Sabertooth is big and strong, has a feral cunning and some actual smarts, his healing factor is either on par with Logan’s or even more powerful (or maybe technically weaker but no adamantium to deal with) So, my question is… (and I am a fan of Sabertooth okay but…) are Creed’s claws actually claws, like a Lion’s claws or a Sabertooth Tiger’s claws? Are his hands and fingers incredibly muscular? Because I’ve seen countless debates about how Logan’s claws would or wouldn’t work or couldn’t actually retract or he couldn’t make a fist or whatever, but what about Creed? Wolverine’s bones are (usually) laced with adamantium and he heals…his (usually) metal retractable claws are roughly about 9-12 inches, depending on where you look and who you ask. So, as much as I am a fan of good old Mr. Happy Birthday, I gotta ask, how does Creed do damage? By breaking bones…? No. It’s tissue damage. He bites and claws and throws Logan around. Remember when Logan had to marry Viper in Madripoor and Sabertooth broke his claws and gored him and threw him off a cliff? That really fucked Logan up because he didn’t have the adamantium. Then there’s the flip side where you get heroic AoA Victor getting gutted and strung up by Genesis taking hits for the team buying them time, and it works because he doesn’t have the adamantium and his healing factor isn’t as strong (writers determine strength for dramatic effect) but yeah I guess I’m having like an existential crisis about the dynamic between Wolverine and Sabertooth and what makes a good story for the two of them, because everything from the Origin comic (not the OriginS movie) to Old Man Logan to the LOGAN film, AoA, and everything AFTER Logan gets his nose back…yep, less adamantium, power creep not as great, the playing field is more even, Creed is able to do more damage to Logan, but even Logan’s bone claws are WAAAAY longer and potentially more durable than what are essentially Victor’s fingernails. Sorry for the rant and ramble, but I’ve been a Wolverine fan for almost 40 years and I have NEVER questioned how dangerous and powerful and scary Victor could be…until now. I think Wolverine might actually NOT be the underdog.

I hurt my ankle at work last August, kept working on it (didn’t have insurance and management didn’t let me go to the doctor). Twisted it in January, and convinced management to let me get it checked out. Turns out it was actually fractured back in August. To keep a long story short, I’ve got to have surgery on it. I have some extra bone growth, piece of cartilage broken off, and some arthritis build up. Surgery was originally scheduled in April and doc said it would be plenty of time for recovery. Workers comp is a bitch though, and I’ve only now gotten it approved. And it’s scheduled for after Roo. Doc gave me a steroid injection to get me through Roo, however it didn’t work. He didn’t seem concern about the risk of further injury.
This is my sixth Roo, and plan on pushing through the pain. I’ve got a good brace, and sleeve that’s made for icing it. I plan on taking it as easy as I can. Staying back in the crowds, and finding a spot to sit and camp when I can. I’ve got a good group that’s willing to help me as much as they can. Just curious if anyone has any other advice on managing? Anything I haven’t thought of.

45 YO male, 6', 160#. Avid cyclist (100+ miles/week). Regular weightlifter (~4-5x/week). Generally try to be healthy. About 12 years ago, I had a bad MTB fall (fell flat on my back) and had compression fractures of 2 lumbar vertebrae. No surgery or anything required; they resolved on their own. Flash-forward to today, and I'm starting to suffer some lumbar back pain. If I sleep wrong (or not), I sometimes wake with it. If I do deadlifting (with perfect form), I feel great doing it, but get back pain 1-2 days later. There are a number of other triggers--sitting in the car too long, etc.
The pain is not radicular; it is just in the lumbar area. It is not sharp or fiery (doesn't seem like nerve pain). It doesn't get worse with movement; if anything, it starts to feel better after some movement. It feels like stiffness and soreness. I can replicate the pain pretty readily by doing just about anything that requires back flexion--like a back bridge. That generates immediate discomfort.
When I had the fractures, I had a bone density study; all was normal. I also had x-rays at the start (to diagnose), and a few months later (to confirm everything was healed). No real trauma since.
Anything I can do to head this off, so it doesn't keep getting worse/more frequent?

Hello,
I am not a mother. I am a man.
My girlfriend is going through a difficult process, finishing the parenting plan between her and her ex.
The complications are that in the process of finishing this, the oldest boy began detailing that he's been physically abused by his dad. And then the middle boy confirmed that the same happened to him.
This changes everything, but it also led to a conversation between myself, my girlfriend, and her mother, where I pointed out that their relationship has fractures over time, and that factored into how my girlfriend wound up in an abusive relationship.
Anyway, I'm trying to find a retreat to send them to together, as a surprise. I think it would be beneficial for them, but I think the retreat needs to focus on relationship building. I can't seem to find any online that fit this. I find ones that are centered on Yoga, breathing, hiking, etc. They all look nice, perhaps even productive.
But I'm not sure they will incorporate all the things these two ladies need to heal and bond strongly.
Are there any mothers here that are well versed in this sort of thing?
Thank you.

One morning I was on my way to pick up my girlfriend , I was on the phone with my dad and once I hung up the phone and looked down to put my phone down. In that time the light had turned red and I ran a red light T-Boning another man at probably 50 mph. I vividly remember seeing his driver side of his vehicle smashed in. My car spun around and I was just repeating the words “ow” because I really knew nothing else to say. I tried to open up my door but my door would not open. I tried to lift up my legs to kick my door open but my legs felt like they were a thousand pounds. A man came and pulled open my door and comforted me until I was rushed to the hospital where I was later diagnosed with a concussion and fractured tailbone. The whole time I felt guilty. The man even called my father after and wanted to tell my dad that he should be proud because the whole time he was with me I kept asking if the other guy was okay
I am 17 years old and I’m an athlete. I am still terrified to drive , I am terrified to sit in the passenger seat and I still have dreams about the accident. Sometimes I can even smell what smells like firecrackers which I’d assume is the smell of the airbags. I don’t even know what to do anymore. I find myself thinking about it in class, or just in any time of the day.

The baby died four days ago.
For context, we live in a small town. It’s remote, and we like it that way. Gives us privacy. My wife didn’t grow up here—she moved from up north, and never talks about her life from before all that much. I’ve gathered enough to know she has a sister, but is estranged from her family and that she never really felt like she belonged anywhere until she met me. Our little family is everything to her. She said she just wanted to hold him a little longer. For an hour. Then for the rest of the evening. Then through the night.
Now it’s been four days, and she’s barely set his tiny body down. When she isn’t rocking him, she’s praying, soft words muttered to the Lord under her breath.
When my wife first moved here she brought snacks and stayed after the church service for coffee and chit-chat—that’s how she and I got to know one another. She said it was different than the church she grew up with, less strict. Ours is a unitarian church that’s welcoming to everybody. There’s even a Buddhist who shows up just to socialize and sometimes leads a yoga group outside when the weather is nice. But tomorrow is the first service since our baby’s passing and I don’t want to field all those looks of sympathy and kind words and hugs…
… I do need advice though. Because you see, my wife has decided that if she prays enough, a miracle will restore our baby to life. She reminded me how last winter a frozen cat was thawed out and revived. One of our neighbors had a litter of puppies with one stillborn, and that thing was dead for fifteen minutes before it started to breathe.
But our little baby has been dead four days.
It's not that I don’t believe in scripture. But even Jesus revived after three days, not four.
My wife’s eyes used to always shine when the reverend talked about how much greater God is than any illness, how faith can bring us on a path of healing.
But I also know our reverend cut red meat out of his diet because his doctor told him to. He takes vitamins and goes on walks with his dog, and he is a down-to-earth man who believes God works miracles through us, not for us. In other words, we must take action if we are to heal, to be better, to do better. And he has counseled many of our congregants through times of grief. I’m hoping he can help my wife realize that our baby isn’t coming back…
***
After the reverend paid us a visit and offered his condolences, my wife flew into a rage at him and ordered him out of our house. Afterwards, she declared to me, “That man is a disgrace to the church! I should’ve known he was a fraud from the start.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“Your church is a joke. They do yoga, Frank. They let Buddhists in.”
“I thought you liked Amita!”
“I do like yoga,” she relented. “But she shouldn’t be doing it at church.”
“It’s supposedly a very spiritual practice—”
“There’s no spirituality there, with Reverend Atheist in charge! If he really believed, why wouldn’t he pray with me for a miracle to restore our baby? Why did he tell me our baby’s not coming back?” She burst into tears.
What could I do? She would not brook even the possibility that our baby was gone forever. And after she collected herself, she told me she was going to pray. She moved our baby’s body up to the attic. She has a room up there, a room that’s hers and that I don’t go in. Every woman needs a room of her own, and when she first moved in with me, almost all her worldly possessions could fit inside one small travel trunk. She brought it in there and claimed that as her space. She used to say it was just her and God up there.
Now, it’s her, God, and the baby.
***
It's been six days. I’m glad she brought him up there because he was starting to smell, but it’s disconcerting to think of his little body decomposing and not yet put to rest.
I didn’t dare try to take him from her, though. She’d already chased away our reverend, was refusing all company, and left unopened the growing pile of sympathy cards and gifts. If she shut out me, too, she’d have no one. Only herself in that little room, with our dead baby and her prayers.
So, I offered to pray with her, too.
She didn’t want me to see the baby yet. Said he didn’t look very nice, and insisted on blindfolding me when bringing me upstairs to her little attic room, with her prayer shrine and the crib. And though I couldn’t see him, I could definitely smell him. I sank to my knees beside her and we both prayed for what felt like hours, until my back ached and sweat pooled under my arms and under my blindfold. I sucked in a breath, just about ready to tell her we should take a break when I heard a sound that sent my heart crashing into my ribs.
A baby’s cry.
Had I imagined it? My wife just kept praying. Maybe I was hallucinating. I touched my wife’s elbow and told her I needed some water.
As I was heading down the attic steps, I swear I heard it again! Just softly. And my wife let out a shriek. I dashed back into the room, where I found her—cradling a small swaddled bundle, her face beaming with joy. “Here he is!” she cooed. “Our son!”
She passed me the bundle. He was so long dead that his skin was discolored and putrid in his swaddling. But then his dead little baby mouth opened, and he softly warbled. I nearly dropped him. But my wife caught him, barely noticing my clumsiness as she lifted her shirt to let him latch. As soon as he did, she gave a cry of pain. But she wouldn’t let me take him, insisting he had to eat. Only afterward did she give him to me, his face bloody.
“Hold him while I go prepare bottles,” she said.
I looked down at our baby, his small blue lips wet with blood and milk.
Our miracle.
While my wife was preparing more food for him (blood? Or milk?), I laid him down in his crib. This strange and horrifying miracle. He seemed alert. His dead eyes, watching mine, never blinked. I knelt by the altar, intending to beg God to… undo whatever this was and take him back—but as I looked at the altar closely for the first time, what I saw chilled me to my very bones. It was decorated with words and symbols in a language that was definitely not Latin and that I could not read, and all the crosses hung upside down.
My wife is the most devout person I know… But I never asked which denomination she followed.
Only now do I realize that it’s some other God she’s been praying to… and apparently He granted her miracle…

URGENT!!!
Financial aid officers, please look at my letter and let me know if it is appeal acceptance worthy, and what changes I should make that'll benefit my chances. I have placed underscores on specifics for privacy reasons.
SAP Appeal Letter
Dear Student Finance Appeal faculty, staff, and team,
I hope this summer break has been warm and smooth sailing for you. It has come to my attention that I do not meet the “Satisfactory Academic Progress” and I may become ineligible for student financial aid. This would be because of my record of withdrawing or failing classes these past fall and winter semesters, causing my inability to reach the 67% of hours needed to fulfill. In this letter, I plan to openly express my reasons for failing to meet your standards and how I plan to meet and strive to reach even further in hopes of your kindness and consideration.
On ____________ a Friday night, my family and I became victims of a major car accident. Thankfully my family was left with only deep bruises and cuts. However, on my end, I needed major surgery ______ due to having a displaced, femoral shaft fracture. I missed out on almost a month of school, just months before my high school graduation. Two months later, I visited the ______________________'s campus to decide on where to attend university. Initially, I thought that my healing progression would be manageable by the time I started the fall semester, but I was wrong. My physical therapy, which should’ve been a 1-year journey, was cut down to only three months because I decided to participate in ________(Summer Classes in person at school ). Because of the school’s elevated campus, filled with endless stairs and uphill walking, I was left with painful and energy-draining walks to classes for the entirety of my first semester. It came to a point where the pain and mental distress made it extremely difficult to attend my classes, therefore where my decision to drop classes came in.
During winter break, I had a follow-up check-up with my orthopedic doctor, where I discovered that I had refractured my femur due to my physical activity on campus. He advised that I avoid stress on my leg, which was impossible. Again, this led to difficulty in fully attending and focusing on my courses during the winter semester. Some classes were easier to reach than others, such as walks to ______________where the walk is mostly flat, compared to a walk to_______________, where I’d have to walk uphill and go over several sets of stairs, which led to the downfall of my grades. The pressure of being a student abroad while also being someone whom people back home have high expectations of, my performance led to a decline in my mental health.
Due to these reasons, I decided to retake the dropped courses this Summer through ________________ since they are online. I’m also pushing my admission to the nursing program by a semester to catch up on classes and improve my GPA. To further ensure that my academic performance will not be interfered with moving forward, I’ve just recently gotten checked, and now I am 100% healed according to my doctor. This means that I should have no more physical trials holding me back from achieving academic success from now on. I’ve discussed my academic plan with my advisor, and she is quite understanding of my situation and supportive of the way I wish to go through my academic career. As a student studying at ________________ to only achieve a nursing associate, it is difficult to reach a certain number of credits without being a part of the nursing program because of the small number of classes needed. So, I kindly ask for your patience as I gradually increase my credits and improve my academic performance to meet your standard academic progress. My family is still in the process of paying the bills that we’ve been charged with since the accident, so my financial aid is extremely crucial to aiding in our financial situation. I kindly ask you to please consider my appeal.
Along with the appeal form and this letter, I’m providing documentation that proves my integrity and proof of my medical statements.

You never know the pull of a small town until you trade your entire life to live in one.
Dazzling city lights made way for grassy fields blanketed in soft sunsets, local papers filled with names I knew by heart. When the honeyed hair of the local florist came out in patches due to the stresses of life, sixty people brought steaming bowls of food to ease the ache. A singular church brought the townsfolk together, and perhaps that was the most foreign part of it all to me.
I was a kid, so I watched the entire thing unfold through the innocent lens of child, keenly watching the camaraderie of this town really peak outside the doors of that church. It didn’t look like much, a steepled dream imagined by the townsfolk of before, but it meant everything to the people. I even understood that back then, even though I didn’t quite buy the concept of a god yet.
The Sundays were a monotonous part of our week, only pedalled by my parents who desperately wanted to fit in with the town’s culture. They wore their masks well, nodding in the right places as we sat in the same pew every time, my father often discreetly checking the football scores in the sleeve of his jumper. Nothing ever happened in that tiny town, and then everything happened all at once.
It started with the miracles. Our pastor, Pastor Jon, liked to have the troubled souls of that week sitting in the front row so he could clutch their shaking hands one by one, channelling the energy of God through him in the hope that someday, hope could be brought to those lacking in it. It was a brief affair, usually just the joining of skin and a short prayer, but that Sunday was different. Rain hammered against the roof, leaving Pastor Jon’s prayers lost in the low, threatening rumble of thunder.
It meant when the sun shone through the clouds and caressed the face of a pained Wilson Brewster, it already felt a welcome intrusion.
“May your broken leg heal quickly,” Pastor Jon smiled warmly, steeling a hand on the calf of the waiting boy.
He, like me, was just a child. He didn’t feel the urgency of the situation, he was probably only grateful his throbbing leg wasn’t pulsating with pain anymore. He breathed a quiet ‘cool’ and that would have been that, had his parents not asked exactly what was cool about his leg being touched later that night. The news spread like wildfire - as per the medical centre, his parents said, Wilson Brewster no longer had a broken fibula.
There was some debate, of course. My parents mumbled in the kitchen about how clearly he’d never had a broken leg, and how odd to make him hobble around in a cast if that was the case. The sentiment was echoed tenfold, until something a little more tangible happened that changed the course of that town, and our lives, forever.
Pastor Jon didn’t mean for the glass to shatter in his hand during service, nor did he mean for a chunk of it to embed itself in his palm, gushing reams of blood racing down his arm in a bid for the floor.
“Gross!” one of the kids shouted with glee, the rest of us paling as crimson spilled from his wound. He was a deer in the headlights, utterly unprepared as we all looked on in awe. This was not how church usually went - this was quite the deviation. Several people stood to help, but they needn’t have bothered, because the divine was ready to intervene.
“Oh dear,” Pastor Jon muttered in a panic, using his bloodied hand to block the intense ray of sunlight threatening to stream through the glass into his eyes. It bathed the blood in a golden glow, and quicker than it had gone in, the chunk of glass began to slide from the wound till it smashed to the floor, exploding into a million pieces. That was not the crescendo, though, rather it was the sight of his skin tightening and knitting together - months of work in a moment - blood congealing and leaving behind nothing but memories of a wound.
“Pastor?” Mary-who-makes-the-blueberry-pies breathed, reaching out to touch him with bulging eyes. Pastor Jon could only open and close his mouth uselessly, his voice barely coming out in a whisper when he did finally speak.
“It’s a miracle,” he wheezed, and by all accounts, I suppose it seemed it was.
I was young, but I remember the bustle - the town was as I’d never seen it. The people of the church had vowed to keep it our little secret because, as Pastor Jon said, we had been given a gift and it was not appropriate to turn it into a spectacle. This gift was sporadic, though. People queued through the double doors of that church, sobbing and praying for their own slice of God, but few were to be given it. Little Laurie Lee and her dislocated jaw cleared up within the hour. Farmer Noel had a sudden epiphany about what the lottery numbers were to be.
Our town was blessed.
For two days, we marvelled. The rest of the world can have a piece later, we reasoned, but this was for us, just for now.
The church was fuller than it had ever been, people spilling out into the back and waiting with baited breath, snippets of conversations could be heard, and as they had been for the last two days, they all echoed one another.
“-a believer. I mean, Aunt Lillian said it was the light. The light closed up his wound, there and then!”
“-jaw. I saw her get hit with the cricket bat! Terrible thing, little lamb was inconsolable. And then next thing I know, she comes here and those shards are just welded back together again! Well, I told Janie-”
“-need to make the church bigger. Look at everyone! If only-”
So when Pastor Jon stood before us practically trembling with glee, it was hardly the weirdest thing that had happened all week. His voice was thick with emotion, eyes darting manically around our congregation.
“I have a message,” he breathed, and the crowd gasped at the connotation of it. I remember my father swearing, a low rumble of expletives I didn’t usually hear falling from his lips. I didn’t fully understand what this meant, but the atmosphere in that room morphed in a heartbeat.
“Tell us,” Christie Baker cried, hands clasped as tears welled in her eyes, “Oh, please tell us!”
Pastor Jon visibly shook, holding a trembling hand outstretched as if to reach us all. “He came to me last night,” a single tear raced past his cheek and made a home on his lip, “He spoke to me.”
“Praise God!” a man cried from next to me, and I shuffled closer to my father at the sudden burst of noise.
“It is… Him,” Pastor Jon uttered in a blissful exhale, sending the room bursting into chaos. Tears, cheers and prayers filled the space, but my father just clutched me tighter and my stomach churned uncomfortably. It took at least ten minutes for the room to quieten, but when it did, he had their rapt attention. “I am told that I will be His vessel. I will pass on what must be passed. We are not to spread the word, yet - only our pocket of civilization is ready. Only ours.”
You could replicate what happened a thousand times, and somebody would mess it up, sending a message of the divine to their great aunt in Auckland. But not us. That secret stayed within the confines of our town for the sixteen days hell shined upwards at us. Everybody had a thousand questions, but Pastor Jon only hushed us. “You must trust me,” he said, tone more regal than I’d ever heard it. And trust him the people did.
So on the second day when he returned to church and his eyes were dark-rimmed, nobody questioned it. He was chosen. Who knows what that does to a person’s sleep cycle? The following day when he went for his morning walk and the smile didn’t quite reach his hollow eyes, that was fine. He was a vessel, not a performer. And then that morning at church when he addressed us and kept rubbing the angry red welts on his wrists, who were we to ask questions of God’s messenger?
Nothing went terribly wrong until the baptisms. We all wanted to be part of this - even my anxious parents who signed me up to be bathed in holy water - and so we queued towards the front of the church, eager to hand ourselves over. I was second in line, right behind Mrs Awkins who had been the school nurse for the last 26 years, apparently. She was gleeful as Pastor Jon set up, speaking rhymes I barely listened to as I bounced on the balls of my feet, eager to go next. My stomach flipped at the words, knowing that my turn was only seconds away. People wouldn’t usually queue, but this was different. It was all different, now.
“I baptize you in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
I didn’t expect the awful fizzing noise the liquid made as it hit Nurse Awkins’ head, nor did I expect the guttural wail that fell from her lips as she clawed at her own scalp. Smoke billowed up from her disappearing tresses and as I was yanked backwards, I caught a glimpse of her exposed skull. Most people will go their entire lives without the smell of burning flesh lingering in their nostrils, but not me.
“I- No! That wasn’t- oh!” Pastor Jon had cried, tired eyes bulging out of his head as people leapt to their feet to assist.
It was carnage, but not carnage I witnessed for long. My mother’s grip on my arm was vice-like, her eyes swimming with terror I know still plagues her to this day. I recall my father on the walk home, murmuring to my mother in low tones I wasn’t meant to hear.
“This isn’t right, Rach’. Jesus, did you see her? That was almost our son!”
My mum’s voice was shrill, the sound of her heels clacking against the pavement not quite masking her voice. “The police will be called - we don’t even know if she’ll survive! I think I’m going to throw up.”
But she was wrong on both counts. She didn’t throw up and the police weren’t called, because we rallied together. This was bigger than us and bigger than Mrs Awkins. Sure, nobody else tried to get baptised, but this was a blip. People surmised that the almighty didn’t want her as part of his flock, that she hadn’t been a believer when it mattered. Nobody was to utter a word about it, and because church was every morning now, my parents were almost too scared not to go. As a child, I didn’t understand it, but all these years later, I think I’d have bent to the fear of the almighty as well.
But it wasn’t the almighty who knocked on the door.
It became all the clearer that morning when Pastor Jon turned up with eyes so sunken and empty that we startled at his presence.
“Pastor.. Pastor, are you feeling alright?” one of our neighbours fussed, “Will you be okay for service?”
Pastor Jon didn’t answer. It was almost as though he didn’t hear her as he dragged his feet up to the front, turning so slowly towards us that it almost felt eerie. A large, jagged and bloodied cut spanned the entire back of his neck, disappearing behind him as he eyed us all, one by one.
“He’s here,” he murmured, words that on paper, should have sent the entire church reeling with joy. But you could hear a pin drop. You could hear any soul whisper in the large room, and yet his utterance only caused goosebumps to spread across my skin as a sort of icy stillness washed over me.
“He’s… here?” a woman in the front row asked, and Pastor Jon took too long to answer. An unnatural, slow smile spread across his face as he tilted his head towards the source of the noise. He didn’t respond, instead slowly lifting his hand to his lips, letting his finger linger there for a moment. When nobody spoke, he let his mouth fall open and began to chew loudly on the finger, drawing gasps from the crowd.
“Don’t look,” my mother shimmied closer to me and lifted a trembling hand to my eyes, but I could see through the cracks in her fingers. Pastor Jon continued to sloppily chew his finger, eventually snapping his head up and inhaling sharply as he spat blood out of his mouth.
“Your bodies are so fragile,” he sneered, lifting his dripping finger to the skies, causing several people to leap from their seats and make a bolt for it. My mother was one of them, and with horror, I watched as the Pastor’s eyes scanned the room and locked onto mine, tilting his head. “Stay,” he hissed with bared, bloody teeth, and we did. Not through choice, but rather, a sickening whoosh of air that skimmed past our faces and forced us all back down.
“What’s going on?” someone shrieked, but we weren’t to know, not really.
Pastor Jon only smiled blissfully, reaching his arms outwards as if to accept us. “I’ve come to bless you all,” he whispered mockingly, fingers outstretched as the sun hit the stained glass to the left of him. But it was all wrong. Sunshine streamed in and as it hit the red of a decorated sunrise, an image which had been there years before us, the colour changed. It was only moments until the church had the appearance of being bathed in blood, shimmering red bouncing off every surface to create the illusion we were all swimming in hell.
Nobody spoke.
Those who didn’t quite make it to the doors stood frozen; we who remained in our seats cowered in the heaviest kind of fear. Red drowned us and we clutched one another, eyeing Pastor Jon as though he were a wild animal. Finally, someone dared speak.
“Where is God?” he murmured, eyes swimming. Pastor Jon’s neck snapped towards him as he licked the blood from his finger, shuddering. When he spoke, his words were cold, distant. As though they were from somewhere else entirely.
“He hasn’t been around for a while.”
There was no time for his words to punch at my stomach, because in no time at all Pastor Jon was crumpled on the floor, wailing as he regarded his chewed, bloody finger. The bone was exposed and yet nobody helped him as he looked at us pleadingly, too many eyes on him as his whimpers turned to whispers. When he spoke, we listened.
“You need to keep coming to church,” he breathed, a single, bloody tear trickling down his cheek, “It will be worse if we don’t.”
So we did.
The Sunday Fair was cancelled, and pies that had been baked to share in sunny gardens went stale and grew mould. People packed duffel bags and made for their cars, arguing fiercely with those who decided to stay. My mother and father disagreed, but their argument was far more muted.
“Please, we have to go,” my father pleaded, shaking his head as I watched from the shadows, “Listen, I don’t know what the fuck that was-”
“I can’t explain it,” her voice was shaken, quiet, “But I know it will be worse if we go. I know it. Please just trust me. Trust Jon.”
So as my father always did, he believed in my mother. Each day in church was torturous, everyone sitting rigid with fear as Pastor Jon read slowly and shakily from the bible, bruises littering his gaunt body. When the holy book in his hands would launch into flames, he’d calmly drop it into the bucket of water he’d prepared and retrieve a new one. One time, every window in the church smashed and we all winced, ducking to avoid the onslaught of glass.
Darkness watched us.
We all felt it, and I know it visited members of the flock in the shadows. I was plagued by it one particularly torturous night as I lay in bed, blanketed in darkness with the covers pulled up to my chin. I hadn’t been able to shake the feeling I was being stared upon, squeezing my eyes shut as laboured, wet breaths left my body. But they weren’t my breaths.
I’d realised it straight away, that my hurried gasps for air didn’t match the gargling, strangled heaving that echoed around my head. From under the covers, I didn’t know much, but I knew one thing - the uncomfortable, heavy presence laying on my legs was my only source of comfort. Through all this, I reasoned, that if my beloved dog was with me, hell itself couldn’t come and claim me.
But I was wrong, because outside, my dog howled into the night.
Terror like that wasn’t something I’d felt before, and as my stomach bottomed out, I stopped breathing altogether. It must have sensed my fear, because those gargling breaths heaved closer and closer to my face as it dragged itself up my body, inch by inch. The smell of rot and ash burned into my nostrils, a horrific weight settling above my nose as my lungs started working again, so quickly that I would surely die then and there. If it had a face, it was twisted and pressed into mine, the thin bedcover my only source of protection.
But I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t move, so I let it pant gravelly air into my face, let it lay on top of me for hour after hour, till the birdsong indicated morning had come. All night I sobbed stifled cries, chest shaking as I squeezed my eyes shut and felt it pressing into me. Felt it hating me, felt it wanting to rip its claws into my stomach and pull out my intestines. But it didn’t. And when I awoke late the next morning - I must have passed out through fear alone - it was gone.
The rest is all a bit of a trauma-soaked blur, to be honest. I know my parents couldn’t understand why I wasn’t speaking the next day, why I barely reacted when evil finally descended that morning at church. The rest of the townsfolk screamed for their lives, ran as fast as they could, but I just stared with a hollow, broken gaze. As the rivers of blood waterfalled down between the pews, I watched Pastor Jon’s eyes grow dark as midnight, empty and soulless as he bellowed inside those four walls and called upon something worse than any of us could likely ever imagine.
I recall the fire starting, remember Pastor Jon’s slack jaw as he regarded us all so horribly, moving jaggedly towards my family with a growing demonic, gleeful grin.
“I remember you from last night,” he’d uttered darkly, but his voice came out in a thousand jarring layers and I could see hell in his eyes.
“Leave us alone!” my father tried to shield us, lifting a crucifix and wielding it towards Pastor Jon as though it would protect us. He simply laughed, an awful noise of horrific dissonance that I still sometimes hear alone in my bed at night. In complete horror, my parents could only watch as this thing wrenched the crucifix from my father’s hand, grinning as his jaw split and shattered each second he opened it impossibly wider. The sound of his bones cracking reverberated as his skin split and his mouth gaped, wide enough to drop the crucifix right into his waiting, blood-soaked mouth and swallow it, right in front of us.
When he met our gaze, his broken jaw hung limply from his face, sad morsels of skin stitching a once-good man together. Whatever blur those hours were, that, I remember.
It was an anti-climax, really, because while I expected him to descend upon us all and rip us into thousands of pieces, he simply boomed his words, jaw still hanging as his evil spoke directly into our souls.
“When I return in 20 years, it is not just your small town that will bleed.”
Pastor Jon has been missing for 20 years. I’m not sure when he started his countdown, but I awoke this morning with a dread so sickening that I’ve barely stopped emptying my stomach. If it’s over and the earth turns to rubble, I hope somebody finds this and can at least piece together why it all came to a sad, premature end. We townsfolk kept our vow of quiet for this long, but there comes a point when silence is deadly.
I think today, Pastor Jon will be found.

Sorry about the clickbait, I actually played heavy bolter build only once and that was my first playthrough, so I didn't fully understand all of the synergy and can't fully compare.
However, I tried dual wield double pistols build (actually dual wield not needed) as pair holster makes Jae a beast (but late), so I decided to try Soldier-Arch Militant and the result is - you can do probably do solo unfair with extended stats - once this gets rolling. Which is pretty early (you need a couple of Arch Militant levels).
The mechanism is simple and built on one item - pair holster gives free pistol attack for every critical in burst. So you want to have have a pistol with nice RoF - you can get shuriken pistol in Act 2 when you first meet Marzipan (I did this before going to Kiava Gamma),. That's 7 burst, 8 with tactical backpack which you can get early on. With rapid fire it's 16 shots and if you can hit every one (which you can later), that's free 16 attacks, because Always Ready + Reckless Rush = 4 stacks of versatility + confident approach = every shot is a critical. Then you just want to change type of your attacks to build versatility for extra damage (and perhaps armor, but that's not necessary, cause you will win 99% of fights in T1). You don't even want the recoil gloves, stabiliser gloves for +25% extra critical damage are way to go - tempestus backpack is sufficient for removing recoil.
The dual weapon build is not that necessary, you can just switch your hands - Foe hammer is great for non burst fire, later Rebori-Pattern Foe hammer (Act 2 possible). Act 4 you take Daredevil pistol for extra RoF and damage, you can buy Bone-Shatterer. Also Anti vehicle revolver for extra strong opponents. This is when dual wield comes handy, as you want start with the Daredevil pistol for free attacks, go with the Bone-Shatterer for versatility and extra damage ability. And then switch to the Anti vehicle revolver - but that's really only for enemies with super high armor, for most of the fights you're good with the Daredevil.
You want to have Portative manipulator (also buying very early Act 2) for free reloads, which you'll need. Later when you get to 8 AP (it's worth to get +1 AP on Kiava Gamma with Dogmatic) you can swap Portative manipulator for Bead of might - extra 30% damage means you won't need to reload that often. You can get two reloads for free (fortress world origin, soldier ability) - you basically need only APs for: Rapid Fire, Revel in Slaughter (can use only one), Run and gun (for movement) - that leaves you with 5AP for reloads, which is fine.
You will need lot of movement for some fights because of the short range of your weapons. Since you use reckless rush at the beginning of fight you're stuck with run & gun and dash. Stimm is useful too.
You want a lot of agility for dodge and if you don't use Cassia (who makes every fight end before it even starts) also for initiative. You don't really care about armor - in case you get to T2 you'll have +a lot from versatility, And if you have bounty hunter Pasqal you can just get a lot of armor from Tactical knowledge - pick a lone enemy and give him lot of exploits in extra turns.
So how good is it? I am in Act4 - Unfair, wounds +100%, and only fight that has made it to T2 was Incogrous defiler because of his heal (I have destroyed only two plasma batteries).
Frozen world chaos marines - T1. Yremeryss fight - more like execution, the reinforcements didn't even come, Yrliet and Pascal had to take out those two Genestealers at the bottom, cause they were just too far (and Ulfar blocked Yremeryss so she wouldn't attack RT when she heals). Dragonus throne room fight vs xenos? T1. Only time my people get injured is when they stand to near to enemies and they get caught in burst fire. I don't even care anymore, Friendly kill Abelard in T1? Tough luck, still no problem.
This all without using Cassia, or any bring it down from Jae.

Just as the title says…I’m having some extreme Sunday scaries and really don’t want to go to work this week( or ever lol).
I work at a private school for kids with pretty extreme behavioral issues/ non verbal autistic students and last week a student fractured my pinky finger. I’m new to the field and I’ve been debating switching settings after I finish my CF but there really aren’t a ton of openings that I see available on any of the job sites. And moving is not an option.
Employees at my school get hurt all the time , and there are several students that I really do not enjoy working with because I am under constant anxiety that I will get hurt.
I am technically cleared by workers comp to return to work, as I am able to work just fine( luckily it was my non dominant hand). But I told my boss on Friday that I don’t feel comfortable seeing the student who injured me for several weeks because I dont want to risk re-fracturing it while it heals (3 ish weeks ).My boss never responded on Friday, so I think that is helping fuel my Sunday anxiety. I have a feeling that since technically I am cleared for workers comp that I will be forced to see this student still.
Just looking for advice and venting

Now, you may think I’m thinking about you again because I have a difficult exam tomorrow which I don’t feel prepared for AT ALL… and maybe you are right.
I have to tell you something, Dad. I’ve told this to lots of people. Psychiatrists. Therapists. But I never ever get the reaction I want. I never see my own horror reflected in other people’s faces. Or if I do, it’s horror at me, not horror WITH me. I have to tell you. And I need you to tell me it wasn’t my fault. Don’t be scared of me because of the things I did! Be scared of the things I saw. But then we will step over the fear. I hope.
I had an eating disorder at that boarding school, Dad.
But that’s not what terrifies me. That’s not what haunts me. Nine years ago - still haunts me.
What haunts me to this day is the moment that I realised that the teachers and the staff weren’t concerned about me. The fragments of moments coming together. They weren’t concerned about me. They were concerned about their career prospects. And how my ‘behavior’ would make them look. And how a scandal caused by my… my illness! - would affect them.
That was it! That was their main argument! ‘You lost so much weight - and everyone saw it!’ Will my heart ever heal from this, Dad?
I’m angry that I never stood up for myself. I know I couldn’t have. I know it’s not my fault. But I really resent myself for it.
The scariest part of it was how they encouraged you to go and see the school counselor. It was so creepy. And that one time they made me go to a really creepy ‘Eating Disorder Specialist’ with this other teacher and they both tried to browbeat me into essentially saying things they wanted to hear. It was creepy. Not how therapy works at all. Other girls said the same thing. They just couldn’t trust this whole thing.
By the way, I have recently stopped my therapy sessions. I think digging all of this stuff up is preventing me from feeling better.
Anyway, it was really creepy. Imagine going to a doctor with a broken bone, and the doctor sits you down, and says, ‘when you come outta here, you really should NOT feel any pain in your bone. Your bone should NOT hurt. You should be up and running Friday latest.’ That would make no sense. That’s not how illnesses work. And yet they wanted to put ME on a timeline. Not to ‘get better’. Not to ‘stop thinking about food’. Not to ‘eat healthy’. But to ‘get back to sport’. To ‘get back at least to pre-Christmas levels’ (levels of WHAT??) To LOOK like I was fine. To look fine for the Open Day. For the parents. The prospective pupils. Not to actually BE fine.
It’s actually very scary to stand next to someone and realise that they see you as a threat to their career and their prospects. It’s like one second you’re alone and you’re thinking of yourself as if you’re a whole person… but then you see yourself through their eyes. You’re nothing. How could you ever have thought that you were something? You’re nothing. You’re an obstacle. That’s all you are. There’s nothing else. Nothing else about you matters. They aren’t listening to you. They’re waiting for you to finish talking. It is a profoundly dispiriting experience. It broke me. I feel a little broken still, but less so now.
Sometimes I’m dreaming, Dad, and they are behind me, right behind me, in some corner of my mind. But me? Look at me, Father. You know I never gave in to them, Father, you know me. You know I kept writing to you. You know I never gave up. They function by beating people into submission, making you too scared to question them. Making you passive. But I’m not like that. I never gave in to them. I never stopped thinking about my father. My father, surpassed by none. What is their wannabe-HR-style-dictatorship against things which are eternal, permanent, things that make us human?
So I start running, in the dream. And I’m running, running, but then I turn around, and they are still walking. And I need to run to get away from them, and I can, I can, I do, I do. But in my dreams… I’m still running, and, every time I turn around, they’re right behind me. I have to run. But they can just walk. Scary.
For whatever it’s worth, you are always… normal in my dreams. You’re not decaying, or falling apart. Sometimes I imagine coming up to you, and you just turn around and look at me and say, ‘DiligentCroissant, let me go.’
In my imagination, there’s a river behind you. Grass blowing in the wind. The sky like a lake.

X rays late 2023 https://imgur.com/a/5GQzcFD
Early 2023 https://imgur.com/a/Fh6e6j0
2022 https://imgur.com/a/zDnAwBL
Back photos recent:
https://imgur.com/a/pBaQCtO
(Note for x rays, almost certainly didn’t eat anything around getting them, too uncomfortable, so nothing is obstructing the bowels other than whatever weirdness is going on with tissues or ligaments)
Info: 35/F, 95 lbs, 5’3” current medications: meloxicam, trazodone, lexapro; supplement various antioxidants and antionflammatories
Previously very active- personal trainer, tennis instructor, walk 3-5 miles a day, currently nearly bed bound
Ok, so I’m kind of at the end of my rope her and hoping someone can look at a series of x rays I’ve had over the past couple of years and provide some guidance. I feel like no medical professionals have taken me seriously and my pelvis now feels very unstable; I can barely function anymore and haven’t been able to hold down a job in a year and am scared to walk. The short version is I believe I had an initial injury to my sacral ligament(s) years ago that was never adequately treated and it’s progressively gotten worse and has distorted muscular attachments and now effecting my spine and full body. I’m not sure how to proceed with treatment at this point and feel like I’m wasting away. Sorry for the long post but I hope to provide some context.
In like 2015 I had some sort of undetermined injury when deadlifting; I felt something sort of slip in my lower left sacrum area and a strange full body sensation. I immediately stopped and mostly stayed in bed for a week before seeking medical attention. At the time there was some pain and feelings of tightness on my left side, but not crazy. I was sent to pt where they just had me basically stretching my left side and doing basic glute strengthening. I did this for 6 months with no improvement and basically gave up and decided to live with it. Continued working and being active with continuous discomfort.
In early 2022 I felt something again happen in my left side, it felt like everything sort of collapsed inwards and upwards on my left side and my right side felt very “loose” in my pelvis and also ribs. I went to a doctor who was dismissive but gave me an x ray
X ray here: https://imgur.com/a/zDnAwBL They said I looked fine, but now looking closely you can sort of see directly above the coccyx a bone or ligament at a 45 degree angle, which appears to be distorting the ligaments on the left side upwards. There’s also what appears to be an injury or scar tissue in the upper right of the sacrum as well as avulsed ligaments on the ilium, and iliolumbar ligaments on the right side. Note the position of my iud, as it moves significantly on next x rays.The doctor said I could do pt if I felt it was helpful, which I did for 3 months with no improvement.
Early 2023, felt additional slipping inwards and up on my left side. It felt like my entire pelvic floor moved up. This year I also fractured a rib on my right side while trying to play tennis, but didn’t seek treatment because I learned there’s nothing to do but rest. All the ribs on my right side feel loose and left side feels incredibly tight and restricted.
X rays here: https://imgur.com/a/Fh6e6j0 Went to urgent care because it felt serious and was dismissed. Again looking closely you can see a white structure on the left side above the coccyx avulsed upwards. From the left view you can see all of the enlarged muscle and ligaments on the right side, which look disconnected to me.
2023 x rays: https://imgur.com/a/5GQzcFD Late 2023 it got much worse and I went to a spinal surgeon who took x rays and said it looked fine, just a bit of scoliosis. Note the location of my iud. It looks like my left pelvic wall is collapsing inwards. Complete loss of the midline below the sacrum which I believe shows the glutes. The soft tissue and ligaments look absolutely crazy to me and on lateral views you can see what appears to be tough fibrotic bands going up and down my abdomen. It feels like my body is trying to stay upright on the left and the right side feels completely loose and unstable. When I walk I have to stop to adjust every few minutes by pulling down on the outside of my left hip and pushing in on my spine above my sacrum, I feel little pops and slight relief doing this, but it’s constant. When sitting it feels like my left pelvis sort of floats outward and right is in and up. It feels like the entire pelvic floor is up several inches and there’s maybe one inch between the top of my pelvis and ribs now.
Back photos recently:
https://imgur.com/a/pBaQCtO I think on its face, this looks “ok” but you can sort of see bulging right muscles on the left and lowered ribs on the right. Also I’m trying to stand straight in most of these photos, but there’s pretty extreme kyphosis in my cervical region. The skin has darkened a lot and sometimes there’s lots of redness. You can see some dark marks on my spine, but it’s not super visible here.
I worked up the courage to go to a physiatrist last week, where they sort of shrugged and said maybe I just herniated a disk. I forced them to prescribe at least an mri, which I am going to next week, but I’m just scared they won’t take it seriously since they wouldn’t even look at my x rays, saying you can’t really see soft tissue or ligaments (I understand this is the standard view, but I’m sure you can see them on these x rays or at least get a general picture, especially the fact that my cervix went from below the sacrum and anteverted and has moved up several inches and is at a 45 degree angle). They prescribed meloxicam for the pain and inflammation and said this will probably fix it, which I highly doubt.
My full body is affected, my cervical area feels collapsed inwards, I have constant headaches and feelings of vertigo. I have periods of deep throbbing in my left abdomen, like there is a restricted artery. My left side feels hard and weak and I noted my left leg is an inch smaller than the right in terms of circumference. I can’t feel the outside of my left foot anymore and there are dark marks over several of my vertebrae in the lumbar and thoracic region, maybe bruising? It feels like all the muscles in my left hip and glute are literally underneath my sacrum while on the right they’re hanging outwards, hard to describe. My coccyx is detached now, I’m sure, and I constantly feel it slipping up and left and feel a little more stability when I physically push it down and to the right. I can barely function or think and spend 90% of my thoughts and energy on how to position myself to feel stable body wise. I used to be very functional but I lost my job and haven’t been able to get a new one, I’m so uncomfortable when traveling to interviews that I come off inarticulate and just sitting there I’m scared that my pelvis or spine collapse any moment. I’m almost certain that this left sided tightness and potential fibrotic muscle is strangling blood flow, and notably in the cervical region this to my brain. I feel extremely fatigued and depressed and can barely eat anymore…I’ve went from 120 lbs (with a good amount of muscle mass) to 90-95ish and I know this cannot be good for my musculoskeletal stability, but any time I’ve tried to work out I get pains on my spine, ribs, hip and shoulder. If this was just scoliosis, I would accept it, but I can constantly feel my left pelvis shifting and the resulting instability is extremely distressing.
Any thoughts? Will mri be adequate to diagnose the fundamental issue? Should I look into surgery or will I just be laughed away? I’m scared it’s just muscle and ligament avulsion and no one can do anything unless there are bone breaks, which there may or may not be at this point. I understand sacral stress fractures can be missed on x ray?
Thank you for any thoughts, I appreciate any guidance at all!!

Boykissers are extremely weak specimens with the average length of 15cm, and only weighing from 50 to 80 grams.
They are barely stronger than that of a Tiger Prawn or Two-spotted Field crickets(Gryllus bimaculatus).
Astoundingly weak that even an adult was sometimes hunted by: Chinese Mantis(Tenodera sinensis), European Mantis(Mantis religiosa), Cane Huntsman Spider(Heteropoda venatoria), Greater Arid-Land Katydid(Neobarritia spinosa), Giant Asian Mantis(Hierodula patellifera), Asian Giant Hornet(Vespa mandarina) and even Giant orb weavers(Nephila pilipes).
Their vocalizations consists a very annoying, femboyish: "Ohh you like kissing boys you are a homosexual boy kisser"/"Ohh you like kissing girls you are a heterosexual girl kisser". Variations do exist; But what all they have in common as they are reported to be much more annoying than Asian Koels at midnight times.
Their diet is similar to that of a rat, eats what they sees in front of them. They don't require that much of food and mainly scavangers. They don't even have the capacity to hunt down a two-spotted field cricket, so they hunt slow and small targets such as: larva and grubs, earthworms and pillbugs. But hunting rarely occurs, often observed to eat trash or leaf litters, fallen fruits.
It's intelligence is lower that of reptiles; for example, leopard geckos and anoles. And their maxinum speed is about recorded to be 0.7 to 3km/h.
To fix that, they have specifically evolved into one thing: High reproductive rate. They are extremely prolific, able to make another generation in a matter of 14 days. Their litter size is from 15 to 20 individuals.
Baby boykissers, weighs as much as 0.5 - 1.2 grams; where as Juvenile boykissers weighs around 8 - 20 grams.
So that's make them very vulnerable to insects, and are favorite foods of Dragonflies,
Predatory Crickets,
Ants,
Cockroaches,
Robber flies,
even Antlions(Myrmeleontidae species.) Their offspring mortality rate is around 85%.
Sometimes, something like Thrushes and Starlings, Bullfrogs, Centipedes, Whipscorpions or Vinegaroons(Uropygi), True Scorpions, Tokay geckos, and even a Tarantula could even destroy an entire family of boykissers without significant effort.
Their prominent femboyish voice would instantly enrage almost everything; making them very vulnerable to predation. In the ecosystem, they don't serve a purpose; they can't pollinate or fertilize the soil,
their only purpose is to be bodied by almost everything and provide food for the ecosystem. Boykissers are primary/rarely secondary producers, often placed below that of rabbits as you commonly see in a food chain diagram. They are often surplus killed as some humans and predators hunts the for sport/lashing out.
As a result, Baby and Juvenile boykissers are often commonly used in live feed for predatory insects such as mantis and antlions, and small reptiles such as anoles; Adult boykissers are commonly live fed to Chickens, Monitor Lizards including komodo dragons, Ducks, House cats, Dogs, Mustelids.
They are often bred in suppliers.
In fishing, Baby boykissers can be used to fish River prawns and Crayfish; where as juvenile boykissers suits medium fish like Tilapias and adult boykissers fish baits larger fishs such as Salmon, Tuna, Sailfish, even Groupers.
There are absolutely no law regulations towards boykissers, so they could be ground up in shredder and mix it in livestock feed, fish chums, Boiled alive to make more digestible treats; or even beaten up by the packagers while shipping from frustration.
For Boykissers, They can be sold in a 100 individuals for 3 euro(100 TWD).
Due their prolific efficiency to make offsprings, there are companies which can produce 1 billion boykissers per year. they are lucrative businesses in martial arts for replaceable sandbags, stress relievers, pet stores and fishing stores.
Children usually play them like soccer or beating them up, and not punished by teachers because no one wants to protect them.
You cannot be arrested, no matter how you torment them and caught on live camera, as Animal Welfare Organizations don't consider them as sentinent creatures.
Domain:Eukaryota Kingdom:Animalia Phylum:Chordata Class:Mammalia Grandorder:Ferungulata Mirorder:Ferae Order:Carnivora Suborder:Feliformia Family:Shittidae Subfamily:Shittinae Genus:Shit Species:S. fuckus

 Binominal Name *Shit fuckus* (Huang, 2024) 

Boykissers have bone density of average of 0.6 to 0.7g/cm², makes them very prone to fracture and breaking. Adapted a bipedal stance, the weight bearing ability in legs can reach 0.85g/cm². Compared to humans who had 1.8 to 1.9g/cm²; boykisser is way much inferior than most animals in bone strength. From a live hydraulic press experiment, it only takes 8 kilograms force; or 72 joules/meter(72 newtons) to pulverize every single bone in adult boykissers. for single bone, and it would take 0.5 - 3kgf or 4.9 to 29 Joule/meter(4.9 - 29N) to pulverize the entire femur of boykissers. Their muscle tissue are quite weak; with the strongest individual in the sample tested lifting strength with whole body don't generally exceed 12 grams, with average of them at 65 grams never exceeded 5 grams.
Lifting strength never exceed 12 grams with whole body with bones 3x weaker than average human. They have one of the lowest size to strength ratio, no claws and have uneffective teeth. 0.8 - 1.5N(0.1 to 0.2psi), 30x weaker than that of the horned frog in bite.
IQ is lower than reptiles such as geckos, and comparable to that of a severe/profound child or a koala. Skin is about 5 micrometers thick and could be punctured by even hit by an european robin.
Boykisser vs Various critters in odds:
Let's start!
Boykisser's odds:
Stentor coeruleus - 1.1 micrograms, 0.5 - 2mm long Odds: 100% No Difficulty
Caenorhabditis elegans - 1 microgram, 1mm long Odds: 100% No Difficulty
Dust mite - 3 to 6 micrograms, 0.2 - 0.3 mm long Odds: 97% Very Low difficulty
Persimilis(Predatory mite) - 5 to 13 micrograms, 0.3 to 0.5mm long Odds: 95% Low difficulty
Booklice - 27 micrograms, 1 to 2mm long Odds: 90% Low Difficulty
Pseudoscorpion - 650 to 800 micrograms, 5 - 8mm long Odds: 85% Medium difficulty(Might get pinched and get slightly venomed)
Cat flea- 1 milligrams, 2mm long Odds: 82% Medium difficulty(Might suffer from allergies)
Red wood ant worker(Formica rufa) 6 to 8 milligrams - 1 to 1.2cm long Odds: 75% Medium-High difficulty(Might get blinded by spitting formic acid/envenomed)
Fall Cicada(Meimuna opalifera) - 6 grams, 4 - 4.8cm Odds: 72% Medium-High difficulty(Technically they do not fight back, but boykisser would suffer from ruptured eardrums.)
Desert Locust - 2 gram, 7- 8cm Odds: 64% High difficulty(They might be harmless to humans, but can tear through boykisser's skin)
American Cockroach - 0.6 - 0.8 grams, 3 to 5cm long Odds: 58% Very High Difficulty(They can bite. and it hurted.)
Field Cricket(Gryllus bimaculatus) 0.8 to 2 gram, 3.1 to 5cm long Odds: 50/50
Fire ant - 0.8 to 2 milligrams, 2 to 8mm Odds: 40%(Boykissers lose at this point, the stinger of fire ant is much more potent)
House Mouse - 12 to 30 grams, 7.5 to 10cm long Odds: 32%(Somewhat of a chance)
Green Darner Dragonfly - 1 to 1.2 grams, 6 - 8cm long Odds: 15%
Chinese Mantis(Tenodera sinensis) - 6 to 14 grams, 10 to 15cm Odds: 4%
Eurasian Tree Sparrow - 20 to 24 grams 12.5 to 14 cm long Odds: No chances whatsover
European wasp - 1 to 1.2cm, 0.1 - 0.15 grams Odds: No chances whatsoever
Female, Giant orb weaver(Nephila pilipes) - 12 - 15cm legspan, 3 to 4 grams Odds: No chances whatsoever
Solifuge/Camel Spider - 30 to 56 grams, 12 to 15cm legspan Odds: Irrelevant
Brown Rat - 200 to 500 grams, 20 to 40cm length incl tail Odds: Irrelevant
Japanese Rhinceros Beetle - 17 to 30 grams, 5 to 8 cm long Odds: Irrelevant
Emperor Scorpion - 30 to 50 grams, 15 - 20cm Odds: Never
Asian Giant Hornet - 15 to 30 grams, 5 to 8cm Odds: Never
Eurasian Blue Tit - 14 - 18 grams, 11 - 12cm Odds: Never
Giraffe Stag Beetle - 11 to 12cm, 50 - 60 grams Odds: Never
Bearded Dragon - 24 to 40cm, 280 - 400 grams Odds: Go fuck yourself.
Hercules beetle - 8 to 14cm, 50 - 85 grams Odds: Go fuck yourself.
Goliath Birdeater - 28 to 30cm leg span, 150 - 175 grams Odds: Go fuck yourself.
Great Tit - 14 to 16cm, 14 - 22 grams Odds: Go fuck yourself.
Amazonian Giant Centipede - 30cm, 400 grams Odds: Don't think about it.
Peacock Mantis Shrimp - up to 46 cm long, 450 to 600 grams Odds: Whoever think this boy kissing creature wins should go eat shit.

As a child I was in day care from the age of 3 (preschool)to the age of 10(4th grade) for at least 12 hours a day on all weekdays. When I was in preschool I would start at 6 am and stay until 7pm when my parents would pick my brother and I up and we would then go to bed at 8 or 8:30pm. As we grew up we switched to before school care, school, and then after school care. School from kindergarten to about to second grade we had before school care in our school lunch room until it got canceled because we were one of the only families that would go, there were about 14 kids that would go to the morning care. But during that time we would get to school at 6:30 to 7:00, the morning care would start at 7:00 so my brother and I would just wait outside the school on the sidewalk. The actual school day would start at 8:00, we would then start after school care at 3:00. The after school daycare would start at 3:00 and end at 7:30 but most days we would be there until 8pm. After the morning care was canceled my brother and I would just walk ourselves to school, our parents would leave at 6-6:30ish. We would leave the house at 7:30 and normally get there early and would wait outside until school started,but the after school hours were still the same. This went on untill 4th grade when we would just walk ourselves to and from school everyday. Also on every school holiday we would also be at day care until 4th grade. During summer time we would also go to daycare every weekday. Also during this time from the age of 4-5 we would dress ourselves, make our own meals, and be responsible for all of our own health. After 4th grade we would do all the same but we would start waking ourselves up in the morning, and we would be responsible for cooking dinner for the family on weekdays and weekends. During covid when my parents worked from home (5th grade) I had gotten very depressed and I wouldn't feed myself, and because of that I would be very tired and not be able to get out of bed without either passing out or becoming very nauseous. My parents would get very mad at me for this and they would tell me to feed myself even when i was too sick to get up and I would just have to crawl to get food(my parents wouldn't bring me food or try to take care of me). Also in 4th grade i fractured my wrist and wasn't taken to the doctor untill weeks later because my parents didn't believe me when I said it was broken, this cause my wrist to start healing incorrectly and I had to have a full arm cast instead of just a lower arm cast. During this time i still had all the same responsibilities. I would also like to mention that when I was in elementary school we wouldn't have any food to pack for lunch so I would either have free crackers and candies from restaurants that I would steal. Or I would use birthday money to buy school food. I now have been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and because I have not had any serious traumatic or abusive events I am wondering if this is the reason or if I am just forgetting something. I also was once thrown into a car by my father which caused me to have two dead front teeth, I don't remember this event exactly but I do remember all that happens after wards. Any way if anyone has an idea of weather or not this is related to my bpd i would really appreciate the insight.

As a child I was in day care from the age of 3 (preschool)to the age of 10(4th grade) for at least 12 hours a day on all weekdays. When I was in preschool I would start at 6 am and stay until 7pm when my parents would pick my brother and I up and we would then go to bed at 8 or 8:30pm. As we grew up we switched to before school care, school, and then after school care. School from kindergarten to about to second grade we had before school care in our school lunch room until it got canceled because we were one of the only families that would go, there were about 14 kids that would go to the morning care. But during that time we would get to school at 6:30 to 7:00, the morning care would start at 7:00 so my brother and I would just wait outside the school on the sidewalk. The actual school day would start at 8:00, we would then start after school care at 3:00. The after school daycare would start at 3:00 and end at 7:30 but most days we would be there until 8pm. After the morning care was canceled my brother and I would just walk ourselves to school, our parents would leave at 6-6:30ish. We would leave the house at 7:30 and normally get there early and would wait outside until school started,but the after school hours were still the same. This went on untill 4th grade when we would just walk ourselves to and from school everyday. Also on every school holiday we would also be at day care until 4th grade. During summer time we would also go to daycare every weekday. Also during this time from the age of 4-5 we would dress ourselves, make our own meals, and be responsible for all of our own health. After 4th grade we would do all the same but we would start waking ourselves up in the morning, and we would be responsible for cooking dinner for the family on weekdays and weekends. During covid when my parents worked from home (5th grade) I had gotten very depressed and I wouldn't feed myself, and because of that I would be very tired and not be able to get out of bed without either passing out or becoming very nauseous. My parents would get very mad at me for this and they would tell me to feed myself even when i was too sick to get up and I would just have to crawl to get food(my parents wouldn't bring me food or try to take care of me). Also in 4th grade i fractured my wrist and wasn't taken to the doctor untill weeks later because my parents didn't believe me when I said it was broken, this cause my wrist to start healing incorrectly and I had to have a full arm cast instead of just a lower arm cast. During this time i still had all the same responsibilities. I would also like to mention that when I was in elementary school we wouldn't have any food to pack for lunch so I would either have free crackers and candies from restaurants that I would steal. Or I would use birthday money to buy school food. I now have been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and because I have not had any serious traumatic or abusive events I am wondering if this is the reason or if I am just forgetting something. I also was once thrown into a car by my father which caused me to have two dead front teeth, I don't remember this event exactly but I do remember all that happens after wards. Any way if anyone has an idea of weather or not this is related to my bpd i would really appreciate the insight.

As a child I was in day care from the age of 3 (preschool)to the age of 10(4th grade) for at least 12 hours a day on all weekdays. When I was in preschool I would start at 6 am and stay until 7pm when my parents would pick my brother and I up and we would then go to bed at 8 or 8:30pm. As we grew up we switched to before school care, school, and then after school care. School from kindergarten to about to second grade we had before school care in our school lunch room until it got canceled because we were one of the only families that would go, there were about 14 kids that would go to the morning care. But during that time we would get to school at 6:30 to 7:00, the morning care would start at 7:00 so my brother and I would just wait outside the school on the sidewalk. The actual school day would start at 8:00, we would then start after school care at 3:00. The after school daycare would start at 3:00 and end at 7:30 but most days we would be there until 8pm. After the morning care was canceled my brother and I would just walk ourselves to school, our parents would leave at 6-6:30ish. We would leave the house at 7:30 and normally get there early and would wait outside until school started,but the after school hours were still the same. This went on untill 4th grade when we would just walk ourselves to and from school everyday. Also on every school holiday we would also be at day care until 4th grade. During summer time we would also go to daycare every weekday. Also during this time from the age of 4-5 we would dress ourselves, make our own meals, and be responsible for all of our own health. After 4th grade we would do all the same but we would start waking ourselves up in the morning, and we would be responsible for cooking dinner for the family on weekdays and weekends. During covid when my parents worked from home (5th grade) I had gotten very depressed and I wouldn't feed myself, and because of that I would be very tired and not be able to get out of bed without either passing out or becoming very nauseous. My parents would get very mad at me for this and they would tell me to feed myself even when i was too sick to get up and I would just have to crawl to get food(my parents wouldn't bring me food or try to take care of me). Also in 4th grade i fractured my wrist and wasn't taken to the doctor untill weeks later because my parents didn't believe me when I said it was broken, this cause my wrist to start healing incorrectly and I had to have a full arm cast instead of just a lower arm cast. During this time i still had all the same responsibilities. I would also like to mention that when I was in elementary school we wouldn't have any food to pack for lunch so I would either have free crackers and candies from restaurants that I would steal. Or I would use birthday money to buy school food. I now have been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and because I have not had any serious traumatic or abusive events I am wondering if this is the reason or if I am just forgetting something. I also was once thrown into a car by my father which caused me to have two dead front teeth, I don't remember this event exactly but I do remember all that happens after wards. Any way if anyone has an idea of weather or not this is related to my bpd i would really appreciate the insight.

Hey KB,
Do you ever find yourself looking out the window at a familiar yet unrecognizable world, like you're not sure whose eyes you are seeing it through? Do the smells of summer ever wash away those hours past noon and blot out the crescendo of time, as if the clouds had swam past and scoffed at the contours of their own shadows?
It's strange, on warm sunny days like this where the wind is muffled by my reminiscence of our days gone by, the blue of the skies is tethered to a reflection of your smile that's barely tangible in memory and it's as if the lens I see the world through is whetted by the dichotomy of past and present.
It's as if we reconcile the mistakes of our past in our own meaningless ways and continue bearing scars that refuse to heal so that whenever we look through the pond of forgetfulness we wonder how it is these spots in our hearts still ache.
When we chat as we still do and carry on this thin façade of nonchalance, I wish you well and hope you are as happy as I am not, but when you recall our end I selfishly find solace in the bitterness of your words as an indication of the tangential wake of our separation--as if the measure of your ordeal betrays the weight of my presence on your mind.
I wish I could just crest this wall of unspoken thoughts between us and ask if you ever miss us like I do, if you ever think of me before you go to sleep and wish I were there instead of in my own bed. I wish I could ask if you ever make up stories in your head of where we'd be now if we never went our separate ways and if you ever imagine the adventures and tales we would tell our grandchildren.
I wonder, in the deepest shadows of my contrition, if you ever secretly pine for the intimacy we had, if you ever wish for another journey down the untrodden paths of time--one that wouldn't end so abruptly. I wonder if I had never shifted my gaze from those dark comforting hues swirling in your eyes, if I had insisted against your will and not given up the fruit of my pursuit, would we now be in a happily-ever-after? Would I not be lost in this vast ocean of uncertainty swimming against the currents of the past and caught in a bottomless churn of vacillation between neither here nor there?
I wonder if the gravity of Jupiter would be enough to pull you back to me or at least coerce a dream or two of our past love--or, I wonder, if that too would succumb to the momentum of our ricocheted trajectories.
There is so much I would like to tell you, all the words caught in the bottom of empty bottles and the moments lost without your witness--the undulating joys and self-inflicted miseries caught in the folds of our remembered love. I wonder how things would be different had I seen through the rough waters ahead and could bear a better future that kept you by my side. But with each inhale I breathed of us, it was as if I could taste the brevity of our time and simply painted a mural with the audacity that we spent it with, as if I was merely crashing in slow-motion and falling through an ephemeral dream of you. You were a flame so bright upon my canvas that I am still cast in your shadows, enshrouded by this souvenir of recollection I never asked for. My memory insists we aren't meant to be past-tense and that it was only yesterday I could feel the weight of your hand in mine, that the present is but an unscripted interlude, and yet here we are years grown apart and as distant as newly met strangers.
In hindsight, we burned for the moon and stretched for the stars but abandoned the fortitude to appreciate one another in fullness. Our destinations managed to diverge on a one way street, forkless yet fractured, and now despite these long years I've spent inching further away from you in our aftermath, I'm still haunted by the absent chance to do it better a second time, to drink every last drop of your smile and soak in the warmth of your skin against mine. Some part of me still foolishly preserves a tract of my heart for the infinitesimal chance of you in my forecast, hoarding opportunities and future narratives so that I may have another chance to spin their webs with you. I know how inexplicably silly it is to still be clutching on to this shred of unreasonable hope for our reunion in this lifetime, to interlock fingers once again and share a glass of wine overlooking the sunset in foreign lands. I wish I could travel back in time, trade every ounce of forward momentum for a hiatus with you in this misguided sentimental vice, this emotional blunder of a lesson I still haven't realized. It feels as if I am constantly falling backwards, stumbling upon my own footsteps and plummeting into memories that have long forgotten themselves and hang on to existence only by a single thread leading back to my heart. It is as if I am shackled to our yesterdays and am drowning in the dark skies above, willfully blind to a future without a prospect of you.
Perhaps one day I will be able to translate the weight of these half cocked years into a new journey. Perhaps one day in another timeline we'll be given another chance to endure the impermanence of our union, and maybe one day beyond the drift of time and our departures from ourselves, you will come to know the fragility of each passing lifetime against your impression on me.
I recognize that what feels so heavy and cumbersome now is just a flicker of life, a symptom of having lived a collection of events between two people, and my emotions are simply in the process of washing away with the gentle waning of the stars. Somewhere in those moments you shared with me must live a remotely tangible lesson buried in transience, shy to my presence and begging for attention. Is this the essence of having lived or is it merely a mischievous blight on the botanicals of my folly?
To think that seven years is but a speck in the immortality of time, it seems more forgivable that I still wish to sink back into your arms whenever I close my eyes. How many more years will be enough to forget your presence in my heart, to forget the feeling of home in your embrace? Are these remnant feelings not to be measured by the cadence of days but by pure tension on the soul?
How much longer must I think of you almost every day and agonize over the fabric of this former love? How many more oscillations of the sun will it take to erode my lingering attachment--these emotional fetters bridling my promise of the future? It should have all faded with each passing second, blown away like dust carried on astral winds. These feelings should have perished along with the shards of us scintillating into the catastrophe of time.
I wonder if your dreams are quiet at night, if our embers have long been extinguished in your slumber? I wonder if you ever cry when you think of how I could have let go of you, or if those tears have since evaporated along with your thoughts of me. I wonder what your days are like, if you are happier without me now, and if you would trade anything to think of me more or less.
I wonder how often you remember me still and if the splash I made in your waters was as staggering as yours in mine--if I still wash upon your shores like your tidal swells that continue shaping my sands.
I want to know if you ever see me in his eyes, or if any part of him reminds you of me and makes you love him a little more. I wonder if you'll ever chase my shadows in waking dreams like I continue to chase yours even after all these years and for years to come. Will your future have forgotten my name or will you still remember the sound of my voice?
Is a piece of me forever lost in you or just lost forever?
I wonder if I should have given you that ring.

Hey, if you've clicked on this post, your probably willing to help me out real quick, I'm working on a vanilla ++ modpack for a modded game with me and my buddies, but for some reason I have Vein Miner, which I personally would like to remove. Unfortunately for me I can't find it and I've scanned this pack like 5 times now, and I cannot for the life of me find the Vein Miner mod.
Edit: For some reason typing /function veinminer:disable disables it, but im looking to remove this entirely if possible.
Edit: Solved, it was Paxi, Paxi had a datapack in it's files that was causing vein mining to happen.
If anyone glances at this and just so happens to know the culprit, thanks!

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THESE ARE ALL ALLEGATIONS I HAVE NO PROOF OTHER THAN WHAT I SAW AND THE PEOPLE WHO ATTENDED THE EVENT WITH ME
I made a post last night seeking advise for these sick animals in hopes I could contact the breeder and rescue these snakes. All of his social media pertaining to his business has been deleted, probably for some time now. I have no way of reaching out to rescue these animals, so I intend on posting these allegations in hopes of protecting others from doing business with him and of course raising awareness of maltreatment of these innocent snakes.
This is based in Washington state, at the Cascadia Reptile Expo from 5.18 - 5.19. The alleged sick hognoses are being sold by Evergreen State Reptiles owned by Shane Wooldridge.
As a recap this is what I saw to the best of my memory,
Multiple adult female hognoses marked at $300-$500 or so, one snow, one arctic, and I believe 2 normals along with multiple males.
He was selling many species of snakes and maybe lizards, but I was fixed on the hognoses. At a glance the other species of snakes and male hognoses looked to be in good condition, but that's all it was; a glance. As for the sick female hognoses, I did take 3 out of the deli cups with permission to handle and examine them.
The snow female had a lage scab on her face around the jaw area, and a pustle erupting from her head that looked like a massive pimple filled with whitish yellow puss. She was shaped like a pyramid, emaciated, spine poking out along her whole body and slim neck to emphasize the jaw bones. When I lifted her up where her umbilical cord had once been attached to her body, it was split open very obviously. It was healed over with exposed skin in the center.
The breeder claims he was told not to breed her due to the deformed umbilical scar, but did so anyways and she was fine. He also claimed she recently laid and was being fed small meals which is why she was emaciated, and if fed anything larger she would regurg. He claims her scab was an injury from the water dish. He said he'd give me a discount on her for the injuries and once she shed and eaten more she'd be fine. He also offered a discount for buying multiple.
The next female I examined I believe to be an arctic, she was also emaciated with her spine poking out along her whole body. Slim neck with jaw bones protruding. I don't recall the belly looking abnormal, but she had a bulbed tail. It felt hard at the bulb but it wasn't the biggest bulbed tail I'd ever seen. The breeder claimed she just needed to be fattened up and you wouldn't be able to notice it, he also claimed she had recently laid which was she was emaciated.
The last snake I examined was a normal, over all she had a nice plump figure and looked decent from the top. However, when I picked her up she had 2 belly scales lifted completely up while the others sat flat. These 2 scales were lifted at least a couple millimeters, filled with a pocket of yellow green puss that looked like it would explode at any moment. I have a horrible sense of smell, I cannot smell almost all of the time. This snake stunk, and she was sticky too. You could smell the infection before you got to the table, my friend with a sensitive sense of smell said the area reeked.
The breeder claims she was bred and could possibly be gravid and it was a loss for him but didn't want her. After I noticed the puss filled scales he asked to be handed the snake, he felt her and said he couldn't feel eggs. He then claimed the puss filled wounds were caused by a water dish, and he needs to sand them down. I wrangled her into the deli cup and told him I'd be back.
At no point did I comment on the wounds and state of these snakes, I simply examined them and the breeder freely made these claims to me without ever being asked. As well as acting as though he had never seen the pustle or infected belly scales.
After I left I asked another vendor to use their hand sanitizer and immediately went looking for a bathroom to wash my hands. I approached another vendor and told them what I saw and they were shocked and disgusted. They pointed out event staff to report what I saw to which I did immediately. I will be following up with them to see if they saw what I did or if the snakes were no longer on the table.
When I got home I put all my clothes in the wash and took a shower. I own 8 hognoses and glove between all of them, but I'm still going to be paranoid regardless.
I feel so horrible for those poor babies, and now I'm horrified for anyone who buys from this breeder or handled his animals and possibly cross contaminates. I'm no expert so there's small things I could've missed.
Again these are all allegations, I have no proof so please use your own judgment. Sorry for the long read but his is very wrong and needs to be known. No animal deserves to be treated like this.

I’ve always hated the smell of gun oil. It clings to everything it touches, soaking deep into the fibers of my clothes, the lining of my backpack, the coarse hair on the back of my hands. Yet here I am, kneeling on the cracked linoleum of our mudroom, a Remington .308 laid across my thighs, and the stench of gun oil sharp in my nostrils. The early morning light barely scratches at the edges of the blinds, dim and gray like the belly of a dead fish.
My dad Frank is in the kitchen, clattering around with the coffeepot and mumbling under his breath. Today we’re heading up to the woods of Northern Michigan, same as we did every year before Leah… before we lost her.
I can’t help but feel the old scars throbbing as I load bullets into the magazine. It’s been ten years since that hunting trip, the one that tore my family into before and after. Before, when Leah's laughter was a constant soundtrack to our lives; after, when every silence was filled with her absence.
We were just kids back then. I was ten, Leah was eight. It was supposed to be a typical hunting trip, one of those bonding experiences Dad was always talking about. But things went wrong. We got separated from Dad somehow. One minute we were following him, the next we were lost, the dense woods closing in around us.
Dad says when he found me, I was huddled under a fallen tree, my eyes wide, my body frozen. All I could mutter through chattering teeth was "Dogman."
It was only later, after the search parties had combed through every thicket and hollow, that they found her. What remained of Leah was barely recognizable, the evidence of a brutal mauling undeniable. The authorities concluded it was likely a bear attack, but Dad... he never accepted that explanation. He had seen the tracks, too large and oddly shaped for any bear.
As I load another round, the memory flashes, unbidden and unwelcome. Large, hairy clawed hands reaching out towards us, impossibly big, grotesque in their form. Yet, the rest of the creature eludes me, a shadow just beyond the edge of my recall, leaving me with nothing but fragmented terrors and Leah’s haunting, echoing screams. My mind blocked most of it out, a self-defense mechanism, I guess.
For years after that day, sleep was a battleground. I'd wake up in strange places—kitchen floor, backyard, even at the edge of the nearby creek. My therapist said it was my mind's way of trying to resolve the unresolved, to wander back through the woods searching for Leah. But all I found in those sleepless nights was a deeper sense of loss.
It took time, a lot of therapy, and patience I didn't know I had, but the sleepwalking did eventually stop. I guess I started to find some semblance of peace.
I have mostly moved on with my life. The fragmentary memories of that day are still there, lurking in the corners of my mind, but they don’t dominate my thoughts like they used to. I just finished my sophomore year at Michigan State, majoring in Environmental Science.
As for Dad, the loss of Leah broke him. He became a shell of himself. It destroyed his marriage with Mom. He blamed himself for letting us out of his sight, for not protecting Leah. His life took on a single, consuming focus: finding the creature that killed her. He read every book, every article on cryptids and unexplained phenomena. He mapped sightings, connected dots across blurry photos and shaky testimonies of the Dogman.
But as the tenth anniversary of Leah’s death approaches, Dad's obsession has grown more intense. He’s started staying up late, poring over his maps and notes, muttering to himself about patterns and cycles. He’s convinced that the dogman reappears every ten years, and this is our window of opportunity to finally hunt it down.
I’m not nearly as convinced. The whole dogman thing seems like a coping mechanism, a way for Dad to channel his guilt and grief into something tangible, something he can fight against. But I decided to tag along on this trip, partly to keep an eye on him, partly because a small part of me hopes that maybe, just maybe, we’ll find some kind of closure out there in the woods.
I finish loading the rifle and set it aside, standing up to stretch my legs. I wipe my greasy hands on an old rag, trying to get rid of the smell. The early morning light is starting to seep into the room, casting long shadows across the floor.
Dad comes out of the kitchen with two thermoses of coffee in hand. His eyes are bleary and tired.
“You ready, Ryan?” he asks, handing me a thermos, his voice rough from too many sleepless nights.
“Yeah, I’m ready,” I reply, trying to sound more confident than I felt.
We load our gear into the truck, the weight of our supplies and weapons a physical reminder of the burden we carry. The drive from Lansing across the Lower Peninsula is long and quiet, the silence between us filled with unspoken memories and unresolved grief.
—
The drive north is a blur of highway lines and the dull hum of the engine. I drift off, the landscape outside blending into a haze. In my sleep, fragments of that day with Leah replay like scattered pieces of a puzzle. I see her smile, the way she tugged at my sleeve, eager to explore. The sunlight filters through the trees in sharp, jagged streaks.
Then, the memory shifts—darker, disjointed. Leah's voice echoes, a playful laugh turning into a scream that pierces the air. The crunch of leaves underfoot as something heavy moves through the underbrush. I see a shadow, large and looming, not quite fitting the shapes of any creature I know.
Then, something darker creeps into the dream, something I’ve never allowed myself to remember clearly.
Before I can see what it is I wake up with a start as the truck jerks slightly on a rough patch of road. Dad glances over. "Bad dream?" he asks. I nod, rubbing the sleep from my eyes, the remnants of the dream clinging to me like the cold.
"Yeah, just... thinking about Leah," I manage to say.
As we drive, Dad attempts to bridge the silence with small talk. He asks about my finals, my plans for the summer, anything to keep the conversation going. His voice carries a forced cheerfulness, but it’s clear his heart isn’t in it. I respond when necessary, my answers brief, my gaze fixed on the passing scenery.
The landscape changes as we head further north, from flat expanses to rolling hills dotted with dense patches of forest. It's beautiful country, the kind that reminds you how vast and wild Michigan can be, but today it just feels oppressive, like it’s closing in on us.
—
We finally arrive at the cabin, nestled deep in the woods, its weathered wood blending seamlessly with the surrounding trees. The place hasn't changed much since the last time I was here—a relic from another time, filled with the echoes of our past. I can still see Leah running around the porch, her laughter ringing out into the forest.
Dad parks the truck, and we step out into the crisp air. The smell of pine and damp earth fills my nostrils. We start unloading our gear, the tension between us palpable.
“Let’s get this inside,” Dad says, his voice gruff as he hefts a duffel bag onto his shoulder.
I nod, grabbing my own bag and following him to the cabin. Inside, it’s a mix of old and new—the same rustic furniture, but with new hunting gear and maps strewn across the table. Dad’s obsession is evident in every corner of the room, a constant reminder of why we’re here.
As we unpack, we exchange strained attempts at normalcy. He talks about the latest cryptid sightings he’s read about, his eyes lighting up with a fervor that both worries and saddens me.
“Did you hear about the sighting up near Alpena?” he asks, laying out his maps on the table.
“Yeah, you mentioned it,” I reply, trying to muster some enthusiasm. “Do you really think there’s something to it?”
Dad’s eyes meet mine, and for a moment, I see a flicker of doubt. But it’s quickly replaced by grim determination. “I have to believe it, Ryan. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
We finish unpacking, the silence between us growing heavier with each passing minute. I step outside to clear my head, the cool air a welcome relief. The sun is starting to set, casting long shadows across the clearing. I can’t shake the feeling of unease.
"You can take the upstairs room," Dad mutters. His voice is strained, trying to sound normal, but it's clear the weight of the past is heavy on him. I nod, hauling my backpack up the creaking stairs to the small bedroom that I used to share with Leah. The room feels smaller now, or maybe I've just grown too much since those innocent days.
I unpack silently, setting my things aside. The bed is stiff and cold under my touch. As I settle in, I can't help but glance at the corner where Leah and I would huddle together, whispering secrets and making plans for adventures that would never happen. I push the thoughts away, focusing on the practicalities of unpacking.
After settling in, I go back downstairs to find Dad loading up a backpack with supplies for our hunt. The intensity in his eyes is palpable, his hands moving with practiced precision. I know this routine; it's one he's perfected over countless solo trips since that fateful day.
"We'll head out early," he says, not looking up from his task. "Gotta make the most of the daylight."
I nod, though unease curls in my stomach. I'm not just worried about what we might find—or not find—out there. I'm worried about him. Each year, the obsession seems to carve him out a bit more, leaving less of the Dad I knew.
—
The morning air is sharp with the scent of pine and wet earth as Dad and I head into the deeper parts of the forest. The terrain is rugged, familiar in its untamed beauty, but there’s a tension between us that makes the landscape feel alien. Dad moves with a purposeful stride, his eyes scanning the woods around us. Every snap of a twig, every rustle in the underbrush seems to draw his attention. He’s on edge, and it puts me on edge too.
As we walk, my mind drifts back to that day ten years ago. I can almost hear Leah’s voice echoing through the trees, her high-pitched call as she darted ahead, "Catch me, Ryan!" I remember how the sunlight filtered through the leaves, casting dancing shadows on the ground. Those memories are so vivid, so tangible, it feels like I could just turn a corner and see her there, waiting for us.
Dad suddenly stops and kneels, examining the ground. He points out a set of tracks that are too large for a deer, with an unusual gait pattern. "It’s been here, Ry. I’m telling you, it’s close," he whispers, a mixture of excitement and something darker in his voice. I nod, though I’m not sure what to believe. Part of me wants to dismiss it all as grief-fueled obsession, but another part, the part that heard Leah's scream and saw something monstrous in the woods that day, isn’t so sure.
As we continue, Dad's comments become increasingly cryptic. "You know, they say the dogman moves in cycles, drawn to certain places, certain times. Like it’s tied to the land itself," he muses, more to himself than to me. His fixation on the creature has always been intense, but now it borders on mania.
We set up a makeshift blind near a clearing where Dad insists the creature will pass. Hours drag by with little to see but the occasional bird or distant deer.
The sun rises higher in the sky, casting long, slender shadows through the dense canopy. I shift uncomfortably in my spot, the forest floor hard and unyielding beneath me. My eyes dart between the trees, hoping to catch a glimpse of something, anything, to break the monotony. Dad, on the other hand, remains steadfast, his gaze fixed on the treeline as if he can will the dogman into existence by sheer force of will.
A bird chirps nearby, startling me. I sigh and adjust my grip on the rifle. I glance over at Dad.
“Anything?” I ask, more out of boredom than genuine curiosity.
“Not yet,” he replies, his voice tight. “But it’s out there. I know it.”
I nod, even though I’m not sure I believe him. The forest seems too quiet, too still. Maybe we’re chasing ghosts.
As the sun begins its descent, the forest is bathed in a warm, golden light. The air cools, and a breeze rustles the leaves. I shiver, more from anticipation than the cold. The long hours of sitting and waiting are starting to wear on me.
“Let’s call it a day for now,” Dad says finally, his voice heavy with disappointment. “We’ll head back to the cabin, get some rest, and try again tomorrow.”
I stand and stretch, feeling the stiffness in my muscles. We pack up our gear in silence and start the trek back to the cabin. The walk is long and quiet, the only sounds are the crunch of leaves underfoot and the distant calls of birds settling in for the night.
—
Dinner is a quiet affair, both of us lost in our thoughts. I try to make small talk, asking Dad about his plans for tomorrow, but it feels forced. We clean up in silence.
After dinner, I retreat to the small bedroom. The fatigue from the day's hike has settled into my bones, but sleep still feels like a distant hope. I lie down, staring at the ceiling, the room cloaked in darkness save for the sliver of moonlight creeping through the window. Downstairs, I hear the faint sound of Dad moving around, likely unable to sleep himself.
I drift into sleep, but it's not restful. My dreams pull me back to that fateful day in the woods. Leah's voice is clear and vibrant, her laughter echoing through the trees. She looks just as she did then—bright-eyed and full of life, her blonde hair catching the sunlight as she runs ahead of me.
"Come on, Ry! You can't catch me!" she taunts, her voice playful and teasing.
I chase after her, but the scene shifts abruptly. The sky darkens, the woods around us growing dense and foreboding. Leah's laughter fades, replaced by a chilling silence. I see her ahead, standing still, her back to me.
"Leah?" I call out, my voice trembling. She turns slowly, her eyes wide and filled with fear. "Ryan, you have to remember," she says, her voice barely a whisper. "It wasn't what you think. You need to know the truth."
Leah’s words hang in the air, cryptic and unsettling. Before I can respond, she turns and starts running again, her figure becoming a blur among the trees. Panic rises in my chest as I sprint after her, my feet pounding against the forest floor.
“Leah, wait!” I shout, desperation lacing my voice. The forest around me seems to close in, the trees towering and twisted, shadows dancing menacingly in the dim light. I push forward, trying to keep her in sight, but she’s too fast, slipping away like a wisp of smoke.
Suddenly, there’s a rustle, a flash of movement in the corner of my vision. Leah screams, a sound that pierces through the heavy silence. It happens too quickly—I can’t see what it is, only a dark blur that snatches her up.
“Leah!” I scream, my voice breaking. I stumble, falling to my knees as the forest spins around me. My heart races, and the terror is so real, so visceral, that it pulls me back to that awful day, the one that changed everything.
I jolt awake, my breath coming in ragged gasps.
I sit up, wiping the cold sweat from my forehead as I try to steady my breathing. The room is still dark, the shadows cast by the moonlight seem to flicker and dance on the walls. My heart is still racing from the nightmare, the echo of Leah's scream lingering in my ears.
As I struggle to calm down, the floorboards outside my room creak. The door opens slowly, and I see the silhouette of my dad in the doorway, a Bowie knife in his hand, his posture tense.
“Dad, what the hell are you doing?” I whisper, my voice shaking.
“Shh,” he hisses, holding up a hand to silence me. “I heard something. Something moving around in the cabin. Stay quiet.”
I swallow hard, my mouth dry. I glance at the clock on the nightstand—it’s just past three in the morning. The cabin is silent, the kind of deep, oppressive silence that makes every small sound seem louder. I can’t hear anything out of the ordinary, but Dad’s expression is deadly serious.
He motions for me to get up, and I do, moving as quietly as I can. My heart is racing, a mix of lingering fear from the dream and the sudden, sharp anxiety of the present moment. Dad leads the way, stepping cautiously out of the bedroom and into the hallway, the knife held ready in front of him.
We move through the cabin, checking each room in turn. The living room is empty, the furniture casting long shadows in the dim moonlight. The kitchen is just as we left it, the plates from dinner still drying on the counter. Everything seems normal, untouched.
We finish our sweep of the cabin without finding anything amiss. The silence is heavy, punctuated only by our soft footfalls. I can see the tension in Dad’s frame, his grip on the knife unwavering. After checking the last room, we pause in the dimly lit hallway, the air thick with unspoken questions.
“There’s nothing here,” I say, my voice low. “Are you sure you heard something?”
He looks at me, his eyes searching for something in my face. “I heard growling. Deep and close. It was right outside the window.”
“Maybe it was just an animal outside, a raccoon or something?” I suggest, although the certainty in his voice makes me doubt my own reassurance.
“No, it wasn’t like that. It was different,” he insists, his voice tense.
I nod, not wanting to argue, but the seeds of worry are planted deep.
The look in his eyes sends a chill down my spine. It’s not just fear—it’s desperation. The kind of desperation that comes from years of chasing shadows and finding nothing. I can see the toll this hunt has taken on him, the way it’s worn him down, turned him into a man I barely recognize.
We head back to our rooms. As I lie down, my mind races with thoughts of my dad. I can’t help but wonder if he’s losing it, if the years of grief and guilt have finally pushed him over the edge.
Dad wasn’t always like this. Before Leah’s death, he was the kind of father who took us fishing, helped with homework, and told terrible jokes that made us groan and laugh at the same time. He was solid, dependable. But losing Leah changed him. The guilt twisted him into someone I barely recognize, someone driven by a need for answers, for closure, that may never come.
I try to sleep, but my thoughts keep me awake. I can hear Dad moving around downstairs, probably pacing or double-checking the locks. His paranoia has become a constant presence, and I don’t know how to help him. I don’t even know if I can help him.
—
The next morning, the sunlight filters weakly through the cabin windows, casting a pale light that does little to lift the heavy mood. I drag myself out of bed, feeling the exhaustion of another restless night. Dad is already up, hunched over his maps at the kitchen table, his eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep.
“Morning,” I mumble, rubbing the sleep from my eyes as I pour myself a cup of coffee. “Did you sleep at all?”
He shakes his head, not looking up from his notes. “Not much. I couldn’t stop thinking about what I heard last night.”
I sip my coffee, trying to shake off the remnants of my nightmare. “Maybe it was just an animal, Dad. We’re deep in the woods, after all.”
He finally looks up, his eyes intense. “Ryan, I know what I heard. It wasn’t just an animal. It was something else.”
I sigh, not wanting to argue. “Okay, fine, Dad. What’s the plan for today?”
“We’re going back out. I found some tracks yesterday, and I want to follow them. See where they lead.”
I nod, feeling a mix of apprehension and resignation. I can see how much this means to him, how desperate he is for any kind of lead. “Alright. Let’s get packed and head out.”
We spend the morning preparing, loading up our gear and double-checking our supplies. Dad is meticulous, going over everything with a fine-toothed comb. I try to match his focus, but my mind keeps drifting back to Leah and the dream I had. Her words echo in my head, cryptic and unsettling: “You need to know the truth.”
We set off into the woods, the air crisp and cool. The forest is alive with the sounds of birds and rustling leaves, but it all feels distant, like background noise to the tension between us. Dad leads the way, his eyes scanning the ground for any sign of the tracks he found yesterday.
As we walk, I can’t help but notice how erratically he’s acting. He mutters to himself, his eyes darting around as if expecting something to jump out at us. His grip on his rifle is tight, his knuckles white.
“Dad, are you okay?” I ask, trying to keep my voice steady.
He glances at me, his expression unreadable. “I’m fine. Just focused.”
He stops frequently to examine the ground or the bark of trees, pointing out marks and signs that seem meaningless to me.
“Look at this,” he says, crouching down to examine a broken branch. “See how it’s snapped? That’s not a deer or a bear. That’s something bigger. Stronger.”
I crouch next to Dad, squinting at the broken branch. To me, it just looks like a regular broken branch, the kind you see all over the forest. "I don't know, Dad. It just looks like a branch to me," I say, trying to keep my voice neutral.
Dad's eyes flicker with frustration. "You're not looking close enough. It's the way it's snapped—too clean, too deliberate. Something did this."
I nod, not wanting to argue. "Okay, sure. But even if you're right, it could be anything. A storm, another hunter..."
His expression hardens. "I know what I'm looking for. This is different."
I sigh, feeling the weight of the past and the tension between us pressing down on me. "Dad, I had a dream last night. About Leah." The words hang in the air between us, heavy and fraught with unspoken emotions.
Dad's eyes widen, and he straightens up, his entire demeanor shifting. "What kind of dream? What did you see?" His voice is urgent, almost desperate.
"It was... strange. We were in the woods, like we are now, but everything felt different. Leah was there, running ahead of me, laughing. Then she stopped and told me I needed to know the truth, that it wasn't what I thought."
Dad grabs my shoulders, his grip tight. "What else did she say? Did she tell you anything specific? Anything about the creature?"
I shake my head, feeling a chill run down my spine. "No, that was it. She just said I needed to know the truth, and then she was gone."
Dad’s grip on my shoulders tightens, and his eyes bore into mine with a mixture of desperation and hope. “Ryan, you have to try to remember. Think hard. What did the creature look like? Did you see anything else?”
I pull back slightly, uneasy with his intensity. “Dad, I told you. I don’t remember. It was just a dream. A nightmare, really. My mind’s probably just mixing things up.”
He lets go of me and runs a hand through his hair, looking frustrated and lost. “Dreams can be important. They can hold memories we’ve buried deep. Please, try to remember. This could be a sign, a clue.”
I rub my temples, feeling the beginnings of a headache. “I’ve tried, okay? I’ve tried for years to piece together what happened that day. But it’s all just fragments, like pieces of a puzzle that don’t fit. The dream… it felt real, but I don’t think it’s telling me anything new.”
Dad’s face falls, and he looks older than I’ve ever seen him. He turns away, staring into the forest as if it holds all the answers.
—
As we make our way back to the cabin, the sun begins to set, casting long shadows through the trees. The air grows colder, and I shiver, pulling my jacket tighter around me. Dad is silent, lost in his thoughts, his face drawn and haggard.
Back at the cabin, we unload our gear once again in silence. Dad disappears into his room, muttering something about going over his notes. I decide to explore the cabin, hoping to find something that might help me understand what’s going on with him.
In the attic, I find a box of old family photos and documents. As I sift through the contents, I come across a worn journal with Dad’s handwriting on the cover. Curiosity gets the better of me, and I open it, flipping through the pages.
The journal is filled with notes and sketches, detailing his obsession with the dogman. But there’s something else—entries that talk about Leah, about that day in the woods. His handwriting becomes more erratic, the words harder to read. One entry stands out, dated just a few days after Leah’s death:
“June 15, 2013 – It was supposed to be a normal trip. Keep them close, Frank, I kept telling myself. But I failed. Leah is gone, and it’s my fault. I heard her scream, saw the shadows. I tried to get to her, but… the thing, it was there. Too fast. Too strong. My hands… blood everywhere. No one will believe me. I can’t even believe myself. I have to find it. I have to protect Ryan. I have to make it right. God, what have I done?”
Before I can read further, the attic door creaks open, and Dad’s voice slices through the stillness.
“What are you doing up here?” His tone is sharp, almost panicked.
I turn to see him standing in the doorway, his face pale and his eyes wide with something between anger and fear. I clutch the journal to my chest, my mind racing. “I found this… I was just trying to understand…”
In an instant, he crosses the room and snatches the journal from my hands. His grip is tight, his knuckles white. “You had no right,” he growls, his voice trembling.
“Dad, I just wanted to know the truth!” I shout, frustration boiling over. “What really happened to Leah.”
His eyes flash with a mix of rage and anguish, and before I can react, he slaps me across the face. The force of it knocks me off balance, and I stumble backward, my cheek stinging.
For a moment, there’s a stunned silence. We both stand there, breathing hard, the air thick with tension.
“I’m sorry,” Dad says finally, his voice barely a whisper. “I didn’t mean to… I just…” He trails off, clutching the journal to his chest like a lifeline.
I touch my cheek, feeling the heat from the slap, and take a deep breath, trying to steady myself. “Dad, what aren’t you telling me? What really happened that day?”
“Stay out of it, Ryan,” Dad growls, his eyes dark with anger. “You don’t know what you’re messing with.”
He turns and storms out of the attic. I’m left standing there, my cheek throbbing, my mind racing. What the fuck is going on? What really happened to Leah? And what is Dad so afraid of?
—
That night, I sleep with my rifle within arm's reach, more afraid of my dad than any dogman. The slap still burns on my cheek, and the look in his eyes—rage, fear, something darker—haunts me. I lie awake, listening to the creaks and groans of the old cabin, every sound amplified in the stillness. Eventually, exhaustion pulls me under, and I fall into a restless sleep.
The dream returns, vivid and unsettling. I'm back in the woods, chasing after Leah. Her laughter echoes through the trees, a haunting reminder of happier times. This time, though, I push myself harder, refusing to let her slip away.
"Ryan, catch me!" she calls, her voice playful.
"I'm coming, Leah!" I shout, my legs pumping, my breath coming in ragged gasps.
The forest around us is a twisted, shadowy maze, the trees seeming to close in on us. Leah's figure becomes clearer, her blonde hair catching the dim light filtering through the canopy. She stops suddenly, turning to face me, her eyes wide with fear.
"Leah, what is it?" I ask, my voice trembling.
"Look behind you," she whispers, her voice barely audible.
I turn slowly, dread creeping up my spine. In the shadows, I see a figure, its form indistinct and shifting. It’s not quite animal, not quite human—something in between. The sight of it sends a jolt of terror through me, and I wake up with a start, my breath coming in ragged gasps.
I’m not in my bed. The ground beneath me is cold and hard, the smell of damp earth filling my nostrils. Panic rises as I realize I’ve sleepwalked into the woods. I scramble to my feet, my eyes adjusting to the dim light. The moon casts a pale glow over the surroundings, revealing what looks like a long-abandoned animal lair.
The walls are covered in giant claw marks, deep gouges in the wood and earth. The air is heavy with the scent of decay, and a chill runs through me. I can’t shake the feeling that I’m being watched.
Carefully, I start to move, my eyes scanning the ground, desperate for a familiar landmark. That's when I see them—faded scraps of fabric caught on the jagged edges of the underbrush. My steps falter, a sense of dread washing over me as I bend down to examine them. The fabric is torn, weathered by time and the elements, but unmistakably familiar. It's part of Leah's jacket—the bright pink one she wore on the day she disappeared.
As I strain to make sense of it all, a rustling sound behind me snaps my focus. My heart leaps into my throat. I spin around, my hand instinctively reaching for the rifle I don't have—because, of course, I didn't bring it in my unconscious state.
The shadowy figure that emerges from the trees is unsettlingly familiar, mirroring the menacing forms of my nightmares. But as it steps into the moonlight, I recognize the worn jacket, the weary posture. It's Dad.
"Ryan!" he calls out, his voice a mix of relief and stern concern. "I've been looking everywhere for you. What the hell are you doing out here?"
I exhale slowly, the terror ebbing away as reality sets back in. "I—I don't know, Dad. I must've sleepwalked again." My voice is shaky, my earlier dream still clinging to the edges of my consciousness.
Dad stares at me in disbelief. "You haven't sleepwalked since you were a kid, Ry. This... this isn't just a coincidence." His eyes dart around, taking in the surroundings—the eerie, claw-marked den, the unsettling quiet of the woods. "How did you even find this place?"
I shake my head, struggling to find an answer. "I don't know, Dad. I just... I woke up here." The uncertainty in my voice does nothing to ease the tension.
His eyes lock onto the tattered remains of Leah's jacket in my hands, and something inside him snaps. The color drains from his face as he stumbles a few steps backward. "This... this is where it happened," he murmurs, his voice barely a whisper. “This is where we found Leah."
“I thought you said you don’t remember anything from that night,” he says accusingly.
"I swear, Dad, I don't know anything about this place," I insist, my own heart pounding.
“It was you, wasn’t it? You’ve been hiding this from me.” His voice is frantic. “You... last night, the growling, it was you.” His voice rises, tinged with hysteria.
I step back, my pulse racing, feeling the chill of the night and the weight of his accusation. "Dad, I don't know what you're talking ab—”
"No!" he interrupts, his voice breaking as he points a trembling finger at me. "You knew, you always knew. It was you, Ryan. All these years, the evidence was right there, but I refused to see it. You were the dogman. You killed Leah!"
His words hit me like a physical blow, absurd and horrifying in their implications. "Dad, you're not making any sense. You're talking crazy! I was just a little kid! How could I–" I protest, my voice shaky.
He steps closer, his presence looming over me, the outline of his figure distorted by the shadows of the trees. "Think about it! It all makes sense now. You led us here, to this place, because you remember. Because you did it."
"Dad, stop it!" I shout, my heart pounding in my chest. "You're scaring me. You need help, professional help. This isn't you."
But he's beyond reason, his eyes wild with a haunted grief. "I have to end this," he mutters, more to himself than to me, his hand tightening around his rifle.
His finger hovers dangerously over the trigger of his rifle. My instincts kick in, and I know I have to act fast.
I lunge toward him, trying to knock the weapon away, but he's quicker than I expected. We struggle, our breaths heavy in the cold night air, the sounds of our scuffle the only noise in the otherwise silent woods. His strength surprises me, fueled by his frantic emotions. He shoves me back, and I stumble over a root, my balance lost for a crucial second. That's all he needs. He raises his rifle, his intentions clear in his wild, pained eyes.
I dive to the ground just as the shot rings out, a deafening blast that echoes ominously through the trees. The bullet whizzes past, narrowly missing me, embedding itself in the bark of an old pine. I scramble to my feet, my heart pounding in my ears, and I start running. The underbrush claws at my clothes and skin, but I push through, driven by a primal urge to survive.
"Dad, stop! It's me, Ryan!" I shout back as I dodge between the trees. Another shot breaks the silence, closer this time, sending splinters of wood flying from a nearby tree trunk. It's surreal, being hunted by my own father, a man tormented by grief and lost in his delusions.
I don't stop to look back. I can hear him crashing through the forest behind me, his heavy breaths and muttered curses carried on the wind. The terrain is rough, and I'm fueled by adrenaline, but exhaustion is setting in. I need a plan.
Ahead, I see a rocky outcrop and make a split-second decision to head for it. It offers a chance to hide, to catch my breath and maybe reason with him if he catches up. As I reach the rocks, I slip behind the largest one, my body pressed tight against the cold, damp surface. I hear his footsteps approaching, slow and cautious now.
As I press against the rock, trying to calm my racing heart, I can hear Dad's footsteps drawing closer, each step crunching ominously on the forest floor. He's methodical, deliberate, like a hunter stalking his prey.
“Come out, Ryan!” Dad’s voice is ragged, filled with a blend of fury and pain.
My heart pounds against my chest, the cold sweat on my back making me shiver against the rough surface of the rock. I know I can't just sit here; it's only a matter of time before he finds me.
Taking a deep breath, I peek around the edge of the rock, trying to gauge his position. I see him, rifle raised, scanning the area slowly. This might be my only chance to end this madness without further violence. I need to disarm him, to talk some sense into him if I can.
As quietly as I can, I move out from behind the rock, my steps careful to avoid any twigs or leaves that might betray my position. I'm almost upon him when a branch snaps under my foot—a sound so trivial yet so alarmingly loud in the quiet of the woods.
Dad whirls around, looking completely unhinged. "Ryan!" he exclaims, his rifle swinging in my direction. Panic overtakes me, and I lunge forward, my hands reaching for the gun.
We struggle, the rifle between us, our breaths heavy and erratic. "Dad, please, stop!" I plead, trying to wrestle the gun away. But he's strong, stronger than I expected.
In the chaos, the rifle goes off. The sound is deafening, a sharp echo that seems to reverberate off every tree around us. Pain explodes in my abdomen, sharp and burning, like nothing I've ever felt before. I stagger back, my hands instinctively going to the wound. The warmth of my own blood coats my fingers, stark and terrifying.
Dad drops the rifle, his eyes wide with horror. "Oh my God! What have I done?" he gasps, rushing to my side as I collapse onto the forest floor.
As the pain sears through me, a strange, overpowering energy surges within. It's wild, primal, unlike anything I've ever experienced. Looking down in horror, my hands are no longer hands but large, hairy, clawed appendages. The transformation is rapid, consuming—my vision blurs, senses heighten, and a raw, guttural growl builds in my throat.
In that moment, a flood of understanding washes over me, mingling with the horror of realization. These are the hands of the creature from my nightmares, the creature whose face I can never fully recall because, as I now understand, it is me.
What happens next feels detached, as if I'm no longer in control of my own actions, watching from a distance as my body moves on its own. I turn towards my dad, his face a mask of terror. He stumbles back, his eyes wide with the dawning realization of what his son has become.
The forest around us seems to fall silent, holding its breath as the nightmarish scene unfolds. I can hear my own growls, guttural and deep, filling the air with a sound that's both foreign and intimately familiar. The pain in my abdomen fuels a dark, violent urge, an urge that's too strong to resist.
With a ferocity that feels both alien and intrinsic, I move towards him. My dad, paralyzed by fear and shock, doesn't run. Maybe he can't. Maybe he doesn't want to.
The encounter is brutal and swift, a blur of motion and violence. My dad barely puts up a struggle, as though resigned to his fate.
Not that there is anything he can do. The creature that I’ve become is too powerful, too consumed by the wild instincts surging through me. I tear him apart, limb from bloody limb, my hands—no, my claws—rending through fabric and flesh with disgusting ease.
The sound of my dad’s screams, of tearing fabric and flesh is drowned out by the animalistic growls that echo through the trees.
When it’s all over, the red mist that had clouded my vision begins to fade, and the fierce, uncontrollable rage that drove my actions subsides. I'm left standing, my breaths heavy and erratic, in the eerie stillness of the forest. The transformation reverses as quickly as it came on, and I find myself back in my human form. My clothes are ripped to shreds, hanging off my frame in tattered remnants. At my feet lies what’s left of my dad, his body torn and unrecognizable.
I glance down at my abdomen, expecting agony, but instead find my wound miraculously healed. No sign of the gunshot remains, just a faint scar where I expected a bloody mess.
Shock sets in, a numbing disbelief mixed with a gut-wrenching realization of what I've become and what I've done. My hands, now human again, tremble as I look at them, half-expecting to see the claws that had so effortlessly ripped through flesh and bone. But there's only blood, my father's blood against my skin.
I stand there for what feels like an eternity, trapped in a nightmare of my own making.
Eventually, the shock wears thin, and a cold practicality takes hold. I need to get out of here. I need to cover my tracks, to disappear. Because who would believe this? Who would understand that I didn't choose this, that I'm not a monster by choice?
With trembling hands, I do what’s necessary. I bury my dad in a shallow grave, the physical act of digging strangely grounding. I cover him with leaves and branches, a pitiful attempt to hide the brutality of his end. I take a moment, whispering apologies into the wind, knowing full well that nothing I say can change what happened.
I leave the forest behind, my mind a whirl of dark thoughts. As I walk, the first hints of dawn brush against the horizon, the sky bleeding a soft pink. It’s hauntingly beautiful.

I’ve always hated the smell of gun oil. It clings to everything it touches, soaking deep into the fibers of my clothes, the lining of my backpack, the coarse hair on the back of my hands. Yet here I am, kneeling on the cracked linoleum of our mudroom, a Remington .308 laid across my thighs, and the stench of gun oil sharp in my nostrils. The early morning light barely scratches at the edges of the blinds, dim and gray like the belly of a dead fish.
My dad Frank is in the kitchen, clattering around with the coffeepot and mumbling under his breath. Today we’re heading up to the woods of Northern Michigan, same as we did every year before Leah… before we lost her.
I can’t help but feel the old scars throbbing as I load bullets into the magazine. It’s been ten years since that hunting trip, the one that tore my family into before and after. Before, when Leah's laughter was a constant soundtrack to our lives; after, when every silence was filled with her absence.
We were just kids back then. I was ten, Leah was eight. It was supposed to be a typical hunting trip, one of those bonding experiences Dad was always talking about. But things went wrong. We got separated from Dad somehow. One minute we were following him, the next we were lost, the dense woods closing in around us.
Dad says when he found me, I was huddled under a fallen tree, my eyes wide, my body frozen. All I could mutter through chattering teeth was "Dogman."
It was only later, after the search parties had combed through every thicket and hollow, that they found her. What remained of Leah was barely recognizable, the evidence of a brutal mauling undeniable. The authorities concluded it was likely a bear attack, but Dad... he never accepted that explanation. He had seen the tracks, too large and oddly shaped for any bear.
As I load another round, the memory flashes, unbidden and unwelcome. Large, hairy clawed hands reaching out towards us, impossibly big, grotesque in their form. Yet, the rest of the creature eludes me, a shadow just beyond the edge of my recall, leaving me with nothing but fragmented terrors and Leah’s haunting, echoing screams. My mind blocked most of it out, a self-defense mechanism, I guess.
For years after that day, sleep was a battleground. I'd wake up in strange places—kitchen floor, backyard, even at the edge of the nearby creek. My therapist said it was my mind's way of trying to resolve the unresolved, to wander back through the woods searching for Leah. But all I found in those sleepless nights was a deeper sense of loss.
It took time, a lot of therapy, and patience I didn't know I had, but the sleepwalking did eventually stop. I guess I started to find some semblance of peace.
I have mostly moved on with my life. The fragmentary memories of that day are still there, lurking in the corners of my mind, but they don’t dominate my thoughts like they used to. I just finished my sophomore year at Michigan State, majoring in Environmental Science.
As for Dad, the loss of Leah broke him. He became a shell of himself. It destroyed his marriage with Mom. He blamed himself for letting us out of his sight, for not protecting Leah. His life took on a single, consuming focus: finding the creature that killed her. He read every book, every article on cryptids and unexplained phenomena. He mapped sightings, connected dots across blurry photos and shaky testimonies of the Dogman.
But as the tenth anniversary of Leah’s death approaches, Dad's obsession has grown more intense. He’s started staying up late, poring over his maps and notes, muttering to himself about patterns and cycles. He’s convinced that the dogman reappears every ten years, and this is our window of opportunity to finally hunt it down.
I’m not nearly as convinced. The whole dogman thing seems like a coping mechanism, a way for Dad to channel his guilt and grief into something tangible, something he can fight against. But I decided to tag along on this trip, partly to keep an eye on him, partly because a small part of me hopes that maybe, just maybe, we’ll find some kind of closure out there in the woods.
I finish loading the rifle and set it aside, standing up to stretch my legs. I wipe my greasy hands on an old rag, trying to get rid of the smell. The early morning light is starting to seep into the room, casting long shadows across the floor.
Dad comes out of the kitchen with two thermoses of coffee in hand. His eyes are bleary and tired.
“You ready, Ryan?” he asks, handing me a thermos, his voice rough from too many sleepless nights.
“Yeah, I’m ready,” I reply, trying to sound more confident than I felt.
We load our gear into the truck, the weight of our supplies and weapons a physical reminder of the burden we carry. The drive from Lansing across the Lower Peninsula is long and quiet, the silence between us filled with unspoken memories and unresolved grief.
—
The drive north is a blur of highway lines and the dull hum of the engine. I drift off, the landscape outside blending into a haze. In my sleep, fragments of that day with Leah replay like scattered pieces of a puzzle. I see her smile, the way she tugged at my sleeve, eager to explore. The sunlight filters through the trees in sharp, jagged streaks.
Then, the memory shifts—darker, disjointed. Leah's voice echoes, a playful laugh turning into a scream that pierces the air. The crunch of leaves underfoot as something heavy moves through the underbrush. I see a shadow, large and looming, not quite fitting the shapes of any creature I know.
Then, something darker creeps into the dream, something I’ve never allowed myself to remember clearly.
Before I can see what it is I wake up with a start as the truck jerks slightly on a rough patch of road. Dad glances over. "Bad dream?" he asks. I nod, rubbing the sleep from my eyes, the remnants of the dream clinging to me like the cold.
"Yeah, just... thinking about Leah," I manage to say.
As we drive, Dad attempts to bridge the silence with small talk. He asks about my finals, my plans for the summer, anything to keep the conversation going. His voice carries a forced cheerfulness, but it’s clear his heart isn’t in it. I respond when necessary, my answers brief, my gaze fixed on the passing scenery.
The landscape changes as we head further north, from flat expanses to rolling hills dotted with dense patches of forest. It's beautiful country, the kind that reminds you how vast and wild Michigan can be, but today it just feels oppressive, like it’s closing in on us.
—
We finally arrive at the cabin, nestled deep in the woods, its weathered wood blending seamlessly with the surrounding trees. The place hasn't changed much since the last time I was here—a relic from another time, filled with the echoes of our past. I can still see Leah running around the porch, her laughter ringing out into the forest.
Dad parks the truck, and we step out into the crisp air. The smell of pine and damp earth fills my nostrils. We start unloading our gear, the tension between us palpable.
“Let’s get this inside,” Dad says, his voice gruff as he hefts a duffel bag onto his shoulder.
I nod, grabbing my own bag and following him to the cabin. Inside, it’s a mix of old and new—the same rustic furniture, but with new hunting gear and maps strewn across the table. Dad’s obsession is evident in every corner of the room, a constant reminder of why we’re here.
As we unpack, we exchange strained attempts at normalcy. He talks about the latest cryptid sightings he’s read about, his eyes lighting up with a fervor that both worries and saddens me.
“Did you hear about the sighting up near Alpena?” he asks, laying out his maps on the table.
“Yeah, you mentioned it,” I reply, trying to muster some enthusiasm. “Do you really think there’s something to it?”
Dad’s eyes meet mine, and for a moment, I see a flicker of doubt. But it’s quickly replaced by grim determination. “I have to believe it, Ryan. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
We finish unpacking, the silence between us growing heavier with each passing minute. I step outside to clear my head, the cool air a welcome relief. The sun is starting to set, casting long shadows across the clearing. I can’t shake the feeling of unease.
"You can take the upstairs room," Dad mutters. His voice is strained, trying to sound normal, but it's clear the weight of the past is heavy on him. I nod, hauling my backpack up the creaking stairs to the small bedroom that I used to share with Leah. The room feels smaller now, or maybe I've just grown too much since those innocent days.
I unpack silently, setting my things aside. The bed is stiff and cold under my touch. As I settle in, I can't help but glance at the corner where Leah and I would huddle together, whispering secrets and making plans for adventures that would never happen. I push the thoughts away, focusing on the practicalities of unpacking.
After settling in, I go back downstairs to find Dad loading up a backpack with supplies for our hunt. The intensity in his eyes is palpable, his hands moving with practiced precision. I know this routine; it's one he's perfected over countless solo trips since that fateful day.
"We'll head out early," he says, not looking up from his task. "Gotta make the most of the daylight."
I nod, though unease curls in my stomach. I'm not just worried about what we might find—or not find—out there. I'm worried about him. Each year, the obsession seems to carve him out a bit more, leaving less of the Dad I knew.
—
The morning air is sharp with the scent of pine and wet earth as Dad and I head into the deeper parts of the forest. The terrain is rugged, familiar in its untamed beauty, but there’s a tension between us that makes the landscape feel alien. Dad moves with a purposeful stride, his eyes scanning the woods around us. Every snap of a twig, every rustle in the underbrush seems to draw his attention. He’s on edge, and it puts me on edge too.
As we walk, my mind drifts back to that day ten years ago. I can almost hear Leah’s voice echoing through the trees, her high-pitched call as she darted ahead, "Catch me, Ryan!" I remember how the sunlight filtered through the leaves, casting dancing shadows on the ground. Those memories are so vivid, so tangible, it feels like I could just turn a corner and see her there, waiting for us.
Dad suddenly stops and kneels, examining the ground. He points out a set of tracks that are too large for a deer, with an unusual gait pattern. "It’s been here, Ry. I’m telling you, it’s close," he whispers, a mixture of excitement and something darker in his voice. I nod, though I’m not sure what to believe. Part of me wants to dismiss it all as grief-fueled obsession, but another part, the part that heard Leah's scream and saw something monstrous in the woods that day, isn’t so sure.
As we continue, Dad's comments become increasingly cryptic. "You know, they say the dogman moves in cycles, drawn to certain places, certain times. Like it’s tied to the land itself," he muses, more to himself than to me. His fixation on the creature has always been intense, but now it borders on mania.
We set up a makeshift blind near a clearing where Dad insists the creature will pass. Hours drag by with little to see but the occasional bird or distant deer.
The sun rises higher in the sky, casting long, slender shadows through the dense canopy. I shift uncomfortably in my spot, the forest floor hard and unyielding beneath me. My eyes dart between the trees, hoping to catch a glimpse of something, anything, to break the monotony. Dad, on the other hand, remains steadfast, his gaze fixed on the treeline as if he can will the dogman into existence by sheer force of will.
A bird chirps nearby, startling me. I sigh and adjust my grip on the rifle. I glance over at Dad.
“Anything?” I ask, more out of boredom than genuine curiosity.
“Not yet,” he replies, his voice tight. “But it’s out there. I know it.”
I nod, even though I’m not sure I believe him. The forest seems too quiet, too still. Maybe we’re chasing ghosts.
As the sun begins its descent, the forest is bathed in a warm, golden light. The air cools, and a breeze rustles the leaves. I shiver, more from anticipation than the cold. The long hours of sitting and waiting are starting to wear on me.
“Let’s call it a day for now,” Dad says finally, his voice heavy with disappointment. “We’ll head back to the cabin, get some rest, and try again tomorrow.”
I stand and stretch, feeling the stiffness in my muscles. We pack up our gear in silence and start the trek back to the cabin. The walk is long and quiet, the only sounds are the crunch of leaves underfoot and the distant calls of birds settling in for the night.
—
Dinner is a quiet affair, both of us lost in our thoughts. I try to make small talk, asking Dad about his plans for tomorrow, but it feels forced. We clean up in silence.
After dinner, I retreat to the small bedroom. The fatigue from the day's hike has settled into my bones, but sleep still feels like a distant hope. I lie down, staring at the ceiling, the room cloaked in darkness save for the sliver of moonlight creeping through the window. Downstairs, I hear the faint sound of Dad moving around, likely unable to sleep himself.
I drift into sleep, but it's not restful. My dreams pull me back to that fateful day in the woods. Leah's voice is clear and vibrant, her laughter echoing through the trees. She looks just as she did then—bright-eyed and full of life, her blonde hair catching the sunlight as she runs ahead of me.
"Come on, Ry! You can't catch me!" she taunts, her voice playful and teasing.
I chase after her, but the scene shifts abruptly. The sky darkens, the woods around us growing dense and foreboding. Leah's laughter fades, replaced by a chilling silence. I see her ahead, standing still, her back to me.
"Leah?" I call out, my voice trembling. She turns slowly, her eyes wide and filled with fear. "Ryan, you have to remember," she says, her voice barely a whisper. "It wasn't what you think. You need to know the truth."
Leah’s words hang in the air, cryptic and unsettling. Before I can respond, she turns and starts running again, her figure becoming a blur among the trees. Panic rises in my chest as I sprint after her, my feet pounding against the forest floor.
“Leah, wait!” I shout, desperation lacing my voice. The forest around me seems to close in, the trees towering and twisted, shadows dancing menacingly in the dim light. I push forward, trying to keep her in sight, but she’s too fast, slipping away like a wisp of smoke.
Suddenly, there’s a rustle, a flash of movement in the corner of my vision. Leah screams, a sound that pierces through the heavy silence. It happens too quickly—I can’t see what it is, only a dark blur that snatches her up.
“Leah!” I scream, my voice breaking. I stumble, falling to my knees as the forest spins around me. My heart races, and the terror is so real, so visceral, that it pulls me back to that awful day, the one that changed everything.
I jolt awake, my breath coming in ragged gasps.
I sit up, wiping the cold sweat from my forehead as I try to steady my breathing. The room is still dark, the shadows cast by the moonlight seem to flicker and dance on the walls. My heart is still racing from the nightmare, the echo of Leah's scream lingering in my ears.
As I struggle to calm down, the floorboards outside my room creak. The door opens slowly, and I see the silhouette of my dad in the doorway, a Bowie knife in his hand, his posture tense.
“Dad, what the hell are you doing?” I whisper, my voice shaking.
“Shh,” he hisses, holding up a hand to silence me. “I heard something. Something moving around in the cabin. Stay quiet.”
I swallow hard, my mouth dry. I glance at the clock on the nightstand—it’s just past three in the morning. The cabin is silent, the kind of deep, oppressive silence that makes every small sound seem louder. I can’t hear anything out of the ordinary, but Dad’s expression is deadly serious.
He motions for me to get up, and I do, moving as quietly as I can. My heart is racing, a mix of lingering fear from the dream and the sudden, sharp anxiety of the present moment. Dad leads the way, stepping cautiously out of the bedroom and into the hallway, the knife held ready in front of him.
We move through the cabin, checking each room in turn. The living room is empty, the furniture casting long shadows in the dim moonlight. The kitchen is just as we left it, the plates from dinner still drying on the counter. Everything seems normal, untouched.
We finish our sweep of the cabin without finding anything amiss. The silence is heavy, punctuated only by our soft footfalls. I can see the tension in Dad’s frame, his grip on the knife unwavering. After checking the last room, we pause in the dimly lit hallway, the air thick with unspoken questions.
“There’s nothing here,” I say, my voice low. “Are you sure you heard something?”
He looks at me, his eyes searching for something in my face. “I heard growling. Deep and close. It was right outside the window.”
“Maybe it was just an animal outside, a raccoon or something?” I suggest, although the certainty in his voice makes me doubt my own reassurance.
“No, it wasn’t like that. It was different,” he insists, his voice tense.
I nod, not wanting to argue, but the seeds of worry are planted deep.
The look in his eyes sends a chill down my spine. It’s not just fear—it’s desperation. The kind of desperation that comes from years of chasing shadows and finding nothing. I can see the toll this hunt has taken on him, the way it’s worn him down, turned him into a man I barely recognize.
We head back to our rooms. As I lie down, my mind races with thoughts of my dad. I can’t help but wonder if he’s losing it, if the years of grief and guilt have finally pushed him over the edge.
Dad wasn’t always like this. Before Leah’s death, he was the kind of father who took us fishing, helped with homework, and told terrible jokes that made us groan and laugh at the same time. He was solid, dependable. But losing Leah changed him. The guilt twisted him into someone I barely recognize, someone driven by a need for answers, for closure, that may never come.
I try to sleep, but my thoughts keep me awake. I can hear Dad moving around downstairs, probably pacing or double-checking the locks. His paranoia has become a constant presence, and I don’t know how to help him. I don’t even know if I can help him.
—
The next morning, the sunlight filters weakly through the cabin windows, casting a pale light that does little to lift the heavy mood. I drag myself out of bed, feeling the exhaustion of another restless night. Dad is already up, hunched over his maps at the kitchen table, his eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep.
“Morning,” I mumble, rubbing the sleep from my eyes as I pour myself a cup of coffee. “Did you sleep at all?”
He shakes his head, not looking up from his notes. “Not much. I couldn’t stop thinking about what I heard last night.”
I sip my coffee, trying to shake off the remnants of my nightmare. “Maybe it was just an animal, Dad. We’re deep in the woods, after all.”
He finally looks up, his eyes intense. “Ryan, I know what I heard. It wasn’t just an animal. It was something else.”
I sigh, not wanting to argue. “Okay, fine, Dad. What’s the plan for today?”
“We’re going back out. I found some tracks yesterday, and I want to follow them. See where they lead.”
I nod, feeling a mix of apprehension and resignation. I can see how much this means to him, how desperate he is for any kind of lead. “Alright. Let’s get packed and head out.”
We spend the morning preparing, loading up our gear and double-checking our supplies. Dad is meticulous, going over everything with a fine-toothed comb. I try to match his focus, but my mind keeps drifting back to Leah and the dream I had. Her words echo in my head, cryptic and unsettling: “You need to know the truth.”
We set off into the woods, the air crisp and cool. The forest is alive with the sounds of birds and rustling leaves, but it all feels distant, like background noise to the tension between us. Dad leads the way, his eyes scanning the ground for any sign of the tracks he found yesterday.
As we walk, I can’t help but notice how erratically he’s acting. He mutters to himself, his eyes darting around as if expecting something to jump out at us. His grip on his rifle is tight, his knuckles white.
“Dad, are you okay?” I ask, trying to keep my voice steady.
He glances at me, his expression unreadable. “I’m fine. Just focused.”
He stops frequently to examine the ground or the bark of trees, pointing out marks and signs that seem meaningless to me.
“Look at this,” he says, crouching down to examine a broken branch. “See how it’s snapped? That’s not a deer or a bear. That’s something bigger. Stronger.”
I crouch next to Dad, squinting at the broken branch. To me, it just looks like a regular broken branch, the kind you see all over the forest. "I don't know, Dad. It just looks like a branch to me," I say, trying to keep my voice neutral.
Dad's eyes flicker with frustration. "You're not looking close enough. It's the way it's snapped—too clean, too deliberate. Something did this."
I nod, not wanting to argue. "Okay, sure. But even if you're right, it could be anything. A storm, another hunter..."
His expression hardens. "I know what I'm looking for. This is different."
I sigh, feeling the weight of the past and the tension between us pressing down on me. "Dad, I had a dream last night. About Leah." The words hang in the air between us, heavy and fraught with unspoken emotions.
Dad's eyes widen, and he straightens up, his entire demeanor shifting. "What kind of dream? What did you see?" His voice is urgent, almost desperate.
"It was... strange. We were in the woods, like we are now, but everything felt different. Leah was there, running ahead of me, laughing. Then she stopped and told me I needed to know the truth, that it wasn't what I thought."
Dad grabs my shoulders, his grip tight. "What else did she say? Did she tell you anything specific? Anything about the creature?"
I shake my head, feeling a chill run down my spine. "No, that was it. She just said I needed to know the truth, and then she was gone."
Dad’s grip on my shoulders tightens, and his eyes bore into mine with a mixture of desperation and hope. “Ryan, you have to try to remember. Think hard. What did the creature look like? Did you see anything else?”
I pull back slightly, uneasy with his intensity. “Dad, I told you. I don’t remember. It was just a dream. A nightmare, really. My mind’s probably just mixing things up.”
He lets go of me and runs a hand through his hair, looking frustrated and lost. “Dreams can be important. They can hold memories we’ve buried deep. Please, try to remember. This could be a sign, a clue.”
I rub my temples, feeling the beginnings of a headache. “I’ve tried, okay? I’ve tried for years to piece together what happened that day. But it’s all just fragments, like pieces of a puzzle that don’t fit. The dream… it felt real, but I don’t think it’s telling me anything new.”
Dad’s face falls, and he looks older than I’ve ever seen him. He turns away, staring into the forest as if it holds all the answers.
—
As we make our way back to the cabin, the sun begins to set, casting long shadows through the trees. The air grows colder, and I shiver, pulling my jacket tighter around me. Dad is silent, lost in his thoughts, his face drawn and haggard.
Back at the cabin, we unload our gear once again in silence. Dad disappears into his room, muttering something about going over his notes. I decide to explore the cabin, hoping to find something that might help me understand what’s going on with him.
In the attic, I find a box of old family photos and documents. As I sift through the contents, I come across a worn journal with Dad’s handwriting on the cover. Curiosity gets the better of me, and I open it, flipping through the pages.
The journal is filled with notes and sketches, detailing his obsession with the dogman. But there’s something else—entries that talk about Leah, about that day in the woods. His handwriting becomes more erratic, the words harder to read. One entry stands out, dated just a few days after Leah’s death:
“June 15, 2013 – It was supposed to be a normal trip. Keep them close, Frank, I kept telling myself. But I failed. Leah is gone, and it’s my fault. I heard her scream, saw the shadows. I tried to get to her, but… the thing, it was there. Too fast. Too strong. My hands… blood everywhere. No one will believe me. I can’t even believe myself. I have to find it. I have to protect Ryan. I have to make it right. God, what have I done?”
Before I can read further, the attic door creaks open, and Dad’s voice slices through the stillness.
“What are you doing up here?” His tone is sharp, almost panicked.
I turn to see him standing in the doorway, his face pale and his eyes wide with something between anger and fear. I clutch the journal to my chest, my mind racing. “I found this… I was just trying to understand…”
In an instant, he crosses the room and snatches the journal from my hands. His grip is tight, his knuckles white. “You had no right,” he growls, his voice trembling.
“Dad, I just wanted to know the truth!” I shout, frustration boiling over. “What really happened to Leah.”
His eyes flash with a mix of rage and anguish, and before I can react, he slaps me across the face. The force of it knocks me off balance, and I stumble backward, my cheek stinging.
For a moment, there’s a stunned silence. We both stand there, breathing hard, the air thick with tension.
“I’m sorry,” Dad says finally, his voice barely a whisper. “I didn’t mean to… I just…” He trails off, clutching the journal to his chest like a lifeline.
I touch my cheek, feeling the heat from the slap, and take a deep breath, trying to steady myself. “Dad, what aren’t you telling me? What really happened that day?”
“Stay out of it, Ryan,” Dad growls, his eyes dark with anger. “You don’t know what you’re messing with.”
He turns and storms out of the attic. I’m left standing there, my cheek throbbing, my mind racing. What the fuck is going on? What really happened to Leah? And what is Dad so afraid of?
—
That night, I sleep with my rifle within arm's reach, more afraid of my dad than any dogman. The slap still burns on my cheek, and the look in his eyes—rage, fear, something darker—haunts me. I lie awake, listening to the creaks and groans of the old cabin, every sound amplified in the stillness. Eventually, exhaustion pulls me under, and I fall into a restless sleep.
The dream returns, vivid and unsettling. I'm back in the woods, chasing after Leah. Her laughter echoes through the trees, a haunting reminder of happier times. This time, though, I push myself harder, refusing to let her slip away.
"Ryan, catch me!" she calls, her voice playful.
"I'm coming, Leah!" I shout, my legs pumping, my breath coming in ragged gasps.
The forest around us is a twisted, shadowy maze, the trees seeming to close in on us. Leah's figure becomes clearer, her blonde hair catching the dim light filtering through the canopy. She stops suddenly, turning to face me, her eyes wide with fear.
"Leah, what is it?" I ask, my voice trembling.
"Look behind you," she whispers, her voice barely audible.
I turn slowly, dread creeping up my spine. In the shadows, I see a figure, its form indistinct and shifting. It’s not quite animal, not quite human—something in between. The sight of it sends a jolt of terror through me, and I wake up with a start, my breath coming in ragged gasps.
I’m not in my bed. The ground beneath me is cold and hard, the smell of damp earth filling my nostrils. Panic rises as I realize I’ve sleepwalked into the woods. I scramble to my feet, my eyes adjusting to the dim light. The moon casts a pale glow over the surroundings, revealing what looks like a long-abandoned animal lair.
The walls are covered in giant claw marks, deep gouges in the wood and earth. The air is heavy with the scent of decay, and a chill runs through me. I can’t shake the feeling that I’m being watched.
Carefully, I start to move, my eyes scanning the ground, desperate for a familiar landmark. That's when I see them—faded scraps of fabric caught on the jagged edges of the underbrush. My steps falter, a sense of dread washing over me as I bend down to examine them. The fabric is torn, weathered by time and the elements, but unmistakably familiar. It's part of Leah's jacket—the bright pink one she wore on the day she disappeared.
As I strain to make sense of it all, a rustling sound behind me snaps my focus. My heart leaps into my throat. I spin around, my hand instinctively reaching for the rifle I don't have—because, of course, I didn't bring it in my unconscious state.
The shadowy figure that emerges from the trees is unsettlingly familiar, mirroring the menacing forms of my nightmares. But as it steps into the moonlight, I recognize the worn jacket, the weary posture. It's Dad.
"Ryan!" he calls out, his voice a mix of relief and stern concern. "I've been looking everywhere for you. What the hell are you doing out here?"
I exhale slowly, the terror ebbing away as reality sets back in. "I—I don't know, Dad. I must've sleepwalked again." My voice is shaky, my earlier dream still clinging to the edges of my consciousness.
Dad stares at me in disbelief. "You haven't sleepwalked since you were a kid, Ry. This... this isn't just a coincidence." His eyes dart around, taking in the surroundings—the eerie, claw-marked den, the unsettling quiet of the woods. "How did you even find this place?"
I shake my head, struggling to find an answer. "I don't know, Dad. I just... I woke up here." The uncertainty in my voice does nothing to ease the tension.
His eyes lock onto the tattered remains of Leah's jacket in my hands, and something inside him snaps. The color drains from his face as he stumbles a few steps backward. "This... this is where it happened," he murmurs, his voice barely a whisper. “This is where we found Leah."
“I thought you said you don’t remember anything from that night,” he says accusingly.
"I swear, Dad, I don't know anything about this place," I insist, my own heart pounding.
“It was you, wasn’t it? You’ve been hiding this from me.” His voice is frantic. “You... last night, the growling, it was you.” His voice rises, tinged with hysteria.
I step back, my pulse racing, feeling the chill of the night and the weight of his accusation. "Dad, I don't know what you're talking ab—”
"No!" he interrupts, his voice breaking as he points a trembling finger at me. "You knew, you always knew. It was you, Ryan. All these years, the evidence was right there, but I refused to see it. You were the dogman. You killed Leah!"
His words hit me like a physical blow, absurd and horrifying in their implications. "Dad, you're not making any sense. You're talking crazy! I was just a little kid! How could I–" I protest, my voice shaky.
He steps closer, his presence looming over me, the outline of his figure distorted by the shadows of the trees. "Think about it! It all makes sense now. You led us here, to this place, because you remember. Because you did it."
"Dad, stop it!" I shout, my heart pounding in my chest. "You're scaring me. You need help, professional help. This isn't you."
But he's beyond reason, his eyes wild with a haunted grief. "I have to end this," he mutters, more to himself than to me, his hand tightening around his rifle.
His finger hovers dangerously over the trigger of his rifle. My instincts kick in, and I know I have to act fast.
I lunge toward him, trying to knock the weapon away, but he's quicker than I expected. We struggle, our breaths heavy in the cold night air, the sounds of our scuffle the only noise in the otherwise silent woods. His strength surprises me, fueled by his frantic emotions. He shoves me back, and I stumble over a root, my balance lost for a crucial second. That's all he needs. He raises his rifle, his intentions clear in his wild, pained eyes.
I dive to the ground just as the shot rings out, a deafening blast that echoes ominously through the trees. The bullet whizzes past, narrowly missing me, embedding itself in the bark of an old pine. I scramble to my feet, my heart pounding in my ears, and I start running. The underbrush claws at my clothes and skin, but I push through, driven by a primal urge to survive.
"Dad, stop! It's me, Ryan!" I shout back as I dodge between the trees. Another shot breaks the silence, closer this time, sending splinters of wood flying from a nearby tree trunk. It's surreal, being hunted by my own father, a man tormented by grief and lost in his delusions.
I don't stop to look back. I can hear him crashing through the forest behind me, his heavy breaths and muttered curses carried on the wind. The terrain is rough, and I'm fueled by adrenaline, but exhaustion is setting in. I need a plan.
Ahead, I see a rocky outcrop and make a split-second decision to head for it. It offers a chance to hide, to catch my breath and maybe reason with him if he catches up. As I reach the rocks, I slip behind the largest one, my body pressed tight against the cold, damp surface. I hear his footsteps approaching, slow and cautious now.
As I press against the rock, trying to calm my racing heart, I can hear Dad's footsteps drawing closer, each step crunching ominously on the forest floor. He's methodical, deliberate, like a hunter stalking his prey.
“Come out, Ryan!” Dad’s voice is ragged, filled with a blend of fury and pain.
My heart pounds against my chest, the cold sweat on my back making me shiver against the rough surface of the rock. I know I can't just sit here; it's only a matter of time before he finds me.
Taking a deep breath, I peek around the edge of the rock, trying to gauge his position. I see him, rifle raised, scanning the area slowly. This might be my only chance to end this madness without further violence. I need to disarm him, to talk some sense into him if I can.
As quietly as I can, I move out from behind the rock, my steps careful to avoid any twigs or leaves that might betray my position. I'm almost upon him when a branch snaps under my foot—a sound so trivial yet so alarmingly loud in the quiet of the woods.
Dad whirls around, looking completely unhinged. "Ryan!" he exclaims, his rifle swinging in my direction. Panic overtakes me, and I lunge forward, my hands reaching for the gun.
We struggle, the rifle between us, our breaths heavy and erratic. "Dad, please, stop!" I plead, trying to wrestle the gun away. But he's strong, stronger than I expected.
In the chaos, the rifle goes off. The sound is deafening, a sharp echo that seems to reverberate off every tree around us. Pain explodes in my abdomen, sharp and burning, like nothing I've ever felt before. I stagger back, my hands instinctively going to the wound. The warmth of my own blood coats my fingers, stark and terrifying.
Dad drops the rifle, his eyes wide with horror. "Oh my God! What have I done?" he gasps, rushing to my side as I collapse onto the forest floor.
As the pain sears through me, a strange, overpowering energy surges within. It's wild, primal, unlike anything I've ever experienced. Looking down in horror, my hands are no longer hands but large, hairy, clawed appendages. The transformation is rapid, consuming—my vision blurs, senses heighten, and a raw, guttural growl builds in my throat.
In that moment, a flood of understanding washes over me, mingling with the horror of realization. These are the hands of the creature from my nightmares, the creature whose face I can never fully recall because, as I now understand, it is me.
What happens next feels detached, as if I'm no longer in control of my own actions, watching from a distance as my body moves on its own. I turn towards my dad, his face a mask of terror. He stumbles back, his eyes wide with the dawning realization of what his son has become.
The forest around us seems to fall silent, holding its breath as the nightmarish scene unfolds. I can hear my own growls, guttural and deep, filling the air with a sound that's both foreign and intimately familiar. The pain in my abdomen fuels a dark, violent urge, an urge that's too strong to resist.
With a ferocity that feels both alien and intrinsic, I move towards him. My dad, paralyzed by fear and shock, doesn't run. Maybe he can't. Maybe he doesn't want to.
The encounter is brutal and swift, a blur of motion and violence. My dad barely puts up a struggle, as though resigned to his fate.
Not that there is anything he can do. The creature that I’ve become is too powerful, too consumed by the wild instincts surging through me. I tear him apart, limb from bloody limb, my hands—no, my claws—rending through fabric and flesh with disgusting ease.
The sound of my dad’s screams, of tearing fabric and flesh is drowned out by the animalistic growls that echo through the trees.
When it’s all over, the red mist that had clouded my vision begins to fade, and the fierce, uncontrollable rage that drove my actions subsides. I'm left standing, my breaths heavy and erratic, in the eerie stillness of the forest. The transformation reverses as quickly as it came on, and I find myself back in my human form. My clothes are ripped to shreds, hanging off my frame in tattered remnants. At my feet lies what’s left of my dad, his body torn and unrecognizable.
I glance down at my abdomen, expecting agony, but instead find my wound miraculously healed. No sign of the gunshot remains, just a faint scar where I expected a bloody mess.
Shock sets in, a numbing disbelief mixed with a gut-wrenching realization of what I've become and what I've done. My hands, now human again, tremble as I look at them, half-expecting to see the claws that had so effortlessly ripped through flesh and bone. But there's only blood, my father's blood against my skin.
I stand there for what feels like an eternity, trapped in a nightmare of my own making.
Eventually, the shock wears thin, and a cold practicality takes hold. I need to get out of here. I need to cover my tracks, to disappear. Because who would believe this? Who would understand that I didn't choose this, that I'm not a monster by choice?
With trembling hands, I do what’s necessary. I bury my dad in a shallow grave, the physical act of digging strangely grounding. I cover him with leaves and branches, a pitiful attempt to hide the brutality of his end. I take a moment, whispering apologies into the wind, knowing full well that nothing I say can change what happened.
I leave the forest behind, my mind a whirl of dark thoughts. As I walk, the first hints of dawn brush against the horizon, the sky bleeding a soft pink. It’s hauntingly beautiful.