Headache fever chills cough lump in neck are sysmtoms of what

I (24 AFAB) am trying to decide if it's worth sitting in a walk-in clinic for hours to get swabbed for strep throat. My worry right now is wasting not only my time, but the time of others if it comes back negative.
My symptoms of a sore throat started on Thursday (May 30th) when I began feeling a familiar 'I'm going to end up with a sore throat' feeling midway through the day. My mother has recently been sick with a cold and I had just been to a concert so I didn't think much of it.
I woke up Friday (May 31st) with swollen lymph nodes around my jaw and in the back of my neck along with throat pain. Not a typical cold throat pain as every time I'd swallow, I could feel the pain specifically in my tonsils instead of the back of my throat.
Last night (June 1st) the pain swallowing was so bad I was struggling to swallow my antidepressants before bed and ended up taking some Tylenol which helped. I checked for white spots and while my tonsils are definitely a little swollen and red, I'm having a hard time determining if some lighter coloured spots on one side are actual signs of strep or not as they aren't very prominent and there are maybe only two small spots towards the back of my tonsils.
Today (June 2nd) my throat and lymph nodes are still very much sore. A warm coffee soothed some of the pain and offered a bit of relief, but it still hurts to swallow. However, I have a bit of a cough and I'm struggling to determine if it's a cough brought on by seasonal/pet allergies that I have or if it's connected to my throat. I don't have a fever according to the thermometer we have, but I seem to rarely get a fever when sick.
I apologize for the stupid question- I'm simply weighing my options right now and deciding what I want to do. I don't want to roll up to the clinic and have it end up being just a cold. I have had strep in the past, but that was around 20 years ago.
TIA!

The Day I Got Real
By Robert Fulchum
Taken with the unkind permission of Readers Digest Magazine
When I was 22 I had a job in a resort hotel that combined being the night receptionist and helping the horses at the riding stables. The Manager and I did not get on. I thought he was a fascist who wanted peasant employees who knew their place. I was just out of university and pretty free with my opinions
One week the staff had been served the same thing for lunch every single day. Two frankfurters, a mound of sauerkrat and stale bread rolls. To compound insult with injury , the cost of the meals was deducted from our paypackets. I was outraged.
On Friday night of that awful week, I was at my desk and the man who did the books overnight had just come on duty. I went into the kitchen and saw a note to the chef saying that frankfurters and sauerkrat were on the staff menu for two more days.
That did it. For lack of any better audience, I complained to Sigmund Wollman the night auditor. I declared that I was going to get a plate of frankfurters and sauerkrat, wake up the owner and throw it at him. Nobody was going to make me eat frankfurters and sauerkrat for a whole week and make me pay for it and I didn't even like frankfurters and sauerkrat enough to eat them for even one day and I was packing my bags. Something like that.
As I threw my fit, Sigmund Wollman sat quietly on his stool watching me with sorrowful eyes. Put a bloodhound in a suit and tie and you have Sigmund Wollman
He had good reason to look sorrowful. Survivor of Auschwitz. Three years. German Jew. Thin, coughed a lot. He liked being alone at the night job. It gave him intellectual space, peace and quiet, and even more he could go into the kitchen and have a snack whenever he liked- all the frankfurters and sauerkrat he wanted. To him, a feast. More than that there was nobody around to tell him what to do. In Auschwitz he had dreamt of such a time. The only person he saw at work was me, the nightly disturber of his dream.Our shifts overlapped by one hour. And here I was, a one-man war party in full cry
" Lissen, Fulchum Lissen me, lissen me. You know whats wrong with you ? Its not the frankfurters and kraut and its not the boss and its not this job". "So whats wrong with me?" "Fulchum you think you know everything, but you don't know the difference between an inconvenience and a problem. If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire- then you've got a problem. Everything else is an inconvenience. Life is inconvenient. Life is lumpy". " Learn to separate the inconveniences from the real problems You will live longer. And will not annoy people like me so much. Good Night"
Seldom in my life have I ever been hit between the eyes so hard with the truth. There in that late night darkness Sigmund Wollman simultaneously slapped me in the face and opened a window in my mind.
For 30 years now, in times of stress and strain when something has me backed against the wall and I'm ready to do something really stupid with my anger, a sorrowful face appears in my imagination and asks "Fulchum, Problem or inconvenience?" I think of this as the Wollman Test of Reality. Life is lumpy. And a lump in the porridge , a lump in the throat and a lump in the breast are not the same lump. One should learn the difference. Goodnight, Sig.

A few people in my course had Covid a few weeks back. I don’t know how the others are faring but I know that I have been exhausted ever since. First with ongoing fever, exhaustion, and a cough with no mucus and now three weeks later, still exhausted, glands in the neck feel huge, and I can’t seem to do anything without wanting to crash and sleep afterwards. Today, I went out driving and socialising for a couple of hours and I’m ready to crash.
Swab tests say no viruses, blood work yet to come back. Is this what long covid is? Or is there something more obvious?

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Generous hours donated to the editing foundation by WaveOfWire
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Lukewarm water gave way to sand underfoot, frequent rocks and dried sea flora giving the orange shore a coarse design. Following an animate piece of metal to harvest underwater stone was not something the gray-skinned fisherwoman thought she would ever be doing. She hauled the ‘potassium’ up and into the wheelbarrow alongside her sister, the once-submerged resources’ rugged texture reflecting the bright sun’s rays in peculiar ways. Unfortunately, the days were getting colder much faster than she would have liked, despite the plentiful light. It was dismissible, but it ever so slightly urged her toward the warmth of the fires… and her new living quarters—the luxurious abode provided by the star-sent himself.
She could not understand how the brick home was capable of keeping such heat without flames, but she would not question it. Instead, she elected to enjoy the first nights of truly comfortable sleep in a long while… and it had been quite some time since the fisherwoman twins enjoyed the luxury of proper civilization. The village was quiet and peaceful compared to the bustling capitol, but it simply lacked the amenities that a large population provided. Their escape to the island provided poor bedding, no entertainment, little variation in food, and a nauseating deficiency of rum. Oh, how the sisters missed the sweet burning liquid. Their… past… may have heightened such affection for the alcohol, but it also didn’t help that they were suddenly branded as sky-worshipers and forced to flee to a humble islet—one that didn’t have any drinks besides boiled water…
Now look at the fisherwoman; there was no escaping her banishment. All that time spent making good with the locals, just for the inquisitors to show up once more and throw her onto the deck of a boat before it departed for an unknown land. She was not scared of the prospect, no. So what if she was to live on the mainland? It was no less rural than the last island—one they were just getting used to. No, she was vengeful for what they had stripped from her and her sister. They had crawled their way from nothing to something within the capitol only a winter or two prior. They could have lived like regular citizens. She supposed it was the grace of the Mountain God that they were led to an actual deity-sent. The siblings’ living situation had improved, too, even over their previous urban living situation. The two would not have to resort to… alternate forms of making a living ever again. She was even starting to appreciate the honor of completing a hard day’s work.
The wheelbarrow creaked and whined underneath the strain it was put under. The hefty rocks were intent on digging the two wheels deep into the dirt. Her sister’s equipment was fairing much the same, but they persevered, dragging the precious haul to the workshop where the Creator needed them. She shoved the portable storage up and over the small hump of the ‘cargo bay’ entrance, hauling it down the rows of animate creations.
Dozens of ‘hums,’ ‘whirrs,’ ‘tonks,’ ‘slams,’ and ear-mauling scrapes assaulted her senses. The ‘machines’ were clumped up with one another under the bright white lights. They spat materials, clear liquids, and yellow gasses amongst their others in a jumble of… something. Some things boiled, others hissed. There was much going on, with one foreign male at the center of it all.
The Creator stood by a towering device, pushing it with the help of the juvenile and the ceramist. The group slid the apparatus into place, leaving the star-sent to deftly manage the many colors on the glowing, rune-filled panel, while the assistants were dismissed, having received a few genuine words of appreciation from the male.
The gray-skinned fisherwoman clicked her tongue, garnering his attention, his weary eyes meeting her own.
“Hey,” he addressed them casually, eyeing their cargo with a raised brow. “You two are back soon. You can put the stuff in the same place as last, then just close the panel. Appreciate the hard work. Feel free to take a break between the next three loads; these machines won’t work fast enough to keep up with y’all.”
“You have my appreciation,” the twins said in unison.
The two of them did as asked, traversing the maze of tubes and metal, pouring the crumbling rocks into the belly of the machine, making sure to close the door as requested. Her sister sighed and stretched her back, extending all four arms up and backward, revealing the short cuts she had on their undersides. The fisherwoman cringed underneath the sudden aura of shame at the sight… It was the only real differentiator between the two, and it was her fault.
“I believe I shall take up the Creator on his blessing and take a short break by the fire. Will you join me?” her twin asked.
“I will be there shortly. Allow me a moment,” she returned.
Her counterpart squinted playfully. “Planning on something with the males, eh?”
“Nothing of the sort,” the fisherwoman chided, flicking her sister's snout with a singular talon.
The twin scowled and turned away, exiting the castle swiftly.
The fisherwoman shook her head and made her way to the star-sent, heedfulness and hesitation quieting her footsteps. It was an unusual feeling. She was never the best when it came to respecting those higher on the mountain than herself; they were always flippant, derisively ordering and pecking at those ‘who make not an honest day’s work.’ She despised giving her labor for such self-assured fools, forced to put on a face for them while suffering through their ‘hierarchy.’
That was why the small island villagers were so welcoming. They were much less strict in their positions or status, allowing for a community focused on the goals of the whole rather than the aspirations of a singular high-ranking Malkrin. Maybe that was why it was so easy for the gray-skinned twins to return to sincere labor there.
The star-sent was much the same, though… different in one aspect. Where the village had a sort of collectivism while still keeping some status of the elders or those higher up the mountain, the Creator did not seem to place himself within any sort of hierarchy. He was solely focused on seeing the settlement progress, addressing and communicating with whomever as if they were of the same status. It made tasks a lot easier and was most certainly why she felt it so easy to approach him with such an unnecessary question.
He was not by the previous set of machines, leaving the fisherwoman to look around. She scanned the entire floor, looking over much of the equipment, spotting him by one of the desks. She stepped up behind him, curiously eying the items on his table. He was… disassembling his staff? His blunt digits twisted small metallic pieces and pulled off larger ones, sliding the large cylindrical end out. He continued until all the components were resting on their respective cuts of cloth, each cleaned and rubbed down with a few liquids.
The fisherwoman did not realize she was leaning over him and staring until he stopped and stretched upward, inadvertently tapping her snout. His chair jolted out of the way, turning around to face her. The Creator’s body was stiff as his wide eyes bored into her, palm resting atop his shoulder-bound blade. He stared up at her for a long few seconds, his burning glare stunning her in place all the while. A loud huff finally escaped him, his strained posture loosening.
“…Jesus, you fuckin’ scared me,” the high male groaned, his chest still rising and falling rapidly. His hand still had not left his knife. “Did you need something?”
“Forgive me star-sent,” she bowed her head, embarrassment and a hint of shame running through her frills. She quickly excused her actions nervously. “I did not mean to startle you… Nor did wish not to bother you, b-but I have a query. You had mentioned that I was free to ask any.”
“Mm, yeah.” The Creator finally released his blade and took a piece of cloth, returning to his task of rubbing down another metallic piece of his staff. “I’d rather you guys ask questions than sit in confusion. So, what’s up? Is there anything you need to harvest the deposits? We’ve got some metal to spare.”
Sparing metal for her simplistic job? Lord above… “N-No. Please excuse my prodding, but I wish to know what these machines are doing.”
“What they’re doing? Like, each one specifically or as a whole?”
“As a whole, Creator.” She did not dream of wrapping her head around the blessed equipment.
He grabbed a gray tube from his staff’s belt. “Gunpowder… for these. Or, more accurately, modified black powder. It’s just as powerful, but it’ll also put on more of a smoke show… and dirty the hell out of barrels and bolts alike…” He frowned at the components next to him before noticing her confused expression. He shook his head. “Sorry. It’s a powder that ignites and propels—” he dug into the cylinder with his digits and slid out a piece of metal. “—slugs and bullets. It’s essentially the whole reason guns work. I’m sure you’ve seen the FAL Akula’s touting around, right?”
She slowly nodded, understanding what he was alluding to. The dark-green-skinned fisherwoman was quite proud of receiving her own staff, keeping it in hand at all times.
“Yeah, so without this, her weapon would be as good as a piece of wood. That’s why I plan on making so much of it.”
“I… see.” She looked back at the whirring snake of moving parts within the center of the castle, a greater sense of awe settling on her as she took in its final purpose. “So it takes metals from a cave, rocks from the sea floor, and the burnt husks of logs to produce such?”
“There are a few more ingredients, like the spider-crab biofuel and trace air elements, but yeah.” The high male continued to clean the components of his weapon as if the process of gunpowder creation was only a menial accomplishment. “It takes a good bit of specific inputs to make the stuff.”
The others claimed the star-sent to be a wizard, and that would be an easy assessment with his staff and mystic equipment, but that would not be accurate. The Creator was clearly a great alchemist, turning useless materials into the very power of his grand weapons. Not to mention forming fine metals from coarse rocks. How did the settlers not see such? The villagers were more blessed than they realized.
A thousand other questions burned into her mind of what else he was capable of creating. What could he do with tree bark? What about dirt and fish? Were they ingredients of powerful remedies or sturdy materials? The dam almost burst, but she held it in. The star-sent’s invitation to casual conversation should not be squandered by her pestering any further. Perhaps he would enlighten her another time. For now, she was required to complete her tasks—this time with much more purpose than she had prior.
She thanked the high male and left for the shore with a swaying tail. Perhaps her efforts would be rewarded handsomely were she to keep it up.
\= = = = =
Harrison sat back on a stool by the outdoor range. The sun had already been down for some time, keeping much of his work underneath the few Malkrin-sized floodlights placed around the settlement. Their bright white light illuminated the decimated wooden targets twenty meters out, dim moonlit covering the rest of the meadows further beyond. It wasn’t a great idea to stay out in the night, given Tracy’s reconnaissance drones weren’t equipped with any night vision or thermals yet, but there was still work to be done, so he instead relied on two armed females to serve as early warnings and defense while he finished up his testing.
The modified black powder was finally narrowed down to a suitable side-grade for traditional double and triple-base gunpowder. The first batch wasn’t nearly powerful enough, and it dirtied the hell out of the FAL he used. The second attempt was much the same, but actually managed to reach an acceptable muzzle velocity. Now, after a whole day of experimenting with the ingredients, it was a damn powerful propellant. The most important ingredient was the added biofuel-adjacent compounds that were made from, of course, biofuel, and much of the air-extracted elements like oxygen and nitrogen.
It was an increasingly convoluted process that required many of the machines to be switched around. Most of their programmed inputs and outputs had been changed several times by the end of the day. Hell, almost the entirety of the workshop’s stock of chemical and mechanical fabrication units had been used up by the operation—if they hadn’t already been taken by the other ongoing lines of industry.
The powder dirtied the hell out of the rifles, it kicked like a horse, and it was a pain in the ass to synthesize, but it was done. He wouldn’t need to worry about letting loose any bullets into those spider-crabs anymore. He even had a suitable source of metal, solving all of his iron and steel needs too. It was small scale, but it was something, and that little bit of income was all he needed to start scaling up the process and deal with all the alloy-hungry projects he needed to start on.
The first of which was probably going to be simple automated mules for the heavy ore. He spent a good portion of the morning assisting with the mining operations until he was confident that the lumberjack got a hang of the hand-held lasers. The most prevailing thing the engineer learned from his efforts was how much of a pain in the ass it was to drag the sphalerite back on sleds.
They didn’t have any on-hand blueprints for any transportation droids until he traveled to the vehicle bay and got them himself. Thankfully, there just happened to be a woman who specialized in creating automated drones, and she was more than happy to take the task on herself. Some part of him felt a little bit of remorse for dumping the work on the technician, but she genuinely seemed to actually kind of enjoy it, almost like it was just a hobby for her. The woman even had her own corner of the workshop dedicated to her tinkering. It had two fabricators, warm yellow lighting, and plenty of cluttered parts and pieces around her laptop. All of it surrounded a central chair that she used to bounce between the different sections of the building process. One corner was for the printers and requesting components, another was for welding, a third for circuitry, and so on.
However, the whole thing did urge him to visit the vehicle bay before the blood-moon. There were a hell of a lot more applications for drone automation than he realized, and he wasn’t intent on putting all of that on Tracy.
The engineer sighed and rubbed his forehead, grabbing for another blue-leaf on the nearby bullet casing-covered table. The finger-width frond was something he’d been enjoying since the foraging Malkrin started to bring them back. They tasted like the fragrance of jasmine. Simply chewing it and letting the small particles of plant matter mix with saliva created a sort of tea in his mouth. He saw Cera using it alongside the whole ‘females using a stick to sharpen their teeth’ thing, so he asked and was generously given a bunch.
The blue-leaf jutted from his mouth like those depictions of Old-Earth farmers chewing the stems of wheat, slowly being gnawed until its tip as the night went on. He eyed Sharky and the ceramist standing at their post nearby, the two of them staying as alert as possible despite it being later than they would usually go to sleep… Maybe it wasn’t best to test gunpowder late at night with unsuppressed fire while the others were sleeping. A tinge of embarrassment and regret nipped at the back of his head.
It was worth it, though. Their ranged capabilities would benefit immensely from the gunpowder, most likely ensuring their survival to come… if it weren’t some small issues. It was a shame the Malkrin had such difficulties with the weapons. Not enough to make them unusable, but enough to cause annoyance with general handling. The guns were practically compact submachine guns to the giant females. Cera and Akula had a hard time reloading with their big ‘ol talons, especially for the mag-release paddles by the trigger. Not to mention the process of actually packing ammo back in the empty magazines… Furthermore, there was irritation with trying to keep the firearm in a suitable place while they worked. Slings swung around too much, and pack attachments poked their lower arms and back. Of course, none of them voiced their opinions on it. He simply noticed all the ways they squirmed when the gun swung out and poked them in the side, or how they fumbled with them while reloading.
Honestly, at this point he might just consider designing a whole new weapon system if the most basic aspects of kinetics were a bother. Something more ergonomic for them to use and store… probably with a bigger bullet that’s easier for them to handle. He’d figure it out later, after he managed to finish helping Tracy build the automated mule.
“Shar! Cera! C’mere!” he called out, his voice somewhat muffled by the frond stuck between his teeth.
The two females perked up, quickly making their way back to his ramshackle firing point. The paladin clipped her M2 onto her back as she trotted up to his side.
“Are we fin—hed for the even—g?” the maroon-colored Malkrin questioned, looking rather tired.
He packed the can of ammunition up, slapping its cover closed. “Just about. I’ve still gotta test the fifty-cal ammo for your browning, but that’s for us to deal with tomorrow.”
“Of course. Will y–u be requiring this firearm for the durat—n?”
“Luckily for you, I won’t.” He pointed a thumb in the direction of the workshop. “I’ve got another being printed right now.”
The paladin squinted. “Anot—r? For whom?”
Cera flipped through the notebook she used for communication, scribbling on it for a mere second before turning it around for the other two to see. It showed a crude outline of the turret they used during the last blood moon… How’d she know?
“I’m guessing Tracy filled you in, huh?” The technician and the ceramist were pretty close, especially whenever Tracy went to help her with drawing. He slid a few FAL magazines into a small pseudomycelium bag, glancing up at Shar. “We’re planning on putting two or three active turrets up around the modules and possibly around the beach and sphalerite cave—depending on resources, of course.”
A grin spread across Shar’s muzzle, her tail swaying. “So we sh—l be furthering our fortificat—ns? It is wise we act early before the bl—d-moon.”
The engineer continued to pack the range items away with the ceramist's assistance. “Yeah, only about ten days or so until then. We have to make the best of it. But that’s not the only reason; I’m planning on setting out sometime ‘fore the blood-moon to retrieve some data from a module further out. This time, it’ll be a longer expedition; ‘Smore than a day’s walk. We’ll be needing more than just the two of us to keep watch overnight. So yeah, we’ll need to keep home base safe while we’re out.”
She leaned forward, an inspired glint in her eye. “I underst—d. Will there be anyth—g I can do to assist the p—paration process?”
“Nothin’ specific.” He smirked, patting her on her oversized forearm for a moment. “‘Cept training and lifting stuff like you do anyway. Definitely gonna need yer strength for hauling turret materials around. Even more for the bullshit we’ll probably have to go through on the journey.”
Her restrained smile turning into something different than the grin she wore before. “I-I am at your c—mand, Harrison. I give my labor to y–u freely.”
Harrison caught Cera idly watching their conversation, a curious look gathering on her face as she observed him. He soon noticed his palm was resting atop shar’s wrist, his hand in a much different place than he last remembered leaving it. He awkwardly coughed and removed it, returning his attention to the mass of equipment he packed up. “Right, uh… Again, that’s all for the day. Cera, you’re free to check out if you want.”
The addressed female raised a brow, still eying up him and the paladin before wiping the look off her face and smiling. She bowed and gave a short wave, leaving him and Sharky to stand underneath the outdoor floodlights while Cera slunk back to the barracks. He looked back up at the tall female beside him, giving her a knowing look.
“You can head off too if you want. I know you’ll be sleeping anyway if we head back into the workshop.”
She stood up straight, an adorable mix of furrowed brows and a pout resembling offense forming on her visage. “I w—ld not fall asl…” The flushed paladin paused, clearly realizing her inaccuracy, causing Harrison’s smile to grow all the wider. She huffed and quietly continued with her excuses. “I can not leave you to the night by y—rself. What if sculking b—sts enter the castle? I should not dare to l—ve your side.”
He stared at her with lighthearted contempt. “C’mon, Shar. Wouldn’t you rather fall asleep in a comfortable bed than a metal desk? I’m gonna be helping Trace with her drones for a long while too.”
“I would prefer noth—g more than to be within arm’s r—ch of you,” she insisted. Her orange irises burned as her tail found its way around him. “Even still, the other star-s—t has left for the other castle alr—dy.”
He raised a brow, the cool skin of her limb rubbing against his palm. “Wait, Tracy left already? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“F—give me, I was busy patrolling the settlem—t. She offered a short wave to me as she left.”
If the technician was gone already and wasn’t in the workshop in the first place to need his help… why did he even need to be in there? She noticed his realization, leaning in closer. Her eyes glanced away nervously for a short moment as she appeared lost in thought before being wrangled back to match his gaze.
“Then, if there is noth—g else for you to complete with the machines, might I sugg—t a compromise to the is—e at hand?”
He raised a brow curiously.
Short clacks of the talons tapping together filled the air. “W-Well, If y–u were to join my slumber, It would satisfy your wish as w—l as my own. I will not fall asl—p atop the desk and you shall be within my p—tection. I-It would be best for your sl—p if I were there, no?
He gave her an incredulous look, the corners of his cheeks breached by a small smile. It wasn’t a great ‘compromise’ for him, but it wasn’t like he had any place to argue against it, really. He wasn’t that tired, yet there was fuck all to do in the workshop until tomorrow… so… “If it’ll get you to sleep, then fine.”
Her eyes lit up in surprise. She clearly wasn’t expecting him to go without debate. “Y-You… Yes, of c—rse. The offer was intended for both our be—fits…” The paladin gestured toward the other module with a wide arm, her thin confidence barely hiding her vibrating frills. “Sh—l… we…?”
He nodded, letting her tail rest on his shoulder like a scarf as he turned around, nudging her to follow. They strolled through the soft grass and night breeze, eased by the thought of a comfortable bed and sound sleep.
\= = = = =
A consistent click came from Kegara’s talon tapping rhythmically against her shield, the piercing sound mirroring the force of her scalding breaths. The tent was bathed in the flickering hue of flame from a centralized fire, yet the warmth bled from everywhere she looked, which was primarily the current target of her displeasure. When their excursion team returned, the Grand Paladin thought them to come back with results or news, yet they brought only an infuriating pitiful recount of a spineless worm.
Every exhale was riddled with the white-skinned female’s ire as she paced around the trembling, pink-skinned female that stood inside the Grand Paladin’s tent. The fisherwoman’s shaking breaths could barely be heard beneath the sizzling of Kegara’s unfinished meal. She had lost her appetite, and the contents she had been looking forward to were now tainted by the taste of ineptitude. A burnt smell permeated throughout the room. A waste, but no more of a waste than the pathetic trash currently fouling her tent.
The failure’s back was straight, her head was kept level, and her tail was as still as the mountain towering above the camp outside, yet nothing but inadequacy was visible.
The Grand Paladin stopped her pacing in front of the messenger, covering her burning vexation with cold, quiet intent and an edged stare. The fisherwoman swallowed heavily. “Were you at least capable of finding their sea vessel, incompetent one?”
“W-We did, Grand Paladin,” the pitiful excuse for a Malkrin quickly returned, fear and guilt bleeding through her voice. A sense of hope entered those dull eyes as they tried to salvage what was already lost. “There were footsteps we followed along the beach, b-but they were cut off abruptly by the tracks of abhorrent!”
Kegara took another step forward, brows furrowing as she bore her gaze ever deeper into the scum that stood before her, the head-height difference in stature between them further emblazening the glare. Her words grew more heated with every question, each syllable teeming with threats. “Then they perished? Was there blood? Signs of a battle?”
The pink-skinned female struggled to keep herself straight, trembling down to the talons. “T-There was no sign of s-such.”
“And you did not pursue them?” A simple question, and one spoke through a frigid, flat tone. Dignified and controlled, yet making no effort to hide the malice underneath. Her digits twitched, barely restrained.
“N-No, we f-feared the abhor—”
The fisherwoman’s speech was cut short with a choke and a flicker of movement from the white-skinned paladin. A singular hand wrung the failure’s throat and lifted the veritable waste, her grip tight enough to cull the fouled intent before it could spit more worthless drivel. Kegara’s frills shook with her burning projection. “You failed because you were *scared? Fourteen females were **frightened of footprints? You insolent failure! Your heathenous brothers and sisters are left to the whims of the mainland because of your fear! Left to be mauled and eaten alive by the abhorrent!”*
“W-We could not have—”
“SILENCE,” she commanded sharply, her voice a blade that tore through the fisherwoman’s denial. She snarled, feeling the very heartbeat within the fragile neck as her grip tightened. Shameful vocalizations and strained breaths failed to bring air to the pathetic one’s lungs. It would be quicker to silence the fool permanently, and Kegara’s pride demanded it be done. Every move within the paladin’s talons threatened to rend the very flesh beneath them, yet her claws must be stayed, for allowing blood to spill would be an equally foolish mistake. The fisherwoman was lucky; menial labor was a strained resource. Such a failure of a banished fool would be culled on the spot otherwise.
The pink-skinned female was thrown to the ground, dirt being tossed into the air as she skid to a stop. She hacked and coughed on her back, her ragged gasps irritatingly scraping the high one’s ears. Kegara’s slow exhalations poured through clenched teeth as she controlled herself. Perfection required persistence. If she wished to send the group back out for their incompetence, then she would need them to live long enough to do so. To ensure the new banished were found and brought back. To prove themselves worth her kindness.
But were there banished left to collect? The latest group was most likely reduced to bones for the repulsive creatures to gnaw on by now, and it would be but a waste of Malkrin to frivolously send more out. It was a situation wrought from mistakes and inadequacy, searing her flesh with its reflection onto her, painting her image with its wretched color. The vexation burned her from the inside as she resisted the urge to stain her tent with the failure’s red. This was much greater a failure than the fisherwoman could understand, but at least a large catch of meat had been procured. This was still a salvageable outcome.
“Bring half the food to the cooks,” the grand paladin relented with a simmering hiss, glaring down at the coughing lump of shame. “Leave the rest by the cave as always. Do not fail me with such a simple task, or you will prove my benevolence to be a mistake.”
“Of… c-course.” The fisherwoman shakily nodded before shuffling away, all but fleeing the tent to complete her duties. The failure was gone, but her stench persisted.
Kegara spat on the ground, no longer wishing to return to her meal, as disgusting as it had become. The searing exasperation that gnawed at her chest slowly fell away, leaving only the frigid caress of mortification on her frills. The lack of success would carry with it great consequences, and those would carry more in an ever-growing rockslide of punishment.
Would it impact her mission? What would happen if her settlement was incapable of providing logistics for the excavation? Would they no longer return with the relics? How would the Grand Script-keeper react? What of the high priestesses? The Grand Paladin was no fool; she knew where their disdain would lie, should she prove to be as pathetic as that fisherwoman. The blame could not be siphoned off into the tainted peasantry beneath her command. It would be put on her and her alone. She would face judgment without reprieve.
The white-skinned Makrin let out a shaky breath, steeling herself away from the agonizing worries. The solution was as clear as her faith, and just as certain. She would not allow such a mistake to occur again. More capable laborers would be sent next time, paladins without such weaknesses as fear, and success would be enforced.
According to the report, the next island that the inquisitors were approaching was one with a larger population, numbering in the thousands. It was assured that they would find many more of the blighted Malkrin to be exiled, and the traitorous filth would find their labor funneling directly to the mainland. She could perform her duties properly once she had the subordinates to do so.
Those higher on the mountain would see her accomplishments then. Surely.
- - - - -
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Next time on Total Drama Anomaly Island - Space Marines Malkrin

So it is currently Sunday at 1AM. I just woke up from a nap from 6PM. I’ve felt gross since about Wednesday. It all started when I woke up and my eyes hurt to move far and fast, I had a massive tension headache (still lingered all week to now) and my body felt fatigued. Drank a glass of milk, was supposed to expire in 8 days but it tasted watered down or expired. Great, my taste is gone. Night of Wednesday and Thursday I start having chills and shivers and my skin temperature is VERY hot, 100.4F fever. This lasted until an hour later where I would start sweating or wake up sweating. Shivers died down. Saturday evening a weird rash appeared on my torso. I recently showered and was sitting shirtless and my torso just became itchy. There was several dime sized red blotches and a rash started to appear. It felt like bug bites and looked like them too but in large blotchy areas. I wake up now and the rash is a little on my shoulders and neck. Now the weirdest symptom is every time I move, even as little as lifting my arm or rotating my neck all the muscles burn as if they’ve been stretched about 2 seconds after performing the action.
Is my body slowly rotting? Am I a victim to Covid part 2? What the heck is wrong with me. Symptoms persist I will be going to doctor.

Cannibal had made up his mind a few moves ago: If this kid doesn't swing this chair, doesn't absolutely fuckin' nail me, then he's getting taxed, and big time.
The kid's name is Rob Small, and he's supposedly some hot-shot rookie fresh out of the local school. But Cannibal doesn't get it. Everything about the kid bugs him, right down to the name. The sport lost something when people stopped calling themselves ridiculous things, like 'The Big' this, or 'Ultimate' that.
And besides, it's a dirty trick. It's too easy, just like everything the new kids are doing. It's almost too real. And the audience doesn't want real. They only think they do. Cannibal knows this better than just about anyone.
Cannibal feels that he's been carrying them both since the bell. Again, it's this new, soft shit. Flipping, and posing, and nobody wants a single scratch on their pretty mugs. The word fake doesn't exist in this business, but as Rob winds up for another one of his little tricks, all flare, no impact, you can kind of see where people get that idea.
Cannibal takes a knee, then another, but wide, because that's how you take a real hit. Rob pulls the chair back.
"Don't fuck this up," Cannibal says.
The blade of the chair just grazes Cannibal's eyebrow, opening two inches of scar tissue, and perforation.
This is good. Unintentional, but good.
The crowd isn't theirs yet, but the stream of blood pulls a few people forward and gets them almost leaning into the next row down.
The blood is good, no doubt about it. But the sound of skull on steel would've lit them on fire, and that's just science.
Rob moves to the ropes, taking a squeaky-clean moment to acknowledge the crowd. He waves his arms around like he's leading a marching band or something, and it "earns" him a small pop of recognition.
Here's the problem- there's no story here. No tale of the tape. Just some rookie nobody cares about, and an aging prick that people care even less about. This is when every move is supposed to count. Not just every move, but every transition, every facial expression too. The kid's athletic, sure. But so is everybody. He doesn't have the rhythm yet, and his nose is too straight. And Cannibal is tired of carrying this match.
Cannibal starts back on his feet, quickly, counter-intuitively, like a jump scare. The kid's finally connecting with the crowd now, lifting the chair like some intramural trophy. But it's too little, too late, and Cannibal sees his opportunity.
First Cannibal snatches the chair, up, and behind Rob, then steadies his giant, calloused fingers with a well-timed exhale. He whirls Rob around, ready or not, and drives the lip of the chair into the liver side of his waist, which folds him directly in two. The crowd chatters a bit, but he isn't finished.
Cannibal throws the chair less than a foot away, then sets up the move that's going to win the crowd.
He didn't invent the move, not even close. It's not even particularly uncommon. But he made his name off this move. Here's some wisdom from the old school: There are precious few people who make money from this business by looking good. And if you can't look good, you need to look vicious.
Cannibal hooks his arms under Rob's armpits, then wrenches both arms so violently that the triceps almost touch. Operating on pure panic, and instinct, Rob's legs unwind, independently searching for a better position, but never finding it.
"Hey, easy up there," Rob says from somewhere near Cannibal's midsection, but he may as well be speaking to the mat now.
Cannibal wrenches Rob's arms again, but this time the triceps touch for one moment of searing pain. He does this half for show, and half as a warning to keep quiet during his finisher. He looks out at the crowd, and their features form for the first time since he entered the arena. Before then, they were nothing, just a wallpaper pattern of merch, and facial hair. There's a difference between the individual faces in the first row, and the voice that fills the venue, and guides your match.
A single fan can be wrong, but a crowd never is.
But Cannibal takes some of that power back now, and he's staring at the crowd, the entity, right in the face, starting with the first row.
The first few faces that he locks eyes with are rabid, their eyes wild with anticipation. They're gesticulating wildly, like they can't believe, or can't wait for what's coming next. The next face is a little boy who shies away and looks at his dad for help. He scans about a seating section and a half, screaming spittle-seasoned insults along the way.
Mid-taunt, before anybody can count it off, Cannibal hits his finisher, The Flesh Eater.
Cannibal pushes off the toes of his boots, about a foot into the air, bringing Rob's craned arms with him. That's why you really need to wrench. With Rob feeling real pain at each arm's socket, he has no choice but to sell. At the height of his jump, Cannibal shoots his legs straight out in a wide V, unclenching his ass for a nice, cushioned landing.
Rob's face hits the chair a microsecond before Cannibal's legs, and underside absorb the remainder of the blow. It's enough to make the aluminum ring out into the high warehouse ceiling and put a pretty little face-sized dent in the seat.
The crowd reacts with screams, with horror, with finally, some fucking emotion.
Cannibal climbs to his feet, while the lights flick on-and-off, on-and-off in Rob's eyes. Rob props himself on his palms, and knees, finding the floor he wasn't even looking for.
But he loses it again with a big, booted punt to the ribs. The crowd boos now from every direction.
This is good. It means that right now, they hate Cannibal. It means that when they go home, they'll remember how much they hated him. It means that he did his job.
Cannibal takes a victory lap around the ring while Rob writhes in presumably authentic agony. Cannibal leans over the top rope, pointing at the front row again, dissolving the boundary between them. He's screaming at a fan. He may even be screaming at one hundred fans when he notices a face that shouldn't be in attendance.
Was it section B? He looks over but can't find the face anymore.
He darts his eyes wildly, unfocusing them so that the crowd transforms into nothing but eyebrows, and merch, approval, and disgust.
He glances back toward Section B, right around where he thinks he saw the face, right as Rob crawls from behind, hooks his leg, and rolls him into a three count.
Both men roll onto their backs; Rob, because the pain from his neck, down to his waist puts him there. Cannibal, because he's defeated and confused.
Had he really seen that face? He knows he hadn't. One, because that would make no sense. And two, because, and he only saw it for a second, but the face was significantly younger than it should have been. About 20 years younger. Which would put it right around a time that he doesn't think, or speak about. Cannibal decides that he didn't see the face after all. He doesn't believe in ghosts. Especially not ghosts that haven't even died.
***
Cannibal collects his pay, and the doc plugs up his gash, in that order. He's got a show in a bigger market tomorrow, so the butterfly stitches just need to hold until then.
He unlaces his boots in the parking lot, then trades them for some once-white Adidas from the back seat of his gray Toyota Camry. Then he thinks about the ghost again. The one that he didn't see, the one that isn't even dead as far as he knows.
He stands still in his untied sneakers and thumbs a few reps through his social pages. If he had died, the news would have picked it up by now. An old friend would have even messaged,
"Here if you need to talk." Or, "It's not your fault"
Something like that, anyway. But Cannibal doesn't see anything, no messages, neither of their names gracing, or disgracing any headlines. And besides, that doesn't exactly solve the issue at hand. Maybe the kids are right, he thinks. I've officially taken too many blows to the skull.
For twenty years, Cannibal has always driven to the next city, or the next stop on the road, the night prior. Tonight, he checks into the nearest hotel/rest stop that connects to the main road. It's only about a four-hour drive, three if he can avoid traffic, and the need to piss. He doesn't even need to check into the venue until 5 pm. That's ample time, he decides for the first time in his career.
"I just need a bed and a shower", Cannibal tells the night clerk, a pimply boy who has deepened his voice since the exchange intensified.
He's the only employee, except for a few maids pushing yellow baskets around the parking lot, and a few unofficially affiliated girls prowling around from the local skin bar.
The boy wants to avoid a hassle. He knows that the nearest signs of life are the old warehouse a few exits down, and the sheriff's office even further.
"I'm sorry sir," he begins, and he's really using diaphragm now, speaking to the back of the house, "But all's we got left tonight is the honeymoon suite."
"So it's $30 extra for a dirty mirror on the ceiling, and a vase full of plastic fuckin' roses?"
The clerk winces at the swear, then gleams over Cannibal's right shoulder into the mostly empty parking lot. Cannibal gives the kid his best mean mug, the same one that he'd shoot toward a new opponent or a crowd that hates his guts. The quiet moment lingers, and then, wouldn't you guess it, just like that, thirty dollars gets shaved off the tab.
Cannibal tosses his duffel onto the frilly red sheets, then rolls off his sneakers as his reflections oblige in both the ceiling and wall-length mirrors. He sits on the bed, then wiggles his toes a bit generating a sound like gravel crunching in a driveway. He wants to get up and shower off some of the dried blood that's clotted his hair to his face, but the world rocks, and spins, and he lays down and falls asleep without even killing the bedside lamp.
He can't remember the ramp, the fans, or the bell. He can't remember the promos, or what angle he's supposed to be taking. But judging from the dark cherry splatted canvas, and the ringing in ears, it's been a fuckin' barn-burner so far. He looks directly ahead, at the high, pipe-laden ceiling, and realizes he's on his back. A boot lands next to his head, then another. Maybe it's the high-intensity discharge lights that are stinging his eyes, maybe he's still rattled from whatever move put him on his ass, but as his opponent steps over him, he can't seem at all to make out their face.
Whoever his opponent is, he begins to pick him up by the hair, and that's when Cannibal notices that the abstract art on the mat has mostly come from the back of his head. Drops of blood race down his opponents wrists, and pool near his elbows. Cannibal is bent over looking down at the mat, at his opponent's standard-issue black boots, and at the fresh coat of bright red, which will soon dry darker.
His opponent cranks his arms clumsily but with intensity. He can feel his blood greasing his opponent's grip, not allowing for any real traction. Then his opponent's knees square up, then bend, and Cannibal realizes. "Hey, that's my fucking move!" he says, or tries to say, but his opponent's airborne, and then so is he.
Usually, there's a nice thud when you hit the mat, but not this time. This time it sounds more like a series of wet pops, like cracking your knuckles underwater. Cannibal tries to roll over and assess the situation. Then he tries to roll over again.
Oh. Shit.
He's face down on the mat, and he intuits, rather than feels his opponent hurry off him, and in that same foggy way, he can feel the crowd. The beast with one thousand eyes is silent, but it isn't bored. It's murmuring, but with a sort of upward inflection, like it's asking him a question can't answer. Now a referee rolls him over. Cannibal awakens in a panic and tries to jump out of bed, away from the red sheets, but his body is uncooperative. His head lolls at an unnatural angle toward the mirrored wall. He can move his eyes, but nothing else.
He wants to scream for the pimply-faced boy or one of the night girls, but nothing comes out of his mouth. He can see his reflection, the collapsed muscles in his face, and the pool of spit that's collected on the pillow by his ear. The parts of the bed directly under him appear a darker red than the rest of the sheets. His eyes roll wildly and take in different parts of the same wall that he's frozen on. He can barely feel his breathing, but he knows that it's sporadic and shallow. He keeps rolling his eyes, searching for a modicum of control over his own body. And that's when he sees him again.
The ceiling mirror casts its reflection into its wall counterpart, and with the furthest strain of his eyeball muscles, Cannibal can just barely recognize him. He's a little older than he looked in the crowd earlier, but it's unmistakable this time. Fucking ghosts. Ghosts who aren't even dead yet. From somewhere behind his eyes Cannibal feels the onset of rage.
His eyes blink involuntarily, and a well of tears are pushed, and guided down into the spit-soaked pillow. He imagines himself rocking forward and tries to send this signal to a part of his body that doesn't exist. He imagines it again. He tries to kick a leg, throw an elbow, he'll settle for anything. He sends that signal in random intervals like he's trying to surprise his own faculties. He "throws" another elbow.
Except this time his arm releases from his side and soars out in front of him. His body follows, and he feels a vile concoction of fear, and relief as he falls off the bed, with arms and legs too weak to break his fall. He narrowly avoids contact with the corner of the nightstand and lands with a thud on the carpeted floor. He wiggles his toes, and the sound of tires on gravel rings out into nothing. ***
After regaining some strength, Cannibal uses his recently renewed limb strength to tear through every creak, and crack of the hotel room. He finds nobody in the room, nobody in the mirrors, just himself and his aching fucking cranium. Exhausted, but no longer tired, Cannibal grabs his duffel and checks out of the hotel room by tossing his key in the general direction of the unsuspecting clerk. He tears his car door open, then drives off with only half a plan in mind.
The morning sun breaks as Cannibal pulls up to a red light, and re-reads his early morning text to the promoter, 'Can't make it tonight. I'll make it up to you somehow.'
He's never backed out of a show before, and he knows that he'll have to confront that fact soon, but right now, it doesn't seem to matter. He needs to see him. He cobbles his route out of headlines and news stories that he manages to search up between red lights and stop signs.
Where are they now? 6 Wrestlers Whose Careers Ended In Tragedy The Real Story of Ernie "The Eagle" Samson Former World Champion Contender in Hospice After 20-Year Battle
Cannibals mind races as single sentences fire out at him like shrapnel. He scrolls past his own names, both gimmick and government a few times over. He feels the rage, and tears form behind his eyes again.
You weren't the only one that lost your legacy that day, you prick.
After twenty years he knows these roads well. Well enough to cruise over to the hospice unassisted by a map, or GPS. He acknowledges his thoughts as his motions become routine.
Ernie Samson was poised to be the next big thing back before all the wrestling territories got swallowed up by the Big Guy in the corporate machine. He was a handsome bastard, and a city man with the strength of a farm boy. He could talk fear into the crowd without raising his voice, and he pulled women who didn't know and didn't care what he did for a nightly living. Cannibal hated him, but in a brotherly way that was steeped in admiration. Even in those times, Cannibal was more brutish and uglier than everyone in the locker room. It was a stroke of momentary genius when some otherwise dipshit promoter first suggested that they pair up. Some sort of beauty and brawn type gimmick. The monster and his mouthpiece.
And you know what? It worked. People ate that shit right up. Cannibal chewed through his opponents with ferocity, while Ernie dazzled the crowd with his mixture of strong style, flips, and tricks. They melted the imaginary territory perimeters and became shooting stars in every market they played. Men paid off their tabs at the bar, and Ernie was gracious enough to send some trim Cannibal's way every now and again. It was a nice system, comfortable even.
Then that dipshit promoter had another bright idea. The team was ready to break up.
The way he described it, they'd take all that heat they had amassed together, and cover double the ground. This storyline was a natural, mostly because it was real. What the promoter was saying, in his dickhead way, was that Cannibal had served his purpose. He'd put the real star in place for his meteoric rise. Cannibal looked at where his career was, and how far it had come, and he agreed. They'd go out in one final bloodbath of a match, and defeat their current rivals, The Maniacs. Then Cannibal would attack Ernie, severing their ties, and launching their individual careers. Cut, dry.
Right up until the end, that match stands in Cannibal's memory as his finest work. If he'd been vicious before, he was rabid in this match. The hits were real, the emotions were high, and the crowd invested in every last pectoral twitch. After nearly half an hour of slogging and bruising, Cannibal hit his finisher and covered his opponent to the tune of twenty-something-thousand screaming fans. As the three-count fell, the crowd hit a decibel that he'd never heard before. They were screaming so loud, that it almost dampened in volume, and became a whisper in his ears.
The Maniacs had done their jobs well, bloodying and bruising Cannibal and Ernie for a gruesome glamor shot that would make the following day's paper. That image, of Ernie raising Cannibal's arm before the inevitable turn, would haunt almost every article written about either of them from that day forward.
Soaked in the moment, and each other's blood, Ernie hoisted Cannibal's arm, and they spun the ring, facing every single fan in attendance. Normally you'd wait for a break in the volume before the next big moment, but this crowd had no intention of quieting down. They faced each other, and Ernie mouthed the words.
"You ready?"
To this day Cannibal doesn't exactly know what went wrong. First, he felt sadness. Then he felt anger. He realized that the cheers wouldn't end for Ernie, but there was a very real possibility that this was his own last big pop. He went ahead as planned. First with an absolutely brutal kick to the midsection, which softened Ernie's abs into dough. Ernie let out a real, dry cough as the crowd's cheers morphed into shock and confusion. Then he cranked his arms, clumsily, but with intensity. Ernie's arms were slick with blood, and Cannibal couldn't sink in his hooks correctly. His legs shot out gracelessly, and rather than hearing the cushioned thud of his own ass, all he heard was a sick, wet pop.
Cannibal notes that he is about one exit from the hospice, and shakes his head vigorously as if to erase his thoughts. The exit approaches, and he cuts in deftly. He is immediately greeted by a green, bustling town, in a decent Midwestern neighborhood.
He cruises toward the hospice, passing a few young couples, and their church-clothed children. Bells chime nearby, and a dog emits a medium-sized bark from a nearby public park.
Cannibal glances in his rear-view as he changes lanes. Ernie is seated behind the middle console, smirking, but with no joy in his eyes. Cannibal tries to scream, but can't.
With the wheel slightly angled for his turn, Cannibal cruises subtly across lanes, onto the sidewalk, then into the park.
The first few couples dive out of the way with synchronized, but inharmonious shrieks. A young man pushes his wife and child to the ground, and the driver's side front wheel crunches, and shatters his ankle. The next few people aren't so lucky.
A group of friends sprawled across a picnic blanket snap around toward the source of the commotion just in time to greet the Toyota Camry's fender. Cannibal's eyes dart between his windshield and the rearview where Ernie sits smirking. He sees a young woman snatched from his sight line and hears a gunshot of a pop as the back of her skull smacks against some concrete. Tears roll down Cannibal's face as he wills his arms, legs, or fucking anything to move. The litter of bodies test the car's shocks, as the wheels find their way over strange terrains of bone and flesh. Then, a street lamp.
Cannibal's forehead smacks against his wheel a millisecond before the airbags deploy. He flinches, and his arms twitch as the bag chafes his nose and brow. He has regained control of his movement, if only slightly. He kicks open the door but does not face the trail of mayhem that succumbed to his vehicle. Instead, he realizes that he is just one block away from the hospice. With the remaining screams a comfortable distance behind him, he half runs, half stumbles to the reception desk.
People react to Cannibal's arrival with appropriate confusion and terror. The butterfly stitches have ceased to hold, and a rigid pattern of blood trails him as he staggers across the linoleum tile.
"Sir, do you need help?"
"Samson. I need Ernie fucking Samson."
He peers over the desk and sees a directory of sorts, like a cheat sheet of hospice patients, and their assigned rooms. He leaks blood from his brow over the counter, and onto the sheet, and the seated receptionist recoils with disgust as he snatches and reads it.
Ernie Samson 211
Cannibal marches now on sturdy feet to the nearest stairwell. A small security guard attempts to stand in his way, but Cannibal dwarfs his face with his gigantic palm, and smashes it into the drywall behind him, eliciting a collective gasp from the lobby waiting room. He kicks open the stairwell door and drags himself up the single flight of stairs onto the landing. Then he kicks open the second door.
Nurses gasp and take a step back as he emerges from the stairwell, ferocity emblazoned across his face and written in his scar tissue. He observes the direction in which the numbered rooms flow and stomps toward Room 211.
Half a dozen people are stood outside the room, with hospital staff accounting for only two of them.
"Bradley?" an older woman asks, as Cannibal tears past her, and into the room.
Inside the room is a white sheet spread over a series of lumps on a lightly inclined bed. A young man is seated near the side of the bed where the railing has been temporarily removed. His eyes are bloodshot, and his cheeks are damp.
"Brad, what the fuck is-" he begins to say.
Cannibal lifts his leg and boots the man right off the green cushioned chair. Then he turns to the white lumps and tears the blanket off.
Ernie's face appears as it did in his back seat but without the rigid smirk. The muscles in his face are weak and sag as if they'd collapsed several years before his death. His dull eyes are still open, still staring at Cannibal.
"Ernie, you fucking prick," Cannibal starts, "You fucking prick, you get back here right now! You gonna fuck with me? You gonna fuck with me, Ernie? I fucking made you Ernie! We both fucking died that day!"
A small militia of security guards pour into the room, and it takes every last one of them to restrain Cannibal. He fights, and squirms as the fattest guard sits on the wide of his back, and pulls his arms. Cannibal thrashes and screams like an animal as he is restrained. He bashes his face into the tiled floor, leaving increasingly large spots of blood at the sight of impact. The fat guard applies some pressure to his hold, as small, wet pop emits from Cannibal's back.
There's no story here. No tale of the tape. Just a has-been wrestler in tomorrow's headlines, and a family mourning a loss that begun two decades prior. The crowd of mourners gasp and scream as all the fight leaves Cannibal's body at once. Then a woman breaks into sobs. She used to know Bradley Hughes. The real Cannibal. But nobody wants real.
They only think they do.

A few years ago, I decided I needed a major life change. Everything seemed to be going downhill- my finances, my mental health, my life. I would go weeks without sleeping sometimes as the heavy traffic passed through the city streets down below. Every time I went outside, I saw more homeless people, more needles and crack pipes littering the ground, more muggings and assaults and overdoses and deaths. The city had become a wasteland, and I knew it was time to leave.
I had no girlfriend, no wife, no kids. My parents had both died a few years prior and I barely talked to my siblings anymore. I had nothing to tie me down to this place where I felt like I was dying inside a little more each day.
That was when I sold nearly everything I owned, got in my car and drove up to Alaska to try starting anew. I bought a small cabin and a plot of land in the middle of its majestic mountains and dark, enchanting forests. In the winter, the Northern Lights would shine through like the eyes of God, sending out divine trails of light that danced through the sky in cosmic waves.
And while the move did help give me some peace of mind, in the end, the source of all my problems had ultimately followed me thousands of miles into this endless wilderness. It would take me a long time to realize the cause of all this misery was myself.
Because, as a wise man once said, “Wherever I go, there I am.”
***
I lived in that cabin for three months without any major issues other than the constant threat of bears, moose and wolves. I had a rifle and a shotgun for hunting, a small garden in the backyard and a solar panel to generate electricity.
“This is the life,” I said, relaxing on a hammock I had strung across the corner of the cabin while staring at the endless beauty directly outside the window. White-capped mountains loomed like giants in front of thick clusters of evergreens. A virgin covering of fluffy snow made the entire world glisten and sparkle. There wasn’t a house or road in sight.
“No work, no stress, no pollution, no cars honking all the time…” I closed my eyes, breathing in the clean air. I ended up falling asleep for a couple hours, waking up just as the Sun had started setting. Bright orange streaks mixed with the bloody smears of the fading light as it disappeared behind the mountains.
I groggily arose, stumbling over to make a cup of instant coffee. As I sipped it, I wandered around the room, looking for something to pass the time. There were still quite a few random objects left behind by the last owner that I hadn’t gotten rid of yet. I had moved in to find a stocked bookshelf filled with classics by Philip K. Dick, Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein. Bored, I started rifling through the collection, looking for something good to pass the time. As I shuffled past “A Maze of Death” and “Ubik”, something caught my eye.
A black, leather-bound book with no title or author name stood there, its cover faded with time and wear. Curious, I pulled it out and opened it. I saw the cursive scrawled across the pages in a neat, copperplate script and realized it was a diary left behind by the previous owner. The first entry was dated “January 9th, 2015.” This is what it said.
***
“I don’t know if I’m going crazy or not. I went into town to talk to my therapist yesterday and she said I should try writing everything down. She talks to me like it’s all in my head. But I know it’s not.
“When I first moved into the cabin, it seemed like Paradise. I never thought in a million years that something would be slinking around at night. I never thought it would be hiding under my bed, peeking in windows and following me like a shadow.
“Right now, I’m snowed in with a cup of coffee in one hand and my pistol in the other. I can’t sleep anymore. I keep hearing something shuffling around under the bed. Sometimes, I think I even hear ragged breathing, as if a corpse with dirt in its lungs had come back to life.
“I’ve caught glimpses of that thing in the darkness. Whatever it is, its skin is loose, almost falling off the bone. It almost looks like a naked, emaciated man. Its eyes are rotted and dark, its back hunched, its spine twisted and jutting out like tumors. It moves in this slow, jerky way, but I can never seem to catch it. Its body seems broken and out of alignment. Its legs bend the wrong way sometimes.
“By the time I turn on the lights or try to take a video of it, it’s always disappeared. But its fetid odor remains. It lingers in the cabin like a sweet-smelling, spreading infection.
“I don’t know what it wants from me. I want to leave, but with the storm raging outside, I’m stuck here, unable to get all the way back to town. The snow surrounds the cabin in mounds five feet high. I feel like a prisoner caged with a rabid beast, not knowing when it will strike.
“My wife claims she hasn’t seen or heard anything, but she keeps vanishing on me. Last night, she disappeared in the middle of a snowstorm. Where did she go? I asked her in the morning, but she said she was here the whole time. She didn’t remember anything. There’s no way she went into town. There wasn’t time and the trails were impassable that far down.
“Something’s going on here, but I don’t know what it is. I’m truly scared for our lives.”
I slammed the diary shut, not wanting to read anymore. I didn’t want to become infected by some kind of contagious cabin fever. If the last owner had gone insane in the mountains and started hallucinating naked corpses crawling around, I really didn’t want to know.
I shoved the diary back in the bookshelf, going for “A Maze of Death” instead. I tried to forget what I had read in the diary as I flew through the novella. All night, I tried to get the image of the naked, twisting man with rotted eyes out of my head, but I couldn’t.
I eventually fell asleep right before dawn. But, as my eyes were closing, I thought I saw a silhouette in the window- a starved man with excited, black eyes that seemed to be rotting out of his skull. I thought I saw him put his inhumanly long fingers against the glass as he leaned forward. I blinked, sitting up and glancing out into the white, snow-covered wonderland.
There was nothing there.
***
Another hunter occasionally followed the deer trails near my cabin. A frozen lake stood a quarter-mile away, the surface white and covered in thick drifts of snow. I bundled up, deciding to go outside for a hike in the frigid dawn. I strapped on my snowshoes and grabbed my shotgun, as I always did when I went outside. I never knew when a polar bear might be waiting around the next tree, after all.
I opened the door, seeing footprints pressed into the snow all around my house. At first, I thought it was that silhouette I had seen, the nightmarish thing from the diary. But the footprints didn’t go over to my window. They followed the trail twenty feet away, veering off towards the frozen lake at the bottom of the hill. I glanced down in that direction, seeing a black figure plodding slowly forward.
“Steve!” I cried, recognizing my only neighbor in a four-mile radius. He had a cabin about a mile away on his own little plot of land. He jumped, clearly startled by the sudden noise. His black snow pants and heavy fur coat swished together as he spun, raising his rifle high. When he saw me, he immediately lowered it and put a gloved hand up in a friendly greeting.
“Hey Josh! Surprised to see you up this early,” he yelled over the muted wintry landscape. Sounds always seemed different after it snowed, as if all the noise in the world had become faded and dead.
“Yeah, I’ve been having a little trouble sleeping,” I said, slinging my shotgun around my shoulder. “What are you doing anyway?”
“Just a little hunting, you know,” he said, giving me a sly wink. “Animals are always most active around dusk and dawn, it seems. That’s when I always have the best luck, anyway.” He stepped close to me, staring me in the eyes. “You do look like shit. Those bags under your eyes are big enough to carry groceries in.”
“Yeah, trust me, I know… Hey, this might sound a little weird, but did you know the previous owner of this cabin?” I asked. Steve’s wrinkled, old face fell into a scowl. His expression immediately became guarded and distant.
“Sure, sure, we met,” he exclaimed bluntly. He seemed to be searching my face for something, but I didn’t know what. His reaction left me feeling off-balance and nervous.
“Is he still around?” I said. Steve’s scowl deepened.
“Buddy, I don’t know what this is about, but he’s dead. He’s been dead. He died in that cabin, actually.” He pointed a finger at my home accusingly. With those words, my heart seemed to drop into my stomach. Waves of dread flowed through my body like water.
“How… how did he die? Like a heart attack or something?” I asked. Steve’s gaze turned downwards. He didn’t meet my eyes.
“Do you know that Alaska has the highest missing persons rate in the entire United States? It’s not even close. In fact, for the population size, we have far more people who go missing and never get found than anywhere else. They even have a name for it: the Alaska Triangle,” Steve said. “And we’re square in the middle of it.” I stared blankly at him, wondering where he was going with this. It seemed like a way to avoid answering my question.
“No, I didn’t know that…” I responded. Steve nodded, raising his head again. He heaved a deep sigh.
“Look, the thing with the last owner and his wife… it’s somewhat disturbing. If you really want to know, I’ll tell you, but it’s certainly not going to help your peace of mind. And it definitely isn’t going to help you get some sleep.”
“I want to know,” I insisted instantly. The wind started to whip past us. Flakes of ice and snow flew sideways in the sudden currents.
“Let’s go back to your cabin then,” Steve said, pulling his heavy fur-lined hood off and shaking out his long, black hair behind him. “I could use a bit of whiskey to warm up.”
***
We sat down with a bottle of Johnny Walker and two shot glasses. I wasn’t much of a drinker, but Steve certainly was. He chugged three shots in the span of a minute. I sipped at mine, drinking half and putting it back down on the coffee table with a thunk. Steve grunted, hissing through his open mouth for a moment.
“Ugh, that’s the good stuff,” he said, slamming his chest as the burning liquor worked its way down. Steve looked up at me with a new sparkle in his eyes. “Huh, so you want to know about what happened to Will Lenning. Well, I’ll tell you that no one really knows the whole story. I used to see him occasionally, come down and have a drink and talk. We all know each other around here, obviously.” I nodded, motioning him on. “He seemed like a normal, upstanding guy. He kinda reminded me of you, actually. A young guy trying to escape the hustle and bustle of the city life, the cancer of the American Dream.
“Well, he was here for maybe a couple months, I don’t know. Everything seemed fine. We used to go skeet shooting occasionally, have a beer, you know. We’d get together with a couple other hunters who live closer to town and sometimes play some poker. I never saw anything odd about Will. I never could have predicted what happened to him.” He heaved a long sigh at this, looking out the window at the sharp mountains with an expression of nostalgia.
“Well, what happened to him?” I asked, encouraging him to go on.
“He started talking about seeing someone peering in through his window at night. He talked about hearing sounds from under his bed while he was laying there in the dark- sounds like diseased breathing and shuffling. He started keeping all the lights on in his cabin twenty-four hours a day.” Steve leaned close to me. A glimmer of fear rippled across his pale, wrinkled face. “He started to lose his mind. Started digging holes all over the place, looking for something. Even in the middle of snowstorms, I would occasionally see him outside, digging. It seemed like he never slept anymore. It was classic cabin fever if I ever saw it.
“It was only a few weeks later that I came over here, concerned. I hadn’t heard from him in a few days, which was fairly unusual. I found the door hanging wide open. Propped up in a chair in the exact spot where you now sit, Will lay with a blast hole showing clear through his skull, a shotgun laying at his feet.
“And next to him, I found a blood-stained diary opened to the middle page. The last entry was stained with blood spatter, but still visible. I remember leaning down and reading it. It was only a few sentences long.” I glanced over at the bookshelf with the same diary, saying nothing.
“It said something like, ‘I see now what’s going on. The Twisted Man is leading me to the truth. Today, I will finally find it.’”
“And that was his suicide note?” I asked, my heart hammering in my chest. He nodded.
“Yeah. I went into town and got some rangers to come check it out. Eventually, they got cops and CSI there. They took all the stuff as evidence, including the diary,” he said. “Good riddance, I say. Reading something like that is never beneficial. Sometimes delusions spread like a virus, you know what I mean?” I did, but I said nothing. I glanced back at the diary, its black leather cover gleaming like a crouching snake.
And I wondered- if the police took the diary as evidence, how did it get back here?
***
“You said he had a wife living here with him, too?” I asked.
“Yeah… she went missing around the same time,” he said. “Pretty bizarre. The cops thought maybe she just moved away, but…” He shook his head grimly. “As far as I know, she was never seen again. It was like she had evaporated into thin air.”
After Steve left, I walked stiffly over to the bookshelf, taking down the diary. I flipped open through the pages. In the middle, I found the last entry. Spatters of old, darkened blood were scattered over the page like raindrops. I found the suicide note and read the date.
“January 27th, 2015,” it read. Will Lenning had not lived long after he started seeing the Twisted Man. I wondered if my fate would be the same.
The Sun had started to set outside as I sat with the diary at the small circular kitchen table, eating some stewed venison and rice as I read through the entries. At the end, Will Lenning said the Twisted Man had been trying to guide him somewhere, that, in fact, the Twisted Man had been trying to protect him from some great evil, rather than being the source of it.
I scoffed, feeling a flash of anger at his stupidity. His naivety obviously led to his death. But then a flash of insight struck me like lightning.
What if I was committing the same kind of stupidity? Perhaps I should just grab my gun and valuables and leave. I could take off on the snowmobile and be in town within a couple hours.
But, in my heart, I knew I would not. Something about the mystery of all this beckoned me to stay. Like a siren leading sailors to destruction, my curiosity called out to me, and I knew I would not be leaving that night. I needed answers.
And, sadly, I would find them.
***
I had fallen asleep with an empty bottle of beer in my hand. I sat in front of the TV, which only got satellite reception. There were, of course, no cable or phone lines threading their way through the forest. All of my power came from stored solar energy. Since I rarely watched TV and really only used it to cook or heat up water for bathing, the energy produced was sufficient even in winter. Tonight, though, I needed its sound, its mindless flashing of light and colors and canned laughter. It seemed to drive away the creeping, suffocating presence like a candle.
I woke suddenly. The TV flashed with static. The repetitive hissing of the white noise spit from the speakers like thousands of snakes. I glanced up at the clock. 3:33 AM. I looked around the dark cabin, confused for a long moment. I didn’t understand what had woken me so abruptly. The satellite had never gone out before, either, even with the howling winds and freezing hail of the Alaskan winter.
The TV started flickering as if the static were rising upwards. Black lines traced their way horizontally across the screen. The hissing deepened into a gurgle, and for a second, I thought I heard faint words behind the white noise. I thought I heard breathing, slow and diseased, like the death gasp of a drowning man.
A black line rose across the TV and an image came into view. The cabin was suddenly plunged into silence, except for the shrieking, wintry wind outside. I leaned close to the screen, confused at what I was looking at. It looked like a live camera feed of a room. As I took in the details, I realized it was my cabin. I saw myself in the chair, leaning close to the screen. I raised my hand, and the miniature version of me on the screen did likewise. Ice water seemed to drip down my spine as waves of dread coursed through my body.
“What the fuck is this?” I whispered, looking back to where the camera should be. It was just a coarse wooden ceiling in that corner. I turned back to the screen and nearly screamed.
The TV showed a pale, naked man crouching directly behind my chair now. With jerky movements, he rose, his broken spine twisting and shivering. A hissing voice rang out from the speakers. It spoke as if it had dirt and writhing maggots in its throat.
“He is a killer. The shadow of death,” it gurgled. “Many have fallen. Many lie buried across this forest. You will be next. He is watching you…”
Long, broken fingers with blackened nails reached out to touch my shoulders. I jumped out of the chair, stumbling back as I spun around in terror. My back smashed into the TV, and it fell to the floor with a shattering of glass and an explosion of light.
In those few moments before the darkness descended on me like a blanket, I thought I glimpsed a pale, sunken face with rotted, blackened eyes peeking out from behind the chair.
***
I turned on every light in the cabin, but there was no sign of the Twisted Man now. I knew I had to get out of there, though. I thought about the warning that the voice had spoken. If the creature wanted to attack me, then why hadn’t it just killed me while I was sleeping? None of it made sense. Who was watching me? The Twisted Man? And if he was, why warn me? Perhaps it was psychological warfare, I thought to myself. Perhaps the Twisted Man simply liked to play with his food before he ate it.
Thoughts raced through my head at a thousand miles an hour as I threw on snow pants and a couple heavy sweaters and coats. I covered up my entire body as much as I could to try to prevent frostbite. I had made up my mind to flee. There was no snowstorm tonight, though the entire landscape was blanketed in it and I knew the wind chill would be like an ice blade whipping against my skin. It was extremely dangerous to travel in the middle of the night like this in temperatures that might reach negative thirty degrees. Steve had been right, after all- Alaska had the highest missing persons rate of any state, and many of them were never found, their bodies likely frozen solid in the deep snow dozens of miles from the nearest town.
I grabbed my shotgun, jumped on my snowmobile and started heading to Steve’s cabin. I hoped I could wait there until the sunrise and then figure out what to do next.
But fate would take the decision out of my hands.
***
I felt like there were eyes watching me as I drove along the narrow, winding deer trail. The boughs of the evergreens reached into the path like greedy hands, grabbing at my coat and legs. More than a couple times, I thought I saw a pale, naked figure standing in the snow, but it had always gone when I turned to look.
I gave a sigh of relief when Steve’s place appeared in the distance. I could see the lights twinkling through the small windows of his log cabin. I pulled up next to his door, looking down. I saw two pairs of footprints there, one much smaller than the other. I found it odd, but shrugged it off. The snowmobile cut out with a sucking gurgle.
I knocked on the door hard a few times. Steve appeared after a few moments, groggy and half-dressed. He blinked slowly as he looked me up and down. His wrinkled face fell into a frown.
“Steve, I need a favor,” I said quickly. “Something weird is happening in my cabin. Can I stay here until morning, until maybe I can go to town or something? I can’t stay at my place tonight. I just can’t.” He nodded, yawning and motioning me in.
“You can sleep on the couch, I guess,” Steve said. “Put that shotgun somewhere safe, though, boy.” He had a partitioned bedroom in his cabin. It was significantly larger than my little one-room cabin, though it was basically still just a joint kitchen-living room, a small bedroom and a bathroom. He pointed to a well-worn couch in the corner and gave me an apathetic wave as he stumbled back into his bedroom, slamming the door.
I couldn’t sleep, though. I tiptoed around the room, looking at Steve’s bookshelf. He had a rather strange taste in books- lots of Anne Rule and true crime there. I saw dozens of books about Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Richard Chase, Herbert Mullin, Jeffrey Dahmer and Richard Ramirez among the collection. At the end, a large, black binder stood, unlabeled and worn-looking. It reminded me of the look of that leather-bound diary for a second, and my heart dropped. But logically, I knew this was just a coincidence. Yet, still, I pulled out the binder, my curiosity piqued.
What I found inside filled me with dread and horror.
Countless news clippings covered the length of it. The first clipping was from nearly twenty years earlier, about a woman who went missing in the Alaskan forest while hiking. A later one confirmed that her body was never found, and that her family was still hoping that she might turn up alive somewhere. A reward was offered for any information, it said.
And every page after that was more of the same: missing woman, murdered prostitute, missing man, no leads. I kept flipping through until I found clippings about Will Lenning’s suicide and the sudden disappearance of his wife. On the article about the suicide, Steve had used red marker to scrawl, “HA HA!” next to it.
I heard the click of a gun being cocked from behind me. I froze as Steve’s voice traveled across the room like a whisper.
“How do you like my work, friend?” he asked, his tone jovial and mocking.
***
I still held the binder of horrors tightly in my hands as I stared open-mouthed at this man I thought I knew.
“It’s you? What, you killed Will Lenning and his wife? And a lot of other women, apparently.” Everything felt unreal, as if I were stuck in a dream. Steve’s grin spread across his face, but his blue eyes stayed cold and dead.
“Yes, well, she was cheating on him with me anyway. Just another whore, you know. They always get what’s coming to them in the end,” he hissed with hatred oozing from his voice. “It’s too bad, really. I just killed another slut tonight. I was planning on saving you for later. The urge isn’t too bad yet right now, after all. It comes in cycles, you see. It comes in waves…” I saw a glimmer of pale, naked flesh writhing behind Steve. With jerky movements, the Twisted Man came up behind him. I said nothing, just watching with wide-eyed horror and amazement.
“You need help, man,” I whispered. Steve laughed.
“Help? The only help they give people like me is a needle in the arm. You know that. That’s why it’s important to always cover your tracks…” The Twisted Man ran a long, broken finger across Steve’s neck. Steve gave a strangled cry and jumped. He spun around, screaming. I glanced over at my shotgun next to the couch.
I jumped for it as Steve turned back to me, firing his pistol twice. The first bullet soared high above me, raining wood splinters down on my head, but the second ripped into my leg. A cold, burning pain ran like fire up my shin. I screamed in agony and battle fury as I gripped the shotgun, spinning and firing.
Steve’s head exploded as the slug ripped through his brain. His forehead collapsed like a smashed melon as bone splinters and blood sprayed the wall behind him.
The Twisted Man stood there, hunched over, grinning up at me. I felt warm blood gushing from my leg as I stared back at him, breathing hard. I wondered if I was dying.
“You… you weren’t after me at all, were you?” I asked. “You were after… Steve.” But the Twisted Man said nothing. After a long moment, he slinked back into the shadows of the bedroom and disappeared.
***
As night crawled its way toward morning, I thought back to the words the Twisted Man had spoken through the TV, suddenly understanding everything.
“He is a killer. The shadow of death. Many have fallen. Many lie buried across this forest. You will be next. He is watching you…”
He hadn’t been trying to hurt me at all. He had been trying to warn me. He had probably tried to warn Will Lenning and his wife, too.
I wrapped my leg in gauze, gritting my teeth. The wound looked puckered and deep, but I could still move my foot, and the bullet had gone clean through the flesh. I poured alcohol on it, screaming in pain as it burned its way through my skin. After rummaging through Steve’s bathroom, I found some prescription painkillers and swallowed a handful of them with a beer. I knew I would need the opiate high to get through the pain of riding into town with a mutilated leg.
As the Sun finally rose, I made my way outside the blood-stained floors of the cabin to my snowmobile. Before I left, I glanced back at that horrid place, the scene of so much torment and death.
In the open doorway, the Twisted Man stood, his back hunched, his rotted lips grinning at me. His hand lifted up into the air with jerky movements and waved.
I waved back as I started the engine and headed into town.

A few years ago, I decided I needed a major life change. Everything seemed to be going downhill- my finances, my mental health, my life. I would go weeks without sleeping sometimes as the heavy traffic passed through the city streets down below. Every time I went outside, I saw more homeless people, more needles and crack pipes littering the ground, more muggings and assaults and overdoses and deaths. The city had become a wasteland, and I knew it was time to leave.
I had no girlfriend, no wife, no kids. My parents had both died a few years prior and I barely talked to my siblings anymore. I had nothing to tie me down to this place where I felt like I was dying inside a little more each day.
That was when I sold nearly everything I owned, got in my car and drove up to Alaska to try starting anew. I bought a small cabin and a plot of land in the middle of its majestic mountains and dark, enchanting forests. In the winter, the Northern Lights would shine through like the eyes of God, sending out divine trails of light that danced through the sky in cosmic waves.
And while the move did help give me some peace of mind, in the end, the source of all my problems had ultimately followed me thousands of miles into this endless wilderness. It would take me a long time to realize the cause of all this misery was myself.
Because, as a wise man once said, “Wherever I go, there I am.”
***
I lived in that cabin for three months without any major issues other than the constant threat of bears, moose and wolves. I had a rifle and a shotgun for hunting, a small garden in the backyard and a solar panel to generate electricity.
“This is the life,” I said, relaxing on a hammock I had strung across the corner of the cabin while staring at the endless beauty directly outside the window. White-capped mountains loomed like giants in front of thick clusters of evergreens. A virgin covering of fluffy snow made the entire world glisten and sparkle. There wasn’t a house or road in sight.
“No work, no stress, no pollution, no cars honking all the time…” I closed my eyes, breathing in the clean air. I ended up falling asleep for a couple hours, waking up just as the Sun had started setting. Bright orange streaks mixed with the bloody smears of the fading light as it disappeared behind the mountains.
I groggily arose, stumbling over to make a cup of instant coffee. As I sipped it, I wandered around the room, looking for something to pass the time. There were still quite a few random objects left behind by the last owner that I hadn’t gotten rid of yet. I had moved in to find a stocked bookshelf filled with classics by Philip K. Dick, Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein. Bored, I started rifling through the collection, looking for something good to pass the time. As I shuffled past “A Maze of Death” and “Ubik”, something caught my eye.
A black, leather-bound book with no title or author name stood there, its cover faded with time and wear. Curious, I pulled it out and opened it. I saw the cursive scrawled across the pages in a neat, copperplate script and realized it was a diary left behind by the previous owner. The first entry was dated “January 9th, 2015.” This is what it said.
***
“I don’t know if I’m going crazy or not. I went into town to talk to my therapist yesterday and she said I should try writing everything down. She talks to me like it’s all in my head. But I know it’s not.
“When I first moved into the cabin, it seemed like Paradise. I never thought in a million years that something would be slinking around at night. I never thought it would be hiding under my bed, peeking in windows and following me like a shadow.
“Right now, I’m snowed in with a cup of coffee in one hand and my pistol in the other. I can’t sleep anymore. I keep hearing something shuffling around under the bed. Sometimes, I think I even hear ragged breathing, as if a corpse with dirt in its lungs had come back to life.
“I’ve caught glimpses of that thing in the darkness. Whatever it is, its skin is loose, almost falling off the bone. It almost looks like a naked, emaciated man. Its eyes are rotted and dark, its back hunched, its spine twisted and jutting out like tumors. It moves in this slow, jerky way, but I can never seem to catch it. Its body seems broken and out of alignment. Its legs bend the wrong way sometimes.
“By the time I turn on the lights or try to take a video of it, it’s always disappeared. But its fetid odor remains. It lingers in the cabin like a sweet-smelling, spreading infection.
“I don’t know what it wants from me. I want to leave, but with the storm raging outside, I’m stuck here, unable to get all the way back to town. The snow surrounds the cabin in mounds five feet high. I feel like a prisoner caged with a rabid beast, not knowing when it will strike.
“My wife claims she hasn’t seen or heard anything, but she keeps vanishing on me. Last night, she disappeared in the middle of a snowstorm. Where did she go? I asked her in the morning, but she said she was here the whole time. She didn’t remember anything. There’s no way she went into town. There wasn’t time and the trails were impassable that far down.
“Something’s going on here, but I don’t know what it is. I’m truly scared for our lives.”
I slammed the diary shut, not wanting to read anymore. I didn’t want to become infected by some kind of contagious cabin fever. If the last owner had gone insane in the mountains and started hallucinating naked corpses crawling around, I really didn’t want to know.
I shoved the diary back in the bookshelf, going for “A Maze of Death” instead. I tried to forget what I had read in the diary as I flew through the novella. All night, I tried to get the image of the naked, twisting man with rotted eyes out of my head, but I couldn’t.
I eventually fell asleep right before dawn. But, as my eyes were closing, I thought I saw a silhouette in the window- a starved man with excited, black eyes that seemed to be rotting out of his skull. I thought I saw him put his inhumanly long fingers against the glass as he leaned forward. I blinked, sitting up and glancing out into the white, snow-covered wonderland.
There was nothing there.
***
Another hunter occasionally followed the deer trails near my cabin. A frozen lake stood a quarter-mile away, the surface white and covered in thick drifts of snow. I bundled up, deciding to go outside for a hike in the frigid dawn. I strapped on my snowshoes and grabbed my shotgun, as I always did when I went outside. I never knew when a polar bear might be waiting around the next tree, after all.
I opened the door, seeing footprints pressed into the snow all around my house. At first, I thought it was that silhouette I had seen, the nightmarish thing from the diary. But the footprints didn’t go over to my window. They followed the trail twenty feet away, veering off towards the frozen lake at the bottom of the hill. I glanced down in that direction, seeing a black figure plodding slowly forward.
“Steve!” I cried, recognizing my only neighbor in a four-mile radius. He had a cabin about a mile away on his own little plot of land. He jumped, clearly startled by the sudden noise. His black snow pants and heavy fur coat swished together as he spun, raising his rifle high. When he saw me, he immediately lowered it and put a gloved hand up in a friendly greeting.
“Hey Josh! Surprised to see you up this early,” he yelled over the muted wintry landscape. Sounds always seemed different after it snowed, as if all the noise in the world had become faded and dead.
“Yeah, I’ve been having a little trouble sleeping,” I said, slinging my shotgun around my shoulder. “What are you doing anyway?”
“Just a little hunting, you know,” he said, giving me a sly wink. “Animals are always most active around dusk and dawn, it seems. That’s when I always have the best luck, anyway.” He stepped close to me, staring me in the eyes. “You do look like shit. Those bags under your eyes are big enough to carry groceries in.”
“Yeah, trust me, I know… Hey, this might sound a little weird, but did you know the previous owner of this cabin?” I asked. Steve’s wrinkled, old face fell into a scowl. His expression immediately became guarded and distant.
“Sure, sure, we met,” he exclaimed bluntly. He seemed to be searching my face for something, but I didn’t know what. His reaction left me feeling off-balance and nervous.
“Is he still around?” I said. Steve’s scowl deepened.
“Buddy, I don’t know what this is about, but he’s dead. He’s been dead. He died in that cabin, actually.” He pointed a finger at my home accusingly. With those words, my heart seemed to drop into my stomach. Waves of dread flowed through my body like water.
“How… how did he die? Like a heart attack or something?” I asked. Steve’s gaze turned downwards. He didn’t meet my eyes.
“Do you know that Alaska has the highest missing persons rate in the entire United States? It’s not even close. In fact, for the population size, we have far more people who go missing and never get found than anywhere else. They even have a name for it: the Alaska Triangle,” Steve said. “And we’re square in the middle of it.” I stared blankly at him, wondering where he was going with this. It seemed like a way to avoid answering my question.
“No, I didn’t know that…” I responded. Steve nodded, raising his head again. He heaved a deep sigh.
“Look, the thing with the last owner and his wife… it’s somewhat disturbing. If you really want to know, I’ll tell you, but it’s certainly not going to help your peace of mind. And it definitely isn’t going to help you get some sleep.”
“I want to know,” I insisted instantly. The wind started to whip past us. Flakes of ice and snow flew sideways in the sudden currents.
“Let’s go back to your cabin then,” Steve said, pulling his heavy fur-lined hood off and shaking out his long, black hair behind him. “I could use a bit of whiskey to warm up.”
***
We sat down with a bottle of Johnny Walker and two shot glasses. I wasn’t much of a drinker, but Steve certainly was. He chugged three shots in the span of a minute. I sipped at mine, drinking half and putting it back down on the coffee table with a thunk. Steve grunted, hissing through his open mouth for a moment.
“Ugh, that’s the good stuff,” he said, slamming his chest as the burning liquor worked its way down. Steve looked up at me with a new sparkle in his eyes. “Huh, so you want to know about what happened to Will Lenning. Well, I’ll tell you that no one really knows the whole story. I used to see him occasionally, come down and have a drink and talk. We all know each other around here, obviously.” I nodded, motioning him on. “He seemed like a normal, upstanding guy. He kinda reminded me of you, actually. A young guy trying to escape the hustle and bustle of the city life, the cancer of the American Dream.
“Well, he was here for maybe a couple months, I don’t know. Everything seemed fine. We used to go skeet shooting occasionally, have a beer, you know. We’d get together with a couple other hunters who live closer to town and sometimes play some poker. I never saw anything odd about Will. I never could have predicted what happened to him.” He heaved a long sigh at this, looking out the window at the sharp mountains with an expression of nostalgia.
“Well, what happened to him?” I asked, encouraging him to go on.
“He started talking about seeing someone peering in through his window at night. He talked about hearing sounds from under his bed while he was laying there in the dark- sounds like diseased breathing and shuffling. He started keeping all the lights on in his cabin twenty-four hours a day.” Steve leaned close to me. A glimmer of fear rippled across his pale, wrinkled face. “He started to lose his mind. Started digging holes all over the place, looking for something. Even in the middle of snowstorms, I would occasionally see him outside, digging. It seemed like he never slept anymore. It was classic cabin fever if I ever saw it.
“It was only a few weeks later that I came over here, concerned. I hadn’t heard from him in a few days, which was fairly unusual. I found the door hanging wide open. Propped up in a chair in the exact spot where you now sit, Will lay with a blast hole showing clear through his skull, a shotgun laying at his feet.
“And next to him, I found a blood-stained diary opened to the middle page. The last entry was stained with blood spatter, but still visible. I remember leaning down and reading it. It was only a few sentences long.” I glanced over at the bookshelf with the same diary, saying nothing.
“It said something like, ‘I see now what’s going on. The Twisted Man is leading me to the truth. Today, I will finally find it.’”
“And that was his suicide note?” I asked, my heart hammering in my chest. He nodded.
“Yeah. I went into town and got some rangers to come check it out. Eventually, they got cops and CSI there. They took all the stuff as evidence, including the diary,” he said. “Good riddance, I say. Reading something like that is never beneficial. Sometimes delusions spread like a virus, you know what I mean?” I did, but I said nothing. I glanced back at the diary, its black leather cover gleaming like a crouching snake.
And I wondered- if the police took the diary as evidence, how did it get back here?
***
“You said he had a wife living here with him, too?” I asked.
“Yeah… she went missing around the same time,” he said. “Pretty bizarre. The cops thought maybe she just moved away, but…” He shook his head grimly. “As far as I know, she was never seen again. It was like she had evaporated into thin air.”
After Steve left, I walked stiffly over to the bookshelf, taking down the diary. I flipped open through the pages. In the middle, I found the last entry. Spatters of old, darkened blood were scattered over the page like raindrops. I found the suicide note and read the date.
“January 27th, 2015,” it read. Will Lenning had not lived long after he started seeing the Twisted Man. I wondered if my fate would be the same.
The Sun had started to set outside as I sat with the diary at the small circular kitchen table, eating some stewed venison and rice as I read through the entries. At the end, Will Lenning said the Twisted Man had been trying to guide him somewhere, that, in fact, the Twisted Man had been trying to protect him from some great evil, rather than being the source of it.
I scoffed, feeling a flash of anger at his stupidity. His naivety obviously led to his death. But then a flash of insight struck me like lightning.
What if I was committing the same kind of stupidity? Perhaps I should just grab my gun and valuables and leave. I could take off on the snowmobile and be in town within a couple hours.
But, in my heart, I knew I would not. Something about the mystery of all this beckoned me to stay. Like a siren leading sailors to destruction, my curiosity called out to me, and I knew I would not be leaving that night. I needed answers.
And, sadly, I would find them.
***
I had fallen asleep with an empty bottle of beer in my hand. I sat in front of the TV, which only got satellite reception. There were, of course, no cable or phone lines threading their way through the forest. All of my power came from stored solar energy. Since I rarely watched TV and really only used it to cook or heat up water for bathing, the energy produced was sufficient even in winter. Tonight, though, I needed its sound, its mindless flashing of light and colors and canned laughter. It seemed to drive away the creeping, suffocating presence like a candle.
I woke suddenly. The TV flashed with static. The repetitive hissing of the white noise spit from the speakers like thousands of snakes. I glanced up at the clock. 3:33 AM. I looked around the dark cabin, confused for a long moment. I didn’t understand what had woken me so abruptly. The satellite had never gone out before, either, even with the howling winds and freezing hail of the Alaskan winter.
The TV started flickering as if the static were rising upwards. Black lines traced their way horizontally across the screen. The hissing deepened into a gurgle, and for a second, I thought I heard faint words behind the white noise. I thought I heard breathing, slow and diseased, like the death gasp of a drowning man.
A black line rose across the TV and an image came into view. The cabin was suddenly plunged into silence, except for the shrieking, wintry wind outside. I leaned close to the screen, confused at what I was looking at. It looked like a live camera feed of a room. As I took in the details, I realized it was my cabin. I saw myself in the chair, leaning close to the screen. I raised my hand, and the miniature version of me on the screen did likewise. Ice water seemed to drip down my spine as waves of dread coursed through my body.
“What the fuck is this?” I whispered, looking back to where the camera should be. It was just a coarse wooden ceiling in that corner. I turned back to the screen and nearly screamed.
The TV showed a pale, naked man crouching directly behind my chair now. With jerky movements, he rose, his broken spine twisting and shivering. A hissing voice rang out from the speakers. It spoke as if it had dirt and writhing maggots in its throat.
“He is a killer. The shadow of death,” it gurgled. “Many have fallen. Many lie buried across this forest. You will be next. He is watching you…”
Long, broken fingers with blackened nails reached out to touch my shoulders. I jumped out of the chair, stumbling back as I spun around in terror. My back smashed into the TV, and it fell to the floor with a shattering of glass and an explosion of light.
In those few moments before the darkness descended on me like a blanket, I thought I glimpsed a pale, sunken face with rotted, blackened eyes peeking out from behind the chair.
***
I turned on every light in the cabin, but there was no sign of the Twisted Man now. I knew I had to get out of there, though. I thought about the warning that the voice had spoken. If the creature wanted to attack me, then why hadn’t it just killed me while I was sleeping? None of it made sense. Who was watching me? The Twisted Man? And if he was, why warn me? Perhaps it was psychological warfare, I thought to myself. Perhaps the Twisted Man simply liked to play with his food before he ate it.
Thoughts raced through my head at a thousand miles an hour as I threw on snow pants and a couple heavy sweaters and coats. I covered up my entire body as much as I could to try to prevent frostbite. I had made up my mind to flee. There was no snowstorm tonight, though the entire landscape was blanketed in it and I knew the wind chill would be like an ice blade whipping against my skin. It was extremely dangerous to travel in the middle of the night like this in temperatures that might reach negative thirty degrees. Steve had been right, after all- Alaska had the highest missing persons rate of any state, and many of them were never found, their bodies likely frozen solid in the deep snow dozens of miles from the nearest town.
I grabbed my shotgun, jumped on my snowmobile and started heading to Steve’s cabin. I hoped I could wait there until the sunrise and then figure out what to do next.
But fate would take the decision out of my hands.
***
I felt like there were eyes watching me as I drove along the narrow, winding deer trail. The boughs of the evergreens reached into the path like greedy hands, grabbing at my coat and legs. More than a couple times, I thought I saw a pale, naked figure standing in the snow, but it had always gone when I turned to look.
I gave a sigh of relief when Steve’s place appeared in the distance. I could see the lights twinkling through the small windows of his log cabin. I pulled up next to his door, looking down. I saw two pairs of footprints there, one much smaller than the other. I found it odd, but shrugged it off. The snowmobile cut out with a sucking gurgle.
I knocked on the door hard a few times. Steve appeared after a few moments, groggy and half-dressed. He blinked slowly as he looked me up and down. His wrinkled face fell into a frown.
“Steve, I need a favor,” I said quickly. “Something weird is happening in my cabin. Can I stay here until morning, until maybe I can go to town or something? I can’t stay at my place tonight. I just can’t.” He nodded, yawning and motioning me in.
“You can sleep on the couch, I guess,” Steve said. “Put that shotgun somewhere safe, though, boy.” He had a partitioned bedroom in his cabin. It was significantly larger than my little one-room cabin, though it was basically still just a joint kitchen-living room, a small bedroom and a bathroom. He pointed to a well-worn couch in the corner and gave me an apathetic wave as he stumbled back into his bedroom, slamming the door.
I couldn’t sleep, though. I tiptoed around the room, looking at Steve’s bookshelf. He had a rather strange taste in books- lots of Anne Rule and true crime there. I saw dozens of books about Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Richard Chase, Herbert Mullin, Jeffrey Dahmer and Richard Ramirez among the collection. At the end, a large, black binder stood, unlabeled and worn-looking. It reminded me of the look of that leather-bound diary for a second, and my heart dropped. But logically, I knew this was just a coincidence. Yet, still, I pulled out the binder, my curiosity piqued.
What I found inside filled me with dread and horror.
Countless news clippings covered the length of it. The first clipping was from nearly twenty years earlier, about a woman who went missing in the Alaskan forest while hiking. A later one confirmed that her body was never found, and that her family was still hoping that she might turn up alive somewhere. A reward was offered for any information, it said.
And every page after that was more of the same: missing woman, murdered prostitute, missing man, no leads. I kept flipping through until I found clippings about Will Lenning’s suicide and the sudden disappearance of his wife. On the article about the suicide, Steve had used red marker to scrawl, “HA HA!” next to it.
I heard the click of a gun being cocked from behind me. I froze as Steve’s voice traveled across the room like a whisper.
“How do you like my work, friend?” he asked, his tone jovial and mocking.
***
I still held the binder of horrors tightly in my hands as I stared open-mouthed at this man I thought I knew.
“It’s you? What, you killed Will Lenning and his wife? And a lot of other women, apparently.” Everything felt unreal, as if I were stuck in a dream. Steve’s grin spread across his face, but his blue eyes stayed cold and dead.
“Yes, well, she was cheating on him with me anyway. Just another whore, you know. They always get what’s coming to them in the end,” he hissed with hatred oozing from his voice. “It’s too bad, really. I just killed another slut tonight. I was planning on saving you for later. The urge isn’t too bad yet right now, after all. It comes in cycles, you see. It comes in waves…” I saw a glimmer of pale, naked flesh writhing behind Steve. With jerky movements, the Twisted Man came up behind him. I said nothing, just watching with wide-eyed horror and amazement.
“You need help, man,” I whispered. Steve laughed.
“Help? The only help they give people like me is a needle in the arm. You know that. That’s why it’s important to always cover your tracks…” The Twisted Man ran a long, broken finger across Steve’s neck. Steve gave a strangled cry and jumped. He spun around, screaming. I glanced over at my shotgun next to the couch.
I jumped for it as Steve turned back to me, firing his pistol twice. The first bullet soared high above me, raining wood splinters down on my head, but the second ripped into my leg. A cold, burning pain ran like fire up my shin. I screamed in agony and battle fury as I gripped the shotgun, spinning and firing.
Steve’s head exploded as the slug ripped through his brain. His forehead collapsed like a smashed melon as bone splinters and blood sprayed the wall behind him.
The Twisted Man stood there, hunched over, grinning up at me. I felt warm blood gushing from my leg as I stared back at him, breathing hard. I wondered if I was dying.
“You… you weren’t after me at all, were you?” I asked. “You were after… Steve.” But the Twisted Man said nothing. After a long moment, he slinked back into the shadows of the bedroom and disappeared.
***
As night crawled its way toward morning, I thought back to the words the Twisted Man had spoken through the TV, suddenly understanding everything.
“He is a killer. The shadow of death. Many have fallen. Many lie buried across this forest. You will be next. He is watching you…”
He hadn’t been trying to hurt me at all. He had been trying to warn me. He had probably tried to warn Will Lenning and his wife, too.
I wrapped my leg in gauze, gritting my teeth. The wound looked puckered and deep, but I could still move my foot, and the bullet had gone clean through the flesh. I poured alcohol on it, screaming in pain as it burned its way through my skin. After rummaging through Steve’s bathroom, I found some prescription painkillers and swallowed a handful of them with a beer. I knew I would need the opiate high to get through the pain of riding into town with a mutilated leg.
As the Sun finally rose, I made my way outside the blood-stained floors of the cabin to my snowmobile. Before I left, I glanced back at that horrid place, the scene of so much torment and death.
In the open doorway, the Twisted Man stood, his back hunched, his rotted lips grinning at me. His hand lifted up into the air with jerky movements and waved.
I waved back as I started the engine and headed into town.

Book Two: The Academy- Part 10
“Well,” Holly said as they walked briskly through the tunnel, “Our next class is self-defense against dragons. I could do with beating up a dragon after what just happened.”
Buck did not think the very first class would involve actually fighting dragons, but he got her sentiment. Bulrush’s antagonistic behavior towards him and the other kids seemed to be worsening, and he too felt upset about it.
“I mean,” Badger said, “It’s one dragon out of dozens. And Ms. Cranberry said that Bulrush would be disciplined.”
“Oh yes, a ‘very stern talking-to’ from Tsunami,” Holly responded sarcastically, “He’ll be quivering in fear!”
“We’ll just have to see how things work out,” Bailey finished, “It did seem like Moonwatcher was taking it seriously.”
The next door they passed read “Clay’s Self-Defense Cave.” The students took the stairs down and found themselves in a cave that was surprisingly open to the sky on one end. Towards the edge stood Clay.
“Welcome!” Clay greeted them as they reached the bottom. “Please assemble into a single line across this room.”
The students arranged themselves accordingly, and Clay approached them. Buck felt a chill as the dragon came closer. The dragon towered over them, and he wondered deep down how a human could ever defend themselves against such a huge creature.
“My name is Clay,” Clay said, “And I’m going to ensure you have the ability to stay alive if a dragon sets their sights on you.”
Clay set himself down on his belly, curling his legs into a relaxed position. “Most dragons aren’t like the monsters you read about in storybooks. We’re just like you, with hopes, dreams, and fears. Most dragons have agreed to stop attacking humans, and many are learning to see humans as friends. But we’re not all the same. Some dragons still want to hurt humans, for various reasons. So I’m going to help you all learn how to protect yourself.
Clay pointed towards a large collection of holes in the wall on the far side of the room. “The most important skill you have that we don’t… is your size. You can move much quicker than a dragon and hide in places we can’t reach. So this will be our first lesson. I want you to run as fast as you can into those small tunnels. This time I won’t be chasing you, I just want to see how fast you can get there. On your marks…”
Buck steeled himself and focused on the tunnels, as his classmates also prepared to run.
“Get set…”
Buck took a deep breath.
“Go!”
Buck and his classmates took off at a sprint towards the hole, the pattering of their feet on the stone echoing off of the ceiling. Everything went swimmingly… until they reached the tunnels.
Holly and Patience attempted to jam themselves into the same hole, and it quickly became apparent they would not simultaneously fit. “OW!” Holly exclaimed, “That’s my ankle!”
“Sorry!” Patience apologized.
“Hey, that’s my hole!” Sala cried as Badger crammed himself into the smallest tunnel.
After a clamoring arose among the students, Buck stopped short of the tunnels, left outside as the room began to fill with the sound of arguing kids.
“GUYS!” Clay shouted, calling the students to attention. The students all emerged from the holes, with Holly’s hair noticeably shaken up.
“That is not how you survive a dragon attack,” Clay explained, “If you’re being chased by one of us, arguing over which hole you hide in should be the least of your worries.”
Buck sighed, and looked back at the students. They gradually emerged from the holes and dusted themselves off.
“There are some holes above the ones you were all trying to cram into,” Clay said, “The right thing to do would simply be climbing into the upper holes instead of fighting over the easy ones. How about we head back over here and give it another shot?”
The students practiced several times running into the tunnels, with less and less chaos with each attempt. On one occasion Buck beat everyone else to the holes and he showed off to them by leaping into the air from a sprint, grasping the edge of the highest opening, and pulling himself up into the hole, beaming proudly at the approaching students from his new vantage point.
“Good job, Buck!” Clay called to him. The other students gradually got into holes, and Clay clapped his talons. “Alright, that’s a good start for today! Come on out and we’ll have a cooldown.”
Buck threw his legs out of the hole and made motions to jump down, but he looked at the floor and instantly froze. His feet could not reach the floor. He let out a shaky sigh, as the distance between his feet and the floor seemed to stretch. W-what if that’s too high? What do I do if I fall? What if my legs break?
“Hey, Buck?” Clay called to him, “You doing okay?”
“I’ll be a minute!” Buck kept trying to make the jump, but every time he tried to move, his instincts took over and he reared back, too scared to leap off. Bailey, meanwhile, gave him a knowing look, and Buck remembered why: his old tree-climbing escapades. Back then, it was way easier to go up than to go down. Apparently, that was still the case.
“Buck, it’s okay!” Bailey shouted at him, “That’s nowhere near as high as the trees you used to climb!”
“Is he scared of heights?” Sala asked himself. Buck heard Holly chuckle in response, and Buck blushed vividly back at her.
Clay, meanwhile, began to walk towards Buck. “Hang on, little guy, I’ll get you out of there.” Clay reached the holes and placed a paw just below Buck’s dangling legs. “Here, hop on.” Buck sighed and fell down onto Clay’s paw, and he gently set him down on the floor. Buck sighed and stepped off.
As Buck rejoined the class, he saw Holly continue to stifle laughter, and Bailey meanwhile gave her dirty looks. Perhaps they would get into a spat about it once they were in their dorms. Buck sat in a shaded corner of the classroom and stared at the clouds soaring overhead.
He picked out something that was definitely not a cloud, however. It had wings, and bright orange scales. And it was headed straight for them.
Clay saw the dragon too, and apparently made a lightning-quick threat assessment, before his eyes narrowed. “Kids, go to the tunnels. Hurry!”
A hushed murmur came over the students and this time they wasted no time getting to the tunnels. They seamlessly organized themselves in the holes and pushed themselves as far to the back of them as they could.
Buck watched Clay as he glared into the sky in the general direction of the approaching dragon. He began to move towards it, sparks beginning to fly from his mouth. With no moment to spare, he let out a searing streak of fire, but the incoming dragon dodged, crashing to its feet and snarling loudly at Clay.
“Leave… this… at once!” Clay roared in Dragon at the SkyWing, with Buck only being able to catch certain words.
The SkyWing chuckled darkly. It spoke, for some reason, in Human. “Like they have any reason to be here. Why educate a bunch of furry savages!?” Perhaps the dragon was trying to intimidate the humans by insulting them in their own tongue. Buck’s heart sank, though Clay bristled hearing his students get insulted.
Clay roared and leaped at the dragon, tackling it to the ground before the SkyWing corrected itself, putting it on top of him, and the dragon raised its head, preparing to bite the MudWing’s neck. Clay snarled and used his hind legs to force the SkyWing off of him and into the air, and both dragons stood, circling each other and growling.
Buck could do nothing but shiver and watch. This was his second time witnessing a dragon attack in a week, though this time, he had a dragon defending him. He heard one of the kids whimper above him, though he could not identify which one had made the noise.
The SkyWing broke formation and shoved past Clay, making a beeline for the caves and causing the kids to erupt into a chorus of terrified screams. “Time for roast scavenger!” the SkyWing roared and it prepared to blast the whole tunnel system in fire-breath. Buck stared down the dragon’s open maw and made his final prayers to the Spirit of the Third Moon, before, almost as if being answered, his arms prickled up, and he again saw the Moon shining overhead, and when Buck raised his arm, the SkyWing was stopped instantly and lifted into the air, its legs pedaling around and its head frantically looking around, looking for the source of the mysterious force.
Buck began to sweat. Holding this power for long against something so big was straining him. But he did not need to wait long before the floating SkyWing was grabbed from behind by Clay, and he briefly looked at the kids with a bewildered expression before he smiled nervously. “Alright kids, look away!” Buck did not get the memo in time, as he witnessed Clay grasp the SkyWing’s neck with both paws and he violently twisted it, making a loud snap as the enemy dragon fell limp, hitting the floor hard, then Buck lowered his arm and his power left him. Buck stepped out of the tunnel, though his legs were wobbly from exertion. Clay was staring at the dead dragon at his feet, then over at the humans, who were mostly still in the tunnels and apparently refusing to leave for now.
Clay began to shiver, looking back and forth between the SkyWing and the kids. “M-moons above… That almost… could have been…”
Bailey ran up to Buck and hugged him. “You saved us again!” she cried into his shoulder, though Buck paled when he saw Holly glaring daggers into both him and Bailey.
“Saved how exactly?” Holly asked inquisitively, “What exactly did you do that made a whole entire dragon start to float like a balloon!?”
Buck realized he had accidentally exposed something he probably should have kept secret. Clay, meanwhile, dusted himself off, shook the fear out of his head, and stepped around the dead SkyWing to look straight at Buck. “Yes, I’d like to know too. That looked awfully a lot like Animus power.”
Buck shook nervously, but he realized he had nothing left to lose by explaining himself. So he did. He told the humans and Clay about the Spirit of the Third Moon, and the visions, and how he had been given “the power to protect.”
“Three Moons,” Clay breathed, “So you’re basically a walking Animus enchantment. That ‘Spirit’ must have put a spell on you to be able to help protect anyone you care about. Kind of like a good-intentioned version what Darkstalker did with his soldiers.”
“So it’s just a power to ‘protect’ then?” Holly asked incredulously, “Couldn’t you have just taken the initiative and used some kind of instant-kill power to get rid of the dragon before it was about to kill us?”
Buck shrugged. “I was kind of put on the spot by the Spirit. I thought it was just a weird dream until the power popped out the first time.”
“Well, it’s a miracle, to be sure,” Clay said, sighing. “Anyway, I suppose I owe you an explanation. That dragon… was likely one of the Scourge’s followers.”
“You’re kidding,” Badger shivered, “That dragon has friends now!?”
“Yes,” Clay said sadly, “They’ve managed to accrue a small group of dragons who share in their anti-human beliefs. It isn’t apparently a very large group, but they still pose a threat. I’m going to have to report this to Sunny. In the meantime, consider class dismissed. You should head to your dorms to rest. After what’s happened, you should definitely relax.”
Buck and several others nodded, and they headed for the staircase. As he took the first stair, he looked back at the dead SkyWing. Well, my fancy friend-protecting power is two for two. Maybe I’ll be fine in a dragon attack now.
Back at the dorm, Lily took the students in, gasping in horror when she learned what happened. “Thank goodness for Clay. I can’t imagine what would have happened if it were a weaker dragon defending you.”
Buck decided to leave out his own role in protecting the students. Instead, he silently trudged to his room, where he flopped onto the bed. Patience followed him in, and soon, the rest of the boys entered.
Badger still looked a little shell-shocked. “Well, that’s definitely not how I imagined my first day of classes ending.”
“That power of yours is awesome, Buck!” Sala beamed, “Like, we would have all been scorched alive if it weren’t for you!”
“Thanks…” Buck responded, though inexplicably he still felt a bit upset with himself. “I wish… I had thought of what Holly told me. Why didn’t I ask for the power to instantly kill dragons? That would have ended this mess a lot sooner!”
“I wouldn’t think of it that way,” Patience said sternly, “That power would be very problematic. Imagine if it went off when Ahi accidentally hurt you. You would have ended up killing a little dragonet!”
Buck sighed. He knew he was right. But that Scourge dragon had been dangerously close to slaughtering him and his entire Winglet. Both times he had used his power, it had triggered of its own accord. He wondered if it would be possible to trigger it at will, with the right training.
Lily entered the dorm. “Alright, dinner is going to open up in about ten minutes. I heard it’s going to be something even better than last night.”
“Do we have to?” Buck asked her. “I don’t think I want to see any more dragons for now.”
“He has a point,” Sala said, “After what just happened, I’m not exactly thrilled with sharing a space with them, at least for now.”
Lily sighed. “Unfortunately there’s no easy way to get food over here. I won’t force you to go to the dining room, but there are seats in there that are out of a dragon’s reach. Let me know how you feel in a few. I’ll be in the lobby.” She left, leaving the students in a funk.
“Great. It’s either go eat with dragons or don’t eat at all,” Buck’s face began to heat up.
“Well, it’s like Clay said at the beginning of class,” Patience said, “The dragons are all different, and most of them like us. It’s incredibly disrespectful to lump them all together. If we did, it’d be a lot like what the Scorching dragons did to us.”
Buck shot up, his face turning red. “The Scorching dragons had a choice to see us that way!”
“Buck. They really didn’t. It was a matter of survival for them, since humans were taking away all their eggs.”
“Does that excuse all the humans, kids included, that they killed for thousands of years? What kind of ‘respect’ did they ever show us?”
“Look, guys,” Sala interjected, “Can we not have this discussion now?”
“I wanna go home…” Butterfly whimpered underneath his covers.
“Look,” Patience said, “How about we tell the dragons what happened at dinner. You know, drum up some sympathy. The dragons probably care enough about us that they’d show support for us after going through that ordeal.”
“That sounds…” Butterfly whispered as his head popped up from his bed, “Like a good idea.”
“So, we’re going?”
Buck sighed. “If it’s because it’s the only way I can get fed.”
The boys relaxed until Lily reentered. “Ready for dinner?” Everyone nodded. “Alright, let’s get out there.”

Apologies for the delay, as promised, continuing with the story! Link to previous act: VII

The night wore on. The people in the street thinned, then vanished.
The last Samurai left the geisha house, weaving drunkenly.
And then, two shadowy figures emerged from a side door in the geisha house and headed away.
I followed.
I caught a whiff of opium, so I was able to keep after them without exposing myself much.
They stopped in a deserted alleyway.
The coal from a pipe lit up one of the figures faces.
Tatsuki.
What did you want, anyway?
Tatsuki san, you were so cruel to Satsume today.
So? Samurai are nothing but trouble! Get em drunk, do a dance, take their money, that's it.
Anyone hoping some rich pretty boy will buy their contract is a fool, and anyone who goes out of their way to get their attention even more so.
They'll kill you for looking at them sideways!
I can't say you're wrong, Tatsuki. But, you shouldn't have spoken up when you did.
Those jade magistrates might just wonder if you had some connection to the murders.
What d'ya mean, murders? They just went missing, it's not like we know they're dead or anything.
I was already moving at that point.
Oh but I do know.
I got between the two just as the knife flashed.
It scraped me, and I returned the favor with my tetsubo.
Catching the Geisha in the side, I pulled my blow so I wouldn't kill her. I just wanted to take her off her feet. I had questions.
To my surprise, she not only seemed untroubled by my attack, she kept her feet.
Okay, that's just not right.
Tatsuki. Run to the inn. Get my companions and bring them here.
Tatsuki just stared, slack jawed. Her pipe fallen to ground.
MOVE PEASANT!
She ran.
The not really a geisha moved to give chase, but I blocked her path.
Your fight is with me.
In the dim light of the red paper lanterns, I could just make out the dark stain spreading across her side.
So I did hurt her.
As I advanced, preparing to strike again, she swung her knife. Not at me, but at the string of lanterns.

Most fell harmlessly into the road, but enough did drift into the outer walls of the nearby buildings that I had to rush over and put them out, lest they start a fire.
She used those precious few seconds to break from me and run.
I finished stomping out the lanterns and stood there cursing until Tatsuki came back with my friends. Mantis and Monkey weren't with them of course, still investigating.
Damn bitch is tough. More than simple geisha!
I wounded her though, think you can follow a blood trail this late at night, Kitsuki-san?
Ishigaki.
Toshiro had knelt to examine the blood.
This blood, it's far too dark.
Kitsuki-san leaned in, brought his lantern in closer.
You're right.
Humans breathe in Air, it mixes with our Water, making our blood bright red. As our water passes its strength on to our Earth, our bodies, it becomes darker.
This blood is black.
Toshiro looked up at me.
Just like a corpse that has not taken in any Air for a long time.
Bog Hag?!
I think so, yes.
Kitsuki-san blinked.
I thought you said your technique disrupted the taint of your enemies?
It does, but it's a reflex. I use it when I am struck; it's not as if I would know it's working. Only my opponent would know... ah.
No wonder it was not eager to fight you.
Toshiro and I locked eyes, the same thought running through our heads.
You three go find the Mantis! I'll get the Monkey!
Protocol!
I'll be fine, Toshiro! You're slow, Naomi is sick, and Kitsuki-san isn't much of a Yojimbo!
You three NEED to stay in a larger group!
I was already running, before any more protests could come up.
As I neared the docks I heard the sound of retching. Turning towards it, I found the Monkey.
He was leaning against a building, clutching the side of his neck. I could see him panting. As I came closer he leaned over and puked.
He saw me.
Ishigaki-san? I... I don't feel so good.
I picked him up. His skin was on fire with fever.

Some crazy bitch... She was clutching her side, I asked her what was wrong and as I got close she clawed the shit out of my neck!
Bog Hag talons carried disease in them. She had used the tanto on me because she did not wish to extend her claws through her fake skin.
I had no idea how severe the disease was, or how long it normally took to work, but obviously THIS one was working very, very fast.
I slung the Monkey over my shoulders and ran.
He didn't complain.
I got back to the Inn and stomped heavily as I ran up to our room,
I threw open the door.
Toshiro said hello by blasting both myself and the Monkey with a Jade Strike.
As the energy washed harmlessly over the two of us I set down the Monkey.
Hag got him. With her claws.
Shit.
Toshiro fished out a prayer to Jurojin. As I explained what that meant to the others.
Naomi added her own magic, and between the two the Monkey was saved.
Everyone was quickly brought up to speed.
The Mantis confirmed for us that the Yoriki I had encountered early that day was also the Bog Hag, as his failure to report in had caused a bit of shouting at the magistrate's.
Okay, now that we know what we're looking for, we only need to find one creature in a city of thousands that could change its appearance almost at will.
There was a reason Bog Hags were able to live in Rokugan for a long time should they just make it past the wall.

Hey, uh Toshiro-san?
I'm grateful and all for the magic healing... but why did you blast us both?
Won't hurt you if you aren't tainted. If it did hurt you I'd have blasted you again till you stopped twitching.
Oh.
I chuckled. Hitting one another in the face with that spell is a perfectly fine way to say hello among the Kuni. It has advantages, since a normal Jade test requires you to get close enough to poke someone first.
Couldn't you just hold up your own Jade?
Toshiro took that one.
Greenstone.
There's a mineral that is similar in appearance to Jade, but it's not. Hard to tell the difference at a distance.
Some fools have, from time to time, tried to pass it off as Jade to our Clan when our own stores were low.
Okay.
Now, how do we go about finding this monster?
Check the geisha. The madame, in particular.
It was the Mantis.
That Yoriki not reporting in for duty was a big deal. If the Hag was stepping into their daily lives, then there's an issue.
Geisha live in their house. They really aren't supposed to leave unless called out by a client, or to run errands.
Keeping up a double life like that would be hard.
What? don't judge me! You're the weird ones, being all lovey dovey.
Before we left we ground up jade and prepared powder. Bog hags were invulnerable. The blood was not the hag's, but from the skin she had been wearing.
It was unusual, but not unheard of for older, stronger and more cunning hags to be able to take more than just the surface skin.
This made the disguise even MORE difficult to spot.
Some even learned maho spells to preserve their skins.
We returned to the geisha house as dawn was nearing.
Toshiro placed a ward of flame upon the frame of the door.
We entered.
Tatsuki greeted us.
Oka-san is resting right now, should I go get her?
Please.
As the madame shuffled out, she greeted us warmly.
Hello great Samurai! I cannot thank you enough for what you did for our Tatsuki last night!
How may I help you?

I walked up to her, and held out the finger of Jade I wore.
Hold this a moment.
Oh great Samurai, this one is unworthy of such of a gift.
She was misunderstanding, going through the three refusals.
I heard the Monkey snicker.
No, I'm not giving this to you, I just want you to touch it.
Whatever for great samurai?
Some of the other girls had come out of their rooms to see us.
We just want to be sure.
The door to the front slid open.
Oka-san, I'm home! I have the-
As soon as the Geisha stepped across the threshold, she burst into flames.
Oh shit, which one was that?
Dammit, THEY KNOW!
Uh...
Oh dear, this is going to cause quite the ruckus.
We will have to leave this city now, no matter what happens.
Girls, listen up. The one who kills the big one gets the little girl's pretty skin.
All around us, geisha ripped their flesh off and revealed themselves to be Bog Hags.
Tatsuki fell to her knees, unable to comprehend her entire world shattering in an instant.
Including the madame, and the burned one, I counted six.
I once mentioned we Crabs had a code word for when the teahouse we're in is staffed by demons in disguise, they didn't know they'd been found out, and everyone should grab their weapons and meet out front.
We also had one that meant the same thing, expect that the demons know they've been found out, and you should fight way out.
Yasha.

Toshiro threw Jade fire as we powdered our weapons.
Energy rushed through my limbs as Naomi blessed me.
I was worried, there were a lot of Hags here, Toshiro and Naomi had both used magic earlier, and we were relying primarily on powder to injure them.
The burned one leapt onto Toshiro's back, clawing him
One went for the Mantis, one the Monkey. Two came at me.
The Mantis and Monkey both defended themselves, and I knocked aside the first to reach me, the second one got a claw in under my arm as I raised by tetsubo to block.
She cried out as she struck me, confused.
WHAT WAS THAT HUMAN WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME.
Calm down, that's why I told you to work together on him.
I know what he is doing; it won't harm you.
As the Geishags eyed me hatefully, Troka-san reached inside her kimono, and pulled out a scroll.
Oh shit.
She then clawed herself, quite deeply.
Oh that's a lot of blood...
And my chest burned. I fell to my knees hacking and coughing. Blood poured up from nose and mouth. My lungs ached.
So this is what it's like, to be Naomi...
I had to end that bitch, and I had to do it, now. Before she cast that spell again.
With the strength Naomi gave me, I slammed the haft of my tetsubo into the geishag that had clawed into me, knocking it down, while preserving my powder.
Then I rushed over it and attacked the head of this hag coven.
I saw surprise and fear in the creature’s eyes, it had hoped that spell would slow me down much more than it had.
I spun my tetsubo, two overhead strikes, sliding my hand down the haft to let the full momentum strike her.
She was still standing, but swaying about drunkenly.
I suspected she had overtaxed herself with that maho.
Behind me the Mantis, Monkey and Kitsuki all worked together. As the Kitsuki shoved his blade into one's stomach, the Monkey struck at the back of her neck.
Then the Mantis buried his kama into the top of her head.
The hag made an almost comical gurgle as it fell over, dead.

Toshiro was praying, hard. Another big one. then.
Naomi whispered another prayer and touched the Mantis.
Who then spun and struck the burning hag.
The other hags howled in fury and lunged at the Mantis, taken by surprise at the three on one, he went down under their claws.
Kitsuki-san grabbed the Mantis and dragged him back to Naomi.
She didn't waste any time, not even bothering with a scroll.
As the Mantis groggily got to his feet, Naomi teetered, sweating and panting hard.
For that matter, so was I.
I was still sucking in Air, a terrible panic rising in me at the feeling of not being able to breathe.
I crushed it ruthlessly. I knew I COULD breathe, even though my body was screaming I needed more.
Still, my vision was going dark at the edges.
What the hell did that monster do to me?
It lashed out with a claw, unable or unwilling to spill more of its own blood to work any more magic.
It's talons punched through my chest piece but only the very tips found my flesh.
And before she could draw back, I brought my tetsubo down on her head for a third time.
This time the thing's skull cracked open. Brains and fluid spattered to the floor. It stood there, head still bent from the impact of my strike, almost as if it was bowing before me.
Then it crumpled.

I turned. I needed to repowder my weapon.
Naomi was spent, or close to it.
Toshiro was praying, scroll in one hand, with his tetsubo held out in a warding stance. With that one hand grip he could not defend himself well.
Mantis was badly hurt, near death. Not even Naomi could heal someone so wounded that quickly.
And there were still four of the damn things standing. One hadn't even been hurt yet.
Well let's fix that.
Panting like a horse in heat (even killing the fucking thing hadn't fixed my lungs... was I going to be like this forever?) I charged at the unwounded Hag.
And into her.
She bit at my helmet and clawed at my back as I continued to run, taking her with me
And out the front door.
Through the ward.
When a bleeding Crab in full armor comes crashing through the door of a Geisha house, bearing with him a Bog Hag that is also on fire, people have a tendency to take notice.
One may then assume that, once their brains can fully register what their eyes have told them, they will scream and run about like chickens with their heads cut off.
The people in the streets lived up to my expectations. Spectacularly.
Good, that should bring some more bodies. If we have to we'll just pin them down with sheer numbers until we can bring up enough powder to bring them all down.
The Monkey lashed out at one of the hags, keeping the thing from attacking the Mantis.
The Kitsuki took a stance from the Dojo. I had seen the Shiba do that once, long ago.
The Mantis spun around slipping to one knee he scythed his blades through the legs of two of the hags, causing them both to fall.
Naomi drew another scroll from her satchel
And then Toshiro finished his spell.
The spell was an old one, in use for centuries.
It turned wrathful Earth Kami upon those it targeted, disrupting their own earth, weakening them considerably.
The Earth Kami were particularly incensed should they detect the presence of taint.

The spell had been made famous by one of the sons of the Emperor Toturi the First.
It was, in these days, known as the Wolf's Mercy.
Toshiro managed to get all four of the hags.
The wounded three died on the spot, their weakened bodies succumbing to the severe wounds they already bore.
Only the burning one was still alive.
Kitsuki-san struck it hard.
It trashed in my grip, but I managed to hold on, barely. The Mantis and then the Monkey were finally able to still the beast.
I felt life rush into me, and the pain in my chest eased up at last.
Just as Naomi began to cough once more. I caught her before she fell, and set her down gently.
Tatsuki. TATSUKI! My wife needs her medicine, we need a teapot, water, and a fire. QUICKLY!
My shouts galvanized her, and Tatsuki moved to comply.
Kitsuki-san saw to preparing her medicine.
Toshiro, panting hard looked at me and the Mantis.
Neither of you better get sick from those wounds. I've got nothing left.
And, far too late to be useful, the Crane showed up, Yoriki in tow.

Doji Goemon looked about with disgust, and more than a little fear.
What has happened here?
Naomi was panting hard, still giving little coughs.
She looked at me. Though her eyes were tight with pain, she gave me a nod to reassure me she would be alright soon enough.
So Toshiro, as the only other full-fledged Jade Magistrate in our group, had to explain the scene to the Magistrate's satisfaction.
You had a Bog Hag problem.
We took care of it for you.
You're welcome.
Bye.
Atta boy, Toshiro.
That won't cause any problems, I'm sure.
He then turned and began throwing salt all over.
Wait, just a minute!
No.
WHAT?
Toshiro spun and glared at the Doji.
I had watched Toshiro apply his face paint several times. He started out pure white. Black, all around his eyes, making them tiny pools of light in deep sea. Then, almost haphazardly dipped his four fingers into red, and pulled them across his face.
The visage he created looked like a man with deep black eyes that were far too large, and had been clawed from temple to chin by some great beast.
In other words, pretty damn scary.
And he used it to full effect as he glared at the Doji.
Bog Hags are tainted. They've been hiding in this geisha house for months. People have probably already been tainted. There might be infections even now.
And I HAVE to deal with that.
It's what Jade Magistrates do.
The first step is to Purify this place.
So shut up and let me do my job!
Or do you want to explain to your lord why half this city had to be burned down when the taint gets too deep?
He was bluffing. It was true there were probably people with the taint unknowingly spreading it around, but one geisha house? No way had it become such a crisis.
Toshiro just didn't want to deal with the Crane, and was using the fact that such knowledge was considered shameful in the rest of Rokugan to deceive him.
It worked.

The Doji salvaged his wounded pride by berating his Yoriki.
Don't just stand there! Get some monks, shugenja! And ETA!
The Mantis, meanwhile, discreetly moved Tatsuki out the back, we all knew from the attempt on her life she was innocent of any wrongdoing.
But we doubted Goemon would see it that way.
Several Monks, a small swarm of Eta, and even an Asahina showed up to help with the cleansing.
And all protests from Goemon stopped as the Eta began to bring up human skins from a secret basement Kitsuki-san found.
There were thirty two.
As well as a very large pile of bones. There was no telling how many people were there. There were only three skulls. Not nearly enough for all the bones.
I explained to Goemon.
Bog Hags don't kill just for skins.
They eat people.
Especially pretty women and children.
He excused himself, and hurried off.
I could hear him vomit.
I doubted it was compassion for the victims. Rather I suspected it was fear that such a thing had gone on for so long right under his nose.
I had no doubt he would have much explaining to do when his lord heard of this incident.
I didn't embarrass him further by looking.
Hey, Naomi?
Ha...hai Ishigaki-san?
Still a little sore.
Is he doing that right?
I jerked my head to Toshiro. He had just thrown a second handful of salt at a wall that particularly offended him.
It always seemed... messy to me, when Toshiro purified things.
Naomi nodded. sipped some water.
He lacks grace, I admit but it is fine the way he does it.
Huh.
Naomi advised Goemon on the Jade test, and the Monk in charge of the local Shrine assured us that, should anyone be found with the taint, he could guide them to a temple that specialized in treating those so afflicted.
Toshiro pressed him on the details, but was satisfied the temple in question wasn't one that took mercy too far.
We left, to chase after possible clients with the taint.

We were joined, of all people, by Tatsuki.
"What the fuck is this?" I asked to no one in particular, pointing at her.
Mine. Hands off.
I stared at the Mantis.
He pulled his clothes and produced a piece of paper.
I bought her contract.
From a dead bog hag?!
Yeah. Got a great price.
You just took that!
Look, I know you don't know shit about Geisha, loving your wife as much as you do (Naomi blushed), but the contract is the only thing separating a Geisha from a whore.
I had no idea if that was true or not.
Naomi, of course, wanted to know what the half-person thought of all this.
Naomi's Compassion could really get in the way of her sense of propriety at times.
I don't have any traveling papers, I can't stay there and I sure as hell didn't want to show my face to the magistrate to try and get some papers....
So this works. I mean, I could be a lot worse off right now, and you did save my life...several times over in fact.
Huh. That's very upfront. I wondered what is was that she sensed in us to put her so at ease.
And that's how the Mantis got a Geisha.
So, you gonna marry her?
Monkey, of course.
Naomi hid her smile behind her sleve and tittered.
The Mantis just glowered at the Monkey, but Tatsuki actually fidgeted a bit.
I shared a glance with Kitsuki-san and Naomi as we noted that.
And we headed out for the nearest town.
For a few weeks we spread word of a possible taint outbreak. Discreetly, to local lords. We told them how to check, got them in touch with temples to handle anyone found with the taint.
Naomi went through paper and ink quite quickly, writing letters back home.
I don't think either of them can read yet, Naomi.
The nanny will read the letters TO them Ishigaki-kun. Until we got home to see them again.
I understood. Not a day passed while I was standing on my post on the Wall that I didn't think of home.
When we arrived at the third city, the guard who checked our papers became very excited.

Whiplash symptoms? Please help!
I have no idea where else to ask this since there’s no whiplash forum I can find -
But basically 6 days ago, I (23/F) stupidly threw my head back while laughing, in a chair I thought had a head rest. It did NOT have a headrest, and my head was sent flying back and hyperextending. I felt pain immediately but it didn’t get bad till about 8 hours later.
6 days in and my neck pain/headaches have improved, but my face and neck are now burning. It feels like my face is feverish or has a terrible sunburn. I also feel it in the back of my neck. (I checked and do not actually have a fever)
Dizziness/Vertigo has become basically constant. Only thing that sort of helps is laying down and staying still.
The burning started about 3 days out from the injury - started in my tongue, then moved to my face and neck and is staying there and worsening. I’m terrified it’s Trigeminal Neuralgia or some kind of permanent damage to my brain stem/CNS. I can’t live with this. Please tell me that this is temporary and will heal 🥺 I don’t know what to do.
Symptoms: 1. Neck pain/Stiffness (improving) 2. Headaches (improving) 3. Fatigue/Drowsiness 4. Dizziness/Unsteadiness (Worsening) 5. Burning (Worsening) 6. Head/Body Tightness & Pressure (Worsening)

I am a 31 year old male with a history of (health) OCD. The two major episodes were in 2017 and 2019 focussing on HIV and rabies. In 2020 I took Sertraline 100 mg the first time for half a year. I've encountered health related obsessive thoughts already in my childhood and teenage years. In late 2020 I became a father for the first time. It was difficult as the COVID pandemic was omnipresent. I somehow managed going through it without medication. In 2022 I became a father a second time and in 2023 I started working three different positions at once. My body reacted heavily with stress related symptoms, and I became obsessed with my heart health and related illnesses. I did have some blood pressure and heart rate obsessions in the past. Most concerning were physical symptoms as neck tension, chest tension, breathing difficulties and tingling sensations in hands/feet. There was also a quick episode of rabies phobia, where I did a vaccination for the fourth and last time. I decided quickly to go back on Sertraline 50 mg after a discussion with my psychiatrist. I had neck tenseness for the first few weeks which I did not have the first time. I suspect that this was due to the fact that I constantly have to carry my infants as well as a structural weakness. Eventually, it got better and I quickly fell back into old habits of working hard and not taking proper care of my body. As I am afraid of taking medications, I stopped taking Sertraline this January. The worst idea ever! The neck pain returned presumably as a withdrawal symptom and did not go away for two months. Maybe also because I focussed on it and was still carrying my children. In March 2024 my fear of contracting HIV returned and I did a (negative) test. For two days also the fear of rabies returned but went away quickly as I learnt some coping strategies during my path. The trigger for these fears were this time the fact that my whole family was sick. Because I had to vomit, my neck was tense and there was a strange sensation in my mouth. You know how an OCD brain with anxiety works, and I fell into the rumination and compulsion loop.
In late April 2024 I went to a new psychiatrist and got back on Sertraline for the hopefully last time! First 25 mg with heavy anxiety side effects, then 50 mg and since last week 100 mg. I generally feel better, but what is really bothering me, is that my family is sick for almost a month now. My two kids (3 and 1 now) had heavy cough and high fever for the last time. The nights are rough, as either because of Sertraline I do have insomnia or the kids are crying and waking me up. I am also a bit coughing but not really. However, I do feel not fit either due to my psychological situation or because my immune system fights against the viruses. I had this already in the past, that when my family is sick, then I do not feel well more or less he whole tie they are sick. Of course I am worried that my immune system is weak or that I have a more severe condition. Last Saturday I made the mistake to try an exposure therapy for measuring my blood pressure. After some tries the lowest I got was 130 to 80 with a pulse of 55 lying down. It turned out to be a very bad idea, as I quickly fell back into the rumination loop. It does not help, that for some weeks now I have some mild ringing noise in my left ear, which is a sign of high blood pressure. I do know, that it does not get better before I get over stress and anxiety, but it makes everything unnecessarily harder! I am a good caring father and it makes me sad that I do not have the full capacity for taking care of my sons due to my mental and physical state.
Sometimes I loose all hope that it will get better and sometimes I am confident. I am dealing with (health) OCD for a long time and I know it will take a lot of effort and hard work to cope with it. In the last years I was not really willing to change much, unfortunately, and now I feel sometimes it is already too late and there was serious harm inflicted on my body. I did a lot of sports recently and try eating a healthy diet (no alcohol, no coffee and not smoking). But when my family is sick and I am constantly half sick, I do not have the energy to do sports (I do mild activities instead as walking or yoga). Are there other parents in a similar situation as me? Do you have any tips for me how to cope with health related anxieties and still caring for their family?

Hi,
A few weeks ago I went to the doctor for a random small Lyme disease esque rash on my hand. While I was there I also brought up a recurring skin rash on my arm I’d been having for a while - initially this was a pretty big hives breakout that lasted about 2 weeks. I went to urgent care and got a steroid cream that got rid of it.
Since then, I’ve noticed occasional little bumps like the ones you get with contact dermatitis, but they go away quickly. I’ve also noticed this weird redness like in a pattern on my forearms, but it’s not raised or itchy. It changes daily, sometimes goes away and sometimes it’s really hot.
My Ana came back at an 80, which I know is not really concerning at all. They still referred me to a rheumatologist, and I’m not sure what other things I should bring up.
So you’re someone with an autoimmune condition could you let me know what things might be relevant?
I have a few lumps under my skin in my neck, under my chin and near my groin area, as well as one in my wrist. I assume these are just lymph nodes though?
I always hear a grinding noise in my shoulders when I move them, they are tense and hurt and cause headaches in the back of my head.
I recently started having tmj and my jaw always pops when I open it. It hurts a little bit, but I can still chew.
I have a difficult time sleeping and will often wake up at like 330 and not be able to go back to sleep. I will often usually feel tired even if I did sleep well.
I feel lightheaded/dizzy pretty often. If I stand up quick my vision will start to go out a little bit, and if I’m in a hot shower for too long I will start to feel sick and feel like I’m going to pass out.
I have low hemoglobin and am b12 deficient/ anemic
I’m 23F also.

Finn Tresscoat, a 20-year-old with short dark brown hair, brown eyes, and a pale complexion, strolled down the sidewalk of his small town. He wore a light brown leather jacket over a black shirt, paired with black jeans and black-and-white sneakers.
As Finn ambled along, he glanced at the many shops lining the main road of the town's bustling center. He wasn't searching for anything in particular; he simply wanted to enjoy the rare day off from his job, one of the most perilous occupations in the United West (U.W.).
"Finn! Oh, Finn!"
Finn turned his head to the right and spotted Ms. Tori Elortor, or simply Ms. Tori as he called her. She was an older lady in her early fifties, though her youthful appearance often surprised the townsfolk. With long white hair cascading down her back, pale skin, and bright hazel eyes, she was a striking figure. Today, she wore a navy blue sundress over a pair of tight blue jeans and brown cowboy boots.
Ms. Tori, the local bakery owner, was considered quite attractive and often caught the eye of the younger men in town. Her curvaceous figure and active lifestyle, including regular yoga sessions in the park, only added to her allure. However, Finn saw her differently. Having known her since childhood and feeling like part of her family, he saw her as a maternal figure rather than anything else. He was also close to her son, Eric, feeling like an older brother to him.
Despite his demanding job, which kept him busy for nearly twenty-four-seven, Finn always tried to visit Ms. Tori and Eric whenever he could. Today was a rare opportunity for him to relax and reconnect.
"Ah, hi Ms. Tori! How are you today?" Finn greeted her with a warm smile.
Ms. Tori returned his smile. "I'm just fine, Finn. The real question is, how are you? I haven't seen you in months!" Her tone shifted to one of concern. "I was worried, and so was Eric. You do have quite a dangerous job for someone so young," she added.
What kind of dangerous job did Finn have, you might ask?
Well, Finn was a "Gaunt Hunter," a member of a specialized group tasked with safeguarding the small towns outside the major cities in the United West from creatures known as Gaunts.
These slim, humanoid creatures had leathery black skin, no eyes or nose, and wide mouths that drooled a strange dark green liquid. They had emerged after the cataclysmic "Decade of Winter."
The Gaunts varied in form and capability. Some were very muscular, while others had bat-like wings, allowing them to fly. They were also cunning, often creating weapons from scavenged materials and hunting in packs.
Disturbingly, these were just the common variants.
There were tales of Gaunts resembling animals and some that could even speak, though Finn himself had never encountered such anomalies.
Despite the ominous title of Gaunt Hunter, Finn's role wasn't as glamorous as one might imagine.
He wasn't a high-tech, gadget-wielding hero. Gaunt Hunters received training similar to regular police officers, focusing on the use of firearms. However, since firearms were not commonly traded or shipped to the smaller towns outside the major cities, Gaunt Hunters were also taught to wield swords, knives, and other melee weapons, as well as trained in close-range combat.
Finn had been trained to fire a pistol but also learned to fight with a machete, which was more practical for their needs than a traditional sword. On duty, he carried a standard-issue Glock-17 and a machete strapped to his side. He also wore the standard protective gear issued to United West Security Forces (UWSF) officers.
Returning to the conversation with Ms. Tori, Finn let out a lighthearted chuckle. "Dangerous for most of the veterans on the job, but I'm young and fit! Practically invincible!" he said with a grin.
Ms. Tori gave Finn an unimpressed look, raising an eyebrow. "Is that right?" she asked. "Then what's this I hear about a Gaunt nearly taking your head off just last week?"
Finn's face flushed with embarrassment as he recalled the incident. A Gaunt had caught him off guard and nearly decapitated him with a makeshift axe. "Okay... yeah, fair enough," he admitted, looking down.
Ms. Tori's expression softened, and she gave him a few light taps on the shoulder. "Oh, I'm not trying to make you feel bad, Finn, I'm just reminding you that your job is dangerous… You need to be careful," she said gently.
Finn looked up at her and nodded. "I know, and thank you for caring," he replied. Inwardly, he thought, 'It's not like anyone else does'
"Of course, I care, Finn," Ms. Tori said firmly. "Do you know how devastated I'd be if you got hurt or, heaven forbid, died? I'd be heartbroken,” she told him. “Eric would be even worse off, after all, who would play with him?"
Finn felt a wave of warmth at her words. Despite not wanting to worry Ms. Tori or Eric, it was comforting to know there were people who cared about him, and who wanted him to stay safe and come back home. "I guess you're right," he said with a soft smile. "I'll try to be more careful out there, I promise,”
Ms. Tori nodded, her smile lingering. "Good,” she said. “Now, how many days do you have off?" she asked.
"Not many," Finn replied with a sigh. "Just today,"
Ms. Tori's eyes widened in shock. "Only today? Why?" She asked.
Finn's expression turned serious. "Many of the other Gaunt Hunters are either dead, retiring, or switching to become cops... There are only ten of us left in the entire town,"
Ms. Tori's eyes widened in horror. Gaunt Hunters were the primary defense against the Gaunts. The law across the U.W. dictated that local law enforcement dealt with human issues, leaving Gaunt-related threats to the Hunters. The thought of their numbers dwindling was terrifying.
Each town was supposed to have a contingent of Gaunt Hunters, given that small towns were the primary targets for Gaunt attacks.
Major cities, in contrast, rarely had to deal with Gaunts.
The dense populations of these urban centers acted as a deterrent, scaring off most Gaunt packs. Even if a small group of Gaunts did manage to attack, the cities were equipped with heavy weaponry and advanced defenses, making Gaunt Hunters unnecessary there.
This starkly contrasted with the dire need for Gaunt Hunters in the smaller, more vulnerable towns.
Ideally, each small town would have around fifty Gaunt Hunters, a number intended to ensure adequate protection against the Gaunt threat. However, the reality was far grimmer. The inherent dangers and heavy responsibilities associated with the job dissuaded many from becoming Gaunt Hunters. The perilous nature of the work, combined with the constant threat of death, resulted in a severe shortage of recruits.
As a result, the numbers in many towns had dwindled alarmingly.
"Only ten?" she repeated her voice barely above a whisper. "That's... alarming… What happens if more Gaunts come?"
"We do our best," Finn said, trying to sound confident. "But it's tough… Every day, we’re stretched thinner,"
Ms. Tori took a deep breath, trying to process the gravity of the situation.
Finn felt a lump in his throat. "I promise, Ms. Tori. I'll do everything I can to stay safe," he said, trying to remind her if his promise mere moments ago.
Ms. Tori wanted to argue with Finn's comment, but deep down, she knew he was somewhat right. The town was struggling—trade had slowed to a trickle, and many residents had moved away. The constant threat of Gaunt attacks made living there increasingly untenable. Even Ms. Tori had considered leaving to ensure Eric’s safety and to give him a chance to grow up in a more stable environment where he could interact with other children and experience the broader world.
However, she couldn’t bring herself to leave.
Her late husband was buried in this town, and even though years had passed since his death, she felt tied to the place where he rested. She had loved this town deeply, and in a way, staying felt like keeping a part of him alive.
Seeing the conflict in her eyes, Finn decided to change the subject. "Hey, why don't I come over for dinner?" he suggested with a soft smile. "I'm sure Eric would be happy to see me after so long,”
Ms. Tori was pulled out of her thoughts by his offer. She smiled, grateful for his willingness to spend his rare day off with them. "That would be lovely, Finn," she said with a quick nod.
They walked together to Ms. Tori's home, a modest three-bedroom house with a large attic. Inside, they found Eric sitting in front of the TV, watching cartoons. Hearing Finn’s voice, Eric turned, his face lighting up with excitement. He jumped out of his seat and ran to give Finn a hug.
Eric was about 11 years old, with brown hair like his deceased father but hazel eyes like his mother. He was wearing a dark black and blue striped shirt, dark gray pants, and black slip-on shoes.
Finn hugged him back, smiling. "I've got some stories to tell over dinner," he said, which made Eric's eyes sparkle with anticipation.
He loved hearing about the world beyond their town, even if it was mostly filled with woods and the ruins of an old world.
Finn then followed Ms. Tori into the kitchen to help prepare dinner. He found what he could and handed the items to her, glad to be of assistance. Ms. Tori thanked him and asked if he could help chop vegetables, which he was more than happy to do.
As they worked side by side, Ms. Tori glanced at Finn, her expression a mix of gratitude and concern. "You know, Finn, this town means a lot to me,” she told him “It’s where I built my life with my husband, and it’s where I want Eric to grow up, despite everything,"
Finn nodded, understanding the deep attachment she had. "I get it, Ms. Tori. This place has a lot of memories, and as long as I'm here, I'll do my best to keep it safe for you and Eric,"
Ms. Tori smiled warmly. "I know you will, Finn... Thank you,”
Dinner was a warm, lively affair. Eric listened intently to Finn’s stories, hanging on every word. The laughter and conversation filled the small home, creating a moment of normalcy amidst the chaos of their world. For a brief time, the threats outside seemed distant, and they enjoyed the simple pleasure of being together.
After a few bites, Eric looked at Finn eagerly. "Can you tell me one of your stories, Finn?" he asked, his eyes bright with anticipation.
Finn nodded, swallowing a mouthful of food. "Well, a couple of days ago, I was out with two or three other Hunters, we had just finished fighting off a few Gaunts, once they were dealt with, we decided to explore the area since it was the site of an old abandoned amusement park,” he began. “Some of the rides were still standing, though most were broken and destroyed, it was interesting to see the tech they used to have back then," Finn recounted.
Eric's eyes widened with excitement. "Wow! That's awesome!" he exclaimed.
Finn grinned. "It was pretty cool, but it’s nothing compared to some of the parks I saw in Salton Lake City! Those places are amazing,"
Eric's eyes gleamed at the mention of the nearby city. "Man, I want to go there someday!" he said enthusiastically. "Maybe when I start my training to be a Gaunt Hunter," he added with a big smile.
Finn chuckled. "So, you want to be a Gaunt Hunter, huh?" he asked. "You think you’ve got what it takes?"
Eric nodded vigorously. "Uh-huh! I know I can be a Gaunt Hunter! I bet I can even be better than you!" he declared, pointing at Finn.
Finn raised an eyebrow, amused. "Oh really?" he said. "Who's to say I'm not the best of the best, huh?"
Eric gave him a smug smirk. "Because if you were the best Hunter, you'd have already gotten rid of all the Gaunts!" he said confidently.
Finn chuckled. "Well, you got me there," he admitted. "But hey, if you think you can be the best and get rid of all the Gaunts, then I say go for it, dude."
Eric chuckled and resumed eating, his enthusiasm undimmed. Ms. Tori watched the two with a fond smile, marveling at the brotherly bond between them. It warmed her heart to see how close they had become. She knew that Finn cherished this connection just as much as Eric did, especially since Finn had grown up without a family of his own, raised in the local orphanage.
She recalled those early days when a young Finn would walk into the bakery, clutching a few coins. His eyes would light up with wonder at the sight of the treats and goodies lining the shelves. Something about him had touched her heart, and she began offering him free treats for him and the other orphans whenever he visited. Her late husband had also taken a liking to Finn, treating him like the son they never had. When Finn decided to become a Gaunt Hunter, it was her husband who had helped him prepare for the rigorous training, getting him into shape and offering constant encouragement.
After her husband's death, it was Finn who helped her grieve and find the strength to carry on. She had felt terrible about leaning on him during such a hard time, knowing he had his own sadness to deal with, yet he remained steadfast and strong. He had been there for her and for Eric, helping the young boy understand their loss and navigate the difficult times that followed.
She was truly grateful to have Finn in her life.
Suddenly, Finn's phone vibrated insistently in his pocket. He quickly reached for it and saw a text message from work. He opened it, dreading what it might say.
[~Finn, we need you tonight. Jon and Gary quit out of the blue, so we need someone to fill in.~]
Finn sighed, frustration bubbling up inside him. 'Great, now we're down to eight Hunters,' he thought. 'And Jon and Gary were both my age and in better shape than the veterans at the station.'
Ms. Tori noticed the change in his expression and knew immediately what it meant. "Does duty call, Finn?" she asked gently.
Finn nodded, his expression weary. "Yeah, looks like Jon and Gary quit. They need me to cover tonight."
Ms. Tori sighed, placing a comforting hand on his arm. "I'm sorry, Finn. I know how much you were looking forward to some time off."
"It's alright," Finn said, forcing a smile. "I knew it was a long shot anyway. The town needs all the help it can get."
Eric looked up, concern etched on his young face. "Do you have to go, Finn?"
Finn ruffled the boy's hair affectionately. "Yeah, buddy. Duty calls. But I'll be back, and we’ll have more stories to share. I promise."
Ms. Tori gave him a supportive nod. "Just promise us you'll stay safe, Finn."
"I will," Finn assured her. He stood up, preparing to leave. "Thanks for dinner, Ms. Tori. It was great, as always."
As he left the warm, comforting atmosphere of Ms. Tori's home and headed out into the cold night, Finn felt a renewed sense of purpose. Despite the exhaustion and the ever-present danger, he knew he had to keep fighting. For the town, for Eric, and for the memory of the man who had helped him become who he was.
Once at the station, Finn entered and immediately spotted Dick Cortez, a veteran Gaunt Hunter who had been safeguarding the town for as long as Finn could remember. Dick, now in his 50s, had graying hair, deep-set wrinkles, and perpetually tired eyes. He was wearing the standard-issue armor that all Gaunt Hunters received, though each Hunter was allowed to customize their armor with different colors and modifications.
Dick's armor consisted of a high-collar black shirt beneath a modified, pure black chest plate that covered his upper abdomen, along with similarly-colored bracers. Both the chest plate and bracers were trimmed with white and featured matching shoulder pads. He also wore gloves with small metal plating on the fingers, dark navy jeans, black and white metal knee pads, and dark brown boots.
Dick noticed Finn and offered a small smile. "Heya, Finn," he greeted.
"Hey yourself, Dick," Finn replied with a nod.
"Sorry about having to bring you in on your day off," Dick said, his tone genuinely apologetic.
Finn walked over to his locker, where his armor and weapons were stored. He glanced at Dick and shrugged, giving a small smile. "It's alright, Dick. I understand why, and I'm not angry—well, not at you, but at those two," Finn said, referring to Jon and Gary.
Dick nodded in understanding. "Trust me, I'm disappointed in them too, but I can see why they left so suddenly," he said.
Finn nodded back, opening his locker to reveal his armor. His armor was similar to Dick's but differed in color and the clothing underneath. Finn wore his usual attire beneath the armor, which consisted of a dark brown chest plate trimmed with black, matching bracers, shoulder pads, knee pads, and gloves.
He took the armor out and quickly dressed, securing the pieces in place. He then grabbed his Glock and its holster, strapping it around his waist, and added his machete in its sheath. Once fully suited up, he turned to Dick with a raised brow. "Which side of town am I patrolling tonight?"
"Outer wall, west side," Dick stated, his voice firm.
Finn nodded, mentally preparing himself for the task ahead. The west side of the outer wall was notorious for Gaunt activity, a hotspot for their attacks. It was going to be a long night.
As he headed out, Dick called after him, "Stay sharp out there, Finn. We can't afford to lose any more good Hunters."
Finn turned back and gave a resolute nod. "I will, Dick. See you in the morning."
Once outside the city, Finn couldn't help but take in the grim sight of the outer wall. It was marred with deep scratches and chips from relentless Gaunt attacks, stained with the dark green goo that dripped from their slavering mouths, and speckled with bloodstains that would never fully wash away. The stark contrast between this battered exterior and the inner walls of the town was striking. Inside, the walls were adorned with chalk drawings from children and vibrant murals from the town's artists. These cheerful images served as a reminder of what he was protecting, and why he had chosen to become a Gaunt Hunter in the first place.
Reaching the west side of the wall, Finn began his patrol, moving back and forth to ensure no Gaunts were attempting to scale the barrier. For now, the night was quiet, and he hoped it would remain that way.
As he walked his beat, his thoughts drifted back to dinner with Eric and the boy's enthusiastic declaration about becoming a Gaunt Hunter. While part of him felt honored by Eric's admiration, another part was deeply troubled. The life of a Hunter was dangerous and filled with horrors that no one should have to witness, let alone a young boy like Eric.
Finn's mind flashed back to a particularly gruesome memory from a past patrol. He and another Hunter had been called to assist in repelling a large pack of Gaunts. They had rushed to the scene, only to find their comrades dead, slaughtered in horrific ways. One Hunter's skull had been cracked open, with Gaunts eating from it as if it were a bowl of grapes. Another Hunter, still alive, was being disemboweled and devoured. Finn could never forget the man's agonized expression as he watched his own entrails being torn apart and consumed. The sight had been so revolting that Finn had vomited on the spot, paralyzed by shock until his partner snapped him back to reality.
Then there were the stories he had heard from veterans like Dick. Dick once recounted an incident where a Hunter had been speared to death by multiple Gaunts. They hadn't even eaten him; they had just impaled him repeatedly, leaving his body to rot in the woods for days. Such tales highlighted the Gaunts' malevolence and complete lack of empathy.
Finn shuddered at the memories. He didn't want Eric to face such nightmares. The boy was full of life and potential, and Finn couldn't bear the thought of him enduring the same horrors he had.
Since that harrowing incident and the chilling story Dick had shared, Finn had sworn to himself that he wouldn't meet a similar fate. He vowed to go out fighting, to not end up like those other hunters. He couldn't bear the thought of becoming another victim, especially after what happened to his sister.
The sudden howl nearby jolted Finn out of his grim thoughts. The sound was close—too close. Instantly alert, he scanned his surroundings. Just then, something whizzed past his face, slicing his cheek. He turned to see a makeshift arrow embedded in the wall. Spinning back around, his heart sank as he saw ten Gaunts emerging from the tree line.
"Shit!" Finn cursed, his eyes widening in horror. This was a dire situation. He quickly drew his Glock and aimed at the advancing creatures. Before he could fire, a sharp pain seared through his left side. He glanced down to see a small dagger lodged in his torso.
'What the hell?' Finn thought, bewildered. 'Did one of the Gaunts throw this?'
"Sorry, but it's nothing personal," a strange voice echoed through the darkness.
Finn's gaze snapped forward, and he saw a figure emerging from the shadows. They wore a long black cloak that seemed to envelop them completely, giving the eerie impression that they were gliding across the ground rather than walking.
The figure approached him, their face obscured by the cloak's hood. "My, you are a handsome young man," they purred in a sultry tone. "Such a fucking shame that my babies must eat. We've been on the run, and they haven't had a chance to rest and eat until we saw you." They giggled, a chilling sound that sent shivers down Finn's spine.
Fear gripped Finn, but he managed to look up at the cloaked figure with a raised brow. "W-Who are you?" he stammered, his voice wavering.
The figure tilted their head slightly as if amused by his question. "Who am I?" they echoed. "I am their mother, their caretaker. I ensure they survive, even if it means feeding them humans like you." The figure leaned closer, and Finn could just make out a twisted smile beneath the hood.
Finn's mind raced. He needed to think of a way out, and fast. The Gaunts were closing in, and he was injured and at a severe disadvantage. Summoning his remaining strength, he clutched his Glock tighter and tried to steady his breath. He couldn't let this be the end.
The figure's giggle echoed eerily through the night, sending a shiver down Finn's spine. "Oh! Now I'm regretting stabbing you," they remarked with a twisted amusement. "It's not every day a handsome young man asks me my name, you know? Most prefer a no-name policy." Their tone was cryptic, and Finn couldn't shake the feeling of unease that settled in his gut. "While I would love to give you my name in far better circumstances, I'm afraid I don't have the time," they continued, their words dripping with urgency. "As I said, we're on the run from a rather unpleasant girl."
Finn's confusion only deepened. The figure's response didn't provide any clarity, leaving him even more perplexed. As the figure began to back away, Finn's eyes widened in shock as the Gaunts beside them moved in unison. ‘She can... control them!?’ he realized, disbelief washing over him.
"Go ahead, babies... EAT!" the figure commanded, her voice chillingly calm.
With a sickening lurch in his stomach, Finn watched as the Gaunts surged forward, their hunger palpable in the air. Determination surged within him, driving him to fight against the odds stacked against him. Ignoring the searing pain from his wound, he raised his gun and fired at the approaching Gaunts. Despite his efforts, only one was hit, and even then, it didn't slow down.
Finn gritted his teeth, preparing for the inevitable close-quarter battle with the monsters. "Come on!" he growled defiantly. "I'm right here!"
The Gaunts closed in, their predatory instincts driving them forward. Just as they leaped toward him, ready to strike, something unexpected occurred.
Thorny vines erupted from the ground, snaking around the Gaunts with incredible speed. Finn's eyes widened in astonishment as the vines ensnared the creatures, halting their advance. The vines twisted and contorted, slamming the Gaunts into the ground with brutal force, tearing at their flesh and rendering them helpless.
" Damn! How did that bitch already find us!?" the figure exclaimed, frustration evident in their voice.
Finn's gaze followed the figure's gaze as a new figure emerged from the shadows.
Her appearance was striking, to say the least. With a spiky red Mohawk and piercing red eyes devoid of any white, she exuded an aura of fierce determination. Smudged mascara framed her intense gaze, adding to her wild and untamed appearance. Her lips were painted black, a stark contrast to her fiery red hair and eyes. Clad in a black leather crop top vest that accentuated her slim, athletic frame, she exuded an air of defiance. Arm bands encircled her wrists and biceps, resembling the wraps worn by boxers, hinting at her combat prowess. Around her neck, she wore a large choker, adding to her rebellious demeanor. Her attire was completed by tight leather pants and high-heeled platform boots, giving her an imposing presence.
"Found you, ya freaking cunt!" she spat, her voice laced with venom.
The cloaked figure retreated, increasing the distance between them and the girl. "Ugh, don't you ever give up?" they retorted, their tone tinged with irritation.
The girl leveled a fierce glare at the figure. "After the shit you've done!? I ain't letting you go!" she declared, her voice dripping with disdain.
The figure let out a mocking giggle. "Is that so?" they taunted, gesturing toward Finn who lay wounded on the ground. "Not even to save his life?"
The girl's gaze shifted to Finn, her expression softening momentarily as she registered his injuries. Before she could react, a shrill howl pierced the air, drawing their attention back to the figure.
"What the hell did you do!?" the girl demanded, her voice trembling with rage.
"Oh, just called in a few friends over for dinner," the figure replied casually.
"You bitch!" the girl seethed.
With a swift motion, she thrust her hand forward, summoning a massive vine with thorns protruding from its surface. The vine lunged toward the figure, but they evaded the attack with agile grace, darting away through the forest.
"Have fun~!" they taunted, their laughter echoing through the trees as they disappeared into the darkness.
Driven by determination, the girl pursued the figure, her footsteps echoing through the forest. However, her path was suddenly obstructed as a horde of Gaunts emerged from the shadows, blocking her way with menacing snarls and bared teeth.
"Get out of my way!" the girl cried, her voice ringing with determination.
In an instant, a smaller thorned vine shot out of the ground with startling speed, piercing through the approaching Gaunts like a bullet. Lifted into the air by the force of the vine, the creatures were hurled aside, crashing into trees with bone-crushing force.
As more Gaunts emerged from the shadows behind her, four shots echoed through the air. Finn's aim was true, striking the advancing Gaunts and causing them to writhe in agony as they fell to the ground. The girl glanced back to see Finn's timely intervention, offering a silent nod of acknowledgment before focusing her attention back on the remaining threats. Summoning more vines, she ensnared the creatures, tearing them apart with ruthless efficiency.
Satisfied that the immediate danger had passed, the girl turned back towards Finn, who was now sitting against the wall, applying pressure to his wound.
Bending down beside him, the girl flashed a smile, revealing sharp triangular teeth reminiscent of a shark. "Nice shooting there, dude. Really saved my ass back there," she remarked.
Finn managed a weak chuckle. "I should be thanking you. If you hadn't shown up, I'd be Gaunt food," he admitted.
"Let's call it even, then, eh?" she suggested. "What's your name?" she inquired.
Finn met her gaze, taking a moment to catch his breath before responding. "Finn, Finn Tresscoat," he introduced himself. Curiosity burning in his eyes, he posed a question in return. "Who are you? No... What are you?" he asked, unable to shake off the mystery surrounding her.
The girl maintained her enigmatic smile, meeting his gaze with her striking red eyes. "The name's Rachel Rose," she revealed. "As for what I am, well... I can answer that once you're all patched up," she added cryptically.
Summoning another vine, Rachel gently lifted Finn to his feet, supporting him as they began to make their way back towards town. With each step, Finn's mind buzzed with questions, the mysteries surrounding Rachel and her abilities swirling in his thoughts. Who was the cloaked figure? How did they control the Gaunts? And most pressing of all, who—or what—was Rachel, and how was she able to command those vines with such ease?
As they walked back toward town, Finn couldn't help but feel the weight of exhaustion settle upon him, both physically and mentally. His thoughts swirled with questions about the events that had just transpired—about Rachel, the cloaked figure, and the unsettling abilities they both possessed. Yet, amidst the chaos of his mind, one pressing question emerged, demanding attention above all else.
'When the hell am I gonna get another day off? Because I can sure as hell use it right now...!' Finn thought to himself, his weariness palpable.
Rachel, walking beside him, seemed to sense his inner turmoil. Casting him a sidelong glance, she offered a reassuring smile. "Don't worry, Finn. You'll have your chance to rest soon," she assured him, her voice carrying a note of empathy.
Finn managed a weary smile in return, grateful for the reassurance. Despite the gravity of their situation, her words offered a glimmer of hope amidst the uncertainty that loomed over them…

Cannibal had made up his mind a few moves ago: If this kid doesn't swing this chair, doesn't absolutely fuckin' nail me, then he's getting taxed, and big time.
The kid's name is Rob Small, and he's supposedly some hot-shot rookie fresh out of the local school. But Cannibal doesn't get it. Everything about the kid bugs him, right down to the name. The sport lost something when people stopped calling themselves ridiculous things, like 'The Big' this, or 'Ultimate' that.
And besides, it's a dirty trick. It's too easy, just like everything the new kids are doing. It's almost too real. And the audience doesn't want real. They only think they do. Cannibal knows this better than just about anyone.
Cannibal feels that he's been carrying them both since the bell. Again, it's this new, soft shit. Flipping, and posing, and nobody wants a single scratch on their pretty mugs. The word fake doesn't exist in this business, but as Rob winds up for another one of his little tricks, all flare, no impact, you can kind of see where people get that idea.
Cannibal takes a knee, then another, but wide, because that's how you take a real hit. Rob pulls the chair back.
"Don't fuck this up," Cannibal says.
The blade of the chair just grazes Cannibal's eyebrow, opening two inches of scar tissue, and perforation.
This is good. Unintentional, but good.
The crowd isn't theirs yet, but the stream of blood pulls a few people forward and gets them almost leaning into the next row down.
The blood is good, no doubt about it. But the sound of skull on steel would've lit them on fire, and that's just science.
Rob moves to the ropes, taking a squeaky-clean moment to acknowledge the crowd. He waves his arms around like he's leading a marching band or something, and it "earns" him a small pop of recognition.
Here's the problem- there's no story here. No tale of the tape. Just some rookie nobody cares about, and an aging prick that people care even less about. This is when every move is supposed to count. Not just every move, but every transition, every facial expression too. The kid's athletic, sure. But so is everybody. He doesn't have the rhythm yet, and his nose is too straight. And Cannibal is tired of carrying this match.
Cannibal starts back on his feet, quickly, counter-intuitively, like a jump scare. The kid's finally connecting with the crowd now, lifting the chair like some intramural trophy. But it's too little, too late, and Cannibal sees his opportunity.
First Cannibal snatches the chair, up, and behind Rob, then steadies his giant, calloused fingers with a well-timed exhale. He whirls Rob around, ready or not, and drives the lip of the chair into the liver side of his waist, which folds him directly in two. The crowd chatters a bit, but he isn't finished.
Cannibal throws the chair less than a foot away, then sets up the move that's going to win the crowd.
He didn't invent the move, not even close. It's not even particularly uncommon. But he made his name off this move. Here's some wisdom from the old school: There are precious few people who make money from this business by looking good. And if you can't look good, you need to look vicious.
Cannibal hooks his arms under Rob's armpits, then wrenches both arms so violently that the triceps almost touch. Operating on pure panic, and instinct, Rob's legs unwind, independently searching for a better position, but never finding it.
"Hey, easy up there," Rob says from somewhere near Cannibal's midsection, but he may as well be speaking to the mat now.
Cannibal wrenches Rob's arms again, but this time the triceps touch for one moment of searing pain. He does this half for show, and half as a warning to keep quiet during his finisher. He looks out at the crowd, and their features form for the first time since he entered the arena. Before then, they were nothing, just a wallpaper pattern of merch, and facial hair. There's a difference between the individual faces in the first row, and the voice that fills the venue, and guides your match.
A single fan can be wrong, but a crowd never is.
But Cannibal takes some of that power back now, and he's staring at the crowd, the entity, right in the face, starting with the first row.
The first few faces that he locks eyes with are rabid, their eyes wild with anticipation. They're gesticulating wildly, like they can't believe, or can't wait for what's coming next. The next face is a little boy who shies away and looks at his dad for help. He scans about a seating section and a half, screaming spittle-seasoned insults along the way.
Mid-taunt, before anybody can count it off, Cannibal hits his finisher, The Flesh Eater.
Cannibal pushes off the toes of his boots, about a foot into the air, bringing Rob's craned arms with him. That's why you really need to wrench. With Rob feeling real pain at each arm's socket, he has no choice but to sell. At the height of his jump, Cannibal shoots his legs straight out in a wide V, unclenching his ass for a nice, cushioned landing.
Rob's face hits the chair a microsecond before Cannibal's legs, and underside absorb the remainder of the blow. It's enough to make the aluminum ring out into the high warehouse ceiling and put a pretty little face-sized dent in the seat.
The crowd reacts with screams, with horror, with finally, some fucking emotion.
Cannibal climbs to his feet, while the lights flick on-and-off, on-and-off in Rob's eyes. Rob props himself on his palms, and knees, finding the floor he wasn't even looking for.
But he loses it again with a big, booted punt to the ribs. The crowd boos now from every direction.
This is good. It means that right now, they hate Cannibal. It means that when they go home, they'll remember how much they hated him. It means that he did his job.
Cannibal takes a victory lap around the ring while Rob writhes in presumably authentic agony. Cannibal leans over the top rope, pointing at the front row again, dissolving the boundary between them. He's screaming at a fan. He may even be screaming at one hundred fans when he notices a face that shouldn't be in attendance.
Was it section B? He looks over but can't find the face anymore.
He darts his eyes wildly, unfocusing them so that the crowd transforms into nothing but eyebrows, and merch, approval, and disgust.
He glances back toward Section B, right around where he thinks he saw the face, right as Rob crawls from behind, hooks his leg, and rolls him into a three count.
Both men roll onto their backs; Rob, because the pain from his neck, down to his waist puts him there. Cannibal, because he's defeated and confused.
Had he really seen that face? He knows he hadn't. One, because that would make no sense. And two, because, and he only saw it for a second, but the face was significantly younger than it should have been. About 20 years younger. Which would put it right around a time that he doesn't think, or speak about. Cannibal decides that he didn't see the face after all. He doesn't believe in ghosts. Especially not ghosts that haven't even died.
***
Cannibal collects his pay, and the doc plugs up his gash, in that order. He's got a show in a bigger market tomorrow, so the butterfly stitches just need to hold until then.
He unlaces his boots in the parking lot, then trades them for some once-white Adidas from the back seat of his gray Toyota Camry. Then he thinks about the ghost again. The one that he didn't see, the one that isn't even dead as far as he knows.
He stands still in his untied sneakers and thumbs a few reps through his social pages. If he had died, the news would have picked it up by now. An old friend would have even messaged,
"Here if you need to talk." Or, "It's not your fault"
Something like that, anyway. But Cannibal doesn't see anything, no messages, neither of their names gracing, or disgracing any headlines. And besides, that doesn't exactly solve the issue at hand. Maybe the kids are right, he thinks. I've officially taken too many blows to the skull.
For twenty years, Cannibal has always driven to the next city, or the next stop on the road, the night prior. Tonight, he checks into the nearest hotel/rest stop that connects to the main road. It's only about a four-hour drive, three if he can avoid traffic, and the need to piss. He doesn't even need to check into the venue until 5 pm. That's ample time, he decides for the first time in his career.
"I just need a bed and a shower", Cannibal tells the night clerk, a pimply boy who has deepened his voice since the exchange intensified.
He's the only employee, except for a few maids pushing yellow baskets around the parking lot, and a few unofficially affiliated girls prowling around from the local skin bar.
The boy wants to avoid a hassle. He knows that the nearest signs of life are the old warehouse a few exits down, and the sheriff's office even further.
"I'm sorry sir," he begins, and he's really using diaphragm now, speaking to the back of the house, "But all's we got left tonight is the honeymoon suite."
"So it's $30 extra for a dirty mirror on the ceiling, and a vase full of plastic fuckin' roses?"
The clerk winces at the swear, then gleams over Cannibal's right shoulder into the mostly empty parking lot. Cannibal gives the kid his best mean mug, the same one that he'd shoot toward a new opponent or a crowd that hates his guts. The quiet moment lingers, and then, wouldn't you guess it, just like that, thirty dollars gets shaved off the tab.
Cannibal tosses his duffel onto the frilly red sheets, then rolls off his sneakers as his reflections oblige in both the ceiling and wall-length mirrors. He sits on the bed, then wiggles his toes a bit generating a sound like gravel crunching in a driveway. He wants to get up and shower off some of the dried blood that's clotted his hair to his face, but the world rocks, and spins, and he lays down and falls asleep without even killing the bedside lamp.
He can't remember the ramp, the fans, or the bell. He can't remember the promos, or what angle he's supposed to be taking. But judging from the dark cherry splatted canvas, and the ringing in ears, it's been a fuckin' barn-burner so far. He looks directly ahead, at the high, pipe-laden ceiling, and realizes he's on his back. A boot lands next to his head, then another. Maybe it's the high-intensity discharge lights that are stinging his eyes, maybe he's still rattled from whatever move put him on his ass, but as his opponent steps over him, he can't seem at all to make out their face.
Whoever his opponent is, he begins to pick him up by the hair, and that's when Cannibal notices that the abstract art on the mat has mostly come from the back of his head. Drops of blood race down his opponents wrists, and pool near his elbows. Cannibal is bent over looking down at the mat, at his opponent's standard-issue black boots, and at the fresh coat of bright red, which will soon dry darker.
His opponent cranks his arms clumsily but with intensity. He can feel his blood greasing his opponent's grip, not allowing for any real traction. Then his opponent's knees square up, then bend, and Cannibal realizes. "Hey, that's my fucking move!" he says, or tries to say, but his opponent's airborne, and then so is he.
Usually, there's a nice thud when you hit the mat, but not this time. This time it sounds more like a series of wet pops, like cracking your knuckles underwater. Cannibal tries to roll over and assess the situation. Then he tries to roll over again.
Oh. Shit.
He's face down on the mat, and he intuits, rather than feels his opponent hurry off him, and in that same foggy way, he can feel the crowd. The beast with one thousand eyes is silent, but it isn't bored. It's murmuring, but with a sort of upward inflection, like it's asking him a question can't answer. Now a referee rolls him over. Cannibal awakens in a panic and tries to jump out of bed, away from the red sheets, but his body is uncooperative. His head lolls at an unnatural angle toward the mirrored wall. He can move his eyes, but nothing else.
He wants to scream for the pimply-faced boy or one of the night girls, but nothing comes out of his mouth. He can see his reflection, the collapsed muscles in his face, and the pool of spit that's collected on the pillow by his ear. The parts of the bed directly under him appear a darker red than the rest of the sheets. His eyes roll wildly and take in different parts of the same wall that he's frozen on. He can barely feel his breathing, but he knows that it's sporadic and shallow. He keeps rolling his eyes, searching for a modicum of control over his own body. And that's when he sees him again.
The ceiling mirror casts its reflection into its wall counterpart, and with the furthest strain of his eyeball muscles, Cannibal can just barely recognize him. He's a little older than he looked in the crowd earlier, but it's unmistakable this time. Fucking ghosts. Ghosts who aren't even dead yet. From somewhere behind his eyes Cannibal feels the onset of rage.
His eyes blink involuntarily, and a well of tears are pushed, and guided down into the spit-soaked pillow. He imagines himself rocking forward and tries to send this signal to a part of his body that doesn't exist. He imagines it again. He tries to kick a leg, throw an elbow, he'll settle for anything. He sends that signal in random intervals like he's trying to surprise his own faculties. He "throws" another elbow.
Except this time his arm releases from his side and soars out in front of him. His body follows, and he feels a vile concoction of fear, and relief as he falls off the bed, with arms and legs too weak to break his fall. He narrowly avoids contact with the corner of the nightstand and lands with a thud on the carpeted floor. He wiggles his toes, and the sound of tires on gravel rings out into nothing. ***
After regaining some strength, Cannibal uses his recently renewed limb strength to tear through every creak, and crack of the hotel room. He finds nobody in the room, nobody in the mirrors, just himself and his aching fucking cranium. Exhausted, but no longer tired, Cannibal grabs his duffel and checks out of the hotel room by tossing his key in the general direction of the unsuspecting clerk. He tears his car door open, then drives off with only half a plan in mind.
The morning sun breaks as Cannibal pulls up to a red light, and re-reads his early morning text to the promoter, 'Can't make it tonight. I'll make it up to you somehow.'
He's never backed out of a show before, and he knows that he'll have to confront that fact soon, but right now, it doesn't seem to matter. He needs to see him. He cobbles his route out of headlines and news stories that he manages to search up between red lights and stop signs.
Where are they now? 6 Wrestlers Whose Careers Ended In Tragedy The Real Story of Ernie "The Eagle" Samson Former World Champion Contender in Hospice After 20-Year Battle
Cannibals mind races as single sentences fire out at him like shrapnel. He scrolls past his own names, both gimmick and government a few times over. He feels the rage, and tears form behind his eyes again.
You weren't the only one that lost your legacy that day, you prick.
After twenty years he knows these roads well. Well enough to cruise over to the hospice unassisted by a map, or GPS. He acknowledges his thoughts as his motions become routine.
Ernie Samson was poised to be the next big thing back before all the wrestling territories got swallowed up by the Big Guy in the corporate machine. He was a handsome bastard, and a city man with the strength of a farm boy. He could talk fear into the crowd without raising his voice, and he pulled women who didn't know and didn't care what he did for a nightly living. Cannibal hated him, but in a brotherly way that was steeped in admiration. Even in those times, Cannibal was more brutish and uglier than everyone in the locker room. It was a stroke of momentary genius when some otherwise dipshit promoter first suggested that they pair up. Some sort of beauty and brawn type gimmick. The monster and his mouthpiece.
And you know what? It worked. People ate that shit right up. Cannibal chewed through his opponents with ferocity, while Ernie dazzled the crowd with his mixture of strong style, flips, and tricks. They melted the imaginary territory perimeters and became shooting stars in every market they played. Men paid off their tabs at the bar, and Ernie was gracious enough to send some trim Cannibal's way every now and again. It was a nice system, comfortable even.
Then that dipshit promoter had another bright idea. The team was ready to break up.
The way he described it, they'd take all that heat they had amassed together, and cover double the ground. This storyline was a natural, mostly because it was real. What the promoter was saying, in his dickhead way, was that Cannibal had served his purpose. He'd put the real star in place for his meteoric rise. Cannibal looked at where his career was, and how far it had come, and he agreed. They'd go out in one final bloodbath of a match, and defeat their current rivals, The Maniacs. Then Cannibal would attack Ernie, severing their ties, and launching their individual careers. Cut, dry.
Right up until the end, that match stands in Cannibal's memory as his finest work. If he'd been vicious before, he was rabid in this match. The hits were real, the emotions were high, and the crowd invested in every last pectoral twitch. After nearly half an hour of slogging and bruising, Cannibal hit his finisher and covered his opponent to the tune of twenty-something-thousand screaming fans. As the three-count fell, the crowd hit a decibel that he'd never heard before. They were screaming so loud, that it almost dampened in volume, and became a whisper in his ears.
The Maniacs had done their jobs well, bloodying and bruising Cannibal and Ernie for a gruesome glamor shot that would make the following day's paper. That image, of Ernie raising Cannibal's arm before the inevitable turn, would haunt almost every article written about either of them from that day forward.
Soaked in the moment, and each other's blood, Ernie hoisted Cannibal's arm, and they spun the ring, facing every single fan in attendance. Normally you'd wait for a break in the volume before the next big moment, but this crowd had no intention of quieting down. They faced each other, and Ernie mouthed the words.
"You ready?"
To this day Cannibal doesn't exactly know what went wrong. First, he felt sadness. Then he felt anger. He realized that the cheers wouldn't end for Ernie, but there was a very real possibility that this was his own last big pop. He went ahead as planned. First with an absolutely brutal kick to the midsection, which softened Ernie's abs into dough. Ernie let out a real, dry cough as the crowd's cheers morphed into shock and confusion. Then he cranked his arms, clumsily, but with intensity. Ernie's arms were slick with blood, and Cannibal couldn't sink in his hooks correctly. His legs shot out gracelessly, and rather than hearing the cushioned thud of his own ass, all he heard was a sick, wet pop.
Cannibal notes that he is about one exit from the hospice, and shakes his head vigorously as if to erase his thoughts. The exit approaches, and he cuts in deftly. He is immediately greeted by a green, bustling town, in a decent Midwestern neighborhood.
He cruises toward the hospice, passing a few young couples, and their church-clothed children. Bells chime nearby, and a dog emits a medium-sized bark from a nearby public park.
Cannibal glances in his rear-view as he changes lanes. Ernie is seated behind the middle console, smirking, but with no joy in his eyes. Cannibal tries to scream, but can't.
With the wheel slightly angled for his turn, Cannibal cruises subtly across lanes, onto the sidewalk, then into the park.
The first few couples dive out of the way with synchronized, but inharmonious shrieks. A young man pushes his wife and child to the ground, and the driver's side front wheel crunches, and shatters his ankle. The next few people aren't so lucky.
A group of friends sprawled across a picnic blanket snap around toward the source of the commotion just in time to greet the Toyota Camry's fender. Cannibal's eyes dart between his windshield and the rearview where Ernie sits smirking. He sees a young woman snatched from his sight line and hears a gunshot of a pop as the back of her skull smacks against some concrete. Tears roll down Cannibal's face as he wills his arms, legs, or fucking anything to move. The litter of bodies test the car's shocks, as the wheels find their way over strange terrains of bone and flesh. Then, a street lamp.
Cannibal's forehead smacks against his wheel a millisecond before the airbags deploy. He flinches, and his arms twitch as the bag chafes his nose and brow. He has regained control of his movement, if only slightly. He kicks open the door but does not face the trail of mayhem that succumbed to his vehicle. Instead, he realizes that he is just one block away from the hospice. With the remaining screams a comfortable distance behind him, he half runs, half stumbles to the reception desk.
People react to Cannibal's arrival with appropriate confusion and terror. The butterfly stitches have ceased to hold, and a rigid pattern of blood trails him as he staggers across the linoleum tile.
"Sir, do you need help?"
"Samson. I need Ernie fucking Samson."
He peers over the desk and sees a directory of sorts, like a cheat sheet of hospice patients, and their assigned rooms. He leaks blood from his brow over the counter, and onto the sheet, and the seated receptionist recoils with disgust as he snatches and reads it.
Ernie Samson 211
Cannibal marches now on sturdy feet to the nearest stairwell. A small security guard attempts to stand in his way, but Cannibal dwarfs his face with his gigantic palm, and smashes it into the drywall behind him, eliciting a collective gasp from the lobby waiting room. He kicks open the stairwell door and drags himself up the single flight of stairs onto the landing. Then he kicks open the second door.
Nurses gasp and take a step back as he emerges from the stairwell, ferocity emblazoned across his face and written in his scar tissue. He observes the direction in which the numbered rooms flow and stomps toward Room 211.
Half a dozen people are stood outside the room, with hospital staff accounting for only two of them.
"Bradley?" an older woman asks, as Cannibal tears past her, and into the room.
Inside the room is a white sheet spread over a series of lumps on a lightly inclined bed. A young man is seated near the side of the bed where the railing has been temporarily removed. His eyes are bloodshot, and his cheeks are damp.
"Brad, what the fuck is-" he begins to say.
Cannibal lifts his leg and boots the man right off the green cushioned chair. Then he turns to the white lumps and tears the blanket off.
Ernie's face appears as it did in his back seat but without the rigid smirk. The muscles in his face are weak and sag as if they'd collapsed several years before his death. His dull eyes are still open, still staring at Cannibal.
"Ernie, you fucking prick," Cannibal starts, "You fucking prick, you get back here right now! You gonna fuck with me? You gonna fuck with me, Ernie? I fucking made you Ernie! We both fucking died that day!"
A small militia of security guards pour into the room, and it takes every last one of them to restrain Cannibal. He fights, and squirms as the fattest guard sits on the wide of his back, and pulls his arms. Cannibal thrashes and screams like an animal as he is restrained. He bashes his face into the tiled floor, leaving increasingly large spots of blood at the sight of impact. The fat guard applies some pressure to his hold, as small, wet pop emits from Cannibal's back.
There's no story here. No tale of the tape. Just a has-been wrestler in tomorrow's headlines, and a family mourning a loss that begun two decades prior. The crowd of mourners gasp and scream as all the fight leaves Cannibal's body at once. Then a woman breaks into sobs. She used to know Bradley Hughes. The real Cannibal. But nobody wants real.
They only think they do.

Blood Clot pt2
I'm out of the bathroom and am back in my car. I’ll pick up where I left off. If you haven't read the first part click here.
Feeling slightly more awake, I changed and disposed of all my used napkins after putting them in a trash bag. I had no idea what to do or think, especially since I had work the next day. Hafiz died to protect me from that demon and it did nothing. I drove into an abandoned parking lot and sobbed. My entire life was falling apart because of a single awful entity. My future now seemed impossible because of a grotesque monster who hated me for putting in effort to live. I couldn't believe what was happening and since my coping skills are admittedly pretty awful, I just distracted myself by finishing my notes. Eating the rest of my cashews and straining my eyes to read the page. I could have driven to the library but I had a limit on gas money.
I wasn't able to sleep for the rest of the night. The thought of seeing Tolc again plagued my mind every time my body started to rest. Every noise and visual kept me on edge. I prayed constantly, despite wishing I had a more proper environment to do so. That along with remembering the Quran’s words on perseverance kept me sane. When morning came I decided to bite the bullet and buy supplies. Stocking up on gauze and tissues. It was a hard call to make as the money I spent on the supplies was originally designated for food. Sure, not all of my food budget was spent on it but it was just enough to make me doubt my choice.
When I got back to campus I tried to act normal, but everyone could tell something was wrong. The dirty looks I got from classmates were exasperated as they stared at my wrapped hand. Their gaze was never one of sympathy, but disgust. I tried to ignore it but I couldn't help but overhear a girl mutter about how she thought I attacked someone. All the while I bit down on my lip to stifle a whine of pain. The craters in my hand were now inching closer to my knuckles. A palpable sting persisted each minute, bordering on insufferable once the layers of my skin grew flaky. I couldn't take the maddening sensation anymore and excused myself to use the restroom, unwrapping the bandage when I got inside.
“Come on,” I whispered through gritted teeth observing my trembling hand. It looked just as bad as it felt.
I grabbed some paper towels and patted my wound down. Finally allowing myself to wail in a mix of pain and relief. Making sure the water was cold, I ran my craters under the sink. I shivered from the temperature and recoiled as I rubbed soap over it. Muttering prayers to myself as the chill liquid slid through the cuts. After half a minute I dried it, laid down a layer of paper towels, and laid out my supplies, frantically cutting and applying the gauze. Rushing to pack my things since I still had a class to return to. As I swooped up my scissors, I heard a familiar voice.
“Woah what’s up with you?”
Instinctively I pointed the scissors in the direction of the voice. A choice I immediately regretted.
“Hey, don’t point that at me! What’s next you’ll run up with a bomb strapped to your chest.”
Chris, smiled, acting like his sad excuse for a joke was funny.
“I’m sorry, you spooked me. I just got done wrapping my hand and used these to cut the bandages.”
I nervously held up my wrapped hand as evidence and he furrowed his brow.
“Yeah, and I’m sure you got that cut from glass and not a blood sacrifice.”
His words completely perplexed me.
“Wait, what?”
“I know what you’re doing, I learned all about your people.”
I took a deep breath, dreading the conversation that was about to follow. Of course, the school’s resident racist conspiracy theorist walked in.
“Respectfully, whatever you think is going here isn't what’s happening. I did get it from glass. My hand split open when I was cleaning up a broken vase yesterday.“
I wanted to tell him that whatever hateful trash he was eating up was untrue, but if I even implied that he’d lose it.
“You’re just using my lie! Which I should expect because that book you worship is full of them!”
I sighed, putting my scissors away.
“I don't see it that way but you can say that if you want.”
I internally cringed at being civil with this man who smelled worse than the blood I just rinsed.
“Look, I’ve seen you around and haven’t said anything but I won’t let you bring your hellish beliefs to this campus like this!”
I averted my eyes and began to walk away.
“Boy, where are you going!” he yelled, pulling me back by my jacket.
Normally I wouldn’t give much attitude but by this point, I was too tired to keep being so docile. Respect is built into me but there’s still a limit.
“Back to class, to write a research paper you’d never read because it has facts.” I snarled, pushing past him and increasing speed.
“God, you’re delusional, you know that!” he angrily spoke without understanding the irony.
Luckily he didn't pursue me for the rest of the day, but the interaction stuck in my mind. Once my classes were done, I was feeling pretty exhausted. The deterioration in my hand had subsided but it was still there, and the lack of caffeine didn't help. When I got to my car I cracked open the second to last can of my emergency energy drinks. I had kept them in a lunch pale in the back pocket of my passenger seat for desperate times, this being one of them. I downed it before waking in, quickly fixing my hair as I entered.
I sat at my desk and checked to make sure the sewing machine was plugged in. Taking a deep breath while reminding myself to stay focused. The first few hours were a blur, I did what I needed to do but the moment I finished a piece it faded from my mind. The only thing I remember being the concerned comments from co-workers about my injury. Sometimes I even forgot what I was doing as I sewed it, needing to check my reference multiple times. Our store is open more than most custom embroidery shops, which is a blessing and a curse. It allows me to get more hours but at the same time, it makes my passion for what I‘m doing diminish. Which I know is what happens when a fun hobby turns into a job, but still. I was starting to get tired of stitching in logos.
The number of customers slowed, leaving me alone at my desk. Reflecting on not only that day but my life. Tolc’s words reverberated in my mind as I stared at my wrapped hand. All this work and I wasn't satisfied. I felt lucky to be alive and fully acknowledged what little privilege I did have, but I wasn't exactly happy. Things could be worse but it was easy to see the ways they could be a lot better. It took me a long time to accept it but in that moment I did. I wasn’t anywhere close to where I wanted to be.
”Maybe, he’s right.” I murmured to myself, struggling to keep my head up. I could feel that my body was moments away from a crash. I checked my phone, realizing that we were minutes from closing, and tugged on my hair to wake myself. I cleaned up my workspace, practically hobbling to my car. The cold hit me as soon as I stepped out. My lips quivered as I sat in the driver's seat. That in tandem with my tiredness made me struggle to hold myself together as I drove into a rest stop parking lot. I zipped up my sweatshirt, breathing into my hands, before turning on the heater.
“Wait,” I uttered, realizing that my blanket was in the trunk. Looking out my window I saw hail begin to fall from the sky.
“Of course,” I groaned, clicking my trunk open and running out. The frigid chunks felt like pebbles getting thrown down on me. I bit my teeth harder with each step, grabbing my blanket before running back in.
Curling up into a ball in my chair with a hefty sigh. I tried to stay up a little longer despite knowing I wouldn't be able to. After ten minutes I found myself slipping from consciousness. My eyelids dropped like the harsh hail from the freezing sky above me. Leaving me lying with the little warmth I had.
“Wow, you look like you haven't felt this shitty in a while, and that’s saying something.” that dreaded voice commented. I had the blanket over my eyes but I could tell he was smiling.
“Whoever told you ducking under the covers would save you from monsters lied.” he chuckled, pulling it off me. Yanking my bandaged hand up to his face.
“It's been a day and you already need gauze? Damn, I forgot how much my bite stings. I haven't done it in a while since I decided to spare your brother from it.”
“Let me guess I didn't get that treatment because in your opinion I got a chance to get better and he didn't?”
He nodded, grabbing my blanket and observing the embroidery on it.
“Aw, how cute, did your mom sew you this?” he mocked.
“Partly, every weekend she and I would work one patch together. Hate to break it to you but trying to make fun of me for having good childhood memories isn't that effective.”
He shrugged, tossing it over his shoulders like a cape.
“Maybe not, but I know it's making you miss those times.”
The chill from earlier had started to come back.
“Alright, just get to the point.” I snarled, curling back up.
He wrapped the blanket around his torso while responding.
“If you haven’t noticed already I’ve been going easy on you today. Just leaving your hand to fester.”
He slumped down sideways, resting his legs on my curled-up knees.
“I’m giving you this break hoping that it's allowing you to reflect on your current life and if it’s worth fighting for.”
I rolled my eyes.
“You seem to think I’m a lot weaker than I am. I’m not giving up after one day.”
He flashed his horrid grin again, red pupils shining the dark. The lights from the rest stop being the only thing preventing us from being swallowed in black.
“It’s funny, your kind always says the same thing right before the first crack in that armor forms.”
“My kind?” I sharpened my gaze.
“Yeah. Your kind. I told you last time, I go after a certain type of person, so I get a lot of the same responses. People like you are so predictable, putting up a fight saying that they’ll be able to beat a power like me.”
He snickered, strangely thick spit seeping between his teeth.
“The result is always one of two things. One, they kill themselves to escape the pain thinking that their death will somehow matter more than their life. Or two, I break them, assume their place, and make something better with the usable parts of their rubble.”
At that moment his smile appeared more sinister than it ever had before. His words were so viscerally wrong.
“So, with that being said, which route are you choosing?”
I slowly sat up, purposely moving my legs last.
“Neither.”
I swiftly shoved his legs off, almost making him fall over. His smile quickly faded as he was turned on his side. Moving out of the blanket wrap he threw it back at me.
“Alright, fine, you want to play with fire like that?” he yelled, yanking me by the back of my sweatshirt.
“You are sleeping in a car in 40-something-degree weather, working at a place that’s killing your passion, and SOMEHOW think that existence is worth picking a fight with a demon for!” he growled, letting go of my sweater and grasping my neck. I tried to pull his hands away but I couldn't make a dent in his grip.
“I’ve given you your chance to submit and pass on peacefully, just like I gave you a chance to be something and yet again you failed!”
I coughed, doing my best to breathe through my nose.
“So prepare yourself for the morning because now I’ll revel like crushing a burnt rodent like you!”
As oxygen failed to reach my brain, my eyes closed.
I woke up with a sprain in my neck with my blanket on the other chair. I got out of my car to stretch, the cold air wafting over me. My stomach grumbled as I remembered that I hadn't eaten the night before. I checked for snacks but I was out. I groaned and noticed that my throat was hoarse from earlier. I attempted to speak but could barely get a word out. It worried me but I decided not to focus on it. At this point, I knew I’d probably be late for my first class no matter what so I didn't rush myself.
I got a bag of dry cereal and started eating it with a plastic spoon on a bench outside. I knew I looked pathetic, but it was hard to care about it with how hungry I was. After a few minutes, I felt an ick in my throat and my ears started ringing. Immediately, I knew what it was. I rushed to my car to put away my food and grab my supplies. Walking back inside the rest stop and into a stall in the bathroom. My eyes stung and my ears throbbed, the feeling of fluid coming up from both palpable. I got on my knees and put sponges in my ears as I started to gag. I closed my eyes as they bled, gore leaking from the folds in my eyelids
My entire body shook as each hole in my face bled. My nose stung like it had been attacked by a bee hive and my mouth tasted like a lump of steel. I did my best to plug it up with tissues but it barely did anything. I flushed the toilet at least five times from all the bloodied tissues and tried to rinse my eyes under the sink. Luckily no one saw me bleeding, but it still added a layer of humiliation anytime someone came in and I had to act like I was okay. I know I probably should have reached out, but I honestly didn't expect anyone to help me.
It’s cynical, I know, but in my experience, most people see someone like me and decide to let me suffer alone. Besides, I already felt vulnerable enough, I didn't need someone else seeing me in that state. Anyway, it continued for about 20 minutes with short breaks between, and as I slumped against this filthy toilet feeling my life force gush out, I thought about how no one would likely ever know why it happened. They’d find the body of this brown man covered in his blood with no idea how he got there. Not like it would probably matter to them. I hate to admit it but Tolc was right in a way. People like me die all the time and no one cares to make a headline about it.
My reflection stared back at me in the mix of toilet water and blood. Everything looked slightly red and for a moment and I feared I’d lose my sight. Maybe my life isn’t that remarkable but if I died then I’d at least want to be known for my death with the full story included. So once I got my bearings, I started typing the first post. If I wasn’t going to make it I at least wanted someone to know even if they didn’t believe me. I got a lot of horrified looks as I walked out with my face barely rinsed, and a wave of shame clouded me. Each one of their eyes was a needle sewing into my self-consciousness, but I got through it. I changed my clothes, wanting to burn the jeans that I’d spent almost an hour in on that disgusting floor. I drove to the middle of nowhere to set up an inflatable pool I could fill water with, making sure I was far from where people could see me.
Even though it was just as embarrassing as any other time I had to do it, it felt like the best bath in my life. Sure the cost of the gas I had to use and the worry someone would see me raged in the back of my mind, but for once I was able to keep it at bay. I’ve been writing this in my car for the past hour and a half or so. I feel bad about missing classes but I just can't today. Honestly, I’m not even sure how I’ve been able to stay awake. That’s everything that’s happened so far, I'm as okay as I can be right now, but I’m even more hopeless than before.

Sitting in my captain’s chair, my fingers drummed on my armrests. Religion was a bittersweet subject for me, the churches not allowing mutts into the congregations. Staring out at the endless expanse of darkness and stars, a familiar sensation of Jack playing with the tips of my ears whipped me back to reality. Leaning down close to me, his lips brushed against the nape of my neck.
“Try to be civil with this religious city. I know that you don’t have the best relationship with them. The people need help with another one of those toads.” He begged with a crooked grin, a brisk fine leaving my lips. “That’s good to hear. The more that we have of that venom, our luck sure would look up. Maybe we could play when we get home.” Flushing a deep scarlet, my husband was lucky that Icy was the only other recruit with us for this mission. The others agreed to watch the kids, the way Catz suggested a movie night had me smiling to myself. My friends were amazing in the best way, Scampy looking more than thrilled to have such an experience. Chewing on my lips, the monks had agreed to help move the frozen venom onto the ship. Perhaps this church was different, the monks raising the orphans from all over the universe. Mulling over what we had to do, the word was that a neon green slime covered the infected areas.
“They come in all kinds of colors.” Jack pointed out simply, wonder shining in my eyes at how he knew what I was thinking. “The venom is all the same, so do be careful.” Shooting out a quick sure, an awkward silence came over the ship. Staring ahead numbly, he plopped into his seat. Hooking up his harness, Icy threw a crumpled up ball of paper into the back of my head. Catching it in my palm, the neat cursive had me smiling to myself. Unfolding it, the words are you okay were a blessing in a dark moment. Fishing around my space suit for a pen, the tip moved quickly. Crumpling it up, Icy caught it without an issue. Reading it with a quiet chuckle, the joke lifting his mood. Tucking it into his pocket with a proud smile, a deeper scarlet painted my cheeks. Humming to myself for the remainder of the trip, the descent had me back to my attentive self. Parking the ship in the dock, Icy and I undid our harness. Popping to my feet, my face fell at the father in his worn brown robes. His kind brown eyes followed me, his bald head glinting in the light of the three blue moons. Pressing his palms together, shock rounded his eyes at the metal covers slamming shut behind us. Jack apologized casually, the two of them breaking into a pleasant conversation. Icy took my side, his polite smile matching mine. The priest was a stout human, his aura seeming apprehensive of us.
“Do you think he will treat us with a little less hesitation?” He inquired curiously, both of us laughing softly to ourselves. The father snapped his head in our direction, both of us straightening up. Mumbling a couple of apologies, Jack cleared his throat. Tossing my staff into my eager palm, his rifle resting on his shoulders. The church was not a place we could sit next to each other if good behavior was required.
“Let’s go before you two start any more troubles.” He barked impatiently, the father narrowing his eyes in our direction. “Father Paldin promised to house us tonight if we do a good job.” Staring out at the swampy land in the distance, an impatient groan tumbling from my lips. Storm clouds rumbled to life, heavy rain dripping off of our suits. Rushing back towards the ivory sea homes surrounding a single marble church, the three of us stood in a pensive silence. Jack seemed pissed about something, his eyes scanning the area. Approaching me as casually as he could, he leaned down to whisper into my ear.
“There isn’t a toad here. The whole thing is a farce but I can’t turn my back on these people.” He spoke loud enough for only me to hear, my ears pinning back. “Solomon won’t be here but I can attest to the fact that he is a shapeshifting alien. I know the father and he is not him.” The color drained from my cheeks, the shapeshifting aliens being the trickiest to catch. Not knowing what to do, Jack yanked me close to his hips.
“We need to create steam and that is where you two come in.” He whispered into my ear with a bit of annoyance, his hands sliding up to my cheeks. “Look natural while he spreads ice to melt. I will shoot down the ones that get exposed.” Kissing my lips feverishly to cover our conversation, a bit of neon goo hitting my boot had a low hiss flooding from my lips. My scaly friends joined my side, Icy and I heading in the opposite direction of Jack. Darting along the edge of the town, more globs of neon goo covered the brick. Picking the lowest part, the brick groaned as I leapt over the wall. Whipping the goo off of my boot, screams and pleas caught my ears. Wandering over to a decaying marble church, my hands pushed the door open. Horror rounded my eyes at the entire town staring at me with big hungry eyes, the father waving me over. Rushing over, his kind eyes were of true emotion, the other’s look seeming falser by the second. People needed to be saved no matter their beliefs.
“Those things took over my town and locked us up. Do you have any food or water?” He begged with dry cough, Icy creating ice cubes for everyone while I fished around my pockets for anything to eat. Pulling out bag of cookies, eager hands shoved them into their mouths. One more remained, the father pointing to an adorable terrier mix. Tossing it in the pup’s direction, the poor thing devouring it in seconds. These bastards were going to pay for their crime, their presence stealing everything in sight. Things should be earned not stolen.
“We are going to save you and soon your homes will be yours. Relax the best you can, folks.” I promised with my genuine smile, Icy marching over to the door. Pressing his palm on the loose dirt, ice devoured everything. Rising to his feet, golden energy built around heel. The moment I slammed my heel into the ice, the hard work would begin.
“Ready?” I inquired with a tired smile, Icy shooting me a thumbs up. “Cool. Let’s do this!” Raising my heel over my head, a hissing sound joined the bright flash of my heel meeting the ice. Steam devoured the town, Icy closing the door behind us. Translucent forms of slimy aliens darted out of their homes, inky bullets took out half of them. Neon green goo shot in our direction, a quarter of them coming after us. Spinning our staff in our palms, our objective was to keep the steam curling into the sky. Unleashing a wave of ice underneath me, the ride threw me into the air. Taking in the entirety of the town, the town square would be an excellent trap.
“Town Square!” I shouted over the chaos, my snakes slithering up to my side. Keeping up with me, Icy skidded a couple of streets away. Sending Ratonia to help him, Ratalia snuggled into my palm. Shouting thank you over the chaos, swift swings sent the aliens flying into the air. Pops announced Jack’s rain of bullets, the bodies dissolving before they hit the melting ice. The town square was in view, Icy flipping onto the fountain. Mouthing the plan, a couple of exchanged winks had sly grin curling on our lips. Slamming the tip of his staff into spout, ice crept down the statue. Devouring everything in two inches of ice, cage walls made of ice cracked into place the moment the last alien sludged in. Golden energy glowed to life in my palm, the ice hissing in protest the moment my palm met the frigid surface. Cracks danced up to the top, steam twirling into the sky. Jack appeared out of nowhere, bullets ricocheting off the walls. Something seemed off, the rotting stench of the goo swelling over my head. Jumping out of the way, the leader’s goo melted the ice. Panic contorted my features, the king of the hive had been found. Forming his goo into a bomb in his palm, a mean green glow illuminated his body. Fantastic! My enemy was a living night light. Spinning my staff in my palm, golden energy had it glowing brighter than him. Throwing it in my direction, a swing of my staff sent a wave of golden energy in his direction. Ice melted in seconds, his body shot into the air. No more goo remained, Jack cursing under his breath at his lack of bullets. Something warm tickled my lick, my trembling fingers grazing my nostrils. Blood glistened on the tips of my fingers, a green gas knocking everyone out but me. Splashing behind me announced his landing, every muscle ached in protest as I raised my staff into the attack position.
“Leave while you still have some of your dignity left!” I barked hotly, everything around me doubling. Hitting the street, a couple of Jack’s bullets rolled into my palm. A weakened Jack smiled lovingly before passing out for a second time, the color draining from my face. Pretending to be knocked out, his wet body sloshed closer to me. Attempting to build up the energy around my fingers, nothing would happen. Picking me up by my waist, the bastard tossed me over his shoulder. A bright green heart beat in his chest, my new gloves burning as I slid my hand into his chest. Smoke muddied up his body, my trembling fingers pushed the bullets into his heart. Staggering back, a puddle of cool water caught me. Shrill shrieks filled the air, his hands reaching in to rip out his heart. His skin bubbled, my inability to move was about to bite me in the ass. Preparing myself for a world of hurt, Father Paldin stepped in front of me with his palms pressed together. Blinking a couple of times, the sight of him had to be a hallucination. Singing some sort of hymn, a bright ivory light bathed the town. Praying to save us and grace us with his presence, a ball lifted the evil alien into the air. Childlike wonder brightened my eyes at the green coating the bubble and the bubble alone. Snapping his fingers, the light died down. Crouching down to my level, his hand cupped my arm. Singing another hymn, time rewound to heal my burn wounds. Choking out a painful protest, his gentle smile had my fraying nerves relaxing a bit.
“We may not worship the same god but I can see a pure soul from a mile away. Do you need me to join your nation?” He asked politely while helping to my feet, the other townsfolk waving in the distance. “If you give us religious freedom, you have our support.” Too stunned to speak, the others began to stir awake. All of this was nothing, rescuing people was second nature to me. My lips parted to speak several times, the trees in the square dropping every ounce of water onto me. Feeling my hair cling to my face, Ratalia and Ratonia began to lick my cheeks. Placing his hands on his hips, the townsfolk run up to him in a line. Barking orders, my friends were carried off to the main church. Tucking a piece of hair behind my ear, a couple of the kids were struggling with a box of medicine. Sliding my staff into my belt, both of them cheered up at my slender fingers plucking the box from their hands. Staying on my heels on the way to the church, he had them working like a well-oiled machine. Noticing that I was carrying the box, the blonde children giggled behind me. Setting it on the table next to him, there was a lack of good stuff. His shining eyes met mine, his eyes flitting between the wedding bands. Unsure of how to respond, a stiff silence hung in the air.
“Would you allow me to bless your marriage? Good luck can only follow your relationship after such a gift.” He offered sincerely, his hands placing ours together. Jack mumbled something, the images of his family at church flashed in my mind. His family went to church before the program killed them to kidnap him, tears welling up in his eyes. Praying over our rings, a bright light blinded us. The light died down to reveal a strange symbol on our bands, pride glistening in the good father’s eyes the moment he let go. Turning towards me, his hands crossed on his lap. Please don't ask too much of me.
“Come back and get blessed by me when this is all over.” He suggested sweetly, his head snapping in Jack’s direction. “Bring your family as well. I would be honored to have you in my parish.” Excusing myself, my empty footfalls echoed in the streets. Skidding to a rough stop in front of my ship, the armor clanked back into its pocket. Hissing announced my pets’ presence, both of them snuggling into my palms. Smothering them in feverish kisses, long tongues flicked against my cheeks. Letting myself in, a quick change into my mechanic’s suit made me more comfortable. Loading up a cart with a couple of spare generators with the battery rocks, and two thirds of the medicine we had on the ship. Kids and women must have gotten sick and the supply had been too depleted to the bare minimum. Snaking their bodies around mine on the way out, their scales felt like a warm hug. Locking my ship behind me, a rare good mood came over me. Pushing the cart back into town, curious eyes glinted to life at the odd items. Knocking on the heavy wooden doors, a couple of his hooded monks let me in. Father Paldin approached me cautiously, his sharp eyes focusing on the generator. Calling a couple of nuns over, they rushed off with the medicine. Leaning onto my cart, the generator wasn’t something that I wanted to push onto him.
“I don’t know what your religion allows this machine but this is a generator that runs on its own. We will come back with more if you allow it but this is a sure way to keep your people safe in one of your many power outages.” I spoke with a nervous grin, his fingers tracing the metal barrel. “That medicine should last you a few months. Since you are a part of my side now, I will personally deliver whatever you need every six months in exchange for a few goods and shelter that night.” Offering him my hand to shake, his fingers curled around it without a second thought.
“That is almost excellent.” He gushed gleefully, shaking my hand vigorously. “I look forward to you being my president.” Scarlet painted my panicked features, Jack hiding back behind the corner with his trademark guilt ridden grin. Softening my expression enough to keep him in his good mood, the orphans bounced up to Ratalia and Ratonia. Scooping them up, the kids giggled as they slid down their backs. Wagging their tails with excitement, his hearty chuckle seemed to make this situation a bit better. Someone called him over, his smile growing wider. Zoning out for a few minutes, familiar fingers playing with my ears snapped me back to reality. Some explanations were owed.
“Join me on a walk. Icy, stay with our scaly friends.” Jack commanded with a stern expression, a quiet fear hiding underneath my bright smile. Telling my girls to stay, Icy spinning over to smother them with love had them wagging their tails once more. Hooking his elbow around mine, the cool air of the planet lashed at my cheeks. Stealing me away to the docks by our ship, the armor clicked back enough to let us in. Scooping me up, his boots crossed the threshold. Locking the door behind him, his strong arms carried me to the back. Laying me down on the bed, he climbed on behind me. Tears soaked my back, his arms yanking me into a desperate embrace. Burying his head into the back of my neck, the loss of his family was hitting him all over again. Rolling onto my back, his strong arms yanked me on top of him. Holding me like his life depended on it, his snores echoed in my ears. Every attempt to get out of his arms had him embracing me tighter. Giving up, the radio wasn’t too far away. Grasping at it, Icy needed to know what was going on. Kicking the table until it fell into my hand, a couple of clicks had him answering. Explaining the situation, he promised me that he would handle things. Children begged for him to read another story, he hung up with a hearty chuckle. Staring into the darkness, something had me squinting. What was moving in the shadows? Squirming out of his arms, knocks on the outside had the thing with bright eyes scurrying across the ceiling. Leaping to my feet, the door hissed open on its own. The small bit of light revealed a bright yellow tentacle, the color draining from my face. How did a venomous space octopus get in here? Crashing through my ship, a steady stream of curse words flooded from my lips at it heading into the engine room. Plucking my staff from my belt, a quick press to the button had the doors clicking open to let my girls in. Whistling sharply, they took my sides like the obedient bodyguards they were. Creeping down to the engine room, a flash of yellow into the engine had me pounding towards the access panel. Digging through my nearby toolbox, a wave of relief crashed over me at the sight of my favorite screwdriver. Moving a mile a minute, the screws clattered onto the metal floor. Pulling myself in, my girls found their way in. Allowing them to lead the way, their senses were stronger than mine. Maneuvering my way around the cramped spaces, a slick noise had us shrinking into the shadows. Venom from my pets pooled around my feet, both of them watching me dip the tip of my staff in it. Banging my fist on the metal wall, the scurrying noise had chills running up my spine. Hisses alerted me to the slimy yellow mass flying towards me, golden energy mixed with my venom powers. Aiming the end of my staff for its rows of glinting fangs, the wet noise of my staff meeting its organs had nausea wracking my body. Pinning it to the wall, thousands of eyes opening up to bleed had clammy sweat drenching my skin. Must certain aliens look so terrifying! Twisting it in further, the squeals threatened to burst my eardrums. Golden smoke swirled from its mouth, the space spinning around me. Knowing that I pushed myself too far, blood and tissues rained down over me. Flicking everything off, the body wasn’t poisonous. How venomous its slime was, that was a different story. Searching for the lights, the plastic switch grazed the tip of my finger. Clicking it on, a bloody mess had me wincing with regret. Climbing out to get cleaning supplies, crimson painted my cheeks the moment I ran into Jack’s bare chest. Holding up the cleaning supplies, his eager smile hid a darker undertone.
“You running out woke me up. When I saw the slime, I had an idea of what was going on.” He chuckled with an even bigger smile, his arm curling around my waist. “I need my pillow to get through the pain of seeing a church community.” Resting his chin on my head, his tears dripping down my soaking wet strands. The cleaning supplies hit the floor, his finger lifting up my chin. His wet eyes met my exhausted smile, his lips pressing against mine tenderly. Time stopped, our hearts beating to the same song. Walking backwards, he pinned me to the wall. Understanding that he needed me in more ways than one, his lips hovered inches from mine.
“Grant me a lovely evening.” He pleaded adorably, his hand sliding down to my waist. “Anything to forget the pain.” Arching my body towards him, his shaking hand tucked a piece of hair behind my ear. Tossing me over his shoulder, Icy poked his head. Cocking his brow, his quick mind put two and two together. Picking up the cleaning supplies, his order for my girls to stay behind resulted in them cuddling up against him. Hiking through the ship, we found ourselves in the bunks.
“Sorry about calling him back.” He mumbled under his breath, a quiet smile lingering on my lips. “What are you smiling about?” Shrugging my shoulders, the evening became ours.

For context, I have worked on the line, as a dishwasher, and as a server, all for maybe 1 year each at different points in my life. I was ok with my job as a line cook at a busy restaurant when I was 19 or 20. Between then and now, i attended culinary, then I didn't work as a cook for about 3 years.
Well, I decided to get back into it, and got a job as a line cook - specifically working between fry and pantry - at a fairly busy spot. I only get day shifts, so we are never really THAT busy, but we have between 2 and 5 decent pushes every service. Normal 8 hou5 day schedule, normal prep load, gotta basically cut up the equivalent of 100 cucumbers and 100 potatoes or something like that. maybe a total of 1-2hrs of prep each shift plus 3 hours spent setting up the restaurant. All in all, it isn't even that bad - there are maybe 2 hours of actual rush each day and the rest is pretty chill. Also good is that i like the place a lot - the food is good, the people are really cool, and the environment is nice. Pays like shit, but what can you do.
The issue is, it seems like my body cannot take it anymore. Standing for 8-10 hours, my feet become unbearably painful, to the point where i'm limping out of the restaurant at the end of my shift. Normally i'm someone who gets very mildly sick for maybe a day or two, maybe once a year, but i've been sick twice, like fever, cough, shivering in normal temperature, unable to stay on my feet, and i've had to call in 2 times after working here for less than a month, the latest time being today. i actually really love this job, but it's making me feel like shit - i do as much prep as i possible can when i'm there so that night shift can go smoothly, but i keep calling in and it feels like i'm letting the chefs and the rest of the line down.
My hope is basically that my body will eventually adapt and, as long as I haven't been fired by then, none of this will matter, but the obvious concern is that i could continue getting sick and calling in all the time and get fired. I wanted to know - has anyone been in a similar situation before? is this simply a matter of lacking physical fitness, and if so, what should i do about it? could it be something else, maybe it's just too stressful?

I'm not really sure how to proceed since my first positive test. On May 22nd, I went to get tea with a friend. The very next day, I began coughing. I didn't think much of it at the time. On the 24th, I began experiencing extreme chills, body aches, and fatigue, but my menstrual period had also started that day (it causes me to regulate my temperature poorly anyway), so I still wasn't thinking much of it. That was also the only day/night when I had experienced symptoms as severe as those.
Then, like an idiot, I kept coughing and feeling off. I don't know why I didn't think to take my temperature sooner. I don't know why I didn't think to take an at-home test when the coughing persisted. But then the day came (May 29th), when my family suggested that I take a test. I was positive. We called a help line, who recommended that I go into urgent care that day because I had been coughing for so long as it was.
The doctor told me that for multiple reasons, I didn't qualify for any antivirals (I figured as such), but she prescribed a cough suppressant that I've been taking since. (I've also been masking and staying away from my family) I'm just at a loss for how to move forward. I spent all that time at home, just coughing. I live with my mom (who is immunocrompromised), my brother (he works outside of the house), and my dog (she hasn't been eating breakfast lately).
I just don't know what to do, everything feels like it's too little, too late. My brother tested negative on the day that I tested positive, but what if it's lying dormant in him? What if I infected my dog? What if my mom gets sick and it ends up really bad for her? The pain and fever are pretty much gone, but I'm still coughing and I'm not sure for how long I'll still be considered contagious. I'm not even sure when I should retest, considering how long I've been ill altogether.
If anyone has any advice or support, I'd appreciate it. All I know is that this is my fault.

Hello! Maybe you've seen my other sample reviews and you're thinking “man, this redditor has too many samples wth” you would be right. I got very excited diving into perfumes and overdid it, really. But better it's samples than full bottles!
Floral Street are a female founded, independent British brand. Their products are vegan and cruelty-free, certified by the vegan society & PETA, with sustainably sourced ingredients and packaging that is reusable, recyclable or biodegradable. They use 20% perfume concentration. (I'm seeing a lot of perfume houses tout this as a benefit and not noticing a difference...)
Many of their scent descriptions sounded up my alley, so I'm looking forward to this set. The discovery set retails for £18 and their scents are typically available as 10ml (£29), 50ml (£74), 100ml (£110), as well as diffusers, room sprays and candles.
Wonderland Peony A fruity floral. “Armfuls of peonies, pink berries, and violets. A shot of cedarwood lends a woody-balsamic warmth while vetiver injects the tiniest hint of hazelnut. “
Fruity floral indeed! Lots of fruits, very happy. It doesn’t last, but it sure is a mood booster. I will be keeping this sample.
Sunflower Pop Citrus fruity floral. “Yellow-tipped sunflowers from the brush of Van Gogh inspire this bright blend of fresh mandarin, bursts of sustainably sourced Calabrian bergamot, vegan honey accord, and a pop of bellini accord. Sunflower Pop is a vibrant, sumptuous citrus blend to bring to life the beauty and optimism of Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers'. “
If Wonderland Peony was a mood booster, this is the whole rocket. It smells exactly like mom’s homemade fruit tea concoction. She’s been buying passionfruits and really enjoying the scent now that summer is basically here and making us all appreciate it too - so I can tell you it smells uncannily like fresh passionfruit despite not directly including a passionfruit note. Really lovely stuff and a contender for at least a travel size despite its lack of lasting power. Hilariously, the least floral fragrance of the set…
Electric Rhubarb, a bubbly white floral. “White florals, Island Gardenia, and powdery Sandalwood are combined with the scent of English Rhubarb and a blast of salty sea air. If you could bottle the feeling of laughing and sipping perfectly chilled Prosecco on a summer's afternoon, this would be it. “
Light white floral. Warm and gentle - I think sandalwood is giving everything a delightful haze. True to description, a bottled summer afternoon. I will keep this sample.
Neon Rose, a fresh, green floral.
“Freshly-chopped jasmine and roses draped around your neck. Crisp, green angelica leaves bring a botanical dimension, while fresh bergamot floats overhead. You’ve never smelt flowers like this before. “
A fresh bouquet on display at the supermarket’s flower corner. So…Definitely the sort of flowers I've smelt before. In fact, the ones I'm most likely to have smelled before. Not for me, but I still like it.
Arizona Bloom, a dry floral amber
“A sprinkling of Balinese coconut meets salted musks with a shot of Madagascan black pepper - this is a slow scent delivering you right back to nature. “
Unfortunately I don’t get that creamy coconut but more… generic male cologne. I can definitely pick out the pepper and a bit of that saltiness but otherwise, this doesn’t stick out much at all. I’ve never tried Glossier You but this is what I imagine it might smell like? An intimate, peppery ‘skin but better’ sort of scent.
After writing the above paragraph, I went online and saw that apparently there are similarities to Le Labo’s Another 13. My mom has a bottle so I went and compared the two. A13 sticks out (projects?) more but yeah, I sort of get it - it’s a similar vibe but not identical. Another 13 gives me a bit of a headache after a while (one spray on my right inner elbow) but Arizona Bloom does not, so if you have a similar issue but like the scent give this one a try.
Wild Vanilla Orchid, a warm amber “A raw-edged confection of creamy vanilla beans, blossom, cassis, and citrus dressed in a bunch of just-plucked jasmine. Offsetting the lingering sweetness, bamboo and sandalwood bend and fold underneath. “
This is nice! Creamy and warm, with some freshness to it from the citrus and jasmine. Doesn’t feel like there’s an offset, it all feels like one entity. It feels heavy to me, so this is an evening out kind of scent if I wear it at all. I catch whiffs of this for several hours.
Chypre Sublime, a woody chayote “Because we’ve never smelt a flower we didn’t like, we’ve loaded almost all of them into this vegan perfume. With hints of wood, purified damask rose, violet, patchouli, and geranium, this is an un-put-downable blend. “
Spoiler alert, I put down the unputdownable blend. Sorry, I’m just NOT a patchouli fan! It tends to overwhelm any fragrance I smell it in. DOWN WITH PATCHOULI! (for legal reasons this is a joke)
and Black Lotus. Spicy and woody. “Complex and multi-faceted, the sweet honeyed scent of centifolia rose adds depth to the stronger, spicy nuances by way of red peppercorn and saffron. Once smelt, forever adored. “
It’s not really for me, but I figured that would be the case anyway seeing as I’m not a fan of spicy scents. It’s similar to a few scents from Gallivant perfumes (that spicy, woody, incense quality) but it is lighter than those. If you tend to find that those sorts of fragrances are too much but still like them, maybe this is a good shout for you.
I really , really liked this set. That said, the scents were all rather familiar, besides their one not-floral, Sunflower Pop. I think if you’re new to perfume and know you like florals, this is a good set to try and explore different kinds within that category. But they're not particularly long lasting or projecting - they just smell nice! Which I'm finding is a common thing amongst fragrances I like.
I don’t think I will be going for full bottles of any of these. At most, a travel size of Sunflower Pop.
Let me know what you think of the brand!

Hey, sorry this might be a bit long. For background, I’m 24 years old and live with my brother, sister and mother. I had no real life friends and suffer from many troubles. I got very sick when I was younger so never went to school and haven’t left my house in 5+ years for anything other than doctor appointments. I’ve been struggling massively lately with stress and anxiety, going to the doctor multiple times etc. After getting an endoscopy, scans and more all come back clear I’ve managed to chill out a bit more and start a new diet for self improvement. I have severe anxiety that I’ve never been able to get ahold of. I was actually managing to get through days without too much struggle. Until now….
My cat passed away at the vet very unexpected. She was only meant to go in for a tooth removed and they found a tumour so she didn’t come back out. I’m beyond devastated. I’m broken. I can’t live without her, she spent all day with me and as mentioned before, I don’t go out or leave my house. She was my best friend and always there to cheer me up. I really really don’t know what to do.
All the symptoms I’ve had over the years have all come back, anything I managed to improve or work on instantly reset, all at the same time. My legs won’t stop moving and shaking, I have horrible acid reflux, nausea, fatigue, heart palpitations, butterflies, stomach problems and pains, trouble breathing, headaches etc. Just horrible horrible feelings that I can’t stand or deal with. I don’t know what’s ’normal’ anymore and I can’t see how I’m supposed to manage. I want it to stop.
As many people have told me, there is no normal with this kinda thing. People feel differently for different amounts of time. I wish I just knew how long this is gonna last and how to overcome this.
There’s multiple things on my mind apart from the fact that she’s gone such as: I told her she was going to get better so now I’m scared she’s mad at me and feels betrayed. I never got to say goodbye, I don’t even remember the last time I saw her as my mum was the one to take her to the vet.
I miss her so much and need her back. I can’t live like this, it’s all too much. The first couple days were bad but after crying a lot I managed to calm down and watch a movie or something. Today is just hell, i physically feel horrendous. All my symptoms are so bad and it’s too much for me. I tried eating and felt sick, i slept for 14 hours but im still exhausted, my whole body aches. I can just about manage the crying and mental side of this all but the physical symptoms are tearing me apart. I can’t do anything. All my progress I made has been completely reset. I truly don’t know where to go from here.
I was extremely depressed experiencing these symptoms by themselves. Constantly going to the doctor to get help. After doing research and many tests I managed to calm down a bit and I was working on a new diet, learning to cook and such. Now it’s all back to where it was, if not worse. I know I sound like a broken record but I just don’t know what to do. I sat outside in my garden sobbing, calling her name and praying she would just jump over the fence and come home.
I don’t want her to be mad or in pain. I want her to be happy. How on earth am I meant to recover when I was already sui- with just half these symptoms. Now them all together with the loss of her?
I’ve been to my doctor and she said I’m having an acute severe stress/anxiety attack. Prescribed me some Diazepam but I’m honestly scared to talk them. I don’t want to feel ‘high’ or completely out of it. I’m super autistic so have a STRICT schedule, if it were to make me super sleepy and i slept out of my normal times it would just add more stress. It also feels cheap and cheating to use them, It’s impossible to explain. I want the pain to stop but I don’t want something else masking it, I want to feel for her.
I’ve been looking for what’s normal and there is no real answers. Take the stages of grief for example, I’ve done research on them and they seem to last people for weeks/months before moving onto the best stage. But I swear I’m feeling all stages across the same day. I’ll go from crying to being angry to regretting things to denial all within a few hours.
Here’s a list of some symptoms I’m going through: Coldness/chills, depression, anxiety, nausea, headaches, legs shaking and won’t stop moving (even when I’m in bed sleeping they are going up and down subconsciously), intense stomach pains, no appetite, tight throat/lump in throat, shortness of breath/breathlessness, general aches and pain across my entire body, diarrhoea, acid reflux/heartburn, heart palpitations, horrible tingly feeling in my stomach and chest (like butterflies but slightly different and just worse), sore eyes from crying, fatigue and lots more I’m probably forgetting. All simultaneously.
I’m sorry this is so long and many things are repeated, I just had to really explain the best I could. Any help is appreciated.
Side note: I don’t currently have any kind of therapist and it would take way too long to get one I’m diagnosed with CFS, OCD, ADHD, ADD, autism, Tourette’s, severe depression and anxiety, agoraphobia, scoliosis, eating disorder (Yes a lot, I’m kinda messed up) I’m also a huge hypochondriac. Feel free to ask any other questions. Thank you!

Hey, sorry this might be a bit long. For background, I’m 24 years old and live with my brother, sister and mother. I had no real life friends and suffer from many troubles. I got very sick when I was younger so never went to school and haven’t left my house in 5+ years for anything other than doctor appointments. I’ve been struggling massively lately with stress and anxiety, going to the doctor multiple times etc. After getting an endoscopy, scans and more all come back clear I’ve managed to chill out a bit more and start a new diet for self improvement. I have severe anxiety that I’ve never been able to get ahold of. I was actually managing to get through days without too much struggle. Until now….
My cat passed away at the vet very unexpected. She was only meant to go in for a tooth removed and they found a tumour so she didn’t come back out. I’m beyond devastated. I’m broken. I can’t live without her, she spent all day with me and as mentioned before, I don’t go out or leave my house. She was my best friend and always there to cheer me up. I really really don’t know what to do.
All the symptoms I’ve had over the years have all come back, anything I managed to improve or work on instantly reset, all at the same time. My legs won’t stop moving and shaking, I have horrible acid reflux, nausea, fatigue, heart palpitations, butterflies, stomach problems and pains, trouble breathing, headaches etc. Just horrible horrible feelings that I can’t stand or deal with. I don’t know what’s ’normal’ anymore and I can’t see how I’m supposed to manage. I want it to stop.
As many people have told me, there is no normal with this kinda thing. People feel differently for different amounts of time. I wish I just knew how long this is gonna last and how to overcome this.
There’s multiple things on my mind apart from the fact that she’s gone such as: I told her she was going to get better so now I’m scared she’s mad at me and feels betrayed. I never got to say goodbye, I don’t even remember the last time I saw her as my mum was the one to take her to the vet.
I miss her so much and need her back. I can’t live like this, it’s all too much. The first couple days were bad but after crying a lot I managed to calm down and watch a movie or something. Today is just hell, i physically feel horrendous. All my symptoms are so bad and it’s too much for me. I tried eating and felt sick, i slept for 14 hours but im still exhausted, my whole body aches. I can just about manage the crying and mental side of this all but the physical symptoms are tearing me apart. I can’t do anything. All my progress I made has been completely reset. I truly don’t know where to go from here.
I was extremely depressed experiencing these symptoms by themselves. Constantly going to the doctor to get help. After doing research and many tests I managed to calm down a bit and I was working on a new diet, learning to cook and such. Now it’s all back to where it was, if not worse. I know I sound like a broken record but I just don’t know what to do. I sat outside in my garden sobbing, calling her name and praying she would just jump over the fence and come home.
I don’t want her to be mad or in pain. I want her to be happy. How on earth am I meant to recover when I was already sui- with just half these symptoms. Now them all together with the loss of her?
I’ve been to my doctor and she said I’m having an acute severe stress/anxiety attack. Prescribed me some Diazepam but I’m honestly scared to talk them. I don’t want to feel ‘high’ or completely out of it. I’m super autistic so have a STRICT schedule, if it were to make me super sleepy and i slept out of my normal times it would just add more stress. It also feels cheap and cheating to use them, It’s impossible to explain. I want the pain to stop but I don’t want something else masking it, I want to feel for her.
I’ve been looking for what’s normal and there is no real answers. Take the stages of grief for example, I’ve done research on them and they seem to last people for weeks/months before moving onto the best stage. But I swear I’m feeling all stages across the same day. I’ll go from crying to being angry to regretting things to denial all within a few hours.
Here’s a list of some symptoms I’m going through: Coldness/chills, depression, anxiety, nausea, headaches, legs shaking and won’t stop moving (even when I’m in bed sleeping they are going up and down subconsciously), intense stomach pains, no appetite, tight throat/lump in throat, shortness of breath/breathlessness, general aches and pain across my entire body, diarrhoea, acid reflux/heartburn, heart palpitations, horrible tingly feeling in my stomach and chest (like butterflies but slightly different and just worse), sore eyes from crying, fatigue and lots more I’m probably forgetting. All simultaneously.
I’m sorry this is so long and many things are repeated, I just had to really explain the best I could. Any help is appreciated.
Side note: I don’t currently have any kind of therapist and it would take way too long to get one I’m diagnosed with CFS, OCD, ADHD, ADD, autism, Tourette’s, severe depression and anxiety, agoraphobia, scoliosis, eating disorder (Yes a lot, I’m kinda messed up) I’m also a huge hypochondriac. Feel free to ask any other questions. Thank you!