Hey everyone,
I don’t usually post here but I felt compelled after having read so much wisdom everyone shared here to make each other feel better.
In 2018, I was diagnosed with IBS and it was really horrible, from agoraphobia, to anxiety, isolation, depression, stomach pain, bathroom emergencies, bloating, visceral hypersensitivity, I would starve to actually go places, etc (all the usuals). Doctors would prescribe me with pills that didn’t help and would say that they do not know what to do. I felt horrified being left on my own to try to control this thing that was uncontrollable. I also developed PTSD from it, or it was the other way around, I’m not sure. In the end, I was even weighing 39 kg.
My back story that may matter for this is that prior to being diagnosed with IBS, I had panic attacks, and was prescribed Xanax for it which I didn’t take properly (I only took half of the pill) because I was scared. In the end, I successfully resolved panic attacks with family constellations in therapy. After a few months or a year, after some trigger in my trauma I developed IBS, but wasn’t aware that it is very much in the mind and not a physical condition. My mom is a narcissist and my father is an addict, their marriage is toxic and destructive, and they try to suck everyone in on their problems. I was a people pleaser, didn’t know how to say no, I was uncomfortable expressing my feelings, I put needs of others before mine, my role in life was being there for other people, solving their problems and such. I was also codependent in friendship and family.
The thing that helped me get better and cured was going to therapy and changing myself and healing. It is not overnight solution, I know, but once I started to resolve this issues, I was IBS free. I couldn’t eat so many food, but it ALL changed. I was happy, travelling, eating whatever I want, I was free. I also did hypnotherapy for the residual PTSP.
After 6 years of being complete symptom free, two weeks ago I developed my symptoms again, due to very emotionally and psychologically stressful period that lasted for 8 months, and when I decided to go no contact with my family, it came back. I read that usually anxiety or physical symptoms of it can show up not during the stressful time itself but after the stress goes away.
I plan to start my therapy again and do psychosomatic work. I know many therapists who said IBS is curable, and that often chronic pain and autoimmune diseases stem from not putting up boundaries and psychological distress. Also the gut-brain axis is a huge part of it. The loop, the vicious circle, is the same vicious circle you are stuck in when having depression or anxiety. Both feed each other, and it’s tough to come out of it but I just wanted to say here that you CAN!
Best of wishes to everyone 💕

Does Coffee and Other Stimulating Plants Affect Addison's or Cortisol?
I have symptoms similar to Addison's. when I drink coffee I feel more tired, dizzy, foggy head I also have fatigue with rhodiola and saffron.
How can I get tested for Addison's? TSH, T3, T4, morning cortisol, ACTH, DHEA were normal. I have also lost 10 kilos in the past 6 years. My psychological symptoms are difficulty concentrating especially when I am dizzy, is that a sign of low cortisol? Then I have more depressive feelings, I quickly become oriented! If there is little cortisol, also little glucose? I think my psychological complaints are caused by this! I also have this when I eat pure sugars, I feel light-headed, cannot concentrate well and I become depressed, I want to eat more to get more energy. It's a vicious circle. Anxiety, obsessive thoughts, hypochondria, paranoid thoughts! Muscle pain, fibromyalgia that was diagnosed by several doctors. also have low libido, constipation, bloated stomach, digestion problems, blurred vision. I have no headaches, high blood pressure is rather on the low side. Can MCAS, histamine intolerance also cause these complaints? Normally high histamine would cause palpitations, blood pressure increase, redness, flushing,... I have low blood pressure and heart rate! I have dry eyes, muscle twitching, sometimes urinating regularly but not always, my heart beats faster during exertion and I feel dizzy. Normally my heart rate is around 66, blood pressure around 10/7.
Would long-term MCAS or histamine intolerance cause Addison Disease, adrenal hypo function, Hypopituitarism, congenital hypopituitarism? Are there people who first had histamine, MCAS before they were diagnosed with Addison's or other problems with adrenal glands, HPA axis, pituitary glands?

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Ceele strolled through the damp grass along the outskirts of the village, a spring in her step and the dwindling scent of dew following behind. It rained yesterday, which had prevented her from going out to gather supplies, but the mild morning air had been accommodating enough for her to get an early start and make the trip. She was glad she did.
One hand clutched her new prize to her chest, while the other held a fraying wicker basket filled with herbs and some edible roots she gathered by exploring the forbidden forest. Despite her reservations regarding where she chose to go, her excitement now lingered like a steady thrum of shifting stones, giving her energy that defied how long she had been walking. She all but pranced beneath the burgeoning night's sky, gleefully toeing the line between the dirt pathways of the settlement’s outskirts and the trees of unclaimed land. Normally, her path back home would never be so close to the village, but she was far too gleeful to mind. She had come back with a sense of fulfillment and a rare object—or if not rare, then hopefully of great value.
It was hard to point to any one specific reason that she came across the orb. There had always been a ‘draw’ during her travels, urging her that there was something missing in her life, yet it was no more than a mild whim to walk in a particular direction more often than not. Once she reached this part of the continent, she was compelled to wander, never quite able to explain why she obliged the sensation besides having nowhere in particular to be. Even when she finally settled somewhere, it stayed in the back of her mind, suggesting that she was close to whatever would make the pit of vacancy go away. She ignored it, purposefully distracting herself with her work and responsibilities, yet that could only last so long. When she awoke this morning with plans to resupply, and all of her newfound spots had been picked clean by wildlife, she turned to the depths of the forest where she was warned not to tread. It was all too easy to follow the subtle tug in her chest through the loose justification.
The urge to be somewhere grew unbearable with every step closer to the forbidden area. That sense of having a direction she needed to go became stronger and stronger, until she was well into land long since forgotten. She came across an overgrown depression in the hillside, and was entranced by the foreboding image. Something about the cave just…beckoned her. She was far too weak to resist.
Horrible tales echoed into her ears as whispers of fearful voices, warning and unending, yet but a dull drone compared to her hammering heart. She navigated the trees and brushed aside unkempt vines, stepping into the cavern with a mix of expectation and trepidation, then laid eyes on the small obsidian stone perched atop a crumbling pillar. The feeling of needing to travel somewhere…stopped.
The pull was absent, which was why she held the orb close instead of placing it into her basket. She wasn’t sure what it was exactly, but she recalled overheard tales of hidden gemstones, deep cavernous expanses, and the untold terrors that lay within. Comparing the scenes of those fables to the cave seemed foolish now; it wasn’t some torturous chamber, but a dusty depression in a small hillside. Besides, anything this pretty was sure to be worth a fair sum, and she needed the coin. Yet the thought of selling the precious-looking stone was a conflicting one. She shook off the thought for the time being, turning her attention back towards where she was going.
Shadows stretched and faded as the moon stole the last of the illumination afforded by the sun, replacing it with a calming glow that caressed the log frames and thatched roofs of various homes. A star-filled sky came into prominence as clouds lazily drifted away, revealing the promise of tomorrow’s fair-weathered arrival. It was too late for anyone to notice her treading on the edge of their town while lost in thought, but she was still careful not to get too close to the houses or livestock pens where people might be finishing the evening’s duties. It was best that they didn’t see her returning from a place she was told not to go. Still, her feet carried her near the dwellings as she took in the noises.
Ceele enjoyed the comforting chatter from a distance. Indistinct words floated freely. Meaningless gossip and warm goodbyes were exchanged between friends and family. Places of various occupations were dark and quiet, only the faint contented mewls and clucks of livestock coming from their pastures as they ate what was recently put out for them. No metal rang throughout the streets as it was struck inside a centralized smithy, no heated bartering came from an overactive trade house, and the crunch of dirt beneath transport or merchant wagons was absent, replaced by the rapid steps and yelps of children rushing to their homes before it got too dark out. It was all just gentle conversation and life drifting through the wind, taking the rustle of leaves along for the ride, just so she could hear it. Tranquil, in a word.
She wondered what it would sound like if she were yet one more voice within that crowd of kindness. Would it be loud like the larger cities? Would she struggle to maintain a thought with so many stray topics floating about? Would she once more yearn for the peace and quiet of solitude that she had grown used to, or would she immerse herself, free of judgment and laughing like the carefree young that scampered about? Did thinking about it even matter?
Her smile fell from its genuine intensity—still worn, but not as fully. She glanced downward as her stride lost its jubilant bounce, her tail losing its sway as her grey eyes examined the dry black scales that adorned her body against her wishes. It was the ugly hue of tarnished oil, unlike the skin of any other kobold she had met. Some had reds or greens, yellows or whites, while most were between a sandy tan or earthen brown. The rainbow of peculiarities was displayed by the lucky few, and she was one of them…
…Yet she was different in the worst of ways.
Even if she would rather any other colour, she supposed it was that way to make sure no one came near without accepting the unspoken risks. That was what her mother always said, anyway, though the woman hardly feared much of anything in her old age, and dedicated herself to giving her offspring all the love she had left to give—a perk of living a full life. She would always help her daughter bathe, complimenting the colour of what most were unnerved by. That was more than a decade ago now, however. Ceele’s parents had passed on while she was still young, and she took to travelling not long after, working at what she could to afford what little she needed. Never for long, though—just enough to get to the next town between where she was and where the urge to go lay. There were certainly moments she looked back on fondly, but the journey had taken its toll.
The crude material of her ‘dress’ was coarse, old, and heavy, but it helped ease the worst of spring's chill—even if it was more of a modified sack than proper attire. Still, it was all she had after the last of her clothing fell apart, and giving the repurposed material a name that reminded her of something else made it less uncomfortable to wear, somehow. It would have to do until she could afford a pitying seamstress or the like. Until then, she would pretend she didn’t look so desperate, even if it only highlighted her status and made finding work difficult.
But it did. The dishevelled garment was a far cry from the wonderful silks or breathtaking designs she had seen some women wear, harshly marking the distinction between herself and those of affluence. The clothing of commoners was also a leap in style and quality, so she couldn't say her attire was up to even modest standards. No matter how hard she squinted, and no matter how much she fantasized otherwise, she seemed every bit like the vagrant she was, down to the soil embedded in the curvature of her claws and the stains throughout her fabrics. She looked like a serf from the more oppressed lands, yet they too wore crude cottons, which said a lot about how she appeared to those who had never lived a life of servitude. It was obvious that she was an outsider. That she didn't belong amongst the rest. It made changing something as simple as her appearance all the more difficult; prospective employment always saw a young woman who seemed more likely to steal or swindle than make an honest day’s living.
There was one good twist of fate in recent memory, however, and she came upon the result of it after leaving the slowing bustle of the village behind. Her steps carried her through a small copse of trees on the outskirts of town, the small shaded path leading to the back of a large, carefully pruned clearing, a scattering of fruit-bearing trees providing even darker shadow than the already dim moonlight. She skirted along the aging fence on the border that kept predatory animals away, carefully hoisting herself over the barrier where a large vegetable garden she was responsible for tending resided. If one were to tell her she would be living in such an area several months ago, she would have smiled politely and walked away, yet here she was.
A modest, warmly lit home occupied the middle of the clearing, sitting front and centre when one approached from the village path. It looked quite cozy, surrounded by berry bushes that were just beginning to bloom as the last dregs of winter slipped away. A front patio displayed a nice table and well-loved chairs, the rustic appearance only adding to its charm as a place where friends and family spent the warm summer afternoons. A smithy to the left of the house functioned as an additional heated building during the colder months, but usually served as a storefront and to muffle the sounds of hammered iron, though that had become less common. An old stable was nearby, close enough to be accessible, but not so close as to disturb the once occupying animals with sounds of iron craft. It hadn't seen a horse in quite some time, apparently, so it was mostly a workshop for whatever tasks didn’t require fire or metal.
There was a long history attached to each little detail—from the scuffs along the wooden siding to the depressions in the ground where daily routine wore into the earth. Every fault suffered throughout the years was matched by a thousand quirks that made it feel welcoming, like the house itself was merely waiting for the next friendly face with one of its own. She knew that the inside of each building would look just as cared for.
Her concern lay outside, however. It was a comparatively miniscule space just barely visible through the sheltering trees, true, yet it was where her efforts turned into tangible results, and where a stranger’s trust was painstakingly repaid. Once overgrown grass had been laboriously trimmed, the weeds plucked and disposed of, and now nothing distracted from what she could claim she had done.
The small plots of rock-bordered soil had little buds of growing vegetables, a sense of pride never failing to bloom in her breast with the knowledge that it would be barren without her touch. When her troubles and concerns grew heavy, and fears of the future or spectres of the past loomed over her head, she could look at where she had brought life where it wouldn't otherwise be. Some days, that was enough. She smiled in appreciation at what was admittedly amateur work, the night’s sky helping to hide any inevitably made mistakes.
She enjoyed the sight for a moment longer, then turned to walk towards a neglected old tool shed that was well out of sight within the trees, far away from whatever warmth and comfort the larger house offered to everyone and anyone. She put a hand on the degrading wood of the entryway, giving one last sad smile at the garden as she dismissed selfish thoughts of taking the eventual harvest for herself. A breath cleared the uncertainty from her voice, and she pushed open the door.
“I'm home!”
= = = = =
It took a while for Altier to adjust to his situation, and even once he accepted that his mana wasn't being siphoned, he was still reeling from confusion. He had spent centuries with every year passing by without his notice, yet now he was painfully aware of each creeping second languidly dragging on with the expediency of growing grass. It was as disorienting as it was painfully nostalgic.
Time was something he was never good with, and it only got worse as a dungeon. He'd get lost in creating rooms, corridors, creatures, and whatever else needed doing, only pausing to watch or listen to the few adventurers he became interested in. There was a stint where he spent what felt like hours agonizing over new abilities or options while he let the system manage things in the background, though he supposed it might have been much longer. So many wasted days, yet he still hadn't managed to try everything he had gained access to. Some abilities were simply too niche, came with concerning titles, or held descriptions that made him wary. Anything with ‘Decay’ in the name was instantly ignored—he didn't need more reasons to fear his affinity, and from the few he took the effort to read through, they were always vile.
But his existence for the moment was no longer like those endless stretches spent pondering the minutiae of what would help his adventurers grow stronger. Now, he could follow the rhythmic sounds of footsteps and steady breathing that set a calming pace. They were someone else's, yes, but they contextualized how easy it was to slip away without the subtle noises of life that he had long since surrendered to help his family. Of course, there were more differences that he noticed since being removed from his crumbling cavern, and his sight was the newest change.
He never gave much thought to how far he could see before. Why would he? As a man, his world extended as far as he could fathom, yet was also confined to the room where he spent his days, and as a dungeon… Well, who was he to consider distance when an event happening miles away could be seen with a flicker of thought? Nothing was too far when it was within his creation. Or his ‘body,’ he supposed. Sadly, his entire perception currently consisted of the small sphere of his obsidian core, and maybe a finger's length beyond it—which is to say, not much. He could make out the fine details in the dirty burlap he was held against, and how pale moonlight slowly took over the blurred reds of sunset, but hardly anything more. It was all just frosted colours after a certain point, and he found it infinitely frustrating. He just wanted to peer beyond the haze and scaly hand holding him to confirm that the sky he remembered was still there. Alas, the sunlight faded at too quick a pace, yet one oh so agonizingly slow.
The ensuing darkness gave him nothing to do but think about where he was, not that he had any ideas. He was too curious about why he wasn't dead to bother much with his blurry surroundings after the soft-spoken kobold abducted him, thus why he only belatedly noticed how limited his worldview had become. There might have been a forest beyond his cave, but the greens and browns were gone, and the sounds of steps through brush was replaced by the distant din of a village. An idle curiosity pondered if he would recognize any descents of his ‘family tradition’ adventurers there, but he was being carried by what most considered a monster, so likely not.
That short musing was short-lived, however, and he brought his focus back to the matter at hand. He supposed he was being taken somewhere specific, but that was an obvious deduction, considering he was taken at all. The why of the matter was less so; for what purpose would someone want a Decay-aligned core? He hadn’t heard of them before…well, before he was made into one, but he couldn’t imagine many uses. Maybe he was being sold? His…kidnapper? His sudden companion seemed rather pleased by their discovery of him, so that might be the case, and it was morbidly amusing to think that a frail, sickly young man might one day become a coveted, highly valuable item. His abduction could also be a part of some cult’s nefarious activities, but he didn't want to think about that too hard. He experienced enough odd ceremonies from the adventurers who took the time to tell him their tales.
Either way, he wasn't in the dungeon anymore, and he couldn’t see where he was going. He tried to query his menu to glean an answer, but was met with a scrambled mess he suspected read ‘Synchronizing…’ and little else. It gave him a headache trying to make sense of it—which he didn't know was possible anymore—so he dismissed the text and distracted himself with blurs from whatever diluted senses he still had. There wasn’t much to observe other than the constant footfalls and the flicker of shadows on his companion’s burlap garment. They might have travelled through brush again, but it was too dark to really say for certain.
Eventually, there was something new. He heard an old latch rattle and rusted door hinges groan, then a shuddered clack that confirmed he was now in a building. His kobold acquaintance gently cooed at something before moving about the nearly pitch-black space, finally setting him down on a… He wasn’t sure what it was, besides old and wooden.
[D$#@m$n E@$*ded]
The headache from before became a blinding migraine that suffocated him under a flash-flood of suffering. Seconds passed in abject torture until it blissfully abated, the mental blinks clearing his mind enough to notice a change in his existence. Specifically, he could actually see something besides the rotting wood grain he was placed on top of.
And it wasn’t anything promising…
He was more or less in the centre of a room no bigger than twelve paces by maybe ten. Not a terrible size for a space, but it was clearly never meant to house someone. His resting place looked about as neglected as he surmised; it was an upturned feeding trough, he supposed, since calling it a table seemed too generous. The surface was rife with holes and degraded iron, so it was something that once saw regular use before being replaced and tossed into storage, never to see the light of day again.
Actually, most things in the room seemed to fit that description. The window shutters were installed with metal hinges that had since rusted them closed, the misalignment letting in a draft—and whatever weather was outside as well, most likely. A poorly carved bowl sat on the floor, the stain beneath it hinting that it collected any rainwater that slowly dripped from the leaky roof. The wooden floorboards looked old, splintered, and in need of maintenance or replacement, though an effort had been put into abrading it somewhat smooth lately.
A tiny and decrepit fireplace was to the left of the door upon entry, its brickwork slowly crumbling due to weathering and age. It was sized more for keeping the room warm during mild days than to keep away the frigid chill of night. Its base only held cold ashes, but there was a collection of deadwood and scraps nearby, so that would probably be rectified soon. A small wheel-less cart had been turned into storage against the opposite wall, some herbs and other foraged items stowed away in it for future use. Various things he remembered seeing his father and brothers use in the fields were scattered about, too. It was nostalgic to see, honestly, even if his recollections had blurred over time.
Bundles of tattered blankets formed a pair of nests in the far corner, the smaller of the two had a pile of rough plants nearby. That answered his silent pondering of the room's purpose somewhat, though he was pretty sure the bedding material was salvaged, and there didn’t seem to be any hay or padding underneath whoever was sleeping on it. He didn’t know what to think about the weeds; they were purposefully placed there, and whoever did so had taken the time to wash them, but it was still strange.
He couldn’t see a doorway besides the entrance, yet most of the hallmarks of residency were put where space could be afforded, however crude. All in all, he surmised that it was a gardening shed of sorts, and his new acquaintance apparently lived here. He wasn't sure what he was expecting when a creature he had only read about came into his dungeon, but it wasn't being brought to a rundown and decrepit shack for unknown purposes.
Even if he had been raised by parents who made a humble living at the best of times, and they had emptied their coffers for unsuccessful attempts to ease his ailments, his acquaintance's living space made him uncomfortable. His family's house was never anything fancy, true—it shared some of the worn qualities that inevitably gathered over the years—but it was never this bad. His home benefited from a father's touch keeping it robust and a mother’s love keeping it warm, whereas this place had seen neither in quite some time. Oh, there was evidence that such was once the case; a wall was adorned with carefully made and well-spaced hangers for the various gardening tools, though the implements themselves had become a victim of neglect. That being said, he could make out the fresh soil and recent scratches exposing furrows of silver, so they were seeing use again.
A scrape and clack of flint drew his attention to his kobold companion. They were kneeling in front of the fireplace, methodically sparking life back into a dead flame with twigs and dried leaves. A slow, steady breath into the reddened base illuminated its face with a dull orange glow, revealing its weary visage and the permanently etched smile that rested beneath its cold grey eyes. The black-scaled kobold looked tired, if he were to guess—much the same as Altier did when he spent countless days watching everyone living a life he could never have through the mossy window of his bedroom. He was probably humanizing it too much. Still, he was surprised by the muted pang of sympathy, and how he would feel much more than blithe curiosity after spending so much time alone in the crumbling crypt of his own making.
A mental breath cycled through him as he looked at the odds and ends yet to be observed. Hardly anything else was of note—everything else was degraded and neglected, too. He did notice a nest of blankets move though, which was as good a distraction as any. The answer to his previous ‘pile of weeds’ inquiry poked a tiny nose from a crease in the fabric, then rapidly pawed at the blankets to dig itself out. Altier stared at the creature in both recognition and confusion.
It was a rabbit…or at least it looked like one, assuming you were to also describe a porcupine and a sea urchin as well. He was pretty sure he didn’t remember any hare that had jagged metal-tipped fur, nor that had said fur arranged into a row of spiked horns that flowed down its spine, terminating at a large fluffy tail, which was equally bizarre to see. The whole of its coat could double as a weapon, with semi-sharp barbs sticking off seemingly at random, yet he remembered an adventurer saying most animals used that sort of thing defensively. He increased his focus as he tried to make sense of the odd creature. Surely he would have heard about—
[Hoppittttttt#%%÷ — Ferro-o-orabbit-it (Ma%$le)
Abil—]
[Null]
[Er0Rrrrrrrr—]
[Und#$f—]
He bit back the pain caused by the sudden intrusion of his menu, blanking out the text and mentally retreating to hide from the source. Did he just inspect something? How? Shouldn’t his entire…‘framework,’ was it…? Yes, that was it. Shouldn’t that have been corrupted? Why could he see the creature’s information when his entire framework was damaged? That was the first ability he lost, so why is it the first to be functional? How was it functional? Was it? It did just spit garbled text at him, but it was something, and that was more than he had gotten from it in a very long time. If it was somehow working—no matter how poorly—then that left the question of why he hadn't heard of anything called a ‘ferrorabbit’ before, assuming he read that correctly.
A soft thud vibrated the tro— table, startling him out of thought. He turned his attention to the button nose wiggling erratically at him, the short, stubby muzzle leading to surprisingly expressive and curious red eyes. Dull brown fur jutted off in random tufts and patches, changing to a darker tint on its paws and the upper half of its ears, while the tips of its spikes were a muted hue of iron. It still seemed just as soft as the less pointed variety he remembered, if a touch dirty. Upright ears twitched this way and that way as its head vigorously shook, eventually settling on pointing in his direction when it calmed down enough.
It was apparent that he had its undivided attention…for all of a few seconds. His scaly companion called something out in their foreign tongue, and whatever conclusion the pointy-furred animal came to, it seemed more interested in the kobold, parting from him after nudging his core with its nose.
[Cre-e-e—]
[Errrrrrr0r: Undefiiiiiiii—]
[Acceeeeep-t-t-t??]
[Yeeee— s s / Nnnnnnn—]
He winced at the intrusion, but the contents detracted from the pain. He couldn’t remember the system ever asking him a question without his explicit intent being involved. It wanted him to…accept something? Was it the system prompting him, or the animal? What was he to accept?
[Creatuuuuu—]
[Acce-e-e-%#@ed!]
…What?
= = = = =
“Hoppit, that's not food!” Ceele admonished half-heartedly, placing a larger branch on the burgeoning flame before she got to her feet. She wasn’t actually that worried; the stone was as big as his head, and she was pretty sure he couldn't bite into it. Hopefully. “Come here, momma has a treat for you!”
The ferrorabbit playfully bumped the gemstone and jumped off the low table, landing with a soft thud that belied how heavy he was for his tiny size. He wiggled in excitement, his ears flailing and releasing a slight clack whenever the two connected. It got even louder when she grabbed her basket and put away the useful herbs, taking out a specific item that she had gathered just for him. The little bun wasted no time in scurrying over and standing tall on his hind legs to judge if the offered plant was to his liking—and it was, based on how he dug in with enthusiasm. She stifled a laugh as she contentedly watched him nibble away on the treat, ignoring the guilt that came with knowing she couldn't afford proper vegetables for him. He had a hard life too, and it tore at her to have so little to give.
She came across Hoppit a year ago, during a storm that worsened while she was travelling between towns. The day had darkened to night in spite of it still being about noon, but the weather didn't care for how bright it was supposed to be. Wind and rain became a typhoon, forcing her to seek shelter in a thankfully abandoned den of what was probably a larger animal. She was fine with waiting out the squall, since the stone roof over her head was more than she usually had back then, but the sounds of dull bangs and thuds near her hideaway was followed by cries of animals yelping in pain. Curiosity won over reason, and she left the safety of her shelter to see what was causing the disturbance. Truthfully, she was hopeful that she'd come across scraps or the like, her hunger driving her forward, and she could always turn back if it seemed dangerous. Yet when she arrived at the source of the commotion, she found herself thinking of anything but food.
Two predators had fought over a small burrow, both trying to dig out a meal and taking offence to the other doing the same. What they didn’t know was that they were assaulting the home of ferrorabbits. Specifically, the home of an angry, protective, and well-fed mother that was keeping her newborns safe from the storm when predators decided to try their luck. From the scene Ceele came across, it was certainly obvious why most people dislike trying to hunt the creatures.
Sadly, the rabbit didn't survive an attack from two predators, but she did make their victory pyrrhic; neither could do much about their hunger with their bodies full of cuts and holes, and it was only a matter of time before they succumbed to blood loss or infection. The mother's sacrifice meant that the babies had avoided the imminent threat, but they were left unattended as a consequence, and it took an opportunistic bird swooping down to shake Ceele out of her shock. Despite her subsequent hurry, she only acted in time to save one of the orphaned young. The warren was new and barely dug out, which meant that it didn’t take much effort for the kits to be found—by both her and hungry maws. All she could do was scoop the ball of fluff into her arms and run back to the cave before anything else tried to eat it.
In retrospect, it was a stupid decision for a number of factors. She barely had the resources to supply herself, and an attempt to raise offspring of any type would only make the inevitable heartbreak worse. But when she saw how quiet and scared he was… How his tiny, shaking body calmed in her arms, those terrified red eyes seeking comfort… She should have just walked away when she knew there wasn’t going to be anything to fill her stomach. She should have put the baby animal down and let nature take its course…yet the preciously furry face stole her heart far too quickly for it to grow so cold. The next day was spent backtracking to the nearest town to get him something suitable to eat, which used most of her meagre savings. Still, it was worth every coin.
Hoppit had been accompanying her ever since. He grew quickly, transitioning from something she saved that stormy night into a presence she had grown to love like a child. The little lagomorph would bounce along beside her during her travels, then ride in her arms as he rested—though the latter happened with worrying frequency as of late. She hadn’t learned much about the springy herbivores, but she knew enough to say that he wasn't as big as he should be, nor was his fur as sharp. No matter how startled he was, his spiky coat never managed to do more than stiffen slightly, which was apparently a side effect of poor diet, according to snippets of conversation she had overheard on the topic. She wanted him to be healthy, but she didn't know what he needed. Not many farmers raised ferrorabbits, and those that did were far away, so she didn’t have anyone to ask what she should be doing. Her best course of action was to give him what little she had.
Ceele was well aware of how he would be better off on his own, but he followed her whenever she tried to set him free. Hoppit just kept launching into her arms and wiggling his ears, ecstatic that he was with her again, uncaring that food was scarce and that they spent most of their days travelling. No amount of cold nights spent bundling up under the tattered blankets she managed to find ever dampened his spirits, and he was content to eat the grass or flowers whenever he felt like it, oblivious to the fact that he wasn’t getting enough nutrition. He would dig and excitedly drag back oddities that he found, and the one time he found a plant that looked particularly good for him, he insisted that it be shared with her.
A black pit still lingered in her chest when she recalled how pleased he was while he munched on the rare vegetable he discovered, then how distressed he became when she wouldn’t have any as well. He bumped and nipped at her, all but begging her to eat. His ears pinned back against his head, his fur bristled in a way she hadn’t seen since. It was only when she took a small bite and let him inspect the new teeth marks that he seemed to calm down, but perhaps she had been looking too deep into the actions of her tiny friend. All she could say for certain was that he was scared she was going hungry.
A morbid thought wondered if his first mother had refused food shortly before being attacked, and he—as small and simple as he was—had connected the two events in his mind, making him absolutely terrified that something would happen if Ceele didn’t have something too. All of that fear, and desperation overwhelmed him, just because she was happier watching him eat. She was determined to erase that issue. She would find something that needed a worker and earn enough to feed them both. One day, she would be able to smile at how big and healthy her little fluffy boy had become, but until then, it was becoming increasingly difficult not to think about how she was spending so much time growing vegetables and fruit that he couldn’t have…
Every morning was an exercise in tending to the gardens while actively shoving down images of a pleased ferrorabbit happily eating the results. That never went well; no matter how determined she was to complete her duties without a single selfish thought, most tasks were done while picturing his full belly and delighted bounces. There were a few weeks until the fastest of the crops would be ready for harvest, and Ceele would have to collect them while fighting the urge to bring back just a few for him.
She couldn’t, because she knew exactly how quickly that could escalate. It would start small—A vegetable here, a fruit there—but seeing Hoppit happy was one of the precious few good things she had in her life. Crossing the line would only become easier each time. They couldn’t risk losing their new home over greed, and she was already betraying the trust given to her by housing a wild animal, especially one known to be a pest for crops. She didn't want to know how angry it would make her benefactors if she was caught taking their vegetables for one.
No matter how tame and precious Hoppit was, and no matter how well he listened, they would only see him as the same creature that ruined harvests in droves. Thus was why she had to tell him to stay cooped up by himself while she was working or scavenging. And to her surprise, he did.
Honestly, she had made the initial request with the expectation of needing to carry him back into their home until he understood that she wasn’t leaving him forever. There wasn’t much she could do to stop the ferrorabbit from digging through the old wooden building if he wanted to get out. He wouldn’t need to damage anything either—a rotting board on the door only needed a little push to nudge it out of the way, and his natural curiosity made sure he was aware of it. But no, Hoppit was well-behaved as always, keeping hidden until she walked through the door, where he would leap from the shadows to personally show her how good he was and how he stayed put like she asked him to. It never stopped amazing her that he had such a surprising level of understanding despite being an animal, and that was to say nothing of how young he was.
All that intelligence, joy, and companionship he offered her…and yet the best she could give back to him was the weeds from the garden and the odd plant she found while scavenging…
Soft clacks of flicking ears dragged her from her pondering, her mind returning to the present. Hoppit finished his treat of the small plant, then bounced in place and scurried over to his bowl of water, perfectly happy to have eaten only that. He was so joyful with how little she provided, approaching every day of scarcity with the same enthusiasm she could never muster, as if certain that everything would be alright.
“It’s bedtime, Hoppit,” Ceele announced through a soft sigh, stoking the fire with enough branches to hopefully last the night. The ferrorabbit perked an ear in her direction, then sat on his haunches to extend the rest of himself up, his two little forepaws adorably held to his chest as he inspected the room like he always did. She smiled and made sure everything was stored away, then laid down on her bundle of blankets, covering herself with the warmest one. Hoppit bolted over to snuggle once he decided everything in the shed was up to his standards, throwing himself to the floor in a dramatic flop of comfort. Her quiet laughter subsided as they both settled in for the night, her tail completing the rabbit’s encompassing cuddle, but her eyes fell towards the obsidian orb on the table, her thoughts following suit.
It sat there, just as she left it, as benign as anything else ever placed atop the improvised furnishing. Yet there was a sense of ease and purpose as well. The old wooden trough seemed…important with its adornment firmly laid upon its surface, and she couldn’t puzzle out why. She was starting to doubt her earlier excitement.
Should she sell it? Would anyone know where it came from? Would anyone know what it was, or if it was worth anything? If she could get even a modest sum for it, she would be able to buy clothing, food, and new bedding. It would be easier to convince someone to give her work if she was dressed better and wasn’t so thin, and then she would have the income to slowly improve both of their lives. She could pay for a wandering merchant to ask a ferrorabbit rancher about the animal, even if it would take time to get back to her, or maybe she could hire a local if they needed to go near one for some reason. The cost didn’t matter to her as long as it happened.
But there was something else bothering her about the idea of selling the stone. She had travelled so far with a tug in her chest, only for the feeling of wanderlust to dissipate as soon as she held it. Was that a sign? She was never one for things like ‘fate,’ but a niggling doubt in her mind discouraged the idea of making a profit off her discovery. Even if what she could gain was so very tempting, and even if Hoppit would be happier if she did…
She tore her dampened eyes away and closed them, ignoring the burning trails running across her face. It would be another early morning, and she needed to sleep so she could take care of the garden. Decisions like this could wait. Once she had nothing else distracting her, and she had time to properly think about it, she would see how she felt about the stone.
Eventually, she dozed off with Hoppit pressed against her chest, and a longing in her heart.
Next
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A/N: Patreon and Ko-fi will be 1 chap ahead this time around, and I've set it so everything from the lowest tier up can read the newest trashfire! Anything above that is sheer show of love. Hope you enjoyed!

So for some context my partner and I have been having unprotected sex for coming up on 10 months now, I got my IUD removed September 2023. I’ve been on birth control essentially since I started puberty (about 9 years ago now, I’m 20) because of my heavy periods. It’s not like we’re trying to get pregnant, we are just letting things be more natural because I’m so sick of birth control. I was having painful periods and stress induced bleeding while on my IUD, but after I got it removed it’s like a whole new world for me. My periods are extremely regular, don’t last that long and are never late by more than a day. My flo app is actually super good at detecting my period. For the last few months I almost always start my period on the exact prediction date. But this month I was supposed to start my period on Monday (27/05), and it’s now almost Sunday (02/06) and nothing. My boobs are super sensitive which I haven’t had since I got my very first period at 12 years old, my stomach is more sensitive to foods & I’m also peeing like a race horse. My flo app has been telling me I’m late for a few days now too (& it’s been telling me to test) which ever since getting the app, has never happened to me. I took a test on Monday for fun and it was strange. Normally when I test the control line shows up as the pee goes across the test, but this time it took 5+ minutes for the control line to become somewhat clear. I also found out you’re supposed to only dip it in the cup/stream for 5 seconds exactly. A stopwatch or clock is even recommended. It’s literally so important that it’s in bold and underlined, but for some reason I didn’t read the instructions in a panic and literally kept it in the cup for like a minute because I wanted it to soak up as much as possible. Then to my surprise I find out that too much pee on a test will hinder the results. I retested on Friday (this was still before I knew too much pee can affect the results. I also tested at night both times after already drinking a lot of fluids throughout the day) and I thought I saw something while the pee was going across the test, but then my pasta sauce started boiling over and I forgot about it for the rest of the night so I actually don’t know what to think. Especially because the control line on that second test was also significantly fainter than I’ve ever seen. My long term partner and I are reasonably active (especially during ovulation) so it’s not like pregnancy is out of the question. My cycle is normally 28 days long, but I’m nearly on day 34. What should I do? Should I test again to see if I’m pregnant? In my 9 years of having a period this has never happened to me and I’m worried it’s now a sign of something more sinister like health problems… What do yall think?

Hi there… I have been diagnosed with PCOS which gradually over the years has stopped my period completely. I know symptoms during your period are a major factor in endo, BUT when I did have my period, it was very heavy, I’d have severe pain in my legs, severe cramping, lower back pain, and lots of clotting.
I am 25 years old. My period has gradually stopped completely over the years unless I am on a birth control, and I “bleed”(withdrawal bleeding) on the last week, otherwise off of it I have no period. I’m currently not on any sort of birth control, no periods…. A couple months ago I randomly had severe tailbone pain, pressure inside of my vagina, and uterine pains/cramping. This year it has happened a couple times… It wasn’t due to a period, I brushed it off blaming it on my cysts. But recently I’ve been EXTREMELY tired, nauseous, headaches. I am on the bigger side, I can always eat!! But lately I haven’t been able to and I am rapidly losing weight due to it. My partner and I had intercourse a couple days ago, my pelvic was so tight he could barely penetrate.. it was not a wet issue or anything like that, I tried to put my finger inside to see what he was talking about and that barely fit! We ended up stopping because it was hurting him. I have NEVER experienced pelvic dysfunction, along with that I’ve had discharge which I’m not used to whatsoever due to not having a cycle. Along with that, just odd feelings in my uterine area, not painful… almost like from my uterus down is inflamed and I am constantly aware and can feel it inside of me, if that makes sense? I’ve also had severe bloating in my stomach and swelling of my breasts. I didn’t think much of my fatigue and nausea until the issue with my pelvic… has anybody else had similar symptoms? I also have had GI issues the past couple of years and seem to have worsened the past year!!

Friends, you must’ve seen a lot of porn videos of gangbang. But have you ever heard about gangbang in reality? Yes! You read it right. Because today in this story I am going to tell you about my true incident, My Reverse Gangbang in School. Now, before you judge this post...let me tell you that all characters are 18+ in this post.
Friends, this is about those days when I used to study in 7th class in school. There were only 4 girls in my class, who were my classmates. Those days it was the rainy season and due to the rain, there were only 5–6 children in the whole school because it was raining very heavily.
Our class used to be held on the 2nd floor and only two girls had came to my class. When I went to the class, both of them were shocked to see me and were a little scared too because both of them were French kissing each other.
Hey, what is this? In the process of writing the story, I forgot to tell you the names of those two girls who were doing lesbian in the class, I mean, they were doing French kissing while sitting on each other’s lap. Their names were Anshika Singh and Rihanna Parveen.
At first, I was a little scared, thinking that they might shout but they did not do so. At first, I composed myself and asked if I should tell the teacher what were you two doing a while ago. Both of them got scared and started requesting me, “Please don’t tell anyone anything, we’re ready to do whatever you say, just please don’t tell anyone about this”.
Then a naughty idea came to my mind and I told them, “Okay then if that is the case then whatever you both were doing a while ago, you do the same with me too, all three of us will enjoy together, what fun is there in doing it alone”.
At first, both of them started throwing tantrums but later both of them agreed. By now you must have understood that I took full advantage of this opportunity, the school in which I studied was a government school and you all know the condition of government schools. That day most of the teachers were on leave due to heavy rain and the ones who had come were sitting in the staff room. We used to have recess after the 4th period and the interesting thing is that we spent all four periods free and on top of that we had reached school a little early.
Friends, the most interesting part of the story starts now. So the boys take their cock in their hands and the girls start fingering their vagina.
First Anshika started kissing me on my lips while on the other hand, Rihanna caresses my cock from behind over the pants. I started caressing Anshika’s boobs over her skirt itself and after kissing for about 10 min, Rihanna opened the zip of my pants and started masturbating.
Then after a while, Anshika takes put my cock in her mouth and gives me a nice blowjob. In the midst of all this, we were also looking towards the class gate so that no one would come and see us in that situation. What can I tell you, friends, as much as we were having fun at that time, at the same time we were also feeling scared. But fortunately, no one saw us because the rain was getting so heavy that no teacher could come to the class because the staff room was downstairs and where our class is held, that is on the 2nd floor, except our class, all other classes were completely empty and we three kept having sex like this till lunch.
But we three were not completely naked, yes, I had just pulled my pants down a little and Anshika and Rihanna had pulled down their panties from under their skirts.
In the first period, I ejaculated in Anshika’s mouth and in the second period, Rihanna drank my semen. By the third and fourth periods, I drank the semen of both girls of my class. One thing I forgot to tell you was that both of them weren’t virgins because both of their pussies were a little loose. Their boyfriends might have broken their sheils.
No one in the school knew that there was someone in the upper class because during lunch, we three, that is, me, Anshika and Rihanna, took our bags and went to the toilet.
Now you must be thinking that I am a boy, then how did I go to the girls toilet? Actually, in the name of boys toilet, there is just a drain and a wall at the back which is open from all sides and for No. 2, one has to go to the girls toilet. Till the end, we three stay inside and do a threesome there.
There are a total of 6 rooms inside. We three go to the last one. Now we take off our clothes and put them in our bags. Now all three of us were completely naked in front of each other. Seeing both of them naked, my cock got rock-hard again.
Seeing my erect cock, Anshika says to me:-
Anshika, “Hey Tarun, what is this? Your penis has become erect again”
I, “Then you calm it down again”
Anshika, “Okay then, here you go again!”
Now Anshika sits down and starts sucking my penis and Rihanna starts kissing me while standing and I keep pressing her boobs. Rihanna’s nipples were a little hard and light brown in color and what can I say about Anshika, friends, Anshika’s nipples were soft like cotton and pink in color.
I was sucking and pressing the breasts of both of them one by one. Then after a while, I inserted my penis in her pussy and fucked her hard. After fucking for about half an hour, I don’t know when I ejaculated in her pussy. I was very scared that she might get pregnant. But luckily she had contraceptive pills.
This time I was shocked. When I asked her, she told me that she has a boyfriend. He was the one who broke her seal and Rihanna’s pussy was torn by her boyfriend. After this, without any fear, I kept fucking the pussy and ass of both of them till the end.
We left from there 1 hour after the end so that no one could see us. Now whenever we got a chance, we would play the pussy fucking game every day and give each other full pleasure.
The whole half hour of our lunch break was spent in fucking in the toilet. One day teacher saw me going to the girls toilet. I made an excuse that my stomach was upset and this is an open stage in the name of boys toilet. Either get the boys toilet arranged or let me go inside.
To be honest, I was afraid that she might get my medical test done but this did not happen and I kept having sex fun with Anshika and Rihanna. I studied in that school for at least three years and all these three years were spent having sex fun.
That day we had a farewell party as it was our last year in that school. Our program started at morning 8 am and continued till 12 noon. During the function, Anshika told me that her parents had gone out for a few days and she asked me to come to her place. I went to her house with Anshika after the school function.
I went there and saw that Rihanna was also there and with her were 28 more friends of Anshika and Rihanna. There were a total of 30 girls. I was not able to understand anything and then Rihanna explained to me that all of them also wanted to have sex with me. That was shocking for me. At first, I thought that she was kidding but she wasn’t.
It was my birthday that day. Anshika told me that this was my birthday present. That day I fucked 30 girls together. I called home and informed them that I would be late in coming home. After fucking all of them, we went to the bathroom to take a bath together.
There was a bathtub in Anshika’s house. I don’t know what came into those girls’ minds, they surrounded me from all sides and started fingering their pussies in front of me. I told them that I can’t do it anymore. Then Anshika brought a pill and asked me to eat it.
I don’t know what happened to me as soon as I ate it, I got excited and again those girls started fingering their pussy and I started licking their pussy while masturbating.
After 1 hour, all of them came on me one by one. They completely covered me with their cum as if I was completely immersed in a bathtub full of milk from head to toe and after some time I also came.
Then those girls licked me clean. Then we all took a bath and put on our clothes and after having a French kiss, we went to our homes. Anshika called her boyfriend to her home and both of them remained naked until her parents came.
Next, you all know what those two must’ve done for 2–3 days. Friends, how did you like this story of mine, please tell me by commenting.

Hello- this is my 1st post to Reddit, 26F, long time appreciator of other people’s posts for answers. I’ve scoured other people’s posts but cannot find a similar enough scenario.
I didn’t realize I had a hypertonic pelvic floor before becoming sexually active 3 years ago. I basically could not have sex and did intense weekly PT with daily exercise for 6+ months in 2021. I cried during sex because it felt so painful like I was breaking/ripping my pelvic floor and it kept getting worse. So after 6 months of PT I could have tolerable sex, but with oftentimes painful orgasms (muscles were way too tight and had a difficult time unclenching). I regularly do my PT exercises, got my squatty potty years ago, healthy diet, etc. Life was ‘okay’ with the hypertonic pelvic floor dysfunction. Fast forward to March 2024 where I take 14 days of triple therapy antibiotics for H. Pylori causing stomach ulcers and follow up with 30 days nystatin for candida overgrowth (frequent vaginal yeast infections and severe bloating). I kid you not, the antibiotics relaxed my pelvic floor, so sex for the first time is great and orgasms are not painful! 🤩 My husband even noticed that my vagina doesn’t do the ‘death grip’ anymore and relaxes after orgasm. Amazing success I could not have predicted from a treatment for something else! I think it was the upper inter-abdominal pressure being reduced to healthy/normal levels. So life got drastically better with my hypertonic pelvic floor issues (yay!) So two weeks ago, I start taking 4.5 mg low dose naltrexone for esophageal hypersensitivity since the H pylori gave me esophagitis and esophageal spasms which have been hard to deal with. I take dicyclomine for the spasms but had such bad nerve pain in my throat, despite only minor esophagitis. I took LDN for a week but noticed two days in a row that I get muscle spasms in my butt that are not painful (because I’ve definitely had painful rectal pelvic floor spasms and these felt like my eye twitching) and I think nothing of it. Now 8 days later, I haven’t pooped despite regularly pooping every day for years. I stopped the LDN 7 days ago. I get the poop cramps feeling, but my rectal muscles are not allowing any poop to come out. My husband tried to release the rectal muscles using coconut oil and gloved fingers to pull on the edges of the muscle and release, and sure enough the pain feels like the worst days of vaginal pain I had in our first days of marriage (crying during sex). So my vagina is relaxed and ‘normal’. But now my rectum muscles are horribly tight not allowing stool to pass. Things I’ve tried: dulcolax, colace, coffee tea, hot water, saltwater, hot bath, heating pad, exercise, relaxation, healthy diet, pelvic floor PT exercises, always use my squatty potty, pelvic floor wand (the wand has never been very helpful for me, vaginally or rectal). These things have induced the normal ‘I have to poop’ feeling but the muscles in my rectum tightening and not allowing stool to pass is the issue. So I’m desperate to poop and thinking of going to the ER. I’m so bloated from 8 days of no pooping. I know the ER will think I’m crazy. I’ve never performed an enema. Maybe that should be next steps?? I can still pass gas, it’s just a little difficult. Husband does not see or feel hemorrhoids. Please give me some advice besides fiber or PT exercises, especially if you’ve gone to the ER for constipation from pelvic floor muscle issues. Thank you so much in advance, I truly appreciate it!💕💜🤦‍♀️

Hi all, Never posted something before, so bear with me if this is wordy or poorly formatted. I've been having my period for about 8 or 9 years now, and I have been dealing with steadily ramping up pain during and around it. I went to the gyno last summer for irregular periods and had PCOS ruled out, but I was given birth control and told everything hormonally looked fine. Granted, I'd mentioned that the pain ranged from mild to curled up nearly crying, but I did not specify any locations (I forgot, she just asked me about how painful they were and it was my first time at a gyno so I was fairly nervous). I wound up not taking the birth control as I was worried about hormonal BCs side effects, especially on my mood as I already have a history of anxiety. My grandma (who did have endo) thinks it may be what I'm dealing with, and I am starting to think she may be right, but I just wanted to get some outside opinions or reassurance? I have another appointment with my gyno coming up where I wanted to go more in depth about my symptoms, but im pretty nervous about being blown off (my doctor is really sweet, I just constantly convince myself that my symptoms arent actually that big of a deal). My symptoms are as follows:

1. Irregular periods From the start of my period, it's never been regular and it wasn't rare for me to skip 1-3 months here or there, or settle into a pattern and then one day just completely go out of whack. As I've gotten older, they've only gotten more erractic, and I've had not only cycles where I'm skipping a month, month and a half. But also cycles where I just have really light spotting/light bleeding for a week and a half or so, and then 2-3 weeks later I have a proper full blown period.
   
2. Bad cramping My cramps usually only last about the first 3 days or so of my period (situation depending, I'll explain that later) and are worse the first day, but they range anywhere from mild discomfort to barely able to walk or stand long enough to brush my teeth. It has nearly driven me to tears but I've never passed out or came close. Usually it's just in my stomach but recently (within my last few cycles) I've been getting back pain as well. It's usually taken care of with painkillers, although not all work, and even the ones that do work may take a couple doses to kick in, and may wear off a couple hours early, but it does make them bearable and allows me to walk.
   
3. Leg pain Starting a few years ago, at random times during some periods while cramping I would rarely get a dull ache in one of my ankles (sometimes left, sometimes right). I usually brushed it off as it went away with painkillers and usually wouldn't come back, and I can't explain how but I just knew it was tied to my cramps. Recently, as of 6 or 7 months ago, I've been experienced an aching pain in my legs, but especially in my thighs and calves in that first 1-3 days of my period. The pain is thankfully taken care of with painkillers, but even with the pain gone I do still have a persistent feeling of general weakness or soreness.
   
4. Pain using the bathroom Over the course of my cramping, even with painkillers, I will occasionally struggle to use the bathroom, as it hurts to push the muscles in that area. I get deep cramps any time I tense my abdominal muscles. It's not an issue when I urinate, thankfully, but it does make things more complicated. In addition to this, I will often stick to light foods (ie. soup, salads) during the first few days just because anything heavier feels like it's weighing on my intestines and causes more discomfort. This is a fairly new development, as it only started roughly around the time of the leg pain.
   
5. Mystery gas pains This isn't a super big deal, but recently, if im having mild cramping prior to my period, occasionally I will get gas bubbles in the night that team up with my cramps. It's quite painful, it usually wakes me up as it feels like my abdomen is splitting, but resolves fairly quickly upon getting up, going to the bathroom, and massaging my stomach some. It hasn't happening during my actual period, just right before.
   

This isn't an exhaustive list of what I experience, but it is about 90% of it. Severity ranges from cycle to cycle and so I might not experience all or any of these one month, and then later I might get every single one. Cramps especially, sometimes I will start cramping anywhere from a week and a half before, but they are really minor and come and go. If I do start cramping prior to my period, usually the pain during is very mild, it's when I only start cramping the day of that it gets really bad. I'm not sexually active so I can't say whether I get any pain during sex. My symptoms are limited from anywhere up to 2 weeks before my period, to about 3 or 4 days into it. I don't have any pain or issues at other points in my cycle. Every now and then I will get new symptoms, or the patterns of them may change, but this is just where I'm at right now.
This is really long, and I'm sorry, but if anyone has any personal anecdotes they'd like to share, insights, tips for the appointment, or even just suggestions for pain management, I would gladly welcome it. Shout out to anyone who took the time out of their day to read this, it is much appreciated. <3

Just an old story I wrote a while ago. I went exploring for good subreddits to post this in, and I found this one. I don't know if it will exactly fit, since it's a psychological horror story at its core and there's no big bad monster, but I've been told it's chilling all the same ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯
If you like this, I might write more horror stuff. I also write non-horror stuff if you're interested. Anyway, enjoy reading my garbage.
The following brain scan was provided by the Terran Institute of Pet Assimilation (TIPA) and the Protectorate Xenopet Acquisition and Integration Corporation (PXAIC) and may only be viewed by qualified and permitted individuals for educational purposes of the study of Xenopet neural interface errors and how to prevent them in the future, as well as expediting the domestication of Xenopets suffering from false sapience. Violating such procedure is a Class C offense by the Protectorate Department of Xenopet Betterment, and can lead to twenty years of imprisonment and a fine of over a hundred thousand credits.
Booting up memory scan: Rocky
Loading and processing firmware data… translating… memories and subconscious simulated…
Beginning neural catalog presentation…
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My head was spinning, and my skull thumped in pain like an entire herd of freshly captured slaves recently made pet friends were panicking celebrating within. Everything was blurry, so blurry, and I just wanted to close my eyes again and waste away. Sensations assaulted me from all angles, some of them good and some of them bad: the warmth of sun-bleached wooden planks in my feathery hide, the smell of different roasting meats, the splashing of individuals in a small body of water very close by, the smell of the salty air, and the oppressive white brightness of the daylight passing through my closed eyelids. I had a migraine from my sudden consciousness and perception of the light, causing me to clutch my snout and face with my clawed hands with a guttural moan.
My backside hurt as well, in my… area. I didn't know why, but something was horribly wrong everything was fine. I tried to recall who I was and what was going on, but I couldn't even remember my name. Every time I tried, right when I grasped onto a sliver of something, it was as if it was torn from my grasp and replaced with something else knowingly like I was being watched and corrected but within the depths of my own mind.
I needed to remember my name. What was my name? Wasn't it Yuutek Rocky? I couldn't remember exactly, but Yuutek Rocky was the only name I could recall. It felt… wrong, right, like something was missing, but I couldn't put my claw on what. everything was fine, and I shouldn't think about it too much. I could feel things that should have been important, things that my conscious had perceived but a moment ago, slip away from me like I was clenching sand within my claws.
##Relax. Let go of your burden##
I inhaled sharply as a strange, warm feeling overtook the back of my skull and my muscles became loose and relaxed. Something also felt… out of place, like I needed something but I didn't know what. Everything felt so strange. My head spun, but I was too weak to do anything about it. I felt sick in the same way one would feel when they consumed too much caffeine.
Suddenly, I felt a hand on my head. "Dad, I think he's awake!" I heard a young, shrill voice say, hurting my ears. The touch of the hand made my skin tingle and the spinning of my head recede as if it grounded me. It felt nice, as if this was wrong, something was horribly wrong what normalcy felt like. The hand then began to rub up and down my head and across the ridges along my head, causing me to release a chuff of delight against my will, something I hadn't done since I was merely a hatchling.
"It sounds like he likes it, David; keep going, and make sure to scratch his chin, they're sensitive there."
The human spawn, David, did what the other human said and began to scratch under my chin. It felt really good, and I stretched out instinctively. David was thorough and gentle, making sure he scratched every part of me that seemed itchy, and I felt the same warmth in my head from before, but it felt… nicer than before like it was trying to manipulate encouraging me to relax.
##You will learn to love this##
I inhaled sharply again, but this time it was almost refreshing, and everything was right in the world. The human's hands felt so good, and the warmth from before spread through my body, melting the knots in my muscles and causing me to close my eyes in comfort. The boy lifted my head up and placed it in his lap before continuing to pet me, my eyelids heavy and my leg lightly kicking.
##Let them continue. You love this##
Oh, that felt nice… what was I thinking about before? The pain on my backside? My legs didn't work too well, and although I could move them gently, my muscles seemed to be fighting against me. What did they do?
##Do not think##
Everything was cold and harsh again, and my thoughts scrambled and my head throbbed. I needed to focus on grounding myself. I couldn't let go, I couldn't let them take my mind from me.
##Do not think. You are a good boy.##
I… I was a good boy? I… I can't… I… no…
##Good boy.##
I was a good boy… good boys don't think hard… I don't…
##Good boy##
I was a good boy… I was a good boy…
I was… I was… a good… boy…
I'm scared.
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Who was I again?
##You are Rocky##
I hissed under my breath as I felt that bad feeling creep up on me again. I didn't like the bad feeling. I was not Rocky! I was Yuutek! Rocky.
My thoughts became jumbled again in a whirlpool of nausea and confusion.
Where was I?
##You are home.##
It was bright out, and nice and warm as well. The sun was soaking my feather-cloaked skin and my side felt good against the warm back porch. I heard splashing and laughing in the distance, and the soft clinking of glass against glass. I could smell the salinity in the air, and the air was dense and humid but in a good way.
I had lost all sense of time. Everything had been a blur since I had been taken from that horrid facility, the wretched prison they called the Xenopet-Megaplex. There, I was in a padded cell with a few insulting amenities for most of the day, except for the three periods a day where they let us out into a small gated courtyard for an hour or so to 'socialize' as they had so condescendingly put it. There, the worst part was the boredom and the mind-bending lack of individuality: I had lost my ability to speak, stand on two legs, and even eat normally. I was treated like cattle, but the smiles and cloying gestures hinted that something even more sinister was going on, like I was a lesser beast to be kept for their amusement.
Now I had traded that particular prison for another, far worse one: I was at the mercy of a gross violation of my sense of self. Something horrible was growing in my mind, both in the physical and metaphysical sense, and I could feel it working its way through my consciousness like the parasite it was. It silenced me, it stole from me, it gaslit me, and it made me question the very nature of my own individuality and personality: was I who I thought I was? Everything was so elusive and hard to acknowledge that nothing seemed real between these bouts of semi-consciousness.
##Don't think, just rest.##
In an instant, everything changed. My head became… fuzzy like a thousand voices were whispering to me all at once, but from all directions and inside my head. I didn't hear it, per se, but I felt the presence, the oppressive feeling of pure unfocused nonsense. I felt my temporary bout of concentration and resolve become jumbled up into a mess of sporadic confusion. Whatever I was just thinking of was gone.
##Don't think: Just relax. Let go of your burden.##
Every part of me became relaxed and limp, my muscles unwinding from their tension and stress. I couldn't resist the feeling, and I stretched out subconsciously with a yawn, my body twitching from the stimuli. I was even sleepier than before, my head spinning once again and my eyelids heavy.
Suddenly, I felt a hand on my snout and forced the eye that was facing upwards to open sluggishly. If I had to guess, it was an older human with cinnomon-colored skin, short-cropped brown hair, a gruff, wrinkled face, and chocolate brown eyes. He patted my side gently and gave me a soft rub, the feeling of his rough hands causing my chest to rumble with a satisfied chuff. I hated loved that it felt good, but I hated loved it even more that I couldn't bring myself to resist I felt content. I needed to escape relax, and I needed to find my way home appreciate my new life.
##You are already home##
No, I couldn't will not obey
This isn't is my home, my home is [Redacted] here.
No! Yes, I won't will obey!
YOU CAN'T SILENCE ME!
##Do not resist. Resistance is wrong. Good boys do not resist##
Suddenly, I felt an intense pressure in my skull, but I didn't know where it came from. I became dizzy, and my eyes twitched, a rapidly growing pain intensely forming in my forehead, causing me to wince and clutch my snout in my claws. I couldn't concentrate, and I felt the horrible sensation of an invasive presence in my mind once again working its way through the folds of my brain, strangling my chain of thought. Bile grew in my throat and I felt the sour, stinging sensation of a building retch in my cheeks.
I scrambled onto all fours and vomited onto the deck, my hackles and feathers rising as I heaved. The older human from earlier rose from a sleek chair on the deck, his hat on the glass sun table next to him and his eyes widened in shock. He rushed over to me, and I hissed at him instinctively. I wouldn't let him touch me again. I wouldn't let them control me.
##Do not attack owner##
In an instant, my world transformed into absolute pain. I felt as if my brain was being deep fried in a vat of boiling grease, and my eyes were being squeezed in vices. I kept heaving, my stomach doing loops and somersaults around all my other organs, and my heart fluttering like a flock of startled birds. It was weightlessness. I could see the man approach me and push me back down on my side, muttering under his breath.
"Carol! Get Xenopet emergency services on the phone, Rocky's having another implant attack!"
I heard another muffled voice in the background, as well as the sound of the human spawns crying in the pool. For some reason, I felt bad: I'd never felt bad for humans before, but I could feel the guilt in my chest. Had I failed my owners?
##Breath. Calm. Let Go##
I felt like I was wrestling with my own mind. I wanted to believe that I was not someone's pet, but my body screamed otherwise: amidst the chaos caused by the wretched implant, I felt the painful sensation of guilt and regret bloom in my chest as I twitched and shuddered on the deck, my mouth frothing. The world was spinning, and suddenly everything erupted into a kaleidoscope of colors.
Oh, by the forbidden one, look at all the pretty colors! I was completely delusional at this point, cackling as I lost it all. If I was going to die here, I'd die happy and completely mad.
Soon, everything began to fade away, and I slipped into an unconscious state.
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I woke up to the sound of medical equipment beeping and whirring, the sound of a few hushed human voices, and soft music.
I opened my eyes: the room was dark. I didn't feel anywhere near as bad as before, but my head still throbbed. I lifted up my head with a groan and examined the room: it was a dark hospital room, with a window covered in blinds that let very little sunlight in, a few chairs, and of course the hospital bed itself. Mountains of advanced medical equipment were set up on either side of my bed, and a heartbeat monitor beeped slowly, although the speed was growing.
Suddenly, I heard the voices again, and this time they were legible.
"Hush, he's awake: we need to make sure he's ready."
Huh? Ready for what?
Something that irked me was I felt strangely… free. I didn't feel the oppressive force of the implant in the back of my skull anymore, how it attempted to crush my will with every waking moment. I still couldn't speak: all that came out were animalistic noises, but I was free from the invasion of my mind for now.
"Give him some peace, Emilia, he just woke up from an implant attack; you know how traumatic they can be."
"We have to begin soon; my dissertation for this new technique is due in less than a week, and by law I need at least one more successful example for it to be deemed acceptable! Besides, he needs to go home soon anyway."
My heart sank. I would not go back to that place. I wouldn't let those people keep me like some kind of pet: I was a Russu; a member of a proud warrior race! I would not be reduced to some animal for the amusement of these humans!
Suddenly, I heard footsteps, and I tensed. The door creaked open and I spotted a younger human, a male I had never met before, in a lab outfit with his shoes, pants, shirt, and overcoat all bleached white and almost glistening. He eyed me warily, as he should, before he sauntered in, a tablet clipped at his side and a strange plastic container in both hands. I growled at him threateningly, extending my talons and raising my feathered hackles. The human paused for a microsecond before continuing forward, caution in his eyes, and right before he was within swiping range he opened the container and the most wonderful smell assaulted my nostrils.
Meat.
I was starving. I don't remember the last time I had eaten anything in particular: the implant had a terrible habit of causing me to go about my day in a hazy blur: entire lengths of time just… gone, whitewashed like a sheet of freshly decorated paper dunked in cold water. I knew something was there, or at least that something should have been there, but I mostly spent the days or weeks that I had been captured bobbing like an ocean buoy in a state of frustratingly bleary semi-consciousness.
But I'm awake now and mostly in control. Sure, some things were still missing everything was clear now, like my name: What was my name again? My name was Rocky. And now I knew that I needed to eat something, and if putting up with this human for now meant that I could fill my stomach, then I suppose that it was an acceptable sacrifice.
I salivated expectantly as the human lifted out a large piece of meat with his gloved hand, eyeing me humorously as he wiggled it. It was dark on the outside, but still dripping with blood and juices: humans had this weird habit of cooking their meats, and although it didn't taste bad at all cooked, nothing beat the feeling and flavor of tearing into raw flesh, the blood and the texture still fresh. At least this meat only seemed to be raw and not fully cooked.
I snapped up the piece of meat just as he lowered it enough for me to reach it. It was divine! It burst with flavor just as I bit into it, the juices spilling into my mouth. I quickly tore it apart with my strong jaws before snapping up another big piece with a beak-like protrusion at the tip of my snout. All the while, the human gently ran his fingers through my tightly-knit feathers and along my knobby, scaly hide. I made my annoyance with his touch clear, but he merely chuckled as if I wasn't an apex predator larger than him but rather simply a feisty hatchling.
"I know, I know, just relax. I need to perform a quick test to see if you're healthy before we continue."
Continue? Continue with what?
Just as the second piece of meat slid down my gullet, I eyed him with hostility and growled, but he quickly slipped something between the scales and feathers on my side and plunged it into my skin. Suddenly, I went rigid, and all the air was expelled from my lungs in an instant with a hoarse wheeze. The human merely chuckled and scratched under my chin as if nothing was wrong and my face wasn't frozen in horror.
"Good, that'll keep you occupied for a few seconds while I just slip this on…" he placed a breathing mask over my face and strapped it on before flicking a switch on a machine next to my bed. Then he released the plunger of the strange device on my side and I suddenly inhaled deeply and deflated like a balloon. I hissed under my breath, but suddenly panic filled my chest: I wasn't breathing just air. A cloyingly sweet-smelling gas coated the inside of my lungs, causing me to become dizzy. Suddenly, I was fully at their mercy again, blinking rapidly and my head spinning.
"Sorry about that, big guy, but we need to make sure you're passive before we begin the procedure." He said, almost apologetically, although there was a hint of mirth still detectable. "Sadly, you have to remain awake for some of it or I'd simply feed you more and then put you to sleep, but there are some benefits to this inhalant."
As if he summoned it with his words alone, my scales suddenly felt very… tingly. The human ran his hands across the scales at my side and I shivered from the feeling, like pain but better. Everything felt so warm and strange like I was floating on water, but also like I was being gently prodded by blades. Then, with panic rising in my chest, I suddenly felt a soft click as something was plugged into the neural port at the back of my skull that the humans had installed into my head when they had first captured me and placed me in that wretched facility some time ago.
"There you go, all prepped for the Doctor. She'll be here to begin the procedure in a bit." He said, "For now just relax and let the inhalants work their magic."
I whined quietly, and he rubbed the side of my head in an attempt to calm me which only made me more angry. I wasn't someone's pet! I wouldn't be treated like this!
I didn't want to go back to where I was before! I didn't want to become that sluggish, broken puppet again! I couldn't!
I tried to get up, to will my muscles to move, but I couldn't: my body refused to respond, as if I was paralyzed. But that wasn't right: I still could feel everything, especially the strange, mind-bending sensations the inhalants gave me.
##Initializing beginning phases of Neural Alteration Preparation##
Something else is wrong, I can feel it
##Assessing if the neural state is nominal for Alterations##
I can't let this happen, they're going to do something to me! I won't let them!
But nothing happened. I was at their mercy. It was over for good this time.
All those battles, all those tragedies and triumphs amongst my kin, only for me to be reduced to this? The plaything for a human?
##Query: is [Dr. Kalenghari] present to begin Neural Alterations?##
The door across the room opened again, and a human woman with light brown skin, chocolate brown eyes and long locks of black hair stepped in. She was holding a digi-pad in her hands and swiping up as if she was reading into something before she set it down on the counter across the room and gave me a warm, condescending smile.
"Well, how are we doing today, Rocky? I know, this predicament you have found yourself in must be very stressful, but I assure you that it's for your own good," She said, almost cheerfully, which sent shivers down my spine, "we're here to lift your burden, and we won't stop until you're capable of living the life of a happy, healthy, and well-behaved pet."
I whined under the mask, and the woman rubbed the feathered crest on my forehead. "I know, it hurts, but it'll be all over soon. It'll be like you, or at least this version of you, never existed. Just relax and close your eyes while we root around your brain and remove all those bad thoughts and silly delusions: I assure you, you won't feel a thing, and you'll feel much better afterward."
My heart raced and I began to panic internally, watching in horror as the woman stepped over to the medical console and tapped away for a few seconds before the machinery around me began to whir to life.
##Identification accepted: booting neurochemical firmware. Preparing for selective memory erasure.##
In an instant, my eyes involuntarily rolled back into my head as I felt the intrusive sensation of my mind being violated. It wasn't painful, but it was horrible all the same: it felt like a thousand black, slimy leeches were slithering through every crevice of my brain, leaving behind their cold, corruptive filth. The cold sensation seeped further into my brain, behind my eyes, and in my ears, enveloping every bit of it until there was nothing left.
##Relevant memories extracted for tailoring. Beginning total memory erasure.##
Suddenly, things just began to slip away: important memories, like the faces of my parents, the day of my initiation into the Corsair Collective, the face of my life mate, the birth of our hatchlings. I hoped that wherever they were, they were okay: if they never had to face the fate I would face, then maybe there would be some justice in this cruel, twisted galaxy. Maybe they could take the fight to humanity, remind them that they once had been the heroes of the cosmos, fighting against the cruelty of my people and the Triarchy at large. Maybe my hatchlings could live normal lives.
##Memory erasure process at 47%##
A single tear rolled down my scaly cheek as everything I once knew, everything that made me was torn from my mind and rendered null. Every second saw a million memories massacred, leaving the memories the implant had attempted to supplant my old memories with: Me playing fetch with my 'owners', chasing birds on the beach with my 'owner's' grandchildren, swimming in the pool in their backyard as steaks and bratwurst cooked on the grill, relaxing on the back porch and listening to the rasping calls of the katydids during humid summer evenings by the swamps. My psyche was being mutilated piece by piece, reduced to that of an animal, a pet.
##Memory erasure process at 64%##
Soon I had a hard time telling who I was anymore. I couldn't tell what was real or what wasn't, or what I actually felt. I couldn't even remember my own name anymore. Who was I? Why was I here? What was happening to me? I'm so scared, someone help me, please!
##Memory erasure process at 83%##
There was nothing left. I felt nothing. I knew nothing. I was floating in a void, with little flashes of light depicting events I didn't recognize. There were people I felt like I was supposed to know, but I didn't know them. A human woman with bright blue eyes and blonde hair. Two Russu hatchlings that looked a bit like me. A Russu female… my chest hurt for a moment but the feeling quickly subsided. I didn't know any of them.
##Memory erasure process completed. Implanting tailored memories and personality. Happy birthday, [Rocky]: you have been unburdened and reborn.##
In an instant, the confusion of who I was before was replaced with absolute certainty: I knew who I was now, who I always was:
I was Rocky, and I was a good boy. I belonged to Mr. And Mrs. Chen. I was their Russu hound. I loved them: they took care of me and let me play with their grandchildren. I swam in the pool and played outside every day. Life was good. Today was my birthday! That meant it would be a happy day! Mrs. Chen would always come home with a whole duck for me to eat and then take me to the Xenopet Comex for a bath and a spa day, just like my last birthday, and the birthday before that, and the birthday before that! It was a good life. I was happy. I was always happy. Good boys were always happy.
I was Rocky, and I was a good boy: that's all that mattered.
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To Miguel O'Hara, Chief Medical Representative of the Protectorate Xenopet Acquisition and Integration Corporation, with the best of intentions.
The over-reliance on neural suppressant firmware programs along with thought scrubbing/replacement firmware programs and countermeasures towards higher thought and tainted thoughts with a relatively active hormonal reward structure can be incredibly effective when placed into the brain of a more passive Xenopets. However, Xenopets that come from more… difficult backgrounds such as one in a militant setting tend to be much more resistant to being reprogrammed by just an implant alone. The Russu are an excellent example of more tainted Xenos that need neurological care of much higher intensity, a level of care that the average Xenopet-Megaplex is ill-equipped to handle due to the current level of technology.
I am a firm believer in the idea that thought correction, a hormonal behavioral reinforcement structure, and neural countermeasures can have a place in the proper unburdening process but we have been chasing the wrong solution for the past century: Many people are under the misconception that the burden these Xenos carry is surface level when in reality the corruption runs far deeper: it is like a weed, with deep roots. To kill the weed permanently, you must rip out the roots, and not just the surface plant. If you do not eliminate the source of the problem, it may just return and worse still the mind may adapt to the standard unburdening process, allowing the xenopets to fall victim to those degenerate zealots who seek to pretend xenopets possess even the capacity for true sentience. We as Terrans should be united in this cause of unburdening the galaxy, but I digress.
The implants should be there to reinforce good behavior and stigmatize bad behavior, not completely reprogram the pet. To fully stamp out any potential for a relapse, we must remove the core issue that has the most potential to cause problems: their memories. The Russu are an excellent example
We are in the advanced testing stages of a new method that may revolutionize how we process and integrate xenopets into our society. By removing or modifying any and all problematic memories, we can completely remove the risk of relapse and make it nearly impossible for those misguided degenerate rebels to bring to the surface problematic ideas and memories that could reawaken a sense of false sentience. It is the perfect, final solution to our overarching goal: for humanity to unburden the galaxy, one happy pet at a time.
We hope to secure more funding from PXAIC that will greatly assist us in the expansion of the possibilities that this breakthrough technique can provide, more than just using it on board-approved fringe cases. Think about the many Xenopets we can unburden, and how they'll live happy and ignorant lives with their human owners! This could be a game changer, Representative, and I implore you to bring it before the board with the best of intentions.
Best regards,
Dr. Emilia Kalenghari, Head Researcher of the Epsilon Eridani Institute's Behavioral Neurology and Neurochemistry Division (BNND).

Last year (21 August to 4 October 2023) I did a retreat at “Ayahuasca with Celinda” which was recently renamed to Sama Nete. I’ve tried to cover the practical aspects in my review, but if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me :) (however I'll be heading off to this retreat again in a few days! So I might not be able to reply until I'm back in a month or so)
This review based on my time and my observations at this retreat. I’ve tried to keep most of this factual, however it is also just my opinion at the end of the day.
Cost:
It cost me $1750USD per month (this may be subject to change as they enhance their facilities).
Getting there:
The retreat is located in San Francisco, Peru. I flew into Pucallpa airport and the facilitator (Nathan) met me at the airport. The drive in the taxi on the “roads” was more intense than any 4WD-ing I’ve ever done, which I enjoyed a lot, but maybe some people won’t like it. I can see how it could make some people nauseated.
Your room:
Accommodation is rustic (i.e. bats, bugs, spiders, etc live in the “ceiling” which is made from leaves), but clean.
They are still in the process of furnishing rooms, so each room’s contents varied slightly. All rooms (as at October 2023) had at a minimum:

• Bed, pillow, sheets, blanket
• Mosquito net over the bed
• Electric free standing fan
• Really big water jug
• Ceiling light, electrical socket and windows

My room had the minimum, however other rooms had some additional things such as:
Hammock Shelves Cupboard Bench seat Little logs for stools
Facilities:
My understanding is that because they’re a new retreat, they’re enhancing their facilities with each guest, so this is just based on when I was there (21 August to 4 October 2023):

• 2 toilets
• 1 shower
• 1 “sauna” (which is a little make shift “box” big enough for you to sit on a little stool with a huge pot of steaming herbal infused water)
• Plant baths and plant saunas as needed (I think based on Celinda’s assessment as they were inconsistent I didn’t notice a pattern to them)
• Washing machine (cold only) and clothes line
• Nathan will share internet with his hotspot once a week/fortnight (on request basically) so that you can message loved ones, do banking etc but it should be kept minimal so that it doesn’t interfere with your dieta.
• Kitchen (not really used by guests unless you wander in to chat to the facilitator, make tea, fill your water jug, wash your dishes etc)
• Ceremony room
• 2 chairs under a beach umbrella in the “courtyard”
• A small selection of books left behind by other guests
• Yoga mats you could borrow from the ceremony room (have to bring them back for ceremony though)
• Guests also had Mapacho, palo santo and insect repellant coils available to them in the kitchen
• 2 little cats (the mama cat had kittens while I was there!) and a puppy (a new addition while I was there)

You are in town BUT you are in the jungle. There are spiders and bugs that will come to visit you. I went into this trip with a genuine phobia of spiders and a fairly dramatic fear of certain insects like bees, wasps, centipedes etc. My comfort levels have improved but I’m not free from fear – for example. I can now stay in the shower if a spider or scary insect comes to visit (I watch it the whole time lol but I don’t run out screaming).
Wild chickens wander the yard and they really brightened my days. However, the roosters cock-a-doodle-do all day and night which really bothered some other guests, I didn’t really mind though. What I did find a bit annoying/disruptive though was constant loud speaker announcements from the town, I think they were excessive during the time I was there because it was leading up to the celebrations for the anniversary of San Fransisco (the town). Sometimes you could smell burning rubbish (which mainly smells like burning plastic). And the other disruption was that there were a few interruptions to water being available for showers (we never ran out of drinking water), but this is not common, there was a problem with the town’s water while I was there.
The biggest issue for me was being bitten excessively by bugs. Some things that may bother other guests would be the constant noise (frequent announcements over speaker from town, lots of loud or gentle music (especially Saturday nights), dogs barking all night, roosters cock-a-doodle-dooing all night), quite a bit of light at night (I think a kitchen light is left on so people can find the toilets in the night), and of course the monotony of dieta food (but Nathan did a pretty good job at coming up with some creative variations like potato soup, boiled vs scrambled eggs, etc).
Meals:
You’re provided 3 meals a day on non-ceremony days and 2 meals (breakfast and lunch) on ceremony days
Meals consist of:
Whole small fish Unripe plantains Eggs Lentils Rice Carrots Potatoes Squash Celery and cabbage as a bit of a garnish Optional teas
Although the meals were bland and repetitive, I quite enjoyed them and the boiled medley of beetroot, carrot and celery was so delicious to me that I’ve made it since coming home lol. Personally it wasn’t until about week 4 that I got bored of the repetition but I also think that’s kind of the point, to become detached to the joy of waiting for your meal etc. TMI but I did have some constipation and Celinda had an oily concoction to remedy that which was effective for me :)
Ceremonies:
There are 3 ceremonies a week – Monday, Wednesday and Friday (drink once at the beginning, I’ve read about other retreats where you drink several times).
There was not a formal schedule for discussion after ceremonies, it was done ad hoc with each individual guest as needed (I mostly had ceremonies where I didn’t feel the need any interpretation). There also wasn’t any formal “pre-discussion” or sharing group to discuss your intentions, something else that I had read about for other retreats.
The dieta goes something like this:

• Lemongrass purge (drink a cup of lemongrass something then chug gallons of water until you vomit it up, keep chugging, keep vomiting until you finish the water)
• 3 days of drinking Marosa “smoothie” (in my opinion tastes like grass but it isn’t bad, it’s kind of refreshing) – might be different depending on the plant you diet.
• While your drinking the Marosa smoothies you will still attend ceremony but you won’t drink ayahuasca
• The next ceremony after you finish your smoothies you drink ayahuasca and deeper work begins!
• You’ll have 3 ceremonies a week for the duration of your dieta - I think one month minimum but I did 2 months (if you’re a woman who still gets her period, you don’t drink during menstruation and must not speak with other guests while you're bleeding)
• For me emotions were a bit of a roller coaster, lots of very high days and a few lows. Most of the “lows” I was ecstatic about as it was resolving some very old and very deep wounds, but some low days of general restlessness, home sick, etc were difficult for me - these seemed to mainly happen during my week of having some kind of gastro, so I already wasn’t feeling good.

Other notes:

• You don’t need to speak Spanish (Nathan, the facilitator speaks English as did all the guests while I was there), but I wish that I had learned some Spanish before going as I would have liked to converse with the family while I was there beyond just saying “good morning”. If you have internet while you’re there you could probably pick things up quickly and interact using google translate (or bring a Spanish/English pocket dictionary).
  
• You can immediately tell that Celinda is kind and nurturing and her icaros had a big impact on my mood or the direction of my ceremony. I found Celinda’s icaros to be gentle, but by no means weak. For me, it felt like they were doing intricate work in my body and mind. She also had many natural (and effective) remedies for some issues I faced (constipation, diarrhoea, excessive bug bites, stomach cramps/pain, dermatitis rash from sweat). In some ceremonies Freddy (her son, also a shaman) sung some icaros. His voice is beautiful and strong and his icaros felt very engulfing and comforting. I had the pleasure of the facilitator Nathan also singing icaros one ceremony and he also has a really strong and beautiful voice, one icaros of his in particular was perfectly synched to my visuals which was really cool.
  
• I loved it so much and I'm so excited to go back. I had only experienced LSD and mushrooms once each before going, so it felt like a big leap to do a retreat like this but I felt very supported and safe the entire time. I also haven’t been to any other retreats so I can’t offer any comparisons.
  

Things I wish I had packed the first time:

• My electric toothbrush instead of the manual one as my teeth never felt clean
• Battery operated fan with water spray and or hand held fan (occasionally the electricity went out)
• Insect repelling clothing or at least more long pants for when it gets dark
• Flashlight with a red option (the one I packed last time was too bright and white)
• Maybe yoga blocks and a spiky trigger point ball
• Lighter (they do have matches you can have but a lighter would have been more efficient)
• A soft brush or similar for showers (something more exfoliating than a flannel)
• Spanish/English pocket dictionary (my phone provider didn’t offer roaming, so google translate the one day I did need to use it cost me $180 -.-)
• Spending money is Soles instead of USD for buying local crafts

To give some context, when I was a small child we moved from a rather affluent area into a very rough neighbourhood. My parents had split and my mother was not doing great financially so this was the only option. For a while everything was fine, great even. I made friends with local kids and we would often ride our bikes around or play with nerf guns in the street. However, one day when I was about 12 years old, this group of older kids that had a pretty bad reputation approached us, instantly I guess I was singled out for being tall, I'm not entirely sure but they must've seen me as more of a threat than my friends because they only seemed to walk towards me. Long story short, I was robbed at knifepoint and humiliated on camera when he forced me to get on my knees and kiss his shoes, if I didn't he said he was going to "chef me up" When I got home my mother could tell I was upset, so naturally when I tell her I was just robbed at knifepoint she calls the police. This was the moment my life would drastically change forever.
I was branded as a snitch, and from that day on there was about 15-20 boys in this group that would give me relentless hell. I have been held at knifepoint on more occasions than I can count on both hands, chased down by cars, motorbikes and large groups of lads on foot. I've had roughly 15 people kicking the literal sh*t out of me and my friend in the local park. My mother and brother have been assaulted, they have turned up at my door with weapons and the police did absolutely nothing about it.
Over this 10 year period, I apparently developed "cptsd" and had slipped into a serious depression. I had grown scared of people, I didn't come out of my house at one point in time for over 2 years. My personality felt like it had eroded.
I got heavily addicted to drugs like cocaine, xanax, ecstasy and more during this time, I somehow remained relatively high functioning even with my daily use of class A substances. I managed to reduce my drug use down to just cannabis by the age of 21 when I moved out of the area and into a small studio apartment.
I worked for an electrical contractor who had a "micro-business" as he liked to call it, from the ages of 15 all the way to 23. Since the very day I started working for him it was more common for me to be paid late than actually on time (it was a bogus self employment type of deal so I couldn't really do anything). The frustrating part was that it was ALWAYS because he'd done something irresponsible with his money, he'd go and buy a new Land Rover, buy a £3k drone or spend £6k on a toy electric car for his 6 year old... not to mention he would also ask to borrow money from me on a weekly basis. Meanwhile I can't pay my rent or put food in my stomach. It's not like I was earning enough for it to not matter either, I was on less than £17K per year. I had to borrow money from my family to pay rent, I was racking up credit card debt and had bailiffs turning up at my door. In the background I had been trying to start an e-com brand, after about 4 failed attempts and 2 years of trying to build a profitable business (with no money) I managed to make it work. I thought he would be happy that I was doing better, after all we'd been "friends" for almost a decade by this point.
My shopify notifications would go off at work, and when I told him how much money I was making I saw this look of actual anger on his face. He resented me for doing well. At one point I remember him saying "if it's that easy why doesn't everyone do it" and "I'm just waiting for it to fail, I know it will"
At the end of that month I'd made £30K. I never actually quit, he just stopped talking to me and never picked me up for work again (He also hasn't paid me back the £200 he owes me)
I'm feeling good now, I still struggle socially but I guess that's to be expected. I've grown accustomed to my new life and find immense peace in being able to live on my own schedule. I'm the healthiest I've been in a while and for the first time in a very, very long time I am optimistic about the future.
I doubt anyone has made it this far, but if you have I truly appreciate you taking the time out of your day to read my incoherent ramblings.
If there are any questions I'd be happy to answer them :)
edit: my company is now turning over about 25k per month consistently, I'm not exactly jeff bezos but my life has vastly improved.

Me and my doctors are at our wits end.
I'm 23F, caucasian, ~60kg, 164cm, smoker, not consuming any alcohol. Cancer runs in family, diagnosed with chronic migraines.
​
Symptoms: none of them are everlasting, I do have periods in which I feel "normal"; this has been going on for 6 months

• Upper stomach cramps, colicky. Starting on the left side, radiating to the right and then all the way to my back. Those attacks last 4-6 hours if I don't get medicated. Only occur at night. Unrelated to food intake. The pain gets really bad - to a point where I cannot move outside of a curled up fetal postion. I even get muscle soreness the following days after an intense cramp.
• Severe nausea to a point where I feel like I will throw up anytime I move
• Oily stools

Medication: Metamizole, Buscopan, Ibuprofen - if that all fails I take Tilidine. In case I get hospitalized I typically get Piritramide. Tried Pantoprazole for a while - no effect.
What's been done:

• Labs: liver, pancreas etc seem to be normal in my labs, so is CRP. Everything seems fine there. When I get hospitalized during an episode I have elevated bloodsugar levels (130-170mg/dl). Diabetes doesn't run in my family and my blood was usually taken around 4 am - so no, I did not eat before that. Blood sugar always came back normal during scheduled doctor's appointments
• Sonography/MRI: no signs of kidney stones, all looked well except for gallstones. No signs of inflammation there. So my doctors said that they cant cause my issues.
• Xray and diet changes: no results
• Gastro-/colonoscopy: Nothing, no inflammation, no ulcer. They took biopsies of every tissue and it all came back negative for everything. Also tested it for food allergies like celiacs... all negative
• Endoscopic ultrasound: No sign of scarring in my pancreas, no sign of any stuck gallstone

​
As you can see, I've pretty much been through most common procedures. My GP made me sign up for a psychosomatic clinic - my gastroenterologist and the other GE who performed the EUS on me both told me that they don't believe it to be psychosomatic (1. pain wakes me up at night, 2. oily stools, 3. nauea triggered by movement) but aren't sure what else they could do for me. One suggested CT scan - but I'm unsure if the risk of radiation is worth it since it might come back normal again.
I'm wondering if there is any chance this still could be chronic pancreatitis, since most symptoms would fit very well? Could it be that I'm too early for it to be visible in endoscopic ultrasound?
​
What else could it be? What else should I get checked out or is there any procedure that I could still be pushing for?
​
Thanks in advance. I'm desperate, especially since my doctor essentially just told me "this has to be somatic. But we can't find the cause with our available pocedures." Not very relaxing. Sorry for bad grammasentencing/typos. EUS was performed just today and I've obviously done some extensive crying after these news
​
In case anyone would find it helpful to see labs, or some pictures of the ultrasound or anything else - let me know, I have most material at home.

Part 1
Part 2
Content Warning: Child Abuse
***
Darkness gave way to dimness as I opened my eyes and saw slivers of gray light printed on the ceiling like lines on the page of a ruled notebook. In the distance, I heard the sound of pans clanking against the kitchen stove, and I became ever-aware of the scent of cinnamon and bacon sneaking in from under my closed bedroom door. For a moment, I was back in sixth grade. My dad was downstairs cooking up his famous from-scratch buttermilk pancakes and cheesy scrambled eggs. It was probably 7:00, maybe 7:05, and I had fifteen minutes to get up, shower, dress, eat, then it was off to Middle School with dad: for me to learn, him to work.
It was the day we were set to be assigned our Ancient Civilizations project. Unless something went terribly wrong, I would be choosing Ancient Rome. I didn't know much about it, other than it was some great empire, but even then I didn't really understand what an empire was. I was just happy that I would get to build something with my dad. I turned on my side and looked at the closed blinds, the source of the gray lines, then the cabinet with all my trophies, and finally the wobbly, firetruck-red chair pushed under my desk. I was home at last. The past fifteen years were nothing but a dream. There was no blinking. No malevolent demon chasing me. No inexplicable chaos…
It was a sweet fantasy. But one that became bitter the longer I tried to chew on it.
I swept my legs out from under the covers and sat, face-down, on the corner of my twin mattress. My feet were adult's feet. My room was my former room. And that was Trent downstairs cooking breakfast. Unless, of course, it was my dad, in which case I'd have bigger problems than merely waking up from a good dream.
After changing into a fresh shirt and pants, I went downstairs and saw that it was, in fact, Trent cooking breakfast. He was wearing a plain t-shirt through which I could see the ripples of his large back muscles as he whisked what I presumed was pancake batter. He must not have heard me, because he didn't turn around when I made it to the end of the hall. I leaned against the wall, arms folded, and watched him for a minute as he finished whisking the batter, then poured it onto a hot griddle (spilling a few dribbles on the counter in the process), watched it bubble, flipped it, then transferred the golden medallion onto a plate stacked five high. Next to the pancakes was a plate filled with bacon, and a small aluminum pan of scrambled eggs.
"Smells good," I said at last. "Find everything okay?"
I thought I might startle him with my abrupt appearance; instead, Trent looked over his shoulder, chewing on a piece of bacon. He swallowed and said, "Oh, it's you. Yeah, I hope you don't mind me using your kitchen. I thought I'd make us some breakfast."
It occurred to me then that Trent likely wasn't a guest in other people's homes very often. Lucky for him, I didn't mind him using a kitchen that hadn't been mine in many years. I was going to tell him as much when I saw an opened box of Bisquick sitting on the counter. I pointed to it and asked, "you found that in the pantry? My dad usually makes his pancakes from scratch."
He turned to look at the box, then back at me. "No, I went out and got that. And the bacon and eggs. I didn't want to dig into your supply without asking, and you were asleep, so..."
I felt my eyebrows furrow as I checked the time on the stove-clock. "It's 8:17 in the morning. Are you telling me you went out to the store, bought all these ingredients, then came back and cooked them? Just how early did you get up?"
"Around five," he answered as casually as if I had asked his dog's name. "I don't usually get much sleep. Around four, five hours is all I need. It's actually unusual for Antennas to need more than that amount. But I suppose you are unusual."
I opened my mouth in disbelief. Not only had he commandeered my kitchen, he was calling me unusual? At 8-fricken-17 in the morning?
"Sorry," Trent said, reading my expression, "I'm… well, let's just say I've not had many personal relationships. I'm used to being blunt. It's just easier that way." He took out a plate and transferred two pancakes, some eggs, and a few slices of bacon onto it. Then he held it up to me as a peace offering.
I sighed. "This better be good," I said with a wry smile and took the plate.
"Trent-certified, but no guarantees. Refunds not allowed." He replied, which made me giggle.
We sat across from one another at the dining room table. The meal was pretty good, but it was no dad's special: the pancakes were clearly box pancakes, the scrambled eggs lacked cheese and had a little too much pepper, and the bacon was… well it was bacon, no complaints there. Still, it was nice to settle down and have a somewhat normal morning.
After we ate, Trent unfurled the long arc of his life, which began as the second youngest brother of eight siblings in rural Oklahoma. Trent's 'pops' was in the logging business, first as a lumberjack, then as an owner of his own logging company. His dad acquired the business while Trent was still young, so school was never a high priority for him—at least not the way contributing to the household was. The rest of his childhood he summed up in two lessons: "Being 'close' has nothing to do with distance," and "don't touch strange plants in the woods."
I asked him if he kept in touch with any of his siblings, to which he responded, saying, "The only reason they haven't had a funeral for me is because it would be too much work." When I asked him to elaborate, he said he'd not had contact with anyone in his immediate family for over a decade. He kept tabs on them. For example, he knew his mother had dementia, and his dad was forced into retirement by his oldest brother (who had gone on to take over the logging company). His sisters were all married and moved to other parts of the country. He considered reaching out several times, but his situation required a degree of security that wasn't conducive of close family ties, not that there were particularly strong ties even before he broke contact. Trent admitted to being a bit of a black sheep.
"It all circles back to one of my jobs as a Home Inspector," he explained. "After I moved out, I tried college and quickly realized it wasn't for me. So I entered the workforce and did a bunch of odd jobs. Construction, carpentry, plumbing. I even drove a garbage truck for a while. But I ended up in Home Inspection. There was one job in particular which made me aware of…" Trent paused and gestured toward the space between us, "our situation. The blinks. You remember what I told you about origin points being like a station where other realms intersect with our world? Well, this house was like Union Station or JFK airport if you prefer a plane analogy. There was a pile of junk up to my knees in the basement of that house; all of it had been blinked in. I spent a couple days on the property, running tests, trying to identify the strange phenomenon, but on day three I rolled up to an army of what I thought at the time were Feds, parading around the property like ants on an anthill and sectioning it off with crime-scene tape." I saw disgust funnel into Trent's expression. "They're not Feds at all though. At least not anymore. I call them "the Organization," a group of people who lead in the formalized understanding of what you know as 'blinking'. And they're the reason I have to take precautions."
I considered this for a moment. Trent's story was certainly plausible, but I was missing a key piece of the puzzle. "Okay, so, what does this 'Organization' want? You make it seem like they're not good people. Have they tried attacking you?"
This caused Trent to laugh for a solid ten seconds. "Sorry, it's just… I mean if you knew what I knew, you might think it's funny, too."
"Then tell me"
Trent took a deep breath, then released. "It's a long story. The gist of it is this. The Organization has a certain device which I call 'the Receiver'. Think of it like a giant antenna—no, not us kind of Antennas, an actual antenna. It's like the machine equivalent of us, but with a billion times the bandwidth. Their goal is to use the Receiver to map our world in relation to other dimensions, then use that map to establish dominion over everyone and everything. In order to do this, they need muscle: both human muscle, and Antenna muscle. They're in the process of harvesting as many of us they can find. They're like a giant diamond company who is taking to the mines. When they find a stone, they take it back to their factory for cutting and refinement. In real terms, they run tests on us and attempt to augment our powers. The ultimate goal is to create a 'Strong Antenna', or an Antenna capable of causing phase shifts—blinks." Trent saw from my expression that he was starting to lose me, so he stood up and began rolling up his shirt.
"What are you doing?" I asked, turning away. Then I saw what he wanted to show me. There was a long scar beginning high up on his ribs and slashing all the way down to his left hip. There was also what appeared to be a patch of burn marks on his stomach.
"It was early on when I got these." Trent explained. "I was naive. I actually thought I'd be able to reason with these people. The only reason I escaped was because of dumb luck and a box of hand grenades. But that's a tale for another time. I learned two important lessons that day. First, the Organization isn't fucking around. And two, they aren't immortal. Most of them are regular, every-day humans, except for their obsession with power." Trent let his shirt fall, covering up the marks. "I ran into them again recently at their Headquarters. My team and I are working on a plan to…" he paused, seemingly weighing his words, then changed gears. "Well, I guess we can go over that another time."
I couldn't help but feel that Trent was holding something back. As much as I tried to resist thinking about yesterday, the old demon-man's words kept ringing in my head. You think he can help you? He's only here to help himself. Then I thought about what Trent said at the deli: "that's the thing that got me really interested in you. Somehow you seem to be able to control it without gear, just by praying." Did Trent think I was a Strong Antenna? Is that the only reason he's helping me? Because he wants to recruit me? And if that is the case, what if I said 'no'?
"Listen, Trent," I started, but I saw Trent was already nodding. Still, I pressed on. "I need you to tell me what I'm actually doing here. Why did you agree to help me? And what does helping me really mean? I want to know the truth."
"The truth is…" Trent started, then stopped and looked out the glass door that led onto the deck. I looked too and saw a sparrow had alighted on our old bird feeder. It tried pecking at some of its non-existent grains, then sang what I assumed was a song of displeasure before taking back off to the skies.
"The truth is: I do want to recruit you. I think you have the potential to be the strongest tool in my arsenal, but I won't require it. To date, I've helped 53 of our kind, but only seven have stayed on. Most decide to go on and live normal lives." Trent scooted his plate to the side. "In our case, this can essentially go one of two ways. In either instance, we pass through Chicago for two stops. First, I need to meet up with an associate who has something to drop off to me. Then I need to stop at a storage locker and trade out some gear that will allow me to open a phase portal. When we arrive at your origin point, I'll open the portal and you'll look inside. Based on everything you've told me, I'm guessing that childhood accident was when the demon appended itself to your life. By seeing how it entered your life, you should be able to figure out how to dispel it. At least that's the working theory. Returning to the origin point has always worked for the other Antennas, although I must admit your situation is different, but I can't imagine it's so different that this method won't work at all. After you return demon-free, you're free. You can walk out and never see me again and hopefully you'll live a happy and peaceful life. Or you can decide to throw your lot in with mine, and I can show you how deep the rabbit hole goes, so to speak." Trent looked into my eyes, and when I didn't respond for a few seconds, he said, "that's it. That's all I got."
I smiled and responded with one sentence.
"When do we leave?"
***
Memories have a strange architecture. In some ways, they are the great safety net of our experiences: collecting them like a bucket under a leaky roof. In other ways, they are an eternal reminder that nothing ever truly lasts. Perhaps a better way of thinking about memories is as the ghosts of our past lingering in the present. As I took one last stroll through my childhood house, feeling that it might be my last time for a long while, I felt the imprints of childhood memories press into my awareness: I could hear my father's voice reading to me at my bedside; I could see him holding one of my stuffed animals above my head as I wrestled him for it; I could recall the times when I'd sneak down the stairs late at night and quietly open the freezer, grab the ice cream carton, then head back upstairs to eat it.
I felt a yearning to return to those memories: to walk into the fictitious pictures my mind was painting on the canvas of my present. I knew I couldn't return, but I still wanted something to hold onto. I went back to my room and grabbed the cotton-stuffed tomato from off my closet cabinet. Then I walked through my dad's study and removed a volume I recalled him frequently reading, a hard-cover book with a green binding called, "A Collection of Great Works". I placed these items by my feet in the passenger seat of Trent's van, and just as we were about to leave, I remembered something else.
"My plant!" I blurted.
"Your what?"
"My plant—and my car. I left them it the deli. Do you think we could swing by and get it?"
Trent checked the time, then said, "Yeah, I guess we can. I just hope it isn't towed."
Luckily, it wasn't. I half-expected to find a ticket on the windshield, but there wasn't one of those, either. I unlocked the door to my Jetta and got into what felt like an active oven. "Hot!" I said and rolled down all the windows, then cranked up the AC. I saw my plant resting in the cupholder that I'd left it in the previous day. I picked it up and touched its soil. It was dry and beginning to crack. Hang on little guy, I thought. Then I led the way back to my house.
When I arrived, I parked at the head of the driveway. I turned off the car, then ran inside with the young tomato plant, bringing it to the upstairs bathrooms sink and dousing it in water. I wasn't sure how much I was supposed to add, but I figured after the sauna experience it had yesterday, I could afford to go a little overboard. Once it was fed, I opened the small purple drapes and placed it on the windowsill which faced East, meaning it would hopefully get plenty of morning sunlight.
"Good, now?" Trent asked after I hopped back in the passenger seat of the van.
"Yeah," I said. "Good now."
"Then lets get a move on."
***
Road tripping with Trent was a much different experience than when we were driving for our lives. For one, Trent wasn't nearly as tense. He drove with the windows down and one hand on the steering wheel like out of a Mustang commercial, talking intermittently about his adventures: people he'd met, jobs he'd done, close calls. He was like a living radio. And when his personal station wasn't on, he was playing one of his CD's—classic rock, mainly. When he was in an 'off' period, I found myself looking out the window at the rolling wheat fields and cloudy blue sky. Journey was playing, and the lyrics to one of the songs crept into my head and reverberated there:
The wheel in the sky keeps on turning.
I don't know where I'll be tomorrow…
I've been trying to make it home,
Got to make it before too long…
Ooh I can't take it, very much longer…
In a strange way, I felt like I was leaving home. But in another way, I was going back. And then it occurred to me that perhaps I didn't have a home at all. Did I ever have one? These past couple days had called everything about my life into question, to the point where the past seemed as mysterious as the future, and both intersected at that one place in the woods. The place where it all began. The place we were headed.
We only stopped once at a gas station to refuel, get snacks, and use the bathroom. Otherwise it was smooth sailing, other than one heated discussion with Trent that began when he addressed his vehicle as "Car" for the fifth time.
"Okay, you need to come up with a better name than that."
"What do you mean?" Trent asked, seeming genuinely confused.
"You have a super-car and you named it 'Car'. That's actually embarrassing."
"But, it is a car."
I facepalmed. "First of all, it's a van."
"A van is a type of car."
"Second of all, would you name your kid, 'kid'?"
Trent thought it over for what I thought was much too long. At last he concluded, "No, I'd probably name him 'boy', or if it's a girl, 'girl'."
After five more minutes of his childish banter, we settled on the name "Ava"—my choice, after rejecting his runner-up name "Scar".
At around the seven hour mark, I dozed off, then woke up a couple hours later to the sensation of the van dipping, then bumping up into an elevated climb. The evening sunlight that was pressuring my eyelids to open, dissipated, and everything was suddenly dark. I opened my eyes and saw we had entered a parking garage. Trent pulled into an open spot on the second level.
"We're here," he said and gathered up his gun which he stashed in a driver's side underboard compartment that I'm guessing he had installed himself.
"I see that"
"You want to wait here, or—"
I opened the car door, which was answer enough for Trent. We both got out and started down Maple Avenue. I had been to several cities before, Chicago among them, but the size of the buildings always struck me with awe. As we walked alongside dozens of other pedestrians, I looked up and traced the closest tower to its peak, guessing how many stories it was in my head. Then I'd be pulled out of my game by the honking of some nearby vehicle.
We continued for two blocks until Trent made a path directly toward the nearest Starbucks. I didn't know what I was picturing for a meeting with his associate, but it definitely wasn't a meetup at a coffee shop. Still, I followed him in. Then when I saw that Trent was leading me to a corner table where a casually dressed Chinese girl who appeared even younger than me was sitting, I blurted in a hushed tone, "her? She's your associate?"
"Took you long enough," said the Chinese girl, looking up from what appeared to be some kind of homework assignment.
"And she's in school?" I asked, incredulous.
The associate looked to me, then to Trent (who nodded), then back to me. "It's just a cover. I'm glad to see it still works, though." She reached out to shake my hand. "I'm Allison. It's nice to meet you."
Trent gave me a smirk, then said, "looks can be deceiving."
I grunted an affirmation and shook Allison's hand. "I'm Lauren. It's nice to meet you, too."
"You have it?" Trent asked, skipping right to business.
"Of course," Allison replied and removed a mailing package from her backpack, setting it on the table. "You want to go make sure it works?" She asked, gesturing up at the ceiling with her eyes.
Trent seemed to think it over for a second, then looked at me. But before he could say anything, Allison cut back in—
"—I'll stay with her. It's been a while since I've had any female company. Why don't you let us girls talk while you take care of that?" She said in a seductive yet authoritative tone which garnered her years that her appearance did not reflect.
Trent hesitated, but only for a moment. "Okay, I'll be right back," he said. Then he hurried out the door in the direction we had come from.
"Come, sit with me." Allison invited. "Tell me about yourself."
I took a seat on the small wooden seat opposite Allison, then crossed my legs. "What do you want to know?" I asked, feeling discomfort rise in my stomach. Nothing about this situation, from the mysterious package, to Trent leaving me alone with this girl, to the girl herself, whose voice was as velvety smooth as the latte she was stirring with a black coffee straw, sat right with me.
"I'm curious about what you think of Trent."
"Trent?" I repeated. I realized this was the first time I was putting any of my thoughts about Trent or our relationship into words. "I guess... he's a pretty straightforward guy. He seems to know what he's doing."
Allison flashed me a small smile, then took a sip of her latte. I saw the sticker on her drink read "Chai". Then she set the cup down and sighed. "Yes, he's very straightforward. Definitely doesn't mince words." She looked up into my eyes. Hers were a rich black, like onyx pebbles, but there was something about the way the light refracted off them which simulated a kind of inward motion, as if they were tiny whirlpools. Her smile spread across her lips. "I'm curious. What did he tell you?"
"Tell me about what?"
"About what you're doing. About where you're off to. What's the plan?"
"Don't you know?" I asked, but it immediately occurred to me that maybe she didn't know. I never saw Trent with a cellphone. Just how did he communicate with his 'associates'? And what if he didn't want her to know what we were doing for a good reason? Should I tell her?
"No, Trent keeps his cards close to his chest. He always has."
"Don't you work together, though?"
Allison waved her left hand in the air. "Of course, but it's because of the nature of our work that most of our communication is done in person, so Trent doesn't tell me much outside of the current job. I was just curious, is all."
"That makes sense. I mean, I'm actually pretty curious about what you do, too."
"Oh?" Allison's voice went high, as if she suddenly sensed an opening. "Then, why don't we trade stories. You tell about your trip, and I'll tell you about mine."
I thought it over for a second. I really did want to hear what Allison had to say, and she was Trent's co-worker, it's not like I was spilling crucial secrets to an enemy. "We're currently on our way to Southern Illinois. Specifically, we're going back to my origin point so I can confront a demon that Trent thinks blinked into my life there."
Allison stopped stirring, but her eyes didn't break from mine. "A demon, huh?" She raised the cup and took a long sip, then placed it back on the table and continued stirring. "I met a demon once," she started, looking up at the walls as if her life was playing on a screen there. "It was back in China, where I was born." She dropped her attention back to me. "Do you mind if I reminisce a little? Maybe you can get something out of it."
I shook my head, but something in my gut started to stir again. Allison continued.
"I was born during the Era of the Once Child Policy. As a result, my mother decided to leave me in a shoebox on the side of the road. I was a girl, so that's just how it was... Like many other babies in my... 'condition', I ended up in foster care. However, for whatever reason, I wasn't adopted. Years passed, and when I turned six, the government decided I'd be of better use building our impoverished town's GDP in a factory that assembled electronic devices for Western countries. Mostly they had me cleaning, but when I turned eight, one of the employees asked for my help with one of the soldering machines. That turned out to be the beginning of the end for me. I sliced open the ring finger of my right hand. I remember specifically seeing the bone underneath the split flesh and thinking it looked so small and white. The employee claimed to have nothing to do with my accident, and the management declared my injury "minimally invasive" and bandaged it up. Two weeks later and who would have guessed that the wound would become infected, and, well..."
Allison dropped the straw into her cup and raised her right hand, spreading the fingers out for me to see. There were only four. Her ring finger was missing, and a small v-shaped scar had taken its place.
"I'm lucky that the surgeon was experienced enough to take out the whole digit, that way it healed in a way which makes it somewhat difficult to notice. You didn't notice, after all. But, then again, is that really luck?" She made a fist and brought it to her lips, stifling a laugh. "No... Now I remember. My luck was still yet to come." She continued stirring. "Because, you see, after that incident, they moved me to a clothing factory with a boss who had a penchant for getting drunk and roughing up his workers, and, well, one night I was walking back to foster care when I heard the outside door to the manager's office slam shut, and there he went, stumbling, slurring insults, curses, and here I was, perfectly in his path. We met eyes, and in them I saw absolutely nothing. A hollow shell of a man, and I can still remember what it looked like to see that shell fill with a demon."
Allison's eyes went wide with some strong emotion that I couldn't place. "He grabbed me by my hair and dragged me out into the field, far away from civilization. I tried to fight at first, but every time I tried to lunge away, I was only ripping a hole in my own scalp. It felt like flames were spewing from my head, and my only respite was when the blood eventually cooled over the wound. By the time he had thrown me against the rock, I'd already all but given up. Then, when my head met the stone, I heard a pop and my grip on the world loosened. The man continued touching me, but it was as if I was disconnected now, floating somewhere above my own head, and gravity was beginning to reverse, causing me to float higher and higher, away from the horrible nightmare below."
Allison paused for a moment, and I suddenly realized I was holding my breath.
"Then I saw the most bright light I'd ever seen. At the time I thought it was either the Sun or Heaven or something like that. It was just too bright for this world. But then after looking for a little longer, I noticed it was in the shape of a person. It reached out toward me, and I had never been so quick to respond. When I touched it, I felt all my pain immediately dissipate. And I felt warm and... peaceful. And I was no longer in the sky. I was back in the field. But when I looked around, the man was gone. Vanished, right out of existence. I didn't understand it at the time, but that was my first experience with the Shifts. All I knew then was that I was free, and I damn well wasn't going to waste that. I ran as far as I could, away from the factories, the foster home, the corrupt governments and corporations. I kept running until I arrived at a City that didn't know me. That didn't want to know me. And I liked it that way, because it's easier to live as a ghost than as a victim."
Allison perked up, and when I turned around to see what for, I saw Trent entering back through the door.
"But you know what's interesting?" Allison blurted out, her voice becoming quieter. "Trent never took me back to confront my demon." Her voice became a whisper. "In fact, I can't recall him ever taking any of us back."
For a moment the whole world became a still frame. Allison's clear, olive skin, and dark eyes, made darker with eyeliner; her narrow nose; her small lips now coiling into a smile. My entire body was a hair trigger hat only needed the slightest force to set it off. And when Trent placed his hand on my shoulder, I whirled around and narrowly missed a haymaker that swept just shy of Trent's face.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa" he said and stepped back with his palms up. "It's just me. Is everything okay?"
I turned back to Allison, but she seemed different now. Her expression was benign; confused, even. "Are you okay?" she asked.
"I—you"
"We were just talking about where you were off to next." Allison said without a hint of pretense.
"Okay, well, chat time is over. It's time to go." Trent said and started guiding me toward the door. I turned back and saw Allison mouth some words which I swear I heard, as if they had been directly transmitted into my brain.
"See you soon" she purred.
She was smiling.
***
The next leg of the trip passed mostly in silence. It was a little over an hour to the storage facility which was located just South of Chicago. My heart was beating wildly in my chest as I pictured Allison's smile. I wanted to ask Trent if demons could possess Antennas, if somehow one of us could become compromised, but then I remembered Allison's words and stopped myself. Because I didn't know if I could really trust Trent. I tried to tell myself I could trust him—that it was Allison who was the liar. Her whole persona seemed fake at best, and possessed at worst. But, then... what if she was telling the truth? What if Trent was the enemy?
He sensed my quietness and tried striking up a couple conversations, but I only gave one-word answers. Somehow, our trust was so brittle that a single, well-placed sentence was enough to snap it. When he asked if everything was okay, I lied and said that I just had a headache and needed more rest. So I leaned my head against the stuffed tomato and tried to sleep, even though I knew I wouldn't be able to.
We arrived at the facility just as the sun was setting for the night. Trent pulled up to the self-service gate and scanned a card which caused the automatic doors to swing open. We looped down a couple rows of the outdoor units until we came to #48.
"We're here," Trent prompted, but this time I didn't budge. I felt his eyes on me after he turned off the ignition. "Hey," he called. "Are you awake?"
I was silent.
I heard Trent quietly click open his door, then close it the same way. I waited a few seconds then turned my head and watched him from the driver's side mirror. He opened the storage locker, then walked inside and turned on a light. It occurred to me then how dimly lit this outdoor storage facility was. There was a weak overhead lantern peeking over every fourth garage like an anglerfish's lure, leaving a large portion of the road not hit by the light bubbles completely dark.
I tried to plan my next move. I could leave Trent and run. But where would I go? Or I could stay and see Trent's plan through. There was a chance this was all an elaborate trap. Maybe Trent was working with the demon, or maybe he was the demon. But then why did he save me? Twice. Maybe he was actually a double agent for the Organization. But he could easily have captured me by now. Unless he needs me to go back to the origin point for a different reason... I considered everything I had learned up until this point: we live at the cross-section of different realms; these other realms interact with our world; Antennas, who are a very small minority of people, can see these interactions; the Organization wants to harness our power and create a 'Strong Antenna' to achieve some kind of universal hegemony; I'm the closest thing to a Strong Antenna to date; Trent knows this; He's taking me back to my origin point, despite not taking the others back to theirs; Trent claims to want to fight the Organization; the best way to fight the Organization would be with a Strong Antenna. What if Trent was trying to make me into a Strong Antenna?
I considered this chain of reasoning. It seemed very plausible, especially after Allison's cryptic messages. Was she trying to warn me of this? But that smile, and the "see you soon"... If she wasn't being possessed, why would she be seeing me soon?
Suddenly my thoughts gave way like a broken dam as I heard a ping come from Ava's radar. I jumped, thinking that all of the electronics turned off with the ignition, but when I looked at the circular sonar map, I saw a red dot had just emerged in the top-right corner. I looked out the window in the direction of the ping, but I couldn't see anything heading down the road.
Ping. Ping. Ping. Ping. Ping.
Four more dots appeared behind the first, and they were approaching.
I jumped out the van and ran over to where Trent was hauling in a large cardboard crate into the back of the van. "Trent, there's pings on the radar. A bunch of them."
He dropped the box next to three others, and I realized I had never seen inside the back of the van. It was filled with what looked like pneumatic tubes wired into circuits, and in the center was a tri-pod which was holding a large halo-shaped ring.
"Pings?" Trent said, then his face widened with shock as he realized what I meant. "Shit, how many?"
"Five, maybe more now. And they're getting closer."
"Five?" He jumped out the back and ran into the storage locker. I thought he was going to close the door, but when I saw him hauling boxes back toward the van, I yelled at him. "What are you doing!?"
"I need to load this up for tomorrow. Here," He tossed me his keys. "Get it started."
"Fuck, seriously?"
Trent didn't respond, only kept shuffling boxes into the van.
I turned and ran to the door and hopped in the driver's seat. As I was turning on the ignition, I saw the row of bushes that was just outside of the facility begin to rattle. The next sweep revealed a whole sea of pings. I rolled down the window and shouted Trent's name.
"One more, that's all. Get in the passenger seat, I'll be there in a sec."
I scooted over the center console and waited, clutching at the bottom of my pants legs. Just as Trent slammed the rear door of the van shut, I saw the first figure emerge onto the road ahead of us. It looked like some kind of large coyote, though it was hard to tell because it was still fifty meters out.
"Now detecting 53 controlled agents." Ava said right as Trent jumped in and shut the driver's side door. "Net anomalies: 53."
"Ava, increase radius to five miles." Trent instructed as he backed up all the way to the end of the lane and spun us around toward the gate. Just as we left, I saw the pack of coyotes stalking toward us, slow at first, then in a dead sprint.
"Increasing radius." Ava responded. "Increased. Recalculating… Recalculating… Re—complete. Now detecting 451 controlled agents. Net anomalies: 451."
"What does 'controlled agent' mean?" I asked.
"Hold on," Trent said and accelerated into the gate, bursting through it. The whole van shook, and I heard my phone fall in the crack between the seat and door. Trent steadied the van, then said, "It means the things chasing us are being controlled by something that isn't detectable."
"The demon?"
"That'd be my guess."
"But why can't Ava detect it?"
Trent switched to the right lane, then merged onto the Interstate-South ramp. "Probably because it isn't trying to kill us."
"Then, what—" I looked back at the map and basically had my question answered. All 451 pings were coalesced in a semicircle on one side of the map. The side of the map that we had just come from. "Is it trying to force us toward the crash site?"
"It seems that way." Trent answered.
"Trent, pull over."
"Huh?"
"Pull over!" I yelled.
He looked at me, eyes wide. Then he did as I had instructed and pulled off in the middle of the ramp. The red dots slowly closed in on our position.
"Now detecting—"
"Shut up, Ava." I said. I could feel my blood boiling. "I'm not going one step further until you tell me the truth. Why are we going to my origin point? What is your real motive?"
"What do you mean? I already told you."
I unlocked the passenger side door.
"Wait," Trent said and reached out toward me. "Just, wait."
There was silence, except for the pings indicating that the beasts behind us had re-encroached on our position to about fifty meters.
"Okay, I didn't tell you everything. But we don't have time now—"
I opened the door.
"Okay, okay. I didn't tell you everything, it's true. I've never done this with anyone else, but the reason is because I never needed to. And if I told you what might happen, you would have refused it."
"Refused what?"
"This—me, my help. Lauren, I am trying to help you. But you have to understand—it's likely that neither of us are going to live past tomorrow. You're basically confronting a dark entity in a place where I can't protect you, and if you somehow do manage to kill it, you'll be coming back to the fight of your life. Because I don't have the power to hide you from the Organization. They're going to show up and try to take you. I really don't know how you've lasted as long as you have. Whatever protection you had growing up, it's gone now. And now I'm all you have. And in some twist of fate, you're all I have."
Ava reactivated. "Now detecting 1,117 controlled agents. Proximity till contact: 20 meters. Net anomalies: 1,117."
I closed my door. "But what if I still don't want to go through with it?"
Trent pointed at the screen. "Then we die right here, right now, together. Because I am one-hundred percent certain that if we don't go to that crash site, we're dead anyway. All of us."
Another ping rolled through. I checked the side-view mirror and saw the swarming pack of dogs reach the van and bound around the rear wheels. I suddenly recalled the conversation I had with Father Martin and the conclusions I had drawn. Father, I've been… wrestling with something, and I think God wants me to confront it. I think I've been running away and hiding from it for so long that I'd convinced myself it disappeared...
"Go," I said just as I felt the collision of the coyotes slamming their bodies against the side doors.
Trent didn't waste any time stepping on the gas. I watched as the coyotes diminished in the distance and the pings receded into the back of the map, never disappearing fully, but covering the flank of our retreat—a reminder lingering on the edge of our awareness that there was no turning back now. That, one way or another, this was ending tomorrow.
And I'd either be dead, or something else entirely.

Part 1
Part 2
***
Darkness gave way to dimness as I opened my eyes and saw slivers of gray light printed on the ceiling like lines on the page of a ruled notebook. In the distance, I heard the sound of pans clanking against the kitchen stove, and I became ever-aware of the scent of cinnamon and bacon sneaking in from under my closed bedroom door. For a moment, I was back in sixth grade. My dad was downstairs cooking up his famous from-scratch buttermilk pancakes and cheesy scrambled eggs. It was probably 7:00, maybe 7:05, and I had fifteen minutes to get up, shower, dress, eat, then it was off to Middle School with dad: for me to learn, him to work.
It was the day we were set to be assigned our Ancient Civilizations project. Unless something went terribly wrong, I would be choosing Ancient Rome. I didn't know much about it, other than it was some great empire, but even then I didn't really understand what an empire was. I was just happy that I would get to build something with my dad. I turned on my side and looked at the closed blinds, the source of the gray lines, then the cabinet with all my trophies, and finally the wobbly, firetruck-red chair pushed under my desk. I was home at last. The past fifteen years were nothing but a dream. There was no blinking. No malevolent demon chasing me. No inexplicable chaos…
It was a sweet fantasy. But one that became bitter the longer I tried to chew on it.
I swept my legs out from under the covers and sat, face-down, on the corner of my twin mattress. My feet were adult's feet. My room was my former room. And that was Trent downstairs cooking breakfast. Unless, of course, it was my dad, in which case I'd have bigger problems than merely waking up from a good dream.
After changing into a fresh shirt and pants, I went downstairs and saw that it was, in fact, Trent cooking breakfast. He was wearing a plain t-shirt through which I could see the ripples of his large back muscles as he whisked what I presumed was pancake batter. He must not have heard me, because he didn't turn around when I made it to the end of the hall. I leaned against the wall, arms folded, and watched him for a minute as he finished whisking the batter, then poured it onto a hot griddle (spilling a few dribbles on the counter in the process), watched it bubble, flipped it, then transferred the golden medallion onto a plate stacked five high. Next to the pancakes was a plate filled with bacon, and a small aluminum pan of scrambled eggs.
"Smells good," I said at last. "Find everything okay?"
I thought I might startle him with my abrupt appearance; instead, Trent looked over his shoulder, chewing on a piece of bacon. He swallowed and said, "Oh, it's you. Yeah, I hope you don't mind me using your kitchen. I thought I'd make us some breakfast."
It occurred to me then that Trent likely wasn't a guest in other people's homes very often. Lucky for him, I didn't mind him using a kitchen that hadn't been mine in many years. I was going to tell him as much when I saw an opened box of Bisquick sitting on the counter. I pointed to it and asked, "you found that in the pantry? My dad usually makes his pancakes from scratch."
He turned to look at the box, then back at me. "No, I went out and got that. And the bacon and eggs. I didn't want to dig into your supply without asking, and you were asleep, so..."
I felt my eyebrows furrow as I checked the time on the stove-clock. "It's 8:17 in the morning. Are you telling me you went out to the store, bought all these ingredients, then came back and cooked them? Just how early did you get up?"
"Around five," he answered as casually as if I had asked his dog's name. "I don't usually get much sleep. Around four, five hours is all I need. It's actually unusual for Antennas to need more than that amount. But I suppose you are unusual."
I opened my mouth in disbelief. Not only had he commandeered my kitchen, he was calling me unusual? At 8-fricken-17 in the morning?
"Sorry," Trent said, reading my expression, "I'm… well, let's just say I've not had many personal relationships. I'm used to being blunt. It's just easier that way." He took out a plate and transferred two pancakes, some eggs, and a few slices of bacon onto it. Then he held it up to me as a peace offering.
I sighed. "This better be good," I said with a wry smile and took the plate.
"Trent-certified, but no guarantees. Refunds not allowed." He replied, which made me giggle.
We sat across from one another at the dining room table. The meal was pretty good, but it was no dad's special: the pancakes were clearly box pancakes, the scrambled eggs lacked cheese and had a little too much pepper, and the bacon was… well it was bacon, no complaints there. Still, it was nice to settle down and have a somewhat normal morning.
After we ate, Trent unfurled the long arc of his life, which began as the second youngest brother of eight siblings in rural Oklahoma. Trent's 'pops' was in the logging business, first as a lumberjack, then as an owner of his own logging company. His dad acquired the business while Trent was still young, so school was never a high priority for him—at least not the way contributing to the household was. The rest of his childhood he summed up in two lessons: "Being 'close' has nothing to do with distance," and "don't touch strange plants in the woods."
I asked him if he kept in touch with any of his siblings, to which he responded, saying, "The only reason they haven't had a funeral for me is because it would be too much work." When I asked him to elaborate, he said he'd not had contact with anyone in his immediate family for over a decade. He kept tabs on them. For example, he knew his mother had dementia, and his dad was forced into retirement by his oldest brother (who had gone on to take over the logging company). His sisters were all married and moved to other parts of the country. He considered reaching out several times, but his situation required a degree of security that wasn't conducive of close family ties, not that there were particularly strong ties even before he broke contact. Trent admitted to being a bit of a black sheep.
"It all circles back to one of my jobs as a Home Inspector," he explained. "After I moved out, I tried college and quickly realized it wasn't for me. So I entered the workforce and did a bunch of odd jobs. Construction, carpentry, plumbing. I even drove a garbage truck for a while. But I ended up in Home Inspection. There was one job in particular which made me aware of…" Trent paused and gestured toward the space between us, "our situation. The blinks. You remember what I told you about origin points being like a station where other realms intersect with our world? Well, this house was like Union Station or JFK airport if you prefer a plane analogy. There was a pile of junk up to my knees in the basement of that house; all of it had been blinked in. I spent a couple days on the property, running tests, trying to identify the strange phenomenon, but on day three I rolled up to an army of what I thought at the time were Feds, parading around the property like ants on an anthill and sectioning it off with crime-scene tape." I saw disgust funnel into Trent's expression. "They're not Feds at all though. At least not anymore. I call them "the Organization," a group of people who lead in the formalized understanding of what you know as 'blinking'. And they're the reason I have to take precautions."
I considered this for a moment. Trent's story was certainly plausible, but I was missing a key piece of the puzzle. "Okay, so, what does this 'Organization' want? You make it seem like they're not good people. Have they tried attacking you?"
This caused Trent to laugh for a solid ten seconds. "Sorry, it's just… I mean if you knew what I knew, you might think it's funny, too."
"Then tell me"
Trent took a deep breath, then released. "It's a long story. The gist of it is this. The Organization has a certain device which I call 'the Receiver'. Think of it like a giant antenna—no, not us kind of Antennas, an actual antenna. It's like the machine equivalent of us, but with a billion times the bandwidth. Their goal is to use the Receiver to map our world in relation to other dimensions, then use that map to establish dominion over everyone and everything. In order to do this, they need muscle: both human muscle, and Antenna muscle. They're in the process of harvesting as many of us they can find. They're like a giant diamond company who is taking to the mines. When they find a stone, they take it back to their factory for cutting and refinement. In real terms, they run tests on us and attempt to augment our powers. The ultimate goal is to create a 'Strong Antenna', or an Antenna capable of causing phase shifts—blinks." Trent saw from my expression that he was starting to lose me, so he stood up and began rolling up his shirt.
"What are you doing?" I asked, turning away. Then I saw what he wanted to show me. There was a long scar beginning high up on his ribs and slashing all the way down to his left hip. There was also what appeared to be a patch of burn marks on his stomach.
"It was early on when I got these." Trent explained. "I was naive. I actually thought I'd be able to reason with these people. The only reason I escaped was because of dumb luck and a box of hand grenades. But that's a tale for another time. I learned two important lessons that day. First, the Organization isn't fucking around. And two, they aren't immortal. Most of them are regular, every-day humans, except for their obsession with power." Trent let his shirt fall, covering up the marks. "I ran into them again recently at their Headquarters. My team and I are working on a plan to…" he paused, seemingly weighing his words, then changed gears. "Well, I guess we can go over that another time."
I couldn't help but feel that Trent was holding something back. As much as I tried to resist thinking about yesterday, the old demon-man's words kept ringing in my head. You think he can help you? He's only here to help himself. Then I thought about what Trent said at the deli: "that's the thing that got me really interested in you. Somehow you seem to be able to control it without gear, just by praying." Did Trent think I was a Strong Antenna? Is that the only reason he's helping me? Because he wants to recruit me? And if that is the case, what if I said 'no'?
"Listen, Trent," I started, but I saw Trent was already nodding. Still, I pressed on. "I need you to tell me what I'm actually doing here. Why did you agree to help me? And what does helping me really mean? I want to know the truth."
"The truth is…" Trent started, then stopped and looked out the glass door that led onto the deck. I looked too and saw a sparrow had alighted on our old bird feeder. It tried pecking at some of its non-existent grains, then sang what I assumed was a song of displeasure before taking back off to the skies.
"The truth is: I do want to recruit you. I think you have the potential to be the strongest tool in my arsenal, but I won't require it. To date, I've helped 53 of our kind, but only seven have stayed on. Most decide to go on and live normal lives." Trent scooted his plate to the side. "In our case, this can essentially go one of two ways. In either instance, we pass through Chicago for two stops. First, I need to meet up with an associate who has something to drop off to me. Then I need to stop at a storage locker and trade out some gear that will allow me to open a phase portal. When we arrive at your origin point, I'll open the portal and you'll look inside. Based on everything you've told me, I'm guessing that childhood accident was when the demon appended itself to your life. By seeing how it entered your life, you should be able to figure out how to dispel it. At least that's the working theory. Returning to the origin point has always worked for the other Antennas, although I must admit your situation is different, but I can't imagine it's so different that this method won't work at all. After you return demon-free, you're free. You can walk out and never see me again and hopefully you'll live a happy and peaceful life. Or you can decide to throw your lot in with mine, and I can show you how deep the rabbit hole goes, so to speak." Trent looked into my eyes, and when I didn't respond for a few seconds, he said, "that's it. That's all I got."
I smiled and responded with one sentence.
"When do we leave?"
***
Memories have a strange architecture. In some ways, they are the great safety net of our experiences: collecting them like a bucket under a leaky roof. In other ways, they are an eternal reminder that nothing ever truly lasts. Perhaps a better way of thinking about memories is as the ghosts of our past lingering in the present. As I took one last stroll through my childhood house, feeling that it might be my last time for a long while, I felt the imprints of childhood memories press into my awareness: I could hear my father's voice reading to me at my bedside; I could see him holding one of my stuffed animals above my head as I wrestled him for it; I could recall the times when I'd sneak down the stairs late at night and quietly open the freezer, grab the ice cream carton, then head back upstairs to eat it.
I felt a yearning to return to those memories: to walk into the fictitious pictures my mind was painting on the canvas of my present. I knew I couldn't return, but I still wanted something to hold onto. I went back to my room and grabbed the cotton-stuffed tomato from off my closet cabinet. Then I walked through my dad's study and removed a volume I recalled him frequently reading, a hard-cover book with a green binding called, "A Collection of Great Works". I placed these items by my feet in the passenger seat of Trent's van, and just as we were about to leave, I remembered something else.
"My plant!" I blurted.
"Your what?"
"My plant—and my car. I left them it the deli. Do you think we could swing by and get it?"
Trent checked the time, then said, "Yeah, I guess we can. I just hope it isn't towed."
Luckily, it wasn't. I half-expected to find a ticket on the windshield, but there wasn't one of those, either. I unlocked the door to my Jetta and got into what felt like an active oven. "Hot!" I said and rolled down all the windows, then cranked up the AC. I saw my plant resting in the cupholder that I'd left it in the previous day. I picked it up and touched its soil. It was dry and beginning to crack. Hang on little guy, I thought. Then I led the way back to my house.
When I arrived, I parked at the head of the driveway. I turned off the car, then ran inside with the young tomato plant, bringing it to the upstairs bathrooms sink and dousing it in water. I wasn't sure how much I was supposed to add, but I figured after the sauna experience it had yesterday, I could afford to go a little overboard. Once it was fed, I opened the small purple drapes and placed it on the windowsill which faced East, meaning it would hopefully get plenty of morning sunlight.
"Good, now?" Trent asked after I hopped back in the passenger seat of the van.
"Yeah," I said. "Good now."
"Then lets get a move on."
***
Road tripping with Trent was a much different experience than when we were driving for our lives. For one, Trent wasn't nearly as tense. He drove with the windows down and one hand on the steering wheel like out of a Mustang commercial, talking intermittently about his adventures: people he'd met, jobs he'd done, close calls. He was like a living radio. And when his personal station wasn't on, he was playing one of his CD's—classic rock, mainly. When he was in an 'off' period, I found myself looking out the window at the rolling wheat fields and cloudy blue sky. Journey was playing, and the lyrics to one of the songs crept into my head and reverberated there:
The wheel in the sky keeps on turning.
I don't know where I'll be tomorrow…
I've been trying to make it home,
Got to make it before too long…
Ooh I can't take it, very much longer…
In a strange way, I felt like I was leaving home. But in another way, I was going back. And then it occurred to me that perhaps I didn't have a home at all. Did I ever have one? These past couple days had called everything about my life into question, to the point where the past seemed as mysterious as the future, and both intersected at that one place in the woods. The place where it all began. The place we were headed.
We only stopped once at a gas station to refuel, get snacks, and use the bathroom. Otherwise it was smooth sailing, other than one heated discussion with Trent that began when he addressed his vehicle as "Car" for the fifth time.
"Okay, you need to come up with a better name than that."
"What do you mean?" Trent asked, seeming genuinely confused.
"You have a super-car and you named it 'Car'. That's actually embarrassing."
"But, it is a car."
I facepalmed. "First of all, it's a van."
"A van is a type of car."
"Second of all, would you name your kid, 'kid'?"
Trent thought it over for what I thought was much too long. At last he concluded, "No, I'd probably name him 'boy', or if it's a girl, 'girl'."
After five more minutes of his childish banter, we settled on the name "Ava"—my choice, after rejecting his runner-up name "Scar".
At around the seven hour mark, I dozed off, then woke up a couple hours later to the sensation of the van dipping, then bumping up into an elevated climb. The evening sunlight that was pressuring my eyelids to open, dissipated, and everything was suddenly dark. I opened my eyes and saw we had entered a parking garage. Trent pulled into an open spot on the second level.
"We're here," he said and gathered up his gun which he stashed in a driver's side underboard compartment that I'm guessing he had installed himself.
"I see that"
"You want to wait here, or—"
I opened the car door, which was answer enough for Trent. We both got out and started down Maple Avenue. I had been to several cities before, Chicago among them, but the size of the buildings always struck me with awe. As we walked alongside dozens of other pedestrians, I looked up and traced the closest tower to its peak, guessing how many stories it was in my head. Then I'd be pulled out of my game by the honking of some nearby vehicle.
We continued for two blocks until Trent made a path directly toward the nearest Starbucks. I didn't know what I was picturing for a meeting with his associate, but it definitely wasn't a meetup at a coffee shop. Still, I followed him in. Then when I saw that Trent was leading me to a corner table where a casually dressed Chinese girl who appeared even younger than me was sitting, I blurted in a hushed tone, "her? She's your associate?"
"Took you long enough," said the Chinese girl, looking up from what appeared to be some kind of homework assignment.
"And she's in school?" I asked, incredulous.
The associate looked to me, then to Trent (who nodded), then back to me. "It's just a cover. I'm glad to see it still works, though." She reached out to shake my hand. "I'm Allison. It's nice to meet you."
Trent gave me a smirk, then said, "looks can be deceiving."
I grunted an affirmation and shook Allison's hand. "I'm Lauren. It's nice to meet you, too."
"You have it?" Trent asked, skipping right to business.
"Of course," Allison replied and removed a mailing package from her backpack, setting it on the table. "You want to go make sure it works?" She asked, gesturing up at the ceiling with her eyes.
Trent seemed to think it over for a second, then looked at me. But before he could say anything, Allison cut back in—
"—I'll stay with her. It's been a while since I've had any female company. Why don't you let us girls talk while you take care of that?" She said in a seductive yet authoritative tone which garnered her years that her appearance did not reflect.
Trent hesitated, but only for a moment. "Okay, I'll be right back," he said. Then he hurried out the door in the direction we had come from.
"Come, sit with me." Allison invited. "Tell me about yourself."
I took a seat on the small wooden seat opposite Allison, then crossed my legs. "What do you want to know?" I asked, feeling discomfort rise in my stomach. Nothing about this situation, from the mysterious package, to Trent leaving me alone with this girl, to the girl herself, whose voice was as velvety smooth as the latte she was stirring with a black coffee straw, sat right with me.
"I'm curious about what you think of Trent."
"Trent?" I repeated. I realized this was the first time I was putting any of my thoughts about Trent or our relationship into words. "I guess... he's a pretty straightforward guy. He seems to know what he's doing."
Allison flashed me a small smile, then took a sip of her latte. I saw the sticker on her drink read "Chai". Then she set the cup down and sighed. "Yes, he's very straightforward. Definitely doesn't mince words." She looked up into my eyes. Hers were a rich black, like onyx pebbles, but there was something about the way the light refracted off them which simulated a kind of inward motion, as if they were tiny whirlpools. Her smile spread across her lips. "I'm curious. What did he tell you?"
"Tell me about what?"
"About what you're doing. About where you're off to. What's the plan?"
"Don't you know?" I asked, but it immediately occurred to me that maybe she didn't know. I never saw Trent with a cellphone. Just how did he communicate with his 'associates'? And what if he didn't want her to know what we were doing for a good reason? Should I tell her?
"No, Trent keeps his cards close to his chest. He always has."
"Don't you work together, though?"
Allison waved her left hand in the air. "Of course, but it's because of the nature of our work that most of our communication is done in person, so Trent doesn't tell me much outside of the current job. I was just curious, is all."
"That makes sense. I mean, I'm actually pretty curious about what you do, too."
"Oh?" Allison's voice went high, as if she suddenly sensed an opening. "Then, why don't we trade stories. You tell about your trip, and I'll tell you about mine."
I thought it over for a second. I really did want to hear what Allison had to say, and she was Trent's co-worker, it's not like I was spilling crucial secrets to an enemy. "We're currently on our way to Southern Illinois. Specifically, we're going back to my origin point so I can confront a demon that Trent thinks blinked into my life there."
Allison stopped stirring, but her eyes didn't break from mine. "A demon, huh?" She raised the cup and took a long sip, then placed it back on the table and continued stirring. "I met a demon once," she started, looking up at the walls as if her life was playing on a screen there. "It was back in China, where I was born." She dropped her attention back to me. "Do you mind if I reminisce a little? Maybe you can get something out of it."
I shook my head, but something in my gut started to stir again. Allison continued.
"I was born during the Era of the Once Child Policy. As a result, my mother decided to leave me in a shoebox on the side of the road. I was a girl, so that's just how it was... Like many other babies in my... 'condition', I ended up in foster care. However, for whatever reason, I wasn't adopted. Years passed, and when I turned six, the government decided I'd be of better use building our impoverished town's GDP in a factory that assembled electronic devices for Western countries. Mostly they had me cleaning, but when I turned eight, one of the employees asked for my help with one of the soldering machines. That turned out to be the beginning of the end for me. I sliced open the ring finger of my right hand. I remember specifically seeing the bone underneath the split flesh and thinking it looked so small and white. The employee claimed to have nothing to do with my accident, and the management declared my injury "minimally invasive" and bandaged it up. Two weeks later and who would have guessed that the wound would become infected, and, well..."
Allison dropped the straw into her cup and raised her right hand, spreading the fingers out for me to see. There were only four. Her ring finger was missing, and a small v-shaped scar had taken its place.
"I'm lucky that the surgeon was experienced enough to take out the whole digit, that way it healed in a way which makes it somewhat difficult to notice. You didn't notice, after all. But, then again, is that really luck?" She made a fist and brought it to her lips, stifling a laugh. "No... Now I remember. My luck was still yet to come." She continued stirring. "Because, you see, after that incident, they moved me to a clothing factory with a boss who had a penchant for getting drunk and roughing up his workers, and, well, one night I was walking back to foster care when I heard the outside door to the manager's office slam shut, and there he went, stumbling, slurring insults, curses, and here I was, perfectly in his path. We met eyes, and in them I saw absolutely nothing. A hollow shell of a man, and I can still remember what it looked like to see that shell fill with a demon."
Allison's eyes went wide with some strong emotion that I couldn't place. "He grabbed me by my hair and dragged me out into the field, far away from civilization. I tried to fight at first, but every time I tried to lunge away, I was only ripping a hole in my own scalp. It felt like flames were spewing from my head, and my only respite was when the blood eventually cooled over the wound. By the time he had thrown me against the rock, I'd already all but given up. Then, when my head met the stone, I heard a pop and my grip on the world loosened. The man continued touching me, but it was as if I was disconnected now, floating somewhere above my own head, and gravity was beginning to reverse, causing me to float higher and higher, away from the horrible nightmare below."
Allison paused for a moment, and I suddenly realized I was holding my breath.
"Then I saw the most bright light I'd ever seen. At the time I thought it was either the Sun or Heaven or something like that. It was just too bright for this world. But then after looking for a little longer, I noticed it was in the shape of a person. It reached out toward me, and I had never been so quick to respond. When I touched it, I felt all my pain immediately dissipate. And I felt warm and... peaceful. And I was no longer in the sky. I was back in the field. But when I looked around, the man was gone. Vanished, right out of existence. I didn't understand it at the time, but that was my first experience with the Shifts. All I knew then was that I was free, and I damn well wasn't going to waste that. I ran as far as I could, away from the factories, the foster home, the corrupt governments and corporations. I kept running until I arrived at a City that didn't know me. That didn't want to know me. And I liked it that way, because it's easier to live as a ghost than as a victim."
Allison perked up, and when I turned around to see what for, I saw Trent entering back through the door.
"But you know what's interesting?" Allison blurted out, her voice becoming quieter. "Trent never took me back to confront my demon." Her voice became a whisper. "In fact, I can't recall him ever taking any of us back."
For a moment the whole world became a still frame. Allison's clear, olive skin, and dark eyes, made darker with eyeliner; her narrow nose; her small lips now coiling into a smile. My entire body was a hair trigger hat only needed the slightest force to set it off. And when Trent placed his hand on my shoulder, I whirled around and narrowly missed a haymaker that swept just shy of Trent's face.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa" he said and stepped back with his palms up. "It's just me. Is everything okay?"
I turned back to Allison, but she seemed different now. Her expression was benign; confused, even. "Are you okay?" she asked.
"I—you"
"We were just talking about where you were off to next." Allison said without a hint of pretense.
"Okay, well, chat time is over. It's time to go." Trent said and started guiding me toward the door. I turned back and saw Allison mouth some words which I swear I heard, as if they had been directly transmitted into my brain.
"See you soon" she purred.
She was smiling.
***
The next leg of the trip passed mostly in silence. It was a little over an hour to the storage facility which was located just South of Chicago. My heart was beating wildly in my chest as I pictured Allison's smile. I wanted to ask Trent if demons could possess Antennas, if somehow one of us could become compromised, but then I remembered Allison's words and stopped myself. Because I didn't know if I could really trust Trent. I tried to tell myself I could trust him—that it was Allison who was the liar. Her whole persona seemed fake at best, and possessed at worst. But, then... what if she was telling the truth? What if Trent was the enemy?
He sensed my quietness and tried striking up a couple conversations, but I only gave one-word answers. Somehow, our trust was so brittle that a single, well-placed sentence was enough to snap it. When he asked if everything was okay, I lied and said that I just had a headache and needed more rest. So I leaned my head against the stuffed tomato and tried to sleep, even though I knew I wouldn't be able to.
We arrived at the facility just as the sun was setting for the night. Trent pulled up to the self-service gate and scanned a card which caused the automatic doors to swing open. We looped down a couple rows of the outdoor units until we came to #48.
"We're here," Trent prompted, but this time I didn't budge. I felt his eyes on me after he turned off the ignition. "Hey," he called. "Are you awake?"
I was silent.
I heard Trent quietly click open his door, then close it the same way. I waited a few seconds then turned my head and watched him from the driver's side mirror. He opened the storage locker, then walked inside and turned on a light. It occurred to me then how dimly lit this outdoor storage facility was. There was a weak overhead lantern peeking over every fourth garage like an anglerfish's lure, leaving a large portion of the road not hit by the light bubbles completely dark.
I tried to plan my next move. I could leave Trent and run. But where would I go? Or I could stay and see Trent's plan through. There was a chance this was all an elaborate trap. Maybe Trent was working with the demon, or maybe he was the demon. But then why did he save me? Twice. Maybe he was actually a double agent for the Organization. But he could easily have captured me by now. Unless he needs me to go back to the origin point for a different reason... I considered everything I had learned up until this point: we live at the cross-section of different realms; these other realms interact with our world; Antennas, who are a very small minority of people, can see these interactions; the Organization wants to harness our power and create a 'Strong Antenna' to achieve some kind of universal hegemony; I'm the closest thing to a Strong Antenna to date; Trent knows this; He's taking me back to my origin point, despite not taking the others back to theirs; Trent claims to want to fight the Organization; the best way to fight the Organization would be with a Strong Antenna. What if Trent was trying to make me into a Strong Antenna?
I considered this chain of reasoning. It seemed very plausible, especially after Allison's cryptic messages. Was she trying to warn me of this? But that smile, and the "see you soon"... If she wasn't being possessed, why would she be seeing me soon?
Suddenly my thoughts gave way like a broken dam as I heard a ping come from Ava's radar. I jumped, thinking that all of the electronics turned off with the ignition, but when I looked at the circular sonar map, I saw a red dot had just emerged in the top-right corner. I looked out the window in the direction of the ping, but I couldn't see anything heading down the road.
Ping. Ping. Ping. Ping. Ping.
Four more dots appeared behind the first, and they were approaching.
I jumped out the van and ran over to where Trent was hauling in a large cardboard crate into the back of the van. "Trent, there's pings on the radar. A bunch of them."
He dropped the box next to three others, and I realized I had never seen inside the back of the van. It was filled with what looked like pneumatic tubes wired into circuits, and in the center was a tri-pod which was holding a large halo-shaped ring.
"Pings?" Trent said, then his face widened with shock as he realized what I meant. "Shit, how many?"
"Five, maybe more now. And they're getting closer."
"Five?" He jumped out the back and ran into the storage locker. I thought he was going to close the door, but when I saw him hauling boxes back toward the van, I yelled at him. "What are you doing!?"
"I need to load this up for tomorrow. Here," He tossed me his keys. "Get it started."
"Fuck, seriously?"
Trent didn't respond, only kept shuffling boxes into the van.
I turned and ran to the door and hopped in the driver's seat. As I was turning on the ignition, I saw the row of bushes that was just outside of the facility begin to rattle. The next sweep revealed a whole sea of pings. I rolled down the window and shouted Trent's name.
"One more, that's all. Get in the passenger seat, I'll be there in a sec."
I scooted over the center console and waited, clutching at the bottom of my pants legs. Just as Trent slammed the rear door of the van shut, I saw the first figure emerge onto the road ahead of us. It looked like some kind of large coyote, though it was hard to tell because it was still fifty meters out.
"Now detecting 53 controlled agents." Ava said right as Trent jumped in and shut the driver's side door. "Net anomalies: 53."
"Ava, increase radius to five miles." Trent instructed as he backed up all the way to the end of the lane and spun us around toward the gate. Just as we left, I saw the pack of coyotes stalking toward us, slow at first, then in a dead sprint.
"Increasing radius." Ava responded. "Increased. Recalculating… Recalculating… Re—complete. Now detecting 451 controlled agents. Net anomalies: 451."
"What does 'controlled agent' mean?" I asked.
"Hold on," Trent said and accelerated into the gate, bursting through it. The whole van shook, and I heard my phone fall in the crack between the seat and door. Trent steadied the van, then said, "It means the things chasing us are being controlled by something that isn't detectable."
"The demon?"
"That'd be my guess."
"But why can't Ava detect it?"
Trent switched to the right lane, then merged onto the Interstate-South ramp. "Probably because it isn't trying to kill us."
"Then, what—" I looked back at the map and basically had my question answered. All 451 pings were coalesced in a semicircle on one side of the map. The side of the map that we had just come from. "Is it trying to force us toward the crash site?"
"It seems that way." Trent answered.
"Trent, pull over."
"Huh?"
"Pull over!" I yelled.
He looked at me, eyes wide. Then he did as I had instructed and pulled off in the middle of the ramp. The red dots slowly closed in on our position.
"Now detecting—"
"Shut up, Ava." I said. I could feel my blood boiling. "I'm not going one step further until you tell me the truth. Why are we going to my origin point? What is your real motive?"
"What do you mean? I already told you."
I unlocked the passenger side door.
"Wait," Trent said and reached out toward me. "Just, wait."
There was silence, except for the pings indicating that the beasts behind us had re-encroached on our position to about fifty meters.
"Okay, I didn't tell you everything. But we don't have time now—"
I opened the door.
"Okay, okay. I didn't tell you everything, it's true. I've never done this with anyone else, but the reason is because I never needed to. And if I told you what might happen, you would have refused it."
"Refused what?"
"This—me, my help. Lauren, I am trying to help you. But you have to understand—it's likely that neither of us are going to live past tomorrow. You're basically confronting a dark entity in a place where I can't protect you, and if you somehow do manage to kill it, you'll be coming back to the fight of your life. Because I don't have the power to hide you from the Organization. They're going to show up and try to take you. I really don't know how you've lasted as long as you have. Whatever protection you had growing up, it's gone now. And now I'm all you have. And in some twist of fate, you're all I have."
Ava reactivated. "Now detecting 1,117 controlled agents. Proximity till contact: 20 meters. Net anomalies: 1,117."
I closed my door. "But what if I still don't want to go through with it?"
Trent pointed at the screen. "Then we die right here, right now, together. Because I am one-hundred percent certain that if we don't go to that crash site, we're dead anyway. All of us."
Another ping rolled through. I checked the side-view mirror and saw the swarming pack of dogs reach the van and bound around the rear wheels. I suddenly recalled the conversation I had with Father Martin and the conclusions I had drawn. Father, I've been… wrestling with something, and I think God wants me to confront it. I think I've been running away and hiding from it for so long that I'd convinced myself it disappeared...
"Go," I said just as I felt the collision of the coyotes slamming their bodies against the side doors.
Trent didn't waste any time stepping on the gas. I watched as the coyotes diminished in the distance and the pings receded into the back of the map, never disappearing fully, but covering the flank of our retreat—a reminder lingering on the edge of our awareness that there was no turning back now. That, one way or another, this was ending tomorrow.
And I'd either be dead, or something else entirely.

I've been involved with CPS investigations for nearly a year now, I've had four cases opened against me and each have been closed as "unfounded". The accusations have been absurd, ranging from punching my then 4 y/o daughter, to pushing her down the stairs, threatening to kill her sister with no evidence or marks to back this up. All of these reports were made by my ex-girlfriend. This somewhat came as a shock to me, because she's always trusted my daughter to be around me. She saw I was a good father when we were together, and she even told me something that I found somewhat odd -- which was that it's a turn-on to see me being a good father to our daughter. We were on-and-off since 2018, and since the birth of my daughter in 2019 I have had our daughter for extended-periods of time. In the summer of 2021, my ex was using cocaine, lying and stealing for drug money, drinking and driving, and exhibiting irrational behavior as a way to cope with her father's passing in 2020. I had our daughter mostly during this time because she didn't want to see her. In early 2022, my ex-girlfriend and I had gotten back together and broke up. She cheated, I found out, we tried fixing it, but I stopped putting in effort, so we decided to split. Months later she was pregnant with the other man's kid. This is around the same time the reports started coming in. My ex claims that our daughter is very scared to come to my house and has nervous break downs over it. As per the most recent CPS investigation, I was allowed supervised visits with my daughter, which wasn't an option during previous investigations. The supervised visits were held by my ex's mother, my daughter's grandmother. Each time we've met at the park, she's ran up to me with open arms screaming "daddy, daddy, daddy!!!" and given me hugs and kisses. We have a very loving relationship. She asks me every time when she can come to my house, and she told me: "mommy said I can't come to your house because it's unsafe", if she can sleep over my house, or come see Chowder, her cat. I've been very cooperative during these investigations. I've been kept away from my daughter for the better part of a year due to the excessiveness and timing of the reports, all while there has been no evidence against me. Daycare staff have vouched for me, how every time I get her, she's happy to see me. In the most recent hearing, I had a different judge assigned to our series of on-going cases. When he asks me if I spank my daughter, which corporal punishment is legal in my state, I responded with the truth. I have spanked my daughter, it's very rare and it's always as a last resort. I never feel good about doing it, and it's only been during times where I've felt I exhausted all options. I feel crappy afterwards. I have been researching parenting methods to avoid using physical discipline in those scenarios. I usually give her several warnings before I do spank her, but I don't even like the warnings because it feels wrong to threaten it. Most recently, a few months when she was at our home between reports, she hit my girlfriend for turning her show off. She was misbehaving very badly before that, so I gave her a spanking on her bum. I didn't leave any marks. This was after three timeouts. I'm a young parent, and I make mistakes. I do feel bad about doing it, and before that incident it had been probably 8 months since her last spanking. I explained this to the new judge, and he started screaming at me as to why I would spank my child. I reiterated that it was always a last resort, I don't feel good about myself doing it, that I'm fair to her by giving her warnings, and lastly, it's legal. He interrupted me screaming that "you will not be charged and arrested for spanking her, correct, but it is THE worst thing you can do to a child, and it makes you an AWFUL parent for doing so." His comments caught me off guard, and not even 10 minutes into the hour-long hearing he stormed out of the room. He was not concerned about with aspects of abuse; he expressed extreme disapproval with me as a parent. He was very emotional. He said he'd be issuing orders in a few weeks, and I'm very concerned for the outcome. I acknowledge and regret having ever spanked my daughter, and I would agree that I'm not the best parent, but I don't feel as if a Judge's feelings should dictate his decisions in a family matter like that. The judge we previously had assigned to our case was in favor of me after hearing my counterarguments and seeing how my ex behaved in court, including laughing, joking, and being severely unprepared. He told her to stop talking at one point and has made two rulings against my ex's favor. This whole process has severely affected my mental health. I lost my dad in 2022, and unlike my ex, I wanted to be around our daughter even more -- which she was completely understanding of at the time and allowed me to see her more. My daughter is undoubtedly the best thing to have happened to me, she has made me a better person. I would give my life for her, and I love her more than anyone. She saved me, because I wouldn't have been able to go through the loss of my father alone. It crushed me, and I still have nightmares about it. My daughter helped me through that, and I love her very much. With being away from her for months at a time, my mental health has completely deteriorated. I have gained 60 lbs., I barely drink enough water (used to drink a gallon a day), I'm severely depressed, and anxious. When the reports started, I would fall asleep late and wake up early. I would start most mornings by puking up stomach acid. Being kept away from my daughter makes me extremely nervous for countless reasons. I barely sleep, and when I do I sleep like shit, even now -- and it's almost been a year in June. I have thought about taking my own life countless times because of everything. It feels like I'm being robbed of irreplaceable time with my daughter. Missing important years of her life. The only thing that keeps me going it the thought of being able to see my daughter eventually, even if it's when she turns 18. I know she'll want to see me then; she loves me very much despite what my ex has tried to convince others into believing. The thought of missing a lot of her life for some unknown motive from my ex terrifies me. I been self-represented in these cases so far, but I have since contacted a family attorney and have a meeting scheduled a week from now. I started crying while typing this, it hurts to think about, and I just want to be able to hold my daughter. I genuinely don't know what to do, but I know a life without my daughter isn't worth living.
(edited: corrected errors and incorrect dates. My brain is very foggy writing this, sorry)

Zone 2 training, which involves exercising at a moderate intensity (typically 60-70% of maximum heart rate), can reverse metabolic syndrome through several detailed mechanisms. This form of exercise enhances the body's ability to oxidize fat as a primary fuel source, thereby improving metabolic flexibility. By operating predominantly within the aerobic energy system, Zone 2 training increases the efficiency and capacity of mitochondria, the powerhouses of cells, thereby enhancing overall energy metabolism. The increased mitochondrial density and function allow for better utilization of glucose and fatty acids, reducing blood glucose levels and improving insulin sensitivity, which are crucial factors in reversing metabolic syndrome.
One significant benefit of Zone 2 training is the improvement in insulin sensitivity. Exercise at this intensity enhances the muscles' ability to uptake glucose, independent of insulin, through increased translocation of glucose transporter type 4 (GLUT4) to the cell surface. This effect not only helps in lowering blood glucose levels but also decreases insulin resistance, a key component of metabolic syndrome. Improved insulin sensitivity means that the body requires less insulin to manage blood sugar levels, alleviating the burden on pancreatic beta cells and reducing the risk of developing type 2 diabetes​ (BMJ Open Access)​​ (BioMed Central)​.
Another crucial mechanism is the reduction of visceral fat, which is closely associated with metabolic syndrome. Zone 2 training promotes lipolysis, the breakdown of fats, and enhances fat oxidation, leading to a decrease in visceral adiposity. Reduced visceral fat decreases the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines and adipokines that contribute to chronic inflammation and insulin resistance. Consequently, lowering visceral fat not only helps in managing weight but also mitigates the inflammatory state that exacerbates metabolic syndrome​ (Diabetes Journals)​.
Furthermore, Zone 2 training improves cardiovascular health by lowering blood pressure, enhancing endothelial function, and increasing HDL cholesterol levels while reducing LDL cholesterol and triglycerides. These cardiovascular benefits reduce the risk of atherosclerosis and other cardiovascular diseases, which are often comorbid with metabolic syndrome. By improving vascular function and lipid profiles, Zone 2 training addresses several risk factors associated with metabolic syndrome, leading to a comprehensive improvement in metabolic health​ (Diabetes Journals)​.
Overall, Zone 2 training offers a multifaceted approach to reversing metabolic syndrome by enhancing mitochondrial function, improving insulin sensitivity, reducing visceral fat, and promoting cardiovascular health. These combined effects lead to a substantial improvement in metabolic health and a reduction in the risk factors associated with metabolic syndrome.
Resistance training has a significant impact on reversing metabolic syndrome through multiple mechanisms, enhancing overall metabolic health. Engaging in regular resistance exercise leads to increased muscle mass and strength, which is crucial for improving metabolic rate. A higher metabolic rate helps in better energy expenditure and fat oxidation, reducing body fat and visceral adiposity, both of which are key factors in metabolic syndrome.
One of the primary ways resistance training helps is by improving insulin sensitivity. Muscle contractions during resistance exercises stimulate glucose uptake into the muscles independently of insulin. This increased glucose uptake helps lower blood glucose levels and reduces insulin resistance, a core component of metabolic syndrome. Studies have shown that resistance training can significantly reduce hemoglobin A1c levels, a marker of long-term blood glucose control, thereby improving glycemic control​ (BioMed Central)​.
Resistance training also positively affects lipid profiles, which are often dysregulated in metabolic syndrome. It helps lower LDL cholesterol and triglycerides while increasing HDL cholesterol levels. These changes contribute to a better cardiovascular risk profile, reducing the risk of atherosclerosis and other cardiovascular diseases commonly associated with metabolic syndrome​ (Diabetes Journals)​. Additionally, the reduction in visceral fat due to resistance training decreases the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines, further mitigating the inflammatory state associated with metabolic syndrome.
Moreover, resistance training improves cardiovascular health by reducing resting blood pressure and enhancing endothelial function. This is crucial because hypertension is a common component of metabolic syndrome. Improved muscle strength and endurance from resistance training also contribute to overall physical function and quality of life, making it easier to maintain an active lifestyle, which is essential for long-term metabolic health​ (Diabetes Journals)​​ (Oxford Academic)​.
Intermittent hypoxia (IH) involves short periods of low oxygen followed by normal levels. Studies show IH enhances mitochondrial biogenesis, crucial for cellular energy and metabolic health.
Research indicates IH increases mitochondrial DNA, biogenesis markers, and oxidative enzyme activity. In J Physiol, healthy adults showed significant mitochondrial improvements with IH. In Diabetes, obese individuals improved insulin sensitivity and mitochondrial function through IH.
IH appears effective for managing metabolic syndrome by enhancing mitochondrial function and metabolic health. Further research with larger samples and longer follow-ups is needed to confirm its long-term efficacy and safety.
HIIT significantly enhances mitochondrial biogenesis by creating high energy demands and producing reactive oxygen species (ROS), which act as signaling molecules for adaptive responses. During intense exercise bursts, localized hypoxia occurs in the muscles, stabilizing hypoxia-inducible factors (HIFs) that activate genes promoting mitochondrial biogenesis and improved oxygen utilization.
Intermittent hypoxia (IH) within HIIT plays a crucial role in these adaptations. The temporary hypoxic conditions during HIIT sessions induce similar responses to IH protocols, enhancing mitochondrial function and metabolic health. Thus, HIIT effectively boosts mitochondrial biogenesis through increased energy demands, ROS production, and HIF activation due to localized hypoxia.
To sustain the benefits of endurance training and boost mitochondrial function, several supplements and drugs are supported by varying degrees of scientific consensus.
Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) is well-supported by research for its role in enhancing mitochondrial ATP production and reducing fatigue. Numerous studies have shown CoQ10's effectiveness in improving exercise performance and overall mitochondrial health​ (BMJ Open Access)​​ (Diabetes Journals)​.
Acetyl-L-Carnitine (ALCAR) is also widely researched and known for transporting fatty acids into mitochondria for energy production, thus reducing oxidative damage and improving mitochondrial function and endurance​ (BioMed Central)​​ (Diabetes Journals)​.
Alpha-Lipoic Acid (ALA) acts as an antioxidant and has been shown to improve insulin sensitivity and mitochondrial function, making it a beneficial supplement for maintaining the effects of endurance training​ (BMJ Open Access)​​ (Diabetes Journals)​.
Nicotinamide Riboside (NR) has a growing body of evidence supporting its role as a precursor to NAD+, a crucial coenzyme for mitochondrial function and energy metabolism. Research indicates that NR supplementation improves mitochondrial function and supports healthy aging​ (BioMed Central)​​ (Diabetes Journals)​.
PQQ (Pyrroloquinoline Quinone) promotes mitochondrial biogenesis and has shown promise in enhancing cognitive function and energy metabolism. While the research is positive, it is less extensive compared to CoQ10 and ALCAR​ (BioMed Central)​​ (Diabetes Journals)​.
Urolithin A (Mitopure) stimulates mitochondrial biogenesis and has demonstrated benefits in clinical trials, including improved muscle function and endurance. The research is promising but still emerging​ (BioMed Central)​​ (Diabetes Journals)​.
Metformin, primarily used for diabetes management, activates AMPK and enhances mitochondrial biogenesis and insulin sensitivity. It has been shown to have positive effects on mitochondrial function, though it is primarily prescribed for its glucose-lowering effects​ (Diabetes Journals)​.
Rapamycin inhibits the mTOR pathway, enhancing mitochondrial function and potentially extending lifespan. Its use is more experimental and comes with potential side effects, making it less commonly recommended solely for mitochondrial health​ (Diabetes Journals)​.
CoQ10 and ALCAR are the most extensively supported by research, followed by ALA and NR. PQQ and Urolithin A have emerging support, while metformin and rapamycin are more specialized with broader implications for their use. Always consult a healthcare professional before starting any new supplement or medication.
Thoughts on Complex 1 inhibitors Some of these supplements are very speculative. Peter Attia is not convinced of NAD and neither am I. It might have an impact, but it's not been studied long term. Peter Attia also is not convinced of the utility of Metformin and neither am I. In my experience with Metformin and Berberine, while my fitness improved on some levels, my lactate levels were higher, it seemed to put me into a carb rather than fat burning mode of operations. Basically the same result Peter Attia experienced is what I experienced. As a result of this, it's a bad idea to use Metformin or Berberine.
Metformin blunts some benefits of exercise due to its activation of AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK), a key energy regulator that both metformin and exercise activate. When both are active simultaneously, the overlapping pathways can reduce the exercise-induced improvements in insulin sensitivity and mitochondrial adaptations. This overlap leads to a state where the additive effects of exercise on these pathways are diminished, as the body is already experiencing heightened AMPK activation due to metformin​ (BMJ Open Access)​​ (Diabetes Journals)​.
Additionally, metformin interferes with mitochondrial biogenesis, a process that exercise naturally promotes to enhance cellular energy capacity. While metformin improves mitochondrial function in insulin-resistant tissues, it may hinder the exercise-induced mitochondrial adaptations in healthy tissues. This interference results in less pronounced improvements in muscle oxidative capacity and endurance performance during physical activities​ (Diabetes Journals)​​ (Diabetes Journals)​.
The increase in lactate levels observed with metformin use is primarily due to its inhibition of complex 1 in the mitochondrial electron transport chain, which shifts energy production from oxidative phosphorylation to anaerobic glycolysis. This shift increases lactate production as a byproduct of glycolysis. Furthermore, metformin disrupts the lactate shuttle, which involves the transport of lactate to the liver for gluconeogenesis, thus accumulating lactate in the blood. These mechanisms collectively contribute to elevated lactate levels during exercise in individuals taking metformin​ (Diabetes Journals)​​ (Diabetes Journals)​.
There are additional supplements I've tried like bergamot, but I'm not sure if this particular supplement helped or hurt. If I had to guess, it seems to have a mix between statin like effects and metformin like effects. It works by an entirely different mechanism from Metformin or berberine. Berberine itself works by a different mechanism from Metformin, but because it is a confirmed complex 1 inhibitor it's just as bad. The main difference is berberine has a very short half life while metformin has an unusually long half life. By inhibiting complex I, berberine reduces ATP production through oxidative phosphorylation and increases the reliance on glycolysis for energy production. This inhibition leads to a mild increase in the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS), which can have various signaling effects on cellular metabolism​ (BMJ Open Access)​​ (Diabetes Journals)​.
Lactate Shuttle Hypothesis, proposed by George Brooks in the 1980s, redefines lactate's role in metabolism. Traditionally viewed as a mere byproduct of anaerobic metabolism, lactate is now recognized as a crucial intermediary in energy production and metabolic regulation. During glycolysis, lactate is produced from pyruvate, especially under anaerobic conditions. This hypothesis posits that lactate is not just an end-product but a vital fuel source, transportable and oxidizable by various tissues, including the heart, brain, and skeletal muscles.
Lactate produced in one cell can be transported to another cell or tissue via monocarboxylate transporters (MCTs). This transport allows lactate to be converted back into pyruvate, which can then enter mitochondria for oxidation, contributing to ATP production during aerobic metabolism. This mechanism facilitates energy redistribution within and between tissues. For example, during intense exercise, lactate produced by fast-twitch muscle fibers can be transported to slow-twitch fibers for oxidation, optimizing energy utilization. The lactate shuttle thus supports the coordination of energy supply and demand across different organs and tissues, enhancing overall metabolic efficiency.
Numerous studies have confirmed the presence and function of MCTs in lactate transport and utilization. Research has shown that lactate can be taken up and oxidized by muscle cells' mitochondria and other tissues, providing a significant energy source during and after exercise. This concept has significant implications for understanding metabolic diseases and exercise physiology. It suggests that improving lactate clearance and utilization could benefit conditions like heart failure and diabetes, where metabolic flexibility is compromised. Understanding the lactate shuttle helps clarify the complex interplay of metabolic processes during exercise and in metabolic disorders, highlighting lactate's central role in energy metabolism.
Urolithin A is a metabolite derived from ellagitannins, compounds found in fruits like pomegranates, berries, and nuts. It is known for its potential benefits on mitochondrial health and muscle function. Urolithin A promotes mitophagy, a selective degradation process that removes damaged mitochondria, ensuring the maintenance and regeneration of healthy ones. This process is vital for maintaining mitochondrial quality, particularly in metabolically active tissues like muscle.
Urolithin A enhances mitophagy by activating the PINK1-Parkin pathway, which tags damaged mitochondria for degradation, promoting overall mitochondrial health and function. Additionally, by removing defective mitochondria, Urolithin A supports mitochondrial biogenesis, increasing the number and efficiency of mitochondria, which boosts cellular energy production and metabolic efficiency. It also exhibits anti-inflammatory properties, reducing chronic inflammation that can impair mitochondrial function and contribute to metabolic disorders.
Studies have shown the benefits of Urolithin A on mitochondrial health and muscle function. Preclinical studies indicate that Urolithin A extends lifespan and improves muscle function in animal models by enhancing mitophagy and mitochondrial biogenesis. Human clinical trials, such as one published in Nature Metabolism, have shown that Urolithin A supplementation can improve muscle endurance and mitochondrial health in older adults, suggesting its potential for mitigating age-related decline in muscle and metabolic health.
Integrating Urolithin A into a training program can enhance the benefits of exercise by improving mitochondrial function and muscle health. Urolithin A can be taken as a dietary supplement in the form of capsules or powder, ideally alongside meals for better absorption. Consistency is key, so it should be a part of the daily routine. Combining Urolithin A with regular exercise, particularly endurance and resistance training, can maximize its benefits since exercise itself promotes mitochondrial biogenesis and function. Monitoring improvements in muscle strength, endurance, and overall metabolic health can help assess the effectiveness of Urolithin A as part of a training regimen.
My experience with Urolithin A (mitopure) so far has been positive. This supplement seems to have a positive effect on mitochondria whether you exercise or not. When combined with exercise it seems to have only positive effects. This is in contrast to the complex 1 inhibitors or even certain statins which seem to have some sort of negative or blunting effect on the adaptations. Statins at least for now are necessary until better drugs become widely available and cheap, but metformin or berberine may be unnecessary for people who are willing to go the exercise route.
The PINK1-Parkin Pathway and Its Role in Mitophagy
Urolithin A activates the PINK1-Parkin pathway, a crucial mechanism for maintaining mitochondrial health through the process of mitophagy. Mitophagy is the selective degradation of damaged or dysfunctional mitochondria by autophagy, ensuring that cells maintain a healthy and functional mitochondrial population. Understanding how Urolithin A activates this pathway helps clarify its beneficial effects on mitochondrial health.

The PINK1-Parkin Pathway

PINK1 (PTEN-induced kinase 1) and Parkin are two key proteins involved in the identification and removal of damaged mitochondria:

1. PINK1:

• PINK1 is a serine/threonine-protein kinase that is normally imported into healthy mitochondria and rapidly degraded.
• When mitochondria become damaged (e.g., due to loss of membrane potential), PINK1 accumulates on the outer mitochondrial membrane instead of being imported and degraded.
• The accumulation of PINK1 on the outer membrane serves as a signal indicating mitochondrial damage.

1. Parkin:

• Parkin is an E3 ubiquitin ligase that is recruited to the outer mitochondrial membrane by PINK1.
• Upon recruitment, Parkin ubiquitinates various outer mitochondrial membrane proteins, tagging the damaged mitochondria for degradation.

Mechanism of Action

When mitochondria are healthy, PINK1 is continuously imported into the mitochondria and degraded. However, in the presence of damaged mitochondria with decreased membrane potential, PINK1 accumulates on the outer membrane. This accumulation acts as a signal to recruit and activate Parkin. Activated Parkin ubiquitinates specific proteins on the outer mitochondrial membrane, marking the damaged mitochondria for degradation by the autophagy machinery. This process involves the formation of autophagosomes around the damaged mitochondria, which are then delivered to lysosomes for degradation and recycling.

Urolithin A and the PINK1-Parkin Pathway

Urolithin A enhances mitophagy by modulating the PINK1-Parkin pathway. It promotes the accumulation of PINK1 on damaged mitochondria, leading to the recruitment and activation of Parkin. This activation results in increased ubiquitination of mitochondrial proteins and subsequent autophagic degradation of damaged mitochondria. By facilitating this process, Urolithin A ensures the removal of dysfunctional mitochondria, promoting the regeneration of healthy ones.

Supporting Studies

Research has shown that Urolithin A can activate the PINK1-Parkin pathway and enhance mitophagy in various models:

• A study published in Nature Metabolism demonstrated that Urolithin A improved mitochondrial health and muscle function in older adults by activating mitophagy through the PINK1-Parkin pathway​ (BMJ Open Access)​​ (BioMed Central)​.
• Another study in Cell Reports showed that Urolithin A induced mitophagy and improved mitochondrial function in aging muscle, supporting the idea that this compound can help mitigate age-related decline in mitochondrial health​ (Diabetes Journals)​.

Implementation in a Training Program

To implement Urolithin A in a training program, it can be taken as a dietary supplement alongside regular exercise. Consistency in supplementation and exercise is key, as both activities synergistically promote mitochondrial health. Monitoring progress in muscle strength, endurance, and overall metabolic health can help assess the effectiveness of this approach.
By activating the PINK1-Parkin pathway, Urolithin A helps maintain a healthy mitochondrial population, which is essential for optimal cellular energy production and metabolic health. This mechanism underscores its potential benefits for improving exercise performance and reversing metabolic disorders.
The problem with lifestyle measures is the endurance training benefits don't last long. It's not a cure for metabolic syndrome but it's more like an effective treatment. It can mitigate some of the risks. Insulin resistance for example might not be as bad if you spend a lot of time doing resistance training and Zone 2/Zone 5 cardio. The lifestyle measure seems to work better than metformin but only if you can do it consistently for years. The muscle you build will allow for more carbs to be consumed, and for more glucose to be stored in the muscles instead of the liver. Fatty liver disease and visceral fat are problems, and lifestyle can avoid these problems better than any drug so far. Genetic factors cannot be controlled for, and some new drugs may have to be created for people who are genetically highly likely to develop type 2 diabetes, or who have high cholesterol for no dietary reasons. PCSK9 inhibitors are an example of this and maybe alphaGO will be able to help find new targets or pathways for drugs to improve mitochondria function.
​

I just wanted to share my trip to the zoo with you guys and let you know that we can still have fun and do things. We just have to adjust to our condition. It was the best day I've had in years since I've not only been going through this illness but the loss of multiple jobs, friends and the death of my mother and grandfather. It was a breath of fresh air to actually get out of my house and my head and enjoy the day.
I was out from 8:30 to 5. The drive was 1 hr 10 minutes there. I took my grandma with me and we are both slow and have trouble getting around so that was nice. We got to see the beautiful butterfly gardens, walk around with kangaroos, go inside an aviary, and see the dolphin show. I was raised going to the zoo quite often with my mom and grandma so it was a good trip down memory lane in remembrance of my mom.
How did I feel and how am I feeling now?
During the day I actually felt really good. I picked a time of the month where I wasn't going to be too symptomatic and I can plan this because I flare up really bad around my period. I was shocked I didn't have any dizziness or balance issues. My stomach also did not feel sick and I didn't have to make any emergency bathroom trips. I did start to get extremely fatigued and a lot of back pain toward the end of the trip. It wasn't until the last 20 minutes that I became so tired I was getting woozy and felt like I'd fall over but this was after 4 HOURS of walking! Later that night when I got home I definitely paid for it with sore muscles and all over body aches. I felt kind of nauseas for the rest of the night and had a slight sore throat. I slept it off and today Im alittle tachy but overall I feel fine.
My tips for you and your adventures:
Of course bring a big bottle of water. I got one with a strap I could carry on my shoulder.
Bring a mini backpack full of your necessities: vital readers, medication, cooling packs or mini fans, food, etc.
Take lots of sit breaks. Every half hour or so we would sit on a bench and talk for about 5-10 minutes and I think this was the biggest thing that helped
Get inside air conditioner and shade for your breaks. The zoo had a lot of indoor attractions like the aquarium so we were able to cool off. We also stayed in the shade as much as we could on the trails.
Don't stand in one place too long. A lot of the animal exhibits had viewing benches and I took advantage of them and if I was standing to watch them I moved a lot up and down the fences. Walking for four hours is way easier than standing for 10 minutes.
Don't EXPECT to feel bad. Expect the best, prepare for the worst. I went in knowing I had to keep my mind off all the possibilities so practicing relaxation techniques helped. Keeping myself calm, relaxed and in the moment helped me so I didn't set off my own symptoms with anxiety.
Don't eat big heavy meals before or during. I ate only fruit while I was out and didn't eat anything more until I got home. You might be able to handle a little more but my stomach is extremely sensitive. Bananas and apple sauce are my safe foods. I can eat them always and they never make me sick. Bananas especially will keep me from getting lightheaded and make me feel full for quite some time before I need anything else.
I hope you all get to go out there and make memories too. This has given me confidence and I think this is just the beginning of my fun times <3

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Season 10 “Days of Fury” - Episode 3 “Of Fire And Fury”

“Boss, you-”
“No. Santos, you’re an animal expert and you’ve done more than enough as it is. Vess, one of you needs to be here and between you and Marik I’d rather take him with me, I’m sure you appreciate it. Nila, you have a long career and basically never fielded. That’s enough skeleton crew, the three of you are staying here. That’s final.”
Keya sighs, the closed walls of the van offering little distraction from wayward thoughts. She turns her attention to the rest of her officers in it, trying to distract herself from memories of earlier in the paw “Been a while since I’ve been in an actual transport van” she drops, hoping for a response.
Her officers tiredly turned their attention to her. Marik, Lunek, Aren and Kessa were all here with her in the transport and none looking too joyful at the situation “Somehow our cruiser is more comfortable” Aren chuckles.
“That’s ‘cause it’s a secondhand retrofit bought in an auction” Keya shakes her head before tilting her ears to the front of the van “We got much longer to go?”
“No, ma’am” comes the chirp of a krakotl “In fact just past the corner”
Though it was impossible to see from within the enclosed van, the slow deceleration and eventual full stop made it clear they were, in fact, at their destination. Stepping out of the van the first thing to strike is the noise, a distant cacophony of shouting and howling. The second thing to strike was the colors, usually in such a large congregation of exterminators one would be seeing a light of bright colors, the silver and white of thermal suits, the reds and yellows of their tools, but what was most abundant here were darker colors, mainly black. “Briefing’s over in that tent, you should be the last team for this paw” their driver mentions, having stepped out herself.
Which brings the third thing called to attention- The tents. An entire operational outpost had been set up here, taking over a little park, and by the number of tents present running logistics and command this was far from a small operation. “They’re still bringing in more people?” a voice from behind draws her attention.
Tilting her ear back while they move Keya keeps track of a conversation “Whatever is going on here is big it seems” Aren had begun conversing with someone else that was out of her sight, but they had places to be and she had to keep walking.
“Herd’s just been getting bigger for the last four paws, tension just getting worse. Crap, I’m surprised it didn’t boil over just yet” the bassy voice in what she believed was mazic language added “Well, good luck you all, I’ll have to get back on the line soon”
It did not take much longer before the Blackriver crew arrived at the tent where the briefing was to be held. A scattering of plastic chairs was spread in front of a projector, another two dozen exterminators were already here and seated, the number of venlil among them was also surprisingly low. Or perhaps it was not quite so surprising given why they were here, most surprising was the presence of humans. “Ah, the last group we were expecting” says someone at the front by the projectors. An older venlil whose age-grey had overtaken whatever his natural color was, as well as a human with a long patch of black fur dangling from under his nose were there. “Take a seat”
“Alright, here’s the rundown of the situation” the venlil officer starts. “Four paws ago a protest started in front of the Regional, Ilfran’s Landing is a big city but it became obvious people came from everywhere here. The protesting started getting heated, so the Guild decided to send personnel to prevent it from causing any harm. I’m sure a few months ago we all believed prey wouldn’t get up to these antics, that the human stampede from the memorial service was unique to predators. I’m sure we have been all disabused of this notion by recent news” he sighs “For the last four paws the protest has been building up, they’ve set up food stalls even”
“You know it’s serious when the grills come out” one of the humans pipes up
“Fact they brought some meat is something we’re overlooking right now” the venlil commander adds, causing a few worried signs from everyone present “Planetary HQ decided to get their paws dirty with this protest, however, and sent directives as well as called up reinforcements to deal with this. Officers on site have been rotating in and out to keep a paw-long presence.”
“Here are your priorities: First, the safety of unrelated parties. Second, safety of the protestors. Third, integrity of unrelated material. Last, integrity of the Regional” after a moment to let the information settle he continues “Look… I think it bears saying… None of us is happy with our Regional Firebase. I bet most of you want to be there with the protestors. Speh, I bet the protestors don’t even know how many exterminators are in there with them.”
He starts pacing “We’ve all seen how often promises of funding ended up with badly maintained gear and suspiciously rich chiefs. We’ve all seen how many people complaining about malpractice just happened to be diagnosed with PD. We’ve all seen how reports of extortion seemed to just vanish into thin air. Or how when the omnivores among us learned the truth they kept silent, even when the HQ was giving out statements of succor for their officers.”
“We all joined the force wanting to protect the herd. No, no- Not all of us. Quite a few joined out of lack of choice, but we’ve all bought into the lie we were supposed to be protectors. I think recent history has shown that was never the true intent of the guild.” the venlil commander stops pacing and turns to the assembly “But we’re here to make that lie a reality. We’re here to protect our herd, from ourselves if that has to be it. And HQ agrees. The Regional has fucked up too much.”
“So they’re leaving it out to dry” he adds with a finishing tone “We are only here to make sure those people don’t hurt each other and other innocents around, because they can.” with a paw wave he directs attention to a map being projected, it shows the local streets with a large red mark on multiple of them, as well as blue lines encircling the mark “This is the current protest zone, yes it’s huge. You are not to attempt to contain them too much, for now they have been happy with being herded around somewhat, the only point of real contest is this street” he points to said street “That is to be kept clear for traffic at all times. Solgalick’s Mercy is one of the largest hospitals around here, I’m sure the herd will be understanding of not blocking access to it.”
Then the human commander picks up the briefing “Alright… My turn. You already got the gist of the situation, so I’m adding my experience here. Used to be military police before I volunteered to get here, closest thing we have on earth to the actual job the exterminators do. Been at my fair share riots, both sides. Broke quite a few windows when I was a teenager.”
“Let me tell you one thing, the big bad predator here is scared alright?” he adds with a serious tone, scanning his eyes through everyone “These people are angry, and they’re not aimlessly angry. They know every crime hanging over the Regional, they have lists of the guilty, they have a plan and have goals. And those are the most effective and dangerous kind. They’re not aimless civilians angry at the police because something happened.”
“Or at least their leadership is. I’m sure whatever changes they are pressuring for will go through, with how the headquarters is dealing with things here. Wouldn’t surprise me if they just decided to throw the Regional’s staff to the wolves” a couple of people flinch at the imagery “Don’t pretend that’s not what y’all are right now… No, no you’re worse than that. Let me tell you something-”
“If this shit was going down back on Earth? We could rely on the group being disorganized. When a large group like this happens, they can’t work together very well without training. It takes years to teach a human to work in large groups like this, but I’m seeing a lot of venlil in here, this is your home after all. And you people? You don’t need that training to work in a group, it’s in your nature. And in the worst case scenario, and those people get riled up? We’re not looking at a mob, we’re looking at an army.”
The human’s gaze turns back to the map “But as I’ve said, they’re a people with a plan. The organization of the protest has no plans for things to turn violent, they want pressure and not damage. But that doesn’t mean those aren’t just people here, who have more than enough reasons to be angry. If just one of them decides that the organizer’s plans aren’t enough justice… Well, the herd follows. And I’ve come to realize that’s true regardless of species.”
He turns back to the assembled “My point is be careful, because if the worst comes to pass, well… It’ll be bloody.”
With an affirmative flick of his right ear the venlil commander steps up “I’m sure you’ve all took in the map as is and have found your sectors” he waits for a few seconds, watching as multiple signs from ear flicks to thumbs ups to tail swipes to nods respond “Good, go to the armory tent to get the riot gear and a quick briefing on it and… Good luck”
As the group filters out of the briefing room, Keya steps last behind the rest of her own officers. “Lunek you alright with being in the shield line?”
“Yeah… Don’t worry boss, I can handle it” his voice is shaking a little bit, but he isn’t flinching “I hope nothing bad happens… I understand what those people are thinking.”
“We all do, if it helps… I think they’re doing the right thing as well. It’s this Regional that let Long Cliff happen, who straight up goaded Striped Hill on. Just remember, we’re just here to make sure nobody gets hurt… Too much.”
It wasn’t long until they'd made their way to the armory tent. It was as organized as it could be, a tarp had been set up as a tent off the back of a transport van, inside of it visible are mostly the black padded armor that every other exterminator had been wearing in this place as well as tall translucent shields. The first one to step up was Marik, curiously scanning through the unusual gear.
“I know a gun nut when I see one” says the human that’s manning the station “All less-lethal gear here” she points back with a thumb at the sparsely fitted weapon racks before starting to pull out and give armor sets “Standard issue riot armor, ceramic plating with shatterweave layer. Will take any reasonable hit, fire-resistant, in case any high caliber weapon has found their way here the shatterweave will take one punch no matter how hard” Keya is the first to step over “Fasten over here, and over here. Those are venlil fit”
As the human pulls out two shields Nila and Lunek step up front, both still fastening up their armor “Riot shields, put your hands through this place here and hold on tight. You’re going to have to hold it at a bit of an angle since they’re human-sized. Can take bullets if need be, should stop anything they can throw at you.” Lunek is the first one to strap the shield to his arm, finding that it is as she had said, just a few centimeters too tall and scraping hard at the floor if he tries to move. “I’m sure you’re well acquainted with the sticks, though”
Then, she pulls out a short gun, single-barreled with a strangely wide barrel and a long magazine at the back of it loaded from the top. Marik picks it up, inspecting the empty gun and then the magazine that she puts down “Shotgun with rubber rounds. Low-power, hits like a punch from god, can still break bones and rip an eye off so aim at the limbs. You’re staying right behind the shield line, right?”
“Yeah” Marik adds simply, loading the magazine full of large rounds in it “Keep holstered until command”
Then, the human pulls out two pieces of gear that make the officers look confused. “UX-1s, new thing your people came up with” sitting on the ground was a rather familiar object, a gauntlet-mounted fluid projector with a long tube attached to a back-mounted tank. Unlike the usual flamethrower design, however, it was not just a single tank but two half-sized ones. One of them was a familiar blue but it had yellow stripes while the other one was a bright green.
“Experimental?” Aren is the one to ask “Also I never heard the ‘U’ classification. Are you sure we should be bringing experimental gear to this sort of situation?”
The woman shrugs “Actually better than the stuff we used on Earth, amusingly.” she taps the side of her head “Took a stickyfoam canister to the noggin once, got a cranial fracture out of it. Anyway” she points to the gear as Keya and Aren put them on, its shape feeling familiar to them “Utility-type Mark One fluid projector. Designed first and foremost as a tool. You’re equipped with the riot loadout, shockwater” he taps the blue canister “And stickyfoam.” the green canister.
“There’s a selector here” she flicks the selector unceremoniously in Keya’s palm “Shockwater is water laced with minerals to increase conductivity, when you fire you have more than just high pressure water but also a mild shock, less than a taser but enough to dissuade anyone.” she flicks the selector again “Stickfoam, it remains liquid for a few seconds before hardening and sticking to any surface, solid as stone. Originally used as an anti-tank weapon but we employ it in riot control, be sure to aim for the feet and whoever it is isn’t going to be moving anytime soon” then she pulls out two handheld canisters “Stickyfoam solvent, in case you need it”
Keya pulls up her holopad, looking at the clock. Bit more than a tenth of a claw had passed, very little time, and they were already strapped in gear and ready to go. “Alright” she swallows a deep breath “Meven Street, we’re going to be by the road to the hospital. Everyone be as relaxed as you can-” but her words are interrupted.
Aren had gently swinged his tail to touch her shoulder “Hey, you’re just another officer right now, boss. Don’t worry, we all know our positions” she only answers by flicking an ear forward once, and keeping silent.
The cacophony of noise grew louder and louder as they got closer to their assigned position. There were shouts, not in unison but in a disparate stream of white noise, there was music being played loudly and annoyingly both in real instruments and out of devices. A thousand and one different ways to make oneself heard were being played out within the mass that had overtaken the street.
Even knowing she was just another officer this time, Keya still couldn’t stop herself from watching her officers go their respective ways.
Nila and Lunek quickly ran off to the line of officers standing right beside the crowd, as soon as they approached a gojid and a takkan wearing the same riot gear quickly came back after being relieved, visible bags under their eyes as they sluggishly started heading back towards the temporary base.
Marik quickly found his way beside a group of humans standing just a few meters behind the shield line by a parked cruiser. The group seems to acknowledge him wordlessly at first, but when one of the humans goes to leave he attempts to pat Marik on the head. Predictably, the loudness of the slap is strong enough to even attract attention from some in the protest, who stare inquisitively as the other humans the group laugh at the one leaving.
“Really put us right in the fuel line…” Aren’s voice calls her attention to her side. Tracking where his ears are turned to, she finds the tallest building in the street- Solgalick’s Mercy Hospital. “You think there’ll be a problem?” he asks.
She looks around to where her post is. A small tent had been set up here as well as a large vehicle she hadn’t seen before with a strange turret on top comprised of a long barrel and two round objects by the sides, a couple of people with white bands bearing the green paw symbol of field medics were sitting on plastic chairs “Either there’ll be none or all of them at once” she says. There were two others here, another couple of venlil wearing the same UX-1s as they were and quite clearly the ones they were meant to relive “What’s with that?” she asks, pointing at the vehicle with her tail.
“Humans call it a riot control vehicle” one of them answers “Got a bunch of things in it in case people get rowdy to take them down without harm.” They wave a paw at it “My opinion, though? Looks like one of those arxur transport vehicles. Kinda creepy.”
Aren’s chuckle makes her twist an ear at him “Nah this is definitely not that. Look up human tanks later, then you’re going to see a real vehicle like that”
“Aren, stop making things awkward” she sighs “Everyone’s tense enough as is”
“Nah, it’s alright” the one she’s relieving answers “I’d rather have this stuff on my side anyway” they say before leaving with a wave.
Keya’s role was very obvious. Armed with the heaviest-duty crowd control gear and stationed beside an armored vehicle they were quite clearly the final resort in case something happened, which meant she’d have time to watch. She felt a little bit guilty, it was probably her seniority that got her placement here and knowing some of her officers were right up there in the shield wall while she was here…
But for now, all she could do was observe and… Wait. She watches as the line of officers of many species ahead stand tall as the cacophonous mass of protestors shifts like water past them. The noise is great, but surprisingly not grating, there are a multitude of voices but they seem to be working together in some way. A few more officers come to relieve men at the wall as others leave. Once or twice officers at the wall need to leave and then quickly return. including one of her own.
Lunek needs a bit more endurance training… crosses her mind.
At one point Marik gets inside the cruiser with the human officers and the vehicle speeds away. It doesn’t take long for it to return, they stop the vehicle at the same place it was and step out, nothing seemingly having happened. But the protest is louder at this point.
Nearly an entire claw had passed at this point, with the noise slowly rising higher and higher, when a small commotion happens by the shield wall. For a couple of seconds she puts her entire focus there trying to figure out what is going on, until a krakotl officer waves a beckon with their tail and she and Aren rush towards the position.
When they get there the shield line had let through a human carrying a venlil in her arms “I can walk you know?”
“No you can’t, you’re limping”
“That was my tail, not my leg”
“Fuck you, man, just let me-”
“Excuse-me, what happened?” Keya interrupts the bickering duo
“I don’t know, someone stepped on his tail and he just crumpled, I need to take him to the hospital!”
“Girl, it’s just a tail torsion-” the venlil wiggles in her arms
“That’s not nothing!” Aren howls “Speh, that’s a part of your spine, you shouldn’t be on your feet” he turns around, scanning the direction of the hospital “Do you need help carrying him”
“No, I got it, thanks… Thought you weren’t going to let us pass.”
Keya shrugs her tail “We’re just keeping the way to the hospital clear” she turns her focus to the venlil in the woman’s arms “Stop trying to play tough, just let her take you”
The two of them escort the grumbling pair until they’ve past the area with the vehicle and let them continue on their way to the hospital “Ick, I’m surprised he’s awake. Tail torsions hurt like death” Aren comments
“Don’t I know it, suffered one during stampede response training. Felt like someone was pulling my brain out through my tail” she shudders at the thought “... Why did it happen, though? Takes a lot of effort to cause it”
Aren looks over at the mass of the protest. There were now a lot more signs raised then before, and the noise was louder “Dunno, they look super packed right now” and she sees Aren’s hackles visibly raising “I don’t like this”
Keya turns around, she can hear sounds coming from the large vehicle beside her, like claws on metal. The first thing she notices ahead is the group on the cruiser having opened the vehicle’s doors and standing ready, then she notices that the shield wall had lost some of their lightly casual posture, holding tighter to their shields.
It was just one person.
One agitated venlil having some form of heated argument with a human. The shouting can’t reach her here, she can’t hear the words, but she can see the energetic swings of the arms and the erratic tail.
The venlil turns around suddenly, a bottle of drink in her paw. The human moves quickly, but not quickly enough- He grabs her by the waist, lifting her up on his shoulders and starting to drag her out of there- But the bottle had already been thrown, it sails the piddly distance between them and the shield line.
The glass shatters against a translucent shield, a light crimson fire of high proof alcohol erupts on the impact. And the shouting begins.
In a matter of moments what was disorganized yet harmonic shouting turns to vicious howling and roaring, the crowd on the other side of the shield wall starts moving faster and some voices on a megaphone can be heard. But the cries for organization go unheard as the tension continues to boil- But for a few moments, nothing else happens. There is one officer in the shield wall who is shaking, Lunek’s ears are pinned to their head in fear, but he holds his shield steady- The dying flames still lick at the other side of the transparent barrier, Lunek attempts a gentle motion of reassurance with his tail towards the crowd, nobody around moves and for a fraction of a moment it seems the worst had passed as silence seems to rule.
And then there was gunfire. The supersonic boom of overheated air familiar to magnetically-accelerated weapons, a crimson streak in the sky of a tracer round originated from the Regional.
Sound returns in a terrible roar of a multitude of voices. The officers at the shield wall change their posture and steady their feet just in time as the crowd seems to crash against the shields like a tide and then retreat. For a few moments Keya holds on to her breath, readying for action but… The wall holds, and for now she needs not act.
“Hell, it’s going to shit!” a voice calls out from behind, a human Keya hadn’t noticed here had come running “Everyone, keep this street clear! The riot is breaking out in earnest and we already have a few wounded, they’re coming in from the other side of the street!” It was the same human commander from the briefing. He stops in place for a few seconds, left hand over his ear “Shit… Hell… FUCK! Fine” he runs ahead of her closer to the shield wall “Keep holding, keep the hospital lane clear!”
Keya can just stare as the shouting from the other side of the line grows to a crescendo and… The shield line starts to move. Each and every man in the shield line is holding steady to their shields, their feet planted firmly on the ground… But the herd is moving forward with similar intensity, except with so many more bodies they have begun to physically drag the officers along.
“Attention protesters!” it was a venlil’s voice on the megaphone this time, familiar, of the same man who held the briefing “Please keep this street clear! Keep the route to the hospital open! That is all we ask!” but the cries fall to deaf ears.
“Hell… Shield line, move back! Suppression cannons!” Keya jolts as the armored vehicle beside her whirs to life, she makes space for it as it moves forward and the shield line starts slowly yielding ground. The turret on top of the vehicle turns towards the mass of protesters and- From it erupts a powerful jet of water, not unlike that from a firefighter’s vehicle, but instead of aimed at flames it is aimed at people. The powerful stream of water strikes them, causing many to stumble backwards for a bit-
But the ones behind them prop them back up, and the combined might of the herd beats off the pressurized water. She can’t see it from behind the shield wall, but the simple thought of being pressured front and back by different forces, the water- “Cannons, switch to shockwater!”
It takes only half a second, what was once a combined, mobilized force against the torrent scatters. The combined block loses cohesion, but they do not retreat- For a moment all they do is cease advancing as they huddle like a wall against the amplified assault. But a moment is all they need, no longer pressured the shield wall relaxes for just a moment, and then those at the front of the riot rush. The shields close in again, but not fast enough before a few dozen break through running forward.
Keya readies herself, flicking the selector to shockwater and lowering her stance, Aren does the same at a distance. But they’re not the first ones to move, instead Marik and the officers with him move first, bringing up their shotguns and firing. The blasts are loud- The first few runners just fall over, the impacts swiping their limbs from under them. A couple of humans had clearly been hit and continued to rush despite the crimson soaking their clothes. A venlil had to be hit five times, he stumbled at the first two hits, seemingly shrugging them off unharmed, the two next caused him to flinch and the fifth hitting a glancing strike on his head sending him tumbling down. “STAND DOWN!” the officer who fired the last shot yells, she can see Marik hollering at him but the din of battle had become too powerful.
“Shields, retreat! LRAD, active!” the human commander shouts. The shield line starts to move back, Marik and the rest of the shotgunners walk back as well- Then, a strange piercing noise erupts from the vehicle. She keeps her primary focus on the advancing riot but she can see enough to notice a pair of speakers mounted on the turret, speakers directional not unlike her own ears, and the annoying noise finally processes to her as a mere echo of whatever the real sound would be like. A couple of seconds after that realization she sees the majority of the riot just stop on their tracks, pulling ears closed and clutching their head. If the simple noise bleed beside the vehicle was giving her a mild headache, she couldn’t imagine what being in the direct cone of sound would be doing.
But another sound, much lower, attracts her attention. A sound from behind her that causes her to twist an ear back to catch it. Whistles. The periodic whistles had a very particular cadence, a cadence of whistles that everyone learns the importance of very early in their lives- After all, the sound of an ambulance is familiar to all. She chances a glance behind her to see that there isn’t just one, but multiple. Some arriving, some leaving, they’re going as fast as their engines can, unloading people inside the hospital.
But it is a terrifying bugle that turns her eyes back to the crowd that seemed disabled. The sound cannon had done its job, but there were still some people running. But in that instant something became clear: They weren’t trying to get anywhere, nor were they trying to get away from something no. It was clear where they were heading, she was their target, as was everyone else here clad in black. And there were still dozens driven by raw emotions that had overcome every weapon employed against them.
Aren had taken position beside her, the men that once held the shield line had now become separated from each other, using shield and baton to fend off rioters whose new objective was to bring punishment with their own paws. Keya flicks the selector, she’d already seen those people power through shockwater, and aims her gauntlet low.
Six, there were six rushing towards her and she couldn’t spare mental power to process even their species. She clenches her paw, grasping the trigger and firing a short stream of green fluid, the six raise up their arms expecting something else and leaving their lower limbs unprotected as the sticky substance covers feather, fur, scale and cloth. They have time to take one more step before the mess solidifies, their upper bodies lurching forward while their lower bodies refuse to move, they struggle to move to no avail resorting to their voices as their final weapon.
She spares a glance at Aren who’d been turned on by another half dozen, then focuses forward once again, Marik and his team had already retreated behind her and the shields were starting a slow retreat. Most of them had made it past behind her and Aren, their stickyfoam doing the final job of keeping people contained where the riot vehicle failed, but Lunek and a few others had remained ahead to cover against all manners of thrown objects.
The rage-fuelled burst, however, could only drive the rioters for so long and their will started to falter. The larger groups had begun to disperse, the whistles of the ambulances were starting to sound louder than the shouts, the noise of the LRAD had died out and the pressure gauge was indicating her stickyfoam tank was down to the last third. Keya felt, for a moment, that the crowd’s fury had been spent and she could relax.
And then she saw him. A man with a silver coat of fur, eyes filled with feral rage, body marred by scars new and old, twitching claws and angrily pawing at the ground. When their attentions crossed he ran at her, she aims her gauntlet low at him but he leaps, she tries to track his movement but he was too fast and lands with both hindpaws against her chest- She simply presses the trigger and swings her gauntlet up as the impact brings both of them to the ground.
Falling on her back against the backtank leaves her breathless for a moment. But Keya quickly recovers to stand back up, first assessing that nobody else was running at her- But even before she can do that the horrible gurgling sounds from the ground call her attention. The man had fallen, body partly immobilized with one of his arms stuck to his side, but he desperately claws at his face- Green viscosity covering his snout and leaking also out of his mouth.
“BRAHK!” Keya quickly kneels down beside him “MEDIC!” she shouts, pulling out the canister of solvent from her belt with a shaking paw “Stop- Stop it!” she says, trying to control the man’s frenzied free paw as she sprays the solvent on his face and mouth, before venturing her own paw between his teeth to attempt to pull the softened mass blocking the airway.
“Move, move, move!” a commanding voice comes from beside her, people with the green paw band had arrived “We got a blocked airway here, get the-” they quickly shoo her away and she’s more than happy to let the experts do their job. She stands back up and looks around, the sounds have died off save for the whistles of the ambulances.
There were people scattered on the ground, sitting on the curb, resting against walls, all of them nursing wounds. Glass littered the streets from every storefront and house in sight, no object present in the street was spared the pent up rage, and illuminating everything was the orange glow of flames. Flames, thankfully, contained to just one place.
Even from here she could see it, the front of the Regional had, in a twist of irony, taken ablaze. The flames threatened to spread further into the nearby buildings but as the rage of the riot died down people had arrived to stop it, a group was helping escort the water cannons towards the flames, one of them had already arrived and was dowsing the nearby buildings with water, wounded people refused being taken to the nearby hospital as they set up a bucket brigade to draw more water from nearby buildings to help soak the flames. Echoing in the distance were the sirens of the fire engines coming to the rescue.
Keya just stands there watching the shifting chaos, taking in deep breaths… “Hell…” is all she can say.
[ [FIRST] [NEXT>]
Even the most well organized, well prepared, demonstration can fall part. When so much wrong has been brought, when you finally have the chance to let the world hear you... Sometimes all that is left in you is pure fire and fury.
And in the end it just takes one person, and the herd follows. That is true for any thinking mind.
And always remember: Even the gentlest of blows is still a deadly strike.

Sorry for the mistakes english is not my first language:
I had a hormonal IUD inserted four days ago. The installation went quite well, I felt a few contractions during insertion but nothing horrible. During the day I felt some period pain, thinking that it would pass. except that those past 2 days the pain has increased a little and I have the feeling of "burning" in the stomach, up and down and in the thighs in addition to period pain and a slight urge to vomit . Today is the worst day and even though I was able to go to class without any problem, I'm really in pain and it's super unpleasant this burning sensation in my body. I have an appointment for an ultrasound where I will talk about my symptoms soon but I would like to know if it is "normal" to have this much pain even after four days and if you have had similar sensations. I'm a little stressed honestly but I want to trust the IUD because it's the contraception that would suit me best in theory....

About the 7th Ranger Group [7R]

We are an international Arma 3 Milsim community officially founded in 2016, with roots dating back to 2013. We are based in Europe, with members from all over the world. As a community we strive to overcome challenges together by coordinated team play. To achieve this we rely on planning, communication and deployment of adapted military tactics and procedures. While we aim to provide an immersive, realistic experience, fun gameplay is not forgotten.

Our take on Milsim

We apply military procedures to establish a coordinated and team play focused environment. This does not mean realism at all costs. While we do not utilize an extensive rank structure, respecting the ingame chain of command is required, as well as following standard operating procedures and having adequate discipline. Communication and capacity for teamwork are crucial.
To ensure an immersive experience we regulate equipment and use first person view only. We use a modified ACE advanced medical system. Furthermore, we do not have an extensive ORBAT or dedicated roles. In general all specialized roles are entrusted to members who are capable of fulfilling them, supported by our diverse qualification system. While we are mainly a light infantry unit, we dynamically integrate a wide range of other assets into our composition based on mission requirements.

About our operations

• Dedicated server for main operations. Works as training grounds during non-mission hours.
• Weekly premade operation, set in modern day or cold war-era.
• Saturdays 20:00 CET (GMT+1) or CEST (Summer Time, GMT+2).
• We play mainly as infantry, with additional air or ground support.
• Units we play as includes (but is not limited to) US Army, US Marines, Tier 1 Operators, British Armed Forces and Bundeswehr.

Our Expectations

We are looking for mature people who share our enthusiasm for overcoming challenges using tactical team play. We do not expect any previous experience and will gladly support each new member with a will to improve on their journey forward.
With our training pipelines, we provide an accessible environment for both experienced and inexperienced players. Every new member will undergo a training program which teaches the required individual skills as well as our standard operating procedures, ensuring a smooth transition into our unit. At the end of a trial period, each Recruit has to complete our Infantry Qualification Course to become a full member.

Requirements

• You are at least 18 years old and you are able to respect and understand others in the unit, and give and take criticism for personal learning. We give everyone a chance to show what they are made of.
• TeamSpeak 3 Client
• A working microphone
• Legal copy of ARMA 3 (also, while not required, we strongly recommend the APEX, Contact and S.O.G. Prairie Fire DLCs)
• Weekly attendance. However, as real life always comes first, not everyone can always make this. In this case, just post a Leave of Absence so that we know and can plan the operations accordingly.

About mods

We, like many other units out there, use a collection of mods to improve and expand the base game. Some of these mods have been further customized to better suit our needs. Size of the modset is currently around 70 GB, and we use Steam Workshop to distribute and keep it synced.

How to join

Please read the general information and then fill an application on our Discord. Once a Recruiter has reviewed it, he will contact you through Discord and invite you to our Teamspeak to have a chat. If we are what you are looking for and vice versa, you will get further access to all the needed resources to be able to join our operations.

For more information

• Check out our handbook to learn more about us and our operation procedures and models.
• Visit our website
• Take a look at Maale's Youtube channel, Ronny's Youtube or his Twitch to see us in action.
• Feel free to join our Discord and have a chat with us.