My name is Dr. Smith, not my real name of course, but for purposes of storytelling it will have to suffice. I have been practicing medicine at an Asian country as a general practitioner. I'm relatively new and I practice at a small village, not too far from civilization, half a day's travel by car and a few hours by boat from the country's capital, but very rural nonetheless, complete with superstitious beliefs and customs. I decided to stay here when I first graduated and passed the licensure exam for two reasons: first, I have a place to stay here, my family's ancestral home (although none of my direct relatives have lived there for years), said ancestors being one of the first people to settle in the area and second, because my family had always been the physicians in this small community as far as anyone remembers. Me, my grandfather and his father before him all went to the city to study medicine and went back here to practice it, like there was a pull, a calling, to sacrifice the convenient, fast-paced city life for the quiet and serene. My mother hated the idea, as clingy as she is to me, saying things like she wanted me to always be around where she could protect me, but you can't really help it when purpose calls. To be honest, it feels good providing a wide range of services to the honest people of our small, humble town, no greater feeling than helping the less privelaged, educating them and dispelling preconceived notions and old wives tales which are aplenty in my country, especially here.
I still recall how everything began. I made a makeshift clinic at one of the rooms of my ancestral home, it used to be my grandfather's office, but it felt old, antique, and perhaps too... professional, nothing wrong with that, but I wanted my patients to feel a more homely setting. So, I rearranged a bit, removed the imposing self portrait of my great-grandfather wearing his white coat that hang on the wall and transferred it to a more private area of the house. I changed the dim, barely functioning lights into brighter, more modern ones, removed the exceedingly extravagant chandelier and equipped the room with materials and equipment that I deemed necessary for my practice. I retained the wooden floors, but outfitted the walls with charts and more colorful decorations, in anticipation for the occasional pediatric patient. It was beginning to look less like an old abandoned house where teenagers went for the spooks and more like a place of healing and betterment, a clean place offering a clean mind...or so I hope.
"Your grandfather would have a heart attack if he wasn't dead already, seeing what you've done with his old clinic" quipped Martha, our housekeeper. All I know about Martha is that my grandfather hired her as a young teen and she has been here since then, she babysat and raised my mother as her own, and even took care of me as a toddler. Considering her age, she mostly supervises the younger and more capable help rather than doing tasks herself. None of them stay at the house, but they get called upon when me or any of my relatives were expected. Most of the family consider her as one of our own at this point.
"Well i'm sure great grandpa on the other hand enjoys the change of view" I replied jokingly. "Besides, I bet the patients would appreciate not being treated in such a dark, gloomy room."
"You know how your grandfather was..." she replies, that the idea of a dark, gloomy, old man liking dark, gloomy, old places was a no brainer. "...but everything aside, it is so nice to see you again, have you been feeling better? What did your mother think of you staying here?" she said with what I felt as outmost sincerity, "I used to chase and carry you around this estate and now look at you, about to carry out your family's legacy as a physician yourself" she continued, with a hint of pride from her tone.
I smiled. I myself couldn't think of a reason why a well respected man, revered even, by this town and it's people for everything he has done would act nonchalant and depressed, always with a jaded look in his eyes and stay in an equally dim and depressing part of his house, I've always known him to be like that, but was he always?
"I am better now. It's good to see you too, I'm glad you're staying healthy, and mom sure did not like it but well...she told me to say hi on her behalf" I told Martha. She beams up and smiles on my mother's mention.
"Well...I took the liberty of digging up your grandfather's documents, records and his patient charts, I doubt many of them still live but I thought maybe you'd like to have a look, I placed them around your desk but I can relocate them if you want me to"
"No, that's perfect. That's something I actually intended to do, i'll give it a read, thank you" I replied. I know some of those patients were either old or probably dead to be honest, but seeing data as well as the cases my grandfather had to deal with might help me in the future.
"The villagers already know Dr. Smith's grandson is here, they know you're a doctor, so expect to have a patient one of these days, perhaps as soon as you give the word that your clinic is open" Martha said, as she walks out of the room smiling and slightly waving, signalling a goodbye.
"I'm not even surprised" I think to myself. Places like these, words spreads like wildfire on topics like these, the idea of someone from a known family, coming back from the city, not to mention deciding to stay indefinitely, like the whole village needed notification, like the village demands explanation.
Hours passed and as I was satisfied with my new setup for the clinic, I took a break, sitting down and looking at the mountain of paperwork and folders placed on and around my desk. I picked one, thinking to myself that I might as well have a look now, with nothing else of note to do.
Patient #010438 Name redacted 43/Female
History of present illness: Patient had 3 day history of undocumented fever, dysuria, and bilateral flank pain Did not seek consult, no medications taken
Past Medical History Unremarkable
Personal and Social History Unremarkable
OB history illegible
Physical Examination BP 110/80 HR 102 RR 20
Nonhyperemic tonsils No murmurs Clear breath sounds Nontender abdomen (+) Kidney punch test
Noted a signature of the patient claiming she was not pregnant as a form of waiver
"Jesus grandpa, couldn't your history and physical exam get any lazier?" I thought to myself. Seeing pertinent history not asked and multiple organ systems ignored on physical examination. Given, some of the writing were already faded, the quality of the paper had deteriorated greatly, and plenty of details already illegible, all in all the documents weren't that bad. It sure doesn't help though that he writes like someone in the middle of a warzone practicing heiroglyphs.
I skimmed through more of the documents and patient files, most of the cases are relatively benign, majority are outpatient visits, some are emergency cases and there are the rare ones requiring transfer to a more developed town hours from here with better services and equipment. Time passed and as I lay down the last folder in a pile, I noticed a moderately sized box, probably the size of a briefcase, placed on the floor, dusty but obviously ornate. It piqued my interest although in my mind, I was pretty sure it was nothing but more documents, I decided to give it a look.
I picked a stack up and I started to read:
Patient #00512c Name redacted 32/Female
"Weird" I thought, it was numbered differently, and definitely none of the other documents were lettered. I continued reading:
History of present illness: This is a case of a 32 year old female who came in on date redacted due to a chief complaint of multiple hematomas, abrasions, burn wounds and lacerations on her face, trunk and extremeties..."
"Trauma? An accident? Possible abuse?" I contemplated.
"...patient allegedly noticed easy bruisability 2 weeks prior to consult, followed by alleged spontaneous appearance of abrasions and lacerations 2-3 days from onset of bruising, supposedly waking the patient at night due to the sudden sharp and searing pain, initially small cuts 3-5cm widest on her extremeties and face but eventually progressing to deep cuts measuring approximately 10-50cm on her back, chest, abdomen and lower extremeties. 1 week prior to consult, patient started noticing burning sensations on her skin, causing extreme pain and leaving reddish burn marks on her body, patient also experienced lack of appetite and inability to sleep due to loud voices and..."
"Spontaneous appearance? Easy bruising could be a lot of things, but for it to occur with 'spontaneous' abrasions and lacerations? Not to mention burn marks?" I thought out loud, having doubts about the credibility of the use of the word "spontaneous". Surely it was not an accident, considering it started 2 weeks ago with noted progression. "It could be a hematologic problem with the bruising, but that wouldn't explain the sudden appearance of cuts...maybe accompanied by a dermatologic one, the patient is prone to breaks in the skin? But then again the burn marks...the voices..." I analyzed. I was leaning towards abuse, where the cuts and bruises were inflicted by someone else and the abused, whether in some form of fear or coping, decides that it was "spontaneous" rather than inflicted, but why bother lying to yourself, perhaps the one who did it to her is a partner? Or a loved one? It made sense, someone progressively becoming more aggressive with her as time went by, becoming more and more extreme, from bruises to eventually burning.
It could a combination of illnesses to be honest, one on top of another, perhaps an overly sensitive or extremely dry skin that breaks and peels until it bleeds, an allergic reaction prompting the patient to unconciously scratch till her skin became red and lichenified, voices due to lack of sleep or a mental disorder. But looking at my grandfather's physical examination of her, none of the findings solidifies the possibility of those i've mentioned. Truth be told I also partially allowed myself to tunnel vision on the prospect of an abuse, to the point I've skipped some of the chart's contents that I deemed weren't important and tried to look for information to support my claim, or perhaps to disprove it, rookie mistake, but well, I am a rookie then.
"Patient is widowed, lives alone at a secluded area near redacted, only goes out to buy some necessities from redacted but has very minimal interaction from anyone in the village"
Okay then, either she is hiding the fact someone was with her, who is abusing her like I initially thought of, or it's self harm. "I'm pretty sure grandpa considered everything that went through my mind right now. Let me check his initial impression" I thought, with a tinge of annoyance, considering I felt that the patient lied to my grandfather, and was lying to me, decades after the fact.

1 Trauma, to consider physical abuse versus self harm;

"Alright, now we're getting somewhere" I said to myself, with a bit of pride having the same thought process as a physician with decades more experience than I do.

2 To consider mental disorder, probably psychotic - premature dementia

I chuckled. Premature dementia, didn't think i'd see that term, I thought everyone including those from his time would have used schizophrenia already, then again medicine and medical knowledge isn't as easily passed around as it is now. Psychiatry as a science would be relatively new during his time compared to other disciplines so the fact he considered it based on the patient hearing "voices"? Bravo gramps.
"Well...", I thought to myself, "...plenty of things to consider and rule out, let me check what else is there." A bit of cockiness on picking my grandfather's brain out and feeling good about my train of thought, a practice consult and so far, I'm on my way to a perfect score...

3. To consider possession probably secondary to malevolent spirit

.................
I gave the document a stern look, unmoving, unblinking, emotionless. Time has stopped, and I haven't noticed. My brain trying to digest the information, the same way my stomach would probably digest a block of steel...it's just not possible. I read one of my grandfather's diagnosis again:

3 To consider possession probably secondary to malevolent spirit

I never been one for faith. Evidence is everything. Science is everything. You can replicate it, you can prove it. Most importantly...It. Makes. Sense. I look at beliefs not based on evidence and feel nothing but skepticism if not disdain. Why won't people listen to expert opinion? Why won't people believe in facts? Why explain the unknown in such convoluted ways, requiring submission of oneself when the only thing the truth requires is but comprehension. I looked at that diagnosis feeling disappointment.
Then I felt anger. "Grandpa, what the fuck is wrong with you?!" I thought to myself. Here is a woman, full of bruises, cuts and burns all over her body, claiming that she has been suffering for weeks, barely eats or sleeps, was having auditory hallucinations, in dire need of medical, if not emotional and psychological support and one of the things that comes across your mind is possession.
I tried to calm my mind, these are records of the past anyway, I thought. Maybe it was a resignation born out of incompetence. Maybe grandpa wasn't as good of a doctor as I thought he was, that the shortcomings of his knowledge and limited technology of his time prompted him to adopt a more...liberal viewpoint to medicine. Maybe he was just superstitious himself. Maybe the people of this place had leaked some of their local beliefs into his psyche. Maybe isolation changed the man. Or maybe...just maybe...there's something to it.
I've never been one for faith. That goes for my faith in science as well. To just say that something is stupid because it doesn't align with standard, accepted scientific belief is just as detrimental as its counterpart.
I decided to investigate further when I heard the entrance to the room open with force. One of the maids leaning onto the wall by the entrance, still grasping the doorknob and evidently out of breath.
"Sir...ma'am Martha...calling...for you...says...it's...it's...an emergency..." She says in between breaths.
I quickly stood up, feeling sorry for the woman, she just ran, obviously gasping for air as she arrived at the clinic and now has to lead me back to wherever she came from with the same urgency. At first I was worried something might have happened with Martha, what the maid said didn't really give much clarity, but upon arriving at the main hall I noticed Martha, standing beside a middle aged man and woman, carrying a child, no more than 10 years old. I notice the clear panic and worry on both of their eyes as the man held the boy, who was uncontrollably shaking.
"I know you're not taking any patients yet and I was considering the time, but nobody knows what to do so I..." Martha explains, quite concerned while I ordered the parents to put the child flat on the ground, with me assessing the situation. The first thing I noticed was that the child was burning hot, "possibly febrile seizure? No, too old" I thought. I asked both the parents important details while I ordered the other maid to time the duration of the child's seizure. All the while thinking of possible diseases that may present as such, "Seizure disorder? Epilepsy? Meningitis? Encephalitis?" Eventually the shaking stopped, much to the parents' relief, and I ordered them to carry the boy as we made our way back to the clinic.
"Was this the first time it ever happened?" I inquired, as I put the child on one of the beds in the clinic, securing the corners with additional pillows, noticing the sunken face and apparent exhaustion from the boy, possibly due to the ongoing fever and the recent seizure episode. Once secured, I face the parents and continued my inquiries, I eventually explained everything, elaborating on what I believe happened, I explained that for now, lowering the fever and investigating the source were what we could address, the battery of tests I plan to do (disappointingly, most of them cannot be done here, and I would have to accompany them to a hospital on another town as soon as first light breaks), and the medications and management I plan to give. Everything proceeded as planned and I asked both parents to relax and take a breather, offering them a seat and asking the help to give them water.
Things eventually settled, little Johnny's fever subsided and color came back to him. Nowhere near clear, he can worsen anytime, but that was the best that we could do at that time. The parents were still worried, understandably so, but to an extent reassured, we have a plan after all. Martha, as well as Diane (the help from earlier), now at a calmer state. We discussed the plan, how we would travel, who would accompany us and what we would bring. Eventually, our conversations became relaxed, started to shift to other things, trivial matters, such as were they lived in the village, the date and time of my arrival, recent gossip, where Martha was more than happy to share.
"I was worried the evil spirits might have gotten my baby..." Said the mother nonchalantly, as we talked about the occurrence on a lighter note. "...that's how they got Mrs. Johnson's middle child. That poor boy was never the same after."
I smiled. Not wanting to immediately correct them and sound like an uptight individual. It's part of our culture afterall, old belief systems and a way for people to cope with loss or difficulty, who was I to deny them that. I won't approach these people the hardheaded way, but I will slowly show them the realities and truths of the things they may not understand, well, at least with regards to their health.
"Well, little Johnny is safe here, we'll do what we can" pointing to their son.
Only, their son wasn't where he was supposed to be. I look at the parents, I look at both Martha and Diane, everyone who looked at where I pointed were just as shocked as I was, a split second of silence before panic ensued. Suddenly, everyone stood up on high alert and was looking everywhere. Under covers, under the bed, corners of the room, the desk, behind curtains, hell, I saw Diane look at one of the damn drawers, as if a 10 year old would fit there.
Suddenly I heard loud vomiting, retching, followed by sounds of splashing. I follow where the sounds came from and see a large pool of black, tarry liquid at a corner of my room. I slowly trace where it was coming from and there he was...little Johnny...standing...upside down...on the ceiling.
I hear everyone in the room scream, I was probably screaming too, I couldn't remember. I do remember little Johnny screaming with us though, extremely high pitched and mockingly, with bloodshot eyes, upside down, while black liquid poured from his mouth, covering his face and dripping from his hair. How was that even possible, screaming while liters of unknown fluid dripped from his mouth? I don't know.
Then he laughed, although I was pretty sure that wasn't his voice. It was deep and guttural, it cannot be the boy's voice, it cannot be any boy's voice.
Time seemed to move in slow motion, I was noticing every detail, every expression from everyone's face, I can feel the seconds hand on my wall clock move, the slow dripping of the viscous dark liquid from little Johnny, I can feel every drop of sweat on my body. I could not cope with what i'm experiencing, was it a trick of the mind, an organized prank, have I gone mad...again? So I did the only thing I know how to do...
I tried to diagnose.
"Maybe it was dengue shock all along!" I thought to myself. "Vomiting blood, paleness, fever, an episode of seizure and definitely change in sensorium" I reasoned to myself. I was coping, and I was coping hard. I was ready to drown on my self absorbtion when a booming voice snapped me out of my thoughts.
"YOU DUMB FUCK, WILL ANY ILLNESS EXPLAIN WHY YOUR FUCKING PATIENT IS HANGING UPSIDE DOWN ON THE FUCKING CEILING?" Said little Johnny, or at least whoever was speaking on his behalf, because from where I'm standing, I can clearly see that the boy was not mouthing any of the words he said.
"YOU'RE A FUCKING FAILURE, DOCTORS LIKE YOU SHOULD KILL THEMSELVES! HAHAHAHA" he laughed, I never knew laughs could sound like that, as if the words were nails, and his voice box a chalkboard.
"OH WAIT, YOU FAILED AT THAT TOO DOC! FUCKING PATHETIC!"
Of all the things that were happening...a young boy hanging upside down, a mother crying on the floor hysterically, a father staring at his son, eyes wide open and mouth agape, Martha and Diane, both crying while sharing a rosary, in the act of what I assume to be prayer...the thing that snapped me out of my trance was the words that came from little Johnny. Knowledge nobody but the closest to me should know. A secret I planned to leave behind when I left the city, a wound I intended to forget as I started anew.
Visions of my memories came flashing back...medical school...overwhelming duty...familial expectations...failure...depression...my attempt...a bottle of medications...my mother...crying...on my bedside...
"LEAVE MY SON ALONE!" Johnny's father screamed. Starling everyone in the room.
Nothing matters, the past is in the past, I am better now, and that boy needs help, more than anything.
"YOUR SON? WHY DON'T WE ASK THAT CRYING WHORE IF JOHNNY REALLY IS YOUR SON" The voice says, laughing.
At that point the mother stops crying, looks up towards johnny, then towards his husband, in a state of shock. Like what the voice said is crazier than whatever was happening at the moment.
"THE ONLY REASON THAT WHORE STUCK WITH YOU WAS BECAUSE JOHNNY'S REAAAAAAAL FATHER WOULD NOT TAKE HER!" The entity says, continuing the hysteric laughter.
We were being played. It was toying with us. And from the look on the mother's face...it seems like little Johnny did not even need to lie to do it.
Then, to everyone's horror..."It" started to run.
It ran across the ceiling in a rabid frenzy, erratic and forceful, running and jumping, hopping sideways then going on all fours, still attached to the ceiling, splashing bile and blood all over the room, all the while making a "hihihi" sound...childish and terrifying. It ran and ran, repeating the same erratic change in movements, repeating the same eerie giggle until it reached the window, stopping and standing straight, it stared outside for what felt like forever...then all of a sudden...johnny just fell, like whatever was attaching him to the ceiling just gave, headfirst into the floor, giving a very audible cracking sound.
I heard a gasp from johnny's mother. I can at least detect some miniscule chest expansion, but that cracking sound cannot be anything good. As if thinking the same thing, Martha, who was the nearest to where Johnny fell, while still clinging tightly to Diane's rosary, approached the boy.
"Johnny?" She said softly, all the while approaching an inch at a time.
As she was almost at arms length of the boy's body, she gives the mother a knowing look, confirming that he was breathing. Martha suddenly produces a piece of cloth from one of the pockets of her uniform, possibly to pack the bleeding from the head. She intended to put the cloth on top of the boy's head, but looked towards my direction, urging me forward, perhaps for me to place it properly. I walk towards the boy, takes the cloth from Martha and as I fold the cloth to circle Johnny's cranium with Martha's help, the boy immediately sat up, looks at Martha and smiles ear to ear...literally ear to ear.
"GET YOUR WRINKLY HANDS OFF ME YOU DUSTY OLD FUCK!" He barks at her, Martha screams in fear and I was taken aback.
That was all the time Johnny needed to stand and jump towards the window, breaking it and running towards the mountainside. I hear his father scream his name, quickly breaking more glass so he could fit, and immediately giving chase. The mother was still on the floor, wailing towards the direction of her child and husband. Martha, in shock, still holding the cloth she intended to wrap johnny with.
It took me a while to notice Diane shaking me vigorously. "Doctor!" She screams. "Doctor Smith! What should we do!?" She voices out, with obvious desperation.
I ignored her.
I feel scared, but taking all into consideration, I predominantly feel tired. Defeated. Insulted.
I have nothing more to give in the face of whatever that thing that took Johnny was.
I slowly walk towards my desk, I open my drawer, I take a piece of paper and I pull out my pen.
Patient #00001a Name redacted 10/M
I write, giving no thoughts to the people on the same room as me, those left behind by little Johnny and his father. "Did he catch up to him? Was the boy alright now?...is his father alright?" I wonder. I'll find out soon enough, I figured, rumors spread like wildfire around here anyways.
I continued to write with resignment, absorbed in my own little world, consumed by the horror I witnessed, the breaking of my spirit, of my beliefs, the questioning of my knowledge. I want to escape it, deny it, but that's not what should be done to the truth. So I surrendered.

1 To consider possession probably secondary to malevolent spirit

END

Hi everyone!
We purchased a house in December 2023, and until around February things were going great. Neighbors who have lived here for over 20 years reported it to be a nice and calm neighborhood with no crimes. In March, some houses started being targeted by a TikTok trend where teens kick doors or garage doors at night (usually around 12am-5am) and then run away.
Since March, tens of houses have been victims of this, but ours showed an escalation on Friday. The teens tried to open my door and throw fireworks inside. Fortunately, I always lock the door. The cameras show one of them lighting the fireworks and another trying to open the door before kicking it hard. We noticed immediately since I was still awake and called the police, but they escaped.
The problem wasn't just the "prank," which is scary enough, but they also spray-painted obscenities on my brand new car. The cameras caught them trying to open the door and again with the fireworks. However, my camera only records the first 10 seconds of motion on the SD card with the free plan. We don't have an existing doorbell, and we refrained from installing one because our house has a rock facade that could be ruined.
I need to think of a plan to secure my house. It has one main door, one carport door on the side, one back door, one basement door, and a shed door. It also has a huge backyard, and the whole neighborhood has very poor lighting. My house is on the corner of a street, making it easy to escape from all sides.
I am setting up a local "neighborhood watch" with folks from my street, but I don't know what to do. I am hopeless and would appreciate any advice or recommendations on security systems that work well at night. If there's any system that would work well on a tree (there's a huge maple tree on the corner of my property), it would help us see the teens' movements at night.
Thank you!

What bull sht do they say to you? How can they possibly help?
I want to prank call them and ask them if they can loan me some money for an overseas table tennis tournament and see what they say🫡

I (30f) got married last year and my younger sister (25f) has been continuously telling everyone that is willing to listen that I'm a Bridezilla. I stand firm in my decisions and if I had to do it over I'd do it again. I was engaged for 10 years before getting married because we felt that we were too young to get married we were just getting to know ourselves much less each other but we were committed each other so we were happy with just being engaged. A little background on my sister Kate, we don't share the same father she isn't the youngest for my mother (I have another sister that follows her) but she acts like it. Ever since we were young she wanted everything I had to the point that whatever my father was taking to to give my mother for me he would just buy two so she wouldn't fight for mine (didnt work) mind you whatever her father brought for her was for her and her alone. I never gave into her tantrums even when I was a child I shared when I wanted to and ignored her when I didn't want to. I left home when I was 17 and went to live with my father bcuz her behavior never changed and I didn't want to live like that anymore. To some my life would be considered boring because I am introverted so my day to day life consists of me just going to and from work, other than the odd birthday vacation each year,I rarely go out. I do however buy nice things for myself bcuz I work hard for it and I deserve it. She complained to my mother once that I was showing off because I'm always buying my daughter (8) expensive things which I don't. As a way to teach my child the value of money she does her chores and earns her allowance which she has to save and at the end of the term she chooses what she wants to buy and if her savings isn't enough I will put the difference however because of the complaint that she made to my mother my daughter no longer wants to hang out with her cousins and I will not force her. Now to the story. Two years ago my fiance Rich and I decided to start planning our wedding but we were having issues because I'd rather elope and move on but he's so extroverted we were clashing on every decision from total guest to the wedding colours. After weeks deliberating and petty pranks (on both sides) we finally came to an agreement on the wedding colours so we decided to inform the family. My mother has a family dinner on my birthday and that's where I decided to make the announcement. My sister and her fiance were present and she jumped at the chance to beg for a double wedding and I immediately shot that down with an abrupt "No" and continued to eat my dinner. She started whining and complaining but my answer was no and I told her I had no reason to explain myself to her. When she realized that she wasn't getting anywhere with me she turns to my mother and starts complaining to which my mother told that it's my money and my wedding and I'm free to do whatever I wanted and her tantrum only got worse. In an effort to not ruin my birthday dinner my fiance explained to her that she and I had different personalities and liked different things and our friend circles were too different to even consider mixing them together but he was fighting a losing battle bcuz he wasn't equipped to handle that level of crazy. I turned to her and ask who would pay for her half of the wedding and who would buy her dresses as she is unemployed and her fiance at the time was just a trainee, she turned to me and asked me why would she have to pay for half of the wedding and at that statement I went back to eating. My fiance finally understood why my mother and I didn't even bother to explain anything further to her, he looked at her fiance and told him "I'm only getting married once so I going to do it right" and ended the conversation, she flipped out and left and her fiance had to gather her kids and ran behind her. I moved on with my wedding plans and everything was going along smoothly because money wasn't really an issue. I have a lot of family from both parents and both step parents so in order to pick bridesmaids I literally made a little lottery and picked their names out bag and I made a whole deal out of it by taking a video and sending it the various WhatsApp groups. I picked one sister (my big sister Kim) one cousin, one friend and one step sibling and we all lived happily ever after until the first rehearsal for my wedding. After the rehearsal we went to Pizza Hut and I posted a pic on my WhatsApp status of us all eating and goofing about and she messages me and ask how I'm hanging out with family and leaving her out to which I said were just hanging out after the wedding rehearsal so it's just the wedding party, she demanded to know why she wasn't chosen so I just sent her the video of my "lottery" bcuz it was so much easier than explaining it to her, she said nothing and i thought that was the end of it, I shouldve known better. When Kim went home she told my mother everything that happened at the rehearsal and how I was considering making it a child free wedding because of the chaos that happened at the rehearsal with all the kids of the bridesmaids and the groomsmen, I was traumatized lol. Kate asked her if my daughter would be there to which Kim replied and said yes she's the flower girl and the conversation ended there. That day Kate sent me a 14 minute voicenote which I ignored bcuz I've said it repeatedly if you cant say it in a minute just call me I'm not listening to that and I refuse to compromise on my boundaries especially with her. Because i didn't listen to the voicenote I didn't hear all the disgusting things she called me and my child that and Rich so I went about happily until the day the invites were sent out. My wedding colours were silver, rose gold and black however the only dress code stipulation I had was NO WHITE bcuz I wanted the only one to be in white. I had a busy day at work so I didn't look at my phone much but with the few glance I took I saw that the family group was buzzing so I made sure to check it as soon as work ended and I was shocked af. My sister was telling our entire extended family that not only did I not invite her to my wedding I was lashing out at having her son as my ring bearer and that the comment I had made about the white dress was directly aimed at her because I was telling people that she was trying to ruin my wedding and the evidence that she was using was that she wasn't made a bridesmaid, Thankfully I had persons defending me. I went into her inbox to ask her to cuss her out tbh and saw the 14 min vn and decided to listen and I was dead ass fuming after the first 30 seconds so I just forwarded the vn to the family chat and I sent a screenshot of the conversation that she and I had before the vn and I let them have all the evidence. I then publicly uninvited her to the wedding and I made sure to note that it was only her that was uninvited not her sons or her fiance their invites were still valid and they were more than welcomed there. I took a screenshot of that post and every time she posted on her status or her Facebook about how evil I was I would repost it and I did that right up until the day of my wedding. I am now happily married and have moved on with my life but since the wedding she's been using the excuse of me refusing to allow her to have a double wedding with me as her reasoning for her behavior and that I was Bridezilla bcuz of that. I don't feel like I should be obligated to do anything for anyone in the name of "family"especially if said family member is an overgrown toddler. I changed the names but this is my real so she might see it but I'm fine with it as I stand by every decision I made

Prologue: The Catalyst Awakens

Rochester, NY had always been a quiet town, but all that changed when The Catalyst, a super mutant x-gene, began to spread. This gene transformed ordinary people into extraordinary beings with abilities beyond imagination. For some, these changes brought about prosperity and power, but for others, it was the start of a nightmare.

Chapter 1: Esther Elkind

Esther Elkind was a small, fragile girl with a heart of gold and an unyielding spirit. As a Jewish girl in Rochester, she often found herself the target of bullies who didn't understand her kindness or her faith. Esther’s days at school were filled with dread, as each day brought new torments from the mean kids who found joy in her suffering.

Chapter 2: The Storm Drain

One cold, rainy day, the bullies decided to play a particularly cruel prank on Esther. They blindfolded her, telling her it was a game, and led her to the edge of a storm drain. Before she could react, they pushed her into the swirling water below. As Esther was swept away by the raging currents, the bullies laughed, not realizing the severity of their actions.

Chapter 3: The Search

Bystanders who witnessed the horrific act immediately called the police. The bullies were arrested and charged with assault, but despite an exhaustive search, Esther’s body was never found. Her parents, devastated and desperate, refused to believe she was gone. They searched the sewers day and night, praying for a miracle.

Chapter 4: The Transformation

Deep in the sewers, something incredible happened. The Catalyst, a mysterious force, saved Esther. She emerged transformed, her body now a sad, dripping form that cried softly in the darkness. She could hear the world above, but no one could see her. Her cries echoed through the pipes, haunting those who listened. She took the name Kezpul, a name that seemed to resonate with her new existence.

Chapter 5: Echoes in the Dark

Kezpul wandered the sewers, her heart aching with loneliness. Her cries for her parents could be heard faintly through the pipes, but she dared not emerge, for fear of the reactions to her new form. The sewers became her home, a dark, damp labyrinth where she could hide from the world.

Chapter 6: A Parent's Love

Despite the warnings and the dangers, Esther's parents never gave up hope. One day, as they listened to the faint sounds of their daughter’s cries, they decided to venture into the sewers themselves. Equipped with flashlights and hope, they navigated the twisting tunnels, following the echoes of Kezpul's voice.

Chapter 7: Reunion

"Here, Mommy. Here, Daddy," the faint voice called out from the darkness. Guided by the sound, Esther's parents finally found her. Kezpul stood before them, a vision of their lost daughter, but changed. They embraced her, their love overpowering the smell and the fear. In that moment, Kezpul felt a sense of peace she had thought lost forever.

Chapter 8: The New Beginning

With her parents by her side, Kezpul began to explore her new abilities. The Catalyst had given her powers beyond her wildest dreams, and with her family's support, she learned to control them. They helped her find a way to live both above and below ground, bridging the gap between her two worlds.

Chapter 9: Acceptance

Word of Kezpul's story spread throughout Rochester, and slowly, the community began to accept her. The once cruel bullies were replaced by friends and allies who saw the strength and resilience within her. Kezpul became a symbol of hope, showing that even in the darkest of places, light could be found.

Epilogue: The Echo Lives On

Kezpul’s journey was far from over, but she knew she was not alone. With her parents and new friends by her side, she faced each day with courage and determination. The echoes of her cries still resonated through the sewers, but they were no longer cries of sorrow. They were cries of hope, strength, and the enduring power of love.
And so, the story of Kezpul, the girl who became more than just a victim of bullying, but a beacon of resilience and transformation, lived on, inspiring all who heard her tale.

(I LIVE!! I have no idea what's hit me as hard as it did that Friday. But I needed Saturday to recover as well. Clearly wasn't the CPAP as that's working fine now. But good god is this unpleasant. Thankfully I'm clearly on the mend. I think I may have gotten food poisoning from KFC. Pity.)
~First~
Love and Longing
Little Fina’Noir and Dri’Noir still don’t like getting along all that much. So of course they need daddy between them to behave. They lay across his stomach, each out of reach of the other. For all that they ‘don’t’ get along, separating them is worse. They’re clearly best rivals already. They reach for each other and there are tiny puffs of sparks and little tongues of flame. But considering the soft and thin bed of moss on their daddy’s torso, it does nothing but make their little bits of bedding all the more comfortable.
Cia’Noir was visiting again, to be fair she visited so often she had almost moved in, and she was also currently mixing up a meaty broth in the kitchen while humming a nursery rhyme that most of the girls adored. Especially Uma’Noir and Jiti’Noir as they tried to keep tempo with it as grandma semi-swayed, semi-danced to the tune to their delight.
Ari’Noir, Mala’Noir, Gia’Noir and Lia’Noir were all having an extra nap. They had managed to get each other excited and rushing around as best they could earlier and wore themselves out. Leaving Miro’Noir the proud mother to luxuriate next to their shared napping blanket and pillows, casually reading a book.
“Oh? A call?” Vernon asks as his communicator starts buzzing. This grabs the attention of Fina and Dri as he pulls it out. “Observer Wu? Oh, the new ship.”
He activates it and then has the phone levitate away to give a broader look. “Sir, you’ll forgive me for not standing at attention I hope.”
“Yes.” The Asian man says after a moment. “We can excuse the lack of decorum considering that you seem to be thoroughly pinned.”
“What can I say? My little girls are fighters. I’ve heard some rumour about you through The Dark Forest. How may I help?”
“I am doing a preliminary call and evaluation of the situation with humanity off of Earth. We’ve found enough confusion information coming back to us that it necessitated the appointment and dispatching of an unquestionably trusted individual, myself, in order to ascertain exactly what is going on.” Observer Wu stated. “Unfortunately due to the sheer amount of nonsense that’s being sent towards The Inevitable and by extension, myself, I have been forced to place several administrators on duty to sort out the sheer number of calls I’m getting. The galaxy knows this is a second Dauntless Class Vessel, which means more humans.”
“Which means more men, and many women that decided to take a wait and see approach have likely decided that they’ve waited long enough.” Miro’Noir states.
“Indeed that is true madam. I take you are Lady Miro’Noir?”
“Princess, Lady is a more ennobled title. I am a Battle Princess, a military rank, directly empowered by and under the command of the Imperial Family of Serbow, in particular, The Empress.” Miro’Noir says and Observer Wu nods.
“And the third adult looking into this conversation?” Observer Wu asks.
“I am Cia’Noir, mother, mother-in-law and grandmother depending who in this room you are asking.” She says. “My little girl has worked a miracle in that she’s locked down a husband all to herself. So she needs a bit of a hand to caring for her first clutch, no sister wives to assist you see.”
“I believe I do. Still, I have been informed that Officer Shay and Princess Miro’Noir are largely responsible for the excellent relationships the Apuk have with humanity. If you would be so kind, could you tell me how that came about?”
“Oh... it was silly, sweet and wonderful all at the same time...” Miro’Noir gushes. “We met at a bar and I tried to get some attention, a few credits for a conversation. At first I thought he was a Tret.”
“The near human species, yes.”
“Well, I was proven wrong, not only human, but an INTERESTING human as well. A trinity of criminal fools attacked, and as I rose to show off, he did as well. And displayed a terrifying Axiom power.”
“Terrifying power?”
“Transmutation sir. A very complicated Axiom Technique I had stumbled on and managed to create my own version of. Basically I had bumbled into a way to rapidly learn a monumentally difficult trick and make it extremely lethal in human hands.” Vernon explains.
“I see. Are the notes of your research available on The Dauntless?’
“Yes sir they are, I hope you’ll forgive that... hey!” Vernon is cut off when Fina’Noir starts smacking his stomach. “Be nice little lady!”
“Bah! Bah! Bah bah!” Fina’Noir counters as she smacks him in the stomach again and again.
“Fina’Noir you must be nice with family!”
“Adabababa!” Dri’Noir adds in with a smack of her own to her daddy’s stomach.
“Dri’Noir! Don’t follow your sister’s bad example! Be nice!” Vernon chides her and a smiling Miro’Noir rises up after marking her place in her book and sweeps the more active little girls into her arms.
“There, have your talk with your officer now dear.” Miro’Noir says giving him a peck that he gestures for her to come back to and he gives her a longer kiss in return.
“I’ll be back shortly.” He promises before rising up. The communicator floats into his hand and he offers a salute to Cia’Noir who sends one right back. “I’ll be just in the back yard.”
A few moments and the door is closed behind him. The communicator floats out of his hands and he slips into parade ground ‘at ease’ stance. “Sir.”
“This is a preliminary communication. Not that formal. How well regarded are humans by the Apuk?”
“We have been invited to build a community on their homeworld sir. That kind of privilege is usually extended only to species that are sworn to each other in some way.” Vernon answers.
“That’s very interesting.”
“It was a very strategic move sir. The Empress... she’s one of those kinds of politicians where any action you take short of directly opposing them or attacking them is something they benefit from, and they also know how to handle someone directly opposing or attacking them. She’s friendly and benevolent, but when you realize just how many of her strings you’re dancing on... it’s disquieting.”
“I see, so how did setting up a human community on Serbow help?”
“She requested a specific type to explore the human ease at learning Apuk Sorcery. She did this to not only develop a large number of sorcerers that are more mentally stable than most, but to get ahead of the next few sorcerers, put her in well with humanity, distract the more troublesome nobility and likely more. That was one action. One.”
“Ah... one of those types. Is she scrambling to get things done or does it all seem effortless?”
“Effortless.”
“... Frightening.”
“She’s been directly ruling an entire species for multiple centuries. Even if she was originally installed as a puppet of some kind, which she was not, then she would have had enough time to gain all the skills she needs to be an unstoppable force in the political side of things.”
“I see, anything else?”
“You’ll need some context for this. You are aware that Apuk are naturally inclined to breathe fire using Axiom right?”
“I am.”
“Those trained to use it properly manifest Warfire, it’s... hard to describe. A fire where the heat lingers and pervades much more than normal. It’s like the fire contains their aggression.”
“I see, what of it?”
“There are four grades of Warfire easily distinguished by colour. Red is standard, Blue is considered an expert level, Green is the sheer strength of Battle Princesses only, but the final level is White Warfire, and only The Empress can manifest it at will.”
“I see.” Observer Wu states and Vernon shakes his head.
“Sir, Red Warfire can burn a hole into a starship over the course of a few minutes. It takes a single minute or less for Blue Warfire to do the same. A mere moment for Green Warfire and is so instantaneous for White Warfire it would cause an explosion as the solid metal is converted into a gas instantly.” Vernon explains.
“Really? They’re that dangerous?”
“Sir, it’s legally a form of suicide to attempt to fight a Battle Princess with odds any less than five to one.” Vernon says and Observer Wu looks impressed.
“I see, and your involvement with their cultural traditions and such?”
“Well, first was the Broken Shell Tournament. A large martial contest with six person free for all fights. The aim is to break the armour or ‘shell’ of all your opponents, not kill them or force them out of the ring. I made it to the final round before I grew upset at one of my opponents, locked her down entirely, and then broke my own armour and walked out. More or less ruining the woman’s reputation and social standing while imprinting myself into the cultural zeitgeist.”
“What happened to the woman in question?”
“She joined a monastery and after achieving journeyman status I offered her a recommendation into The Undaunted as compensation. She’s taken it from my understanding, but as you can imagine, she and I are not on good terms. Or really speaking terms.”
“I see, and the community that has been built?”
“It... kinda ties into our initial journey through Cruel Space.” Vernon says somewhat ruefully. “A lot of us played all kinds of pranks and jokes and things like that to try and stave off the boredom and cabin fever. One of which was banding around a soldier who has ninjas in his ancestry and... pretending to be his legion of ninjas.”
“... The people that took part in that are mostly in the community aren’t they?”
“Yes sir, we’ve built a hidden ninja village in The Dark Forest of Serbow. A massive communal entity that is simultaneously a single mind and the mind of every single thing in the forest.”
“A communal entity? Wait, you said everything in the forest. Does that include the men currently inside it?”
“And me right now. Think of my like a brain-cell to a larger body if you must. While I cannot ignore the needs of the rest of the body, I can also guide it, learn from it, and it’s strength is mine as my knowledge and skills belong to it.”
“And it’s not a security breach?”
“I’m able to keep secrets from it, but what I share with it stays with it. It has however flash taught me the local language of Cinder Tongue, as well as Classical and even Ancient Cinder Tongue. I know the Apuk language and much of their history better than some dedicated historians. Couple that with the extreme area control and tactical advantages of being bonded to the forest and it’s been regarded as a more than fair trade.”
“Area control?”
“The Dark Forest as an entity can absorb heat and grow stronger. I can cause a temporary extension of this ally to appear wherever I am. And considering lasers and plasma are the most commonly used forms of weaponry and Apuk Warfire, it’s a nearly perfect defence. Couple that with just how much it understands about Axiom use towards animals, plants and the earth itself and I can shatter the ground under me with a blink and refuse any solid ground to stand on to my enemies as well. Add on Woodwalking and I am untouchable to my enemies.”
“Woodwalking?”
“The Forest is alive and on my side. I carry a whisper of it within me wherever I go. The Forest can call me back to any extension of itself at any time. Meaning I can in effect always retreat to a safe location no matter the distance, access the supplies I have stored there no matter where I am, and have backup by my side at any moment. Facing a Dark Forest Sorcerer is such a tactical nightmare that we’re considered direct counters to Apuk Battle Princesses, which may I remind you, are legally suicide to fight one to one.” Vernon says. “To say nothing of the other Sorcerers. The Dreadmoss, The Blood Bark The Burning Stone, The Bonechewer, The City Shaker, The Leviathan Lord. Or my own title, The Bloody Prophet.”
“You’re The Bloody Prophet?”
“I recreated the Plagues of Egypt to stop feuding families from slaughtering each other. I am the only Sorcerer who’s title wasn’t earned with a body count. Even if only by a technicality.”
“A technicality?”
“Dare’Char Crushclaw is the Lydris born son of Brin’Char The Bonechewer. He assisted in one of his father’s rampages against his hated enemy by providing transport. While Dare’Char didn’t kill anyone directly, he still enabled his father in that regard.”
“So those nicknames are for supernatural serial killers?”
“It’s more complicated than that.”
“Please explain then.”
“It’s rather hard to, until I became the first human sorcerer, all sorcerers were the result of an Apuk boy or man being pushed to the breaking point. They then flee in the night and find solace in the shadow of The Dark Forest, it bonds with them, protects them and teaches them. But it also reminds them of what drove them to the forest to begin with. Which means that in a few short years, the former victim returns from The Dark Forest, immensly powerful and filled with unthinking rage. Until humans were on the scene, all sorcerers went on at least one rampage and earned their nicknames from them. Since we showed up... there were only two... technically three. One was Brin’Char finding his ancient enemy still alive, so he was set off. Another was when Cals’Tarn joined us, his home was under attack and we counterattacked for him. Saving his home and family. Then there was mine, but no casualties, does it really count as a rampage?”
“I would say bringing the literal wrath of god onto someone would count as a rampage, yes.” Observer Wu states. “I think we will be speaking face to face in short order. It’s quite clear that you are responsible for some fairly major changes.”
“I look forward to it, is there anything else?”
“Not at this time.”
“Good, because I’d like to get back to my wife.”
“You’ve only been apart for...” Observer Wu checks his watch. “Four minutes.”
“Five minutes too many. If you’ll excuse me.”
“You are excused.” Observer Wu says and he turns off the communicator.
~First~ Last

I (17f) recently went on a trip that lasted about a week (5 days). One of these days fell on April 1st. Although not widely celebrated in every single country some people from my country do it as a way to be funny.
Now we all had a set amount of money we were given for the day and what was left over would be added to the next day's amount. Our chaperones, two teachers and one of the teachers husband's were the only adults on this trip and they were obviously tasked with keeping the money and keep it safe.
We were at a concert when the mood suddenly changed and one of our chaperones said we had to get back to our lodging.
We were told that someone had stolen the money and they were searching the rooms.
Me and my two roommates had been together all day and knew neither one of us did it so we weren't freaking out like the others.
They found the person who stole the money but didn't tell any of us who it was. Emotions were high and everyone was pissed off at having their night of fun end because someone stole money we worked hard to get.(All of us worked and promoted the hell out of things just to be able to afford the trip)
My roommates and I decided to go take a shower because we had been sweating like pigs because of the heatwave that was running through the town we were in. It was a I'd dance in the rain if it came type of heat.
While in the shower one of the younger girls (I'm calling her Mia for privacy reasons) came in and asked us if we knew who stole the money.
We said no and she proceeded to tell us that this other girl (Jennie for privacy) was telling everyone it was Mia's best friend.
Now I will be the first to admit. I do not get along with Jennie. We were in the same middle school and she made me an outcast because I was interested in the old traditions of Halloween. Everyone I knew at school said it was something the devil used so that he could run around and do whatever he wants. I was called a satan worshipper because I was stuck in a school with a bunch of not so good Christians. Another instance was when she scrutinized me because I knew about the Gods of Greek Myhtology and said that I would be willing to worship them because of their values. (This was because we had a discussion in class about greek mythology and it's influence on the world past and present). She was not happy about it and kept making snide remarks and judging me.
I'm short, round, blonde and I make myself known. I really don't need to be judged by someone who had a stick up there.
There are other instances where we didn't get along but these two were the biggest reasons because honestly if you're going to call me a Satanist at the least you could get the pire ready.
Anyway, I was raised that innocent till proven guilty, and since no one knew who had done it she couldn't make comments.
I said as much. I also said that she should keep her nose out of it because it wasn't her place because what if it wasn't her and the girl's name was being dragged for something she didn't do? Rumors spread fast and true or not you still get judged for them.
Jennie came into the bathroom and told me to say it to her face instead of behind her back. I did. She got pissed.
Found out it was Mia's friend and only after some whole dramatized spiel of were sending her home, she would be expelled and us wondering if there was something we could do to help her if she was having financial troubles at home.
We were told about it being a prank and just as we got over the shock Jennie looked at me and my friend and said she demanded an apology from the both of us.
My friend also voiced her opinion in the bathroom by I have a pair of lungs, I speak a whole lot more and I'm the only one who had beef with herdue to past events.
I didn't apologize and neither did my friend because, A) Jennie wasn't in on the prank so she showed us her true colours by going around and telling everyone about it. She showed everyone she had made friends with that she was willing to throw them to the wolves if it meant she could have the spotlight. B) Had the scenario been real and I was the one who stole I would have liked for someone to stand up for me in my absence.(A I did a bad thing but I don't deserve to have my name dragged through the mud) Mia and her friend are both 15, Jennie is 19 going 20 (this is true she was held back in kindergarten twice). They are shy and get intimidated easily by older years and Jennie is imposing as f*ck. C)Younger girls are chatty some of them had already messaged some of their friends and told them what Jennie said. 20 people are going to think Mia's friend stole the money before they find out it's a prank.
I don't think I was in the wrong but I recently told this story to one of my other friends and she said I should have apologized because while I was advocating for someone else's right to privacy I was simultaneously hurting someone else's reputation by branding them a liar and a generally untrustworthy person with no sense of boundaries.
So AITA?

This isn't a prank or anything since she's not the kind of person to do something like that, plus we've known each other for 7 years now, but at this point I don't even know. She asked me out fully as half a "bit" and half a test to see if it would actually work out. Neither of us were really serious about it as I'm sure we both know it won't truly work out in the long run.
Well, the other day we were on video call and she was showing a funny exchange between her and a friend to me through the camera. She scrolled down and it lingered on this for a while, then scrolled up:
Them: Did you ask (my name) out? My friend: Yeah Them: Why? You don't even like them. Them: Like, as a person. My friend: It's complicated.
I'm not even sure she knew I saw, but I pretended not to.
I feel like my world is shattering a bit because I valued her a lot as a friend. I didn't really see this coming outside of a few moments where she suddenly stopped talking in calls where our friend group was hanging out, but I just chalked it up to her having a bad day. I feel like we have gone so out of the way for each other to just hang out in the past many years we've known each other, and despite her not being too serious about her problems, I feel like she's opened up to me about them a lot in the recent years. I felt really happy that I could be there to support her as return for how our friendship helped me be more of an open person back in high school. We also speak basically every day, and a good amount of time she's the one asking to call. Maybe the problem is that I don't initiate interactions enough? I don't know.
Now I find out that she never even liked me at all. Not as a friend, not even as a human being. I'm both very confused and hurt. I'd like to say that I'm not sure why she would continue to talk to me and even go this far to ask my out, but part of me feels like she might just be lonely. And despite not even liking me, she likes my presence just because I'm someone to talk to. But that's all just speculation.
What do I even do here? Do I confront her about this? I don't know.
Edit: She's the kind of person who cuts people she doesn't like or feels uncomfortable with off basically immediately. She doesn't even pursue friendships with people if she feels even slightly an off "vibe" about them, so I'm even moreso confused she she continues to talk to me.

Shoe Story. Glitch? Any other idea?
In 2010, my best friend came home from college for spring break and we decided to go out one night. Our town is tiny and has no nightlife scene so the closest option for anything after dark is an hour away. Her sister happens to live in that same city where we were going. We left my hometown and drove to her sister's place. Got ready at her sister's home, and then I drove my car to the bar. My friend had an eye infection, was taking meds for it, and was wearing her glasses that night. She was also going through what she calls a "weird phase" and did not drink that night. I'm not a heavy drinker and I was driving so I only had a couple of beers the entire time we were out.
So, we stayed at the bar for about 5 hours. The city where we were has a Naval Base and it is not uncommon to meet lots of people who are in the Navy while you're out at this place. So, we talked to a few different pairs of guys throughout the night who were in the Navy. At closing time, we had been talking to one set of guys and they were funny, and entertaining, so, when we left, we decided to ask them if they wanted to get a late night bite to eat at Whataburger, which is around the corner from the bar. After we all ate, they said they needed to get a cab (Uber wasn't a big thing then, so options were limited) to get back to their place. They didn't seem like creepers so I offered to drive them to where they were staying. One sat up front with me, the other sat in the backseat with my friend. I drove them to where they were staying, they got out, and my friend hopped in the front seat.
I drove us to her sister's place, we changed clothes and went to sleep. Never even saw her sister because she was already asleep when we got there earlier that evening since she had to work the next day. The next morning after we woke up we were packing our bags and my friend could only find one of her shoes that she had worn out last night. We looked over the entire apartment and could not find it anywhere. It should be noted that my friend is very minimalistic in her shoe options. She has maybe two pairs of "heels" and a few more flip flop/sneaker options. She had been wearing her one black pair of heels that night and the other pair was 4 hours away in her college town. She was fine leaving with the one shoe because she said they were very inexpensive and she could just buy a new pair to replace the lost one. Because I'm me and can't leave well enough alone, I was very bothered that there was a shoe missing. We went and searched my car, the parking spaces beside my car, everywhere. We went to Whataburger and even went to the place where we dropped off the two random guys and looked in the parking lot. Still no shoe. After not being able to find the shoe, she said it was "ok" and that she would just buy a new pair. I was still very bothered by this, but I just dropped it and we drove the hour back to my home, where we had left her car (locked) in my parents' driveway.
Once we arrived, we were saying goodbye and she grabbed her bag from my car and her car keys from my car, and walked to unlock her car, while still talking to me outside my home. She unlocked the passenger side of her car and immediately began to freak out and asked how I did it. I obviously was clueless and walked over to her car. We stood there looking at the front passenger seat and HER MISSING SHOE WAS THERE.
We have absolutely NO idea how this happened and have thought about this shoe more than I care to admit. It has consumed my brain for FOURTEEN years. We have tried every logical (and illogical) scenario and at one point, she was convinced that I had played this elaborate prank on her, while I thought she had played the prank on me. We have told this story to SO many people and everyone is always baffled.
Glitches in the matrix weren't really as widely known then as they are today and I'm certain that's what happened. Thoughts?

Last night I found out from a friend that my wife is a sex worker. I didn't want to believe him at first. He has never met my wife before and didn't attend our wedding because he was overseas at the time. He currently lives in another city which my wife flies down to every weekend.
Here's how it happened:
Summary of Events:

• 6pm: Picked my wife up from the airport as usual; she said she was visiting her sister.
• 7pm: Had dinner with the family. I posted a photo on my Instagram story of my wife and son enjoying their meal.
• After 7pm: Went home to watch a movie with my wife after our son went to bed.
• 11pm: Received a call from my mate.

During the call, my friend said, "I thought you wanted to hear this." I jokingly told him to F off, but he was dead serious. He saw that I tagged my wife, so he dug deeper into her profile and confirmed it was her. He had seen her earlier today at a brothel when the pimp let him choose the girls. He said he didn't pick my wife, but his mate did. My friend mentioned my wife's distinctive tattoo on her forearm, which matches the one in my Instagram story. He knew this phone call might end our friendship, but he felt he had to let me know. He ended the call with, "I didn't know, bro. I am sorry."
3 am: I'm still awake, sitting in my car. What did I do to deserve this? I hope it isn't true. I hope this is a prank, a very bad prank.
4 am: I somehow found her working name through my friend, who told me about this. From her working name, I found explicit reviews about her online in some forum. I have never been so defeated in my life. I really hope this forum is some sort of prank they made to prank me. I have never visited a sex worker before so i do not know if this is legit or not. I hope it is not true. I really hope this is just a bad dream.
All night I cried in the car. I haven't confronted her yet. When she came out to ask me to go to bed, I had to pretend everything was fine. She gave me a goodnight kiss, but I was so put off by her being near me.
I hope this is all a mistake, but everything checks out. I did some digging on social media and found out that her sister, who she was supposed to be visiting, moved to Melbourne a few months ago. Yet, my wife still flies there every weekend. These trips have been happening since January last year. She even told me she went shopping with her sister today, but her sister’s social media showed her at a cafe in Melbourne this morning.
I don't have close friends here in Auckland. I moved here for work and don't know where to turn. I'm seriously considering divorce because this is too much for me to forgive and forget. Losing the house is the least of my worries now. I'm hurting badly and in so much pain. I love her so much, but I don't know what to do. Please do not troll me, i have never cried this much in my life.
Does anyone know of any support communities or resources for dealing with this kind of situation? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Regards Broken Man
UPDATE : Yes , i use chatgpt because English is not my first language and i just want to get my message across without having the readers to be confuse over my broken grammar. I just want to ask for genuine advice, not wanting to farm any likes or whatever its called on here. I guess its my fault for not stating it when i write.
As for writing the website on here, i did not know that i cant write it here. If it is an issue, then please delete my post. Very sorry to made you think that way of me. I never meant to offend anyone. I am too distraught to even reply to those who are saying negative things here.
Those that do not believe that this could happen, i agree with you. I never thought this situation is possible.
For the ones that asked me why i do not question her when she goes to another city every weekend leaving me to take care of my son, I did and we had a lot of arguments because my weekends i was stuck babysitting. As for the price of the flight, she has a job so she can afford it, we have a joint account and also our own private account that we do not share.
9am update : I have found more evidence and i am deciding between going to the lawyers first or confronting her first. I am very ashamed of going to see the lawyer and telling him/her in person of my situation. This is something really new to me. I am afraid that i will breakdown in front of the lawyer. I went to get a cup of coffee just now and tears just came flowing out.

https://youtu.be/rR1H1Dc3Suw?t=11611
I have timestamped the video for the moment Chris comes in. For context, streamer Clueminati has covered other true crime cases but this one happens to be in her own town. She has met Seth at a few searches a couple months back, and has spoken to the Proudfoot's over the phone several times. She is considered to have a bias toward the "Proudfeet" and against Seth. She doesn't believe the Proudfeet have been given a fair shake by independent and mainstream media.
My own summary (my perception could be different from yours):

• Chris says people are going to have their opinions; it's ok. It's been an eventful night with Chris and Katie listening to the Smiley Story's World Podcast of the same night.
• "There are people out there who have done some pretty heinous things, threats; and we have handed them over to law enforcement....No one's gonna wanna be alone, and that's not fair."
• 13-18 different search dogs have been in the house
• The 5-mile radius from the house has been thoroughly checked. Going outside would be a good start.
• Asked about how Seth met Katie (allegations of grooming/statutory R): "My daughter would not have that sort of situation with a man, ever. Period... [The speculation and digging] has absolutely nothing to do with Sebastian missing."
• all theories and speculation are hogwash. Both sides have worked with LE to get answers and debunk theories.
• On online drama and the phone call btw Chris and PI Chloe being leaked: "Ok, that audio file that got leaked...is that doing any justice to anybody? No... all it did was start more speculation..." Chris would like to speak w/ Seth privately w/o all the YouTubes and etc. Get back to basics.
• Katie is hurting, but hanging in there. They have been offered therapist services and they're going to take it up. Chris would recommend the same to Seth. "I got love for Seth too."
• Feels WebSleuths panel episode was a set-up. Wants to have these sort of discussions offline.
• It bothered him to see comments in Smiley's chat during Seth's appearance last night - people were discouraged to continue helping. "Please keep Sebastian's name out there."
• Doubtful he and Katie will be at the vigil today. "I don't think it has 100% true meaning of what it's supposed to be." Worried some may have bad intentions. Doesn't want just one vigil; wants to find a way to bring all the churches and schools and communities together, across cities.
• "Katie went on OnPatrol by HERSELF, no help... I thought she did amazing! And people still attacked her. I don't know what more she can do."
• On the Sling Blade prank call from a few weeks back: "I am kinda a joker, I have to let y'all know... It's one of my ways of relieving tension...it's not like I'm making fun of Sebastian...he and I joke around together... No, I don't make fun of Sebastian."

Ok, I'll continue in comments. This is long and I want to get the link out there.

Two days ago, my flight was cancelled randomly by a third party and I was given $294 in travel credit just for the return half of a $482 round trip (so returned more than half on a basic blue, without the $100 cancellation fee). I was able to reschedule in time.
However, I’m trying to figure out how it got cancelled. It doesn’t seem to be that somebody random just called in and cancelled it, because I imagine if this was the case, I wouldn’t have gotten over 50% back on a basic blue flight for only the second half of the full round trip. Additionally, many people knew the flight I was on, but didn’t have my ticket number or confirmation number.
Anyone have any ideas on why this might have happened? Trying to figure out if someone was “pranking” me, or if JetBlue could’ve just cancelled it. JetBlue isn’t able to give me much information.

Okay so trigger warnings quickly: Sewer side Manipulation Cheating Self harm
Okay that that's out of the way. Hi I'm a teen that really needs some help. I'm under 18 and will keep my age private due to privacy reasons. My ex, who we will call deb, she and I were dating for a few months back all the way into 2022 and 2023. The relationship ended on pretty good terms considering what she did. So some things about me that need to be included is that I have trust issues and am fatherless (have a father that I cut from my life since he is not fit to be a father) so me and Deb met on tiktok, it was a video where you put a rabbit if you want friends and a fox if you wanted to be friends with that person. I put a fox onto her tt msg of a rabbit. So we followed each other and we started talking, it was a bit hard to contain the friendship since of the timezones. She lives in America and I lived in the Germany. So I made it work, I stayed up and talked with her. I made sure I got plenty of sleep but it was hard. I ended up leaving my other ex on actual peaceful and good terms since we both fell out of love. Deb was there for me and my other friends. So she started introducing me to her friends. And I'll just say I hated her friends. All except for maybe one. One day I met this guy friend of hers. Let's call him dexter. So I was hanging out with them both and after some time I received a msg on my phone from dexter. I went to check it out and he says 'name I'm so sorry.. deb committed su^cde' I stopped moving. It was hard to even breath for me at that moment. I myself have had a history of self h@rm due to family trouble. I kept asking him, "Why? Did I do something? Was I too clingy? Why did she do it?" Ofcourse he said after some messages of me begging him for answers that it was a prank. He blamed it on deb that she wanted to do it and I stopped even loving her at that moment. I texted her and asked for a break up, I relapsed that day. I broke my promises of stopping. So I stopped talking with her and any of her friends since then. But one of her friends kept talking with me.
One thing I forgot to mention is I will be writing this along as it was in real life. So the most things she did will be showed with the time line. Ty if you are reading this
He had a mental illness so he slept through most of the day, I didn't care and found it a bit strange since we both were debs ex'. So after some time one of his friends texted me and said that friend liked me. I declined quickly and we stopped talking. But like a month later deb texted me again, I was kinda furious with her but kept the emotions to myself and we became friends again. I decided to let go of the past. But she told me she still likes me. I told her I can't force myself to like her and that was the end of the conversation. 2024 came around as we kept talking. No feelings were ever felt for her during that time and she ends up confessing to me. I stopped moving. I had to decline her. I said I was sorry over and over again. And I told her. 'I just can't love you like I used to because of the prank you did.' That's when she told me dexter forced her. Ofcourse he did because he always lies. He lied about adopting three kids, he lied about his teacher making him stay in school till 7pm. He lied a lot. So I took her word for it. She took a break from me and I understood until. One of her school friends got my info from I don't know but we started talking and she told me deb dated me and two other guys at the same time. That broke me and I ended up yelling at her. That is when we lost contact. I cut contact with all of her friends except the school one that told me that. She even showed me proof. The day deb asked me out, 15 minutes before she asked me out she agreed to date someone and after that she asked me out. I'm incredibly sorry for yelling at her but it broke me completely.
So am I the asshole?

Europe, what is it? A graveyard, perhaps with expensive tombs, but now reeking of decay, not even fertilizer for the new seed. The French – vain fools, the Germans – a lowly sausage-making people, the English – peddlers of rationalism, the Jews – reeking with pride. Catholicism – a devil's doctrine, a mockery of Christ, Protestantism – a rationalistic state belief, all mocking images of the one true faith: the Russian Church. The Pope – Satan in the tiara, our cities – Babylon, the great whore of the Apocalypse, our science – a vain show, democracy – the thin broth of feeble minds, revolution – a loose prank of fools and dupes, pacifism – an old woman's chatter. All of Europe's ideas, a faded, withered bouquet, good enough to be thrown into the muck. Only the Russian idea is the only true one, the only great one, the only right one. In a frenzy, the raging exaggerator storms on, striking down every objection with the dagger: "We understand you, but you do not understand us" – and every discussion collapses bleeding. "We Russians are the all-understanding, you are the limited ones," he decrees. Russia alone is right, and everything in Russia, the Tsar and the whip, the Pope and the peasant, the troika and the icon, and even more right the more it is anti-European, Asian, Mongolian, Tatar, the more right it is conservative, backward, unprogressive, unspiritual, Byzantine. Oh, how he rages here, the great exaggerator! "Let us be Asians, let us be Sarmatians," he exults. "Away from Petersburg, the European, back to Moscow, over to Siberia, the new Russia is the Third Reich." This god-intoxicated medieval monk does not tolerate discussion about it. Down with reason! Russia is the dogma to be confessed without contradiction. "Russia is not understood by reason, but by faith." Anyone who does not fall to their knees before him is the enemy, the Antichrist: Crusade against him! He loudly calls for the fanfare of war. Austria must be crushed, the crescent torn from the Hagia Sophia of Constantinople, Germany humiliated, England defeated – a mad imperialism wraps its arrogance in monkish robes and cries: "God wills it." For the sake of the kingdom of God, the whole world for Russia.
So Russia is Christ, the new Redeemer, and we are the heathens. Nothing saves us outcasts from the purgatory of our guilt: we have committed the original sin of not being Russians. There is no room in this new Third Reich for our world: first our European world must perish in the Russian world empire, in the new kingdom of God, only then can it be redeemed. Literally, he says: "Every person must first become Russian." Only then does the new world begin. Russia is the people bearing God: first it must conquer the earth with the sword, only then will it speak its "last word" to humanity. And for Dostoevsky, this last word is reconciliation. For him, the Russian genius lies in the ability to understand everything, to resolve all contradictions. The Russian is the all-understanding and therefore the yielding in the highest sense. And his state, the state of the future, will be the church, the form of fraternal community, of penetration instead of subordination. And it sounds like a prologue to the events of this war (which was so nourished by his ideas at its beginning, as by those of Tolstoy at its end), when he says: "We will be the first to proclaim to the world that we do not seek our own prosperity through the suppression of personality and foreign nationalities, but on the contrary, the latter only in the freest and most independent development of all nations and in fraternal union." Over the mountains of the Urals, the eternal light will rise, and the simple people, not the knowing spirit, not European culture, with its dark mysteries of the earth, connected powers, will redeem our world. Instead of power, there will be productive love, instead of the conflict of personalities, the all-human feeling, the new, the Russian Christ will bring reconciliation, the resolution of contradictions. And the tiger will lie down with the lamb, and the roebuck beside the lion – how Dostoevsky's voice trembles when he speaks of the Third Reich, of the All-Russia of the earth, how he himself quivers in the ecstasy of belief, how wonderful he is, the most knowing of all realities, in his messianic dream.

''The concept "politics" then becomes elevated entirely to the sphere of spiritual warfare. All the mighty realms of the ancient order of society are blown into space—for they are all based on falsehood: there will be wars, the like of which have never been seen on earth before. Only from my time and after me will politics on a large scale exist on earth.'' - Ecce Homo
This is where we are. The only nation that is as a whole war-ready is Russia. The west is torn apart, there won't be another Hitler, a big personality who will spark enthusiasm for war in the west is impossible right now. The disease of doubt is working like never before in the west, there will be desperate attempts, compulsions, undertaken from a standpoint of shrinking strength. Everything the west is going to do in Ukraine is going to turn out as wrong after a while. Russia is incomparably further advanced in their understanding of instinctive morality, all their offensive actions are accompanied by great humility, it's one of the only countries where self-contempt never was just an individual phenomenon, declared to be hidden at all cost, but a Nationwide epidemic, in need to be suffered through. It is spiritual warfare, incomparible to everything that has happened until now.
Excerpt from ''Drei Meister'' by Stefan Zweig ChatGPT
Europe, what is it? A graveyard, perhaps with expensive tombs, but now reeking of decay, not even fertilizer for the new seed. The French – vain fools, the Germans – a lowly sausage-making people, the English – peddlers of rationalism, the Jews – reeking with pride. Catholicism – a devil's doctrine, a mockery of Christ, Protestantism – a rationalistic state belief, all mocking images of the one true faith: the Russian Church. The Pope – Satan in the tiara, our cities – Babylon, the great whore of the Apocalypse, our science – a vain show, democracy – the thin broth of feeble minds, revolution – a loose prank of fools and dupes, pacifism – an old woman's chatter. All of Europe's ideas, a faded, withered bouquet, good enough to be thrown into the muck. Only the Russian idea is the only true one, the only great one, the only right one. In a frenzy, the raging exaggerator storms on, striking down every objection with the dagger: "We understand you, but you do not understand us" – and every discussion collapses bleeding. "We Russians are the all-understanding, you are the limited ones," he decrees. Russia alone is right, and everything in Russia, the Tsar and the whip, the Pope and the peasant, the troika and the icon, and even more right the more it is anti-European, Asian, Mongolian, Tatar, the more right it is conservative, backward, unprogressive, unspiritual, Byzantine. Oh, how he rages here, the great exaggerator! "Let us be Asians, let us be Sarmatians," he exults. "Away from Petersburg, the European, back to Moscow, over to Siberia, the new Russia is the Third Reich." This god-intoxicated medieval monk does not tolerate discussion about it. Down with reason! Russia is the dogma to be confessed without contradiction. "Russia is not understood by reason, but by faith." Anyone who does not fall to their knees before him is the enemy, the Antichrist: Crusade against him! He loudly calls for the fanfare of war. Austria must be crushed, the crescent torn from the Hagia Sophia of Constantinople, Germany humiliated, England defeated – a mad imperialism wraps its arrogance in monkish robes and cries: "God wills it." For the sake of the kingdom of God, the whole world for Russia.
So Russia is Christ, the new Redeemer, and we are the heathens. Nothing saves us outcasts from the purgatory of our guilt: we have committed the original sin of not being Russians. There is no room in this new Third Reich for our world: first our European world must perish in the Russian world empire, in the new kingdom of God, only then can it be redeemed. Literally, he says: "Every person must first become Russian." Only then does the new world begin. Russia is the people bearing God: first it must conquer the earth with the sword, only then will it speak its "last word" to humanity. And for Dostoevsky, this last word is reconciliation. For him, the Russian genius lies in the ability to understand everything, to resolve all contradictions. The Russian is the all-understanding and therefore the yielding in the highest sense. And his state, the state of the future, will be the church, the form of fraternal community, of penetration instead of subordination. And it sounds like a prologue to the events of this war (which was so nourished by his ideas at its beginning, as by those of Tolstoy at its end), when he says: "We will be the first to proclaim to the world that we do not seek our own prosperity through the suppression of personality and foreign nationalities, but on the contrary, the latter only in the freest and most independent development of all nations and in fraternal union." Over the mountains of the Urals, the eternal light will rise, and the simple people, not the knowing spirit, not European culture, with its dark mysteries of the earth, connected powers, will redeem our world. Instead of power, there will be productive love, instead of the conflict of personalities, the all-human feeling, the new, the Russian Christ will bring reconciliation, the resolution of contradictions. And the tiger will lie down with the lamb, and the roebuck beside the lion – how Dostoevsky's voice trembles when he speaks of the Third Reich, of the All-Russia of the earth, how he himself quivers in the ecstasy of belief, how wonderful he is, the most knowing of all realities, in his messianic dream.

Ive seen ppl first hand just be annoying and say its a joke, like i have this one dude in my class Who will take others stuff, call others things that annoy them, and say its a joke. Like i can undersrand maybe once stealing your friends hat and running off as a joke but doing it all the time is just annoying, and calling others stuff can only be with kinda close ppl, and once or twice, not every day with somebody Who doesnt like you. Another time is online, this is a whole subreddit tho (which i wont name cuz you cant but)They say theyre sub is for joking and sharing memes but all i see are insulting memes and half arent even memes, they just call therians mentaly ill. Like idk Who needs to hear this(actualy i do know Who nees to hear this) but
MEMES, JOKES, PRANKS, ARE SUPPOSED TO BE FUNNY. NOT ANNOYING OR INSULTING

I want to be hopeful and optimistic but the vast number of online disappointments make it difficult. Here are some things I don't want. Please don't contact me if you are not interested in reading the post. or do not want to talk long term and would be planning on ghosting me or disappearing within 1-2 days.
I am someone who is quite a sweet and effortful person. I would love an online connection with someone similar to me and have good, intellectual conversations and also share some laughter and affection. Affection can light us up and make us happy. (Even platonic connection is fine.) I like giving and receiving affection in the form of cute, little nicknames for each other, checking up on each other, asking about each other.
Of late, I have been watching a lot of couple pranks on YouTube. They teach me a lot about couple dynamics (what kind of dynamics are healthy and what are toxic). It would be nice to have someone to discuss these kinds of dynamics with. Sometimes I like those pranks where one pretends to be angry and the other kind of comforts them. It would be nice if we could enact that sometime.
I hope my words sail to some worthwhile eyes on the winds of destiny.
I have grown wary of superficial connections, no effort replies and even abrupt ghosts.
I would like someone with whom I can exchange sweet words with. I am quite a romantic person and I was more so as earlier. A lot of responsibilities were thrust upon me with time, but I have rediscovered that side of myself. I would love to have a pretend romance with an online companion - where we pretend like we are long lost soul mates and trade fiery words of sweet passion for each other.
But, that is completely optional. I am fine with a wholesome, platonic connection as well.
If you've reached this far, it's because of some happy confluence of my words, the Reddit algorithm and fickle fortune.
Our meeting seemed to dangle so much on fate, it's only fair we pay our dues. Give it our best shot. Do justice to the matchmakers of heaven - The directors of this romance.
I'm on the quest for a sweet companion. Someone with a good heart. Kind and empathetic - Like my own. The good person at the end of the romcom when the attractive antagonists lose their allure.
I love bonding with someone through heart to heart conversation. Through exchanging genuine care and concern. Through passionate exchange of our interests and hobbies. Through clockwork logging of our daily lives. Through mindful curiosity in each other's interests. Through mutual preference for glitter over gold, depth over deception, charm over carelessness and symphonies over superficiality.
The conversation starts out with pleasantaries and outward introduction of our demographic information - the most rudimentary. The most formal. Gradually, the outer layers crack and a mild joke cuts across the mask and we're another layer deep. Common or different tastes in art are the usual social custom for making new acquaintances.
Soon, our conversation flows like a roaring river eliciting deep intellectual and emotional responses from both of us.
We're discussing prized memories and cherished fantasies of the future. Chalking out hypotheticals and admiring the other's world views. Pretty soon, we're suddenly bare and feeling a strong bond by virtue of what we've shared.
Small silences punctuated the conversation. These silences were not awkward. It was a comforting waterfall of connection. It was the silence that followed from both of us knowing and enjoying the bond created by our hearts.
I loved the feeling of ending a conversation with a stranger on the first day with the feeling you've known them for years. I harboured romantic beliefs that such a connection must be the byproduct of a relationship in a previous life !
Here are a few things about me -

• I love staying at home.
• I do not drink or smoke and don't like going to noisy pubs. Although there are times when friends or office parties are conducted there, it's something I just tolerate.
• I love reading. I am interested in programming, Mathematics, Chess, Science, Psychology, Geopolitics, Space, Literature (fantasy particularly or late but I like all kinds) and Self Help (Productivity and Positive Psychology) - and a lot more ! I'm generally intellectually curious and a lifelong learner.
• I love following updates on things I'm passionate about and sharing them regularly. I love following podcasts and blogs and videos on them and sharing and discussing them. I also love explaining a new thing I have learnt as it helps me understand it better.
• I tend to be positive and look at the brighter side of life usually. But I also like sharing the problems I am going through and like listening to your's.
• I love animals. I have a lot of pets. I am also quite close to my family and am surrounded by my loving pets (5 dogs and 4 cats). I recovered from dengue last month and they were always around me all the time. It felt very good.
• I love putting in effort into messages and writing effortful messages and generally use complete words and not much abbreviations. I love crafting a symphony of text.
• I am usually quite calm and supportive and remember things that are told to me in conversation. I like getting emotional and expressive and am soft hearted and sensitive. I am also quite mature and enjoy talking to similarly mature people.

Do not reach out to me if you're just bored, did not read the post, don't like anything about me or my profile or don't know what you want or don't want to invest in having a good connection or don't even have the intention for talking for a few weeks. I am already quite hurt at repeated ghosting so please do not even reach out to me if you intend to ghost by tomorrow or next week.
Here's what I would like from us

• Genuine interest, care and empathy for each other - Making each other a priority though we are strangers at first. That's part of the excitement in jumping head first into this ! That does not mean we do not respect each other's busy schedules or commitments. I'm looking for something really genuine.
• Regular effortful messages, and remembering things the other says
• I love sharing or explaining anything new I learn, whether it is a blog post, podcast, video, book or a general thought that came through my mind. It would be great if you love listening to good explanations and are interested in such things. I'd also love it if you too like sharing blogs or podcasts on topics that you are interested in but it's not necessary.
• I also love self improvement and sharing progress or motivation as we are doing things towards our goals and dreams.
• I love voice calls as I love the sound of voice. I would love it if you are someone who is excited at having regular voice calls (2-3 times a week) or at least exchanging voice messages at times !
• We don't need to have similar taste in art (music, TV shows, movies). I am open to learning about new kinds of interests and new subcultures !
• Openly sharing our thoughts on the bigger ideas and arcs of life and also venting about the smaller frustrations
• Being excited at receiving messages from the other person every time we light each other's phones up.
• [Optional] Some online romance where we sometimes say things to each other that make us blush like our first crush. A little romance to brighten each other up. Though this is completely optional. Sometimes sharing sweet, romantic messages with each other and maybe even doing this on voice calls too.

Also would be nice if we can just share photos so we can visualise what we look like as I like sharing photos when I go somewhere. I just like getting this out of the way. It doesn't matter to me what you look like, but I do like to know whom I'm talking to make us blush like our first crush. A little romance to brighten each other up. Though this is completely optional. Sometimes sharing sweet, romantic messages with each other and maybe even doing this on voice calls too.
Also would be nice if we can just share photos so we can visualise what we look like as I like sharing photos when I go somewhere. I just like getting this out of the way. It doesn't matter to me what you look like, but I do like to know whom I'm talking to.

As the title says, well done for calling out the slave labour brand Temu. More people should be aware of that shit, and what better way to highlight it than with another genius prank! Well done lads!

Let us start by saying that it seems that Venti and the Tsaritsa have a very close relationship, according to Venti's own character story, and the more details we learn about her, we find out that they used to be good friends.
In fact, in his second character story, he mentions he replaced her scepter with a hilichurl's club with a club as a prank.
And the fact that two are described as kind beings by their specific groups, the Fatui Harbingers we know refer to the Tsaritsa as a goddess full of kindness or love, and the Church as well as Venti's actions seem to describe him as a kind god.
The Tsaritsa had to become harsher it seems to prepare for the war with the Heavens while Venti never lost his kindness.
What role did he play in the Fatui's creation?
I do not believe that Venti envisioned the Fatui as it is now, he said that he had no idea what the Tsaritsa was up to at the end of the prologue before we moved on to Liyue.
They likely envisioned the Fatui as something else, perhaps a global organization that could keep Teyvat safe and happy, it would match how the gods were described despite their actions not matching it.
Venti may have gone to his close friend, the Tsaritsa with the idea as Mondstadt had the knights of Favonius and the two began to plan and create it, Venti taking on a role more like Pierro's, being the Director.
It explains why the name is the Fatui.
'Fatui' means fools, this seems like a name that Venti would decide for a group he created, he likely called it that as a joke name or decided because many may have viewed the Fatui's intentions as foolish and Venit wanted to play off that.
What role does Pierro play in the organization?
Thanks to what Childe tells us we know his role in the Fatui, as the quote suggests 'He was the first ever Fatui Harbinger, and today he is our leader.' Venti or the Tsaritsa gave him the role that is now held by Capitano.
It explains why he was never referred to as the founder or the creator, always as 'First Lord Harbinger' or the very first Harbinger because he was not the first Fatui but the first one recruited to the organization.
Why is Venti no longer the Director?
Venti does not agree with the Tsaritsa's plans, it is seen how he even states that he doesn't know what she is up to and the two get into a disagreement which ends their friendship, as the two no longer agree, the role of the Director is then handed to the Jester.
The Fatui are then led in a new and far worse direction under the Tsaritsa and Pierro, both of whom believe that the ends justify the means.
Why I make this theory?
I made it because it would be hilarious if Venti turns out to have a much deeper connection to the organization that stole his Gnosis literally from him and because I was bored.
If this (as unlikely and not true as it is) turns out to be true, it would be hilarious...

"You gotta know that there's an art to it, Ezra," Hitch said, cutting another piece of duct tape.
The sleeves of his weather-beaten coat were shoved all the way up his arms, to stop the fabric from falling over his knuckles while he was working, and goosebumps lined his skin. He was strapping a rubber chicken to the back of his truck, over the lens of the shattered backup camera, with the legs pointing down so that they hung a couple inches above the ground. There were dents in the hood from the crash last week, and scratches along the door from scraping into a curb. The chicken, hopefully, would keep him from breaking anything else.
"You can't go cheap," Hitch said. "The cheap rubber chickens only make noise when pressure lets go. That's no good. As soon as I back up into something, I want this chicken to be screaming like it’s in the depths of hell."
“Sure thing,” I said in a monotone, leaning against the side of the truck.
There were scrambled electronic parts piled in the back of the truck, the innards of a radio, a broken computer, tangled wires, a couple loose pairs of earbuds. He found the parts in alleyways or bummed them off his friends for a couple bucks or stole them from the vacation homes that were left empty for most of the year. Then he sold them for a profit at the scrapyard. Hitch had bounced between minimum-wage jobs for a while after high school, spending a couple months as a bagger at the grocery store or as a seasonal worker at the farm two hours down the highway. He'd never stuck with it. At the very least, the scrapyard got him enough money to eat and occasionally spend a night in a motel when he got tired of sleeping in his car.
Hitch pressed the last piece of tape in place and grinned up at me. "I've got something for you, duck."
The nickname came from when I’d broken my leg as a child and waddled around in a cast until it was healed. I hated it with a burning passion, and I glared at Hitch with the ease of twenty-one years of practice. He had a duck tattoo at the base of his thumb that he’d gotten in a back-alley shop as a teenager. He said that he’d gotten it to remind him of me, and the fact that I hated the nickname was just a bonus. It was shaky-lined, with an uneven face, but he loved it anyway.
The handle stuck when Hitch tried to open the door, a consequence of the rust collecting in the crevices of the car and running down the sides like blood from a cut. The car groaned when the door finally popped open, a metal against metal screech that had me flinching away. Hitch dug through the cluttered fast food containers in the passenger-side footwell, eventually coming up with a crinkly paper bag. He waved away the flies buzzing around the opening of the bag and held it out to me.
The last time Hitch had brought me food, I’d gotten food poisoning because he’d left it out in the midday sun for two days. The donut was squished slightly, and the icing was stuck to the bag. I still ate it, grimacing at the harsh citrus flavor. Taking Hitch’s food was an instinct engraved from the days when Dad had given us a can of kidney beans for dinner and Hitch had drank the juice, leaving the beans for me.
I rarely went hungry anymore, three mostly square meals a day and granola in my pockets just in case, but habits didn’t die easy.
These days, Hitch only brought me food when he wanted my help, like when he saw a place he wanted to hit but was worried about doing it alone.
I got in the car, like I always did.
We drove past the cluster of seafood-themed restaurants with chipped paint decks, the beachfront park where there were always shifty-eyed men sitting under the slide, the single room library where all the books had been water damaged in the flood last year. The change was quick as we drove across Main Street, heading closer to the beach. The roads were freshly paved, the concrete a smooth black except where the sun had already started to pick away at it. The three-story homes lining the sides of the street were crouched on elegant stilts, with space underneath for a car or three. Most of the garages were empty, with the lights off and curtains drawn in the house. Come summer, the streets would be swarming with tourists and vacationers, but until then, most of the buildings nearest to the beach were unoccupied.
Hitch stopped as the sun started to go down at a house that was leaning precariously out towards the beach, tilted ever so slightly, the edge of its foundation buried in the shifting sand of the beach. It certainly looked deserted, with an overgrown yard and blue paint peeling off the door in sheets.
Hitch took his hammer out of the backseat, hoisting it over his shoulder. It was two feet of solid metal with rags wrapped around the head to muffle the sound of the hits. Hitch squared up, bending his knees and holding the hammer like a baseball bat. Before he could swing, though, the door creaked open on its own, the hinges squeaking. The house beyond was dark enough that I could only make out general shapes, glimpsing the curve of a sofa to the left, what was maybe the shimmer of a chandelier on the other side.
Hitch lowered his hammer, looking vaguely disappointed that he didn’t get to use it. “That’s…weird as hell.”
“Maybe the deadbolt broke, maybe they forgot to lock it, it doesn’t matter,” I hissed, checking our surroundings for other people again. “Just hurry up and get inside before someone calls the cops.”
Hitch flicked the lightswitch on the wall, and the lights flickered on. They were dim, buzzing audibly and blinking off occasionally. The walls were plastered with contrasting swatches of wallpaper and splattered with random colors. There was neon orange behind the dining table, a galaxy swirl in the kitchen, and on the ceiling there was a repeating floral pattern covered in nametag stickers. Each of the stickers was filled out with The Erlking. Chandeliers hung in every room, three or four for each, and rubber ducks sat on every table. A miniature carousel sat in the corner along with a towering model rocket.
Sand was heaped on every surface, at least a couple inches everywhere. It was piled in the corners and stuck to the walls, and it covered the floor in a thick blanket. Our hesitant steps into the house left footprints clearly outlined in the sand.
Hitch took a cursory look around and headed immediately for the TV mounted on the wall. “Look out the windows and tell me if anyone is coming.”
I shook the sand out of the blinds and pulled them open, then had to brush sand off of the window before I could see anything.
Hitch was quick, practiced at finding and appropriating the things that were worth taking. He came back to me with an armful of electronics and chandeliers, dumping it at my feet before turning to head deeper into the house again.
There was a thump, somewhere upstairs, and then footsteps, slow and deliberate. Hitch froze at the threshold of the room, then ran for the door with me just ahead of him, sand flying out from under our feet.
My hand was almost brushing the doorknob, close enough that I could see the light from the streetlamp outside streaming in through the cracks in the door. My fingers touched the wood and it gave under my touch, becoming malleable and warm. I yelped, stumbling backwards, and the door started to melt. The paint ran down in thick drops, pooling at the bottom of the door, and the wood warped like metal being welded. The soft edges of the door ran into the walls until there was no sign of an exit ever being there.
“Well, well, well,” said a cultured voice with just an edge of snooty elitism. “What do we have here?”
The man was well over eight feet tall, with long black hair covering his eyes. He was wearing a yellow raincoat with holes cut out of the hood to accommodate the deer antlers jutting upwards from his head. There was sand settled on his shoulders and hovering around his head like a halo.
“Who the fuck are you?” Hitch said, inching towards a window.
He smiled, just a little bit, and his teeth shone in the dim light. “I am the Erlking.”
Hitch nodded, and seemed about to respond. I grabbed him by the hand and pulled him towards the window. I could feel sand in the wind roaring against my back as the Erlking growled in anger, the grains scraping harshly against my cheeks.
We were almost to the window when Hitch was ripped away from me, and I came to a startled halt. The sand had formed long grasping arms that pressed Hitch against the floral wallpaper. His wrists were held tight, and as I watched, a sandy hand wrapped around his mouth and forced its way between his teeth. He gagged, and sand trickled out of the corners of his mouth.
The Erlking strolled towards him, not seeming to be in any sort of rush. “You know, I’m not very fond of your yapping.”
He made an idle gesture and the sand wrapped around my ankles, tethering me in place.
“I yap all the time,” Hitch said. “Three-time olympic yapper, that’s me. Best to just let me go now and save yourself some trouble.”
The Erlking tapped a manicured nail against Hitch’s mouth, hard enough to hurt, judging by the way he flinched away. “But why would I ever let you go when I’ve gone to this much trouble to catch you and your sister? It’s so hard, these days, to find people that no one will miss.”
Hitch struggled against the sand, trying to escape and failing. “What do you want with us, then? You just said it, we’re nobody.”
“I’m fae, dear one,” the Erlking said. “I get my power from my followers. And I think that you two will make lovely additions to my flock.”

He flicked Hitch's nose and Hitch gasped. Feathers started to form on his arms, popping out from under his skin in a spray of blood.
Hitch pushed off the wall, using his bound hands as a fulcrum, and his knees crashed into the Erlking’s stomach. The Erlking fell backwards, wheezing, and the sand around my ankles loosened.
Hitch made desperate eye contact with me as feathers shot up his neck and jerked his head towards the window. The message was obvious. Run.
The last thing I saw before crashing out the window and into freedom was Hitch’s body twisting, his arms wrenching into wings and feathers covering every inch of his skin. By the time I landed on the concrete outside, he was a small black bird, held tightly in the Erlking’s hands. The whole building was sinking into the ground, burnished-gold sand piling up over top and streaming from the windows.
Thirty years later, I saw Sam’s Supernatural Consultation and Neutralization written in neat, looping handwriting on a piece of paper taped to the door. The tape was peeling at the corners and the paper was yellowed with age, but there was obviously care put into the sign, in its perfectly centered text and looping floral designs drawn over the edges in gold marker.
I knocked, hesitantly, drawing my woolen coat closer around my shoulders. I’d bought it as a fiftieth birthday gift for myself, and I took comfort in the heavy weight of it over my shoulders.
“Coming!” someone called from within the depths of the office.
There were a couple crashes, and the sound of paper shuffling. Eventually, the door was opened by a young woman with ketchup stains on her shirt and pencils stuck through her hair.
“Hi, I’m Sam, I specialize in supernatural consultation and hunting, how may I help you today?” Sam said, customer-service pep in her voice. She stood in the doorway, solidly blocking entry into the office.
“My name is Ezra, I’m for a consultation. I emailed you but you didn’t respond?” I shifted in place, suddenly feeling awkward.
“Oh! Yeah, I lost the password for the email ages ago. Sorry for the bad welcome, I get lots of people thinking I’m crazy or pulling a prank and harassing me.”
She ushered me into the office, clearing papers off one of the chairs to make room for me to sit down. There was a collection of swords along one wall, all of them polished to perfection, several with deep knicks in the metal which indicated that they’d been used heavily.
“So what can I help you with?” Sam asked again, more sincere this time.
“Thirty years ago, my brother was turned into a bird,” I started. I’d told this story so many times that it barely felt ridiculous to say anymore. I was used to the disbelieving looks, the careful pity. But Sam just nodded along, face open and welcoming.
“I’ve almost given up on finding him, at this point,” I said. “But I saw your ad in the newspaper, and…here I am, I suppose.”
“Here you are,” Sam echoed, smiling. She pulled one of the pencils out of her hair and took a bit of paperwork off of one of her stacks, turning it over so that the blank side sat neatly in front of her. “Tell me everything.”
I told Sam everything, and she wrote it all down, pencil scratching along the paper.
The last part of the story was always the hardest to tell. “I left him there. I ran and I didn’t look back.”
I had been to dozens of detectives and investigators over the years, once the police had dropped Hitch’s case. I’d been to professional offices with smartly-dressed secretaries and met scraggly men in coffee shops. All of them had given me the same look, pity and annoyance all mixed up into a humor-the-crazy-lady soup. Sam, though, just seemed thoughtful.
Sam leaned forward and put a hand over mine, carefully, like she thought that I would pull away. “Sometimes you have to leave people behind.”
I tightened her hold on Sam’s hand and drew it towards me, like I could make Sam listen if only I squeezed tight enough. “But that’s why I’m here. I don’t want to leave him behind.”
“Okay then. I’ll do my best to help you.” Sam agreed, finally. Then she paused, and said softly, “You know…I think I met your brother once. He might have saved my life. He’s certainly why I started in this business.”
“Really? What happened?” I asked.
This is the story that Sam told me, related to the best of my abilities:
It was a new moon, so the only illumination came from the stars gazing idly down and distant porch lights shining across the scraggly brush of the dunes. Sam’s neighbors were decent people who cared about baby turtles, so the lights were a low, unobtrusive red, and the ocean sloshed like blood. Sam walked on the beach almost every night, drawing back the gauzy pink curtains and clambering out her bedroom window. She didn’t often bother to be quiet; her mama worked the late shift and came home exhausted. As long as Sam got home before the sun, her mama would never find out that she paced the shoreline and dreamed of inhaling sand until her lungs became their own beach.
The sky was lightening. The sun would come up soon, and that meant Sam’s time on the beach was over. She needed to get back to her real life, go to her fifth grade class and stop that nonsense, as her mother would say. Her mother loved to say things like that, pushing Sam into her proper place by implication alone.
“She’s a good kid, of course, but she’s a bit…” Her mother would trail off there, usually getting a commiserating expression from whoever she was talking to. Sam always wondered how that sentence would have finished. She’s a bit strange, maybe. She’s a bit intense. She’s a bit abrasive. She’s quiet enough but when Jason tried to steal her pencil in math class, she stabbed him in the hand so hard that the lead tattooed him.
Her mother was better, for the most part. The days of her stocking up the fridge, and leaving a post-it note on the counter, and leaving for days at a time were gone. But Sam still stepped around the place on the kitchen tile where her mother had collapsed and caved her head in, even though the bloodstains had been replaced with new tile.
“Your auntie got an abortion, you know,” her mother had said from her place on the couch, slurring her words. “Pill in the mail and then bam, no more baby.”
She had clapped her hands together to illustrate her point. Her mother jerked forward and grabbed Sam by the wrist, then, staring up at her until Sam met her eyes.
“I love you, you know? But sometimes I wonder…” She settled back onto the couch. “Yeah. I wonder.”
She’d gotten up, then, back to the kitchen. She’d been stumbling, a shambling zombie of a woman. The ground in the entryway of the kitchen was raised, ever so slightly, and her mother went down hard. Her head cracked against the tile, chin first, and she didn’t move.
Sam had been the one to call the ambulance. She had stared at the scattering of loose teeth on the ground while she waited, and considered what her life would be like with a dead mom. Not so bad, she thought, and immediately felt guilty for it.
Her mom was better, now, for the most part. But Sam still stepped around the place on the kitchen floor where she had collapsed. There was still a matchbox hidden under her bed with the gleaming shine of her mother’s lost teeth, two canines and a molar. It was nice, having a piece of her mom to keep. Even if she left again, Sam would still have part of her.
Sam sighed, and turned away from the ocean. As she faced towards the low dunes further up the beach, she saw a sandcastle sitting nestled among them. It was such a strange sight that her eyes skipped over it at first, almost automatically, disregarding it because it was so out of place.
Sam found sandcastles out on the beach sometimes, usually half-collapsed and on the verge of being washed away by the waves, but she had never seen anything like the sandcastle in front of her. It was life-sized, something that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the Scottish highlands, with spires shooting up above her head and carefully etched out bricks lining each side. The front wall was dominated by an arched set of double doors, twice her height, with a portcullis nestled at the top, ready to be dropped. All of it was lovingly detailed, down to the rust on the tips of the towers and the wood grain of the door. It was made out of wet, densely-packed sand, held together impossibly. It had not been there two hours ago, when she had come to the beach.
There was a bird sitting on the overhang of the door, small and black.
As soon as she took a step towards the sandcastle, the bird shook out its feathers and swooped down towards Sam, landing at her feet with a little stumble.
“Hey, kid, get out of here,” said the bird.
Sam closed her eyes, very deliberately. When she opened them, the bird was still there. Sam considered herself a very reasonable person, so she immediately drew the most logical conclusion. The bird was, she was almost certain, a demon.
“Trust me, you don’t want to run into Mr. Salty, the queen bitch himself,” the bird said.
“Mr. Salty?” Sam inquired, polite as she knew how to be. She edged to the side, trying to get a good angle to kick the bird like a soccer ball.
The bird did something similar to a wince, all its feathers fluffing up then settling back down. “Ah, don’t call him that. He’d turn you into a toad.”
The bird gestured with its head, towards the looming sand structure. “That’s his castle. He’s in there, probably scuttling along the ceiling or some shit because that’s the sort of weirdo he is.”
Sam nodded, encouraging. She pulled back her foot and lined up her shot, the way she’d seen athletes do on TV. She aimed right for its sharp beak and let loose. The bird saw it coming, its beady eyes widening, and it cawed in distress. It flapped away, avoiding her kick only to fall backward into the sand in a scramble of wings.
“What’s your fucking problem?” it squawked. “I was trying to help you!”
“I don’t need the help of a demon,” Sam yelled, trying to remember the exorcism that her mama had taught her once, because her mama believed in being prepared for anything.
“I’m not a demon,” the bird said indignantly.
It was at about that moment that Sam gave up and just decided to roll with it.
“What are you, then?” Sam asked.
The bird shuffled its clawed feet, looking about as awkward as it could, given that it didn’t really have recognizable facial expressions. “Technically I’m a familiar of the Erlking, prince of the fae, but I prefer to be called Hitch.”
“You can’t blame me for assuming, though,” Sam said. “Ravens do tend to be associated with murder.”
“Hey, excuse you,” Hitch said. “I’m a rook, not a raven. Ravens are way bigger.”
“Sure,” Sam said, not really paying attention. Her eyes had caught on the details of the sandcastle, and she was transfixed by the slow spirals of the sand, the strange beauty of it. She found herself stepping towards the great doors, lifting a hand to knock, and as she did, the sand warped in front of her eyes, heaving itself towards her with bulging slowness. The door creaked open before her, revealing a vast, empty room. Just before she stepped inside, she felt a piercing pain in her foot, and she yelped, leaping backwards.
Hitch pecked her again, really digging his beak in. “Don’t be an idiot.”
Sam glared at him, rubbing her foot. About to retort, she finally really took in the room inside the sandcastle, and her words died in her throat.
There was a body just past the threshold of the door, face down and limbs hanging limp at its sides. Long hair splayed out in a halo around its head.
“Don’t,” Hitch warned, suddenly serious. “Just leave, kid, I mean it. I’ve seen too many people go down this road and you don’t want to be one of them.”
Sam ignored him. She made her way across the beach, slipping with every step. The sand felt deeper, piling up around her feet in silent drifts. She picked up the nearest stick and poked the body with it through the door, ready to leap back if anything went wrong, staying firmly outside of the sandcastle.
This close, Sam could tell that it used to be a woman. Her head wasn’t attached to her body. It hadn’t been a clean amputation, either. Her upper body was bruised, with chunks taken out of it, and the bones in her neck hung mangled, not connected to anything.
“Well, I warned you,” Hitch said, defeated. “I did warn you.”
Sam nudged the head with the end of the stick, nudging it over so that she could see the face. Her mother stared back at her, torn to pieces, breath still wheezing from her lungs. She wasn’t blinking, just gazing forward with glazed eyes. Sweat dripped down from her hairline.
Sam screamed and dropped the stick, tripping over herself in her haste to get away.
Her mother’s eyes were wide and pleading, and she was mouthing desperate words at Sam. Her vocal cords were broken to bits, and the only sound that came out was a strained groan.
The head rolled, inching closer to Sam like a grotesque caterpillar.
Her mother gasped for air, torn lips fluttering. Finally, comprehensible words came out. “Help. Help me, daughter.”
“That’s not your mother,” Hitch said, quiet.
Sam knew that. Her mother was sleeping back at home, and anyways her mom had never asked for her help. She had an aversion to accepting charity, as she put it.
“Okay,” Sam said, shaking all over. “Okay.”
She backed away from the sandcastle, not looking away.
“Failure,” her mother hissed as she stepped away. “I never wanted a daughter like you.”
The sun came up over the horizon. The sandcastle, Hitch, and her mom all disintegrated into sand as the light hit them.
The beach, the next night, was almost exactly how I remembered it. The beams of our flashlights sent light bouncing across the dunes, illuminating the waves, and I imagined faces in the foam of the waves.
“I’ve been back here a hundred times. There’s nothing left,” I said.
Sam took the car key out of her purse and pointed it at the sand, adjusting the sword slung over her shoulder in order to do it. The key had belonged to Hitch; Sam had requested an item of his, and it was the only thing I had left. She rested the key on the sand and drew a circle around it, inscribing symbols around the borders.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
Sam shrugged. “Not much, really. I’m…I guess you could say that I’m knocking.”
The key laid inert on the sand for long enough that I was just about to give up and go home, admit to myself that Hitch was dead and that I was a fool to believe that Sam could actually help me. Then a building started to take shape, flickering in and out like it was struggling to get away. With a pop of displaced air, the sandcastle settled into existence.
Sam banged on the entryway. Nothing happened. She did it again, harder, and scowled when the door still didn’t open.
“We demand entrance, under your honor,” Sam yelled. There was a hard rush of wind, and I gripped Sam’s arm to keep my balance, but the doors cracked open reluctantly.
The inside of the sandcastle consisted of one enormous hall, the roof arching up out of sight. Rafters crisscrossed from wall to wall, and a cobbled path led further into the building, but other than that, it was completely empty, except for the birds. There were thousands of them, perched on the rafters or hopping along the ground. They parted in front of Sam and I, and reformed behind us, leaving us in a small pocket of open space. They were all black-feathered, with sharp beaks and beady eyes.
The Erlking sat on a throne at the end of the hall, lounging across it with his feet up on the armrest. He watched them as they came forward, the soft caw of the birds the only sound.
“I am here to bargain for the life of my brother,” I said, with as much dignity as I could muster, before the Erlking could say anything.
The Erlking ignored her, tilting his head to look at Sam. “I remember you. I almost got you, once.”

Sam glared at him but didn’t respond.
“You want your brother,” The Erlking said to me, and he almost sounded amused. “Then go get him.”
As if by some sort of silent signal, every bird in the room took flight at once, and their cawing made me think of screams. I covered my head against the flapping of their wings, and my vision was quickly obscured by the chaotic movement of them. I found myself on my knees, just trying to escape them.
A hand met my shoulder. Sam urged me to my feet, and together we ran for the edge of the room, where the swarm was the thinnest. We pressed ourselves into the corner and the swarm spiraled tighter and tighter at the center of the room. It went on until there seemed to be no differentiation between the birds, all of them fused together into one creature.
When the chaos died down, the birds had become one mass, with wings and eyes and talons sticking out of its flesh, thrashing and chirping. Human body parts stuck out of it, bulging out from the feathers. It was hands, mostly, with a couple knees or staring eyes. The bird amalgamation had no recognizable facial features, but there was one long beak extending from the front of its head. Most of the body parts were concentrated around the beak, and they peeked out from where the beak connected with muscle, or grew from the tongue, nestled between the two crushing halves of the beak.
It turned its beak down and crawled forward, using the hands to balance. The fingers scrambled over the ground. I was afraid of centipedes as a child, and I felt that same crawling dread when it started moving.
“Holy shit,” Sam whispered, which was rather disappointing, because I had been hoping that at least one of us knew what to do.
The creature turned, a lurching movement that crushed some of the hands underneath it, and started heaving itself slowly towards our corner.
“Better hurry up!” the Erlking called from his throne.
It was blocking the exit, by then. The shifting body of it had moved to block us off. It ambled towards us and I tried to sink further into the corner.
As it approached, getting close enough that I could smell the stink of it, I saw a flash of a tattoo on one of the hands. I leaned in, trying to find it again, like looking for dolphins surfacing in the ocean. And again, I caught a glimpse of a duck tattoo, the tattoo that Hitch had gotten on his hand as a teenager.
I ripped away from Sam’s death grip and ran for the monster.
I fell to my knees in front of it, wincing as I impacted the ground, and reached into the nest of hands. I could feel them tearing at my forearms and ripping into me with their sharp nails, but I kept going. I pressed further in, up to my shoulder in a writhing mass of limbs, aiming for the spot where I had last seen that tattoo.
The hands were tugging at me, wrapping around my back and hair. They were pulling together, trying to draw me completely into the mass of them. I was aware of Sam at my side, anchoring me in place and bashing any hand that got too close with her sword or the sparks that leapt from her hands with muttered words. But I didn’t think it would be enough. They were too strong, and there were too many of them.
I was up to my waist in the hands when something grabbed my palm. I felt the way it clung to me, and the calluses on its palm, and I knew that I had found my brother.
I flung herself back. The hands didn’t want to let me go, and they fought the whole way, but slowly, I made progress. I kept hold of Hitch’s hand in mine the whole time, gripping it as hard as I could. I finally broke free, Hitch with me, and Sam was immediately charging the creature, able to use her sword with much greater strength without being worried about injuring Hitch. She swung it forward, and it sliced through the wrist of one of the hands. It fell without a sound, red sand flowing out of it. It deflated until it looked like dirty laundry, just a piece of limp flesh. The creature shrieked, scuttling away enough that the door was finally accessible. The three of us ran for it, Sam and I supporting Hitch between us.
I looked back as I left and found the Erlking staring right at me.
“Interesting,” he murmured, his voice carrying impossibly across the vast space between us.
The sandcastle collapsed behind us, the great walls falling in on themselves. We were out in the morning sun, the sandcastle disappearing as we watched. Hitch was on the ground in front of me, as young as he’d been thirty years ago, when he was captured. He started laughing, feathers puffing out of his mouth. He laughed until he cried and I hugged him in the way that he’d held me when I was young, in the times when my life had been defined by hunger and fear.
Hitch left, afterwards. He scratched at the pinhole scars covering his body, where feathers burst through his skin, and pulled his long sleeves down around his wrists. He didn’t know where he was going but he told me that he needed time
I had spent thirty years worth of time without him. I wanted to grab my brother by the shoulders and beg him to stay. But he flinched when I hugged him goodbye and he refused to go near sand and he stared distrustfully at the birds chirping in the trees. Hitch needed to go away and I loved him too much to stop him.
I sat out on the beach every morning. I felt the sun on my face and I waited for Hitch to come home.