Fibreglass ceiling tiles

Respect Gold (Pokemon Adventures)

2024.06.01 13:02 rangernumberx Respect Gold (Pokemon Adventures)

"I wanted to nab the thief while Exbo here wanted to get his buddy back. Although it was our first meeting, we fought together. That guy may have escaped, but we've decided to battle together from now on. Even if I meet new Pokemon along the way, I will still treat them the same way, because to me...Pokemon are my partners! We work alongside for the same goals, because...we are partners!"
Gold was raised around Pokemon, his home having so many it was known as the Poké House to those in the community. But after a chance encounter leads to his Pokemon being stolen and being the sole witness to a boy stealing Professor Elm's Totodile, Gold gives the police a false description of the thief before setting out with a Pokedex and a Cyndaquil to hunt him down himself. Along the way, Gold demonstrates a deceptive fighting style, often using his cue to send Pokeballs in strange directions and using other members of his team to hide the key play another Pokemon is performing, as well as an ability to nurture the full potential out of any Pokemon from as early as them being in an egg, earning him the moniker of 'the Hatcher'. With these skills, Gold would prove a key player as he faced off against the likes of a revived Team Rocket, a masked man seeking to rewrite time, and even Arceus themselves.
All feats are tagged with the chapter they appear in.

Gold

Physicals

Strength
Durability - Blunt Force
Durability - Other
Speed

Skill

Cue Shots - Regular
Cue Shots - Ricochet
Other

Intelligence

Battles
Deception
Other

Gear

Pokedex
Pokeballs
Cue
Other

Other

Aibo the Ambipom

As An Aipom

Physicals
Moves
Other

As An Ambipom

Physicals
Moves
Other

Exbo the Typhlosion

As A Cyndaquil

Physicals
Moves
Other

As A Quilava

Physicals
Moves

As A Typhlosion

Physicals
Moves
Other

Sunbo the Sunflora

As A Sunkern

Physicals
Moves

As A Sunflora

Physicals
Moves
Other

Polibo the Politoed

As A Poliwag

Moves
Other

As A Politoed

Physicals
Moves
Other

Sudobo the Sudowoodo

Physicals
Moves
Other

Togebo the Togekiss

As A Togepi

Physicals
Moves
Other

As a Togekiss

Physicals
Moves

Tibo the Mantine and 20 Remoraid

Moves
Other

Pibu the Pichu

Moves
submitted by rangernumberx to respectthreads [link] [comments]

2024.06.01 08:34 EclosionK2 My siblings’ imaginary friend wants to kill me

Something grabbed my leg at the pool.
I was on my last lap—just doing a leisurely breaststroke—when massive fingers wrapped around my thigh and dragged me down.
I squirmed and tried to get away, but the fingers were wrapped tight. They had some form of suction cups. My ensuing struggle attracted the attention of the lifeguard. As soon as he came to my aid, the massive fingers let go.
The guard believed me when I said that something had caught my leg. He inspected the area. But all he could find was a pink plastic wristband.
“That’s not what pulled me down,” I said.
He shrugged and put on the wristband.
***
In the locker rooms I swear I could hear something walking around, making large, squishy, plodding sounds. I stayed hidden in my change room, waiting for the sounds to stop.
From beneath the change room curtain I could see wet footprints. I could literally see large, towel-length footprints appear on the ground—out of nothing.
Of course it freaked me out. And of course I gasped out loud.
Before I knew it, the curtains opened and closed on their own.
I was cornered in the back of the changeroom.
I let out a half a scream before invisible wet fingers wrapped themselves around my face. My head was shoved against ceramic tiles.
Fear froze me completely.
A hot breath arrived, smelling like moldy fruit. Then a voice came. It was high pitched and squeaky, choking a little on its own words.
“No need to be scared. It's just me. JUMPY!”
Like a chameleon, the skin of the creature slowly solidified into gray. One of its eyes was the size of my head. I would say it looked like one of those red-eyed tree frogs, except it was nine feet tall and it could easily kill me.
It switched from holding my mouth to pressing its sticky fingers against my throat. “Remember me? Remember me?”
‘No’ seemed like the wrong answer, so I just repeated the name it told me. “...Jumpy?”
“YES! YES!” The creature jumped up and down—still holding me by the throat. If I hadn't grabbed hold of its fingers, it might have hung me on the spot.
“Jumpy! Jumpy Frog! That's me!”
I was dropped to the floor as it started to clap. The massive webbed hands created a deafening applause.
“Marie-Anne and Jamie made me when they were babies! I was their best friend!” The frog jumped onto a wall effortlessly and peered down at my struggling body. “Every day I was with them—every day I helped them!”
It was referring to my older twin sisters, who died last year in a car accident. Part of the reason I was out swimming so late is because that’s how I’ve been coping with their passing. We all used to do synchronized swimming for many years.
“But now they’re gone… They're gone! How terrible is that?!” The frog sounded like an overdramatic, sad cartoon. It teared up, and pounded the very wall it was climbing. “And now, no one believes in Jumpy!”
I was still recovering, breathing through a pinhole, but that didn’t stop Jumpy from hoisting me by the leg.
“You’re the only Whitaker sister left! You have to believe in Jumpy!”
It felt like I was speaking through a tiny straw. “Have to?”
“Yes! Can’t you see? I’m fading! I used to be green for frog’s sake!” Jumpy shoved its forearm against my face. Some of the gray slime stuck to me.
“If you don’t believe in Jumpy … I’ll die! And I don’t want to die!”
The frog crawled to the ceiling and dangled me by the leg, high above the marble floor. “You have to believe in Jumpy! You HAVE to!”
If I landed in the wrong way, I could easily break my neck, or skull. I forced myself to sound happy. “I believe in Jumpy, I believe in Jumpy.”
For the first time in the entire encounter, the creature treated me like a porcelain doll. I was gently lowered to the floor, and then patted on the head.
“Good. Keep believing in Jumpy. Think about Jumpy every day.” The frog made a gagging sound, then leapt back to the ceiling, leaving wet marks along the wood. “And if you stop believing in Jumpy, don’t worry … I’ll come back to remind you!”
The frog smiled in a way that made its giant eyes bulge and look in two opposite directions. I thought for a second it had a tongue lolling out of its mouth, but I peered closer, and could make out a human hand in its lips.
A human hand with a pink wristband.
Jumpy slurped it up.
***
Since that encounter I’ve basically been in a permament state of fear, praying that Jumpy never visits me again.
I’m an animator so drawing is a hobby of mine. I’ve drawn countless sketches of Jumpy and left them around my house, my work, on my phone, etc. Not a day goes by without me seeing a picture of that frog.
I believe I’m fulfilling my promise. I’m thinking about Jumpy every day. But I also haven't slept properly in like … months.
I’d like to stop thinking about the frog. But that also sounds terrifying.
I’m pretty much forced to think about my worst fear all the time.
Its wearing me down. I’m so exhausted…
What am I supposed to do?
submitted by EclosionK2 to nosleep [link] [comments]

2024.06.01 06:19 marcamcar Interim Occupancy- Unsafe conditions

The occupancy date for my pre construction condo just passed and when I visited the building today, my whole floor was in very poor condition. Large pieces of building material on the floor, no ceiling tiles, strong fumes, fire extinguisher (which hadn’t been inspected in months) propping the door to the stairwell open, accessibility buttons don’t work etc. Aside from all of this, the unit drywall and paint is very poorly done and they’re going to fix it next week.
I’m paying $6000 a month in occupancy fees for a unit that cannot be lived in especially with a small child. And no sign of closing. What can I do about this?
Any help is useful, thanks.
submitted by marcamcar to TorontoRealEstate [link] [comments]

2024.06.01 05:53 Advanced-Brother3420 How?

How?
Okay, I'm intrigued, but what was the search method you used to find the location? I mean, how did you find that blog on Wayback Machine?
submitted by Advanced-Brother3420 to backrooms [link] [comments]

2024.06.01 04:34 LoveMeAGoodCactus Trying to make a quick buck

When we looking for a property last year we came across this one, but couldn't get past the wood: https://www.barfoot.co.nz/property/residential/franklin-district/hunua/rural-property/855044
After a long time on the market it ended up selling well under its $1.9m CV for $1.165m - I believe it was purchased by the original builders. Great price.
They did it up - very nicely I must say, but I doubt they invested much more than 50k into it. New carpet, new finishing on the outside, painted the ceilings, tidied up the garden, added a few tiles in the bathroom, cleared out the garage & staged it very well. It's nicely presented now and I figured they'd make a nice bit of money on it. Maybe selling for 1.5-1.7m.
It was supposed to go to auction two weeks ago but I can't find a record of the auction, and is now marketed as a bargain for a property with a "replacement cost of $4m" an asking price of $2.25m: https://www.nzsothebysrealty.com/property/listing/SED10020/177a-jones-road-hunua
Surely buyers do their research - no one is going to pay over $1m more now? I know it takes just one buyer, but there's so many properties for sale and while this is a nice setting and sizeable house, it's still....a lot of wood!
Very interested to see what it will sell for in the end. Anyhow, here's some free advertising (but I'm sure that y'all personal financers will lowball the offer!).
submitted by LoveMeAGoodCactus to PersonalFinanceNZ [link] [comments]

2024.06.01 03:29 GreenNerdieBirdie Trying to improve a stupidly awful tiny bathroom without spending more than a tiny amount of money.

Trying to improve a stupidly awful tiny bathroom without spending more than a tiny amount of money.
Yes. This bathroom is tiny, a mere 6 by 6 feet. No, we didn’t put the shower in there. I wouldn’t have dared to try squeeze one in, but it was there when we bought the place. The tile is just plain yuck. Not to be histrionic, but a little bit of my soul dies when I look at it. The sink is minuscule, the storage is Lilliputian. The light fixture is quite possibly the ugliest I have ever seen, indeed, a boob light on the ceiling would be an upgrade. I don’t have the $ to replace tile, sink or shower stall. Probably not even the stupidly tiny medicine cabinet.
But I am going to get a new light fixture over the sink. Some sort of cabinet for more storage over the toilet. Replace the weird ring thing with a proper towel bar. Does anyone actually use those ring things? Remove the all but useless ledge.
What I really want to know is though, is my $10 roll peel and stick wallpaper a step in the right direction for this maximalist pink loving lady? Obviously, I have to buy a lot more of it. I just wanted to see what it would look like before I bought a bunch.
submitted by GreenNerdieBirdie to femalelivingspace [link] [comments]

2024.06.01 03:08 Different_Health_233 Best Bathtub Sealant?

I recently bought a home and the upstairs bathtub leaks when running the shower. I noticed the seal from the bathtub to the tile had gaps in it so I sealed it with some caulk I bought from Menards. I thought I did a pretty good job, but it only lasted about a week and then I noticed it started peeling up from the bathtub, a little bit in the front… And sure enough it started leaking through the bathroom ceiling downstairs (under it). Is there a preferred caulk that I should use or any tips that might help?
submitted by Different_Health_233 to HomeImprovement [link] [comments]

2024.06.01 01:52 Trash_Tia Halfway through physics class, time stopped at 2:52pm.

”Stop.”
I really needed the bathroom.
For fifty painstaking minutes, I had been staring at the clock on the wall, willing it to go faster, uncomfortably shifting side to side in my seat so much that I was starting to get weird looks.
2:52pm.
Eight minutes, I thought dizzily, squeezing my legs together.
Which was just two chunks of four minutes.
Four chunks of two minutes.
The pain started like normal stomach pain, the kind I could deal with.
I swallowed two Tylenol with lukewarm soda.
But this was different.
This kind of pain was contorting and twisting my gut so much, I had to keep leaning onto my left buttock for relief.
I must have done it so many times, I caught the attention of the guy sitting next to me. Roman Hemlock who was half asleep, dark blonde curls hanging in half lidded eyes, his chin leaning on his fist. He shot me a look. I couldn't tell if it was Are you okay? or Can you stop moving around so much?
From the single crease in his brow, the slight curl in his lip, I guessed the latter.
It's not like Roman was helping.
For half the class, he'd been tapping his foot on the floor, then his chair leg, and to complete the orchestra, his fingers joined in, tap, tap, tapping on the edge of his desk. I didn't know if it was a bored thing, an ADHD thing, or he was trying to keep himself awake. It was easy to tolerate without the pain, but with it, the boy’s incessant tapping was more akin to a dentist drill splitting my skull open. I already felt nauseous, the sad looking chicken nuggets I forced down at lunch making an unwelcome appearance at the back of my throat.
It was too fucking hot, the stuffy summer air glueing my hair to the back of my neck. The material of my shirt was making me cringe, sticky against my skin.
Tipping my head back, the lights were too bright. Every sound was too loud. Imogen Prairie, who was sitting behind me chewing her gum a little too loudly.
Kaz Samuels scribbling notes like a maniac.
I could hear every stroke of his pencil, every time he paused, looked up at the presentation, and continued writing.
When I leaned forward in my chair, I could smell exactly what Isabella Trinity had eaten for lunch, the stink hanging in the air.
It became a case of sucking in my stomach and taking slow, deep breaths.
I’d never had these kinds of stomach cramps before. But it didn't take me long to figure out what they were.
I was yet to start my period at the grand age of sixteen, which meant this was it.
After countless sessions with the doctor, and feeling like a social outcast among my group of friends who started their periods in middle school, it had finally happened. The cramps in my gut that felt like my torso was being ripped apart, was in fact me entering womanhood. When my breath started to quicken, my mouth watering, I raised my hand, biting my lip against a cry.
Fuck.
Something lurched in my gut, a wave of nausea crashing into me.
I was going to throw up.
“Mr Brighton.”
Roman spoke up before me, waving his arm. “Can I use the bathroom?”
The teacher’s answer was always the same. Which was why I had been crossing my legs for the entirety of the class, unable to focus on anything but my gut trying to twist itself inside out.
Mr Brighton leaned against the wall, his eyes glued to the PowerPoint awash in our faces. We had been staring at the exact same slide for maybe five minutes now, and our physics teacher was yet to speak, his gaze somewhere else.
Mr Brighton was my Dad’s age, a greying man in his early fifties who always wore the exact same suit with the exact same stain on his collar.
The man was about as interesting as watching paint dry.
Normally, I would drift off myself, lulled into slumber by the low drone of his voice.
But the pain ripping me apart was keeping me awake.
“Mr Brighton.” Roman said, louder. His voice snapped me out of it. “Can I use the bathroom?” He paused, exaggerating a loud sigh. ”Please?”
The teacher straightened up, folding his arms.
“Mr Hemlock, you know the rules. Why didn't you go before class?”
“I didn't need to go an hour ago, did I?”
“You will no longer need to go to the bathroom, Mr Hemlock.”
Roman made a snorting noise.
“What?”
The low murmur of my classmates collapsed into white noise.
Glancing at the clock, I was anticipating the school bell.
The sickness swimming in the pit of my belly was reaching dangerous territory.
2:52pm.
Something ice cold trickled down my spine.
It was 2:52 the last time I checked, and five minutes had surely passed.
This time, I waited a whole minute and counted the seconds under my breath. The clock still didn't move. The ticker was frozen halfway between three and four.
Slowly, the same realisation began to hit the twelve of us. The clock on the wall had stopped. But it wasn't the only thing that had stopped. The cool breeze drifting through the window was gone.
The sound of birds outside, and the cheer squad practising their routine.
Everything had stopped. Trying to ignore a sickly slither of panic twisting its way through me, I checked my phone under my desk. There was a text from my Mom lighting up my notifications. When I tried to swipe it open, nothing happened. My lock screen was frozen, stuck at 2:52pm.
With my hands growing clammy around my phone, I stared at the time, willing it to move, to flick to 2:53.
But nothing happened, the numbers stubbornly staying at 2:52.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Roman’s voice brought me back to reality, though I was sure I'd dropped my phone. I heard it hit the floor with a sickening crack. Whatever he was saying, though, faded into dull murmur, when I turned toward the window.
Something was wrong outside.
The cheer squad were nowhere to be seen.
Being on the top floor gave us a front row seat to their practice sessions.
I stopped watching when their flyer did a death defying flip, almost breaking her neck. 2:52pm. I couldn't see the cheer squad. But I did see Jessie Carson mid-sprint across the track field, strawberry blonde curls suspended in a halo around her.
I could see exactly where she had frozen in place, her left foot hovering off of the ground, her right foot driving momentum. It wasn't just Jessie who had stopped. The dirt she was kicking into a cloud behind her was hovering, caught in mid-air.
Studying the faces around me, my mouth went dry.
Roman Hemlock, mid-argument with our physics teacher.
His eyes were wide, lips curved into what would have been a yell.
Fuck.
Was I the only one?
But then Roman blinked, and I realized the boy wasn't frozen. He was trying to think of a comeback. “What do you mean I won't need the bathroom anymore?”
“Mr Hemlock, please lower your voice.”
“Why? You can't dictate to me when I do and don't need the bathroom, dude!”
Moving onto the rest of my class, the others were still moving.
It was too quiet, though.
Yes, Roman was still tapping his foot.
Imogen was still chewing her gum.
Kaz was still scribbling notes like a psychopath.
But they were the only noise I could hear.
I wasn't the only one confused. The classroom had pricked with a sense of urgency. Kids were checking their phones, their gazes glued to the clock. Even Roman, who was still arguing, was starting to notice. I watched his gaze lazily roll to the clock on the wall.
I pretended not to see his cheeks visibly paling.
We had all come to the exact same terrifying conclusion.
2:52pm.
Time had come to a halt, and somehow, we had not.
“Is that clock broken?” Roman interrupted, leaning forward in his chair.
Kaz twisted around, settling the boy with an eye-roll.
“Check your phone, dumbass.”
“I broke my phone.”
Imogen threw her iPhone at him, narrowly missing hitting him in the face.
“Everything is frozen,” She said, her voice shuddering. “It's not just the clock.”
I waited for Roman’s response. For once, though, he was speechless.
“Well done, Imogen. That is correct.” Mr Brighton spoke up, tearing a piece of paper from a workbook and striding over to the door, glueing it over the glass window. When we started to protest, some of us were shouting, while others bursting into tears, he calmly took out his key and locked us in.
I should have been surprised that our teacher had spontaneously decided to take his entire class hostage, but the rumor mill had been churning.
According to Becca Jason, the guy’s wife divorced him and took his kids.
I could feel myself sinking into my chair, phantom bugs filling my mouth.
So, this guy had nothing to lose.
Taking his place in front of his desk, the man settled us with a patient smile.
“From now on, you will stay inside this room.” He said. “In case you haven't noticed, time is currently frozen at fifty two minutes past two. The thirteen of us are tucked into the twenty first second, and will be, for the foreseeable future.”
I could tell the others wanted to argue, but we couldn't deny that time had stopped. Kaz was staring down at his frozen phone, Imogen hyperventilating behind me, Roman glaring at the clock, chewing on a pencil. We wanted it to be a prank, a joke, some kind of glitch in the matrix that would fix itself.
But then a whole minute passed by. Followed by another. Kaz threw his phone on the floor, hissing in frustration. Imogen let out a wet sounding sob.
Roman’s pencil split in his mouth, slipping from his fingers. We couldn't pretend it wasn't happening or call our teacher out on his BS, because it was everywhere around us. The sudden absence of outdoor ambience, birdsong, planes flying overhead, and traffic outside the school gates. Everyone and everything had stopped, and we were the only ones left.
This was a nightmare, surely.
My physics class were some of the most boring and pretentious people in the school, and somehow the world had been reduced to the twelve of us inside our classroom. We were scared, of course we were. But reality had stopped making sense, crashing and burning in a single second. We had no choice but to listen to our teacher. “Now, before you freak out, it may not feel like it, but the twelve of you have also stopped.”
Mr Brighton held out his own hand, and placed it on his heart.
He was right.
I was so busy trying to understand what was happening, I had failed to realize my period cramps were gone.
“Do me a favor, and press your hand over your heart.”
“You mean like, in a culty way?” Imogen whispered.
“Obviously.” Roman grumbled, halfway out of his seat. He was hesitant, though, in case our teacher was armed. It only took one glance from our teacher, and he slumped back into his chair. “This crazy fucker clearly wants to play mind games with us.”
“No, I'm just asking you to feel for your heart.”
I felt for mine, and there was nothing, my stomach twisting.
Roman stabbed his fingers into his neck, feeling for a pulse.
He tried his wrist.
Then his heart.
Nothing.
“The twelve of you are currently in a state of stasis,” the teacher explained to us, “You are not alive, nor are you dead. Your bodily functions are also on pause, such as your heartbeat and your pulse. In this state there will be no need for food and water, or going to the bathroom.” His gaze found a ghastly looking Roman, who looked like he was going to faint. “Your minds, however, as you can see, are working as usual.”
“But why?” Imogen demanded in a shriek.
Mr Brighton’s lip curled. “I would rather not answer that question.”
“Because you're lonely.” Roman spoke up. He swung back on his chair, narrowed eyes glued to the teacher.
“Your wife and kids left you, so you're asserting power over a group of sixteen year olds. Which is kinda fucking pathetic.”
Mr Brighton’s expression darkened, and something slimy crept up my throat.
The worst thing any of us could do was threaten him. He had taken kidnapping to a whole new level, and we were alone with this psychopath, trapped inside a second. I waited for the man to stride forward and attack the kid. But he didn't. Instead, the teacher leaned back on his desk. “Yes.” The man nodded.
“I suppose you could say I am.”
“But why us?!” Kaz hissed.
“Because you are children.” Mr Brighton responded casually.
He straightened up, taking slow, intimidating steps towards Roman’s desk. The rest of us leaned back. I tried to pull my desk with me, but it was glued to the floor. Frozen. Mr Brighton’s shoes went click-clack across the hardwood floor.
“You are right,” the man said in a murmur, “I am lonely. My wife and kids did leave me, and I have nobody left to control. I have nobody else to contort and use to my advantage.” Reaching Roman’s desk, he leaned in close until he was nose to nose with the kid.
“Congratulations, Mr Hemlock. You have just earned yourself detention.”
Roman stayed stubbornly still, but he was visibly afraid. I could see him very slowly backing away. Roman was all bark and no bite. He was a loud mouth, sure, but he was also the least confrontational person in the class.
“What?” He spluttered. “You trap us in a time loop or time trap, or whatever, and you still want to act like a teacher?”
“Stand up.” The teacher ordered.
“What if I don't?”
Mr Brighton’s expression didn't waver. “You said it yourself. I can and have trapped you inside a single second. What else do you think I'm capable of?”
Roman stood, kicking his chair out of the way.
“What are you planning on doing to me, old man?”
The teacher maintained his smile. “Stand up straight, and close your mouth.”
To my confusion, Roman Hemlock did all the above.
He straightened up, and closed his mouth.
“Do not fight me.” The teacher said calmly, “Do as you are told, and follow me.”
The boy did exactly as instructed.
His jaw slackened, that rebellious light in his eyes fizzling out.
I think that's when we all collectively agreed that going against this teacher and trying to escape was mental suicide.
“I will use Mr Hemlock as an example to all of you,” Mr Brighton said, turning to the rest of us. “If you break the rules or are derogatory in any way, you will be given detention.”
He grabbed the boy’s shoulders, forcing him to walk towards the supply closet. Roman moved like a robot, slightly off balance, his gaze glued to thin air, like he was tracking invisible butterflies.
"Your time in detention will depend on the severity of your rule-break.” He opened the door, gently pushing Roman inside, and following suit. When the door closed behind them, there was a pause, and I remembered how to breathe.
Kaz Samuels slowly got up from his desk, inching towards the closet.
“This guy is a certified nut.” He announced.
He turned towards us. “Whatever he's doing to Hemlock, we’re probably next.”
“He stopped time.” I spoke up, my own voice barely a croak. “He’s capable of anything.”
“But how did he stop time?” Kaz whistled, tipping his head back. The boy was slow, his fingers grasping each desk as he slid down the aisle. “He said he was lonely, right? But why take it out on us? What did we do to him?”
“Check his desk for a weapon!” Imogen whisper-shrieked.
Kaz nodded, striding over to the man's desk, his hands moving frantically, shoving paper on the floor. He took an uncertain seat on the man's chair. “There's nothing here,” he murmured, lifting stained coffee mugs and ancient textbooks. “It's just…test papers.” Kaz ducked from view, trying the drawers.
“He's a fan of Pokémon,” he said, “There's a tonne of Pokémon cards,” Kaz straightened up, running a hand through his hair. “No sign of a weapon, though.”
He picked up a ruler, waving it around. “This could work. If we plunge it in his eye.”
“Try his laptop!” Imogen was halfway out of her seat.
Kaz did, slamming the keys. “It's locked.”
“Look harder!” Ren Clarke threw a pencil at him.
“I am!”
After a minute of searching, Kaz grabbed a single piece of paper.
He held it up, and I squinted.
It was a list of our names, with several of them highlighted.
“Fuck.” Kaz dropped the list, his expression crumpling. The stubborn bravado facade transforming him into our sort of leader dissipated, hollowing him out into exactly what he was. Just a scared kid. Kaz’s hands were shaking.
“Mr Brighton’s got a hit list.” He whispered. “He's going to kill us.”
“How do you know that?” I found myself asking.
Kaz slowly dropped into a crouch, picking up the paper and holding it up.
“Look.” He pointed to a capitalised name at the top of the list highlighted in red.
ROMAN HEMLOCK.
There were six names highlighted in red, including mine.
CRISTA ADAMS.
As if on cue, Roman’s cry rang out from the supply closet, suddenly, freezing us all in place. Kaz jumped up, adapting the expression of a deer caught in headlights, eyes wide, almost unseeing.
He fell over himself to tidy up the desk, putting everything back where he had found it, sliding the list between a pile of test papers. Kaz took slow, stumbled steps back, his feverish gaze glued to the closet, before turning and making a break for it and diving into his seat.
“Brighton’s got a hit liiiist,” Kaz said, in a mocking sing-song, “And we’re all on it.”
What followed was deathly silence. I think we were expecting Roman to cry out again. But when he didn't, the class started to stir. Some kids started praying to a god they didn't believe in, while others were in varying states of denial, trying to call their parents with dead phones.
I wasn't sure what parts of me had stopped, but I was still alive, still felt like my lungs were deprived of oxygen, my chest aching. I'm not sure how long I sat there, trying to find my voice, a shriek trying and failing to rip through my mouth. Being kidnapped and held hostage is one thing, but being imprisoned inside a single, never ending second, was an existential hell worse than death. Slowly, I pressed my palm over my heart once again. Then I breathed into my cupped hands.
I was expecting it, but no longer being able to feel my own heartbeat and breath, was fear I didn't think was possible. The kind that glued me to my seat, hollowing me out completely until I was nothing, an empty shell with no heartbeat, no breath, no thoughts, except denial, followed by acceptance.
And finally, regret.
I regretted not hugging my mother goodbye before I left for school.
I regretted acting like a spoiled brat when my parents refused to drive me halfway across the country so I could attend Coachella.
I regretted stepping inside Mr Brighton’s fourth period physics class.
Mr Brighton reappeared, slamming the door behind him and locking the boy inside. Part of me flinched, while the rest of me remembered not to move a muscle. I was barely aware of time passing. Or it wasn't. Time had stopped, so now long had I been sitting there?
I could no longer measure the passage of time with hunger or thirst, and my body felt the same. I wasn't stiff or tired or achy. Looking out of the window, the sky was the exact same crystal blue, every cloud in the exact same place.
Jessie Carson was still frozen mid-run, strands of dark red hair caught around her.
“What's wrong with you guys?” Mr Brighton chuckled, and I twisted back to the front, a shiver writhing down my spine. “Why don't you give me a smile?”
The teacher returned to his desk, and I was already subconsciously sitting up straight in my seat, forcing my lips into a jaw-breaking grin, following Brighton’s instructions. In the corner of my eye, Imogen was sitting very still, forcing an award-winning cheesy smile, while Kaz grinned through gritted teeth.
“Mr Hemlock just earned himself two weeks inside the supply closet.” he said casually, perching himself on the edge of his desk. The man studied each of us, taking his time to rip every shred of us apart.
Mind, body, and soul.
I struggled to maintain my stupid smile, shoving my shaking hands in my lap.
“Would anyone like to join him, or are you going to follow the rules?”
The rest of us stayed silent. I don't think any of us breathed.
Our teacher nodded to Kaz, inclining his head.
“Samuels. Are you all right?”
Kaz’s smile faltered slightly. He shifted in his chair. I could see sweat trickling down his right temple. “Uh, yeah.” He swiped at his forehead, like he couldn't believe he was sweating. “Yeah, I'm good.”
The teacher’s eyes narrowed. He moved toward his desk, and we all held our breaths. Mr Brighton seemed to study his hit-list, lips curving into a frown.
His gaze flicked to the boy, and then the paper.
He knew, I thought dizzily.
Mr Brighton knew the kid had been rummaging through his desk. But this was all about control. The teacher was using fear to control us, to manipulate our thoughts without having to get physical. He could have called out the boy right then, but Brighton was settling with mental torture instead. He just wanted to make my classmate squirm.
Without a word, the man folded up the piece of paper and slipped it into his pocket. “Mr Samuels, you are sweating,” our physics teacher said, mocking a frown. “Are you feeling okay?”
Kaz hesitated, tapping his shoe in a rhythm.
Being one of the smartest kids in the room definitely gave him an advantage.
I could already see the cogs turning behind half lidded eyes. Kaz was weighing each scenario, sorting them into positives and negatives.
The positives of answering would mean he was one step towards being in the clear, but there were two negatives.
Brighton would question him if he had left his seat, and then demand how his hit-list had magically moved across the desk.
Talking back was surely a rule-break, as well as outright lying.
Opening his mouth would get him in trouble, either way, and Kaz knew that.
So, he just nodded, forcing an even bigger smile.
Brighton’s lips pricked, his gaze straying on Kaz. “Good!” He cleared his throat, turning to the class. Kaz slumped in his seat with a sharp breath, resting his head in his arms. If Mr Brighton noticed, he didn't say anything. “Ignore the sweating. It should stop, along with hunger and thirst.”
Our teacher seemed to be able to manipulate everything in his vicinity.
Time.
Minds.
And slowly… contorting us into his own.
In the single second we were trapped inside, I felt days go by in a dizzying whirlwind that was like being permanently high. When I stood up, I felt like I was floating.
When I sat down, hours could go by, even days, and I wouldn't even feel them. I did try and count the days, initially, scribbling them on a scrap piece of paper, but somewhere around the thirteenth or fourteenth day, I lost count. The world around us never changed, in permanent stasis, and maybe that was sending us a little crazy.
After a while of being stuck at our desks, Mr Brighton allowed us to wander the classroom, as long as we stayed away from the door. I lay on the floor for days, counting ceiling tiles.
Sometimes, Imogen would join me.
I couldn't sleep, but I could pretend to sleep, imagining a world that was back to normal. I didn't feel hungry, but my brain did like to remind me of food at the weirdest times. I was aware of weeks passing us by, and then months.
I never grew hungry or tired, and my bodily functions were none existent.
I couldn't remember what pain felt like, or the urge to go to the bathroom. Even the concept of eating and drinking became foreign to me. Putting something in your mouth and chewing to sustain yourself?
That sounded odd.
The only thing that was changing was our slowly unravelling metal state.
I don't know how it started. Weekends and Tuesdays blended together. On one particular SaturTuesday, I was hanging upside down from my desk, watching Kaz and Imogen doodle on the whiteboard.
Kaz had a plan to escape, but after a while, his ‘plan’ to distract the teacher, had gone nowhere. After passing notes between us, the twelve of us had decided that we needed a weapon.
That was maybe a month ago. I wasn't sure what mind games our teacher was playing, but Kaz Samuels, who we were counting on to be our brains, was slowly falling under his spell. Their game had been going on for three days. The two of them were having a competition to see who could draw the craziest thing.
Mr Brighton was at his desk as usual, marking papers.
Imogen was drawing a weird looking ‘skateboard’ when the doors to the storage closet flew open.
Roman Hemlock appeared, and to my surprise, wasn't a hollow eyed shell.
He held up his hand in a wave, his lips forming a small smile.
“Yo.”
Roman’s reappearance was enough to snap us out of it. Kaz and Imogen stopped arguing, the rest of the class going silent. I sat up, blinking rapidly.
I was sure our collective consensus was that Roman Hemlock was dead.
Mr Brighton lifted his head and gave the boy a civil nod. “Mr Hemlock will be rejoining us,” he said, his gaze going back to marking papers. “Please make him feel comfortable. I'm sure he's very excited to be able to talk to you again.”
Instead of going to his desk, the boy immediately joined the others, snatching the marker off of a baffled looking Kaz, and drawing an overly artistic sketch of a penis. I wasn't sure what confused me more. The fact that Roman Hemlock had some serious artistic skills, or that he seemed suspiciously fine for someone who had been locked in the storage closet for two weeks with no social interaction.
With my last few lingering brain cells still clinging on, I studied the boy.
There were no signs of bruises or scratches.
His eyes seemed normal, not diluted or half lidded.
Unable to stop myself, I jumped off of my desk and joined the others, where Kaz was already interrogating the guy.
“WHAT–”
Imogen nudged him, and he lowered his voice, leaning against the wall. “What did he do to you?”
Roman shrugged, rolling his eyes. “Relax, dude. He didn't do anything to me.”
“Then what was that yell?” Imogen hissed.
The boy cocked his head. “Yell?”
“You yelled out,” Kaz folded his arms, narrowing his eyes. He was already suspecting one of us had been compromised– or worse, brainwashed into compliance. Kaz stepped closer, backing Roman into the desk. “You cried out when you first went in there,” he murmured, “So, what was that?”
Something in Roman’s eyes darkened. “Oh,” He said, his lip curling. “That.”
Kaz’s expression softened. He rested his hands on the boy’s shoulders. “Yeah,” He whispered. “What did he do to you?”
Imogen shoved Kaz out of the way, shooting the boy a glare.
“You don't have to tell us, you know.” She said in a small voice. “If it's too traumatising, or he did something you don't want to talk about–”
Roman cut her off with a laugh, and suddenly, all eyes were on him.
The remaining nine of us were eagerly awaiting an explanation.
“Are you fucking serious?”
When Kaz didn't respond, Roman gathered us in a kind of hustle, the four of us grouped together. I felt like I was on the football field. Still, though, if the guy’s goal was to look as suspicious as possible, he was doing a great job.
Roman studied each of us, one eyebrow cocked. When Mr Brighton glanced up from his work, Roman shot him a grin, lowering his voice to a hiss.
“You seriously think our fifty year old physics teacher has been abusing me in the storage closet?
“Then why did you cry out?” Kaz demanded. “Did he hit you?”
Roman stuck out his bottom lip. “I'm pretty sure he didn't hit me.”
“So, you cried out for no reason.”
“Why are you covering for him?” Imogen poked his forehead. “Are you lobotomised?”
Roman wafted her hand away. “Stop prodding me, and no, I'm 100% good.” He backed away from us, like we were observers, and he was the zoo attraction.
“I won't be, if you keep treating me like I'm senile.”
“Okay, fine,” Kaz sighed. “Just answer one.”
“Shoot.”
“When you first went in there, you made an unmistakable sound of distress–”
“Not this again,” Roman groaned. “Of course I yelled! I was shoved into a pitch black storage closet on my own! What, did you expect me to stay silent?”
Kaz didn't look convinced, Imogen nervously sucking her teeth.
The boy leaned back, resting his head against the wall. His eyes flickered shut.
“Stop looking at me like that, there's nothing to tell you,” he murmured, “Brighton didn't do shit to me. I was just freaked out.” Prying one eye open, he fixed us with a glare. “I am so sorry for reacting like a human. Next time, I'll make sure to attack him and pin him to the ground.”
It's not like we believed him. I don't think Roman believed himself.
Something significant had changed in him. He was no longer argumentative, like half of his personality had been torn away. Roman set a precedent. Because once he was following instructions and walking around with a dazed smile, others began to follow. I can't remember how much time had passed since I thought about escaping.
Days and weeks and months had collapsed into fleeting seconds I only noticed when I wasn't playing games.
I wasn't aware of my own lack of sanity until I found myself, on a random SaturWednesday. I was laughing, gathered with the others on the floor, around a Monopoly board. The game had been going on for almost a week.
Reality hit me when I was laughing so hard I tipped back.
I can't remember why I was laughing. I think Imogen told a bad joke.
“Hand it over.” Roman, who was the King of Monopoly, held out his hand, demanding my last 250 bucks. I remember noticing his smile, my foggy brain trying to find hints that he was in some kind of trance, or being controlled by Brighton. But no. His smile was real.
Genuine.
To my shock and confusion, so was mine.
I wasn't in a trance or any type of mind manipulation. I was completely conscious.
Was this… Stockholm syndrome? I thought dizzily.
Was I enjoying this?
My thoughts were like cotton candy, disconnected and wrong, and they barely felt like my own. My gaze found Imogen and Kaz, the two of them sitting shoulder to shoulder, enveloped in the game.
They looked exactly the same, their hair, clothes, everything about them staying stagnant. It was them themselves who had drastically changed. I had never seen them look so carefree. Imogen was a hotheaded cheerleader, and Kaz was the smart kid who gave himself nosebleeds from overworking himself. But now, they were laughing, nudging each other, caught up in an inside joke. Blinking slowly, my gaze strayed on them.
Sure, it could be manipulation. It could be brainwashing. But it could also be real.
Kaz caught my eye, raising a brow.
“You good, Christa?”
Again, my smile felt real. Like I was having fun.
“Good. It's your turn.”
I picked up the dice, throwing them across the board.
Two sixes.
“I can already see her landing on one of my hotels.” Roman murmured. He sat up, resting his chin on his knees. “As the clear winner, I have a proposition.”
Ignoring him, I moved my piece– immediately landing on Park Place.
“I'll give you 500,” Roman announced, “If you give up New York avenue.”
“That's all I've got!”
Imogen nudged me. “Don't do it. If you give him New York Avenue, he only needs one more.”
“One thousand.” Roman waved the notes in my face.
“My final offer.”
When I reached for the cash, he held it back.
“New York Avenue, he said, with a grin.
“And your pride.”
Reluctantly, I handed my only property over.
Kaz threw the dice and moved his piece, and I half remembered we had an escape plan. “Community chest.” Kaz picked up a card. “Go straight to jail.”*
Roman spluttered. “That's karma,” he said, “For stealing from the bank.”
“You were stealing too!”
We had a plan.
We had…. a plan.
After discussing it in detail, Imogen and I were going to try and get onto Brighton’s laptop. It wasn't a perfect way to escape, but it was coherent.
So, what happened?
We were going to get out, so what… what was this?
Kaz’s earlier words hit me from months ago.
“Mr Brighton *is the thing keeping us here,”* he explained. “If we kill him, I'm like, 98% sure we’ll go back to normal.”
“Okay, and what if he dies and we’re *stuck?”* Imogen whisper-shrieked.
“I said 98% for a reason. Yes, there's a small chance his power will die with him. But there's a bigger chance that its effects will die when he does.”
Ren nodded slowly. “Right, and where exactly did you learn this information?”
“You'll feel a lot better if I don't answer that.”
“Okay.” Ren gritted his teeth. “So, we just need to find a weapon, right?”
“And don't tell Hemlock,” Kaz rolled his eyes. “I don't care what he says, that boy definitely had his mind fucked with. Hemlock is a liability. If we tell Roman, he tells Brighton, and we’re screwed.” Kaz nodded to me, then the others. “Keep your mouths shut.”
Presently, I wasn't sure the boy wanted to escape.
Slowly, I rolled my eyes over to Mr Brighton, who had joined us to play.
He was happily marking papers, taking part when he could.
It felt…right.
Not like we had been forced or manipulated, but more like he belonged. Part of me wanted to question why I felt like this, but I found that I didn't care. I didn't care that we were essentially dead, in a never ending stasis and stuck inside fifty two minutes past two. I stopped thinking about the outside world a long time ago.
I couldn't even remember my Mom’s face.
I made my decision, dazedly watching Imogen throw a chance card at Roman.
He flung one back, threatening to tip the board.
I wanted to stay.
In the corner of my eye, however, someone was still awake.
Ren, who had been sitting next to me, kept moving, further and further away. I didn't notice until he was inching towards our teacher, a box cutter clenched between his fist. There must have been a point when we found a box cutter, when we made it our weapon of choice.
But somewhere along the way, I think we just… lost the longing to want to escape.
I didn't see the exact moment the boy stabbed the blade into the man's neck, plunging it through his flesh, but I did feel a sudden jolt, like time itself was starting to falter and tremble.
Mr Brighton dropped to the ground, and I found my gaze flashing to the frozen clock.
Which was moving, suddenly.
Slowly creeping towards 2:53pm.
Something sticky ran underneath me, warm and wet.
Blood.
Blood that was running.
Roman’s half lidded eyes found mine, and he blinked, dropping the dice.
Like he'd been asleep for a long time.
2:53pm.
We were free.
The cool spring breeze grazing my cheeks was back. I could feel my own heartbeat, sticky sweat on my forehead.
And outside, Jessie Carson let out a gut-churning scream.
For a disorienting moment, I don't think any of us believed we were free.
Roman twisted around, his gaze on the doorway.
The piece of paper the teacher had stuck to the glass slipped away.
But Roman’s gaze was glued to the door, his cheeks paling.
His lips parted into a silent cry.
Following his eyes, I glimpsed a shadow.
A shadow that was frozen at 2:52pm.
2:53pm.
“Fuck.” Roman whispered, stumbling to his feet.
He turned to the rest of us, his eyes wild.
“Get DOWN!”
I dropped onto my knees, crawling under a desk, the classroom exploding around me.
2:54.
Blood splattered the walls, and I was crawling in it, stained in my friends.
2:55.
I grabbed Mr Brighton's hand, squeezing for dear life.
Roman joined me, his trembling fingers feeling for a pulse.
A gunshot rang in my ears, rattling my skull.
When Roman went limp next to me, I wrapped my arms around my teacher.
“Mr Brighton, say Stop.”
He was so cold…
“Mr Brighton! Take us back!”
Footsteps coming towards me.
2:56.
submitted by Trash_Tia to TheCrypticCompendium [link] [comments]

2024.06.01 00:00 Notebook47 Bed and Breakfast Laundry and Bath

Hello, friends! I'm struggling with trim in a laundry room. This is a shared laundry for guests in my bed and breakfast. The floor tile is blue and the paint is looking more green than anticipated (PPG 0094-1 Afraid of the Dark). I had originally considered a blue trim, but I think I have to go with the same color or white. The laundry machines will be white. Thoughts?
I'm also trying to figure out a ceiling color for this bathroom. Thanks!
submitted by Notebook47 to DesignMyRoom [link] [comments]

2024.05.31 23:32 Full-Cat5118 Changed Up Bathroom (with Help from r/diy)

Changed Up Bathroom (with Help from diy)
I have been working on this bathroom since November with help from the sub. Unfortunately, I can't find more original pictures, but the wall and ceiling were a lemon yellow. It was a canary nightmare.
Removing the damn rubber baseboard took the longest. There was maybe 12 feet of it around the bathroom, but it took me over a month to work around my job, my husband's job, and my kids. I think I averaged taking off 6 inches max in an hour because of all the glue that had to also be removed. I used a hairdryer the whole way and scraped with a metal scraper. Half way through, I started applying petroleum jelly to the rubber and exposed glue and letting it sit for up to 24 hours before working. It sped up the glue a bit. Not sure if it helped with the rubber.
Next, I gleefully painted the wall white. I was so happy to be rid of the yellow. I might have even done it midway through. It was primer. I wasn't sure what color I wanted yet.
I originally planned to leave the "vanity" and try to repair the counter. In another post, DIY convinced me otherwise. This led to some problems: plumbing, uneven adherence of paint in areas where I think there must have been glue (even though I couldn't see or feel it after cleaning the wall), and unexpected holes behind the vanity. Also, I ordered a light wood, close to bamboo, colored vanity, and clearly the color did not match the picture. But there were limited options in the size I needed, and I didn't want to spend another $300.
To remove the vanity, I discovered that there were no shut off valves. The sub helped with this, too. I can't do that level of plumbing, but my husband helped me install them. That did require waiting a month until there was a hard deadline (visitors) to encourage him.
Next, I used Homax tile paint. I had wanted to use the spray kind, but it was out of stock. For some reason, I stupidly used a paintbrush to apply the first coat. I was very sad after the first coat, lamenting how terrible it was going to look. Then, I got a foam roller (duh?) and did the second coat, which made it look way better. That's the progress picture you see. You are NOT supposed to use a third coat of these for reasons. Chemistry? Idk. But I needed one. Since it's on the wall, I figure I don't have to worry too much about it wearing faster or anything. (Related note: you can't buy it in my state if you're under 18. Just in case you need a second box while in the middle of the project and have a driving teen around.) I needed to go back around the bottom and try to cover up those weird adhering places that were near the old vanity, as mentioned above. I went over as few areas as possible and hoped for the best with the "no more than 2 coats" rule. It didn't improve most of the weird adherence areas. It did improve the bottom of the wall and the towel rack and soap holder coverage.
Next, I painted the wall that color. I think it might be called Copen Blue. There was a darker color we considered, but it made the room feel too small when I painted a big swatch.
Next, I installed the vanity. I had ordered it before discovering those giant holes behind the old vanity, so it wasn't tall enough to cover them. I explored a lot of suggestions of how to fill the holes but ultimately decided hiding them was the best option until I'm ready to actually fix the bathroom. I got this stick on tile and put it up. Picked out a faucet at Lowe's. They are all square, too tall, or expensive. I was shocked that some faucets are like $300. Why? This one was about $80.
Finally today, I installed these floating shelves and sealed the drain my husband hadn't gotten around to sealing. Everything else had been done since February.
The only missing piece is this PVC quarter round I want to put along the floor. I just have to watch some more videos to figure out how to make the cuts.
There are some visible spots where the paint did not adhere well, which is the key downside. There are also some drips or runs here and there, but numerous people have said that only I would notice it. (But what do they look at while they poop?) I also wish it had been the light wood I wanted. However, I didn't see shelves that color, while these match perfectly, so maybe it was meant to be. I do think it would have made the floor blend in better.
I'd guess that I spent a total of 60 hours on it over the months. (More than 20 hours on the stupid rubber.) In all, I'm much happier with this soothing look than the yellow monstrosity until I'm ready to remodel in a few years. It cost about $500.
submitted by Full-Cat5118 to DIY [link] [comments]

2024.05.31 20:05 bat_flag True bare minimum crimson/corruption containment

Advice varies greatly on the topic, so I'd like to confirm the result of my research with you all.
Assuming you want to contain corruption / crimson with tunnels, will this work as a minimum functional method?
  1. Dig 3-block-wide vertical and horizontal shafts between the pure side and evil side. Keep it straight lines and 90 degree angles. If you must turn diagonal, increase the distance between.
  2. At the top of the tunnel, line the ground into the evil side with at least six tiles of incorruptible blocks (grey brick seems easiest to source to me). This contains evil grass spines.
  3. Line the vertical wall of the shaft on the evil side, from the surface to the start of underground, 0 on the depth gauge.
  4. Anywhere you need to turn horizontal above 0 depth, line the evil side ceiling to prevent vine growth down. Line the evil side floor to prevent spike growth up. Also need to do this for full depth in the underground jungle where vines can grow below 0 elevation.
  5. Don't worry about background walls, they will spread evil but only a limited distance and won't infect foreground blocks.
Does the lining material really need to be incorruptible? If the goal is to prevent growth of evil grass and then evil spines or evil vines, couldn't you just use stone, which will become corrupted but won't grow anything?
submitted by bat_flag to Terraria [link] [comments]

2024.05.31 18:53 cabllc Sheetrock for shower ceiling?

Can someone explain why I’m seeing tiled showers with sheet rock for a ceiling? That seems inadequate to me, but maybe I’m underestimating mold proof Sheetrock? Can I tile the ceiling of my shower and expect no problems?
submitted by cabllc to DIY [link] [comments]

2024.05.31 17:30 TheAppleJhon Interference when deriving IR from multiple sine sweeps

Hey guys, I have a problem that occurs when I play K times sweep in succession. I'm unsure why it doesn't work because theoretically it should if anything make the SNR better but I get some really weird behavior. Take a look! When I play 1 sine sweep the resulting impulse response is completely sound. But when I even added a 2nd one all hell breaks loose and I get weird interference sounding patterns. I am completely confused why this is happening... Here is how I generate the sweep:
def signal_ess(T, fs, f0, f1, t0=None,fade_type="hann",K=1): """Generates Exponential Sine Sweep of time-length T. """ if t0 == None: t0 = T/2 elif t0 > T/2: print("Error: t0 cannot be over T/2!") return None t = np.linspace(0, T, m.ceil(fs*T)) f_frac = f1 / f0 t_frac = t / T x = np.sin(2 * np.pi * f0 * T * (f_frac ** t_frac - 1) / np.log(f_frac)) if fade_type == "hann": fade = hann_fade(T,t0,fs) else: fade = linear_fade(T,t0,fs) x=fade*x if K>1: x = np.tile(x, (K, 1)).flatten() return signal(f"ESS Signal - T = {T} sec, f = [{f0} Hz , {f1} Hz]", x, fs)
As you can see I am simply just tiling them so they are perfectly periodic. I am also adding a hann-filter to make sure there is a bit of crossfading. Here is my code for applying the inverse of the sine sweep:
def signal_inv_reg_filter(name, sig1, sig2,metric_delay=0,fs=None,reg_param=0): """ Solves for H in Y[k]=X[k]H[k] with regularization Parameter and zero-padding. Parameters ---------- name : String Name of signal Object when Initialized. sig1 : signal object Convolved Signal - Filtered Signal (LTI System Ouput) [Y] sig2 : TYPE Original Signal - Non-Filtered Signal (LTI SYSTEM INPUT) [X] Returns ------- filtered_signal : signal Approximated Impulse Reponse of Room Reverberation [H] """ if fs == None: fs = sig1.fs if sig1.fs != sig2.f: print("Warning: Sample Rate of Signals are not equivalent!") elif sig1.fs != fs or sig2.fs != fs: print("Warning: One or more Signal is not correct Sample Rate!") """ if K > 1: length = len(sig2.x) sig2.x = K*sig2.x[:length/K] """ sample_delay = int(metric_delay*fs) #if sample_delay positive: # remove samples from sig1 #else # remove sample sfrom sig2 print(f"Status: Compensating for delay of {sample_delay} frames") if sample_delay > 0: sig1_x = sig1.x[abs(sample_delay):] # Remove samples from the beginning of sig1 sig2_x = sig2.x else: sig2_x = sig2.x[abs(sample_delay):] # Remove samples from the beginning of sig2 sig1_x = sig1.x print("Status: Padding Signals for Linear Convolution") #zero-pad signal: pad_length = len(sig1_x) + len(sig2_x) - 1 # Assure that only 0s wrap around. sig1_x_final = np.pad(sig1_x, (0,pad_length-len(sig1_x))) sig2_x_final = np.pad(sig2_x, (0,pad_length-len(sig2_x))) print("Status: Computing FFTs - Y and X") Y = fft(sig1_x_final) X = fft(sig2_x_final) print("Status: Computing G from X") G = np.conjugate(X)/(np.abs(X)**2+reg_param) print("Status: Computing FFT Products: X*G") H = np.multiply(Y, G) print("Status: Computing iFFT of Product") h = ifft(H) filtered_signal = signal(name, h, sig1.fs) return filtered_signal
I am kinda puzzled. There must be something i am doing wrong. Any ideas of what could be going wrong?
submitted by TheAppleJhon to DSP [link] [comments]

2024.05.31 16:19 RBETPA How do clean a house that was smoked in heavily for years

Hi! I’m looking at an investment property that is great except for the fact that the previous owners were heavy smokers. The house is 25 years old and they chain smoked in it for the last 25 years. The smell is horrible, the walls all have a yellow tint, and a few walls have thick brown tar. Carpet and curtains have been removed. The living room has wood floors and tile on a few rooms.
Right now I’m debating the three options below. My goal is to have it cleaned right so that the smell doesn’t come back and whoever lives in it is not at risk of any diseases from the third hand smoke. Is it possible to effectively clean it or should I walk away?
The house is in a concrete slab if that helps.
Options:
  1. Degrease the walls and ceiling, clean them with TSP, sand down the texture, clean the air ducts and ac, Ozone air purifier, retexture the walls and ceiling, Kilz, primer, and repaint. Do the same for the cabinets. New flooring, base boards, electric coverings.
  2. Remove all drywall (walls and ceiling), clean the ac, ozone machine, re-drywall, texture, and prime and paint. New flooring, base boards, and electric coverings.
  3. Skip this property and look for the next one.
Thanks!
submitted by RBETPA to CleaningTips [link] [comments]

2024.05.31 15:02 beefthebeefer5183 Fragile Imagination

Getting around to telling a story that happened to me, and has always sat and dwelled in the back of my mind. Always wondering if it was a figment of my young, fragile imagination, or if I had truly stumbled upon something more sinister?
During my adolescence, I wasn't particularly the most fortunate, but I would make the most of every situation. My mother would work extremely long and grueling hours at our local supermarket to make sure that my brother and I had everything we needed—food, clothes, and the essentials. While my disabled father would try his hardest to make my life, as well as my mother's and brother's lives, a living embodiment of chaos. On the opposite end of the wage gap, my grandparents were very well off. Any opportunity we had, my brother and I would go over to enjoy the good snacks, television, and their ever-so-comforting presence. It also gave my mom a much-needed rest from having to raise her two sons alone while constantly being berated and ridiculed by a man who never deserved her time, let alone whether he even wanted her or us to begin with.
I grew up in a predominantly small town, but my grandparents, who lived about thirty minutes away, lived in an even smaller town. One main road connected the towns, as if that road were the towns’ heartbeat. They lived in the back of town, heading towards the sticks. As an adult, you can find peace and tranquility in the silence the night brings in a town like that. As a child, though, it always left me with a lingering feeling of dread when nighttime came.
They would always pick us up early in the morning, early enough to get breakfast from McDonald's so we could eat in the car as we drove our way a few towns over. We took the main road off to climb our way up the hill where the house, as well as the property, resided. Although mostly burnt up by the sun, the land itself always brought me some sort of internal peace, as if when the gates opened and closed it was a safe spot for me. We had set our things down and begun to get our blankets, clothes, and whatnot all set up for the weekend. The day continued like any other, with a house filled with laughter, mischief from me and my brother, and plenty of cartoons.
The night had finally begun to peer its head over the house on the hill, watching the orange, blue, and pink sky slowly being swallowed by the stars and the moon from on the porch. At the time, my brother would sleep on the pullout bed that we had in the living room, and every time we would stay the night, my grandfather would sleep in his recliner, as if he were watching us sleep, like a wolf to its cubs, protecting them through the night. They deemed me old enough to sleep in the empty guest bedroom, and I was thrilled to say the least. A kid with his snacks and TV to watch as much as he wanted. What was there to hate about it?
I always had a vivid imagination when I was young. Turning a space that would be considered by most as empty and devoid of existence into a lively picture that was painted in my own head. Always thinking, always imagining, always dreaming. But I am confident that what I saw was not a dream, but instead a glimpse of hell peeking around the corner. Taunting me.
While I stirred in the middle of the night, at some point my mind finally drifted and lulled me to sleep. I woke up with a pit in my stomach. Without hesitation, I sat up, as if the undisclosed tension in the air was enough to shake me to my core. I got out of bed and opened my door to an empty home—not empty in the sense of furniture and belongings, but empty and void of the soul and life that had filled the house the day before.
Determined to uncover what was happening, I meandered through the house, discreetly checking every door, room, and couch, but I found no one. As I made my way to the kitchen, that pit in my stomach unfortunately became validated. The back door in the kitchen that led to the washer and dryer was ajar. I remembered being told as a child that I wasn't raised in a barn, knowing full well anyone that left a door opened, especially an door to the outside would get an ear full. It had immediately set off alarms in my head. Creeping my way over to the door, I could hear a breeze. As I entered through the door, my fear reached its climax. The door to the laundry room was also wide open, leading to the carport that still contained my grandpa's beloved van. The door to the outside is one of those air-hydraulic ones; when pushed open, it would close on its own unless the metal piece connected to it was pulled, preventing it from doing so. The piece had been moved. Utterly petrified, I took a step outside, surveying my surroundings. But the only thing my mind could retain was the sight of one of my grandfather's crocs lying there before I was dragged back into the clutches of reality. Or so I thought.
I can recall what happened next with crystal clarity; there are no changes in the stories. rhythm, down to the last word. My eyes shot open, glued to the ceiling as I almost audibly let out a sigh of relief, knowing it was all a dream. I rolled over onto my side to readjust and get cozy when my whole perception of life as a child shifted. There he was, standing in the open doorway, gazing at me with a sickening and sardonic smile, as if he were mocking me. I was petrified and vulnerable, only able to stare daggers back at him. Rather than looking grotesque and disfigured, he had the appearance of the uncanny valley. A man I saw as a protector and father figure was cast in a cloud of hate. He—it—looked just like him: his goatee, his stance, his bald head with a few dangling hairs begging to be cut. But it was his eyes that told the story. That was not my grandfather.
Now, almost in a trance, I was unable to move. The fear coursing through my being like a disease flowed its way through my body, no, my soul. I was never able to speak to it, to interact with it. He only smiled, he only smiled at me. Almost coming to terms with my fate, I awoke.
I awoke to my grandmother at the foot of my bed, looking concerned. Of course, my initial reaction was to cringe backward, fearing she had also come for me. "Honey Bunches, are you okay?" "You gave us quite the scare with all of that screaming," she said softly, understanding full well that something had happened. I sat up, rubbing my eyes. "Yeah, Mamaw, I'm okay. It was just a bad dream, but I'm better now." She guided me into the kitchen to eat with my brother and grandpa. We had our usual small morning talk, me finding it hard to... let the love that was in that room lift my spirits. As Grandma and my brother walked toward the living room to put on cartoons, my grandpa stopped me before I could follow. "Hey, buddy, did you, by chance, go out last night and leave the doors open?" "It's okay if you did, but please close them next time; you weren't raised in a barn, after all." Chuckling off a statement that meant nothing to him but brought hell down on me. Only able to agree with what he said and apologize, out of fear and confusion, I didn't tell him. Wanting to believe it was truly just a figment of my imagination, I finally made my way to the living room, being greeted by my family. As he followed me in, he told us all that he would be doing some yard work and if we needed anything, we could run out and get him. Hearing his socks shuffle along the tile as he headed to the back, he raised his voice to get my... grandmother's attention from the back of the house. "Hey, honey, where did you put my shoes?"
submitted by beefthebeefer5183 to nosleep [link] [comments]

2024.05.31 14:41 Theeaglestrikes The Last Guard of Earth (Part IV)

Part I - Part II - Part III - Part IV
I shall conclude with the events of May 1st, 2021.
A month prior to the events of Liverpool, we were eyeing an auspicious man at a contemporary art gallery. He stood with proud hands on his hips, basking in the glow of his achievement. And rightly so.
“We were slow,” I said. “The world kissed oblivion, and it would’ve blindly met its end. All of these people… They have no idea.”
“Mr Hull did what had to be done,” Fernsby replied. “He continues to keep the darkness at bay.”
“For now,” I huffed.
“Don’t you understand?” Fernsby asked. “Others are fighting the black realm. You’re not alone.”
“He’s not splintered,” I whispered.
“Neither am I,” Fernsby said. “Yet, I fight beside you. I saved your life.”
“I… There must be more people like me,” I said.
“You may well be the last of your kind, Kane. Have you considered that?” She asked.
“Yes,” I replied.
“And have you considered that the way of the Guard was never the only way?” She continued. “United, humanity can defeat the darkness.”
On that night in Liverpool, as I stared at the abandoned Ford Ranger, I doubted Fernsby's words. Humans had taken her and Benny. The people of Earth would never be united.
I saw the tyre tracks on the tarmac. Scorched rubber from several large vehicles. I needed only my instincts as a soldier to piece together the puzzle.
The white convoy had found us. Dozen Minus. The ruthless men had been stalking us since the mountain. We already knew that. And when I took my eyes off Fernsby and Benny, they finally struck. Finally stole the last two things I loved.
Do they simply want to lure me into their lair? I wondered.
It didn’t matter. I gladly walked into the jaws of the lion, confident in my ability to face foes of flesh, rather than apocalyptic beings. But men are just as capable of leaving the world in ruins.
It took a week to find them. The headquarters of Dozen Minus stood boldly at the edge of Birmingham, against a backdrop of skyscrapers and garish neon adverts. A grotesque monolith lost in a sea of seemingly uglier things. But this government agency, hidden in plain sight, was the ugliest of them all.
DM: Government Affairs
That was marked on the plaque before the glass eyesore. The minds of Dozen Minus kept their cards close to their chest, of course. They may not have hidden, but they also did not openly display what they were. Still, it baffled me that politicians did not even attempt to hide the evil that they were funding. Men with lined pockets truly do not fear a thing.
I sensed the two men behind me before I heard the click of the gun’s safety lock.
“Unclip the holster,” A man bluntly ordered.
It wasn’t the first time I’d been held at gunpoint — it wasn’t even the hundredth time. I calmly complied, loosening my belt and letting my holstered pistol smack into the ground. Two armed, uniformed guards appeared, and one retrieved my discarded firearm, whilst the other kept his gun locked onto me. The man in charge looked no older than a teenager. A frightened, clueless boy, fumbling with the weapon’s safety catch.“Do you need some help with the child lock?” I asked.
“Move, Kane Foster,” He ordered.
I could’ve snapped the two oafs like twigs, but they were playing my game. And I would happily play whatever game they wanted in return for the safety of Fernsby and Benny. The two security guards led me across a sparse car park. As we neared the entrance, I subtly surveyed my surroundings, searching for exit points and attempting to scope the size of the building.
“Move,” The armed man repeated, directing me with the nozzle of the weapon.
I nodded, stepping through the automatic front doors.
The building’s interior felt like any other corporate hellhole. A large lobby with a twenty-foot-high ceiling, soulless branding on the far wall, and suited workers strolling past the front desk. It was a bland front, but one that worked perfectly. The business might as well have been an insignificant Wall Street hedge fund. It was an aesthetic too dull to warrant even a second glance from any outsider.
Nothing to see here, The décor said. Move along.
The two captors led me to the lifts, and I caught the gaze of the occasional wide-eyed worker — seemingly terrified to see a gun-wielding security guard. Some employees must have been oblivious to the awful depths of Dozen Minus.
“Floor B13,” The armed guard said, as we entered the lift.
“Clearance required,” A robotic voice answered.
“Liam Henley,” He replied.
A pause.
“Accepted,” The robotic voice said.
The lift doors closed, and we descended into the building’s undercarriage.
“No questions, Foster?” The second guard asked me, raising an eyebrow.
“Quiet, Shaw,” Henley barked.
“Are they alive?” I asked.
Neither guard replied. Henley simply eyed me in the pearlescent surface of the lift doors, his multi-coloured reflection surreally vicious and visceral.
The lift doors opened after ten lifetimes, and we walked into an obscenely-spacious underground city. Floor B13 had a ceiling that must’ve been a hundred metres above our heads.
“Kane Foster,” A voice boomed. “Is that right?”
I twisted my head to the left, and my eyes met those of a large man. Broad in stature, but not rotund. He had a presence. A physicality that was beyond toughness. The figure seemed unnatural. Brutish in a way one could hardly call human. He was accompanied by several guards in the same uniforms as Henley and Shaw.
“I’ll take that,” The man said, snatching my weapon from Henley.
“Where are they?” I immediately barked.
He smiled. “Introductions, Kane. My name is Stefan Blom, and I am the director of Dozen Minus. A government-funded agency that, unlike you, has legal jurisdiction in the other reality.”
“The black realm,” I said.
Blom grinned. “The black realm… Interesting. Is that what members of the Guard once called it?”
“That isn’t the proper procedure of information exchanges, Blom. I’m going to need to see my friends,” I firmly said.
The director nodded. “Yes, corporal. Of course. We are on the same side, after all. You fought for your country, and I… Well, I fight for all countries on behalf of all governments.”
“A war is not righteous because powerful men say so,” I said.
“No war is righteous, Kane Foster. And no thinking thing wants war. Not even the hell-hounds which spill through cracks in our reality. We seek the fullest lives possible, and we will do whatever we must to achieve that,” Blom said. “Right. Your friends. Come.”
Led by Stefan Blom and his guards, I passed machinery built for giants. Equipment beyond my knowledge. And I started to ponder the ways in which I would tear the Swedish director limb from limb if he were to reveal that anything had happened to my friends. However, I was baffled to find myself facing Fernsby and Benny — they were trapped in a windowed, sound-proofed room with a locked door.
“You see them, but they don't see you,” Blom explained as I hurried to the glass, pressing my hands against it. “I was never going to kill them. I’m not a cruel man, Foster. Just an ambitious one.”
I eyed the frightened woman and Labrador. “What will it take to free them?”
“You. That’s all. Slot neatly into my jigsaw, Kane Foster,” Blom said. “If you do, I can give you the world.”
The director shooed his guards away, and they uncertainly left us alone. I had no doubt that Blom could hold his own in a fist fight, but he wasn’t driven by emotion as fierce as mine.
“What jigsaw?” I asked.
“Follow me, and I’ll show you,” The director urged, motioning with his fingers as he continued walking.
I walked with the secretive man, stilling my strong desire to snap his neck. My gut was twisting — churning like butter. And my instincts were trying to tell me something. Something I didn’t understand. But the feeling was powerful enough to push me forwards. I involuntarily followed the Swedish mastermind through two metallic double doors, pulled forwards by an invisible rope.
“Do you feel it?” Blom asked, pressing his hands against a final set of doors.
Filled with trepidation, I refused to answer. I simply watched as the doorway opened.
We walked across a peach-coloured glass floor of tiles that spanned dozens and dozens of metres. The room, at first glance, was filled only with computer screens and control panels that lined the walls. But it took less than a moment for me to understand what my gut had attempted to tell me.
The tiles were not peach-coloured. They were transparent. Beneath our feet, there lay human flesh.
Not only that, but the flesh of living humans. Flesh knitted like a rich tapestry of malevolence. Hundreds upon hundreds of humans were sown together, forming a writhing sea of squirming bodies. They seemed heavily sedated. Mouths frothed, and eyes lolled listlessly, as their heads rocked and swayed. It created a tidal wave.
I finally understood the magnetised energy that had drawn Whitlock to me so many years earlier. I was connected to each of the people below my feet. The mutilated, half-conscious, half-living people.
“Splintered souls,” Director Blom confirmed.
My fists clenched, and I lurched towards the man, but he quickly back-stepped and drew my firearm.
“We didn’t know that the Order of the Guard survived,” He said, levelling the nozzle at my head. “What happened to Whitlock?”
I didn’t answer.
“Dead? I see,” The director sighed. “That wasn’t what we wanted.”
“What have you done to these people?” I asked.
The man frowned. “We weren’t going to learn about the Guard from Whitlock, and we learnt that he wasn’t the only one of his kind. We found you. Found those like you.”
“How?” I asked.
Blom smiled. “Through darkness, of course. Splintered souls are always drawn to dark things. And we developed ways of detecting it… Why do you think you first moved to that island? It’s an irresistible pull. A connection between you and the… black realm, did you call it?”
“But what do you hope to learn from them?” I breathlessly asked. “What you’ve done to them isn’t human.”
“They aren’t human, Foster… You aren’t human,” Blom said. “And it is for the greater good. The founders of the Guard knew how to banish darkness from our world… Why on Earth would they keep it a secret?”
I didn’t answer.
“You don’t know? I’ll tell you why. They did it for the same reason that any man or woman does anything. Control,” He snarled. “And I don’t begrudge your ancestors for that, Kane. I would do the same.”
“You are doing the same,” I corrected.
Blom grunted. “The Guard is dead. You are no longer the most powerful force on Earth. That is why the darkness spreads. But Dozen Minus can fill that gap. We deserve to wield that strength. We deserve to be the ones entrusted with the control of the black realm… We may even do greater things than the Guard did.”
“When men like you talk of greatness, you mean something else,” I replied.
“What do you know, footsoldier?” Blom spat. “If we truly wish to win the war, we must do more than shoo away the darkness. It always returns. We must fight. We must manipulate it. Use it for our own benefit. Create a realm twice as powerful as the black one.”
“You don’t understand what lies in that place,” I whispered. “There is no controlling it… The darkness rules all men. And it will treat you no differently.”
As the fiendish man eyeballed me, I recognised the shadowy mist in his eyes. I realised the realm had already claimed him. I had seen the reddened cloud above the Dozen Minus headquarters, just as I saw it behind his unfeeling eyes. He was innately a cruel man, of course. The black realm had not done that to him. He was a mortal abomination without empathy. But soulless husks are prime shells for beings of the black realm. Puppets who easily bend to the will of horrors.
Some other force was at play.
“I want you to teach me, Kane,” The man hissed, pointing at the fleshy sea beneath our feet. “These splintered souls hold power, but you? You understand that power. Help me to recognise the darkness…”
“If you truly wish to defeat it, then let these people go,” I said. “Let my friends go, and keep me. That is my deal.”
Blom smiled, but it was an impatient smile — I could sense the burgeoning fury itching to seep from his trembling lips.
“You are not negotiating with me, Kane Foster. Is that what you thought? No. This is about you accepting the facts of your situation. I will show you the doorway between worlds. And you will help me to coax darkness from it,” He whispered. “Three-hundred splintered souls have not baited the being, but one guard of Earth? You will suffice. I feel it already. Do you? It hungers for you, Kane. It will emerge when it sees your face… And then we will capture it.”
“You’re wrong, Blom,” I cautioned, shaking my head. “Give me the gun, and let me handle this. You don't have any power over that realm.”
The director’s finger furiously tightened on the trigger. “You truly are a member of the Guard, aren’t you, Kane Foster? Clinging to the final strand of a dead cult’s control. But you will be the last guard, Kane Foster. And when you’ve given me what I want, you will join the souls below.”
A scream sounded from the room beyond the chamber of splintered souls. A piercing sound that coursed through my veins, tearing my very sense of self in two. I knew the voice. Knew the cry of pain.
It was Evie.
Blom nodded his head, smiling as he began to walk across the room. And I found myself following. It may have been that instinctive pull. It may simply have been my determination to find Evie.
“What does it say to you, Kane?” Blom asked, no longer bothering to aim the weapon at my face. “It says such beautiful things to me. It foolishly tells me how to defeat it… You, Kane. That’s all it wants. You.”
The doors opened without Blom raising a finger. Prized apart by some external, non-physical force. And we entered a final room, far bigger than any of the others. It was a room of dirt, rocks, and darkness — encaged by tall walls, and filled with dozens of scientists. As we walked inside, I knew the entire building must’ve been built around the anomaly in the centre. An unnatural emergence that had likely driven Dozen Minus to claim the land around it.
A gaping wound in the wall between worlds.
The blackened hole was fifty metres in diameter, hovering above the ground. It vibrated with a frequency I did not understand, even with the Oath’s insight. I had witnessed horrors beyond imagination for three years of my life, but I had never seen the doorways through which they came. It was a window into a realm that had no earthly business existing.
“We wanted to disturb the ground as little as possible,” The director explained.
“You shouldn’t have toyed with this, Blom,” I warned.
“It senses you, Kane… It is glad I brought you here… And soon, we’ll have it in our grasp,” Blom whispered, leading me through a crowd of silent scientists who watched with twisting heads.
“What do you mean, Blom?” I asked, numbly walking forwards. “What’s in there?”
“Don’t worry,” He said, ignoring my question. “I will free the woman and the dog. But you will soon join the others, and I will finally take the reins to the black realm. I will rule the–”
A deep bellow interrupted the director. The scientists started murmuring in panic, as if the frightening sound had finally awoken what little humanity remained in their brainwashed hearts.
“He is here!” Blom cackled jubilantly.
The bellow morphed into a high-pitched whine, returning to that piercing scream. My wife’s scream. A sound of such ferocity that everybody in the room winced in pain.
“Kane…” Evie’s voice shrieked. “You let me die, Kane… You are no man…”
I shook uncontrollably, unable to silence her voice, even with hands pressed firmly against my ears.
“They gave me all I ever wanted… Gave me what you did not give… I am happy here…” She hissed, unleashing a gust of wind that knocked dozens of people to the floor.
The computer screens darkened. The building’s power had been obliterated by an enormous wave of motion. And, fully untethered from a long trance, the Dozen Minus workers began to run towards the doors. But their joined revelation came far too late.
Black spirals of matter, or some otherworldly substance from the black realm, fired towards the fleeing scientists, coiling around their bodies and flinging them into the hovering doorway.
I didn’t hesitate. I lunged towards Stefan Blom, who simply lay on the floor, simultaneously marvelling at the vicious hole and fearing it. He barely flinched when I plucked my firearm from his loose grip and levelled it at his head.
“So beautiful…” He whispered.
I aimed my pistol at his transfixed body. But he didn’t show interest in me. He simply watched the doorway’s dark arms sweeping screaming scientists from the ground. In my moment of distraction, I saw one of the creature’s hopeful appendages detect me. It spiralled through the air like a growing strand of DNA.
Reflexively, I raised my weapon and shot the demonic being. The cobalt seared the black realm’s limb, and the entire doorway recoiled in agony, shrinking ever-so-slightly.
“No!” Blom screamed, the pitch of his voice matching that of the screeching abyss.
And then a droplet of blackness fell, like a speck of blood, from the retreating limb. As it hit the ground, it blossomed into a fully-formed person.
Evie.
“Kane… Stop… Please…” She whispered. “Don’t hurt my home. Come with me.”
I shook my head, shakily aiming the firearm at my undead wife — the thing pretending to be my undead wife. Tears filled my eye sockets, blurring my vision.
“You’re not her…” I whispered hoarsely.
“I am her…” She whispered, outstretching a hand with a tantalising smile on her face — a smile so nearly like the one I used to know. “Just take my hand, Kane… Please…”
I hesitantly started to press the trigger, and Evie moved at a speed faster than I could process. Her form morphed, and she became an ungodly being. Taller than the doorway which floated behind her form. She loomed over me with a body constructed of jutting flesh, like the bark of a burnt oak tree. And her pupils blazed like stars from a universe that fostered death, not life.
The giant pursed its lips and exhaled, expelling a wind that swam not with locusts or other biblical visions of the apocalypse, but needles. Thousands of slender, metallic needles, approaching at great speed.
Shielding myself with my thick trench coat, I turned on my heel and pounced to the ground, dropping my weapon as I did so. I could feel the many pangs of minuscule blades slicing into my back, and I realised I was only saved from certain death by my thick clothing. But I still bled profusely — I could feel the dampness of my stinging skin.
The needles, propelled by some inhuman force, glued me to the ground. In a desperate bid to defeat the evil, I futilely reached for the weapon just beyond my fingertips. Against the wall of the room, I saw the shadow of the unholy demon which was towering behind me. An ever-growing spectre that took measured steps towards my floored body.
“And with your death, we shall have this world,” A voice of inhuman timbre hissed.
My face was slowly buried into the dirt by needles. And a vaguely human shadow lengthened along the wall as the creature neared me — a thing twenty or thirty times my size and a thousand times my strength. I could feel breath, neither hot nor cold, against the nape of my neck as the thing, neither living nor dead, leaned closer. It was basking in the pleasure of playing with its meal.
“I will take–”
A single gunshot silenced it.
The horrifying thing hissed in fury, and I felt the needles loosen from my coat. As my face lifted from the dirt, I caught a glimpse of a familiar sight, confirmed by rapid, padding footsteps. A flash of golden fur obscured my vision as a shape flitted above me. What followed was another piercing wail of agony from the blackened realm.
The needles finally clattered to the floor, fully releasing me, and I jumped to my feet. Lucinda Fernsby stood in the open doorway. Her gun was in hand. And when I turned my head to face the doorway to the black realm, I saw Benny standing between me and the deformed, deteriorating version of Evie Foster. Her bark-like flesh rapidly disintegrated into the shrinking, sealing abyss. The darkness retreated to the blackened realm, desperate to escape the cobalt-plated canines of the growling Labrador.
We watched as the being vanished into the doorway, which finally sealed with an explosion of silence. Not a peep. Its disappearance was as subtle and unsettling as the appearance of dark things in our realm.
“Let’s go!” Fernsby cried.
There would be time to lovingly reunite with my dear friends later. We returned to the chamber of splintered souls, and I fired several rounds at consoles. Sparks flew into the air, and the sound of dying machinery filled me with joy. The writhing bodies beneath us started to slow.
“We have to free them!” I yelled.
Fernsby stopped in her tracks, turning to me with round eyes. “KANE!”
I looked behind me to see what had caught her attention.
In the entrance to the room of the closed doorway, a hobbling, bleeding, rage-fuelled Stefan Blom stood.
“You will suffer as I have suffered, Kane Foster,” He snarled, limping to a surviving console and grabbing a microphone. “19874-11. Activate cleansing.”
“Director Stefan Blom confirmed. Cleansing authorised,” An artificial voice announced.
In a deplorable display, flames enveloped the souls below the glass tiles. Their bodies began to squirm again. Silently — as if they were aware of their deaths, but too psychologically and physically bludgeoned to do a darn thing about it. They simply moved as one united, sewn mattress of skin. Soundlessly burning alive, but also painfully.
“No!” I screamed.
Fernsby started to drag me towards the exit, and Benny followed.
The glass floor cracked, and fire escaped upwards, consuming the room. The inferno illuminated the deranged, grinning face of Stefan Blom at the far side of the room. But my friend pulled me through the doors, and we ran through the facility. I found my legs moving of their own accord, and my gun firing at Dozen Minus soldiers without me consciously pulling the trigger.
I only regained some semblance of consciousness hours later. I suddenly became aware of the road running past us. Fernsby in the driver’s seat of my Ford Ranger. Benny sitting in the footwell, chin resting on my lap.
“He killed them all…” I whispered.
“I know, Kane,” Fernsby replied softly.
But my response surprised the two of us.
“You were right,” I told her. “You saved me again. You and Benny. Two non-splintered souls.”
Fernsby smiled and nodded. “It doesn’t take a miracle to kill darkness, Kane. It takes courage. Sacrifice.”
I will likely die as the last human with this gift, but not all is lost. We do not need splintered souls to push the darkness back to the realm beyond our world. We just need those who are willing to face it.
We are the last guards of Earth.
dominiceagle
submitted by Theeaglestrikes to ByfelsDisciple [link] [comments]

2024.05.31 13:46 loathes-me-not At home mold tests

We lived in our house for over a month now. I suddenly have a terribly dry and itchy throat. I went to the dr and I am not sick. Im wondering if I should get the hvac system cleaned or test for mold. Our home was inspected but a standard test does not include testing for mold. We about to have some work done in our one bathroom. Its the only room in the house that has a drop ceiling. We have a few drop ceiling tiles off because we are obsesrving a collection of condensation we found from a single pipe. Could the exposed insulation cause a sensitivity? Has the condensation caused mold? Or has the previous lazy owners caused a build up in the duct that needs cleaned?
submitted by loathes-me-not to HomeImprovement [link] [comments]

2024.05.31 13:46 nino_matador23 origin of these

origin of these
these pictures all come from “Fabulous Finds” during a renovation in 2016, Fabulous finds used to be part of the OG picture location but got renovated much later giving it enough time for these pictures to be taken. If you look at some of the pictures they have the exact same design as the OG picture but with no wallpaper and green walls instead, the ceiling also seems to be very damaged missing a lot of tiles
submitted by nino_matador23 to backrooms [link] [comments]

2024.05.31 05:23 FirePreventionMan Smoke detector location question

The building I am inspecting is 6 stories. They had open ceilings with smokes in common areas on each floor. The building was remodeled and a drop ceiling was installed (ceiling tiles). They never moved the smoke detector heads down, so to test each smoke they need to get a ladder, pop the ceiling tiles and smoke it. Is this allowed? I thought ceiling tiles were 1 hour fire rates so won’t this affect the detectors ability to detect a fire ? Also I’m in the United States. Any input is appreciated.
submitted by FirePreventionMan to firealarms [link] [comments]

2024.05.31 04:09 Trash_Tia Every boyfriend I get is dying. 2.

Autopilot.
Aware that you cannot move or think or breathe on your own. The words that spew from your lips are nothing more than senseless garbage to appease the masses watching your every move.
You can't scream or cry or beg for mercy.
All you can do is watch your body, your mouth, your thoughts, be puppeteered by thousands of greedy, impatient eyes.
It's like being dead, and aware I'm dead.
Dead, while my body dances, my mind is no longer mine.
I smile a perfect smile. I don't notice the stitches holding me together.
I'm not allowed to notice.
So many layers of skin, flesh over flesh that is patchwork and does not belong to me. I am not allowed to think. I am not allowed to scream or cry, or tear into layer upon layer of Brianna Timberman’s sculpting me into beauty.
Perfection.
No thoughts, except one.
That suffocates me, strangling my words from my throat.
And I am put into autopilot.
I am Brianna Timberman.
I am Brianna Timberman.
I am Brianna Timberman.
Felix was my latest three day fling.
I was using him to make Sam jealous, but a drunken night had turned into another night, and suddenly it was Wednesday, and I was yet to leave his place.
Fuck.
He was supposed to be someone I could kick to the curb, someone to take out my frustration on. Now, Felix was more than a rebound. But even tangled in his bed, I couldn't stop thinking about Sam.
Sam Thwaites rejected me at seventeen years old, and had waltzed back into my life. As teenagers, I told him I loved him, and Sam got all flustered and started shaking his head, like I was something he didn't believe in.
Sam said words like, “I didn't know you thought of me this way.” and “Wait, you liked me?” with this dumb fucking look on his face. He told me he needed space, and left me in the pouring rain.
Five years later, he was standing in my parent’s lounge.
I could still smell him on my skin, and I hated it. I hated him.
“Bree!” Mom’s smile was wide. She and Dad were obsessed with finding me a suitor.
“This is Samuel.”
Sam Thwaites took my hand, entwining his fingers with mine. He was so warm, and I hated that I wanted to fall into him. I hated that my heart was pounding through my chest. I had already seen him, bumping into him in the snow.
I had already shamelessly fucked him in a stall without truly looking at him, angry and frustrated, and really, really, fucking hot. I wanted to tell him whatever he wanted to happen was over. I told him I hated him, curled against him, the two of us out of breath, my head against his chest, his head tipped back, half lidded eyes skimming across the ceiling.
The two of us were sprawled out on ice cold tiles, his fingers stroking through my hair. I told him to leave.
But there he was, standing in my parent’s house. In the exposed light, Sam was maturer in the face, losing his baby fat for more curvier, handsome features. Thick brown curls hung in playful eyes that wanted a challenge.
The slight curve in his lips told me everything I needed to know. Sam remembered our stupid childhood pact.
I could hear it in his voice, the satisfaction dripping from his tone.
“Hello, Brianna.”
I pulled him outside, straight into a downpour.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded.
Sam shrugged with a smile. “We’re both adults, aren't we?”
I thought back to our childhood pact. If neither of us had found anyone by the age of twenty, we would marry each other.
“You left me.”
Sam stepped forward, grasping my hands. “I did.” He admitted, “But I was a stupid kid, Bree. I had no idea what I was talking about, and I was… scared.”
“Scared?”
He nodded, blinking rain out of his eyes.
“I was scared of losing you.”
I laughed incredulously. You did lose me, Sam! When you left me in the rain.”
“But I'm not scared anymore,” his voice was soft. He got closer. So close, I could see his breath. Sam kissed me tenderly, one hand cupping my cheek, the other sliding up my jacket. His mouth found my ear, something wet and warm oozing down my neck.
“Take… it.” Sam’s voice was different, suddenly.
”Please.”
Pulling away from the kiss, I shoved him back.
“How much is my father paying you?”
Sam swiped at his… bloody? lips, and a question sprung to mind.
Where did the blood come from?
“Well?” I demanded, my voice collapsing into a sob. “Is my dad paying you or not? Is that why you came back?”
Sam didn't answer, his face crumpling.
“Bree–”
“Save it!”
I left before he could fully open his mouth.
Halfway down the road, I realized I was freezing cold.
Before a shadow loomed, an umbrella shielding me.
“You look like a drowned rat.” My colleague was next to me, avoiding my gaze. “Take this.” he turned away from me, curling his lip. “Do whatever you want with it, I don't care.” He twisted around, stuffing his hands in his pockets.
The next day at work, I couldn't stop thinking about Sam.
Felix, the lead singer of a local band, and a law student, was the perfect distraction. I met him in a bar.
He was the Aussie trying to get a Dualingo streak, downing shots like soda. His accent was cute. It reminded me of water, or maybe that was just my drunken state. The cadence in his voice was like…trickling.
I told him this, and he laughed. His suggestive wink took us to his apartment, and we spent the night together after I drunkenly told him I thought he was hot. I expected it to be just a one-time thing, but then we were having sex on his kitchen counter.
I told him it wasn't serious. However, a one night stand had become more of a three day friends with benefits thing.
Now, we were sitting outside my work drinking coffee, and I was starting to reconsider my initial stand on Australian Felix.
There was something about the way he smiled with all of his teeth, nervously tapping his coffee cup and occasionally losing himself completely, falling into a daydream mid-conversation. I liked it though.
I liked watching his mind jet off into space. His longing gaze was adorable.
Felix was sitting awkwardly, chin resting on his fist, talking about his favourite band, and I was enraptured by caramel colored eyes and the dimples in his cheeks. The sun was shining, and we were sitting under cherry blossoms I didn't remember seeing before. I was supposed to be working, and he had come to see me, armed with cupcakes and my favourite coffee. Dreamer Felix.
Dimpled cheeks Felix.
Felix with the trickly accent and slight lisp, who stumbled over his words and had a milk moustache I desperately wanted to wipe away. I did, leaning over the table and lightly brushing the curve of my finger across his upper lip.
“You've got a little…”
Felix’s eyes widened. He swiped at his mouth, chuckling. “Ah. That's… kinda embarrassing.”
A loud and overly exaggerated clearing of the throat made me jump.
“Urgh. I think I just threw up in my mouth.”
Looming over me like a bad smell, was my colleague Jasper, scowling as usual. Standing with his arms crossed over his apron, he shot me a patronising smile, completely blanking Felix.
The boy dumped my latte down, spilling half of it across the table.
Behind him, a group of teenage girls were giggling. I wasn't surprised.
Jasper really could pull off any look, and, just like the girls squealing over him, I couldn't resist handsome features and a killer jawline. It just sucked that he was one of the rudest people I had ever met.
He was wearing the exact same shirt from yesterday, his apron flung over the top, cropped blonde hair in disarray. Running his hair through it, he groaned.
“You're supposed to be workiiiing, Bree,“ He said in a sing-song. Leaning across the table, Jasper’s patronising smile widened. “Are we done here?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Sorry, Jasper.”
“You should be.” Jasper’s gaze flicked to Felix. ”You're a student, right?”
“Uh…” Felix nodded slowly. “Yeah? I guess.”
My colleague shot him a sparkly grin. “Five percent off at the Crap ‘N Shack this weekend! Student discount! Alcohol served after 9pm will be free.”
“Woah, really?” Felix downed the rest of his drink, his eyes wide.
I glanced at his cup. I could have sworn he'd… finished it.
“What about parking?” Felix asked. “Will… I still get a ticket?”
“Nope!” Jasper shot him a grin, and a thumbs up. “Make sure to bring a student ID, and parking is free! It's all going down at the Crap ‘N Shack! This Saturday! With a Special guest, local music artist, Tiema Wright! Performing his new song, “I'm sorry I left you in the rain, but will you marry me?”
Both boys turned to me with matching smiles, speaking in sync. “Will you be there, Brianna?”
I nodded, with a grin. “You bet I will!” I saluted Felix with my drink. “Shouldn't you be heading to class?”
“I love you Jasper!” one of the girls squeaked from behind me.
My colleague rolled his eyes, not even turning around to look at her.
“I know you do.” Jasper sighed, pulling out his notepad and pen.
He side-stepped to the next table, serving the people next to us. He licked his finger with exaggerated slowness, flipping the page. “But you're embarrassing yourself, sweetheart.”
“I'm free after work,” I said, “Maybe you could come back to my place?”
“You're on the late shift tonight with me, so no you're not free.” Jasper said behind me. When I twisted around to shoot him a look, he was tapping his pen on his notepad, mid-eyeroll.
“No, sir, we don't do refills. Nope, I can't make an exception, and no, complaining about it will just make me laugh.”
“I'll text you.” I told Felix.
“Sounds good.” He jumped up, finishing his coffee and grabbing his backpack. The Pikachu keyring on his zipper made me smile. “I have class, but I'll reply when I'm out, all right?”
Felix lifted his hand in a wave, took two steps back, and was crushed by a falling sheet of glass.
I'm not sure when it was my mind stirred, and I regained consciousness for the fraction of a second. It was enough for my vision to clear, my senses coming back to the surface.
The never ending script of words programmed into my brain stopped abruptly, and I was left suffocating on my own breaths.
I was awake.
Awake, blinking at Felix’s body being peeled from concrete.
Awake.
Awake enough to notice my colleague visibly flinched behind his notepad when Felix died. Awake enough to be able to breathe again, coerce words in my mind.
I had zero idea of who I was before Brianna Timberman. Who was underneath flawless skin and manicures and sparkling teeth. My senses returned in waves. Taste.
I had drank the same fucking coffee four times, and I could taste coffee grounds on my tongue.
Smell.
There were sweat patches staining my blouse.
Touch.
I could feel my coffee cup, running my finger around the rim.
I am not Brianna Timberman.
The thought slammed into me, and I felt my hands twitch by my sides, the overwhelming urge to tear off my skin, layer after layer until I found myself.
When did I regain my free will?
Maybe it was when Felix’s blood was seeping across my shoes, his body an unrecognisable mess of stringy flesh and lumps under splinters of glass sparkling like diamonds across the sidewalk.
It took me half a second to realize a woman was screaming in my face.
“Oh my god, sweetie, are you okay?”
Autopilot.
I nodded shakily, words already tumbling out of my mouth.
“I'm fine.”
“Was he your boyfriend?”
Autopilot.
“No.”
For some reason, my eyes found Jasper still hiding behind his notebook.
“He wasn't.”
No matter how hard I tried to fight it, Brianna’s feelings were already swamping me. I felt my cheeks heat up, my stomach fluttering. Before autopilot thoughts could spring out of nowhere, I remembered my colleague’s reaction to Felix’s death, as well as him subtly trying to stop me from talking to Sam.
There was zero doubt in my mind that Jasper didn't know what was going on.
If the rest of us were recycled lumps of skin, what was he? He was a love interest, but he wasn't one of Bree’s exes.
Sam explained my colleague was a curveball.
The so-called bad-boy playing with Brianna Timberman feelings.
With little to no thoughts of my own, I stated the facts in my head.
My life wasn't real. I was nothing but recycled flesh sculpted and moulded into a dead prom queen with her memories. That thought still had not sunk in yet, and when I started to register it, all I wanted to do was peel my skin from my bones until I found myself.
Who I was, hiding under patchwork flesh.
So many Brianna’s stitched onto me. So many lost souls.
I had been on autopilot for days. All that I had left when I came to, was a vague memory of every other death.
Ben, Alex, and Esme.
Car crash.
Suicide.
Carbon monoxide poisoning.
Now Felix.
Crushed to death.
Each of their deaths had been voted m by the townspeople.
It was only a matter of time before Felix would be erased from existence too.
Sam, or the boy underneath him, had shown me who I really was, a lump of flesh sculpted into Brianna Timberman.
Sam had the same fate.
He showed me where he came from, a factory that had turned the town's teen populace into the exact same four faces.
Brianna Timberman’s exes.
Ben, Alex, Esme, and Sam.
First, he was an Alex, then a Ben, and then an extra, who tried to warn me, before being abruptly converted into Sam Thwaites, a brand new love interest, and Brianna’s childhood friend.
Sam told me Brianna’s exes deaths were a joke, her love life controlled by the town through a popularity poll.
Brianna had committed suicide years ago, but the town were obsessed.
They wanted to watch her life. They wanted to see which person she would choose, voting for their favourites while dooming the loser to a fate worse than death. The least popular love interest would die brutally, and the cycle would continue. In this case, it was Felix.
The boy suppressed under Sam had shown me the truth, only to be captured and turned into one of my parent’s suitors. The realization was like a kick in the face. I was alone. Awake and aware of too-bright lights on my face, and unable to cry out or scream.
Brianna Timberman was dead, but according to the town, the show must go on.
Staying very still, I was suddenly well aware of patrons on their phone.
I glanced at a teenage girl, who was rapidly swiping right on an image of my colleague, while a man holding a briefcase lazily swiped left on Sam.
“Your boyfriend should have been more careful.”
I blinked.
Jasper was in front of me, arms folded across his apron.
Sam talked about a Red Zone in the bathroom stalls a few days ago.
He said it was where they couldn't see us, and I would be fully conscious, severed from whatever was in my head.
Jasper waved his hand in front of my face, and it suddenly occurred to me that if I wanted answers, such as where the Red Zone was located, I needed my colleague’s help.
Whether he was awake or not.
Brianna Timberman was in full control of my mind, however, so regaining free will was getting progressively harder.
Two days later, after being stuck on autopilot, I was serving a woman trying to calm her screaming kid.
Felix didn't have a funeral, and his name was already forgotten. In my half awake state though, I remembered him.
I had since met two people.
Adrianna, who was a quick make out in a bathroom stall.
She smelled just like Esme. Roses and cheap perfume.
Ren. The older college professor who I drunkenly kissed in the back of an Uber.
I can't pinpoint the times when I was fully awake.
Fully in control.
I was perfecting a foam heart on a customer's latte, when I realized I really wanted to fuck my colleague. The thought was explosive, immediately setting my cheeks on fire. Trying to suppress it was fighting a losing battle.
“Hey.” Jasper sided in front of me, tearing me out of my thoughts. Or Brianna’s thoughts. I had spent the last hour dazedly staring at his wonderfully sculpted jawline, unable to look at anything else.
Brianna liked to fantasise, and her mind wasn't exactly PG13.
It's not like I had control of my mouth. Autopilot meant my body and mind worked for me. I was just lucky to be conscious– or at least semi-conscious.
I had a semblance of a plan, and the first part was finding Sam Thwaites. Or the boy sculpted into Sam. The last time I saw him before I went on autopilot, I had no idea if he was awake or just a really good fucking performer.
The Red Zone was all I could think of.
If I wanted out of this nightmare, I needed to find it.
However, thinking is kind of hard when all I can think about was my colleague’s biceps.
I couldn't take my eyes off of the way he swung a carton of milk, mid-conversation with our manager.
Jasper caught my eye, scowling.
“Bree. Get your fucking head out of the clouds.”
My colleague’s tone was so shamelessly unapologetic, a group of girls in the queue burst into giggles. The guy was like a circus attraction.
Now that I had a semblance of actual thought, I realized our only customers were women, with the odd man every blue moon. Jasper cleared his throat, setting the milk down.
“Okay, look, I’m sorry your boyfriend got flattened, or whatever, but you need to stop moping around like someone freakin’ died.”
Autopilot.
There was a bright light suddenly.
I shoved him. Hard.
“Why do you always have to be such a dick?”
Jasper was unfazed. He didn't even stumble. I felt it, a shiver creeping down my spine, an insatiable need clouding my thought process.
Brianna Timberman was hot. Very hot. Jasper’s attitude, his movement, everything about him and being so close to him, was making her flustered.
She was sweating under her apron, and all she could look at, all she could focus on, was her colleague. Who was, against all odds, still playing hard to get.
All around us, patrons went silent.
The girls in the queue started nudging each other. My colleague stepped forward, his breath tickling my face.
He was a little too close. “I should be asking you the same thing,” he murmured, lips twitching into a smirk.
“You've been staring at me all morning.” Jasper stepped closer, backing me into the counter. I could feel my cheeks getting hotter and hotter, my thoughts clouding.
Another step, and we were nose to nose.
Jasper cocked his head. “Do I…have something on my face, Bree?”
It took every morsel of self control to turn away from him, back to the queue.
I smiled widely at the customer, making lattes and coffees. But my stomach was dancing, my mind foggy and distant.
It didn't help that every time Jasper shoved past me, he made it intentional, and the friction of his body against mine, his hands brushing my waist, was driving me crazy. Sam mentioned aphrodisiacs being pumped through the vent in the bathroom stalls to influence intimacy between Brianna and her love interests.
I had a feeling that is what was happening. Still, though, when I peeked at the ceiling, I couldn't see a vent.
I couldn't stop my own wandering hands every time he passed me.
It was a game, in a way.
Who would crack first.
I was in the break room trying to cool myself off, when Jasper stepped in front of me.
“Vegan milk.” He said. Despite acting cool and collected, maintaining his asshole smirk, I glimpsed a noticeable red blush spreading across his cheeks.
His lips found my ear. “Can you… help me find it?”
Autopilot.
Autopilot had taken us into the dark. My body and emotions and feelings were no longer mine, choking, drowning, in fog that contorted me into exactly what these people wanted.
I'm not sure how I got from the break room to the storage closet, pinned against a shelf, half naked, my legs wrapped around my colleague. He started, of course, with his mouth latched to my ear, muttering about Mulberry Milk offers, before his lips found mine.
His breath was heavy, his hands finding my waist, and sliding up my shirt.
God, I pretended a lot of things weren't happening for the sake of not losing my fucking mind.
I pretended I couldn't hear the wolf whistles and squeals rumbling in the walls surrounding us, that the pleasure riding through me was mine, and not theirs. We had an audience.
Somehow, that was even worse than my body being used to satisfy others.
I pretended I wasn't fully exposed, and even worse, that I wanted it.
I wanted to get closer to him, pressing my mouth into his clammy neck and burying my face in his shoulder.
I wanted him to continue, his lips in my hair.
Tipping my head back, my vision was blurring.
But I could see it.
Right above our heads, there was the vent pumping us full of aphrodisiacs.
Sex drugs, I thought dizzily.
I laughed, and it was so out of character, Jasper pulled away for a moment, brows knotting in confusion.
“The Red Zone.” I managed to grit out through Brianna Timberman’s mouth. “Where is it?”
When he didn't respond, I grabbed the back of his head, forcing him to look at me. Under the dim light of a flickering bulb, my colleague’s eyes were half lidded, his pupils dilated pools of confusing black. I had no doubt he hadn't been heavily drugged.
Jasper kissed me deeply again, and when I managed to shove him away, he tightened his grip on my waist, pressing his face into my shoulder.
“The Red Zone.” I repeated, my thoughts reduced to soup.
I only had a certain amount of time, and that time was running out.
I shoved him again. This time, I felt filthy.
His clammy hands all over my skin was like poison.
I felt suffocated, every time he leaned in.
The worst part is that this man had zero choice either.
The thought struck, sending violent tremors through me.
How many times had my corpse of a body been used like this?
How many times had I been fucked, or fucked someone else for this town’s sickening satisfaction obsession with Brianna Timberman?
“Tell me where it is!” I said through a shriek.
Jasper slowly started to respond, blinking rapidly. “The… wha?”
He was a good performer, awake or not.
“You knew what was going on when your friends dragged Sam away.”
I kept my voice low, kissing him harder to keep the narrative going. Especially when I could hear the dull sound of pounding feet. These freaks wanted us to fuck.
I made sure to let my mouth linger on his, aware of every inch of the two of us being watched, analysed, probably photographed and posted to the town website. “I saw you flinch when Felix died. Which means you were awake.”
I pulled away, slowly, playing with the collar of his shirt. But at the same time, I was looking for every possible escape route. Sam was right. To my left, I could see a subtle red light dancing across Jasper’s jaw.
And to my right, another skimming across my neck.
So, I grabbed the boy, shoving him against the shelf, switching our positions.
“You tracked me down that day,” I spoke softly, pretending to bury my head in his chest. “You knew exactly where I was. And you took Sam away. So, you know exactly where the Red Zone is. You know where he was hiding.”
Jasper surprised me with a chuckle. When I lifted my gaze, my vision was fuzzy, my body hot and flustered, and yet I was shivering. His head was tipped back, lazy eyes tracking the ceiling. He was following the exact same red light.
“You're a funny girl, Bree.” He murmured. My colleague leaned forward, keeping up the facade for our unseen audience. He was doing exactly what they wanted, the curve of his back almost too perfectly lit up.
It was exactly what Brianna Timberman had fantasised.
Jasper’s panting breaths found my ear. “Keep talking, though? You're going to fuck both of us over.”
His words sent shivers trickling down my spine.
In the corner of my eye, the red light was visible. If the room was too dark, that meant they were tracking and filming our movements. I didn't think.
Grabbing my colleague’s shoulders, I yanked him to his knees, dropping with him. Risking a glance behind us, the light was gone. Which meant (or at least I hoped) that we were out of shot.
Jasper regarded me lazily, inclining his head. “What are you–”
I slammed my hand over his mouth, cutting him off.
“The Red Zone. You know exactly where it is.” I hissed, tightening my grip on his shoulder. When he played stupid, I dug my fingernails in. “You're not an ex,” I said, “So, what are you?”
“Jasper?” my colleague muffled under my hand, pointing to his name tag. When I removed my hand, his lips spread out into a grin. But I caught his eyes frantically searching for those red lights.
“I have no idea what you're talking about, Bree!” He raised his voice significantly, “But… did you know vegan milk is made with only the best pasteurised milk from Mulberry Farms?”
This guy wasn't going to sing, so I had to get creative.
Above us, three red lights were scanning the dark.
They were looking for us.
“Please.” I whispered, searching his eyes for a hint of a human being.
“You're as much of a victim as me, right? Don't you want out of here?!”
Jasper responded with his signature eyeroll, maintining that plastic fucking grin.
“I… have zero idea what you’re talking about! But do you know what I really want to talk about? Mulberry Farms milk!”
I couldn't stop myself. Maybe it was frustration, desperation, or a mix of both. I wasn't fully thinking straight when I grasped the back of his head, and slammed Jasper’s skull into the metal edge of the shelf. I regretted it immediately when the guy’s eyes rolled to pearly whites, his body going limp in my arms, head lolling onto his shoulder.
When a single rivulet of red slid from his nose, I realized he was like Sam.
Sam, who must have given himself a head injury to wake himself up.
A severing.
Under the influence of the narrative, as well as aphrodisiacs choking my thoughts into arousal, I never really saw my colleague’s body. I only saw what Brianna wanted to see. Lean muscles and a perfectly sculpted v-line.
But now, away from the cameras, and in the fading light of a dying bulb, I saw them, running my trembling fingers over rugged stitched and patchwork skin moulding this boy, and so many others, into the perfect man.
I could see where parts of him had been replaced and cut away, his entire face airbrushed into a viewer’s fantasy.
But looking closer, his real eyes were mismatched contortions of blue and brown.
I waited for the sarcastic eye roll and immediate plug-in advertisement.
Instead, though, the man's expression was… softer.
He looked dazed, confused, blinking rapidly.
But, as he slowly drank in his surroundings, his expression started to twist into fear. Pain. Anger.
Anger that was so vast, so overwhelming, that he dropped to his knees, scrubbing at his face. I didn't know what to say. Sorry didn't mean anything. Sam was gentle when he told me I was recycled skin, nothing but a flesh puppet for a psychotic town.
But I didn't give him a chance to take it in. I plunged him directly into this cruel, horrifying reality.
Jasper’s frenzied gaze went to his hands, and then his hands were in his hair, clawing down his face.
His lips parted like he was going to speak, but I don't think he could.
Jasper’s eyes filled with frustrated tears. Terror that was something I could relate to, an existential dread and confusion and pain that was tearing him apart. I knew the questions at the back of his head.
Why me? Why was this happening to me? How can I be alive? How can I be real when the rest of me is nothing?
I felt my own fingers trace the scars across my own stomach.
Scars that only I could feel, deeply indented into my skin.
Skin that I wanted to rip into, to tear away.
Because… I was somewhere, right?
Underneath all of this, my old self was there.
I fucking HAD to be because I can't just be THIS.
Jasper stumbled back, clumsy on his feet, embarrassed and confused, trying to hide himself. When blood started seeping freely from his nose and down his chin, I found my voice. “Hey.”
I spoke softly, and his eyes finally found mine, resembling a startled deer.
“Can you tell me who you are?”
I swallowed thick slime creeping into my mouth.
“Who you were?”
For a sobering moment, it was just the two of us.
Not Brianna and Jasper.
His eyes found mine, truly drinking me in.
And something sparked in his expression. Recognition, or familiarity.
His hands cupped my face, fingers running down my cheeks.
The man was mute, speechless, and yet somehow, he was crying.
Crying for me.
A stranger.
Somehow, though, my hands, or at least part of my hand, the stitched and rugged parts of me, responded to his touch.
“Bree? Jasper?”
When the door flew open, I jumped to my feet, pulling the boy with me.
They were paranoid, I thought, mirroring Sam’s earlier words.
The town was making sure we were still satisfying them.
To my surprise, Jasper’s eyes dilated back to brown.
“Uh,” His voice was choked up, more of a growl, “Give us a sec, all right?”
Autopilot.
I bent down and grabbed my shirt, throwing it on.
Jasper buttoned up his own, brushing himself down.
He stepped back, winking.
“Same time tomorrow?”
Autopilot.
Brianna didn't speak. Instead, she headed towards the door.
She wanted him to chase after her for more.
But not before Jasper came close, hissing in my ear.
“You want to go on a suicide mission? Fine.” I was already pulling away, or Brianna was pulling away, because my body was being forced forwards.
Still, he held me, tightening his grip. “The thrift store across the street. Stall three, in the bathroom.” He said. “Just, please,” Jasper’s tone softened.
“Please never fucking do that to me again.”
So, I had a location.
The problem was actually getting to it.
Autopilot.
It was stronger, forcing me onto the stage.
I spilled coffee over a customer, and of course, Jasper came to the rescue.
When I dropped a tray full of drinks, slipping on someone's mess, his arms were already wrapped around me, catching me before I could hit the ground.
When our eyes met, Brianna Timberman’s heart fluttered.
The people surrounding us were already swiping right on their phones.
Jasper helped me stand up. “You… should be more careful, you idiot.” He grumbled.
I nodded, straightening up.
Jasper leaned against the refrigerator. “Do you know Sam Thwaites?”
I didn't look up from making coffee. “Yeah. He was…”
I blinked away memories of the two of us as kids.
“Just a friend.”
“He's bad news.” Jasper said. “The guy is working for your dad.”
“That's not… that's not true.”
“Oh, really?” He stepped in front of me, head tiled to the side. “So, he just came back into your life for no reason?”
“I don't want to talk about Sam.”
“But… Did he leave you anything?” Jasper murmured. “Like a… I don't know, a parting gift, maybe?”
Before I could reply, my colleague blurted, “What were you wearing when we were… “ He looked around nervously. “Looking for vegan milk?”
“I… don't know?” I prodded at my apron. “This, I guess? Why?”
“Oh, no reason!” he winked at me. “Did you know my Aunt died recently?”
“No…”
“Well, her funeral was all sorted within a matter of days,” Jasper continued, speaking through that same grin.
“Callister Funeral Care really did give me the comfort me and my family needed while we were in mourning…”
Autopilot.
I woke up halfway through my shift the next day, in the middle of serving three boys.
Immediately, I dropped what I was doing, darting to the door.
“I'm going on my break!” I yelled, grabbing my jacket and pushing through a group of girls. The town thrift store was empty. I was pushing through the door when a girl pushed past me, hard enough to knock my jacket out of my hands. When I scooped it up, something dropped out of my pocket.
Inside was a single black disk-shaped thing. I stuck the plastic down my bra.
“Bree? What are you doing here?”
Lifting my head, my colleague was standing over me.
Jasper’s smile was a little too big.
When he helped me up, his voice was a sharp breath. “How exactly are you planning on getting in the men’s bathroom, genius?”
I had a way.
But neither of us were going to like it.
Autopilot, however, did my job for me. I was in a bathroom stall on my knees, when reality hit, and I shook my head of fog. Jasper was already pulling me to my feet. Pressing his index over his lips and motioning for me to be quiet, he pointed above our head. Instead of a window, there was a hatch. “Red Zone Two.” He mouthed. "Fucking go!
I nodded, climbing onto the toilet bowl, throwing myself through the hatch.
This time, I felt directly into a pile of still-wet and still warm bodies.
But these weren't Alex’s or Ben’s, or Sam’s.
My own face, my perfectly moulded and sculpted Barbie doll face stared back at me. Brianna Timberman was everywhere. Her glazed blue eyes and wide smile were suffocating me. It when I stood up, did I start to see patches. I saw skin and hair, torn and stained clothes with body parts still attached to them. Different faces.
Girls.
Beautiful girls with their heads severed, their bodies reduced to mutilated flesh.
Smiles stretched into skeletal grimaces, and eyes scooped from the sockets.
As if I felt connection with the doll pieces around me, I started to claw at my legs.
Like I could find my own skin, revel in it.
I stood up, at the sound of a mechanical whirring. In front of me was a blood stained conveyer belt that wasn't moving, that was frozen. Just like the room with Sam’s, Ben's, Alex's, and Esme’s. I felt my fingernails rip into my arms, and my face. My gaze was glued to the cutoffs, the human bodies scattering metal flooring. Is this what I was?
I ripped into the skin of my face until I felt the sting.
But there was no fucking blood. Nothing to remind me I was human.
“Bree. You need to get out of here. Now.”
I was barely aware Jasper had joined me. He fished up my jacket.
“What are you?” I asked him, my voice shuddering.
“Wrong.”
His response surprised me. “Which is why they're going to kill me off soon, and I'll die the way I was supposed to.”
Jasper’s words collapsed into white noise.
Instead, I was someplace else, a memory splintering into dozens of memories.
I was… Clara.
Jamie.
Lily.
Kiera.
Becca.
Elizabeth.
I was running.
Screaming.
A guy was in front of me, tugging my hand.
“The far gate is the exit!” The voice in front was female.
“If we reach it, we’ll get out of here. Just keep running.”
A sharp flash, and I was standing stiff. Upright.
I was moving, a long line of girls in front of me.
I felt them, writhing, entangled around my bones.
Every girl I was made out of.
The cruel needle plunging into the back of her neck, instantly killing her.
A second needle injecting a solution that kept the body alive.
Her thoughts and feelings and sensations.
All of it was kept alive.
Conscious.
The whirring blades coming down and skinning away her face, her eyes, her lips, her screams falling on deaf ears.
Her sculpted body, naked and raw, was shoved forwards.
The next metal arms made sure to stitch up loose skin, adding and removing and slicing away what was no longer needed, adding a metal exoskeleton to assure no damage. Then came clothes, a yellow summer dress, exactly what she was wearing on the day Sam Thwaites dumped her in the rain. The final metal arm was more of a brush, a thing scraping across the face to make sure Brianna was perfect.
When she tumbled off of the conveyor belt, smiling widely, I wasn't Clara, or Jamie, or Lily…
Fuck.
I was Brianna Timberman.
Standing at the end of the line, with his arms folded, was Brianna’s father.
His smile was proud, eyes glinting with madness.
He stroked my face, eyes filling with tears.
“She's perfect.”
The memory shattered, coming apart, when something pricked my neck. There was a blinding white light on me.
“We’ve got her, sir.”
A muffled cry, and I could just see Jasper being wrenched back.
“Hey! I did what you told me to do! The pocket is empty!” his voice deepened into a growl. “Let me go!”
The figure who grabbed him seemed to enjoy his discomfort. She had wandering hands. “Five more seasons, pretty boy.” The woman hummed. “Brianna may have forgiven you, but your debt is with Mr Timberman.”
“Wait! No, we had a fucking deal you piece of– mmppphmmh!”
I was forced onto my stomach. “AND the love interest who appears to be faulty. It's the tracer who was supposed to be following her.” The voice swam in and out, as my mind plunged. *“Yes. I'll get him remodelled immediately. Uh-huh. Brianna is A-okay, sir. Do you have my permission to proceed?”
Autopilot.
This time it was deep, dragging me to impossible depths.
“Brianna!”
Mom’s voice snapped me back to half-fruition.
I was standing in my parent’s hallway in front of Sam.
Sam, who had lowered himself to one knee, a ring pinched between his fingers..
“Say yes!” Mom stood behind me, standing with my brother.
Autopilot.
My lips spread into a smile.
Two bright lights on the two of us.
“Yes.” I whispered, when he wrapped his arms around me. “I'll marry you.”
The walls around us were ooh-ing and ahh-ing.
When the lights switched off, and Sam’s smile stayed plastic and taut, I realized the boy underneath was gone.
But it was when his head was in my chest, did I remember his earlier words.
“Please. Take it.”
Autopilot.
The day skipped forward.
I was only aware of my mother’s hands tangled in my hair.
She was dragging me down the hallway.
“Don't worry Brianna!” She said gleefully, tightening her hold.
“No daughter of mine is this much of a nuisance, and the show must go on!”
I was shoved into a room, on autopilot.
But, after regaining myself, I can break myself out of autopilot.
The medic came to see me.
According to her, I'm slightly severed.
They're going to fix me. Like what they did to Sam.
Look, it's been three hours and I've been thinking about a lot of things. I know you can't save me. I live in the blip of a town, a town you can't find on a Google search. I know I'm a prisoner.
But I think I know how to save myself and the others.
Mainly. I want to cut Brianna Timberman away, and look underneath.
But I'm terrified that under all of these layers? They're will be nothing left.
I've already done most of it. Right now, half of my face is caught under my nails.
But I'm not
Fuck
I can't find me???
Im not bleeding, I can't see anything that looks like ME and when they come back they're going to patch me back up.
They'll stick someone else's flesh over me, and call me Brianna.
But I'm not Brianna?????
I'm not any of those girls, so who am I?
submitted by Trash_Tia to Trash_Tia [link] [comments]

2024.05.31 03:01 kwisp59 Stepped Backsplash Tiles

Stepped Backsplash Tiles
Opinion of stepped tiles vs tiling to the ceiling? I think this provides an interesting design element.
submitted by kwisp59 to Tile [link] [comments]

2024.05.31 02:22 Valuable_Fun479 Eso sí que es interesante

Eso sí que es interesante submitted by Valuable_Fun479 to BeelcitosMemes [link] [comments]

http://rodzice.org/