Hi all, some saddle sores have lead me to ditch my chamoisless aspirations... i was wondering if anyone can recommend some bibs (ideally cargo bibs) actually designed for women (aka doesn't assume you want to get naked to pee). The problem im running into is im an xxl/uk size 20 - if bike bib designers dont think about woken peeing in bibs, then they definitley don't think about fat women peeing in bibs - all the plus size bibs i can find have zero drop crotch features. in fact some of them assume plus sizes want coverage, and go full tri suit vest style so you cant even slip a shoulder strap off through an arm hole!
Sorry, this turned into a rant. Im starting to consider learning to sew stretch fabrics so i can cut the waistband off regular chamois and convert them to bibs. but before that - any recommendations?

Like to these works: https://www.attalus.org/poetry/theriaca.html
it into wine. That will be a most excellent protection, for you will stave off death in all forms alike.
700 Learn also that the powerful aid of the sea-turtle is a defence against the bite of all the long, crawling creatures that injure distressful mortals; and may you find it a strong protection. Thus, when fishermen draw the murderous Turtle up out of the sea on to the dry beach, do you, having turned it on its back, strike the life from its head with a bronze knife and let the coarse blood pour forth into an earthen jar newly baked in the furnace; but draw of the livid, thin serum with a well-made colander and on this dry and break up the dots of blood, 710 taking for your mixture four drachmas by weight. And add two drachmas of wild cummin, and to each two drachmas a quarter by weight of the curd in a Hare's stomach. From this cut off one drachma and drink in wine.
Against Snakes these remedies, you will find, will protect you.
Consider now the operations of the dangerous spider and the symptoms that attend its bite. The one which is the colour of pitchy smoke is named the grape ; it moves its feet in succession, and in the centre of its stomach it has hard and deadly teeth. But even when it has fastened on a man, his skin nevertheless remains as though unwounded; 720 yet the eyes above turn reddish and a shivering settles on his limbs, and straightway his skin and his genitals below grow taut, and his member projects, dripping with foul ooze, and at the same time numbness descending upon him overcomes his hips and the support of his knees.
Learn of one different from these - the starlet, on whose back striped bands gleam radiant on the skin. When it has bitten, a shivering comes unexpectedly upon the victim, a torpor is in his head and breaks the bonds of his knees beneath him.
Another kind is the blue spider : it darts about off the ground and is covered with hair. 730 Even on his flesh the victim of this spider carries a terrible wound: his heart is heavy within him and night is about his temples, while from his throat he discharges a deadly vomit like a spider's web; and he thinks that death is near to him.
Yet another is the huntsman, and he is like the Wolf-Spider in form, the destroyer of blue-bottles; he lies in wait for bees, gall-insects, gadflies, and whatsoever comes into his toils. But the bite he inflicts upon man is painless and without consequence.
But another kind is an aggressive foe, the one men call the wasp-spider, reddish and like the ravenous Wasp, 740 which resembles the horse in its high spirit, for horses are the origin of wasps and bulls of bees [which are engendered in their rotting carcases]. When this creature has inflicted a wound, sever swelling ensues and various forms of sickness, and in some cases a quivering, in others powerlessness in the knees; and the wasting man is overcome by an evil sleep that brings the final alleviation.
The antlet - now mark - which in truth resembles the ant, has a fiery neck, though its body is dust-coloured; its broad and spangled back is all speckled, 750 and its dusky head is raised but little on its neck, yet it inflicts as much pain as the spiders aforenamed.
Where men go plucking with their hands, not using sickles, gathering pulse and other legumes amid the fields while still green, there in swarms, wrapped in fiery colour and like to blister-beetles, dart small spiders. But for all their size around the troublesome bite of one blisters always rise, and the mind wanders and is crazed; the tongue shrieks disordered words and the eyes squint.
Consider now monsters which the grim land of Egypt fosters, 760 like the moth which the evening meal-time brings in to flutter round the lamps. All the wings are dense and are covered with down, even as a man appears who may chance to touch dust or ashes. Such in appearance, it is reared among the leaves of Perseus's tree {Persea}. Its terrible head nods ever in grim fashion and is hard, and its belly is heavy ; its sting it plants in the top of a man's neck or on his head, and it may easily and on the spot bring the doom of death.
Come now, and I will speak of the scorpion, armed with an agonising sting, 770 and of its disgusting brood. The white kind is harmless and does no hurt. But the red inflicts a swift and burning fever on men's mouths, and the victims struggle convulsively beneath the wound as though caught by fire, and there rises a mighty thirst. The black kind on the other hand, when it has struck, causes a fearful agitation in a man: victims go out of their wits and laugh without reason. But another kind is greenish, and when it strikes a limb it inflicts shivering fits, and after them a horrid eruption appears, even though the Dog-Star burn scorching hot. 780 Such in effect is the sharp edge of its sting, and behind such a sting nine-jointed vertebrae extend above its head. Another is livid; it carries beneath it a broad and hungry belly, for in truth it is ever an insatiable eater of grass and of earth; and it deals a stroke incurable upon the groin, so ravenous the hunger in its hard jaws. But another kind you will find like the crab on the sea-shore, which feeds in the delicate seaweed and the noisy surf. Others again, like the bandy-legged common crab to look at, are heavy-limbed and their weighty claws are hard, 790 and serrated as in the rock-haunting crabs. It is from them that they have their allotted being, whenever they quit the rocks and the delicate wrack of the pebble-strewn sea. The fishermen with their baits draw them from the salt water; but directly they are caught they slip into mouse-holes, and there the scorpions, the deadly offspring of these dead crabs, are born, to work ruin from wall and fence. Learn too of the honey-coloured scorpion: its end joint is black at the tip, and it dispenses doom unassuageable and most deadly. But the worst enemy of man is the one whose crooked legs are like fire: 800 to children it instantly brings death. Upon its back white wings unfold themselves like those of the corn-devouring locusts, which flitting over the tops of the corn feed on husked grain, and haunt Pedasa and the vales of Cissus.
I can tell you however of remedies against the scorpion's strokes, just as for those of the buzzer from the hills, or of the bee, whose death follows from its very sting when it has stabbed a man as he labours around the hive or in the fields; as it implants its sting, it leaves it in the wound, 810 and to the Bee the sting is both life and death. Yes, and I know too the devices of the woodlouse, and of the deadly wasp, and of the tiny tree-wasp, and of the two-headed centipede, which from both ends can bestow death upon a man, and as the creature moves there speed beneath it as it were the winged oars of a ship; also of the blind and fearsome shrew-mouse, which brings destruction upon men and meets its death in the wheel-tracks of carts. You should certainly avoid the seps, which resembles the squat lizards; and that treacherous and ever detestable beast the salamander, which makes its way through unquenchable fire [unharmed] and without pain; 820 nor does the unquenchable flame injure its tattered skin or its extremities. Furthermore I have knowledge of all the creatures that the sea whirls amid its briny surges, and the horror of the murry, since many a time has it sprung up from the fish-box and striking them with panic has hurled toiling fishermen from their boat to seek refuge in the sea . . . if it be true that this creature couples with deadly-biting vipers on the land, forsaking its salt pasturage. Again, from the death-dealing sting-ray and the ravening sea-snake I can protect you. The sting-ray causes trouble when it strikes with its sting 830 the toiler labouring at his hauled drag-nets; or if the sting is fixed in the trunk of some tree which is flourishing in pride, then, as though the tree were stricken by the fierce beams of the sun, its roots and with them its leafage wither; on a man his flesh rots and wastes away. Indeed the story tells how Odysseus of yore perished from the baneful sting of this monster from the sea.
Now will I rehearse the several remedies for these afflictions. You should take at one time the leaves, like wild-lettuce, of alkanet, at another potentilla, or the crimson flowers of the bramble; bearwort, sorrel, 840 and the long-stemmed viper's herb, cicamum, the luxuriant hartwort, and you may well include ground-pine and thick bark which you have broken off from the oak tree; with them too hedge-parsley, and seeds gathered from the carrot, and the fresh and variegated berries from the terebinth. Moreover you should store up the purple orchella-weed from the sea, and the unspotted maiden-hair, on whose leaves the fine moisture falling from the bursting rainstorm does not settle. Note too, you should cut the everblooming cretan alexanders or the tufted root of the dead-nettle and of the eryngo, 850 together with the fruit-bearing rosemary frankincense. Let there be present also cleavers and helxine and the heavy-headed poppy, capsuled or horned, to protect you. Cut off also a budding shoot of the fig-tree or the actual fruit of the wild fig which appears orbed and swelling before other fruit. Take too the fiery thorn and the blossoms of the bright mullein, and with them leaves of havergrass, and celandine, wild carrot, and the root of bryony, which wipes away freckles and the rash abhorrent to women's skin. 860 Powder also the leaves of vervain, or pluck the twigs of a the protective rhamnus, for by itself it is efficacious to ward off death from a man. Again, gather freshly plucked branches of feverfew, blue pimpernel, or hart's tongue, or take a portion of Lemnian ruddle, which is soothing in all afflictions. Sometimes too you may cut the bitter root of the squirting cucumber; to a stomach even sore oppressed with anguish also fruit of the prickly paliurus affords relief; so too its spiky leaves, and the young fruits of the pomegranate 870 with scarlet on its neck-like, closing sepals where it reddens about the slender flowers; at another time hyssop and the many-branched rest-harrow and the leaves of love-in-absence and the fresh tendril on the grape cluster, cloves of garlic, and the seed of the mountain-born coriander, or even the downy leaves of the delicate fleabane. Often too you may cut of some fresh pepper or Persian garden-cress and administer it in a drink; and the flowering pennyroyal and deadly nightshade and mustard too may save one in evil plight. Take also the green leak from the garden-plot, or else the hurtful seed of the nettle itself 880 with which boys play tricks. With these too perhaps the snow-white head of a squill and the dried coats of purse-tassels and the stalk of the dragon's namesake {dracunculus}, and the shoots of the shrubby rhamnus, and what the wildwood pines in the valleys nourish at the heart of their cones. Look you, you should lop the green root of the feeble herb scorpius that men liken to the poisonous sting of the beast, or waterlilies from Psamathe, and those which Traphea and Copae foster by the waters of their lake, wherein discharge the streams of Schoeneus and Cnopus, 890 and the pistachio nuts which look like almonds upon the boughs by the Indian flood of the roaring Choaspes. Collect hedge-parsley and the red-brown, astringent myrtle berries and slips of sage and of the flourishing fennel; collect also hedge-mustard and the seeds of the wild chick-pea, including with its green shoots the heavy-smelling leaves. Again, water-cress alleviates sickness; so too a fresh garland of melilot; also the white blossoms of the spongy dropwort which shepherds pound in a mortar, and those seeds which the corn-cockle and the red plantain and the rose foster within them, 900 and the tiny seed of the gilliflower. Or cut some knot-grass from the tangled watermeadows, depilatory, and the seed of the mournful hyacinth, over whom Phoebus wept, since without willing it, hard by the river of Amyclae he slew with a blow the boy Hyacinthus in the bloom of youth ; for the iron mass rebounding from a rock smote upon his temple and crushed the sheath beneath it. Mix too some trefoil and gum of silphium equal in scale to the weight of three obols; or else pluck the horn-shaped tufted thyme, often too samphire or lavendar-cotton, 910 and along with them grate into some drink anise and libyan roots. Having shredded them into a bowl, sometimes together sometimes separately, drink them mixed with vinegar or else with wine or water; these help too when shredded into milk.
If however some bite should call for haste as you are on your journey and among waterless glades, the moment you are overcome chew with your jaws some roots or leaves or seeds growing by the way, and sucking out the sap, lay the half-eaten remains of the food upon the wounds 920 in order that you may avoid suffering and imminent death.
Again, by applying to some deadly wound a brazen cupping vessel you will drain the poison and the blood together; or by pouring on the milky juice of the fig, or by using an iron heated in the heart of a hot furnace. Sometimes the skin of a grazing goat filled with wine will be of service at a time when the wound is in ankle or hand. You will fix the sufferer in the wineskin to the mid forearm or ankle and wind the fastening cord about the groin or armpit until the strength of the wine has drawn out the pain from the flesh. 930 At times moreover let leeches feed on wounds and drink their fill. Or drip onion juice, or else pour lees of wine or of vinegar, upon sheep's droppings, make a paste, and plaster the wound with the fresh dung.
But that you may with instruction compound a general panacea,- it will be very serviceable after you have mixed all the simples together - let there be birthwort, root of iris and of spikenard, of all-heal too with dried pellitory, of all-curing wild carrot, and of black bryony, 940 and with them the spongy roots of a freshly dug peony, sprigs of the black hellebore, and mingled with them native sodium carbonate. Pour in too cummin and a sprig of fleabane mixed with the husks of stavesacre; and grate down an equal quantity of the bay's berries and tree-medick and the lowly horse-moss, and gather in some cyclamen. Cast in also the juice of the gleaming poppy, and over all the seeds of the agnus castus, balsam too and some cassia, and with them cow-parsnip and a bowlful of salt, mingling them with curd and a crab; but the former should come from a hare, 950 the latter should be a dweller in pebbly streams. Now all these you should throw into the belly of a capacious mortar, kneading them with the blows of stone pestles. And on the dry ingredients pour at once the juice of cleavers and mix well together; then prepare round cakes of a drachma each, limiting the weight precisely with a balance; then shake them up in two cotylae of wine and drink.
So now you will treasure ever the memory of the Homeric Nicander, whom the snow-white town of Clarus nurtured.
https://www.attalus.org/poetry/theriaca.html

The sun was high in the sky, watching the busy Streets of Aguris curiously. A couple wisps of white decorated the light blue sky, and a gentle breeze greeted a wooden sign board hanging outside a shop. It swung lazily in the breeze, on its surface was a carving of a thread and needle. Occasionally someone would walk in or out, but the traffic in this store was quite low.
"Hey, wait stop! Fuck, if you're gonna be that pushy. . . Hey, don't touch there!" a voice slipped out from the store as a customer left. The interior was brightly colored, and rows of clothes greeted the customers as they came in. At the back the store's floor was raised and a larger mirror could be found along with a desk where a worker stood. To the left sat a line of changing rooms, each had a curtain to hide the customer as they changed. One of those rooms had a violently shaking curtain.
"Come on, just take those off and try this." Another voice leaked out.
"Hey wait, stop pushing and huh stoooop!" Skarlet exclaimed as she stumbled out of the changing room, she wasn't wearing much. Through the fumble and bumble they'd managed to get her down to her panties and bra, this wasn't a super big deal. It was a girl's store and the likelihood of a guy walking in was low. Skarlet frowned at the person who walked out, Amethyst, her new friend. Skarlet looked a bit pitiful as she sat on the ground covering herself and glaring at the girl in front of her.
"If you're gonna be so pushy I'll just do it myself, just stay out of my changing room!" Skarlet grumbled in annoyance. Amethyst's tail was wagging and she was practically oozing excited puppy dog energy. But it sank as Skarlet said that, her ears dropped and she stepped aside.
"Sorry."
"Dummy." Another voice spoke up, Aiko was standing nearby with her arms crossed. She was wearing short black shorts and a sleeveless black shirt with a long scarf that was pulled back so both ends rested around the base of her tail. She had thick black boots with golden buckles and fingerless gloves, and the way she was standing made her seem like some kinda punk. The continued black from her shorts and shirt was broken by a brown belt that held two short swords on either side of her waist.
Amethyst was dressed in a short skirt that was bright red like a cherry and a white shirt with a color splash design, or maybe she just got carried away with some paint at some point. Her shirt had long sleeves but one was bunched up, she also wore a belt with a magic bag on it for money and stuff. She had a necklace around her neck with a purple gem in it. She was also wearing loose shoes meant for running and activities.
Skarlet sighed as she got to her feet and stepped into the changing room.
"I know what you're gonna say, but come on she's looking so cute!" Amethyst exclaimed while looking at Aiko, the cat girl just let out a sigh and looked away. "What, are you jealous, you're not pouting cause I'm not fussing over you right?" Amethyst asked as she got closer. The rustling sound of Skarlet changing faded into the background, Amethyst slipped up next to Aiko and blew a little air into her ear. A shiver ran through her as a small blush appeared. Aiko snapped her attention to Amethyst, who was smiling coyly at her as she stepped away. "You're cute Aiko." As she finished saying that the curtain blew out as Skarlet reappeared, she was frowning deeply.
"You're making fun of me aren't you!" Skarlet accused them as her face was a mix of embarrassment and anger. She was dressed in a short pink skirt with multiple layered frills, tall white socks and a shirt with ruffled sleeves. There was even a bow on her shoes. "I'm not a kid you stupid mutt!" Amethyst burst out laughing.
"I'm sorry, just you're so small I thought you'd fit clothes from the kids section, hehe. You look so cute though!! Ahh, hey why don't you try this next!" Amethyst thrust her another outfit and hurried her back into the changing room. Skarlet was stuttering and stumbling over her words as she tried to protest, but it was futile.
"You're a bully." Aiko spoke again looking at Amethyst, the girl in question looked back at Aiko.
"Maaaaaybe, but I only bully those I like. Besides doesn't she just feel like a little sis? I wanna spoil her, won't you let me indulge a little?" Amethyst asked. Aiko sighed again, but didn't comment. "Thanks bestie!" Amethyst exclaimed happily, moments later Skarlet stepped out again and she looked furious. She was wearing a one piece white dress with pink trim and a bow on the collar. Amethyst ran over and circled around Skarlet with a smile before messing with her hair. "If you ask me to put my hair up in tails I'm going to stab you."
"Woah, um heh, I wasn't thinking about it at all, promise ya. Hey um why not try this on." Amethyst seemed slightly taken aback by Skarlet's blatant hostility so she quickly grabbed an outfit from the women's section, but Skarlet seemed more interested in Aiko. Aiko was taller than Skarlet but also had the same petite build. Seeing this Amethyst smiled and grabbed Aiko's hand and dragged her into the changing room.
"Amethyyyyyst!" there was an exclamation, a look of pleading directed towards Skarlet then she was gone. Skarlet smirked in satisfaction, but then a realization came up. I'm having fun. . . She frowned with a bit of worry. I shouldn't be here, this is wrong, I don't deserve it. She wasn't truly angry, and her aggressive stance was more her trying to hide her happiness. Mostly due to fear. But this reminded her that things were changing a bit around here, not with the people native to Aguris. There were newcomers, like Cody and this group, Aiko and Amethyst. They didn't know about her and treated her with kindness. She had half a desire to relish that feeling, and another half to run from it.
Her line of thinking struggled to continue as Amethyst reappeared to show off Aiko now dressed as a Gothic maid, a black and white color scheme with lots of bows, frills, and a headband. Skarlet burst out laughing and Aiko glared at Amethyst, who just smiled happily while admiring her work. Aiko promptly turned around and tried to escape but Amethyst snatched her hand and pulled her closer.
"Awe don't be like that, call me Master please! I wanna hear it." Amethyst was in full blown happy dog mode. Tail running at a hundred miles an hour as she stared expectantly at Aiko. who hesitated, trying to not look at her friend's eyes. But she couldn't help it and soon was defeated by those pleading puppy dog eyes. Aiko looked down and began fidgeting with her dress before finally she opened her mouth.
"M-master." Aiko mumbled with a blush, and Amethyst immediately hugged her and started patting her head. "Good girl!" Aiko's tail shot straight up from that and she struggled from Amethyst's grasp. Skarlet was quiet though, she was staring with surprise at Aiko. Damn, that was unexpectedly really cute. Skarlet couldn't stop the smile as Aiko eventually slipped away and bolted into the changing room.
She came back out wearing her usual gear, after they finished teasing, they ended up helping Skarlet pick some proper outfits. This all started because they decided to visit her place, and apparently Amethyst loved to design outfits and was greatly disappointed by Skarlet's lack of a wardrobe.
Skarlet tried to protest but was promptly dragged around town to various clothing stores, she was aware that she was getting close to these two but couldn't stop it. She was afraid though, scared of how her curse would affect them. After they finished shopping they started the walk home. Amethyst and Aiko were quite close, Skarlet noticed this while hanging out. As they walked home, the energetic dog girl was hanging off of Aiko eagerly chatting her up. Aiko rarely spoke but Amethyst seemed to be able to almost read her mind, they conversed even if one didn't speak.
On the way home they passed the market and Amethyst dragged the group over to an outdoor restaurant. Plopping down on one of the chairs, Skarlet followed, at some point she decided to stop thinking about it so much and just go with it. So she was absent-mindedly following them.
"Say ahhh." Skarlet stared at Amethyst as she tried to feed Skarlet. "Awe no fun." Amethyst pouted as she realized Skarlet wasn't gonna go with it. So she turned to Aiko. "Ahhh" she repeated, Aiko sighed again for the upteenth time that day and opened her mouth. Amethyst was overjoyed and plopped a piece of meat in her mouth. Aiko chewed it as she eyed Amethyst from the side. "See it's good, this place makes the best meat!" she exclaimed, Skarlet was enjoying watching them interact as she casually ate her own food.
Skarlet closed her bedroom door, leaned against it and sighed, I've done it now, there's no way this will end well. I don't wanna hurt more people, I'm scared. She was conflicted due to her newfound closeness to them which made her feel good and her belief that she didn't deserve to feel these things. That coupled with her belief in the rumors about her, the bad luck charm. I'll only harm them in the end. I'm taking advantage of them at this point. She thought cynically as she plopped onto her bed.
Author note: I realized that I needed to find a way to force Skarlet to form relationships. This led to the creation of Aiko and Amethyst, a duo who form an interest in Skarlet as the only other Lithian adventurer in town. Amethyst being a massive extrovert and Skarlet being an Introvert, it made a good pairing I think. Also Aiko and Amethyst might be a couple lol that happened while writing, I wasn't planning or thinking about it. Just kinda happened.

“14 But the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and a distressing spirit from the Lord troubled him. 15 And Saul’s servants said to him, “Surely, a distressing spirit from God is troubling you.”
-1 Samuel 16:14 NKJV
“And it happened on the next day that the distressing spirit from God came upon Saul, and he prophesied inside the house. So David played music with his hand, as at other times; but there was a spear in Saul’s hand.
-1 Samuel 18:10 NKJV
It says SPECIFICALLY that this distressing spirit came ”FROM THE LORD”
No blasphemy intended, but sending evil spirits sounds more like work of the devil
There’s nothing good about “sending evil spirits”, how is that a “good sign work of the Lord”???
This sounds more direct and action intentional than God just “allowing/giving demons PERMISSION to attack people”……
This is the kind of stuff that is so confusing about God and makes us want to distance ourselves from religion, especially without any rock solid evidence this is all actually real…….
It’s so hard for me to believe that God (if He really does exist) is actually not just good, but PURE AND HOLY. He sounds kind of, evil, and psychotic, like a dictator.
For years I thought God created me solely to torture me and watch me suffer, and this made me want to actively and intentionally defy Him, even if He was real. I viewed God as my enemy, and I’m having trouble not still thinking that.
I’ve felt what I feel are evil spirit presences, but I never feel that same strong presence of God.
Sometimes I can’t help but think the devil is actually stronger, or God just doesn’t care, maybe He just gave HIS WORLD THAT HE CREATED to Satan (why else would He allow Him to be in it or interact with it at all? Makes no sense for God to give Satan access to HIS CREATION/WORLD, especially after rebelling against Him……
I don’t even know what’s real or what’s been happening to me, there seems to be no solid determination of it’s actually “spiritual”, or “mental illness” or some kind of, mind control or brain hijacking by some secret unknown third party……
Life doesn’t make much sense, so really anything could be true, anything is just as possible/likely/realistic as anything else……
My desires and views don’t even align with God. But I don’t think all of my ways are immoral, and I don’t want them all to change. I don’t want to have kids but (as a 28 year old virgin who just couldn’t get any girls/women but definitely wanted to) I DO NOT WANT TO REMAIN CELIBATE.
I also don’t really see marriage happening before, sex……
I’m beyond lost, if I did somehow make it into Heaven I (and millions of other human souls) would probably just get kicked out and into Hell/the Lake of Fire eventually at some point anyway. How are we not going to slip up for the rest of ETERNITY????
Satan, and one third of the angels got kicked out of Heaven, don’t you think humans are even more imperfect than angels???
I was never meant to be with God, I belong with the devil in Hell. I’m evil by nature. Heaven sounds kind of boring anyway, and like, slavery…..
I couldn’t make it there anyway.
Even Mr. Beast, as generous and caring as he is, won’t make it there if he doesn’t believe in God.
God just has unrealistic standards for what HE KNOWS are imperfect and sinful by nature.
I was rejected by this world, and I shall be rejected by God too. I will burn for eternity.
God just has criteria that I’m incompatible with.
If the TRUE word of God has simply not been communicated/shared with humanity, God should have made it so that it was. He’s not very clear about anything, like He really just wants people who can pass an unreasonable test/tricks to be saved, and laugh at the rest of us for being “too stupid” to figure out and pass His test.
I just don’t get it.

is the sept 2023 pic of her the last nip slip of her?? im getting worried shes not purposefully nip slipping anymore its been over 6 months LMAO

Our local mall has been dwindling in popularity for years (as I assume is the case with malls all across America), but during the pandemic it took a drastic hit from which it never really recovered. The hours of most stores have decreased drastically from what was the norm five or so years ago. I knew this, but in an effort to maximize time running errands recently, it slipped my mind and I found myself approaching the doors of said mall’s Ulta around 10:45 a.m.
It was immediately obvious that they were still closed, both from the literally closed doors and from the clearly visible signage that indicated they would open at 11:00. I figured it would be a bigger waste of time to leave and come back, so I sat on a nearby bench to wait for them to open.
Over the next 10 minutes, a group of 4 different, separate boomer women arrived. Each of them approached the closed doors, tugged on the handle, then turned to the rest of us and said something along the lines of “They’re not open!” One even knocked on the door in an effort to grab the attention of the sales associate who was clearly sweeping the floors.
The collective outrage of these women was like nothing that I have ever experienced. Their complaints ranged from accusing the sales staff of being too lazy to open the store at a reasonable time, blaming the decreased hours on our current President ruining the country, claiming that the store no longer keeps regular hours and “they were open at 10:00 when I came last week!”, “they could just open the doors, they SEE us standing right here, there’s nothing stopping them!”, to one woman even shouting at the door “I drove two hours to get here, this is ridiculous!”
I held it together pretty well, but that last bit had me snorting with laughter. They turned to me and I said, “You’re right, this is ridiculous.” A few of them smiled at me, thinking they’d gained another ally, until I continued, “You’ve been waiting less than 10 minutes for a store with clearly posted hours to open AT THE TIME THAT THEY HAVE POSTED AS THEIR OPENING TIME…but your argument is that they should just open up whenever you happen to arrive? NOBODY in there gets paid nearly enough to deal with this.”
VERY surprisingly, the remainder of our wait was spent in silence.

Evening, your majesties, lords and ladies. Everyone talks about makin some thicccq ass green smithing, which I tried, but I run out of resources quick as a greased money on a slip and slide covered in personal lubricants. Any tips? I would like to make love to women and earn denars 😁

Was there any place better than the trade quarter of a town?
Here, men walked around with pockets full of things that went 'click' and 'clank', and the women wore bright and shiny things that dangled from their ears or from their wrists as light as a rain drop and as pretty as a diamond. The stalls had a vast assortment of items, from loaves of bread to loads of gems. And even the floor contained a few valuables, carelessly dropped from a table or slipped from a pocket.
It was in this trade quarter that she felt most comfortable, even though the people there were all so much bigger and so much taller than her. Being so small would work to her advantage, and so would having such fine fingers as could slip into a keyhole to turn a lock. She went through the crowd like a breath of wind, touching no one, but touching their pockets frequently. When she put a hand into their clothing, it was done so carefully that if noticed they would think it was their own hand in there and not that of a pickpocket's. That was the easiest bit of her job, and plucking things from belts too, but taking earrings and necklaces was a bit more than a trifle.
No one had noticed her, except occasionally to look down and sneer at her. These were elegant people, and they did not like the sight or the smell of a woman with dirt on her face and calluses on her palms. She did not think herself dirty, no more than anyone thought a bunny rabbit was dirty, and a bunny rabbit certainly had more germs on it than she had on herself. She was cute, and rather charming when she wanted to be, when one got to know her a bit.
Finished with a day's work, she went home. And 'home' was down a few tight alley ways, across the sewer, around the pig pen, and beside the cantina. She lived in the dirtiest and smelliest of places, where all the city's poor and starving were gathered. She was raised in this place, and she might die in this place too. But, she would not die empty-handed.
"What have you been doing? You've been out later than usual," her sister said, always looking out for her.
"Doing some shopping," she said, and she put her hand into her pocket and netted out some of her treasures. She smiled up at her sister, very proud of what she had done.
"I told you, no more stealing! We have to stick to our plan! We're leaving on a ship tomorrow morning, and if you get caught they'll kill you!" Always looking out for her, but always nagging her too.
"You're not the only one who can work, you know!" she protested, and she put the things back into her pockets.
"My 'work' is legal, carrying boxes at the port, serving tables at the cantina, running messages from here to there," it was legal, but it was not enough to feed two mouths, or even one. "If you want to steal, then steal bread. The guards won't kill you over bread... usually."
"Whatever," she said. "I'm knackered. Goodnight," she went to bed in a small space in the corner of their one-room home, and her sister let her be for now.
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Hello! I'm Raven, a 27-year old writer and roleplayer of many years. Today, I'm looking for someone for a character-driven adventure story.
I am a native English speaker, and prefer you be too, or at least proficient enough in the language. I want literacy, and that means both detail and some length to our posts. If you are not literate, not detailed, and cannot write at length, then this will not work.
I want us to both contribute to the worldbuilding of our setting. I would most like a science fiction or fantasy setting, but we can figure out the details together. We can figure out what fantasy races there are, or alien species. We can figure out what kind of weapons are available, and the level of technology. We can name some of the important factions and countries. And so on.
I would like us to take time crafting our characters. Describe them in detail. Create an interesting backstory for them. If necessary, we could create in-depth character sheets for them.
Please message me with some substance. If you'd like, tell me what you think of my character (the plucky and adventurous pickpocket from the above excerpt) and her sister. Tell me what ideas you have for your own character, and what ideas you have for the setting. Thanks!

I'm unsure exactly where to start or what specifically I'm looking to get feedback on here. But I do know I need community right now. People to relate to.
I have been through a whirlwind of sh*t lately, and have lost so many people in my life. Let me try and cover some context bases here as quickly as possible to try and lay out the level of crap going on in my head.
4 years ago I moved an hour and a half away from where I lived most of my life. I had bonded with my (unrelated) aunt, who felt like an angel sent from heaven to me. She was the most warm, open, loving, kind and giving person to me. She would talk with me for hours, validate me, get me out of the house, show me care and love in a way that didn't feel patronizing. I needed it. I haven't talked to my mother in 6 years, and probably won't ever again. My aunt was healing parts of me. And making this move was so monumental to me. I had never lived anywhere outside of the same 30 minute radius I was used to. (I now realize the autistic pieces that made this an insanely huge move for me as well)
She and I had bonded while we both were still living in my hometown. My aunt said to come live with her and my cousin for a while, and get started in this new city where she was getting ready to move to. I took a leap and went. I needed her. My cousin and I have had a rocky relationship, but it wasn't something that really concerned me at the time. I hadn't talked to her much in years.
The 'panini' hit - and my "probably 2 months" of living with them turned into a year. Made things even more interesting and bonding for me, given the context of what was happening globally, and that I had a major injury during this time as well. My aunt took better care of me, physically and mentally, than I have ever had anyone take care of me for anything.
My cousin had a dance studio. I had watched videos of it for months before moving out there. It was a big part of what enticed me to move. Community. Strength. Hope. Friends. I started dancing there and my world immediately got so much bigger. I met a lot of women who were really interested in getting to know me. Something I wasn't used to. I suddenly had way more people in my life than I ever had, ever.
Living with my cousin though, was awful. She hated that I had such a close relationship with her mother. It was basically an immediate and constant power struggle or something where she would try and create distance between us in some way. Complaining about how I exist in the house, how I communicate, how dramatic i am, how i spend my OWN money, who I talk to, how "im not trying" to get a job in the middle of a global event and a major injury... She is a textbook narcissist. I've had many people tell me she is probably jealous of my authenticity, amongst other things. Dealing with narcs isn't new to me. And I knew she was one. But I got to see just how bad it was first hand. She was relentless with the back handed comments, those little stabs narcs do that will only register to you because they are catered to you. I did everything for them. I was basically a house maid. I was always helping with anything I could. I tried to contribute constantly to my cousin's business to keep her off my back. I basically became her little task mule. But she still treated me like garbage and wanted me to know my place. It really started to strain my relationship with my aunt, and I resent my cousin for it. Did then, and still do now.
After almost a year of living with them, I got a job and then found a boyfriend. The first one I'd had in 5 years. My cousin was jealous. She ran out and got a boyfriend - it seemed like a reaction to me, and others. I ended up moving in with my boyfriend about 7 months into our relationship. We had a 3brdm townhouse we were renting. And he had the cutest cat that I fell completely in love with. He had definitely become my support animal. I was making lots of friends and seemingly had everything. I felt great. My cousin hated it. She then had a big social blowup in her own life - where I learned that so many other people were hurt by her like I was. She ran a studio that thrived on boosting people's confidence... so when people started coming out of the woodwork about this, it was by the dozens, basically. And she was mortified. Rightfully so. But... hard for me to feel bad when she has repeated that pattern of treating people poorly for over 2 decades of her life.
She decided to ruin my birthday that year by picking a fight with me 3 days before the SURPRISE she was instrumental in planning...? There was a lot of back and forth in our communication. It followed the same pattern I feel like I'm used to. Where I feel agitated and get my back up because I know I'm being treated unfairly. But hold in any of my emotional dysregulation as I try to address the situation objectively. But the narc never plays ball, and my buttons get pushed on purpose. My attempts at keeping my regulation in check started failing, and I lost it on her. I told her I don't know how she sleeps at night, that this is why people dont like her, etcetc. I was also crying and my voice was very loud at times. This caused her, and my aunt to basically question my sanity. And the idea of losing my aunt as a result of my big feelings felt awful, to say the least. As I thought about the situation, the more I saw that this was a pattern in MY life as far as losing connections go. This is what prompted my research on autism. I had already been exploring my ADHD dx at the time, which had come first.
I DOVE into my research and in a few weeks had established that Im autistic. Of course the research didn't stop there. But I had reached the point of wanting to talk to my aunt about it. And my partner. But no one believed me or wanted to hear about it. In all of their minds, I was looking for "excuses for my behaviour". My partner took their side, too. In hindsight I should have left him right then and there. All of them, for that matter. But I had just made the biggest move ever in my life. My "new life" had just started. And I was terrified of being alone. My aunt never warmed up to the idea, and had been fed so much BS from my cousin now that I wasn't living there anymore, that the relationship became a dud. It utterly destroyed me, and still does. I resent my cousin a lot for how she treated me and the situation, but with time I can now also see that it may not have mattered - because my aunt has shown such little understanding anyways, and is ultimately in charge of herself. And she chose to let me down when I needed her most. The relationship definitely couldn't continue so long as I had conflict with my cousin. And I had reached the end of my rope dealing with her narcissism. So that was done with both of them. I was crushed.
Now I was feeling this way while living with my partner who doubted me, and was on the side of others also doubting me. I should have left him. But for two years I stayed. I was so burnt out and so hurt. I could barely eat or function. I lost weight and was forcing myself to have those baby fruit squeezies. I had to leave my job. He swore he would support me. I agonized for weeks over that decision. And then on top of leaving that job, I ended up having to take legal action re: work accommodations. I felt like I was constantly fighting for my life, and it was never ending. And I always had to prove something to people. I felt very alone and turned to social media for autistic community. It helped me a lot, and probably saved me. My partner was abusive, and I later learned was also a narc. I was totally fooled.
I felt trapped in every area of my life - except - a bunch of girls who also felt burned by my cousin ended up starting a studio of their own. I danced there with them for over 2 yrs while I lived with my partner. It was my one escape and place to feel safe. They knew my pain. When I tell you I loved this community......... I can't put it into words. I latched on.
I'm leaving out a lot of trauma context here with the individuals I've mentioned in my story, but the post is already insanely long. I hope I'm painting a picture. But let's fast forward to last summer. My relationship with my partner was on a steady decline since learning about my ND brain. He basically pretended to get on board, but never really learned anything. He "let" me read him 2 articles one day, FINALLY, while he was playing video games and half listening. And I bought him "Unmasking Autism" - when he ASKED me to get him a book (youtube videos and tiktoks that perfectly explain things were not the way to get through to him, he said, despite it speaking well to me) - This book sat and collected dust for months. He finally read like 20 pages at one point after a fight when he felt guilty.
He did not understand (nor try to) some of what I feel are the most basic things about autistic people. He would yell at me about how it is MY PROBLEM NOT HIS. We had started sleeping in separate rooms because he would make an issue every night when I would ask for the light and sound on the tv to be reduced or turned off while we were sleeping, etc. I also did not trust him, knowing in the back of my head that he didn't ACTUALLY support me. Emotionally or otherwise. I convinced myself that he loved me, though. Because why would he stick around otherwise? Something he made sure to throw in my face often. "Any other guy would have run for the hills ages ago". He would tell me how me and my family members (also ND and struggling) are useless members of society, etc.
I remember I got to the point of recording his hours of yelling at me so that I could listen to them back later and try to understand what the hell was going on. What I was doing wrong. They were only for me, and I always deleted them after. Now I wish I hadn't.
I got to a point where I guess I finally started to come to my senses. I got a part time job that was working for me, and my small art business was doing well. I started asking for more respect and understanding from him. I wasn't getting it. Things continued to sour. I realized the real reason he was still around -- he was taking advantage of me.
I was his "wife". He would refer to me this way, despite us not being married. I would plan family events. Clean the house. I would make his lunches. Do his shopping. I registered his freaking business for him. I massaged him basically every night. I got to the point of even VOLUNTARILY putting a chore board on the wall, where I would record daily what I was getting done while I wasn't working, so he could see. And... He was constantly borrowing money from me. Despite telling me he would support me, encouraging me to leave my job, and bragging endlessly about his own supposed success and money that was "coming in soon" - here I was, lending him money off of my line of credit. So he could fix his vehicle. Pay his employees. These are the things I was told, anyway.
Things got bad. I found out he had been in contact with my aunt and cousin. Probably the whole time. How did I find this out? When he left a birthday card from them addressed to him for me to find. I had a meltdown, naturally. He wasn't home when I found it. But evidently knew I would freak out about it, and had set it up that way, because next thing I know, I see his coworker outside circling the block "watching the house". Apparently I'm "unpredictable" and "scary" when I have my meltdowns. He had seen me throw my phone at the wall, spit on the floor, and drop a glass into the sink when I was in meltdown. He saw bad ones. But he knewwww there was no actual chance of me hurting any person or their possessions, that's not me. But he set that trap for me and had me watched for a week while he was away working out of town. I ended up hiring last minute movers and got the hell out of there with all my things while he wasn't home. He came home to an almost empty house. Because I was the one who brought and/or bought everything in the house anyways. I left him what he brought in, what he paid for, and what we had agreed he would buy from me (we knew we were done). But the house was still rather empty.
I'm still trying to collect a GREAT sum of money from him through legal processes. He is running and making it hard for me. Financial and legal abuse on top of everything else.
I learned after moving out about an INSANE amount of his pathological lying over the course of our 3 years together. I was never his only woman on the go. He had cheated on me a ton. He already had his new girl lined up. He lied about past relationships (he was the cheater, not them). Some lies I learned were about things as small as how he got the cat?? Very scary thing to learn about someone you trusted for that long through the most traumatic time of my life. The person I thought I was with didn't exist at all. I had made him up in my mind. An ideal. And he took advantage of me. If I was able to spell out some of those details, your stomach would turn.
So I moved out alone. Packed up a whole house of stuff alone in 2 days. I had support of some of my girl friends - but not in the way I had hoped foexpected. I thought surely at least one of them would help me with my things. But my situation was too tumultuous. Everyone wanted clear of me already by that point. (Of course on top of having their own lives, which is fair, and what I told myself - but upon reflection it still feels weird to me that I didn't have help from these women who preached their support)
So now I'm living with my grandmother. In my mind, I lost everything. I had the family, the job, the guy, the confidence, the friends, the house, the money, the stability.... and slowly one by one, each of these things slipped from my hands. Before moving out, I had been working really hard on just accomplishing goals again like getting dressed 4 days in a row. My environment stability was crucial to me for that. And I lost it. In such a short amount of time I lost: my house, my support animal, my partner, my autonomy, my family connections, the city i lived in and had gotten used to, my job.... everything. Gone. SO MUCH CHANGE.
But at least I still had my friends...
I lost a lot of weight without even trying. I think chemically my body must be very confused or something. I started getting different attention from people. It gave me a surface level excuse to try and increase my own confidence. I had basically become a "character of myself" in order to just remain standing on two feet in any way. And I was aware of this at the time. I would joke about it that way with people close to me.
I got more "popular". I started a new business. I got more attractive. Better at dance, I even taught a class! (which of course people probably attached their own biases to, given my family connection) I did all of this while burnt out, angry and heart broken - i basically just kept myself busy socially and otherwise because if I didn't, I don't know what I would have done.. It was evident to everyone around me how bad my mental health was getting.
I got close with this one girl from dance that I never thought would have even considered being my friend. She was "in the in crowd". And to my surprise, we had so much in common. We bonded faster than I've experienced in many friendships. She said I would be in her wedding party. She called me her best friend. She let me stay at her place a TON, since I now had nowhere to live in the city where all my friends were. This meant I saw a lot of her relationship first-hand. We also grew close enough that I became the person she texted at 4am when her and her partner had issues. And.. they had issues. Without sharing too much about someone else's business (something I'm working on, as I equate everything as information and don't really have "privacy" myself - evidently - ) I can definitively tell you that she is not in a healthy relationship, and was not ok. She was also learning about her own ND brain, and I witnessed some very ND meltdowns. In a way I had felt like I was sent to help her or something. I really did love her as a friend, despite it only being maybe 4 months of connection altogether. Her partner is emotionally and psychologically abusive. And I was actively brought into the situation, handed the phone, and basically made mediator in their relationship. I liked them both, and didn't really mind. I felt useful and important. I AM able to view things more objectively than most, given how I think. I wanted to help. I asked her what she wanted constantly. I refused many requests along the way as well, trying to set some boundaries. But I can tell you, I did not insert myself. After everything I had just been through, dealing with this was not on my wish list. But it's easy for our mutual peers to assume that given my own trauma, and my assertiveness, that i MUST have just interjected myself inappropriately. No one can fathom how many times I was handed the phone, or asked to send a text, or to text his friend, or to screenshot this, to make sure hes not home at xyz time, etcetc... I was tired, but I loved her. I was there for her. But she decided to stay with him. Her choices are hers, but I had obviously made it clear that I didn't like the guy. So she actively pushed me away and pressed some of my trauma buttons to effectively get me out of the picture. I can logically see all of the reasoning for this, but it still hurt. Especially given that I was basically the only one with this knowledge. On social media, they are picture perfect. No one would ever guess. But this man is a narcissist too. And I sniffed him out like HOUND. And he hated it. I wanted to remain friends with her, and was willing to figure that out - but avoided a conversation with her when she expressed she expected me to apologize to him.
Because she was in the same friendship community as me, this situation bled into everything. I had other friends judging me for how I spoke to this guy. Saying I was too mean to him, etc. (I had reached out to a friend or two as a sounding board through it all)
After everything I had just overcome and been through.. After the way I buried myself in nothing else but this community after my breakup.. I had the last people remaining in my life questioning my character?? I was exhausted. Meltdowns ensued left and right with multiple of my "close friends". Im now accused and viewed by them collectively as "someone who is irresponsible with their emotions and communication, im rude AF, and do not respect people's boundaries."
I found myself in an anxiety circle with my "friends" now, as I basically relived my partner trauma through this new friend. I wanted to help her. Or at least have people have the story straight, esp for her sake. But by the time I got to trying to explain these things to my "friends", they were so exhausted of me because of the months/years I had just been through. Because I am vocal about everything, and hyperverbal. People thought I was feeding off of the drama or something. Like I wanted it. I guess I didn't seem like a reliable source.
The level of exhaustion and burnout I reached had all of my buttons so sensitive, and my meltdowns triggered easily.
I couldn't handle having other people in the community witnessing more drama in my life, while they at the same time kept me at arms length. It was a supportive group until I needed actual support beyond just keeping some of the social hierarchies and constructs together. I ended up removing dozens from my socials. I don't want any more assumptions about me or my intentions or who I am as a person, by people who don't want to see the truth of me. And people assume this is "petty drama". It guts me. It doesn't occur to anyone - the gravity of what this conflict and losing friends feels like for me. It was all I had left.
I find myself in a place in my life now where I have never felt so lonely. And shameful. I had everything and I lost it. I respected myself, and now i question myself constantly. I feel like I'm a toxic, over-emotional b*tch of a person that no one wants to deal with. My emotional dysregulation is all over the place. Everything is hard. I'm lucky If I take care of my hygiene more than twice a week.
I feel so much shame. So, so much shame. I don't feel like I can work a full time job ever again. I don't trust literally anyone. I have little respect or love for myself because I feel like the only way I could go through this much bullshit is if I actually deserved it. I don't feel like anyone will ever want me as a partner. I need too much support. I'm afraid to make new friends. I'm afraid to succeed in anything. I stopped making art. I'm still trying to get my money back from my ex.
I am spent. And have been thinking dark thoughts more often lately than I ever have in my life. If you read this whole story, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Im a wordy MF.

The realization that having the final word may have been bitter-sweet had begun to dawn on Solon, as he sat on a low brick wall near a well at the center of the market. Clearly, people like Vur'z and Sheela, those that spoke English, were hard to come across. On top of the language barrier, the mercenary had another issue. Money. His world or this one, coins were words everyone knew. And he had none of those either.
He tried to hire a guide or ask for directions out of the desert, but the mouths of the villagers were as dry as his pockets. Roaming around the village, trying to avoid attention while pondering his next move, he noticed a good number of people going in and out of a small saloon styled building. The words written on the sign in front were unintelligible to Solon, but from his knowledge of this world, the chances of it being a guild or an adventurer agency of some sort were pretty high. Pushing the doors open, strolling into the main room with the stride of an Old Western gunslinger, Solon threw away any attempts of staying under the radar.
Every head turned to him, analyzing and studying the man that walked through the door, eyes lingering on his prosthetic left arm. The soldier walked over to what he had assumed was the main desk, and before he could even open his mouth to speak, the beastfolk woman on the other side interrupted him.
"Igilin! Abatu, pa'ta marez lof." She spoke, he ears perking up and her tail moving around welcomingly. She was a jackal like creature, from what Solon could tell and her hyper behavior confirmed that.
Her voice was high pitched, assaulting the man’s ears with a relentless slew of words he could not understand. The speed of her talk took him down memory lane, reminding him of a toy phone he had a kid, one that made random noises when he'd press a button or say "I love you" at 10 times the speed.
The guild woman kept on talking, now pulling out charts and several guide books, pointing her clawed finger and flipping pages. Solon exhaled loudly, before giving her the thumbs up with his good hand and turning to leave, when something caught his eye. A bullet board on the other side of the room, covered all over with countless quest requests and offers. One paper stood out from the bunch. A large drawing of a beastfolk child, along with several scribbled under which was a nice coin offer. To the mercenary, it was common knowledge that two things were universal on any world. Bounty posters and missing people posters. And this one was of the latter.
He pulled the poster off the board, looking over it once more. The offer indeed was enough to entice any man, just by the number of zeros written on the page. Solon looked up at the sky as if thanking God for the intervention. He'd seed the person on the poster before, the screaming beastfolk boy that Vur'z was transporting in his caravan. Clearly whoever the boy was taken from would pay a pretty penny to have him back. Something did bother him about the situation however. With an offer so lucrative, the was no chance the poster would be left hung for that long without anyone taking on the bounty. Vur'z sons were strong young men, but they were far from an issue when it came to a group of adventurers. That odd suspicion was further solidified by all the stares the man felt drilling into his back. The guild patrols gave him dirty looks as he rolled up the poster and stuck it under his cloak, in his back pocket and went back out on the street to find Vur'z.
Solon wandered the village until sundown, until he finally stumbled across the resting spot for trade caravans. He was hungry and quite in a sour mood, walking over to the wagons without a word. Sedef spotted him first, sending his 3 brothers to go and fetch their father while he tried to deal with the mercenary.
"Solon! Nice seeing you again so soon." Sedef said, walking over to the man.
"Where's your old man Sedef?" Solon asked, walking past the guard.
"He went to fetch supplies from the market. Shouldn't be long before he's back." The young man replied. "Would you like to wait for him here?"
The young man felt uneasy, his own inability to simply tell the mercenary to piss off didn't sit well with him. He was the best hand to hand combatant in his little village, but even with that, Sedef knew that if he were to swing at the soldier, it would end badly. So he swallowed his pride and decided on a more friendly approach.
"Yeah, if you don't mind." Solon sat down, his stomach growling with hunger.
The two men sat in awkward silence for a while, before finally Vur'z appeared around the corner. "Ah, Solon. I see Lady Sheela is not with you. What can I do you for?" Spoke the slaver.
With his mechanical arm, the soldier pulled out the poster and showed it to Vur'z. The other one seemed oddly relieved. "Oh, you're here for that? Sad to say I already handed him over."
Solon sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose in frustration. "So, where is it?"
"Come have dinner with us. If you're serious about getting the kid, you'll need some info about where he's been taken and by who first." Vur'z patted the man on the back, inviting him to the wagon.
***
"What's the situation?"
The elven scout turned around swiftly, almost jumping out of his own skin from fright. "My Lady." He placed his hand on his chest to calm his heartbeat. "I beg of you, do not sneak up on me that way."
General Eirlys hid a smile, before focusing her eyes towards the squad of invaders walking through the woods, setting up a defense perimeter. The Vatur kingdom has been struggling with containing the invading humans, especially when it came to portal control. Having multiple wild portal gates just outside the borders of the elven forest made it very hard to prevent humans from breaching from the other side. Countless skirmishes had broken out since the humans first captured the largest portal and make it their outposts. The Iron Fortress that blew a hole through the, now almost fully healed, Home Tree still stood tall and was heavily protected. The smaller gates were less guarded so the elves managed to take those back within a few months, as the invading murder apes seemed not too keen on dying over those strategic points.
However, it seemed that the enemy had now set their sight on the second largest gate and begun turning it into an outpost. The worked tirelessly, day and night, fending off occasional elven raid parties sent by the Vatur kingdom with ease. The motion detecting turrets proved to be the biggest issue that elves could not overcome. As soon as they would get within range, even under the cover of night, the machines would mercilessly shower them with bullets until they were gunned down.
Desperate, Princess Claudia requested the presence of the kingdoms most decorated general, Eirlys Atteris. A warrior known for her outstanding strategic prowess, merciless approach to combat and the ability to turn even the spineless of elves into soldiers worthy of serving the kingdom. Within weeks of her arrival, she managed to push the expansion of the murder ape outpost back within range of their turrets and lock them in a stalemate. That gave the elven troops enough morale boost to believe that victory was possible. However, to the general, the behavior of the enemy told a completely opposite story. The human invaders seemed too content to stay within the confines of the stalemate and not expand the outpost further, as they have been doing thus far. Even their establishing of defense perimeters seemed to be oriented around doubling, if not tripling the defenses of the already established outposts borders rather than a preparation for a counter assault.
"They seem to be doubling the defenses again. This is the third day in the row that they turn the portal on. The reinforcements coming through however aren't really numerous. If they are mounting a counter attack, they will need a lot more manpower than this, even with their equipment, to breach into the forest." The scout replied.
"Something doesn't sit right with me about this entire thing." Eirlys thought to herself.
The humans seemed to be moving around, tinkering on some stationary devices, hooking them up to the portal. Most of them that came through the gate didn't even seem like military personnel, if uniform and lack of weaponry was something to based such an opinion on.
"My Lady." A tap on the shoulder interrupted the general from her train of thought. "Permission to speak freely?"
"Go ahead."
"I am Amara Lindwysp, I served under Lord Eothen and Lady Claudia." Said the scout.
"And?" Replied the general.
"I have seen this before. The night his Majesty lost his life and her Majesty her legs." Amara continued. "These people aren't soldiers, they are..." She searched her mind for the right word. "Engineers."
"Engineers?" The other scout butted in.
"Yes. That's what the murder apes call them. They are in charge of the equipment. They were there the night the Iron Fortress breached the gate."
"The Iron Fortress..." Mumbled the general, turning her gaze back to the encampment, observing the humans work and set up various equipment. "But this gate is too small for another Iron Fortress to pass through."
"That may be so my Lady, but the devices they are setting up are designed to generate massive amounts of energy to keep the gate open for an extended period of time. I cannot be certain what they are up to, but they are priming that portal to be open for a while. Divines only know what sort of contraption they plan on ushering through it." Amara said.
The look on the scout’s face gave the general everything she needed to know about the gravity of the situation. There was not a single lie in the girl’s words. Something like this should not be dismissed.
"So, what are we to do? You've been there. Tell me." Eirlys said, catching the girl off guard.
"Oh uhm. I don't believe I am fit to advise you on what our best course of action is my Lady." The elf replied, losing her composure for a second.
"Not the time for humility or modesty Amara Lindwysp!" The general said coldly. "You've been there. You best know what went wrong with the assault on the Iron Fortress. Now, for the sake of the kingdom and your comrades, speak."
Amara took a deep breath, steeling herself. "The devices that shoot, they follow movements. Even through rain and fog. Illusion spells don't work them either. If we get in range, they will mow us down before we even can get off a single arrow."
"That I am well aware of. Tell me something that I can actually use."
"Yes, yes, my apologies. Hitting them with explosive spells from outside of their range should do the trick, as they do not appear to track any movement that isn't actual enemy troops. They do not seem to be activated by arrows that fly past them, nor birds or any other critters I've noticed move within their range." The scout continued, trying her best to remember everything she knows about the enemy.
"Devices they are setting up, they're the ones keeping the portal gate open for a long time. If we take out those, it should close before they pull whatever they plan to, through the gate. And I don't see..." She focused her eyes on the encampment, as if searching for something amidst the enemy. "...any warhounds."
"Warhounds?" Eirlys raised an eyebrow quizzically.
"Yes, my Lady. It was a one-armed, one-eyed human that ended the life of Prince Eothen that night. It had a metal left arm. Apparently, those soldiers are called war hounds and are here to exterminate the local population before the larger troops can move in."
"Gods, what a barbaric species. You'd think them demons in human skin, rather than actual humans." The other scout said in shock.
"I see. Do not omit anything scout." The general added.
"That is all I know my Lady." Amara bowed her head.
***
"So, the gladiatorial arena?" Solon asked, leaning against the wall of the wagon.
With his stomach full of food, the mood of the man improved significantly. Vur'z nodded.
"Yes. But don't think you can just whisk the kid away. The arena is situated under the village and it's a pay to enter type of deal. Steep price indeed." Explained the slaver. "And you, my friend, stick out like a sore thumb in these parts. There isn't a single human in this village, much less one with your description. Whispers are going around already, about you taking the poster and accepting the quest to find the missing kid by doing so."
The human nodded, rubbing his beard with his good hand.
"And the event orchestrator has a lot of financial influence over the adventurers that are regulars in this village. So, keep your head on a swivel else you might a dagger to the back." The old man warned.
"I see. Well, Vur'z, I'd best be heading now. I'd have for you and your sons to catch strays because of me. Just point me in the right direction and I'll be on my way." Solon got up, shook the man’s hand and dusted off his pants and cloak.
"They are at the Crooked Claw's inn. In the basement, that's where the underground arena is and also where the gladiators are being kept." Vur'z replied, shaking the human’s hand in return. "I wish you the best of luck."
As solon turned to leave, Kopak stopped him. "Here, take this. It's not much, but it'll be of use to you, I hope."
The slaver trader’s son handed an old hatchet to Solon. A simple bone handle with an obsidian blade. The mercenary accepted the gift and placed it on his belt, it would be of use more than just to rely on hand-to-hand combat and his metal arm. "Thanks kid. You boys don't give your old man too hard of a time. So long."
With that, the soldier headed down the street and disappeared out of sight once he rounded a corner.
***
The entire village seemed devoid of life once the sun went down. As the ringed moon illuminated the empty streets, Solon could not help but feel watched. He did not even try to confirm if the feeling was true, knowing that playing oblivious would give his stalker more window to slip up. Following directions given by Vur'z, he eventually found Crooked Claw's Inn. The place was crowded, mostly with adventurers and some village folk, though something about them seemed odd. A good number of them, including the barmaids, seemed to survey the surroundings at regular intervals, as if on the lookout for something.
Thanks to his left eye implant, Solon didn't have to risk getting too close to the windows or doors to see inside, choosing to instead survey from the roof of a small house across the street. The front door was out of the question. Solon waited for the crowd inside to slowly get drunk, before making his move. He snuck behind Inn, slipping inside through the back entrance. Even the vigilant adventurers and barmaids have dulled their senses with hours of alcohol and loud music, so Solon did not have to be too stealthy. As long as he was not in direct line of sight, he didn't have to worry too much. The two cooks he found in the kitchen, since that's the room that the back door lead directly towards, did not seem to care about him being there. One of them sat on the floor, seemingly exhausted, while the other struggled to finish the few remaining orders for the intoxicated, rowdy patrons in the main dining hall of the inn.
Hiding his metal arm under his cloak and his shining left eye under the hood, Solon put his best mute impression, mumbling and making incoherent speech that meant nothing, while waving his right hand in a fighting motion. The cook on the floor took some time to understand what the man was trying to say, before figuring out that the stranger was asking for the entrance to the underground arena. Not wanting to deal with whatever was wrong with the cloaked lunatic in front of them, the cooks simply pointed to the door furthest from them on the left. It was evident they weren't paid enough to care about anything besides cooking. Solon, still engrossed in his acting attempt, thanked them with more mumbling, before rushing to the door and opening it swiftly, disappearing into the hallway on the other side, before any alarm bells went off in the heads of the cooks.
Following the long, thin, barely lit hallway, the mercenary soon found himself in a large room, looking very similar to a prison cell block. The smell of filth and moisture wafted from every direction, assaulting his nostrils. He spat on the ground, so the smell does not linger in mouth, before proceeding to sneak through the almost pitch-black room. Groaning, sniffling and occasional cough would come from different cells, though the majority of them seemed empty. Four torches attempted to light up the cell room, but their fires were dimmed, at the bring of being put out. Not that the darkness was an issue for the soldier, the implant that was replacing his left eye allowed him to see just fine in the dark.
Most cells were occupied by bones and corpses, emaciated bodies that withered away from thirst or starvation. Those that still had living prisoners inside, were occupied by beastfolk. The majority of them being of adult age and in no shape to do anything. Even his presence didn't seem to elicit any reaction from them. What was done to them, he had no idea, but they had clearly given up on life.
"This explains the lack of guards in this area. Even if these guys weren't caged, they still wouldn't even try to escape." Solon thought to himself.
Sounds of cheering and yelling came from outside the room. Finding the door, the soldier peeked through the doorway. There it was, the gladiatorial arena Vur'z spoke about. A pit, lined with something akin to barber wire, with two combatants, clearly beast folk, engaged in bloody hand to hand combat against one another. The seats placed in rows all around the pin were filled to the brim. Solon could recognize a few faces in the crowd, some from market and others from the adventurer’s guild.
With each blow exchanged, the crowd cheered and shouted. Coins pouches were passed around as the spectators made bets who would win. Women, barely dressed, walked around the crowd either passing out drinks or collecting coin from the bettors. Behind the bleachers and the crowd, several more cells lined the walls. Solon crouched, moving slow and low as to not get spotted.
The entire gladiatorial arena had a simplistic designed, working the mercenary's favor. A single hallway with cells lining the walls on one side, filled with that night's combatants, and a wall up to hip height on the other side, allowing a partially obstructed view of the main arena in the center. A single source of light hung above the arena, being the single source of light, not counting a few dim torches on the hallway’s walls. The bleachers wrapped around the pit where gladiators fought. Since all fighters were beastfolk, a ceiling of heavy metal bars was placed where the top of the arena pit met the bottom of the bleachers, to prevent any attempts at escaping of the gladiators from the pit and attacking the audience.
The ring of bleachers served as a divide between the arena pit and the cell hallway. The majority of the guards were nearest to the pit and audience, allowing Solon to sneak through the hallway without much issue, as long as he kept low and quiet.
The battle that was taking place below, from what he could hear at least, was a brutal one. Most likely fought to the death or very close to it. Growling, squealing and cheering all mixed together into noise that perfectly portrayed the brutality of the event. He looked through the bars of each cell, using his eye to quickly scan the captives inside, looking for the kid from the poster. Several cells and still no luck.
"Solon. Pssst SO-LON!" Came an all too familiar voice from the right of him.
Solon snapped his head to towards the source of the voice. In one of the smaller cells stood Sheela. The mercenary snorted, stifling a laugh.
"The almighty Dune Queen. I did not know followers get recruited from inside locked cells." He whispered.
She made a sour face at his mocking statement, before flipping him the bird. Another thing with universal meaning between both worlds. "What are you doing here?" Sheela asked, as he snuck closer to the cell.
"I'm looking for that kid Vur'z was hauling. He's got a pretty decent price for his safe return." Solon replied, quietly pulling out the poster with the kids face on it.
"Oh, and here I thought you've become a do-gooder for the sanctity of your soul." The former genie commented, before pushing her hand through the bars of the cell and pointing down the hallway, in the direction Solon had come from. "The kids over there, he's been roughed up quite a bit, since he didn't want to quiet down. He's still too small for fights, so he's not going in the pit tonight."
Solon nodded, rolling up the missing poster and putting back in his pocket. He turned around to head over to the kid’s cell. "Thanks Sheela."
Before he could properly make even a step, two long arms grabbed him by the cloak and turned him around, gripping him by the collar and holding him still. "Solon, I swear to the 7 divines, if you don't get me out of this cell, I will strangle you to death with my bare hands, right now." Sheela looked down at the man’s smug expression, speaking fast in a single breath, trying to remain whispering despite the desire to obliterate the soldier on the spot. Her golden eyes shining from the darkness, if looks could kill, Solon would be in the great beyond already.
Thanks to his implant eye, the mercenary could see the vein popping on her forehead as she glared at him.
"Alright, alright. I'm just playing with you." The shit eating grin consumed even more of his face, as the smugness in his expression threatened to reach critical levels. The former genie let go of his cloak with an exasperated sigh.
A frown took place a smirk use to be as he examined the lock that held the cell closed. He checked Sheela, from head to toe, making sure she's not in any shape that would hinder mobility.
"What? Now's not the time to be fawning over my looks Tin man." She scoffed.
"I'm checking if you are chained to the wall or anything that could prevent you from running. I can get you out, but it'll be loud. So I'll need you to send it as soon as I open the door." Solon explained, grabbing the cell door with his left hand. He looked up at Sheela, who took a step back and nodded.
His mechanical arm whirred softly before amping up. In a single powerful pull, the old lock gave way and the cell doors loudly swung open while creaking, before hitting bars and making even more noise. Sheela, the second the door banged against the bars, took off running down the hallway in the direction Solon had come from, with the mercenary hot on her heels.
"Four cells down from the entrance door!" She said, swinging the entrance door open and disappearing behind it as Solon kept on running past it towards the cell where the kid was being held.
The audience caught wind of the noise and so did the guards, so the mercenary had to work fast. Grabbing the cell doors and fully tearing them off the hinges, Solon got inside the cell. One quick look to confirm he didn't get the wrong kid and he was got to go.
The beastfolk boy on the other hand, did not share Solon's sentiment when it came to a quick escape. Believing the mercenary to simply be another one of the guards or trainers, he flew into a rage, hissing and screaming at the man, while flailing his arms, prepubescent claws out and ready to cut.
Chanting the same sleep spell incantation, he heard from Vur'z, the soldier approached the hysterical boy. Putting the little beast to sleep with a non-effective sleeping spell and a very effective right hook, Solon tossed the knocked-out boy over his shoulder and dashed outside the cell and towards the door, stopping just long enough to throw the cell door he had previously torn off, at the approaching guards.
***
General Eirlys and her troops were already cutting it close with their planned assault. The portal gate had been open without interruption for almost half a day, with only human engineers running in and out of the portal. Observing them gave some insight at the gates themselves and how they can be used. Watching the same men go in and out multiple times, before suddenly becoming dizzy and throwing up, had Amara realizing that there is a limit to how many times one can go through a portal in a short span of time before experiencing negative effects.
The elves waited for the cover of night to launch their attack, but tension was high. No one knew what the humans were priming the portal for, but as the number of engineers reduced and the outpost seemed to finish with all necessary preparations, Eirlys understood that it all comes down to this moment.
With everyone in position, arrows at the ready, the general focused her magic. Her arrow pulled back as the head of the arrow began to glow while Eirlys chanted to herself. A sharp inhale and the arrow was let loose.
The success, entirely dependent on scout Amara's information, was evident. Striking its mark, which was one of the human motion sensor turrets, the arrow exploded, rendering the device useless.
Humans sprung to action immediately, as the elven troops rushed out the forest, getting in range to let their arrows loose. Eirlys primed a second arrow, same spell, same target, another turret down. With arrow fired, her spell casting and firing increased in speed, taking down the turrets before they could be moved or properly fortified. As the last of them went up in flames, she rushed out of cover to join her troops in storming the outpost.
The generators that powered the gate and kept the portal open were heavily fortified. Her arrows, even with explosive enchantments could not leave even a single dent on them, let alone get to what's inside. So, the second option was to storm and take over the outpost, killing anyone who tries to get in from the other side, until they figure out how to disable the machines keeping the portal opened.
Caught by surprise, humans struggled to ward off the sudden elven attack. Their over reliance on the now destroyed turrets evidently proved to be a massive flaw. However, the elves were still going up against guns, and despite having the strength in numbers and the dark night on their side, not a single one of them has yet managed to get across the defensive walls of the outpost without being gunned down immediately.
Volley after volley of arrows rained down on the outpost, pushing the humans all the way back to the portal gate. This seemed like a victory for elves at last. That was what the general wanted to believe as her troops finally broke through the defense and stormed the outpost. But they were too late.
The portal rippled, as a monstrosity of metal came through it on four legs. Looking at it, Eirlys thought it looked like a spider or a crab of sorts. Then it came, the sound nightmares were made off. The spinning of metal, faster and faster, before gunfire echoed through the night. Not single shots, not burst fire, but a continuous shower of high caliber rounds tore the elves like they were leaves.
"FALL BACK! THEY BREACHED THE PORTAL!" The general screamed, leaping back over the wall, as the second spider like machine started crossing the portal from the other side. On each side a minigun, similar to the ones the turrets had, but larger in comparison. Turrets would gun down their targets, but these would tear them to chunks. Whirring and clamoring with each step it took, the machine moved closer. The general focused her magic, firing enchanted arrow after arrow at the unholy contraption, but her attempts yielded no results.
She finally leapt back over the outpost wall and joined what remained of her troops, as they ran back to the woods for safety, without any semblance or strategy. Just a mad dash in hopes of saving their heads.
The giant metal insect followed, walking through the stone wall with ease. Once more it opened fire, this time aiming at the cover they were running towards. Bullets tore through trees with ease, crushing any hope the elves had when it came to surviving this ordeal. Eirlys stood before it, aiming her arrow at the machine, one last ditch attempt to buy her comrades time to escape.
As the second walking nightmare began breaching the portal, the general experienced overwhelming despair grip her entire being for the first time in her long life. Guns stopped firing for a moment to cool down, the heavy metal leg of the machine raised high and ready to squash her. She fired arrow after arrow, fear and helplessness sinking deeper into her heard every time an arrow would bounce off the hard shell of the machine.
"This is it." She thought.
"I hope at least some of my troops escaped."
Guns sped their rotation up again, preparing to leave only examples, not survivors. Eirlys screamed in fury as the leg of the machine began to drop down on her.
"ENOUGH!" A voice boomed through the night, shaking the ground and the general to her core.
The machine stopped, just for a second, before being hit from the side by a massive rock shaped like a cone. It toppled over, its mechanical cries of death echoing for a while longer as it spilled its black, flammable blood and desperately tried to get back up. Eirlys turned to first to her right, her heart overcome with relief as she witnessed all her troops, alive and well, kneeling on the ground in reverence.
Turning to her left, she dropped to her knees to join them.
"Your Holiness."
Night became as bright as day, while a single person slowly made its way to the outpost. Her entire presence exuding an aura of power and wisdom worth millennia. Glowing like the brightest star, the leader of the High Elves came to the general's rescue in their time of need.
Simply extending her arm and pointing at the portal gate, then clenching her fist while turning her hand, the portal closed, cutting off the second machine that was slowly getting through in half. The energy feedback made the generators explode. Still, despite such an overwhelming show of force, the remaining humans in the outpost still opened fire on her.
The High Elf was not amused in the slightest.
"Perish from my sight, vile vermin." She hissed, before a ball of fire dropped onto the outpost, swallowing everyone in alive whole.
"On your feet General. I have much to discuss with your king, take me to him." The radiant woman ordered.

***
Solon caught up with Sheela, as the pair now ran through the empty village streets with a furious mob of mercenaries, adventurers and village folk coming after them.
"What are we to do? Can't run forever." The soldier said, rounding another corner in hoped of losing their pursuers.
"To the caravan resting area, that might be our only escape." The genie said, grabbing him by the cloak and running with him down yet another alley.
"What happened to the kid?"
"He'll be fine. Just a little headache when he wakes up." Solon assured her, as the boy dangled off his shoulder like a bag of potatoes while he ran.
Finally making it to the rest area, they hopped in the first wagon that seemed empty and was actually still attached to the horse like creatures that pulled it.
"Hiyah! Mush! Move, go. Cmon!" Solon yelled, pulling and moving the reigns that controlled the animals, but none of them bothered to move.
"Ooooh fuuuck!" The mercenary looked over his shoulder at the mob approaching.
Sheela grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him back into the wagon as she grabbed the reigns.
A deep breath, focusing as best possible to channel her magic, the feeling still foreign and alien to her.
"Ahk'Am! Akash, jan!" The forger genie shouted.
Like possessed, the animals jumped to their feet and began to move. A light jog turned into a mad gallop, kicking up a cloud of dust. Solon ducked as daggers and bricks flew past the wagon, thrown by the furious arena mob that was now left behind, as the wagon disappeared from sight, heading towards the desert.
"Where do we go now?" Solon asked.
"I don't know. We got out of there safe. As for where next, let's ask the kid when he wakes up." Sheela sighed and sat down.
***
(Hi. I'm back with another chapter. The support from all over is a true delight and really makes me want to keep this series going.
I want to thank Agro Squirrel Narrations for covering some of my work before, so more people can enjoy it. That goes for all other narration channels that have been given my permission to narrate some of my work.
Feel free to check me out on:
Royal Road Scribble Hub Patreon
Thank you for your kind and encouraging words, I hope you enjoy reading these as much as I enjoy writing them. Have a lovely day.)

With the summer travel season here I would like to say that as a Flight Attendant, I am sick and tired of seeing the women doing all the work when she travels with her family. She is the one with the boarding passes, knows the seats, wrangles the children, and sits with them. Meanwhile the husband/dad is sitting in a different row, kid free, having the time of his life watching a movie. The mom is taking care of the kids, has activities, snacks, and does bathroom trips. If a destination has forms, I always hand it to the dad (small act of micro feminism lol). And the response is always “oh you can give it to my wife, she knows everything!” UGH! Oh and don’t even get me started on the ones who sit in First Class and leave their family in the back.
It’s very rare (sadly) to see men on the aircraft who not only sit with their kids, but are attentive to their needs. I HATE how it always falls on the woman. I actually complimented one father who was amazing with his 3 kids and the mom was able to relax with a drink and assist as needed. He was shocked when I told him it was a rare case and lovely to see. He said “I’m just being a dad”. So before the Not All Men crowd come and attack me, yes I know it’s not all men, that goes without saying.
Ladies, I am begging you. If you are going on a family vacation this summer, set some travel expectations on how you can tackle the plane ride with your partner, so it’s an enjoyable experience. You do not have to do all the work. I hate to see it.
But if you are doing all the work and you’re on my flight, I will slip you some wine (or any bev of your choice), and snacks from the snack cart for you & the kids, on me!
EDIT: I would like to add that you are able to bring Milk for your baby through TSA. You can also bring food, like full on meals as well (no drinks). I feel like a lot people don’t know this ❤️.
The angry men have found my post, oh no!

I lost my job a couple months ago when the entire business I worked for abruptly went bankrupt and shut down. To make ends meet, I started driving for Uber late into the night. It was about 3:30 or 4 AM when I made the last drop-off on the night it happened.
The passenger was a strange, quiet man with a greasy T-shirt. His brown eyes looked flat and dead. I glanced into the rearview mirror as I dropped him off at a Victorian house in the middle of nowhere, making sure he left my car so he could wander off and wear a mask made of human skin or whatever people like that did on their days off. The house looked like something from a horror movie, all sharp turrets and dark windows with a blood-red exterior.
Dawn came early that day, a cancerous orange sky looming overhead. Needles of rain abruptly started falling sideways. Tired and hungry, I kept an eye out for somewhere to stop and eat as I drove through the filthy torrents of rain. I turned on the GPS for my apartment and sped through the dirty, empty streets of Frost Hollow.
Dark, dead trees rose overhead on both sides of me. I drove on for a few minutes, seeing only a single house far back at the beginning of the road that entire time. I didn’t know this area, so I was pleasantly surprised when a brightly-lit diner appeared on my left. A blinking sign cheerily read “Happy’s Restaurant”.
The parking lot was entirely empty except for a truck that looked like it had been there for weeks. Leaves and dirt covered its windshield, and someone had written “CLEAN ME” in the grime in giant letters. I heaved a deep yawn as I pulled into the parking lot. I tried to check my phone, but there was no internet or service all the way out here. I hoped they had Wi-fi in the diner.
Happy’s Restaurant had enormous plate-glass windows wrapping around the sides and front of the restaurant. Light burst out onto the dark parking lot in harsh white streams as birds chirped in the forests around me, waking up to the new dawn. The architecture of the place looked straight out of the 1950s. I could imagine James Dean going there and chain-smoking cigarettes over a burger and a coffee.
I got out of the car, heading over to the front of the restaurant where I lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. The spicy menthol tobacco gave me a sudden jolt of energy. Blinking quickly, I smoked the cigarette as quickly as I could, feeling wide awake by the end of it. I stood under the canopy of the building, watching lightning erupt like missile flashes across the sky. The street remained dead and empty. I hadn’t seen a single other person since I had dropped off the weirdo at the nearby Victorian house.
I opened the glass door of the diner, hearing a bell ring overhead. I looked into the empty restaurant, seeing its sparkling clean tables. The smell of fresh coffee rose out in fragrant waves. Shrugging, I went down and sat at a table next to a TV in the corner. It was playing some twenty-four hour news channel, talking about a mass break-out in a nearby mental asylum.
“Two patients of the Graypath Psychiatric Hospital were able to break out by murdering a doctor and taking a nurse hostage. They had apparently planned the attack for weeks, making homemade knives out of screws taken out of the walls and other contraband that went undetected. The facility is considered a maximum-security hospital, with the majority of patients considered criminally insane and held until…”
“Hey, sorry bud, didn’t see you there,” a voice called out from the back of the empty restaurant. I jumped, turning to see who was speaking.
A man came out in a streaked, dirty apron. He was incredibly fat, probably at least three or four hundred pounds. Four greasy chins hung down on his neck like the wattles of a rooster. He reminded me of a circus freak, a slug-like man whose heavy footsteps shook the ground as he approached my table. He had red hands like a butcher. His face, too, was beet-red and covered in sweat with a tiny nose in the middle and giant, rubbery lips. His nametag said, “Frank”.
“Morning,” he mumbled. “What can I get for you? Our waiter never showed up so I’m the only guy here. I’ll have to take your order and cook it, if that’s OK.” I nodded happily.
“Yeah, that’s fine. I just want a coffee with extra cream and sugar and a Reuben with fries and an extra side of coleslaw.” He wrote it down on a dirt-streaked pad he pulled from his apron, taking a very long time and writing as slowly as possible. I watched his face closely. He reminded me of a clown, but his eyes were gray, the color of steel. They seemed freezing cold, almost inhuman. There was nothing clownish about them.
“OK, bud, that’ll be right up,” he said, grinning down at me. His yellowed teeth were covered in a thick layer of filmy grime. I noticed that some in the front were broken, as if he had a habit of getting his teeth knocked out in fights. He turned around, heading back into the kitchen in his strange, waddling gait. I wondered how Frank had gotten here. There was certainly no public transportation anywhere in this part of the state. But I figured he must have gotten dropped off. I looked down at my phone, hoping to find an open Wi-Fi connection to pass the time, but there was nothing here. Sighing, I looked around the restaurant.
A creepy clown mannequin stood in the corner, holding a sign that read, “BE HAPPY. EAT THOSE FEELINGS AWAY.” Its red-and-white make-up was all sharp points and hard angles. Around its grinning mouth, the red paint formed into a pointed half-circle, accentuating the gleaming white teeth that shone between its thin lips.
A few moments later, Frank came out with a steaming hot cup of coffee and a bowl of creamers and sugar packets. He plopped them down in front of me, grunting and ambling back towards the kitchen. I smelled the odor of roasting meat and cooking oil rising from the kitchen in delicious, aromatic waves.
I couldn’t wait for my Reuben. Out of all sandwiches in the history of sandwiches, I thought Reubens were probably the most delicious. The way the corned beef mixed with the Thousand Island dressing, sauerkraut and marble rye bread made it seem like those ingredients were made by God specifically to make such a divine sandwich.
My stomach growled as I waited eagerly. I continued scanning the restaurant, listening to the hum of the TV next to me when I spotted what looked like spatters of blood in front of the swinging kitchen doors. I used to work in a restaurant when I was a teenager, a crappy little pizza place, and I remembered how the ground beef always came soaked in wet blood. I found it odd that no one had cleaned it up yet, though. It looked dried and clotted, as if it had been there for days.
The TV was still talking about the escaped mental patients when Frank brought out a giant plate of delicious, fragrant sandwich and golden fries. I could feel my mouth watering as he laid it out with a clunk on the table in front of me.
“Enjoy, buddy,” he said, giving me a sly wink. His fish-like lips formed into a faint half-smile. He turned away, and I immediately dug in.
The Reuben was probably the best Reuben I’ve ever tasted. The corned beef was perfectly cooked, the bread crisp and fresh. The fries were golden and had a nice, satisfying crunch. I wanted to compliment Frank, but he was nowhere to be seen. Shrugging, I finished the first half of my sandwich.
As I got to the last bite, I noticed something odd and crunchy in the meat. I thought it was a coin or something at first. I immediately spit out the entire wad of half-chewed sandwich onto a napkin, looking down.
In the middle of the meat sat a painted human fingernail. It was ripped-off, the bottom jagged and sharp. At that moment, I felt a sudden urge to vomit.
***
I sat there for a few seconds, simply staring, my mind racing in circles like a rat in a wheel. Was it a fake fingernail? How had it gotten into my sandwich?
I picked it up, bringing it closer to my right eye. I saw black, clotted blood and thin strands of flesh still hanging from the bottom. It was definitely not fake.
Rising quickly, I grabbed my car keys and phone off the table and started stumbling towards the door. There were no rational thoughts at that moment, just an insistent rising sense of panic and dread. That was the moment the lights at the diner cut out. An eerie, gurgling laugh floated out of the kitchen.
The cancerous yellow light of the new day was filtering through the stormy clouds. I looked through the plate-glass front door and saw a face peering in with wide, insane eyes. I recognized the man I had dropped off at the Victorian house down the road. He had carved a fresh question mark into his forehead sometime after I had last seen him. His face looked slack and empty as he stared inside, his dead, blank eyes roaming left and right, looking for someone- looking for me.
In his right hand, I saw an enormous meat cleaver streaked with fresh, dripping blood. He raised a trembling left hand and started opening the door. In the darkness and silence of the diner, I could hear every sound amplified a thousand-fold: every drop of rain hitting the roof, every thudding beat of my heart, every tiny creaking of the door as it swung open.
I heard the doors to the kitchen swinging open at the same moment. In terror, I frantically looked around, seeing the bathrooms only a few feet away in the corner of the restaurant. As silently as I could, I slunk towards them, afraid to look back. I ripped open the women’s restroom door, peeking out as I closed it behind me.
I could see the man holding the meat cleaver slowly creeping past the tables, bending over to check underneath them. I could hear him whispering to himself.
“I must baptize them in the blood and send them out into the world,” he muttered quietly. “Must find the blood… eat the body, drink the blood to see God…”
Silently, I closed the door and groped around in the dark until I found the lock. Inhaling deeply, I clicked it to the side. The subtle clicking noise seemed as loud as a gunshot in the silence.
I took my cell phone out of my pocket and turned, seeing a scene from a nightmare. Corpses littered the floor of the bathroom. A waitress in a button-up vest sat up against the wall in a corner. She looked to be in her mid-twenties with dark brown eyes, black hair and pale, creamy skin. Dozens of deep stab wounds gleamed in her chest and stomach. Her neck had been so deeply slashed that her head had nearly been decapitated.
Even worse, I saw chunks of flesh cut out of her body, chunks from the meat of her cheeks, arms, legs and fingers. I suddenly had a very good idea of where the fingernail had come from and what I had been eating. I gagged, retching.
Next to her sprawled the corpse of an old man in a business suit. His shirt and jacket had been ripped open, and a giant question mark carved deeply into the loose skin of his bird-like chest. Stuck in one eye, I saw the gleam of a wicked butcher’s knife. It had sliced the eye in half, the blade disappearing deeply into his brain and skull. The other eye stared glassily up at the ceiling.
I heard a light tapping at the bathroom door, a kind of polite knocking that someone might use if they were wondering if it was occupied. I was afraid to breathe. I spun, looking at the wooden door, the only thing standing between me and certain death at this moment.
“Is anyone in there?” a low, raspy voice asked, the same voice that had mumbled about drinking blood. “Occupado?”
“Hey, Question Mark, what the fuck you doing?” the gruff voice of Frank asked. “Did you find him?” His tone rose into one of utter excitement, like a child on his way to Disneyworld.
“The bathroom’s locked,” Question Mark replied. “I think we got a little lamb in there, ready for the slaughter.”
“Ready for the grill, you mean!” Frank said, giving an insane laugh that reminded me of the coldness of empty space. I turned, running over to the old man’s corpse. The game was up, i knew. I wrapped my hands around the sticky, blood-coated handle of the butcher’s knife. I started pulling up, but it was firmly implanted in the old man’s skull. At that moment, I heard a sound that sent waves of terror dancing up my spine: the sound of keys jingling in a lock.
A rush of adrenaline made the world brighten and my vision turn white in the harsh glare of the phone’s light. I laid the phone down on the top of the toilet and, with all of my strength, yanked up on the knife. There was a cracking noise, then a wet sucking sound as cold blood sprayed my face and neck. The knife slipped out in a rush, sending me flying back.
At that moment, the door flew open. Frank and Question Mark stood there, side by side, two grinning lunatics with knives in their hands. The orange light from the sunrise dimly illuminated their silhouettes. They looked over to where the cell phone lay on the toilet, not seeing me leaning against the back wall, breathing heavily in an animal panic. Before they had time to react, I ran forwards, the blade facing out towards my attackers.
Question Mark turned towards me at the last second as I brought the knife into his throat. It sliced easily into the flesh. His eyes widened in pain and surprise as he gurgled, choking on his own blood. He tried to bring the meat cleaver up, but his foot slipped on the slick blood coating the floor.
I yanked the knife back out, turning to Frank. I saw a flash of metal and felt something pierce deeply into the side of my stomach. A roaring pain like acid burned its way through my flesh. Screaming as warm spurts of blood shot from the stab wound, I ran at Frank with the last of my energy, stabbing upwards into his belly and aiming at his aorta in the center. We fell into each other, both critically injured. The blood burst from his ruptured artery, spurting like a firehose with each rapid beat of his heart.
His eyes rolled up in his head as he fell back, landing on the corpse of Question Mark. Staggering and leaning against the wall, I tried making my way towards the front of the store, but felt the energy draining out of me like water through a sieve. Waves of agony crashed through my body, taking my breath away. I collapsed to my knees, crawling slowly towards salvation. Frothy bubbles of blood flowed over my lips as I coughed, choking.
I heard sirens in the distance, approaching rapidly. It sounded like dozens of police cars were heading in our direction. Screaming and crying, I dragged myself towards the front door, leaving warm streaks of blood smeared across the restaurant floor. The gurgling death gasp of Frank rattled noisily behind me. I could feel my life draining out of the deep stab wound in the side of my stomach.
As I reached the door, police cars came into the restaurant parking lot with a screeching of tires. Men began running out with their guns drawn. The world went black as I reached up towards the door, wanting only to get out of this restaurant and never see this town again.
***
I woke up in the hospital a couple days later. Emergency surgery had stopped the bleeding, and many blood transfusions had saved my life. Police were waiting around my bed as I regained consciousness, frantic to ask me questions. I told them I didn’t know anything, that I had just stopped at the restaurant to eat and gotten attacked.
“We had gotten multiple missing persons reports over the last couple weeks,” the gruff homicide detective with a face like a bulldog said, “but we didn’t connect the victims to the diner until the day we found you there. Both of the escaped patients are dead, though, thanks to you.” He patted me on the shoulder. I shook my head, too weary to respond. If only they had investigated sooner, I could have avoided this entire nightmare.
But, then again, I wouldn’t have tasted the best Reuben sandwich in the universe, either.

I lost my job a couple months ago when the entire business I worked for abruptly went bankrupt and shut down. To make ends meet, I started driving for Uber late into the night. It was about 3:30 or 4 AM when I made the last drop-off on the night it happened.
The passenger was a strange, quiet man with a greasy T-shirt. His brown eyes looked flat and dead. I glanced into the rearview mirror as I dropped him off at a Victorian house in the middle of nowhere, making sure he left my car so he could wander off and wear a mask made of human skin or whatever people like that did on their days off. The house looked like something from a horror movie, all sharp turrets and dark windows with a blood-red exterior.
Dawn came early that day, a cancerous orange sky looming overhead. Needles of rain abruptly started falling sideways. Tired and hungry, I kept an eye out for somewhere to stop and eat as I drove through the filthy torrents of rain. I turned on the GPS for my apartment and sped through the dirty, empty streets of Frost Hollow.
Dark, dead trees rose overhead on both sides of me. I drove on for a few minutes, seeing only a single house far back at the beginning of the road that entire time. I didn’t know this area, so I was pleasantly surprised when a brightly-lit diner appeared on my left. A blinking sign cheerily read “Happy’s Restaurant”.
The parking lot was entirely empty except for a truck that looked like it had been there for weeks. Leaves and dirt covered its windshield, and someone had written “CLEAN ME” in the grime in giant letters. I heaved a deep yawn as I pulled into the parking lot. I tried to check my phone, but there was no internet or service all the way out here. I hoped they had Wi-fi in the diner.
Happy’s Restaurant had enormous plate-glass windows wrapping around the sides and front of the restaurant. Light burst out onto the dark parking lot in harsh white streams as birds chirped in the forests around me, waking up to the new dawn. The architecture of the place looked straight out of the 1950s. I could imagine James Dean going there and chain-smoking cigarettes over a burger and a coffee.
I got out of the car, heading over to the front of the restaurant where I lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. The spicy menthol tobacco gave me a sudden jolt of energy. Blinking quickly, I smoked the cigarette as quickly as I could, feeling wide awake by the end of it. I stood under the canopy of the building, watching lightning erupt like missile flashes across the sky. The street remained dead and empty. I hadn’t seen a single other person since I had dropped off the weirdo at the nearby Victorian house.
I opened the glass door of the diner, hearing a bell ring overhead. I looked into the empty restaurant, seeing its sparkling clean tables. The smell of fresh coffee rose out in fragrant waves. Shrugging, I went down and sat at a table next to a TV in the corner. It was playing some twenty-four hour news channel, talking about a mass break-out in a nearby mental asylum.
“Two patients of the Graypath Psychiatric Hospital were able to break out by murdering a doctor and taking a nurse hostage. They had apparently planned the attack for weeks, making homemade knives out of screws taken out of the walls and other contraband that went undetected. The facility is considered a maximum-security hospital, with the majority of patients considered criminally insane and held until…”
“Hey, sorry bud, didn’t see you there,” a voice called out from the back of the empty restaurant. I jumped, turning to see who was speaking.
A man came out in a streaked, dirty apron. He was incredibly fat, probably at least three or four hundred pounds. Four greasy chins hung down on his neck like the wattles of a rooster. He reminded me of a circus freak, a slug-like man whose heavy footsteps shook the ground as he approached my table. He had red hands like a butcher. His face, too, was beet-red and covered in sweat with a tiny nose in the middle and giant, rubbery lips. His nametag said, “Frank”.
“Morning,” he mumbled. “What can I get for you? Our waiter never showed up so I’m the only guy here. I’ll have to take your order and cook it, if that’s OK.” I nodded happily.
“Yeah, that’s fine. I just want a coffee with extra cream and sugar and a Reuben with fries and an extra side of coleslaw.” He wrote it down on a dirt-streaked pad he pulled from his apron, taking a very long time and writing as slowly as possible. I watched his face closely. He reminded me of a clown, but his eyes were gray, the color of steel. They seemed freezing cold, almost inhuman. There was nothing clownish about them.
“OK, bud, that’ll be right up,” he said, grinning down at me. His yellowed teeth were covered in a thick layer of filmy grime. I noticed that some in the front were broken, as if he had a habit of getting his teeth knocked out in fights. He turned around, heading back into the kitchen in his strange, waddling gait. I wondered how Frank had gotten here. There was certainly no public transportation anywhere in this part of the state. But I figured he must have gotten dropped off. I looked down at my phone, hoping to find an open Wi-Fi connection to pass the time, but there was nothing here. Sighing, I looked around the restaurant.
A creepy clown mannequin stood in the corner, holding a sign that read, “BE HAPPY. EAT THOSE FEELINGS AWAY.” Its red-and-white make-up was all sharp points and hard angles. Around its grinning mouth, the red paint formed into a pointed half-circle, accentuating the gleaming white teeth that shone between its thin lips.
A few moments later, Frank came out with a steaming hot cup of coffee and a bowl of creamers and sugar packets. He plopped them down in front of me, grunting and ambling back towards the kitchen. I smelled the odor of roasting meat and cooking oil rising from the kitchen in delicious, aromatic waves.
I couldn’t wait for my Reuben. Out of all sandwiches in the history of sandwiches, I thought Reubens were probably the most delicious. The way the corned beef mixed with the Thousand Island dressing, sauerkraut and marble rye bread made it seem like those ingredients were made by God specifically to make such a divine sandwich.
My stomach growled as I waited eagerly. I continued scanning the restaurant, listening to the hum of the TV next to me when I spotted what looked like spatters of blood in front of the swinging kitchen doors. I used to work in a restaurant when I was a teenager, a crappy little pizza place, and I remembered how the ground beef always came soaked in wet blood. I found it odd that no one had cleaned it up yet, though. It looked dried and clotted, as if it had been there for days.
The TV was still talking about the escaped mental patients when Frank brought out a giant plate of delicious, fragrant sandwich and golden fries. I could feel my mouth watering as he laid it out with a clunk on the table in front of me.
“Enjoy, buddy,” he said, giving me a sly wink. His fish-like lips formed into a faint half-smile. He turned away, and I immediately dug in.
The Reuben was probably the best Reuben I’ve ever tasted. The corned beef was perfectly cooked, the bread crisp and fresh. The fries were golden and had a nice, satisfying crunch. I wanted to compliment Frank, but he was nowhere to be seen. Shrugging, I finished the first half of my sandwich.
As I got to the last bite, I noticed something odd and crunchy in the meat. I thought it was a coin or something at first. I immediately spit out the entire wad of half-chewed sandwich onto a napkin, looking down.
In the middle of the meat sat a painted human fingernail. It was ripped-off, the bottom jagged and sharp. At that moment, I felt a sudden urge to vomit.
***
I sat there for a few seconds, simply staring, my mind racing in circles like a rat in a wheel. Was it a fake fingernail? How had it gotten into my sandwich?
I picked it up, bringing it closer to my right eye. I saw black, clotted blood and thin strands of flesh still hanging from the bottom. It was definitely not fake.
Rising quickly, I grabbed my car keys and phone off the table and started stumbling towards the door. There were no rational thoughts at that moment, just an insistent rising sense of panic and dread. That was the moment the lights at the diner cut out. An eerie, gurgling laugh floated out of the kitchen.
The cancerous yellow light of the new day was filtering through the stormy clouds. I looked through the plate-glass front door and saw a face peering in with wide, insane eyes. I recognized the man I had dropped off at the Victorian house down the road. He had carved a fresh question mark into his forehead sometime after I had last seen him. His face looked slack and empty as he stared inside, his dead, blank eyes roaming left and right, looking for someone- looking for me.
In his right hand, I saw an enormous meat cleaver streaked with fresh, dripping blood. He raised a trembling left hand and started opening the door. In the darkness and silence of the diner, I could hear every sound amplified a thousand-fold: every drop of rain hitting the roof, every thudding beat of my heart, every tiny creaking of the door as it swung open.
I heard the doors to the kitchen swinging open at the same moment. In terror, I frantically looked around, seeing the bathrooms only a few feet away in the corner of the restaurant. As silently as I could, I slunk towards them, afraid to look back. I ripped open the women’s restroom door, peeking out as I closed it behind me.
I could see the man holding the meat cleaver slowly creeping past the tables, bending over to check underneath them. I could hear him whispering to himself.
“I must baptize them in the blood and send them out into the world,” he muttered quietly. “Must find the blood… eat the body, drink the blood to see God…”
Silently, I closed the door and groped around in the dark until I found the lock. Inhaling deeply, I clicked it to the side. The subtle clicking noise seemed as loud as a gunshot in the silence.
I took my cell phone out of my pocket and turned, seeing a scene from a nightmare. Corpses littered the floor of the bathroom. A waitress in a button-up vest sat up against the wall in a corner. She looked to be in her mid-twenties with dark brown eyes, black hair and pale, creamy skin. Dozens of deep stab wounds gleamed in her chest and stomach. Her neck had been so deeply slashed that her head had nearly been decapitated.
Even worse, I saw chunks of flesh cut out of her body, chunks from the meat of her cheeks, arms, legs and fingers. I suddenly had a very good idea of where the fingernail had come from and what I had been eating. I gagged, retching.
Next to her sprawled the corpse of an old man in a business suit. His shirt and jacket had been ripped open, and a giant question mark carved deeply into the loose skin of his bird-like chest. Stuck in one eye, I saw the gleam of a wicked butcher’s knife. It had sliced the eye in half, the blade disappearing deeply into his brain and skull. The other eye stared glassily up at the ceiling.
I heard a light tapping at the bathroom door, a kind of polite knocking that someone might use if they were wondering if it was occupied. I was afraid to breathe. I spun, looking at the wooden door, the only thing standing between me and certain death at this moment.
“Is anyone in there?” a low, raspy voice asked, the same voice that had mumbled about drinking blood. “Occupado?”
“Hey, Question Mark, what the fuck you doing?” the gruff voice of Frank asked. “Did you find him?” His tone rose into one of utter excitement, like a child on his way to Disneyworld.
“The bathroom’s locked,” Question Mark replied. “I think we got a little lamb in there, ready for the slaughter.”
“Ready for the grill, you mean!” Frank said, giving an insane laugh that reminded me of the coldness of empty space. I turned, running over to the old man’s corpse. The game was up, i knew. I wrapped my hands around the sticky, blood-coated handle of the butcher’s knife. I started pulling up, but it was firmly implanted in the old man’s skull. At that moment, I heard a sound that sent waves of terror dancing up my spine: the sound of keys jingling in a lock.
A rush of adrenaline made the world brighten and my vision turn white in the harsh glare of the phone’s light. I laid the phone down on the top of the toilet and, with all of my strength, yanked up on the knife. There was a cracking noise, then a wet sucking sound as cold blood sprayed my face and neck. The knife slipped out in a rush, sending me flying back.
At that moment, the door flew open. Frank and Question Mark stood there, side by side, two grinning lunatics with knives in their hands. The orange light from the sunrise dimly illuminated their silhouettes. They looked over to where the cell phone lay on the toilet, not seeing me leaning against the back wall, breathing heavily in an animal panic. Before they had time to react, I ran forwards, the blade facing out towards my attackers.
Question Mark turned towards me at the last second as I brought the knife into his throat. It sliced easily into the flesh. His eyes widened in pain and surprise as he gurgled, choking on his own blood. He tried to bring the meat cleaver up, but his foot slipped on the slick blood coating the floor.
I yanked the knife back out, turning to Frank. I saw a flash of metal and felt something pierce deeply into the side of my stomach. A roaring pain like acid burned its way through my flesh. Screaming as warm spurts of blood shot from the stab wound, I ran at Frank with the last of my energy, stabbing upwards into his belly and aiming at his aorta in the center. We fell into each other, both critically injured. The blood burst from his ruptured artery, spurting like a firehose with each rapid beat of his heart.
His eyes rolled up in his head as he fell back, landing on the corpse of Question Mark. Staggering and leaning against the wall, I tried making my way towards the front of the store, but felt the energy draining out of me like water through a sieve. Waves of agony crashed through my body, taking my breath away. I collapsed to my knees, crawling slowly towards salvation. Frothy bubbles of blood flowed over my lips as I coughed, choking.
I heard sirens in the distance, approaching rapidly. It sounded like dozens of police cars were heading in our direction. Screaming and crying, I dragged myself towards the front door, leaving warm streaks of blood smeared across the restaurant floor. The gurgling death gasp of Frank rattled noisily behind me. I could feel my life draining out of the deep stab wound in the side of my stomach.
As I reached the door, police cars came into the restaurant parking lot with a screeching of tires. Men began running out with their guns drawn. The world went black as I reached up towards the door, wanting only to get out of this restaurant and never see this town again.
***
I woke up in the hospital a couple days later. Emergency surgery had stopped the bleeding, and many blood transfusions had saved my life. Police were waiting around my bed as I regained consciousness, frantic to ask me questions. I told them I didn’t know anything, that I had just stopped at the restaurant to eat and gotten attacked.
“We had gotten multiple missing persons reports over the last couple weeks,” the gruff homicide detective with a face like a bulldog said, “but we didn’t connect the victims to the diner until the day we found you there. Both of the escaped patients are dead, though, thanks to you.” He patted me on the shoulder. I shook my head, too weary to respond. If only they had investigated sooner, I could have avoided this entire nightmare.
But, then again, I wouldn’t have tasted the best Reuben sandwich in the universe, either.

I lost my job a couple months ago when the entire business I worked for abruptly went bankrupt and shut down. To make ends meet, I started driving for Uber late into the night. It was about 3:30 or 4 AM when I made the last drop-off on the night it happened.
The passenger was a strange, quiet man with a greasy T-shirt. His brown eyes looked flat and dead. I glanced into the rearview mirror as I dropped him off at a Victorian house in the middle of nowhere, making sure he left my car so he could wander off and wear a mask made of human skin or whatever people like that did on their days off. The house looked like something from a horror movie, all sharp turrets and dark windows with a blood-red exterior.
Dawn came early that day, a cancerous orange sky looming overhead. Needles of rain abruptly started falling sideways. Tired and hungry, I kept an eye out for somewhere to stop and eat as I drove through the filthy torrents of rain. I turned on the GPS for my apartment and sped through the dirty, empty streets of Frost Hollow.
Dark, dead trees rose overhead on both sides of me. I drove on for a few minutes, seeing only a single house far back at the beginning of the road that entire time. I didn’t know this area, so I was pleasantly surprised when a brightly-lit diner appeared on my left. A blinking sign cheerily read “Happy’s Restaurant”.
The parking lot was entirely empty except for a truck that looked like it had been there for weeks. Leaves and dirt covered its windshield, and someone had written “CLEAN ME” in the grime in giant letters. I heaved a deep yawn as I pulled into the parking lot. I tried to check my phone, but there was no internet or service all the way out here. I hoped they had Wi-fi in the diner.
Happy’s Restaurant had enormous plate-glass windows wrapping around the sides and front of the restaurant. Light burst out onto the dark parking lot in harsh white streams as birds chirped in the forests around me, waking up to the new dawn. The architecture of the place looked straight out of the 1950s. I could imagine James Dean going there and chain-smoking cigarettes over a burger and a coffee.
I got out of the car, heading over to the front of the restaurant where I lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. The spicy menthol tobacco gave me a sudden jolt of energy. Blinking quickly, I smoked the cigarette as quickly as I could, feeling wide awake by the end of it. I stood under the canopy of the building, watching lightning erupt like missile flashes across the sky. The street remained dead and empty. I hadn’t seen a single other person since I had dropped off the weirdo at the nearby Victorian house.
I opened the glass door of the diner, hearing a bell ring overhead. I looked into the empty restaurant, seeing its sparkling clean tables. The smell of fresh coffee rose out in fragrant waves. Shrugging, I went down and sat at a table next to a TV in the corner. It was playing some twenty-four hour news channel, talking about a mass break-out in a nearby mental asylum.
“Two patients of the Graypath Psychiatric Hospital were able to break out by murdering a doctor and taking a nurse hostage. They had apparently planned the attack for weeks, making homemade knives out of screws taken out of the walls and other contraband that went undetected. The facility is considered a maximum-security hospital, with the majority of patients considered criminally insane and held until…”
“Hey, sorry bud, didn’t see you there,” a voice called out from the back of the empty restaurant. I jumped, turning to see who was speaking.
A man came out in a streaked, dirty apron. He was incredibly fat, probably at least three or four hundred pounds. Four greasy chins hung down on his neck like the wattles of a rooster. He reminded me of a circus freak, a slug-like man whose heavy footsteps shook the ground as he approached my table. He had red hands like a butcher. His face, too, was beet-red and covered in sweat with a tiny nose in the middle and giant, rubbery lips. His nametag said, “Frank”.
“Morning,” he mumbled. “What can I get for you? Our waiter never showed up so I’m the only guy here. I’ll have to take your order and cook it, if that’s OK.” I nodded happily.
“Yeah, that’s fine. I just want a coffee with extra cream and sugar and a Reuben with fries and an extra side of coleslaw.” He wrote it down on a dirt-streaked pad he pulled from his apron, taking a very long time and writing as slowly as possible. I watched his face closely. He reminded me of a clown, but his eyes were gray, the color of steel. They seemed freezing cold, almost inhuman. There was nothing clownish about them.
“OK, bud, that’ll be right up,” he said, grinning down at me. His yellowed teeth were covered in a thick layer of filmy grime. I noticed that some in the front were broken, as if he had a habit of getting his teeth knocked out in fights. He turned around, heading back into the kitchen in his strange, waddling gait. I wondered how Frank had gotten here. There was certainly no public transportation anywhere in this part of the state. But I figured he must have gotten dropped off. I looked down at my phone, hoping to find an open Wi-Fi connection to pass the time, but there was nothing here. Sighing, I looked around the restaurant.
A creepy clown mannequin stood in the corner, holding a sign that read, “BE HAPPY. EAT THOSE FEELINGS AWAY.” Its red-and-white make-up was all sharp points and hard angles. Around its grinning mouth, the red paint formed into a pointed half-circle, accentuating the gleaming white teeth that shone between its thin lips.
A few moments later, Frank came out with a steaming hot cup of coffee and a bowl of creamers and sugar packets. He plopped them down in front of me, grunting and ambling back towards the kitchen. I smelled the odor of roasting meat and cooking oil rising from the kitchen in delicious, aromatic waves.
I couldn’t wait for my Reuben. Out of all sandwiches in the history of sandwiches, I thought Reubens were probably the most delicious. The way the corned beef mixed with the Thousand Island dressing, sauerkraut and marble rye bread made it seem like those ingredients were made by God specifically to make such a divine sandwich.
My stomach growled as I waited eagerly. I continued scanning the restaurant, listening to the hum of the TV next to me when I spotted what looked like spatters of blood in front of the swinging kitchen doors. I used to work in a restaurant when I was a teenager, a crappy little pizza place, and I remembered how the ground beef always came soaked in wet blood. I found it odd that no one had cleaned it up yet, though. It looked dried and clotted, as if it had been there for days.
The TV was still talking about the escaped mental patients when Frank brought out a giant plate of delicious, fragrant sandwich and golden fries. I could feel my mouth watering as he laid it out with a clunk on the table in front of me.
“Enjoy, buddy,” he said, giving me a sly wink. His fish-like lips formed into a faint half-smile. He turned away, and I immediately dug in.
The Reuben was probably the best Reuben I’ve ever tasted. The corned beef was perfectly cooked, the bread crisp and fresh. The fries were golden and had a nice, satisfying crunch. I wanted to compliment Frank, but he was nowhere to be seen. Shrugging, I finished the first half of my sandwich.
As I got to the last bite, I noticed something odd and crunchy in the meat. I thought it was a coin or something at first. I immediately spit out the entire wad of half-chewed sandwich onto a napkin, looking down.
In the middle of the meat sat a painted human fingernail. It was ripped-off, the bottom jagged and sharp. At that moment, I felt a sudden urge to vomit.
***
I sat there for a few seconds, simply staring, my mind racing in circles like a rat in a wheel. Was it a fake fingernail? How had it gotten into my sandwich?
I picked it up, bringing it closer to my right eye. I saw black, clotted blood and thin strands of flesh still hanging from the bottom. It was definitely not fake.
Rising quickly, I grabbed my car keys and phone off the table and started stumbling towards the door. There were no rational thoughts at that moment, just an insistent rising sense of panic and dread. That was the moment the lights at the diner cut out. An eerie, gurgling laugh floated out of the kitchen.
The cancerous yellow light of the new day was filtering through the stormy clouds. I looked through the plate-glass front door and saw a face peering in with wide, insane eyes. I recognized the man I had dropped off at the Victorian house down the road. He had carved a fresh question mark into his forehead sometime after I had last seen him. His face looked slack and empty as he stared inside, his dead, blank eyes roaming left and right, looking for someone- looking for me.
In his right hand, I saw an enormous meat cleaver streaked with fresh, dripping blood. He raised a trembling left hand and started opening the door. In the darkness and silence of the diner, I could hear every sound amplified a thousand-fold: every drop of rain hitting the roof, every thudding beat of my heart, every tiny creaking of the door as it swung open.
I heard the doors to the kitchen swinging open at the same moment. In terror, I frantically looked around, seeing the bathrooms only a few feet away in the corner of the restaurant. As silently as I could, I slunk towards them, afraid to look back. I ripped open the women’s restroom door, peeking out as I closed it behind me.
I could see the man holding the meat cleaver slowly creeping past the tables, bending over to check underneath them. I could hear him whispering to himself.
“I must baptize them in the blood and send them out into the world,” he muttered quietly. “Must find the blood… eat the body, drink the blood to see God…”
Silently, I closed the door and groped around in the dark until I found the lock. Inhaling deeply, I clicked it to the side. The subtle clicking noise seemed as loud as a gunshot in the silence.
I took my cell phone out of my pocket and turned, seeing a scene from a nightmare. Corpses littered the floor of the bathroom. A waitress in a button-up vest sat up against the wall in a corner. She looked to be in her mid-twenties with dark brown eyes, black hair and pale, creamy skin. Dozens of deep stab wounds gleamed in her chest and stomach. Her neck had been so deeply slashed that her head had nearly been decapitated.
Even worse, I saw chunks of flesh cut out of her body, chunks from the meat of her cheeks, arms, legs and fingers. I suddenly had a very good idea of where the fingernail had come from and what I had been eating. I gagged, retching.
Next to her sprawled the corpse of an old man in a business suit. His shirt and jacket had been ripped open, and a giant question mark carved deeply into the loose skin of his bird-like chest. Stuck in one eye, I saw the gleam of a wicked butcher’s knife. It had sliced the eye in half, the blade disappearing deeply into his brain and skull. The other eye stared glassily up at the ceiling.
I heard a light tapping at the bathroom door, a kind of polite knocking that someone might use if they were wondering if it was occupied. I was afraid to breathe. I spun, looking at the wooden door, the only thing standing between me and certain death at this moment.
“Is anyone in there?” a low, raspy voice asked, the same voice that had mumbled about drinking blood. “Occupado?”
“Hey, Question Mark, what the fuck you doing?” the gruff voice of Frank asked. “Did you find him?” His tone rose into one of utter excitement, like a child on his way to Disneyworld.
“The bathroom’s locked,” Question Mark replied. “I think we got a little lamb in there, ready for the slaughter.”
“Ready for the grill, you mean!” Frank said, giving an insane laugh that reminded me of the coldness of empty space. I turned, running over to the old man’s corpse. The game was up, i knew. I wrapped my hands around the sticky, blood-coated handle of the butcher’s knife. I started pulling up, but it was firmly implanted in the old man’s skull. At that moment, I heard a sound that sent waves of terror dancing up my spine: the sound of keys jingling in a lock.
A rush of adrenaline made the world brighten and my vision turn white in the harsh glare of the phone’s light. I laid the phone down on the top of the toilet and, with all of my strength, yanked up on the knife. There was a cracking noise, then a wet sucking sound as cold blood sprayed my face and neck. The knife slipped out in a rush, sending me flying back.
At that moment, the door flew open. Frank and Question Mark stood there, side by side, two grinning lunatics with knives in their hands. The orange light from the sunrise dimly illuminated their silhouettes. They looked over to where the cell phone lay on the toilet, not seeing me leaning against the back wall, breathing heavily in an animal panic. Before they had time to react, I ran forwards, the blade facing out towards my attackers.
Question Mark turned towards me at the last second as I brought the knife into his throat. It sliced easily into the flesh. His eyes widened in pain and surprise as he gurgled, choking on his own blood. He tried to bring the meat cleaver up, but his foot slipped on the slick blood coating the floor.
I yanked the knife back out, turning to Frank. I saw a flash of metal and felt something pierce deeply into the side of my stomach. A roaring pain like acid burned its way through my flesh. Screaming as warm spurts of blood shot from the stab wound, I ran at Frank with the last of my energy, stabbing upwards into his belly and aiming at his aorta in the center. We fell into each other, both critically injured. The blood burst from his ruptured artery, spurting like a firehose with each rapid beat of his heart.
His eyes rolled up in his head as he fell back, landing on the corpse of Question Mark. Staggering and leaning against the wall, I tried making my way towards the front of the store, but felt the energy draining out of me like water through a sieve. Waves of agony crashed through my body, taking my breath away. I collapsed to my knees, crawling slowly towards salvation. Frothy bubbles of blood flowed over my lips as I coughed, choking.
I heard sirens in the distance, approaching rapidly. It sounded like dozens of police cars were heading in our direction. Screaming and crying, I dragged myself towards the front door, leaving warm streaks of blood smeared across the restaurant floor. The gurgling death gasp of Frank rattled noisily behind me. I could feel my life draining out of the deep stab wound in the side of my stomach.
As I reached the door, police cars came into the restaurant parking lot with a screeching of tires. Men began running out with their guns drawn. The world went black as I reached up towards the door, wanting only to get out of this restaurant and never see this town again.
***
I woke up in the hospital a couple days later. Emergency surgery had stopped the bleeding, and many blood transfusions had saved my life. Police were waiting around my bed as I regained consciousness, frantic to ask me questions. I told them I didn’t know anything, that I had just stopped at the restaurant to eat and gotten attacked.
“We had gotten multiple missing persons reports over the last couple weeks,” the gruff homicide detective with a face like a bulldog said, “but we didn’t connect the victims to the diner until the day we found you there. Both of the escaped patients are dead, though, thanks to you.” He patted me on the shoulder. I shook my head, too weary to respond. If only they had investigated sooner, I could have avoided this entire nightmare.
But, then again, I wouldn’t have tasted the best Reuben sandwich in the universe, either.

I lost my job a couple months ago when the entire business I worked for abruptly went bankrupt and shut down. To make ends meet, I started driving for Uber late into the night. It was about 3:30 or 4 AM when I made the last drop-off on the night it happened.
The passenger was a strange, quiet man with a greasy T-shirt. His brown eyes looked flat and dead. I glanced into the rearview mirror as I dropped him off at a Victorian house in the middle of nowhere, making sure he left my car so he could wander off and wear a mask made of human skin or whatever people like that did on their days off. The house looked like something from a horror movie, all sharp turrets and dark windows with a blood-red exterior.
Dawn came early that day, a cancerous orange sky looming overhead. Needles of rain abruptly started falling sideways. Tired and hungry, I kept an eye out for somewhere to stop and eat as I drove through the filthy torrents of rain. I turned on the GPS for my apartment and sped through the dirty, empty streets of Frost Hollow.
Dark, dead trees rose overhead on both sides of me. I drove on for a few minutes, seeing only a single house far back at the beginning of the road that entire time. I didn’t know this area, so I was pleasantly surprised when a brightly-lit diner appeared on my left. A blinking sign cheerily read “Happy’s Restaurant”.
The parking lot was entirely empty except for a truck that looked like it had been there for weeks. Leaves and dirt covered its windshield, and someone had written “CLEAN ME” in the grime in giant letters. I heaved a deep yawn as I pulled into the parking lot. I tried to check my phone, but there was no internet or service all the way out here. I hoped they had Wi-fi in the diner.
Happy’s Restaurant had enormous plate-glass windows wrapping around the sides and front of the restaurant. Light burst out onto the dark parking lot in harsh white streams as birds chirped in the forests around me, waking up to the new dawn. The architecture of the place looked straight out of the 1950s. I could imagine James Dean going there and chain-smoking cigarettes over a burger and a coffee.
I got out of the car, heading over to the front of the restaurant where I lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. The spicy menthol tobacco gave me a sudden jolt of energy. Blinking quickly, I smoked the cigarette as quickly as I could, feeling wide awake by the end of it. I stood under the canopy of the building, watching lightning erupt like missile flashes across the sky. The street remained dead and empty. I hadn’t seen a single other person since I had dropped off the weirdo at the nearby Victorian house.
I opened the glass door of the diner, hearing a bell ring overhead. I looked into the empty restaurant, seeing its sparkling clean tables. The smell of fresh coffee rose out in fragrant waves. Shrugging, I went down and sat at a table next to a TV in the corner. It was playing some twenty-four hour news channel, talking about a mass break-out in a nearby mental asylum.
“Two patients of the Graypath Psychiatric Hospital were able to break out by murdering a doctor and taking a nurse hostage. They had apparently planned the attack for weeks, making homemade knives out of screws taken out of the walls and other contraband that went undetected. The facility is considered a maximum-security hospital, with the majority of patients considered criminally insane and held until…”
“Hey, sorry bud, didn’t see you there,” a voice called out from the back of the empty restaurant. I jumped, turning to see who was speaking.
A man came out in a streaked, dirty apron. He was incredibly fat, probably at least three or four hundred pounds. Four greasy chins hung down on his neck like the wattles of a rooster. He reminded me of a circus freak, a slug-like man whose heavy footsteps shook the ground as he approached my table. He had red hands like a butcher. His face, too, was beet-red and covered in sweat with a tiny nose in the middle and giant, rubbery lips. His nametag said, “Frank”.
“Morning,” he mumbled. “What can I get for you? Our waiter never showed up so I’m the only guy here. I’ll have to take your order and cook it, if that’s OK.” I nodded happily.
“Yeah, that’s fine. I just want a coffee with extra cream and sugar and a Reuben with fries and an extra side of coleslaw.” He wrote it down on a dirt-streaked pad he pulled from his apron, taking a very long time and writing as slowly as possible. I watched his face closely. He reminded me of a clown, but his eyes were gray, the color of steel. They seemed freezing cold, almost inhuman. There was nothing clownish about them.
“OK, bud, that’ll be right up,” he said, grinning down at me. His yellowed teeth were covered in a thick layer of filmy grime. I noticed that some in the front were broken, as if he had a habit of getting his teeth knocked out in fights. He turned around, heading back into the kitchen in his strange, waddling gait. I wondered how Frank had gotten here. There was certainly no public transportation anywhere in this part of the state. But I figured he must have gotten dropped off. I looked down at my phone, hoping to find an open Wi-Fi connection to pass the time, but there was nothing here. Sighing, I looked around the restaurant.
A creepy clown mannequin stood in the corner, holding a sign that read, “BE HAPPY. EAT THOSE FEELINGS AWAY.” Its red-and-white make-up was all sharp points and hard angles. Around its grinning mouth, the red paint formed into a pointed half-circle, accentuating the gleaming white teeth that shone between its thin lips.
A few moments later, Frank came out with a steaming hot cup of coffee and a bowl of creamers and sugar packets. He plopped them down in front of me, grunting and ambling back towards the kitchen. I smelled the odor of roasting meat and cooking oil rising from the kitchen in delicious, aromatic waves.
I couldn’t wait for my Reuben. Out of all sandwiches in the history of sandwiches, I thought Reubens were probably the most delicious. The way the corned beef mixed with the Thousand Island dressing, sauerkraut and marble rye bread made it seem like those ingredients were made by God specifically to make such a divine sandwich.
My stomach growled as I waited eagerly. I continued scanning the restaurant, listening to the hum of the TV next to me when I spotted what looked like spatters of blood in front of the swinging kitchen doors. I used to work in a restaurant when I was a teenager, a crappy little pizza place, and I remembered how the ground beef always came soaked in wet blood. I found it odd that no one had cleaned it up yet, though. It looked dried and clotted, as if it had been there for days.
The TV was still talking about the escaped mental patients when Frank brought out a giant plate of delicious, fragrant sandwich and golden fries. I could feel my mouth watering as he laid it out with a clunk on the table in front of me.
“Enjoy, buddy,” he said, giving me a sly wink. His fish-like lips formed into a faint half-smile. He turned away, and I immediately dug in.
The Reuben was probably the best Reuben I’ve ever tasted. The corned beef was perfectly cooked, the bread crisp and fresh. The fries were golden and had a nice, satisfying crunch. I wanted to compliment Frank, but he was nowhere to be seen. Shrugging, I finished the first half of my sandwich.
As I got to the last bite, I noticed something odd and crunchy in the meat. I thought it was a coin or something at first. I immediately spit out the entire wad of half-chewed sandwich onto a napkin, looking down.
In the middle of the meat sat a painted human fingernail. It was ripped-off, the bottom jagged and sharp. At that moment, I felt a sudden urge to vomit.
***
I sat there for a few seconds, simply staring, my mind racing in circles like a rat in a wheel. Was it a fake fingernail? How had it gotten into my sandwich?
I picked it up, bringing it closer to my right eye. I saw black, clotted blood and thin strands of flesh still hanging from the bottom. It was definitely not fake.
Rising quickly, I grabbed my car keys and phone off the table and started stumbling towards the door. There were no rational thoughts at that moment, just an insistent rising sense of panic and dread. That was the moment the lights at the diner cut out. An eerie, gurgling laugh floated out of the kitchen.
The cancerous yellow light of the new day was filtering through the stormy clouds. I looked through the plate-glass front door and saw a face peering in with wide, insane eyes. I recognized the man I had dropped off at the Victorian house down the road. He had carved a fresh question mark into his forehead sometime after I had last seen him. His face looked slack and empty as he stared inside, his dead, blank eyes roaming left and right, looking for someone- looking for me.
In his right hand, I saw an enormous meat cleaver streaked with fresh, dripping blood. He raised a trembling left hand and started opening the door. In the darkness and silence of the diner, I could hear every sound amplified a thousand-fold: every drop of rain hitting the roof, every thudding beat of my heart, every tiny creaking of the door as it swung open.
I heard the doors to the kitchen swinging open at the same moment. In terror, I frantically looked around, seeing the bathrooms only a few feet away in the corner of the restaurant. As silently as I could, I slunk towards them, afraid to look back. I ripped open the women’s restroom door, peeking out as I closed it behind me.
I could see the man holding the meat cleaver slowly creeping past the tables, bending over to check underneath them. I could hear him whispering to himself.
“I must baptize them in the blood and send them out into the world,” he muttered quietly. “Must find the blood… eat the body, drink the blood to see God…”
Silently, I closed the door and groped around in the dark until I found the lock. Inhaling deeply, I clicked it to the side. The subtle clicking noise seemed as loud as a gunshot in the silence.
I took my cell phone out of my pocket and turned, seeing a scene from a nightmare. Corpses littered the floor of the bathroom. A waitress in a button-up vest sat up against the wall in a corner. She looked to be in her mid-twenties with dark brown eyes, black hair and pale, creamy skin. Dozens of deep stab wounds gleamed in her chest and stomach. Her neck had been so deeply slashed that her head had nearly been decapitated.
Even worse, I saw chunks of flesh cut out of her body, chunks from the meat of her cheeks, arms, legs and fingers. I suddenly had a very good idea of where the fingernail had come from and what I had been eating. I gagged, retching.
Next to her sprawled the corpse of an old man in a business suit. His shirt and jacket had been ripped open, and a giant question mark carved deeply into the loose skin of his bird-like chest. Stuck in one eye, I saw the gleam of a wicked butcher’s knife. It had sliced the eye in half, the blade disappearing deeply into his brain and skull. The other eye stared glassily up at the ceiling.
I heard a light tapping at the bathroom door, a kind of polite knocking that someone might use if they were wondering if it was occupied. I was afraid to breathe. I spun, looking at the wooden door, the only thing standing between me and certain death at this moment.
“Is anyone in there?” a low, raspy voice asked, the same voice that had mumbled about drinking blood. “Occupado?”
“Hey, Question Mark, what the fuck you doing?” the gruff voice of Frank asked. “Did you find him?” His tone rose into one of utter excitement, like a child on his way to Disneyworld.
“The bathroom’s locked,” Question Mark replied. “I think we got a little lamb in there, ready for the slaughter.”
“Ready for the grill, you mean!” Frank said, giving an insane laugh that reminded me of the coldness of empty space. I turned, running over to the old man’s corpse. The game was up, i knew. I wrapped my hands around the sticky, blood-coated handle of the butcher’s knife. I started pulling up, but it was firmly implanted in the old man’s skull. At that moment, I heard a sound that sent waves of terror dancing up my spine: the sound of keys jingling in a lock.
A rush of adrenaline made the world brighten and my vision turn white in the harsh glare of the phone’s light. I laid the phone down on the top of the toilet and, with all of my strength, yanked up on the knife. There was a cracking noise, then a wet sucking sound as cold blood sprayed my face and neck. The knife slipped out in a rush, sending me flying back.
At that moment, the door flew open. Frank and Question Mark stood there, side by side, two grinning lunatics with knives in their hands. The orange light from the sunrise dimly illuminated their silhouettes. They looked over to where the cell phone lay on the toilet, not seeing me leaning against the back wall, breathing heavily in an animal panic. Before they had time to react, I ran forwards, the blade facing out towards my attackers.
Question Mark turned towards me at the last second as I brought the knife into his throat. It sliced easily into the flesh. His eyes widened in pain and surprise as he gurgled, choking on his own blood. He tried to bring the meat cleaver up, but his foot slipped on the slick blood coating the floor.
I yanked the knife back out, turning to Frank. I saw a flash of metal and felt something pierce deeply into the side of my stomach. A roaring pain like acid burned its way through my flesh. Screaming as warm spurts of blood shot from the stab wound, I ran at Frank with the last of my energy, stabbing upwards into his belly and aiming at his aorta in the center. We fell into each other, both critically injured. The blood burst from his ruptured artery, spurting like a firehose with each rapid beat of his heart.
His eyes rolled up in his head as he fell back, landing on the corpse of Question Mark. Staggering and leaning against the wall, I tried making my way towards the front of the store, but felt the energy draining out of me like water through a sieve. Waves of agony crashed through my body, taking my breath away. I collapsed to my knees, crawling slowly towards salvation. Frothy bubbles of blood flowed over my lips as I coughed, choking.
I heard sirens in the distance, approaching rapidly. It sounded like dozens of police cars were heading in our direction. Screaming and crying, I dragged myself towards the front door, leaving warm streaks of blood smeared across the restaurant floor. The gurgling death gasp of Frank rattled noisily behind me. I could feel my life draining out of the deep stab wound in the side of my stomach.
As I reached the door, police cars came into the restaurant parking lot with a screeching of tires. Men began running out with their guns drawn. The world went black as I reached up towards the door, wanting only to get out of this restaurant and never see this town again.
***
I woke up in the hospital a couple days later. Emergency surgery had stopped the bleeding, and many blood transfusions had saved my life. Police were waiting around my bed as I regained consciousness, frantic to ask me questions. I told them I didn’t know anything, that I had just stopped at the restaurant to eat and gotten attacked.
“We had gotten multiple missing persons reports over the last couple weeks,” the gruff homicide detective with a face like a bulldog said, “but we didn’t connect the victims to the diner until the day we found you there. Both of the escaped patients are dead, though, thanks to you.” He patted me on the shoulder. I shook my head, too weary to respond. If only they had investigated sooner, I could have avoided this entire nightmare.
But, then again, I wouldn’t have tasted the best Reuben sandwich in the universe, either.

I feel like I'm losing my mind sometimes. I think when I'm by myself and not keeping busy my mind wanders and it's not good. I just get so sad. I don't want to live like this constantly wondering what he's up to, who is he talking to. That I'm a fool for sticking around as long as I have. He tries saying how I feel is my own problem and I need to figure it out. Then next breath is he loves me and wants me only me. Like so what? That didn't ever stop you from befriending women while we were dating and visiting female friends without me knowing.
I feel like I'm a moron even from the beginning but he played a good game. I try and explain he hid from me who he actually is. I made life decisions without full information. Who I'm married to I don't know this person. I love him as the father of my children but I'm not in love with this man before me now. He doesn't seem to get it.
His IC is going to recommend some MC as I feel we are both at a point where we can't hear each other. I don't know how to word how I'm feeling without it really hurting him. He's said he's wanted to harm himself before so I do keep a lot to myself.
Driving is hard for me, time alone, I think. I was thinking I never wanted anyone else once I had him. It didn't cross my mind. The only one person sometimes crept in but they were in another country so it was more what if things but never distracted from him as I had cut contact. But my WH he was always thinking of others, be it porn, female friends, scrolling social media. Even before it got pervvy with him messaging strangers on reddit he was always somewhere else. But now I'm supposed to put all that aside and fall in love with him again?
We had a decent weekend and attended a wedding but the very next day he wanted to be intimate and I was having a difficult time. He kept waking me up really early to talk. I think he's ADHD tbh and has to say what he needs to immediately. He's all over the place and doesn't get that people are not on his time line. He gets pouty and absolute when I say I'm not in the same place as him being intimate does not mean the same to me anymore and it's difficult. He claims to not know what I need yet I've said time and time again it's the little daily things, confirmations that he's being consistent and not breaking my trust but he slips so often that I just shutdown.
Sorry for my rant. I'm just alone waiting to pick up our kids and I'm just sad, We are planning future things but it just feels off. It doesn't feel right. I feel its give up our way of life and basically be financially unstable or pretend everything is fine and carry on..... Which isn't good either. He's made it a lose lose choice. He says he understands he caused this but I really don't think he understands the emotional damage this has caused me as he the way he talks to me shows he doesn't get it.