Filling out fax cover sheet
Jobs4Bitcoins: Find Work, Find Workers!
2013.02.15 17:11 Jobs4Bitcoins: Find Work, Find Workers!
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2015.08.08 20:35 Justwonderinif A place to discuss SerialPodcast: The First Season
All timelines from this subreddit have been imported into /AdnanSyed. These are the timelines used by Brett Talley and Alice LaCour during their recent coverage for the case on their podcast, "The Prosecutors" Start here for the timelines: https://old.reddit.com/adnansyed/comments/y302yp/timeline_i/ Information/Background on Brett Talley and Alice LaCour aka "The Prosecutors" is here: https://old.reddit.com/ProsecutorsPodcast/
2018.05.16 20:18 Justwonderinif TheCaseAgainstAdnanSyed
TheCaseAgainstAdnanSyed
2024.05.29 06:47 featherwinglove Tightniks Run Two: ...where the concept of *furnaces doesn't exist...
[Let me know if a chapter a week is okay; I'm thinking it might be a bit too often. Run Zero: https://redd.it/1csb71x Run One: https://redd.it/1cwxbsg]
The mining foreman refused to go to sleep, and watched intently as Tightniks finally reached over and set it home with one hand. Its last nervous little sigh was the only thing he remembered-
The ship is without power, and Tightniks can't run the radar much without draining the batteries...
32s: First trap.
He built it big this time, and there are six trimps in there. They look familiar somehow, the light one with dark hair and an unusually short and broad tail compared to the rest, a big-eared green one, a grey one, a yellow one, and a red one with big paws and "XIII" on its rump, and a brown one with pink ears that takes the lead and cheers, "Kakka!" Once he lets them out, they all follow him intently around like just-hatched birds do their mother. He shows them the busted off cockpit and forward cabin of the ship he just crashed and they get inside and start da- ...nope, sticking with "dancing". He busies himself looking for the survival pad.
Until he hears the squeak of a baby trimp. They're feeding it- ...rocks. Carefully selected, aluminate rocks. What the heck are they doing? Whatever, I've got to get some conventional food for- What's that? He's got the survival pad already, but this was outside the ship, it must have materialized when he descended through that glowing grey mist getting out. He gets it flipped over and turned on.
"Manual portal activation 2 successful:" it displays, "rare shield equipped 54%Stg 14%Atk MT 0 Nu loaded / 399 He loaded / Metal challenge active / Total portal activation 956"
Metal challenge? The human selects it.
"You have the Metal challenge active. Tweak the portal to bring you to an alternate reality, where the concept of Miners does not exist, to force yourself to become frugal with equipment crafting strategies. If you complete The Dimension Of Anger without disabling the challenge, miners will re-unlock."
He's so confused, What the Loy is a Dimension of Anger? I think I have a headache from this high gravity. Sits down for a moment.
Notices that one of the trimps is sleeping in a small deep hole just at the edge of the garden, apparently to have a nap in standing upright.
I don't believe you, "portal". I'm training that one first chance I get!
56s: Pop full.
There are ten of them already?? I'm still working this derpy little potato patch to get enough food to bulk up just ONE of the- He looks at the portal pad and blurts out loud, "Fifty-six SECONDS??" He postulates that he's in a time-dilated environment, and that the portal is measuring time somewhere "out there", this "map frame" environment. It's like those Star Trek episodes he can't remember "Wink of an Eye" and "Blink of an Eye" that he can't quite remember. [One of them is Star Trek TOS, and one of them is Star Trek: Voyager and I forget which one came from where.]
1m57s: Arable in Z1c13.
The human walks along and one of the trimps viciously fights the various hostiles that try to come at him, staying ahead. Just behind, he finds that hole-digger busted into a cave big enough for 9 of them, and they start raising babies to fill it up.
3m37s: Miners in Z1c30.
It's broken! he notices of the data card he just picked up. It's one of the ones that flew out of the ship when he undogged the ship's side hatch, but it didn't survive. What was on it? He's got a vague memory of a big tanuki-tailed trimp, much bigger than the- Wait! This memory is of hole-digger all grown up. So this is- he looks at the smashed data card in his hand, ...this is the Miners card. At least there's some lying about so we're not totally deprived of metal.
That's odd. I'm sure I spent longer training this little guy than "one second map frame." The human looks at the black trimp with the grey head fur and silvery eyes, "So, can you say something yet?"
"Shijou." [Takane and Takanya are not black, it is their favorite clothing color.]
"Okay, can you say something else?"
9m12s: Zone 1, 40 pop, 3.5s RC with Z0/1, 13m19s turkimp. 12m55s: First scientist.
"Tai," his first scientist waves at him.
"Hmm," the human tries to think of a better test, "What color is the sky?"
"Shijou." The exasperated human is about to sigh in despair when he notices a card in its hands, with one word on it, "Blue."
"What?" he takes it, "You can't speak but you can write, huh?"
"Shijou," it twirls its paw off the end of the card in his hand. The human turns it over, and in small writing, it has "Technically, the sky isn't blue, it's a foible of Rayleigh scattering in an oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere. And you have 'TIGHTNIKS' embroidered on the left side of your uniform."
A look of astonishment sweeps over the human. I never taught it about Rayleigh scattering. Apparently, the scientist training has unlocked its brain to access the collected knowledge of a previous life! Then he looks at his uniform and groans, spanking his eyebrows in realization. The trimp had apparently noticed him wandering around the camp wracking his brain and talking to himself trying to remember his own name, and it's right there the whole time! He spanks his eyebrows again.
The very well fed grey-headed trimp starts doing experiments, leaving him to take the turkimp back to his farmers. Too bad it's only a quarter as fast at it as he is.
32m25s: Zone 3, 79 pop, 4.5s RC with Z1/2; c16, 79 pop, 6.8s RC with Z2/3.
"Nano! Nano, nano, nano." The D&B (that's dodge and block) foreman has an impressive yellow mane, light face, green body, and brown hind limbs, and moves like a blur when it decides to. When asleep, it's as unarousable as an exhumed fossil, except with the food article Yellow the scientist calls an "owny geary". [Puchim@s Afuu]
Helping it out is a brown-maned white trenching expert Tightniks finds oddly familiar. It has no problem mining, but couldn't start a fire if its life depended on it, so smelting is out of the question.
I guess that's how the Metal challenge really works. Too bad I suck at it. Tightniks is spending all his smelting time smacking out nails and joist hangers for the houses, and has nothing left for fighting gear.
1h53m25s: Zone 9, 306 pop, 7.9s RC with Z8/15, no turkimp.
The white trimp with the brown head fur- ...whichever one it is because it, or one that looks just like it, sometimes (apparently) burns itself up or blows itself up trying to build a metallurgical furnace. This one is digging a hole right now, into the concrete of some ruined building's foundation. It hits some strapping and rebar, makes a happy sound, follows it along and gets it sorta clear of the concrete bonded to it, and rips it out of the ground to throw on the metal pile. It now seems content to do that instead of trying to smelt ores.
"Red?" Tightniks glances at one of his scientists, "Do you think we could take it to- What's that place you said you visited five hundred years after some misty fight or-"
"Cloudy strife," it says, "Yeah, Midgimp is like that, we could probably map a route through there. Lots of metal. Especially the part that had an avalanche happen and fell down. Broke all that stuff out of the ground already." [Final Fantasy VII and Advent Children cinematic and Sector 7 collapse.]
"Okay," Tightniks says, "Let's do that."
5h32m02s: Zone 21, 2042 pop, 14.9s RC with Z20/232, no turkimp.
"Ooooookay," Tightniks growls, "There is something off about this thing."
"Shijou?" the grey one looks at the yellow one with concern about their human starship pilot friend.
The human stoops, picks up the little green gem on the ridge between Zone 20 and 21, looks at it, huffs, and asks, "Any idea where this comes from?"
"Err..." the red one seems hesitant to say, "I think you made it."
"Really?" the human huffs, "How could that be?" Then he tosses it at Red, "See if anything reacts to it. It might be radioactive, so we should take turns to minimize exposure."
"Really?" Red's holding it now, "What makes you say that?"
"Because I'm pissed off for no reason I can figure out," the human says, "I think it's coming from-" he gasps, "Waitamint!" He starts searching for the portal pad.
"Frags," the red one says quickly, "I think it's arranging a route. You're good with maps," it tosses the gem to the grey scientist.
The human has his portal pad up and reads aloud, "You have the Metal challenge active. Tweak the portal to- yada yada yada. Tiss tiss t- complete The Dimension Of Anger without disabling- miners will re-unlock."
\BOOM\** They turn to see (another of) the white brown-haired trimp'/s' attempts at a metallurgical furnace explode, and it seems both very frustrated and has really hurt its toe.
He snaps his fingers, "That's gotta be it. Although, does it mean 'miners' or 'furnaces'?" He re-reads the portal pad while the scientists shrug.
"Shijou," the grey one has just finished tracing the route map the gem was showing.
"Are we going any faster than on previous cycles, you think?" he asks Red.
"What's a cycle?" Red asks.
"We're stuck in time loop, you realize?" the human says.
"Well," the yellow one jumps off a little rock spire it was using to see farther ahead, directly into a seated position on the ground with an impressive thump the human can both hear with his ears and feel through the ground of the more-than-Earth gravity planet, "that explains a few things." The little scientist trimp seems quite morose at the news.
"This thing says the fastest we've ever got this 'anger' map done is ten hours, thirty-five, but the clock right now is at five hours, thirty-four." Tightniks tilts his head, frowns one eyebrow, and taps, "Getting it done faster increases attack damage somehow, and oh-"
"What now?" the yellow one asks, still seated beside the spire.
"It says we already got a 2.5%-er for having a million traps," the human says, "I don't remember doing that. Maybe..." he sighs, "Maybe that's a good thing, 'cus I'd probably go insane building them all. Still though, it says we're going faster, but it doesn't feel like it."
"How'd you know how it feels," Red asks, "if you don't remember it?"
"'Day jaw voo' I think is the term," the human says, "or something. The sense that all this has happened before, but I'm not quite remembering and there's no physical evidence of it."
"Shijooooooooooo..." the grey one moans, waving a card at him. On it:
"In order, but we don't know if that means chronological order or frequency/proportion of memories:
"- The ship crashes (pretty sure that happens every time) "- The human builds huts "- The human teaches some trimps to speak and do science "- The human builds houses "- The human makes maps "- The human builds mansions "- The human blows up and gets himself killed somewhere around Z17 to Z21, often on a dragimp "- The human only recently/occasionally builds hotels "- The human only recently/rarely tamed a dragimp "- The human only recently/rarely mapped the Dimension of Anger"
Tightniks sits down and offers it back.
"Tai," it flatly refuses to take it back, paws up and eyes closed.
"It's kind of a relief," Tightniks rubs his temples, then looks at it again, "knowing it ain't just me."
6h17m43s: Portal PB, 1% AP for sub-8h, 45 He, 7.149 He/hr, 2209 pop, 13.6s RC.
The last head of the map's boss monster goes limp as one of the fighting trimps' dagger points goes into it, and the huge thing settles on its tail, resting on the package that seems to be the prize of this map. And there's a popping sound, and then something mechanical.
Is that a scroll compressor? Tightniks looks at the package. The deflating monster's lifting envelope material drapes over everything underneath it. "Yellow, Shijou!" he snaps and points, "roll up that side of it. Keep this part from sucking down on the extractor nozzle!"
All ten of the scientists jump in, literally, pushing the gas in the bag towards the compressor. Tightniks as well, rolling up the front.
Until he kicks, and nearly trips over, a smaller package that might be the explanation for the reason why the center of the monster's defense seemed to be a little away from the big package he could see. It's in the right place, he realizes. He gets it uncovered and reads stenciled-and-sprayed block letters on it:
"DT TIME PORTAL / THIS SIDE DOWN"
Perhaps the Dimension of Anger is so named because of the rage suddenly rising up in Tightniks' throat. It isn't so much as the free-floating aggression suddenly has an answer, there is definitely a fresh batch of rage and anger as he grips the nearest Dagger V, Mark 2 with both hands-
Refocusing on surviving the next few seconds, the pilot turns on the radar for the final approach and takes a last look around, then straight ahead at his forward camera and primary flight display...
He crouches, sets the dagger down gently, then starts clearing the debris from the box's grab iron. He tries to lift it- Damn, this is heavy! As he gets it turned over, gravity finishes the job, and it shakes the ground with an impressive thud as it falls right side up.
"DT TIME PORTAL / THIS SIDE UP" There's a square cutout in the middle of one side of it, with a sliding cover at the bottom of it.
"Get the pad!" he screams, seeing that his scientists are almost done rolling up the megablimp.
The grey one already has the survival data pad and offers it to him.
"The big one," Tightniks clarifies, "The big one." he picks up wide flat rainbow cable and its edge socket in one hand, "It goes here," he points at it with the other. "It must have come with me-" He had taken the small survival data pad and notices something, "Oh?" He starts looking around, "Hey!"
The white trimp with the brown hair is napping in a hole next to the smouldering remains of its latest attempt at a smelting furnace.
"Hey, mining buddy!" he whistles at it, "Mining buddy!"
It wakes with a start and rushes over, but doesn't seem to be in a good mood. But as soon as Tightnik shows it the survival pad, with all of the mining data installed just as if all those broken data cards and scorched scrolls were intact when he found them, fireworks goes off in the little trimp's eyes and it rushes off with the pad. Within minutes, the first furnace that works is chugging away at some ore and it returns to give the survival data pad back to Tightniks.
7h24m49s: Fresh turkimp; 7h25m30s: Labor reallocated.
The big-eared green lumber foreman's mood fell much further than the mining foreman's mood was before Tightniks packed up the turkimp roaster and moved just about everyone over to the smeltery.
The brown-haired, big-tailed white mining foreman was surprised at the change, and very happy. It had climbed up onto the helium compressor cart to check something on the pad a couple cells into the zone.
"Are you upset with me?" the red one asks the human.
"No, not at all," Tightniks says, "Are you getting the feeling that we had an upset at this point last cycle?"
"How would you know it was only the last?" Yellow asks, "Your memory's no better than ours."
"Right," the human sews another patch into his uniform, "However, I've only actually hit the switch on the portal twice, the first one on a challenge called Discipline, and the second on a challenge called Metal, which we just finished. It's easy to sort out from the statistics. I'm nervous it'll get harder to sort out when we're up to, oh," done fixing his uniform, he pops a bit of turkimp into his mouth and chews a couple times, "a few dozen or hundred manual cycles."
"Friggin' solve this faster than that, please," Red grumbles, "I know the emergency counter got to nearly a thousand, but..." he kinda trails off. Finally, he says, "I think we're remembering more cycle to cycle as we get more helium into it. I mean, I'm glad that isn't the only mechanic."
"Can't miss the supernova if it is," the human ponders.
"What?" Yellow chuckles.
"I'm remembering something from before all this, I think it was called a video game, where you'd go forward real-world in the simulation of a time loop, and your real-life head remembering what you did on previous cycles was the only mechanic," the human takes another bite, then dons his uniform shirt while chewing it. After his head pops out of the not-so-crisp-and-fresh uniform neck hole, buttons still done up, he finishes, "one of them had a supernova." [That would be Outer Wilds among the bunch of games with this mechanic, er, Minnit (I know it's spelled differently than "minute"), 12 Minutes, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, and- ...I'm sure there are more.]
11h19m28s: Starting void 1 (L30).
With the thermal gloves on, Tightniks gets the void map into the portal device slot. It dematerializes and his fingers close where it used to be in his hands, then he yelps, stands up and starts dancing, "Oh crap, it's cold!" He quickly starts looking for stuff to bundle up. Once not too uncomfortable, he notices something, "You're having trouble, too?"
"No," Yellow and Red look at each other, "Well, not with the cold; this route has a poisonous atmosphere, slows down our young assimilating aluminum at the proper rate."
"Manning the traps will work at full speed, right?" Tightniks says.
"Should if your fingers can handle it," Red confirms.
11h33m57s: Void 1c100.
"You are one ugly muthaf[garble]!" he says when he sees the void boss, "Stay here, I'll be back." Runs some traps, grabs a couple helmets for the fresh volunteers, "Put these on."
"Shijou?" the grey one looks at the red one, really rather perplexed.
"I agree, that's not his usual accent," Red tilts his head, "Tightniks, what has gotten in to you?"
"Stop cheering me up," the human grumbles, "You think this is the real Quaid?"
"I think the cold is affecting him more than he realizes," Yellow offers.
"Phased plasma rifle in the forty watt range," but what the dizzy pilot actually throws at the zone boss is a Mace V-4, "and then I was thinking of breaking your neck."
[Felt like some- "Arnie? Well, the union is pulling out all the big guns today, huh?" (Tom Hanks as Sully) ...no, brain, Arnold Schwarzenegger, not Arnie Gentile (it was really funny to background Sully and listen to that line instead of "That's definitely you" in Terminator 2 while he's posing with the Minigun.) Arnie lines from Predator, Terminator 2, True Lies, Total Recall and The Terminator.]
"Tweak the portal," reads Tightniks from the portal controller aloud, but quietly, "to bring you to an alternate reality, where Trimps are bigger and stronger, to force yourself to figure out a way to build larger housing. Your Trimps will gather 50% more resources, but your housing will fit 50% fewer Trimps. If you complete The Dimension of Anger without disabling the challenge, your stats will return to normal."
"You will also open a new memory coolant unit," Yellow reads, "You think that'll cause a housing bonus?"
"Shijou," the grey one hands him a card saying "We have enough for another gateway."
"Oh, good," Tightniks hands it back after signing it, "Yes, build it."
"We're doing that next?" Yellow asks.
Tightniks sees the little fellow sitting on top of a mound that the human thought was a bowel movement pile from Draglimp, but it must be something more geological if trimps can climb it, let alone want to. "Yeah, I guess," the human answers, "It kinda scares me, I mean I'm going back, but what happens to you guys?"
"We have too much day javo or whatever you called it," Red says. He's usually on all fours, shakes his left hind leg as though something got stuck to his foot, "This isn't incrementing, I'm sure. 13 is less than 956."
"According to this, you'll be twice as big," Tightniks sets down the portal controller pad and stands up from the cart, "It's hard to imagine, especially for Shijou and Diggy. We'll clear thirty-six, that's it."
14h04m37s: Z33c95, IC.
"Are you sure we can make Zone 37 start?" the red one asks.
The yellow one is standing on Red's shoulders.
"It said we did last time," Tightniks taps on the crude leather bag strapped to his back, the portal pad inside it, "though maybe..." he tilts his head, rolls whatever he was sucking on in his mouth for a moment, "it just happened while I was building those traps. No, I'm sticking with that plan."
"If it's going to take that long," Red grinds its jaws sideways for a moment and lets its eyelids get lazy, frustration clear in its tone, "why do it again?"
"Because I've got a bad feeling about this 'Size' thing," Tightniks says, "it drops our resourcing by 75% assuming we build the same amount of housing as before, which we won't because of the reduced resourcing. We needed 65 capacity in the cabin and huts before we could do run the gypsum/paper wall machine we found. I have a funny feeling that never changes."
"We don't need 65 trimps to run it," Yellow says, "just three."
"Yeah," Tightniks says, "but a particular three that know what they're doing, and my day javoo is telling me the last of those is always the sixty-fifth."
"Shijou," the grey one moans from the other side of Tightniks. Didn't have a note this time, just kicking a little rock along as it walks.
"It thinks you're right," the red one growls forlornly, "Hating to say it, but I do too."
14h16m06s: Skel in c1, 50 bones purchased whipimp.
There's a thump at the cart, and then some commotion around it that's noticable enough for Tightniks to come over and take a look. The bone box is empty, all forty-nine titanium bones in it are gone. Tightiks brings his right hand up in front of him, and it's just a balled fist, the bone he was holding a moment ago is gone. As he starts looking for where he must have dropped it, he realizes maybe it's all related. Looking in the bottom of the empty bone box, he finds a note.
"I got you the whipimp. This new Bad Guy will begin spawning in your next zone at an average of 3 spawns per 100 enemies. I hope it helps, but I can't tell yet."
The note is in Tightniks' own handwriting, although lazy but with more consistent kerning. Is this from an older version of myself? Friggin' time travel.
14h18m48s: This L34 moun 160/27/79 calls itself "Magical Mountain" - I can't remember whether the Disney trademark is that or "Magic Mountain" ...I've seen a "Black Mesa" before, that's a Half-Life thing, and somebody on Reddit made pretend that "Dank Hill" was a King of the Hill thing (which is actually *Hank Hill, I think - it's hard to remember, it wasn't very good and I haven't watched it since the 1990s.)
19h32m00s: Doom/AT, 12816 pop, 80N, 37.7s RC with Z34/5298.
"Okay, we got that friggin' thing chocked," Yellow wipes its brow and almost bonks itself with the Mace VI-2 that it's holding, puts it down and makes sure the wedges are secure.
Grey, Red, and Green are packing more stuff around the huge boulder that chased them down a tunnel to make sure it doesn't do that again.
"Getting any day javoo?" Tightniks pants, hands on his knees, but apparently uninjured, or nearly so.
"Not at all," Yellow vehemently responds, slashing the air with its paw, "You?"
"Oh," Tightniks gets his breathing under control, "I think it was a human movie."
"Like a video on that pad?" it gestures at the human's pocket with the small one.
"No, a bigger screen," the human says.
"Fifty-five inches?" the trimp scientist chuckles.
"More like fifty-five feet," the human rubs the sweat out of his eyes, "Lots of people watching. It was called a sin."
"Ah," the trimp ponders, "Like a crime, vice, psychopathy or bad habit?"
"Er..." the human taps his forehead trying to remember, "Sorry, a cinema."
[The whole thing is obviously an homage to something I remember only slightly better than Tightniks, I think it was Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. As I'm posting this, I sadly realize that Nick Rekieta's arrest was between when I wrote this and now.]
19h58m55s: Zone 37, 473 He, 23.67 He/hr, 13088 pop, 81N, 32.1s RC with Z34/5298, 2806 pop short, no turkimp.
The ship is without power, and Tightniks can't run the radar much without draining the batteries...
submitted by featherwinglove to Trimps [link] [comments]
The mining foreman refused to go to sleep, and watched intently as Tightniks finally reached over and set it home with one hand. Its last nervous little sigh was the only thing he remembered-
The ship is without power, and Tightniks can't run the radar much without draining the batteries...
32s: First trap.
He built it big this time, and there are six trimps in there. They look familiar somehow, the light one with dark hair and an unusually short and broad tail compared to the rest, a big-eared green one, a grey one, a yellow one, and a red one with big paws and "XIII" on its rump, and a brown one with pink ears that takes the lead and cheers, "Kakka!" Once he lets them out, they all follow him intently around like just-hatched birds do their mother. He shows them the busted off cockpit and forward cabin of the ship he just crashed and they get inside and start da- ...nope, sticking with "dancing". He busies himself looking for the survival pad.
Until he hears the squeak of a baby trimp. They're feeding it- ...rocks. Carefully selected, aluminate rocks. What the heck are they doing? Whatever, I've got to get some conventional food for- What's that? He's got the survival pad already, but this was outside the ship, it must have materialized when he descended through that glowing grey mist getting out. He gets it flipped over and turned on.
"Manual portal activation 2 successful:" it displays, "rare shield equipped 54%Stg 14%Atk MT 0 Nu loaded / 399 He loaded / Metal challenge active / Total portal activation 956"
Metal challenge? The human selects it.
"You have the Metal challenge active. Tweak the portal to bring you to an alternate reality, where the concept of Miners does not exist, to force yourself to become frugal with equipment crafting strategies. If you complete The Dimension Of Anger without disabling the challenge, miners will re-unlock."
He's so confused, What the Loy is a Dimension of Anger? I think I have a headache from this high gravity. Sits down for a moment.
Notices that one of the trimps is sleeping in a small deep hole just at the edge of the garden, apparently to have a nap in standing upright.
I don't believe you, "portal". I'm training that one first chance I get!
56s: Pop full.
There are ten of them already?? I'm still working this derpy little potato patch to get enough food to bulk up just ONE of the- He looks at the portal pad and blurts out loud, "Fifty-six SECONDS??" He postulates that he's in a time-dilated environment, and that the portal is measuring time somewhere "out there", this "map frame" environment. It's like those Star Trek episodes he can't remember "Wink of an Eye" and "Blink of an Eye" that he can't quite remember. [One of them is Star Trek TOS, and one of them is Star Trek: Voyager and I forget which one came from where.]
1m57s: Arable in Z1c13.
The human walks along and one of the trimps viciously fights the various hostiles that try to come at him, staying ahead. Just behind, he finds that hole-digger busted into a cave big enough for 9 of them, and they start raising babies to fill it up.
3m37s: Miners in Z1c30.
It's broken! he notices of the data card he just picked up. It's one of the ones that flew out of the ship when he undogged the ship's side hatch, but it didn't survive. What was on it? He's got a vague memory of a big tanuki-tailed trimp, much bigger than the- Wait! This memory is of hole-digger all grown up. So this is- he looks at the smashed data card in his hand, ...this is the Miners card. At least there's some lying about so we're not totally deprived of metal.
That's odd. I'm sure I spent longer training this little guy than "one second map frame." The human looks at the black trimp with the grey head fur and silvery eyes, "So, can you say something yet?"
"Shijou." [Takane and Takanya are not black, it is their favorite clothing color.]
"Okay, can you say something else?"
9m12s: Zone 1, 40 pop, 3.5s RC with Z0/1, 13m19s turkimp. 12m55s: First scientist.
"Tai," his first scientist waves at him.
"Hmm," the human tries to think of a better test, "What color is the sky?"
"Shijou." The exasperated human is about to sigh in despair when he notices a card in its hands, with one word on it, "Blue."
"What?" he takes it, "You can't speak but you can write, huh?"
"Shijou," it twirls its paw off the end of the card in his hand. The human turns it over, and in small writing, it has "Technically, the sky isn't blue, it's a foible of Rayleigh scattering in an oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere. And you have 'TIGHTNIKS' embroidered on the left side of your uniform."
A look of astonishment sweeps over the human. I never taught it about Rayleigh scattering. Apparently, the scientist training has unlocked its brain to access the collected knowledge of a previous life! Then he looks at his uniform and groans, spanking his eyebrows in realization. The trimp had apparently noticed him wandering around the camp wracking his brain and talking to himself trying to remember his own name, and it's right there the whole time! He spanks his eyebrows again.
The very well fed grey-headed trimp starts doing experiments, leaving him to take the turkimp back to his farmers. Too bad it's only a quarter as fast at it as he is.
32m25s: Zone 3, 79 pop, 4.5s RC with Z1/2; c16, 79 pop, 6.8s RC with Z2/3.
"Nano! Nano, nano, nano." The D&B (that's dodge and block) foreman has an impressive yellow mane, light face, green body, and brown hind limbs, and moves like a blur when it decides to. When asleep, it's as unarousable as an exhumed fossil, except with the food article Yellow the scientist calls an "owny geary". [Puchim@s Afuu]
Helping it out is a brown-maned white trenching expert Tightniks finds oddly familiar. It has no problem mining, but couldn't start a fire if its life depended on it, so smelting is out of the question.
I guess that's how the Metal challenge really works. Too bad I suck at it. Tightniks is spending all his smelting time smacking out nails and joist hangers for the houses, and has nothing left for fighting gear.
1h53m25s: Zone 9, 306 pop, 7.9s RC with Z8/15, no turkimp.
The white trimp with the brown head fur- ...whichever one it is because it, or one that looks just like it, sometimes (apparently) burns itself up or blows itself up trying to build a metallurgical furnace. This one is digging a hole right now, into the concrete of some ruined building's foundation. It hits some strapping and rebar, makes a happy sound, follows it along and gets it sorta clear of the concrete bonded to it, and rips it out of the ground to throw on the metal pile. It now seems content to do that instead of trying to smelt ores.
"Red?" Tightniks glances at one of his scientists, "Do you think we could take it to- What's that place you said you visited five hundred years after some misty fight or-"
"Cloudy strife," it says, "Yeah, Midgimp is like that, we could probably map a route through there. Lots of metal. Especially the part that had an avalanche happen and fell down. Broke all that stuff out of the ground already." [Final Fantasy VII and Advent Children cinematic and Sector 7 collapse.]
"Okay," Tightniks says, "Let's do that."
5h32m02s: Zone 21, 2042 pop, 14.9s RC with Z20/232, no turkimp.
"Ooooookay," Tightniks growls, "There is something off about this thing."
"Shijou?" the grey one looks at the yellow one with concern about their human starship pilot friend.
The human stoops, picks up the little green gem on the ridge between Zone 20 and 21, looks at it, huffs, and asks, "Any idea where this comes from?"
"Err..." the red one seems hesitant to say, "I think you made it."
"Really?" the human huffs, "How could that be?" Then he tosses it at Red, "See if anything reacts to it. It might be radioactive, so we should take turns to minimize exposure."
"Really?" Red's holding it now, "What makes you say that?"
"Because I'm pissed off for no reason I can figure out," the human says, "I think it's coming from-" he gasps, "Waitamint!" He starts searching for the portal pad.
"Frags," the red one says quickly, "I think it's arranging a route. You're good with maps," it tosses the gem to the grey scientist.
The human has his portal pad up and reads aloud, "You have the Metal challenge active. Tweak the portal to- yada yada yada. Tiss tiss t- complete The Dimension Of Anger without disabling- miners will re-unlock."
\BOOM\** They turn to see (another of) the white brown-haired trimp'/s' attempts at a metallurgical furnace explode, and it seems both very frustrated and has really hurt its toe.
He snaps his fingers, "That's gotta be it. Although, does it mean 'miners' or 'furnaces'?" He re-reads the portal pad while the scientists shrug.
"Shijou," the grey one has just finished tracing the route map the gem was showing.
"Are we going any faster than on previous cycles, you think?" he asks Red.
"What's a cycle?" Red asks.
"We're stuck in time loop, you realize?" the human says.
"Well," the yellow one jumps off a little rock spire it was using to see farther ahead, directly into a seated position on the ground with an impressive thump the human can both hear with his ears and feel through the ground of the more-than-Earth gravity planet, "that explains a few things." The little scientist trimp seems quite morose at the news.
"This thing says the fastest we've ever got this 'anger' map done is ten hours, thirty-five, but the clock right now is at five hours, thirty-four." Tightniks tilts his head, frowns one eyebrow, and taps, "Getting it done faster increases attack damage somehow, and oh-"
"What now?" the yellow one asks, still seated beside the spire.
"It says we already got a 2.5%-er for having a million traps," the human says, "I don't remember doing that. Maybe..." he sighs, "Maybe that's a good thing, 'cus I'd probably go insane building them all. Still though, it says we're going faster, but it doesn't feel like it."
"How'd you know how it feels," Red asks, "if you don't remember it?"
"'Day jaw voo' I think is the term," the human says, "or something. The sense that all this has happened before, but I'm not quite remembering and there's no physical evidence of it."
"Shijooooooooooo..." the grey one moans, waving a card at him. On it:
"In order, but we don't know if that means chronological order or frequency/proportion of memories:
"- The ship crashes (pretty sure that happens every time) "- The human builds huts "- The human teaches some trimps to speak and do science "- The human builds houses "- The human makes maps "- The human builds mansions "- The human blows up and gets himself killed somewhere around Z17 to Z21, often on a dragimp "- The human only recently/occasionally builds hotels "- The human only recently/rarely tamed a dragimp "- The human only recently/rarely mapped the Dimension of Anger"
Tightniks sits down and offers it back.
"Tai," it flatly refuses to take it back, paws up and eyes closed.
"It's kind of a relief," Tightniks rubs his temples, then looks at it again, "knowing it ain't just me."
6h17m43s: Portal PB, 1% AP for sub-8h, 45 He, 7.149 He/hr, 2209 pop, 13.6s RC.
The last head of the map's boss monster goes limp as one of the fighting trimps' dagger points goes into it, and the huge thing settles on its tail, resting on the package that seems to be the prize of this map. And there's a popping sound, and then something mechanical.
Is that a scroll compressor? Tightniks looks at the package. The deflating monster's lifting envelope material drapes over everything underneath it. "Yellow, Shijou!" he snaps and points, "roll up that side of it. Keep this part from sucking down on the extractor nozzle!"
All ten of the scientists jump in, literally, pushing the gas in the bag towards the compressor. Tightniks as well, rolling up the front.
Until he kicks, and nearly trips over, a smaller package that might be the explanation for the reason why the center of the monster's defense seemed to be a little away from the big package he could see. It's in the right place, he realizes. He gets it uncovered and reads stenciled-and-sprayed block letters on it:
"DT TIME PORTAL / THIS SIDE DOWN"
Perhaps the Dimension of Anger is so named because of the rage suddenly rising up in Tightniks' throat. It isn't so much as the free-floating aggression suddenly has an answer, there is definitely a fresh batch of rage and anger as he grips the nearest Dagger V, Mark 2 with both hands-
Refocusing on surviving the next few seconds, the pilot turns on the radar for the final approach and takes a last look around, then straight ahead at his forward camera and primary flight display...
He crouches, sets the dagger down gently, then starts clearing the debris from the box's grab iron. He tries to lift it- Damn, this is heavy! As he gets it turned over, gravity finishes the job, and it shakes the ground with an impressive thud as it falls right side up.
"DT TIME PORTAL / THIS SIDE UP" There's a square cutout in the middle of one side of it, with a sliding cover at the bottom of it.
"Get the pad!" he screams, seeing that his scientists are almost done rolling up the megablimp.
The grey one already has the survival data pad and offers it to him.
"The big one," Tightniks clarifies, "The big one." he picks up wide flat rainbow cable and its edge socket in one hand, "It goes here," he points at it with the other. "It must have come with me-" He had taken the small survival data pad and notices something, "Oh?" He starts looking around, "Hey!"
The white trimp with the brown hair is napping in a hole next to the smouldering remains of its latest attempt at a smelting furnace.
"Hey, mining buddy!" he whistles at it, "Mining buddy!"
It wakes with a start and rushes over, but doesn't seem to be in a good mood. But as soon as Tightnik shows it the survival pad, with all of the mining data installed just as if all those broken data cards and scorched scrolls were intact when he found them, fireworks goes off in the little trimp's eyes and it rushes off with the pad. Within minutes, the first furnace that works is chugging away at some ore and it returns to give the survival data pad back to Tightniks.
7h24m49s: Fresh turkimp; 7h25m30s: Labor reallocated.
The big-eared green lumber foreman's mood fell much further than the mining foreman's mood was before Tightniks packed up the turkimp roaster and moved just about everyone over to the smeltery.
The brown-haired, big-tailed white mining foreman was surprised at the change, and very happy. It had climbed up onto the helium compressor cart to check something on the pad a couple cells into the zone.
"Are you upset with me?" the red one asks the human.
"No, not at all," Tightniks says, "Are you getting the feeling that we had an upset at this point last cycle?"
"How would you know it was only the last?" Yellow asks, "Your memory's no better than ours."
"Right," the human sews another patch into his uniform, "However, I've only actually hit the switch on the portal twice, the first one on a challenge called Discipline, and the second on a challenge called Metal, which we just finished. It's easy to sort out from the statistics. I'm nervous it'll get harder to sort out when we're up to, oh," done fixing his uniform, he pops a bit of turkimp into his mouth and chews a couple times, "a few dozen or hundred manual cycles."
"Friggin' solve this faster than that, please," Red grumbles, "I know the emergency counter got to nearly a thousand, but..." he kinda trails off. Finally, he says, "I think we're remembering more cycle to cycle as we get more helium into it. I mean, I'm glad that isn't the only mechanic."
"Can't miss the supernova if it is," the human ponders.
"What?" Yellow chuckles.
"I'm remembering something from before all this, I think it was called a video game, where you'd go forward real-world in the simulation of a time loop, and your real-life head remembering what you did on previous cycles was the only mechanic," the human takes another bite, then dons his uniform shirt while chewing it. After his head pops out of the not-so-crisp-and-fresh uniform neck hole, buttons still done up, he finishes, "one of them had a supernova." [That would be Outer Wilds among the bunch of games with this mechanic, er, Minnit (I know it's spelled differently than "minute"), 12 Minutes, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, and- ...I'm sure there are more.]
11h19m28s: Starting void 1 (L30).
With the thermal gloves on, Tightniks gets the void map into the portal device slot. It dematerializes and his fingers close where it used to be in his hands, then he yelps, stands up and starts dancing, "Oh crap, it's cold!" He quickly starts looking for stuff to bundle up. Once not too uncomfortable, he notices something, "You're having trouble, too?"
"No," Yellow and Red look at each other, "Well, not with the cold; this route has a poisonous atmosphere, slows down our young assimilating aluminum at the proper rate."
"Manning the traps will work at full speed, right?" Tightniks says.
"Should if your fingers can handle it," Red confirms.
11h33m57s: Void 1c100.
"You are one ugly muthaf[garble]!" he says when he sees the void boss, "Stay here, I'll be back." Runs some traps, grabs a couple helmets for the fresh volunteers, "Put these on."
"Shijou?" the grey one looks at the red one, really rather perplexed.
"I agree, that's not his usual accent," Red tilts his head, "Tightniks, what has gotten in to you?"
"Stop cheering me up," the human grumbles, "You think this is the real Quaid?"
"I think the cold is affecting him more than he realizes," Yellow offers.
"Phased plasma rifle in the forty watt range," but what the dizzy pilot actually throws at the zone boss is a Mace V-4, "and then I was thinking of breaking your neck."
[Felt like some- "Arnie? Well, the union is pulling out all the big guns today, huh?" (Tom Hanks as Sully) ...no, brain, Arnold Schwarzenegger, not Arnie Gentile (it was really funny to background Sully and listen to that line instead of "That's definitely you" in Terminator 2 while he's posing with the Minigun.) Arnie lines from Predator, Terminator 2, True Lies, Total Recall and The Terminator.]
"Tweak the portal," reads Tightniks from the portal controller aloud, but quietly, "to bring you to an alternate reality, where Trimps are bigger and stronger, to force yourself to figure out a way to build larger housing. Your Trimps will gather 50% more resources, but your housing will fit 50% fewer Trimps. If you complete The Dimension of Anger without disabling the challenge, your stats will return to normal."
"You will also open a new memory coolant unit," Yellow reads, "You think that'll cause a housing bonus?"
"Shijou," the grey one hands him a card saying "We have enough for another gateway."
"Oh, good," Tightniks hands it back after signing it, "Yes, build it."
"We're doing that next?" Yellow asks.
Tightniks sees the little fellow sitting on top of a mound that the human thought was a bowel movement pile from Draglimp, but it must be something more geological if trimps can climb it, let alone want to. "Yeah, I guess," the human answers, "It kinda scares me, I mean I'm going back, but what happens to you guys?"
"We have too much day javo or whatever you called it," Red says. He's usually on all fours, shakes his left hind leg as though something got stuck to his foot, "This isn't incrementing, I'm sure. 13 is less than 956."
"According to this, you'll be twice as big," Tightniks sets down the portal controller pad and stands up from the cart, "It's hard to imagine, especially for Shijou and Diggy. We'll clear thirty-six, that's it."
14h04m37s: Z33c95, IC.
"Are you sure we can make Zone 37 start?" the red one asks.
The yellow one is standing on Red's shoulders.
"It said we did last time," Tightniks taps on the crude leather bag strapped to his back, the portal pad inside it, "though maybe..." he tilts his head, rolls whatever he was sucking on in his mouth for a moment, "it just happened while I was building those traps. No, I'm sticking with that plan."
"If it's going to take that long," Red grinds its jaws sideways for a moment and lets its eyelids get lazy, frustration clear in its tone, "why do it again?"
"Because I've got a bad feeling about this 'Size' thing," Tightniks says, "it drops our resourcing by 75% assuming we build the same amount of housing as before, which we won't because of the reduced resourcing. We needed 65 capacity in the cabin and huts before we could do run the gypsum/paper wall machine we found. I have a funny feeling that never changes."
"We don't need 65 trimps to run it," Yellow says, "just three."
"Yeah," Tightniks says, "but a particular three that know what they're doing, and my day javoo is telling me the last of those is always the sixty-fifth."
"Shijou," the grey one moans from the other side of Tightniks. Didn't have a note this time, just kicking a little rock along as it walks.
"It thinks you're right," the red one growls forlornly, "Hating to say it, but I do too."
14h16m06s: Skel in c1, 50 bones purchased whipimp.
There's a thump at the cart, and then some commotion around it that's noticable enough for Tightniks to come over and take a look. The bone box is empty, all forty-nine titanium bones in it are gone. Tightiks brings his right hand up in front of him, and it's just a balled fist, the bone he was holding a moment ago is gone. As he starts looking for where he must have dropped it, he realizes maybe it's all related. Looking in the bottom of the empty bone box, he finds a note.
"I got you the whipimp. This new Bad Guy will begin spawning in your next zone at an average of 3 spawns per 100 enemies. I hope it helps, but I can't tell yet."
The note is in Tightniks' own handwriting, although lazy but with more consistent kerning. Is this from an older version of myself? Friggin' time travel.
14h18m48s: This L34 moun 160/27/79 calls itself "Magical Mountain" - I can't remember whether the Disney trademark is that or "Magic Mountain" ...I've seen a "Black Mesa" before, that's a Half-Life thing, and somebody on Reddit made pretend that "Dank Hill" was a King of the Hill thing (which is actually *Hank Hill, I think - it's hard to remember, it wasn't very good and I haven't watched it since the 1990s.)
19h32m00s: Doom/AT, 12816 pop, 80N, 37.7s RC with Z34/5298.
"Okay, we got that friggin' thing chocked," Yellow wipes its brow and almost bonks itself with the Mace VI-2 that it's holding, puts it down and makes sure the wedges are secure.
Grey, Red, and Green are packing more stuff around the huge boulder that chased them down a tunnel to make sure it doesn't do that again.
"Getting any day javoo?" Tightniks pants, hands on his knees, but apparently uninjured, or nearly so.
"Not at all," Yellow vehemently responds, slashing the air with its paw, "You?"
"Oh," Tightniks gets his breathing under control, "I think it was a human movie."
"Like a video on that pad?" it gestures at the human's pocket with the small one.
"No, a bigger screen," the human says.
"Fifty-five inches?" the trimp scientist chuckles.
"More like fifty-five feet," the human rubs the sweat out of his eyes, "Lots of people watching. It was called a sin."
"Ah," the trimp ponders, "Like a crime, vice, psychopathy or bad habit?"
"Er..." the human taps his forehead trying to remember, "Sorry, a cinema."
[The whole thing is obviously an homage to something I remember only slightly better than Tightniks, I think it was Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. As I'm posting this, I sadly realize that Nick Rekieta's arrest was between when I wrote this and now.]
19h58m55s: Zone 37, 473 He, 23.67 He/hr, 13088 pop, 81N, 32.1s RC with Z34/5298, 2806 pop short, no turkimp.
The ship is without power, and Tightniks can't run the radar much without draining the batteries...
2024.05.29 06:41 sellmysole NACA & House Hacking
To my understanding NACA places a $25,000 lien on your title for the life of the mortgage to ensure buyer’s occupancy. Now I’ve read two different scenarios for this lien:
Scenario 1: $5k is reduced off the lien each year as long you occupy the property. After 5 years NACA says they can then remove the lien only for a refinance or sell. If you attempt to refinance, sell or move out and rent out the property with in your first 5 years the balance of the lien is due. This is the most frequent scenario I’ve been coming across with someone who says they confirmed this at a recent workshop they attended a little less than a year ago.
Scenario 2: 25k lien for entire life of mortgage with no reduction
My burning question is how are people house hacking using a NACA loan? And which scenario is absolutely correct?
People on YouTube/online all claiming they used NACA for first home which eventually they move on to a 2nd home after they filled all units with tenants and waited the 5 year term.
A second question would be how is your NACA home handle in the event the home owner passes and would need to pass on to a spouse/child given the lien on the house?
My ultimate plan if I go the NACA route is to get a multi family house and have my mortgage covered by my tenants and hopefully profit to supplement my 2nd home or might just do something similar with the 2nd home as I did with the NACA home (I know easier said than done but my entire family are home owners and land lords which a lot of resources will be inherited).
Are people just paying off the lien amount and moving on to 2nd house? Even if no lien balance doesn’t NACA reserve the right to foreclose?
Also what doesn’t sit right with me from my research I’ve seen people say there is no mechanism in your contract with NACA that the lien can be lifted upon request and pretty much leaving it to good faith.
I’ve never attended a workshop. All my understanding is coming from a few days worth of research so please forgive me for my ignorance but I can’t really find anything concrete on this topic.
submitted by sellmysole to FirstTimeHomeBuyer [link] [comments]
Scenario 1: $5k is reduced off the lien each year as long you occupy the property. After 5 years NACA says they can then remove the lien only for a refinance or sell. If you attempt to refinance, sell or move out and rent out the property with in your first 5 years the balance of the lien is due. This is the most frequent scenario I’ve been coming across with someone who says they confirmed this at a recent workshop they attended a little less than a year ago.
Scenario 2: 25k lien for entire life of mortgage with no reduction
My burning question is how are people house hacking using a NACA loan? And which scenario is absolutely correct?
People on YouTube/online all claiming they used NACA for first home which eventually they move on to a 2nd home after they filled all units with tenants and waited the 5 year term.
A second question would be how is your NACA home handle in the event the home owner passes and would need to pass on to a spouse/child given the lien on the house?
My ultimate plan if I go the NACA route is to get a multi family house and have my mortgage covered by my tenants and hopefully profit to supplement my 2nd home or might just do something similar with the 2nd home as I did with the NACA home (I know easier said than done but my entire family are home owners and land lords which a lot of resources will be inherited).
Are people just paying off the lien amount and moving on to 2nd house? Even if no lien balance doesn’t NACA reserve the right to foreclose?
Also what doesn’t sit right with me from my research I’ve seen people say there is no mechanism in your contract with NACA that the lien can be lifted upon request and pretty much leaving it to good faith.
I’ve never attended a workshop. All my understanding is coming from a few days worth of research so please forgive me for my ignorance but I can’t really find anything concrete on this topic.
2024.05.29 06:22 No-Window3665 FMLA pending
My father passed away April 27, he was the caregiver for my mom with dementia. I filed for FMLA 5/6/24 because I have a ton to figure out, took FMLA paperwork to the Dr. 5/9/24 who filled out and faxed the completed forms to the company who does my FMLA. I keep getting notifications from the FMLA Co. that they haven’t received my paperwork, I have asked the Dr’s office to refax, uploaded pictures myself. Now the company won’t even answer their phones. My manager is now asking me about my FMLA and why it hasn’t been approved? I don’t know what to do now? Any suggestions? I have followed the process, completed the asked for documentation.
submitted by No-Window3665 to FMLA [link] [comments]
2024.05.29 05:44 j_a_reyes [WTS][ON] FMA FAST helmet, replica gear (chest rigs, plate carriers)
Hey all, doing some spring cleaning and getting rid of gear I never use.
All prices are OBO, shipping is on the buyer. Will absolutely consider a package detail if anyone wants to take multiple things, would actually be preferable.
Located in the GTA.
Pics at the imgur link below:
https://imgur.com/a/pWAoPNW
Item 1: FMA Fast helmet, tan, size M/L - $90 OBO SOLD
Shell is on the thicker side, pads are the non-lux liner type. OCC dial is the actual dial type, not the worm gear that I found to be kind of annoying. Changed out the old shroud to a copy of the Wilcox shroud. Also upgraded the velcro from the old pattern to the newer, more broken up pattern (better coverage).
https://imgur.com/a/jvScgUZ
Item 2: Riggers belt + replica TACO pouch - $20
Riggers belt and TACO pouch, TACO will comfortably hold M4 mags, will probably be fine with AK mags. I don't believe it's really meant for bigger mags like 417 or SCAR-H mags.
https://imgur.com/a/5KRey0b
Item 3: Replica Haley Micro Chest Rig, Multicam, $55 OBO SOLD
Comes as an X-Harness.
https://imgur.com/a/2LnbKnG
Item 4: Replica Spiritus Systems Mk4 Chest Rig, Multicam, $90 OBO
Comes as a H-harness. Has a stretch kangaroo insert to hold 3x M4 mags. Also has the two radio pouches on the sides.
https://imgur.com/a/bZDHhgX
Item 5: Replica PlateFrame, Multicam, Med Plates - $125 OBO SOLD
Comes with the hard swimmer plates + multicam plate covers. Has the S&S Precision style triple mag pouch, and the cummerbund radio pouch. Also comes with the soft foam backers (flotation backers).
https://imgur.com/a/FZ2GaxO
Item 6: Replica Slickster, Ranger Green, Med Plates - $125 OBO SOLD
Replaced the cummerbund with an elastic cummerbund that uses tubes. Original elastic cummerbund will still come included. As well, Slickster currently has a triple mag G-hook style placard on the front. It will also come with the kangaroo+MOLLE G-hook placard pictured as well.
https://imgur.com/a/accNyhg
Item 7: Replica JPC, Multicam, Med Plates - $125 OBO
JPC has the cummerbund replaced with an elastic cummerbund. Comes with the dangler pouch, and has the old school hard plastic triple mag kangaroo insert. Shoulders are that nicer rubbery material, not fabric.
https://imgur.com/a/fA38nXq
Item 8: Replica SPC, Multicam, Med Plates - $200 OBO
Spent some time putting this kit together and really tried to like it, but it just doesn't fit me well - decided to stick with an FCPC.
SPC is multicam, never fielded and completely clean. Comes with medium cardboard plates to hold the shape. Also comes with the side plate pouches, which are filled with foam. It will include the original front flap, which currently has the stretchy fast mag pouches. It will also come with the AXL advanced placard adapters, and the attached triple M4 mag placard. Will also throw in the quad SMG mag pouch.
Biggest thing to note for this SPC is that the cummerbund has been modified. I didn't like the original tab + flap combo, so I cut the flap and replaced it with a tab + cobra buckle combo. The mod is not reversible, so if you don't like the idea of a cobra buckle for this carrier, be warned now.
https://imgur.com/a/FrzAldA
Thanks for looking
submitted by j_a_reyes to airsoftmarketcanada [link] [comments]
All prices are OBO, shipping is on the buyer. Will absolutely consider a package detail if anyone wants to take multiple things, would actually be preferable.
Located in the GTA.
Pics at the imgur link below:
https://imgur.com/a/pWAoPNW
Shell is on the thicker side, pads are the non-lux liner type. OCC dial is the actual dial type, not the worm gear that I found to be kind of annoying. Changed out the old shroud to a copy of the Wilcox shroud. Also upgraded the velcro from the old pattern to the newer, more broken up pattern (better coverage).
https://imgur.com/a/jvScgUZ
Item 2: Riggers belt + replica TACO pouch - $20
Riggers belt and TACO pouch, TACO will comfortably hold M4 mags, will probably be fine with AK mags. I don't believe it's really meant for bigger mags like 417 or SCAR-H mags.
https://imgur.com/a/5KRey0b
Comes as an X-Harness.
https://imgur.com/a/2LnbKnG
Item 4: Replica Spiritus Systems Mk4 Chest Rig, Multicam, $90 OBO
Comes as a H-harness. Has a stretch kangaroo insert to hold 3x M4 mags. Also has the two radio pouches on the sides.
https://imgur.com/a/bZDHhgX
Comes with the hard swimmer plates + multicam plate covers. Has the S&S Precision style triple mag pouch, and the cummerbund radio pouch. Also comes with the soft foam backers (flotation backers).
https://imgur.com/a/FZ2GaxO
Replaced the cummerbund with an elastic cummerbund that uses tubes. Original elastic cummerbund will still come included. As well, Slickster currently has a triple mag G-hook style placard on the front. It will also come with the kangaroo+MOLLE G-hook placard pictured as well.
https://imgur.com/a/accNyhg
Item 7: Replica JPC, Multicam, Med Plates - $125 OBO
JPC has the cummerbund replaced with an elastic cummerbund. Comes with the dangler pouch, and has the old school hard plastic triple mag kangaroo insert. Shoulders are that nicer rubbery material, not fabric.
https://imgur.com/a/fA38nXq
Item 8: Replica SPC, Multicam, Med Plates - $200 OBO
Spent some time putting this kit together and really tried to like it, but it just doesn't fit me well - decided to stick with an FCPC.
SPC is multicam, never fielded and completely clean. Comes with medium cardboard plates to hold the shape. Also comes with the side plate pouches, which are filled with foam. It will include the original front flap, which currently has the stretchy fast mag pouches. It will also come with the AXL advanced placard adapters, and the attached triple M4 mag placard. Will also throw in the quad SMG mag pouch.
Biggest thing to note for this SPC is that the cummerbund has been modified. I didn't like the original tab + flap combo, so I cut the flap and replaced it with a tab + cobra buckle combo. The mod is not reversible, so if you don't like the idea of a cobra buckle for this carrier, be warned now.
https://imgur.com/a/FrzAldA
Thanks for looking
2024.05.29 05:42 AltruisticScarcity47 1981 Ford F150 302 2WD auto
Hello everyone, I just traded for this truck and I’m having some issues. Issue #1 is that I have vapor coming from valve cover. (See picture #1) was told to snug up the bolts around it or just replace the gasket. Easy enough…
Issue #2 there is a “breather” that comes out of my oil filler neck below my oil fill cap. When running white vapors are coming out of it. I have been told that this is supposed to go into my air box to be recycled air or whatever the problem with that is that I don’t have a air box the truck came with a after market air filter. (See picture #2&3)
But wait there’s more….
Issue #3 (the most important imo)Along with all the vapors coming out of the oil filler neck and valve cover gasket, there are bubbles being pushed into my coolant overflow tank from the radiator. When running it not very strong but after a 20 minute drive it is enough make the coolant tank boil over when engine is turned off. Also, there is a gurgling sound when engine is turned off from the upper radiator hose.
I have changed the thermostat already and changed the oil. Oil had no trace of coolant or water. I am not sure if the thermostat gauge works it will gradually rise but not to the point of overheating it just started working today so I do not believe it’s accurate.
I have several videos of the truck doing these things but idk how to post them to the thread. Pm is welcome.
PLS HELP PLS I REALLY HOPE IT IS NOT MY HEAD GASKETS
submitted by AltruisticScarcity47 to mechanic [link] [comments]
Issue #2 there is a “breather” that comes out of my oil filler neck below my oil fill cap. When running white vapors are coming out of it. I have been told that this is supposed to go into my air box to be recycled air or whatever the problem with that is that I don’t have a air box the truck came with a after market air filter. (See picture #2&3)
But wait there’s more….
Issue #3 (the most important imo)Along with all the vapors coming out of the oil filler neck and valve cover gasket, there are bubbles being pushed into my coolant overflow tank from the radiator. When running it not very strong but after a 20 minute drive it is enough make the coolant tank boil over when engine is turned off. Also, there is a gurgling sound when engine is turned off from the upper radiator hose.
I have changed the thermostat already and changed the oil. Oil had no trace of coolant or water. I am not sure if the thermostat gauge works it will gradually rise but not to the point of overheating it just started working today so I do not believe it’s accurate.
I have several videos of the truck doing these things but idk how to post them to the thread. Pm is welcome.
PLS HELP PLS I REALLY HOPE IT IS NOT MY HEAD GASKETS
2024.05.29 05:33 Iovingg [F4F] The Queen and The Unknown.
“Enough!”
Actions were stopped, movements were halted, and speaking was silenced. From the guards, all the way to the you, The Queen’s favorite maids, everyone dropped what they were currently doing in the large circle of rage to listen. How it should be. There, the Queen took a big deep breath, waving a few of her most powerful men/knights up to the front. This wasn’t good…
“If this is how terrified my people is, my home, of this entity, this… Imbecile, then it shall be put the rest.”
The Knights, as much as they trusted in what the Queen had in store for everyone, including them, this would be the most dangerous mission. One went to raise a hand, in which the Queen quickly shot her staff up to the armored arm and knocked it back down. She stared down the Knights with a spark in her eyes, visible for all to see.
“No. Enough is enough. My people shall not live in fear for their life, in fear for their precious valuables, children… You will be accompanied by one more. You give WILL bring back the issue and present them to me here by tonight.”
One more?
Suddenly, the overwhelmingly large doors behind the Queen swings open slowly but surely and there, on a beautiful mare, Sir Roland, a paragon of valor and might. Clad in armor as resplendent as the morning sun, he epitomizes the embodiment of chivalry. His armor, forged in the fiery depths of the kingdom's finest forges, gleams with a radiant sheen, a testament to the craftsmanship of the realm's master smiths. Upon his broad shoulders rests a mantle emblazoned with the crest of his Queen’s name, a symbol of his lineage and unwavering loyalty. His helm, adorned with intricate filigree, conceals his features save for piercing eyes that blaze with determination and steely resolve.
Beneath the visage of a warrior lies a heart of gold, filled with compassion and honor. Sir Roland is not only a fierce combatant but also a noble protector of the realm, sworn to defend the innocent and uphold justice in the face of adversity. His reputation precedes him, whispered in hushed tones by both friend and foe alike. Tales of his bravery and heroism echo through the corridors of the castle, inspiring hope in the hearts of the kingdom's subjects and striking fear into the hearts of those who would dare oppose him. He ensures safety.
The Queen turns to Sir Roland and greets him with a nod. With no words said, she flicks a wrist out behind her, motioning for the guards to follow him. They set out to find the cause of this…
After sunset.
Chained, shackled from head to toe, stood the opposition’s most dangerous asset.
Concealed within the shadows of the night, there stalks a figure as deadly as she is enigmatic. Nickname, The Unknown, Real name, Isabella, the femme fatale of the underworld, whose every step is shrouded in mystery and intrigue. Clad in garments as dark as the abyss, she moves with the silent grace of a predatory cat, her every movement calculated and precise.
Her attire is a blend of form and function, designed to both conceal her presence and facilitate swift, deadly strikes. A fitted bodice hugs her frame like a second skin, allowing for freedom of movement without sacrificing stealth. A cloak, as black as midnight, billows around her like the wings of a raven, offering both protection from prying eyes and a cloak of anonymity in the darkness.
Sir Roland, yet to fail in pleasing the Queen drags her towards the red carpet, starting at the doors and ending at the foot of the Queen’s throne. The Queen sat, holding the same eyes she had before she sent them to capture, examining Isabella. Isabella still wore her menacing mask, purely black and grey, covering half of her beautiful face, graced by the god up above these very walls.
“Remove yourselves from my sight. No Knight’s, no civilians, no one, need to be close. Privacy.”
Everyone removes themselves, including Roland, and there sat, shackled, on the her knees below the Queen. Silence…
submitted by Iovingg to Roleplay [link] [comments]
Actions were stopped, movements were halted, and speaking was silenced. From the guards, all the way to the you, The Queen’s favorite maids, everyone dropped what they were currently doing in the large circle of rage to listen. How it should be. There, the Queen took a big deep breath, waving a few of her most powerful men/knights up to the front. This wasn’t good…
“If this is how terrified my people is, my home, of this entity, this… Imbecile, then it shall be put the rest.”
The Knights, as much as they trusted in what the Queen had in store for everyone, including them, this would be the most dangerous mission. One went to raise a hand, in which the Queen quickly shot her staff up to the armored arm and knocked it back down. She stared down the Knights with a spark in her eyes, visible for all to see.
“No. Enough is enough. My people shall not live in fear for their life, in fear for their precious valuables, children… You will be accompanied by one more. You give WILL bring back the issue and present them to me here by tonight.”
One more?
Suddenly, the overwhelmingly large doors behind the Queen swings open slowly but surely and there, on a beautiful mare, Sir Roland, a paragon of valor and might. Clad in armor as resplendent as the morning sun, he epitomizes the embodiment of chivalry. His armor, forged in the fiery depths of the kingdom's finest forges, gleams with a radiant sheen, a testament to the craftsmanship of the realm's master smiths. Upon his broad shoulders rests a mantle emblazoned with the crest of his Queen’s name, a symbol of his lineage and unwavering loyalty. His helm, adorned with intricate filigree, conceals his features save for piercing eyes that blaze with determination and steely resolve.
Beneath the visage of a warrior lies a heart of gold, filled with compassion and honor. Sir Roland is not only a fierce combatant but also a noble protector of the realm, sworn to defend the innocent and uphold justice in the face of adversity. His reputation precedes him, whispered in hushed tones by both friend and foe alike. Tales of his bravery and heroism echo through the corridors of the castle, inspiring hope in the hearts of the kingdom's subjects and striking fear into the hearts of those who would dare oppose him. He ensures safety.
The Queen turns to Sir Roland and greets him with a nod. With no words said, she flicks a wrist out behind her, motioning for the guards to follow him. They set out to find the cause of this…
After sunset.
Chained, shackled from head to toe, stood the opposition’s most dangerous asset.
Concealed within the shadows of the night, there stalks a figure as deadly as she is enigmatic. Nickname, The Unknown, Real name, Isabella, the femme fatale of the underworld, whose every step is shrouded in mystery and intrigue. Clad in garments as dark as the abyss, she moves with the silent grace of a predatory cat, her every movement calculated and precise.
Her attire is a blend of form and function, designed to both conceal her presence and facilitate swift, deadly strikes. A fitted bodice hugs her frame like a second skin, allowing for freedom of movement without sacrificing stealth. A cloak, as black as midnight, billows around her like the wings of a raven, offering both protection from prying eyes and a cloak of anonymity in the darkness.
Sir Roland, yet to fail in pleasing the Queen drags her towards the red carpet, starting at the doors and ending at the foot of the Queen’s throne. The Queen sat, holding the same eyes she had before she sent them to capture, examining Isabella. Isabella still wore her menacing mask, purely black and grey, covering half of her beautiful face, graced by the god up above these very walls.
“Remove yourselves from my sight. No Knight’s, no civilians, no one, need to be close. Privacy.”
Everyone removes themselves, including Roland, and there sat, shackled, on the her knees below the Queen. Silence…
2024.05.29 05:25 CletusThaFetus69 I just want to know if I am correct in labeling my parents narcissists or not
I just want confirmation my parents are narcissist.
So... my mom has never really been loving. My dad had/had PTSD. It is his way or the highway. My mom will straight up tell people "I learned to ignore him", "I never wanted another kid, I should've got my tubes tied after the first one, his dad is the only reason I didn't get an abortion". She will buy me things, and then when i'm telling her she is acting horribly yelling at me for something minimal (not writing a note in the cashapp for example) and then say "I wasn't treating you horribly when I bought you this thing earlier!!"
I don't remember the last time I got a hug from either one of my parents.
My parents never actually helped me get my license, they claim they "Tried to teach me!!" but got about 20 driving hours for me, refused to fill out the time sheets, and would yell and freak out at every mistake I made on the road. They bought me a barely driveable $900 grandam @ 18 after I was told i'd get a new car when I graduated (I am 22 and graduated in 2020) I was expecting like a decent condition 2007-2008 car that would reliably get me from point a to point b but was bought a 2002 wrecked grandam with hood latches due to deer wreck damage and struts so bad that the back end would slide out from under it on minimal potholes and tires that I had the fill back up daily to keep it off the ground. $900 car that required $2000 worth of repairs. I had to eventually buy my own car (they never helped me fix it depaite my dad being a literal jet mechanic) and drive it back and forth from work illegally until I got good enough at driving to get my license, because it was apparently easier for my mom to continue driving me to work on her lunch break and picking me up from work at 7 then to spend a few weekends and hours after work some days with me preparing for a drivers test. They then sold the car randomly and were planning on pocketing the money until I told them hell no that was my 18th birthday gift and that was my money.
Both my mother and my dad would get physically aggressive and spank pretty excessively but not to the point where I was like "this is abuse". As I grew older and grew to be a bigger teenager it turned into them moreso actually trying to physically fight me, me running as to avoid a fight as they yelled things like "I'M GOING TO RIP YOUR F***ING HEAD OFF" and locking myself in my room or running around outside until they were no longer violently angry.
One time I got a full blown blender thrown at my shoulder as a kid because I didn't help my dad find his shoes when he was late to meet some of his work friends, he also in that instance chased me a quarter way down our street (thankfully I was like 16 5'10 and fast) before going home and cooling down.
One time he also threw a tape measure at my shin and I still have a mark in my shin bone from that.
Lots of promises that were never kept and were forgot about. "If you help me with this massive months long hard process I will buy you shing expensive thing" helps and never gets said thing but gets yelled at the whole time for not doing things "the right way"
My mom also called me ugly as a kid, told people in front of me (and I quote) "Yeah I was pissed when he came out with red hair, i don't like red heads!"
She would tell people I was a little bastard and would tell them the amount of adhd medication I was on and how it was enough for like 2 adults (i already started questioning why the hell I was on that amount of adhd medication in the first place, i was basically m37hed out on adderall and vyvanse and concerts as a 7-14 year okd kid)
One time she bought me a pokeball as a kid at walmart, and our way home I did something she didn't like and she grabbed the pokeball and chucked it out the window and bragged to people about it
One year my brother got a laptop and an ipod and some other stuff and ya boy got some action figures
My mom thrrows a fit that I don't "contribute in the house" or clean when I stick to my area of the house, don't use the kitchen or dishes (i have my own dishes I use and I eat out mainly so i don't have to deal with them) and don't created that messes that need to be cleaned up and I keep my areas of the house clean. I could probably go count 7 wrappers and 6 pop cans and 3 plates down on our kitchen bar right now and I do not spend any time in the kitchen but I am apparently supposed to clean that stuff up as well as do the dishes that I don't use.
My dad will say "Here i'll tell you what you need to do" and if I do anything other than agree with him he will say "well then you're f***int stupid"
My dad would get violently angry at you if there was a tiny piece of lettuce in his taco or anything but meat and cheese on his burger and if you laugh at him for how ridiculous he is reacting he redirects that anger and amplifies it towards you
My parents and brother would kinda gang up and do things that would "trigger" me and laugh and yell at me when I reacted badly.
I just want confirmation that this is narccisism. I've been looking for what to call my experience with my parents for a while and I think this is it.
submitted by CletusThaFetus69 to emotionalabuse [link] [comments]
So... my mom has never really been loving. My dad had/had PTSD. It is his way or the highway. My mom will straight up tell people "I learned to ignore him", "I never wanted another kid, I should've got my tubes tied after the first one, his dad is the only reason I didn't get an abortion". She will buy me things, and then when i'm telling her she is acting horribly yelling at me for something minimal (not writing a note in the cashapp for example) and then say "I wasn't treating you horribly when I bought you this thing earlier!!"
I don't remember the last time I got a hug from either one of my parents.
My parents never actually helped me get my license, they claim they "Tried to teach me!!" but got about 20 driving hours for me, refused to fill out the time sheets, and would yell and freak out at every mistake I made on the road. They bought me a barely driveable $900 grandam @ 18 after I was told i'd get a new car when I graduated (I am 22 and graduated in 2020) I was expecting like a decent condition 2007-2008 car that would reliably get me from point a to point b but was bought a 2002 wrecked grandam with hood latches due to deer wreck damage and struts so bad that the back end would slide out from under it on minimal potholes and tires that I had the fill back up daily to keep it off the ground. $900 car that required $2000 worth of repairs. I had to eventually buy my own car (they never helped me fix it depaite my dad being a literal jet mechanic) and drive it back and forth from work illegally until I got good enough at driving to get my license, because it was apparently easier for my mom to continue driving me to work on her lunch break and picking me up from work at 7 then to spend a few weekends and hours after work some days with me preparing for a drivers test. They then sold the car randomly and were planning on pocketing the money until I told them hell no that was my 18th birthday gift and that was my money.
Both my mother and my dad would get physically aggressive and spank pretty excessively but not to the point where I was like "this is abuse". As I grew older and grew to be a bigger teenager it turned into them moreso actually trying to physically fight me, me running as to avoid a fight as they yelled things like "I'M GOING TO RIP YOUR F***ING HEAD OFF" and locking myself in my room or running around outside until they were no longer violently angry.
One time I got a full blown blender thrown at my shoulder as a kid because I didn't help my dad find his shoes when he was late to meet some of his work friends, he also in that instance chased me a quarter way down our street (thankfully I was like 16 5'10 and fast) before going home and cooling down.
One time he also threw a tape measure at my shin and I still have a mark in my shin bone from that.
Lots of promises that were never kept and were forgot about. "If you help me with this massive months long hard process I will buy you shing expensive thing" helps and never gets said thing but gets yelled at the whole time for not doing things "the right way"
My mom also called me ugly as a kid, told people in front of me (and I quote) "Yeah I was pissed when he came out with red hair, i don't like red heads!"
She would tell people I was a little bastard and would tell them the amount of adhd medication I was on and how it was enough for like 2 adults (i already started questioning why the hell I was on that amount of adhd medication in the first place, i was basically m37hed out on adderall and vyvanse and concerts as a 7-14 year okd kid)
One time she bought me a pokeball as a kid at walmart, and our way home I did something she didn't like and she grabbed the pokeball and chucked it out the window and bragged to people about it
One year my brother got a laptop and an ipod and some other stuff and ya boy got some action figures
My mom thrrows a fit that I don't "contribute in the house" or clean when I stick to my area of the house, don't use the kitchen or dishes (i have my own dishes I use and I eat out mainly so i don't have to deal with them) and don't created that messes that need to be cleaned up and I keep my areas of the house clean. I could probably go count 7 wrappers and 6 pop cans and 3 plates down on our kitchen bar right now and I do not spend any time in the kitchen but I am apparently supposed to clean that stuff up as well as do the dishes that I don't use.
My dad will say "Here i'll tell you what you need to do" and if I do anything other than agree with him he will say "well then you're f***int stupid"
My dad would get violently angry at you if there was a tiny piece of lettuce in his taco or anything but meat and cheese on his burger and if you laugh at him for how ridiculous he is reacting he redirects that anger and amplifies it towards you
My parents and brother would kinda gang up and do things that would "trigger" me and laugh and yell at me when I reacted badly.
I just want confirmation that this is narccisism. I've been looking for what to call my experience with my parents for a while and I think this is it.
2024.05.29 05:13 integerpoet super-low-tech Ethernet problem
 | I have a length of Ethernet (Cat6, for what it’s worth) stapled onto the walls inside a closet. submitted by integerpoet to Network [link] [comments] This cable goes all over the place before arriving where it needs to go. It’s silly-stupid-complicated and I don‘t even want to think about how it got that way. It’s getting in the way of using the closet as a closet. I can’t move other things around in there without being super-careful. However, I don’t want to just rip the cable out with brute force because when it leaves the closet it goes a long distance under the house, and the other end in particular would be a pain to replace. Some of the staples are into exposed wooden studs, others are into some pine wall coverings, and the remainder are into sheet rock. All of them are tight against the cable and look sufficiently deep and sturdy that I don’t think it would be a great idea to try to do anything so simple as grab them with a pair of pliers and pull as I hard as I can. But I also don’t see a way to get some other tool in there and use leverage against the staple without stressing the cable excessively. I don’t want to find myself in a situation in which I must re-terminate the cable and then immediately slap a coupler on it. That would work, sure, but … yuck. Strategies? |
2024.05.29 05:06 Icouldntsayforsure I need to vent.
 | Broody butt for tax. My neighbor has a guinea fowl that has shown up at our house for the 2nd time. He upsets my chickens so I catch him and take him back up to his house. My husband texted my neighbor to let them know. Well I take this bird to its house. No one is home. So I walk down the road on their property to find the coop. I opened the door and omg. To the left are shelves for nesting boxes all buried in poop. A roost bar about 6 feet up over my head. A bantam is on a top nest sitting on eggs (sitting in 2 inches or more of poop) fully broody. (My hen is the pic) mind you it’s 80 degrees and this coop while big is and ventilated is over a hundred degrees because there’s a heat lamp running. The floor is dirt I think. It was slippery. There is a feeder in one of the lower nest boxes. Now there’s a man door propped open that goes into a run. It’s partially covered. There are a few hens and a bunch of 7 week old chicks. They had no access to the food because it was on a nest box too high for them to get to. No water. They were starving. They didn’t even have a waterer. Just a plastic tray used for cut veggies and a pie plate. Only mud in them. The neighbor’s 11? Daughter is in charge of the chickens. I got the food down for these poor babies and went and found some water to fill the bowls. Went home and got a waterer and took it up there. Found some chick food in a shed and loaded up the feeder. All they had was cedar shavings to put down so I covered the floor and poop nests with it. I found a dead polish chick and another unknown on the floor. Got the broody down for food and water and tried to scoop the poop under the eggs. Put some shavings on top and replaced the eggs. On my way out I stopped and talked to another neighbor on this road. The neighbor (husband) pulls up and stops because I’m blocking the road with my car. I was so enraged I can’t remember what all I said but everyone in a half mile radius heard me. All he did was kinda laugh and say that’s his daughter’s deal. I said as the adult, it’s your responsibility to make sure she is able to take on the caring and nurturing of animals. I moved my car he went on. I was crying when I got back to my house and my poor husband got the brunt of my anger. Those poor babies never stopped eating or drinking the hour I was there. I’m guessing that’s why the guinea came to my house. I have food and water everywhere. There is movers for them babies to sleep except on the poop covered dirt floor. They can’t reach the roost. To top off this long story, the neighbor owns a dog grooming business in a resort town near by. Her husband I’m not sure what he does. As far as I know this is the 3rd batch of chicks in the last year. They keep getting killed or something. submitted by Icouldntsayforsure to BackYardChickens [link] [comments] |
2024.05.29 05:02 Kitchen_Island_2357 Need help on Ohio residential law in terms of Ventilation requirements
I live in a quadplex apartment in a second floor Unit with a gas range/oven. The oven itself vents from the top. There is no additional ventilation and because there are only windows on one side of the apartment, I can’t get any crosswind to carry the smoke out. I want to know if some additional ventilation is required for gas ovens,ranges. The whole kitchen fills with smoke unless on the lowest setting and the kitchen increases in temp by 5 degrees when I cook, not to mention the layer of smoke that covers the kitchen walls.
I’ve looked a bit through the residential code and can’t seem to find a straight answer. Because the oven vents out the top, I’m assuming this means they expect there to be additional venting in form of a top hood, but there’s not. Any input is appreciated by me and my smoke filled kitchen. Thanks
submitted by Kitchen_Island_2357 to legaladvice [link] [comments]
I’ve looked a bit through the residential code and can’t seem to find a straight answer. Because the oven vents out the top, I’m assuming this means they expect there to be additional venting in form of a top hood, but there’s not. Any input is appreciated by me and my smoke filled kitchen. Thanks
2024.05.29 04:54 Trash_Tia I'm still here, Tinks. I'm not getting any older.
The first time I jumped into Tinks, I was ten years old.
I strictly remember being in class, daydreaming.
Anna Pepper was sitting behind me throwing paper airplanes at my head.
“Mrs Never.” I spoke up, throwing up my hand.
“Anna keeps throwing paper airplanes at me–
I stopped, my words choking into a very male squeak. When I slammed my hand over my mouth, I didn't recognise it, or the threaded sweatshirt it was attached to. I was in a different classroom. The kids around me were different. They weren't shout and yell like my classmates. These kids were too quiet. This classroom didn't have windows like mine. This one had a scary teacher who stormed over to my desk, slamming his hand on my desk.
“Tinks, is there something you want to say?”
Tinks…?!
I caught my reflection in the teacher's glasses, a tiny blonde boy with wide eyes staring back at me. I found my voice, or at least, I found his voice.
“Uh, no.” I choked out. “No, I'm… I’m okay.”
A second after I spoke the words, I was back in my classroom, standing at the front of the classroom. My teacher looked horrified, and then I saw the blood on my hands. Wait. No. Slowly, I licked my pinkie. Cherry juice?
The cherries Mom packed me for lunch.
In my reflection, I was stained scarlet, my lips covered in cherry juice.
Hannah turned to me with a grin. “Weirdo.”
We called it jumping.
The boy’s life was different from mine. I had candy, Adventure Time and soccer practice. Tinks was always in that exact same grey room. I never saw his parents.
The teacher never changed, and neither did his classmates.
If anything, the amount of kids around him decreased. He told me he was finishing school. Reaching teenagehood, the jumps started to slow down. By the age of sixteen, I thought they stopped.
But, in the middle of dinner with my parents, I jumped. This time I felt it.
The wave coming over me, my surroundings blurring around me. I expected the grey classroom, but instead, I was… still. Paralysed.
Through Tinks’ open eyes, I could make out a clinical white room, a soaked white sheet stained dark red.
When I looked down at myself, though, there was… nothing there. Tinks no longer had a body. What was his body had been stuffed into white coolers seeping that same sickly red.
A hysterical scream bubbled inside a throat that had been severed from his body.
That was gone.
Help.
I couldn't move his eyes, and his lips were gone.
I waited to jump back.
I waited.
Men in white came and scooped up Tink’s remnants and stuffed me into a bag.
It was okay! I was going to jump soon. I was going to go back.
Back to Mom.
Adventure Time.
Soccer practice.
It got really hot, an orange glow the last thing I saw.
But I'm still here, Tinks. I'm not getting any older.
I'm still waiting to jump.
Home.
submitted by Trash_Tia to shortscarystories [link] [comments]
I strictly remember being in class, daydreaming.
Anna Pepper was sitting behind me throwing paper airplanes at my head.
“Mrs Never.” I spoke up, throwing up my hand.
“Anna keeps throwing paper airplanes at me–
I stopped, my words choking into a very male squeak. When I slammed my hand over my mouth, I didn't recognise it, or the threaded sweatshirt it was attached to. I was in a different classroom. The kids around me were different. They weren't shout and yell like my classmates. These kids were too quiet. This classroom didn't have windows like mine. This one had a scary teacher who stormed over to my desk, slamming his hand on my desk.
“Tinks, is there something you want to say?”
Tinks…?!
I caught my reflection in the teacher's glasses, a tiny blonde boy with wide eyes staring back at me. I found my voice, or at least, I found his voice.
“Uh, no.” I choked out. “No, I'm… I’m okay.”
A second after I spoke the words, I was back in my classroom, standing at the front of the classroom. My teacher looked horrified, and then I saw the blood on my hands. Wait. No. Slowly, I licked my pinkie. Cherry juice?
The cherries Mom packed me for lunch.
In my reflection, I was stained scarlet, my lips covered in cherry juice.
Hannah turned to me with a grin. “Weirdo.”
We called it jumping.
The boy’s life was different from mine. I had candy, Adventure Time and soccer practice. Tinks was always in that exact same grey room. I never saw his parents.
The teacher never changed, and neither did his classmates.
If anything, the amount of kids around him decreased. He told me he was finishing school. Reaching teenagehood, the jumps started to slow down. By the age of sixteen, I thought they stopped.
But, in the middle of dinner with my parents, I jumped. This time I felt it.
The wave coming over me, my surroundings blurring around me. I expected the grey classroom, but instead, I was… still. Paralysed.
Through Tinks’ open eyes, I could make out a clinical white room, a soaked white sheet stained dark red.
When I looked down at myself, though, there was… nothing there. Tinks no longer had a body. What was his body had been stuffed into white coolers seeping that same sickly red.
A hysterical scream bubbled inside a throat that had been severed from his body.
That was gone.
Help.
I couldn't move his eyes, and his lips were gone.
I waited to jump back.
I waited.
Men in white came and scooped up Tink’s remnants and stuffed me into a bag.
It was okay! I was going to jump soon. I was going to go back.
Back to Mom.
Adventure Time.
Soccer practice.
It got really hot, an orange glow the last thing I saw.
But I'm still here, Tinks. I'm not getting any older.
I'm still waiting to jump.
Home.
2024.05.29 04:53 skeeredstiff The disappearing ghost town.
In 1982, I and six buddies went bear hunting in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We were staying at some cabins near Twin Lakes at the base of the Keweenaw Peninsula. When you hunt most critters you go out before dawn and sit until an hour or two after the sun comes up and late afternoon until dark. Most bigger game animals hunker down during daylight hours, so it doesn't pay to sit all day. This means you have a lot of time between hunts; this part of the UP has some remote areas; it is also where a lot of copper mining went on in the old days; the mines are all closed now and mostly full of water. There are a lot of big paper mill holdings there also that are still being logged, so there are a lot of logging roads built by the paper mills; they are good enough roads for large double-trailer logs trucks filled with many tons of logs to travel on. One thing you learn quickly when you use these roads is to get the hell off the road when a truck is coming because they take up the whole road and they don't even slow down for civilians because the mill owns the roads, not the state or county and you are on their land, but as long as you don't get in the way they don't care. Most of the bridges across streams or rivers just consist of huge piles of large rocks with smaller gravel on top of the road. These things look like dams, but because of the large bottom rocks, the water can flow through the "bridge." It's a pretty cool thing to see. We spent a lot of time driving and exploring these logging roads. On one particular day, we went down a new road that led to an actual state park at the bottom of Misery Bay on Lake Superior. It's a park maintained by the state on paper mill property, there are several very rusitc camp sites at that park. We spent some time at the park and messing around on the beach. About noon we headed back down a different road, you see alot of small shacks that usually have smoke coming out of the chimneys, they are apparently used by the loggers. We eventually ended up way out in the wilderness with no signs of logging or logging trucks, it's usually like driving in a tunnel because the trees come together over the road. After a long while, we came into a clear area, and around a bend there was we came upon what we thought was a small town. The road basically went right down "main street," and as we drove through the place, it became apparent there were no people to be seen. We came to a building that was a kind of store, so we stopped there. The "store" was completly empty, looking in the dusty windows you could see it had been empty for a long time. We walked around "main street" checking out the houses, a lot of them were in pretty good repair but they were completley deserted, dust on all the floors had been undisturbed for many years and ther were no signs of foot traffic anywhere. We eventually got back in the trucks and moved on we were all pretty intrigued by the town, we didn't go in any of the houses because it just looked like the owners might actually come back. The "main street" went up a pretty big hill, at the top of the hill was a large building that was obviously some kind of industrial use building covered in that old galvanized corrugated metal sheeting. We stopped at the building and found an opening in the siding. The inside of the building was wide open, and it was very tall, like 30-40 feet tall, with a lot of supporting steelwork; everything was very rusty and obviously hadn't been touched in many years. There were large windows with no glass, just open to the outside high up in the walls that allowed the sun to light it up pretty well inside. At the center of the place, there was a large hole in the floor, like 15-20 feet square. We peered down into the opening, and it was a deep dark hole; somebody dropped a stone down the hole, and it was a long time before you could hear a faint splash of water so we dropped a stone and we had a couple of those old Casio watches with a stopwatch function so we dropped a rock and timed it to the splash, it took almost exactly ten seconds. there were no guard rails or safety measures of any kind, it was really scary thinking about falling into that deep black hole. There was some old equipment left that looked to be like turn of the century type stuff, we assumed it was a closed copper mine.The whole time we were exploring we had two 35mm film cameras taking a lot of pictures, this was 30 years before cell phones and 35-40 before smart phones. After exploring the place for a while, we decided it was time to get going because we had only a few hours before dark. After miles of running down those unmarked roads, we eventually made it back to the cabins, and we all went out to our hunting spots. After it got dark, we all headed to the local bar where we usually went to get something to eat. One of the guys asked the lady bartender if she knew anything about that shut-down mine and abandoned the town; she got kind of a funny look on her face and went to the kitchen pass-through window and said, "hey Dave, these guys went and visited Peterson, we all looked at each other like WTF is she talking about, the kitchen door opened up and the a the cook apparently called Dave came out dressed in typical bar cook clothes. Dave came over and said what did you see in Peterson we said first of all, we never saw a sign with a name on it, but it was just an abandoned town with pretty decent-looking buildings and a closed-down copper mine up on the hill. Dave said yep that's Peterson some people see the signs going into town and some don't, the thing is there never was a Peterson it never existed. Whh......What the fuck are you talking about? We were there, looked into the buildings, dropped rocks down the empty mine shaft, and took many pictures. Dave said yep, you and many other people, but if you try to return, you won't find it. What? We know the road we took. We can get back there, he said go ahead and try. You won't find it. Dave asked did you, by any chance, drop a rock in the hole and time it to the bottom? Yes, actually, we did it took almost exactly ten seconds, Dave said yep, I did, too, and I looked it up. A falling rock or anything falls about four hundred feet in ten seconds; he said Peterson is a real ghost town the whole place is a real ghost town; he said I was there and saw the same things years ago, but I've tried many times to go back and I've never been able to find it, me and a lot of other people who live in this area and know it like the backs of our hands have seen it once and once only. Dave said to go to Houghton Hancock and get your film developed, and let's see the pictures. The next day, we decided to take off from hunting and go up to town and get the film developed. Houghton Hancock is home to Michigan Tech so it's a college town with all the amenities it had a quick film developer place so we dropped the film off and went to see the sights, it's a really picturesque place. About an hour north east of HH is Copper harbor at the very top of Michigan were it ends into Lake Superior, it to is a really cool place. When we got back to HH, we were dying to see the pictures, so we went and got the film and tore open the envelopes. There were lots of pictures, beautiful pictures, but not a single picture of "Peterson"..........Now just a goddamned minute, this is not fucking possible a couple of the guys went back to the film place and asked where are the other pictures that were on those rolls? There were no other pictures. You have all the negatives. We don't keep other people's pictures. We see thousands every month. There's a park in town, and we stopped there, and all sat at a table, just kind of in shock, not saying much for quite a while. In 1982, I was 23 years old. At 23, you think you know it all when you are hit square in the face by something like that; it shakes you to the core; everything you think you know is now suspect because you were in that abandoned town; it was just a cool old abandoned town, you saw it with your own eyes in the wide open sunny broad daylight, not on some dark foggy creepy night and nothing creepy happened, we took pictures that don't exist. That changed my life from that point forward. After that, we went back to see Dave and gave him the stack of pictures of the woods, the Big Mac bridge, Misery Bay, the park on the bay, logging trucks, the rock bridges, some of the shacks, one of which was just about two miles from "Peterson." Dave just kind of chuckled and said yep, that's our "Peterson" alright. For the next two days we totally forgot about hunting, we split up in two trucks and drove those roads over and over and over and never re-found "Peterson." That is my high strangeness story, we found a town that never existed, that other people have also see but only once. As I look back on what we are now hearing stories about, stuff like different timelines like this fucked up one we are in now compared to the real one we branched off from on January 20, 2016. Is Peterson a place close to a spot where two different timelines come very close together? Is it possible that when all the conditions in the universe are just right, and you happen to be in the right place when all those conditions are right, you can visit Peterson? What would happen if you were in Peterson and the universal conditions changed? I wonder if we will ever find out. If you can only go there once, how will it be studied? The mind-warping question is, who keeps track of who has been to Peterson only once and who hasn't?
submitted by skeeredstiff to HighStrangeness [link] [comments]
2024.05.29 04:51 cookiegirl59 Life's ups and down
Sorry...this is a bit long...no good way of shortening it.
Myself (65f) and my husband (64f) have had a full year of mostly downs. A year ago tomorrow my father had a massive heart attack that ended in him being in in-home Hospice care for 10 months before passing in March. 3 days after his heart attack I fell and broke my back....not good on top of existing health issues. We provided 24/7 care to my father. All through this I've been fighting my husband's Medicare because of a problem they created and didn't cover any of his medical bills in 2022, which led to his insurance not paying either. There 2 surgeries for him during that time. We've paid off a lot of it and are still paying/owing much more.
So, coming to now, I broke a crown last month and need to get it replaced next month for around $4000 (insurance will help with almost half, we hope). I start on Medicare in June, but I'm on Humira and have to pay $2400 for it in June and another $2100 in July (doughnut hole). So things appear to be bleeding money. I've come to accept this as it's necessary medical expenses.
After battling his Medicare for over 1 1/2 years we finally received an answer today. They have corrected their issues and we now have to refile about $25,000 in charges. This will hopefully get us refunded the minimum of $10k+ over the upcoming months. If course with this they are the taking out a years worth of monthly Medicare payments next month. His check will be $37. So at least $6500 out of pocket in June and July and the loss of over $2000 in monthly income. YIPPEE!
The good news is my father left my siblings and I his estate and I've already received enough to cover those charges and fill in for the lost income. Not what I wanted to use my inheritance for, but at least I have it to pay without stressing over finances. The other monies will eventually flow in for reimbursements for the medical we paid already.
So at least it will all even out, or be close. My father is blessing me even after his death. Wish me luck ongoing.
submitted by cookiegirl59 to TrueOffMyChest [link] [comments]
Myself (65f) and my husband (64f) have had a full year of mostly downs. A year ago tomorrow my father had a massive heart attack that ended in him being in in-home Hospice care for 10 months before passing in March. 3 days after his heart attack I fell and broke my back....not good on top of existing health issues. We provided 24/7 care to my father. All through this I've been fighting my husband's Medicare because of a problem they created and didn't cover any of his medical bills in 2022, which led to his insurance not paying either. There 2 surgeries for him during that time. We've paid off a lot of it and are still paying/owing much more.
So, coming to now, I broke a crown last month and need to get it replaced next month for around $4000 (insurance will help with almost half, we hope). I start on Medicare in June, but I'm on Humira and have to pay $2400 for it in June and another $2100 in July (doughnut hole). So things appear to be bleeding money. I've come to accept this as it's necessary medical expenses.
After battling his Medicare for over 1 1/2 years we finally received an answer today. They have corrected their issues and we now have to refile about $25,000 in charges. This will hopefully get us refunded the minimum of $10k+ over the upcoming months. If course with this they are the taking out a years worth of monthly Medicare payments next month. His check will be $37. So at least $6500 out of pocket in June and July and the loss of over $2000 in monthly income. YIPPEE!
The good news is my father left my siblings and I his estate and I've already received enough to cover those charges and fill in for the lost income. Not what I wanted to use my inheritance for, but at least I have it to pay without stressing over finances. The other monies will eventually flow in for reimbursements for the medical we paid already.
So at least it will all even out, or be close. My father is blessing me even after his death. Wish me luck ongoing.
2024.05.29 04:49 moviessoccerbeer My dental insurance maxed out, what is my best option?
I need to do 2 root canals. My dental insurance fully covered the first root canal but ran out after the first appointment of the second root canal. I only have a temporary filling in and I don’t have the means to pay out of pocket or pay on credit for the last 2 appointments. What would be the best option for a permanent solution to this situation?
submitted by moviessoccerbeer to HealthInsurance [link] [comments]
2024.05.29 04:44 CletusThaFetus69 I just want confirmation my parents are narcissist
So... my mom has never really been loving. My dad had/had PTSD. It is his way or the highway. My mom will straight up tell people "I learned to ignore him", "I never wanted another kid, I should've got my tubes tied after the first one, his dad is the only reason I didn't get an abortion". She will buy me things, and then when i'm telling her she is acting horribly yelling at me for something minimal (not writing a note in the cashapp for example) and then say "I wasn't treating you horribly when I bought you this thing earlier!!"
I don't remember the last time I got a hug from either one of my parents.
My parents never actually helped me get my license, they claim they "Tried to teach me!!" but got about 20 driving hours for me, refused to fill out the time sheets, and would yell and freak out at every mistake I made on the road. They bought me a barely driveable $900 grandam @ 18 after I was told i'd get a new car when I graduated (I am 22 and graduated in 2020) I was expecting like a decent condition 2007-2008 car that would reliably get me from point a to point b but was bought a 2002 wrecked grandam with hood latches due to deer wreck damage and struts so bad that the back end would slide out from under it on minimal potholes and tires that I had the fill back up daily to keep it off the ground. I had to eventually buy my own car (they never helped me fix it depaite my dad being a literal jet mechanic) and drive it back and forth from work illegally until I got good enough at driving to get my license, because it was apparently easier for my mom to continue driving me to work on her lunch break and picking me up from work at 7 then to spend a few weekends and hours after work some days with me preparing for a drivers test.
Both my mother and my dad would get physically aggressive and spank pretty excessively but not to the point where I was like "this is abuse". As I grew older and grew to be a bigger teenager it turned into them moreso actually trying to physically fight me, me running as to avoid a fight as they yelled things like "I'M GOING TO RIP YOUR F***ING HEAD OFF" and locking myself in my room or running around outside until they were no longer violently angry.
One time I got a full blown blender thrown at my shoulder as a kid because I didn't help my dad find his shoes when he was late to meet some of his work friends, he also in that instance chased me a quarter way down our street (thankfully I was like 16 5'10 and fast) before going home and cooling down.
One time he also threw a tape measure at my shin and I still have a mark in my shin bone from that.
Lots of promises that were never kept and were forgot about. "If you help me with this massive months long hard process I will buy you shing expensive thing" helps and never gets said thing but gets yelled at the whole time for not doing things "the right way"
My mom also called me ugly as a kid, told people in front of me (and I quote) "Yeah I was pissed when he came out with red hair, i don't like red heads!"
She would tell people I was a little bastard and would tell them the amount of adhd medication I was on and how it was enough for like 2 adults (i already started questioning why the hell I was on that amount of adhd medication in the first place, i was basically m37hed out on adderall and vyvanse and concerts as a 7-14 year okd kid)
One time she bought me a pokeball as a kid at walmart, and our way home I did something she didn't like and she grabbed the pokeball and chucked it out the window and bragged to people about it
One year my brother got a laptop and an ipod and some other stuff and ya boy got some action figures
My mom thrrows a fit that I don't "contribute in the house" or clean when I stick to my area of the house, don't use the kitchen or dishes (i have my own dishes I use and I eat out mainly so i don't have to deal with them) and don't created that messes that need to be cleaned up and I keep my areas of the house clean. I could probably go count 7 wrappers and 6 pop cans and 3 plates down on our kitchen bar right now and I do not spend any time in the kitchen but I am apparently supposed to clean that stuff up as well as do the dishes that I don't use.
My dad will say "Here i'll tell you what you need to do" and if I do anything other than agree with him he will say "well then you're f***int stupid"
My dad would get violently angry at you if there was a tiny piece of lettuce in his taco or anything but meat and cheese on his burger and if you laugh at him for how ridiculous he is reacting he redirects that anger and amplifies it towards you
My parents and brother would kinda gang up and do things that would "trigger" me and laugh and yell at me when I reacted badly.
My mom just told me yesterday that i'm a violent asshole and does my girlfriend know that she's going to have to clean up after me and help with the kids and dogs (she's projecting) and that we wouldn't last
I just want confirmation that this is narccisism. I've been looking for what to call my experience with my parents for a while and I think this is it.
submitted by CletusThaFetus69 to raisedbynarcissists [link] [comments]
I don't remember the last time I got a hug from either one of my parents.
My parents never actually helped me get my license, they claim they "Tried to teach me!!" but got about 20 driving hours for me, refused to fill out the time sheets, and would yell and freak out at every mistake I made on the road. They bought me a barely driveable $900 grandam @ 18 after I was told i'd get a new car when I graduated (I am 22 and graduated in 2020) I was expecting like a decent condition 2007-2008 car that would reliably get me from point a to point b but was bought a 2002 wrecked grandam with hood latches due to deer wreck damage and struts so bad that the back end would slide out from under it on minimal potholes and tires that I had the fill back up daily to keep it off the ground. I had to eventually buy my own car (they never helped me fix it depaite my dad being a literal jet mechanic) and drive it back and forth from work illegally until I got good enough at driving to get my license, because it was apparently easier for my mom to continue driving me to work on her lunch break and picking me up from work at 7 then to spend a few weekends and hours after work some days with me preparing for a drivers test.
Both my mother and my dad would get physically aggressive and spank pretty excessively but not to the point where I was like "this is abuse". As I grew older and grew to be a bigger teenager it turned into them moreso actually trying to physically fight me, me running as to avoid a fight as they yelled things like "I'M GOING TO RIP YOUR F***ING HEAD OFF" and locking myself in my room or running around outside until they were no longer violently angry.
One time I got a full blown blender thrown at my shoulder as a kid because I didn't help my dad find his shoes when he was late to meet some of his work friends, he also in that instance chased me a quarter way down our street (thankfully I was like 16 5'10 and fast) before going home and cooling down.
One time he also threw a tape measure at my shin and I still have a mark in my shin bone from that.
Lots of promises that were never kept and were forgot about. "If you help me with this massive months long hard process I will buy you shing expensive thing" helps and never gets said thing but gets yelled at the whole time for not doing things "the right way"
My mom also called me ugly as a kid, told people in front of me (and I quote) "Yeah I was pissed when he came out with red hair, i don't like red heads!"
She would tell people I was a little bastard and would tell them the amount of adhd medication I was on and how it was enough for like 2 adults (i already started questioning why the hell I was on that amount of adhd medication in the first place, i was basically m37hed out on adderall and vyvanse and concerts as a 7-14 year okd kid)
One time she bought me a pokeball as a kid at walmart, and our way home I did something she didn't like and she grabbed the pokeball and chucked it out the window and bragged to people about it
One year my brother got a laptop and an ipod and some other stuff and ya boy got some action figures
My mom thrrows a fit that I don't "contribute in the house" or clean when I stick to my area of the house, don't use the kitchen or dishes (i have my own dishes I use and I eat out mainly so i don't have to deal with them) and don't created that messes that need to be cleaned up and I keep my areas of the house clean. I could probably go count 7 wrappers and 6 pop cans and 3 plates down on our kitchen bar right now and I do not spend any time in the kitchen but I am apparently supposed to clean that stuff up as well as do the dishes that I don't use.
My dad will say "Here i'll tell you what you need to do" and if I do anything other than agree with him he will say "well then you're f***int stupid"
My dad would get violently angry at you if there was a tiny piece of lettuce in his taco or anything but meat and cheese on his burger and if you laugh at him for how ridiculous he is reacting he redirects that anger and amplifies it towards you
My parents and brother would kinda gang up and do things that would "trigger" me and laugh and yell at me when I reacted badly.
My mom just told me yesterday that i'm a violent asshole and does my girlfriend know that she's going to have to clean up after me and help with the kids and dogs (she's projecting) and that we wouldn't last
I just want confirmation that this is narccisism. I've been looking for what to call my experience with my parents for a while and I think this is it.
2024.05.29 04:36 calamitygan 2020 Mirage Rattling/Scraping Sound When Accelerating
I have a 2020 Mirage ES CVT with 27k miles on it and had recently begun to hear some really annoying rattling/scraping sounds coming from underneath the far, seemingly coming from the front end of the car. It lasts a few brief seconds upon accelerating, and it's prevalent around 3k rpm. It sounds like a metal sheet vibrating/clanking I can also feel the rattling on the gas pedal.
Brought it in today to a Mitsubishi dealership cause my regular guy is fully booked for weeks. I told them I thought the heat shield was loose or damaged cause that's what it sounds like. They initially diagnosed the problem as some missing push clips in the bumper, put 'em in and sent me on my way.
Immediately after driving out of the lot, I heard the dreaded rattling. Took a U-turn and went right back. Now they've diagnosed the problem as a faulty "muffler" that needs to be replaced. (Luckily covered by warranty.) Waiting for them to receive the replacement parts.
I am kinda skeptical about the muffler being the issue cause it seems like the issue is in the front of the car. The guy also said there's nothing wrong with the heat shield.
Anyone else have similar experiences with their Mirage?
submitted by calamitygan to mitsubishi [link] [comments]
Brought it in today to a Mitsubishi dealership cause my regular guy is fully booked for weeks. I told them I thought the heat shield was loose or damaged cause that's what it sounds like. They initially diagnosed the problem as some missing push clips in the bumper, put 'em in and sent me on my way.
Immediately after driving out of the lot, I heard the dreaded rattling. Took a U-turn and went right back. Now they've diagnosed the problem as a faulty "muffler" that needs to be replaced. (Luckily covered by warranty.) Waiting for them to receive the replacement parts.
I am kinda skeptical about the muffler being the issue cause it seems like the issue is in the front of the car. The guy also said there's nothing wrong with the heat shield.
Anyone else have similar experiences with their Mirage?
2024.05.29 04:27 EntertainmentFree357 Looking for some advice
I’ve been on the psych meds merry go round for over a decade. Ive joined support groups, I’ve had therapists nothing really sticks and that’s fine. But one thing that has stuck around especially since the birth of my second child, my sweet little boy who is now 7 years old, the one thing that’s stuck around is my dark cloud of loom and gloom. I feel shitty about feeling this way and get mad at myself bc I know people have it way worse and I want so badly to be cherishing the short time we have here on this earth. My brain just only knows fear, anxiety, sadness. I get choked up a lot just out of the blue I’ll have some very morbid thought cross my mind and take me to a very dark place. Not that I’m going to harm anyone or anything like that just death type thoughts idk it’s strange and I don’t like it. This depression has robbed so much of my life it’s hard to believe I’ve let it win so long. I’ve lost all of my friends due to isolation, my anxiety tells me not to go out and make new ones and I wouldn’t know how to anyway I feel like I have nothing to offer. I don’t even remember what it feels like to laugh so much it hurts my stomach. I miss that feeling. I try and force myself to do things and I’m working so I’m able to put up a good front but the majority of my day my mind is filled with negative thoughts and I don’t want that for me or my kids or loved ones at all. I want to be someone that people want to be around hell I want to be able to stand being around myself. I’m so afraid this will be lifelong bc of how much of myself I’ve lost along the way, my friends, my joy, my hobbies, my self esteem etc. I’m in the process of trying to get approved for VRaylar because the cost is crazy out of pocket and I’m on Medicaid, my job doesn’t offer insurance and my son has special needs so Medicaid is what Ive been fortunate enough to get. But this med isn’t covered. I find myself obsessively searching these forums for medicine that has helped those with TREATment resistant depression it’s actually sick the amount of time I waste and I know everyone is different I just want to hear one story that hits home and makes me feel like there’s hope. In the meantime, aside from excersise and diet is there anything people do daily that has truly helped their negative way of thinking and been a positive thing in your journey.i struggle getting out of bed when i wake up is there A certain morning ritual that helps, or anything you do to complain less, Has anyone tried hypnosis for depression?im just throwing out general ideas looking for anything really I’m not opposed to anything at this point. Thanks for your help guys!!
submitted by EntertainmentFree357 to BipolarReddit [link] [comments]
2024.05.29 04:26 InteractionProud7297 need honest criticism
i'm working on a novel and would like to know if anyone could tell me any improvements i could make to the first chapter and prologue
Prologue
The day had started the same way it had for the past two years. The only difference was that I was going home. The hallway was crowded with people walking to and from their classes. Everyone was crowded next to each other so the halls were making the area feel claustrophobic. All the people talking mixed with the summer heat made me feel like I was locked in a sauna. I walked with Preston to the last class we would ever have together and as usual he was smiling. I never got why he always smiled even in situations where people should be sad he still smiled. He knew what today meant for me and he tried to keep light of the situation. I kept my head down away from what was ahead of me. My mind was too clouded about returning to see my family to notice anything in front of me. I walked into another student. It felt like I had walked into a wall. I knew immediately I had walked into tree. I stumble onto the ground and the commotion around me slows down to make room for us. He turned his bulky body around and apologized profusely without saying a word even though I had walked into him. He helped me off of the ground before hurrying down the hall.
“Alexandria, are you doing okay?” Preston said he had tilted his body downward so I had to look down to look him in his eyes. The way he was standing made him look like an idiot but he didn't seem to care. The way he acted made me laugh, which caused his smile to widen.
“I'm doing fine, just got lost in my head.”
“Thinking about how you’ll leave soon,” he said
“Was it that obvious?” He was the only person I told about me being an exchange student. I came to spend high school in Newkinawa and he was the only person I ever hung out with.
“I see what you mean,” he said “Newkinawa is a beautiful place with beautiful people to live in it…myself included”
“You wish,” I say with a smile we continue walking through the hallway “I'm just not excited to go back yet”
After I say that his smile grows wider “So you will miss me after all”
“I wouldn't say that much” I responded whilst smiling.
We had made it to our last class only to see it closed with a sign labeled “Uma incident” Uma was a student known for messing with the chemistry lab and destroying school property in the process. I've never actually met her but Preston says “She's a little weird but still nice”
“Guess class is canceled for today,” Preston remarked with a smile “Wanna go out to the court till the bell rings.”
“Sure let's go” I respond
The place we ate every day was outside. It used to be a tennis court before I moved in. Now they put trees and flowers all over the place. Preston really liked the blue color of the flowers but it just never clicked for me. I look over at Preston and he's staring up at the sky. There are a number of clouds in almost enough to block the sun but it still pokes its rays through and lands on Preston's face. The clouds swim in front of the sun till they block out the sun's light. Preston faces towards me.
“I'm gonna miss you Alexandria” he says
“You know you can just call me Alex,” I replied. I start to smile again. “I'll miss you too!" He smiles toward me again as we get up to leave as the clouds start to clump together and rain slowly falls. As we're walking back to the school there's a loud tearing sound followed by screams as the ground shakes.
The ground tears itself apart as the dirt and stone erupt from the ground. The sky blackens and a pale blue light escapes the earth. Then creatures erupt from the ground in a violent ejection from the earth creating a white pillar diffusing as they reach higher in the air. Some are clawing their way out of the cracks like maggots out of a corpse. People are swept into the updraft screaming for their lives.
The creatures descend like a tidal wave and tear apart any people caught in their path. They storm out of the crack in hundreds as more cracks in the earth form. Me and Preston started running away as people were screaming behind us. A girl running next to us has her legs slashed by a creature. The monster begins to tear open her chest as she chokes on her own blood. The monster shovels her lungs and innards into its decrepit mouth. Me and Preston keep running until we're met at the entrance of the school and we catch the attention of a monster as it begins to savagely rush toward us. The monster resembles ghosts my father told me about. But this one looks monstrously horrific. It floats in the air and opens its mouth so wide it nearly replaces its entire torso; its jaws hold savage teeth each the same old gray color of its body. Its eyes glow a rotten yellow color through the dark. It stretches out its arms showing its giant hands and claws like fingers. It swipes at us leaving a giant claw mark on the door behind us but Preston ducks my body down to avoid the attack. We run around it as the monster swaps its focus to another bystander. Screaming past us. Me and Preston run into the parking lot as people scream around us. We hide next to a car.
“What the hell is happening!?” I yell to Preston. More of the creatures fly over us and swoop down to people like vultures on roadkill devouring the fleeing people.
Preston starts to breathe heavily ”we need to get out of here and someplace safer”. As we were talking one of the monster phases through the car we were hiding next to forcing us to run into the street.
“Lets go to your house till things cool down” i say to Preston through panted breaths
“Wait couldn't we head to your house instead” Preston says.
“Why would that matter your house is closer anyways” i respond
“But-” Preston is interrupted by two creatures swooping above us to grab another person. The two monsters begin to pull the person apart while he writhes in pain before having his flesh be torn in half and having his organs be devoured.
“Come on lets go!!” I say as I grab his hand and run even faster.
By the time we reach Preston's house any living person is gone. On the street are just corpses laying torn and mutilated on the roads and sidewalk. The air in the neighborhood feels cold despite the season being summer. When I walk down the street I can still hear the occasional horrific wail the monsters give off. We move closer to Preston's house and I can see him sweating. He looked more worried than before when the creatures were chasing us and he kept darting his eyes away from his home.
“Preston, are you feeling okay?” he doesn't respond to my question and keeps darting his eyes. He walks slowly behind me and as I reach for the door handle and when I touch it it feels nearly freezing. I wrap my hoodie around my hand and slowly open the door. The house is quiet so me and Preston creep further into his house. The inside is cold and damp as if we were locked in a freezer. The further we move into the house the louder a subtle chewing sound is heard.
“It sounds like rats are eating a dead cow over there” I whisper. Preston continues to stay silent behind me. We slowly walk closer towards the kitchen and the sound gets louder and louder and louder until we reach the room.
We're met with a rancid smell of vomit and blood. My blood starts to run cold and every instinct in my body is telling me to run. I can feel Preston breathing get heavier as we get closer. We turn the corner and see Preston's mom lying on the ground dead with one of the creatures hunched over slurping her intestines. The sight causes me to vomit alerting the monster to our presence. The creature turns around and its mouth turns into a mortifying grin as it flies into Preston's moms body. The corpse begins to rise and spur splashing blood over the kitchen. When the corpse stops spasming it picks itself up from the ground and with glazed over eyes it holds its intestines in its hand and gives us the same grin it did when it was outside her body. The possessed corpse lunges at me and starts to chase me around the kitchen. The body is running into the walls and cabinets spraying its blood and other loose organs around the area as I'm avoiding its assault. The corpse leans over and ejects one of its loose intestines towards me, wrapping me in it. It pulls me towards it so fast I'm flung towards the ground. The corpse limbers over to me and raises its free hand aiming for my head. The creature's deranged smile causes the corpse’s cheeks to tear apart. It places both of its bloodied and demented hands on my face and starts to press my skull into the ground. I struggle to breathe. The room starts to get dark and blood escapes my head.
Until Preston jumps on top of his mothers corpse with a kitchen knife and repeatedly stabs it in the head. The possessed body tries to shake him off but he keeps stabbing, blood gets in on his face and tears start to escape his eyes. The creature violently ejects from the corpse's mouth causing her head to nearly explode and Preston stops stabbing the body. The body falls over in a splash of blood and organs. The monster leaves phasing through the roof leaving Preston crying over his mother's body. As the blood mixes with the tears he collapses to his knees crying. I walk over and hug him as the air around us turns bitter and the chill of death leaves the room and us with it.
Chapter 1 Eclipse
It's been 2 months since the apocalypse started. We've kept ourselves alive by looting grocery stores and houses, we hide from the creatures as we have no way to fight back against them. Preston came up with the idea to call them glanter’s. He’s looking better since we left his family home but I can tell something is wrong with him that he's not telling me. Everytime I ask him about it he tells me it's no big deal. I asked him earlier today and he just told me
“don't worry about it, I'm over it” without even looking at me. Now we're walking through the street and I'm walking behind Preston, I can barely see his head past the giant bag we're both carrying on our backs we use to carry supplies. I look up at the sky and it's still pitch black except for the moon giving us any amount of light. Preston turns around to face me.
“Let's check out that house, it might have some cool stuff in it” he points to a white house to our right. The house is a two story building with steps leading to the front door. There's a generator poking out from the backyard. The driveway is empty save for a couple of dried blood stains and tire marks. It's similar to the other houses in the neighborhood except for a couple broken windows.
“Sure why not” We head over to the house and I see something shining on the side of the house in the corner of my eye. I turn my head to look at it closer but it quickly disappears before I can see it clearly.
“Probably squirrel or something” I mumble to myself. Preston walks up the stairs to the house and I walk up the steps behind him as a breeze blows past my face. Preston tries to turn the door knob but the door is locked. I start to pull out a lockpick I grabbed at the store earlier. I motion towards Preston to move out of the way as I kneel down to pick the lock. It takes me a couple of minutes to unlock the door so I walk inside the house and Preston follows behind me while closing and locking the door. The doorway of the house leads to a dark room so I take a flashlight out of my bag to illuminate the area. Were put into the living room and bookshelves are on the walls and a large TV sat in front of a large black couch with smaller chairs surrounding it. Dust is covering every surface of the room and spiderwebs litter the corners of the walls. The area smells like moth balls and there's a lack of blood anywhere nearby.
“Guess the owners got out before the Glanter’s got in, '' I say to Preston. When he doesn't respond I turn around and he's already looking further into the house. When I find him he's managed to find a flight of stairs that lead to a lower portion of the house.
“I'll check on him later,” I think to myself as I headed towards the kitchen to see if we could restock on food. I walk past a bedroom and remark on how childish it looked. The walls were painted with blue and green stripes and a bunk bed sat on the right wall. There's a chest at the foot of the bed so I walk over and lift the top off of it. The box is layered with children's toys, a multitude of dolls, bears, and figures all jut out of the box. I notice a small robot toy and inspect it in my hands.
The cold metal makes my hand shiver and the sharp body shape makes the robot bigger than my hand. There's red lining around the robot's buttons surrounded by the cold gray of the robot's “skin”. It reminds me of a toy my little brother had. My heart feels heavy as I worry about what happened to my family. If they're alive, dead, or worse…possessed. The thoughts send a chill down my spine but I push them aside for now. I put the toy in my bag and exit the bedroom.
I can see the kitchen is down the hallway so I walk down the hall and enter. The kitchen is pretty clean except for a couple of dishes in the sink and the dust. There's a table seated for 3 people in the center of the room. I start opening the cabinets in search for any food or water. There's boxes of cereal leftover on top of shelves and a mix of chip bags and cookies in neat boxes stationed in the cabinets.
“Score,” I say to myself as I begin to put the snacks into my bag. When the cabinets are empty I look inside the fridge. The inside of the fridge ran out of power so most of the food inside is rotted. There are a couple of bottles of water in the front so I shove those in my bag. There's also a bag of oranges that still seem to be healthy in the back. I grab them and toss them on the table. There's rotten sandwich meat hidden in the drawer of the fridge.it smells like a dumpster outside of a butcher shop. I wrinkle my nose at the smell. I look around the kitchen for any bread with no luck.
I continue to look through the fridge until I hear Preston scream from another room. Immediately I bolt out of the kitchen leaving my bag behind and run towards the lower part of the house. I run down the stairs and nearly trip on the steps. The stairs lead to a big room. There are posters to tv shows and movies I don't recognize. The walls are painted black and there's a bear skin rug on the floor. I notice Preston standing next to a really big TV hyperventilating. I walk over to him and ask him.
“Are you ok? What happened?”
He talks through deep breaths “I… saw a… spider.”
“What?!” I respond in confusion.
“It was really big and I had jumped at my face”
“Sure it was.” I say while laughing “Let's go upstairs there's some food in the fridge we can eat”
“Wait, I think you should check this out.” He says while pointing towards one of the walls. I grab Preston's flashlight off the floor and face it towards the wall. Hanging halfway off the wall is a large map labeled Newkiwana scavenger hunt of 76.
“I think we should take it,” Preston says “You can read a map right?”
“A little but I'm not the best at it,” I say to him “can you read a map?”
“it shouldn’t be too hard it’s mainly pictures any way I'm sure I can figure it out”
I walk over to the wall where the map is hung there are trophies covering tables and shelved in their own personal cases one of them reads “1st place 100-meter swimming competition for 1986 Zack Hemmingway” and another one reads “2nd place 100-meter swimming competition for 1989 Zack Hemmingway”
“Guess this guy really liked swimming,” Preston remarks while staring at a wall of newspaper clippings. All of them are about the same person in swimming competitions. All labeled different things like “a new record for Zack “the dolphin” Hemmingway”,
‘Zach Hemmingway our star plans for the future” all the newspapers are about this kind he has paler skin and a bulky enough build to swim pretty well. Most of the pictures have him coming out of the water in a pool, his long black hair soaked and sitting at his shoulders. Another one has him sitting at a desk over a pile of books and his hair in a knot , “vicious wipeout ends the Dolphins career”, and “ex-swim champ Zack Hemmingway found in a drunken stupor outside strip club.
“Everyone has their own hobbies I guess,” I say as I take the map off of the wall and fold it up. “Sucks what happened to Zack though” I walked over to Preston’s bag and put the rolled map in one of the pockets. I walk back up the stairs and Preston grabs his bag and follows behind me.
We make our way towards the kitchen and Preston starts looking through the fridge for anything to eat. I grab an orange from the table and throw it at his head. The fruit bounces off his head and rolls on the floor. He turns around and grabs the fruit from the floor
“Why did you throw an orange at me?”
“It's the only food we have unless you plan on eating spoiled a sandwich“ He starts to peel it while walking towards the table. We both take a seat and start to eat the oranges from the bag. He plants his feet on top of the table and bites into the fully peeled orange. I grab a water bottle from a bag and start to drink from it as Preston says.
“I saw a dvd player in that man cave downstairs we could watch a movie if it still has power”
“Sure it could be fun.” Me and Preston spend the rest of our time eating until the bag of oranges is emptied and we head back downstairs. Preston grabs the DVD player from under the table and blows the dust off the top of it; he plugs it into the wall as I plop myself onto the couch. He plugs the DVD player into the TV and sits on the recliner next to me. He presses a few buttons on the remote and the TV lights up. I squint my eyes at how bright it is. It's the most amount of light I've seen that didn't come from a flashlight. I notice there's a box filled with DVDs. I pull the box over towards me. I ruffle through the box and see movies like Silence of the Lambs, Terminator 2, and Home alone.
“Dude some of these came out just before the world turned inside out” I say to him.
“Really? Let's play one.” He responds. I toss him Terminator 2 and he puts it into the DVD player.
We spend the next couple hours watching movies and laughing together. It's some of our only moments of peace we’ve had since the end of the world and to me it's the most fun I've had yet. We're putting in the next DVD when there's a loud crash outside and the TV shuts off. Preston goes behind it to see if it's still plugged in.
“I think the generator outside is busted” i say
“It seems that way” Preston replies while backing away from the tv” i'm gonna go check it out”
“Don't worry I got it” I say as I hop out of my chair. Preston waves goodbye as I head up the stairs. I make my way back through the hallway leading to the living room and front door. I reach the door and start to turn the knob. I open the door wide as a car speeds down the street. I step out of the door to see what had happened when I hear the screech of a glanter. It cuts through the sky like an unholy opera singer. A group of them fly by and chase the car as I rush back inside the house. I slam the door shut and look through the window as I see a couple of smaller glanters grab and shake the car violently looking for the driver. They tear at it, ripping off doors and breaking the windows. The driver screams as the seats cover with blood and he's ripped out of the car as multiple smaller glanters tear and bite off parts of his body like piranha's until his body is completely devoured. I run back to the man cave to warn Preston about what had happened. I spot him laying in his chair spinning a DVD disc on his finger.
“It's not safe outside right now”
“Why not?
“There's glanter's outside, they just ate a dude in his car”
“Did they see you come inside?”
“I don't think so , they flew off before I went inside.”
“well we're not dead so I'm gonna say they didn't see you. But let's stay here for a couple more hours just to be safe”
“Sounds good i'm gonna go find the master bedroom.” I start to walk back up the stairs to the house
“ Hold on why do you get the master bedroom” Preston says while walking after me.
“Because I'm gonna find it first” I say as I start to run to find the bedroom. He chases after me in pursuit of the bedroom. Me and Preston run around the house looking for the master bedroom. We look through room after room finding closets, the garage, a bathroom and a door leading to a balcony in the back of the house. I manage to run into the bedroom and yell out to Preston.``Found it!!”
He comes walking into the room breathing heavily from the running. We both check out the room. The walls are painted a cream yellow and the bed takes up most of the room's center. The bed has burgundy sheets poking out from its bottom and a quilt with multi-colored floral designs lay sprawled out on top of it. There's a wardrobe built into the wall and a black leather couch sits comfortably on the left wall.
“Dibs on the bed” I say as I jump on top of it. I stretch out on top of the quilt and search for a comfortable part to sleep in.
“Where am I supposed to sleep then?” Preston complains
“You can sleep on the couch it looks soft enough” I respond while pointing towards the couch “I saw some spare blankets in one of the closets”
“Alright i’ll be right back” he mumbles to himself “why do i always get the couch”
“ I'll be right here if you need me,” i call after him. I sit up on the bed and start to look around the room more. I notice the entrance to the wardrobe is cracked open slightly. I hop out of the bed and grab a flashlight from my bag as I walk into the wardrobe. I turn on my flashlight and stare in awe at how many clothes are in there. The room is only half as big as the bedroom but it's still bigger than any closet I've ever had. The wardrobe is full of shirts, dresses, pants, and shoes for men and women. I immediately start to look through the shoes to see if any fit my size. I throw a pair of black high heels behind me as Preston finds me in the wardrobe. He looks around before asking me.
“What are you doing?”
“Finding a new pair of clothes to wear cause I've been wearing the same pair of jeans for waaaaay too long”
“Fair enough. Is there any guy stuff in there?”
“Yeah right there” I hook my thumb behind me to point to the other end of the closet.
“I'm sure they won't mind if we take a couple of things…they're probably dead by now anyways,” Preston says with a slight grin on his face. The way he said made me spin my head to look at him but he was already on the opposite end of the wardrobe looking at suits.
I shake away the thought and continue looking for any pair of sneakers in my size. 40 minutes pass before I walk out of the wardrobe holding a new pair of jeans and a black guns-N-roses t-shirt. I toss the clothes on top of the bed and check to see if the shower in the bathroom still works. I turn the dial and wait for a moment. The shower head chokes a little before water comes pouring out. I reach my hand under the showerhead to feel the water. The water is cold, it causes my hand to shiver when I take it out. I shake the water off and say to myself.
“Good enough” as I start to take off my old clothes and get in the shower. The cold water bounces off my skin, it sends shivers down my spine but I still get the old dirt from the last few months off of me. I step out and see a couple of dry towels hanging off of the door. I grab one and dry my body off and grab another to wrap around my head and dry my hair. I step out of the bathroom and Preston is still inside the wardrobe. I put on my new clothes while his back is turned and walk over towards him when I'm finished.
“Still haven't found anything,” I ask him
He turns around “Nothing yet, the only thing interesting was this coat.” He holds a leather coat up to me. The coat is made of black leather and has a skull covered with blue flames on the back. There's a black shirt inside the coat with a skeleton hand making a thumbs-up embroidered on the front.
“ That's pretty cool, it's better than what you're wearing right now at least” he's outfitted in a blue hoodie with holes on the chest and tears at the sleeves. He also has a shirt with a faded picture of a blue flower printed on it.
“I guess you're right” he gets up from the floor and exits the wardrobe. He lays the clothes on the couch along next to the blanket and pillow he brought into the room.
“The shower works so you can get yourself clean In there,” I say to him
“You know, a shower sounds really good right now.” He gets up from the floor and grabs a pair of pajama pants that were laying next to him. He leaves the wardrobe and enters the bathroom, closing the door behind him. After a moment the water turns on and I hop on the bed to get ready to sleep. I squirm myself into the quilt and rest my head against one of the pillows. I shut my eyes and fall asleep listening to the passive sound of the shower like rain on a car.
I'm in a void. It feels like I'm standing in a puddle of water that reaches to my knees. I wade my way forward looking around for anything in the darkness. In the distance I can see 3 figures l. I moved closer to them and their silhouettes get clearer. I realize they are my dad and brothers. I start to run towards them kicking up water behind me until something grabs my leg. It pulls down violently forcing me under the water without a breath of air. I kick at the thing grabbing me until something grabs my other leg. I look down and see two glanter's each with a monstrous smile on their faces. They stare back at me and one of them tugs my leg harder than before and tears it off of my body. The water around me turns red as the glanter laugh's. The other smiles wider as it starts to fling me around the water forcing any air left in my lungs to be forced out as I scream in pain. The glanter throws me away and I can see my family slowly fade into the distance as I'm flown away.
I struggle to swim back to where I was, one of my legs is missing and the other is broken. The glanter's find me again and I try to get to the surface to escape them. I'm flapping my arms in any attempt to escape as one of the glanter's flies in front of me and grabs my arm. I look at the monster with tears in my eyes as it bites my arm and tears my body away from it. It flings my body away and with my remaining arm I clutch the wound as the water floods into my body leaving me in the void I started in. I look around and the glanter's seem to have left. I turn behind me and see my family again, this time I'm closer than before.
I grit my teeth and drag my body towards them slowly as I leave a trail of blood and tears behind me. I finally reach my family and grab one of my father's shoes. I stare up and he looks at me. His stare causes me to feel cold as a grotesque smile grows on his face. I stare in shock as my brothers each have the same look as my father.
I shoot up from my sleep panting heavily in a cold sweat.
“It was just a dream..just a dream…just a dream” I look at my hands as tears fall into them. I look around the room and see Preston sleeping peacefully on the couch. The room feels frozen in place as a chill runs down my spine. I get out of the bed and walk out of the bedroom. I make my way through the dark hallway and find the entrance to the balcony I saw earlier. I creak open the screen door and head outside. The Balcony is pretty large, about the size of the kitchen in the house. There are some chairs knocked over next to a table and I pick one up to sit on it. I look out into the expanse of the neighborhood, houses lined up next to each other, dozens broken apart by roads, and dead bodies scattered across the roads.
I look up in the sky and sit back in the chair. The sky looks empty except for the moon giving this world its only source of light. Without the moon, we’d be left in darkness. It hangs in the sky alone, no stars, no clouds, nothing but itself, and the void of the sky. I think back about the dream I had. My dad and my brother's all dead and possessed and then they kill me. I start to tear up thinking about it. I try to wipe away the tears but it’s no use. I'm too scared for my family. I don't know where they are if they're alive if they're worried about me I don't know anything! I start to quietly cry into my hands. I don't know how long I'm sitting there until I feel a hand on my shoulder. I turn my head to face it and I see Preston. He was smiling and looking at me. I turn away to wipe my tears and he walks next to me.
“I heard you sneaking out of the bedroom so I followed you to see where you were going.” he says “but that's not my question.” he pauses and looks at me “my question is what’s got you feeling so down?” he leans over the railing of the balcony
“It's nothing, I just came out here to clear my head.” I say as more tears escape from my eyes in big slow drops that ride down the sides of my face.
“if you don't feel like telling me you don't have to but i'll be here if you ever change your mind”. He looks up at the moon before turning to face me and his smile widens “I'll always be here with you…trust me I'm not going anywhere”
I stare up at him and wipe away my tears as a smile grows on my face to match his. I get up and stare over the balcony with him. “So where are we heading next?” I say to him, Preston pulls the map we got from the man cave downstairs out from his pocket.
“After I got out of the shower I decided to take a look at the map for anything interesting we could see.”
“Ok did you find anything?” i ask
“I did,” he points at a spot on the right of the map. “We should head to the museum”
“I didn't want to go to a museum before the apocalypse why would i want to go now?'' I ask him.
“Well the best part of museums is the cool stuff right”
“Yeah what about it”
“The only problem is that you could only look at the fossils and armor but you could never take them.”
“So you want to rob a museum?” Prestons eyes light up at the question
“Exactly they might have a really cool sword I could use, or I could sharpen a dinosaur tooth and use that as a weapon, there might be a cursed shield that can summon the dead to fight for you. This opportunity is too good to pass up. We need to go!”
“That does seem pretty cool but wouldn't carrying that stuff weigh us down. What if a glanter is chasing us and we can't run fast enough because of the stuff we took from the museum.”
“We’ll only take things that are light. Even then I could just block the glanter with my newly acquired 2000 year old shield.”
“Fair enough we can go in a couple hours” I yawn and stretch out my arms. “Cause I'm feeling way too tired to walk all the way over there right now.”
“Alright i'm heading back to my couch and THEN we’ll head out to the museum” he leaves the balcony and heads back to the master bedroom leaving me alone on the balcony.
“Thanks Preston I'm not leaving either” I say into the sky. I turn around and walk back inside the house, closing the balcony door behind me. I walk back into the bedroom and Preston is hunched over and holding a flashlight looking at the map. He’s drawing lines through roads and marking X’s in different areas.
“What are the X’s for?” i ask him
“They’re places that glanter’s usually stay around. I'm marking them off so we remember not to go through them, or at least be more cautious.”
“Cool. Did you find where we are right now?” He points to an area where the lines all converge out of.
“Right around here is where the neighborhood ends. So if we follow this path we can make it to the museum in one piece” I pat him on the back and take the map from his hands.
“Get some sleep Preston, we have a full day tomorrow” he grins to himself before laying down on the couch. I put the map back into my bag and hop on the bed to get to sleep. I cover my body in the quilt and roll over facing away from Preston as he falls asleep. I nestle myself into the bed and slowly fall asleep to get ready for the next day.
I'm awoken by Preston shaking the bed I'm sleeping on. My eyes open and the room is foggy, I wipe away the sleep from my eyes and focus my attention towards Preston. He's practically jumping out of his skin with excitement, he's already fully dressed for the trip and shaking the bed with a wide smile on his face.
“Ok ok i'm up the air feels heavy as a groggy feeling fills my body. I wipe my eyes and the room starts to clear up. I turn to face Preston. He's still shaking my bed to wake me up, he’s already fully dressed and nearly jumping out of his skin in excitement.
“Ok ok, i'm up you can stop shaking the bed” i say
“Then get up we’ve got a long walk ahead of us” he says as he stops shaking the mattress. He grabs the map from my bag and points to one of the red lines.
“We're gonna follow this way to the museum. We’ll move past the hotel around the ice skating rink and around the park. We’ll mainly stick to walking through the streets, we might have to go rooftop hopping to avoid any glanter’s if we see them but i'm sure we won’t reach that point.” he explains
“Wait, wait, wait, why are avoiding the skating rink and the park” i ask
“ everytime we go near the park there's weird noises and light coming out of it”
“And why can't we go to the ice skating rink?”
“I didn't think it would be important”
“It couldn't hurt to check it out at least”
“Fine we could make a detour”
“Ok and how do you plan on getting on top of roofs?”
“I'm sure we'll figure it out when we get to it”
“Ok man as long as you’re sure '' I yawn and step out of the bed. Preston starts to put the map in his bag. I walk into the bathroom with my clothes and change out of my pajamas. Minutes later I walk out and see Preston sitting on the couch twiddling his thumbs.
“Finally you're out” he smiles at me before handing me my bag and slinging it over his shoulder. We took a last look inside the kitchen to see if we missed anything. Afterwards we leave for the outside. The cold air bites at my face but Preston walks down the stairs, his face buried in the map. I jog to catch up to him as we both head into the street.
“Hey Preston, could I see the map?”
“Sure” he hands over the map and continues walking. I look at the map and the numerous lines drawn on roads. I look at the corner of the map and notice a small map key with numerous symbols for different areas like a library, school, hospital, and more. There's even a way to tell how far away each location is. The text reads “1 inch=5 miles” I quickly count how far we are from the museum.
“Dude this museum is like 100 miles away.”
“Yep it'll be a long walk, it'll take us a while to get there”
“Did you plan on us walking there the whole time?”
“We might find bikes or something.” he pauses “well i did think we would walk the whole way”
“This is gonna take us weeks to get there!”
“Did you have anything else planned?”
“Well…i guess not but we should still try to find some bikes or something”
“Ok if we see any way to travel faster we’ll take it”
“Alright cool” I hand him the map back and he folds it back up and puts it in his bag. We walk further until we leave the gated neighborhood we started in. Preston takes the map back out and looks at it before he turns right and continues walking. I follow him staring forward at the expanse of the road. The outside of the neighborhood is surrounded by roads all leading to different parts of Newkinawa. We walk past a sign that reads “Coretown 20 miles ahead” I nudge Preston towards the sign and he checks the map again.
“Yep, the museum’s in Coretown. Would you believe the residents were pretty proud of it. Should be a fun place to explore” he says
“Yeah but it’ll take us a million years to get there.” i complain
“Lighten up, I'm sure it will be worth it”. We continue walking down the road slowly making our way to Coretown.
submitted by InteractionProud7297 to writers [link] [comments]
Prologue
The day had started the same way it had for the past two years. The only difference was that I was going home. The hallway was crowded with people walking to and from their classes. Everyone was crowded next to each other so the halls were making the area feel claustrophobic. All the people talking mixed with the summer heat made me feel like I was locked in a sauna. I walked with Preston to the last class we would ever have together and as usual he was smiling. I never got why he always smiled even in situations where people should be sad he still smiled. He knew what today meant for me and he tried to keep light of the situation. I kept my head down away from what was ahead of me. My mind was too clouded about returning to see my family to notice anything in front of me. I walked into another student. It felt like I had walked into a wall. I knew immediately I had walked into tree. I stumble onto the ground and the commotion around me slows down to make room for us. He turned his bulky body around and apologized profusely without saying a word even though I had walked into him. He helped me off of the ground before hurrying down the hall.
“Alexandria, are you doing okay?” Preston said he had tilted his body downward so I had to look down to look him in his eyes. The way he was standing made him look like an idiot but he didn't seem to care. The way he acted made me laugh, which caused his smile to widen.
“I'm doing fine, just got lost in my head.”
“Thinking about how you’ll leave soon,” he said
“Was it that obvious?” He was the only person I told about me being an exchange student. I came to spend high school in Newkinawa and he was the only person I ever hung out with.
“I see what you mean,” he said “Newkinawa is a beautiful place with beautiful people to live in it…myself included”
“You wish,” I say with a smile we continue walking through the hallway “I'm just not excited to go back yet”
After I say that his smile grows wider “So you will miss me after all”
“I wouldn't say that much” I responded whilst smiling.
We had made it to our last class only to see it closed with a sign labeled “Uma incident” Uma was a student known for messing with the chemistry lab and destroying school property in the process. I've never actually met her but Preston says “She's a little weird but still nice”
“Guess class is canceled for today,” Preston remarked with a smile “Wanna go out to the court till the bell rings.”
“Sure let's go” I respond
The place we ate every day was outside. It used to be a tennis court before I moved in. Now they put trees and flowers all over the place. Preston really liked the blue color of the flowers but it just never clicked for me. I look over at Preston and he's staring up at the sky. There are a number of clouds in almost enough to block the sun but it still pokes its rays through and lands on Preston's face. The clouds swim in front of the sun till they block out the sun's light. Preston faces towards me.
“I'm gonna miss you Alexandria” he says
“You know you can just call me Alex,” I replied. I start to smile again. “I'll miss you too!" He smiles toward me again as we get up to leave as the clouds start to clump together and rain slowly falls. As we're walking back to the school there's a loud tearing sound followed by screams as the ground shakes.
The ground tears itself apart as the dirt and stone erupt from the ground. The sky blackens and a pale blue light escapes the earth. Then creatures erupt from the ground in a violent ejection from the earth creating a white pillar diffusing as they reach higher in the air. Some are clawing their way out of the cracks like maggots out of a corpse. People are swept into the updraft screaming for their lives.
The creatures descend like a tidal wave and tear apart any people caught in their path. They storm out of the crack in hundreds as more cracks in the earth form. Me and Preston started running away as people were screaming behind us. A girl running next to us has her legs slashed by a creature. The monster begins to tear open her chest as she chokes on her own blood. The monster shovels her lungs and innards into its decrepit mouth. Me and Preston keep running until we're met at the entrance of the school and we catch the attention of a monster as it begins to savagely rush toward us. The monster resembles ghosts my father told me about. But this one looks monstrously horrific. It floats in the air and opens its mouth so wide it nearly replaces its entire torso; its jaws hold savage teeth each the same old gray color of its body. Its eyes glow a rotten yellow color through the dark. It stretches out its arms showing its giant hands and claws like fingers. It swipes at us leaving a giant claw mark on the door behind us but Preston ducks my body down to avoid the attack. We run around it as the monster swaps its focus to another bystander. Screaming past us. Me and Preston run into the parking lot as people scream around us. We hide next to a car.
“What the hell is happening!?” I yell to Preston. More of the creatures fly over us and swoop down to people like vultures on roadkill devouring the fleeing people.
Preston starts to breathe heavily ”we need to get out of here and someplace safer”. As we were talking one of the monster phases through the car we were hiding next to forcing us to run into the street.
“Lets go to your house till things cool down” i say to Preston through panted breaths
“Wait couldn't we head to your house instead” Preston says.
“Why would that matter your house is closer anyways” i respond
“But-” Preston is interrupted by two creatures swooping above us to grab another person. The two monsters begin to pull the person apart while he writhes in pain before having his flesh be torn in half and having his organs be devoured.
“Come on lets go!!” I say as I grab his hand and run even faster.
By the time we reach Preston's house any living person is gone. On the street are just corpses laying torn and mutilated on the roads and sidewalk. The air in the neighborhood feels cold despite the season being summer. When I walk down the street I can still hear the occasional horrific wail the monsters give off. We move closer to Preston's house and I can see him sweating. He looked more worried than before when the creatures were chasing us and he kept darting his eyes away from his home.
“Preston, are you feeling okay?” he doesn't respond to my question and keeps darting his eyes. He walks slowly behind me and as I reach for the door handle and when I touch it it feels nearly freezing. I wrap my hoodie around my hand and slowly open the door. The house is quiet so me and Preston creep further into his house. The inside is cold and damp as if we were locked in a freezer. The further we move into the house the louder a subtle chewing sound is heard.
“It sounds like rats are eating a dead cow over there” I whisper. Preston continues to stay silent behind me. We slowly walk closer towards the kitchen and the sound gets louder and louder and louder until we reach the room.
We're met with a rancid smell of vomit and blood. My blood starts to run cold and every instinct in my body is telling me to run. I can feel Preston breathing get heavier as we get closer. We turn the corner and see Preston's mom lying on the ground dead with one of the creatures hunched over slurping her intestines. The sight causes me to vomit alerting the monster to our presence. The creature turns around and its mouth turns into a mortifying grin as it flies into Preston's moms body. The corpse begins to rise and spur splashing blood over the kitchen. When the corpse stops spasming it picks itself up from the ground and with glazed over eyes it holds its intestines in its hand and gives us the same grin it did when it was outside her body. The possessed corpse lunges at me and starts to chase me around the kitchen. The body is running into the walls and cabinets spraying its blood and other loose organs around the area as I'm avoiding its assault. The corpse leans over and ejects one of its loose intestines towards me, wrapping me in it. It pulls me towards it so fast I'm flung towards the ground. The corpse limbers over to me and raises its free hand aiming for my head. The creature's deranged smile causes the corpse’s cheeks to tear apart. It places both of its bloodied and demented hands on my face and starts to press my skull into the ground. I struggle to breathe. The room starts to get dark and blood escapes my head.
Until Preston jumps on top of his mothers corpse with a kitchen knife and repeatedly stabs it in the head. The possessed body tries to shake him off but he keeps stabbing, blood gets in on his face and tears start to escape his eyes. The creature violently ejects from the corpse's mouth causing her head to nearly explode and Preston stops stabbing the body. The body falls over in a splash of blood and organs. The monster leaves phasing through the roof leaving Preston crying over his mother's body. As the blood mixes with the tears he collapses to his knees crying. I walk over and hug him as the air around us turns bitter and the chill of death leaves the room and us with it.
Chapter 1 Eclipse
It's been 2 months since the apocalypse started. We've kept ourselves alive by looting grocery stores and houses, we hide from the creatures as we have no way to fight back against them. Preston came up with the idea to call them glanter’s. He’s looking better since we left his family home but I can tell something is wrong with him that he's not telling me. Everytime I ask him about it he tells me it's no big deal. I asked him earlier today and he just told me
“don't worry about it, I'm over it” without even looking at me. Now we're walking through the street and I'm walking behind Preston, I can barely see his head past the giant bag we're both carrying on our backs we use to carry supplies. I look up at the sky and it's still pitch black except for the moon giving us any amount of light. Preston turns around to face me.
“Let's check out that house, it might have some cool stuff in it” he points to a white house to our right. The house is a two story building with steps leading to the front door. There's a generator poking out from the backyard. The driveway is empty save for a couple of dried blood stains and tire marks. It's similar to the other houses in the neighborhood except for a couple broken windows.
“Sure why not” We head over to the house and I see something shining on the side of the house in the corner of my eye. I turn my head to look at it closer but it quickly disappears before I can see it clearly.
“Probably squirrel or something” I mumble to myself. Preston walks up the stairs to the house and I walk up the steps behind him as a breeze blows past my face. Preston tries to turn the door knob but the door is locked. I start to pull out a lockpick I grabbed at the store earlier. I motion towards Preston to move out of the way as I kneel down to pick the lock. It takes me a couple of minutes to unlock the door so I walk inside the house and Preston follows behind me while closing and locking the door. The doorway of the house leads to a dark room so I take a flashlight out of my bag to illuminate the area. Were put into the living room and bookshelves are on the walls and a large TV sat in front of a large black couch with smaller chairs surrounding it. Dust is covering every surface of the room and spiderwebs litter the corners of the walls. The area smells like moth balls and there's a lack of blood anywhere nearby.
“Guess the owners got out before the Glanter’s got in, '' I say to Preston. When he doesn't respond I turn around and he's already looking further into the house. When I find him he's managed to find a flight of stairs that lead to a lower portion of the house.
“I'll check on him later,” I think to myself as I headed towards the kitchen to see if we could restock on food. I walk past a bedroom and remark on how childish it looked. The walls were painted with blue and green stripes and a bunk bed sat on the right wall. There's a chest at the foot of the bed so I walk over and lift the top off of it. The box is layered with children's toys, a multitude of dolls, bears, and figures all jut out of the box. I notice a small robot toy and inspect it in my hands.
The cold metal makes my hand shiver and the sharp body shape makes the robot bigger than my hand. There's red lining around the robot's buttons surrounded by the cold gray of the robot's “skin”. It reminds me of a toy my little brother had. My heart feels heavy as I worry about what happened to my family. If they're alive, dead, or worse…possessed. The thoughts send a chill down my spine but I push them aside for now. I put the toy in my bag and exit the bedroom.
I can see the kitchen is down the hallway so I walk down the hall and enter. The kitchen is pretty clean except for a couple of dishes in the sink and the dust. There's a table seated for 3 people in the center of the room. I start opening the cabinets in search for any food or water. There's boxes of cereal leftover on top of shelves and a mix of chip bags and cookies in neat boxes stationed in the cabinets.
“Score,” I say to myself as I begin to put the snacks into my bag. When the cabinets are empty I look inside the fridge. The inside of the fridge ran out of power so most of the food inside is rotted. There are a couple of bottles of water in the front so I shove those in my bag. There's also a bag of oranges that still seem to be healthy in the back. I grab them and toss them on the table. There's rotten sandwich meat hidden in the drawer of the fridge.it smells like a dumpster outside of a butcher shop. I wrinkle my nose at the smell. I look around the kitchen for any bread with no luck.
I continue to look through the fridge until I hear Preston scream from another room. Immediately I bolt out of the kitchen leaving my bag behind and run towards the lower part of the house. I run down the stairs and nearly trip on the steps. The stairs lead to a big room. There are posters to tv shows and movies I don't recognize. The walls are painted black and there's a bear skin rug on the floor. I notice Preston standing next to a really big TV hyperventilating. I walk over to him and ask him.
“Are you ok? What happened?”
He talks through deep breaths “I… saw a… spider.”
“What?!” I respond in confusion.
“It was really big and I had jumped at my face”
“Sure it was.” I say while laughing “Let's go upstairs there's some food in the fridge we can eat”
“Wait, I think you should check this out.” He says while pointing towards one of the walls. I grab Preston's flashlight off the floor and face it towards the wall. Hanging halfway off the wall is a large map labeled Newkiwana scavenger hunt of 76.
“I think we should take it,” Preston says “You can read a map right?”
“A little but I'm not the best at it,” I say to him “can you read a map?”
“it shouldn’t be too hard it’s mainly pictures any way I'm sure I can figure it out”
I walk over to the wall where the map is hung there are trophies covering tables and shelved in their own personal cases one of them reads “1st place 100-meter swimming competition for 1986 Zack Hemmingway” and another one reads “2nd place 100-meter swimming competition for 1989 Zack Hemmingway”
“Guess this guy really liked swimming,” Preston remarks while staring at a wall of newspaper clippings. All of them are about the same person in swimming competitions. All labeled different things like “a new record for Zack “the dolphin” Hemmingway”,
‘Zach Hemmingway our star plans for the future” all the newspapers are about this kind he has paler skin and a bulky enough build to swim pretty well. Most of the pictures have him coming out of the water in a pool, his long black hair soaked and sitting at his shoulders. Another one has him sitting at a desk over a pile of books and his hair in a knot , “vicious wipeout ends the Dolphins career”, and “ex-swim champ Zack Hemmingway found in a drunken stupor outside strip club.
“Everyone has their own hobbies I guess,” I say as I take the map off of the wall and fold it up. “Sucks what happened to Zack though” I walked over to Preston’s bag and put the rolled map in one of the pockets. I walk back up the stairs and Preston grabs his bag and follows behind me.
We make our way towards the kitchen and Preston starts looking through the fridge for anything to eat. I grab an orange from the table and throw it at his head. The fruit bounces off his head and rolls on the floor. He turns around and grabs the fruit from the floor
“Why did you throw an orange at me?”
“It's the only food we have unless you plan on eating spoiled a sandwich“ He starts to peel it while walking towards the table. We both take a seat and start to eat the oranges from the bag. He plants his feet on top of the table and bites into the fully peeled orange. I grab a water bottle from a bag and start to drink from it as Preston says.
“I saw a dvd player in that man cave downstairs we could watch a movie if it still has power”
“Sure it could be fun.” Me and Preston spend the rest of our time eating until the bag of oranges is emptied and we head back downstairs. Preston grabs the DVD player from under the table and blows the dust off the top of it; he plugs it into the wall as I plop myself onto the couch. He plugs the DVD player into the TV and sits on the recliner next to me. He presses a few buttons on the remote and the TV lights up. I squint my eyes at how bright it is. It's the most amount of light I've seen that didn't come from a flashlight. I notice there's a box filled with DVDs. I pull the box over towards me. I ruffle through the box and see movies like Silence of the Lambs, Terminator 2, and Home alone.
“Dude some of these came out just before the world turned inside out” I say to him.
“Really? Let's play one.” He responds. I toss him Terminator 2 and he puts it into the DVD player.
We spend the next couple hours watching movies and laughing together. It's some of our only moments of peace we’ve had since the end of the world and to me it's the most fun I've had yet. We're putting in the next DVD when there's a loud crash outside and the TV shuts off. Preston goes behind it to see if it's still plugged in.
“I think the generator outside is busted” i say
“It seems that way” Preston replies while backing away from the tv” i'm gonna go check it out”
“Don't worry I got it” I say as I hop out of my chair. Preston waves goodbye as I head up the stairs. I make my way back through the hallway leading to the living room and front door. I reach the door and start to turn the knob. I open the door wide as a car speeds down the street. I step out of the door to see what had happened when I hear the screech of a glanter. It cuts through the sky like an unholy opera singer. A group of them fly by and chase the car as I rush back inside the house. I slam the door shut and look through the window as I see a couple of smaller glanters grab and shake the car violently looking for the driver. They tear at it, ripping off doors and breaking the windows. The driver screams as the seats cover with blood and he's ripped out of the car as multiple smaller glanters tear and bite off parts of his body like piranha's until his body is completely devoured. I run back to the man cave to warn Preston about what had happened. I spot him laying in his chair spinning a DVD disc on his finger.
“It's not safe outside right now”
“Why not?
“There's glanter's outside, they just ate a dude in his car”
“Did they see you come inside?”
“I don't think so , they flew off before I went inside.”
“well we're not dead so I'm gonna say they didn't see you. But let's stay here for a couple more hours just to be safe”
“Sounds good i'm gonna go find the master bedroom.” I start to walk back up the stairs to the house
“ Hold on why do you get the master bedroom” Preston says while walking after me.
“Because I'm gonna find it first” I say as I start to run to find the bedroom. He chases after me in pursuit of the bedroom. Me and Preston run around the house looking for the master bedroom. We look through room after room finding closets, the garage, a bathroom and a door leading to a balcony in the back of the house. I manage to run into the bedroom and yell out to Preston.``Found it!!”
He comes walking into the room breathing heavily from the running. We both check out the room. The walls are painted a cream yellow and the bed takes up most of the room's center. The bed has burgundy sheets poking out from its bottom and a quilt with multi-colored floral designs lay sprawled out on top of it. There's a wardrobe built into the wall and a black leather couch sits comfortably on the left wall.
“Dibs on the bed” I say as I jump on top of it. I stretch out on top of the quilt and search for a comfortable part to sleep in.
“Where am I supposed to sleep then?” Preston complains
“You can sleep on the couch it looks soft enough” I respond while pointing towards the couch “I saw some spare blankets in one of the closets”
“Alright i’ll be right back” he mumbles to himself “why do i always get the couch”
“ I'll be right here if you need me,” i call after him. I sit up on the bed and start to look around the room more. I notice the entrance to the wardrobe is cracked open slightly. I hop out of the bed and grab a flashlight from my bag as I walk into the wardrobe. I turn on my flashlight and stare in awe at how many clothes are in there. The room is only half as big as the bedroom but it's still bigger than any closet I've ever had. The wardrobe is full of shirts, dresses, pants, and shoes for men and women. I immediately start to look through the shoes to see if any fit my size. I throw a pair of black high heels behind me as Preston finds me in the wardrobe. He looks around before asking me.
“What are you doing?”
“Finding a new pair of clothes to wear cause I've been wearing the same pair of jeans for waaaaay too long”
“Fair enough. Is there any guy stuff in there?”
“Yeah right there” I hook my thumb behind me to point to the other end of the closet.
“I'm sure they won't mind if we take a couple of things…they're probably dead by now anyways,” Preston says with a slight grin on his face. The way he said made me spin my head to look at him but he was already on the opposite end of the wardrobe looking at suits.
I shake away the thought and continue looking for any pair of sneakers in my size. 40 minutes pass before I walk out of the wardrobe holding a new pair of jeans and a black guns-N-roses t-shirt. I toss the clothes on top of the bed and check to see if the shower in the bathroom still works. I turn the dial and wait for a moment. The shower head chokes a little before water comes pouring out. I reach my hand under the showerhead to feel the water. The water is cold, it causes my hand to shiver when I take it out. I shake the water off and say to myself.
“Good enough” as I start to take off my old clothes and get in the shower. The cold water bounces off my skin, it sends shivers down my spine but I still get the old dirt from the last few months off of me. I step out and see a couple of dry towels hanging off of the door. I grab one and dry my body off and grab another to wrap around my head and dry my hair. I step out of the bathroom and Preston is still inside the wardrobe. I put on my new clothes while his back is turned and walk over towards him when I'm finished.
“Still haven't found anything,” I ask him
He turns around “Nothing yet, the only thing interesting was this coat.” He holds a leather coat up to me. The coat is made of black leather and has a skull covered with blue flames on the back. There's a black shirt inside the coat with a skeleton hand making a thumbs-up embroidered on the front.
“ That's pretty cool, it's better than what you're wearing right now at least” he's outfitted in a blue hoodie with holes on the chest and tears at the sleeves. He also has a shirt with a faded picture of a blue flower printed on it.
“I guess you're right” he gets up from the floor and exits the wardrobe. He lays the clothes on the couch along next to the blanket and pillow he brought into the room.
“The shower works so you can get yourself clean In there,” I say to him
“You know, a shower sounds really good right now.” He gets up from the floor and grabs a pair of pajama pants that were laying next to him. He leaves the wardrobe and enters the bathroom, closing the door behind him. After a moment the water turns on and I hop on the bed to get ready to sleep. I squirm myself into the quilt and rest my head against one of the pillows. I shut my eyes and fall asleep listening to the passive sound of the shower like rain on a car.
I'm in a void. It feels like I'm standing in a puddle of water that reaches to my knees. I wade my way forward looking around for anything in the darkness. In the distance I can see 3 figures l. I moved closer to them and their silhouettes get clearer. I realize they are my dad and brothers. I start to run towards them kicking up water behind me until something grabs my leg. It pulls down violently forcing me under the water without a breath of air. I kick at the thing grabbing me until something grabs my other leg. I look down and see two glanter's each with a monstrous smile on their faces. They stare back at me and one of them tugs my leg harder than before and tears it off of my body. The water around me turns red as the glanter laugh's. The other smiles wider as it starts to fling me around the water forcing any air left in my lungs to be forced out as I scream in pain. The glanter throws me away and I can see my family slowly fade into the distance as I'm flown away.
I struggle to swim back to where I was, one of my legs is missing and the other is broken. The glanter's find me again and I try to get to the surface to escape them. I'm flapping my arms in any attempt to escape as one of the glanter's flies in front of me and grabs my arm. I look at the monster with tears in my eyes as it bites my arm and tears my body away from it. It flings my body away and with my remaining arm I clutch the wound as the water floods into my body leaving me in the void I started in. I look around and the glanter's seem to have left. I turn behind me and see my family again, this time I'm closer than before.
I grit my teeth and drag my body towards them slowly as I leave a trail of blood and tears behind me. I finally reach my family and grab one of my father's shoes. I stare up and he looks at me. His stare causes me to feel cold as a grotesque smile grows on his face. I stare in shock as my brothers each have the same look as my father.
I shoot up from my sleep panting heavily in a cold sweat.
“It was just a dream..just a dream…just a dream” I look at my hands as tears fall into them. I look around the room and see Preston sleeping peacefully on the couch. The room feels frozen in place as a chill runs down my spine. I get out of the bed and walk out of the bedroom. I make my way through the dark hallway and find the entrance to the balcony I saw earlier. I creak open the screen door and head outside. The Balcony is pretty large, about the size of the kitchen in the house. There are some chairs knocked over next to a table and I pick one up to sit on it. I look out into the expanse of the neighborhood, houses lined up next to each other, dozens broken apart by roads, and dead bodies scattered across the roads.
I look up in the sky and sit back in the chair. The sky looks empty except for the moon giving this world its only source of light. Without the moon, we’d be left in darkness. It hangs in the sky alone, no stars, no clouds, nothing but itself, and the void of the sky. I think back about the dream I had. My dad and my brother's all dead and possessed and then they kill me. I start to tear up thinking about it. I try to wipe away the tears but it’s no use. I'm too scared for my family. I don't know where they are if they're alive if they're worried about me I don't know anything! I start to quietly cry into my hands. I don't know how long I'm sitting there until I feel a hand on my shoulder. I turn my head to face it and I see Preston. He was smiling and looking at me. I turn away to wipe my tears and he walks next to me.
“I heard you sneaking out of the bedroom so I followed you to see where you were going.” he says “but that's not my question.” he pauses and looks at me “my question is what’s got you feeling so down?” he leans over the railing of the balcony
“It's nothing, I just came out here to clear my head.” I say as more tears escape from my eyes in big slow drops that ride down the sides of my face.
“if you don't feel like telling me you don't have to but i'll be here if you ever change your mind”. He looks up at the moon before turning to face me and his smile widens “I'll always be here with you…trust me I'm not going anywhere”
I stare up at him and wipe away my tears as a smile grows on my face to match his. I get up and stare over the balcony with him. “So where are we heading next?” I say to him, Preston pulls the map we got from the man cave downstairs out from his pocket.
“After I got out of the shower I decided to take a look at the map for anything interesting we could see.”
“Ok did you find anything?” i ask
“I did,” he points at a spot on the right of the map. “We should head to the museum”
“I didn't want to go to a museum before the apocalypse why would i want to go now?'' I ask him.
“Well the best part of museums is the cool stuff right”
“Yeah what about it”
“The only problem is that you could only look at the fossils and armor but you could never take them.”
“So you want to rob a museum?” Prestons eyes light up at the question
“Exactly they might have a really cool sword I could use, or I could sharpen a dinosaur tooth and use that as a weapon, there might be a cursed shield that can summon the dead to fight for you. This opportunity is too good to pass up. We need to go!”
“That does seem pretty cool but wouldn't carrying that stuff weigh us down. What if a glanter is chasing us and we can't run fast enough because of the stuff we took from the museum.”
“We’ll only take things that are light. Even then I could just block the glanter with my newly acquired 2000 year old shield.”
“Fair enough we can go in a couple hours” I yawn and stretch out my arms. “Cause I'm feeling way too tired to walk all the way over there right now.”
“Alright i'm heading back to my couch and THEN we’ll head out to the museum” he leaves the balcony and heads back to the master bedroom leaving me alone on the balcony.
“Thanks Preston I'm not leaving either” I say into the sky. I turn around and walk back inside the house, closing the balcony door behind me. I walk back into the bedroom and Preston is hunched over and holding a flashlight looking at the map. He’s drawing lines through roads and marking X’s in different areas.
“What are the X’s for?” i ask him
“They’re places that glanter’s usually stay around. I'm marking them off so we remember not to go through them, or at least be more cautious.”
“Cool. Did you find where we are right now?” He points to an area where the lines all converge out of.
“Right around here is where the neighborhood ends. So if we follow this path we can make it to the museum in one piece” I pat him on the back and take the map from his hands.
“Get some sleep Preston, we have a full day tomorrow” he grins to himself before laying down on the couch. I put the map back into my bag and hop on the bed to get to sleep. I cover my body in the quilt and roll over facing away from Preston as he falls asleep. I nestle myself into the bed and slowly fall asleep to get ready for the next day.
I'm awoken by Preston shaking the bed I'm sleeping on. My eyes open and the room is foggy, I wipe away the sleep from my eyes and focus my attention towards Preston. He's practically jumping out of his skin with excitement, he's already fully dressed for the trip and shaking the bed with a wide smile on his face.
“Ok ok i'm up the air feels heavy as a groggy feeling fills my body. I wipe my eyes and the room starts to clear up. I turn to face Preston. He's still shaking my bed to wake me up, he’s already fully dressed and nearly jumping out of his skin in excitement.
“Ok ok, i'm up you can stop shaking the bed” i say
“Then get up we’ve got a long walk ahead of us” he says as he stops shaking the mattress. He grabs the map from my bag and points to one of the red lines.
“We're gonna follow this way to the museum. We’ll move past the hotel around the ice skating rink and around the park. We’ll mainly stick to walking through the streets, we might have to go rooftop hopping to avoid any glanter’s if we see them but i'm sure we won’t reach that point.” he explains
“Wait, wait, wait, why are avoiding the skating rink and the park” i ask
“ everytime we go near the park there's weird noises and light coming out of it”
“And why can't we go to the ice skating rink?”
“I didn't think it would be important”
“It couldn't hurt to check it out at least”
“Fine we could make a detour”
“Ok and how do you plan on getting on top of roofs?”
“I'm sure we'll figure it out when we get to it”
“Ok man as long as you’re sure '' I yawn and step out of the bed. Preston starts to put the map in his bag. I walk into the bathroom with my clothes and change out of my pajamas. Minutes later I walk out and see Preston sitting on the couch twiddling his thumbs.
“Finally you're out” he smiles at me before handing me my bag and slinging it over his shoulder. We took a last look inside the kitchen to see if we missed anything. Afterwards we leave for the outside. The cold air bites at my face but Preston walks down the stairs, his face buried in the map. I jog to catch up to him as we both head into the street.
“Hey Preston, could I see the map?”
“Sure” he hands over the map and continues walking. I look at the map and the numerous lines drawn on roads. I look at the corner of the map and notice a small map key with numerous symbols for different areas like a library, school, hospital, and more. There's even a way to tell how far away each location is. The text reads “1 inch=5 miles” I quickly count how far we are from the museum.
“Dude this museum is like 100 miles away.”
“Yep it'll be a long walk, it'll take us a while to get there”
“Did you plan on us walking there the whole time?”
“We might find bikes or something.” he pauses “well i did think we would walk the whole way”
“This is gonna take us weeks to get there!”
“Did you have anything else planned?”
“Well…i guess not but we should still try to find some bikes or something”
“Ok if we see any way to travel faster we’ll take it”
“Alright cool” I hand him the map back and he folds it back up and puts it in his bag. We walk further until we leave the gated neighborhood we started in. Preston takes the map back out and looks at it before he turns right and continues walking. I follow him staring forward at the expanse of the road. The outside of the neighborhood is surrounded by roads all leading to different parts of Newkinawa. We walk past a sign that reads “Coretown 20 miles ahead” I nudge Preston towards the sign and he checks the map again.
“Yep, the museum’s in Coretown. Would you believe the residents were pretty proud of it. Should be a fun place to explore” he says
“Yeah but it’ll take us a million years to get there.” i complain
“Lighten up, I'm sure it will be worth it”. We continue walking down the road slowly making our way to Coretown.
2024.05.29 04:23 Stunning-Ad-5224 Just enclose the grease with a thin layer of wood paneling cut to size.
Encase the greasey mess with some thin wall panrling. Then cover that with newspaper or news print. Or old used sheets that you can launder every 4-6 months! Plus, get a decent exhaust fan that is vented to the out doors! And if you have a 36 inch stove get a 40 inch fan!!! A 40 inch stove, get a 44 inch exhaust fan for best results!
submitted by Stunning-Ad-5224 to CleaningTips [link] [comments]
2024.05.29 04:19 DCEUTourist DeScribe [Time Loop LitRPG]
Chapter 1
“Huff, huff”
Zhong Lin inhaled the heavy gray mist surrounding him, sizzling his already sore lungs. The rancid, musty air did little to soften his scowl aimed at the colossal slab of gravestone. The waning blue moon above casted eerie shadows on the ground, seemingly mocking his desperation.
A reckless punch born out of rage landed on the hard granite. But the carvings of incomprehensible beings responded with little other than broken nerves and muscles.
“HAHAHAHHAHA”
With a loud laugh of self-derision, he roughly fell on the cold, cobbled floor. The chest injury he had forgotten about flared up with the fall. He stared at the blood that flowed from his chest, akin to a river slithering down a mountain, dyeing the floor crimson.
He moved his right hand towards his chest, holding down on the wound. Physical pain was still more bearable than the heart. He had been long used to the pain. Both of heart and body.
“All that for nothing.”
A dispirited mutter left his parched lips as blood and sweat melded together. Divine sense showed his nascent soul in a similar state to his body. As the Qi and Blood competed to leave him, a strong dizziness assaulted his senses, spinning even the azure moon above.
He pulled out a jar with only one red pill left inside.
*Crunch*
Brisk chewing gave life to the hollow, misty temple of death as he gnawed on his final pill. He knew it was futile. When the slab showed no response, he already had a hunch that all his efforts were for naught. Yet, if living a mere moment would increase his non-existent odds, he would seize that moment with everything. He lost too much to stop here.
“You were wrong, father. Trying is never enough.”
Reminiscing about his lives, he couldn’t help but wonder how everything had gone so awry. When he transmigrated to this world, he thought he could redo everything.
A second, no, his first, proper chance at life.
And he had to admit, he had gotten lucky. A loving family. A shed above his head. A heart full of warmth. Brought by the simple act of his mother brushing his hair. By stern reprimands of his father as his sister laughed from behind. But that gave away to the question, had he been a bit too lucky?
“I am sorry, Rin. Your big brother is a coward.”
They say that your life flashes past your eyes before you meet your end. He could not confirm it in his last life, perhaps because he did not have a life worth remembering, but now he could see it clearly.
A scene that frequented him in his nightmares.
It was midnight when the mournful shrieks broke him out of dreams. He sat up to muffled screams, fizzling out, one after another. Even the unending darkness of night was eclipsed by an emerald hue, bleeding into his room from the small crevices of the windows.
From an interstice he watched the man in black robe. With a glowing blade, the dark figure painted the snow in crimson. He saw his father among them, kneeling. A warning in his eyes met his own. And he raced like hell itself chased him, away from the nauseating scent of blood.
And quickly hid inside the house, going away from his room. As fear grasped his soul, the realization hit, his sister was still sleeping, unaware of the carnage outside. Before he could reach out, a footstep froze him, burning him with a primal fear. Only a small, sleepy “Big brother?” reached him, before his heartbeats taking over once again.
But fear whispered at him, to not breathe, to not move, to not go. And he caved in to it, paralyzed, until the screams stopped and the morning sun shone. Only then did he go out, finding her there, lying peacefully.
Only, a bit of perplexity in her azure eyes, which had long lost all semblance of life. Her eyes would continue to stare at him, every night.
Like they did right now as his vision blurred.
“I am sorry, Rin. It should have been me.”
He croaked. There is no pill for regret. Like a gut punch it hit. Often, he wondered why he had been left alive. Before, he thought it was due to him hiding well, but only later did he know that he was spared. After all, there was nowhere to hide from a divine sense.
Sound sleep became a thing of luxury from then on as nightmares took over. Thus, a ten-year-old made revenge his life goal.
But it did not take him long to realize that smarts could not overpower those with the strength to break mountains. Hence, he ran after power, meticulously scheming. Ten years a valet of nobles. Hundreds a slave to immortals. Thousands of years of cultivation. Only to find an answer to one question.
Why was he spared on the night of snowfall?
But efforts matter less where talent is venerated. What took him years took the man of his nightmares a day to accomplish. And by the time Zhong Lin reached nascent soul, his figure of vengeance had long surpassed him by an impossible margin. And he despaired, for as long as he remembered.
Until Requiem landed on his hand, that is. A book of a God long forgotten. A different path to power, beyond what immortals could ever hope to accomplish. And he did whatever the book told him. For that was his only hope.
He found the missing pieces, assembled them, piece by piece. Hiding, running, stealing, slaughtering. Funnily enough. all his efforts only led to him creating his own burial. Perhaps it was karma. Slowly, He felt impending death crawling on his skin as the smell of blood got thicker and thicker.
Faintly, a sound of footsteps could be heard from afar. The firm noise of boots steadily made its way, like death. Inevitable.
Zhong mustered all his remaining strength to stand up, amplifying the dizziness. He had a faint idea of what approached him.
He who led him to the pit of hell.
A black silhouette wearing a gray overcoat slowly emerged from the haze of mist, holding a yellow lantern in his hand. Yet, all the light avoided his visage, scattering before reaching the inky blackness.
“To be honest, I never imagined that you would actually manage to find it yourself.” Zhong Lin’s face crumbled as he listened to the deep, gruff voice mocking him, but he had little to return to the derision reaching his ears. “I must thank you for saving me the trouble.”
Zhong Lin numbly gazed at the figure that went beyond his understanding. A being made of the vast cosmos. Hands made of stars, a face that resembled eternal darkness.
“Sorry. Kid. There was never any inheritance.” Zhong Lin listened to the voice that sounded like a death sentence. In his journey, he had considered many times a question, What if he does not get the inheritance? But he never considered that there was no inheritance to begin with. But all the despair only left as the haze cleared, and a profound numbness filled all that was hollow in his heart.
“Kid” A soft voice reached the ears of the listless Zhong Lin. He watched the inky black around the cosmic figure leave as he brought the lantern up. But more than that familiar voice and face, what brought him more despair is the one single line. “Do you remember the night of snowfall?”
No. It could not have been that early!
His face scrunched up, forming an expression of madness again, his knuckles cracking as they turned white. “Old hermit.” He whispered. He finally connected all the dots. It was not just after he got Requiem. For his entire life, he was but a simple pawn. Chess piece right from the very start of his journey. A mantis unaware of the oriole behind.
No wonder. The only reason why he managed to survive the impossible odds so far was because a higher being was aiding him. He attributed the random burst of luck and lucky encounters to destiny, thinking the world itself wanted him to succeed. How foolish of him when fate has done nothing but mock him.
He stared at the peaceful face of an old hermit; someone he had known for ages. His benefactor, a lifesaver many times,. “Kid, don’t misunderstand. It was never personal.”
“Why?” A quivering voice escaped Zhong Lin’s lips as all of his expression left his face, leaving numbness occupying it once again.
“Why was I spared?” He stared at the being that seemed eternal by now once again, with a black face, hands like the cosmos holding onto a lantern.
Old hermit laughed at the question. “Would you believe me if I said everything was merely a coincidence?”
Zhong Lin watched the burning golden eyes on his eternal black visage peek at his soul. Unfeeling, cold, relishing in his nightmare, refusing to fulfill even his final wish.
And he decided, right there.
The runic seals around his soul unchained as he quickly compressed the Qi on the bead, something he had been keeping inside his soul for a long while. The thunder and fire souls mixed together, creating a mad frenzy of Qi inside him. Soon, all seven souls were burning madly, before destroying themselves within seconds, like an avalanche of Qi.
*BOOOOOOMMMMMM*
The nascent soul destruction created a feint as he propelled the bead forward, to the middle of the gravestone, to the piece he had forged himself. He watched with his dimming divine sense as the bead slowly made its way with a bit of hope, to destroy one of the stones, to stop whatever his plan was.
But right before the bead could reach it. Hermit waved his hand, stopping all the chaotic movement of Qi and soul. Zhong Lin’s final bit of hope died out as he reached his eternal end.
“Almost succeeded. But you were too desperate.” The hermit laughed as he watched the desperate Zhong Lin’s final attempt. Walking towards the frozen bead, he stared at the brewing Qi that would have certainly taken down the entire temple if it hit. .
“And even if you damaged it, it would have only brought me a mild inconvenience.” He ran his fingers on the gravestone, muttering softly. A laughter of elation resounded in the empty hall as he brought out a key from his overcoat. As soon as the key reached the stone, a small hole opened up, like it was made for it. With a clink, the rectangular slab of granite transformed, into a small, unassuming olden black book.
A single ancient word was written on the black cover.
Requiem
“Right? Requiem.”
He stared at the bloody mess caused by the splattered organs and blood on the stone walls. Although he protected himself and Requiem, he shared not that feeling about the old temple of death. He gazed at the detonated Qi that intermixed with the soul energy, all seven souls had been unchained and intermixed.
“Did not even leave yourself a path out for reincarnation. But, kid, you may have chosen well.”
A sigh escaped his lips as he walked off into the dark maws of the door. As he left the temple, it broke down, piece by piece. The large pillars slowly slid underground like it were submerging in water, along with the rest of the temple, disappearing like it never existed, taking with it Zhong Lin's remains. From now on, the old temple of death will have never existed, alongside Zhong Lin.
Or that’s what was supposed to happen.
But an anomalous corruption in time and space was brewing,
submitted by DCEUTourist to HFY [link] [comments]
“Huff, huff”
Zhong Lin inhaled the heavy gray mist surrounding him, sizzling his already sore lungs. The rancid, musty air did little to soften his scowl aimed at the colossal slab of gravestone. The waning blue moon above casted eerie shadows on the ground, seemingly mocking his desperation.
A reckless punch born out of rage landed on the hard granite. But the carvings of incomprehensible beings responded with little other than broken nerves and muscles.
“HAHAHAHHAHA”
With a loud laugh of self-derision, he roughly fell on the cold, cobbled floor. The chest injury he had forgotten about flared up with the fall. He stared at the blood that flowed from his chest, akin to a river slithering down a mountain, dyeing the floor crimson.
He moved his right hand towards his chest, holding down on the wound. Physical pain was still more bearable than the heart. He had been long used to the pain. Both of heart and body.
“All that for nothing.”
A dispirited mutter left his parched lips as blood and sweat melded together. Divine sense showed his nascent soul in a similar state to his body. As the Qi and Blood competed to leave him, a strong dizziness assaulted his senses, spinning even the azure moon above.
He pulled out a jar with only one red pill left inside.
*Crunch*
Brisk chewing gave life to the hollow, misty temple of death as he gnawed on his final pill. He knew it was futile. When the slab showed no response, he already had a hunch that all his efforts were for naught. Yet, if living a mere moment would increase his non-existent odds, he would seize that moment with everything. He lost too much to stop here.
“You were wrong, father. Trying is never enough.”
Reminiscing about his lives, he couldn’t help but wonder how everything had gone so awry. When he transmigrated to this world, he thought he could redo everything.
A second, no, his first, proper chance at life.
And he had to admit, he had gotten lucky. A loving family. A shed above his head. A heart full of warmth. Brought by the simple act of his mother brushing his hair. By stern reprimands of his father as his sister laughed from behind. But that gave away to the question, had he been a bit too lucky?
“I am sorry, Rin. Your big brother is a coward.”
They say that your life flashes past your eyes before you meet your end. He could not confirm it in his last life, perhaps because he did not have a life worth remembering, but now he could see it clearly.
A scene that frequented him in his nightmares.
It was midnight when the mournful shrieks broke him out of dreams. He sat up to muffled screams, fizzling out, one after another. Even the unending darkness of night was eclipsed by an emerald hue, bleeding into his room from the small crevices of the windows.
From an interstice he watched the man in black robe. With a glowing blade, the dark figure painted the snow in crimson. He saw his father among them, kneeling. A warning in his eyes met his own. And he raced like hell itself chased him, away from the nauseating scent of blood.
And quickly hid inside the house, going away from his room. As fear grasped his soul, the realization hit, his sister was still sleeping, unaware of the carnage outside. Before he could reach out, a footstep froze him, burning him with a primal fear. Only a small, sleepy “Big brother?” reached him, before his heartbeats taking over once again.
But fear whispered at him, to not breathe, to not move, to not go. And he caved in to it, paralyzed, until the screams stopped and the morning sun shone. Only then did he go out, finding her there, lying peacefully.
Only, a bit of perplexity in her azure eyes, which had long lost all semblance of life. Her eyes would continue to stare at him, every night.
Like they did right now as his vision blurred.
“I am sorry, Rin. It should have been me.”
He croaked. There is no pill for regret. Like a gut punch it hit. Often, he wondered why he had been left alive. Before, he thought it was due to him hiding well, but only later did he know that he was spared. After all, there was nowhere to hide from a divine sense.
Sound sleep became a thing of luxury from then on as nightmares took over. Thus, a ten-year-old made revenge his life goal.
But it did not take him long to realize that smarts could not overpower those with the strength to break mountains. Hence, he ran after power, meticulously scheming. Ten years a valet of nobles. Hundreds a slave to immortals. Thousands of years of cultivation. Only to find an answer to one question.
Why was he spared on the night of snowfall?
But efforts matter less where talent is venerated. What took him years took the man of his nightmares a day to accomplish. And by the time Zhong Lin reached nascent soul, his figure of vengeance had long surpassed him by an impossible margin. And he despaired, for as long as he remembered.
Until Requiem landed on his hand, that is. A book of a God long forgotten. A different path to power, beyond what immortals could ever hope to accomplish. And he did whatever the book told him. For that was his only hope.
He found the missing pieces, assembled them, piece by piece. Hiding, running, stealing, slaughtering. Funnily enough. all his efforts only led to him creating his own burial. Perhaps it was karma. Slowly, He felt impending death crawling on his skin as the smell of blood got thicker and thicker.
Faintly, a sound of footsteps could be heard from afar. The firm noise of boots steadily made its way, like death. Inevitable.
Zhong mustered all his remaining strength to stand up, amplifying the dizziness. He had a faint idea of what approached him.
He who led him to the pit of hell.
A black silhouette wearing a gray overcoat slowly emerged from the haze of mist, holding a yellow lantern in his hand. Yet, all the light avoided his visage, scattering before reaching the inky blackness.
“To be honest, I never imagined that you would actually manage to find it yourself.” Zhong Lin’s face crumbled as he listened to the deep, gruff voice mocking him, but he had little to return to the derision reaching his ears. “I must thank you for saving me the trouble.”
Zhong Lin numbly gazed at the figure that went beyond his understanding. A being made of the vast cosmos. Hands made of stars, a face that resembled eternal darkness.
“Sorry. Kid. There was never any inheritance.” Zhong Lin listened to the voice that sounded like a death sentence. In his journey, he had considered many times a question, What if he does not get the inheritance? But he never considered that there was no inheritance to begin with. But all the despair only left as the haze cleared, and a profound numbness filled all that was hollow in his heart.
“Kid” A soft voice reached the ears of the listless Zhong Lin. He watched the inky black around the cosmic figure leave as he brought the lantern up. But more than that familiar voice and face, what brought him more despair is the one single line. “Do you remember the night of snowfall?”
No. It could not have been that early!
His face scrunched up, forming an expression of madness again, his knuckles cracking as they turned white. “Old hermit.” He whispered. He finally connected all the dots. It was not just after he got Requiem. For his entire life, he was but a simple pawn. Chess piece right from the very start of his journey. A mantis unaware of the oriole behind.
No wonder. The only reason why he managed to survive the impossible odds so far was because a higher being was aiding him. He attributed the random burst of luck and lucky encounters to destiny, thinking the world itself wanted him to succeed. How foolish of him when fate has done nothing but mock him.
He stared at the peaceful face of an old hermit; someone he had known for ages. His benefactor, a lifesaver many times,. “Kid, don’t misunderstand. It was never personal.”
“Why?” A quivering voice escaped Zhong Lin’s lips as all of his expression left his face, leaving numbness occupying it once again.
“Why was I spared?” He stared at the being that seemed eternal by now once again, with a black face, hands like the cosmos holding onto a lantern.
Old hermit laughed at the question. “Would you believe me if I said everything was merely a coincidence?”
Zhong Lin watched the burning golden eyes on his eternal black visage peek at his soul. Unfeeling, cold, relishing in his nightmare, refusing to fulfill even his final wish.
And he decided, right there.
The runic seals around his soul unchained as he quickly compressed the Qi on the bead, something he had been keeping inside his soul for a long while. The thunder and fire souls mixed together, creating a mad frenzy of Qi inside him. Soon, all seven souls were burning madly, before destroying themselves within seconds, like an avalanche of Qi.
*BOOOOOOMMMMMM*
The nascent soul destruction created a feint as he propelled the bead forward, to the middle of the gravestone, to the piece he had forged himself. He watched with his dimming divine sense as the bead slowly made its way with a bit of hope, to destroy one of the stones, to stop whatever his plan was.
But right before the bead could reach it. Hermit waved his hand, stopping all the chaotic movement of Qi and soul. Zhong Lin’s final bit of hope died out as he reached his eternal end.
“Almost succeeded. But you were too desperate.” The hermit laughed as he watched the desperate Zhong Lin’s final attempt. Walking towards the frozen bead, he stared at the brewing Qi that would have certainly taken down the entire temple if it hit. .
“And even if you damaged it, it would have only brought me a mild inconvenience.” He ran his fingers on the gravestone, muttering softly. A laughter of elation resounded in the empty hall as he brought out a key from his overcoat. As soon as the key reached the stone, a small hole opened up, like it was made for it. With a clink, the rectangular slab of granite transformed, into a small, unassuming olden black book.
A single ancient word was written on the black cover.
Requiem
“Right? Requiem.”
He stared at the bloody mess caused by the splattered organs and blood on the stone walls. Although he protected himself and Requiem, he shared not that feeling about the old temple of death. He gazed at the detonated Qi that intermixed with the soul energy, all seven souls had been unchained and intermixed.
“Did not even leave yourself a path out for reincarnation. But, kid, you may have chosen well.”
A sigh escaped his lips as he walked off into the dark maws of the door. As he left the temple, it broke down, piece by piece. The large pillars slowly slid underground like it were submerging in water, along with the rest of the temple, disappearing like it never existed, taking with it Zhong Lin's remains. From now on, the old temple of death will have never existed, alongside Zhong Lin.
Or that’s what was supposed to happen.
But an anomalous corruption in time and space was brewing,
2024.05.29 04:11 soupyquestionablewet Help on General Pricing?
 | My husband and I built these planters and put in the rocks 4 years ago on one side and 3 years ago on the other (first 3 pics). We were only able to add soil and plants to the first side when we did. Not to get all into my sob story, but I have been experiencing some severe health issues for the last year and a half, so our once beautiful planters now look atrocious (last 9 pics are what they look like today 😞). How much would someone generally charge to clean something like this up? As in: submitted by soupyquestionablewet to landscaping [link] [comments]
|
2024.05.29 04:07 apehasreturned Booking the AEW World Title in 2024 - Part Two: The Master
 | Part One Here! submitted by apehasreturned to FantasyBookingElite [link] [comments] We pick up following Blood and Guts, where AEW Champion Swerve Strickland led his team to victory over the Elite. It’s been an insanely brutal and bloody reign for Swerve so far, and with enemies and allies alike climbing the ladder towards a shot at the gold, he’s starting to grow slightly paranoid. With a second trip to Wembley approaching, the talk of the town is who’s going to win the Owen and go for AEW’s top title at Wembley - if Swerve even makes it there, the fans knowing that his wars of attrition are leaving him worse for wear with each passing defence. Road to All In London The lineup for the Owen is being narrowed down coming out of Blood and Guts, with MJF, Jay White, Bryan Danielson, Will Ospreay, Darby Allin, Hangman Page, Konosuke Takeshita and Katsuyori Shibata all in the running. With blockbuster match after blockbuster match being fought to determine the finalists for Calgary, we eventually come down to two: MJF and Will Ospreay, set on a collision course for the ages. Swerve’s troubles don’t end there, though - after leaving the Mogul Embassy, his old allies smell blood in the water, and the EVPs are all too happy to make Strickland’s life more miserable by announcing a title match with Brian Cage for the Dynamite opener in Alberta’s largest city. AEW World Title: Swerve Strickland (c) vs. Brian Cage Cage gets a good showing in here, using his remarkable athleticism to nearly put the champion away early, but once Swerve gets rolling, it’s clear that there are levels to this game. The Machine goes for a Liger Bomb, Swerve reversing into a hurricanrana to leave him prone for a HOUSE CALL, FOLLOWED BY A SWERVE STOMP! ONE! TWO! THREE! Swerve Strickland def. Brian Cage (11:51) to retain the AEW World Title After the bout, Swerve’s handed his title, and he keeps it hugged tight to his chest as he grabs a microphone. He says everyone’s been working their asses off around him to try and take this from him, but the champion promises he’s not afraid. He welcomes the challenge, because there ain’t nobody like Swerve Strickland in SWERVE’S HOUSE. He says he’s looking forward to seeing who comes out on top in the main event, and heads off backstage to watch it with Prince Nana. Owen Hart Foundation Tournament Final: MJF vs. Will Ospreay This gets a lot of time, with no limit on a tournament final. Let them cook. MJF is in worse shape than Ospreay, having been flung straight into a tournament after a series of surgeries left him held together with duct tape, but Ospreay’s in a worse headspace, his typical unending confidence hampered by a few narrow wins en route to the final. However, it’s two spectacular in-ring talents, and they go ham in pursuit of victory, MJF wanting to headline Wembley for the second straight year and Ospreay looking to win the AEW World Title in a stadium in his home country. The back-and-forth gives way to MJF getting control, working the arm extensively to warm Ospreay up for the Salt of the Earth. However, an appearance by Adam Cole gives an unknowing Ospreay the opportunity to turn the tables with a handstand reversal to a Heatseeker, following it with a Hidden Blade for two. Ospreay considers working on the shoulder, MJF crying out in agony with each blow to the surgically repaired joint, and eventually, Will has him in perfect position for the Storm Driver 93. He knows MJF’s neck and shoulder are in such a state that this would be an automatic victory, but he hesitates just long enough for MJF to roll him up… ONE! TWO! THRE-KICKOUT! MJF grabs the arm to go for a Salt of the Earth, Ospreay rolling him back into a pin of his own, followed by another HIDDEN BLADE! STORMBREAKER! ONE! TWO! THREE! OSPREAY’S GOING TO WEMBLEY! Will Ospreay def. MJF (31:02) to win the Owen Hart Foundation Tournament Out comes Swerve, standing toe to toe with his challenger as confetti falls around them. Ospreay leans on his trophy, grabbing a microphone as it becomes rapidly apparent his confidence is back. He says that All In is on the horizon, and last time AEW was at Wembley Stadium, he won as an outsider… yet Swerve lost. Now, Ospreay’s in AEW full time, mowing through all the competition, and now it’s time that the Kingpin get a shot at the crown. Swerve chuckles before his smile turns into a sneer, growling under his breath that Ospreay will have to kill him to take the AEW Title away - and he’s seen that despite being called the Assassin, he can’t do that. The next week on Dynamite, Ospreay and Swerve are scheduled for a face to face promo in the ring, the title match official for All In. It’s electric as they stand opposite one another in the squared circle, trading some quick verbal barbs that they both brush off before getting down to brass tacks, Swerve holding the microphone and beginning to speak. “Will, you’re impressive, man. You can be as athletic as the day is long, but it’s not ‘heavy is the body that wears the crown,’ it’s ‘heavy is the head,’ and there ain’t nobody like me. This is a mental game, and you don’t have what it takes there. You blew yourself up and broke your own neck when you went for the IWGP Title. You were betrayed by the Don Callis Family and somehow didn’t see it coming. You were beaten on your home turf by your sworn enemy because you got in your own head. You had the win of a lifetime against Bryan, and then you felt so bad about it that you neutered your arsenal. You don’t have what it takes… in your head or in your guts. There’s only one head fit for this crown, and it’s mine.” Ospreay scoffs, trying to keep his cool, but he doesn’t wait long before grabbing the microphone out of Swerve’s hand to an “oooh,” from the crowd. “Ain’t nobody like you, bruv? How dare you talk down to me. How dare you condescend me, belittle me, you arrogant bastard? I came here to AEW and started taking heads, just like I did in Japan, and there were people there just like you. People who said ‘ah, he’s not got it in him to be the next big gaijin. He’ll never be the champion,’ and now there’s you, saying I don’t have what it takes because I don’t have the mentality. YOU don’t have the mentality to do what I do. To fly from the UK to here twice a week, to raise a family, to spend a whole career an ocean away from home, to wear the crown on your head that says you’re the greatest wrestler on Earth. Nobody’s done that but ME, and when that championship’s fastened around my waist, mate, it’s going to prove what everyone already knows - that Will Ospreay’s on another level, and Swerve Strickland… he’s punching up.” Now it’s Strickland’s turn to try and keep a lid on his anger, stepping toe to toe with his challenger and holding the title inches from his face. He tells Ospreay to listen close, before saying that the years of hard work Ospreay put in everywhere but home aren’t gonna be enough to help. He’s gonna be in front of his family, he’s gonna be in front of his friends, he’s gonna be in front of his people, and he’s going to let them all down, because he’s an impressive athlete, but he’s not the guy. Finally, Ospreay snaps, throwing a SHORT HEADBUTT, AND NOW BOTH MEN ARE THROWING FISTS! IT’S UTTER BEDLAM! The bell starts ringing to try and encourage them to break it up, but neither man is stepping down now, furiously exchanging blows as security rushes to the ring to divide them. Swerve grabs the championship, hoisting it high as he spits venom at Ospreay, the challenger spewing a string of words that probably won’t make air. They keep trying to break free and take another swing, commentary asking what on Earth they’ll do when they’re finally let loose at Wembley Stadium, pride and the promotion’s top prize on the line. Swerve Strickland (c) vs. Will Ospreay All In London Wembley Stadium is packed to the gills as All In goes on the air, and they’re fit to burst as the first theme they hear is that of the Commonwealth Kingpin. Justin Roberts announces that our opening match is for the AEW World Title, and Ospreay receives plenty of fanfare and fireworks as he makes his way to the ring, looking more motivated than ever. He’s clearly jonesing in the ring, eagerly awaiting Swerve’s arrival as his compatriots cheer him on… and then Chaka Khan hits. Strickland may be in enemy territory, but the crowd can't help but sing. Oozing charisma as he enters the squared circle, the AEW Champion seems more than ready to put the Assassin down, the electric crowd letting both men soak in the moment as the bell rings. HERE WE GO! SWERVE VS. OSPREAY, LIVE FROM WEMBLEY, AEW TITLE ON THE LINE! AEW World Title: Swerve Strickland (c) vs. Will Ospreay From the bell, Strickland and Ospreay are exchanging words as they gravitate towards one another, Ospreay calling for a lockup. They settle into a collar and elbow, Ospreay using his size to his advantage to try and muscle Swerve into the ropes, but Strickland reversing the momentum to cinch in a side headlock. Will still drives Swerve into the ropes, eventually breaking free and whipping Strickland across the ring, the champion building up speed as he ducks a clothesline attempt from the challenger and nails a Tijeras to send Ospreay flying. Ospreay’s quickly back up to his feet, Swerve attempting a slip behind for a German Suplex, but Will countering with a headlock takeover, kipping up and throwing a superkick that’s narrowly avoided by Swerve, who drops flat to his back, picking Ospreay’s leg and floating into a handstand to bring Ospreay down with a headscissors. Will kips up once more to break free, Swerve scrambling to stand up before OSPREAY THROWS A HIDDEN BLADE, SWERVE DIVING OUT OF THE WAY AT THE LAST MOMENT BEFORE CATASTROPHE! Strickland quickly pivots as Will looks to get to his feet, attempting a HOUSE CALL, BUT NOW IT’S OSPREAY’S TURN TO DODGE AS BOTH MEN END UP STANDING! Gritting his teeth, Swerve goes for another lockup with Ospreay, this time quickly kicking him in the gut for a snapmare, cinching in a chinlock to talk some smack. The Aerial Assassin lands a few elbows to the body as he strives to get back to his feet, finally breaking free before being grounded again by a Tijeras from Swerve. Strickland grabs hold of his challenger again, Ospreay furiously backpedaling into the corner to avoid a lifting inverted DDT, only for Swerve to send him through the ropes for a HANGING NECKBREAKER! Ospreay rolls out to the apron instinctively, Swerve kicking out one of his legs and stepping through the middle rope to SLINGSHOT INTO A DDT ON THE APRON, BUT OSPREAY HANDSPRINGS STRAIGHT TO HIS FEET ON THE FLOOR! Strickland gets cocky, thinking he landed the shot, and turns around to see Ospreay charging at his legs. Swerve leaps up, still on the apron as Will overshoots, the champion pivoting for an APRON PUMP KICK, OSPREAY DUCKING IT AND LEAPING BACK ONTO THE APRON! SWERVE TURNS AROUND ONCE AGAIN… AND OSPREAY FLIES IN WITH AN APRON OSCUTTER! Tumbling to the floor, Swerve tries to get to his senses and figure out how he came out on the rough end of the sequence on the apron, but Ospreay gives him no time to think with a ROBINSON SPECIAL OFF THE APRON, STRAIGHT THROUGH THE BACK OF HIS HEAD! He props Swerve against the barricade, chopping him across the chest before scrambling to the top rope for a SKY TWISTER PRESS TO THE OUTSIDE - ONLY FOR SWERVE TO AVOID IT, NAILING OSPREAY WITH A GERMAN SUPLEX ONTO THE FLOOR! With Ospreay stunned, Strickland slides back in to break the count, measuring his man before effortlessly delivering a FOSBURY FLOP OUT TO RINGSIDE, WIPING OUT THE CHALLENGER! Turning the tables on Ospreay, now it’s Swerve’s turn to lay in some chops against the barricade, only for Will to dump him over the barrier and into the crowd. He follows it up with a hook kick over the guardrail to stagger the champion, running the length of ringside and LAUNCHING HIMSELF STRAIGHT INTO A PUMP KICK FROM THE CHAMPION! Swerve hops up onto the barricade, grabbing hold of Ospreay in a front facelock before MUSCLING HIM UP AND OVER WITH A BRAINBUSTER, OFF OF THE BARRICADE AND RIGHT DOWN ONTO THE FLOOR AT RINGSIDE! He rushes to roll Will back between the ropes, hooking both legs… ONE! TWO! TH-NOOO! Swerve jumps to the middle rope to deliver a diving European Uppercut to the back of the head before Ospreay can quite get to his feet, following it up with a DISCUS LARIAT! The assault on the head is relentless, Swerve looking for a DDT before being driven into the ropes, Will trying to earn a momentary reprieve. Instead, Strickland pummels him with Muay Thai knees to the body, heaving him up for a LIGER BOMB! ONE! TWO! THRE-KICKOUT ONCE MORE! Swerve lets out a frustrated roar, deadlift Ospreay up to attempt another powerbomb, but Ospreay manages to drop to the apron for a gamengiri, followed by a PIP PIP CHEERIO! ONE! TWO! KICKOUT! Desperate to keep momentum on his side, Ospreay quickly delivers a rolling elbow, following it up with a SNAP DRAGON SUPLEX, BUT SWERVE RIGHT BACK UP TO HIS FEET, NAILING A GERMAN! He swivels around, only to see Ospreay landed on his feet, BOTH MEN THROWING HIGH KICKS BEFORE COLLAPSING TO THE CANVAS! Wembley rallies behind Ospreay as both men struggle to get to their feet, barely stirring before the challenger begins pounding the mat, leaning back onto his hands for a kip-up before Swerve simply spins to punt him in the face and bring him back to the mat. Strickland rises to his feet, looking for the House Call, but OSPREAY HAS NONE OF IT, CATCHING THE LEG FOR A STYLES CLASH! ONE! TWO! THR-NOO! Following through, Ospreay attempts a Hidden Blade, Swerve ducking it before rushing towards his opponent and INTO A SPANISH FLY FOR A NEARFALL! Ospreay grabs the back of Swerve’s head, paying him back for the focused assault with a flurry of Kawada Kicks to the face, followed by an attempt at a delayed vertical suplex, Strickland floating over and landing on his feet. The champion runs the ropes, Ospreay stopping him in his tracks with a dropsault and an enziguri, continuously building momentum with a STUNDOG MILLIONAIRE TO FINALLY DROP SWERVE TO HIS BACK! Unleashing a war cry, Ospreay has a gleam in his eyes as he looks towards the top turnbuckle, dragging himself through the ropes to the apron before clambering up to the high rent district, turning his back to Swerve for another SKY TWISTER PRESS, SWERVE ONCE AGAIN ROLLING IN TOWARDS THE TURNBUCKLES… BUT OSPREAY ROLLS STRAIGHT THROUGH TO HIS FEET! Strickland flashes his grill to the camera in the corner with a smile, Ospreay looming behind him before BLASTING STRAIGHT THROUGH HIM WITH A HIDDEN BLADE! ONE! TWO! THRE-SWERVE POWERS OUT! It’s been just over fifteen minutes of insanity as Ospreay smells blood in the water, knowing if he connects with a Stormbreaker, he can wrap this up. However, that certainty would only be cemented if he were to nail a Storm Driver 93, but he refuses to go to such lengths, hooking the arms… BUT SWERVE COUNTERS WITH A BACK BODY DROP, ONLY FOR OSPREAY TO LAND ON HIS FEET! HE BREAKS INTO A SPRINT, REBOUNDING OFF THE ROPES FOR A SPRINGBOARD OSCUTTER - STRAIGHT INTO A HOUSE CALL! SWERVE INTERCEPTED HIM! ONE! TWO! THRE-NOOOO! Strickland can’t believe it, but he’s got Ospreay dead to rights, spinning him around into position for a Tombstone. Strickland looks to the hard cam, a smug sneer on his face as OSPREAY REVERSES WITH A SEGA MEGA DRIVER, SPIKING HIM DOWN ON HIS HEAD! ONE! TWO! THRE-NOOOO! Ospreay is in disbelief, even a tribute to Mad Kurt not being enough to put Swerve down, but he’s staying on the ball as he hooks Swerve’s arms to go for a STORMBREAKER, ONLY FOR SWERVE TO FLOAT OVER FOR A LIFTING INVERTED DDT! Will’s rally wasn’t enough to get him out of trouble, and STRICKLAND FOLLOWS IT UP WITH A SECOND HOUSE CALL! SWERVE IMMEDIATELY ON THE ATTACK ONCE MORE, POSITIONING OSPREAY FOR A JML DRIVER… BUT WILL CLEARS HIS HEAD, COUNTERING WITH A POISON RANA! SWERVE UP TO HIS KNEES, BUT OSPREAY FOLLOWS IT WITH A SPRINGBOARD OSCUTTER! HIDDEN BLADE TO THE BASE OF THE SKULL, AND NOW… STORMBREAKER! ONE! TWO! THREE! WILL OSPREAY IS THE AEW WORLD CHAMPION! Will Ospreay def. Swerve Strickland (20:10) to win the AEW World Title Later in the night, Kazuchika Okada defeats Kenny Omega to win their fifth encounter, establishing himself firmly as the Number One Contender to the AEW World Title, giving the new champion only two weeks to prepare to face off with one of his greatest foes - a foe he’s only managed to beat cleanly once, while falling to the Rainmaker eight times. Road to All Out Ospreay gets to celebrate on Dynamite, cutting a promo saying he’s geared up to finally put this to bed. He says he’s glad he’s starting his title reign like this, because he’s certain he can beat Okada, and he’ll not have to worry about the spectre looming over him anymore. Every time there was a title on the line, every time the stakes were high, he failed against the Rainmaker - but the stakes were high at Wembley, and he won. He proved Swerve Strickland wrong, and now it’s time to prove Kazuchika Okada wrong. Out steps the Rainmaker, taking the EVP Elevator up onto the stage to say that Ospreay has already proven him wrong; he thought, years ago, that Ospreay was a talent worthy of being in Okada’s stable of CHAOS, and Ospreay proved him wrong when he betrayed his leader, only for Okada to beat the brakes off him at the Tokyo Dome. Okada says that Ospreay should be all too familiar with Okada being the top champion, the Ace, and he plans to finally bring that vision to AEW by restoring the world to its natural order and beating the Aerial Assassin for a ninth time. The Rainmaker’s ego is peaking, having avenged his loss to Kenny Omega just a few days prior, and he says that Omega’s a taller mountain to climb than Ospreay. However, he says he’s sure there’ll be room in the Elite’s ranks for Ospreay, should he come to his senses and want to fall back in line behind the Rainmaker. Ospreay declares that at All Out, he’ll prove to Okada and the world that he’s eclipsed the onetime Ace, while Okada insists that Omega was just the beginning - in just a few days, it’ll be time for the Rainmaker Era to start back up. All Out With All In having just occurred recently, All Out is a package deal with the Wembley show, ensuring a huge audience for what’s certain to be an all-timer main event between the Rainmaker and the Assassin. Both men want to walk out with the gold more than anything in the world, making an already personal rivalry all the more exciting as the coin drops for the last match of the night. Okada appears in a new robe, debuted two weeks prior at Wembley, and as he rises from the Elite Elevator, he’s looking more daunting than ever. There’s only one feud the man had ever lost, and he’d just avenged it against Kenny Omega - this is the most dangerous he’s ever been, and as Will Ospreay makes his way to the ring, Okada doesn’t even turn to face him. The champion is furious, but the challenger sees him as a formality standing between him and another epic World Title reign, refusing to even acknowledge him as they’re both introduced by Justin Roberts. They head to their respective corners, and THE BELL RINGS! IT’S OKADA AND OSPREAY, WORLD TITLE ON THE LINE! AEW World Title: Will Ospreay (c) vs. Kazuchika Okada Both men are hesitant to open themselves up to a big counter in the early goings, especially given how well they know each other, so they try and psych each other out a different way - by waiting. The crowd greets them with a deafening reception as they slowly circle the centre of the ring, eventually meeting with a lockup that sees Okada immediately put his height to good use, bearing down on Ospreay with an attempt at a test of strength. He pushes Ospreay down to the mat, even getting his shoulders down for a moment, but the champion bridges up off the canvas. Okada jumps up and drives his legs down into Ospreay’s body, but Ospreay maintains the bridge with both men’s weight, Okada getting back up and shooting for a lateral press that gets a one count. Transitioning into a side headlock, Okada talks some smack, the Young Bucks supporting him at ringside while taunting the champion. However, Ospreay’s put on plenty of muscle mass over the years, making it all the easier for him to slowly make his way to his feet, twisting free and securing a side headlock of his own on the Rainmaker. Okada sends him into the ropes, Ospreay clinging to the top as Okada instinctively goes for a flapjack. Momentarily confused, Okada gives Will the opening to run in for a dropsault, attempting to follow it with an enziguri that’s ducked, Ospreay springing up… and into a flapjack, the inevitability of the Rainmaker’s plans coming to fruition putting the champion in a bad spot early. Continuing with his somewhat lackadaisical pace, Okada keeps treating Ospreay like he’s not that big of a deal, shoving him into the corner for a double pat on the chest, followed by a stiff forearm across the jaw as the referee steps in. Ospreay lunges at him, Okada grabbing the arm for an Irish Whip into the opposite corner, rushing the champion with a big boot, but Ospreay SLINGSHOTS RIGHT OVER HIM, LANDING ON HIS FEET BEHIND THE RAINMAKER FOR A KICK TO THE HAMSTRING! Ospreay hones in with a swift roundhouse to Okada’s other leg, trying to take out his base, but Okada shrugs it off by catching the leg on a third kick attempt before driving his shoulder straight into the bridge of Ospreay’s nose, following it with a DDT that makes it look like Ospreay just died. The champion goes full scorpion, folding over himself like PAC as Okada grabs hold of the wrist to attempt an early Rainmaker. He gets Ospreay up to his feet, a smirk on his face as he winds him up, but Ospreay cuts through his grip with a sharp elbow before rolling Okada up with a victory roll reversal, straight into a DOUBLE STOMP TO THE GUT! Okada rolls right out of the ring and into the waiting arms of the Elite, Ospreay lining up to try and take him out with a dive before being halted by the Bucks, who leap into the way with their hands up. Ospreay shouts at them to move before going for it anyway, launching himself with a PESCADO, STRAIGHT INTO A BOOT TO THE STOMACH BY THE RAINMAKER! THE BUCKS GAVE HIM TIME TO RECOVER! Taking advantage immediately, Okada sends Ospreay crashing into the barricade, Ospreay crying out before Okada sends him into the aisle on the crowd side of the barrier. He measures his man as he heads to the opposite end of ringside, the Bucks gassing him up as he takes a running start for a CROSSBODY OVER THE GUARDRAIL, LANDING ON HIS FEET AFTER TAKING OUT THE AERIAL ASSASSIN! Okada dusts himself off, his signature look of superiority clearer than ever as he drags Ospreay back to ringside, laying in a few boots to the body before spitefully laying in another DDT, this time on the floor. He breaks the count before continuing to pummel Ospreay at ringside, the Bucks taunting the champion with each consecutive shot he takes. Okada works over the champion’s neck, digging a knee into the back of it as he postures with his stablemates before securing a waistlock for a GERMAN SUPLEX ON THE FLOOR, BUT OSPREAY FLIPS OUT OF IT! He flings himself at Okada with a Hidden Blade attempt from behind, the seemingly omniscient Okada ducking at just the right moment before throwing a boot - but Ospreay’s just too quick, slipping under it and LAYING IN A HOOK KICK, FOLLOWED BY A BACK SUPLEX ON THE OUTSIDE TO THE RAINMAKER! Ospreay backs the Bucks away, threatening to put their faces through the back of their heads before sliding back into the ring and EFFORTLESSLY SOARING THROUGH THE AIR WITH A SKY TWISTER PRESS TO THE FLOOR! He sends Okada back between the ropes, following him with a PIP PIP CHEERIO, BUT OKADA CUTS HIM OFF AGAIN BY KICKING OUT THE ROPES! Ospreay is left hung up on the top, Okada turning him over for a DRAPING NECKBREAKER OFF THE TOP! ONE! TWO! THR-KICKOUT! It’s been virtually all Okada thus far, and he continues to methodically wear Ospreay down with a targeted offensive on the neck of the AEW World Champion. Whenever Ospreay tries to get some momentum going, Okada’s able to reverse it, the style Ospreay honed in New Japan having paid dividends against plenty of other AEW talents, but not the man who defined the style for over a decade. Soon enough, Okada looks for the Rainmaker again, and Ospreay finds his opening by reversing it into a SPANISH FLY! ONE! TWO! KICKOUT! Ospreay looks like a bullet fired from a gun the second Okada’s constant pressure is taken off his shoulders, the champion bolting out to the apron to connect with a PIP PIP CHEERIO, NAILING IT BEFORE OKADA HAS TIME TO REALIZE WHAT HIT HIM! Okada tries to evacuate out the other side of the ring, but Ospreay’s having none of it, grabbing him by the trunks and pulling him back in for a SNAP DRAGON SUPLEX! ONE! TWO! TH-NOOO! Okada sits back up just in time for Ospreay to strike him with a standing round kick to the ear, filling the Rainmaker’s head with cobwebs before flattening him to the canvas with a superkick, finishing the sequence with a RUNNING SHOOTING STAR PRESS! ONE! TWO! THR-ANOTHER KICKOUT, BUT OSPREAY’S FINALLY GOTTEN CONTROL AWAY FROM THE CHALLENGER! With the Chicago crowd rallying behind him, Ospreay struggles to get to his feet, the twenty straight minutes of punishment taking a heavy toll on the champion. However, he’s certainly up before the stunned Okada, with the challenger still attempting to get his wits about him when Ospreay charges with a ROBINSON SPECIAL, STRAIGHT TO THE BASE OF THE SKULL! Okada gets to his feet on instinct alone, the Assassin positioning himself behind his prey and circling him before running the ropes for an OSCUTTER! ONE! TWO! THR-NOOO! Ospreay unleashes some Kawada Kicks on the challenger, letting out his aggression before lighting him up with a flurry of chops, Okada attempting to stand on business and throw some of his own, only for Ospreay to obliterate him with a superkick. Okada is left leaning on the ropes, Ospreay beckoning him towards the centre of the ring before attempting a SHOTGUN DROPKICK, SENDING HIM STRAIGHT THROUGH TO THE APRON! With Okada prone, Ospreay looks for the OSCUTTER ON THE APRON, BUT OKADA CATCHES HIM IN A STRAITJACKET! He attempts a Straitjacket German Suplex on the apron, Ospreay avoiding catastrophe with a back headbutt to the bridge of the nose, followed by a stiff back elbow to send Okada tumbling to the floor. Ospreay vaults over the ropes to break the count, finding himself in the perfect spot for an old favourite as Okada gets to his feet at the base of the ramp. Measuring his man, Ospreay leaps into motion with a SASUKE SPECIAL, BUT OKADA CATCHES HIM! WHAT STRENGTH FROM THE RAINMAKER, AND NOW… OH MY GOD, A TOMBSTONE PILEDRIVER ON THE FLOOR! Okada’s confidence is peaking, the Tombstone on the floor having been a hallmark of so many of his defining victories and none of his defeats. Knowing this, he rolls Ospreay straight back into the ring, the work on the neck having paid dividends as he immediately secures wrist control, hoisting Ospreay up into position for a RAIIIINMAKERRRRRR! HE GOT ALL OF IT! ONE! TWO! THRE-OSPREAY SOMEHOW LIFTS THE SHOULDER UP! Frustrated, Okada hurls Ospreay’s lifeless corpse into the corner and simply starts stomping a mudhole in his face, grinding his boot into the champion’s features before the referee pulls him away. Okada bickers with the ref as the Bucks sneak up on each side of Ospreay, Will instinctively grabbing a hold of Matthew, who scrambles backwards. However, Will stays latched onto him, forming a fist around Matthew’s tie and being pulled through the ropes… ONLY FOR NICHOLAS TO SUPERKICK OSPREAY STRAIGHT INTO THE RING POST, SPARING HIS OLDER BROTHER! Blood begins to spill from the side of Ospreay’s head, dripping onto the ring post and ring skirt as it becomes clear he hit his head damn hard against the steel. Okada pushes past the referee and continues to beat Ospreay down, relishing each moment of offence as he sends the champion packing to the outside with a petulant boot to the side of the head. He rolls out to the floor, the Bucks handing him a bottle of water to cool himself off with after such a brutal match, and now Okada gets to admire the Elite’s handiwork as crimson teardrops start dotting ringside, a bloody mask obscuring Ospreay’s face. Okada keeps beating ass, commentary noting that this is now the longest we’ve seen these two duke it out for, nearly 40 minutes having elapsed. Excalibur notes Ospreay seems harder than ever to put down, but Okada’s showing the same sort of dominance he has in the past, with Schiavone sounding worried that it might just be a matter of time. Looking to finally put an end to things, Okada starts raining closed fists on Ospreay’s head wound, hurling him into the timekeeper’s table. Eventually, he lays Ospreay out on it, clambering up with him before flipping off the camera and calling for another Tombstone. He flips Ospreay around… but Ospreay drops to the floor behind him, sweeping out Okada’s legs before nailing a CHEEKY NANDO’S AGAINST THE GUARDRAIL, LEAVING OKADA SPLAYED OUT ON THE TABLE! Ospreay scrambles towards the ring post, blood pouring down onto his chest as he makes the long climb up the turnbuckles for a FROG SPLASH THROUGH THE TABLE, AND THROUGH OKADA! The count was broken by him hitting the top rope, sparing both men the risk of being counted out as they lie their motionless. Chicago wills them to their feet, Ospreay sending Okada back into the ring before using the surge of energy and momentum to get the challenger up for a STORMBREAKER! HE GOT HIM! OSPREAY’S GONNA DO IT! Ospreay leaps atop Okada, grabbing the leg and leaning back into a deep cover, putting all his weight across the challenger’s shoulders… ONE! TWO! THRE-OKADA’S FOOT IS HOVERING OVER THE BOTTOM ROPE, OSPREAY TOO ENTHUSIASTIC WITH HIS PIN! The Bucks look like they’re about to have panic attacks as an exasperated, mentally battered Ospreay fights back tears, a fraction of an inch away from redemption. However, he knows he’s got control, so all he has to do is take this one home. Both men are in deep waters now, and with both being renowned for their gas tanks, it’s clearly come down to a war of attrition, both men knowing that it’ll all come down to landing the one big move that’ll keep one of them down. They’ve both sustained plenty of damage, but as Ospreay staggers over to the downed Okada, he gets this look in his eyes - the look of a man who has the chance to do the funniest thing ever against a man he resents oh so much. Ospreay grabs Okada’s wrist, the crowd letting out an “oooh” as it becomes clear he’s going for his own parody of the Rainmaker, traditionally a ripcord Spanish Fly. Okada is on dream street as Ospreay positions him, pulling the wrist to whip Okada around… but the Rainmaker is still wise to Ospreay’s moveset, keeping an arm near his side to stop Ospreay from latching on for a Spanish Fly. However, he wasn’t wise enough, Ospreay digging into Kenny Omega’s toolkit with a RAIN TRIGGER, BLINDSIDING OKADA WITH A HUGE HIT HE DIDN’T SEE COMING! Okada falls into the ropes, trying to keep himself upright by keeping a firm grip on the top rope, only to be uprooted by a POISON RANA, OSPREAY SPIKING THE CHALLENGER RIGHT ON HIS HEAD! He stumbles to the corner, Okada looking to find his footing as he gets to his knees… AND EATS A HIDDEN BLADE STRAIGHT TO THE FACE, OSPREAY MOWING STRAIGHT THROUGH HIS CHALLENGER! ONE! TWO! THRE-OKADA GETS THE SHOULDER UP, AND THE GRUELLING BOUT CONTINUES! Justin Roberts is starting to sound pretty nervous as he makes the 50 minute time call, informing both competitors that there’s only ten minutes left in their longest bout against one another to date. Ospreay crawls towards the ropes, driven by pure determination as he peels off his elbow pad, winding up for the Hidden Blade of a lifetime as Okada slowly starts to stir. Both men have taken each other’s biggest shots, but Okada’s in the champion’s sights now, Ospreay waiting until he’s in the perfect position before CHARGING AT FULL TILT INTO A DROPKICK FROM OKADA! Somehow, Okada’s still got pristine form this late into the match, but there’s no time to linger on his magnificence as he rises to his feet, dazed and confused, in desperate need of a dagger against Ospreay. He leans over to hook Ospreay’s wrist, calling for a second Rainmaker, and now he ripcords him in, ONLY FOR OSPREAY TO BLAST HIM WITH A HIDDEN BLADE TO THE FACE ONCE AGAIN ON THE REBOUND! Okada somehow keeps hold of Ospreay’s wrist, tumbling into the ropes and dragging the champion with him, gritting his teeth and letting out a primal roar before CLOBBERING OSPREAY WITH A SHORT ARM LARIAT, BRINGING THEM BOTH DOWN TO THE MAT! Ospreay gets the slightly better landing tactically, turned completely inside out and managing to drape an arm over… ONE! TWO! THRE-NOO! Okada’s kickout flips Ospreay onto his back, the Rainmaker now making an exhausted pinfall attempt… ONE! TWO! THRE-KICKOUT! WHAT’S IT GOING TO TAKE FOR ONE OF THESE MEN TO STAY DOWN? Puddles of Ospreay’s blood stain the canvas as both men lie there, the unimaginable exhaustion washing over both of them as they fight to be the first man to a vertical base. Commentary discusses the importance of securing the upper hand at this moment, and somehow, it’s Ospreay who’s up first, although only by a matter of seconds. Okada decks him with a forearm, the Rainmaker doubled over trying to catch his breath, but Ospreay clocks him with one of his own, followed by a ROLLING ELBOW TO DROP OKADA TO A KNEE! Ospreay ponders a moment, considering going for a Storm Driver 93, and as Justin Roberts says there’s five minutes remaining, he goes for it. He hooks Okada’s arms in a butterfly, muscling him up off his feet… but Okada drops down to his knees, Ospreay too exhausted to lift 250 pounds into position if that 250 pounds is still fighting back. The champion knees Okada in the face before going for it again, but this time, Okada shifts his weight back and SWINGS OSPREAY OVER HIS OWN SHOULDER FOR AN AIR RAID CRASH NECKBREAKER! Ospreay goes down like a sack of potatoes, clutching the back of his neck in pure agony, unable to function properly as Okada scrapes him off the canvas and positions him for an EMPHATIC COBRA FLOWSION, DRIVING OSPREAY’S NECK INTO THE MAT ONCE AGAIN WITH A RESOUNDING THUD! The challenger rises to his feet behind his foe… AND SPREADS HIS ARMS, THE CAMERA ZOOMING OUT TO ENCOMPASS THE CHICAGO CROWD! OKADA HITS THE RAINMAKER POSE, AND HE’S READY TO STUNT ON OSPREAY ONCE MORE! Ospreay’s in the perfect position for the Rainmaker, only a few minutes left on the clock, but both men’s movements have become lethargic and feeble after all they’ve been through. Matthew and Nicholas pound the mat to encourage Okada as he painstakingly leans over to latch on to Ospreay’s wrist, the champion fighting as best he can with a few back elbows, all of which miss the mark. Okada drives a forearm into the back of Ospreay’s neck, dropping him to his knees again before finally heaving him up for the Rainmaker, winding up… AND WHIZZING RIGHT BY OSPREAY, WHO COLLAPSES FROM EXHAUSTION! Okada falls in a heap behind him, but he’s still in better shape than Ospreay with moments remaining. With the last of his adrenaline, Okada scrambles up and picks Ospreay up once more, positioning him for a Rainmaker… BUT OSPREAY DUCKS, THIS TIME BREAKING INTO A SPRINT TO GET OUT OF THE WRISTLOCK! HE BOUNCES OFF THE ROPES, OKADA TOO TIRED TO SPIN AROUND IN TIME, AND NOW OSPREAY NAILS AN UNPROTECTED HIDDEN BLADE TO THE BACK OF THE HEAD! He’s got to roll him over, the seconds counting down as Ospreay simply digs his shoulder into the Rainmaker’s arm to slowly turn him onto his back, struggling to hook the leg… ONE! TWO! THRE-KICKOUT! OKADA GOT THE SHOULDER UP! Ospreay can’t believe it, fighting to get his feet under him, frantically attempting to hook Okada’s arms to get him into position for a Storm… ding ding ding. Will Ospreay and Kazuchika Okada fought to a draw (60:00), for Ospreay to retain the AEW World Title Road to WrestleDream With Ospreay having been unable to put away the Rainmaker within an hour, it’s pretty clear that a rematch has to be on the horizon, but the question is where. Both Grand Slam and WrestleDream are coming up, and on Dynamite, Okada lays down the gauntlet for the PPV, saying that he intends to win the AEW Title at a show paying tribute to one of his idols in Antonio Inoki. However, Ospreay’s not off the hook until October just yet - Grand Slam still stands in the way, and a battle between two of his fantastic previous opponents is set to determine his challenger for the event. Those opponents? Swerve Strickland and MJF. In the end, MJF manages to pull out the win, securing a title challenge right next door to his home at Grand Slam. Ospreay walks in insecure, just as he did in the Owen Finals, but this time with good reason - his first title defence was hardly a successful one, and he might not even have the chance to make up for it if he doesn’t manage to put away the longest-reigning AEW World Champion ever, in their home state. The pressure’s on for the Assassin, and with challengers hounding him, all he can do is try and build momentum with wins week over week. He doesn’t bother trying to match MJF on the stick, the next challenger eviscerating the champion with promo after promo until the go-home show, where a fed up Ospreay simply snipes him with a Hidden Blade to cut him off. Grabbing the microphone, Will promises to prove the title belongs around his waist, telling MJF that he wants the same Max who dominated the AEW main event scene for over a year. (Cont'd in Comments) |