The frigid wind whipped across Marko's face as he trudged through the knee-deep snow. His numb fingers clutching the straps of his backpack. The storm had hit three days ago, and he was no closer to finding shelter than when he'd started. His food supplies were dwindling. The cold was seeping into his bones like a relentless, icy specter.
"Should've listened to the weatherman," Marko muttered, his chapped lips going numb. He squinted against the blinding white landscape, searching for any sign of life. Any glimmer of hope.
As he pushed forward, his mind wandered to the events that had led him here. The hiking trip had been a spur-of-the-moment decision. It was a chance to escape the suffocating reality of his failing marriage and dead-end job. He'd packed light, assuming he'd be back in a few days. Now, as the storm raged on, he realized the gravity of his mistake.
A dark shape appeared on the horizon, breaking the monotony of the endless white. Marko's heart leaped, and he quickened his pace. He ignored the burning in his lungs and the numbness in his limbs. As he drew closer, the shape resolved into a small, dilapidated cabin. The roof sagging under the weight of the snow.
Marko stumbled to the door, his hands shaking as he fumbled with the latch. To his surprise, it opened, revealing a dusty interior cast in shadow. He stepped inside, grateful for the reprieve from the biting wind.
The cabin was sparse, with a single room containing a rickety table, a chair, and a small fireplace. Marko dropped his backpack and moved to the fireplace. His eyes widened when he saw the pile of dry firewood stacked beside it.
"Hello?" he called out, his voice hoarse from disuse. "Is anyone here?"
Silence answered him, broken only by the howling of the wind outside. Marko shrugged and set to work building a fire, his fingers clumsy and uncooperative. After several attempts, a small flame flickered to life, casting a warm glow across the room.
As the fire grew, Marko's gaze fell on the table, where a piece of paper lay, weighted down by a small, rusted key. He picked up the note, his brow furrowing as he read the words scrawled in a shaky hand: "You'll need this. Trust me."
Marko turned the key over in his palm, a sense of unease growing in the pit of his stomach. He glanced around the cabin, aware of how isolated he was. Miles from civilization in a raging blizzard.
A soft scratching sound drew his attention to the far wall, where a small door was set into the wood. Marko approached it, the key heavy in his hand. He fitted it into the lock, and with a soft click, the door swung open, revealing a narrow passageway.
Marko hesitated, his heart pounding in his chest. The passage was dark, the air heavy with the scent of earth and decay. Every instinct screamed at him to turn back, to barricade the door and wait out the storm. But something else, a whisper in the back of his mind, urged him forward.
He took a deep breath and stepped into the passage, the darkness enveloping him like a shroud. The tunnel seemed to go on forever, twisting and turning like the gnarled roots of an ancient tree. Marko's breathing echoed in the confined space. It mingled with the soft drip of water and the scurrying of unseen creatures.
As he was about to turn back, the passage opened into a small chamber, lit by a flickering torch set into the wall. In the center of the room stood a stone pedestal, upon which rested a small, ornate box.
Marko approached the pedestal, his hand trembling as he reached for the box. As his fingers brushed the cool metal, a voice spoke from the shadows, making him whirl around in surprise.
"I wondered when you'd arrive," the voice said, low and rasping. A figure stepped into the light, an old man with a long, white beard and piercing blue eyes. "I've been waiting for you, Marko."
Marko stared at the man, his mind reeling. "How do you know my name?" he asked.
The old man smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners. "I know many things," he said, moving to stand beside Marko. "I know why you're here, and I know what you seek."
He gestured to the box, his gnarled fingers brushing the intricate carvings. "This box contains the key to your survival," he said, his voice taking on a grave tone. "The path ahead is treacherous, filled with trials that will test your mind, body, and spirit."
Marko swallowed hard, his mouth dry. "What kind of trials?" he asked, his voice trembling.
The old man shook his head, his eyes filled with a deep sadness. "I cannot say," he replied, his voice soft. "But know this, Marko. The choices you make from this moment on will determine not only your fate but the fate of all those you hold dear."
With that, the old man stepped back, fading into the shadows as if he had never been there at all. Marko stood alone in the chamber, the box heavy in his hands. The weight of the old man's words settling on his shoulders like a burden.
He took a deep breath and opened the box, his heart pounding in his chest. Inside, nestled on a bed of velvet, lay a small, golden compass, its needle spinning. Marko lifted it from the box, feeling a strange warmth emanating from the metal.
As he watched, the needle slowed, coming to rest on a single point. North. The direction of home, of safety, of all the things he had left behind.
Marko closed his eyes, feeling a sense of calm wash over him. He knew the path ahead would be difficult, that the trials the old man spoke of would push him to his limits. But he also knew that he had no choice but to face them head-on. Fight for his survival and for the chance to make things right.
With a determined nod, Marko slipped the compass into his pocket. He turned back to the passage, ready to face whatever lay ahead. The storm outside raged on. Inside, a flicker of hope burned bright, guiding him forward into the unknown.

Locked up in the BSU again, or dare I say it? She will end up fucking shot at this rate… I’m here to tell you, local law enforcement are a bunch of gun nuts who will shoot first and ask questions later. They’re all morons. So, those of you trying to call local authorities? Please don’t waste local tax payers dollars on this shit. They’re not going to do anything. Troopers likely won’t either, bc they need charges that actually stick. Everything she has been doing lately is too vague to charge.
CPS is not going to do anything. I know parents who live in almost squalor and have mental health issues and all still have their kids. The standard is: will this kid die if they stay in this situation? Yes? CPS takes them for placement. No? CPS monitors for 60-120 days. I’m sure everything for these two morons has been unfounded.
Eddie Oropollo used to be Corning PD and he caught charges as an Elmira PO for I believe manslaughter for pinning a man down while he had a mental health crisis. He was found not guilty, but it was huge that he was charged. He and his wife Trish are absolute trash. Besides the point, but that’a a pretty typical response, locally.
That’s the local temperature on mental health in this area. We are so rural we don’t have any mental health professionals let alone anyone who could deal with the complexities of this issue. Morgan likely has an undiagnosed dissociative identity disorder, her coping mechanism for stress or triggers is a huge spectrum and you all say “we see demons in her eyes” yet she can still function and not get in trouble etc bc she’s still somewhat there… This is my own arm chair diagnosis!!! I’m not a professional!!
I can say from personal experience when I was overprescribed adderall, I was not in a healthy place. That’s the last drug she needs to be on, in the midst of a manic spiral? Yeah, no fucking way. She needs a week in the BSU just to SLEEP!
If she has DID from the cPTSD? From everything Justin does to her etc? She’s an asshole for not getting real with herself and getting the help she deserves to get for her child’s sake. And, in the same breath, fuck Justin for triggering her to this point. That’s cruel.
Justin is quietly proving what a control freak she is, and she just happily hops in the trap he sets for her every single time.
Again, she’s not gonna get in trouble. She’s simply not. She might get a two day stay at chateau deux saint Joseph’s, but she’s not going to get in trouble. Mark my words.
As a local, stop wasting our tax dollars on these two assholes!!! Lol, everyone is aware!! There’s truly nothing they can charge her with. Even riding with a bumper on her kids lap? Not a sound idea to you or me, but also still not illegal!!

My boyfriend knows I'm posting this, but I need some unbiased advice beecause this situation is actually making me have an existential crisis. Apologies for any grammatical or spelling errors is advance, I'm litteraly going crazy lol.
(Background info)
My boyfriend and I have been together for a little over a year now. We were friends before he confessed his feelings for me and we started dating a year later.
I have a pretty troubled home life. My mother's family have never liked me because my father is black and my mother has always sided with them. This caused me to move out at 18 and I've been on my own since.
I'm not going to pretend I'm not fucked up. I've known I was mentally ill since I was 13 and I put all my effort into getting better. I went ont medication, got therapy and researched the crap out of any self help page or book I could find because I wanted to be normal.
Still, I have my flaws. My biggest one is yelling. My family has always communicated through anger. If my mom was upset growing up she would scream at me for hours about how much she hated me and wished I was dead. It's not right, but I haven't shaked my inability to not yell when I'm overwhelmed.
(Actual Situation)
This all started when my ear got infected last Sunday. I put in a new earing and I guess the person that sold it to me the day before lied about the material it was made out of because I woke up the next morning with my ear swollen.
It hurt so bad that I couldn't even touch my ear without imediatedly bursting into tears. I asked my boyfriend to help me take it out and we ended up in an argument because he yelled at me.
We've been having argument's recently due to the way he used to treat me for eight months of our relationship. He was emotionally unavalible because of a traumatic event from his childhood and while I understood, I never let him think it was okay. I told him I would support him through everything, but I told him that being avoidant to prevent himself getting hurt wasn't healthy. Life is painful and you can't lock yourself away because you're scared someone will hurt you. All you can do is know that you'll be strong enough to keep going even if you do get hurt.
His avoidance took a tool on our relationship. Planning dates was left to me and he ignored me every night so he could play video games with his friends. He never walked me home, asked me to spend time with him or called me beautiful even though he called another girl beautiful infront of me.
I started doubting that he cared for me and no matter how hard I tried to communicate with him he never changed. We ended up having our first big fight where he told me he wanted to break up with me and I snapped. All the patience I had for him left me and for the first time in our relationship I yelled at him.
He apologised and begged me to stay together and things were fine until I found out he was talking to another girl. He had told someone that girls could, " Be is bitch anytime" and siad he would make an effort to start talking to her more. He deleted their entire chat before I could see it and even though he swore up and down they only talked about art, he still broke my trust because he had promised he wasn't going to talk to her because she openly expressed he feelings for him.
All that stuff kept messing with my head and his family didn't help either because they encourage his bs. They think he's God's gift to humanity even though he was unemployed before he met me and I got him his first job. I've been with him every step of the way trying my best to help him, yet in their eyes I'm the bad guy because I made him cry after he litterally cheated on me.
The situation got out of hand because I told him to get out. He doesn't pay rent for out appartment and I was fed up. His family came after he called them but he told them to leave because we would sort it out.
More drama later they came back enen though they told him not to and barged into my appartment. Keep in mind at this point my boyfriend is telling me he doesn't want to go, so I'm freaking the fuck out because his family, who I have explicitly stated are not allowed in my appartment, are grabbing shit and are telling my boyfriend I can't legally do anything to them. At one point I was grabbing my boyfriend's stuff and handing it to him (I was basically shoving it at him) and I guess he dropped them because his sister came running in, shoved her finger in my face and told me not to touch her or her brother.
Like, I litterally had no idea what was going on because my boyfriend is saying he doesn't want to leave but he's doing nothing about his family.
Eventually he tells me the won't leave unless he goes with them so he'll just leave to make them happy and come back tomorrow. He didn't come back the day after and was ignoring my calls. We ended up speaking because I told him that this wasn't healthy and if he was upset he needed to tell me because this was between us and we were the only two people that could solve it. I told him it was fine if he was upset and wanted to end things, but he couldn't just ghost me and them show back up like nothing happened.
He ended up telling me that he told his family he wanted to leave but was too afraid to tell me. This man is 6'1 200lbs but is afriad of his 5'5 140lbs girlfriend? Like, what? I've litterally always given him a listening ear and yeah I've gotten mad when he cheats or is avoidant, but I'd like to think after all the time I've been patient and undersatnding with him he would see that I care yk?
Long story short we went back and forth with me telling him he needs to talk to his family about the boundaries they crossed and about the passive agressive way they treat me and his sister tells him that she doesn't belive it because I'm manipulative and that he was super happy before he met me and that i issolate him from his family. This man has never once said he wanted to go see his family. I've literally bought stuff for his little sister and begged him to go drop it off and he hasn't so this is news to me. The only problem I've had was them showing up with no notice. If he wants to go there, yeah I might be a little sad or upset because our jobs are super demading and we don't get a lot of tome together, but I'm not going to stop him.
And like, I've been making an effort with his family. His mom was begging him for $400 to pay her internet bill and I litteraly gave her $1000. And even though they're passive agressive and ignore me, I still make the effort to showup to family things, So, idk how I'm manipulative and "need to talk to a therapist and get medicated" as she says.
So, yeah. I guess I just needed to vent because i'm genuinly so scared that I'm secretly a master manipulator and I have him here against his will.

Once in the brush a solid 50 feet into it, I was able to start taking inventory of my gear and inspecting my gear. My phone was not bricked which was a blessing, however it was failing to pick up any kind of signal, battery was still full along with the solar charging pack that I kept on the outside of ole Alice. Both of my red dots were still on, all the flashlights turned on without issue, and the pvs-15 I had secured in a water proof box was in better shape than I expected. Food… enough for another 5 days if I stretch it out properly, water is good for now, I should be able to refill off the river and sanitize it. Lets get most of this shoved back in along with the plastic covered brick… ‘ ‘Oh fuck this proably a kilo of coke, neat.’ The sound of organized marching immediately caught my ears, which was strange since I was seemingly in the middle of nowhere though that only raised further concerns, marching with that level of sync meant military. If it is military, then someone in a kit with this kind of gear will probably be immediately shot. ‘Fuck fuck fuck… Alright, calm down and think, if they see you they shoot on sight or try to take your prisoner, at best you are taken to the closest American embassy… Death on one hand and a hopefully peaceful return on the other… or I could follow them to their camp or base and try to go from there based on whatever language they speak their equipment… Then try to make my way to the nearest embassy or port that way…’ As my thoughts raced, a woman's scream tore my mind from the deepening hole it was attempting to dig. Now shit had just taken a drastic turn, the ever rumbling sound of lock step marching was continuing, but there was a smaller amount than before. ‘Interesting, time to make a bad situation even worse.’ I grabbed my small carbine and quickly began creeping towards the edge of the woodline to begin taking a peak and observing the nearby forces. Hoping that it was some sort of NATO ally or at least some sort of uniform that I could use to easily identify what region of the world I was in. ‘What the fuck….’ I let my AR dip into its sling so I could rub my sweat dried eyes before looking back out, it looked like I was observing a strange mix of a Roman Legion and medieval knights, which honestly made little sense since seeing as the fighting doctrine for both usually did not overlap. The internal debate aside, I was able to see about 5 of the wanna be Romans running after what looked to be a mother and child, in modern looking clothes, they were making a break towards the river. Unfortunately, the Legionaries were gaining swiftly. Dropping to a crouched position, I lined up the small red dot on the side of the furthest forward man, he was reaching out trying to grab the child and wasn’t focused on his footing going over the rocky bank, a wiry smile grew on my face as I click the safety of the carbine and begin the slow squeeze of the trigger. An old prayer that I had heard from an infantry chaplain came to mind as the first shot against another person left the barrel. “Lord make me fast and accurate, may my aim be true and heart in the right, but should today be my last O’ Lord then let me leave this world in an empty pile of brass, so that when I report to Saint Peter he can find an empty space just for me, in your Son’s blessed and Holy name… AMEN!”
The hammer drops on to the back of the firing pin, launching it forward into the back of the primer cap, igniting it and launching the 62 grain clump of steel and copper down the 11.5 inch barrel and the additional 6 inches of suppressor, throwing it out at speeds thought impossible by the folks of this world as it spun right into the Legionnaire's exposed armpit, tearing muscle and bone with a fresh wave of hatred. As the steel cored round began to break down and send the fragmentation of itself and the bones it shattered into the various organs, the final remains of the bullet tore through the heart, ending the man's life. His body laid out in a dead flop, tripping his allies as they were not prepared for the sudden death, adjusting my aim to the last man of the group, aiming for just below the edge of his helmet and firing twice, throwing two more rounds down range. The first one tearing through his bicep with the other catching him in the throat. By now they had noticed that this wasn’t the typical trip up but rather, what you can consider an impromptu ambush. ‘Good’

May got out to a lightning start for me, continuing the torrid April pace for a while before cooling off a bit in the back end of the month. That's partially by design, as I jumped into a pair of longer games (one enormously so) which I won't finish until deeper into June, but I've also noticed I'm slowly bleeding gaming time from my evenings. As my kids get incrementally older and the days grow incrementally longer entering summer, an hour that would previously be my own is now deferred to them, and that adds up over the course of an entire month.
Not that I'd trade my kids, you understand.
(Games are presented in chronological completion order; the numerical indicator represents the YTD count.)
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#27 - Contra: Hard Corps - GEN - 8/10 (Great)
It's been fascinating to watch the Contra series evolve over time, and Hard Corps on the Sega Genesis is no different. With no Mode 7 (the SNES' proprietary isometric viewpoint mode) available on the system, necessarily some of the top down content from Contra III would need to be altered or removed, and that begged the question of what would take its place: after all, a return to basic sidescrolling action might feel like a big step down, and we can't have that. So I think I expected Hard Corps to throw in a new wrinkle to keep the formula a bit more fresh. What I did not expect was for it to make three enormous changes.
For one, Hard Corps has four different characters to choose from, and each is actually unique. It's not just the look - where else can you play a cybernetic wolfman? - but they've got different sizes and hurtboxes as well. And while each starts with the same basic low power machine gun, each has a completely different loadout of possible weapon upgrades, ensuring that all four play very differently from one another outside of the fundamentals of movement. To that end, the two weapon toggle of Contra III is expanded in Hard Corps, allowing you to hold all four of your upgraded weapons simultaneously and switch between them at will, which adds a new layer of depth and strategy to the action. Building upon this notion of enhanced player choice even further, the second big change is that the game has branching paths. After the first stage you make a choice that determines where you head for the second level, and then later on you make another choice that creates further divergence, such that the game has four main endings (and a secret fifth!), all with their own dedicated unique stages. It's for that reason possibly the most replayable game so far in the franchise; I myself did a run through of each ending using a different character per run to get a feel for them all.
This leads to the final big change, which is the only one I don't regard a resounding success: the entire game is basically a boss rush. Let's zero in on the main path that I followed on my primary playthrough and add up all mini-bosses and full boss phases. What number might you expect that to come out as? A dozen or so? Well, sorry about your naiveté, but the answer is 43: it's bosses all the way down. This is a MUCH more mentally taxing load than previous Contra games where you could kind of skate through the non-boss sections with good fundamentals. And that's just one of four possible paths through the game! It's absurd! It's also way more fun than it sounds it would be from the description, but I've heard people say Hard Corps is the toughest Contra game and now I know why. I do miss just running and gunning and dropping dudes in one hit before a thrilling finale; it's hard to be properly wowed by a boss fight when that's all you ever see. But nevertheless Contra: Hard Corps is lives up to the legacy of greatness the franchise had up until that point established...just steel yourself mentally for the extensive memorization it requires of you.
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#28 - Ancient Enemy - PC - 5.5/10 (Semi-Competent)
Solitaire is one of those games that nobody really wants to play. It’s a game of convenience and opportunity, only attractive in the absence of something better, which is to say “nearly anything else at all.” Slightly more entertaining are variations on the form, such as Mahjong Solitaire or Free Cell, where certain cards/tiles are locked until the ones above them have been cleared away. These are still just time wasting games for people with nothing else to do, but when presented as a discrete set of challenges there’s a bit more appeal. Do you know they say that every one of the 32,000 numbered games of FreeCell on classic Windows operating systems was supposedly beatable? Did you know a very bored teenage me once decided to see if I could prove it by playing and beating every single unique game of FreeCell in order? I got into the low 30s or so before I questioned what the hell I was doing with my life and wisely moved on.
Well, Ancient Enemy is a game for people with nothing better to do, masquerading as a game that would qualify as "something better to do." It’s an RPG, I guess, but the gameplay revolves entirely around a solitaire variant. You have a deck of “stock cards” numbered 0-9 and start each encounter (“hand”) by flipping the top one. Then on the board you have to collect a card with a number adjacent to the one you’re displaying - 0 serving as a bridge between 1 and 9. Getting a card reveals any card trapped immediately below it and enables that card to be collected as well. If you can’t make a move, you can flip a new stock card over to get a random new number until your deck runs out. Some levels are simple puzzles in this vein, trying to clear all the cards from the board. Most encounters though are battles, where you do the exact same thing, except the color of the card you collect enables you to attack, defend, or cast a spell. So it’s turn-based combat, except each turn is you basically clearing as many cards as you can from the board to juice up your attack or bolster your defense, and that’s about it.
Now, at first, this is actually way more fun than I’m making it sound. I mean, I like solitaire type games for what they are, and the extra mechanics definitely do enrich the experience. You get consumable wild cards, battle boards have bonus cards with instant benefits, you get powers that manipulate the board, new types of cards appear, all good stuff. The problem is that the game completely runs out of these new ideas about a quarter of the way through, at which point you’re just going through the motions until the end, accompanied by a complete nothing of a story that I was confident I had figured out, only to find that the ending was somehow worse than the cliche I’d been anticipating. Thus, the game sadly settled into that exact same niche of games it was supposed to improve upon and supplant. Which I suppose is ok…if you’ve got nothing better to do.
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#29 - Snakebird Primer - PC - 7/10 (Good)
I follow a general rule of always playing game franchises in order, but Snakebird Primer is a unique case wherein the developers of the original Snakebird decided that it was too off-putting to new players, and so they made a sequel that they explicitly wanted newcomers to play first. A "primer" in truth to ease you into the overall Snakebird challenge, as it were. So when I decided to check out Snakebird, I thought all right: just this once I'll do it your way.
So how does Snakebird Primer shake out? Well...it's fine. It's a jaunty kind of puzzle game, with bright colors, friendly art and music, and general good vibes. In each stage you control one or more segmented "snakebirds" and have to get them all to the rainbow portal to complete the level. Sometimes you need to eat fruit to open the portal as well, but that's the entire game in a nutshell. It's a very simple concept, complicated only by the fact that a snakebird that has no body segments touching the ground will fall, and so each stage is a kind of pathing challenge, tasking you to figure out the right order of operations to reach the end. The levels are very well paced and designed if you just go in order: there aren't any hand-holdy tutorials, but new ideas are introduced organically at various intervals, and the challenge always feels reasonable, especially because you can undo any number of moves at will, like stepping through code to find an error.
There is, however, a significant difficulty spike for the last couple levels, which is pretty jarring. And when you add to that the fact that the designer of Baba Is You said he built a lot of his design philosophy around the original Snakebird, I've got to admit I'm a lot less keen on checking that one out. It's in that same realm of "enter these six dozen commands in precisely the right order" that made Baba Is You eventually feel more tedious and frustrating to me than anything else, so I think for now I'm happy to have just played the "lite" version instead.
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#30 - It Takes Two - PS4 - 8.5/10 (Excellent)
When trying to write down a genre for It Takes Two in my tracking spreadsheet, I wanted to put "Yes". It's as though the developers wanted to make a bunch of different kinds of games and, rather than accepting any limitations (self-imposed or otherwise), they just found a way to do it all at once. It Takes Two is a platformer. It's a third-person shooter. It's a puzzle game. It's a rhythm game. It's a racing game. It's a stealth game. It's a boss battling action adventure. It's a minigame collection. It's a romantic comedy. It's an exploration playground. One minute you're flying around on a jetpack chucking Captain America shields at devils and the next you're literally playing a timed game of chess. None of the things that It Takes Two does would be characterized as masterpiece forms of their respective genres, but that's not the point. There's sufficient depth and development of each mechanic that it never feels like a lazy tack-on to check a box - and that in itself is beyond impressive - but it's the sheer number of different ideas tossed into this package that make it truly special.
It's hard for me to even review this game, frankly. Part of that is because I feel a strong bias towards the game for the audaciousness of what it tries to achieve, and for the way it inspires me to keep stretching myself in new ways however I can. But it's also hard because I don't remember the whole thing. It Takes Two is both fresh in memory, having just finished it, and yet far away and mingled in my mind with similar bits of similar other adventures (Tearaway foremost among them). Why is that? Well, I first booted up It Takes Two in May of 2022 as a co-op experience to share with my wife - quite fitting, as it turns out, given the nature of the game's plot of trying to reconcile an embattled couple. We'd only play in smaller bursts of 1-2 hours at a time, but every session we played it felt like we were playing a new, different game. Music to my ears, but much harder on my gaming-challenged wife, who took longer to adjust to each mechanical shift. Pretty soon we were playing less and less often, even as I was playing a game like Tearaway early on that occupied some similar design space in my head. Soon we stopped playing at all. When I tried to suggest resuming this title over the past year, I was repeatedly rebuffed until finally a month ago I managed to wear her down enough that we picked it up again for about an hour a week. So it is that the first half of the game is fuzzy and nebulous to me, even as I recall that I loved playing, whereas the back half is much fresher, and it's nigh impossible for me to separate my wife's frequent frustrations from my own experience - especially since I've been playing on a controller experiencing heavy stick drift, so managing the camera was a nightmare through no fault of the game's.
All that said, how could I not recommend this game? It's best played with two experienced gamers, but the story only fully lands if you play as a couple, so there's a bit of potential for a disconnect there, as I experienced. It's not a perfect game. But it is an incredibly ambitious one that had me routinely grinning from ear to ear, despite the grumblings on the couch next to me. When I pointed out to my wife that we finished the game in May 2024, almost to the day when we started back in '22, she said "They should've called it It Takes Two Years." We're both glad it's over, but I think for very different reasons.
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#31 - Rogue Legacy 2 - PS5 - 7/10 (Good)
Some game sequels try to really shake things up and try something different from the one before. Final Fantasy is probably the biggest and most obvious example of this, but you can also see it in virtually every Super Mario Bros. game, in the Castlevania series, and the list goes on extensively from there. On the other hand, some game sequels treat their predecessors like rough drafts to be perfected. With these, the idea is to take the vision for the previous game, use the increase in time/budget/developer expertise now available, and try to execute on it more completely than was possible before. When a game like this is successful, there becomes almost zero reason to ever play the original game (other than possibly its story), because the new version has replaced it entirely as the definitive experience.
Rogue Legacy 2 is one of these latter types of games. Everything from the first game is pretty much still there (bosses excepted): enemies, basic combat and room design, character classes, traits, progression, etc. It immediately feels like "Hey, I've played this before," yet a cursory look reveals a huge wealth of additional content over the first game. Classes are better differentiated, you get new weapons, more spells, special abilities, new items, new upgrades, new explorable regions, new mechanics, new new new. It truly is a total replacement for Rogue Legacy 1 in this regard, a "go ahead and uninstall that thing forever because we've got it all right here and then some" type of mission statement. I was amazed at how I kept finding ever more avenues of progression and discovery, even many hours into the game, In fact, I never did manage to play as every class, and each class has a variant form as well, most of which I didn't even unlock. It's overflowing with stuff.
And I think that's why it didn't work quite as well for me as the first game: it's all too much. Now there are four different types of currency, all acquired in different ways, all for different upgrade paths. You're always competing with yourself on what to level up between runs because there are too many choices and all of them seem pretty good, but as you're finding your early groove the game throws a big wrench in there: labor costs. While each upgrade has a set gold cost that increases as you level it up, early on the game adds a universal tax mechanic to the entire upgrade tree, making it increasingly prohibitive to spend your money on stuff, and it feels awful. Rogue Legacy 1 had a similar system where each upgrade cost 10g more than the previous, but in the sequel these escalate far more rapidly, to the point where you'll complete a huge run and still feel like you can only afford one or two upgrades that barely move the needle. It's a pure inflationary grinding system meant to pad playtime, and I'm not about that. I played RL1 through multiple New Game + levels, but I was thrilled to beat RL2's final boss and move on because the economy is so frustrating. Other than that though, it's got quite a lot going for it.
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#32 - Undertale - PS4 - 7/10 (Good)
When is some information too much information? Undertale is notorious for its rabid fan community insisting that there is only one "right" way to play the game, and so if you've ever heard of Undertale there's a good chance you already know what that preferred method is: pacifism. Undertale takes a unique approach to the JRPG in two primary ways: first, that defending against enemy attacks is an active system pretty much akin to dodging in a bullet hell game, and second that you almost never actually need to choose the "Fight" command from the battle menu in order to succeed in an encounter. The argument from the community is that you must play in this fully pacifist manner, largely because of a design decision that thoroughly punishes players who do not, only revealed after the game's conclusion. Thus, these players are "helping" curious newcomers by saving them from falling victim to a fairly vindictive design choice that would create a lot of frustration.
The problem with that approach is that Undertale makes it abundantly clear from the outset that you have the option for these alternative combat approaches, trains you on how to use them, and then gives you a positive feedback loop for choosing that direction with your gameplay. Which means the discourse surrounding this game effectively undermines not only the game's own ability to surprise and educate you, but also the authorial intent of that same design decision, which in context is a conscious player decision to go against the grain and suffer the possible consequences of doing so. In short, I wish I'd never heard of Undertale before I played it, as I'm sure I would've had a much better time.
As it stands, Undertale is still a highly creative take on the genre that, despite an aesthetic I didn't care for and writing that leaned a bit too hard at times into "lol I'm so random" territory for my tastes, still managed to get me invested with some of its characters and even make me laugh aloud at times. I was particularly impressed with that aforementioned approach to combat, as each enemy introduced unique hazards to avoid, so fighting a new monster was far more exciting here than in a standard turn-based RPG where the only meaningful question is "How much damage did this whatever move do to me?" So for those reasons I applaud Undertale. Even still, there's a lot of walking back and forth with no major purpose beyond "it was decided the game should be a little bit inconvenient here," adding some unnecessary tedium to the mix. In short, Undertale's a generally good time, but if you want it to be even better, just pretend you haven't read anything I just said.
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#33 - Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales - PS5 - 7.5/10 (Solid)
2018 was a big year for Miles Morales. In the fall he showed up in the PS4 title Marvel's Spider-Man as a major supporting character, and by the end of the year he was stunning cinema audiences in the fantastic Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse as the primary protagonist. It's no surprise then that by 2020, with his brand so hot, Sony and Insomniac Games would cash in with a follow-up title to the hit PS4 game with Miles front and center. And for the most part, the game is what you'd expect it to be from that basic pitch: more of the same from 2018, only focusing on Miles' family, his new home of Harlem and its people, and his path to becoming a fully fledged hero in his own right. That's all fine, but here's the problem: all of it has been done better before, and recently to boot. Miles' story of personal growth and family drama was handled better in the Spider-Verse series, even though MSM:MM wisely walks chooses to walk some different beats along the way. "Superhero of Harlem" was done masterfully by Netflix with the Luke Cage series (the first season, at least) back in 2016, and MSM:MM doesn't even try to address any issues beyond the most surface level. And the "more of the same" gameplay?
Well, admittedly that's still pretty good. Web swinging is as fun as ever to the point that there's an XP challenge to web swing at high speed for a full cumulative hour of real time and I caught myself thinking, "Hmm, maybe..." There are fast travel points that unlock relatively early on, but the joy of traversal feels like the main point of the game, so why would you bother? Miles also gets some new Spidey moves related to his bio-electric powers, and these are really fun and impactful to pull off, such that "more of the same" isn't in this case a damning phrase. And yet, it's also distinctly not "more, but better." In order to emphasize your new powers, the goons you fight (now including women for the first time I can recall ever seeing in a superhero game like this) have upgraded their own abilities as well, which means the simple pleasure of chaining big combos is a bit diminished. Maybe this enemy just blocks all your basic attacks and stops you cold. Maybe this one turns the tables to dodge and counter you. Or maybe you're just constantly surrounded by a flood of dudes with guns and rocket launchers and you feel like you never get a chance to press "punch" without being thoroughly punished.
Now add to that the game's relatively brief length and general lack of meaningful activities compared to its predecessor, as well as its truly awful villains and the ho-hum plot that they service, and you've got a title that's decidedly a step back from what came before. Of course, what came before was excellent, so even a step back still lands you in territory that's quite fun to play around with. My 6-year-old summed it up best when he came downstairs to ask me a question one day and caught me playing: "Whoa...how are you Spider-Man?!" Which is to say that Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales is a game that really makes you feel like a wannabe Spider-Man who hasn't gotten it all figured out just yet. And I guess that's all right.
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Coming in June:

• I've had less time for PC gaming lately for a couple of different reasons, but I'm expecting that to be a temporary thing, and I don't think I'm in danger of failing to finish Mass Effect 3 by the end of June. I didn't realize the version of the game I had included all the DLC. Nor did I actually know what any of the DLC was. So I was quite a ways into the game and feeling great about my progress when I got suspicious that the section I was playing wasn't actually base game content. I looked it up and found that, in fact, about 90% of what I'd played to date was DLC and I'd barely actually started the base game itself. That explains why the main story was taking a while to get off the ground, at any rate.
• Speaking of getting off the ground, my journey through The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom began impatiently a few months after release, but I took an extended break from the game and have now spent pretty much all of May continuing my thorough trek through the game world. I'm well over 200 hours into the game and am only several days away from having explored the entirety of the game's map. At which point I believe I'll finally advance the main quest past its initial stage.
• In my review for Rogue Legacy 2 above I mentioned the Castlevania franchise, which I feel I can speak to as a whole given that I've finished nearly every game in the series to date. Unsurprisingly I felt most drawn to the metroidvania style games, so there was a layer of disappointment in exhausting the last of those to discover. Disappointment that will soon be temporarily eradicated when I boot up Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, produced by that same creative mind.
• And more...

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“I told you there would be nothing in that military check point,” Barrett said. He cleaned his hands from bloodbug residue. “Only abandoned cars and empty cigarette machines.”
“Okay, I was wrong!” Simon admitted. “Is it my fault that I have hope?”
“No one ever knows out here,” Kevin chimed in.
Simon affectionally grabbed his youngest brother by the shoulder.
“See, Barrett, this is what a supportive brother sounds like.”
Barrett grunted.
The three brothers continued to follow the broken asphalt road. In time, the sky above them disappeared behind the ruins of an interstate highway. Its massive concrete columns towered over the horizon. It had cast a long shadow over their route.
Kevin stopped his brothers.
“Is that an elevator?” He pointed to the yellow cable lift that ran up to the overpass.
“I’m not using that,” Barrett quickly responded. He touched his stomach unconsciously, cognizant of his size and weight.
“Yeah, that might be an adventure for another life time,” Simon said, noting the precariousness of the cables that rose up to the ruins of the highway overpass.
Kevin pursed his lips with a modicum of disappointment. As the youngest and smallest of the three, he possessed more daring than his brothers combined. Perhaps this difference was due to the inexperience of his age or the simple fact that Kevin had a different mother than Barrett and Simon. His courage may have been a genetic inheritance that the others lacked.
“House!” Simon spotted the wooden building before his brothers, who still focused on the elevator and the possibility of ascending it.
“Let me guess, there’s going to be treasure inside of it,” Barrett said sarcastically.
“There could be!” Simon replied.
As the young men approached the building, it became apparent it had been apart of a long abandoned settlement. From their higher-ground perspective, they could see the ruins of several buildings roll down the landscape and into the consuming waters of the Charles River. The houses closest to the river had flooded and slowly rotted in the river’s murky water.
“We got a lot of work to do,” Barrett said. His siblings could hear the smile in his words. They knew that there would be at least one piece of worthwhile loot among these buildings. Barrett, however, wanted more than the natural greed of survival. The big man itched for a real fight.
“Raiders, Ghouls, or Mirelurks,” Kevin asked.
“Five caps on raiders,” Barrett said. His hand dropped to the pipe pistol holstered to his thigh.
“Five for mirelurks,” Simon said.
“I guess, I take ghouls.”
The three men moved closer to the first building. The residence, once a beautiful suburban home, had decayed over the two hundred and twenty years since its owners died in the nuclear fallout. Yet, despite the age of home, its door seemed to have been freshly repaired.
Simon, as per usual, approached the entrance with military tact. Barrett positioned himself behind his older brother. He placed one hand on Simon’s shoulder and the other around his pipe pistol. Kevin checked their flank and readied his pipe rifle.
Simon lifted his hand. He counted silently with his fingers.
One. Two. Three.
He grabbed the door and yanked it open. Barrett entered the building, his pipe pistol scanning the interior of the house.
“Clear!”
Simon followed Barrett. Kevin slowly backed into the building. He closed the door behind him.
“Stairs,” Barrett said to his brothers.
Immediately, the big man took the lead, scanning the floor above him with his pistol at eye-level. Simon followed in the wake of his larger brother, keeping his eyes straight to the top of the landing. Kevin stayed on the first floor. He found a corner, pressed his back into it, and crouched. He kept his eye on the front door.
“Clear!” Barrett’s voice rang through the structure.
“Nothing for nobody,” Kevin said, standing from his position and letting his rifle hang limply in his hands. He thought at least one ghoul would be hiding in the house. Their fraternal bottlecap wager would have to wait another house.
“Cheer up! Better luck in the next building.” Simon said as he walked down the stairs. “Right now, we have some time to loot.”
The brothers began the careful examination of the residential building.
Despite two centuries of rain and snow the building seemed to be in good condition. Clearly, since the bombs fell, a series of squatters had made improvements and adjustments over the years. In fact, the house seemed almost luxurious compared to the standards of the Wasteland. The floors had been redone with new planks of wood. The walls had been scraped of their original wallpaper and painted a light seafoam green. Although the glass from the windows had been long destroyed, curtains hung over the wooden shutters that secured the windows from the exterior world.
“Ooo!” Barrett exclaimed upstairs.
“What’d you find?” Simon called out. He stood at the bottom of the staircase and waited for a sign.
“Caps stash!” Barrett appeared with a grey tin can. He shook it and a number of caps inside of it pleasantly jingled.
“And you thought there wouldn’t be any treasure?” Simon laughed to himself.
“And the fridge is full!” Kevin called.
Barrett rushed down the stairs and joined his brothers at the fridge. Together, they drank a bottle of mostly clean water, each taking sips and passing it to the others. Then, they finished a plate of crispy squirrel bits.
“Almost fresh,” Barrett said, shoving a large handful into his mouth.
Simon continued his perusal of the house as he chewed his last portion of squirrel meat. He went to the living room section of the main floor and rummaged through a chest of drawers.
“Women’s clothing?” He lifted a dress from the chest of drawers and showed his brothers. The light green dress seemed to be in relatively good condition. The clean herbaceous smell of carrot flowers wafted into his nose.
“Someone might still live here,” Barrett said, looking at a bouquet of fresh hubflowers on the table.
Kevin looked from one of the windows. “I think he’s just arrived.”
Before Simon and Kevin could arm themselves, the door opened. An old man entered with two buckets of water. At the very moment he saw these three men, he dropped the buckets on the floor and rushed out of the building. One of the buckets spilled its contents across the floor, slowly dribbling down the front steps. Meanwhile, the old man pressed his back against the exterior wall of the building.
“What are you doing in my house?”
“We didn’t know!” Simon shouted back. “We didn’t mean to trespass!”
“Well, you did. Now, what are you going to do? Kill an old man and take his home?”
“Not if you let us leave unharmed!”
“How do I know that you’re not raiders?”
“You can’t,” Simon shouted back. “You can only make a leap of faith.”
“And why would I that?”
“Well, for one thing, there are more of us than there are of you.”
“Send one man out.”
“No!” Simon responded. “How do I know you’re not just going to shoot him the moment he leaves the building?”
“You can’t,” the old man shouted back. “You can only make a leap of faith.”
Simon felt bested by the old man’s negotiating skills.
“I’ll go,” Kevin said to his brothers.
“No, I will.” Barrett put his hand on his younger brother. He would gladly die in his place.
“There’s less of me to hit,” Kevin bantered.
Barrett grunted, but he could not stop himself from smiling.
Simon thought about dissuading his brothers, telling them that no one was going to leave the house, but this show of trust needed to be made. If things went well, there could be a chance that the three of them could profit from this encounter. Perhaps, they could spend the night sleeping inside a warm house and finally be able to get a proper night’s rest.
“I’m coming out,” Kevin shouted to the old man.
“Unarmed. With your hands up! If I see so much as a big iron on your hip, the deal is off.”
Kevin placed his pipe rifle and his switchblade on top of the chest of drawers.
Simon stepped close to his brother and embraced him.
“If he harms you, I will make sure he suffers until his very last breath,” Simon whispered.
Kevin squeezed his brother tightly and went to the door.
“I am approaching the door now,” Kevin shouted. “My hands are up.”
Kevin stepped over the spilled water bucket and crossed the threshold of the house.
“Keeping going,” the old man commanded.
Once Kevin descended the front stairs and reached the hard ground, he felt the old man sweep behind him and check for weapons.
“Do we trust each other?” Kevin said, letting the old man pat down his sides. “I’m alive, so I know I can trust you, but there are still two men inside of the house.”
“Two, huh? I thought there’d be more of you.” The old man met Kevin gaze. His face was wrinkled, freckled, and scarred. His neck-length beard, once nearly black in colour, had become streaked with grey. His moustache faired slightly better, but it too had begun to pale in his old age. Overall, the old man seemed hardened by his experiences in the wasteland, but, despite this hardness, Kevin noticed a softness behind his eyes. They reflected no bitterness or resentment.
“Now what?” Simon called from inside of the house.
“I’m going to come inside with your friend as collateral.”
The old man drew his 10mm pistol and pressed into Kevin’s lower back. Kevin straightened his posture with a reflexive fear. He climbed up the stairs and back into the house, the pistol never losing contact with his spine.
“Welcome to my home, gentleman,” the old man said. “The name is Duncan. I hope you make yourselves comfortable, although, by the looks of yesterday’s dinner, it seems as though you already have.”
Barrett glanced back at the empty porcelain plate. He wiped his greasy hands on his pant legs.
“Watch it, big guy,” the old man said. “You don’t want to make too many sudden movements.”
Barrett looked into his brother’s face. Kevin seemed calm on the surface, but Barrett could see the fear beneath his composure.
“My name is Simon. This is Barrett, and the man you currently threatening is our brother Kevin.”
“Pleasure, gentlemen.”
“We’re travellers. We’ve no particular destination. We’re just trying to survive.”
“Yes, that always seems to be the story. Why aren’t you getting comfortable in Diamond City or Goodneighbor?”
“We’re new to the Commonwealth,” Simon replied.
“Just arrived,” Barrett added.
“Boys, I’m happy to be your first experience in these here parts, but you’re going to have to leave. I can’t risk any trouble.”
“We won’t be any trouble,” Kevin said, looking behind his shoulder.
“Truly, I would like to believe you boys, but you best be going.”
Duncan stepped aside and positioned himself to the side of the room. He tilted his head toward the door with a quick gesture, encouraging Simon and Barrett to leave.
“Now, please.”
“Can we at least get Kevin’s weapons over there?” Simon asked.
“I’ll toss them to you once you’re out of the door. Just go.”
Simon and Barrett complied. They walked out of the house and down the steps. Duncan led Kevin from his house, allowing the young man to move away from the pistol.
“Grandpapa!”
The men turned to see group of three women approaching the house. Two of them carried heavy bags of harvested food, while the third held a tactical submachine gun in her hands. The three of them kept staring at their grandfather, who kept his pistol held toward the brothers.
The woman with the submachine gun lifted the stock to her shoulder. She knew that with her large drum magazine, she could cut down these three intruders without the need to reload.
“We had a small misunderstanding, ladies,” Simon said with a winning smile. He looked at the woman with the submachine gun. Her short dark brown hair swooped over one of her eyes. She flipped her hair out of the way. “We’ll be on our way,” Simon continued, “once your grandfather hands us our weapons.”
“How about you head on out without them?” the woman with the gun said.
“That’s not fair,” Kevin said. He stepped forward as he said it, causing the woman to swivel her sights on him.
“On more step and you’ll have lost more than your weapons.”
“Woah, woah. Okay, message received,” Kevin said, putting his hands back into the air. “Let’s go, guys. It’s okay. We can find kinder hosts somewhere else.”
“Or, at least, a better fight,” Barrett said with a sniff of his nose. “An old man and three little girls hardly constitute a challenge.”
“I can wipe the floor with you, big boy,” said the woman with the machine gun.
“Audrey!” Duncan reprimanded.
“I’d like to see you try, girlie. Unarmed, one-on-one, you stand no chance,” Barrett said. As he spoke, he took a deep breath and inflated his already imposing figure. The muscles beneath his shirt could be seen flexing.
“Want to try me? Or are you scared of losing to a girl?” Audrey responded.
Barrett roared with laughter.
“Audrey, that’s enough!” the old man said. “Do not aggravate them. They’re on their way.”
“Wait!” the smallest of the three women called to her grandfather. “Can’t they stay? If they wanted to hurt us, they would’ve already.”
“It’d be too risky!” Duncan replied.
“But you’ve always said that people need to come together and rebuild this world,” she said.
Duncan flashed her a quick scolding look.
“Sylvie’s right,” the third woman added. “They can help us around the property.” Her eyes danced over Barrett’s large figure. While her middle sister seemed ready to harm him, she merely wanted to be held by him.
“Audrey, talk some sense into your sisters!” Duncan exclaimed. “You ladies know that we can’t invite people at random!”
“We’d be happy to help,” Simon interjected.
Kevin locked eyes with his young counterpart. Sylvie broke eye contact and looked at her feet.
“Yeah, we can help,” Kevin said a little absent-mindedly. He continued to admire the woman before his eyes.
“Wait a minute,” Barrett said, “This guy pulls a pistol on you and you want to help him? What are you going to do? Fetch him water?”
“We made him to spill it,” Kevin said with a shrug.
“Are you guys out of your mind? How can we trust them? What if the old man and these she-devils are planning to kill us in the middle of the night.”
“Oh, now you’re afraid of me!” Audrey teased, loosening her grip on the submachine gun.
“I ain’t afraid of anything,” Barrett snapped.
Simon bursted in laughter. “Buddy, you know you’re agreeing with the old man, right? He doesn’t want you around because he thinks your going to do to him what you think he’s doing to do to you.”
Barrett squinted his eyes, trying to parse the sentence.
“I don’t like it,” Barrett said.
“Neither do I,” Duncan agreed.
“Well, they’re not staying in the house,” Audrey said. She tilted her swooping hair out of her eyes again. “Give them the rotting house.”
Duncan stayed silent. Everyone looked at him as though it was his decision which made everything final.
“Fine, but I’m standing guard during the night. If one of these boys come creeping in the night, I’ll make sure our walls get a nice new shade of red.”
Barrett nodded his head in agreement. “And I’ll take first watch at our place.”
Audrey turned to her sisters. “Morgan, Sylvie, take the food inside. I’ll show these men their residence.” She adjusted the tactical submachine gun in her arms.
Her sisters did what they were told.
“Gentlemen,” Audrey said, leading the men down the slight hill, “Your new abode.” She kicked the front door, which broke free from its hinges. The wood from the door had rotted from the moisture in the air. Wet dust flew from the ground and an acrid smell spewed from the interior of the building.
“Enjoy.”
Audrey left the three brothers and returned to her home.
The three of the brothers exchanged uncomfortable glances and looked at the building. Kevin approached the doorway and peered into the darkness.
“Ghoul!” Kevin shouted.
His brothers ran into the building with their weapons drawn. Kevin threw his arms around his brothers as they looked at remains of a feral ghoul. It had died a long time ago.
“Pay up, boys!” he said with a smile. “Five caps each.”

“I told you there would be nothing in that military check point,” Barrett said. He cleaned his hands from bloodbug residue. “Only abandoned cars and empty cigarette machines.”
“Okay, I was wrong!” Simon admitted. “Is it my fault that I have hope?”
“No one ever knows out here,” Kevin chimed in.
Simon affectionally grabbed his youngest brother by the shoulder.
“See, Barrett, this is what a supportive brother sounds like.”
Barrett grunted.
The three brothers continued to follow the broken asphalt road. In time, the sky above them disappeared behind the ruins of an interstate highway. Its massive concrete columns towered over the horizon. It had cast a long shadow over their route.
Kevin stopped his brothers.
“Is that an elevator?” He pointed to the yellow cable lift that ran up to the overpass.
“I’m not using that,” Barrett quickly responded. He touched his stomach unconsciously, cognizant of his size and weight.
“Yeah, that might be an adventure for another life time,” Simon said, noting the precariousness of the cables that rose up to the ruins of the highway overpass.
Kevin pursed his lips with a modicum of disappointment. As the youngest and smallest of the three, he possessed more daring than his brothers combined. Perhaps this difference was due to the inexperience of his age or the simple fact that Kevin had a different mother than Barrett and Simon. His courage may have been a genetic inheritance that the others lacked.
“House!” Simon spotted the wooden building before his brothers, who still focused on the elevator and the possibility of ascending it.
“Let me guess, there’s going to be treasure inside of it,” Barrett said sarcastically.
“There could be!” Simon replied.
As the young men approached the building, it became apparent it had been apart of a long abandoned settlement. From their higher-ground perspective, they could see the ruins of several buildings roll down the landscape and into the consuming waters of the Charles River. The houses closest to the river had flooded and slowly rotted in the river’s murky water.
“We got a lot of work to do,” Barrett said. His siblings could hear the smile in his words. They knew that there would be at least one piece of worthwhile loot among these buildings. Barrett, however, wanted more than the natural greed of survival. The big man itched for a real fight.
“Raiders, Ghouls, or Mirelurks,” Kevin asked.
“Five caps on raiders,” Barrett said. His hand dropped to the pipe pistol holstered to his thigh.
“Five for mirelurks,” Simon said.
“I guess, I take ghouls.”
The three men moved closer to the first building. The residence, once a beautiful suburban home, had decayed over the two hundred and twenty years since its owners died in the nuclear fallout. Yet, despite the age of home, its door seemed to have been freshly repaired.
Simon, as per usual, approached the entrance with military tact. Barrett positioned himself behind his older brother. He placed one hand on Simon’s shoulder and the other around his pipe pistol. Kevin checked their flank and readied his pipe rifle.
Simon lifted his hand. He counted silently with his fingers.
One. Two. Three.
He grabbed the door and yanked it open. Barrett entered the building, his pipe pistol scanning the interior of the house.
“Clear!”
Simon followed Barrett. Kevin slowly backed into the building. He closed the door behind him.
“Stairs,” Barrett said to his brothers.
Immediately, the big man took the lead, scanning the floor above him with his pistol at eye-level. Simon followed in the wake of his larger brother, keeping his eyes straight to the top of the landing. Kevin stayed on the first floor. He found a corner, pressed his back into it, and crouched. He kept his eye on the front door.
“Clear!” Barrett’s voice rang through the structure.
“Nothing for nobody,” Kevin said, standing from his position and letting his rifle hang limply in his hands. He thought at least one ghoul would be hiding in the house. Their fraternal bottlecap wager would have to wait another house.
“Cheer up! Better luck in the next building.” Simon said as he walked down the stairs. “Right now, we have some time to loot.”
The brothers began the careful examination of the residential building.
Despite two centuries of rain and snow the building seemed to be in good condition. Clearly, since the bombs fell, a series of squatters had made improvements and adjustments over the years. In fact, the house seemed almost luxurious compared to the standards of the Wasteland. The floors had been redone with new planks of wood. The walls had been scraped of their original wallpaper and painted a light seafoam green. Although the glass from the windows had been long destroyed, curtains hung over the wooden shutters that secured the windows from the exterior world.
“Ooo!” Barrett exclaimed upstairs.
“What’d you find?” Simon called out. He stood at the bottom of the staircase and waited for a sign.
“Caps stash!” Barrett appeared with a grey tin can. He shook it and a number of caps inside of it pleasantly jingled.
“And you thought there wouldn’t be any treasure?” Simon laughed to himself.
“And the fridge is full!” Kevin called.
Barrett rushed down the stairs and joined his brothers at the fridge. Together, they drank a bottle of mostly clean water, each taking sips and passing it to the others. Then, they finished a plate of crispy squirrel bits.
“Almost fresh,” Barrett said, shoving a large handful into his mouth.
Simon continued his perusal of the house as he chewed his last portion of squirrel meat. He went to the living room section of the main floor and rummaged through a chest of drawers.
“Women’s clothing?” He lifted a dress from the chest of drawers and showed his brothers. The light green dress seemed to be in relatively good condition. The clean herbaceous smell of carrot flowers wafted into his nose.
“Someone might still live here,” Barrett said, looking at a bouquet of fresh hubflowers on the table.
Kevin looked from one of the windows. “I think he’s just arrived.”
Before Simon and Kevin could arm themselves, the door opened. An old man entered with two buckets of water. At the very moment he saw these three men, he dropped the buckets on the floor and rushed out of the building. One of the buckets spilled its contents across the floor, slowly dribbling down the front steps. Meanwhile, the old man pressed his back against the exterior wall of the building.
“What are you doing in my house?”
“We didn’t know!” Simon shouted back. “We didn’t mean to trespass!”
“Well, you did. Now, what are you going to do? Kill an old man and take his home?”
“Not if you let us leave unharmed!”
“How do I know that you’re not raiders?”
“You can’t,” Simon shouted back. “You can only make a leap of faith.”
“And why would I that?”
“Well, for one thing, there are more of us than there are of you.”
“Send one man out.”
“No!” Simon responded. “How do I know you’re not just going to shoot him the moment he leaves the building?”
“You can’t,” the old man shouted back. “You can only make a leap of faith.”
Simon felt bested by the old man’s negotiating skills.
“I’ll go,” Kevin said to his brothers.
“No, I will.” Barrett put his hand on his younger brother. He would gladly die in his place.
“There’s less of me to hit,” Kevin bantered.
Barrett grunted, but he could not stop himself from smiling.
Simon thought about dissuading his brothers, telling them that no one was going to leave the house, but this show of trust needed to be made. If things went well, there could be a chance that the three of them could profit from this encounter. Perhaps, they could spend the night sleeping inside a warm house and finally be able to get a proper night’s rest.
“I’m coming out,” Kevin shouted to the old man.
“Unarmed. With your hands up! If I see so much as a big iron on your hip, the deal is off.”
Kevin placed his pipe rifle and his switchblade on top of the chest of drawers.
Simon stepped close to his brother and embraced him.
“If he harms you, I will make sure he suffers until his very last breath,” Simon whispered.
Kevin squeezed his brother tightly and went to the door.
“I am approaching the door now,” Kevin shouted. “My hands are up.”
Kevin stepped over the spilled water bucket and crossed the threshold of the house.
“Keeping going,” the old man commanded.
Once Kevin descended the front stairs and reached the hard ground, he felt the old man sweep behind him and check for weapons.
“Do we trust each other?” Kevin said, letting the old man pat down his sides. “I’m alive, so I know I can trust you, but there are still two men inside of the house.”
“Two, huh? I thought there’d be more of you.” The old man met Kevin gaze. His face was wrinkled, freckled, and scarred. His neck-length beard, once nearly black in colour, had become streaked with grey. His moustache faired slightly better, but it too had begun to pale in his old age. Overall, the old man seemed hardened by his experiences in the wasteland, but, despite this hardness, Kevin noticed a softness behind his eyes. They reflected no bitterness or resentment.
“Now what?” Simon called from inside of the house.
“I’m going to come inside with your friend as collateral.”
The old man drew his 10mm pistol and pressed into Kevin’s lower back. Kevin straightened his posture with a reflexive fear. He climbed up the stairs and back into the house, the pistol never losing contact with his spine.
“Welcome to my home, gentleman,” the old man said. “The name is Duncan. I hope you make yourselves comfortable, although, by the looks of yesterday’s dinner, it seems as though you already have.”
Barrett glanced back at the empty porcelain plate. He wiped his greasy hands on his pant legs.
“Watch it, big guy,” the old man said. “You don’t want to make too many sudden movements.”
Barrett looked into his brother’s face. Kevin seemed calm on the surface, but Barrett could see the fear beneath his composure.
“My name is Simon. This is Barrett, and the man you currently threatening is our brother Kevin.”
“Pleasure, gentlemen.”
“We’re travellers. We’ve no particular destination. We’re just trying to survive.”
“Yes, that always seems to be the story. Why aren’t you getting comfortable in Diamond City or Goodneighbor?”
“We’re new to the Commonwealth,” Simon replied.
“Just arrived,” Barrett added.
“Boys, I’m happy to be your first experience in these here parts, but you’re going to have to leave. I can’t risk any trouble.”
“We won’t be any trouble,” Kevin said, looking behind his shoulder.
“Truly, I would like to believe you boys, but you best be going.”
Duncan stepped aside and positioned himself to the side of the room. He tilted his head toward the door with a quick gesture, encouraging Simon and Barrett to leave.
“Now, please.”
“Can we at least get Kevin’s weapons over there?” Simon asked.
“I’ll toss them to you once you’re out of the door. Just go.”
Simon and Barrett complied. They walked out of the house and down the steps. Duncan led Kevin from his house, allowing the young man to move away from the pistol.
“Grandpapa!”
The men turned to see group of three women approaching the house. Two of them carried heavy bags of harvested food, while the third held a tactical submachine gun in her hands. The three of them kept staring at their grandfather, who kept his pistol held toward the brothers.
The woman with the submachine gun lifted the stock to her shoulder. She knew that with her large drum magazine, she could cut down these three intruders without the need to reload.
“We had a small misunderstanding, ladies,” Simon said with a winning smile. He looked at the woman with the submachine gun. Her short dark brown hair swooped over one of her eyes. She flipped her hair out of the way. “We’ll be on our way,” Simon continued, “once your grandfather hands us our weapons.”
“How about you head on out without them?” the woman with the gun said.
“That’s not fair,” Kevin said. He stepped forward as he said it, causing the woman to swivel her sights on him.
“On more step and you’ll have lost more than your weapons.”
“Woah, woah. Okay, message received,” Kevin said, putting his hands back into the air. “Let’s go, guys. It’s okay. We can find kinder hosts somewhere else.”
“Or, at least, a better fight,” Barrett said with a sniff of his nose. “An old man and three little girls hardly constitute a challenge.”
“I can wipe the floor with you, big boy,” said the woman with the machine gun.
“Audrey!” Duncan reprimanded.
“I’d like to see you try, girlie. Unarmed, one-on-one, you stand no chance,” Barrett said. As he spoke, he took a deep breath and inflated his already imposing figure. The muscles beneath his shirt could be seen flexing.
“Want to try me? Or are you scared of losing to a girl?” Audrey responded.
Barrett roared with laughter.
“Audrey, that’s enough!” the old man said. “Do not aggravate them. They’re on their way.”
“Wait!” the smallest of the three women called to her grandfather. “Can’t they stay? If they wanted to hurt us, they would’ve already.”
“It’d be too risky!” Duncan replied.
“But you’ve always said that people need to come together and rebuild this world,” she said.
Duncan flashed her a quick scolding look.
“Sylvie’s right,” the third woman added. “They can help us around the property.” Her eyes danced over Barrett’s large figure. While her middle sister seemed ready to harm him, she merely wanted to be held by him.
“Audrey, talk some sense into your sisters!” Duncan exclaimed. “You ladies know that we can’t invite people at random!”
“We’d be happy to help,” Simon interjected.
Kevin locked eyes with his young counterpart. Sylvie broke eye contact and looked at her feet.
“Yeah, we can help,” Kevin said a little absent-mindedly. He continued to admire the woman before his eyes.
“Wait a minute,” Barrett said, “This guy pulls a pistol on you and you want to help him? What are you going to do? Fetch him water?”
“We made him to spill it,” Kevin said with a shrug.
“Are you guys out of your mind? How can we trust them? What if the old man and these she-devils are planning to kill us in the middle of the night.”
“Oh, now you’re afraid of me!” Audrey teased, loosening her grip on the submachine gun.
“I ain’t afraid of anything,” Barrett snapped.
Simon bursted in laughter. “Buddy, you know you’re agreeing with the old man, right? He doesn’t want you around because he thinks your going to do to him what you think he’s doing to do to you.”
Barrett squinted his eyes, trying to parse the sentence.
“I don’t like it,” Barrett said.
“Neither do I,” Duncan agreed.
“Well, they’re not staying in the house,” Audrey said. She tilted her swooping hair out of her eyes again. “Give them the rotting house.”
Duncan stayed silent. Everyone looked at him as though it was his decision which made everything final.
“Fine, but I’m standing guard during the night. If one of these boys come creeping in the night, I’ll make sure our walls get a nice new shade of red.”
Barrett nodded his head in agreement. “And I’ll take first watch at our place.”
Audrey turned to her sisters. “Morgan, Sylvie, take the food inside. I’ll show these men their residence.” She adjusted the tactical submachine gun in her arms.
Her sisters did what they were told.
“Gentlemen,” Audrey said, leading the men down the slight hill, “Your new abode.” She kicked the front door, which broke free from its hinges. The wood from the door had rotted from the moisture in the air. Wet dust flew from the ground and an acrid smell spewed from the interior of the building.
“Enjoy.”
Audrey left the three brothers and returned to her home.
The three of the brothers exchanged uncomfortable glances and looked at the building. Kevin approached the doorway and peered into the darkness.
“Ghoul!” Kevin shouted.
His brothers ran into the building with their weapons drawn. Kevin threw his arms around his brothers as they looked at remains of a feral ghoul. It had died a long time ago.
“Pay up, boys!” he said with a smile. “Five caps each.”

I asked for advice a few times from this sub and I just wanted to come back and share how much we loved our visit!
I'm from the US (Florida) and have been wanting to go to Alton Towers since I was a kid playing Rollercoaster Tycoon. I'm also a huge B&M invert lover and horror lover, so Nemesis was my dream coaster and top of the bucket list.
I've been a traveling theme park enthusiast my whole life and I've been over to the UK a few times in my life but never made the effort to get to Alton Towers until this year - honestly so overdue.
We went mid week in late April, away from holidays. The park was generally pretty dead, as expected. We did two and a half days. I'm glad we had that much time as we got to do everything multiple times. Weather was good - cool, and only hit major one rain of the days and only for a couple hours.
Here's my thoughts on each ride (approximately in order of ranking), then I'll talk about feedback on the park overall and the hotel:
Nemesis - Amazing! Loved it, absolutely worth the trip. I adore the horror theme and the scenery is gorgeous. I wish it was a slightly longer ride (of course that's a theme with Alton Towers), so I can't quite say it is my favorite B&M invert overall - I think that title still belongs to Montu. But it is very close and I would say a top 10 coaster overall.
Smiler - Loved it! I was not sure I would as I read many things about it being rough, and I am roughness sensitive. Honestly I can say, I did not find this to be a rough coaster. For comparison, at Thorpe Park, Saw and Colossus are pretty much not rideable because of how rough/painful/headbanging they are. Smiler, no, not at all.
I wasn't expecting Smiler to become one of my all time favorite coasters but I think it did. I heard the front row is the only good row - did not find that to be the case either. The front row is best but it's not by much, I found it to be a good ride in every row. Left me slightly dizzy after each half of the ride, but not in a bad way.
Wicker Man - Loved it! I'm not a huge wooden coaster fan overall because I don't have a huge roughness tolerance, but thankfully Wicker Man is not at all rough. I love the theme and the pre-show. The ride is pure fun. We were lucky enough to get a front row ride which was my favorite.
Thirteen - I think this is overhated - I really enjoyed it! The theme is great (I do love horror themes) and I don't mind that this is more of a family coaster. The only thing I would really want to improve it would be a slightly longer drop and an animatronic instead of a static set piece in the drop room.
Galacticair - Despite never having been here before, I've always thought of this coaster by its original name. Really enjoyed it! I'm not the biggest fan of flying coasters in general, and I think I do like that this is less intense than some of the others.
Alton Towers needs to get on a retheme, scenery, and paint job for it though. It's looking a bit rough and could use some love.
Oblivion - It's a fun drop. The first time I rode it, I was like - I walked all the way through this massive queue line for that? I didn't realize it really is literally JUST the drop. Unfortunately I'm spoiled by having Sheikra at my home park. But the second time riding and knowing what to expect, I was like - yeah, this is a really good drop and the black hole theme is cool.
Spinball Whizzer - It's a spinning coaster. You like them or you don't like them. I like them alright - although Dragon's Fury at Chessington was actually amazing. Spinball Whizzer is alright.
Runaway Mine Train - This is a cute family coaster, good fun. I love the long train. Our ride op sent us around 3 times. Only rode this once which was enough to get the idea but I will definitely ride it again next time.
Rita - This is the only coaster at Alton Towers that I'm not really a fan of. Rode twice, first time back row, second time waited for front row. It's worth the wait for the front row. It's a bit rough for me otherwise. Before coming, I honestly thought - who cares if it's just the launch, I love launches! But for whatever reason this launch is kind of mediocre and then the rest of the ride is somewhere between painful and boring.
Non coasters:
Curse at Alton Manor - Loved it! I'm spoiled having been to Disney/Universal a good bit, and I know Alton Towers does not have the budget to produce the same caliber of dark ride - but Curse is really quite outstanding considering that limitation. Love the theme (as usual with the whole park) and they tell a really good story.
Nemesis Sub Terra - I don't think this deserves all the hate it gets. It's a cool experience - maybe not especially rerideable, and the "ride" portion is underwhelming, but it was a fun one time ride. I do wish cooler stuff happened with the egg. Also, the part where it whips your legs really hurt.
Gangsta Granny - Rode it once, it's very cute considering it cannot be Disney level. I do not mean to sound spoiled and hope that I don't - I just know what is theoretically possible with a dark ride, but given budgets, this a very cute family ride.
Dungeon - Did the London one a few years ago and remember liking that better, but this wasn't bad at all. It was a fun time and I'm glad I did it, especially with the Merlin pass discount. Unlikely I'd spend the time to do it again on a return visit. I know it's closing this summer, not sure if that's permanent, but honestly if it was permanent and they replace it with something else, I think that would be just fine.
Hex - Booooooo it was closed. Gives me something else to look forward to when I return, which I hope to do whenever Project Horizon is done.
Food:
Rollercoaster Restaurant: Did this both nights we stayed here. It was mostly alright, I had a burger that was pretty good. The nachos were a joke. The curry chickpea thing was decent. The gluten free menu was pretty pathetic, but at least they had some options so that my husband could eat dinner.
Middle Eastern restaurant by Wicker Man (I forget its name): This was the only place to get a meal in the park that had GF accommodation that we found. For whatever dumb reason, the chicken and chips that they CAN make gluten free is not advertised that way on the menu. But to their credit, the cook was SUPER good about making sure to cook the meal in a safe way for someone with a gluten allergy.
Ate there twice, and the food was actually pretty good.
My only complaint - both this and the one near Rita sell baked potatoes, which are one of the only things in the park we found that would be gluten free, and both days they seemed to run out of the potatoes at midday. One day, we got the literal last half a potato they had left, and the other, they were already out.
I saw that Alton Towers had a notice up about switching suppliers or something and bringing more GF options to their menus... that's needed. Hopefully next time the situation will be better.
Ice cream by the Curse: Ok, I have to say, I was obsessed with this. The black ice cream in the black cone just made me happy. And it was really delicious. Especially with the toppings even if they kept falling off. Got it two days in a row, would get it every day on a return visit.
Hotel:
Splash Landings: No real complaints here, it was what I was expecting. Certainly didn't need air conditioning for the time of year. The staff was very friendly and they were great about storing multiple bags for us both on our arrival and on our checkout day.
The breakfast was good for a buffet style breakfast. Enough GF options to eat a good sized meal.
The only actual complaint I have, and this one is weird, but true - the shower is terrible. It has a half glass door that didn't lock in place, and the sides of the tub are tall. This is a recipe for disaster as it's very tempting to hold the door to try to climb out of the tub... but it doesn't lock, so if you do that, you're likely to fall and break your head open. And if you don't hold on... well, good luck climbing out of the tall tub with nothing to grip onto. Not even a towel rail.
I genuinely don't know how they went with something this unsafe in their design process. I don't know how people aren't injuring themselves all the time.
Overall thoughts:
It's certainly spread out - I was warned. It takes some hustling to get from one area to another in a timely fashion, but I didn't find it to be too much. It sure would be though in hot weather, I'll take cold any day.
Actually my biggest "complaint" is how long the queues are in terms of - walking forever, often uphill, to get to the ride. I'm used to theme parks that are able to section off large parts of the line when not in use which doesn't seem to happen much here.
Legit, it's a workout to ride Nemesis if it's not busy and all you have to do is walk to the station.
I didn't find the park to be run down, unclean, or understaffed. All the staff was great, and operations were great. Multiple trains on everything despite it not being busy at all.
Overall we absolutely loved our time here! It lived up to my expectations for sure. Nemesis, Smiler, and Wicker Man were my favorite things, but I dug Thirteen and Curse too.
And as I mentioned, Rita is the only ride I didn't really like - from someone who has visited a ton of theme parks, only one dud with the rest of the stuff being quality is kind of rare.
I'm so glad I finally got to visit, and I will absolutely be back. Hopefully Project Horizon actually happens and isn't later than 2026... currently that's the year I'd plan to come back.
Can't wait for my return!

yesterday evening, i had just the screen door open to my private backyard, and i hear someone yelling in english and spanish. it was an older man, looked like he was kind of drunk or something, asking if we had any open rooms for rent. we said no, closed the sliding door and locked it and he left. has this happened to anyone else? my backyard is very private, so he has to walk around the whole home and open a small gate, and go up my porch to get to the door so i’m kind of freaked out. i’m in the winter hill/magoun sq area.

I LOVE women. I think they’re beautiful, many are kind and caring too. I REALLY want to have sex, I genuinely do. I’m not gay, but I want to be a sissy, and be denied sex. I want to be humiliated and it’d be really awesome if I had a domme to keep me locked in chastity, and diapers.
I’m very non masculine. I have NO DESIRE to be “more of a man”. I am extremely attracted to women. That’s make it so exciting, my virginity/celibacy isn’t due to lack of attracting the opposite sex, it’s due to me just being undesirable to women.
I was always bullied in school, a girl even pretended to like me for months until she and all of her friends laughed at me for falling for it.
There was also this girl who said “Do you think she’s hot?” And showed me her phone, and it was a BBC.
The fact that I’m NOT gay is what makes the idea of being forced to, serve it, so exciting. I definitely wouldn’t mind stroking a man off. I’d be scared of sucking or “taking” it, but that’s what’s so exciting about it, being hesitant and nervous…….
I definitely want a women to peg me wearing a strap on, that’s for sure.
I’m honestly exactly 6 inches fully erect, and I think pretty thick/girthy, but I still have “small dick ENERGY”. Sometimes I wish I was smaller, like 3, or 2 inches, maybe smaller……
I’ve read that longterm chastity can shrink it, but I really need a dominant woman to be my key holder, so I can’t just take it off.
I genuinely wish I could penetrate a women, experience that physical AND emotional intimacy (still with her on top and in charge, dominating me even in intercourse), but then I could never go back, a huge chuck of the fantasy and humiliation would be gone forever. But actually knowing what I’m missing might be even more torture (and therefore arousing and exciting).
I’ve always been told I’m too ugly and weird anyway.
There’s always the option of paying “working women”, but that requires some traveling (or major MAJOR risk of safety and legal trouble).
I also wouldn’t want to continue to sex trafficking, because without it being legal and regulated, it’s highly likely the women aren’t fully consenting.
I really enjoy this specific type of porn (JOI) where women get fucked by big men, completely uncensored, BUT, I have to close my eyes when the music stops, and can only listen to her getting fucked. Just knowing it’s happening right in front of me but I can’t look is BEYOND arousing. And then when the music stops I can open my eyes, and am greeted with either a pixelated clip of it, or even better, a trans women with a massive cock and balls.
I love being a straight (well not gay, MAYBE A LITTLE BICURIOUS) sissy.
Diapers provide comfort, but also humiliation, and yes, it is highly a sexual thing.
I don’t know what happened to make me have such kinks, but I started having these fantasies LOOOOONG before puberty, they just didn’t become a SEXUAL thing until after puberty.
As much as I genuinely love cisgender women, I do have a turn on for trans women. Women who are really feminine, but then have a big ol dick and balls instead of a pussy (even though I love pussy).
I’m a massive pervert, and even worse, I actually feel like I’m objectifying women (I don’t mean to, it just feels like natural desires).
I never want kids, but damn do I want to have sex. A longterm girlfriend/wife with a true emotional intimate relationship would be nicer too, but I’m really not good enough for women that way.
I’d be lucky if any women even casually hooked up with me.
I get off on the idea of being a 45+ year old virgin who has never even had a girlfriend or kissed on the lips, but I also dread it at the same time. It makes me excited, but also depressed at the same time.
I love femdom and virgin cuckold humiliation so much, but I also do truly want a real (physically AND emotionally) intimate relationship with a woman.

1. Divide and Conquer - 4/5 (Slapper intro. Pretty good for a pilot episode, but it felt like they rushed into character drama a little too quickly. Like, I only JUST now met Robin and Cyborg for the first time, so this big breakup doesn't really hit as hard as I imagine it could had it been a later episode. The animation of this show is very fun and different from typical action cartoons, though. Stuff like the characters turning into chibis and going horrendeously off-model for gags is great stuff.)
2. Sisters - 3/5 (Immediately more character conflict and drama. I'd say this one works a little better, but again, I only really now just met Starfire, so there's not a hugely established friendship between her and the Titans enough yet. On the other hand, perhaps that's for this episode's benefit, as it's about her feeling replacable, which would not be very realistic after having been established as BFFs for several seasons. And I did think her and Robin's chat was really sweet, so whatever. Also, Blackfire is just a color swap of Starfire. Sunny Tennyson much?)
3. Final Exam - 4/5 (So this episode was the first to air, but is not the "real" pilot. Strangely enough, it would almost have worked better as a pilot, since it introduces the characters in their HQ immediately followed by showing how they work as a team. The H.I.V.E. aren't the most interesting villains but Gizmo was pretty amusing. What was with the lighting in the scene where they get out of the water though? Looked strange.)
4. Forces of Nature - 4/5 (Thunder's Sonic eyes is freaking me out. Please separate them... Anyway, decent episode, even if it's mostly just Thunder and Lightning wreaking havoc and getting moral lessons from Beast Boy.)
5. The Sum of His Parts - 5/5 (Fixit. Wow, clever name. Sarcasm aside, pretty great episode. It's interesting to see Cyborg's abilities explored, and the eerieniess of Fixit about to forcibly make him a full robot was highly engaging. Although while that IS the main story, the majority of this episode is spent with the other Titans fighting Mumbo Jumbo for some reason. Not that it's back, since I liked the zany wackiness of it. But it definitely didn't need take up that much time. Also, he briefly became a Canadian from South Park.)
6. Nevermore - 4/5 (Thunder and Lightning, Mumbo Jumbo, and now Doctor Light? So far this show has had really lame villains. Not that it's a huge detriment, because unlike other superhero cartoons, the focus in most episodes seem to be more on the inner workings of the Titans themselves as opposed to whatever villain they're facing, so I guess they just pick goofy ones to jumpstart the actual plots. Which in this episode was pretty amusing. Raven's a lot more mellow than her appearance would let on. I thought she would nearly murder Cyborg and Beast Boy for breaking into her room, but she was just slightly upset. Oh and, uh, what was up with intro being in Japanese?)
7. Switched - 4/5 (Just as I mentioned the villains being "lame" in the last episode, I thought Puppet King was pretty interesting. He's not like, compelling as a character or anything, but I found the puppet schtick fairly amusing to watch. As for the actual story, while "body swap" is not the most original idea for these kinds of shows, I still found it endearing how Raven and Starfire learned about one another. But the fact that they still keep their voices makes me go grrr.)
8. Deep Six - 3/5 (There's that Japanese intro again! Apparently it's used for episodes that are more comedic, while the English is for the "serious" ones. Guess I'll see if that assessment holds up under scrutiny. So this is mostly an underwater episode, which, while not a bad setting by default, feels pretty uninspired when it's nothing but blue backgrounds and rocks. Raven horning for Aqualad sure was a sight to behold, though. Felt a bit out of character.)
9. Masks - 4/5 (Wow, Red X was Robin? No way. It's not like they had the exact same voice or anything. Anyway, as good as this episode might be, it's really just some setup for Slade's schemes, which is really only vaguely hinted at whatever it is. As a result, I don't really have much to say. Starfire's lecture about Robin not trusting them was a bit "wha" though, because, yeah, if they knew Red X was Robin, they would've held back, and it would not be convincing.)
10. Mad Mod - 3/5 (Sheesh, this episode hurts my eyes. It's a funny one, though. And it has the Japanese intro, so I guess that fact about it was true. It's nothing but the Titans chasing some Brit for the entire episode. 20 minutes of pure zaniness. And Mad Mod was a pretty amusing gag villain. I also really liked the song "K2G" that played during that Scooby-Doo parody montage.)
11. Car Trouble - 3/5 (Gizmo drove away with Cyborg's car JUST as he arrived to confront the guys who initially stole it. He would have been right in the vicinity of it, how did he not notice it driving away? LOL. Also why do the two crooks calmly tiptoe around and vaguely say they "lost it" instead of just "some guy drove away with it right behind you like 10 seconds ago!".)
12/13. Apprentice - 5/5 (Slade merely wanting an apprentice is a bit of a confusing motivation. Like, for what purpose? Once he's fully molded Robin, what does he intend to do next? Take over the world? Not that it matters, since the conflict of Robin having to betray his friends to save their lives was thrilling enough. Although part 2 is obviously the better half, because the first is mostly just setup for that. Robin also makes a sick Batman reference, but can't directly mention him because of the Bat-embargo. LOL. Side note, the effect of the probes being the characters becoming...orange with a buncha circles wiggling around them was odd.)
14. How Long is Forever? - 5/5 (Robin just brooding in front of the speakers was funny. LOL. Anyway, the way time travel is handled here is confusing. I suppose it always is, but here it seems to function so that during the period Starfire was travelling 20 years, she simply did not exist during them. But she came back to the past in the end, meaning historically, she always returned. So instead of time travel looping around itself, I guess in this series when you travel, you're just gone. And if you return, the timeline you go back to will be a completely different one. That aside, it was neat to see the future Titans, although sheesh my guy Beast Boy aged horribly. And I find it hard to believe the entire city would become a dystopia like this, considering the Titans aren't the only heroes around.)
15. Every Dog Has His Day - 5/5 (Pretty solid for a zany comedy episode. Beast Boy becoming a dog to get bitches (pun intended) was funny. And the whole schtick of the Titans mistaking an actual green dog for him lent itself to a lot of good comedy. The reveal that that the dog is actually intelligent and can speak sort of "ruins" what made that aspect funny in the first place, but it doesn't affect the episode's quality or anything, so that's just a nitpick. Soto was pretty freaky though. Reminded me of Tiny from Ben 10.)
16. Terra - 4/5 (Yikes, Terra is scrawny. She's like a walking stick. I guess she has earth powers, although it's not really explored how or why. Though, at this point in the show, I've obviously learned that stuff is not something it prioritizes. Anyway, this episode is very good, but it's mostly just introduction to Terra and then a teaser that she is Slade's new apprentice victim. I'm interested for where that goes, but I don't have much else to say about this one specifically.)
17. Only Human - 4/5 (Not to go all Facts & Logic:tm:, but humans also have a limit to which they can use their muscles, so on a technical sense, Cyborg's conflict in this episode doesn't make much sense. Especially since he exceeds 100% by the end anyway, showing it was always possible. Not to diminish the story or anything, because I did find his conflict around it genuinely engaging. And the moment when he rises up to the challenge to actually beat Atlas is obviously very cathartic and rewarding. But also LOL that Atlas picked a beef with Cyborg over losing in a video game.)
18. Fear Itself - 4/5 (Here I spent the entire episode expecting the "obvious" reveal that everything scary that happened was a prank by the Titans to prove to Raven that she can be scared. Guess I was a little overconfident in that since it turns out she was just accidentally doing it herself.)
19. Date with Destiny - 4/5 (Hey, it's Spider-Man. I mean, Fang. That was a pretty freaky character design. Just a guy with a huge spider as his entire head. This episode felt like it ramped up the wacky animation to 11, particularly with nearly every motion Kitten makes. And that bit with Starfire's mouth falling into the punch stuck out, too. That aside, pretty cute episode. Starfire's jealousy is amusing.)
20. Transformation - 3/5 (Does the Titan Tower only have bathroom? That's ridiculous. It's huge! Anyway, not to complain about power inconsistency or whatever, but Starfire being able to instantly fly several hundred thousand kilometers away from Earth pretty much instantly, not to mention be able to breathe in space is a bit excessive. She's not Green Lantern... That aside, this was alright. It's neat to find out more about Tamaranians, but Starfire has already learned the "my friends will like me no matter what" lesson before.)
21. Titan Rising - 4/5 (Why is Raven so pissy at Terra? Like, I know she's moody and has a low temper, but raging at someone just trying their best? A bit out of character. That said, I still enjoyed the rivarly. I like Terra on the team. It's fun that they're expanding the roster.)
22. Winner Take All - 3/5 (Why does the Master of Games need people to lose a battle before he can absorb them and their powers? Why doesn't he just do it to all of them on the spot? I found it funny that Beast Boy lost the first round. When the episode began I was expecting some epic final battle between the three main characters. But nope, he just loses and is gone for the rest of the episode.)
23. Betrayal - 4/5 (That was a bit of a rushed betrayal. Terra is introduced in one episode, instantly leaves within the same one, makes a big comeback 4 episodes later, and betrays them in the very next while it's treated like some devastating loss to the team. Well, there is the game episode in between. But also she isn't even in that save for a silent cameo in one shot in the end, so that barely counts! That said I still liked the emotional beats of the story from Beast Boy's perspective and such, so I'm not hating on how this was done. I just think this could've meant more if she actually was a member of the Titans for the episodes leading up to this betrayal. On a lighter note, I liked Beast Boy's theatrical scenarios of how he should have asked her out.)
24. Fractured - 3/5 (So in-between the previous, serious, dramatic episode, and the upcoming 2-part finale which will obviously be about Terra, they felt they needed an episode about some annoying imp doing zany nonsense. Not that the show is a stranger to that stuff, but this wasn't nearly as charming as Mad Mod.)
25/26. Aftershock - 4/5 (Pretty standard "epic finale" fare, but obviously it's good because I liked this Terra arc, as rushed as it may have been. Her turning on Slade and even being the one who ends up killing him was pretty thrilling stuff. I didn't think they'd actually go that far, considering he's like the main villain of the series. But while that final battle between Beast Boy and Terra was pretty great due to the resonance and such it contains, I feel like the episode took up a lot of time having the Titans fight various miscellaneous characters leading up to it, that just wasn't as interesting. Side note, Raven and Terra just being colored completely brown to simulate being muddy stuck out to me. I don't know why. Mainly because most shows would draw wiggly lines to simulate the muddiness, not just one blank color.)
27. Deception - 4/5 (I know this show is episodic so stuff like this is bound to happen, but it is a bit eyerolling that characters seem to just learn the same lessons over and over. Like in this episode, Cyborg is beating himself up over being a cyborg, but by the end he accepts himself the way he is. A lesson he has learned in 2 episodes prior to this already. Not that I didn't think it was well done. His chat with Starfire was sweet, and the whole thing about him being undercover was entertaining too, so it's not much of an issue.)
28. X - 4/5 (So some guy steals Robin's Red X costume and takes up the mantle... But he also conveniently sounds exactly like Robin? Sure, because THAT makes sense. For the most part this episode is just baiting you into wanting to know who Red X is, but then NEVER answers it. Pretty rude. Nevertheless, it was still interesting. Also Professor Chang's design reminds me of Inspector 13 from Ben 10.)
29. Betrothed - 3/5 (Titans just casually flying to another planet like it's a mere road trip. OK. Is The Batman funding this or what? Also, that scene of Robin outside the spaceship made me LOL. Anyway it's interesting to see Tamaran thoroughly explored upon and such, but it's a bit absurd that every single person on the planet wears basically the exact same outfit.)
30. Crash - 4/5 (Cyborg's cybernetic features are confusing. Firstly, how could a digital virus affect his brain, which is clearly a biological component? Second, how and why are there red blood cells flowing in the "veins" of his mechanical parts? Nitpicking logic in a goofy joke episode aside, this was great stuff. I liked that they had to reluctantly get Gizmo to help, and Cyborg going nuts was just entertaining in its own right. I think the interior of his cybernetic parts were interestingly designed, and Beast Boy as an amoeba is just absurd but fun. Although it's inconsistent that he's able to talk while in that form, since he can't when he's any other animal.)
31. Haunted - 5/5 (This was pretty grim, but very thrilling. Given Slade was established as like the main villain of the show, even though it seemed obvious he was imaginary, I kept asking myself if he was actually real or not to come capacity, since I doubt the series would get rid of its main villain that easily. And well, they DID imply somebody else activated the hallucination chemical from the mask, so, like, yeah, he's clearly coming back. That said, if it was all in Robin's head, how did he get all those bruises and rips in his clothes? By punching the air? And why did Beast Boy have a cold in this episode? I guess they needed some comedic relief so it wouldn't be too grim for Cartoon Network.)
32. Spellbound - 4/5 ("Kardiak, you're under arrest". I get it. Because he is a heart. Pretty amusing. Anyway, yikes, Beast Boy sure was mean for NO reason. But the way they made up in the end with Raven even joining him and Cyborg's game of "stankball" was cute. As for Malchior, well, I thought he was a girl until he spoke.)
33. Revolution - 3/5 (Pretty much a rehash of the first Mad Mod episode. He has the Titans trapped in a maze of illusions and they chase him around and defeat him. Which I get is the whole gimmick since he's just a joke villain, so yeah. This was good, but not AS good. The pop-art backgrounds were pretty cool, and I liked how the British flag was the sky in the background the entire time. Plus, British Beast Boy was funny. The "message" about patriotism, democracy or whatever, felt a but muddled.)
34. Wavelength - 3/5 (I guess Brother Blood is growing to be Cyborg's arch nemesis or something. This was pretty average, so I barely got anything to say. Aqualad asks for help, so they take down Blood's underwater weapon and...Yeah. But I liked Bumblebee, and her fight scene with Cyborg had a lot of funny visuals. The bit where he shuts the door on her was amusing too.)
35. The Beast Within - 5/5 (This was great. You'd think it would be fairly predictable to tell a werewolf story with Beast Boy, but the execution really makes it work. Yeah, it's obvious he's acting strange because of the chemicals from the beginning. But his gradual shift from acting macho, to asshole, to picking a physical fight with Raven for NO reason was interesting because of how bizarrely out of character it is. Especially when his "beast" form took the Raven beef to the next level. But on top of that I especially enjoyed the twist that the Adonis guy from the beginning was a second werewolf, and the actual culprit. Robin seemed awfully quick to immediately lock Beast Boy away or straight up murder him though. For a guy who himself was blackmailed into being evil, you'd think he would be more considerate to other possibilities.)
36. Can I Keep Him? - 3/5 (This was alright. Pretty simple concept for a comedy episode is all. Beast Boy fosters a giant maggot and then it becomes bigger and dangerous. Kind of amusing how Starfire got more attached to it in like a day than Beast Boy did while hiding it for months. As a sode note, I liked the design of Rancids robot dog and dinosaur.)
37. Bunny Raven... or ...How to Make A Titananimal Disappear - 3/5 (Pretty good for a zany episode. The Titans as animals were amusing designs, and Beast Boy becoming a lamp instead was funny. Mumbo's song was catchy.)
38/39. Titans East - 4/5 (I like the concept of Titans East, although the only member I find particularly interesting is Bumblebee. I'm always fond of shrinking abilities for the potential practical uses that often go unacknowledged. She never really does anything with it besides shoot some lasers in the bad guys face, though. Speedy and Aqualad are kind of generic, and Más y Menos are just gag characters, so yeah. Cyborg's conflict here was pretty interesting, but the way he gets decapitated piece by piece was pretty brutal. But him sticking it to Brother Blood was pretty awesome, and I liked the sweet ending where he decides to stick with the Titans.)
40. Episode 257-494 - 3/5 (Steve Irwin gets mauled by a bear. Anyway, this episode is decent, but it's just an endless stream of references to other things, many of which I am not familiar with, so even as a comedy episode, a lot of the jokes don't work very well. That woman from the lame soap opera was still with Cyborg in the real world by the end because THAT makes sense. But it was funny.)
41. The Quest - 4/5 (Yeah, it was pretty obvious the old lady was the great master. Robin going through challenges was pretty entertaining though, but that snake one... He won by merely grabbing the snake? Sure, okay. The rest of the team dressing up as and pretending to be Robin was probably the best part, especially even Raven joining in.)
42. Birthmark - 4/5 (Welcome back, Slade. This was a very thrilling episode. Really just has you asking tons of questions. Like how is Slade back, why is he targeting Raven now, etc. But also, it was interesting how this potrays Robin and Raven as having a very close friendship. I mean I guess all the Titans are good friends, but these two haven't been explored as a duo at all, so it was interesting, if not a bit awkward.)
43. Cyborg the Barbarian - 4/5 (Silly concept, but I like it. Though given how time travel has been established in this show, Cyborg can't really do anything to affect the future, because everything he will do has already happened in the past. I like the design of the demon... Thingies)
44. Employee of the Month - 4/5 (I found it interesting how this acknowledges Beast Boy a physical task, as opposed to Raven or Starfire's breezy levitating. Beast Boy working at a meat shop itself was pretty funny, and the Tofu villain in the end sells the whole thing for me. LOL.)
45. Troq - 3/5 (The racism episode. The fact that we know what word "troq" is supposed to represent makes it very weird how often we see it used. I mean imagine an episode where they used the actual word this much... Yeah. I think this is pretty well done and what not in terms of being sweet and emotional, especially Cyborg's talk with Starfire and Robin instantly changing his mind on Val-Yor once he finds out. But the action plot they wrapped all this around didn't really have me hooked, and it's a pretty big chunk of the episode.)
46. The Prophecy - 3/5 (This is neat and all, but for the most part it really feels like nothing but setup for a grander plot than something to stand on its own. So while I'm sure the context of this will make the season finale more rewarding, this is just okay. I did get a kick out of Raven pulling up Slade as he was trying to leave just to jerk him around a little.)
47. Stranded - 4/5 (This is a fun episode, but it has one of the worst common TV tropes of all time; Character refusing to explain an easily explainable situation this creating conflict because of misunderstanding. I mean, yeah, Starfire DID describe what a "girlfriend" was, but then she just described what could also be platonic. Robin could have easily explained to her that there's a difference between platonic and romantic.)
48. Overdrive - 3/5 (I like the Billy Numerous theme music, but that's about it really.)
49. Mother Mae-Eye - 3/5 (Well, funny at times, I'll give it that. But ehhhh. Yeah, I don't know, there isn't much to be said here. Liked the scene where Robin spiked up his hair.)
50/51/52. The End - 5/5 (Yeah, pretty epic. The Titans using Raven's power was also cool. I was hoping to finally see Slade's face when his mask was knocked off, but I suppose a creepy half decomposed skeleton is also interesting... Don't really understand Trigon's motivation for, well, all of this though. He wants to take over the Earth and get rid of all life on it, just so he can sit in a giant chair and relax? I mean, the real story here is supposed to be about Raven, so I know it doesn't matter, but that's pretty thin for what's supposed to be the most threatening villain of the show to date.)
53/54. Homecoming - 3/5 (I love specific character focused episode where we see something more personal to them, but Beast Boy's background isn't that interesting and most of the team besides Elastigirl weren't very interesting. But I do find Negative Man's powers cool. Brain is a pretty cool villain too, I love his voice, really intimidating vibes. How are any of the Doom Patrol alive after what happened though? Never explained)
55. Trust - 4/5 (An entire Hot Spot episode? Interesting, since I always find it fun when shows divert from the main cast. Overall fun, but that ending was pretty frustrating though. Hot Spot was so obviously Madame Rouge!)
56. For Real - 3/5 (I do like the Titans East, but this was disappointing. I was hoping for more of a genuine episode in their own town, seeing their feats as a team and friends, as opposed to goofing off with Control Freak. Also one of the villains Brain had lined up two episodes ago is in jail here?? Were Más y Menos permanently translated to English for the audience to understand them? I mean I guess I prefer it, since having them two speaking what sounds like gibberish to the rest of the team makes it hard for them to appear as genuine friends, especially since they're mostly attached to each other as opposed to the whole team.)
57. Snowblind - 4/5 (Already loved Red Star and then he's immediately killed before my eyes!! Whyyyy! I was hoping he would gain control of his powers and aid the Titans. How has he still been getting tanks to fill up with radioactive liquid for so many decades though? And that's a pretty small room for two tanks a day over the span of decades.)
58. Kole - 3/5 (This entire season so far the Titans have just been around the world, given last time they were in what appears to be Russia, and now it's somewhere in Scandinavia. It's been an interesting change of pace, sure, but this episode wasn't terribly interesting. They meet some caveman with a little girl, Dr. Light is up to no good, etc.)
59. Hide and Seek - 3/5 (Bobby turning out to be real was a pretty fun "twist". Got dragged out for a while though.)
60. Lightspeed - 4/5 (Another non-Titan focused episode. Kid Flash is randomly horning on Jinx because why not, I guess? This Jinx redemption came out of absolutely nowhere, given how little we've seen of her prior. But Kid Flash is fun, so whatever.)
61. Revved Up - 3/5 (This episode is neat, but given how they are racing for the entirety of it, the constant action was pretty exhausting to sit through. Why did Raven sneezing and Starfire saying the Tamaranean equivalent of "bless you" inform all the villains they are Titans though? Also, infuriating we never got to see what's in the briefcase.)
62. Go! - 5/5 (Love seeing the origins of the team, though it's pretty oddly convenient that these 5 superpowered people (well 4 with powers) just so happened to stumble upon each other, same day, same time, same situation. I imagine shortly after this they occasionally stumbled upon each other trying to fight the same bad guy every so often and decided to start a team. Which would have been more realistic for their first interactions, not all 5 meeting at once. Pretty on the nose Batman reference but they still absolutely refuse to mention Batman.)
63/64. Calling All Titans!/Titans Together - 5/5 (Why is Beast Boy climbing up the mountain as a goat instead of just... Flying? This was quite the epic episode, I enjoyted the intensity of seeing nearly every hero be ambushed separately by different villains. It's a bit strange for the final part to mostly be from Beast Boy's perspective, and with the strange heroes he ends up meeting. I was expecting to see how the rest of the Titans made it to the Brotherhood of Evil base, but it's probably better this way, since it leaves it up to imagination, and it doesn't really matter. Seeing the brain finally defeated when all heroes went into battle was satisfying. Jericho's powers were pretty cool.)
65. Things Change - 4/5 (The amount of quiet and awkward scenes with that sad music was... Well, very strange. The whole Terra thing is a bit weird like, sure, if someone you don't know jumps up to you, acts as if they know you and tells you you've gotten amnesia, you'd think they were insane. But Beast Boy surely has photo proof? Or if not, he could get testimony from the rest of his team?? No??? It doesn't have to jog her memory back, but at the very least she'd realize the truth and know who she was instead of just being so vague and saying cryptic things. Some things she said implied perhaps she did know, because any real person would just yell out the weirdo stalking them, not give emotional speeches about the girl you once knew being gone etc. But all that aside, why did Slade send a robot out just to tell Beast Boy that he had nothing to do with what's happened to Terra? Also, that creatures ability to turn himself into any matter he touches is really cool.)
Movie: Trouble in Tokyo - 3/5 (This has pretty much one of the things I dislike most about movies based on TV shows; Instead of actually focusing on the iconic aspects of the series in question, it goes out of it's way to be as far removed from it as possible by setting it in a whole other country. Bummer, because an ideal Titans movie would really focus on the whole team, and THEIR city. Instead, they're just in Tokyo stopping a corrupt commander (who I knew was gonna be the bad guy from the get-go) who's creating crimes to be a hero. And the thing is with these kind of movies is, perhaps if they actually did focus on the characters relationships, it would be good. But instead they are mostly separated the entire time, just goofing off. And cue the obligatory relationship between Robin and Starfire. I mean, it was obviously going to happen, so it's not as if I mind it, but the drama feels pretty forced. They're heroes, yes, but they lounge around and take time off all the time when criminals aren't around. There really isn't much more to say about this. High-tier average. Although, admittedly, I was finding myself ready to close my eyes and fall asleep nearing the hour mark.)
-The Lost Episode - 3/5 (It's half the length of a normal episode, so it's hard to judge it, given it's not even serious at all. A fun little watch, for sure. Beast Boy walking around with a boombox on his shoulders was funny because of how dated it is.)
-New Teen Titans Shorts (Can't really rate them since they're just shorts, but here's a few throwaway thoughts: I like the artstyle. The lowercase T tower is a funny visual gag. Was Blackfire just killed? So, they finally actually showed Batman on screen (technically)? The hell was up with Cyborg's voice in one of these?)

I'm just so tired all the time, it literally feels like I can sleep all day. I have a normal sleep schedule, but everyday I just feel so exhausted. I have dark circles under my eyes and I have no energy to do anything anymore. I just lay in bed all day and want to rot. I feel suicidal, I just want to die all the time and it's getting worse. I get nightmares of him, not of what exactly happened but just of different sa from him. I feel like there's no point in going on anymore, I don't think it's going to get better. I don't exactly know what it's like to have a flashback, but I think I've experienced them. I have really bad maladaptive daydreaming, but I don't think it's that. It's like I'm there again, I can't control it or stop it or rewind it. It's like it's happening all over again and that I'm there and I can feel it. When it's happening I just sit there and cry and I feel like screaming but I obviously can't do that so I have to hold it in. My head feels like it's burning constantly too, like the back of my head feels so fucking warm and hot. Like my brain is melting. And I just want to die and I'm so tired I just want to sleep and never wake up again.
•The one big thing that makes me feel valid is that, when I was 11, my stepdad fingered me in my bedroom. I won't go in to too much detail or anything, it's unimportant. But the entire time he just stared at me and everything was silent, like he was waiting for my reaction. Our relationship has always been odd, so I wanted it. But eventually I got scared and told him something, I don't remember what it was but it got him to stop immediately and he apologised too. I don't remember much after, as in I don't know if he left my room or I left first, but I immediately went to the bathroom. Which was when I discovered I was bleeding.
•Around this time, for some strange reason I would repeatedly say to him "fuck me daddy." This would either be in person, or over messages. I remember once, when I was in school, I messaged him that. He told me to stop in case one of my friends saw. I don't know why he didn't tell me to stop for other reasons.
•One day, after telling him that in person, we were in my parents bedroom. I was sat on his bed and he was in front of me in his weird chair. He then started going in to detail about how I wanted him to fuck me, I can't remember exactly what he said, it was like I zoned out. Everytime I try to recall it now it literally feels like bugs start to crawl up me, I don't understand why. I remember the last part, and his really disgusting hushed and gentle voice. He asked if I wanted him to "cum inside of me", or he was just explaining how that would finish. I'm not really sure.
•Still around this same time period of me being 11-12, I would ask him to 'squish me.' The reason why we would call it that is because I would be on my back, my legs would be up all the way to where my head is and he would be on top of me in a way that would 'squish me'. Basically like that one sex position. I would usually be wearing my school uniform when that would happen, so a skirt. During the 'squishing', he would push down on me, so our crotches would basically be against eachother. I don't know why, but I would continuously ask him to 'squish me' and during it I would even say the whole "fuck me daddy" thing. Only recently have I realised that he was probably just pretending to fuck me.
•Other things had happened around that age too, like how we would talk about how many times we masturbated a day and compare it to eachother. Sometimes if I was abruptly going to my room, he would ask if I was going to go masturbate, since we were 'close like that' I would tell him. He would often recommend me NSFW Instagram model accounts. I was once tricked in to sending feet pics to this guy, which really isn't that serious and whenever I brought it up with friends they find it fucking hilarious. But the detail I always leave out is that, I did bring that up with my stepdad and he proceeded to tell me that he already knew. Which means he was spying on me through the crack of the door. If that already didn't bother me, I don't understand why he just allowed me to send those pictures, if he was watching why the hell didn't he stop me?
•I'm pretty sure this also happened around the age of 11 as well, recently, a memory resurfaced but I barely remember it. Basically, I was sucking on his neck. I don't remember who said it, but either him or my mum spoke up and laughed, saying that I needed to stop otherwise I would "give him a hickey." The reason why I wouldn't be surprised if my mum was in the room at the time is because she doesn't care about what he does. She knows everything and just doesn't fucking care.
•I'm very sure that, around that age, my parents begun to expose me to their loud sex. I wouldn't be surprised if it started even younger, however. Obviously, I tried to bring it up with them at the ripe old age of 11 and my mum immediately shot me down with a "it's natural." This only stopped recently, around this year, because I had a big panic attack over hearing them and my mum finally felt guilty. I started getting panic attacks over it the minute it started, maybe the panic attacks were a sign of the trauma when I was younger, but I'm convinced it is now. I heard it so many times that I began to get paranoid every night, I would start to hear it even if they weren't upstairs (I sound crazy, I know.) I would get so anxious every night in case I would hear it, to the point I started to really resent them from it. I know fine well I could just go to sleep before them, but sometimes they even woke me up with it, on numerous occasions.
•I'm convinced my stepdad wanted me to hear it. Around the time of it finally stopping, I got mad because i was hearing it again (I'm unsure if it was due to me hearing shit or they actually were) but it caused me to take my bedding and go downstairs to sleep. In the morning, I was rudely awoken to my stepdad slamming the door open and storming past. He's not usually like that when people are sleeping, so it instantly gave me the impression that he was pissed off and the only reason I can think of is that he was angry I wasn't there to listen.
•He used to tease me for my paranoia to. As a way to discourage them from getting intimate, I would leave my door open at night. This happened around this year, but I was doing that again and I messaged my stepdad if they were actually going to sleep. It then somehow turned to him making a dig about how he knew I gets anxious at night and when I asked why he sent me "In case me and your mam have sex. 😜" Before, I tried to resolve this issue by begging them to just tell me if they were gonna have sex or not so I could sleep downstairs (because I was gonna find out the hard way anyways.) And they kept on refusing? Which just gave me the impression that they wanted me to listen more.
•Around 11 again, he would often tell me details about his and my mums sex life. Like how he was always good at pulling out and the only time he would wear a condom is right when he was about to finish. But the reason why my sister came to be was because he just failed to pull out that one time and my mum refused to get an abortion. Another time, he went on about how him and my mother had sex during her period and how they had to use towels and they didn't enjoy it because it was too messy.
•I don't know if he did things before the age of 11, my memories are very faded and it's like there are major gaps throughout everything. I'm worried that he did, however. When I was very young, I remember having no accidents at all during the night. But then, around the ages of 9, I would have an accident basically every night and would get a lot of water infections. I know that's a classic sign of child sexual abuse, but I don't want to jump to conclusions or anything.
•Another reason as to why I believe more things had happened to me than what I know of is because I always seemed to know what sex was when I was young, but I wouldn't know the name or anything specific about it like how to get pregnant or what cum was. Though, even though I didn't know what it was, it was like I always thought about it, I could never not think about sex, it was disgusting. This stayed until I was around 13. I remember where I even asked my 'boyfriend' at the time, we were both around 8, if he wanted to have sex, and I have no idea why.
•Over the years, he would flash me frequently. Everytime, I would always believe it was an accident because he'd never acknowledge it, besides from that one time which he always jokes about it and blames me. Everytime he would flash me, it would either be because of a convenient hole in the crotch of his pants or because he was wearing very lose fit shorts and it would just be hanging out. The more I think about it, I'm very sure he would have been able to feel such a thing, especially when it was poking out of the hole, but it was like he was just oblivious.
•For some strange reason, when I was younger, I would make comments about small dicks. I don't know if I was commenting on his dick specifically, but he would always say the same thing. "Width matters more than length."
•Recently, around 16-17, he made a joke about how he listens to me masturbating. Once he noticed how shocked I looked, he then went on saying about how my vibrator is too quiet to hear.
•Around 17 again, I went to use the shower. The shower I use is the one that's connected to my parents room. When I locked the door, he got madish and started making comments about it. I had to defend myself, saying how 'the door would open on it's own if I didn't lock it'. Eventually, he backed off.
•I don't understand the point in the fucking door and lock to my bedroom anymore. Whenever I decided to lock my door, my parents start shouting at me through the walls, asking why I locked my door. My stepdad barely knocks, it's like a tap and he doesn't even wait sometimes. I remember seeing a past message from an old friend saying how he tried to walk in when I was changing and that he knew I was changing. I didn't explain myself, I really wish I did because I don't remember this.
•(Around 17.) We were messaging eachother and it somehow turned in to him hinting if I saw this one animated video, it was a porn one. I said no, and to that he sent me a screenshot of it. It wasn't anything bad or anything, just the start of it and nothing was revealing, he then asked if I was sure. And how he was surprised that I hadn't.
•(Around 17.) I don't really get my period, we still don't know why. But as I was getting a lot of blood tests, my stepdad was trying to check things off the list of what it could be. One of those being that my opening is just extremely tight I guess, because he asked if I ever tried penetrating myself. I admitted that I did, but I couldn't get it to exactly go in. Which he then decided to make a comment saying how It's just my 'technique'. I wonder if the only reason he asked that was to see if I ever tried anything out of morbid curiosity.
•(Around 17 again.) He randomly bought me dildo's once, I didn't ask him for them, he just bought them for me and it was wildly uncomfortable. Once he gave me them, he asked if I wanted him to show me how to use them. I said no, which he then said something about how if I ever did then I could ask him. I worry what would have happened if I did say yes.
•When I was around 14, I went glamping. I ended up having to share a bed with him. One of the nights, I woke up to his hand just on top my crotch. I tried grabbing it and moving it away but it just fell back down on to it. I don't know if he put it back there on purpose. I still question if it was a dream, I'm very sure it wasn't because I remember going back to sleep, but it still just bugs me.
•Around 17, I was upset for some reason and he was comforting me. During this, he randomly grabbed the inside of my thigh. I usually just wear a shirt and boxers, so he basically just grabbed my naked thigh but I don't know if he was doing it in a comforting way.
•Usually when I draw, I have my knees up to my chest so it's easier to use my tablet. Considering what I wear for pyjamas, I can always see him looking at my crotch when he comes in to my room. If he really can see everything I don't understand why he doesn't just tell me to put my legs down.
•He's made a lot of uncomfortable jokes over the years too. One of the ones that upsets me sometimes is that, when he was measuring me for a binder, I was constantly moving around because it was uncomfortable since I was just in a sports bra. As he was leaving, I think I told him about how it was uncomfortable for me or something along those lines. He then turned around and shouted "oh come on, it's not like i was fingerings your pussy or anything."
•Very recently, I asked him if I looked okay before going to college. After a bit of back and fourth he said "I wouldn't kick you out of bed, maybe you could find someone in college who would do the same."
•Other times when I asked him if I looked okay, he'd go on tangents about how my ass is great or how he would date me or be too nervous to talk to me if he was my age.
•One of the more recent jokes was when I dropped a mayonnaise lid on my lap. Nothing got on me, but my stepdad turned to me then turned to my mum and shouted "if anyone starts accusing us, just tell them it was mayonnaise!" Or something like that.
•I remember after we watched the new mean girls film, he started going on saying about how he wanted to rewatch it for the Halloween seen (if you know you know) for the 'panty action'. Which rubs me the wrong way because I'm very sure the girls are supposed to be around my age.
•I'm very sure he also made this fake account, pretending to be one of my old groomers that I tried to cut off, just to message me about nsfw topics and ask for pics. It's a whole long yap about paranoia and just suspicions so I won't get into it though. If I tried to provide all the evidence I have, it'll take forever and there's no point.
There's definitely way more things that he's said, joked and done. But I'm only now beginning to realise that they're not okay. Even when I was younger, I was sort of uncomfortable around the jokes so I would just zone out, leading me to not remembering them now.
I probably will never accept that what happened to me was bad, or a big issue. Especially due to the 'lovely' people on here. Thank you for telling me immediately that I was a liar before you even knew what happened, that I shouldn't blame an 'innocent man', that you hope he comes in and rapes me to the point I split open and bleed. Thank you for telling me that my parents were just trying to promote a sex positive household, that some of the things were questionable at most. Thank you so much for saying I deserved it because I didn't send you pictures. You all made me feel like shit and I'm probably never going to tell people in person what happened to me, out of fear I would be ridiculed due to how much of a baby I'm being. I wasn't raped, so I have no place to cry or even think about it. I'm being overdramatic.
If you even read to this point, you're an angel.

Trigger warning. Also I'm sorry, this is a really long post but I'll bullet point most stuff down.
I'm just so tired all the time, it literally feels like I can sleep all day. I have a normal sleep schedule, but everyday I just feel so exhausted. I have dark circles under my eyes and I have no energy to do anything anymore. I just lay in bed all day and want to rot. I feel suicidal, I just want to die all the time and it's getting worse. I get nightmares of him, not of what exactly happened but just of different sa from him. I feel like there's no point in going on anymore, I don't think it's going to get better. I don't exactly know what it's like to have a flashback, but I think I've experienced them. I have really bad maladaptive daydreaming, but I don't think it's that. It's like I'm there again, I can't control it or stop it or rewind it. It's like it's happening all over again and that I'm there and I can feel it. When it's happening I just sit there and cry and I feel like screaming but I obviously can't do that so I have to hold it in. My head feels like it's burning constantly too, like the back of my head feels so fucking warm and hot. Like my brain is melting. And I just want to die and I'm so tired I just want to sleep and never wake up again.
•The one big thing that makes me feel valid is that, when I was 11, my stepdad fingered me in my bedroom. I won't go in to too much detail or anything, it's unimportant. But the entire time he just stared at me and everything was silent, like he was waiting for my reaction. Our relationship has always been odd, so I wanted it. But eventually I got scared and told him something, I don't remember what it was but it got him to stop immediately and he apologised too. I don't remember much after, as in I don't know if he left my room or I left first, but I immediately went to the bathroom. Which was when I discovered I was bleeding.
•Around this time, for some strange reason I would repeatedly say to him "fuck me daddy." This would either be in person, or over messages. I remember once, when I was in school, I messaged him that. He told me to stop in case one of my friends saw. I don't know why he didn't tell me to stop for other reasons.
•One day, after telling him that in person, we were in my parents bedroom. I was sat on his bed and he was in front of me in his weird chair. He then started going in to detail about how I wanted him to fuck me, I can't remember exactly what he said, it was like I zoned out. Everytime I try to recall it now it literally feels like bugs start to crawl up me, I don't understand why. I remember the last part, and his really disgusting hushed and gentle voice. He asked if I wanted him to "cum inside of me", or he was just explaining how that would finish. I'm not really sure.
•Still around this same time period of me being 11-12, I would ask him to 'squish me.' The reason why we would call it that is because I would be on my back, my legs would be up all the way to where my head is and he would be on top of me in a way that would 'squish me'. Basically like that one sex position. I would usually be wearing my school uniform when that would happen, so a skirt. During the 'squishing', he would push down on me, so our crotches would basically be against eachother. I don't know why, but I would continuously ask him to 'squish me' and during it I would even say the whole "fuck me daddy" thing. Only recently have I realised that he was probably just pretending to fuck me.
•Other things had happened around that age too, like how we would talk about how many times we masturbated a day and compare it to eachother. Sometimes if I was abruptly going to my room, he would ask if I was going to go masturbate, since we were 'close like that' I would tell him. He would often recommend me NSFW Instagram model accounts. I was once tricked in to sending feet pics to this guy, which really isn't that serious and whenever I brought it up with friends they find it fucking hilarious. But the detail I always leave out is that, I did bring that up with my stepdad and he proceeded to tell me that he already knew. Which means he was spying on me through the crack of the door. If that already didn't bother me, I don't understand why he just allowed me to send those pictures, if he was watching why the hell didn't he stop me?
•I'm pretty sure this also happened around the age of 11 as well, recently, a memory resurfaced but I barely remember it. Basically, I was sucking on his neck. I don't remember who said it, but either him or my mum spoke up and laughed, saying that I needed to stop otherwise I would "give him a hickey." The reason why I wouldn't be surprised if my mum was in the room at the time is because she doesn't care about what he does. She knows everything and just doesn't fucking care.
•I'm very sure that, around that age, my parents begun to expose me to their loud sex. I wouldn't be surprised if it started even younger, however. Obviously, I tried to bring it up with them at the ripe old age of 11 and my mum immediately shot me down with a "it's natural." This only stopped recently, around this year, because I had a big panic attack over hearing them and my mum finally felt guilty. I started getting panic attacks over it the minute it started, maybe the panic attacks were a sign of the trauma when I was younger, but I'm convinced it is now. I heard it so many times that I began to get paranoid every night, I would start to hear it even if they weren't upstairs (I sound crazy, I know.) I would get so anxious every night in case I would hear it, to the point I started to really resent them from it. I know fine well I could just go to sleep before them, but sometimes they even woke me up with it, on numerous occasions.
•I'm convinced my stepdad wanted me to hear it. Around the time of it finally stopping, I got mad because i was hearing it again (I'm unsure if it was due to me hearing shit or they actually were) but it caused me to take my bedding and go downstairs to sleep. In the morning, I was rudely awoken to my stepdad slamming the door open and storming past. He's not usually like that when people are sleeping, so it instantly gave me the impression that he was pissed off and the only reason I can think of is that he was angry I wasn't there to listen.
•He used to tease me for my paranoia to. As a way to discourage them from getting intimate, I would leave my door open at night. This happened around this year, but I was doing that again and I messaged my stepdad if they were actually going to sleep. It then somehow turned to him making a dig about how he knew I gets anxious at night and when I asked why he sent me "In case me and your mam have sex. 😜" Before, I tried to resolve this issue by begging them to just tell me if they were gonna have sex or not so I could sleep downstairs (because I was gonna find out the hard way anyways.) And they kept on refusing? Which just gave me the impression that they wanted me to listen more.
•Around 11 again, he would often tell me details about his and my mums sex life. Like how he was always good at pulling out and the only time he would wear a condom is right when he was about to finish. But the reason why my sister came to be was because he just failed to pull out that one time and my mum refused to get an abortion. Another time, he went on about how him and my mother had sex during her period and how they had to use towels and they didn't enjoy it because it was too messy.
•I don't know if he did things before the age of 11, my memories are very faded and it's like there are major gaps throughout everything. I'm worried that he did, however. When I was very young, I remember having no accidents at all during the night. But then, around the ages of 9, I would have an accident basically every night and would get a lot of water infections. I know that's a classic sign of child sexual abuse, but I don't want to jump to conclusions or anything.
•Another reason as to why I believe more things had happened to me than what I know of is because I always seemed to know what sex was when I was young, but I wouldn't know the name or anything specific about it like how to get pregnant or what cum was. Though, even though I didn't know what it was, it was like I always thought about it, I could never not think about sex, it was disgusting. This stayed until I was around 13. I remember where I even asked my 'boyfriend' at the time, we were both around 8, if he wanted to have sex, and I have no idea why.
•Over the years, he would flash me frequently. Everytime, I would always believe it was an accident because he'd never acknowledge it, besides from that one time which he always jokes about it and blames me. Everytime he would flash me, it would either be because of a convenient hole in the crotch of his pants or because he was wearing very lose fit shorts and it would just be hanging out. The more I think about it, I'm very sure he would have been able to feel such a thing, especially when it was poking out of the hole, but it was like he was just oblivious.
•For some strange reason, when I was younger, I would make comments about small dicks. I don't know if I was commenting on his dick specifically, but he would always say the same thing. "Width matters more than length."
•Recently, around 16-17, he made a joke about how he listens to me masturbating. Once he noticed how shocked I looked, he then went on saying about how my vibrator is too quiet to hear.
•Around 17 again, I went to use the shower. The shower I use is the one that's connected to my parents room. When I locked the door, he got madish and started making comments about it. I had to defend myself, saying how 'the door would open on it's own if I didn't lock it'. Eventually, he backed off.
•I don't understand the point in the fucking door and lock to my bedroom anymore. Whenever I decided to lock my door, my parents start shouting at me through the walls, asking why I locked my door. My stepdad barely knocks, it's like a tap and he doesn't even wait sometimes. I remember seeing a past message from an old friend saying how he tried to walk in when I was changing and that he knew I was changing. I didn't explain myself, I really wish I did because I don't remember this.
•(Around 17.) We were messaging eachother and it somehow turned in to him hinting if I saw this one animated video, it was a porn one. I said no, and to that he sent me a screenshot of it. It wasn't anything bad or anything, just the start of it and nothing was revealing, he then asked if I was sure. And how he was surprised that I hadn't.
•(Around 17.) I don't really get my period, we still don't know why. But as I was getting a lot of blood tests, my stepdad was trying to check things off the list of what it could be. One of those being that my opening is just extremely tight I guess, because he asked if I ever tried penetrating myself. I admitted that I did, but I couldn't get it to exactly go in. Which he then decided to make a comment saying how It's just my 'technique'. I wonder if the only reason he asked that was to see if I ever tried anything out of morbid curiosity.
•(Around 17 again.) He randomly bought me dildo's once, I didn't ask him for them, he just bought them for me and it was wildly uncomfortable. Once he gave me them, he asked if I wanted him to show me how to use them. I said no, which he then said something about how if I ever did then I could ask him. I worry what would have happened if I did say yes.
•When I was around 14, I went glamping. I ended up having to share a bed with him. One of the nights, I woke up to his hand just on top my crotch. I tried grabbing it and moving it away but it just fell back down on to it. I don't know if he put it back there on purpose. I still question if it was a dream, I'm very sure it wasn't because I remember going back to sleep, but it still just bugs me.
•Around 17, I was upset for some reason and he was comforting me. During this, he randomly grabbed the inside of my thigh. I usually just wear a shirt and boxers, so he basically just grabbed my naked thigh but I don't know if he was doing it in a comforting way.
•Usually when I draw, I have my knees up to my chest so it's easier to use my tablet. Considering what I wear for pyjamas, I can always see him looking at my crotch when he comes in to my room. If he really can see everything I don't understand why he doesn't just tell me to put my legs down.
•He's made a lot of uncomfortable jokes over the years too. One of the ones that upsets me sometimes is that, when he was measuring me for a binder, I was constantly moving around because it was uncomfortable since I was just in a sports bra. As he was leaving, I think I told him about how it was uncomfortable for me or something along those lines. He then turned around and shouted "oh come on, it's not like i was fingerings your pussy or anything."
•Very recently, I asked him if I looked okay before going to college. After a bit of back and fourth he said "I wouldn't kick you out of bed, maybe you could find someone in college who would do the same."
•Other times when I asked him if I looked okay, he'd go on tangents about how my ass is great or how he would date me or be too nervous to talk to me if he was my age.
•One of the more recent jokes was when I dropped a mayonnaise lid on my lap. Nothing got on me, but my stepdad turned to me then turned to my mum and shouted "if anyone starts accusing us, just tell them it was mayonnaise!" Or something like that.
•I remember after we watched the new mean girls film, he started going on saying about how he wanted to rewatch it for the Halloween seen (if you know you know) for the 'panty action'. Which rubs me the wrong way because I'm very sure the girls are supposed to be around my age.
•I'm very sure he also made this fake account, pretending to be one of my old groomers that I tried to cut off, just to message me about nsfw topics and ask for pics. It's a whole long yap about paranoia and just suspicions so I won't get into it though. If I tried to provide all the evidence I have, it'll take forever and there's no point.
There's definitely way more things that he's said, joked and done. But I'm only now beginning to realise that they're not okay. Even when I was younger, I was sort of uncomfortable around the jokes so I would just zone out, leading me to not remembering them now.
I probably will never accept that what happened to me was bad, or a big issue. Especially due to the 'lovely' people on here. Thank you for telling me immediately that I was a liar before you even knew what happened, that I shouldn't blame an 'innocent man', that you hope he comes in and rapes me to the point I split open and bleed. Thank you for telling me that my parents were just trying to promote a sex positive household, that some of the things were questionable at most. Thank you so much for saying I deserved it because I didn't send you pictures. You all made me feel like shit and I'm probably never going to tell people in person what happened to me, out of fear I would be ridiculed due to how much of a baby I'm being. I wasn't raped, so I have no place to cry or even think about it. I'm being overdramatic.
If you even read to this point, you're an angel.

Everything in my inventory is up for trade. The most valuable items are listed here, the rest you can find in My Inventory

Feel free to Add Me or even better send a Trade Offer. Open for any suggestions: upgrades, downgrades / knives, gloves, skins / stickers, patterns, floats.

All Buyouts are listed in cash value.

KNIVES

★ Butterfly Knife Lore (Factory New), B/O: $7194.77

★ Butterfly Knife Autotronic (Minimal Wear), B/O: $2025.74

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★ M9 Bayonet Ultraviolet (Field-Tested), B/O: $557.87

★ M9 Bayonet Stained (Well-Worn), B/O: $529.41

★ M9 Bayonet Boreal Forest (Field-Tested), B/O: $465.39

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★ Talon Knife Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $1295.27

★ Bayonet Tiger Tooth (Minimal Wear), B/O: $746.28

★ Karambit Bright Water (Field-Tested), B/O: $688.15

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★ Flip Knife Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $547.93

★ Flip Knife Autotronic (Minimal Wear), B/O: $476.69

★ Flip Knife Case Hardened (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $278.18

★ Flip Knife Black Laminate (Well-Worn), B/O: $258.83

★ Flip Knife Urban Masked (Field-Tested), B/O: $181.64

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★ Stiletto Knife Marble Fade (Factory New), B/O: $686.04

★ Stiletto Knife Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $665.41

★ Stiletto Knife, B/O: $601.39

★ Stiletto Knife Crimson Web (Field-Tested), B/O: $418.25

★ Stiletto Knife Night Stripe (Field-Tested), B/O: $227.80

★ Stiletto Knife Boreal Forest (Field-Tested), B/O: $194.96

★ Stiletto Knife Safari Mesh (Field-Tested), B/O: $192.79

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★ Nomad Knife Crimson Web (Field-Tested), B/O: $518.11

★ Nomad Knife Scorched (Field-Tested), B/O: $169.78

★ Nomad Knife Forest DDPAT (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $166.88

★ StatTrak™ Nomad Knife Blue Steel (Field-Tested), B/O: $335.79

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★ Skeleton Knife Stained (Well-Worn), B/O: $442.05

★ Skeleton Knife Urban Masked (Minimal Wear), B/O: $426.24

★ Skeleton Knife Boreal Forest (Field-Tested), B/O: $314.03

★ StatTrak™ Skeleton Knife Fade (Minimal Wear), B/O: $2361.28

★ StatTrak™ Skeleton Knife Urban Masked (Field-Tested), B/O: $376.53

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★ Ursus Knife Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $557.12

★ Ursus Knife, B/O: $471.42

★ Ursus Knife Blue Steel (Minimal Wear), B/O: $212.37

★ Ursus Knife Case Hardened (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $187.66

★ Ursus Knife Damascus Steel (Field-Tested), B/O: $178.18

★ Ursus Knife Ultraviolet (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $155.13

★ Ursus Knife Boreal Forest (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $124.26

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★ Huntsman Knife Black Laminate (Minimal Wear), B/O: $204.83

★ Huntsman Knife Black Laminate (Field-Tested), B/O: $184.50

★ StatTrak™ Huntsman Knife Lore (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $224.11

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★ Bowie Knife Gamma Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $2142.02

★ Bowie Knife, B/O: $230.44

★ Bowie Knife Damascus Steel (Factory New), B/O: $209.20

★ Bowie Knife Ultraviolet (Minimal Wear), B/O: $180.51

★ Bowie Knife Ultraviolet (Field-Tested), B/O: $131.03

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★ Falchion Knife Night (Field-Tested), B/O: $132.54

★ Falchion Knife Urban Masked (Well-Worn), B/O: $112.81

★ Falchion Knife Scorched (Field-Tested), B/O: $108.81

★ Falchion Knife Forest DDPAT (Field-Tested), B/O: $107.82

★ Falchion Knife Safari Mesh (Field-Tested), B/O: $107.46

★ StatTrak™ Falchion Knife Ultraviolet (Field-Tested), B/O: $143.08

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★ Paracord Knife Crimson Web (Minimal Wear), B/O: $486.48

★ Paracord Knife Blue Steel (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $163.12

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★ Survival Knife Blue Steel (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $138.26

★ Survival Knife Night Stripe (Field-Tested), B/O: $131.03

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★ Gut Knife Sapphire (Minimal Wear), B/O: $1127.79

★ Gut Knife Gamma Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $286.17

★ Gut Knife Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $246.55

★ Gut Knife Marble Fade (Factory New), B/O: $240.77

★ Gut Knife, B/O: $210.49

★ Gut Knife Lore (Field-Tested), B/O: $194.22

★ Gut Knife Case Hardened (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $151.51

★ Gut Knife Blue Steel (Minimal Wear), B/O: $124.94

★ Gut Knife Rust Coat (Well-Worn), B/O: $118.99

★ Gut Knife Boreal Forest (Minimal Wear), B/O: $109.80

★ StatTrak™ Gut Knife Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $237.96

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★ Shadow Daggers Gamma Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $264.92

★ Shadow Daggers Marble Fade (Factory New), B/O: $253.03

★ Shadow Daggers Tiger Tooth (Factory New), B/O: $237.22

★ Shadow Daggers Crimson Web (Field-Tested), B/O: $153.40

★ Shadow Daggers Autotronic (Minimal Wear), B/O: $144.42

★ Shadow Daggers Blue Steel (Field-Tested), B/O: $105.20

★ StatTrak™ Shadow Daggers Damascus Steel (Minimal Wear), B/O: $150.46

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★ Navaja Knife Fade (Factory New), B/O: $365.99

★ Navaja Knife Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $228.93

★ Navaja Knife Marble Fade (Factory New), B/O: $227.43

★ Navaja Knife Slaughter (Factory New), B/O: $209.06

★ Navaja Knife, B/O: $203.16

★ Navaja Knife Case Hardened (Well-Worn), B/O: $132.57

★ Navaja Knife Damascus Steel (Factory New), B/O: $121.69

★ Navaja Knife Damascus Steel (Minimal Wear), B/O: $109.95

★ Navaja Knife Damascus Steel (Field-Tested), B/O: $100.41

★ StatTrak™ Navaja Knife Fade (Factory New), B/O: $369.01

★ StatTrak™ Navaja Knife Damascus Steel (Field-Tested), B/O: $109.95

GLOVES

★ Sport Gloves Amphibious (Minimal Wear), B/O: $2394.67

★ Sport Gloves Omega (Well-Worn), B/O: $572.33

★ Sport Gloves Bronze Morph (Minimal Wear), B/O: $338.88

★ Sport Gloves Big Game (Field-Tested), B/O: $323.66

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★ Specialist Gloves Marble Fade (Minimal Wear), B/O: $1652.07

★ Specialist Gloves Tiger Strike (Field-Tested), B/O: $599.14

★ Specialist Gloves Crimson Web (Well-Worn), B/O: $231.57

★ Specialist Gloves Buckshot (Minimal Wear), B/O: $126.21

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★ Moto Gloves POW! (Minimal Wear), B/O: $996.99

★ Moto Gloves POW! (Field-Tested), B/O: $383.31

★ Moto Gloves POW! (Well-Worn), B/O: $276.00

★ Moto Gloves Turtle (Field-Tested), B/O: $180.28

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★ Hand Wraps CAUTION! (Minimal Wear), B/O: $502.29

★ Hand Wraps Giraffe (Minimal Wear), B/O: $180.73

★ Hand Wraps CAUTION! (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $178.32

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★ Driver Gloves Queen Jaguar (Minimal Wear), B/O: $181.01

★ Driver Gloves Rezan the Red (Field-Tested), B/O: $101.66

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★ Broken Fang Gloves Jade (Field-Tested), B/O: $127.88

★ Broken Fang Gloves Needle Point (Minimal Wear), B/O: $124.55

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★ Bloodhound Gloves Guerrilla (Minimal Wear), B/O: $127.94

★ Hydra Gloves Case Hardened (Field-Tested), B/O: $102.55

WEAPONS

AK-47 X-Ray (Well-Worn), B/O: $478.95

AUG Hot Rod (Factory New), B/O: $425.83

StatTrak™ M4A1-S Hyper Beast (Factory New), B/O: $413.95

M4A4 Daybreak (Factory New), B/O: $309.51

StatTrak™ AK-47 Aquamarine Revenge (Factory New), B/O: $305.43

AK-47 Case Hardened (Well-Worn), B/O: $196.38

StatTrak™ M4A4 Temukau (Minimal Wear), B/O: $174.64

P90 Run and Hide (Field-Tested), B/O: $167.03

AWP Asiimov (Field-Tested), B/O: $153.33

Souvenir SSG 08 Death Strike (Minimal Wear), B/O: $140.00

M4A1-S Printstream (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $124.70

StatTrak™ M4A1-S Golden Coil (Field-Tested), B/O: $117.48

AWP Asiimov (Well-Worn), B/O: $115.97

StatTrak™ Desert Eagle Printstream (Minimal Wear), B/O: $112.96

StatTrak™ AK-47 Asiimov (Minimal Wear), B/O: $110.85

Souvenir M4A1-S Master Piece (Well-Worn), B/O: $102.42

AK-47 Bloodsport (Minimal Wear), B/O: $100.53

Trade Offer Link - Steam Profile Link - My Inventory

Knives - Bowie Knife, Butterfly Knife, Falchion Knife, Flip Knife, Gut Knife, Huntsman Knife, M9 Bayonet, Bayonet, Karambit, Shadow Daggers, Stiletto Knife, Ursus Knife, Navaja Knife, Talon Knife, Classic Knife, Paracord Knife, Survival Knife, Nomad Knife, Skeleton Knife, Patterns - Gamma Doppler, Doppler (Phase 1, Phase 2, Phase 3, Phase 4, Black Pearl, Sapphire, Ruby, Emerald), Crimson Web, Lore, Fade, Ultraviolet, Night, Marble Fade (Fire & Ice, Fake FI), Case Hardened (Blue Gem), Autotronic, Slaughter, Black Laminate, Tiger Tooth, Boreal Forest, Scorched, Blue Steel, Vanilla, Damascus Steel, Forest DDPAT, Urban Masked, Freehand, Stained, Bright Water, Safari Mesh, Rust Coat, Gloves - Bloodhound Gloves (Charred, Snakebite, Guerrilla, Bronzed), Driver Gloves (Snow Leopard, King Snake, Crimson Weave, Imperial Plaid, Black Tie, Lunar Weave, Diamondback, Rezan the Red, Overtake, Queen Jaguar, Convoy, Racing Green), Hand Wraps (Cobalt Skulls, CAUTION!, Overprint, Slaughter, Leather, Giraffe, Badlands, Spruce DDPAT, Arboreal, Constrictor, Desert Shamagh, Duct Tape), Moto Gloves (Spearmint, POW!, Cool Mint, Smoke Out, Finish Line, Polygon, Blood Pressure, Turtle, Boom!, Eclipse, 3rd Commando Company, Transport), Specialist Gloves (Crimson Kimono, Tiger Strike, Emerald Web, Field Agent, Marble Fade, Fade, Foundation, Lt. Commander, Crimson Web, Mogul, Forest DDPAT, Buckshot), Sport Gloves (Pandora's Box, Superconductor, Hedge Maze, Vice, Amphibious, Slingshot, Omega, Arid, Big Game, Nocts, Scarlet Shamagh, Bronze Morph), Hydra Gloves (Case Hardened, Emerald, Rattler, Mangrove), Broken Fang Gloves (Jade, Yellow-banded, Unhinged, Needle Point), Pistols - P2000 (Wicked Sick, Ocean Foam, Fire Element, Amber Fade, Corticera, Chainmail, Imperial Dragon, Obsidian, Scorpion, Handgun, Acid Etched), USP-S (Printstream, Kill Confirmed, Whiteout, Road Rash, Owergrowth, The Traitor, Neo-Noir, Dark Water, Orion, Blueprint, Stainless, Caiman, Serum, Monster Mashup, Royal Blue, Ancient Visions, Cortex, Orange Anolis, Ticket To Hell, Black Lotus, Cyrex, Check Engine, Guardian, Purple DDPAT, Torque, Blood Tiger, Flashback, Business Class, Pathfinder, Para Green), Lead Conduit, Glock-18 (Ramese's Reach, Umbral Rabbit, Fade, Candy Apple, Bullet Queen, Synth Leaf, Neo-Noir, Nuclear Garden, Dragon Tatto, Reactor, Pink DDPAT, Twilight Galaxy, Sand Dune, Groundwater, Blue Fissure, Snack Attack, Water Elemental, Brass, Wasteland Rebel, Vogue, Franklin, Royal Legion, Gamma Doppler, Weasel, Steel Disruption, Ironwork, Grinder, High Beam, Moonrise, Oxide Blaze, Bunsen Burner, Clear Polymer, Bunsen Burner, Night), P250 (Apep's Curse, Re.built, Nuclear Threat, Modern Hunter, Splash, Whiteout, Vino Primo, Mehndi, Asiimov, Visions, Undertow, Cartel, See Ya Later, Gunsmoke, Splash, Digital Architect, Muertos, Red Rock, Bengal Tiger, Crimson Kimono, Wingshot, Metallic DDPAT, Hive, Dark Filigree, Mint Kimono), Five-Seven (Neon Kimono, Berries And Cherries, Fall Hazard, Crimson Blossom, Hyper Beast, Nitro, Fairy Tale, Case Hardened, Copper Galaxy, Angry Mob, Monkey Business, Fowl Play, Anodized Gunmetal, Hot Shot, Retrobution, Boost Protocol), CZ75-Auto (Chalice, Crimson Web, Emerald Quartz, The Fuschia is Now, Nitro, Xiangliu, Yellow Jacket, Victoria, Poison Dart, Syndicate, Eco, Hexane, Pole, Tigris), Tec-9 (Mummy's Rot, Rebel, Terrace, Nuclear Threat, Hades, Rust Leaf, Decimator, Blast From, Orange Murano, Toxic, Fuel Injector, Remote Control, Bamboo Forest, Isaac, Avalanche, Brother, Re-Entry, Blue Titanium, Bamboozle), R8 Revolver (Banana Cannon, Fade, Blaze, Crimson Web, Liama Cannon, Crazy 8, Reboot, Canal Spray, Night, Amber Fade), Desert Eagle (Blaze, Hand Cannon, Fennec Fox, Sunset Storm, Emerald Jörmungandr, Pilot, Hypnotic, Golden Koi, Printstream, Cobalt Disruption, Code Red, Ocean Drive, Midnight Storm, Kumicho Dragon, Crimson Web, Heirloom, Night Heist, Mecha Industries, Night, Conspiracy, Trigger Discipline, Naga, Directive, Light Rail), Dual Berettas (Flora Carnivora, Duelist, Cobra Strike, Black Limba, Emerald, Hemoglobin, Twin Turbo, Marina, Melondrama, Pyre, Retribution, Briar, Dezastre, Royal Consorts, Urban Shock, Dualing Dragons, Panther, Balance), Rifles - Galil (Aqua Terrace, Winter Forest, Chatterbox, Sugar Rush, Pheonix Blacklight, CAUTION!, Orange DDPAT, Cerberus, Dusk Ruins, Eco, Chromatic Aberration, Stone Cold, Tuxedo, Sandstorm, Shattered, Urban Rubble, Rocket Pop, Kami, Crimson Tsunami, Connexion), SCAR-20 (Fragments, Brass, Cyrex, Palm, Splash Jam, Cardiac, Emerald, Crimson Web, Magna Carta, Stone Mosaico, Bloodsport, Enforcer), AWP (Black Nile, Duality, Gungnir, Dragon Lore, Prince, Medusa, Desert Hydra, Fade, Lightning Strike, Oni Taiji, Silk Tiger, Graphite, Chromatic Aberration, Asiimov, Snake Camo, Boom, Containment Breach, Wildfire, Redline, Electric Hive, Hyper Beast, Neo-Noir, Man-o'-war, Pink DDPAT, Corticera, Sun in Leo, Elite Build, Fever Dream, Atheris, Mortis, PAW, Exoskeleton, Worm God, POP AWP, Phobos, Acheron, Pit Viper, Capillary, Safari Mesh), AK-47 (Steel Delta, Head Shot, Wild Lotus, Gold Arabesque, X-Ray, Fire Serpent, Hydroponic, Panthera Onca, Case Hardened, Vulcan, Jet Set, Fuel Injector, Bloodsport, Nightwish, First Class, Neon Rider, Asiimov, Red Laminate, Aquamarine Revenge, The Empress, Wasteland Rebel, Jaguar, Black Laminate, Leet Museo, Neon Revolution, Redline, Frontside Misty, Predator, Legion of Anubis, Point Disarray, Orbit Mk01, Blue Laminate, Green Laminate, Emerald Pinstripe, Cartel, Phantom Disruptor, Jungle Spray, Safety Net, Rat Rod, Baroque Purple, Slate, Elite Build, Uncharted, Safari Mesh), FAMAS (Waters of Nephthys, Sundown, Prime Conspiracy, Afterimage, Commemoration, Dark Water, Spitfire, Pulse, Eye of Athena, Meltdown, Rapid Eye Move, Roll Cage, Styx, Mecha Industrie, Djinn, ZX Spectron, Valence, Neural Net, Night Borre, Hexne), M4A4 (Eye of Horus, Temukau, Howl, Poseidon, Asiimov, Daybreak, Hellfire, Zirka, Red DDPAT, Radiation Hazard, Modern Hunter, The Emperor, The Coalition, Bullet Rain, Cyber Security, X-Ray, Dark Blossom, Buzz Kill, In Living Color, Neo-Noir, Desolate Space, 龍王 (Dragon King), Royal Paladin, The Battlestar, Global Offensive, Tooth Fairy, Desert-Strike, Griffin, Evil Daimyo, Spider Lily, Converter), M4A1-S (Emphorosaur-S, Welcome to the Jungle, Imminent Danger, Knight, Hot Rod, Icarus Fell, Blue Phosphor, Printstream, Master Piece, Dark Water, Golden Coil, Bright Water, Player Two, Atomic Alloy, Guardian, Chantico's Fire, Hyper Beast, Mecha Industries, Cyrex, Control Panel, Moss Quartz, Nightmare, Decimator, Leaded Glass, Basilisk, Blood Tiger, Briefing, Night Terror, Nitro, VariCamo, Flashback), SG 553 (Cyberforce, Hazard Pay, Bulldozer, Integrale, Dragon Tech, Ultraviolet, Colony IV, Hypnotic, Cyrex, Candy Apple, Barricade, Pulse), SSG 08 (Death Strike, Sea Calico, Blood in the Water, Orange Filigree, Dragonfire, Big Iron, Bloodshot, Detour, Turbo Peek, Red Stone), AUG (Akihabara Accept, Flame Jörmungandr, Hot Rod, Midnight Lily, Sand Storm, Carved Jade, Wings, Anodized Navy, Death by Puppy, Torque, Bengal Tiger, Chameleon, Fleet Flock, Random Access, Momentum, Syd Mead, Stymphalian, Arctic Wolf, Aristocrat, Navy Murano), G3SG1 (Chronos, Violet Murano, Flux, Demeter, Orange Kimono, The Executioner, Green Apple, Arctic Polar Camo, Contractor), SMGs - P90 (ScaraB Rush, Neoqueen, Astral Jörmungandr, Run and Hide, Emerald Dragon, Cold Blooded, Death by Kitty, Baroque Red, Vent Rush, Blind Spot, Asiimov, Trigon, Sunset Lily, Death Grip, Leather, Nostalgia, Fallout Warning, Tiger Pit, Schermatic, Virus, Shapewood, Glacier Mesh, Shallow Grave, Chopper, Desert Warfare), MAC-10 (Sakkaku, Hot Snakes, Copper Borre, Red Filigree, Gold Brick, Graven, Case Hardened, Stalker, Amber Fade, Neon Rider, Tatter, Curse, Propaganda, Nuclear Garden, Disco Tech, Toybox, Heat, Indigo), UMP-45 (Wild Child, Fade, Blaze, Day Lily, Minotaur's Labyrinth, Crime Scene, Caramel, Bone Pile, Momentum, Primal Saber), MP7 (Teal Blossom, Fade, Nemesis, Whiteout, Asterion, Bloosport, Abyssal Apparition, Full Stop, Special Delivery, Neon Ply, Asterion, Ocean Foam, Powercore, Scorched, Impire), PP-Bizon (Modern Hunter, Rust Coat, Forest Leaves, Antique, High Roller, Blue Streak, Seabird, Judgement of Anubis, Bamboo Print, Embargo, Chemical Green, Coblat Halftone, Fuel Rod, Photic Zone, Irradiated Alert, Carbon Fiber), MP9 (Featherweight, Wild Lily, Pandora's Box, Stained Glass, Bulldozer, Dark Age, Hot Rod, Hypnotic, Hydra, Rose Iron, Music Box, Setting Sun, Food Chain, Airlock, Mount Fuji, Starlight Protector, Ruby Poison Dart, Deadly Poison), MP5-SD (Liquidation, Oxide Oasis, Phosphor, Nitro, Agent, Autumn Twilly), Shotguns, Machineguns - Sawed-Off (Kiss♥Love, First Class, Orange DDPAT, Rust Coat, The Kraken, Devourer, Mosaico, Wasteland Princess, Bamboo Shadow, Copper, Serenity, Limelight, Apocalypto), XM1014 (Frost Borre, Ancient Lore, Red Leather, Elegant Vines, Banana Leaf, Jungle, Urban Perforated, Grassland, Blaze Orange, Heaven Guard, VariCamo Blue, Entombed, XOXO, Seasons, Tranquility, Bone Machine, Incinegator, Teclu Burner, Black Tie, Zombie Offensive, Watchdog), Nova (Sobek's Bite, Baroque Orange, Hyper Beast, Green Apple, Antique, Modern Hunter, Walnut, Forest Leaves, Graphite, Blaze Orange, Rising Skull, Tempest, Bloomstick, Interlock, Quick Sand, Moon in Libra, Clean Polymer, Red Quartz, Toy Soldier), MAG-7 (Copper Coated, Insomnia, Cinqueda, Counter Terrace, Prism Terrace, Memento, Chainmail, Hazard, Justice, Bulldozer, Silver, Core Breach, Firestarter, Praetorian, Heat, Hard Water, Monster Call, BI83 Spectrum, SWAG-7), M249 (Humidor, Shipping Forecast, Blizzard Marbleized, Downtown, Jungle DDPAT, Nebula Crusader, Impact Drill, Emerald Poison Dart), Negev (Mjölnir, Anodized Navy, Palm, Power Loader, Bratatat, CaliCamo, Phoenix Stencil, Infrastructure, Boroque Sand), Wear - Factory New (FN), Minimal Wear (MW), Field-Tested (FT), Well-Worn (WW), Battle-Scarred (BS), Stickers Holo/Foil/Gold - Katowice 2014, Krakow 2017, Howling Dawn, Katowice 2015, Crown, London 2018, Cologne 2014, Boston 2018, Atlanta 2017, Cluj-Napoca 2015, DreamHack 2014, King on the Field, Harp of War, Winged Difuser, Cologne 2016, Cologne 2015, MLG Columbus 2016, Katowice 2019, Berlin 2019, RMR 2020, Stockholm 2021, Antwerp 2022, Paris 2023, Swag Foil, Flammable foil, Others - Souvenirs, Agents, Pins, Passes, Gifts, Music Kits, Cases, Keys, Capsules, Packages, Patches

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[INDEX]
I banked the fire and stared into the golden eyes of Beatale before I crept into my makeshift tent.
I still had my auric vision running and couldn’t help but notice the thin silver cord that ran from me to Horse. Firming up my aura, I reached out with my hand and grabbed it. I could feel the nearly imperceptible vibration between my fingers as I used my mind to probe at the thread. I could feel a bright spark of intellect, a light at the end of a tunnel. Pushing with my mind, I slid down the thread until the spark grew larger and eventually filled my inner vision with a hazy white light. Horsey thoughts nudged at me curiously.
I slid into the haze and immediately lost all sense of direction. If it wasn’t for the silver thread, I’d have no idea how to exit this shifting white fog. Horsey thoughts got stronger as I followed the thread while the haze thinned and cleared to reveal an endless prairie of green grass. I found myself standing before a naked man wearing a horse mask and I stared in shock. It was obviously me wearing a cheap costume horse mask — there was no mistaking my tattoos.
“What did you expect?” Horse neighed at me. “I am you and you are me and we are all together. Goo goo ga joob.”
Horse made a shooing motion with his hands and I accelerated backwards through the white haze and slammed into my own body with a gasp. I stared at the tarp overhead for a long minute, processing this new revelation. Horse was a part of me, a piece of my spirit. Whatever psychic stuff I did with that silver cord lead me into a house of mirrors where I got to look at myself pretending to be a horse. I can’t even deal with that right now.
Rolling into my blankets, I dropped off to sleep.
*Ding*
-=- - Welcome to the Dreamworld - Included in the Psychic Skills pack, the Inner Sanctum is your psychic domain. It is the mental fortress that you must secure and maintain to defend against psychic and spiritual assaults. All of your neurosis and fears are symbolised in this realm and must be defeated or subjugated before you can become master of the domain. Good luck. -=-
I banished the pop-up and looked around. I knew I was asleep, but everything was just as real as when I was awake. I was breathing, I could feel the floor under my feet, and if it weren’t for the pop-up, I would have sworn I had been teleported. The room I was in resembled an oversized luxury prison cell, maybe a thirty foot cube. No windows. Rough stone walls with thick mortar. Large brass wall sconces were set directly into the stone and suffused the room with a warm, golden light provided by glowing rocks. The stone floor had colourful Persian rugs tastefully placed. A high plaster ceiling was painted with a rendition of Michelangelo’s ‘Creation of Adam’, depicting me as both Adam and God.
There was a comfy sofa in front of a large screen television that hung from one wall and an ornate grandfather clock ticked loudly in the corner. It was currently 10:08 PM. Another wall was a floor to ceiling bookshelf, stuffed with books of varying sizes. The third wall was covered with pictures and I could see at a glance that they were images from my life. The fourth wall had a thick riveted steel door on the right side, a full sized mirror on the left, and a computer workstation in the middle.
The picture wall was my first target. A few were quite large, nearly life sized, while others were tiny prints no larger than the palm of my hand. Scenes of my life were displayed in each one. The largest was me riding Horse with a shit-scared expression, shooting at a pack of wolves. Others were smaller, each with different frames. Some ornate gold or silver, others plain wood, a few wrapped in briars or barbed wire. Nanny Ramsey holding me as a young child. My dog Jean with a red ball in his mouth. My parents, screaming at me. I turned my attention to the books. Books are safe. Books don’t judge you.
The sweet, musty scent of a used book store filled my nostrils as I drew close to the honey coloured shelves. Hundreds of volumes filled the wall from floor to ceiling, with a ladder that could be rolled along a rail to access the top. I smiled at the sight. I had always wanted a library like this. I pulled a book at random and read the title, “Confused Fantasies about Joseph Harris, part XXIV of the Middle School Years”.
I slid the book back onto the shelf. Let’s see what’s on TV.
The remote was a slim, futuristic looking affair with a minimum of buttons. I pointed it at the television and moments later the huge screen came to life and presented me with a simple menu for movies, divided into six categories: Happy, Surprised, Afraid, Disgusted, Angry, and Sad. I scrolled through the offerings for a minute, reading the titles and reviews about the movies of my life. It really bothered me that there were so few selections in the Happy section.
The number of Sad movies increased by one.
I walked over to the mirror and noticed there was a small sticky note pasted to it. “Astral Realm. Experienced users only.” I shoved the note in my pocket and stared at my image. Sturdy black boots, black denim jeans and shirt with mother-of-pearl buttons, deep brown gun belt slung at my hip, red bandanna and black felt hat. All I needed was a pencil moustache and I would look like the stereotypical villain in any spaghetti western. At that very moment I decided to grow out a goatee. I’d rather be mistaken for a bad guy than a victim.
So how does this astral realm thing work?
The mirror appeared to be nothing more than a mirror. It was cold, smooth glass surrounded by a wrought iron frame, and reflected my image. I didn’t necessarily want to go walking into danger, but I wanted to know how it worked. I pushed and prodded the glass in frustration until I noticed my image grinning at me. I jumped back in surprise and it doubled over in silent laughter.
“Hilarious, dude. You got me,” I huffed. “So how do I get in?”
My mirror-self tipped his hat and stepped to side.
I reached up to the mirror again and my hand passed through, vanishing as if cut off. Okay, just a quick peek and we’ll explore the rest of the room. I stepped through and the world shifted around me. I was standing back at the campsite. My body was insubstantial as a ghost and the tarp was a wisp of substance running straight through me. Non living things don’t seem to have much presence in this realm. Glancing down, I saw my sleeping body rolled up in the blankets, a thin silver thread running from it to me, and another thread running to Horse.
Looking around, I surveyed the campsite. My astral vision seemed to be on and had an unlimited range. I could see the life all around me, the distant forest was a sea of greenish-gold, grasses and brush nearby glowed with spectral light. Tiny ghost insects scurried while ghost mice nibbled at whatever ghost mice nibble on. Ghost seeds and ghost insects, I suppose. I turned my attention overhead and gaped at the sight of a monstrous serpentine spirit flying through the inky void. I dropped back through the tent and rolled inside my body. That was plenty enough for now.
I rolled through the mirror and landed flat on my back, staring at the fresco on the ceiling. Vinnie-God winked at me and Vinnie-Adam grinned. Climbing to my knees, I brushed non-existent dust from my trousers and watched mirror-me doubled over in soundless laughter.
“Hey, laughing-boy!” I yelled at him. “You’re like the guardian or something, right? You got it covered?”
Mirror-me stood and saluted with a smile, then gave me two thumbs up. A moment later, his face took on a serious expression and he wriggled his right hand in the ‘maybe’ motion. Then he pointed at me, tapped his wrist, and then a finger to his head.
It all depends on how fast I learn stuff, I guess.
Two thumbs up and a winning smile reflected back to me.
A large cork board was mounted to the wall over the computer and a small note was pinned to it. “Note to self: Don’t fuck with the Elvish womens.”
The computer screen featured a screensaver of me as Vitruvian Man doing callisthenics over the words ‘HumanOS’. I tapped the spacebar and was rewarded with the sound of powerful fans kicking to life as the computer emerged from sleep mode and prompted me for a password. Should I assume it’s the same as the password on the computer I pawned in my previous life?
Password: *******esi
I was rewarded with a sweet R&M desktop and a couple of icons. System, NeuralNet, My-Tunes, My-Movies, My-Office.
System was just what I expected, lots of .dna files and other confusing scariness that allowed me to tweak my physical body and mental state. My-Tunes was a collection of every song I’d ever heard and My-Movies was a collection of every movie I’d ever seen. Not that I’m complaining, but it would have been nice to have “My-Games” so I could play RDR. My-Office was a clone of the popular software by a similar name. I have no idea what I’ll ever need a spreadsheet for in this world.
NuralNet opened up a search engine called Me-Seeks, featuring a familiar blue guy.
I typed in “beer” and several thousand results were displayed, anything I’d ever read, heard, or watched about beer, including how to make it. This right here made the price of admission totally worth it, access to an exact copy of everything I’d ever read, and I was a voracious reader. Sadly, most of the stuff I read was futurology — solar panels, electronics, biotech advancements, quantum computing. The material for steam engines, blacksmithing, farming and the like, were slim pickings. That’s okay though, I could still reproduce the Gutenberg press, the cotton gin, simple internal combustion engines, and basic batteries along with some sketchy knowledge of metal alloys, acids, bases, and other things I had read over the years. All that wasted time watching “How Things Work” was finally going to pay off. I copied a few likely money makers to My-Office, saved the file, and exported to my Notes, just in case they didn’t exist on Aerth.
A popup covered the screen.
📱 [New Upgrade Available!] 📱
🎉 Enhance Your Experience with the Latest HumanOS Features! 🎉
🌟 Features Include:

• 🧠 Memory Booster: Increase your Memory for smoother multitasking and improved performance.
• 🔋 Energy Optimizer: Extend your battery life with advanced power-saving techniques.
• 🛠️ Utility Upgrades: Access new apps and utilities to enhance your daily life and adventures.
• 🗺️ Advanced Mapping: Never get lost again with enhanced GPS and location tracking.

🔥 Special Offer: Only 2000 credits for version 2.0 or 5000 credits for version 3.0! 🔥
[Upgrade Now ✅] [Remind Me Later ❌]
Apparently I could upgrade myself, which reduced the cost of using my Utilities while providing other minor benefits. My Utilities would level up as I used them, which would increase their battery cost, so if I didn’t keep pace with an update to the OS they could become prohibitively expensive to operate.
Stupid pay-to-win world.
So, do I pay 2000 credits for version 2.0 or 5000 credits for version 3.0?
I selected version 3.0 and klicked [Install]. After watching it download the update, it popped up another screen that asked if I wanted to update now, or wait until Midnight for the mandatory update.
I selected [No] just as the grandfather clock chimed 10:30 PM. I wondered if time ran slower in here, because it seemed like I had spent a lot more time on the computer than 15 minutes. Walking over to the imposing steel door, I noticed a bronze key with a thin chain in the lock. There was another sticky note on the door. “Subconscious. Please keep the key with you at all times.”
That’s not scary at all, is it?
I unlocked the door with a loud clunk and pulled it open to reveal a bedroom straight out of some royal castle. I could tell immediately that it had seen better days. The tapestries on the wall were frayed and fading. The canopy over the bed had a few holes in it. A thin layer of dust covered the mantle of a small fireplace set into the wall. There was a window letting in bright sunlight and I moved over to look outside.
I was on the third floor of a keep surrounded by the walls and turrets of a modest castle. A castle that had fallen into serious disrepair. Did this represent the state of my inner mind? One tower was shattered and the curtain wall under it damaged. The lower bailey was full of litter. I could see a few soldiers walking around the allure, keeping watch.
I have people in my subconscious?
Someone behind me cleared their throat.
Whirling, I discovered a familiar old man standing in the door of the bedroom. What was left of his hair formed a white halo around his head, his face was unshaven and covered with several days of growth. He was dressed like a poor and tattered manservant, but carried himself with a dignified air.
“Woodhouse?”
“It’s nice to see the master at home,” He said with a proper English accent. “There are many matters that require the master’s attention.”
“Uh, sure,” I said, hanging the key around my neck and tucking it in my shirt. “And who are you again?”
“Your personal manservant, of course” he said with a slight bow. Walking over to the steel door, he pulled it closed and it locked with a solid thunk. “Master should always keep his inner sanctum closed. One never knows if something nasty will creep in.”
“Thank you, uh, Woodhouse. I’ll remember that,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck. “So what needs tending and how do things work around here?”
He smiled and beckoned me with a white gloved hand. “If master would be so kind as to follow me, I’ll introduce him to the staff and explain the duties and obligations of his domain.”
I’m 99.9% certain that everyone here is just me wearing a mask, so I shrugged and followed Woodhouse out of the bedroom and into the rest of my subconscious.
Five minutes later I was on the ground floor and seated on a shabby throne with the cast of a popular —and probably very copyright protected— animation in front of me. Woodhouse was the head butler and my personal manservant. Pam was the cook and demanded that I start importing sugar and alcohol before she was shushed by Woodhouse. Carol was a maid. Krieger was chancellor and Cyril was the steward. Archer and Lana were in charge of security. Ray was the marshal in charge of everything from the stables to the blacksmith.
I stared in disbelief at the motley crew kneeling in front of me. No wonder my inner mind was in such shambles. I was overcome with an irrational sense of anger at myself.
“Arright, listen up,” I barked, my voice echoing around the room. “I swear to God that I will fire every single one of you and hire circus clowns to replace you if you keep fucking things up. No joke. Circus clowns, got it?”
I ran a hand over my face as Ray pissed himself. “The only reason I’m not putting a boot in your asses right now is because I realise that you’re aspects of me, and the people you represent are pretty damn good at their jobs when they give enough of a shit to actually do them. As a team, you’re dysfunctionally fantastic and always seem to come out ahead no matter the odds.”
Heaving a sigh, I continued. “Things have changed and I need to get my shit together. I’m going to need every one of you to pull your weight and help me help you. Get back to your duties, I’ll meet you one on one later.”
My subconscious caretakers scurried out of the room.
“I’ll have one of the maids tend to the piss,” Woodhouse assured me.
“Never mind that,” I snapped. “I honestly had no idea my mind was such a shit show. I’m very disappointed in myself.” I pictured the Angry, Sad, and Disgusted counters on my personal movies clicking up. “Show me what needs to be done and let’s get started.”
During Woodhouse’s walking tour, everything clicked into place. This was some altered version of Bodiam castle, a location that was on my bucket list of places to visit. The royal council room, located behind the throne room, contained a “living” tapestry on the wall that showed the castle and surrounding land in real time. The castle was located in the middle of a small lake, and a single wood bridge led to the mainland. A small town surrounded the lake and a wall encircled the town. Outside the wall, the land was an irregular patchwork of forest and field, with a stinking swamp to the south. The entire “kingdom” was maybe ten miles across, surrounded by impassable mountains with innumerable creeks that fed the lake which drained into the southern swamp.
“Zombies are the problem, sir.” Woodhouse said, as I surveyed the living tapestry of my mental domain.
“Zombies?” I prompted.
“Yes sir, Zombies” Woodhouse continued. “Nasty bitey things that come in from the mountains and harass the peasants. They’ve gotten especially worse over the last few months. The soldiers do what they can, but they seem to have lost all motivation. Probably because they haven’t been paid.”
“And who pays them?”
“Typically chancellor Krieger is in charge of financial matters, although Steward Figgis has taken over the duty, sir.”
“Then let’s make Figgis our first stop.”
“Very good, sir.”
The office of the steward was run by Cyril Figgis, who managed the kingdom in my absence. It was overflowing with paperwork and charts, books and scrolls piled high on every flat surface. Cyril was desperately attempting to tidy things when Woodhouse and I walked in.
“Yo..you..your majesty,” Cyril stuttered, bowing low. Scrolls fell from his overloaded arms, spilling across the floor. He dropped to his knees and scrambled to gather them up. “I didn’t expect you to visit so soon. Please forgive the mess, housekeeping has been slacking…”
This was the guy who ran things while I was conscious.
“Shut up, Cyril” I said. “You’re responsible for everything in this office. That includes keeping it organised and tidy.”
“Y..yes milord.”
“It’s my understanding that you’re in charge of making sure everyone gets paid. So why aren’t we paying people?” I asked.
“We’re nearly out of Fuks, your majesty. I’ve been saving them for emergencies.”
“Fucks?”
“Fuks,” Cyril explained, pushing a pile of books off a large chest and opening it. Reaching inside he pulled out two small bags and emptied them on top of his cluttered desk. “Gold and Silver Fuks, the currency of the kingdom. I can’t maintain the kingdom when I have no Fuks to give.”
Behold the subconscious kingdom of Vincent J. Carter, it runs on Fuks.
“So how do I get more fuks?” I asked, examining one of the coins. It had an image of me on one side and symbol on the other that could be interpreted as “peace among worlds”.
“You kill the zombies, your majesty.”
Of course I do.
Woodhouse and I left Cyril’s office and headed towards the office of the chancellor where Krieger worked. It seemed that Cyril took over financial matters when Krieger became erratic and proposed luring all the zombies into the city and setting it on fire. Not sure how that corresponds to my own self-destructive behaviour, but I’ve had some dark thoughts over the last couple of months and I’m sure they’re reflected here.
Krieger’s office was much neater in comparison to Cyril’s, but it wasn’t by much. Shelves lined the walls and were filled with an array of questionable items, including a still snapping zombie head in a jar. While the office of the chancellor was supposed to be in charge of financial matters, it looked more like a dodgy rummage sale.
Krieger was launching sword blades at a pig carcass when we walked in.
“What exactly are you doing?” I asked, standing in the doorway.
“Hm? Oh, your majesty!” he said, turning around and bowing deeply. “I’m testing a new invention. It’s a spring loaded hilt that shoots sword blades. Very useful for our soldiers.”
“Stupidest idea ever,” I snapped. “I hate everything about it.”
“Okay,” Krieger said, tossing the hilt into a nearby pile of junk. “But don’t blame me when you need to shoot a sword at a zombie and don’t have one.”
“So why aren’t you managing the financial affairs? Collecting taxes, paying people, stuff like that?”
“Because the population has declined so much none of that matters?”
“What do you mean?”
“Wellll, the population represents things you care about,” Krieger said, going into lecture mode. “And the zombies and other monsters are real or imagined problems in your way. Since you don’t care about too many things the population has shrunk to just what’s needed to keep everything running on the bare minimum of fuks. And since you don’t seem to have any long or short term goals, there’s no need to kill off the zombies and get more fuks. Everything is fine just the way it is.”
“No, it’s not Krieger” I said, grinding my teeth. “My mind is in a shambles. It’s a joke. I want it fixed. No, I want it better than fixed. I want it improved.”
“Oh! I’ve got just the thing for that!” He said, digging around in his pockets, “It’s a spring-loaded hilt that shoots swords!”
Pam and Cheryl were hanging out a gallery window jeering at Archer and Lana sparring in the inner courtyard.
“What the hell are you doing!” I snapped
They whirled in surprise and then dropped into deep curtseys.
“Your majesty!”
I took a deep breath, trying to regain my centre. “Get to work cleaning this place up. Find a room, clean it, and move on to the next. Start with my bedroom, then the throne room and the council chamber, then everything else.”
Cheryl spoke up. “Can’t do it. We got no fuks to clean with.”
“You need fuks to clean?”
“Gotta buy stuff,” Pam said. “Cleaning supplies, food. You wanna eat, you’re gonna have to spend some fuks.”
“Talk to Cyril,” I ordered. “Tell him I said to get you supplied.”
They ran off in the direction of the stewards office.
I watched Archer and Lana bashing each other enthusiastically through the window.
Several minutes later the sparring couple stopped and bowed when Woodhouse and I stepped into the inner courtyard.
“Your majesty”
“My liege”
“Enough,” I said. “If you have enough energy to smash each other, you have enough energy to smash zombies. Tell me what I need to know so I can start gathering fuks.”
Archer shrugged and spoke first. “You just kill the zombies and other monsters. They drop fuks.”
“Anything special about the zombies?” I asked. “Are they fast? Do people get turned into zombies when bitten?”
“Nope,” Lana said, resting her wooden sword on her shoulder. “Most of them are slow shamblers and just need a good wack to the head to kill them.”
“Some are special,” Archer interjected. “Occasionally you’ll have some fast ones, or those that need holy water to kill. They’re just bad memories, figments of your personality that need to be eliminated. Some are worse than others.”
“The zombies are bad memories?” I asked, imagining all the bad memories that I had.
“Memories, thoughts, insecurities, metaphysical mumbo-jumbo,” Woodhouse supplied. “They are endless, but constant vigilance can keep them under control.”
“So let’s get started,” I said. “Lead the way.”
Lana and Archer lead me up to the parapet over the front gate where I looked over at the dozens of zombies milling about aimlessly in front of the entrance to my mind. Pulling out my gun, I began to pick them off, easy as shooting fish in a barrel. The crack of my spell pistol attracted more zombies and I dispatched them with ease until no more were left around the gate. As I fired each shot I could feel some sort of existential energy flowing from me, draining some hidden reserve.
“Gather up the Fuks,” I commanded. “And Lana?”
“Mi’lord?”
“There’s no excuse for this. From now on, I expect the walls to be clear of all zombies.”
“Yes mi’lord,” she said, giving me a small bow.
Turning to Archer, I shook my head. “You’re obviously my personal narcissism, so just try to stay out of Lana’s way, or better yet - try to kill more zombies than her. If you think you can.”
Archer scoffed. “No contest. I took top marks in sharpshooting.”
“That means I should expect to see results by tomorrow. I look forward to it.”
Archer looked panicked for a moment then smiled. “Sure, I can give you results.”
Turning back to Woodhouse I said “Show me what else need attending.”
Woodhouse led me through the town that represented my mind, pointing out each business that had fallen into disrepair, suggested others that needed improvements, and additions that would benefit me. In the distance, I could hear Lana and Archer shooting at the crowd of zombies and with each echoing shot I felt a tiny bit better about everything.
[INDEX]

this is a continuation from my earlier post .
my objective is to make accessible information in the greater public domain. much of what I am saying is available in public, but obscure or not present in one single place.
Main Idol overview -
the MOOLAVIRAT or DHRUVA beram, the subject of all legends and debates.

• I am biased in my opinion , but it is an idol , the craftsmanship of which is beyond anything I have ever seen. no Louv're museum, greek statues, Rome or even our Own hoyasala sculptures even come close. the details are extremely life-life. this is also why we see rumors like he is soft or sweating etc.

the level of detail is really extraordinary. fingernails, toenails, striations in the skin folds, and attention to detail to every ornament is seen.
all ornaments in front view continue on the back side. full 360 degrees. mostly on the back, are the strings and knots of the ornaments , all integrally in the idol. the hair locks, also have very tiny crevices, looking like real hair, especially in dim lighting.
there is another unique problem that all of this creates - it sounds silly but only people who are worshipping idols in temples would know.
normally, during ritual baths, CUrd ( or yoghurt ) is a key ingredient.
what most people don;t know, is that curd is very very hard to clean up afterwards .
it gets stuck in tiny crevices, and eventually the room starts to smell really bad.
in tirumala, the practice is to NOT use curd, and just stick to milk and various versions of water.
the real reason for that is the exquisite features of the idol. no amount of cleaning is enough to fully bring out all the curd. so a long time back, decisions were taken to stop using it. (again lot of debates on it and lot of controversies jumped out of it)
Curd Iis used now , for all the other smaller idols, where it is easier to clean up later.
Main Idol - dimensions
there are confusing reports about his height ranging from 6 feet to 12 feet. all are false. numbers change based on how he is measured.
he is 8 feet tall, if measured from foot to top of crown. the crown is 20 inches approx. (based on size of the gold crowns made for him..all of them 22 inches to accommodate padding)
the lotus base (Padma -peeta ) is estimated to be 18 inches.
but an idol is always measured with base included. this brings the total to 9 ½ feet , as the pedestal is always counted. but in reality , when we go to the temple today, we are standing standing above the height of his feet, so we would see 8 feet of his majesty .
these are all estimates and could be wrong by a couple of inches.
also, the dimensions of the sanctum sanctorum are 12feet 9 inches x 12 feet 9 inches. square. this is available in public domain. nothin secret about it.
in the Agama, among the GarbhaGrihas, this is the largest sanctioned dimension, only possible for a very tall mula virat.
*(we need to again remember- this extraordinary idol, was exposed to the sun and moon for centuries, surrounded by elephants and lotus ponds and venomous snakes , before a human being even came into the picture. its really hard to imagine him just standing there in the forest with a smile on his face , for a thousand years, before a temple was made out of wood ( yes literally wooden temple - more on that later)
his waist is estimated to be around 24-27 inches (depending upon exactly where you measure it)
his chest is 42 inches ( some serious bodybuilding goals for men - forget the old-NTR like chubby looks)
his arms circumference for the armlets is estimated to be 19 inches.
overall, the appearance of a youthful strong tall man.
now each body part -
feet - the feet are spaced apart at shoulder width. they are extremely well-formed, having even toenails. there are toe-rings on his toes, and then there are 2 varieties of anklets on him. 1 looks more like a feminine Dancer kind of anklet ( I dont know the right word for it) . the second one is more masculine and like a thick strong ring around the ankle.
the lower body cloth (peetambaram or dhoti) outline can be clearly made in the idol, resting near the anklets. its folded into 7 layers as we move upwards to his waist. on the backside, it continues and is neatly tucked into the small of his back. there is one very interesting observation here..... the knot and tucked in-dhoti on the back looks like the hood of a cobra. senior priests say it is symbolic of kundalini.
note: no actual cobra figure appear on the idol. I am only talking about the lower garment folded in such a way. this I have actually seen on other vishnu idols in iconography books on agama. I'll share a pic here of similar feature if I can.
normally, there is no gap in a stone idol , between the feet . rock is there to preserve the stability of the idol. but here there is a hollow, and a garment can be passed under to dress him.
there is also a decorative Vastram draped on this sides, beautifully knotted on both hips. its pleats gently fall down on either side.
as we move up, his two lower limbs are strong and bulky. the calves are particularly bulky, very strong from the backside.
strong massive thighs can be made out from all sides. the kneecaps are very prominently visible.
his posture is almost straight.... with a small tilt to the right side (his right side) . as such the right knee is slightly bent. overall, he stoops very slightly fowards, as if just about to step out of the pedestal. this is hard to observe after all the heavy ornaments and garlands.
I will talk about the more technical description of his posture by using sanskrit AGAMA terminology in future posts. this was intended for people who are not familiar with highly technical jargon.

Here are a few of my least favorite things as a driver:

1. As I am pulling up, don't start walking in front of my car. Give me a moment to get situated to safely pick you up. Especially reaching for the damn handle as my vehicle is still in motion.
   
2. Get into the proper side of the vehicle:
   • Bigger (taller) people, get in on the passenger side, I have the seat pulled forward for a reason. I can only pull my seat so far forward.
   • Smaller (shorter) people, get in on the driver side only when needed.
   • When getting into the vehicle from driver and passenger side, please do this safely. Especially in busy areas. Don't just dart into traffic like a child who has never been taught to look both ways.
   • No, I will not allow five people to ride in my four seat maximum. Order another Lyft.
   
3. When pulling up to the stop, please don't attempt opening your door when I'm still motion.
   • if on the driver (traffic) side and I tell you to please wait until the car passes us, please do so, don't swing the door open.
   
4. After exiting the vehicle, walk around behind the car and get onto the sidewalk or somewhere else that's considered safe. Don't stand there, have a conversation and begin to walk in front of me.
   • I'm busy setting up my next ride and if you are in my blind spot and decide to walk in front of my vehicle, it just scares me of what might happen.
   
5. If you're not outside within the timeframe given and I attempt to call you and you don't answer, I'm canceling and moving on. Not my problem if you block Lyft phone number.
   • If your outside and ready to go once I hit that arrive button and you don't see me, you can call or text asking where I'm at. If I don't see your exact location on the map, I'm most likely hanging out at the pin. I know you can see me on the map.
   • Give me the damn gate code if you know your in a gated community. As a courtesy, I will only message you once for the code. Otherwise if I can't get in, I will mark arrived at the gate and you can walk to me or be marked a no-show after the allotted time.
   
6. If you're not sure if my vehicle is the ride, check out my license plate, ask me my name.
   • If I can easily pronounce your name, I will say something along the lines of, "hi ________, how are you doing today?"
   • I may also confirm your destination or ask you to confirm where are we headed to to help make sure I'm picking up the correct passenger, especially those without or non matching photos.
   
7. Leaving a pickup note to the driver.
   • Keep it short, no CAPS LOCK, it will be cut off. If more information is needed then use the contact driver option and message me.
   • Don't give me your personal or different number to call, I will not call you from my cell. I only call or text through the app.
   

• I will not get out of my vehicle to look for you, it's not my responsibility. I hate this request.

1. I shouldn't even have to post this part but don't ask me if it is okay to drink in my vehicle. This is the stupidest request ever.

....this isn't really part of the list but more of a pet peeve. Please don't promise me a tip if you're not intending to do so.
"Oh man, you're such a life saver. We've been trying to get a ride for over an hour and everyone cancels on us, we'll be sure to give you a fat tip."
I know that I keep using "I" or "Me" but I'm sure other drivers will agree with some, if not all of this.
I can't think of anything else to add to this, so I'll leave it to other drivers.
I also know there are things that drivers do that are frustrating, I would like to know what your stories are.
PS: No we do not control the prices.

Everything in my inventory is up for trade. The most valuable items are listed here, the rest you can find in My Inventory

Feel free to Add Me or even better send a Trade Offer. Open for any suggestions: upgrades, downgrades / knives, gloves, skins / stickers, patterns, floats.

All Buyouts are listed in cash value.

KNIVES

★ Butterfly Knife Lore (Factory New), B/O: $7194.77

★ Butterfly Knife Autotronic (Minimal Wear), B/O: $2025.74

⎯

★ M9 Bayonet Ultraviolet (Field-Tested), B/O: $557.87

★ M9 Bayonet Stained (Well-Worn), B/O: $529.41

★ M9 Bayonet Boreal Forest (Field-Tested), B/O: $465.39

⎯

★ Talon Knife Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $1295.27

★ Bayonet Tiger Tooth (Minimal Wear), B/O: $746.28

★ Karambit Bright Water (Field-Tested), B/O: $688.15

⎯

★ Flip Knife Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $547.93

★ Flip Knife Autotronic (Minimal Wear), B/O: $476.69

★ Flip Knife Case Hardened (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $278.18

★ Flip Knife Black Laminate (Well-Worn), B/O: $258.83

★ Flip Knife Urban Masked (Field-Tested), B/O: $181.64

⎯

★ Stiletto Knife Marble Fade (Factory New), B/O: $686.04

★ Stiletto Knife Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $665.41

★ Stiletto Knife, B/O: $601.39

★ Stiletto Knife Crimson Web (Field-Tested), B/O: $418.25

★ Stiletto Knife Night Stripe (Field-Tested), B/O: $227.80

★ Stiletto Knife Boreal Forest (Field-Tested), B/O: $194.96

★ Stiletto Knife Safari Mesh (Field-Tested), B/O: $192.79

⎯

★ Nomad Knife Crimson Web (Field-Tested), B/O: $518.11

★ Nomad Knife Scorched (Field-Tested), B/O: $169.78

★ Nomad Knife Forest DDPAT (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $166.88

★ StatTrak™ Nomad Knife Blue Steel (Field-Tested), B/O: $335.79

⎯

★ Skeleton Knife Stained (Well-Worn), B/O: $442.05

★ Skeleton Knife Urban Masked (Minimal Wear), B/O: $426.24

★ Skeleton Knife Boreal Forest (Field-Tested), B/O: $314.03

★ StatTrak™ Skeleton Knife Fade (Minimal Wear), B/O: $2361.28

★ StatTrak™ Skeleton Knife Urban Masked (Field-Tested), B/O: $376.53

⎯

★ Ursus Knife Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $557.12

★ Ursus Knife, B/O: $471.42

★ Ursus Knife Blue Steel (Minimal Wear), B/O: $212.37

★ Ursus Knife Case Hardened (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $187.66

★ Ursus Knife Damascus Steel (Field-Tested), B/O: $178.18

★ Ursus Knife Ultraviolet (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $155.13

★ Ursus Knife Boreal Forest (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $124.26

⎯

★ Huntsman Knife Black Laminate (Minimal Wear), B/O: $204.83

★ Huntsman Knife Black Laminate (Field-Tested), B/O: $184.50

★ StatTrak™ Huntsman Knife Lore (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $224.11

⎯

★ Bowie Knife Gamma Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $2142.02

★ Bowie Knife, B/O: $230.44

★ Bowie Knife Damascus Steel (Factory New), B/O: $209.20

★ Bowie Knife Ultraviolet (Minimal Wear), B/O: $180.51

★ Bowie Knife Ultraviolet (Field-Tested), B/O: $131.03

⎯

★ Falchion Knife Night (Field-Tested), B/O: $132.54

★ Falchion Knife Urban Masked (Well-Worn), B/O: $112.81

★ Falchion Knife Scorched (Field-Tested), B/O: $108.81

★ Falchion Knife Forest DDPAT (Field-Tested), B/O: $107.82

★ Falchion Knife Safari Mesh (Field-Tested), B/O: $107.46

★ StatTrak™ Falchion Knife Ultraviolet (Field-Tested), B/O: $143.08

⎯

★ Paracord Knife Crimson Web (Minimal Wear), B/O: $486.48

★ Paracord Knife Blue Steel (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $163.12

⎯

★ Survival Knife Blue Steel (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $138.26

★ Survival Knife Night Stripe (Field-Tested), B/O: $131.03

⎯

★ Gut Knife Sapphire (Minimal Wear), B/O: $1127.79

★ Gut Knife Gamma Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $286.17

★ Gut Knife Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $246.55

★ Gut Knife Marble Fade (Factory New), B/O: $240.77

★ Gut Knife, B/O: $210.49

★ Gut Knife Lore (Field-Tested), B/O: $194.22

★ Gut Knife Case Hardened (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $151.51

★ Gut Knife Blue Steel (Minimal Wear), B/O: $124.94

★ Gut Knife Rust Coat (Well-Worn), B/O: $118.99

★ Gut Knife Boreal Forest (Minimal Wear), B/O: $109.80

★ StatTrak™ Gut Knife Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $237.96

⎯

★ Shadow Daggers Gamma Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $264.92

★ Shadow Daggers Marble Fade (Factory New), B/O: $253.03

★ Shadow Daggers Tiger Tooth (Factory New), B/O: $237.22

★ Shadow Daggers Crimson Web (Field-Tested), B/O: $153.40

★ Shadow Daggers Autotronic (Minimal Wear), B/O: $144.42

★ Shadow Daggers Blue Steel (Field-Tested), B/O: $105.20

★ StatTrak™ Shadow Daggers Damascus Steel (Minimal Wear), B/O: $150.46

⎯

★ Navaja Knife Fade (Factory New), B/O: $365.99

★ Navaja Knife Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $228.93

★ Navaja Knife Marble Fade (Factory New), B/O: $227.43

★ Navaja Knife Slaughter (Factory New), B/O: $209.06

★ Navaja Knife, B/O: $203.16

★ Navaja Knife Case Hardened (Well-Worn), B/O: $132.57

★ Navaja Knife Damascus Steel (Factory New), B/O: $121.69

★ Navaja Knife Damascus Steel (Minimal Wear), B/O: $109.95

★ Navaja Knife Damascus Steel (Field-Tested), B/O: $100.41

★ StatTrak™ Navaja Knife Fade (Factory New), B/O: $369.01

★ StatTrak™ Navaja Knife Damascus Steel (Field-Tested), B/O: $109.95

GLOVES

★ Sport Gloves Amphibious (Minimal Wear), B/O: $2394.67

★ Sport Gloves Omega (Well-Worn), B/O: $572.33

★ Sport Gloves Bronze Morph (Minimal Wear), B/O: $338.88

★ Sport Gloves Big Game (Field-Tested), B/O: $323.66

⎯

★ Specialist Gloves Marble Fade (Minimal Wear), B/O: $1652.07

★ Specialist Gloves Tiger Strike (Field-Tested), B/O: $599.14

★ Specialist Gloves Crimson Web (Well-Worn), B/O: $231.57

★ Specialist Gloves Buckshot (Minimal Wear), B/O: $126.21

⎯

★ Moto Gloves POW! (Minimal Wear), B/O: $996.99

★ Moto Gloves POW! (Field-Tested), B/O: $383.31

★ Moto Gloves POW! (Well-Worn), B/O: $276.00

★ Moto Gloves Turtle (Field-Tested), B/O: $180.28

⎯

★ Hand Wraps CAUTION! (Minimal Wear), B/O: $502.29

★ Hand Wraps Giraffe (Minimal Wear), B/O: $180.73

★ Hand Wraps CAUTION! (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $178.32

⎯

★ Driver Gloves Queen Jaguar (Minimal Wear), B/O: $181.01

★ Driver Gloves Rezan the Red (Field-Tested), B/O: $101.66

⎯

★ Broken Fang Gloves Jade (Field-Tested), B/O: $127.88

★ Broken Fang Gloves Needle Point (Minimal Wear), B/O: $124.55

⎯

★ Bloodhound Gloves Guerrilla (Minimal Wear), B/O: $127.94

★ Hydra Gloves Case Hardened (Field-Tested), B/O: $102.55

WEAPONS

AK-47 X-Ray (Well-Worn), B/O: $478.95

AUG Hot Rod (Factory New), B/O: $425.83

StatTrak™ M4A1-S Hyper Beast (Factory New), B/O: $413.95

M4A4 Daybreak (Factory New), B/O: $309.51

StatTrak™ AK-47 Aquamarine Revenge (Factory New), B/O: $305.43

AK-47 Case Hardened (Well-Worn), B/O: $196.38

StatTrak™ M4A4 Temukau (Minimal Wear), B/O: $174.64

P90 Run and Hide (Field-Tested), B/O: $167.03

AWP Asiimov (Field-Tested), B/O: $153.33

Souvenir SSG 08 Death Strike (Minimal Wear), B/O: $140.00

M4A1-S Printstream (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $124.70

StatTrak™ M4A1-S Golden Coil (Field-Tested), B/O: $117.48

AWP Asiimov (Well-Worn), B/O: $115.97

StatTrak™ Desert Eagle Printstream (Minimal Wear), B/O: $112.96

StatTrak™ AK-47 Asiimov (Minimal Wear), B/O: $110.85

Souvenir M4A1-S Master Piece (Well-Worn), B/O: $102.42

AK-47 Bloodsport (Minimal Wear), B/O: $100.53

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Knives - Bowie Knife, Butterfly Knife, Falchion Knife, Flip Knife, Gut Knife, Huntsman Knife, M9 Bayonet, Bayonet, Karambit, Shadow Daggers, Stiletto Knife, Ursus Knife, Navaja Knife, Talon Knife, Classic Knife, Paracord Knife, Survival Knife, Nomad Knife, Skeleton Knife, Patterns - Gamma Doppler, Doppler (Phase 1, Phase 2, Phase 3, Phase 4, Black Pearl, Sapphire, Ruby, Emerald), Crimson Web, Lore, Fade, Ultraviolet, Night, Marble Fade (Fire & Ice, Fake FI), Case Hardened (Blue Gem), Autotronic, Slaughter, Black Laminate, Tiger Tooth, Boreal Forest, Scorched, Blue Steel, Vanilla, Damascus Steel, Forest DDPAT, Urban Masked, Freehand, Stained, Bright Water, Safari Mesh, Rust Coat, Gloves - Bloodhound Gloves (Charred, Snakebite, Guerrilla, Bronzed), Driver Gloves (Snow Leopard, King Snake, Crimson Weave, Imperial Plaid, Black Tie, Lunar Weave, Diamondback, Rezan the Red, Overtake, Queen Jaguar, Convoy, Racing Green), Hand Wraps (Cobalt Skulls, CAUTION!, Overprint, Slaughter, Leather, Giraffe, Badlands, Spruce DDPAT, Arboreal, Constrictor, Desert Shamagh, Duct Tape), Moto Gloves (Spearmint, POW!, Cool Mint, Smoke Out, Finish Line, Polygon, Blood Pressure, Turtle, Boom!, Eclipse, 3rd Commando Company, Transport), Specialist Gloves (Crimson Kimono, Tiger Strike, Emerald Web, Field Agent, Marble Fade, Fade, Foundation, Lt. 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I know all of you like to tell your scary stories, I like them too. Way back when my voice was still high-pitched I knew a man who told the scariest stories you'd ever hear, well he wasn't a human exactly, but he sure was a man. A good man by estimation, but you can be the judge of that. See, my mama used to live way down in the rural bits of Texas. Ain't nothing much down there 'sides toads and mosquitos. Fireflies would light up the night sky, and once in a while you'd see a couple eyes comin' up from the water. We lived in a small house, a bedroom, a kitchen, nothing special, but nothing shameful neither. It was just me and mama, papa left a long time ago, mama says he was out on the lake and got eaten by one of them gators. I believed it, he was always drunk and on a tear. He'd go out into the reeds until they got as high as his head. He was big a fella, too. That man'd go out there and throw meat to the alligators, meat my mama said we couldn't afford. And he'd come back scratching from the mosquitos and what else was in those high reeds. He'd stumble into the house and fall asleep somewhere round the door.
None of that may seem wholly pertinent, but it will be, just give it some time. I was outside one evening, mama was asleep. Mama was a hard sleeper, I think she grew up by a train track - Chicago she said, mama was a city girl that came out to the country to raise a big family. It was just me though, I never asked why, but it was always just me. It was a gorgeous evening, the ones you see in those little photo booklets that advertise how beautiful the town is. Fireflies dotted the sky, and a big yellow moon lit the whole way down to the lake. As much as a lake as you could call it, the critters sure did like the water. Bugs, frogs, gators, big and little fish; you could stick a net in the water and be sure something'd be stuck in there.
So, I walked throught the reeds, taking little chunks off the ones nearest me so I could find my way back. It was just a straight walk, but you try walking in a straight line when you're blind. You'll end up going in a circle - I think that's why they say we have a circulatory system. As I'm just near the water, pullin' reeds, and swattin' mosquitos, I see a kid with a lantern, about my height. The lantern was half the size of his body, big flame in the middle of glass, the orange waves danced and flickered lighting everything it touched, and casting shadows where it didn't. The kid beckoned me too him: "Hey, come here" he said. Well, it wasn't a kid, it was a very adult voice. "Little person" I thought, that's what they liked to be called. Just the same I didn't feel too comfortable approaching a man I didn't know.
"Come here, it's all right." And he beckoned again. Something about him, seemed - familiar. I didn't need much convincing, I headed over to him, and he gestured with his hand for me to sit. I sat, and he sat beside me. Wasn't much of a man either, he had a bulbous yellow eyes that searched around and never found anything. Big lips, red splotches just about everywhere. He was fat too, well not quite fat, but somehow, inflated. He was barefoot, and smelled like old hamburgers. I breathed through my mouth, and waited for him to speak again.
"I've got tell you a story about that house you're living in" he said. He paused, just waiting for it to sink in. Somewhere I was livin'. Now, I loved my house, and I loved my mama, but there weren't nothing worth telling a story about there. And everyone in town knew about papa, so it couldn't be that.
"Just me and my mama here" I replied, shifting a bit on the dirt as the small tide lapped close to my sneakers, the shadows from the lantern playing on the water. I had my eyes fixed on the water, always expecting a couple of eyes and a big alligator mouth.
"Just hold on there, I've been around this place a long time, I might know something you don't." He waited again, his eyes whirling, and his hands shuffling around the dirt, like he was lookin' for something on either side.
"Okay, go ahead then."
"There's a woman in that house, sometimes thin, sometimes big. Sleeps heavy, talks about the trains in Chicago"
"That's my mama"
"It is?"
"yes sir"
"She good to you?"
I hesitated. Mama was good, but she was rough sometimes. Sometime she'd get sick, and, well, irrational. She'd yell about how people in the house tryin' to talk to her, wanted to 'get' her. Eventually she'd tire herself out, and then she was a sweet mother then. Cooked the best beef stew you'd ever had, I never had any other beef stews, but her's was real good all the same: "yeah, she's good" I said.
The little man waited again, then continued on: "Well, maybe I'm talkin' about another woman. I couldn't know, your mama seems a wonderful gal."
"Tell me the story" I said. My fingers were tapping on the ground, along the dancing shadows, under that big yellow moon. I could hear the plop of a fish flying out out of the water and right back in. That siren eek of a mosquito came by my air and I shooed it away. And I looked at the water, where it was lit by the flame I could still see the little man. His eyes still whirling, his hands still digging.
"Well, some woman lived in that house. And she had a husband, handsome fellow, maybe a little too hard on the bottle, but he got done what needed to be done. For years the two of them would talk about havin' kids, and it just never happened, well almost never. Don't worry - I'll get to that. Now I want go too into the details because you're so young, but boy did those two try. And sometimes, like woman do when they're ready to become mamas, she'd get nice and big. Then she'd get thin again. Now, her husband was confused to say the very least. His wife'd cry, say the child was taken by the Lord, and they'd continue on about their lives, alone, in that little house by the lake. But funny enough how God works, like a miracle, when they were at their saddest - plenty would come in. See, the woman had a sister from the city who'd send her big packages full of meat and she'd make that meat into a nice stew. Sometimes they even had a little extra, you know what they'd do with it?"
I paused, I knew, I heard the stories. "He'd go throw it to the alligators"
"You're right, he'd throw it right to the alligators, now I don't know if gators can taste spice, but if they can they're mighty tough. That stew was always filled with the habaneros and all sorts of chilis, something you gotta stop and sweat for every few bites. Not those gators though, they'd gobble them right up. I'll tell you though, one day those two did have a child, handsome one too. Fuzzy brown hair, and cute as all get out. Looked' something like you matter of fact. Named him Matthew."
"My name is Matthew" I knew what was going on, I did, and I felt something like fear and something like comfort. Knowing just who this man was saying he was.
"Is it? Well, that can't hardly be a coincidence. I'll tell you something though, Matthew, I lied earlier in the story, I s'pose I should go ahead and tell you the truth."
"What's that?"
"Well, you already figured out, wasn't too hard, that's your mama I'm talkin' about, and yes, I'm your papa. I'm sure you figured that out too. I know I don't look like much not after you know what happened, but I didn't die. I've been living around this here lake since you was born. Your mama says she don't want me back in the house account of how I look. I don't blame her, but it sure is frustrating." there was some rustling in the reeds behind us, and the croak of some old frogs - they always sounded old to me at least.
"And that meat, ain't no packages from Chicago, I don't think Carol ever lived in Chicago, maybe she did, but I never heard from anyone there. And there wasn't so much as a picture to prove it. Those was those little miracles from the Lord. Yes I'd put one in your mama, we'd wait a few months, and we'd have ourselves a nice meal. The first one really was a miscarriage, and we were hungry, so we tried just a bite. Maybe we were both a little too much on the whisky, but we were very hungry. And boy - it tasted good. Best meat I'd ever had. And as long as I could keep fishin' by that lake I could give your mama the energy she needed to make that delicious beef stew."
I got up as fast as I could muster, I tried to run, took a few good strides, and then felt arms on my shoulders, locking me in place, and shoving me down onto the floor. I squirmed and screamed: "Let me go, no!" I cried, and I hollered, but it was no use. It was my mama, she straddled me with her legs, and pinned my arms down so I couldn't move a muscle. She smelled like those old hamburgers. And she smiled the sweet smile she always smiled when she was in one of her better moods.
"We waited a bit longer with you, wanted you to be nice and ripe, and now I think you're ready. Don't you think he's nice and ready, Carol?"
Mama took one hand off me, whipped it behind her back, and pulled out a big kitchen knife. She held it in front of me, and I could say my eyes in the metal, tears were rolling, and my face was red and screaming. Can't say I'd been that scared since.
"Carol, darlin', before we make our meal, how bout' we kiss like we used to. It'd be nice for him to see what a happy family looks like"
"Kiss you?" Mama spat. "You ugly little drunk, not even the alligators would want to kiss your mouth. Last one tried to kiss you spat you right out. I ain't want nothin' to do with that."
"Darling, I missed you."
"I didn't miss you, I ain't lettin' you back in the house neither. You think I can't find another man? Just past this lake I've got a hundred suitors just waitin' to take a gal like me. Bet they have big cocks too, not like your little pecker."
That was enough for papa, He ran right toward mama, I don't know how he did it with those whirlin' eyes, but he did it. He came and pushed mama right off me. I started crawling away as quickly as I could. Papa bit her and mama let out a big yelp: "Fuck!" she screamed; mama didn't cuss much 'less she was real mad. And boy was she real mad. I crawled into the reeds and hid there, lookin' through to see what was gon' happen.
She stabbed him, right in his arm when he tried to block her form his stomach. Big nasty gash, blood running everywhere, a little brown, a little green, but still mostly red. But he kept just goin' kickin' and bitin'. "I'll kill you!" she screamed and slashed, and they both yelped and hollered.
Then, I swear, he started hummin' a little tune, sounded like a nursery rhyme, and the water started to bubble, and I saw two big eyes out of the water, and then that mouth, and a big gator came right up. whappin' his tail, snortin' and groanin' in that way gators do. Bit mama on the leg, and started draggin' back to the water, mama screamed, and kicked, but that gator hung on. Bit up on her thigh, boy was she bleeding, strips of meat, and bone cracked and split. That gator dragged mama right down into the water. There was some splashin' and the gators back would come up and then back down into the water, and occasionally I heard a gurgly scream, but before I knew it the whole thing was over.
My papa sat there, I have to say, even then I felt a bit bad for him. "Son come out of those reeds, I promise I ain't gonna eat you no more."
I came and sat by papa and papa started hummin' again. I started to get up, but he put his hand on me. "Don't worry, she ain't gon' hurt you. I just gotta go away for a while."
The alligator came back on to the land and papa sat right down on her back, she crawled into the water until just her back and his upper body were above the water. "I gotta go son, I'm sorry. One day we might see each other again."
I didn't say a word, what was there to say? I met my papa, and he tried to eat me, now he wasn't, and now he was riding an alligator. So, I just nodded, and secretly hoped that maybe I wouldn't see him again.
And then off he went across the lake until I couldn't see him no more, haven't seen him since either. I went back to the house, and I'll tell you, I heard those voices my mama used to hear, too. But they wasn't mad at all, they was saying thank you. I think those are my brothers and sisters, and I think they thought I did something right. I whispered, "Don't thank me, thank papa, he saved us after all." And then, I'll tell you, nobody ever heard those voices again.

I knew that the Dirtman was real, although I hadn't wanted to believe it.
Just the idea creeped me out. A man slathered in dirt who sneaks into your home while you're asleep and steals dirt from underneath your pillow.
It was freaky.
The stuff of nightmares.
But regardless of that, there was worse to come.
If by any chance you looked at the Dirtman, then he would stare at you until you died a slow, painful and miserable death.
But I highly doubted it.
No one had ever died.
They just keep their eyes shut. Only, if it's true.
And I highly doubt that it is. I mean, it's just an urban legend. A campfire tale.
Like the tooth fairy, but replace the teeth with dirt.
I decided to test the theory out. I knew that there could have been a danger to it, but I knew that the chances of such a thing being real seemed minimal, even impossible.
There's no dirtman, I told myself.
Nothing's gonna get you.
I retreated out of my bedroom, wearing only loose fitting pajamas, and crept downstairs. I was an adult male living totally alone, still afraid to make the stairs in my house creak.
Regardless, I still crept down. The wood of the stairs was cold to the touch.
Very ice cold. Freezing, even.
Gooseflesh aroused on my arms and I rubbed them to melt the pimples of the cold and return my arm to the normal smooth layer of skin.
That's a weird description.
But that's what the Dirtman'll do.
I reached the bottom of the steps. Just behind the dining table stood an outdoor backyard. The doors were made of see-through glass. Sliding doors. Damn convenient for barbeques on a nice Saturday evening.
I walked around the table, and unlocked the door.
The cold air hit me like a fist to the stomach. My stomach clenched, eyes grew watery...
I stepped outside, my bare-feet feeling the damp wood of the patio.
I walked down the small steps and into the garden.
Crouching down, I burrowed for a bit, feeling the grains of dirt against my hands. They stank of water, and a little bit of faeces, too. But that's what the rain'll do.
I looked at the sky.
Gonna rain again.
With a handful of dirt, I quickly got up from my crouched position and made my way up the patio stairs.
I felt like a juggling clown at the carnival, attempting not to spill the handful of dirt clenched in my grasp.
Racing up the stairs, I came into a small problem.
My door was shut.
Fuck.
My door had the spinning knobs, so I needed a hand to open it.
And then, I noticed that it wasn't entirely shut. But when my shoulder pushed against the door, it didn't open.
Oh well, I can clean up the dirt a little later.
I cupped the dirt into one hand, watching small specks fall onto the floor, and twisted the doorknob.
I raced inside and leapt for my pillow, careful not to spill the dirt.
Pulling the soft pillow upwards, I emptied my hand onto the mattress. The dirt laid before my eyes, and I quickly found myself asleep, as if it were some hallucinogenic way to fall asleep.
But I awoke to a sound.
My room was dark. My eyes were shut.
The Dirtman was real.
And he was inside of my home.
Inside of my bedroom.
Touching me.
His skinny finger, curved and bony, jutting with perfect precision, traced the outlines of my face. Up my cheek.
The way his hand felt, brushing against my face, felt like a knife carving into fine wood.
I was afraid, but I knew that all I had to was keep my eyes shut.
Or so I thought.
The Dirtman's hand reached my eye, and began to pull the flesh open. I felt my eyes blink. I looked everywhere but at the Dirtman.
'Look at me, child,' he croaked.
The voice was not human,
It was monstrous.
Multi-pitched and croaky, it reminded me of an angel. If only that angel had risen from the bowels of Hell.
My eyes locked onto him. He was a tall, skinny figure, with dirt slathered across albino skin. A smile was etched into his face, with the only bit of light gleaming from his crystal teeth.
'You are one of us, now,' he said.
Dirt outlined him, fell to the ground in clumps.
'You should have been asleep.'
My heart was racing.
His eyes were black. Vanta. I looked at him and could feel his gaze tearing my soul from my body. Literally.
My intestines had tensed to the point I felt like they were being sucked up through my throat. My bones were buzzing with a sense of vibrations.
It was like a compression of my stomach.
Mashing my bones together. Dicing them. Slicing them. Rearranging my body.
I heard the snap of my leg as the Dirtman lifted it above my neck, the knee wrapping around. He did the same to the other, forming an O with my feet.
He pulled my arms from the socket. The small section of flesh without any bone to rely on was one of my biggest phobias. And now this random Dirtman had just tried to kill me.
I felt a gash open up my forehead, blood seeping from the wound and blinding me.
As I tried to scream, mountains of blood and dirt strangled me, choked me, forced all of my air out, until my heart slowly began to stop beating.
If you are reading this, I am dead. Sacrificed to the Dirtman.
Please, never put dirt underneath your pillow.
Because the Dirtman will only retreat from that corner.
You know exactly what corner I am talking about.
You.
The reader.
Holding this book open on a paperback, a e-reader, a phone, a computer, an app.
Please, whatever you do.
DO NOT LOOK AT THAT CORNER.

First/Previous
Since I knew there was a time before, I’ve wanted it, but that was child’s hope; even as a boy I wanted a dream. I wanted some divine being to enter from heaven and tell us all how it should be, but that wasn’t something I could ever count on—of course. Is there a god? I think so. I’ve seen those things and if they exist, then surely there’s a maker on the other end of it—god made both the light and the dark if the word’s to be believed and all we can hope for is a glimpse of the former. Even for a second.
The streets were soaked with blood and so many artillery rounds were fired into the sky—many I witnessed missed Leviathan—that I forgot what silence was like (not to mention the screams and there was a lot of that).
In the scrambling, I found I was reentering deeper into Golgotha and that wasn’t good. There was the ever-present thought that Maron was around every corner; the man had haunted my thoughts for longer that he should have and every time it was like an overwhelming force. It was simple enough after all, he was a piece of the past, a piece I could theoretically reach out and touch and that was what kept me to him.
In the fray of bolting citizens, I pressed myself to the exterior of a wall—I’d neared the stairs which once led to my apartment—and I kept out of the way of those that mindlessly went; some of those which rushed from the onslaught were those afflicted with skitterbugs and many of them either hobbled on blackened legs or—and this was rare—comrades or family helped to carry those which could not carry themselves. It was a baffling sight. A man carried a woman like a child (her toes had fallen off and her legs were black to the knees) and though he strode on with her, his own boots were caked with a mixture of blood and earth. An older girl led a young boy from the whirlwind of dust which was kicked up in the square; the boy’s eyes were whited, and his hands were curled to his chest, discolored. People, whatever duality there is, cared. There was not a drop of the apathy I’d learned and encouraged in myself.
I chewed like a mad dog through my bindings, and it was of little use; I yanked at the cord which secured my hands together and received rope burn in return. “Bitch!” I cussed the thing, but the flames in the sky were so loud, the bangs and vibrations from the artillery consumed all so it was like yelling in a barrel. I swung my hands out in front of me, feeling useless and felt a sudden urge to try again. I bit into the cord and repetitively motioned my jaw against the pressure of the cord, like I was going to saw through it with my teeth. Ha! Another yank is what brought my left hand free, but not without tearing a triangle of skin away from my wrist.
The cord dropped to my feet, and I looked around; a woman brushed past me, nearly toppled over my foot and I caught her by the wrist before she went head-over. She violently thrust from my grasp and screamed something at me. Another bout of flames burst from Leviathan’s maw as it circle-dove overhead. The heatwave from the blast exploded across my face so that I recoiled from the sky itself till I was on the ground, and I pushed myself from the earth and ran half dog-like from my place there at the wall. Where? It was hard to say where when every person that touched-by seemed to send me in another direction; in the madness, it was impossible to tell my course.
With time and effort, I found my way to the opening where the hydro towers were, three pillars which rose above Golgotha’s skyline, each one a testament to human resilience—engineers laborers toiled untold hours under Lady’s father to construct them. The hydro towers exploded into rubble as Leviathan slammed into them. Rock rained down as cutting shards and destructive boulders. A man lay beside my feet where he'd been pinned by the onslaught—white concrete kept him there by his chest—he gasped for air and blood already formed around him. In a moment, I looked away at the dying man, his half-whited eyes bulging at me. Meat hung from the left side of another man’s face as he cradled his head in his hand and moved like he was stoned and sat among the stomping feet; he slumped into the spot he sat and did not move till others came by him in a hurry and he simply fell onto his side like a toy animal.
The screams were too much. I looked to the towers, the nubs which had broken away like bad teeth against the red sky, and whole people fell alongside the rubble, limbs and showers of blood and Leviathan latched atop the towers and rocked its massive body so that the structures slipped directly from their foundations and tumbled over like pins. I ran and again there was nothing but chaos, nothing but mind-numbing wilder thoughts—it was grim and there wasn’t a place for coherency; it was all snaps of images.
In the mess of bumbling limbs, I pushed through to the hall of Bosses and there were people there already, rushing the stairs; the ground shook and I assumed it must’ve been the towers. The things demolished all in their path, and briefly, I saw the ramshackle structures which normally stood in their shadows come slanting over and people leapt from those places too and landed poorly and there was a cacophony of tremors through the earth—it felt as though hell should open.
The steps at the base of the hall were flooded and it was a fight to climb them as legs came high up from ahead and swiped at those behind and I kept my hands ahead of me to block whatever foot may come my way.
Wall men stood ready with their rifles at the tops of those steps and fired their weapons indiscriminately into the crowd. Bodies, big and small, piled atop the steps after a brief bullet dance and it came that I wasn’t only climbing stairs, but corpses; the warmth of their flesh as I clawed ahead remained and blood fog hung in the air. That grouping of wall men, casually lined before the doors of the hall were overtaken and they disappeared, their rifles cackled and came alive with muzzle flashes and the animal hands of the horde brought them to ground.
Us, the horde, funneled through those front doors and for a moment, in the thick walls of the hall, the outside world audibly disappeared; the blood and dust remained, but it was quieter save the shuffling feet and cusses of passersby I was carried deeper.
Those that worked the underground went quickly and I followed, and those ignorant followed for the sake of survival and it was not long till we stumbled into the Boss’s lair. With room, people dispersed like water through the tunnels and found dark recesses to tend their wounds or mourn whatever was lost and the explosive open air had been fully replaced by the quiet black oppressive mumbles of people taking stock of all those that had died. And all those that would. Every few moments, the walls shook, and dust fell from the ceiling fixtures.
A few haggard folks moved to the doorway which led to the damp room which led to the kitchen, and they slammed the door shut and latched it and began to check adjacent rooms for things to barricade the way.
“Stop!” said a man in the dim flickering underground light—I was surprised to see the man was me, “Leave it open! Others might need help.” I retraced my steps to the small faction that’d gathered there at the doorway. “You can’t just let them die out there. Let them in.”
“Shut up!” a skinny girl with her hair pulled back on her malnourished skull spoke gruffly; she choked, coughed—dust clung to her clothes—she’d been near the collapse of the hydro towers if I guessed. “Step off, or I’ll—
“Or you’ll what?” I shouted.
The girl put up her fists, two lumpy stones, and in stupid response I closed the distance between us. With speed, her fist met my nose, and I stumbled back on my heel.
Without hesitation, I brought up my own hands and landed a blow to her stomach. She craned forward, gasped on repeat, and took a knee.
Blood wet my upper lip, and I wiped it away with my forearm.
“Move,” I said to the others by the door; there were two: a woman and a boy that was nearly a man.
The boy charged headstrongly, attempted a kick and I easily shoved his small frame against the tunnel wall; the hard metal sounded a meaty thud against his body and the woman launched unseen at me, raked her nails down the back of my neck, and tore at my collar. I kept a forearm to the boy’s throat and rocked his head with my free elbow. Once he wept and spit red, I let him go; the boy slid into a sit and I spun on the woman, shoving her away. My left leg began to give, and I used the wall over the boy’s head as support. I swung at her with a wild claw and my fingertips grazed her nose as she fell away to the opposite wall.
“Stop it!” I shouted.
She launched at me, and my leg gave out under her tackle, and I stumbled half-on the boy, my feet kicked helplessly at her, and the boy regained his composure and began to crawl towards me. We wrestled and then the girl I’d knocked in the gut rejoined the fray. I was done. They had me pinned and spat curses at me and took turns shoving my head into the floor.
“You’re going to get us killed,” shouted the woman, “Are you stupid?”
I grinded my teeth and tried to throw them off; I was overpowered and easily pressed down again.
The overhead lights flickered with another deep earthy vibration and the trio let go of me in an instant—I came up swinging my arms like crazy and as I went to kneel before propelling myself to stand, a hand rested on my shoulder. I spun on the hand and was met with the black mouth of a 9mm pistol—that froze me fast.
The owner of the weapon—a wall man by the look of her fatigues—motioned for me to stand and I did. Her eyes were far off and nervous and the metal shook in her outstretched hand. “Against the wall!” she barked at us; she was small-framed and youthful but full grown, and I could easily push her out of my way if not for the pistol. We went to the wall, and she moved to the door while keeping the gun drawn on us. She watched us and glanced at the door. “It’s latched! Who latched the door?” She asked.
No one spoke. The other three looked to their feet; I initially refused to rat, and snorted blood—my nose throbbed and by touch I could tell it swelled already.
“Well? Why’s it closed?” she asked the question more like a desperate child than a person with control. “C’mon!” The 9mm rolled limply on her wrist as she said the word, like she was attempting to draw the confession from us with the motion.
“There’s an attack. They’re killing everyone,” said the boy.
The girl and woman nodded.
“Who?” asked the wall man.
“Demons, muties,” said the boy, “Big stuff. Everyone’s dying.”
The ground shook as if to emphasize his point.
The wall man studied us for a moment, lingering last on me and for the longest and she took a long breath and let the sigh out dramatically slow. “I know you,” she motioned at me with the gun, “You’re that maniac. The one that tried to murder everyone.” Her eyes fell then returned and she put her weight on the door while maintaining the barrel of the gun eye-level in my direction.
“I ain’t gonna’ hurt anyone,” said. I briefly thought about smiling but decided that’d look worse.
“How do I know that?” she asked.
“Yeah,” said the boy, “He tried to kill us already!” His voice cracked with adolescence; the blood I’d spilled from his mouth coated the front of his holey shirt.
The trio nodded all together—everyone agreed that I was a maniac killer.
“They latched it,” I said, “Cowards.”
A thump came from the other side of the door which frightened the wall man and she leapt from the spot she’d leaned—it took several full seconds to realize her gun went off; there was a flash, and my ears rang. I stumbled from the knot of people and slunk a couple of feet from the space by the door. The girl—the one I gut-punched—collapsed to the floor while holding the right side of her face. The women crowded the girl, panicked, the boy sprinted past me and disappeared deeper into the underground, and the wall man stood there with a wretched blank expression. There was a long moment which hung in the air; I could not hear and then it came back, and it was the girl’s screams I heard first.
Upon stepping to them, I saw the prone girl had been shot just so—through the cheek. Her eyes rolled from likely spinal damage; whatever the angle, it seemed to have ripped through irreparable nerves and she bled a lot. There wasn’t any hope for that girl.
“Well,” I said to the wall man, “Finish it. No reason to make her suffer.”
The girl on the ground writhed unnaturally and caterwauled while the woman by her side attempted to calm her.
Greater became the sound of the belabored hands on the other side of the door; then a hollow-sounding gunshot came from the other side; were they shooting the door? Or each other? Another round—human screams.
The wall man shook her head. “I didn’t mean it. It was an accident.”
I tried to hold the wall man’s gaze, but she didn’t seem able.
With speed, I moved to the wall man, reached for the gun which dangled helpless by her side—her initial response was to flinch, pull the weapon from my reach; our eyes locked and I clenched my jaw. She could’ve killed me. There wouldn’t have been surprise from me if she had.
She let go of the gun and I nodded, and she nodded and the woman kneeling by the girl threw herself over her. “Please,” protested the woman, “Please don’t!”
With the aid of the pistol, I was given space, and nothing was said. I mentally prepared myself for the ringing which accompanied gunfire in small spaces, even tilted my head away with my free palm up and took aim and the girl jerked once then went still.
With the ringing going and sound returning, the drumming on the door returned, as well as the quiet weeps of the woman; she crawled to the wayside of the hall, pressed her back against the wall and rested her chin on her knees with her arms around her shins. She didn’t rock to or fro and hardly made any noise at all. But the small and quiet sobs remained faintly there.
First/Previous
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First/Previous
“How’d you think that was going to go?” asked a voice from the other side of the door.
I lay on the bunk and stared at the ceiling; my head throbbed. The place where I’d been grazed stung whenever I touched my fingers to it. A bullet had—by whoever’s grace—scraped my scalp and traced a line from the far corner of my right eyebrow. It'd only been three days and it still caused pain. No doctors came and I was certain there would be infection—if not plain infection, then it could always be the worser: skitterbugs. I ached still. I had never fully recovered, not like how I should have.
The day of anger, as I’d begun to think of it in my mind, had caused no great ruckus beyond a few dead men. Two were Bosses, but who knew if they’d announce that as casually as they’d surely announce my execution. Perhaps they’d string me up alongside thieves. A good thief and a bad. What a riot; I deserved no thieves, of course.
What was I? Some great hero? Some idiot was more likely. I wanted misery to befall those that perpetrated it themselves and there I was, more miserable. Perhaps the wrath in my heart came from some mutation; the demon Mephisto resurrected me (so said the demon) and I’d begun to accept it. It was the reason for my poor state, surely, and the more I thought on it, the more I believed it was true; it felt true right down to my bones. The truth hurt or it was age and I rose from the cot I lay on; I’d been detained in a room beside the one I’d visited Andrew many months prior. They’d starved me, rattled the door to try and frighten me, and they’d wasted water on my head to keep me from good sleep.
I did not respond to the voice from the other side of the door and the object rattled in its frame and the voice came again, this time angrier, “Really? How did you think that was going to go? Crazy bastard! Thought you’d put the hurt on the Bosses? Thought you’d kill us at our worst? First, it’s that explosion. You have something to do with that? No! First, it was Harold’s daughter running off!” The voice on the other side of the door grew with mirth as it did with anger. “I’d seen you around town a bit. Thought the Bosses always liked you. Huh. Boss Harold mentioned you at his parties and said how you were a smart fella’, a good fella’, and there you killed him. Stone cold.” The man which spoke was a jailor that tortured me in those dreamlike days I spent locked in their prison, and he seemed personally affronted. “So first it’s the explosions; steam or dust rose out of cracks in the ground you know—some thought hell was rising up, but the Bosses put those thoughts to bed. God, what’s it with the likes of you? The explosions and now I’ve lost an eye and its because of the skitterbugs. You probably brought that on!” The voice muttered and then the door shook in its frame again, seemingly from a hard kick. I wished I could see the face of the man throwing his tantrum. “Can’t wait to see you hang.”
“So, I’ll hang?” I asked the door. There was a long silence, and I was uncertain if I’d pitched my voice enough for the man on the other side to hear me. I opened my mouth to ask, “So-
“You’ll hang.” The man on other side seemed to knock his knuckles against the surface of the door. “Or you’ll die here.”
“What’s Maron said?”
“Don’t you worry about him.”
“What’s he said?”
“Said you’d probably appreciate the punishment that we’d put on you. Said you’re a sick man. Said you like speaking with devils and people like you only find pleasure in such things.”
“So, I won’t hang?”
“Oh, you’ll hang, sir. You’ll hang if I need to do it myself with no one else. If not that, I’ll be sure to put you under one way or another. Accidents happen.” He chuckled. “Maybe you’d enjoy it, but it doesn’t matter. Whatever enjoyment you find in your tortures won’t compare to what ideas I have.”
A long silence followed, and I watched dust motes dance in the air; the place was stagnant and even a breath caused a shift in their glide. I closed my eyes and tried to remember a better time. I thought of Suzanne. I thought of Gemma. What a time to be alive. I thought of the movies, the books, the musical cartridges that sung of yesteryears. How unlucky I’d been, of course. Something had changed in me though and it was totally refreshing. Perhaps it was in realizing the evils of my brothers was that of a man and not some otherworldly force, or perhaps it was a push that came from years of terrible inconsistencies. All that living in the past and so it was. It didn’t matter—the past. I’d been so busy with it that I’d been in a constant state of unliving. I’d known that always, of course—something new had come.
“You dozing off in there?” asked the jailor.
“Nah.”
“Good. Stay awake or I’ll be forced to stay you awake.”
I’d been reborn with a rage, justified or otherwise, and it was felt all over. It was a wild compulsion. All that time and it had been me that was brought back.
The wound on my head throbbed and I prodded it with a finger and brought the finger away and examined the digit; it was dried well enough, and I did not smell infection nor were there any of the accompanying symptoms of a fever or hallucination. I was me, through and through. For now.
The door banged. I didn’t bother an answer and the door banged again.
“Who’s there?” I asked, surprising myself with the sarcasm.
“Why’d you do it?” asked the jailor.
“You wanna’ ask me about it now?”
“Tell me.” The voice on the other side of the door was serious entirely.
“Bah!” “Bah to you! Why’d you do it?”
“Is there a reason to explain myself? If you knew better the things I knew, would it get you to unlock that door and let me walk free? Would it change your mind even?”
The jailor caught a laugh before responding. “Can’t say it would.”
“So, what’s it that you want? You won’t understand me, and I don’t think I’ve got the energies of persuasion to try.”
“Try.”
“You like the Bosses?”
“They’re okay. Keep me in work anyway. Keep people safe.” I slumped forward onto my knees where I sat and placed my elbows on my knees and watched the crack at the base of the door on the other side of the prison cell. “What’s it matter if they keep you in work? Think they care about you anymore than what you represent?”
“Huh?”
“I mean, you keep riffraff down and they like you for it. I wonder if they know you. You ever get invited to the feasts they hold at the hall? You ever worry about your water rations? You ever wonder why it is that so few of the women or men invited to the hall return? Children too, now that I think of it. They’d call those captured criminals, I know. Those brothers—the sheriff is to blame too—they’re bastards. You know they are.”
“Is that so? What’s that make me? A bastard too?”
“By proxy maybe.” I dryly chuckled. “What’s it matter? What do you want outta’ me anyhow? Some gratification? Some confession—you’ve gotten that already, ain’tcha? Maybe a repentance? Why don’t you call one of those Bosses on down from their throne and have them here on the other side of the door so I can apologize? Or call Lady and I’ll get her to channel some message to the afterlife and I’ll plead for forgiveness. That what you want? Now I’m a bad man and I know it, but it ain’t for the reasons you believe. What you want is belief that there’s a man under the skin of the monster you’ve projected? No, I won’t shoo away your boogeyman for you. It can’t be done, not from me.”
“You talk big for someone in your predicament. I like how you talk so holier. Like you’re talking down on me. I just wanted to know what made you want to go on a mad-killing spree the way you did.”
“Mm.” I cupped my hands together; as it was, my left knee shot off with pain and I tried to massage it to little comfort and stretched it out straight from my body. “When violence keeps you bound, violence is necessary to free yourself. That’s all I’ll say about it. If you hang me, then hang me. Spill my guts out for the birds and put a sack over my head so you won’t be sick by my face.”
“You’re a mouthy pig.”
I listened to the jailor’s footfalls disappear down the hall and finally it was totally quiet and all I could hear was the throb on my head. Lucky or unlucky? No, it wasn’t luck. I’d been marked. I was the payment, and I knew the price. The demon had my soul. Whatever protection it afforded me, I intended on using.
The image of that room continued over in my mind, with the peasantry (that’s what I saw them as then) knelt in front of the Bosses and the wall men, with the intense blood-smell, with the surprise on Maron’s face. Billy’s face. There was still a part of me, however small, that wanted to plead with him to change his ways. That wasn’t the part that welled up in me then though. The piece of me that wanted to see him die was what took over. It hadn’t been Maron that fired his gun; he’d still been fighting with his holster. I’d only taken a step in through the door and a spray of gunfire from one of the wall men’s rifles exploded and I was sure I was dead because I fell, and my vision went white. They should’ve put me down then.
I didn’t come too fully until I had a few goons on me, hauling me upright roughly under my arms. Maron didn’t say anything at first and those wall men took over; they shouted that I was alive still and I felt a hot gun barrel against my cheek.
“Stop!” shouted Maron. The Boss Sheriff stepped forward with his stilted gait and looked me over thoroughly. The gun barrel fell from my cheek, but they held me still; it wasn’t like I planned on fighting. “You got uglier,” said Boss Maron, “Really ugly.” His left eye, afflicted by the skitterbug infestation, had gone dead white with only the faintest trace of an iris; it dribbled pus.
I held his stare to the point that my eyes watered—whether from anger or sorrow or both—and my muscles tightened like an animal threatening to pounce. It was a ridiculous display.
“Lock him up,” said Boss Maron.
So, I was locked up and those uncounted days I was mildly tortured: sleep deprivation, pummeling, and sometimes they spit on me. It could have been worse. I’d seen worse.
The cell was numbingly quiet, and I continued to massage my knee, continued in thinking about how investing so much thought with the past twisted any future of mine into a dismal satire.
I could not tell how long it had been without sunlight and the jailor returned (he was bulbous and fattened and old but very strong—it could be sensed in how he carried himself) pushed through the door this time with a tray of diced potatoes, steamed but cold, and a metal cup of water. He sat them on the floor, stared at the tray there with his one good left eye, and it was like I could read his mind as he looked at the food there. He could destroy it; he jerked from the tray without saying a word to me then disappeared behind the door he closed. The jailor remained there outside.
Pride swelled in me momentarily before I pushed whatever silliness that was and devoured the food and drank the clear water. If it was poison, so be it. If it was poison, then all the problems of the world would disperse.
Again, the jailor pushed in through the door and bent to remove the tray and I was struck by the immediate thought of strangling him. So, I tried and threw myself at the man.
My hands felt the scruff around his throat, and I pressed hard with my fingers on his Adams apple. He’d lurched forward to lift the tray and he immediately came up with force, throwing me off him; my nails raked his cheek as I scrambled for purchase. He took the metal tray in both of his hands and thwapped me across the head—it rang, and I was stunned while he lifted back his right hand in a swing. In the dizziness, I momentarily caught a glimpse of the holster on his left hip and reached out dumbly for the revolver there. A meaty smack could be heard, and I didn’t even feel it when his fist met my face the second time. My head rocked and I fought to look upright, and his hand came again, and I put up my own hand in return; it was pushed away, and he continued at me, muttering epithets he found useful.
Once he was heaving and spitting, he left me on the cot and directly before slamming the door, he mentioned something about violence and how if I liked violence so much that he’d show it to me.
I nursed myself to sitting right-up and though adrenaline kept the pain away, I felt my face bruising already. There was no way for me to inspect the welts his hands had left, but I could guess their places by touch and how they thrummed with my heart.
Two days passed, if I counted them by the visits from the jailor and then Maron made his appearance to me, and I was surprised to see him with a leather eye patch over his left eye; he seemed ill on his feet and the jailor, though the man was there, did not move to stop Maron from entering the room and relieving me of my prison. He and the jailor roped my hands together in front of my pelvis and I didn’t fight.
Boss Maron stank of infection and yellow oozed from beneath his eye patch and he kept his cowboy hat pulled snugly over both his ears and did not speak so jovially—there were no crude jokes at my expense. A warmth radiated off him. The Boss carried my shotgun with him but made no remark on it. He marched me from the prison, and I met daylight, and it burned my eyes while I stared up into the reddish sky. Dust scattered from the nearest portion of wall and caught on the wind till it was carried and disappeared overhead, and I briefly thought how nice it must be to fly.
Golgotha stirred as ever, and people spoke loudly and candidly as I passed them by. Words came my way from passing faces like, “You kissed the devil’s ass!” or, “You sure are a monster, look at you!” and Maron pushed me on with the gun at my back, and I wavered on my legs like I was without any control.
“Is it true?” asked Boss Maron, “Did you kiss the devil’s ass?” He tilted the shotgun casually on his shoulder and kept me ahead of himself. He was taking me to hang—and making a big deal out of it too. “I know how you like to speak to them. The demons. I know how you conspire with them. I told them all how you do. Now they know I was right.”
What a rotten town it was, and it smelled like it. The atrophied muscles and diseased infections of those fine folks emanated in the air, flies buzzed around my head, bloated and doubtlessly happy from whatever corpse they’d sprung from.
“Say somethin’,” said Maron.
“What do you want?” I asked, watching my footfalls, ignoring the screeches of those on the sidelines; he marched me through the runways, past the onlookers which saw me with faces of twisted hatred. The tension was palpable—I could feel the venom off the eyes of those that watched. Blood red eyes which judged carelessly.
“I want you to say it,” said Maron; I felt the nudge of the shotgun at my back again and I stumbled forward, caught myself, carried on, “I want you to admit it to me. You’re like a mutant, ain’tcha? No better than any other monster. I knew it all them years. I seen it.” We took an alley and cretins followed behind; wall men flanked Maron and on either side of the narrow stretch there were faces made even with the wall, pressed there like they were afraid to be involved.
“Whatever you say, brother.”
“Don’t,” hissed Maron, “Don’t even.”
“What?” I spat the word, “Afraid they’ll treat you differently if they all know how close we are?” I felt the gun barrel press against my back, and I yelped out the words, “Hey! He’s my brother! My baby brother!” The barrel jabbed me in the spine, and I spilled forward, catching myself on one of those nearby faces. It was an old woman. She shoved me from her, and I flailed across the ground after trying to catch myself with my bound hands. Dirt met my face and exploded around me. I laughed, blinking through the dust. I spit too. He couldn’t kill me. Whatever black magic there was in me—bequeathed by Mephisto—refused me death. Maron lifted me with the help of his wall men, pinching the coat around my throat with his fist. He shoved me on, and we continued.
“You smell that?” I asked Maron.
“Stop talkin’. You might not be a man, but you’ll die like one,” he said. The wall men around muttered, and we took the way to the front square; already there were looky-loos gathered, throngs of them not at all bashful to see the day’s line-up—it was just me. The platform was emptier and that was good (Frank, Paul, and Matt looked naked without their eldest brother). Those Bosses which remained looked drunk as they did for any other execution. It was a good day for it. Warm. The stink of the crowd was worse and as those gathered parted for my entourage, the warmth of them cloistered us like the blood of a wound.
Even through the vile aroma, the smell of rotted poultry rose like nothing else. “You don’t smell it then?”
The roar, a cacophony of the damned souls stolen, shook the ground and the air changed. A dragon—Leviathan.
Along the wall which old skeletal corpses hung against dried blood stains from hook-chains, men and women scattered the length of the parapets with their weapons. Gunfire came and one of those atop the wall shouted, “Artillery! Dragon! Big guns!”
There was fire in the sky and the creature circled overhead and its wings beat the wind like mad; those organic ropes that hung from its body took on horrid shapes with its movement in the high noon sunlight.
Screams filled the air as the square erupted into panic. I dove into the sickly crowd; among the loudness, the horses which were lined by the big door fought against their ties and bolted across the square. Arms and heads disappeared beneath those dashing hooves, and it was not long before people were trampling people and in a quick glance I saw the Boss platform came down in splinters as the horses rushes it. Blood slickened the feet of many as they rushed to the buildings adjacent the square—what a small protection that’d be against Leviathan. A wall man went stumbling over the wall’s ledge and his body met the ground beneath the hanging corpses and he didn’t get up.
In the wild fray, Maron fired the shotgun into the air, and I briefly thought of where the pellets might fall.
Finally, artillery fire came and put a hole in the creature. It wavered in the air, its head lurched downward like it might pierce the ground and it pulled its long neck back and blew flames across the buildings. The heat was immaculate. Rotted chicken filled my lungs.
“There’s more!” shouted a wall man above, “Running across the field.”
The crowd grew more enamored with escape; there’s no good way to say it—blood frothed around our heels as I was shoved through the avenues of elbows, rocking heads, plunging knees. I pushed on, shielding myself with my bound hands as well as I could. I kept my head as high, and felt scratches reach my throat—doubtlessly those which could not continue—nails and fists came from every direction. In the ephemeral madness, I too screamed and it did not stop until I spilled into an alleyway along the wall nearest the execution chains. I ran and tripped from the crowd, slid, and bit my tongue so thoroughly that my teeth clicked together though the tissue; my breath was knocked from me. My pants were wet from the viscera. Others too had found the opening and barreled past me. I went to my feet and panted thought the pain, through the twinge in my left knee. I took the walls for support and still, those which rushed past nearly knocked me from my feet.
Some poor child—a lean, bony-faced boy—fell in the rush and before I had a moment to reach out, he was gone. Whether he lived or not, I did not stop to know. The crunch of bones as more people spilled into the narrow stretch indicated the worst.
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