Introduction

Imagine stepping into a room that exudes charm, elegance, and personality. The walls, often overlooked, hold the potential to transform spaces into something truly magical. As an Interior Design Company in Dubai, the design of your walls is essential for creating the perfect atmosphere and style in your home. Let's embark on a journey to explore how thoughtful wall design can elevate your living spaces.

The Power of Wall Design

Wall design is more than paint or wallpaper; it's an art form that can redefine your home. From establishing a focal point to crafting the ambiance of a space, walls can transform spaces around you. Whether in a contemporary apartment or a traditional villa, the right wall design can reflect your style and enhance the overall atmosphere.

Choosing the Right Colors

Colour is a fundamental element of wall design. It influences mood, creates illusions of space, and sets the tone for your interiors. As an Interior Designer in Dubai, understanding colour psychology is crucial. For instance, light colours like white, beige, and pastels can make a room feel larger and more open, while dark shades like navy blue or charcoal can add depth and sophistication.

Texture and Patterns

Incorporating textures and patterns adds dimension and interest to your walls. Textured wallpapers, 3D wall panels, and faux finishes can create stunning visual effects. Geometric, floral, or abstract patterns can inject personality into your space. As the Best Interior Designer in Dubai, we recommend balancing bold patterns with subtle textures to avoid overwhelming the room.

Accent Walls

Accent walls have become a popular trend in modern interior design. Make a statement with your room by painting one wall in a bold, create a focal point by using a bold, contrasting color or incorporating distinctive materials like stone or wood has surged in popularity. This technique works wonders in living rooms, bedrooms, and even bathrooms. It's a perfect way for a Home Interior Designer in Dubai to showcase creativity without a complete room makeover.

Wall Art and Decor

Art and decor are essential components of wall design. Whether it's paintings, photographs, sculptures or tapestries, the possibilities are endless. As a Residential Interior Design Company in Dubai, we encourage incorporating pieces that reflect your taste and interests. Gallery walls, where multiple frames are arranged artistically, are an excellent way to personalize your space.

Mirrors and Lighting

Mirrors and lighting can dramatically impact wall design. Strategic lighting, such as wall sconces or backlit panels, highlights architectural features and adds warmth. These elements are crucial in both residential and Commercial Interior Design in Dubai.

Sustainable Wall Design

Sustainability is becoming an increasingly popular trend in interior design. Eco-friendly materials like reclaimed wood, bamboo, and low-VOC paints are good for the environment and add a unique charm to your walls. As a responsible Interior Design Company in Dubai, we prioritize sustainable practices to create healthy and beautiful living spaces.

The Role of Technology

Technology has revolutionized wall design. The future of interior design is exciting, from bright walls with built-in screens to interactive surfaces. Digital murals, LED installations, and projection mapping are some innovations that can transform your walls into dynamic and interactive elements. As an Interior Designer in Dubai, by embracing technology, we can deliver cutting-edge solutions to our clients.

Custom Wall Design

Every home is unique, and so should its wall design. Custom wall treatments tailored to your preferences and lifestyle can make your space unique. Whether it's a hand-painted mural, a bespoke wallpaper, or a personalized photo wall, custom designs reflect your individuality. Working with the Best Interior Designer in Dubai ensures your vision is brought to life with precision and creativity.

Conclusion

Wall design is an integral part of transforming your home. It goes beyond aesthetics, influencing your living spaces' mood, functionality, and overall experience. As a Home Interior Designer in Dubai, we aim to create walls that tell your story and enhance your everyday life. From colours and textures to art and technology, the possibilities are endless. Embrace the potential of your walls and let them inspire you every day.

FAQs

Q1. What are the latest trends in wall design for homes?
The latest trends in wall design include accent walls, textured finishes, sustainable materials, and the use of technology. Accent walls with bold colours or unique materials like stone and wood are famous. Textured finishes such as 3D panels and faux finishes add depth. In today's market, there is a strong demand for sustainable materials like reclaimed wood and low-VOC paints. Technology, including intelligent walls and digital murals, is also gaining traction.
Q2. How can I choose the right colour for my walls?
Choosing the right colour depends on the room's purpose, size, and natural light. Light colours like white and pastels make a room feel larger and more open, while dark shades add depth and sophistication. Consider the mood you want to create; for example, blue is calming, yellow is energizing, and green is refreshing. Consulting with an Interior Designer in Dubai can help you make the best choice.
Q3. What are some tips for incorporating wall art and decor?
Start with pieces that reflect your taste and interests when incorporating wall art and decor. Transform your wall into a stunning gallery by creatively arranging multiple frames in an artistic layout. Create a dynamic look by mixing different sizes and styles. Use shelves to display sculptures and collectables. Consider the room's colour scheme and choose art that complements it. Balance is critical; avoid overcrowding and ensure each piece has its own space.
Q4. How can I make my walls eco-friendly?
Choose sustainable materials like reclaimed wood, bamboo, and low-VOC paints to transform your walls into an eco-friendly masterpiece. Opt for wallpapers made from natural fibres or recycled content. Consider natural finishes such as lime wash or clay plaster. Incorporate plants and living walls to enhance indoor air quality. As a Residential Interior Design Company in Dubai, we prioritize sustainable practices to create healthy and beautiful living spaces.
Q5. What role does lighting play in wall design?
Lighting is crucial in wall design, highlighting architectural features and creating ambience. Wall sconces, backlit panels, and LED strips can enhance the visual appeal of your walls. Use directional lighting to emphasize textures and art. Mirrors can reflect light and make rooms feel brighter. Incorporating innovative lighting systems allows you to adjust your space's mood and functionality quickly.

Cryptocurrency enthusiasts are always on the lookout for the next big thing, and lately, meme coins have been capturing significant attention. EggOnDog, the latest meme coin on the Solana blockchain, combines humor with crypto in a way that resonates with many. Let's dive into what makes EggOnDog stand out in the meme coin arena.
The Essence of Meme Coins
Meme coins are cryptocurrencies created from internet memes and jokes. While they often start as humorous projects, some, like Dogecoin, have gained substantial popularity and market value. Meme coins thrive on community engagement and humor, bringing a lighthearted touch to the often intense world of crypto trading. EggOnDog fits perfectly into this category, offering a fresh and entertaining approach to digital currency.
Why Solana? The Strategic Choice Choosing Solana as the blockchain for EggOnDog is a strategic move. Solana is known for its high-speed transactions and low fees, addressing common issues faced by other networks like Ethereum. This choice ensures that EggOnDog transactions are swift and cost-effective, making it more attractive to users. The Solana blockchain provides the necessary infrastructure for EggOnDog to thrive and gain traction in the competitive crypto market.
EggOnDog: A Satirical Take on Crypto
EggOnDog isn’t just another meme coin; it's a commentary on the current state of the cryptocurrency market. By embracing the absurdity and hype surrounding new tokens, EggOnDog highlights the often ridiculous nature of crypto trading. This playful approach not only entertains but also serves as a reminder to not take everything in the crypto world too seriously. EggOnDog pokes fun at the frenzy while bringing value through its innovative design.
Building a Strong Community
At its core, EggOnDog is about more than humor—it’s about building a vibrant community. Successful meme coins thrive on the camaraderie and culture they create among their holders. EggOnDog brings together people who enjoy the joke and want to be part of something fun and engaging. This sense of community is where the true value of EggOnDog lies, fostering a supportive and lively environment for its users.
The Potential of EggOnDog
Will EggOnDog become the next big meme coin sensation? It’s hard to predict. The cryptocurrency market is notoriously volatile, and meme coins are particularly unpredictable. However, EggOnDog’s unique angle and the robust capabilities of the Solana blockchain give it a solid foundation. Its playful yet insightful approach to the crypto market sets it apart from other meme coins, giving it a fighting chance to capture significant attention.
A Lighthearted Approach to Cryptocurrency
EggOnDog serves as a humorous critique of the crypto market's eccentricities. It reminds us to laugh and enjoy the process, even amidst the often tumultuous world of cryptocurrency. Whether EggOnDog becomes a fleeting joke or a lasting meme coin sensation, it has already made its mark by offering a unique perspective. By leveraging Solana’s technology and embracing the humor of the crypto world, EggOnDog invites us to join in on the fun.
Conclusion
EggOnDog is more than just a new meme coin; it's a social experiment and a playful critique of the cryptocurrency market. Its presence on the Solana blockchain ensures fast and low-cost transactions, while its community-driven approach fosters engagement and camaraderie. Whether it becomes the next big thing or remains a humorous blip on the radar, EggOnDog has successfully brought a smile to the faces of many in the crypto community.
Web: https://www.eggondog.com

Hi all! I just found this subreddit through the HRV post shared earlier today. I have long been annoyed at the newer LED lights in cars and being blinded at night. A month ago I purchased a new 2024 HRV without even thinking about what the headlight situation was; just wanted a reliable car that wouldn't keep breaking down like my past ones. I was horrified when I drove in the dark for the first time and realized I'm now that annoying asshole blinding everyone! As that HRV post said, I too get flashed at when driving at night with my low beams. I saw that I can angle my headlights down, which I'm going to do as I hope it will at least help a bit, but I know that doesn't help with hills.
Is there anything I can do to help? Different light bulbs I can switch to? Preferably a way on the more affordable side? Thank you! Happy to have found this sub!
Edit: spelling

The earth opened and the monsters came, and it was the end of the world. But it didn’t feel like it because we were still here.
There was never a time I can remember where the creatures did not lurk in the shadows, kidnapping stray helpless children or hapless adults; sometimes it would be that someone of Golgotha would go missing and whispers over breakfast would be the consequences of it. Funerals were frivolous, even if there were sometimes candles lit in the absence of the missing. Generally, it would be the elders that would sit around wooden tables, hum old hymns and maybe they would whisper a few kind words to Elohim or Allah or perhaps a more pagan variety; I came from a fully loaded Christian household where the paganistic murmurs were often seen as little better than the monsters that came from the earth.
Whatever the case may be, it was simple mourning, simple human mourning and it was sad and miserable and more numbing every time I’d see it happen. Sometimes it would be Lady (she was an old shamanistic-style woman with tattered robes and graying hair, even some whiskers on her chin too) that would culminate a hymn in the streets with her incense or more for the missing, but it was Christian and good in that way. Always about Jesus, always good clean words and simple gospels that were quiet and weak.
It was a young woman that’d gone missing sometime the previous night; there’d been a patrol sent out among the old ruins too because the missing girl was the daughter of a Boss. The Bosses were distinguished leaders in Golgotha, due to their tendency for extreme and untempered cruelty and whenever someone crossed a Boss or whenever a Boss lost something precious, everyone took notice, because the Bosses controlled the functions of Golgotha. It just so happened the Boss whose daughter went missing was also the fellow that controlled the water supply. His name was Harold and that wily sonofagun shut off the pumps that moved ground water into our homes. He was the only one with the key and said he’d not divulge it to a soul if the girl wasn’t returned.
Some of the boys on the compound cultivated a posse with impassioned cries of mutual aid and such, but Boss Harold, no matter how much they threatened or how many of his fingers they snapped in their desperate grasp for humanity, would not comply. Most of the boys surmised it was likely the girl was dead and her remains would be impossible to find due to the way monsters tended to grind bones into powder and dry swallow even the gristle of our fragile bodies; there’d be nothing left—or if there was anything left of her it wouldn’t be her any longer (assuredly she’d be a husk or unworthy of saving). When hard torture failed, the boys cried for more reason, and yet Boss Harold would not budge. The old Boss said, “I’ll stop the motor of the world until she’s found!”
A group of rabblerousing youths had absconded with his daughter or so he said; the reality was much more likely that she had run from home of her own free will either by wanderlust or ignorance. When all was said and done, the families came to me and said, “Hey, Harlan, buddy, pal, you’ve lost weight. You’re looking good, Mister Harlan, did you get a haircut?”
I’d heard about the girl. I’d heard about the posse sent out to Boss Harold’s abode—the compound ain’t that big—and knew they’d be coming for me because I was a scavver, a person that wades through the old ruins either for illusory history pages or weapons or even (and this one was a rare treat) lost people. I knew they’d come for my services and had already put together my pack for travels with rations and light tools—no gun; drawing attention in the old ruins was a dumb thing because sound could travel forever.
“I’m going,” I told the group that’d been sent for me, “I don’t reckon any of you’d like to come with me?” I looked over the dirty faces, the faces of men, women, children that could scarcely be called grown, and none stood out because they were all tired and dirty and I imagined I looked much the same.
Then a girl’s voice broke out from the crowd, and she stumbled forward from the line of strangers that’d come to see me at my door. “I’ll go!” she said, “I want to go with you, Mister Harlan.”
It was unsurprising. Youngsters always thought the old ruins were like a field trip, like maybe they’d find a souvenir for their sweetie and come home with a good story. Most didn’t come back, and those that did usually came back with scars beneath the skin from what they’d seen in the out there. It was like a game for them and when they saw what the world outside the walls held, they would retreat into themselves for fear. It wasn’t just the monsters. It was the ruins themselves, the overwhelming demolition of us; we were gone and yet we were here. It’s a hard thing to cope. I looked over the skinny girl with a grimy face; she couldn’t have been older than sixteen. Her hair was cropped very short, and I could see no immediate deformities that might slow my travels, so I asked, “What’d your parents say?”
Without flinching, the girl shouldered her pack straps with her thumbs and almost cheerily answered, “They’re dead, sir.”
“Don’t call me sir.” I stepped nearer her, looked over her face and saw perhaps a will I’d not seen in some time. Maybe she would be more of a help than a hinderance. “Do you have everything you need?”
“Yes.”
“Then we leave immediately.” I shouldered my own pack and followed up with, “Do not bring any fucking guns.”
“Got it! No fuckinguns.” Her tone was sarcastic, but not unserious. It was the best I could hope for, and besides it was always better whenever I travelled with someone else.
We took off from my small hidey-hole and moved through the narrow stretches of street, tall metal and concrete stood on either of our sides, mostly housing and hydroponics, with a few spots with stools where a person could stop in for a drink of cool water. Although a few of the Bosses had toyed with the idea of expanding the hydroponics so that we might produce corn whiskey in bulk, this was scrapped when the math was done; the space was insufficient for such luxuries, but this did not stop some from fermenting small berries in batches when no one else was paying attention. Wine was incredibly rare, had a moldy taste to it, but was sweet and a further reminder of maybe why we held on. I liked wine pretty good, but sometimes I’d find an old bottle in the ruins or get a jug of liquor from one of the far settlements and that’s what I really cherished.
“You ever been out of town?” I asked her.
“No.”
“Don’t act a hero, don’t be funny out there, don’t make noise, don’t get in my way. If I tell you something, you do it without questions.”
First, I heard her footsteps fall slowly, then more quickly before she answered me as though she had to stop and think about what she was going to do next; perhaps she was having second thoughts? “Don’t try to scare me from the ruins,” she said, “I’ve wanted to go out there for years now and everyone always says there’s old stuff. Our old stuff. Stuff that used to belong to us.”
“Used to belong to us? What do you mean?”
“Humans or whatever. It used to be ours.”
“It hasn’t been ours within my lifetime. Leave it to them, because it’s theirs now. If you find some small thing out there that you like, then take it, but otherwise, it ain’t home no more.” There was no need for me to elaborate on who I meant whenever I said them, because anyone knew exactly who they were: the creatures from beneath the earth, the demons, the monsters.
We came to the outer sections of town near the gate and the walls stood high over our heads while morning breeze kicked up spirals of sand wisps across the ground. The walls were probably fifty or sixty feet tall, and several yards thick with titanium and concrete and rebar; along the parapets of our fortifications were patrolmen that watched the horizon and fired at anything that moved with fifty-caliber bullets. The men up there, and they were mostly men (the show-off types), wore ballistic weaves, bent and tarnished war helmets of the past, and carried mottled fatigue colors on their bodies like for-real militiamen. There hadn’t been an attempt on Golgotha from the monsters in days; it was a quiet week.
The nearest dirt street spilled into an open square with sandbag barricades overlooking the gate from atop a small hill. I waved down Maron. Boss Maron wore boots and an old-school cowboy hat with an aluminum star pinned on its forehead center; he swaggered over, “Going out, Mister Harlan?” His mustache caterpillar wiggled, nearly obscuring a toothy grin.
I nodded.
“It’s ‘cause Harold ain’t it?”
I nodded.
“You know that crazy bastard had some of my guards lock up the boys that stormed his home? If you ask me, he deserved whatever pain those fellas brought to him for shutting the pumps off.”
I idly studied the sidearm holstered on his hip then looked at the nearby guards by the gate, each with automatic weapons slung across their chests. “You still locked them up, didn’t you?”
Boss Maron spat in the dirt by his feet and laughed a little dry. “Sure did. Harold’s got the key to the water, and I won’t be crossing him. Don’t want the riffraff questioning Bosses.” He flapped his hand at the notion then swaggered away and waved at his guards to open the gate. The one nearest a breaker box on the righthand side of the gate opened the electrical panel, flipped a switch then the hydraulics on the gate began to decompress as it unlocked and rusty gears began to rock across one another to slide the great, tall metal door open.
“Try not to lose any fingers or toes while you’re out there. Oh!” he seemed to take notice of the young girl following me, “Got a new companion? Does she know what’s happened to the last few that’s traversed those desperate lands with you?”
“Hm?” asked the girl.
“Oh? Harlan?” Boss Maron smiled so hard I’d think his mustache might fall of his face from the sheer tension of the skin beneath it, “He’s a real globetrotter, quite a dealmaker, but just don’t be surprised if he leaves you behind.” This was followed by a sick chuckle.
I refused to respond and merely watched the clockwork gate come to a full open while the guards on either side prepared to angle their guns at the opening like they half-expected something to come barreling towards them. The doorway was empty and through the haze of the wasteland I could scarcely make out the familiar angles of the old ruins far out.
The girl didn’t engage either, for which I was thankful.
Boss Maron wide-stepped closer then patted my shoulder and whispered in my ear, “Don’t forget the shiny flag.” He tucked a foil sheet into my front shirt pocket, “His daughter was due west supposedly. Good luck.” Then he clapped me on the back before returning to his post by the sandbags where a small table displayed his game of solitaire.
We moved through the gate, and I could sense the uneasy rhythm of the young girl’s movement just over my shoulder. As the gate closed behind us with a large and final shudder, I heard her breath become more erratic.
“The air feels thicker out here,” she said.
“It is sometimes,” I tried talking the nerves out of her, “It’s hot and cold all at the same time, ain’t it? Know what I mean? It’s hot devil air, but also you feel chills all over, don’t you?”
“Yeah.” Her pace quickened so that we walked alongside one another.
“It’s just the nerves. You get used to it. Or. Well.”
“Or?”
“Or you don’t get enough time to.”
“What did ol’ Maron mean about other people dying with you?”
“Not many people venture outside the compound and even fewer go into the ruins. It’s all very dangerous. Most don’t make it back. That’s all he meant.”
“But you do. Make it back, I mean.”
I sighed. “I do, yeah.”
“My name’s Aggie, by the way. Sorry I didn’t say that before, Mister Harlan.”
“What’d your parents do when they were still around?”
“Dad was a farmer that worked with the hydroponics and Mom was a general fixer. She liked making clothes when we had the material.”
“Good people, it sounds like.”
“Sometimes,” said Aggie, “Hey, please don’t let me die, alright?” The words weren’t constructed so much as blurted; they came as a joke but did not seem like one.
“Okay.”
For a mile out in a measured circle, there was open sandy, flat ground stretching from around the perimeter walls of Golgotha; all the clutter, junk, and buildings had been disposed of years prior to grant the compound’s snipers comfortable sights in all directions. The openness went out for a mile and in every direction, one could see the ruins, the crumpled dead vehicles, half-snapped spires that lie in angles, and the gloom-red tint in the air that seemed to emanate from the ground like heat waves off fire. It was scarred air, where the creatures had unearthed some great anomaly from beneath the dirt. In honesty, it was like passing through the foul stench of death and painted everything in a blood hue. It stank and it was hot and it was cold.
We moved in relative silence; only the sounds of our boots across granular dirt or the clink of zippers whenever either Aggie or I was to readjust the packs on our shoulders. As we came upon the edges of the ruins, where we entered the red mist, and the air was alien. Finally, Aggie cleared her throat and mentioned through mildly exerted breathing, “Think we’ll find her?”
“I don’t know,” I answered. “Keep quiet and whisper. We can talk but keep it low.” We began to enter the thick of the ruins where ancient structures crept up on either side of us. “What made you come with me?” It was a question I’d wondered the whole time and figured her reasoning was weak.
“There’s not much home. I’d like to see some of the world before I go. Seems like things get worse and worse and for when I do leave this world, I want to see something other than the walls of home.”
“Fair answer.” Her reasoning was weak. “What if you’ve bit off more than you can chew?”
“Maybe.” She followed this up with another question of her own,” What made you start venturing out?”
“I wanted to see something other than the walls of home.” I felt a smile creep around the corners of my mouth, but quickly tempered myself. “Whenever people go out on their own without a guide, they die. I doubt we’ll find Harold’s daughter.” I left a pause. “You’re nearly her age, ain’t you? Did you ever know her?”
“You speak like she’s dead for sure.”
“Most likely, she is. Did you know her?”
“No, but I guess I’m an optometrist.”
“Optimist,” I corrected.
“Whatever. She’s a piece of home. I feel like I’m old enough to take care of myself and I want to help people. Not everyone thinks that way, but we’re all one big family, aren’t we?”
“While I appreciate your thoughts on it, I doubt the daughter of a Boss would feel the same about you.”
“The Bosses protect us.”
The ruins began to swallow us whole as we ventured through the ancient pathways, broken asphalt and wreckage littered the wide-open street. A nearby, worn post named the path: Fif Aven. I’d gone there before and left most things untouched. Although there were a few open holes in the structures on either side—places where large entryways might’ve gone hundreds of years ago—they were mostly empty, black with shadow, and picked clean long long ago. Non ideal for an alcove of respite from the open air. We shifted down the street, my eyes darting from old signs and vehicles bent and rusted and abandoned. I motioned for Aggie to come closer as I sneaked through the rubble towards a wall where there were no entryways into the monolithic structures. We hugged the wall and moved with trepidation, sometimes climbing across overturned wreckage tiptoeing in our boots to muffle all sound. Every footfall felt like a scream.
“We should go on for another mile or so before we find a place to rest. I know one up the way.”
“Rest? Are you tired already? That’d burn what daylight we have,” said Aggie.
I shook my head, “The last thing you want is to be without your wits in a place like this. If you’re too tired to run, you’re too tired to live.”
“Aren’t they fast? If they catch you in the open, they’ll get you, won’t they?”
I thought of a lie then thought better, “Yes.”
“Oh.”
“If you see one. Don’t scream. Don’t even breathe. If they haven’t seen you, you still have a chance.”
The air grew wet and smelled of chlorine, and I snatched Aggie’s sweating hand in my own before grappling her into my arms; she was small and fought noiselessly for only a second before going still. I shifted us into a concrete doorway with a half-destroyed awning and whispered a quick hush as I glided us near a piece of wreckage.
I felt her tenseness leave and let go of her before she crouched alongside me in the shadowed cover of an old van that had, ages before, slammed into a nearby wall. The door of the vehicle had been removed and we angled in slowly, silently, crawling towards the rear of its cabin to peer from the broken windows, all the while hoping its old axles would not creak. Feeling her hand on my shoulder, I twisted round to look Aggie in the eye; terror erupted from her face in tremors while she mouthed the words: what’s that?
Simply, I put a finger to my lips and took a peek at the thing moving down Fif Aven. The creature was on the smaller side, closer to the size of a run-of-the-mill human, but twitched its muscles in a fashion that contested humanity. The thing walked upright on two feet, but sometimes used its hands to move like an animal. The most intricate and disturbing of its features, however, was its head. With vibrant green skin, with speckles of yellowed globules across the surface of its body (likely filled with creamy pus), with a mishappen balloon head that first opened in half with a mouth folded as an anus, dispersed a corrosive gas into the air while it deflated, then reinflated and quivered—the creature’s head moved as a sack filled with misty gas, wobbly and rubbery. It had no eyes, no other features besides that awful head.
We watched it go, stop, disperse its toxic mist into the air, then leave. I kept my eyes on it, nose and mouth tucked beneath the collar of my shirt, and glanced at Aggie to see she’d followed suit. The smell could choke.
Once I was certain the thing had decided to move well outside of earshot (not that it had ears) I motioned for Aggie to follow me out of the van, down the sidewalk, through an intersection of roads, and into a small opening in one of the smaller structures. Our feet were swift, and I was grateful she was graceful. We moved through the darkness of the structure, and I led with intimate knowledge of the place. There was a safe spot near the rear of the building. I reached out in the dark, felt a handle and pushed into a small closet and pulled Aggie through.
My lantern came alive and bathed us in a warm glow. Shelves across the small room were lined with various supplies I’d left. A few boxes of matches, oil for lanterns, a bedroll, blankets, and other miscellaneous baubles.
Aggie inhaled sharply, “I’ve never seen anything like that! It was. I don’t know. It was weird and gross. Little scary. Is that what they look like?”
I shifted around onto the floor and opened my pack while placing the lantern between my legs. “You’ve been up on the compound’s walls before, ain’t you?”
“Once.”
“Well, sometimes those things get closer to home. I don’t know what you’d call them. Some of the wall guys call them fart heads because when you shoot one in the head with a rifle it goes pfffft. Lotta’ that chlorine shit comes out of them too.”
“Do bullets kill them?” She asked while removing her own pack and fixing her legs alongside mine in the closet; it was a snug fit, but we managed. “Like really kill them or does it just empty those heads?” I could feel her shaking still.
“If you use enough, sure. Durable, but manageable if you have enough firepower. Those are small fries. Normally they wouldn’t sneak up on me though. Normally I’d smell them from far off before they ever get close.”
“Did I distract you?”
“Maybe.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“It was bound to happen, I reckon.” I plunged my hand into my pack and removed a water gourd, taking a deep swallow from it.
She started, “Have,” she stopped then started again, “I wish,” another stop came then she gave up on whatever she was going to say and laid her pack across her lap, seemingly searching for something within.
“We should rest up here for a while. At least until you’ve calmed yourself. Then we’ll set out. Maron said the girl went west. You should have that detail in case this trip happens to be my last. I figured we’d search the northern area first then make our way south, but—I hope she ain’t south.” I exposed the face of my compass.
A thought seemed to occur to Aggie while she removed her own water gourd and took a healthy swig. Sweat glistened off her brow in the dancing light of the lantern, its fire caught in her pupils while she thought. “You don’t actually think you’ll find her, do you?”
I grinned, surprised. “Why do you say that?”
“You think she’s dead already, so why do it?”
“Because they’ll believe me when I come back. I suppose we’ll return in two days, maybe three, then tell them we found her corpse.”
“Well why don’t we just stay here for the remainder?”
“We’ll look for her,” I said.
“But why?”
“It’s the right thing to do, I suppose. Maybe your optometristism is rubbing off on me.”
“Don’t make fun of me,” said Aggie, but I could see her sheepish grin. She held out a hand flat across her eyes and watched the nervous tremors in her fingers.
“Just nerves,” I told her.
“It’s a little exciting.”
“Now that’s a dangerous thought,” I took another swig from my water gourd before returning it to my pack. “Do you know where your parents hailed from?”
“Somewhere up north. Cold lands, but it was hard not to freeze in the winter up that way. Said they came down here years before I was born, hoping they could find a place to settle, but it was all the same. That’s what they said.”
“Never been further north than Golgotha, if I’m being honest. I’m from a place that once was called Georgia, but I’ve not been there in years.”
“Is it true what they told me, Mister Harlan?”
“What do you mean?”
“Is it the same everywhere? Is there no place around that’s not got those awful things?”
“If there’s a place like that, I haven’t seen it yet.”
“Mom used to read to me when I was a little kid,” she said, “I never could pick up reading, but she loved old books that were written before bad times and in those books, people talked about things like green fields that stretched on forever, and places where water streams were clear enough to drink from. Do you remember anything like that?”
I chuckled while continuing to rummage through my pack, “Geez, how old do you think I am? All that was a long time ago.”
“Yeah. You think it’ll ever be like that again?”
I shook my head. “Wishful thinking.” Then I found what I’d been searching for and removed it from my pack. A small tin of tobacco; I sat to rolling a makeshift cigarette then lit it off the lamp.
“That smells funny.”
“Yeah.”
We shared the cigarette in the dark closet, passing it back and forth; her lungs, not being used to the smoke, forced from Aggie a few whimpering coughs that she tried to hide in the hem of her shirt.
I ducked the tobacco out beneath my heel and began reorganizing my pack so that it was less lumpy. “I hope you’re ready for it again. Like I said, that one you saw was a small fry. There’s bigger things out there. Worse things.”
“Should I go, or should I just stay here?” She hadn’t reorganized herself at all and remained seated while I shouldered my pack and peered through a crack in the door.
“Of course, you should come with me. I know it, you’re scared.”
“What if I make it worse and I attract one of those things right to you?” She asked.
I reached down and she took my hand; I lifted her to her feet and we met eyes, “Aggie, you’re coming with me. You’ll do fine. I promise.” It was not often that I’d try and charm someone, but I put forth a smile.
She smiled back and I shut off my lantern before leading her gently through the dark, into the open street where midday sun caught the ruins shadows long and deep. West was where the girl had gone and I intended to follow. Though I’d seen no signs of survivors, I was certain that if they’d braved the previous night, they were likely about in the daytime. Certainly, things would be made easier if I could cup hands around my mouth and echo my voice through the dead city like a game of Marco-Polo. Aggie maintained both energy and quiet alongside me as we moved through the rubble, vaulting over wide-open holes in the street where I could spy the arteries of the dead beast (the old sewer network).
We conversed frankly and in whispers when we came upon a place in the road that was impassible on foot due to a collapsed structure and we stalked more like wounded deer in a forest than humans in a city; our shoulders remained slouched, our bodies were huddled near to each other, and we delved into the dark recesses of another building—possibly a market from old days when patrons congregated for frozen fish sticks. There were massive steel shelves and we took their avenues till we came upon an aperture on the far side of the dark building. We shifted over the broken glass of an old torn out window and landed firmly on an open street.
Then came a sound like firecrackers and I felt cold and Aggies eyes went wide in the dull evening glow of the sun.
“Someone’s brought a gun,” I said.
Before she could say anything, I hugged the wall on our side of the street and moved down the sidewalk, following the sound of those gunshots.
“Maybe it’s someone that could help us?” she tried.
I shook my head.
“What do you mean?” she whispered a bit louder.
“It’s bad news,” I said, then came to a full stop at a corner while another hail of bullets spat from some unseen weapon and echoed all around; we were getting much closer. “Have you ever seen a dead body?” I asked Aggie.
She shook her head, but then stopped. “I was the one that found my mom. She was stiff and cold.”
“She went peacefully?”
Aggie shook her head, “Flu.”
“Any blood?”
“No.”
“If you’re not ready for blood, you might not want to look.”
We rounded the corner to find a small blockade of burnt-out vehicles creating a barrier between us and the action.
Two men with assault rifles fired at a creature towering over them. The creature in question stood thirty feet tall on spindly legs like a spider, but each of its legs were tumorous and its muscles were strangely uneven and mushy; although an arachnid may have eight legs, this one moved sluggishly along on no less than twenty shambling stilts so that the rounded body where the legs met looked more akin to a sea urchin. Several of its long legs stood out on its sides to angle its body through the narrow corridor of the street, its whiskery feet pushing along the walls of buildings overhead. Its whole body stank of wet dog and brimstone.
The men—they looked like young militiamen of Golgotha—staggered in awe of the thing and attempted to walk backwards while reloading. Another spray of bullets erupted from their rifles, and they were empty and the men screamed and one of them tripped across some unseen thing on the ground.
Quick as a fly, one of the massive creature’s legs sprang onto the prone man’s abdomen. Their was a brief cry of pain and then—I felt Aggie pinch onto my shoulder with her thumb and forefinger and I glanced at her to see she’d chewed into the corner of her bottom lip for purchase in response to such a fantastical display of awfulness—the man had no skin, no clothes, he’d been stripped to runny red fibrous tissue with strips of white muscle that twitched in the presence of the air.
“Oh god please god!” screamed the other man while watching his comrade writhe in pain beneath the stalky foot of the skin-taker.
I shuffled lower among the arrangement of vehicles we’d taken refuge behind and me and Aggie breathed softly, glancing eye contact while sitting in the dirt. There wasn’t anything to say.
The sound of the spider creature removing the second man’s skin was slower, torturous, seemingly enjoyed; his screams did not end for too long. I fisted my hands into my jacket pockets then stared at the ground between my knees. I felt Aggie’s thin fingers reach into my pocket and it took me flinching to realize she intended to hold my hand. She was shaking and I was shaking, but she was good and did not scream. And we held hands while we listened to the thick trunks of the spider creature shift on away. And we didn’t move. And we were statues frozen like we belonged among the dead ruins. And we didn’t move. And then Aggie shifted to look before I’d gathered my feelings and motioned me on.
“What’s that?” she asked as simply as she’d asked the color of the sky.
“Bad.” I shook my head and looked for an opening in the blockade of vehicles.
Two meaty blood ponds marked where the men were and on approach, I covered my face in the collar of my shirt; Aggie lifted her forearm to her nose. The stench of the beast and of the viscera was strong in the air.
I examined the ground then found one of their rifles. Standard M16. The strap on the rifle was frayed to ribbons and the barrel of the gun appeared to be slightly bent, but salvageable. I handed the rifle to Aggie and she took it.
“What about no guns?” she asked.
“There’s no bullets left. Besides, it’ll be good to bring it back.” Examining what was left of the bodies, my eyes went away and into my mind where all things become ethereal and difficult to grasp; I looked without seeing and imagined a place where green grass was, a place like in the books Aggie’s mother read. No grass here. Just misery.
“Who were they?” she asked.
“The men?”
“Yeah.”
“They sent out a patrol looking for Boss Harold’s daughter. Looks like we’ve found it. Never should’ve sent them.”
“I want to go home,” said Aggie.
“Me too.” I blinked and shifted around to look at her through the red hue that’d gathered between us. Try as I might, the smile on my face almost hurt. “If you stick with me, you’ll be safe.”
We took up in one of the safehouses I’d developed over the past several years, a room hidden up two flights of stairs and large enough to host a party. In the lantern glow we heated rations—eggs and hearty bread with water-thinned weak tomato paste—then ate in relative quiet so that the only thing heard were our jaws over the food that tasted bitter; food always felt slimy and bitter in the ruins where the demons reigned supreme. Their stink was on us. Like sulfur, like rot, like sorrow.
I rolled us each a cigarette and we smoked while looking out through a brackish window that overlooked the black street. No lights in the darkness save blinking yellow eyes caught for moments in dull moonlight whose owners quickly skittered towards an alley.
“How don’t you get lost?” asked Aggie.
“I do sometimes.”
“You could’ve fooled me.”
“I mean, I know the ruins fine enough, I reckon, but then I feel like I’m drowning in it every time I come here.” I took a long draw from my cigarette, finished it, then planted it beneath my boot.
“Did you have parents?” she asked.
“Everyone has parents.”
“What were they like?” Aggie held her cigarette out from her like she didn’t actually want it, but just as I looked over at her, pulling my eyes from the window, she jammed it into her lips.
“They were fine. Just fine.”
“Just fine?”
“Yeah.”
“I wish it was better,” said Aggie.
“Don’t imagine there’s ever been a point in history where we didn’t want it to be better.”
“Maybe.” She coughed through smoke.
I moved to dim the lamp and sat atop my bedroll. “You should sleep.”
“Don’t think I could sleep. I’ll have nightmares.” She pitched the remainder of her cigarette.
“Can’t be worse than the real deal.”I shut off the lamp and we laid in pitch black.
“How do you do it?” she asked.
“Most of the time, it feels like I’m not.” I stared at the ceiling I couldn’t see. “Go to sleep.”
At daybreak, we ate bread and water then gathered our things before setting into that awful wasteland. Sand gathered around our legs in wisps as we trundled tiredly onto the street of the ruins and Aggie said nothing. There wasn’t a thought in my mind as my joints protested at us climbing over the wreckage of an overturned semi-truck; first I went, then I hoisted Aggie up by her lanky arms then we jumped onto the other side, moving less like scouts and more like hungover comer-downers.
Passing through the ruins, each step feeling more like a glide and less creaky, Aggie spoke from over my shoulder as I kept my eyes sharp on the buildings’ shadows, “I doubt we’ll find her,” she said.
“What happened to the optimism?” I shifted to catch her face; she seemed dejected, tired, perhaps disillusioned by the previous day’s happenings.
“I didn’t know there were things like that in this world. Like that spider thing. Those men didn’t stand a chance.”
I shook my head, and we continued moving. “There are worse things still over the horizon. Most assuredly there is. Now you asked me before why I come out here in these ruins, why I’ve trekked the wasteland, and I’ll give you the opportunity to ask it again—maybe I’ll have something different to say.”
“Okay. Why then?”
“Because,” I kicked at a half eroded aluminum can left on the ground, “Places like Golgotha, or even where I’ve come from, there’s nothing like the red sky or the open road. There are no ties, no people. There’s only the next step.”
She took up directly beside me as we turned onto a street corner where the sidewalk mostly remained intact. “Sounds stupid to me.”
“There it is then.”
“Sorry,” she muttered, then she spoke even more clearly, “I didn’t mean it like that. I just don’t get it.”
“It’s because I’m a dealmaker,” I said.
“That’s what Maron called you before, wasn’t it?” Aggie absently stared at the sky, at the edges of the high spires overhead that seemed to swallow us whenever clouds passed over the sun. “What’s that mean?”
“It means it’s harder for me to die.”
“Just luck, if you ask me.”
I clenched my jaw. “Probably, it is. Yeah.”
Then, with time, we came to the garden. A place in the ruins where greenery existed—even if the plants that grew from the soil were otherworldly and aggressive. There was the solitary sound of dirt catching crags in the structures as hard wind pushed silt through the narrow streets of the ruins, then there was also the sound of a flute, a flute made of bone and skin. The sound was sickly sweet, illusive, something no human could play even if they listened carefully and practiced for hundreds of years. There was the flute, the greenery, the clacking of hooves against old stone that’d risen from the earth much the same as the demons.
Aggie whispered, “What’s that music?”
I reached out my hand so that she would hold it and I tried to smile. “There are worse things still over the horizon.”
Her delicate scrawny fingers wrapped around my own and though I felt her trembling, she trusted me (I hoped she really did). I led her towards the garden, through a walkway with tall obelisks of flame on either side. “What is this place?” whimpered Aggie.
“If you are asked your name, tell it plainly without hesitation,” I said, “Do not leave my side. Do not run.”
“Where are we going?” her eyes scanned the garden, the flames dancing in the midday reddish light, the trees bent at impossible angles, the glorious green grass that looked cool and soft. I’d been in awe the first time I’d seen it.
I smiled, “Just like your mom’s old books. Green grass.”
The flute grew louder as we came closer and the hoof beats on stone shifted with enthusiasm.
There in the center of the garden stood Baphomet, ten feet tall, feminine midsection with goatish head and legs. It pranced with the flute to its mouth, and the tune resounded playfully all around. The creature danced across an area of stones in the center of the garden, a place where there were rock tables and chairs and sigils upon the ground—amid the open furniture, there stood a throne of human bones and near where Baphomet played its wily tune, there was a covered well, rope tautly hanging from its crank as if there was something heavy on the other end.
I smelled you coming, said Baphomet. Even as it spoke, it continued to play its flute without pause. Its muscular shoulders glistening with reddish sweat, its horns gloriously pointed and reveled in its merriment.
“Let us convene,” I said, mouth dry and feeling heady.
Convene?
“I’m here for the girl.”
I felt Aggie shift uncomfortably beside me, but I kept my eyes locked on Baphomet.
It seems you have one already.
“She came west, towards here two days ago. She was a runaway. You have her.”
Come, Harlan, come and dance with me. Baphomet did not stop its flute or its dancing.
I sighed. “I’m here to make a deal.”
Baphomet froze, allowing the boney flute to drop from its goatish lips. Its animal eyes casually switched between me then Aggie, before it turned to face us completely. A deal?
“Y-yes,” I nearly choked.
You’ve brought so little to bargain with. Baphomet shifted and walked to its throne to sit, clacking its long nails against the armrest. Unless. The creature allowed the word to hang against my brain like a splinter.
I lifted the hand holding Aggie’s. “A deal,” I tried.
Quick as a flash, Baphomet disappeared in a haze of black smoke then reappeared over Aggie’s shoulder. I dropped her hand and stepped away while the creature exhausted dew from its nose before sniffing Aggie’s ear.
Aggie swallowed hard, “Harlan?” she asked, “What’s it doing?”
“I’m sorry, Aggie.”
Baphomet took its hands through her short hair and inhaled sharply. A long tongue fell from its mouth and saliva oozed before it snapped its snout shut. The pleasure will be all mine.
“Harlan, let’s go—I want to go home.” Aggie’s tears rolled down her face in full while the large hand of Baphomet lightly squeezed her cheeks into a pucker.
You are home.
Baphomet took Aggie and moved her casually; her legs moved feebly, knees shaking.
Sit darling. Said Baphomet, motioning to its throne. Aggie took the chair and the creature snorted approval.
The demon moved jauntily to the well, where its strong arms began to roll the crank; with each rotation, the sound of cries grew closer. Until finally, all limbs pulled backwards in bondage, there dangled Boss Harold’s daughter; deep cuts and blood painted her mangled, distorted body. She’d been pushed into the well belly first, suspended by her wrists and ankles. I bit my tongue.
“Oh god,” I heard Aggie say. It sounded like a far-off girl from an unknown planet.
Baphomet lifted the girl from her bondage then sliced the rope with a razor-sharp fingernail. I hesitantly moved closer to the scene and removed my jacket.
RoyalRoad
Archive

A cabin remained half-rooved on its eastern face by pelts of dead things while the west slanted with a freshly cleared and smooth metal—it stood alongside a dugout stocked with crates; the structures overlooked an open plane of snow from their hilly perch and beyond that there were black jagged trees against the dreary yonder. Though the wind pushed as an abrupt force against the cabin’s walls, within the noise was hardly a whisper and the heater lamps along the interior walls of the large singular room offered a steady hum that disappeared even that.
The room had two beds—one double and another short cot pushed into a corner— and each was separated by a thin curtain nailed to the overhead support beams; the curtain caught in the life of the place, the gust from the heater lamps, the movement of those that lived there, and it listed so carefully it might not have moved at all.
Opposite the beds on the far wall, there stood a kitchen with cabinets and a stove, and the stove was attended by a thin young woman; she was no older than her second decade. In the corner by the stove just beyond where the kitchen counter ended, there sat a rocking chair where an old man nestled underneath pelts and a wool blanket, and he puffed tobacco and he watched the woman as she worked—she stirred the pot over a red eye and examined the liquid which lowly simmered. The man watched her silently, eyes far away like in remembrance. He absently pushed his gray mustache down with the forefinger and thumb of his right hand. Smoke came from the pipe in spider string and the man blinked dumbly.
Amid the place where pelts lined the floor between the far wall of beds and the far wall of the kitchen, there sat a young pale boy with a scrap of canvas rubbish in the center—he used the canvas strip, browned and filthy, like a bird in his play, spreading the strip out and letting it fall to the ground. “Fly,” whispered the small boy to the strip; each time he lifted the rubbish, it fell to the floor by his crossed legs, and he repeated this process.
The adults ignored the boy, and the woman swiped the back of her hand across her forehead then wiped her knuckles down the front of her blouse. “It’ll be ready soon,” she said.
The man nodded then drifted off in his long expression again, staring at the door which remained closed. Wind speed pitched and the door seemed to warp inward. Alongside the door, there sat a thick glass porthole which one could use to look out on the snow-covered landscape; the curtains before the porthole were mostly drawn but on late evenings, light splintered through ghostly.
Shrugging of his warm coverings, the man lifted from the chair and crossed the room to pull aside the curtains; he stood there in the light of the hole, painted dull in his gray thermals. He watched outside, scratched his receding hairline and when he moved to shut the curtain, he saw the boy had joined him there at the window. The man smiled, lifted the curtain, and angled from there, allowing the boy to peer outside; he puffed on his pipe heavily, holding the thing stiffly with his free hand and offering a glance to the woman by the stove who watched the pair from where she was.
“I can’t even see the road,” said the boy.
The man nodded, “Snow covered it.”
“It’s winter?”
Again, the man nodded.
Winter, with the mutated ecology of the planet, was nearly a death sentence in northern Manitoba. Those places just north of Lake Winnipeg were mostly forgotten or abandoned, but there still lingered a few souls that dared the relative safety of the frozen wasteland—sometimes curious vagabonds, sometimes ex-convicts, or slaves, sometimes even criminals upstarted townships where there was nothing prior.
“Pa, I see someone,” said the boy.
The man angled forward again, squinted through the porthole, and puffed the pipe hard so his face glowed orange then moved surprisingly quickly to hand the pipe to the woman; she fumbled with the object and sat it upright on the counter while he rushed to remove a parka from a wall hook by the door. He shouldered into the thing and then leapt to the place by the door where his boots were kept and slammed into them each, knotting them swiftly.
“What is it?” the woman’s voice shook.
They caught one another’s eyes. “Snowmobile,” said the man.
“One?”
He nodded and strapped his gloves on then moved to the latch of the door—before levering the thing, he took another glance at the boy.
“We’ll shut it behind you,” said the boy. The woman nodded.
The door swung inward with explosive force and the outside wind ripped into the warm abode. The man immediately shivered and stumbled into the snow, appropriately clothed save his legs where only his gray thermals clung to him.
After spilling into the boot-high snow, the man twisted around and aided the others in shutting the door behind him; he pulled as they pushed, and he listened past the howling wind for the latch on the opposite side of the door. He let go of the door and spun to inspect the far-off blinding whiteness—clouds of snow were thrown up in the wake of a barreling snowmobile; it headed towards him, first from between the naked spaces between the black trees then into the open white. The man threw up both his hands, waving the snowmobile down, long stepping through the arduous terrain till he came to the bottom of the perch that supported the cabin. His shouts of, “Hey!” were totally lost in the wind but still he shouted.
The snowmobile braked twenty yards out from the man and the stranger on the machine killed the engine, adjusted the strings around their throat and threw off the hood of their own parka to expose blackened goggles beneath a gray tuque; a wrap obscured the lower half of their face. The stranger took a gloved hand to yank the wrap from their mouth and yelled over the wind a greeting then removed themselves from the seat to land in the snow.
“Cold?” offered the man with a shout.
The stranger nodded in agreement and removed an oblong instrument case from the rear storage grates of the snowmobile then took a few careful steps towards the man.
“Dinner’s almost ready! I’m sure you’d like the warmth!” The man waved the stranger closer and the stranger obliged, following the man towards the cabin; each of the figures tumbled through the snow with slow and swiveling footwork. The man stopped at the door, supporting himself on the exterior wall by the porthole.
The stranger angled within arm’s reach, so the man did not have to yell as loudly as before. “Guitar?” The man pointed at the case which the stranger carried.
The stranger nodded.
“Maybe you’ll play us something.” he pounded on the metal of the exterior door, “It’s been some time since I’ve heard music.” The door opened and the two stumbled into the cabin.
The stranger shivered and snow dust fell from their shoulders as they deposited the guitar case on the floor by their feet—they moved directly to help the man and the boy close the door while the woman watched and held her elbows by the porthole.
With the door sealed and the latch secured, the man removed his parka so that he was in his boots and thermals.
The stranger removed their own parka, lifted the goggles to their forehead, and stepped to the nearby heater lamp to remove their gloves and warm their hands against the radiating warmth; the stranger was a young tall man with a hint of facial hair just below his nose and along his jaw. He wore a gun belt occupied on his right hip with a revolver. His fingers were covered in long faded scars all over. “Thanks,” said the young man, “Clarkesville far? I think I was turned around in the snow. I’m not so used to it.”
The older man went to his rocking chair to cover himself with the wool blanket; he huffed and shivered. “At least a hundred kilometers west from here. You’re looking for Clearwater?”
The young man nodded then shifted to place his back to the heater lamp so that he could look on the family fully. “I’m Gomez,” he said to them. The man in the rocking chair stiffened in his seat and craned forward so that his boots were flatly planted before him.
The boy offered his name first with a smile so broad it exposed that his front two teeth along the bottom row were missing entirely. “Patrick,” said the boy.
The woman spoke gently and nodded in a quick reply, “Tam-Tam.”
“Huh?” asked the man in the chair, “You’re unfamiliar of the area? Where are you from?”
Gomez stuffed his arms beneath his armpits. “Originally?”
The man motioned for his pipe and Tam-Tam handed it to him—puffed on the dead tobacco and frowned. He nodded at Gomez.
“I’ve been making my way across the U.S. Mostly western territories, but I heard it was safer in Canada—North Country. Fewer prowlers. Originally though? Far south. Zapatistas—joined their cause for a bit, but,” Gomez looked to the guitar case on the floor, “I was better at music than killing. Or at least preferred it.” The young man let go of a small laugh, “Do you know anything of the Zapatistas?”
The man nodded, stroked his great mustache, and craned far to lift matches from the counter. He lit the pipe, and it smoked alive while he shook the match and puffed. “Durango.” The man hooked a thumb at himself.
Gomez nodded. “I played there before. Good money. Good people.”
The man grinned slyly over his pipe, “What are the odds? All the way up here?”
“It’s a small world,” Gomez agreed, “It’s getting smaller all the time. What are you doing so far from home?”
“Same as you. It’s safer, right? Everyone said, but I’m not so sure.”
The boy interjected, “You play music?” Patrick neared the case which sat on the floor, and he leaned forward to examine the outside of the object; it was constructed from a very hard, shining, plastic material.
“I do,” said Gomez.
“I haven’t heard music before. We sing sometimes, but not music for real,” said the boy.
Gomez frowned. “How old are you?”
Patrick turned to the man in the chair. “Pa?”
“He’s six,” said the man.
Tam-Tam shook her head, removing the pot from the hot eye. “He’s almost six.”
“Almost six,” said the boy, turning back to look at the stranger.
Gomez shook his head. “Almost six and you’ve never heard music? Not for real?” He sniffed through a cold clog and swallowed hard. “I’ll play you some.”
Patrick’s eyes widened and a delicate smile grew across his mouth.
“I’m Emil,” said the man in his chair, “You offered yours, so my name’s Emil.” Smoke erupted from his mouth while the pipe glowed orange. The older man wafted the air with his hand to dispel the smoke.
Tam-Tam Shut off the oven and placed the pot of stew on the counter atop a towel swatch and she pressed her face to the brim and inhaled.
“Is it good, dear?” asked Emil leaning forward in his chair by the counter to question the woman; the woman lifted a steaming ladle to her mouth and sipped then nodded and Patrick moved quickly to the woman’s side.
The boy received the first bowl and then turned to look at the interloper, metal spoon jammed into the side of his jaw while he spoke, “Play some music.”
“After,” said Emil, placing the pipe on the counter to grab himself some grub.
Emil ate while rocking in his chair and Tam-Tam leaned with her back against the counter, sipping directly from her bowl without a utensil. Gomez took his own bowl and squatted by the front door, pressing his lower back against the wall for support; Patrick, eyes wide, remained enamored with the strange man and questioned more, “Pa said it's warm in other places, that it’s not so dark either. What’s it like where you come from?”
Gomez smiled at the boy, blew on the spoonful he held in front of his lips then nodded, “It’s dangerous, more dangerous.”
Patrick nodded emphatically then finished his food with enthusiasm.
The stranger examined the bowl while turning the stew in his mouth with his tongue; the concoction had long-cut onions, chunked potatoes, strange jerky meat. “Pelts,” said Gomez.
Emil perked with a mouthful, unable to speak.
“You have pelts all over—are you a hunter?”
Emil swallowed back, “Trapper,” he nodded then continued the excavation of his bowl.
“Elk?”
The old man in the chair hissed in air to cool the food in his mouth then swallowed without hardly chewing, and patted his chest, “Sometimes.”
Gomez stirred his bowl, took a final bite then dipped the spoon there in the stew and sat the dish by his foot and moved to kneel and open his instrument case.
“It’ll get cold,” protested Tam-Tam.
Gomez smiled, “I’ll eat it. Your boy seems excited. Besides, I’d like to play a little.” He wiggled his scarred fingers, “It’ll work the cold out of my hands.”
He pressed the switches of the case while turning it on its side and opened it to expose a flamenco guitar. Patrick edged near the stranger, and Gomez nodded at the boy and lifted the guitar from its case, angling himself against the wall in a half-sit where his rear levitated. Gomez played the strings a bit, listened, twisted the nobs at the head of the guitar.
“Is that it?” asked the boy.
Gomez shook his head, “Just testing it. Warming my hands on it.”
In moments, the man began ‘Paloma Negra’, singing the words gently, in a higher register than his speaking voice would have otherwise hinted at. Patrick watched the man while he played, the boy’s hands remained clasped behind himself while he teetered on his heels and listened. Emil rocked in the chair, finished his meal, and relit the pipe. Tam-Tam listened most absently and instead went for seconds in the pot; she turned with her lower back on the counter and watched the man with the guitar.
There was no other noise besides the song which felt haunted alongside the hum of the heater lamps. Once it finished, the boy clapped, Emil clapped, Tam-Tam nodded, and Gomez bowed then sat the guitar beneath the porthole by the doorway.
“Thank you,” said Gomez.
“That’s quite good,” said Emil. As if spurred on by the music, the man gently rotated a palm around his stomach and rocked in his chair more fervently, “Where’d you learn to play like that?”
“All over,” said Gomez, “I like to pick up songs where I find them. Sometimes a fellow musician has a piece I like, almost never their own anyway, so I think we all share in some way.”
“Poetic,” offered Tam-Tam.
Gomez caught the woman’s eyes, nodded. “I guess it is.”
“Where’d you find that one?” asked Emil, “I heard it a few times but never this far north. It’s like a love song,” he offered the last sentence to the others in the room.
“You’re right—sort of,” Gomez placed his body against the wall by the door, glanced at the bowl of food he’d left on the floor then sighed and bowed again to lift it—the interloper tilted the bowl back on his bottom lip and sipped then casually leaned with the utensil against his sternum. “Somewhere in Mexico is where I heard it first. Maybe same as you.”
Patrick examined the guitar under the porthole, put his face directly up to the strings and peered into the hole in the center of the instrument; his expression was one of awe. He quickly whipped from the thing and stared at the guitarist and opened his mouth like he intended to ask a question. The boy stared at the scars on the interloper’s hands. “What’s those from?”
Not understanding the direction of the question, Gomez looked down to examine his fingers then shifted on his feet and nodded. “Mechanical work.”
Emil continued rocking in his chair and gathered the wool around his throat. “Where did you do that?”
“Zapatistas,” Gomez sipped from the bowl again and chewed, “It’s work I was never good at.” The young man shrugged.
“I wasn’t going to pry, but seeing as the boy’s asked, I’ll push more some if it’s not impolite.”
“It’s not,” Gomez agreed.
“That’s a lot of deep scarring for mechanical work,” Emil rocked in his chair, puffed, raised a furry eyebrow, “What stuff did you work on?”
“You want to know?”
Emil nodded, withdrew the pipe from his mouth and rolled his wrist out in front of himself then slammed the mouthpiece into his teeth.
“I worked with the army, but before then—well there was a boy, a little Chicano lad taken into one of the El Paso houses way back and all the girls that worked there loved him, but his mother perished, and no one even knew who she was. That was, oh,” Gomez tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling, “Twenty-two years ago or a little more.”
“Your hands?” asked Tam-Tam.
Gomez smiled warm and continued, “Well this little boy was given a name, but what’s in a name?” He seemed to pose the question to Emil who shook his head like he didn’t understand.
“I don’t understand,” said Emil aloud.
The younger man continued with the tale, “There was this boy, but he was taken over the Republican border by a group of desperados calling themselves Los Carniceros,” Gomez angled down to look at the boy, “Patrick, do you know what a desperado is?”
The boy shook his head, his expression one of total bafflement and a twinkle of nervousness. “A music-people?”
Gomez laughed heartily while Emil shuffled under his wool blanket—the older man stopped rocking in his chair, craned forward so his elbows rested on his knees and his thermals showed as the blanket slipped around his armpits. The hum of the heater lamps continued beside the silence.
“Los Carniceros are a group of fancy criminals that hail out of Veracruz, but they have networks all over. San Luis Potosi.” Gomez’s eyes locked with Emil’s, “Durango. They have connections with the cattle industries all over Mexico. Their name’s tongue-in-cheek, but that shouldn’t fool anyone—they are just as ready to butcher a man as they are a cow. They control the food; they control the politicians; they control trade.” Gomez shook his head. “I’ve gotten carried away. This is no history lesson. There was a boy taken into Los Carniceros territory. He was bought—I’m glad that never happened to you, Patrick—boys that are bought are never kept good for long. So, they brought Johnny-Boy, that’s what they called him, into their inner circle and they used to have Johnny-Boy fight dogs in a ring for the amusement of Los Carniceros’s officers. Sometimes they gambled on the whether the boy would die, but he never did.”
Tam-Tam shivered aloud and rubbed her biceps with her hands and shook her head. “What’s that have anything to do with your hands?”
“You’re right,” said Gomez, “I guess what I mean is when you spend time fighting dogs, they bite—they bite hard, and they break skin that needs to heal. But just as well as dogs bite, so too does the boy that is raised as a dog.” Gomez shrugged.
“Quite the story,” said Emil; he’d refrained from rocking in his chair and stayed very still. “You fought dogs?”
“I did. It’s been a helluva long time, but you know I did, Emil Vargas.”
The older man took a long drag from his pipe then cupped the thing in his hands while his vision drifted around the room. “Have you come to take me back?” asked the older man.
The interloper shook his head.
Emil’s gaze drifted to the faces of Patrick and Tam-Tam. “Will it just be me?”
Gomez shook his head, “I can do you first. You won’t need to see it.”
“What?” clamored Tam-Tam, “What the hell is going on?”
Patrick stumbled away from the stranger, clung to Tam-Tam, and said nothing but began to let out a low sob.
Emil took one last drag and tossed the pipe to the counter. “It wouldn’t help to beg?”
“Would it stop you?” asked Gomez.
“Probably not,” nodded the older man, “Me first then.”
Gomez withdrew his revolver and Tam-Tam let go of an awful shriek as Emil’s head jerked back in his chair to the bullet entering his chest. At the second bullet, Emil’s limbs shot out from him like he was a star.
Patrick and Tam-Tam gathered around each other, shuffled to the counter of the kitchen.
Juan Rodriguez—that was the interloper’s real name—took a step forward and fired the gun again and Tam-Tam struck the counter and blood rained down from her forehead; to perhaps save Patrick, she shoved the boy away in her death spasm. The boy stumbled over onto his knees and when he raised his head, Juan towered over him.
Patrick, almost six, shook violently and wept.
“Turn around,” said Juan.
Patrick turned away from the interloper, stared at the corpses of his mother and father.
Juan fired the revolver one last time and the boy hit the floor; the man holstered the pistol and wiped his cheek with a sleeve. His face was touched with blood splatter; he searched the floor, found a scrap of canvas, bent to snatch it. He wiped his face clear with the canvas and sighed and tossed the scrap away.
The cabin was entirely quiet, save the hum of the heater lamps, and Juan set about clearing the bodies from the cabin, first by opening the door. He chucked the corpse of the boy into the snow by the door, piled his mother alongside him, and fought with the heavier corpse of Emil till Juan fell into the snow beside the others. He pulled himself from the thick storm, staggered through the whistle-blow wind and fought through grunts and mild shouts to close the door.
Upon spinning with the closed door at his back, he saw several of the heater lamps had gone out in the wind. Shivering, teeth chattering, Juan found Emil’s matches on the counter and set about relighting each of the heater lamps which had gone out; he did the act automatonlike, a person driven by force but no lively one.
Through the harsh outside wind, which sounded like breathing against the boards, he hummed a tune to himself that manifested into him whistling a light tune—the River Kwai March—then rifled through the cabinetry of the kitchen, went through the footlocker by the double bed and dumped the contents onto the floor; he kicked the personal affects—papers, trinkets—across the boards. Among the things, he found a shiny glass-reflective tablet, lifted it, pocketed the thing into his parka, then kept looking for what else might catch his attention. He found a small square picture, frameless, face down and lifted it to his eyes then angled over to the nearest heater lamp with it pinched by the corner. The photo was of a woman too young to be a mother—she was more of a girl, really; she carried a fat-bellied infant on her hip in one arm and with the other, she held up a dual-finger peace sign. Juan stared at the picture in complete silence then chuckled at the blank expression of the baby, then threw the square photo like a shuriken across the room; it thunked against the wall and disappeared behind the double bed, never to be seen ever again.
As it went full dark outside, the chitter sounds of outside became prevalent, and Juan went to the porthole by the door, pulled the curtains tightly closed and offered no response to the alien sounds which culminated around the walls of the cabin. It was delirium incarnate—abyssal noise which swallowed even the blizzard howl. Things moved outside and Juan went to the kitchen again, looked over the cabinet doors, opened and slammed them; he huffed with exasperation and moved to the pot where the cooled stew sat and began to eat directly from there with the ladle. His far-off eyesight glared into the dimness of the heater lamps, his face glowing by them, and once he was finished with the pot, he chucked the thing and watched the leftover contents splatter into a wild configuration across the single room’s floor.
Only after removing his boots, he fell onto the double bed, removed his revolver from the holster and placed it there on the well-maintained bedding beside himself; he slept with his parka draped over his torso.
He did not open his eyes for the insect noises of the outside.
In the morning, he promptly wiped sleep from his eyes, rebolstered his weapon, and stared across the room with a blank expression. In a moment, spasm-like, he removed the tuque he slept in to reveal a head of black hair, and scratched his fingers over his head. He replaced the tuque, went to the porthole; upon swiping away the curtains, he stared into the white expanse, the black forest beyond—he took the sleeve of his thermal shirt and wiped across the porthole’s glass where condensation fogged.
Knee-high snow hills spilled inward as he opened the door, and he kicked the snow out lazily and stomped into the mess while shouldering his parka on; the hood flapped helplessly till he stiffly yanked it down his forehead. The wind was entirely mild, still. Through goggled eyes, he examined around the entrance, but there was no sign of the corpses—he waywardly stomped through the heavied snow in the place he’d deposited them and there was nothing below the surface.
Juan stumbled through the high snow around to where the dugout stood alongside the cabin and traced a smallish hill where he crawled for a moment to gather his footing. Snow had fallen in through the high apertures of the dugout, but there was a small door-gate attached between two of the pillars which held the slanted roof of the dugout. After fighting the door-gate out, he squeezed through, removed a flashlight from the inner pocket of his parka and settled down the few steps which led into the earth. A bit of morning light spilled in through those spaces of the wall along the high points, just beneath the roof, but Juan held the flashlight in his mouth and began examining the mess of snow-dusted containers.
Along the lefthand were sacks, well preserved if only for the weather; he kicked a tobacco sack—there was a crunch underfoot. Opposite the piled sacks of grains, vegetables, and dried meats were many metal crates, each one with hinges. At the rear of the dugout were a series of battery banks which seemed to hum with electricity.
He stomped each of the sacks, cocked his left ear to the air and began making a mess of the dugout. One crate contained expensive wooden boarding, he tipped this over into the little hallway created by the goods and carefully examined the contents and then he went to the next. The next crate was bolts of fabrics and twine and he sneered, shook his head.
The interloper took a moment, fell rear-first on the sacks, pulled the flashlight from his mouth and pawed across his forehead and throat; he sighed and sat quiet—in a moment, he was back at the search, more furiously. He rocked his head backward, so the parka hood fell away; sweat shined his face. There were condensed snares and jaws and there was a small crate of maple-infused wine; Juan froze when holding one of the bottles up to the higher natural light. He grimaced but set the box of bottles by the entryway, removing one which he slid into his parka. The Clarkesville Winery stamp was impressed on the metal wall of the package.
After several crates of canned goods, his movements became more sluggish and Juan came upon a crate that seemed to be more of the same, but whenever he tipped it over for the contents to spill out, a smaller, ornate wooden box fell out and he hushed, “Fuck,” while hunkering into the mess to retrieve the box. Some old master carved Laelia Orchids into the grain alongside stalkish invasive sage; the wood—Acacia—was old but well kept. The bronze hardware shone cleanly enough.
The container was no longer than his forearm and he briefly held the thing to the high-light and moved to the entrance and fell haphazardly onto the strewn and half-deflated frozen tobacco sacks.
He opened the small box’s latch and flipped it’s top open and smiled at the contents and quicky slapped the box shut.
In a flash, he unburied his snowmobile with his hands, harnessed his guitar case to its rear, then trailed through the snow gathered against the side of the cabin, using the exterior wall as support with his hand. He came to the backside of the structure, tilted his head to gaze again over at the dugout then swiveled to look at the thick metal tank buried in the ground and marked by a big hump in the snow. Juan moved to the tank, brushed off the snow with gloved hands, nodded to himself. Quickly, he returned to the tank with a hand-pick and bucket he snatched from the dugout. With a few swings, fuel spilled through the punctures he’d created; he placed the bucket beneath the handmade spigots to catch the fuel—in seconds the bucket sloshed full as he lifted it and wavered round to the front of the cabin where the door remained open.
He doused the innards of the structure with the bucket and whipped the object against the interior wall then removed the matches from the counter. Standing in the doorway, he lit the awaiting inferno; the heat explosion pushed him wobble-legged outside while he covered his face from it; he hustled to the snowmobile without looking back.
The vehicle came alive, and Juan trailed across the plane he’d used the day prior. As the snowmobile met the sparse black tree line, the flames too met the fuel tank at the back of the cabin; a heavy eruption signaled, and blackbirds cawed as they trailed across the milk-blue sky.
Among the rush of trees there was a translucent figure and Juan roundabouted the snowmobile. Upon edging to the place of the forest, still very near the trapper’s cabin, Juan caught sight of a stickman among the wide spaced trunks. The noises exhausted from its face the same as a cicada’s tymbal call. Juan killed the engine, removed his pistol, leapt from the snowmobile.
The stickman fought in the snow with something unseen, bulbous-jointed limbs erratically clawed against the ground; it seemed more crab than humanoid. Juan approached with the pistol leveled out in front of himself. The stickman, a North Country native, took up great armfuls of snow as it tumbled to the ground, slanted onto its feet, then tumbled over again. It was caught in a bear trap and as the thing fought against the jaw, its leg twisted worse and worse, and the cicada call grew more distressed. Its hollow limb, smashed and fibrous like a fresh and splintered bamboo shoot, offered no blood at the wound.
“Huh,” said Juan, lowering the gun to his side. He shook his head. The stickman called to him.
The interloper returned to his snowmobile and went west.
Archive

I grew up in rural Wells County Indiana, and lived just a hop skip away from the oldest cemetery in the county. Many of our earliest pioneers and settlers were buried there, many as early as the 18th century. Needless to say, there is some history with the place, and I'm sure it has its share of activity. Nevertheless, I am unsure to this what this is about, but perhaps your audience can shine some light on the subject.
At the northeast corner of the cemetery there was an old oak tree, probably every bit 100 years old or more. During peak season, it barely had any leaves that populated its huge branches, and it was among the most prominent trees that one could notice. But it wasn't the shear girth of the tree, or the age that would draw your attention-- it was the agonizing face that it had that grabbed your attention. Let me describe the face in the trunk of the tree to you with what memory I have left of it: Imagine watching someone slowly burning to death, the terrified look they might possess with their jaws wide open screaming, and the eye sockets, perhaps burned out, hollow and dark. It wasn't a small face either, the face in the trunk was massive and it was as though the dark eyes were watching over the whole cemetery- including passers by.
One day, while visiting friends, I described the tree to his family and they were intrigued, no less. My friend's mom and the rest of the family followed me home because they wanted to stop at the cemetery and take pictures of the spooky tree. They did, taking more than a dozen photographs with the camera and from different angles. When they were finished, they reviewed the photos on the camera, going through them and showing them to me. It seemed they had all of the photographs they would ever need in case anyone was curious to know what the tree looked like.
Except when they had the photos printed out at our local Walgreens-- every single photograph of the tree, and I do mean every single one, came out a flat gray solid color. No tree, no sky, no grass, no other trees- for it was in front of a wooded area. Just a solid gray picture as if the photograph was taken of a wall painted with primer. And the kicker was, these weren't the only photos they had printed, the photos of the tree were in the middle of an entire card that they had filled up. So when my friend and I tried to load the pictures up once more on the camera, we would received an error message whenever the tree photographs would try to load.
Weeks later, in June of 2008, we had a storm system go through which produced an F1 tornado. Our yard was hit, thankfully not the house or garage itself. A few of the neighbor's trees were uprooted, but 2/3 of a mile up the road, none of the trees in the cemetery were touched except for a few fallen small branches. However, the tree with the spooky face in its trunk was gone. This was the day after the storm came through, and I arrived at the cemetery to see if the tree had fallen over. When came to the corner where it stood so prominently for presumably decades or centuries-- there was no tree, no trunk, not even a hole in the ground where it stood. Behind where the tree used to stand there was a very steep drop off into the woods. It probably dropped a good twenty or so feet.
I've gone back many times to find the tree.
Never did find it.

Pat Fusty

• Playstyle: Pat is a close range hero with incredible stalling capabilities as well as an ability to greatly increase the damage of nearby towers. He works excellently with tack shooters, druids, ninjas, and any other close range towers that fire many projectiles. The more high-projectile towers that are packed close to him, the better, which makes super monkey fan club and above a go-to choice for heavy bursts of damage. He works best on maps with tight chokepoints, where his stalling capabilities can keep bloons in ideal positions.

Fusty the Snowman

• Alternate Mechanics: Similar to BTDB2. Focuses on freezing bloons, passively allowing all towers to hit frozen bloons, and buffing nearby ice monkeys.
• Playstyle: Fusty the Snowman retains a similar playstyle to Pat Fusty, but with a higher focus on stalling than buffing. What he loses in damage capability, he makes up for in control, locking down chokepoints and giving any monkey the opportunity to pop frozen bloons.

Kaiju Pat

• Alternate Mechanics: Deals more damage, stun / slap chance lowered. Level 3 ability replaced with a large stomp that stuns nearby bloons (much like the T-rex), level 10 ability replaced with a temporary stream of fire breathing.
• Playstyle: Kaiju Pat is a raw-damage oriented variant that allows him more use in strategies where stalling is not as important or towers cannot be packed tightly together, such as when using heli pilots. His stomp and breathe fire abilities make him adept at dealing with groups of bloons by himself, but don’t have the same synergies as Rallying Roar nor the incredible ZOMG popping of Big Squeeze.

Adora

• Playstyle: Adora is another expensive, DPS oriented hero like that of Churchill. Unlike Churchill however, she is far more versatile due to her long range bolts that can seek out bloons even behind cover. Adora gains power by sacrificing expensive towers for xp and temporary buffs to herself and all Sun Avatars and above. She does well on maps with lots of obstacles, abnormal angles, and/or multiple lanes.

Joan of Arc Adora (Idea from u/I_am_person_being)

• Alternate Mechanics: “Essentially reverse Adora. Blood sacrifice, instead of sacrificing towers in exchange for xp, resets Adora's level in exchange for massive buffs to other towers based on the amount of xp given up.”
• Playstyle: Joan of Arc Adora is a high risk, high reward hero that sacrifices her own power for the power of others. Careful use of her abilities can carry the defense through difficult rounds, allowing more time to farm or save up money for expensive upgrades.

Voidora (Idea inspired by u/WillMAW1)

• Alternate Mechanics: Teleports into the place of towers she sacrifices, but doesn’t gain any other buffs herself. Sacrifices buff Dark Knights and above rather than Sun Avatars and above.
• Playstyle: Voidora is all about moving around the battlefield and buffing Dark Knights, giving her special synergies on maps with alternating lanes or maps that move. She can also keep up with boss bloons and BADs with her mobility, making her an excellent choice when mobility is required. However, her lack of self-buffs and her buffs to Dark Knights over Sun Avatars limits her damage potential compared to normal Adora.

Admiral Brickell

• Playstyle: Admiral Brickell is the quintessential water hero, being exclusively placable in water and giving massive buffs to water towers near her. She generally serves best as a backline defense, allowing her mines to build up in order to defend against rushes.

Dread Pirate Brickell (Idea inspired by u/WillMAW1)

• Alternate Mechanics: Focuses on monkey pirates income / cooldown buffs and merchantman generation. Her level 10 ability pulls in moabs like a Monkey Pirate.
• Playstyle: Where Admiral Brickell buffs raw damage output from water towers, Dread Pirate Brickell buffs the abilities / income of her fellow buccaneers. Though she can help pull in lots of moabs and generate lots of money, she will need a bit more support against regular bloons.

Lifeguard Brickell (Idea inspired by u/WillMAW1)

• Alternate Mechanics: Can be placed on land and allows water towers to be placed on land too (with a little visual of an orange inflatable pool beneath them). Doesn’t make mines, but does regenerate lives lost over time.
• Playstyle: Lifeguard Brickell allows water towers in non-water maps, allowing for monkey subs and monkey buccaneers to be placed in ideal positions. This allows players to take advantage of the track geometry without requiring portable lakes. Her ability to regenerate lives also makes her a valuable asset in maps where a difficult early game causes lots of bloons to leak.

Ettiene

• Playstyle: Ettienes controls drones that fly around a large radius and can shoot over obstacles. Later on he grants all monkeys permanent camo detection and eventually he gains a high-damage combat drone with global range. He excels on similar maps as Adora, but takes on a more supportive role than her. His ability to grant all monkeys camo detection allows for a spread out defense, which is especially useful on maps with simultaneous lanes or maps where space is limited.

ETn (Idea inspired by u/WillMAW1)

• Alternate Mechanics: ETn’s ufo drones shoot lasers that can pop frozen bloons & eventually lead bloons at the cost of purple popping. His level 3 ability is replaced with the ability to beam up and reposition towers. His level 10 ability is replaced with an continuous orbital laser that follows the mouse / touch and lasts for several seconds (mimicking the exact effects of the Bloonsday Device from BTD5).
• Playstyle: ETn takes on an even more supportive role, being able to reposition towers on the fly at the cost of damage. This is useful in similar situations as Voidora, making him strong on maps with alternating lanes and maps with moving platforms. His level 10 ability is much more controlled, losing the ability to target several lanes at once but dealing huge damage in a select area, increasing his power in alternating lanes while decreasing his power in simultaneous ones.

Book Wyrm Ettiene (Idea inspired by u/WillMAW1)

• Alternate Mechanics: Lead damage & flaming DoT. Grants global purple popping instead of global camo popping.
• Playstyle: Book Wyrm Ettiene is more damage focused than his predecessors, gaining lead popping right off the bat and allowing all towers to pop purple bloons. He synergizes well with wizards, upgraded super monkeys, and other towers that can easily gain camo detection but not pop purples. Book Wyrm Ettiene doesn’t do as well with a spread out defense and instead works well on maps with lots of obstacles for wizards, super monkeys, and himself to shoot through.

Sauda

• Playstyle: Sauda is a close range DPS hero, focusing on damaging large groups of bloons, including camo, as well as gaining extra damage to frozen / slowed / and stunned bloons. She works best at a chokepoint supported by stalling towers such as an Ice Monkey.

Viking Sauda

• Alternate Mechanics: Deals more damage the lower the player’s health is, similar to Heart of Vengeance. Level 3 ability replaced with Bloon Ride: jumps on top of the strongest bloon and stabs it repeatedly until it is popped.
• Playstyle: Viking Sauda is a higher risk, higher reward version of Sauda, haining benefits the lower the player's health and even leaving her position temporarily to pop a moab. She works well with Heart of Vengeance druids as well as towers that can clean up bloons while she’s busy taking down moabs.

Jiangshi Sauda

• Alternate Mechanics: Lower damage, but gains power based on a personal graveyard, similar to a necromancer. Her level 10 ability consumes her graveyard and summons zombie bloons based on the amount consumed.
• Playstyle: Jiangshi Sauda works best when the entire defense is concentrated to attack bloons in her radius. This allows her to even more effectively hold off chokepoints, but makes her weak if she is not actively the center of the battlefield.

Psi

• Playstyle: Psi shoots global psychic blasts that instantly destroy bloons, even through walls. This makes Psi very similar to a Sniper Monkey, being at their best when supported by high-pierce cleanup towers. Psi’s range and versatility make them a great choice for maps with simultaneous lanes or maps where space is limited.

Psimbals

• Alternate Mechanics: Focuses on abilities rather than direct firepower. The abilities get more and more complex, adding additional effects as instruments pile onto the one-monkey-band.
• Playstyle: Psimbals takes on a very similar role to Psi, but with a few key differences. Being Ability focused, Psimbals can handle themselves far better against big rushes of bloons or large bloons that Psi can’t affect such as BADs or bosses. This comes at the cost of overall firepower, and a stronger passive defense will need to be built up to clear the normal rounds.

Geraldo

• Playstyle: Geraldo’s shop adds a multitude of options for pretty much any scenario. Smart players can use the shop items to pass difficult rounds and selectively buff the defense wherever needed, whenever needed. Geraldo’s placement mostly doesn’t matter, making him very valuable on multi-lane maps or maps with limited space.

Gentlemonkey Gadgeteer

• Alternate Mechanics: All Engineers and Tack Shooter are considered subtowers of the Gentlemonkey Gadgeteer, and gain the same buffs as he does. Shop items revolve around buffing Tack Shooters / Engineer monkeys. Shooty Turret replaced with Tacky Turret (mini Tack Shooter).
• Playstyle: The Gentlemonkey Gadgeteer adds a different kind of versatility to Geraldo, focusing on buffs to Engineers and Tack Shooters. This makes him better on tracks with lots of bends or centralized locations than his standard counterpart.

I’m currently on chapter 27 doing a re-read on eye of darkness right now for temptation coming up next week and something I’ve always had in thought but not really discussed is the idea of Elzar going full blown sith on us based on the WHOLE story between light of the Jedi to up until the end of defy the storm his desperation with Keven for the second time just highlights his desperation to try and do something good because of his own self-failures…

• his IMPATIENCE and his REVENGE-feels on finding anything to ACT on the storm wall
  
• his need to do everything LIKE Stellan thus making himself seem as less of a Jedi because of his pain of the loss he feels he cannot be Bell/Burry/Porter Jedi he needs to be this making him SELFISH and a hint of Anikan at the same time for not letting go
  
• Elzar is not being straight up with the council about what he did to Chancey he only disclosed to Avar and that was because of the connection he has with her.
  
• Avar, plain and simple.
  

-Can’t imagine what will happen if something happens to Avar and doesn’t have a huge epiphany like how Belin gave Avar. Total path to the dark side
Elzar has the whole Sith formula, it’s kinda crazy how laid out his blueprint is and if it’s even a path their considering holy shit I am so stoked for it. But regardless I love the whole HR arc whether I’m right or wrong I’m in it for the ride.
Side note: I should say I haven’t caught up on the comics for phase 3 in case there’s something in there that should be officially against all this… 😅

So you're probably here because you've seen my thank you posts and you've seen me offer some cards. But what the hell do I like? Well I got your answer right here. I'm currently a 39 year old stay at home mom to a very smart and very silly 3 year old who loves numbers. I love to find things to do like writing letters to people is a wonderful hobby, I'm also on postcrossing. I have the same name on there as on here. Here are the things I love.
Hobbies Gardening: I love planting flowers, my husband plants vegetables and I love watching them produce things.
Needle felting: It's a great destresser, you make cute animals out of wool, you use a really thick needle so it's like stabbing someone you are annoyed by while also making a rabbit.
Lego building: I started this hobby when I first met my husband who had built an entire Hogwarts set out of legos, before the actual set came out. I love building the big things, the small things are fun but I finish them so quickly. My husband also does lego comics, feel free to check them out if you can. Federation Star Defense, A Star Trek comic
Harry potter comic
Dungeons and Dragons: My husband is often the dungeon master and he and his brother squabble over their own rules, so it's never a dull moment playing. I like playing archers and random creatures.
Favorite Shows
The Simpsons American Dad Bob's Burgers Family Guy Firefly The Mandalorian Bluey Futurama Animaniacs Gravity Falls Anything with the muppets Stargate Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse are awesome
Favorite Colors
Teal Dark greens Blues Purples I like any color really
Favorite Animals
cats: I especially love calicos since I did have one once dogs giraffes goats or any other farm animal for that matter marine animals Amphibians: Frogs and toads are cool insects except for wasps capybaras meerkats lizards
Favorite movies
Back to the Future Indiana jones (the first 3, the other two do not exist) Original ghostbusters Moana I like most Disney movies with a few exceptions, feel free to ask Cat's Don't Dance Rat Race Monty Python and the Holy Grail Secondhand Lions Spirited Away Prince of Egypt As Good As it Gets The Original Star Wars, though I do like the Prequels The Shawshank Redemption Jurassic Park Forest Gump Deadpool Hellboy Spiderman into the Spider verse (there is probably a pattern here you might have noticed)
Other random things
I love finding vintage cards I can talk your ear off about geography and random places in the world I love funny stuff especially bad puns I do love to go camping and hiking I volunteer with the local history center and do cemetery crawls for them. I once did the Disney College Program way back in 2005, it was fun, but I only did food and beverage so it wasn't my favorite but it was a good experience. Places I would love to visit: All of Australia, Japan, Norway, Scotland, I have been to France but I want to see it again, Barrow, Alaska, South Africa, and Namibia. I have been to all national parks in Colorado, my favorite is Mesa Verde but Sand Dunes are really fun if you go at the right time. My favorite national park though, is Zion. I would still like to visit Death Valley, Olympic, Denali, Voyageurs, Wind Cave, and Big Bend.
Thank you for your time and have a great day.

[Backstory][Arc 1][Next>]
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Chapter 1: Sorcery of the Dead
Rubble crunched beneath Gribble's clawed feet. He stood atop the heap of shattered stone, his sickly yellow eyes flicking over the carnage. Pillars lay toppled, their rune-carved surfaces fractured into jagged shards. Stones stained rusty crimson with dwarven blood.
The stench of death and smoke clung to the back of Gribble's throat. His nostrils flared, drinking in the aftermath of butchery. A few hours past, this chamber had rung with the clash of arms and the screams of the dying. Now only the crackle of flames and the occasional clatter of shifting rubble broke the sepulchral hush.
Gribble's green skin seemed to swallow the feeble grey light seeping through gaps in the ruined ceiling. Shadows gathered in the hollows of his gaunt cheeks, in the cruel twist of his lips. He lifted one hand, the sharp nails glinting like chips of obsidian.
Bones littered the floor. Skeletons contorted in their final agonies, scraps of flesh and torn armor still clinging to their yellowed frames. Gribble flexed his fingers, his eyes flaring brighter. Threads of sickly green energy twined around each corpse, knitting through ribs and empty eye sockets.
Bones rattled and scraped against flagstones. Skeletons lurched upright, their movements jerky, marionettes dancing on a mad necromancer's strings. Empty orbits flickered with corpse-light. Skeletal hands groped for notched blades and war-axes, the weapons they'd wielded in life now instruments of blasphemy.
Dwarven tapestries hung in charred tatters from the walls. Woven images once depicting the kingdom's history and heroes now warped to smudged nightmares.
Gribble's gaze snagged on one tapestry more intact than the rest. Golden threads glimmered through the soot-stains, limning a heroic dwarven king, his hammer upraised, his followers clustered around him.
Gribble snarled. He swung his hand in a sharp, slashing motion. Oily black flames leapt from his claws. They struck the tapestry, clinging, spreading with unnatural speed. Hungry tongues of dark fire consumed beard and crown, transmuting the king's victory into a death-rictus of agony.
The tapestry crumbled in on itself, warp and weft eaten away to drifting black wisps. Gribble threw his head back, laughing. The sound was the scrape of a whetstone on a rusted blade.
The grating creak of a shifting stone cut off his mirth. His pointed ears twitched, swiveling towards a narrow archway half-hidden behind a tumbled column. A furtive scrabbling, like rats fighting in the walls. But no rat had made that sound.
Gribble's thick lips skinned back from his teeth. Curse the dwarves. Too stupid to know when to lay down and embrace oblivion. He'd assumed his massacre was complete. That this shattered corpse of a chamber held no more life to be choked out.
He'd been careless. Sloppy. Left a few maggots squirming in the rotted flesh of this fallen kingdom. No matter. He rolled his shoulders, the joints popping. He'd remedy that oversight.
His hand twisted in a summoning motion. Viridian sparks dripped from his nails. A translucent wisp of emerald foxfire sprang into being over his palm, its unearthly glow throwing the craggy lines of his face into sharp relief.
The glow illuminated the archway and the short passage beyond. Gribble moved towards it, his feet nearly silent amid the rubble. As he approached, the scrabbling intensified, then cut off with a choked gurgle. Some broken thing trying to muffle its pain. Its fear.
Gribble's tongue flicked out, tasting the air. The flavor of desperation and impotent defiance burst across his senses like a spoiled fruit. He could almost see the wretches cowering in their bolt-holes, mewling prayers to their carved-bone gods.
All that effort to hide, to cling to the tatters of their pointless existences. Hadn't they seen what he'd wrought? Hadn't they witnessed their kin and comrades torn to steaming gobbets, flesh scoured from bone by the spells boiling from his lips?
There was no salvation. No escape. The sooner they embraced the purity of despair, the sooner he could grant them the mercy of utter destruction. But if they wished to draw out their suffering, to marinate in a few more precious moments of false hope, he was happy to oblige them. It was, after all, nothing more than they deserved.
The foxfire cast eerie shadows on the walls, green as gangrene. The wisp bobbed and gibbered silently as he entered the passage. The reek of terror grown thick enough to coat the back of his tongue. Gribble swallowed, savoring it.
He clawed a gestured. Behind him, bones clacked and rattled as a handful of his new skeletal thralls stumbled into motion. He didn't spare them a glance, trusting in the power of his magic to bind them to his will.
The passage kinked to the left, ending in an ironbound door hanging drunkenly from one twisted hinge. The wood was pocked with axe-scars, each mark black with clotted blood. Gribble kicked the door, his withered muscles swelling with stolen necromantic vigor.
Hinges squealed. Wood exploded into sodden splinters. The heavy portal slammed inward. It struck the wall, rebounded. Through the ringing echo, Gribble heard a yelp, high and pitiful with fear.
He stepped across the threshold, the foxfire swimming through the murk to orbit his head. The chamber was small and mean, more a cell than a room. Piles of smashed crates and barrels lined the walls, the detritus of a last, frantic attempt at a barricade.
In the center of the room, a lone dwarf crouched over a body. No, a pair of bodies. Two more dwarves sprawled brokenly on the flagstones. One was missing most of its head, its beard matted into a glistening sponge by the grey-pink ruin of its brain.
The other corpse lay face-down, its stubby limbs thrown out at angles nature never intended. The haft of a broken spear jutted between its shoulders. Black fluid seeped from the wound, another stream dribbling from the scrap of meat that had been its throat.
The living dwarf spun to face Gribble. The creature was maimed, its face a hideous topography of burnt flesh and crusted blood. One arm hung limp, the bone poking through the skin. Its remaining hand white-knuckled the hilt of a notched sword.
Rheumy eyes squinted at Gribble through slits in the seared meat of the dwarf's face. Recognition and rage kindling in their depths. Its cracked lips worked, as if trying to dredge up enough moisture to spit.
Gribble cocked his head, considering the dwarf. The way it crouched over its butchered comrades, its ruined face set in a rictus of furious determination. An unexpected ember of grudging respect kindled in his shriveled heart.
Here was a maggot with some backbone. A worm that fancied itself a viper, valiantly rearing up to strike at the boot-heel poised to crush its egg-mates. There was something perversely admirable in that level of futile defiance. A piquancy that would add a certain spice to the inevitable slaughter.
The dwarf awkwardly shuffled around to place itself between Gribble and the door. It raised the sword in its shaking hand, the point dipping and weaving drunkenly. Phlegm rattled in its throat, bubbling out as wet, wracking coughs.
Gribble smiled. A stretching of lips that was all mockery and malice, as empty of true mirth as a bare skull. He stepped into the chamber, the foxfire's glow painting the blood-slick walls the color of spoiled meat.
The rattle of bones echoed from the passageway behind him. The dwarf's rheumy eyes darted to the dark opening. They went wide as the first skeletal warrior stumbled into view, its frame a jangling patchwork of grave-remnants and dwarven battle-gear.
The dwarf made a sound then. A low, wordless moan that needed no translation. In it was horror and despair in equal measure, the final tattered threads of courage frayed past mending by the sight of its kin defiled.
Gribble breathed in the sour reek of the dwarf's anguish. Let it roll across his palate like a vintner savoring a rare draught. His hand crept to the hilt of his own sword, the vicious black blade seeming to drink in the foxfire's glow.
The dwarf's eyes snapped back to him. The moan climbed into a snarl clotted with equal parts fury and despair. Gribble watched the mortal mind behind those eyes fray and snap, the last gap-toothed cog slipping out of alignment.
With a roar like a scalded bear, the dwarf charged. The sword arced wildly, black with blood and fragments of its wielder's sanity. The broken thing had finally found the mercy of purpose in its madness, embracing destruction as the only absolution.
Gribble's blade leapt from its sheath with a whisper. Chill ebon metal met notched dwarven steel with a shriek. Sparks showered, reflecting in the skeletal warriors' empty eyes as they crowded the doorway.
The dwarf's sword shattered, shards of metal spinning across the room. One of the razor shards carved a line of brilliant pain across Gribble's cheek. He laughed again, his tongue darting out to lap at the welling ichor.
His blade sank into the meat of the dwarf's belly, grating on the cage of ribs. He twisted his wrist savagely, metal grating on bone. A loop of glistening intestine, gray as a drowned man's finger, flopped wetly from the gaping slash.
The dwarf's scream tore at its throat, flecking its beard with gobbets of blood. It clutched at its spilling guts with its one good hand, trying vainly to cram them back into the ruin of its stomach.
Gribble ripped his sword free. Loops of bowel draped his wrist like glistening ropes of rancid sausage. He flicked them away disdainfully. At his gesture, the skeletal warriors surged forward as one, bony claws grasping.
They fell on the dwarf in a clattering tide, bearing the twitching meat to the flagstones and tearing. Gobbets of flesh flew, blood spraying in abstract patterns across the walls. The dwarf's screams spiraled up into an agonized gibber.
Gribble stood over it all, drinking in the raw sounds of rending meat and splintering bone. He closed his eyes in an almost sexual ecstasy, feeling the dwarf's agony pour into him, filling some empty space behind his ribs.
He held up a hand, fingers splayed. The skeletal warriors froze, their gory work nearly complete. Only the dwarf's head remained, barely recognizable as anything that had once been thinking flesh.
Gribble crooked a finger. A gasp of foul air escaped the ruin of the dwarf's lipless mouth as its skull rose from the steaming spread of its body. Gobbets of meat sloughed away, followed by the wet slither of exposed brain.
The skull slipped free in a parody of birth. It drifted to orbit Gribble's head along with the cold flame of the foxfire. Empty sockets flickered, filling with a rotting emerald radiance.
Gribble turned and strode from the chamber, his grisly trophies bobbing in his wake. Gore squelched beneath his heavy boots. In the passageway beyond, more skeletons waited, their bones gleaming wetly in the spectral light.
The skull's jaw clacked and gibbered silently, mouthing imprecations or pleas. Gribble cared not. They were all the same to him. Meat and bone and squealing souls, all fodder for the dark machinations of his will.
He had an empire to build, and this pathetic midden heap of a fortress was only the first loose stone to pry from the crumbling edifice of mortality. One by one, he would topple their castles and crack open their yellowed philospher's scraps, until all that remained was the purity of the void. And he, Gribble, would rule over it all, the last fading scream before the fall of the eternal night.
The thought warmed him, a hideous dopamine rush better than the most decadent flesh or the headiest mead. His shoulders shook, not with weariness, but with a terrible, silent laughter.
He mounted the steps leading out of the ruined keep, trailing his grisly honor guard. The guttering flames were lower now, the smoke thicker. It seemed to part before him like a noxious bridal veil.
He reached the great rent in the wall where the main gate had once stood, now a gore-splattered wound in the keep's carcass. Beyond lay his army, a seething mass of rot-green wisps and bleached bone. An unliving sea, its depths pregnant with poisonous oblivion.
Gribble paused at the threshold, his gaze traveling across that vista of horror. The thing squatting in the center of his chest squeezed, not with sorrow or regret, but with a pure, distilled thrill of malevolent anticipation. This, all of this, was only the beginning.
With a final hacking bark of laughter, he raised his blade overhead. The foxfire raced down the ebon metal, wreathing the sword in ghostly corpse-light. At its master's signal, the unliving army rippled into motion.
As they marched from that shattered keep into a world as yet unaware of the onrushing tide of its extinction, Gribble could not help but feel that perhaps immortality was not so elusive a thing as the mortal philosophers had always preached. For as long as his name endured, whispered in the final fading nightmares of a doomed existence, would he not, in some twisted fashion, live forever?
The thought pleased him. And that, perhaps, was the most terrible thing of all.

Audiophiles, particularly designers and engineers, can be a pretty eccentric bunch. I'm wondering if anyone working in the audio/headphone industry has any amusing stories or anecdotes to share to help me pass a slow day at work? Like for example, I used to work in the angling industry, and some of the fishing lure designers can be pretty weird, and I heard a story of two rival lure designers getting so angry with each other at a fishing competition one of them got a gun and shot the other one during an argument about lure design, one claiming the other had ripped off his idea. Maybe that example is a bit dramatic/dark, but does anyone have any tales like that? Strange customer? Weird coworkers? Shady dealers?

I hear the dripping again. The constant, drip, drip, drip of water. I blink my eyes open and try to focus to make sure I'm not in another nightmare. It sounds like another leak; this one might be the last. The last time I will hear it before the horrible conclusion to this ordeal. The last time hearing that telltale noise, before the true nature of that loathsome portal is revealed and whatever hideous dimension hiding on the other side breaks through completely.
The sound is growing louder, each drop has an exaggerated tone. It sounds like small explosions all trying to collapse the ceiling and engulf me in the dark abyss that I have already once been forced to endure.
I just can’t believe this could really be happening, it just can’t! It swallowed people up, the portal behind that damn leak. I don’t know what to do.
Just a short while ago my only problem would have been the water damage to my belongings. Indeed, such a mundane problem as a leak in the ceiling would just be a minor issue, nothing to fear except the repair bill. Yet I'm afraid it is a bit beyond that now. I shouldn't have waited this long I should have just left. Yet where could I have gone? Maybe I should have paid more attention to who I was talking to and what they were saying. All too late now I suppose.
I have been living in this apartment for close to six months. I had moved into this dingy complex, to a small studio apartment after I lost my job and had to find a part time position at significantly less pay. I tried to stay optimistic but even before the terrible reality of what I was stepping into was clear, I was still on hard times. I could barely afford this decrepit room as it was, and I had no family or friends to speak of that I might be able to move in with so my options were essentially non existent.
Considering the dire situation, I found the cheapest accommodation I could and what I found was my home and hell for the last six months, number 316 at the Greenfield Heights apartment complex. The amenities included paper thin walls to hear all the drug deals gone wrong, domestic violence and constant sirens of emergency vehicles blaring from all sorts of incidents. Topped off with a nice turn-down service of package and mail theft to boot. All of these problems though, feel small compared to the true horror of what the place had in store for me.
No, it wasn't exactly a paradise, but I had to find the cheapest place I could. I was barely making a fraction of what I was before at my old job, and I needed somewhere to get back on my feet. I told myself it was temporary and once I could get a better job I would get out of here.
When I had first arrived to look at the place, I had arranged a simple walk through with the landlord Mr. Jacobs a very unpleasant fellow who always looked perpetually angry and was constantly shouting in the halls and at the few miserable looking staff who worked here. We walked up two flights of stairs passing a wall of profanity laden graffiti tagged along almost the whole length of it leading up to where my future home was to be.
Mr. Jacobs opened the door and the rattling handle nearly fell off in the effort. We stepped inside and the dank room stank like a tomb. The tiny apartment was depressing and when he went to turn on the main light nothing happened. He scoffed and muttered a string of colorful language and grumbled that.
“Someone will bring a new light bulb; I told Rodney to check earlier that lazy piece of shit.”
I didn't want to press the matter since he looked pissed off, so we went in, and he showed me what little there was to see of the tiny apartment. We had to rely on the dim light of the bedroom to see elsewhere, since the main light was out. Despite leading the walk-through, it looked like Mr. Jacobs was distracted, he was looking at the ceiling in the corner of the tiny living room with a concerning grimace on his face.
He stared at it for a while and paused the tour, I found it a little weird. He finally looked back at me as if noticing that I was watching him stare at the ceiling and he shrugged and asserted that.
“You are going to want to get some buckets, when it rains heavily that part of the ceiling leaks. Can't seem to find out how since there's no leak on 416 above but bad luck on this one, I guess, that's the only reason the price is so low.” He shot me a grin that I could only describe as enthusiastically malicious. After the brief walk-through Mr. Jacobs turned around and asked very bluntly.
“You are not a troublemaker, are you?” His eyes narrowed and he looked very threatening suddenly. I assured him of my earnest intent and need for a place to stay, and he softened briefly, at least I think he did, it was hard to tell with him. He regarded me one more time and said.
“Good we don’t need more troublemakers, too many questions, always snooping around. If you have any questions try to figure it out yourself, this isn't the Ritz we don't take care of everything for you. You are going to have to make do as is. Something really bad like a fire then you can call, but for minor shit, best to just figure it out yourself. Rents due on the 1st by the way, no exceptions and no grace period anyone who bums out on their debt gets their asses kicked out next day, fuck tenant laws!”
He shot me another wicked smile and returned downstairs leaving me with the keys and just assuming I had agreed to move in. I was dumbfounded by the combination of his upfront hateful attitude and the subtext of certain things he had mentioned. What in his mind was a troublemaker? And what happened to those who asked too many questions? I couldn't believe I was going to have to live here.
In a better position I would have left immediately but it was either here or homeless. All the other places I had looked were too expensive, so I left and began packing my things. The whole situation was awful, but I had no choice, I moved in the next weekend.
Moving day was as bleak as my mood. It had been raining on and off again all day and seemed to start heavily just in time to when I was moving my boxes, almost as if to spite me. I started taking my stuff upstairs to my new room.
As I was taking the first box up the stairs, I thought I heard a gunshot. I rushed on in nervous tension and as I was approaching my door, I heard a voice call out in a tone that was actually friendly.
“Excuse me, it looks like you dropped something.”
I was surprised to see a woman standing in the hall with a look of friendly concern. As I looked down to see I had indeed dropped something from the broken box I was trying to carry upstairs.
“Hi, I'm Maxine, I am your neighbor in 315.”
I introduced myself and was relieved to have found a friendly face for a change.
“Hey there, I’m Greg, nice to meet you.” I held out my hand and she looked uncomfortable briefly and declined the handshake.
“Sorry, I’m getting over a cold I shouldn't, but it is nice to meet you.” She said with another disarming smile.
I was relieved to see someone who didn't look they were minutes away from killing me or someone else. Though the paranoid part of my brain was begging the question why such a seemingly nice person was stuck here. I considered asking her but figured it would be rude to pry about her situation, she might have been like me and just on hard times. I was embarrassed when I realized I was just standing there after saying hello and stumbled for words, but she spoke first.
“Well, it was nice meeting you Greg, stay safe and try not to let your spirits get down. It’s easy in this place but nothing bad lasts forever.” She smiled and waved goodbye. I looked down to make sure the box was secure and when I looked up to say goodbye she was already gone. I wondered how she was so fast. Nevertheless, I felt slightly more hopeful that things might be okay after all.
Another hour of moving boxes and my knees were on fire but the meager possessions I had were finally stuffed haphazardly into the tiny apartment. I was dead tired, but it was only 4 pm. I figured I had earned a nap though and went into the tiny closet that was supposedly a bedroom. No furniture fit besides my old mattress that took up the entirety of the space.
I laid down and started drifting off, the peaceful sound of rain started to get heavier and then I heard a new sound which woke me from my doze. A tiny dripping sound coming from the main room. I remembered what Mr. Jacobs had said about heavy rain and a leak and I got up quickly to make sure the water was not landing on all my boxes and getting everything wet.
I looked up in the corner of the room and sure enough there was a steady dripping onto one of the boxes below. I poked around and found the dishes box and took out a few pieces of tupperware and a bowl and set one underneath the leak. I thought for a moment about calling Mr. Jacobs but then remembered how he had given up on fixing this leak and realized it would do no good. I turned around to go back to bed when I heard an odd tearing sound like wallpaper being stretched to breaking point. When I turned around there was nothing there. I figured it was just my nerves and I went back to bed.
I slept for about two hours and despite the brief rest I had a vivid nightmare of drowning in a dark lake with no shores on any side. It was horrible, just sinking into a black watery abyss.
I was embarrassed as I woke up with a scream, but relaxed as I realized it was just a dream and no one likely heard or cared that someone in 316 was screaming anyway. I figured the rain and that damn leak had got me thinking about water and my negative mood may have contributed to a nightmare, so I brushed it off and went about trying to organize the chaos of boxes in some logical manner for this small space.
Later that night I had a cup of ramen for dinner and turned in early. I read a bit before bed, almost as if trying to postpone sleep for fear of sinking into that fathomless abyss again when I slept. Eventually I started to get comfortable and thought I may fall asleep when it started again.
Drip, drip, drip.
The leak had resumed, it sounded faster than before, and I thought it was strange that I could hear it so vividly. I got up to see if maybe it had overflowed or something and I was not prepared for what I saw.
The ceiling where the leak was had an odd lambent light near the center, kind of like a black light. It seemed to be pulsing in time with the drops of water. There was an odd type of density in the air too, like it was too heavy and thick. It was maddeningly humid as well despite the cold atmosphere of the room and outside. I was confused and kind of scared by the bizarre display. I just kept thinking to myself it is only temporary, as soon as I can leave I will, I can make it through anything short term.
I took a step further into the living room and noticed a wet spot on the floor. There is no way it could be all the way over here, the bowl on the floor was not even full yet. I suspected a leak might also be over in this spot now, so I looked up and screamed out loud. There was what looked like a face pressing through the ceiling with drops of water seeping from the thing's mouth. I turned to run and tripped on the wet floor and toppled over bashing my head into a wall and almost losing consciousness.
I was trying to stagger to my feet after getting knocked senseless and the memory of the face reminded me of my peril. I got to my feet and looked up in tense expectation. There was nothing there. No leak, no face, no glowing shifting portal. The only evidence of anything was a small wet spot on the ceiling about nine inches across. At that point I thought for sure that depression over my situation was causing me to go crazy and see things. I desperately wished I could be somewhere else just then, but it was late at night, and I needed sleep. I couldn't afford a hotel obviously, so I left my room and went outside to the parking lot to sleep in my car.
Another week went by with poor work hours, barely any food and bad sleep. Though the one bright side was the surprisingly good weather. Days went by and no odd events took place in my apartment. It was a struggle but at least with a little sunshine there was no leak to conjure up such terrible nightmares like what I had experienced before.
I ran into Maxine again on the way to the laundry room and couldn't help but ask if she knew of anything having happened in my room before I moved in, like anyone having seen anything weird or the like. She shifted uncomfortably and looked down, pausing as if not wanting to answer.
“I'm sorry, I don't know much. I had not been here for very long when the last person in 316 had left. I say left but I heard there was an accident of some sort. There was a lot of commotion and I had heard some strange rantings from the man before it happened.”
She took a breath to steady herself after the stress of recounting the story and looked away.
“I was away at work when it actually happened, apparently he had been found dead in the apartment, some say he killed himself, drowning. From what I heard he was a bad man, there are a lot of bad men that live here. The things that have happened that never got reported and the people that got hurt or worse, well.....” She looked away sorrowfully for a moment and resumed.
“Well, you wouldn't want to know. A coward like that would try and kill himself but I think something akin to justice may have caught up to him, something that this place might need more of. When you live with the stain of hate and violence it leaves something behind and perhaps sometimes the world finds a way to wash it away and right the wrongs. Anyway, I don't like to think about it. I have to run I have to get ready for work, sorry I couldn't help more I hope you stay safe and stay dry, you wouldn't want to get swept up too.”
She turned a corner and I saw a fallen cardigan. I bent down to pick it up and it felt wet, like it had been washed already. Not too weird if she just did laundry but her footprints were soaking wet as well. I grabbed the garment and rushed round the corner shouting out.
“Hey Maxine, you dropped this.” But she was gone. The wet footprints randomly stopped as well. How did she stop leaving them if her feet were wet?
A few more months passed with no leaks and only a few nightmares. My luck turned sour again for different reasons though. I suffered a severe back injury at work. Since it occurred while working, I got some workers comp so I wouldn't lose all my income. I did have to take time off of work, so I was forced to stay in my apartment all day and night recouping. To make matters worse it was getting into the season for spring showers and the forecast was heavy rain for the next week.
I was not quite bedridden but walking and bending over was very uncomfortable, I considered taking a drive somewhere, anywhere but here, but I couldn't manage the stairs again today and I knew I at least needed to actually rest for one or two of my days off.
So I was stuck in the apartment, watching the clouds gather and the skies darken. I placed several dishes under the leak spot in anticipation and I swigged some energy drinks and coffee. I would rest but I disliked the idea of sleeping any more than I had to, since I still feared those disturbing dreams in the water.
I tried to distract myself by watching some old DVD’s since I had no streaming services to watch. As I started to relax around late afternoon, I was shocked back into a frenzied paranoia when the storm kicked up in intensity and knocked the power out. I tried not to panic and knew I had some candles or a flashlight or two somewhere. I would have to get up though so I figured I would stay in the bedroom. I used my phone flashlight to find a candle and matches and hurried back to the bedroom just as the leak restarted and the drip, drip, drip was heard filling the bowls left out. I felt silly fleeing the leak like it was dangerous, I didn't know why that dream had affected me so much, but it felt wrong.
I sat in the dark and waited for the power to return but it did not, I fought sleep but even in my paranoid state I started to drift off. I was content that the door was closed at least, and it slightly muffled the sound of that constant dripping.
I awoke to the sounds of running water, the drip was replaced by a torrent that almost sounded like a waterfall. I was too afraid to move, but I had to see if my room was being flooded. I got up painfully and stepped down into ankle high water. Oh God this is bad, I thought immediately as I moved to the door to see what had happened, I heard a singular splashing noise, almost like someone stepping through the water.
My heart froze as I stopped just short of opening the door and focused on the sound. I heard the splashing again; it was definitely footsteps. I didn't know what to do I tried to think who might break in, a robber? Maybe it was about the flooding, maybe it was Mr. Jacobs after all?
I grabbed the candlestick and lit the candle. If I needed to, I might be able to use it as an improvised weapon, if it could be a murder weapon in clue then why not? I cautiously opened the door and there was a backwash of even more water on the other side, it almost knocked me off my feet. I stumbled through the door, struggling in the cold water, I knew it was impossible, but it felt like there was a current running through it, like I was standing in the mouth of a river. I finally stepped past the door and into the living room and almost dropped the candle into the oddly surging waters. The sight before me was both amazing and terrifying. The water was moving, it was flowing into a whirlpool that was at the center of the room but as it neared the center it inverted and seemed to be spiraling out from the ceiling rather than the pooled water on the floor in a sight that blatantly disregarded all laws of gravity.
The spectacle was so amazing I almost forgot the footsteps I had heard and until they resumed. My gawking was broken, and I saw large bursts of water splashing toward me. I heard an ear-splitting cry like the wail of a banshee and suddenly the ceiling where the leak was coming from, and the current epicenter of the vortex started to glow and after a moment it turned deep red and a new horror occurred.
The face I had seen in what I had hoped was a nightmare before was back. The ceiling seemed to shimmer now, almost translucent and I saw the horrible features of a hideous form. White pupil-less eyes stared down at me and a gaping screaming maw began filling with water tinged with red? No, it wasn't water, it was blood. The vortex began spewing blood all across the room and as I turned to flee in horror I was wrenched from my feet by the invisible force in the water and dragged kicking and screaming into the heart of the vortex. My last conscious sight that night was being pulled up into my own ceiling and into the bleeding maw of that avatar of bloody nightmare.
I woke up in the black abyss. The water was still mixed with blood, but there were no creatures. I was somehow buoyant and floated along in the shore less sanguine ocean. I drifted along unable to sink or to fully rise up. After what felt like an hour of drifting, I heard splashing and all of the sudden the sound got louder and louder. I looked around and saw the source of the noise, bodies were falling from the sky into the bloody ocean. First a few, then dozens then hundreds. A literal storm of blood-soaked featureless bodies came crashing into the water. I tried to evade them, but I could not dodge them all and I was buffeted by the limp forms of countless bodies until I was pummeled below the surface of the water. I couldn't breathe and as I tried to surface one of the bodies grasped my wrist and opened its eyes. On its previously featureless face, it now had oddly pulsating white pupils and it burst what appeared to be stitching on its mouth in order to scream under the water.
The sight and shock of that horrible scene woke me and I realized I was laying on my back in my apartment again. The flood water was lapping at my face, and I was breathing in and choking on the water on the floor. I lurched up as soon as I regained control of my body, spitting water and gagging from the quasi drowning I had endured. The water looked normal, no blood from what I saw, but the water itself was not a delusion or some trace of insanity it was there.
It was a bad scene, tons of my things were submerged, and the water damage was extensive. Somehow it had risen to almost two feet high. I had to do something, I didn't expect much from this place, but this was a severe enough situation that the crotchety old bastard Mr. Jacobs was going to have to fix something whether he liked it or not or they would be getting a lawsuit in short order. I figured some lawyers would take easy cases they knew they would win with no retainer needed if they got paid more at the end. So, it would not be a bluff I was dead serious, I almost drowned in my own apartment!
I staggered to the door and managed to open it, draining tons of water out into the hall, but I didn't care, I just needed some fresh air. My back was on fire, but nothing would stop me. I heard a voice calling out to me, it was Maxine.
“Hey are you okay? I saw all the water and hadn't seen you around is there flooding there?”
She asked with an odd look, almost like she knew the answer but didn't want to let on.
“Yes there is, it is pretty bad actually I was just about to call Mr. Jacobs to do something about it.
”Greg....” She paused for a moment then continued.
“You didn't see anything in there did you? In the water? Like something or someone familiar?” I was confused by the specific nature of the question. I was put off and unsure how she knew I might have seen something.
“I am not sure what I saw, why do you ask?” I responded.
“No reason, just be careful it can be dangerous if you do. Don’t worry if it is not where you belong, you won't get pulled in forever. Just be careful though, you don't want to risk it.” A flash of morbid glee was evident on her face for a split second and then it was gone. I was starting to feel uncomfortable.
“Pulled in? How do you know about the leak? And if you do what's behind it?” I ask with mounting suspicion evident in my voice.
“You know Greg, in many cultures the path between the world of the living and the dead is separated by only the slightest barrier, often a literal or symbolic body of water. Whether the river Styx, the lake of fire, the waters reflected at the feet of a Torii gate, it is often just potent waters. Like all bodies of water, when they are contained somewhere there can be leaks. Sometimes the water is not the only thing that seeps out.” She stopped speaking for a moment and fixed me with an intent stare that made me feel very strange. I did not know what she was talking about? Was she saying that portal leads to some sort of afterlife? Like heaven or more likely in this case hell?
“Did you just say....” And she cut me off, saying.
“Oh if Mr. Jacobs finally goes over there to fix your ceiling let him know I had a concern I needed to express to him as well, it's been waiting for a long time.” She smiled again in a creepy way that disturbed me.
“Ah yeah sure I guess I can do that.”
“Thanks! See ya later and hope you feel better, those accidents can be rough best not sleep on your side and to drink lots of water, the right kind though.” She winked at me and departed, and I was at a loss for what just happened. How did she know I had gotten hurt I didn't tell her, and what was that thing about the right kind of water?
My anxiety about the situation was increasing and I was disturbed by Maxine’s questions too, maybe she was not so sweet and trustworthy after all. After far too long being ignored and dealing with the first sodden, now moldering cloths boxes and other personal effects Mr. Jacobs finally scheduled a time to drain the last remnants of water and do something more concrete about fixing the leak.
I was waiting patiently for his arrival and there was a loud banging at the door. I greeted Mr. Jacobs and he grunted at me and without looking at me walked past and looked up at the hole in the ceiling. He had an odd air of what almost looked like fear or concern on his face.
After he walked in another larger person in coveralls and holding a toolbox did as well. There was a large tarp or something that seemed odd to bring to this sort of job, it almost looked like a big sort of bag. They were both looking at the hole in the ceiling and Mr. Jacobs turned on a dime and stared me down.
“It’s just been water leaking down, nothing else right?” I thought the question was odd and I hesitated to answer since I was thinking of those vivid nightmares. I think he may have noticed that because his face sank, and he glowered at me looking significantly angrier and more dangerous than before. Before I could answer he shouted at me.
“What did you see?! Did something come out of the hole? Was it a person?” He looked manic and deranged, and I looked at the other man in the coveralls and he stood silent holding a sledgehammer that had appeared in his hand and watching the confrontation unfold.
“I....I don't know I just saw the leak, what is going on what do you think I saw? My neighbor asked me the same thing earlier.” Mr. Jacobs eyes narrowed.
“What neighbor? I haven't had tenants in 315 or 317 in over a year.”
I was confused, maybe I had heard Maxine’s apartment number wrong, but how could she be my neighbor if she was not in one of those. This must be some kind of mix up, I figured.
“My neighbor Maxine she said she lives in 315; I just saw her the other day and she asked if I had seen something as well.” At the mention of the name Mr. Jacobs face turned white.
“You said her name was Maxine!? She said that? You saw her?!” He was screaming at me asking more questions about Maxine like she was on Americas most wanted.
“What does she have to do with this? I don’t know what the hell is going on.” I admitted.
Ignoring my question, Mr. Jacobs began pacing and holding his hand to his head. The man in coveralls spoke for the first time.
“Jack, we have to go, let's find the body while the leak and portal are still here and dispose of the loose end.” I gasped at the admission of both a body and that I was apparently a loose end to some sort of crime.
“I fucking know, alright make it quick, we are going to have to do two so let's go before more people start coming home and we risk someone hearing.”
I fell back against the wall in shock as the large man hefted the sledgehammer and started stomping toward me. I was unarmed and injured; I didn't know what I could do but suddenly the lights went out again.
The door slammed shut and as the three of us stood there in stunned silence a slow drip began to trickle from the ceiling. Each drop splashing off of the low standing pool of water. The large man went to the door and tried to open it but to no avail.
“Jack what is going on?!” The man shouted to Mr. Jacobs.
“I don't know just use the hammer. Kill him and then bust us out of here. Or just give it to me and I will fucking do it.”
They were going to kill me!? I had to think of something quick, so I stammered out.
“Wait! I don't know what is going on you guys, you don't want to kill me I really don't know anything. Let's just get out of here before the water gets much worse, I think something bad is going to happen.”
As if on cue the dripping stopped and a torrent of water was disgorged from the hole in the ceiling, which now held a horribly familiar glow and was pouring a blood red liquid into the apartment. There was a giggle followed by a blood curdling screech and the man in the coveralls with the hammer was wrenched up off his feet and dragged kicking and screaming into the water. Mr. Jacobs and I both watched as his entire head was forced under the water by some unseen force, The man was being drown and as he looked like he might kick up a splash of water landed next to him revealing a brief outline of a female form the eyes were white and it had a horrible smile on its face. Its unnaturally long hand was wrapped fully around the man's throat and was effortlessly throttling him.
Mr. Jacobs saw something or someone he recognized in the violent mist and started sobbing and begging for mercy.
“I didn't mean to, please. It was an accident. I would have been locked up. I couldn't lose everything, I had to.”
I sat in stark terror as the falling water from the ceiling became a storm. The millions of droplets highlighted the attacker, her form was terrible yet oddly mesmerizing. She strolled along towards Mr. Jacobs who was grasping at the door handle and tugging uselessly at it. He reached for the hammer when he was pulled toward the figure by a moving tendril of bloody water.
“Just a little bath Jack that's all it won't hurt......much.” He tried to scream but his head was submerged in the bloody water. I saw the sentient waves of ruinous liquid grasp each of his appendages and tear him limb from limb in a bloody explosion.
I screamed and stumbled away wading through the water into my bedroom and desperately pulled on the window to escape that way. I heard splashing footsteps and a soft pretty tune being sung by an ethereal voice. Then I heard a giant crash and saw a portion of wall collapse along with more of the ceiling and the sight before my eyes almost drove me insane.
There was a vortex of bloody water sucking the maimed bodies of those men into the hellish portal where the leak originated and at the center was the bloody figure smiling at me and waving a hand as I finally got the window to budge and fall out. I stepped outside and tried to descend the fire escape, but the surface was too slippery, and I fell. I screamed and plummeted down and thought I would land on my head and die. Yet as I fell my descent slowed and to my shock and horror, I realized the rainwater was mixing with the water from my apartment flowing out of the window and I was being pulled back up into my room. I tried to scream but I felt water fill my mouth. At some point in the nightmare ride I blacked out again.
That was the last thing I remembered before I found myself here again. As I listen to the leak once more, I wonder if it could have all been a bad dream? The water, the leak, the portal it is all too much it couldn't have been real. I will go into my dingy living room and see the water dripping into the bowl and realize it was all just a terrible dream.
Yet when I sit up, I notice an odd breeze and when my eyes focus in the dark, I see lights in the sky........the sky?
The ceiling is gone! I don't know what is going on here, but I know I have to get out of here now. I hear splashing footsteps again over the ever-present dripping and see in the sky now the light of the monstrous portal opening in the very clouds above!
It is too much I leap from the fire escape again. Somehow in my mad haste I survive descending the fire escape and I sit here now writing this impossible story in my car that I have been living in nearly a week after the fact.
I heard on the news the reports of a structural collapse at my apartment and the landlord being unavailable for questioning, presumed missing along with another man who worked at the apartment as a special contractor. I thought about Mr. Jacobs and the man in the coveralls and shuddered when I remembered them being drawn into that unholy portal in the ceiling.
Apparently, it had not been the only disappearance in the building either. Around a year ago there was a missing person's report for a Maxine Valoroso. I remember how Mr. Jacobs reacted to her name, and it made me wonder what really happened here before I moved in.
I don't know who or what Maxine was, maybe she was the same person in the report, changed somehow. Best I can guess Mr. Jacobs had known something about her disappearance, maybe he had killed her and somehow, she came back for revenge. She mentioned the water washing away people's violent lives and I shuddered when I considered her smile when talking about the last person in 316 and the overdue message she had to send to Mr. Jacobs. I didn't know if she was a ghost, a demon or what. I also don't know the extent of her reach or if she is satisfied with just those men and who knows how many others she had washed away from that room with that dread portal.
I suppose it doesn't matter to me anymore I am never going back there. I gave all my belongings up for lost and the building was condemned anyway after the landlord disappeared and the ceiling collapsed in several sections of the building. I think there are are terrible things they will discover if they ever really investigate the building. Perhaps they will find bodies, perhaps the bodies are all gone, sucked into that watery abyss, that eldritch gate to hell whose opening started with a simple leak.
If something like that can happen I just don't know, I don't know if anyone is safe anymore.

Hello Everyone! Welcome to Periodic UHC Season 8A.... Oxygen!

Now as for why we split Oxygen into two separate seasons, S8a and a soon to be released, S8b, we felt we could not encapsulate both Oxygen (O2) and Ozone (O3) into one season's gamemode, thus we split the two.
This UHC is organized by TehBaconBrawlerZ, and in this season we will be doing a Rigged Team of 3 using the following scenarios:

Scenarios:

Oxygen Toxicity - Every Episode, A random biome on the map will be filled with Pure Oxygen. Pure Oxygen is toxic and will start giving you negative effects while being in it:

• Stage 1 - 5 minutes - Hunger
• Stage 2 - 10 minutes - Slowness
• Stage 3 - 15 minutes - Weakness
• Stage 4 - 20 minutes - Half a Heart of Damage every Minute
• Stage 5 - 25 minutes - A heart of damage every minute

Upon a player kill, your timer is reduced by 2 stages in the biome that you get the kill in. The Biomes do not reset every episode, so they stack as the game is played. Your Timers in each biome, also do not reset.
^{(Example: Episode 1 is Desert, Episode 2 is Desert + Plains, Episode 3 is Desert + Plains + Extreme Hills, etc.})
^{*Bold = Highlighted}

Team	Link
River Biome, My Beloved	-
FlowLikeTea	didnt see it coming
LoserSky_	Combined w/ Ep 4
fruitlogic	Episode 3
ai generated	-
DungustheFluffy	Episode 3
Stylo71	Episode 3
Stevebob321Stylo72	Episode 3
Fuckers from Dutchland	-
Karthoul	Episode 3
RaiVonRantara	Episode 3
Rockall	Non-Recorder
chatgpt made us!	-
MinimanTurtle	Episode 3
Zapnic	Lost Recording
awesome_person2	659 Hours to Upload. (No Pov)
interesting discovery	-
Phyrrus_Remains	Episode 3
Karasu994	Episode 3
SilverShelby	Fool (No Pov)
Boys Being Blown	-
CAMKART100	protecting the union
Haroun_	Poisonous Forest
Jervy_Ras	Episode 3
glimbo	-
AshRiolu100985	Unresponsive.
BuildingBard300	Episode 3
Jalapinecone	Harddrive Exploded
2 and a half... men?	-
crazyblue19	experienced well
Ecto97	They're right above me.
TehBaconBrawlerZ	PIRATES ATTACK!!!
playuhc lovers	-
AirInAirOut	Revenge
Crossfireheat	Oh.. Ohkay
GamingStarr	Episode 3
not racist irl	-
Bree_dable	Fool (No Pov)
Logan_S_	Episode 3
stupidsylvia	Episode 3
Undergoats	-
Blufferfish2009	Cannot get to PC with Footage.
RuneTactics	Classic Episode 3
ShootingGoats	Episode 3
Creatures	-
2TNT	Episode 3
K0REDRAG0N	Episode 3
Ullti	Revolution
perc30	-
DoctorCrazy89	Non-Recorder
jimmyjegs	Episode 3
kyoleee	Non-Recorder
Spectators	-
Brodator	Predicted Outcome
Rohcket	Episode 3

Death Tracker

Position	Player	Team Color	Cause	Episode Link
39th	CAMKART100	Dark Green	blown up by Creeper	Episode 2
38th	crazyblue19	Blue	blown up by Creeper	Episode 2
37th	FlowLikeTea	Red	slain by Zombie	Episode 2
36th	Crossfireheat	Cyan	slain by Ullti	Episode 2
35th	???	???	???	???

Previous Episodes

• Intro
• Episode 1
• Episode 2

Credits

• Organization - TehBaconBrawlerZ
  
• Host/Coding - TheSlimeBrother
  
• Intro - Codwhy
  
• Art - Ghaosty
  
• Logo - Forgot_N
  
• Thanks to Codwhy for Help with the Gamemode
  

Hi, I could really use a caring, loving gal-pal, with the potential to develop into something more significant.
(When I 1st sat down to write this advert, my intention was to write a quick blurb about my lonliness and why I am this way, and then move onto more pertinent information about myself... but that portion turned into a long-winded trauma-dump. I don't want the trauma-dump to be your initial introduction to me... so I'm going to paste it at the bottom instead).
So, about me. I am the kind of person that enjoys hugs more than kissing, and cuddling anytime we watch movies, play video games, or listen to music together.
My ex (It's been so long) used to do this thing where she would use my chest as a pillow, and she would bury her face in my chest like how a cat rubs its scent on you. Then we would wrap the sheets over us and she could just sigh and disassociate. She always said it made her feel safe.
I just want more of that. That and head scratches, back rubs, gentle caressing (for both of us). That, plus night-drives for snacks while blasting vaporwave/synthwave/synthpop, urban exploration. Movie nights (both in-bed, on a couch, or in theater. Music nights (record shopping, live events, stand-up shows, listening in bed).
Love Language etc: Physical Touch Quality Time Words of Affirmation
Music: I like IDM/Experimental Techno, Breakcore, Surf Rock, Quiet Storm / Motown, 80s Synthpop, Yacht Rock, Synthwave, Vaporwave, SynthFunk, Soul.
Movies/TV: I like Comedy, and Sci-Fi, (specifically, Sci-Fi, about Robots, AI, VR, Dystopia, Dreams, Memories, Time Travel... and less about Aliens, Space Travel, Ghosts, Vampires, Zombies, Horror, Anime).
Radio/Podcasts/Youtube. I am an "Oldtime Radio" buff (think radio Dramas like Dragnet, Hitchhikers Guide, etc..). Beau of the Fifth Column, Big Joel, Legal Eagle, VeryTallBart, BadGear, ContraPoints, PDS, Chapo Traphouse, Blocks, Wendigoon.
I'm not materialistic. I don't care about gifts, money or status. I do not have a "wanderlust". I do enjoy road-trips, and night drives, especially with a partner. But travel is not my #1 way to relax and wind-down.
Relationship Style. It should be noted that, while I'm ideally looking for a long-term relationship, I'm not looking to get married and have kids (I've had a vasectomy).
I am not opposed to age gaps (me being older, you being younger) In fact, I would prefer to date someone in their late twenties/early thirties.
I want to be a shoulder to cry on, a chest to lay on. I want to be your big cuddly Teddy Bear (sidenote, I've lost 30 lbs in the last few months so I am not as big a Teddybear as I used to be, and no, I didn't cheat and use Ozempic lol). Maybe I can be your chauffeur if you don't have a car or don't like driving. Maybe you just went through a divorce or a breakup (like I went through a breakup 2 years ago) and you just want a kind and physically affectionate guy who is fun to be around, non-aggressive, reliable, emotionally attentive, patient, optimistic and can be the Friend you need when you have had a hard day at work, or school, or just life in general. I want to alleviate any loneliness you have, and in doing so, alleviate my loneliness in the process.
Personality: I'm extremely chill. Imagine if Jeff Lebowski (The Big Lebowski) was combined with the geekiness of Kevin Flynn from Tron/Tron Legacy + The humor of someone like Mitch Hedberg, or Norm Macdonald.
Politically , I'm a leftist (I'm not a liberal, because I feel like "The Center" has been pulled so far right at this point, that anyone willing to "Reach Across the aisle" is just wasting their time, and falling for all the bad-faith arguments and scams that the Right is dragging them into).
Black Lives matter. Gay/Trans Rights are Human Rights. Healthcare is a human right. Women deserve autonomy over their bodies. The workers should control and profit from the means of production. Religion has no place in politics.
In Summary I am not overly ambitious. I work a maximum of 40 hours per week... and no more. (at least I did when I had a job... more on that later).
I generally wear Dark T-shirts, Dickies pants, and a hoody. My weight fluctuates. When I get to 195, I go Keto, and exercise to get my weight back down, but I'm not a gym rat.
I think to really sum myself up... I do the bare minimum that's required to maintain my health and my financial situation. I would probably consider myself an "underachiever". I am not materialistic, and money and wealth are not a driving force in my motivations.
It seems like every time I go on social media, or a dating app, all I see are people in a "Grindset Mindset", or people that are cosplaying as such.
Everyone wants to play-up their gym routine, and how vegan they are, and drone on about how "active" their lifestyle is. Everyone has "wanderlust", and an "entrepreneurial spirit"... and so on... and so on...
Frankly, this is just not the kind of person I am looking to be, and though I am certain that many of these people are kind, and loving, and great partners... I have found that I can only date someone of that mindset for a short while before they become restless and decide they would be better off with someone else... or they become judgmental and begin trying to nudge me towards, or in some cases aggressively demand that I, "get on their level."
You might be reading this and thinking "Oh, he's looking for an emotional support, because he's lonely and sad and depressed." And, while I am lonely, and a bit sad as a result, I am not looking for someone to "fix" me.
I am actually looking to be YOUR emotional support animal. I don't want to go down a "manosphere" rabbit hole (as that entire space is pretty toxic), but one aspect of the dialogue surrounding a man's place in the modern world that I do resonate with is this...
A man needs to feel useful. Specifically, a man needs to feel like they are providing something for their partner, that they aren't looking to someone else for.
We've already established that I'm not super ambitious nor materialistic. I'll probably never be able to financially provide for two people, on my single income. I am not even looking to move-in together, have kids, or get married.
But what I do have a surplus of, is free time, and the potential for love and affection. (And I know, from experience, that the potential isn't theoretical, I have been in long-term relationships, and I have been in-love before, but in order to be a great boyfriend... I need a girlfriend to be great to).
(ok here's that trauma dump I mentioned). "I don't want to "trauma dump" or make appeals to your sympathy, and I know there's nothing unique about my situation... but I'm going to do my best to get the sad stuff out of the way, so I can move onto the things about myself that might be more appealing... so here it goes."
I am a high functioning insomniac with mild bi-polar, and mild anxiety. Both the Axiety and Bi-Polar are semi-situational, and I can usually manage them without treatment. (I'm NOT Kanye bi-polar, I'm more like... Stephen Fry bi-polar. Essentially... under normal circumstances... I go 45 days like a "normal person", and then I'll have a Manic Episode where I have heightened productivity/creatvity, and I'll lose some sleep... and if I can't get my sleep pattern back on track after a couple of nights of bad/no sleep... I become depressed, and anxious, and then eventually I get so tired/depressed that I'll spend an entire weekend (or more) in my room with the lights off until the cycle ends, and I catch up on all the sleep I've missed.
So, what are normal circumstances? Well, normal circumstances are; I have a job to occupy my time, my friends and family are doing okay, and essentially there's nothing bothering me that patience and self-reflection can't solve.
What are my current circumstances? Well, my current circumstances are: In the summer of 2022 my Longterm Girlfriend Graduated from College and dumped me so she could start her career-life with a 100% clean slate and no obligations to anyone. At the same time, my lease was about to be up, and the rent went up to a point where I couldn't afford to live anywhere in that region anymore (at least not without rooming with total strangers), so I moved back to Phoenix, because at least here I could be around friends and family, and I could room with people that I know and trust (even if they are a bit messier than I would prefer).
My Grandmother passed away a few months after I moved back. So, that was another blow to my emotional state. At least I was able to transfer my job with me when I moved back (and eventually got a significant raise). Unfortunately, my lonleyness and sadness at the loss of my Girlfriend, and my Grandmother have only been compounding this entire time. Initially, my attitude towards finding another girlfriend was "Don't waste anyone's time until you can go 48 hours without crying about something that reminds you of your ex"... but, at the end of April, a change in management at work resulted in me being stuck with a manager who is... for lack of a better term... a total jerkface, and as much as I tried to just do my job and lay low... eventually he got uppity and started firing people... and I was one of the people that got gired.
So, essentially, I'm at a point now were, caution and ethics be damned, I need someone to be by my side while I rebuild myself.
Right now my life consists of going on job boards, applying for jobs until there are no more jobs I qualify for in the queue, and then just waiting by the phone/inbox frustrated, while I binge-watch youtube... until the sun goes down.
I have a roof over my head, food in the frige, a room of my own, & comfortable bed. I have a 4 door sedan, and a motorcycle, I have video game consoles, I have a gaming PC and VR. I have access to all the major streaming services. I have a respectable record/cd collection, and a respectable collection of Synthesizers and Musical Instruments... and in the past, I have enjoyed using all of the aformentioned possesions in order to entertain myself.
Sadly, I have lost all motivation to even attempt to entertain myself. I think back on the start of 2022, when I had a girlfriend living 1 block away, and I could invite her over, and we'd just cuddle and watch Movies/TV together, or listen to music, or play videogames together... or drive around the area after dark, blasting tunes and grabbing snacks, and just enjoying the simplest things because we had someone to share those things with.
I need that again. It's no longer a want. It's a need. Love is what motivates me. Movies/TV is pointless without someone to watch them with. Videogames are a waste of time without someone to hand the controller too. Music is daunting to make, because it all comes out sad now... and I don't want to make sad music.
I know, from experience, (and from the testimony of former partners) that I can be a really great boyfriend (some have even said I'm the best, and their favorite)... but I can't be a good boyfriend... without a girlfriend. I truly wish I could just learn to be happy by myself... but unfortunately, looking back at my life, the best I could ever do alone... is contentment... and right now, I am having an extremely difficult time finding contentment. (The last time I was truly content, was after a divorce... and that's because I was just so relieved to have that person out of my life, that I didn't care that I didn't have anyone to share my life with... at least I didn't have to fall asleep next to someone that treated my like garbage). But, that's not where I am right now. Right now I'm still emotionally broken because I lost someone that I was truly happy with. Right now I'm just second guessing myself and wondering if I had done anything different, would she still have dumped me when she graduated? Or was she just using me as a long-term rebound following her divorce... and is everyone just going to get tired of me when they move-up a notch in their social climb to the top? (I hate all these toxic social heirarchies, and what they have done to people, and their relationships with others).
Ok, I guess I ended up doing the trauma dump I said I wasn't going to do. Let's move past that.
Let's get shallow for a second. I am lonely and sad, we have established this, however, I am not so desperate that I'm just going to latch onto the first person that responds. I have preferences (if I didn't have preferences I would just make a Grindr account and call it a day). So, what are some shallow things I look for in a partner?
I prefer hair that's on the longer side of the spectrum. (shoulder length or more, unless you are petite enough to pull-off a concave bob cut without coming off as a Karen). I prefer healthy weight distribution (At my largest I was 5 foot 10, 195 lbs, and I consider myself an egalitarian, so... we should assume that I would prefer someone right around that level of fitness, or better). I like short women, but I don't mind taller than me. I like glasses (but don't mind the able-sighted). I like Gothy (but don't care for betty paige bangs, nor excessive tattoos/piercings). I like a gal that knows how to apply a smokey-eye look, and maybe some contouring. I am really not picky about clothing. I like someone that's easy to get along with, and is excited to spend time with me.
Please, no cigarette smokers. Vape is fine, I just can't take the smoke, or the "aftertaste".
I guess the bottom line is that I enjoy everything in life 99% more when I have someone to share the enjoyment with. Are my memories even worth a darn without someone else to say "Hey remember that awesome time?..." to.
I would be really happy to find that person. thx for coming to my Tedx Talk. I hope to hear from you.

I hear the dripping again. The constant, drip, drip, drip of water. I blink my eyes open and try to focus to make sure I am not in another nightmare. It sounds like another leak; this one might be the last. The last time I will hear the leak before the horrible conclusion to this ordeal. The last time hearing that telltale noise, before the true nature of that loathsome portal is revealed and whatever hideous dimension hiding on the other side breaks through completely.
The sound is growing louder, each drop has an exaggerated tone. It sounds like small explosions all trying to collapse that ceiling and engulf me in the dark abyss that I have already once, mistakenly glimpsed at.
No, it just can’t be real, it can’t! It swallowed people up, the portal behind that damn leak. I don’t know what to do so I will lay out the facts and how I got to this point in this account, and you will see what I have experienced, you will see too that it can’t be real, it has to just be a bad trip or some hallucination. I will tell you, it's not like I can just leave I have nowhere else to go, it’s just a leak.
Just a short while ago my only problem would have been the water damage to my belongings. Indeed, such a mundane problem as a leak in the ceiling would just be a minor issue, nothing to fear except the repair bill. Yet I'm afraid it is a bit beyond that now. I shouldn't have waited this long I should have just left. Yet where could I have gone? Maybe I should have paid more attention to who I was talking to and what they were saying. All too late now I suppose.
I have been living in this apartment for close to six months. I had moved into this dingy complex, to a small studio apartment after I lost my job and had to find a part time position at significantly less pay. I tried to stay optimistic but even before the terrible reality of what I was stepping into was clear, I was still on hard times. I could barely afford this decrepit room as it was, and I had no family or friends to speak of that I might be able to move in with so my options were essentially non existent.
Considering the dire situation, I found the cheapest accommodation I could and what I found was my home and hell for the last six months, number 316 at the Greenfield Heights apartment complex. The amenities included paper thin walls to hear all the drug deals gone wrong, domestic violence and constant sirens of emergency vehicles blaring from all sorts of incidents. Topped off with a nice turn-down service of package and mail theft to boot. All of these problems though, feel small compared to the true horror of what the place had in store for me.
No, it wasn't exactly a paradise, but I had to find the cheapest place I could. I was barely making a fraction of what I was before at my old job, and I needed somewhere to get back on my feet. I told myself it was temporary and once I could get a better job I would get out of here.
When I had first arrived to look at the place, I had arranged a simple walk through with the landlord Mr. Jacobs a very unpleasant fellow who always looked perpetually angry and was constantly shouting in the halls and at the few miserable looking staff who worked here. We walked up two flights of stairs passing a wall of profanity laden graffiti tagged along almost the whole length of it leading up to where my future home was to be.
Mr. Jacobs opened the door and the rattling handle nearly fell off in the effort. We stepped inside and the dank room stank like a tomb. The tiny apartment was depressing and when he went to turn on the main light nothing happened. He scoffed and muttered a string of colorful language and grumbled that.
“Someone will bring a new light bulb; I told Rodney to check earlier that lazy piece of shit.”
I didn't want to press the matter since he looked pissed off, so we went in, and he showed me what little there was to see of the tiny apartment. We had to rely on the dim light of the bedroom to see elsewhere, since the main light was out. Despite leading the walk-through, it looked like Mr. Jacobs was distracted, he was looking at the ceiling in the corner of the tiny living room with a concerning grimace on his face.
He stared at it for a while and paused the tour, I found it a little weird. He finally looked back at me as if noticing that I was watching him stare at the ceiling and he shrugged and asserted that.
“You are going to want to get some buckets, when it rains heavily that part of the celling leaks. Can't seem to find out how since there's no leak on 416 above but bad luck on this one, I guess, that's the only reason the price is so low.” He shot me a grin that I could only describe as enthusiastically malicious. After the brief walk-through Mr. Jacobs turned around and asked very bluntly.
“You are not a troublemaker, are you?” His eyes narrowed and he looked very threatening suddenly. I assured him of my earnest intent and need for a place to stay, and he softened briefly, at least I think he did, it was hard to tell with him. He regarded me one more time and said.
“Good we don’t need more troublemakers, too many questions, always snooping around. If you have any questions try to figure it out yourself, this isn't the Ritz we don't take care of everything for you. You are going to have to make do as is. Something really bad like a fire then you can call, but for minor shit, best to just figure it out yourself. Rents due on the 1st by the way, no exceptions and no grace period anyone who bums out on their debt gets their asses kicked out next day, fuck tenant laws!”
He shot me another wicked smile and returned downstairs leaving me with the keys and just assuming I had agreed to move in. I was dumbfounded by the combination of his upfront hateful attitude and the subtext of certain things he had mentioned. What in his mind was a troublemaker? And what happened to those who asked too many questions? I couldn't believe I was going to have to live here.
In a better position I would have left immediately but it was either here or homeless. All the other places I had looked were too expensive, so I left and began packing my things. The whole situation was awful, but I had no choice, I moved in the next weekend.
Moving day was as bleak as my mood. It had been raining on and off again all day and seemed to start heavily just in time to when I was moving my boxes, almost as if to spite me. I started taking my stuff upstairs to my new room.
As I was taking the first box up the stairs, I thought I heard a gunshot. I rushed on in nervous tension and as I was approaching my door, I heard a voice call out in a tone that was actually friendly.
“Excuse me, it looks like you dropped something.”
I was surprised to see a woman standing in the hall with a look of friendly concern. As I looked down to see I had indeed dropped something from the broken box I was trying to carry upstairs.
“Hi, I'm Maxine, I am your neighbor in 315.”
I introduced myself and was relieved to have found a friendly face for a change.
“Hey there, I’m Greg, nice to meet you.” I held out my hand and she looked uncomfortable briefly and declined the handshake.
“Sorry, I’m getting over a cold I shouldn't, but it is nice to meet you.” She said with another disarming smile.
I was relieved to see someone who didn't look they were minutes away from killing me or someone else. Though the paranoid part of my brain was begging the question why such a seemingly nice person was stuck here. I considered asking her but figured it would be rude to pry about her situation, she might have been like me and just on hard times. I was embarrassed when I realized I was just standing there after saying hello and stumbled for words, but she spoke first.
“Well, it was nice meeting you Greg, stay safe and try not to let your spirits get down. It’s easy in this place but nothing bad lasts forever.” She smiled and waved goodbye. I looked down to make sure the box was secure and when I looked up to say goodbye she was already gone. I wondered how she was so fast. Nevertheless, I felt slightly more hopeful that things might be okay after all.
Another hour of moving boxes and my knees were on fire but the meager possessions I had were finally stuffed haphazardly into the tiny apartment. I was dead tired, but it was only 4 pm. I figured I had earned a nap though and went into the tiny closet that was supposedly a bedroom. No furniture fit besides my old mattress that took up the entirety of the space.
I laid down and started drifting off, the peaceful sound of rain started to get heavier and then I heard a new sound which woke me from my doze. A tiny dripping sound coming from the main room. I remembered what Mr. Jacobs had said about heavy rain and a leak and I got up quickly to make sure the water was not landing on all my boxes and getting everything wet.
I looked up in the corner of the room and sure enough there was a steady dripping onto one of the boxes below. I poked around and found the dishes box and took out a few pieces of tupperware and a bowl and set one underneath the leak. I thought for a moment about calling Mr. Jacobs but then remembered how he had given up on fixing this leak and realized it would do no good. I turned around to go back to bed when I heard an odd tearing sound like wallpaper being stretched to breaking point. When I turned around there was nothing there. I figured it was just my nerves and I went back to bed.
I slept for about two hours and despite the brief rest I had a vivid nightmare of drowning in a dark lake with no shores on any side. It was horrible, just sinking into a black watery abyss.
I was embarrassed as I woke up with a scream, but relaxed as I realized it was just a dream and no one likely heard or cared that someone in 316 was screaming anyway. I figured the rain and that damn leak had got me thinking about water and my negative mood may have contributed to a nightmare, so I brushed it off and went about trying to organize the chaos of boxes in some logical manner for this small space.
Later that night I had a cup of ramen for dinner and turned in early. I read a bit before bed, almost as if trying to postpone sleep for fear of sinking into that fathomless abyss again when I slept. Eventually I started to get comfortable and thought I may fall asleep when it started again.
Drip, drip, drip.
The leak had resumed, it sounded faster than before, and I thought it was strange that I could hear it so vividly. I got up to see if maybe it had overflowed or something and I was not prepared for what I saw.
The ceiling where the leak was had an odd lambent light near the center, kind of like a black light. It seemed to be pulsing in time with the drops of water. There was an odd type of density in the air too, like it was too heavy and thick. It was maddeningly humid as well despite the cold atmosphere of the room and outside. I was confused and kind of scared by the bizarre display. I just kept thinking to myself it is only temporary, as soon as I can leave I will, I can make it through anything short term.
I took a step further into the living room and noticed a wet spot on the floor. There is no way it could be all the way over here, the bowl on the floor was not even full yet. I suspected a leak might also be over in this spot now, so I looked up and screamed out loud. There was what looked like a face pressing through the ceiling with drops of water seeping from the thing's mouth. I turned to run and tripped on the wet floor and toppled over bashing my head into a wall and almost losing consciousness.
I was trying to stagger to my feet after getting knocked senseless and the memory of the face reminded me of my peril. I got to my feet and looked up in tense expectation. There was nothing there. No leak, no face, no glowing shifting portal. The only evidence of anything was a small wet spot on the ceiling about nine inches across. At that point I thought for sure that depression over my situation was causing me to go crazy and see things. I desperately wished I could be somewhere else just then, but it was late at night, and I needed sleep. I couldn't afford a hotel obviously, so I left my room and went outside to the parking lot to sleep in my car.
Another week went by with poor work hours, barely any food and bad sleep. Though the one bright side was the surprisingly good weather. Days went by and no odd events took place in my apartment. It was a struggle but at least with a little sunshine there was no leak to conjure up such terrible nightmares like what I had experienced before.
I ran into Maxine again on the way to the laundry room and couldn't help but ask if she knew of anything having happened in my room before I moved in, like anyone having seen anything weird or the like. She shifted uncomfortably and looked down, pausing as if not wanting to answer.
“I'm sorry, I don't know much. I had not been here for very long when the last person in 316 had left. I say left but I heard there was an accident of some sort. There was a lot of commotion and I had heard some strange rantings from the man before it happened.”
She took a breath to steady herself after the stress of recounting the story and looked away.
“I was away at work when it actually happened, apparently he had been found dead in the apartment, some say he killed himself, drowning. From what I heard he was a bad man, there are a lot of bad men that live here. The things that have happened that never got reported and the people that got hurt or worse, well.....” She looked away sorrowfully for a moment and resumed.
“Well, you wouldn't want to know. A coward like that would try and kill himself but I think something akin to justice may have caught up to him, something that this place might need more of. When you live with the stain of hate and violence it leaves something behind and perhaps sometimes the world finds a way to wash it away and right the wrongs. Anyway, I don't like to think about it. I have to run I have to get ready for work, sorry I couldn't help more I hope you stay safe and stay dry, you wouldn't want to get swept up too.”
She turned a corner and I saw a fallen cardigan. I bent down to pick it up and it felt wet, like it had been washed already. Not too weird if she just did laundry but her footprints were soaking wet as well. I grabbed the garment and rushed round the corner shouting out.
“Hey Maxine, you dropped this.” But she was gone. The wet footprints randomly stopped as well. How did she stop leaving them if her feet were wet?
A few more months passed with no leaks and only a few nightmares. My luck turned sour again for different reasons though. I suffered a severe back injury at work. Since it occurred while working, I got some workers comp so I wouldn't lose all my income. I did have to take time off of work, so I was forced to stay in my apartment all day and night recouping. To make matters worse it was getting into the season for spring showers and the forecast was heavy rain for the next week.
I was not quite bedridden but walking and bending over was very uncomfortable, I considered taking a drive somewhere, anywhere but here, but I couldn't manage the stairs again today and I knew I at least needed to actually rest for one or two of my days off.
So I was stuck in the apartment, watching the clouds gather and the skies darken. I placed several dishes under the leak spot in anticipation and I swigged some energy drinks and coffee. I would rest but I disliked the idea of sleeping any more than I had to, since I still feared those disturbing dreams in the water.
I tried to distract myself by watching some old DVD’s since I had no streaming services to watch. As I started to relax around late afternoon, I was shocked back into a frenzied paranoia when the storm kicked up in intensity and knocked the power out. I tried not to panic and knew I had some candles or a flashlight or two somewhere. I would have to get up though so I figured I would stay in the bedroom. I used my phone flashlight to find a candle and matches and hurried back to the bedroom just as the leak restarted and the drip, drip, drip was heard filling the bowls left out. I felt silly fleeing the leak like it was dangerous, I didn't know why that dream had affected me so much, but it felt wrong.
I sat in the dark and waited for the power to return but it did not, I fought sleep but even in my paranoid state I started to drift off. I was content that the door was closed at least, and it slightly muffled the sound of that constant dripping.
I awoke to the sounds of running water, the drip was replaced by a torrent that almost sounded like a waterfall. I was too afraid to move, but I had to see if my room was being flooded. I got up painfully and stepped down into ankle high water. Oh God this is bad, I thought immediately as I moved to the door to see what had happened, I heard a singular splashing noise, almost like someone stepping through the water.
My heart froze as I stopped just short of opening the door and focused on the sound. I heard the splashing again; it was definitely footsteps. I didint know what to do I tried to think who might break in, a robber? Maybe it was about the flooding, maybe it was Mr. Jacobs after all?
I grabbed the candlestick and lit the candle. If I needed to, I might be able to use it as an improvised weapon, if it could be a murder weapon in clue then why not? I cautiously opened the door and there was a backwash of even more water on the other side, it almost knocked me off my feet. I stumbled through the door, struggling in the cold water, I knew it was impossible, but it felt like there was a current running through it, like I was standing in the mouth of a river. I finally stepped past the door and into the living room and almost dropped the candle into the oddly surging waters. The sight before me was both amazing and terrifying. The water was moving, it was flowing into a whirlpool that was at the center of the room but as it neared the center it inverted and seemed to be spiraling out from the celling rather than the pooled water on the floor in a sight that blatantly disregarded all laws of gravity.
The spectacle was so amazing I almost forgot the footsteps I had heard and until they resumed. My gawking was broken, and I saw large bursts of water splashing toward me. I heard an ear-splitting cry like the wail of a banshee and suddenly the ceiling where the leak was coming from, and the current epicenter of the vortex started to glow and after a moment it turned deep red and a new horror occurred.
The face I had seen in what I had hoped was a nightmare before was back. The ceiling seemed to shimmer now, almost translucent and I saw the horrible features of a hideous form. White pupilless eyes stared down at me and a gaping screaming maw began filling with water tinged with red? No, it wasn't water, it was blood. The vortex began spewing blood all across the room and as I turned to flee in horror I was wrenched from my feet by the invisible force in the water and dragged kicking and screaming into the heart of the vortex. My last conscious sight that night was being pulled up into my own ceiling and into the bleeding maw of that avatar of bloody nightmare.
I woke up in the black abyss. The water was still mixed with blood, but there were no creatures. I was somehow buoyant and floated along in the shore less sanguine ocean. I drifted along unable to sink or to fully rise up. After what felt like an hour of drifting, I heard splashing and all of the sudden the sound got louder and louder. I looked around and saw the source of the noise, bodies were falling from the sky into the bloody ocean. First a few, then dozens then hundreds. A literal storm of blood-soaked featureless bodies came crashing into the water. I tried to evade them, but I could not dodge them all and I was buffeted by the limp forms of countless bodies until I was pummeled below the surface of the water. I couldn't breathe and as I tried to surface one of the bodies grasped my wrist and opened its eyes. On its previously featureless face, it now had oddly pulsating white pupils and it burst what appeared to be stitching on its mouth in order to scream under the water.
The sight and shock of that horrible scene woke me and I realized I was laying on my back in my apartment again. The flood water was lapping at my face, and I was breathing in and choking on the water on the floor. I lurched up as soon as I regained control of my body, spitting water and gagging from the quasi drowning I had endured. The water looked normal, no blood from what I saw, but the water itself was not a delusion or some trace of insanity it was there.
It was a bad scene, tons of my things were submerged, and the water damage was extensive. Somehow it had risen to almost two feet high. I had to do something, I didn't expect much from this place, but this was a severe enough situation that the crotchety old bastard Mr. Jacobs was going to have to fix something whether he liked it or not or they would be getting a lawsuit in short order. I figured some lawyers would take easy cases they knew they would win with no retainer needed if they got paid more at the end. So, it would not be a bluff I was dead serious, I almost drowned in my own apartment!
I staggered to the door and managed to open it, draining tons of water out into the hall, but I didn't care, I just needed some fresh air. My back is on fire, but nothing will stop me. I hear a friendly voice calling out to me, it's Maxine.
“Hey are you okay? I saw all the water and hadn't seen you around is there flooding there?”
She asked with an odd look, almost like she knew the answer but didn't want to let on.
“Yes there is, it is pretty bad actually I was just about to call Mr. Jacobs to do something about it.
”Greg....” She paused for a moment then continued.
“You didn't see anything in there did you? In the water? Like something or someone familiar?” I was confused by the specific nature of the question. I was put off and unsure how she knew I might have seen something.
“I am not sure what I saw, why do you ask?” I responded.
“No reason, just be careful it can be dangerous if you do. Don’t worry if it is not where you belong, you won't get pulled in forever. Just be careful though, you don't want to risk it.” A flash of morbid glee was evident on her face for a split second and then it was gone. I was starting to feel uncomfortable.
“Pulled in? How do you know about the leak? And if you do what's behind it?” I ask with mounting suspicion in my voice.
“You know Greg, in many cultures the path between the world of the living and the dead is separated by only the slightest barrier, often a literal or symbolic body of water. Whether the river Styx, the lake of fire, the waters reflected at the feet of a Torii gate, it is often just potent waters. Like all bodies of water, when they are contained somewhere there can be leaks. Sometimes the water is not the only thing that seeps out.” She stopped speaking for a moment and fixed me with an intent stare that made me feel very strange. I did not know what she was talking about? Was she saying that portal leads to some sort of afterlife? Like heaven or more likely in this case hell?
“Did you just say....” And she cut me off, saying.
“Oh if Mr. Jacobs finally goes over there to fix your ceiling let him know I had a concern I needed to express to him as well, it's been waiting for a long time.” She smiled again in a creepy way that disturbed me.
“Ah yeah sure I guess I can do that.”
“Thanks! See ya later and hope you feel better, those accidents can be rough best not sleep on your side and to drink lots of water, the right kind though.” She winked at me and departed, and I was at a loss for what just happened. How did she know I had gotten hurt I didn't tell her, and what was that thing about the right kind of water?
My anxiety about the situation was increasing and I was disturbed by Maxine’s questions too, maybe she was not so sweet and trustworthy after all. After far too long being ignored and dealing with the first sodden, now moldering cloths boxes and other personal effects Mr. Jacobs finally scheduled a time to drain the last remnants of water and do something more concrete about fixing the leak.
I was waiting patiently for his arrival and there was a loud banging at the door. I greeted Mr. Jacobs and he grunted at me and without looking at me walked past and looked up at the hole in the ceiling. He had an odd air of what almost looked like fear or concern on his face.
After he walked in another larger person in coveralls and holding a toolbox did as well. There was a large tarp or something that seemed odd to bring to this sort of job, it almost looked like a big sort of bag. They were both looking at the hole in the ceiling and Mr. Jacobs turned on a dime and stared me down.
“It’s just been water leaking down, nothing else right?” I thought the question was odd and I hesitated to answer since I was thinking of those vivid nightmares. I think he may have noticed that because his face sank, and he glowered at me looking significantly angrier and more dangerous than before. Before I could answer he shouted at me.
“What did you see?! Did something come out of the hole? Was it a person?” He looked manic and deranged, and I looked at the other man in the coveralls and he stood silent holding a sledgehammer that had appeared in his hand and watching the confrontation unfold.
“I....I don't know I just saw the leak, what is going on what do you think I saw? My neighbor asked me the same thing earlier.” Mr. Jacobs eyes narrowed.
“What neighbor? I haven't had tenants in 315 or 317 in over a year.”
I was confused, maybe I had heard Maxine’s apartment number wrong, but how could she be my neighbor if she was not in one of those. This must be some kind of mix up, I figured.
“My neighbor Maxine she said she lives in 315; I just saw her the other day and she asked if I had seen something as well.” At the mention of the name Mr. Jacobs face turned white.
“You said her name was Maxine!? She said that? You saw her?!” He was screaming at me asking more questions about Maxine like she was on Americas most wanted.
“What does she have to do with this? I don’t know what the hell is going on.” I admitted.
Ignoring my question, Mr. Jacobs began pacing and holding his hand to his head. The man in coveralls spoke for the first time.
“Jack, we have to go, let's find the body while the leak and portal are still here and dispose of the loose end.” I gasped at the admission of both a body and that I was apparently a loose end to some sort of crime.
“I fucking know, alright make it quick, we are going to have to do two so let's go before more people start coming home and we risk someone hearing.”
I fell back against the wall in shock as the large man hefted the sledgehammer and started stomping toward me. I was unarmed and injured; I didn't know what I could do but suddenly the lights went out again.
The door slammed shut and as the three of us stood there in stunned silence a slow drip began to trickle from the ceiling. Each drop splashing off of the low standing pool of water. The large man went to the door and tried to open it but to no avail.
“Jack what is going on?!” The man shouted to Mr. Jacobs.
“I don't know just use the hammer. Kill him and then bust us out of here. Or just give it to me and I will fucking do it.”
They were going to kill me!? I had to think of something quick, so I stammered out.
“Wait! I don't know what is going on you guys, you don't want to kill me I really don't know anything. Let's just get out of here before the water gets much worse, I think something bad is going to happen.”
As if on cue the dripping stopped and a torrent of water was disgorged from the hole in the ceiling, which now held an eerie lambent glow and was pouring a blood red liquid into the apartment. There was a giggle followed by a blood curdling screech and the man in the coveralls with the hammer was wrenched up off his feet and dragged kicking and screaming into the water. Mr. Jacobs and I both watched as his entire head was forced under the water by some unseen force, The man was being drown and as he looked like he might kick up a splash of water landed next to him revealing a brief outline of a female form the eyes were white and it had a horrible smile on its face. Its long-clawed hand was wrapped fully around the man's throat and was effortlessly throttling him.
Mr. Jacobs started sobbing, begging for mercy.
“I didn't mean to, please. It was an accident. I would have been locked up. I couldn't lose everything, I had to.”
I sat in stark terror as the falling water from the ceiling became a storm. The millions of droplets highlighted the attacker, her form was terrible yet oddly beautiful and she strolled along towards Mr. Jacobs who was grasping at the door handle and tugging uselessly at it. He reached for the hammer when he was pulled toward the figure by a moving tendril of bloody water.
“Just a little bath Jack that's all it won't hurt......much.” He tried to scream but his head was submerged in the bloody water. I saw the sentient waves of ruinous water grasp each of his appendages and tear him limb from limb in a bloody explosion.
I screamed and stumbled away wading through the water into my bedroom and desperately pulled on the window to escape that way. I heard splashing footsteps and a soft pretty tune being sung by an ethereal voice. Then I heard a giant crash and saw a portion of wall collapse along with more of the ceiling and the sight before my eyes almost drove me insane.
There was a vortex of bloody water sucking the maimed bodies of those men into the hellish portal where the leak originated and at the center was the bloody figure smiling at me and waving a hand as I finally got the window to budge and fell out. I stepped outside and tried to descend the fire escape, but the surface was too slippery, and I fell. I screamed and plummeted down and thought I would land on my head and die. Yet as I fell my descent slowed and to my shock and horror, I realized the rainwater was mixing with the water from my apartment flowing out of the window and I was being pulled back up into my room. I tried to scream but I felt water fill my mouth. At some point in the nightmare ride I blacked out again.
That was the last thing I remembered before I found myself here again. As I listen to the leak once more, I wonder if it could have all been a bad dream? The water, the leak, the portal it is all too much it couldn't have been real. I will go into my dingy living room and see the water dripping into the bowl and realize it was all just a terrible dream.
Yet when I sit up, I notice an odd breeze and when my eyes focus in the dark, I see lights in the sky........the sky?
The ceiling is gone! I do not know what is going on here, but I know I have to get out of here now. I hear splashing footsteps again over the ever-present dripping and see in the sky now the light of the monstrous portal opening in the very clouds above!
It is too much I leap from the fire escape again. Somehow in my mad haste I survived descending the fire escape and I sit here now writing this impossible story in my car that I have been living in nearly a week after the fact.
I heard on the news the reports of a structural collapse at my apartment and the landlord being unavailable for questioning, presumed missing along with another man who worked at the apartment as a special contractor. I thought about Mr. Jacobs and the man in the coveralls and shuddered when I remembered them being drawn into that unholy portal in the ceiling.
Apparently, it had not been the only disappearance in the building either. Around a year ago there was a missing person's report for a Maxine Valoroso. I remember how Mr. Jacobs reacted to her name, and it made me wonder what really happened here before I moved in.
I don't know who or what Maxine was, maybe she was the same person in the report, changed somehow. Best I can guess Mr. Jacobs had known something about her disappearance, maybe he had killed her and somehow, she came back for revenge. She mentioned the water washing away people's violent lives and I shuddered when I considered her smile when talking about the last person in 316 and the overdue message she had to send to Mr. Jacobs. I didn't know if she was a ghost, a demon or what. I also don't know the extent of her reach or if she is satisfied with just those men and who knows how many others she had washed away from that room with that dread portal.
I suppose it doesn't matter to me anymore I am never going back there. I gave all my belongings up for lost and the building was condemned anyway after the landlord disappeared and the ceiling collapsed in several sections of the building. I think there are are terrible things they will discover if they ever really investigate the building. Perhaps they will find bodies, perhaps the bodies are all gone, sucked into that watery abyss, that eldritch gate to hell that opened with a simple leak.
If something like that can happen I just don't know, I don't know if anyone is safe anymore.

Hello everyone, aspiring author here!
For the past month or so, I’ve been brainstorming ideas for an H.P. Lovecraft reimagining done in a similar style to Mike Flanagan’s The Fall of the House of Usher mini-series on Netflix. For those unaware, Flanagan and his team essentially took around two dozen of Poe’s short stories, poems, and novellas and threw them in a blender to create a modern-day story about a deal with the devil gone about as well as those kinds of things usually do, leading to the end of the entire Usher bloodline.
My novel is going to be a loose retelling of "The Call of Cthulhu", which I'm VERY well aware has been adapted numerous times, but I’m planning on making several changes to established Cthulhu lore and incorporating elements from Lovecraft's other works as well as similar stories by different authors. Here are some examples of the changes/expansions without giving too much away:

1. This version of the story takes place in the 1990s.
2. The protagonist (Francis Wayland Thurston) is a detective before the story begins and uses his great Uncle's findings to help with his investigation of the cult. As for Wayland's personality, I see him as a strange combination of Matthew McConaughey's character in True Detective season one, John Constantine, Spencer Reid from Criminal Minds, and (hear me out) Dipper Pines from Gravity Falls because I want at least a little levity. If you think about it, Gravity Falls is essentially "The Call of Cthulhu" for kids with creatures from folk tales and mythology and the whole "great Uncle studying the dark secrets of the world and leaving behind journals full of his research when he disappears" thing.
3. This version of the cult will not be a stereotypical pagan cult as they were in the original story. Instead, the cult is going to be a fusion of the Jonestown and Heaven’s Gate cults with a Lovecraftian twist. Using these two real-world cults as inspiration is part of the reason why the story will take place in the 90s.
4. With the changes made to the cult, as well as my own experiences and views on Catholicism, I definitely want to highlight the gradual shift in the cult from "God-fearing good ole boys" to worshipping the Great Old Ones either through interrogations or through journals and newspaper clippings throughout Wayland's investigation.
5. And finally, much like the novel Annihilation and it's film adaptation, the cult's activities with other worldly entities will leave behind a strange biological trace of flowers and fungus of an unknown species.

I don't want to reveal too many details or what other works I'm going to incorporate into this, but does this sound like something any of y'all would be interested in reading? I feel pretty confindent in this idea, but I'd really appreciate your feedback! I've been doing some homework reading and watching media that's also inspired by Lovecraft's works from beginning to read the Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer and watching True Detective season one earlier today. I have a list of others to read and watch as I continue to work on the novel, but if any of you have any recommendations I'll gladly take them as well!

Hi, I could really use a caring, loving gal-pal, with the potential to develop into something more significant.
(When I 1st sat down to write this advert, my intention was to write a quick blurb about my lonliness and why I am this way, and then move onto more pertinent information about myself... but that portion turned into a long-winded trauma-dump. I don't want the trauma-dump to be your initial introduction to me... so I'm going to paste it at the bottom instead).
So, about me. I am the kind of person that enjoys hugs more than kissing, and cuddling anytime we watch movies, play video games, or listen to music together.
My ex (It's been so long) used to do this thing where she would use my chest as a pillow, and she would bury her face in my chest like how a cat rubs its scent on you. Then we would wrap the sheets over us and she could just sigh and disassociate. She always said it made her feel safe.
I just want more of that. That and head scratches, back rubs, gentle caressing (for both of us). That, plus night-drives for snacks while blasting vaporwave/synthwave/synthpop, urban exploration. Movie nights (both in-bed, on a couch, or in theater. Music nights (record shopping, live events, stand-up shows, listening in bed).
Love Language etc: Physical Touch Quality Time Words of Affirmation
Music: I like IDM/Experimental Techno, Breakcore, Surf Rock, Quiet Storm / Motown, 80s Synthpop, Yacht Rock, Synthwave, Vaporwave, SynthFunk, Soul.
Movies/TV: I like Comedy, and Sci-Fi, (specifically, Sci-Fi, about Robots, AI, VR, Dystopia, Dreams, Memories, Time Travel... and less about Aliens, Space Travel, Ghosts, Vampires, Zombies, Horror, Anime).
Radio/Podcasts/Youtube. I am an "Oldtime Radio" buff (think radio Dramas like Dragnet, Hitchhikers Guide, etc..). Beau of the Fifth Column, Big Joel, Legal Eagle, VeryTallBart, BadGear, ContraPoints, PDS, Chapo Traphouse, Blocks, Wendigoon.
I'm not materialistic. I don't care about gifts, money or status. I do not have a "wanderlust". I do enjoy road-trips, and night drives, especially with a partner. But travel is not my #1 way to relax and wind-down.
Relationship Style. It should be noted that, while I'm ideally looking for a long-term relationship, I'm not looking to get married and have kids (I've had a vasectomy).
I am not opposed to age gaps (me being older, you being younger) In fact, I would prefer to date someone in their late twenties/early thirties.
I want to be a shoulder to cry on, a chest to lay on. I want to be your big cuddly Teddy Bear (sidenote, I've lost 30 lbs in the last few months so I am not as big a Teddybear as I used to be, and no, I didn't cheat and use Ozempic lol). Maybe I can be your chauffeur if you don't have a car or don't like driving. Maybe you just went through a divorce or a breakup (like I went through a breakup 2 years ago) and you just want a kind and physically affectionate guy who is fun to be around, non-aggressive, reliable, emotionally attentive, patient, optimistic and can be the Friend you need when you have had a hard day at work, or school, or just life in general. I want to alleviate any loneliness you have, and in doing so, alleviate my loneliness in the process.
Personality: I'm extremely chill. Imagine if Jeff Lebowski (The Big Lebowski) was combined with the geekiness of Kevin Flynn from Tron/Tron Legacy + The humor of someone like Mitch Hedberg, or Norm Macdonald.
Politically , I'm a leftist (I'm not a liberal, because I feel like "The Center" has been pulled so far right at this point, that anyone willing to "Reach Across the aisle" is just wasting their time, and falling for all the bad-faith arguments and scams that the Right is dragging them into).
Black Lives matter. Gay/Trans Rights are Human Rights. Healthcare is a human right. Women deserve autonomy over their bodies. The workers should control and profit from the means of production. Religion has no place in politics.
In Summary I am not overly ambitious. I work a maximum of 40 hours per week... and no more. (at least I did when I had a job... more on that later).
I generally wear Dark T-shirts, Dickies pants, and a hoody. My weight fluctuates. When I get to 195, I go Keto, and exercise to get my weight back down, but I'm not a gym rat.
I think to really sum myself up... I do the bare minimum that's required to maintain my health and my financial situation. I would probably consider myself an "underachiever". I am not materialistic, and money and wealth are not a driving force in my motivations.
It seems like every time I go on social media, or a dating app, all I see are people in a "Grindset Mindset", or people that are cosplaying as such.
Everyone wants to play-up their gym routine, and how vegan they are, and drone on about how "active" their lifestyle is. Everyone has "wanderlust", and an "entrepreneurial spirit"... and so on... and so on...
Frankly, this is just not the kind of person I am looking to be, and though I am certain that many of these people are kind, and loving, and great partners... I have found that I can only date someone of that mindset for a short while before they become restless and decide they would be better off with someone else... or they become judgmental and begin trying to nudge me towards, or in some cases aggressively demand that I, "get on their level."
You might be reading this and thinking "Oh, he's looking for an emotional support, because he's lonely and sad and depressed." And, while I am lonely, and a bit sad as a result, I am not looking for someone to "fix" me.
I am actually looking to be YOUR emotional support animal. I don't want to go down a "manosphere" rabbit hole (as that entire space is pretty toxic), but one aspect of the dialogue surrounding a man's place in the modern world that I do resonate with is this...
A man needs to feel useful. Specifically, a man needs to feel like they are providing something for their partner, that they aren't looking to someone else for.
We've already established that I'm not super ambitious nor materialistic. I'll probably never be able to financially provide for two people, on my single income. I am not even looking to move-in together, have kids, or get married.
But what I do have a surplus of, is free time, and the potential for love and affection. (And I know, from experience, that the potential isn't theoretical, I have been in long-term relationships, and I have been in-love before, but in order to be a great boyfriend... I need a girlfriend to be great to).
(ok here's that trauma dump I mentioned). "I don't want to "trauma dump" or make appeals to your sympathy, and I know there's nothing unique about my situation... but I'm going to do my best to get the sad stuff out of the way, so I can move onto the things about myself that might be more appealing... so here it goes."
I am a high functioning insomniac with mild bi-polar, and mild anxiety. Both the Axiety and Bi-Polar are semi-situational, and I can usually manage them without treatment. (I'm NOT Kanye bi-polar, I'm more like... Stephen Fry bi-polar. Essentially... under normal circumstances... I go 45 days like a "normal person", and then I'll have a Manic Episode where I have heightened productivity/creatvity, and I'll lose some sleep... and if I can't get my sleep pattern back on track after a couple of nights of bad/no sleep... I become depressed, and anxious, and then eventually I get so tired/depressed that I'll spend an entire weekend (or more) in my room with the lights off until the cycle ends, and I catch up on all the sleep I've missed.
So, what are normal circumstances? Well, normal circumstances are; I have a job to occupy my time, my friends and family are doing okay, and essentially there's nothing bothering me that patience and self-reflection can't solve.
What are my current circumstances? Well, my current circumstances are: In the summer of 2022 my Longterm Girlfriend Graduated from College and dumped me so she could start her career-life with a 100% clean slate and no obligations to anyone. At the same time, my lease was about to be up, and the rent went up to a point where I couldn't afford to live anywhere in that region anymore (at least not without rooming with total strangers), so I moved back to Phoenix, because at least here I could be around friends and family, and I could room with people that I know and trust (even if they are a bit messier than I would prefer).
My Grandmother passed away a few months after I moved back. So, that was another blow to my emotional state. At least I was able to transfer my job with me when I moved back (and eventually got a significant raise). Unfortunately, my lonleyness and sadness at the loss of my Girlfriend, and my Grandmother have only been compounding this entire time. Initially, my attitude towards finding another girlfriend was "Don't waste anyone's time until you can go 48 hours without crying about something that reminds you of your ex"... but, at the end of April, a change in management at work resulted in me being stuck with a manager who is... for lack of a better term... a total jerkface, and as much as I tried to just do my job and lay low... eventually he got uppity and started firing people... and I was one of the people that got gired.
So, essentially, I'm at a point now were, caution and ethics be damned, I need someone to be by my side while I rebuild myself.
Right now my life consists of going on job boards, applying for jobs until there are no more jobs I qualify for in the queue, and then just waiting by the phone/inbox frustrated, while I binge-watch youtube... until the sun goes down.
I have a roof over my head, food in the frige, a room of my own, & comfortable bed. I have a 4 door sedan, and a motorcycle, I have video game consoles, I have a gaming PC and VR. I have access to all the major streaming services. I have a respectable record/cd collection, and a respectable collection of Synthesizers and Musical Instruments... and in the past, I have enjoyed using all of the aformentioned possesions in order to entertain myself.
Sadly, I have lost all motivation to even attempt to entertain myself. I think back on the start of 2022, when I had a girlfriend living 1 block away, and I could invite her over, and we'd just cuddle and watch Movies/TV together, or listen to music, or play videogames together... or drive around the area after dark, blasting tunes and grabbing snacks, and just enjoying the simplest things because we had someone to share those things with.
I need that again. It's no longer a want. It's a need. Love is what motivates me. Movies/TV is pointless without someone to watch them with. Videogames are a waste of time without someone to hand the controller too. Music is daunting to make, because it all comes out sad now... and I don't want to make sad music.
I know, from experience, (and from the testimony of former partners) that I can be a really great boyfriend (some have even said I'm the best, and their favorite)... but I can't be a good boyfriend... without a girlfriend. I truly wish I could just learn to be happy by myself... but unfortunately, looking back at my life, the best I could ever do alone... is contentment... and right now, I am having an extremely difficult time finding contentment. (The last time I was truly content, was after a divorce... and that's because I was just so relieved to have that person out of my life, that I didn't care that I didn't have anyone to share my life with... at least I didn't have to fall asleep next to someone that treated my like garbage). But, that's not where I am right now. Right now I'm still emotionally broken because I lost someone that I was truly happy with. Right now I'm just second guessing myself and wondering if I had done anything different, would she still have dumped me when she graduated? Or was she just using me as a long-term rebound following her divorce... and is everyone just going to get tired of me when they move-up a notch in their social climb to the top? (I hate all these toxic social heirarchies, and what they have done to people, and their relationships with others).
Ok, I guess I ended up doing the trauma dump I said I wasn't going to do. Let's move past that.
Let's get shallow for a second. I am lonely and sad, we have established this, however, I am not so desperate that I'm just going to latch onto the first person that responds. I have preferences (if I didn't have preferences I would just make a Grindr account and call it a day). So, what are some shallow things I look for in a partner?
I prefer hair that's on the longer side of the spectrum. (shoulder length or more, unless you are petite enough to pull-off a concave bob cut without coming off as a Karen). I prefer healthy weight distribution (At my largest I was 5 foot 10, 195 lbs, and I consider myself an egalitarian, so... we should assume that I would prefer someone right around that level of fitness, or better). I like short women, but I don't mind taller than me. I like glasses (but don't mind the able-sighted). I like Gothy (but don't care for betty paige bangs, nor excessive tattoos/piercings). I like a gal that knows how to apply a smokey-eye look, and maybe some contouring. I am really not picky about clothing. I like someone that's easy to get along with, and is excited to spend time with me.
Please, no cigarette smokers. Vape is fine, I just can't take the smoke, or the "aftertaste".
I guess the bottom line is that I enjoy everything in life 99% more when I have someone to share the enjoyment with. Are my memories even worth a darn without someone else to say "Hey remember that awesome time?..." to.
I would be really happy to find that person. thx for coming to my Tedx Talk. I hope to hear from you.