Rachael ray soup bones
What is Berghain?.
2023.04.02 13:58 Time-Candidate6245 What is Berghain?.
At its core, a space of refuge for the exiles, the forsaken, the outcasts. Shamed for their preferences in life, often not by choice. Historically shunned and punished as deranged, ill, abnormal. Made illegal to exist.
Für diejenigen die allein sind.
It is very warm inside. Deep, plush bass feels like pounding your own heart against a wall of flowers. Or like velvet anal thrust. Caring selectors and sonic surgeons conjure an aural apocalypse, desire and chaos converge in dancefloors in flux. From sparse playfulness to peak time neuroelectricity, from marching yet still armies of extreme BPM to tornados and wind goddesses of Monday dawn. Limbic black metal solos. Brutalism, hypnotism, crystal metropolis, unconquerable castles. Sex by mere presence.
Thousands of bones crying gallons of tears and sweat. The sacred and the profane collide in a frenzied dance of liberation, a timeless realm where sin and salvation are intertwined. Perpetual cycles of pleasure and penance manifest in shared breaths, a communion of souls seeking solace and redemption in fleeting moments of abandon.
Clouds of cigarette smoke, filth, dirt, broken glass and broken hearts. Side quests for metaphors, viagra, bubblegum. Smuggled water pistols bring upon collapse. Existential crises on the dancefloor amidst routine technogym sessions. Crashing handfans and panorama blinds, RAYS OF LIGHT burn through your skull's barriers and… you find yourself eating bananas. Time to change clothes. Come to berg toilets they said. Lost within the sewage pipes, descending the nine circles of hell. Dancing monkeys on acid. Separation anxiety, freezing chests. Time to go home.
Souls borne in all four corners of the world, sirens, disco queens, gothic royalty, polar bears, divas, orc daddies of middle earth. Your father. Business casual, harnesses, topless, naked. Fashion freaks, fashion haters and freaks of nature. An amalgamation, a microcosm of the times. An epiphany.
The time of your life. Come armageddon, come. Endless comedown. All is one and one is all.
Or is it?
submitted by Time-Candidate6245 to berghain [link] [comments]
Für diejenigen die allein sind.
It is very warm inside. Deep, plush bass feels like pounding your own heart against a wall of flowers. Or like velvet anal thrust. Caring selectors and sonic surgeons conjure an aural apocalypse, desire and chaos converge in dancefloors in flux. From sparse playfulness to peak time neuroelectricity, from marching yet still armies of extreme BPM to tornados and wind goddesses of Monday dawn. Limbic black metal solos. Brutalism, hypnotism, crystal metropolis, unconquerable castles. Sex by mere presence.
Thousands of bones crying gallons of tears and sweat. The sacred and the profane collide in a frenzied dance of liberation, a timeless realm where sin and salvation are intertwined. Perpetual cycles of pleasure and penance manifest in shared breaths, a communion of souls seeking solace and redemption in fleeting moments of abandon.
Clouds of cigarette smoke, filth, dirt, broken glass and broken hearts. Side quests for metaphors, viagra, bubblegum. Smuggled water pistols bring upon collapse. Existential crises on the dancefloor amidst routine technogym sessions. Crashing handfans and panorama blinds, RAYS OF LIGHT burn through your skull's barriers and… you find yourself eating bananas. Time to change clothes. Come to berg toilets they said. Lost within the sewage pipes, descending the nine circles of hell. Dancing monkeys on acid. Separation anxiety, freezing chests. Time to go home.
Souls borne in all four corners of the world, sirens, disco queens, gothic royalty, polar bears, divas, orc daddies of middle earth. Your father. Business casual, harnesses, topless, naked. Fashion freaks, fashion haters and freaks of nature. An amalgamation, a microcosm of the times. An epiphany.
The time of your life. Come armageddon, come. Endless comedown. All is one and one is all.
Or is it?
2023.04.02 11:47 ContributionOdd3990 Links fanfiction: Hunters' secrets
Step by step. Carefully, to not make a single sound. The moss on the ground was still bloated from the rain. There was no sound besides raindrops hitting the cloak and his white mask covering his face. The person covered in it was moving quietly and fast, still looking around. But he could hear only rain and see only very old trees.
The Warhost forests were the densest and most dangerous. There was a saying, ‘When other countries have forests, The forests have Warhost’. And that’s not so far from the truth. If you want to not get lost, you have to follow the narrow paths.
But the citizens of that province don’t have that problem, especially the hunters. They know those trees like the back of their hands. They were used not only for hunting but as couriers, messengers, protection escorts, and even police assistants.
But this time, a hunter was on the hunt.
His target wasn’t a wild animal, no. It was a Shiyan. Half-canine, half-feline. A fox-cat. A lethal mix. One of the most dangerous Shiyans in the woods.
And the hunter swore on his honor to hunt him down.
A hunter knew that the target was close. He decided to hide among bushes. His cloak had various colors of green and brown, making him almost undetected. He lifted his crossbow and loaded it. Then, he proceeded to listen to the surroundings.
He was standing like a rock for minutes. Despite no results, he was still listening. A hunter tried to solve Shiyan’s tactic.
A fox-cat could move against the wind, he could be on one of the trees… he could be setting a trap right now.
“Boo!”
As fast as he heard it, he turned around.
But it was too late.
A Shiyan plunged at the hunter, the crossbow flew out of the hunter’s hands. A human was pinned to the wet and muddy ground. He was at the Shiyan’s mercy.
“Stay down!” a fox-cat growled, showing his teeth, “You know it’s over”
But the hunter kept struggling. Shiyan tightened his grip, “Just give up! You know it’s pointless!”
“Never!” a hunter shouted back, “I’m not scared of you!”
“Let’s see if that’s true, shall we?” He reached for his mask and took it off, “You’re not scared, huh? Those shivered eyes of you tell otherwise… same goes for your quick and sharp breath… and your face is full red…wait. Why are you red?”
“Wh-What?”
“You’re all red” Shiyan said again, “Why?”
“Umm… no reason?” a hunter nervously laughed,
“Hmm…okay…” Shiyan got closer, suspicious about the hunter’s behavior getting weirder and weirder.
And all of sudden, Hunter lifted his head and kissed Shiyan.
Both of them stood still for a minute—one long minute of a kiss. None of them knew what was happening.
After 60 seconds, they realized what had just happened.
“Baltazar, what the fuck?!”
“I don’t know! I swear on my mother, I don’t know!”
A human named Baltazar and Shiyan fox-cat Kys got away from each other, still confused and shocked. They were just looking at each other.
“Kys, I’m sorry, I-”
“It’s blasphemy!” Kys shouted, “That kind of relations between the same sex is forbidden!”
“Kys, relax”
“It’s a sin! We’re sinners!” a cat-fox was lamenting,
“No, we’re not” a human assured him,
“We’re getting banished! My whole life is over! The entire-”
"Kys!" Baltazar grabbed his friend and shook him hard, "Calm down! We're not getting banished!"
"B-But we-"
"No one saw us doing that! No witnesses to accuse us!"
"B-But-"
"Everything is fine! It’s not like you liked it, right?"
Kys didn’t reply.
“You didn’t like the kiss, right…? Kys?”
Then, the lighting woke them more. They realized that the rain was getting heavier.
“L-Let’s find some shelter…” Kys mumbled, “There’s a, umm… a cave nearby…”
Baltazar shyly nodded, “Better to be awkwardly quiet in front of the campfire…” a nervous laugh wasn’t louder than the storm.
They reached the shelter very quickly. Unfortunately, both of them got already as wet as everything in the forest. They gathered a lot of tree bark and sticks. Kys used his lighter and the fire was ignited. Baltazar made a primitive drier for the cloaks they were wearing.
They were sitting on the opposite side of the campfire, still not sure about recent events. The ambiance of the storm was filling the awkward silence.
“So…” a human started first, “H-How are you?”
“Wh-What?”
“The…the time when we…you know…” Baltazar lifted the mask on his face to hide the blush, “H-How are you feeling about this?”
Kys was thinking about it for a long time, “I…I…I kinda like it…”
“What?!” human eyes perked up, “Y-You do?!”
He was so loud that he scared Kys, “I-I…M-Maybe…? I’m so confused…but yes. I liked it” In the last part he said very quietly, “It’s wrong but it felt so good…”
Unfortunately, for Kys, Baltazar had a good hearing, “Maybe…maybe it’s not wrong?”
“Wh-What do you mean?”
“We’re good people. We do everything according to the Holy Book. So how much one sin is compared to the lifetime of good deeds?”
“But it’s still a sin…” Kys mumbled,
“Well…technically, it’s not. There’s nothing in the Holy Book that says it’s a sin. And come to think of it…no one cares”
“Dude!” a Shiyan objected, “It’s Warhost! Everything is around the Holy Book!”
“Yes and no” Baltazar continued, “We listen to the pope, bishops, and priest who tell us what Holy Book means. So… technically we listen to their opinions”
Kys sighed and shook his fluffy, orange head, “I think that you listen too much to your father’s opinions…”
Baltazar laughed, the smile was too big for the bandana to hide, “Maybe, maybe… But look at us. You ran away from your parents, my entire family is pure-blooded human. Yet, we’re treated like the rest”
A fox-cat tried to say something but he stopped. He tried to process everything AGAIN.
“So…We’re not sinners. We’re just against the social constructs of the most isolated country on this plane”
Kys lowered his head and questioned his life choices,
“Oh, come on!” Baltazar pulled himself next to the screaming Shiyan, “We have known each other since our baptism! And…” he turned his head and murmured, “And I…liked it too…”
Kys’s hearing detected the last words, “You did?!”
“Fuck…” Baltazar got up and started wandering around the natural shelter, “I like it too! There, I said it!” he made the largest sigh of relief of his entire life, “Oh god, it’s so great to say that after so many years…”
“Y-Years?”
“Yes, years…Kys, you’re the best person I’ve ever met. You’re never harsh… You’re like…a pure, innocent ray of sunshine…and I want to be in it all the time and that sounded horny, isn’t it?”
Kys nodded with his orange-red, fluffy head,
“Fuck…I-I didn’t mean it”
“T-To be honest…I have the same feeling as you…”
Silence. Both of them avoid staring at each other. It was longing for a few minutes until Kys spoke,
“So… what now?”
“I don’t kno- Achoo!” Baltazar sneezed,
“A-Are you sick?” Kys approached him,
A human got away from Shiyan, “I’m fine! I’m completely fine and dandy!” but the sniff betrayed him,
“You’re sick!” Kys grabbed him and pulled him closer to the fire, “You need to warm up! And take off your clothes!”
“Wait, what?!”
“You’re wet to the bone!” Kys hold a tight grip on him, “You will get a fever!”
“There’s still a cold wind here, I need my clothes!”
But before he could protest more, Kys jumped on him and pinned him to the ground, “Listen for once and be a good boy, ok?!”
After that, Baltazar stopped struggling,
“Stay down!” fox-cat shouted,
“I already stopped!”
“Seriously?” Kys shook his head, “Usually, it takes several punches before you start complying’
Baltazar didn’t reply,
“What’s wrong with you?” Kys scratched his foxy ears, “I just told you to listen and…ooooh…” he looked at the pinned short human and chuckled. An idea came up to his head and with that some confidence.
“Wh-Why are you laughing?”
“Oh, it’s nothing that, my good boy…”
“W-Wait, what are you-”
“You heard me” Kys lowered himself and whispered, “You. Are. My. Good boy”
Even with a bandana on his face, you could tell he was blushing, “I-I…”
“Shh…You need to warm up” Kys smiled, “We don’t want you to be cold, do we?”
“N-No…”
“Good boy~”
Both of them got closer to the fireplace. Both of them took off their armor, leaving them with tank tops and pants.
Kys embraced Baltazar with his soft, furry body.
“Mmmm… You’re so nice in touch…” a Shiyan nuzzled into a human neck,
“I-It’s you who’s soft…” a human mumbled,
“Mmmm…nope. You’re the soft one. And your hair…I want to just scratch you!” she pulled him tighter,
“S-Shut up, it’s you who’s a walking fluff!”
“Heheh…Are you getting bad boy~?”
“I- N-No, I-...” Baltazar got even more flustered (if it’s even possible) and curled up more,
“Aww…I love you when you’re so shy…” Kys decided to snuggle the red ball, “That’s why I love you so much” his tail was wagging, “Despite that scars and how you act in public… you have a good heart, no matter how hard you’re trying to hide it”
Baltazar stopped shivering and trembling. He got more relaxed,
“You care about your family, no matter what you say” Kys said.
Human breath stabilized, “Thank you, Kys” and he took off his black bandana, revealing the gory scar on his face. A disgusting scar that looked like he smiles from ear to ear, “People are afraid to come closer than five meters from me. I heard their whispers and conversations when they think I’m not around. They call me ‘Smiley’...I hate it…I hate it so much…I never smile…” he leaned towards him, “Almost never. You’re the exception, Kys…Kys?”
“Zzzzz…” a Shiyan was snoring, hugging his good boy,
“Sigh… I guess I will be stuck here for a while…I’m not complaining” he scratched Kys’s ears. He could hear his purring, “I’m a good boy after all…”
submitted by ContributionOdd3990 to TheAuroranArchives [link] [comments]
The Warhost forests were the densest and most dangerous. There was a saying, ‘When other countries have forests, The forests have Warhost’. And that’s not so far from the truth. If you want to not get lost, you have to follow the narrow paths.
But the citizens of that province don’t have that problem, especially the hunters. They know those trees like the back of their hands. They were used not only for hunting but as couriers, messengers, protection escorts, and even police assistants.
But this time, a hunter was on the hunt.
His target wasn’t a wild animal, no. It was a Shiyan. Half-canine, half-feline. A fox-cat. A lethal mix. One of the most dangerous Shiyans in the woods.
And the hunter swore on his honor to hunt him down.
A hunter knew that the target was close. He decided to hide among bushes. His cloak had various colors of green and brown, making him almost undetected. He lifted his crossbow and loaded it. Then, he proceeded to listen to the surroundings.
He was standing like a rock for minutes. Despite no results, he was still listening. A hunter tried to solve Shiyan’s tactic.
A fox-cat could move against the wind, he could be on one of the trees… he could be setting a trap right now.
“Boo!”
As fast as he heard it, he turned around.
But it was too late.
A Shiyan plunged at the hunter, the crossbow flew out of the hunter’s hands. A human was pinned to the wet and muddy ground. He was at the Shiyan’s mercy.
“Stay down!” a fox-cat growled, showing his teeth, “You know it’s over”
But the hunter kept struggling. Shiyan tightened his grip, “Just give up! You know it’s pointless!”
“Never!” a hunter shouted back, “I’m not scared of you!”
“Let’s see if that’s true, shall we?” He reached for his mask and took it off, “You’re not scared, huh? Those shivered eyes of you tell otherwise… same goes for your quick and sharp breath… and your face is full red…wait. Why are you red?”
“Wh-What?”
“You’re all red” Shiyan said again, “Why?”
“Umm… no reason?” a hunter nervously laughed,
“Hmm…okay…” Shiyan got closer, suspicious about the hunter’s behavior getting weirder and weirder.
And all of sudden, Hunter lifted his head and kissed Shiyan.
Both of them stood still for a minute—one long minute of a kiss. None of them knew what was happening.
After 60 seconds, they realized what had just happened.
“Baltazar, what the fuck?!”
“I don’t know! I swear on my mother, I don’t know!”
A human named Baltazar and Shiyan fox-cat Kys got away from each other, still confused and shocked. They were just looking at each other.
“Kys, I’m sorry, I-”
“It’s blasphemy!” Kys shouted, “That kind of relations between the same sex is forbidden!”
“Kys, relax”
“It’s a sin! We’re sinners!” a cat-fox was lamenting,
“No, we’re not” a human assured him,
“We’re getting banished! My whole life is over! The entire-”
"Kys!" Baltazar grabbed his friend and shook him hard, "Calm down! We're not getting banished!"
"B-But we-"
"No one saw us doing that! No witnesses to accuse us!"
"B-But-"
"Everything is fine! It’s not like you liked it, right?"
Kys didn’t reply.
“You didn’t like the kiss, right…? Kys?”
Then, the lighting woke them more. They realized that the rain was getting heavier.
“L-Let’s find some shelter…” Kys mumbled, “There’s a, umm… a cave nearby…”
Baltazar shyly nodded, “Better to be awkwardly quiet in front of the campfire…” a nervous laugh wasn’t louder than the storm.
They reached the shelter very quickly. Unfortunately, both of them got already as wet as everything in the forest. They gathered a lot of tree bark and sticks. Kys used his lighter and the fire was ignited. Baltazar made a primitive drier for the cloaks they were wearing.
They were sitting on the opposite side of the campfire, still not sure about recent events. The ambiance of the storm was filling the awkward silence.
“So…” a human started first, “H-How are you?”
“Wh-What?”
“The…the time when we…you know…” Baltazar lifted the mask on his face to hide the blush, “H-How are you feeling about this?”
Kys was thinking about it for a long time, “I…I…I kinda like it…”
“What?!” human eyes perked up, “Y-You do?!”
He was so loud that he scared Kys, “I-I…M-Maybe…? I’m so confused…but yes. I liked it” In the last part he said very quietly, “It’s wrong but it felt so good…”
Unfortunately, for Kys, Baltazar had a good hearing, “Maybe…maybe it’s not wrong?”
“Wh-What do you mean?”
“We’re good people. We do everything according to the Holy Book. So how much one sin is compared to the lifetime of good deeds?”
“But it’s still a sin…” Kys mumbled,
“Well…technically, it’s not. There’s nothing in the Holy Book that says it’s a sin. And come to think of it…no one cares”
“Dude!” a Shiyan objected, “It’s Warhost! Everything is around the Holy Book!”
“Yes and no” Baltazar continued, “We listen to the pope, bishops, and priest who tell us what Holy Book means. So… technically we listen to their opinions”
Kys sighed and shook his fluffy, orange head, “I think that you listen too much to your father’s opinions…”
Baltazar laughed, the smile was too big for the bandana to hide, “Maybe, maybe… But look at us. You ran away from your parents, my entire family is pure-blooded human. Yet, we’re treated like the rest”
A fox-cat tried to say something but he stopped. He tried to process everything AGAIN.
“So…We’re not sinners. We’re just against the social constructs of the most isolated country on this plane”
Kys lowered his head and questioned his life choices,
“Oh, come on!” Baltazar pulled himself next to the screaming Shiyan, “We have known each other since our baptism! And…” he turned his head and murmured, “And I…liked it too…”
Kys’s hearing detected the last words, “You did?!”
“Fuck…” Baltazar got up and started wandering around the natural shelter, “I like it too! There, I said it!” he made the largest sigh of relief of his entire life, “Oh god, it’s so great to say that after so many years…”
“Y-Years?”
“Yes, years…Kys, you’re the best person I’ve ever met. You’re never harsh… You’re like…a pure, innocent ray of sunshine…and I want to be in it all the time and that sounded horny, isn’t it?”
Kys nodded with his orange-red, fluffy head,
“Fuck…I-I didn’t mean it”
“T-To be honest…I have the same feeling as you…”
Silence. Both of them avoid staring at each other. It was longing for a few minutes until Kys spoke,
“So… what now?”
“I don’t kno- Achoo!” Baltazar sneezed,
“A-Are you sick?” Kys approached him,
A human got away from Shiyan, “I’m fine! I’m completely fine and dandy!” but the sniff betrayed him,
“You’re sick!” Kys grabbed him and pulled him closer to the fire, “You need to warm up! And take off your clothes!”
“Wait, what?!”
“You’re wet to the bone!” Kys hold a tight grip on him, “You will get a fever!”
“There’s still a cold wind here, I need my clothes!”
But before he could protest more, Kys jumped on him and pinned him to the ground, “Listen for once and be a good boy, ok?!”
After that, Baltazar stopped struggling,
“Stay down!” fox-cat shouted,
“I already stopped!”
“Seriously?” Kys shook his head, “Usually, it takes several punches before you start complying’
Baltazar didn’t reply,
“What’s wrong with you?” Kys scratched his foxy ears, “I just told you to listen and…ooooh…” he looked at the pinned short human and chuckled. An idea came up to his head and with that some confidence.
“Wh-Why are you laughing?”
“Oh, it’s nothing that, my good boy…”
“W-Wait, what are you-”
“You heard me” Kys lowered himself and whispered, “You. Are. My. Good boy”
Even with a bandana on his face, you could tell he was blushing, “I-I…”
“Shh…You need to warm up” Kys smiled, “We don’t want you to be cold, do we?”
“N-No…”
“Good boy~”
Both of them got closer to the fireplace. Both of them took off their armor, leaving them with tank tops and pants.
Kys embraced Baltazar with his soft, furry body.
“Mmmm… You’re so nice in touch…” a Shiyan nuzzled into a human neck,
“I-It’s you who’s soft…” a human mumbled,
“Mmmm…nope. You’re the soft one. And your hair…I want to just scratch you!” she pulled him tighter,
“S-Shut up, it’s you who’s a walking fluff!”
“Heheh…Are you getting bad boy~?”
“I- N-No, I-...” Baltazar got even more flustered (if it’s even possible) and curled up more,
“Aww…I love you when you’re so shy…” Kys decided to snuggle the red ball, “That’s why I love you so much” his tail was wagging, “Despite that scars and how you act in public… you have a good heart, no matter how hard you’re trying to hide it”
Baltazar stopped shivering and trembling. He got more relaxed,
“You care about your family, no matter what you say” Kys said.
Human breath stabilized, “Thank you, Kys” and he took off his black bandana, revealing the gory scar on his face. A disgusting scar that looked like he smiles from ear to ear, “People are afraid to come closer than five meters from me. I heard their whispers and conversations when they think I’m not around. They call me ‘Smiley’...I hate it…I hate it so much…I never smile…” he leaned towards him, “Almost never. You’re the exception, Kys…Kys?”
“Zzzzz…” a Shiyan was snoring, hugging his good boy,
“Sigh… I guess I will be stuck here for a while…I’m not complaining” he scratched Kys’s ears. He could hear his purring, “I’m a good boy after all…”
2023.04.02 11:18 _Triple_ [STORE] 900+ KNIVES/GLOVES/SKINS, 50.000$+ INVENTORY. M9 Fade, M4 Poseidon, Kara Gamma, BFK Freehand, BFK Bright Water, Spec Gloves Kimono, Nomad Fade, M9 Doppler, Skeleton, BFK B.Steel, AWP Fade, Stiletto Fade, S.Gloves Slingshot, BFK Ultra, Kara Damas, Bayo Lore, Bayo Gamma, Flip Fade & A Lot More
Everything in my inventory is up for trade. The most valuable items are listed here, the rest you can find in My Inventory
Feel free to Add Me or even better send a Trade Offer. Open for any suggestions: upgrades, downgrades / knives, gloves, skins / stickers, patterns, floats.
All Buyouts are listed in cash value.
KNIVES
★ Butterfly Knife Freehand FN #1, B/O: $1867
★ Butterfly Knife Bright Water MW, B/O: $1098
★ Butterfly Knife Blue Steel BS, B/O: $907
★ Butterfly Knife Ultraviolet FT, B/O: $789
★ Butterfly Knife Stained FT, B/O: $695
⎯★ Bayonet Tiger Tooth MW #1, B/O: $888
★ Bayonet Gamma Doppler (Phase 4) FN, B/O: $727
★ Bayonet Doppler (Phase 2) FN, B/O: $608
★ Bayonet Doppler (Phase 1) FN, B/O: $521
★ Bayonet Rust Coat BS, B/O: $253
★ Bayonet Night FT, B/O: $251
★ StatTrak™ Bayonet Lore MW, B/O: $751
⎯★ Karambit Gamma Doppler (Phase 4) FN, B/O: $1343
★ Karambit Damascus Steel FT, B/O: $774
★ Karambit Rust Coat BS, B/O: $537
★ Karambit Boreal Forest FT, B/O: $488
⎯★ M9 Bayonet Fade FN, B/O: $1523
★ M9 Bayonet Fade FN, B/O: $1523
★ M9 Bayonet Doppler (Phase 4) FN, B/O: $1008
★ M9 Bayonet Blue Steel FT, B/O: $534
★ M9 Bayonet Rust Coat BS, B/O: $449
⎯★ Flip Knife Fade FN, B/O: $703
★ Flip Knife Gamma Doppler (Phase 1) MW, B/O: $509
★ Flip Knife Doppler (Phase 1) FN, B/O: $406
★ Flip Knife Freehand FT, B/O: $228
★ StatTrak™ Flip Knife Bright Water FN, B/O: $332
⎯★ Falchion Knife Doppler (Phase 2) FN, B/O: $292
★ Falchion Knife Doppler (Phase 3) FN, B/O: $264
★ Falchion Knife Marble Fade FN, B/O: $258
★ Falchion Knife Bright Water MW, B/O: $133
⎯★ Stiletto Knife Fade FN, B/O: $822
★ Stiletto Knife Slaughter FN, B/O: $569
★ Stiletto Knife Doppler (Phase 1) FN, B/O: $530
★ Stiletto Knife Crimson Web FT, B/O: $396
★ StatTrak™ Stiletto Knife Scorched FT, B/O: $172
⎯★ Gut Knife Doppler (Sapphire) MW #1, B/O: $830
★ Gut Knife Fade FN, B/O: $204
★ Gut Knife Tiger Tooth FN, B/O: $138
★ Gut Knife Bright Water MW, B/O: $104
★ Gut Knife Freehand FT, B/O: $92
★ Gut Knife Urban Masked FT, B/O: $82
★ StatTrak™ Gut Knife Rust Coat BS, B/O: $93
⎯★ Shadow Daggers Fade FN, B/O: $258
★ Shadow Daggers Doppler (Phase 3) FN, B/O: $165
★ Shadow Daggers Blue Steel FT, B/O: $82
★ Shadow Daggers Bright Water FT, B/O: $82
★ Shadow Daggers Blue Steel WW, B/O: $80
★ Shadow Daggers Rust Coat BS, B/O: $74
★ StatTrak™ Shadow Daggers Marble Fade FN, B/O: $186
⎯★ Classic Knife Slaughter MW, B/O: $311
★ StatTrak™ Classic Knife Stained BS, B/O: $163
⎯★ Talon Knife Slaughter MW, B/O: $605
★ Talon Knife Scorched MW, B/O: $290
⎯★ Ursus Knife Marble Fade FN, B/O: $405
★ Ursus Knife Night Stripe MW, B/O: $162
⎯★ Paracord Knife Stained WW, B/O: $125
★ Paracord Knife Forest DDPAT FT, B/O: $97
★ Paracord Knife Safari Mesh FT, B/O: $96
⎯★ Navaja Knife Safari Mesh FT, B/O: $71
★ Navaja Knife Scorched WW, B/O: $71
⎯★ Nomad Knife Fade FN, B/O: $1015
★ Skeleton Knife, B/O: $909
★ Bowie Knife Boreal Forest MW, B/O: $106
★ Survival Knife Forest DDPAT FT, B/O: $97
GLOVES
★ Driver Gloves Crimson Weave FT, B/O: $335
★ Driver Gloves King Snake BS, B/O: $270
★ Driver Gloves Lunar Weave WW, B/O: $113
★ Driver Gloves Overtake WW, B/O: $88
★ Driver Gloves Overtake BS, B/O: $67
⎯★ Moto Gloves Transport MW, B/O: $171
★ Moto Gloves Polygon BS, B/O: $137
★ Moto Gloves Transport WW, B/O: $71
★ Moto Gloves 3rd Commando Company BS, B/O: $62
⎯★ Specialist Gloves Crimson Kimono WW, B/O: $1027
★ Specialist Gloves Tiger Strike FT, B/O: $654
★ Specialist Gloves Mogul FT, B/O: $295
★ Specialist Gloves Lt. Commander FT, B/O: $277
★ Specialist Gloves Crimson Web FT, B/O: $275
⎯★ Sport Gloves Slingshot FT, B/O: $796
★ Sport Gloves Amphibious BS #2, B/O: $699
★ Sport Gloves Omega FT, B/O: $656
⎯★ Broken Fang Gloves Unhinged BS, B/O: $60
WEAPONS
AK-47 Case Hardened BS, B/O: $130
AK-47 Bloodsport MW, B/O: $79
AK-47 Fuel Injector BS, B/O: $76
AK-47 Fuel Injector BS, B/O: $76
AK-47 Bloodsport FT, B/O: $70
AK-47 Neon Rider MW, B/O: $60
⎯AWP Fade FN, B/O: $864
AWP BOOM MW, B/O: $84
AWP Containment Breach FT, B/O: $69
AWP Containment Breach FT, B/O: $69
AWP Wildfire FT, B/O: $59
AWP Chromatic Aberration FN, B/O: $59
StatTrak™ AWP Hyper Beast FT, B/O: $65
StatTrak™ AWP Hyper Beast FT, B/O: $65
⎯Desert Eagle Blaze FN, B/O: $565
Desert Eagle Blaze FN, B/O: $565
Desert Eagle Printstream FN, B/O: $155
Desert Eagle Cobalt Disruption FN, B/O: $58
⎯M4A1-S Icarus Fell FN, B/O: $414
M4A1-S Printstream MW, B/O: $204
M4A1-S Printstream MW, B/O: $204
⎯M4A4 Poseidon FN, B/O: $1402
M4A4 The Emperor FN, B/O: $152
M4A4 Asiimov WW, B/O: $97
⎯USP-S Kill Confirmed MW, B/O: $65
USP-S Printstream FT, B/O: $69
StatTrak™ USP-S Kill Confirmed FT, B/O: $123
StatTrak™ USP-S Neo-Noir FN, B/O: $106
⎯AUG Flame Jörmungandr FN, B/O: $218
P2000 Ocean Foam FN, B/O: $139
Souvenir SSG 08 Death Strike MW, B/O: $81
CZ75-Auto Emerald Quartz MW, B/O: $61
Trade Offer Link - Steam Profile Link - My Inventory
Some items on the list may no longer be available or are still locked, visit My Inventory for more details.
Send a Trade Offer for fastest response. I consider all offers.
Add me for discuss if there is a serious offer that needs to be discussed.
2023.04.02 10:49 UnlikelyBeat2742 question about bone age
so im a 16m and have always been shortesmall and looked younger my whole life. I remember when I was 14 my bone age was 12. Is bone age related to puberty or just height? So if my bone age is 14 would I look like a 14 y/o or a 16 y/o? Currently I’m around 5’2 and when I got the bone age scan the doctor said my predicted height is 5’8/5’9 but I don’t understand how that will happen when I’m only 5’2 now (maybe i’m 5’3 i haven’t checked if i grew). Should I ask for another bone age x-ray?
submitted by UnlikelyBeat2742 to Puberty [link] [comments]
2023.04.02 09:11 snowstormpolarmir Wayfair Rachael Ray Cookware
Check out the link for Wayfair Rachael Ray Cookware. Once on the website, you'll have access to a variety of coupons, promo codes, and discount deals that are updated regularly to help you save on your purchase.
submitted by snowstormpolarmir to TitanDeals [link] [comments]
2023.04.02 07:11 _Triple_ [STORE] 900+ KNIVES/GLOVES/SKINS, 50.000$+ INVENTORY. M9 Fade, M4 Poseidon, Kara Gamma, BFK Freehand, BFK Bright Water, Spec Gloves Kimono, Nomad Fade, M9 Doppler, Skeleton, BFK B.Steel, AWP Fade, Stiletto Fade, S.Gloves Slingshot, BFK Ultra, Kara Damas, Bayo Lore, Bayo Gamma, Flip Fade & A Lot More
Everything in my inventory is up for trade. The most valuable items are listed here, the rest you can find in My Inventory
Feel free to Add Me or even better send a Trade Offer. Open for any suggestions: upgrades, downgrades / knives, gloves, skins / stickers, patterns, floats.
All Buyouts are listed in cash value.
KNIVES
★ Butterfly Knife Freehand FN #1, B/O: $1867
★ Butterfly Knife Bright Water MW, B/O: $1098
★ Butterfly Knife Blue Steel BS, B/O: $907
★ Butterfly Knife Ultraviolet FT, B/O: $789
★ Butterfly Knife Stained FT, B/O: $695
⎯★ Bayonet Tiger Tooth MW #1, B/O: $888
★ Bayonet Gamma Doppler (Phase 4) FN, B/O: $727
★ Bayonet Doppler (Phase 2) FN, B/O: $608
★ Bayonet Doppler (Phase 1) FN, B/O: $521
★ Bayonet Rust Coat BS, B/O: $253
★ Bayonet Night FT, B/O: $251
★ StatTrak™ Bayonet Lore MW, B/O: $751
⎯★ Karambit Gamma Doppler (Phase 4) FN, B/O: $1343
★ Karambit Damascus Steel FT, B/O: $774
★ Karambit Rust Coat BS, B/O: $537
★ Karambit Boreal Forest FT, B/O: $488
⎯★ M9 Bayonet Fade FN, B/O: $1523
★ M9 Bayonet Fade FN, B/O: $1523
★ M9 Bayonet Doppler (Phase 4) FN, B/O: $1008
★ M9 Bayonet Blue Steel FT, B/O: $534
★ M9 Bayonet Rust Coat BS, B/O: $449
⎯★ Flip Knife Fade FN, B/O: $703
★ Flip Knife Gamma Doppler (Phase 1) MW, B/O: $509
★ Flip Knife Doppler (Phase 1) FN, B/O: $406
★ Flip Knife Freehand FT, B/O: $228
★ StatTrak™ Flip Knife Bright Water FN, B/O: $332
⎯★ Falchion Knife Doppler (Phase 2) FN, B/O: $292
★ Falchion Knife Doppler (Phase 3) FN, B/O: $264
★ Falchion Knife Marble Fade FN, B/O: $258
★ Falchion Knife Bright Water MW, B/O: $133
⎯★ Stiletto Knife Fade FN, B/O: $822
★ Stiletto Knife Slaughter FN, B/O: $569
★ Stiletto Knife Doppler (Phase 1) FN, B/O: $530
★ Stiletto Knife Crimson Web FT, B/O: $396
★ StatTrak™ Stiletto Knife Scorched FT, B/O: $172
⎯★ Gut Knife Doppler (Sapphire) MW #1, B/O: $830
★ Gut Knife Fade FN, B/O: $204
★ Gut Knife Tiger Tooth FN, B/O: $138
★ Gut Knife Bright Water MW, B/O: $104
★ Gut Knife Freehand FT, B/O: $92
★ Gut Knife Urban Masked FT, B/O: $82
★ StatTrak™ Gut Knife Rust Coat BS, B/O: $93
⎯★ Shadow Daggers Fade FN, B/O: $258
★ Shadow Daggers Doppler (Phase 3) FN, B/O: $165
★ Shadow Daggers Blue Steel FT, B/O: $82
★ Shadow Daggers Bright Water FT, B/O: $82
★ Shadow Daggers Blue Steel WW, B/O: $80
★ Shadow Daggers Rust Coat BS, B/O: $74
★ StatTrak™ Shadow Daggers Marble Fade FN, B/O: $186
⎯★ Classic Knife Slaughter MW, B/O: $311
★ StatTrak™ Classic Knife Stained BS, B/O: $163
⎯★ Talon Knife Slaughter MW, B/O: $605
★ Talon Knife Scorched MW, B/O: $290
⎯★ Ursus Knife Marble Fade FN, B/O: $405
★ Ursus Knife Night Stripe MW, B/O: $162
⎯★ Paracord Knife Stained WW, B/O: $125
★ Paracord Knife Forest DDPAT FT, B/O: $97
★ Paracord Knife Safari Mesh FT, B/O: $96
⎯★ Navaja Knife Safari Mesh FT, B/O: $71
★ Navaja Knife Scorched WW, B/O: $71
⎯★ Nomad Knife Fade FN, B/O: $1015
★ Skeleton Knife, B/O: $909
★ Bowie Knife Boreal Forest MW, B/O: $106
★ Survival Knife Forest DDPAT FT, B/O: $97
GLOVES
★ Driver Gloves Crimson Weave FT, B/O: $335
★ Driver Gloves King Snake BS, B/O: $270
★ Driver Gloves Lunar Weave WW, B/O: $113
★ Driver Gloves Overtake WW, B/O: $88
★ Driver Gloves Overtake BS, B/O: $67
⎯★ Moto Gloves Transport MW, B/O: $171
★ Moto Gloves Polygon BS, B/O: $137
★ Moto Gloves Transport WW, B/O: $71
★ Moto Gloves 3rd Commando Company BS, B/O: $62
⎯★ Specialist Gloves Crimson Kimono WW, B/O: $1027
★ Specialist Gloves Tiger Strike FT, B/O: $654
★ Specialist Gloves Mogul FT, B/O: $295
★ Specialist Gloves Lt. Commander FT, B/O: $277
★ Specialist Gloves Crimson Web FT, B/O: $275
⎯★ Sport Gloves Slingshot FT, B/O: $796
★ Sport Gloves Amphibious BS #2, B/O: $699
★ Sport Gloves Omega FT, B/O: $656
⎯★ Broken Fang Gloves Unhinged BS, B/O: $60
WEAPONS
AK-47 Case Hardened BS, B/O: $130
AK-47 Bloodsport MW, B/O: $79
AK-47 Fuel Injector BS, B/O: $76
AK-47 Fuel Injector BS, B/O: $76
AK-47 Bloodsport FT, B/O: $70
AK-47 Neon Rider MW, B/O: $60
⎯AWP Fade FN, B/O: $864
AWP BOOM MW, B/O: $84
AWP Containment Breach FT, B/O: $69
AWP Containment Breach FT, B/O: $69
AWP Wildfire FT, B/O: $59
AWP Chromatic Aberration FN, B/O: $59
StatTrak™ AWP Hyper Beast FT, B/O: $65
StatTrak™ AWP Hyper Beast FT, B/O: $65
⎯Desert Eagle Blaze FN, B/O: $565
Desert Eagle Blaze FN, B/O: $565
Desert Eagle Printstream FN, B/O: $155
Desert Eagle Cobalt Disruption FN, B/O: $58
⎯M4A1-S Icarus Fell FN, B/O: $414
M4A1-S Printstream MW, B/O: $204
M4A1-S Printstream MW, B/O: $204
⎯M4A4 Poseidon FN, B/O: $1402
M4A4 The Emperor FN, B/O: $152
M4A4 Asiimov WW, B/O: $97
⎯USP-S Kill Confirmed MW, B/O: $65
USP-S Printstream FT, B/O: $69
StatTrak™ USP-S Kill Confirmed FT, B/O: $123
StatTrak™ USP-S Neo-Noir FN, B/O: $106
⎯AUG Flame Jörmungandr FN, B/O: $218
P2000 Ocean Foam FN, B/O: $139
Souvenir SSG 08 Death Strike MW, B/O: $81
CZ75-Auto Emerald Quartz MW, B/O: $61
Trade Offer Link - Steam Profile Link - My Inventory
Some items on the list may no longer be available or are still locked, visit My Inventory for more details.
Send a Trade Offer for fastest response. I consider all offers.
Add me for discuss if there is a serious offer that needs to be discussed.
2023.04.02 07:06 5YNTH3T1K Dreams part two
I wrote this in sls and copied it over to here for posterity. It has a few golden lines.
Woke up and yes... I was overbaked. again.
I was shouting at a small printed circuit board with light emitting diodes and Surface mounted devices that was giving me static about some shit that I was doing when they are actually a junior officer etc... I told then we would go to my superior officer to sort this shit out once and for all. I was super angy.
What had happened to spur my shouting so much ( I like shouting !) was the fuck up with the reactor core loading operation. The short version is that bank C had caused critical alarms in core 4 bank A and alerts in several other cores in Banks A and B, standard operating procedure is to remove the last inserted bank and tray a new bank but some operators freaked the fuck out and tried to abandon their positions.
To provide a clear timeline of events I a started create a document to hand up stairs when the smoke cleared. This was proving a bit difficult with the pen that I was being quite shit. and the paper was the back of some regional information brochure which was not taking the ink very well. Some homless guy came to help me with the gift of an unreasonably large ink marker. This was exceptional under the circumstances but I could not use it due to the lines being like an inch wide. They came back in minutes with a really amazing technical pen that was leaking. I had no idea where they were getting these pens from or even where they had come from themselves as we were isolated in zone far from safety.
I never managed to get back to the reactor cores to fix the problem, this may have been a blessing as I am sure those things are bad for you. They change you. The Strugatsky effect is still not fully understood.
Were we at war ? Did R. Heinlein invade my secure-ee-nooze tm sleep module again ? Text underfoot breaks like snapping rods of ice to over strain. No thinks to the break of a new dawn lights shine beacon drifting through time like a lost can of soup to the brain matter journey alpha plus. can you dig it?
I shove the bunker door open with a final heave and the morning gloom of mist and shit invaded my eyes. I could smell the fresh watering the air like fine droplets caressing my cheeks. The air was not toxic and the ground around the area seemed to be evacuated of debris for change. There were actual trees this time. Thought they seems to all be moving in the same lock step motion. Ignore that for the time. Cane I ano you will they I am not sure but this is time. Again. It's a bit cold and brisk I rub my hands together and hunt around in the jacket full of pockets for my woolen gloves. Maybe I ought to climb out and check the surrounding area. They might still be here, it;'s hard to tell at times. Them.
There is silence in the house, all the floor boards are riddled with tiny holes the insect make, the appliances are down to save energy. I shudder and brace myself for the cold water cleansing ritual. The shock of the cold splashing on the face. Wake up you slug you are gonna live another day. Gasping for air and muscles tense all over, it's a glorious way to meet the day and serve. The front lines of reality are knitting together like the broken bones fit tendrils of calcium mosaic crystal structure linking together to remake the new voids open junctures. Blink at the gaunt face staring out of the mirror. They are there again in the looking glass. Magic. Older. Wiser? I am not sure. Dripping water onto the floor and chilling down. Scrape the rough towel and get into the gears. Hurry up it's time to move.
The slugs are on patrol.
Electron passing through the brain cause determination to wain. The speed of light but a glow.
Fully locked red light stares unblinking at me.
Time to move.
Take care this day! xxx
submitted by 5YNTH3T1K to MyScienceFiction [link] [comments]
Dreasm part 02
📷 TruthWoke up and yes... I was overbaked. again.
I was shouting at a small printed circuit board with light emitting diodes and Surface mounted devices that was giving me static about some shit that I was doing when they are actually a junior officer etc... I told then we would go to my superior officer to sort this shit out once and for all. I was super angy.
What had happened to spur my shouting so much ( I like shouting !) was the fuck up with the reactor core loading operation. The short version is that bank C had caused critical alarms in core 4 bank A and alerts in several other cores in Banks A and B, standard operating procedure is to remove the last inserted bank and tray a new bank but some operators freaked the fuck out and tried to abandon their positions.
To provide a clear timeline of events I a started create a document to hand up stairs when the smoke cleared. This was proving a bit difficult with the pen that I was being quite shit. and the paper was the back of some regional information brochure which was not taking the ink very well. Some homless guy came to help me with the gift of an unreasonably large ink marker. This was exceptional under the circumstances but I could not use it due to the lines being like an inch wide. They came back in minutes with a really amazing technical pen that was leaking. I had no idea where they were getting these pens from or even where they had come from themselves as we were isolated in zone far from safety.
I never managed to get back to the reactor cores to fix the problem, this may have been a blessing as I am sure those things are bad for you. They change you. The Strugatsky effect is still not fully understood.
Were we at war ? Did R. Heinlein invade my secure-ee-nooze tm sleep module again ? Text underfoot breaks like snapping rods of ice to over strain. No thinks to the break of a new dawn lights shine beacon drifting through time like a lost can of soup to the brain matter journey alpha plus. can you dig it?
I shove the bunker door open with a final heave and the morning gloom of mist and shit invaded my eyes. I could smell the fresh watering the air like fine droplets caressing my cheeks. The air was not toxic and the ground around the area seemed to be evacuated of debris for change. There were actual trees this time. Thought they seems to all be moving in the same lock step motion. Ignore that for the time. Cane I ano you will they I am not sure but this is time. Again. It's a bit cold and brisk I rub my hands together and hunt around in the jacket full of pockets for my woolen gloves. Maybe I ought to climb out and check the surrounding area. They might still be here, it;'s hard to tell at times. Them.
There is silence in the house, all the floor boards are riddled with tiny holes the insect make, the appliances are down to save energy. I shudder and brace myself for the cold water cleansing ritual. The shock of the cold splashing on the face. Wake up you slug you are gonna live another day. Gasping for air and muscles tense all over, it's a glorious way to meet the day and serve. The front lines of reality are knitting together like the broken bones fit tendrils of calcium mosaic crystal structure linking together to remake the new voids open junctures. Blink at the gaunt face staring out of the mirror. They are there again in the looking glass. Magic. Older. Wiser? I am not sure. Dripping water onto the floor and chilling down. Scrape the rough towel and get into the gears. Hurry up it's time to move.
The slugs are on patrol.
Electron passing through the brain cause determination to wain. The speed of light but a glow.
Fully locked red light stares unblinking at me.
Time to move.
Take care this day! xxx
2023.04.02 06:03 Future_Ad_3485 The Swallow and the Mad Hatter Part Six: Sins Haunt the Deepest Parts
Rows and rows of corn rustled in the early autumn breeze, eleven year old me danced around the farm. Glancing down at my hands, my eleven year old hands had replaced mine. The brief escape from my masters wouldn’t last long, dogs barked in the distance. Smoothing out my white sweater, my dark denim skirt fluttered in the breeze. Pulling my hair into a ponytail, I still needed more time. Sprinting into the corn, stalks smacked my face. Horror rounded my eyes, heavy paws crashed behind me. Skidding to a stop, my faceless master held me down, allowing the dogs to bite me. Tortured screams burst from my lips, their teeth sinking into my legs and arms.
“I’ll teach you not to run, Swallow!” His deep voice barked ferociously, the heel of his boot pushing my face into the dirt. “You belong to us! Boys, let’s go home. You have to walk home to get bites stitched up. See you if you make it.” Ditching me to bleed out, the sunshine changed to moonlight. Dirt covered up my hands, my body protesting as I struggled to my feet. Limping out of the field, an eleven year old boy with ruby eyes popped up in front of me. Running his hand through his onyx hair, he adjusted his top hat. Taking my hand, my eyes couldn’t leave his pinstripe suit.
“You won’t remember this but we will meet in the future. Hold on for a bit longer.” He promised lovingly, kissing my forehead. “I am going to heal you and you will keep marching forward. I am going to leave you with this.” Kissing my lips passionately, a bright light healed my wounds. The light died down, the boy was gone. I could run but where would I go? Home wasn’t an option, my hands crossing. Sinking to my knees, my fingers traced the layers of bruises and cuts on my skin. Pain was all I knew, the harsh whip of harmful words tearing me down by the day. Wiping away my tears, storm clouds brewed over my head. Time passed, the corn dying and growing in speed motion. Glancing down at them, my regular hands had returned. Eleven year old me walked out of the cornfield, her arms folded across her chest.
“Wake up and stop wallowing in the past!” She spat at me, her bare feet marching up to me. “Don’t be such a pathetic loser.” Inky blackness dyed her eyes, her form shifting to a glitching shadow. Clawed hands reached out to me, my clammy fingers playing with the hem of my blouse. Snapping his fingers, a force woke me up.
Jerking awake, the field of corn swayed in front of me. Patting my body, my usual outfit covered my body. My chest tightened, every breath shortening. Pale moonlight bathed the endless sea of corn, involuntary tears slid down my cheeks. Demy, I needed Demy. Struggling to stand, barking in the distance sent me ten feet in the air. Cupping my ears, a happy mutt ran up to me. His shaggy brown fur was matted with mud, a tag shining in the moonlight. Taking deep breaths, my heart rate settled down. Crouching down to his level, an address greeting me. Shifting through my magic boots, soft leather grazed my fingers. Pulling it out, the dog sat still while I struggled toclick it on. Walking him onto the street, storm clouds brewed over my head. A familiar energy sent chills up my spine, his tail wagging at an unassuming house. The canary colonial loomed over me, one light flickered in the window. The dog went berserk, his barks echoing in the night. Pointing the nose to the shadowy treeline, the glitching shadow figure stepped out of the shadows. Undoing the leash, a pat on his butt sent him back into the house.
“Let’s take this somewhere else. You called me and kidnapped a dog to get me to you.” I growled through a wall of tears, fighting the impending anxiety attack. “I want to fight you away from people. No deserves the chaos you can bring.” A sly grin danced across his lips, wicked laughter rumbling in his throat. Snapping his fingers, the home faded to the torched remains of the training facilities. The memory of me burning it down when I was eleven haunted my mind, the screams of the dying people broke me down in seconds. Collapsing to my knees, vomit flew up my throat. Circling me, his slow claps sank me deeper into my guilt.
“I was born here because of your sins. I am the combination of all the souls you killed that day. We want you dead. You don’t deserve happiness.” He barked bitterly, wrapping his arms around my shoulders. “You have to pay for your sins. There is no way you can have the fruit of a good life after what you did.” It had been an accident, my foot knocking down a candle on flammable chemicals the moment I fell in. Shaking my head, my body rocked back and forth.
“It was an accident!” I blurted out desperately, ripping his arms off of me. “I accidentally knocked over a candle and the flames landed into a vat of chemicals. I tried to warn everybody and you didn’t listen. You thought I was lying. It was your boss who said to let it all burn. Yell at him.” Ripping my head back, his mouth opened up. Ashes flowed into my throat, a coughing fit taking over. The dry material tasted horrendous, nausea wracking my body.
“Do you mind leaving my little Swallow alone?” Demy called out from the shadows, his gun aimed for the shadows head. “Hell of a trick you played there, buddy. Pulling somebody through their dreams. What do you have to say about yourself?” Cocking his brow, fury seethed in his eyes. The shadow refused to let me go, my past literally holding me back. Coughing up the rest of the ash, a stinger extended from his wrists. Pressing it into my neck, my vision blurred. Every cell in me wanted to die, the guilt eating away at my soul. So many screams rang in my ear, the crackling of a fire stealing me away from my current reality. Tears welled up in my eyes, my composure slipping away.
“Our only pathway to Heaven is to kill her so we can move on.” He hissed evilly, pushing it through my neck. “Your little swallow will soon be dead.” Ripping it out, blood poured down my neck. A cry from Demy snapped me back to reality, his bullet whizzing by my head. Mouthing a healing spell, the wound sealed shut. Jumping to my feet, the shadow popped up behind me. Jamming my elbow into his chest, he cried out. Clapping my hands, the three of us stood in the cornfield. The bad part is that we were separated, Demy’s voice calling out to me. Panic gripped me at the silence around me, knowing the next victim.
“Be quiet or he will find you!” I shouted over hooting owls, an idea coming to mind. Digging around with my boot, my fingers curled around my staff. Fire seemed out of the option, my mind moving to air. Slamming the tip of my staff on the loose dirt, a blast of air shot me closer to the moon. Scanning the field for Demy, the shadow and him were battling. Aiming my feet for the space in between them, a cloud of dirt obscured my clumsy landing. Confidence faded to horror, the shadow bursting into flames. Shoving Demy out of the way, his flaming hand grasped my arm. The smell of burning flesh nauseated me, the tip of my scythe slammed into his guts. Loosening his grip, his arm touched a stalk of corn. A steady stream of curse words flowed freely from my lips, the flames spreading with an alarming speed. The heat warmed up my cheeks, my angry burn screaming in protest.
“Rain from Hell, Shower us with the gift of water.” I chanted confidently, storm clouds thundering to life. Heavy raindrops crashed to the top of my head, a defiant grin spreading across my determined face. The flames died out before they hit the nearest home, black stalks smoking into the sky. The shadow stumbled back, my swift kicks knocking them to the ground. Pinning him down with my heel, the tip of my staff pressed into his neck. Extending his stinger, a shrill scream matched the next rumble of thunder as he jammed it into my leg. Unable to move my heel, ravens cawed behind me. The hair stood up on the back of my neck, Demy’s massive blade of his scythe stabbing us both. The shadow creature seized, his body decaying to dust. Copper poisoned my taste buds, inky blood staining my teeth. Wheezing, he ripped out from my stomach. Blood painted my blouse, his scythe swinging towards my neck. Blocking his attack with my staff, tears stained my cheeks. The wound refused to heal, my tone growing shakier by the second.
“Demy! Stop it!” I pleaded desperately, his scythe smashing into my staff. “Remember when you visited me when I was eleven! I know you lied about watching me a year ago. You have been watching me my whole life. You know everything about me and you chose to keep that a secret. I am not even freaked out by it. I need you to come back so I can marry you.” His hard expression softened, my staff splashing in the mud. Lowering his scythe, black smoke curled off of my palms. Helping him tuck it into his hat, the ravens flew back into his top hat. Our hair clung to his face, his shattered expression falling on my wound. Shivering in the rain, he guided my head to his neck.
“I am so sorry that I hurt!” He sobbed into my ear, my fangs extending over my lips. “Drink what you need to heal.” Sinking my teeth into his neck, his arms held me like his life depended on it. Drinking my fill, his eyes refused to meet mine. The rain hid his tears, my trembling hands placing his hat on head. A bright light sealed my wound shut, a wave of relief washing over me. Sobs shook our bodies, the two of us shivering. Cupping his face, my lips kissed him feverishly.
“Now it is my turn.” I wept softly with a quiet smile, his shame filled eyes not leaving my loving gaze. “I may have forgotten that day but your words kept me going. You didn’t do anything wrong, you simply lost control. Weapons can devour you if you aren’t careful. I can heal. Wounds end, my heart would break if you weren’t by my side. Please stay by my side.” Pressing his forehead against mine, his slender hand cupped my cheek. Taking a couple of deep breaths, a slight fear still haunted his eyes. The crunching of my calf bone fusing back together stole the moment, a fit of laughter bursting from our lips.
“I don’t really have a choice.” He teased blithely, his crooked grin melting my heart. “Je t’aime plus que le monde.” Understanding French, my heart fluttered. Scooping up my staff, it shrank back down. Tucking it into my boot, my hand took his. Dragging him out of the destroyed cornfield, the rain slowed to a stop. Tugging him along, his arm kept the branches from his scratching his face. Taking a couple of turns, his breath hitched at the sea of red and oranges spreading underneath the steely gray cliff. Sitting down on the edge, my head rested against his shoulder.
“This is where I always hid from them to get away from my masters before I burned the building down. I always had a place to go.” I commented serenely, his hand cupping mine. “I accidentally set the fire that day. The guilt eats at me everyday. What can I say?” Leaves rustled behind me, the hollow steps of my fellow co-workers boots weren’t that far behind. Pushing him off the cliff, my finger ripped out my staff. Gears whirred, the staff bending at a forty-five degree angle. A mix of golden and scarlet feathers burst from the metal frame, a metal bar coming down. Gripping the metal bar, I pulled myself up. Demy hung on for dear life, my slender fingers stealing his gun. Ripping it from his pocket, the gun hissed upon my touch. Crossing my legs, the scope helped me get a line of three them. Alarm widened my eyes, a helicopter floating up behind me. Leaning back, my aim quivered on the engine that I built. Undoing the safety, a quick yank of the trigger sent a bullet towards the gas tank. Flying up close to the open door, simple white masked assassins greeted me. Perfect, they were ranked lower than me. Evil laughter rumbled in my throat, a quick round leaving steaming bullet holes in the center of their forehead. Stealing their guns, the pilot shot a few rounds into my chest. The bullets made their way up my throat, the pilot soon realizing their mistake. Flicking a bullet in his direction, his body collapsed into a heap. The other assassins leapt off the cliff, metallic wings keeping them from falling to their death. Tucking Demy’s gun back into his pocket, only a few more seconds remained before the helicopter explosion would kill us both. Laying all the way back, my body was verticle to the ground. Counting the seconds, it would take one bullet to kill my enemies in one action. Lining the bullets into my fingers, my hand curled into the ready position. Three, two, one! Flicking my wrist, the velocity of my strength put a bit of heat on the bullets. Swinging myself underneath, Demy helped me steer us away from the impending explosion. A thunderous boom released a wild wind, the orange flames lighting up the sky. Control slipped away from us, the device crashing into a bed of branches. Blood and guts rained down with metal pieces, a blast of ice from my trembling palm putting out the flaming pieces before they touched the dry trees. Smiling warmly to myself, my staff clicked back to normal. Examining her for damage, nothing could be seen.
“That was a close one.” Demy laughed softly, kissing the top of my head. “Let’s find an open circle to draw us a way home.” Lowering ourselves down, our feet touched the packed down dirt. Pausing for a moment, it felt like a car had hit me. The emotional strife had caught up to me, a mental break down was sure to hit me later. Right now, we had to get home. Scrunching my nose up in disgust, blood and rain had soaked me to my bones. Another set of clothes was ruined, my thoughts beginning to run insanely in my mind. The motion of him placing me on his back stole me from my random train of thoughts.
“Let me take care of the rest while you get some rest. You did do most of the work after all.” He assured me with a playful wink, my head resting against his back. Branches crunched underneath his boots, his lips brushing against the tops of my hands. His clothing was just as torn as mine, my fingers tracing every shred. A shiver ran up his spine the moment I kissed the back of his neck. The moon traded shifts with the early morning sun, his endless hike resulting in an empty circle bathed in the orange rays of dawn. Setting me down the center, his hand danced in circles. The usual symbols stared back up at me, his knife guiding across my palm. Squeezing my hand until a shining pool of blood reflected our filthy faces, he guided my hand around. Dropping a pile piece of his ledger book from home, flames devoured the paper. A rush of air circled us, the woods of New Hampshire faded away to our bedroom. Still cupping my palm, his hungry eyes couldn’t stray from the fresh blood. Offering him my palm, his fangs sank into the tender flesh. Old Man Dallas poked his head in, his hand covering up his nose.
“I will have dinner ready in an hour. Get cleaned up and make yourselves presentable.” He twanged with his rich accent, smoothing out his staple white suit. “We have a job prospect coming tonight and she pays well. I will lend you one of my wife’s dresses from the fifties. You will probably just poof yourself a suit. Chop chop, my little beignets. We have a business to grow.” Setting a couple of dresses on the bed, Demy motioned for me to get cleaned up. Sprinting into the bathroom, the quick shower invigorated me. Drying myself off, a black and white polka dot swing dress hung on the door. Pulling it over my head, Demy poked his head in. Zipping it up for me, his slender fingers styled my hair into an intricate bun. Spinning me around, he kissed my forehead. Dusting off his clean suit, he adjusted my collar. One should feel shame but pride swelled in my eyes. Pulling a liquid liner out of his pocket, one simple flick on either side gave me a perfect cat’s eye. Clutching me close to his chest, he offered me my boots. Sliding my feet into them, his arm hooked around my elbow. Guiding me downstairs, his body stiffened at an elderly lady sitting to the left of Old Man Dallas. Her fucshia pink silk dress hugged her petite body, her wrinkles telling a twisted tale. Cloudy eyes followed my every move, her silvery blue hair rested in a perfect bun.
“I am Madame Seshunio, your next client and forever client if you do well.” She introduced herself with her nose up in the air, sliding over a card. “I came to drop off the order. As for my place to stay for the entirety of the job, Old Man Dallas offered me a room. In fact, I would like your room. I heard it is the second biggest. Perhaps you can sleep up in the attic.” My brows furrowed, Old Man Dallas’ stern gaze shut down my initial reaction. Unfortunately, he couldn’t tame Demy.
“I am not sleeping where they tortured those poor souls, Madame Sesheunio.” He snapped hotly, pulling out a chair for me. “We will sleep in the living room. Do not touch any of my things or I will place a curse on you. Do you understand.” Helping me sit down, an anxious maid brought out plates of steak and potatoes. Her gnarly hands cupped mine, mixed emotions flashing on her face. Tears stained her cheeks, a look of rage poisoning the softness of the sadness. Falling back, a look of horror plastered itself into my brain.
“You shouldn’t be alive.” She stuttered nervously, her shaking hands unable to pick up her fork. “So much tragedy courses through your veins, your mental state sure to bring you down. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, the Mad Hatter will marry the Swallow. Many children are dancing around you, their laughter filling the air.” A warm smile sweetened her features, Demy nudging my shoulders.
“I like you, Swallow.” She admitted freely, her eyes falling on Demy. “You tamed the Mad Hatter with a collar around your neck. You really must be something.” Cutting his steak, Demy’s words nearly made me choke on my spit.
“You did live here as a young lady when I showed up. You seem to be doing well yourself. How are the grandchildren?” He asked sincerely, bowing in her direction. “You did get me in trouble. You were like the sister I never had. How could I forget about the times we nearly gave him a heart attack?” Scanning the card, my eyes bulged at the reward for completing the job. My face fell at the job and its magnitude. Clearing out a sea of demons was the last thing I wanted to do, a long sigh escaping my lips. Why couldn’t I ever get a fucking break?
submitted by Future_Ad_3485 to NaturesTemper [link] [comments]
“I’ll teach you not to run, Swallow!” His deep voice barked ferociously, the heel of his boot pushing my face into the dirt. “You belong to us! Boys, let’s go home. You have to walk home to get bites stitched up. See you if you make it.” Ditching me to bleed out, the sunshine changed to moonlight. Dirt covered up my hands, my body protesting as I struggled to my feet. Limping out of the field, an eleven year old boy with ruby eyes popped up in front of me. Running his hand through his onyx hair, he adjusted his top hat. Taking my hand, my eyes couldn’t leave his pinstripe suit.
“You won’t remember this but we will meet in the future. Hold on for a bit longer.” He promised lovingly, kissing my forehead. “I am going to heal you and you will keep marching forward. I am going to leave you with this.” Kissing my lips passionately, a bright light healed my wounds. The light died down, the boy was gone. I could run but where would I go? Home wasn’t an option, my hands crossing. Sinking to my knees, my fingers traced the layers of bruises and cuts on my skin. Pain was all I knew, the harsh whip of harmful words tearing me down by the day. Wiping away my tears, storm clouds brewed over my head. Time passed, the corn dying and growing in speed motion. Glancing down at them, my regular hands had returned. Eleven year old me walked out of the cornfield, her arms folded across her chest.
“Wake up and stop wallowing in the past!” She spat at me, her bare feet marching up to me. “Don’t be such a pathetic loser.” Inky blackness dyed her eyes, her form shifting to a glitching shadow. Clawed hands reached out to me, my clammy fingers playing with the hem of my blouse. Snapping his fingers, a force woke me up.
Jerking awake, the field of corn swayed in front of me. Patting my body, my usual outfit covered my body. My chest tightened, every breath shortening. Pale moonlight bathed the endless sea of corn, involuntary tears slid down my cheeks. Demy, I needed Demy. Struggling to stand, barking in the distance sent me ten feet in the air. Cupping my ears, a happy mutt ran up to me. His shaggy brown fur was matted with mud, a tag shining in the moonlight. Taking deep breaths, my heart rate settled down. Crouching down to his level, an address greeting me. Shifting through my magic boots, soft leather grazed my fingers. Pulling it out, the dog sat still while I struggled toclick it on. Walking him onto the street, storm clouds brewed over my head. A familiar energy sent chills up my spine, his tail wagging at an unassuming house. The canary colonial loomed over me, one light flickered in the window. The dog went berserk, his barks echoing in the night. Pointing the nose to the shadowy treeline, the glitching shadow figure stepped out of the shadows. Undoing the leash, a pat on his butt sent him back into the house.
“Let’s take this somewhere else. You called me and kidnapped a dog to get me to you.” I growled through a wall of tears, fighting the impending anxiety attack. “I want to fight you away from people. No deserves the chaos you can bring.” A sly grin danced across his lips, wicked laughter rumbling in his throat. Snapping his fingers, the home faded to the torched remains of the training facilities. The memory of me burning it down when I was eleven haunted my mind, the screams of the dying people broke me down in seconds. Collapsing to my knees, vomit flew up my throat. Circling me, his slow claps sank me deeper into my guilt.
“I was born here because of your sins. I am the combination of all the souls you killed that day. We want you dead. You don’t deserve happiness.” He barked bitterly, wrapping his arms around my shoulders. “You have to pay for your sins. There is no way you can have the fruit of a good life after what you did.” It had been an accident, my foot knocking down a candle on flammable chemicals the moment I fell in. Shaking my head, my body rocked back and forth.
“It was an accident!” I blurted out desperately, ripping his arms off of me. “I accidentally knocked over a candle and the flames landed into a vat of chemicals. I tried to warn everybody and you didn’t listen. You thought I was lying. It was your boss who said to let it all burn. Yell at him.” Ripping my head back, his mouth opened up. Ashes flowed into my throat, a coughing fit taking over. The dry material tasted horrendous, nausea wracking my body.
“Do you mind leaving my little Swallow alone?” Demy called out from the shadows, his gun aimed for the shadows head. “Hell of a trick you played there, buddy. Pulling somebody through their dreams. What do you have to say about yourself?” Cocking his brow, fury seethed in his eyes. The shadow refused to let me go, my past literally holding me back. Coughing up the rest of the ash, a stinger extended from his wrists. Pressing it into my neck, my vision blurred. Every cell in me wanted to die, the guilt eating away at my soul. So many screams rang in my ear, the crackling of a fire stealing me away from my current reality. Tears welled up in my eyes, my composure slipping away.
“Our only pathway to Heaven is to kill her so we can move on.” He hissed evilly, pushing it through my neck. “Your little swallow will soon be dead.” Ripping it out, blood poured down my neck. A cry from Demy snapped me back to reality, his bullet whizzing by my head. Mouthing a healing spell, the wound sealed shut. Jumping to my feet, the shadow popped up behind me. Jamming my elbow into his chest, he cried out. Clapping my hands, the three of us stood in the cornfield. The bad part is that we were separated, Demy’s voice calling out to me. Panic gripped me at the silence around me, knowing the next victim.
“Be quiet or he will find you!” I shouted over hooting owls, an idea coming to mind. Digging around with my boot, my fingers curled around my staff. Fire seemed out of the option, my mind moving to air. Slamming the tip of my staff on the loose dirt, a blast of air shot me closer to the moon. Scanning the field for Demy, the shadow and him were battling. Aiming my feet for the space in between them, a cloud of dirt obscured my clumsy landing. Confidence faded to horror, the shadow bursting into flames. Shoving Demy out of the way, his flaming hand grasped my arm. The smell of burning flesh nauseated me, the tip of my scythe slammed into his guts. Loosening his grip, his arm touched a stalk of corn. A steady stream of curse words flowed freely from my lips, the flames spreading with an alarming speed. The heat warmed up my cheeks, my angry burn screaming in protest.
“Rain from Hell, Shower us with the gift of water.” I chanted confidently, storm clouds thundering to life. Heavy raindrops crashed to the top of my head, a defiant grin spreading across my determined face. The flames died out before they hit the nearest home, black stalks smoking into the sky. The shadow stumbled back, my swift kicks knocking them to the ground. Pinning him down with my heel, the tip of my staff pressed into his neck. Extending his stinger, a shrill scream matched the next rumble of thunder as he jammed it into my leg. Unable to move my heel, ravens cawed behind me. The hair stood up on the back of my neck, Demy’s massive blade of his scythe stabbing us both. The shadow creature seized, his body decaying to dust. Copper poisoned my taste buds, inky blood staining my teeth. Wheezing, he ripped out from my stomach. Blood painted my blouse, his scythe swinging towards my neck. Blocking his attack with my staff, tears stained my cheeks. The wound refused to heal, my tone growing shakier by the second.
“Demy! Stop it!” I pleaded desperately, his scythe smashing into my staff. “Remember when you visited me when I was eleven! I know you lied about watching me a year ago. You have been watching me my whole life. You know everything about me and you chose to keep that a secret. I am not even freaked out by it. I need you to come back so I can marry you.” His hard expression softened, my staff splashing in the mud. Lowering his scythe, black smoke curled off of my palms. Helping him tuck it into his hat, the ravens flew back into his top hat. Our hair clung to his face, his shattered expression falling on my wound. Shivering in the rain, he guided my head to his neck.
“I am so sorry that I hurt!” He sobbed into my ear, my fangs extending over my lips. “Drink what you need to heal.” Sinking my teeth into his neck, his arms held me like his life depended on it. Drinking my fill, his eyes refused to meet mine. The rain hid his tears, my trembling hands placing his hat on head. A bright light sealed my wound shut, a wave of relief washing over me. Sobs shook our bodies, the two of us shivering. Cupping his face, my lips kissed him feverishly.
“Now it is my turn.” I wept softly with a quiet smile, his shame filled eyes not leaving my loving gaze. “I may have forgotten that day but your words kept me going. You didn’t do anything wrong, you simply lost control. Weapons can devour you if you aren’t careful. I can heal. Wounds end, my heart would break if you weren’t by my side. Please stay by my side.” Pressing his forehead against mine, his slender hand cupped my cheek. Taking a couple of deep breaths, a slight fear still haunted his eyes. The crunching of my calf bone fusing back together stole the moment, a fit of laughter bursting from our lips.
“I don’t really have a choice.” He teased blithely, his crooked grin melting my heart. “Je t’aime plus que le monde.” Understanding French, my heart fluttered. Scooping up my staff, it shrank back down. Tucking it into my boot, my hand took his. Dragging him out of the destroyed cornfield, the rain slowed to a stop. Tugging him along, his arm kept the branches from his scratching his face. Taking a couple of turns, his breath hitched at the sea of red and oranges spreading underneath the steely gray cliff. Sitting down on the edge, my head rested against his shoulder.
“This is where I always hid from them to get away from my masters before I burned the building down. I always had a place to go.” I commented serenely, his hand cupping mine. “I accidentally set the fire that day. The guilt eats at me everyday. What can I say?” Leaves rustled behind me, the hollow steps of my fellow co-workers boots weren’t that far behind. Pushing him off the cliff, my finger ripped out my staff. Gears whirred, the staff bending at a forty-five degree angle. A mix of golden and scarlet feathers burst from the metal frame, a metal bar coming down. Gripping the metal bar, I pulled myself up. Demy hung on for dear life, my slender fingers stealing his gun. Ripping it from his pocket, the gun hissed upon my touch. Crossing my legs, the scope helped me get a line of three them. Alarm widened my eyes, a helicopter floating up behind me. Leaning back, my aim quivered on the engine that I built. Undoing the safety, a quick yank of the trigger sent a bullet towards the gas tank. Flying up close to the open door, simple white masked assassins greeted me. Perfect, they were ranked lower than me. Evil laughter rumbled in my throat, a quick round leaving steaming bullet holes in the center of their forehead. Stealing their guns, the pilot shot a few rounds into my chest. The bullets made their way up my throat, the pilot soon realizing their mistake. Flicking a bullet in his direction, his body collapsed into a heap. The other assassins leapt off the cliff, metallic wings keeping them from falling to their death. Tucking Demy’s gun back into his pocket, only a few more seconds remained before the helicopter explosion would kill us both. Laying all the way back, my body was verticle to the ground. Counting the seconds, it would take one bullet to kill my enemies in one action. Lining the bullets into my fingers, my hand curled into the ready position. Three, two, one! Flicking my wrist, the velocity of my strength put a bit of heat on the bullets. Swinging myself underneath, Demy helped me steer us away from the impending explosion. A thunderous boom released a wild wind, the orange flames lighting up the sky. Control slipped away from us, the device crashing into a bed of branches. Blood and guts rained down with metal pieces, a blast of ice from my trembling palm putting out the flaming pieces before they touched the dry trees. Smiling warmly to myself, my staff clicked back to normal. Examining her for damage, nothing could be seen.
“That was a close one.” Demy laughed softly, kissing the top of my head. “Let’s find an open circle to draw us a way home.” Lowering ourselves down, our feet touched the packed down dirt. Pausing for a moment, it felt like a car had hit me. The emotional strife had caught up to me, a mental break down was sure to hit me later. Right now, we had to get home. Scrunching my nose up in disgust, blood and rain had soaked me to my bones. Another set of clothes was ruined, my thoughts beginning to run insanely in my mind. The motion of him placing me on his back stole me from my random train of thoughts.
“Let me take care of the rest while you get some rest. You did do most of the work after all.” He assured me with a playful wink, my head resting against his back. Branches crunched underneath his boots, his lips brushing against the tops of my hands. His clothing was just as torn as mine, my fingers tracing every shred. A shiver ran up his spine the moment I kissed the back of his neck. The moon traded shifts with the early morning sun, his endless hike resulting in an empty circle bathed in the orange rays of dawn. Setting me down the center, his hand danced in circles. The usual symbols stared back up at me, his knife guiding across my palm. Squeezing my hand until a shining pool of blood reflected our filthy faces, he guided my hand around. Dropping a pile piece of his ledger book from home, flames devoured the paper. A rush of air circled us, the woods of New Hampshire faded away to our bedroom. Still cupping my palm, his hungry eyes couldn’t stray from the fresh blood. Offering him my palm, his fangs sank into the tender flesh. Old Man Dallas poked his head in, his hand covering up his nose.
“I will have dinner ready in an hour. Get cleaned up and make yourselves presentable.” He twanged with his rich accent, smoothing out his staple white suit. “We have a job prospect coming tonight and she pays well. I will lend you one of my wife’s dresses from the fifties. You will probably just poof yourself a suit. Chop chop, my little beignets. We have a business to grow.” Setting a couple of dresses on the bed, Demy motioned for me to get cleaned up. Sprinting into the bathroom, the quick shower invigorated me. Drying myself off, a black and white polka dot swing dress hung on the door. Pulling it over my head, Demy poked his head in. Zipping it up for me, his slender fingers styled my hair into an intricate bun. Spinning me around, he kissed my forehead. Dusting off his clean suit, he adjusted my collar. One should feel shame but pride swelled in my eyes. Pulling a liquid liner out of his pocket, one simple flick on either side gave me a perfect cat’s eye. Clutching me close to his chest, he offered me my boots. Sliding my feet into them, his arm hooked around my elbow. Guiding me downstairs, his body stiffened at an elderly lady sitting to the left of Old Man Dallas. Her fucshia pink silk dress hugged her petite body, her wrinkles telling a twisted tale. Cloudy eyes followed my every move, her silvery blue hair rested in a perfect bun.
“I am Madame Seshunio, your next client and forever client if you do well.” She introduced herself with her nose up in the air, sliding over a card. “I came to drop off the order. As for my place to stay for the entirety of the job, Old Man Dallas offered me a room. In fact, I would like your room. I heard it is the second biggest. Perhaps you can sleep up in the attic.” My brows furrowed, Old Man Dallas’ stern gaze shut down my initial reaction. Unfortunately, he couldn’t tame Demy.
“I am not sleeping where they tortured those poor souls, Madame Sesheunio.” He snapped hotly, pulling out a chair for me. “We will sleep in the living room. Do not touch any of my things or I will place a curse on you. Do you understand.” Helping me sit down, an anxious maid brought out plates of steak and potatoes. Her gnarly hands cupped mine, mixed emotions flashing on her face. Tears stained her cheeks, a look of rage poisoning the softness of the sadness. Falling back, a look of horror plastered itself into my brain.
“You shouldn’t be alive.” She stuttered nervously, her shaking hands unable to pick up her fork. “So much tragedy courses through your veins, your mental state sure to bring you down. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, the Mad Hatter will marry the Swallow. Many children are dancing around you, their laughter filling the air.” A warm smile sweetened her features, Demy nudging my shoulders.
“I like you, Swallow.” She admitted freely, her eyes falling on Demy. “You tamed the Mad Hatter with a collar around your neck. You really must be something.” Cutting his steak, Demy’s words nearly made me choke on my spit.
“You did live here as a young lady when I showed up. You seem to be doing well yourself. How are the grandchildren?” He asked sincerely, bowing in her direction. “You did get me in trouble. You were like the sister I never had. How could I forget about the times we nearly gave him a heart attack?” Scanning the card, my eyes bulged at the reward for completing the job. My face fell at the job and its magnitude. Clearing out a sea of demons was the last thing I wanted to do, a long sigh escaping my lips. Why couldn’t I ever get a fucking break?
2023.04.02 06:02 legitdude123 Some post op x-rays after a week. Forgot to take before pics so I tried to do a rough outline of how my foot was before (red) also circled the wedge graft (blue) you can see the cut if u zoom in.
These were taken a week after surgery currently I am now 4 weeks post op. X-rays were taken in a soft cast so my foot will shift a tiny bit once I'm able to put pressure on it. I had my Achilles lengthened and I also had bone spur on top of my foot removed that would rub up against shoes and hurt very bad. Unfortunately due to that cut taking a little longer to heal I got put in a hard cast for 3 more weeks instead of a boot:( Happy to answer any questions!
submitted by legitdude123 to flatfeet [link] [comments]
2023.04.02 05:46 Normal-Government-29 Delayed Fusion
I am 4 months out and still stuck in a boot. The X-rays show my bone is still not fusing. My surgeon has me using an ultrasonic bone stimulator to hopefully encourage the bone to fuse. Anyone else out there that took longer than normal to heal where it all worked out in the end?
submitted by Normal-Government-29 to Halluxrigidus [link] [comments]
2023.04.02 03:13 _Triple_ [STORE] 900+ KNIVES/GLOVES/SKINS, 50.000$+ INVENTORY. M9 Fade, M4 Poseidon, Kara Gamma, BFK Freehand, BFK Bright Water, Spec Gloves Kimono, Nomad Fade, M9 Doppler, Skeleton, BFK B.Steel, AWP Fade, Stiletto Fade, S.Gloves Slingshot, BFK Ultra, Kara Damas, Bayo Lore, Bayo Gamma, Flip Fade & A Lot More
Everything in my inventory is up for trade. The most valuable items are listed here, the rest you can find in My Inventory
Feel free to Add Me or even better send a Trade Offer. Open for any suggestions: upgrades, downgrades / knives, gloves, skins / stickers, patterns, floats.
All Buyouts are listed in cash value.
KNIVES
★ Butterfly Knife Freehand FN #1, B/O: $1867
★ Butterfly Knife Bright Water MW, B/O: $1098
★ Butterfly Knife Blue Steel BS, B/O: $907
★ Butterfly Knife Ultraviolet FT, B/O: $789
★ Butterfly Knife Stained FT, B/O: $695
⎯★ Bayonet Tiger Tooth MW #1, B/O: $888
★ Bayonet Gamma Doppler (Phase 4) FN, B/O: $727
★ Bayonet Doppler (Phase 2) FN, B/O: $608
★ Bayonet Doppler (Phase 1) FN, B/O: $521
★ Bayonet Rust Coat BS, B/O: $253
★ Bayonet Night FT, B/O: $251
★ StatTrak™ Bayonet Lore MW, B/O: $751
⎯★ Karambit Gamma Doppler (Phase 4) FN, B/O: $1343
★ Karambit Damascus Steel FT, B/O: $774
★ Karambit Rust Coat BS, B/O: $537
★ Karambit Boreal Forest FT, B/O: $488
⎯★ M9 Bayonet Fade FN, B/O: $1523
★ M9 Bayonet Fade FN, B/O: $1523
★ M9 Bayonet Doppler (Phase 4) FN, B/O: $1008
★ M9 Bayonet Blue Steel FT, B/O: $534
★ M9 Bayonet Rust Coat BS, B/O: $449
⎯★ Flip Knife Fade FN, B/O: $703
★ Flip Knife Gamma Doppler (Phase 1) MW, B/O: $509
★ Flip Knife Doppler (Phase 1) FN, B/O: $406
★ Flip Knife Freehand FT, B/O: $228
★ StatTrak™ Flip Knife Bright Water FN, B/O: $332
⎯★ Falchion Knife Doppler (Phase 2) FN, B/O: $292
★ Falchion Knife Doppler (Phase 3) FN, B/O: $264
★ Falchion Knife Marble Fade FN, B/O: $258
★ Falchion Knife Bright Water MW, B/O: $133
⎯★ Stiletto Knife Fade FN, B/O: $822
★ Stiletto Knife Slaughter FN, B/O: $569
★ Stiletto Knife Doppler (Phase 1) FN, B/O: $530
★ Stiletto Knife Crimson Web FT, B/O: $396
★ StatTrak™ Stiletto Knife Scorched FT, B/O: $172
⎯★ Gut Knife Doppler (Sapphire) MW #1, B/O: $830
★ Gut Knife Fade FN, B/O: $204
★ Gut Knife Tiger Tooth FN, B/O: $138
★ Gut Knife Bright Water MW, B/O: $104
★ Gut Knife Freehand FT, B/O: $92
★ Gut Knife Urban Masked FT, B/O: $82
★ StatTrak™ Gut Knife Rust Coat BS, B/O: $93
⎯★ Shadow Daggers Fade FN, B/O: $258
★ Shadow Daggers Doppler (Phase 3) FN, B/O: $165
★ Shadow Daggers Blue Steel FT, B/O: $82
★ Shadow Daggers Bright Water FT, B/O: $82
★ Shadow Daggers Blue Steel WW, B/O: $80
★ Shadow Daggers Rust Coat BS, B/O: $74
★ StatTrak™ Shadow Daggers Marble Fade FN, B/O: $186
⎯★ Classic Knife Slaughter MW, B/O: $311
★ StatTrak™ Classic Knife Stained BS, B/O: $163
⎯★ Talon Knife Slaughter MW, B/O: $605
★ Talon Knife Scorched MW, B/O: $290
⎯★ Ursus Knife Marble Fade FN, B/O: $405
★ Ursus Knife Night Stripe MW, B/O: $162
⎯★ Paracord Knife Stained WW, B/O: $125
★ Paracord Knife Forest DDPAT FT, B/O: $97
★ Paracord Knife Safari Mesh FT, B/O: $96
⎯★ Navaja Knife Safari Mesh FT, B/O: $71
★ Navaja Knife Scorched WW, B/O: $71
⎯★ Nomad Knife Fade FN, B/O: $1015
★ Skeleton Knife, B/O: $909
★ Bowie Knife Boreal Forest MW, B/O: $106
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2023.04.02 01:58 Trash_Tia In my town of Brightwood Pines, murder was legal. I didn't question it until I started getting toothache.
Murder was legal in our town of Brightwood Pines.
I had grown up seeing it. At eight years old, I watched a man come into our local café while I drank my peanut butter chocolate milkshake and shot two people dead.
There was no malice in his eyes, or any kind of hatred. It was just a normal guy who smiled at the waitress and winked at me. Mom told me to keep drinking my milkshake and I did—licking away excess whipping cream while the bodies were hoarded out, and pooling red was cleaned from the floor. I could still see flecks of white inside red, and my stomach twisted.
But I didn’t feel…scared. I had no reason to be. Nobody was screaming or crying.
The man who had shot them had sat down to eat burger and fries, and didn’t blink an eye. That was my first experience seeing death—and not my last.
With no rules forbidding murder, you would think a town would tear itself apart.
That is not what happened.
Murder was legal, yes, but it didn’t happen every day. It happened when people had the urge. Mom explained it to me when I was old enough to understand. “The urge” was a phenomenon which had been affecting town’s people long before I was born, and there was no real way to stop it. So, it didn't stop. Mom told me she had killed her first person at the age of seventeen. Her math teacher. There was no reason or motive. Mom said she just woke up one day and wanted to kill someone.
Unfortunately, it was her math teacher who had gotten in the way. I always wondered why she described her killing so vividly to me. I was eight years old, and mom spent hours detailing how she had successfully managed to sever his head from his body with nothing but a phone charger, and a knife taken from her kitchen.
That specific killing became more of a bedtime story to lull me to sleep.
Mom would sit on the edge of my bed and tell me all the ways she had wanted to murder her math teacher—describing how it felt for his blood to spatter her hands and paint her face.
I didn’t like her smile when she told me about her killing. Sometimes I got scared she was going to murder me too. Growing up, I have been constantly on edge. Every day I woke up and pressed my hand to my forehead, asking myself the same questions. Did I want to kill anyone? And those thoughts blossomed into paranoia when I wasn’t sure what I was feeling. It’s not like I didn’t know what it was like.
Dad had let me hold a knife, and taught me how to properly hold a gun, and mom gave me lessons in severing body parts. Both of them wanted me to follow through with The Urge when it hit me inevitably, and I wanted to fit in.
Our elementary school teacher had told my class as little kids, that The Urge was part of growing up, and if we fought it, if we tried to get out of it, our mind and body would face the consequences. She didn’t elaborate, though I didn’t really want her to. All our teacher had to say was “bleeding from the mouth” and “severe reaction in the brain” and I was already squirming, along with my twelve other classmates. The Urge became something I anticipated instead of fearing. Because, if I got it—if I had my first kill as young as my mom, then my parents would be proud of me.
When I started middle school, our neighbors were caught killing and cannibalising their children, turning them into bone broth. I knew both of the kids. Clay and Clara. I had played with them in their yard and eaten cookies with them.
Clara told me she wanted to be a nurse when she grew up, and Clay used to tug on my pigtails to get my attention. They were like siblings to me. No matter what my parents said, or my teacher’s, my gut still twisted at the thought of my neighbors doing something like that. Days after the cops had arrived, I saw Mrs Jenson watering her plants. But when I looked closer, there was no water. She was just holding an empty hose over her prize roses.
I stood on my tiptoes, peering over our fence. “Mrs Jenson?”
“I am okay, Elle.”
Her voice didn’t sound okay.
“Are you sure?” I asked. I pointed at the hose grasped in her hand. “You forgot to turn your water on.”
“I know.”
“Mrs Jenson…” I took a deep breath before I could stop myself. “Did you like killing Clay and Clara?”
“Why, yes,” she hummed. “Of course I did. I slurped up that bone broth like it was my prize tomato soup. They were…. delicious.”
I nodded. “But… didn’t you love them?”
She didn’t reply for a moment before seemingly snapping out of it and turning to me with a bright smile. With too many teeth. That was the first time I started to question The Urge.
It was supposed to make you feel good, acting like a relief, a weight from your chest. Killing another human being was exactly what the people in our town needed. But what about killing their families and children?
Did it really make them feel good?
Looking at my neighbor, I couldn’t see the joy my mom had described in her eyes. In fact, I couldn’t see anything. Her expression was the kind of blank which scared me. It was oblivion staring back, ripped of real human emotion. Mrs Jenson’s smile stretched across her lips, like she could sense my discomfort. I noticed she was yet to clean her hands.
Mrs Jenson’s fingernails were still stained a scary shade of red. Instead of replying, the woman moved towards my fence in slow, stumbling strides. She was dragging herself, like moving caused her pain, agony I couldn’t understand. It was exactly what my mother had insisted didn’t exist when killing. Pain.
Humanity. All of the adults told us we would not feel those things when killing. We wouldn’t feel regret, or contempt. We would just feel good.
It was a release, like cold water coming over us. We would never feel better in our lives than when we were killing—and our first would be something special. When Mrs Jenson’s fingers still slick with her children’s blood wrapped around the wooden fence, I found myself paralysed. Her manic grin twisted and contorted into a silent wail, and once vacant eyes popped open. Like she was seeing me for the very first time. “I want to go home,” she whispered, squeezing onto the wooden fence until her own fingers were bleeding.
“Can you tell them to let me go home? I would like to see my children. Right now. Do you hear me?” Mrs Jenson wasn’t looking at me. Instead, her gaze was glued to thin air.
She was crying, screaming at something only she could see—and for a moment I wondered if ghosts were real. I twisted around to see if there were any ghosts, specifically the ones of her children, but there was nothing. Just fall leaves spiralling in the air in pretty waves.
“Mrs Jenson is sick,” she told me once I was sitting at the dinner table eating melted ice-cream. It tasted like barf running down my throat.
I didn’t see Mrs Jenson after that.
Well, I did.
She looked different, however.
Not freakishly different, though I did notice her hair color had changed. I remembered it being a deep shade of brown, and when my neighbor returned with an even wider smile, it was more of a blondish white. When I questioned this, mom told me it was a makeover.
The Urge affected people in different ways, and with Mrs Jenson, after having her come-down, she had decided on a change. Mom’s words were supposed to be reassuring, adding that there was no reason to be scared of The Urge.
But I didn’t want to be like Mrs Jenson and have a mental breakdown over my killing. I wanted to be like mom and have a glass of wine and laugh over the sensation of taking a life. Mrs Jenson was my first real glimpse into the negativity of killing because it was so normalised. Dying, for example, wasn’t feared.
From a young age, we had been taught that it was a vital part of life, and dying meant finding peace. When I first started high school, I expected killing to happen. Puberty was when The Urge fully blossomed. Weapons were allowed, but only out of classes. In other words, under no circumstances must we kill each other in class, but the hallways were a free-for-all.
I had seen attempts during my freshman year, but no real killing.
Annalise Duval was infamously known as the junior girl who had rejected The Urge, and thrown out of school. Struck with the stomach flu on the day of her attempted killing, I only knew the story from word-of-mouth. Apparently, the girl had attempted to kill her mother at home, failed, and then bounded into school, screaming about laughter in the walls, and people whispering into her head.
Obviously, my classmate was labelled insane—and judging from her nosebleed, the girl’s body had ultimately rejected The Urge, and her brain was going haywire. Nosebleeds were a common side effect. I heard stories from kids saying there was blood everywhere, all over her hands and face, smeared under her chin. She had been screaming for help, but nobody dared go near her. Like rejection was contagious. Annalise survived. Just. I still saw her on my daily bike-ride to school.
She was always sitting cross legged in front of the forest with her eyes closed, like she was praying. The rumor was, after being thrown out by her parents, the girl wandered around aimlessly, muttering about whispering people and laughter in her head. It was obvious her rejection had seriously affected her mental state, but I did feel sorry for her.
It wasn’t known what had caused her to reject The Urge, though some of the kids in her class did comment that she had been complaining of a loose tooth beforehand. Mom told me to stay away from her, and I did. Annalise Duval was the first and only case of rejection, and thanks to her, I knew exactly what would happen if it happened to me too. So, I ignored the bad feeling about my neighbor, and forced myself to anticipate the day when I would get my very own urge to kill. I waited for it.
On my fourteenth birthday, I confused a swimming stomach and cramps for The Urge, which turned out to be my first period.
I remember biking my way home, witnessing a man cut off a woman’s head with an axe.
It’s funny, I thought I would be desensitised to seeing human remains and severed heads, glistening red seeping across the sidewalk, but it was the passion in the man’s face as he swung the axe and dug in real hard, chopping right through bone and not stopping, even when intense red splattered his face and clothes, until the woman’s head hit the ground, which sent my stomach creeping into my throat.
Then, it was the vacancy in his eyes, a twitching smile as he held the axe like a prize.
Part of me wanted to stay, to see if he had a similar reaction to Mrs Jenson. I wanted to know if he regretted what he had done, but once I was meeting his gaze, and his grin was widening, the toe of his boot kicking the woman’s motionless body, I turned away from him and pedalled faster, my eyes starting to water. It wasn’t long before my lunch was inching its way up my throat, and I was abandoning my bike on the side of the road, and choking up undigested Mac N’ cheese onto steaming tarmac.
I didn’t tell mom about the man, and more importantly, my odd reaction to his killing. I wasn’t supposed to be feeling sick to my stomach. Murder was normal. I wasn’t going to get in trouble for it, so why did seeing it make me sick?
I had been taught as a little kid that visceral reactions were normal, and it was okay to be scared of killing and murder. However, what our brains told us was right wasn’t always the truth. Our teacher had held up a teddy bear and stabbed into its stuffing with a carving knife.
We had all cried out, until the teacher told us that the bear didn’t care about dying. In fact, it was ready to find peace. And it didn’t hurt him.
In other words, we had to ignore what our minds told us was bad.
Mom told me I would definitely start having conflicting feelings before my first killing, but that it was nothing to worry about.
I did worry, though. I started to wonder if I was going to become the next Analise Duval. Maybe the two of us would become friends, sharing our delusions together.
My 17th birthday came and went—and still no sign of The Urge. I noticed mom was starting to grow impatient. She had a routine of coming to check my temperature every morning, regardless of whether I felt sick or not.
“How are you feeling?” I couldn’t help but notice mom’s smile was fake.
She dumped my breakfast on a tray in front of me, and when I risked nibbling on a slice of toast, she dropped the bombshell.
“Elle, you are almost eighteen years old,” she said. I noticed her hands were clenched into fists. “Do you feel anything?”
I considered lying, though then I would have to kill someone—and without The Urge, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to do that.
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly, propping myself up on my pillows. “Most of the kids in my class—”
She cut me off with a frustrated hiss. “Yes, I know. They have all killed someone and you haven’t.” Her eyes narrowed. “People are starting to notice, Elle.” She spoke through a smile which was definitely a grimace. “And when people start to notice, they get suspicious. I’ve been on the phone with three different doctor’s this morning, and all of them want to book you in for an MRI. Just to make sure things are normal.”
“MRI?” I almost choked on the apple I had been chewing.
“Yes.” Mom sighed. “We can’t ignore that things aren’t…. abnormal. You are seventeen years old and haven’t had one urge to kill. The minimum for your age is one kill,” she said. “Minimum. Elle. You have not killed anyone, and when I bring it up you change the subject.”
I changed the subject because she started asking if I wanted to practise. I wasn’t sure what “practise” meant, but from the slightly manic look in her eye, my mom wasn’t talking about dolls or teddy bears. It was so-called normal to practise killing. There were even people who volunteered to be targets at the local scrapyard. Most of them were old people.
Joey Cunningham in my class told everyone his uncle took him to practise when he was thirteen—and he had killed three people without The Urge. Five years on, Joey had accumulated a total of fourteen kills.
He never failed to remind everyone almost every class. I could taste the apple growing sour in the back of my mouth. Mom was just trying to help, and it’s not like I was doing this intentionally. The idea of going to the scrapyard and killing random people, even if they gave me permission to, wasn’t appealing in the slightest. “I’m okay.” I said, and when mom’s eyes darkened, I followed that up with, “I mean… I have spare time after class, so…?”
I meant to finish with, “Maybe.” But the word tangled in my mouth when I took a chunk out of the apple, and pain struck. Throbbing pain, which was enough to send my brain spinning off of its axis. For a moment, my vision feathered, and I was left blinking at my mother who had become more silhouette than real person. I was aware of the apple dropping out of my hand, but I couldn’t think straight.
The pain came in waves, exploding in my mouth. When I was sure I could move without my head spinning, I slammed my hand over my mouth instinctively to nurse the pain, except that just made it worse. Fuck. Had I chipped my tooth? Blinking through blurry vision, I knew my mom was there. But so was something else.
As if my reality was splintering open, another seeping through, I suddenly had no idea where I was, and a familiar feeling of fear started to creep its way up my spine. The thing was though, I knew exactly where I was. I had known this town, this house, my whole life.
So that feeling of fear didn’t make sense.
The more I mulled the thought over in my mind, however, pain striking like lightning bolts, something was blossoming.
It both didn’t make sense, and yet it also did. In the deep crevices of my mind, that feeling was familiar. And I had felt it before. No matter how hard I squinted, though, I couldn’t make it out.
When I squinted again, a sudden shriek of noise rattled in my skull, and it took me a disorienting moment to realise what I could hear was laughter. Hysterical laughter. Which seemed to grow louder and louder, encompassing my thoughts until it was deafening. Not just that. The walls were swimming, my posters flashing in and out of existence before seemingly stabilising themselves. I blinked. Was I… losing my mind?
Maybe this was a side-effect of rejecting The Urge.
“Elle?” Mom’s voice cut through the phantom laughter which faded, and I blinked rapidly. “Sweetie, are you okay?”
“Yeah.”
The word was in my mouth before the thought could cross my mind. I shook my head, swallowing. “Yeah, I’m… fine.”
She nodded, though her expression darkened. Scrutinising. I knew she couldn’t wait to get me under an MRI. “Alright. Finish your breakfast. School starts in half an hour.” Mom stopped at the threshold. She didn’t turn around. “I really do think practising killing will help a lot.”
I flinched when another wave of laughter slammed into me—faded, but very much there. Definitely not a figment of my imagination.
Checking in my bedroom mirror, I didn’t have a loose tooth. Even thinking that, though, panic started to curl in the root of my gut.
When I was sure I wasn’t losing my mind after checking and rechecking the walls were actually real, I got washed and dressed, grabbing my backpack.
My brain wouldn’t shut up on my way to school, and my gut was twisting and turning, trying to projectile that meagre slice of toast.
Annalise Duval had complained of a loose tooth before she rejected The Urge. Was that what was going to happen to me?
Was it all because of that stupid apple?
At school, I was surprised to be cornered by a classmate I had said maybe five words to in our combined time at Briarwood High.
Kaz Issacs was one of the first kids in my class to be hit with The Urge, and almost ended up like Annalise Duval. I don’t even think it was The Urge. I think he was driven to kill through emotions, like so many adults had tried to tell us wasn’t real. Kaz was a confusing case where a teenager had actually blossomed early, or not at all, and struck with his own intent.
People argued that there was paranoia, and the local doctor insisted he was fine, though I couldn’t help wondering if it wasn’t paranoia.
Kaz didn’t need The Urge. Halfway through math class, two years prior, I had been daydreaming about the rain. It rarely rained in Brightwood. Every day was picturesque. I did remember rain. I knew what it felt like hitting my face and dropping into my open mouth and cupped hands. When I asked mom if it was ever going to rain, though, she got a funny look on her face. “Sweetie, it doesn’t rain in Brightwood.” She told me. Which just confused me even more. It’s not like I had imagined the feeling of freezing cold rain, and my own shivering as I splashed through puddles without an umbrella.
The more I pried into these memories, I realised there were no puddles in Brightwood. It never rained. So, where had I jumped into puddles? Did I really dream of my experiences in the rain, and if so, how?
How did I know what it felt like? These thoughts came over me pretty much every day, and that day had been no different.
My gaze had been on the windowpane, trying to guess what a raindrop would look like sliding down, when Kaz Issacs let out an exaggerated sigh from behind me.
In front of him, Jessa Pollux had been tapping her pen on her desk. It wasn’t annoying at first, then she kept doing it—tap, tap, tappity tap. And then it was annoying. I could tell it was annoying, because Kaz had politely asked her three times to stop making noise, to which she had ignored him, and if anything, tapped louder, this time drumming in frenzied beats on her workbooks. Now, I had grown up learning that The Urge came with no warning or motive, or reason. It happened whether you liked it or not. Kaz was… different. His case was rare.
This time he did have a motive, and despite having it hammered into us our whole lives that killing didn’t need a reason and was not driven by negative emotion, my classmate did have a reason—and was in fact driven by anger.
Anger strong enough to murder.
This time, I saw it happen in clarity. When I caught movement in the corner of my eye, I was twisting around with the rest of the class, to see the boy halfway off his chair, his fingers wrapped around a knife.
The girl instantly knew what he was going to do, even without turning around. We weren’t supposed to be scared of dying, I thought dizzily, watching the girl let out a wail and dive forwards, her eyes cartoon like. Like an animal, Kaz already had a tight hold of her ponytail and tugged her back. Though in fight or flight, this girl was screaming, flailing.
She didn’t want to die, I thought.
Was that normal?
Mom always insisted if it was our time, it was our time. If someone attacked us, even family members, then we accepted it.
I caught the moment her elbow knocked into the boy’s mouth, just as he drove the blade of the knife into her skull. Until then, he had been panting and laughing, his eyes lit up with an insanity I only knew from my mom’s tales.
She told me stories where her friends had gotten pleasure from killing. As quick as it had come, though, the euphoria of taking someone’s life left the boy’s eyes, and he dropped to the ground, one hand over his mouth, the other slipping from the knife.
The teacher was already commenting on no murder allowed in class and ordering Kaz to go and clean himself up. I wasn’t sure he could hear her though. When he lifted his head, I glimpsed something seeping through his fingers, running in sharp rivulets down his wrist.
And then my gaze was flicking to his expression which was definitely not what I was expecting. Replacing joy and unbridled pleasure was fear. His eyes were wide, frightened, lips twisted.
It was the exact same expression I had seen on Mrs Jenson. A cocktail of confusion and pain, followed by a sense of emptiness. Like neither of them could understand where they were, or even who they were. I guessed that was what The Urge did, or the variants which contorted in people and made them reject it.
Like a wounded animal, Kaz’s frenzied gaze scanned our faces and he blinked, before realising his nose was bleeding. “Fuck.” He muffled under his hand. The boy jumped to his feet, and in three shaky strides, he was pulling open the classroom door and disappearing down the hallway in a stumbled run. The next day, the boy came to class with his usual smile.
When I asked him what happened, he explained it was just an ”abnormal reaction” and he was fine. Kaz’s words were strange though.
He wasn’t even looking at me, and his smile was far too big. He got his first kill though, so that gave him bragging rights as the first sophomore to come of age. Kaz Issacs and Annalise Duval both had similar experiences. One of them had clearly lost their mind, while the other seemingly avoided it.
And speaking of Kaz, it wasn’t the norm for him to be talking to me at school. But there he was, blocking my way into the classroom.
“Hey.” He was quick to side-step in front of me when I tried pushing him out of the way.
There had been an instance the year prior when I considered asking him to prom. He was a reasonably attractive guy, reddish dark hair sprouting from a baseball cap. But then I remembered what he did to that girl in front of him. I remembered the sound of his knife slicing through skin, cartilage and bone, and despite her cry, her wails for him to stop, he kept going, driving it further and further into her skull. I couldn’t look him in the eye after that.
“Can we talk?”
“No.”
My mouth was still sort of hurting, and I was questioning my sanity, so speaking to Kaz wasn’t really on my to-do list that morning.
Kaz didn’t move, sticking an arm out so I couldn’t get passed him. “Have you got toothache by any chance?” To emphasise his words, he stuck his finger in his mouth, dragging his index across his upper incisors.
“Like, bad toothache.” His voice was muffled by his finger. Kaz leaned forward, arching a brow. “You do, don’t you? Right now, you feel your whole mouth is on fire and yet you can’t detect any wobblies.”
The guy’s words sent a slither of ice tingling down my spine. He was right. I hadn’t felt right since biting into that apple.
When I didn’t say anything, his lip twitched into a scowl. “Alright. You don’t want to talk.” He raised two fingers in a salute. “Suit yourself.”
“What do you mean?”
He shrugged. “When you feel like talking, I’m here, aight? I’ll be your support system or whatever.”
Kaz’s words didn’t really hit me until several days later when I woke up with a throbbing mouth, knelt over the corpse of my mother.
The Urge had finally come. It was something I had been anticipating and fearing my whole life, terrified I wouldn’t get it and end up ostracized by my loved ones. But when I saw my mom’s body, and the vague memory of plunging a kitchen knife into her chest hit me, I didn’t feel happy or relieved. I felt like I had done something bad. Which was the wrong thing to think. Killing was good, the words echoed in my mind. Killing was our way of release. How could I think that when there was a knife clutched between my fingers?
The weapon which had killed her. Hurt her. How was this supposed make me feel good and not like I was dying? My mother's eyes were closed.
Peaceful. Like she had accepted her death. The teeth of the blade dripped deep, dark red, and I know I should have felt something which was joy, or happiness. Except all I felt was empty.
I felt despair in its purest form which began to chew me up from the inside as I lulled from my foggy thoughts. I screamed. I wasn't supposed to scream. I wasn't supposed to cry, but my eyes were stinging, and I felt like I was being suffocated. I saw flashes in quick succession; a room bumbling with moving silhouettes, and the smell of... coffee. Mom never let me try coffee, and I was sure we never had it in the house. So, how did I know the feeling of it running down my throat and quenching my thirst? How did I know the aroma of crushed coffee beans struggling to prick at memories refusing to surface? My mouth throbbed once again, my thoughts growing foggy and distant.
Just like in my bedroom, the walls started to swim. This time, I dived to my feet and jumped over my mom’s corpse, slamming my hands into them. They were real. I could feel them.
Even as I slammed my fists into them, however, somehow, they felt wrong. Like I was hitting an object which was supposed to be real but wasn’t. Almost as if on cue, there it was again.
Laughing. Loud shrieks of hysterical laughter thrumming in time to dull pain pounding in my back tooth. Blinking through an intense mind fog choking my mind, my first coherent thought was that yes, Kaz was right. I did have a loose tooth, and when I was sure of that, I was stuffing my bloody fingers inside my mouth and trying to find it. I had grabbed at the knife feverishly, my first thought to cut it out, when there was a sudden knock at my front door.
Slipping barefoot on the blood pooling across our kitchen floor, I struggled to get to the door without throwing up my insides.
Annalise Duval was standing on my doorstep. I had seen her in an odd assortment of clothes, but this one was definitely eye catching.
The girl was wearing a wedding dress which hung off of her, the veil barely clinging onto the mess of bedraggled curls she never brushed. Blinking at me through straggly blonde hair, the girl almost resembled an angel. The dress itself was filthy, blood and dirt smeared down the corset, and the skirt torn up. But she did suit it, in a weird way. “Hello, Elle.” The girl lifted a hand in a wave. Her smile wasn’t crazed, like my classmates had described. Instead, it was… sad.
Annalise’s gaze found my hands slick with my mother’s blood, though barely seemed fazed.
“Do you want to see the wall people?” She whispered.
Until then, I had ignored her ramblings. Then I started hearing the laughing, and suddenly “wall people” didn’t sound so crazy after all.
I nodded.
“Can you hear the laughing?” I asked.
“Sometimes.”
“Sometimes?”
“Mmm.” She did a twirl in the dress. “That’s how it started for me. Laughing. I heard a looooottt of laughing—and then I found the wall people.” I winced when she came close, so close, almost suffocating me. “Nobody believes me and it’s sad. I’m just trying to tell people about the wall people and they label me as crazy. They say something went wrronnnggg with my head,” Annalise stuck two fingers into her temple, miming pulling a trigger. “I’m not the wrong one. I know about the wall people, and the laughing. I know why I got the urge to kill my mom.”
“Annalise,” I spoke calmly. “Can you tell me what you mean?”
“Hm?”
Her eyes were partially vacant, that one slither of coherence quickly fading away.
Instead of speaking, I took her arm gently, and pulled her down my driveway. “Can you show me what you found?”
Annalise danced ahead of me, tripping in her wedding dress. She cocked her head. “Did you kill your mother?” Her lips twitched. “That’s funny. According to the wall people, you’re not supposed to kill someone until seasonal two.”
The girl blinked, giggling, and I forced myself to run after her. Jesus, she was fast. Even wearing a wedding dress. Annalise leapt across the sidewalk, twisting and twirling around, like she was in her own world. Before she landed in front of me, and her expression almost looked sane. “I wonder which season it will be. Will it be Summer? Maybe Fall, or Winter. I guess it’s not up to you, is it? It’s up to The Urge.”
Laughing again, the girl grabbed my hand, her fingernails biting into my skin. I glimpsed a single drop of red run from her nose, which she quickly wiped with the sleeve of her dress, leaving a scarlet smear. “Let’s go and see the wall people, Elle,” she hummed. As her footsteps grew stumbled, blood ran down her chin, spotting the sidewalk. I don’t know if coherency ever truly hit Annalise Duval, but knowing she was bleeding, her steps grew quicker. More frenzied.
“Your nose,” was all I could say, when rivers of intense red strained the girl’s dress.
Annalise nodded with a sad smile. “I know!” she said. “Don’t worry, it will stop when I shut up.” Her smile widened. “But what if I don’t shut up? What if I show you the wall people?” To my surprise, she leapt forward and flung out her arms, tipping her head back and yelling at the sky. “What if I don’t shut up?” Annalise laughed. “What are the wall people going to do, huh? Are you going to explode my brain?”
When people started to come out of their houses to see what was going on, I dragged her into a run.
“Are you insane?” I hissed out.
“Maybe!”
Annalise seemed to be floating through awareness and whatever the fuck The Urge had done to her. “Don’t worry, they’re just peeking.”
“What?”
The girl had an attention span of a rock. Her gaze went to the sky. “They’re going to turn the sun off so I can’t show you.”
Her words meant nothing to me, before the clouds started to darken, and just like Annalise had predicted, the sky started to get dark.
Knowing that somehow this supposedly crazy girl knew when things were going to happen only quickened my steps into a run.
“Hey!”
Halfway down the street, Kaz Issacs was riding his bike towards us. Which I found odd. Kaz didn’t own a bike. He rode the bus to school.
“Elle!” Waving at me with one hand, his other grasping at handlebars, Kaz pedalled faster. “Yo! Do you want to hang out?”
“Peeking.” Annalise said under her breath.
Ignoring Kaz, I nodded at Annalise to keep going, though the boy didn’t give up. We twisted around, and he caught up easily, skidding on the edge of the sidewalk. When he came to an abrupt stop in front of us, his gaze flicked to Annalise. “Shouldn’t you be praying in the forest?”
The girl recoiled back like a cat, hissing out, “Peeking!”
Kaz shot me a look. “Of all the people you could have made friends with you chose Annalise Duval?” His eyes softened when I ignored him and pulled the girl further down the road. Kaz followed slowly on his bike.
"Where are you going anyway? Isn't it late?”
It was 4pm.
Hardly late.
I decided to humor him. “We’re going to see the wall people.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Do I sound like I’m kidding?” I turned my attention to him. “You asked me if I had a toothache, right?”
His expression crumpled. “I did?”
I noticed Annalise was clingier with him around, sticking to my side. Every time he moved, she flinched, tightening her grip on my arm. She was leading us into the forest, and I swore, the closer we were getting to the clearing, the more town’s people were popping up out of nowhere. An old woman greeted us, followed by a man with a dog, and then a group of kids from school. Annalise entangled her fingers in mine, pulling me through the clearing.
Kaz followed, hesitantly, biking over rough ground. “Once again, I think this is a bad idea,” he said in a sing-song voice. “We should go back.”
When it was too dangerous for his bike, he abandoned it and joined my side.
“Elle, the girl is insane,” Kaz hissed out. “What are you even doing? What is this going to accomplish except potentially getting lost?”
“I want to know if she’s telling the truth,” I murmured back.
He scoffed. “Telling the truth? Look at this place!” He spread out his arms, gesturing to the rapidly darkening forest. “There’s nothing here!”
“No.” Annalise ran ahead, staggering over trippy ground. “No, it’s right over here!” She was still fighting a nosebleed, and her words were starting to slur. The girl twisted to Kaz. “You’re peeking,” she spat, striding over to him until they were face to face. “Stop peeking,” she said, her fingers delving under her wedding skirt where she pulled out a knife and pressed it to his throat. “If you peek again, I will cut you open.”
Kaz nodded. “Got it, Blondie. No peeking.”
Annalise didn’t move for a second, her hands holding the knife trembling. “You’re not going to tell me I’m crazy again,” she whispered.
“You’re not crazy,” Kaz said dryly.
“Say it again.”
“You’re not crazy!” He yelped when she pressed pressure onto the blade. “Can you stop swinging that around? Jeez!”
Annalise shot me a grin, and it took a second for me to realise.
Kaz was scared of the knife.
He was scared of dying—which meant, whether he liked it or not, the boy had in fact not gone through with The Urge.
I thought the girl was going to slash Kaz’s throat open in delight, but instead she looped her arm in his like they were suddenly best friends.
“Come on, Elle!” She danced forwards, pulling the boy with her. “We’re closeeeee!”
I wasn’t sure about that.
What we were, however, was lost. When the three of us came to a stop, it was pitch black, and I was struggling to see in front of me. Annalise, however, walked straight over to thin air, and gestured to it with a grin. “Tah-da!” Spluttering through pooling red, she let out a laugh.
“See!”
Kaz, who was still uncomfortably pressed to her no matter how hard he strained to get away, shot me a look I could barely make out.
“I’m sorry, what did I say? That we were going to get lost? That Annalise is certifiably crazy and we’re very fucking lost?”
At first, I thought I really was crazy. Maybe Annalise’s condition was contagious. I could hear it again. Laughing.
But this time it was coming from exactly where Annalise was pointing—and when the girl slammed her hand into thin air, there was a loud clanging noise which sounded like metal.
Slowly, I made my way towards it, and when my hands were touching sleek metal, what felt like the corners of a door, more pain struck my upper incisors. “Holy shit.” Kaz was pressing himself against the door, and then slamming his fists into it. “The crazy bitch was right.” His words hung in my thoughts on a constant cycle, as we delved into what should have been forest.
After all, we had been standing in the middle of nowhere. The laughter was deafening when I stepped over the threshold, and I had to slap my hands over my ears to block it out. Through the invisible door, however, was exactly what Annalise had described. Wall people.
All around us were what looked like television screens, and on those screens—were people. Faces.
They were not part of the laughter. The laughter was mechanical and wrong, rooted deep inside my skull. The faces which stared down at us looked like normal people, men and women, with some of them teens, and even younger children. Annalise and Kaz were next to me, their head s tipped back, gazes glued to the screens. Not the ones I was looking at. The ones on tiny computer monitors.
It was when I was tearing my eyes from our audience, did I start to see what made Kaz stiffen up next to me. One screen in particular showed his face. He was younger, maybe a year or two. No, I thought, barf creeping up my throat. It was when he had killed that girl.
His hands clasped in his lap were still stained and slick with her blood. The Kaz on the screen seemed a lot more laid back, his feet resting on the table in front of him. There was a cockiness in his eyes I had never seen before. This boy’s eyes were cruel. “Why exactly have you signed up for this program?” A man’s voice crackled off screen.
“Duh.” Kaz held up his scarlet hands, a grin twisting on his lips. “So I can get my Darkroom rep back.” He leaned forward, his eyes wide. “That is going to happen, right? I don’t do this shit for free, and I’ve got one million followers to impress, man. Darkroom loves me. Even if I did go too far that one time, which wasn't even my fault."
“You are correct.” The man said. “Darkroom does benefit from its influencers. Our program aims to help satisfy certain… needs across the planet, by broadcasting them right here,” He paused. “You have killed five people before signing up for Darkroom, correct? Your parents?”
“Parents and brother,” Kaz chuckled. “I gutted them with my fave knife, and then filmed it. Obviously, my Tik-Tok got taken down with all the freaks in the comments moaning, and suddenly I find you guys! A whole lot of sick fucks, but who’s complaining, right? Not me.”
“And,” the man cleared his throat. “You will keep killing? We are aware the initial implant impacted your brain quite badly. In the subdued state, you will keep killing, as the so-called ‘urge’ says. However, in reality we will be sending signals to your brain which will make you kill.”
“Alright, do it.”
“Are you sure? We couldn’t help noticing during your first kill, you seemed to… well, react in a way we haven’t seen before.”
He cocked his head. “Did my fans like it?”
“Well, yes—”
“Good.” Kaz held out his arm. “Do it again. And do it right this time. As long as I’m getting 40K every appearance, I’m good. You can slice my brain up all you want, I’m getting paid and followers. So.” His gaze found the camera.
“What are you waiting for?”
When the screen went black, before flickering to a birds-eye view, and then a close up of my house, I felt my legs give-way.
As if on impulse, I prodded at my mouth and felt for the loose tooth.
“That…” Kaz spoke up, his voice a breathy whisper. His eyes were still glued to the screen. “That… wasn’t me! Well, it was me... but I don’t… I don’t remember that!”
Instead of answering him, I turned to the startled looking boy when alarm bells started ringing, and the room was suddenly awash in red.
“Peeking!” Annalise screamed, dropping to her knees, rocking backwards and forwards.
Ignoring her, I focused on Kaz. Or whoever the fuck he was. “You need to knock my tooth out. Now."
submitted by Trash_Tia to TheCrypticCompendium [link] [comments]
I had grown up seeing it. At eight years old, I watched a man come into our local café while I drank my peanut butter chocolate milkshake and shot two people dead.
There was no malice in his eyes, or any kind of hatred. It was just a normal guy who smiled at the waitress and winked at me. Mom told me to keep drinking my milkshake and I did—licking away excess whipping cream while the bodies were hoarded out, and pooling red was cleaned from the floor. I could still see flecks of white inside red, and my stomach twisted.
But I didn’t feel…scared. I had no reason to be. Nobody was screaming or crying.
The man who had shot them had sat down to eat burger and fries, and didn’t blink an eye. That was my first experience seeing death—and not my last.
With no rules forbidding murder, you would think a town would tear itself apart.
That is not what happened.
Murder was legal, yes, but it didn’t happen every day. It happened when people had the urge. Mom explained it to me when I was old enough to understand. “The urge” was a phenomenon which had been affecting town’s people long before I was born, and there was no real way to stop it. So, it didn't stop. Mom told me she had killed her first person at the age of seventeen. Her math teacher. There was no reason or motive. Mom said she just woke up one day and wanted to kill someone.
Unfortunately, it was her math teacher who had gotten in the way. I always wondered why she described her killing so vividly to me. I was eight years old, and mom spent hours detailing how she had successfully managed to sever his head from his body with nothing but a phone charger, and a knife taken from her kitchen.
That specific killing became more of a bedtime story to lull me to sleep.
Mom would sit on the edge of my bed and tell me all the ways she had wanted to murder her math teacher—describing how it felt for his blood to spatter her hands and paint her face.
I didn’t like her smile when she told me about her killing. Sometimes I got scared she was going to murder me too. Growing up, I have been constantly on edge. Every day I woke up and pressed my hand to my forehead, asking myself the same questions. Did I want to kill anyone? And those thoughts blossomed into paranoia when I wasn’t sure what I was feeling. It’s not like I didn’t know what it was like.
Dad had let me hold a knife, and taught me how to properly hold a gun, and mom gave me lessons in severing body parts. Both of them wanted me to follow through with The Urge when it hit me inevitably, and I wanted to fit in.
Our elementary school teacher had told my class as little kids, that The Urge was part of growing up, and if we fought it, if we tried to get out of it, our mind and body would face the consequences. She didn’t elaborate, though I didn’t really want her to. All our teacher had to say was “bleeding from the mouth” and “severe reaction in the brain” and I was already squirming, along with my twelve other classmates. The Urge became something I anticipated instead of fearing. Because, if I got it—if I had my first kill as young as my mom, then my parents would be proud of me.
When I started middle school, our neighbors were caught killing and cannibalising their children, turning them into bone broth. I knew both of the kids. Clay and Clara. I had played with them in their yard and eaten cookies with them.
Clara told me she wanted to be a nurse when she grew up, and Clay used to tug on my pigtails to get my attention. They were like siblings to me. No matter what my parents said, or my teacher’s, my gut still twisted at the thought of my neighbors doing something like that. Days after the cops had arrived, I saw Mrs Jenson watering her plants. But when I looked closer, there was no water. She was just holding an empty hose over her prize roses.
I stood on my tiptoes, peering over our fence. “Mrs Jenson?”
“I am okay, Elle.”
Her voice didn’t sound okay.
“Are you sure?” I asked. I pointed at the hose grasped in her hand. “You forgot to turn your water on.”
“I know.”
“Mrs Jenson…” I took a deep breath before I could stop myself. “Did you like killing Clay and Clara?”
“Why, yes,” she hummed. “Of course I did. I slurped up that bone broth like it was my prize tomato soup. They were…. delicious.”
I nodded. “But… didn’t you love them?”
She didn’t reply for a moment before seemingly snapping out of it and turning to me with a bright smile. With too many teeth. That was the first time I started to question The Urge.
It was supposed to make you feel good, acting like a relief, a weight from your chest. Killing another human being was exactly what the people in our town needed. But what about killing their families and children?
Did it really make them feel good?
Looking at my neighbor, I couldn’t see the joy my mom had described in her eyes. In fact, I couldn’t see anything. Her expression was the kind of blank which scared me. It was oblivion staring back, ripped of real human emotion. Mrs Jenson’s smile stretched across her lips, like she could sense my discomfort. I noticed she was yet to clean her hands.
Mrs Jenson’s fingernails were still stained a scary shade of red. Instead of replying, the woman moved towards my fence in slow, stumbling strides. She was dragging herself, like moving caused her pain, agony I couldn’t understand. It was exactly what my mother had insisted didn’t exist when killing. Pain.
Humanity. All of the adults told us we would not feel those things when killing. We wouldn’t feel regret, or contempt. We would just feel good.
It was a release, like cold water coming over us. We would never feel better in our lives than when we were killing—and our first would be something special. When Mrs Jenson’s fingers still slick with her children’s blood wrapped around the wooden fence, I found myself paralysed. Her manic grin twisted and contorted into a silent wail, and once vacant eyes popped open. Like she was seeing me for the very first time. “I want to go home,” she whispered, squeezing onto the wooden fence until her own fingers were bleeding.
“Can you tell them to let me go home? I would like to see my children. Right now. Do you hear me?” Mrs Jenson wasn’t looking at me. Instead, her gaze was glued to thin air.
She was crying, screaming at something only she could see—and for a moment I wondered if ghosts were real. I twisted around to see if there were any ghosts, specifically the ones of her children, but there was nothing. Just fall leaves spiralling in the air in pretty waves.
“Mrs Jenson is sick,” she told me once I was sitting at the dinner table eating melted ice-cream. It tasted like barf running down my throat.
I didn’t see Mrs Jenson after that.
Well, I did.
She looked different, however.
Not freakishly different, though I did notice her hair color had changed. I remembered it being a deep shade of brown, and when my neighbor returned with an even wider smile, it was more of a blondish white. When I questioned this, mom told me it was a makeover.
The Urge affected people in different ways, and with Mrs Jenson, after having her come-down, she had decided on a change. Mom’s words were supposed to be reassuring, adding that there was no reason to be scared of The Urge.
But I didn’t want to be like Mrs Jenson and have a mental breakdown over my killing. I wanted to be like mom and have a glass of wine and laugh over the sensation of taking a life. Mrs Jenson was my first real glimpse into the negativity of killing because it was so normalised. Dying, for example, wasn’t feared.
From a young age, we had been taught that it was a vital part of life, and dying meant finding peace. When I first started high school, I expected killing to happen. Puberty was when The Urge fully blossomed. Weapons were allowed, but only out of classes. In other words, under no circumstances must we kill each other in class, but the hallways were a free-for-all.
I had seen attempts during my freshman year, but no real killing.
Annalise Duval was infamously known as the junior girl who had rejected The Urge, and thrown out of school. Struck with the stomach flu on the day of her attempted killing, I only knew the story from word-of-mouth. Apparently, the girl had attempted to kill her mother at home, failed, and then bounded into school, screaming about laughter in the walls, and people whispering into her head.
Obviously, my classmate was labelled insane—and judging from her nosebleed, the girl’s body had ultimately rejected The Urge, and her brain was going haywire. Nosebleeds were a common side effect. I heard stories from kids saying there was blood everywhere, all over her hands and face, smeared under her chin. She had been screaming for help, but nobody dared go near her. Like rejection was contagious. Annalise survived. Just. I still saw her on my daily bike-ride to school.
She was always sitting cross legged in front of the forest with her eyes closed, like she was praying. The rumor was, after being thrown out by her parents, the girl wandered around aimlessly, muttering about whispering people and laughter in her head. It was obvious her rejection had seriously affected her mental state, but I did feel sorry for her.
It wasn’t known what had caused her to reject The Urge, though some of the kids in her class did comment that she had been complaining of a loose tooth beforehand. Mom told me to stay away from her, and I did. Annalise Duval was the first and only case of rejection, and thanks to her, I knew exactly what would happen if it happened to me too. So, I ignored the bad feeling about my neighbor, and forced myself to anticipate the day when I would get my very own urge to kill. I waited for it.
On my fourteenth birthday, I confused a swimming stomach and cramps for The Urge, which turned out to be my first period.
I remember biking my way home, witnessing a man cut off a woman’s head with an axe.
It’s funny, I thought I would be desensitised to seeing human remains and severed heads, glistening red seeping across the sidewalk, but it was the passion in the man’s face as he swung the axe and dug in real hard, chopping right through bone and not stopping, even when intense red splattered his face and clothes, until the woman’s head hit the ground, which sent my stomach creeping into my throat.
Then, it was the vacancy in his eyes, a twitching smile as he held the axe like a prize.
Part of me wanted to stay, to see if he had a similar reaction to Mrs Jenson. I wanted to know if he regretted what he had done, but once I was meeting his gaze, and his grin was widening, the toe of his boot kicking the woman’s motionless body, I turned away from him and pedalled faster, my eyes starting to water. It wasn’t long before my lunch was inching its way up my throat, and I was abandoning my bike on the side of the road, and choking up undigested Mac N’ cheese onto steaming tarmac.
I didn’t tell mom about the man, and more importantly, my odd reaction to his killing. I wasn’t supposed to be feeling sick to my stomach. Murder was normal. I wasn’t going to get in trouble for it, so why did seeing it make me sick?
I had been taught as a little kid that visceral reactions were normal, and it was okay to be scared of killing and murder. However, what our brains told us was right wasn’t always the truth. Our teacher had held up a teddy bear and stabbed into its stuffing with a carving knife.
We had all cried out, until the teacher told us that the bear didn’t care about dying. In fact, it was ready to find peace. And it didn’t hurt him.
In other words, we had to ignore what our minds told us was bad.
Mom told me I would definitely start having conflicting feelings before my first killing, but that it was nothing to worry about.
I did worry, though. I started to wonder if I was going to become the next Analise Duval. Maybe the two of us would become friends, sharing our delusions together.
My 17th birthday came and went—and still no sign of The Urge. I noticed mom was starting to grow impatient. She had a routine of coming to check my temperature every morning, regardless of whether I felt sick or not.
“How are you feeling?” I couldn’t help but notice mom’s smile was fake.
She dumped my breakfast on a tray in front of me, and when I risked nibbling on a slice of toast, she dropped the bombshell.
“Elle, you are almost eighteen years old,” she said. I noticed her hands were clenched into fists. “Do you feel anything?”
I considered lying, though then I would have to kill someone—and without The Urge, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to do that.
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly, propping myself up on my pillows. “Most of the kids in my class—”
She cut me off with a frustrated hiss. “Yes, I know. They have all killed someone and you haven’t.” Her eyes narrowed. “People are starting to notice, Elle.” She spoke through a smile which was definitely a grimace. “And when people start to notice, they get suspicious. I’ve been on the phone with three different doctor’s this morning, and all of them want to book you in for an MRI. Just to make sure things are normal.”
“MRI?” I almost choked on the apple I had been chewing.
“Yes.” Mom sighed. “We can’t ignore that things aren’t…. abnormal. You are seventeen years old and haven’t had one urge to kill. The minimum for your age is one kill,” she said. “Minimum. Elle. You have not killed anyone, and when I bring it up you change the subject.”
I changed the subject because she started asking if I wanted to practise. I wasn’t sure what “practise” meant, but from the slightly manic look in her eye, my mom wasn’t talking about dolls or teddy bears. It was so-called normal to practise killing. There were even people who volunteered to be targets at the local scrapyard. Most of them were old people.
Joey Cunningham in my class told everyone his uncle took him to practise when he was thirteen—and he had killed three people without The Urge. Five years on, Joey had accumulated a total of fourteen kills.
He never failed to remind everyone almost every class. I could taste the apple growing sour in the back of my mouth. Mom was just trying to help, and it’s not like I was doing this intentionally. The idea of going to the scrapyard and killing random people, even if they gave me permission to, wasn’t appealing in the slightest. “I’m okay.” I said, and when mom’s eyes darkened, I followed that up with, “I mean… I have spare time after class, so…?”
I meant to finish with, “Maybe.” But the word tangled in my mouth when I took a chunk out of the apple, and pain struck. Throbbing pain, which was enough to send my brain spinning off of its axis. For a moment, my vision feathered, and I was left blinking at my mother who had become more silhouette than real person. I was aware of the apple dropping out of my hand, but I couldn’t think straight.
The pain came in waves, exploding in my mouth. When I was sure I could move without my head spinning, I slammed my hand over my mouth instinctively to nurse the pain, except that just made it worse. Fuck. Had I chipped my tooth? Blinking through blurry vision, I knew my mom was there. But so was something else.
As if my reality was splintering open, another seeping through, I suddenly had no idea where I was, and a familiar feeling of fear started to creep its way up my spine. The thing was though, I knew exactly where I was. I had known this town, this house, my whole life.
So that feeling of fear didn’t make sense.
The more I mulled the thought over in my mind, however, pain striking like lightning bolts, something was blossoming.
It both didn’t make sense, and yet it also did. In the deep crevices of my mind, that feeling was familiar. And I had felt it before. No matter how hard I squinted, though, I couldn’t make it out.
When I squinted again, a sudden shriek of noise rattled in my skull, and it took me a disorienting moment to realise what I could hear was laughter. Hysterical laughter. Which seemed to grow louder and louder, encompassing my thoughts until it was deafening. Not just that. The walls were swimming, my posters flashing in and out of existence before seemingly stabilising themselves. I blinked. Was I… losing my mind?
Maybe this was a side-effect of rejecting The Urge.
“Elle?” Mom’s voice cut through the phantom laughter which faded, and I blinked rapidly. “Sweetie, are you okay?”
“Yeah.”
The word was in my mouth before the thought could cross my mind. I shook my head, swallowing. “Yeah, I’m… fine.”
She nodded, though her expression darkened. Scrutinising. I knew she couldn’t wait to get me under an MRI. “Alright. Finish your breakfast. School starts in half an hour.” Mom stopped at the threshold. She didn’t turn around. “I really do think practising killing will help a lot.”
I flinched when another wave of laughter slammed into me—faded, but very much there. Definitely not a figment of my imagination.
Checking in my bedroom mirror, I didn’t have a loose tooth. Even thinking that, though, panic started to curl in the root of my gut.
When I was sure I wasn’t losing my mind after checking and rechecking the walls were actually real, I got washed and dressed, grabbing my backpack.
My brain wouldn’t shut up on my way to school, and my gut was twisting and turning, trying to projectile that meagre slice of toast.
Annalise Duval had complained of a loose tooth before she rejected The Urge. Was that what was going to happen to me?
Was it all because of that stupid apple?
At school, I was surprised to be cornered by a classmate I had said maybe five words to in our combined time at Briarwood High.
Kaz Issacs was one of the first kids in my class to be hit with The Urge, and almost ended up like Annalise Duval. I don’t even think it was The Urge. I think he was driven to kill through emotions, like so many adults had tried to tell us wasn’t real. Kaz was a confusing case where a teenager had actually blossomed early, or not at all, and struck with his own intent.
People argued that there was paranoia, and the local doctor insisted he was fine, though I couldn’t help wondering if it wasn’t paranoia.
Kaz didn’t need The Urge. Halfway through math class, two years prior, I had been daydreaming about the rain. It rarely rained in Brightwood. Every day was picturesque. I did remember rain. I knew what it felt like hitting my face and dropping into my open mouth and cupped hands. When I asked mom if it was ever going to rain, though, she got a funny look on her face. “Sweetie, it doesn’t rain in Brightwood.” She told me. Which just confused me even more. It’s not like I had imagined the feeling of freezing cold rain, and my own shivering as I splashed through puddles without an umbrella.
The more I pried into these memories, I realised there were no puddles in Brightwood. It never rained. So, where had I jumped into puddles? Did I really dream of my experiences in the rain, and if so, how?
How did I know what it felt like? These thoughts came over me pretty much every day, and that day had been no different.
My gaze had been on the windowpane, trying to guess what a raindrop would look like sliding down, when Kaz Issacs let out an exaggerated sigh from behind me.
In front of him, Jessa Pollux had been tapping her pen on her desk. It wasn’t annoying at first, then she kept doing it—tap, tap, tappity tap. And then it was annoying. I could tell it was annoying, because Kaz had politely asked her three times to stop making noise, to which she had ignored him, and if anything, tapped louder, this time drumming in frenzied beats on her workbooks. Now, I had grown up learning that The Urge came with no warning or motive, or reason. It happened whether you liked it or not. Kaz was… different. His case was rare.
This time he did have a motive, and despite having it hammered into us our whole lives that killing didn’t need a reason and was not driven by negative emotion, my classmate did have a reason—and was in fact driven by anger.
Anger strong enough to murder.
This time, I saw it happen in clarity. When I caught movement in the corner of my eye, I was twisting around with the rest of the class, to see the boy halfway off his chair, his fingers wrapped around a knife.
The girl instantly knew what he was going to do, even without turning around. We weren’t supposed to be scared of dying, I thought dizzily, watching the girl let out a wail and dive forwards, her eyes cartoon like. Like an animal, Kaz already had a tight hold of her ponytail and tugged her back. Though in fight or flight, this girl was screaming, flailing.
She didn’t want to die, I thought.
Was that normal?
Mom always insisted if it was our time, it was our time. If someone attacked us, even family members, then we accepted it.
I caught the moment her elbow knocked into the boy’s mouth, just as he drove the blade of the knife into her skull. Until then, he had been panting and laughing, his eyes lit up with an insanity I only knew from my mom’s tales.
She told me stories where her friends had gotten pleasure from killing. As quick as it had come, though, the euphoria of taking someone’s life left the boy’s eyes, and he dropped to the ground, one hand over his mouth, the other slipping from the knife.
The teacher was already commenting on no murder allowed in class and ordering Kaz to go and clean himself up. I wasn’t sure he could hear her though. When he lifted his head, I glimpsed something seeping through his fingers, running in sharp rivulets down his wrist.
And then my gaze was flicking to his expression which was definitely not what I was expecting. Replacing joy and unbridled pleasure was fear. His eyes were wide, frightened, lips twisted.
It was the exact same expression I had seen on Mrs Jenson. A cocktail of confusion and pain, followed by a sense of emptiness. Like neither of them could understand where they were, or even who they were. I guessed that was what The Urge did, or the variants which contorted in people and made them reject it.
Like a wounded animal, Kaz’s frenzied gaze scanned our faces and he blinked, before realising his nose was bleeding. “Fuck.” He muffled under his hand. The boy jumped to his feet, and in three shaky strides, he was pulling open the classroom door and disappearing down the hallway in a stumbled run. The next day, the boy came to class with his usual smile.
When I asked him what happened, he explained it was just an ”abnormal reaction” and he was fine. Kaz’s words were strange though.
He wasn’t even looking at me, and his smile was far too big. He got his first kill though, so that gave him bragging rights as the first sophomore to come of age. Kaz Issacs and Annalise Duval both had similar experiences. One of them had clearly lost their mind, while the other seemingly avoided it.
And speaking of Kaz, it wasn’t the norm for him to be talking to me at school. But there he was, blocking my way into the classroom.
“Hey.” He was quick to side-step in front of me when I tried pushing him out of the way.
There had been an instance the year prior when I considered asking him to prom. He was a reasonably attractive guy, reddish dark hair sprouting from a baseball cap. But then I remembered what he did to that girl in front of him. I remembered the sound of his knife slicing through skin, cartilage and bone, and despite her cry, her wails for him to stop, he kept going, driving it further and further into her skull. I couldn’t look him in the eye after that.
“Can we talk?”
“No.”
My mouth was still sort of hurting, and I was questioning my sanity, so speaking to Kaz wasn’t really on my to-do list that morning.
Kaz didn’t move, sticking an arm out so I couldn’t get passed him. “Have you got toothache by any chance?” To emphasise his words, he stuck his finger in his mouth, dragging his index across his upper incisors.
“Like, bad toothache.” His voice was muffled by his finger. Kaz leaned forward, arching a brow. “You do, don’t you? Right now, you feel your whole mouth is on fire and yet you can’t detect any wobblies.”
The guy’s words sent a slither of ice tingling down my spine. He was right. I hadn’t felt right since biting into that apple.
When I didn’t say anything, his lip twitched into a scowl. “Alright. You don’t want to talk.” He raised two fingers in a salute. “Suit yourself.”
“What do you mean?”
He shrugged. “When you feel like talking, I’m here, aight? I’ll be your support system or whatever.”
Kaz’s words didn’t really hit me until several days later when I woke up with a throbbing mouth, knelt over the corpse of my mother.
The Urge had finally come. It was something I had been anticipating and fearing my whole life, terrified I wouldn’t get it and end up ostracized by my loved ones. But when I saw my mom’s body, and the vague memory of plunging a kitchen knife into her chest hit me, I didn’t feel happy or relieved. I felt like I had done something bad. Which was the wrong thing to think. Killing was good, the words echoed in my mind. Killing was our way of release. How could I think that when there was a knife clutched between my fingers?
The weapon which had killed her. Hurt her. How was this supposed make me feel good and not like I was dying? My mother's eyes were closed.
Peaceful. Like she had accepted her death. The teeth of the blade dripped deep, dark red, and I know I should have felt something which was joy, or happiness. Except all I felt was empty.
I felt despair in its purest form which began to chew me up from the inside as I lulled from my foggy thoughts. I screamed. I wasn't supposed to scream. I wasn't supposed to cry, but my eyes were stinging, and I felt like I was being suffocated. I saw flashes in quick succession; a room bumbling with moving silhouettes, and the smell of... coffee. Mom never let me try coffee, and I was sure we never had it in the house. So, how did I know the feeling of it running down my throat and quenching my thirst? How did I know the aroma of crushed coffee beans struggling to prick at memories refusing to surface? My mouth throbbed once again, my thoughts growing foggy and distant.
Just like in my bedroom, the walls started to swim. This time, I dived to my feet and jumped over my mom’s corpse, slamming my hands into them. They were real. I could feel them.
Even as I slammed my fists into them, however, somehow, they felt wrong. Like I was hitting an object which was supposed to be real but wasn’t. Almost as if on cue, there it was again.
Laughing. Loud shrieks of hysterical laughter thrumming in time to dull pain pounding in my back tooth. Blinking through an intense mind fog choking my mind, my first coherent thought was that yes, Kaz was right. I did have a loose tooth, and when I was sure of that, I was stuffing my bloody fingers inside my mouth and trying to find it. I had grabbed at the knife feverishly, my first thought to cut it out, when there was a sudden knock at my front door.
Slipping barefoot on the blood pooling across our kitchen floor, I struggled to get to the door without throwing up my insides.
Annalise Duval was standing on my doorstep. I had seen her in an odd assortment of clothes, but this one was definitely eye catching.
The girl was wearing a wedding dress which hung off of her, the veil barely clinging onto the mess of bedraggled curls she never brushed. Blinking at me through straggly blonde hair, the girl almost resembled an angel. The dress itself was filthy, blood and dirt smeared down the corset, and the skirt torn up. But she did suit it, in a weird way. “Hello, Elle.” The girl lifted a hand in a wave. Her smile wasn’t crazed, like my classmates had described. Instead, it was… sad.
Annalise’s gaze found my hands slick with my mother’s blood, though barely seemed fazed.
“Do you want to see the wall people?” She whispered.
Until then, I had ignored her ramblings. Then I started hearing the laughing, and suddenly “wall people” didn’t sound so crazy after all.
I nodded.
“Can you hear the laughing?” I asked.
“Sometimes.”
“Sometimes?”
“Mmm.” She did a twirl in the dress. “That’s how it started for me. Laughing. I heard a looooottt of laughing—and then I found the wall people.” I winced when she came close, so close, almost suffocating me. “Nobody believes me and it’s sad. I’m just trying to tell people about the wall people and they label me as crazy. They say something went wrronnnggg with my head,” Annalise stuck two fingers into her temple, miming pulling a trigger. “I’m not the wrong one. I know about the wall people, and the laughing. I know why I got the urge to kill my mom.”
“Annalise,” I spoke calmly. “Can you tell me what you mean?”
“Hm?”
Her eyes were partially vacant, that one slither of coherence quickly fading away.
Instead of speaking, I took her arm gently, and pulled her down my driveway. “Can you show me what you found?”
Annalise danced ahead of me, tripping in her wedding dress. She cocked her head. “Did you kill your mother?” Her lips twitched. “That’s funny. According to the wall people, you’re not supposed to kill someone until seasonal two.”
The girl blinked, giggling, and I forced myself to run after her. Jesus, she was fast. Even wearing a wedding dress. Annalise leapt across the sidewalk, twisting and twirling around, like she was in her own world. Before she landed in front of me, and her expression almost looked sane. “I wonder which season it will be. Will it be Summer? Maybe Fall, or Winter. I guess it’s not up to you, is it? It’s up to The Urge.”
Laughing again, the girl grabbed my hand, her fingernails biting into my skin. I glimpsed a single drop of red run from her nose, which she quickly wiped with the sleeve of her dress, leaving a scarlet smear. “Let’s go and see the wall people, Elle,” she hummed. As her footsteps grew stumbled, blood ran down her chin, spotting the sidewalk. I don’t know if coherency ever truly hit Annalise Duval, but knowing she was bleeding, her steps grew quicker. More frenzied.
“Your nose,” was all I could say, when rivers of intense red strained the girl’s dress.
Annalise nodded with a sad smile. “I know!” she said. “Don’t worry, it will stop when I shut up.” Her smile widened. “But what if I don’t shut up? What if I show you the wall people?” To my surprise, she leapt forward and flung out her arms, tipping her head back and yelling at the sky. “What if I don’t shut up?” Annalise laughed. “What are the wall people going to do, huh? Are you going to explode my brain?”
When people started to come out of their houses to see what was going on, I dragged her into a run.
“Are you insane?” I hissed out.
“Maybe!”
Annalise seemed to be floating through awareness and whatever the fuck The Urge had done to her. “Don’t worry, they’re just peeking.”
“What?”
The girl had an attention span of a rock. Her gaze went to the sky. “They’re going to turn the sun off so I can’t show you.”
Her words meant nothing to me, before the clouds started to darken, and just like Annalise had predicted, the sky started to get dark.
Knowing that somehow this supposedly crazy girl knew when things were going to happen only quickened my steps into a run.
“Hey!”
Halfway down the street, Kaz Issacs was riding his bike towards us. Which I found odd. Kaz didn’t own a bike. He rode the bus to school.
“Elle!” Waving at me with one hand, his other grasping at handlebars, Kaz pedalled faster. “Yo! Do you want to hang out?”
“Peeking.” Annalise said under her breath.
Ignoring Kaz, I nodded at Annalise to keep going, though the boy didn’t give up. We twisted around, and he caught up easily, skidding on the edge of the sidewalk. When he came to an abrupt stop in front of us, his gaze flicked to Annalise. “Shouldn’t you be praying in the forest?”
The girl recoiled back like a cat, hissing out, “Peeking!”
Kaz shot me a look. “Of all the people you could have made friends with you chose Annalise Duval?” His eyes softened when I ignored him and pulled the girl further down the road. Kaz followed slowly on his bike.
"Where are you going anyway? Isn't it late?”
It was 4pm.
Hardly late.
I decided to humor him. “We’re going to see the wall people.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Do I sound like I’m kidding?” I turned my attention to him. “You asked me if I had a toothache, right?”
His expression crumpled. “I did?”
I noticed Annalise was clingier with him around, sticking to my side. Every time he moved, she flinched, tightening her grip on my arm. She was leading us into the forest, and I swore, the closer we were getting to the clearing, the more town’s people were popping up out of nowhere. An old woman greeted us, followed by a man with a dog, and then a group of kids from school. Annalise entangled her fingers in mine, pulling me through the clearing.
Kaz followed, hesitantly, biking over rough ground. “Once again, I think this is a bad idea,” he said in a sing-song voice. “We should go back.”
When it was too dangerous for his bike, he abandoned it and joined my side.
“Elle, the girl is insane,” Kaz hissed out. “What are you even doing? What is this going to accomplish except potentially getting lost?”
“I want to know if she’s telling the truth,” I murmured back.
He scoffed. “Telling the truth? Look at this place!” He spread out his arms, gesturing to the rapidly darkening forest. “There’s nothing here!”
“No.” Annalise ran ahead, staggering over trippy ground. “No, it’s right over here!” She was still fighting a nosebleed, and her words were starting to slur. The girl twisted to Kaz. “You’re peeking,” she spat, striding over to him until they were face to face. “Stop peeking,” she said, her fingers delving under her wedding skirt where she pulled out a knife and pressed it to his throat. “If you peek again, I will cut you open.”
Kaz nodded. “Got it, Blondie. No peeking.”
Annalise didn’t move for a second, her hands holding the knife trembling. “You’re not going to tell me I’m crazy again,” she whispered.
“You’re not crazy,” Kaz said dryly.
“Say it again.”
“You’re not crazy!” He yelped when she pressed pressure onto the blade. “Can you stop swinging that around? Jeez!”
Annalise shot me a grin, and it took a second for me to realise.
Kaz was scared of the knife.
He was scared of dying—which meant, whether he liked it or not, the boy had in fact not gone through with The Urge.
I thought the girl was going to slash Kaz’s throat open in delight, but instead she looped her arm in his like they were suddenly best friends.
“Come on, Elle!” She danced forwards, pulling the boy with her. “We’re closeeeee!”
I wasn’t sure about that.
What we were, however, was lost. When the three of us came to a stop, it was pitch black, and I was struggling to see in front of me. Annalise, however, walked straight over to thin air, and gestured to it with a grin. “Tah-da!” Spluttering through pooling red, she let out a laugh.
“See!”
Kaz, who was still uncomfortably pressed to her no matter how hard he strained to get away, shot me a look I could barely make out.
“I’m sorry, what did I say? That we were going to get lost? That Annalise is certifiably crazy and we’re very fucking lost?”
At first, I thought I really was crazy. Maybe Annalise’s condition was contagious. I could hear it again. Laughing.
But this time it was coming from exactly where Annalise was pointing—and when the girl slammed her hand into thin air, there was a loud clanging noise which sounded like metal.
Slowly, I made my way towards it, and when my hands were touching sleek metal, what felt like the corners of a door, more pain struck my upper incisors. “Holy shit.” Kaz was pressing himself against the door, and then slamming his fists into it. “The crazy bitch was right.” His words hung in my thoughts on a constant cycle, as we delved into what should have been forest.
After all, we had been standing in the middle of nowhere. The laughter was deafening when I stepped over the threshold, and I had to slap my hands over my ears to block it out. Through the invisible door, however, was exactly what Annalise had described. Wall people.
All around us were what looked like television screens, and on those screens—were people. Faces.
They were not part of the laughter. The laughter was mechanical and wrong, rooted deep inside my skull. The faces which stared down at us looked like normal people, men and women, with some of them teens, and even younger children. Annalise and Kaz were next to me, their head s tipped back, gazes glued to the screens. Not the ones I was looking at. The ones on tiny computer monitors.
It was when I was tearing my eyes from our audience, did I start to see what made Kaz stiffen up next to me. One screen in particular showed his face. He was younger, maybe a year or two. No, I thought, barf creeping up my throat. It was when he had killed that girl.
His hands clasped in his lap were still stained and slick with her blood. The Kaz on the screen seemed a lot more laid back, his feet resting on the table in front of him. There was a cockiness in his eyes I had never seen before. This boy’s eyes were cruel. “Why exactly have you signed up for this program?” A man’s voice crackled off screen.
“Duh.” Kaz held up his scarlet hands, a grin twisting on his lips. “So I can get my Darkroom rep back.” He leaned forward, his eyes wide. “That is going to happen, right? I don’t do this shit for free, and I’ve got one million followers to impress, man. Darkroom loves me. Even if I did go too far that one time, which wasn't even my fault."
“You are correct.” The man said. “Darkroom does benefit from its influencers. Our program aims to help satisfy certain… needs across the planet, by broadcasting them right here,” He paused. “You have killed five people before signing up for Darkroom, correct? Your parents?”
“Parents and brother,” Kaz chuckled. “I gutted them with my fave knife, and then filmed it. Obviously, my Tik-Tok got taken down with all the freaks in the comments moaning, and suddenly I find you guys! A whole lot of sick fucks, but who’s complaining, right? Not me.”
“And,” the man cleared his throat. “You will keep killing? We are aware the initial implant impacted your brain quite badly. In the subdued state, you will keep killing, as the so-called ‘urge’ says. However, in reality we will be sending signals to your brain which will make you kill.”
“Alright, do it.”
“Are you sure? We couldn’t help noticing during your first kill, you seemed to… well, react in a way we haven’t seen before.”
He cocked his head. “Did my fans like it?”
“Well, yes—”
“Good.” Kaz held out his arm. “Do it again. And do it right this time. As long as I’m getting 40K every appearance, I’m good. You can slice my brain up all you want, I’m getting paid and followers. So.” His gaze found the camera.
“What are you waiting for?”
When the screen went black, before flickering to a birds-eye view, and then a close up of my house, I felt my legs give-way.
As if on impulse, I prodded at my mouth and felt for the loose tooth.
“That…” Kaz spoke up, his voice a breathy whisper. His eyes were still glued to the screen. “That… wasn’t me! Well, it was me... but I don’t… I don’t remember that!”
Instead of answering him, I turned to the startled looking boy when alarm bells started ringing, and the room was suddenly awash in red.
“Peeking!” Annalise screamed, dropping to her knees, rocking backwards and forwards.
Ignoring her, I focused on Kaz. Or whoever the fuck he was. “You need to knock my tooth out. Now."
2023.04.02 01:48 MajorParadox Superman #83 - Blast From the Past
Superman #83 - Blast From the Past
<< < > Coming May 1stAuthor: MajorParadox
Book: Superman
Arc: Dawn of a New Day
Set: 83
Out of Control
“It would have been perfect,” he said. “We’d start dating and then randomly bump into Clark. We’d get reacquainted, and he’d let me get close. And when he least expected it…”
“You wanted to date me?” asked Ruby. “To give you an in with Clark Kent?”
Kenny looked up. “It sounds stupid when you say it out loud,” he said. “It made sense before, but lately, concentrating has been even harder. You’re just not getting it.”
Ruby glanced between Kenny and her phone on the coffee table. Even if she could grab it without him seeing it, could she send out a message for help in time?
“This is the worst I’ve been in years,” said Kenny, finally sitting in the chair across from her.
“Are- are you okay?” asked Ruby. “Maybe we should call someone?”
Kenny narrowed his eyes at the coffee table and yanked the phone into his hands. “Nice try,” he said. He held his hands to his forehead.
Ruby cleared her throat. “What’s wrong with you? Are you sick?”
“You could say that,” replied Kenny. “They don’t even have a name for what I have. My parents actually thought it came from space if you could believe it.”
1992
“Just hold on,” said Al. “I’ll get this tire changed in no time.”
Beryl took some deep breaths. “I’m sorry,” she said. “We don’t have no time.”
Al looked wide-eyed toward his wife, sweat pouring down her brow. “You mean-?”
“I’m sorry, baby,” said Beryl. “The baby’s coming now!”
“What the-?!” Al shouted as the sky lit up and a trail of green energy covered the entire area.
“What-” Beryl grimaced in pain. “What’s happening?”
Al returned to his wife. “Nothing,” he said. “Let’s get this baby delivered.”
“You threw up twice already,” said his mom, Beryl, from outside. “The doctor said you should rest when you’re feeling this ill.”
“But I’ll miss the school play,” said Kenny.
“I know, sweetheart,” said Beryl. “But it’s not the end of the world.”
Kenny gritted his teeth. “They’ll put Clark in my place.”
“You should be happy for him,” said Beryl. “He’s your friend, isn’t he?”
“Pfft,” Kenny replied. “He wishes.”
“Cut out that nonsense,” Kenny’s dad, Al, jumped in. “Kent’s a fine boy. Good on him for getting a shot. You’d probably just mess it up, anyway”
“Al!” yelled Beryl.
“It’s not mean if it’s true,” said Al. “You want to make me proud? Give it your all like the Kent boy.”
The door opened, and Kenny stood there, his face red and sweaty. “I do give it my all,” he said. “I’m going to school whether you-”
Kenny turned back to the bathroom and slammed the door.
“You’ll be okay, honey,” said Beryl. “I’ll make you some soup.”
Present
Sam Lane shook his head. “We never had any leads on Pipeline,” he explained.
“That’s not what you told me before.” Lois looked into his eyes. There was nothing there. She could recognize his tells. He truly believed what he was saying.
“Is this the only reason you’re here?” asked Sam. “Not that I don’t want to see you, Lois, but it’s late, and I just got to Metropolis. Can we do this another time?”
Lois sighed. “It’s good to see you too, Dad,” she said. “But something happened to you. And I’m going to find out what.”
She exited the room where Maggie Sawyer was waiting. The SCU had kept Lois and Clark in productive custody since their lives were still threatened. Sam didn’t find that compelling proof of Pipeline either, which just added to the oddity of the situation. Somehow had to be messing with him.
“Everything okay?” asked Maggie as she and Lois headed for the elevator.
Lois breathed heavily.. “I’ll be okay when I get to the bottom of this.”
The doors closed, and Maggie’s phone buzzed. She pulled it out and slipped it back into her pocket.
“Everything okay?” asked Lois, pushing the button for the garage.
“Nothing important,” Maggie answered, watching the floor numbers count down.
“Are you seeing anyone?” Lois asked, joining Maggie’s view of the number. “I heard you and Toby split up.”
“We split up every few months,” said Maggie. “It’s kind of our thing. We’re fine.”
“I see,” said Lois. “Want to talk about it anyway? We’re stuck with each other for the next few hours anyway.”
Maggie cracked a smile. “Thanks,” she said as the elevator doors opened. “But-”
Several masked men were waiting, weapons raised.
“Get down!” Maggie screamed, pushing Lois down while pulling out her gun. She fired several rounds while grabbing one of the perps, wrapping her free arm around his neck.
The attackers, who were still standing, retreated behind some cars as Maggie moved toward them. “Stay behind me,” she ordered Lois, using her prisoner as a human shield. She fired off some more shots, but the others were well covered already.
Lois picked up one of the fallen rifles from the ground and took cover behind a support beam as Maggie moved to the other side of it, knocking her hostage unconscious with the butt of her gun.
“Drop your weapons!” Maggie ordered, but they just fired back.
Lois and Maggie returned fire.
One of the men tossed a canister in their direction, and a blast of smoke exploded outward.
Lois couldn’t see the attackers anymore. She couldn’t even see Maggie until she heard a hit, and Maggie fell down to the ground. Another figure shot out of the smoke, and everything went black.
Questions
Later
Jon looked down at the last slice of pizza in the box. “Yes,” he said.
Dan looked over to Jon’s empty plate. “Wanna split it?”
Jon looked at the slice again.
Krypto whimpered from under the table.
“Fine, take it,” said Dan.
Jon smiled and grabbed the slice, putting it in his place. He tore off a piece and lowered it so Krypto so could reach.
Dan looked at Clark’s plate, which still had a full slice. “Kent!” he called. “You gonna finish your pizza?”
But there was no answer.
“Geez,” said Dan. “How long has your old man been in the can?”
There was a thud from the bathroom, and the door opened. “Sorry I was in there so long,” said Clark, who was met with Krypto's nose sniffing him over. He pointed to the TV in the living room. “Oh, look, Superman’s in the Philippines.”
Dan turned around to see video coverage of Superman diverting a mudslide. “Kent,” he started while turning back. “You gonna finish-”
Clark already had his piece of pizza in his mouth.
“Never mind,” Dan groaned. “Your neighbors fight a lot?” he asked, changing the subject.
“I don’t think so,” said Clark, noticing a stray drop of mud on his wrist. He picked up a napkin and wiped it off quickly. “Ruby and Jimmy have gotten along pretty well from what I’ve seen.”
“Thought I heard yelling over there earlier,” said Dan, shrugging.
Clark tiled his ear toward the door and quickly picked up an elevated heartbeat.
“How long is this going to take?” he heard Ruby ask.
“Dammit, Ruby,” a familiar voice that wasn’t Jimmy answered. “This will take however long it takes.”
That voice.
Clark looked through the walls and saw a face he hadn’t seen in years. Kenny Braverman. Except for a chance meeting in Paris, he hadn’t seen him since they were kids in Smallville. What was he doing there? Was Ruby dating him too? She seemed to be distressed, but if they were fighting as Dan said, that would explain it. Still…
“I’ll be right back,” said Clark.
Dan stood up. “I should come with you,” he said.
“I’m just headed next door,” said Clark. “Keep an eye on Jon for me?”
Once Clark was in the hall, he closed the apartment door behind him and knocked on Ruby’s.
Kenny opened the door with a smile on his face. “Clark Kent!” he said. “What a surprise to see you here.”
“Hey, Kenny,” said Clark. “It’s been a long time.” He looked inside to see Ruby standing a few feet behind him. “Is everything okay?” Clark asked her. “We thought we heard arguing over here.”
“Nah,” Kenny answered for her, placing an arm on Clark’s shoulder. “We’re good. How have you been, pal?”
“You!” shouted Jimmy from down the hall. “What the hell are you doing here?!”
Ruby took the distraction to slip passed Kenny and rushed over to Jimmy. She broke down in tears.
Turpin opened the door, his SCU rifle in hand, as Krypto stuck his head out, watching. “Everything okay out here?” asked Dan.
“He broke into my apartment!” Ruby explained. “He wouldn’t let me leave!”
Dan aimed his weapon as Krypto started barking. “Don’t move,” he ordered.
Kenny lifted his arms as Turpin approached.
“Turn around.”
Kenny did as he was told.
Dan held onto his rifle with one hand, pulling out a pair of handcuffs with the other. He snapped the cuffs over one hand. Before he could get the other, Kenny snapped his head back and spun around, swiping the rifle. He fired off a shot at the wall, causing everyone to take cover, and ran toward the elevator.
Clark tended to Dan. “Are you okay?” he asked.
Dan wiped some blood off his nose and pushed Clark back, running down the hall after Kenny. He pulled out his phone, calling for backup.
Clark turned back to Jimmy and Ruby. “Keep an eye on Jon, will you?” he asked before running down the hall next.
Ruby turned to Jimmy with a raised eyebrow. “Why is Clark running after him too?”
“He’s a reporter,” Jimmy answered. “He has to go, uh… report.”
The two entered the Kent apartment to find Krypto standing guard with the boy.
“You okay?” asked Lois.
“Where are we?” asked Maggie, taking in her surroundings.
“If I had to guess, Pipeline,” Lois replied. She fumbled with her restraints, but they didn’t budge. “Clark, can you hear me?” she whispered under her breath. “We need help.”
The fact that Clark hadn’t swooped in to save them in the garage meant he was out of range. They could be anywhere by then, so calling out for him wouldn’t be foolproof. For now, it would be best to see what they wanted.
The door opened, and a couple of armed Pipeline agents entered.
“Why did you take us?” asked Lois.
“What do you want?” Maggie added.
The men ignored their questions and untied Maggie, keeping their weapons trained on her.
“Come with us,” one of them said, walking her out of the room.
“What about me?” asked Lois, getting no answer but the door slamming closed.
“Clark,” Lois called louder this time, still trying to free her arms. “I could really use some… help!.”
The door burst open, and a couple more agents aimed their weapons at Lois. “Quiet!” one of them ordered as the other approached her with a roll of duct tape.
“Superman!” Lois shouted as the agent started placing tape over her mouth. She chomped down on his fingers before he could finish.
“Argggh!” the agent shouted, clutching his hand.
The other agent approached, his rifle pointed right between Lois’ eyes. He finished covering the tape over her mouth. “That’s enough out of you,” he said.
“I think I’m bleeding,” the other agent said as he was walked out by the other.
Lois smirked under the tape. Even if Clark wouldn’t make it, at least she wasn’t going to go down without a fight. If only she could get herself freed.
The door opened again, and the original agents walked Maggie back inside.
“Mmmmmm,” Lois said, trying to talk. Maggie’s face seemed distant. She had to know what they did to her.
The agents sat Maggie back down but then left without even restraining her. Why was she just sitting there, though? She didn’t even look in Lois’ direction.
The men went after Lois next, removing her handcuffs. She quickly yanked the tape off her mouth.
“Maggie!” Lois shouted. “What did they do to you?” But Maggie continued staring blankly at the wall.
“That’s enough!” one of the agents yelled as two more entered the room. “Make one more move, and we’ll put you down.”
They walked Lois out of the room and pushed her into another, closing the door behind her. She found a gray-skinned, yellow-horned man chained up on the wall and immediately recognized him (Superman #15).
“Dubbilex!” she called. “What are you doing here?”
Many Years Ago
“Go, Clark!” yelled Pete from the sideline.
The crowd went wild when Clark caught up, and the two were neck and neck.
“No!” yelled Kenny as Clark pulled ahead of him.
Kenny kicked it into high gear but barely reached Clark before he broke through the winning ribbon.
“Congratulations, Kent,” Kenny’s father, Al, said, shaking Clark’s hand. “Way to show Kenny what to shoot for.”
“Uh, thank you, sir,” said Clark. “Kenny did a great job, though.”
“Dad, I came in second,” Kenny added. “And we both outpaced everyone else.”
“Second isn’t first,” Al said. “Nobody remembers who comes in second. You have to strive to be the winner.” He walked back to the bleachers.
“Sorry,” said Clark. “I didn’t mean to cause a whole thing.”
“He’s always like that,” said Kenny. “Even if I beat you, he’d still praise you over me. I think he wishes you were his kid instead.”
“I’m sure that’s not true,” said Clark.
“I play the cards fate deals me,” Kenny stated. “But I play to win. You won’t beat me forever.”
Present Day
“Big Blue!” yelled Dan.
“Where did he go?” asked Clark.
“I’m not sure,” Dan answered. “He stormed out of the building pretty quickly. I think he even went down the fire escape.”
Clark scanned the area, looking for clues.
“Excuse me, Mr. Superman,” a little boy said. “I think the guy you’re looking for went into that car over there.” He pointed toward a black SUV with heavily tinted windows. Clark’s x-ray vision couldn’t even pierce it. Something more was happening.
“Clark,” his superhearing picked up. Lois was calling out to him.
Clark sped over to the SUV and pulled the side door off the vehicle to find Conduit there, blasting him with a cloud of kryptonite.
“Help!” Lois yelled, but Clark was trying to escape the green smoke cloud.
Conduit leaped out of his car, his metallic tendrils wrapping around Clark.
“Superman!” Lois yelled again.
Getting Answers
Years Ago
“Agent Braverman,” said Bristol. “I’ve received some disturbing reports about your last mission. Would you care to elaborate?”
“I completed the mission,” said Kenny. “What more do you want to know?”
Bristol pointed to the chair in front of his desk. “Have a seat, son,” he said. “You destroyed an entire embassy. You were only supposed to deal with the ambassador.”
“That would have been a half-measure,” said Kenny, sitting down. He rested his feet over the desk.
“What is this?” asked Bristol. “Do you have no respect for my authority anymore?”
“Who’s to say I ever did?” Kenny smirked. “Let me tell you what else I found in Africa while I was there.”
Bristol exhaled sharply. “What?”
“Remember that intel we had on Cadmus?” Kenny explained. “There was chatter about a creature under their command who could read minds and even implant memories.”
“Of course,” said Bristol. “But that was a dead end, especially after they evacuated their underground base in Metropolis.”
“I’ve been keeping the investigation open on my own time,” said Kenny. “And it finally paid off.”
“You mean-?”
“I have the creature,” said Kenny.
“This is incredible,” said Bristol. “The things we could learn. The power this could give us…”
“I was thinking the same thing,” said Kenny. “Which is why I’ll be commandeering him for my own organization.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Bristol cried.
“I figured, why should I work my way up the CIA, always answering to someone,” said Kenny. “With Pipeline, I’ll be second to no one.”
“Pipeline?” asked Bristol.
“That’s what I’m calling it,” said Kenny. “We won’t take half-measures. Information we procure will flow through, and decisive action will be dispersed. But you won’t remember this when I’m done with you.”
Present
The DNAlien, as he had once called himself, seemed unresponsive. His eyes were barely open, and he didn’t seem to realize she was in the room with him.
“What did they do to you?” Lois asked, studying his face. She noticed he had earbuds. Was someone talking to him?
A jolt of electricity buzzed along the wall, and Dubbilex cried.
Suddenly the surroundings changed, and Lois and Dubbilex were in a ghostly white room, sitting at a clear table across from each other.
“What’s happening?” asked Lois.
“Lois,” Dubbilex greeted her. “It’s nice to see a friendly face, but I’m afraid I can’t stop what I have to do.”
“Do?” asked Lois. “Why are you even here? What happened to you?”
“After I left Cadmus,” Dubbilex explained. “I traveled the world. But I was eventually captured. Since then, I’ve been forced to intrude on people’s minds. Learn their secrets and sometimes make them forget things.”
“My dad,” said Lois. “And Maggie?”
“I’m afraid so,” said Dubbilex. “I refused to cooperate at first, but they kept me drugged and used coordinated electrical blasts to force me into submission. The joy of seeing you again has given me a rare moment of lucidity. Thank you for that.”
“So you won’t erase my memories of this place?” asked Lois. “Of Pipeline?”
“It’s not that simple,” Dubbilex explained. “If they suspect I worked against them… They might kill you.”
“We can’t let them get away with this,” said Lois.
“I have an idea,” said Dubbilex. “But it’s risky.”
The move loosened Conduit’s grip, so Clark stretched his arms out, breaking free. He took a huge breath and blew Conduit to the other side of the street.
A driver slammed on his brakes, trying to stop before reaching the scene, but he wouldn’t make it in time. Clark sped over and grabbed the front of the car, slowing it down.
“Bad move, hero,” said Conduit, blasting Clark with more radiation. “If that car hit me, you might have had a shot.”
Clark tried to fly out of the line of fire, but his powers had been dwindling since the first blast of kryptonite. He knelt down and jumped instead, taking refuge on a balcony.
Before Conduit could fly after him, Dan blasted off a shot with his SCU rifle. “Leave the man alone,” he said.
“You stay out of this!” Conduit yelled, sending a blast back his way.
Dan took cover behind a car. “Where’s that backup?” he murmured to himself.
Clark fired off a beam of heat vision, slicing apart one of the tendrils, causing Conduit to cry out in pain.
Conduit fired back, and Clark readied to jump away, but he sensed people in the apartment behind him. The impact knocked him through the window.
“Are you okay, Superman?” a man asked.
“I will be,” he answered. “Keep your family away from the windows.”
Clark jumped back down to the street where Conduit was blasting through the car Dan was hiding behind. Every muscle screamed, but he had to end it quickly. Lois needed him.
Conduit swung a tendril at him, but Clark ducked. He pulled deep down for a final burst of speed, getting in close with a punch that cracked Conduit’s helmet into pieces. The two fell to the ground as SCU vans finally arrived.
“Don’t move!” the officers ordered as they trained their weapons at Conduit.
“This isn’t over,” said Conduit, lifting up his hands. “I play the cards fate deals me. And I play to win.”
“That saying,” said Clark to himself as he struggled to his feet. How did he not make the connection before?
Clark finally saw Conduit without his mask.
“Kenny, is it?” asked Dan.
“Kenny Braverman,” Clark offered.
“Great,” said Dan. “Kenny Braverman, you’re under arrest.”
—
Lois and Maggie exited the hotel garage.
“Toby is looking to settle down,” Maggie explained. “I don’t think I’m ready for that.”
“Have you talked to her about this?” asked Lois. “Sometimes these things become a problem because neither side expresses-.”
Clark dropped down in front of Maggie’s SUV, and she slammed on her brakes.
“Superman!” she yelled, getting out of her car. “What are you doing?”
“Lois,” he said. “She called for me. She’s in trouble.”
The passenger door opened, and Lois got out. “I’m fine,” she said.
“That’s a relief,” said Clark. “Listen, we stopped Conduit. Pipeline is as good as over.”
“Pipeline?” asked Lois. “I thought that place didn’t exist. You heard my dad.”
—
Kenny wasn’t too worried about being arrested. His team would make sure he got freed in no time. He had a lot to think about in the meantime. How did he not make the connection before?
2023.04.02 01:18 FineRevolution9264 Why do dentists make you get x-rays even when your teeth are healthy? We don't do this for any other bones in the body and we don't do other regular imaging on any healthy body parts.
submitted by FineRevolution9264 to NoStupidQuestions [link] [comments]
2023.04.02 00:59 Fubukuu Are these pain killers for sprained ankle safe while being on asthma medication?
('m F/25, currently in Thailand) Three days ago my asthma symptoms worsened and a doctor prescribed me a steroid (Dexafour), 1 tab 2 times a day for 5 days. I also take Symbicort and Astair.
Yesterday I sprained my ankle from the fall off the stairs, I can't walk on it but X-ray showed no tears/ broken bones, so the doctor said it's light and will go away in a week. I informed him about my current medication and asthma as he suggested to prescribe painkillers.
He prescribed Norgestic (orphenadrine citrate and paracetamol) 3 times a day and Ultracet (tramadol hi and paracetamol) every 6 hours as needed. I'm skeptical about the Ultraset as I read it can worsen the asthma.
Are my precautions fair?
I'm planning to skip on ultraset and maybe use topical painkiller cream if the ankle doesn't get better and continue my asthma medication as needed.
Thanks for help!
submitted by Fubukuu to Asthma [link] [comments]
Yesterday I sprained my ankle from the fall off the stairs, I can't walk on it but X-ray showed no tears/ broken bones, so the doctor said it's light and will go away in a week. I informed him about my current medication and asthma as he suggested to prescribe painkillers.
He prescribed Norgestic (orphenadrine citrate and paracetamol) 3 times a day and Ultracet (tramadol hi and paracetamol) every 6 hours as needed. I'm skeptical about the Ultraset as I read it can worsen the asthma.
Are my precautions fair?
I'm planning to skip on ultraset and maybe use topical painkiller cream if the ankle doesn't get better and continue my asthma medication as needed.
Thanks for help!
2023.04.02 00:54 Fubukuu Are these pain killers for sprained ankle safe while being on asthma medication?
(I’m F/25, currently in Thailand)
Three days ago my asthma symptoms worsened and a doctor prescribed me a steroid (Dexafour),1 tab 2 times a day for 5 days. I also take Symbicort and Astair.
Yesterday I sprained my ankle from the fall off the stairs, I can’t walk on it but X-ray showed no tears/broken bones, so the doctor said it’s light and will go away in a week. I informed him about my current medication and asthma as he suggested to prescribe painkillers.
He prescribed Norgestic (orphenadrine citrate and paracetamol) 3 times a day and Ultracet (tramadol hci and paracetamol) every 6 hours as needed.
I’m skeptical about the Ultraset as I read it can worsen the asthma.
Are my precautions fair?
I’m planning to skip on ultraset and maybe use topical painkiller cream if the ankle doesn’t get better and continue my asthma medication as needed.
Thanks for help!
submitted by Fubukuu to medical_advice [link] [comments]
Three days ago my asthma symptoms worsened and a doctor prescribed me a steroid (Dexafour),1 tab 2 times a day for 5 days. I also take Symbicort and Astair.
Yesterday I sprained my ankle from the fall off the stairs, I can’t walk on it but X-ray showed no tears/broken bones, so the doctor said it’s light and will go away in a week. I informed him about my current medication and asthma as he suggested to prescribe painkillers.
He prescribed Norgestic (orphenadrine citrate and paracetamol) 3 times a day and Ultracet (tramadol hci and paracetamol) every 6 hours as needed.
I’m skeptical about the Ultraset as I read it can worsen the asthma.
Are my precautions fair?
I’m planning to skip on ultraset and maybe use topical painkiller cream if the ankle doesn’t get better and continue my asthma medication as needed.
Thanks for help!
2023.04.02 00:39 nickyb1982 Peripheral neuropathy or?
 | Does this sound like peripheral neuropathy? submitted by nickyb1982 to FootFunction [link] [comments] 41 year old male, 5’9’’, 67kg, UK. Current medication = paracetamol with caffeine for headaches. Other current medical conditions include IBS, overactive bladder and possible pelvic floor dysfunction. Non-smoker, but vape with nicotine. It started 4 weeks ago when I was on the toilet. I leaned a bit too far forward lifting my foot up over my toes as they were on the ground (as if tip toeing almost) and it just went - a sudden pain in my outer 3 toes that made me scream out. Felt like 10,000 volts of electricity shooting through them. I've since narrowed it down to the pain being in toes 3 and 4. This has come on roughly once a day since, but never when my foot is in the same position. It has come when just standing in the kitchen, standing in the supermarket but slightly leaning into the trolley, sitting on a machine in the gym but with my foot flat on the floor, and also a couple of times when laying in bed. So it is not like a specific movement brings it on and I cannot replicate it on purpose. Also experienced some tingling in my foot and up into my lower leg and, little random sharp bits of pain on toes, ankles, foot (quite minor and nothing like when my toes go, but odd to feel) and my foot has felt hot at some points. Also a few general aches within the foot and those toes. I can not feel anything when prodding or squeezing my outer 3 toes or around that area. I tried swimming and it felt like my 4th toe was really bruised and achey and almost hanging off. So it is weird that when sitting or standing and messing with it, it hurts no more to prod it than any other toe. I feel like I have perhaps pinched or damaged a nerve(s) and maybe that is then defined as peripheral neuropathy. I have noticed a general ache across the top of my ankle, so maybe the nerve is damaged there and the pain in toes is referred? I honestly have no clue I visited a private podiatrist who could not diagnose for certain but suggested it might be inflammed around a nerve (the one that goes down the foot and forks into 3rd + 4th toes), then gave me some laser treatment. I have been resting, icing, taking ibuprofen, and elevating as much as possible since. I went to book a second appointment but they didn't want to do anything further until they'd done an MRI scan, which is £350... Plus then further costs of appointments if going private with them, then god knows how much they'd charge for surgery if required. All of a sudden it has got much worse. Last two days, it's been doing it about 8 times a day. I'm yelping in pain and throwing my dinner off my lap if I'm eating. It's such acute excruciating pain. I went to A&E and they took an X-Ray which showed no bones were damaged, but it can't see beyond that. They've referred me to a foot surgeon and podiatrist via my GP / the NHS. I have no idea how long it will take to see anyone. I just want an ultrasound or MRI to find what is wrong and get it fixed. I've attached a photo to show where I'm getting pain: *Gold star: 10/10 pain *Blue star: 9/10 pain *White circle: hard to give a number but have noticed when it happens, it's sore here too. *Pink area: General ache here at all times, like the ache following a twisted ankle Has anyone had anything similar to this? I'm losing my mind. |
2023.04.01 23:35 queermachmir Daily Releases and Freebies - March 31st and April 1st
March 31st and April 1st Releases
KU:Light My Fire: An M/M Shifter MPreg Romance (GSC In Love Book 1) by Katy Manz (Paranormal, shifter, omegaverse, mpreg, witches, fated nates, dragons)
Worked: An M/M Spanking Story by T.M. Chris (Contemporary, novella, erotica, spanking, cowboy MC)
Natsu and Alec (Love at Sunshine Cafe Book 1) by Bella Chan (Contemporary, bully romance, size difference, roommates to lovers, animosity to lovers)
The Alchemist's Boy: A Dark MM Pinocchio Retelling by Joel Abernathy (Fantasy, dark romance, Pinocchio retelling, pseudo-incest)
Spring Revival: A M/M Second Chance Romance by Talie Shue (Contemporary, second chance romance, celebrity MC, 40+ year olds, best friend's younger brother)
Samuel: Queer Docs by Devan Freeman (Contemporary, love triangle, animosity to lovers, intern/head doctor)
Puppy for Daddy (Pet Play by the Lake) by Aster Rae (Contemporary, daddy kink, pet play, age gap, size difference, instalove, fluff)
Pies & Promises: An MM Single Dad Romance (Heartcraft Market Book 1) by Duckie Mack (Contemporary, single dad MC, divorced MC)
Little Boy Blu: A Little Big Heart Daddy MM Romance by Wendy Rathbone (Contemporary, size difference, praise kink, daddy kink, age play, lawyeclient)
TRADE by Nick Christie (Contemporary, erotica, BDSM, brothel)
Heal Me: An M/M Romance (Damaged Goods Book 1) by Scarlet Blackwell (Contemporary, hurt/comfort, forced proximity, sexuality awakening, slow burn, nurse/patient)
Two Best Men by June Harding (Contemporary, autistic MC, celebrity MC (gaming), age gap, best man/man of honor, opposites attract, grumpy/sunshine)
Waiting For You by Cora Rose (Contemporary, low angst, age gap, son's best friend, road trip, forced proximity)
The Obsession: A Dark, Roommates to Lovers MM Romance by Christie Gordon (Contemporary, dark romance, hurt/comfort, roommates to lovers, HFN, addiction)
Lunam: Book One by Dylan Smith (Paranormal (?), friends to lovers)
Rocking the Cowboy by Skylar M. Cates (Contemporary, celebrity MC, opposites attract, cowboy MC, brat MC)
Rescue Me, Daddy by Michael Robert (Contemporary, age gap, homeless MC, small town romance, author MC, daddy kink)
Cruising Future Father-in-Law: A Taboo MM First-Time Age-Gap Romance (My Future Father-in-Law Book 1) by Clay Walker (Contemporary, fiancee's father, cheating, vacation romance, sexuality awakening, age gap)
Falling for a Straight Jock: A Bi-Awakening High School Romance: MM Nerd/Jock Friends to Lovers (Falling Series Book 1) by Dane Beau (Contemporary, high school romance, tutojock, nerd/jock, friends to lovers, sexuality awakening)
When Daddy Hurts (Daddies and Littles) by TL Travis (Contemporary, daddy kink, age play, hurt/comfort, age gap, established relationship, family tragedy and grief)
Thicker Than Thieves: A steamy M/M Motorcycle Club Romance (Rough Hearts Motorcycle Club Book 3) by C.B. Walker (Contemporary, small town romance, motorcycle club, MMM, cop MC)
Falling Like Snow (Love in Action 2) by G. Koi (Contemporary, BIPOC, celebrity MCs, costars to lovers, slow burn, low angst)
Messenger: An MM Romeo and Juliet Retelling (Star-Crossed Celestials Book 2) by A.L. Morrow (Paranormal, part of a duology, Romeo and Juliet retelling)
Show Me How to Trust (Juniper Creek Book 3) by Ray Celar (Contemporary, hurt/comfort, snowed in together, slow burn, forced proximity)
My Daddy Is A Hacker: A Laugh-Out-Loud MM Fluffy Mafia Daddy Romance (Fluffy Protectors Book 3) by Aster Rae (Contemporary, daddy kink, mafia, hacker MC, instalove, older boy/younger daddy, age gap, age play, brothers' partners' best friend)
But They're a Couple! (Rancho Lobos Book 3) by Kenrick D. Turlock (Contemporary, sexuality awakening, friends to lovers, MMM, pining)
Wolf's Clothing: M/M Supernatural Suspense (Legend Tripping Book 2) by E.J. Russell (Urban fantasy, age gap, hurt/comfort, opposites attract, part of a series, mystery and suspense)
His Challenger: A dark M/M enemies to lovers mafia romance (The Lone Family Book 3) by Ace Fawn (Contemporary, novella, dark romance, age gap, dubcon, captocaptive, D/s)
Wild: A Fated Mates Novella (MM) (Cypress Ridge Book 3) by Elle Stager (Paranormal, fated mates, omegaverse, mpreg, shifters)
Spencer's Satisfaction: An MM Age Play Romance (Littles & Lace Book 4) by Anna Sparrows (Contemporary, low angst, instalove, undiagnosed autistic MC, daddy kink, age play, ABDL, age gap, virgin MC, no penetrative sex (?))
Hard On You (Wingstead Series Book 4) by Caleb Marks (Contemporary, rom com, small town romance, opposites attract, cop MC, natural disaster)
Fool Me Once: A M/M Gay For You Age Gap Holiday Romance (Betting on Love 4) by Jennifer O'Malley (Contemporary, novella, blind date, catfisihing, age gap, sexuality awakening, dancer MC)
Aussie Sun (Flying into Love #4 by C.F. White (Contemporary, low angst, slow burn, age gap, single dad MC)
Healing Bite: Love Bites: Book 4 by Jayda Marx (Paranormal, low angst, instalove, vampires, daddy kink, age play, fated mates, femme MC, chubby MC)
Payback: Lords of Chaos MC (Road to Carnage Series Book 5) by Nicholas Bella (Contemporary, dark romance, MMM (?), part of a series, motorcycle club, mafia, prison romance (?) so much is happening)
The Rebel Candidate (Shatterproof Bond Book 6) by Isobel Starling (Contemporary, part of a series, thriller)
Not KU:
Cutting Your Teeth (Cursed Corpses Book 1) by Caylane MacRae (Paranormal, zombie MC (?), slow burn, horror, vampires)
Hiding Place by Jackie Keswick (Contemporary, neighbors to lovers, mystery)
Sky High (Mages and Dragons Book 1) by Catherine Lievens (Fantasy, dragon shifter, magic, fated mates (?))
Subduing the Alpha: (LGBT version) by Dawn Fackrell (Paranormal, shifters, alpha/alpha, enemies to lovers)
The Enemy of Heaven by Reni Stankova (Fantasy, angel MC, demon MC, royalty)
The Misfit by Ellie Thomas (Historical, 1810s, sequel)
Bone Isle by Edward Kendrick (Contemporary, MM romantic subplot, slasher horror maybe (?))
Boys with Matches (Flint and Tinder Book 4) by Gregory Ashe (Contemporary, short story collection)
Drama Merry: A Nicky and Noah Mystery (Nicky and Noah Mysteries Book 16) by Joe Cosentino (Contemporary, part of a series, murder mystery)
Freebies
Sold to a Stepbrother by Gerald Ockham (Alt-historical, novella, mpreg, former stepbrother, arranged marriage)Queer Monster Romance!
MM Romance Freebies
Oh, Daddy: MM Daddy Kink Romance
April MM Sexy Books
2023.04.01 23:31 SmokingNewports There's something glowing in woods by the lake
“Issac? Issac? Helloooo? Dude, are you even awake?” - J
A booming voice came over me. I struggled to open my eyes and wiped my mouth as I yawned.
“Jesus, man, I thought you got some sleep last night.” -J
Jonathan Davis. An A+ student, physically built, the best player in the midwest, and my best friend since 4th grade. The night he’s referring to was last night when Johnny, V, and I stayed up playing Halo 2.
“What time was it when we finished?” I asked while rubbing my eyes. - I
“It was like two-something when we got off.” - J
“Yeah, right. More like 3 in the morning,” a chipper voice came behind us. - V
It was Valerie. We called her V. She was a caffeine addict. There was never a day when she didn’t have caffeine going through her veins. We met V in our 6th-grade year. Nobody wanted to be her friend because she “used to talk a lot.” I used to have a crush on her back then, but she always had eyes on Johnny and Johnny the same.
“Both you boys were out like lights last night. I practically had to carry both of your sorry asses.” - V.
“As if!” Johnny said out loud, getting a few stares at him. He has a powerful voice.
Before he could say anything else, Mr. Walker came in.
“Settled down, Mr. Davis. It’s not that serious” He put his briefcase on the desk. Johnny rolled his eyes. “Now, I know it’s a Friday and your last Friday before your finals, then graduation, but that does not mean you can lollygag in my class.” A few students chuckled. “You still have to pass my class, and for some of you, you have a long way to go, Mr. Jones” He looked at Michael Jones, our high school star player, and all-round prep boy. “You have a C in my class. If you want to get into Duke, you need a B.” - W.
The bell rang, and we were out of the classroom quickly.
“So, are we going to the party tonight?” V struggled to put her arms around our shoulders. - V
“Since when do you go to parties?” Johnny laughed - J
“Since now, asshat. It's the end of the year, and I want to get out of my shell.” - V
“You have a shell? Never heard of it. Besides, whose party is this?” I asked while putting my books into a locker. - I
“Chris Everett” - V
“Mr. Everett’s son?! What makes you think you're invited?” Johnny crossed his arms while leaning on his locker. - J
“Since he’s friends with Jessica Bryson, and she has a big crush on this giant” She tapped his chest. - V
Johnny got flustered. “What do you mean?” - J
“Oh, like you don’t know.’ V looked at me. “So a couple of weeks ago, Johnny was working odd jobs to save up some money for a car, right.” I nodded my head. “Well, he decided to mow some lawns, and guess whose lawn he mows?” - V.
“Bryson?” - I
“Exactly. Jessica Bryson’s lawn!” She said in a joking tone towards Johnny. “Jessica was all over him that day. You should have seen it, ” she said, laughing. - V
“And how do you know this?” - I
“She knows this because Jessica wasn’t the only one gawking.” V’s face went pale. - J
“DID NOT!” - V
“Oh, did too. You should have seen her. Mouth all open, too,” Johnny laughed before yelling in pain. V had stomped on his foot with her big boots. - J
“Again, how do you know Jessica’s even going?” I said after chuckling. - I
“I overheard her talking on the phone when she was watching me.” - J
“Okay, so how does this all come back to us getting into the party?” I said. - I
“We get him to ask for us.” - V
“Johnny?” looking up at him. - I
“Whoa, I thought we were gonna go see House of Wax? I heard it's freaky.” - J.
“I’ll just get it off the pirate bay. Besides, I agree with V that it is the last moment before we all head out.” - I
“Please, Johnny?” - V
With the biggest sigh, he agreed. We saw him walk over to Jessica and ask her if he was invited. They talked for a few, then came back to us smiling. He got us in. Afterward, we walked out the school’s front doors patting him on the back.
“Thank you, Johnny!” we said in an annoying tone.
“ Yea, yea, you guys owe me big time.” - J.
We laughed and started heading in the direction of our houses. Johnny wanted to stop by to pick up a flannel I had. He lives across the street from me, while V lives on the next block.
“Dude, I wish you had your car right now!” he said while drinking water. - J
“Me too. This fuckin heat is killing me. At least it’ll be cool tonight.” I was using a graded test to cool me down. - I
“Yea, hopefully. You think your car is gonna be ready in time?” - J
“ I dunno. I have to ask my brother. You know how he is.” - I
“Yep, all too well.” - J
Johnny was afraid of my brother because one time, my brother took us to a party, and a fight broke out. Johnny didn’t want to be there in the first place, so you can imagine his increasing dislike for my brother when the three of us landed in the county for the night.
“Look, I’ll call you when we’re ready to go, right?’ - I
We shook hands and then went our separate ways.
I walked into my house and greeted my dad at the dinner table.
“Hola Papa”
“Hola hijo. Como estuvo la escuela?”
“ Estuvo bien.Queria preguntar si puedo ir a una fiesta con mis amigos?”
“Terminaste tu tarea?”
“Si”
“Y tus quehace?”
I looked at him with an answer he knew all too well.
“Date prisa, no quiero que tu madre me regane.”
“Papa?!”
“No, me, papa. Hazlo y te puedes ir”
“Bien,” I sighed. I went to my room before bumping into my brother.
“Hey, were you off too?”
“Nowhere.”
“Aye, watch yourself.”
“Why do you care anyway?”
Before we argued my dad said “Eso es suficiente. Ustedes dos. Che e a terinar su auto. Isaac. Quehaceres.”
We both went passed each other. I dropped my stuff off in my room before doing my chores. After finishing, I took a shower and got dressed. I grabbed a white shirt and black fannel and hopped out of the room while putting on my shoes. I went to the garage to find my brother.
“Hey, is he ready or not?”
My brother rolled out from underneath and got up, wiping his hands on his tank top.
“You should be fine. Just don’t floor it, or else you'll blow the engine.”
“Hey, thanks again. I’m sorry about earlier.”
“No sweat, you’re all good. I’ll just put it on your tab.”
“WHA-” Before I could finish, my phone rang.
“Yea? Yea, it's finished. I’ll be right there.”
“Look, I still gotta design it and shit,” he said as he lit a cigarette.
I looked at my car. My brother was an artist when it came to spraying paint, so seeing the nice green on my car, I ended up agreeing.
“Fine, but you'll finish it this week, right?” He nodded his head and tossed me my keys.
I hopped in and pulled out of the garage. Before going to Johnny's house, I got out and threw up a V and L with my hands. He smiled and threw up the same with his hands. I pulled up to Johnny and honked. Johnny came running out, screaming at his parents that he loves them.
“Sweet ride.” - J
“Thank you, Thank you but get in. We are late.” - I
He hopped in, and we drove to V’s house. I honked loudly, and Johnny screamed her name.
“V!” he laughed before looking in awe. - J
V walked out in a pink cut top and jean shorts while wearing converse. She had a big duffle bag.
“How do I look?” she asked. - V
Johnny stuttered out a nice.
“You look good. What’s with the bag, though?” - I
“I forgot to tell you that it’s a beach house we’re going to, so I packed us clothes.” she tossed the bag in the back and hopped the door. - V
“Are we ready to go?” They all nodded. - I
We pulled out of the driveway and drove off. We got to Everett’s house around six o'clock' right when the sun was about to set. I parked close to the house.
“Ready to get your cherry popped?” V laughed, and we smiled.
We waved to some people and gave a few high fives.
“So what do we do?” - J
“Try to blend in” V smiled.
“Well, Imma get us some drinks.” I walked off, leaving Johnny and V by themselves.
I scooted through people before I made it to the kitchen. I was filling up a cup before someone put their hand on my shoulder. I told them to wait their turn, but they just spun me around.
“Hey-” - I
I was about to get upset before realizing that it was a guy I knew, Vincent Gordo.
“Oh shit Gordo where’ve you been, man?!” I
“You know me; I've been around.” - VG
“You should have told me,” I said while putting the cup down.
“I would have, but I’m not allowed at your house, remember.” He smirked. - VG
“Oh, yea… I remember.” I got flustered when he said that.
“So who’d you come with?” - VG
“Johnny and Valrie” - I
“Ooooh. Well, listen, come find me later, and we could catch up, you know.?” - VG.
“Yea, yea, for sure!” - I
I smiled and continued filling up two more cups. I went back toward my friends while not trying to spill more of the drinks.
“Here you guys go.” I passed the drinks to them. “Guess who I saw right now?” They both looked at me, intrigued. “Gordo.” - I
“Wait, the same Gordo? Like from that one summer?” - J
I nodded while drinking.
“What did he say?” - V
“He said to come find him later. He wanted to catch up.” - I
“Well, what are you still doing here? Go find him.” - J
“Are you sure? I don’t want to leave you guys here.” - I
“We’ll be fine. Now hurry, go get him.” - V.
I moved through the crowd with excitement and went toward the backdoor, where there was more of the class drinking and going down to the lake. I said hi and waved to people that called me out. I saw him talking with some other people.
“Vincent!” - I
He looked over in my direction and then smiled. I think he told the people he was talking to that see em lantern because he came walking towards me.
“What's up, Isaac?” - VG
“You wanted to catch up. Now we can catch up.” - I
He chuckled “ okay then, wanna go for a walk?’ - VG
I nodded while catching my breath. We walked into the woods but kept close to the shoreline. The more I walked, the less I heard the party.
“So, where’ve you been this whole time?” - I
“Like I said around.” He smiled. - VG
Vincent went to our school till Junior year. He had to move to the city nearby. His father got a better job and decided to take Vincent instead of leaving him with his aunt to finish school with us. We got close during biology class. I was his lab partner for the whole year.
“How’s everything with you?” - VG
“Everything is all good. My grades are nice, my body is in shape, and confident that I'm going to USC.” - I
“Your body, I can tell, but moving to the big city? That's the first I hear.” - VG.
“Yeah, Johnny and I wanted to be where the weather is nice.” - I
“Mhm. Does your dad know?” - VG
I groaned.
“You haven’t told him, have you?” - VG
“If I told him, he’d kill me. Let alone my mother hears it too.” - I
“Where’d he want you to go again?” he chuckled - VG
“Princeton. He’s a lawyer and wants me to become one too.” - I
“And what do you want to be?” - VG
“Something that’s not a lawyer. I’ll figure it out when I get there.” - I
He put his arm around me.
“Don’t worry, I know you. You’ll figure it out. You always do.” - VG
I looked at him a felt the same way I felt last summer. I was going to lean in before we heard a loud roar and then a crash. The roar was almost deafening. Vincent and I stumble to our feet.
“What the fuck was that?” - VG
“I dunno, but look.” I pointed through the tree line. - I
There was a lone red glow beaming through the tree lines. Rays of red and orange light pulsing off the wood of the trees. We walked towards it and got a clearer look at what we saw. I was a liquid gel, almost slime, but not quite. There were some fallen trees from where it crashed, yet not fire, as you would see in the movies. The closer we got, the brighter it was. We had to shield our eyes from it.
“The hell is that?” - VG.
“I have no clue” I reached out to touch it, but Vincent quickly grabbed my hand away from it. - I
“What, are you crazy or something? Don’t touch it. You got no idea it is.” - VG.
“I know, but- “ - I
Another roar rang the woods. This time louder than before. The ground vibrated as if there was an earthquake happening. The slime started reaching out and almost stuck to Vincent before I pulled him back.
“We got to go. NOW!” - I
We got up and ran back the way we came. We noticed the night sky was darker, and the moon reflecting off the lake was blood red. There was no time to say anything because when I looked back, the Thing had morphed into a human-like figure. It roared again, and we ran harder than we ever ran before. We saw the house in the coming distance, but I knew the thing was gaining on us. Every step we took was two more the thing took. We ran to the edge of the woods; right before we got to the house, I tripped over a classmate. I was sure it had me, but the classmate I tripped over was quickly wrapped in the liquid. I crawled back, seeing the thing burn away the flesh and dissolve whatever clothes he had. His scream became muffled and distorted as the liquid consumed him. Eyes became loose, bones turned into ash, and nerves being separated from the body before the thing was split into two. The other half went straight into the water while this half lurked into the treeline. I got back up and raced into the house shouting.
“Something in the woods! SOMETHING IN THE WOODS!” - I
Everyone looked at me as if I was having a bad trip or something. Vincent collapses to the floor, gasping for air.
“SHUT THE DOOR! SHUT THE DOOR NOW!” - I
“Rodrigez, what the hell is the matter with you?!” Mickey yelled at me. - M
“WE GOTTA LOCK THE DOOR RIGHT FUCKING NOW! THERE IS SOMETHING OUT THERE.” - I
I dropped down to check on Vincent before looking a Mickey peeping through the curtain and having a face of horror.
“BARRACIDE THIS DOOR RIGHT NOW!” - M
Everyone in the room moved the couch and other furniture to the outside doors. Before we knew it, another roar moved the walls. Screams then overpowered the roars. Banging on the doors filled the air, following pleas from our classmates to let them in. Crunches and squishes were coming from the backyard. Dark liquid sprayed the windows, leaving a disturbing silhouette. Screams turned into distorted moans and heavy footsteps. We kept quiet as we heard the footsteps recede. When the coast was clear, Mickey pinned me against the wall.
“What the fuck was that outside? You better explain pretty fast.” - M
“I don’t know. I swear!” - I
“YOU’RE LYING.” - M
People around us were trying to calm down Mickey, but Mickey wasn’t having it.
“Honest to god, Mickey, I don’t know. Me and Vincent were in the woods when we found that thing.” - I
“So you fucked with it?” - M
“No, no, no. It was alive, Mickey.” He put me down. - I
“It’s the truth, Mick. The thing almost took us. We ran here as fast as we could. That thing was faster, though. It doesn’t stop. It fuckin ate someone out there, man. Honest to god, mick.” - VG
“I hope that's not him out there.” - J
submitted by SmokingNewports to nosleep [link] [comments]
A booming voice came over me. I struggled to open my eyes and wiped my mouth as I yawned.
“Jesus, man, I thought you got some sleep last night.” -J
Jonathan Davis. An A+ student, physically built, the best player in the midwest, and my best friend since 4th grade. The night he’s referring to was last night when Johnny, V, and I stayed up playing Halo 2.
“What time was it when we finished?” I asked while rubbing my eyes. - I
“It was like two-something when we got off.” - J
“Yeah, right. More like 3 in the morning,” a chipper voice came behind us. - V
It was Valerie. We called her V. She was a caffeine addict. There was never a day when she didn’t have caffeine going through her veins. We met V in our 6th-grade year. Nobody wanted to be her friend because she “used to talk a lot.” I used to have a crush on her back then, but she always had eyes on Johnny and Johnny the same.
“Both you boys were out like lights last night. I practically had to carry both of your sorry asses.” - V.
“As if!” Johnny said out loud, getting a few stares at him. He has a powerful voice.
Before he could say anything else, Mr. Walker came in.
“Settled down, Mr. Davis. It’s not that serious” He put his briefcase on the desk. Johnny rolled his eyes. “Now, I know it’s a Friday and your last Friday before your finals, then graduation, but that does not mean you can lollygag in my class.” A few students chuckled. “You still have to pass my class, and for some of you, you have a long way to go, Mr. Jones” He looked at Michael Jones, our high school star player, and all-round prep boy. “You have a C in my class. If you want to get into Duke, you need a B.” - W.
The bell rang, and we were out of the classroom quickly.
“So, are we going to the party tonight?” V struggled to put her arms around our shoulders. - V
“Since when do you go to parties?” Johnny laughed - J
“Since now, asshat. It's the end of the year, and I want to get out of my shell.” - V
“You have a shell? Never heard of it. Besides, whose party is this?” I asked while putting my books into a locker. - I
“Chris Everett” - V
“Mr. Everett’s son?! What makes you think you're invited?” Johnny crossed his arms while leaning on his locker. - J
“Since he’s friends with Jessica Bryson, and she has a big crush on this giant” She tapped his chest. - V
Johnny got flustered. “What do you mean?” - J
“Oh, like you don’t know.’ V looked at me. “So a couple of weeks ago, Johnny was working odd jobs to save up some money for a car, right.” I nodded my head. “Well, he decided to mow some lawns, and guess whose lawn he mows?” - V.
“Bryson?” - I
“Exactly. Jessica Bryson’s lawn!” She said in a joking tone towards Johnny. “Jessica was all over him that day. You should have seen it, ” she said, laughing. - V
“And how do you know this?” - I
“She knows this because Jessica wasn’t the only one gawking.” V’s face went pale. - J
“DID NOT!” - V
“Oh, did too. You should have seen her. Mouth all open, too,” Johnny laughed before yelling in pain. V had stomped on his foot with her big boots. - J
“Again, how do you know Jessica’s even going?” I said after chuckling. - I
“I overheard her talking on the phone when she was watching me.” - J
“Okay, so how does this all come back to us getting into the party?” I said. - I
“We get him to ask for us.” - V
“Johnny?” looking up at him. - I
“Whoa, I thought we were gonna go see House of Wax? I heard it's freaky.” - J.
“I’ll just get it off the pirate bay. Besides, I agree with V that it is the last moment before we all head out.” - I
“Please, Johnny?” - V
With the biggest sigh, he agreed. We saw him walk over to Jessica and ask her if he was invited. They talked for a few, then came back to us smiling. He got us in. Afterward, we walked out the school’s front doors patting him on the back.
“Thank you, Johnny!” we said in an annoying tone.
“ Yea, yea, you guys owe me big time.” - J.
We laughed and started heading in the direction of our houses. Johnny wanted to stop by to pick up a flannel I had. He lives across the street from me, while V lives on the next block.
“Dude, I wish you had your car right now!” he said while drinking water. - J
“Me too. This fuckin heat is killing me. At least it’ll be cool tonight.” I was using a graded test to cool me down. - I
“Yea, hopefully. You think your car is gonna be ready in time?” - J
“ I dunno. I have to ask my brother. You know how he is.” - I
“Yep, all too well.” - J
Johnny was afraid of my brother because one time, my brother took us to a party, and a fight broke out. Johnny didn’t want to be there in the first place, so you can imagine his increasing dislike for my brother when the three of us landed in the county for the night.
“Look, I’ll call you when we’re ready to go, right?’ - I
We shook hands and then went our separate ways.
I walked into my house and greeted my dad at the dinner table.
“Hola Papa”
“Hola hijo. Como estuvo la escuela?”
“ Estuvo bien.Queria preguntar si puedo ir a una fiesta con mis amigos?”
“Terminaste tu tarea?”
“Si”
“Y tus quehace?”
I looked at him with an answer he knew all too well.
“Date prisa, no quiero que tu madre me regane.”
“Papa?!”
“No, me, papa. Hazlo y te puedes ir”
“Bien,” I sighed. I went to my room before bumping into my brother.
“Hey, were you off too?”
“Nowhere.”
“Aye, watch yourself.”
“Why do you care anyway?”
Before we argued my dad said “Eso es suficiente. Ustedes dos. Che e a terinar su auto. Isaac. Quehaceres.”
We both went passed each other. I dropped my stuff off in my room before doing my chores. After finishing, I took a shower and got dressed. I grabbed a white shirt and black fannel and hopped out of the room while putting on my shoes. I went to the garage to find my brother.
“Hey, is he ready or not?”
My brother rolled out from underneath and got up, wiping his hands on his tank top.
“You should be fine. Just don’t floor it, or else you'll blow the engine.”
“Hey, thanks again. I’m sorry about earlier.”
“No sweat, you’re all good. I’ll just put it on your tab.”
“WHA-” Before I could finish, my phone rang.
“Yea? Yea, it's finished. I’ll be right there.”
“Look, I still gotta design it and shit,” he said as he lit a cigarette.
I looked at my car. My brother was an artist when it came to spraying paint, so seeing the nice green on my car, I ended up agreeing.
“Fine, but you'll finish it this week, right?” He nodded his head and tossed me my keys.
I hopped in and pulled out of the garage. Before going to Johnny's house, I got out and threw up a V and L with my hands. He smiled and threw up the same with his hands. I pulled up to Johnny and honked. Johnny came running out, screaming at his parents that he loves them.
“Sweet ride.” - J
“Thank you, Thank you but get in. We are late.” - I
He hopped in, and we drove to V’s house. I honked loudly, and Johnny screamed her name.
“V!” he laughed before looking in awe. - J
V walked out in a pink cut top and jean shorts while wearing converse. She had a big duffle bag.
“How do I look?” she asked. - V
Johnny stuttered out a nice.
“You look good. What’s with the bag, though?” - I
“I forgot to tell you that it’s a beach house we’re going to, so I packed us clothes.” she tossed the bag in the back and hopped the door. - V
“Are we ready to go?” They all nodded. - I
We pulled out of the driveway and drove off. We got to Everett’s house around six o'clock' right when the sun was about to set. I parked close to the house.
“Ready to get your cherry popped?” V laughed, and we smiled.
We waved to some people and gave a few high fives.
“So what do we do?” - J
“Try to blend in” V smiled.
“Well, Imma get us some drinks.” I walked off, leaving Johnny and V by themselves.
I scooted through people before I made it to the kitchen. I was filling up a cup before someone put their hand on my shoulder. I told them to wait their turn, but they just spun me around.
“Hey-” - I
I was about to get upset before realizing that it was a guy I knew, Vincent Gordo.
“Oh shit Gordo where’ve you been, man?!” I
“You know me; I've been around.” - VG
“You should have told me,” I said while putting the cup down.
“I would have, but I’m not allowed at your house, remember.” He smirked. - VG
“Oh, yea… I remember.” I got flustered when he said that.
“So who’d you come with?” - VG
“Johnny and Valrie” - I
“Ooooh. Well, listen, come find me later, and we could catch up, you know.?” - VG.
“Yea, yea, for sure!” - I
I smiled and continued filling up two more cups. I went back toward my friends while not trying to spill more of the drinks.
“Here you guys go.” I passed the drinks to them. “Guess who I saw right now?” They both looked at me, intrigued. “Gordo.” - I
“Wait, the same Gordo? Like from that one summer?” - J
I nodded while drinking.
“What did he say?” - V
“He said to come find him later. He wanted to catch up.” - I
“Well, what are you still doing here? Go find him.” - J
“Are you sure? I don’t want to leave you guys here.” - I
“We’ll be fine. Now hurry, go get him.” - V.
I moved through the crowd with excitement and went toward the backdoor, where there was more of the class drinking and going down to the lake. I said hi and waved to people that called me out. I saw him talking with some other people.
“Vincent!” - I
He looked over in my direction and then smiled. I think he told the people he was talking to that see em lantern because he came walking towards me.
“What's up, Isaac?” - VG
“You wanted to catch up. Now we can catch up.” - I
He chuckled “ okay then, wanna go for a walk?’ - VG
I nodded while catching my breath. We walked into the woods but kept close to the shoreline. The more I walked, the less I heard the party.
“So, where’ve you been this whole time?” - I
“Like I said around.” He smiled. - VG
Vincent went to our school till Junior year. He had to move to the city nearby. His father got a better job and decided to take Vincent instead of leaving him with his aunt to finish school with us. We got close during biology class. I was his lab partner for the whole year.
“How’s everything with you?” - VG
“Everything is all good. My grades are nice, my body is in shape, and confident that I'm going to USC.” - I
“Your body, I can tell, but moving to the big city? That's the first I hear.” - VG.
“Yeah, Johnny and I wanted to be where the weather is nice.” - I
“Mhm. Does your dad know?” - VG
I groaned.
“You haven’t told him, have you?” - VG
“If I told him, he’d kill me. Let alone my mother hears it too.” - I
“Where’d he want you to go again?” he chuckled - VG
“Princeton. He’s a lawyer and wants me to become one too.” - I
“And what do you want to be?” - VG
“Something that’s not a lawyer. I’ll figure it out when I get there.” - I
He put his arm around me.
“Don’t worry, I know you. You’ll figure it out. You always do.” - VG
I looked at him a felt the same way I felt last summer. I was going to lean in before we heard a loud roar and then a crash. The roar was almost deafening. Vincent and I stumble to our feet.
“What the fuck was that?” - VG
“I dunno, but look.” I pointed through the tree line. - I
There was a lone red glow beaming through the tree lines. Rays of red and orange light pulsing off the wood of the trees. We walked towards it and got a clearer look at what we saw. I was a liquid gel, almost slime, but not quite. There were some fallen trees from where it crashed, yet not fire, as you would see in the movies. The closer we got, the brighter it was. We had to shield our eyes from it.
“The hell is that?” - VG.
“I have no clue” I reached out to touch it, but Vincent quickly grabbed my hand away from it. - I
“What, are you crazy or something? Don’t touch it. You got no idea it is.” - VG.
“I know, but- “ - I
Another roar rang the woods. This time louder than before. The ground vibrated as if there was an earthquake happening. The slime started reaching out and almost stuck to Vincent before I pulled him back.
“We got to go. NOW!” - I
We got up and ran back the way we came. We noticed the night sky was darker, and the moon reflecting off the lake was blood red. There was no time to say anything because when I looked back, the Thing had morphed into a human-like figure. It roared again, and we ran harder than we ever ran before. We saw the house in the coming distance, but I knew the thing was gaining on us. Every step we took was two more the thing took. We ran to the edge of the woods; right before we got to the house, I tripped over a classmate. I was sure it had me, but the classmate I tripped over was quickly wrapped in the liquid. I crawled back, seeing the thing burn away the flesh and dissolve whatever clothes he had. His scream became muffled and distorted as the liquid consumed him. Eyes became loose, bones turned into ash, and nerves being separated from the body before the thing was split into two. The other half went straight into the water while this half lurked into the treeline. I got back up and raced into the house shouting.
“Something in the woods! SOMETHING IN THE WOODS!” - I
Everyone looked at me as if I was having a bad trip or something. Vincent collapses to the floor, gasping for air.
“SHUT THE DOOR! SHUT THE DOOR NOW!” - I
“Rodrigez, what the hell is the matter with you?!” Mickey yelled at me. - M
“WE GOTTA LOCK THE DOOR RIGHT FUCKING NOW! THERE IS SOMETHING OUT THERE.” - I
I dropped down to check on Vincent before looking a Mickey peeping through the curtain and having a face of horror.
“BARRACIDE THIS DOOR RIGHT NOW!” - M
Everyone in the room moved the couch and other furniture to the outside doors. Before we knew it, another roar moved the walls. Screams then overpowered the roars. Banging on the doors filled the air, following pleas from our classmates to let them in. Crunches and squishes were coming from the backyard. Dark liquid sprayed the windows, leaving a disturbing silhouette. Screams turned into distorted moans and heavy footsteps. We kept quiet as we heard the footsteps recede. When the coast was clear, Mickey pinned me against the wall.
“What the fuck was that outside? You better explain pretty fast.” - M
“I don’t know. I swear!” - I
“YOU’RE LYING.” - M
People around us were trying to calm down Mickey, but Mickey wasn’t having it.
“Honest to god, Mickey, I don’t know. Me and Vincent were in the woods when we found that thing.” - I
“So you fucked with it?” - M
“No, no, no. It was alive, Mickey.” He put me down. - I
“It’s the truth, Mick. The thing almost took us. We ran here as fast as we could. That thing was faster, though. It doesn’t stop. It fuckin ate someone out there, man. Honest to god, mick.” - VG
“I hope that's not him out there.” - J
2023.04.01 23:13 Spiritual-Slide5676 Selling account with founders STW and 13k+ V-Bucks. Can be used to gift yourself items. Asking $50
 | submitted by Spiritual-Slide5676 to FortniteAccountsSale [link] [comments] |
2023.04.01 23:07 _Triple_ [STORE] 900+ KNIVES/GLOVES/SKINS, 50.000$+ INVENTORY. M9 Fade, M4 Poseidon, Kara Gamma, BFK Freehand, BFK Bright Water, Spec Gloves Kimono, Nomad Fade, M9 Doppler, Skeleton, BFK B.Steel, AWP Fade, Stiletto Fade, S.Gloves Slingshot, BFK Ultra, Kara Damas, Bayo Lore, Bayo Gamma, Flip Fade & A Lot More
Everything in my inventory is up for trade. The most valuable items are listed here, the rest you can find in My Inventory
Feel free to Add Me or even better send a Trade Offer. Open for any suggestions: upgrades, downgrades / knives, gloves, skins / stickers, patterns, floats.
All Buyouts are listed in cash value.
KNIVES
★ Butterfly Knife Freehand FN #1, B/O: $1867
★ Butterfly Knife Bright Water MW, B/O: $1098
★ Butterfly Knife Blue Steel BS, B/O: $907
★ Butterfly Knife Ultraviolet FT, B/O: $789
★ Butterfly Knife Stained FT, B/O: $695
⎯★ Bayonet Tiger Tooth MW #1, B/O: $888
★ Bayonet Gamma Doppler (Phase 4) FN, B/O: $727
★ Bayonet Doppler (Phase 2) FN, B/O: $608
★ Bayonet Doppler (Phase 1) FN, B/O: $521
★ Bayonet Rust Coat BS, B/O: $253
★ Bayonet Night FT, B/O: $251
★ StatTrak™ Bayonet Lore MW, B/O: $751
⎯★ Karambit Gamma Doppler (Phase 4) FN, B/O: $1343
★ Karambit Damascus Steel FT, B/O: $774
★ Karambit Rust Coat BS, B/O: $537
★ Karambit Boreal Forest FT, B/O: $488
⎯★ M9 Bayonet Fade FN, B/O: $1523
★ M9 Bayonet Fade FN, B/O: $1523
★ M9 Bayonet Doppler (Phase 4) FN, B/O: $1008
★ M9 Bayonet Blue Steel FT, B/O: $534
★ M9 Bayonet Rust Coat BS, B/O: $449
⎯★ Flip Knife Fade FN, B/O: $703
★ Flip Knife Gamma Doppler (Phase 1) MW, B/O: $509
★ Flip Knife Doppler (Phase 1) FN, B/O: $406
★ Flip Knife Freehand FT, B/O: $228
★ StatTrak™ Flip Knife Bright Water FN, B/O: $332
⎯★ Falchion Knife Doppler (Phase 2) FN, B/O: $292
★ Falchion Knife Doppler (Phase 3) FN, B/O: $264
★ Falchion Knife Marble Fade FN, B/O: $258
★ Falchion Knife Bright Water MW, B/O: $133
⎯★ Stiletto Knife Fade FN, B/O: $822
★ Stiletto Knife Slaughter FN, B/O: $569
★ Stiletto Knife Doppler (Phase 1) FN, B/O: $530
★ Stiletto Knife Crimson Web FT, B/O: $396
★ StatTrak™ Stiletto Knife Scorched FT, B/O: $172
⎯★ Gut Knife Doppler (Sapphire) MW #1, B/O: $830
★ Gut Knife Fade FN, B/O: $204
★ Gut Knife Tiger Tooth FN, B/O: $138
★ Gut Knife Bright Water MW, B/O: $104
★ Gut Knife Freehand FT, B/O: $92
★ Gut Knife Urban Masked FT, B/O: $82
★ StatTrak™ Gut Knife Rust Coat BS, B/O: $93
⎯★ Shadow Daggers Fade FN, B/O: $258
★ Shadow Daggers Doppler (Phase 3) FN, B/O: $165
★ Shadow Daggers Blue Steel FT, B/O: $82
★ Shadow Daggers Bright Water FT, B/O: $82
★ Shadow Daggers Blue Steel WW, B/O: $80
★ Shadow Daggers Rust Coat BS, B/O: $74
★ StatTrak™ Shadow Daggers Marble Fade FN, B/O: $186
⎯★ Classic Knife Slaughter MW, B/O: $311
★ StatTrak™ Classic Knife Stained BS, B/O: $163
⎯★ Talon Knife Slaughter MW, B/O: $605
★ Talon Knife Scorched MW, B/O: $290
⎯★ Ursus Knife Marble Fade FN, B/O: $405
★ Ursus Knife Night Stripe MW, B/O: $162
⎯★ Paracord Knife Stained WW, B/O: $125
★ Paracord Knife Forest DDPAT FT, B/O: $97
★ Paracord Knife Safari Mesh FT, B/O: $96
⎯★ Navaja Knife Safari Mesh FT, B/O: $71
★ Navaja Knife Scorched WW, B/O: $71
⎯★ Nomad Knife Fade FN, B/O: $1015
★ Skeleton Knife, B/O: $909
★ Bowie Knife Boreal Forest MW, B/O: $106
★ Survival Knife Forest DDPAT FT, B/O: $97
GLOVES
★ Driver Gloves Crimson Weave FT, B/O: $335
★ Driver Gloves King Snake BS, B/O: $270
★ Driver Gloves Lunar Weave WW, B/O: $113
★ Driver Gloves Overtake WW, B/O: $88
★ Driver Gloves Overtake BS, B/O: $67
⎯★ Moto Gloves Transport MW, B/O: $171
★ Moto Gloves Polygon BS, B/O: $137
★ Moto Gloves Transport WW, B/O: $71
★ Moto Gloves 3rd Commando Company BS, B/O: $62
⎯★ Specialist Gloves Crimson Kimono WW, B/O: $1027
★ Specialist Gloves Tiger Strike FT, B/O: $654
★ Specialist Gloves Mogul FT, B/O: $295
★ Specialist Gloves Lt. Commander FT, B/O: $277
★ Specialist Gloves Crimson Web FT, B/O: $275
⎯★ Sport Gloves Slingshot FT, B/O: $796
★ Sport Gloves Amphibious BS #2, B/O: $699
★ Sport Gloves Omega FT, B/O: $656
⎯★ Broken Fang Gloves Unhinged BS, B/O: $60
WEAPONS
AK-47 Case Hardened BS, B/O: $130
AK-47 Bloodsport MW, B/O: $79
AK-47 Fuel Injector BS, B/O: $76
AK-47 Fuel Injector BS, B/O: $76
AK-47 Bloodsport FT, B/O: $70
AK-47 Neon Rider MW, B/O: $60
⎯AWP Fade FN, B/O: $864
AWP BOOM MW, B/O: $84
AWP Containment Breach FT, B/O: $69
AWP Containment Breach FT, B/O: $69
AWP Wildfire FT, B/O: $59
AWP Chromatic Aberration FN, B/O: $59
StatTrak™ AWP Hyper Beast FT, B/O: $65
StatTrak™ AWP Hyper Beast FT, B/O: $65
⎯Desert Eagle Blaze FN, B/O: $565
Desert Eagle Blaze FN, B/O: $565
Desert Eagle Printstream FN, B/O: $155
Desert Eagle Cobalt Disruption FN, B/O: $58
⎯M4A1-S Icarus Fell FN, B/O: $414
M4A1-S Printstream MW, B/O: $204
M4A1-S Printstream MW, B/O: $204
⎯M4A4 Poseidon FN, B/O: $1402
M4A4 The Emperor FN, B/O: $152
M4A4 Asiimov WW, B/O: $97
⎯USP-S Kill Confirmed MW, B/O: $65
USP-S Printstream FT, B/O: $69
StatTrak™ USP-S Kill Confirmed FT, B/O: $123
StatTrak™ USP-S Neo-Noir FN, B/O: $106
⎯AUG Flame Jörmungandr FN, B/O: $218
P2000 Ocean Foam FN, B/O: $139
Souvenir SSG 08 Death Strike MW, B/O: $81
CZ75-Auto Emerald Quartz MW, B/O: $61
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2023.04.01 22:29 5YNTH3T1K Dreasm part 02
Woke up and yes... I was overbaked. again.
I was shouting at a small printed circuit board with light emitting diodes and Surface mounted devices that was giving me static about some shit that I was doing when they are actually a junior officer etc... I told then we would go to my superior officer to sort this shit out once and for all. I was super angy.
What had happened to spur my shouting so much ( I like shouting !) was the fuck up with the reactor core loading operation. The short version is that bank C had caused critical alarms in core 4 bank A and alerts in several other cores in Banks A and B, standard operating procedure is to remove the last inserted bank and tray a new bank but some operators freaked the fuck out and tried to abandon their positions.
To provide a clear timeline of events I a started create a document to hand up stairs when the smoke cleared. This was proving a bit difficult with the pen that I was being quite shit. and the paper was the back of some regional information brochure which was not taking the ink very well. Some homless guy came to help me with the gift of an unreasonably large ink marker. This was exceptional under the circumstances but I could not use it due to the lines being like an inch wide. They came back in minutes with a really amazing technical pen that was leaking. I had no idea where they were getting these pens from or even where they had come from themselves as we were isolated in zone far from safety.
I never managed to get back to the reactor cores to fix the problem, this may have been a blessing as I am sure those things are bad for you. They change you. The Strugatsky effect is still not fully understood.
Were we at war ? Did R. Heinlein invade my secure-ee-nooze tm sleep module again ? Text underfoot breaks like snapping rods of ice to over strain. No thinks to the break of a new dawn lights shine beacon drifting through time like a lost can of soup to the brain matter journey alpha plus. can you dig it?
I shove the bunker door open with a final heave and the morning gloom of mist and shit invaded my eyes. I could smell the fresh watering the air like fine droplets caressing my cheeks. The air was not toxic and the ground around the area seemed to be evacuated of debris for change. There were actual trees this time. Thought they seems to all be moving in the same lock step motion. Ignore that for the time. Cane I ano you will they I am not sure but this is time. Again. It's a bit cold and brisk I rub my hands together and hunt around in the jacket full of pockets for my woolen gloves. Maybe I ought to climb out and check the surrounding area. They might still be here, it;'s hard to tell at times. Them.
There is silence in the house, all the floor boards are riddled with tiny holes the insect make, the appliances are down to save energy. I shudder and brace myself for the cold water cleansing ritual. The shock of the cold splashing on the face. Wake up you slug you are gonna live another day. Gasping for air and muscles tense all over, it's a glorious way to meet the day and serve. The front lines of reality are knitting together like the broken bones fit tendrils of calcium mosaic crystal structure linking together to remake the new voids open junctures. Blink at the gaunt face staring out of the mirror. They are there again in the looking glass. Magic. Older. Wiser? I am not sure. Dripping water onto the floor and chilling down. Scrape the rough towel and get into the gears. Hurry up it's time to move.
The slugs are on patrol.
Electron passing through the brain cause determination to wain. The speed of light but a glow.
Fully locked red light stares unblinking at me.
Time to move.
Take care this day! xxx
submitted by 5YNTH3T1K to ShrugLifeSyndicate [link] [comments]
I was shouting at a small printed circuit board with light emitting diodes and Surface mounted devices that was giving me static about some shit that I was doing when they are actually a junior officer etc... I told then we would go to my superior officer to sort this shit out once and for all. I was super angy.
What had happened to spur my shouting so much ( I like shouting !) was the fuck up with the reactor core loading operation. The short version is that bank C had caused critical alarms in core 4 bank A and alerts in several other cores in Banks A and B, standard operating procedure is to remove the last inserted bank and tray a new bank but some operators freaked the fuck out and tried to abandon their positions.
To provide a clear timeline of events I a started create a document to hand up stairs when the smoke cleared. This was proving a bit difficult with the pen that I was being quite shit. and the paper was the back of some regional information brochure which was not taking the ink very well. Some homless guy came to help me with the gift of an unreasonably large ink marker. This was exceptional under the circumstances but I could not use it due to the lines being like an inch wide. They came back in minutes with a really amazing technical pen that was leaking. I had no idea where they were getting these pens from or even where they had come from themselves as we were isolated in zone far from safety.
I never managed to get back to the reactor cores to fix the problem, this may have been a blessing as I am sure those things are bad for you. They change you. The Strugatsky effect is still not fully understood.
Were we at war ? Did R. Heinlein invade my secure-ee-nooze tm sleep module again ? Text underfoot breaks like snapping rods of ice to over strain. No thinks to the break of a new dawn lights shine beacon drifting through time like a lost can of soup to the brain matter journey alpha plus. can you dig it?
I shove the bunker door open with a final heave and the morning gloom of mist and shit invaded my eyes. I could smell the fresh watering the air like fine droplets caressing my cheeks. The air was not toxic and the ground around the area seemed to be evacuated of debris for change. There were actual trees this time. Thought they seems to all be moving in the same lock step motion. Ignore that for the time. Cane I ano you will they I am not sure but this is time. Again. It's a bit cold and brisk I rub my hands together and hunt around in the jacket full of pockets for my woolen gloves. Maybe I ought to climb out and check the surrounding area. They might still be here, it;'s hard to tell at times. Them.
There is silence in the house, all the floor boards are riddled with tiny holes the insect make, the appliances are down to save energy. I shudder and brace myself for the cold water cleansing ritual. The shock of the cold splashing on the face. Wake up you slug you are gonna live another day. Gasping for air and muscles tense all over, it's a glorious way to meet the day and serve. The front lines of reality are knitting together like the broken bones fit tendrils of calcium mosaic crystal structure linking together to remake the new voids open junctures. Blink at the gaunt face staring out of the mirror. They are there again in the looking glass. Magic. Older. Wiser? I am not sure. Dripping water onto the floor and chilling down. Scrape the rough towel and get into the gears. Hurry up it's time to move.
The slugs are on patrol.
Electron passing through the brain cause determination to wain. The speed of light but a glow.
Fully locked red light stares unblinking at me.
Time to move.
Take care this day! xxx