Context: You were a simple henchperson for the villain Agelast. He was as cruel as his title would suggest, but you remained loyal to him. When his ship was struck by a missile, you went down with it, finding your Master unconscious in the wreckage. While the other henchpeople fled, you remained loyal, dragging him from said wreckage and staying by him as he recovered in your makeshift cabin. After months, he's finally woken up, but... he doesn't seem quite himself.
Setting: The battleship/a makeshift cabin
Tags:[MAA4A][Established Relationship?][Amnesiac Vampire Yandere Supervillain Speaker][Henchperson Speakers][Loyal Henchperson Listener][Amnesia][Flirting][Husband Goals?][Mean]to[Loving][SPICY][Kisses][Feeding][Cottagecore][CW: Yelling/Action/Amnesia]
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[A] = Agelast aka Asher, your Master and reknowned supervillain
[H1] = Henchman 1, not so sure about this
[H2] = Henchman 2, REALLY not sure about this
[Scene opens in…?]
[SFX: An alarm blaring]
[A] Henchmen, to the board! All henchmen, report at once! We are under attack and I expect you all to be good little meat shields and protect me!
[SFX: Lots of people running/general chaos]
[A] Missile inbound! Rrgh, if those fools think they can harm me-!
[SFX: A door hissing open and more running]
[A] What?! Henchman 38, get to your post, immediately!
[Pause!!]
[A] What? How dare you not listen to your orders! You think I can’t survive the missile? I am Agelast, one of the most powerful villains on the planet! Worry about your own worthless little life and-!
[SFX: A massive explosion]
[Long Pause (Distorted Silence]
…
[H1] Thirty-eight?! Thirty-eight! You’re on the other side of the wreckage!
[Pause!]
[H2] What?! You’re with the Boss?
[H1] You mean that crazy bastard is still alive?! Or… undead?!
[Pause!!]
[H2] …Uhh… Sorry, no way, you’re on your own, Thirty-Eight!
[H1] Yeah… The Boss is kind of a massive dick and we’re taking the opportunity to run for it. Best of luck to you, though!
[Pause!!!]
[Long Pause (Seasons Changing)]
[You’re left with no choice, really. You can abandon your Master with the wreckage… but you drag him into the forest and salvage what you can. The advanced tech lets you build a cabin within a month or so]
[SFX: Birds chirping/Spring]
[Long Pause (Repeat)]
[SFX: Cicadas chirping/Summer]
[Long Pause (Repeat)]
[SFX: Dry wind and leaves/Fall]
[Scene opens in a cabin/cottage living room]
[SFX: Fire crackling]
[Seasons later, you are putting more firewood in the hearth while the wind rages outside. You’ve been on your own for months now, save for your unconscious Master]
[SFX: Cloth rustling]
[You jump as strong arms encase you from behind]
[A] “Hi sweetie… Good morning. Eugh, I feel like I’ve been asleep for ages…”
[Pause!]
[Your Master, and one of the most wicked men on the planet, kisses your shoulder]
[A] “Mmh, you’re all cold from being out without a robe… I’ll get you a robe next time we’re out, mmkay? I’m sure we can find something nearby, even on vacation.”
[...Pause?]
[He frowns, pulling you closer to him]
[A] “... ‘My lord’? Darling, we just woke up. Are you trying to seduce me so early?”
[His lips curl into a smirk as you shiver]
[A] “Because I won’t lie… I’m kind of enjoying the boldness, my sweet. My teeth are already trembling to taste that fragile little neck…”
[SFX: The Listener stepping a few feet away]
[He frowns as you scurry back from him. Even gentle, he’s as imposing as ever]
[Pause…?]
[A] “What do I remember? How do you mean?”
[Pause…]
[He sighs and gestures toward the small kitchen]
[SFX: The chairs scooting by themselves]
[A] “Let me just call the chairs over for a moment… There. Sit with me.”
[You obey, as always]
[SFX: Coffee brewing]
[A] “What do I remember… Well, I remember our life together in splendorous, wonderful detail… You were hard-won, my love. I truly had to bring my best to woo you away from all the others desperate to claim you. You were so unsure, at first, but the moment I got you to smile at that silly little convention… I knew you were mine.”
[Pause???]
[A] “Recruitment? To become a minion of mine?”
[He laughs at this, gesturing for the cups to float over]
[SFX: The cups sitting themselves down]
[A] “Here, your coffee. Just how you like it.”
[...]
[You taste it. It is exactly how you like it]
[...Pause]
[A] “Oh, you’re welcome, dearest. Now… what is all of this about minions and recruitment?”
[You try and explain to him that he is a villain. One of the world’s most wanted and you are nothing to him but one of his henchmen. One of his disposable minions. He rests his chin in one hand, listening with ravenous eyes]
[Long Pause (Listener explanation)]
[A] “Mmh… So, I am a villain named Agelast, wanted the world over. You were a henchperson that was aboard my ship when it was hit by a missile. You found me unconscious in the wreckage, dragged me somewhere safe, built this cabin from what you could salvage, and tended to me until I woke up, months and months later?”
[Pause!]
[He ponders this for a moment before he smiles dreamily]
[A] “Alright… Your little ‘roleplay’ ideas are always fun, but if you want me to pretend to be a villain…”
[Pause!!]
[A, putting on ‘the voice’] “How dare you argue with the mighty Agelast, you worthless peon!”
[You shiver. Why does the voice have to be so strong]
[P-Pause]
[He lowers his voice, concerned]
[A] “You’re not a worthless peon, I swear, I’m just acting.”
[....?]
[A] “...No, I don’t remember being a decorated, apocalypse-loving villain. I remember being a businessman at a convention that fell madly, desperately in love with a cute little human that smiled at me while helping me pick up the business cards I spilled on accident.”
[His smile deepens, a little deranged]
[A] “I remember following that same human like a lovesick puppy… for months. Even years. We always found ourselves at the same place, at the same time. Then again, I always did my best to make sure I kept you to myself…”
[P-Pause]
[He beckons you forward and your chair all but vaults you into his lap]
[SFX: The chair doing a yeet maneuver]
[Pause!]
[A] “There we are… Telekinesis is so fun, isn’t it? Being a vampire does have oh-so-many perks… One gesture and you’re thrown right into my lap.”
[P-P-Pause]
[His strong arms close around you again. This time, you’re staring right into his eyes]
[A] “Gods, you’re beautiful… but your neck is sorely lacking in my little love bites… Hm.”
[He frowns, fingers running through your hair]
[A] “...Can’t have that, dearest. No, no, no… You know how I get when someone else looks at you. Thinks about you…”
[...Pause?]
[He smiles again, in his own world]
[A] “Oh, love… These hands tremble when they can’t touch you. My fangs ache when they can’t taste you. My skin boils when it can’t touch you! I do love this little rescue scenario you came up with for us~.”
[...Pause]
[His lips touch your neck while you try and figure out what to do next. Of all your interactions with Agelast, affection was the last thing you were expecting]
[SFX: The Listener being bitten]
[You gasp and tense as his fangs sink into your neck]
[A] “Mmh, oh! Oh, your blood… Shh, hold still, hold still, dear… You know breakfast is the most important meal of the day, hm?”
[...]
[He holds you close, rubbing your back as he feeds. None of this right. This isn’t your villainous overlord]
[A, with a quiet moan] “Oh, love… You are exquisite, in every single way. I love you, so, so much…”
[Pause…]
[A] “Hmhm, come now, my sweetest obsession… I’ll be your villain if that’s how you want to spend the day. Or we could go and explore the local forests, maybe even the nearby town? Hmm?”
[...]
[You… guess you’re going to go see the town with..?]
[Pause?]
[He chuckles]
[A] “What name to call me when I’m not ‘Agelast’? Hmhm… Asher, love. My normal first name is just fine.”
[...You guess you’re going to town with Asher…]
[Pause.]
[A] “Beautiful~. Come, join me in the bath, and then we can set off for the day.”
[SFX: The chair scooting back as he stands, carrying the Listener]
[...]
[A] “I do hope you’ll forgive me for getting a bit handsy, hmhm.”
[...You have serious doubts that the employee handbook would permit this but… he did write the handbook…]
[To be continued]

12th Moon, 200 AC
Storm’s End
​

Rage in the pen
In the now in the then
From the mouths of the men
Who I won't lend a second thought to
Tell me that it's no big deal
Then leave your boot prints on my rights
And tell me how to feel
- RAGE, Samantha Margret

​

Ellyn,
I killed them both. They killed my son and plotted to kill me, too. Had they not brought a war fleet into my harbor, they would have lived.
I had believed my fears were unfounded. But your mother’s foolish declaration confirms that she has wanted me dead for moons. I cannot say it was unexpected, after all, I refused to kill my brother when she sat upon my Small Council.
It is sad that you are to deal with the consequences that the Lady Paramount has incurred with her greed.
You are a clever girl, my niece. Do not allow this to be your downfall.
Aerea

The paper in the now-Princess’ hands had been read and re-read time and time and time again, every time looking for something new. Looking for an apology, looking for a sense of closure, looking for a sense of finality. She’d received her confirmation, and all the same it brought her nothing. Only anger, no, rage. All she’d been lately was rage, and every minute she felt it she slipped closer and closer into its grip.
Ellyn placed the parchment from Aerea down on the desk in front of her, gently, almost calmly - much as she wanted to tear it in two and then in two again, she treated it with the kind of care one would treat a newborn babe. She smoothed her hand across the creases at the end, and then again and again, trying more to rub the words clean from the page itself than the creases in it as she held it in her furious hands.
What was there to do about it, she wondered? Cry? Flee the Keep entirely and hunt down Aerea Targaryen? Sink her warhammer into her chest and watch the life leave her eyes?
It was tempting. Gods, it was tempting. She wanted to kill the Queen, to be true. Perhaps even more than the part within her that wanted to thank her for it, to be done with it entirely.
Instead, she decided to take her anger out elsewhere. On the other side of the keep there were chambers that were left unused - meant for guests who would never make it to Storm’s End to use them. Hells, one of them could’ve been Ryman’s for all she knew. That would do.
She’d walked the length of the Keep so many times lately she wondered why she bothered at all. Past the faces and the bodies and the sounds of their voices and their footsteps, Ellyn tried to keep her composure as she made her way, all around the great Drum of Storm’s End and down a long, long flight of stairs to a hallway that anyone else might not have taken notice of. Dimly lit and quiet. It would do.
Throwing open the door to the chamber closest to her, Ellyn immediately made her way over to the windows. They would be the first to go as she grabbed ahold of them and yanked them from the wall. The metal rod holding them up fell down with them too, crashing onto the ground with a clang.
Then a table by the bed - there was very little on it safe for a candle and a metal bowl. Bending down to grab it from the bottom, Ellyn flipped it - and just as the curtainrod had, it clattered across the floor.
Then the bedposts, just in front of her. She was a strong girl, and fueled by rage besides, grabbing ahold of the post closest to her and yanking it, hard. The sound of the wood splitting and breaking as she yanked it, and as it came off the bed and she stumbled back with the force of her own pull, she threw it towards the window and watched the glass shatter and break.
She wasn’t done. She could not be done yet, until the entire room was wiped from what it had been in the past, until it mimicked the wasteland of her own mind.

The 1950s Yankee dynasty had some great hitters -- Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Moose Skowron, Hank Bauer, Gil McDougald, just to name a few -- but the key to going to eight World Series between 1950 and 1959 (and winning six of them) was a pitching staff that led the league in ERA in five of those 10 seasons -- and in the top three in all 10!
Whitey Ford was the ace of the staff, going an unbelievable 121-50 (.708 W%) with a 2.66 ERA (140 ERA+) between 1950 and 1959. And that was with Casey Stengel often skipping Ford against weaker teams to save him for tougher match-ups, meaning that most of those wins came against top competition. In 1956, for example, the Chairman of the Board had 10 starts against teams with losing records, and 20 starts against teams with records of .500 or better. He went 7-1 with a 2.27 ERA against the losers, and 12-5 with a 2.59 ERA against the winners!
But behind Ford were some pretty good if less famous pitchers, including Allie Reynolds, Eddie Lopat, Tommy Byrne, and Bob Grim. And another, even lesser known hurler won two rings as a key member of the Yankee rotation: Tom Sturdivant.
A hard enough thrower in his youth that he got the nickname "Smoke," by the time Sturdivant reached the Yankees he was called "Snake" because of the way his pitches moved. He threw a curve that broke away from right-handed batters, a screwball that broke away from lefties, a sinking fastball, and a looping change-up. All were good pitches, but none of them was great. Ted Williams was asked how Sturdivant was so successful without overpowering stuff, and he replied:

"Maybe he hasn’t got a thing. But I notice one thing. He keeps winning."

Eventually he did find a thing, though. Particularly later in his career, Sturdivant became known for his knuckleball. He would call it his "money pitch." He also complained about the pitch like an unruly pet, saying "it just won't act right 'til late in the season."
Born in Gordon, Kansas, on April 28, 1930, Thomas Virgil Sturdivant grew up in Oklahoma City and attended Capitol Hill High School. Sturdivant was signed by Yankee scout Tom Greenwade, who also signed another kid from Oklahoma, Mickey Mantle. Like Mantle, Sturdivant was signed as an infielder. But Sturdivant also was a pretty good pitcher as a teenager, as Greenwade told a reporter:

"Used to be a high-school pitcher in Oklahoma City, you know. And one of the greatest. He set some kind of record. More than 100 innings without being scored on."

Sturdivant struggled to hit his first few seasons as an infielder in the minors, hitting .246 in 281 at-bats in 1950. He then spent all of 1951 and much of 1952 in the U.S. Army, and -- as happened to most major leaguers drafted into the service -- spent most of his time playing baseball for a base team. (As Whitey Ford once said: "Army life was rough. Would you believe it, they actually wanted me to pitch three times a week!") Sturdivant's success pitching in the Army, as well as a leg injury that cost him some of his running speed, convinced him he should ask the Yankees to try him at pitching.

"I knew I wasn't getting anywhere, batting .246 in Class B, so I decided I'd better try something else if I wanted to stay in baseball, which I did, badly."

He returned from the Army in time to pitch 86 innings with the Yankees' Double-A affiliate, the Beaumont Roughnecks, and went 3-3 with a 3.56 ERA. His days as an infielder were over.
Sturdivant went 10-7 with a 2.98 ERA in Double-A the following season, and 8-9 with a 3.57 ERA in Triple-A the year after that. Yankee pitcher Allie Reynolds, a fellow graduate of Capitol Hill High School in Oklahoma City who had gone 20-8 for the Yankees in 1952, had retired after the 1954 season. That winter, he worked with Sturdivant and told him he might make the Yankees in spring. Sturdivant's hard work that off-season impressed manager Casey Stengel. "We learned that he can be a fighter, and that's what we want with this club," he said.
He made the team out of spring training and made his major league debut on April 14 against the Red Sox at Fenway Park -- Boston's home opener. Bob Grim started the game and was bombed for five runs on seven hits through six innings. Sturdivant entered the game in the 7th, with the score 5-2, and gave up another run. The Yankees battled back in the bottom of the 8th, scoring two runs on back-to-back singles from Elston Howard and Jerry Coleman to make it a two-run game, but Sturdivant gave up a two-run single in the 8th to pitcher Ellis Kinder to put the game out of reach again, and the Yankees lost, 8-4.
In 33 games that year, Sturdivant posted a 3.16 ERA and a 1.302 WHIP, not bad for a rookie. He didn't give up a lot of hits, but he did walk 41 men in 68.1 innings. Stengel didn't mind that, though. In a 2020 article, "Big Walkers", Bill James wrote about how Stengel employed a strategy of "pitching around" power hitters. When a slugger was at the plate, pitchers were coached to work the edges of the plate, not giving him anything good to hit. He might chase pitches and strike out... he might hit something off the end of the bat... or he might walk. Any of the three, in Stengel's opinion, was a better outcome than throwing a pitch down the middle to a guy who could hit it 450 feet.
As a result, the Yankees often were near the top in walks allowed -- but also in fewest home runs allowed. And also in double plays. And also, not coincidentally, in earned run average.
In his five seasons with the Yankees, Sturdivant walked 221 batters in 524.1 innings (3.8 BB/9), but only gave up 45 home runs (0.8 H9). He also induced 44 double plays. James, in looking at what made the Yankees successful in the 1950s, discovered that they had a huge differential in HR-GIDP. In 1955, Sturdivant's first year in the league, the Yankees hit 175 home runs, and grounded into 101 double plays (+74). Yankee opponents had 108 home runs, and grounded in 145 double plays (-37). In 1956, the Yankes were +86, their opponents -53.
James wrote:

This is not a typical championship team pattern. In many areas, the 1950s Yankees were just an ordinary team. They really had only one outstanding starting pitcher, while Cleveland usually had three or four. But the Yankees huge advantages in Home Runs vs. Double Plays enabled them to win almost every year.

Sturdivant rode this strategy to back-to-back 16-win seasons, going 16-8 with a 3.30 ERA (118 ERA+) in 1956, and 16-6 with a 2.54 ERA (142 ERA+) in 1957.
After those two great seasons, though, Sturdivant's career went up in... well... smoke.
In Spring Training 1958, he held out for a raise, eventually signing for $18,000, a $4,000 raise from what he'd made the year before. He gave up 10 runs in his first two starts of the year, and then missed a month with a sore arm. When he came back, he was hit hard in his next three starts, and was banished to the bullpen. After a pretty good month (8.0 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 4 BB, 7 K), he was put back into the rotation, and went 3-2 with a 3.31 ERA in 32.2 innings, but his arm still wasn't quite right, and he missed some time in August due to a heel injury. He was on the World Series roster in 1958, but didn't pitch.
All off season there were rumors that Sturdivant was on the trading block, and after another slow start -- 0-2 with a 4.97 ERA, and still bothered by his sore arm -- he was dealt to the Yankees' favorite trading partner in the late 1950s, the Kansas City Athletics. "Snake", along with Jerry Lumpe and Johnny Kucks, was dealt for Ralph Terry and previously forgotten Yankee Hector Lopez -- a pretty good deal for the Yankees, as Terry and Lopez helped the Yankees to five straight pennants and two championships between 1960 and 1964. Lumpe, a little used utility player with the Yankees, proved to be a solid regular for the Athletics and then an All-Star with the Tigers in 1964. But Kucks, an All-Star with the Yankees in 1956, was done, going 12-21 with a 4.78 ERA (84 ERA+) in two seasons with the Athletics, and was out of baseball after the 1960 season.
Sturdivant would hang around another five seasons, and pitch for six different teams! He went from the Athletics to the Senators -- not the original Senators, who were now the Twins, but the expansion team founded in 1961 that would become the Rangers in 1972 -- then the Pirates, the Tigers, back to the Athletics, and then rejoined Casey Stengel on the Mets in 1964. Over that stretch he went 21-20 with a 4.16 ERA and 1.301 WHIP as a swingman.
The 34-year-old Sturdivant announced prior to the 1964 season he was running for the Oklahoma State Senate and that he'd quit baseball if elected in November. The Mets beat him to it, though, releasing him in May after he posted a 5.97 ERA in 28.2 innings. Maybe more as a campaign ploy, in July Sturdivant signed with the Oklahoma City 89ers. He went 6-3 with a 3.89 ERA and 1.365 WHIP in 74.0 innings. He lost the election, and retired from baseball.
After that, Sturdivant owned a trucking company and tried to drum up support for the Hall of Fame case for his old mentor Allie Reynolds.
In 2000, the 69-year-old Sturdivant was in a serious car accident. Someone -- he never learned who -- found him on the roadside, thrown from his truck after it had rolled five times. When the ambulance arrived, they thought he was dead. They strapped his body to a stretcher and loaded him into an ambulance.
Sturdivant told sportswriter Brian Jensen:

"When we were driving to the hospital, I was in the back and they had me strapped down and I guess when I came to, I raised my head and I said, 'hey could y'all call my wife for me,' and the driver almost jumped out of the van. It just wasn't time for me to go."

He had broken his back, both hips, his pelvic bone, his tailbone, multiple ribs, and had a punctured lung. He never recovered.
"I don't have a life," Sturdivant said. "You know, I have a hard time remembering a lot of stuff and I'm kind of slow. I kind of have little spells where I pass out and have a hard time walking straight."
Sturdivant died on February 28, 2009.
Smoke Show:

• According to a 2010 article in Sports Illustrated, Mickey Mantle hurt himself while playing golf with Sturdivant in 1957. Sturdivant must have been having a better game than Mantle was, because at some point the Mick threw his putter in frustration. The putter hit a tree and knocked off a large branch, and then either the putter or the branch landed on Mantle's leg, giving him a nasty cut. Mantle missed five games due to what the Yankees told reporters at the time was "shin splits."
  
• Another key starting pitcher for the Yankees in the early 1950s: Forgotten Yankee Vic Raschi, "The Springfield Rifle." Raschi had one of the all-time great lines about pitching: "My best pitch is anything the batter grounds, lines, or pops in the direction of Rizzuto."
  
• Sturdivant wore #47 all five years he was with the Yankees. He was, according to baseball-reference.com, the first Yankee to wear the number. The number is currently assigned to Frankie Montas; prior to that, it was worn by Jordan Montgomery. Other #47's include Ivan Nova, Shane Spencer, Dave Silvestri, and Roy Fontenot. Luis Arroyo, the Yankee closer from 1960 to 1963, wore #47.
  
• In addition to Tom Sturdivant and Allie Reynolds, the other graduates of Capitol Hill High School to play in the majors were 1960s outfielder Don Demeter, 1950s infielder Jerry Snyder, and 1980s outfielder George Wright, though none played for the Yankees. The Yankees signed another pitcher out of Capitol Hill High School, a righty named Bob Shipman, but he never made the majors despite going 32-14 between 1953 and 1955 in the Yankee system.
  
• Demeter later became a pastor in Oklahoma City, and Sturdivant was a member of his church!
  
• The Yankees almost released Sturdivant early in the 1956 season. Hoping to sneak him back down to the minors, the Yankees put him on waivers, but Detroit manager Bucky Harris put in a claim for him. Harris had been the Yankee manager prior to Casey Stengel, and after leaving the Yankees went to the Senators, where he had picked up a number of former Yankee pitchers -- Bob Porterfield, Fred Sanford, Tom Ferrick, and Spec Shea. (They also acquired previously forgotten Yankee Jackie Jensen.) For whatever reason, ex-Yankee pitchers on the Senators seemed to dramatically improve. Now Harris was on the Tigers, and wanted Sturdivant. Thinking Harris must know something, the Yankees pulled him back. Apparently Harris did know something, as Sturdivant went 32-14 with a 2.88 ERA over the next two seasons!
  
• In the 1956 World Series against the Brooklyn Dodgers, Sturdivant started Game 4, and did what he usually did: He gave up six walks, but no home runs, and got a double play. He went the distance and the Yankees won the game, 6-2, to even the World Series at two games each. After the game, the Associated Press called it "the best pitching job in the series." Sturdivant's glory was short-lived, however: the next day, Don Larsen threw a perfect game.
  
• The infielder turned pitcher because he couldn't hit was a pretty good hitter for a pitcher in 1956, when he hit .313 with a double and a triple in 64 at-bats. Overall, though, he hit just .183/.208/.195 in 364 career plate appearances. Moving to the mound was a good decision!
  
• No relation, and spelled differently anyway: Tyler Sturdevant, who pitched in the minors for the Indians from 2009 to 2015. He finally made his debut with the Rays in 2016, at age 30, with a not-bad 3.93 ERA and 1.309 WHIP in 18.1 innings. The following year he was in the A's system, but he never got another trip of the Show.
  

Sturdivant remained a Yankee for life. After his playing days were over and he was living in Oklahoma, he was an early adopter of a subscription service that allowed him to watch Yankee games!

Notes: This script is okay for monetization. Can be used on Patreon, just let me know if you do. If you use it, please give credit. You can change pronouns if preferred but otherwise please don't edit the script. My scripts are meant for adult audiences and all characters are 18+. For clarification on the format of the script, any place that says (Pause) is a place for the Listener's response. Anything in \asterisks and italics** isn't meant to be read aloud, it's there to either hint at the tone or provide context that might help the script make more sense.
​
Summary: Listener, an elven royal, wakes to find Narrator, their enemy and a vampire royal, in their bed. Upon waking, they immediately get into an argument where their mutual confusion leads them to realize that they may not hate each other after all.
​
Word Count: Approximately 2,563 words (Not including any actions or cues left in asterisks and italics)
​
Writer’s Notes: Did I mention this idea in a poll form like, 6 months ago? Yes but shhhh. Not gonna lie, I'm really pleased with the outcome of this one, so I hope you enjoy it too!
Script Below:
​
\Listener wakes to the sound and feel of soft breathing on their neck, and they realize they are in their own bedroom, but they don’t know who the person next to them is. After a moment, the sheets begin to shift as the Listener’s unknown bedmate pulls them closer.**
\Sleepy, content** “After all this time, I’ve found you. So many centuries I have worn this blindfold and participated in this tradition, knowing that you were somewhere in this world, I would find you. I was beginning to fear that you were avoiding me, but I was a fool to think as such, wasn’t I? All I needed to do was search elsewhere. To think, this entire time, you were hidden here, in the walls of an enemy kingdom. If I had known I should find you here, I would have come to one of these pointless meetings long ago.”
\Narrator chuckles, pulling Listener closer.**
“But I suppose this meeting wasn’t pointless. At long last, I’ve found you. My beloved. My fated. My darling. The one who shall rule by my side until we are taken by death’s hand.”
\Narrator leans in to kiss Listener, but Listener, finally coming to their senses, pushes Narrator away.**
\Surprised, a little hurt** “My darling? What issue is there? Why do you push me away?”
(Pause)
“Please, tell me why you distance yourself from me. Have I done something wrong?”
(Pause)
“My darling, I can hear your breathing - You sound panicked. Please, tell me what the issue is, tell me how I might help you resolve it. I will do whatever it takes to set you at ease.”
(Pause)
“Your pounding heart is causing mine to ache, darling. Please, I beg of you, tell me what makes you so nervous.”
(Pause)
“You still say nothing. Is your fear that you know so little of me? While I’ve known of my fated love, you might have no idea. I can’t deny that it hurts me to think that you have felt no draw to me like I have to you, but I would understand, if that were the case. If you would please take this blindfold from around my eyes, it would be my honor to explain everything to you. I would gladly explain the circumstances of my love.”
(Pause)
\Soft, gentle** “Please, my darling. Allow me to look upon you. Allow me to explain myself to you. I swear on my life that I’ll tell you everything, I won’t spare a single detail.”
\Listener, confused but increasingly angry at Narrator, unties their blindfold before letting it fall to the ground.**
\Grateful, gentle** “Thank you, my darling, you-”
\Surprised, angry** “You?!”
\There’s a commotion as both scramble away from the bed and each other. One of them bumps a table and a nearby vase falls to the ground, shattering. Narrator snarls at Listener, looking at them accusingly.**
“You! Why are you here?! What have you done with my fated?!”
(Pause)
“You wretch! You dare take (them/him/her) from me?!”
(Pause)
“Don’t lie to me! I have no time to waste on you when the one I’ve sought after for years has finally been found! Now tell me where have you put (them/him/her)!”
(Pause)
“What do you mean? (They were/He was/She was) here, I know (they were/he was/she was)!”
(Pause)
“That look on your face - Why do you seem so surprised? Could it be that you did not expect the (King/Queen/Tyrant/Ruler) of the Vampires to feel love?! Did you think I was heartless, you knife-ear?!”
(Pause)
“Remember? What do you mean? What memory could have possibly been brought to you at this moment? Because unless it is anything in regards to the location of where you’ve taken my fated, I do not care what it could have been.”
(Pause)
“I will answer no question about (them/him/her) until I know that they are safe. Lead me to them now, lest you wish to find your ribs torn away from your spine.”
(Pause)
\Indignation, anger** “How dare you suggest such a thing! I know my fated! I know the taste of their blood when it passes my lips! It was the taste on my lips when I held (them/him/her) last night! I would know it anywhere! The fact you dare to question my love is beyond stupid!”
(Pause)
“Are you playing the part of a fool on purpose? Of course I know the smell of (theihis/her) blood!”
(Pause)
“Drawing a blade after committing such a vile act against myself and my fated? You truly have a death wish, don’t you? Just tell me where (they are/he is/she is) and I might spare you.”
(Pause)
\Still angry, a bit confused** “What are you doing? Why do you bare your neck?”
(Pause)
\More confused, a hint of worry** “Your blade - you aim it at your own neck. Why?"
\Listener cuts a shallow line into their neck, stunning Narrator, who quickly runs over to Listener’s side.**
"By the gods, what have you done?! Your blood is not…”
\Narrator trails off, surprise washing over them at the familiar smell. The shock causes their anger to drain as they stare at Listener.**
“You… Why does your blood smell as (theirs/his/hers) does?”
\Narrator’s breathing is heavy as Listener tells them that Listener is their fated.**
\Disbelieving, stunned** “No… No, that cannot possibly be. You and I, we could never be…”
(Pause)
\Firm** “No. There is no chance that you’re the one who holds my heart. It cannot be so.”
(Pause)
“Because you are my enemy! We’ve been the head of our kingdoms for centuries, and not for a second of those many years have we’ve been friends!”
(Pause)
“Our kingdoms may be at peace, but that does not mean there is no tension between the two of us. We share no history besides our hostile arguments and drawn out duels.”
(Pause)
“In fact, we do. I’d met (them/him/her) before I even had the chance to participate in our tradition.”
(Pause)
\Assertive** “Yes, truly! It was how I recognized the taste of (theihis/her) blood!”
(Pause)
“And what would you care, hm? Why should that matter to you?”
\Listener sighs and asserts that Narrator should just tell them. Narrator reluctantly huffs.**
“Fine, but only to prove that you could never be (them/him/her), do you understand me?”
\Listener scoffs but agrees. Narrator sighs.**
“It was several hundred years ago, when I was not yet the (King/Queen/Tyrant/Ruler) over all of vampire-kind. I was the only heir to my parents’ throne, but I’d only been a full-fledged vampire for a century. I was still unruly and wild with the bloodlust soaking into my brain worse than any liquor could manage-”
(Pause)
“Oh, be silent, I’m sure you weren’t any better in your youth. I’m sure there is not a single soul who hasn’t heard the rumors of the sinful parties you held in the depths of the human forests. Tell me, is that where you met that last lover of yours? The one who tried to steal your face and name some centuries ago?”
(Pause)
\Smug** “Yes, that’s what I thought. You shouldn’t throw stones when you’re surrounded by walls of glass, you know.”
(Pause)
“Fine, fine I’ll continue, provided there are no more interruptions.”
“Though it was in fact, a similar type of party where I met (them/him/her). Though, rather than a forest, it was in the center of a human village. One of the larger ones, in fact. It was the night of a festival, though I could never keep track of which human holidays happened at what point of the year. What I did know was that where there was a party, there was alcohol, and where there was alcohol, there was always a willing throat. Every face was hidden by a mask, and I bought one from a vendor so that I might not stand out. The dark streets were lit by large fires that blazed at every crossroad, the largest of which was in the center of the village. The townsfolk were dancing around it as lively music was played and drinks passed between hands.”
“Then I saw (them/him/her), golden in the firelight. (They/He/She) moved unlike anyone else, a vision amongst the flames, and I couldn’t help but to stare. Evidently, (they/he/she) noticed my gaze, and it must have sparked (theihis/her) interest. (They/He/She) pulled me into a dance, and I could not deny (them/him/her). We danced until the song finished, and then danced to the next one, and then to the one after that. So entranced by (them/him/her), I had forgotten the entire reason I came there. We danced together until the fires were all but embers drifting away in the wind. Then, with only the weak flickers of ash in the air, (they/he/she) told me that they’d seen the gleam of my fangs against my lips. (They/He/She) told me that (they/he/she) would not allow me to leave without experiencing the feel of them.”
“I was but a weak, romantic thing who was captivated and hungry, and I gave in so easily. I pulled (them/him/her) into a dark alley and asked that (they/he/she) bare their neck for me. (They/He/She) smiled at me and-”
\Listener interrupts Narrator.**
\Slightly surprised** “Yes, that is right. (They/He/She) pulled me close and (they/he/she)-”
\Listener interrupts Narrator.**
\Slightly more surprised** “Yes, and then (they/he/she) told me that I could drink my fill from (them/him/her), but only if-”
\Listener interrupts Narrator.**
\Stunned** “Yes… ‘A kiss for every drop to pass my lips.’”
(Short Pause)
\Realizing** “It was you, wasn’t it? All those centuries ago, it was you that I danced with and drank from. It’s your blood that I have tasted on my tongue for all these years. It’s been you, in my every waking thought. You are the one that I imprinted on so long ago.”
\Narrator chuckles, still stunned from the shock of their realization.**
“It’s almost funny, in a way. I’ve spent so many years searching for you, and yet here you are, the person I’ve glared at from across a war room table while we exchange words sharper than swords. I’ve stood so close to you that I could count your eyelashes, and yet, the tradition has never taken place close enough for me to find you before last night.”
(Pause)
“Yes, the Moon Hunt. After we’ve imprinted on someone, we create a link to their soul. However, it’s quite common that we create an imprint without realizing it. It might be years before we realize that our hunger is for a particular person’s blood. Such was the case with me, so I decided to go through with the Moon Hunt in an attempt to find you. But, since it only lasts from the time that the moon is at its pinnacle to sunrise, I’ve never been able to make it to you. I’ve woken in the forest a great many times, cursing that even in winter, I did not have enough time to reach you. But this time - This time, I did. At long last, I was close enough to find you.”
(Pause)
\A bit confused** “Then you… Last night, when the Moon Hunt took place… What happened?”
(Pause)
“No, I remember nothing. Once the moon has reached the peak of its path and my eyes are covered from its light, the mind goes blank and the heart commands our journey. What took place?”
(Pause)
“An attack? You thought that I was attacking you? What could make it so?”
(Pause)
“Oh. Yes, I suppose that trying to bite your neck in your sleep would seem like an attack.”
\Narrator sighs, troubled by this information.**
“I… I didn’t know I would be so violent in such a state. I apologize, that was quite horrid of me. To attack someone so defenseless is nothing less than deplorable.”
\Listener says that it’s not too horrible, as Listener knocked Narrator out before they could drink too much of Listener’s blood.**
\Amused** “Well that would explain the terrible headache I’m suffering right now. I’m actually quite impressed; it’s hard to get such a good angle on a hit while still lying in bed. I always knew you were a formidable fighter, but I didn’t expect that you had so much experience in warding off night-time attacks.”
(Pause)
“Ah, fair enough. I’d imagine that you’ve seen many assassination attempts in your years, as the current (King/Queen/Crown/Ruler) of the elven kingdom.”
(Pause)
\Playful, kinda flirty** “Well I should hope I’m better than any assassins that come after you. You are my fated, after all; fighting our enemies is now something we shall do together.”
(Pause)
“Is it too soon to say such a thing? My apologies, I have simply dreamed of this day for so long that the words find themselves on my tongue without thought. I will try to refrain from using them again.”
(Pause)
“You mean that you are not opposed to the idea?”
(Paused)
“I cannot say that I’m not surprised. After so long of being enemies, it is a shock to hear those words from your lips.”
(Pause)
“I suppose you’re right in that regard. ‘Hate’ is too strong a word for what I feel for you. Admittedly, I’ve always had a begrudging respect for your mind; your intellect has invaded my thoughts on more occasions than I would care to have told you before. And your sharp tongue has often left me wishing to hear you speak more. I thought that perhaps it was a result of a fiery rivalry, but should my thoughts be seen in other lights, they might be confused for those of an admirer.”
(Pause)
\A bit flirty** “Oh? Is that the case?”
(Pause)
“Then, if I might make a bold suggestion, would you be willing to consider entering a courtship with me?”
\Listener accepts and both laugh before Listener winces in pain.**
“Ah, you’re neck! You’re still bleeding. Allow me to patch you up.”
(Pause)
“Perhaps, if I was a younger vampire, or if I hadn’t fed in a long enough time, I might. But seeing as I apparently took some of your blood last night, I’m not so hungry as to be ravenous. I promise that I’m in full control of myself.”
(Pause)
\Surprised** “You wish for that? Even after my brazen attack on you last night?”
(Pause)
\Hesitant** “Are you quite certain that’s what you want…? I cannot…”
(Pause)
“No, it’s not that I do not wish to feed on you, but I fear that I won’t be able to control myself. If I were to bite you without any regard last night, then who is to say that I might not do it again?”
(Pause)
“I know what I said, but it’s not just any blood that I’m drinking - it’s yours. I have dreamt only of your blood for years. You are my longest held craving, the one thing I desire above all else. Even I cannot guarantee that I won’t take more than I should.”
(Pause)
“Why must you fight me on this? I worry on your behalf, and here you are, willing to throw your life into my hands - worse yet, into my fangs!”
(Pause)
“Oh? And what deal should keep my mind from turning to that of a beast’s? What combination of words could keep me grounded when I have your throat in my mouth?”
\Listener tells them, and Narrator pauses before laughing.**
“‘A kiss for every drop to pass my lips?’”
\Narrator sighs fondly.**
“Perhaps you know me better than I expected, for I think those very words shall manage to do the trick.”
(Pause)
“Yes, I’m agreeing to your deal.”
(Pause)
\Playful** “Such a smug grin that you wear. I’ll steal it from you before long.”
(Pause)
\Playfully sarcastic** “Oh, but of course, I’m sure you will. Now, move your hand from your neck. I’ll drink from the injury you’ve already created. Though I’ll warn you, I’ll still have to bite into your flesh.”
(Pause)
“I’m not stalling, I was just giving you a fair warning. But fine, if you want me to speed the process along, then I will.”
\Tender** “But please, you must warn me if I start to take too much. I would never forgive myself for hurting you more than I have.”
(Pause)
“No, I need you to promise me. Please, darling.”
(Pause)
“Thank you. Now do your best to set yourself at ease; straining would only earn you a bruise that would be far too difficult to cover.”
(Pause)
“Patience, my love, I’m just savoring this moment. I can’t tell you for how long I’ve dreamed of this moment.”
(Pause)
“Fine, I shall delay no longer. My own wants will not allow it.”
\Narrator breathes out softly before leaning forward and sinking their teeth into Listener’s throat. They begin to drink Listener’s blood.**
“Oh by the gods, love, you taste better than even my clearest memories. My head feels light and my knees feel weak. My darling, you are addictive.”
\Narrator continues to drink Listener’s blood for a while before pulling back.**
“There. I can take no more, lest I lose myself to you.”
(Pause)
“More? I won’t take any more blood from you. I refuse it.”
(Pause)
“Then why should I take more? What reason could there be for that?”
\Listener leans forward, kissing Narrator.**
\Surprised** “My darling?”
\Listener explains that if Narrator drinks more of their blood, then Narrator must kiss Listener more, as dictated by their deal. Narrator laughs.**
“My darling, I know what our deal dictates, but you need not give me any more blood to draw a kiss from my lips. Those, I will give willingly and at your request.”
\Flirty** “Though, if I recall, I owe you at least one for every drop of your delectable blood that passed my lips.”
(Pause)
“If that is your request, then I am happy to oblige.”
\Listener and Narrator kiss for a while. This can last as long as Narrator sees fit.**
\Fond, flirty** “This may not have been what I expected to happen when I finally met my fated, but I dare say that it is even better. I think that this will be a very happy courtship indeed.”
\The audio can either end here or can have more kissing before ending.**

Waking up next to Stanton, our clothes were all over the floor. Blushing at last night’s activity, I checked the time. A loud scream burst from my lips, the book club was in ten minutes. Crashing to the floor, Stanton stirred awake. Panicking at the time, the floor shook as he crashed to the floor. Searching for anything to wear, he was already tugging on a black band t-shirt and ripped jeans. Fixing his hair, my hand settled on a black and white striped swing dress. Slipping my feet into my boots, he brushed my wild hair into a simple side bun. Kissing me on the forehead, he dropped a random book into my palm.
“I will hang out with the husbands to analyze their behavior. Get those hens talking about their men.” He said simply, ignoring what we did last night. “Try and drink some coffee with them. Tell them that you have a stomach sensitivity.” Focusing on the book, scarlet colored my cheeks. It was one I had written and published fifty years ago, his brows furrowing.
“You’re telling me that I have to go and sit with a bunch of women while they misinterpret what I wrote.” I groaned bitterly, wishing that he would acknowledge last night. “Whatever. At least I know the plot.” Hooking his elbow into mine, we walked across the street. The husbands welcomed him with open arms, Susie yanking me in. Pulling me into the kitchen, she slid me a cup of coffee, my stomach churning. While most vampires enjoyed it, I despised it with a burning passion. Taking a sip, the pungent taste reminded me of a bunch of pennies.
“Tell me about sleeping with him. Was it fun? My husband is so boring.” She pleaded desperately, pressing her palms together. “I also asked for you to come because you look a lot like my favorite author.” Hitting the wall, a secret shelf with every single book I wrote covered every inch of the damn space. Think of an excuse, you idiot. Stanton looked up from his own conversation outside, my lips pressing into a thin line.
“My mother wrote them.” I lied seamlessly, Susie buying into it. “She was a lovely woman.” Lie, that was a lie. My mother was a poor Irish vampire who ditched me at the ripe age of three, her next question causing me to spit my coffee out.
“When is the sound of tiny feet entering your home?” She trilled sweetly, cupping my hands. “You are the first to know that I am pregnant now. I have been trying for years. Maybe you can get pregnant soon and we can have them be best friends.” Horror hid behind my polite smile, a long squeal escaping my lips. Like hell I would go along with her sick little plan. Something felt off, my vision blurred. A purple liquid swirled on top of the coffee, my body hitting the floor. A rough darkness devoured me as coffee pooled around my head.
A yellow light swung over my head, something else feeling off. Clammy sweat drenched my skin, a fever burning my cheeks. Susie towered over me, a spike spinning in her palm. Attempting to crawl away, her heel dug into my back. Unable to move, this felt like something else. The desire to take Stanton nearly controlled my mind, the claws extended from my fingernails. Spinning another needle of the liquid in her palm, she jammed it into my leg. Extreme nausea wracked my body, the beginning of a heat cycle disabling me. Parting my lips to speak, I needed his blood to survive or that was what it felt like. Only wheezes poured from my lips, she jammed another needle into my leg. Sending me into the next stage, every touch raised an incredible amount of goosebumps. Shivering in my spot, the last time I felt this was one hundred years ago when a handsome stranger caught my eye.
“I used to be a hunter.” She bragged gleefully, sitting down on top of me. “We have to finish before the book club arrives, you fucking idiot. I meant what I said about you getting pregnant around the same time. I know the serial killer lives among us. You have to trust me with that.” My eyebrow twitched with a mixture of bewilderment and irritation, a snarl curling on my lips. All of this was too much, my knee meeting her face. Crawling onto the living room floor, my legs felt like rubber. If she hit me with another needle of that liquid I would be pregnant within the next few days. At the current level in mine, three months remained before anything had to be done about that. Stumbling out, blood poured from her nose. Struggling to my feet, my shaking fingers opened her fridge to see what I needed. The process had already begun but I could delay it for a while. Pulling out a needle full of a milky liquid, she cried out as I jammed it into my thigh.
“I am not ready for that quite yet, Miss hunter!” I shouted vehemently, fuming darkly on the stool. “How can I know that you aren’t the serial killer?” Pausing in her spot, her slender hands jammed her nose back into place. Wiping the blood out from underneath her nose, she sat down across from me. Chuckling softly to herself, her fingers drummed on the stainless steel counter top.
“They killed my sister and her family a couple of weeks ago. I have nothing to gain from this.” She informed me briskly, holding her stomach. “I am the neighborhood watch and I can’t stand that someone is slicing their way through our little piece of paradise. Revenge is in my plan but now I have to be careful.” Seeing things through her point of view, the fact that she sped up my natural reproductive cycle ticked me off.
“I figured I might kick start things for your body. The sooner you get pregnant the happier Stanley will be. I always catch him watching the families walking by with a longing look. I am only doing it because he doesn’t suck up to me which makes him my favorite stranger.” She expressed with her real smile, pointing to me. “You are a purebred vampire. Such luck should be blessed in your eyes. You can give birth without dying. I met you once when my old man came to talk to you in your jail cell. I don’t know if you don’t remember him but his name is Father Rowell.” All of my breath escaped my lungs at the mention of his name, my mind flicking through the memories of every person who had visited me. Come to think of it, a redheaded woman did accompany a priest that one time. How did I not make the connection? Laying my head on the table, several women ran in. My eyebrow twitched, the perfectly dressed woman interrupted our conversation. A sea of blonde haired women shoved me aside, a couple of them shooting daggers from their eyes. Stepping back, Susie tugged me close to her. A bout of nausea wracked me, the combination of the potion she had injected with me mixed poorly with my sudden social anxiety. Dropping a tray into my palm, her gentle touch dragged me to the four ivory walls she called her living room. A brown leather set reminded me of my cell, the tray crashing to the floor. Glass shattered everywhere, my immediate response was to run. Apologizing profusely, I bolted out the door. Ignoring their looks, I ripped off my boots. Sprinting down the street, a masked individual slammed into me. Crashing to the ground, the pavement felt cool against my face. Still weak from earlier, I couldn’t just fight them off like normal. Quivering on the pavement, a disguised voice sent chills up my spine.
“Goodnight, my dear!” The robotic voice laughed evilly, a knife slamming into my body repeatedly.” Copper poisoned my taste buds, the person whistling. A rusting van pulled up, the license plate number 568 4325 stuck into my memory while my blood pooled underneath me. Tossing me into the van, Stanton barely made it onto the street. Locking the door behind me, I leaned against the wall. Pulling out my silenced phone, my vision blurred as I turned on my location. Hiding my phone behind a dusty box, a darkness swallowed me alive.
Jerking awake once more, this trend had to stop. Groaning in pain, a yellow light swung over my head, a rough rope cut into my wrists. Struggling only made the knot tighter, the killers having to be boat owners, hunters or some sort of boy scout. Glancing around, no weapons lay around. Talk about being professional. Muffled yelling stole my attention, a filthy redhead tugged on chains against the wall. Two small children hugged her side tightly, silent tears staining their cheeks. One, a pair of worn steel toe boots came into view. Two, the other shoe appeared. Three, his masked face poked around the corner. Four, Five, Six, one of the killers were at the bottom of the stairs. Seven, he towered over me at six foot seven. Lifting up his mask, relief crashed over me at the sight of an anxious Stanton. Seconds from cutting her rope, the boss stomped down the stairs. Pulling his mask down, the boss cleared his throat.
“Cut off her fingers until she talks about how she found us.” He demanded via a thick distorted voice. “Never mind, give me the knife.” Snatching it from Stanton, he could only watch with horror as the man held my finger straight. Three red dots blinked in the corner of my eyes, the operation making sense. This asshole was running a torture to murder show, a lump forming in my throat.
“Thank you for your payment of a million dollars. We shall gut her like a deer.” He mused darkly, tracing the knife along my flat stomach. “Then I will play with the guts to please you.” A scream burst from my lips the moment the blade glided across my stomach. Fighting the urge to vomit, my steaming guts poured out onto my lap. Playing with my intestines, the money began to pour in. Choking on the blood building up in my throat, a hack sent it all over his mask. The questions were sick, a clammy sweat drenching my skin.
“We have a vampire.” He announced with wicked laughter, my heart sinking in my chest. “This is going to be fun.” Stanton held his composure, the back of the metal chair bending underneath his grip. The heat potion kicked in, one accidental touch clouding up my mind for a moment. Bending down to my level, his next words sent chills up my spine.
“The boys are coming. We have to keep him occupied for about thirty minutes.” He growled through gritted teeth, the man asking him to run the computers. Touching my shoulder one last time, the chair squealed the moment he sank down into the chair. Shoving a slender flash drive into the USB hole, he was gathering the IP addresses. Shoving my guts back in, childlike wonder brightened the killer’s tone at my wound sealing shut. Susie’s sister held her hands over her kid’s eyes, the knife sliding in and out of me. The wet noise did little to help me, the potion making my stomach churn worse than normal. The money kept pouring in, the welcome sound of chaos woke me up from my sickly state. The agents from before piled down the stairs, Stanton ripping off his mask. Cutting the rope, his touch made me jump a couple of feet into the air. Popping to my feet, every footfall echoed in the concrete cell. Assisting Susie’s sister, her arms embraced me desperately. Every emotion soaked my shoulder, another touch from Stanton resulted in a tender blush on my cheeks. Shooting me a thumbs up, his lips brushed against the top of my head. Helping the woman to her feet, Stanton scooped up the children. Bright flashes blinded me, the news crew attempting to speak to us. Climbing into a tinted SUV, the children bounced into their mother’s arm. Fishing around a bag, he held out packages of cheddar crackers. The boys accepted them graciously, the car heading towards the hospital. The door ripped open, nurses ushering the family inside. Scanning me up and down, Stanton held me by my hips. Sniffing me real quick, fear flashed on his face. Not having time, Susie smashed into me. Desperate tears flooded from her cheeks, her quaking hands cupping my face. A deep crimson painted my cheeks, a newfound respect for me glowed in her eyes.
“Thank you so much for saving them. I don’t know how I could ever thank y-” She blubbered uncontrollably, my hand raising to stop her. Smiling brightly in her direction, this reaction made it all worth it. My lips parted to speak, a nurse dragging her off before I could explain myself. Stanton dragged me back to the car, a snarl twitching on his lips. Slamming me down into my seat, the partition hummed its way up.
“Your heat is supposed to be for another year! Why do you smell like you are three months away?” He demanded hotly, the crack of my hand meeting his cheeks stunning the both of us. How dare he ask after not talking about last night! Clenching my fists into a ball, I turned my back.
“You haven’t talked about last night. We had fun and you acted like nothing happened!” I blurted out venomously, happy to have it off of my chest. “You already forced me into a marriage, and now you want me to ignore what happened last night. Fuck you. I had fun but here you are. Was it that bad? Susie sped me up so we could be pregnant around the same fucking time. Did you know she used to be a hunter? She opened right up to me. In fact she knew me.” Spinning me around to face him, an apologetic smile dimmed his features. A piece of hair fell in front of his left eye, his hands rubbing my shoulder.
“I can’t tell you why that all scares me.” He mumbled under his breath, sliding me a large emerald box. “You need to get changed into your uniform to enter the facility.” Peeling off my destroyed dress, his eyes couldn’t leave the angry scars covering my body. Flipping the box open, I pulled out a lightly armored leather number. Tugging it over my head, the onyx leather covered my arms. Hiding my bloody hands underneath the bell sleeves, the deep v-neck showed off my ample breasts. Sitting back in the seat, the A-line skirt floated away from my body. Scooting closer to me, he offered me his neck. Sinking my fangs into his tender flesh, every gulp revived my health. Curling my arms around his neck, he drank away. This time a wave of euphoria crashed over me, a long sigh pouring from my lips. Unable to stop, fright rounded my eyes the moment his hand curled around my neck. A muffled protest stopped him, an oppressive silence hung between us. The car skidded to a halt, an impressive navy marble building towered over us. Helping me out, the numb look on his face scared the shit out of me. Marching in aggressively, the way he was acting reminded me of the first time I met Father Powell. Hugging him from behind, his muscles relaxed.
“We all lose control at times.” I assured him lovingly, the tone taking over my voice for the first time. “If I can gain control, you can do it.” Cupping my trembling hands, an agent was attempting to remember the plate number. Typing it in for them with my free hand, a grateful expression met my exhausted face. My legs gave out, Stanton placing me on his back. Ignoring the jeering whispers, the rumors spread within minutes. Bursting into the interrogation room, a shaggy haired man with angry dark eyes watched him set me down in the chair across from him. An unkempt beard danced with every growl in his throat, his scarred face informing me of a rough life.
“I am not the only one in this plot. Do you remember that serial killer club on the news a couple of years ago? I am the bottom tier.” He bragged gleefully, the sweet smell of poison wafting from his mouth. “We must all die with honor.” His heart beat one last time, Stanton calling for help. Help wouldn’t come soon enough, this was a magical poison. Dragging him out of the room, I climbed into the driver’s seat. A skill I had learned the moment cars had been invented, the modern car proving far easier to drive than those things. Stanton hopped into the passenger seat, my fingers typing in an address into the GPS. Driving for too long, the brakes squealed to a halt in front of a bustling night club. Taking off his tie, the poor thing floated to the back. Roughing up his suit, he protested as I messed up his hair. Letting my hair down, a familiar face had to be spoken to. Sauntering up the door, the bouncer let us both in. Loud music worsened my migraine, a scantily clad blond guided us up to the office. Opening the door, my fingers curled around the neck of my old friend. Pinning him to the wall, his scarlet curls bounced around. Ruby eyes glowered back at me, his garish velvet suit irritating me further.
“Who are you selling your poison to, you fucking idiot?” I interrogated him intensely, Stanton yelling at me to calm down. “I know what you sold to Susie. That I can let go but sell some sort of poison to a serial killer after school club! You are playing with fire.” Cocking his brows, he slammed his knee into my chest. Every rib shattered upon impact, all the breath leaving my body. Coughing on the floor, he picked me up by my hair.
“I refuse to let a runt like you run my life. I sell my magical drugs and that is that.” He snapped hotly, my bones fusing back together. “I don’t know or care what they do with them.” Wicked laughter rumbled in my throat, the heel of my bare feet slamming into his jaw. Raw energy built around my fist, his bones shattered upon the impact of my fist. Sliding down the wall, my bruising fingers picked him up by his collar.
“I don’t care that you make drugs. That isn’t my department but when they are used for suicide I have an issue. Who ordered it!” I screamed furiously, a glob of spit landing on my face. “Just answer the fucking question. I will break every bone in your body. You still owe me for you selling me out. I fucking let you keep the reward money.” Clicking his bones back into place, he struggled to his feet. Unlocking his cabinet, he pulled out an ancient ledger. Dropping it into my palms, he sulked to his desk.
“Take it. I have to start another one anyway. I will call you if somebody uber weird pops up.” He commented kindly, pulling out a new one. “Don’t charge me, ‘kay. I provide loads of hunger suppressants for the monsters in the area. I also help monsters get pregnant faster. The poison was only meant to be sold for someone who was going to die. You know that I can see reapers as well as you can. Watch your temper with that heat potion coursing through you. Your powers are going to be a little wacky for a bit.” Mouthing a silent thanks, a triumphant grin spread cheek to cheek. Walking through the club, another discussion had to be had once we got into the car. Climbing in, dread bubbled in my gut.
“Give up why you were in prison.” I demanded sternly, leaning on the steering wheel. “Don’t lie. I can sniff that shit out.” Tears welled up in his eyes, a lump forming in his throat. Storm clouds rumbled to life, heavy raindrops crashed to the top of the vehicle.
“You weren’t my first partner.” He uttered bitterly, chewing on his lips. “I had a romantic relationship with her and she turned out to be the serial killer. The bodies piled up behind me, and I didn’t even know. We were incredibly intimate. She lied with the biggest smile on her face. I enjoyed our evening together and that you only drank from the serial killers to survive. She was what the agency calls a binge eater. Devouring person after person and I was the one to put her down. The difference was that I didn’t love her like I love you.” Covering his mouth, a further explanation needed to be heard.
“What do you mean by love me?” I asked politely, attempting not to lose my cool while pulling into a Cally’s. “Don’t lie to me. I have been through enough hell today.” Refusing to look in my direction, my hands cupped his face. Gritting his teeth, his hands cupped mine.
“I observed you for months and fell in love with the way you helped the prison when you could. I loved it when you would spend weeks buried into an inhumanly huge pile of books.” He choked out awkwardly, fresh tears flowing from his eyes. “I sound like a creepy stalker but I needed to make you my mate from the instant you met me.” Nodding my head, my lips kissed his hungrily. Scarlet colored his cheeks, his hands falling to my flat stomach.
“I love you too.” I choked out just as awkwardly, hoping not to upset him further. “Watch this book, I will be right back.” Swiping his wallet, I ran into the department store. Ignoring the bright lights and horrid smells, I paused in the baby section. Closing my eyes, the sweet sound of my mother singing an Irish lullaby soothed my nerves. Snapping awake, a tiny girl had crashed into my legs. Instead of crying out in fear, she began to giggle.
“You are so pretty.” She sang adorably, her horrified mother scooping her up and running away. Getting a couple of packages of toy cars and a beautiful bouquet of white roses, hurt dimmed my eyes at the cashier watching me in pure terror. Paying for the items, silent tears stained my cheeks. Not saying a word, I punched in the address for the hospital. Cursing to myself, we were four hours away. Setting the stuff in the back, I chose to turn on the radio to drown out the chaos in my mind. Sobbing the whole way back, this world was no different. The only thing missing was the torches that had hunted my mother down. Getting there in record time, I ditched my partner to catch up to me later. Stopping at the desk, the nurse didn’t show the same fear as the people in the store. Tucking a loose piece of caramel hair behind her ears, her gray eyes twinkling with joy.
“Thank you for bringing them in.” She returned with a genuine smile, pointing to the last room down the hall. “Visiting hours are over. Surely, they want to see their hero. I will pretend I looked the other way.” Winking in my direction, she turned her back to me. Running to their room, an exhausted Susie lay on her sister’s bed. The children perked up at me, smashing into my legs. Crouching down at their level, I presented the packages of cars. Pecking my cheeks, they ran off to go play with them. Rising to my feet, I presented her with the flowers.
“How does your sister like her coffee?” I inquired with my genuine smile, the mother’s expression softening into a gracious smile. My lips parted to speak, the woman’s head shaking. Coughing a bit, blood covered her hand. Seconds from pushing the nurse button, her raspy voice stole my attention. Stanton hovered in the door, the mother’s heart monitor going nuts. Looking closer, a bony hand rested on her shoulder. Following the arm, a reaper held her shoulder. Death had come to her, the option not working for me.
“Is there anything I can give you in return?” I begged with my palms pressed together, knowing that those kiddos needed their mother. “How about this?” Snapping my fingers, my stolen reaper’s scythe rested in my palms. Snatching it from me, the cold hand curled around my neck. Gasping for air, his yellowed skull hovered inches from my face. Biting down on my arm, he gulped down enough to figure out who I was.
“I recognize your stupid face.” A chilly voice thundered evilly, the other finger playing with my hair. “You vampires are the bane of my existence. I can’t take your souls when there's none to take. I will spare her this one time but she will have to go next time regardless of what you have.” Dropping me to the floor, he was gone. Coughing up a storm, one of the kids hit the button. A look of horror dawned on his face, his tiny body smashing into my legs. Crouching down to his level, he shivered in my arms.
“Was that a reaper?” He stuttered brokenly, my head nodding. “Will they ever hurt me?” His tight red curls tickled my face, the other twin watching from a distance. Their emerald green eyes watched me as the nurse brushed past me.
“No, they won’t.” I promised them warmly, taking him to the waiting room. “Let’s go play while they take care of your mom, ‘kay.” Susie snapped awake, picking up her other nephew. Crashing into the nearest chairs, they played with their cars. Susie rested her head on my shoulder, snores echoing in my ear. Letting her sleep, I was thankful for my current life.

Graphic description of bleeding below.
So I started hemorrhaging at work 10 days after my CKC with D&C. I’m talking geyser. It was like post birth level terrifying bleeding. Went to the ER x2. The second time they put monsels solution on my cervix but saw no active bleeding. They said my HGB dropped one point in 1 day. But it’s still well in normal range. I saw my Gyno and she did silver nitrate. If I stay in bed and lay down the bleeding stops eventually. I can’t live my life like that though. I have to work. I’m a single mom of a four year old. So… what do I do? What’s going on? My doctor says I can return to work in 1 week. That will be a little over two week post op. Why am I bleeding like this? Do I really have to bleed to a point of needing a transfusion for anyone to care? Also my OB is retiring at the end of the month. When I bleed like that I can’t even walk without pouring blood out of an adult diaper and onto the floor. Sorry if this is graphic. It’s literally like turning on a tap. I’m scared to use the restroom. I’m scared every time I have to walk to the sink to wash a dish so I can drink water. I’m scared to bathe. Help.

What is in a Structural Drawing?
Types of Structural Drawings?
Structural Drawing
General Note
Drawing for Excavation
Column Layout
Beam Layout
The layout of Lintel Beam
The Layout of Roof Beams and Shutters
The Layout of Roof Slabs
How to prepare structural drawings?
How do you read a structural drawing?
What are the types of structural plans?
How do you read a structural steel beam size?
What is RCC working drawing used for?
Drawings for Architecture
Working Plan
Section Diagrams
Drawing of Elevation
Electrical Schematics
Drawings for Plumbing
What is BIM Structural drawing?

📷

What is a Structural Drawing?

A structural drawing is a series of plans that depicts the construction of a building structure. It contains foundation and dimension information, framing details, Bracing systems, beam and column details, and wall sections, all of which are utilized to guide the construction of the structure.

Types of Structural Drawings?

Structural Drawing

This type of design drawing shows how beams, columns, staircases, slabs, and other structural elements are connected, as well as the “strength of different structural elements, structural materials, grade, size, and placement of reinforcement, and the strength of the building.

General Note

A general note is a draught that incorporates codes, bylaws, and structural drawing specifics such as concrete mix, lapping length, curing time, abbreviation, mapping forms, building type, legends, and other work methods.

Drawing for Excavation

The excavation of footing dimension, position of the column, footing plan layout, and column grid lines are all shown on the excavation drawing. This illustration depicts the scope of excavation, such as soil removal, as well as the excavation process, which includes trenching, wall shafts, tunnelling, and other techniques.

Column Layout

The design and configuration of the columns throughout the structure are reinforced by the column layout. This plan divides the building into floors and specifies the precise size and distance between each column. Contractors will be able to study the entire building layout with the help of column plan layout drawings.

Beam Layout

Plinths are used to reinforce a building's support structure. The plinth beam layout platform, length and design of the plinth are made floor-wise.

The layout of Lintel Beam

Another type of beam structure is the lintel beam, which is used to add strength to the area of the building above the door and windows. The exact placements, size, and a number of beam lintels on each floor are included in this type of picture.

The Layout of Roof Beams and Shutters

The roof beam is used to strengthen the overall structure of the building. It is the triangular structure that sustains the roof and is normally built on top of the building. These are normally built of wood, but they can also be made of steel or concrete.

The Layout of Roof Slabs

Room slab layout is provided to complete an account of the roof faces, floors, & other surfaces that require accurate edge information, as the name implies. In the AutoCAD software, this is made more significantly.

How to prepare structural drawings?

The final stage of a structural design is the creation of a Structural Drawing. The structural drawing or structural plan is made up of structural elements as well as a basic arrangement building plan or building layout for the site.
All of the intricacies that we need to follow throughout site construction are portrayed in these designs. Although it is the responsibility of the structural draughtsman to prepare the Structural Drawing, the onus lies on the Structural Designer to ensure that the right drawing standard is followed and executed. We all know that every simple or complex detail of our design must be correctly reflected in the drawing.

How do you read a structural drawing?

Structural drawing, which is a form of engineering drawing, is a design or set of plans and details for the construction of a building or other structure. Plans, Elevations, X-Sections, General Notes and Details are among the subsets of the structural drawings collection.

What are the types of structural plans?

• Site Plan
• Floor Plan
• Cross Section
• Elevation
• Landscape
• Finishing Drawing
• Working Plan
• Section Drawings

How do you read a structural steel beam size?

The W denotes a wide flange beam (as opposed to, say, an S beam); the 14 denotes the section number, and the 211 denotes the beam's weight per foot of 211 lbs. It's worth noting that, depending on the beam size, allowed deviations from the required specifications can range from 1/8 into 5/16in”.
Read More:
What is the Function of Bridge Foundation or Pier and its Types? 5 Important Points
Pre-stressed Concrete, Pre-tensioning and Post-tensioning: 3 Important Points

What is RCC working drawing used for?

Drawings for Architecture

The architectural drawing serves as the mother drawing for all other construction drawings. It includes all the project details such as site plan, elevations, setting out plan, standard details, sections and other details.

Working Plan

This drawing depicts the building's horizontal measurements, wall thickness, clear areas inside the structure, and column positions. It also illustrates the required openings within the structure, such as windows, doors, and ventilators.

Section Diagrams

Section drawings exhibit the construction material, depth, types and measurements of various building components, and the types of structural components such as slab type, among other things. It depicts the drawing of a building that has been chopped via a vertical plane.

Drawing of Elevation

The information on openings, the size and shape of the exterior surface, the height of the building, and the finish of the building after completion are all represented on an elevation drawing. These sketches are created by looking at the architecture from an aesthetic standpoint.

Electrical Schematics

Electrical drawings show the placement and features of electrical wiring, fittings, substations, and switches, among other things. The drawing also contains an electrical load calculation, an electrical legend, a floor power plan, a floor lighting plan, a single line diagram, a fire alarm layout, a CCTV camera, as well as an equivalency table, lightning protection, and earth data.

Drawings for Plumbing

On each floor, the plumbing construction plan shows the markings and locations of plumbing components such as sanitary, water supply piping, fixtures, equipment, pumps, pipes, drains, taps, and outlets. This encompasses everything from the type and size of sinks to gas location and the process of connecting all of the fixtures.

What is BIM Structural drawing?

BIM is a process that involves the creation and administration of a digital model that aids in the design, construction, and maintenance of a structure during its entire existence. The purpose of BIM is to create buildings that are well-designed, efficient, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly.
I hope the blog provides you with a sound understanding of the Structure Drawings and their production procedure.
Please feel free to like, share and comment.
Admin, gcelab.com
Please see our Pillar Post to know why we founded gcelab.com.
Read More:
Why does Concrete need Reinforcement? 6 Important Points
Column Layout for Residential Building - 4 Important Points
What is the purpose of Structure Engineering Software?

So, being the writing enjoyer, huge lore nerd and general Project Moon brainrotter that I am, I decided to make a bunch of Project Moon OCs. I really like how Limbus Company does their "character profile" set-ups (both dialogue and in-gameplay stat blocks), so I decided I was going to start filling those out for said characters. However, as a certified goon, I realised that a) it's important to me that said statblocks are not incredibly broken or underpowered (say, around, A-tier?) and b) I didn't have the understanding of the game or its mechanics required to avoid that.
As such, I am going to enlist some helpful fellow PM brainrotters (that's you) in order to ensure that I do it in a way that is interesting, in-character, not too strong, and not too weak. That is, if people are sufficiently nerdy to do so.
Just a preface - these are meant to be their own characters. As such, they aren't meant to be Identities which a Sinner would wear, but nor are they "an alternate group of Sinners Vergilius would collect to find the Golden Branches". I just like how the Limbus Company stat profiles and dialogue and EGOs and such work.
Here are summaries of the OCs, for preliminary overview and suggestions. I'll probably end up making a post for each separate character once I have a better idea of how I want to present them but this should give you an idea of whether I have anything interesting cooking or not.
Amy: Hana Director (West Branch, Section 2/3?). A huge stickler for the rules, who does everything "by the book". She absolutely hates corruption, and people not living up to the "expected standards" of their job or role, and personally audits Offices and businesses she comes across, earning her the nickname of "Hana's Inquisitor". She wants to believe in justice, but she lives in the City, so that's no easy feat. Gameplay-wise, I thought that a heavily single-target character which focuses on Rupture would make sense - with the addition of a debuff called Scrutinized which interacts with her skills in various rupture-related ways, and itself causes allies to heal for SP if the target dies to an attack that triggers Rupture. I would do something with the Trigrams, but that doesn't feel "unique" enough, and also I have no clue how those would be implemented in Limbus' style.
Antonio: A young, ruthless capo of the Thumb. Antonio made it quickly up the ranks with his quick tongue, quicker wit, and absolute loyalty to the hierarchy of the Syndicate. He is frequently sarcastic and critical, though he obviously reigns in these tendencies around his superiors. He and his men make much use of concusssive rounds, and his marksmanship is as impressively precise as he is brutally efficient. Gameplay wise, I thought that an ammo-based character would be interesting, with a focus on: blunt damage (he is using concussive/pellet rounds), bleed (he ruthlessly aims for vitals and is quite good at it, he's also a member of the Thumb), and a reload mechanic (we don't have one yet, and he's a member of the Thumb).
August: A member of Nagel Und Hammer's research teams, August frequently impales themselves with numerous (memory-containing) nails in a strange ritual of self-mutilation. Despite this alleged waste of N-Corp's Singularity, and August's concerning personality, the higher-ups overlook this for two reasons: August's innate genius competence, and August's absolutely fanatical work ethic and loyalty to N-Corp. Both as a crusader against the only things August considers "filthier" than themselves, and as a researcher on N-Corp's Singularity and the information and experiences gained from it, August is tireless, intelligent, and without scruples. Gameplay-wise, Nails, obviously, but possibly self-damage and self-healing? I wasn't really sure where to go with this, so suggestions would be appreciated.
Jason: The Operator of the Argo Office (a Zwei Associate, Grade 3). Young, naïve and absolutely prodigious, Jason spearheads a comprehensive peacekeeping operation through charisma, a sparkling intellect and impressive combat talent. Despite all of this, he cannot bear to see humanity in its current state, and searches constantly for any means to spread his peace across the entire City. Gameplay-wise, I thought a support character based on granting buffs to allies would be sensible. Protection, Haste, SP buffs? Something else?
Saz: An actress from District 9 who became enraptured by the Pianist's performance. Mysterious, joyful and cryptic, she seems to dance to a tune all her own, and meanders across the city from District to District. She has a bounty on her head as an Urban Nightmare due to her capriciousness: despite occasional actions of seeming selflessness, she sometimes kills random Nest-dwellers wherever she happens to be. She has been noted to say that she wishes to change the City in some way, considering its current state a "dull backdrop" to her performance, and wishing for a "stage with greater freedom to act". Gameplay-wise, I thought a character similar to W-Corp Don Quixote would be best - namely, a character who functions off of an incredibly powerful but potentially detrimental third Skill. Saz stacks Haste and Charge in order to reach a third skill that is absolutely devastating at full power, but targets herself if she doesn't possess the right resources.
Paul: A chef from District 23, Paul is quite unique for his distaste for overusing human meat. That is not to say he doesn't use it - after all, it's "the ultimate taste" - but to him, he finds it disrespectful to use too much of it. He believes it "cheapens" the flavour, which is very important to him as an artisanal chef. He also requisitions rare and expensive meats from the Outskirts and Ruins, from "exotic" ingredients, and produces his own homemade breads and other foodstuffs, making his food very high quality, if a little expensive. This limits his clientele, effectively forever barring him from reaching the level of the Eight Chefs, but Paul has come to terms with this. Gameplay-wise, bleed and self-healing are obvious staples, but I was thinking about having him be affected by high Sanity in some way - perhaps an abnormal number of [Heads Hit] effects?
Jacob: The Head of the Information Team in a branch facility of Lobotomy Corporation, Jacob was the only survivor after the White Nights and Dark Days commenced. He managed to escape thanks in no small part due to his Synchronization with Crimson Comet, an Aberration of Blue Star. Jacob himself used to be very idealistic and talented, having come to LobCorp for this reason. However, as the years went on, Jacob became more and more cynical and jaded. He is presently looking for work in T-Corp, seeing that as his next best option and knowing T-Corp had a relationship with his previous workplace, but for now he is doing Fixer work with Crimson Comet in order to pay the bills. Gameplay-wise, I found Tremor and Sinking to be the best way of representing him. Sort of like LCCB Ishmael, but rather than Ammo as his "resource management", I was thinking negative Sanity (to represent Crimson Comet's effect on his mental state and combat capability).
Enzo: A Senior W Corp Cleanup Crew agent, Enzo is well-known internally for his ability to make light of even the most heinous situations - a useful ability considering his line of work. His tendencies to crack genuinely funny jokes and his general sociability do not distract him from his job, though - despite his jovial, sometimes even flirtatious behaviour, Enzo is brutally efficient at "cleaning up" the aftermath of W-Corp's Singularities, and is fiercely loyal to the Wing. Owing to his adoption from the horrifying Backstreets of District 23 by a W-Corp Feather, Enzo considers the Cleanup Crew (and the Wing as a whole) his "family", and won't hesitate to protect them with his life, which has won him many favours. Gameplay-wise, Charge is obvious. Ideally some form of "tankier" ID, perhaps? I'm not really sure of the validity of tanks in a game like Limbus Company, though.
Manasseh: A peculiar Messenger of the Index, Manasseh was previously a Weaver, but the Prescripts demoted him to Messenger after his hubris got the better of him. Rather than be dismayed at this turn of events, Manasseh was amused - the sadistic thrill he got from watching the whims of the City crush a stranger's soul was even better in person. Now, he acts as a herald of the Prescripts in truth, an ill omen, a harbinger of bad news. Fate may not be his to command, but it is his to proclaim, and who better than he to be a bridge between the present and the inevitable future? Gameplay-wise, I pictured a character who has an easier time winning clashes, and slowly applies more and more Paralysis and Fragility as the fight goes on.
Julia: A diplomat, coordinator and "fieldwork operative" from the April Office (a Cinq Associate, Grade 2), Julia is a competent, well-reputed Fixer who handles her contracts with demure composure and frank professionalism. However, this persona is a facade: a shell meant to disguise Julia's disgust and contempt at the state of the City and its residents. Recently, her cocoon has begun to break open, leaving her with unusual abilities she is only too happy to use to vent her frustrations through her work. Gameplay-wise, I believe Charge and negative Sanity might be reasonable mechanics, though I find myself drawn strangely to the idea of a character with big benefits on [Clash Lose] (which would be quite hard to balance, unfortunately).
Sasgonei: A senior member of the Dragonbone Workshop, a workshop specialising in semi-autonomous body augmentations and weaponry constructed from exotic materials, Sasgonei specialises in instruction and training of his suboordinates. He is close with his fellow Dragonbone Fixers, and is seen in a somewhat paternal light by his students. Despite the City's usual policy of "it's not personal", Sasgonei has been known to go on a rampage when his Workshop or its personnel have been threatened, and has generated enough of a reputation to be known by name to certain Tres Association officials. Gameplay-wise, I was thinking of a character who hands out simple but effective buffs: stuff like Protection, Damage Up, Haste and so on. I was also thinking an actually usable Counter skill could be cool, but I'm not sure how that would function (self-healing, to make it viable to take damage?).
Zoroas: A reclusive member of the Seven Association's Western Branch's Section 1, Zoroas sees his work as artistry. From combat to information gathering, he fulfils his assignments with a certain sense of dignity and discretion that leads clients to be favourable toward him. His refined taste extends to the battlefield as well, disdaining weaponry or techniques with a lack of finesse, and procuring information and removing obstacles with much the same elegance that he displays otherwise. He has recently shown a fascination with the Distortion Phenomenon, believing it to be a sacred representation of the beauty of human struggle, and seeks to analyse any Distortions he comes across. Gameplay-wise, I believe Poise (obvious) and Fragility (as a member of the Seven Association) would be appropriate, but I'm accepting suggestions.

This is a long post, mostly just venting. Kind of feel ridiculous because of how much shit has happened over the last two years....
So over the last 2 years I've had breast cancer (started just before vaccines came out, so that was scary) & had surgeries, chemo & radiation. I also developed sepsis & was in the hospital for a week. Then I got shingles & because of chemo & the nasty neuralgia I developed from chemo (which messes up nerve endings) it was way worse than it should have been. My DH said that he had never heard so much hurt before - I couldn't talk, all I did was wimper & cry for 2 months.
And last week, after gettiing my mammogram (what fun that taffy pull is - that's what happens to one's breast tissue, gets pulled like taffy) I got myself a walnut cruller. Now I do have a slight allergy to pecans (makes me ill if I eat too many) but guess what the chemo did? It altered my immune system so much that I went into anaphylactic shock, (I hadn't had a walnut anything in years & it's a tree nut, just like pecans).
So off to the hospital I go in an ambulance (which I found embarassing) because my doctor (whose office is across the street from me) said that my blood pressure was 70/40 & that's fine for a 2 year old, but I'm 55.
So now at home, taking steroids & antihistamines & yesterday, after dealing with the side effects of steroids (they're gross, not fun at all) I just lost it & smashed a bowl into the bathroom sink & smashed through the damn sink! I have as about the same strength as a newborn kitten, so how the hell I broke the sink is beyond me.
I told my DH that I've always wanted a different sink in that bathroom, so hey, I get to go shopping now.

Throwaway because I’m deeply ashamed of this and don’t want to talk about it on my main.
I hope this is okay to ask here, or if it’s not, could I be pointed to a better subreddit?
My mom was a hoarder when I was growing up. Not to the point that you see on TV shows, but pretty bad.
Our house was always filthy. Piles of just… stuff everywhere. Tables and counters and entire rooms that were unusable for years at a time. Nothing was ever dusted or cleaned. There was no point in trying. Closets and drawers stuffed so full there was no room for laundry. Laundry instead went into a giant pile in the laundry room. If you needed clothes, you’d wash just a few days worth to get you by.
The house was in disrepair. My dad would constantly be “renovating” the entire thing. Which in reality meant he would tear a wall down, or some pipes, or some cabinets, and just leave it there unfinished for years. I remember a period of… maybe 5? Years, where no one could shower because he tore out the shower head to replace it, and just… didn’t put the new one up.
Mom eventually got better about hoarding. She keeps a much nicer house now. But I never learned how to keep a home. I still live in the unclean-able hoard she moved out of when she left my dad. I’ve tried to make dents in it over the years, but I’m so tired of it.
Next month I’m moving away with my boyfriend of two years into a new apartment, and I’m terrified of repeating the cycle. It’s been a lifelong dream to live in a clean, comfortable home, and I want to create that with him.
I have some hoarding compulsions, but I’m working on them, and I really believe that I’ll be able to control myself if I’m able to get a fresh start, but the bigger issue is that I just have no idea how to keep a clean house. I’m able to keep myself and my clothes clean, but when it comes to cleaning my space, I’m clueless. I can scrub the toilet or the sink or the counter when I notice it has become grimy, but how to I keep it from happening in the first place?
What can I do to keep my new home clean from the beginning?
Do most homemakers have a daily routine of some sort? The idea of cleaning everything every single day is overwhelming, but I want to learn so that I don’t bring my past into my future.

Group play is too powerful (EDITED)

• (edit) Yes, D2 group play was by far the best way to level a new character, the same is also true in D4.
• The difference here is that finding items was not good in groups because loot was shared, this is not the case for D4 so I feel like there is a disconnect. There is literally no reason to play any content solo, it's always better in a group, and overall I feel like this leads to a bad feeling when soloing (everything you do is less efficient). The game also lacks the social features to help players group up.
• No minimum EXP distance means you can abuse dungeons with splitting paths (champions demise!).
• Free renown from splitting dungeon completion across 4 players. It makes no sense to get credit when you haven't even entered the dungeon or contributed to any of the objectives, I feel like this is a bit too cheesy and trivializes the content.

75+ Gameplay experience falls off a cliff

• Past a certain point the loot grind just evaporates and there is nothing to look forward to anymore. Part of this is due to lack of item variety. D2 had charms, jewels, base items for crafting, runes, rare chase items, blue items had a purpose, utility items like staff of teleport or lifetap wands, gems had a purpose, etc.
• Most characters will have all aspects and uniques that they need for their build at around this time.
• Lots of items will be very difficult to replace at this point and hard to find upgrades for, which means lots of looking at dropped items and selling/salvaging which doesn't feel good.
• Helltides, Tree of whispers, cellars, legion raids, and many other events are simply not worth doing anymore.

Getting interrupted when performing actions

• The sensitivity on interruption is too much in my opinion.
• Literally have to kill every single enemy in order to use something.
• DoTs that deal virtually no damage to your character interrupt you during their duration so you are forced to wait even when no enemies are on the screen.
• This calculation should take into account hit damage, big hits = more likely to interupt. Small hits should have far less.

Character classes play very similarly

• Literally every druid I see is running pulverize/bear.
• Every barbarian is running whirlwind.
• Most sorcs are ice shards.
• Most rogues are twisting blade variants.
• Balance updates will change this but just wanted to call this out, most classes are running the same type of gear (aspects and suffxes) with similar paragon setups. The only differentiator is cosmetics.

Horse Usability

• It comes too late into the campaign which really incentivizes rushing it and not doing any other content until you get it.
• Cooldown on mount/dismount is too high at 8 seconds.
• Cooldown on dismount due to horse fear mechanic too high as well at 30 seconds.
• Speed based off cursor distance is understandable and makes sense from a controller standpoint, but on PC it wasn't intuitive.
• Not sure if graphic or latency related but it feels very stuttery/laggy when travelling sometimes, especially crossing zones.

Lack of Social Features

• Trading is allowed in the game but not setup to effectively utilize it.
• How do I setup a trade to find gloves with + to my core skill or find out what other players are looking for? This feature seems entirely focused on your friend group only.

Inventory/Stash management

• 4 Stash tabs of legendaries with no way to group/sort feels like a huge time sink, desperately needs QoL here.
• Loot filter based off item power would be very appreciated.
• Gem tab would be nice, although past a certain point you don't even need to pick them up anymore. They serve no purpose once you've gotten 5 of each max upgraded.
• Potions and sigils should not be in the same tab IMO it gets crowded and sorting them breaks organization.

Nightmare Dungeons

• Kill quests are by far the worst and skew the balance.
• Backtracking still an issue.
• Feels worthless to farm higher tiers, not rewarded as it's linearly scaled.
• Best strategy is to farm monsters up to 10 levels higher than your character, if you decide to push further you can but there is absolutely no reason to, I've tried and it doesn't reward me challenging myself so it feels like a waste of time. Challenging content should provide meaningful rewards!
• Being able to craft tier 100 sigils on a fresh character feels a bit weird. I liked the mapping system in PoE where you need to run maps (or trrade) in order to find higher tier ones. It felt a lot better progression wise.
• Most dungeon mini-events are not worth the time and are skipped. They take too long and again, offer no real incentive or unique reward.
• Some affixes are globally bad and always skipped like resource drain. What type of character build is actually okay with this downside?
• It is the only content really worth doing because of monster scaling and EXP gain so it gets super repetitive and bland. Apparently running normal dungeons and resetting in a group is even better which is worrying.
• When pushing higher tiers, certain vampiric elites can be un-killable and can end a run (when paired with kill objectives so they can't be skipped).
• Bosses are very easy even for builds that lack single target damage. This skews balance to AOE centric builds for all classes. I'd love to see difficult bosses or challenging mechanics so that character builds require more critical thinking and problem solving.

Ember played with the boys on the floor, their hands reaching for him. Pouring over the files of the latest security breach on our magical borders, my eyes fell on Alex playing with his new friends outside. Waving at me, Jack embraced me from behind. Kissing the top of my head, it felt as if something big was going to happen today. A tender blush rose to my cheeks, my hand cupping his face.
“We need to raid an outpost today. Hopefully we can get information on the main headquarters.” He informed me warmly, biting my neck. Drinking his fill, my crippling anxiety stole any joy it normally would have given me. Missions like these frightened me, every cell in me wanted to turn into a raven and fly away for the day. Finishing up his breakfast, he set down an armored filled dress with leggings. Salford whispered something in his ear, sliding him a pair of car keys. Rising to my feet, I took my new outfit to our bedroom. Changing quickly, the dress felt heavy on my frame, the leggings seemed to be lined with chain mail. Pulling my hair into a ponytail, I ran into Jack on the way out. Embracing me lovingly, the keys dangled off of his fingers. Feeling his simple black suit, a light armor lined it. Chewing on my lips, our friends waited for us in matching black armor.
“We are ready to go.” Raven announced proudly, my eyes falling on Salford. “Salford said that he was going to watch the boys.” Adjusting their backpacks, weapons clanged in their bags. Guilt gnawed at me, the concept of putting them in danger sickening. My lips parted in protest, Raven raising her finger.
“We are coming. Those bastards killed my family and they are going to pay.” She asserted firmly, pulling her hair into a ponytail. “Besides, I want to back my friend up.” A deep sadness haunted her eyes, my hands cupping hers. A gentle but broken smile dimmed her features, silent tears staining her cheeks.
“I appreciate it and I apologize for not being there to stop it. I ruined everyone’s life by not being there.” I choked out shamefully, bowing my head. “I failed you and everyone else. I will make it up to you guys, I fucking promise you that.” Grabbing my shoulder, her other hand lifted up my chin.
“You were busy doing your own shit. I heard you showed up, girl!” She chatted pleasantly, my shaking fingers wiping away her tears. “You have a place where humans and monsters get along with ease. Have you been sleeping? You look like hell.” A deadpan expression appeared on my face, her last comment ticking me off slightly. Brushing it off, Jack cleared his throat. Placing me on his back, he carried me to a delivery van. Hopping off of his back, I let myself in. The Tainsworth twins sat in the front with their armor on, Raven climbing in with Ruby. Messing with her curls, Raven basically sat on top of her. Adjusting my bell sleeves, the leather hugged my slender arms. Oppressive silence hung between us, Ruby refusing to look at me. Folding her arms across her chest, something needed to be said. Choosing not to say it, the time passed horribly slow. The van screeched to a halt, Jack pulling me into a hidden compartment. The door squeaked open, heavy footfalls echoed in the back.
“Who are you?” A gruff voice demanded, Ruby speaking up. Clearing her throat, her voice tone seemed rather bitter.
“We wish to join your ranks. I can’t stand vampires, especially their fucking queen. She could die for all I care.” She snapped hotly, truth oozing from her words. “She is hiding somewhere in this van.” Horror rounded our eyes, her betrayal striking us in the heart.” Opening the compartment hiding us, she took a step back. The hunters slapped handcuffs on us all, Ruby grinning evilly ear to ear. Wicked laughter rumbled in her throat, her head cocking back.
“I have been working with them the entire time. There is no information, just the home of your executions.” She gloated sensually, the twins cursing in her direction. “I am not even a teenager. I am a witch who has been alive for centuries. Can I tell you a secret? I am the leader of the hunters. Everyone else was just a puppet.” Sighing with satisfaction, she circled us. Tears welled up in my eyes, Raven sobbed softly next to me. Pulling a gun from her pocket, Ruby shot her in the head. Time slowed, the twins crying out. Emptying her gun into them, a broken wail burst from my lips. Their bodies dropped forward, ruby dripping from the holes in the middle of their foreheads. Jack twitched darkly next to me, my mind officially broken. His bangs hid his eyes, his claws extended from his fingernails. Unlocking his handcuffs, he pretended to get madder as he worked on mine. The metal clanged to the ground, Ruby’s eyes widening with terror. Tears blurred my vision, my scythe sliding into my eager palms.
“You fucking bitch!” I screamed vehemently, pacing back and forth. Reapers held their souls in their palms, all hope of saving them was gone. “You are going to pay.” Shrugging her shoulders, she leaned forward.
“How pathetic for the queen to lose her cool so quickly?” She taunted cruelly, Jack fumed dangerously next to me. “You can’t damage me. You can kill this body and all I have to do is find another one. Angel of darkness! Kill all of my hunters and give me their lives.” The hunters holding us hostage dropped to the ground, thousands of white glowing balls flowing into her. Panic gripped my face, reapers burst from the ground surrounding her. Death himself popped up next to me, one raise of his hand stopping them.
“I am going to bring these souls to Heaven. Take her out.” He commanded urgently, the balls floating into a worn leather sack hanging off of his wrists. “They are all dead. You did all that you could. Good luck.” The last ball of light floated into the sack, a snap of his finger signaling his disappearance. The three of us remained, a ball of shadowy energy building in her palm. A low hissing noise echoed around us, the delivery truck fading to the base of a dead twisted tree. Violet grass danced around me, a chill running up my spine. Gripping my scythe tightly, rage mixed with depression. Sauntering out from behind the tree, a single wave of her hand sent us a couple of yards away. Gone was the armor she wore, a tight leather number hugging her body. Violet needles rested in between her fingers, dead man’s blood dripped onto the grass.
“I suppose you want to hear about my tale and why I am doing this?” She mused with a wicked chuckle, licking the blood off her hand. “I have a bomb ticking away. The lovely thing will release a virus that will kill all of the monsters in the world. Humans will be infected with a magical mind control. Don’t worry about your friends. I killed them because they were annoying me. Do you know how hard it was to pretend to be friends with you and arrange your fucking role? I made a deal with your father to kill you. How did you like the little bonfire?” Wanting to charge at her, Jack held me back. Raising my scythe into the attack position, the corner of my lips curled into a snarl.
“You freaking bitch.” I growled through gritted teeth, leaping into the air. Raising her hands in the air, thousands of needles floated behind her. Flicking her wrists, the rain of needles tore through my body. Jack would die, my boots pushing off the branch. Covering Jack with my body, the needles struck me instead. A burning sensation coursed through my veins, inky sludge pouring from my eyes. Cracks lined her face as needles struck the tree, an idea coming to mind. Jack trembled underneath me, his eyes falling on the blackened veins coursing lining my porcelain skin.
“Shoot her in the hands. She can’t throw her needles if her wrists can’t move.” I wheezed, coughing up blood. Dragging him behind the tree, my chains blocked the needles heading towards Jack. His hand quaked, his bullets hitting everywhere but the target. Lining my free arm up with his, my hand steadied his.
“I can’t!” He protested with wet eyes, his mental state beyond repair. “My friends are dead. My friends are dead! She used to be my friend!” Shimmering teardrops crashed to the grass, the grass darkening to an inky black. Confusion dawned on his face the moment I held his gun underneath his eyes. Teardrops flooded the chamber, my hand guiding his hand to the level of his eyes. Getting behind him, I clicked the safety. Aiming for her palm, a quick yank sent a blackening bullet up her arm. A wave of relief washed over me the moment her needles glitched, the muzzle of his gun aimed for her other palm. Pulling the trigger, the bullet shattered her other arm. Dropping to her side, cracks echoed in the air. The cracks on her face had deepened, my attention turning towards her tree. Swinging my scythe into the tree, her shrill shrieks filled the air as flames raced into the center of the tree. Water snaked around their branches, my chains clinking their way around the thick trunk. Mouthing a silent spell, the needles floated out of me.
“Water from my heart! Flames of the Dead! Chains from my master! I call upon thee to burn the tree down, drown it from the inside. Choke the shit out of it.” I ordered sharply, each word hurting. “Final spell, turn my blood into venom for a witch.” Raising my right hand, a bell rang the moment the tip of my scythe made contact. Closing my fist, the needles dug themselves into the tree. Flames devoured her skin, cold water filled her lungs. Chains snaked up her body, a sea of fiery orange coloring her skin. My vision blurred, Jack snapping out of his paralyzed state. Raising his gun, a bullet whistled into the tree. The bullet being the last thing we needed, the tree decayed to dust along with her. The dimension crumbled away, my legs giving out. Leaning against the destroyed van, fresh tears flowed freely at the sight of our dead friends. Jack picked up one of their backpacks, his tears soaking the top of the bag. Pulling out a medical bag, he ripped out a needle filled with milky liquid. Jamming the needle into my leg, the effects of the venom dying down. Pressing my ear to the ground, an ominous ticking echoed in my ear. Tick, tick, tick! Feeling around the dirt, a metal door clanged underneath my hand. One look in Jack’s direction, he understood. Spinning the rusty handle, he lifted up the door. Gathering the rest of my strength, I popped in. Shutting the door behind me, the lock sealed my fate. Jack protested outside, the top refusing to budge, my heart sinking at the only option. The only way to stop the bomb was to set it off in a dome, the spell caster having to be in the center of it. Praying that my reaper side would keep me alive even Jack had to know that he didn’t stand a chance. Using my scythe as a walking stick, my feet moved with adrenaline. Sniffing the air, the sweet smell told me where to go. Limping through the twisted concrete halls, my breath hitched at the orange angry metal ball. Taking a deep breath, the image of my dead friends and that town I called home flashed in my mind. Pushing through, I sank to my knees. The last of my power built around my hands, a sad smile haunting my face the moment I placed my palms on the surface. A water dome glittered over me, reaper’s flames reinforcing it. Channeling the rest of my flames into core, the metal rattled violently. Preparing for the worst, a giant raven folded its wings around me.
“I will protect you no matter what.” Dr. Death promised warmly, his energy providing me safety as the chemical blasted everywhere but us. “Dissolve the poison.” The colorful particles lightened to a snow white, everything hitting me at once. Ruffling my hair, he disappeared back into my mind. Jack sprinted in, his shattered expression speaking volumes.
“I am so sorry I couldn’t save them.” I blubbered uncontrollably, falling to the floor. “I don’t deserve you. You should just k-” Rushing over to me, he clutched me desperately to his chest. Tears flowed freely, neither of us able to move. Laying back, the clarified chemicals reminding me of snow. A tortured wail burst from my lips, my quaking fingers clinging to his jacket. Saphiro and Hazard skidded to a stop, their faces dropping at the sight of us. Shaking our shoulders to see if we were alive, gracious grins brightened their features at us breathing. Their words faded in and out, a rough darkness enveloping me in it’s sea of madness.
Jerking awake, an eager Alex and Hazel hovered by the white hospital bed. Covering my eyes from the blinding lights, their arms embraced me from either side. Eloise smothered Jack in love, his numb expression matching mine. Bursting into tears, their smiling faces taunted me. Holding me tighter, his words faded in and out. Jack screamed for everyone to leave him alone. Kissing Hazel on the head, Alex dragged her out. Walking over to my bed, his little sister sulked out. Crawling in next to me, his head rested on my chest. Wail after wail burst from his lips, my slender hands being the only thing comforting him. These were his friends and now they were gone. The fault was all mine, guilt eating me raw from the inside. Hours passed like this, him going numb then screaming with raw emotional agony. Swinging his feet over the edge of the bed, he tugged on his boots.
“Are you coming?” He asked hoarsely, offering me his hand. “We need to go home and raise our family.” Accepting his hand cautiously, he yanked me to feet. Placing me on his back, the look in his eyes begged for me to rest my head on his back. Walking into the hall, he ignored the pleading nurses. Saphiro blocked his path, his depressed smile not helping the situation. Tugging anxiously on his navy vest, my mind chose to focus on the midnight black blouse underneath his vest. Clearing his throat, clammy sweat drenched his skin.
“Come with me.” He begged kindly, Jack seconds from saying no. “Please. I have a couple of things to show you.” Caving to his request, we walked for a solid ten minutes to the cemetery. Three caskets waited to be lowered to the ground, Jack dropping me. Struggling to my feet, my heart shattered at him draping his arms over the coffin. Whispering a prayer to them, he took a step back. Pulling me close to his waist, his sobs grew louder as they lowered the caskets into the ground. Death popped up behind us with three letters in his hands, his head bowed in respect to the dead bodies.
“These are from your friends. Call it one final letter.” He informed Jack sullenly, turning towards me. “Thank you for your services. Unfortunately, I can’t remove the curse.” Offering me his hand, my fingers curled around his hand. Shaking it once, he bowed in my direction. Pressing his palms together, a twinkle glinted in his eyes.
“Once everything settles down, we should get together to have tea. I am sorry for your loss.” He expressed serenely, understanding death but not the grief part. Snapping his fingers he was gone, an eager Jack reading the letters. Curiosity burned a bit but my inside voice told me to leave it alone. Tucking them into his pocket, he placed me on his back. Following Saphiro back into town, his crooked grin lit up his face for a quick second.
“They said not to lose you.” He chuckled softly, a bit of hope glinting in his eyes. “Time will heal my wounds.” Hundreds of eyes watched us enter back into town, my jaw dropping at the statue of the five of us. The plaque read the heroes of the dawn, the two of us unsure of what to feel. Jack thanked him profusely, Saphiro pointing to the Victorian mansion at the top of the nearby hill.
“That mansion is yours to conduct your business as well as living in it.” He promised earnestly, fresh tears flooding from my eyes. “We hope you choose this town as your home.” Jumping down, I cupped his hands. A tender blush rose to his cheeks, my real smile illuminating my features for the first time since yesterday.
“Only if you'll have me, good sir.” I returned politely, his brow cocking at my response. Alex ran up to me with the boys in his arms. Accepting them, life was okay. Please karma, grant me peace for the rest of my life.
Epilogue:
Alex had his head buried in his work, the twins ran around the yard. Elise read in the tree, the two kiddos looking so grown up. The morning sun bathed the idyllic scene, a good five years had passed. Holding my swollen bump, two wails snapped me out of my trance. Jack stepped out with our white haired twins Sammy and Raven, the one year old girls reaching for me. Their fiery orange and red eyes glittered with love, my arms scooping them up. Wrapping his arms around my bump, Mark was due in a couple of months.
“Alex, Elise!” He barked with his trademark grin as they rushed up to him. Elise smoothed out her white summer dress, Alex adjusting his glasses in a brisk manner. An irked look greeted him, his stern gaze shutting down any protest.
“Watch the boys for us.” He ordered lightly, passing them wrapped boxes. “I need to take your sister somewhere. Boys, go in and watch a show with your uncle and aunt.” Sprinting into the house, Alex shot him a thumbs up as he followed them inside. Guiding me down the hill and through the town, his beard kept capturing my attention. Grabbing three bouquets on the way, he dragged me to the cemetery. Stopping in front of our friends' graves, he laid a bouquet on each tombstone. Dusting off his navy designer suit, my simple orange summer dress felt like a sad attempt to match him. Rubbing my back, he kissed my bump.
“We came by to tell you how things are going. Alex and Elise are learning how to drive. Yeah, that is as scary as it sounds. Sammy and Raven’s birthday happened a couple of weeks ago. They are both one year old. Crazy, isn’t it?” He chatted pleasantly, happy tears welling up in his eyes. “We have one more on the way. It’s another boy. We are going to name him Mark. I miss you dummies every fucking day. I wouldn’t have survived if you gave me that letter. Thank you.” Wiping away his tears, Sammy and Raven cooed in my arms. Kissing the top of my head, Jack guided me to the square. Sitting me down at the fountain, he took the girls in his arms. Passing me a bundle of envelopes, they were all from the townsfolk and monsters all over the world.
“Word got out about where you live and they all wanted to write their thanks.” He explained jovially, sitting down next to me. “Read them tonight and write back. They would love to hear from you.” Flicking through the pile, this was going to take a while. Popping to my feet, I could sense that Alex was getting frustrated. Walking back home, the fact that people wanted to thank me touched my heart. Opening the door, my boys bounced towards me. Dragging me to the couch, one of Alex’s shows was playing. Climbing onto the couch next to me, Jack took the other seat next to me. Hazel skipped in, her long hair grazing the worn wooden floor. Sitting down by my feet, Elvira laid on her lap. Basking in the moment, this was how life was supposed to be. Thank you for the gift of a good life. All the tragedy led to this moment. All of the scars told the tale of my twisted journey here. Jack leaned his head on my shoulder, the boys laying on my lap. Playing with their hair, I hoped sincerely that this would never end.

Welcome to Camp Redwood!
Are you ready to fight to the death with age regressed forty year olds with the faces of adorable little kids?
How about coming to terms with your entire life, or at least five years of it, being one big fucking lie?
We are so excited to announce our 2018 group! Where you will undoubtedly FIND yourself here. Your true self.
The self you did not know existed.
SO, jump in that military bunker, grab that blunt object to fight against our little campers disembowelling our counselors, and get yourself down to CAMP REDWOOD. WHERE WE START EVERY DAY WITH A CAMP REDWOOD SMILE.
Apply now!
Application end date: 05/02/2018.
…
It’s been a tough few days.
So, I think I will be posting this update in two chunks so I can get everything down and clear my head. I am alone right now.
Yes. I am the last survivor of Camp Redwood 2023 (?). I’ve been unsure how to start this and end this because I really just want to get into the meat of what has been going on.
But… I must ask. I have to.
What year is it?
That doesn't matter right now. I'll continue where I left off.
Teddy did leave us alone in the end. But his screams were still haunting me hours after the thing with his voice had left. I don’t even think I could call it his voice.
It sounded like him but there were pieces of him missing. Like someone had reached into the boy’s mind and pulled out the skeleton of his consciousness, the bare bones of his being—and cruelly stuffed him into a metal shell.
That is what Teddy sounded like.
He sounded like a wounded animal, confused why he was alive. Terrified. I now know what he is the product of. Teddy is a victim of horrifying, unethical experiments our campers have been forcing on kidnapped counselors after taking over the camp. Have you ever heard of the sound of crying which isn’t human?
That is Teddy. He is the product of forcing life into the dead, and leaving it to suffer with its consciousness. Which, in my opinion, is a fate far worse than death.
You’re probably wondering where my two companions are.
Well, that is why I am writing this.
I want to tell you what happened so I can wrap my head around it myself, and choose between killing all of us and sending these psychopaths to hell, or coming to terms with our truth and fighting back. Well, it’s their truth. I wouldn’t say it’s mine. It took us three whole days to get the guts to risk leaving Allison’s secret bunker inside her cabin, and attempting to find a way out of this hell-hole. Harry and I were the ones to do it, leaving a still-not-completely-himself Rowan to guard our safehouse. I didn’t want to leave him alone for a multitude of reasons but due to Harry actually having a soul and a semblance of empathy, I was overruled.
Despite being heavily under the influence of age-regressing animal crackers which had mentally turned him into a toddler, Rowan was still himself to a degree. Which meant he was back to being our leader. I was sceptical at first, because no matter how many times he insisted he was in fact okay, I couldn’t seem to shake off the feeling that the childish parts of him, the warped parts of his mind which had turned him into a child, were still there.
Even if they were very subtle. I caught him doodling on his clipboard, and much later on, singing to himself with an odd smile on his face he had successfully gaslit Harry and I into believing it was just a coping mechanism. Say what you want about Rowan Atlas, he is damn good at swaying your opinion. Even when we were 100% sure Rowan was not his original self, the guy we had both met at the start of camp.
It was almost like him having two minds. The mind of a child, and the mind of a teenager.
For example, he still ordered us around and attempted to take back his role of leader— which had at least secured some normality back into our lives. But he also hated loud noises, and freaked out every time one of the littles tried to get in. There was also the incident we had agreed not to talk about, because talking about it meant facing the fact that our friend was no longer himself.
It was a hours after Teddy left us in peace. Harry was sleeping, and I was on the cusp of slumber, slipping through more files. Rowan had been oddly quiet. Which wasn’t a Rowan thing. Whether he was mentally a child or a teenager, he was still being loud and obnoxious. I sat up to find him cross-legged, playing with something.
I thought it was a worm at first, but no. It was exactly like what I found at the start of this, an eye attached to a nerve. But this time it was undoubtedly human, and now Rowan’s plaything. When I questioned him, he said he was “studying” it. Though there was definitely a difference between studying something and playing with it. The scary thing was, he saw no wrong in it, holding it in his hands and stripping off the metallic pieces cruelly attached to it.
In the end, I took it from him and stamped on it. Rowan didn’t have the reaction I was expecting. Because he was still hiding behind the façade that his mind hadn’t been warped by de-aging animal crackers.
If that wasn’t bad enough, Eleanor Summers had given me a 24 hour deadline to hand over the boys, and we were well over the limit so an ambush was likely imminent.
I still had so many questions. Why were Rowan, Harry and Carmel so important while the rest of us were seen as nothing but spare parts?
That is what the little bitch said. Now physically eleven years old with the mind of a deranged forty year old scientist, Eleanor told me I was nothing to them but spare parts. God, it’s so weird calling her what she is after looking after her kid self, her fake self, for weeks.
Little Eleanor with her golden pigtails and obsession with teddy bear picnics was in fact a complete fucking sociopath. That much of one in fact, that her and her equally psychotic colleagues who engaged in these experiments had been regressed into little kids inside a rehabilitation camp (Nicknamed: Project Spearhead) which was supposed to fix them and had failed spectacularly. Because they’ve taken over. And this time? We’re the fucking lab rats.
The counselors here at Redwood.
I had seen her adult self being interviewed by mysterious Agent Lemrac, a face behind Project Spearhead, the girl who was far too young to be an agent, and have that kind of authority. Also, someone with a soul—who had a clear biased opinion against the experiments.
Part of me wondered if Lemrac still existed. Maybe she was behind the odd phone calls we kept receiving on an old fashioned rotary phone. With Eleanor’s deadline in mind, the two of us made our journey quick. It wasn’t hard to leave the camp itself. There were guards in the form of Callen and Olive, brainwashed and turned into the kid’s muscle, but they were easy enough to get past as long as we distracted them with something shiny.
They were mentally six-years-old so literally anything grabbed their attention.
I quickly realized my mistake once we managed to escape the camp—Harry in front of me, with me lagging behind. We moved slowly, ducking behind trees and throwing ourselves into the dirt. Very cloak and dagger. It didn’t take us long to slip into the woods. Just past the lake were the exit gates to Redwood which led to a road.
Not exactly civilisation, but I would take it over having my body taken apart for “parts” in these so-called experiments.
When we got to the gate, however, I realized I had given the adults too much fucking credit.
Whoever was in charge of Spearhead clearly did not care about lingering survivors, as long as they were successfully cutting us out from the outside world. And that’s what the giant wall I found myself staring at was, an impossible foot monster towering over us and cementing my earlier thoughts. We were screwed. The woman on the phone had made it clear we were being abandoned, and yet some of me naively held onto them maybe still rescuing us.
“Fuck.” I didn’t know what to do, but kicking the damn thing felt like the right thing. I did, and then regretted it half a second later.
This thing was impenetrable. Impossible to climb unless we had a fucking death-wish.
Blinking at it through fraying sunlight blinding me, the thing almost resembled a mirage. It stood under the sun, a giant roadblock completely blocking us from any form of help.
The sun wasn’t helping, scorching through my shirt. I swiped at my sweaty forehead, unable to resist a frustrated scream I had to muffle-gag with my hand. I risked a look behind us. Thankfully, we were around ten minutes away from the main camp. The lake was nearby glittering under a late afternoon sun, and all I wanted to right then was to wade into the shallows and let the murky water swallow me up. The little shits couldn’t swim, maybe I’d be safe.
“Fuck!”
“This is bad.” Harry Carlisle broke the silence after my frustrated cry. With his eyes glued to the wall, he took off his hat and ran a hand through dark brown curls which were catching the light of the sun, setting strands alight across his forehead. None of us were in great shape after spending days hunkered down in a secret bunker. Harry was no exception.
His short sleeved camp Redwood shirt was still covered with vomit, discoloured with days’ worth of sweat stains and lack of showers.
He bent over, grasping hold of his knees. “What do we do?” I could tell by the tone of his voice he was freaking out, and I didn’t blame him. But Harry was still on my mind.
His signature was undoubtedly all over every Project Spearhead file, despite him repeatedly insisting he had nothing to do with it. At that moment, I could almost believe him. The boy looked exhausted and frustrated, pained.
He surprised me by slipping to his knees and burying his head in the dirt and screaming into rough soil. I was struck, then, by the sudden memory of flames. I had been sitting around campfires for weeks at Redwood, but this one didn’t feel like it took place at camp.
Instead, it felt more personal. I could almost see it, flickering orange sparking at the backs of my eyes and the sour taste of beer in my throat. Like the memory was trying to push itself to the surface. This moment felt nostalgic and yet close—as if it had happened yesterday. Like both the past and present had entangled in one.
If I concentrated I swore I could hear the murmur of voices, phantom laughter in my head and a cool night breeze grazing my cheeks.
“Earth to Josie?”
I snapped out of it quickly. “You’re asking me?” I kicked the dirt again. “I thought Rowan was our camp leader.”
Harry lifted his head after a moment, his eyes flicking to me. “You know he can’t make rash decisions right now.”
“Exactly.” I said. “We both know he’s not back to his normal self. He’s both right now. A little kid, and a teenager.” I shuddered. “I’m sorry, did I forget to mention our so-called head counsellor was playing with a human eye like a fucking cat?”
“Mm."
“Well, why aren’t you taking it seriously?”
Harry’s gaze skated the horizon, cotton candy colored clouds blurring into twilight. “Becauuuse the sun is going to your head.”
I could practically hear his eyes rolling. Harry took three strides towards the wall and pressed his face into rough brick. “So, this is it, right?” He muffled into rough cement. “We are really going to die at fucking summer camp.”
“I’m going to die,” I corrected him. “They want you two and Carmel because apparently you’re special.”
Harry made a scoffing noise into the wall. I was starting to think he was setting up camp there, planning to tell all of his grievances to the cement. “Oh yeah, because that’s a good thing? You’ve seen—no—heard what they’ve done to Teddy and the others, and you think them wanting us for something else is special?” his voice broke a little. “I’d rather have your fate.”
The boy’s words made me realize how little I was compared to the others. While they and Carmel were part of some grand, psychotic scheme, I was just needed for extra bulk. “Why don’t you talk to your friends?” I said, after letting the boy throw several punches into the soil. I wasn’t going to comment on his hits being surprisingly strong enough to shake the ground.
Harry didn’t look at me after calming down, resorting to tracing the earth with the toes of his shoe. “Who?”
"The CIA."
I was surprised by his retort, even if it was equally sarcastic. “Oh, you think I’m in the CIA?” He stepped closer to me, his breath in my face. “In case you haven’t noticed, this is bigger than the CIA. Whoever is in charge of this project is way higher up.”
“So, you’re admitting you’re a sleeper.”
“No, that’s not what I—”
“Then what?” I demanded, cutting him off. “Why are your fingerprints quite literally all over this?”
Harry folded his arms, his expression darkening. "You're still talking about this?" He groaned. “Josie.” He planted his hands on my shoulders. “I am not a spy, okay? Yes, my writing being on those documents was weird, but we’re also dealing with animal crackers which turn us into littles.” His lips curved into the slightest of smirks. “I’m pretty sure it would be easy for a group of scientists to use my writing as some kind of red herring. They’re trying to turn us against each other, obviously. And that’s not going to happen.” He squeezed my shoulders and I felt momentary comfort. I was so tired.
I hadn’t slept properly in days in fear of Eleanor coming to smoke us out—and the urge to just sink into the boy’s chest was suddenly overwhelming. Luckily, I had self-control. I took a step back, and he dropped his arms. “That's sobering, yes,” I said. “But I’m still going to try waking you up with those trigger phrases we found.”
When he tried to speak, I shook my head.
“Like it or not, you’re our only way out.”
I had made it clear several times to the two of them that I had no intention to use the trigger phrases we found taped to the back of the door in the bunker, when searching for more intel. But the more I was really thinking about it, if there were sleeper agents capable of taking down a group of forty-year-old tweens, I had no choice but to at least try. Because it was either that, or I gave the littles what they wanted. The boy’s. Whatever they needed, Rowan, Carmel, and Harry were the keys to their plan.
We needed a miracle, and those trigger phrases were our best shot.
Harry, of course, was against this idea.
He did that thing he always did when he scrunched up his nose and curled his lip. It reminded me of a toddler not getting their way. I saw it exclusively when the littles were taking advantage of his piggybacking service. “Josie, I’m not a fucking spy!”
"You could be." I said stiffly. "And until we figure out what is going on with you, I don't trust you. You said it yourself. Your writing was all over the kid's files, so at some point, regardless of you remembering or not, you have been part of this project.”
“So, why did you bring me out here?” He inclined his head. “You don’t trust me and yet you bring me on your little mission to find an exit.”
I shrugged. “I was partly hoping we would be attacked and your natural instincts would kick in.”
“So, I’m your lab-rat?”
“Partially.”
Harry did the scrunchy-nose thing again. “What the fuck, dude?!”
He looked like he was going to argue before deciding against it. Instead, he slipped on his raybans and gestured behind me with a sigh.
"We should probably get going before those little freaks come looking for us and realize we’ve left our safehouse.” I didn’t know how to explain and put into words that to survive we had to try everything—and if there was a slither of a chance that Harry really was some kind of sleeper agent, I was going to take advantage of that. I hadn’t forgotten about Carmel, Callan, and Olive. Rowan too, no matter how screwed up he was. I was counting on getting all of us out. I turned on my heel and started to head back to camp. I didn’t look at him because doing that would make me weak.
“Right. Let’s go.”
There was something going at the camp when we got back. I was startled by an intense blue light illuminating from the lunch cabin, and I had half a mind to turn and run. Then the screams started. Just like Teddy, they sounded both human and not, a horrifying mix of man and machine wailing for death. I found myself paralysed, crouched behind Cassie’s cabin, their phantom screams rattling my skull sending my thoughts into overdrive. “Josie.” I felt warm fingers wrap around my elbow and pull me back. Harry was thankfully there, dragging me away before I could expose us. It was enough to snap me out of it. Enough to drive me into fight or flight.
When we made it back to Allison’s cabin, Rowan was sleeping. He had conked out halfway through a pack of gummy worms. I spent the next few hours going through each trigger phrase written on the yellow sticky note we found taped to the door. I figured if we were going to try and wake Harry up, he would have to be restrained in case he was triggered to hurt us or even himself. “Is this really necessary?”
“Yes.” I said, squinting at the third trigger phrase. The two of us were sitting cross-legged in front of each other. Harry, breathing heavily, and me, trying to make myself calm. Harry pulled gingerly at the jump-rope restraints we had managed to loop around his wrists. I was expecting something out of him, but all I got were his wide eyes staring back at me.
The latest phrase was twisting my brain. It sounded like a kid’s book. I took a deep breath.
“Green Tigers Do Not Live Independently.”
Harry didn’t move, making a deal of blinking rapidly back at me. “No, I mean,” he gestured to his arms pinned behind his back. “Why did you have to make them so tight?"
“Because you’re a spy, dude.” Rowan had woken up, intrigued by my attempts to wake up a possible sleeper. He was pretending to go through the Eleanor Summers footage again, but the boy was clearly invested in what we were doing. Sitting slumped in the spinning chair, he leaned his fist on his chin. There were various things about Rowan I wanted to point out, but I was too scared to. The tips of his fingers were still stained red, and I had no idea if it was new or old. Rowan Atlas used to be the one guy at camp I used to think looked older than he was—and acted older than he was.
Instead of taking part in camp activities, he chose to sit on a branch and read pretentious classics. Yeah. He was one of THOSE guys. The slight stubble on his chin would definitely get him served alcohol, and his intelligence and quick-thinking would easily sway you if you were sceptical. Now he was the complete opposite. Maybe I was imagining things, but he had definitely gotten younger in the face, even if it was just a year or two.
I am not talking about his appearance, however. Rowan’s mentality was drastically different from the guy who held crisis meetings and ordered all of us around like we were his own children. This guy had a certain childish twinkle in his eye when I happened to catch it, a twitch in his lips which was constantly a wide smile like he was constantly seeing butterflies. Before being force-fed animal crackers, the guy had maintained his hair and hygiene no matter what happened. Now, he looked like he’d been dragged through a forest. Literally. There was still grass and leaves caught in his sandy hair, his camp Redwood shirt torn in odd places.
He yawned, curling up on the chair, apparently getting comfy. “No hard feelings, but we gotta keep you under investigation. Like Josie said, your name was all over those shady documents.”
Even his voice was different. I couldn’t call it a squeak, but it was close enough to one.
“I’m not a spy,” Harry grumbled, ducking his head. “I think I would know if I was—what, some kind of government agent?”
“That’s the whole point of them,” Rowan, still with lingering childish traits, winked at him. “They don’t know either.” He raised his hand and mimed the finger guns, protruding them into his temples and pretending to pull the trigger. Adapting a storytelling tone, he lowered his voice to a whisper. Like he was talking to the kids.
“They can live their whole lives without realizing.” I could tell from his tone he was getting excited with the idea of sleeper agents. Maybe it was a kid thing. Rowan sat up straight with wide eyes. “Cruelly brainwashed by a secret organisation at a young age and turned into super soldiers, these guys have no family. No friends.” His gaze flicked to Harry, his lips twitching into a teasing grin. “Only the insatiable urge to kill and follow orders. They don’t have brains to feel or emotions. And that?”
He did a dramatic spin on the chair. I could tell he was revelling in the look of horror on Harry’s face. “That is the most dangerous thing about them. The inability to have free will. Because what happens when they come face to face with people they used to love? People from their old life?”
With both of us enthralled in his speech, the boy smirked. “They kill them. Family members and friends. With one simple order? BAM.” Harry jumped, and I am ashamed to say I did too. Rowan blew his imaginary finger guns. “With one single and yet perfect headshot, it’s allll over. There’s blood EVERYWHERE. There’s brains!” He giggled. “Brains! And it’s like, sooo gross.”
With the way he kept adding to his story, getting progressively more excited and practically vibrating in the chair, the boy was reminding me more and more of my little sister. Which terrified me. Because if this was him back to himself, was this his new normal?
“Rowan, stop.” It took every ounce of my being not to yell at him. “You’re acting like a fucking child.” I was frowning at a sign on the wall warning us to ‘mind our head’. It wasn’t even a low ceiling, and yet that was the fourth time I had seen that sign.
Harry looked mildly horrified. Usually, he was the one who told the ghost stories. I could tell even he was questioning his own identity at that moment, and I paused interrogating him with phrases. “I’m sorry, but who out of us ate our weight in animal crackers?”
“Against my will.” Rowan yawned again, doing another spin on the chair. I had to turn around and shoot him a glare. “That’s the second time you’ve thrown me being turned into a kid in my face. Which is not fair. Did I ask to be stuffed full of poison?"
“Well, you didn’t exactly fight against Eleanor.”
“I was tied up, asshole—and I’m pretty you were in la-la land at that point.”
“I’m allergic to peanut butter, so no,” Harry rolled his eyes. “I snapped out of it when my body reminded me.”
“That sounds like a you problem, dude.”
Harry groaned, tipping his head back. “Holy shit, Rowan. You used to be cool and now you’re like an annoying little brother.”
“Touché.”
“Shut up. Both of you.” I found my voice, grabbing a pen and scribbling out the first line of trigger phrases which were a no-go.
“Rowan, annoyingly, is right.” I said, ignoring the guy’s noise of glee. If he kept spinning around on that chair, I was going to kill him.
The blur of movement at the corner of my eye was driving me mad. Focusing on Harry, I took a break from the trigger phrases for a moment, poking him in the cheek. It was supposed to be light-hearted, but the guy looked offended.
“For the third time, we can’t ignore that at some point you have signed off on all of those files, which means you were part of Spearhead.” I shrugged. “I’m not saying you are, but we have to be smart if we’re going to survive against a group of deranged scientists.”
Rowan chuckled. “What she saiiiiiid.”
"Why aren't we paying attention to the guy who clearly has allegiance to those freaks?” Harry stuck out his tongue at Rowan, which was surprising on multiple levels. Wasn’t he supposed to be the normal one? “Aren't you their favorite counselor?"
"I was literally mind controlled by preservatives, asshole," Rowan shot back. "And I'm not the only one. You and Carmel are on their radar too."
"Yeah, but we’re not the ones playing with eyes.”
"I'm too tired to argue with you." The boy responded in a yawn, cuddling into the chair armrest like a cat. “Also… you’re a noodlehead.”
“Ignore him.” I told Harry. “Just focus on me, alright? You have to look at me.”
“I am!”
“It’s time to make the donuts.” I articulated it perfectly.
Harry surprised me with a laugh. “That one can’t be real.”
“It is. Shush.” I cleared my throat. “The strawberry moon will rise in July.” When nothing happened, I frowned. “Maybe I’m not saying them right.” I peered at the next one, mentally speaking it and then muttering it to myself to get an idea of the tone.
“Or,” Harry shrugged, pulling at his restraints. “I’m just spit-balling here, but maybe I’m NOT a secret government sleeper agent after all?”
“Be mindful of the deep ravine.” This time I practically shouted it in his face, only to get his wide smile in return.
“Josie, this isn’t working.”
“It will.” I was growing increasingly more frustrated. “Just try and listen to them, okay? Don’t push them out.”
I tried one more time, leaning close and scrunching up the sticky note in my hand. Harry’s expression stayed stoic, though from the contortions in his forehead and the twitch in his lips he was trying so hard not to laugh. “It looks like it will rain tonight.”
I was surprised, then, when Rowan jolted in the chair suddenly. He lifted his head, his eyes wide. I was seeing him back to his usual self for the flicker of a second, his expression contorted with fright, lips curling into a scowl. “Do you guys smell that?”
“Smell what?” I sniffed the air, but there was nothing which was out of the ordinary. I had grown used to the combined stink of our body odour.
Rowan wrinkled his nose. He sat up straighter. “That.” He whispered. “It smells like… burning.”
I opened my mouth to ask what he meant before Harry went stiff suddenly. I sensed his entire body seem to brace itself. His eyes hardened. “Untie me.” He said in a croak.
When my shaking hands went to the boy’s restraints, his were balled into fists. I glimpsed muscles bulging through the back of his shirt and forearms. His demeanour reminded me of an animal growing territorial. “Something is… wrong,” he said in a sharp breath. Harry’s frightened eyes found mine. “Wrong.” He said again, blinking rapidly. “Something is...wr–wrong. ” When I pulled the last of the rope from his arms, Rowan shocked me with a piercing cry which sent him tumbling off of the chair, his trembling hands planted over his ears, lips carved into an O.
His eyes were wide with terror, with agony I couldn't understand. Childish terror. Which catapulted him back to his real age.
Before I could hesitate, I was crawling over to him, attempting to snap the boy out of it. But he was inconsolable, his eyes almost unseeing, his body contorting with every shriek. It took me a moment to realize Harry was the same. But instead of a piercing shriek of a scream, he was wailing into his knees, as if to escape something.
His body seemed to jolt left and right, like he was being electrocuted. When I saw glimpses of sharp red pooling between his fingers and down the back of his neck, something sickly crept up my throat. Rowan was somehow worse, his whole face contorting like it was it's own separate being, rivulets of intense red dripping from his nose and mouth, and staining his hands desperately pressed over his ears.
It was a synchronised cry, I realized, after concluding that no matter what I did, I couldn't save them.
It was a sound only they could hear, a high-pitched screech like a dog-whistle which was only affecting them. It was the kids, I thought. Surely. If they could disembowel counselors, I was sure they would have no problem engineering a sound which would only affect certain people.
Stumbling back, I had two choices. I could either try and help them, try and block out this phantom noise slowly killing them-- or I could leave them and find a safer place. With that choice in my mind, I barely noticed the phone begin to ring under Allison's desk.
That same old fashioned trilling rang in my head, and I managed to reach under and grab the receiver, my heart in my throat. "Please." I managed to squeak out, trying to ignore Harry, who was trying to rip out his hair, his eyes rolling into the back of his head. I saw the whites, blood vessels popping one by one.
When he crumpled to the ground, I thought he was dead. But his wails continued into the floor, and I wanted them to stop. I wanted him to die because I couldn’t stand hearing him screaming for help which wasn’t coming. I couldn't help them, and it was killing me. The kids were clearly trying to smoke us out, this time targeting the boy’s. Still though, I had my secret weapon. The Spearhead project.
"There are three of us left," I panted down the phone. "You have to help us. I am at Camp Redwood. You need to get us out of here. Do you hear me? You need to get us out–"
“Attempts to fix the current situation have been unsuccessful, Miss Greenfield," the woman with the British accent's voice came through in a rush of static, cutting me off. Her voice was monotone, and I wondered if she was in fact a programmed bot.
"All efforts for manual activation have failed from the disaster zone. The signal appears to have been sabotaged. I repeat. The E.485 frequency has been sabotaged. Designated models 0115, 0116, and 0118 are now officiated as being faulty and are no longer needed for protocol 9AXC5. Please stand by for standard protocol deactivation. Thank you for your service. Agent Salta. Agent Elsilrac. Agent Lemrac.”
My grip loosened on the phone, and I felt my legs started to give-way. "You're the one doing this to them?”
When Rowan dropped to his knees, blood dripping from his nose, my stomach jumped into my throat. There was no way. I figured it was an attack from the kids, but I was wrong. Instead, this sound, this frequency, was coming from the phone.
I thought back to the video footage. Agent Lemrac interviewing Eleanor Summers. Harry's signature on the paperwork. “Can you… say that again?” I heard myself say in a breath. But the dead ringing tone was already clanging in my skull, a robotic countdown laced within the static. I grabbed the pen I had been writing with, scribbling those names down, my hands shaking.
“Preparing emergency shutdown protocol. Thank you for your service, Agent Salta, Elsilrac, Lemrac.” The voice continued, which was just another stab in the gut. I heard Salta before. I heard Lemrac. But writing them down, I realized what they meant.
Salta.
Elsilrac.
Lemrac.
I was a fucking idiot. No wonder the littles wanted them and Carmel— why they were so important to their plan. Slowly, I could feel myself start to crumble. The phone slipped from my clammy hands, but I could still hear the woman beginning an emergency shut down.
I didn’t feel the impact when my knees hit the ground, but I did start to sense something twisted and sour tickling the back of my nose and throat. By the time I had noticed it, it was already choking the bunker. But somehow, I didn’t care about the stars in my eyes or my own blood being projected onto my hands with every wet sounding cough exploding from my lungs. I could still hear their names, and every time I said each of them, more and more of me shattered.
Atlas.
Carlisle.
Carmel.
“18…”
“17…”
“16…”
“15…”
Laying on my back while my head spun, I was partially aware the boy’s screaming had cut off.
Instead, they were just sitting there, eyes wide and unseeing, the blankest I had ever seen them. There was so much blood running down their faces, and I imagined something rooted inside of them tearing their minds apart from the inside. Letting out another strangled cough, which was definitely biological warfare courtesy of the kids (not enough to kill, but definitely a warning not to fuck with them) my gaze flicked across the bunker, taking everything in. The paperwork we had been going through. The chair Rowan had been spinning around on. The ropes Harry’s arms had been entangled in. I was frowning at the walls, and then the ceiling.
“Please mind your head when you step down the stairs.”
Drinking in the words slowly, my cotton candy thoughts imploding into one blurry mess.
But then I was a little more awake, this time turning my gaze to the wall where the same sign had been taped to the wall. Please mind your head when you step down the stairs. And… there it was again, taped to the desk, and underneath the laptop. Hidden in plain sight. It had been there all along, and yet I only realised when I wasn't thinking about it, when my mind was being suffocated. Something seemed to snap inside of me, and I sat up, driven by pure adrenaline. With one hand pressed over my mouth and nose, I forced myself into a sitting position and dragged myself to Harry, whose head was lolled at an unnatural angle, his eyes closed.
Part of me wanted to smash up the phone, knowing what these bastards had done to their sleeper agents now they were no longer usable. The boy almost resembled a doll. Was this the so-called sleeper which had been planted inside Redwood? Empty eyes, empty everything. He was like a shell with a human face. No better than Eleanor's experiments.
When I grabbed hold of his arms, I had to hold him steady, his body cut from these puppet strings which had held him. “Harry.” I could barely speak, my voice more of a croak. I knew he was awake and aware, but a singeing, almost burning smell was coming from directly inside his head as blood ran from his nostrils in shades of red and pink. Now I knew what the burning was when I pressed my face against his and sucked in a lungful of poisoned air. It was him. He was a defect being set alight from the inside. “You need to look at me, okay?”
When he didn’t, instead crumbling in my arms, I struggled to hold him upright. Twisting my head to Rowan, he seemed in a better state—kind of. At least he was still sitting straight.
My last words were barely audible. “Please mind your head when you step down the—” no sooner had the words left my mouth before the sounds of footsteps coming from above, the unmistakable murmur of giggling getting closer and closer. Harry dropped to the ground like he had been severed from his puppet strings.
I wasn’t aware when I slipped to the floor, whatever had filled my lungs finally taking its toll. Through flickering eyes, I could see our barricade being blown through, the ground rumbling beneath me, throwing me into something warm.
Rowan.
His body was curled up against the wall, haemorrhaging from the ears.
It was only when I was truly taking in the stink curling in the back of my nose and throat as Eleanor Summer’s mechanical grin popped out of nowhere, when I realized I had smelled it before. I had choked on it before. The circle of kids looming above me let out a shrill squeak of, “Found you!” while I found the dark, and beyond that, a memory I thought was a dream.
Firelight flickered in the backs of my eyelids. The blur of orange and shadowy smoke was mesmerising. I stared real hard at the fire like I was told to, at smouldering shades of yellow and orange colliding, thick black smoke billowing into the air while our faces illuminated the circle. I tightened my grip on my beer, swallowing another mouthful. It was cheap shit, but had just enough burn to get me tipsy. I felt good at that moment. Relaxed.
My head was starting to spin, but it was the good spinning, like I was going round and around on a carousel. I wasn't sure why I felt apprehension at the moment.
It was just a game, right? So, why did I want to jump up and go home? Why did I want to squeeze my eyes shut? Milo's words rattled in my skull as I squinted into the fire. "Come forth, those who are no longer with us." Ghosts weren't real, I thought dizzily. They couldn't be.
Not when science and logic existed. However, when the flames began to grow increasingly more erratic, I couldn't resist leaning forward, and... there. Something warm crept its way up my throat.
There was a shadow twisted in the smoke, a very human-like thing stepping directly from the trees, from the hollowed darkness I had been too scared to fully take in-- finding solace in flickering and illuminated sparks spitting from the fire. The others started to murmur to each other as the thing took a step out of the trees. Clea shuffled back with a cry, and Milo and JJ turned twin shades of sickly pale. It was a guy.
Older, by maybe a year. Shaggy reddish hair tied into a loose ponytail. His clothes were a simple leather jacket and jeans, but looking at his face, he was bruised, every part of him exhausted and battered. His eyes, when I caught them, were nothing but twin pools of oblivion glaring back at us.
"Holy fuck." Milo hissed out. “I didn't think that would actually work!" Downing his beer, he whooped. "Alright! Name, age, occupation, and..."
His lips quirked into a grin. "How you died, man!”
The guy inclined his head, his mouth curling into the start of an amused smile. "I'm not a ghost, Jackass."
His British accent was jarring.
"And?" Milo leaned back, crossing his legs. "Play along, bro. Or I call the cops and tell 'em a grown ass man is fucking with some minors."
"But he looks our age," Clea hummed. "And he's kinda cute."
"I don't give a fuck," Milo's eyes were hard. "State your truth, or I get my dad on the line."
The guy rolled his eyes, raising both arms like he was surrendering. "Samuel Joseph Wilder," he surprised me by responding. Now that I looked at him, this guy definitely was not dead. Unless dead people carried a gun latched to their belt, and a cheap iPhone sticking from their jeans pocket. "Nineteen years old." He shrugged. "I guess you could say I'm an ex-student."
He paused, and I caught emotion flicker across his face, his hands balling into fists. "I was killed– no, murdered, by my town."
Milo leaned back, cracking open another beer and taking a sip. Clea leaned closer to him, her eyes wide. “Playing along, huh? I like it. State your truth."
The guy nodded, lowering his arms. His dark eyes flicked to each of us, drinking all of us in. “I just escaped from a secret government facility doubling as a summer camp which has converted half of my town’s kids into mindless super soldiers.”
There was a pause, before Clea burst into nervous giggles. Milo cocked his head. “I said state your truth, not plagiarise The Hunger Games.”
Ignoring Milo, the guy turned his eyes to me. "Josie Greenfield?" He took a step forward before seemingly deciding against it. I didn't move or speak, my heart in my throat. I didn't have to reply. This strange boy continued, his lips curling. "You're going to die tonight, Josie."
At that moment, I realized why I had been feeling nauseous all night. Why my mind had been anticipating something all day, and why, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't brush off his words. Maybe part of me was expecting this.
The stranger's tone was too cold to ignore, the state of him too real to brush off as a joke.
Suddenly, it was just me, him, and fate itself glaring down on us, my life as I knew it exploding into nothing in the charred remains of the dying fire.
His voice echoed in my head, collapsing into white noise, when I noticed how truly inhuman he looked. I fully took him in, illuminated in firelight. "If you don't get the fuck out of this town, you are going to have the same fate as me."
…
I’m going to go out on a whim and say it’s… not 2018 and I’ve been at Camp Redwood for way longer than I realized?

It's finally there... I really liked writing this one.
The 119th Hunger Games took place in the year 155. The past few months had been quite tense following the events in district N. After the terrorist attacks, more and more inhabitants started voicing their ire and demanding to be returned to their primitive ways. By some unknown means, they managed to communicate with districts 12 and 3, where some acts of defiance were noticed. Fortunately, a greater influx of peacekeepers helped keep the situation manageable.
However, it was under greater surveillance that Annie Sandler, victor of the 118th Hunger Games, officiated the reapings. The additional measures included more peacekeepers as well as a systematic search of anyone entering the reaping square. Annie was relieved to leave district N, continuing the reapings on the following days.
In the afternoon of the second day, a disheveled Annie arrived in district 8. Being quite late due to all the security precautions, she was allowed to skip the visit of a new rug factory. Mayor Smith seemed a little disappointed as he welcomed her.
Without wasting any time, the young woman approached the big glass bowl and picked a random slip of paper. She called up Vannery Gleason to the stage. The 13 years old girl stood at the front of the enclosure. When she heard her name, she almost fainted. Two other girls brought her to the nearest peacekeepers, and they helped her up. She was tiny, with a short mane of messy blond hair and a long pointy nose.
While Vannery cowered between the peacekeepers, Annie picked a name from the male reaping bowl, quickly settling on 16 years old Carton Abbassi. The boy walked to the front of the enclosure, expressionless, his terra cotta colored skin ever so slightly paling. He shook hands with the victor and the mayor and stood next to Vannery. He nervously played with his long black hair while mayor Smith gave a closing speech and urged the citizens to go back to their work.
The pair were urged to their holding rooms within the city hall, where they could only meet with two people due to the security measures taking place. For the entire time that was allotted, Vannery cried in her older sister’s lap. Her face was dirty with tears and dust, and when her sister tried to wipe them, it became even more stained due to the dyes she worked with all day long. They did not exchange many words, only hugging tightly and attempting to reassure each other. They both cried as they were separated because they only had each other.
Carton kept his calm. His stoic attitude was shared with his father and grandfather. The three men spoke almost casually about Carton’s reaping. They had been very aware of the possibility of it happening. They shared some advice and spoke a bit about the mentor of district 8, who lived almost as a recluse in her house. Carton hugged his relatives before heading to the train station, where a sniffling Vannery was already waiting.
Organza Duval (victor of the 105th Hunger Games) waited for them in the carriage, her ample form towering over the both of them. The thirty years old woman seemed in a strangely joyful mood, which could probably be explained by her co-mentor and sworn enemy Kaplan Templesmith dying of old age a week earlier. She welcomed the tributes, inviting them to get comfortable, while an avox brought food on the table. Organza warned them to be reasonable with the food in order not to get sick, advice which they both followed.
Carton was the most talkative of the two, although he was humble and well meaning. Before all, he proposed to ally with Vannery. The girl nodded wearily and continued nibbling on her celery stalk. He then talked about his family’s hat business. He was realistic about his chances, having no useful skill in the arena. “I had no skill either, you know. It’s all about luck, explained Organza. If it wasn’t, the careers would win every year”.
During the rest of the train ride, they watched Organza’s games. Vannery started asking more questions and participating in the conversation. As the train approached the Capitol, she went to the bathroom in order to clean herself up a little. She got rid of all but the blue smudge on her cheek.
When they finally arrived in Crane station, there wasn’t much of a crowd waiting for them. Organza was a very unpopular victor, and district 8 didn’t have a great track record. As their mentor stood in the background, almost hiding behind her afro, Vannery and Carton shyly shook a few hands and signed a few notebooks.
The greetings didn’t last long, and the tributes climbed into the limousine waiting for them. Once they were settled in their apartment, their stylist came to meet them. She was the angles to Organza’s curves, skinny and tall. Platonia Travers intimidated Vannery and Carton immediately. She gave them an intense look-over before claiming that she had seen enough and would be there tomorrow at 7 am sharp. The mentor reassured their mentees, saying that Platonia was severe but was “one of the few with a heart”.
She indeed came back the next morning at 7, accompanied by two associates who took the tributes’ measurements. While they were being manhandled, Organza turned on the television to watch the reaping in district 6.
It was much cloudier than the day before in district 6, which was not helped by the heavy smoke that hung in the air. Urania Whimsiwick, who had been joined again by her former co-host Argus Brown, complained about mayor Karpov’s long-winded speech. He eventually stopped, out of breath but with a smug look on his face. Annie proceeded to pick the female tribute, after which the smug look melted off mayor Karpov’s face. “Alexandra Karpov”, she called. A 17-year-old girl gasped and stifled a cry of despair. She had long chestnut hair that dangled down to her lower back and a very pretty face. She looked at the mayor, who happened to be her father, in despair. He avoided her gaze.
Feeling the tension, Annie hurried to pick the male tribute. She called 18 years old Delta Rossini to the stage. There was a short pause before a lumbering young man with dark hair and dark eyes made his way to the front. His gait was unsteady, Argus speculating that it was because of the morphling.
Mayor Karpov cut his closing speech short in order to join his daughter in the city Hall. She stood in the middle of the room, distraught, while her father and her mother (who had just arrived) hugged her tightly. Alexandra wept with them for a while. Then, she seemed to get herself back together, and she told her parents to be strong for her. There wasn’t much else to talk about, and none of them had any useful advice to share.
Meanwhile, Delta snored inside his holding room. His mother had come to see him but had promptly left when she understood that he was under the influence. He only woke up once the peacekeepers came to collect him, which made him grumpy. He barely acknowledged his district partner. They climbed into the carriage, only to be welcomed by the grumpy faces of their mentors, Sean Callahan and Halifax Devon (victor of the 111th Hunger Games).
Sean invited the pair to sit at a table, to which Alexandra promptly obliged. Delta, on the other hand slumped into a sofa. “Don’t worry, he’ll wake up when the drugs stop working. Right now, he’s high as a Capitolite’s hat.” Claimed Halifax. “I’ll get him through the withdrawal, you two go on.» Then he left, avoiding his female mentee’s gaze.
“So, your father is the mayor ?” asked Sean, trying to strike up a conversation. She nodded. There wasn’t much else to say, Alexandra thought. She could write, and count, and knew a lot about Panem’s history. She knew that it wouldn’t help her in the arena though. Sean told her that it was okay. All she needed was to keep her wits to herself. He showed her reels of past victors who had had no former training but instead relied on their intelligence or were just lucky.
When the train arrived in Crane station, Delta had just emerged from his slumber. Halifax sat in front of him. He gave him a pill and a glass of water, which the boy took without hesitation. It helped calm the headache. Now that he was more or less sober, Delta finally realized the situation he was in. His mentor ordered him to keep calm, and that they would think of a strategy once they were done with the parade.
The welcome was relatively warm, although it was still earlier in the morning. The sparse crowd gravitated more towards Alexandra, who appeared more “civilized” to them. She spoke to them politely, being used to wealthier people. She wished to follow her father’s footsteps. Delta was a little clumsier with his interactions, but still well behaved considering the situation. Halifax and Sean shook a few hands too, and they all made their way to the accommodation center.
Perseus Allfield, their stylist waited for them in the apartment. The pair didn’t have the time to take in their surroundings that they were being measured by half a dozen seamstresses. It appeared that Perseus had already chosen the pair’s outfit for tonight’s parade. While they were being dressed, Alexandra couldn’t help but notice that people frequently came to knock at the door, asking for random things. She could swear she saw Halifax hand a piece of paper to Alix Goldberg, who had come to ask for deodorant.
Parade :
Carton and Vannery hesitantly went down to the stables on the night of the parade. They both wore pantsuits made of a heavy embroidered fabric. It was itchy and rigid, like a rug, and of course entirely black and white. Organza hadn’t accompanied them, since she was busy discussing with another stylist, Garner Townsend. At least, Carton said, they didn’t look as ridiculous as the pair from 9. Vannery, instead of looking back, stared at the careers, who were already creating a pack. The four of them approached the tributes from 4, but Sardine and Rivage seemed to refuse their proposal.
Two chariots over, Alexandra struggled to climb into her carriage. Delta helped her up, giving her a crooked smile. She thanked him awkwardly. The pair’s outfits were indeed incredibly heavy, made out of slowly rotating gears. Making them work had been an excruciating ordeal. Between them and the pair from 8 was the carriage of district 7. Sean came over to them, kissing his fiancé, Edmund Carrell, passionately. Ulma and Fraxen did not react, nor did they respond to Carton waving at them.
Soon enough, the parade began, with Argus Brown leaving his seat to head of Anderson fashion Corneo Anderson alongside Urania Whimsiwick. Both were unhinged that night, and they tore apart almost every outfit. Perfecto and Glare’s (1) were too shiny, Hattie (3) looked like she had tried to wear her grandma’s dress, and they even made fun of the pair from 5, even though they ended up winning best dressed this year.
Delta and Alexandra followed right after, in what Corneo Anderson described as “a pair of ambulatory scrapyards”. The girl tried her best to smile through the ordeal, and waved even though her arm was 15 pounds heavier than usual. She held on to Delta, who had turned as grey as the steel he was wearing. Halifax had helped him deal with the withdrawal symptoms, but the moving cart was still very harrowing to him.
Carton and Vannery did not make much of an impression. They waved and smiled, but very few people actually paid attention to them. They were too busy laughing at the pair from 9, whose straw outfits were indeed hilarious.
The carriages then all made their way to the end of the Avenue of The Tributes, where President Crane gave her annual opening speech. This time, she spoke about peace. She asked the rebelling districts to think of their future. Of their children. She said that unity was the only way to move forward as a nation. That everyone had to do their part.
Some tributes were seen scoffing, but no punitive actions were taken against this display of defiance. Instead, President Crane wished everyone a happy Hunger Games and dismissed them. Everyone came back to their accommodations, where they prepared for bed.
This year, even Organza Duval attended to the rooftop party, where she remained with Alix Goldberg and Solano Luongo for the entire time. Other tributes such as Galvany Driscoll and Orlando Cascade occasionally joined them for a chat. Their conversations could not be heard over the loud music unfortunately.
Training :
Training began on the next morning. Waking up proved a tough affair for Delta, who had been suffering for the entire night. His fever had dropped thanks to some special medicine his mentor had given him, but the ache in his muscles remained. Even speaking caused him pain. Nevertheless, he endured and pushed through in order to make it downstairs. Carmelo Harrington, the head trainer, gave him a disapproving look before starting his usual warning speech.
As soon as the speech ended, Delta asked Alexandra to be his ally, since they were district partners. She gave him a once over, then reluctantly agreed. He suggested they train at the survival station, but she told him she needed to be alone for a while. He went by himself, and clumsily learned to build a fire. No other tribute seemed willing to approach his station, so he spent the next couple of days unimpeded.
While her district partner fluttered from station to station, Alexandra spent the almost entirety of the first day learning to fight with a knife, then a sword. She had obviously no experience, but thanks to the help of the trainer, she managed to improve a lot in such a short amount of time. She beat Odette (N) and Kumquat (11). Seeing she was a little too confident to her taste, Proserpina (2) challenged her too. This fight Alexandra lost almost immediately, and while trying to avoid another one of the girl’s strikes, she fell backwards onto Angelo (2). They tumbled down. He helped her get back up, which annoyed the rest of the career pack even more.
For the next day and a half, Alexandra and Angelo always seemed to end up in the same stations. They tried to speak a little but every time another member of the career pack interrupted them. On the last day of training, Angelo asked the girl if she wanted to join him (in the alliance of course !). She knew the others did not want her and told him so. She was right. He thought a moment before saying that they could find a way to work together.
While this surprising friendship was taking place, Carton and Vannery trained together. They mostly kept to the survival stations, not having the confidence to handle weapons. In the textile station, they encountered Sardine and Rivage (4) who taught them to make fishing nets in exchange of them showing them ways to build a textile-based shelter. They hit it off so well that they agreed to work together in the arena. Rivage and Sardine were both tall and strong fighters. They taught a bit of fighting skills to the pair from 8, but Carton was much more adept at recognizing toxic plants, while Vannery excelled at weaving and basketry.
At the end of the training, the tributes were gathered in order to be evaluated. After Zapp (5), Alexandra was called inside the Black room. She was nervous but managed to keep her trembling in check. She asked for a trainer to be brought in so she could demonstrate her knife fighting skills. She showed decent improvement, although she got tired quite quickly. She exited the Black room with a satisfied smirk.
Delta followed her, and he was quite angry. He didn’t understand why his ally refused to train with him even though she constantly reassured him that they still would work together in the arena. The assessment was a perfect way to vent out his anger. He grabbed various weights and threw them around. He broke a few mannequins with his display of strength. After that little controlled tantrum, he felt better.
Some time later, Fraxen (7) exited the room and Vannery was called in. For some time, she fought against a fainting spell, which made her loose precious time. Some of the assessors were already going back to the buffet. Eventually, she weaved a piece of armor out of wicker in a record time. No one was watching her anymore though, so she climbed up a pillar to get to the upper floor, shocking the assessors with her stealth and dexterity. In the end, they barely even noticed her weaving.
Carton followed. He was undecided as to what he should show the assessors. He tried a bit of everything, with unconclusive results. Once he got back to the apartment, Organza reassured him, saying that the training scores didn’t mean anything.
While they were being dressed for that evening’s interviews, the tributes watched their training scores being announced. As was usual, the career pack scored the best points, with Glare and Perfecto (1) getting an 11, followed by Angelo, Proserpina (2) and Rivage (4) who got a 10.
There were quite a few decent scorers this year, with a 9 being given to Ulma (7) and Delta. Following them with an 8 were Alexandra and Vannery as well as Fraxen (7), Borea (5) and Georges (N). Carton got a mediocre 5, which was not as terrible as he had thought but still not very high. He shared this score with Zapp (5).
Interviews:
That evening, the interviews took place in a full to the brim Ravinstill hall. Urania Whimsiwick and Argus Brown welcomed the audience and were given a thunder of applause. They had coordinated their outfits to wear clothes typical of tourists. Urania’s turquoise sundress and wide brimmed straw hat reminded viewers of the bright sea and the thatch parasols, while Argus wore a flowy shirt with a tiger fur pattern and bedazzled flip flops. The crowd roared with laughter when Urania poured a glass of champagne for each of them and promised Argus not to attack him with the bottle.
The first interview was that of Glare (1), who proved to be as sharp and dry as she looked. Her district partner Perfecto was friendlier at first, but many Capitolites found him very whiny. Proserpina (2) was almost identical to Glare, and only Angelo appeared to have a semblant of heart, which experts later debated could be his downfall.
The hosts went down the list of tributes, the panel this year being very diverse. The pairs from districts 4 and 5 were among the favorites this year, with charismatic duos. Eventually, it was time for Alexandra to enter, clad in a light grey silk gown. Her long hair had been braided with silver thread, and she was positively stunning. She also appeared at ease on stage, answering Urania’s questions and jokingly flirting with Argus. She was asked about her unlikely friendship with Angelo (2), but like he had earlier, she responded that he had been nothing more than a friendly opponent. Argus then asked about her family, as another Karpov had participated in the 111th Games. Alexandra barely knew her, as she was from another branch of the family.
Once her imparted time was over, Alexandra left the stage, followed by cheers and applause. Delta entered, wearing a suit of the same color as her dress, although it did not fit him that well. He looked at the hosts’ outfits with confusion. Urania had to repeat her first question three times to snap him out of his trance, and it soon appeared that Delta was not in his element. He answered the next questions on the first try, but in a robotic voice. Urania, Argus, as well as the viewers, quickly grew bored of the boy, who only seemed to wake up to complain about his district partner refusing to spend time with him. He received some polite applause as he left the stage and Ulma entered.
After Fraxen’s underwhelming interview, Vannery was asked on stage. She had been given a pink and crème tulle dress, Urania commenting that she looked like a “particularly appetizing cupcake”. Vannery wobbled on stage and to her chair. She managed not to faint, which in itself was a miracle, but it was clear that she was terrified. Argus asked her about her strategy for the arena, and she said that she had allies she could count on, and that her small frame could help her hide quite easily. In the end, she had managed to endear herself to the Capitol, even though her winning odds were still of 1 to 60.
Carton followed Vannery, clad in a mauve tuxedo, his dark mane neatly attached. He appeared more confident than his district partner. After a short round of compliments, the interview really started. Unfortunately for him, Carton did not have a lot to say about himself. He had no passion, no funny anecdote to talk about, so after the usual questioning, the hosts decided to end the interview. Later, Urania would comment that the only thing interesting about Carton was his hair.
The interviews continued on, with Quinoa (9) asking the hosts for a glass of champagne, Lavandine (11) running out of the stage after a whopping 12 seconds and her district partner Kumquat raving about Capitolite cuisine for 15 minutes. Only the cousins from district N, Georges and Odette, made a better impression. Although they were both homely and physically unremarkable, they proved to be good strategists and survivalists.
Before closing the ceremony, Head Gamemaker Jahani Vishwa was invited to talk a little about her work. She reviewed last year’s arena, which had now been turned into a holiday destination, then gave an exposé about the weather in the arenas and how it was controlled. As always, Jahani Vishwa refused to say anything but a single hint : for this arena, the biggest challenge had been redesigning the microphones. Then, Argus and Urania wished everyone a Happy Hunger Games.

Side by side, we continued on our path, skirting through the lower section of the factory. After my initial shock, my heart rate had slowed to a healthier pace again. Frankie had assured me that his old boss most likely hadn’t heard us (“She used to have her earbuds in all the time with the volume cranked way up—you couldn’t have gotten her attention if you’d tried”), but we still considered it prude to move forward at a more hurried pace.
We soon came to the conclusion that we would have to go up one of the outside staircases. Frankie admitted in humiliation that his memories of the factory weren’t as accurate as he’d thought—either that or FunFlair had made a few changes to the building. The upper floor containers all had glass doors, presenting us with a sticky problem. If we were to go up there directly, we’d probably be spotted immediately.
“This warrants a change of plans,” I declared soberly, keeping my voice low. “We’ll have to knock her out, then.”
Frankie whimpered.
“Wouldn’t you like that?” I prompted. “I’d be the one to do it, of course.”
“Ye-es.” He shuddered. “It’d be satisfactory for sure, but that’s only assuming nothing goes wrong.”
“She can hardly be stronger than I am.”
“No. I guess not. She, uh… yeah.”
“Let’s go, then.” I offered an encouraging smile as I started leading the way back outside.
We rounded the container with the lights on inside, ascending the metal grate staircase connected to it. Every step carried us closer towards the light. Just before the door fully came into view, I turned to Frankie one last time. “Are you alright? This’ll be it in a moment.”
He made another chew-toy sound.
“Fran, what is it? If you know something I don’t about what might happen in there…”
“She shouldn’t see me,” he squeaked out. “I can’t control myself around her.”
“I don’t understand; did you two use to be an item?”
“No! No, no, no. I can’t explain it any other way. She can make me do things I don’t want,” he told me, his tone growing in desperation.
“How?”
“It’d take too long to explain now, it’s… it’s really very complicated. Please, can you do it without me? I can’t go up there after all, I’m so sorry but I can’t…”
I sighed, leaning in to put my arms around him. “It’s okay,” I whispered into his hair. “I’ll do it. Wait here.”
“I’m so, so sorry, Eva. I swear I’ll make it up to you. This is the last time I’ll ask something like this of you.”
“I doubt it,” I replied. “But it’s okay.” I drew back, reluctantly letting go of him. “For now, it’s okay.” I continued marching up the stairs. Behind the glass door, a feminine figure in a black rubber apron came into view. She seemed to be nimbly skirting around another operating table, this one occupied by a fully formed, petite doll. Now or never. I reached for the doorhandle, pushed it down and crossed the threshold in a single, large step. I slammed the door shut behind my back, drawing the attention of the woman.
She looked up at me, her eyes widening in shock behind her thick glasses. With a swipe of her slender fingers, she removed her earbuds, dropping them into her pocket.
“Are you Philomena Wallis?” I asked.
For a split second, she appeared to be too stunned to speak. Her pale face was framed by messy strands of jet-black hair that had worked their way out of her long ponytail. When she broke from her silence, she spoke with an irritatingly pearly voice. “Who’s asking?”
“A former delivery girl. Well, are you?”
“I am. I don’t understand; I-I’ve never seen you before… How did you end up here? What do you want?”
I took in a deep breath. I glanced over at the door, inwardly cursing myself for what I was about to ask her. “I need to know what you did to Frankie Preston.”
For a couple seconds, silence reigned. The other woman was staring at me with knotted brows. “I don’t know who you’re talking about,” she said finally.
“About yay high—,” I raised my hand above my head, “slightly built, blond curly hair, dreamy smile…”
Philomena narrowed her eyes. I cleared my throat, holding her gaze. Then a look of cold comprehension settled on her features. “Oh my god,” she muttered. “Holy shit… hold on.” She turned around, pulling up a photo on her computer. “Is that him?”
I cautiously stepped closer to get a better look, only to shrink back slightly. It was, indeed, a picture of Fran. He was entirely naked in it, lying on a table similar to the one I was standing in front of now, his wrists and ankles locked in restraints. His neck was craned, his face averted. The camera had caught him mid-motion, a blur around his head visually conveying a kind of violence in the movement. I couldn’t bear to look at it any longer. Instead, I moved closer to the doll on Philomena’s table, taking her in fully. Another blonde—her hair was straight, though. Her body was exaggeratedly curvy, her face delicate and fawn. Speechless, I locked eyes with Philomena from across the room again. She gave me a light shrug. “You look like you need some time for this to sink in,” she remarked, drawing out the words. “I take it you didn’t have all the information previously.”
“That’s okay,” I replied. “I think I get it now.” My head felt empty, my own voice seemingly echoing back and forth between my ears.
“So, you know my prototype,” she stated, confusion and disbelief mixing in her tone. “He told you how to get here, then?”
“In a way.”
“And you came here to find out,” she concluded. “There’s not much I can tell you that you haven’t figured out by now. We wanted to create the most detailed doll there was. He was our first attempt. I started developing him back in the late nineties as just a hopeful pet project. I kept adding more functions as time went on, though, and he turned into an insanely lucrative prospect. I wanted him to be able to move and dance and mimic an airflow, and it worked out better than I’d ever expected. So he can do a lot of things, but I never intended for him to have any sensory awareness or to talk… I have no idea how that happened. It just did. One day, I turned him on and he simply looked at me. There was something different about his eyes, and I knew right away he wasn’t the same as before. And then of course he spoke.”
A shudder ran through her entire upper body at the memory. “I have no idea how. None of us did at the time. He had no recorded voice lines or anything of the sort. And yet, he opened up his mouth and there was just… words coming out, like.” She shook her head in bewilderment at the memory. “After I got over the initial shock, I realized how big of a problem this was. He was telling me to stay away from him; he wouldn’t do a thing I told him anymore. There was my best invention in the entire field yet, rebelling like a teenager. When I tried to get him back in line, he got physical, too. Thrashed around like crazy. One of my assistants ended up concussed because that thing threw him down a flight of stairs. So we had to put an end to that, as well.”
A faint feeling of nausea seeped into the pit of my stomach, strengthening by the second. “What did you do?”
“Well, we had to take him apart, of course! And put him back together. Wash, rinse, repeat. We kept trying to figure out what was wrong with him, or at least to find a way to stop his babbling and hitting people. We didn’t, though. We managed to control his outbursts, though. He was made to react to voice commands, but obviously, that wasn’t working anymore. So after the umpteenth time we rebuilt him, we managed to make it so he couldn’t physically attack people. Don’t ask me about the finer details of his programming; the process was beyond tedious. Anyways, he kept talking and moving around on his own even afterwards. He’d only listen to what we told him occasionally and even then, he’d mouth off. We didn’t want to discard all the progress we’d made, though. He was still an incredibly well-made doll, even if he was… apparently possessed and sentient.
“We built two more like him. We tried harder with their faces seeing as that of the prototype had fallen very far into the uncanny valley. They turned out great, perfectly shaped and working smoothly. Their development took a lot less time than that of the prototype. Once we were sure they were all good, we started talking about destroying the first one. We’d kept him locked up in the meantime, but the little fucker kept on breaking out. We’d literally cuff him to the wall and moments later, he’d come up behind me and scare me half to death. He was becoming a bigger nuisance every day. We were set on taking him apart a final time, but before we could, he disappeared. He’d destroyed all our equipment he’d gotten his hands on, stolen unnameable sums from our online banking accounts—Lord knows how he did that—and worst of all, he somehow managed to… activate the two new builds. He destroyed most of the cameras, but the footage that was left clearly showed them walking around with him. And that’s that.” She palmed her forehead. “How did he get away from the people I sent after him?”
“Largely with my help.”
“Huh. So who are you?”
“Still just a former delivery girl.” Shrugging off my jacket, I made room for my extra limbs to breach my skin, simultaneously opening my mouth as my teeth morphed into fangs.
Philomena watched my transformation almost disaffectedly. Her steps as she carried herself over to her operating table however nearly faltered. Before I could advance on her, she’d cupped the sleeping dolls cheeks, causing the limp body to spring to life. The mannequin’s head jerked up along with her torso. In several clipped, mechanical movements, she slid off the surface, placing her naked feet on the floor. Her eyes flew open, fixing me with an empty glare.
“I don’t know what the fuck you are or what you want from me,” Philomena began, “but I’ve got weak nerd arms. So have fun dealing with this instead.”
I shrank back a step, the memory of Frankie picking me up like I weighed nothing fresh in my mind. Phil pressed her lips to the side of the puppet’s face, whispering something I couldn’t make out before quickly drawing aside. Before I could do so much as blink, the doll was upon me, crossing the distance between us in one impressive leap. She toppled me over, instantly reaching for my throat. I batted her cold, rubbery hands away, then pried her off of me with all my might. Using two of my tentacles, I flung her aside, sending her crashing into a shelf in the corner. Not wasting another second, I lunged at Wallis, delivering a blow to her head that sent her staggering. She sank back against her desk and I lashed out at her once more, briefly shutting my eyes to spare myself the sight of her face connecting squarely with the wooden surface as I bashed her down on against it.
She fell limp, and while I wasn’t sure if she was still breathing or not, I didn’t take the time to check. Her puppet was rising to her feet again, striding towards me in a vacantly determined fashion. I whirled around, bursting through the door and taking two steps at once. Frankie was waiting for me at the bottom of the metal staircase, his face falling when he caught my expression.
“Knocked her out,” I gasped. “We have a problem, though.”
Fran looked up at the glass door, the hinges of which were already groaning under the pressure of the mannequin throwing herself against it from the inside. With a sharp crack, a tear began to grow on the thick pane, and Frankie cursed loudly. “Get away from here!” he hollered, nudging me into the general direction of the woods. “I doused everything I could find down here,” he explained quickly. “If Phil’s out, I’ll do her room, too.”
“What about the—”
“Never you mind that! I can hold her off no problem.”
“I won’t—”
“You literally took out the one thing holding me back,” he insisted. “I’m not letting you get hurt out here. Just wait for me over by the trees.”
I still wouldn’t budge, so he grabbed a bunch of my tentacles and used them to turn me around. “Get your cute-ass face out of here, Sunshine!”
I started running, albeit reluctantly. A loud crashing noise rang out from behind me as the door burst under Phil’s puppet’s onslaught, but I forced myself to keep from turning around. Ignoring the searing hot feeling of panic raging inside my chest, I carried myself further and further away from the scene, only stopping when I reached the treeline. There, pressing myself up against the rough bark of the nearest trunk just to ground myself, I resigned to staring at the containers. I couldn’t see the waiter from where I was standing, but my eyes remained trained on the factory. They were gradually drying out, but despite the pain, I kept them wide open. I didn’t dare to blink.
For several minutes, all was still. The only sound I could hear was the frantic beating of my own heart and my pulse thrumming in my ears. Then, all of a sudden, inferno broke loose. Bright flames started to spread from around the sides of the building, quickly rising high into the sky. Crackling and roaring, they soon enveloped the entire site, lighting up the rooms behind the formerly dark windows. And emerging from the fire like a bird of myth came Frankie Preston. He was running, but with a light spring in his step that almost made it look like he was dancing.
He came to a halt in front of me, lifting his head to meet my gaze. His expression was difficult to read. It still looked empty, but in a different way. In a good way. “Hi,” he began.
“Hi.”
The firelight was bouncing off his curls and playing on his thick lashes, putting a reddish glint into his eyes. “You’re beautiful,” I added.
He drew in a little closer. No gasp preceded his smile. “Thanks.”
“How are you feeling?”
“I, uh… I don’t know yet.” He glanced between me and the burning containers.
“Okay. Take your time.” I stretched my arms and rolled my shoulders, shrugging my additional limbs back into the inside of my body.
“Say, where do they go when you don’t have them out?” Frankie asked with a raised brow.
“I never know.”
“Hm.” He turned to stand at my side. At first, his knuckles merely grazed mine, then he flipped his hand to link his fingers with mine. I briefly smiled at his profile, then went back to admiring the flames.
“Do you think the whole woods are gonna burn down?”
“Probably not,” he replied, shrugging. “Though that would be pretty cool…” He trailed off when I shot him a reprimanding look. “Yeah, yeah, we can call the fire fighters or whatever. Later, though, alright?”
I rested my head against the side of his arm. “Sure. Later.”
For a couple minutes, neither of us spoke. The only sound was the steady crackling and occasional thump as bit by bit, the structure collapsed. “So, um… this is pretty amazing,” Fran said in a low voice. “I mean, it’s not like I’ve never been happy before; my life’s kind of had its ups and downs, it’s just that this is better than any up there’s been so far. I guess I’m just really grateful and you ought to know that.”
“Don’t worry, I know.” I paused. “Can we get out of here? The place is starting to stink.”
He nodded agreeably and we turned our backs on the scene, only for our retreat to be abruptly stopped by a garbled, drawn-out screech. We spun around in perfect synchronicity. I couldn’t stop myself from letting out a sharp cry of shock. From the burning wreckage, a figure dragged itself forth on her hands. Philomena’s puppet had suffered immense damage in the fire. Her skin, obviously not made to withstand extreme heat, was melting off her face like molten candle wax. The wires that were bared beneath gave off angry sparks. She couldn’t seem to get up anymore, her legs were beyond repair and her movements overall were getting more and more arduous. She dug her fingers into the ground, pulling her body across the forest floor in slow, pained jerks.
“What the fuck? I thought I switched her off,” Frankie uttered beside me, sounding just as terrified as I felt.
“What do we do?” I exhaled the words in a single quick breath, unable to take my eyes off the doll.
“I got no idea… I-I don’t wanna deal with this…”
“We need to help her or something, she’s—she’s awake!” Before I could say anything else, the doll had emerged from the blaze. Rolling around, she managed to quench the remaining flames, pressing the dirt and leaves into her own dripping, melting body. Finally, she started trying to push herself up into a sitting position, only to fail miserably. I took a slow, tentative step towards her twitching form. Her face was contorted into a nightmarish grimace, and she let out an incomprehensible gurgle upon noticing me approaching. She reached out a mangled hand and I stumbled backwards before she could grab my ankle.
Despite the heat, beads of cold, fearful sweat were running down my face. I had no idea what to do. “We can’t leave her,” I said, my throat bone-dry. “There’s something in there, she’s not like before.”
Fran let out an exasperated, long-suffering sigh. “Is there any use in arguing?”
“Don’t be so cold.”
“Aren’t you used to it by now?”
I turned to look at him over my shoulder. He met my gaze and I could see something in his features change or perhaps even soften. He threw his head back, then pulled out his phone. “This is gonna ruin my night, but fine. I’m calling that insufferable news lady.”
X
1
2: deadbeat roommate
3: creepy crush
4: relocation
5: beach concert
6: First date
7: Temp work
8: roommate talk
9: a dismal worldview
10: warehouse
11: staircase
12: explanation
13: hurt
14: hospital
15: ocean
16: diner
17: government work
18: something in the caves
19: shopping cart
20: olms and Jewels
21: long hair
22: recruitment
23: waitresses
24: dollhouse

Hey guys, new member here
As you can see from the title, this feeling is the sole reason i hate flying so much. Somehow my body is so fucking sensitive to the change of altitude that I feel every single movement of the plane in my body, and I hate it. For those who maybe dont know its that rollercostery feeling you feel when you ride something that goes down fast.
For example i flew a few days ago, and after the take off I suddenly got intense sinking feeling and was sure we were losing altitude and were about to crash, it literally soured my holiday happines as i was so fucking anxious and on the edge the whole flight.
Anyone else with the same problem? Maybe tips how to overcome that feeling?
Thanks guys, and i wish you all clear sky and no turbulence 🤟

My 9 year old labradoodle doesn't eat his kibble enough. This isn't a new problem. Hes done this his entire life, with every single food. He likes it at first, then ignores it. He enjoys people food like chicken, meat and cheese, and has no problem eating those. In fact he's very food motivated. But not with his kibble.
Typically we don't have feeding times; we leave the bowl out and he takes bites when he's hungry. But it's clear that he isn't eating enough because he's pretty skinny. I want my dog to improve his health. Why does he do this, and what should I do?
Do you guys think establishing two mealtimes per day would solve this issue? If so, how can I start?

I have an almost 7-month-old long hair mini doxie named Opal.
Keep this in mind as I'm telling you what's going on: Her potty & bowel movements have always been regular and her mood and behavior have not changed since I brought her home, if anything she's just gotten more mature, playful, outgoing, and loving.
Ever since I got her at 9 weeks, she's always been super picky about food and has never been excited to receive meals, just treats. She doesn't even really show interest in water, it's only when she really needs it. The breeder started her on the Purina puppy kibble food program before I picked her up and I continued on with it up until now. As I said, she's never been excited about eating, so I've even tried changing up the mix. I've tried adding little pieces of carrots (her fav treats are carrots and blueberries), bone broth, mixing the Purina puppy wet food with dry, and now currently I've been feeding straight-up Purina puppy wet food and it's still not getting her to eat. At one point I even tried changing the producer of the food and nothing. When I do try all these changes, she may be interested for maybe a day or sometimes just the first meal but after that, she doesn't want to touch it. As far as wet food goes, I split cans and put the remaining in the fridge so at first I thought she doesn't like cold food. I'd let it sit there for just 10 min or so just to get that initial cold out of the food all the while trying to build up her anticipation and excitement to eat and that didn't solve it. Then I started getting the smaller cans which would allow her to eat more freshly opened food and she doesn't even want it at room temp right out of the can.
Since day 1, she's gone to work with me and we're situated in my own little office, so I've made sure that her feeding area is safe, quiet, and completely her zone. Same at home. Our Mon-Thur routine starts with me waking up at 5 am, taking her to the bathroom, and then she falls back asleep while I shower and get ready for the day. We get to work a little after 6 and then she lays back down in her bed until about 730 or 8. Sometimes she likes to stay up when we get to work and play so then I'll feed her around 7ish because her last meal was at 6 pm, but I try aiming to feed her at 8 am every day.
It wasn't until about 6 or 7 weeks ago that she really just stopped eating on our routine and only started eating when she was starving. A few days go by and she skips breakfast at 8 am in this new phase. At 930 am she started throwing up yellow foamy bile, she did that about 4 times and then dry heaved another 3 or 4 times. But after that is over, she's back to her normal and playful self. I called the vet as soon as they opened at 10 am. They asked me to come in at the end of the day since she was showing no other signs, symptoms, or behavioral changes. I brought her in and the vet did his exam and wanted me to bring her back the next day because he wanted to run some blood work and do xrays of her intestinal tract to make sure it wasn't a blockage.
I drop her off the next day and long story short he tells me blood work came back perfect but he finds what he thinks is a blockage where the small and large intestine meet. He asks me the basic questions "Has she eaten anything or gotten into anything that she wasn't supposed to?", "What kind of toys does she have? Did anything come off the toys?". Opal is by my side 23/7. The hour that she's not with me is when she's sleeping in the morning and I'm doing my routine or other misc. That being said I watch her like a freakin hawk, I see everything that she gets into (which isn't much), and I monitor her playing with toys or certain treats. I'm very confident in saying that. The vet sends me home with some Laxatone to give to Opal 3 times a day for the next couple of days and told me to monitor her poops. AGAIN her poops have always stayed regular, even if she didn't eat, she would still poop 2 times a day.
Over the next couple of days, I gave her the Laxatone and nothing much changed for her other than softer poops. So we go in for another check-up and he wants to do another round of X-rays to see what's going on in there. Later on in the day he calls and says what he thinks is a blockage is still in the same spot, so they gave her some Barium Sulfate so they could trace that going through her with more X-ray$. The next morning Opal passed the Barium Sulfate along with regular stool because again, there's been no problem in the poop dept. I take her to the vet again the next day and he takes more X-ray$$$ and tells me that whatever he thought was a blockage has now moved into her colon so that's good news. So we go about our daily routine and I'm waiting for whatever the "blockage" is to come out. During the 2 routine poops that day, it was regular poop and what looked like a small tangled hairball but nothing to make me go holy cow, that was the blockage.
This whole ordeal with the vet lasted about a week and after when kept wanting to do more X-ray$$$$ I just told the front desk lady that I'm going to take Opal to get a 2nd opinion so please forward me her medical records and all the xrays that the doctor took. I called the 2nd vet and requested an appt. and they say they would need the medical records and they would contact Opal's original vet for them. The original vet took a week to get Opal's file together and produce the X-rays for the 2nd vet.
During that time, I discovered that if Opal eats breakfast then she doesn't throw up, but if she doesn't eat breakfast, she throws up around 9:30 am every single time and it's always yellow and foamy. Correct me if I'm wrong but when we humans go a long time without eating, some of us will feel nauseous, right? I'm thinking that the same thing is happening for Opal, but she is such a picky eater that she'll literally wait to eat until the nauseous feeling overpowers her to the point of actually vomiting. Now she doesn't even want to touch her bowl, she just tries scooting the area around it with her nose but never touches the bowl. As a last resort, I tried feeding her with a spoon right out of her bowl, bringing her closer and closer with every bite until she was eating over her bowl or at least picking at enough to put something in her stomach.
Trust me, it's the last habit I want to create with her but I don't want to have to deal with the vomit later and/or her not feeling good. Regardless if she eats or not, she stays the same Opal, just throws up if she doesn't eat breakfast. Strange thing is that Opal is the only one out of her litter and family lineage to be experiencing these symptoms. In the past month, she's thrown up 1 morning and that's because we slept in really late and she woke up hungry as hell I guess.
Has anyone else experienced anything similar?

So I am not going to sugar coat this, I am asking for someone to let me operate a tower crane (or large crane) without a proper license.
Backstory: 5 years ago, I was traveling in Copenhagen with a good friend. We smoked a bowl of weed and as we looked out of my hotel room at the city, my friend looked at me and told me, “You know what, whatever you do with your life, I can guarantee there is one thing you will never be able to do.” I asked him “What?”, and he responded, “You will never sit in the seat and move a crane like that in your life”, as we looked out over the city’s distant construction.
Since that day it has been my life long goal to sit in the seat of a large crane (60 ft+) and move it a single inch. My friend has told everyone in my life about this bet, as well as everyone we meet, and I cannot lose this or it will haunt me for the rest of my life. I will pay anyone $500 cash to allow me to (under their close supervision of whatever means they feel necessary) sit in the seat of a giant crane and move it one inch in any direction, and then step out. I will fly anywhere in the country to do this.
Please let me know if anyone is up to help me win this bet.
If not, could you please let me know the shortest path is to being able to operate such a crane, even under an apprenticeship?