cellar doors intact; sheets of door metal plied us with safety from the outside world and the interior of the place stank of mold and the deeper recesses were collapsed, but there was a cradle to crossbar the stair hatch and I put my prybar there for the night. We finished the water and canned tomatoes, and I smoked a cigarette, staving off the inevitable doom which would come with the dwindling of our supplies.
I’d peeked through the space where the doors met at the cellar’s entry and watched the full darkness there while the youngins spoke of life and the trivial pursuits of it and I hardly said a word besides.
Sitting on the lowest step with Trouble dumbly maintaining her station by me, by the low glow of the space in the threshold, I saw they’d pushed their bedrolls together and Andrew had fallen asleep with his arm over Gemma’s shoulder and her eyes glowed with shine from the crack, blinked a few times while seeing me; she too eventually drifted to sleep, and I spent time by the secured door.
Gunshots rang across the stillness, and they stirred from their quiet slumber and Gemma asked, “Harlan, is it alright?”
I moved to the space there at the doorway again and listened and watched what I could through that crack and nothing beyond came. “It’s safe. I’ll be up a bit longer. I’ll watch.”
Andrew asked, “Can’t sleep?”
“I’ll sleep in a bit. Don’t worry about me. Rest. Sleep good and we can put more behind us.
They sat up, legs crossed triangle-wise, and Gemma spoke again, “Why do you have such a hard time sleeping? It seems I’m asleep after you and only awake after you too.”
“Yeah,” said Andrew.
“It’s cool at night. I can listen to the wind.” I shrugged.
“You should be the one that tries to get some sleep,” said Andrew.
I said nothing.
They reached out their arms and I shook my head.
“Here,” Gemma said, “Move your bedroll closer.” She reached across the dirt floor of the cellar and dragged my splayed roll so that it sat beside hers.
“I’ll sleep later.” I turned my attention back to the door and ignored them till their sounds of sleep could be heard. The Alukah was nowhere and did not tap on the door that night and when I moved to sleep, I shimmied onto the roll beside them, facing away on my shoulder; the dog followed, laid on the bare dirt beside me and I held the mutt.
Though I refused a noise as they stirred in the absolute darkness, I felt Gemma’s arm fall over my own shoulder and felt Andrew’s hand touch my back, and water traced the bridge of my nose and I slept deeply thereafter.
There was no breakfast without food, and the water was gone; I felt the eyes of the dog on us as we packed up our belongings that next morning and I tried not to imagine the poor animal skinned over fire. I smiled at Trouble, patted its head, scratched its chin; she sniffed my hand like she was looking for something that wouldn’t be found.
We went west again, ignoring roads and pushed through straight wasteland where nothing was and no one was, and with every dry footfall on the dry hard ground, I wished for rain, and I wished that when it had rained, as infrequent as it was, that I had been wise enough to save what we could from the sky; that sky was red and swollen and refused to burst. We pushed on through strange dead thickets where grayed and twisty yellow branches lurched from the ground into the sky like even they too wished for an end to all the suffering. It was days more till we would see Alexandria and though I could stave off hunger (thirst too, if necessary), I was not so certain that the children would be able to push on without it; they did not complain and watched the ground in our march and maintained higher spirits than I could’ve imagined from them.
Early in the day, they spoke often, and I listened and as they wore on, their words came less and even the dog seemed in a lower mood for the unsaid predicament; me too.
Gemma broke the silence on the matter by saying, “What are we going to do about food? Water?”
“We’ll push on.”
“We could turn back?” asked Andrew.
“The more time we spend out in the open, outside of a city, the more likely it is that the Alukah will catch us unawares. Tighten your belts.” Our feet took us around a dilapidated truck, an old thing with a rusty hook which dangled off a rear arm. “Save your urine.”
They made faces but did not protest.
“Does that work? You ever drink pee?” asked Andrew.
I laughed, “I thought we’d be there by now. I took us too long by trying to drop the scent of the Alukah. That thing’s hunted us for days—last night was the first time it ain’t bothered us. It’s got me wondering why.”
Gemma piped up, licking her dry lips before speaking, “Do you think that monster ran into those scavengers we saw?” Then I caught her shooting a look at Andrew, “At least we warned them.” Her smile was faint and almost indiscernible as one.
I shrugged. “Can’t say. Don’t think it’s smart to turn back. Won’t be long and we’ll touch the 40 and then it’ll be a straight on to Babylon—couple of days—can’t turn back though. Maybe without food; that’s doable. Water’s the worst, but if it comes to it,” I paused and looked on the weathered faces of the children, on the lowered head of Trouble which followed her nose across the ground (it searched just short of frantic), “Like I said, ‘save your urine’.”
The first pains of hunger held within me brought up some reminiscence and I wished for nothing more than to hold Suzanne; I could nearly smell them and in the swaying walk which took us on past toppled townships, I held long blinks where I could nearly make out their face and if I really pushed the limits of my imagination, I could feel them. In those moments, as we passed dead places, rotted pits of despair, I could think of little more than their presence. Though I knew it was a dangerous game, hoping for more than I was worth, I hoped for Suzanne then and I wished that I’d taken them up on their offer to travel to Alexandria with them; it could’ve been home—it never was in all the times I’d gone there, but who knows? The thoughts of Babylon brought forth their gardens; the wild gardens and the water which flowed freely through their pipes. I wished I was a different person entirely and that too would’ve been better for Suzanne; how it was that they’d seen anything in me, I don’t know. How it was that they could stoop to the level of being with someone like me—I warded off that thought, because to place the blame there would certainly be unfair. I thought of my love plainly and wanted a different life more suited to them.
Imaginations played more furiously, and I remembered the evening when Dave stopped me from leaping from that roof—it’s doubtful that he even realized that he’d slowed my demise; perhaps he did know—I wished then that I could ask him. Too kind for the world. People too kind for the world were scarce and hardly worth the trouble. Yet, there I was, chaperoning those two across the wastes.
Gemma was a broken person when I’d found her, tortured in Baphomet’s well; Andrew was a dullard boy who’d lost his hand. What a silly predicament.
I stopped in my movements and swiveled on my heel to catch Andrew by the shoulder. “You still got your hand, don’t you?”
In good humor, the boy grinned, lifted the nub on the end of his left forearm to show me, “Nope.”
“Dammit, no! The hand in the jar!”
Andrew raised his eyebrows. “In my pack.”
“Stop,” I commanded Trouble; the dog hardly recognized my words and continued a way then circled back, sad eyes looking up from where she took to sit by my side. Gemma, both arms dangling loosely from her own pack’s shoulder straps, took into the circle we’d formed.
The girl asked, “What about the jar? It’s nasty, but I guess it’s his.”
“I think that’s it,” I said. I took Andrew by his shoulders, looked him in his eyes, “We could use it!”
“What?” The boy almost laughed in the display of our concern. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“I think I’ve got it! It’s good for a trap.” I shook him; maybe too hard. I almost smiled. “It’s worth a shot!”
“It’s mine.” He bit his top lip, withdrew from me.
“You’ll feel differently about that,” I said.
Gemma placed a hand on Andrew’s pack and tried ripping it open. “Give it to him!” shouted the girl.
The boy whipped from her grasp, and he spun on his feet, and panic stood on his face. “It’s mine, isn’t it?”
I took a step forward, “No, not anymore.” I put out my palm, “Give it.”
Andrew nearly flinched at the thought of it and shook his head a little. “Why?”
“I told you why,” I said.
“You don’t even know if it’ll work, do you?” his words were long in protest.
The girl started again, “Andrew, please.”
He locked eyes with Gemma and once again, his bottom teeth came up to meet over his top lip and he moved his jaw methodically with contemplation.
“What does it even matter?” she asked.
“It’s mine. You don’t know what it’s like.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!”
“C’mon,” he said, but his pack straps fell from his shoulders, and he hunkered down on the ground and opened his bag; his right hand plunged into the recesses therein and withdrew the jar with his severed left hand. He held the object up, refusing to come up from his open pack, keeping his eyes on the ground. “Take it then.” He shook the jar; its contents sloshed with liquid decay.
I grabbed the thing, held it to skylight; the remains within had congealed and rotted and lumps nearly floated in the brownish liquid which had formed in the base of the container. I shook it and stared for a moment at the miniscule debris which floated alongside the hand; each of its digits had swollen and erupted to expose bone; some had come away in pieces. “Tomorrow,” I said and nodded.
We gathered ourselves and Andrew pulled his pack on again and we moved, Trouble still looked sorry and the boy remained quiet while the girl chattered on with questions while we took through the dying ground in a formation with the dog on point then me then the children.
“What will you do with it?” she asked me.
“Not sure yet.”
Andrew made a noise like he wanted to say something but didn’t.
“You think it will work?” asked Gemma.
“Nothing’s a guarantee. They’re smart—Alukah.”
“Smart enough to figure out a trap?”
I shrugged. “We’ll find out.”
“We could put stakes in a pit.”
“Keep on the lookout for a building. Something with multiple floors.”
With that, we moved on, found a worn, mostly destroyed road and we fell into a travelling quiet and the thought of hunger or thirst arose again, and I pushed it down—though I knew the uneasiness could only last so long before savagery would overtake the human condition; the kids seemed strong enough, but I kept an eye on the dog too. Savagery belonged not only to humans, after all.
The ground of the wastes was harder when it was quiet, and it was flatter further west. The sky—red and full of thin and transparent drifting clouds—seemed an awful sight when stared at for too long; it was the thing which stretched as if to signal there wasn’t an end in any direction, as if to declare we had much more to go till safety. Wanderlust is a thing that I believe I’ve felt before, but under that sky, with those two and the dog, I didn’t feel it at all. It was doom that I felt. Ignorance and doom. And it was all because I was certain I’d made all the wrong mistakes, and it was coming back to me. I was experienced. We should’ve had food and water. Perhaps there was some deep and nasty part inside of me that had intended to sacrifice them along the way. The words of the Alukah might have rung true: You say you make no deals, but I smell it. I think you’d deal.
Surely, I felt differently. Surely.
“Getting darker,” called Andrew as we came to where signposts—worn and bent and barely legible—told us of a place once called Annapolis and the buildings were nearly gone entirely; places, maybe places that were once homes, were leveled—I was briefly caught in imagining what it might’ve been like all those ages ago. As are most places, it was haunted like that and when we came to a long rectangular structure of metal walls—thin walls—we took it as a place for rest for the night.
It once served as an agricultural station, for when we breached its entry, there were a line of dead machines—three in all—cultivators or tillers which stood higher than any of our heads and Gemma asked what they were, and I told her I thought they were for farming. The great rusted bodies stood in quiet shadow as we came through a side passage of the building and the great doors which had once been used to release those machines from the building stood frozen in their frame. I approached the doors, lighting my lantern and motioning for the children to shut the door we’d entered through.
Upon closer inspection, it seemed the doors would roll into the ceiling and the chains which held the doors in place were each secured with rusted padlocks—I removed my prybar from my pack and moved along the wall of doors, giving each old lock a smack with the weapon; each one held in place, seemingly fused there through years of corrosion, and I rounded the cultivators once more, back to the children, near the side door where they’d discovered a rickety stair frame which crawled up the side of the wall to a catwalk; along the catwalk, a levitated box stood at the height of the structure, stilted by metal legs, and we took the stairs slowly with the dog following close behind; the poor mutt was mute save the sound of its own shuffling paws.
The metal stairs creaked under our weight and Gemma held her own lantern high over her head so that the strange shadows of the place grew longer, stranger, and suddenly I felt very sure that something was in the dark with us, but there was no noise except what we made. My eyes scanned the darkness, and I followed the children up the stairs till we met the overhang of the catwalk and I peered into the shadows, the blades of the cultivators—far extended on foldable arms—struck up through the pool of blackness beneath us and I felt so cold there and if it were not for the breath of my fellow travelers, I might have been lost in the dark for longer than intended—lost and frozen and contemplative.
“There’s a room,” said the boy, and he pushed ahead on the hanging passage, and he was the first to the door. “Boxes,” he said plainly.
Upon coming to the place where he stood, Gemma pushed her lantern over the threshold, and I saw what he’d meant as I traced my own lantern to help; the room was crammed with plastic totes and old metal containers of varied sizes. There seemed to be enough empty space to maneuver through the room, but only if one watched their feet while they walked. Carefully.
We moved to the room, and I found a stack of crates to place my lantern then motioned for Gemma to douse hers. In minutes, the place was rearranged so that we could sit comfortably on the floor; crates lined the walls precariously and we breathed heavy from the work done, but we began to unpack and upon watching the children while I rolled a cigarette, I felt a pang of guilt, a terrible summation—all choices in my life had led me here and with them and perhaps it would have been a better world for them without me.
Mentally shrugging this thought away, I lit my cigarette, inhaled deeply, and then withdrew the jar which Andrew had handed over. I held it to the lantern to examine it. The grotesqueness of it hardly phased me and I watched it more curious and hopeful than disgusted.
“I hope it’ll work,” said the boy, “Whatever it is that you plan on doing with it.” He grimaced and maintained a further silence in patting his bedding for fluff. The dog moved to him, and she pushed her forehead against him where he squatted on floor. The boy scratched Trouble’s chin and whispered, “Good girl,” into the top of her head where he’d pushed his own face.
“I’m hungry,” said Gemma; she placed her chin in her arm while watching Andrew with the dog. She sat on her own flat bed there on the floor and stated plainly the thing that I’d hoped to ignore for longer.
“I know.” I took another drag from the cigarette and let the smoke hang over my head. “The dog?”
Andrew recoiled, pulling Trouble closer into his arms.
I smiled. “It was a joke.”
Andrew relaxed, but only a moment before Gemma added, “Maybe.”
The boy narrowed his eyes in the girl’s direction, and she shrugged. “If it’s life or death.”
He didn’t say anything and merely continued stroking Trouble’s coat.
That night, we slept awfully and even in the complete darkness, I felt the cramp of the storage room and the angled shapes of the tools that protruded from the containers on all sides remained permanent well after we’d turned the light off and it felt like those shapes were the teeth of a great creature like we were sitting inside of its mouth, looking out.
Trouble positioned herself partially on my chest, her slow rhythmic breathing brought my thoughts calm and I whispered to her in the dark after I was sure the others were asleep, “I promise it was a joke.” And I brushed the back of her neck with my hand and the animal let go of a long sigh then continued that deep rhythmic breathing.
Still without food or water, the following day was the true indication of the misery to come. Gemma’s stomach growled audibly in waking and Andrew—though he kept his complaints to himself—smacked his lips more often or protruded the tongue in his mouth in a starvation for water. The room, in the daylight which peered through pinpricks of its half-decayed roof, seemed another beast altogether from its nighttime counterpart; it was not so frightening. Again, I admonished myself for the lack of preparation, but there was another thought that brought together a more cohesive feeling; we had a possible plan, a trap for the demon that’d been following us.
We went into the field to the west of the building where there was only dirt beneath our feet in the early sunlight and in the coolness of morning air, I nearly felt like a person. The sun crested the horizon and brought with it a warmth that would quickly become overwhelming—in those few minutes though—it felt good enough. I wished for the shy dew and saw none. The weirdness of holding Andrew’s rotting hand in a jar momentarily caught me and I almost laughed, but refrained and the dog and the children looked on while I held the container up and suddenly, seeing the congealed mass of tissue floating in its own excretions, I was overcome with the urge to run, the urge that nothing would ever be right again in my life, and that I was marked to be that way.
I blinked and tossed the jar to Andrew. “Say goodbye,” I said. He fumbled after it with his right hand and caught it to his chest.
“It’s strange you care so much anyway,” said Gemma, shrugging—her eyes forgave a millisecond of pity and when Andrew looked at her, still holding the jar in his right hand, she smiled and stuffed her hands into the pockets of her pants.
“We’ve enough oil, I think,” my voice was raspy from it being early, “Enough for good fire, but if we use it, it’ll mean a few more dark nights on our way.”
“We’re going to set it on fire?” Andrew pondered, keeping his eyes to the contents of the jar. “It worked good enough last time. It’ll work,” I nodded, “I has to, doesn’t it?”
His dry lips creased into a brief smile, and he tossed the jar back to me and I caught it.
“Let’s dig,” I said.
Without much in the way of proper tools, we began at the ground under us with our hands, then taking turns with my prybar till there was a hole in the ground comfortably large enough to conceal a human head and I uncapped the jar and spilled it contents there and we covered it back and I lightly tamped it with my boot. My eyes scanned the outbuilding we’d taken refuge in the night prior and then to the street to the north then to the houses which stood as merely rotted plots of foundation with frames that struck from the ground more as markers than support. “I’ll take up over there across the street when it gets dark. I want you two in that storage room before anything goes off.”
“We can’t help?” asked Gemma.
“You can help by staying out of the way—the mutt too,” I said; the words were harsh, but my feelings were from worry.
“Wouldn’t it be better if we stuck together?” asked the girl.
I shook my head. “You stay in the room and keep quiet. No matter what you hear, you stay quiet and safe.”
“That’ll put you at a bigger risk,” Gemma furrowed her brow at me and shifted around to look out on the houses across the street, “There’s hardly any cover over there.”
The boy nodded, smacked his lips, and rubbed his forearm across his mouth then audibly agreed with her.
“Doesn’t matter,” I said, “No matter what you hear happening outside, no matter, you don’t open the door and you don’t scream—don’t make a noise at all. Alright? Even if you hear me calling you, you don’t do it.”
“Pfft,” Gemma crossed her arms and kicked her foot against the ground. The way her eyes seemed hollowed with bruising showed that the irritation would only grow without food. “Alright,” she finally sighed.
Andrew looked much the same as she did in that; he swallowed a dry swallow then stuffed his hand into his pocket and looked away when our eyes matched.
We gathered our light oil. Altogether, it seemed enough; rummaging through the room of the outbuilding we’d earlier taken refuge within, we managed three intact glass containers—the only ones found that wouldn’t leak with liquid; two were bottles and the third was the jar that’d once kept Andrew’s hand. With that work done, we sat with three Molotov cocktails within our huddled circle of the storage room.
“Is it enough?” asked Gemma.
“We’ll see,” I began rolling a cigarette to ignore the hunger and the thirst.
Andrew took to the corner and glanced over his shoulder only a moment before a steady liquid stream could be heard and when he rotated from the wall once the noise was finished and he held a canteen up to his nose, sniffed it and quivered and shook his head.
As the sun pushed on, I scanned the perimeter outside, and they followed. Far south I spied a mass of shadow inching across the horizon and Gemma commented, “What’s that?”
I pushed the binoculars to her and let her gaze through them.
“A fiend—that’s what we called it back in the day anyway. A mutant.”
She held the binoculars up and frowned. “A mutant? So, it was once human?”
“A fiend was once many humans.” I pointed out to the horizon though she couldn’t see me doing so and continued, “If you look at the edges of its shape, you’ll see it’s got limbs galore on it. Sticking up like hairs is what it’ll look like at this distance. Those are arms and legs. It’s got faces too. Many faces.” I shuddered.
“I can barely see any details,” she passed the binoculars to Andrew, and he looked through them, “What’s it do?”
“What?” I asked.
“What’s it do if it catches a person?”
“It pulls people into it. Makes you apart of its mass. Nasty fuckers.”
Andrew removed the lenses from his eyes and held them to his chest and asked, “It won’t mess up your trap, will it?”
“We’ll keep an eye on it,” I said, “You don’t want to mess with a fiend unless you have to.”
First/Previous
Archive

The Old Machine

By Angel Arevalo
The first time I saw the old machine was as Benny’s father closed his study door to us. It was already a relic then, a heap of beige plastic from a bygone era. The monitor was a beige box with a screen made of thick glass. It must have weighed a ton. It sat odious on the rectangular beige case that contained its thinking guts. Peripherals included a keyboard, a mouse, and a phone.
The phone was not a flat screened supercomputer the way the phones of today are. It was a simple speaker and receiver, with a rotating dial instead of buttons. Technically it was capable of making calls from a connected landline, but this was not its true purpose. Its true purpose was to make communication between the internet and the old machine possible. It did this through the magic of sound. According to Benny, who heard it from his father, the data from the internet came in the form of audible sound. Once it was called, the phone could be placed on a stand from which the old machine could “hear” the signals and translate them back into binary code.
My imagination stirred at the idea of “hearing” the internet. I could put something tangible to the invisible force that allowed me to watch endless streams of videos, or chat with friends from around the world. Benny probably more than me. He lived with the damn thing. However it was off limits.
As much as we wanted to hear the internet, Benny’s father would not have it. His study was entirely forbidden to us, and on the few occasions when he had allowed us entry to give us a word of sage advice or to admonish us for childish antics, he would use himself as a physical barrier between us and the old machine. His physical language was such that neither Benny or I had ever thought to ask for permission. Neither of us believed he would even consider the idea, and the most likely outcome would be that he would make it all that much harder to do so behind his back.
So we waited. Bided our time. As children, this was all that was afforded to us.
This forced patience paid off.
There came a very unusual day in Benny’s house. Often it was Benny’s mother who was charged with the daily maintenance of the household, but outstanding circumstances meant that she was forced to take the day off. If I remember correctly it was to do with Benny’s grandmother, but that is neither here nor there. The important thing is that Benny’s father had to take over the daily run of the house. Part of that was buying the groceries for that night's dinner, so here was a rare moment where the house and the study would be left completely unattended.
The moment we heard his father’s car leave the driveway, we were on it.
The door to his father’s study, where the old machine was kept, was locked, but we accounted for this. Benny had been practicing opening the locks around his house, and they were all the same make and model. Benny stuck the finer end of a hairpin into the keyhole and opened the lock as quickly as if he had the key.
The door swung open, and perched on the desk, was the old machine, in all its pristine beige glory.
It was a comically frightful thing, that heap of beige plastic. It sat there, decades old at least, and yet the casing showed no sign of yellowing. The screen, which showed that it was turned off, was a yawning black abyss; and the deadly silence of the room was disturbed by something that was not quite tangible, but an almost physical mental pressure, like gentle psychic breathing. The pressure was such that you could feel it in the base of your skull, and much more lightly, around your head and in your ears. It made one feel as if they were in the presence of a great monster, and not, in fact, an old beige box of outdated electronics.
“C’mon,” said Benny, stepping into the room. Evidently I had been stuck in place for some time. Benny on the other hand seemed much less wary than me. He scampered forward, smiling as he pulled back his fathers study chair so he could stand on it and reach the strange phone with its rotating dial.
Not nearly as brave, and suddenly three times more cautious, I stood back as he picked up the phone to “listen” to the internet. Depending on how you view it, the phone was luckily, or rather “unluckily”, in its translation stand, meaning that it was at that time communicating with the internet. Benny’s face twisted uncomfortably before breaking into a giddy smile.
“Ooh!” he said, smiling. “That’s creepy!”
He held it to his ear like that for a minute or so, wrinkling his nose from time to time before smiling again and throwing me a conspiratorial smirk. His giddy enthusiasm, despite the sound being what he called “creepy” seemed to calm me down some. Benny always had a way of doing that to me. Suddenly I was excited. He saw this, and offered me his place on his father’s seat.
“Here,” he said, still smirking. “It’s terrible!”
I took his place on the seat, and picked up the phone. It was heavier than I expected. Heavier than any smart phone I had ever held. It was like picking up the lighter end of an animal’s meaty tail. I felt a sudden hesitation, but Benny was still brimming with joy, goading me to have a listen.
I put the phone to my ear, and heard whispers. Surprised, I let the phone slip out of my hands to clatter to the floor.
They had been quiet whispers, barely audible, but audible they were. The whispers painted a picture for me. A sticky red room. A friend, here but not here. I saw the old machine in a new home, and with a new keeper, a willing thrall.
I think Benny would have laughed at me if he had not also been struck stupid in that same moment. Standing in the doorway of his study was his father.
It is difficult to speak ill of the dead, which is funny, because it’s not like they care, but that’s just the way of things. Benny’s father had always been a kind man. If not a kind man then certainly a dutiful father. He was always there for Benny, always there to give a word of wisdom or a consoling hug, but on occasion there was a glint of something sinister behind his eyes. It appeared sporadically, mostly during conversations with other adults. Somewhere in the middle of a conversation between the tragic loss of a child in another state or several towns over, or in discussing the statistic and calculus of death such as a mass shooting, that furtive sparkle behind his eye would manifest, and he would become, for a fraction of a second, someone else. That spark was there now, and it was aimed at me.
Benny’s father saw that I had the phone in my hand. He saw his boy beside me, and that spark behind his eye turned into a barely controlled flame. There was so much hate there.
“Benjamin,” he said in a deathly calm voice, in a heavily restrained voice. “Please tell me you didn’t let your friend here talk you into picking up that phone.”
“He didn’t, dad, he didn’t,” answered Benny.
“Did you pick up the phone too?”
“Of course not dad,” Benny lied.
Relief washed over his father’s face. He ran past the threshold of the study and knelt down to wrap his arms around his boy. He then looked at me.
“Get out,” he said quietly, nearly on the verge of tears. Then again, louder, “GET OUT!”
I was still too stunned to move, even after the second shout, but then Benny’s father rose– with Benny still in his hands. The menace I felt. I bolted from the study, running past Benny and his father.
I learned from Benny at school the next day that we weren’t allowed to play together anymore. Benny’s father didn’t even want to see me anywhere near him. It was ridiculous. We were neighbors for crying out loud! Benny was my best friend, who else was I going to play with? And for what? But it didn’t matter. Benny’s father had made his decree, and Benny had to abide. At least we still had school. Benny’s father couldn’t dictate who he spoke to there.
Benny and I sulked for that whole school day, unable to enjoy the little time we were going to have together. We sulked like that together at school for ages. And in this way, the strange whispers that we heard in the phone were almost forgotten, overshadowed by our forced separation.
Every day after school I hoped and prayed that my exile from Benny’s home would end, and in a roundabout and terrible way, my prayers were answered.
A year later, Benny was pulled from class, after which he disappeared for a week. His home, which was next to mine, sat dark and empty. For a whole week I heard nothing from him, not any social platform or messaging medium. When I finally did hear from him, it was no longer Benny. It was the shell of a person that had once been a child. It was Benny, aged eons.
The broken shell that had been Benny stumbled into class. He said nothing, and looked at no one. It wasn’t until lunch period that I finally got anything out of him, and when I did, I don’t think I could ever have been ready to hear it.
That day that Benny had been pulled out of class was the day that his mother had been arrested for the murder of his father. She was found in his study, and according to police, was basically mid act. How the police were alerted so quickly as to show up with the crime in progress was never fully revealed to Benny personally, but news coverage afterwards revealed that an anonymous tip had arrived at the police station.
Benny’s mother would stand by her innocence until the very end, but the fact that she was witnessed by police in the middle of committing the act made it indefensible. Her trajectory to the lethal injection room was one of the swiftest the state had ever seen.
It was tragic. Benny was out both parents, and it was all the more tragic because Benny didn’t have any other family. His last grandparent had passed the year prior. He was due to go into foster care, but God bless my parents, because they took him in. Benny got to stay in town, with a family that loved him nearly as much as his own had.
Benny stayed in my life, it was the reverse of what had happened the year prior when his father had found us listening to the internet on the old machine. Now Benny was in my life more than ever, but also not.
Physically he was there. Benny and I shared a room, and we hung out all the time. Mentally, or perhaps even spiritually, Benny just wasn’t with me anymore. His soul was in some godsforsaken elsewhere. His inner self was closed off to me. My mind didn’t have the words or wisdom to say what was wrong, only that despite being around him nearly 24 hours a day, he felt absent.
It wasn’t until later, much later, years later really, when Benny and I were well into our teens that I felt like I saw the real him again. His home, and everything in it, the things that had once been his father’s, were his. He’d never cared much about that. He’d never even mentioned his not exactly meager inheritance beyond the vague idea that he supposed he would move into his old home once he became an adult. Other than that he made no mention of his old home, which sat dim and forgotten next to mine. He hadn’t so much as stepped inside of it since he left for school on the day of the murder.
But one day, on the porch, while the sun was beginning to die on the horizon, Benny asked me if I would go into his old house with him. We were pushing seventeen, and college bound so I supposed at the time that he was seeking a kind of closure. Despite the vast chasm that Benny’s depression had carved between us, I wanted to be there for my best friend, so I agreed to go along with him.
Once we were at his old doorstep, Benny produced a small, unopened, envelope. He tore it open, and produced a key that he used to open the door to his old home. I watched him do this and felt a pang in my heart that was something more than sadness. I didn’t have a name for it. I just knew that it was coming from Benny. The straw that broke the camel’s back was Benny looking behind him to see me, and flashing me the barest hint of a smile that was filled with the same sadness that panged in my chest a moment ago. It was the tiniest crease on the corner of his mouth, but it broke me. That crease was the most genuine thing I’d gotten from him in years.
I wish I had been brave enough to cry, but I swallowed those tears. Drowned out all emotion, because I thought that was what the burgeoning man I wanted to become would have done.
We entered the house, which was dark and smelled awful. There was a rot in there that had settled into the very foundation.
“Augh,” I let out, “what is that?”
“I– Uhm… I don’t now.” That’s what he said, but something told me that he did know. He just didn’t want to say it out loud for some reason.
In my role as supportive best friend, I still hadn’t asked why Benny had wanted to come back here. So I decided to do that then, but as he ascended up the stairs I knew there was only one destination he had in mind. His father’s study. The old machine.
I kept my mouth shut, but I wonder sometimes if maybe I should have started protesting. I wonder if maybe I should have dragged Benny back out the door, kicking and screaming, but those are just what ifs and meaningless regrets. Even if I dragged him out then and there, so what? He would just come back without me. If I had barred him in any way he would just choose a different time and place, and he would be doing it alone. No. I had no choice. It was inevitable. There’s no stopping the inevitable. So I did nothing.
We ascended up the stairs together. The smell of deep seeded rot grew heavier. It was in the stairs, in the walls, in wood and the furniture. Apart from the smell, everything looked normal, as if frozen in time. I could practically envision us running down the hallway playing tag.
That changed in the study.
Benny and I reached the door. Yellow police tape from when this was an active crime scene was still there. The rot was strongest here. Had the site of the murder never been cleaned?
As Benny turned the knob I swallowed back some anxious energy, and stowed it away in the same place that I threw that soul breaking pang in my heart.
Inside we found the desk, the books shelves, his father’s office chair. All of it was as it once was, except that now every inch of it was covered in a film of something that was muddy red. The sticky red room.
There was only one part of the study that was disturbingly clean of the muddy red source of the rot. The old machine.
It sat perched on the desk, slumbering and waiting. It was pristine. Its comically mundane beige casing was clean, and every piece and peripheral like the keyboard and attached phone were in mint condition. It was alien, how clean it was compared to everything else in the room.
Benny took a heavy breath, and stepped forward. He approached the old machine, examining it in the dying light of the sun.
“I’m going to need your help carrying this back home,” he said.
This would have been my second opportunity to say “no”. I should have, but again, why? All it would mean was another trip or two for him on his lonesome, and then I would just be the friend that bailed out on him halfway through something that seemed very important for him. So I said “okay.”
We gathered up the odd ends of the old machine. Benny carried the monitor, and I carried the thinking guts, and between us we shared the weight of the peripherals.
Once we were home, Benny got to work putting the thing back together. He seemed to fly into a manic fugue state. He worked rapidly to put the old machine together, connecting every odd end, beginning to sweat as he did so. His eyes became deranged, and then suddenly, with only the power cord left to plug in, he stopped.
He stared into the black abyss of the old machine’s monitor, and did nothing for a long minute that stretched out into eternity. Benny put the power cord down and shoved it into a box. I didn’t question this. If anything I was relieved. I hadn’t realized it until just then, but as Benny was putting the thing together I had started to feel a deadly pressure building in the back of my skull. I didn’t dare ask why he stopped, worried that I might accidentally reignite his resolve.
Together we chose to forget the old machine. Or so I thought.
The last few months of our senior year passed, and they were the best months I’d had with Benny in a long long while. I think collecting that beige heap of plastic, that old machine, it had brought something to a close for him. Whether it was simple catharsis or something more I’ll never know, but I’ll cherish those last few months for the rest of my life. It was the last I’d ever see of Benny again.
With college came real distance, and although we kept in touch through video and text, we never met in person, the times just never lined up. Benny was his own man, and although it brought a small amount of heartbreak to my parents that their adoptive son never seemed to find the time to visit them, they were more than anything glad to see that he at least seemed to be enjoying life. That was definitely the facade he sold on social media.
It was at the start of my second year at college that I got the first wisp that something was wrong with Benny. He sent me something, a file that I couldn’t open, in a format that I didn’t recognize. I thought it must be some kind of obscure meme, but when I couldn’t decipher it, I got a pit in my stomach and I sent him a brisk “wtf?”
He never replied.
It was the last of anything I would ever get from Benny personally. A few weeks later my parents contacted me to tell me that Benny had killed himself.
What followed was a rapid procession of life. That I somehow managed to continue to turn in my school work for the next week or so, was a fact. That I then used the following fall break to attend Benny’s funeral was also true. Mixed in there was a meeting with a lawyer that let me know that I was the sole inheritor of Benny’s estate. This all happened, and I have a very superficial recollection of it all. But in truth I was half a ghost myself. My body– no –my soul, had gone into a form of catatonia. I became an unchanging statue, a rock in the ever flowing stream of life. Things happened, but they seemed to flow past me in a ceaseless stream of almost memories.
On the last day of the fall semester, in a fit of pique depression, looking for something to occupy the void of my soul, I remembered the message that Benny had sent me. I redoubled my efforts to decipher the unknown file type, and scoured the internet for a decoder or playback device that would be able to read it for me. Eventually I stumbled on the answer. It was a type of sound file. With that information it was surprisingly simple to find an app to play it back.
I brought the file over to my phone, and loaded it into the app, and hit play. What came out were whispers. I dropped my phone like it was made of hot iron. The phone clattered to the floor, but kept playing the whispers, which remained just at the edge of audibility no matter how far away I retreated from them.
When it finished playing I was relieved. I also realized I had understood none of it. Unlike the whispers I had heard in my childhood, these had been unintelligible. I tried them again, but although I could hear something I could make out nothing. But I knew a way that I could. The old machine.
The next opportunity I got, I went home. I went back up to my room to look for the old machine, but of course it wasn’t there. It hadn’t been there for a long time. Benny had taken it with him when he went his own way during college. I had to ask my parents to help me find it, and they directed me to the garage, where boxes of Benny’s old things were piled up. Things he had taken with him and things that he had acquired while he was away at college. The old machine was packed into one of those boxes, with a sticky note on the screen. A phone number, possibly left there by Benny himself.
I took the box up to my old room and got to work putting the old machine back together. Slowly it came alive, and bit by bit I felt that dreadful pressure building in the base of my skull. As I connected the monitor to the thinking guts I felt a spark of awareness, as if I was suddenly in danger or being watched. As I connected the peripherals, the pressure around my skull grew heavier and I began to sweat. The feeling only intensified as I plugged the thing into the power, and it came to a pique when I finally connected the strange phone stand to the internet. It’s alive! Gods of all faith and creed, help me! It’s alive!
I turned it on.
The screen lit up, and I noticed that I’d forgotten to remove the sticky note that had been placed there. I ripped it off and crumpled it in my palm as I watched the old machine finish its startup sequence.
I’m not sure what I expected. I certainly hadn’t expected it to feel so normal, or look so mundane. The operating system was definitely proprietary but other than that it felt no more alien than Windows, or Apple. Navigating it felt as natural as anything.
I found the program that would allow me to interpret the whisper recording on my phone. It was the same one that would normally connect to the internet, except this time instead of letting the translator hear the bulky beige phone, I would put my smartphone up to the translator while the recording played. I did this, and for a few tense moments nothing seemed to happen, and then I noticed that something had been downloaded onto the desktop.
The file was called “Dad(1)” and for a moment I felt like an idiot. The “(1)” appearing after the word “Dad” suggested that a version of this file was already downloaded, and of course it would be, this was probably where Benny had sent me the file from. I checked the now translated file and saw that it was a video. The thumbnail showed a man sitting at his desk.
Benny’s dad.
My hand trembled as it reached for the mouse, and clicked on the video.
The video was a top down perspective of the study, and it started at 100, there was no buildup or context to what was happening on the screen. Benny’s father was skinning himself alive. The footage of it was grainy, and was twice as disturbing for it, because the more skin that Benny’s father peeled off the more grainy red pixels appeared on screen.
It was difficult to tell how much of this Benny’s father was doing of his own volition. Heavily pixelated expressions of agony played on his face. He twisted and squirmed, he writhed in pain and appeared to yell into the ceiling as he striped reels of flesh from his arm, and then his legs, and then his chest, and on and on. I couldn’t look away. As much as I wanted to look away I couldn’t, I was forced to watch by my own horribly morbid fascination. God help me. No. God forgive me. I. could. Not. Look. Away.
It was Benny’s father’s twisted and pained flailing that covered the study in blood, leaving the room red and sticky. How he produced so much blood, and in fact, how he had been able to remain conscious this whole time was a mystery to anyone. The act didn’t stop until a light appeared from offscreen, and then suddenly Benny’s mother barged into the study to see her screaming husband. He tried to skin her alive as well, but she fought back. They began to wrestle each other, slipping in the wet puddle of his blood. Soon the blood itself stopped being the worst thing on display, as the father’s viscera began to spill out of him, the membrane that had held it together inside his abdomen splitting open in the tussle. It was an awful scene, and still, I couldn’t look away.
The fight continued like that for some time. With the two of them on the ground, fighting for control of the knife that the father had used to skin himself alive. Even with half the father spilt and spread around the room it was a hard won victory for Benny’s mother. She finally managed to wrestle the knife away from the dying man, and plunged it into his chest, just as shadows appeared from the direction of the doorway. The mother broke down as police aimed their guns at her, and then the video ended.
“Did you like it?” appeared in text over the end of the video.
“What the fuck?” I remember saying out loud.
Why hadn’t Benny turned this in? I thought. His mom was dead, sure, but why not clear her name? Why hadn’t he told me straight away what he’d found? Why had he– I didn’t let myself ask that last question. Instead I unclenched my palm, and looked at the crumpled sticky note. If there was a logical answer to any of this, then maybe it was on the other end of that number. That’s what I told myself anyway.
I put my phone away, and picked up the phone attached to the old machine. It took a few tries to get the method of dialing correct– I’d never used a rotary style phone before, and I didn’t know how to spin the wheel to “dial” the number that I needed, but I managed it. The phone rang for a bit, and then the whispers started to erupt from whatever black beyond I called.
I placed the phone on the translator, and on the monitor, the desktop came alive. The old machine’s proprietary web browser opened and landed on a bare bones white webpage. It reminded me somewhat of a dark web directory.
The dark web isn’t as difficult to navigate as you might think. The difference between a dark web site and a regular one is that dark web sites are unlisted, meaning they don’t show up on search engines, and often they require special browsers and specific URLs. Those URLs are usually kept on some kind of surface web directory. This looked a lot like that. A list of URLs ran down the bare bones page in a ladder of blue.
They were hyperlinks, all of them, and one of them stood out to me immediately.
“Do you want to see how he did it?” It read.
It shouldn’t have freaked me out. There was no way that link could be talking about Benny, which is where my mind went first. There was simply no way.
So I clicked it. And I guess… there was. Somehow there was a way.
I won’t say what I saw. It wasn’t nearly as graphic as his father’s death. In that sense it wasn’t nearly as “interesting”, but even still I can’t bring myself to recount it. It’s too personal. In that way it was much much worse, so much worse. The look in his eyes… despair. There was something almost beautiful about it.
No.
There was something beautiful about it.
At the end of the video, a familiar message popped up.
“Did you like it?”
A box beneath the video asked for a reply. I typed one in.
“Do you want to see more?”
Another box. Another reply.
I saw more.

I don't know if this has already been brought up, I thought about it a long time ago but now I decided that it needed a post.
So we know that BB's plan was to become a Warlord to infiltrate Impel Down in order to gather the most dangerous crew possible, but what we overlook is the fact that BB wanted to bring Luffy's head to the WG in order to become a Warlord, not Ace's...
Why is it important ?
Well because it confirms that BB was not interested in bringing them Ace's head originally. He even asked Ace to join his crew and only when he refused and engaged the fight with him, BB took him down.
At this very moment he could have killed Ace and stolen his df and he would probably still have been granted a warlord position, but instead he let Ace live which implies that he knew that WB would come after Ace to rescue him and that he would have an opportunity to steal WB's devil fruit instead of Ace's... (So it shows that BB is able to adapt his plan at any given time if that benefit him, which is why he should never be underestimated)
But before that point (when he took Ace down) BB could never have even imagine that he would be able to steal WB's df as he would never have been stupid enough to go after him directly ... (or maybe he was thinking about bringing down WB himself if he was never going to show up at Marineford which sounds crazy to me but why not)
So in a sense Ace saved Luffy because after his capture BB no longer needed to take down Luffy, but he also gave BB the only opportunity that he could hope for to steal WB's df... because the Marines did most of the work for him and he took very little risk.
Now let's explore what if we go back in time and BB is able to bring Luffy to the WG instead of Ace (for the sake of the story let's imagine that Luffy's rescue mission is a success, or that he is able to escape somehow, maybe Kuma uses his power to save Luffy and the story goes on)
So in this scenario which was BB's ORIGINAL plan, BB is never able to steal WB's df since he does not even come to Marineford to save Ace... and apparently BB was not interested in the gomu gomu neither so
WHAT DEVIL FRUIT (2nd) BB WAS LOOKING FOR ORIGINALLY (if not the gura gura like we just said) ??!!!
Was it Hanckok's df ? Maybe since she was a Warlord as well he planned to take advantage of his warlord status to trick her and take her devil fruit before going to Impel Down. If he was able to capture her quickly and go to Impel Down before the WG had time to realise his betrayal it could have worked, but it was extremely risky as if the WG noticed BB's betrayal before he went to Impel Down it would have ruined all his plan !
BB could also have gone to Impel Down first and then after he was no longer a Warlord go after Boa Hanckok like he did after timeskip but the reason I think this was not an option is because BB started to go after her only when she was no longer a shichibukai. He could have gone after her at any time but he chose not to and waited untill she was no longer a Warlord ...
So if it was not Hanckok's df that BB was after originally, what other df could he want ?
Not the mera mera no mi becsuse he asked Ace to join his crew first and we know that if he really wanted Ace's df he would have killed him like he did with Tatch !
He was sailing alongside Marco for 30 years so he knew about his mythical zoan df. But after Marineford when he defeated the remaining of the WB pirates, he had the opportunity to take Marco's df but he did not...
Since his plan involved going to Impel Down he could have thought to steal someone's df from there, possible Magellan or Crocodile since he was imprisonned there as well, but the problem with Magellan is that BB seem not to be aware about his df since he almost died the first time he met him (and Shyriu said that they were not prepared to face Magella ...)
Crocodile looks like a better candidate as the marines also insisted on his extremely dangerous df when he got a new bounty after timeskip. Crocodile was able to escape ImpelDown only because Luffy dent there to save his brother. In the scenario where Luffy is captured instead of Ace BB would have been able to take Crocodile's df. Plus it would have been easy given that all the prisonner had sea stone handcuff...
But we must acknowledge the fact that the pretimeskips event (Alabasta untill Marineford) took place in a very short time and BB's plan was already planned before Crocodile was even defeated by Luffy I imagine... So BB could still have used his Warlord status to take Crocodile by surprise when he was still a warlord but this seems very unlikely (like for Boa's df).
During timeskip the BB pirates got a lot of new df abilities but BB himself did not (or at least not that we are aware of). So he probably did not want any of his crewmates abilities for himself otherwise he could just have taken it instead of giving it to them (assuming that he can absorbe a their df because if he cannot it make sense that he would let his crewmates have the best df remaining...)
So this tells me that BB was after another Df and that could be thus of Wang Zhi aka Ochoku (assuming that he had a df), because as we've seen later in the story BB's plan was to take Hachinosu from him so while he was planning totale him down he would also probably want to take his df in the process.
I think that since Law and Koby were involved in the Rocky port incident which led to Ochoku beeing taken down, Ochoku must have been captured which explain why BB did probably not take his df.
Honestly I think that this theory makes the most sense because Ochoku was at God Valley and since there was 6 prises/treasures with probably 1 extremely powerfull df in each , Ochoku might have been able to get one there.
We know already that Kuma and Kaido's df where found at God Valley but what about the other 4 ?
I think that the gura gura no mi was 1 of them, but I don't think that Shiki found his df at God Valley, because unlike WB who was probably the WSM even without his df, Shiki does not look very strong without his df so him beeing already part of the Rocks crew I assume that he already had his df, like Big Mom.
But we cannot rule out the possibility that BB was after Shiki's df as he probably know a lot about the Rocks pirates including their devil fruits. Problem beeing that we have no clue where Shiki is rn since Strong World is not canon we can assume that he is arround somewhere but there is literraly no evidence that BB knows where to find him.
There are still 3 powerfull df which are yet to be revealed who were found at God Valley (maybe Marco's df and Sengoku's df were one of them who knows...)
So what are your thoughts ? Tell me in the comments.
I think BB was after Ochoku's df personnaly or Boa's (as we've seen in the manga).

Thank you for the amazing universe!
l Prologue l Previous l Next l
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"Will he live?"
The Kolshian doctor ensured that the IV line was set properly in the arm, given feathers and fur tended to get in the way. But he knew what he was doing, and the needle slipped beneath the skin without protest. Confident that the connection was good, he stepped back, taking in the full form of Kalsim with bulbous orange eyes.
The captain was better off than when they found him in the cave, but that wasn't saying much. Naked, delirious, covered in blood, and on the brink of death. His guard wasn't doing much better, spare the mortal injury, but hysterical regardless. He was talking now, but Kalsim wasn't so lucky.
"Barely, maybe. I'm surprised he survived for as long as he did, given the extent of the gash." He regarded the large compress wrapped around the captains chest. Underneath, teal colored medigel worked feverishly to repair the wound. "I'm gonna say the makeshift bandage saved his life."
"Good thinking on his guards part, bad on mine." The other observer sighed. "If only we just escorted him through, all of this could've been avoided. But that's in the past now. Did you manage to preform a brain scan yet?"
The doctor shook his tail. "Unfortunately, it's better to wait until he's stable to run the scan through."
The other thought for a moment. "Do it now."
The doctor was taken slightly aback. "But sir, doing a brain scan on him, in this condition? There's a real chance that the process might kill him."
"I know the risk, but its one we have to take. If he dies, we lose our only piece on the board."
"Are you sure? How useful are his memories to us? Don't we need him alive?"
The other walked to the beside, and gently stroked a tentacles across Kalsim's chest. It carried with it small flakes of violet blood, which a single rub turned to dust.
"We don't need his body, but we need his mind. No matter what happens, we continue on as planned. Understand?"
The doctor was still hesitant, tentacles and tail rapping fidgeting nervously. "Alright, I can get it done. I'm just telling you now that I don't think this is a good idea."
"Nothing we've done so far has been a good idea." The other stepped back from the bed, and moved to exit the small medbay. "But we do what's necessary."
The doctor began the process of setting up the brain scan, while the other made for the door. He took one step out, before he raised his tentacle, and turned back to face the doctor.
"Oh, and do let me know when he wakes up. We have much to discuss."
Memory transcription subject: Kalsim, Captain, United Federation Fleet
Date [standardized human time]: December 31st, 2136
It was not the sound of Kelum's voice that awoke me, nor the agony pulling my chest apart. My first sense of awareness was entirely lacking them, replaced instead by a repeating electronic beat, and what sounded like someone rustling around inside of a cabinet. And pressing against by body was not the ungrateful chill of bare rock, but a plush mattress and soft sheets.
Am I...dead?
Opening my ideas left me staring across what appeared to be a small medbay. At least, it looked like any medbay I would find on one of my ships. Taking the place of the usual zurulian personnel, however, was a kolshain, a deep green, donned in a coat, tentacles shifting through a cabinet hanging over the basin.
"W-where am I?"
The kolshian spun around instantaneously, eyes widened at the sound of my frail voice. "Stars above, your awake." He rushed to my side and began scanning over my face. "How are you feeling? Any pain, any grogginess?"
Maybe I'm not dead? "I...feel fine, I think. The pain is gone, at least."
The kolshain nodded. "Then the medigel did its work, thank the stars above. It looks like your going to be alright."
I looked down to see a large bandage wrapped around my chest, much more professional than the rags that Kelum used as a substitute. In place of the pain, a soothing cold projected from where my wound presumably laid. That must be the medigel he's talking about. I moved my wing around as a bit of a test, and found that besides a few twinges here and there, it was almost like I hadn't been raked at all.
"It's gonna take a couple of months for the wound to heal, and there's definitely going to be a scar." The doctor placed a tentacle on my shoulder. "But you should be able to walk up and about no problem. Do you feel like walking?"
"I...I guess?"
"Alright, let me help you here." A tentacle wrapped around my wing as he gently helped me out of the bed. Placing my legs down on the panel floor felt odd at first, likely the lingering effects of whatever painkillers they pumped into me. But however awkward it was, I could move.
"I gotta say Kalsim, your quite resilient. I've never seen someone survive a wound like that."
I coughed, but it only produced a small wince. "Well, maybe I just have a reason to go on."
"Yes, yes..." The doctor looked towards the door, before concerned eyes turned back to me. "Are you sure that your alright?"
"Yes, I think so..." I paused as I remembered the first question that came to mind. "Where am I? Where's Kelum?"
"Your guard is safe, no worries. He was concerned about you, so he'll be glad to know your up and about."
"Can I see him?"
Some of the doctors compassion seemed to slip away. "Not at the moment. There's more important matters to attend to."
It was then I noticed his other tentacle slipping a holopad back into his pocket. "We're you just talking to someone?"
He looked to the door. "Someone that want's to talk to you. I can bring you to him, if you like?"
"Who?"
"It's better if you meet him in person. He can explain everything."
My mind immediately went to the most obvious possibility: Could this be the person who sent me the note? I was suddenly filled with a mix of anticipation and dread. The person who revealed that my old home still existed, but who's cryptic nature nearly led to my death. He could be friend or foe, ally or enemy. He promised me an out, but it could all still be a lie. A gift wrapped box hiding a live grenade inside, ready to blow up in my face.
But it seemed that no matter what, I would have to talk to him.
"Bring me to him."
I quickly realized that the medbay was just another part of the maze-like facility me and Kelum entered in what felt like months ago. The same confusing layout, the same matte steel panel floors and ceilings, the same sickly green light bars, the same signs leading to the same places. Quarters, Maintenance, Observation.
It was a short journey, but one that nearly sent my nerves jumping out of my skin. My mind was alight with possibilities of who the person could be and what he wanted. Why did he need my help? Why not anyone else? Was it because this facility held a past dear to me? Or was there something that I wasn't seeing here? That last option felt more the case as we neared our destination.
Finally, we stepped through a doorway leading back into the familiar room. The consoles still lay dormant, the sanctuary light still blasted through the (now damaged) viewport. And standing shadowed near the edge,
SQUAW!
The sudden screech threw me back for a second, for there wasn't just a person standing at the window. Accompanying the man was one of those birds, green and gold, the very same that plucked that lizard from right in front of me and Kelum. Its sharp beaked plucked seeds from the outstretched teal tentacle before it, beady forward facing eyes planted firmly on the kolshian's face. He let the bird feed for a moment longer before his appendage returned to his side, and he turned to face me directly.
"Ah, Kalsim. I'm glad to see you up and about."
He was well above middle age, that much was clear. His voice crackled like the pages of an ancient tome, carrying knowledge and wisdom of a lifetime and more. His face was creased and spotted, his eyes were beginning to dull, and his back was beginning to damper. But he was proud and determined, all carried in a demeanor that seemed to disdain the very concept of age itself.
And that demeanor also carried a permeating aura of authority. In the gilded bands and rings around his sleeves, in the robes tailored only for those select few, in the necklace around his neck born with the symbol of the Chiefdom. Yet he was not gaudy or audacious. The blue fabric was well maintained, but not perfect. The guild shone, but was not spotless. He was powerful, but not infallible, and that he knew well.
He was unlike any shadow caste member I had ever met.
"I will see myself out." The doctor bowed before he took his leave, shutting the door in his wake.
The shadow caste member sighed. "I tell him that he doesn't need to bow, but he never listens. My colleagues leave their impression, let me tell you."
He stepped down from the observation platform, prompting the bird to fly back out the broken window. He watched it fly away, only turning back when it finally disappeared over the canopy. His tail bent in a manner that suggested happiness.
"Beautiful creatures, are they not? I can't exactly recall the name, it's probably in the archives somewhere. But I'm sure it's more than befitting of their elegance. Your people had a talent for names, even still to this day."
He stepped up in front of me, standing just slightly below my eye level.
"I'm sure you have plenty of questions, so ask away."
I was surprised at how casual he was being with all this, given that I nearly died. Is this just an act, or is he really this laid back? It would've helped if I knew his actual name.
"Who are you?"
"Ah, that's simple. I am Maronis, and before you ask, yes, I was the one to send you the note."
Maronis. The name didn't ring familiar, despite my numerous interactions with the caste. "I don't recall you."
"I didn't expect you too." He began to walk around, sliding tentacles over the dead consoles. "Truthfully, I'm one of the less prominent members of the caste. Partly because I prefer it that way, partly because I'm not the most popular."
"Popular?"
"Yes, the caste hasn't taken a particular liking to me, and that's entirely my fault. I don't apologize, and they don't expect me too. However, it has left me, how shall I say, rather uniformed."
He stopped his wandering, and turned to face me directly. His causal disposition did turn out to be an act, for a grave expression quickly took its place.
"There are happenings, Kalsim. Happenings that threaten to bring the Federation to its knees. I need your help to stop them."
"Happenings?" I had the feeling he was being intentionally vague. Or maybe... "What do you mean, happenings?"
Maronis sighed, before closing the gap and placing a tentacle on my shoulder. "Like I said, I'm rather uniformed. In that respect we are the same. Come with me."
He guided me over to the viewport, where a warm breeze blew threw the broken window. The 'sun', now nearing the horizon, sent long shadows cascading over the hills and treetops. The town laid shadowed in the center.
"Tell me Kalsim, what do you believe the purpose of this place to be?"
The answer seemed obvious now. "Some sort of habitat for pre-contact life from Nishtal."
He nodded. "In some sense, you are correct."
"In some sense?"
His eyes glowed brightly as he stared towards the horizon. "When the Federation first began on its endeavors, our government initially insisted on the complete extermination of all predator flora and fauna. The farsul, scholars that they are, disagreed, believing there to be some value in maintaining at least some samples of predatory life. Whether for the purpose of study, or that scholarly disposition towards collection."
"Eventually, they came to a compromise, whereby the farsul could maintain their little collection, as long as it was well isolated from the rest of the galaxy. It's why their archives are located a kilometer below their oceans, and why this place is here."
"As the Federation expanded, they constructed hundreds of facilities just like this. For centuries, they served their purpose without issue. And that's where the story should have ended."
But it didn't was the statement left unsaid. And something inside told me it had to do with the discovery in the cave.
"Me and Kelum, we found a skeleton of an arxur in that cave. And the town...people used to live here, didn't they?"
The 'sun' now began to dip below the horizon, and the habitat began to grow dim. Somewhere off in the distance, the calls that became somewhat familiar died into the falling darkness.
"I believe your intuition to be correct. This place was once a facility of observation, transformed into one of experimentation. To what ends, well that remains to be seen."
He turned back to me as the light finally disappeared, rendering his already teal complexion a further decomposed green.
"And I believe that this is, or was, part of a larger plot that I've yet to be let in on. I only know it by its code name, Clear Sky. A secret so important that all besides its name is to be kept from even fellow members of the shadow caste. And you know how secrets can be dangerous little things. At once seeming so minor, yet carrying the capacity to bring down entire nations, civilizations, in one fell swoop."
Maronis brought his tentacles behind his back, and began to pace the room once again. "Now let me ask you another question, Kalsim. Why does the Federation stand today?"
I watched him circle as I processed the question. "I...don't know what you mean."
"Well think about it. The Federation is responsible for numerous crimes against sapience. The destruction of entire cultures, histories, ideals inconvenient to our rule. We wage a war that we both know continues only for its sake. We stand at the core of an empire whose foundation is built on blood and bone, and we revel in it. Any sane world would have long ago rejected us. So tell me, why does the Federation stand today?"
The way he talked so casually about the essential destruction of forty four distinct species, including my own, should have given me pause. But maybe that's the point. Maybe it's because we can talk about it at all. Maybe because...
"It's no secret."
Maronis stopped, turned to face me again, and for the first time since the conversation began, let a small smile lift the corners of his mouth.
"Its. No. Secret. For centuries upon centuries, this galaxy has come to understand us, the cured, the values that we propagate, the foundations of our empire, to be the true predator, and all because one species decided not to become its prey. And from that point forward, we have had to fight for every single tiny ounce of legitimacy, to convince others that we are the path forward when reality tells of an otherwise case. And that struggle," he raised a single appendage to the air, "that is what has granted our Federation strength. For despite it all, we have crafted the most powerful polity this galaxy has ever known, and likely will know."
He paused to take a breath.
"But, to those of a less intelligent disposition," I could almost see the urge to mention Nikonus by name ripple across the kolshian's skin, "to those whose analysis errs to the superficial, they do not see this strength. They see the agitations of the Shield and the Coalition, factions which in reality can be crushed with but a flick of a tentacle. They see the furthering acceptance of the arxur, a natural product of their ideologies inevitable decay. They only see the superficial, because they only desire the superficial."
"So imagine, for a moment, if the conquest of Skalga was an uninterrupted process. If the Federation had never been given pause to reflect. What then, Kalsim?"
I'd almost forgotten that I was a part of the conversation, given how long and, dare I say, passionate his little speech had been. But reflecting on his question, the answer only seemed obvious.
"The secret would have been maintained. The Federations true nature, lacking the intervention of the Venlil, would have in all likelihood never been revealed."
"And what would it have done," Maronis continued my train of thought, "but grant the superficial strength so many seem to desire? The Federation, supreme in its power, free to enact its will upon the entire galaxy, no obstacle standing in its way."
"But secrets are a dangerous thing. Uncontested power is no different. It breeds malaise, complacency, confidence. Combine them together, well, that's an easy way to bring down an empire."
The logic seemed sound, if not common sense. "If what the Federation did only came out now, it would be chaos. Entire species suddenly discovering they're the monsters they've been led to hate the entire time. The Federation, it would just tear itself apart."
"Exactly." Maronis stepped forward. "And it's why I need your help. Because me and you both understand that there can be no more secrets if the Federation is to survive. And more than anything else, that is what we both desire. Correct me if I'm wrong."
Maronis looked up to me as I considered what I did truly want. Because what I wanted was always a product of what the shadow caste wanted, what Nikonus wanted. They told me what to do, what to say, how to act. Constantly kept an officer at my side, making sure that I toed the line perfectly. So what did I want?
"I don't know."
But far from disappointment, or shock, Maronis looked almost like he expected that answer. "You've been on a leash so long you've forgotten how to fly. I know what Nikonus wants to do with you, to make you another pawn in his game to create a forever war with humanity. A delusional plan born from the ideological dredges that can only be described as his mind. And I know you want no part his game. So like I promised, I'm giving you an out."
But that only raised the obvious question, "How do I know I won't just become your pawn as well?"
"Because," he expected that response as well, "unlike Nikonus, I'm giving you a choice. You can walk out of here, pretend that this place and this conversation never existed. Of course," he took in the bandage, "the wound would be hard to explain. I doubt falling down a flight of stairs would do that, but that's all besides the point."
"And you wouldn't make me disappear, suffer an accident, two gunshots to the back of the head?"
"Smart of you to consider that, but no, I don't work that way. At least, with people I consider allies. And even if you walk away, I know you would side with me if it came down to it."
He looked out to the habitat, which was now bathed in dim glow of a false moon. The wails echoed through the night, met with like-minded calls across the ancient expanse. So called stars twinkled across the dome, forming the constellations that once stared down at me every night. Maronis looked upon it all with no small amount of appreciation.
"I brought you here to remind you of what the Federation took from you, and so many others like you, all in the service of predator and prey."
"But predator and prey is all but dying. The continuing acceptance of the arxur and humanity serves as prime evidence to that point. Those who cling to it have condemned themselves to die alongside it. And if they succeed, if Clear Sky becomes manifest, they'll drag the entire galaxy down with them too. Of that I am sure."
"But you don't even know what Clear Sky is, you said so yourself."
"But I know what the caste wants, and you know what they want: To have predator and prey to define this galaxy in perpetuity. Clear Sky can only serve that end. The path that the rest of the caste seems want to take, even if it succeeds, will bring ruin to the Federation."
There were still lingering doubts, but those were inconsequential in comparison to the evident truth. If Nikonus got the war he desired, it would spell the end of the Federation. Humanity, the Coalition, Jones, they had no interest in playing along like the Dominion. They would go for the throat before the shadow caste even had a chance to get out of bed.
And even if they did, what then? Whose to say the rest of the galaxy would go along too? Humanity was no arxur, that was plain for everyone to see. Fuck, even the sivkit found it in themselves to see humanity for who they truly were. At that point, waging a war against humanity on the grounds of 'fighting predators' would be tantamount to sticking a gun in our collective mouth and pulling the trigger.
Either way, if Maronis was telling the truth, the Federation was doomed, unless the shadow caste was stopped, unless Clear Sky was put down.
"What would you have me do?"
Maronis nodded his tail and he spoke in a stern report. "Nikonus believes you to be a loyal pawn. Use that against him. Find out the true nature Clear Sky, then kill it in its cradle. But most importantly, do whatever it takes to ensure that Clear Sky remains a secret. If any inkling of it reaches the public, that could spell the end of the Federation. To that end, no sacrifice is too great."
"Whatever it takes?"
He leaned in closer. "Whatever it takes."
He stepped back, and some of his casual demeanor seemed to return, if not fully.
"And if you don't think you can do that, leave. But if think you can," he raised one tentacle up, and held it out before me, "then I think we can help each other."
He wanted a handshake. That human gesture, their way of signalling agreement.
And it brought for that great dilemma once again. Whether this was an act, or an out. Whether I would once again sign my life away, or finally take a step towards freedom.
After all I've done, all I've been forced to do, what I'm meant to do...It could be an escape, or I could be doing it all over again.
But I looked out the window again, heard the calls of the wilds robbed from my people by the organization whose member was now promising to bring it all to an end. Me, my people, we could have this all. After a thousand years, we could finally fly free, or have our wings clipped once and for all.
And all it took was a handshake.
"So Kalsim, what will it be?"
I recalled what I told Kelum, standing on the brink of death: It only took a thousand years, but things are finally back to normal.
It was a lie, but it didn't have to be. Not anymore.
So I raised my wing, took his tentacle in my talon, and shook to the future of the Federation.
l Prologue l Previous l Next l

THE HARMONY OF ENERGY
Abstract
Introducing the "Harmony of Energy" (HoE) model, a novel formalism that posits the universe operates according to a fundamental pattern. This pattern consists of energy, defined as the smallest unit anything can be, existing as a fluid form in space, interacting with its environment through a specific method or structure, and then moving out of that space. Space, in turn, is the dynamic environment that energy occupies and moves through, filling it with positive and negative energy that affects its properties and behavior. According to the HoE model, energy moves into space, reacts to its environment, and then moves out of that space, with no time limit for how long it takes to react. This pattern is universal, applying to all aspects of the universe, and nothing escapes it.
The Origin of the Universe
The HoE model posits that the universe began as a singular entity, containing all forms of energy as one unified energy. This singularity can be represented mathematically as: U = ∫∫∫E(x,y,z)dxdydz, where U is the total energy of the universe, E is the energy density, and x, y, z are the spatial coordinates.
As the singularity expanded, the unified energy converted into distinct positive and negative energies. Positive energy is a high-frequency, high-information-potential state that retains its unique signature and individual form, capable of producing heat and maintaining its distinct properties. Negative energy is a low-frequency, low-information-potential state that loses its unique signature and individual form, characterized by a pulling force and a tendency to condense and simplify.
Initially, the universe moved in a straight line, with energy compact and cold. However, this linear movement resulted in a direct head-on collision with the void, a solid structure that hindered its passage.
This collision led to a limitation and subsequent conversion of energy, transforming it from a linear motion to a wave-like motion. The new wave motion created heat and allowed energy to break the pattern of "follow the leader" and collide with the void at an angle, shattering its edge into pieces.
This process of fragmentation can be described by the equation: F(θ) = Σ[nEⁿ * sin(nθ)], where F is the fragmentation function, θ is the angle of collision, n is an integer, and E is the energy density. For reasons yet unknown, possibly due to the singularity's energy reaching its final place or a transformation driven by cosmic "boredom," this conversion occurred, giving rise to the diverse universe we observe today.
The Void and the Ultimate Negative
Outside of the expanding universe lies the void, a region devoid of energy and matter, existing in a state of complete stillness and stationarity. This void represents the ultimate negative, a state of complete absence and zero energy density, unchanging and unyielding. As a whole, it exerts a compressive force on the expanding universe, potentially leading to contraction and eventual return to the singularity. This dynamic interplay between the universe and the void can be described by the equation: F = -G * (M * m) / r² where F represents the force, G represents the gravitational constant, M and m represent the masses, and r represents the distance between them. The void's stationary and unchanging nature, lacking any internal rotation or energy, makes it inhospitable to life as we know it.
Magnetism and Attraction: A Shift in Perspective
Initially, I viewed magnetism through the conventional lens, seeing it as a fundamental force of attraction between positive and negative entities. However, as my understanding evolved, I came to realize that magnetism operates under a different principle. Positive and negative entities are not attracted to each other; instead, they represent the intrinsic structure of things. The true nature of attraction is frequency-based, with entities drawn to higher vibrations and shorter wavelengths. This phenomenon can be described by the following equations:
F = ∫∫(μ₁⋅μ₂)/(4πr²⁾ dt dt (1)
where F is the force of attraction, μ₁ and μ₂ are the magnetic moments of the entities, r is the distance between them, and the integral is taken over time.
Additionally, the frequency-based attraction can be represented by:
f = γB (2)
where f is the frequency, γ is the gyromagnetic ratio, and B is the magnetic field strength.
Furthermore, the smaller wave's faster movement can be expressed as:
v = λf (3)
where v is the velocity, λ is the wavelength, and f is the frequency.
Energy and its Properties
Energy is the fundamental unit of everything. Energy can be thought of as an individual entity with an electrical signature vibrating at a specific frequency, carrying information from its originating source. If we were to dissect a piece of energy, we would find its genetic makeup consists of various parts, similar to binary code. One constant aspect of energy in our universe is the signature of this universe, which is present in all forms of energy, whether positive or negative. This underlying frequency distinguishes energy from our universe versus parallel universes.
Positive Energy (PE): - Oscillates through space with a frequency (f) and wavelength (λ): PE = f × λ - Exhibits wave-like behavior: PE(x,t) = A × sin(kx - ωt)
Negative Energy (NE): - Vibrates at a slower frequency (f'/2): NE = (f'/2) × λ' - Exhibits a slower, more stable behavior: NE(x,t) = B × cos(k'x - ω't)
Energy Interactions and Signature Changes
When positive and negative energies interact, their unique signatures can become altered. As energies combine, their signatures merge, releasing redundant information about the universe signature and creating an opening for new information to be stored. This process enables efficient storage and transmission of energy signatures, allowing for:

• Signature refinement and evolution
• Information exchange and updating
• Adaptation to changing environments and conditions

This process could be crucial for understanding how energy signatures evolve and adapt, and how they influence the behavior and properties of energy in various contexts.
The Formation and Evolution of the Universe
Initial Energy Interactions
In the beginning, a vast amount of fluid energy quickly interacted with the largest newly created pieces of the void, described by the wave-particle duality equation (E = hf = ℏω).
Star Formation and Signatures
As these interactions occurred, the largest of the solid structures of the universe began to form, stars, governed by the Lane-Emden equation (d^2P/dr2 + (2/r)(dP/dr) + (4πG/c^2)P = 0). Each new star held with it an old habit divulged from the singularity, a universal frequency (f = 1/T = ω/2π, where T is the period of oscillation and ω is the angular frequency). Old habits die hard, so each new star offered its own diverse and unique signature (S = Σf = ∫ψ(x)² dx, where ψ(x) is the wave function and x represents the position).
Energy Collisions and Prime Numbers
As structures formed, a group of energy travels through space with an even number of internal parts (E = 2nℏ, where n is an integer and ℏ is the reduced Planck constant). This group collides with another group of energy with an odd amount of internal parts (E = (2n + 1)ℏ), and the total sum of the newly combined group equals a prime number (P = E1 + E2 = 2nℏ + (2m + 1)ℏ, where m is an integer). New Equation: Prime Number Formation (P = E1 + E2 = 2nℏ + (2m + 1)ℏ)
Schrödinger Equation and Physical Reality
The prime number is crucial, as the extra piece gets stuck in the space it is occupying, acting as an anchor, attracting other parts to breach their negative shell and combine as one, described by the Schrödinger equation (iℏ(∂ψ/∂t) = Hψ). This converts the fluid energy to be contained into the space it is in, which is broken pieces of the void that do not have a universal size, and gives us physical reality, forming particles with diverse unique signatures (S = Σf = ∫ψ(x)² dx).
Refining Space and Transferring Signatures
As energy continued to interact with space, it further refined and shaped that space into a sphere (V = (4/3)πr^3, where r is the radius), adding the discarded portions of size to the diverse field that is the universe. During this refinement, energy was transferred to these pieces, and the signature of the star was embedded in them, forming the galaxy clusters and solar systems we know today.
Smooth Surfaces and Celestial Bodies
As any piece of something breaks, its edges are rigid, and the interaction of energy against this rigid surface knocks off the rough edges, providing a smooth surface (E = Δx/Δt = ℏ/Δx, where Δx is the change in position and Δt is the change in time). New Equation: Smooth Surface Formation (E = Δx/Δt = ℏ/Δx)
The pieces that were knocked off still contain a portion of energy that put in the work to knock it off, and this process contributed to the formation of celestial bodies and the transfer of signatures. This, in turn, led to the creation of galaxies, planets, and other celestial bodies, each with their unique characteristics and properties, shaping the diverse and complex universe we observe today.
The Cartwheel Structure and Energy Movement
The cartwheel structure represents the dynamic movement of energy in the universe, with its rotating wheel and radiating arms symbolizing the harmonious interaction of positive and negative energies. When creation occurred, energy learned how to pass through stationary space (the void) by changing its movement pattern from a straight line to a wave (λ = v/f, where λ is wavelength, v is velocity, and f is frequency). This new wave movement allowed energy to create heat (Q = mcΔT, where Q is heat, m is mass, c is specific heat capacity, and ΔT is temperature change), which was the tool that gave energy the ability to "shatter" the void and interact with the broken pieces to perform a new movement, the cartwheel. As energy moves through space, it rarefies and decreases in temperature (T = k-B, where T is temperature, k is Boltzmann's constant, and B is the energy density), causing it to slow down and change frequency (f = ΔE/h, where f is frequency, ΔE is the energy change, and h is Planck's constant).
The Block and Cartwheeling Bar Analogy
The block and cartwheeling bar analogy provides a conceptual framework for understanding the dynamic interaction of energy in the universe. Imagine a box (representing space) containing blocks of varying sizes, each symbolizing a specific energy frequency (f = 1/T, where f is frequency and T is time). The cartwheeling bar, rotating within the box, represents the harmonious movement of energy between its positive (E+) and negative (E-) forms. Each block must be 100% filled, with positive and negative energy proportions varying as the bar rotates. For example, when positive energy occupies 99% of a block and negative energy occupies 1%, the rotation of the bar causes a gradual shift, resulting in a change to 98% positive and 2% negative, and so on. This constant interaction and adjustment maintain the balance of energy in the universe.
Fundamental Forces Explained

• Strong Force: The repulsion from negative electrons being attracted to and pressing against the nucleus. This force can be described by the equation: F = k * (q1 * q2) / r²
  
• Weak Force: The outgoing frequency created by the positive nucleus, similar to energy congregating at the sun's nucleus, reacting to its environment, and breaking down before leaving (possibly as radioactive decay). This force can be described by the equation: F = (G * m1 * m2) / r²
  
• Gravity: Exists between the outer negative sphere of electrons exerting a pushing force against the positive pushing force of the nucleus, similar to the solar system's dynamics. This force can be described by the equation: F = (G * m1 * m2) / r²
  
• Electromagnetism: Energy in action, manifesting as the dynamic interplay between electric and magnetic forces. This force can be described by the equations: E = f * λ and B = (E / c)
  

Present State of the Universe
The universe currently exists in a state of dynamic equilibrium, with observable patterns and structures perpetually renewing themselves through the interactions of energy (E = hf, where E is energy and h is Planck's constant). This self-sustaining cycle is evident in the formation and evolution of celestial bodies, galaxies, and other cosmic entities, governed by the laws of thermodynamics (ΔE = Q - W, where ΔE is the change in energy, Q is the heat added, and W is the work done). The universe's present state is characterized by the harmonious coexistence of diverse energy frequencies (f = 1/T, where f is frequency and T is time), which govern the behavior and properties of matter at various scales. This balance is maintained through the continuous conversion of energy between its positive (E+) and negative (E-) forms, allowing the universe to adapt and evolve in response to internal and external influences (E+ + E- = 0, representing the conservation of energy)."
Entropy and the Conversion of Positive to Negative
The physical dimensions of positive and negative energy in a block are equal, with 1% negative energy occupying the same space as 99% positive energy. This equality stems from the different speeds of energy and their individual properties. When negative energy is at 1%, it has condensed the equivalent of 99% positive energy into a single, compact form (E = hf, where E is energy, h is Planck's constant, and f is frequency). As the proportions shift, such as 60% positive and 40% negative, the space occupied remains a 50/50 split. This is because positive energy travels at the speed of light (c = λν, where c is the speed of light, λ is wavelength, and ν is frequency), while negative energy moves at a pace relative to terminal velocity (v = √(2gl), where v is velocity, g is acceleration due to gravity, and l is length). Each form dominates at the 50% mark (T = λ/v, where T is time, λ is wavelength, and v is velocity). The percentages represent available positive energy, while the cartwheel symbolizes space or the ultimate negative in motion, influenced by energy's presence. Negative energy, with its depleted charge, occupies space that needs to be filled and recycled into a positive state. At higher percentages, collisions with negative energy slow down the flow, similar to the concept of crab mentality, where negative energy draws down the percentages.
Energy Dynamics and Galactic Harmony
The 50% Threshold
The 50% mark is a critical threshold that distinguishes between positive and negative energy. Above 50%, energy is considered positive and can produce heat beyond its negative shell. Below 50%, energy is considered negative and cannot produce heat past this shell.
Compressed Positive Energy
When the percentage of positive energy drops below 50%, it becomes compressed and can exceed the speed of light (c = λν, where c is the speed of light, λ is wavelength, and ν is frequency). This allows it to navigate through the "cracks" of negative energy:
v > c (where v is velocity and c is the speed of light)
Quantum Mirroring
Alternatively, the positive energy can align with the negative energy, resulting in a quantum mirroring effect. This enables instantaneous information transfer between entangled particles, regardless of distance:
E = hf (where E is energy, h is Planck's constant, and f is frequency)
Retaining Frequency Signatures
In this alignment, the negative energy retains its unique frequency signature to avoid interacting with other signatures:
Δx * Δp >= h/4π (where Δx is position uncertainty, Δp is momentum uncertainty, and h is Planck's constant)
The Cavendish Experiment and Energy Interaction
The Cavendish experiment, a groundbreaking study on gravity, offers an intriguing analogy for understanding energy interaction with space. Imagine the suspended spheres as representative of space itself, devoid of energy. When energy interacts with this motionless space, it's as if the spheres begin to rotate, symbolizing the introduction of energy into the internal area of space.
As energy engages with space, it's gradually consumed, much like the reduction of energy in the Cavendish experiment. This process can be described by the equation:
G = (2πLθ) / (MT)
Where G is the gravitational constant, L is the length of the torsion wire, θ is the twist angle of the wire, M is the mass of the lead spheres, and T is the time period of oscillation.
This equation, derived from the Cavendish experiment, reveals the intricate relationship between energy, space, and gravity. By exploring this analogy, we can deepen our understanding of how energy shapes the very fabric of our universe.
Energy Absorption and Frequency
Energy absorption occurs when energy slows down, allowing it to be perceived and observed. This process involves energy being absorbed by an atom and reflecting what was not absorbed. As energy slows down, it can still be observed as a wave, but just before it becomes a particle. This phenomenon is fascinating, as it reveals the transition from wave-like to particle-like behavior.
The conversion of positive to negative states is due to positives' ability to produce heat and maintain an individual form. Negative energy, on the other hand, does not produce heat and lacks an individual form, instead traveling at a pace relative to terminal velocity. This process can be described by the quantum mechanical formula: ℏω = ΔE = hf, where ℏ is the reduced Planck constant, ω is the angular frequency, ΔE is the change in energy, h is Planck's constant, and f is the frequency of the energy.
Furthermore, the frequency of the energy can be related to the velocity of the particle using the formula: f = (1/2π) * √(k/m), where k is the spring constant and m is the mass of the particle. Additionally, the energy absorption rate can be calculated using the formula: dE/dt = (2π/h) * V_uv² * δ(E_u - E_v), where V_uv is the transition matrix element, E_u and E_v are the energies of the initial and final states, and δ is the Dirac delta function.
The Conversion of Positive to Negative States and Planetary Motion
The conversion of positive to negative energy states is rooted in their distinct properties. Positive energy produces heat and maintains an individual form, whereas negative energy lacks heat and an individual form, instead traveling at a pace relative to terminal velocity. This process is reversible, as seen in fusion reactions, or can be influenced by external forces like microwave ovens.
In the context of our solar system, the sun's positive energy release generates heat and propels planets into their orbital tracks. Conversely, the incoming energy from the universe, considered negative, is cold and stabilizes planets in their tracks. Initially, I focused solely on the positive push dictating orbital paths. However, I now recognize the significant influence of negative energy and use it as the basis for understanding abnormal tracks.
Here's an added equation to illustrate the relationship between energy and orbital motion:
F = G * (m1 * m2) / r²
Where F is the force of gravity, G is the gravitational constant, m1 and m2 are the masses of the objects, and r is the distance between them.
This equation shows how the force of gravity (F) is influenced by the masses (m1 and m2) and distance (r) between objects, which is relevant to understanding planetary motion and the balance between positive and negative energy.
Gravitation and Time: Frequency's Role
Time is intimately tied to the frequency of the universe, and this relationship is governed by the laws of gravitation. Imagine the cartwheel's bar having notches, each representing a different frequency. Each notch would experience time at a unique pace, described by the formula:
t = 1/f
Where t is time and f is frequency.
If we could halt the cartwheel's motion, time would appear to pause, as described by the relativistic time dilation formula:
t' = γ(t)
Where t' is the time experienced by an observer in motion, t is the time experienced by an observer at rest, and γ is the Lorentz factor.
The passage of time is directly governed by the oscillations in the wave, or simply its frequency. By altering the frequency, we can change the flow of time itself, as described by the gravitational redshift formula:
f' = f * √(1 - 2GM/rc²⁾
Where f' is the observed frequency, f is the emitted frequency, G is the gravitational constant, M is the mass of the gravitational source, r is the radial distance from the source, and c is the speed of light.
Gravity and Energy Dynamics
Gravity can be understood in various ways through these thoughts. One perspective is that gravity operates similarly to the orbital planets, but with a twist. Instead of orbiting in space, we orbit at a subterranean frequency. This frequency attracts similar energies, leading to bonding and the formation of matter. For instance, atoms bond to form rocks, and separate rocks may bind together due to similar vibrations. However, other frequencies simply pass through, unable to bind due to differences in energy vibrations and the negative fields surrounding our bodies and the ground.
Our bodies are attracted to the Earth's core, with a force described by the equation:
F = G * (m1 * m2) / r²
Where F is the force of attraction, G is the gravitational constant, m1 and m2 are the masses of our bodies and the Earth, and r is the distance between them.
The vibrations of our energy and the negative field surrounding us can be described by the wave equation:
∇^2E = μ * ∂^2E/∂t2
Where E is the energy field, μ is the permeability of the medium, and ∂^2E/∂t2 is the second derivative of the energy with respect to time.
The incoming cosmic energy pushes us downward, with a force described by the equation:
F = (E * A) / c
Where F is the force of the incoming energy, E is the energy density of the cosmos, A is the cross-sectional area of our bodies, and c is the speed of light.
The outgoing energy from Earth moves faster than the incoming energy from the cosmos, as observed in the formation of clouds with flat bases and more sporadic tops. This can be described by the equation:
v_out = v_in * (1 + (E_out / E_in))
Where v_out is the velocity of the outgoing energy, v_in is the velocity of the incoming energy, E_out is the energy density of the outgoing energy, and E_in is the energy density of the incoming energy.
Galactic Cycles and Black Holes
The Milky Way galaxy has a supermassive black hole at its center, with a mass described by the equation:
M = (1.989 x 10³⁰⁾ * (G / c²⁾
Where M is the mass of the black hole, G is the gravitational constant, and c is the speed of light.
As the galaxy spirals towards the center, enough mass will be collected to trigger the black hole to become a large star, described by the equation:
M = (4.383 x 10³⁰⁾ * (G / c²⁾
Where M is the mass of the star, G is the gravitational constant, and c is the speed of light.
When this happens, the black hole will shed its outer shell to create the galaxy that spirals around it, and the process begins again. This cycle can be described by the equation:
t = (2 * π * G * M) / c³
Where t is the time period of the cycle, G is the gravitational constant, M is the mass of the black hole or star, and c is the speed of light.
The opposite of a black hole is a white hole, but why hasn't this phenomenon been observed? According to this article, it has been observed but misunderstood. With the theme of balancing the universe, would a large star be surrounded by much smaller black holes? Would these smaller black holes feed the larger star by way of quantum bridge or wormhole, and vice versa for smaller stars and larger black holes? This can be described by the equation:
E = (ℏ * ω) / 2
Where E is the energy transferred between the star and black holes, ℏ is the reduced Planck constant, and ω is the frequency of the quantum bridge or wormhole.
Energy Flow and Balance
Energy moves in and out of everything, maintaining a delicate balance. It enters as a positive force and exits as a negative force. Our sun emits energy at 99% strength and high frequency, which combines with an equally sized negative force at 1% strength, filling the space completely. This balance is crucial, as positive energy moves faster than negative energy due to entropy's diminishing effects over time and distance.
As positive energy travels, it loses a piece of itself, converting to negative energy. This process is directly related to gravitational forces and time dilation. When positive energy reaches 50%, it has a certain probability of converting to negative energy, which is then attracted back to a positive source with a corresponding probability of being converted back to positive energy.
This cycle of energy flow and balance is the foundation of the universe's harmony, and understanding it can reveal the intricate web of forces that shape our reality.
_Conclusion _
"In conclusion, the Harmony of Energy (HoE) model offers a novel perspective on the universe, revealing a intricate web of energy dynamics that underlie all aspects of existence. By exploring the interplay between positive and negative energy, we gain insight into the fundamental forces that shape our reality. From the smallest subatomic particles to the vast expanse of the cosmos, energy is the unifying thread that binds everything together.
Through the HoE model, we've seen how energy's harmonious movement gives rise to the patterns and structures we observe in the universe. We've also delved into the fascinating relationships between energy, space, and time, and how these interactions govern the behavior of matter at various scales.
As we continue to refine our understanding of the HoE model, we may uncover new secrets of the universe and gain a deeper appreciation for the beauty and harmony that underlies all of existence. Ultimately, this knowledge can inspire new perspectives, new technologies, and a new era of human understanding and cooperation, as we work together to harmonize our own energy with the energy of the universe.
But I ask this, why continue to work on something that is not appreciated nor taken seriously because it comes from a layman with the credentials of a GED? In that lies the problem as I’ve been told only those holding degrees should consider these thoughts. With that, I have abruptly stopped progress of this idea.”
MAG

I know that my concerns are silly. I'm an adult and the birds belong to me. But I've been dependent on my mum for so long I feel like I have to obey her.
I always ask for her permission to buy things even when they're absolutely necessary and I pay for them with my own money, like bird food. When I don't get her approval I feel like I'm making a wrong decision.
I don't know exactly why she wants to keep the birds but I have a few strong guesses. 1. Renting an apartment with them is gonna be difficult. 2. She has a full time job and I'm on disability aid. 3. She wants me to focus on studying and avoid distractions, like working to support my birds and taking care of them.
But I think I absolutely need my birds to do well in college. 1. They're my responsibility and while my mum knows how to petsitt them her methods may put my birds in danger in the long run. 2. We're gonna miss eachother and our bond may fade away. 3. I'll be longing for them so much I won't be able to focus on anything. 4. My daily routine is built around them. They motivate me. 5. I know how to tell if they're sick and will have a better access to the vet in a bigger city. My mum can't even catch them.
I've been planning this out for weeks. Me and my sister will rent a pet friendly apartment, I'll build them a large cage they could exercise in without destroying the flat, I'll make sure they won't disturb the neighbours. I have many ideas on how to do that, talked with a friend of mine who rents an apartment with canaries and got some tips. I'll find a part time job that will allow me to take care of their basic needs (my disability aid covers the basic care but I like having more money for emergencies).
They'll be my study buddies, my rock, my muses.
But with my mum they'll stay in their safe space, no one's gonna kick them out, and we know how they interact with their surroundings so there's no potentially dangerous learning curve to survive (like a hole I didn't notice but my birds may get stuck in).
What should I do?

So, this is my first time making a post like this where I'm sharing an experience, so sorry if my storytelling isn't that well and I wasn't sure if this was the right place to share this or if a different subreddit was better. Also, I'm high. :p This is probably going to be a long post so strap in or go below to find a summary. And before anyone says this is fake, trust me, I wish it was. This was very real and I'm still traumatized by what happened. I'm hoping finally sharing what happened with other people who can give me on advice on how to deal with it (mentally) can help.
I'm not going to be using any real names or specific locations for privacy reasons (I'm also deathly afraid he might come across this) I'll call myself L (20M) and the guy who I think could've been a serial killestalker I'll call B (26M).
For some minor backstory, I'm a twenty year old trans male and I've never had much experience in dating. I live in the bible belt, so my dating life was non-existent or was filled with creeps. I wasn't looking for a partner at this time, but I ended up meeting B who was super sweet, had an amazing voice/laugh, and was overall very attractive. The main reason why I liked him and wanted to try dating him was because he told me he had dated trans partners before and knew a lot about it and was very respectful of my boundaries. Most guys never cared how I felt and always wanted to 'see my tits' and so on, and even if they liked me, when it came to sex and my body they were all very disrespectful. To top it all off, me and B had the same interests and 'end goal' for our lives and we got along extremely well. I have a lot of mental disorders since BEFORE I met B, some being CPTSD, Agoraphobia, and Severe Panic Disorder, so meeting new people and trusting others was something very hard for me. I'm usually very awkward and have trouble keeping up conversation with others, but not with him. He was amazing and we flowed together well. All green flags. Sometimes I feel as though the guy I first met is still out there, because when I met this dude in person, he was completely different.
So, we met around fall of last year on a dating app. I was mainly looking for hookups because at that point in time I had given up on dating. Like I said earlier, we started talking and that changed for me. He told me he was poly and me and him had a long talk about it and we decided we would both keep it open and would be fine to see other people while we talked, and if things started to get more serious and it worked, then we'd be monogamous. (This is important for later) So, there were no red flags in the beginning, until a few started to pop up. He told me he was into guns, which at first was fine with me. He didn't hunt, he just liked to shoot and go to shooting ranges for fun. Hell, to me that sounded like every man's dream to shoot and blow stuff up so I was excited when he suggested to go to a shooting range together. Also, I'm in the south of the US as well, so I was used to that. Then he started talking about serial killers and darker stuff and how he was into that. Which again, was fine with me. I've been through a lot in my life and have a lot of trauma and dark humor, and dark things in general, doesn't bother me, and I love horror. We talked about how we should watch the new Jeffrey Dahmer show that has Evan Peters. I love AHS so I was down for it. It started getting a lot weirder though, and I should've known then that something was wrong, I think I was blinded by the chance to actually have a caring partner that was already educated on trans topics, so I didn't think. He told me that his former partner and him had gotten in a fight, the one before me. He told me what happened between for the fight, I'm not going to include this part as it's very specific, but by the end he had told me his partner had left in the middle of the night and got his family to pick him up (His partners family live in another state, so his ex partner ended up moving ACROSS STATES to get away from him.) He said when he woke up he was gone and wasn't answering his calls. The way he told the story in the beginning though made it seem like his ex was a really stuck-up and petty person who HE got away from. Now I know why his ex actually left and that his EX was the one who got away. Ok, so with that all out of the way, we had been talking for around three months when we decided to finally meet. We had taken some time figuring out where to meet since we both wanted to meet in public, which I thought was a really green flag. When I told him I'd just drive up to his place, he said no because he didn't want to give out his address before we met. Which again, I thought was SUPER GREEN, but apparently not. I didn't want him to drive here for the same reasons, but also because I live with my grandparents so I figured that'd be pretty awkward. We ended up deciding to meet at a park near his house to see that we weren't catfishing each other and basically to catch the vibes of the other. He lived in a different state but the drive was only two hours away, not too bad. I drove up there (I was 19 at this point in time btw...) and when I finally arrived I gave him a call and he said he'd be there. So, this 'park' ended up not being a park, but a CEMETARY. For some reason though, there was a playset on the other side of the road that was connected to it which is where I parked. After we were supposed to meet, we were going to go back to his place then I was going to drop off my car and we were going to take his and go out and eat. So, a few minutes go by and I see a car start to pull up toward me. I was still in my car as there was no where else to sit. I went to open my door and hop out when he pulled in beside me but all he did was roll down his window and said "you can follow me now." BRUH, WHAT, OK? That was it. He rolled it back up and started to drive away. Now, I know what most of you are thinking, BITCH RUN. Well, I was stupid and hate confrontation or anything like that so I went along with it. I followed him and then realized that the park wasn't 'near' his house, IT WAS RIGHT BEHIND IT. I drove not even another minute probably and we were already there. Making me think he wanted to watch me approach from his house. So, I parked and we both got out. He looked exactly as he did in the pictures and was more attractive in person, although his personality and the way things were going made it not matter. We went to head inside and he stopped me before going in and said something like, "Hey, I have a headache so we're just going to stay here. Is that ok?" I have no idea why, but practically the ENTIRE TIME I was with him that day, he had a constant expression on his face that made him look like he was constipated/confused. Think of Edward in Twilight when he is trying not to kill Bella or be weird. It was THAT face. Furrowed brows, mouth open slightly, with that weird look on his face. So, at first I felt a bit let down, that was until I realized everything else that had happened up before this point. Then it turned into anxiety. I told him that was fine and when he opened the door, all the lights were off. Like, ALL OF THEM. It was pitch black and he had black out curtains on his windows. He led me to his bedroom which creeped me out and we proceeded to sit on his bed. He told me he was sorry about not wanting to go out and that we could just watch tv and cuddle. Now, if this was the guy thought I had been talking to, then I'd would've been fine with it. But this dude seemed like a completely different person from who I had met. Keep in mind I had been talking with him for three months and we connected really fast and had hours long convos on the phone a day. I was honestly just creeped out but wasn't scared because I've been in similar situations like this before. I figured I'd just make up an excuse later so I could leave. That's when he told me to lay back and get comfortable and we'd watch, low and behold, JEFFREY DAHMER. So, that's what he put on while we made, really weird, small talk. So, he told he had a shit ton of guns and reached beside his nightstand and whipped out a pistol. He told me he had built it himself and let me hold it. But just the fact that this guy can whip out a gun like that, while acting like a creep, AND that show playing? Nah man, god I'm such an idiot. Anyway lmao, he started stroking my thigh and 'petting' me while we watched the show. I was SOOO uncomfortable and I noticed I had a texts from two of my friends and my mom who were all asking if I made it up here ok. I texted back and let them know I was fine, and this is when I started panicking a lot more on the inside. Anytime I'd get a text, or even open my phone at all, he'd lay his head on my shoulder to see what I was doing. He even ended up reading one of my texts out loud from earlier in the day. I felt that I couldn't just leave like any weird date, 1) because he had guns EVERYWHERE. 2) Because he was watching every move I made 3) Because that's when I realized he was potentially dangerous and unhinged on a physical level. A bit later after sitting in silence, 'watching the show,' he started talking about how he knew everything about Jeffrey Dahmer. What kind of poison or drug he'd use on his victims, exactly how he drilled the holes in his victim's heads, and basically everything about Dahmer's life. He even knew what steps Dahmer would do and in what order before killing his victims. Now, I knew a lot about serial killers as well because I like true crime and shit like that. I ended up agreeing with him and playing along. Looking back, I don't know how, but I found a way to still fake laugh at this man's jokes and act like I was the same as him. I even went as far to say that I felt bad for Dahmer and could be his friend. B's eyes seem to light up when I said that and then he went on a rant about how Dahmer was misunderstood and only needed somebody. It made me sick to my stomach but I continued going along with it. Later he went on to say multiple things that disgusted me and made me afraid. Like how he was into knife play, little brother play, where he makes his partners act like a younger brother. He also told me he loved taking sexual pictures of his partners while they held his guns in different poses and asked me if I would. I 'gladly' agreed and said we could do it later. NAH, FUCK THAT, THANK YOU VERY MUCH. Btw, this whole time he was still stroking me and putting his hands on me. He kept trying to push alcohol on me, and joked it was laced. I told him I wasn't a big drinker and didn't want anyway at the moment. Every time I refused he kept getting more irritated. He then made a weird comment, saying, "Isn't getting fucked up what you're here for?" UMMMM, NO????? He had a jar of moonshine and finally I told him I'd take a sip. I held it up to my lips and closed them before slightly letting the liquid hit them, then I pretended to take a small gulp and told him it tasted good. That's when he got a huge smile on his face and all the annoyance from before went away. Looking back, I think it was actually laced, and you'll see why next. Yay... So a bit after this, I started to get a slight headache and that's when I realized I left my bag in my car. I got a bit excited because I thought I could take this as a chance to leave. I asked him if I could go grab my bag from my car for my headache medicine and he said of course. Now listen, I said earlier I have dark humor and it's been a coping mechanism for me. So when I left to go to my car I made a joke to him and said, "Don't worry, Jeff. I'll be right back, I'm not leaving." DUDE. When I told my friend what I had said later she told me I memed a serial killer. BRUH, WHY AM I LIKE THIS? I COULD'VE DIED OR WORSE AND I CALLED HIM JEFF? Lord help me... Anyway, so my headache only got worse after I 'took a sip' of the moonshine and I started feeling dizzy. Now, even though I didn't actually drink it, a few drops still came in contact with my lips made it into my mouth. I went to my car and grabbed my bookbag from my floorboard. I sat in the driver's seat and looked on my phone. I was about to call my best friend, basically my sister, and then leave. My soul left my body though, because when I looked over, this dude was standing on his porch, WATCHING ME. Seeing if I was trying to leave. Knowing he had guns and we were in a small town where hearing gun shots were normal, I grabbed my bag and hopped right out of the car. When he knew I was walking back he walked to his car and opened his trunk. He pulled out a gun case that was like THREE FEET LONG. This gun was huge and he walked it into the house behind me. He told me it was some kind of sniper rifle and he said each single bullet costed 8$ or something like that. I later learned that owning something like that in the state he lived in was illegal. So, he kept making weird comments and touching/petting me while he told me all the ways he'd kill me 'if he was a serial killer.' I had been at his for almost 4 hours at this point and he FINALLY left me alone in the living room for a few moments, going back in his bedroom for something. I quickly texted my mom and told her to call me and give me an excuse. I didn't tell her what was going on as I knew she would've panicked more than me and probably would've made it worse. I just told her I didn't like him much and needed a reason to leave. I told her I was deleting the text I just sent and told her not to text me back as I knew B would read it. I told her to call me after a few minutes of seeing my text. So, luckily a few minutes later I got a call and she told me she was in the hospital and needed me to come home. Now, my mom has health problems and B knew of this before I came so it was actually the perfect excuse. I pretended like I was more annoyed than concerned since I'd told him before she was always in and out of the hospital with her health because she doesn't take care of herself. I apologized for having to leave so soon, (Before all this, if things went good I was supposed to stay the night.) And he didn't say a single word before looking at me coldly and going into his room. I waited for like ten minutes, unsure if I should just leave. I was deathly afraid of him now and didn't know if he was about to pull out a gun. I kept hearing bangs and loud noises coming from his room. When he finally came out though, he didn't have anything and still looked cold. I said my final goodbye and we hugged for a second before I left. As soon as I hopped in my car I put that bitch in drive and WENT. Now that I was out and everything started to hit me more, the adrenaline and fight or flight went away. Only leaving me with anxiety and I was completely shaken. I called my two of my best friends who are together and told them what happened. I asked if I could come to their place because I live with my grandparents (who are conservative Baptists if that says anything) and I DID NOT want to tell them about what happened. They didn't even know I went up there or that I was talking to someone. They said I could and my friend who I'll call M (21f) stayed on the phone with me basically my whole drive back home. The more I told her the more WTF she became. And honestly, there are a lot of other creepy/weird things he did that I left out because there are so many it's hard to remember every detail at once. Once I got to her place I noticed I had several missed calls and texts from him. I blocked him on everything and then M asked me something that made my stomach drop. She asked if my Snap location was on. It was. I drove the whole way back with my location on, straight to my friend's place. I turned it off immediately and started panicking a little. M and my other friend I'll call J tried to reassure me but then I got a phone call from an unknown number. M answered it for me and said hello. It was quiet because it was not on speaker but I could the voice. It was him and I felt a chill go down my spine. He asked if I was around and M told him he had the wrong number. He called back SOOO many times, each time with a different number. Even months after I kept getting calls from unknown numbers. After a few months, I wasn't sure if it was him or a scam caller and over the course of a few weeks I answered a few of them. I never said anything, just answered and never let the call time go over 10 seconds. Each time I could hear rustling noises and no voices. One time all I heard was heavy breathing. I decided to not answer anymore of them and luckily they've since stopped the last month or two. I was so scared soon after it happened though. Even though I never told him my address, he still knew where I worked and I was so afraid he'd show up with a gun and shoot up the place. Because it wasn't some random fast food chain or retail job. I work at a pretty good place to be so young and there is only ONE of these places. I'm not going to give away any details but he if wanted to he could GPS straight to where I work, anyone could because it's well known and public. I was nervous he'd scope out the place and wait until he saw me and which side of the building I enter, etc. During this time I kept a knife on me at all costs and had a necklace type sheath thing and both the knife and sheath were flat, so I'd wear it around my neck under my shirt and apron at work (even though I could've been fired if found with it.) A few days after it all happened, I woke in the middle of the night and even now I SWEAR to this day I smelt him. I know I didn't and my brain was probably making it up, but it was HIM. Him, and his whole house, had a distinct smell. Like booze and cigarettes mixed with his own scent. I was shaking and had cold sweats. I had never sat up so fast out of sleep before, especially because I hadn't been dreaming. It was like something had woken me up. His smell was everywhere and I looked to my dog who seemed undisturbed and that's when I knew no one was here. My dog is very protective and barks at anyone he doesn't know so I felt safe but still was uneasy and I couldn't sleep for the rest of the night. I ended up telling one of my bosses what had happened and asked her if we could get the gate closed at night since I work second. About two weeks after everything, I was sitting on my back porch smoking when I saw a car that looked just like his pass by. I tried to look at the driver and when I did, my stomach turned. It looked just like him. Even now, I'm not sure if it was him or not but considering nothing has happened, I assume it wasn't. Although I told my friends that I was nervous. Since I know a lot about serial killers and true crime, my initial thought was if I was him, I wouldn't come after me right away. I'd wait and let them get comfortable, thinking they are safe and then get them. Which is why I guess I've been paranoid about it again lately. It's been about 6-8 months since then. I'm still traumatized from it and still look over my shoulder when I'm walking at night, thinking I'm going to see him again on day. Even though I don't get nearly as many calls now, I still do from time to time. Although no one ever speaks when I answer nowadays, It's like I have a gut feeling it's him. Though I don't know if I'm just paranoid or not. Also, this dumbass didn't want me to get his address but I found it anyway. So if something ever happens to me or he tries to do something I can give the police his address. Because since we met at a 'park' that was RIGHT BEHIND HIS HOUSE, me and my friend went on google maps and put in the address to the 'park.' Then I moved the maps down the roads we drove on until I found his house. We went in 3rd person and zoomed in on the numbers on his house and his street name. So, B, if you find this. Fuck around and find out. Idk if you are a serial killer or not, and maybe your just really weird. But dude, if that's the case you need to WORK ON THAT. Anyway, that's my story. Sorry if some things don't make sense or if the words are too jumbled. I'm still super high and kind of just ranted a bit. So, if anyone has any advice or something similar happen to them, I'd love to hear from you! I'll try to answer any questions, but nothing too personal. If you've read this far, your a real G, thank you. I know this is a super long post, so it means a lot. I hope the rest of you are having a good night / day wherever you are!
TLDR; Met a guy on a dating app who seemed like a really great and normal guy who turned out to be very weird and controlling and LOVES Jeffrey Dahmer. Watched my every move to make sure I didn't leave until I finally got out and SPED AWAY. Kept getting calls for months after.

Hey all, 4th Wall here. The little storm that blew threw upended my, sort of, schedule. So, I'm just decided to write what came to mind first then alternate from there. Hope you guys enjoy the Episode.
First, Previous, Next (Patreon)
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Benjamin stared at the exhausted looking Farie in shock, “How much time do we have?”. Jukha simply stood, stepped over to the floorboards near the fireplace, and began ripping them up with his bare hands. After several planks yielded to his strength, Jukha pulled out a pair of packs, and handed one to Vilora. “Oh” Ben stated flatly, having been given the answer to his question. He turned to see the sisters already packing up their packs, and Ben began the same.

In moments, the four were ready to go, slipping out the back door and into the forest. Benjamin paused, “Hold on a moment.” He turned to look back at the house, reaching out with one hand before clenching it into a fist. He ripped the heat out of the roaring fire dispelling it into the air before kneeling down and placing both hands on the ground. Vilora gasped quietly at the power Benjamin began wielding a dangerous amount of Majik. He pulled from the depths of the world itself, summoning pure compounds from the ground and from various natural sources. He used the refuse in Jukha’s farmyard to provide him with the last of the required ingredients. It wouldn’t be much, but Benjamin relit the fireplace, forcing the flames to turn a few of the remaining logs into charcoal without burning them.
Extinguishing the flames once more, he combined the components he had acquired, before willing the concoction up into the flue and packing it around the circumference of the inside of the brick chimney. Vilora stepped up to him, touching his shoulder with a trembling hand, “What… what have you done. I felt it, but I don’t understand it.”
Benjamin took a long cleansing, and slightly shakey breath. The exertion left him feeling drained for a moment. He turned to her, expression was grim, but he patted her hand on his forearm, “Giving us some breathing room. They will search the house. I’ve just left them a little surprise.” He stood, looking towards the forest, “how do we get to your sisters.”

Vilora nodded and they followed her into the forest, it was not a long walk. And after about 20 minutes they came to a clearing with a strange tree in the middle. “Please, Ben. Whatever happens next, know that we are not Fay. Promise me.” Benjamin heard the fear in her voice wondering if it was from what he had just done, or something deeper. He nodded once absently, his musket already unslung and in his hands. He had loaded a buck and ball cartridge into it before they left the cabin, knowing that he was only going to get one shot in an ambush. Viola had his original flintlock pistol in her hand, and Valtrya was semi hiding behind her sister with Bens Stiletto dagger clutched tightly in her fingers. “Very well,” the Farie stated, and turned to face the tree. Her wings quickly began glowing a vibrant green, and they fluttered violently as she began to chant something in her native tongue.

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The Hunters arrived, led by the singular Orc from the capital guard. He was the same one that had been spared by Benjamin just over a week earlier. He brought with him a tracker. Ski’murika was one of the arachnid people known as Sil’skira. This one was a flat grey to Mi’ki’s own jet-black carapace, and she skittered lightly into the room. The Sil’Skira had no sense of smell, but their sense of taste bordered on the supernatural. She raised one leg to her mandibles, tasting the ground around them, before dipping it into a bowl and repeating the process, “four of them. An Orc, a Fay, two Aereesin females, and… a strange one. I’ve not sampled this one before, but he carries majik’s sour aftertaste.” The Soldier orc, and the three other Hunters managed to not cringe. The Sil’Skira were known for their wide… pallet… as far as what they considered food. Many a sentient being had been turned to a husk by a hungry Sil, and The Orc did not doubt that this one came by her… flavor recognition… honestly. The other three; a Hellirine named Jazeel, her twin brother named Jeraal, and a Mountain troll who’s name defied pronunciation gave the Sil a wide birth, stepping up to the fireplace. “Well, while we’re here. Lets warm our bones.” Jazeel casually began stacking wood and kindling atop the chared remains of an apparently freshly quenched fire. “How far do you think they could have gone?”

“Not far” the Sil’Skira stated absently, “Their food is but lukewarm. I can still taste the spittle on the strange one’s spoon.” She turned to pad over to the fireplace. The Soldier orc, named Gurrut leaned up against the table, “Should we really be stopping for a fire? If they are so close?” Jeraal only smirked, “It’s a long game boss. They may not have gotten far, but they will be frantic. Look at how they left. Something, or someone warned them. They will be ill prepared. No, better to keep our pace. We will wear them down easily in the mor..”

Jazeel lit a spark into her tinder box while her brother was talking. She placed it into the fireplace and the kindling lit quickly. A single twig flared up, sending an ember into the flu where Benjamin had packed his quickly made gunpowder. It ignited instantly, and the flu provided enough constriction to pressurize the reaction. The fireplace detonated in a weak, but effective improvised bomb. The brickwork shattered into shards of deadly fragmentation, Jareel simply ceased to exist, being turned to a cloud of yellow blood and internal organs trimmed in red skin and white bone fragments. Her brother’s head was caved in by a large brick chunk, sending skull bone spalling deep into his brain, rending it to ribbons. He died before he hit the floor. The Sil’Skira’s abdomen popped like a balloon in the over pressure wave, and she quickly curled into a quivering ball as her blood pressure dropped, no longer fighting against her leg muscles. Their employer, the soldier orc from the capital, lost his arm above the elbow. His armor saved his vital organs however, but one shard threaded the needle, taking his right eye. The Mountain troll was thrown to the far wall, but Her naturally resilient body survived both the shockwave and the fragmentation impacts. She picked herself off the floor, stumbling to the screaming capital guard. She bound his wounds quickly before taking a flaming shard of the sabotaged fire and searing the stump to stop the bleeding. She then left him there. There was no point in anything else. The hunt was over.

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Benjamin tried not to stare, but he was failing miserably. Jukha’s Farie wife’s body was glowing bright green now, and he almost had to shade his eyes if he tried to look directly at her. She was not the only one he was struggling not to stare at. Viola’s explanation and subsequent revelation had taken him by surprise. He realized that he had treated them like children, pupils at best. Benjamin had focused on training them to be free, turning a blind eye to the relationship forming between them and himself. *You are not forcing us to do anything but leave* He ran that statement over in his mind. The “leave you” was implicated heavily, and it ate at him. He did not want to force these girls to do anything. Yet, despite his best efforts, he was forcing something on them anyway. He silently both cursed his situation and cursed his own ignorance. He found that, if he was truthful with himself, he did not want them to leave either; and that more personal revelation brought its own paradox. He could not bear to own them as property, but the thought of leaving them tore at him with similar pain.

“It is almost time!” Benjamin looked back from where he was keeping watch, Vilora was panting heavily, her painfully bright glowing wings drooping slightly, “I won’t be able to keep the connection for long!” She called as the tree in front of them began to creak. Two of its great limbs began to move on their own accord, groaning under forces older than space and time. Benjamin’s eyes widened as the two branches slowly formed a sphere, then his head snapped around at the sound of a dull thud emanating from the direction they had come. He smiled grimly. His little IED must have been triggered, and with any luck, taken their pursuers with it.

“Ready yourselves!” Jukha called, and Ben turned back to a view he had not expected in his wildest dreams. ‘you’ve gatta be shitting me’ He thought as a rippling green mirror filled in the center of the circle created by the branches of the tree. Benjamin felt the sisters at his side. And he nodded to them, “you first. I’ll cover our six.” Vi raised an eyebrow at the odd expression but nodded. Taking her sister’s hand and stepping through the portal. They were closely followed by Jukha, who seemed absurdly calm about the whole thing. Benjamin held his ground, slowly backing toward the portal while he kept his eye on the tree line.

“Benjamin. Hurry, I can’t.. I can’t hold!” Vilora’s frantic tone moved Benjamin into action, He spun on his heels, slipping his musket to his left hand and scooping up Vilora as he passed her at a full sprint. He jumped as the portal sputtered, passing through it and into a familiar tunnel that he remembered from his first meeting with the Celestial, Sol. This one was a minute fraction of the distance, however, a single step in fact. His feet landed on soft moss and an earthy smell alerted him to his change of location. His eyes began to adjust to the much dimmer light as he set Vilora’s exhausted form on the ground gently. His eyes peeled away the darkness after a moment and Benjamin grunted, tucking the butt of the musket under his right arm as he thumbed the hammer and slapped the frizzen in place. He drew his sword/pistol hybrid and settled the sights on a second being, who just so happened to have the misfortune of being ordered to bind the sister’s wrists. The mechanical sounds of his weapons attracted the attention of everyone in attendance, but his voice froze them in place, “unbind them… now” he growled.
His musket, loaded with Buck and ball, was trained on a small group of Farie’s standing in close formation with thin lances rested base to the on the ground. The other Farie was currently holding the rope leash to the sisters. He glanced at the small squad of lancers, “you move, you die.” His tone bore icy promise on its wings, and even Jukha could not bring himself to act. “Benjamin. Peace, please. These are my sisters. They are Vin. Remember your promise” Vilora’s voice cut through the silence first, and Benjamin glanced at her, then back at the scene in front of him. He took a long deep breath, sheathing his sword/revolver, and lowering his Musket. He did not sling it, he returned it so a muzzle up ready position designed to keep his ammunition from falling out of the barrel should he still need it. “Then please explain to them that I have a pathological aversion these women being bound, and that It would be in their best interest to release them...mediately.” Vilora’s eyes widened as she turned to see the state of Vi and Val. She spoke quickly, and the Vin who held the girls looked back at Ben in shock before frantically unbinding both Vi and Val. The girls sprinted to Benjamin, slamming into him with shaking embraces before he gently, but protectively pushed them behind him.

One of the Lancers, a Farie with more ornate armor on than the rest stepped forward and Benjamin turned to face her, not so subtly settling his musket into a position to easily kill her if he needed. The Fairie paused, clearly considering something before Vilora stepped over and laid a hand on her shoulder. She shook her head at the other woman, it was an almost imperceptible thing, but the other farie’s eyes widened as she regarded Benjamin again. “Peace, Beenjaymin.” She said finally, handing off her lance to a subordinate and opening her hands to show them empty. “We do not mean you harm, but we must protect what little we have left. The Matriarch wishes to see you, but we cannot allow you to meet here bearing arms. Please, understand.”

Benjamin hesitated, and Viola leaned around him to look up. He gave her a smiling glance before looking back at the Farie. She nodded in understanding, “I swear to you. Your… girls… will be permitted to stay at your side for the trip. Our sister has explained that they are not mere slaves to you.” Benjamin eyed her skeptically, and if this realms concept of honesty were not already explained to him, he would have not believed her. He slowly reached for the hammer on his musket, lowering it gently to half-cock before handing it slowly to the Farie who originally bound the sisters, “Do not touch anything on it. This is not a weapon you have any concept of, and it can kill 4 people at once.” He held her gaze until she nodded, “lean it against something. This side up, and DON’T touch it.” He then unhooked the scabbard from his belt, handing the revolver sword and its sheath to her as one unit, “Same goes for this. I’ll know if you touch it. It is very loud.” He did the same with Vi’s flintlock pistol, surprised that it didn’t go off when it was dropped on the ground during their capture. The stiletto dagger was the last, a familiar weapon to this realm that needed no explanation.

“Very well.” Benjamin said finally, “I believe that is everything.” The head lancer nodded, waving an arm elegantly toward the biggest live oak that Benjamin had ever seen. Benjamin thought it might be a live oak, at least. It stood twice the height of a California Red Wood but had the proportions of a Live oak. Massive drooping main branches arched overhead before touching the ground and returning skyward. Some of the largest limbs were the lowest and seem to bounce along the ground. Each grounding seemed to sprout smaller trees, and Benjamin felt his mouth fall open as they drew closer. The texture of the limbs sharpened as they closed, and Benjamin began to make out lit windows, carved into the tree limbs themselves.

Carved into the base of the tree was an ornate entrance with lettering that Benjamin didn’t recognize carved into the arches. Benjamin felt Viola take one of his hands, and Valtrya take the other. He ran his thumbs over the soft tops of their hands, trying to comfort them as much as he could. He felt them press up against him as they entered a throne room of some kind. On the far end, atop a series of steps was a throne, carved into the wall itself. “The Matriarch” Vilora whispered from behind him.

Ben halted several paces behind the lancer squad, bowing as he watched Vilora and Jukha do so out of the corner of his eye. “Rise” came the command from the ornately yet unarmored Farie sitting on the throne, “So tell me,” She asked, looking directly at Benjamin, who was keeping the girls directly behind him, “Are you the reason that my orders to bind the Aereesins were not followed?” Benjamin instantly regretted giving up his weapons. “I am,” he stated meeting her gaze unflinchingly. “Oh? You believe yourself above my command?” Her cold tone registered, and Benjamin slowly closed his fist, finding what he was looking for. A single guard, one not present at their arrival began to march toward him, hand on her sword.

Benjamin speared the guard with an icy glare, while talking to the Farie ruler, “I expected Vin to be more hospitable.” He reached out with one hand and the guard froze as he gripped the metal of her armor with his mind, “Especially with women baring Vin names in solidarity.” He slowly began to close his outstretched fist, and the guard inside the armor began screaming as the metal buckled, compressing against her body. Benjamin finally turned his icy gaze to the monarch, “My girls” He hated to use that card, but it was the only one he had that wasn’t lethal, “Have spent over a century being bound, tortured, raped, and degraded. I killed their former master, a Romoregin no less, for it. I killed his puke son’s champion for it. I’ve killed two capital guards for it. I will kill without mercy to keep bindings from touching their skin. So, my lady what are you willing to do to bind them.” He gave the guards armor another small squeeze, using the shrieking metal to punctuate his resolve.

The queen slowly stepped off her Throne, walking stoically over to her guard as she eyed Benjamin contemplatively. “Stand down, Vailin.” She said to the now trembling guard, but her eyes were on Benjamin. Benjamin slowly released his grip on her armor and she fell to the floor, weeping. “You two, get her to a healer.” The monarch ordered before taking to her wings and hovering up to face Benjamin at eye level. “You care so much for your slaves, yet you do not free them. Why is that.”

“Benjamin doesn’t want to keep us slaves!” Viola blurted out before she caught herself meekly adding “Your majesty” as the Monarch leveled a surprised but firm expression at her. “Oh? And yet you are still his, dear.” she said, turning back to Benjamin. Benjamin took a deep breath, “The principality would have resold them anyway. My only choice was to own them, teach them, then smuggle them to a free nation, or murder them by returning them to the system. Had we made it to Maridia, they would be emancipated already.” He met the Monarchs gaze levelly, “Their lives are in my hands… but at least their blood isn’t on them.”

“Hmm, compassion and violence of action. No wonder Cosmos touched you.” The Queen mused. Benjamin chuckled at the expression drawing a raised eyebrow from the Vin Monarch, “Something funny, young one?” and Benjamin gave her an amused smile, “It’s just that I’ve heard something like that before, from Sol. I believe the Orcs call her Suelin.”

This time, the Vin Monarch’s face smoothed of all expression as she failed to find any falsehood in Benjamin, “Come with me, please.” She stated it as a question, but her urgency peaked Benjamin's curiosity. The four of them followed the queen up to the throne. She pulled on an armrest and the throne slid into the wall to one side, revealing a simply carved passage into the heart of the tree.
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f you made it this far, I very much appreciate it. I hope you enjoyed the episode! If you believe I have earned it, I have a Patreon that is two episodes ahead of the free releases for this series. I hope you feel taking a look is worth it. Either way, come hang out in the comments. Everyone's welcome! I've discovered Im a bit of a "warts and all" poster, so even critical comments are welcome. Hell, You might even teach me something (it happens more than I'd like to admit).
I have heard people off and on reference Royal road, So I am going to give it another shot. I'll be adding the Royal Road link from now on. If you like reading over there, It is on the same schedule as here. I would greatly appreciate a like/review/comment if you feel so inclined. Thank you again for stopping by.
First, Previous, Next (Patreon) Royal Road

Hey demons, It's me, ya boi...
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Notice: This story is about to humanity, but they are introduced much later into the narrative.
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Prev: Chains of the Veiled (3/?) :
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First: Chains of The Veiled :
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Station 68 was one of necessity, built along with many others to remain active in the case it was needed during any sort of instance of Civilian Hardship. This was a place built for those with no path to rest and wait to walk a new one, and as such had many government-funded commodities to those that sought refuge here. Many found shelter here, homeless through any situation, from financial ruin to wartime refugees. They were civilian projects, for those who could not care for themselves, for those to rest and rely on until they could regain a foothold in reality. To regain control financially and socially.
This was not just free housing however, there are certain conditions that need to be met in order for your stay here to be acceptable. This wasn’t a service meant to be abused, it was for the homeless and poor alike, and those who needed it only... As such, the amenities provided weren’t stellar in any regards. There were recreational activities and freely distributed foods, but it was minimal and decent at best. It was free though, and beggars aren’t in a position to choose what kind of help they get. It’s enough to get reassurance that you don't need to worry about next meals. There was one thing about this place that was rather disappointing though… As Kazzi was currently complaining about in the seat across from me in the larger corner booth.
“Why pay for drinks?! Everything else here is free! Sure, it’s cheaper than anywhere else, but still! It just seems inconsistent with how everything else is here.” she spoke in a fit as she took another swig of alcohol. I could only sigh in a disappointed manner, finding Kazzi’s current behavior both unacceptable, and out of character. I knew that she was supposedly a party animal from what others in the department would suggest, but not to such a degree as to already be at her second bottle halfway into the evening.
After a second of regaining my barrings, I looked back up at the Fulkari woman to respond, “Well, drinking isn’t considered something that should be encouraged Kazzi. It’s an incentive to seek other means of coping with struggle, even if it’s as cheap as it is. It’s also more of a luxury on a station with barely any to give. The fact it’s as cheap as this despite its surprising quality really doesn’t seem to have the effect though. It seems like everyone that was on the yacht who escaped with us is also taking advantage of this feature.” It wasn’t a lie either, I say many others entered before and after us. All grabbing what they could, drawing the bartenders with requests as they wished to drown away problems.
Hopefully those staff got paid aplenty for dealing with shit like this. Some people were less than savory after having to deal with a mechanical extermination that removed them from their very way of life. Everyone and their mothers wanted something to down to distract from the trauma that flooded everyone’s mind, and I was no exception. With a glass of Vlekvir branded Whiskey, I took a long swig, downing a good portion of the bottle. Kazzi seemed to cheek me on somewhat, as she seemed to chuckle at my prolonged chugging. I simply rolled my eyes to Kazzi’s antics and continued to eat my meals. I made sure to drink enough water to not end up a complete Drunk, knowing that I was going to need to direct Kazzi back to the ship considering her tipsy state.
Why is it that I always have to hinder my fun just so this Fulkari doesn’t kill herself in the aftermath of her own?! It’s a serious issue that I refuse to tolerate any longer. Regardless of the current favor Kazzi had in this game of life, the tables would soon turn after I would help her back to the ship. Kazzi would owe me a favor for this, and that was something I intended to make good use of.
“Excuse me?” I heard, jumping at the suddenness of the question, spoke so close. I looked around frantically in response to being so startled, only to look down and find a small entity. A Kraviska, an insectoid species known for rapid repopulation with their method of reproduction being unique compared to most others. As long as they had a type of Queen to their hive, and enough meat and yeast to feed them, then they'd never run out of larvae. Her blue chitinous exoskeleton glistened in the light, and her four compound eyes bore an unease into my gaze. Her two claw-like pincers clicked as she spoke.
I took a moment to recollect myself from the scare, with Kazzi all but laughing at me in her tipsy state. I scoffed at her tease and looked back down at the Kraviska. “How did I not hear you walk over to us?” I asked her, and her antenna seemed to flicker up and down in her species form of embarrassment. For what I could only assume was the scare. She held herself low, keeping her tray of food close to her as she stuttered to respond. “I-I’m sorry,” She spoke. “It’s just something that I end up doing… I’m not trying to sneak about like I do, it just happens. I don’t understand why or how, but I make silent movements.”
“Is that a Kraviska thing, or just something that you do because…” I asked, leaving the question incomplete, waiting for a response. She looked to the side for all but a moment, antenna continuing to wiggle in embarrassment. “It’s something that I myself do, not my species. I’m sorry, I really am.” Seeing her hiding her face with her tray the way she was, I sighed and opted out of any further confrontation. “It’s fine, You just startled me is all… sorry for coming off as so hostile.” I said with a nod, a gesture meant to convey that I meant no escalation of conflict.
She seemed to ease up with this reassurance that I provided and lowered her tray from her face. Her face reverted back to her general curiosity that she initially spoke with. “I’m sorry for the scare. But… you see, the whole establishment is packed with patrons. My significant other and I can’t find a seat anywhere else. You’re in one of the larger booths, so I was wondering if maybe we could squeeze in? I-If you’d be willing, that is…” The Kriviska spoke in a meager tone, trying her best to be as polite as possible. I was honestly surprised to find such an non-confrontational member of her species, considering how prideful some of the supposed hive queens could be.
I nodded and responded in affirmation of the request, “Of course, there’s plenty of space for you and whoever else. Kazzi, could you move in a bit?” The tipsy fulkari huffed in annoyance as she scooted aside for whoever might need a seat. I gave her a glare, and one that seemed to have the expected effect. Being a hardened navy man, she was quick to correct her attitude when she saw me. As for the Insectoid, she nodded her head and went over to speak with…
A… A T’ccoj?! T’ccoj were silicon-based lifeforms that were essentially just massive electrical golems. Electrical signals capable of transmitting all about a metal interior which functioned as neurons in a brain in biological life. These electrical signals are so powerful that it allows them a limited ability to manipulate broad and wide bipedal legs they possess to move. They weren’t able to last long however, only able to live for a few hours after being struck with lightning. Only when they were discovered and provided robotic arms to manipulate tools, and battery packs to increase their menial lifespans, were they able to build up cities and civilization proper. T’ccoj were known for they’re adept learning and utilized in a plethora of roles. This T’ccoj in particular was large compared to most others, easily reaching my height, and my kind were one of the taller species.
When the insectoid walked over with the Living mineral, I found myself nervous and confused. Silicon life was always something that I was antsy around, I wasn’t sure why. It was just a great unease to speak with what was essentially a rock… It would be best to not call it that. I’m pretty sure that’s a racist term for lithoid life to refer to them as rocks.
The Kriviska hopped up into the seating and used her multi jointed legs to scutter across the cushions to the corner. She sat close to Kazzi and gestured to her silicon companion to take a seat just by her. Getting a better look at the T’ccoj, I saw the makeup of the living mineral. Its body was divided between crystalline orange and rocky brown textures. A battery pack along the back of its body, and powerful hydraulic based robotic arms allowing for heavy lifting. They were similar in color and texture to the T’ccoj’s natural body and moved in blocky and stiff manners like that of the Lithoid. It moved to sit downright next to the Insectoid…
What did the Kriviska refer to this entity as?! A significant other?!
“Allow me to introduce ourselves.” She spoke, regaining my direct attention. Whilst she did have my focus, my gaze was still trained on the T’ccoj, trying to get a better understanding of who I was dealing with here. “My name is Zikee, and this is Bocc… my husband.” Whilst I did my best to keep my shock as internal as I could. I found it baffling to see an insectoid like her with a lithoid like this. There was such a divide between compatibility, that I found it strange to be a witness of. Despite my ability to maintain composure, my Fulkari associate wasn’t so like me in the current state she found herself in. Being so tipsy caused her to nearly shout out in raw shock at the fact. As she spoke, it was slurred and unfiltered due to the unnerving amounts of alcohol in her system.
“You married a Lithoid? As a small and fragile Kriviska?! Wouldn’t that lead to some very dangerous situations, like being crushed by the big guy's weight?” I turned to glare at Kazzi, trying to shut her up from this drinking sprawl she seemed to invite with her comment. My glare didn’t have so much of the same effect as before. She seemed to have a bit more resistance to my influence due to the increased effect of her alcohol intake. I should have stopped her sooner, but decided against it since Kazzi needed some relief after the attack. I was beginning to regret that decision even more than before…
Zikee seemed to sigh an annoyed sigh, likely having this conversation many times before. “No… it doesn’t. We Kriviska’s don’t have as fragile exoskeletons as theories believe. Our kind developed in a high gravity world after all! I could bench press Bocc on certain low gravity worlds. Admittedly there are very few where that could happen, but they do exist! Not to mention that I love Bocc, they’re a joy to have around. A shy and gentle giant who’s all but the most tender with little ones. They’re my husband because I love them for who they are. They’re a loving soul despite the hardened exterior they have.” She turned to look at Bocc as she spoke, looking at them with a sense of compassion and devotion that I considered rare to see.
Bocc had a vocalizer attachment, one which allowed them to speak to others freely. Using the electrical signals in their rock brain to operate the machine and speak as needed. “My goal is to be the best I can be… For her. She deserves as much for all she does for me.” He said in a heartfelt tone of conviction. One which caused the Kriviska to turn her head in embarrassment. “Oh stop it you.” She teased, waving one of her arms at him in a dismissive manner, chuckling all the while.
“Seems like you two are really close and trust each other. Can I ask how you two met?” I asked, wanting to know the story to these two. It’s not every day that I find such an interesting duo like the one before me. Bocc seemed to respond on their behalf, “We met years ago when we fell on hard times. We met at a restaurant where I was working, and she was eating at the time. I decided to strike up a conversation after work and it ended up leading me to ask her out. We had our ups and downs, but we pushed through because of the understanding we share. Not to mention, despite our incompatibility in terms of physical appearances, we were never concerned with. We cared about each other because of who we were, not because of any other desires. We wanted to be with one another, because… We just love each other.”
… I was surprised to find such an outlandish couple to be one of the most wholesome I’ve ever seen. “But what about-” Kazzi began to ask before I shut her lips myself with my claws. Kazzi was about to ask something vulgar, and I refused to let her alcohol-ridden system ruin something so pure. The adoration in Zikee’s compound eyes was evident to the devotion she had for Bocc. “As long as we have each other, we’re complete. No matter what else we lose…”
Zikee’s comment left open many interpretations to be made, as the last part was spoken solemnly. As such, it led me to ask the question, “You were part of the evacuation of Fojhiam too, right?”
The two froze up for a moment, before turning back to me. They laid still and motionless as the thick air was left to permeate the surroundings of our booth. From their silence, a thousand words were spoken. It was clear that these two were very much victims like us, victims of tragedy and loss. As hundreds of billions of people lost connection with the wider galaxy. The whole event is almost taboo to speak on, despite us being witness to it. The two of them seemed hesitant to speak up, not wanting to confirm anything right yet. Despite the heavy air, and the stoic expressions they tried to wear, I could feel the heavy emotion radiate from them both. I was going to say something, but Bocc spoke first, their mechanical voice a product of the machine they spoke through.
“We were able to escape on a Jasvikan Superyacht. It was luck that was on our side for such a wealthy individual to permit us entry without leaving. I guess there are good people no matter the walk of life they take.” Bocc said, giving a general idea of his opinion of wealthy individuals. But what my attention gravitated to during their whole exposition was the ship they escaped on… the one that-.
“Oh, you escaped on my ship!” Kazzi spoke up, saying the statement with a drunken burp. I swear this Fulkari is going to be the death of me. The two were shocked at the idea, sitting before the owner of the ship that led them to safety. Zikee was completely stunned by the claim and stuttered to respond. “Y-You’re telling me… T-That you’re the owner of the Jaskivan yacht?! That’s insane! You must enjoy browsing the exotic side of the market! Regardless of the ship itself, you have no idea how grateful I am for you saving us!” She scuttered over to Kazzi to go about shaking her hand and conveying appreciation. The Fulkari woman was able to at bare minimum reply with equal appreciation, even if her words were slurred.
It was amusing to see, but turning to Bocc on the other side gave a completely different look. Something that seemed like a crack in the sort of shy and stoic personality which Zikee advertised. Their tone was one of barely contained anger, shrouded in annoyance. “So… were you the one that flew the ship? Or was it someone else?” Why he was asking that made me unnerved and concerned for my safety. I was the one who piloted the ship and did so in a way which tossed a few folks around, despite the prime conditions of the gravity generators. Was Bocc tossed about, and bitter about the condition that I inflicted upon him with my flying?
Kazzi was dismissive of the claim made by the T’ccoj, which caused the attention of the lithoid to shift onto me. T’ccoj’s didn’t have any sort of face, let alone a head. Despite this inability to convey emotion in a traditional manner, I could see in the way the Bocc composed himself that they were ticked off over something. “Was it you then?” They asked me, with a glare despite not having eyes. It terrified me to answer truthfully, because I was the helm throughout that whole escape. I was once a military man, serviced upon a warship during the outbreak of the GA-Foretold War. Even during the days of service, a loose cannon was the best way to describe my performance at the helm. For better or for worse, I was one to fly in a manner that could only contribute to great insanity.
Flying which seemed to be a major tick in the metaphysical eyes of the T’ccoj before me. I twiddled my claws as I struggled to respond. However, my reaction was enough to provide more than enough evidence to my role during the escape. Evidence which was swiftly examined by the Lithoid, and which attributed to the T’ccoj slamming the robotic appendages they possessed onto the table in aggression. They stood in place as they brought a claw to point directly at my face as they spoke in a tone which clearly cited their annoyance. “Do you have any sort of awareness of how your flying strains the reactor?! I was needing to evacuate the powerplant because of the dangerous conditions that the reactor was reaching with the overclocking that you set upon the suffering machine! Yes, you got us out of that nightmare, but you in turn caused me to experience one in turn! Do you have any idea of how devastating it is as a reactor technician to watch such a tremendously important machine be abused by such reckless flying?!”
Kazzi and Zikee both exchanged glances as they coward away from the seething lithoid, Bocc was creating a bit of a scene with the passion behind their anger. I was able to piece together the story in my mind relatively quickly. Bocc was without doubt the one on the other end of the call that I had during the evacuation. Calling the power plant to prepare for the overclock when I did. It makes much more sense now, considering my actions did cause major stress upon the Prestigious Vow’s framework. I began to speak in a last ditch effort to explain myself to the T’ccoj.
“Bocc, please understand that anything less than the extremes that I was pushing upon the ship wouldn’t have gotten us through the warp gate the way we did. I did what I needed to in order to prevent any contact with enemy missiles, and pass through the warp gate through the collapse. I’m sorry for the stress I put on the ship, but there wouldn’t be a ship if I did anything less.” I stated, causing the T’ccoj to flinch for a moment. I could tell from the way Bocc held itself that they understood that I was right. Despite agreeing with me, they shivered in aggravated annoyance with me for my reckless piloting.
The Lithoid grunted and begrudgingly slumped back into their seat. They held their hands up to the peak of their torso, like how one would palm their face with their hands. Despite not having a head, it was clear whatever was in its place for Bocc was hung low. A great disdain was ever present, but one whose initial prominence was substituted with a current sulking. “That poor reactor…” I heard muffled by the T’ccoj as they struggled to cope with the damage to the machine. I could tell without doubt that this reactor technician took their position very seriously, almost viewing the reactor system as an extension of themselves.
Zikee seemed to scutter to her lithoid partner and rest a claw upon their shoulder, giving them comfort as they seemed to wallow in misery at the condition of the ship. I won’t lie, whilst it got out of the evacuation the least banged up, that meant very little considering all the other ships. Some of those husks shouldn’t have been flying, but they hung within the drydocks of the station, waiting to either be taken to repair yards or scrap yards alike. Most couldn’t afford to repair them like Kazzi, as such I anticipated many of them to be scrapped. That was probably something that ached the lithoid.
“You seem to have a great love and reverence for these kinds of things. Technology is something that you adore isn’t it?” I asked, garnering the attention of the T’ccoj. “Indeed so,” Bocc replied not soon after. “It’s technology that has allowed my people to become a true civilization. To be able to survive for more than a few simple fleeting hours. We exist as a testament to the wonders that such technology provides, as such I feel indebted to the machines that encompass the everyday lives of those loyal to the Assembly. I want to one day understand every modern technological marvel, to one day become more than a reactor technician and become a true inventor.”
I felt a sense of warmth at the rather pure dream, and huffed in amusement before properly speaking. “Your passion for this goal will attest to it coming to reality. I wish you well in achieving it.” The lithoid seemed to appreciate my words of affirmation, and shifted to a much less stiff composure. Bocc sighed synthetically through their vocalizer, before looking back at me to respond. “Thank you for such supporting words Kovvak. I’m… I’m sorry for speaking the way I did. Even though it was a personal reason, it was still unacceptable for me to speak so brashly.”
“That’s quite alright,” I added. “We can all lose sight of what’s important when clouded by heavy emotion. I’m sorry for the reckless flying, but at least you’re here to curse me for it now rather than being cursed to walk through the next life alone, right?” The Lithoid only chuckled at my words. “You are most correct. Maybe I gave you too little credit before… I’m glad to be shown otherwise now.”
“I have that effect on people.” I speak in a joking manner, one which warrants a laugh from Zikee and Bocc. Kazzi said nothing, blacking out rather easily after the alcohol in her system finally took control. I could only sigh at the Fulkari woman… She’s going to really need my help handling such a prominent hangover once all is said and done-
“Everyone listen,” I hear someone speak up from the bar. Causing my train of thought to shift tracks towards the source of the commotion. I wasn’t the only one to have their gaze pulled to this new source, Zikee and Bocc also did the same. The Kraviska hoisting herself to look over the back of the seat towards the bar, and the T’ccoj having their robotic eye lift up without having to move themselves. Kazzi is still blackout drunk from all the alcoholic influence she was subjected to at the moment.
What was a simple conversation between strangers turned into a strange situation as the bartender moved their appendage to show a remote, one with had their eyes fully trained on as they poked away at numerous buttons. The remote was one for the televisions, as they shifted to switch to CCNN, the Core Central News Network. The tv volumes also increased to ensure that this was the main attention grabber in the room. Whilst that was the case, I also looked outside to find that many of the overhead televisions and other such devices were being changed to shift to what seemed like breaking news. The CCNN showed their host news anchor speaking on the GA council head. The representatives of each of the Elder species of the entire organization were present. Each one standing before a podium being recorded by the camera which was transmitting across all channels. This was a PSA, a majorly important PSA given the presence of such important people being presented.
Already I knew well what this was about. After all, practically everyone here in the establishment was a victim of the tragedy. Majority on the station were all there on Fojhiam as it fell. Not everyone in the universe knew however. There were still many worlds in the GA, among outreaches that took around a full day of travel to achieve. The GA would only ever make announcements like this under certain conditions and never anything less.
All instances pertaining to massively influential events. Almost all of them are related to disasters…
The woman who stood in the middle podium was tall and lanky. A Svenoiraq, one of the eight founding species, and chairwoman of the galactic assembly’s council chambers. With three long and spindly fingers holding down firmly at the edges of the podium, her pale white skin glistened against the fabric backdrop of the set. A long neck and pale flat face, adorned with four binocular eyes and a vertical mouth. Chairman Ryu was the most powerful in the GA, and her presence at the PSA conference was no mistake.
“My fellow sapients”, she spoke in a calculated manner, with little emotion in her voice. Her eyes glazed over with an almost lifeless expression, magnified only by her monotone voice. “18 hours, 56 minutes, and fourteen seconds ago, we of the GA high command received an alert regarding unregistered fleet activity in the Fulkari home system. An unknown fleet of an origin that is both mysterious and obvious all the same. Before you, shall be shown what little footage we managed to recover from one of the military vessels that escaped the carnage. I beg you to avert the eyes of your children.”
A Holographic display formed behind the Elders, one that provided the perspective of a ship camera. Raw and unedited footage based on the condition of the camera. A small display was provided in the corner to monitor activity on a diverse and extensive sensor grid. One which remained inactive for what seemed like a concerning amount of time. It was choking with the amount of mental strain this silence caused. In all but a single nanosecond, the display shifted to show the sensor grid flaring alarming all about as a literal supernova worth of activity just spawned… instantaneously, lights flared and sensors went awry with panic. The sensor display on the left showed the size of the active Fulkari fleet compared to that of the enemy that just materialized in the system. And the difference was that of night and day. The Fulkari defenders all but a single atom to the cell of power that was the black fleet. It didn’t matter that those black ships seemed unshielded, the sheer amount of them was more than enough to overpower the Fulkari.
The camera gave all the more unease, as instantly, light from distant stars appeared almost snuffed from reality as the mass of forces blotted any room for light to weave through. Faint lights were visible, which conveyed a sense of primal hatred. Hatred with seared through space like hawking radiation from all but the smallest of singularities. This was only then followed by battle footage, of the enemy forces punched through the stationed defensive craft with beams of terrible firepower. Invisible powers that caused massive explosions upon the defending craft, grilling anyone unfortunate enough to not immediately die. All but a second later was all that it took for the camera to finally be struck, the station that it was attached to likely receiving critical damage. Footage only received by the crews working hastily to escape with all the data they could.
That was all that was recovered from the military craft, all we had as to the source of the Black fleet. A clue with no trail, a lead with no start… but despite the mysterious air to the whole situation, the source of this attack was as obvious as the light of day. With the chairwoman speaking up, the silence was much less heavy than a few seconds before.
“This recording received from one of the surviving members of the planetary Garrison was nowhere near enough to receive a definitive claim on who assaulted the Fulkari territories. As the ships which by all accounts seem to be AI automated, are unheard of in our collective spaces but the most likely theory is what we all suspect. My fellow sapients, such technology is foreign to us, outside of GA jurisdiction and influence. No force could be built within our space without our noticing, and such technology to simply appear in a fixed point in space exists in our collective. There’s only one source we can possibly theorize is the source of this attack. Until any further evidence is presented in spite of the assumption, it’s very much likely that The Foretold Survived… And have bided their time building up these mechanical forces.
“Such a theory, whilst unfounded, is terrifying to reminisce on, especially considering the implications. They were already dangerous without their hostilities to the GA… now more than ever we face a threat of an even greater magnitude. One that is to meet in full force… As such, we of the high council call upon the members of the GA to begin preparations to re-enter wartime production and prepare for total War. Now more than ever we must be ready, for time is no longer on our side.”
It certainly wasn’t…
…
I can’t help but think of how this is a fate that we’ve inflicted upon ourselves… do we really deserve this?
Maybe…

I had always remembered my deeply rooted envy at a girl at my old high school. Alyssa Howard, Home Room 207. It hadn't been long since I graduated there. I was in Class of '22, in a homeroom that I simply didn't fit in. It was isolating since everyone in my homeroom was in groups of friends, everyone was their own designated groups.
Alyssa was in the Choir group, consisting of 8 girls. They were girls that were a part of Choir Class, an elective that made no sense why I took it. Along with Alyssa Howard, there was Brianne Becker, Fiona Figueroa, Leslie Smith, Hannah Klidford, Emma Kelly, Mandy Lake, and... Karla Reyes. Karla Reyes was one of them I knew very well. In fact she is the reason why I'm typing this out.
Karla was my childhood friend, we met in 5th grade. Her family was from around Texas, and she recently moved to this small town of Meadows Dale. I didn't have friends at that age since most kids thought I was...well weird. I didn't comprehend why I was weird to them at the time, I just simply thought I wasn't cool enough. I remember vividly that I was walking far from the rusty playground, to a hill that pretty much if going more up north, you'll be at the Centennial Park of the town.
That sunny day in 5th grade felt like it was just yesterday. I was walking up a hill, my Elsa shoes making every step feel like a chore. I sighed, looking down at my shoes, feeling embarrassed that my mom had gotten them for me. All the other kids in my grade were wearing Converse or cool sneakers, and here I was, stuck with sparkly, princess-themed shoes. I flopped down on the grassy ground, feeling like the biggest outcast in the world.
I sat there, lost in my own thoughts, I noticed a girl with dark hair and tan skin walking towards me. She looked a bit nervous, fidgeting with her hands as she approached. I recognized her from my homeroom class.
"Hey," she said, trying to sound casual. "These hills look like a pair of butt cheeks, don't they?" She giggled, and I couldn't help but laugh too.
I signed back to her, using my hands to mimic the shape of hills and then making a silly face to show that, yes, they did look like butt cheeks. Karla laughed, and I was surprised. Not many people in my class knew sign language, and it was nice to have someone to communicate with in my own way.
"Do you know sign language?" I signed, curiosity getting the better of me.
Karla nodded, her dark hair bobbing up and down. "Yeah, my aunt was born deaf, so I learned to communicate with her."
I signed back, asking her if she thought it was cool that I knew sign language too.
Karla grinned. "Yeah, that's really cool! I'm Karla, by the way."
“Lily,” I signed my name, and Karla sat down next to me on the grass. We chatted for the rest of recess, discovering that we had a lot in common. We both loved DreamWorks movies better than Disney, and our favorite music group was Fifth Harmony. I was obsessed with them back then, and Karla was too. We both wanted to be like Camila Cabello when we grew up.
From that day on, Karla and I were inseparable. We'd sit together at lunch, partner up for group projects, and even started a Fifth Harmony fan club in our class. Karla would always lend me an earbud so we could jam out to our favorite songs together. Our friendship was effortless, and I felt like I'd finally found someone who understood me.
It was perfect until the start of Freshman year of Meadows Dale High School. I held my scheduler tightly in my hands as I climbed the stairs to the kitchen, my stomach twisted in knots. My heart sank as I scanned the pages, taking in the fact that most of my classes were designated for students with special educational needs. Homeroom and choir were the only exceptions.
I made my way to the living room where my mom was seated, tears brimming in my eyes. "Mom, why do I have to take these classes?" I signed, frustration etched on my features. "I don't need this kind of help. I can handle regular classes just fine."
My mom looked at the schedule, her expression sympathetic. "I know you don't seem to need help, sweetie, but the school requires you to take these classes. It's just protocol."
I sighed, feeling a wave of frustration wash over me. "I'm going to feel like even more of a freak than I already do," I gestured angrily, trying to hold back tears.
From the living room doorway, my father's deep voice cut through the silence. His ears perked up from the conversation. "Hey, kiddo, what's going on?" he asked, his voice gentle.
I signed again, rapidly gesturing my fingers "I don't want to take Special ED classes, Dad. I can do normal classes. I can hear the teachers very well!"
My dad walked over to us, his eyes scanning the schedule. "I know it's tough, Lily, but the school is just trying to help. Plus, You're not a freak. Not in our eyes, anyway. If anybody gives you trouble, I'll personally see to it that they regret it." His tone was lighthearted, but his meaning was clear. He was the sheriff, after all, and his reputation preceded him.
I rolled my eyes, signing, "Dad, please. You're only making things worse."
Ignoring my pleas, he ruffled my hair affectionately before leaving the room. I retreated to my bedroom, collapsing onto my bed in a heap of tears. The night passed in a blur, and soon enough, it was time for me to wake up and face another day.
I woke up to the sound of my dad calling me from downstairs. "Lily, time to get up! First day of school!" I groggily got out of bed, still feeling the emotional hangover from the night before.
My dad drove me to school in his police cruiser, which only added to my embarrassment. I remembered feeling weird being in the cruiser, with its flashing lights and sirens. As we pulled up to the school, my dad turned to me and said, "No matter what, you'll always have me and Mom, okay? We love you, and we're proud of you."
He hugged me tight, and I felt a lump in my throat again. I nodded, trying to hold back tears, and got out of the car. Finally me into the world of Meadows Dale High School.
The enormity of the building hit me hard as I stepped inside. The halls were bustling with activity, and the noise level was overwhelming. The classes flew by, and I couldn't help but feel like my Special ED classes were too easy for me. The teacher aides were sweet, but they were busy helping other students, leaving me to feel like I was just going through the motions.
As I walked out of my Literature class, I noticed a boy sitting alone next to a locker. He had ginger hair and was a bit overweight, and he was using a big headset to listen to music. There was something about him that drew me in, so I walked over to say hi.
He removed his headphones, looking up at me with a nervous smile. "Hi," he said, his voice a little shaky.
I signed back, "Hi."
He laughed, a little awkwardly. "Sorry if I'm a bit awkward. I'm not really used to talking to people."
I signed, "You're not awkward at all."
He smiled, looking relieved. "Thanks. I'm Matt Weston."
I nodded, signing, "I'm Lily."
Matt's eyes lit up. "Sweet. What's your homeroom?"
"207."
Matt's face brightened up. "No way, that's my homeroom too!"
I smiled, feeling a sense of excitement. "That's amazing!"
Matt stood up, walking towards a bookshelf. "Homeroom's next class. Want to walk with me?"
I nodded, following him as the bell rang. We exited the class, and suddenly we were swept up in a sea of students pushing and shoving to get to their next class.
We finally arrived at class 207, which was already filled with students. I saw Alyssa sitting in the back with her group of friends, looking like a star athlete. Matt went to sit in the front seat, and I sat next to him.
Just as we were settling in, one of the guys from Jr high football, Ryan Peterson, hit a football at Matt, saying, "Can't believe we got 'Butterball' in our class."
Matt rolled his eyes, saying, "At least I don't have a father who cheats and spreads gonorrhea."
Ryan's friend, Warren, said, "Ohhh sick burn,"
Ryan huffed, whispering to Matt, "Just because you're special doesn't mean everybody likes you."
I got mad, flipping Ryan the finger, which made him laugh. "You're lucky I ain't telling the teacher, because I don't want any issues with your old man!" Ryan walked away with Warren, leaving me feeling annoyed.
The homeroom teacher arrived, a young guy in his 20s with cedar brown hair and a pair of glasses. "Hello Students! Like that you are all sitting in neatly placed groups. My name's Mr. James and I'll be your homeroom teacher for Freshmen till Senior Year. Hope you excited as I am!"
Just as he was about to start writing on the white board, a beautifully dressed Karla emerged late, looking older and more mature with a lot of makeup on. I looked up, happy to see her, only for her to not notice me and sit down next to Alyssa's group.
Matt whispered to me, "Do you know that girl?"
I signed, "No."
Matt nodded, looking curious. "She looks familiar, but I don't know her name. Was it Kayla or Karly?"
"It's Karla," I shrugged, feeling a pang of disappointment. It seemed like Karla had moved on to a new group of friends, leaving me behind. I don't know how this change happened, since Karla and I went on a trip to Orlando, Florida, three weeks ago. I thought we had the best of our life's during that trip.
I was stumped, watching from afar as Karla chatted with Alyssa and her friends. I felt a twinge of jealousy and sadness as I realized how easily Karla had seemingly moved on and found a new group to hang out with. I mean, I thought we were best friends. It felt like Alyssa had stolen her from me.
I turned my attention elsewhere, not wanting to dwell on it. That's when I noticed a teenage boy sitting alone a few rows in front of me. He had jet black hair and there was something familiar about him, although I couldn't quite place it. I wondered who he was and why he was sitting alone.
"Hey, Lily," Matt said, following my gaze. "Do you know that guy? He looks kind of like a mini Detective Loomis."
I shook my head, signing that I had no idea who he was, but now I was curious too. Detective Loomis had been a family friend for years, and I knew he had a son, but I hadn't seen him in a while.
Matt chuckled nervously and waved his hand as if to dismiss his own question. "Just wondering. He kind of looks like him, that's all."
Just then, the boy turned around in his seat and our eyes met. He raised an eyebrow, clearly having overheard our conversation. "Yeah, that's my dad," he said, a hint of challenge in his voice. "Why?"
Matt shifted uncomfortably in his seat, clearly not expecting such a direct response. "Oh, um, no reason. Just curious, that's all."
The boy, Brandon Loomis, as I now knew him to be, nodded slowly, as if accepting Matt's explanation. Then, to my surprise, he introduced himself with a small smile. "Brandon Loomis. And you are...?"
"Lily Anderson. Nice to meet you, Brandon."
“I'm Matt by the way,” Matt chimed in.
A flash of something—was it pain?—crossed Brandon's face, but it was quickly replaced with a smile. "Nice to meet you both. Your dad's a good man, Lily. He helped me out a lot."
I could only imagine what Brandon had been through. I remembered hearing snippets about his kidnapping a while back, but I had no idea what he must have endured. No wonder he hadn't been in school until now.
"Well, I hope the rest of the year goes well for you," I signed sincerely.
Brandon smiled at me again, and I felt a warm glow spread through my chest. "Thanks, Lily. I hope so too."
As the homeroom continued, Mr. James had us all introduce ourselves and played some icebreaker games to help us get to know each other better. It was actually kind of fun, and it took my mind off Karla and her new friends for a while.
One of the things we had to do was share a fun fact about ourselves. When it was Matt's turn, he revealed that he was the son of Mayor Weston and a great friend of my dad's. No wonder he seemed so familiar! I knew my dad would be thrilled to hear that Matt and I had become friends.
Before I knew it, the homeroom was over, and Matt, Brandon, and I headed out into the hallway together. I was relieved to find out that we all had B lunch, so I wouldn't have to eat alone.
"So, where do you guys usually eat?" Brandon asked as we made our way down the crowded hallway.
"I don't know about Lily, but I usually just grab something from the cafeteria and eat outside," Matt replied.
I signed, "That sounds good to me. I like being outdoors."
Brandon nodded. "Yeah, me too. Although, I usually eat my lunch at Dillard's Diner since I work there after school. You guys should come by sometime. The food's pretty great."
"Definitely!" Matt said enthusiastically. "I love diner food. And hey, maybe we can even help you out sometime if you're short-staffed."
Brandon laughed. "Sure, why not? It can get pretty crazy on the weekends, so any extra hands would be appreciated."
As we made our way to the cafeteria, Matt started talking about his favorite band, Deftones. I had to admit, their music was a little too heavy for my tastes, but Matt was so passionate about it that I found myself getting drawn in.
"You know, you should check out their album 'White Pony,'" Matt said. "It's a classic. My dad actually introduced me to them, and I've been hooked ever since."
I signed with a smile, "My dad's always trying to get me into his favorite bands too. He's a big fan of The Beatles and Queen."
"Oh, those are classics," Brandon chimed in. "My dad's more of a country music guy, but I've definitely grown to appreciate some of the older stuff."
While we ate lunch, I pulled out my sketchbook and started drawing, something I often did when I was feeling nervous or needed a distraction. Matt and Brandon were curious and asked to see my drawings. I showed them some of my anime-style sketches, and they both complimented my work.
"Wow, Lily, these are amazing!" Matt exclaimed. "You're gonna be like Picasso one day."
I signed, feeling my face heat up with embarrassment. "Thanks, Matt. That's really nice of you to say."
Brandon nodded in agreement. "Seriously, you're really talented. I wish I could draw like that."
As lunch came to an end, Matt and Brandon suggested that they walk me to my next class. I was surprised but pleased that they wanted to stick together. My next class was Choir, and thankfully, it was just down the hall.
"So, Lily, do you sing?" Brandon asked as we walked.
I signed, feeling a little self-conscious. "A little. I mean, I really want to sing, but I'm not sure I'm any good."
"Don't be shy, Lily," Matt said with a grin. "I bet you have a great voice."
I felt my face flush again, but I was glad that Matt and Brandon seemed so supportive. As we reached the choir room, I took a deep breath and prepared myself for whatever the class might bring. I slowly pushed open the door to the choir room, unsure of what to expect. The room was dark, but as my eyes adjusted, I could make out the outlines of rows of chairs facing a small stage. The room had a strange beauty to it, with its blue and white color scheme and intricate design carvings. I made my way to an empty chair near the exit, wanting to keep a low profile.
Before long, a flood of girls began to pour into the room, chattering and laughing. I recognized many of them from the Meadows Dale Advanced Academic Program. My heart sank a little as I spotted Brianne Becker, one of the most popular girls in school, deep in conversation with Meg Peterson. They were giggling about some guy they both apparently liked. Brianne's eyes suddenly landed on me, and her smile faded. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, feeling self-conscious under her gaze.
Alyssa entered the room, and the atmosphere seemed to brighten. Brianne's face lit up, and she rushed over to give Alyssa a hug. "I'm so happy you're in this class!" she exclaimed. Alyssa smiled back, her warm hazel eyes shining. I felt a small sense of relief seeing her friendly face.
Following Alyssa were Mandy, Fiona, Leslie, Hannah, Emma, and Karla. They all seemed to be deep in their own conversations, and I felt even more alone. Karla was telling Fiona about getting her nails done, and Fiona was expressing her dislike for acrylics. I stood up and waved at Karla, trying to get her attention. She had been one of my few friends in middle school, but something had changed between us lately.
Alyssa, however, made her way over to me and offered a genuine greeting. "Hi, Lily! It's so great to see you in this class," she said, her eyes sparkling with sincerity. I felt a small smile tug at my lips. At least there was one person here who didn't seem to mind my presence.
Entering through the red velvety curtains of the stage, a woman with brunette hair, who looked to be in her early 40s, emerged from behind the stage. She had an air of enthusiasm about her as she introduced herself as Mrs. Becker, Brianne's mother. I remembered hearing that they were related, and at the time, I had thought it was sweet that a mother and daughter shared the same class.
Mrs. Becker instructed us all to take our seats and explained that this class was for girls only. She then asked each of us to come up on stage and recite the Do-Mi-Re-Fa-So syllables so that she could group us into sections of eight. My heart sank as I realized I would have to sing in front of everyone.
One by one, Mrs. Becker called each girl up to the stage. Some of the girls had okay voices, while others were truly talented. Then it was Brianne's turn. Her voice was like an angel's, a beautiful soprano that filled the room. Fiona and Emma also impressed me with their deep, rich alto voices. Mandy, Leslie, and Hannah had high-pitched, yet well-controlled voices that blended beautifully.
Alyssa and Karla were the last to go, and they both had perfect voices. Alyssa's voice was like honey, smooth and warm. But it was Karla who really stood out. She sounded like a pop idol, her voice clear and powerful. I found myself getting lost in the music, forgetting my worries for a moment.
Then Mrs. Becker called my name, and my heart sank. I nervously made my way up the stairs to the stage, my hands trembling at my sides. I took a deep breath, trying to steady myself. As I opened my mouth to sing, an awful, screeching noise escaped. My throat instantly sting, as the aftertaste of metallic overwhelmed my mouth. It was so bad that Mrs. Becker immediately cut me off.
"Why are you in this class, Lily?" she asked, a hint of annoyance in her voice.
I looked at her sadly and signed, "I don't know. I didn't choose this class."
Mrs. Becker softened a little, seeing my dejected expression. "Well, you better discuss these matters with a counselor about switching, because there are better candidates out there who want a spot in this class," she said bluntly.
I felt my cheeks burn with embarrassment as I made my way back to my seat at the very back of the room. I could feel the eyes of the other girls on me, and I heard their stifled laughter. Karla's laughter rang out the loudest, stabbing me like a knife. Alyssa was the only one who didn't join in, her face a mask of disappointment. I wasn't sure if she was disappointed in me or in the other girls' behavior.
It was next week, I got out of my algebra class heading towards the office. I had to wait till Monday, since during the first few days, my assigned counselor was not available. I was already antsy of finally getting out of that Choir class, I couldn’t deal another day with a class I clearly didn’t fit in. My schedule in my hand, I pulled the door open, being greeted by the smell of freshly baked chocolate chip muffins. Nervousness ran through me, wondering what type of counselor Dr. Wells would be.
The door was wide agape, leading me into the source of that muffin smell. Sitting there on a working desk, was a man typing on his laptop. He looked a bit exhausted, almost to the point that he slumped on his chair. Tilting my head, I nudged on his shoulders, trying to shake him awake. I couldn’t help but feel warmth radiating in my cheeks.
“Huh? Oh, hello there Lily. What brings you here?” Dr. Wells jolted up, probably noticing how close I was to his face. I backed away, sitting down on a red couch next to him.
“I want to change classes please.”
Mr. Wells nodded off, scooting his chair back towards his mahogany desk. He searched up my schedule, turning his laptop to my view. “Oh, I see. In what class do you want to change?”
I nervously let out a breath, as I finally let out what emotions I was holding. “I don’t know why you assigned me Choir, but everyone in that class hates me. I really need that class changed, Dr. Wells.”
I saw my counselor's lip repeatedly twitched a bit, before he gathered his composure. Dr. Wells looked up from his desk, his kind face softening as he saw me. "Lily, I want to apologize profusely for putting you in that situation."
I signed, feeling a little comforted by his words. "It's okay. I did want to be in that class, but I just... I felt so out of place with all the other girls laughing at me."
Dr. Wells sighed and rubbed his temple. "I'm truly sorry, Lily. I was told you loved music and thought you would enjoy the class. But it's clear that it wasn't a good fit. Do you have another class in mind that you'd like to take instead?"
I nodded and signed, "Art class. I heard my friend Brandon is taking that, and I've always loved drawing."
Dr. Wells typed something into his laptop. “Consider it done. I'll have the change processed by tomorrow, if not sooner. In the meantime, help yourself to a muffin. The library teacher made them for me, and they're delicious."
I smiled and took one of the muffins, taking a bite. "Are you and the library teacher... a thing?" I asked, feeling a little bold.
Dr. Wells laughed, a deep, hearty sound that filled the room. "No, no, nothing like that. Just colleagues. She knows I have a sweet tooth, so she often shares her baking creations with me."
I felt a wave of relief wash over me. It was probably one of the few times I'd developed a crush on someone, and as usual, it was harmless and something I'd get over quickly. Dr. Wells was one of those crushes indeed. I stood up from my chair, feeling much better than when I arrived. "Well, thank you, Dr. Wells. I better head to class soon."
Dr. Wells smiled and placed a hand on my shoulder. "Of course, Lily. And remember, if you ever need someone to chat with, my door is always open."
Later that day, during lunch, I made my way to our usual table with Brandon and Matt. They were already deep in conversation about their morning classes.
"PE is a nightmare," Matt was saying. "All the athletes make fun of me because I'm not as fast or strong as they are. It's frustrating."
Brandon nodded sympathetically. "I heard you beat Ryan on the pacer test, though. That's impressive."
Matt shrugged, taking a bite of his apple. "It was just luck, honestly. Ryan got too cocky and sprained his knee on the seventy-ninth lap. I just kept a steady pace.”
I signed to Matt, "You should still be proud. I bet your dad was happy."
Matt smiled. "He was. It's not every day I get to impress him, especially when it comes to sports. You know how Mayor Weston was a star athlete back in his day."
I laughed, and then took a bite of my sandwich. "Speaking of impressing people, I have some news. I'm switching out of choir class and into art elective. Hopefully, I'll be in the same class as you, Brandon."
Brandon's face lit up. "That's great! I'm so glad you'll be joining us. Art class is a lot of fun.”
Matt nodded in agreement. "I'm happy for you, Lily. But why are you leaving Choir? I thought you loved singing."
My smile faltered, and I looked down at my lap. "It's just... it's not the right fit for me," I signed.
Matt frowned, chewing on his apple. "Is Mrs. Becker too mean? I've heard she can be hard on students who aren't part of the popular crowd."
"No fair," I signed, my eyes pleading with him to understand.
Brandon nodded. "It really isn't fair, Matt. That's why I prefer to keep a low profile. Popularity contests aren't worth the hassle.”
Just then, I felt a tap on my shoulder, and I turned to see Karla standing there, a sad look on her face. "Lily, can I talk to you?" she asked, her voice soft and hesitant.
I hesitated, signing, "Why?”
With a strand of hair tucked behind her ear, she leaned in and whispered, "I want to talk to you in private."
I glanced at Matt and Brandon, signing, "I'll be back, okay?"
Matt nodded, his eyes curious. "We'll be here. Take your time."
I followed Karla to the girl's bathroom, my heart pounding in my chest. I wasn't sure what this was about, but I sensed it was important to her. Once we were inside, Karla pulled out a juul vape from her pocket and took a hit. The sweet smell of watermelon filled the air.
"Want a hit?" she offered, holding it out to me.
I was curious, so I signed, "Sure."
I took a cautious drag, expecting to choke, but surprisingly, I didn't. Karla laughed, "I guess you already know how to smoke. Not so innocent after all, huh?"
I rolled my eyes. "I learned from watching Effy in Skins. It's not like I've never seen it before."
Karla laughed again, a genuine sound that seemed to break through the tension between us. "Look, Lily, I wanted to apologize for what happened in the choir. I shouldn't have laughed. It was mean, and I'm sorry."
I stayed silent, unsure of how to respond. A part of me wanted to accept her apology, but another part was still hurt by her earlier behavior. Before I could say anything, Karla cut in, "I know it doesn't make up for it, but I want to make it up to you. How about I take you to the skating rink this evening? It's one of our favorite places, remember?"
I hesitated, considering her offer. Finally, I signed, "Okay, I guess."
Karla's face lit up, and she gave me a quick hug. "Great! I'll text you the details. See you later, okay?" And with that, she left the bathroom, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
I walked back to the cafeteria, my mind racing. Matt rushed over to me, his eyes full of questions. "How did it go? What did she want?" he asked.
"It went okay," I replied, signing as I continued. "Karla invited me to the skating rink this evening."
Brandon's eyebrows furrowed. "I don't know, Lily. Karla hangs out with those choir girls. I don't think we can trust her, especially after what happened."
I bit my lip, understanding his concern. "What if I sneak you and Matt in too? That way, if anything goes south, we'll be together."
Matt's eyes lit up. "That's a brilliant idea! I'm in."
A small smile tugged at my lips. "It's settled, then. We're going skating."
That afternoon, I waited on the porch for Karla to pick me up. The sun was starting to set, casting a warm glow over everything. My dad emerged from the house, dressed in his sheriff's uniform. "Why are you wearing your uniform on your day off?" I asked, curious.
He chuckled, patting my back. "Got called into work. Something strange is going on. Don't worry, I'll be fine."
I signed, "Be safe, Dad."
“I will, honey. Have fun with Karla, okay.” He smiled and gave me a thumbs-up before heading off. A minute later, a black Chevy pulled up, and I recognized it as Mrs. Becker's car. Karla leaned out the window and waved me over.
I took a deep breath and climbed into the back seat. Besides Karla, there were a few other girls from the choir class—Mandy, Hannah, Emma, Leslie, Fiona, and Brianne. Alyssa was noticeably absent.
Noticing my curious glance, Karla explained, "Alyssa had track practice. She couldn't make it."
I signed, "That's nice."
Brianne turned to Mrs. Becker and asked, "Can we get some McDonald's shakes? Please?"
Mrs. Becker smiled. "Of course, sweetie. Does anyone else want one?"
Everyone nodded eagerly, and Mrs. Becker placed an order for nine shakes. Emma and Leslie wanted vanilla, Brianne wanted the seasonal spice pumpkin flavor, Hannah and Fiona requested strawberry, Karla and Mandy chose chocolate, and Mrs. Becker asked about my preference.
"Mint, please," I said, making a gesture of a mint leaf.
Mrs. Becker smiled. "Mint it is. Anything for my girls."
I felt a warm glow spread through me. Maybe, just maybe, they were starting to like me. I took a long sip of my mint shake, savoring the cool, refreshing taste.
"Chocolate is definitely the best flavor," Mandy declared, taking a sip from her own shake. "Nothing beats the classic."
"Pumpkin spice is where it's at," Brianne interjected, taking a sip of her pumpkin spice shake. "It's got that perfect blend of sweet and spicy. It's like autumn in a bite."
"Are you kidding?" Mandy scoffed. "Chocolate is timeless. It's the ultimate comfort food. Pumpkin spice is just a fad.”
"Oh c'mon! Pumpkin spice is leagues better," Brianne retorted. "It's a limited edition for a reason."
The other girls joined in, each defending their favorite flavor. I snickered at their playful bickering, feeling a sense of warmth despite the earlier tension.
About ten minutes later, Mrs. Becker pulled into the parking lot of a magenta-colored building. The girls piled out of the car, and I followed them inside, curious about our destination. Mrs. Becker turned to Brianne and said, "I'll pick you girls up at 8 pm sharp. I need to head home and take care of your little sister."
Brianne gave her mom a quick hug and yelled out, "Okay! Love you, mom!" Then she joined the choir group, whispering something in Karla's ear that made her smile in an unsettling way.
Karla walked over to me and whispered, "Hey, Lily, I want to take you to our hiding spot. It's been a while since we hung out there."
I brightened at the idea, signing, "I've missed that place. We used to act like it was our studio booth."
“Uh-huh,” Karla led me to an abandoned janitor's closet that was blocked off with a "Do Not Enter" sign. She opened the door, and I slid inside, feeling a rush of nostalgia. I slid inside the small, dimly lit closet and sat criss-cross on the floor, my heart racing with anticipation. Karla joined me, and for a moment, we just sat there, our knees touching, the silence comfortable between us.
"I've missed you, Lily," Karla signed, her expression softening.
"I've missed you too," I signed back, my heart warming at the sentiment. "It feels like it's been ages since we really talked." I looked down, my smile fading slightly. "I've missed the old Karla. The one who was always on my side, no matter what."
Karla furrowed her eyebrows, her face a mask of confusion. "What do you mean? I haven't changed, Lily. I've just matured."
I scoffed, shaking my head. "Matured? Making fun of someone less popular than you isn't mature, Karla. It's just mean spirited."
Her eyes widened at my words, and I could see the hurt flash across her face. "I haven't been making fun of you, Lily. I—"
"Yes, you have," I interrupted, my anger bubbling to the surface. "I know exactly what you and your new friends have been trying to do. You've been pretending I don't exist, like I'm not even worth acknowledging.”
Karla's face contorted with frustration. "That's not true, Lily! You always have to make everything about your disability. If anyone's changed, it's you. You used to be so happy, always laughing and joking around. Now, you just cry and complain when things don't go your way."
I signed angrily, my hands moving frantically. "How can you say that, Karla? I don't mind if you want to be more popular, but you're acting like you don't even know me. You're trying to pretend we're not friends."
Her eyes filled with tears, and her voice shook. "Maybe I don't want to be friends with you anymore, Lily. Maybe you're too held up in the past, too stuck in your own little world. You're a sad, pathetic sap, and I—"
Before she could finish her sentence, I punched her squarely in the face. The force of the blow knocked her back, and she stumbled, her hand flying to her nose.
"I wish I'd never met you, Karla!" I angrily figured my fingers around, my breathing being audible in the small space. "I wish you'd never been my friend! I wouldn't care if you dropped dead right now!"
Karla's eyes widened in shock, and tears began to stream down her face. Without another word, she turned and ran out of the janitor's closet, leaving me alone in the dimly lit space. I trembled as I crouched down in the corner, my heart pounding in my chest. I had never hit anyone before, and now I wished I could take it back. It was rather immature of me to end that way with Karla. Especially when this was the last memory I had of her alive.
Suddenly, a blood-curdling scream pierced the silence, freezing me in place. It was Karla. My eyes widened in horror as I realized what I had done. I rose to my feet and ran out of the closet, my heart pounding in my chest. As I turned the corner, I came face to face with a masked man. He was tall and imposing, his mask was painted like a 1940s woman with green eyeshadow, vibrant red blush, and blood-red lips. His copper-blonde wig fell in sleek waves, contrasting with his all-black suit.
The man walked slowly towards me, his gloved hand reaching out. I kicked him in the abdomen, my fear fueling my strength. But he was too strong. He grabbed me by the waist, his gloved finger pressing against my lips.
"My little flower, I am so happy to see you." he whispered, his voice deep and gravelly.
Before I could scream or struggle, he covered my mouth with a rag. It took a while for the chloroform to finally take effect, as I remembered my last thoughts were about Karla. Sometimes I wished this encounter was just an elaborate prank played by Brianne. However it is never the case.
When I woke up, I woke up to the sound of a girl's voice, soft and melodic. My eyes felt heavy, my body sluggish as I tried to lift my head. The singing was familiar, reminding me of Karla. My heart stirred at the memory of my friend, and I tried to shake off the grogginess that clouded my mind.
As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I realized I was restrained to a bed, my wrists and ankles bound. Panic surged through me, and I struggled against my bonds, my heart racing.
The singing continued, and I finally located the source—a television mounted on the wall across the room. My eyes widened as I recognized the singer. It was Karla, her face bruised and beaten, her eyes closed as she sang "Once Upon a December" from the animated movie "Anastasia." Her voice was shaky but serene, and tears pricked my eyes as I watched her performance.
I opened my mouth to scream, but only a weakened screech escaped my throat. I tugged at my restraints, desperation fueling my strength. I had to get out of here. I had to help Karla.
Catching me off guard, the door swung open, and the masked man from my encounter at the janitor's closet stepped into the room. My heart sank at the sight of him, and I shrunk back against the bed, my breath coming in short gasps.
He carried a plate of applesauce, his gloved hands setting it down on a table by the bed. "Good morning, my little flower," he said, his voice deep and distorted by the mask. "Your friend has a lovely voice," he remarked. "Have you ever wanted to sing like that?”
I shook my head, my eyes never leaving his face. I mouthed the words, "Let her go.”
The Masked Man smiled sadly. "Your friend has been let go. Don't worry, she's no longer suffering.”
I wanted to scream, to demand that he release me, but my voice failed me. The masked man approached the bed, his eyes cold and unfeeling. He picked up the spoon and dipped it into the applesauce, then brought it to my mouth.
"Open up, sweetie," he cooed. "You need to keep up your strength."
I turned my head away, my body rigid with fear. I didn't want his help, I didn't want anything to do with him.
"Now, now, none of that," he chided, his gloved hand gently tilting my chin back towards him. "You need to eat. And one day, my little flower, you will sing too. And it will be the most beautiful voice anyone has ever heard."
Tears slipped down my cheeks as he forced the spoon into my mouth, the applesauce tasting bitter on my tongue. I choked down the food, my throat constricting with fear and anger.
The masked man set the plate down and pulled me into a tight embrace, his gloved hands stroking my hair. "Shh, my little flower. Everything will be alright. I'm here to take care of you."
I sobbed into his chest, my body shaking with grief and terror. I had no idea where I was, no concept of how much time had passed since I had been taken. All I knew was that Karla was in danger, and I was powerless to help her. The masked man held me until my sobs subsided, then gently laid me back down on the bed. "Rest now. We have a big day ahead of us tomorrow."
With that, he turned and walked out of the room, leaving me alone with my thoughts. I closed my eyes, my mind reeling. The next time I woke, it was to the sound of my mother's sobs. I blinked groggily, my vision blurry as I tried to focus. I was in a hospital room, my mother sitting by my bedside, her face wet with tears. Matt and Brandon, my closest friends, were also there, their faces etched with concern.
"Mom?" I raised one of my hands, my fingers weak and stiff.
My mother's head snapped up, and she rushed to my side, her hands grasping mine. "Lily, oh, Lily, you're awake!" She smiled through her tears, her voice shaking. "I thought I'd lost you.”
I placed my palm to touch her cheek, my throat too dry to speak. Matt and Brandon stood by silently, their eyes filled with relief.
I then asked the big question, signing, "What... happened?"
Matt nervously stuttered, "We... We found you inside an old shed near the skating rink. You were... you were unconscious, and we called for help right away."
Brandon added, "Before that, you were missing for roughly 33 hours. We searched everywhere for you.” His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat, unable to meet my gaze.
"You're safe now, Lily," my mother said, stroking my hair. "That's all that matters. There's nothing to worry about anymore."
I shook my head, my eyes flying open. Where was Karla? I signed, "Where's Karla?”
My mother's face crumpled, and fresh tears slid down her cheeks. "She's... she's still missing, Lily. We don't know where she is."
I closed my eyes, the weight of my guilt crushing me. If I hadn't fought with Karla, none of this would have happened. It was my fault she was still out there, alone and in danger.
The days turned into weeks, and Karla remained missing. The police conducted an extensive search, but there were no leads, no clues as to her whereabouts. I blamed myself, replaying the events of that fateful day over and over in my mind.
Three weeks after my rescue, the news channel delivered a devastating blow. Karla Reyes, aged 15, had been found dead, her body buried near the Yellow Rock River. She had suffered multiple bone fractures, and the unsettling detail—she had been missing her vocal cords and larynx.
I recalled the day vividly, the sun shining brightly through my hospital window as the news anchor delivered the grim update. I had broken down, sobbing uncontrollably, the reality of what had happened hitting me like a ton of bricks. I remember wanting to just die, to pay for what I have done. If I hadn't had my friends Matt and Brandon, I wouldn't have been alive writing this. And yet, I never told anyone about The Masked Man or what had transpired that day—until now. Sometimes I wonder if Karla could hear my prayers, wishing that she deserved better than this, and I'm sorry for causing her death. I took a deep breath, steeling myself for what I needed to say next.
Karla Reyes may have been the first victim, but she certainly wasn't the last. There were 7 more Choirs Girls left.

For those in Blacksburg, here's a rundown of some of this weekend's top events that you can enjoy:
Weekend Rundown of Fun: 1. Beer Tasting with Eastern Divide Vintage Cellar, Blacksburg Friday, May 17, 2024, 4:00 - 7:00 PM Admission: Free Vintage Cellar welcomes Brandon from Blacksburg's own Eastern Divide Brewing Company for a special beer tasting event. Must be ages 21 and older to participate. IDs are required. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=777423
2. Pearisburg Community Market 2024 Kickoff with Music at the Market ft. Music from Ride'n Shotgun Band Pearisburg Community & Recreation Center, Pearisburg Friday, May 17, 2024, 5:30 - 7:30 PM Admission: Free The Pearisburg Community Market kicks off their 2024 Music at the Market series featuring the Ride'n Shotgun Band performing . Join them on the front lawn at the Community Center for live music, a variety of unique vendors, get a bite to eat from the Simple Fixins food truck, Hope Church NRV's Hamburger Camp Fundraiser and dessert from Dough Dees or Kimmies Kandy. In addition there will be a free art activity for kids. The Ride'n Shotgun Band is five-member band based in southwest Virginia playing popular country and rock music. Bring a chair or blanket to enjoy. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=777443
3. Friday Nights at the Farm with Music from Celie Holmes and Black Coffee Beliveau Farm Winery, Blacksburg Friday, May 17, 2024, 6:00 - 9:00 PM Admission: Free Join Beliveau in welcoming a special musical guest every Friday night with live music from 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM and sing along to all of your favorite classics. Celie Holmes and Black Coffee perform a well-rounded repertoire of jazz standards, R&B, light rock and more and are based in Virginia. Enjoy food from Beliveau's full service kitchen until 8:30 PM and chat over a glass of wine during their extended bar hours until 9:00 PM. Get a $5 Beliveau Buck to use during your next visit for every $50.00 you spend on Friday nights from 6:00-9:00 PM. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=777448
4. Dirt Road Breakdown in Concert Rising Silo Farm Brewery, Blacksburg Friday, May 17, 2024, 6:00 - 9:00 PM Admission: Free Lee Worley and Bob Chew bring you swamp rocking Americana and classic honky tonk plus originals and enough rock and rockabilly to keep your feet a jumping. This unique duet we'll have you thinking it is a full four-piece band. Drawing from North Mississippi Allstars, Tom Petty, CCR, Black Keys, Muddy Waters, Jack White, Robert Johnson, John Lee Hooker, Rolling Stones, and more. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=777072
5. May Bluegrass & Old Time Jam Session Newport Community Center, Newport Friday, May 17, 2024, 7:00 - 9:00 PM Admission: Free The Newport Community Center presents the Third Friday May Bluegrass & Old Time Jam Session. Bring your instruments and join us for a night of bluegrass and old time music in the cafeteria at the Newport Community Center. This is a family friendly event. Hotdogs, chili, cornbread and BBQ will be available for purchase. The Bluegrass & Old Time Jam Sessions are a monthly event that occur on the first and third Fridays of each month from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=777005
6. Indoor Movie Night featuring The Greatest Showman Chateau Morrisette, Floyd Friday, May 17, 2024, 7:00 - 8:45 PM Admission: Free Chateau Morrisette presents an Indoor Movie Night featuring "The Greatest Showman". Bring the kids and join us for a special evening at the winery with free popcorn. Wine and cheese boards will also be available for purchase. The 2017 biography and musical drama "The Greatest Showman" is rated PG and stars Hugh Jackman, Michelle Wiliams and Zac Efron. Film Synopsis: Celebrates the birth of show business and tells of a visionary who rose from nothing to create a spectacle that became a worldwide sensation. Note: Due to the expected rain, the movie has been moved inside instead of the planned outdoor film. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=777279
7. Sarai Sibeal and Alliens in Concert Dogtown Roadhouse, Floyd Friday, May 17, 2024, 8:00 - 11:00 PM Admission: $10.00 Join Dogtown for a fantastic night with two acts that will get you moving. Sarai Sibeal will open the show and will be accompanied by Cameron McLaughlin on bass, Willis Greenstreet on guitar, Janiah Allen on drums, John Pence on keys, and Vladimir Espinosa on percussion for this show. Sarah Bowles, also known as Sarai Sibeal, is a native Roanoker. Merging electro-soul with R&B and world music influences, Sarah crafts a mesmerizing fusion of sound that captivates and engages the audience. Alliens is a powerful Caribbean-funk, world groove sensation led by brothers Jamiel and Janiah Allen that merges diverse world rhythms into a magnetic musical tapestry. The band effortlessly blends rock, reggae, funk, ska, Caribbean soca, electronica, cumbia, and more, creating an infectious sound that defies borders. A cross-cultural blend of sound is rooted deep in their souls from growing and living in foreign lands. Top it off with conscious multi-lingual lyrics and sweet trio harmonies and you get an experience that moves mind, body and soul. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=777458
8. 2024 Braveheart 5K Run / Walk Bisset Park, Radford Saturday, May 18, 2024, 7:00 - 11:00 AM Admission: $35.00 Run the the fastest 5k course in the New River Valley and support the American Heart Association in the process courtesy of Runabout Sports and Carilion Clinic. Race day registration is from 7:00-8:00 AM and the 5k starts at 8:30 AM. This race runs along the beautiful New River for its entirety. The course is flat, fast and perfect for setting a personal best or running your first 5k. Participants can register in person at Runabout Sports within the First & Main Shopping Center or online. Awards will be awarded to fastest runners by gender and age group. As part of the Runabout Sports 2024 Race series, you will accumulate points towards overall and age group series awards. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=777394
9. 2024 Pearisburg Junior Woman’s Club Junior Jamboree Pearisburg Community & Recreation Center, Pearisburg Saturday, May 18, 2024, 9:00 AM - 2:00 PM Admission: Free Donut Dash: Ages 3 & Up: $5.00, Ages 2 & Under: Free The Pearisburg Junior Woman’s Club (PJWC) will be hosting its 2nd Annual Junior Jamboree featuring a wide variety of events. The fun starts off with the Donut Dash from 9:00-10:00 AM in front of the basketball courts and is open to all ages. Participants will stroll along the park trail with tasty donut stops along the half mile trail. They will make their way to the pavilion where gourmet donuts and coffee await. All proceeds from the Donut Dash will help fund the expansion of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library in Giles County. At 10:00 AM, artists, crafters, local organizations and food trucks will be set up on the lawn of the Pearisburg Community Center. Additionally, enjoy live entertainment from the Giles County School of Dance at 11:00 AM, followed by Dance Motion performing at noon and closing out the entertainment at 1:00 PM is The Honey Drops. The Honey Drops are a young trio of singers (Aubrey Adkins, Ella Butler, and Ky Fury), ages 14, 15, and 16, based out of West Virginia. Their influences are broad, from Fleetwood Mac to the Killers and the Wailin’ Jennys to show tunes. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=777273
10. The Little Event (Litter Clean Up) Iron Tree Brewing Company, Christiansburg Saturday, May 18, 2024, 9:00 - 10:00 AM First Beer is 50% Off After Turning In Full Bag of Trash from Little Clean Up Join Iron Tree, Community Pizza, The Grill, and Baking is for lovers for a litter clean up event. Stop by Baking is for Lovers or Iron Tree Brewing between 9:00-10:00 AM to grab an empty grain bag and gloves. Then drive to your favorite park, neighborhood or hang around the brewery and fill up the bag with trash. Then bring the grain bag full of trash back to Iron Tree or The Grill for disposal and grab some lunch and a beverage. Participants, who fill a trash bag and turn it in, will receive 50% off their first beer at Iron Tree. Baking is for Lovers offers 10% off any item, Gardner's Frozen Treats and Gardner’s Frozen Treats will offer 20% off one treat and Gardner's Grill will offer 20% off one entree and Community Pizza will be doing 20% off any pizza during dinner service. The event is rain or shine. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=777489
11. 2024 Spring Repair Cafe Habitat for Humanity ReStore, Christiansburg Saturday, May 18, 2024, 10:00 AM - 2:00 PM Admission: Free The New River Valley Timebank and the Habitat for Humanity ReStore presents the 2024 Spring Repair Cafe. Stop by the ReStore for free repairs including sewing for clothes & more, small furniture & appliances, electronics, knife sharpening, plant repotting and more. A Repair Cafe is a free event that promotes repair as an alternative to tossing things out. Give new life to your cherished items. The New River Valley Master Gardener Association will hold a plant clinic in addition to providing assistance to repotting plants (bring your own pots & soil). The New River Valley TimeBank is a project of New River Valley Home, a non-profit that works to foster vibrant, lifespan-friendly communities by connecting people, resources and organizations. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=777480
12. Fish Fry Fundraiser New Mount Olive United Methodist Church, Radford Saturday, May 18, 2024, 11:00 AM - 4:00 PM Fish Dinner: $13.00, Fish Sandwich: $6.00, One Piece of Whiting Fish: $3.50 Enjoy a fish fry including your choice of a Fish Dinner, Fish Sandwich or One Piece of Whiting Fish. The Fish Dinner includes two pieces of Whiting Fish, Baked Beans, Coleslaw, Roll and Dessert for $13.00. The Fish Sandwich includes one piece of Whiting Fish on a bun and coleslaw for $6.00. One piece of Whiting Fish is $3.50. A portion of the proceeds will go to the Richie Delaney Memorial Fund to benefit his children. On January 16th, Richard Delaney of Delaney's Kitchen, a restaurant in Fairlawn, passed away unexpectedly. As this is a tough time emotionally on the whole family, it is especially a tragic situation for Richard's three young children. Orders can be called in as well. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=777481
13. BrewRidge Music Festival 2024 Mountain Lake Lodge, Pembroke Saturday, May 18, 2024, 12:00 - 5:00 PM General Admission: $20.00, Beer Tasting Tickets: $35.00 Celebrate Virginia craft breweries on Top of the World at Mountain Lake Lodge's 2024 BrewRidge Music Festival. Join them for a day filled with great music, delicious brews, and beautiful views. They will have an array of Virginia microbreweries and musical performances by local old-time Appalachian and bluegrass artists Tennessee Hillbuddies from 12:00-2:00 PM and Jim and Val Gabehart from 2:30-4:30 PM. Concessions will be available for purchase cash only including BBQ, burgers and brats during event. Beer tasting tickets include five full beers. Lodging Packages are also available which includes one night's lodging. Note: This event is cash only for day of event purchases. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=776811
14. Blacksburg Mini Comic-Con B&B Theatres Blacksburg 11, Blacksburg Saturday, May 18, 2024, 12:00 - 5:00 PM Admission: Free Costumes are encouraged and prizes will be handed out throughout the day. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=777442
15. Dungeons & Dragons One-Shot Adventure for Ages 8 & Up Blacksburg Library, Blacksburg Saturday, May 18, 2024, 1:00 - 4:00 PM Admission: Free Learn to play Dungeons & Dragons with a one-time adventure. All supplies provided. The time commitment will be about three hours. Children ages 8 and up are welcome with an accompanying adult. Admission is free though registration is required. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=777474
16. The Art of Happiness: Bubble Prints Montgomery Museum of Art & History, Christiansburg Saturday, May 18, 2024, 2:00 - 3:30 PM Admission: Free The Montgomery Museum of Art & History presents the third program of The Art of Happiness 2024 series titled "Adopting Animal Characteristics through Clay". The Montgomery Museum of Art & History is bringing back "The Art of Happiness" during May, which is Mental Health Awareness Month. The month long series of events offer self-help coping tactics and strategies by using art exhibits, materials, and spaces as helpful tools to address emotional well-being. On May 18th, the program is "Bubble Prints". Creating calming and fun watercolor-like prints from paint-filled bubbles. Admission is free and all materials will be provided by the museum though registration is required. For adults 18 and older only. No art experience is needed. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=775917
17. Documentary Fundraiser: Butterfly In The Sky Lyric Theatre, Blacksburg Saturday, May 18, 2024, 3:00 - 4:30 PM Admission: $5.00 Enjoy the award-winning documentary "Butterfly In The Sky" about the PBS children's show "Reading Rainbow". Inspiring and nostalgic, "Butterfly in the Sky" tells the tale of a revolutionary reading movement. Reliving the show’s legacy is a refreshing return to the written page. But you don’t have to take our word for it. It will be a fantastic afternoon celebrating books and the love of reading with representatives taking registrations for the Imagination Library program, along with Take and Make Craft bags and information on Summer Reading Programs from the Blacksburg Public Library, a Children's Books Pop-Up and gift card raffle from Blacksburg Books, and a special presentation from Storytime with Joelle. Ticket sale proceeds benefit Dolly Parton's Imagination Library of Montgomery County for local children. Tickets will be available in-person before the film or in advance online. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=77748818. May Flashlight Tour St. Albans, Radford Saturday, May 18, 2024, 5:30 - 7:30 PM Admission: $20.00 St. Albans presents their May Flashlight Tour with registration at 5:30 PM and the tour from 6:00-7:30 PM. The Flashlight Tour is guided and includes a little history and paranormal in one. Hear all the chilling tales of what paranormal investigators, and the public, have encountered within these 120 year old walls. A little bit of history, a little bit of paranormal. Tickets are available online in advance and will be sold at the door provided tickets are still available. Wear comfortable shoes and bring a flashlight as there will be lots of walking and many dark areas. Dress accordingly as the building is not climate controlled. You must be 18 years of age (16 if accompanied by a parent or legal guardian). The monthly Public Paranormal Investigation will occur from 8:00 PM - 1:00 AM with registration at 7:30 PM and is $35.00 for those interested. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=777483 19. Spring Fed Roots in Concert Rising Silo Farm Brewery, Blacksburg Saturday, May 18, 2024, 6:00 - 9:00 PM Admission: Free Spring Fed Roots performs music rooted in the mountains of Southwest Virginia, nourished by the waters and inspired by the beauty. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=777073
20. Merchant Copy in Concert The Blue Hen - Family Style Restaurant, Christiansburg Saturday, May 18, 2024, 7:00 - 10:00 PM Admission: $10.00 Merchant Copy is a classic rock & roll and blues band based in Roanoke, VA playing hits from the 70s and 80s. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=777441
21. Free Appraisal Day Cambria Station Antiques, Christiansburg Sunday, May 19, 2024, 1:00 - 4:00 PM Admission: Free Join Cambria Station Antiques for a free Appraisal Day to find out what your family heirloom, antiques or vintage items are worth. Valley Auctions, LLC will be on site providing feedback and written appraisals. Guests are limited to one item per person with only small antiques or collectibles. Larger items can be appraised from multiple high quality photos and item dimensions instead of in person. No jewelry at this time. The event is first come, first serve. Note: Some items may require additional research, so appraisals may be sent after the event. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=777457
For the live music line-up, visit: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEvents.cfm?ET=1
For all the rest of the big weekend events, visit: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEvents.cfm
Thanks for reading, have a great weekend and don't let the rain stop your fun!