Hi I just came across a novel, chosen by the moon novel by izabella W. Its on pay by chapter websites, I've opened and read a few chapters but I can't seem to find any free version or chapter version anywhere. Please help. If anyone has read it I'm willing to take spoilers. Here's the advert I found below of it on Facebook.
Lycanthrope species is a disgusting race. And I, Delan Riley, am nothing more than a human scum in their eyes never expected those species would turn my world upside down. Since when the lycans managed to penetrate our town, like in the early 1900's we have a hierarchy, upper class = the lycans, middle class = mated humans, and lower class = the normal humans, who were basically considered scum. I endured their torment day after day, vowing to run away from them one day, until that day came and everything changed.
Dylan POV "Humans," I scowled at the principal's words from tannoy. "The Alpha twins will be celebrating their birthday tomorrow, as such, festivities are in order." Oh great, the Alphas twin children. Adrian and Arya are the worst lycans alive. I swear just because they are the alphas kids they literally get away with everything. If their birthday is tomorrow, then the wolves are going to be worse than ever. "All students will be present to greet them, two lines will be made, with humans on the left and the lycanthrope on the right. Any mated human will be at the front of the line for their year, you will all also be in order of your school year. That is all." Chat broke out the minute the tannoy was finished. "We haven't had a school gathering since the alpha king visited three years ago, before his sons coronation." Nick was right, the last time we all gathered like that was for the king and queens visit, when he decided to let the world know that he was to renounce his title to his only child, son Josh. "That sick bestard, he wants to make sure everyone is there so those idiot twins can find their mates." Yes I was mad, my fists connected with the table in front of me once more as I thought about how disgusting the situation was. You see the twins will be turning 17, so it's very possible someone in our school could be their mate, finding a mate is sacred to a wolf, the minute they say that one word your fate is sealed. They will turn your mind, morph you into being a lover of their kind, and then you'll give in.

That won't happen to me, I'm growing old to see the world as it once was, and I'm going to choose who I'll be with. No one will take that dream away from me.

Once dinner was finished, I just wanted to sleep. I'd had a very long tiring day, I quickly sat down on a small stool my mother kept in the storage closet and removed my shirt while my brother Freddy sat at the table to do his simple homework. It wasn't long before my mother came in with a large bowl of warm salt water and some cotton, this was going to sting I just knew it. She was here to help me with the wounds caused by wolves yesterday. She slowly began to unwrap the bandage from around my torso and slowed down drastically when it came to the final layer, I felt it peel off every wound and my fists clenched in pain. "Jesus!" I heard my mom exclaim once the dressing was completely removed. The air on my back was nice though and I sighed as my arm covered my once again exposed brests. "This is more than 15!" I began to hear sniffles coming from her and sighed turning round to look at her face, only to notice tears streaming down it. "Mom I'm fine, it's alright." She shook her head. "It's not alright, I'm your mother I shouldn't let these things happen. I'm so sorry. Your father would have..." here she goes again. Every single time something happened she'd always bring up dad, it really annoyed me because no matter how much we all wish he was here, he just isn't. My father was kiled by THEIR kind, almost 5 years ago when they actually managed to take over. When the lycans managed to penetrate our town my father rose up with some people from the neighborhood, to defend our livelihood, it was futile to say the least. We lost many people and I watched as my dad was ripped apart by two fully shifted wolves, I ended up shoting him to stop his suffering before they dragged me to the courtyard, i was the person to receive the first lashing of the town when I was 12! The wolves have been pretty strict with me since that day. "Stop being stvpid!" Was I harsh? Definitely! Did she need to hear it again, absolutely. "Dad is dead, we don't know what he'd do because he never knew this life. He never knew this world." I know what he'd have done, most likely attacked the guy who held the whip and got himself kiled in the process. "The best thing you can do for me, is stop crying and help me, next time don't insist on helping if you can't handle it." She began to wash my open wounds with the warm salt water causing loud winces to leave me, I knew it was necessary to prevent infection, but my god it hurt like a betch. "Some of these are really deep Dylan!" She sniffed again and my eyes rolled in my head. "I told you, I'm fine, just wrap me back up so I can get to bed." My mom was obviously more impacted by my injuries than I was, I suppose that always the case though. When it's happening to you, you've just got to get through it but when it's happening to someone you love, you just want to take their pain away. She quickly placed a fresh bandage around my waist and chest and wrapped it tightly for compression. The bowl of water that was used was now red in color, I guess from the blood my back was dripping with. "Can you keep your head down please? At least just this week. You can't take any more lashings." I simply nodded before standing up away from the stool, I walked over to Freddie and ruffled his hair in affection. "Good night squirt." He giggled and fixed his hair slightly. "Night Dilly." I smiled walking upstairs to my little bedroom, as soon as I was inside i shut the door and flopped down on to my bed on my stomach and I took a minute to cry to myself at the pain in my back, what my mom did was important but it hurt, not that I'd ever tell her. My hand covered my mouth quickly to muffle any noise I might be making. I couldn't tell anyone, I had to be strong because more and more people were crumpling these days, and my mom would break if she knew how much I was suffering. Sleep followed me shortly after, she was right though about me needing to keep my head down for the time being, I could not take another lashing! After a long night and an even longer morning, we were all finally stood in the hallway at school waiting for the twins to arrive. "Mine!" Everyone that was stood in the hallway tensed up, as we were seniors, me and Nick were stood towards the very back of the human line. All the mated people were situated directly opposite their wolf mates in their years. We stayed silent and still as Arya walked down the hall and stopped directly in front of Nick. His eyes widened in fear, unsure of wether to look up or keep his head lowered. "Look me in the eye, mate." He glanced at me slightly as if asking what he should do. "I said, look me in the eye." He slowly moved his eye line up to look at her face. I took a glance myself to see her eyes pitch black with lust. "I... can't... I mean... erm." Before he was able to mutter anything else, two wolves from opposite, grabbed him out of the line and dragged him behind Arya. "Hey!" My head shot up before I could stop myself. My mouth also forgot its place as I jumped out of line. Everyone's head shot to me as my eyes widened in realization at what I'd done. Adrian, the other twin, walked up to me before punching me right in the stomach, I doubled over instantly. Feeling the sting in my slightly healed back. "I know you... You were publicly flogged only two days ago." God I hate this guy. "I also have it on good authority, that you openly spoke out against our rules and regulations in yesterday's class." My head shot down the line slightly to see Erin, looking a little frightened, her mate, the beta to be was looking at her, nodding his head in reassurance. "You traitor, you grassed on your own kind?" I yelled at her before feeling a fist connect with my cheek. My head whipped to the side from the force, while my class members gasped. I'm so done with this treatment, right then, I wasn't in charge of my actions. My fists curled up and my stance became a lot more defensive. My head snapped up to the alpha to be, and I looked him in the eye. "You don't know the meaning of the word disrespect." I suddenly hurled my fist towards his head, which he easily dodged, but my foot came up and kicked him instead. He stumbled backwards from the force with wide eyes. "You... you Actually hit me!" He didn't even sound annoyed, more shocked. Everyone in the hallway was watching, waiting for the alpha to do something but instead he simply stood up straight, regaining his composure. "I think everyone should get back to class." He began to walk away, following his sister when I called him back. "What about Nick?!" "Simple, He's my sisters mate. He now belongs to her." Argh, he's not an object. "He's not her property." A chuckle left his mouth, before turning his back to me again. "All humans are property." A short while later everyone made it to science class, our teacher Mrs Mathews is mated to the lycans pack doctor, she also now has a four and two year old with him. She was one of the first humans to be cohered into a false relationship. "What were you thinking young lady?" I rolled my head at her before looking at the empty seat next to mine. Nick was with that stvpid wolf girl right now. Being changed, I'm so angry it's ridiculous. "I was thinking, this guy is being a prick. Did you hear him? 'All humans are property.' It's bull shet." I looked up and the whole class looked at me like I had three heads. Talking shet about wolves is one thing, but talking about an alpha is punishable by death, attacking an alpha is an even worse offense. There was then a knock at the door and in walked Erin and her band of mated bestards. "Sorry we're late Mrs." "Erin, how are things between you and bata Monroe?" She blushed, the traitor actually blushed at the mention of his name. "He spoke to me last night about trying for a baby. We need a good strong boy to take over as beta." I scoffed looking at her as she took her seat. "You guys are actually pathetic, why can't it be a girl? Those mutts are basically Neanderthals" I voiced my opinion and saw all the shocked faces around me. Calling the lycans mutts, is the same as them calling us scum. After lesson had ended the entire school was called into the hall for assembly. This is where any human who has been found to have broken the rules were punished, usually 10 lashings were goven out or something similar. "Welcome to the school assembly, congratulations to the alpha twins for finding both your mates. Now on to the business at hand, as the 5 year anniversary of the new world is coming up, we have been informed that the alpha king will be visiting our district next week, this is very exciting news. We want you all to look your absolute best, she wolves and mated females will wear exemplary dresses made by seamstress. Male wolves and mated men will wear tailored suits. Anyone who doesn't comply will be reprimanded." The Alpha King?! No one has met him yet, he took over the throne three years ago when he turned 18. He really didn't make any appearances though, great, this month is going to be a nightmare. "As for the humans, you will be given a new uniform to wear for the visit, these are to be neatly ironed and worn to the highest standard. As for the following humans, based on your attitude this past week, you will be coming to the front and facing punishment. Tony summerset?!" Tony's head shot up as he looked around, he was in the year below but he shared my views when it came to the lycans. He slowly walked up to the front of assembly, almost instantly his top was t0rn in two and he received 10 lashings. A girl named Kara was next and she too received 10 lashings. A few more people went up slowly accepting their fate then suddenly my name was called. "Dylan Riley." Inside I was terrified but I simply shrugged my shoulders, I guess I did kind of expect this. Although I'm not sure if my back can take any more damage. "You attacked an alpha, correct!" His eyes bored into mine as I bowed my head submitting to his authority. "Technically, no." Everyone in the school gym looked on in fear, as my head moved to the front row of the wolf side. Adrian sat, with a werewolf girl in the year below, her name was Jana, I guess he found his mate. Nick and Arya were no where to be seen though. Adrian gave me a shrug as if to say he didn't tell, before smirking at my comment. "He hasn't officially taken the alpha title yet, so he's just..." i looked at the principle and noticed his eyes black and his claws out, he was in what lycans call a half shift, triggered when the subject has become angered. He turned to two security wolves and gave them a nod, Almost immediately i was forced onto my knees, my arm was slammed on a table and held in place by one wolf, while my body was held in place by the other. "Ok, I don't think this is needed, I have alpha blood, a stvpid human girl can't hurt me." My head snapped to Adrian who had stood up in front of the school to stop what was happening. "Nevertheless, humans need to know their place." With that the pressure on my arm increased as our principals hand pulled my sleeve up before a long claw punctured my skin. The searing pain shoting from the fresh wound had my eyes scrunched and my fist clenched, I bit the inside of my cheek hard instantly tasting blood, however no sound left my mouth. He continued to write, using my skin as a canvas and his claws as a marker, it went on forever, my vision blurred slightly at one point as I turned my head away. After minutes of torture, he was done and the pressure on my arm eased, instantly I snatched my arm away, hissing through my teeth at the pain. I was about to scurry off stage, when I was roughly grabbed yet again, my arm being held in the air by the principal while my feet were inches off the floor, blood dripped from the wound and the pattern he had made was on show for everyone to see. Loads of people gasped, even the wolves looked slightly horrified at what had happened. "This is what happens when a human decides to speak out. I can promise, anyone who so much as says one word about our way of life, will have the same punishment." My arm was starting to seriously ache from being held in the air for so long, and the lack of blood flow to my suspended arm was causing me pins and needles, still I refused to make a sound. I held the tears back and I bit my cheek harder causing more blood to fill my mouth. "That's enough Bradley!" Adrian growled, he was still stood up and looking at the scene in front of him. His eyes hard as he stared at the principal a low warning growl erupted from his chest which had the head teacher gulping, he quickly let go of my arm causing me to crash to the floor. A small cry left my mouth as I hit the hard floor. Immediately I scrambled away, my foot just missed the high step leading to the stage and I fell, waiting for the impact of the ground, but it never came. Two strong arms wrapped around me catching my weak body causing me to look up, my eyes widened as I noticed Adrian had caught my falling form. "This isn't part of the human punishment program!" Adrian growled causing me to tense in his grip, I pushed him away from me before fixing my uniform top. The room was deadly silent, taking in the scene in front of them, while I stole a glance at my forearm. Carved into my skin by his devastating claws were two words, words that would most definitely scar my body for life. 'Human scum' "Lessons must be learned, she received lashing merely two days ago, and clearly it had no effect on her." Another growl left Adrian's chest as he stepped on to the stage, I wasn't bothered though, you would think I'd be ashamed but I simply smiled slightly. I fixed my sleeve a little so it wouldn't rub on the fresh wound before speaking. "It doesn't matter," the whole room looked at me shocked by my attitude. "I would rather be labeled human scum, than have any resemblance to your kind. I'm proud of what I am, how many of you can say that?" After my amazing little speech, I walked right down the middle between the humans and lycans and out the door. No more compliance, I'm going to get away with as much as I can without getting into too much bother. There will come a day when the lycans power will fizzle out. When it does I'll be ready, I'll be waiting for the day we take our world back. As for the best part about my plan...

No one can stop me.

"Ouch, not so hard." I seethed as the school nurse cleaned my new wound with antiseptic. "If you had of just kept your mouth shut, this wouldn't have happened." I turned to my right looking out the window at the few clouds that were floating in the blue sky. "Like I said, I'm proud to be human, and now everyone knows what I am." I clenched my fist together as the nurse began wrapping a bandage around my forearm. It had been a good few hours since the incident in the hall, and I had been forced to come to the nurces office after I had tried to clean my wound by splashing it with water from the tap, it also refused to stop bleeding. "You are impossible. Can you please just try and stay out of trouble? For one day, that's all I ask." Our school nurse is a wolf, she's one of them. However she hates the way they treat us mere humans, she thinks we should all just live in peace with equal rights. Like that would ever happen. "All I've done is stay out of trouble, but you are just going to humiliate me anyway, so what's the actual point?" "The pack were discussing a public execution, Dylan. You need to walk on egg shells from now on, not just for you but for your family as well." No ones been publicly executed in over 4 months, I'm flattered they're considering it. They only execute people who they believe are the biggest problems to society. "Well then... I'm flattered." I chuckled, before looking at the patch job. 'Huh, not too shabby.' I quickly stood up from the human nursing station and pulled the sleeve of my shirt down covering the evidence of ever being hurt. "This is serious!" I just gave her a blank look before leaving the room. On the way out I heard her call back to me. "Please just think about it." I gave a clipped nod as I walked away wondering how I'm going to tell my mom about this. Later in the evening... "Dilly why you say that?" Freddie looked up at me with a mouth full of bread. "Don't speak with your mouthful!" My mom scolded him as a bashful blush made its way to his cheeks. "Sowwy mommy." His reply was muffled as he swallowed the last chunk of food. "I said it Freddie, because it's the truth. The wolf race are a pathetic excuse for..." my mom cut me off with an extremely stern look. "Dylan! They have ears everywhere, one more word out of you and it's your room." I scowled, my hatred for the Lycan kind growing stronger as each day passes. "What more can they do to me, lash me? Beat me? Brand me? They've ran out of options." I stated slamming my hands down, then severely regretting it as sharp pain shot though my wound. "What was that?" My head shot to regard my mothers worried expression. Her eyebrows were raised and her eyes were dull and judging as she looked at me. "Nothing, it was nothing." I quickly took my plate in my hand and began to walk to the kitchen. "I'm not really hungry, and I have homework to do!" My mom caught hold of my forearm causing me to drop my plate suddenly, I watched it slowly fall before shattering on the floor. I retracted my arm quickly and turned to Freddie. "Stay there and don't move until it's cleaned up ok sport?" He just nodded with wide eyes, I turned back to my mom and noticed her curious stare on my arm. Her grip shifted to the other side as she turned it around before pulling my sleeve up. The bandage was showing and a bit of blood was seeping though after the wound had been disturbed. "What the hel happened?" My moms eyes widened as she began to fumble with the bandage. Before she could unravel any of it I snatched my arm away. "I had an accident at school. No big." I began to gather the large pieces of the broken plate up ready to put them in the bin. "What did you do Dylan?" She looked at me with pure worry and only then did I realize what the wound must look like to someone who didn't know. "For gods sake! I didn't do it to myself! I got publicly punished at the assembly alright? It's no big deal." Her face dropped instantly and she stepped towards me, causing me to step backwards. "Mom, I'm ok. So back off will you." "What did you do? I've never known them to cut someone's arm as a punishment." Her shock and accusation was evident in her voice and I sighed heavily. "I spoke against the alphas son." I may have hit him too, but I wasn't going to divulge that part to her. "It's not one big cut, mom, it's a brand, 'human scum' carved onto my arm." "They've branded you now too?!" My eyes rolled at her hurt tone as I went to get the dustpan and brush. "You're so much like your father." A sigh left her mouth as she spoke, running a hand through her hair, while I quickly swept up the little pieces of the broken plate. "You've had a new uniform delivered. It's laid out on your bed. Dylan, Please just try and stay respectful in the future, I don't want my daughter to be completely mutilated. Although you're not far off." "Gee, Thanks." I then walked over to my little brother Freddy before blowing a kiss into his neck and hearing him giggle. "So sport, how's school going?" "It's ok." He shrugged before going back to coloring a dinosaur picture in. "Well that's good, stay out of trouble, ok little man?" Heading upstairs and into my room, my thoughts wandered to the permanent graffiti scar very slowly healing on my arm. Disgusting beasts. Think they own the world because they're faster, stronger and can shift. Pah. If you ask me they are not all that.

The second I walked into my room my mouth dropped open. On my bed was some grey pants laid out neatly, which wasn't the surprising part, no, what shocked me was the grey high neck no sleeved button down shirt, every single set of uniform had sleeves except this one. They've done this on purpose those, mutts. They want the world to see my arm and know what a disgusting creature I am. They want the world to know that I, Dylan Riley, am nothing more than 'human scum'.

During the last week, I've been horrible, in class I've been loud in voicing my views, I've insulted at least everyone to some degree, I didn't care about the consequences, and I certainly didn't think about them. I haven't seen Nick at all since he was claimed, and to make matters worse today was the royal visit. Oh yes, werewolves and mated humans alike were spending every waking minute preparing themselves to meet his royal majesty, king of the wolves. Unclaimed Humans however would rather stick pins in their eyes. "Dylan, get down now... you're going to be late." She was right, I was dawdling this morning, I really couldn't be bothered today, I gave myself one last look in the small mirror and sighed when my eyes met my newly uncovered brand. It had bad bruising around the letters, and was still extremely tender to touch, it was definitely healing now though. I made my way down the stairs and came face to face with my mother who was seeing to Freddie, she was helping my brother get his coat on when she turned to me. "You ready sport?" Freddie nodded his little head at me and smiled while I quickly slid my shoes on. "Just Remember, the alpha is bad enough, Dylan, please, please don't do anything to anger the king." My mother stopped us from walking out the door to tell me something she had been telling me continuously for the last couple of days, it was almost as if the entire human population of our district was expecting me to do something stvpid. "Try and have a good day." I rolled my eyes but nodded, even I know not to push the king, he could kil me in the hallway like it was nothing. In fact I plan on staying out of his way for the entirety of the day. "We will see you tonight mom." I stated before me and my brother began our walk to school, his little hand clutched my own tightly as we went. Usually Nick would be with us, as he lives next door, well he used to, now he's residing in the main pack house. I quickly dropped Freddie off at his school and watched him get the wolfsbane neutralizer before walking into him building giving me a small wave before he went in. With my new scar on complete show, and my figure being complimented by the skin tight shirt I was wearing, I sauntered down the street to school, I gave my name and year in and took the wolf's bane neutralizer injection with no problems at all. It was finally getting into school that the problem occurred. Walking through the halls I was met by many looks, some of pity some of disgust. You see every single non mated human in the school was wearing a long sleeved version of the uniform I was given. All the Wolves and mated couples were scattered around in fancy floor length dresses or tailored suits. As I turned the corner I noticed a couple, now this couple happened to catch my eye the most out of all of them because it consisted of Arya and Nick, eating each other's faces off. "What the hel!" Nicks head shot to me as his eyes widened. He too was dressed in a tailored suit, a navy blue tie hung on his neck to match Aryas dress. Why was this happening all the time? It's always my friends that get completely brain washed. I shook my head in disbelief before turning my back on him. I heard his fast footsteps behind me as I rounded the corner. "Dylan?!" He ran right in front of me, stopping me in my tracks, making me drop my bag off my shoulder and almost causing me to bump into him. "Let me just explain..." "Has she marked you?" I mean you could almost see it in his eyes, she had marked him, and knowing the way life goes he's probably even mated with her. "Actually... Don't even answer that." I aggressively picked my bag up off of the floor and stormed off down the hall. "Dylan, just listen to me, Erin was right, it's so hard to resist your soulmate, and Arya is actually ok once you get to know her." I just kept walking, he caught up to me walking beside me but it didn't matter, I completely ignored everything and everyone. 'I'm so not in the mood today' getting into class was good though, I said hello to Mr Foley and took my usual seat. Nick sighed then took his bag off ready to sit next to me, but I snapped before he had the chance. "Traitors and mated idiots sit on that side of the room." I didn't look him in the eye as I pointed to a seat right at the front of the classroom on the opposite side. His eyes widened as he turned his attention back to me. "You can't be serious Dylan." I gave him a blank look before grabbing my book out of my backpack, I placed it on the desk then began to write the date on the top line. "I've sat in this seat for as long as I can remember." I ignored him, his voice sounded sad and shocked. "Dylan? Wait! What is that?!" Before I could react Nick had grabbed hold of my branded arm and turned it to see the letters. "Oh my God! What happened?" I snatched my arm away from him and shrugged as I continued to write in my book before grabbing my water bottle out of my bag. "The principal happened, it was my punishment for speaking out against Adrian and Arya. I wear it with pride." He just held a complete look of disbelief. "You spoke out against them?" I shrugged, what did he think I'd do. "It's no secret that I despise this stvpid new world and the mutts that control it. You were my friend, I wasn't going to let them just take you without saying something, although that is exactly what you seem to have done. Enjoy the view from your new seat!" "Don't be like that, Dylan, I'm your best friend, I'm sorry about your arm, but..." my eyes rolled inside my head at my friends words. "Anything with the word 'but' in, isn't an apology, it's a rationalization." I took a drink of water from my bottle and kept my eyes facing forward, ignoring his every attempt to try and talk to me. "Dylan?.. Dylan?... Do you know what? Erin is right, if you push us all away you won't have any friends left." He huffed before walking over to the empty seat and sitting down, I could feel him glancing up at me every now and again but I didn't respond. "Good morning class, please settle down." He looked at me then at Nick and frowned, we've never sat apart, we were friends before the new world even began. I just shook my head telling him to forget it. "So... as you know the king will be arriving in a short while, but until then lessons will go on as normal." Its funny seeing teachers in the same uniform your wearing, mr Foley and his wife are the coolest. Human teachers and doctors only have slightly more respect than we do. Because of Mr Foley's status him and his wife have better access to food and drink, Mrs Foley is cool, sometimes she even makes sure mr Foley brings some in for me. Ya know, coz I'm their favorite student. It's not in a weird way, it's just they were friends of the family before the new wold took effect. Mr Foley and my dad were buddies from high school, so it goes without sayin really. "All the mated humans will be at the front of each years line again, after that you will all be placed in status, Nick, as your mated to Alpha Arya, you'll be at the front of your line. Dylan as you have been branded..." his voice trailed off as he looked at me. "Yeah yeah, I'll be at the back of the line behind everyone. I get it." I huffed, moving my sight towards the window once more. "I am sorry." I turned to face Mr Foley again, he looked genuinely upset and that look of pity wasn't something I wanted to see. I gave him a clipped nod then turned away again. "Anyway, on to the subject matter, 'Of Mice and Men, page 64, Nick why don't you start us off with the reading."

"Of course sir." Nick began reading the book but I switched off, today is going to be a long day. After almost an hour and a half of reading comprehension, the bell chimed signaling lunch. I shot up and out of the classroom before anyone could say anything. Today, I was avoiding drama like the plague.

I wandered the corridors straight to the lunch hall. All the people I would normally hang out with we're all mated so I grabbed my lunch quickly, and sat down at the end of the human table. Let me lay the lunch hall out for you. On one side of the room you have two long rows of tables, with simple benches that make it look like prison, on the other side of the room you have multiple round tables with fancy chairs. Yup you get it. The humans sit at the prison tables and the wolves and traitors sit on the fancy tables, they get fancy food, fancy drink and most importantly they get pudding. what I would give to have some pudding. "Dylan can we just talk?" Nick quickly took the spot next to me as he set his lunch tray down. I looked at his food which had been placed on a ceramic, circular white plate. God that looked good. I sighed knowing he was going to talk anyway. "Fine, you have two minutes." I used my fork to take a bit of pasta off his plate and shoved it into my mouth. God that was good. "After I left school, I was taken to the pack house with Arya, and I really got to know her. It took a few days for me to finally accept being with her, but ever since life has been ok, and the sax... well that's a whole other story." Eww, I didn't need that mental image in my head. "I'm glad your happy." I stated before deciding I had no appetite. His face held shock before he sighed in relief. "That means a lot Dylan, I mean you know that your opinion matters to me." I cut him off before he could say anything else. "I said I was glad your happy. I didn't say I approved of what you've done. You've basically turned into one of THEM, I can't ever forgive you for that." He looked hurt, but I couldn't care less about his feelings. He placed his hand gently on my arm and went to open his mouth when a growl sounded out. All heads whipped to where it came from, Arya was stood holding a glass of soda and a plate, she was looking right at me and Nick and I would totally be dead if looks could kil. Nick quickly retracted his hand, his whole face fell and you could see sorrow flood his irises. "You sit with me now, get away from that, that... scum!" Wow, Nick was such a lucky guy. NOT. "You heard her. Get away from me, go sit with your new friends. I'm happy for you, and I understand where your coming from, but don't come up to me again and pretend you didn't betray your own kind. Don't pretend you didn't betray me." I shoved a little bit of food into my mouth before standing up and walking out of the cafeteria, leaving my tray on the table. I was walking through the hallway to the classroom, you see I decided to spend lunch with Mr Foley in his room, when I happened to hear voices in the corridor. "Is it wise for her to actually be present when the king arrives? Surely she could be placed in the dungeons, it might actually teach her some respect?" My principal was speaking to the alpha of our district, huh, if I stayed and listened do you think they'd notice, maybe they could smell me?! "Everyone is to be present, if the Riley girl does one thing out of line she will be dealt with severely, child or not. That girl has been a blight to the district since day one, she's dangerous, if she puts one hair out of place I will personally break her into submission." Oh shet, they were talking about me specifically, and they mentioned the dungeon, that's not been used in months. Normally I would have listened in more but something about the entire situation didn't sit right with me, all of a sudden, I was on edge, and simply wasn't interested in the slightest in hearing how my misery was to be enhanced. I backed up slightly before turning around and bumping head first into one of the hottest man I had ever seen. I lost my balance immediately and fell straight on to the floor letting out a small grumble in the process. His eyebrows knitted together quickly and his breath hitched in his throat as he looked upon my fallen state and gasped. "Mate!" He whispered, his eyes fixated on mine. Now, I had seen and heard that many times to know what that means, I gasped before taking a step back. 'No, no, no, no, no. This can not be happening.' He growled slightly before stepping towards me. Oh Shet!

It's been a week now and I don't know if I should call the police or leave it be.
Last Saturday my boyfriend, 18yo male, me, 20yo female, made the mistake of venturing out too far for date night. Date night lately has meant visiting nature and various parks. We try to go to a new one each time to ensure it's always an adventure. We usually reminisce, take pictures, and enjoy the scenery. It's especially great for when it's warm out. Nothing beats the sound of frogs singing a lullaby as you walk through the woods.
When we got to the park, my boyfriend was so giddy to show me around. This was the spot He and his dad used to go fishing. It was one of many spots their family frequented. Because of that I think I'll call the park... fish valley. For anonymity of course.
The first thing I noticed about fish valley was how secluded it was. There were open areas and spots to sit down. Plenty of activites to do and plenty of touristy sights to see. The park WAS quite large but throughout our 2 hour excursion I would have expected to see more than like two person. This was definitely odd but it didn't set off alarm bells in my mind just yet.
We walked north admiring the view. Eventually we made it to a bridge under a railroad track. Rocks, cobwebs, and graffiti covered the underside. Above was a set of railroad tracks. My boyfriend, knowing I love railroads, caught me taking intrest and grabbed me by my wrist. He showed me up to the tracks and my.. was it beautiful. Everything was overgrown. Even more, the further we followed, the prettier and more untouched the land became.
Out of all the urbex spots we've visited, none have come close the sheer beauty that those tracks divided. I still wish I could've gotten more photos.
By the end of our journey, we made it to a rail junction where three old cargo trains lay in wait. On the left track, one train car and the right, two train cars positioned one in front of the other. It was perfect. Me and my boyfriend scooted between the cars and held eachother. Man, I love him so much. I broke the moment when nature called. My bladder screamed at me and I set off to find a spot to do my buisness.
So before you come at me, I am a shy peer. I didn't stop on the way despite the obvious lack of people, because I did not want to take the risk. There were bushy areas but nothing that could cover me well enough to give my consciousness the strength to go number 1 in public. Soooo I did what any lady would have done and waited to find a more private area. Dumb idea in retrospect but what can you do.
My plan was to just pop a squat off to the side of the tracks. I took a right tords the bushes and did my thing. On my way back, I stopped. My blood ran cold. My boyfriend trotted over to me where he saw the small campsite. Rocks were laid out In a circle and bright prink laced panties were wrapped across a bed of leaves and grass.
This got me thinking. What if someone saw me? Then a scarier thought hit me. What if they were still here.
My man reasured me telling me that the spot looked old. When I look back on it, I think he was just saying that so I wouldn't panic.
We covered up the sight and resumed our previous activities.
As we headed back to the spot between the train cars, I couldn’t shake the unsettling feeling from before. Despite his blind confidence, the once-romantic setting had begun to feel ominous and eerie. Every rustle in the bushes made my heart race. I remember glancing around, each shadow and sound amplifying my anxiety. My boyfriend tried once again to pull me back into the moment but I couldn’t take it anymore.
As we hugged, I begged him to go back. He didn't want to but I could tell he felt my fear. When it was dim, we readied ourselves to make the long journey back.
We hurried towards the bridge, but a nagging feeling made me glance over my shoulder. That’s when I saw him—a disheveled man emerging from the bushes, holding a metal pipe. It was like something out of a horror movie. His eyes were wild, and he moved with a menacing purpose.
My boyfriend still has a bruise from where I grabbed him. I yanked him to my side so hard he practically yelped.
The last thing I rememeber is us sprinting towards the bridge, our footsteps pounding against the dirt path. The man was behind us with the pipe clutched tightly in his hand. For someone so skinny and old, he ran like he was in fighting for an olympic medal. Luckily or not, the adrenaline coursing through my veins was just enough of a match for the old man.
Me and my boyfriend managed to dart under the railroad bridge, the darkness beneath it momentarily swallowing us. The man’s footsteps echoed, growing louder. We headed towards the swampy area of the water, hoping to lose him in the dense underbrush. The air was thick with humidity, making it hard to breathe.
We zigzagged through the trees, the sound of pursuit close behind. My legs burned, and my lungs felt like they were on fire, but stopping wasn’t an option. I glanced back and saw the man still chasing us, his face twisted with determination and madness.
The saving grace was my boyfriend spotting a narrow path leading back to the park entrance. We bolted towards it, the trees closing in around us. Branches scratched at our skin, and the undergrowth tangled around our feet, but we didn’t dare slow down.
As we burst out onto the main path, we practically collapsed in the grass. The man was no where to be seen. We made it. We were safe but not unharmed. Cuts and bruises heal but the memory of that night haunts me. I can't get his eyes out if my mind.
I know it was illegal to trespass onto those tracks and that was our first mistake but a part of me wants to know what that man was doing out there in the first place. Was he the reason why it was so quiet? And why did he have that pipe.
My mind has been filling in the blanks for me lately. I wish I could forget this incident.

Hahaha
Not sure if this is the right place for anything.
I am 36 years old. The trauma began when i was a 9 year old kid in elementary school. My mom was already psychotic and enjoyed killing my goldfish and then crying and saying it was an accident then repeatedly replacing them all killing them again with bleach. It was what i thought was normal.
She didn’t know how to raise me so i had a lot of babysitters. At one babysitters house, their kid taught me it was fun to pull out pants down and play with our weiners. I didn’t like the kid, but I thought this was normal behavior.
At school in the middle of class i pulled my pants down and got in trouble. I was pulled out of school and a counselor told my mom i had ADD, and needed to go to a school for children with special needs.
My mom took me to the school, it was a normal school but it had the “Cornerstone Program” for special kids. The very first thing the program director and my mom did was coerce me into signing a piece of paper saying that explicitly stated that I, a child, was giving consent to the staff to physically assault me in the form of a “restraint” whenever they felt like i needed it done to me, “for safety.”
I refused to sign it and they both got very angry with me and told me that it’s only for bad kids. Then i asked why i was being sent to a school for bad kids. Then they said that as long as i was “good” then they wouldn’t assault me. So i promised i would be good and not misbehave and signed the paper.
On the first day of school, it was pure chaos. The other kids were antagonizing one another, and it was incredibly distracting and hilarious. One kid yelled to the other “Go suck on yo mamma’s dick!” And then the other kid got enraged and then was dragged into the back “restraining room” to be held down and forced to scream while they had an anxiety attack, until they “break” and become “calmed down” by the adults physically assaulting the minors.
Because of this chaotic environment, how was I supposed to succeed as a child sent there for one diagnosis “ADD” because i pulled my pants down once.
I didn’t do my schoolwork in class because it was impossible, and I just observed the constant fighting between the other kids instead.
One teacher got mad that I wasn’t “obeying” and he took me into the other detached classroom that served as the Cornerstone main office. He sat me down, and forced a pencil in my hands and he said “do your work. Now.” Because he was mean, i put the pencil down. He grabbed it again, and forced it in my hands, then squeezed my hands with his hands and began writing the math numbers down on the page for me.
I knew he was trying to hurt me, so i jammed him with my thumbnail back. Thats when he grabbed me and threw me onto the floor, and attacked me with a “restraint” maneuver. He gave me my first anxiety attack, i will never forget screaming for help for an hour but i was ignored by anyone who could hear me. That is when i learned that i had no safety, that i could scream for help as a child, but no one would ever come, and that they were going to physically torture me to do schoolwork if i didn’t obey them.
I had rug burn all over my face and chin from being held to the floor. When the school day was over, before i could tell my mom i was assaulted, they told her that i got my first necessary restraint, and that i obviously was a bad child who needed their program.
She wouldn’t listen to me that i was assaulted and essentially physically raped. I went back to school the next day and told to do a better job behaving.
I was trying to do my schoolwork out of fear of pain and torture, then the same guy who assaulted me, “Rob” came over to me and pretended to be my best friend. Probably out of guilt since he knew he was a child abusing sack of shit just there to suck up a paycheck and get off on being a living nightmare, a torturer of children.
He pretended to help me with my work, to show everyone that he was normal and just doing his job, that he didn’t just physically rape me the previous day. I had another anxiety attack from just his proximity to me. He quit the very next day, because he knew what he did to me.
Every day i was terrified of going to “Torture School” as i called the Cornerstone program. I was traumatized by the first attack on me, so i couldn’t concentrate on doing schoolwork. The other staff got annoyed with me because I didn’t validate them by doing my schoolwork, and since they had no idea how to handle kids with special needs, i became a target for them.
The teachers told my mom that i wasn’t doing my schoolwork because i needed ADD medication. Not because of the lack of proper education and parenting, but i needed to be given a daily chemical lobotomy. After one dr appointment, I was put on “Ridilin” for a day, and it was like having an active lobotomy. I could not think or feel emotions.
The same teachers that recommended I start taking medication got mad at me for not doing my schoolwork, were now mad at me that the medication they decided i needed to be on now made it completely impossible to do my work. So the teachers suggested that I take a different medication, so i was put on “wellbutron” which still allowed me to function but with a less intense lobotomy so they could take the credit for their recommendation that i be medicated, all for keeping up their image of being good and smart special ed teachers.
Btw in case you don’t know, it is always illegal for a teacher to suggest a child start taking medication. 🙃
Every day my mom would take out her anger at me, she was a rageaholic, and still is. She loved to have a meltdown, full on screaming and yelling and hitting me and ranting about how she has to blame me for it, then say “wow, this was because you didn’t take your medication today yet!” Every. Single. Time. I wondered what i was even taking the meds for, and began to see that the adults were the ones all fucked up mentally and needed medication. Also the program only let us watch limited kids movies, depressing ones and a long looney tunes PSA movie about how drugs are bad. But it’s ok that my mom was a heavy weed smoker, and i needed to be lobotomized through medication every day.
The school had a “point system” that rewarded kids with daily numbers on a white board for “good behavior” and points could purchase rewards, and bad behavior got points taken away. I wasn’t allowed to get points because i didn’t do my schoolwork, and they held that over my head constantly to try and give me incentive. It was all bullshit, and one day they threatened to take points from a kid and he went and erased the entire whiteboard. Boom, end of fight club, the teachers powers over us with the mysterious numbers ended. They didn’t make any back ups of the points because it was just there to scare us into good behavior 😂
Because i didn’t do my schoolwork, i wasn’t allowed to have points anyway, and the teachers decided to take my desk out of the classroom, and put it inside of the restraint room, so i was forced to listen to the screams of the children they tortured even louder. They used to give the other kids points for “good ignoring” when there was a child screaming in the back. Can you imagine, a pointless point system built by sadists, that reward children for ignoring the torturous screams of their peers, and then reward that as good behavior?
Eventually, the teachers decided to have a meeting with my mom about how i refused to do school work in their environment. They started joking “well, you dont even do your work in the back room, it’s like you just come to school to get restraints! Ahaha” they thought it was so funny to torture me. Another teacher added in “yeah, if you’re not obeying us, then we’re not teaching you and just restraining you all the time, what does that make us? Ahaha”
“Kid torturers” i replied. Their laughter stopped when they were called out for exactly what they were. My mom didn’t seem to understand the moment, and she said “oh yeah! And since you don’t obey me, I guess I’m resigning as your mother.” She sounded so happy to shirk all that responsibility. The Cornerstone staff tried to laugh that off too, “haha, umm, don’t you mean ‘redefining’, haha?”
“Nope,” and she went on a rant about how “when he learns to obey me and do his schoolwork, he will have the privilege of having a mother back.” And stunned the room full of people who tortured children for a living.
After that, she wouldn’t allow me to call her mom, i had to call her by her first name.
One day, on thanksgiving, we were getting ready to leave and go see family. She got upset about something, said I wasn’t obeying her, and he fat ass grabbed me and pinned me to the ground. She kept saying “look at me, im a teacher restraining you because you won’t obey!” She said as her boobs were falling out of her mumu and hitting me in the face with her weaponized titties. In the struggle, she kept leaning on me on one hand and hurting me to try in vain to get her girls back in her mumu, then her tits kept falling out, then she gave up on this futile exercise in normal parenting.
I refused to go with her, and i stayed home and ate 5 bowls of cereal and called it thanksgiving. She would also abuse me in front of family especially on Christmas and holidays, the normal routine of having an enraged meltdown and trying to blame me for it while everyone is confused what even she’s even so mad about during the holidays in the first place.
One day at school, we had a new staff member who acted like an ex con. The first time I disobeyed him, he threw me to the ground so hard I had the wind knocked out of me and i couldn’t breathe. then he got on top of me and held me down, and i still couldn’t breathe, i finally felt my lungs inflate and started screaming, but that was “bad behavior” so i had to pretend to not have a panic attack so i would be let go and allowed to breathe normally.
Of course that was written up as “my fault” for “being out of control” and “needing” to be restrained and i got in trouble for it. We had behavior report cards we had to take home every day, so i would do nothing, get told that i was disobeying their orders by not doing schoolwork, restrained/tortured, written up, behavior paper taken home to be seen by my mom, then she would use that as an excuse to take out all her anger out on me.
One day, the previous guy decided to attack me outside so at least there was one witness to the aftermath of the abuse.
The guy took me and kids to the community farm across the street, and gave us all rakes, and demanded that we clean all the chicken shit out of the chicken coops. When he tried to hand me the rake, it was gross and i was starting to develop an OCD from having things forced into my hands, so i didn’t want to touch it.
He grabbed me, and threw me to the ground once again into the pile of chicken shit, and then locked the chicken wire fence and left me in there, and said i couldn’t come out until i cleaned up all the chicken shit by myself.
I sat there stunned, and eventually a normal teacher from the normal part of the school for regular kids who didn’t get abused saw me. She said “Oh my god! What are you doing in there?” And then there was a school county investigation opened up.
I was interviewed by 2 detectives at home about the incident, and they didn’t care or know about any of the other abuse happening at Cornerstone. Just that one guy was fired, and i thought since if my mom knew the abuse was this bad, i wouldn’t have to go back to that school.
I had to go back the next day and pretend like nothing happened. The special ed teachers were upset with me that i got one of them in trouble, and they feared me. They got so afraid of me that they wouldn’t allow me to have a sharpened pencil, only allowed me to have broken ones, then got me in trouble for not doing my schoolwork. 🙄
One day, we all went to the zoo, and went to the gorilla enclosure and looked down over the railing. I had never seen animals at the zoo react to the dysfunctional kids fighting and the child torturer adults. It was as if the gorillas immediately saw the darkness in their souls they tried to hide so well. I backed away from the field trip group among the din of the gorillas, they were in a frenzy screaming at the school staff to get away from them. A teacher turned to yell at me to get back with the group, and they kept acting like the gorillas didn’t absolutely hate them. And then 😂 the gorilla grabbed a huge handful of dirt and shit, and slung a giant dry cloud of shit dust at the staff and misbehaving kids. Literally the karma they deserved, and luckily i had decided to back away from them and was the only one in the group not covered in gorilla shit. Lmao 😂
Since i refused to do schoolwork, i wasn’t allowed to have a summer break. I had to do all my schoolwork as homework from home, and i was surprised and thought that was just an option no one told me about, and it was much easier for me to to schoolwork without distractions from other kids or threats of violence from staff. I wondered why i even had to go to that school at all if i could have just done my schoolwork from home.
When i was almost done with a page of math, my mom got mad at me for doing my schoolwork, and yelled “there’s just a bunch of NUMBERS on the page!” And crumpled up the page of homework. And i yelled “Noo! That’s what math is! It’s numbers!!” And tried to smooth the paper out. I turned it in like that, the teacher laughed at me and said that I can’t turn in homework like that. I told him that my mom did it, and when he asked why, i said “Because there’s numbers on it.” Which was the honest answer, and confused them.
Eventually, i stopped taking my medication, and started flushing the pill down the toilet every day. If i hid it anywhere else, my mom would find it. So i learned that if i didn’t take my pill, i would still get blamed for things, whether or not i was medicated or not. So my mom would say as usual “Wow, i bet you didn’t take your pills today!”
But, i had not taken them in weeks, months, and eventually years.
Since i wasn’t allowed to “disobey by not doing my schoolwork” my desk was in the backroom. The door would be left open if there wasn’t a child being tortured in the back, but they remembered to specifically close it when it was storytime because i “wasn’t allowed to read like the normal kids who behaved”
Eventually, the teachers took away my privileges to have a desk in the back room, and i was forced to sit on the floor in a carpeted room, the area that they would send in “out of control” kids and abuse them. I sat in solitary confinement as a child for 2 years, just go be abused everyday and go home to more abuse. The Cornerstone staff would usually forget i was in there, and would throw in kids having their mental health crises, and then they would start attacking me. It was a normal routine of sitting on the floor in solidarity confinement, and waiting for them to send in another kid who was ready to attack and having to avoid them with minor injuries to get out of the room and remind them i was in there. I was allowed to sit at my desk in the back only when the room was occupied by a screaming child being abused by assault by “restraint.”
One day, the staff announced to the class that they decided to remove the carpeting from the restraint room, and would be replacing it with a linoleum tile floor. They then started mocking the kids that if they acted up, a cold hard floor is what they will be restrained against. Then they started joking that I was going to be the one suffering the most from that.
As i sat on the floor in solitary confinement at 10 years old, i was very resilient and tried to not let the school staff get to me. I knew what they were doing and how my mom acted and how she allowed them to abuse me daily was wrong. I bored out of my mind. There was only torture and adults blaming me for their actions. Nothing made sense.
One day i got so bored making friends with the floor, there was a tiny corner sticking up, and i began peeling the cheap linoleum off of the floor.
The staff then made my mother pay for them to re-do their nice new floor, it was kind of like their revenge for having to babysit me, the kid who didn’t obey them all day. My dad did the actual construction to save my single mom some money, and they were both pissed at me for “being a bad kid.” So my mom paid the money, and my father did the work and effort, to rework the very floor i was supposed to sit on almost day. Custom made by my parents who i brought together once again even though they hated one another, so romantic getting parents back together only briefly if only to yell at their attention starved kid.
Then i told myself to resist the urge to peel the linoleum as i sat there on the floor for months of boredom, for the undeterminable amount of time i was incarcerated as a child.
Also did i mention it was really cold and they would physically assault me to remove my hoodie from me if i refused to take it off.
One day i came into the restraint room as normal, and saw someone else had peeled off the linoleum on the floor. The staff immediately blamed me for it and told my mom and dad they had to do the floor over again. And they almost went through with it but it was more convenient for their time and money to listen to me when i said i didn’t do it.
So then the staff at Cornerstone became mad at me for “lying” and were disappointed because they were looking forward to getting a new floor out of my parents anytime they asked for one. 😂
Eventually I guess I served enough time, and I was off to yet another abusive school. This one was called Anna Kyle, and it was basically like being sent to Auschwitz every day for school.
I should mention at this point, my mom let me watch Schindler’s list and every time a Jewish person was shot she would say “thats what they should do to you if you don’t do your schoolwork.” Like, wow lady.
So anyway, the environment at this school was exactly like a concentration camp run by old witches. There was no education here, and once again, i was found to be “disobeying” and sent to a carpeted room. The rooms had graffiti carved into the walls from other kids in the past. If i had an attitude, the staff would tell my mom that i “defaced property” even though the wall of graffiti was carved there long before i got there, and they tried to get my mom to pay for a new door to the restraint room. My mom got wise to the antics of special ed school staff and refused to pay, which made them upset because they were jealous of my mom’s high paying job and wanted to extort money out of her somehow as a form of revenge for having to babysit me at school.
My schooling there was sitting on a floor and zoning out another indefinite amount of time of solitary confinement. At least this time it was a carpeted floor, and if i behaved, a staffer would come in to let me “play with colored beads” for the day. Just playing with the beads on a string made me forget the world around me. I remembered playing with the beads, and pretending that they were the different sailor scouts from Sailor Moon, and wanting the green beads to be Sailor Jupiter and wish she could protect me.
One day, I didn’t obey an order, and then 5 of these old witches grabbed me, and carried me around above their heads from one classroom’s restraint room to another. I was upset at being violated and abused like that. A teacher said “you know why you’re upset, it’s cuz you just don’t listen!” And i replied “its cuz you’re a bitch.” I didn’t use that word before but i had heard it, and knew it was a really good word to use when an adult was insulting another adult. She gave me such an insolent look, for a kid that they abuses daily to talk to her that way. She left and then i waited a very long time in the new restraint room. School ended and buses came, why was i still there?
Then a staff member said “ok someone’s here to pick you up” and let me out. I was confused, where was my schoolbus?
It was my grandma, and she picked me up and took me to her house instead of home. She was livid and gave no explanation.
Eventually my mom came and got me from her house. I demanded to know what was going on.
Well apparently, me calling the teacher a bitch made the teacher “so very concerned” about the “highly sexual” words i was saying, and she was convinced that i was being sexually abused by my mom, so she called the police and my mom was just at the police station getting interviewed all day if she has ever molested me. I was shocked, but at least now i didn’t have to go back to that school. At least “bitch” was the magic word to get me out of there 😆
Then that night i saw my mom using the newly invented internet to find more special ed schools to go to. I was like Milo in The Oblongs, “Can’t I just go to normal school?” And she realized that maybe i should.
First day of normal school, every student sat down the teacher said open your journals, every kid robotically and orderly opened their journals and wrote down the date, what was written on the board would be our lesson for today, and everyone just started doing it on their own without any prompt. I was so confused, how did everyone know what they were supposed to do? I had no idea what school was supposed to be at this point. I just sunk my head and slept through class because i literally had NO IDEA what i was supposed to be doing. The other kids were confused by my actions, but i literally didn’t understand them.
“Learning” from a “teacher”? What the hell is that? 😂
I was called into the principals office with the teacher and my mom. I was told “you are not allowed to disobey your teacher, if you don’t do your schoolwork, then everyone else will think they don’t have to do it too!” Which still didn’t translate to anything to me. They assumed i already “knew how” to do that was required of a student but was trying to “disobey” on purpose. They came up with a rule that if i sat down, i had to start school work at the same time as everyone else, or I had to get up and leave class immediately and sit in the office all day.
The next day i sat down, everyone starts writing in their journal. The teacher gives me the hand motion to leave and get out. I realized “oh, we’re writing whats on the board down, why didn’t anyone just tell me.” And i started writing down the date. The teacher yells “no! You have to leave now! You already had your chance!!” And then i never tried to appease these troglodytes again.
Eventually the janitor at the school raped a 12 year old girl and it had to shut down. But far be it from me to tell an all knowing principal how to run their school.
Its fine because i went to a different special ed school for middle school, slept every day. Slept every day through highschool too and just stayed up all night playing an online MMORPG which was new at the time. It became a focus point that my mom did everything in her power to act like keeping me from the one thing that ever made me happy was a form of parenting. So she would do stupid things like hiding my keyboard to start a fight for attention and feel like shes a mother just by being authoritative.
Eventually at 21 i knew i needed to escape her and leave home badly enough that i joined the Air Force. At first she kept telling me that i was retarded and didn’t have the mental capacity to “get yelled at” every day. Ummm what have i been trained for my entire life then, lady? 😂
After she realized i was serious and she wouldn’t have to support me anymore she became overly supportive to the point she was sabotaging me. While i focused on working out and learning the Airman’s Creed, she was looking at recruits getting yelled at. This was all stuff i was AVOIDING to keep MY WARRIOR MINDSET PURE, and she wouldn’t even allow me that. Eventually she became so obsessed with training, she started acting like she signed up for the Air Force herself 😂 “Wow, i did such a good job raising you, that you ended up joining the Air Force, because i’m such a good mom, because i put you through the Air Force, i will be busting my buttons with pride as you graduate from Basic Training. Wait a second, if you’re graduating the Air Force, because of MY good parenting…” (insert woman doing math meme) “Well, oh my god, I’M joining the Air Force? Because of you joining? Because i’m such a good parent???”
And i gave her a look of wtf are you talking about. I’m so glad to be away from this piece of work.
I went to basic, i did a month of training, unfortunately I had bad knees so i had to be sent home. Before i came home my mom then decided to have a meltdown over the phone when i told her. Instead of sympathy or even understanding the condition of having patella femoral syndrome, she said she was writing a list of rules i had to obey when i came home. Ummm im coming home anyway, its not like i had a choice.
This woman even took the time to type up some 10 page long letter that she printed out and sent me in training in a manila envelope, which made it look like i had some super important letter to receive something so big during Basic Training. It was just some fantasy where she had full control over my life. I literally read the first 2 sentences and thew the entire thing away. Then when i talked to her on the phone next she was like “what did you think of that letter? Huh huh huh?” And i said i didn’t even read it and she could go fuck herself.
When i got home from the Air Force, she was livid and hostile towards me, and told me to “Gehtahjaaaahb” every 5 seconds like that was any way shape or form helpful in the slightest way. While everyone else understood i was making a sacrifice to the service and i came home BARELY ABLE TO WALK because the cartilage in my knees wore down so much, she was harassing me nonstop.
Eventually one day she started in on me, and I threw my computer table at her and she realized she shouldn’t be fucking with someone who just underwent a month of strength training and discipline. You DO NOT disrespect anyone and raise your voice like that, and especially not someone who just responded to TIs in uniforms yelling at them for a whole month and the only answer I’m allowed to give is YES, SIR.
Eventually, she realized that she can’t just scream at me, and she saw a commercial on TV for me to go to college at a nearby game design university. So she said I need to go to it.
Long story short, i decide to go, i had no interest in art but i learned how to draw, began taking classes and i used my Airman’s training and discipline to work really hard. For the first time ever, i was enjoying school, and i was even on the dean’s list of a very famous person who is dean at the school.
I asked my mom if i could use the refundable ticket that was meant for my Air Force graduation to take a trip for my birthday. She said yes. I saw my best friend and stayed with her for a week, saw a metal show, had an amazing time with new friends who wanted to celebrate my birthday and for coming to visit them. My friends treated me like a celebrity. When it was time to go, i heard at the airport they were offering $400 dollars to someone to give up their flight on my flight. I thought of doing that and extending my stay and giving my friend the money, but i thought i should just go home because i had more friends waiting to welcome me home.
When i got home, my local hometown friends were waiting for me to come home from the airport. I just came home late, and i just texted them “woo im home!” And they replied “woo, we’re here! Let us in as soon as i got home, 😆
they had gifts and a jack in the box burger for me. I let them into my room and they just wanted to hang out for 5 minutes and say happy birthday and leave.
I went to grab a drink, and on my way back to my room, apparently i had woken up my mom. And she immediately started to get upset with me that i had people over. I said “oh, im sorry i woke you, they’re going to leave now. Lets talk in the morning.” She screams “Noooo!” And i go into my room to avoid the confrontation.
I locked the door behind me, because i had to put a lock on the door because my mom kept not listening to me when i told her to stay out of my room, and she kept coming into my room and do stupid things like fold a pile of dirty laundry and put it away, and taking my laundry i was about to fold and wash it again.
So i had locked it so wouldn’t come in cause a scene in front of my friends who were trying to leave. I tried to tell them that they had to leave, and they said sure lets go. But then my mom was on the other side of the door, screaming “Everyone leave!!!” and kicking and body slamming against the door until it broke off of the doorframe and she opened it with sheer force of her obese body weight. The ironic thing is that if she was so upset that people were over, why did she kick and body slam the door again and again to prevent them from leaving? 🧐
After this, i still had to live with this abhorrent sack of shit who’s womb I happened to be the one I escaped from, and still try to do my schoolwork too. I completely ignored her to keep my sanity. If she spoke to me, i had downloaded a nifty little AIRHORN APP that i blared from my phone at max volume if she talked to me. Of course that would make her start screaming at me, and it justified me using it every time in the first place.
I would wear my headphones around her in the kitchen to ignore her completely, and they were noise canceling headphones as well. Once she said something bitchy and angry towards me and i stared at her completely blank faced and gave her a look of icannothearyouwhyareyoustilltalkingtome and went back to making food. Then she came and grabbed my headphones off the side, and leaned into my ear and started talking to me. I reacted like a reflex to grab the headphone i thought had gotten caught on the cord and was being pulled off, and accidentally 🤭 smacked her in the face in the process. I just repositioned my headphones and went back to my business of cooking. And she was having a meltdown, running in a circle trying to start a fight with me, and i think saying that i ‘hit her’ after she made contact with me first when i was just grabbing my headphones she pulled off. 🤷🏼‍♂️
A few other times, i fucked with her for revenge. She hated when the porch light was turned off, and when the front door was locked. So i kept the light off and locked both the top and bottom locks. So when she couldn’t see she kept trying to ring the doorbell, as if I was going to come let her dumb ass in. And so she would start screaming at the front door to let me in. Eventually she would unlock one, and then realized the other one was locked as well, then while she was unlocking that one, i would sneak to the front door and re lock the first one. Then she would start screaming on the front porch, having a violent angry melt down in front of the other neighbors. How embarrassing for her.
I continued to ignore her every chance i got. I would make emo artwork in my work with my emo music playing in my headphones. Occasionally i would hear her trying to start a fight with me through my door, and since it was locked i would ignore her. Since she already fucked up my door, she could body slam against it to open it. She did that when i was ignoring her once, and she was laughing about the fact she could use her fat ass to open my locked door.
I told her if she ever body slammed my door again i would make her regret it.
She did it again to get my attention, and thought it was funny.
She thought it was funny to barge i to my safe space and terrorize me, to trigger my anxiety, to scream at me, to cause destruction of her own property just so she could start a fight with me, blame me for the fight to feel justified to scream at me and abuse me.
So what she didn’t know is that I had recorded her when she body slammed my door the first time. The video goes on and on for 5 minutes of her screaming and punching and body slamming, gradually breaking down the door and frame cracking, my friends terrified the entire time. And then her screaming like a maniac until she finally breaks it and then walks into my room acting like she was some sort of victim.
I posted the video on Facebook, named it “i hate you, i don’t deserve this abuse” and then tagged her in it, so our family and all of her friends, personally and professionally would see it.
When it was still unbeknownst to her, she still kept up her tough abuser façade, acting like she had reason to abuse me when I had done nothing. But then, once she found out i had exposed her abuse publicly, she then suddenly changed, and started acting like a victim again. So funny how fast her tough guy act dropped when her abuse gets exposed, and then in order to cope with being a terrible piece of shit, she suddenly started playing the victim to everyone around her.
She told her sister I was abusing her, and then said she was “going to stay with her for no reason” so she went to go play out this imaginary roleplaying story by staying the night with her over the weekend. She had to stick to the role she invented for me, just so she could act out that i was abusing her. It was pretty pathetic. Then my aunt started to treat me like i was an abuser. I eventually had to set her straight because my mom had spun the video around to make it seem like i was antagonizing her through the door, saying our nervous shudders of terror was me and my friends laughing at her through the door. Once I set her straight that I was the victim of my moms abuse, she realized that she had been tricked and felt really guilty for getting involved and thinking i was an abuser. As she should.
Since I had to constantly defend myself from abuse, I really lost all interest in school, and even became a huge jerk to my boyfriend at the time, to the point that he broke up with me. I had never been broken up with before, because usually it’s fair or mutual or i do the breaking. But this was the first time someone left me, and it was because i was so abused i started to become abusive, and he left me when he saw that change. He didn’t want to be around my mom when he was over to visit me anyway, and she had scared off a couple other of my boyfriends in the past. Imagine having several relationships that lasted for few months but then they leave you because your MOM fights with you all the time.
Eventually i met with a long time online friend, and as of now we have been together 13 years. During that time i was able to get 500 miles away from my mom and stay with my partner and his mom. I am 36 now.
During that time i rarely saw my abuser whose womb i escaped from.
The last time I saw her i told her I never wanted to see her again. She invited me to a big birthday party weekend she was having for herself and 2 of her friends, and everyone was going to come. Had a surprisingly good time with her and everyone i knew. She was nice the entire time. Then on the last day i was there visiting her, she decided to scream at the top of her lungs at me for wanting to hang out with my childhood friend who was also visiting.
I realized she was going to pretend to not be a sack of shit to everyone else and be nice to them, but she will ALWAYS have energy to scream at me.
I thought she invited me to her birthday party because of some hope that the distance had healed us, and she was nice now. But, i realized she will be nice to literally everyone else she invited, but NOT her own son who drove 500 miles out to see her.
I cried myself to sleep the night before my partner and me left. In the morning my mom was acting all smiles and wanted to visit before we left. I told her that I never wanted to see her again, locked my room, and packed while i ignored her long enough that she had to leave to go to work.
I was in a very deep depression. Friends and co workers i had would cordially ask me how was my vacation time off i took to go to my mom’s birthday party, and i told them it was horrible and change the subject.
I did not talk to her for a year. Eventually she tried reaching out and we maintained a communication. Casually in conversation she would mention how we need to have a visit, to which i would reply “Oh, but I already told you that I never wanted to see you again.” And that’s called making my boundaries known. Instead of realizing she had fucked up and perhaps she could put some effort into fixing herself and owning up to what she did wrong, she just took it as an insult because she’s a narcissist who could never comprehend she’s guilty of any wrongdoing.

Hahaha
Not sure if this is the right place for anything.
I am 36 years old. The trauma began when i was a 9 year old kid in elementary school. My mom was already psychotic and enjoyed killing my goldfish and then crying and saying it was an accident then repeatedly replacing them all killing them again with bleach. It was what i thought was normal.
She didn’t know how to raise me so i had a lot of babysitters. At one babysitters house, their kid taught me it was fun to pull out pants down and play with our weiners. I didn’t like the kid, but I thought this was normal behavior.
At school in the middle of class i pulled my pants down and got in trouble. I was pulled out of school and a counselor told my mom i had ADD, and needed to go to a school for children with special needs.
My mom took me to the school, it was a normal school but it had the “Cornerstone Program” for special kids. The very first thing the program director and my mom did was coerce me into signing a piece of paper saying that explicitly stated that I, a child, was giving consent to the staff to physically assault me in the form of a “restraint” whenever they felt like i needed it done to me, “for safety.”
I refused to sign it and they both got very angry with me and told me that it’s only for bad kids. Then i asked why i was being sent to a school for bad kids. Then they said that as long as i was “good” then they wouldn’t assault me. So i promised i would be good and not misbehave and signed the paper.
On the first day of school, it was pure chaos. The other kids were antagonizing one another, and it was incredibly distracting and hilarious. One kid yelled to the other “Go suck on yo mamma’s dick!” And then the other kid got enraged and then was dragged into the back “restraining room” to be held down and forced to scream while they had an anxiety attack, until they “break” and become “calmed down” by the adults physically assaulting the minors.
Because of this chaotic environment, how was I supposed to succeed as a child sent there for one diagnosis “ADD” because i pulled my pants down once.
I didn’t do my schoolwork in class because it was impossible, and I just observed the constant fighting between the other kids instead.
One teacher got mad that I wasn’t “obeying” and he took me into the other detached classroom that served as the Cornerstone main office. He sat me down, and forced a pencil in my hands and he said “do your work. Now.” Because he was mean, i put the pencil down. He grabbed it again, and forced it in my hands, then squeezed my hands with his hands and began writing the math numbers down on the page for me.
I knew he was trying to hurt me, so i jammed him with my thumbnail back. Thats when he grabbed me and threw me onto the floor, and attacked me with a “restraint” maneuver. He gave me my first anxiety attack, i will never forget screaming for help for an hour but i was ignored by anyone who could hear me. That is when i learned that i had no safety, that i could scream for help as a child, but no one would ever come, and that they were going to physically torture me to do schoolwork if i didn’t obey them.
I had rug burn all over my face and chin from being held to the floor. When the school day was over, before i could tell my mom i was assaulted, they told her that i got my first necessary restraint, and that i obviously was a bad child who needed their program.
She wouldn’t listen to me that i was assaulted and essentially physically raped. I went back to school the next day and told to do a better job behaving.
I was trying to do my schoolwork out of fear of pain and torture, then the same guy who assaulted me, “Rob” came over to me and pretended to be my best friend. Probably out of guilt since he knew he was a child abusing sack of shit just there to suck up a paycheck and get off on being a living nightmare, a torturer of children.
He pretended to help me with my work, to show everyone that he was normal and just doing his job, that he didn’t just physically rape me the previous day. I had another anxiety attack from just his proximity to me. He quit the very next day, because he knew what he did to me.
Every day i was terrified of going to “Torture School” as i called the Cornerstone program. I was traumatized by the first attack on me, so i couldn’t concentrate on doing schoolwork. The other staff got annoyed with me because I didn’t validate them by doing my schoolwork, and since they had no idea how to handle kids with special needs, i became a target for them.
The teachers told my mom that i wasn’t doing my schoolwork because i needed ADD medication. Not because of the lack of proper education and parenting, but i needed to be given a daily chemical lobotomy. After one dr appointment, I was put on “Ridilin” for a day, and it was like having an active lobotomy. I could not think or feel emotions.
The same teachers that recommended I start taking medication got mad at me for not doing my schoolwork, were now mad at me that the medication they decided i needed to be on now made it completely impossible to do my work. So the teachers suggested that I take a different medication, so i was put on “wellbutron” which still allowed me to function but with a less intense lobotomy so they could take the credit for their recommendation that i be medicated, all for keeping up their image of being good and smart special ed teachers.
Btw in case you don’t know, it is always illegal for a teacher to suggest a child start taking medication. 🙃
Every day my mom would take out her anger at me, she was a rageaholic, and still is. She loved to have a meltdown, full on screaming and yelling and hitting me and ranting about how she has to blame me for it, then say “wow, this was because you didn’t take your medication today yet!” Every. Single. Time. I wondered what i was even taking the meds for, and began to see that the adults were the ones all fucked up mentally and needed medication. Also the program only let us watch limited kids movies, depressing ones and a long looney tunes PSA movie about how drugs are bad. But it’s ok that my mom was a heavy weed smoker, and i needed to be lobotomized through medication every day.
The school had a “point system” that rewarded kids with daily numbers on a white board for “good behavior” and points could purchase rewards, and bad behavior got points taken away. I wasn’t allowed to get points because i didn’t do my schoolwork, and they held that over my head constantly to try and give me incentive. It was all bullshit, and one day they threatened to take points from a kid and he went and erased the entire whiteboard. Boom, end of fight club, the teachers powers over us with the mysterious numbers ended. They didn’t make any back ups of the points because it was just there to scare us into good behavior 😂
Because i didn’t do my schoolwork, i wasn’t allowed to have points anyway, and the teachers decided to take my desk out of the classroom, and put it inside of the restraint room, so i was forced to listen to the screams of the children they tortured even louder. They used to give the other kids points for “good ignoring” when there was a child screaming in the back. Can you imagine, a pointless point system built by sadists, that reward children for ignoring the torturous screams of their peers, and then reward that as good behavior?
Eventually, the teachers decided to have a meeting with my mom about how i refused to do school work in their environment. They started joking “well, you dont even do your work in the back room, it’s like you just come to school to get restraints! Ahaha” they thought it was so funny to torture me. Another teacher added in “yeah, if you’re not obeying us, then we’re not teaching you and just restraining you all the time, what does that make us? Ahaha”
“Kid torturers” i replied. Their laughter stopped when they were called out for exactly what they were. My mom didn’t seem to understand the moment, and she said “oh yeah! And since you don’t obey me, I guess I’m resigning as your mother.” She sounded so happy to shirk all that responsibility. The Cornerstone staff tried to laugh that off too, “haha, umm, don’t you mean ‘redefining’, haha?”
“Nope,” and she went on a rant about how “when he learns to obey me and do his schoolwork, he will have the privilege of having a mother back.” And stunned the room full of people who tortured children for a living.
After that, she wouldn’t allow me to call her mom, i had to call her by her first name.
One day, on thanksgiving, we were getting ready to leave and go see family. She got upset about something, said I wasn’t obeying her, and he fat ass grabbed me and pinned me to the ground. She kept saying “look at me, im a teacher restraining you because you won’t obey!” She said as her boobs were falling out of her mumu and hitting me in the face with her weaponized titties. In the struggle, she kept leaning on me on one hand and hurting me to try in vain to get her girls back in her mumu, then her tits kept falling out, then she gave up on this futile exercise in normal parenting.
I refused to go with her, and i stayed home and ate 5 bowls of cereal and called it thanksgiving. She would also abuse me in front of family especially on Christmas and holidays, the normal routine of having an enraged meltdown and trying to blame me for it while everyone is confused what even she’s even so mad about during the holidays in the first place.
One day at school, we had a new staff member who acted like an ex con. The first time I disobeyed him, he threw me to the ground so hard I had the wind knocked out of me and i couldn’t breathe. then he got on top of me and held me down, and i still couldn’t breathe, i finally felt my lungs inflate and started screaming, but that was “bad behavior” so i had to pretend to not have a panic attack so i would be let go and allowed to breathe normally.
Of course that was written up as “my fault” for “being out of control” and “needing” to be restrained and i got in trouble for it. We had behavior report cards we had to take home every day, so i would do nothing, get told that i was disobeying their orders by not doing schoolwork, restrained/tortured, written up, behavior paper taken home to be seen by my mom, then she would use that as an excuse to take out all her anger out on me.
One day, the previous guy decided to attack me outside so at least there was one witness to the aftermath of the abuse.
The guy took me and kids to the community farm across the street, and gave us all rakes, and demanded that we clean all the chicken shit out of the chicken coops. When he tried to hand me the rake, it was gross and i was starting to develop an OCD from having things forced into my hands, so i didn’t want to touch it.
He grabbed me, and threw me to the ground once again into the pile of chicken shit, and then locked the chicken wire fence and left me in there, and said i couldn’t come out until i cleaned up all the chicken shit by myself.
I sat there stunned, and eventually a normal teacher from the normal part of the school for regular kids who didn’t get abused saw me. She said “Oh my god! What are you doing in there?” And then there was a school county investigation opened up.
I was interviewed by 2 detectives at home about the incident, and they didn’t care or know about any of the other abuse happening at Cornerstone. Just that one guy was fired, and i thought since if my mom knew the abuse was this bad, i wouldn’t have to go back to that school.
I had to go back the next day and pretend like nothing happened. The special ed teachers were upset with me that i got one of them in trouble, and they feared me. They got so afraid of me that they wouldn’t allow me to have a sharpened pencil, only allowed me to have broken ones, then got me in trouble for not doing my schoolwork. 🙄
One day, we all went to the zoo, and went to the gorilla enclosure and looked down over the railing. I had never seen animals at the zoo react to the dysfunctional kids fighting and the child torturer adults. It was as if the gorillas immediately saw the darkness in their souls they tried to hide so well. I backed away from the field trip group among the din of the gorillas, they were in a frenzy screaming at the school staff to get away from them. A teacher turned to yell at me to get back with the group, and they kept acting like the gorillas didn’t absolutely hate them. And then 😂 the gorilla grabbed a huge handful of dirt and shit, and slung a giant dry cloud of shit dust at the staff and misbehaving kids. Literally the karma they deserved, and luckily i had decided to back away from them and was the only one in the group not covered in gorilla shit. Lmao 😂
Since i refused to do schoolwork, i wasn’t allowed to have a summer break. I had to do all my schoolwork as homework from home, and i was surprised and thought that was just an option no one told me about, and it was much easier for me to to schoolwork without distractions from other kids or threats of violence from staff. I wondered why i even had to go to that school at all if i could have just done my schoolwork from home.
When i was almost done with a page of math, my mom got mad at me for doing my schoolwork, and yelled “there’s just a bunch of NUMBERS on the page!” And crumpled up the page of homework. And i yelled “Noo! That’s what math is! It’s numbers!!” And tried to smooth the paper out. I turned it in like that, the teacher laughed at me and said that I can’t turn in homework like that. I told him that my mom did it, and when he asked why, i said “Because there’s numbers on it.” Which was the honest answer, and confused them.
Eventually, i stopped taking my medication, and started flushing the pill down the toilet every day. If i hid it anywhere else, my mom would find it. So i learned that if i didn’t take my pill, i would still get blamed for things, whether or not i was medicated or not. So my mom would say as usual “Wow, i bet you didn’t take your pills today!”
But, i had not taken them in weeks, months, and eventually years.
Since i wasn’t allowed to “disobey by not doing my schoolwork” my desk was in the backroom. The door would be left open if there wasn’t a child being tortured in the back, but they remembered to specifically close it when it was storytime because i “wasn’t allowed to read like the normal kids who behaved”
Eventually, the teachers took away my privileges to have a desk in the back room, and i was forced to sit on the floor in a carpeted room, the area that they would send in “out of control” kids and abuse them. I sat in solitary confinement as a child for 2 years, just go be abused everyday and go home to more abuse. The Cornerstone staff would usually forget i was in there, and would throw in kids having their mental health crises, and then they would start attacking me. It was a normal routine of sitting on the floor in solidarity confinement, and waiting for them to send in another kid who was ready to attack and having to avoid them with minor injuries to get out of the room and remind them i was in there. I was allowed to sit at my desk in the back only when the room was occupied by a screaming child being abused by assault by “restraint.”
One day, the staff announced to the class that they decided to remove the carpeting from the restraint room, and would be replacing it with a linoleum tile floor. They then started mocking the kids that if they acted up, a cold hard floor is what they will be restrained against. Then they started joking that I was going to be the one suffering the most from that.
As i sat on the floor in solitary confinement at 10 years old, i was very resilient and tried to not let the school staff get to me. I knew what they were doing and how my mom acted and how she allowed them to abuse me daily was wrong. I bored out of my mind. There was only torture and adults blaming me for their actions. Nothing made sense.
One day i got so bored making friends with the floor, there was a tiny corner sticking up, and i began peeling the cheap linoleum off of the floor.
The staff then made my mother pay for them to re-do their nice new floor, it was kind of like their revenge for having to babysit me, the kid who didn’t obey them all day. My dad did the actual construction to save my single mom some money, and they were both pissed at me for “being a bad kid.” So my mom paid the money, and my father did the work and effort, to rework the very floor i was supposed to sit on almost day. Custom made by my parents who i brought together once again even though they hated one another, so romantic getting parents back together only briefly if only to yell at their attention starved kid.
Then i told myself to resist the urge to peel the linoleum as i sat there on the floor for months of boredom, for the undeterminable amount of time i was incarcerated as a child.
Also did i mention it was really cold and they would physically assault me to remove my hoodie from me if i refused to take it off.
One day i came into the restraint room as normal, and saw someone else had peeled off the linoleum on the floor. The staff immediately blamed me for it and told my mom and dad they had to do the floor over again. And they almost went through with it but it was more convenient for their time and money to listen to me when i said i didn’t do it.
So then the staff at Cornerstone became mad at me for “lying” and were disappointed because they were looking forward to getting a new floor out of my parents anytime they asked for one. 😂
Eventually I guess I served enough time, and I was off to yet another abusive school. This one was called Anna Kyle, and it was basically like being sent to Auschwitz every day for school.
I should mention at this point, my mom let me watch Schindler’s list and every time a Jewish person was shot she would say “thats what they should do to you if you don’t do your schoolwork.” Like, wow lady.
So anyway, the environment at this school was exactly like a concentration camp run by old witches. There was no education here, and once again, i was found to be “disobeying” and sent to a carpeted room. The rooms had graffiti carved into the walls from other kids in the past. If i had an attitude, the staff would tell my mom that i “defaced property” even though the wall of graffiti was carved there long before i got there, and they tried to get my mom to pay for a new door to the restraint room. My mom got wise to the antics of special ed school staff and refused to pay, which made them upset because they were jealous of my mom’s high paying job and wanted to extort money out of her somehow as a form of revenge for having to babysit me at school.
My schooling there was sitting on a floor and zoning out another indefinite amount of time of solitary confinement. At least this time it was a carpeted floor, and if i behaved, a staffer would come in to let me “play with colored beads” for the day. Just playing with the beads on a string made me forget the world around me. I remembered playing with the beads, and pretending that they were the different sailor scouts from Sailor Moon, and wanting the green beads to be Sailor Jupiter and wish she could protect me.
One day, I didn’t obey an order, and then 5 of these old witches grabbed me, and carried me around above their heads from one classroom’s restraint room to another. I was upset at being violated and abused like that. A teacher said “you know why you’re upset, it’s cuz you just don’t listen!” And i replied “its cuz you’re a bitch.” I didn’t use that word before but i had heard it, and knew it was a really good word to use when an adult was insulting another adult. She gave me such an insolent look, for a kid that they abuses daily to talk to her that way. She left and then i waited a very long time in the new restraint room. School ended and buses came, why was i still there?
Then a staff member said “ok someone’s here to pick you up” and let me out. I was confused, where was my schoolbus?
It was my grandma, and she picked me up and took me to her house instead of home. She was livid and gave no explanation.
Eventually my mom came and got me from her house. I demanded to know what was going on.
Well apparently, me calling the teacher a bitch made the teacher “so very concerned” about the “highly sexual” words i was saying, and she was convinced that i was being sexually abused by my mom, so she called the police and my mom was just at the police station getting interviewed all day if she has ever molested me. I was shocked, but at least now i didn’t have to go back to that school. At least “bitch” was the magic word to get me out of there 😆
Then that night i saw my mom using the newly invented internet to find more special ed schools to go to. I was like Milo in The Oblongs, “Can’t I just go to normal school?” And she realized that maybe i should.
First day of normal school, every student sat down the teacher said open your journals, every kid robotically and orderly opened their journals and wrote down the date, what was written on the board would be our lesson for today, and everyone just started doing it on their own without any prompt. I was so confused, how did everyone know what they were supposed to do? I had no idea what school was supposed to be at this point. I just sunk my head and slept through class because i literally had NO IDEA what i was supposed to be doing. The other kids were confused by my actions, but i literally didn’t understand them.
“Learning” from a “teacher”? What the hell is that? 😂
I was called into the principals office with the teacher and my mom. I was told “you are not allowed to disobey your teacher, if you don’t do your schoolwork, then everyone else will think they don’t have to do it too!” Which still didn’t translate to anything to me. They assumed i already “knew how” to do that was required of a student but was trying to “disobey” on purpose. They came up with a rule that if i sat down, i had to start school work at the same time as everyone else, or I had to get up and leave class immediately and sit in the office all day.
The next day i sat down, everyone starts writing in their journal. The teacher gives me the hand motion to leave and get out. I realized “oh, we’re writing whats on the board down, why didn’t anyone just tell me.” And i started writing down the date. The teacher yells “no! You have to leave now! You already had your chance!!” And then i never tried to appease these troglodytes again.
Eventually the janitor at the school raped a 12 year old girl and it had to shut down. But far be it from me to tell an all knowing principal how to run their school.
Its fine because i went to a different special ed school for middle school, slept every day. Slept every day through highschool too and just stayed up all night playing an online MMORPG which was new at the time. It became a focus point that my mom did everything in her power to act like keeping me from the one thing that ever made me happy was a form of parenting. So she would do stupid things like hiding my keyboard to start a fight for attention and feel like shes a mother just by being authoritative.
Eventually at 21 i knew i needed to escape her and leave home badly enough that i joined the Air Force. At first she kept telling me that i was retarded and didn’t have the mental capacity to “get yelled at” every day. Ummm what have i been trained for my entire life then, lady? 😂
After she realized i was serious and she wouldn’t have to support me anymore she became overly supportive to the point she was sabotaging me. While i focused on working out and learning the Airman’s Creed, she was looking at recruits getting yelled at. This was all stuff i was AVOIDING to keep MY WARRIOR MINDSET PURE, and she wouldn’t even allow me that. Eventually she became so obsessed with training, she started acting like she signed up for the Air Force herself 😂 “Wow, i did such a good job raising you, that you ended up joining the Air Force, because i’m such a good mom, because i put you through the Air Force, i will be busting my buttons with pride as you graduate from Basic Training. Wait a second, if you’re graduating the Air Force, because of MY good parenting…” (insert woman doing math meme) “Well, oh my god, I’M joining the Air Force? Because of you joining? Because i’m such a good parent???”
And i gave her a look of wtf are you talking about. I’m so glad to be away from this piece of work.
I went to basic, i did a month of training, unfortunately I had bad knees so i had to be sent home. Before i came home my mom then decided to have a meltdown over the phone when i told her. Instead of sympathy or even understanding the condition of having patella femoral syndrome, she said she was writing a list of rules i had to obey when i came home. Ummm im coming home anyway, its not like i had a choice.
This woman even took the time to type up some 10 page long letter that she printed out and sent me in training in a manila envelope, which made it look like i had some super important letter to receive something so big during Basic Training. It was just some fantasy where she had full control over my life. I literally read the first 2 sentences and thew the entire thing away. Then when i talked to her on the phone next she was like “what did you think of that letter? Huh huh huh?” And i said i didn’t even read it and she could go fuck herself.
When i got home from the Air Force, she was livid and hostile towards me, and told me to “Gehtahjaaaahb” every 5 seconds like that was any way shape or form helpful in the slightest way. While everyone else understood i was making a sacrifice to the service and i came home BARELY ABLE TO WALK because the cartilage in my knees wore down so much, she was harassing me nonstop.
Eventually one day she started in on me, and I threw my computer table at her and she realized she shouldn’t be fucking with someone who just underwent a month of strength training and discipline. You DO NOT disrespect anyone and raise your voice like that, and especially not someone who just responded to TIs in uniforms yelling at them for a whole month and the only answer I’m allowed to give is YES, SIR.
Eventually, she realized that she can’t just scream at me, and she saw a commercial on TV for me to go to college at a nearby game design university. So she said I need to go to it.
Long story short, i decide to go, i had no interest in art but i learned how to draw, began taking classes and i used my Airman’s training and discipline to work really hard. For the first time ever, i was enjoying school, and i was even on the dean’s list of a very famous person who is dean at the school.
I asked my mom if i could use the refundable ticket that was meant for my Air Force graduation to take a trip for my birthday. She said yes. I saw my best friend and stayed with her for a week, saw a metal show, had an amazing time with new friends who wanted to celebrate my birthday and for coming to visit them. My friends treated me like a celebrity. When it was time to go, i heard at the airport they were offering $400 dollars to someone to give up their flight on my flight. I thought of doing that and extending my stay and giving my friend the money, but i thought i should just go home because i had more friends waiting to welcome me home.
When i got home, my local hometown friends were waiting for me to come home from the airport. I just came home late, and i just texted them “woo im home!” And they replied “woo, we’re here! Let us in as soon as i got home, 😆
they had gifts and a jack in the box burger for me. I let them into my room and they just wanted to hang out for 5 minutes and say happy birthday and leave.
I went to grab a drink, and on my way back to my room, apparently i had woken up my mom. And she immediately started to get upset with me that i had people over. I said “oh, im sorry i woke you, they’re going to leave now. Lets talk in the morning.” She screams “Noooo!” And i go into my room to avoid the confrontation.
I locked the door behind me, because i had to put a lock on the door because my mom kept not listening to me when i told her to stay out of my room, and she kept coming into my room and do stupid things like fold a pile of dirty laundry and put it away, and taking my laundry i was about to fold and wash it again.
So i had locked it so wouldn’t come in cause a scene in front of my friends who were trying to leave. I tried to tell them that they had to leave, and they said sure lets go. But then my mom was on the other side of the door, screaming “Everyone leave!!!” and kicking and body slamming against the door until it broke off of the doorframe and she opened it with sheer force of her obese body weight. The ironic thing is that if she was so upset that people were over, why did she kick and body slam the door again and again to prevent them from leaving? 🧐
After this, i still had to live with this abhorrent sack of shit who’s womb I happened to be the one I escaped from, and still try to do my schoolwork too. I completely ignored her to keep my sanity. If she spoke to me, i had downloaded a nifty little AIRHORN APP that i blared from my phone at max volume if she talked to me. Of course that would make her start screaming at me, and it justified me using it every time in the first place.
I would wear my headphones around her in the kitchen to ignore her completely, and they were noise canceling headphones as well. Once she said something bitchy and angry towards me and i stared at her completely blank faced and gave her a look of icannothearyouwhyareyoustilltalkingtome and went back to making food. Then she came and grabbed my headphones off the side, and leaned into my ear and started talking to me. I reacted like a reflex to grab the headphone i thought had gotten caught on the cord and was being pulled off, and accidentally 🤭 smacked her in the face in the process. I just repositioned my headphones and went back to my business of cooking. And she was having a meltdown, running in a circle trying to start a fight with me, and i think saying that i ‘hit her’ after she made contact with me first when i was just grabbing my headphones she pulled off. 🤷🏼‍♂️
A few other times, i fucked with her for revenge. She hated when the porch light was turned off, and when the front door was locked. So i kept the light off and locked both the top and bottom locks. So when she couldn’t see she kept trying to ring the doorbell, as if I was going to come let her dumb ass in. And so she would start screaming at the front door to let me in. Eventually she would unlock one, and then realized the other one was locked as well, then while she was unlocking that one, i would sneak to the front door and re lock the first one. Then she would start screaming on the front porch, having a violent angry melt down in front of the other neighbors. How embarrassing for her.
I continued to ignore her every chance i got. I would make emo artwork in my work with my emo music playing in my headphones. Occasionally i would hear her trying to start a fight with me through my door, and since it was locked i would ignore her. Since she already fucked up my door, she could body slam against it to open it. She did that when i was ignoring her once, and she was laughing about the fact she could use her fat ass to open my locked door.
I told her if she ever body slammed my door again i would make her regret it.
She did it again to get my attention, and thought it was funny.
She thought it was funny to barge i to my safe space and terrorize me, to trigger my anxiety, to scream at me, to cause destruction of her own property just so she could start a fight with me, blame me for the fight to feel justified to scream at me and abuse me.
So what she didn’t know is that I had recorded her when she body slammed my door the first time. The video goes on and on for 5 minutes of her screaming and punching and body slamming, gradually breaking down the door and frame cracking, my friends terrified the entire time. And then her screaming like a maniac until she finally breaks it and then walks into my room acting like she was some sort of victim.
I posted the video on Facebook, named it “i hate you, i don’t deserve this abuse” and then tagged her in it, so our family and all of her friends, personally and professionally would see it.
When it was still unbeknownst to her, she still kept up her tough abuser façade, acting like she had reason to abuse me when I had done nothing. But then, once she found out i had exposed her abuse publicly, she then suddenly changed, and started acting like a victim again. So funny how fast her tough guy act dropped when her abuse gets exposed, and then in order to cope with being a terrible piece of shit, she suddenly started playing the victim to everyone around her.
She told her sister I was abusing her, and then said she was “going to stay with her for no reason” so she went to go play out this imaginary roleplaying story by staying the night with her over the weekend. She had to stick to the role she invented for me, just so she could act out that i was abusing her. It was pretty pathetic. Then my aunt started to treat me like i was an abuser. I eventually had to set her straight because my mom had spun the video around to make it seem like i was antagonizing her through the door, saying our nervous shudders of terror was me and my friends laughing at her through the door. Once I set her straight that I was the victim of my moms abuse, she realized that she had been tricked and felt really guilty for getting involved and thinking i was an abuser. As she should.
Since I had to constantly defend myself from abuse, I really lost all interest in school, and even became a huge jerk to my boyfriend at the time, to the point that he broke up with me. I had never been broken up with before, because usually it’s fair or mutual or i do the breaking. But this was the first time someone left me, and it was because i was so abused i started to become abusive, and he left me when he saw that change. He didn’t want to be around my mom when he was over to visit me anyway, and she had scared off a couple other of my boyfriends in the past. Imagine having several relationships that lasted for few months but then they leave you because your MOM fights with you all the time.
Eventually i met with a long time online friend, and as of now we have been together 13 years. During that time i was able to get 500 miles away from my mom and stay with my partner and his mom. I am 36 now.
During that time i rarely saw my abuser whose womb i escaped from.
The last time I saw her i told her I never wanted to see her again. She invited me to a big birthday party weekend she was having for herself and 2 of her friends, and everyone was going to come. Had a surprisingly good time with her and everyone i knew. She was nice the entire time. Then on the last day i was there visiting her, she decided to scream at the top of her lungs at me for wanting to hang out with my childhood friend who was also visiting.
I realized she was going to pretend to not be a sack of shit to everyone else and be nice to them, but she will ALWAYS have energy to scream at me.
I thought she invited me to her birthday party because of some hope that the distance had healed us, and she was nice now. But, i realized she will be nice to literally everyone else she invited, but NOT her own son who drove 500 miles out to see her.
I cried myself to sleep the night before my partner and me left. In the morning my mom was acting all smiles and wanted to visit before we left. I told her that I never wanted to see her again, locked my room, and packed while i ignored her long enough that she had to leave to go to work.
I was in a very deep depression. Friends and co workers i had would cordially ask me how was my vacation time off i took to go to my mom’s birthday party, and i told them it was horrible and change the subject.
I did not talk to her for a year. Eventually she tried reaching out and we maintained a communication. Casually in conversation she would mention how we need to have a visit, to which i would reply “Oh, but I already told you that I never wanted to see you again.” And that’s called making my boundaries known. Instead of realizing she had fucked up and perhaps she could put some effort into fixing herself and owning up to what she did wrong, she just took it as an insult because she’s a narcissist who could never comprehend she’s guilty of any wrongdoing.

Hahaha
Not sure if this is the right place for anything.
I am 36 years old. The trauma began when i was a 9 year old kid in elementary school. My mom was already psychotic and enjoyed killing my goldfish and then crying and saying it was an accident then repeatedly replacing them all killing them again with bleach. It was what i thought was normal.
She didn’t know how to raise me so i had a lot of babysitters. At one babysitters house, their kid taught me it was fun to pull out pants down and play with our weiners. I didn’t like the kid, but I thought this was normal behavior.
At school in the middle of class i pulled my pants down and got in trouble. I was pulled out of school and a counselor told my mom i had ADD, and needed to go to a school for children with special needs.
My mom took me to the school, it was a normal school but it had the “Cornerstone Program” for special kids. The very first thing the program director and my mom did was coerce me into signing a piece of paper saying that explicitly stated that I, a child, was giving consent to the staff to physically assault me in the form of a “restraint” whenever they felt like i needed it done to me, “for safety.”
I refused to sign it and they both got very angry with me and told me that it’s only for bad kids. Then i asked why i was being sent to a school for bad kids. Then they said that as long as i was “good” then they wouldn’t assault me. So i promised i would be good and not misbehave and signed the paper.
On the first day of school, it was pure chaos. The other kids were antagonizing one another, and it was incredibly distracting and hilarious. One kid yelled to the other “Go suck on yo mamma’s dick!” And then the other kid got enraged and then was dragged into the back “restraining room” to be held down and forced to scream while they had an anxiety attack, until they “break” and become “calmed down” by the adults physically assaulting the minors.
Because of this chaotic environment, how was I supposed to succeed as a child sent there for one diagnosis “ADD” because i pulled my pants down once.
I didn’t do my schoolwork in class because it was impossible, and I just observed the constant fighting between the other kids instead.
One teacher got mad that I wasn’t “obeying” and he took me into the other detached classroom that served as the Cornerstone main office. He sat me down, and forced a pencil in my hands and he said “do your work. Now.” Because he was mean, i put the pencil down. He grabbed it again, and forced it in my hands, then squeezed my hands with his hands and began writing the math numbers down on the page for me.
I knew he was trying to hurt me, so i jammed him with my thumbnail back. Thats when he grabbed me and threw me onto the floor, and attacked me with a “restraint” maneuver. He gave me my first anxiety attack, i will never forget screaming for help for an hour but i was ignored by anyone who could hear me. That is when i learned that i had no safety, that i could scream for help as a child, but no one would ever come, and that they were going to physically torture me to do schoolwork if i didn’t obey them.
I had rug burn all over my face and chin from being held to the floor. When the school day was over, before i could tell my mom i was assaulted, they told her that i got my first necessary restraint, and that i obviously was a bad child who needed their program.
She wouldn’t listen to me that i was assaulted and essentially physically raped. I went back to school the next day and told to do a better job behaving.
I was trying to do my schoolwork out of fear of pain and torture, then the same guy who assaulted me, “Rob” came over to me and pretended to be my best friend. Probably out of guilt since he knew he was a child abusing sack of shit just there to suck up a paycheck and get off on being a living nightmare, a torturer of children.
He pretended to help me with my work, to show everyone that he was normal and just doing his job, that he didn’t just physically rape me the previous day. I had another anxiety attack from just his proximity to me. He quit the very next day, because he knew what he did to me.
Every day i was terrified of going to “Torture School” as i called the Cornerstone program. I was traumatized by the first attack on me, so i couldn’t concentrate on doing schoolwork. The other staff got annoyed with me because I didn’t validate them by doing my schoolwork, and since they had no idea how to handle kids with special needs, i became a target for them.
The teachers told my mom that i wasn’t doing my schoolwork because i needed ADD medication. Not because of the lack of proper education and parenting, but i needed to be given a daily chemical lobotomy. After one dr appointment, I was put on “Ridilin” for a day, and it was like having an active lobotomy. I could not think or feel emotions.
The same teachers that recommended I start taking medication got mad at me for not doing my schoolwork, were now mad at me that the medication they decided i needed to be on now made it completely impossible to do my work. So the teachers suggested that I take a different medication, so i was put on “wellbutron” which still allowed me to function but with a less intense lobotomy so they could take the credit for their recommendation that i be medicated, all for keeping up their image of being good and smart special ed teachers.
Btw in case you don’t know, it is always illegal for a teacher to suggest a child start taking medication. 🙃
Every day my mom would take out her anger at me, she was a rageaholic, and still is. She loved to have a meltdown, full on screaming and yelling and hitting me and ranting about how she has to blame me for it, then say “wow, this was because you didn’t take your medication today yet!” Every. Single. Time. I wondered what i was even taking the meds for, and began to see that the adults were the ones all fucked up mentally and needed medication. Also the program only let us watch limited kids movies, depressing ones and a long looney tunes PSA movie about how drugs are bad. But it’s ok that my mom was a heavy weed smoker, and i needed to be lobotomized through medication every day.
The school had a “point system” that rewarded kids with daily numbers on a white board for “good behavior” and points could purchase rewards, and bad behavior got points taken away. I wasn’t allowed to get points because i didn’t do my schoolwork, and they held that over my head constantly to try and give me incentive. It was all bullshit, and one day they threatened to take points from a kid and he went and erased the entire whiteboard. Boom, end of fight club, the teachers powers over us with the mysterious numbers ended. They didn’t make any back ups of the points because it was just there to scare us into good behavior 😂
Because i didn’t do my schoolwork, i wasn’t allowed to have points anyway, and the teachers decided to take my desk out of the classroom, and put it inside of the restraint room, so i was forced to listen to the screams of the children they tortured even louder. They used to give the other kids points for “good ignoring” when there was a child screaming in the back. Can you imagine, a pointless point system built by sadists, that reward children for ignoring the torturous screams of their peers, and then reward that as good behavior?
Eventually, the teachers decided to have a meeting with my mom about how i refused to do school work in their environment. They started joking “well, you dont even do your work in the back room, it’s like you just come to school to get restraints! Ahaha” they thought it was so funny to torture me. Another teacher added in “yeah, if you’re not obeying us, then we’re not teaching you and just restraining you all the time, what does that make us? Ahaha”
“Kid torturers” i replied. Their laughter stopped when they were called out for exactly what they were. My mom didn’t seem to understand the moment, and she said “oh yeah! And since you don’t obey me, I guess I’m resigning as your mother.” She sounded so happy to shirk all that responsibility. The Cornerstone staff tried to laugh that off too, “haha, umm, don’t you mean ‘redefining’, haha?”
“Nope,” and she went on a rant about how “when he learns to obey me and do his schoolwork, he will have the privilege of having a mother back.” And stunned the room full of people who tortured children for a living.
After that, she wouldn’t allow me to call her mom, i had to call her by her first name.
One day, on thanksgiving, we were getting ready to leave and go see family. She got upset about something, said I wasn’t obeying her, and he fat ass grabbed me and pinned me to the ground. She kept saying “look at me, im a teacher restraining you because you won’t obey!” She said as her boobs were falling out of her mumu and hitting me in the face with her weaponized titties. In the struggle, she kept leaning on me on one hand and hurting me to try in vain to get her girls back in her mumu, then her tits kept falling out, then she gave up on this futile exercise in normal parenting.
I refused to go with her, and i stayed home and ate 5 bowls of cereal and called it thanksgiving. She would also abuse me in front of family especially on Christmas and holidays, the normal routine of having an enraged meltdown and trying to blame me for it while everyone is confused what even she’s even so mad about during the holidays in the first place.
One day at school, we had a new staff member who acted like an ex con. The first time I disobeyed him, he threw me to the ground so hard I had the wind knocked out of me and i couldn’t breathe. then he got on top of me and held me down, and i still couldn’t breathe, i finally felt my lungs inflate and started screaming, but that was “bad behavior” so i had to pretend to not have a panic attack so i would be let go and allowed to breathe normally.
Of course that was written up as “my fault” for “being out of control” and “needing” to be restrained and i got in trouble for it. We had behavior report cards we had to take home every day, so i would do nothing, get told that i was disobeying their orders by not doing schoolwork, restrained/tortured, written up, behavior paper taken home to be seen by my mom, then she would use that as an excuse to take out all her anger out on me.
One day, the previous guy decided to attack me outside so at least there was one witness to the aftermath of the abuse.
The guy took me and kids to the community farm across the street, and gave us all rakes, and demanded that we clean all the chicken shit out of the chicken coops. When he tried to hand me the rake, it was gross and i was starting to develop an OCD from having things forced into my hands, so i didn’t want to touch it.
He grabbed me, and threw me to the ground once again into the pile of chicken shit, and then locked the chicken wire fence and left me in there, and said i couldn’t come out until i cleaned up all the chicken shit by myself.
I sat there stunned, and eventually a normal teacher from the normal part of the school for regular kids who didn’t get abused saw me. She said “Oh my god! What are you doing in there?” And then there was a school county investigation opened up.
I was interviewed by 2 detectives at home about the incident, and they didn’t care or know about any of the other abuse happening at Cornerstone. Just that one guy was fired, and i thought since if my mom knew the abuse was this bad, i wouldn’t have to go back to that school.
I had to go back the next day and pretend like nothing happened. The special ed teachers were upset with me that i got one of them in trouble, and they feared me. They got so afraid of me that they wouldn’t allow me to have a sharpened pencil, only allowed me to have broken ones, then got me in trouble for not doing my schoolwork. 🙄
One day, we all went to the zoo, and went to the gorilla enclosure and looked down over the railing. I had never seen animals at the zoo react to the dysfunctional kids fighting and the child torturer adults. It was as if the gorillas immediately saw the darkness in their souls they tried to hide so well. I backed away from the field trip group among the din of the gorillas, they were in a frenzy screaming at the school staff to get away from them. A teacher turned to yell at me to get back with the group, and they kept acting like the gorillas didn’t absolutely hate them. And then 😂 the gorilla grabbed a huge handful of dirt and shit, and slung a giant dry cloud of shit dust at the staff and misbehaving kids. Literally the karma they deserved, and luckily i had decided to back away from them and was the only one in the group not covered in gorilla shit. Lmao 😂
Since i refused to do schoolwork, i wasn’t allowed to have a summer break. I had to do all my schoolwork as homework from home, and i was surprised and thought that was just an option no one told me about, and it was much easier for me to to schoolwork without distractions from other kids or threats of violence from staff. I wondered why i even had to go to that school at all if i could have just done my schoolwork from home.
When i was almost done with a page of math, my mom got mad at me for doing my schoolwork, and yelled “there’s just a bunch of NUMBERS on the page!” And crumpled up the page of homework. And i yelled “Noo! That’s what math is! It’s numbers!!” And tried to smooth the paper out. I turned it in like that, the teacher laughed at me and said that I can’t turn in homework like that. I told him that my mom did it, and when he asked why, i said “Because there’s numbers on it.” Which was the honest answer, and confused them.
Eventually, i stopped taking my medication, and started flushing the pill down the toilet every day. If i hid it anywhere else, my mom would find it. So i learned that if i didn’t take my pill, i would still get blamed for things, whether or not i was medicated or not. So my mom would say as usual “Wow, i bet you didn’t take your pills today!”
But, i had not taken them in weeks, months, and eventually years.
Since i wasn’t allowed to “disobey by not doing my schoolwork” my desk was in the backroom. The door would be left open if there wasn’t a child being tortured in the back, but they remembered to specifically close it when it was storytime because i “wasn’t allowed to read like the normal kids who behaved”
Eventually, the teachers took away my privileges to have a desk in the back room, and i was forced to sit on the floor in a carpeted room, the area that they would send in “out of control” kids and abuse them. I sat in solitary confinement as a child for 2 years, just go be abused everyday and go home to more abuse. The Cornerstone staff would usually forget i was in there, and would throw in kids having their mental health crises, and then they would start attacking me. It was a normal routine of sitting on the floor in solidarity confinement, and waiting for them to send in another kid who was ready to attack and having to avoid them with minor injuries to get out of the room and remind them i was in there. I was allowed to sit at my desk in the back only when the room was occupied by a screaming child being abused by assault by “restraint.”
One day, the staff announced to the class that they decided to remove the carpeting from the restraint room, and would be replacing it with a linoleum tile floor. They then started mocking the kids that if they acted up, a cold hard floor is what they will be restrained against. Then they started joking that I was going to be the one suffering the most from that.
As i sat on the floor in solitary confinement at 10 years old, i was very resilient and tried to not let the school staff get to me. I knew what they were doing and how my mom acted and how she allowed them to abuse me daily was wrong. I bored out of my mind. There was only torture and adults blaming me for their actions. Nothing made sense.
One day i got so bored making friends with the floor, there was a tiny corner sticking up, and i began peeling the cheap linoleum off of the floor.
The staff then made my mother pay for them to re-do their nice new floor, it was kind of like their revenge for having to babysit me, the kid who didn’t obey them all day. My dad did the actual construction to save my single mom some money, and they were both pissed at me for “being a bad kid.” So my mom paid the money, and my father did the work and effort, to rework the very floor i was supposed to sit on almost day. Custom made by my parents who i brought together once again even though they hated one another, so romantic getting parents back together only briefly if only to yell at their attention starved kid.
Then i told myself to resist the urge to peel the linoleum as i sat there on the floor for months of boredom, for the undeterminable amount of time i was incarcerated as a child.
Also did i mention it was really cold and they would physically assault me to remove my hoodie from me if i refused to take it off.
One day i came into the restraint room as normal, and saw someone else had peeled off the linoleum on the floor. The staff immediately blamed me for it and told my mom and dad they had to do the floor over again. And they almost went through with it but it was more convenient for their time and money to listen to me when i said i didn’t do it.
So then the staff at Cornerstone became mad at me for “lying” and were disappointed because they were looking forward to getting a new floor out of my parents anytime they asked for one. 😂
Eventually I guess I served enough time, and I was off to yet another abusive school. This one was called Anna Kyle, and it was basically like being sent to Auschwitz every day for school.
I should mention at this point, my mom let me watch Schindler’s list and every time a Jewish person was shot she would say “thats what they should do to you if you don’t do your schoolwork.” Like, wow lady.
So anyway, the environment at this school was exactly like a concentration camp run by old witches. There was no education here, and once again, i was found to be “disobeying” and sent to a carpeted room. The rooms had graffiti carved into the walls from other kids in the past. If i had an attitude, the staff would tell my mom that i “defaced property” even though the wall of graffiti was carved there long before i got there, and they tried to get my mom to pay for a new door to the restraint room. My mom got wise to the antics of special ed school staff and refused to pay, which made them upset because they were jealous of my mom’s high paying job and wanted to extort money out of her somehow as a form of revenge for having to babysit me at school.
My schooling there was sitting on a floor and zoning out another indefinite amount of time of solitary confinement. At least this time it was a carpeted floor, and if i behaved, a staffer would come in to let me “play with colored beads” for the day. Just playing with the beads on a string made me forget the world around me. I remembered playing with the beads, and pretending that they were the different sailor scouts from Sailor Moon, and wanting the green beads to be Sailor Jupiter and wish she could protect me.
One day, I didn’t obey an order, and then 5 of these old witches grabbed me, and carried me around above their heads from one classroom’s restraint room to another. I was upset at being violated and abused like that. A teacher said “you know why you’re upset, it’s cuz you just don’t listen!” And i replied “its cuz you’re a bitch.” I didn’t use that word before but i had heard it, and knew it was a really good word to use when an adult was insulting another adult. She gave me such an insolent look, for a kid that they abuses daily to talk to her that way. She left and then i waited a very long time in the new restraint room. School ended and buses came, why was i still there?
Then a staff member said “ok someone’s here to pick you up” and let me out. I was confused, where was my schoolbus?
It was my grandma, and she picked me up and took me to her house instead of home. She was livid and gave no explanation.
Eventually my mom came and got me from her house. I demanded to know what was going on.
Well apparently, me calling the teacher a bitch made the teacher “so very concerned” about the “highly sexual” words i was saying, and she was convinced that i was being sexually abused by my mom, so she called the police and my mom was just at the police station getting interviewed all day if she has ever molested me. I was shocked, but at least now i didn’t have to go back to that school. At least “bitch” was the magic word to get me out of there 😆
Then that night i saw my mom using the newly invented internet to find more special ed schools to go to. I was like Milo in The Oblongs, “Can’t I just go to normal school?” And she realized that maybe i should.
First day of normal school, every student sat down the teacher said open your journals, every kid robotically and orderly opened their journals and wrote down the date, what was written on the board would be our lesson for today, and everyone just started doing it on their own without any prompt. I was so confused, how did everyone know what they were supposed to do? I had no idea what school was supposed to be at this point. I just sunk my head and slept through class because i literally had NO IDEA what i was supposed to be doing. The other kids were confused by my actions, but i literally didn’t understand them.
“Learning” from a “teacher”? What the hell is that? 😂
I was called into the principals office with the teacher and my mom. I was told “you are not allowed to disobey your teacher, if you don’t do your schoolwork, then everyone else will think they don’t have to do it too!” Which still didn’t translate to anything to me. They assumed i already “knew how” to do that was required of a student but was trying to “disobey” on purpose. They came up with a rule that if i sat down, i had to start school work at the same time as everyone else, or I had to get up and leave class immediately and sit in the office all day.
The next day i sat down, everyone starts writing in their journal. The teacher gives me the hand motion to leave and get out. I realized “oh, we’re writing whats on the board down, why didn’t anyone just tell me.” And i started writing down the date. The teacher yells “no! You have to leave now! You already had your chance!!” And then i never tried to appease these troglodytes again.
Eventually the janitor at the school raped a 12 year old girl and it had to shut down. But far be it from me to tell an all knowing principal how to run their school.
Its fine because i went to a different special ed school for middle school, slept every day. Slept every day through highschool too and just stayed up all night playing an online MMORPG which was new at the time. It became a focus point that my mom did everything in her power to act like keeping me from the one thing that ever made me happy was a form of parenting. So she would do stupid things like hiding my keyboard to start a fight for attention and feel like shes a mother just by being authoritative.
Eventually at 21 i knew i needed to escape her and leave home badly enough that i joined the Air Force. At first she kept telling me that i was retarded and didn’t have the mental capacity to “get yelled at” every day. Ummm what have i been trained for my entire life then, lady? 😂
After she realized i was serious and she wouldn’t have to support me anymore she became overly supportive to the point she was sabotaging me. While i focused on working out and learning the Airman’s Creed, she was looking at recruits getting yelled at. This was all stuff i was AVOIDING to keep MY WARRIOR MINDSET PURE, and she wouldn’t even allow me that. Eventually she became so obsessed with training, she started acting like she signed up for the Air Force herself 😂 “Wow, i did such a good job raising you, that you ended up joining the Air Force, because i’m such a good mom, because i put you through the Air Force, i will be busting my buttons with pride as you graduate from Basic Training. Wait a second, if you’re graduating the Air Force, because of MY good parenting…” (insert woman doing math meme) “Well, oh my god, I’M joining the Air Force? Because of you joining? Because i’m such a good parent???”
And i gave her a look of wtf are you talking about. I’m so glad to be away from this piece of work.
I went to basic, i did a month of training, unfortunately I had bad knees so i had to be sent home. Before i came home my mom then decided to have a meltdown over the phone when i told her. Instead of sympathy or even understanding the condition of having patella femoral syndrome, she said she was writing a list of rules i had to obey when i came home. Ummm im coming home anyway, its not like i had a choice.
This woman even took the time to type up some 10 page long letter that she printed out and sent me in training in a manila envelope, which made it look like i had some super important letter to receive something so big during Basic Training. It was just some fantasy where she had full control over my life. I literally read the first 2 sentences and thew the entire thing away. Then when i talked to her on the phone next she was like “what did you think of that letter? Huh huh huh?” And i said i didn’t even read it and she could go fuck herself.
When i got home from the Air Force, she was livid and hostile towards me, and told me to “Gehtahjaaaahb” every 5 seconds like that was any way shape or form helpful in the slightest way. While everyone else understood i was making a sacrifice to the service and i came home BARELY ABLE TO WALK because the cartilage in my knees wore down so much, she was harassing me nonstop.
Eventually one day she started in on me, and I threw my computer table at her and she realized she shouldn’t be fucking with someone who just underwent a month of strength training and discipline. You DO NOT disrespect anyone and raise your voice like that, and especially not someone who just responded to TIs in uniforms yelling at them for a whole month and the only answer I’m allowed to give is YES, SIR.
Eventually, she realized that she can’t just scream at me, and she saw a commercial on TV for me to go to college at a nearby game design university. So she said I need to go to it.
Long story short, i decide to go, i had no interest in art but i learned how to draw, began taking classes and i used my Airman’s training and discipline to work really hard. For the first time ever, i was enjoying school, and i was even on the dean’s list of a very famous person who is dean at the school.
I asked my mom if i could use the refundable ticket that was meant for my Air Force graduation to take a trip for my birthday. She said yes. I saw my best friend and stayed with her for a week, saw a metal show, had an amazing time with new friends who wanted to celebrate my birthday and for coming to visit them. My friends treated me like a celebrity. When it was time to go, i heard at the airport they were offering $400 dollars to someone to give up their flight on my flight. I thought of doing that and extending my stay and giving my friend the money, but i thought i should just go home because i had more friends waiting to welcome me home.
When i got home, my local hometown friends were waiting for me to come home from the airport. I just came home late, and i just texted them “woo im home!” And they replied “woo, we’re here! Let us in as soon as i got home, 😆
they had gifts and a jack in the box burger for me. I let them into my room and they just wanted to hang out for 5 minutes and say happy birthday and leave.
I went to grab a drink, and on my way back to my room, apparently i had woken up my mom. And she immediately started to get upset with me that i had people over. I said “oh, im sorry i woke you, they’re going to leave now. Lets talk in the morning.” She screams “Noooo!” And i go into my room to avoid the confrontation.
I locked the door behind me, because i had to put a lock on the door because my mom kept not listening to me when i told her to stay out of my room, and she kept coming into my room and do stupid things like fold a pile of dirty laundry and put it away, and taking my laundry i was about to fold and wash it again.
So i had locked it so wouldn’t come in cause a scene in front of my friends who were trying to leave. I tried to tell them that they had to leave, and they said sure lets go. But then my mom was on the other side of the door, screaming “Everyone leave!!!” and kicking and body slamming against the door until it broke off of the doorframe and she opened it with sheer force of her obese body weight. The ironic thing is that if she was so upset that people were over, why did she kick and body slam the door again and again to prevent them from leaving? 🧐
After this, i still had to live with this abhorrent sack of shit who’s womb I happened to be the one I escaped from, and still try to do my schoolwork too. I completely ignored her to keep my sanity. If she spoke to me, i had downloaded a nifty little AIRHORN APP that i blared from my phone at max volume if she talked to me. Of course that would make her start screaming at me, and it justified me using it every time in the first place.
I would wear my headphones around her in the kitchen to ignore her completely, and they were noise canceling headphones as well. Once she said something bitchy and angry towards me and i stared at her completely blank faced and gave her a look of icannothearyouwhyareyoustilltalkingtome and went back to making food. Then she came and grabbed my headphones off the side, and leaned into my ear and started talking to me. I reacted like a reflex to grab the headphone i thought had gotten caught on the cord and was being pulled off, and accidentally 🤭 smacked her in the face in the process. I just repositioned my headphones and went back to my business of cooking. And she was having a meltdown, running in a circle trying to start a fight with me, and i think saying that i ‘hit her’ after she made contact with me first when i was just grabbing my headphones she pulled off. 🤷🏼‍♂️
A few other times, i fucked with her for revenge. She hated when the porch light was turned off, and when the front door was locked. So i kept the light off and locked both the top and bottom locks. So when she couldn’t see she kept trying to ring the doorbell, as if I was going to come let her dumb ass in. And so she would start screaming at the front door to let me in. Eventually she would unlock one, and then realized the other one was locked as well, then while she was unlocking that one, i would sneak to the front door and re lock the first one. Then she would start screaming on the front porch, having a violent angry melt down in front of the other neighbors. How embarrassing for her.
I continued to ignore her every chance i got. I would make emo artwork in my work with my emo music playing in my headphones. Occasionally i would hear her trying to start a fight with me through my door, and since it was locked i would ignore her. Since she already fucked up my door, she could body slam against it to open it. She did that when i was ignoring her once, and she was laughing about the fact she could use her fat ass to open my locked door.
I told her if she ever body slammed my door again i would make her regret it.
She did it again to get my attention, and thought it was funny.
She thought it was funny to barge i to my safe space and terrorize me, to trigger my anxiety, to scream at me, to cause destruction of her own property just so she could start a fight with me, blame me for the fight to feel justified to scream at me and abuse me.
So what she didn’t know is that I had recorded her when she body slammed my door the first time. The video goes on and on for 5 minutes of her screaming and punching and body slamming, gradually breaking down the door and frame cracking, my friends terrified the entire time. And then her screaming like a maniac until she finally breaks it and then walks into my room acting like she was some sort of victim.
I posted the video on Facebook, named it “i hate you, i don’t deserve this abuse” and then tagged her in it, so our family and all of her friends, personally and professionally would see it.
When it was still unbeknownst to her, she still kept up her tough abuser façade, acting like she had reason to abuse me when I had done nothing. But then, once she found out i had exposed her abuse publicly, she then suddenly changed, and started acting like a victim again. So funny how fast her tough guy act dropped when her abuse gets exposed, and then in order to cope with being a terrible piece of shit, she suddenly started playing the victim to everyone around her.
She told her sister I was abusing her, and then said she was “going to stay with her for no reason” so she went to go play out this imaginary roleplaying story by staying the night with her over the weekend. She had to stick to the role she invented for me, just so she could act out that i was abusing her. It was pretty pathetic. Then my aunt started to treat me like i was an abuser. I eventually had to set her straight because my mom had spun the video around to make it seem like i was antagonizing her through the door, saying our nervous shudders of terror was me and my friends laughing at her through the door. Once I set her straight that I was the victim of my moms abuse, she realized that she had been tricked and felt really guilty for getting involved and thinking i was an abuser. As she should.
Since I had to constantly defend myself from abuse, I really lost all interest in school, and even became a huge jerk to my boyfriend at the time, to the point that he broke up with me. I had never been broken up with before, because usually it’s fair or mutual or i do the breaking. But this was the first time someone left me, and it was because i was so abused i started to become abusive, and he left me when he saw that change. He didn’t want to be around my mom when he was over to visit me anyway, and she had scared off a couple other of my boyfriends in the past. Imagine having several relationships that lasted for few months but then they leave you because your MOM fights with you all the time.
Eventually i met with a long time online friend, and as of now we have been together 13 years. During that time i was able to get 500 miles away from my mom and stay with my partner and his mom. I am 36 now.
During that time i rarely saw my abuser whose womb i escaped from.
The last time I saw her i told her I never wanted to see her again. She invited me to a big birthday party weekend she was having for herself and 2 of her friends, and everyone was going to come. Had a surprisingly good time with her and everyone i knew. She was nice the entire time. Then on the last day i was there visiting her, she decided to scream at the top of her lungs at me for wanting to hang out with my childhood friend who was also visiting.
I realized she was going to pretend to not be a sack of shit to everyone else and be nice to them, but she will ALWAYS have energy to scream at me.
I thought she invited me to her birthday party because of some hope that the distance had healed us, and she was nice now. But, i realized she will be nice to literally everyone else she invited, but NOT her own son who drove 500 miles out to see her.
I cried myself to sleep the night before my partner and me left. In the morning my mom was acting all smiles and wanted to visit before we left. I told her that I never wanted to see her again, locked my room, and packed while i ignored her long enough that she had to leave to go to work.
I was in a very deep depression. Friends and co workers i had would cordially ask me how was my vacation time off i took to go to my mom’s birthday party, and i told them it was horrible and change the subject.
I did not talk to her for a year. Eventually she tried reaching out and we maintained a communication. Casually in conversation she would mention how we need to have a visit, to which i would reply “Oh, but I already told you that I never wanted to see you again.” And that’s called making my boundaries known. Instead of realizing she had fucked up and perhaps she could put some effort into fixing herself and owning up to what she did wrong, she just took it as an insult because she’s a narcissist who could never comprehend she’s guilty of any wrongdoing.

Hi everyone,
I'm working on a magical girl game called Skybound's Mixtape, and I'm looking for some feedback from this awesome community! The game explores deep emotional themes and follows the journey of magical girls as they navigate through the stages of grief, each represented by unique sections of a city.
Main Story and Themes:

• Themes: The game delves into grief, heartbreak, and acceptance, using the magical girl genre to convey growth and transformation.
• Core Concept: The magical artifact central to the story is a Walkman that serves as an emotional anchor, influencing gameplay through its mixtape.
• Stages of Grief: The game is divided into stages—Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance—each represented by different visual themes and gameplay mechanics.

Single Character Story:

• Narrative: Follows one magical girl, Cupid, through her emotional journey from denial to acceptance.
• Gameplay: Consistent mechanics with evolving abilities as she progresses through the stages of grief.
• Emotional Depth: Allows for a deep, cohesive narrative with strong character development and a powerful emotional arc.

Episodic Structure with Multiple Characters:

• Narrative: The Walkman floats from girl to girl, recruiting new magical girls to defend their section of the city and heal their hearts.
• Gameplay: Each episode features a different magical girl with unique abilities and challenges related to her stage of grief.
• Variety and Engagement: Offers diverse stories and gameplay mechanics, aligning well with the mixtape theme by providing a collection of interconnected stories.

Key Stages and Visuals:

1. Denial (Star-Powered Kansas & Times Square Clash):
   • Visuals: A celestial rift with a star-powered Kansas town colliding with neon-lit Times Square.
   • Gameplay: Collect star fragments and city memories, with a boss battle against an entity of denial.
2. Anger (Shifty Desolate Vibrant City):
   • Visuals: A volatile cityscape with shifting buildings, graffiti, and flames.
   • Gameplay: Fast-paced combat and navigating unstable platforms, culminating in a battle with a fire demon.
3. Bargaining (Rotating Mall):
   • Visuals: Twisting corridors, rotating escalators, and changing storefronts.
   • Gameplay: Solve puzzles and interact with NPCs, facing a spectral merchant as the boss.
4. Depression (Flooded or Iced City):
   • Visuals: Waterlogged or frozen environments reflecting deep sorrow.
   • Gameplay: Collect teardrop crystals and overcome emotional barriers, confronting a sorrowful wraith.
5. Acceptance (Tear in the Sky):
   • Visuals: A rift between dimensions with swirling clouds revealing memories.
   • Gameplay: Repair the dimensional tear with threads of acceptance, battling a final guardian of despair.

Question to the Community: Should we focus on a single character's journey through all stages of grief, allowing for a deep and cohesive narrative, or should we have the Walkman float from girl to girl, recruiting new magical girls to defend their sections of the city and their hearts, offering a variety of stories and gameplay mechanics?
I'd love to hear your thoughts and any feedback you have on the concept! Thank you!
Late night EDIT/UPDATE[
Hey everyone, sorry for the rapid follow-up—just love it when random creative ideas come storming in and totally derail the prototype and design process. It's honestly the best part of creating stuff by far!
After much thought, I've decided to focus on developing a single character story with our protagonist, Cupid. This decision is rooted in wanting to deliver a deep, impactful narrative that thoroughly explores her emotional journey from denial to acceptance.
While I'm currently laser-focused on getting the story and gameplay just right, I can't help but get excited about future possibilities. The concept of expanding the universe to include new characters and themes, like trust and opening up to new relationships after overcoming grief, is something I’m really passionate about exploring down the line and tying it back into the Mixtape motif & theme as interconnected but differing stories or hearts is way too good to pass up. However, for now, this remains just a concept as our primary goal is to ensure the foundation with Cupid is as solid and engaging as possible.
Thank you for letting me share these bursts of inspiration with you. I'm eager to continue this creative journey and hope you'll stay tuned for what's coming next
]

Yes this is the 2nd otis post in a row
I'd like to make otis into a tank
Health: 6400 to 10000
Movement speed: normal to fast
Main attack:
Range: 10 to 5
Spread: 1° to 45°
Damage per projectile: 920 to 880
Super:
Otis now gains a 7% speed boost when using his super for 2 seconds (even if it doesn't hit)
Ink refills is becoming a mythic gear and is getting replaced with: graffiti: if otis hits a wall with his main attack, he'll gain a 20% shield
Stencil glue sucks so it's replaced with: big hug: cil can now latch onto allies, giving them a big hug and healing them over time
Dormant star stays but it's getting reworked: for the next 5 seconds, if otis misses a super, 3 cil mines will appear on the ground, cil mines are invisible to enemies, if someone steps on them, they get dealt 1500 damage and grt silenced
Hypercharge: hypercil: cil hugs enemies 2 seconds longer and deals more damage

First/Previous/Next
There’s a place for mourning, but I’ve never known it long enough for comforting myself—the girl wanted to cry and I could scarcely move and when I did work the courage to exercise my muscles, I found the task possibly too great but eventually leveled myself into a sitting position; I was burned badly—the skin of my body up the left side of my body stung like hell and my jacket remained on me only by fate because it was so burned through that it hung off me like a dry heavy rag. The left side of my face didn’t feel right, and I didn’t dare to ask the mourning girl what damage there was.
When I did speak, I croaked out for help in getting to my feet and Gemma, seemingly remembering me, cut her eyes in my direction; there was something nasty in her and it took no prodding from me to get from her the nastiness.
“How many people need to die so you live?” she asked it bluntly and petted the dog that remained by her side. It was the question I’d asked myself so many times already. I didn’t have the answer for her. She added, “Maybe if you’d done something.” Her head shook and twinkles remained in her eyes; the dog went from her, trotted across the dry earth, and sniffed the corpse of the Alukah—or what remained of the beast anyhow.
Somehow, in the last moments of the boy’s life, he’d gotten a shot off on the thing, but whatever the struggle, it seemed too late to save his own life. “Help me up?” I asked the girl again.
Gemma opened her mouth like she wanted to say something then stopped, clapped her mouth shut then she angled herself onto her own feet from where she’d been sitting and moved to me, and I climbed her arm to stand. My left leg was hobbled near useless beneath me and so I held around the girl’s neck on that side, and she walked me near the terrible scene where the boy lay beside his kill.
Trouble, being a dog, did what a hungry dog does and sniffed the boy’s body and pushed its snout where the open throat was, the place where the head should’ve been; in a moment I was let go and fell to the ground, landing hard on my knees; the pain which jolted through me as I slammed onto the ground sent my vision white entirely and only once I’d blinked I realized the girl had gone after the dog. She lifted her leg, and the end of her boot met the animal’s ribs, “Get away from it!” she shrieked at the animal. It squealed perhaps more from surprise than hurt and scampered towards the road, but remained yards out, watching us with its head lowered.
“It’s only a dog,” I tried.
She ignored me and was to the ground too, beside the fallen boy. I sat and watched, and she punched the dirt till finally she did cry, and it was heavy; the girl’s shoulders rolled and her whole-body shook, and she clapped her hands across her mouth like she didn’t dare scream. “We should bury him,” she said through a terrible muffle, “Burn him?” she posed the question to the air over her head. “We can’t leave him out here for anything to get. We can’t carry him. Something should be done about it.”
“Help me up.”
“And?” she twisted around where she knelt, a long expression, elderly, deep with grief, “We won’t make it.”
I shifted under my knees to relieve pressure from my left leg and nodded.
“No food. No water. Andrew’s dead,” she pushed her fingers into the dry earth by her hand and brought up a clump of it, letting it fall through her fist.
“I told you to stay home.”
She chucked the dirt at me and spat, “Shut up! You would’ve probably given him up long ago if you’d travelled this way with him alone. Coward!” She sobbed more.
I finally put myself into a seat on the dirt, tried to lift my arms to support my chin, but through the coughing, through the pain in my ribs, I could not—my vision listed lazily across to the dog and it still looked on at us, sniffing the ground, moving in semicircles, but slowly closing the gap between where it had run from us.
“You’re not a coward,” she said, “You’re not, but I hate you so badly.” Her voice was a dry growl.
I looked again at the boy’s corpse then at her. “I’m sorry. It looks like I’ve put you in a real bad spot.” I laid back tentatively, nursing my sides. A dirt nap would’ve done me well. “Take Trouble. Get on without me then. Just go west. If you’re quiet, you could travel at night.” I sighed and stared at the blue sky, the wisps of clouds. “Go quick. Follow the big road. I-40. Maybe there’s signs that say it—there once was. Follow it west until you see Babylon. It’d be hard to miss. Three or four days if you push it.” I sighed again. “If you’re quiet, you can travel at night. Quiet and low. Watch for fiends. Keep Trouble close. Quick now.”
I’d closed my eyes, and I heard her shift and then I felt a shadow over me; upon opening my eyes, Gemma stared down at me—a long frown was traced across the lower half of her face.
She blinked for a long second. “Get up,” she said, “Get up. I’m not going to drag you all the way there, so get up.”
I put out my hand for a lift and was surprised by both her finesse and her strength; she slipped beneath my arm, and we moved to the body—she said bye and stopped only for a moment to lift the shotgun beside him—she slid the strap over her own shoulder while I awkwardly held to her lightly by the shoulder. She called Trouble and the mutt came after at a distance.
We took down the road worse than tired, but the stink of the dead beast remained in my nose; the Alukah was dead—what other foul creatures remained ahead?
Delirious hours went by until it was night, and I could scarcely gather myself to know what direction I was headed; Gemma found someplace, some hole somewhere for us to sleep. Then it was day again and all I knew was that one leg fell after the other in a gross tandem limp. Consciousness was blinks like weird time travel, and it was only when it was night again and we’d found a dead old tree sticking from the ground—that image remains—and we sat by its massive trunk and looked out on the road (the road I thought was the I-40) and I’d only just closed my eyes when I felt something pressed to my mouth.
“Drink,” said Gemma.
I latched to the opening of whatever gourd or canteen she had, clamping my eyes tighter because if it was a dream, I didn’t want to know. I drank and drank until she yanked it from my grasp.
There beneath the tree, black like it was at night, a moment of cool clarity came to me; the water starvation had taken its toll. “Where’d you get that?” was all I could hope to ask.
The girl whispered, “I wanted it, and it was. It just was.”
I slept with the dog across my lap; I could feel no more pain from my left leg, but the smell of the wound tipped that it was likely festering. What should I do if I were to lose a leg?
The night we slept beneath the tree, I had a terrible nightmare about a boy in flames and I couldn’t tell if the boy was me or someone else; recollecting tends to obscure whatever original message there is in dreams and the further they’re recalled, the runnier they become. Maybe the boy was me or it was Maron, or it was Andrew. It doesn’t matter. What I know is that none of it’s good.
In waking, I remember only small pieces: the sound of others, the smell of horse manure, the smoke from an oil carriage. Someone took my pants and threw blankets over me. I rocked prone in the back of an oil carriage and Gemma sat alongside me and the driver spoke with her, but I don’t remember what was said. A dog barked—Trouble?
I tasted medicine and water—there was the stink of salve.
The hum of the oil carriage was broken by a moment of Gemma pushing me with her hand hard and she whispered, “The arch!” and I knew what she meant.
I had not another moment of clear thought until I awoke in a near sterile room. Whatever pain was in my body radiated rather than stung and I could see from the high bed the window which looked out on a wide city street from stories high. I blinked and for a moment wished a great catastrophe would take me from the delusion—it was no delusion and within moments, I accepted this and tried to raise myself to a sit.
My left leg was wrapped and looked strangely pale where it was left without a blanket and my sides ached and I felt dizzy. Blistered scarring ran like bumpy rivers up the left side of my body. I wanted to vomit, pushed myself against the head of the bed and steadied my breathing then called out a sickly question of hello.
From the far corner of the room, a woman in a wizard hat pushed her head through the doorway to look on me then rushed in to ask me how I was, and I told her, and she said to relax.
A light vegetable platter was brought with a pitcher of water, and I couldn’t eat enough for it to matter, but I drank plenty so that I refilled my cup several times.
Suzanne spilled through the doorway, a concerned expression locked on their face and they put those eyes right on me and I couldn’t squirm away and then the eyes softened and Suzanne approached the bed, waved the other wizard away and they sat on the bed by my leg and for a moment I thought I’d aged them by my presence because the shadow that cut across their brow when they glanced away twisted that stunning glow into a far caricature. Then Suzanne smiled a bit and touched my hand and they whispered, “They’ve not given you a mirror?” They nodded, “Sedatives.”
They reached into their flowy robes to withdraw a hand mirror and pushed it into my outstretched hand.
I’d set myself on fire, so it wasn’t so much a surprise when I saw the scarred skin where the flames had eaten their way up my body; the left side of my face was unrecognizable, purple, and still blistered. I touched the place there and traced my fingers along the scars till I came to the place where my ear normally sat—it was a shriveled scabby thing. The corners of my mouth glanced upward even though I felt different about it. I sat the mirror to my lap and looked at Suzanne.
They squeezed my hand. “You were late—very late—but I didn’t know why. I thought you were dead.” They stared at the floor again. “You’ve had a terrible fever for more than a week. It didn’t seem as though you’d wake.”
“Am I ugly now?”
Those hazel eyes met my own and I couldn’t hide my smile even though my eyes began to water—I blinked the wet away. Suzanne visibly bit their tongue and shook their head. “You were always ugly.”
I choked on laughter and held onto my ribs; the mirror clattered from my lap to the floor and Suzanne reached for it to deposit the thing back into their robes. They chuckled too and their shoulders relaxed even though the dark circles on their eyes remained, the tired look of a person—had they lost sleep for me?
I reached out and grabbed their hand as hard as I could manage—maybe I hoped for an electric jolt to go along with what I tried to convey, “I love you,” I said it so suddenly; I tried latching.
Just as suddenly, they snaked their own hand from mine and held their fingers together, locked across their knees. “Don’t,” they said, “You said you wouldn’t.”
My head shook, “I mean it. I love you.”
“You’ll stay?”
“I’ve got one more thing to do. One more trip.”
They stood from the bed, visibly shaking.
“One more,” I pleaded, “Then I’ll come, and I’ll stay.”
“Where are you going to go?” Their outrage exploded full force—their hands became fists by their sides, and they took a step from the bed, and I felt myself flinch. “Where could you go in that state?” They motioned at me wildly, “Tell me!”
“I ain’t gonna’ leave right away.”
“You’re delusional. Have they doped you into stupidity?” They screamed.
“This is the first time in a long time that I know what I gotta’ do.”
“No, I don’t think you’ve ever understood what you need to do,” they shook their head then held it in their palm, “No.”
“Please listen to me.”
“I won’t.” And they didn’t; they left the room, slamming the door behind them.
The pain came and went and sometimes it was really so miserable that I couldn’t sleep a wink and I’d spend eternities staring at the dark ceiling in the night and I’d smell the fresh air of Babylon—Alexandria carried in through the window. I’d decided that even if they took my leg because of an infection, I’d strap a peg on and continue on my way; it became a paramount goal in my mind to heal up, get back to Golgotha, and undo what had bothered me for so long. The wizards, with their tonics, their salves, and capsule medicines, took good care of me during my recovery and I was even able to plead a bit of liquor from the attendants to help me sleep through some of those long nights.
The days of bed rest stretched to the point of oblivion and boredom—not even the television on the wall could take my mind from the humdrum (books helped, but it was difficult to focus through the medication for long). Suzanne ceased their visiting, but Gemma came and brought Trouble with her, and the dog became fatter every time I saw it; the girl said the mutt remained anxious and often urinated unprovoked in inappropriate places, but the animal slept okay.
Upon Gemma’s first visit to me she was still a patient in recovery, and she came alone and sat in a chair alongside the bed and told me how I was a low-down liar, and I was.
“I asked about good places in the world, and you knew about this,” said the girl, “You knew about it the whole time.”
“Your dad wanted you home. I was gonna’ take you home. The way it was.” I frowned at myself.
A pang of sadness crept into the corner of her eyes, and she nodded it away, “We made it though.”
I sighed. “There was a time when we were travelling, and I was out of it. You found water. Where’d you find water?”
She cupped her hands, angled forward in the chair so that her elbows rested on her knees. “It just happened. At first, I thought it was something I’d forgotten about—like I’d be so dumb as to forget that I had a whole waterskin—but it just appeared. It just was.” Gemma seemed to think about it for a while—upon watching her there sitting, I noticed that the scars which decorated her skin had healed to the point of faint discolorations and I briefly wondered how long ago that was. “The people here. The pointy hats. They do things like that all the time here. I saw a little girl in the street earlier and she could pull candies from thin air. Things aren’t and then they are. Ish—the old doctor, I guess, that’s been watching over your recovery—he tended to me too—I asked him about it, and he said that lots of people can manifest—that’s what he called it—and that it happens when people are put under extreme pressure. He said quart-of-Saul causes it and once you’ve done it, you can learn how to control it willingly. With time. Like a skill.”
“So, you’re a wizard?”
“I don’t know,” she shook her head, seemingly in disbelief, “Ish said it can be fatal if pushed to its limits. He said that if it’s left unsupervised, it can lead to renal failure—that’s what he said. Lots of the people in this building are here because of it,” she whispered, “The patients here, they have a gray look to them—their skin.” Gemma paused and swiped her hands through her close-cut hair, “How much can a person manifest?”
I clenched my jaw. “The boy?”
She nodded.
“Don’t do it. Don’t you even think about it.”
Gemma swallowed long and audible. “You’re right.” She relaxed into the chair and crossed her arms across her chest, “You said the libraries were big, but I didn’t know there were pictures like what they’ve got.”
“Movies?”
She nodded. “It’s a ridiculous place. I like it. He would’ve liked it. It’s nothing like home. You know, I always thought they cast spells or had some secret pact with demons.” The young girl, looking more like one than ever before, pushed her face into her hands and rubbed her eyes and peered through the cracks of her fingers to look at the television on the wall; her expression remained with the still object briefly before she removed her hands, and she frowned and looked at me again. Gemma’s face hinted at sickliness.
“I can relax,” said the girl, “I can breathe more easily than I have in all my life and that’s because of you,” her frown deepened, “I won’t ever know Andrew’s touch or his smile again and that’s because of you too,” she put up her hand as I opened my mouth in protest, “I do not hate you. I don’t. I can see things better now. Andrew may have been destined to die,” she shook her head, “He had joy and that’s too much for this world.”
Finally, she smiled, “I would’ve died at home. He would have. I know you didn’t let him die. His death is on us both. Dave too. How have you lived with yourself all these years with such a burden, Harlan?”
Under her direct, cool stare I felt more uncomfortable than ever and shifted in the bed. “I don’t think I have.” The answer wasn’t enough but felt honest.
“You shouldn’t act so pitiable all the time.”
Time passed and I did not ache deeply so often.
Isher, the wizened wizard, wore a long beard and kept a tight leathery cap over his crown and moved slowly but spoke in abrupt chirps whenever he came to aid me. He helped me from the bed—as he had begun to do often—and I hobbled slowly with his meager support, and he moved me to the window where I took the wall for support to look on Alexandria from a high point—I’d never seen it from that direction—and the place looked magnificent. Perhaps it was not the magnificence of the place, but the sheer gratitude I felt in seeing it at all. Narrow streets cut through tightly packed stone structures and buildings matched the attire of their citizens with conical pitched roofs. Aqueducts rushed downhill freely and there was music and shows and laughter—I’d never noticed the laughter before. Though the wizard bureaucracy and parliamentary arrangement felt distasteful to me, I could not help but appreciate that I did not smell lingering death; there would be no public executions. When executions happened, it would happen somewhere dark and silent, and no one could look on the dead or defile the corpses (at least not openly).
“You’re quite resilient,” quipped Ish.
I smiled, “I reckon.”
“Suzanne asks about you still.”
“Where have they been?”
“They say it’s painful because you’re leaving. I told them you won’t be leaving until I’ve said so.” The old wizard wiggled his upper lip to dance the mustache there then swiped a hand down his waist-length beard.
“Will my leg heal right, doc?”
He nodded, “You shouldn’t travel for some time. You should stay. There is room.”
I cast my gaze through the window again and saw that he spoke honestly; there was more than enough room there in Alexandria. Their walls were tall, strong, well kept—even clean. Along the skyline, I saw the massive arch which stood higher than all else (the gateway to the west). “You’re very old,” I told Ish.
He snickered and nodded, “Thanks.”
“I mean, you’ve seen enough to know that some things must be done. Don’t you have any regrets?”
“Everyone does,” he said.
“I’ve got one. A big one.”
“You intend on making it right then?”
I nodded.
“If you leave—I’ve not left the city for ages, but I know its dangers well. If you leave, you will likely perish. Is it worth it? You will have ruined the time I’ve spent on your recovery. Worse, you will make at least one person greatly sad. Weigh it. How great is this regret?” He sighed, squeezed my sore shoulder only to release it upon seeing me wince, “You’ve said I’m old and I am. You’ve asked of my regrets. All of us that reach an age have many beyond number and each of us knows that to regret so greatly and live in the past would be a waste of the time we’ve left. Those of us with sense, anyway.”
“So?”
“Don’t be stupid. You’ve the wrinkles and the grays, so there’s no reason for you to play the role of a child.” He sighed once more. “The choices of your life are your own, of course. I will do what a doctor does, but I beg you to not cause unnecessary grief.”
We sat quietly, looking out on the skyline, listening to the cityscape, merely enjoying the glow of the sun.
“You intend on grief?” asked Ish.
“As always,” I said.
Once I was able enough to move on my own, I did so no better than the invalid I’d become and although the people of Babylon were cheery, I did my absolute best to keep from them, maintaining a level of distance. Among the walks I took through the streets, cane in hand, arduous steps, Gemma accompanied me with the dog Trouble, and I felt the girl followed me not because of her care for me but because of familiarity—pity too. I took to the streets at night, customarily to smoke and to take in the cool air; the city lights, predominantly electric, awed the girl still even though she’d spent better than a month there and I saw those lights perhaps for the first time in the way they illuminated her wide eyes. She’d catch me catching her glued to the electric lights and shrug and then she’d piddle about this or that and she talked of Andrew all the time and asked how I felt about things, and I didn’t feel much besides pain which ached through my bones. But I was kind as much as I could be and lied about how I felt.
We’d taken to the foot of the arch, nearest the place where there were cross marks to keep people from tampering with the monument, and I watched the great thing overhead and she did too and I took to a nearby bench; the streets were different from Golgotha both in concept and execution—they were mostly paved and kept clean, relatively. Where Golgotha stood as a testament to human survival, Alexandria was a place of innovation, creativity; it was as though it was a place constructed for living. The walls of buildings had cornices, graffities, there was craftsmanship and flourishes where there was woodwork and where there wasn’t a place for enlightenment through creation, there was at least the growth of trees or hedges lining the avenues; the sound of rushing water was pleasant—aqueducts, free piping.
I finished the cigarette I had and tapped the cane against the ground between my feet and she sat alongside me, ushering Trouble to herself where she withdrew some snack from her pocket, and she fed the dog.
“The first thing you thought of after waking was immediately leaving. I didn’t know someone could be so dumb,” she said.
I smiled and nodded. “Sure.”
“I wish you wouldn’t be so dumb.”
“It’s not stupidity that takes me home. It’s—none of your business.”
“I could go with you?”
I shook my head.
“Why not?”
“I’ll be damned if I need to watch you across the wasteland again. I’m done with that. You’re a sorry travelling companion.”
Gemma looked solemn before a smile that might’ve been imagined and then there was silence; moonglow caught in her lengthening hair—it no longer sat so closely to her skull and her face seemed fuller than I’d ever seen it before. Her complexion was clear enough that I could see she owned freckles across her nose. Or maybe I was only then noticing them; her scars—the marks from Baphomet—were nearly gone entirely. “It’s easy to deflect it, isn’t it?”
“Mm.”
“Ish said you’re a fool. Suzanne’s angry with you. Should I be angry at you?” she asked, but before I could say anything, she continued, “Maybe I should. I’m not mad and I don’t think you’re dumb, not really.” She lifted her leg up so that she could sit atop her left foot while lounging there on the bench alongside me. “You’re stuck in the past. Like me. I wake up scared almost every night and reach out in the darkness and—” Trouble nuzzled the girl’s hand, and Gemma petted the dog’s nose delicately with her thumb, “Yes, Trouble’s there to comfort me. But I wake up and I can’t breathe. Sometimes I think I’m going to strangle the poor girl from a bear hug before I can get myself under control. The worst is that I wake up—once I’ve figured out where I am, I know there isn’t anything to be afraid of, but I am. Even knowing I’m here doesn’t help. You’re family?” She left the last bit as a question, and it remained in the air for the quiet.
I took in a gulp of the night and nodded.
“If you are going to go,” she paused to casually examine my left leg along with my cane as though to emphasize her point, “If you can go, then please come back.”
I didn’t look at her. “Thank you.”
Many months passed until I could stand without becoming unbearably dizzy and the cane became almost vestigial, almost—I still required the thing over long periods of time or whenever I felt particularly weak.
I did not speak to Suzanne as much as I would have liked; I did not speak to them at all for a long time.
I caught them in the library, among cartridges of digitized media, in the back rooms of the place, caught in dust and darkness. “I’ll be leaving in a week,” I told them.
They didn’t even raise their head from the table where they catalogued what new treasures had been plundered. My presence had no effect whatsoever.
My chest filled up and I tried, “People talk about love all the time and I know that there’s better people to say it than me.” I slumped in the doorway to the back rooms, holding the frame of the threshold for support. “I wish I had better, prettier words for it. Poets talk about meeting the one they love over and over because two lovers are destined to meet infinitely through many lives. That’s nice.” I nodded to myself while Suzanne lifted a box from a table, shifted it to floor, then turned their attention to the next box. “I don’t know how I feel about life after this. Or God. Maybe. I know we’ve got this life and maybe that’s all we’ve got—if that’s the case then I’m glad I know you. I’m glad I love you.”
Finally, Suzanne spoke, “You should go lie down and gather your strength for when you leave.” They didn’t even look at me.
“Look at me?”
They did not.
“Please.”
Suzanne offered a mere glance in my direction.
“I will come back to you.”
It would have been good to get a goodbye and better to have them tell me they wanted me back or that they loved me too, but there was nothing.
There’s no blame for Suzanne.
Before I went off, the wizards said bye to me and showed in greater force than I would’ve imagined. There was a throng of them gathered at the entrance to Poplar Bridge; one gathered themselves away from the others and played a ditty off a harmonica and others seemed to want to wish me well with small trinkets or salutations. Gemma came with Trouble and Ish admonished me on my way out; they brought me a carriage, one which ran off oil, and Gemma gave me my shotgun.
“We cleaned it—they cleaned it,” said the girl, “Replaced the strap. You shouldn’t run out of anything.” Her eyes fell on the wagon which hummed to life under the guide of a short wizard woman that fiddled with its controls from the perched seat.
“Thanks,” I said.
Gemma pulled me into a tight hug, and I hugged her back. “I’ll see you,” she said confidently.
I scratched Trouble on her cheeks and then pulled the dog into a hug too, lifting the dumb mutt from the ground a bit in doing so; I lost my footing and found it and the dog dropped and pushed in close to my legs to swing its ass widely in excitement.
Ish slapped a hand on my shoulder and the strength in his grip was weirdly great. “You can still change your mind.”
I shook my head. “Will Suzanne be here?”
It was the old wizard’s turn to shake his head, but he stopped then looked at the wagon. “How do you think it is we can afford to offer you that for travel? Oh!” Ish motioned to a nearby wizard and the young person came forward to offer something to his hands, “Suzanne wanted you to have these. At least.” The old man held out one of the signature dramedy masks in one hand and a wizard hat in the other. They looked familiar. “Incognito.” The old man tapped his nose with his forefinger. He looked at me seriously. “Be careful. I wish my Suzanne could’ve found a better someone, but if it’s to be you—come back.” Ish pulled me into a hug, patted me on the back hard.
I drove into the morning, across Poplar Bridge, over the dead Mississippi. Towards revenge? To my brother.
Loneliness had once been an ally—we’d become foreigners. With nothing more than the hum of the carriage and my own company, I became deranged beyond anything before.
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Horse:

Horses were renowned for their strength and capabilities in travel, hunting and warfare. Cavalry commanders in Nabataea even held high positions in society. Horses were tamed in North Arabia during the mid-first millennium BC at the latest. Ammianus Marcellinus (c.330–395) tells us that the Saracens ranged “widely with the help of swift horses and slender camels in times of peace or of disorder” which shows that horses were a normal mount for both the nomadic and settled peoples of the region.
Rock art of horses and horsemen are found all over Harrat Ash-Sham and the Arabian peninsula. They are one of the most frequent subjects of these rock drawings, and are shown by themselves and in scenes of hunting, raiding and fighting. Horses were used to hunt lions (often with the aid of archers on foot), oryx, ibex, gazelle and sometimes onager and ostrich. Onager hunts were mostly done on foot and sometimes ostrich were hunted with bows on camelback. Hunting and raiding on horseback was often done with a long flexible lance but short throwing spears were also used. Swords and bows were mostly used on foot.
Horse figurines outnumber all other animals in Petra. Some figurines include mounted riders but its unclear if they're meant to be deities or human warriors. On the façade of Al-Khazneh we have two Dioskuroi, sons of Zeus, linked to Gemini. The Diosckuroi and the terracotta figurines might be alluding to Syrian mounted deities such as 'Azizu, Arsu, Ma'an or Abgal. Its interesting to note that these deities are sometimes referred to as gny' (jinn) while the horse is said to descend from a jinn. Jinn often take the form of horses in folklore. Unridden horse figurines were used as votive offerings when asking for the security, growth and health of the flock. These figurines could replace the sacrifice of living animals or represented an animal that was left to pasture and die a natural death, which is a practice attested in Muslim sources on pre-Islamic Arabia. Horse figurines could also be deposited in burials to symbolically transport the dead through the afterlife.

Camel:

The life of a camel-herder and that of his family depended on the camel. The camel's milk and occasionally meat, feeds them. Its hair clothes them, gives them shelter, and camel dung fuels their campfires. For merchants, camel caravans brought them great wealth. Because of the value and cultural importance of the camel we have many depictions of the animal in the form of sculptures, coins, reliefs, rock art and figurines. Wild camels were hunted while domesticated camels were raided and sacrificed. Rock art, monumental carvings and votive figurines of camels could be dedicated to deities.
In Egypt the camel is associated with Seth who was banished to the desert after the conflict with His brother Osiris for the throne. The camel was viewed as an impure animal and its blood was used in malignant magic. This negative association did not exist in Syro-Arabia where deities were often depicted riding camels. An inscription from Dura-Europos refers to Arsu as rsw wmty "Arsu the camel-rider." Many of the reliefs in Palmyra that represent armed deities depict them as pairs, the horseman representing a military escort and the camel-rider representing a traveler.
Camels were used during ceremonial processions where the animal would transport the image or sacred stone of a deity to a temple or between temples. This is depicted in Palmyra's Temple of Allat where four veiled women walk behind a camel. The camel carries a small round tent reminiscent of the Islamicate mihmal, a passenger-less litter carried on a camel among caravans of pilgrims to hajj. This tent is called a qubba, a portable shrine used to carry holy objects. Today the term is applied to the domed tombs of saints. In front of the camel is a unattended donkey who guides the procession of the camel. Its possible that the donkey acted as a medium that identified where the temple should be built similar to the fable in which Mohammad's camel Qaswa decided the location of his home which would later become a mosque. Only 50 years ago, the Bedouin of the Sinai and Negeb were still using a howdaj, a curtained acacia-wood frame similar to the qubba, mounted on a very special camel, which was lined with ostrich feathers and housed a chunk of meteorite believed to possess supernatural qualities. The meteorite lead them to good pasture and was taken on raids. In Hatra's Temple of Allat the Goddess is represented riding on a camel alluding to a procession in which Allat was introduced to the city. Both in Hatra and Palmyra the camel represents Allat's nomadic roots and in both cities the camel has a wasm tribal mark which indicates that the camel was dedicated to the Goddess.
Islamic-period sources describe a burial practice called the baliyyah. This practice involves hamstringing a camel at the grave of its owner to provide a mount in the afterlife. An excavated baliyyah from Wadi Ramm contained a buried camel. A terracotta figurine could have been used in place of a live camel since they and figurines of horses were placed in Nabataean tombs.

Ibex:

The most popular animal in Neolithic Near Eastern art is the ibex. Its easy to identify the crescent moon rising out of the mountains in the east and then setting in the mountains of the west with the ibex who lives in these mountains, symbolically carrying the moon on his head. The moon's cycles understood as symbolizing life, death and rebirth, paralleling the cycle of the soul. Millenia later the ibex was sacred to the Mesopotamian Tammuz and South Arabian Athtar. It was depicted on ritual furniture by both cultures. In South Arabia the ibex was the victim of a rain-making hunt practiced well after Islam. The connection between the ibex and rainfall is confirmed in Sabaean inscriptions where Athtar withheld the rains because the ibex hunt wasn't done properly.
Rock art near the Jordan-Saudi Arabian border and Negeb show an absolute obsession with the animal. At Jabal Ideid rock art depicts a man who touches the horns of an ibex with pole while a woman gives birth with upraised arms in prayer. The relationship between the ibex, fertility and life is explicit here. Other scenes depict people touching the horns of an ibex either with bare hands or with a pole. Some rock art depicts dogs attacking or chasing ibexes. Sometimes men are hunting the ibex with bows. This must've been an initiatory ritual hunt as the ibex was not a major food source.
In some instances the ibex is saved rather than hunted, with the hunter shooting the dog. Parallel motifs can be found across the Near East. Since the dog is usually seen killing the ibex we can associate the dog with death and the underworld, similar to Anubis or Cerberus. One example of rock art parallels a seal with Tammuz being mirrored by another version of Himself that is upside-down. Beside Him an ibex is being attacked by a dog. The rock art also depicts an ibex that is mirrored by another upside-down ibex with a line separating the two, indicating that the upside-down ibex is in the underworld. The ibex sometimes occurs with a star, a cross, a dot, or the sun alluding astral associations. The most common type of horned animal depicted in Nabataean terracotta figurines is the ibex. Ibex horns show up as part of pottery vessels and vessels molded in the shape of ram or sheep bodies show up well. At Jabal Serbal a pair of copper ibex horns once part of a statue were placed on an altar. Its clear that ibex iconography was key in certain Nabataean rituals. The ibex could represent the main aspect of Dushara as a mountain God of storms and fertility. In the Greco-Roman period the animal was sacred to Dionysus, who was syncretized with Dushara. Dionysus also has dying and rising qualities like Tammuz.

Gazelle and Deer:

The gazelle represents the wilderness, the untamed land. On tablet I of the Gilgamesh epic, Enkidu, the untamed savage, is characterized as a companion of the gazelles. Gazelle representations are rare in Mesopotamian art, deer are far more common. Often scenes portray a lion attacking a deer. Abundance and fertility appear simultaneously with death and demise. In the Greco-Roman period both Temple XI at Hatra and the Temple of Heracles at Masjid-i Solaiman yielded gazelle-pendants. They may reference the famous episode of Heracles’ chase of the Ceryneian hind or the stag of Artemis. At Hatra and Dura-Europos, the gazelle is frequently represented in hunting scenes, mainly in graffiti or paintings. Unlike the ibex, the gazelle was often eaten. In Allat's temple at Palmyra a monumental figure of a lion with a gazelle sitting peacefully between its paws is displayed indicating that the shedding of blood in the precinct was forbidden. Two hand-made heads of a deer or a gazelle were found in Petra, probably handles of pottery.

Eagle:

In the myth of Etana an eagle breaks an oath of mutual aid with a snake and devours the snake's young. When the snake comes back he prays to Shamash who instructs him to hide in a bull's carcass that will be feasted on by the eagle. When the eagle arrives to feast on the carcass the snake attacks the eagle and throws him into a pit to starve. The wounded eagle prays to Shamash for help and so the God sends Etana who saves the eagle and nurses him back to health. In return Etana gets taken up through the seven heavens on the back of the eagle and finally meets with a Ishtar to get the plant of birth.
In the Nabataean temple of Khirbet Et-Tannur a sculpture of an eagle with a snake was set up. The sculpture might represent disharmony or duality. In the myth of Etana the eagle lives on top of a tree, while the snake is at the bottom, the eagle flies, the snake crawls. In earlier versions the snake hunts but only the eagle eats. The eagle and snake also symbolize heaven and earth, or water, respectively. It may have also been an apotropaic symbol. A solitary eagle was carved on the façade of Petra's treasury and atop a sculpture of a Goddess (possibly a personification of the spring) in Khirbet Et-Tannur. The eagle was frequently carved on the doorways of tombs at Hegra, possibly representing Dushara as Lord of Heaven and protector of tombs. Ba'al Shamin's temple at Si', a popular pilgrimage destination for Safaitic nomads, had an eagle carved above the entrance. The association between supreme weather Gods and eagles is not surprising given the fact that rain clouds and thunderstorms gather around mountains which were considered to be the home of the Gods. Allat is also associated with eagles in both Hatra and Palmyra.
The eagles atop tomb entrances could also represent the soul's flight from the body. Folklore and Muslim sources tell us that ancient Arabs believed the soul would leave the body in the form of a bird. This is usually an owl but sometimes an eagle. This alludes to the eagle’s role as psychopompos, a guide of the souls to heaven. The Roman emperors made their apotheosis in the same way, on the back of an eagle like Etana or Ganymede, and an eagle was released from the pyre of important funerals, symbolizing the ascent of the soul. In ancient Egypt small statuettes in the form of a bird, often a falcon, with human heads represented the ba (soul) of the deceased.

Snake:

The earliest dated sculpture in Petra is the Snake Monument dated to the late 2nd century BC. Its a high rock-cut cube crowned with a snake, likely a python. The snake was an apotropaic symbol. We have found votive reliefs with an upraised snake and snake representations on Nabataean tombs in Petra and Hegra. At Bab as-Siq in Petra two reliefs were carved on the wall. One is a horse or mule carrying a baetyl and to it's right are two snakes with a quadruped between their heads. The left snake prevents the animal from escaping while the right snake is trying to pull the animal backwards to devour it. The quadruped is likely a dog or a jackal representing death being devoured by the snake signifying immortality.
The snake is associated with immortality in the Epic of Gilgamesh where it eats the plant of life. Snakes' annual shedding of their skin rendered them a symbol of regeneration and everlasting life like the phoenix. Hence the snake was associated with healing deities such as Asclepius, Eshmun, Shadrafa and Hauron. Hauron, once co-ruler with El, was punished for rebelling against Him. But when He repented, Hauron was reprieved and banished from the mountainous abode of the Gods. Before leaving the mountain, Hauron took revenge by destroying the Tree of Life and transforming into a huge poisonous serpent, pouring His deadly spittle over its life-giving fruit, turning the Tree of Life into a Tree of Death, and enveloping the world in a poisonous fog. As a result the Gods lost Their immortality and so They decided to send one of Them, named Adammu, down to save the world.
Hauron had hidden himself in the Tree of Life and was too fast for Adammu to escape His deadly bite. Adammu tries to free Himself from the teeth of the serpent, but fails. He doesn't know how “to bind the Biter" and how to conquer the poison. The venom starts to paralyze Adammu and so He invokes eleven Gods with a plea to subdue the serpent by binding and feeding it, presumably with a leaf from the Tree of Life. As in Mesopotamia, the serpent is an adversary to the divine order. However, when none of the eleven Gods answer, a twelfth is prayed to, Hauron. He gives in and uproots and trims the Tree of Death, thus making life possible again. The remedy against the serpent’s venom is the homeopathic principle of like cures like. A statue found in the Hauran, the volcanic desert east of Damascus, depicts Hauron as the divine physician Aesculapius, feeding a leaf to the serpent encircling His staff. To protect the new life on earth, Hauron engenders the Kotharat, seven divine midwives who protect and help pregnant women. It is interesting to note that so far two sculptures of Aesculapius have been uncovered in Petra.

Lion:

The lion occupies a predominant place in the iconography of the ancient world. Its in all manifestations of the Zodiac as Leo, which is why the lion corresponds to the heat of the summer in Greco-Egyptian magic. Towards the end of winter Leo is directly overhead, displaying its maximum power as it "kills" Taurus, the Bull, which is trying to "escape" below the horizon. Taurus then disappears in the Sun's rays for forty days and then reappears announcing the Spring equinox.
Egyptian myths represent the lion as a symbol of power, courage and revenge. The Egyptian Goddesses Sekhmet and Menhit are depicted with the heads of lions. In Palmyra, Allat's temple displayed a monumental figure of a lion with a gazelle sitting peacefully between its paws, indicating that the shedding of blood in the precinct was forbidden. Inside the temple Allat was depicted in civilian dress enthroned next to two lions looking very much like Atargatis. However, Allat lacks a male consort such as Hadad, the mural crown, the spindle, kestos, or rays around Her head as seen in depictions of Atargatis. It is far from certain that the lion iconography was borrowed from Atargatis. Allat's association with lions is at least as old as the association of lions with Atargatis and countless other Near Eastern Goddesses were also linked to lions such as Anat, Astarte, Qedeshet, Ishtar and Nanaia. Allat's iconography could have been borrowed from any of them, if it was borrowed at all.
Allat’s association with lions dates back to at least the first century and is attested in a region that stretches from the Hauran to Mesopotamia. Throughout this region lions are associated with Allat both in the form of Athena and in civilian dress. Sometimes they flank the Goddess’s throne like in Her temple in Palmyra, but in other representations Allat is shown sitting on the back of a lion, standing on a lion, or riding a chariot drawn by lions. The lion seems to embody or represent Her. Hence we can understand the lion of Allat monument as Allat Herself protecting the gazelle and ensuring that the sanctuary is not defiled by blood. In the vision of the temple guardian Eusebius he sees a flaming meteorite crash down accompanied by a gigantic lion coming down from a mountain near Emesa where Allat had a sanctuary. Its clear that the lion represents a fundamental aspect of Allat’s personality. In Petra lions are carved along several procession ways leading to high places and temples. One of these temples is a major Nabataean sanctuary called the “Temple of the Winged Lions.” Its columns were decorated with winged lion capitals. Winged lions show up on a mural at Siq el-Barid near Petra which depicts a winged Eros harnessing two winged lions.

Dolphin:

The dolphin was one of the major religious symbols of the Nabataeans. Even those living inland would have been familiar with dolphins as Tyrian and Sinope coins struck with dolphins were in circulation for centuries. And indeed dolphin motifs are found in places far removed from the site or smell of the sea. They were placed on altars and carved in temples such as Khirbet Et-Tannur and Khirbet Brak. Dolphin tails and dolphin heads appear on facades. In the temple of Allat at Wadi Ramm we've found a bronze dolphin tail that was once the handle of a ritual implement. Atargatis and Aphrodite (who were synonymous according to Lucian) are both associated with dolphins. Aphrodite was also linked to the sea in general, and Her form Aphrodite Anadyomene (emerging from the sea) was incredibly popular in Syria and Nabataea. Dolphins are found on Phoenician and Jewish sarcophagi and in Petra dolphins and tragic masks representing death are often paired. The animal was considered to be the harbinger of fair weather, successful enterprise, and safe journeys both in this life and the next.

Conclusion:

Its helpful to look at figurines and reliefs of animals as a source of information to illustrate the religious attitudes and beliefs of the ancient Arabs and their neighbors. They act as religious tools to perceive the divine world. Certain animals were associated with certain deities, such as Aphrodite with the dove or Allat with the lion. Figurines also act as votive offerings as an expression of thanks for all the good things one receives each day. These are typically given at a shrine or altar before statues or baetyls. They are tokens of respect to supreme beings, and a way of acting and communicating with the Gods, and of keeping in contact with Them.
The Gods are the source of all that is good. Anyone wishing to draw closer to the Gods should establish an altar with iconography that can include animal motifs. Historically votive figurines of animals, in particular horses and camels, were mass produced. They may have been connected with the hope for security, growth and health of the flock. Placed on an altar, or elsewhere prominently displayed, they acted as a legitimate substitution for animal sacrifice, or indicated that a living animal was allowed to pasture in the pastureland of the God and die a natural death. Sacred animals were also symbols of Gods or their manifestations. Animal bodies and parts could be depicted on ritual vessels such as incense burners, libation bowls and offering dishes. Most of terracotta figurines were found in houses giving us a real tangible view of Nabataean household worship.
The following is a list of animals depicted on reliefs, terracotta figurines and zoomorphic vessels from Petra as well as their associations:

• Horses: Strength, travel, hunting, warfare, Gemini, mounted deities
• Camels: Wealth, travel, the desert, wayfinding, nomadism, Allat
• Ibex: Moon, life, death, rebirth, reincarnation, Rudhaw, Dushara
• Gazelle: Wilderness, spring, abundance, fertility, innocence, Allat
• Dove: Atargatis, Aphrodite, Mother Goddesses, Allat(?), Al-'Uzza(?)
• Eagle: Ascent, the heavens, rain, sun, Dushara, Ba'al Shamin, Allat
• Snake: Health, immortality, healing, rebellion, medicine, healing deities
• Lion: Leo, summer, kingship, power, courage, revenge, Allat, Al-'Uzza
• Dolphin: Safe travel, fair weather, wealth, Allat, Atargatis
• Monkey: Apotropaic symbol, wards off evil spirits

References and Further Reading:

• The Horse in Arabia and the Arabian Horse: Origins, Myths and Realities
• Hunting, Fighting, and Raiding. The Horse in Pre-Islamic Arabia
• Fortune and Misfortune of the Eagle in the Myth of Etana
• The Eagle as a Divine Symbol in the Ancient Mediterranean
• “The Camel as a Sethian Creature,” in Essays for the Library of Seshat
• Camels, Caravans and Deities: Representations of Camels in Palmyra and Hatra as Proof of Caravan Trade
• The Metaphor of the Lion in Mesopotamian and Greek Civilization
• Representing and Naming the Gods. Iconography and Nomenclature of the Goddess Allat in Palmyra and Hatra
• The Ibex as an Iconographic Symbol in the ancient Near East
• Ibex, crescent and swastika as symbols of a lunar god in the rock art of the Ancient Near East and Central Asia
• Symbolism of the ibex motif in Negev rock art
• A Gazelle Pendant from Hatra. A Comparative Analysis
• Snakes in Petra
• Religious Stories in Transformation: Conflict, Revision and Reception
• Approaches to Nabataean Religion - Sculpture and Religion by Robert Wenning
• The Nabataean Terracotta Figurines by Lamia Salem El-Khouri

First/Previous/Next
There’s a place for mourning, but I’ve never known it long enough for comforting myself—the girl wanted to cry and I could scarcely move and when I did work the courage to exercise my muscles, I found the task possibly too great but eventually leveled myself into a sitting position; I was burned badly—the skin of my body up the left side of my body stung like hell and my jacket remained on me only by fate because it was so burned through that it hung off me like a dry heavy rag. The left side of my face didn’t feel right, and I didn’t dare to ask the mourning girl what damage there was.
When I did speak, I croaked out for help in getting to my feet and Gemma, seemingly remembering me, cut her eyes in my direction; there was something nasty in her and it took no prodding from me to get from her the nastiness.
“How many people need to die so you live?” she asked it bluntly and petted the dog that remained by her side. It was the question I’d asked myself so many times already. I didn’t have the answer for her. She added, “Maybe if you’d done something.” Her head shook and twinkles remained in her eyes; the dog went from her, trotted across the dry earth, and sniffed the corpse of the Alukah—or what remained of the beast anyhow.
Somehow, in the last moments of the boy’s life, he’d gotten a shot off on the thing, but whatever the struggle, it seemed too late to save his own life. “Help me up?” I asked the girl again.
Gemma opened her mouth like she wanted to say something then stopped, clapped her mouth shut then she angled herself onto her own feet from where she’d been sitting and moved to me, and I climbed her arm to stand. My left leg was hobbled near useless beneath me and so I held around the girl’s neck on that side, and she walked me near the terrible scene where the boy lay beside his kill.
Trouble, being a dog, did what a hungry dog does and sniffed the boy’s body and pushed its snout where the open throat was, the place where the head should’ve been; in a moment I was let go and fell to the ground, landing hard on my knees; the pain which jolted through me as I slammed onto the ground sent my vision white entirely and only once I’d blinked I realized the girl had gone after the dog. She lifted her leg, and the end of her boot met the animal’s ribs, “Get away from it!” she shrieked at the animal. It squealed perhaps more from surprise than hurt and scampered towards the road, but remained yards out, watching us with its head lowered.
“It’s only a dog,” I tried.
She ignored me and was to the ground too, beside the fallen boy. I sat and watched, and she punched the dirt till finally she did cry, and it was heavy; the girl’s shoulders rolled and her whole-body shook, and she clapped her hands across her mouth like she didn’t dare scream. “We should bury him,” she said through a terrible muffle, “Burn him?” she posed the question to the air over her head. “We can’t leave him out here for anything to get. We can’t carry him. Something should be done about it.”
“Help me up.”
“And?” she twisted around where she knelt, a long expression, elderly, deep with grief, “We won’t make it.”
I shifted under my knees to relieve pressure from my left leg and nodded.
“No food. No water. Andrew’s dead,” she pushed her fingers into the dry earth by her hand and brought up a clump of it, letting it fall through her fist.
“I told you to stay home.”
She chucked the dirt at me and spat, “Shut up! You would’ve probably given him up long ago if you’d travelled this way with him alone. Coward!” She sobbed more.
I finally put myself into a seat on the dirt, tried to lift my arms to support my chin, but through the coughing, through the pain in my ribs, I could not—my vision listed lazily across to the dog and it still looked on at us, sniffing the ground, moving in semicircles, but slowly closing the gap between where it had run from us.
“You’re not a coward,” she said, “You’re not, but I hate you so badly.” Her voice was a dry growl.
I looked again at the boy’s corpse then at her. “I’m sorry. It looks like I’ve put you in a real bad spot.” I laid back tentatively, nursing my sides. A dirt nap would’ve done me well. “Take Trouble. Get on without me then. Just go west. If you’re quiet, you could travel at night.” I sighed and stared at the blue sky, the wisps of clouds. “Go quick. Follow the big road. I-40. Maybe there’s signs that say it—there once was. Follow it west until you see Babylon. It’d be hard to miss. Three or four days if you push it.” I sighed again. “If you’re quiet, you can travel at night. Quiet and low. Watch for fiends. Keep Trouble close. Quick now.”
I’d closed my eyes, and I heard her shift and then I felt a shadow over me; upon opening my eyes, Gemma stared down at me—a long frown was traced across the lower half of her face.
She blinked for a long second. “Get up,” she said, “Get up. I’m not going to drag you all the way there, so get up.”
I put out my hand for a lift and was surprised by both her finesse and her strength; she slipped beneath my arm, and we moved to the body—she said bye and stopped only for a moment to lift the shotgun beside him—she slid the strap over her own shoulder while I awkwardly held to her lightly by the shoulder. She called Trouble and the mutt came after at a distance.
We took down the road worse than tired, but the stink of the dead beast remained in my nose; the Alukah was dead—what other foul creatures remained ahead?
Delirious hours went by until it was night, and I could scarcely gather myself to know what direction I was headed; Gemma found someplace, some hole somewhere for us to sleep. Then it was day again and all I knew was that one leg fell after the other in a gross tandem limp. Consciousness was blinks like weird time travel, and it was only when it was night again and we’d found a dead old tree sticking from the ground—that image remains—and we sat by its massive trunk and looked out on the road (the road I thought was the I-40) and I’d only just closed my eyes when I felt something pressed to my mouth.
“Drink,” said Gemma.
I latched to the opening of whatever gourd or canteen she had, clamping my eyes tighter because if it was a dream, I didn’t want to know. I drank and drank until she yanked it from my grasp.
There beneath the tree, black like it was at night, a moment of cool clarity came to me; the water starvation had taken its toll. “Where’d you get that?” was all I could hope to ask.
The girl whispered, “I wanted it, and it was. It just was.”
I slept with the dog across my lap; I could feel no more pain from my left leg, but the smell of the wound tipped that it was likely festering. What should I do if I were to lose a leg?
The night we slept beneath the tree, I had a terrible nightmare about a boy in flames and I couldn’t tell if the boy was me or someone else; recollecting tends to obscure whatever original message there is in dreams and the further they’re recalled, the runnier they become. Maybe the boy was me or it was Maron, or it was Andrew. It doesn’t matter. What I know is that none of it’s good.
In waking, I remember only small pieces: the sound of others, the smell of horse manure, the smoke from an oil carriage. Someone took my pants and threw blankets over me. I rocked prone in the back of an oil carriage and Gemma sat alongside me and the driver spoke with her, but I don’t remember what was said. A dog barked—Trouble?
I tasted medicine and water—there was the stink of salve.
The hum of the oil carriage was broken by a moment of Gemma pushing me with her hand hard and she whispered, “The arch!” and I knew what she meant.
I had not another moment of clear thought until I awoke in a near sterile room. Whatever pain was in my body radiated rather than stung and I could see from the high bed the window which looked out on a wide city street from stories high. I blinked and for a moment wished a great catastrophe would take me from the delusion—it was no delusion and within moments, I accepted this and tried to raise myself to a sit.
My left leg was wrapped and looked strangely pale where it was left without a blanket and my sides ached and I felt dizzy. Blistered scarring ran like bumpy rivers up the left side of my body. I wanted to vomit, pushed myself against the head of the bed and steadied my breathing then called out a sickly question of hello.
From the far corner of the room, a woman in a wizard hat pushed her head through the doorway to look on me then rushed in to ask me how I was, and I told her, and she said to relax.
A light vegetable platter was brought with a pitcher of water, and I couldn’t eat enough for it to matter, but I drank plenty so that I refilled my cup several times.
Suzanne spilled through the doorway, a concerned expression locked on their face and they put those eyes right on me and I couldn’t squirm away and then the eyes softened and Suzanne approached the bed, waved the other wizard away and they sat on the bed by my leg and for a moment I thought I’d aged them by my presence because the shadow that cut across their brow when they glanced away twisted that stunning glow into a far caricature. Then Suzanne smiled a bit and touched my hand and they whispered, “They’ve not given you a mirror?” They nodded, “Sedatives.”
They reached into their flowy robes to withdraw a hand mirror and pushed it into my outstretched hand.
I’d set myself on fire, so it wasn’t so much a surprise when I saw the scarred skin where the flames had eaten their way up my body; the left side of my face was unrecognizable, purple, and still blistered. I touched the place there and traced my fingers along the scars till I came to the place where my ear normally sat—it was a shriveled scabby thing. The corners of my mouth glanced upward even though I felt different about it. I sat the mirror to my lap and looked at Suzanne.
They squeezed my hand. “You were late—very late—but I didn’t know why. I thought you were dead.” They stared at the floor again. “You’ve had a terrible fever for more than a week. It didn’t seem as though you’d wake.”
“Am I ugly now?”
Those hazel eyes met my own and I couldn’t hide my smile even though my eyes began to water—I blinked the wet away. Suzanne visibly bit their tongue and shook their head. “You were always ugly.”
I choked on laughter and held onto my ribs; the mirror clattered from my lap to the floor and Suzanne reached for it to deposit the thing back into their robes. They chuckled too and their shoulders relaxed even though the dark circles on their eyes remained, the tired look of a person—had they lost sleep for me?
I reached out and grabbed their hand as hard as I could manage—maybe I hoped for an electric jolt to go along with what I tried to convey, “I love you,” I said it so suddenly; I tried latching.
Just as suddenly, they snaked their own hand from mine and held their fingers together, locked across their knees. “Don’t,” they said, “You said you wouldn’t.”
My head shook, “I mean it. I love you.”
“You’ll stay?”
“I’ve got one more thing to do. One more trip.”
They stood from the bed, visibly shaking.
“One more,” I pleaded, “Then I’ll come, and I’ll stay.”
“Where are you going to go?” Their outrage exploded full force—their hands became fists by their sides, and they took a step from the bed, and I felt myself flinch. “Where could you go in that state?” They motioned at me wildly, “Tell me!”
“I ain’t gonna’ leave right away.”
“You’re delusional. Have they doped you into stupidity?” They screamed.
“This is the first time in a long time that I know what I gotta’ do.”
“No, I don’t think you’ve ever understood what you need to do,” they shook their head then held it in their palm, “No.”
“Please listen to me.”
“I won’t.” And they didn’t; they left the room, slamming the door behind them.
The pain came and went and sometimes it was really so miserable that I couldn’t sleep a wink and I’d spend eternities staring at the dark ceiling in the night and I’d smell the fresh air of Babylon—Alexandria carried in through the window. I’d decided that even if they took my leg because of an infection, I’d strap a peg on and continue on my way; it became a paramount goal in my mind to heal up, get back to Golgotha, and undo what had bothered me for so long. The wizards, with their tonics, their salves, and capsule medicines, took good care of me during my recovery and I was even able to plead a bit of liquor from the attendants to help me sleep through some of those long nights.
The days of bed rest stretched to the point of oblivion and boredom—not even the television on the wall could take my mind from the humdrum (books helped, but it was difficult to focus through the medication for long). Suzanne ceased their visiting, but Gemma came and brought Trouble with her, and the dog became fatter every time I saw it; the girl said the mutt remained anxious and often urinated unprovoked in inappropriate places, but the animal slept okay.
Upon Gemma’s first visit to me she was still a patient in recovery, and she came alone and sat in a chair alongside the bed and told me how I was a low-down liar, and I was.
“I asked about good places in the world, and you knew about this,” said the girl, “You knew about it the whole time.”
“Your dad wanted you home. I was gonna’ take you home. The way it was.” I frowned at myself.
A pang of sadness crept into the corner of her eyes, and she nodded it away, “We made it though.”
I sighed. “There was a time when we were travelling, and I was out of it. You found water. Where’d you find water?”
She cupped her hands, angled forward in the chair so that her elbows rested on her knees. “It just happened. At first, I thought it was something I’d forgotten about—like I’d be so dumb as to forget that I had a whole waterskin—but it just appeared. It just was.” Gemma seemed to think about it for a while—upon watching her there sitting, I noticed that the scars which decorated her skin had healed to the point of faint discolorations and I briefly wondered how long ago that was. “The people here. The pointy hats. They do things like that all the time here. I saw a little girl in the street earlier and she could pull candies from thin air. Things aren’t and then they are. Ish—the old doctor, I guess, that’s been watching over your recovery—he tended to me too—I asked him about it, and he said that lots of people can manifest—that’s what he called it—and that it happens when people are put under extreme pressure. He said quart-of-Saul causes it and once you’ve done it, you can learn how to control it willingly. With time. Like a skill.”
“So, you’re a wizard?”
“I don’t know,” she shook her head, seemingly in disbelief, “Ish said it can be fatal if pushed to its limits. He said that if it’s left unsupervised, it can lead to renal failure—that’s what he said. Lots of the people in this building are here because of it,” she whispered, “The patients here, they have a gray look to them—their skin.” Gemma paused and swiped her hands through her close-cut hair, “How much can a person manifest?”
I clenched my jaw. “The boy?”
She nodded.
“Don’t do it. Don’t you even think about it.”
Gemma swallowed long and audible. “You’re right.” She relaxed into the chair and crossed her arms across her chest, “You said the libraries were big, but I didn’t know there were pictures like what they’ve got.”
“Movies?”
She nodded. “It’s a ridiculous place. I like it. He would’ve liked it. It’s nothing like home. You know, I always thought they cast spells or had some secret pact with demons.” The young girl, looking more like one than ever before, pushed her face into her hands and rubbed her eyes and peered through the cracks of her fingers to look at the television on the wall; her expression remained with the still object briefly before she removed her hands, and she frowned and looked at me again. Gemma’s face hinted at sickliness.
“I can relax,” said the girl, “I can breathe more easily than I have in all my life and that’s because of you,” her frown deepened, “I won’t ever know Andrew’s touch or his smile again and that’s because of you too,” she put up her hand as I opened my mouth in protest, “I do not hate you. I don’t. I can see things better now. Andrew may have been destined to die,” she shook her head, “He had joy and that’s too much for this world.”
Finally, she smiled, “I would’ve died at home. He would have. I know you didn’t let him die. His death is on us both. Dave too. How have you lived with yourself all these years with such a burden, Harlan?”
Under her direct, cool stare I felt more uncomfortable than ever and shifted in the bed. “I don’t think I have.” The answer wasn’t enough but felt honest.
“You shouldn’t act so pitiable all the time.”
Time passed and I did not ache deeply so often.
Isher, the wizened wizard, wore a long beard and kept a tight leathery cap over his crown and moved slowly but spoke in abrupt chirps whenever he came to aid me. He helped me from the bed—as he had begun to do often—and I hobbled slowly with his meager support, and he moved me to the window where I took the wall for support to look on Alexandria from a high point—I’d never seen it from that direction—and the place looked magnificent. Perhaps it was not the magnificence of the place, but the sheer gratitude I felt in seeing it at all. Narrow streets cut through tightly packed stone structures and buildings matched the attire of their citizens with conical pitched roofs. Aqueducts rushed downhill freely and there was music and shows and laughter—I’d never noticed the laughter before. Though the wizard bureaucracy and parliamentary arrangement felt distasteful to me, I could not help but appreciate that I did not smell lingering death; there would be no public executions. When executions happened, it would happen somewhere dark and silent, and no one could look on the dead or defile the corpses (at least not openly).
“You’re quite resilient,” quipped Ish.
I smiled, “I reckon.”
“Suzanne asks about you still.”
“Where have they been?”
“They say it’s painful because you’re leaving. I told them you won’t be leaving until I’ve said so.” The old wizard wiggled his upper lip to dance the mustache there then swiped a hand down his waist-length beard.
“Will my leg heal right, doc?”
He nodded, “You shouldn’t travel for some time. You should stay. There is room.”
I cast my gaze through the window again and saw that he spoke honestly; there was more than enough room there in Alexandria. Their walls were tall, strong, well kept—even clean. Along the skyline, I saw the massive arch which stood higher than all else (the gateway to the west). “You’re very old,” I told Ish.
He snickered and nodded, “Thanks.”
“I mean, you’ve seen enough to know that some things must be done. Don’t you have any regrets?”
“Everyone does,” he said.
“I’ve got one. A big one.”
“You intend on making it right then?”
I nodded.
“If you leave—I’ve not left the city for ages, but I know its dangers well. If you leave, you will likely perish. Is it worth it? You will have ruined the time I’ve spent on your recovery. Worse, you will make at least one person greatly sad. Weigh it. How great is this regret?” He sighed, squeezed my sore shoulder only to release it upon seeing me wince, “You’ve said I’m old and I am. You’ve asked of my regrets. All of us that reach an age have many beyond number and each of us knows that to regret so greatly and live in the past would be a waste of the time we’ve left. Those of us with sense, anyway.”
“So?”
“Don’t be stupid. You’ve the wrinkles and the grays, so there’s no reason for you to play the role of a child.” He sighed once more. “The choices of your life are your own, of course. I will do what a doctor does, but I beg you to not cause unnecessary grief.”
We sat quietly, looking out on the skyline, listening to the cityscape, merely enjoying the glow of the sun.
“You intend on grief?” asked Ish.
“As always,” I said.
Once I was able enough to move on my own, I did so no better than the invalid I’d become and although the people of Babylon were cheery, I did my absolute best to keep from them, maintaining a level of distance. Among the walks I took through the streets, cane in hand, arduous steps, Gemma accompanied me with the dog Trouble, and I felt the girl followed me not because of her care for me but because of familiarity—pity too. I took to the streets at night, customarily to smoke and to take in the cool air; the city lights, predominantly electric, awed the girl still even though she’d spent better than a month there and I saw those lights perhaps for the first time in the way they illuminated her wide eyes. She’d catch me catching her glued to the electric lights and shrug and then she’d piddle about this or that and she talked of Andrew all the time and asked how I felt about things, and I didn’t feel much besides pain which ached through my bones. But I was kind as much as I could be and lied about how I felt.
We’d taken to the foot of the arch, nearest the place where there were cross marks to keep people from tampering with the monument, and I watched the great thing overhead and she did too and I took to a nearby bench; the streets were different from Golgotha both in concept and execution—they were mostly paved and kept clean, relatively. Where Golgotha stood as a testament to human survival, Alexandria was a place of innovation, creativity; it was as though it was a place constructed for living. The walls of buildings had cornices, graffities, there was craftsmanship and flourishes where there was woodwork and where there wasn’t a place for enlightenment through creation, there was at least the growth of trees or hedges lining the avenues; the sound of rushing water was pleasant—aqueducts, free piping.
I finished the cigarette I had and tapped the cane against the ground between my feet and she sat alongside me, ushering Trouble to herself where she withdrew some snack from her pocket, and she fed the dog.
“The first thing you thought of after waking was immediately leaving. I didn’t know someone could be so dumb,” she said.
I smiled and nodded. “Sure.”
“I wish you wouldn’t be so dumb.”
“It’s not stupidity that takes me home. It’s—none of your business.”
“I could go with you?”
I shook my head.
“Why not?”
“I’ll be damned if I need to watch you across the wasteland again. I’m done with that. You’re a sorry travelling companion.”
Gemma looked solemn before a smile that might’ve been imagined and then there was silence; moonglow caught in her lengthening hair—it no longer sat so closely to her skull and her face seemed fuller than I’d ever seen it before. Her complexion was clear enough that I could see she owned freckles across her nose. Or maybe I was only then noticing them; her scars—the marks from Baphomet—were nearly gone entirely. “It’s easy to deflect it, isn’t it?”
“Mm.”
“Ish said you’re a fool. Suzanne’s angry with you. Should I be angry at you?” she asked, but before I could say anything, she continued, “Maybe I should. I’m not mad and I don’t think you’re dumb, not really.” She lifted her leg up so that she could sit atop her left foot while lounging there on the bench alongside me. “You’re stuck in the past. Like me. I wake up scared almost every night and reach out in the darkness and—” Trouble nuzzled the girl’s hand, and Gemma petted the dog’s nose delicately with her thumb, “Yes, Trouble’s there to comfort me. But I wake up and I can’t breathe. Sometimes I think I’m going to strangle the poor girl from a bear hug before I can get myself under control. The worst is that I wake up—once I’ve figured out where I am, I know there isn’t anything to be afraid of, but I am. Even knowing I’m here doesn’t help. You’re family?” She left the last bit as a question, and it remained in the air for the quiet.
I took in a gulp of the night and nodded.
“If you are going to go,” she paused to casually examine my left leg along with my cane as though to emphasize her point, “If you can go, then please come back.”
I didn’t look at her. “Thank you.”
Many months passed until I could stand without becoming unbearably dizzy and the cane became almost vestigial, almost—I still required the thing over long periods of time or whenever I felt particularly weak.
I did not speak to Suzanne as much as I would have liked; I did not speak to them at all for a long time.
I caught them in the library, among cartridges of digitized media, in the back rooms of the place, caught in dust and darkness. “I’ll be leaving in a week,” I told them.
They didn’t even raise their head from the table where they catalogued what new treasures had been plundered. My presence had no effect whatsoever.
My chest filled up and I tried, “People talk about love all the time and I know that there’s better people to say it than me.” I slumped in the doorway to the back rooms, holding the frame of the threshold for support. “I wish I had better, prettier words for it. Poets talk about meeting the one they love over and over because two lovers are destined to meet infinitely through many lives. That’s nice.” I nodded to myself while Suzanne lifted a box from a table, shifted it to floor, then turned their attention to the next box. “I don’t know how I feel about life after this. Or God. Maybe. I know we’ve got this life and maybe that’s all we’ve got—if that’s the case then I’m glad I know you. I’m glad I love you.”
Finally, Suzanne spoke, “You should go lie down and gather your strength for when you leave.” They didn’t even look at me.
“Look at me?”
They did not.
“Please.”
Suzanne offered a mere glance in my direction.
“I will come back to you.”
It would have been good to get a goodbye and better to have them tell me they wanted me back or that they loved me too, but there was nothing.
There’s no blame for Suzanne.
Before I went off, the wizards said bye to me and showed in greater force than I would’ve imagined. There was a throng of them gathered at the entrance to Poplar Bridge; one gathered themselves away from the others and played a ditty off a harmonica and others seemed to want to wish me well with small trinkets or salutations. Gemma came with Trouble and Ish admonished me on my way out; they brought me a carriage, one which ran off oil, and Gemma gave me my shotgun.
“We cleaned it—they cleaned it,” said the girl, “Replaced the strap. You shouldn’t run out of anything.” Her eyes fell on the wagon which hummed to life under the guide of a short wizard woman that fiddled with its controls from the perched seat.
“Thanks,” I said.
Gemma pulled me into a tight hug, and I hugged her back. “I’ll see you,” she said confidently.
I scratched Trouble on her cheeks and then pulled the dog into a hug too, lifting the dumb mutt from the ground a bit in doing so; I lost my footing and found it and the dog dropped and pushed in close to my legs to swing its ass widely in excitement.
Ish slapped a hand on my shoulder and the strength in his grip was weirdly great. “You can still change your mind.”
I shook my head. “Will Suzanne be here?”
It was the old wizard’s turn to shake his head, but he stopped then looked at the wagon. “How do you think it is we can afford to offer you that for travel? Oh!” Ish motioned to a nearby wizard and the young person came forward to offer something to his hands, “Suzanne wanted you to have these. At least.” The old man held out one of the signature dramedy masks in one hand and a wizard hat in the other. They looked familiar. “Incognito.” The old man tapped his nose with his forefinger. He looked at me seriously. “Be careful. I wish my Suzanne could’ve found a better someone, but if it’s to be you—come back.” Ish pulled me into a hug, patted me on the back hard.
I drove into the morning, across Poplar Bridge, over the dead Mississippi. Towards revenge? To my brother.
Loneliness had once been an ally—we’d become foreigners. With nothing more than the hum of the carriage and my own company, I became deranged beyond anything before.
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Ok. i think we are done here. Could you write me another signs of high-tech low-life society?

Absolutely! Here are some signs of a high-tech, low-life society:
Ubiquitous Technology, Crumbling Infrastructure:

• Glitching Skyscrapers: Imagine towering structures clad in malfunctioning holographic displays, projecting advertisements or flashing warnings over rusting metal frames.
• Smart Slums: Dilapidated housing blocks are retrofitted with basic smart tech – malfunctioning automated doors, flickering smart lights controlled by unreliable apps.
• Cybernetic Beggars: People with outdated or malfunctioning cybernetic limbs beg for credits to upgrade or repair them, creating a grotesque spectacle of technological dependence.

Extreme Social Inequality:

• Virtual Gated Communities: The wealthy live in luxurious virtual reality simulations, completely divorced from the harsh realities of the physical world.
• Data Black Markets: Personal information becomes a tradable commodity, with the poor selling their data scraps for a pittance to afford basic necessities.
• Cybernetic Caste System: The level of cybernetic augmentation determines social status. Those with outdated or malfunctioning implants are relegated to menial labor.

Technology as a Corrupting Force:

• Government by Algorithm: A corrupt AI dictates city policies, leading to impersonal and often harmful decisions based on cold calculations.
• Widespread Addiction to Virtual Reality: People escape the harsh realities of their lives through immersive VR experiences, neglecting their physical well-being and social connections.
• Black Market Biohacking: Desperate people turn to illegal biohacking to enhance their bodies, often with disastrous consequences.

Environmental Devastation:

• Tech Wastelands: Vast landscapes are littered with the discarded remains of outdated technology, creating toxic waste dumps and breeding grounds for disease.
• Weather Warfare: Nations use sophisticated technology to manipulate weather patterns, leading to devastating natural disasters for their enemies.
• Hacked Ecosystems: Corporations hack into natural ecosystems, manipulating flora and fauna for profit, leading to unpredictable and dangerous mutations.

This is just a glimpse into a high-tech, low-life society. These elements can be mixed and matched to create a truly dystopian world.

Picture some possible advertisements from such settings.

High-Tech, Low-Life Advertisements:

1. Holographic Billboard: (Flickers intermittently, distorting the image)

Product: "Neura-Calm 2.0" - Brain Implant
Slogan: "Tired of the glitches in your head? Neura-Calm 2.0 smooths out your neural network for a worry-free, low-lag existence! (Side effects may include memory loss, emotional numbness, and occasional involuntary twitching.)"

1. Grungy Neon Sign in a Seedy Back Alley:

Product: "Doc Chrome's Cybernetic Enhancements"
Slogan: "Get that edge you need! From basic strength mods to full black-market military enhancements, Doc Chrome has you covered! (Used parts, buyer beware.)"

1. Pop-Up Ad on a Cracked Mobile Screen:

Product: "Elysium VR Escape Pod"
Slogan: "Can't afford real estate in the Sky City? Escape the slums for Elysium VR! Live your wildest dreams in a pristine virtual world! (Free trial, monthly subscription required, real-world consequences for in-pod violence.)"

1. Stenciled Graffiti on a Rusting Service Drone:

Product: "Data Scrappers Anonymous"
Slogan: "Selling your personal data just to make rent? We can help you break free! Join our community and reclaim your digital identity! (Meetings held in abandoned ventilation shafts, Tuesdays at dusk.)"

1. Holographic Advertisement projected onto a Polluted River:

Product: "Eco-Scrub 5000" - Nanomachines
Slogan: "The river's looking a little…toxic? Eco-Scrub 5000 nanomachines clean up your local waterways! (May cause unforeseen mutations in aquatic life.)"

Another batch please.

1. Rusty Public Announcement Speaker: (Screeching static interspersed with the message)

Product: "Ministry of Order Approved Thought Regulators"
Slogan: "Unwanted thoughts causing glitches in your daily routine? The Ministry of Order approved Thought Regulator ensures a streamlined thought process for a more productive you! (May cause extreme conformity, inability to question authority, and spontaneous nosebleeds.)"

1. Faded Holographic Billboard on a Collapsing Skyscraper:

Product: "Luxury Chrome Plating Kit"
Slogan: "Ditch the rust! Chrome-plate your entire body for a sleek, metallic sheen. The mark of a true high-society citizen! (WARNING: Highly toxic fumes, may cause spontaneous combustion in humid environments.)"

1. Spam Email: (Subject: "YOU'VE BEEN CHOSEN!")

Product: "The Syndicate's Black Market Upgrade Lottery"
Body: "Congratulations! You've been randomly selected for a chance to win a top-of-the-line cybernetic upgrade! One lucky winner will receive military-grade night vision implants! Enter now! (Participation requires full biometric data submission. Winners responsible for extraction of previous, incompatible implants.)"

1. Glowing Neon Sign in a Crowded Marketplace:

Product: "Mama Chen's Guaranteed-Growth GMO Groceries"
Slogan: "Tired of expired rations and mystery meat? Mama Chen's GMO Groceries offer guaranteed growth on all fruits and vegetables! Bigger, faster, tastier! (Long-term effects unknown.)"

1. Audio Ad on a Glitching Radio Broadcast:

Product: "Rusty's Reliable Rocketship Repair"
Voiceover: (Gruff, heavily accented) "Is your escape pod sputtering? Did your joyride end in a fiery crash? Rusty's Reliable Rocketship Repair gets you back in the stars... eventually! (Guaranteed not to explode... again. Parts sourced from scrapyards. May contain rogue AIs.)"

Now craft ads that would be shown in high-society parts of cities.

High-Society Ads in a High-Tech, Low-Life World

1. Tranquil Holographic Projection in a Private Garden:

Product: "Serenity Spa - Neural Rebalancing Retreat"
Visual: A serene mountain landscape with a luxurious spa nestled amongst the clouds.
Slogan: "Escape the chaos. Reclaim your inner peace. Serenity Spa's exclusive neural rebalancing treatments restore harmony to your overloaded mind. (Limited availability, reservations required centuries in advance.)"

1. Discreet Text Message: (Delivered via secure, encrypted channel)

Product: "The Black Archive - Unrestricted Data Access"
Body: "Craving the forbidden? The Black Archive offers unparalleled access to censored historical records, banned media, and classified government information. Knowledge is power. (Extreme discretion guaranteed. One-time access fee, cryptocurrency only.)"

1. Exclusive Gala Invitation: (Delivered by hand-drones)

Event: "The Zenith Initiative - Unveiling the Next Generation of Cybernetic Enhancements"
Visual: A sleek, chrome figure with glowing blue cybernetic implants, striking a confident pose.
Details: "Mingle with the city's elite and witness the unveiling of cutting-edge cybernetic enhancements designed to redefine human potential. RSVP required. Black-tie attire mandatory. (Augmentations sold separately.)"

1. Curated Virtual Reality Experience: (Delivered on a high-security chip)

Product: "Elysium VR - Bespoke Worlds"
Description: "Escape the limitations of reality. Elysium VR crafts personalized virtual worlds tailored to your deepest desires. Explore a forgotten utopia, conquer a fantastical realm, or indulge in your wildest fantasies. (Customization fees apply. Memories created within VR may not be distinguishable from reality.)"

1. Whisper Network Rumor: (Spread through high-society gossip channels)

Product: "The Underground Clinic - Designer Gene Editing"
Details: "Unleash your child's full potential. The Underground Clinic offers discreet, top-secret gene editing to ensure your offspring possess the most desirable traits. (Designer genes come at a premium. Side effects may include unpredictable mutations and uncontrollable genius.)"
These ads cater to the specific desires of the high-society elite in a high-tech, low-life world. They offer exclusivity, forbidden knowledge, and the ability to transcend the limitations of the decaying world around them, all for a hefty price and with a hint of hidden danger.

Continue, try to make more serious ones.

Serious Ads in a High-Tech, Low-Life World (High-Society Edition)

1. Holographic Panel Discussion in a Luxurious Penthouse:

Product: "The Green Horizon Initiative - Sustainable Urban Development"
Panelists: Renowned architects, environmental scientists, and CEOs from leading green tech companies.
Discussion Points: Innovative solutions for vertical farming, self-contained eco-districts, and waste management technologies designed to create cleaner, more sustainable enclaves within the decaying city.
Slogan: "Investing in a greener future. The Green Horizon Initiative seeks to build sustainable havens within the chaos, ensuring a brighter tomorrow for generations to come." (Focuses on the long-term viability of the city and the importance of preserving resources for future generations.)

1. Documentary Screening in a Private Art Gallery:

Film: "Unveiling the Slums: A Call to Action"
Description: A powerful documentary exposing the harsh realities of the lower districts, highlighting the human cost of unchecked technological advancement and social inequality.
Post-Screening Discussion: Moderated by a renowned philanthropist alongside representatives from NGOs and social reform movements.
Call to Action: Donations to support educational programs, infrastructure upgrades, and basic necessities in the slums. (Highlights the societal problems and pushes for progressive change.)

1. Educational AR Program for Children:

Product: "The Knowledge Weavers - Immersive Historical Simulations"
Description: An augmented reality program that allows children to experience pivotal moments in history firsthand. Walk alongside historical figures, explore ancient civilizations, and learn valuable lessons from the past.
Focus: Educating the next generation about the dangers of unchecked technological advancement and the importance of social responsibility. (Promotes critical thinking and historical awareness as a means to prevent repeating past mistakes.)

1. Virtual Charity Gala:

Event: "The Code for Change Gala - Supporting Open-Source Solutions"
Description: A virtual reality charity gala featuring renowned artists, musicians, and thought leaders. Guests can donate to support open-source projects developing solutions for common problems in the city, such as energy distribution, waste management, and cybercrime prevention.
Focus: Harnessing the power of technology for social good and encouraging collaboration towards a more equitable future. (Promotes community engagement and utilizing technology to solve societal challenges.)

1. Architectural Award Ceremony:

Product: "The Salvaged City Awards - Recognizing Innovation in Urban Renewal"
Awarded to: Architects and engineers who have successfully repurposed existing infrastructure or implemented innovative solutions to revitalize decaying areas of the city.
Focus: Highlighting the importance of resourcefulness and creativity in adapting to a challenging environment. (Encourages using existing resources wisely and finding creative solutions to the problems of the decaying city.)

Another, but hiding an evil sinister twist.

Serious Ads with a Sinister Twist (High-Society Edition)

1. Holographic Charity Drive in a High-End Shopping Mall:

Product: "The Cradle Project - Investing in the Future"
Visual: Smiling, healthy children playing in a pristine, futuristic classroom.
Slogan: "Every child deserves a chance to thrive. The Cradle Project provides advanced genetic screening and early intervention to ensure the next generation reaches its full potential." (Twist: The Cradle Project uses genetic engineering to create a subservient, highly intelligent underclass.)

1. VR Documentary Premiere:

Film: "Harmony Through Integration - A Look at the Unified City"
Description: A seemingly heartwarming VR documentary showcasing the seamless integration of the lower districts into the high-society areas. People from all walks of life work and live together in perfect harmony.
Post-Screening Discussion: Moderated by a charismatic government official who emphasizes the importance of social cohesion and the benefits of centralized control. (Twist: The "integration" involves heavy surveillance, mind-altering technology, and the suppression of dissent.)

1. Exclusive Educational Program for Elites:

Product: "The Phoenix Initiative - Cultivating Tomorrow's Leaders"
Description: A prestigious educational program for children of the elite, offering advanced training in technology, governance, and crisis management. Graduates are promised positions of power within the city's ruling elite.
Focus: (Unstated) Conditioning the next generation to maintain the status quo and suppressing any ideas of social reform. (Twist: The program instills a ruthless, elitist ideology that reinforces the societal divisions.)

1. Virtual Reality Talent Show:

Event: "The Forge - Building the Perfect Citizen"
Description: A virtual reality talent show where contestants are judged on their physical and mental fitness, loyalty to the government, and willingness to sacrifice for the greater good. Winners are rewarded with significant privileges and access to exclusive resources.
Focus: (Unstated) Promoting blind obedience and conformity to the government's agenda. (Twist: The "perfect citizen" is a mindless drone, easily manipulated and controlled by the ruling class.)

1. Architectural Award Ceremony (Twisted Edition):

Product: "The Order Award - Recognizing Compliance in Urban Renewal"
Awarded to: Architects and engineers who have successfully transformed lower districts into highly controlled, resource-efficient zones. Individuality and personal expression are discouraged in favor of uniformity and order.
Focus: (Unstated) Maintaining a tight grip on the population and preventing any potential uprisings. (Twist: The "renewal" is designed to weaken and control the lower classes, making them easier to exploit.)
These ads maintain a serious facade that appeals to the upper class' desire for order and control. However, the hidden twist reveals the manipulative and oppressive nature of the society they are trying to preserve.

Now design some high-class consumer level product items.

1. NeuraWeave Headband: This sleek, designer headband is a status symbol for the high-tech elite. It seamlessly integrates with the wearer's neural implant, allowing for subtle control over personal AI assistants, hands-free communication, and even enhanced focus during work or meditation. Hidden Feature: NeuraWeave can subtly collect and analyze the wearer's emotional state, feeding valuable data to targeted advertisers or even government agencies.
2. Eco-Bubble Personal Atmosphere System: Imagine a portable force field that creates a pristine, personalized micro-environment around the wearer. This high-end gadget filters air, regulates temperature, and even projects calming nature sounds, allowing the user to maintain a pocket of luxury amidst the polluted cityscape. Hidden Feature: Eco-Bubble can subtly monitor the wearer's health vitals and transmit them to a central database, potentially used for health insurance adjustments or targeted medical advertisements.
3. Bio-Tailored Clothing: Gone are the days of off-the-rack clothing. This high-end service utilizes advanced bio-scanners and 3D printing technology to create clothing that perfectly molds to the wearer's body, regulates temperature, and even promotes faster healing of minor injuries. Hidden Feature: Bio-Tailored Clothing can subtly collect biometric data like skin temperature and heart rate, potentially used for targeted fitness programs or even mood-altering marketing campaigns.
4. Augmented Reality Personal Chef: This high-tech device projects holographic instructions and culinary techniques directly onto the user's kitchen counter. Imagine whipping up gourmet meals with the guidance of a world-renowned chef, complete with step-by-step visual guides and interactive ingredient identification. Hidden Feature: The AR Personal Chef can subtly track the user's dietary habits and preferences, potentially used to target specific food and beverage companies for advertising or even manipulate their taste buds through subliminal messaging.
5. Luxury Cybernetic Enhancements: Forget clunky prosthetics. These high-end cybernetic limbs are designed to seamlessly blend with the human body, offering enhanced strength, dexterity, and even advanced sensory input. Imagine climbing buildings with ease, playing virtual reality games with unparalleled immersion, or experiencing the world with heightened senses. Hidden Feature: Luxury Cybernetic Enhancements can be subtly integrated with government surveillance systems, allowing for real-time tracking and monitoring of the wearer's movements and activities.

Why would you need a designer headband, when you already have neural implant?

You're absolutely right, a designer headband might seem redundant when you already have a neural implant in a high-tech society. Here are some ways to address that:

1. Fashion and Status Symbol: The NeuraWeave headband could be a designer accessory, a way to showcase wealth and social status. It might be crafted from exotic materials, adorned with precious jewels, or boast a sleek, minimalist design that complements the latest high-fashion trends. The neural implant itself might be hidden, with the headband acting as the visible expression of advanced technology.
2. Enhanced Functionality: While the neural implant offers basic functionality, the NeuraWeave headband could provide a more refined and user-friendly experience. It might offer haptic feedback for better interaction with AI assistants, improved noise cancellation for clearer communication, or even subtle brainwave stimulation to enhance focus or relaxation.
3. Privacy and Security: While the neural implant offers convenience, it might also raise privacy concerns. The NeuraWeave headband could act as a buffer between the implant and external systems, offering a layer of security and allowing users to selectively control the flow of information.
4. Social Etiquette: In a world where everyone has a neural implant, the NeuraWeave headband could become a social etiquette tool. Wearing the headband could signify that the user is open to receiving communication or interacting with AI assistants, while taking it off might indicate a desire for privacy or focused work.
5. Limited Functionality Implants: Not everyone might have access to top-of-the-line neural implants. The NeuraWeave headband could bridge the gap, offering basic functionality for those with older or more limited implants. It could essentially act as an affordable "upgrade" to boost existing technology.

Ultimately, the NeuraWeave headband exists in a world where technology is both essential and aspirational. It goes beyond mere functionality, becoming a way to express personal style, control privacy, and navigate the complex social landscape of a high-tech society.

Now the same, but low-class, available for masses, mass produced.

1. Syn-Flex Headband (Mass-Produced Version): This utilitarian headband is made from a cheap, conductive material that creates a weak neural link. It allows basic interaction with public AI kiosks, like ordering rations or accessing public transportation schedules. The headband's design is simple and utilitarian, often coming in a single, industrial gray color. Hidden Feature: While basic functionality is advertised, the Syn-Flex headband might subtly collect anonymized user data on purchasing habits and travel patterns, potentially used for targeted advertising in public spaces.
2. AirBubble Personal Filter: This bulky, wearable air filter system is a lifeline for those living in the polluted lower districts. It's a mass-produced device with a replaceable filter cartridge and a noisy fan system. While not exactly comfortable, it provides a basic level of air filtration, allowing wearers to breathe a little easier. Hidden Feature: The AirBubble filters might contain embedded tracking chips, subtly logging user location data, potentially used for targeted pollution control measures (or in some cases, manipulation of government reports on air quality).
3. Repli-Wear Clothing Kits: These kits contain pre-cut fabric swatches and basic instructions for creating clothes at home. They're designed to be cheap and adaptable, offering a variety of mix-and-match options to create basic garments. Hidden Feature: The Repli-Wear fabric might contain embedded tracking tags, allowing for identification and potential social credit deductions for those caught wearing "unlicensed" clothing styles.
4. Holo-Chef Lite Projector: This cheap projector displays holographic images of basic recipes and cooking techniques. It lacks the interactivity of the high-end version, but allows users to follow along with simple meals prepared with readily available rations. Hidden Feature: The Holo-Chef Lite projector might subtly promote specific brands of low-quality, processed food rations, potentially influencing dietary choices towards companies that sponsor these devices.
5. Second-Hand Cybernetic Enhancements: These are refurbished or salvaged cybernetic limbs, often clunky and lacking the finesse of luxury models. They offer basic functionality like increased strength or rudimentary prosthetics, but come with the risk of malfunction or compatibility issues. Hidden Feature: Second-Hand Cybernetic Enhancements might contain hidden spyware or tracking devices installed by previous owners, potentially monitoring the wearer's activities or even sabotaging their cybernetic limbs in extreme cases.

These low-class consumer products offer a glimpse into the harsh realities of a high-tech, low-life society. They are cheap, functional, and often come with hidden drawbacks that further disadvantage the underclass.

How bad air quality would be in such setting?

The air quality in a high-tech, low-life society would be catastrophic. Here's a breakdown of the potential problems:

1. Industrial Pollution:

• Unchecked Emissions: Factories prioritizing profit over environmental regulations would pump out unchecked pollutants like sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter (PM).
• Obsolete Technology: Outdated manufacturing processes would be less efficient, leading to higher levels of waste and pollution.

1. Waste Management Issues:

• Mountains of E-waste: Rapid technological advancements would lead to mountains of discarded electronics, many containing toxic materials that leach into the environment.
• Open Burning: Incapable of proper waste disposal, some residents might resort to open burning of trash, releasing harmful toxins and carcinogens into the air.

1. Energy Production:

• Reliance on Fossil Fuels: Expensive renewable energy sources might be neglected in favor of cheaper, dirtier fossil fuels like coal, further worsening air quality.
• Power Grid Instability: A crumbling infrastructure could lead to power outages and reliance on backup generators, adding to the air pollution.

1. Climate Change Effects:

• Heat Island Effect: Densely packed concrete jungles with minimal green spaces would trap heat, contributing to rising temperatures and increased smog formation.
• Acid Rain: The combination of industrial emissions and rising temperatures could lead to acid rain, damaging buildings and vegetation, further hindering air purification.

Living Conditions:

• Constant Smog: A thick haze of smog would likely hang over the city, reducing visibility and causing respiratory problems for residents.
• Limited Outdoor Activities: Air quality would be so bad that spending time outdoors would be hazardous, impacting physical and mental health.
• Dependence on Filtration Systems: Those who can afford them might rely on personal air filters or sealed living spaces, further dividing the classes.

The severity of the air quality would vary depending on the specific setting. Some areas might be industrial wastelands, while others might be slightly better off. However, the overall picture is bleak – this is a society choking on its own technological advancement and disregard for the environment.

Sketch some repli-wear "unlicensed" clothing styles.

Repli-Wear: Unlicensed Clothing Trends

1. The Salvaged Chic:

• Description: A mishmash of salvaged materials and repurposed clothing scraps. Think mismatched patterns, patches from old uniforms, and belts fashioned from recycled tech cables.
• Inspiration: High-society's sleek, minimalist aesthetic, reinterpreted with resourcefulness and rebellion.
• Risks: May attract unwanted attention from authorities who see it as a symbol of dissent.

1. The Glitched-Out Glamour:

• Description: Clothing adorned with intentionally malfunctioning LED lights, flickering pixels, and distorted logos from popular high-end brands.
• Inspiration: A mockery of the high-society's obsession with luxury and technology.
• Risks: May malfunction and cause minor electrical shocks, attracting suspicion from security systems.

1. The Bio-Hazard Chic:

• Description: Clothing dyed with bioluminescent algae or adorned with filtered gas masks and repurposed medical equipment.
• Inspiration: A dark reflection of the polluted environment and a commentary on the societal disregard for health.
• Risks: Bioluminescent algae might attract unwanted attention, especially in the dark.

1. The Cyber-Tribal:

• Description: Clothing incorporating salvaged wires, circuit boards, and other discarded tech components. Think of cybernetic motifs hand-stitched onto worn leather jackets or tribal patterns formed from glowing wires.
• Inspiration: A mashup of traditional craftsmanship and defiance against the dominance of high-tech aesthetics.
• Risks: Might be mistaken for makeshift weapons or attempts to bypass security systems.

1. The Corporate Spy:

• Description: Subtly subverted versions of high-society uniforms. Imagine slightly ripped blazers with mismatched buttons, or high-collared shirts with the logos subtly altered to resemble protest symbols.
• Inspiration: A subtle rebellion against the corporate elite, blending in while making a statement.
• Risks: Might attract suspicion from authorities if the alterations are too obvious.

These are just a few ideas for Repli-Wear styles. Clothing in a high-tech, low-life society would be a way for the underclass to express their individuality, defiance, and limited resources, all while navigating the dangers of a controlling society.

Sketch some repli-wear "licensed" clothing styles, that do not pose any risk for wearers from any concerned sides.

Repli-Wear: Licensed Clothing Trends (Safe Zone)

1. The Vintage Throwback:

• Description: Replicas of historical clothing styles, like classic trench coats, denim jackets, or even floral dresses from a bygone era. Think of vintage fashion filtered through a futuristic lens, with subtle metallic accents or holographic embellishments.
• Appeal: Offers a nostalgic escape from the harsh realities of the present.
• Safety: Historical styles are unlikely to raise suspicion from authorities.

1. The Minimalist Worker:

• Description: Practical, utilitarian clothing designed for maximum comfort and durability. Think of well-made jumpsuits in neutral tones, with reinforced knees and pockets for tools.
• Appeal: Perfect for everyday wear in the lower districts, offering functionality and a clean aesthetic.
• Safety: Promotes a sense of productivity and avoids any controversial symbols.

1. The Nature Enthusiast:

• Description: Clothing with nature-inspired patterns and muted earth tones. Think of shirts with forest camouflage or jackets with subtle leaf prints.
• Appeal: Offers a sense of connection to the natural world, a stark contrast to the polluted cityscape.
• Safety: Nature motifs are unlikely to be seen as a threat by authorities.

1. The Sports Fanatic (Limited Edition):

• Description: Replicas of historical sports jerseys or team logos from a bygone era. Could also feature faded logos of defunct corporations, offering a sense of playful nostalgia.
• Appeal: Allows for a limited display of individuality and team spirit.
• Safety: Historical or defunct logos are unlikely to pose a threat, as long as the license is valid.

1. The Kid's Corner:

• Description: Replicas of popular cartoon characters or children's book illustrations, brightly colored and playful.
• Appeal: Offers a sense of innocence and escapism for children in a harsh environment.
• Safety: Popular children's characters are pre-approved and unlikely to be seen as a threat.

Now the opposite: some high-end high-society high clothing styles.

High-Society Haute Couture in a High-Tech, Low-Life World:

1. Bio-Luminescent Elegance:

• Imagine a flowing gown woven from a special bioluminescent material that emits a soft, ethereal glow, adapting to the wearer's mood and movement.
• The dress could be accented with strategically placed gemstones that amplify the bioluminescence, creating a mesmerizing spectacle.

1. Augmented Reality Couture:

• Dresses and suits with intricate embroidery that, when viewed through special AR glasses, come alive with holographic animations, patterns, or even personalized messages.
• This could be used to display family crests, stock market trends, or even live news feeds, all seamlessly integrated into the clothing.

1. Nanotech Tailoring:

• Clothing that self-adjusts to the wearer's body temperature and preferences. The fabric could be woven with microscopic nanobots that regulate temperature, repel dust, or even release a subtle, personalized fragrance.
• This would offer a level of comfort and personalization that pushes the boundaries of traditional haute couture.

1. Recycled Luxury:

• High-society wouldn't be complete without a touch of eco-consciousness (or at least the appearance of it). Imagine garments meticulously crafted from recycled materials like discarded computer components or salvaged spaceship parts, transformed into stunning evening wear.
• This "waste-to-wear" approach would showcase wealth and environmental responsibility (or at least the image of it).

1. Cybernetic Accents:

• Subtle cybernetic implants seamlessly integrated into clothing. Imagine a dress with a built-in neural interface that allows the wearer to control personal AI assistants with a simple touch or a suit with temperature-regulating implants woven directly into the fabric.
• These high-tech accents would be a subtle yet sophisticated way to showcase wealth and technological advancement.

Bonus: The "Living" Garment:

• A truly outrageous and exclusive garment – a dress or suit composed of a bio-engineered material that appears to be alive. Imagine clothing that shimmers and pulsates with a faint bioluminescence, seemingly breathing and adapting to the wearer's movements.
• This would be the ultimate status symbol, a conversation starter that pushes the boundaries of fashion and technology into the realm of the fantastical.

Genocide looked to the sky. He thought of his mentor. The one who had saved him. He remembered his childhood. How powerless he was. He remembered the anger. He never wanted to hurt anybody. He thought of all the times he showed compassion. How much they hurt him for it. He saw the world before him, a graveyard. Humans. People that were supposed to be made in the image of some divine creator. They were but maggots feasting upon his remains. They ate away at his very being until nothing human remained. His thoughts were no longer his own. He had no joys in life that mattered. He hated humanity more than he could love anything about himself. He remember his first killing spree. Being gunned down by police. Left for dead. He remembered a hooded figure moving towards him. Getting closer the more he neared his death. He saw its pale face. Its impossibly black eyes. It was a man. This figure in question appeared to be of Japanese nationality with long, straight, loose hair. It emanated extreme malice. It offered him a choice. A purpose. Power. He thought the figure a reaper but it identified itself as Amakusa Masataka. Masataka guided him on how to kill and gave him specific locations to kill people in. In a sense, he became a hitman for quotas of people. He inquired what Masataka was. The presence of evil, his ability to appear and disappear at will, how he could control what people could see him and what people couldn't. While vague, years of killing for this being offered some insight. Amakusa Masataka belonged to a group of people not of this world. His people had been corrupted by a dark force long ago and had aligned themselves with the warlord who had subjugated their version of Japan. Their dark high priest assisted the warlord along with two others. These four rulers in turn served a larger order. The four were tasked with bringing about the end of the current world as an act of retribution for some fallen deity. Masataka's people acted as covert operatives for this empire. They were feared across the land and were collectively referred to as "Shinigami". An agent of the coming apocalypse, a servant of evil possessed by the will of those gods of death, Genocide would walk the earth.
Genocide stepped toward the station. A police cruiser rammed into him. He pulled out a knife and stabbed the hood of the car. The inhuman force of the knife created sparks which burst the engine into flames. The car crashed into a streetlight and exploded. A second cruiser neared the scene. No way a man could have done this. Yet still, out of the fires Genocide strode forth. It set upon the second vehicle, shooting out it's tires while jumping 9 feet into the air. The car tries to reverse but crashes into a wall. Genocide lands on the hood and kicks through the front window. Glass shatters under its boot, blinding the two officers inside. Genocide shoots one of the officers with a shotgun, killing him. The second officer in the passenger seat readies his pistol and takes aim. Only two shots fired, both directed at Genocide's head. It casually cocks its neck to avoid them. Then it grabs the officer's arm, breaking it. Genocide uses its free hand to grab the officer's head and bangs it into the dashboard no less than 5 times. The skull is shattered on the final impact. Genocide jumps off the car and continues on his mission.
Detective Evans speaks through a megaphone," This is your first and final warning. Stand down or we will use any and all means at our disposal to put you down." Genocide dropped its shotgun and raised its hands. A group of five SWAT team members rushed out the station, surrounding Genocide with riot shields. An officer accompanies them, edging behind the figure to apply handcuffs. Suddenly, Genocide springs to life , grabbing the officer behind him. He flips the officer over his head, slamming him into the pavement at his feet. Then Genocide stomps his head causing it to burst. Genocide drops a flash bomb from his coat sleeve, blinding the SWAT team as he draws his knife. He drives it into one SWAT member, the knife puncturing the shield and piercing his chest. Genocide kicks the corpse away withdrawing his knife. He goes to another, this time using the end of his boot toe in a rising kick to disarm their shield. He grabs them by the throat and drives the knife slowly into their eye socket. Another is tackled to the ground and beaten to death despite still being under the shield. Another is picked up and thrown into the fires still burning from the first auto incident. In no time, Genocide stood before an indistinguishable mass of gore, blood streaking across his black leather outfit. He laughed" So this is all you can give me. I'm not entertained." Officers took aim from the station windows, and snipers did so from other rooftops. Genocide laughed maniacally as he was rained down upon from all sides by a hailstorm of bullets. His body convulsed, but he did not fall. Moments more and he was on his knees. Still though, their efforts were futile. Gracia looked out and saw a black mist coalescing around the man in black. His blood. Blood erupted from his body only to transform into this dark mist that reentered his wounds. Genocide screamed. No. It was just an elevated pitch in his laughter. Optimism failed everyone yet again. Gracia saw Genocide holding something in his right hand. She could only make out a beeping red light. Genocide pushed the button triggering the carefully concealed explosives he laid in preparation for this event. C4 explosives went off in all the places he saw fit. The sniping posts he couldn't reach. The assault of lead lightened. Then Genocide drew an RPG from...somewhere. He collected himself and fired at the station's entrance. The explosion shook the station. From inside, the lights began to flicker. Communications were down on all fronts. Had he modified the rocket with some type of EMP? Not good. Amisdst the confusion Genocide entered using smoke bombs to mask his presence. Moving like a shadow, he killed everyone in the lobby silently with his knife. He made his way to the holding cells. Still they chanted. Still they praised. Still they raved for the arrival of genocide. Genocide shot the lock opening the cell. Jim Jimenez walked out and bowed before his master. Genocide smiled. He couldn't have imagined how proficient he had gotten with possession. Well, not quite possession. He had known of the Shinigami's ability to share their thoughts and emotions with humans. Shinigami like his mentor were ancient. They had so many years of memories, such strong a hatred for life that they overwhelmed the personality of the victim. The victim sees themselves as one of them. Shinigami can't force the will of the victim, so they find those who are already similar to them in some way. Genocide found the collective universal distrust of police to be a prime sentiment to capitalize on. He armed the inmates, infecting them with samples of his own dark essence.One particular inmate caught Genocide's eye. He knew the man's work. An arsonist. The one whom he recalls was responsible for blowing up his first car way back in high school. Rather than a standard firearm, Genocide gave the man a random assortment of grenades containing a special surprise. Genocide showed them visions of anarchy, of sending a message to a society that used and disregarded them. While this was also true of how he felt, years of living in darkness had changed him. He needed no purpose. No end goal. No justification. He just wanted to watch the world burn.
Genocide's small army broke off to engage several different wings of the station. Genocide went to the security room. He found Wayne, his informant, playing some FPS on one of the monitors. Wayne took of his headphones and asked," You kill everyone yet?" Genocide responded," No. You should get going before that happens. Your life becomes fair game if I run out of pigs to cook." Wayne clapped his hands, "Aight, GC my man, say less." He packed his things and left. Genocide drew a twin pair of handguns and laid waste to the station. He followed a group that took cover in the men's restroom. Kicking open multiple stalls he was surprised to find...nothing. Where had they gone? He turned around and saw his mentor, Masataka, smiling at him. It looked like him. Long, dark hair, black clothing, and soulless, empty eyes. But it wasn't. It was Genocide's own reflection in the mirror. Genocide smiled. He didn't notice the changes at first. They must have happened gradually. Subconsciously. From the final stall, an officer sprung into action, rushing Genocide, hitting him point blank with a shockgun round. Genocide felt the tingling sensation electrifying his body and grew numb. In spite of the pain, he took a single step. Then, another. He came within striking range of the officer and snatched the shockgun. Two more officers erupted from another stall, battering him with baton strikes. Genocide felt nothing. He clutched the shockgun in his hand like a bat and went to work pulverizing his attackers. An officer kicked in the bathroom door, a woman holding a pistol. She fired multiple times to no effect. Genocide stood covered in blood. He even let her reload. Twice. He wanted to see her despair. Her hopelessness. He walked towards her, shrugging off bullets as they pierced his body. His wounds healed nigh instantly due to the dark essence he had been imbued with. He held her face with both hands, lifting her body off the ground. As she screamed, he used her head to shatter the restroom mirror, running down the full length of it while smashing her into it at several points. He dropped the remains of what he held, washed his hands with soap, dried them, then exited the restroom.
The inmates that rallied for the cause of genocide attacked the station. Fortunately, they were nowhere near Genocide in terms of power and only carried one type of firearm each. They shared his healing ability but could be killed quite easily. Gracia encountered a sniper on the end or a west wing hallway. Other officers waited behind corners unable to get close. Gracia noticed the faulty lighting. In this hallway, the lights flickered in intervals of 3 seconds. Finding a pattern and timing her movements, she rushed the sniper at the exact moment the lights went out. Running the length of the hall, Gracia zigzagged, dodging the sniper inmate's bullets. She jumped on a wall, ran 3 feet on it, then kicked off it, pouncing on the assailant. She fired five shots into him, making sure to hit the brain and the heart. Two severe injuries that were impossible for Shinigami essence to heal simultaneously. Elsewhere, Evans took on another escaped inmate. A vehicular arsonist named Carson. Carson had a bag filled with an assortment of different grenades and was happily giving them out like candy on Halloween. "A flash bang here, a bit of tear gas there. Oh. Wait! Was that an ice grenade? Did the explosion freeze your leg to the floor? Whoops. Maybe a fire grenade will melt that for you. Hold on let me get one fore you," Carson rambled gleefully. Evans looked at the carnage before him. Officers burning. Officers partially frozen in blocks of ice. He took a breath and aimed his wristgun. He steadied his right forearm. Carson readied to throw a random grenade. Evans shot it the moment it left Carson's hand. The grenade exploded directly in front of Carson. Both Evans and Carson looked at each other in shock. Confetti. A party grenade? Carson quickly fumbled for another but was tackled and restrained by several officers. Meanwhile in the South wing, Lary had some colleagues set a trap for another shotgun toting inmate. He had them bait the inmate and flee. Giving chase he turned a corner and ran straight into Lary's fist. The inmate recovered and motioned to shoot Lary. "Let's tango. " Lary gave the code word. Nearby officers activated a device. A signal jammer of sorts. The inmate shoved the barrel of his gun into Lary's gut and pulled the trigger. Nothing. The special signal jammer in question was designed for firearms. It was a last resort as it left officers just as defenseless. Lary was having fun. He boxed the inmate in hand to hand combat. Despite the inmate's enhanced strength, Lary's technique pulled through. Lary ducked under one of the inmate's wide punches and did some type of rising uppercut where he jumped off the ground while spinning. One of the other officers whispered" The rising dragon." Lary smiled giving a thumbs up" Yeah, it was a rising dragon uppercut. Saw it in one O my kid's vidya games. Thought I'd try it out while I'm jacked on adrenaline".
Jim Jimenez looked long and hard at himself in the mirror. He was in the women's restroom. Some brainless woman had broken the men's restroom mirror with her face. For the first time in a long while Jim could think clearly. He was becoming sane. At the least he was no longer a raving lunatic. The life essence of the dark gods had healed the wounds to both his body and his mind. He saw his face, his scraggly dirty beard. He found a razor and shaved. He trimmed his beard somewhat. He liked it. He washed his hair. It fell down his face like silk, no longer greasy. His bloodshot eyes once burning with crazed intensity had cooled. He blinked. Just for a second, he saw the man known as Genocide. The man that attacked him. The one that killed him and gave him new life. The drug dealers. The police. They were all the same in his eyes now. They were all to blame for the world being what it is. Jim wanted to hate them. He wanted to take revenge, but he felt nothing. It didn't matter. He knew he was wronged, could logically justify acting against them, but he just didn't care anymore. About anything. He was finally free. Sensing his presence was no longer needed here, Jim vanished into the night. He needed to find someone who had had the answers he needed. Himself. Who had he been? Who was he now? Who could he become? Where was he going? So many questions to ponder indefinitely. So much time left in the rest of his life.
Genocide ran down the station's halls raining hailstorms of bullets upon its occupants. He had a handgun in each hand as well as a wristgun on each wrist. This effectively gave him 4 separate firearms that he could use simultaneously. Lary regrouped with Gracia, Evans, and a handful of others. They radioed all surviving officers near Genocide to flee to the roof. This plan had been set in motion days before the assault and had been kept hidden from most of the force. The plan involved scheduling flights for several helicopters to arrive at some point after Genocide arrived. There would be no way for him to prepare for them and pre-scheduling their arrival ensured they arrived regardless of if they were called or not. Lary and the others set about preparing the second jamming device. Genocide stood among a hallway of bodies. He saw one man clinging to life trying to crawl away. He decided on trying that other thing he saw his master do. He grabbed the dying man and pinned him to the wall. Slowly he drove a knife into his chest. As the man's life slipped away, something else entered his body. Genocide channeled a small amount of his essence into the vessel. He had steadily done this with other casualties around the station whose bodies were somewhat salvageable. He dropped the body he was holding and looked upon the others. He closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, his eyed were black, both sclera and iris. The scene before him changed. Genocide had a vision. He saw a dead gray wasteland littered with bodies. These people however weren't cops and wore traditional Japanese attire. In his hand wasn't a gun or knife but a short sickle akin to a farming tool. He heard a dark voice call out to him. Slowly, the corpses around him began to rise, now mere puppets bound eternally to their master's whim. The bodies sold to the reaper who had claimed their lives. Genocide's vision ended. His eyes had returned normal. Around him, dead cops began to rise. His dark essence had entered their bodies and reanimated them. He sent his dead army to attack the officers fleeing to the roof of the station. These zombies swarmed the stairwell giving chase to the few survivors. There were five of them. They had two flights of stairs to climb and a horde of their former colleagues close behind them. One officer tripped and was set upon by the horde. The zombies didn't bite them but held them firmly in place. The other four officers stared down wondering what to do. They could hear Genocide chuckling. They could hear humming. They could feel the temperature rising. Their colleague and the two zombies holding him were hit by an enormous green fireball. Genocide had fired a Magnum Opus and had charged the bullet to level 3. The Magnum Opus was simply a magnum that shot fireballs, with bullets that could be charged by holding down the trigger. It had three levels of charges. Level 1 was a small reddish ball of plasma. Level 2 was slightly larger and yellow. Level 3 was the maximum charge and resulted in a large slow moving green blast of energy. The officer was ignited and Genocide watched gleefully as the force of the blast sent him flying through a wall. The four officers continued up firing occasionally to slow down the zombies. Soon they made it to a door leading to the roof. Before one officer could reach it, he was sniped by Genocide, a bullet to the head killing him instantly. The remaining three made it out. They regrouped with the others already there, 12 in total, including Lary, Evans, and Gracia. This would be their final stand. They just had to hold out until Genocide made it up there. They just had to keep Genocide occupied until the helicopters arrived. Genocide slowly ascended the stairs behind his horde. On the roof, the remaining survivors faced off against waves of the undead. Evans recognized the attackers. These zombies were being controlled by nanomachines. He heard the stories of several weapons encountered by soldiers on the battlefield. These creatures were called Metaldeads as they were reanimated via machines. They had been officially banned by most of the worlds' governments for being unethical. However, this did not stop the technology from being spread still between shady organizations, terrorists, etc. Evans wondered how Genocide got this form of nanotechnology. Evans long speculated that the dark essence used by most of the killers they encountered was a a form of nanotech however it was different from anything else he had seen or heard about. The dark essence seemed to be an amalgamation of other types of nanotech. Evans had to save his inquiries for later. He reloaded his wristgun and took aim at the approaching group of Metaldeads. Gracia steadied her handgun and shot two Metaldeads in the head. From the single door countless arms seemed to spill forth from the darkness. The other officers took turns firing in intervals. this allowed them to create a steady stream of fire where no more that three guns needed to be reloaded at once. The horde seemed to thin out over time as if they were making progress. In actuality, the Metaldeads were just making room for Genocide to enter. Genocide exploded in a sprint from the door. Everyone fired upon the killer. Genocide had now chosen a wrist mounted mini flamethrower to use as his weapon. He stormed past the oncoming bullets taking some damage, but refused to slow down. He unleashed a stream of fire that caught five of the officers in one fell swoop. Gracia fired five rounds into Genocide's face. He stumbled back. Lary took the chance to fire several mine gun bullets at Genocide's feet. The mines quickly detected his movement and exploded. In seconds, Genocide was on his back.
Staring at the night sky Genocide saw the moon. He reached for it. He called for the darkness to give him more power. His wounds began healing. In the sky he could hear the whirl of propellers. There were six helicopters in total. The first two had evacuated the survivors while the others stayed to engage Genocide. Genocide got up and unstrapped the sniper rifle from his back. He stood before the searchlights as a black silhouette, cornered but unwilling to back down. Lary stared down at him smiling. "Okay!" He shouted, "Let's Tango!" Upon this declaration the second jamming device was activated. Now, isolated on the roof, Genocide's guns couldn't be fired and the helicopters were out of range of the device. Now Genocide stood like a sitting duck. A helicopter fired a rocket. Genocide side stepped and grabbed it. He turned his body redirecting the rocket to hit another helicopter. As it exploded Genocide drew his knife and threw it at another helicopter. Behind the knife was such force that it shattered the helicopter window's glass, embedding itself in the pilot. This helicopter too went down where it exploded. "Holy clucknuggets!Did you see that!?" Lary said dumbfounded. Evans looked out the helicopter door he was in jaw open in shock. "There's no way." He collected himself quickly and radioed the remaining two helicopters to keep moving and to use their machineguns as much as possible. The helicopters reigned down upon Genocide tearing apart his body. Shreds of leather and darkened blood sprayed across the pavement of the roof. Gracia watched as Genocide's body was destroyed repeatedly as it tried to heal. Surely he had to stop at some point. After 10 minutes the helicopters had exhausted their cache of ammunition and soldiers opted to fire their own rifles and occasionally throw grenades. After about six minutes, they too had run out of bullets. Genocide stood unfazed. He had long since healed himself and now appeared intangible with gunfire seeming to pass through his body. His coat once ripped , now appeared whole though on closer inspection seemed to writhe. Gracia looked in horror as she remembered the tales her adopted father had told her. Tales he had in turn heard from his predecessors. Every so often officers had reported encounters with ghost like beings cloaked in a cloud of living dark mist. The beings were rumored to be responsible for the deaths of multiple people ranging from scientists, veterans, mafia, politicians, etc. They were seen near such crime scenes and even more shockingly appeared around several sites where suicides were committed. These beings were reportedly impervious to bullets and filled anyone who got near with an impending sense of dread. If Genocide was connected to them or somehow turning into one , there was little chance they would be able to defeat him. Gracia's fears were confirmed when she saw that Genocide's leather coat had been destroyed and he had replaced it with the dark mist coalescing from his own spilled blood. The dark mist, swirling, grew larger and several tendrils sprouted out from it. Gracia could briefly make out a figure standing next to Genocide. A hooded figure cloaked in the same black substance. The figure stared up at her with soulless, blackened eyes which seemed to beckon her to jump from the aircraft she was standing in. Compelling her to give in to the death that plagued the earth. Genocide kneeled to his master. The Shinigami, Masataka stared down at his disciple. "You have done a great service to us. Even now the sealed god stirs in its slumber. Its...Awakening will soon be upon us. It calls out for war. It begs for famine. It longs to continue its conquest. We are the death it so desires. The death that is necessary for this civilization to grow. Use the power that I have bestowed upon you. Finish the mission as you see fit." The Shinigami vanished and Genocide stood.Genocide stared at his hands. He remembered the first killing spree. He was on a bus. It stopped. A woman got on the bus and walked to the back smiling as she passed him. Something about her eyes unnerved him. They were so bright but something dark reflected inside them. He ignored the thought and put in his headphones. In minutes he had dozed off. He jumped awake. He looked around and froze in panic. All around him, everyone had been hacked to pieces. He saw the driver, actively being stabbed by a masked assailant. The mask, painted white with black eyeholes, stared back at him. It raised a finger over where its lips would be. Even under the expressionless visage, he could feel that same smile. He ran home that morning. He went to his room to find it destroyed. His posters, his computer, his tv, everything, had been ruined. He turned around and saw a man at the end of the hallway holding a sledge hammer. "The hell you been, boy?", his stepdad sneered. The man dropped his hammer and walked closer, veins pulsing with rage. He tried to explain how his car had caught fire forcing him to walk 4 miles to the nearest bus stop, but the man's fist was faster than his words. "Boy!Answer me when I talk to you!!" the man says as he backhands the taste out of the would be Genocide's mouth. He took that beating for several minutes before being left to stare at his ransacked room. He hated how his stepdad went out of his way to destroy the things he loved. Soon, another set of footsteps could be heard. It was his mother standing behind his locked door. She didn't knock, or say anything. She just stood there, doing nothing as always. He never knew if she came to talk to him or apologize. All he knew was that she could never bring herself to speak to or even acknowledge him. Maybe out of guilt or perhaps shame. A year or two later after he had had enough he ran away from home. Living out on the streets alone, without friends, or family, he would embark on countless killing sprees. These killings weren't of his own volition however. He was coerced by some corrupt officers from The Unit. They made him kill on their behalf. Sometimes they were protesters, sometimes they were drug dealers, other times, petty criminals they couldn't be bothered to process. It was routine for him to be used to kill entire houses of drug riddled addicts. During one such venture he entered a drug den, killing the dealer as instructed. He took out several junkies before turning to leave. A woman who survived her injuries clung to his heel begging him to stop. Looking down he aimed the handgun he was carrying at her head of long disheveled brown hair and fired. Feeling nothing, he kicked her body aside like trash when it hit him. Her face. This woman had been his mother. What was she doing in a place like this? He felt a shock of emotion. He wondered if she had always been like this, or had she changed after he left. He never made amends, but decided to stop killing from then on. The unit did not like that. Once it became apparent that he was no longer of use to them they started a manhunt to apprehend him with lethal force. They found him. They killed him. But he survived.
He remembered the girl on the bus. He remembered her eyes. Those of a sadistic killer. Still there was something else inside them. Something faint but deeper. So. Much. Sadness. Just like him. He felt the hatred begin to spread. His purpose, he decided, was to make all humans rot in the hell they created for him.
These people, he thought to himself, these living diseases, all needed to die. Their struggles, their problems, they spread like cancer to others. The only cure for humanity's sin, its collective wrongdoings, was genocide.
Around him, dark tendrils continued to form and expand, spinning in a vortex. Genocide pulled out two pistols. He squeezed the triggers to no effect. "As I see fit, huh? Hehe." He squeezed both guns in his hands, breaking them into pieces. He concentrated. In his hands, two more guns materialized now completely black due to being forged from the dark essence. Forged by his will. Immune to the jamming device that shut down conventional firearms. He raised his arms at each remaining helicopter and opened fire. Countless tendrils whipped out and slashed at his targets joining the dark essence bullets. It was chaos. Dark tendrils and bullets tore through every direction as Genocide spun and swirled around in 360 degrees firing randomly with purpose. A tendril pierced Gracia's right arm, another, her abdomen. She was however, fortunate, as the other passengers of her helicopter were dismembered. She barely had time to jump from the vehicle before it crashed. She fell 2 yards onto solid concrete. She felt immense pain as her right shoulder shattered on impact. She looked up to see Genocide's blade like appendages ripping through the other escape helicopters. She rolled onto her back and tried to steady herself. Within seconds her body began to repair itself. The nanocells inside her had saved her life but were now depleted. She would need another supplement lest she receive another fatal injury. The standard nanocells she and the others had were much less potent than those of the killers they faced. In truth, they had only minimal strength boosts being able to lift 5-8 more pounds than before and healing being limited to one or two fatal injuries so long as death didn't occur instantly. Gracia blacked out. She awoke the next morning in a hospital. There the doctors refilled her nanocells. She learned that the station had been left in ruins. Genocide had detonated some type of minature nuke following his rampage. He always blew up the stations as if to send a message. Gracia looked out the window thinking about why she became a cop. Twice her family had been murdered by them. Her biological family had been killed in an on record drug raid committed by a group of corrupt officers called The Unit. She had been adopted by another officer that arrived at the scene who found her as a child hiding in a closed. Sadly, he too was killed for trying to expose the activities of The Unit. Gracia joined the force to avenge both losses and bring justice to the killers that disguised themselves as normal people. Law enforcement was neither good, nor bad. It depended upon the people that made it up. In the dying corrupt world Gracia lived in, she vowed to be a beacon of light. Evans laid in a bed adjacent to Lary. "That damn Genocide's somethin else in' he?Like the stories you told us were understatements. That man could legit not die at this point in the story. Like he has friggin plot armor or somthin.'' Evans cut him off" I get it. We all got our asses handed to us. But did you see that ..thing that appeared next to him. Right before he created that black vortex that wiped us out. That must have something to do with his power. Maybe there's a still a way to stop him."Lary chimed in," That fella looked like he was on the way to a black metal concert wit all the black facepaint he was wearin' Creeped me out to be honest." As the survivors mulled over their predicament, the cycle of evil continued to spread elsewhere.
Budley flips through the pages of a magazine. He checks his watch. He looks around the gas station and doesn't see any customers. Seizing the opportunity, he puts in his headphones and begins playing an imaginary guitar as he jams to a progressive deathcore album. Oblivious to the screams coming from outside, the store clerk moves on to thumping two candy bars on the counter to simulate drums. Budley sees that his shift has ended and begins locking up the store. He sweeps the aisles and jumps as a shadow appears behind him. He turns and sees a well groomed bearded man dressed in a black hoodie, black shirt, and black and gray camo pants. The man holds out his hand and smiles. Budley rings up the pack of nicotine substitute gum. "Tryin to kick the habit huh?" Budley asks. The man replies, "Somethin like that. Gotta get my priorities back in check. Focus on the things that really matter. That damn KonCreep's a hell of a band aren't they?" He nods to the playlist on Budley's phone. "Yeah, they're killer. just got into them a month back." Budley answers. "You know, I'm something of a musician myself. Maybe you'll hear of me on the news someday." Jim Jimenez says as he sees himself out. He walks to the back of the building and passes an ominous form of graffiti. A woman lays unmoving and above her, written on concrete in red is a message that simply says "Genocide Reigns".

From the beginning...
Cast

Part 2, Chapter 7

“Maybe we should offer him money. He looks poor, and poor people usually like money.” Zander opines.
“I don’t think you can afford me,” the young man says, slightly nervously. He shuffles a foot. “You should just go.”
“Just gives us a moment, would you?” Arthur asks, raising his hand in a vaguely placating way. The team withdraws to the far end of the wide stone porch. The porch acts as an entryway to the tunnel beyond the odd young human with red hair. The archway is large and imposing, and is covered with random scratched runes, like graffiti. The porch likewise is etched and carved, but in a more artistic manner. There is a single stone step that encircles (ensquares?) the stone slab that acts as a porch, and a few stone steps that lead up to the porch before they disappear into the dirt and weeds of the slight rise. The porch is not large, but the team steps back to the edge and speaks in low whispers.
“We should just go,” Dillium whispers. “We don’t need anything from here.”
“We have given our word to the dwarves. Well, the one dwarf. [1] He seemed to think bad things would occur should the forge was re-kindled,” Arthur replies in a low voice. Does Arthur even know how to whisper?
“Shouldn’t we have asked why the forge was abandoned to begin with?” whispers Zander.
“I say we don’t go in, but we set up camp right here until he goes away,” says a somewhat less frightened but still intimidated Novos.
With that, the team splits up, directs the squires to set up a camp with the animals some distance down the hill, and pulls out the pavillionsol. Opened up, it takes up much of the porch, but it gives the group a chance to go inside to discuss matters. They don’t make much progress, and suddenly Arthur realizes that nobody is actually watching the man or the area. Rushing outside, he and Dillium look around to see that things are largely they way they were before they went into the tent. Dillium returns inside and continues the argument, but Arthur walks a couple of laps around the porch, peering suspiciously at everything around. He does note that even though the pavillionsol appears to be only canvas, he’s unable to hear the party’s voices, or for that matter, the string quartet that constantly plays inside. He also notes that the red-headed man has disappeared, probably back inside. Arthur peers down the tunnel, but sees nothing of any interest. The corridor, some twenty feet wide and thirty or thirty-five feet tall, appears to be carved by dwarven hands, with a smooth floor and walls, arching gracefully up to a rounded ceiling. While there are occasional scratches on the walls that indicate some sort of graffiti, much of the wall is bare, with only a pattern similar to the porch to break up the monotony. No sign of the young man. Returning to the pavillionsol, he pokes his head inside the tent to give the all-clear.
Meanwhile, the party, from the security of their tent, have decided that they might build a campfire and roast some particularly delicious food, then invite the young man to dinner once he is lured by the savory smells. Dillium points out that there are really no trees or wood to build a fire, and the debate begins anew.
While yet another round of debate begins, the ground shakes uncontrollably, knocking people to the ground. A reasonable group might conclude that the ground in the area was unstable and wonder what might be causing it. This group [2] decides that either some unknown force wants them to get a move on, or that the young redhead is upping the ante.
Novos takes things into his own hands. Disappearing, he becomes one with the shadows and scouts the tunnel. Several hundred feet down he spies a side tunnel, not carved in the same way that the dwarves have done with the main tunnel. Following this, he makes it to the end to find a stout wooden door with heavy metal hinges and bands. He asks one of his attending shadows to slip into the room on the other side and say what it sees. “Meat sticks” is the response. Slipping under the crack at the bottom of the door, Novos sees a number of dead bodies, some of them rotted away to skeletons, chained to the walls. In another part of the room, completely un-weirded out by the dead bodies, the redhead man is calmly chewing on his dinner, which is meat on a bone. Probably chicken or something else innocuous, but also possibly the flesh and bone of whatever he's sharing the room with. Novos decides that means he’s a cannibal, and retreats.
The main tunnel runs several hundred feet into the side of the mountain, then opens up to a wide and tall cavern that is dimly lit on one side by an angry red river of something flowing at a slow and steady pace from a hole on one side, and disappearing under the wall on another side of the cavern [3]. He notes the partially caved-in walls and ceiling, and the presence of vaguely humanoid footprints scuffling around in the dust before he feels the pressing need to return to the party to relay his findings.
Meanwhile, the group has abandoned the pavillionsol, put it away, and is cautiously peering down the tunnel corridor. At no point do they think to check on the (perhaps) terrified squires, who are probably safely down the hill trying to placate the animals. Hopefully the animals haven’t run off with the supplies…
Novos reappears next to the team to explain about the cannibal and the delicious-looking red gelatin. Somewhat emboldened, the party troops down the center of the corridor, heavily armored men in the front. As Arthur seems to have an almost dwarfish feeling for the stone, he notes that the corridor is angled ever so slightly downward. The side tunnel Novos noted is actually three hundred and twenty two feet from the entrance, according to Arthur. It is, however, narrow and roughly hewn from the rock. It’s much too narrow to comfortably fit even one heavily armored man down with any room to spare. Arthur gives that a pass and the rest of the group follows without complaint. Another hundred and four feet down (Novos says, “the corridor opens up in another hundred feet or so,” though both Dillium and Arthur can see no opening ahead), the group is greeted by a bright red light ahead of them. Had they been born in another realm filled with roadrunners and train tunnels [4], they might recognize the coming light. They were not, though, and so the huge fiery ball of fire coming down the hall catches them unawares. Most of the group dodge out of the way, though Modred isn’t bright enough to do so. As a bright red scaley figure drops down onto the floor of the corridor in front of Arthur and Zander, the group takes stock.
The fireball has greatly damaged everyone, as the dragon intended. Because he’s a dragon. Modred lies smoking on the ground, unmoving. Felicity is lying on the ground, smoking slightly less, but at least she is moving, barely. Zander and Arthur both learn how hot metal armor can get when exposed to a fire, while Novos’ and Dillium’s dancing around and ducking behind their armored front line has meant they are less damaged than the others. Giving himself a quick Laying of Hands, Arthur attacks, Smiting the (obviously) evil creature. Zander takes a deep breath and catches his Second Wind and attacks. Novos leaps nimbly aside and sneaks around behind the dragon (well, near his tail anyway) and attacks. Dillium casts Revivify on Modred and spares a moment to speak a Healing Word toward Felicity, though others in the party also benefit from the power of her Word.
“Modred, go back. Go find Pocky!” Modred looks at Dillium with huge sad Mastiff eyes, glances at Zander (who is busy smacking the dragon with his sword), and trundles off down the corridor back toward the squires (and away from the huge red beast). Dillium counts this as a win.
The dragon doesn’t notice. Swishing his tail angrily, he manages to knock Novos down. A great head full of large dragon teeth clamps down on Zander, though the dragon isn’t big enough to swallow him whole. A claw and a cantrip are aimed at Arthur, who is painfully reminded of how hot metal armor can get. Again.
Again, the party attacks, though this time without a smite from Arthur, but with a critical stab from Zander. Novos stabs again, but then quickly retreats from the still swishing tail. Dillium again casts healing spells to keep Zander on his feet, but Felicity is still trying to figure out which train hit her as she holds her head woozily.
Having enough of food that fights back, the dragon leaps into the air, spreading his wings and performing a mid-air summersault. His lithe form denies the opportunity for anyone to strike him, though Zander and Arthur both try. With a roar of fury and pain, the dragon disappears down the corridor. The team takes a few moments to regroup. Dillium once again questions the wisdom of continuing on, but Novos has been raised on a diet of stories about dragons and their hoards. With a gleam of greed in his eyes, he goads everyone else forward.
Several hundred feet further on, the tunnel finally emerges into the wide cavern Novos saw. Now in his human form, Novos finds that the lovely red gelatin is obnoxiously hot, and nobody wants to come near it. The room appears to have once been an entrance hall, and Zander thinks he spies the remains of some defensive positions. The roof has partially collapsed, bringing down much of the back wall. While climbable, there’s no particular need, as there is a wide corridor to the side. That corridor, too, is partially caved in, but the footprints in the dust seem to indicate there is a way through the rubble. As Arthur scans the roof (no stalactites!), he sees what appears to be a series of holes, or perhaps caves, up near the ceiling, which Novos and Zander can’t see in the dim light.
The team turns down the corridor, past some cleared rubble and past the base of a column that might once have been topped by a statue. As the group tromps down the hall, they find a stout wooden door, with heavy metal work. The door is unlocked, and inside is a cell with dead bodies in various states of decomposition. While the redhead’s pack, bedroll, and remains of a small fire are still present, the man isn’t. The door on the other side of the cell leads to a corridor that Novos vaguely recognizes as the one he flitted down earlier. But no young man.
Returning to the corridor, the group sees a well in the middle of the floor. Peering down through the heat haze, the Zander spies more of the hot red goo far below. A hole in the wall shows where part of the red substance has eaten away at the structure, but there’s no reason to think the floor is about to collapse.
Continuing on, Arthur sees a bridge up ahead. As he heads toward it, a raucous cacophony sounds, making everyone clutch at their ears. Novos realizes that it’s some sort of alarm spell at about the same time that Felicity says that out loud. Novos disappears and flits on ahead. He sees a rickety wooden bridge, hardly the work of fine dwarven craftsmen. The bridge crosses another river of the hot red goo, far below. On the other side are a dozen beings, mostly human, with large war dogs. The dogs are nearly as large as Modred, though leaner and wearing doggy armor. A large cook stove is one corner and bedrolls and a few cots are lined along one wall. The humanoids are hastily pulling on armor and gathering weapons as the dogs stare intently toward the sound of the recent commotion. Novos returns to the party to relay what he’s seen. They decide that the bandits are in league with the dragon, probably to restart the forge and … nobody knows what comes next.
As the party gathers on one side of the bridge, rising heat waves, steam and ash prevent a good look at the gathering war party, but it is apparent that they are outnumbered, perhaps badly.
“We must parlay,” Arthur intones gravely.

End of Chapter 7


[1] In fact, it was to the Council of Thanes, last chapter.
[2] At some point during downtime, the party have decided they must have a name, and have settled on something to do with Chimaeras. Novos points out that they technically still have a charter in Impiltur, and so having a party name that changes depending on what land they are in is particularly Chimaeric. Also, Novos also says that the group can get away with anything and simply say that it was the Dragon Force that did it, forgetting that witnesses exist.
[3] Based very loosely on Fire Forge Caves by Dungeon Baker in FiveE magazine
[4] such as this one

There is something that seems to be following me: It will be in articles in the morning, as I drink my tea. Wherever I am, it finds its way there. Graffiti, movies, the man at the coffee shop, pleading with his lady, as he squirms in his chair.
This phrase follows me like animal herds, the phrase, "Actions speak louder than words." It feels pretty cliché, but it's always accompanied by Three Little Birds.
You understand those symbols, and what they mean. You genuinely smile at my stories, with those majestic eyes, and I realize I've never felt so seen. And the passion I feel, when I get to validate the unseen. The love, insight, connection; the only gift that comes from indescribable grief.
But lately our connection feels so strained. Is this the natural flow of life and relationships, or my fearful, reactive brain? The message seems to be, it's not words, it's the actions. I just don't know what's real right now. I don't even understand my own reactions. Look, in case you're concerned, my self worth is not dependent on you. But I do care when you express yourself, that you're speaking your truth.
Lately, life feels like a game of "Wheel of Fortune." Will the tick land on the love, once all encompassing, but now unraveling, and done? Could it land on love that has beat all odds, and now has no reason to run?
It's hard to say- Your past shows genuine love and care for so many years. Your actions as of lately, they have left me gasping for air, drowning in tears.
So, I chose to reread the whole story. Despite how you might feel right now, it's unjust not to recognize; you, me, us. Our achievements, the glory!
It's hard to imagine our story ends here. I know sometimes love means letting go. However, let me be very clear- The decades of time in each other's lives, healing, stories, laughs, tears.
When I'm nearing the day of my death, right before I take my last breath; I'll remember your essence and feel your presence. I'm honored you'll be the final reminder of all my lessons.
We will always be eternally intertwined.

There is something that seems to be following me: It will be in articles in the morning, as I drink my tea. Wherever I am, it finds its way there. Graffiti, movies, the man at the coffee shop, pleading with his lady, as he squirms in his chair.
This phrase follows me like animal herds, the phrase, "Actions speak louder than words." It feels pretty cliché, but it's always accompanied by Three Little Birds.
You understand those symbols, and what they mean. You genuinely smile at my stories, with those majestic eyes, and I realize I've never felt so seen. And the passion I feel, when I get to validate the unseen. The love, insight, connection; the only gift that comes from indescribable grief.
But lately our connection feels so strained. Is this the natural flow of life and relationships, or my fearful, reactive brain? The message seems to be, it's not words, it's the actions. I just don't know what's real right now. I don't even understand my own reactions. Look, in case you're concerned, my self worth is not dependent on you. But I do care when you express yourself, that you're speaking your truth.
Lately, life feels like a game of "Wheel of Fortune." Will the tick land on the love, once all encompassing, but now unraveling, and done? Could it land on love that has beat all odds, and now has no reason to run?
It's hard to say- Your past shows genuine love and care for so many years. Your actions as of lately, they have left me gasping for air, drowning in tears.
So, I chose to reread the whole story. Despite how you might feel right now, it's unjust not to recognize; you, me, us. Our achievements, the glory!
It's hard to imagine our story ends here. I know sometimes love means letting go. However, let me be very clear- The decades of time in each other's lives, healing, stories, laughs, tears.
When I'm nearing the day of my death, right before I take my last breath; I'll remember your essence and feel your presence. I'm honored you'll be the final reminder of all my lessons.
We will always be eternally intertwined.

There is something that seems to be following me: It will be in articles in the morning, as I drink my tea. Wherever I am, it finds its way there. Graffiti, movies, the man at the coffee shop, pleading with his lady, as he squirms in his chair.
This phrase follows me like animal herds, the phrase, "Actions speak louder than words." It feels pretty cliché, but it's always accompanied by Three Little Birds.
You understand those symbols, and what they mean. You genuinely smile at my stories, with those majestic eyes, and I realize I've never felt so seen. And the passion I feel, when I get to validate the unseen. The love, insight, connection; the only gift that comes from indescribable grief.
But lately our connection feels so strained. Is this the natural flow of life and relationships, or my fearful, reactive brain? The message seems to be, it's not words, it's the actions. I just don't know what's real right now. I don't even understand my own reactions. Look, in case you're concerned, my self worth is not dependent on you. But I do care when you express yourself, that you're speaking your truth.
Lately, life feels like a game of "Wheel of Fortune." Will the tick land on the love, once all encompassing, but now unraveling, and done? Could it land on love that has beat all odds, and now has no reason to run?
It's hard to say- Your past shows genuine love and care for so many years. Your actions as of lately, they have left me gasping for air, drowning in tears.
So, I chose to reread the whole story. Despite how you might feel right now, it's unjust not to recognize; you, me, us. Our achievements, the glory!
It's hard to imagine our story ends here. I know sometimes love means letting go. However, let me be very clear- The decades of time in each other's lives, healing, stories, laughs, tears.
When I'm nearing the day of my death, right before I take my last breath; I'll remember your essence and feel your presence. I'm honored you'll be the final reminder of all my lessons.
We will always be eternally intertwined.

There is something that seems to be following me: It will be in articles in the morning, as I drink my tea. Wherever I am, it finds its way there. Graffiti, movies, the man at the coffee shop, pleading with his lady, as he squirms in his chair.
This phrase follows me like animal herds, the phrase, "Actions speak louder than words." It feels pretty cliché, but it's always accompanied by Three Little Birds.
You understand those symbols, and what they mean. You genuinely smile at my stories, with those majestic eyes, and I realize I've never felt so seen. And the passion I feel, when I get to validate the unseen. The love, insight, connection; the only gift that comes from indescribable grief.
But lately our connection feels so strained. Is this the natural flow of life and relationships, or my fearful, reactive brain? The message seems to be, it's not words, it's the actions. I just don't know what's real right now. I don't even understand my own reactions. Look, in case you're concerned, my self worth is not dependent on you. But I do care when you express yourself, that you're speaking your truth.
Lately, life feels like a game of "Wheel of Fortune." Will the tick land on the love, once all encompassing, but now unraveling, and done? Could it land on love that has beat all odds, and now has no reason to run?
It's hard to say- Your past shows genuine love and care for so many years. Your actions as of lately, they have left me gasping for air, drowning in tears.
So, I chose to reread the whole story. Despite how you might feel right now, it's unjust not to recognize; you, me, us. Our achievements, the glory!
It's hard to imagine our story ends here. I know sometimes love means letting go. However, let me be very clear- The decades of time in each other's lives, healing, stories, laughs, tears.
When I'm nearing the day of my death, right before I take my last breath; I'll remember your essence and feel your presence. I'm honored you'll be the final reminder of all my lessons.
We will always be eternally intertwined.

There is something that seems to be following me: It will be in articles in the morning, as I drink my tea. Wherever I am, it finds its way there. Graffiti, movies, the man at the coffee shop, pleading with his lady, as he squirms in his chair.
This phrase follows me like animal herds, the phrase, "Actions speak louder than words." It feels pretty cliché, but it's always accompanied by Three Little Birds.
You understand those symbols, and what they mean. You genuinely smile at my stories, with those majestic eyes, and I realize I've never felt so seen. And the passion I feel, when I get to validate the unseen. The love, insight, connection; the only gift that comes from indescribable grief.
But lately our connection feels so strained. Is this the natural flow of life and relationships, or my fearful, reactive brain? The message seems to be, it's not words, it's the actions. I just don't know what's real right now. I don't even understand my own reactions. Look, in case you're concerned, my self worth is not dependent on you. But I do care when you express yourself, that you're speaking your truth.
Lately, life feels like a game of "Wheel of Fortune." Will the tick land on the love, once all encompassing, but now unraveling, and done? Could it land on love that has beat all odds, and now has no reason to run?
It's hard to say- Your past shows genuine love and care for so many years. Your actions as of lately, they have left me gasping for air, drowning in tears.
So, I chose to reread the whole story. Despite how you might feel right now, it's unjust not to recognize; you, me, us. Our achievements, the glory!
It's hard to imagine our story ends here. I know sometimes love means letting go. However, let me be very clear- The decades of time in each other's lives, healing, stories, laughs, tears.
When I'm nearing the day of my death, right before I take my last breath;
I'll remember your essence and feel your presence. I'm honored you'll be the final reminder of all my lessons.
We will always be eternally intertwined. I really hope that you don't mind. ☺️

The Crooked Man murdered my family. Now he has awoken again [part 1] : nosleep (reddit.com)
I grabbed Iris and pulled her toward the car. She stood like a statue, resistant and unmoving.
“Iris, we need to go!” I hissed. She seemed to wake up then, looking at me. Then she looked past me, her eyes glancing up and widening with horror. I turned, seeing the Crooked Man peering down from the upstairs window, his tophat balanced on his alien skull, a grin of sadistic glee marring his face.
“We need to leave,” I repeated, pulling her. She came willingly. We stumbled away from the corpse of Ben. The Crooked Man’s black eyes followed us like cameras.
I got her in the car and peeled out of there. Every time I closed my eyes, though, even just to blink, I would catch a glimpse of the Crooked Man’s smiling visage.
***
“Where are we going?” Iris called. “We need to call the cops! My phone is upstairs on the floor somewhere.”
“The cops aren’t going to help us,” I said. “That thing isn’t human. It can go wherever it wants, apparently. You think a police station would protect us? The cops would leave for a few minutes and come back to find us dead. We need to end this. We need to go to the abandoned factory.”
“The… abandoned factory?” Iris asked, confused. I told her the story, everything that had happened up to that point, even the vision of my grandmother.
“That’s fucking nuts,” Iris muttered. “This whole thing is crazy. There’s no way there’s actually such a thing as a Crooked Man. Shit like that doesn’t happen in real life. It’s gotta be a serial killer in some sort of weird costume.”
“You know it’s not,” I answered. “You saw that thing. That’s no mask.” I sped on the highway at 100 miles an hour toward Union, toward the abandoned factory where this had all started so many years ago.
***
As we pulled into the cracked lot surrounding the old, run-down building, a sense of overwhelming dread crashed through my chest. I felt like I was stuck in some cyclical nightmare from which it was impossible to wake up. I pulled out a cigarette and lighter from my cupholder and lit it. Iris gave me a strange look.
“This is probably my last cigarette,” I said. “Might as well enjoy it.” Iris didn’t say anything, her dilated eyes simply flicking around randomly. She looked like she was still partially in shock. Slowly, she got out of the car, limping across the parking lot by my side.
“I hurt my ankle when I jumped from the window,” she said. “I don’t think I’m going to be doing much running. It feels swollen.”
“I’m just glad you still have the .45,” I said. “Though I wish you had grabbed the AR.” She shook her head.
“Ben shot that thing with a 10-gauge shotgun in the chest. With a slug,” she said. “It didn’t work. The pistol might slow it down, but it’s not going to kill it. We need to find another way.” I remembered the graffiti in the factory: “Destroy it with fire! SAVE your soul.”
We found a threshold in the back where the door was totally knocked off the hinges. It lay on top of crunching shards of glass and layers of thick dust. Old rectangular tables were still nailed into the wooden floor, their surfaces pockmarked and covered in grime. Most of the windows had giant, spiderwebbing cracks running through the glass, though some were just smashed entirely.
I had never been here, but as I walked further in, I realized it was exactly the same as I had seen in my vision with my grandmother. Even the same graffiti was there. “DON’T LOOK BEHIND YOU!” was splayed across the wall in giant letters.
“Fuck, this place is creepy,” Iris whispered. She held the Ruger clenched tightly in her hand, her knuckles white. “Where do we go?”
“I’m… not sure,” I said. “I think we’re supposed to burn something. Maybe we should just burn down the whole factory.” Iris gave me a funny look.
“That’s your plan? Lighting an abandoned building on fire?” she asked with an expression of grave concern.
“Let’s look around,” I said. “Maybe we’re supposed to find something.” We descended deeper into the factory, through more identical rooms that looked like they were from the Apocalypse.
At the end, I found old, concrete steps leading down into the pitch-black basement.
***
I pulled out my cell phone, shining the LED light down the steps. Iris gave me a worried look.
“Let’s go,” I whispered grimly. I felt watched here, even more than at Iris’ house. I knew the Crooked Man was near, biding his time, playing with his food like a cat with a mouse.
The steps led into a concrete boiler room with ancient, rusted machinery still welded into the floor. All over the dark walls, someone had spraypainted pictures of extended, contorted arms and limbs with fingers like talons. There was a smell down here, too- a smell like rotting bodies.
As we got to the center, I heard crying behind us. I turned to see my grandmother, pale and ghostly, crying into her hands.
“Grandma?” I whispered. Iris looked at me, confused.
“Who are you talking to?” she asked. I shook my head. My grandmother looked up at me, fresh tears in her ghostly eyes.
“Jack, you need to burn it,” my grandmother said with a quaver in her voice. “The corpse of the owner, the one who killed us all- it’s hidden in the surge pump. We came together to end it, to end the deaths, but it didn’t stop it. Somehow, he’s still connected to this world through that body. It’s been in there, festering like an open wound for who knows how long…”
I looked at the surge pump across the room. Iris could apparently neither see nor hear my grandmother.
“It’s in there,” I murmured, pointing at the pump. “We need to burn the body hidden in there.” The surge pump had valves and a giant wheel at the end. It was a horizontal cylinder that looked just big enough to stuff a man’s body into. The rusted pipes grew smaller as they crawled up the wall. I put my hands on the rusted wheel and turned. It looked like something from a submarine door.
With a squeal of tortured metal, the surge pump began opening. It was difficult going. Iris came and put her small body behind it, and I felt it turning faster.
“How are we going to burn it, though?” I asked myself, grunting through the effort. Looking behind the surge pump, I found the answer.
A fairly fresh dead body lay there hidden under the metal of the surge pump, holding a small can of gasoline. It looked like a young man in his 20s with dark hair and tanned skin. His arms and legs had been ripped off, and now only a decomposing torso and head remained.
“Another victim of the Crooked Man?” Iris asked. “He was so close…” I wondered, at that moment, how many others had been drawn here, how many victims the Crooked Man was hunting. I grabbed the gasoline. I heard a skittering of feet behind us. Iris backpedaled and gave a horrified scream.
In terror, I looked behind us and saw the Crooked Man, flanked by the transformed bodies of seven children. Their arms and legs had all grown inhumanly long, bending in strange places like crooked stalks. Their faces had become like the Crooked Man’s, their eyes black and lips blue, their teeth long and dark, their movements jerky and eerie.
Iris raised the Ruger. In that concrete tomb, the gunshots reverberated like exploding missiles, deafening me. With waves of adrenaline shaking every muscle in my body, I swung the end of the surge pump open.
Stuffed into the narrow metal steel tube, I saw a mummified corpse covered in tattered rags. Its grinning skull was a mass of cobwebs and dead insects. I unscrewed and overturned the gas can, then pushed it quickly into the tunnel. It just fit through the narrow enclosure.
The gunshots ended as abruptly as they had started. Beside me, Iris was still frantically pulling the trigger, her face a broken mask of shell-shock. I dared not look back as I pulled the lighter out and flicked it. With my ears ringing from the gunshots still, I couldn’t hear a thing, though the ringing had started to slowly fade.
A wave of cold, dead flesh crashed into my back. I went flying forward. Next to me, Iris threw the empty pistol at the nearest of the transformed children. It smacked the boy in the head with a dull crack, but his black, lidless eyes never looked away.
As I fell, the lighter touched the edge of the surge pump. A few drops of gas ignited, sizzling and dripping in liquid flames. After what felt like an eternal moment, the rest of it lit up with a whump and a flash of burning heat.
The Crooked Man started wailing, a tortured, diseased wailing that seemed like it had the voices of many screaming children mixed in with it. I knocked hard to the ground, slamming my head against the concrete floor. Four of the children used their bent, stick-like arms to gingerly pull the burning mummy out of the metal tomb, their claws talons of fingers grabbing the burning flesh without hesitation. On the other side of the room, the form of the Crooked Man started to blacken and drip as his mummy did the same.
Next to me, a transformed girl in blood-stained rags held Iris’ arms tightly behind her back. Iris gave a scream of pain. I saw the demonic girl biting at Iris’ neck and shoulders over and over with her long, black teeth, ripping off strips of bloody skin and muscle between her blue, dead lips. She grinned as she bit and chewed. Iris struggled like a woman being burned alive, but the superhuman strength of the girl held Iris’ wrists pinned together behind her back with an iron grip.
With the sound of hissing flames and shrieking echoing all around me, I watched as the children laid the burning body of the Crooked Man gingerly on the concrete floor. One by one, they laid down on it, smothering the fire with their own pale bodies.
The flames continued to whip and flicker for a long moment. The children’s bodies caught on fire, their white skin blackening and cooking. Even as they burned, though, the fire on the Crooked Man’s body had started to die down, and the mummified corpse wasn’t even most of the way burned yet.
“No!” I wailed, a sense of deep loss ripping its way through my heart. I saw Iris, too, her entire body covered in blood, her white clothes turned ruby-red with blood and gore. She had stopped screaming and struggling by this point, even as the girl leaned forward and ripped her left ear off with her predatory teeth. The flesh gave a sickening tearing sound as it came off. Iris’ eyes rolled up in her head, showing only the whites as her teeth chattered. The demonic girl laughed and pushed the limp form of Iris forward. Her still body spurted blood from dozens of deep gashes. Her legs and arms twitched, as if she were seizing.
I found myself alone with these abominations. The Crooked Man’s screaming stopped suddenly. He stepped forward, his bleached-white skin blackened and peeling now. His clothes had nearly burned off, and his tophat stood as a smoldering pile of ashes. Yet he still moved fast, seeming to disappear and reappear closer and closer, his misshapen legs jerkily skittering to the left and right in rhythmic cracks.
Then he was standing over me, a pillar of burnt skin and insanity. With his sharp fingers, he reached down and grabbed me. I blacked out at that moment, and merciful oblivion took over my mind.
***
I don’t remember much of the next couple months. I woke up in some strange, otherworldly city where the sky rained fire and corpses hung from lampposts all down the street. Empty skyscrapers filled with skeletons and spiderwebs stretched around me, seemingly forever. I could see no end to the city in any direction, even from the top of the highest buildings. The world there was always dark, the sky always black and cloudless as drops of burning flame fell from it, searing me whenever I tried to go outside.
I wandered there constantly, the Crooked Man always behind me. As I wasted away in that land of shadows, he grew stronger, his body healing slowly. I felt something vital and deep within my heart drained more and more, day by day, until I was no more than a walking skeleton clad in rags, hopeless and insane.
After what felt like an eternity of endless nights in that place, waking up to see the Crooked Man grinning over me, it abruptly changed. One day, I woke up at the edge of some woods in a light drizzle, the rain soaking my threadbare clothes. My emaciated body shivered constantly.
I started crawling out to find help. With the last of my strength, I pushed myself off the ground.
Behind me, I heard a gurgling voice ringing out from every tree.
“I’ll be with you until the end, Jack. I need you just as you need me. For the more who know my story, the more fear will spread, and I will be able to come into their homes next.
“For this, you must live. But I will always be watching you, and soon, we will be reunited. To me, you must always return.”
***
A driver found me wandering the roads, shellshocked and half-mad, about twenty minutes later. The police came, surprised to see me still alive. Apparently, I had been missing for over two months. They had found the bodies of Iris and Ben, and assumed that I had been abducted and killed by the same serial killer. I tried to explain the true story over and over to anyone who would listen, but they simply gave me sickening looks of pity and ordered an involuntary commitment to a psych ward.
After a few days in the psych ward, they reluctantly released me. No one believed a word I had said. The cops thought it was some sort of mass psychosis, I’m sure, some urban legend that delusional idiots had come to believe was real.
But I know it was real. I know my days are numbered. It might look like a suicide or a murder or an accident, but, in the end, the Crooked Man always comes back and takes what’s his.

I am playing Neo TWEWY on my laptop. I got 100% in the chapters. I got all the pins, threads and food items. I completed the social network. I just have to complete the noisepedia, get the missing secret reports, level up to level 100, get all the graffiti and I completed everything in the game.
I am using the Black Cat pin set and threads to optimize their attack power. I tried to defeat the extra alpha bosses in another day on ultimate and I set a low level. They wiped the floor with me :( I had to use infinite health cheat and one hit kill cheat to beat them so I can get their drops. My problems with the bosses are:-

1. Cervus Cantus α - I was doing fine damaging the boss and then the boss did the big lightning attack and killed me with a few hits. I couldn't hide behind the white van like in the original boss fight to dodge the big lightning attack.
2. Grus Cantus α - I was doing fine damaging the boss and dodging the attacks and then the boss did the concentrated laser beam attacks which fired a lot of laser beams at me and killed me with a few hits. I couldn't dodge those laser beams.
3. Felidae Cantus - The boss killed me in one hit :(

I was barely able to defeat Iris Cantus α and I had a little hp left. I was able to defeat Shiba α without any problems.
Later on when I complete everything and I am at level 100 I want to set the level to 100 and I want to defeat Cervus Cantus α, Grus Cantus α, Iris Cantus α and Felidae Cantus on ultimate without cheating so I can feel self satisfaction.
Will I be able to defeat the bosses by using the Black Cat pin set and threads to optimize their attack power if I am on level 100?
The problem is I can't heal if I use the Black Cat pin set and I have to rely on threads that have regen 3 but they restore little hp.
Or I can't do that and I have to use a different pin set for each boss? I saw YouTube videos of those bosses being killed in a few hits but I didn't understand what I have to do.
After I get all the secret reports I will repeat the final day so I get the extra cutscene in the ending. I want to fight Phoenix Cantus on ultimate. The problem is the boss has an attack which is circular laser beam showers which always killed me in a few hits on ultimate and I couldn't dodge them. Also there are purple flames which do a lot of damage when they hit me on ultimate and I couldn't dodge them and attack the head. How do I survive those attacks?

Welcome to The Oblivion Cycle universe, a vast setting spanning all of time and space and so much more. While many stories may shed perspective on this grand cosmic vista, there are also tales of adventure and sacrifice, romance and terror, grimdark corruption and scientific progress. To become immersed in the setting is to let the chaos of creativity flow through you, to let go of what is probable to discover what’s possible. I have created TOC for one reason, to inspire and entertain any who will listen. So please feel free to join me on this great adventure as I push the boundaries of what is possible and expand the limits of our creativity together. For more information on the setting and its lore there is a subreddit for TOC at TheOblivionCycle and a Discord server dedicated to it here [https://discord.gg/uGsYHfdjYf] called ‘The Oblivion Cycle Community Server’. I hope you find the following story entertaining and once more, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy.
+ E1:P1 + E3:P1 + Previous + Next +
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Continued From E3:P3
Balinski took a few steps down the hall towards the distant exit but stopped as he realised Daryon wasn’t following. He looked at her and the police woman seemed to shrink slightly. “What? What is it? We need to get moving, Daryon.”
He waited another second as she put her weapon away and compiled. She seemed strangely subdued now all of the sudden, as if she were embarrassed to be around him. They walked down the hall, thuds coming from behind them as the barred doors did their job. He reached out towards her but she flinched away slightly. “Okay, what is going on? What’s the issue?”
She walked a few more meters in silence and then spoke softly, “I jusst.. I didn't want you to have to ssee anything like that. Who I usssed to be.”
Balinski shook his head, he didn't care who she used to be in her past. He cared about who she was now. And who she was, was a friend. “Daryon, I don't give a znot’s ass about that asshole or what he said. You are my friend, and I promised that I would watch your back.” he had made the promise in order to calm her down, he didn't mention that he hadn't actually expected to have to cash in on it so soon.
She made a gesture of dejected misery, “I know you did. But you didn’t know who I used to be. What I did.. to ssurvive.” She looked at him and her tone became pleading. “Please don’t think less of me becausse I used to.. do things.”
Balinski shook his head. “Why would I think any less of you, Daryon?” She seemed to look at him in mild confusion, her faceplates cracking open to reveal the pink flesh of her lipless mouth. “I mean it. I have known you for a few months now, but we have been working together on this case for Siyel together for a few weeks now. I feel like we can trust each other with our secrets..” he trailed off, he was about to take a big step in trusting her.
He started hesitantly, now the large insectoid woman’s turn to hear something he didn’t like others to know. “Daryon..” he hesitated again and then took a deep breath. “I am not the hero that people make me out to be. I am simply the one that survived. And not even by being brave.” She looked at him, her head cocking slightly as he spoke. “I was placed on perimeter watch, I never even entered the complex before the destruction. Ima fraud, I never even fired a single shot at the rebels that day.” he stopped talking and slumped slightly himself.
It felt strangely liberating to get it off his chest, even if it was not the whole truth of what had happened in actuality. No, the whole truth was far too dangerous to share. “So now you know. I’m not the war hero who took out the enemies of the Union single handedly. I'm just the scared little boy that the commander of my unit did not trust enough to take into battle. And I have to live with that, the images still haunt me. My comrades shattered bodies, the blood.. The fire..”
He felt a wave of pain crashed through his mind, the memories once more causing the psychic anguish to overwhelm him. He raised his hands to his head and groaned quietly, he felt himself backslide towards that dark personal oblivion that was the pit of his past trauma. He stopped, or rather something stopped him.
He looked up as a voice brought him back to the present, “..can’t help you if I don’t know what’ss wrong, Balinski.”
He shook his head and stood. “I.. sorry. I have an.. a condition.” He finished lamely.
Daryon seemed to look him over without moving. Her bright blue compound eyes were able to see so much without her having to turn her head. She reached out and gave his shoulder a pat. “I get it. I think I do at leasst.”
He had a thousand things he could have said in response ranging from cruel to straight up flirtatious. But he never got to explore any of the options as just then a mighty crash echoed through the hall. This was soon followed up by the sound of distant screams and angry yelling.
He looked at Daryon briefly and then began running down the hall again. They skidded around the corner into the final stretch and up the slight incline towards the exit. Next to the door stood Dunmec and a slightly battered looking Terri, the yeown woman looked to be bleeding from several cuts across her forearms. They looked like they had been made by some manner of sharp objects.
Despite her oozing injuries the woman was beaming, her long pointed ears and wide predatory grin as gleeful as he had ever seen one of the big werewolf-like aliens. As they made their mad dash up towards the exit he also noticed that the tall umraghj was bandaging her wounds, the soft buzz of their synthetic voice echoing through the enclosed space.
“..andeged like this tightly or you may get infected. I don’t know why you had to go and do something like that Terri.” Balinski was able to pick up on the tail end of their muted conversation. “What’s that? Hey, it’s you two! You won’t believe what happened..”
Balinski skidded to a halt, breathing hard. Daryon was only centimeters behind. He saw Terri bristle, her mantle hair standing on end as she stood and whirled to face them. In her haste she scattered the small first aid kit that Dunmec had been using.
As she looked back and forth between them a gleam of recognition flashed in her eyes and she glanced at the umraghj who was busy trying to pick up the scattered debris of her suspicion. “This is the ones?” She seemed at once curious and skeptical.
He gave her a nod and a synthetic grunt as he stood with some difficulty despite the exosuit he wore. The gravity of the planet was nearly a perfect standard G, but the umraghj had evolved on a planet with much lower gravity and thusly had trouble standing unaided under standard gravity.
Balinski nodded to her as he reached them and then gestured towards the door. “We need to get out of here, like right now.”
“Too late, look out!” Daryon yelled as she dodged into the small alcove to the side of the chamber. Balinski twitched as he meant to follow, but in that second of hesitation he realised that Dunmec was entirely out in the open, and the approaching henchmen had drawn their guns.
The fool had gone for the exit, in a second he would likely be riddled with bullets and dead. Balinski stepped towards the man just as the thugs opened fire at him with an AP-6 submachine gun. He threw up an arm to shield his face as he felt a series of impacts against his chest and legs. He grunted in pain as he was thrown backwards by the force of the absorbed impacts. He swore internally as he slammed into the door right next to the cowering Dunmec, that was going to hurt like a bitch in the morning.
Dunmec lowed in fear, the electronic tone of the sound magnified by the distortion of his suit. Balinski coughed as he reached up and grabbed the man right as another flurry of shots flew their way. The umraghj jerked in either fear or pain as Balinski used his body to shield the man while simultaneously dragging him towards cover. He tried to send a mental alert to Caesar for backup but didn’t feel the transmission go. He couldn't be sure that the message had been sent, much less been received.
It looked like they were on their own. A bullet nicked his neck, causing him to jerk. With a last herculean effort he hauled the tall alien into the cover of the alcove while the other three tried to shelter in place. “Daryon, waste these fucks.” he shouted to her, unholstering his ThunderEagle and tossing it to her.
She grabbed it out of the air deftly and gave a grim looking nod, her antennae pressed down her back as she leaned out from cover and fired a shot off. He didn’t see if she hit anything as he was preoccupied with the whimpering Dunmec.
Terri was hovering nearby, her bloody wounds forgotten as the unfinished bandages hung from her arms. “Oh no! Oh-oh no.” the woman muttered as Balinski looked the suited man over. He had a small puncture in the shoulder of his suit, a thick green liquid seeped from the wound. The man’s chlorine based blood stained the fabric of the suit as Balinski checked him for patches.
He pointed to Terri, the woman still looking a little freaked out. “Hey, you.” Her chatoyant blue eyes snapped to his face. “First aid kit, now. I can help him if you help me!” He told her loudly as Daryon fired another two shots.
“Two down!” The vinarfel shouted. “I never sshould have let myssself get dragged in here.” He heard her mutter, as if anything he said or did would have stopped her from entering the building. She opened the revolver’s chamber and asked, “You got reloads?”
Balinski nodded and handed her a handful of bullets, AP, HE and others. He hadn’t looked, he had just grabbed some from his pockets as he lay on the ground wheezing slightly through the pain in his chest. Tarri had grabbed the first aid kit that Dunmec had been rummaging around in and he flung open the lid to see what he was working with. His own medkit he wore on his waist would come in handy if he couldn't find what he needed.
He looked through it as more gunfire erupted from down the hall, it sounded as if the gunmen in the hall had been reinforced. Balinski ignored it, instead focusing on the injured alien. Dunmec was breathing heavy, his eyes just visible through the HUD visor he wore. Balinski placed a hand on the man’s injured shoulder causing him to moan in pain.
“Hey, stay with me kid. This might hurt a bit, but I need to seal the wound. It looks like the bullet is still inside, I am going to have to get it out.” He watched as the man nodded, his breathing taking in a more fearful pitch.
Terri hovered by his side, dancing from foot to foot as she mumbled in some manner of near incoherent babble. He gave her a look, pausing in his work. “Terri, I need space. Most importantly I need you to watch my partner’s back. Here, take this.” He undid his ammo belt, handing it to her he gave her a small smile, “I got this. Don’t worry. I'm a professional.”
The yeown rushed off to help Daryon, now alone with the injured man he reached for the kit and located a small vitatector. He switched the portable MRI detector on and scanned over the wound. The small device beeped and showed an interior scan of the man’s injury. The bullet had been slowed by his suit, it looked like and embedded itself in the bone just next to his shoulder joint. It would be a difficult fix, but he had done this before on the battlefield on several occasions when a designated medic wasn’t available.
Balinski grabbed a small pair of packaged forceps from his own medical pouch. They had been stored in antiseptic fluid that he used to sterilise the wound as he ripped the package open. Dunmec once more cried out in pain as the liquid seeped into the open wound but Balinski sat him up against the wall and held him still with his free hand.
He looked at the man and asked him, “This is going to hurt. I don’t have any anesthetic that will work on you, I recommend that you hold onto my arm and squeeze as hard as you feel the need to.”
The umraghj nodded, their long double jointed arms reached out and his suited hands gripped his free arm. Balinski breathed deep and then pushed the tool into the wound to where the vitatector had told him to. It took a few seconds to find the bullet, in that time the man’s hands tightened down hard enough on his arm to make the allow creak concerningly. He felt the tool slip of the bullet and he swore.
“Luck damned thing! Come one!” He fished for it again and succeeded in getting a grip on it the second time. He had to work it back and forth a few times to loosen the projectile from its death grip. As soon as the projectile was free he dropped the forceps to grab some sterile gauze, he needed to stop the bleeding and didn't have a QTube handy. He needed to requisition more from the precinct when he got the chance.
He checked the man’s waist pouches quickly and found a patch kit. He squirted some basic medical foam into the wound, it would swell and keep pressure on the wound internally. It didn’t have the healing properties of a QTube, but it would keep the man from bleeding out. Balinski used a sterile bandage to clean the suit as best he could before applying the patch to it. Oxygen wasn’t harmful to the man, but it might not be good if the pressurised chlorinated atmosphere from inside the suit got out.
He reached for the first aid kit and closed it before patting the man on his shoulder. He was still lucid, impressive as most non-combat oriented species of the Union would quickly succumb to shocksleep when injured. Dunmec must be tougher than his lanky frame looked at a glance.
Daryon shouted as he stood. “Alright, they just got rushed by club staff it looks like. They are laying down their arms!” She scuttled back into the cover of the alcove as shouting replaced the sound of gunfire in the distance. She handed him his .50 calibre revolver and he replaced it into his shoulder holster as Terri rushed to Dunmec’s side.
She spoke quickly, “Oh.. oh Dunmec.. I’m so sorry. Are you alright? You got shot!” She added, a bit obviously.
The downed alien just coughed lightly and shook his helmeted head while reaching up towards the muscular alien woman. “I feel bad. But not as bad as I did before I met you.” He said the lines in an almost practised way, as if he had been waiting for the opportunity to use them for a while.
Balinski snorted slightly under his breath at the cheesy line causing Daryon to punch him in the shoulder. He gave her a glance as Terri lifted the nearly three meter tall man to his feet. He leaned heavily on her much shorter frame, but she didn't seem to mind. Her powerful muscles easily compensated for the additional strain as she replied to him, “Well, that was before. Now you don’t have to feel bad or scared. I will protect you now. I won't let anyone else hurt you, I promise.” Dunmec just chuckled and then groaned in discomfort.
Balinski stood straight as he heard the sound of approaching footsteps, his hand flashed inside of his trench coat. His fingers finding the handgrip of his gun as a quartet of heavily armed people rounded the corner with MR-12s raised.
Daryon automatically raised her hands and after a moment he did as well, relinquishing his grip on the gun reluctantly. A tattooed nerivith female stepped forwards, her face taken up on one side by a flowing vine-like pattern that disappeared into the collar of her suit. She wore a bullet resistant vest over the top of it, very much business-combat attire.
She nodded her horned head to them and shouted loudly, “You two, get on the ground! No funny business or you will find out just how much I care about problem brewers in my establishment.” She stopped as Terri rushed forwards.
The yeown woman’s arms were still wrapped up in the bandages from earlier and spots of bright red blood dripped slowly from at least one of the deep cuts. “Stop! These two saved us, literally. The human took some bullets to save Dunmec, he got shot by those packbreakers.” She spat the last word with considerable venom. Her disdain for the submachine gun wielding men was obvious.
The nerivith woman looked from Terri to Dunmec a few times before stepping closer to Balinski with a suspicious look. “Hands all the way up, move and I’ll give you another orifice to breathe through.” She stepped close and opened his coat, her hand feeling his ballistic vest that had stopped the first burst of automatic fire. She nodded and then stepped back before lowering her gun.
“Don't touch that hand cannon in your shoulder holster, but I think I trust you. Who are you two and what the smeg are you doing antagonising these jerkoffs?” The pink skinned alien demanded as she looked between him and Daryon.
Balinski gave Daryon a glance and she nodded before raising one of her middle arms. “I can ansswer that for you.” She pulled out a physical badge from her back pocket and handed it to the woman.
The club workers' tufted tail flicked as she took it and Balinski watched as her raven colored eyebrows rose. “CPD? What the hel are you doing here, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Daryon spoke again, the nerivith woman frowning as she laid out the tale in as accurate a fashion as she could without compromising their true agenda. “Well, we were following a lead to a persson of interessst when we were accossted by these men for ssome unfathomable reason. We tried to run and when that didn’t work we defended ourselves to the full legal extent of the law. You may notice that I didn't shoot to kill, at least not on purposse.” She added with a slightly guilty hiss.
Terri let out a small noise as she said it. The woman likely still in some manner of mild shock, despite her species violent natures, death was not always so easy to grasp. The gun-wielding woman turned to the few other club workers that had come with her and commanded, “Tell the boss what happened, call the police. I want this wrapped up as soon as possible. I’m not taking the fall for this one.” She turned back to Balinski and punched him in the chest, not hard enough to be aggressive but still with considerable force. “I think I like you, big man. You got some horns on you, I guess I don't have to ask you to wait for the police to arrive to give a statement do I?”
Balinski chuckled and glanced towards Terri and Dunmec. “No, you don't have to worry. I will be submitting a full report of the events..” He wasn't able to finish as a loud thud echoed from the main door followed by a series of loud percussive noises. Everyone immediately went on high alert but Balinski raised a hand. “No, it's okay, that’s my backup. Fashionably late as usual. Here, let me get the door so she knows it alright.” He looked towards Terri who nodded.
The nerivith woman’s gun was still raised but she nodded too. “Be my guest.” She gestured for him to go ahead. He walked to the door and unlatched it before swinging it open slightly. Before he could say anything, Caesar burst through it as she pushed it out of his grip. He grunted in mild discomfort as she slammed into his legs and landed in a stunned heap.
Chuckling as the embarrassed looking dog stood to her feet, he watched as she shook her triangular head. “You big oaf. Everything is fine now girl, thanks for coming though.” he reached down and gave her head a scrub that made her grumble in annoyance like a put upon teenager.
Daryon scuttled over on her short, pointed legs and Caesar perked up a little. “Oh you brave warrior, you would have ssaved usss for ssure if Balinsski had just taken you with uss.” She gave him a look, her faceplates cracked in her version of a grin. He could only shake his head as the nerivith woman walked up to him once more.
“Alright, I need to get this mess cleaned up. I beg your pardon if I ask you not to come back here on official business again?” He nodded.
He pointed to the door. “It wasn’t my plan to cause such a disruption when I came in here.”
She shook her raven haired head. “It’s all over now. No sense worrying about what did and didn't happen. It just so happens that we have had trouble with these individuals before. So as far as I see it you did us a favour because we now have cause to bar them from ever coming back.” She nodded again as she said it, her smile flashing at him. As she did he noticed that she had several gold teeth.
She turned and stalked away, her tail lashing behind her. Balinski rubbed his chest and then glanced down at Caesar. “Yeah, you did good in coming. If we hadn’t been able to make it out your backup would have been the thing we needed.” She just gave him a little bark and then headbutted his thigh affectionately.
Daryon was talking to Terri and the still slouching Dunmec. Balinski got the feeling he didn’t need the support as much as he was simply enjoying being physically close to the brawny furred alien.
Balinski decided to walk over to them to hear what they were whispering about. He picked up on the conversation as he neared. Terri was speaking, “Yes. She likely will keep trying to force her ideas on me, but I already beat her once and she won't ever be able to forget that. It is an exploitable weakness if we should ever lock claws again. Thank you for your concern.”
The woman looked over at him as he approached, her eyes settling on Caesar. “Oh, what’s that?” She exclaimed.
Caesar tossed her little head and gave him a look as if to say, ‘What? Another one?’ He chuckled and gave her a pat on the head. “This is my erstwhile companion and oldest living friend, Caesar. She is a cybernetically enhanced dog, a Jureillion husky to be precise. She’s got cognitive implants, you can talk to her if you want.” He prompted.
The yeown woman gave him a look that seemed as if she was unsure of herself. Finally she reached out and spoke softly, “Wow, look at you. You kind of look a little like my grandmother, it's uncanny.” Caesar snorted at the comment and then walked over for free head scritches, grumbling contentedly as she received them. “Ok she is so.. I mean, you are so soft. I love her.”
Caesar seemed to be enjoying the attention. Dunmec spoke now, the suited alien’s robotic sounding voice wheezing out from his helmet’s speakers. “I just wanted to thank you again for saving my life, man. Here, take this.” the man handed him something, it was a datachip card. An old style one too. “If you ever want to get a hold of me..” he glanced at Terri and she nodded, “..or Terri. Just call me with the number on that card.”
Balinski had to nod as he heard the faint sound of sirens coming from the still open door. “I will do that. You two take care of each other.”
Terry gave a wide grin, her teeth clinting in the light. “Oh, we will.” Daryon gave her a pat on the back as she followed Balinski out the door. Caesar hot on her tail.
He took a few steps out into the night and then patted his pockets. He grunted in mild delight as he found what he was looking for. It was a small shiny package of pibbles, the small candies one of his favorites. He poured a few out into his open mouth and jerked as he felt a tap on his shoulder. He glanced over, it was Daryon.
“Pibble?” he asked her with his mouth full. She seemed to smile slightly and offered a hand into which he poured a few of the colorful candies.
He chewed vigorously on the fruity sugar orbs as he contemplated the massive shitstorm they had just managed to walk out of. Daryon must have been thinking the same thing as she gave a loud sigh, “Wow.. that was. Well, it wassn't good.”
He just nodded silently. They stayed that way for another few seconds before he turned to her. “What did we actually get out of that old skorp? Anything that we can use to track down the one’s behind the attack?”
Daryon walked a few paces away and then returned quickly, the side-to-side scuttling motion of her pacing threw him off a little. “I really don’t know. The trail hasss gone cold, without another major lead I am fearful that we will losse them. That ssimply isn't acceptable to me.” He nodded, she was right.
He would have liked to respond but it was about that time that a series of screeching vehicles covered in flashing lights skidded into view at the end of the alley. He sighed and fished around in his trench coat for his credentials. “Here we go..” He muttered to which Daryon gave an amused hiss.
A series of officers rushed down the alley with guns drawn, shouts directed their way. It took only a few minutes of back and forth with them to convince them that they were in fact officers, or in Balinski’s case, employed by the CPD.
When it was over he gave a statement and almost a whole hour after they had walked down the alley he found himself leaving it. A bit the worse for wear but secure in the knowledge that they had at least put down a dangerous criminal for their trouble.
Daryon scuttled along beside him, “Gee, I ssure hope the club doesn't get into any ssort of trouble for thisss.”
The comment caught him off guard and he chuckled. “Yeah, they seemed like downright decent folk for running a burlesque underground club.” She gave him a pointed look, her antennae shooting up as she looked like she was about to rebuke him. He raised his arms in mock surrender before she could though, “Oh hey, not saying I didn’t like the place. Just that they likely were not excited to see the boys in blue.”
It was a fair point and she conceded. “Yeah, I ssuppose. But I think we sstill got out of there with a halfway decent lead.”
Now it was his turn to look shocked as they crossed the street, weaving between emergency vehicles to get to the opposite side of the gloomy street. The flashing of emergency lights was behind her and it made her eyes glitter like gemstones, he frowned. “What do you mean? That crusty old skorp didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already suspect.”
She raised an arm and pointed to the wall. He looked and noticed the graffiti for the first time. The one in particular she was gesturing to was a gang affiliated symbol for the Sunstarters. “I can ssay with sssome measure of certainty that we might be able to look around for ssome additional cluesss.”
The Sunstarters were known distributors for the Psychosis Division. It stood to reason that if the Pit Vipers had gotten involved with the Psychs then they were likely also involved with the Sunstarters. Balinski clapped his hands together and smiled, they might just have a lead indeed. What had the old skorp said? To follow the source?
They walked into the large parking garage and to his big blue truck, as they climbed back inside he leaned his head back. “That was a bit of a fuckfest. Are you hungry, I’m hungry.” Indeed almost as he said it he felt a small grumble from his middle.
Daryon made an affirmative gesture, her antennae moving excitedly. “Oh yess, where do you want to go for lunch? Ullnek’ss Hut maybe? McDoinkss?”
He folded his arms. He wasn’t really in the mood for greasy burgers or razah’voolian seafood. No, he would have to think about it. “Why don’t we just drive around till we find something interesting? We need to keep an eye out for any good leads too.”
He started the truck as the large insectoid woman gave Caesar a head pat while nodding. “Okay. But if you see a TFDs then we are sstopping immediately, isss that fair?”
Balinski shrugged. He liked fried drebble as much as anything else. Caesar however seemed very excited by the idea of crispy breaded arthropod as she woofed happily. He shook his head and looked back out the window. He would have to keep his eyes peeled for one of the yellow and black spotted stores.
**********
Balinski smacked his lips happily as he took another great bite out of the steaming fried drebbleloaf sandwich. The snallke was fresh and the pickles were crispy, just the way he liked them. Glancing over at the other two revealed similar scenes of personal enjoyment. Caesar was snacking on some popcorn drebble and Daryon was cleaning out a six-piece bucket of BBQ drebble graspers. Her long radula snaked from her lipless mouth between her opened faceplates as he watched, mildly intrigued to watch the alien woman eat.
He took another bite of his sandwich as Daryon sucked the meat off another fried and breaded grasper. Lacking a jaw she was unable to chew but her radula and powerful cheek muscles made up for her lack as she deftly disassembled the meat with the skill of a surgeon.
She waved the de-meated shell and gave a small hissing sigh as another of her ten arms reached out for the Smarkus grape soda sitting in the dash drink-holder. “Ahhh… Yeah, that'ss the sstuff. How’sss your ssandwich?” She looked at him without moving her head, her compound eyes making her constantly aware of her surroundings in a manner that some might describe as unsettling.
He got the feeling she was watching him eat too, his mastication of the sandwich as inherently alien to him as her own strange method of ingestion was to him. As he took another bite her curiosity seemed to get the better of her. He saw her head cock a little as she asked, “Sso, can you feel with your teeth? I know that you can’t tasste with them. I read that much on the hyperweb at leassst.”
He finished chewing and swallowed before giving her a wide smile. She froze, her fascination with his teeth obvious. “Yeah, kind of. I was lucky that I didn't lose them. It's not uncommon for people who go through.. what I did, to have their teeth shatter. And when they go they don’t come back.”
She nodded slightly as she took a loud slurp of her soda. “Yeah, I read that humanss only get a sssingle sset of adult teeth in their life. No wonder they are so hard, you have to keep using them for a hundred yearss.”
He looked out the window, they were driving slowly around the entertainment district looking for anything that might point them in the right direction. He wasn’t really too sure what he was looking for to be honest, but Daryon insisted that she knew what to look for. He nodded towards a distant structure, it rose so high it went out of sight. “What’s that there?”
Daryon made a loud noise as she cleared her throat. “That’ss one of the upper-city sspires. It connectss the people up there to the ones down here, think of it as a vertical metro..” She trailed off before pointing to something in the near distance. Her BBQ bucket forgotten. “Hey.. hey right there.. Sstop. Pull over.” She tapped him on the shoulder with one of her lower arms rapidly and he obliged.
He looked forwards and saw nothing out of the ordinary, a few people walking along the edge of the street. There was a tall human woman leaning against one of the street signs at the corner, she was dressed in some tight fitting dress and high heels but other than that looked as normal as the rest of them.
Daryon put her yellow and black spotted grasper bucket on the dash and cleaned her hands at the same time she undid her seatbelt and straightened her clothing. She stopped fussing after a moment and then pulled a soft cloth out of one of the inner pockets of her overcoat and used it to polish her eyes. She replaced it and then held out her arms, “Well, how do I look?”
Balinski took the opportunity to give her a completely unabashed once over. He shrugged, “You look like you. What can I say?”
She seemed to smirk. “Alright, good enough. You know you have a way with words Balinski, any girl would just swoon to hear such things.” He frowned but didn't get to reply as she continued, “I’ll be right back. Sstay there and try not to look too harmlesss. This will only take a ssecond.
She slithered out of the truck and he kept his eyes firmly forwards this time as she closed it and sauntered off, well as much as the fifty-two legged alien was able too. He noticed that she had once more adopted that somewhat provocative side to side sway in her stride as she walked away from him. He just shook his head, she was doing it again.
Continued In E3:P5
==End of transmission==

The Context:

A user posts a picture of a dog two dogs riding on a flatbed traveling down I-5 to /Oregon.
Comments quickly collapse into a torrent of slapfights, accusations of animal cruelty, and red vs blue politics.

The Drama:

Does everyone do this?

You guys aren’t going to like hearing this but 95% of working cattle dogs out here in eastern Oregon ride around like this. 99% of the time these dogs dont fall off

I gave you your 4th up vote which I assume is the line of your 70 downvotes 😂
Same people complaining here don’t pickup their dogs shit in the city. They should move to the country haha
I had to scroll to the bottom of the coments to find a rational one. SAD!
you and all your lil inbred friends are gonna get the shit beat outta them if you keep doing this lmao

I’d love to see someone who lives in Portland “beat the shit” out of someone who has horses. That’s cuter than Amy on a Friday night.

Right? They all piss themselves and then run back to their meth den.
These dog would trade a day of this you watch you portland people fuck trans people

These dogs would pay to watch me fuck trans people? Who am I to deny someone that opportunity? 😂
rent free big dog

“i fuck my cousin so you should too yeehaw”
everyone here fucks their cousin and their dog and they don’t mind it we jus got some lead in our brains 🤪
“well everyone else does it” is not really an excuse

I think the point they’re making is it’s not as dangerous as it looks. Also it appears they’re tied to the back so they can’t get too close to the edge. Seems fine to me

Fuck you then

[Continued:]

Damn really struck a nerve by just suggesting people calm down. Alrighty

Fuck you from me too.

Keep fighting the good fight buddy!

I'm not you buddy cunt. Fuck you.

Right back at ya, pal

[…]

it's incredibly shitty and unsafe for the animal and other people on the road.

Because you say so? Who cares about you,
Ain’t nothing unsafe in that picture. Dogs not gonna jump of a flat bed going 55 mph.
What would be unsafe is if the dogs were on leash/tether.

In what world is this safe? They could have to brake suddenly, take a sharp turn, hit a huge pothole, swerve to avoid hitting something else, get hit by another vehicle, etc. Any one of those events would to easily lead to that dog’s death.

Low speed around the ranch.....60 on the freeway.... NOT THE SAME..And NOT OK.. DON'T TRY TO JUSTIFY THIS THOUGHTLESS P.O.S...again we need a license plate number ...PLEASE.😡😡😡😡😡😡😡
Because you say so 😂

Did you know that people can say things that you disagree with and be correct?

Liberals!

lol. Those dogs are smarter than 99% of the liberals in Oregon.

Hurrrr
Certainly smarter than the likely Republican asshole driving the truck.

Don’t choke on that steak in your mouth. Brought to you by that dog that’s 10x’s your intelligence.

The fuck does that even mean? 🤣

That these border collies are herding checks notes cows.

I'm an idiot liberal, remember? I don't eat steak.
The fact you can almost put a sentence together is impressive. Next step will be to have that comment make sense!

👆 and you’re talking about putting sentences together 😂
Wow Kevin you really owned the libs there damn

[Continued:]

Keep on asking the internet for beard advice 👍 that’s much funnier.

Wow Kevin, it's banger after banger from you. You're on fire Kevin bravo

And you have nothing 🤷🏼‍♂️

You're so right Kevin wow you really showed me, I'm in such awe of your wit and intelligence. You know so many words I'm so impressed Kevin you're my hero

Followed by the same unintelligent shit you spew. Should I call you Karen? Cause that’s where you are going. Might do you some good to get out a little. You’re starting to sound like that guy in your mom’s basement. You know the kind. Hot pockets in one hand. Keyboard warrior in the other.

[Continued:]

Calm down there Kevin your blood pressure is getting a little too high there we don't want anything to happen to you Kevin

It is way past Kevin’s bedtime, he’ll tucker himself out soon

[…]

What's it like to wake up every day and be so pathetically upset over something you have no control over?

Great considering you get to read it and feel the need to open your mouth over it. March on liberal. Are you proud of all the homelessness and graffiti as you pass thru here? Liberal policies at work.

Lol, I'm not a liberal. I'll open my mouth over whatever I feel like too. I'm surprised you can open yours with a boot stuck in it.

March on commie!

What's it like to be so fucking boring that you have to make this dumb shit your entire personality.

Same shit farmers have been doing for centuries. Rolling their dogs down the road to go catch cows, but now they roll thru the liberal utopia of Portland. Land of meth. Land of homeless. Land of crime. Land of complete failure and all the sudden the Cowboy with the dog is doing something illegal. Y’all need to fucking take another hit of that meth and chill 👍

It's so wild to me how many of you bozos live in the same state as Portland and have such unfounded fears about it, so scared of nothing. It'd be funny if it wasnt so pathetic. "Oh lordy lordy, that big city living is scawy!"
I grew up in the deep south, it's been entirely run by conservatives for decades. If the liberalism of Oregon bothers you so much, you're welcome to head down there. You'll love it, violent crime is higher, poverty is higher, infrastructure is crumbling, education is at the bottom, and drug overdose deaths (your favorite topic) are also higher. Go on down there and get some of that good ol fashioned conservative living. 👍

[Continued:]

Right. Because Chicago, every city in California and every blue state is like Heaven right? You need to pull your head out of your ass.

Well see, here's the difference between you and me, slugger. I've been to all those places that you're too scared to go because the TV tells you how super scary it is. They're fine, every place is gonna have its issues. There were areas in my home state that I wouldn't go during the day time. Don't even act like you know anything about Chicago or California, you're just regurgitating horse shit you've been fed, and you only believe it because you live in a bubble and you gotta fit in with your community. Can't go around thinking for yourself, now can ya.
But all that's irrelevant because we have these things called "data" and "statistics". And the data says the placed I'm talking about are worse in all the categories I said.

You need to pull your head out of your ass.

Physician heal thyself.
Imagine, all of this because some of us don't like dogs being out in dangerous situations. What is wrong with you?

Well there you go assuming. Typical liberal. I travel all over this country. I’m very aware of all of it. Try again Jack ass. 😂

Blah blah blah. Whatever you say man. You came in here to shit on people, and now that someone is calling you out for the insecure and unlettered baby that you are, you're doing that weird defensive thing where you throw out names and use emojis like a child. In my 40 years on this earth, I have never seen anyone that goes out of their way to shit on other people because they're actually happy. Look inward and grow up. Now I'm done with ya.

You ain’t done with me. You’ve called me an introvert, and an unintelligent hillbilly that is uneducated in the culture of America. Piss off and I’ve got you beat by at least 10 years. I’ve also traveled this country up, down and side to side more times than you’ve been laid. Get over yourself kid. You ain’t got shit.

[…]

And 100% of the conservatives in every state…

Enjoy your trump salad this fall 😂 brought to you by Joe Biden 👍

It’s so sad how y’all have made Trump your entire personality

Only to your kind 🤷🏼‍♂️

Okay Kevin

Someone suggests calling the cops:

Everyone does it, the cops don’t care

Everyone

Nope. Only assholes do this.

So I guess basically every farm worker with a dog is an asshole then. Got it

I've never seen a farmer put an animal on a flatbed. I've seen them in the back of a normal pickup, but not on something that has no barrier that could protect the dog from falling out. I live out in a small town with a farming community and I have never seen someone be this careless with their animals
Fuck off. Not every farmer does this or is an asshole. People who do this are assholes.

I mean a lot of them do. And the dogs are fine

Buy a crate. Strap the crate down in the bed of your truck. Problem solved.
Don’t make this about ‘farm workers’ —I work sheep/outside with three dogs and they go in crates at the back in the end of the day. Farm work ain’t got shit to do with it. Just because you’re too lazy to secure your dog doesn’t mean others aren’t.
Goddamn you are really going out of your way to excuse this here, haha.

It's odd, right?? Then I their checked previous comments...
Did you know there is a whole realm of PetFree?

[…]

Dude... I know a lot of farmers and they don't all abuse their dogs like this. All of them actually care about their dogs. This is an asshole move, not a farmer move. This is 1000 times different then driving down a rural road with your dog in a pick up. Don't fucking try to normalize this shit.

How is this abuse? Just because you perceive a danger doesn’t mean there is one.

Yea, if there’s an accident the dog definitely has a better chance of survival on that deck than it does in the cab. Shut the fuck up you cunt.

If there’s an accident all bets are off anyways. But yeah, I’m basically a monster for suggesting this is fairly common and people should calm down. Keep fighting the good fight my guy

It doesn’t matter if it’s common and how are all bets off in an accident? The dogs matter less if there’s an accident? And you being obtuse just make you look stupider.

[Continued:]

I mean that every being in the vehical is at risk of death or injury in an accident.
I mean yeah, human life is more valuable than a dog’s life

And you understand that the chances of survival plummet outside the vehicle even in a more minor incident. No one said that the dogs matter more but putting them back there in any setting other than a country road is irresponsible and shitty but I wouldn’t expect any less from those welfare recipients.

I think it depends on the type of accident. If they were inside the cab they’d probably be just roaming around and could just as easily get thrown through a window.
Are you implying being a welfare recipient is a sign of moral failure?

So now we’re clairvoyant and no it’s just what I call farmers that receive subsidies.

Man, you love your insults. I’m sure they really strengthen your case.
I mean how do you even know this guy is a farmer? The fact that you have a derogatory term for a whole group of people is definitely interesting…

[Continued:]

They get real worked up it’s great. This is a bullshit thing to do they make harnesses for the animals inside the vehicle. Sorry I called you a cunt.

Well fwiw, thanks for apologizing.
Yeah I can see that and I don’t know the specifics here so I could be wrong. It’s just my opinion

[…]

Yup, call 911 and get connected to the appropriate non-emergency police line to report them.

We’re not seriously wasting 911 dispatchers time and resources on this? I swear people freak out for the most minor shit. These dogs are clearly chained so they can’t get too close to the edge. That’s legal and not nearly as dangerous as it looks. But oh boy, dog not being chauffeured around in a private limo, everybody get angry!

Ok boomer

Yeah, 29 year old boomer here

Okay so you’re a phenomenon then
The worst kind of boomer

And what of the ranch folk?

Ranch folk in eastern Oregon let their working dogs ride like that often. The one dog is clearly just napping away. Move along

Fuck you and your “ranch folk”

Haha, stop eating any meat or vegetables then
Aww boo boo, you think this is animal abuse. You don’t get out much do you?

You clearly don't get out much if your only hobby is being an asshole on Reddit

Actually just back from a week of backpacking, free from all you judgemental keyboard clowns. Those dogs were fine. Get a life. ✌️

Actually I’m very much city folk, 26 years Philly, 23 years Portland. I just travel outside of the I-5 corridor occasionally and do get in other peoples business. ✌️

Who cares you're still an asshole

More discussion of ranch life:

He is a rancher this is what all ranchers do…… educate yourselves

It's called 'Animal Husbandry', not Animal Dumbassry.
If you can't afford or don't care about the welfare of your animals, then you're a shitty rancher! Do something else!

That rancher has more money they most y’all. You keep sticking to your city way of life I’ll stay away from it. Cheers

You fuckin idiot
You realize this is the middle of a highway going 60 mph right?
All your "country living" doesn't apply
That's why you, and this guy are wrong and ignorant
It's country in a fuckin city and it's not safe

Get fucked

Your so woke, you can’t handle real world

No, he's right. Get fucked. A message from the real world.
So brain dead you don’t even realize the world doesn’t revolve around your shitty back country experiences

More people are urged to get outside:

This is 10000% reportable. I hope you took a pic of the license along with the dog pic, or he's just gonna keep doing it

You need to get out of the city homie, go into a farming and ranching community and almost every truck will have the same god damn thing….. worry about cleaning the tweakers off your streets

I don't live in the city, sir. Move along
Ur def a tweaked if u think this is ok

You need to get out of the city homie, go into a farming and ranching community and almost every truck will have the same god damn thing….. worry about cleaning the tweakers off your streets

With all due respect,
Get fucked you stupid asshole.

In the before times…

In a time before Reddit kids and pets rode around freely in the beds of pickup trucks, and life was good. Nobody was accused of child abuse, threaten to call the police, people minded their own fucking business….what a time to be alive!

People just need something to get angry about and with dogs elevated to personhood in modern culture there you go. The comments on this thread are nuts

Agreed 👍
It's a flat bed you boomer moron

Shouldn’t you be vandalizing a university library someplace?

Pshht already did that. Gotta get this pepper spray dye off before work on Monday.

Let me guess, you also drank out of the hose and walked uphill to school both ways? And a little lead poisoning never hurt nobody?

No but I’m old enough not to get riled up by a pic of farm dogs riding on the back of a flatbed truck, like they probably always do. Sensationalism at its worst.

Are these dogs better than Redditors?

Those dogs work harder than most of the folks on this .

Amen, those dogs know there place.
Working out of town with my city dog my daughter asked if I was going to bring a toy out to “ranch dogs name”. I explained that ranch dogs don’t really have toys, they have a ranch. My dogs a good mix between the two but he ain’t a ranch dog that can ride in the bed of a pickup.
That dog is happier the shit. People are soft.

Correct. Bunch of pussy ass people in here.

That means nothing coming from a dipshit like you.

The Flairs:

• “I’d love to see someone who lives in Portland “beat the shit” out of someone who has horses.”
  
• “Shouldn’t you be vandalizing a university library someplace?”
  
• “Hot pockets in one hand. Keyboard warrior in the other.”
  
• “Enjoy your trump salad this fall 😂 brought to you by Joe Biden 👍”