The watsons go to birmingham chapter 13 summary

First Off: SPOILERS FOR THE STORY!
Even if it was not perfect, I highly recommend "A Study in Scarlet!" It's fascinating to see Sherlock Holmes' first literary adventure. Not only to compare and contrast it with how the character and its interpretations have evolved over the years, but to witness the craft and skill of Arthur Conan Doyle in crafting a gripping Victorian yarn (at about the tenth the size of the usual length of a serialized story of that period)
You've been warned!
"Study in Scarlet" is many things, but it certainly is no boring.
I had spent many years of my young life being exposed to many differing interpretation of iconoclastic consulting detective, and have loved almost every single one of them. But, in spite of there (usually) good quality, these were merely "echoes" of the actual thing.
As such, earlier this year, me and several friends of mine formed a sort of book club, intent on finally reading this famed novel. We would go about it a chapter every two days and hopefully finish it in about a month.
Well, life being what it is, delays in readings accrued. For some, it was a missed chapter on a particular day (guilty as charged).
For others, well, they're still reading it.
Which brings me to this review. Two months back I had finally finished my copy of the novel, a beautifully researched and annotated printed under the "Oxford World Classics" label. I would heartily recommend this version, as it helped clarify some of the misconceptions put forth by the book in its second half, shedding a light on some of Arthur Conan Doyle's politics in the process.
More on that later.
For now, let's get on with the show.
It's 1881 in Victorian Era England. John Watson, a 2nd Afghanistan War Doctor has been discarged back to his home country following injury. Quickly running out of money from the meager army pension he makes, he meets up with an old hospital colleague who introduces him to the titular Sherlock Holmes.
This introduction was utterly fascinating, portraying a Sherlock who is utterly giddy and quirky in a way that I've never seen him as in any other adaption. It immediately sheds a light on his eccentric nature, and I would be remissed if I didn't mention how it seems to feel reminiscent of those on the spectrum. I almost lament that this aspect of his character is largley absent in most adaptions. It's quite endearing.
Following this meet-up, Sherlock and Watson get on quite well. Enough so that they decide to purchase an apartment and become roommates on, you guessed it, 221b Baker Street.
(An address that doesn't actually exist, as my annotated copy pointed out. Shame.)
It is at this point, Watson notes, that he realizes just how eccentric Holmes really is.
We have the usual expected details, the ones adaptions tend to carry over. Is reading of police reports and "sensational literature," his immense knowledge of poisons and murder methods, and even a violin he strums to calm himself. Then there are the more... obscure aspects. Thankfully, Watson made a sort of list that can help. His uncommon knowledge of all things crime seems to have usurped the place of layman's knowledge in his "Mind palace." His awareness of politics is little, and his knowledge of normal literature, philosophy, and astrology is "nil," to quote Watson.
He doesn't even know that the Earth revolves around the Sun.
Yes, you read that correctly.
Sherlock Holmes. Master detective. Doesn't know that the Earth revolves around the damn Sun.
Utterly, hilarious.
Anyways, after some rumination on the science of deduction, we are thrust into the story either an incoming telegram from Inspector Lestrade. Since Sherlock's occupation is being a consulting detective, he offers aid to the stumped police for a small fee. A man has been found dead from a supposed suicide in an abandoned building, with only a bloody word written above a mantelpiece as any indication of motivation.
"RACHE"
However, rather than focusing on the crime itself, Sherlock focuses on the surrounding area, poking around and astutely Study every single little detail he comes across with utter focus. After an extended amount of time does he actually arrive at the main crime scene to study, and the bloody message. The police, of course, assume it's a name: "Rachel." However, Sherlock (in his boundless intelligence) surmises that it is actually the German word "Revenge." Not only that, but he figures out there was another man, working out his height, walk, and dress.
This isn't a suicide. It's murder.
The investigation continues, another murder occurs, a suprisingly exciting chase scene happens, and finally Sherlock lures the murderer right into the heart of 221b Baker Street.
Enter "The Killer Mormons."
It's at this point that the story takes an unexpected left turn, as we suddenly flash back 34 years ago in America, and a community of Mormons in Salt Lake City.
Look, before we proceed, I should clarify that I am not Mormon. At best, my exposure to Mormon culture was stumbling across a Mormon museum out in Albany, NY and that one South Park Episode.
All of that is to say that I don't know too much about the culture, so I was appreciative that my book helped clarify some misconceptions and biased viewings that Doyle sadly indulged in here. For what little Doyle got right, he got a lot wrong, with a lot of it seemingly being the result of fear mongering and disgust. It's kind of uncomfortable, seeing Doyle villianize an actual religion and community and portraying them as a murderous cult with a secret hit squad essentially.
It's weird, and it definitely sheds a light on why I've never seen a straight adaption of this story.
Still, we get a fascinating tragic love story. The murderer was an American cowboy simply avenging his dearly beloved, a young girl adopted by the Mormon community along with her own adoptive dad. She and her father intended to leave the community, but the Motmon Elder was having none of it, intending to marry her off to another Mormon member. After the girl and her father were murdered by the earlier murder victims of this story in retaliation, the cowboy set off on a trail of vengeance that would stretch on for decades, until the stars finally aligned for him to go in for the kills. And once he explains his side of the story to Holmes and the police, he dies of an aneurysm.
The next day, the papers credit the police for cracking the case, leaving Watson determined to set the record straight much to Holmes' bemusement.
And with that, our mystery comes to an end.
I walked away from the story feeling bowled over by the sheer scope of it all. What started off as a classic Holmes mystery, evolved into a western epic full of love, betrayal, death and... Killer Mormons.
It should probably be a testament to Doyle's immense skill as a storyteller that the deeply flawed second section was as compelling as it was. It's flawed view of Mormon culture definitely didn't help it, and one wonders if it were replaced with a generic commune/cult, it would have been the better for it. It certainly was interesting regardless, but perhaps my own love of western movies helped.
It was great to finally see Sherlock's "science of deduction" methodology in play, and it's as amazing as I've heard.
I also came away from the novel better appreciating what Doyle brought to the detective genre, and even Sherlock as a whole!
To those who have seen media based on Sherlock, and loved it, I implore you to check out the novels. At least then I'll have someone to talk about this crazy book with, heh.
Can't wait to read "The Sign of Four" next!

So, this is really long but I think it's worth the read as there has been nothing else like this in the Gtag community before. I have been working on this almost every day since Valentines Day Update 2022. I have changed it, restarted it, and updated it for every new Gtag update. I will make Updates to the in the future as it seems like we are getting more updates and more maps in the future.
Updates are not always literal, for example, the Human Tag Update only shows that humans exist or once existed in the Gorilla Tag world. The Monkes are not literally wearing masks that resemble humans. This logic applies to every update unless it's just cosmetics or a new map. Also, it's really weird at the first few Chapters so just stick with it or skip ahead. Ask any question in the comments about why I put the things I put and if you want evidence.
Most recent Updates to this are in Chapters 8, 14, 15, and 16
BI = Before Infection AI = After Infection
Prologue: Gods
4,500,000,000 BI - 212,001 BI
When Earth is formed, two gods form with it to rule over the planet. Mother Nature, the god of life and nature, and the Illuminati, the god of chaos and ice. Mother Nature usually takes the form of a 3,000-foot-tall tree called the Tree of Life, while the Illuminati takes the form of an ice pyramid with an ice eye in the center. Mother Nature creates life to populate Earth while the Illuminati constantly tries to kill it.
Chapter 1: The Rise and Fall of Humanity
212,000 - 200,001 BI
Humans, the most powerful species on Earth has cut down the Tree of Life and taken Mother Nature out of control. This leaves the Illuminati to slowly creep into the modern society. Some Humans form a cult around it, and they are the most powerful people on Earth. That means, the Illuminati can tell them to do something, and they can affect the most powerful nations on the planet.
Eventually, the Illuminati tricks the humans into fighting each other. The biggest nations on the world begin to go to war with some of the biggest possible nukes. They destroy the surface of the Earth causing it to go into a nuclear ice age. The Illuminati, an ice god, now has full control over Earth. Anytime life appears, it almost instantly dies. However, some humans were able to survive and eventually, the ice age comes to an end, and no god is in control of Earth.
Chapter 2: Monke
200,000 BI - 1,001 BI
After hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, Humans have evolved into a new species called Monkes. Monkes are gorilla-like apes that can survive the harshest of conditions. Their diet consists of grass and bugs. Some bugs and patches of grass have survived over the past few million years.
Mother Nature has started to take back control of the world as she creates the Tree of Life and a whole forest around it in a crater from a nuke. Many Monkes travel to this crater and end up being trapped as the forest is on a lower level then the rest of the crater.
Chapter 3: Rise of the Monkes
1,000 BI - 601 BI
All other Monkes go extinct meaning that the only remaining Monkes are in this crater. One day the Monkes decide to finally make the jump as they all jump down into the forest. Most of them die, but the few that survive are left without legs. About 100 Monkes are alive and they quickly learn to use their arms like legs.
Unfortunately, just like there Human ancestors, the first thing they do is cut down the Tree of Life and use its wood. This leaves Mother Nature powerless again. The wood from the Tree of Life will last them for thousands of years. They build bridges, tree houses, ramps, and a gazebo in the forest. All the children of the surviving Monkes also don't have legs making it now a fundamental part of their species.
They hollow out the inside of the Tree of Life's stump and start to build tunnels out of it. These tunnels reach out to all over the crater. One tunnel leads to a small set of canyons covered in sand. Another tunnel leads to a massive flat, rocky, landscape in the other side of the crater. The final tunnel goes straight down into the ground until it hits a large cave filled with crystals.
They build mines underneath the cave and harvest the large crystals. These crystals are radioactive because of the ancient nukes. The Monkes harvest the crystals and start to use them in technology. They create lamps, litghtposts, lights, signs, and even their greatest accomplishment a computer.
Chapter 4: The City
600 BI - 30 BI
The large, flat, rocky landscape they discovered has a lot of useful recourses in it. Over the next few hundred years they build an entire city with large skyscrapers and new technology that is widespread. There are thousands of Monkes now living in The City. The forest and canyons have become vacation places for most Monkes, and the homes of the most rich or important Monkes.
The Monkes decide to have a leader, so a rich family decides to step up and become the royals of the Monkes. There king is named Yorick, and their queen is named Lucy. They both live in a basement-like area rights next to the main entrance into The City. Queen Lucy also turns the canyons into an industrial area and improves quality of life for the main populous.
King Yorick and Queen Lucy have a son named Blue. By the time Prince Blue was 13 he already starting his dream job of being a scientist.
Chapter 5: The Hunt War
29 BI - 21 BI
A tunnel is dug in city after, and they dig all the way until the edge of the crater. The walls of the crater look like large mountains from down below and they are extremely cold. They accidentally cause an avalanche, and the base of the walls are filled with snow and ice. From this avalanche comes the god of chaos and ice, the Illuminati. The Illuminati causes many snowstorms and causes a sort of Ice Age.
Queen Lucy tries to keep everyone calm and civil. However, the Illuminati is able to influence the Monkes minds and causes chaos and destruction to happen all throughout Monke society. After years of pure chaos, the Monkes are able to split into two factions, The Monkes, and the Smiles. They also are helped by newly discovered species that came with the Ice Age. These species are Penguins, Polar Bears, Snow Owls, and many other species that live in the cold. These species were the only survivors of the ancient human war that nearly killed Earth. Over the past few hundred thousand years, they have all migrated across the world, and have worked together even if they were from different poles of the Earth.
The royal scientist, Prince Blue has created many new technologies before. During the war, he creates a Hunt Watch. A Hunt Watch is a watch that targets the nearest enemy to you. Once you touch that enemy with the watch on, they turn into an Ice Monke and can easily be shattered to bits. Over time, this technology allowed them to win the war and bring somewhat order back.
Chapter 6: The Ice Monkes
20 BI - 1 BI
Many Ice Monkes were not killed in the war, usually they were turned into Ice Monkes but were able to get away before being shattered. The Ice Monkes are still just regular Monkes except they are made of ice, can't go near heat, and are fragile. Even though the war was over, the Ice Monkes were still treated horribly. In this already hard time period, the Ice Monkes had absolutely nothing. Many veterans of the war still had their Hunt Watches, causing many more Ice Monkes to be formed.
Meanwhile the Illuminati builds snow castles for itself in the forest. This means that the mountain base was safe to enter now. To lighten the spirit of this dark time they built a large waterslide in this new area. Many murders and crimes still happen throughout The City, but one day it gets out of hand. King Yorick is assonated, his head was chopped off in the middle of The City. The now lonely Queen Lucy keeps his skull in her home.
Chapter 7: The Infection
0 AI - 3 AI
Ever since the bombs dropped hundreds of thousands of years ago, a volcano has slowly been forming in the crater. Now, the volcano has fully formed and is erupting. All the snow and ice are melted, the Illuminati is gone, the caves are flooded, and the mines are caved in. The base of the walls still has snow but lots of it melts and reshapes its surface.
In the lava was an extremophile virus that can survive the lavas heat. It is radioactive and spreads very quickly. This virus is called the Infection, and many Monkes get it. The infected Monkes get resistant to lava, they get stronger, they get faster, there skin is replaced with lava, and they have an uncontrollable instinct to hunt down normal Monkes and infect them.
The infected spread everywhere but The City is able to be kept safe and nobody can enter or leave The City. After a few years the volcano stops erupting, but the Infection stays around.
Chapter 8: Calming Down
4 AI - 6 AI
Prince Blue finds a cure for the Infection, some Monkes are given jobs to specifically leave The City and cure a ton of infected Monkes. They start doing this and it actually works. The cure is called Kai Juice. Anytime someone enters The City, they are given Kai Juice just in case. It is no longer dangerous to leave The City as if you get infected you can immediately drink some Kai Juice and go back to normal.
The caves and mines are drained and dug up. The old caves and mines completely caved in and revealed even more caves underneath. They start mining again and find loads of dinosaur bones along with a 40-foot-long crystal. Prince Blue has a son named Pink, but unfortunately during such great times, Queen Lucy dies of old age. Blue becomes King Blue and Pink becomes Prince Pink. There is a massive funeral for Queen Lucy that spans from The City all the way to the forest. They burn her body and put her ashes in a vase beneath a grave.
Chapter 9: Exploration
7 AI - 17 AI
A large tunnel is found on the forest walls, they follow it, and it leads out of the crater. Just on the other side of the crater is a beach covered in ancient, broken, human buildings. King Blue sees this and is the first to figure out that there was a complex civilization before them.
A few years later, they have made boats to sail out into the ocean and have built shops to supply the ships on shore. The ocean and beach are also home to many new animals. Meanwhile, King Blue discovered that if an infected Monke stays infected for multiply years, they harden and become rock. When they harden, they can't infect anything, but they can't be cured either. They also get even stronger, even faster, and their rock skin is almost impenetrable.
Chapter 10: The Tree of Life
18 AI - 47 AI
King Blue has been studying everything he can since he became king, and he has noticed that it is possible to revive the Tree of Life. For hundreds of years the Tree of Life's stump has been sitting in the forest, so King Blue is going to be the first one to do anything about it.
Over the next decade they nurture the stump and help it constantly until the Tree of Life has fully grown back. The only problem is that the Tree of Life is almost a mile tall, and they can't climb up that. King Blue and his engineering team spend the next few years building a rocket. When they are finished, they put it in the middle of The City and launch it. On the rocket is a team of explorers and engineers to work on top of the Tree of Life.
When on top of it they build large platforms along with massive rocks wheels and other things powered by winds. When they come back down, months later, they tell everyone what they built. The rocket becomes the main form of transportation in between The City and the Tree of Life’s top. The public uses that rocket to get up there because now people live on top of the Tree of Life in a place called Cloudtown.
Chapter 11: Calm Before the Storm
48 AI - 54 AI
King Blue and his team start to develop a new rocket after realizing how well they built the first rocket. The second rocket they build is not in The City and much larger. They build this rocket for years before eventually, it is done. It launched, flew out of the atmosphere, and took a 3-day journey through space until they landed on the Moon.
The Illuminati has created a being named Humbug. Humbug appears as a 30-foot-tall snowman. Humbug also has the abilities to change size, change the size of other things, transform, and transform other things. He takes the form of an old Monke named Santa Claus. In the form of Santa, he would give out presents to everyone and create ridiculously large birthday cakes for everyone. Everyone loved him and had no idea of his true form. He would use his powers every now and then to shrink people down and kidnap them. Over time he would slowly transform them into children's toys that he would give out to the people. However, the Santa form broke down over time. His red clothes and white beard becoming gray. But the public still loved and cherished him.
Chapter 12: Humbug
55 AI - 62 AI
Humbug reveals his true form and takes over The City. He shrinks down King Blue and Prince Pink. He then mutilates and transforms them into monsters called the Monkeyes. He traps them in a miniature maze and throws Monkes in there to be killed by their previous leaders. Everything is covered in snow once again by the Illuminati, but he still is not fully in control. Humbug takes over everything the Monkes have made before climbing his way up the Tree of Life. Humbug makes it up there and destroys Cloudtown in an attempt to take control over the Tree of Life. This does not work.
Over a few years, the Monkes have been able to create something called a Tesla Coil. The Tesla Coil is a machine that can take away Humbugs powers and use it against him. Humbug's powers are stripped away, and the Monkes take back control. Humbug is shrunken down and trapped in a miniature maze. The Monkes also start to use his powers to make themselves super big. However, with King Blue and Prince Pink turned into monsters, and Humbug overthrown, the Monkes have no leader.
Chapter 13: The Giants War
63 AI - 75 AI
The Monkes have been living peacefully for a few years, but eventualy, the different sizes start to look down on each other. This leads into the Giants War, where the different Monke sizes fight for 9 years. Eventually, the Monke population dwindle so much, that the war ended. The Monkes that did not change their size did not interact with the Monkes that changed their size. Now, tiny Monke skulls and giant Monke skulls are littered everywhere, and the only surviving Monkes are the ones that never changed their size.
Chapter 14: Peace
76 AI - 90 AI
The Tree of Life grows massively and repairs the damage done by Humbug years ago. Countless new branches and huge leaves sprout from its trunk. This allows the Monkes to make their way back up to the treetop with a newly repaired rocket. Cloudtown is rebuild, slowly, but rebuilt nonetheless. This is called, New Cloudtown.
A year after the Giants War ends, the skulls and bodies are cleared out. The City was practically empty as most buildings were either destroyed, damaged, or tilted over in the war. Many Monkes just went to New Cloudtown to survive as going anywhere else other than The City would mean being attacked by Infected Monkes. Also, during this time, the mutated monsters that were once King Blue and Prince Pink were killed by another Monke for sport. Their souls go on to become ghosts that wander the city. King Blue's soul becomes a ghost called the Ghost Wanderer, and Prince Pink's soul becomes a ghost called the Ghost Lurker.
The population has grown more, and the Monkes have created sports to celebrate the era of peace. These sports are Hockey, Watersoccer, and Paintbrawl. This happens during the fall where Lucy's spirit flies out from her grave and starts playing with some random civilian Monkes. She then reunites with the souls of her son and grandson in the forms of the Ghost Wanderer and the Ghost Lurker.
Chapter 15: Advancements
91 AI - 100 AI
A new type of plant is found in New Cloudtown. This plant sprouts large leaves with handle-like stems. These plants are called Glider Vines. The leaves of Glider Vines are used as gliders to fly around New Cloudtown.
The Monkes are unable to explore anymore. The ocean is too vast, they never got back from explorers they sent into the ocean, and the crater walls are too high to climb. So, they spend a few years creating an artificial environment that they can change on a will. They do this by using a Tesla Coil that harness Humbug's powers. In the first testing of it, they try to bring back the vast cave systems they found hundreds of years ago. It was an attempt to make infinite recourses. It turns out as a failure, everything is extremely broken and blocky. After much testing, they have it so it could be a tundra, a swamp, an ancient temple, and basically anything else. This underground, artificial environment is called Rotation.
They decide to excavate a larger area for Rotation. They then finish their original plan of recreating that same ancient cave system. This time it works, and it looks just like how it did hundreds of years ago. However, during the excavating of the larger area, the long dead Queen Lucy's vase finds itself in Rotation. Minor Monkes enter this cave and start mining, but when they discover Lucy's vase, they open it. From her long dead ashes rises the confused, lost, and insane spirit of Lucy. She has been trapped underground in the dark for almost a century now and has gone insane. The minors call her the Burnt Lucy, a dark reflection of their long dead Queen.
Chapter 16: The Return of Humbug
101 AI - ??? AI
The usage of the Tesla Coil attracts Humbug. He is able to escape the miniature maze the Monkes trapped him in, and slowly make his way to Rotation. When he arrives, he is able to get some of his powers back from the Tesla Coil, but he is noticed by the Monkes.
One of the first things Humbug does is kidnap three Monkes and turns them into small monsters called Monkeyes. He places them in the tiny maze that he was once trapped in.

I have a big problem not being able to control my body, causing pushes, pulls, and everything in between while putting. It happens anywhere from 50 ft to 2 ft.
I can putt on a practice matt and roll 10 footers straight again and again, but when I go to putt on the course my mind, arms, and hands go haywire in that moment. After missing a dead straight 3 footer and pulling the ball back to hit again, the feeling is gone, because it doesn’t count and I sink it right in the center.
Obviously I have the athletic ability to do it, but my central nervous system won’t allow it.
I have tried: - YouTube videos (about the you know whats) and trying the recommended techniques - Reading Dave Peltz putting bible - Reading chapter 13 in “Your 15th club” on the you know whats - Changing grips - Changing putters - Changing routines - Practicing putting with different clubs (I putt pretty good with a 3 wood, but I have not done so in a round in fear that I will get questioned about it) - Trying to psych myself into thinking a real shot is a practice or my second.
I am next exploring: - Putting looking at the hole - Putting eyes closed - Ordering and reading “Putting out of your Mind” - Search for a hypnotist - Trying a broomstick - Gaming my 3 wood and joke that I accidentally left my putter at home
Any advice from someone that has been in a similar place? Thanks in advance.

Previous chapter
“I hate it.”
Mareus slapped his mouth and bit down on his lips in a futile attempt to capture his half-asleep words. His body tensed while listening for any signs of the stranger, bracing himself for some monster of a person to come rushing from the dark to finish him off.
Though, it didn’t matter in the end if they were paying attention to him or not. They clearly already knew where he was and, for some reason, chose to leave him alone after pulling him from the rubble and treating his injuries.
He clutched at his stomach, his hunger pangs goading him to push aside the anxiety and crawl his way towards the bowl still waiting patiently for him. There were no signs of it being changed or infested by any of the creatures hiding away, in fact, a gentle warmth still radiated from it. A pleasant aroma floated through the still air as if it had a will of its own, enticing him like some carnivorous flower lying in wait.
Mareus ignored his pain and fatigue as he absentmindedly made his way closer to the beckoning meal. What was he so worried about? If the stranger hadn’t done anything yet, then they probably weren’t going to from the start. It wasn’t like he was in any state to resist them anyway.
That’s right. He justified. It’s just sitting there, waiting for me.
The bowl was only a breath away now. Mareus stretched against his bandages enough for the wrappings around his fingers to brush the rim before the markings let out a faint light and constricted his body. He was almost there and wouldn’t give up, one more time he resisted their binding and was able to hook his finger on the inside of the rim.
Putting all the strength he had into the one finger he fought against the rough, uneven ground to reel in his catch. A faint glow lit up the black stone and his heart stopped before his restraints forced his arm back. Spilling his only food in a mocking halo as the bowl rolled on its side.
That was it, his only food mixed in with the wet dirt of the cave floor. He almost dove at it before realizing the intense hunger and drive he had was now fading away. His hunger was still there to some degree, but now it was more like an emptiness scratching at the back of his stomach. The overwhelming desire to eat was almost entirely gone.
A faint breeze brought his attention back to the bowl and he watched as markings like the ones on his bandages let out one last dim breath of light. When they went dark his hunger returned to the back of his mind.
After crawling back into his hole, the cave was filled with the sounds of hundreds of insects rushing over and feasting on the spilled meal. The echoes of chitin tapping on stone and trudging through the mush assaulting his ears. Covering his ears only replaced their frenzy with the sound of his blood flowing through his ears.
Mareus alternated between listening to the rhythmic thumps lulling him to sleep and the chittering that convinced him, more than once, that the insects had crawled in his ears. The minutes drawing into hours, maybe even days, as reason began slipping away.
A gentle clack of wood being placed on stone silenced the world.
He carefully rolled over and saw another bowl, the insects were gone, the mess was cleaned. It was like everything that happened was a dream, only this time he didn’t have this unnatural drive compelling him to reach the bowl.
Whatever the markings were meant to do, this one didn’t seem to have them. He watched as the cave life made their way back to his food. They didn’t attack it right away this time, instead they circled their prey waiting for the right time. Mareus closed his eyes and focused on listening for their movements when he heard a damp thud that must have been one of them falling in the food.
That sound must have been the signal the rest were waiting for because they converged on the meal and devoured with a gluttony he didn’t know they were capable of. Despite the gut churning sounds, he focused on every bit as he counted his heart beat.
Two thousand four hundred and twenty…seven.
The cave had finally settled down again as the insects returned to their hiding places. Mareus kept counting though, he had to stay focused so he could figure out how to tell when the stranger was coming. He had no idea how often they came by but he needed to learn anything he could if he wanted to make it back home.
Twenty-eight thousand seven hundred and ninety-five.
Muffled steps approached the bowl and wordlessly replaced it with another, the gentle clank dancing around the cave walls. Words wanted to leave his mouth, to ask the stranger questions, to make demands. But, what would he say, what could he say?
Mareus’ chest tightened as he tried to find the words, his mind struggling with the growing distraction of the empty feeling in his stomach. They were gone as silently as they arrived.
He started counting again. Using the hunger pangs to fight his body’s cries for sleep he waited out another four or five changes of the bowl. He couldn’t remember exactly anymore as his guard lightened and the exhaustion wrapped around him like a warm blanket. Against his best effort sleep finally took him.
The elders were watching over the younger generations going about their routines. The whole village was in the middle of doing their morning exercises with the sunrise, the bigger clans and families had their yards filled with people flowing from stance to stance, while the smaller families gathered in front of the Elder’s Hall or practiced in their gardens.
Before he knew it, Mareus was running errands and was racing pass villagers tending to fields of medicinal herbs and vegetables while guards kept their eyes on the edge of the forest for any signs of wild beasts.
Then one day a doctor from some big sect visited them and told him that he had the cure to his diverted meridians. The village elders held a big celebration in front of their hall and they had a special ceremony where Granny Hua accepted him as a disciple. When he looked out to the crowd, the sun shone on hundreds of smiling faces.
Tears ran down his face as he smiled and waved at everyone. The salty taste made the world shimmer like a painting being washed away.
Please don’t go. He thought.
The infection of reality found its way into his heart and the dream continued to shimmer before warping and twisting the scene from before.
Mountains of rubble replaced the beautiful homes that stood for generations. One after another the people fell while letting out muted screams. Smoke began to fill the air like some ghostly fog and ash painted the now faceless bodies strewn everywhere. Bodiless cries fought with one another to be helped.
Mareus fell to his knees at the center of the destruction while pleading. “Please, don’t do this. Don’t take them from me again.”
The one eyed man towered over him, tall enough for his hair to brush the clouds. The evil in his clenched grin poured out like a thick miasma that choked him as he watched Sister Mai rushing over.
He tried to scream at her to stay away but his voice was now completely cut off. Mareus now stood over himself watching the helpless child he truly was, he followed his own pleading gaze and turned to watch a young woman he recognized but couldn’t place at the moment.
She picked up a piece of a wooden beam and charged at him, her tears turning to blood as she let out a voiceless scream.
Mareus quickly searched the sky for his enemy, Where are they? Why is it so quiet?
When he looked back down his arm was through the back of the woman and he finally recognized the angry face staring daggers at him as the light left her eyes.
He watched as the giant man turned back to him and let Mai’s lifeless body fall to the ground. The crimson drenching the monster’s hand leaking and painting his own with the blood of the woman he called his big sister.
The one eyed man shot into the air and the force of the impact shook him awake.
It was easier to fight his exhaustion this time as he waited for the stranger to replace the bowl. When they replaced it this time, they lingered as if they wanted to say something. This time the anger and pain he felt didn’t let him hesitate.
“Wh-“ His dry unused voice turned into a breath. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Why…”
The effort of forcing that whisper was already difficult, he wanted to say so much more. He couldn’t tell if they were still waiting in the dark, or if they were even willing to listen. His voice was clawing to get out, he was tired of waiting.
His skin buzzed as he waited and moistened his throat. The question was out there now, at least the most important part. ‘Why?’ There was so much more racing through his mind that he could add while the presence remained silent.
Why me? What made you save me? Why didn’t you leave me with them? Why do I have to be alone?
An unseen pressure grew in the dark as his question went unanswered. It was like the chill he would get coming back late at night and he felt like something was watching him from the forest, waiting to pounce. It kept growing sharper until a sudden cool warmth touched the nape of his neck and gingerly ran down the length of his back.
A cold, yet familiar feeling voice finally broke the silence. “It would be a waste. Letting such a potential vanish from this world.”
The stranger brushed the matted hair from his neck. Their simple and straightforward gesture giving off the feeling of a beast playing with its catch knowing it could kill it at anytime.
“I feel for your loss, truly. My heart aches for the ill fate that placed those ‘experts’ in your home. I couldn’t allow your path to end because of a game between mere children.” Their voice danced between compassionate and venomous.
The gentle pressure of them rubbing his back relaxed him and Mareus became even more aware of how tired and sore his body was. Although, as they continued it felt like everything faded away. Not so much as if he was being relieved of everything, it was more like everything was being taken away and swallowed by a void that wouldn’t make him take it back.
Mareus sat up slowly and with a hoarse voice he asked. “What makes me so special?” He inhaled, “Why didn’t you stop them?!” His scream tore into his lungs and filled his throat with the taste of iron.
Water filled his eyes as he faced the disembodied presence.
The stranger gently embraced him, their cool robes enveloping him. “Poor child.”
“You could have saved all of th-em.” His trembling voice couldn’t hide the pain any longer. Still, Mareus stared through blurry eyes and did his best to look them in the face.
A thin hand brushed away his tears. “My sweet boy, I’m sorry I couldn’t be there sooner. Their battle had already moved south, and what they left behind…” They trailed off.
While wrapped in their arms he listened to the grief in their voice. Unsure of what to think anymore. Why did they wait so long? Why did they leave me here in the dark? Were they hurt too? Mareus found himself wondering if he was being selfish.
“Before I could chase after them, I sensed the faint trace of your life clinging on to any shred of hope. After digging you out and applying some emergency medicine I lost track of their energies. Instead of searching for them I made the decision to at least make sure you survived.”
Mareus realized that there was something ethereal in the way they talked. Their tone wasn’t distant, but at the same time it felt like they were a world away from him. The image of a mother apologizing for something she wasn’t responsible for popped in his mind.
His body began to feel lighter than it had been since he woke up in the cave. “Thank you.” He relented.
He gingerly wiped away his tears as if testing if his body would suddenly start listening to him. When he opened them again, the dark world that surrounded him expanded and he could now see all the way to the other wall of the cave.
Am I really not in the afterlife? He thought.
The formless shadow of his savior was replaced with a celestial fairy that stepped out from one of Elder Guo’s stories and descended into this pit to comfort him. She wore a snow white hanfu with a wide sash that hugged tightly against her. The sleeves and hem were far longer than normal like if the seamstress forgot to remove the excess material.
Her otherworldly appearance stood out against the darkness with her iridescent skin illuminating the cave. Her shadow like hair, even darker than the surroundings blackness. She looked like a master craftsman had picked the most exquisite material to craft a lifelike doll that would shatter if you looked at it the wrong way. Only to the fill that doll with the essence of deepest parts of the night sky.
Mareus completely forgot his fatigue as he collapsed into a bow and laid his head to the floor. In an attempt to imitate the older members of his village when speaking to the elders, he said. “I apologize for being so disrespectful. I humbly want to thank the generous immortal for saving this life.”
His body trembled from the effort of supporting his weight, but he continued to wait as sweat formed on the back of his neck and ran down his face. Unsure of what this heaven-like being would do to him if he had disrespected her further.
Next chapter

During April 1st week i started inquiring about Bankruptcy. I did not know regarding the free consultation and this subreddit. I was very scared like what will happen, I called an attorney and he said he can work out with the chapter 13 numbers for me but would charge me like $500. I agreed as I did not had anyone to talk to or get consultation. He requested zelle transfer money from me and the subject was "Retainer Fee". I did paid him, and the transaction now showing as Retainer fee.
After that I consulted with other attorneys and the Guy I paid was not responsive, so I am planning to not retain him but some other attorney who seems helpful.
Now my question is, Is it going to create an issue If I retain some other attorney during June and file during August.
After paying the 1st attorney, I did stopped making the minimum payments as I am not able to afford any more.

Sionia
Chapter 14
Map First Previous
“Lord Wyatt, you are needed” Called Lars that shook me out of my fascinating reading about dragon neuts.
“Yes.” I said as I pulled back the curtain.
“The city guard requests to speak with you. They are restricting entrance to Avalon given the latest attack by Mardor at Black Gate of Rowan.” Lars explained with a salute and chest bump
With a sigh, I handed my book to Gus and exited the carriage and was very impressed with the massive three story gatehouse and huge stone block readouts connected on each side. I was met by a forty something looking man of average build with black hair and dark eyes flanked by six fully fitted out soldiers.
“I am Rhys Redith captain of the guard here in Avalon. You must be Count Ryan Wyatt.” Rhys introduced himself with the question.
“Yes, I am Ryan Wyatt.” I responded with a frown and knotted brow.
“We have been expecting your arrival. The king has ordered us to assist you and provide hospitality. I am to escort you to the fortress and the rest of your party to Duggan's inn.” Said Rhys with a salute and formal bow.
“That will not do! I have several wards under my care which several are nobility.” I objected to the plan given.
“I was not aware. I will of course take you to the fortress where Lady Ludmilla will address your concerns.” Replied Rhys with a salute and bow then motioned for me to follow.
“Follow him, Jace .” I said to my new driver and climbed into the carriage.
The bridge over the north side of the Paradise River to the island of Avalon was very long at around a quarter mile or so. The readouts of the gatehouse extended a good ways into the river which had several firing positions. I suspected that the river rose and fell with a possible rainy and dry season which was why the readouts could prevent an army from getting behind the gatehouse or access to the bridge from land. The island side gatehouse was flush with the city walls and protruded into the river was equally as impressive with a descent sized recessed portico and draw bridge porch extension.
Thinking back to my travels through Europe, I decided Avalon looked like the city of East Looe, Cornwall in England but not as topographically elevated and with more renaissance style architecture than back on earth. The Roman style arched bridge was very much what we just rode across. The fortress of Avalon itself was at the highest point which was off to the left on the far east side of the island and most up stream point on the islands.
The Fortress keep was decent but still half the size of Duke Boasag's Buanna. I realized that the reason for putting my servants at an inn was because of the lack of space. However, I was determined to stay with my wards no matter the violation of etiquette it might cause. As my carriage pulled up to the entrance with the fortress that had both iron gates and metal reinforced wooden doors that were a good six feet wide and twelve feet tall each. These doors were set into no less than a three foot thick wall.
Passing through the gate was a small bricked paved courtyard that was about forty to fifty feet wide in a more or less oval shape. I saw a host of servants and two well dressed ladies waiting at the main doors to the fortress's central keep.
“Lord Wyatt, welcome to Avalon. I am Viscountess Ludmilla Skafhoggr and this is my mother Baroness Grogda Wode.” Stated a quiet plump pretty faced brown haired woman in a gaudy yellow with purple accented dress with unicorns all over it and a matching unicorn hat whose horn protruded a good foot from her forehead.
“Yes, it is a very deep pleasure to meet you as well.” Stated Lady Grogda a good looking woman who seemed to be in her mid to late thirties with black hair and unusual olive colored eyes. Her lite brown dress was quiet plain compared to her daughter's which was kind of comical in their contrast.
“The pleasure is mine for sure in meeting you ladies.” I said pouring it on a bit thick with a formal bow and sweep of my arm.
“I do not understand. Why are all your people with you?” Lady Ludmilla asked looking toward Captain Rhys but speaking to me.
“I have many wards under my protection. Thus, it is impossible to leave them alone without my presence as there are many who would try and take advantage of helpless young girls.” I stated but that failed miserably when Freya and the other three Asgardians approached fully armed with their swords.
“I would hardly call them helpless!” Spat Lady Grogda with a bit of contempt as the Asgardians were better looking than her.
“Despite appearances, they need my protection. After all, I am their guardian as I freed them from captivity.” I responded with a bit of admonishment in my voice.
“Yes, we have heard the tale. You are quiet the knight in shinning armor.” Lady Ludmilla said with obvious sarcasm.
“It is what it is. The wards will be with me wherever I am. If that is at an inn or camping on the side of the road, so bit it.” I stated with irritation.
“Do not be silly. We can host your wards and personal attendant. However, we must insist that the rest stay in the inn over there.” Lady Ludmilla said pointing to a three story building that was about fifty yards away.
“That is closer than expected. However, I accept. My people can stay at the inn while you host me and my wards.” I stated with another formal bow.
“Good, now come and we will see to your comfort.” Lady Ludmilla said with a bit of a laugh with Lady Grogda giving a small laugh and a wicked grin.
I immediately turned to Lars, Razor and Meowth and ordered that they maintain a watch on the carts and carriage around the clock as I did not want any lapse where someone would try to take advantage. I called to the wolf kin brothers to continue to protect the girls inside the fortress. Pointing to Lars, I told him to take our prisoner Andros to the adventure's guild office and turn him over and letting them know he was caught trying to steal from me. Tell them know I will see them on morrow to see if Andros was telling the truth or just lying. Turning with a smile and motioned to Freya and the girls to follow me with Gus right behind me.
The inside of the fortress was decently furnished though it had more of the appearance of a military outpost than a holding of wealth as it looked quiet spartan. I was led to an upper chamber where Lady Grogda had already ordered a bath filled by the time we had arrived.
“I will see to you personally” Lady Grogda stated with that same wicked grin again.
I suddenly felt as though I was a piece of meat put on display before a hungry wolf. I steeled myself to not recoil as I just felt off with this lady.
“See to your master's baggage.” Lady Grogda ordered Gus who was surprised by the command.
Gus gave me a slight shaking of his head and left the chamber. Lady Grogda then proceeded to strip me with efficiency. Once I was naked, she suddenly took her time looking at my nakedness. She even traced my scars on my back with a click of her tongue. Walking over to the tub, I climbed in and sat down.
“Spoil sport” Said Lady Grogda as she grabbed a wash cloth.
“Do not get my wounds wet.” I said warning Lady Groda of what the doctor had told me.
“Why? Your wound is almost well healed. The stitches can be pulled out except here” Stated Grogda and tapped me on my left shoulder blade.
“I have been using a special salve from the high elves. I did not realize it was healing that fast. However, I was warned that getting my wound wet would effect my healing.” I repeated what Doctor Zalzwarth told me.
“Very well.” Groda conceded.
Lady Grogda began washing me where she was absolutely taking her time. It was obvious that she was deliberately feeling me up for her own pleasure. When she grasped my manhood. I stood up and said, “The water is cold and I am tired and hungry!”
“Humph” Pouted Lady Grogda her displeasure but began to rinse me.
Just as I was stepping out of the tub, Gus entered slightly out of breath as he had run to get my clothes with Lukas my footman helping. I sighed with relief as Gus helped me don my dressing gown.
“Old Maude will be here momentarily to apply your salve.” Gus said with a salute.
“Very good.” I replied to Gus then turned to Lady Grogda and said, “I was told you are a Dowager Baroness. Is that not so?” I blatantly asked appearing as innocent as I could.
“I will see you at the dinner bell hour.” Lady Groda said with a sort of half wave salute and stormed out of the chamber in a huff.
“Thank you, Gus. I actually thought I would have to literally fight to save my personal honor.” I remarked with a laugh.
“It was my pleasure, Lord Wyatt.” Gus responded and joined me in laughing.
Old Maude came about twenty minutes later and applied my salve and chatted about how excited she was to be in Avalon and wanting to visit one of the apothecary shops. I gave her permission but have one of the guards accompany her.
About an hour later and I was fully shaven and dressed, I heard a large bell ringing from a bell tower not far away from my chamber. With that, I headed down to the great hall that was just off the main entrance way. I was met by Lady Ludmilla who escorted me to Viscount Skafhoggr chair where she seated herself to my left. Lady Grogda appeared wearing a new pink dress and seated herself to my right. The one missing was the Viscount.
“Where is Lord Skafhoggr?” I asked Lady Ludmilla with a raised eyebrow.
“He is meeting with one of the military commanders. I believe they are deciding on how large a levy they must raise to battle the bastards of Mardor.” Replied Lady Ludmilla as she clapped her hands for servants to begin serving the evening meal.
Four exhausting hours later, I was back in my chamber with my nerves completely shot. The constant fawning and mindless chatter from Lady Ludmilla as well as the constant groping from Lady Grogda under the table had stained me to the max. I was ready for bed and was glad to sink into the lavender scented sheets. Gus grabbed a thin pallet and two blankets. Blowing out the candles he stepped into the hallway closing the door behind him. He would outside my door as custom demands while traveling.
A little over a half an hour later after Gus left, the door opened and closed quickly. I could not see in the darkness but relaxed when Freya spoke softly and slipped into bed with me. Freya did her magic on me as she mounted me taking me to new heights of pleasure. I quickly forgot all about the overly eager pursuit of the Dowager Baroness as I shared the pleasures of being with Freya. After we had sated ourselves completely, we slept peacefully in a loving embrace.
The morning came with a knock on my door that woke both Freya and I. I moaned but Freya nudged me on the chin.
“Time to wake you lazy bones.” Freya said with a laugh.
“I am not a morning person.” I said with a groan.
“Don't I know it! You were quiet the beast were you not?” Freya teased then laughed at me.
The knock on the door was more instant as I rose and put on my dressing gown. Opening the door slightly was Gus and the Dowager Baroness.
“It is early, what is it?” I asked.
“We have prepared a very special meal for you this morning.” Said Lady Grogda with a frown while she tried to look around me into the chamber.
“I see. Well, give me some time to properly dress and I will be down shortly.” I stated and continued to Gus “Have Lukas bring my shaving kit.”
“Right away, Lord Wyatt.” Gus said as he motioned down the hall where I assumed Lukas was.
About forty five minutes later and having snuck Freya out of my chamber, I was fully shaved and dressed in my dark red outfit and black beret hat that actually looked really good on me. Upon entering the great hall, I saw Lady Ludmilla seated. Lady Grogda taking me by the arm led me again to the Viscount's chair where she seated herself next to me.
“Where is Lord Skafhoggr, Lady Ludmilla?” I asked her directly.
Lady Ludmilla was quiet for a moment then said, “I guess he is sleeping. The meetings with the military commanders drag on for hours and hours. I hardly ever see him these days.” Lady Ludmilla said with a shrug of her shoulders.
“Is that so. Very well as it can not be helped. Please send my regards to Lord Skafhoggr for his hospitality. I was informed that the king would have a messages for me that Lord Skafhoggr was to give me. Could you ask Lord Skafhoggr for them?” I asked as I suspected something was just not right.
“Oh. Ah. I will of course ask my Lord Vincent for the king's message once morning meal is finished.” Lady Ludmilla said and looked discombobulated.
“I see. Please do so. The king ordered me to arrive in Camelot immediately. I can not dally and spend extra time as I normally would do. I hope you understand.” I said making extra emphasis on the king's order part.
“Yes. What the king commands we all must obey.” Lady Ludmilla said sourly but not looking at me.
Lady Ludmilla then clapped her hands and the servants brought in the morning meal. What surprised me was my meal was different from everyone else. Looking at both Lady Ludmilla and Lady Grogda something in the back on my head screamed warning warning.
The silver plate before me was a type of stew with a strong overpowering spice scent. I frowned and began to think hard and fast.
“This is a specialty from the High Valley region. I hope you like it.” Lady Grogda said with no expression at all.
My alarm bells went off even stronger this time. A footman came over to fill my cup which I deliberately knocked over and profusely apologized for my clumsiness.
“You know, I am from the High Valley region too. I have never been a fan of overly spiced foods. Lets see how spicy it is.” I stated and took a scoop with a spoon and handed it to the footman to taste.
The footman was surprised but more than happy to taste the food as it was obvious that food for the staff was very plain and simple.
“You should not do that! It is not right!” Lady Grogda said as she stood up showing more alarm than outrage.
The footman had already consumed the sample where he at first looked like he liked it. However, he suddenly started to choke as his face turned bright red and falling to his knees. Lady Ludmilla stood up in horror as the footman was gagging begging for water. I handed him my silver chalice with what I assumed was apple cider where he chugged it down then begged for more.
Finally, after three more cups of water given by another footman, first footman just lay on his back almost in a stupor. It was as if his mind was blank.
“What is this?” I asked as I pointed to my meal looking at both Lady Ludmilla and Lady Grogda.
“I do not know!” Said Lady Ludmilla looking at her mother with a strange look.
“Do not give me that! What did you do?” I demanded with a my voiced raised and now pointing my finger at them.
“It was a love potion. It was to make you like me.” Said Lady Grogda meekly and looking sheepishly at the ground.
“Seriously! That was more than a simple love potion!” I yelled my outrage.
“I swear that is all it was. I had to hide its not so pleasant taste with spice.” Lady Grogda stated her defense but still not able to look me in the eye.
“Lady Ludmilla, I must now ask that you bring me the king's message as I am now leaving Avalon.” I commanded with rage in my countenance.
Lady Ludmilla fled the great hall without replying. Lady Grogda just sat down with her head down looking at the floor saying nothing.
With exasperation, I called out to my people. “House of Wyatt, Ladies and girls we are leaving! Quickly gather your things and be out front within a little span!”
With that, I stormed out of the great hall to the shock of all present. Up in the guest chamber, I changed clothes into my bluejeans, a blue shirt and a tan leather vest. Pulling on my boots and strapping on my weapons belt, I looked over seeing Gus and Lukas already packed up my discarded clothing and was ready to leave as they were staying clear of my angry outbursts.
Down at the carts, I ordered my guards to ready themselves to leave. I sent Lukas to call all the servants in the inn to be ready to leave immediately. Razor and Meowth jumped down from their perch on the first two carriages with questioning looks.
“They tried to poison me! Can you believe it?” I said angrily as I swept my arm to point at the fortress.
“Meow Lord Wyatt, that is clawful. Do you want meow to use them like a scratching post?” Asked Meowth as her tail went straight in what I assumed was either surprise or anger.
Razor just gave a low grumbling growl with teeth bared as he looked at the fortress.
Forty minutes later as my people were loading up, Lady Ludmilla approached with her head down.
“I am sorry Lord Wyatt. It seems you do not have any messages from the king.” Lady Ludmilla said never once looking me in the eye.
“I see. Send a message to the king that I left Avalon today and as commanded traveling as quickly as I can. The king is expecting my update so make sure it is properly sent!” I said with a warning.
I ordered a florse saddled for I needed fresh air as I was still furious. I actually led our people out and toward the main north south road which Nick panicked a bit and settled with riding next to me. As we approached the main crossroads of the city, I saw a large dinning hall and ordered a halt for all of our people to have breakfast. The meal consisted of roasted mutton, eggs, apple pancakes and apple jam. They also had fresh chilled milk and apple cider which really went well with the sweet dishes. Our group apparently cleaned them out and they had to turn away a few customers until mid day.
After breakfast, I went to the adventurer's guild that was a few buildings to the south. It was a four story building of decent size. I allowed Old Maude with a one of the house guards to go to the apothecary shop across the road along with the two Alphardian servants Aura and Sylvia. Inside the adventurer's guild, I asked for Marine as instructed. It was then I learned that Marine was Zack Talley's girl where they were to marry soon as she proudly let me know her good news.
“Zack said to tell you this is a level one escort. Whatever that means.” I repeated what Zack had told me to say.
“Thank you. It simply means Zack thinks there would be no problems and just being present is enough to discourage any potential thieves. The total is two hundred fifty denari for basic escort with an A ranked adventurer.” Marine said with a smile
After paying the fee for the job request, I asked Marine to speak to someone about Andros that was brought in by man guard Lars.
“I am Supervisor Etan Borg and assistant to Guild Master Henry Stewart. It is a pleasure to be at your service Count Wyatt.” Stated Etan with a salute and bow.
“Pleasure is mine.” I replied with a salute and nod of my head.
“We have investigated Andros. His party the Finders of Avalon specialize in retrieving lost items or stolen goods from thieves. It appears his party was specifically requested to recover a lost ventu volpis. We do not have any more details for the job other than this.” Etan stated as he read from a page in his hand.
“Who hired them to steal from me? Make no mistake, they were hired to steal from me!” I said as I was showing my anger and frustration.
“Normally, we would not disclose who posted job requests to those not apart of the contract. However, given the circumstances, I was instructed to tell you it was Viscountess Lady Ludmilla. It seems she contracted and paid a merchant from Xanadu for a ventu volpis. It is our understanding that merchant was placed on a Quenya trade ship where he will go on trial for his many crimes in Svarta. The Finders of Avalon should not have tried to take your ventu volpis. Nor should they have taken on the job given the crimes of the merchant without more information.” Etan explained what the guild knew.
“What will happen to Andros?” I asked frankly.
“The Guild Master will hold a hearing with S and an A ranked members who will advise on the issues. I expect he will be found guilty but will escape the ten year punishment. More like one to two years of labor for the guild doing low ranked jobs that no one wants while being supervised by myself or a C ranked or higher adventurer. His pay will be one third of normal with the rest going to repay the guild and costs associated with his lapse in judgment.” Etan replied with a shrug of his shoulders.
“I see. The thing that irks me is they attacked my people and wounded one of my guards with a slinger's stone.” I explained my outrage.
“I was not aware of this fact. Master Stewart will compensate you as the law requires. Unfortunately, Master Stewart left for Camelot for meetings with the war counsel on Astria's response to the Empire's latest invasion. I will send a filoxis to let Master Stewart know that there was injury, offense and honor requirements. I understand you will be traveling to Camelot and am certain Master Stewart will seek you out to give you a formal apology and see you are properly compensated.” Etan stated with a salute and bow.
“Good enough. Let me know the outcome of the hearing for Andros. I do not like loose ends and a potential enemy looking for revenge.” I said mater of factually.
“Understood. I will relay your concerns to Master Stewart. Etan replied with another salute and bow.
Leaving the adventure's guild, I decided to visit the tradesman's guild and merchant's storefront while Old Maude was still busy across the street. The girls came with me as they had been requesting things like combs, brushes and scented oils plus a few other special feminine items they needed.
Once all the girls got what they were needing and getting those items stowed with their baggage, Old Maude came back with a small crate filled with items to make medicines. While the baggage was being loaded and sorted, I went to see the information broker's desk and inquired about Chamberlain Robert Duffy. I paid the requested fee of one erythro given his status in the city. I was shown a file which listed the qualities, character and known habits of Robert. There was a section about vices and food preferences. The only vice was seeing a woman who was a widow listed as a paid mistress. Basically, Robert was a straight as an arrow honorable man. I smiled as the report made me feel better about who I was helping.
Finally, with everyone loaded up, we headed out of the city of Avalon over the southern main bridge and gate that was just like the north one but slightly longer with a guard tower protected draw bridge section to let ships pass. After about two hours, I had calmed down enough that I rode in the carriage as was expected of a person of rank. I just looked out seeing nothing but the vast wheat fields of the Capital Region realizing how lucky I had been to escape the evils of the ladies of Fortress Avalon.

5 months post-break up. I’ve posted in detail about this many times but in summary, my ex (29M) and I (27F) were long distance for 2.5 years. I was at the stage of sorting visas/jobs to move to him when he said he wasn’t ready to commit or be in a relationship. Really devastated me and flipped my life upside down at a critical point of my life. He breadcrumbed me hard the first couple months. I blocked him for a while. April 3rd, we started talking again and we both said our feelings were still the same and were open to the idea of seeing where things go. All of a sudden he shut down again and we stopped talking April 13.
I messaged him on April 29 and he said he doesn’t feel the same way, doesn’t love me, miss me or feel sad etc. He wants a relationship with gender roles. A full 180 in a couple of weeks. He also said he hadn’t been with anyone new. A couple of days later, his family blocked/deleted me off social media which actually really upset me and seemed so out of the blue because they were liking my posts just a couple of weeks before and I had a good relationship with them. I was so confused. Obviously, one didn’t get the memo and I saw a video they posted of my ex with his new chick at a family dinner on May 10. I think that was the worst moment of this whole breakup because there was no warning and he lied and told me he hadn’t been with anyone less than 2 weeks before. I didn’t expect it at all.
I did some digging and this girl is 21/22, still in college. He started following her mid April, right when he shut down again with me. This guy has a fear of commitment and the mind of a little boy so someone that young and inexperienced who hasn’t figured out their life yet is PERFECT for him. He’s got about 5 years to figure his shit out before she starts asking to settle down. At first I was inconsolable that he moved on that fast and forced his family to block me so I wouldn’t see. It wasn’t to protect my feelings. It was to protect his guilt and reputation. I was plagued with the thoughts of “does he say the things he said to me? Does he call her my pet names? Has he taken her to our places?” But honestly now, I think this has really helped me move on. What a LOSER! It’s actually hilariously embarrassing 😂 All the tears and intrusive thoughts about this pathetic human who doesn’t give a damn about me. I’m sorry but your feelings cannot change that quickly. You can’t say after months you still feel the same way and want to maybe try again and then 10 days later, your feelings are dead. This man has so many issues that he has not worked on so I’m sure this relationship will fizzle out as he is incapable of having a healthy one. I really was struggling with no contact but I have no desire whatsoever anymore. I’m not sure if he knows I know. But why lie? That’s the part I don’t get? You can tell me how little I mean to you, so why not say you’re seeing someone new? What is wrong with him???
Anyone have a similar experience? Do you think he’s really gotten over me or is this a distraction? He’s severely avoidant. He literally told me “I’ve been pushing down feelings my whole life, this was just another I needed to overcome”. Part of me feels he’ll reach out one day and part of me wants him to so I can laugh in his face. Anyway, I’m off to disappear into the abyss. Good luck you POS. Thanks for nothing.

Wanted to share my experience doing crash course studying for 7 days and passing the SIE first attempt! I never post anything on here, but others posts made a big difference for me, so here goes!
TL;DR:
I passed my SIE yesterday after only 7 days of study. Intense! I used Pass Perfect, spent 50 hours studying total. If you only have a week or two before your test, DO NOT take a bunch of notes on everything! Read the content, take the quizzes and test, take notes on those answers and explanations!
VERY IMPORTANT: Use the two free Achievable SIE dump Sheets and watch both the S7g.u.r.u and S7 Whisperer 60 min crash course SIE YouTube videos the day before or day of test! I’ve included links at the bottom of this post. Be sure to memorize the dump sheet tricks and formulas, and decide what’s most important to reference. The test center gives you two laminated sheets and dry erase markers you can use as soon as the test timer starts. Be ready to write down key formulas, acronyms, timeframes, etc. Mine were the Options 4 square box, SLoBS & BLiSS, yield teeter totter and Key Open vs Closed end market notes. (All on the achievable dump sheets except Open/Closed Markets).
My Story:
In late April I was hired by Vanguard for a position starting May 28. I’d been a contractor doing customer service in an unlicensed VG position for about 10 months (no finance background before that); with the goal of getting hired in a licensed, permanent role within a year. I worked hard and got hired! The position requires SIE, S7 and S63. After my start date they pay me to do nothing but study and take exams for 9 or 13 weeks (depending on whether I’d passed the SIE prior to start date), which is awesome, but there’s a $5000 bonus if the SIE is passed at least a week before start date.
Note: I did have a little familiarity with basic terms and what’s required for account opening, due to my contractor position).
I originally scheduled my exam for May 13. I had about a month from hire date to May 13, and VG paid for the Pass Perfect course. I started some light studying the first week, thinking I had 3 more weeks and was on track. Then I got really sick for 2 weeks! I’m talking bed ridden, definitely no studying. So May 10 I rescheduled my exam to May 18! I had to pay $40 but figured it was well worth it not to fail, lol.
I was finally well enough to start studying on May 11, giving me 7 days. 😅 I had retained very little from my initial studying so I started over. I thought “I can do this!” I figured I’d had to do similar in college while working full time. Boy it was rough!
7 Days to PASS the SIE:
The first 3 days I had all day to study: Sat, Sun and Mon (had the day off for my original test date).
THE PLAN 41+ hours 5 practice tests, scoring at least 75%
Days 1-3 (full days) - 8+ hrs per day - Complete Pass Perfect Course (16 chapters) start to finish (reading and all quizzes, chapter tests)
Days 4-5 (Tues, Wed) - 5 hrs each day (2 before work and 3 after) - Take 1-2 Pass Perfect Final exams (1 hr 45 min each) each day, taking time to focus/take notes on anything I missed - Goal of 4 total tests, with 75% or higher on 3
Day 6 (Friday, day before the test) - 5 hours (2 hrs before work, 3 hours after) - Take 1 FINRA practice SIE exam before work (free on FINRA website) - after work, Review all Difficult Topics - Listen to S7g.u.r.u & S7 whisperer on YouTube. (They each have a 60 minute crash course review, recommended for day before or day of test). - Print out Achievable Dump Sheets - add my own notes to dump sheets
Day 7 (Day of Test) Test scheduled for 2pm (1:30 registration) - 2 hours Notes and Dump Sheets Review in morning - Leave for Test at 11:30, arrive 12:30 (45 min drive) - One last Review of Dump Sheets for 45 min, take a break before registration
Great Plan Right?! Wellll, I didn’t quite stick to it. 🤣
WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED: 52 Hours Study - Not at the planned pace! 4 Practice Finals (71% average) A lot of tears, anxiety and stress!😫 A rollercoaster of Self-doubt and Self-Confidence
Day 1 (Sat): 7 hrs Completed first 3 chapters, taking tons of notes on a Google doc, color coded and highlighted. I’ll do more tomorrow I thought, my brain is fried
Day 2 (Sun): 10 hours Completed chapters 4&5 again taking tons (too many) notes, taking quizzes and Tests multiple times, worried I wasn’t getting the concepts and terms well enough. Getting really worried about my pace now, but “hey I have tomorrow. I’ll crush it and catch up”. Maybe I won’t get to tests until Thurs, but I’ll be okay..
Day 3 (Mon): 7 hrs (I was exhausted and burnt out, still not 100% from being sick) Chapter 6 OPTIONS… the death of me, soooo much to learn. Barely got through chapter 6. Full panic has now set in! I have to work full time the next 4 days! If the rest of the course is this hard, I’m screwed. There goes my bonus, how will I tell my husband? (He would not have been mad but I would feel terrible). “Children and husband, do not bother me! I need to focus!” 😅
Day 4 (Tues): 6 hrs ( 6pm-12am) Intense panic and anxiety, how the hell am I going to finish?! Screw notes, get through the chapters! Completed chapters 7-10 Whew, these chapters weren’t as bad, maybe it’s getting easier. I think I remember a good amount. Better wrap this up tomorrow!
Day 5 (Wed): 5 hrs Very worried, but I’ll finish today and take lots of tests the next 2 days! Completed chapters 11-13 😫 OMG I’m still not done with the course and I have 2 days left! I must sleep.
Day 6 (Thurs): 6 hrs in the evening - Completed remaining chapters 14-16, course done 8pm. Whew, content done. Worried about not taking any tests yet, but at least I feel like I know the content decently! Took my first Pass Perfect Test, score 71% not as bad as I thought but that’s not a lot of margin for error! (Need 70% to Pass actual SIE test). At that point I’m calculating how much each point is worth, looking up suggestions online and praying, lol 🙏
Day 7 (Fri): 7 hrs Took 2 Pass Perfect tests, reviewed missed answers carefully and took notes. Scores: 71% and 73%. Took FINRA SIE test (on their website), 69%. Omg I’m gonna fail tomorrow. 🥺
Friday night I thought “Hmm Maybe I can reschedule for Monday (the deadline to pass for bonus). Two more days and I will be ready!” So I go to the Prometrics website and try to reschedule, seeing one slot for Monday at a site 2 hrs away… awesome.. NOPE, NOT ALLOWED less than 3 days before scheduled exam! (Why did I not think of this Tuesday?) 🙄 So I called customer service, begged and told them I had been sick.. Since they said I could not reschedule the day before the test, I asked if they could cancel it and schedule a new appt for Monday? DENIED. So I took a deep breath, cried a little and came to terms with it. This test is happening, tomorrow. 😫 🤬
Friday night 9pm: As recommended by colleagues and online forums, I listen to S7 whisperer 60 min crash course on YouTube; no notes, listening in bed). Ok, learned some things, great overview/review. Maybe I can pull this off afterall. 🤔 Things are looking up. 😊
Saturday, May 13… Day of Test (2-4pm)
7am woke up, ate a good breakfast, prepared everything I needed to take and do. Now what? Should I take another practice test? Review my notes? Listen to video? I decided no more tests, I’ll listen to the other crash course (S7g.u.r.u 60 min crash course on YouTube). 🤞
8am—11:30 Crunch time. Im determined to pass this exam!! Spent 3 hours listening to the 60 min S7g.u.r.u video, pausing when needed, replaying as needed. Took 11 pages of color coded notes on the most important points and formulas I needed to remember, mainly on Regulations (what market does it impact, what type of product, who, timeframes). I knew this was going to be at least 15% of test (I was right) and these were the main questions I missed on my Practice Finals
11:30am Renewed Faith 🙌 DAMN I learned a LOT. I’m gonna pass this thing! I was already getting low 70s on Thursday practice tests and I KNOW I learned enough from the video to pass several more questions. S7g.u.r.u literally saved me, pulling it all together in my mind! 🤯
12pm Went to UPS store, printed the 2 Achievable dump sheets and my 11 pages of notes from the video! I scanned them at every red light on the way 😂
12:59 arrived at test center. Spent 20 minutes reviewing dump sheets and drilling in my mind what to put on the 2 pages they give me for notes (specifically below and in links)
1:20 walk in, first one there.. registration complete at 1:35. To my surprise, they seat me and I can start test immediately!
As soon as the timer started my hands were flying on the 2 laminated sheets they gave me. I spent the first 15 min vigorously writing out things I wanted to reference. 90 minutes left for 85 questions. Watched the timer closely to stay on pace. Used the notepad on the test platform for each question to write out calculations, or break down what each part of the question meant, used critical thinking for answer, marking questions for review when I was stuck between 2 answers. Most importantly, I followed my gut. I knew this stuff! Used calculator for EVERY calculation, even easy ones. Finished all questions with 5 minutes remaining. Reviewed marked questions and changed only 3, if I was SURE my original answer was wrong.
I hit submit and held my breath. 🫢 OMG, does that say PASS?!!! Yes, I actually Passed! 😳 I cried out of happiness and relief, was on cloud 9. I will never cram like this again! S7 and S63 will be better, lol.
SO here’s how you can have a better experience than me if you’re a week or two away and wondering how you can possibly pull this off. YOU CAN DO IT! 💪
TIPS FOR CRASH SIE STUDYING (learn from my mistakes)
1 NOTE TAKING: I’ve always learned best by taking a ton of notes, color coded on a google doc. Taking notes reinforces it in my brain and helps me find ways to remember it for myself. However, if you are crash course Studying for the SIE, you do NOT have time to do this, lol. Honestly I barely looked at those notes in the end.
TIP: Read through the content quickly and only take notes when it tells you it’s likely a testable question! Take all quizzes and tests, REVIEW the quiz/test answers (in PP the answers also give you a brief explanation of the concept) and take light notes on that! Do NOT replace reading with the videos! The first 4 chapters I tried to save time doing this and wondered why I was failing the chapter tests. The reading content had way more info than the video! Don’t shoot yourself in the foot!
2 DON’T SPEND TOO MUCH TIME on EARLY CONCEPTS! The earlier (and for the most part, less valuable - less test questions) content will be reinforced throughout course. Most of the concepts build over the course, so the basics are reinforced later anyway. I wasted several hours!
3 EXPECT 20-25 hours are needed to complete the course/learn the concepts! Give yourself a day on REGULATIONS and 5 hours on OPTIONS , these comprised a LOT of questions on the test, could make or break you!
4 TAKE at least 4 PRACTICE FINALS with a goal of 75%, but if you’re not improving, use the crash course Videos, learn the content! Don’t take 5 more tests in lieu of learning!
5 SPEND A FEW HOURS on (free) ACHIEVABLE DUMP SHEETS and S7g.u.r.u & S7 Whisperer crash course review videos on YouTube! I would not have passed without these! Reviewing them for 4 hours and using them for key points on my tests sheets saved my ass!
I’ve included links below for the FREE Achievable Dump Sheets and the 60 minute crash course videos. Feel free to message me for more help!
GOOD LUCK! It IS Possible to pass in a week! 🍀
SIE DUMP SHEETS: (scroll to bottom of the page, there are links to download them):
https://achievable.me/exams/finra-sie/overview/#resources
S7g.u.r.u 60 min crash course
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hQRLmVspNE
S7 Whisperer 60 min crash course
https://youtu.be/_-x-RFmFAD0?si=i_ZDrrFIWuMOTK6A

This is going to be rather scuffed, but I want to quickly touch on some of these meme rallies.
$AMC - Hit highs of $12-$13. The rally was in sympathy with $GME. The day they rallied to those prices, AA diluted the apes. Never expect rallies to keep continuing above their previous, 2021 spikes. These meme companies need cash, and will dilute the retail crowd in order to continue operations. If I had access to options, I would have gone heavy on $AMC puts, my specialty. I had some back in Aug ‘23, and tallied 70% gains before selling, that was when it was at $8!!! Currently in $4b debt, so be careful with companies that need to dilute to stay in business.
$GME - I called this one back in early April, but obviously not to the extent of $80, $320 pre-split. DFV, Roaring Kitty, Keith Gill is an absolute genius. Probably made bank once again on retail. No manipulation either technically, since he never mentioned GameStop. They did file 45m shares of dilution. The GME party is claiming that it is a good move, which in part it is, but not now. Future is looking bright with 45m shares being potentially diluted (probably $1b raise, if at these prices). I did miss the $20 to $22 run up, but I still think that it has merit to day/swing trade. Depending on retail, it could attempt $40, but I won’t take the ride. Loved it since $10.
$FFIE - $0.05 to $3.00!!! Someone needs to start giving me the insight before the massive run up lol. Nonetheless, I see this ticker as a “do or die” type of play. I could see $2.00 if retail wants to push it, but also $0.50 and lower are in horizon. They can dilute like crazy if they want, so super risky. I know I will get backlash for my negative view on this one, but who tf cares. I did the same on $Fsr and $Nkla, and look where they are now.
Summary - It’s cool to see the retail crowd absolutely pump these meme stocks. First time trading was Spring ‘21, so it’s deja vu for me. I was wanting $AMC @ 2.94 on the Friday before the run up, but didn’t have significant capital to throw at it. Congrats to all those who have banked off these meme plays🍾🍾🍾 Understand that long-term, these plays will all go back to normal. Please trade responsibly (lol, no y’all won’t).
This is all for information and entertainment purposes only. Please communicate if you see eye-to-eye, or don’t look eye-to-eye. Discussion is the best way to see how plays can move.

I remember seeing a post last October were someone said that regardless of how Rebirth ends, we should open part 3 with Gast’s recordings on Jenova and the Cetra. That’s a little unnecessary now due to the narration the Cetra give in chapter 13 in Rebirth, but I was wondering how you guys would want them to bring in Gast?
EDIT: I’ve been reminded that the videos also go onto detail about him being Aerith’s dad plus Hojo killing him so it’ll definitely be interesting to see when and how they want to introduce him

Post contains minor spoilers, but I haven't finished the game so keep it spoiler free!
I'm in Chapter 13. Currently only have 1 more side quest to go with a particular Shinra Middle Manager... However, I feel like I'm starting to burn out with all the gazillion minigames and every fight being so difficult.
If I were to proceed and finish the story opening up chapter select, would I lose my partial progress and high scores in the gold saucer minigames and stuff if I were to load back to Chapter 13? Would this quest still be immediately available?

First Previous
**Memory transcription subject: Xithan, … hungry Arxur**
*Date [standardized human time]: October 13, 2136*
Holding my gift, I let my eyes slide shut, the idle chatter between Cotton and Upsilta threatening to lull me back to sleep. I had pulled myself up onto my bunk, letting my back rest against the wall, with my tail wrapped around me. This was… pleasant. Calm. I could exist, without the sensation of suspicious eyes constantly on me.
I’m free.
A loud Cotton noise caught my attention– it had to be them, of course, as venlil did not make that same kind of boisterous… laughter, was it? My eyes lazily opened, and I looked to see the two of them sitting next to each other on Cotton’s bunk. The human was laying back on their bed, their legs nearly bouncing with the occasional wheeze between laughs. Upsilta’s face had bloomed orange, most noticeable around their eyes and ears. I wasn’t sure what I had missed, but… it was still odd, to see predator and prey so friendly with one another. Even with all I had seen recently, the Dominion’s teachings still came to mind, trying to tell me what I was seeing was a lie.
Of course, it wasn’t. My eyes couldn’t lie to me, and the Dominion had no power over me. Not here, anyway.
Heavy footsteps were heard at the doorway to the bunks, and Cotton’s laughter was stifled as the human shuffled to sit up. A stressed, exhausted face peered out, glancing across the room. The angry gojid tried not to flinch when she met my eyes, but she didn’t hide it well. Realizing I would have to take more care with my behavior again, I turned my head away, trying to avoid setting off her prey instincts.
Why… am I irritated by this? I’m used to adjusting my behavior around other for all my years–
You didn’t have to do it, a few moments ago.
“Krosa!! Ya changed your mind on the bath–?”
“NO.”
Cotton seemed to deflate at this, sighing before flopping back onto their bunk, letting out an annoyed noise. The venlil gave her a few ear flicks, and a content wag of his tail; probably trying to soothe her. Krosa let out an irritated exhale, before moving towards the human and venlil pair. Surprisingly, she had turned her back to me.
There they were, chatting again. The gojid’s voice was low, Cotton’s energetic as usual, and Upsilta’s, well, soft. Not as soft as his blessed fur, but still.
They paid me no mind as they chatted, and I enjoyed the feeling of sinking into the background. Not having attention on me was… pleasant. I rubbed my snout against my soft, red gift, content at how I was–
Growl.
I blinked, the silence of the room feeling entirely too loud following the rumbling of my stomach.
Hunger.
Looking up, I saw the gojid facing me, her spines up. The venlil seemed anxious as well, moving closer to their human. I couldn’t blame them. But it still–
“See?! How the hell are we supposed to– he eats FLESH, and there’s nothing for him on this shuttle–”
“Krosa.”
“I warned you this was what would happen if we took in a blasted arxur–”
“Krosa.”
“What, Cotton–?”
The tense back and forth made the air in the room feel thick, with the human seeming to get more… frustrated as the gojid’s ranting continued. Cotton looked at me for a moment, before looking back at the angry, prickly creature in front of them.
They’re going to tell.
“I have meat for him.” The fluffy-haired human firmly answered, a gritted stare watching as the gojid processed–
“You. You WHAT?!”
The incredulous rage nearly exploded out of the gojid, as she let out a frustrated snarl; to which Cotton stayed still, refusing to flinch.
“After– AFTER EVERYTHING! You, you brought meat?! And you think you can get upset when– when our kind calls you a predator, for this kind of shit–”
The tenseness of the human felt… odd, with how they normally were. Upsilta already knew of their secret, and didn’t seem angry; but still had an air of uncertain disappointment.
“There’s no changin’ what he can eat, Krosa. An’ I got something we can use to keep him fed without killin’ anything. Just need a sample–”
“NO. God– no, what the FUCK– I should have stayed in my room, you, you’re just–”
Cutting off Cotton, Krosa stepped away from the human and venlil pair, turning to give me a glare, before retreating from the bunk room. Upsilta hopped up from Cotton’s bunk, scurrying to the door and calling out to her. Cotton sat where they were, looking… tired.
“... You have, more meat?” I quietly asked, and the golden-haired human looked up at me, before nodding.
“Yeah. I brought, ah, two bags. I’ll give ya the other one… was hoping the first one would last ya longer, but…” They sighed, pulling their backpack towards them, and starting to dig. They pulled out another bag of dried meat, setting it next to themselves. I could feel my mouth water, and my heart skip a beat at the sight.
Food.
“Cotton?” A soft voice called, as the venlil returned– but stayed in the doorway, not committed to re-entering.
“Yea?” The human replied, still digging through their items; they’d laid out a few that didn’t seem to be what they were looking for.
“What… what did you mean, you have something that can keep… Xithan fed?”
Wait. What exactly did the human mean with this? Although I was fixated on the bag of meat rations, I pulled my eyes away to watch the human, catching the sight of them pulling out a cylindrical, metal object.
“Welllll… ah never told ya why I got, uh, kicked outta the program, did I?”
The venlil’s head tilted, their ears giving a confused twitch. Program - that must have been that human-venlil exchange program. Cotton could see my hunger, and made a motion to mimic… throwing the bag at me? I sat up straighter, and watched as the human effortlessly tossed the bag my way, right into my greedy claws. Unceremoniously, I tore into the plastic, digging out pieces of the dried meat and stuffing them into my gullet.
“So, ah… s’cause of this thing.” Cotton continued, gently tapping the metal cylinder. I glanced up, seeing Upsilta watching me, his fur puffed up, before forcing his gaze to his human.
“Speh, what… well, what is it? It.. it’s not a weapon, right?” The venlil chirped back, their tail swishing back and forth anxiously. The human let out a small laugh, their golden curls bouncing as they shook their head. “Nahhh, well. It ain’t a weapon to me, but… maybe to some of y’all, uh. ‘Prey’, species?”
I hadn’t realized how hungry I was. It… it was a little peculiar, having meat that was dried, but it still tasted good. It still satisfied my hunger. And I didn’t have to tear into a freshly killed gojid, either or eat those processed rations.
“Ah, well, the airport security sure as hell thought it was a weapon. Fuckin’ tool– wonder how long it took for his face to get fixed back up…” Those last words were nearly hissed, an odd glint in the human’s eye. A moment where they eerily reminded me of the humans on the Cradle– how on Wriss could they go from seemingly harmless, to something I’d hate to be on the bad side of–
You bit off two of their fingers. Was that not enough to be on their bad side?
I swallowed a large piece of dried meat. Apparently, that wasn’t the sort of thing that made Cotton upset. Whatever this ‘airport security’ did, evidently had made the human angry.
“–anyway, yea, this ain’t a weapon. S’a way for us to grow food.” The fluffy haired human beamed, looking towards their venlil for approval.
“S-so, no more rations?” Upsilta treaded, and the human let out an anxious laugh.
“U-uh, that’s the thing. It’s food… for me an’ Xithan.”
“... Wait, you mean–?”
“Meat.”
I had paused from my ravenous snacking, answer the venlil’s question for the human. Cotton looked at me, a gentle expression on their face. “Yea, s’right Xithan. Can make meat with this thing. Or, at least, duplicate a sample–”
“Sample?!” Upsilta squeaked out, and Cotton nodded. “Yeah, but hell, I’m fine with doin’ it–”
“NO.” I growled, my tail giving an irritated whip. The human looked at me, seemingly… hurt?
“.. Aww, c’mon, I’m fine with cutting out a piece, it wouldn’t even hurt–”
“Human, did you not hear me before? I would rather starve than ever taste human flesh again.”
The human sighed, rubbing their hair with their good hand. “Listen, I know it wouldn’t taste… the best, but, hell, I’d be willin’ to do it. The thing needs a fresh sample, it doesn’t really like dried or older ones for some reason–”
“I do not care. I refuse to eat your flesh– it was foul, rancid, and made me contemplate just giving up meat and dying.” The growl of my voice grew louder, and Cotton seemed unwilling to back down despite it.
“Fine, maybe… ah, fuck, I can hunt somethin’ down there–”
“Do you really think the gojid will entertain that?” I hissed, my heavy tail smacking against my bunk. “What about the venlil–?”
“Xithan, his NAME is Upsilta. And– shit, I don’t know, I’d just figure it out. There’s enough space on this damn ship to hide a carcass somewhere–” They were frustrated, but it didn’t matter– I would rather starve than taste that disgusting flesh ever again. What, by the prophet were humans made of, that tasted so wretched?
Letting out an exasperated sigh, Cotton set down their ‘meat generator’ on their bunk, before standing. The height difference wasn’t that much, but it seemed to make the human feel better. “Ya only need a lil sample– it can only make a little bit at a time, and it always needs fresh samples, but dammit, it works–”
We were at a standstill; my stubborn refusal, and their inability to back down. I opened my maw once more to remind the human–
“... I’ll do it.” Came the soft, reserved voice of the human’s venlil. Cotton’s face went a shade paler, and they whipped around to look at their exchange partner. “... Upsilta?”
The divinely fluffy venlil gave a gentle sway of their tail, meeting the human’s gaze for a moment, before looking away. Cotton was crouched in front of them, their hands grasping the prey’s shoulders. “... You don’t, you don’t have to do this, s’okay, I’ll figure it out–”
The venlil raised a paw to touch the human’s injured hand. “... You gave enough, already. Plus… he already said he wouldn’t eat your… flesh.” A gentle whistle of a laugh followed that, and then the human was gently holding the venlil’s face, their voice… strained.
“Are… are you sure? I don’t… I don’t wanna ask this of ya.” I couldn’t see their expression, as their back was turned to me, but I could safely assume it wasn’t a happy one.
“It’s… not like you will be able to catch anything in space. And.. Xithan is right; Krosa would probably have your head if she saw you with something you… hunted.” Another paw came up, giving the human’s hand a reassuring pat, before laying their paw overtop it.
I could easily eat venlil meat. Although, it would… clearly be a bit of a sacrifice, having to give up small amounts of their own flesh.
What prey does that?
One that isn’t afraid, clearly.
And one that doesn’t think you’re a monster.
“... I can, ah. Take the sample. I’ll do everythin’ I can to make it as… quick as possible.” Cotton breathed, their shoulders seeming to slump. They evidently really hadn’t wanted their venlil to have to do this. They… cared about him.
A cream-colored fluffy tail gave the human’s side a reassuring tap, before the venlil lifted his head to meet the eyes of the worried predator in front of him.
“I trust you.”
~note: crazy right? and some of you though we wouldn't come back (we still don't have backlog please be patient)
Side story following agent "John"
credits to SpacePaladin15 for the universe: https://www.reddit.com/HFY/comments/u19xpa/the_nature_of_predators/

Last week's post https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cqj7kc/roundup_ufos_anomaly_network_app_countries_colors/
Archive
Moon phase waxing crescent, three days before half
Mars Right Ascension 0h 37m 40s
.1 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cqjbim/strange_explosions_in_the_sky/ sighting description, no craft, at home, urban area, England the UK 🇬🇧, nighttime, flareup, appeared out of nowhere, explosion, it was like an ourburst, almost like when a coronal mass ejection happens, the explosion went one way, covering half a circle going outwards. , brief duration 1-2 seconds, repeat visitor or second object, two witnesses, Around 5 min later it happened again, this time in another part of the sky., has anyone seen?
.2 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cqjmwu/remote_viewing/ discussion of remote viewing, perplexing success, I’ve been playing a remote viewing app for two weeks and want to know how it is working. I keep getting it right.
.3 https://old.reddit.com/StrangeEarth/comments/1cqj2p8/strange_blue_cloud_over_bostonquincy_last_night/ video, nighttime sky, cloud anomaly, blue 🔵, from car, stationary, urban area, near Boston, quincy Massachusetts
.4 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cqj6la/a_look_into_the_special_tactical_unit_detachment/ original research, documents, "Special Tactical Unit Detachment" , S.T.U.D.S. within Air Force budget requests
.5 https://old.reddit.com/StrangeEarth/comments/1cqktez/immense_beam_of_light_moving_across_the_moon/ sighting description, moon anomaly, contemporaneous report, has anyone seen?, pale white beam almost imperceptibly across the face of the crescent moon, traversing the face of the moon, vertical orientation
.6 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cqltyg/great_basin_experience/ sighting description, Great Basin National Park in eastern Nevada, nighttime, unusual animal activity Western Jay comes out of nowhere and gets mad at my presence. He's sailing around my head, making a racket. Normally I love birds, but this thing is freaking me out. After 5 minutes of this it flies away into the distance., subsequent single light object, ascending from horizon, approach, silent, duration 8 minutes,
.7 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cqm8s5/uap/ video, nighttime sky, single light object, very bright, contemporaneous report, northern lights, moving fast, silent, beetle 🪲 shape,
.8 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cqz2hb/all_the_relevant_uap_updates_from_may_612/ information, state of disclosure USA https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cqd2yw/mexican_and_peruvian_ufo_hearing_roundup_slow/ state of disclosure, Mexico and Peru
.9 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cqv3p4/seen_above_my_house/ photos, nighttime sky, single light object, over the witness home, silent, right angle turn, ascending, west coast of scottish highlands near the Island of Mull, Scotland the UK 🇬🇧, contemporaneous report, similar sighting same day in comments https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1crqcay/unknown_in_sky/ video, single light object, low over treeline, plane for comparison observed, over Oban,Scotland, downvoted to zero
.10 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cqmotu/ufo_in_linekin_bay_boothbay_harbor_maine_847pm/ video, nighttime sky, contemporaneous report, northern lights, single light object moving slowly, kept moving in short bursts and pausing in one spot. Then moved again. , moving and stationary and moving, subsequent repeat visitor or second object, two witnesses, over water, linekin Bay, Boothbay harbor Maine https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cr1oml/ufo_linekin_bayeast_boothbay_harbor_maine_5112024/ more video, previous night
.11 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cqmwax/hoping_this_sub_can_identify_what_i_saw_today/ sighting description, daytime, contemporaneous report, central Illinois, Duration 20 seconds, single dark object, possible manta shape, all black and shaped like a bird, moving fast and straight, disappeared into clouds, silent, similar sighting same day in comments
.12 ➡️ https://old.reddit.com/aliens/comments/1cqwpdx/i_worked_on_a_team_that_dealt_with_with_nhi/ sighting description, at work, entity, OP is a university professor currently, previous career in aviation, landed craft, crash retrieval, acorn 🌰 shape, shaped like a dreidel without the handle., The shape was directly informed by its purpose. Every shape is custom molded in a metallic material that would revolutionize the way we travel if we had it. , I'll call it crash recovery because that's what colleagues who are planning to come forward will call it, shootdown, the NHI look like the aliens from close encounters. As far as I know, we never had one alive.,NHI know we can track them, and know how to avoid us.,NHI are linked to their craft in a way that borders on biological. Security rule is people that mention the agency name are killed. It's not a question, and it happened during my time. You'll hear more about them as news about the retaliation Dave comes out., If the US comes out directly and says "We have craft, we have bodies", it means we are on the verge of a serious global conflict like we've never seen before. [GOODPOST], removed by mods, "NORAD leak", https://web.archive.org/web/20240513180353/https://old.reddit.com/aliens/comments/1cqwpdx/i_worked_on_a_team_that_dealt_with_with_nhi/ Archive https://web.archive.org/web/20240514184514/https://old.reddit.com/aliens/comments/1cqwpdx/i_worked_on_a_team_that_dealt_with_with_nhi/ updated archive https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cvs93o/new_paradigm_media_group_claim_that_an_uap/ hopefully unrelated
.13 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cqs35h/what_do_you_think/ photo, nighttime sky, contemporaneous report, northern lights, single light object moving fast, wavy trajectory, overhead, 5 second long exposure, Port Coquitlam - about 30 minutes outside of Vancouver Canada 🇨🇦, downvoted to zero
.14 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cr8pcu/what_did_i_catch_in_the_sky/ video, daytime cloudy sky, single light object stationary, just sat up there, duration a couple hours. And then it was gone.., vanished, Newport Oregon, near water pacific ocean, haze, disturbing the air around it, three witnesses , similar sighting in comments
.15 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cr9qj4_strange_lights_moving_back_and_forth_while/ video, nighttime sky, northern lights, Pocatello Idaho, threelights observed, flying in triangle formation, crossing directly in front
.16 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cr1clw/taken_over_a_lake_in_prince_edward_county_ontario/ video, nighttime sky, over water, lake, prince Edward County Ontario Canada 🇨🇦, twolights, appeared out of nowhere, stationary and moving slowly, descended below treeline
.17 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cqreh8/very_bright_in_the_light_polluted_sky/ video, nighttime sky, single object blackwhite, low over rooftop, rockford Illinois, contemporaneous report, possible speed change, seems to maybe decelerate a couple times., very bright observed
.18 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cr6105/possible_uap/ video, nighttime sky, single light object, possible jumpy movement, speed change, seemed to really pick up speed then slow. , during northern lights, Eau Claire Michigan
.19 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cr3ioe/capturing_the_light/ photos, nighttime sky, single light object moving, near water, lake Michigan , irregular shape, elongated, worm 🪱, haze,
.20 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1crboq1/ufo_sighting_honolulu_pt1/ video, daytime cloudy sky, fleet, at home, urban area, kakaako neighborhood of Honolulu Hawaii, contemporaneous report, one large orb and several smaller orbs all floating in a formation. , smaller objects accompany it, flying in formation, disappeared into clouds https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1crbzky/ufo_sighting_honolulu_pt2/ more video
.21 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1crbj6x/summoning_ufos/ discussion of human initiated contact
.22 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1cqu4hw/saw_two_translucent_tailed_orbs_in_the_sky/ sighting description, has anyone seen?, nighttime, contemporaneous report, northern lights, duration 10 seconds, twolights, moving fast, trail, flying in formation, see through head with a long skinny white tail that left a trail of glowy light as they moved. One of them stopped moving, turned around then waited up for the other as it trailed behind and when it caught up they kinda just disappeared., northern Washington state near Canada 🇨🇦
.23 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1crdy05/51024_sw_wa/ video, nighttime sky, northern lights, single light object moving, at home, backyard, witness followed it, electronic effects camera battery died, possible speed change, possible trajectory change, disappeared behind rooftops, southwest Washington state, similar sightings same area and day in comments, [GOODPOST]
.24 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cremtj/my_great_uncle_told_me_about_a_crash_retrieval/ sighting description, family story, crash retrieval, military, Salar de Uyuni desert Bolivia 🇧🇴 , USA military response, He described the ship to have flickering lights of several colors and saw the Americans retrieving some pieces from that ship, alongside some organic material that looked like deceased beings
.25 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1crgxgt/3_lights_in_sky/ photos, nighttime cloudy sky, threelights, during northern lights, not seen by eye, Columbia South Carolina
.26 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1crk806/orb_over_lake_while_watching_the_aurora_lights_in/ video, nighttime sky, over water, Elbow Lake Michigan, during northern lights, three witnesses, single light object, hexagon shape with a circular light in the center. https://old.reddit.com/useDry-Ant3194/comments/1crwmun/screenshots_of_orb_over_lake_2nd_photo_shadow_was/ screenshots , multicolored, haze, cloud of all the colors dancing around it., duration 2 minutes
.27 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1crkaw4/some_advice_plz/ sighting description, two witnesses, nighttime, from car, Bourbon County Kansas, single light object stationary, low over treeline, reaction to being observed, approach, flareup, light shining in car, directly in front, went from a fixed position in the trees to nearly in front of my truck while at the same time focusing what I can only describe as the brightest light I'd ever experienced at night before. , jumpy movement, missing time
.28 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1crjw5j/extremely_bright_light_flying_towards_my_plane/ sighting description, from airplane, single light object, approach, over water Atlantic Ocean, daytime cloudy sky, light shining in airplane, physical effects paralysis, As I first saw the light my first reaction was that I froze for a few seconds in confusion. , interaction with airplane, flew overhead, witness looked away and looked back, vanished, duration 10-12 seconds,
.29 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1crh1go/recreating_something_i_saw_when_i_was_young/ childhood sighting description and reference image, at home, nighttime, witness woke up, threelights, barbell shape, outside window, stationary, duration 10 minutes, audio description loud buzzing., emotion of fear, witness left the area, new Hampshire
.30 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cr8ir4/seen_in_cornwall_uk/ photo, nighttime sky, cloud anomaly, disappeared, possible single object blackwhite, possible camera artifact, not seen by eye, at home, Cornwall the UK 🇬🇧
.31 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1crusrv/seeing_strange_things_while_recording_the_arora/ video, nighttime sky, fleet observed, multiple objects, one following another, LOTS of strange glowing round things. They would appear for 20-30 seconds and float across just a small area, and then they would disappear., each duration 20-30 seconds, Chattanooga Tennessee
.32 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1crzbcg/i_need_help_to_try_to_understand_what_i_saw/ sighting description, Sao Paulo Brazil 🇧🇷, nighttime sky, single light object, blinking, stationary, duration 10-15 minutes, The light would turn off and on in a regular interval (around 13 seconds)., repeat visitor, contemporaneous report
.33 https://old.reddit.com/aliens/comments/1cr8t6q/am_i_seeing_things_round_2/ video, nighttime sky, single light object, doughnut 🍩 shaped, moving straight
.34 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1crmukh/speaking_owls/ childhood sighting description, sister of OP, at home, nighttime, outside bedroom window, entity, owl, communication, repeat visitor, family history, her eldest son (who was around 7-8 at the time) woke the house up screaming. He was terrified and shaking and she asked him what happened and he told her an owl came and spoke to him “in his head.” , telepathy, emotion of fear
.35 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1crhdyo/my_cousin_and_i_charged_a_shadow_figure_when_we/ childhood experience description, three witnesses, entity, shadow figure, combat, My cousin and I looked back at each other and my cousin just screamed at me “LETS GET HIM!”. Before I could say anything my cousin just bolts at this guy, and I ran right behind him., witness followed it, it was not running fast at all, the way it ran looked super weird, its kind of hard to explain, its limbs moved like a human, but it looked like it was running in slow motion. Its head was slightly tilted back as it was jogging, almost as if it was looking up at the sky. , looked away and looked back, vanished
.36 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1crlbtp/what_do_you_think_of_this_experience_visitation/ experience description, at home, nighttime, inside bedroom, witness woke up, audio description high frequency sound in the room, almost like when something electrical is plugged in and you can just hear it. A neon sign kind of. , approach, very loud, It stops, and I start to hear this rustling coming from behind me, I think, “What the fuck IS that??”, wtf_is_that, communication, I get a flash of a sentence through my head that doesn’t feel like a thought from me but a message from someone else: “Don’t be scared.”
.37 https://old.reddit.com/aliens/comments/1crnkz7/cool_dream_about_ufos_in_a_hanga dream description, UFO's being shown to a group of people, it was in a very large hangar, the alien body was probably about 7ft that was lying down and the craft was tiny, maybe the size of a small table., the craft would expand towards the 3 pilots to become much larger, using their minds to do this, it would then mold to their forms to enable a space to pilot it, the material was almost like a moving graphete.
.38 https://old.reddit.com/aliens/comments/1crfo0y/did_i_see_a_ufo_anyone_got_a_logical_explanation/ sighting description and reference image, circular shape, at home, nighttime cloudy sky, spinning, The patterns/shapes/geometrics that made up the circle were ones I had never seen before, The Circle was spinning non stop and it was like the outside of the circle would collapse into the centre and then it would come out again to full size, has anyone seen?
.39 https://old.reddit.com/ufo/comments/1crs234/was_trying_to_get_a_photo_of_the_northern_lights/ photo, nighttime sky, during northern lights, urban area, Glasgow Scotland the UK 🇬🇧, not seen by eye, fleet or single object multiple lights, green 🟢, hoax
.40 https://old.reddit.com/ufo/comments/1cqx075/3_lights_in_the_sky/ photo, nighttime cloudy sky, threelights, red and green 🔴🟢, low over treeline, camping, outback Australia 🇦🇺 , zigzag movements or wavy trajectory, moving from side to side going at some speed but as I took that photo they disappeared., reaction to being filmed, vanishing
.41 https://old.reddit.com/Glitch_in_the_Matrix/comments/1cs2rhi/lost_time_in_western_mass/ experience description, missing time, two witnesses, from car, the McDonalds in Hadley Massachusetts, there’s quite some fog. But that area has fog from time to time. And all the cars except for ours in the lot were gone too, automobile anomaly, old early 2000s suv pulled into the lot with zero noise. No engine sound, I didn’t noticed the light until it pulled over to my right front spot. It kinda seemed it just slide in with no friction or anything. , location anomaly, we somehow got into the lot across the street,,didn’t seem to take longer than half an hour., more than 3 hours just passed.
.42 https://old.reddit.com/astrophotography/comments/1crz21q/an_unknown_red_circles/ photo, nighttime sky, two objects, anomalous to witness, red 🔴, near water, Black Sea, 30 second long exposure
.43 reference ISS https://old.reddit.com/astrophotography/comments/1cru96d/iss/ photo, nighttime sky, international space station
.44 https://old.reddit.com/Glitch_in_the_Matrix/comments/1cro1y6/we_lost_about_4_hours_of_time_in_30_seconds/ experience description, around the Northampton - Luton area the UK 🇬🇧, from car, four witnesses, camping, went through a tunnel, 4 hours had passed in 30 seconds,
.45 https://old.reddit.com/BackwoodsCreepy/comments/1crldxd/sound_from_woods_in_pnw/ audio description, at home, outside, near water, hottub, backyard, pacific northwest, high pitched, smooth who sound. Almost like someone was singing the word “who”. But with a very elongated “ooo” noise. , brief duration 2-3 seconds, physical effects paralysis and goosebumps, repeat visitor, made two passes, has anyone seen?, similar experiences in comments
.46 https://old.reddit.com/BackwoodsCreepy/comments/1crky49/more_in_depth_story_from_northern_alaska/ experience description, northern Alaska, multiple witnesses, nighttime, at home, felt observed, In the willows stood 4-6 small people. They looked like anyone else in the village, but they wore clothes made of skins rather than newer materials brought in. Their eyes glowed and one bared its teeth. Thinking about this just freaks me out., in comments: The navy on Guam has a problem with the little people entering the navy magazine where they store a huge amount of ammo. The marine guards would see them constantly., entities
.47 https://old.reddit.com/StrangeEarth/comments/1crdvlz/petrified_and_floating_out_of_window/ experience description, at home, nighttime, witness woke up, light shining in bedroom window, physical effects paralysis, witness was pulled, I floated out of my bed and towards the bright light in the window and shortly after I have no memory., event amnesia, emotion of fear, eyes teared up, it is the most terrifying feeling I have ever experienced. I’m crying just thinking about it., similar experience in comments
.48 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cs7jje/fast_moving_ufo_seen_in_north_vancouver_051024/ video, nighttime cloudy sky, single light object moving and stationary, jumpy movement, possible trail, North Vancouver British Columbia Canada 🇨🇦, duration 14 seconds, moving erratically observed, during northern lights , OP comments downvoted
.49 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1csc0o6/ufo_spotted_on_flight_to_newark_nj/ sighting description and video, nighttime cloudy sky, from airplane, contemporaneous report, over water Atlantic Ocean, single light object stationary and moving, subsequent threelights, Another light appeared right next to it and was glowing a bit brighter. A third light appeared from the right and went towards to the other two on the left. At this point the second light that randomly appeared on the left disappeared, the other two dimmed a bit and disappeared as well after another minute., dimming, vanishing,
.50 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1css11t/odd_floating_object/ photos and video, daytime cloudy sky, contemporaneous report, single light object stationary, Bozeman Montana, duration 30 minutes, weather balloon? looks like a balloon with a nautilus style tail, white in the sun and gray with low cloud cover., weird shit, multiple witnesses
.51 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1csui87/what_is_this_object_suspended_in_air_above_poland/ video, daytime cloudy sky, single light object, elongated, trail, vertical orientation, contrails type, contemporaneous report, Szczecin Poland 🇵🇱, stationary, duration a couple minutes, low over treeline, downvoted to zero
.52 https://old.reddit.com/ufo/comments/1cs6rj4/ufo_experience/ childhood sighting description, nighttime, at home, single light object moving and stationary, emitting orbs, Travelling at a slow and smooth pace. Until suddenly it stopped in position and ten seconds later two orbs shot out (or three) and darted across the sky like bees. , emotional reaction awe and wondor
.53 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1csu1ex/saw_something_in_my_apartment/ sighting description, at home, entity, inside home, audio description chain jingling and a buzzing sound., I turn around and am immediately faced with what I'm going to describe as a gray, leaning around the corner with one three fingered hand touching the wall. It looks....insubstantial. Like it's made of smoke or fog., Southern Appalachia
.54 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1csmf1w/strange_message/ experience description, no craft, at home, nighttime, communication, "kaptia kapta kesta", has anyone seen?
.55 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1crpnrw/third_man_facto experience description, remote viewing, training
.56 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1csxiay/was_wondering_if_anyone_had_a_logical_explanation/ video, nighttime sky, single dim object, diffuse, low over rooftop, contemporaneous report, Rhondda Cynon Taff South Wales the UK 🇬🇧 , two witnesses, witness followed it, duration 30 minutes
.57 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1csyfuv/honestly_dont_know_what_to_say/ video, nighttime sky, single light object moving, blackwhite, multicolored, two witnesses, contemporaneous report, subsequent threelights flying in equilateral triangle formation, [GOODPOST], emotion of fear, witness left the area, Ireland 🇮🇪 , physical effects vibration
.58 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1csyob2/purchased_a_flir_unit_online_and_had_an_interest/ sighting, OP is not the witness, witness is a pilot, black triangle 🔺️, from airplane , removed by mods, similar sighting in comments: All Black triangle, no lights, no sound, super low and almost floating (given how slow it flew over). It must have been landing at Joint Base Lewis-McChord https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cszn08/i_purchased_a_flir_unit_online_and_had_an/ reposted , similar sightings in comments, [GOODPOST]
.59 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1ctd4qs/new_jersey_ufo/ video, daytime cloudy sky, new jersey, twolights, two dark objects, moving slowly, bird for comparison, metallic sphere observed
.60 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1ctb72t/strange_train_line_in_brazil_and_argentina/ video, from home security camera, single light object, elongated, Rio de Janeiro Brazil 🇧🇷, link to similar sightings in comments
.61 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1ct569h/unidentified_object_next_to_us_apache_helicopte photo, daytime sky, contemporaneous report, at home, helicopter for comparison, single dark object, manta shape, bird?, downvoted to zero
.62 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1ct5imq/ufo_sighting_when_i_was_a_kid_with_witnesses/ childhood sighting description, multiple witnesses, at home, nighttime, trampoline, British Columbia Canada 🇨🇦, fleet, wavy trajectory, red 🔴, Three or four maybe five red lights, orbs, circles, moving like a snake across the sky but then dissappear., vanishing, repeat visitor observed, other witnesses said it came back later.
.63 https://old.reddit.com/aliens/comments/1ct62su/help_i_think_i_saw_some_aliens/ sighting description, three entities, at home, nighttime, animal reaction dogs barking, 3 little blurry things came out of the trees and then suddenly became viewable. There was 3 aliens that were as tall as oompa loompas. They were skinny so skinny almost like walking sticks with a square shaped figure. They had binocular shaped eye ridge and they had yellow eyes that were sunken in and looked slanted., emotion of fear, witness left the area, trying to run but i fell on the ground they stared at me, and did a dance. , dancing, physical effects eyes teared up,
.64 https://old.reddit.com/ufo/comments/1csw5nx/fast_ufo_over_federal_hill/ photo, daytime sky, plane for comparison, single light object, federal hill new jersey, similar sighting with video in comments,
.65 reference Sirius https://old.reddit.com/astrophotography/comments/1ct9qvx/photographed_sirius_again_3rd_time_i_think/ photo, nighttime sky, the star Sirius, single light object
.66 https://old.reddit.com/StrangeEarth/comments/1ct3nhz/looking_for_possible_answers_on_what_this_light/ video, nighttime sky, from home security camera, single light object stationary, low below treeline, appearing and vanishing,
.67 https://old.reddit.com/astrophotography/comments/1csgkde/weird_artifact/ photo, nighttime sky, anomalous to witness, single light object moving fast
.68 https://old.reddit.com/RBI/comments/1cs74p5/what_are_these_stains_on_my_pillowcase_quarte photo of pillowcase, anomalous bloodstains, at home
.69 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1ctijey/what_is_in_our_sky/ photo, nighttime cloudy sky, cloud anomaly, contemporaneous report, These "clouds" formed and moved opposite other clouds,
.70 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1ctlrfive_literally_just_spotted_this_spherical/ video, daytime cloudy sky, contemporaneous report, single dark object, elongated, possible manta shape or metapod, disappeared into clouds, sphere observed, kent the UK 🇬🇧, 51° 16' 47.9964'' N, angled from the horizon , repeat visitors , video shows electronic effects camera glitching or jumpy movement , moving straight, dead weight just travelling farther and farther as though travelling into space. , downvoted to zero in 1 hour, OP comments downvoted
.71 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1ct5cdy/bright_orb_crossed_the_whole_sky_in_lancaster_ca/ video, nighttime sky, single light object, multicolored, orange 🟠 observed, near USAF, Edwards air force base, Southern California, three witnesses, during northern lights, very bright, completely silent and weirdly multi-colored / orange orb showed up to the far west over Lancaster and steadily moved eastward, over Edwards and disappeared over the eastern horizon.,
.72 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1ctpjk8/what_is_this_object/ video, daytime cloudy sky, single light object, diffuse, low over water, Central Finland 🇫🇮, yellowish, diffuse, moving slowly, looking around, [GOODPOST]
.73 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1ctnntx/i_just_saw_a_uap_for_the_first_time_now_what/ sighting description, daytime, contemporaneous report, fleet, circling each other, weaving, 9 white small dots all irregularly circling around each other at high speeds. The group moved from one end of the sky to the other in the space of about 5 minutes., plane for comparison observed, interaction with airplane, flew over plane, They appeared above the plane and to slow down when the plane passed., speed change, three witnesses, apathy in other witness, polarized sunglasses., possibly metallic, possible haze, urban area, Denver Colorado
.74 https://old.reddit.com/Skydentify/comments/1ctl6au/photo_from_my_hotel_room_in_denver_facing_west/ photo, nighttime sky, single light object, irregular shape, diffuse, angular, orange 🟠, contemporaneous report, no info from OP, urban area, Denver Colorado
.75 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1ctqx3k/strange_object_spotted_over_mod_base_raf/ video, nighttime sky, single light object, moving slowly and erratically, started flying around in different directions. , contemporaneous report, near air force base, the UK 🇬🇧, at home
.76 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1ctz4s640_res_thermal_uap/ video and drawing, nighttime cloudy sky, through thermal camera, repeat visitor, plane for comparison, contemporaneous report, Southern new jersey, previous sighting description single object elongated, oval-shaped, horizontal orientation, The bottom half of the oval had 3-4 circular heat signatures. It was about 2x bigger then the plane at 3:04 and maybe 2x closer. It was moving slowly., video shows single light object moving fast, moving straight observed https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cuohxo/plasma_like_uap_on_thermal_monocula same OP, different event, twolights, two witnesses, elongated, V-shaped formation, merging, nighttime cloudy sky, contemporaneous report, Blue Anchor New Jersey, OP comments downvoted, big debunker energy
.77 these were all removed, i guess https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cu67kc/the_vatican_supernatural_phenomenon_summary/ news, Vatican guidelines for supernatural events https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cu8xsc/newsnation_reporting_on_the_vatican_and_ufos/ more coverage https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cu983a/vaticans_new_classifications_of_phenomena/ categories of events https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cu67kc/the_vatican_supernatural_phenomenon_summary/ summary, guidance on how the Church should approach and discern supernatural phenomena, like visions and apparitions.
.78 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cua35x/interesting_lights_in_the_sky_near_san_jose_51424/ photos, near San Jose California, nighttime, not seen by eye, single light object moving, trail, haze, shape change, near water, Calaveras Reservoir
.79 https://old.reddit.com/RBI/comments/1cu4k43/vivid_memory_of_the_sky_exploding_help_me_figure/ childhood sighting description, two witnesses, at home, backyard, daytime, single light object, directly in front, massive ball of flames dead center in the sky. It looked like a big plane had exploded but it was very slowly still moving across the sky. , There were reds, oranges, and very bright yellows 🔴🟠🟡 coming from it, haze. And it was HUGE, like, the size of my palm but in the sky. , emotion of fear, witness left the area, audio description huge booming exploding sound, physical effects vibration, I can feel the sound wave hitting us., Southern Florida, Columbia space shuttle?
.80 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cu64ri/my_girlfriend_saw_a_ring_of_flashing_lights_in/ video, nighttime cloudy sky, fleet, circular formation, diffuse, spotlights type, low over rooftop, urban area, Kuala Lampur Malaysia 🇲🇾, downvoted to zero
.81 https://old.reddit.com/RBI/comments/1cucswq/strange_shuny_spheres_in_the_sky/ childhood sighting description, Canada 🇨🇦, daytime, multiple witnesses, fleet, blackwhite, approach, flew overhead, multiple objects grouped and floating together. They looks like perfect metal spheres about the size of beach balls. , metallic sphere, flying in formation, duration a few minutes
.82 https://old.reddit.com/signalidentification/comments/1cuay5a/144_mhz_weird_mirrored_signal/ signal anomaly, possible twolights
.83 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cue2zz/you_want_disclosure_come_to_brazil/ how-to, self disclosure, Brazil 🇧🇷
.84 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cueec7/think_i_just_had_my_first_ufo_sighting_today/ sighting description, contemporaneous report, daytime, twolights, I noticed in the sky a metal object, then I noticed one behind it, a few meters apart. silent, witness looked away and looked back, vanished, England the UK 🇬🇧, duration 3-4 minutes., cylindrical shape
.85 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cug426/can_anyone_explain_what_this_is/ video, nighttime sky, threelights, close line formation, horizontal orientation, horizontal trajectory, moving fast, low over treeline, from car, powerlines,
.86 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cuhrz9/i_took_this_video_of_ufos_in_the_night_sky_above/ video, nighttime cloudy sky, through infrared scope, near windmills, fleet, diffuse, moving fast and slowly, trajectory change, U-turn, circling, moving and stationary, spotlights type, at home, outside bedroom window, triangle formation,
.87 https://old.reddit.com/space/comments/1cuhsz7/stranger_told_me_knowing_what_is_on_top_of_saturn/ experience description, contemporaneous report, mysterious stranger, the planet Saturn, he asked me "do you know what is there?" I replied "no". He told me to look up "Saturn from the top view" and said that it's going to open my eyes and change my life.
.88 https://old.reddit.com/BackwoodsCreepy/comments/1cufrqh/encounter_with_a_black_wolf_creature_in_the/ dream description, repeat visitor, entity, Tennessee, Around the age of 12 or 13, I started having recurring dreams set in the forest, a place I frequently visited. In these dreams, I encountered a large black wolf with glowing red eyes., During my final dream involving the wolf, a woman's voice accompanied it. I recall her saying, "Do not fear the wolf." As the wolf circled me, I didn't feel fear but rather a deep sense of respect for its ancient power.
.89 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1cuf2co/my_experience_with_nhi/ experience description, had a bout of psychosis that involved/was caused by extended contact with a "non-human intelligence." Left me deeply traumatized and harmed but in a better place in my life than where I started. Don't fuck around and find out.
.90 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cui6zs/satellite_or_ufo/ video, nighttime sky, contemporaneous report, Qatar 🇶🇦, single light object moving, stars for comparison, trajectory change observed
.91 ➡️ https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cuwnbs/how_many_have_had_the_dream/ childhood dream description, at home, nighttime, eyes outside window, Puerto Rico 🇵🇷 , similar dreams in comments, entity, [GOODPOST]
.92 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cuwxug/ufo_or_is_this_just_a_plane_or_satellite/ video, nighttime sky, contemporaneous report, two witnesses, single light object moving, Gladwyne Pennsylvania near Philadelphia,
.93 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cukdcm/ufo_from_joshua_tree_national_park_522024/ video, nighttime sky, Joshua Tree National Park California, multiple witnesses, camping, single light object, plane for comparison, haze, When the cloudy aura dissipated a bit you could see had just two bright white lights from two ends of it., twolights, vanishing, possible departure upward, rocket launch? , silent
.94 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cunh7l/what_sightingevent_opened_your_mind_to_the/ discussion of sightings
.95 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cuqag5/guys_help_me_identify_this_thing_what_the_heck_is/ video, daytime cloudy sky, contemporaneous report, urban area, Los Angeles California, single dark object, elongated, worm 🪱, irregular shape, single flash, downvoted to zero, OP comments downvoted, V-shaped, shape change
.96 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cuxx9l/help_i_think_i_saw_a_ufo/ sighting description, contemporaneous report, nighttime, at home, light shining in bedroom window, single light object, approach, golden, flew over the witness home, emotion of fear, Southern Ontario Canada 🇨🇦, emotional reaction feeling shook, ongoing, I've been having a lot of strange experiences lately.
.97 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cupc7a/ufo_orb_light/ video, daytime sky, single dim object, low over treeline, disappeared behind treeline, moving slowly and fast, possible reaction to being filmed, speed change, Was floating for about 2 min before I started filming. Moved fairly quickly, disappeared behind tree line., duration two minutes, at home, backyard, possible military response helicopter , event amnesia
.98 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cut2f2/strange_sighting_in_netherlands/ sighting description, contemporaneous report, single light object moving, wavy trajectory, vanishing and reappearing or jumpy movement, two witnesses, silent, possible military response jets, After 5 minutes or saw we saw a plane fly in the same direction. Which was followed by another plane and third one which made a u-turn after a flashing light appeared in the direction the light flew in., nighttime, the Netherlands 🇳🇱
.99 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1cuvet2/second_moon_uap_in_virginia/ video, nighttime sky, single light object stationary, multicolored, low over treeline, repeat visitor, Virginia, over water, river where the Tye and James river meet, He said that it disappeared for a month or so (he stopped seeing it in the morning) and now it’s back!
.100 https://old.reddit.com/RBI/comments/1cux9gabout_45_years_ago_i_saw_a_black_figure_looking/ sighting description, entity, at home, outside window, animal reaction dog noticed it, black figure the the shape of a person's head looking through the window at me., witness looked away and looked back, vanished
.101 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cv2esis_this_a_ufo/ video, nighttime sky, hard to see, repeat visitor, Victoria British Columbia Canada 🇨🇦 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1ct988m/what_the_hell_is_this/ previous day, video, nighttime cloudy sky, single light object moving erratically, jumpy movement, trail, North Vancouver British Columbia Canada 🇨🇦
.102 https://old.reddit.com/UF0/comments/1cv0xjf/please_telll_me_what_this_is/ video, nighttime cloudy sky, urban area, threelights, triangle formation, low over rooftop, silent, there were a lot of planes going by. wayyyyyy more than usual., at home, similar sighting in comments
.103 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cv7yko/another_shitty_phone_video/ video, daytime cloudy sky, powerlines, single light object, Yucaipa California, first noticed from car, witness stopped the car and got out, reaction to being filmed, ascending, departure,
.104 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cv8xxb/2007_ufo_sighting_in_sf/ sighting description and reference image, family story, 1967 Albany New York state, at home, multiple witnesses, over the witness home, very large, it was huge and covered her house and part of the street., stationary and moving, sudden departure
.105 https://old.reddit.com/Glitch_in_the_Matrix/comments/1cv9qub/the_sky_went_marine_blue_and_looked_like_it_was/ sighting description, no craft, contemporaneous report, nighttime, single flash, blue 🔵, illuminating surroundings, darkness bright as day, the sky went totally bright like it was day. It had a marine blue tint to it and I could see the whole city. , brief duration 1 second, subsequent audio description huge bang sound in the distance,
.106 https://old.reddit.com/AnomalousEvidence/comments/1cv97u8/i_wanted_to_share_with_you_all_a_bit_of/ information, how to evaluate orb reports, [GOODPOST]
.107 https://old.reddit.com/UFObelievers/comments/1cv7hky/ufo_supercharged_my_powerbank_to_151_a_yea sighting, electronic effects camera battery died, but my PowerBank has been stuck at 151% since last year.

I don't know what you think, but I find that the story is becoming boring compared to the beginning of the manga, let me explain.
There is less and less combat in Black Lagoon, which is a shame for an action manga. In volume 12 and 13, nothing happened, not a fight, nothing, (well yes, Le Majeur was shot in the eye, and the 4 fingers left dies, but no one cares) I have the impression that the chapters are losing content and interest. Since the end of the Feng arc, nothing interesting has happened.
The proof is that even today, we talk about the much more memorable old chapters, like Roberta or Japan, we even see cosplay these memorable events in the series. On the other hand, no one talks about the 5 fingers, or even Le Majeur, because these characters have no depth or interest. We don't even see the torpedo boat anymore, although it was at the center of the story at the beginning, which is normal, since "Black Lagoon" is the name of the torpedo boat. I don't even have the impression that we're following pirates or transporters, but just a idiot meddling in things that don't concern him.
At the beginning of the manga, the characters introduced like Balalaika, Takenaka, or the twins were presented to the reader in an intelligent way. We didn't have time to get bored, since we discovered them in the middle of the action, following incidents, I have the impression that the very last chapter published only served to introduce the new ones characters. Other than that, it was empty of content and served no purpose.
I find it a shame that the work is gradually losing its original soul, which is why I liked it. Today, I think that Black Lagoon is no longer an action manga, but more a psychological manga that explores Rock, and maybe a little Revy. He changed category. An action story is, in my opinion, a good mix between the action itself and psychology, but in this case, the intellectual aspect completely put the fights in the background. Today we no longer follow pirates taking risks during dangerous missions like in Cowboy Bepbop, but mafiosi who make plots, and I find that regrettable.
Hiroe is a fan of action and fighting films, Black Lagoon is inspired by that, it is very surprising that he voluntarily switches to a calmer story. I don't know why Hiroe does this, but I have several theories ;
1 - After 20 years of writing, Hiroe got tired and wanted to change direction in his story, abandoning the original scenario with the pirates to go for something more calm and intellectual.
2 - Rei Hiroe avoids drawing action scenes since they are more technical and take a long time to draw. Given that he suffers from chronic fatigue linked to depression, it wouldn't surprise me if he deliberately slowed down the pace of the story to meet deadlines.
3 - Since Black Lagoon is his most successful work, it is possible that he deliberately slowed down the pace, in order to take more time to close the story, to continue making a living from this manga as long as possible. Because once the manga is finished, he will find himself without a successful work, and therefore, without a reliable income.
Am I the only one who thinks this, please give me your opinion.

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/55981030/
I am the author.
‘Placeholder’ is a fan work set in the near future about a fictional author, called Segment, who has written a Worm fan fiction to escape from her troubled life. Coincidentally, it shares the name of the story that Segment has published online.
Readers should view all the author’s notes to get the full experience. The foreword is especially important to understanding everything. Beyond that, I will not be posting in-character as Segment anywhere besides the comments of Segment’s chapters on AO3.
Tags: Metafiction, Alt-Power Taylor Hebert, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fanon, Crossover, Demisexuality, Minor Alan Wake II Spoilers, Minor Talos Principle Spoilers
AO3 Summary:

An experimental and metafictional fan story about a Hero named Placeholder who joined the cape scene in Brockton Bay just to be Taylor Hebert’s friend. Also, the author is a character in the story too, but you’ll never guess who they are.
Other than that, this is just another story written by someone who has never read Worm, written by someone who has read some of Worm, written by someone who hasn’t actually read Worm, but has instead listened to the full cast audiobook and read the Wiki.
Oh, and there might be some small crossover elements in this too, just to make it extra special.
Taylor never stood a chance.

This pretentious idea has been stuck in my head for quite a while now. For inspiration, you can blame Alan Wake II, The Talos Principle, and a recurring childhood nightmare. Worm, and Worm fan works (including several that are still getting updates) have also contributed to my derangement. So, thanks everyone.
As I am posting this, there are over fifteen thousand words in ten chapters, counting the foreword. I’ll be taking a bit of a break while I write more of the chapters, but expect at least one chapter a week going forward once I start posting again.

I don't know if this happens as well in the original but in rebirth during the Gongaga reactor fight where Cloud loses it he directly ATTACKS Tifa. And no matter what Tifa says he cannot bring cloud back, as Tifa falls down Cloud can do nothing but watch her.
Meanwhile in chapter 13 when Cloud loses it again he is about to attack Aerith but doesn't. And after giving the black material he doesnt break out of his crazy state because sephiroth lets him go, he breaks out because he sees Aerith and he remembers the day he met her, further more when she falls down he jumps directly after her paralleling the fall of Tifa.
I'm not saying Cloud doesn't love Tifa, but those moments to me symbolized who has a more soul bonding connection to him.
thoughts?

I've been doing therapy for a little less than a year now with some slow progress. Combined with therpary and some recent events in my life I've concluded on something which feed into most of my issues:

• Meeting the wrong people at certain points in your life can completely mess with you for a long time -

I had what I thought was a good group of friends in school, but what we got to about 16/17 they all started dating. I wanted to do the same but didn't have much luck. Their solution to stop me feeling like 13th wheel (yeah...) was to stop inviting me out until I met someone. I spent my last year of high school with no friends because of this.
These friendships never recovered from that point. That was 13 years ago and now, none of those people are even friends with each other, their romantic relationships (some of them are in the same relationship from 13 years ago) are their whole world.
When I went to university, I made a new group of friends. And for about a year maybe, things were great! But then they all started coupling up (again I was the single one). Things were a bit different this time, they didn't stop inviting me out but they didn't want to go out anymore. "why would I spend lots of money going to a baclub when I have a girlfriend/boyfriend".
We also never went on holiday as a group, other than me, no one could afford it because they were paying for holidays with their partners.
So my early twenties, became a series of nights in because my friends didn't want to go out.
As a boy in their early twenties, who was a virgin. I felt like a lot of my needs weren't being met. I spent a lot of time on my own when my friends were busy with their partners and when I did see my friends, it was always a night in. I confided in my friends about these feelings and the responses I got were : "dating isn't a big deal" "we don't care that you are a virgin" "you care about what other people think too much" "stop comparing your life to other people's"
Looking back on it now, I can see that I was being gaslit. They weren't really listening to how I felt.
I wanted to be out doing things and meeting new people. I wanted to go concerts, themed parties or conventions. I wanted to go on holiday. Bloody hell, I wanted to meet women, date and have sex! What an outrageous thing for a 21 year old single man to want...
I was made to feel that what I wanted was wrong, that I wasn't allowed to have those needs.
I'm now 30 years old and living in a different country. I've lived here for about 2 years now. None of the people above are in my life anymore. In hindsight I can see that every conversation we had or every "day/night in" we had was initiated by me.
But even now, nearly 10 years later I still feel guilty for: - wanting to go drinking with my friends - being interested in things my friends aren't - being attracted to or wanting to have sex with someone
Even being in a completely new place, the effects of those friendships still haunt me. Because of those unhealthy relationships, I'm 30 years old and I don't know how to express my feelings or desires. Or make close healthy relationships.
So yeah, that's a bit of my life story. In summary - Meeting the wrong people as a teenageyoung adult completely fucks you up.
Does anyone have any advice on how I can get over this?

I was brought up in a church. It was always boring and strange and I never really felt welcome, despite everyone's persistent attempts to tell me how happy they were to see me every week. Nevertheless, the stories I was taught there were all I had. And even if I didn’t fully understand them, to me, there was a god and good and evil, and I was just a mortal caught in the middle of it all.
I was around 12 or 13 years old at the time. I remember it being spring time outside, beautiful but tainted by a plague of allergies that had come over me. I was stuck in a habit back then of reading books late into the night. My mom was mostly supportive of it though and bought me a book light to use in the dark, with the caveat that I put the book down by 10PM at the latest.
On the first night that it happened, I remember being very sucked into the story I was reading. I had started a new book and I distinctly remember thinking that the story wasn’t for someone my age, and if my mother found out what I was reading, she might not let me keep it. The feeling that I was doing something wrong had me on edge in a sort of fun and exciting way, and my heart was beginning to beat somewhat quickly as I continued.
And then I heard it. A rustling sound like something had slid off of a hanger in my closet. I jumped in place, dropping my book down on the blanket, the clip-on book light casting a long and imposing shadow across the room. What I saw next was difficult to make out and is even harder to picture in my mind all these years later. I remember my clothes hung up in the closet, swaying in place, almost shivering or jittering from the movement coming from behind them. The book light was cut off along one edge of the closet opening, only showing the bottom of my hanging clothes and part way down onto the floor where some old shoeboxes and retired sports equipment was stored. But there was something odd and quite noticeable partially in view within the small glow of light that existed there. At the time it was puzzling to interpret as I had been expecting my angry mother to have somehow divined that I was reading something she didn’t approve of. But with time and reflection it became clear that the dark shape I saw amongst my belongings was an abnormally long and trembling leg.
“P-please!! P-put that down!”
It spoke with a frantic whisper, as if I was inadvertently pointing a loaded gun at it. I froze for a moment, staring at the indiscernible shape, watching my jacket and button down shirts shivering on their hangers when it suddenly occurred to me. I frantically grabbed the book light and pulled it to my chest. I could have quickly turned and shown it directly into the closet, but for some reason, I didn’t.
The nights that followed were difficult. I kept looking over my shoulder, staring in the direction of my closet, wondering if something would happen instead of falling asleep or reading. My mother even took notice of the sudden change, asking me, “Is something wrong, sweetie?” before tucking me in one night.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I think I’m just bored with my book,” I lied.
“You can’t give up on it now, dear! Even if it’s not for you, at least try and finish it so you know for sure.”
That night I pulled the book out again and continued from where I left off. I felt bad, as if I was taking advantage of my mom’s ignorance as she advocated for me to read a book that she must not have known the full story behind. But still, I wasn’t really bored of it. In fact, once I had the book out and in my hands again, I felt that same itch I had before. An excitement to see what came next. To know what else lies between the pages of the coming chapters. And as I read further, my heart began to race again. I felt a tingle going up my spine now, and for some reason, I began to sweat.
“Can you hear us?”
The voice was closer this time, somewhere off to my side now, away from the closet and more toward the center of my room. I remained still, careful not to bounce the book light around in fear that I would drive the being away.
“Yes.” I told it. The moment after I spoke back to it for the first time, the strangeness of the situation became somewhat mildly apparent to me, although it still did not deter me or drive me toward fear.
“Good.”
I had church that next morning. What I didn’t realize that day, as we piled into the car at the crack of dawn, was that it would be the last time I would ever go to church for the rest of my life. I remember this day very well, as you’ll soon be able to tell.
“Did you sleep okay?” Mother asked me, peering into the backseat through the rear view mirror.
“Okay, yea.”
“How about your book? Did you read any?”
“Yeah.”
“Good! I’m glad.” She said, smiling with her eyes as they returned to the road ahead.
We pulled up to the church and parked in the small parking lot out front. It was altogether a poorly cared for area with faded yellow lines on the ground separating the parking spaces, and chunks of concrete broken apart as if the urban environment had somehow fallen victim to a recent bombing. Our church service was held in an office park of all places, down a flight of stairs and through a long hallway that always smelt like damp carpet. The church pastor had acquired the space for a good deal, and always talked about the location as if it were merely the humble beginning compared to where they would someday be.
We took our seats in the cramped room as usual and an eerie silence was broken by the sound of an old, muffled electronic organ that tried and failed to lift the energy of the room before our pastor walked out center stage.
“Welcome and good morning to everyone on this fine, somewhat humid day. I hope you all are doing well and the drive in wasn’t too problematic, what with all the traffic cones blooming for the summer.” He gave a sort of wincing smile as a few members of the crowd let out a light chuckle. “I’m sure we’re all eager to get on with service today as this is the day we’ve all been waiting for for almost 18 years now - wow! But I just wanted to take a brief moment before we begin to acknowledge the significant achievement of everyone here, and the endless effort you all have gone through in order to make sure that today happened at all.” The room filled with gentle clapping, everyone turning toward one another as they nodded in approval.
“Very good. Now, without any further delay. Let us begin.”
Several quick yet world changing events occurred in the minutes after his speech. Minutes that have dominated my life and memory ever since they happened. My mother stood up and took me by the hand, looking down at me with a large smile across her face.
“Come on! It’s time!”
“What for?” I hesitated, only slowly scooching off of my seat.
“It’s ok, you’re just going to read something out loud for everyone. Think of it like a speech in class, except everyone here is excited just to hear you speak. You won’t do anything wrong, I promise.” I nodded nervously and followed her up to the front of the congregation where she positioned me in front of a mic stand, adjusted down to my height, before leaving to stand next to the pastor. And then I saw her do something quite strange. She took the pastor's hand in her own and kissed him on the lips. The room was deadly silent as the lights overhead were shut off, suddenly leaving us all in a thick darkness. I squinted my eyes as I tried to look back towards my mother, hoping to god I could catch even the slightest hint of her familiar face.
The shadows were pierced by something on the far side of the room. A glow of red light parting the darkness like a curtain, illuminating the pages of an old looking but familiar book that was slowly making its way down the aisle and toward me. Somebody placed the book in my hands and opened it to the first page.
And then a familiar voice spoke.
“Read.”
“But… I’ve already read the beginning before.” I replied quietly.
“But they haven’t.” The voice explained with a seductive hiss. I held the book closer and looked it over. It was my book. It was my light.
As I began reading the words from the pages, I could hear people in the crowd whispering. Some of them were praying, some were crying, one woman in particular I could hear whispering excitedly to her partner: “He can read it! Can you believe that?”
And there were other noises as well. Chanting. Whaling. A sound that I can only explain as a guttural choking noise. I tried to stay focused. To read loudly and not stutter. But as I read further, another noise began to distract me. A drumming or clanging of metal, followed by a rhythmic grinding, over and over and over. Eventually the noise was so loud it was hard to hear my own voice, but I could tell that the audience was loving it. In fact, they were beginning to yell out their approval: “Amazing,” “We’ve finally found him,” “Praise be!”
The tingling had returned up my spine again and my skin felt electric, like I was being filled with some sort of strange energy. It was as if I was moving with momentum as the words of the book were flowing from my mouth like I had somehow memorized every page - even the parts I hadn’t read before. It was so easy I didn’t even need to look at the pages at a certain point, but by that time, something had started to come over me. A hesitance or doubt. I felt wrong and I desperately wanted to leave.
I looked at my book light, examining the streaks of red marker across the glowing plastic, and without a second thought, I scratched it off with my thumb nail. The rhythmic sounds of metal ceased and a blood curdling scream sounded off across the room, followed by several animal-like growls from the now seething congregation. I had stopped reading now and dropped the book to the ground, clutching the light firmly in my trembling hands as the light showed all around me.
“Mom?” I called out with no reply. There wasn’t a sound in the room now apart from the heavy breathing of the congregation, as if they had all just finished running in a triathlon. I started inching my way forward, stepping down the aisle way between all the seats, swinging my head over each shoulder as the sound of bare footsteps sounded off the linoleum floor, mere inches around my glowing circle of protection. I had considered aiming my light around the room, but couldn’t stomach to see what I might reveal. “Mom?” I called again. A sea of hisses erupted from everyone in the room, and without any further investigation, I ran. I pushed open the office door, turned down the long hallway and made short work of the stairs leading up and out of the building. The light outside was blinding, and everything after that was a blur.
The people who found me, wandering alone around a park, brought me to the police who quickly started a search for missing children. Shortly after that, an investigator was brought in who had already been tipped off that I may not have been the child of the woman who raised me.
Years later, I have now learned who my true biological parents are. The woman who I had once called mother had kidnapped me from the hospital on the day I was born, and several lengthy trials later, she has been placed in prison.
I don’t know what the book really was, and for some reason I have no recollection of its contents either. While these events do haunt my memory, it also helps me to share the bizarre and horrifying tale with others. As time has gone on the days have gotten easier to get through, while the nights are still haunted by the feeling of something lingering in the shadows, watching me with anger but unable to act as I always keep my book-light nearby and ready.

So my wife and I filed chapter 13 and we only filed for some old personal loans and credit card debt. Our mortgage is still our responsibility and not part of the bankruptcy. Now online, my mortgage shows “paid off” and I can’t find any information on the website on what to do. Anyone have any idea on what’s going on there? I need to make a payment in the next couple weeks to stay current on my mortgage.

To preface this is a narrative of the fallout lore both established in all the fallout games and many of the popular mods created for both new Vegas, fallout 3 and fallout 4 and a subsequent idea for a fallout 5 title that I wrote and wanted to get opinions on.
If you think this is cool lmk, if you think this sucks lmk. I’m just interested in sharing my own ideas with the wider fallout community.

 From Lone-wanderer to the courier (TTW tie in) 

After the events of Fallout 3, the Lone Wanderer, having no family and no place left to truly call home, gathered up his companions and headed west to start a new life. Over the next 4 years, the Lone Wanderer lived in the west with many of his former companions going their separate ways. The Lone Wanderer began working as a courier, known as Courier 6. There, he had a particularly bad run-in with a man named Benny, who introduced him to a bullet. The damage done to the Lone Wanderer caused him to lose his memories of his past. Thus, he became the courier.
After the events of Fallout: New Vegas, and the Second Battle of Hoover Dam, the NCR's military and infrastructure were severely weakened after destroying the Legion. Sensing an opportunity for mutual benefit the West Coast Brotherhood of Steel reached out to the Mojave chapter, where, under the leadership of Elder McNamera, the NCR and Brotherhood reached an agreement and official peace pact between the two groups, which culminated in the brotherhood becoming an official autonomous part of the NCR.
The West Coast Airship docks within the Strip, which was under the control of the Courier and member of the Mojave chapter. The West Coast reintegrated the Mojave chapter of the Brotherhood of Steel and uses the Strip as a base of operations. Leveraging their advanced technology and military prowess, they quickly gain the upper hand in engagements against the remaining enemies of the NCR.

 The Coming Storm (Dust tie in) 

Some time after the Second Battle of Hoover Dam and the BOS occupation of the strip joint expedition teams of the BOS AND NCR discovered the Sierra Madre Casino, as well as the mysterious and deadly cloud. The NCR and BOS scientists conducted experiments with the Cloud, bringing both massive samples of Cloud Residue and corpses of Ghost People back to the Mojave. Many of these experiments were conducted in a makeshift laboratory set up in the lobby of the Lucky 38 casino. Though the full nature of the experiments are unknown, it is implied that the participants involved were considered criminals to the NCR and the nature of the experiments were brutal, sadistic, and inhumane.
Around the same time, the BOS received reports that a massive sandstorm was approaching New Vegas. They did not share this information with the public, and instead began to outline evacuation procedures.
Five years after the expedition and experiments something went terribly wrong. It is implied that a disgruntled Vault 21 custodian may have intentionally sabotaged the Lucky 38 laboratory, causing a new Cloud to form over the Strip. This cloud was far more lethal and corrosive than the Cloud of the Sierra Madre. The corrosive capabilities even hindered the BOS power armor as the metal would be gradually eaten away by the cloud.
As the Cloud descended upon New Vegas, panic engulfed the Strip and Freeside. Riots and violence broke out. Miss communications between the directives of the BOS and NCR resulted in troopers executing innocent civilians in the streets. In response, the Kings rebelled against the NCR, while also aiding in an evacuation of Freeside, saving countless lives. The Followers of the Apocalypse were forced to abandon the Old Mormon Fort. The Airship of the Western Brotherhood attempted to evacuate all BOS personnel and any relevant technology from the strip before returning to Lost Hills. This resulted in some squads of the BOS being forced to take up residency within the casinos of the strip and vault 21. The NCR locked the gates to the Strip, with all civilians inside. The rebels led by the kings were forced out of and under the city, to the Sewers below. The BOS left in Vault 21 have been desperately trying to chisel away at the concrete within the vault in the hopes of tunneling back to Hidden valley.
NCR troops then dumped radioactive waste into the Sewers to kill any survivors, before fleeing the city themselves. Eventually, the situation became so bad that NCR General Lee Oliver ordered an evacuation of all NCR personnel from New Vegas via the Strip Monorail.
These events nullified the BOS and NCR treaty resulting in BOS forces seizing locations across the Mojave that had the capability to keep them safe from the cloud while also engaging in Guerilla warfare tactics against the NCR.
The city would ultimately fall to the Cloud and to the dust storms that blew in from the West. While some survivors attempted to take shelter in the Strip's casinos they were met with the business ends of BOS laser rifles. Those who did not head for the casinos were not so lucky, as anyone who wasn’t immediately killed by the Cloud became Ghosts and cloud victims, while others died slowly of radiation poisoning and exposure.
While New Vegas fell to the Cloud, a massive radioactive dust storm engulfed the rest of the Mojave Wasteland, causing widespread devastation. Whole settlements and towns were evacuated or otherwise destroyed. One settlement in particular, Goodsprings, was struck by an unknown form of plague, killing most of its residents and turning the once-prosperous community into a Ghost Towns.
Other areas, such as Boulder City, attempted to protect themselves with the same suits worn by Ghost people in Vegas and the Sierra Madre, ultimately becoming trapped themselves. To make matters worse, the Tunnelers from the Divide eventually burrowed through to the Mojave Wasteland, As predicted by Ulysses. causing even more death and destruction. The dust storms blotted out the Sun, allowing the Tunnelers to hunt by day, killing off most of the native animal population in the Mojave.
The effects of the Fall would spread as far out as Zion Valley, where spore carriers from Vault 22 ran wild, alongside another strange, terrible creature, dubbed the Wendigo by the tribals within the valley.
After the fall, little remained of the old Mojave Wasteland. Once-powerful factions such as, The Great Khans, and Powder Gangers were either wiped out or dissolved into roaming gangs of Tribals and Survivors. The Western Brotherhood which had resided in the strips cohesion collapsed as its members lost contact with the surrounding Casinos and vault 21.
Cannibalism became rampant, as people did whatever they could to survive. The NCR remained in control of various locations such as Camp Golf, Hoover Dam, Camp McCarran and Nellis AFB. Those fortunate enough to evacuate the Mojave mostly wound up at Camp Adytum, an NCFollowers refugee center in the Boneyard, however they were quickly drafted and sent to the now ongoing BOS and NCR conflict.
The NCR would eventually launch expeditions into the ruins of New Vegas, presumably to acquire materials left over from the Lucky 38 laboratories. However, none of these expeditions were successful, and the NCR soon abandoned all attempts to return to New Vegas, with only the Royst-Bernard Expedition consisting of rogue NCR scientific and military personnel returning in an attempt to succeed, where regular NCR failed.

 The Patriot at Heart (America Rising 2 tie-in) 

In the aftermath of the events of Fallout 3, the remnants of the Enclave fled north into the Commonwealth where they waited in hiding for 10 years. After the events of Fallout 4, the Lone Survivor helped revive the Enclave and ultimately forced the Institute into being folded into the Enclave, bringing their advanced technology and expertise in synth creation under one banner.
The Enclave embarked on a bold experiment, merging their iconic power armor technology with the synthetic advancements of the Institute. The result was the creation of a new breed of soldiers: Power Armored Synths or PAS.
These hybrid warriors combined the resilience and strength of power armor with the versatility and adaptability of synthetic intelligence. Clad in imposing power armor suits, these Synths were capable of executing complex military maneuvers, engaging enemies with precision and force.
Under the banner of the Enclave, this new army of PAS’s became the vanguard of their expansionist ambitions, striking fear into the hearts of any who knew of their existence. The Enclave took a page from the Institute by beginning to kidnap high-ranking members of the Railroad, Brotherhood of Steel, and Minutemen, replacing them with Synth sleeper agents who would corrupt the organization of the Commonwealth and East Coast Brotherhood to weaken them for an Enclave assault. This culminated in the Enclave assault on the Prydwen, forcing Elder Maxson to retreat back to the Capital Wasteland.

 Fallout 5: Tactics 

The year is 2300, 13 years after the events of Fallout 4.
A squad of the Chicago-based Midwest Brotherhood intercepts a transmission from the East Coast Brotherhood, calling for aid from the West Coast Brotherhood in a last-ditch effort to defend the Capital Wasteland from the Commonwealth-based Enclave assault.
Our character, a Midwest Brotherhood Paladin dubbed the Major, must traverse the Midwest, gaining new allies and attempting to mend the fractured Midwest Brotherhood to aid in the coming conflict. Our character must also fix up a convoy to traverse the wasteland of the Midwest in order to make it to the East Coast. Various quests and side quests will provide the character with allies and further supplies for the coming conflict and further cement the Midwest Brotherhood's position within the region.
Once the player believes they have gathered their small army sufficiently and created their convoy, they embark on a journey towards the East. Along the way, they are intercepted by Enclave and Super Mutant forces. Upon entering into the Capital Wasteland, the general's forces link up with what’s left of the East Coast Brotherhood who have been hiding out in Rockopolis after the Citadel was infiltrated and taken over by the Enclave. DC now acts as the front lines of a war yet again between the Enclave, Brotherhood, and a new faction in the wasteland called the Behemoths, an organized and somewhat intelligent super mutant group led by an intelligent mutant named Osiris, who was once a member of the Master's army. Osiris united the D.C. Mutants and launched his own series of attacks on the Brotherhood when the Enclave took hold of the Citadel.
Along the way, we meet a one-armed Three Dog who barely survived the Enclave bombing of the GNR building but has since set up shop in Broadcast Tower KTB with a small contingent of Brotherhood Paladins who aided against the Enclave, rescuing Three Dog.
As the Major and the elders plot out a plan to assault the Enclave at the Citadel.
Mid west Factions: 1. Brotherhood of Steel (Midwest Chapter): - The player's faction, focused on preserving pre-war technology and knowledge. - Known for their advanced technology and power armor. - Initially, they prioritize their interests but may assist others if it aligns with their goals.

1. Midwest Brotherhood Outcasts:
   
   • A splinter faction of the Brotherhood of Steel, formed due to disagreements over the main Brotherhood's leadership or ideologies.
   • They may possess similar technology and resources as the main Brotherhood but operate independently, sometimes in opposition to their parent faction.
2. Reavers:
   
   • A ruthless raider group terrorizing the Midwest wasteland.
   • Known for their brutality and willingness to pillage and plunder.
   • Considered a major threat to the stability of the region, often in conflict with other factions.
3. The Vikings:
   
   • A raider group modeled after the historical Vikings (with a mixture of the football Minnesota Vikings.)
4. Gammorin's Army Remnants:
   
   • A militant faction once led by the super mutant Gammorin.
   • Composed primarily of super mutants, they seek to establish dominance over the wasteland through force.
   • Viewed as a formidable enemy by other factions due to their strength and aggression.
5. Vault 0:
   
   • A vault inhabited by a powerful supercomputer known as the Calculator.
   • The Calculator once sought to expand its influence and control over the wasteland, posing a significant threat to other factions; however, it was reprogrammed by someone named the Warrior in the year 2197. This effectively deactivated and left the army of robots dormant and sealed away within Vault 0. Their advanced technology and military capabilities make them a formidable adversary and an equally valuable ally if they can only be reactivated and reprogrammed.
6. Tribal Communities:
   
   • Various tribes and communities scattered throughout the Midwest wasteland.
   • They may have their own customs, traditions, and conflicts.
   • Depending on the player's actions, they could become allies, enemies, or neutral parties.

As the player ventures further into the capital wasteland they find that it is now far greener than in the past and wild punga fruit now can be found around the wastes, if the player makes a detour to oasis they will find that Harold has rapidly grown and from the Potomac River (death law sanctuary) in the west to temple of the union in the east is now a lush paradise (that is if it weren’t for all the deathclaws and raiders who stalk the forest.) As Harold/Bob spread, the brotherhood eventually sent out missions to learn more about it, after encountering Linden, they made a formal treaty with the poplars, in which the poplars were given water in exchange for the fresh fruit from the oasis. The brotherhood also helped encourage the trade of Punga with the Poplars to be grown within the oasis to help aid soil development and remove radiation. The poplars now tend the forest and have become somewhat of a nature inspired farming/fire fighting force, having a couple of villages throughout the forest network. However raider gangs also set fire to the trees, (if the player investigates they’ll find out that the enclave is paying the raiders to burn the trees and fight their way in to help destabilize the brotherhoods food supply and trade routes)
If the player chooses to side with the poplars/ Brotherhood the trees will continue to spread at a rate of 1 mile for every 24 real world hours that pass in game.
If the player helps the enclave they will be tasked with infiltrating the original Oasis and burning Harold alive, and the trees will dwindle at the same rate until the oasis is fully gone.

-and obviously it was stupid to think that any of my old friends would still be there. Could I even call them that? I haven’t been back here in maybe ten years and my ‘friends’ were the staff at a bar I worked at for two months, transient work by its very nature. Especially in Rome. There’s a street preacher and I think he’s saying “KINGS, BOOK ONE! CHAPTER 19!” and maybe he is because he has 1 Kings 19 (11-13) written on a sign next to him.
I remember Malfi… Marfi? Was a student anyway. Studying history at masters level. I can clearly see the seal of her university in my head clearly but I can't remember the university. I think about maybe pulling out my phone and googling it but it’ll take too long and I don’t want to waste the battery or not be looking at my surroundings for too long.
Hey- hey friend how are you? What are you doing here?
Oh god. If I keep my head down maybe he won’t bother me but suddenly there’s a wall of flesh draped in a cheap blue t-shirt semi-blocking my path.
I’m busy, sorry. I push past him and he yells out.
HEY! You got a problem with black people?
Loud enough for others to turn around.
What the hell is his problem? The insolence of it! The actual insolence! I smiled as I said I’m busy for fucks’ sake. I have a disgust response from the way he speaks as it plays back in my head. You ghat a problehm with blaq people? Flat vowels from the Global South. I could smell whatever ersatz cologne he’d doused himself in. Big, dumb bicycle chain wrapped around his neck. I could barely make out this heckler’s face, he was so overweight he was drowned in fat, and he threw his arms up in the air so his bony elbows came out at weird, jutting angles.
My mood is completely ruined so I turned right, catching the sun, cutting off a man walking a Chow dog who I presume follows after me.
My sunglasses are in my pocket and for whatever reason I lose the will to actually pull them out so I’m walking blind into glare. Was everyone still looking at me? The sun is beating down and on top of that the wind is blowing directly into my face. I can’t see anything and I feel prickly heat around my flanks. Maybe a tweed jacket was the wrong choice, but I’m not going to take it off and drape it over my shoulder right now. I do not want to be perceived.
I start thinking about the street venders from ten years ago, how friendly they all were. That’s not a thing anymore, I guess. I force all that from my mind and as I’m walking I involuntarily start thinking back to when I was little.
I was six, maybe seven, and my mother was in the hospital so I was being looked after by my father. It took him maybe three days to stop bothering to make sure I had a bath or brushed my teeth. Maybe a week before he stopped doing laundry. About three weeks in he was forced to start taking me to school again; somebody had mentioned something to my grandmother who came round to shout at him. He reckoned I could learn everything I needed from watching television.
The other kids were not a fan of my new look, and the bullying was horrible. Already a lonely child, I was further isolated from my peers by my appearance and odour. I had an initial grace period, I’m sure Miss. Euston had prepped everyone that my mother was sick and everyone was to be very nice to me.
The great mass of my appearance, greasy and smelly, eventually pulled through the gravity of Miss. Euston’s authority, and finally I slipped through her graces and into the bottomless pit of cruelty only children are capable of.
One night when the rest of the class was dismissed she kept me back to talk to me.
“How are you, John?”
Fine.
“I hear your mummy will be back soon? Isn’t that great?”
Yes.
“Maybe you should tell your dad to give you a bath before she gets home, yes?”
Yes.
“Is your dad coming to pick you up today?”
I don’t know.
She smiled at me put her hand to my face. It was warm and soft and I could feel the sea-salt sweat from her palms. It was comforting. Maybe that’s why I’m a cuddler now. She gave me a chocolate bar from her treat tin and let me go. My dad did actually pick me up that day. He asked me where I got the chocolate bar from and I said Miss. Euston gave it to me. I never ate it, at some point it must have been thrown away.
I realized Miss. Euston was, probably, barely a few years older than I was now. I wonder what she was up to. At some point the buildings covered the sun and I checked my watch. Two more hours to go.
I see a free table on a raised mount and decide to sit there. I look up at the statues looking down at me and a waiter comes over and says I have to order if I want to stay there. This annoys me so I bark at him that I need a menu if I want to order anything. He leaves and the clouds open again, probably by the wind, and it beats down on me again. Feeling more grounded I take off my jacket and drape it over my chair and take the cigarettes from the inside pocket. I looked at my phone and re-read the invitation email.
To – me, please be here at whenever o’clock to talk to our international undergrads on international project management.
Regards, some professor I didn’t like as an undergrad.
It was certainly an honor to be asked, but no doubt was being used to drum up engagement for some useless course they were peddling. How exactly does International Relations parse into International Project Management? You learn everything you need to know doing the damn job. I had emailed myself my famous slide deck, the one that was thrown around in secret by senior bureaucrats who were sick of being bureaucrats and wanted to actually do something. The one that Managers said could never be released, but had obviously plagiarized in snippets when they thought appearing to be daring would be beneficial to their careers.
A brunette waitress comes over with the menu, she looks young. Maybe 18. Over a decade younger than me.
If you don’t mind getting up, she said in a startling American, there’s a buffet as well.
I say thank you and look at her. Was she American? American-Italian? She looked British. Maybe Danish. I didn’t want to ask. She was pale, apart from her lips and cheeks which were the color of a rose.
Thank you, I say. Do I order drinks from you?
Of course, she said and took out a notepad and pen. The other wait staff used an iPad. I wondered where hers was and asked for a double espresso and a glass of orange juice.
Is that all?
Wait, how tall is the orange?
What?
I smile and her and mime a glass growing from very small to very tall. How tall is the glass? Is it a lot of orange juice?
She smiles and laughs and it’s very cute, I think she lost her composure because the laugh doesn’t match her voice.
I run my hand through my hair because I need something for my hands to do, and she says yeah. It’s tall. Pretty big. Are you going far after this?
I dunno. There’s some people trying to kill me. I smile again, obviously a joke.
She smiles back. You should have the buffet and I’ll bring you your drinks. I’ll leave the jar of orange juice but don’t tell anyone, OK?
OK, I say. Grazie.
Prego, she says and walks off.
I check how far the walk is and it’s maybe 40 minutes, too far in this weather. Will it rain? Will I literally burn to a crisp? I wish I had brought my laptop so I could have the slide deck up. I could ask the waitress what she thought.
She comes back with my coffee and a cold glass of orange juice, and a jug of water.
Sorry, she says, my manager told me to only pour the juice.
That’s fine, I think I’m only 40 minutes away. Like three miles.
You won’t be able to walk three miles in forty minutes, she says. You should eat quickly, then get up and go.
I dunno, I say, drawing out my response. I’m quite tall.
She laughs again and says she’ll bring my cheque now.
I get up and make a plate of pastry, the meat looks like it had been left out so I avoided it. I grabbed some things I don’t know the name of, and a slice of bread that was being warmed on a terracotta platter over some coals.
She walks away and when she comes back I want to ask for her number, but there’s a huge delivery truck slowly rolling through. My cup is shaking in its’ saucer and if it wasn’t already mostly drunk it’d run over. I try to make conversation but I don’t want to shout at her so just give her 30 euro and say keep the tip. She shouts back thanks. I get up and start walking.
The sun won out against the rain and it started to pound me again. The air was dry. I was walking fast and making good time, but I did not want to end up sweaty when I got there so I took off my jacket and carried it under my arm. I checked my phone again and I had a missed call and a voice mail. I couldn’t see the name in the glare.
I couldn’t stop to put earphones in, so I put my phone away.
I managed to make it to the campus with five minutes to spare. I hullo’d with the professors and asked for a glass of water. I drank it in one then went to the bathroom to piss, and check my hair. I was sweating but my jacket would cover it. My hair looked great. I clenched my jaw and looked at my face. Intense. Satisfied, I blew my nose and in my head went over the topics I’d cover. If I got lost I’d ask the students questions.
For some reason I thought back to Miss. Euston, looking after the poor scapegrace that was me. I remember once she told me God was in the wind.
I was waiting in the wings, hidden on a pre-stage before the main stage. Before I put my phone on silent, I thought I’d listen to the voice mail quickly. I briefly thought it "pre-stage" was even a word. I didn’t recognize the number. I pressed play and raised it to my ear.
There was a pause and then, cutting through the roar of the wind once present but no longer, came a voice.
“Hi, John, I hope you’re well and I’m just calli-“
The voicemail stopped. Someday, I hope, Apple will figure out how to actually let me hear my voicemail without constantly having to un-pause it. I hit play and put my phone back to my ear but I knew who it is before she said her name. “I’m just calling to say hey. It’s me, Joanne.”
It was a whisper being carried over time and continents. A whisper from a girl that might as well be dead. Why me, Joanne. Why me.
I covered my face with my hands. I realized I was doing it in shame and suddenly Miss. Euston’s voice came back to me again. “God is in the wind.”
I pulled the skin on my face down, pressed hard, and walked out onto the next stage, tucking my phone away in my-