Terry grant fired

As the title proclaims I would like your opinion on why the reason could be based on my perspective.
So Ive been a CNA for around 4-5 years. And, Ive worked at countless facilities but I have never been fired. Yesterday I showed up to work a few minutes late, work starts at 6:30am I got there around 6:37am, I clock in from our mobile app and notice that my account is locked?. I begin my shift working like normal, and notice that our DSN is hosting a huddle ( he just started doing these, and it’s letting everyone know whats going on kind of thing ). I made it to the huddle but was about a minute or 2 late they start at 6:35am usually.
After the huddle I look at the schedule see my group and just work like normal. I did my showers and did my normal group routine. By the time I have to take my lunch all my stuff is done and it just feels like a normal day, nothing seems off. Until I try to chart. I notice that I also wasnt able to get into PCC so I think weird, let me go talk to the DSD and see if she can reset my password.
I walk in explain whats going on and she basically just says the DSN will do it, all of sudden all 3 of us are in his office. And, immediately im thinking uh oh somethings going on. So we start talking right and he basically just tells me how I started off as a hardworking person but somehow something changed? The DSN than claims a few things: -Im hard to find on the floor -Doesnt like that I clock in and out on the app ( claims its illegal even though its a feature they provide? ) - was upset that I wasnt at a huddle and claimed I didnt sign the meeting paper - said he was upset of me leaving early and not showing up on time ( I sometimes clockout early, but usually am granted permission from DSD were talking 10-15ms ) And those were the main reasons. Now here is my perspective: -im hard to find on the floor because im working? Im also very helpful going out of my way asking others if they need help - I didnt know that was an issue I could of started clocking in manually? - ill give him that but we have a lot of regular call offs? And they suffer no consequences -literally signed and have been at every huddle. Im convinced that my coworkers didnt really like me as that wasnt my first time talking to them over false allegations that were proven to be untrue. I just feel I was targeted for unknown reasons. I did my job sure im not perfect but I dont think I deserved to be fired.They also immediately let me go not allowing me to finish my shift and did not pay me for the 4 hours worked.

PC
Reddit Account: TheOnlyShipsMan Discord Tag: josephstalin1518 Name and House: Ronnel Peake Age: 45 Cultural Group: Reachman Appearance: Trait: Insidious Skill(s): Devious, Espionage (e), Rumormonger (e) Talent(s): Deceit, reading, record keeping Negative Trait(s): N/A Starting Title(s): Lord of Starpike, Lord of Dunstonbury, Lord of Whitegrove Starting Location: Opening Hunt
AC
Name and House: Roland Peake Age: 20 Cultural Group: Reachmen Appearance: Trait: Steward Skill(s): Administrator (e), Investor Talent(s): Drinking, Hunting, Intimidation Negative Trait(s): N/A Starting Title(s): Ser, Heir to Starpike, Dunstonbury and Whitegrove Starting Location: Opening Hunt
Timeline:
20 BC - Ronnel Peake is born to Lord Armen Peake and Lady Lynesse Tarly. The third son of the couple, his future prospects seem low.
5 BC - Ronnel is betrothed to Lady Vivian of House Graceford.
3 BC - Ronnel is knighted upon his seventeenth nameday.
2 BC - Lord Armen Peake and his second son Lucas are killed in the Field of Fire, and in the chaos of the route, Ronnel uses the opportunity to slay his eldest brother Luthor, though to all others it appears that he too was killed in the battle by the forces of King Aegon.
Returning to Starpike, he proceeds to lace the drinks of Luthor’s heavily pregnant wife Malora with moon tea, killing the babe in the womb, with the mother succomming soon after. With all those ahead of him in the line of succession dead, Ronnel Peake becomes the Lord of Starpike, Dunstonbury and Whitegrove.
1 BC - While many lords in the Reach had bitterly complained about the “upjumped stewards” now holding dominion over the Reach, Lord Ronnel quickly seeks to grow close to his new liege lord. In truth he cares no more for the Tyrells than he did for the Gardeners but does not see any gain in opposing them so long as House Targayen stands behind them.
His betrothal to Lady Vivian Graceford is broken off soon after his ascension, the daughter of one of his bannermen no longer seeming to be a suitable spouse in Ronnel’s mind. However he still keeps her at his court as a mistress.
1 AC - Due to his oft expressed loyalty to Lord Harlan Tyrell, Ronnel is granted the position of spymaster of the Reach.
3 AC - Lord Ronnel is one of the first to take upon Lord Harlan’s plans to intermarry his bannermen with the Dornish. His close ties to House Tyrell and his own personal power allows Lord Ronnel to arrange one of the most illustrious marriages among the Reachmen for himself, and takes to wife the Princess Ashara of House Martell, younger sister of Princess Deria.
By the end of the year she bore him his first child, a daughter who he named Cassandra, though his mistress Lady Vivian too had fallen pregnant by the final moon.
4 AC - Lady Vivian gives birth to Ronnel’s bastard son, who she names Jasper.
Wishing to quiet the complaints of his wife over his open adultery, Vivian and her son are sent away from Starpike to Dunstonbury.
To quell the anger of House Graceford over the broken betrothal, and the soiling of Lady Vivian, Ronnel arraigned a marriage between his younger brother Ser Hubert and Lady Elissa Graceford, the younger sister of Lady Vivian. Hubert is then named the Castellan of Whitegrove.
5 AC - Ronnel and Ashara’s son and heir Roland Peake is born.
7 AC - A second daughter is born to Ronnel and Ashara, who they name Valaena in honor of the mother of the conqueror.
8 AC - Vivian gives birth to another bastard fathered by Ronnel, a daughter she names Marianne. At the same time, Ronnel’s youngest brother Leo is named the castellan of the castle.
14 AC - Lady Vivian and Marianne Flowers are murdered in Dunstonbury by unknown assailants. Lord Ronnel suspects his wife was behind the murders but pays little mind to it, and instructs Leo to not look into it.
15 AC - During the Kingswood Catastrophe, his bastard Jasper Flowers as well as his brother Leo Peake are taken captive, and while Jasper is eventually rescued, Leo is not.
To further increase his ties with the Dornish, Ronnel negotiates a betrothal between Cassandra and the heir of Skyreach, Olyvar Fowler.
21 AC - Ronnel sends Cassandra to serve as a lady in waiting for Queen Rhaenys at Summerhall.
With Cassandra having come of age, Ronnel begins preparations for her upcoming marriage to Olyvar Fowler, now the Lord of Skyreach due to the recent death of his father, but the wedding is postponed by Olyvar.
24 AC - Having grown tired of Lord Olyvars continued stalling, Ronnel sends his bastard son to convince the man to go through with the marriage. The scheme works as planned, and Cassandra is soon after wed, becoming the Lady of Skyreach.
Jasper is sent along with her to serve as Cassandra’s sworn sword, and the two are tasked with killing Lord Olyvar so Cassandra can assume full control as regent, once she has borne enough children to ensure Peake blood would remain in control of Skyreach.
25 AC - Cassandra bears a son named Ellion Fowler, making Ronnel a grandfather.
Irritated by the tales of Jasper’s relationship with Lord Olyvar, his knowledge of Cassandra's affair with the heir of House Yronwood, and even darker perversions enjoyed by his children, Ronnel seeks to separate them, believing that Jasper's presence at Skyreach is no longer necessary after Ellion’s birth.
At his wife's bequests, he writes to Queen Rhaenys, offering his youngest daughter Valaena as a lady in waiting for her now that she has come of age, and using a new vacancy in the kingsguard as an opportunity, he suggests Jasper be given a white cloak as well in the same letter. Both offers are accepted, and House Peake further places itself firmly in the camp of Queen Rhaenys.
Ronnel is surprised and irritated when news reaches him of the death of Lord Olyvar Fowler. While it is reportedly an accident, he knows the truth and is angered that his children murdered the man before their hold over Skyreach could be more firmly secured with the birth of a few spares.
Ronnel now journeys to King’s Landing alongside his liege lord to join the festivities, hoping to further increase his influence at such a large gathering of nobility.
Family Tree:
Supporting Characters:
Hubert Peake - Magnate Glendon Peake - Magnate

I'm planning out a Fantasy RPG in the Cypher system. The game has an emphasis on traditional dungeon-crawling, monster-slaying and treasure-hunting, as familiar tropes for a party of players who are used to D&D.
Firstly I'm astonished at the lack of guidance which the Cypher system provides for Artifact rules. It's remarkable that there aren't "recommended power at level" guidelines i.e. "Level 1 Artifact should not do x"; "Level 6 Artifact could do y + z". Anyway, we are where we are.
Given that I'm trying to bring a D&D party into Cypher, I want artifacts which are going to click with them mechanically (basic magic item provides a modifier to attack and damage, with more exotic items providing different or additional boons). So here are some questions I've got, that I'm hoping this community can help me with.
1) Can / should Artifacts follow the D&D model of a static bonus to attack rolls or damage? Cypher challenge seems to be exclusively modified in 3 point steps. Does this mean that a "+1 Longsword" in D&D equates to a "+1 Longsword" or a "Longsword which Eases attack rolls by 1" in the Cypher system? If the latter, and we're talking in terms of Assets and Easing exclusively, then I'm severely limiting the scope of Artifacts to "boost" as far as attack success rates - there's no way there should be a weapon which Eases attack rolls by 3 steps, surely? What would be the downside of the Artifact granting a static bonus to your attack roll, based on the Artifact level? (i.e. level 1 provides a +1; level 6 provides a +6).
2) Can / should Cypher artifacts deal different damage types? We're all familiar I'm sure with the magic holy mace which deals Radiant damage, or the flaming sword which deals Fire damage. I'm really uncertain what the impact of changing a weapon's damage does, in the game. Is this something I should stay away from, or should I embrace it?
3) Can / should Artifacts grant Focus Abilities? Let's take the flaming longsword example above. While as a level 1 artifact it might deal fire damage, can a higher level version of the artifact (or a different weapon entirely) grant the Hurl Flame ability from the Bears a Halo of Fire Focus?
4) Can / should Artifacts deal status effects? The Major and Minor effect on an attack roll is left fairly open for player and GM to decide what makes sense in the fiction, but can an Artifact define what happens on a Minor or Major effect? For example, the Vorpal Sword would would cut off the head of a target on a Major Effect (insta-kill most things) or immediately move a PC down the damage track (if wielded by a villain). Or a Sword of Lightning inflicting a daze effect on a Minor, or a stun effect on a Major - you get my drift.
I don't want to reinvent the wheel here. I've got hundreds of magic items which my players are going to recognise from D&D and will be happy with, which I'm willing to convert into Cypher. I just don't know how straightforward that conversion is going to be. Hopefully you'll all give me some pointers and this will be a much easier exercise!
TIA

Envy and Help Giving, Part 1
https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2020-62974-001.pdf
One of envy’s instantiations is to increase, not decrease, dependence to keep someone down as a manifestation of malicious envy. They are actively disabled and kept dependent on purpose if their independence is especially aggravating to the envier’s self-esteem.
In this research, we explored and demonstrated a relatively implicit and covert means of undermining envied targets—namely, helping them in a way that retains their future dependence, rather than in a way that increases their autonomy.
Unfavorable social comparisons trigger envy in those who make the person about themselves (social comparison) instead of admire (just seeing them, for the period of admiration).
In the current research, we focused on unfavorable, upward social comparisons, which are comparisons individuals make with others whom they perceive as superior to themselves. These upward social comparisons often trigger envy. Envy is among the most powerful emotional forces of human nature.
Envy is based in lack circuitry, namely not having something. This is slightly different than fear of loss circuitry, so it is less about pathways of addiction which implies possession of the addicting substance and another about unmet desire.
In addition to being conceptualized as a dispositional trait, envy also is defined as a situationally driven emotion—namely, as a state that occurs “when a person lacks another’s superior quality, achievement, or possession, and either desires it or wishes that the other lacked it” (Parrott & Smith, 1993, p. 906)
Malicious envy entails hostile feelings, thoughts and actions aimed at harming the envied other
According to the first account, malicious and benign envy vary not only in consequences but also in feelings and thoughts, with malicious envy entailing hostile feelings, thoughts, and action tendencies aimed at harming the envied other and benign envy entailing feelings, thoughts, and action tendencies aimed at improving the outcome of the envious person (van de Ven, Zeelenberg, & Pieters, 2009)
Painful feeling of envy instigates malicious motivations
We primarily focused on help-giving behaviors, and we examined and demonstrated the notion that to the extent that the painful feeling of envy toward an upward social comparison target instigates malicious motivations, it impedes helping behaviors and particularly affects the type of help that is provided to the envied target.
Envious people belittle, deceive, victimize, sabotage and undermine those they envy. All around, it shows dehumanization of the envied.
For example, envious people have been found to belittle those they envy (Salovey & Rodin, 1984; Vecchio, 1995); experience schadenfreude, that is, take pleasure in their suffering (Lange et al., 2018; R. H. Smith et al., 1996; van de Ven et al., 2015); deceive them; victimize them; sabotage their outcomes; and socially undermine them (Duffy, Ganster, & Pagon, 2002; Duffy et al., 2012; Gino & Pierce, 2009; Jensen, Patel, & Raver, 2014; E. Kim & Glomb, 2014; Moran & Schweitzer, 2008; Salovey & Rodin, 1984; Silver & Sabini, 1978; R. H. Smith & Kim, 2007; Vecchio, 1995).
Increasing future dependence is seen as a way of covertly undermining envied target from engaging in behaviors that aggravate envy.
We add to this literature by exploring and demonstrating a relatively implicit and covert means of undermining maliciously envied targets— namely, helping them in a way that retains their future dependence, rather than in a way that increases their autonomy.
When family or friends do not feel that their envy is acceptable, they will engage in covert rather than overt actions that they think will not allow them to go detected as participating in behind the scenes antisocial behavior against the envied
Consequently, we postulated that following upward envy-evoking social comparisons, people who encounter malicious motivations may opt to vent these motivations by using subtle and implicit means to undermine their envied targets (Jensen et al., 2014), especially in contexts in which individuals are generally expected to help and cooperate with each other (e.g., among friends, family, colleagues in the workplace, or members of the same team). In the present research, we used the context of teams to explore such potential subtle undermining and malicious consequences of envy.
Envy is strongly associated with a threat to one’s self-esteem (Tesser, 1988) and is predominantly evoked when the comparison target is otherwise similar and when the comparison domain is self-relevant (Feather, 1989, 1991; Parrott & Smith, 1993; Salovey & Rodin, 1984; R. H. Smith, 1991; Tesser & Collins, 1988; Vecchio, 1995, 2000)
In teams that are expected to work together, teammates in envy of other team members will maximize covert means of undermining
Moreover, given that teammates are typically expected to cooperate and coordinate with each other (Holland, Gaston, & Gomes, 2000), we postulated that when working in teams, envious people may be particularly prone to vent their malicious motivations by using covert means to undermine their envied peers
The fear of being envied leads to people increasing a prosocial interaction style. This can look like “And we couldn’t have done it without you” in donations style language or the trick some have been told of when someone is jealous ask them to help you to get them accustomed to feeling on your side. Seeking dependency implies incompetence to the envier, which lessens their feelings of inferiority. This study discounted gender, but interestingly this behavior is exactly what women are told to do when men are being aggressive towards them, implying that what the men may be feeling may indeed be envy for these women
First, the fear of being envied often increases envied targets’ attempts to ward off the potentially destructive effects of malicious envy—for example, by increased engagement in prosocial behaviors (van de Ven, Zeelenberg, & Pieters, 2010). To that end, envied targets may opt to request help from an envious peer as a means to flatter and praise them. Additionally, by seeking help, the envied target admits to at least some degree of dependency and incompetence, which in turn may lessen the threat they induce. Indeed, recent research found that revealing failures encountered on the path to success may be an effective means to reduce malicious envy (Brooks et al., 2019).
Less friendly and less generosity is a sign of increasing envy
Indeed, the fact that Rodriguez Mosquera et al. (2010) found that one of the key markers of being envied is the envied targets realizing that the envious individuals are becoming less friendly and generous toward them implies that encounters in which the envied target needs yet doesn’t receive sufficient support or assistance from envious others do in fact occur.
By opting to provide their peers with dependent rather than autonomous help, individuals can overtly conform (at least partially) to norms of cooperation and helping yet, at the same time, subtly maintain the help seekers’ incapability and dependency
In our work, we studied effects of malicious motivations toward envied outperforming others on help giving. We predominantly explored the type of help provided, distinguishing between two types of help: dependent help, which consists of providing the solution to the immediate problem only and thus reinforces recipients’ future reliance on others’ assistance, and autonomous help, where the helper also provides tools that develop the recipients’ capacities and enables them to later solve problems independently (Bamberger & Levi, 2009; Nadler, Harpaz-Gorodeisky, & BenDavid, 2009). By opting to provide their peers with dependent rather than autonomous help, individuals can overtly conform (at least partially) to norms of cooperation and helping yet, at the same time, subtly maintain the help seekers’ incapability and dependency
Envious people can be confused as non-envious people when understood in this way. One simply has to look if those they help become more or less dependent to see if they are envious or non-envious
. In organizational contexts, it also can serve as a source of power because of the reciprocal obligation incurred by the help recipient (Flynn, 2003b; Thibaut & Kelley, 1959), make people look cooperative, and enhance their perceived expertise and consequent performance evaluations, thereby boosting their self-esteem (Flynn, 2003a, 2006; Grant & Mayer, 2009; Hui, Lam, & Law, 2000; Warburton & Terry, 2000). On the one hand, envious people’s self-esteem threat (Tesser, 1988) may lead them to be excessively motivated to help others in order to gain the above-mentioned benefits. On the other hand, when contemplating whether to help an envied outperformer who triggers malicious motivations, additional factors may come into play and outdo these potential benefits. As noted above, these malicious motivations consist of the desire to level the gap by pulling down the envied target—that is, to belittle and otherwise harm them. Relatedly, numerous studies document a link between malicious motivations toward envied targets and schadenfreude, that is, taking pleasure in the maliciously envied target’s suffering (e.g., Cikara & Fiske, 2012; Hareli & Weiner, 2002; Krizan & Johar, 2012; Lange et al., 2018; Leach & Spears, 2008; R. H.
People are less willing to help a superior envied peer than a neutral peer. People show clearly marked lower willingness to help a superior peer.Hypothesis 1a: People will be less willing to help superior envied peers compared to neutral peers. Hypothesis 1b: The link between the type of peer (superior or neutral) and helping will be driven by feelings of envy and the consequent malicious motivations toward the peer. Specifically, increased feelings of envy toward a superior peer compared to a neutral peer will lead to relatively greater malicious motivations toward the superior peer, which in turn will lead to relatively lower willingness to help the superior peer.
Autonomous help is better for the receivers and more expensive for the givers, showing that those who provide true independence for others have stronger altruism drives.
When deciding whether to provide help, people also may contemplate about the type of help they provide: autonomous help or dependent help (Bamberger & Levi, 2009; Nadler et al., 2009). Autonomous help encourages recipients’ independence by providing tools that enable them to solve problems independently, while dependent help, which solely provides the solution to the specific problem, increases recipients’ dependency and need for future reliance on others’ assistance. Although autonomous help is often more beneficial for recipients (Geller & Bamberger, 2012), it obviously entails higher costs for its providers (e.g., investing more time and effort). From the helper’s perspective, recent work by Nadler and Chernyak-Hai (2014) found guiders were more likely to provide autonomous help to high- (vs. low-) status help seekers whom they viewed as more motivated and as sufficiently competent to make use of such help. We, however, offer that this may not be the case when the help seeker is a maliciously envied peer.
Moreover, given that envy-driven malicious motivations are typically socially unacceptable, and thus often not explicitly voiced (R. H. Smith, 1991; Vecchio, 2000), these hostile motivations are most likely to be manifested in covert, rather than overt, behaviors.
Extending this notion, we proposed that to the extent that the superior envied peer instigates malicious motivations, envious individuals are likely to prefer providing the superior peer with dependent rather than autonomous help. For maliciously motivated envious individuals, creating a situation in which the envied peer is dependent on them entails benefits associated with preserving a particular advantage, thereby restricting the disadvantageous gap and increasing their impaired self-esteem, sense of competence, and schadenfreude (enjoyment of others’ dependency and inability). Moreover, given that envy-driven malicious motivations are typically socially unacceptable, and thus often not explicitly voiced (R. H. Smith, 1991; Vecchio, 2000), these hostile motivations are most likely to be manifested in covert, rather than overt, behaviors.
When possible people will not help a superior other. But when it makes them look like they’re not team players, they will opt to make the person as dependent as possible to increase control to lower feelings of envy. They do not show that they care about the lowered opportunities this creates for other people that might have needed that person’s success. All they care about is relief from their envy.
Correspondingly, we expected the malicious motivations to be more observable in implicit behaviors, such as the type of help provided, than in the explicit decision of whether or not to help.
By keeping those they envy dependent, the envier is able to highlight their inability and dependence to attempt to get relief from aggressive feelings of hate and envy.
By opting to provide their envied peers with dependent rather than autonomous help, individuals can overtly be cooperative and help while at the same time subtly maintaining the envied help seekers’ inability and dependence.
Hypotheses
Hypothesis 2a: People will be less willing to provide autonomous help to superior envied peers compared to neutral peers. Hypothesis 2b: The link between the type of peer (superior or neutral) and type of help (autonomous vs. dependent) will be driven by feelings of envy and the consequent malicious motivations toward the peer. Specifically, increased feelings of envy toward a superior peer compared to a neutral peer will lead to relatively greater malicious motivations toward the superior peer, which in turn will lead to relatively lower willingness to provide the superior peer with autonomous help.
People who are prone to envy persist unnecessarily in comparing their own state with that of others
People who are prone to envy persist unnecessarily in comparing their own state with that of others (R. H. Smith et al., 1999). Recently, Lange and Crusius (2015) suggested that people also differ in their propensity to experience the different types of envy, that is, in their dispositional benign and malicious envy propensities.
Hypothesis 3: People with more envy will want to provide less help, particularly when the help-seeking peer is someone they perceive outperforms them.
Hypothesis 3: Individual’s dispositional malicious envy will be negatively related to their willingness to provide help, especially autonomous help to their peers, particularly when the help-seeking peer is an outperformer.
Doing things for someone without showing them how it’s done is a way to keep people dependent and resolve painful feelings of envy
, and three items measured their willingness to provide dependent help ( .92; e.g., “When helping Terry with a work-related problem, that I am more knowledgeable about than him, I would solve it for him, without showing him how I solved it”).4
People were much more willing to help someone they didn’t envy than someone they did.
In these analyses, we controlled for benign motivations in order to account for the possibility that participants may have been more willing to help the nonenvied (vs. envied) peer due to increased benign motivations,7 rather than increased malicious motivations toward the latter.8

This is gonna sound insane and it is. But here it is.
So for some reason. When I was a child. I accidentally cut my finger and looked at the blood and just pressed my finger into the window sill and just thought to myself "I am now bonded with this place"
Ever since then, I keep having dreams of looking through that big window and looking into my backyard. Except it is now some kind of portal. I can see things that you normally couldn't. Things on the spiritual or Astral plane. It's both terrifying and beyond amazing. But mostly scary ah lol. Sometimes when I focus I say out loud "I want to see other dimensions" and it's like a tuner. I can "scroll" and the view out of my window changes. From concrete buildings with futuristic fixtures to a desert with oasis communities with wierd looking biological/mechanical airplanes.
I see humanoids and cryptids that roam in front of me. It's so weird. Terrifyingly cool. I don't know why this happens but I've used this technique in other lucid dreams. I just focus and whatever door or place I'm at can be changed. Like once I was stuck in a tiny capsule home that I had locked. And I was looking through the sliding window. I focus and everything changes. Different landscapes and different times fly by. From deserted woods, to a frozen landscape and lastly a beach with an amazing view of the mountains and the sea. This weird dog like creature is outside. I stay inside outnof safety and I focus harder. Its now years later in the same place. But now there's people. My capsule home now had a porch and there were people sitting on beach chairs laughing in front of fire. They appeared to.drinking. Out in the water were people and what looked like dinosaur like creatures. Oddly coexisting. They all seemed weirdly content. One was even.being pulled by some Nessy looking dinosaur on a waveboard.
I step outside and am greeted by the people. "Ah! You're finally here! We were wondering when you were gonna join us finally!"
I look at him.confused and timidly reply "What do you mean? I just got here. What is this place?"
They all look amused
"Ah yes. We get visitors like you from time to time. This is a place that everyone ends up eventually. It's like a meeting spot for travelers like you. A place where we all.can co-exist peacefully. We're happy your here finally!!"
And he hands me.a drink and take it still shocked.
Apart of me still was so shocked. I could feel how real everything felt. But the peace didn't last long. As I was shot into the unknown again. Before my dream ends. I remember walking with an old man. He was dressed very posh. All black.and a really nice black hat. White beard and a very blank expression on his face.
I told him about all my journeys and the abilities it.grants me whenever I dream walk. This doesn't phase him even a little. Like he's been told this a million times.
I thank him for listening and tell him that I.was lost and needed help getting home. That I'm not in the right universe. That I'm in some place where magic exists.
He just looks at me and simply goes "You are home"
The moment he says this I am flooded with images of everything. How it was all.conmected. Einstein was right. Time and space want linear. It was happening all simultaneously. Like the past present and future were simply places you could visit as if you were walking to your neighbors. Imsaw dragons, monsters, magic.and even places where our favorite TV shows were real. It was all there.
And he puts his hand on my shoulder and I wake up. Fulfilling my request to go home.

So I've been pretty busy in life this but I'm finally able to catch up on some of this. I wanted to contribute some of my thoughts and findings. I assume The Mark is drakes preferred place to stay when in NYC. EP knows something but is milking it for all he's got, but there is still a level credence to his words. Which means the tissa is on the right train of thought, I also think y'all are way over playing the dog angle. So with all that being said
-1/22/2023 and 7/27/2023 are the two dates highlighted by EP
-1/22 being the CA incident
-7/27 being an incident involving the Kaspian
-EP monitors security cameras as evident from his Facebook positing's. Utilizing a Smart AI program entitled "Remark". Looks like it was employed to read temperatures after covid.
-Say's The Mark changed how they observe or try to determine if someone is a minor because of whistle blower Theodore. Could this AI determine this in some way? IDK enough about it.
-7/20/23 is the date of an email from the mark security. "Get out of jail free card"
-In the same tweet he says "(Been three months now)" Is this referencing three months after the email was printed it was thrown away or three months that he been demoted to working the service entry and its now just being tossed? Again, idk but it's something to think about.
7/27 is the real date of concern. The CA shit is misleading or something else entirely. Or at least that's how the collective of tweets read.
That being said:
CA has also done something or not done something.
I think in line with Tissa. CA's article is far to scrambled to be a piece from an educated journalist. Going back breifly through hus pieces, hes either rushed to type it. Is being guided by a lawyer or other force, or is trying to tell us something in a porrly coded way.
The part about the whole article that make me interested is the whole part about the individual that let him stay in the hotel while waiting instead of being out on the street in winter.
-Is he waiting before or after the alleged incident?
-Before means he may have caught drake and his entourage off guard. Being somewhere he shouldn't have been.
-After means his exit was earlier or more abrupt than CA expected.
-I believe the former. Someone was fired because they let someone into an area that no one should have been allowed.
-This is where two employees were fired but not where EP saw the traumatizing incident.
Continuing:
-There are no open-source cameras on or near the 77th and Madison intersection that I could find
-July 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 24, and 26 were dates at the Barclays center
-July 25, 2023, and July 26, 2023, Were dates at MSG

• January 22, 2023, was at apollo theater.

-The Remark video program runs through an internet browser. Or at least EP acesses it that way while on the job. I dont know enough about computers to know if there is a way that this could be in the cloud somehow. Somehow it was transfered from EP to a flash after the fact. If its observed via browser (granted secured site maybe) could it be accessed the same way I cloud leaks were? Or is it most likely scrubbed at this point. I don't know. Just Spit balling.
-Others are right. This EP is definitely trying to coax drake specifically into a payday. He's overplaying his hand an will probably be hit with a blackmail suit. At this point it's pretty clear cut, at least from my viewpoint, that its what he is doing. We will not get the hard evidence from him before he is either paid or taken to court.
EDIT:
-I think there more to the CodeofSilence Instagram page.
-Drake an any of his entourage will have people scrubbing the daylights out of their social media pages. just as CA did.

I feel it’s getting increasingly harder to design exotics. So I sat down and racked my brain for exotic armour ideas for hunters that encourage fun/varied/viable play styles. Potentially a balance nightmare but read along & lemme know what you think ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Format: [Exotic armour name, exotic effect name, armour slot/affinity]
Tooth & Nail, Permafrost [Stasis arms] - on field stasis shards can be detonated, dealing stasis damage and inflicting stasis debuffs on affected targets. Stasis shards grant greater increased melee ability regen.
Bones of Eao (reworked), Lawless - [Leg armour] - grants an additional jump with elemental effects (with reasonable cooldown): On additional jump, Stasis: Grants damage resist for 3 seconds Strand: Threadlings spawn Solar: extends radiant & increases sprint speeds Arc: Is a blink and re-jolts recently jolted targets Void: nullifies fall damage.
Cinders Silhouette, flicker - [Golden Gun Helm]: Provides Six shooter with refunded shots on kill extending the timer by 0.5 per kill (excluding ignitions), up to 10 shots. Each kill grants six shooter increased damage based on the number of targets killed. Provides Deadeye ignitions on headshots regardless of kill and blinds affected targets.
Tendrils of the Sky, Collapse - [Nightstalker arms]: Shadowshot siphons enemies caught inside granting health regeneration into an over shield. Enemies executed by Shadowshot grant stacks of collapse up to three. Using your dodge consumes a stack leaving behind a mini tether.
Katabasis’ Torment, Splinter Cell - [Nightstalker Chest]: Abilities cast while invis are more potent, dealing more damage and extending their duration.
Omen of Dusk, Afterimage - [Nightstalker legs]: Sprint & attack speed are hugely increased in spectral blades. On super recast, cast a long range piercing and weakening slash that deals accumulated damage based on targets killed by light and heavy attacks.
Nobleman’s Dart, Pincushion [Strand arms]: Threaded spike lacerates a single target repeatedly piercing the first target hit while unraveling and severing them. Continuous fire extends pincushion, up to 15 lacerations, while also refunding special/primary ammo used on the target.
Death’s bargain, Endothermic Paradox [Stasis arms]: Withering blade kills transfer chill rounds to stasis weapons. Chill rounds apply accumulating stacks of slow. Hitting targets affected by chill rounds with withering blade instantly freezes them.
Jaws of the Lost Ahamkara, Sub Zero Catalyst [Stasis Helm]: Silence & Squall spawn stasis shards on hit. Stasis shards seek out nearby targets shattering on collision. Defeated stasis afflicted targets spawn additional shards depending on enemy rank.
Charge Solitude, Grounded [Arc Chest]: Combination blows send arc shockwaves behind the target, jolting and damage enemies. The Jolt & damage scale with the stack of combination blows.
Electrostatic charisma, Twinkle Toes [Arc Legs]: Running near large groups of enemies makes you amplified, dodging while amplified causes arc explosions, removing amplification and blinding targets.
Feelin’ Lucky, Skadoosh [Solar arms] Your solar projectiles gain full court and their own set of affects, Proximity knife: Bounces between targets and applies scorch Weighted: Has no gravity Knife trick: Homes to nearby scorched targets and crits
Pools of brilliance, Light infusion [Solar chest]: Solar weapon final blows overcharge melee abilities. An overcharged Solar melee ability causes the primary target to passively spread scorch to nearby targets until ignition.
Das all I gat

Starting in 2017, Equality Labs ( EL ) began receiving funds for it's caste survey from many philanthropic and angel investment organizations. Till date, EL has raised close to a million dollars via grants. Some key contributions have been from Omidyar Network ( $ 50,000 ), Open Society Foundation ( $ 477,025 ), Ford Foundation ( $ 525,000 ), New Media Ventures ( undisclosed amount ) and San Francisco Foundation ( $ 124,000 ). Approximately a million dollar in funds, and EL decided to drop a half-baked survey which became the face of Caste Faultline of India in the US. Some shady associations and intentions of these organizations can be read in the links given below. By 2019, EL started its activities around pressing issues in India, particularly the CAA protests. They also released a toolkit titled ' Organizing against Hindu Fascism ' to organize protests and run online campaigns against the Indian establishment. Quite a diverse set of interests for a team dedicated on caste equity in US ( claimed by EL, not me ), isn't it?
The 2018 caste survey report, EL's one trick pony, started earning it's return on investment, and it did well indeed.

1. On May 22, 2019, EL in partnership with South Asian Americans Leading Together ( SAALT ), API Chaya, and the office representative of Pramila Jayapal ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pramila_Jayapal ) held a congressional briefing on the existence of Caste discrimination in the US.
   
2. In December 2019, Brandeis University, Massachusetts, became the first University to add caste to it's non-discrimination policy, which was based on EL report.
   
3. In July 2020, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing registered a lawsuit against IT firm Cisco Systems Inc. and two of its employees on the grounds of caste discrimination against one of its Indian-American employee ( the lawsuit which we have gone through in previous posts ), in which the EL report was used as evidence to prove caste discrimination in the US.
   
4. In December 2021, Harvard University recognised caste-based discrimination after EL gave a presentation of it's caste survey report at the University.
   
5. In June 2022, EL targeted Google alleging the tech giant promoted caste discrimination in the company. Subsequently, other tech giants like Apple, and IBM added caste into their non-discrimination policies.
   

By now, I hope readers are aware of the predatory and persuasive techniques of EL to establish the presence of caste discrimination as a wide and day-to-day issue in the US.
Anyways,

1. In December 2022, Brown University banned caste discrimination based on the EL report.
   
2. In February 2023, Seattle became the first US city to ban caste discrimination in the state based on the EL report.
   
3. In March 2023, California state senator Aisha Wahab introduced a bill to abolish caste discrimination in California state, based on the EL report. Bill was passed by California state senate council on May 2023.
   

Indian news portals were all too busy to report this phenomena of caste based discrimination in a foreign soil. The News Minute, Scroll, The Wire, Deccan Herald, The Print, Business Standard etc. all rode the wave caused by a single report presented by EL. Political discussions were soon to catch fire with Indians mourning how something as vile as caste got it's roots deeply infiltrated in the US.
Many Hindu American communities had voiced their concerns on these laws pushing the caste narratives onto South Asians by default, when there were ample amount of anti-discriminatory laws already available in the US, even ones based on someone's ancestry, which was the basis for caste discrimination. Multiple supporters of the 'caste in US' narrative and Seattle anti caste discrimination laws were declaring themselves as ' dominant caste ' and begging for forgiveness, as though it created adequate immunization. It had become a Hindu/Sikh/Jain/Muslim burden, as Americans of white European descent were declared outside the scope of caste. The key sponsors of the Seattle law had bigger goals - destruction of capitalism and the establishment of socialism ( socialist Kshama Iyengar Sawant had elaborated it here : https://youtu.be/7WYKrFLtj_k ) , " de-Brahmanization of wellness traditions " etc. Seattle Council Member Lisa Herbold even went on to say that people didn't need to disclose their caste in public for this law to be enforced upon them ( https://youtu.be/5OzGI8O3HOA ). There may not be any visible markers of your caste identity, but if a self-identified oppressed caste member says so, then it is. If this sounds ridiculous to you, then you are not alone. Caste was being weaponized to achieve all manner of aims, it even is now.
This post has become quite long, so I will be breaking it here. In the upcoming post, we will be discussing the reactions to the anti caste discrimination laws, the Carnegie Endowment Report that dismantled EL's claims and some reflections on caste equity mandates seen in Indian public offices.
Links for further reading :
https://thedisinfolab.org/cost-of-caste-equality-labs-caste-binary-blm/#rb-Dalitstan--a-Foreign-Experiment-in-Weaponization-of-Caste
https://americankahani.com/perspectives/you-might-consider-yourself-beyond-the-reach-of-seattle-caste-law-you-would-be-wrong/

It’s dark. Loud. Screams, terrible screeches all around. A metallic scent wafting about the air. A vast unending sea lay within the surrounding shadows. Something takes hold of his leg, his leg tucked away within its jaw. He is dragged through the iron scented, pitch black swamp. Can’t breathe. A putrid taste meets his tongue, trying not to swallow as animal instinct takes over in a helpless bout for air. Like fresh morning coffee, the liquid nearly soothes his throat. The revolting taste would have made him heave it all back up if it hadn’t happened so fast. His consciousness is slipping away, this is it.
He awakes. The entity that had wrapped its maws around his leg lay stiff. On close inspection he finds it hadn't suddenly been blessed with grace or any such virtue. What remained of it lay hollow yet with the faintest spasms. It is being consumed. A slave to a system that would like to see to it that it is dealt with and subsequently forgotten within the days passing. He gets up, wading his hands through this decrepit pool. Putting pressure onto his leg is met with a sudden and excruciating force. He falls before hobbling on hands and knees further into the void.
No way to know how long it had been. Days, hours, minutes, seconds. He feels his body beginning to give out. He continues on. Again his body feels as though it is about to fail him. Again he continues. On a loop he begins to tire only to keep going on. In the midst of this monotonous process he has his first real thought; Almost there. He stops, sits up. Looks around. Still nothing. He thinks to himself some more; Where? He doesn't move. Another thought reaches the forefront of his mind; This is hell. His head sinks. He has given up. Content with whatever is to come next. A stomach barren of anything resembling nutritional value in tow with a throat dry enough to collect dust argued in opposition to the sentiment.
He waits silently. Doesn't make even the slightest tremor. For how long yet to be determined. The faintest rise of liquid followed immediately by its descent. Then again. And again. The ripples become more violent. Soundwaves now reach his ear with frequencies so low the most seasoned hunters could miss. Plip. Plip. He listens. Plip. Plip. The noise becomes louder. Something light is making its way towards him. Plip, Plip. Plip, Plip. On four legs. Small. Easy prey. Just need to keep waiting. PLIP, PLIP. He launches toward the noise. Nearly had it. He scrambles, crawling towards the startled entity. Got a leg. He holds on tight, not content with letting his meal get away. Puppeted by his own biological limitations, he uses the leg as if it were a rope with his prize at the other end. Running off of his own body fat he claws his way up, dragging the helpless creature closer and closer. It tries to kick him off. He pulls the leg down towards the bed of that metallic pool. He summons the strength to snap something in the leg, leaving the creature crippled. This is his opportunity to overtake the creature. His reason and steady thinking smothered by the threat of starvation permits him to pull the poor creature's head below the surface. It struggles. Both these creatures fight with everything on the line. The more desperate of the two will determine which one is to go on with the suffering and strife that comes with being in a world such as this, and which will go on as an offering to the cycle of violence that rules the beings that inhabit it. The creature's will is broken. Its struggle leaves it without energy or oxygen. By sheer reflex it takes a breath, opening the floodgates for a great wave of dense liquid to make its way into the lungs. His body has won. It has procured the necessary resources for the sake of his struggle.
With a warm belly he sluggishly pulls himself further along. He tries to wait out the rest of his time, trying to outwit his animalistic sense of preservation. He gives up fighting it. Keeps his mind occupied in another way. What else is in here? How long before I'm the one with my head held down? The very thought of this sends a spark down his back as he halts all movement. He moves with greater purpose, making methodical calculations in his mind as to how much force and speed he puts into each movement. No matter how cautious or slow it's always too loud. If he can hear it, so can anything else. During his gradual progress he takes note of the depth of this shallow metallic sea. He feels for any fluctuations within it. Nothing abnormal yet. Perhaps some beast skulks just beneath the surface remaining undetected. He tenses up in anticipation of such an attack, waiting, conjuring up a myriad of strategies to employ against the unseen enemy. The liquid rises ever so slightly. He attacks. Nothing. He goes stiff. He knows he has just revealed his immediate location to this lowly beast. It got the better of him. After all this time? No. He won’t let some cowardly animal with no more thought process than basic instinct beat him. He is better, more clever, far more deserving of life. He snaps back from his trail of thoughts, diverting focus back to his surroundings. He closes his eyes, putting his other senses at the forefront of his mind. Nothing. He could feel there was something lurking, watching him. It has to be waiting for him to lower his guard, the perfect moment of weakness to take hold of. The liquid around him remains calm with only slight movement. There is no noise. There is nothing. He continues on, weighed down by the things he cannot see.
Time stops once again as he continues his slow trek through the unending sea. The eyes do not, they are just far enough to remain undetected. That much he is sure of. He hopes and prays that something will happen, anything to break the stagnant, menacing aura he is encased within. He prays. Prays that something, even death, will free him from his solitude. His prayers go unanswered. He knows this feeling too well. He has been shunned, if not outright forgotten by whichever force made him come to be. This is the only reasonable conclusion he could possibly draw. No omnipotent presence would subject its own creation to this type of isolation. As he reflects on these thoughts he can feel something deep within his chest ignite. Quickly, it turns into a magnificent blaze. It spreads like a wildfire throughout his body, if it doesn't escape now it will scorch him until all that remains is ash. He screams incoherently. He subjects the void around him to a fury of pure hatred with words alone. He intends to use this great flame within him to burn everything around him, but there is nothing to burn, nothing he can cast into ruin. This only makes the fire more intense. He begins to flail his body around like a ragdoll. He needs for something to come find him. He needs to tear something apart. His screams grate his vocal cords into a bloody heap of flesh. His bloodlust grants him the energy to stand for the first time in a millennium. He runs into the darkness. He will not stop. He cannot stop. Then he feels it. A guttural vibration echoes across the waters. He goes still. A low hum follows. All at once the liquid begins to bubble, small finned creatures jump out of the water in a repeated frenzy, propelled by powerful tails. They explode into a sporadic boil, extending far beyond his field of view. From the darkness protrudes what appears to be a human figure. He braces himself as it slowly makes its way towards him. He can hear his heart rate increase with every step. It pushes forward at a steady crawl. His breathing begins to fall out of sync. It continues on, seemingly unphased by his presence. He knows how little time he has to act. It takes another step forward. He must act now. He runs toward the figure with stretched arms, able to finally satiate his bloodlust. He grabs the figure by the throat, digging his nails into it. It lets out a pathetic whimper. This is his chance. He bites down on its neck resulting in a satisfying crack one might hear snapping a branch. There is no struggle. The figure gurgles as its body lay limp. This game isn’t fit for someone of his caliber. He wants a fight. He takes a moment to look upon his trophy as it lay in the fetal position, pleading for mother to come and make it all better. A boy, likely a squire of some sort, stared up at him. The boy's eyes were blank and begging him for some sort of relief. All he can do is watch as the reality of what he has just done sets in. The boy had a lightweight sword which now lay submerged. He knows there is only one way to save the boy. He searches for the blade, it can’t be far. Wading through the liquid, he searches, knowing each additional second it takes to find only contributes more to the poor boy's misery. Every second that passes he can hear the exasperated breaths that only turn into choking spasms. Here it is, the boy need not wait any longer. As he stands over the boy his attention is diverted. His body tells him to look out into the abyss. He stares for some time, unable to look away. His eyes fixate on the darkness. He sees it. Its unhinged jaw with many lengthy black vines floating atop the surface of the waters. Its eyes stare through him in the same way the boys had. Knotted hair is draped on either side of its head, it appears as if clumps have been ripped out by force. There is skin flaking off of its face revealing gray necrosed patches. Its body stays completely still in a hunched position. Nestled in its mouth where the vines originate are small white dots that appear as though they were the only visible stars in the night sky. The vines extend as they float towards him slowly creeping along. He had always been well acquainted with fear. It has been an ever present force that has pushed him to do the things he never would have otherwise. It has become a comforting presence, reliable, trustworthy. Though at times they may have been at odds, fear has been his greatest supporter, a true companion to guide him throughout life. He knows as long as he listens to fear he can pull through. So why can’t he hear it now?

I'm halfway through the Ashlands and I haven't died a single time to enemies. I'll grant you they are hard and I'm constantly chugging every potion know to Valhalla, but I can handle my stamina and a group of enemies. WHAT I CANNOT HANDLE IS THE GOD DAMN LAVA HOLY FUCK I'M LOSING MY MIND. I'm not being pushed into the lava by our lumpy green friends, nooooooo... what has brought my clubs level from 75 to 60 is purely the Flametal pillars. Half of them bug out and I can only float on them, run out of stamina, and fall off into the lava before I have time to throw a basalt bomb in the right area. OR, I'm merrily skipping between platforms to the promised land of flowers and succor when a singular Lilliput lump of fire sends me careening over the edge and back to Odin's fucking bosom.

-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-
Romuna Administrative Orbital Headquarters, United Confederation Occupied Territories of Earth (QUAL-ZANV)
May 8, 1945
-------------------------------------------------------------
Commander Dunajski
- - - - - -
We were the watchful eyes over Earth. That was my job. The only thing second to that was the search for the missing pieces of my life.
As usual, however, that work was hard. After all, the past two years had been the same process. I get my human subordinates to find a list of names from anywhere: concentration camps, labour camps, ghettos, and all of those rotten places. Then, they'd hand me a report with the unimportant names blacked out and only the specific names I needed were left uncrossed. I had spent two years doing that process, every day on this station was spent doing that. Finding those two was the main goal of my life; It's what let me wake up every morning. The hope of a reunion.
But, until I got my hands on another report, I was keeping myself busy with monitoring my subordinates on the Romnua Space Headquarters as we orbited over Southern Africa. Something to help me take my mind off of everything was admiring our native Earth from my post. The golden deserts of Namibia and the green rainforests of the Congo dominated the view from the huge glass wall that separated us from the cold vacuum of space. Although I’ve been on this damn station for two years now, the sights never cease to get a gasp of amazement from me.
The Confederation used this station and 16 others to monitor and keep tabs on anything happening on Earth. We were the keen observers that protected Earth from any foreign incursion.
A bit ironic coming from the people who invaded us.
At least the Germans didn’t fill us with such lies.
The only reason why they chose me to run this joint human-Confederation sector was because I was an unwilling favourite of their high command. I was one of the best remaining generals in Poland. I served in the Great War and the Polish-Soviet War as a lowly troop, but I was a respected general by the time of the German invasion in 1939.
I defended my country for as long as I could. I resisted for a long time after our official surrender. When the Nazis got to me, they carted me off to a labour camp. Then I escaped and continued the fight on the British Isles, being airdropped and ferried out on multiple occasions. Once the Confederation arrived, my fight against the Nazis and their brutal occupation ended, but I was left without the sunshine of my life.
“Here’s the registered civilian report, sir,” a Lithuanian lieutenant saluted as he handed me a manila folder with a printed paper that had a list of names typed onto it. Even though Lithuania and Poland weren’t the greatest of chums before the war, occupation by the Soviet and Nazi barbarians created a sense of tragic camaraderie between our people.
“Did you file out the names?” I asked calmly, flipping open the folder. I kept my ears open for the response as I waded my hands across pages of paper with smooth flips.
“Yes, sir,” the lieutenant replied as my eyes scanned the paper. The names were crossed out in black marker. I scanned it top-to-bottom and page after page. I began to lose hope even more, but then again, it’s not like there was much left of it anyway.
I had been searching for them for two long years. Two years of going against the rules of our hulky alien occupiers. I used their systems to find evidence and our tools to file them out into something comprehensible. I wouldn’t trust an “AI” to find the names I was looking for. The Germans kept well organised records of everything well-organised, so a good thorough search was probably the best thing I had. Still, however, it was an arduous process.
But, just as that thought appeared in my mind, it was my eyes that had fixed on the one name I had been anticipating for the last two years:
Katarzyna Kaminski. My love.
I must’ve jumped with joy. I’d done it! I found her! After what? Six long years of waiting and searching! Finally! First my wife, and then that would open the gate to finding my son too! After so long! I’d see them again! This day was something to be remembered forever!
“Oh, you did your job spectacularly!” I cheered to the lieutenant. However, his expression was more grim.
“Ne, pone,” he advised sombrely in Lithuanian, shaking his head. "The top of the page.”
I was so hooked in my search for any sign of my family that I forgot to even read the title of the page. Looking up, my eyes locked onto the print and read. In a moment, my hopes were stamped out and rage and suffering swallowed my heart like the deep blue ocean.
Registered List of All Prisoners Killed in Auschwitz Death Camp in the Year of Our Lord 1942
Everything went silent in an instant. I froze upright with my eyes glued to the paper. My ears began to ring like a shell had just hit nearby. My face bubbled red in embarrassment, rage, and most of all, misery. My legs felt just about ready to collapse inward and my hips were ready to explode outwards. My body pushed against itself, betraying my fundamental being as my eyes reread the name over and over, trying to make some worthless attempt to console my burning body of emission. None of it worked.
My Katarzyna. Gone. In one sentence. All my joy trampled in a second.
She died not even with a proper burial. She died leaving her son and not knowing if her fighting husband would even embrace her again. All of my searching, and the result was this. This.
It seems that the story of my search for my loved ones ended here. But upon reviewing the rest of the list in silence, I couldn’t find a single mention of a Jakub Dunajski. All my hope was gone to the extent that I held out no idea that Jakub survived the camps.
If his mother didn’t, then he didn’t either.
The final verdict of my search hit me like a train: I would never see my family again.
That depressing day I had to leave them in September of that fateful year was the last time I’d ever see my son and wife again. Our paths diverged with me toling in labour camps hoping to escape to find them once more. And while I was fighting onwards in England, they were shipped to Auschwitz to die. While I was toiling in captivity, they were being beaten and tortured daily. While the Confederation swept across Europe, they were gassed or gunned down in their cots.
After all this time, the thought that I had been suppressing for my entire search was now the dominant ruler of my brain. It was the fact that I had failed them.
I did not sob loudly, I did not scream. Nor did I stamp the floor or tear the page from the folder. I resisted them all. As I had for the past six years. The only response the Lithuanian got from me was a barely audible whimper and a tear.
The tear rolled from my eye down my shaved cheek, slowly dripping down and curving up to my chin in a swift motion. It hung there delicately as if it was absorbing all of my pain into it. Then, when the load became too much for it to bear, it fell. Quickly slipping off and dropping down before it slapped against the white page with a plop. A stain that looked like a crater in no man’s land now rested, ingrained into the paper that killed my hope.
The paper that essentially killed my wife.
Silence engulfed the room and ringing my ears as the words and black marker on the paper became no more than a blur, incomprehensible and unidentifiable. That’s what I wanted anyway, every glance at the page would just finalise the fact that it all was over. That I was alone.
“Legion-Commander Henix wants to see you,” an unforgiving feminine alien voice came from behind me. I jumped in response as my head flew back to meet the alien.
It was a Yetiayhu. And, as was apparently commonplace, they had the typical fangs and talons that all species other than us seemed to have, along with a giant tail that had a little ball of fur at the very end of it. Adding onto that, the Yetiayhu had large expansive cool-coloured frills that were interrupted by little blackish-blue dots here and there, like some Amazonian animal. Their bodies were slimmer than others but still pretty much buff tanks compared to me.
“For what purpose?” I replied with a brow raised in suspicion. My experience in the military and as a resistance head gave me a good tutorial on how to suppress the tears in one’s voice. After years upon years of endless trial and error, I had pretty much perfected it. But, in the case of my reddened eyes, I brought the brim of my military cap down to obscure my eyes.
“He didn’t tell me. Get moving,” the Yetiayhu hissed, her frills fluttering in annoyance.
I almost forgot that the aliens didn’t give a shit about any of our feelings. I’m sure showing too much emotion was an offence in the Confederation military. Could you imagine emotion being a punishable offence? What sort of dystopian fascist hellhole did that!?
Oh wait, I could think of one: Nazi Germany.
My eyes subtly fixed on the Yetiayhu with a bit of contempt that she came to me at my worst moment. I just found out that my wife was unceremoniously killed in a death camp, and she was just acting as pouty as a kid. Granted, she didn’t know of my suffering, but that attitude is deserving of a wrist-slap back on my world.
Too bad for me, the world I’m referring to was no longer even ours anymore.
“You better show some respect,” I huffed, containing my emotions in a little capsule of misery.
“Last time I checked, you were still a transpec,” she scoffed. “Get to his office. Now.”
I couldn’t say no. The first was because she was right about our species’ standing as a “Transitional Species”. But the other reason was because the females of these species were huge. It made sense since their system of governance was a matriarchy. But even then, this bitchy Yetiayhu was a good 2.3 metres tall, towering over me by quite a bit.
Why the hell were these species so damn demonic? Did nature really just shit on us for all of evolution? Every single alien species I had ever seen was some sort of superhuman being. Was there some galactic hierarchy that I didn’t know of? But whatever, there was nothing I could ever do about that fact. The most concerning thing on my platter now was finding the fate of my only child. Whatever Henix had would have to come second.
But either way, I obliged. Leaving my little command sector with a scowl. The doors hissed shut behind me and I turned to my left and began my journey. To prevent an emotional disaster, I tried to ease my haywire senses by inspecting the futuristic facility around me.
Around me was a circular walkway that wrapped around the edge of the station as the outer rim wrapped around the core. Now that I think about it, the station resembled more like a solar system than the bullseye some of the Hungarians compared it to. There was a huge spherical central command at the core of the structure, and then there were the rims. Those were essentially shorter tube structures that wrapped around the centre. Like an orbit.
But these “orbits” weren’t separated by any spaces at all and were all bunched together and connected. The only open space in this station was between the centre and the outer sectors, which was only punctuated by multiple pressurised walkways. The other sectors and posts were in a concentric batch of circular structures around the core. Where I was going, was into the core.
I strolled along the outskirt walkway before taking a right turn into the deeper sections of the station. The view changed from a large window of space to machines and tech beyond my comprehension as I made my way into the inner sectors. The closer it was to the core, the more important it was. These areas were exclusively for the Confederation members, so no human without permission or clearance could enter. But apparently, they were okay when I was there. Many of them gave parting glances before getting back to their work on their “holograms” and “holopads”.
That was something to note, the tech difference between our two civilisations was greater than we could even conceived of, following the Armistice. I watched as humanity went from pigeons and telegraphs to radios and enigma. Now these aliens had “networks” and “internets”. All the new tech was annoying and complex, I never knew what to do. That’s why my sector, the only sector with humans, used telegraphs, enigma, morse, paper, ink, pen, typewriters, and everything else that you would find in an earthly workplace.
I went through a workplace that was basically a science fiction book. It had bright white individual work pods, big glowing blue screens that weren’t even tangible, and so many other things that were too much for me to comprehend. This was stuff only a writer could come up with! Even if we had all of the guns, tanks, and planes our planet’s resources would’ve let us make, it still wouldn’t have even come close to the weapons of the Confederation and their sophistication.
After a long stroll through the labyrinth of connected stations and workplaces, I finally reached the connecting walkways. I entered a little middle chamber that hissed a little gas onto me and ran over me with a blue and red laser. The other doors then opened and I was let through into the lightless walkway.
Once again, only space shined through the top glass dome that ran across the whole upper section of the walkway. But even if I wanted to, I couldn’t even gaze at the stars due to the circumference of the spherical central command blocking half my vision. The outside cover of the sphere was white and hexagon padded, which just added to the already humongous gap between humanity and our Confederation conquerors.
But, even if I looked beyond that when no structures were blocking my view, I could see at least a hundred or more blocky slabs of black and grey.
And there it was, the Confederation Occupational Fleet. It was so menacing with all of their Vatican-sized ships. Except, those ships were only frigates. Their fleet had cruisers, frigates, destroyers, battleships, battle cruisers, carriers, supercarriers, and everything in between. All to monitor our little desolate rock of two billion.
Their supercarriers which were probably the size of Rome, were the prides of the enemy fleet. Those bulky beasts and their battleships were the literal symbols of their superiority. All of these ships had enough firepower to raze a good million or so Earths. Why they sent all of this to deal with a species that hadn’t done anything past grazing space with a V-2 rocket was beyond me.
Overkill, My mind ranted to itself. Ego just radiates off those ships like heat from the sun!
Speaking of the sun, in a good few months, there wouldn’t even be one.
Or, to be more specific, it would be pretty much enclosed in a megastructure to harness power from it. The Confederation called their mad project a “Hrana Complex”. Construction began even before they attacked Earth, and they were making progress. Whenever a human complained about it, the Confederation ilk always shot them down with either a patronisation of their primitive nature or a response that there would be a small window for Earth to receive light; As if that was better.
The sun was dimmer and dimmer by the day, the one light that all humans looked up to was fading. Blocked out by tech and machines from the occupying powers. That’s like if the Germans built a big space shield to block America from the sun and kill all of their crops or something.
The idea was so alien that not even I could come up with a relatable explanation for it!
After a long while of distracting myself with successful results, I finally reached the other side of the walkway, which was a large metal door. I now had to push the heavy metal door open with difficulty as it slowly hissed open. Upon entering, I was greeted by two Bwkas, who were basically supersized humanoid bears, but with deadly attributes tripled in their power and appearance. Of course, I was met with the average stare of contempt as I made my way up to them.
“And why are you here?” one of them growled with venom as it balanced its heavy rifle in its claws. Those “rifles” were the size of an anti-tank rifle or an Ami bazooka. The difference was that it was also automatic and powered by plasma. Just by seeing that, anyone could’ve already predicted it to you that humanity was doomed from the start of the war.
“Legion-Commander Henix wanted to speak with me?” I replied with a head tilt.
“Up the stairs and down the left hall to the right,” the other grumbled with a snarl of its fangs. He was talking as if I didn’t know where my own senior officer was.
I rolled my eyes secretly and trudged on. Scurrying off into the main lobby, I gazed up to see that the vertex of the roof was an absolutely stupendous 40 metres high! That just added a cavernous feeling to the multi-floored white chamber. It was a whole office building in space.
Not many of those were left in Warsaw anyway.
As I made my way toward the circulating stairwell, my gaze snapped to the circular stellar map that projected a huge three-dimensional view of the galaxy. I couldn’t help but be mesmerised by the glowing non-touchable lights every time I saw it. The map was of the whole known galaxy, the dark pink was the Confederation at the centre. It was huge, at least triple the size of the second largest power, whose name was in an alien tongue unknown to me. All the other colours were of the different species that were independent states and empires of their own.
Free from the forced “civilising” we were suffering through.
Annoyingly, my long black military boots slapped against the clean granite floor with loud audible clacks. This, of course, instantly drew attention from all the beasts around me. All of them looked at me with confusion before it morphed into what I assumed was judgment. These species didn’t think highly of us at all. I mean, according to them, we were uncivilised brutes. Dumb primates that just invented new ways of chucking rocks at one another.
Now, that wasn’t wrong per se. But, it wasn’t nice when that was their one sole opinion of our species.
From the beginning of my tenure here, they practically spat on me. They saw my use of our antiquated tech to be insubordination, and savage in nature. Whenever I did my Polish two-fingered salute, they saw it as disrespect and dishonour. Whenever I didn’t eat the same solely raw and carnivorous diet as them, I was a disgusting omnivore who was a greedy bastard wanting to steal from both sides.
Whatever that meant! Imagine being persecuted because of what you ate! On Earth, we were prosecuting each other over other stupid things like skin, race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, how people looked, and everything else similar.
But!
Nobody was stupid enough to get mad at each other over food. Muslims didn’t kill Christians over eating pork. Jews didn’t kill Muslims over them eating dairy and meat on the same plate. Food was food. We all needed it to survive. Yet, the aliens saw it as just another thing to hate us for.
How could these things hate us but somehow still force themselves to occupy us? Why didn’t they just let us duke it out in the battlefields and on the high seas? Why were they just lamer Nazis? Death by slow assimilation and bigotry was worse than death by starvation, labour, or the firing squad.
Making my way up some circulating steps to the second floor, I took the turn and rushed down the hall before finding the door to Henix’s room. Pushing it open with a low drum, I was met with the dark room of Legion-Commander Henix. The only thing lighting the room was, of course, empty space. Since we were higher than the orbiting sectors, his window was actually able to see into the rest of outer space.
The dimming sun reflected off of the station’s concentric exterior and the stars shined bright through thick glass and into the little dark room. The floor was akin to an emerald-coloured rug and the walls were shelves for storage devices like their “pads” and “drives”.
“Greetings, sir,” I opened to the Kohaul with a two-fingered Polish salute.
The Kohaul were the typical humanoids, but they were practically copies of wolves. Light grey fur, a huge bushy tail, and a patch of dense hair around the pelvis area that acted as a sort of frontal tail. Hazel or blue eyes. And, obviously better than us in every way as usual with fangs, semi-venomous saliva, better hearing with their dog ears, the ability to run faster, especially on all fours, and all of that useless garbage that I was used to. Humanity was clearly always the weak link.
Ending my salute and looking to the right, it was then that I noticed at least three other foreign beasts. I quickly recognised them as superiors of different stations and fleets. Why they were here just added to my paranoia.
A Wenli, a Felshan, and a Geinna. Or the more simplified version being: a humanoid dragon, a blue lizard, and a literal Pacific folk beast.
If you were to continue simplifying it even more, you’d come to the definition that they were the three species assigned to resistance mop-up duty on Earth.
“Now, now,” Henix growled. “What is the way I taught you?”
Sighing deeply, I put my Polish general cap to my chest with my left hand before bowing slightly. They wanted us to purge all of the things that made us Polish soldiers and make us their soldiers. I wasn’t going to give up so easily. No matter how much they held me in high regard. They would have to acknowledge that Poland was for the Poles and I would never be anything else.
“Now, I know you are a good commander. You have served us well,” Henix began with a flick from his dog ear. “But, something has come up in recent days that has been of horrible concern to us.”
“And that is?” I asked with a raised brow, sitting at the open chair in front of Henix with a grunt.
“Wasting Confederation equipment and materials on something unsanctioned by any relevant superior on this station,” the Geinna replied for Henix with a hiss.
Oh, kurwa.
They had caught me red-handed. Was today just the day my luck ran dry from its coffers? I was now completely at their mercy. But, these aliens were brutes. So, I was sure that I’d be beheaded within the next hour.
I had tried my best to scrub all evidence of my operations. I put in false reports and fake alerts to give them the facade of me just doing my job. It appears that they saw through my ulterior actions quickly. I was using their tech to do it. Why did I not expect them to know!?
“Now, unless you would be so kind as to tell me why, maybe I’ll pardon your charges,” Henix warned with a composure that put me off.
“Charges of what?” I asked fearfully.
“Well, normally, that would just be a reprimand or demotion at the worst. But since you are a species that we are trying to integrate into the galactic community . . . the punishment is equivalent to treason.”
Henix must’ve seen my face go pallid as his expression softened from robotic seriousness to empathy in a moment. I didn’t despise Henix at all, and this was the exact reason why.
He could feel empathy.
Unlike most Germans.
And he showed reason.
Unlike most Germans.
“Oh, no, don’t worry,” he reassured me with a sombre grin. “I personally do not wish for that fate to befall you. You have served me well. I’ll defend you. But I can’t do that if you won’t even tell me why.”
I would’ve, but I couldn’t. I trusted Henix. Sure, he was as bigoted and cold as his shitty peers. But, I could trust in his word. He wasn’t a crook. But for his comrades present? For all I knew, this was a death trap to get me to confess and to justify a sudden execution. It's not like they would've cared much if I lived or died anyway. I was expendable.
“I know nothing of this,” I affirmed, straightening myself in the slick white chair. Since I was practically a master of all things cold and emotionless, I could just put off a face of resolute honesty without any weaknesses, barring the death of Katarzyna. They’d have to fuck off eventually for that reason, and I’d be more careful with my further searches.
But then again, Katarzyna was dead, and Jakub probably was too. There was nothing else to really risk my life for. Because I had no more life. The two I loved most were gone. I could’ve just let myself die here. I had nothing else. My parents were dead, my home was rubble, my country was occupied, my wife was dead too, and my son was too. I had nothing left to fight for.
“You are the only human in this position of power,” Henix hummed. “We chose you for a reason. You had talent and composure. But this we cannot tolerate. Don’t play coy and tell us.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” I huffed with concern mounting in me and gnawing on my soul. “I do not know why you seem to want to frame me for such a crime.”
“Commander Dunajski,” the Felsha snarled. “We’re not stupid. Do not try and lie to us.”
“I am not lying,” I turned to the row of beasts with a scowl. “Whatever could I even use the equipment for? My subordinates only use human machines. Typewriters. Not ‘holographic display devices’ or any of that fancy tech. Why would I even?”
“Commander Duna—”
“No,” I cut off in a calm but harsh tone, “this will not continue.”
Henix looked between the beasts and then he zeroed in on me with his steely blue eyes that rivalled mine, “I know you’re lying, Commander. This will simply mount your charges.”
“In fact,” the Felshan admiral began with a sad smirk, “you could be helping resistance movements for all we know. That level of treason is something very few get and it’s for a good reason. Does that sound like something you’d want?”
“I didn’t do any of the deeds of which I am accused,” I held my ground with a growl. “I have nothing to gain!”
“Do you not?” Henix growled, now agitated. “I’ve noticed a lot of care in searching for a ‘Katarzyna’ and ‘Jakub’. Is there any reason why?”
The Geinna nodded, “Are these contacts or aliases? You know well what fate awaits you if we prove their origin to be that of a resistance cell.”
Oh, Bog. I was really stuck now. They knew their names too. I couldn’t just shrug this off. If I continued parrying their questions, I’d totally get beheaded. They wanted us to be as meek and docile as possible. Me standing up to their accusations instead of folding probably already probably fucked up my chances of clemency.
I looked up to Henix, and his blue eyes were unforgiving. He was waiting for my next move, like a brutal game of chess. I turned to look at the three bastards to my right, their eyes were filled with scorn and disgust at me, at my people.
Just like the Germans.
“I-I . . . I don’t . . . They aren’t . . . ” I began before letting out a deep sigh to empty my tight lungs. Silence enveloped the room for a good few seconds. I couldn’t fight on anymore. I’d lost. “You win.”
“As expected,” the Wenli grumbled. “I expected better of someone like you. But I guess the nature of such a volatile and insubordinate species like you would always dominate your actions.”
I didn’t mind that blatant patronisation of me and my kind as I just looked up at Henix with decimated dreams. Henix seemed to note that I wished to talk as he leaned and sat up straight in his chair. He’d listen. But not his ilk.
“Do you have a testimony, Commander Dunajski?” Henix purred with his head leaned in on his arm.
“Well,” I began with a wince, “i-it’s for a selfish reason to be fair.”
“Mhm,” Henix replied, pulling out one of his hologram pads to write down my testimony. Even if I trusted him, as of now, I couldn’t even trust him with writing my own testimony. For all I knew, he’d probably just warp it into something reminiscent of a last-second attempt at deception or just plain begging.
Then again, he was my best chance to prevent my fate from manifesting.
“I-I-I . . .” I stuttered, not finding the words to express my suffering. My throat burned and my eyes filled with tears. My face of composure was just as fragile as my mental health. All I knew was going to shit.
“You what?” Henix snarled. “I’m not here to take stutters as a testimony. Give me a comprehensible sentence or I can call the guards in to take you to the brigs.”
“I j-just want to find my family,” I blurted blindly. Clamping my eyes shut, I waited for my reasoning to be torn apart by the monsters before me. The monsters that were killing our homes and assimilating us.
Just like the . . . Oh, you know who!
After a little while of uncomfortable silence, I reopened my eyes and looked up at my prosecutors. Henix’s ears perched up in surprise at the confession, and I heard the slaps of tails and the rustle of scales from my side. I expected that to be an even greater reason to punish me. Using their tech just to find my family? Treason it was. I couldn’t even pull myself back together when a few tears rolled down my cheek as I looked to the floor once more in shame.
I fought and worked for Jakub and Katarzyna. Now both were gone. And even if Jakub was still alive, he would be without a father too in this new world. Nothing was happy about this unceremonious end. My story was over, and so were the stories of my family, friends, and parents.
“F-family?” Henix finally hummed with a hint of shock. He then attempted to hide it with his monotone voice. I slowly and quietly sobbed to myself, cursing my weakness. “Tell me more.”
The other beasts in the room shuffled their feet and locked their gazes on me with a bit of anticipation. I was a bit confused by the reaction. How was saying they were my loved ones a game-changer? But, I didn’t pay much attention anyway, my mind was filled to the brim with the stone-cold fact that had haunted me since the beginning of my searches:
I was now alone.
“Wife and son. I-I don’t know where they are. I was searching for them both. Using your systems, I . . . before you summoned me here, I got a report. In it, Katarzyna, my wife of twenty-two years, is dead. My son . . .” I gave a miserable chuckle, “only God Almighty knows where he is now.”
I should have never cried. I should have never shown emotion, especially on this damn station. Emotional control was the most important here. These beasts were very organised and very honour-driven. Crying itself was probably considered treason. At this point, it was just another thing to add on to my list of present offences.
Everything was collapsing in front of me in quick succession.
Instead of scolding me though, Henix just looked at me and watched me fail at controlling my sobs. It gave me an odd feeling that he was just tacitly judging me rather than chastising me verbally. The other beasts were the same, simply wagging their tails in thought or tilting their heads. It unnerved me a bit, but I was too busy internally cursing myself to care about it.
After what felt like my whole tour in Bolshevik Russia, Henix gave a low growl and a wag of his bushy back tail with the words of his sentencing response pushing against his fangs. The fate waiting for me was only a second away, and with that one growl, I’d be done for. What a fool I was to trust any of these pigs!
“I’m sorry about your predicament,” he spoke slowly. “When we saw the crimes of your ‘Nazis’ it became one of the major reasons why we intervened on this damn planet in the first place.”
What a lie. My brain cackled nonchalantly. They’re doing the same things as the Nazis; Although this time, it was all of us who were suffering from it.
Rolling my eyes, I saw through the bullshit. They were no different.
Scraping at his slick and futuristic desk in ponderous thinking, Henix refocused his pristine and steely blue eyes on me, “What you did was unprofessional and highly dishonourable. Anyone who did such an offence would’ve been discharged or demoted with the snap of a maw.
He shook his head in another short pause as he formulated his next response. I hated the silence, I just wanted a “yes” or a “no” if I was to be shot or not. The aliens had a knack to be blunt, but also verbose. It didn’t make sense, but that’s how they worked. And boy did I hate it!
“But, I cannot even attempt to grasp the gravity of the situation you are dealing with,” he began again, snapping me from my thoughts.
I scowled with agitation and furrowed my brows, “Am I still being shot?”
“No,” the other Wenli interrupted with a sigh and a lick of his fangs. “But, we aren’t leaving you here either.”
My mind went berserk As if that was better! Leaving me alive at this point was punishment enough! Without this station, I’d have to scan all of Europe manually. It’d take the rest of my whole pathetic life to cover even half of Poland! Damn these beasts and damn their posturing!
“Well,” Henix thought, “I have an idea. Akvu?”
The Felsha stepped up from the group of beasts and bowed slightly, “Yes?”
“How about we send Commander Dunajski to be a part of the clearance teams?”
The Felsha slapped its tail against the floor in disdain, “Isn’t he under suspicion of connections?”
“I never saw it in him,” Henix replied. “He was hiding something? Yes. But I never expected resistance affiliations. He isn’t that type of soldier. Besides, I used the accusation to crack him, not actually charge him.”
“W-what is my punishment?” I interrupted with mounting impatience as I tapped my jackboot in annoyance. Talking about how they broke me wasn’t what I wanted to hear at the moment. What was important was my quest for my old life. I wanted my wife back, my son, my home, my country.
“So, the idea is,” Henix began with his hands raised in illustrative explanation, “we send you to Earth to root out the resistance pockets. Some random places like Roosiya, Anghipt, Brazza, Mixka, Cooba, and much more. But! There is also an ongoing search for a resistance network in Eirope.”
“Where?” I shot back with rejuvenated hope.
“Central Eirope,” Henix hummed with a grin. “Former human nations like Polna, Cjermaña, Nodorla, Belja, and Cnzecka.”
It took me a good second to decipher those names. What a mess of pronunciation for all of them they were. Since they were busy trying to wipe our uniqueness from us, the aliens had their own names for our old nations, just the same as how they put my Poland in an occupation zone called “Foije”. A stupid name. Now, they were just coming up with mispronounced names for the defunct nations of old Earth.
I absolutely loathed the name “Polna” because “Polska” was better in every way. But they were our conquerors, and they were the bastards who just sentenced me to scouring Europe for my own kind.
“Who’s under my command?” I sighed.
“Oh, just two dozen of every species in the Confederation,” Henix smiled.
“288? That’s kind of small,” I chuckled. “My all-Pole regiment in Britain was at least 1,000 strong.”
“You really think there’s only a dozen species in the Confederation?” Henix snickered. “No, there’s a good seventy. You really thought we sent all of our power across the galaxy to fight some small plucky band of primates? How adorable.”
That ticked me off, but since I didn’t want to bite the hand that spared me from a beheading, I kept my mouth zipped tight. My composure returned and I wiped the tears off with my sleeve as Henix talked with his other peers in their garbled choking that they called a “language”. My goals had shifted from not crying to not snickering as they conversed in the throat cancer they revered as an actual tongue to be spoken by someone.
“For now, you are dismissed,” Henix sighed. “I hereby remove you from your post. You will report to the bays for a debrief.”
“Can I bring my personal belongings?”
“No,” he replied coldly.
“Why?”
Henix squinted his eyes in anger, “Get there and don’t ask any more questions. You are still a disgraced officer and you will not be shown any more mercy from us.”
How reassuring, I scoffed to myself once more. These aliens were as blunt as wood! They might rival my old camp Oberkommando. Hell, they might as well be him!
Sighing, I pressed my hands against the smooth chair and shakily brought myself up again. With another stupid bow, I left while trembling in every limb. I was in a precarious position now. Anything that went wrong under my command, I would take the hit.
But, if it still gave me a chance to at least try and piece my old life back together;
Then I’d throw myself into it with an intrepid Polish spirit.
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