Winchester serial dater | | My entire life I spent with someone doing my best to please others. This started at a very young age and went from my parents, grandparents, siblings, friends, boyfriend (serial dater) and now husband. Now, at 42, I cannot find peace and happiness being alone. Anyone else feel like this too?

Trying to find a way, now, to work on myself and being alone and happy that way. Not needing to rely on someone else to go with me or be with me to enhance an experience, and that experiences can be enjoyable alone. What are some of the best ways you have learned to cope and manage this type of situations?

My grandfather gave me this , it says it’s a 94. Someone told me this is a 1926 and had a recalled barrel so it could be re built. To me it looks all original. Chambered in 30-30 and says 94. Pics attached
Thanks

I F(20) have slowly fallen for my M(20) best friend. Could it be a KFC love story?
Me and my best friend met at our first job when we were 16 at KFC (met in year 10 AUS now in first year university). Our store was new so we constantly worked together. Our first time meeting we awkwardly went to McDonalds for lunch and shared some laughs and since then there has been almost no awkwardness.
We could never stop laughing but it was always friends and only ever a side thought it could ever be more. Our friendship meant to much and soon those feelings went away.
He had set me up with one of his friends that was a very complicated situationship lasting roughly 10 months. That was 2 years ago and we have both since moved on seen different people, but that provides some hesitance for me.
Over that period we hung out a lot and our friendship grew so strong and afterwards in year 12 although we didn't see each other often we would call all the time and I would constantly receive the most lovely drunk dials where he would tell me how much he cared for me and what was happening in his life while I sat in my bedroom studying (he is more of party goer than me but I tag along whenever I'm free).
Last year in august was his birthday party. I went and at this point a part of me was slowly realising I was falling for him and thought I would make a move. He did not seem to be getting the point so I moved on to some meaningless hook up with some other random guy which me and my best friend laughed about soon after and make jokes of to this day.
I didn't think to much about my feelings afterwards. However lately a conversation we had keeps coming up in my mind. At a lunch 2 years ago we were discussing how apparently most boys think about liking a girl when they first meet. I asked whether he ever thought it about us? He said yeah he liked me for a bit but realised our friendship was worth too much (implying he didn't want to ruin it by asking me out).
I have realised I'm in love with him. The way he has been there me through some of my toughest moments where we cry to each other and he has entrusted me with his toughest moments. Yet it's not about the way he cares about me, it's the way he cares for everyone around him. He is the kindest truest person I know and whenever If I do something wrong he will tell me so in the most respectable kind way.
He called me at this exact point of writing this post, updating me on one of his outings and is laughing with me.
I trust him with my life and everything in between. The way he treats everyone around him with kindness and truthfulness, he has the purest heart and sees everyone in the best light. He brings out the best in me and I am so truthful around him and he has stuck with me and knows all the good the bad and the ugly and he still says he loves me (as a friend? I think).
At work they call us the mum and dad because we bicker and jokingly argue and tease each other but we know it's all with love. I told my girl best friend yesterday and almost teared up because I genuinely am so fond of him, and she said I never look happier than when I'm with him. When we met 3 years ago I don't think it would've worked if he told me he liked me. But we have grown so much and I have grown to love who he has become and I can imagine growing together in the future. I'm not going to rant anymore about all the ways I continue to fall for him because I think you get it and I don't want to bore you to death.
On the 12th of February these feelings came crushing down on me like a ton of bricks once and I wrote the last journal entry I have since then (it is now almost June). This man has called me under all circumstances, I'm the person he told about his family issues (hasn't told anyone else), I'm the person he has thrown up and crapped on call with while drunk, he's the person who held me and danced with me while I was too drunk to stand, he is my partner when I need to go on a double date to meet my friends boyfriend, he's my best friend and I love everything about him and his family and his values and everything. I could spend everyday with him and not get bored. A movie had a quote once that "when you love someone you don't love despite their flaws you love because", because they laugh funny, they can't dance, because they have a smile that reaches both ends of the room and gives you butterflies and makes your smile bigger.
He has dated people for short periods since we met but never anybody that seriously worked out and he's not seeking anything out at the moment. I never questioned it but I wonder whether it's because he could be saving his feelings (side note I know he is BI and is into girls).
Whenever I joke about him being in love with me he laughs and it seems fully like a joke, he thinks I've so far in the friend zone that I could never mean those jokes truthfully.
I want to tell him I love him and for him to say he loves me back and hold me. But I'm terrified, he knows about my previous guys and stuff like that and I'm afraid he wouldn't want to be with someone like me (a slight um serial dater, used to fill my feelings with hooking up meaninglessly with some random).
I love him, what do I do? how do I tell him? what do I say? do I swallow these bubbling feelings forever even though they have consumed me to the point of writing a reddit post?
I fear telling anyone out of complete fear of rejection by him and out of embarrassment of people knowing, it is not a meaningless crush its a friendship turned into love without me even realising.

I F(18) have slowly fallen for my M(18) best friend.
Me and my best friend met at our first job when we were 16 at KFC (met in year 10 AUS now in first year university). Our store was new so we constantly worked together. Our first time meeting we awkwardly went to McDonalds for lunch and shared some laughs and since then there has been almost no awkwardness.
We could never stop laughing but it was always friends and only ever a side thought it could ever be more. Our friendship meant to much and soon those feelings went away.
He had set me up with one of his friends that was a very complicated situationship lasting roughly 10 months. That was 2 years ago and we have both since moved on seen different people, but that provides some hesitance for me.
Over that period we hung out a lot and our friendship grew so strong and afterwards in year 12 although we didn't see each other often we would call all the time and I would constantly receive the most lovely drunk dials where he would tell me how much he cared for me and what was happening in his life while I sat in my bedroom studying (he is more of party goer than me but I tag along whenever I'm free).
Last year in august was his birthday party. I went and at this point a part of me was slowly realising I was falling for him and thought I would make a move. He did not seem to be getting the point so I moved on to some meaningless hook up with some other random guy which me and my best friend laughed about soon after and make jokes of to this day.
I didn't think to much about my feelings afterwards. However lately a conversation we had keeps coming up in my mind. At a lunch 2 years ago we were discussing how apparently most boys think about liking a girl when they first meet. I asked whether he ever thought it about us? He said yeah he liked me for a bit but realised our friendship was worth too much (implying he didn't want to ruin it by asking me out).
I have realised I'm in love with him. The way he has been there me through some of my toughest moments where we cry to each other and he has entrusted me with his toughest moments. Yet it's not about the way he cares about me, it's the way he cares for everyone around him. He is the kindest truest person I know and whenever If I do something wrong he will tell me so in the most respectable kind way.
He called me at this exact point of writing this post, updating me on one of his outings and is laughing with me.
I trust him with my life and everything in between. The way he treats everyone around him with kindness and truthfulness, he has the purest heart and sees everyone in the best light. He brings out the best in me and I am so truthful around him and he has stuck with me and knows all the good the bad and the ugly and he still says he loves me (as a friend? I think).
At work they call us the mum and dad because we bicker and jokingly argue and tease each other but we know it's all with love. I told my girl best friend yesterday and almost teared up because I genuinely am so fond of him, and she said I never look happier than when I'm with him. When we met 3 years ago I don't think it would've worked if he told me he liked me. But we have grown so much and I have grown to love who he has become and I can imagine growing together in the future. I'm not going to rant anymore about all the ways I continue to fall for him because I think you get it and I don't want to bore you to death.
On the 12th of February these feelings came crushing down on me like a ton of bricks once and I wrote the last journal entry I have since then (it is now almost June). This man has called me under all circumstances, I'm the person he told about his family issues (hasn't told anyone else), I'm the person he has thrown up and crapped on call with while drunk, he's the person who held me and danced with me while I was too drunk to stand, he is my partner when I need to go on a double date to meet my friends boyfriend, he's my best friend and I love everything about him and his family and his values and everything. I could spend everyday with him and not get bored. A movie had a quote once that "when you love someone you don't love despite their flaws you love because", because they laugh funny, they can't dance, because they have a smile that reaches both ends of the room and gives you butterflies and makes your smile bigger.
He has dated people for short periods since we met but never anybody that seriously worked out and he's not seeking anything out at the moment. I never questioned it but I wonder whether it's because he could be saving his feelings (side note I know he is BI and is into girls).
Whenever I joke about him being in love with me he laughs and it seems fully like a joke, he thinks I've so far in the friend zone that I could never mean those jokes truthfully.
I want to tell him I love him and for him to say he loves me back and hold me. But I'm terrified, he knows about my previous guys and stuff like that and I'm afraid he wouldn't want to be with someone like me (a slight um serial dater, used to fill my feelings with hooking up meaninglessly with some random).
I love him, what do I do? how do I tell him? what do I say? do I swallow these bubbling feelings forever even though they have consumed me to the point of writing a reddit post?
I fear telling anyone out of complete fear of rejection by him and out of embarrassment of people knowing, it is not a meaningless crush its a friendship turned into love without me even realising.

My friend recently inherited her grandfather Winchester model 1873.44-40 and we are trying to determine the value of the gun. According to the serial number it was produced in 1881. We are not sure if the gun fires (due to not having any ammo) but the action is fairly smooth and the hammer acts like it's working properly. The condition is unfortunately rough and there is some pitting on the gun. I think it's the second version of the 1873 with an octagonal barrel.
I've tried searching the internet and just cannot seem to find an exact match to this gun. Most of the time the gun sold has a round barrel or is not the same caliber. I'd be very thankful for any

TLDR below. I've known "Lizzie" (23F) for the past two years, going on three. Because we live in the same European country — one with good public transportation — we are able to visit each other often (once or twice a month) without breaking the bank. I've never had any major issues with her. Occasionally she would snap at me for being a few minutes late to events which is fine, but never like this.
Now, the thing about Lizzie is that she's a serial dater. This woman has a new boyfriend every 1 to 3 months. I am all for women living their own lives, but oh my goodness. She would almost always call me after a breakup crying about how her ex was abusive to her and how there were no good men in the world anymore. I was there for her. I was sympathetic. I thought that she simply got dealt a bad hand when it came to men, but I've recently come to the realization that she was the problem the whole time.
Fast forward to a few weeks ago. She just got out of another relationship and, naturally, she was devastated and wanted to take her mind off of things. I suggested planning a mini weekend vacation to France. It would be our first vacation together. She was overjoyed and took me up on the offer. We were able to find a cheap hotel in a very well-known city. One of my friends (Mary, 25F) was also able to come. So, Mary, Lizzie and I took off to France. The first day was lovely, just lovely. The weather, people, food, and transportation were top tier. Lizzie told me that she had plans for us the whole day next day, from 9am to 9pm. Great! At around 8pm, after dinner, I told her that we should head back so we can rest up for tomorrow. Lizzie didn't like this. She said that she REALLY wanted to go clubbing.
Okay, cool. I told her that we could go, but I'd rather not stay out too late because I'm someone who needs my 8 to 9 hours of sleep before going on an all-day outing. She was cool with this. We go to a bar, and then leave to the club at 11pm. To spare you the details, the club was great. Mary, Lizzie, and I are big on dancing so we were having a blast. It was about 1:30am when I told Lizzie that we should head home. She said "no, I want to party!" so I was like, yeah girl me too but if you want me to participate in the morning activities, I need to go home. She sighed and said "just another hour". Another "hour" turned into 3am, and when I asked to go home again, she started tearing up and said she needed this night out after her breakup so we ended up staying until 6am. The bouncer had to clear us out because we were the only ones on the dance floor. She told Mary and I that the bouncer was "Super sexist for kicking us out because technically the club closes at 6:15, not 6." She also added that the bouncer (a male) "probably has nothing better to do and should be cheated on by his wife." I asked what her reasoning was behind this and she said "Oh, I mean, he obviously has issues if he doesn't want to see people happy. So he should be unhappy." She was DEAD serious by the way, she was very upset that we were kicked out 15 minutes early.
Anyway... we arrive at the hotel at 6:40 and just as we were about to go in, Lizzie says that she's hungry. I tell her that I'm heading inside and that she can eat with Mary, but again, Lizzie didn't like that. She pouted and said "it would REALLY mean a lot to me if you did something as small as eat with me". So, of course, I go to McDonalds with her. The line was SUPER long and we didn't get served until around 7:20. The whole time in line, she was telling us about her ex's and how they all said she was "too much to handle" and how that was "super sexist, because all women have emotions that men need to understand and they always refuse to educate themselves." Haha, okay Lizzie. We eat and arrive at the hotel at around 7:40. Lizzie says that she's setting an alarm for 9:30am so we don't miss breakfast at the hotel. I told her that I don't want to eat breakfast and I'd rather sleep in. Lizzie didn't say anything and we fell asleep.
Sure enough, her alarm goes off at 9:30 and she tells Mary and I to wake up and get ready for food. I said no, I want to sleep for a little while longer as I didn't get much sleep. She turns to me and exclaims "you're ruining this vacation! Seriously? It's just breakfast" and I say "Yeah, it's just breakfast. I don't need to eat, and I'll eat later." Lizzie becomes quiet and leaves the hotel room for breakfast. Mary joins her. I close my eyes to go back to sleep and they return at about 10am. Lizzie is dead silent. I ask when we're going to leave the hotel to get our day started and she says "well, you already ruined it, so..." At about this time, I'm pretty fed up with her. I say "ok!" and go back to sleep. Lizzie and Mary end up sleeping till 1pm and I get up a little earlier than them to get ready. They take TWO hours to get ready, so we don't end up actually leaving until around 3pm.
The whole time, mind you, Lizzie isn't speaking to Mary or I. Mary asks me what's going on and I just sat there like ??? girl I don't know! We thought that it would be great to start our day thrifting and then heading to a cheap cafe for lunch. When we arrive at the thriftstore, Lizzie sits on the floor and stares at her feet. I ask her what's wrong and she replies "It's just that... you and Mary disrespected my time and the day is ruined. We have no time to do the things I planned. I'm also in a lot of pain due to my illness". I apologized and asked her what her illness was because this is the first time I'm hearing about it. She said "You know, I'm just generally mentally ill and sometimes it gets worse." I apologized again saying "Oh, Lizzie I'm sorry. I didn't know you were diagnosed with something. What can I do to help?" She replied "I'm not officially diagnosed but I know I have OCD and multiple personality disorder. I've been going to a new therapist every other week but I haven't found one that will give me medication. They're all old assholes that don't understand my issues and my trauma. I want to eat. I'm tired and I have a headache." I called Mary over and told her that we're going to the cafe a little earlier than planned.
We reach the cafe and I purchase two coffees as a treat for the girlies. One for Mary and one for Lizzie (I don't drink coffee). Lizzie glared at me, saying "you didn't even ask what I wanted, you just bought me a coffee? Seriously?" I apologized and offered to get her a tea or water but she rolled her eyes and went to sit at a table. Mary was extremely stressed and told me that she didn't know how to help Lizzie, and asked me what to do. I just looked at her and shook my head.
The day goes on. Lizzie is mostly unresponsive, aside from her complaining about Mary. Now, Mary has done NOTHING wrong this whole trip. Admittedly, she likes to stand at attractions a little too long but we're on vacation and it really isn't a big deal if you want to stare at the iffel tower for 30 minutes rather than just walk buy it, which Lizzie wanted to do. Lizzie, whenever Mary would leave to use the restroom, would latch on to me saying "ugh, she's holding us back. I'm so pissed at her. Why is she taking FOREVER? It's just a stupid (insert attraction)." I told her that we're on vacation and we should accomodate everyone's wishes within reason. Her response to that was pouting and going back to being quiet.
The deal breaker, though, was what happened between Mary and Lizzie. Mary was trying to be very tolerant of Lizzie and her "mental issues", but this is the single thing that broke it. Mary wanted to get cash out of an ATM. The ATM was about a 5 minute walk away from an attraction Lizzie wanted to see. Lizzie argued with Mary that we didn't need cash, and that it would take up too much time from their trip. Yes, the 5 minute walk to the ATM was too much of a walk, lol. Mary said something along the lines of "Okay, but I want cash so I'm getting cash. You can come with me, or you can act like a baby. Not everyone will give you the princess treatment like OP." Lizzie was VERY unhappy with that as you can imagine. She turned to me for help but I shrugged and said "I mean, it's just a 5 minute walk..."
This was around 6pm. Soon after, we headed to a restaurant for dinner. The WHOLE time, Lizzie didn't say a word. She pointed at the menu items instead of saying what she wanted to the waiter. During the middle of the meal, Lizzie burst into tears. Mary and I tried to cheer her up by offering to buy dessert and maybe go to a spa afterwards, but Lizzie wasn't having it. She returned to being quiet while we finished our meal. On the way back to the hotel, she said "I'm sorry, that was one of my multiple personalities. I can't control myself when that happens. You two have given me so much stress today... I couldn't help letting a personality out." Bro. She then says "This is very triggering because my ex, Edward (33m) from three years ago didn't understand how to deal with my mental issues, and it looks like you two don't know how to deal with them either. You need to better educate yourself about mental illnesses because you don't know which one of your friends or coworkers have them." Mary and I just looked at each other with wide eyes. Like, how do we respond to that???
We arrive at the hotel — Lizzie and Mary are dead quiet, scrolling on their phones. I hear Lizzie sniffling every now and then, trying to hold back her tears. Both of them are texting me, talking shit about each other. "I cant believe Mary said...." "Who does Lizzie think she is..." for about two hours. I finally say "Okay guys, so what are we doing tonight?" and both of them sigh and turn in the opposite direction of me. As you can guess, we didn't go out. At around 10pm, they decided to give a go talking it out in front of me. Both of them expressed how much pressure they were feeling throughout the trip. Eventually they made up, but by then it was too late to get ready because the bar we wanted to go to closed within an hour.
On the way back home, we hop in a car from a carpooling app. The guy picked us up at a specific location, and was set to drop us off at a specific location. Lizzie thought that the drop off location was too far away from her home, so she told me to tell the driver to drop us off directly at her house. (I was the one who ordered the carpool). I told her no, because the driver was only supposed to drop us off at the drop off location on the app, and if he were to drive to her house, it would be an extra 50 minute drive for them. Lizzie became quiet again and after about an hour in the car, she texted me "You're being a pushover. You have to stand up for yourself in situations like this. It's very unfair for him to drop us of so far away from my home. You need to speak up." To which I replied "No thank you. We agreed on a drop off location and it would be unfair to change it last minute."
As you could guess, she didn't speak to me after arriving home. We had another altercation a few days later, but I think this post is too long to talk about and not too relevant. I'm just... I don't know what to do. I've never met someone so difficult to be with. Ever. Where should I go from here? Should I confront her about her behavior?
TLDR: My friend turned into a toddler during our first vacation together. She neglected to tell us that she has multiple mental illnesses that she doesn't take medication for, and gave my friend and I the silent treatment for over half the trip. She broke down in tears twice because things weren't going her way and she made me be the middleman when the other person on our trip decided enough was enough and got into an argument with her. She then called me a pushover for not changing the pickup location for our carpool (which isn't even possible) last minute.

It's been about a month and a half since the girl I had been seeing long distance for a year and I (30M) broke things off. I felt very strongly about her and she did for me as well, but it was too much for us to balance life with the distance and infrequency of visiting each other, among other things I suppose. She also told me that she didn't want me to stop myself from being with other people just because we're hoping that this could work, and that made me so sad. It also made me think that maybe she wants to see other people too, but idk it is what it is either way I guess. It was wonderful for what it was though. I've spent the past few months, even before the break, just trying to come to peace about the potential outcome of the relationship and let go. If it's meant to be, maybe it'll be when the time is right.
Now I'm realizing that for my growth as a person, I should probably take the time to learn how to really embrace being single. I think in my 20s I just bounced around from pursuing one interest to the next, and I'd prioritize that person a lot and it overwhelmed people. It was 3-4 people and I wasn't a serial dater, but I realize that I never took the space for myself to just relax and have fun or "focus on myself". Like even when I was technically single, I'd still be hung up on the outcome of the previous relationship I'd just went through and I'd let it affect me tremendously for months, and if anyone showed interest in me during that time I'd just brush it off because I didn't feel it was fair to them or me to pursue something while I'm clearly not over someone else. Even when I finally got (mostly) over a past heartache and I'd be a bit more clear in my heart, I would conveniently meet someone new shortly after. I've also been cheated on several times and I think I struggle with betrayal trauma, but I've been working through that in therapy.
I'm making more of an effort to prioritize myself individually now, and building my life and my career and business. I'm still sad about the outcome of my past situation, but I want to try to meet people and get to know people and maybe even hook up with people, have fun, and try to be casual. I don't know, I've never done any of those things before. I don't even know how I feel about it for myself. I'm a very inviting and approachable person and I look good, and people I'm attracted to approach me often. For some reason I freeze and get so nervous and in my head when I'm in these interactions, like I can't be present in the moment. I think about being afraid of disappointing them in some way at some point, or initiating a touch or a kiss and I end up reading it wrong and it goes unwanted, and I disturb them. I've rarely initiated intimacy before, and multiple people have had to tell me "hurry up" to finally make a move. I'm always so scared that I can't read the interaction or signals the right way, and I never trust my own intuition. I think because of this, I've become overly accomodating, and service-oriented to a fault. I'm afraid that I over-communicate and check in to the point that it's not attractive or sexy. I leave no room for spontaneity. It's really frustrating me. I feel like if I step away from that to be spontaneous even a little, I'm betraying myself. Idk why I go to such an extreme about it.
I wish I could just be more neighborly. Literally every day a beautiful stranger starts a conversation with me, and it's always delightful. They clearly show signs that they want me to ask them for their contact, but I always just assume that they don't want to be bothered and that they're just passing time talking to me, and then I walk away and actually leave them disappointed in their interaction with me. It's so frustrating that it makes me resent myself, and I just keep going through this cycle. Like I want to be able to have just a little bit of audacity, to be just a little selfish and indulgent in the right way. I also just want to be able to approach people I think look like I vibe with, preferably without having an existential crisis.
I'd really appreciate some perspective and advice on how I can allow myself to...enjoy things. Also any advice on general safety would also be appreciated bc I'm terrified of being targeted by people with bad intentions. I usually go out with friends but I'm trying to challenge myself by going out at night solo as well since I've rarely ever done that, I just want to be safe though.

I feel like I’m not in a place where I should be dating, and should focus on healing and making friends for now. There’s is no way I can handle a health relationship right now, and I don’t know myself as a single person because I’ve been a serial dater
But the problem is I have a really high sex drive. So I keep ending up in casual flings even though this is not a good idea on many levels at the moment. I’ve not had it in a month, and can’t even think straight. How have others handled this in a healthy way?
I was married to a man, but poly for the last five years. Didn’t enjoy sex with him. But between him and the woman I was dating, there was a lot of sex! So this is quite a change now that I’m single and not pursuing relationships right now

Alright so for context my sp is an ex of two years…..
Context:⭐️its been 5 months since we broke up and it was very messy and very difficult..he immediately chose to move on as our relationship got really toxic because of factors on both of our ends..we have broken up before (for 5 months ironically) and so i was very ATTACHED and codependent and he was too at one point but again issues (we argued everyday pretty much developed hate for one another) i am his first very serious and long relationship and he is my first relationship but before me he was a very aloof casual serial dater..and it seems hes trying to return to it..i did hurt him with the way it turned out and it seems like he is trying very hard to forget me and erase me..📗
manifesting journey:🌺 So ive known abt manifesting since 2020 but didnt believe in it when i heard abt it (tried it but i was in a very toxic and damaging kinda mindset) so obviously heartbroken and lost manifesting seemed like my only option..i read and read and i did the fucking work..when i tell you i sat and reflected and faced the pain. I didnt distract and use people or substances..i suffered and brung myself out of it thanks to the principals of nevile goddards teachings (reflecting revising healing and detaching)📍 and not to mention last time we broke up i unintentionally manifested him and the story how i personally find insane.📍i also feel i manifested our breakup!! (I am a very imaginative person and i would feel this exact feeling imaging our downfall and BOOM it happened..📕
Movement:🗞️ so we were on 0 contact and i worked on my sc while he played around with 3p and i swear to you the minute i stopped reacting to her she disappeared and they broke up..he texted me apologizing one day after i kept seeing synchronicities..(angel numbers , saw his mother, and the feeling of something good was strong).. so boom reconciled and that was one of my affirmations so check that. Still it was very slow and i would not keep strong and would fall back into my old mindset and then it would get stagnant..soon after i decided to message him that i forgave him after much tarot debate lol and we chitchatted and started playing imsg🔖 But since then nothing much has changed and i fell back on my practicing stopped affirming and just started slowly creeping around him..yes cring ik📘
Turmoil:🖇️ So now my issue is..im trying to put my foot down and really get into it..but i cant feel it anymore and its scary..im trying to feel how it feels to be his girlfriend again and its like blank..and lowkey some negative feelings linger..im trying to stop robotically affirming from a “hes coming” standpoint and go into a “hes here and were great” but i dont know what to pinpoint that i want to visualize…i know i want him but when i attempt to sit down and think abt what i want..its kinda difficult?? Like foggy..and i feel like its because ive forgotten it..the feeling of wish fulfilled and being happy with him cuz its been so long..i want to put my foot down and do sats and visualizations but its like when it comes to him its so flippin difficult📙
So my question is..does anyone else experience this lack of feeling when it comes to their manifestation? Or sp? and if so how to get over it? Please no bullshit condescending responses like “its all in you ..you just have to decided” yes ik it is but it doesnt help.. We are human we struggle so please let me know what you think..📚

Hi
Im going nuts and idk where else to go with this... Me and my GF have been together for around 1.5 years now. We have a very happy, healthy, trusting and loving relationship. For the last 7-8 months maybe I have a feeling that my sexual attraction to her kind of went way down and generally the spark between us hasnt been the same (although we both are pretty adventurous and enjoy trying new things in bed) and she noticed that too. We have been having talks about it, about what we can change, because the lack of sex makes us both uncomfortable, but those conversations didnt bring much. Then a few months back i offered her an open relationship (i used to be a serial dater and was very polygamous so was always excited about an idea of being open with my partner. She, the opposite, is very monogamous). I tried to be open with her, tried to explain why i find it reasonable and that i have those needs, but at the same time i tried being genle and cautious, because she can get very insecure sometimes. That did not go well at all, she was extremely hurt and said that this is a hard no from her, so I had to stop the converstaion there. We talked around it still, about why i have those needs and why i want to see other people, but it didnt bring us any further and she would mention from time to time how much that hurt her.
I love her to death and i would never hurt her, but those thoughts just dont go away. I often catch myself thinking about other people and constantly feel bad about it and about everything, How do i navigate this whole situation? What do i do?
Please, try not to judge me-the whole situation is torturing enough as it is. Thanks in advance

I understand I’m still relatively young and my undeveloped prefrontal cortex and raging hormones are probably making these feelings out to be much more than what they actually are. That being said:
I hate that my first ever romantic experience had to be with someone who was more experienced than me. My first relationship was with someone who was a serial dater. I don’t even mean it in a bad way it’s just that he was always in relationships or talking to somebody. It took the magic away from moments we had together because I always knew he would be far more significant to me than I would be to him. Even when the actual feelings I had for him subsided, the memory is always there because he’s the first. First relationship and first kiss. But to him I was just another unsuccessful relationship that he would eventually move on from. One of many. Thats why I’m here almost a year later still having him cross my mind meanwhile he’s already in another relationship. Doing the exact same things, and treating her the exact same way. One of his many. But my first everything.
We met at the end of junior year through a mutual friend. We went to different schools almost an hour away so we saw each other pretty rarely but we would talk on the phone for hours and hours.The relationship itself (as with most high school relationships) was fairly short lived. 5 months. May to September. Ended in 3 minutes over text. A series of a few conversations and eventually mutual blocks. As of today we haven’t actually seen each other in person since July. We haven’t spoken a word to each other since October.
The last conversation we ever had was after I asked him if he wanted to hang out and he explicitly said "I do not want to see you. Not in the ‘I don’t wanna see you right now’ kinda way. I mean I do not want to see you." So me being my inquisitive self I simply asked him why. He said he didn’t think the “just friends thing” would work out anymore. That was October 28. November 11 he blocked me. December 2, he had a new girlfriend. I didn’t know this until December 25. This sucks for 2 reasons:

I still had it in my mind that we were bound to get back together eventually and we were just going through a moment
I may or may not have mailed a hand written letter to his house a few days before his birthday (also in December)

So now not only was I delusional but now I looked desperate too!
From that point on I became a professional cyber stalker. Monitoring all of his accounts online for some semblance of me. Even checked his Apple Music to see if he was listening to sad break up songs. Nothing. Just posts about anime and the occasional girlfriend appreciation post. Not much to the average person but enough to make me bang my head against the wall. Not only was he with someone else, but he had the audacity to actually like her too? Like seriously, No signs of lingering dissatisfaction? No indication of it just being a rebound? Nope. He got over it and they were happy together, unfortunately. (Btw they’re still together).
One of his many.
My first love had found his 9th love in a row. My first kiss is somewhere getting his 100th kiss or so. And I’m here sitting in my room alone at 11pm on a school night
2 weeks until graduation 3 months before college move-in day
writing about him.

I had been hiking down the Appalachian Trail for over two weeks without issue on the day when the nightmare began. My friend, X, was by my side the entire time. It was, quite honestly, comforting to have someone who stood nearly six-and-a-half feet tall with me, especially during the long, dark nights when the howling of coyotes drew near. Black bears, too, were a constant presence in these dark mountains. As we got farther from towns and civilization, more ancient predators than human beings took over the land, stalking the night like creeping shadows.
For this trip, we both had bought as few supplies as possible. Included in our packs were MREs, two sleeping bags, some tarps and hammocks, some light clothing, and two pistols with a few boxes of ammo. We didn’t want to be too weighed down that we wouldn’t be able to move fast, after all. We would source water from the streams, waterfalls and lakes along the way and filter it using Lifestraws.
As the spring breeze blew past us, cooling the sweat on my face, I noticed the trail ahead of us weaving its way through thick swampland. The buzzing of flies and mosquitoes increased with every step. The green, fetid waters of the swamp bubbled constantly, as if it were whispering secrets to us.
“Ah, shit,” X said, glancing down the hill with his dark, serious eyes. His tanned skin was covered in a thin sheen of sweat as he wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “Another swamp. I hate swamps. You know there’s going to be a million mosquitoes and flies down there.” I pulled out the map, squinting down at it. I ran my finger down the trail, seeing the mountains and valleys we had already passed.
“The trail shouldn’t be going through any swamps,” I said. “They’re supposed to be marked. There’s no ponds or anything around here.” And yet there very clearly was. Either we were in a different spot than I thought we were, or the map was outdated. The trail also grew thinner as we descended. The sharp branches of the bushes stuck out like greedy hands, grabbing at our backpacks and clothes as we pressed forward.
“Well, whatever,” X said gruffly, plowing ahead. Twigs cracked under his massive bulk. The thin branches hanging across the path snapped as he plowed forward. I let him go first, since he was significantly bigger than myself. It was like following in the path of a bull.
“The faster we move, the faster we’ll be through it. We don’t want to camp anywhere around here when it gets dark,” X continued, looking grim. “We’ll be eaten alive by bugs by sunrise. We need to make it to the other side of these boglands before we can stop for the night.”
“Yeah, and I could use some more water,” I said, shaking my mostly empty canteen. “I wouldn’t drink this shit no matter what we did to it. It probably has brain-eating parasites crawling in it.” I checked my watch, realizing that dusk was only a half hour away. We would have to move fast indeed, especially as we didn’t know the size of the swamp. I was not enthusiastic about hiking in the dark with the many steep trails and sharp rocks that covered the surrounding land. A single misstep could lead to a very long, bone-shattering fall.
To my increasing dismay, I realized that the trail we were on no longer had the characteristic white markings of the Appalachian Trail. I kept checking the trees for the past fifteen minutes, and I definitely hadn’t seen a single one. I couldn’t remember the last time we had passed one, but I had a creeping suspicion it had been at least a couple hours ago.
“I think we have a problem, man,” I whispered. “I don’t know how it possibly could have happened, but I think we’re on the wrong trail.”
“There’s not supposed to be any other trails around here,” X argued. “Check the map.”
“Then where’s the white blazes? There’s not supposed to be any boglands around here, either, yet we’re walking through the middle of one,” I said. He shook his head.
“Listen, Ben, there’s not going to be markers on the entire Appalachian Trail,” he said. “Just trust me. We’re on the right path. Sometimes forests change. Swamps take over spots where forests used to lay. Hell, the Sahara Desert has been expanding for thousands of years, just eating the forests and plains all around it. There used to be lions and savannah in Morocco, and now it’s all dead and dry.”
I felt doubtful, but I continued forwards, following closely behind X. Neither one of us had ever done the full Appalachian Trail, after all. I hoped he was right. I was not enthusiastic about backtracking two or three hours if he wasn’t.
I thought back closely on our travels during the last few hours, wondering where we could have gone wrong. The trail had been rather overgrown and rocky on the peak of the last mountain. There had been a beautiful view spanning hundreds of miles, looking far off into state forests and winding roads. I remembered seeing the white marker near the top, but after we had started descending, it disappeared. That must have been where we went wrong, if we did, indeed, go off-course. But I couldn’t be sure, and I didn’t tell X about my suspicions.
We finished descending a steep, rocky trail into a valley where the boglands really started. The trees ended in a massive semi-circle around the open swamp. Thick peat covered the entire surface of it like rotted, grayish-brown skin. I saw water snakes quietly disappearing into the stagnant water, leaving behind slowly expanding ripples.
“This is pretty cool,” I said, stopping for a moment at the bottom of the trail to admire the boglands. Our trail continued directly through the center of it, no more than a raised patch of black earth surrounded by green swampy water. I could hear the many insects chirping and flying before we even took a step forward. Though the spring air felt warm and I was covered in sweat, I still reached into my bag, taking out a windbreaker that would cover up my arms and neck to help with the bugs. X did the same.
“Let’s move fast,” he said, giving me a knowing look. He was a much faster hiker than myself. He seemed like a machine sometimes, tireless and single-minded. I had seen him hike over twenty miles in a single day without looking too bent out of shape. I gave him a faint half-smile, picking up my pace.
“You know what they used to say about the boglands?” I asked X. He shook his head.
“I don’t read books,” he said. “If I have time to sit down and read, then it means I have time to go out and do something actually fun. But I’m sure you know all about it.” I gave a short bark of laughter at his off-handed insult. It sounded far too loud echoing back to us through the creepy swamp. The last rays of sunlight were disappearing behind the mountains now. Soon, we would be plunged into darkness.
“Well, in ancient times, people thought the boglands a place where the walls of reality were thin, where the gods would come through. They used to bring their victims out to swamps during rituals, then they would slice their throats or strangle them and dump their bodies into the bogs as an offering to the gods. They also said that strange, shape-shifting creatures would appear, sometimes to deceive travelers, other times to help them,” I said. “But as for human sacrifices, the bogs preserve bodies like nothing else, except maybe tar pits. Archaeologists keep finding victims with slashed throats or shattered skulls buried underneath the peat.”
X was silent for a long moment as we continued walking along the raised patch of earth that formed the trail. We got farther and farther from the forests, until the swamp seemed like a fetid ocean, spanning out to the horizon in every direction.
“Do you think they used to do that kind of stuff around here?” X asked.
“Used to?” I exclaimed, laughing. “I’m sure some psychopaths still do. This is a good place to dump a body, after all. Who the hell wants to trek through the muck and the snakes and mosquitoes out here looking for corpses?”
“The FBI and the cops will do it,” he said, “if they think there’s something to find.” I was about to respond when an ear-splitting shriek echoed out all around us. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from at first. X’s tan skin seemed to go pale as he spun, glancing in every direction.
“What the fuck is that?!” he screamed over the deafening wailing. I didn’t believe in cryptids, but my anxious mind immediately offered up an image of a banshee, a woman with chalk-white skin and black eyes whose shrieking jaw unhinged like a snake’s.
“I’m turning around!” I yelled, pointing back for emphasis. “Dude, fuck this! We need to get out of this swamp!” But X was no longer listening. He was looking past me, his mouth open and his eyes wild. He started backpedaling and nearly fell into the swamp. Windmilling his arms crazily, he turned and sprinted away without a word.
I was afraid to look back. The screaming was getting louder by the second, shaking the air all around me in deafening, crashing waves of sound. I felt like my head would explode if it got any worse. Instinctively, I took off after X, but I glanced back for a single moment before I did. Something loomed there from a nightmare, standing as tall as the trees. It moved through the swamp like a snake, its body slithering through the stagnant green waters towards us. When it met my eyes, the screaming stopped. The abrupt silence seemed deafening. I could hear the fervent pounding of my heart in my ears.
The creature’s skin looked honeycombed and rough, almost like a wasp’s nest. The thousands of tiny holes covering its body constantly opened and closed like hungry mouths. Its arms were long tentacles ending in sharp points of bone in the shape of scythes. The tentacles undulated like serpents. Its legs, too, were no more than four tentacles that alternatively slithered and stepped forward.
Its flesh was the color of peat, a sickly grayish-brown, and the smell that emanated from it was rancid and stagnant, the essence of all boglands and swamps. I nearly gagged as I ran. The putrefying stench seemed to follow me like a shadow.
Ahead of me, X was fumbling in his backpack as he ran, trying to grab his pistol. I knew he had a Glock 21 in that bag, and I had my Sig Sauer in mine. I cursed myself for not keeping it holstered on my body, but I had never had to use it before and hadn’t seriously thought I would need it for this trip. He glanced back at me, his eyes widening in horror.
“It’s right behind you!” he yelled. “Get down!” He dropped his backpack, revealing the sleek, black pistol clenched tightly in his hand. I barely had time to comprehend his words when an immense pressure and numbness radiated through my back. My head snapped backwards as a meaty thud resonated all around me. I went flying forward, feeling as if I had been struck by a car. As I flew through the air, the pain in my back exploded in burning pulses. I felt the deep slice open up from the sharp blade of bone that had slashed me like a knife. I felt trickles of blood pour from the open wound, making my stained shirt cling to my body.
I landed hard on the raised black earth of the trail, a bone-jarring impact that knocked the air out of me. At that same moment, X opened fire, pressing the trigger over and over, emptying the magazine as fast as he could. Something splashed over me, going in my eyes and mouth and nose. I crawled forward, moaning, my head spinning. I wiped my forehead, seeing spatters of green blood squirming with dark, maggot-like creatures covering my arms and face. It clung to my fingers, thick and rancid. I felt stinging sensations as the tiny worms bit me over and over. My ears rang with a high-pitched whine from the gunshots.
X was running towards me now. I continued to crawl towards him, shell-shocked and whimpering, trying to wipe the eldritch blood off my skin. With a muscular arm, he reached down and pulled me up.
“Where’d it go?” I mumbled, stumbling forward on unsteady feet. X put an arm around my shoulders and helped support me.
“It slunk back into the swamp,” he said. “Jesus, you’re bleeding really bad, buddy. We’re going to need to take care of that as soon as we get away from this hellhole.” I felt the deep slices from the creature’s blade-like hands across my back. The fabric of my shirt clung tightly to the skin as fresh blood soaked it.
“This isn’t the trail, X,” I gasped. “We went the wrong way. We need to go back.” He nodded grimly.
“We’re heading back right now. I know it’s the wrong trail now, it definitely is, but it’s dark. The trails back up the mountains are steep and dangerous, and we’ve already been hiking all day. How much longer can we really go?” he asked. In reality, I had a feeling X could go for quite a bit longer. I was the weak link in the chain, and we both knew it.
X took out a small, LED flashlight from his backpack, shining it ahead of us on the dark path. Across the center of the black earth, there was an obstruction, something that hadn’t been there when we passed this way originally.
“Shit! Is that a person?” X said, slowing down. He focused the light on it. As my eyes adjusted, I gave a gasp of horror as I saw a rough sacrificial table looming there, waiting with a ready victim.
Laying on the bare wooden planks in the center of the trail was an elderly man wearing the garb of a hunter. He was gagged, a bloody rag shoved deep into his mouth. I felt a sense of revulsion and terror as I realized his hands and feet were nailed to the planks, as if he were being crucified laying down. His eyes rolled wildly, white and insane, like a horse with a broken leg. When he saw us approaching, he tried to say something through the gag, pulling hard against the nails that bit so viciously into his flesh. Fresh rivers of blood spurted from his wounds.
I had my pistol in my hands. X had taken a fresh magazine out by now, throwing the empty one back in his backpack. Trembling, he went first, his shaking hand moving the flashlight around wildly. Its bright rays bounced off the dead, half-rotted trees that grew out of the boglands, the clouds of mosquitoes and moths that circled us constantly.
“Oh my God... he's like the victim of a serial killer or something,” he whispered, running a trembling hand over his face. “It looks like someone has set that poor guy up to have his heart cut out, like some sort of Aztec ritual.” He glanced worriedly over at me. We had both stopped cold in our tracks, looking around for any sign of danger, but we only saw the old man writhing on his rough table of torture.
“We have to keep going forward,” I whispered. “That thing is behind us. I don’t think it’s dead. I’m not sure it can even die.”
“But what’s ahead of us?” he asked grimly. “That’s the real question, isn’t it?” Far off down the trail, I saw small pinpoints of flickering light. They drew closer. We raised our pistols, waiting for the new arrivals to show themselves.
Dozens of people dressed in black, silky robes holding lamps slowly ambled their way towards us. They had their heads bowed, like monks on a holy pilgrimage. They drew close to the sacrifice. The one in the lead held a long, curving dagger whose blade looked like it was made of some kind of red volcanic rock. Its strange silver handle glittered in his pale, thin hand. At the end, I saw it was sculpted into the shape of a human heart.
“Stop right there!” X screamed, stepping forward. “Don’t come any closer! We are armed, I’m warning you.” The people in the black robes didn’t appear to hear or care in the slightest. They continued slowly following their leader with the strange dagger, almost floating forward in a nonchalant manner. Their leader began chanting in some strange, ancient language. It reminded me of Tibetan or Sanskrit in a way, like the chanting of some Vajrayana monk high up in the Himalayas. But it had a sinister, hissing quality to the words. Something ancient and powerful resonated in every syllable.
I raised the pistol, firing blankly into the dark, cloudless sky above. The smell of gunsmoke and fetid rot hung thick in the air. The leader of the group looked at me with his large, glassy eyes. His face looked sunken and pale, almost like a starving child. He had shaved all of the hair on his head, even his eyebrows. His lips were extremely thin and bloodless in his chalk-white face.
For a long moment, we stood staring at each other, my pistol aimed at his chest. X also had his pistol raised, aimed at one of those standing behind him. But the robed man didn’t speak. He gave me a faint grin.
“Let the old man go,” I commanded, my voice sounding hoarse and weak. The swamp quickly swallowed up my words, until only the buzzing of mosquitoes remained.
“I am sorry, my son, but I cannot do that,” the leader said in a voice as cold as endless space. “If we do not feed Mowdoroth, it will never sleep. The swamps will continue to expand, eating more and more of the surrounding forests and towns, and Mowdoroth, driven insane by hunger, will take far more victims in the process.
“This job has been passed down to us from generation to generation, from big hand to small, for over four centuries. Only twice has Mowdoroth not been fed on the New Moon, and each time, entire settlements full of people were wiped off the face of the Earth as if they had never existed. On one, they just had time to carve the word ‘CROATAN’ before they were taken.
“Mowdoroth looks for the place where the nightmares grow. It breaks open the chest and finds the place where the silent screams start, deep down at the base of the heart. All of the nightmares are planted there, like tiny seeds scattered during childhood. Those that fell on good soil in that abyss produced a great crop, yielding a hundredfold, sixtyfold, or thirtyfold. If you do not allow us to complete our holy mission, then you do it: cut open the man's chest and remove his beating heart. As it beats, squeeze it as hard as you can, and let all the blood drain onto the top of your head. Hold the heart above your head and close your eyes until the god appears and takes it.” The cult leader finished, looking at us with sparkling eyes, as if he had said something profound.
“This shit is just insane drivel,” X whispered in a voice as low as possible. “I say we open fire and save the old man now. Fuck these cultists.” I nodded grimly in agreement.
“You need to all turn around and leave immediately,” X yelled, stepping forward. “I will give you three seconds to turn around and get the hell out of my sight. Three…” At first, the cultists stood as still as statues, simply staring. Finally, the leader sighed and turned away. He shook his head, reminding me of a disappointed parent.
“I tried to warn you,” he said in his thin, quavering voice. “The time has come to give the offering. You must cut out this man’s heart and raise it to Mowdoroth, so he can get the seeds of nightmares freshly sown. The choice is yours now, as you have demanded this power with violence. You can leave this man here to be eaten by Mowdoroth, or free him and, in exchange, guarantee the deaths of hundreds of other people.”
With those last words, the black-robed figures continued down the curve of the trail. Within seconds, they had disappeared behind dead, half-rotted trees that still dotted the edges of the boglands. X and I ran forward toward the struggling old man. X reached into his pocket and pulled out a folding knife. He cut off the old man’s gag, pulling the spit-soaked chunk of filthy cloth out of his mouth. The old man spat and licked his dry lips.
“Get me out of here, please,” he whispered, his eyes rolling wildly. “Those cult members are all batshit insane. And there’s something not right in these swamps. I caught glimpses of something while I was waiting. There’s something in the water…”
“What’s your name, bud?” X said calmingly, looking at the old man’s hands and feet to try to decide how to best get the nails out without causing more damage.
“Winchester,” he said in a coarse voice. It sounded like he hadn’t had a drink of water in days. While X looked at his hands with the LED flashlight, I reached into my pack for the small canteen of filtered water I still had. I started pouring it into Winchester’s mouth. He gulped greedily, his throat working hard to drink down the rest of it.
“I got it!” X said, taking a flat stone he had found on the ground. “I’m going to try to pound these nails out from the bottom.”
“Oh, please, no,” Winchester said, his wrinkled face turning pale. X shook his head.
“We need to get you out of here,” he said. “It’s going to hurt, bud. But we don’t have any tools here. The nails are large, almost like railroad spikes, and once we get the top part, the bottom should slide out easily since it’s a lot narrower.” As he grabbed the rock to begin his work, a bone-chilling wailing started up again from the swamps. It was the scream of Mowdoroth, that abomination with the skin of a wasp’s nest.
“Cover us!” X yelled panickedly as he continued his grisly work. Winchester screamed in pain when X first struck the nail on his right hand. It shot up a fraction of an inch, fresh blood pooling all around it and dripping through the bare planks.
I turned, but the banshee wail seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. The swamp bubbled faster and faster all around us, as if thousands of corpses were coming back to life. I heard Winchester scream again, then the dull thud of another nail hitting the earth.
A face peeked out of the swamp, only twenty feet away. Its eyes were green, the color of a putrefying wound. Its lipless mouth opened wide, showing a spongy black mass of skin with concentric circles of tiny, razor-sharp teeth. It reminded me of the mouth of a lamprey.
I opened fire, shooting wildly at the face, aiming at the body hidden under the dark surface of the swamp. Luminescent drops of green blood exploded from a bullet hole in its upper right shoulder, floating across the surface of the water like radioactive waste.
Its screaming cut off instantly. All I could hear was the pounding of the rock behind me and Winchester’s pained, horrified pleas for mercy.
“Please, you’re hurting me!” he pleaded.
“Shut the fuck up, Winchester!” I whispered. “It’s here with us now.” With considerable effort, he did, only moaning and violently jerking his head now as the waves of pain ripped through him.
“I got it!” X said suddenly. A feeling of elation filled my heart.
“Let’s go then!” I yelled, turning to help the old man up. I heard something massive rise up behind us. It mixed with the sound of dripping water and babbling waves that arose from the disturbance.
Winchester was weak, stumbling up to his feet and nearly falling over immediately. Staggering, he took off down the trail with no shoes, but he immediately gave a curse of pain and tripped. X and I started running, and at that moment, I realized the flaw in our plan. We wouldn’t be able to get Winchester out of the swamp without carrying him, due to the extensive injuries to his feet. And I knew we didn’t have time.
Mowdoroth’s body stood as tall as the trees as it looked down at the three of us with its strange, infected eyes. Its tentacles undulated faster and faster, seeming to whip around its body until they flew out towards us.
“Run!” I screamed. X and I sprinted behind a cluster of dead trees hugging the path. The blade-like hand of Mowdoroth chopped them in a half, raining wood splinters down on our heads.
Winchester continued trying to crawl forward. Mowdoroth slithered behind him. Winchester looked up as a tentacle started coming down in his direction. He gave a short, panicked scream as the blade smashed through his back legs, chopping both of them off at the knees. The ground shook with the force of it. The stumps began spurting seemingly endless amounts of blood. Winchester pleaded and made incomprehensible gurgling sounds as he bled out. Mowdoroth ended Winchester’s cries when it wrapped its tentacle around Winchester’s torso. It slithered up into Winchester’s open mouth.
X and I shot as fast as we could while running forward in the dark, trying to hold a flashlight and a pistol. Most of my shots missed Mowdoroth, but with a sense of satisfaction and pride, I saw a few burst through its enormous body. Streams of radioactive green blood ran down its torso now. As its serpentine legs pumped furiously, it gained speed, coming behind us like a runaway train. I could feel the ground shaking with every thud of its tentacled feet.
A few hundred feet ahead of us, I caught a glimpse of the cultists. They were hurrying away from the area, not running but moving much faster than they had come in. Nearly out of breath already and exhausted from hiking all day, I pointed forward.
“Look!” I screamed. X saw them, his eyes widening. We sprinted in a blind panic, as fast as we could towards the stragglers in the black robes. Without warning, X raised his pistol and fired, aiming at the nearest of them.
The figure in the back of the pack fell forward without making a sound. He continued trying to crawl forward weakly for a few moments before he lost energy and lay still, no more than a bleeding black hump on the dark earth.
X gave a sudden cry of pain next to me as a tentacle came down like a guillotine blade. I heard it whip through the air with a high-pitched whine. A single breath later, I watched in horror as it sliced off his right arm. X looked down at the spurting stump for a long moment, his tanned face turning as pale as bones. He stumbled forward, then, with a hoarse cry, he fell.
Following X’s lead, I raised my gun and started shooting the cultists. They sprinted away in a random panic as bodies fell ahead of us. I jumped over the black lumps on the ground, hearing Mowdoroth shake the world as it gave chase. A long, snake-like tentacle reached down, picking up X’s spurting body and raising it towards Mowdoroth’s leech-like mouth. The massive abomination slowed, picking up the bodies of the dead cultists and crushing them. I heard the bones shatter as the wet gore exploded around Mowdoroth’s many sharp teeth.
I saw the woods again, living trees just a few hundred feet away. The trail of black earth ended abruptly, leading out of the boglands. Cultists sprinted blindly through the forest in every direction, scattering like cockroaches. I had nearly reached the border of the forest when I heard something whizzing past my head. I ducked, but the blur of a grayish tentacle coming down sent a jolt of fear like electricity sizzling through my body.
A moment later, a cold agony covered my left hand. In shock, I looked down, realizing that the blade-like appendage of Mowdoroth had neatly amputated all four of my fingers. If I hadn’t ducked, it would’ve probably gotten my head instead.
Stumbling and screaming, my mind in a blind panic, I staggered through the intersection of the boglands and the forest, falling forward. I knew I was dead. I closed my eyes, waiting. Yet nothing happened.
When I looked back, I saw something strange. Mowdoroth had stopped at the end of the boglands. It tried to push its body forward towards me, but it couldn’t enter the forest. It was as if an invisible barrier stood there.
I lay there for a long time. After a while, I heard Mowdoroth slink back into the fetid waters of the boglands. And then I was alone.
***
I wrapped my hand in bandages as much as I could, trying to stem the bleeding. I felt weak and sick from blood loss, so I lay there until the sun came up. The next day, I was able to slowly make my way out of the forest and back towards the nearest town.
Now I hear stories of people mysteriously going missing in the area. An entire family in a nearby farmhouse only a couple dozen miles away disappeared in the middle of the night without a trace, leaving only smeared trails of blood leading into the forest. No one saw anything, but these six victims were only the first in a long line of strange deaths. Oddly enough, all of the victims lived next to swamps.
And I have the feeling that I was the one responsible.